ART. engage the whole Priesthood into its interefts against the XXXII. civil powers, as the immunity and exemptions of the Clergy made them fafe in their own perfons, fo it was neceffary to free them from any fuch incumbrances or appendages by which they might be in the power or at the mercy of fecular princes. This, joined with the belief of their making God with a few words, by the virtue of their character, and of their forgiving fin, was like armour of proof, by which they were invulnerable, and by confequence capable of undertaking any thing that might be committed to them. But this may well recommend fuch a rule to a crafty and defigning body of men, in which it is not to be denied, that there is a deep and refined policy; yet we have not fo learned Chrift, nor to handle the word of God, or the authority that he has trufted to us, deceitfully.

As for the confequences of fuch laws, inconveniences are on both hands: as long as men are corrupt themselves, fo 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 lufts, have been the visible confequences of the ftrict law of celibate; and if this appears fo evident in history that it cannot be denied; we think it better to truft human nature with the lawful use of that in which God has not restrained it, than to venture on that which has given occafion to abominations that cannot be mentioned without horror. As for the temptation to covetoufnefs, we think it is neither fo great, nor fo unavoidable upon the one hand, as thofe monftrous ones are on the other. It is more reasonable to expect divine affistances to preferve men from temptations, when they are ufing thofe liberties which God has left free to them, than when, by pretending to a purity greater than that which he has commanded, they throw themfelves into many fnares. It is alfo very eyident, that covetousness is an effect of men's tempers, rather than of their marriage; fince the inftances of a ravenous covetousness, and of a reftlefs ambition, in behalf of men's kindred and families, hath appeared as often and as fcandalously among the unmarried, as among the married Clergy.

From thefe general confiderations concerning the power that the Church has to make either a perpetual or an univerfal law in a thing of this kind; I fhall in the next place confider in fhort, what the Church has done in this matter. In the firft ages of Chriftianity, Bafilides and Saturninus, and after them, both Montanus and Novatus, and the fect

of

XXXII.

of the Encratites, condemned marriage as a state of liber- ART. tinism that was unbecoming the purity required of Chriftians. Against those we find the Fathers afferted the lawfulnefs of marriage to all Chriftians, without making a difference between the Clergy and the Laity. It is true, the appearances that were in Montanus and his followers, feem to have engaged the Chriftians of that age to ftrain beyond them in thofe things that gave them their reputation many of Tertullian's writings, that critics do now fee were writ after he was a Montanift, which feems not to have been obferved in that age, carry the matter of celibate fo high, that it is no wonder, if, confidering the reputation that he had, a bias was given by thefe to the following ages in favour of celibate: yet it feemed to give great and juft prejudices against the Chriftian religion, if fuch as had come into the fervice of the Church thould have forfaken their wives. It is vifible how much fcandal this might have given, and what matter of reproach it would have furnished their enemies with, if they could have charged them with this, that men, to get rid of their wives, and the care of their families, went into orders; that fo, under a pretence of a higher degree of fanctity, they might abandon their families. Therefore great care was taken to prevent this. They were fo far from requiring Priefts to forfake their wives, that fuch as did it, upon their entering into orders, were feverely condemned by the Canons that go under the name of the Apostles. They were alfo condemned by the Council of Gangra in the fourth century, and by that in Trullo in the feventh age, There are fome inftances brought of Bifhops and Priefts, who are fuppofed to have married after they were ordained; but as there are only few of thofe, fo perhaps they are not well proved. It must be acknowledged, that the general practice was, that men once in orders did not marry : but many Bishops in the best ages lived ftill with their wives. So did the fathers both of Gregory Nazianzen and of St. Bafil. And among the works of Hilary of Poitiers, there is a letter writ by him in exile to his daughter Abra, in which he refers her to her mother's inftruction in thofe things which fhe, by reafon of her age, did not then understand; which fhews that he was then very young, and fo was probably born after he was a Bishop.

Some propofed in the Council of Nice, that the Clergy Socr. Hift. fhould depart from their wives; but Paphnutius, though Eccl. lib. himself unmarried, opposed this, as the laying an unreaonably heavy yoke upon them. Heliodorus, a Bishop,

the

i. c. 12.

ART.

the author of the first of thofe love-fables that are now XXXII. known by the name of Romances, being upon that account accufed of too much levity, did, in order to the clearing himself of that imputation, move that Clergymen thould be obliged to live from their wives. Which the hiftorian fays they were not tied to before; for till then Bishops lived with their wives. So that in those days the living in a married state was not thought unbecoming the purity of the facred functions. A fingle marriage was never objected in bar to a man's being made Bifhop or Prieft. They did not indeed admit a man to orders that had been twice married; but even for this there was a diftinction: if a man had been once married before his baptism, and was once married after his baptifm, that was reckoned only a fingle marriage; for what had been done when in Heathenifm went for nothing. And Jerome, fpeaking of Bishops who had been twice married, but by this nicety were reckoned to be the bufbands of one wife, fays, the number of those of this fort in that time could not be reckoned; and that more fuch Bifhops might be found, than were at the Council of Arimini. Canons grew to be frequently made against the marriage of thofe in holy orders; but these were pofitive laws made chiefly in the Roman and African Synods; and fince thofe canons were fo often renewed, we may from thence conclude that they were not well kept. When Synefius was ordained Prieft, he tells in an epiftle of his, that he declared openly, that he would not live fecretly with his wife, as fome did; but that he would dwell publicly with her, and wished that he might have many children by her. In the Eastern Church the Priefts are ufually married before they are ordained, and continue afterwards to live with their wives, and to have children by them, without either cenfure or trouble. In the Western Church we find mention made, both in the Gallican and Spanish Synods, of the wives both of Bishops and Priefts; and they are called Epifcopa and Prefbytere. In the Saxon times the Clergy in moft of the cathedrals of England were openly married; and when Dunstan, who had engaged King Edgar to favour the Monks, in oppofition to the married Clergy, preffed them to forfake their wives, they refufed to do it, and fo were turned out of their benefices, and Monks came in their places. Nor was the celibate generally impofed on all the Clergy, before Gregory the Seventh's time, in the end of the eleventh century. He had great defigns for subjecting all temporal princes to the papacy; and, in order to that, he intended to bring the Clergy into an entire dependance upon himfelf;

