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CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE
that the words of Christ are unduly pressed when it is said that "He gave no sanction to any divorce which was supposed to carry with it a right to marry again, before at least death had severed the bond." He taught rather that adultery destroyed the marriage bond. The ancients knew no divorce which did not carry the right to marry again, and Christ, in disallowing the re-marriage of those who were divorced for any cause save for the cause of adultery, cannot reasonably be supposed to prohibit the re-marriage of the divorced in that special case.
The late Provost Salmon speaks with decision on this point:
"It is contended that in this case [of the wife's adultery] a man may put away his wife, that is to say, may separate her from bed and board, but still consider her so much his wife as to be incapable of marriage with another. But I do not know of any evidence that in our Lord's time there had been invented this method of acknowledging a woman to be a wife, but treating her as if she were not. If divorce to this extent is permissible, and if we are not to interpret the limitation in Matthew as putting a distinction between adultery and other causes for separation, the law of Deuteronomy
