Conformity of the ecclesiastical discipline of the Reformed churches of France with that of the primitive Christians written by M. La Rocque ... ; render'd into English by Jos. Walker.

XXIII.

Marriage shall be celebrated publickly in the Company of Believers; and that by the Ministry of the Pastors, and none else.

CONFORMITY.

It is a very long time since Christians have been wont publickly in the Church to cellebrate Marriage, seeing Tertullian in the Fourth chap. of his Book of Pudicity, causes those which have not done so, to pass for Adulterers and Fornicators, and in the Eighth chap. of the Second Book he writes to his Wife, he publishes the happyness of those which the Church has bless'd, this benediction preventing the course of private Mee∣tings, * 1.1 and of Clandestine Marriages. Thence it is the Fourth Council of Carthage orders Fathers and Mothers or the Bridegrooms, to present the Bride and Bride∣groom whose Marriage is to be Celebrated. Pope

Hormisdas in the beginning of the Sixth Century ap∣points also it should be done publickly in the Church. There is in the Book of Sacraments of Gregory the First, which Maynard a Benedictine Frier has Printed, * 1.2 a whole Liturgy about Cellebrating Marriage, which was taken out of a Manuscript of the Church of Rheims. The Deacon Hillary in the Third Volume of the Works of St. Ambrose, speaks of this benediction on the 12th verse of the 3. chap. of St. Paul Ep. to Timothy, and on the 3. of the 5. chap. it is likely St. * 1.3 Chrysostom had it in his thoughts when in his 48th Homily on Genesis he ex∣horts to send for the Priests to knit by Prayers and Blessings, the Union and Concord of Marriage. St. Isidore of Sivill in the 19th chap of the 2. Book of Di∣vine Offices, saith, That when the Priest blesses Mar∣riages, he does it in imitation of God, who blessed the Marriage of the first Man. The Kings Charlemain, and Lewis the De bonnaire, in the Seventh Book of the Capitularies chap. 358, amongst several Conditions they prescribe necessary to a lawful Marriage, they have not forgot the Blessing we treat of; And in the Capi∣tularies of Charles the bald, is to be seen the Nuptial Blessings of his Daughter Judith with Edelwolf King of England, and of Hormintrude with himself. I would alleage other proofs of this Ancient Practice, but not to tire the Reader, I will conclude with the Testimony of Photius, who in two of his last five Letters by way of Augmentation at the foot of the rest, that is in the First and Fifth, he several times makes mention of the publick benediction of Marriages by the Pastors.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Tom. 1. Conc. & Ann. 358 pag. 728. Tom. 3.
• * 1.2

  pag. 286.
• * 1.3

  Tom. 2. p. 681. Par. 1614