XXXI.

ART. therefore we ought to study by all means possible to inspire our people with a just respect for this holy institution, and to animate them to desire earnestly to partake often of it; and, in order to that, to prepare themselves seriously to set about it with the reverence and devotion, and with those holy purposes and solemn vows, that ought to accompany it.

ART.

XXXIL

ARTICLE XXXII.

Of the Marriage of Priests.

Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, are not commanded by God's Law either to bow the Estate of single Life, or to abstain from Marriage: Therefore it is lawful for them, as well as for all Christian Men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to Godliness.

THE first period of this Article to the word Therefore, was all that was published in king Edward's time. They were content to lay down the assertion, and left the inference to be made as a consequence that did naturally arise out of it. There was not any one point that was more severely examined at the time of the Reformation than this: for as the irregular practices and dissolute lives of both seculars and regulars had very much prejudiced the world against the celibate of the Roman clergy, which was considered as the occasion of all those disorders; so, on the other hand, the marriage of the clergy, and also of those of both sexes who had taken vows, gave great offence. They were represented as persons that could not master their appetites, but that indulged themselves in carnal pleasures and interests. Thus, as the scandals of the unmarried clergy had alienated the world much from them ; so the marriage of most of the reformers was urged as an ill character both of them and of the Reformation; as a doctrine of libertinism, that made the clergy look too like the rest of the world, and involved them in the common pleasures, concerns, and passions, of human life.

The appearances of an austerity of habit, of a severity of life in watching and fasting, and of avoiding the common. pleasures of sense, and the delights of life, that were on the other side, did strike the world, and inclined many to think, that what ill consequences soever celibate produced, yet that these were much more supportable, and more easy to be reformed, than the ill consequences of an unrestrained permission of the clergy to marry.

In treating this matter, we must first consider celibate with relation to the laws of Christ and the gospel; and then with relation to the laws of the church. It does not seem contrary to the purity of the worship of God, or of divine performances, that married persons should officiate in them; since, by the law of Moses, priests not only might marry, but the priesthood was tied to descend as an inheritance in a certain family. And even the high priest, who was to perform the great function of the annual atonement that was made for the sins

ART. of the whole Jewish nation, was to marry, and be derived to XXXII, his descendants that sacred office. If there was so much as a remote unsuitableness between a married state and sacerdotal performances, we cannot imagine that God would by a law tie the priesthood to a family, which by consequence laid an obligation on the priests to marry. When Christ chose his twelve apostles, some of them were married men; we are sure, at least, that St. Peter was; so that he made no distinction, and gave no preference to the unmarried: our Saviour did no where charge them to forsake their wives; nor did he at all represent celibate as necessary to the kingdom of heaven,' or the dispensation of the gospel.* He speaks indeed

* In the Bible, we read that the priests, under the old dispensation, were married, and that the high priesthood passed from father to son. And in the New Testament, that St. Peter, whom you call your first pope (although you are not his successor in either doctrine or practice), was a married man; "And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever," Matt. viii. 14; and Paul says, "Have we no power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostLES, and as the brethren of the Lord, and CEPHAS ?" 1 Cor. ix. 5. I read, moreover, in the directions given by God to the bishops and deacons, these words, "A bishop must then be blameless, THE HUSBAND OF ONE WIFE, one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection, with all gravity; for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?” "Let the deacons be THE HUSBANDS OF ONE WIFE, ruling their children, and their own houses well." 1 Tim. iii. 2, 4, 5, 12. And in the Epistle to the Hebrews (xiii. 4.) it is written, "Marriage is honourable IN all, and the bed undefiled; but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." But the word of God informs us, that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith," (as your church did, when it commanded pope Pius the IVth's creed to be taught and believed, as necessary to salvation,) that one of the marks by which this apostacy shall be known, is "forbidding to marry." 1 Tim. iv. 1, 3. Whether, then, this mark of the apostacy better fits us, who do marry, or you, who forbid and condemn marriage of the clergy, and have besides set up monasteries and nunneries, let the people judge.

'But I must give another instance of your church's contempt of God's word: In 1 Tim. iii. 2. it is said, "a bishop then must be BLAMELESS, the husband of one wife;" and in Heb. xiii. 4. " Marriage is HONOURABLE in all." Why does the church of Rome condemn marriage of the clergy? Her own council of Lateran must speak-"Because it is UNWORTHY that they should be the slaves of CHAMBERING and UNCLEANNEss.' I shall now give the decree in the words of Lateran, “Decernimus etiam ut ii, qui in ordine subdiaconatus, et supra, uxores duxerint, aut concubinas habuerint, officio, atq. ecclesiastico beneficio careant. Cum enim ipsi templum Dei, vasa Domini, sacrarium Spiritus Sancti debeant esse, et dici: INDIGNUM est, eos CUBILIBUS, et IMMUNDITIs deservire." 2 Concil Lat. Labbei, vol. x. p. 1003, canon vi. Here then is Lateran against the word of God, and yet, according to you, the council of Lateran was infallible!!! Before this council, pope Gregory the VIIth had condemned the marriage of the clergy, in the 13th can. of the first Roman council, in a. D. 1074. (Labbei concil: vol. x. p. 326328.) Gregory had, besides, assembled councils or synods in other places, to condemn the marriage of the clergy. The English clergy opposed this in a very determined manner; and, when Gregory's decree was published in Germany, the clergy appealed to the word of God, and charged the pope with contradicting St. Paul. But Gregory was more than a match for them; and he, who deprived kings of their kingdoms, and trampled royalty under foot, easily prevailed, after some time, against the clergy.

