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A65597 A treatise of the celibacy of the clergy wherein its rise and progress are historically considered. Wharton, Henry, 1664-1695. 1688 (1688) Wing W1570; ESTC R34741 139,375 174

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the effects of enforced Celibacy And the Council of Metz in the same year upon the same Account The next year Riculfus Bishop of Soissons published his Constitutions wherein he not only renewed the Canon of these Two last Councils but also forbid the Clergy to talk with VVomen in private or even speak to them without some VVitness standing by These were the Progresses and Gradations of Celibacy in the VVestern Church from the Council of Nice to the times of Hildebrand Proposed it was by some Doctors of great Authority enforced by Popes and enjoyned by Councils yet could not all these Authorities effectually recommend to the Practice of the Clergy a Doctrine so contrary to the first Notions of Reason and common Inclinations of Mankind The frequent and continual Repetition and renewing of Decrees and Canons to the establishment of it argue the universal Opposition which it met with in the World every later Decree manifesting that the former was unsuccessful And indeed most of these Constitutions are ushered in with a Preface of the Obstinacy of the Clergy in retaining their VVives against the express Prohibitions of the Church All the aforementioned Councils were Provincial and Popes had not yet claimed the Government of the whole Church So that all these Decrees affected not the Eastern Church at all nor those Parts even of the VVestern Church which were neither subject to the Roman Patriarchat nor the Jurisdiction of the particular Councils And even in those Churches which were then subject to either of them the Laws of Celibacy were never universally receiv'd and obeyed and at last so far neglected and grown obsolete that in the beginning of the Eleventh Age Marriage of the Clergy was as freely used and as generally practised in most parts of the VVestern Church as it is at this day in the Reformed Churches This I come next to prove where I might justly have omitted to speak of the Eastern Church if our Adversaries did not pretend an universal Practice of Celibacy in the Eastern as well as Western Church till the time of the Quinisext Council The Refutation of this Pretence will necessitate us to speak in general of the Practice and Discipline of the antient universal Church in the ●…ase of Celibacy And first to take away all Prejudice which may possess the Reader that it is impossible at least improbable that a Custom persuaded by many Doctors commanded by Popes and Councils successively in several Ages and which divers of the Fathers affirm to have been universally practised in their time should never be generally used by the Clergy I will produce an Example of a matter of Discipline of far less moment which was urged and enjoyned with greater Advantages and Authorities and the universal Practice of it attested by more VVriters which yet after all never generally obtained in the Church and was indeed disused in all Ages I mean the case of Bigamists who by an early custom of the Church begun before the end of the Second Century were excluded from the Clergy This Exclusion is commanded by the Apostolick Canons by the Apostolick Constitutions by St. Basil's Canonical Epistle to Amphilochius by the Councils of Valence Agatha Fourth of Arles Third of Constantinople of Rome under Pope Hilarus of Aquisgran and infinite others by the Popes Siricius Innocent Leo Gelasius and Gregory Tertullian saith The Ordination of Bigamists is forbidden by Apostolical Tradition and the Discipline of the Church Origen affirmeth that in his time Bishops Priests and Deacons could not be Bigamists St. Ambrose asserts this Prohibition to have been confirmed by the Council of Nice Pope Innocent saith No question ought to be made of it it being manifestly of Divine Institution Pope Leo That this Precept was ever held sacred and that n●…ither Law nor Gospel will permit such to be admitted into the Clergy Epiphanius In truth the holy Command of God after the coming of Christ receives not into the Clergy those who after the death of their first Wife contract a second Marriage St. Hierom A Bigamist cannot be chosen into the Clergy and A Layman is not chosen into the Clergy if he be a Bigamist St. Augustin It is not lawful to ordain any but the Husbands of one Wife Hilary the Deacon No Bigamist is ordained And by all the same Authorities he who hath kept a Concubine is made uncapable of the Clergy After so many and so great Authorities the common Tradition of both Churches Command of General Councils and Belief of Divine Institution all which Advantages the Celibacy of the Clergy wanted who can imagin any otherwise than that this point of Discipline was ●…niversally received and practised without exception or limitation yet nothing less Textullian objects this to the Catholicks as a main argument of his Separation and Departure to the Montanists that they admitted Bigamists even to the Episcopal Dignity Among you saith he how many Bigamists preside And when Theodoret ordained Count Irenaeus a Bigamist then in Disfavour at Court Bishop of Tyre and his Enemies laid hold of that pretence to accuse him of the Violation of the Canons he defends himself by the Authority of all the Bishops of Phoenicia who gave their Suffrage to the Ordination by the Example and Tradition of his Predecessours by the Examples of Alexander Patriarch of Antioch and Praylius of Hierusalem who had ordained Bishops Diogenes and Domninus both Digamists that he followed herein custom and famous Men celebrated for their Knowledge and Piety and that Proclus Patriarch of Constantinople the Metropolitans of Pontus and all the Bishops of Palestine had not only allowed but also commended this Ordination and not the least doubt made of the lawfulness of it Lastly St. Augustin was ordained Bishop of Hippo by the common Consent of all the Bishops of Africa who had far exceeded the supposed Scandal of Digamy by an open Cohabitation of two Concubines successively And which deserved the first place St. Hierom answering the doubt of Oceanus whether Carterius a Digamist were Canonically ordained Bishop saith I wonder you produced the example of no more than one whenas the whole World is full of these Ordinations I speak not of Priests nor of the inferiour Orders I come to Bishops whom if I should name singly so great a number would arise that the multitude of the Synod of Ariminum the most numerous Council which had been then held would be exceeded That the Laws of Celibacy were no less disobeyed and all the antient Testimonies of the universal Practice of it are no less wide mistakes I come next to prove and will begin with the Eastern Church St. Athanasius not long after the Council of Nice writing to Dracontius a Holy Monk rebukes him for declining the Episcopal Office and refutes the Reasons of his Refusal the chief of which
the Clergy the use of Marriage appeareth from the Decretal of Pope Stephen cited by Gratian in these words The Tradition of the Eastern Churches is different from that of the holy Church of Rome For in them Priests Deacons and Subdeacons are joyned in Marriage Matrimonio copulantur i. e. enjoy the use of Marriage as Mendoza hath learnedly proved the meaning of those words to be But in this or the Western Churches none of the Clergy from a Subdeacon to a Bishop hath liberty to use Marriage Here the Pope expresly confesseth the use of Marriage by the Clergy to have been always the Tradition and Practice of the Eastern Church And if so it must have been also sometimes of the Western For being never practised in the East it could not be of Apostolical institution and therefore must have been introduced in the West by some subsequent Decree of the Church This was the state of Celibacy in the Christian Church for the first thousand years No-where imposed in the better and purer Ages of Christianity introduced into the Roman Patriarchate by a rash Pope commanded by many Provincial Councils of the West but in no place universally observed the imposition of it always disused and at last condemned in the Eastern Church and the practice of it in these latter Ages become obsolete in the West It will not now be amiss to look back a little and make some Observations upon the Authors and advance of Celibacy whereby we may the better judge how far the Authority and Example of those times ought herein to influence and direct the practice of the present Age. First then the Celibacy of the Clergy was hitherto esteemed by all a matter of meer Discipline first introduced for reasons of Decency Convenience and supposed Edification which have not only long since ceased but Celibacy is now become a Snare to the Clergy and a Scandal to the whole Church So that the obligation of the Laws of Celibacy even in those particular Churches where it was antiently introduced and commanded have long since ceased The pretence of Divine or Apostolical Institution was not heard of till the days of Hildebrand and is but faintly maintained in these times That the antient Imposers of Celibacy never thought of this pretence is evident because they never made that plea. This we before observed particularly of the Decrees of Siricius and Innocent and may be affirmed of all Popes and Councils which favoured or commanded Celibacy in those times Not to say that some Councils as the Quinisext II. of Toledo and others expresly acknowledge the permission of Marriage to the Clergy to be of Apostolical Institution II. The Example of the antient Church in this case is not only not conclusive but even of no authority it neither necessitates nor recommends Celibacy to the present Church For all the deference which we ow to the Authority and Example of these times proceeds from a probable supposition that the antient Church had greater and better opportunities of knowing the mind of Christ the intentions of the Apostles and the exigences of the Church than the present Age can pretend to as being more removed from the Fountains head and animated with a less vigorous and impartial zeal for the knowledge of Truth and increase of Piety But when this supposition becomes not only improbable but is evidently false when we are assured the practice of the antient Church was occasioned and introduced by prejudices and mistakes false notions of Piety and gross errours about the nature of things imitation would not only be not laudable but even foolish and perhaps unlawful lest the continuance of such a practice should uphold the errours which first produced it At least when these mistakes are discovered these prejudices removed the authority of this example will vanish with them That this was the case of Celibacy in the antient Church we have all along observed and proved and need not here repeat our Arguments III. If we should allow the usage of the antient Church ●…o be in all cases a Rule and Pattern to the present Age yet will Celibacy receive no advantage from it The Marriage of the Clergy may put in a larger and much better Plea of antiquity as being able to produce the practice of the Universal Church in the four first Ages of Christianity of the whole Eastern and many parts of the Western Church to this day and alledge the Suffrage of two General Councils the first and fourth which confirmed and allowed it Whereas the imposition of Celibacy was unknown to the first and better Ages not universally practised in the latter rejected by one and condemned by another General Council and never confirmed by other than Provincial Synods whose Acts may be annulled and Decrees abolished by the single authority of any particular Church And certainly if what most of our Adversaries pretend the tradition and practice of the present Universal Church be the only certain method of knowing the Opinion and Doctrine of all precedent Ages the lawfulness and convenience of the Clergies Marriage must have been the belief of the antient Church since all the Eastern Churches the greatest part of the Universal Church not to speak of the Reformed Churches in the West do at this day permit the use of Marriage to the Clergy and maintain the impositio●… of Celibacy to be unlawful Which also is no small prejudice to the cause of the Church of Rome if there be any truth or solidity in that grand Argument of our Adversaries that in the case of two dissenting Churches when the one openly condemneth the practice of the other and receiveth not the same severe Sentence from her Adversary Truth and Justice must necessarily ly on that side For however the Greek Church hath always condemned as impious and unjust the imposition of Celibacy in the Latin Church the Latines never dared to return the same Sentence upon the permission of Marriage to the Clergy in the Greek Church Rather the practice of the Eastern Church hath been allowed and ratified by the publick Authority of the Church of Rome For to omit the great Later an Council under Pope Innocent the Third wherein our Adversaries confess that permission of Marriage was continued to the Greek Priests thus Pope Nicolas the First answered to the Inquiry of the Bulgarians You ask whether you ought to maintain and honour a Priest having a Wife or to remove him from you To which we answer That although they be very blameable you ought not to cast them off And Bellarmine acknowledgeth that although the Roman Church approves not herein the practice of the Greek Church and judgeth it to be an abuse yet she permits it to the Greeks so that if they had no other errours a Peace might easily be accorded between the two Churches IV. The practice of the ancient Church in the imposition of Celibacy was various and divers and consequently neither Celibacy it self
A TREATISE OF THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY WHEREIN ITS Rise and Progress Are Historically Considered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan Haeres XLIII in init LONDON Printed by H. Clark for James Adamson at the Angel and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1688. THE PREFACE AMong the Errours and Corruptions of the Church of Rome there are such which have neither any foundation nor shew of Antiquity but are the meer Inventions of latter ignorant and barbarous Ages Others which obtained not indeed in the Ancient Church but arose from the degeneracy of some Belief or Corruptiin of some Practice received and used by the Ancient Christians Of the first sort are Transubstantiation Half-Communion Supremacy of the Pope Worship of Images and the like groundless Opinions and Practices which the Antient Church never thought of much less admitted Of the latter kind are Invocation of Saints which arose from an extraordinary Veneration paid to the Memory and Reliques of blessed Saints and Martyrs degenerating in latter Ages into downright Superstition and Impiety Purgatory advanced from a Belief generally received in the Ancient Church that the Souls of the departed are not admitted to the beatisical Vision before the Day of Judgment into a foolish Opinion of a Fictitious Place of Torment which might receive them in that interval of time And Infallibility of Councils raised from an external Submission of ancient Christians to their Decrees into an Obligation of yielding an internal Assent to their Definitions The Beginnings and Rise of the Errours of the sirst sort are unknown and uncertain as being founded in dark and ignorant Ages whose Actions are now no less obscure than were then their Notions But the latter sort admit a more clear and more certain Knowledge Their several Steps Progresses and Gradations may without much difficulty be traced out and exposed to the view of all Mankind as hath been often done by the Divines of the Reformed Churches But the most eminent Instance of the latter kind is the Imposition of Celibacy in the Church of Rome which arose from an immoderate affection and reverence of Virginity in the Ancient Universal Church and Example of many particular Churches Upon which account I may boldly affirm that the Imposition of Celibacy hath greater advantages to recommend and justifie it to the World than any other erroneous Practice or Opinion of the Church of Rome whatsoever Many others indeed proceeded from the Imitation and Advancement of some Ancient Doctrine or Practice But then that Practice degenerated into Abuse and that Doctrine was advanced into Errour Whereas the Imposition of Celibacy can plead not only the Countenance and Resemblance of Antient Times but produce the Examples and Authorities of Popes Councils and Doctors who anciently imposed Celibacy upon the Clergy and urged the Imposition of it with no less fervour than it is at this day continued in the Church of Rome However Celibacy be confirmed by these Great Authorities and recommended by this peculiar advantage of Undoubted Antiquity few Divines of our Church have handled this Controversie or endeavoured to shew the inclusiveness of those Authorities and weakness of this Antiquity Some few have produced Authorities of the Antient Writers in Favour of the contrary Practice or in treating of other Arguments have briefly touched of it and all have passed it over in a few Words as a Matter of less Moment At least none that I know of have handled this Controversie in a particular Treatise nor shewn the Beginnings Occasions Advances and Success of the Imposition of Celibacy in the several Ages of the Church This Enquiry hath been omitted not because Truth is wanting to our Side or the whole Stream of Antiquity runs contrary to us but because this is one of the less Momentous Controversies and our Clergy whose peculiar Glory it is to be less solicitous of their Interest even in things lawful and indifferent declined the Controversie least