Dispensation

“ See how the germ which was planted before the law grew into the legal dispensation, and how when the leafage and fruitage of that dispensation grew old and withered, as things must grow old and perish, the living principle within took new and diviner form, suffered, as all divine things do, death and resurrection, and lived with a new and divine life in a new and regenerated world. ”

“ So that every dispensation must have laws differing from each other, and the laws which would be good and wholesome under one dispensation, would be injurious and destructive under another; and instead of their tending to good they would tend to evil. ”

“ The superior who grants the dispensation is guilty if he is certain that there is no sufficient reason for it, or if he doubts whether there is any reason for it. But he dispenses validly and lawfully, if he is certain that there is a reason for the dispensation, but doubts whether the reason is sufficient (see 407) , Usually, a superior who has been asked for a dispensation should not be anxious about his right to give it, for the very insistence of the subject indicates that the vow has become harmful or useless. ”

“ But this dispensation is not so openly and manifoldly declared, as it hath been in times past; which also is done by a marvellous dispensation, that through one only thing both God's love and justice should be fulfilled. ”

“ Balbus, a confessor, dispensed Caius from the law of abstinence, but now wishes to recall the dispensation. The dispensation remains.
541. A dispensation does not cease on account of the person dispensed in the following cases:
(a) It does not cease when he leaves the territory of the dispenser, if the dispensation was personal. Example: A person dispensed from the general law of fast by indult granted to his diocese cannot use that dispensation outside the diocese; but if he has a personal dispensation, he is dispensed everywhere. ”

“ Those Who May Be Dispensed from a Law.— (a) Since dispensation is an act of jurisdiction, only those can be dispensed who are in some way subject to the dispenser. Since, however, the jurisdiction used in dispensing does not impose an obligation but grants a favor, it is held that he who has the power to dispense others may also dispense himself, if his power is not restricted. (b) Since dispensation is an act of authority, it may be exercised even in favor of one who is absent, or ignorant of the dispensation or unwilling to accept it. ”

“ We find the announcement of a Dispensation by which man’s deficiencies shall be supplied and his aspirations fulfilled: we find a provision for the purification, the support, and the ultimate beatification of those who use the provided means. ”

“ A dispensation ceases by being recalled by the legislator. One who has granted a dispensation by delegated authority may also for good reason recall his dispensation, and in that case the law begins to bind again. However, one who has been dispensed from a vow cannot again be bound by vow without his own free consent. The person dispensed may also renounce a dispensation granted in his favour, and, in the case of a dispensation granted from a vow, by renunciation of the dispensation the vow binds again. ”

“ A dispensation granted for a country, province, or diocese, may be taken advantage of by all who are staying even for a time in the territory, but no one may use it outside the territory for which it is granted. The law for the time being does not bind within the territory dispensed, but it does bind outside. On the other hand, a personal dispensation, like a precept, follows the person, and may be used anywhere, unless specially restricted, as is the case with the dispensation to eat meat granted by the Bulla Cruciata, which cannot be used outside the limits named in the Bull. ”

“ He who dispenses without a sufficient reason is guilty of the sin of favoritism, and is responsible for the discontent and quarrels that result. He is guilty of grave sin thus: (a) if serious scandal or other inconvenience is caused, even when the dispenser is the lawgiver himself; (b) if the law obliges under grave sin and the dispensation is not granted by the lawgiver, but by an inferior who usurps the right to dispense. ”

“ Such dispensations appear nevertheless to have become at an early period very frequent. In the event of a dispensation not being procured, the want of it might be in some measure remedied by means of the completely free control which every one had over his property during his lifetime. ”

“ To the proper conduct of the business of this court rules are necessary, and, having been prescribed, reasonable compliance with them is expected, and must be insisted upon. When they are disregarded, dispensation from the consequences can only be extended where the circumstances furnish adequate excuse. ”

“ A good cause is always required in order that a dispensation may be lawfully asked for and granted. All should conform to the laws made for the common good, and the superior who without just cause exempts anyone from the duty of obeying a law is unfaithful to his office, and commits the sin of acceptance of persons. If such a superior uses only delegated authority to dispense, he acts not only unlawfully, but invalidly, because he received his authority to grant dispensations only for a good cause. ”

“ During this dispensation, perfect and eternal salvation is fully offered to both Jews and Gentiles upon the condition of faith. It will end with the destruction of the wicked. The time covered is not known.
7. The Dispensation of the Kingdom. The Millennium (1000) .
Directions for Study. (1) Drill the class on the names of dispensations, the portion of scripture included and the period of time covered. (2) Have each student to select for himself some prominent person or historical event found in each dispensation with which he will familiarize himself. ”

“ Hist. ss. 290, 291. (W. A. P.)
↑ In this quotation the word dispensatio still has its meaning of “economy”: “we are bound by the necessary economy of things.” Possibly its use by the pope in this connexion may have led to the technical meaning of the word dispensatio in the medieval canon law. ”

“ In the complicated relations of human life, various rules for the moral conduct of men have been devised, some of them in the form of statute laws, some in the form of customs, and, in virtue of these rules, certain artificial demands are made of men, which have no foundation in the moral nature of man; these demands are thought to represent duties. We have the same word to describe what I ought to do as subject to the law of God, and what is demanded of me by custom, or the statute. We call each a duty. ”

“ Laurence said. "Possession is in the act, not in the fact. You create law by believing in and submitting to it. Cease to believe, cease to submit, the prohibition, the obligation, vanishes into fine air. ”

