that abnegation of natural* affections which the Church of Rome requires from its priesthood.

For that abnegation tends as much to corrupt the heart as to harden it. You, Sir, have lived in habits of social intercourse with clergy of the English Church; you know what their character is as a body; and though, in an unlucky hour, you advanced an insinuation against them which your better mind has disowned, you are neither insensible of their worth, nor ignorant of the estimation in which they are held. Did you never, Sir, compare in your

* Colet's opinions upon this subject, as preserved by Erasmus, deserve to be considered by those Romanists who are persuaded that their church acts wisely in imposing celibacy upon its priesthood. "Dictitare solet se nusquam reperire minus corruptos mores quàm inter conjugatos; quod hos, affectus naturæ, cura liberorum, ac res familiaris ita veluti cancellis quibusdam distringerent, ut non possint in omne flagitii genus prolabi. Cum ipse castissimè viveret, tamen inter illaudatos, minus erat iniquus his, qui tametsi sacerdotes, aut etiam monachi, venere duntaxat peccarent: non quod impudicitiæ vitium non detestaretur, sed quod hos experiretur multo minus malos, quoties eos cum aliis conferret, qui cum essent elatis animis, invidi, maledici, obtrectatores, fucati, vani, indocti, toto pectore pecuniæ et ambitioni dediti, tamen sibi magnum quiddam esse viderentur, cum alteros infirmitas agnita redderet humiliores ac modestiores. Aiebat magis execrandam in sacerdote avaritiam et superbiam, quàm si centum haberet concubinas. Ne vero quisquam hæc huc rapiat, ut putet leve crimen esse in sacerdote aut monacho libidinem; sed ut intelligat alterum genus longius abesse a verá pietate."-Epist. L. 15. Ep. 14. 706. Ed. 1642.

X

mind the terms upon which our clergy mingle in society, with the situation in which the Romish priests are placed? The quiet, unassuming, unclaimed influence of the one may appear to you less than it ought to be, as the authority and interference of the other must be deemed intolerable by every husband and father who has not, from earliest youth, been broken in to bear it. But you cannot, I think, have felt the same satisfaction in contrasting the safe freedom, the unsuspicious intercourse which the English clergyman enjoys among his parishioners, with the jealous and uneasy position of one for whom it has been made criminal to indulge the most natural affections, and who is therefore called upon by his church to suspect himself, even when he is not suspected by others.

I know not upon what class of readers Dr. Milner can impose when he asserts that Pope Hildebrand succeeded in extirpating the incontinence of the clergy; certainly not upon any who have the slightest acquaintance with ecclesiastical history, or the slightest knowledge of the human mind. "Etiamnè putat idem esse

cælibem et castum?"* If that Pontiff, indeed,

when he enforced the obligation of celibacy, had

* Erasmi Epist. 1417.

conferred the gift of continence, this might have been said but even the omnipotence which he affected did not extend so far; and though humanity may be perverted and degraded by evil institutions, it can never be totally changed by them. The law was resisted in those countries where political circumstances precluded the Romish Church from exercising its full power. In Bohemia, this resistance was one of the causes which prepared the people for Wicliffe's doctrine, when Hus was raised up as the precursor of Luther.* In Spain, the clergy continued to marry long after the extirpation of the Albigenses, who derived from that country a main part of their strength; and their marriages were not merely tolerated, but recognized by the ecclesiastical laws. In other kingdoms, where the triumph of the Regulars over the Secular Clergy, and of the Papal See over the National Church, was more complete; the priests, being deterred from marrying, lived in concubinage, which was either open or secret, according to the views of the Monarch, or the temper of the Primate. This was the case in England. Sometimes those who were in authority enacted laws of the severest kind;

*Lenfant, C. de Basle, t. i. 13.

† Lenfant, C. de Pise, xxvii.

sometimes they were contented with requiring that no public scandal* should be given: and Henry I., taking upon himself what may be called the Popely privilege of selling indulgences, allowed his clergy to retain their wives, upon payment of an annual tax,† in defiance of the ecclesiastical laws. Need I remind you what the consequences were when the steady and unrelenting policy of the Papal Court effected its object, and the clergy, not being allowed to contract the sacred and indissoluble tie of marriage, learnt to disregard the moral obligation which, under their circumstances, while it was observed, gave something like the sanction of conscience to concubinage? That sanction was effectually broken down by enactments annulling all settlements upon the women with whom they were thus connected, or their children, and declaring that all bequests made to such persons should be forfeited to the

* Clerici beneficiati, aut in sacris ordinibus constituti, in hospitiis suis publicè tenere Concubinas non audeant, nec etiam alibi cum scandalo accessum publicum habeant ad eas.—] -Lyndwood, 1. iii. tit. ii. p. 126.

There is a long gloss upon this canon to explain away the sense which the words obviously bear, and in which they would certainly be taken.

+ Lyttleton's Henry II. i. 153. Ed. 1769.

‡ Lyndwood, l. iii. tit. xii. pp. 165, 166.

Church.

The women themselves were to forfeit their freedom and become slaves* to the Bishop of the diocese; and a canon was passed in a Synod at Pavia, by which the children of the clergy, whatever their mothers might have been, were declared † slaves of the Church, and any judge who should pass sentence in favour of their liberty was anathematized. Then, indeed, when it was rendered impossible for the priest to discharge his duty towards the woman who had been the faithful partner of his life, and towards their children; and when, in consequence, women who had any worth were deterred, by the prospect of want and infamy, or of slavery for themselves and their offspring, from entering into such connections, the sure effect of these iniquitous and anti-christian laws was manifested in the reckless profligacy of the priesthood. For the heart of man never lies idle. If the domestic charities are not cultivated there, vices will spring up, like thorns and thistles in a neglected field. The state of clerical morals, as you, Sir, cannot but know, became to the last degree infamous from the time when Dr. Milner has the hardihood to

*Henry, vol. iii. 203.-Dublin Edition.

Bernino, t. iii. p. 9.-Ditmarus is the authority to which he refers. There is a law to the same effect in the Partidas, Part iv. tit. xxi. ley 3.