in pleading for the lawfulness of Marriage and they should be thought by a Censorious World to plead for their own Passions and Inclinations and perhaps Practice too To supply this Defect is the Design of this Treatise to vindicate the injured Cause of Marriage and shew that the Antient Esteem of Celibacy was neither Rational nor Universal that both Antient and Modern Imposition of it is unlawful and that the Antient use of it is no reasonable nor necessary President of the Modern Practice of it to shew the Occasions of that Esteem and Beginnings of this Imposition and carry the History of the Celibacy and Marriage of the Clergy through the several Ages of the Church This I have here undertaken and as I hope in some measure performed perhaps with so much the better Success because induced by no Prejudices nor pleading for any peculiar Interests For the Reader may be assured that the Author of this Treatise hath neither experienced the Pleasures of Marriage nor hath the Honour to be a Priest of the Church of England It may not be amiss because our Adversaries commonly object to us falsifying of Citations and borrowing them from one another a Crime which the Romish Priests of England are truly guilty of perhaps therein to be excused because the badness of their Cause requireth the former and their own Ignorance necessitates the latter 〈◊〉 farther to advertise the Reader that of all the Citations which he shall find in this Treatise no one is taken up at the second hand for the first 1300. years and after that time no more than three Writers cited upon the Faith of others viz. Alvarus Pelagius Panormitan and Polydor Virgil whose Writings I had not then by me nor had any opportunity to consult A TREATISE OF THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY WHEREIN Its Rise and Progress are Historically Considered VIrginity is a thing so plausible and if true so venerable so countenanced by Antiquity and admir'd by the Unthinking Multitude so highly subservient to the Secular Interest and outward Grandeur of the Clergy That among all the Artifices wherewith the Church of Rome upholds a sinking and decaying Cause it is no wonder if She more especially make use of this It might justly deserve our reverence and excite our Emulation if her Clergy made good their glorious Pretences of Virginity by a real and unspotted Chastity But since when we departed from the Church of Rome we resumed that ancient priviledge of Mankind of believing our Senses since Reason and Revelation assures us that so great a part of Mankind cannot and Experience demonstrates that it doth not enjoy a Perfection so extraordinary since an enforced Vertue and servile Piety is neither acceptable to God nor venerable to Men We slight their Virginity because impos'd and do not believe it because we do not see it The Plea indeed of Antiquity is not only specious but in some measure true In the Ancient Church they retained an infinite esteem and veneration for Virginity Many extolled it as the glory and
wherewith the Antients were induced to make this Constitution are not only now ceased but are even become opposite For first we see that by this Decree Chastity and Continence is so far from being promoted in the Clergy that thereby a door is rather opened to all kind of Lust and Villany and Coveteousness in the Clergy so far from being restrained by it that it seems hence to have received no small encrease II. To Confute our Adversaries pretence of Antiquity and establish my Design it is sufficient to produce the Authority of some Fathers who thought the Imposition of Celibacy unlawful or inconvenient to the Church to alledge the Testimony of some Historians assuring us that Marriage was in their Time used indifferently by the Clergy and propose the Examples of some Married Clergy Althogh some Fathers and Writers were of a contrary Opinion or the greater part of the Clergy perhaps practised Celibacy For this will undeniably prove that both Marriage and Celibacy were left indifferent to all that neither was a Point of Faith an Institution of Christ or his Apostles or a matter of Universal Practice Whereas our Adversaries pretending herein to an uninterrupted Tradition and constant Practice of the whole Church in all Ages must to that end produce a perfect consent of all Doctors Historians and Writers and an universal Practice of all Times If any one Writer occur not condemned or any one Example not censured by the Church the Plea of Tradition must fall Some indeed of the Roman Church as Erasmus and Cassander pretended not to so Universal a Tradition and Practice but then they were so far from Defending the present Constitutions of the Church of Rome by the Authority of the Antients that they were open Enemies to the Imposinion of Celibacy However the Dissent of ancient Doctors and Councils and the diverse Practices of private Clergymen will manifestly demonstrate that Celibacy was neither universally imposed nor practised in the Ancient Church as it is at this day in the Church of Rome but that as well as Marriage left indifferent both to Clergy and Laity if not in some particular Provinces yet at least in the Universal Church III. The numbers of the Married Clergy in the Ancient Church ought not to be estimated only from the accounts of them which we find in Ecclesiastical History of Monuments of Antiquity For the Relation of Wives or Children add neither Ornament nor Use to History nor have any part in it unless upon extraordinary occasions which rarely happen It concerns not Posterity to know whether Aristotle or Plato were Married since neither Marriage nor Celibacy will inhaunce their Vertue or diminish their Worth. And if mention of Wives be rarely found in Civil much less will it in Ecclesiastical History For Women sometimes bear a share in Civil Matters but in publick Acts of Religion and Affairs of the Church it is even unlawful for them to intermeddle So that if but a few Examples of Marriage in the Clergy of the Ancient Church can be produced we may thence reasonably conclude that the Married Clergy were then very numerous IV. The Reader may observe that almost all those places which we shall produce out of the Ancient Doctors for the lawfulness of Marriage in the Clergy and against the Imposition of it are taken either from their dogmatical Treatises which were written deliberately and in a sedate temper of Mind or from their Harangues of Virginity where the very force of Truth extorted from them those Confessions Whereas the Testimonies made use of by our Adversaries for the Necessity or Convenience of Celibacy in the Clergy are for the most part drawn either from these Encomiastick Discourses of Virginity where they employed all the force of their Eloquence to magnisie the Merits of that State and recommend it to the World or from their Polemick Writings against the Adversaries of Celibacy wherein they were more intent to Destroy Errour than Establish Truth And no wonder if in both these Occasions corrupted with Prejudice or transported with Passion they bent the Bow to much and receded from that Exactness of Truth which is seated in the middle way To these Observations I may add the Confession of many Great Men in the Church of Rome who allow Celibacy neither to have been imposed nor universally practised in the Antient Church To pass by then Cassander Erasmus and the more moderate Divines of that Church I will produce only Gratian and Mendosa the last of which acknowledgeth that Marriage was always allowed to the Clergy and every where thought indifferent till forbidden by the Council of Illiberis in the Fourth Age the first goeth further in these words From this Authority an Epistle of Pope Pelagius in the Sixth Age it appeareth that the Clergy of the aforementioned Order Priests Deacons and Sub-deacons might then lawfully use Marriage And in the time of the Council of Ancyra in the Fourth Age the Continence of the Ministers of the Altar was not yet introduced Although perhaps by this last Passage only Deacons and Subdeacons are understood However in another place he speaks more generally When therefore we read that the Sons of the Clergy are promoted to be Popes or Bishops they are not to be thought to have been born of Fornication but of lawful Marriage which was every where permitted to the Clergy before the prohibition and is to this day permitted to them in the Eastern Church Having premised these few preliminary Observations I proceed to Matter of Fact and begin with the Apostles than whom none better knew the intention of their Master or the convenience of the Church and were the best Pattern of the Clergy for all future Ages St. Basil seems to have believed that all the Apostles were married where speaking of the excellency of of Marriage he brings in the Example of Peter and the rest of the Apostles The Interpolater of Ignatius his Epistles who lived in the beginning of the Sixth Age in like manner produceth the Examples of Peter Paul and the other Apostles or as the Latin Translator antienter than Ado Viennensis who flourished in the year 875. renders it the rest of the Apostles The Author of the Commentary upon the Epistles of St. Paul in St. Ambrose's Works who was Hilary a Deacon of Rome excepts St. Paul and St. John and affirms all the rest to have been married That St. Peter was married we are assured by the Authority of the Holy Scripture That he had a Daughter by her the antient Book of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Travels writ before the times of Origen manifest to whom the latter Legendary Writers give the name of Petronilla St. Peter is kniwn to have had a Wife and the begitting of Children hindred him not from obtaining precedency among the Apostles saith the abovementioned Hilary in his Questions upon both Testaments falsly ascribed to St. Austin For that he was
seem to accuse Marriage as if he thought the lawful pleasures of it to be impious The same saith Zonaras upon this Canon This was also the occasion of the like Precept in the Apostolick Constitutions a Work of the same Age and Authority with the Canons where the Apostles are introduced thus speaking He which maketh a Vow of Virginity which we leave to every ones choice only advise that it be not done rashly and lightly let him demonstrate his profession to be sincere and undertaken for a better opportunity of Piety not for dislike of Marriage The same Precept may be found in the interpolated Epistle of St. Ignatius to the Philadelphinas But what clears the Matter beyond all doubt is that when the Council of Nice rejected the motion of those who proposed a total Celibacy of the Clergy and upon the persuasions of Paphnutius permitted to them the use of Wives married before Ordination they formed a Decree to that purpose in the very words of this Apostolick Canon That the Clergy ought not every one to put away his Wife In the beginning of the Fourth Age Celibacy received great Advances from the increase of Errours and Prejudices taken up in the former Age and the length and a sharpness of the last Prosecution begun by Dioclesian and continued by Maximus and Licinius which infused melancholy thoughts into all Christians and an unusual reverence for all shews of Austerity and Mortification Then was Marriage first forbidden to Priests and Bishops after Ordination by a judiciary Act of the Church but that formed in a Provincial and inconsiderable Council whose Canons were never taken notice of or ratified by any subsequent Councils or even Popes till the midst of the Ninth Age I mean the Council of Neocasarea which in the year 314. made this Canon If a Presbyter marry let him be deposed from his Order but if he commit Fornication or Adultery let him be cast out of the Church and put to Penance Where it may be observed 1. That this Canon forbids not the use of Wives married before Ordination 2. That it forbids not to Deacons and Subdeacons to contract Marriage even after Ordination 3. That it manifestly distinguisheth between Fornication and Marriage after Ordination 4. That it doth not command a Separation from Wives so Married but only a dimission of the holy Office. However the pretentions of Celibacy received no small check from the Council of Ancyra held the same year A Council of far greater Esteem and Authority which was ratified and confirmed by many subsequent Councils and Popes particularly by Leo the First and whose Canons were received into the antient Code of Canons in the Primitive Church The Fathers of this Council considering the inconveniencies of forced Celibacy and right which all men have to Marriage Decreed That if Deacons yet unmarried protested of the time of their Ordination their intentions and necessity of Marrying as not being able to continue Unmarried they might Marry after their Ordination and continue in their Office. But if they made no such Protestation of their Ordination and afterwards Married they should relinquish their Office. The pretentions of Baronius and Binius that in both Cases Deacons Marrying after their Ordination were obliged to lay down their Office deserveth not to be considered since nothing could be invented more directly contrary to the plain words of the Canon It is more considerable that Aristenus extends this Canon also to Presbyters reading it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and affirms that by vertue of it both Presbyters and Deacons were always allowed Marriage in the Greek Church after Ordination if they had not neglected to make their Ptotestation till this Permission was repealed by the Quinisext Council in the year 692. That this Canon took place in the Western Church appears not particularly except from the universal approbation of the Acts of this Ancyran Council although somewhat like it was enacted in the Eleventh Council of Toledo in the year 531. To which we may add what Sir H. Spelman relates in the British Councils that Restitutus Bishop of London returning from the Council of Arles in the year 314. brought with him into England the Canons of that Council amongst which one was this very Canon of the Council of Ancyra Indeed no such Canon is now found in the Acts of the Council of Arles published by Sirmond but then we are to remember that these Acts are not intire and perhaps not genuin The Decree of Ancyra was indeed favourable to the Marriage of the Clergy but the restless Importunities and scandalous Practices of the Sectatours of Celibacy obliged the Church to proceed yet farther and declare it self more openly in favour of their Marriage For Eustathius Bishop of Sebastea in Armenia and first Founder of a Monastick Life in Armenia and Cappadocia had formed a new but then plausible Heresie that Holy Things and the Sacraments of the Church ought not to be Administred by the married Clergy and that the People ought not to communicate from their hands With this Doctrine he had drawn great numbers into Schism and created no small disturbance in the Church Upon which account the Council of Gangra met about the year 324. who condemning this Hercsie and deposing the Author of it published this following Canon If any one separates from a married Priest as if it were unlawful to communicate when he officiates let him be Anathema A Canon the more considerable for the Authority of the Council which made it For this was ever most reputed of all particular Councils in the antient Church confirmed by many general Councils and Popes and recieved into the antient Code of Canons This was the Progress and Condition of Celibacy in the Eastern Church before the Council of Nice In the West if we except perhaps that of Arles for the Roman Synods under Pope Sylvester are confessedly spurious no Councils had determined any thing in it but that of Eliberis in the year 305. which ordained that Bishops Priests and Deacons and all the Clergy placed in the Ministry or while they Minister should abstain from their Wiues and not attend to procreation If any doth let him be deposed from the Order of the Clergy Here to pass by the Opinion of those mentioned by Albas Pinae●…s who expounded the words of this Canon in their Grammatical Sense for the Latin runs thus We absolutely forbid the Clergy to abstain from their Wives in which case it will be coincident with the Fifth Apostolick Canon our Adversaries maintain that it is to be understood of a total abstinence of the Clergy from their Wives If we should grant this it would not much prejudice our Cause since this was that foolish Council which forbids Candles to be lighted in Church-yards in the day time least the Souls of the dead Saints should be disquieted a Council of so little Reputation that it never was
