43.

ART.

and to see the mysteries. There is a rubric for this in the XXXI. office mentioned by Gregory the Great. The writers of the Dialog. ninth century go on in the same strain. It was decreed by Conc. Mothe council of Mentz, in the end of Charles the Great's reign, that no priest should say mass alone; for how could he say, "The Lord be with you," or, "Lift up your hearts,' if there was no other person there besides himself? This shews that the practice of solitary masses was then begun, but that it was disliked. Walafridus Strabus says, that to a lawful Walaf. mass it was necessary that there should be a priest, together Strab. de with one to answer, one to offer, and one to communicate. cles. c. 22. And the author of Micrologus, who is believed to have writ about the end of the eleventh century, does condemn solitary communions, as contrary both to the practice of the ancients, and to the several parts of the office: so that till the twelfth century it was never allowed of in the Roman church; as to this day it is not practised in any other com

munion.

But then with the doctrine of purgatory and transubstantiation mixt together, the saying of masses for other persons, whether alive or dead, grew to be considered as a very meritorious thing, and of great efficacy; thereupon great endowments were made, and it became a trade. Masses were sold, and a small piece of money became their price; so that a profane sort of simony was set up, and the holiest of all the institutions of the Christian religion was posed to sale. Therefore we, in cutting off all this, and in bringing the sacrament to be, according to its first institution, a communion, have followed the words of our Saviour, and the constant practice of the whole church for the first ten centuries.

ex

So far all the articles that relate to this sacrament have been considered. The variety of the matter, and the importtant controversies that have arisen out of it, has made it necessary to enlarge with some copiousness upon the several branches of it. Next to the infallibility of the church, this is the dearest piece of the doctrine of the church of Rome; and is that in which both priests and people are better instructed than in any other point whatsoever; and therefore this ought to be studied on our side with a care proportioned to the importance of it: that so we may govern both ourselves and our people aright in a matter of such consequence, avoiding with great caution the extremes on both hands, both of excessive superstition on the one hand, and of profane neglect on the other. For the nature of man is so moulded, that it is not easy to avoid the one without falling into the other. We are now visibly under the extreme of neglect, and

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XXXI.

A RT. 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.

XXXII

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

XXXII.

ART. of the whole Jewish nation, was to marry, and be derived to 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 IMMUNDITIIs 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 deterinined 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

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as

9.

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 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 3. 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 it; whereas there is a great deal to the contrary.

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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.]

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