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Chapter 24: Of Marriage and Divorce

The 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith

1. Marriage is to be between one man and one woman: neither is it lawful for any man to have more than one wife, nor for any woman to have more than one husband at the same time.a

a. Gen 2:24; Prov 2:17; Mat 19:5-6.

2. Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife;a for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, and of the Church with an holy seed;b and for preventing of uncleanness.c

a. Gen 2:18. • b. Mal 2:15. • c. 1 Cor 7:2, 9.

3. It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry who are able with judgment to give their consent.a Yet it is the duty of Christians to marry only in the Lord.b And therefore, such as profess the true reformed religion should not marry with infidels, Papists, or other idolaters: neither should such as are godly be unequally yoked, by marrying with such as are notoriously wicked in their life, or maintain damnable heresies.c

a. Gen 24:57-58; 1 Cor 7:36-38; Heb 13:4; 1 Tim 4:3. • b. 1 Cor 7:39. • c. Gen 34:14; Exod 34:16; Deut 7:3-4; 1 Kings 11:4; Neh 13:25-27; Mal 2:11-12; 2 Cor 6:14.

4. Marriage ought not to be within the degrees of consanguinity or affinity forbidden in the Word;a nor can such incestuous marriages ever be made lawful by any law of man, or consent of parties, so as those persons may live together as man and wife.b The man may not marry any of his wife’s kindred nearer in blood than he may of his own, nor the woman of her husband’s kindred nearer in blood than of her own.c

a. Lev 18 throughout; Amos 2:7; 1 Cor 5:1. • b. Lev 18:24-28; Mark 6:18. • c. Lev 20:19-21.

5. Adultery or fornication, committed after a contract, being detected before marriage, giveth just occasion to the innocent party to dissolve that contract.a In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce,b and after the divorce to marry another, as if the offending party were dead.c

a. Mat 1:18-20. • b. Mat 5:31-32. • c. Mat 19:9; Rom 7:2-3.

6. Although the corruption of man be such as is apt to study arguments, unduly to put asunder those whom God hath joined together in marriage; yet nothing but adultery, or such wilful desertion as can no way be remedied by the Church or civil magistrate, is cause sufficient of dissolving the bond of marriage;a wherein a public and orderly course of proceeding is to be observed; and the persons concerned in it, not left to their own wills and discretion in their own case.b

a. Mat 19:6, 8-9; 1 Cor 7:15. • b. Deut 24:1-4.

 

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Reformed Theology at A Puritan's Mind