very same Cassidiorus in the like words and so do Ivo Carnotensis Gratian and Blastares and who is ancienter than them all except the two first Gelasius Cyzicenus who transcribed the Acts of that Council out of a Copy which had belonged to Dalmatius Bishop of Cycicum who was present in the Ephesine Council in the Year 431. So that they who doubt of the Truth of this History may with equal reason deny the Existence of the Nicene Council since both are attested with the same Authorities Yet is this done by many Writers of the Church of Rome particularly Barronius Bellarmine and especially Turrian whose trifling Arguments the Learned M●…ndosa relates and confutes More general and notorious hath been the fraud of the Church of Rome in pretending that the Third Canon of this Council made against the House-Keepers was directed against their Marriage Of this Imposture the Popes and Councils of the Eleventh Age made great use never failing to back their Decrees with the Authority of the Council of Nice The Canon is conceived in these words The Great Synod hath wholly forbidden to all Bishops Priests Deacons and all the Clergy to have a House-keeper unless she be a Mother or a Sister or an Aunt or those Persons only who are liable to no Suspicion That wives are not hereby forbidden to the Clergy would be impertinent to demonstrate if the unreasonableness of our Adversaries did not require it First then The Authority of all the Historians last mentioned prove this For if the Council had by this Canon forbid Wives to the Clergy the Advice of Paphnutius would not have been followed but rejected Secondly We before proved that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were a sort of Women far different from Wives who were never ranked in the number of them Thirdly The constant Practice of the Greek Church demonstrates it which ever allowed to the Clergy the society of their Wives from the Council of Nice to this day Fourthly Otherwise Marriage would have been forbidden to the Inferiour Orders also contrary to the Practice of the Universal Church in all Ages For the Canon after mention of Bishops Priests and Deacons subjoyns 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Prohibition to every one of the Clergy Fifthly The Emperor Theodosius Junior repeating and re-inforcing this very Canon after a Permission of the Cohabitation of Mothers Sisters or Aunts with the Clergy in the very words of the Canons subjoyns Those also chase love requireth not to be forsaken which were lawfully married before the Ordination of their Husbands For they are not unfittingly joyned to Clergymen who by their discreet Conversation made their Husbands worthy of the Priesthood And Balsamon thus Comments upon this Canon d Read the Canon of the Nicene Synod which forbid House-keepers to be retained By House-keepers the Canon which is the Third of that Synod meaneth Women taken into the houses of unmarried Clergymen and dwelling with them Lastly to omit the Confession of other Learned Romanists Mendoza not only granteth but proveth that in this Canon House-keepers were forbidden only to those Clergymen who never had married Wives or had lost them by death The Determination of the Council of Nice settled the Matter and put an end to the Controversie about Celibacy in the Eastern Church Thence forward is a profound Silence in the Acts of the Eastern Synods concerning the Marriage or Celibacy of the Clergy till the Quiniext Council in the Year 692. where Bishops were forbidden the Use of Marriage which till then was permitted to them as well as to the inferiour Clergy Of that Council we shall speak more largely hereafter In the mean while the general Custom which obtained in the Eastern Church of permitting to the Clergy the Use of Marriage contracted before but not after Ordination received some little variation Three several ways which deserve to be next observed First then A total abstinence of the Clergy from their Wives was introduced into the Province of Thessaly by Heliodorus Bishop of Trica under the Reign of Arcadius in the end of the Fourth or beginning of the Fifth Age. So that the Clergy accompanying with their Wives after Ordination were deposed The same Custom obtained in the Provinces of Thessalonica Achaia and Macedonia in the time of Socrates in the middle of the Fifth Age but in no other Part of the Eastern Church as he obesrveth How long this Custom continued in any of these Provinces is uncertain Secondly Towards the end of the Fourth Age it became very usual for Bishops both in the Eastern and Western Church when they were assumed to that Dignity publickly to Vow perpetual Abstinence from their Wives This they did voluntarily not necessitated to it by any Law as Socrates observeth that they might raise to themselves the greater Reputation of Holiness among the People and equal the supposed Continence of unmarried Bishops In this case it was not permitted to them to return to the embraces of their Wives If they did the Fact was esteemed Scandalous and sometimes punished with the Censures of the Church Thus among the Seven Heads of Accusation for which Antoninus Bishop of Ephesus was deposed by St. Chrysostome in a Synod in the Year 400. one was That after he had vowed Abstinence from his Wife he accompanied with her again and had Children by her Thus Urbicus Bishop of Clermont in France about the same time vowing Continence at his Consecration and afterwards begetting a Daughter of his Wife did voluntary Penance for it For this reason also Macliau Bishop of Vannes was Excomunicated by the Bishops of Bretagne for that having when persecuted by his Brother Chanao Prince of Bretagne fled to Vannes and there disguising himself professed Chastity and afterwards made Bishop he had upon the Death of his Brother resumed his Wife together with the Principality Thirdly which is most considerable A Custom was afterwards introduced in the Eastern Church whereby It was lawful to use the words of Blastares for Priests any time within Ten years to be reckoned from their Ordination to marry lawful Wives This Custom continued till the end of the Ninth Age when it was repealed by Leo the Emperor from whose Constitution it appears that this Custom was then become Universal although that instead of Ten years reads Two years In the Western Church the cause of Celibacy lay dormant till the end of the Fifth Age neither countenanced nor opposed by any publick Constitutions of the Church However in the mean while it gained infinite Veneration in the minds of Men and thereby made way for a publick Imposition of it This was attempted by Pope Siricius in the Year 385. a simple Pope as St. Hierome A Man of inconsiderate Zeal as Sacchinus the Jesuite calls him He in an Epistle to Himerius Bishop of Tarragon in Spain dated this Year after a long Harrangue against the Clergies Use
Clergy He commandeth Priests and Deacons for Subdeacons he mentions not who abstained not from their Wives in Obedience to the Constitution of Siricius to be deposed except perhaps they had been ignorant of the Constitution For in that case he would only have them obliged to Continence for the future That these and indeed all the first Twenty Six Epistles of this Pope are spurious many learned Men have endeavoured to prove with many Arguments But I will not insist on that It is not improbable that he made such a Decree Celibacy was then fitted to the Genius of the Age and particularly of the See of Rome After Innocent Pope Leo I. carried on the Design yet further and in an Epistle to Anastasius Bishop of Thessalonica forbid the use of Marriage to Subdeacons also thereby perfecting the System of Celibacy at this Day used in the Church of Rome The same Constitution he re-inforced in an Epistle to Rusticus Bishop of Narbon prescribing the same Law of Continence to the Ministers of the Altar viz. Deacons and Subdeacons as to Bishops and Priests These were the Decrees of the Popes of R●…me which were o●…t-times renewed and sometimes relaxed by the following Popes As for the Western Councils of this and the following Ages they were all Provincial and pretended to no Authority out of their own Provinces The Council of Orange was the first which ever imposed total Abstinence upon the Clergy It was a Convention of no more than Seventeen Bishops in the Year 441. who then made this Canon If any one after he hath received Deacons Orders be found incontinent with his Wife Let him be deposed from his Office. Providing in the following Canon that this Punishment extend not to those who had retained the use of their Wives before this Canon was made Whence it may be gathered that total Abstinence was not yet enjoyned to the Clergy of the Gallican Church by any Publick Authority and that the Decrees of Pope Innocent directed to the Bishops of Roan and Tholouse as acting out of his own Patriarchat had not been received The Second Council of Arles in the Year 452. comes next which in the Second Canon forbids any married Man to be ordained Priest who doth not vow Continence in the Forty Third Canon extends the same to Deacons in the Forty Fourth Canon forbids to Deacons the use of Marriage in the Words of the Council of Orange in the Third Canon forbids Bishops Priests and Deacons to keep their VVives with them in the same House unless they also have vowed Continence upon pain of Excommunication This Punishment was thought too great and was therefore moderated by the First Council of Tours A. D. 461. who enjoyning total Abstinence from their VVives to Priests and Deacons enact withal That if any Priest or Deacon use the Company of his VVife he be not excommunicated but only reduced to Lay-Communion In the year 506. the Council of Agatha received and confirmed the Constitutions of Siricius and Innocent about the Continence of Priests and Deacons and further enjoyn that their VVives be not permitted to dwell with them although they also promise Continence In the year 531. the Second Council of Toledo decreed That those who from their Childhood were by their Parents dedicated to the Holy Office and were to that end brought up at the Charge of the Church should when they came to the Age of Eighteen be asked publickly by the Bishop in the face of the Church VVhether they were willing to oblige themselves never to marry If they were then they might be ordained Subdeacons and gradually arise to the higher Offices of the Church If not then they might have leave to marry and whensoever both married Parties should promise Continence the Husband should be received into Orders Here is the first mention of a Vow of Continence exacted of those that were to be ordained that can be found in Ecclesiastical History And here also it was first forbidden to Subdeacons to marry VVives after their Ordination for this concerned not those Subdeacons who married before Ordination whereas in all the precedent Councils it was left free to Subdeacons as well as to the other inferiour Orders to enjoy their Wives married either before or after their Ordination to that Office. The Council of Clermont Anno 535. complaining that many Priests and Deacons notwithstanding the Prohibition of the Church had used the Company of their Wives and begotten Children of them commands all such to be degraded from their Office. The Fourth Council of Orleans in the year 541. ordered That Priests and Deacons should not be permitted to dwell with their Wives upon pain of Deposition thereby to take away ever all suspicion of forbidden Commerce The Third Council of Orleans had before in the year 538. forbid the use of Marriage not only to Priests and Deacons but also to Subdeacons The Fifth Council of Orleans commands all Clergy-men of whatsoever Dignity or Order who return to the Embraces of their Wives after Ordination to be for ever degraded and reduced to Lay-Communion The Council of Auxerre in the year 578. enjoyn Priests Deacons and Subdeacons upon pain of Deprivation not to accompany with their Wives calling that a carnal Sin. The First Council of Mascon in the year 581. repeat and renew the Canon of the Council of Clermont The Third Council of Lyons in the year 583. forbids the use of Marriage to Bishops Priests Deacons and Subdeacons and the cohabitation of their Wives to the three first Orders In a French Council about the year 620. all Marriage and cohabitation of Women was forbidden to Priests and Deacons In the Fourth Council of Toledo Anno 633. it was ordered That Priests and Deacons should promise Continence before their Bishop when they were inducted into their Livings and Preferments The Eighth Council of Toledo in the year 653. laments the Obstinacy of many Priests and Deacons retaining their Wives and even marrying after Ordination against the Canons of the Church and severely forbids it for the future In the year 868. the Council of Worms commanded Bishops Priests Deacons and Subdeacons to abstain from their Wives upon pain of Deprivation Many other Councils between the year 600 and a 1000. forbid the Cohabitation of all Women and consequently also of VVives to the Clergy And many others permit only Mothers Sisters and Aunts to dwell with the Clergy rejecting all other VVomen under the Name of Extraneae wherein they seem to have mistaken the meaning of the Third Canon of the Council of Nice Lastly some Councils proceeded so far as to inhibit to the Clergy the Cohabitation of all VVomen whatsoever even Mothers Sisters Aunts and the nearest Relations permitted by the Council of Nice Thus did the Council of Mentz in the year 888. observing that some Priests had committed Incest with their own Sisters see
conformity to the custom of the Church of Rome Which seemeth hard and unmeet to me that he who is not used to such Continency and never before promised Chastity should be compelled to be separated from his Wife He makes no mention of Leo's Decree rather owns that Celibacy was not commanded to the Subdeacons of Sicily before Pelagius his Constitution but expresly asserts that Celibacy was not before then used by them and that then they first began to abstain from their Wives The Isle of Corsica was never subject to the Roman Patriarchat as appears from an antient Notitia of the several Patriarchats of the Church published by the learned Dr. Beverege and from Nilus Doxopatrius and therefore neither received nor were obliged by either the Constitutions of Popes about Celibacy or the Canons of those Provincial Councils before mentioned wherein none of their Bishops were present Upon this account Pope Gregory I. expresly allows to the Clergy of Corsica the use of Marriage We will saith he that the Priests Sacerdotes by which word Bishops as well as Presbyters are designed which dwell in Corsica be forbidden to converse with Women except only a Mother Sister or Wife who ought to be chastly govern'd That the Church of Milan was not subject to the Roman Patriarchat is fully proved by a Learned Divine of our Church And this was the reason why when once the voluntary Zeal of Celibacy which had possessed the Clergy of Milan in the time of St. Ambrose grew cold and expired Marriage was publickly used by the Clerg●… of that Church without any Interruption till the times of Hildebrand as we shall hereafter occasionally shew The same was the Case of the Church of England which owing no Obedience to the antient Papal Constitutions and not intermedling in the Councils which decreed Celibacy retained to her Clergy the free use of Marriage till by the Procurement and Artifices of Anselm she forbid it in a National Synod in the Twelfth Century as we shall hereafter more largely prove This was the Case of Celibacy in those Provinces which were not influenced by the Authority of the Roman Patriarch nor had obliged themselves by any Synodical Act. Let us now view the State of those Provinces which were the Stage of those several Councils we before numbred viz. Spain France and Germany in the Ninth Age. That the so often repeated Canons of the Spanish Councils were unsuccessful appears from St. Isidore Bishop of Sevil about the year 600. who in his Book of Ecclesiastical Offices describing the several Duties of the Clergy saith Let Clergymen endeavour perpetually to preserve the Chastity of their Bodies inviolable or at least be joyned with the Bond of one Marriage And indeed how hardly the inferiour Clergy of Spain brooked the necessity of Celibacy imposed on them by their Bishops in several Synods is evident from the Policy of Veitiza King of Spain in the year 702. who conscious of his own Wickedness and Tyranny and fearing the Clergy in revenge of it might excite the Populacy to take up Arms and dethrone him resolved to oblige the Clergy and gain their affections by some extraordinary Favour which might be received by them with universal Applause and therefore by publick Edict gave them Liberty to marry Wives or retain them already married In the Churches of France and Germany Celibacy most certainly was not universally practised by the Clergy in the end of the Eighth Age when Pope Adrian offered to Charles the Great his Collection of Canons fitted for the Government of the Churches in his Kingdoms The Sixth Canon of that Collection is taken out of the Apostolick Canons and is conceived in these words Let not a Presbyter put his Wife out of his Eamily but chastly govern her As for France Boniface Archbishop of Mentz and Pope Zachary's Legat there had complained not many years before That the Episcopal Sees were for the most part bestowed upon Adulterate Clergymen For so he calls the married Clergy The universal freedom of Marriage which the German Clergy pressed in the times of Hildebrand argue the Canons of the Council of Worms Mentz and Metz in the Ninth Age to have been unsuccessful and never fully received in that Church Nay at the same time a Famous Bishop of Germany who lived and died with the reputation of a Saint did strongly oppose all imposition of Celibacy This was Huldericus or Udalricus Bishop of Augspurg who in his Epistle to Pope Nicholas I. demonstrates to him the Injustice of his Decree against the Marriage of the Clergy and persuades him to revoke it No such Decree indeed of Nicholas is now extant however Gratian citeth a Decretal Epistle of his to Odo Archbishop of Vien wherein he forbids Marriage to the Four Superiour Orders of the Clergy As for the Decree against hearing the Masses of married Priests which Gratian produceth in the next Chapter that most certainly belongeth to Nicholas II. although the last Collectors of the Councils have ranked it among the Decrees of Nicholas I. Most probably then Nicholas had directed into Germany a Decretal of the same nature with that to Odo and sollicited the reception of it by his Emissaries whose Diligence and Artifices at last gained the Point in the Council of Worms the year after Nicholas his Death This Decree therefore Huldericus opposeth in a learned and passionate Epistle wherein he represents to the Pope that the Marriage of the Clergy is not only lawful in it self but ought necessarily to be permitted For that all cannot contain and that none ought to be necessitated to Incontinence That Marriage of the Cle●…gy was used in the Old Law left indifferent by Christ permitted by the Apostles countenanced by the ancient Canons of the Church and continued by the Council of Nice That the Imposition of Celibacy had produced in the Clergy the most enormous sorts of Lusts Incest Sodomy and the most exeerable Villanies That these Lusts were openly acted by those very Men who detested the chaste Marriage of the Clergy who when they could not contain themselves imposed it violently upon their Fellow-servants and were not ashamed to maintain that it is more honest to accompany with many Women in private than to be tied to one in the Face and View of Men. That nothing can be more unjust than when Christ saith He that is able to receive it let him receive it to oppose He that cannot receive it let him be Anathema That this is the Heresie which the Apostle of old foretold would arise in the later times speaking Lies in Hypocrisie and forbidding to marry That the Chastity which these Men so much pleaded for might no less be obtained in a married than in a single State and with less danger be preserved Here we may observe that the Champions of Celibacy in this Age had so far improved the antient Mistakes of the Impurity of Marriage that
