THE DIVORCE PROBLEM

Gisborne Times, Volume LXI, Issue 9852, 3 November 1924, Page 3

THE DIVORCE PROBLEM

WHAT IS JUSTIFICATION?

ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH

An interesting sermon was delivered at St. Alary’s Cathedral, Auckland, by Canon Percival James, upon the question of marriage and divorce. He stated that in obedience to the instructions of the Diocesan Synod lie intended to deliver a series of sermons on the subject. Lie proposed first to examine the pronouncement of Jesus Christ upon divorce. Canon James said there were very good people who held wrong ideas of what the Alastcr did sav. The recorded words were, he

admitted, not free from ambiguity. In considering the Christian law of marriage they must not limit themse’ves to a few texts from the Gospels, however important they might l.e. The Alastcr did not give detailed directions on practical problems. Jesus laid down broad and eternal principles and promised the spirit of truth to bo with the Church always to guide it. The Master was asked, - r s ”it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?” His rep'y was “Whosoever shall put away Ids wife, except for the cause of fornication, and shall marry another, connnitteth adultery; and lie that mai'rietli her that is put away eommittoth adultery.” Canon James said: “1 am compelled to conclude that while our Lord insisted that divorce for .any other cause is morally invalid, he recognised that adultery itself cancels and destroys the marriage bond. The very reasoning which forbids divorce for any other cause justifies divorce in the one case of infidelity. Is not divorce in such a case but .the legal recognition of an accomplished fact t The marriage bond has already been dissolved by the act of infidelity; the sentence of .t human tribunal does but certify tho fact. That fact is undisputed before the higher tribunal of conscicmev.” Canon James also said with regard to the question of the remarriage oi the innocent party, if and where there was sin in divorce, clearly in our Lord’s view it was eemm'tted as much by the separation as by itie remarriage. In disavowing the roar', riage (f those divorced for any cause, save that of adultery, the •MisK, cannot reasonably be supposed to prohibit the remarriage of t’n , muoceut parly in that special case.”