(note: This node is 24th in a series of 33 nodes. for the entire series, please see the metanode
Westminster Confession of Faith.)
CHAPTER 24 - Of Marriage and Divorce
I.
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.
II. Marriage was
ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife; for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, and of the Church with an holy seed; and for preventing of
uncleanness.
III. It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry who are able with judgment to give their
consent. Yet it is the duty of
Christians to marry only in the Lord. 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.
IV. Marriage ought not to be within the degrees of
consanguinity or affinity forbidden in the Word; 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. 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.
V.
Adultery or
fornication, committed after a contract, being detected before marriage, giveth just occasion to the
innocent party to dissolve that contract. In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce, and after the divorce to marry another, as if the offending
party were dead.
VI. 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 willful desertion as can no way be remedied by the
Church or civil magistrate, is cause sufficient of dissolving the bond of marriage; 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.
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Westminster Confession of Faith - Chapter 23 | on to
Westminster Confession of Faith - Chapter 25