are in no ways obliged to prove the Negative Marriage being not forbidden to the Clergy by the Moral Law and therefore to be esteemed Lawful to them till a manifest Prohibition shall be produced Bellarmine indeed urgeth that Precept of the Apostie Tit. 1. 8. that a Bishop be sober and temperate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But not to say that Bellarmine herein forsakes his own Principle and maketh Ceiibacy to be of Divine Institution since St. Paul speaketh this not only as one that had obtained Mercy of the Lord to be Faithful but also as an Apostle of Jesus Christ These words serve not the purpose as designing neither Continence nor Chastity but Abstinence from Drunkenness and Coveteousness and are opposed the first to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the second to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the former Verse Or if we should with St. Chrysostom interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place of an universal Temperance we must remember that such a Temperance is nothing else but a Moderation in the use of all lawful Pleasures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens Alex. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is universally Temperate not who abstaineth from all things but who moderately useth those things which he judgeth lawful Or Lastly if we should against all reason interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chast and Continent Yet the Fathers unanimously teach that these Vertues are not incompatible with the moderate use of Marriage as we shall prove hereafter In the mean while let it be observed that St. Paul reason'd before Faelix 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Righteousness and Temperance and yet cannot be supposed to have forbidden him the embraces of his Wife As for Bellarmine's other Text 2 Tim. 2. 4. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life It is sufficient these words are addressed not only to Clergymen but to all Christians Whether a Married state doth necessarily entangle Persons in the Affairs of this Life more then Celibacy shall be enquired hereafter We come now to that great Store-house of the Assertors of Celibacy the VII Chap. of the 1 Epist. to the Corinthians And here a few Observations might have prevented many Mistakes as first That the Apostle was so far from imposing Virginity upon any Order of Men that he seemeth to have foreseen the danger of such Mistakes and therefore to have inserted these Cautions of them But I speak this by permission and not of command Ye are bought with a price be not ye the servants of men And this I speak for your own profit not that I may cast a snare upon you Secondly To those who are already Married he adviseth not a total but a temporary Abstinence Defraud not one the other except it be with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer and come together again that Sata●… tempt you not for your incontinency Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called Art thou bound unto a wife seek not to be loosed Thirdly That of those who are already Unmarried he adviseth Virginity to them only who have the Gift of Continence Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his own heart having no necessity but hath power over his own will and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin he doth well I say therefore to the unmarried and widows it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain let them marry for it is better to marry than to burn Fourthly That this advice of Virginity was given not for the attainment of any greater merit but meerly for reasons of Convenience and the urgent Necessities of those times I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress Such shall have trouble in the flesh but I spare you But this I say brethren the time is short But I would have you without carefulness Fifthly That this Advice was directed not only to the Clergy but to all Christians in general The Apostle no where restrains his discourse to the former but all along addresseth himself to the whole multitude of Believers If any one of these Observations be true as they are all most certainly then no advantage can be drawn out of this Chapter for the cause of Celibacy now in Controversie But our Adversaries are not only destitute of Reason and Revelation in favour of this Opinion but we have also many strong Arguments against it For to pass by the greatest of all the Silence of Scripture and the contrary Practice of Antiquity the first manifested already the latter to be proved hereafter Many of the Greatest Divines of the Roman Church do expresly confess that the Celibacy of the Clergy is neither of Divine nor Apostolical Institution This all those Popes Councils and Doctors hereafter to be produced who allow the Marriage of Priests in the Greek Church to be lawful must have held unless they be supposed to have betrayed the Doctrine and Tradition of the Church All those Divines likewise who have admitted or allowed a total abrogation of the Laws of Celibacy could not believe it to have a Divine or Apostolical Original However I shall produce some few who expreslly denied it As first the Canon Law which may be looked upon as the sence of the whole Church of Rome for some Ages So then Gratian The Marriage of Priests is Forbidden neither by Legal nor Evangelical nor Apostolical Authority and yet is wholly Forbidden by the Ecclesiastical Law. And The Church after the Apostolical Institutions hath added some counsels of Perfection as that of the Continence of Ministers Joannes a Ludegna in a Speech made in the Council of Trent and Printed among the Acts of that Council determineth and largely proveth that the Celibacy of the Clergy is neither of Divine Right nor in any sence commanded by the Apostles but only advised by them And that if there was no Laws of the Church or Monastick Vows Priests or Monks might lawfully Marry Besides if the Opinion of those Divines be true who maintain that Christ superadded no Evangelical Counsels to the Moral Law Celibacy can be neither of Divine nor Apostolical Institution unless we suppose that the Apostles immediately adulterated that most pure and simple Religion which they had received from their Master And indeed this seemeth highly rational most consonant to the Honour of God and adapted to the Nature of Man. That Religion was most be●…itting the Wisdom of the Deity to prescribe for the last and most perfect Rule of Mankind which was most pure and simple And this seems to have been the great End of Christ's coming into the World to free us from the bondage of the Ceremonial Law and estate us in that perfect liberty if not of Will yet at least as to the objects of Choice in which we were at
the future Service of God. Such Cases did often happen in the Beginning of Christianity and the Times of Persecution but in the calm and flourishing estate of the Church are more rarely to be found So that in all others Chastity in the notion of a total Abstinence is a thing wholly indifferent even although such Abstinence should be true and perfect But alas the far greater part of Mankind are not capable of such an Abstinence which consisteth not only in the preserving the Body from actual Pollution and unlawful Pleasures for that may be a matter of Necessity as well as Choice and is common to thousands who shall never see the Glories of Heaven but also in refraining the Mind from the desires and even the thoughts of Uncleanness and preventing the circles of an inward Fire Such a Man may truly be said to retain a pure and unspotted Virginity but then I doubt that at the same time he will be the Phoenix of his Age. And then after all if he want either Abilities or a Will to employ himself in Vertue and the Service of God to greater advantage than he could have done in a Married state his Celibacy will be devoid of all merit and become wholly indifferent On the other side the conservation of a true Chastity is both possible and easie in Marriage if it be not frequent that ariseth from the corruption of Mankind not any desicience or imperfection of Marriage Now that Chastity and Continence may be here found and practised the Apostle assureth us when he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Marriage is honourable in all men and the bed uudefiled or impolluted directly contrary to Bellarmine's Proposition The Apostle is herein followed by almost all the Fathers I shall producce some of them and first the Great Paphnutius who when in the Council of Nice the Celibacy of the Clergy was proposed under the pretence of advancing Chastity pronounced the embraces of a lawful Wife to be Chastity and was therein applauded by the whole Council So Clemens Alex. Just Men under the Old Law begat Children Marrying or using Marriage incontinently What may we not use Marriage continently and not go about to dissolve that which God hath joyned He also who marrieth for the sake of Procreation of Children ought to use continence so as not to lust even after his own Wife whom he ought to love begetting Children with an honest and chaste will. Lactantius As the Woman is bound by the Laws of Chastity to lust after no other Object so is the Husband bound by the same Law because God hath joyned the Husband to his Wife by the union of one Body St. Ambrose Virginity hath its rewards Widdowhood its merits there is also place for conjugal Chastity The Apostle commands a Bishop to be the Husband of one Wife not that he excludeth an unmarried Man for that is not the sence of his Precept but that by conjugal Chastity he may preserve the grace given him in Baptism If then Chastity is common both to Marriage and Celibacy the latter can have no intrinsick Excellence beyond the former Nor indeed do our more judicious Adversaries pretend to that Few are guilty of so foul an errour except some zealous and unlearned Monks The Excellence therefore of it is wholly accidental and consists only in affording greater advantages of Piety Knowledge and Beneficence than Marriage This therefore is next to be examined Let us then consider any one as a Man a Christian and a Priest. If in the first quality as a Member and Citizen of Mankind that estate will deserve the preheminence which is most communicative of good and beneficial to the whole Universe The benefits of Celibacy are indirect accidental and rare those of Marriage direct natural and frequent If as a Christian that state will be most eligible that more immediately procureth the grace and favour of God this Celibacy directly affords to none Marriage conferrs on all in the Opinion of the Church of Rome who make it a Sacrament If as a Priest that state is preferrable which giveth the greater and more diffusive Example to the Laity A Vertuous Celibacy will be indeed Exemplary to Virgin Laicks the smallest and most inconsiderable part of the Church But then a prudent and religious conduct of Marriage will serve as a Rule for other married Persons the far greater part of the Laick Church Thus far the Merits of both are at least equal If we recurr to the Authority of Examples we may begin at Paradice and the first state of Mankind Here we sind a married Couple even in the state of Innocence and the very first Blessing given by God unto Mankind to be this Be fruitful and multiply And as it can be no laudable Ambition to desire to exceed the Piety and Innocence of Paradice so neither can it be any great Perfection to defeat the first Blessing of the Creation If we descend hence until the Times of Moses we shall find all the Patriarchs both before and after the Flood to have pleased God and served their Generations at the same time All this while Celibacy hath no Example nor any one President If we look into the Mosaick Law Marriage was there expresly permitted and indirectly commanded to the Priest since none but their own Posterity could be admitted into that Order I am not ignorant that the Patrons of Celibacy urge mightily the Three days Abstinence from their Wives imposed upon the People in preparing themselves to receive the Law of God in Mount Sinai But this was enjoyned not only to the Priests but to all the People was a short and temporary not a total and perpetual Abstinence served only to typifie that inseparable Purity of Mind and Body which was to flourish in the Church of Christ and was a meer Rite and Ceremony unworthy of the dignity and simplicity of the Christian Religion Again if we consider the Saints and Prophets of the Old Testament St. Chrysostom will tell us that all the Prophets had Wives and FaFamilies as Esaias Ezekiel and the Great Moses and yet sufferd therby no diminution of their Vertue Or if we take our measures from the venerable Examples of Christ and his Apostles we may learn both from their Doctrine and Practice that the Perfection of a Christian state consists not in an idle and contemplative but in an active and benefactive state That most if not all the Apostles were Married we shall prove hereafter and if our Saviour chose a Single state wherein to pass his life on Earth Clemens Alex. shall answer for us That He had his proper Spouse the Church that He was no ordinary Man who should either want an help or be subject to the temptations of Incontinency that it was not necessary for him to continue his Species by Procreation who was himself God blessed for evermore And then if we cast our eyes upon the
Ordination Not to say that the Ancient Hereticks made use of the same Plea and shunned Marriage to avoid the trouble of providing Necessaries for a Family and that the Apostle was not ignorant of this inconvenience if it be any and yet thought it not sufficient to enjoyn Celibacy to the Clergy But in truth it is a meer Chimaera a Figment and a vain Suspicion For to use St. Chrysostom's words Marriage doth not only not hinder the Practice of Divine Philosophy if we will be sober but also administers to us great Assistance in it by culming the turbulencies of Nature and not permitting it to be tossed in tempests but preparing it a haven wherein to ride securely Wherefore God hath herein granted a Priviledge to Mankind Again if a Priest or Bishop must therefore be Unmarried that he may decline the Cares and Troubles of the World then certainly with much more reason he ought not to intermeddle in Secular Business and the Government of whole Provinces For who can imagine that the government of a single Family involves more care and trouble than the administration of St. Peter's Patrimony Lastly I appeal to the Experience of the whole World Whether the Regulars of the Church of Rome who to their Vow of Continence have added another of Retirement from the World do not busie themselves in Secular Matters exercise Merchandise and heap up Riches beyond the Clergy of the Church of England The Second Reason alledged by our Adversaries is a certain indecency and impurity in the act of Marriage which renders it unfitting for a Preist to proceed from the late embraces of his wife to the administration of holy things So that because the Clergy of the Christian Church do either daily administer the Sacraments and offer up Scrifices of praise and thansgiving to God in the name of all the people or at least ought to be alwaies ready and prepar'd to do it They ought therefore perpetually to abstain from conjugal Duties This was ever the chief Argument and Foundation of Celibacy Popes and Councils in enjoyning it to the Clergy seldom make use of any other than this and all the enemies of Preists Marriage from the times of Origen to this day have certainly plac'd it in the front of their Arguments Yet after all it is a shameful and most foolish Sophism For if by this indecency and impurity in the use of Marriage they mean a moral one that is absolutely false and flat Heresie The very opinion of the Marcionites Encratites and other more absurd Hereticks But if they mean only a natural impurity that in no ways renders any man less sit for the Service of God nor ought to exclude him from the administration of holy things any more than the other more frequent evacuations of Nature So gross a conceit is unworthy the simplicity of the Christian Religion and makes it degenerate into the dregs of Judaism Besides if we should suppose a natural impurity somewhat indecent in the Clergy which yet is foolish to imagine of a secret and hidden impurity such as this is yet will it be infinitely outweighed by the inevitable danger of a moral tupitude to which Preists are expos'd by enforc'd Celibacy Lastly this Argument of the daily celebration of Mass and consecrating of