It is remarkable, that in all nations, and in many creeds, where the true origin is unknown, the marriage union is considered indissoluble. But as this indissolubility has been found a great bar to the unlimited indulgence of passion, various expedients have been hit upon to set it aside. In Mahometan countries, marriages are less frequent than looser connexions; but when once they have taken place, no divorce is permitted. After the restoration of the House of Bourbon to the throne of France, when the Duke de Berri was married to a Sicilian princess, one of her attendants repeated frequently during the ceremony, Ah ! le bon roi, il n'a rien omis. A bystander overhearing the remark, requested to be informed what it meant; and was then told that whenever princes of the blood in Popish countries were married, it was customary to omit some part of the ceremony, which might be subsequently construed into being material or immaterial, according as it might turn out agreeable or not to set the marriage aside as bad ab initio: but that, in the

present instance, the king had omitted nothing: since therefore nothing was imperfect in the ceremony, no human power could dissolve the union. In England divorce is permitted only for the single crime of adultery, which is required to be proved in several different courts; and nothing but the highest judicature in the realm can ultimately authorise it. In ancient Greece, if we may judge by another expression of Euripides, in the same tragedy which has just been quoted, divorce was confined to cases of adultery, and the woman was not allowed to divorce her husband:

ου γαρ ευκλεείς απαλλαγαι

γυναιξιν, ουδ' οιον τ' απηνασθαι ποσιν.

The indissolubility of Christ's union with his church is set forth in Scripture by some of the strongest images, and most touching figures in nature. "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee."

I am aware that the mystery of Christ

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with his church contains deeper matter than any that has been set forth in these pages, but which is not entered into because it would be foreign to the object of the essay. We learn by Psalm xlv., Rev. xxi. 2, 3, Matt. xxv. 10, and many corresponding passages, that this marriage is celebrated at the second advent of the Lord to this earth. Concerning this, however, it will only be observed, that the institution of marriage is for fruitfulness: that the first Adam was the progenitor of a seed in his own nature that THE CHRIST is to be a Father, and this in no sensual signification, but in the same that God is called a Father.

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As God's purpose in creation was not complete in the formation of Adam, with Eve in him, nor even after she was brought out of him, and presented to him, but from thence began to evolve generations of beings. like themselves through many ages, so is God's purpose in the Christ constitution not completed in the incarnation, nor even in the glorification of his Son. In the present dispensation a church was necessary to the

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design of God for the purpose of setting forth as much of himself as is thereby capable of being set forth, and of communicating blessings to mankind. This church must, like other things which are to portray God, be both visible and invisible; so that while some men deny the one, some the other, and some both, all who deny either, miss the end and purpose of God. When that church which is now invisible shall be presented visible to her Lord, then the mystery of the age that now is, must be finished, and a new history commence to be evolved.

CHAPTER II.

THE next relationship to which the apostle refers, is that subsisting between PARENT and CHILD: "Children, obey your parents," but he adds, "in the Lord;" carrying this too beyond the mere brute instinct which teaches all animals to fear during the helplessness of infancy, and sanctifying the obedience by directing its observance as unto the Lord: "for this is right. Honour thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long in the earth." To the Colossians he says, "Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord." The directions here are exceedingly short, because the state of child