The forty-second implies that Cæsar is above God and His representatives.

The forty-third (one of the craziest of all) will have it that in agreements entered into between the State and the Church, the latter only is bound to abide by them, the State being at liberty to cast them to the winds when its pleases.

The forty-fourth claims for the State the episcopal rights given by Christ to the successors of the Apostles.

The forty-fifth denies the right of parents and the Church to see that the minds of youth under education are not to be tainted with impious or immoral teaching.

The forty-sixth carries the same monstrous pretension a step further.

The forty-seventh and forty-eighth are developments of the same absurdity, and deny to theology her place in the cycle of sciences.

The forty-ninth, fiftieth, and fifty-first, advocate that interference of laymen in the appointment of ecclesiastical rulers, which even Anglicanism has felt most intolerable, and which is one of the curses of the Russo-Greek schism. That the detestation of this offspring of Cæsarism is shared outside the Church of Rome appears from the secession, thirty years ago, of the Free Kirk of Scotland.

The principles upheld in the fifty-second and fiftythird propositions, of interfering with the sacrifice which religious choose to make of themselves to God by vows, surpass in extravagance the wildest accusations ever brought against the Church, of meddling with affairs of the State.

The fifty-fourth gives to Sovereigns the Pontifical power of Pagan Cæsars.

The fifty-fifth, in the intention of its framer, might be fitly embodied thus: Atheism is the only fit religion of State.

§ VII.-Errors concerning Natural and Christian

Ethics.

The root of the errors of this section is an utter distortion of the true notion of law, of moral obligation, of right and wrong. Catholic philosophers hold, that the Author of all good in that one infinite act of will, wherewith he loves His own infinite Goodness, loves and wills all that is good; and hence issue the multitude of laws and moral obligations. Hence it is that the principles of right and wrong remain unchangeable, as God cannot will anything hostile to His goodness. But the hideous brood of Pantheistic and Rationalistic vagaries that have sprung into life,

As when the potent rod,

Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day

Waved round the coast, up called a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,

place moral goodness, not in this pure emanation of God's essence, but either in pleasure, or in moneymaking, or in political usefulness, etc.

Hence the fifty-sixth and fifty-seventh shut out the Almighty law-giver from all control over the moral acts of His creatures.

Acting on this blasphemous assertion, the fiftyeighth aims at changing men into unclean animals.

The fifty-ninth, sixtieth, and sixty-first, acknowledge no law in nature but the right of the strongest.

The sixty-second applies to States the degrading principle, which every Englishman loathes and detests, of standing idly by, while the weak are oppressed by the strong, called the principle of non-intervention.

In condemning the sixty-third, the Pontiff shews himself the best preserver of civil allegiance, binding all Catholics throughout the world, under pain of being deprived of the communion of the Church and excluded from all hope of salvation, to condemn and repudiate the doctrine that makes it lawful to refuse obedience to legitimate princes, or to rebel against them.

§ VIII.-Errors concerning Christian Marriage.

The summary of what Catholics believe on the subject of marriage with reference to the opinions herein. censured, is this: "Marriage, even in the law of nature, was indissoluble, though not with the more perfect indissolubility it has acquired from Christ in the New Law. He has raised it to the dignity of a sacrament. The contract itself is the sacrament; the latter is not something extrinsical, superadded to the matrimonial contract. As it is an absolute decree of the Redeemer that so it should be, it is out of the power of Christians to evade it. Hence every marriage between baptized Christians, if validly contracted, is, ipso facto, a sacrament, although gone through without any exterior religious rite or ceremony. Once raised to the rank of a sacrament, it took its place among the social

contracts of the Church of Christ. She saw in the union of primeval man with the woman formed from his rib, as the Apostle tells us, an image of Herself, issuing from the pierced side of Christ and celebrating Her nuptials with Him on the Cross of our Redemption. And even as the State claims the right of invalidating civil contracts, when it deems it right for the welfare of its members, so the Church claims the right of imposing conditions without whose fulfilment the marriage contract shall be invalid. Wisely has she used her power, without creating confusion among those who do not recognize her authority. Among these conditions, one, which binds in most countries of Europe, is that marriages among Catholics are invalid. unless made in presence of the parish priest and two witnesses. The wisdom of the condition is obvious, and the English legislature aims at part of the Church's object, namely the avoiding of secrecy, when it makes the attendance of the registrar compulsory. The absence of the persons required by the laws of the Church constitutes an impediment, called a diriment or nullifying impediment, to the validity of the marriage contract, in the countries aforesaid. And, as the Church does not recognize the civil magistrate as authorized to supply the place of the pastor, it follows, that what are called civil marriages, celebrated by Catholics without the assistance of a person authorized by the Church, are held as invalid till they have been subsequently ratified before the priest.

But here it must be carefully borne in mind, firstly, that the Church fully recognizes the binding force of the marriage tie between such as, because unbaptized,

do not belong to her tribunal. In respect to these she only claims the privilege which, as St. Paul teaches, belongs to her of right, namely, that in case of one party embracing the Christian faith, and failing to obtain from the other the free exercise of the Christian religion, an authoritative dissolution of the bond may be obtained. In all other cases she acknowledges the validity of marriage between infidels, as forming part of the law of nature.

I said above, that the Church avoids such use of her power as might beget confusion in the matter of matrimonial contracts among those who, however, unlawfully, ignore her authority. I speak of such as, like Protestants, have the indelible character of Baptism, but have not yet recognized in the Church of Rome the one Catholic Church, which has a right to their submission. Marriage between two Protestants, wherever contracted, is held by Catholic divines to be valid and indissoluble. It is therefore sacramental whether contracted in a church or in a private house; with or without the presence of a sacred minister; with or without witnesses. Nor is it in the power of the contracting parties to divest wedlock of the sacramental essence which Christ has Himself infused into it. In a word the Church leaves the marriage of two nonCatholics free from the impediment of clandestinity.

Another example of the caution used by the See of Rome in exercising the power of binding and loosening, is seen in the fact that, after three centuries, she still allows the decree of Trent, which makes clandestine marriages invalid, to remain unpublished, and therefore not in force, in a large portion of the Catholic