“ III. If it be in the present life, and from the ordinary coursed of nature, not purposely modified by the interposition of these will of any human being, nor by any extraordinary interposition of any superior invisible being, that the pleasure or the pain takes place or is expected, it may be said to issue from or to belong to the physical sanction. ”

“ Let me now give an example to show the practical importance, for the decision of actual cases, of understanding the reasons of the law, by taking an example from rules which, so far as I know, never have been explained or theorized about in any adequate way. I refer to statutes of limitation and the law of prescription. The end of such rules is obvious, but what is the justification for depriving a man of his rights, a pure evil as far as it goes, in consequence of the lapse of time? ”

“ God, they say, made men with these necessities in them; people can’t make mistakes in what abstinence is essential for them.’ On the whole, the various regulations one can find look like scattered parts of a system no longer understood. ”

“ When we are considering conduct, however, in its general aspects and not exclusively in its relations to law, we appear to need a word to express any inducement, whether of a pleasureable or painful nature, which may influence a man's actions, and such a word the term 'sanction' seems conveniently to supply. Taking the word in this extended sense, the sanctions of conduct may be enumerated as the physical, the legal, the social, the religious, and the moral. ”

“ Although it is my will that complete justice be observed in each case, I charge you that, in so far as may be possible, and can be rightly done, you settle the differences and suits which arise, without having recourse to the technicalities of the law or proceeding by the ordinary methods, or condemning to pecuniary fines; but observing throughout the provisions of the decrees that shall be given you. ”

“ It is also the main body of our legal systems—a complex mass of prohibitions and preventions. And even in manners and conventions, the things one should not do far outnumber the things one should. A general policy of negation colors our conceptions of ethics and religion. ”

“ Can there be such a difference, that he, who has expelled a man who has once entered, can be compelled to make restitution, but that he who has driven a person back when seeking to enter, cannot be compelled? 40See, I entreat you in the name of the immortal gods, what a law you are proceeding to establish for us,—what a condition for yourselves, and what a code for the whole state. ”

“ The latter go about the country or wait for the slaves at the dispensaries. They hold no parley with their patients about their diseases or the remedies of them; they practise by the rule of thumb, and give their decrees in the most arbitrary manner. ”

“ All law, says the utilitarian, implies 'sanctions'—motives equally operative upon all members of society; and, as the last resort, so far as criminal law is concerned, the sanction of physical suffering. ”

“ He may really have allowed the moral law to influence his conception of a purpose, and the product may be a link on his path to a moral end; in which case the same prohibition, not to destroy it, is addressed to him that is addressed to all the others, but from a different reason. ”

“ XL. We are now in a condition to determine, with some degree of precision, what is to be understood by the strength of a temptation , and what indication it may give of the degree of mischievousness in a man's disposition in the case of any offence. When a man is prompted to engage in any mischievous act, we will say, for shortness, in an offense, the strength of the temptation depends upon the ratio between the force of the seducing motives on the one hand, and such of the occasional tutelary ones, as the circumstances of the case call forth into action, on the other. ”

“ Was it possible with this imperative force to avoid that a prescription which man imposes on himself, as a reasonable being, and which is obligatory only for him on that account, and which is conciliatory with the sentiment of his liberty only—that this prescription, say I, took the appearance of a foreign law, a positive law, an appearance which could hardly lessen the radical tendency which we impute to man to react against the law? ”

“ Let them by all means have the provision allowed them by the law; but let them not be needlessly exposed to the resentment of the people by the mode in which this provision is made, as this often alienates the affections of their flocks from them, and exceedingly injures their usefulness. ”

“ The doctrines upon the subjects of joint and several interests under a deed, and of the necessity or propriety for conformity with remedies for enforcing those interests to the nature of the interests themselves, have been maintained by a course of decision as unbroken and perspicuous, perhaps, as those upon which any other rule or principle can be shown to rest. ”

“ When I shall have learned thy righteous judgments I will keep thy statutes. We cannot keep them unless we learn them; but we learn them in vain if we do not keep them. Those have well learned God's statutes who have come up to a full resolution, in the strength of his grace, to keep them. ”

“ A ‘condition’ cannot be made without the mutual consent of parties, and, therefore, what this writer terms ‘a condition,’ is nothing less than an unjust, arbitrary, and deceitful imposition. ‘Such is the deadly and stupifying influence of habit or custom,’ says Mr. ”

“ Let us rather draw from it the following conclusion, that it is for us an obligation to satisfy at the very least the physical order by the object of our acts, even when we do not satisfy the exigencies of the moral order by the form of these acts; to pay, at least, as perfect instruments the aims of nature, that which we owe as imperfect persons to reason, in order not to appear shamefaced before both tribunals. ”

“ A negative precept, on the other hand, binds always and for always, so that we must continually act according to its prescriptions. At no time on days of obligation may we do servile work.
5. A law imposes in the first place an obligation on those subject to it to inform themselves of its existence and provisions, for it imposes the duty of observing it, and this cannot be done unless the terms are known; knowledge of the law is the necessary means to the end. ”

“ Rights Generally, Capable of being Acquired by Prescription.—In most cases a right to water, or a right of way, or any other easement such as the right to carry on a business in a particular manner, may be acquired by uninterrupted enjoyment for twenty years. ”

“ We confess that we ourselves think there ought to be a Statute of Limitations, and that after a certain lapse of time any offence, however bad, against morality might be held not to have been committed. ”

“ As these depend very much on chance, they must frequently prove contradictory both to men's wants and desires; and persons and possessions must often be very ill adjusted. This is a grand inconvenience, which calls for a remedy. ”