Marriage, Divorce and The Evil Practice of Contraception
The following Memorandum was sent by the Gospel Standard Watch Committee to the Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce in 1952, which was sent to London with a view to advising H.M. Government respecting a Bill to alter the law on this important subject.
The Gospel Standard Committee have to this very day stood for the biblical institution of marriage even while other demoninations have caved into the wicked world or followed the evil pattern on the Westminster Confession’s devious promotion of adultery and allowing it’s members to divorce and remarry at will.
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The denomination we represent is gravely disturbed by the continued and persistent attempts made to undermine the sanctity of the marriage vow by permitting marriage to be dissolved by agreement, or at the will of one of the spouses, with or without the consent of the other.
With deepest respect we beg to make the following submissions:
Marriage is a divine institution and is honourable in all (Hebrews 8:4), given in wisdom for the benefit of the human race, to promote honourable family life and to support social order. It lies at the basis of human society; law and government being built upon wholesome household relations.
It is an indissoluble pact between one man and one woman, which cannot be Scripturally terminated by any voluntary act or repudiation on the part of one of the contracting parties; nor by any act of Church or State. “What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder,” is Christ’s own injunction
(Matthew 29:6).
Because it is a religious vow as well as a civil contract, the State has no right to change the law of marriage, or the condition upon which it may lawfully be constituted, as ordained by God.
The marriage union is dissolved only by death.
The Scriptures allow that adultery may justify a man in putting away his wife (Matthew 5:32), but that does not ipso facto dissolve the marriage bond.
Therefore if the Church or State allows the guilty spouse to apply for and obtain the dissolution of their marriage at any period during the life of the injured spouse, and sanctions marriage with another, it cannot but be regarded by those who fear God and yield to the authority of Holy Scripture, as allowing people to live in adultery (Matthew 19:9).
Our country in the past has recognized family life as sanctioned by Holy Scripture to be the corner-stone of our social structure. We do not doubt that there are distressing cases caused by the breaking down of the marriage bond, but the divine appointment of the marriage union cannot be justly answerable for the evils which have arisen from the wicked or wanton abuses of God’s merciful and all-wise appointments.
It would be wrong to suppose that making divorce easier would remedy the evils of broken-down marriages, entered upon in many instances thoughtlessly and sinfully.
This would rather facilitate the path of the unfaithful, sanction the already low views of the benefits and responsibilities of marriage, encourage reckless temporizing, and cause an increasing number of innocent persons to suffer great humiliation and frustration in silence.
Let our laws encourage all that is noble and useful in the sanctity of family life, and give no encouragement to those who for their own lustful ends make mockery of the laws of God and State.
If not strictly relevant, yet not remotely bearing upon connubial purity and family honour, we entirely repudiate and abhor the degrading and unnatural practice of artificial insemination, as being a violation of divine ordination and utterly contrary to Scriptural views of marriage, and we consider that it should be made a criminal offence.
We also believe contraception to be a sinful practice, an unwarrantable interference with our Creator’s all-wise appointment.
Jesus is LORD! 
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