I.

CONNECTION OF THE CEREMONY WITH RELIGION.

Na notorious passage which has been quoted

IN

by almost every writer on Christian Marriage, Tertullian says, How can I adequately tell the felicity of that Marriage which the Church accomplishes, sacred offerings of worship confirm, the benediction seals, angels report to heaven, and our Heavenly Father holds legiti mate. This was written in the first century after the Apostles. Ignatius, almost a century earlier, that is, on the very borders of Apostolic times, incidentally writes, But it becomes men and women who marry, to form their union with the approval of the bishop,' that their Marriage may be according to the Lord, and not mere

1 Unde suficiamus ad enarrandam felicitatem ejus matrimonii quod ecclesia conciliat et confirmat oblatio et obsignat benedictio, angeli renuntiant, Pater rato habet.-Ad Uxor. 1. 2. c. 9.

This includes not only the religious nature of the Ceremony, but the publishment to or in the Church-the logical origin of "the bans of marriage" in modern times.

obedience to passion. Let all be done to the honor of God.'

From that day to this, history amply confirms, what we could not imagine to have been otherwise, that the Marriage of Christians has always been celebrated by the rites of Religion, and sought and received the solemn benedictions of the Church. Except, however, under the overgrown ecclesiasticism of the mediaval ages,' its civil aspects have never been obscured by the Church; though, of course, her own benedictions and censures have been ruled by another authority than the current customs and laws of the state.'

3 Πρέπει δὲ τοῖς γαμοῦσι καὶ ταῖς γαμουμέναις μετὰ γνώμης τοῦ ἐπισκόπου τὴν ἔνωσιν ποιεῖσθαι ἵνα ὁ γάμος ἢ κατὰ Θεὸν καὶ μὴ κατ' ἐπιθυμίαν. Πάντα εἰς τιμὴν Θεοῦ γινέσθω. Epist. ad Polycarp. cap. 5.

4 See Giesler, Church History. Vol. II., page 53. Amer. ed.

Dr. Whewell has concisely and well stated the facts: "The carliest successors of the apostles ascribe a sacred character to Marriage. At that time, Marriage by the laws of the land, [the Roman empire,] was a civil contract; but the Christian teachers spoke of it as being, under due conditions, also a Divine Ordinance. At a later period, [the reign of Charlemagne,] it was made law throughout the world that Marriage should be cele brated in no other way than by the sacerdotal blessing and prayers. This continued to be the case in England till the usurpation of Cromwell; when Marriage was declared to be merely a civil contract. At the restoration of Charles II. Marriage was again regarded as a religious ordinance. By a recent act of Par

To-day, however, it is the religious aspect which has begun to be denied. "Is not Marriage a civil contract?" When this famous question is put nakedly thus, it must, beyond doubt, be answered "Yes." There can be no dispute that it is a civil contract. The laws of all nations have ever held it to be such. It settles legiti macy. It controls the distribution of property. It guards the social standing of woman. draws a visible and necessary boundary between a life of outward virtue and one of outward vice and shame; without which, civil society exposed thus to unmitigated and unlimited decay in its first foundations, would certainly and speedily fall to pieces.

It

A matter so inevitable, of an importance so immense, and, in its infinite ramifications, pervading to every fibre of human rights and human happiness, were a thing impossible to be ignored by the civil law. Its conditions, (of course its

liament, [1832,] Marriages contracted with certain civil formalities are valid. But the Church of England retains in use her Form of Solemnization of Matrimony; and in this sho declares that "so many as are coupled together otherwiso than God's word doth allow, are not coupled together by God, neither is their matrimony lawful."-Elements of Morality, Bk. iv., chap. 21.

The relations of the civil law and of the Christian Church to the subject are substantially the same in America as in Eng land. Of this, see more in notes to Chap. VII.

• In all Christian countries of which we have any knowledge,

simplest allowable conditions,) must be distinctly stated there. Its tenures and limitations must also there be fixed; but of course with reference only to the necessities of the state, and to outward rights. These simplest conditions, these outward necessities and rights, determined and enacted by the state, constitute the fact of Marriage and its purport, in human society. As such it is a civil contract. This is the domain of Cæsar.

But Marriage is more than this. It is not a thing of human institution; nor is it competent for human law to forbid or do it away. No matter what may be the commands of Cæsar, God Almighty has appointed it; and men may in innocency and duty enter into its holy union in defiance, even, of any civil mandate. Because it is by no means wholly "of the earth, carthy," nor indifferent on its spiritual side. It has relations which belong not to the things of Cæsar, but to the things of God. It has duties which lie in the

and as wo suppose in all civilized countries, certain ceremonios are prescribed for the celebration of Marriage, either by express law, or by a usage which has the force of law;..... we know of no case in which a mere agreement to marry, with no formality and no compliance with any law or usage regulating mar riago, is actually permitted to give both parties and their chil dren the rights, and lay them under the obligations and liabilities, civil and criminal, of a legal marriage."-Parsons on Contracts. Vol. I. p. 558.

domain of conscience, which are referable to the law of God,' and the rewards and penalties of which look toward the boundless horizon of immortality.

This Divine significance, in fact, is its broadest, profoundest, truest significance. This would exist in all its entirety, were there no civil law nor civil society whose needs must be supplied and whose rights Aust be guarded. It depends on the Divine appointment of sexes, on the Divinely implanted instincts of each, on the Divine purpose in their development, and the fruits which all this is intended by the Eternal Creator to bear, not only for this life, but also for that which is to come.

Such the sacred Scriptures represent it to be from the beginning. Such the Church of God

"The engagement includes not only constant companionship, but steady affection; and engagements which concern the internal feelings may naturally be supported by prayers and the hopes of a Divine blessing."-Whewell, Bk. iv., art. 792.

"Though marriage is only a political and social status, viewed as the law views it; still, as seen from the Religious and Moral stand-point, it is an earthly and even a heavenly interest transcending all other interests of a social kind."-Bishop. Commen taries on the Law of Marriage and Divorce. Art. 12, [360.]

The first marriage, that of Adam and Eve, God himself solemnized, even God, who, by that very act instituted the ordi nance, and stamped it as divine, and not a mere human contract. The whole proceeding, with respect to the marriage of Adam and Eve, is related under circumstances calculated to awaken the