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Q. 62. What is the effect of this prohibition of marriage between such relations?

A. It renders all marriages between them null and void in the sight of God; so that, were two people, within the prohibited decree, to marry one another, though they should live as man and wife, and even be esteemed as such in the eyes of men, yet they would be living in a state of fornication and incest before God.

Q. 63. How can the prohibition of the Church hinder the validity of marriage, if the parties consent between themselves?

A. In the same way that this is done by the civil laws of any state; for both the one and the other have power to put such conditions to the contract of marriage, that if these be not performed, the marriage is void and null in the eye of the law. Thus, in some countries, the consent of parents is required as a condition, without which children cannot legally contract marriage; and, by the law of England, except the parties be married by a parish minister of the Church of England, it is no marriage at all in the eye of that law; and in both cases the delinquents are deprived of all the legal and civil benefits of their marriage. In the same manner, by the laws of the Church of Christ, except the parties be without the forbidden degrees, the marriage is void and null before God, by whose authority these laws are made.

Q. 64. Does the Church never dispense with the strictness of this prohibition?

A. All the laws of the Church are made for the edification, and not for the destruction or burt of her children; therefore, where there are just and solid reasons for doing it, the Church dispenses with this prohibition, especially in the third and fourth degrees, but very seldom, and not without the strongest reasons, in the second.

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Q. 65. To whom does it belong to grant such dispensations?

A. It properly belongs to the Head of the Church, and to others by commission and authority. from him.

Q. 66. Have priests, who are the immediate pastors of the people, this authority?

A. In countries where the Catholic religion is exposed to persecution, and the number of the faithful but small, their immediate pastors have this commission communicated to them by their bishops, with regard to their own flock in the third and fourth degrees; but to dispense in the second degree, or cousin-germans, is reserved to the bishops only.

Q. 67. Why are the priests empowered to do this in the third and fourth degree.

A. Because in such countries the reasons for doing it more frequently occur, especially that of encouraging the faithful to marry with one another, which, it were to be wished, were always done, for many strong reasons.

Q. 68. Why are the dispensations in the second degree reserved to the bishops only?

A. Because the Church has a particular aversion to the marrying of persons so nearly connected, and because experience shews that such marriages seldom or never prove fortunate; and, therefore, the power of dispensing in them is reserved to the bishops, that the people may from this conceive the greater aversion at engaging in them, and that the greater difficulty of obtaining the dispensation may deter them from attempting it; for it is expressly enjoined to the bishops not to grant dispensations in the second degree, but for the most urgent cause.

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Q. 69. Would it be a grievous sin for two cousin-germans o marry, without such dispensa

tions?

. A. It would be a very grievous mortal sin, and the marriage itself would be void and null.

Q. 70. If a bishop should give such dispensation without a just cause, would it be valid?

A. He would himself commit a grievous sin to grant it without a just cause, and the dispensation itself would be of no effect before God.

Q. 71. Is there any thing more to be observed concerning the commands of God and his Church?

A. What we have seen is sufficient to give us a general idea of the most necessary things our faith teaches concerning the laws of God. But there are numberless things to be considered on each particular duty, of which we ought to endeavour to acquire as perfect a knowledge as possible, by daily and serious meditation on this holy law; that by so doing we may the more efficaciously be excited, and the more powerfully enabled perfectly to keep it, and effectually to avoid the most dreadful of all evils, the transgression of the law of God by sin.

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A. Sin is any thought, word, deed, or omission, against the law of God.

Q. 2. How is sin in general divided?

A. Into original sin and actual sin.

Q. 3. What is original sin?

A. It is the sin of our first parents, under the guilt of which we are conceived, and come into

VOL. 1.

this world; as we have seen above, Chap. v. q. 30.

Q. 4. What is actual sin?

A. Actual sin is that which we commit ourselves. Q. 5. Who are guilty of actual sin ?

A. Those who willingly commit or consent to any thought, word, or deed, which the law of God forbids, or who willingly omit any duty which the law of God enjoins.

Q. 6. How is actual sin divided?
A. Into mortal sin and venial sin.

SECTION I.

OF MORTAL SIN.

Q. 7. What is mortal sin?

A. Mortal sin as a grievous transgression of the law, whether this grievousness arises from the nature of the thing done, or from the circumstances in which it is done, or from the will of the lawgiver, who strictly requires the observance of what is commanded, as was the sin of our first parents in eating the forbidden fruit.

Q. 8. What are the effects of mortal sin?

A. It banishes the grace of God from our souls, renders us hateful and abominable in the sight of God, and worthy of eternal punishment. For this reason it is called mortal, because it kills the soul in this life, by depriving it of the sanctifying grace of God, which is the spiritual life of the soul, and condemns us to eternal death in the life to come. Q. 9. Is mortal sin a great evil?

A. It is the greatest of all evils, because infinitely opposite to the infinite goodness of God. It is a bottomless pit, which no created understanding can fathom; for as none but God himself can fully comprehend his own infinite goodness, so none but God himself can perfectly comprehend

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the infinite malice and enormity that is found in this opposite evil. It is the parent both of the devil and of hell; for he was only made for mortal sin, and Lucifer was an angel of light till he was transformed into a devil by mortal sin.

Q. 10. From what does the malice of mortal sin chiefly appear?

A. From several important considerations; (1.) From the greatness of the injury done to God; (2.) From the hatred with which God abhors it; (3.) From the severity with which he punishes it, even in this world; (4.) From the ingratitude it contains against Jesus Christ; (5.) From the sad effects it produces in our souls in this life; and, (6.) From the loss of heaven, of which it deprives us, and the torments of hell, to which it condemns us in the life to come.

Q. 11. How does the malignity of sin appear from the injury done to God?

A. Because it strikes directly at God himself: it is a rebellion and high treason against him, and involves in its bosom a most injurious contempt of all his divine perfections. The greatness of its malignity in this view will appear from the following considerations. (1.) God is a being of infinite perfection, of infinite goodness, of infinite dignity, of infinite majesty, infinitely worthy in himself of all possible honour, love, and obedience; in comparison of whom all created beings are but a mere nothing. When, therefore, such wretched worms of the earth as we are, presume to offend and insult this God of infinite dignity, by transgressing his command, and preferring ourselves or any creature to him, the malice of such an action is in a manner infinite; for we find among ourselves, that the grievousness of any injury always rises in proportion to the dignity of the person offended above the one that injures him. An injury which would

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