p492 [D Hall] MY DEAR BROTHER, - As to the main point on which you wrote to me, I have not an instant's doubt, nor any desire to hold back my judgment - on the contrary. I recognise, as every consistent Christian does, that the Christian is to be subject to the powers that be. But to make the law of any land the rule or ground of spiritual judgment, is to deny the authority of the word and Spirit. "We ought to obey God rather than men." Supposing I was bound by law to send my children to a school where infidelity was taught, do you think I am to do it? Suppose all meetings to break bread are forbidden, am I to give them up? You will say, But there it is confessing Christ; but he who confesses Christ must obey His word, and if that word tells people not to separate, I am setting aside Christ's authority in doing it.

Supposing two persons were perfectly married according to English law, living in England, Protestants from childhood are bonâ fide married in church by banns, or elsewhere, but by legal connection belonging to a Roman Catholic country, and are within prohibited degrees which go to being godfather and godmother to the same child: if they go to their own country (legally in this country, too) their marriage is not accounted such; it is concubinage: are they to separate because of popish law? They cannot be married then at all: they have been married in England, and it goes for nothing, and the same as to every country. Again, put the case in this country. A person marries, and his marriage fully recognised for years: he commits some crime which involves infamy; his marriage is dissolved and annulled. Is he to hold his wife as not his wife, and the woman be free to marry some one else?

But in principle, to make human laws the measure of christian right and wrong is in my judgment a total subversion of Christ's and the word's authority. There may be extreme cases, but if the principle be true it is true everywhere. … You cannot make a bonâ fide marriage before God vary with the law of the land. A Swiss is married with his wife's sister: it is legal. In this country it is null (if they belong to this country): is the marriage different in itself as entered into before God? There were three kinds of marriages in pagan Rome. Suppose Christians married before the church of God: is it not clear that the church would recognise them as married before God, and, if unfaithful, treat it as adultery? The marriage of parties before God does not depend on the State recognising it. The truth is, that while I should look for a Christian bowing to the powers that be more than most, I do not understand a Christian taking civil law as a rule or standard for christian obligation in any way or in any respect. I obey. Why? Because the word of Christ tells me to do so; but I know of no other rule, no other ultimate authority for one born again. I know no rule but God's will expressed by Himself. Any other principle seems to me to be a fatal one. The question, and the sole question, is, Does the word of God pronounce it valid? I should hold a marriage before the church of God, if according to God's word in itself, valid before the church of God. … I think it a very alarming principle to make human law in any way the source and measure of Christian obligation.

Unless naturalised abroad, so that England is formally given up as their domicile, no Swiss marriage could annul an English law, and, at best, it is conniving at low subterfuge, such as would make me distrust a Christian who had recourse to it.

Pau, 1879.

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