PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

Fornication.
It is not at any rate the same thing to the chiIdren~
Again, as the marriage rite being a mere form,
and that also variable, the same may be ~aid of
signing and sealing of bonds, wills, deeds of conveyance,
and the like, which yet make a great difference
in the rights and obligations of the parties concerned
in them.
And with respect to the rite not being appointed
in scripture-the script"ures forbid fornication, that
is, cohabitation without marriage, leaving it to the
law of each coun try to pr0flounce what is, or what
makes a marriage; in like manner as they forbid
thefts, that is, the taking away of another's property,
leaving it to the municipal law to fix what makes
the ching property, or whose it is, which also, as
well as marriage, depends upon arbitrary and mtltable
forms~
Lajing aside the injunctions of scripture, the
plain account of the question seems to be this : It is
immoral, because it is pernicious, that men and \\70__
~en ShOllld cohabit, without undertaking certain irrevocable
obligations, and mutually conferring certain
civil rights ; if, therefc)re, the law has annexed
these rights and obligations to certain forms, so that
they cannot be secured or undertaken by any other
means, which is the case here (for whatever the
parties may promise to each other, nothing but the
marriage ceremony can make their promise irrevocable)
it becomes in the same degree immoral, that
men and \\YOlllen should cohabit without the interposition
of these forms.
If fornication be criminal, all those incentives
which lead to it are acccssaries to the crime, as lascivious
conversation, whether expressed in obscene
or disguised under modest phrases ; also wanton
songs, pictures, books; the writing, publishing, amI
circulating of which, \vhether out of frolic, or for·
some pitiful profit, is produ.ctive of so extensive a