תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

RELIGIOUS

REPERTORY,

For September, 1814.

ON THE SACRAMENT OF MATRIMONY.

As at the entrance of man into the world, the benignity of God provided for his assistance the Sacrament of Baptism, and as at his departure from life he is fortified by Extreme Unction, and as in the various intermediate situations in which he may be placed, he has Confirmation to strengthen him, Penance to revive him, the Eucharist for his spiritual banquet, and Holy Orders to sanctify him for a particular state, it is but natural to suppose that God has equally provided succour for that other which the great bulk of mankind embrace, and that he has not not left them destitute of grace at their entrance into the married state.

When God created man to his own image, male and female he created them, and he blessed them saying, increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, &c. And after the creation of the woman, when God brought her to Adam, Adam said: This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh-Thenceforward the contract of marriage was merely a natural one until at the time of the Jewish dispensation, certain ordinances were made amongst that people for the purpose of better règulating the mode of entering into this contract, and in various other countries, special conditions were required to enable persons to marry.-Thus, by civil regulations, it became a civil contract-But in the new law the Saviour of the world, looking upon it as a matter of the highest importance to have due regulations on this head, and to

Z

bestow

bestow upon the parties supernatural assistance to enable them to fulfil their obligations in a proper manner, made some very considerable alterations in matrimony.He reformed several abuses which had been introduced, and he raised the contract to the dignity of a sacrament. It is recorded in the 19th Chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, "that the Pharisees came to Jesus tempting him and saying: is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered aud said to them, Have you not read, that he who made man in the beginning, made them male and female, and he said for this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife; and they shall be two in one flesh. Wherefore they are no more two, but one flesh. WHAT THEREFORE GOD HATH JOINED TOGETHER, LET NOT MAN PUT ASUNDER." Thus did the Saviour clearly establish the indissolubility of the marriage contract: although there are some cases in which the parties, though bound together may live separately, and the principal case of this description was that which the Saviour alluded to shortly after: for the Pharisees objected to him, "Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce and to put away? He sayeth to them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery, and he who shall marry her that is put away.committeth adultery." For the purpose of more clearly seeing the meaning of this we must also find what our Lord said upon the same subject in other places-In his sermon on the mountain, as related in the fifth Chapter of St. Matthew, we find him treating on exactly the same subject "It hath also been said, that- whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a bill of divorce. But I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, and whosoever shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery." In the tenth Chapter of St. Mark's Gospel we read," And in the house again his disciples asked him concerning the same thing, and he said to them, whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another commitetia adultery,

adultery against her, and if the wife shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery." "The words, as read in the 16th Chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke are, "Every one that putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery, and he that marrieth her that is put away from her husband, committeth adultery." And St. Paul in the 7th Chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians says, "But to them that are married, not I, but the Lord, commandeth that the wife shall not depart from the husband, and if she depart, that she remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband, and let not the husband put away his wife"-And again he says in the same Chapter, "A woman is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth, but if her husband die, she is at liberty, let her marry to whom she will, but in the Lord.”

The first principle which we are taught is the indissolubility of the marriage tie-" What God had joined together let no man put asunder. The next ascertained principle is, that Christ brought back marriage to its primitive state, the union of one man with' one woman, Every one that putteth away his wife and marrieth another, committeth adultery. An objection is raised against those principles, and it is said that there is an exception to the general rule, namely, the case of fornication. But the objection is founded upon a hasty misapprehension of a mode of expression used in consequence of too strictly litteral an adherence to the original language by the translators. First, we know that the wisdom of our Divine legislator would never have allowed an imperfection in his ordinances, nor would his virtue have permitted a strong temptation to flagrant crime to exist as an incitement to weak mortals to rid themselves of an intolerable burthen. But if we for a moment suppose him to have allowed an invalidating divorce to be the consequence of transgression, would not this be the greatest possible incitement to a person who found the married state unpleasant, or who preferred being united to another person, to commit sin with that person for the purpose of effecting a dissolution of the marriage, which had become unpleasant?-Secondly, It is equally competent for the wife to put away, or depart from the inconstant husband in

Z 2

Case

case of his criminality, as it is for a husband under similar circumstances to depart from, or to put away the wifeand yet St. Paul tells the wife that in such case she must remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.— Thirdly, he says, without any exception whatever, that a woman is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth. Fourthly, If the marriage tie be broken, and the parties be separated, they are equally at liberty, because the freedom of one implies the freedom of the other, and the bond of one implies the bond of the other, as the obligation is mutual. Yet in every one of the texts it is expressly stated, that one of the parties commits adultery by any attempt of marriage under the circumstances of separation on account of fornication, consequently the other party is also bound. Lastly, For the explanation of the text, we must clearly distinguish the different cases alluded to. Is a man allowed to put away his wife for any cause?

A man may put away his wife for trivial reasons, this is one case, and then he does wrong, because he exposes her and himself to the danger of sin.

Another case is,-suppose she has given very safficient cause of discontent, such as the violation of her fidelity, then he may put her away but cannot marry-if he should attempt to do so, he commits sin. And in either case whether she be put away with sufficient cause or without it, whosoever will attempt to marry her will also commit sin, and she of course.-Hence the tie is indissoluble except by the death of one of the parties; although sufficient reasons may ofteu exist for causing married persons to live separately, yet if the marriage was originally valid, neither can, on any account, marry during the lifetime of the other.-Thus the abuses of simulaneons polygamy, or having many wives at one time, and the abuse of divorce were abolished.

Our Lord sanctified by his presence, and honoured with a miracle, the marriage of Cana, in Galilee, and hence many persons say that it was on this occasion he raised what was previously but a contract, to the dignity of a Sacrament. Others, and with better shew of reason affirm, that it was not until after his Resurrection he established this ordinance. Be that as it may, one fact is evident, that there never was a period since the establishment

of the Church, at which this truth was denied, except by those who were cut off by that Church on account of their deviation from her Faith.

The external sign is clearly in existence, and the institution by our Saviour is accurately discovered in the gospels where he is anxiously employed in regulating for his followers the indissolubility of marriage, and the other circumstances concerning it. That it confers grace for the purpose of perfecting the natural love which should exist between the parties is clear. The apostle St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Ephesians speaking of the manner in which that love should be manifested by them, as Christians, calls upon them to exhibit that affection, and enforces it by a variety of reasons, and in the conclusion says, that "this is a great Sacrament: but I say in Christ and in the Church. That such has been the universal doctrine of the Church from the very beginning, may easily be shewn by having recourse to the various Doctors who have written at different periods upon the subject.

But without any reference to them we have the elearest proof that it was the doctrine of the purest ages of the Church by a single fact-The providence of God, which brings good out of evil, often permits Heresy to exist for the purpose of upholding the truth. The Nestorians and the Eutychians separated from the great body of the orthodox Christians, at the time when, according to all persons engaged in the present controversy, the faith was uncorrupted. Nor would they afterwards embrace a novel and auti-scriptural doctrine of that Church which condemned them originally, and continued to denounce them; much less would they assert that this doctrine was in existence before the separation; that they preserved-it because it was true, and held it in consequence of its according with the scripture, merely out of complaisance to their great enemy, and lay down those assertions to assist in the defeat and suppression of another sect, that was opposing this very enemy.. Yet such must be the supposition if the doctrine that matrimony is a sacrament, was not that of the purest ages of Christianity, because the various sects who then eparated from the universal Church, and are still in ex

Z 3

istence

« הקודםהמשך »