the Eucharist affects not Deacons nor Subdeacons and is entirely overthrown by the practice of the Church in the Apostolick and Primitive times when all Baptized Christians daily receiv'd the Eucharist and yet cannot be suppo'sd either to have been enjoyn'd or have used perpetual abstinence from their wives The Third Reason is the better Oeconomy of the goods and revenues of the Church which our Adversaries would not have expended upon wife and children but in publick acts of charity This might indeed with some pretence be urg'd if all the unmarried Clergy employed the superfluity of their Revenues upon Piety and Charity or none of the married Clergy did it or if the well ordering of Families and good Education and decent provision for children were not of advantage to the Publick But these are equally false And then in vain are wives and children removed when nephews and other relations can gain access The examples of the Court of Rome especially for the last two hundred years demonstrates that Popes have employed themselves with greater zeal and fervour to the aggrandizing of their Families than ever the married Clergy of the Reformed Churches did to the enriching of their Posterity Thus have we examined the pretended advantages of the Clergies Celibacy and found them to be null and vain But suppose them valid and really as great as they are represented to us by our Adversaries If after all it hath in other respects no less disadvantages Celibacy will yet remain indifferent both in its nature and convenience To pass by therefore the inconvenience of Celibacy in general as that it ordinarily produceth Morosness Pride and Uncharitableness to say nothing worse when affected and chosen as a matter of Merit as Clemens Alex. of old observed I shall consider only the particular inconveniences arising from the enforced Celibacy of the Clergy and mention but Two of them but those so great and sensible that each of them infinitely outweigheth all the pretended advantages of it The First is the inevitable and most certain danger of open Incontinence in many of the Clergy and thereby introducing a horrible Scandal into the Church of Christ which may alone more effectually obstruct Piety and Vertue among the Laity than the Preaching of all together can promote it For all ignorant Christians which are the far greater part of the Church are led more by Examples than Reason and assent to the Christian Religion meerly for the authority of their Pastors that Propose it So that the Scandal caused by the Lust of one Incontinent Priest is more dangerous to the Church than the Celibacy of an hundred Chaste Priests can be advantageous to it Now that forced Celibacy betrays the Clergy to open Incontinency let St. Bernard speak Take from the Church honourable Marriage and the Bed undefiled Do you not fill it with Fornicators incestuous Persons Abusers of themselves Sodomites and all kind of uncleanness This Experience hath also sadly demonstrated as we may hereafter shew The Second inconvenience of forced Celibacy is that it deprives the Church of the service of many Pious and Learned Men who either being already married will not consent to separate themselves from ther Wives or being yet single will not receive Orders upon the terms of Celibacy as either finding that they have not the Gift of Continency or doubting whether they shall always have it The lamentable Effects of this Truth in England and Germany in the Eleventh and Twelfth Ages we shall afterwards have occasion to mention Lastly Suppose that Celibacy had all the aforementioned Advantages and none of the Inconveniences yet still if Marriage hath peculiar advantages which Celibacy wants both
will remain indifferent and neither to be preferred That Marriage hath such cannot be denied For not to say that Marriage in the Opinion of the Church of Rome actually confers Grace and was chosen by Christ to be a Type of his Mystical Union with the Church not to urge the precedent Arguments nor produce a-new the Authority of St. Chysostom not to say that the vertuous Marriage of a Priest may be highly exemplary to his People since the Effects of it are visible and manifest in the prudent Government of his Family and the pious Education of his Children whereas Continence which is the Perfection of Celibacy is a Vertue of the Soul invisible and hidden from the Eyes of Men and so cannot be properly Exemplary To pass by all this I will I will alledge only the Authority of Clemes Alex. in these words Marriage as well as Celibacy hath its peculiar offices and duties pleasing to God God I mean the care of Children and Wife Whence the Apostle commandeth those to be chosen Bishops who from the vertuous government of their own Families have learned to preside over the Church well And in truth a Man approveth not himself in chusing a single Life but he transcends the ordinary rank of Men who useth Marriage and the procreation of Cildren and the government of a Family without immoderate affection or anxiety and notwithstanding the care of his House is unalterable from the love of God and bravely resists all the temptations of Wife and Children Servants and Possessions Having thus proved that the Celibacy of the Clergy was neither instituted by Christ nor his Apostles and hath no excellence in it self or convenience to the Church I proceed to the Third Proposition That the Imposition of it upon any Order of men is unjust and repugnant to the Law of God. And here because the possibility of Continence in all will intervene as the main Question I will divide my Discourse and prove I. That the Church hath no Authority to Inhibit Marriage to the Clergy even supposing that all can contain II. That all cannot contain and consequently that to impose Celibacy upon any Order of men made up of all Ages Constitutions and Humours is directly contrary to Reason Justice and the Law of God. I. First then the Church hath no Authority to forbid Marriage to the Clergy even supposing that all men may by due diligence obtain the gift of Continence This may be evidently deduc'd from what was last proved For the Church cannot challenge a greater Authority than the Apostles had But their Authority as we are assured by St. Paul was given them only for Edification and not for Destruction Not that the Imposition of Celibacy tends not to the edification of the Church we have already proved that it naturally tends to the destruction of many members of the Church is manifest For in so numerous a Body as the Clergy is 't is morally impossible that many of them should not neglect those means whereby the gift of Continence may be acquired and thereby falling into Inconinency lose their own Souls and by their Scandal and Example draw many into Perdition with them Whereas had Marriage been permitted them both would in all probability have been prevented Indeed if the edification arising from the imposition or prohibition of any thing indifferent be obvious and evident and the destruction either none or dubious and uncertain or even if the edification be uncertain so as there be not the least danger of destruction or perhaps even although both edification and destruction were equally dubious the decrees of the Church in all these cases ought to take place For otherwise a door would be left open for the obstinate contradiction of foolish and unreasonable men But in this case the edification produced by the Celibacy of the Clergy is as we have proved none or at least infinitely dubious Whereas the danger of destruction which may be caused by it is most certain manifest and apparent Secondly The Church cannot totally deprive any man of the liberty of enjoying any lawful and natural pleasures nor take from him any of those comforts and benefits which nature and the right of creation first gave him and intended for him She may restrain and limit the use of them as to time and place but can by no means totally abollish it So the Church may forbid flesh to be eaten or Marriage to be contracted at some certain seasons of the year but as she cannot enjoyn to any man a perpetual abstinence from flesh so neither can she totally forbid Marriage to any order of men For this is contrary to the very genius and constitution of the Christian Religion whose peculiar glory is the simplicity of it and the entire conformity in all the Agenda of it to the law of nature Thirdly Whatsoever may be pretended for inhibiting Marriage to the unmarried Clergy the Church most certainly cannot dissolve the Marriage of those who never made any vow of of continence and were lawfully married before the prohibition of the Church Since our Saviour expresly saith What God hath joyned together let no man put asunder Yet the Church of Rome did this in the Eleventh and Twelfth Ages when many Popes and Councils commanded the married Clergy to be separated from their wives upon pain of Excommunication not permitting them to retain their wives by relinquishing their Offices and retiring into Lay Communion Although the Clergy in their Remonstrance offered to Nicolas II. protested that they had never made any vow of Continence and could not contain without the use of Marriage I know it is pretended that the Clergy in receiving Orders are supposed to have made a Tacite and Interpretative Vow of Chastity But the vanity of that pretence I shall manifest immediately Other Reasons might be produced but these are sufficient II. All Men cannot contain and therefore to impose Celibacy upon any Order of Men is injust and contrary to the Divine Law. For all Persons who cannot contain have a right to Marry by the Law of Nature that they may not be necessitated to Sin and are commanded to Marry by the Law of God. But if they cannot contain let them Marry For it is better to Marry than to Burn. In imposing Celibacy therefore upon the Clergy the Church of Rome forbids many to Marry whom God commands to do it Now that all Men cannot contain appears from this very place of the Apostle which Insinuates that in some Persons there is no Medium between Marriage and Burning but it is evident beyond all contradiction from the Reason of this Permission of Marriage assigned in the precedent Verse For I would that all Men were even as myself that is Continent But every Man hath his proper Gift of God one after this manner and another after that Our Saviour expresly Teacheth the same thing when to the Apostles objecting That if the the Case were
it or Marriage would obstruct it Secondly If it should be lawful for the Soul voluntarily to exercise this Arbitrary Power upon the Body yet most certainly it is unlawful for the Church to impose any thing which will induce a necessity of offering violence to Nature weakning the energy of the Soul heaping diseases upon the Body and dissolving the harmony of Both. Thirdly All are not able to undergo these Austerities and when undergon they are not always sufficient to prevent Incontinency The frequent repetition of them demonstrates this which would be useless and foolish if the disease did not as often recurr Not Watchings or Fastings not Whippings or even Emasculation itself practised of old by Origen a●…d the Valesian Hereticks and in the last Age by Ambrosius Morales can wholly eradicate in some this peccant humour It must needs have been a very violent passion the indignation of which could extort so severe a remedy which when it was used did effectually indeed preserve the Body but not in the least diminish the Lust of Mind Yet it is the Mind which either sanctifies or pollutes the Body For what doth it profit to have the Body clean and the Soul polluted whenas the Body is either saved or damned by the merits of the Soul. As for all other severities how ineffectual they are in some Constitutions Palladius relates a memorable Story of Moses a most Famous Abbot in the Desarts of Egypt afterwards made Bishop of the Arabians whom Palladius calls the Blessed Theodoret the Divine Moses who from his Youth perpetually vexed with temptations of Incontinency could not free himself from them by all the austerities which Wit could invent or Nature endure and therefore all his life was forced to abstain from receiving the Sacrament till in his Old Age he was by an extraordinary Miracle delivered from them Upon which Palladius makes this Remark For in truth Concupiscence is perfectly untameable But the great Plea of the Writers of the Church of Rome remains behind which must be more largely discussed They pretend that the Church imposeth Celibacy or a Necessity of Continence upon no Man That she hath annexed it indeed to the four Superior Orders of the Clergy but then forceth none to enter into those Orders That the Unlawfulness of the Clergies Marriage is not so much founded in the Prohibition of the Church or Incompatibility of Marriage with Holy Orders as in the Vow of Continence which all either do make or are supposed to make when they receive those Orders To this I shall Oppose and in order Prove these Three Propositions I. This Plea cannot justly be used by the Church of Rome nor will excuse her Practice II. A Vow of Continence obligeth not in case of insuperable Incontinence and then may not only lawfully but must necessarily be violated III. Whether lawfully or unlawfully necessarily or unnecessarily violated if Marriage be Contracted after a Vow of Continence it is firm and valid and cannot be rescinded I. For the First That this Plea neither belongs to nor availeth the Church of Rome it appeareth many ways As First Although it should be granted the Church of Rome directly imposeth Celibacy upon none yet it cannot be denied that she forbiddeth all who have once made a Vow of Continence ever after to violate it although in case of Incontinence when the impossibility of observing it any longer without actual sin maks the violation of it become necessary and commanded by the Law of God. Secondly She hath actually and often imposed Continence upon those who never vowed it as when she first enjoyned Celibacy to the Clergy and renewed that Injunction when become obsolete Nor can she at this day be excused from the same Imposition since a numerous society of Clergymen are necessary to the being and continuance of the Church and she hath enjoyned Celibacy to all who will be Members of this Society although it be uncertain whether there be so many continent Persons in the Church as are necessarily required to execute the Ministery of it much more whether among all continent Christians there be so many both worthy and willing to receive Orders as may serve the necessities of the Church Thirdly Whether the Church commands any to make a Vow of Continence or forbids them to violate it when made Both equally defeat all the great Advantages and glorious Merits which are pretended to be in Celibacy For nothing can be either acceptable or meritorious which is not purely voluntary neither commanded nor punished by any human Laws Otherwise it can never appear whether the Action proceeds from the Dictates of the Will or rather from the Awe of that Command and the Fear of that Punishment And therefore St. Hierom introduceth Christ thus speaking Those Eunuchs please me which Will not Necessity hath emasculated Whereas in the Church of Rome none can be admitted into the Four Great Orders nor yet in the Three Lesser Orders enjoy any Ecclesiastical Benifices or Privileges of Clergy-men unless they Vow perpetual Continence Nor is it permitted to the former ever to violate their Vow by Contracting of Marriage although they should resign their Preferments and depart from the Execution of their Office. Fourthly which is chiefly to be respected It can never appear that any Vow is truly made by those who are ordained if the Church commandeth all such to make that Vow For a Vow is the peculiar voluntary and free act of him that Voweth as being a Promise made to God and consisteth in the internal Action of the Soul which necessarily supposeth an Intention of Vowing So that if any Person pronouncing the Form of the Vow should either not mind what he saith or at the same time resolve the contrary of what he saith the first is guilty of Negligence the second of a Lye but neither can truly be said to have Vowed and therefore if they afterwards Marry do violate no Vow This Scotus Durandus Dorbellus Paludanus and other Divines of the Church of Rome do expresly teach and for this very reason maintain that Marriage is unlawful to the Clergy not upon the account of any Vow annexed to their Orders but meerly for the authority of the Church's Prohibition As for a tacit and interpretative Vow which many recurr to supposing a Vow of Continence to be inseparably annexed to Orders so that these cannot be received but that at the same time a Vow must be supposed to have been made that is wholly vain This refuge was invented as well to avoid the Reason last mentioned as to solve an Objection drawn from the Practice of the Church of Rome which even for the last Six Hundred years have not always required an explicit Vow nor doth at this day although many Popes have enjoyned it to be openly and expresly made but their Decrees meeting with great Opposition they were forced to let them fall and recurr to this Expedient of an Interpretative Vow This
