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 sub mission. 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 non-Catholics 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that, after three centuries, she still allows the decree of Trent, which makes clandestine marriages invalid, to remain unpublished, and therefore not in force, in a large portion of the Catholic
