Page:Christian Marriage.djvu/118

 matrimony he begins by denying that marriage is properly to be described or regarded as a sacrament.

"Since matrimony has existed from the beginning of the world, and still continues even among unbelievers, there are no reasons why it should be called a sacrament of the new law and of the Church alone. The marriages of the patriarchs were not less sacred than ours, nor are those of unbelievers less real than those of believers; and yet no one calls them a sacrament. Moreover, there are among believers wicked husbands and wives worse than any Gentiles. Why should we then say there is a sacrament here and not among the Gentiles?"

He points out the ignorant misunderstanding of St. Paul's language, which enabled the traditionalists to pretend that marriage was styled a sacrament in the Scripture. Then he passes from the ecclesiastical theory to the actual working of the system:

"What shall we say of those impious human laws by which this divinely appointed manner of life has been entangled and tossed up and down? Good God! it is horrible to look upon the temerity of the tyrants of Rome, who thus, according to their own caprices, at one time annul marriages and at another time enforce them. Is the human race given over to their caprice