void and that because of the danger of Incontinency to which the other party is thereby exposed Wherefore Gregry I. commanded the Husband of Agathosa who had entred into a Monastery without her consent to be taken thence although Professed and be forced to live with her But if the danger of another's Damnation produced by a Vow of Contitinence can dissolve the Obligation of it certainly much more will the danger of any one 's own Damnation produce the same effect Thirdly If it be true what Salas the Jesuite teacheth That a Fryar Profess'd of any approved Order who shall have a probability of Divine Revelation that God dispenseth with his Vow to enable him to Marry may Marry and make use of this probable though doubtful Dispensation certainly he who after Continency Vowed in the taking of Orders shall find himself assaulted with any grievous temptations of Incontinence may make use of the same remedy having more than a probable even a plain and undoubted Revelation of the Lawfulness of it in those words Nevertheless to avoid fornication let every man have his own wife and it is better to marry than to burn So that in many cases it is Lawful in some Necessary to break this Vow Thirdly Whether Lawfully or Unlawfully Necessarily or Unnecessarily violated if a Marriage be Contracted after a Vow of Continence it is firm and valid as any other and cannot be rescinded For Marriage is a thing of Natural and Divine Right whose continuance when once Contracted is commanded by the Laws of God and first Principles of Reason whereas Vows of Continence are but of human Instituion as we have proved or at the most but of Evangelical Counsel as all our Adversaries confess and therefore must in all cases give place to a matter of Natural Right and Divine Preeept Bellarmine acknowledgeth this and affirms it to be the constant Opinion of all Catholicks that a simple Vow hinders the Contracting of Marriage but dissolveth it not when Contracted altho' a solemn Vow he would perswade us doth But since the difference between a Solemn and a Simple Vow consists meerly in an External Act in pronouncing outwardly with words what the Mind inwardly resolves This distinction is wholly vain For that External Act addeth nothing Essential to the Vow and although a Solemn Vow only can subject any Man to the Censures of the Church and Punishment of the State yet a Simple Vow doth equally oblige in Conscience so that all the use that can be made of such a distinction is this that such a Contract is not valid in the present Canon or Civil-Law although it be a true Marriage in the Eyes of God which is sufficient for our purpose and will make the annulling of it to be unlawful in the Sight of God although lawful in Human Judicatures However the contrary of this was the only thing which the Council of Trent adventured to define in the Cause of Celibacy most unhappy in their Choice for that in all the dependent Questions of Vows Marriage and Celibacy there is none more apparently false nor any one opposed by so constant and uninterrupted a Tradition from the Apostles Times to the Days of Hildebrand when such Marriages were first declared to be null and void if we except two or three obscure or inconsiderable Councils about the Year D. CCCC All the Fathers before that time who treat of this Matter not one excepted allow their validity and even after that time all the more Famous Divines and Canonists till the Council of Trent Some Provincial Councils indeed after the Year D. ordered those who had Contracted such Marriages to be separated from each other but that was not for any invalidity which they supposed to be in those Marriages but in way of Penance to expiate the guilt of the Violation of their Vows and the Scandal given to the Church as may appear from all those Canons which Bellarmine alledgeth in Defence of the Decree of Trent Sometimes also a Separation of such Married Persons was commanded or rather permitted only thereby to enable the Man to be re-admitted into the Ministry As for the Council of Chalcedon commanding all who Contract Marriage after a Vow of Continence to be Excommunicated produced by Bellarmine who might have added many such like Canons of other Councils They rather prove the validity of these Marriages because contented to inflict the Punishment of Excommunication they proceed not to a Dissolution of them especially since the Council of Chalcedon in the close of that Canon leaveth to every Bishop a Power of Remitting even that Punishment But that Excommunication doth not suppose the invalidity of these Marriages evidently appears from the Canons of all those many Councils as Aurelianense II. Can. 19. Arvernense Can. 6. Toletanum IV. Can. 63. Nicaenum Can. Arab. 53. Arelatense I. Can. 11. which Excommunicated those Christians which Married Jews or Gentiles although none will deny those Marriages to have been perfectly valid and further ordered the Married Persons to be separated which also proves that a Sentence of Separation doth not simply imply the invalidity of any Marriage To manifest then the constant Tradition of the Church to have been contrary to the Definition of the Council of Trent I might produce a long Bead-roll of Councils Popes and Emperours who in the their Canons Decrees and Laws have inflicted upon the Clergy who Married after a Vow of Continence no other punishment than that of Degradation and some no more than an Incapacity of rising to higher Dignities in the Church All these by permitting the use of such Marriages must necessarily be supposed to have owned the validity of them But because their Authority however certain yet is indirect I will content myself with those who if not in terminis yet at least directly assert the validity of these Marriages I begin then with St. Paul who giveth these Instructions to Timothy concerning the Deaconnesses of the Church Let not a widdow be taken into the number under threescore years old But the younger widdows refuse for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ they will marry Having damnation in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is too severely translated because they have cast off their first faith I will therefore that these marry These Deaconnesses were Women chosen out of the Widdows to attend the Service of the Church who maintained with the Revenues of the Church were with some peculiar Ceremonies set apart and as it were Ordained to that Office whom decency and the Custom of the Church permitted not to Marry again because thereby they must have quitted their Offices and so defeated the end of their solemn Dedication to the Church or as the Apostle termeth have cast off their first faith In taking upon them therefore this Office they obliged themselves not to Marry again and therefore as to a Vow of Continence were in the same condition with
will say that Bigamy is unlawful much less that it is Adultery I might mention many other Councils which inflicted only a Temporary Penance on those Marriages Pope Leo I. Decreed that a Monk who forsaking the profession of Continence either became a Soldier or Married should expiate his Fault by Publick Penance because although Warfare may be Innocent and Marriage honest yet it is a Crime to forsake the better Choice Pelagius the Heretick who in the matter of Vows and Marriage was as Orthodox as any in his Epistle to Demetrias the Virgin falsly ascribed both to St. Hierome and St. Augustine saith Let the Consecrated Virgins either Marry if they cannot contain or contain if they will not Marry Pope Gelasius in the end of the Fifth Century defineth thus If any Widows shall through Inconstancy violate their profession of Chastity willingly undertook it concerns them to take care with what satisfaction they may appease God. For as if they could not perhaps contain they were not at all forbidben to Marry so when they have once deliberately promised Chastity to God they ought to have kept it yet ought not we to lay a Snare or impose a Necessity upon any such But proposing to them the merits of Continence and danger of breaking of a Vow leave the matter to their own Conscience In the Seventh Age Theodorus Archbishop of Canterbury in his Penitential which was the Canon Law of the Church of England for some Ages ordered that If any Man having a simple Vow of Virginity married a Wife he should not put away his Wife but only do Penance In which words lest Bellarmine's distinction of a Simple and Solemn Vow should be thought to take place it may be observed that Naldus in his Annotations upon Gratian confesseth the word Simplex is wanting in all the Manuscript Copies In the end of the Eleventh Age even after the Decrees of Hildebrand were published Ivo Bishop of Chartres the greatest Canonist of his Age relates how a Canon of the Church of Paris Contracted Marriage and maintains that that Marriage neither can nor ought to be dissolved In the next Age Gratian the Compiler of the Canon Law consirmed by Eugenius III. and at this day in use in the Church of Rome is express for the validity of these Marriages If a Deacon saith he will lay down his Office he may lawfully use Marriage when once Contracted For although he made a Vow of Chastity at his Ordination yet so great is the force of the Sacrament of Marriage that not even by the violation of the Vow can the Marriage be dissolved In the Thirteenth Age Innocent III. and the whole Lateran Conncil acknowledged the Marriage of Priests in some Western Provinces to be firm and valid and the Use of it to be lawful In the Fifteenth Age AEneas Sylvius afterwards Pope by the Name of Pius II. and the most Learned of all that have sat in St. Peter's Chair for these last Thousand years being when Cardinal of Siena desired by a Priest of his Acquaintance who found he could no longer contain to obtain for him a Dispensation from the Pope to Marry returned him Answer That the Pope refused it and at the same aime gave him this advice I acknowledge you do not act imprudently if when you cannot contain you seek to Marry although that ought to have been considered before you entred into Holy Orders But we are not all Gods to soresee future Necessities Seeing the case is so that you cannot any longer resist the law of the slesh it is better to Marry than to Burn. Thus we have proved that the Doctrine of the Invalidity of Marriages Contracted after a Vow of Continence was unknown in the first Ages of Christianity opposed in the last and not universally received in the Church of Rome until defined with an Anathema by the Council of Trent which thereby left the Controversie in a worse condition than they found it Having thus dispatched the Controversial I pass to the Historical part of my Design and therein will evince that the Celibacy of the Clergy was looked upon as a thing Indifferent in the Two first Centuries Proposed in the Third Magnified in the Fourth and in some Places Imposed in the Fifth yet so as that even that Imposition did infinitely differ from the present Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of Rome that however Commanded in some Provinces of the West it was no where universally Practised that in a few Ages this Imposition became obsolete this Yoke intolerable and Marriage universally prevailed till condemned and forbidden by the Popes of the Eleventh Age that even their Decrees and Canons became ineffectual by an universal Opposition of the whole Church and the lawfulness of Marriage in the Clergy was aftewards allowed and permitted by many Popes and one General Council of the Roman Church that all this while Celibacy never was imposed or practifed in the Eastern Church from the Apostles time but the Imposition of it was rejected by one and condemned by another Council of the Universal Church and obtained not even in the West till the Ambition and Usurpation of the Popes drawing to themselves the Disposition of all greater Ecclesiastical Preferments Poverty became necessary to the Married Clergy which caused Marriage to be wholly laid aside by them about Two Hundred years before the Reformation The Proof of these things shall be the Subject of the remaining part of my Discourse But first I shall premise these few Considerations I. Although the Ancient Church should have imposed or universally practised Celibacy yet the Obligation of that Law and Authority of that Example would be no reasonable much less necessary Motive to the present Church to continue the Imposition since the Reasons which might have induced the Antients to enjoyn or use it are long since ceased Those Reasons were to make the Clergy more ready and willing to renounce the Pleasures of the World and suffer Martyrdom in Times of Persecution and by their brave Example incite the Laity to the same generous Constancy of Mind In the flourishing and peaceable Times of the Churches there could be no other reason of enjoyning it than to procure an extraordinary Veneration to the Clergy by their Abstinence from permitted Pleasures and thereby facilitate and promote the common Edificacion of the Church As for the Reasons of some Admirers of Celibacy who were led aside with false Prejudices and pre-conceived Errours they vanish together with the detection of their falsity and do no longer oblige than those Errours are maintained But as for the other more solid Reasons Providence has annulled the first by giving rest unto the Church and an universal decay of Piety as well in Clergy as Laity hath defeated the second Since what perhaps was before Exemplary is now become a Scandal to the whole Christian World. This Cassander ingenuously confesseth in these words For those Reasons
the Author of them is abundantly demonstrated by the learned Garnerius That he led about his Wife with him in his Travels and Preaching St. Paul plainly intimates in these words Have we not power to lead about a sister a wife 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as other Apostles or rather as the rest of the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as the brethren of the Lord and Cephas Our Adversaries indeed pretend that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place is to be understood not a Wife but an assistant Woman commonly of the richer and more aged sort carried about by the Apostles to minister to their necessities provide them maintenance and serve them in the quality of Deaconesses And thus it must be acknowledged the greatest part of the Antients did interpret it However I will oppose to that Opinion some considerable and perhaps convictive Arguments As first the ordinary acception of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both in the Septuagint and the New Testament where the name Wife is never designed by any other word Secondly this Interpretation was by the Antients received from Tertullian who first proposed it in his Book of Monogamy which he writ after he was become a Montanist Thirdly the contrary Opinion of all the Catholicks in Tertullian's time For in his Exhortations to Chastity writ likewise after his fall decrying the excellency of Marriage he introduceth the Catholicks thus objecting to him It was lawful even for the Apostles to marry and to lead about their wives with them And indeed Clemens Alexandrinus the most Learned and Orthodox of all the Writers of the three sirst Centuries expresly interprets this place of Wives and further adds That St. Peter had several Children by his Wife Not to mention Cardinal Humbert in latter Ages who although a bitter Enemy of Priests Marriage allows and followeth this Interpretation That is more considerable which Eusebius relates from the same Clemens that St. Peter saw his Wife suffer Martyrdom and standing by her exhorted her generously to undergo it which alone might demonstrate that she accompanied him in all his Travels Since excepting St. Stephen and St. James the Great none suffered Death for the Christian Faith till the latter end of Nero's Reign when St. Peter was wholly employed in the West The Marriage of St. Paul however commonly denied by the Antients and universally by the Moderns is attested by great Authorities Clemens Alexandrinus the Disciple of Pantaenus who by the Testimony of Photius had those for his Masters who had seen and conversed with the Apostles and who himself writ within 125 years after the death of St. Paul and had travelled into Palaestine expresly affirms it From him Euse●…ius receiving this Tradition transcribeth and approveth it These two Authorities are sufficient alone to create a probability However I will observe that many still retained the same Opinion in the end of the Fourth Age. So St. Hierom assureth us some believed in his time St. Chrysostom acknowledgeth the same thing and adds that many in his time maintained St. Paul directed those words to his Wife Philipp 4. 3. I intreat thee also true yoke-fellow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For those words in the Attick dialect the most elegant of the Greek Tongue may be translated my faithful Wife Nay in the Sixth Age the Interpolator of Ignatius's Epistles hath these words In praising Virginity I do not blame all other holy Men because they used Marriage For I desire only to be thought worthy of God to be placed at their feet in the kingdom of heaven as of Abraham Isaac Jacob Joseph and the other Prophets as of Peter and Paul and the other Apostles who used Marriage This place the Ancient Latin Interpreter who lived about the Eighth Age hath retained and translated with advantage It is a foolish as well as impudent Pretence which the Writers of the Church of Rome alledge to defeat the Authority of this Testimony They maintain that the name of St. Paul was foisted in by the fraud of some latter Greeks at least Reformed Printers and therefore the Index Expurgatorius commands his name to be wiped out of all Editions yet have they no other Foundation for this consident Calumny than the Authority of two Manuscript Copies which they pretend to be very antient the one of Matthias Corvinus King of Hungary the other of Magdalen Colledge in Oxford taken up upon the Credit of an Irish ●…ugitive Whereas the first was never seen since the days of Ambrosius Camaldulensis who lived 250 years since the other Bishop Usher saw and found to be no older than the year 1490. That the Reformed Printers corrupted not this place appears from all the Editions before the Reformation particularly those of Fabor Stapulensis Paris 1498. Strasbourg 1502. and Jod Clichtovaus Paris 1515. and many Editions set forth by Papists since the Reformation wherein the name of St. Paul is found The Greeks are no less cleared from all fraud herein by the consent of the Latin Copies particularly of one 800. years old in Baliol Colledge in Oxford mentioned by Dr. James wherein although some zealous Romanist had blotted out the name of St. Paul and the other Apostles yet they had done it so slightly that the words were still easily legible Now whether St. Peter led about his Wife with him or St. Paul was married is not of so great moment to our case as is the Conclusion which may be evidently drawn from the belief entertained by some of the Antients both of the one and of the other For even if we should grant their Opinion to have been erroneous yet it manifestly demonstrates that in their time the Celibacy of the Clergy was neither believed to have been instituted by the Apostles nor universally practised by the preceding Ages nor the use of Marriage inconvenient much less incompatible to the Priesthood Had any of these Opinions been generally received in their time it is impossible they should have been so stupid as to believe the Apostles had done a thing contrary to their own Institution or the laudable practise of succeeding Ages or the Dignity of their Office. Of the other Apostles St. Philip had Three Daughters whom by the Testimony of Clemens Alex. he Married to so many Husbands Of the Four Virgin Daughters of Philip the Deacon we read in the Acts of the Apostles The Marriage of Nicholas the Deacon is Famous in Ecclesiastical History which because the Mis-representation of it gave occasion to many Errours and the Imposers of Celibacy in the Eleventh Age constantly traduced the Marriage of Priests with the Title of Nicolaite Heresie it will not be amiss here to rectifie Clemens Alex. the most Ancient of all who mention it for St. Irenaeus saith only That the Nicolaites came from Nicolas the Deacon relateth it it thus Nicolas having a very beautiful Wife became
