more continent And in another place resolving Oceanus his Question Whether Carterius a Spanish Bishop who had married one Wife before and a second after Baptism had not thereby violated the Apostle's Injunction of a Bishop's being the Husband of one Wife He pronounceth That he had not Lastly The contrary Opinion is built upon a false Foundation For not to say that it was first set on foot by Tertullian after he was become a Montanist and from him received by the Latin Fathers it relyeth wholly upon these Two false Suppositions First That according to any other sence the Precept of the Apostle would have been unnecessary the Roman Laws never allowing Polygamy Secondly That the Apostle maketh use of the same Phrase when he commands a Widdow to be chosen the wife of one husband 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 although no Laws or civilized Nations ever permitted Women to have two Husbands at the same time But both these Reasons vanish when opposed to our Third Interpretation For Divorce was permitted by the Roman as well as Jewish Laws for many other causes besides that of Adultery which alone was allowed by Christ So that whosoever had put away his Wife for any other cause and married another might truly be said to have two Wives and any Woman who had married again after such an unlawful Divorce had truly two Husbands Having thus refuted the pretence of Divine or Apostolical Institution I proceed to the Second Proposition That the Celibacy of the Clergy hath nothing excellent in itself and produceth no real Advantage either to the Church or the Christian Religion beyond Marriage And here I am not ignorant what Panegyricks and Encomiums of Virginity have been composed by many of the Antients and almost all the Writers of the Barbarous Ages This was a large field for them wherein to display their Rhetorick a subject so specious in itself and glorious in its Title that 't is no wonder it hath been the Theme of so many luxuriant Wits many of which have little less than Deify'd it and equall'd its Merits to the collection of all other Christian Vertues I shall not here undertake nor is it necessary to make an harangue upon the Praises of Marriage much less to depress the Excellencies of the Virgin state it will suffice to shew the weakness and invalidity of the contrary Arguments and thereby reduce both Marriage and Virginity to that Equilibrium wherein Nature first placed them and our Saviour left them First then I observe That this extraordinary affection and reverence of Virginity was first started and introduced by a Heretick Tertullian who deceived by the Enthusiasms of Montanus endeavoured to resine the Christian Religion and advance it into a System of Angelick Perfection He led the way to the Writers of the Latin Church who receiving this prejudice from him propagated it in some measure among the Greeks although it never was by them embraced with that zeal and pursued with that fervour which always accompanied it in the Western Church Secondly it may be observed That this extravagant veneration of Virginity prevailed proportionably to the decay of Learning and encrease of Ignorance in all Ages The Reputation of Celibacy was ever then highest when Knowledge was at its lowest ebb Particularly in the Tenth and Eleventh Ages the most scandalous and barbarous periods of Time that ever the Church waded through when Learning seemed banished out of the whole World then Celibacy triumphed every where and was look'd upon as the Consummation of all Vertues Marriage of the Clergy decried and abolished and more Monasteries founded than in all the Ages either before or since Thirdly This Opinion was first produced and ever after advanced and maintained by a gross Mistake that there is somewhat of impurity or sinfulness in the use of Marriage and that Chastity cannot be retained in a Married state That the Admirers of Celibacy among the Antients were guilty of this Mistake we shall have hereafter occasion to observe and although the more Learned Writers of the Church of Rome are ashamed of such a Proposition yet do they constantly fall back and recurr to it when they assign the Reasons of imposing Celibacy upon the Clergy So Bellarmine after he had before disowned it when his purpose requires it doubts not to say It cannot be denied that some impurity and pollution intervenes in the act of Marriage not what is a sin but what ariseth from sin If by this Pollution and Impurity he means a Natural one we grant it but then that affects not the Soul nor depreciates the worth of Marriage if a Moral one that will indeed be truly and properly a Sin but this he dares not say Besides his Distinction of a Sin and a Consequence of a Sin is wholly vain For if in all Use of Marriage the effect of a Sin interveneth then cannot Marriage be used without some precedent sin A Proposition so false and erroneous that the Use of Marriage was intended for our first Parents in the state of Innocence and would have been practis'd to this very day had they never fallen Nay farther whether fallen or not fallen it was their Duty to make use of Marriage for the Propagation of Mankind and even for some Ages after the Creation it was so far from being meritorious that it was Unlawful to continue Virgins But if by the antecedent sin which produceth this Pollution in the Act of Marriage Bellarmine means only the Original depravity of our Nature if it be a Necessary effect of this depravity then God cannot in Justice and will not in Mercy impute it to us if it be not a Necessary effect of it then Marriage may be used without it and his Proposition will fall to the ground However because this ever was and is still the great Engine of the Patrons of Virginity wherewith they gained Applause in the World and blinded the eyes of unwary People it will not be amiss to clear this matter a little further and demonstrate that a true and proper Chastity and Continence may be observed in Marriage which will also overthrow most of the Authorities produced out of the Writings of the more moderate and disinteressed Fathers as insinuating no more than an Advice of Chastity in the Use of Marriage If this Proposition seemeth either harsh or like a Paradox it is only because we are unacquainted with it and our judgment anticipated by false notions of Chastity which consists as well in a moderate and well regulated Use of Matrimonial Acts as in a total Abstinence from them nay the former will always be a Vertue the latter sometimes a Sin as in the Infancy of the Creation and if one married Person totally abstaineth without the consent of the other and in most cases but a thing indifferent and then only a Vertue when it administers occasion and opportunity to a greater good than is the Propagation of Mankind and vertuous Education of Children for
from married Priests but much farther in the time of Hildebrand and once again advanced into the formal Heresie of the Eustathians From the Montanists the Catholicks received their dislike of second Marriages one of the most palpable Errours of Antiquity since what the Apostle expresly alloweth and in some Cases adviseth most of the Ancients decry as scandalous and inconvenient oft-times as a tolerable Evil and sometimes even as a grievous sin Tertullian hath written whole Books against it Athenagoras calls it a decent Adultery Origen maintains that a Digamist however otherwise a person of good conversation and adorned with all other Vertues not to belong to the Church I might add many other Fathers and Councils who imposed a tedious Penance upon Digamists but the thing is sufficiently notorious This prejudice against Digamy was first taken up in the end of the Second Age. Before that time second Marriage was thought indifferent and wholly innocent Hermes in â—…he First Age had determined the lawfulness of it and Clemens Alexandrinus in the next pleads largely for it From the Gnosticks the Catholicks received an erroneous Opinion of some Impurity and Sinfulness or at least Imperfection in the use of Marriage They scrupled not to use the Authority of Books forged by those Hereticks in prejudice of Marriage such as the Gospel of the Egyptians the Acts of Paul and Tecla and the like and in some measure adopted their Errours Thus Origen and one of the most early Favourers of Celibacy writeth thus of Marriage Although I will not positively pronounce yet I suppose these are some ordinary actions of Men which however they be free from sin are not worthy to be honoured with tbe presence of the Holy Gospel for instance lawful Marriage is not indeed sinful yet while conjugal Acts are performed the Holy Ghost will not be present although he seems to be a Prophet who performs them St. Hierom the great Patron of Celibacy in the next Age goeth farther and disputing against Jovinian doth in some places make Marriage not only sinful but even damnable If it be good saith he for a Man not to touch a Woman then it is evil to touch her For nothing is contrary to Good but Evil. While I perform the Duty of a Husband I do not the Duty of a Christian For the Apostle commandeth we should always pray If so we must never serve the ends of Marriage For as often as I do that I cannot pray I suppose that the end of Marriage is eternal Death The Earth indeed is filled by Marriage but Paradise by Virginity And as the Apostle permits not those who are already married to put away their Wives so he forbideth Virgins to marry Marriage is permitted only as a remedy of Lust it being more tolerable to be prostituted to one man than many Nor did this Errour expire with those Heresies from whence they rose About the year 600. when Augustin Archbishop of Canterbury desired of Pope Gregory some Instructions for his new Converts in England and Rules of Ecclesiastical Discipline he gave him this for one A Man after he hath laid with his own Wife ought not to enter into the Church till he hath washed himself with water nor must then immediately enter Whereas Clemens Alexandrinus praising the Simplicity of the Christian Religion instanceth in this very Ceremony which although used of old by the Jews he saith was no where practised in his time by the Christians Many other erroneons Opinions obtained in the antient Church which proceeded from no other cause but this I will observe but one more their Opinion of the lawfulness of Self-murder to prevent the loss of Virginity imagining somewhat of Sinfulness and Impurity was inseparably annexed even to the natural act of Generation So Eusebius bestows large Encomiums upon some Virgins and Matrons who had laid violent hands upon themselves to prevent the Lust of Heathens And Aldhelmus citeth a Sentence of some Father more antient than himself Self-murder is unlawful unless when Chastity is endangered which he consirms and illustrates with many Reasons and Examples Such weaknesses of the Antients had deserved indeed to be buried in Oblivion if they had not influenced their Practice and laid the Foundations of an Errour which continueth even to this day that Marriage is a state Unbefitting and Celibacy therefore Necessary to the Clergy An Opinion first taken up upon those Prejudices which we have just now mentioned and maintained upon the Authority of those who are led away with these Mistakes So that to take away the Plea of Antiquity from the Church of Rome in the case of Celibacy it were sufficient to shew that the Antients received and embraced it meerly for the sake of these Prejudices and Mistakes Which we have already done For these were the great and only Arguments of Celibacy for the first Thousand years while none were yet so foolish as to imagin it to be of Divine or Apostolical Institution The pre-conceived Opinions of the impurity of Marriage in all and great indecency of it in those who administred Holy things tended directly to introduce the Celibacy of the Clergy For these Reasons Origen and Eusebius who were the only Orthodox Writers before the Council of Nice who openly prefer the Celibacy of the Clergy to their Marriage desired it might be introduced For they rather faintly wished the thing than dogmatically used it and by their Wishes manifest that it was not yet introduced As for their unreasonable prejudice against Digamy that contributed no less to the cause of Celibacy than the other Mistakes For the unlawfulness of Digamy once supposed the force of the Apostles Precept of Marriage to all who could not contain became wholly enervate since a Man is no less subject to Incontinence after enjoyment of a Wife for some few years perhaps days than he was before he ever married Besides all the Patrons of Celibacy failed not to make use of this Argument That if Second Marriage be unlawful or indecent to the Laity even First Marriage will be so to the Clergy it being usual for them who disallowed Second Marriage in all to think First Marriage only a tolerable evil and permitted in some as Divorce was formerly to the Jews And then it was a natural order of Superstition first to forbid Second and then all Marriage to the Clergy Therefore we may observe that in the beginning of the Third Age Tertullian affirms Digamy to have been forbidden to the Clergy both by Apostolical Tradition aud the Discipline of the Church and to be generally discussed by them in his time as a scandalous Imperfection if not a Crime But we no where find Marriage forbidden to the Clergy till the time of the Apostolick Canons first published in the end of this or beginning of the next Age. These Mistakes and Prejudices and Reasons of Celibacy founded upon them were common to both
Churches but there was one Reason peculiar to the Western Church which however it may seem light was of great efficacy and that was the unhappy Fall of Tertullian into Montanism That Great and Learned Person naturally endowed with an ardent Genius of a severe and inflexible temper of Mind infinitely zealous for all outward appearances of religious Mortification and after his Fall prompted with that Enthusiastick Spirit which was the peculiar Character of the Montanists set himself to advance the Opinion of his Sect with all imaginable vigour The unlawfulness of Digamy was the chief Tenet of that Sect and that founded upon an erroneous Supposition of some Imperfection in the Use even of First Marriage In maintaining and recommending these Errours to the World Tertullian employed all the force of his Wit and Eloquence to debase the dignity of Marriage and extoll the merits of a Single-life whether Widowhood or Virginity The extraordinary reverence and esteem which his great Learning and apparent Zeal procured to him in succeeding Ages mightily propagated his Errours and corrupted his Readers with false Prejudices and Notions of Marriage and Virginity For altho' it had been reasonable and sufficient to say of him what St. Hierome once said when pressed hard with his Authority He was a Schismatick no Writer of the Church Yet few considered that the persuasive force of his Eloquence was more sensible than the remembrance of his Schism and then few enquired which Books he writ before and which after his Fall or rather it was a common Errour that he writ very few after and almost all before his Fall. Whereas in truth he writ before his Fall only the Three little Treatises of Baptism Repentance and Prayer not the Twentieth part of his Works now extant To this Reputation of Tertullian and the ill Effects of it contributed not a little the infinite esteem and veneration which St. Cyprian had for his Writings while unwary Persons imagined that the deference which that blessed Martyr paid to his Learning and Zeal was an effect of the soundness and orthodoxy of his Doctrine However certain it is that the Fall of Tertullian advanc'd and encreas'd the former Prejudices and this I take to be the only reason why Celibacy ever prevailed more in the Western than in the Eastern Church All these Prejudices were in themselves unlawful But there were other Reasons of preferring Celibacy in the Ancient Church which might have been allowed if not attended with such fatal Consequences And first many Catholicks openly espoused the cause of Celibacy and others winked at their Policy meerly to prevent the Delusion of more simple Catholicks by the no less glorious than fraudulent Pretences of the Encratites Who to use St. Hierome's words because they knew the name of Virginity was venerable covered the Wolves under Sheeps-cloathing Antichrist pretended to act the part of Christ and veiled the uncleanness of their Lives with the false honour of that usurped Name They esteemed it a laudable Policy to prevent the Mischief by proposing to the Practice of Men that very Perfection which the Hereticks so much boasted of and the Multitude were apt to admire as being always casier led with great Pretences than sober Truth A not unlike Policy with this was afterwards used by St. Chrysostome against the Arians when fearing the People would be seduced by their Enthusiastical singing of Hymns he set up the same way of singing of Hymns among the Catholicks and thereby prevented the design of the Arians a Stratagem as the Historian observeth and may be applied to our case which however specious was the Occasion of very ill Consequences While Celibacy thus gained ground by the Artisice of Hereticks and Connivance of Catholicks few interposed themselves to undeceive Mankind and stop the torrent of these vulgar Prejudices as well because the immoderate esteem of Celibacy seem'd a Matter of no great moment while it was forcibly imposed upon none nor made necessary to any as because the dis-favour and unjust suspicions of the Multitude would probably have attended such an undertaking While unreasonable Men would have esteemed such a Person as a Libertine an Enemy of refined and more severe Religion and thought him to have therein pleaded only for his own Passions and Inclinations And when Celibacy became once universally esteemed and great numbers of Lay-men vowing Virginity voluntarily abstained from Marriage who by their supposed Sanctity and specious Abstinence drew to themselves the eyes and admiration of all Men the Clergy also were necessitated to make some advances in the Use of Celibacy that they might not suffer loss of Reputation and seem less Vertuous and Spiritual than Lay-men Hence St. Hierome frequently urgeth the Celibacy of the Clergy by the Example of Lay-Virgins affirming it to be highly indecent that the Laity should exceed the Clergy even in voluntary Acts of Piety and Mortification This Reason afterwards received great advantage from the wonderful encrease of Monkery and Vows of Continence in the Fourth and Fifth Ages insomuch that Faustus the Manichee objected to St. Austin that the immoderate Commendation of Virginity had among the Catholicks produced this Effect that in all their Churches there seem'd to be a greater number of professed Virgins than married Women No wonder then if Reverence attending the unmarried and Contempt the married Clegry Celibacy prevailed in the Church and Marriage by being dis-esteeemed became also dis-used especially since Ambition contributed not a little to it For from the end of the Fourth Age the Bishops and greater Clergy were generally chosen out of the Monks and thereby Celibacy became the nearest way to Preferment But to return to the Third Age the frequent Persecutions of that time did not a little advance the Cause of Celibacy it being highly convenient to the Church that the Clergy should shew an Example of Constancy and Resolution to all other Christians which it was believed they would more readily perform when freed from the encumbrances of a married state and not with-holden with the temptations of Wife and Children For the fury of the Heathen Persecutors generally fell most heavy upon the Clergy and sometimes was directed against them only So that to be promoted to any eminent Place in the Church was to be exposed to certain Martyrdom For this reason as Eusebius somewhere relates in the Choice of Bishops single Persons were commonly preferred before married Men in Times of Persecution And then Celibacy was no grievous and intolerable burthen when attended with a continual Expectation of Death and being hurried away to Execution To which may be added that few were then received into the Priesthood but aged Men who by a long course of Vertue had given sufficient proof of their Continence and unspotted Chastity Whereas in the Church of Rome Boys were admitted to Profess or make a Vow of Continence at Fourteen Girls at Twelve years of age till the Council of Trent which reduced it
to Sixteen All these Reasons concurred in the First Ages to encrease the esteem of Celibacy and prejudice the Marriage of the Clergy The way was opened by forbidding Second Marriage to the Clergy and receiving none into Holy Orders who had married twice after Baptism For if a Man married once before and again after Baptism he was commonly reputed no Digamist This Prejudice against Second Marriage encreased so far that all were made uncapable of Holy Orders who had married Widows lest they should seem to countenance thereby the supposed scandal of Digamy I mean not hereby that Second Marriage was forbidden to the Clergy by any Council or Orders denied to all Digamists none excepted for neither the one nor the other of those Suppositions is true but only that it became the general and ordinary practice of the Church not to permit Second Marriage to those already ordained nor Orders to those already twice married In the same manner a Custom was introduced and by the end of the Third Age established in the Church that the Clergy might indeed freely retain their Wives married before the reception of Orders but not marry after Orders once received Not that this was yet forbidden by any Canon nor practised without Exception for the contrary of that we shall immediately demonstrate but only was the usual and more ordinary Discipline of the Church Whence both the Prohibition of Digamy and Marriage after Orders to the Clergy were inserted among the Apostolical Canons wherein that is the Sixteenth this the Twenty fifth Canon These Apostolical Canons were not the Constitutions of any Council much less Precepts and Institutions of the Apostles but only the Customs and Usages of the Eastern Church in the end of the Third and beginning of the Fourth Age which seem to have been collected about that time by some private Hand however then authorized by the Use and afterwards confirmed by the Decree of the Church This Custom of the Ancient Church however it may seem almost equivalent to an Imposition of Celibacy was yet far from it For first it was not so strict and universal as to admit no Exception Marriage was permitted to many even after the reception of Orders as we shall shew by and by from the Canon of Ancyra and allowed indifferently to all if they receded from the Execution of their Office and returned to Lay-Communion in order to it as we shall also hereafter prove Secondly If any Person to be ordained were not yet married and did in the least suspect he should not be able afterwards to contain without Marriage he was not only permitted but even advised by the Church first to Marry and then to receive Orders So that they frequently married whilest Candidates of the Priesthood and already designed to that Holy Office perhaps but some few days before their admittance into it So the Sixth General Council renewing this very Apostolick Canon forbid any to marry after Orders once received and adds But if any one who comes to be ordained hath a mind to joyn himself unto a Wife with the bond of Marriage let him do it before he be ordained Deacon or Sub-deacon or Priest and then receive Orders Thirdly By allowing to the Clergy the free Use of Marriage contracted before their Ordination they acknowledged both the lawfulness and decency of their Marriage whether contracted before or after Ordination For if there be any indecency in Marriage which makes it unbecoming the dignity and holiness of the Priesthood it must be in the Use of it as all confess and if so the Use of Marriage contracted before as well as after Ordination will become indecent For the Contract itself is a thing most honest and decorous so far from carrying any impurity and indecency along with it that the Churh of Rome believeth it to be a Sacrament What were the particular Reasons why the Antient Church permitted to the Clergy the Use of the one Marriage and disallowed the other may be probably reduced from what we have already said For those Men who were led away by the Mistakes and Prejudices produced in the Church by the Heresie of the Encratites endeavoured at least to introduce this Custom when they despaired of a total Abrogation of the Clergies Marriage and perhaps thought that intolerable in itself or inconvenient to the Church And then those who otherwise clearly perceived the falshood of these Prejudices contented themselves with silence and connived at the Introduction of this Custom as well for fear of a Popular Odium and Dis-esteem as because they were convinced by the Reasons last mentioned that such a Custom if it proceeded no farther was little less than equivalent to a total Permission of Marriage To which may be added that the Rites of Marriage being anciently especially among the Greeks always celebrated with great Riot and Luxury continued for many days together it was thought unbefitting the gravity of a Clergyman to be present at much more to be chief Actor in such licentious Solemnities Upon which account the Councils of Laodicea and Agatha forbid the Clergy to be present at Nuptial Feasts although the Quinisext Council restrained that Prohibition only to the Iudicrous and more trifling part of the Solemnity In some of the Clergy these Prejudices of the Excellency of Celibacy and the Inconvenience of Marriage to the dignity of their Order prevailed so far that upon pretence of Continence and greater Purity they sequestred their Wifes although unwilling from their bed and sometimes from their society The superstitious and scandalous conduct of these Men was universally condemned and censured by the Church Whence among the Apostolick Canons this is one Let no Bishop Priest or Deacon put away his Wife upon pretence of Religion If he doth let him be excomunicated and if he continue obstinate be degraded Our Adversaries indeed pretend that this Canon was not opposed to a denial of Nuptial Duties by the Clergy to their Wives but to a denial of Maintainance and turning them out of doors to beg their Living But the vanity of this Plea is evident For not to say that the constant acceptance of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports no more than a sequestration from the Bed the Canon in the sense of our Adversaries would be useless and trifling For we do not find nor can imagin that so great an abuse ever obtained in the Church as that the Clergy should eject their innocent Wives and expose them to want and poverty Whereas that many removed them from their Bed and believed their embraces unlawful after Orders received is already clearly proved and on all sides confessed The Errour of the Impurity of Marriage had so far obtained in the Minds of many that it was necessary for the Church to interpose her Judgment and vindicate the Cause of injured Marriage For as Aristenus truly paraphrases this Canon A Clergyman by sequestring his Wife from his Bed
dwell with you you ought not to have chosen Virginity but to have married For it had been much better so to have married than thus to profess Virginity For such a marrige neither God condemns nor Man blames for 't is an honourable State injurious to none scandalous to none But this Virginity performed in the company of Men is accused by all Men as worse than open Fornication Lastly thus St. Hierom describes them I am ashamed to speak it it is sad but true Whence did this plague of House-keepers enter into the Church Whence without Marriage another name for Wives yea whence this new kind of Concubines I will say more whence these Whores tied to the oompany of one Man They lodge in the same House in one Chamber and oft-times in one Bed and yet they call us unreasonably suspicious if we think any thing amiss Such then were these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first introduced in the middle of the Third Age and notwithstanding the frequent Prohibitions of Councils and Declimations of Fathers continued in the Church but with greatest Scandal about the Year 400. till at last they degenerated into open Concubines in the Church of Rome in which state the Reformation found them generally then thought Lawful or at least a venial Sin although none since hath dared to defend them They were forbidden in the Ancient Church by the Councils of Eliberis Ancyra Nice the First and Third of Carthage the Third of Constantinople the Second of Nice Aquisgran and many others and by the Emperor Justinian in his Novels As for Emasculation that was severely forbidden by the Apostolick Canons and the Council of Nice and seems to have been dis-used before the Year 500. Upon occasion of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it will not be here inconvenient to speak somewhat of the Book de Singularitate Clericorum which we just now cited This Book however in its Title it may seem to oppose the Marriage of the Clergy is one of the most pregnant Evidences of the Use of it in the Ancient Church that is now extant It is by some ascribed to Origen by others to St. Augustin but by most to St. Cyprian However all Learned Men now agree that it belongs to none of them The late Learned Editors of St. Cyprian's Works at Oxford conjecture it to have been written about the time of Bede Rather it was most certainly written before the middle of the Fifth Age because the Author of it makes use of the old Italick Version which was in use in the Latin Church before St. Hierom's Translation Most probably therefore it was writ in the Fourth Age. The scope of it is to decry and reform the abuse of House-keepers which as the Author saith was then become so scandalous in the Church that the unmarried Clergy could not endure to sleep without the company of a Woman If in the heat of Disputation he lets fall any thing injurious to Marriage it is such as opposeth no less the Marriage of the Laity than of the Clergy and indeed the former part of the Treatise is nothing else but a Satyr against Women But the design of the Author and the lawfulness and use of the Clergies Marriage in his time may be evidently collected from many places I will produce one or two of them premising this Observation that the Author ranks those Women also among the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who lived in the House with married Clergymen if they had no Relation of Kindred or Marriage to them That the company of near Relations was never denied to the Clergy since proximity of Blood and the dictates of Nature sufficiently secured their Honour and that all other Women but Relations and Wives are by this Author termed Alienae and Extraneae Strange Women If then saith he the Clergy instead of putting away their Wives so fondly adhere to Strange Women What would they do if they were commanded to put away their Wives and Children Or how will they be able to renounce their Kindred for Christ who preferr to the Commands of Christ Women endeared to them by no other Obligations And in another place I affectionately entreat you O Clergymen if any of you hath a Mother a Daughter a Sister a Wife or a Kinswoman living with you ye so save her that no Waiting-maid live with them nor any other Strange Woman have access lest you be suspected to retain your Relations with you for this only reason that ye may under that Pretence take Strange Women into your houses If they cannot want the service or assistance of Maids or the company of Friends of their own Sex it is better that they should remove into another house than that ye should entertain Strange Women for their sakes For as it would be unfit that a Clergyman should deprive them of the necessary assistance of their Sex so it is indecent that they should injure his Reputation by bringing suspicious Women into his company To which may be added the Testimony before cited wherein the Author upbraids to those Clergymen who could not live without House-keepers theâ—… 〈◊〉 to marry Wives We are now come to the great and Famous Council of Nice wherein the Cause of Celibacy was debated and decided I will represent the whole matter in the words of Socrates the Historian c It seemed good to some Bishops to introduce a new Law into the Church That the Clergy I mean Bishops Priests and Deacons should not lay with their Wives which they had married being yet Lay-men And when the thing was proposed to he consulted of Paphnutius standing up in the midst of the Assembly of the Bishops contended vehemently that so heavy a Yoke ought not to be imposed upon the Clergy saying that even Marriage was undefiled or chaste and the Use of it honourable that they should take heed of rather injuring the Church by this excess of Severity For that all could not contain neither perhaps could the chastity of every one's Wife be preserved or as Sozomen expresseth it For that it was a thing very hard to be borne and would perhaps be the cause of Incontinence both to themselves and to their Wives But he asserted the company of a lawful Wife to be Chastity that it was sufficient that he who was first Ordained should not Marry after it according to the Ancient Discipline of the Church but that none ought to be separated from that Wife which he had before married while he was yet a Lay-man And this he said being himself unmarried and brought up from his Youth in a Monastick and Ascetick Life The whole Council yielded to the Arguments of Paphnutius and therefore ceased any farther Debate leaving it to the will of every one whether they would abstain from the company of their Wives or not Sozomen and Nicephorus relate it almost in the same words Suidas in the
should hear Mass from nor communicate with a married Priest. These Constitutions he vigorously endeavoured to put in execâ—…tion by force of Arms Threats and Flattery thundering out Excommunications against those Bishops who blindly employed not their whole power and interest to execute his commands By these violent methods he obtained the confirmation of his Decrees from the Council of Poictou in the year 1078. of Islebonne the same year of Quintilineburg in the year 1085. and many other Provincial Councils Most of the succeeding Popes pursued the same Design and many Councils seconded them in it as that of Melphi in the year 1089. Clermont 1095. and others not worthy a particular relation The force and violence which these Popes and Bishops used to separate the Clergy from their Wives is known to all who have conversed in the Histories of those times But their frauds and impostures gross ignorance and trifling prejudices deserve a more particular consideration The mistakes and errors of precedent Ages which they adopted and improved need no repetition I will insist upon those only which were peculiar to this and the former Age. An universal ignorance had fitted the minds of men to be abused and deceived and the Patrons of Celibacy failed not to make use of this advantage They pretended the Marriage of the Clergy to be in it self null and void and therefore in their Decrees and Canons gave to the Wives of the Clergy no other name than that of Concubines and ever termed their Marriage Adultery Concubinacy and the inveterate Disease of Fornication of the Clergy Many had before forbid Marriage to the Clergy but none had yet dared to call the use of it Fornication which Clemens Alex. affirms to be an opposition of the Law and Gospel and no other than downright Blasphemy Then was the Third Canon of the Council of Nice alledged in against the Marriage of the Clergy and all the spurious Decretals of ancient Popes the late Forgeries of Isidore Mercator produced in favour of the imposition of Celibacy which fraud is at this day continued by the Writers of the Church of Rome who are not ashamed to cite the Epistles of Pope Calixtus the First the Roman Council under Pope Silvester the Acts of Paul and Tecla the History of Abdias and many other spurious Writings the product of latter Ages or foolish Impostors Another artifice was then set on foot which nothing but the highest impudence could devise or maintain and that was to accuse the Greek Church of imposing Marriage upon the Clergy pretending the 13th Canon of Quinisext Council had decreed none should be admitted into Priests Orders who had not first married a Wife This calumny also is espoused by the present Writers of the Church of Rome and particularly Bellarmin who could not but know the falseness of it and that Marriage is no where made necessary to the Clergy but in the Church of Russia The imputation of Heresie to the defenders of the Clergies Marriage was started in this Age and the opprobrious titles of Nicolaites fastned on them This new Heresie is thus described by Petrus Damiani the great Agent of the Popes in the cause of Celibacy The Nicolaites are those Clergy-men who against the rule of ecclesiastical chastity accompany with Women who then truly become fornicators when they adde Marriage to this unlawful Society and are then deservedly called Nicolaites when they defend as lawful this mortal Heresie Lastly to crown these Impostures Miracles were forged as the most proper artifice to impose upon mankind in a superstitious Age when that cause was triumphant not which was most rational but whose followers could by a pretence of Miracles delude the World with greater art and impudence Hence the admired Fable of the 1100 Virgin Martyrs the imposture of the Crucifix in the Synod of Canterbury openly giving its Vote for Dunstan against the married Clergy and the whole Colledge of married Priests of Elingen turned into Eels when by the favour of the Emperour they retained their Wives against the threats and curses of the Pope with a thousand other ridiculous tales which might terrifie the married Clergy amuse the credulous multitude and advance the interest of the greedy Monks who then built their fortunes apace upon the ruins of the secular Clergy But to give an evident testimony of the Frauds and Impostures which promoted Celibacy in this Age I will instance in an Anonymous Author of this time whom the Collectors of the Councils thought worthy to insert into their Edition and who if I be not mistaken was the first that ever dared affirm the Celibacy of the Clergy to be of Divine or Apostolical Institution This Writer in an Apology for the Decrees of Hildebrand published in the Roman Synod Anno 1074. pleads the cause of the Imposition of Celibacy In his Plea he alledgeth the Third Canon of Nice the First of Neocaesarea and the Decretals of Silvester Whatsoever is said by St. Hierom or other ancient Fathers against the Housekeepers he applies to the Wives of the Clergy Affirms Nicolas the Heresiarch to have been the first Author and Introducer of the Clergies Marriage Reckons Paulus Samosatenus condemned and deposed by the Synod of Antioch for his scandalous use of Housekeepers among the defenders of their Marriage Urgeth all the spurious Decretals of ancient Popes Alexander the First Clement and others and doubts not to affirm from Clemens Alex. that Nicolas the Deacon prostituted his Wife to the lust of all persons whenas that learned Father relates the direct contrary as we before shewed No wonder then if amidst so gross ignorance and shameless impostures when the interest of the See of Rome required and the ambition of the whole Monastick Order promoted it when forged Decretals were received and foolish Miracles believed when antient Canons were securely falsified and the practice of other Churches mis-represented when the Bishops and ruling part of the Clergy were either taken out of Monasteries or otherwise at the devotion of the Court of Rome Celibacy triumphed and the Marriage of the Clergy was decried and run down The lamentable and scandalous effects of these proceedings are at large related by the Historians of those times which I will here only briefly touch Matthew Paris and Radulphus de Diceto having related Pope Gregory the Seventh's prohibition of Marriage to the Clergy use these words Hence arose so great a scandal that not even in the time of any Heresie had the Church ever been divided with a more grievous Schism one Party contending for Justice the otheâ—…â—…gainst it Besides few of the Clergy preserving Continence some dissembling their Lust either for Gain or Vain-glory but many aggravating their Incontinence with Perjury and continual Adultery The Laity refused to receive the Sacraments from married Priests burnt the Tythes due to them and oftentimes trod under foot the Body of our Lord consecrated by
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 â—…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