and circumstances, till at last, the Council of Trent, already noticed, fixed all those that belonged to the Church of Rome, while others that have separated from it have framed laws and edicts as fancy led them. We have before noticed the Decretal Letters of the Popes, condemning as Adultery a second marriage. To this sentiment the Church of Rome, with certain exceptions in the opinions of some of her functionaries to be noticed presently, has since always adhered, and never allowed of marriages, contracted after Divorce, while both parties remained alive. And ever since the eighth century, the Gallican Church has concurred with them upon this point. Pope Gregory II. when writing to the Bishop of Utrecht had said, that if a woman was afflicted with any natural weakness or indisposition, her husband might marry another, but so as to be ready to assist his former wife. But Gratian observes, that this Decree runs counter to the Canons, and even to the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles; and says, it was the opinion of the Latin Church, that the bond of matrimony remains firm, notwithstanding the most lawful Divorce.

The Council of Arles, (Concil Arelatensi,)

held at the command of Constantine, under Pope Silvester in the first year of his papacy, had long before forbidden the men who found their wives guilty of Adultery, to marry again while they were alive. The words were; "Is cujus uxor adulteravit, aliam illâ vivente non accipiat." But Sir H. Spelman has given them otherwise; "De his qui conjuges suas in Adulterio deprehendunt et iidem sunt adolescentes fideles et prohibentur nubere: placuit ut in quantum possit, concilium iis detur, ne, viventibus uxoribus suis licet Adulterio, alias accipiant." This seems to exchange counsel for absolute prohibition.

At the Council of Florence, the Latin Bishops inquired of the Greek Bishops, why they allowed of re-marriage? And, although no answer was given satisfactory to them, the two churches agreed to retain their own peculiar notions, the latter having been fruitlessly counselled to correct their abuse.

By the Council of Nantz, marriage was declared to be dissolved by Adultery, and yet with a strange inconsistency, that has not unfrequently characterized the decrees of councils, a second marriage was not allowed.

But the Council of Trent, held in 1563, in a Canon which they drew up on this point,

and in which their sacramental notions of the marriage tie are wrought to the highest point, anathamatized all those who held that matrimony was to be dissolved by Divorce, and that it was lawful to marry again.

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Matrimonii perpetuum indissolubilemque nexum, primus humani generis parens, divini spiritûs instinctu, pronuntiavit cum dixit, hoc nunc os ex ossibus meis, et caro de carne meâ: quamobrem relinquit homo patrem suum et matrem, et adhærebit uxori suæ, et erunt duo in carne unâ."" And then the inference drawn by the Council is expressed thus; "Si quis dixerit ecclesiam errare cum docuit et docet juxta evangelicam et apostolicam doctrinam, propter Adulterium alterius conjugum matrimonii vinculum non posse dissolvi, et utrumque, vel etiam innocentem qui causam Adulterio non dedit, non posse, altero conjuge vivente aliud matrimonium contrahere: mæcharique eum qui dimissâ adulterâ, aliam duxerit, et eam quæ dimisso adultero alium nupserit: anathema sit.*

But a curious circumstance occurred respecting this, of which, Cotelerius takes no notice. We have it from Soave. The Venetian ambassadors, who were present on this oc

* Cotelerius, Edit. Apostol. Fathers.

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X

*

casion, represented, that as their Commonwealth was in possession of the Isles of Cyprus, Crete, Corcyra, Zante, and Cephalonia, which were all inhabited by Greeks, who had been used, for several ages, (according to the custom of the Greek Church before noticed,) to put away their wives in case of Adultery; it was hard and unjust to condemn those people in their absence, especially as they had not been called to the Council, and, therefore, they desired that the Canon should be so worded, as not to affect those persons. For their satisfaction, therefore, and partly too upon the credit of Saint Ambrose, (whose sentiments have been previously noticed,) the case was thrown into a new shape. It no longer condemned those who affirmed this doctrine, but it only devoted to destruction all who held that the Church was wrong in teaching the contrary. Thus a Thus a sentence, which would have openly involved the whole Eastern Church in its malediction, fell in appearance only upon the Protestants, which it was the design of the Council to condemn,

* The language of the terrified remonstrants against this impending decision, is, "Li quali da antichissimo tempo costumano di ripudiar la moglie fornicaria, e pigliarne un' altra." They add too, that no Council ever told them they were wrong. Concil de Trento, lib. viii.

rather than the practices of the Greek Church.* Still it remained sufficiently plain, how decidedly adverse the sentiments of the Romish were to those of the Greek Church, and more Eastern nations. And it was in this same Council of Trent, that that "enormous bridge of doctrine" (as Croke has termed it)" was reared, which, stretching with passage broad through the intermediate ages, and with Hermas at the one end of it, and Pope Pius IV. at the other, connected the primeval error of Christianity, with a corrupt hierarchy of the sixteenth century."

Still, however, there were some remarkable exceptions to the current of doctrine in the Romish Church, in the cases of Cajetan, Catherinus, Erasmus, and even some of the Cardinals. In a comment on the nineteenth chapter of Matthew, Cajetan saith, "Intelligo ex hâc Domini Jesu Christi lege licitum esse Christiano dimittere uxorem ob fornicationem carnalem ipsius uxoris, et posse aliam ducere." And then he remarks his surprize at the opinions entertained by his Mother Church; "Non solum miror sed stupeo quod Christo clarè excipiente causam fornicationis, torrens doctorum non admittat illam mariti libertatem."

* Calmet Antiq. p. 217.