Transcribed from the 1857 William Skeffington edition.
A Plain Sermon
PREACHEDAT
ARCHBISHOP TENISON’SCHAPEL.
ON THE FIFTHSUNDAY AFTER TRINITY, 1857.
BY
JAMES GALLOWAY COWAN,
MINISTER OF THE CHAPEL.
LONDON:
WILLIAM SKEFFINGTON, 163,PICCADILLY.
1857.
Price 4d., or2s. 6d. per doz.
p. 2Thefollowing Sermon is printed, partly because some who heard itwished to possess it, and partly because it has been suggested tome that it would be useful for distribution as a tract. Itis simply what I have called it, “a plain Sermon,”written and printed for ordinary hearers and readers.
The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him,and saying unto Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wifefor every cause?
And He answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that Hewhich made them at the beginning made them male and female, Andsaid, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, andshall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be oneflesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but oneflesh. What therefore God hathjoined together, let not man put asunder.
“The priest’s lipsshould keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at hismouth.” This was part of the reproof which God,through the prophet Malachi,[3] administered to Hispriests and His people, for not teaching and not learning thedivine will respecting idolatry and adultery.
The words may well arouse us, mybrethren—God’s priests and God’speople—from the apathy which would neither proclaim norseek for the teaching of the Word of God, in the time of a greatmoral and religious crisis. You all know, probably, to whatI allude. There is a bill now before the Lower House ofParliament, having passed the Upper House, which proposes to makeit a common law of the land, that Christian marriages may, incertain cases, be wholly dissolved, and that the divorced personsmay re-marry in the lifetimes of those from whom they have beendivorced. p.4Yea, and even more: the bill would give full liberty(designedly it would seem, from the language of its advocates) tothe person whose guilt has rendered the divorce possible, toperpetuate that guilt in company with the first partner in it,and to dignify the union by the appellation of HolyMatrimony.
Now, my brethren, I could adduce many moral reasons why weshould take alarm at the most distant prospect of such a state ofthings, and set ourselves most earnestly to work, if not tooppose it, yet at least to put it off, until we have had time tojudge of its expediency and its consequences; but I take a higherstand, and I entreat you to do so—a religious stand. The Word of God deals with the question of marriage, andlegislate