of Marriage drawn from the old Mistake of an unworthiness to administer things contracted by the supposed impurity of Marriage commandeth Priests and Deacons thence forward to abstain from the company of their Wives upon pain of Deposition from their Offices From the Preface of this Constitution it appears that the Use of Marriage was then indifferently used by the Clergy and defended as Lawful against the Oppugners of it I understand saith Siricius that many Priests and Deacons have a long time after their Ordination had Children as well by their own Wives as by Fornication and defend this their Doing by Prescription because in the Old Testament Marriage was permitted to the Priests It seems to have been by this time become a general Custom in the particular Church of Rome and all the greater Churches of Italy for Bishops Priests and Deacons to abstain from the company of their Wives This they did voluntarily there being yet no Ecclesiastical Constitution to enforce it and in that case removed their Wives out of their Families and lived separately from them That this was voluntarily is manifest as well because no Command of any such Abstinence as yet made by the Church can be produced as from several Examples of the Italian Clergy of this time who enjoyed the company of their Wives after Ordination as we shall hereafter prove That this Custom extended not into the remoter Provinces is manifest from the words of St. Ambrose who writ about this time and persuading this total Abstinence to his Clergy of Milan saith In many remoter places the Clergy beget Children in the time of their Deaconship or even Priesthood and this they defend by Ancient Custom where the last words are very remarkable Siricius therefore seduced with the common Prejudices of that Age and imagining it to be no small Crime in the Clergy of Spain not to canform to the Customs of Rome interposed his Authority and commanded them to do that which he saw they would never perform of their own accord The embracing of the Vulgar Prejudices about Celibacy are not the only argument of Siricius his simplicity This very Epistle carrieth other evident tokens of it along with it For to omit the many Superstitious Cautions about the Marriage of the Inferior Clergy he forbids Marriage to all Persons whatsoever who had ever done publick Penance for Fornication A Command which wholly evacuates the Apostles Precept of Marriage making Fornication an impediment of Marriage which by the Apostle was assigned as a remedy of it The next year Siricius writing to the Bishops of Africa pursueth the same design but here remembring that he acted out of his own Patriarchate he presumeth not to command but only adviseth Celibacy I persuade advize admonish intreat that Priests and Deacons would not accompany with their Wives And all upon the same topick of the Incongruity of conjugal Embraces with the Priestly Office. Let us now see what effect this Command of Siricius had in Spain or his Admonition in Africk In Spain the first Council of Toledo was held in the Year 400. which decreed That those Deacons who had not abstained from their Wives after Ordination should continue in their Office but be made incapable of ever rising to the Priesthood and in like manner Priests who had not abstained should be incapable of the Episcopal Dignity inflicting on them no further Punishment The same Command had it seems been sent by Siricius to the Bishops of Piemont who meeting in a Council at Turin An. Dom. 397. made a Canon of the same nature with that of Toledo only debarring the Clergy who would not submit to a total Abstinence from ascending to higher Dignities in the Church In Africa the Pope received a Repulse The Eleventh Council of Carthage was in the year 390. wherein a motion was made by Faustianus the Popes Legat that Bishops Priests and Deacons should be enjoyned to total Abstinence The Synod would not yeild to that but only decreed That Bishops Priests and Deacons or those who administred the Sacraments should always preserve Chastity and when they ministred at the Altar even abstain from their Wives For that the Antients believed Chastity not to be inconsistent with the use of Marriage we before proved And this partial Abstinence of the Clergy in the time of their waiting at the Altar fully satisfied Siricius his Argument which proceeded upon the indecency of performing the Duties of Marriage and the Administration of Holy Things at the same time That this is the trne sense of the Canon we shall demonstrate by proving that the Canon which we shall next relate meant no more For that both are to be understood in the same sense all agree In the year therefore 398. was held the Fifth Council of Carthage which made this following Canon Be it enacted That Bishops Priests and Deacons abstain even from their Wives in their own courses Which if they do not let them be deposed But that the rest of the Clergy be not compelled to do this but the customs of every particular Church are to be observed Bellarmin Binius and other Writers of the Church of Rome maintain that a total Abstinence is here enjoyned to the Clergy contrary to the plain sense of the Canon For this they alledge only the Authority of St. Austin and tht Decree of Gratian which instead of Secundum propria statuta wherein the stress of the Canon lieth reads Secundnm priora Statuta according to former Constitutions As for the Authority of Gratian that is of no Moment when opposed to the constant Agreement of all the Latin Copies of the Acts of this Council Nor even can we be assured that Gratian's Copy read it Secundum priora Statuta since it is very usual with him to represent the Antient Monuments of the Church not exactly in their own Words but accommodated to the Sentiments and Practice of his own time As for St. Austin his Authority indeed would be sufficient for he was present in the Council but he saith nothing of it in the place alledged only proposeth to the Laity who hardly endured to be restrained to the Embraces of one Woman the Example of the Clergy who practised a total Astinence For this infers no more than that some or many of the Clergy did totally abstain which none denieth and we readily grant The confutation of our Adversaries Reasons were sufficient in this case However I will produce some further Reasons in confirmation of that sense of the Canon which we follow and the words do naturally import First then The Antient Greek Code of the Canons of the African Church compsosed before the time of the Sixth Council followeth this sense translating the Words into Question by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in their proper courses or times of waiting Secondly the Fathers of the Quinisext Council commanding Priests and Deacons wholly to contain in the time
they maintained the open use of it to be a greater Sin than Fornication And then Huldericus plainly intimates that Celibacy was never yet introduced into the Church of Germany For he alloweth that those who have made a Vow of Continence ought in no case to violate it but may be even forced to perform it but pleads that the Clergy had made no such Vow Bellarmine to avoid the Authority of this Epistle maintains it is spurious and endeavours to confirm his pretence from Chronology and to prove there was no Huldericus Bishop of Augspurg contemporary with Pope Nicholas That there was but one of that Name Bishop of that See who was created Bishop in the year 924. or 903. and died in the Eighty Third year of his Age and Fiftieth of his Episcopacy and that there were two Hulderici Bishops of Augspurg is a meer Invention of the Magdeburg Centuriators To this may be answered that Bellarmin doth no less gratis deny than the Centuriators do affirm the existence of two Hulderici and in that case the Authority of the Manuscript Copies is sufficient to satisfie us Besides this is no obscure Writing found out and obtruded on the VVorld since the Reformation It was famous and noted more than Six Hundred years since For Bertoldus of Constance in his Continuation of Hermannus Contractus relates That Gregory VII in a Synod held at Rome in the year 1079. condemned the Epistle of St. Udalricus to Pope Nicholas about the Marriage of the Clergy And AEneas Sylvius owns the truth of the whole matter when relating his Journey through Germany We passed through Augspurg saith he St. Udalricus was Bishop of this City who opposed the Pope in case of the Clergies Concubines For so they called the VVives of the Clergy after the days of Hildebrand Lastly that there was an Huldericus Bishop of Augspurg contemporary to Pope Nicholas may be proved from the Authority of Jacobus de Voragine who saith St. Udalricus died after many Miracles in the year 900. the Eighty Third of his Age and Fiftieth of his Consecration by which Computation Huldericus both preceded and survived the Popedom of Nicholas Thus we have proved that the Laws of Celibacy were never universally received in the antient Western Church in some Provinces even not imposed and in none practised The matter will be farther cleared by particular examples of married Clergymen The marriage of Restitutus Bishop of London in the beginning of the Fourth Age is attested by three accurate and learned VVriters of our British Antiquities Bale Bishop Godwin and Sir H. Spelman In the middle of that Age St. Hilary Bishop of Poictiers is known to have been married For to omit the Epistle to his Daughter Abra which I deny not to be spurious this is evinced by the Authority of Venantius Fortunatus his Successor who writ his Life and therein relates that Hilary had a Wife and a Daughter living when he was promoted to the Episcopal Order which both continued to cohabit with him That when he was banished by Constantius into Asia he left his Daughter Abra together with her Mother at Poictiers That returning from Banishment he persuaded her to devote her self to God and profess perpetual Virginity Which when the Mother saw she never ceased to sollicit her Husband till he gave her leave also to dedicate her self to God and make a Vow of Continence A Passage which most evidently demonstrates that she had hitherto enjoyed the Company of her Husband and all the Pleasures of a chaste Marriage and had not vowed Continence at his Assumption to the Episcopal Order S. Paulinus Bishop of Nola comes next whose Example is most remarkable as well because he was one of the sincerely pious men of all Antiquity whom St. Martin was wont to propose as the Pattern of all Perfection as because he was made Bishop in the Roman Patriarchate not long after the Promulgation of Siricius his Constitution and seems to have been persecuted by that Pope meerly for retaining the company of his Wife in opposition to his Decrees He was descended from the greatest Family of Rome had born the Consulship and was in all respect the second Person of the Empire when quitting all secular Honours in the year 393. he was ordained Priest at Barcetona in Spain His Wife Therasia then lived with him the inseparable Companion of all his Travels and his whole Life Paulinus was then in the 40th year of his Age and she somewhat younger yet did they continue to live together in the same House and in the same Cell till separated by Death After some stay there Paulinus returned with his Wife to Rome where he was received with infinite Applause by the Common People but with great Rudeness by Pope Siricius whose Pride and Churlishness Paulinus himself complains of The occasion of this Deportment of Siricius seems to have been the prejudice which he feared his Constitution of the Continence of Priests and Deacons might suffer from the cohabitation of Paulinus with his Wife the Example of a Person so illustrious and so highly reputed for Sanctity being alone sufficient to restore Marriage to its due esteem Retiring thence to Nola in Campania he was not long after made Bishop of that place That his Wife lived with him in the same little Cell even after his Consecration Sacchinus confesseth and indeed is most evident St. Ambrose speaking of Paulinus's Retirement at Nola saith His Wife accompanied him and contented there with the voluntary poverty of her Husband comforted her self with the riches of Piety and Charity Many of his Epistles written from Nola are directed in both their names having this Inscription Paulinus Therasia Peccatores and almost all are dictated in the plural number St. Augustin and St. Hierom in their Epistles to Paulinus written after his assumption to the Episcopal Office for their acquaintance began late never fail to salute his Wife Therasia and St. Augustin invited them both together into Africa And Gregory Turonensis relates a memorable Passage of them That when dwelling together in their little Cottage at Nola Therasia once hindring the prodigal Charity of her Husband by overmuch Frugality diminished the Blessings of Heaven to them both That he made any Vow of Continence from his Wife at his Ordination can never be proved Rather St. Hierom plainly intimates the contrary that he denied not himself the Pleasures of Marriage at least was not reputed to do it when in his Epistle to him he doubteth whether although equalling the Perfections and Piety of a Monastick life he may properly call him a Monk because he was yoaked with the Bonds of Marriage and thereby was hindred from practising the utmost Perfections of a Monastick Profession Among Paulinus his Epistles there are two directed to Aper a Presbyter and Amanda his Wife who in the same manner renouncing the Honours and Riches of the
