67: "By the law
of nature the bond of marriage is not indissoluble." Thus it appears
we must teach that marriage is naturally indissoluble, still not
absolutely so, just as a safe is justly advertised as fire-proof, when
it will resist any conflagration that is likely to occur, though it
would be consumed in a blast-furnace or in a volcano. So marriage is
indissoluble, if it holds good for all ordinary contingencies, for all
difficulties that may be fairly reckoned with and regarded as not
quite improbable, for every posture of affairs that the contracting
parties before their union need at all consider. Or, if the three
cases of divorce actually allowed are to be traced to the dominative
power of God (_Ethics_, c. vii., n. 2, p. 129), we may teach that
marriage is by nature absolutely indissoluble, and that divorce is as
much against the law of nature as the killing of an innocent man,
excepting in the case of God's dominion being employed to quash the
contract or the right to life. But against this latter view is to be
set the consideration, that God is manifestly averse to using His
dominative power to overturn natural ordinances.
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