The public must now have a specimen of your church's consistency, contradiction, and extraordinary doctrine, on the subject of matrimony. The church of Rome calls marriage a sacrament!! (one of the five new sacraments she herself made;) and, according to the Trent doctrine, the sacraments confer grace, justifying grace. Luther maintained that "the sacraments of the new law do not confer justifying grace upon those who do not place a bar in the way." This is the first

6

9.

2, 4, 5, 12

of some that brought themselves to the state of eunuchs for ART. the sake of the gospel;' but in that he left all men at full XXXII, liberty, by saying, 'Let him receive it that is able to receive Matt. xix. it;' so that in this every man must judge of himself by what 10, 11, 12. he finds himself to be. That is equally recommended to all ranks of men, as they can bear it. St. Paul does affirm, that 'marriage is honourable in all' and to avoid uncleanness, he Heb.xiii.4 says, 'It is better to marry than to burn;' and so gives it as 1 Cor. vii. a rule, that every man should have his own wife.' Among all the rules or qualifications of bishops or priests, that are given in the New Testament, particularly in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, there is not a word of the celibate of the 1 Tim. iii. clergy, but plain intimations to the contrary, that they were and might be married. That of the husband of one wife' is repeated in different places: mention is also made of the wives and children of the clergy, rules being given concerning them: and not a word is so much as insinuated, importing, that this was only tolerated in the beginnings of Christianity, but that it was afterwards to cease. On the contrary, the forbidding 1 Tim, iv. to marry' is given as a character of the apostacy of the later times. We find Aquila, when he went about preaching the gospel, was not only married to Priscilla, but that he carried her about with him: not to insist on that privilege that St. Paul thought he might have claimed, of carrying about with 1 Cor. ix, him a sister and a wife, as well as the other apostles.' And thus the first point seems to be fully cleared, that by no law of God the clergy are debarred from marriage. There is not one word in the whole scriptures that does so much as hint at ; whereas there is a great deal to the contrary.

Marriage being then one of the rights of human nature, to which so many reasons of different sorts may carry both a wise and a good man, and there being no positive precept in the gospel that forbids it to the clergy; the next question is, Whether it is in the power of the church to make a perpetual law, restraining the clergy from marriage? It is certain that no age of the church can make a law to bind succeeding ages; for whatsoever power the church has, she is always in possession of it; and every age has as much power as any of the former ages had. Therefore if ony one age should by a law enjoin celibate to the clergy, any succeeding age may repeal and alter that law. For ever since the inspiration that conducted the apostles has ceased, every age of the church may make or change laws in all matters that are within their authority. So it seems very clear, that the church can make no perpetual law upon this subject.

of the "
plurima Lutheri hareses" condemned by pope Leo X. (Labb. and Coss.
vol. xiv. 5 Conc. Lat. p. 392.) Marriage then, according to your doctrine, confers
justifying grace. But what would this sacrament confer on you? Pollution and
damnation !!! This is most excellent! "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place
sweet water and bitter?" James iii. 11.' Page's Letters to a Romish Priest.—[ED.]

3.

5.

ART. In the next place it may be justly doubted, whether the XXXII. church can make a law that shall restrain all the clergy in any

of those natural rights in which Christ has left them free.
The adding a law upon this head to the laws of Christ, seems
to assume an authority that he has not given the church. It
looks like a pretending to a strain of purity beyond the rules
set us in the gospel: and is plainly the laying a yoke upon us,
which must be thought tyrannical, since the Author of this
religion, who knew best what human nature is capable of, and
what it may well bear, has not thought fit to lay it on those
whom he sent upon a commission that required a much
greater elevation of soul, and more freedom from the entan-
glements of worldly or domestic concerns, than can be pre-
tended to be necessary for the standing and settled offices in
the church. Therefore we conclude, that it were a great
abuse of church power, and a high act of tyranny, for any
church, or any age of the church, to bar men from the
services in the church, because they either are married, or
intend to keep themselves free to marry, or not, as they
please: this does indeed bring the body of the clergy more
into a combination among themselves; it does take them in
a great measure off from having separated interests of their
own; it takes them out of the civil society, in which they
have less concern, when they give no pledges to it. And so
in ages in which the papacy intended to engage the whole
priesthood into its interests against the civil powers, as the
immunity and exemptions of the clergy made them safe in
their own persons, so it was necessary to free them from any
such incumbrances or appendages by which they might be in
the power or at the mercy of secular princes. This, joined
with the belief of their making God with a few words, by the
virtue of their character, and of their forgiving sin, was like
armour of proof, by which they were invulnerable, and by
consequence capable of undertaking any thing that might be
committed to them. But this may well recommend such a
rule to a crafty and designing body of men, in which it is not
to be denied, that there is a deep and refined policy; yet we
have not 'so learned Christ,' nor to handle the word of
God,' or the authority that he has trusted to us, deceitfully.

As for the consequences of such laws, inconveniences are on both hands: as long as men are corrupt themselves, so long they will abuse all the liberties of human nature. If not only common lewdness in all the kinds of it, but even brutal and unnatural lusts, have been the visible consequences of the strict law of celibate; and if this appears so evident in history that it cannot be denied; we think it better to trust human nature with the lawful use of that in which God has not restrained it, than to venture on that which has given occasion to abominations that cannot be mentioned without horror. As for the temptation to covetousness, we think it is