491

felf; and to feparate them wholly from all other interefis, ART. but thofe of the ecclefiaftical authority: and that he might XXXII. load the married Clergy with an odicus name, he called them all Nicolaitans; though the accounts that the ancients give us of that feet fay nothing that related to this matter; but a name of an ill found goes a great way in an ignorant age. The writers that lived near that time condemn this feverity against the married Clergy, as a new and a rath thing, and contrary to the mind of the holy Fathers; and they tax his rigour in turning them all out. Yet Lanfranc among us did not impofe the celibate generally on all the Clergy, but only on thofe that lived at cathedrals and in towns; he connived at those who served in villages. Anfelm carried it farther, and inpofed it on all the Clergy without exception: yet he himself laments that unnatural lufts were become then both common and public; of which Petrus Damiani made great complaints in Gregory the Seventh's time. Bernard, in a fermon preached to the Clergy of France, fays it was common in his time, and then even Bijkops with Bishops lived in it. The obfervation that Abbot Panormitan made of the progrefs of that horrid fin, led him to with that it might be Teft free to the Clergy to marry as they pleafed. Pius the Second faid, that there might have been good reafons for impofing the celibate on the Clergy; but he believed there were far better reafons for leaving them to their liberty. As a remedy to these more enormous crimes, difpenfations for concubinate became fo common, that, inftead of giving fcandal by them, they were rather confidered as the characters of modefty and temperance: in fuch concubinary Priefts the world judged themfelves fafe from practices on their own families.

When we confider those effects that followed on the impofing the celibate on the Clergy, we cannot but look on them as much greater evils than those that can follow on the leaving it free to them to marry. It is not to be denied but that, on the other hand, the effects of a freedom to marry may be likewife bad: that ftate does naturally involve men in the cares of life, in domestic concerns, and it brings with it temptations both to luxury and covetoufnefs. It carries with it too great a difpofition to heap up wealth, and to raife families: and in a word, it makes the Clergy both look too like, and live too like the reft of the world. But when things of this kind are duly balanced, ill effects will appear on both hands: thofe arife out of the general corruption of human nature, which does fo fpread itfelf, that it will corrupt us in the most innocent,

nocent, and in the moft neceffary practices. There are XXXII. excelles committed in eating, drinking, and fleeping. Our

depraved inclinations will infinuate themfelves into us in our beft actions: even the public worthip of God and all devotion receive a taint from them. But we muft not take away thofe liberties, in which God has left human nature free, and engage men to rules and methods, that put a violence upon mankind: this is the lefs excufable, when we fee, in fact, what the confequences of fuch reftraints have been for many ages.

Yet after all, though they who marry, do well; yet thofe who marry not, do better, provided they live chaste, and do not burn. That man, who fubdues his body by fafting and prayer, by labour and ftudy, and that feparates himActs vi. 4. felf from the concerns of a family, that he may give himself wholly to the miniflry of the word, and to prayer, that lives at a distance from the levities of the world, and in a course of native modefty and unaffected feverity, is certainly a burning and fhining light; he is above the world, free from cares and defigns, from afpirings, and all thofe reftlefs projects which have fo long given the world so much fcandal: and therefore thofe, who allow themselves the liberty of marriage, according to the laws of God and the Church, are indeed engaged in a state of many temptations, to which if they give way, they lay themselves open to many cenfures, and they bring a fcandal on the Reformation for allowing them this liberty, if they abuse it.

It remains only to confider how far this matter is altered by vows; how far it is lawful to make them; and how far they bind when they are made. It feems very unreasonable and tyrannical to put vows on any, in matters in which it may not be in their power to keep them without fin. No vows ought to be made, but in things that are either absolutely in our power, or in things in which we may procure to ourfelves thofe affifiances that may enable us to perform them. We have a federal right to the promises that Chrift has made us, of inward affiftances to enable us to perform thofe conditions that he has laid on us; and therefore we may vow to obferve them, because we may do that which may procure us aids fufficient for the execution of them. But if men will take up refolutions, that are not within thofe neceffary conditions, they have no reafon to promise themfelves fuch affiftances: and if they are not fo abfolutely mafters of themfelves, as to be able to ftand to them without thofe helps, and yet are not fure that they fhall be given them, then they ought to make no vow, in a matter which they cannot keep by their