them and oft-times voluntarily spilt the consecrated Bloud upon the ground In Germany as Nauclerus relateth upon the prohibition of hearing the Masses of married Priests the Laity were forced to administer the Sacraments themselves and baptize their own Children This scandal arose much higher in England where when the same prohibition was by the procurement of Anselm enacted in a National Synod all Divine Service was for want of unmarried Priests generally discontinued in Parochial Churches and the Church-doors overgrown with Thorns As for the scandalous incontinence and uncleanness of the Clergy that is not much to be admired being the natural effect of imposed Celibacy But it may be justly wondred that while the Pope engaged with so much violence against the Marriage of the Clergy they willingly overlook'd and conniv'd at their Fornications and prodigious Impurities of Life This Petrus Damiani himself assures us and affirms it to be the custom of the Church of Rome in his time severely to exact other points of Ecclesiastical Discipline but to connive at and dispense with the Lust of the Clergy which was then become so brutal and notorious that he writ a Book entituled Gomorrhaeus particularly upon that subject This alone might justifie what we before observed that the Church of Rome imposed Celibacy upon the Clergy not for increase of Piety or advancemen●… of Purity but only for temporal ends and secular advantages However the Marriage of the Clergy wanted not Defende●…s in this Age to maintain its right against the calumnies and tyranny of its Adversaries The Decrees of the Popes were condemned by some Councils universally opposed by the Clergy of all Nations and gained not success till a long and sharp contention In the year 1061. the Bishops of Lombardy by the instigation of Guibert Bishop of Parma met in a Council at Basil wherein they annulled the Decrees of Pope Nicolas and decre●…d That no Pope should be obeyed who would not 〈◊〉 and yield to their Infirmities About the same time the Clergy of Laon being urged by Petrus Damiani to put away their Wives produced in their defence a Decree of the Council of Tribur which permitted the use of Marriage to the Clergy Several Councils were he●…l at T●…ibur in this Age of whose Acts we have little or no account left and therefore cannot 〈◊〉 the time of this Council The Synod of 〈◊〉 we shall mention afterwards when we come to the Affairs of England In the year 1080. Gregory the Seventh was condemned and deposed in the Council of Brixia as well for other crimes as because h●… had ●… Divor●…es between married persons to use the words of the Historian or had violently separated the married Clergy from their Wives To these we may add the Council of Beneventum held eleven years after by Urban the Second which permitted Marriage to Subdeacons as we before observed and the great Lateran Council under Inno●…ent the Third of which more hereafter If many Bishops disliked annulled and mi●…igated the Papal Decrees of Celibacy with much mor●… violence although with less authority did the inferiour Cle●…gy oppose this unjust Imposition Particularly 〈◊〉 Hildebrand published his Decrees the Historian saith The Cl●…rgy were in a rage crying out the 〈◊〉 was plainly a Heretick and maintainer of mad Opinions who forgetting those words of Christ All 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 t●…is and ●…e that cannot contain let him marry would by a violent exaction compel men to live the life of Angels and while he stopped the wonted course of Nature let loose the Reins to a promis●…uous Lust. 〈◊〉 the learned Monk of Gemblac●… writ to Henry Archdeacon of Leige a peculiar T●…eatise or Apology against those who s●…andered or condemned the Masses of married Priests as himself tells us which is now lost The same Author in another place give●…h this judgment of the Decree of Pope Gregory That it was made by an unheard-of Example and inconsiderate prejudice against the Doctrine of the Holy Fathers Matthew Paris useth the same words In Germany the Clergy opposed the Papal Decrees with great courage and animosity rejected the perswasion of their Bishops wanted little of tearing in pieces the Popes Legate who proposed to them the imposition of Celibacy and when at last by the violence of their Adversaries forced to submit chused rather to quit their Office than their Wives In France the Clergy of Laon rejected the Sollicitations of Petru●… Damia●…i Of England we shall speak more largely afterwards In Italy Damia●…us being sent to Milan by Nicolas the Second in the year 1059. to subject that See to the Obedience of the Church of Rome and the Clergy to the Yoak of Celibacy could effect neither without great commotions For as himself writ back to the Pope the people and Clergy contended with great heat that the Ambrosian See owed no Obedience to the Bishop of Rome and that the Law of Celibacy was unjust and intolerable Mr. Fox in his English Martyrology hath published two antient Latin Apologies for the Marriage of the Clergy under the name of Volusianus Bishop of Carthage both directed to Pope Nicolas The first which is short is nothing else but the Epistle of Huldericus before mentioned which hath been often published The second is far longer was never elsewhere published and seems to have been the Remonstrance or Apology of all the married Clergy of the Western Church offered to Pope Nicolas the Second and the other Bishops of the Church who endeavoured to impose Celibacy presently after the Roman Synod in the year 1059. which forbid the Laity to hear Mass from the married Clergy The Author of it writes far more elegantly and argues more strongly than Huldericus and indeed abating some allegorical interpretations of Scripture the peculiar Genius of those Ages it may be accounted a rational and exact Treatise The sum of it is this That Continence is the peculiar Gift of God not bestowed upon all which therefore cannot be commanded That no Vow or Gift is grateful to God but what is voluntary not compelled That it savoured of Judaism to impose such burdens upon men under the Gospel That the Governours of the Church were not invested with an arbitrary power nor could lay such grievous impositions on the Clergy against their will. That this Yoak was imposed for vain ostentation and worldly ends That although many of the inferiour Clergy were awed by Force Authority Threats or Anathema's to submit to this Imposition yet they unwillingly underwent the burden of Celibacy and hated the cross laid upon them because they bore it rather to their destruction than salvation That from the imposition of Celibacy greater inconveniencies arose Sodomy Adultery Fornication Incest and other horrid Lusts. That Marriage is the only Remedy assigned by God to incontinent persons which they who contemn and affect a greater shew of perfection commonly fall into precipices That the Apostle commandeth that to avoid Fornication every man
should have his own Wife and expresly teacheth all have not the Gift of Continence That the Apostles advice of Virginity was temporary himself professing that he cast no snare upon us That as for themselves they professed they could not contain without the use of Marriage and therefore by the Precept of the Apostle had a right to marry That it was a vain and false pretence that this Indulgence was given by the Apostle only to the Laity and not to the clergy That the Yoak of Celibacy was unlawful and intolerable condemned of old by Dionysius Corinthius and Paphnutius Lay not therefore we beseech you this heavy burden upon us which we are not able to bear nor violate the Reverence due to Holy Orders and the sacred Mysteries for our sakes Certainly you render both contemptible in the sight of men whilst you forbid the Sacraments to be received from our hands A Prohibition directly contrary to the antient Canons which define that the Sacraments lose not their efficacy by the unworthiness of him that administers them By these Authorities and Reasons you ought to be perswaded and neither remove us from the sacred Office nor deprive the Laity of the benefit of the Sacraments Concluding with a protestation that they could not contain without Marriage nor obtain Continence any otherwise than by the peculiar Gift of God. Thus the married Clergy wanted neither learning nor courage to defend the justice of their Cause and however they were overborn by the violence of the Court of Rome and prevailing interest of the Monastick Order yet many of them retained their Wives for some Ages after the times of Hildebrand although from his Popedom the marriage of the Clergy gradually decreased and at last was born down by an universal Celibacy For some time after that the Priests of Germany publickly cohabited with their Wives saith Aventinus as other Christians did and begat Children as appears from the Records of Grants made by them to Churches Priests or Monks wherein their Wives by name subscribe as Witnesses together with their Husbands and are called by the honest name of Priestesses This constancy of the Clergy in retaining their Wives was the only reason of the frequent renovations of the Laws of Celibacy by the Popes and Councils of the 12th and 13th Ages These Laws seem not to have been introduced into Dalmatia till the year 1199. when a Council being held there by the Popes Legates this Canon was made Whereas the Priests of God ought to live continently they are said to hold both their Wives and Churches in the parts of Dalmatia and Dioclia Wherefore we enact That Clergy-men having Wives married before Ordination live with them and resign their Benefices but that those who have Wives married after Ordination dismiss their Wives and retain their Benefices To pass by other Councils I will produce only the great Lateran Council under Innocent the Third in the year 1215. which not only allowed the Marriage of the Clergy when contracted to be valid but also permitted Marriage to the Clergy of some Provinces wherein the Laws of Celibacy had not yet been received The first appeareth from the 31 Canon conceived in these words To abolish a great Corruption which hath been introduced in divers Churches we straightly forbid that the Sons of Prebendaries especially their Bastard Sons be made Prebendaries in the secular Churches wherein their Fathers were instituted Where by excluding especially the Bastard Sons of the Clergy it is acknowledged that their Children born in Marriage are not Bastards The latter is no less evident from the 14th Canon which enjoyning Continence to the Clergy adds this Proviso But whereas many of the Clergy according to the custom of their Countries have not renounced their Wives if any of these commit Fornication or Adultery let them be more severely punished because they can make use of lawful Marriage The latter Writers of the Church of Rome to ●…lude the Authority of a Council so much reverenced by them declaring in favour of the Clergies Marriage would have this clause understood of the Greek Clergy but produce not the least shew of Reason for their pretence No mention is made of the Greek Clergy either before or after nor did the Fathers of the Council in forming this Canon any more dream of them than of the Clergy of the Abyssine Church Lastly almost the whole 17th Title of the first Book of Decretals of Gregory the Ninth is made up of Epistles written by Alexander the Second to the Bishops of England about admitting or not admitting the Sons of Priests into the Benefices of their Fathers without any intermediate Successour In these Epistles Bastardy is no-where objected to the Sons of the Clergy but only the danger which may accrew to the Church if Ecclesiastical Benefices should descend like a Lay Inheritance from Father to Son. And this danger the Pope sometimes dispensed with For it is manifest from the 9th Chapter that he had given a Faculty to the Archbishop of York of inducting the Sons of the Clergy into the Benefices of their Fathers immediately after the death or cession of the latter The 12th Chapter hath these words Clement III. to the Archbishop of Cassels Whereas your Brotherhood inquired of us the Sons of Priests or Bishops may be promoted to Holy Orders if they be adorned with knowledge and sobriety know that if they be born of lawful Marriage and there be no other Canonical Impediment they may lawfully ascend to Holy Orders Where it is manifest that the Sons of which Pope Clement speaks were born after the Ordination of their Fathers for none was ever so mad as to doubt whether the Sons of Clergy-men born before their Ordination were capable of Holy Orders But if any scruple remains the 14th Chapter will remove it which is this We understand that N. begotten in Priesthood born and conceived of a lawful Wife desires to be admitted into Holy Orders Wherefore let it be done Thus did Popes General Councils and the practice of the Church after the times of Hildebrand acknowledge the lawfulness of the Clergies Marriage and connive at it till the Papal ambition drawing the disposition of all Ecclesiastical Preferments to themselves and allowing the use of Concubines to the Clergy Marriage was at last forced to yield to the more advantageous and easie way of Fornication It remains that we speak somewhat more particularly of the state of Celibacy in the Church of England which more peculiarly concerns us and probably the last of all the Churches in the West submitted to the imposition of it The Church of England being no part of the Roman Patriarchate nor intervening by her Bishops in those Western Councils which enjoyned Celibacy took no notice of nor gave any obedience to the Decrees of Popes or Constitutions of Councils in that matter but allowed an uninterrupted freedom of Marriage to the whole body of her
is so far from surpassing conjugal Chastity that even the guilt of no crime ever brought greater disgrace to the Holy Order greater damage to Religion or greater grief to all good men than the stain of the Clergies Lust. Wherefore it would perhaps be the interest as well of Christianity as of the Holy Order that at last the Right of publick Marriage were restored to the Clergy which they might rather chastly pursue without Infamy than defile themselves by such brutal Lusts. Erasmus hath the like words If any consider the state of these times how great a part of Mankind the multitudes of Monks take up how great a part the Colledges of Priests and Clergy-men and then consider how few out of so great a number truly preserve Chastity of Life with how great scandal most of them are openly incestuous and incontinent into what kinds of Lusts innumerable of them degenerate he will perhaps conclude it to be more convenient that those who do not contain may have the freedom of publick Marriage which they may purely and chastly without infamy maintain rather than that they should commit unhappy and shameful Lusts. The World hath now many unmarried men but few chast although neither is he chast who useth not the company of a woman because it is forbidden But I very much fear that the Revenues of the Church makes more Clergy-men at this day Eunuchs than Piety doth while we are afraid lest our Possessions should be intercepted by Wife and Children or at least nothing added to them by married Clergy Cassander saith That if ever there was a time to change any old Custom certainly these times seem to require some alteration of this however antient Custom Lastly all Princes and States before the Council of Trent in their Petitions and Remonstrances for Reformation of the Church never omitted to require the permission of Marriage to be restored to the Clergy In the time of the Council and after the conclusion of it Ferdiand II. and Maximilian II. the Emperours Sigismund Augustus King of Poland Albertus Duke of Bavaria and other Princes earnestly desired the same thing by their Embassadours But that Council too well knew the interests of the Church of Rome to grant a Petition of that nature Rather by defining that Marriage contracted after a Vow of Continence is neither lawful nor valid they have perhaps put the case beyond all remedy and taken from the Church all possibility of ever restoring Marriage to the Clergy For if Marriage after a Vow be in it self unlawful the greatest Authority upon Earth cannot dispense with it nor permit Marriage to the Clergy who have already vowed Continence If in the precedent Discourse I have said any thing injurious to the honour of true Virginity I here retract it and profess that a great veneration is due to that state of life when a matter of choice not of force and that both in the entrance into it and continuance of it when undertaken for the increase of Piety and advancement of divine Glory not for any secular ends and advantages when taken up by those who have the Gift of Continence not affected by such as cannot contain We believe there is somewhat in those words of our Saviour He that is able to receive it let him receive it And with Clemens Alexandrinus We reverence the happiness of the Gift of Continence in those to whom it is bestowed by God we admire Monogamy and the decency of one Marriage yet assert that we ought to indulge with and bear the burdens of others lest he who thinks he standeth firmly should fall We dislike not the Virginity of the Romish Clergy but slight the pretence and condemn the imposition of it Experience demonstrates the one to be false and Reason the other to be unlawful We affect not the name but the purity of Virginity and while we impose Celibacy upon none nor deny Marriage to any we promote a voluntary Continence in many and secure a real Chastity in all of the Clergy FINIS (a) In 4. Disp. 2●… Qu. 2. (b) de contin sacerd c. 4. (c) de dogmatic charact l. 2. (d) Sess. 24. Can. 9. (a) Controv. Tmo Il. l. 1. 18 19. (b) 1 Cor. 7. 25. (c) Tit. 1. 1. (a) In Ioc. (b) Strom. l. 3. (c) Act. 24. 25. (d) Ver. 6. (e) Ver. 23. (f) Ver. 35. (g) Ver. 5. (a) Ver. 20. (b) Ver. 27. (c) Ver. 37. (d) Ver. 8 9. (e) Ver. 26. (f) Ver. 28 29. (g) Ver. 32. (a) Copula sacerdotalis nec legali nec e●…angelica vel apostolica auihoritate prohibe●…ur ecclesiastica ●…amen lege peni●…us interdicitur Caus. 26. qu. 2. c. 1. (b) Ecclesia post apos●…olica cons●…ituta quaedam consilia perfectionis addidit utpote de continentia ministrorum Caus. 35. qu. 1. in fin (c) Constituo sacerdotum caelibatum non esse juris divini aut quoquam modo ab Apostolis pr●…ceptum sed tantum cons●…ltum Si nulla lex aut nulla essent vota monastica liceret sacerdotibus aut monachis nube●…e Concil Tom. XIV p. 1551. (a) 1 Tim. 3. 2 4. (b) Tit. 1. 6. (c) 1 Tim. 3. 12. (d) 1 Cor. 2. 2. (a) Tim. 3. 2. (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 6. cap. 17. (c) Hom. X. in 1 Ep. ad Tim. Hom. II. in Ep. ad Tit. (d) Ep. 83. ad Oceanum comm in Ioc. l. 1. adv Jovin (a) Comm. in 1 Ep. ad Tim. cap. 3. (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Loc. c. 14. (a) Hom. 2. in Ep. ad Tit. (b) Comm. in Ep. ad Tit. c. 1. Tom. IX p. 245 (c) Ep. 83. ad Oceanum in init (d) 1 Tim. 5. 9. (a) In actu vero conjugii negari non potest quin admixta sit quaedam impuritas pollutio non quae peccatum sit sed quae ex peccato tamen nata sit Controv. Tom. II. lib. 1. cap. 19. (a) Heb. 13. 4. (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Socrat l. 1. c. 11. (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Strom. l. 3. (d) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. (e) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. (f) Sed sicut faeraina castitatis vinculis obligata est ne aliud concupiscat ita vir eadem legetenetur quo quia Deus viro uxorem unius corporis compage solidavit Epitome cap. 8. (a) Sunt ergo virginitatis praemia sunt merita viduitatis est etiam conjugali pudicitiae locus Epist 82. ad Vercell (b) Qui unius uxoris virum 〈◊〉 esse non quo exortem excludat conjugii nam hoc supra legem praecepti est sed ut conjugali castimonia servet ablutionis suae gratiam Ibid. ante Med. (a) Gen. 1. 28. (b) Exod 19. 15. (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. Hom. 56. in fine (a) Strom. l. 3. p. 446. (b) Adv. Jovin l. 1. in sin (c) Vid. Cl●…m Alex. Str●…m l. 2. p. 421. (a) 1 Cor. 7. 32. (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Strom. l. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex.