“MARRIAGE is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” Heb. xiii., 4. “A civil contract, by which a man and a woman are joined together, which was instituted by God for the prevention of uncleanness, the propagation of mankind and that the parties so contracting might be mutual helps to one another.” Gen. ii., 18. The union between husband and wife is so near, that thereby is represented the mystical union, the sacred and spiritual marriage of Christ with His Church. Eph. v. 30,—32. “Marriage is honourable in all.” It is a divine institution. It is for the propagation of the race. It is for mutual help. It is for the prevention of uncleanness. It is common to all nations, tribes, pagans, Christians and non-Christians. Our man, and principal purpose in drawing attention to this subject at the present time is that on several occasions for the last odd thirty years we have been in this country and elsewhere confronted with painful experiences of marriages between Free Presbyterians and Roman Catholics. We believe ministers of other Protestant denominations met with the same painful experiences. It is most painful, and trying to parents when their children marry Roman Catholics. The priests of Rome make a bid for Protestant young women, and young men for their Church. We should bear in mind that no Roman Catholic male or female can marry without the knowledge of the priest, for marriage in the Church of Rome is one of her seven irreligious sacraments. It is not an ordinary “civil contract” in the Church of Rome, but what Roman Catholic theologians call a sacrament! The priest appoints, selects, decrees, consents, or refuses whom to marry, who to marry, where to marry, and when to marry. The priest is the sole arbiter, judge, and governor in every case where marriage is concerned. The young Roman Catholic woman about to marry a Protestant must consult her priest. She must be able to tell the priest all about the young man of her choice. His age, work, wages, prospects, about his sisters, brothers, parents, and relatives. We should understand that the priest is the active registrar in every family in his parish. His eye is to the future. His principal business is to serve the Church, gain votes, wealth, and power. If he is successful in “converting” Protestants through his young women, or young men, the more highly his Bishop, and his Church will advance his claims to still higher spheres of influence. The priest is ambitious. His meshes are wide, or narrow as the case demands his personal attention. He will adapt himself to all circumstances. He likes to converse with “intelligent” men of the Protestant faith, play a game of cards, and if offered, drink bumpers of whisky and soda, and whisky without soda. Rev. Dr. Chiniquy informs us of the priest’s fondness for Scotch whisky! Chiniquy knew the drunken priests of Rome well.
The priest loves to be free, easy, jolly, and liberal with his funny, suggestive stories when among Protestants. His object is to create an impression of how broad-minded, educated, secular, free of cares; and if it suits his present purpose to crack jokes at priests, Irishmen, Barramen, or French “Catholics.” He has an eye to business! When he leaves the Protestant company, the silly buffoons are ready to say “what a nice man the priest is, how full of fun, and what a first rate story teller he is, and one of the best at ‘card-playing’ I ever met.” They were never at his “Confessional Box”—they only saw the outside of the “cup” of his soul destroying, and God dishonouring religion. Let us now hear what the same priest says about having a Bible:—”If anyone shall have the presumption to read or possess it (the Bible) without such written permission, he shall not receive absolution until he has first delivered up such Bible to the ordinary. Booksellers who shall sell, or otherwise dispose of Bibles in the vulgar tongue to any persons not having such permission, shall forfeit the values of the books, and be subject to such other penalties as the Bishop shall judge proper according to the quality of the offence.”
At a Council held in Toulouse a canon was passed in which it was said:—”We prohibit also the permitting of the laity to have the books of the Old or New Testament, unless any one should wish from a feeling of devotion to have a psalter or breviary for Divine service, or the hours of the blessed Mary. But we strictly forbid them to have the above mentioned books in the vulgar tongue.” The Irish Bishops say:—”Hence brethren such books (the Bible or Protestant literature) have been, and ever will be execrated by the ‘Catholic’ Church, and hence also those salutary laws and ordinances whereby she has frequently ordered them to be committed to the flames.” Cardinal Manning declared:—”It seems hardly necessary to say that Christianity was not derived from the Scriptures, nor depends upon it: that the master error of the Reformation was the fallacy, contrary both to fact and to faith, that Christianity was to be derived from the Bible.” How can Protestants marry the pagans of Rome?
From her first confession, the deluded woman is in the grasp of the priest. He and not her husband is her master. Indeed her husband is of a secondary consideration. Men of the Protestant faith, and principle, delude themselves if they think they can keep the priest away from their wives, or their wives from the priest. Never! She must attend to the “Confessional box,” and the priest will attend to her purse, the hard earnings of her miserable husband must be shared with “Mother Church” through her beloved “father confessor.” She must not and dare not believe father, mother, husband, or brother before her priest. Her hope for eternity centres in the priest. Take the priest away and her miserable hope fades into despair in her bosom. Her priest is her bible, her god, her nearest and most valuable friend on this earth. She can rush to him in her many conflicting moments of trouble, worries, and despair, pour forth her complaints against her mother, daughter, husband, sister, or neighbour into the ears of her priest. Her supreme object of veneration, affection, and consideration is her “father confessor.” She confessed to her priest matters she knew not in her infant days. He put questions, and answers into her inexperienced mouth long before she was of the age of puberty! Chiniquy tells us that the infant female came away from her first “confession” intoxicated with ideas which would cause a woman of mature age to blush with shame. The priest had his prey with his first well aimed shot! The child was in his clutches for all time unless the sovereign grace of God would intervene. In after life atheism, infidelity, or Communism might supersede the priest; but her natural affections were perforated and spoiled on friend and foe alike. The only conceivable possible “union” in the Pope’s Church is the priest, and the woman. The class of females in the Church of Rome called nuns are coadjutors with the priest in retaining, upholding, and cementing the “union” of the priest, and the other females in childhood, school, college days, or behind the shop counter. They (the nuns) are designated “Sisters of mercy,” “Little sisters of the poor,” “The sisters in the ‘closed convent’.” The female teachers in the public schools are also “sisters,” and in fact their designations, and divisions are too numerous to be written all down in a short article like this. They all co-operate with the priest, always begging, always poor, and always interfering with the domestic life of the deluded Roman Catholic families.
The Canon Law of the Church of Rome says that all Protestants are heretics, and all Protestant children are born illegitimate and die under the curse of the Pope. How then can Protestants marry Roman Catholics? The Pope says that heretics should be exterminated, and that the killing of heretics is made a means of obtaining salvation! Cardinal Bellarmine declared:— “so the only remedy is to send them (Protestants) soon to their own place.” I knew of a case where the husband (an R.C.) went with his child to the priest on a Sabbath morning to be baptised, and the priest baptised the infant according to the rites of Rome. The mother got suspicious (she was Protestant), asked her husband where he had been with the child. He told her. The mother set off to a Protestant clergyman and got the infant baptised the same day at 2 p.m.! “Marriage is honourable in all” but marriage with Roman Catholics is utterly unwise, unhappy, and with few exceptions, full of snares, and disastrous results. If the Protestant party should desire to marry one of the Roman Catholic Church, he or she should first of all require of him or her to leave the church of the priest, nun, and “Confessional Box” for ever. On no other condition should a Protestant marry a Roman Catholic. If Protestants were instrumental even by marriage to extricate deluded Roman Catholics out of the clutches of the priest such an “honourable marriage” might be a great blessing to both of them.
To be married by a priest is most sinful because the priest idolises this civil contract into a “Sacrament” which is false and blasphemous. Marriage is not a “sacrament.” The priest says it is, and on par with the Lord’s supper, or Baptism. The Word of God makes no reference to marriage as a “sacrament.” It is a solemn engagement, a divine institution, and a civil contract according to our national laws, but not a “sacrament” in any sense of the term. The priest claims that the issue of the marriage belongs to the Church. Here the priest makes full use of the service of the party which belongs to his church. He is a past master in the art of deceit, craftiness, and trickery. The priest prefers a female R.C. to marry a heretic of a Protestant than a male R.C. to marry a heretic. He can play his tricks much easier on the female, visit her in her home (while the husband is at his lawful calling), make plans for her, and suggest to her what will be her next line of action to weaken and destroy any moral leanings that may remain in her husband’s deluded mind towards the truth of God. The priest is an actor. She must teach her children the R.C. Catechism secretly and persistently. She dare not disobey her priest. She may under certain circumstances send her children to a Protestant school, provided she will carry out the requests and instructions of the priest otherwise. The priest is her lord and master. We advise young men, and women of our Church, and the young folk who may read the above never to marry a Roman Catholic unless you are positively certain they are separated from the Church of Rome for ever. We feel deeply for poor Roman Catholics, but we abominate their religion, for it is a snare, a delusion, a curse, a ruination for the life that now is, and spells destruction for the future. We should, by all lawful means within our reach, help Roman Catholics to turn away for ever from the blasphemous religion of the Pope; but by marrying them we only confirm them in their delusion, irreligion, and tighten the iron chain of the priest about their necks. “Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth,” Proverbs, vii., 24.—J. MacL.