be held null and void. In addition to this, severe penalties were imposed by law on those who transgressed this regulation. These proceedings were founded on the mistaken opinion held by many in those ages, that the celibacy of the clergy was enjoined by God, and that their marriage was consequently a sin.

If, under these circumstances, men, through a mistaken confidence in their own gifts, or of the aid of divine grace, undertook the office of the ministry, and discovered afterwards their error, they could not be bound in conscience by these laws introduced by the Roman pontiffs; because the superior law of scripture already adverted to, dissolved their obligation; and since the severity of the existing Roman laws refused to tolerate marriages, which in such cases were sanctioned by scripture itself, those clergy who adopted so justifiable a proceeding, were most fully entitled not to publish circumstances which might deprive them of their christian liberty and privilege. Had the penalties against the marriage of clergy merely amounted to deposition from the ministry, those marriages ought to have been avowed and the penalty incurred; but when the penalties amounted to annulling their marriages and separation, under pain of excommunication and even death, the case was totally different. I admit that no good man ought to have undertaken the ministry under such circumstances, unless persuaded of his fitness, through divine grace, to fulfil its conditions; but if he found himself mistaken, he could not be bound to risk his salvation in the attempt.

f

Thomassin. t. i. lib. ii. c. 64, 65.

The Confession of Augsburgh complains: "nunc capitalibus poenis excruciantur et quidem

sacerdotes contra canonum voluntatem, nullam aliam ob causam, nisi propter conjugium."-Pars ii. art. 2.

III. It may be alleged that, at all events, the marriage of clergy after ordination, is generally prohibited by the ancient canons, and therefore that it can never be lawful.

I reply that this prohibition was merely founded on prudential motives; and that the universal church did not really believe that marriage after ordination was more to be condemned than continuance in the married state contracted previously. The council of Ancyra gave permission to deacons to marry afterwards, if at the time of receiving orders they professed their inten. tion of so doing". The western church forbad the married state equally, and with the same penalties, whether contracted before or after ordination. Their objection was not to the time at which it was contracted, but to the state itself. Therefore since the eastern church held that there was nothing unlawful in continuing in the state of matrimony after ordination, while the western held that there was no greater fault in contracting marriage after ordination, we may fairly draw the conclusion, that the universal church never condemned marriage after ordination.

IV. The case of second marriages comes next under our consideration. According to the ancient canons, a digamus," or one who had married twice after baptism, could not be ordained: but this arose from the opinion very common in those ages, that second marriages were inconsistent with christian perfection. By the canons, those of the laity who married twice were

h Concil. Ancyr. can. x.

"In occidente non magni pendebant, ante vel post ordinationem initum fuisset conjugium; perinde uxoribus abstinere majores clerici cogebantur." Thomass.

t. i. lib. ii. c. 61. n. 2. See also c. 62. n. 2.

Canon iv. Apostol. iv. Carthag. c. 69. On this subject see Field, Of the Church, b. v. c. 58.

subjected to penance; and the clergy were forbidden to attend at their wedding feasts'. S. Jerome remarks that even the pagan priests were not permitted to marry a second time". Therefore it appears that in those ages second marriages caused scandal; but such opinions having become obsolete in the universal church many ages since, it does not seem that there can be any necessity for adhering to a discipline, the reason of which has ceased. And with regard to second marriages, even after ordination, the same reasons which would justify one marriage would justify a

second.

tle says,

OBJECTIONS.

I. The purity and sanctity of the christian sacraments require holy ministers. The greatness of the ministerial office requires the whole man, as the apos"No man that warreth entangleth himself with the things of this life "." The faithful married may remain apart "with consent for a time, to give themselves to prayer and fasting "." Therefore the ministers of Christ, who are to be always engaged in prayer ought to remain in celibacy. If the priests of the Old Testament were required to be abstinent during their ministration, how much more ought the priests of the New Law who are always ministering at the sacred altar. Since Christ was born of a virgin mother, and was himself unmarried, it is fit that those by whom his body is handled in the eucharist should be perpetually abstinent.

Answer. One reply is sufficient for all these argu

1 Neocæsarea, c. 7. Laodicen. Jovinian.

1. Ancyr.

m Hieronymus, lib. i. adv.

"2 Tim. ii. 4.

• 1 Cor. vii. 5.

ments.

The presbyters of the eastern churches, who are equally ministers of the sacraments, and no less honoured with the sacerdotal office than the Latins, have always, from the beginning, with the approbation of the whole catholic church, lived in the state of matrimony.

II. God will not fail to bestow His gifts on those who call on Him aright. "He will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that they may be able to bear it P."

Answer. God having left men free, and allowed the remedy of marriage, He cannot reasonably be expected to give other assistance. Therefore to maintain, that those priests, who, through a venial error, have subjected themselves to this difficulty, have no resource except in prayer to God, and fasting, &c., is to afford them no sufficient remedy.

III. A vow of celibacy was taken by every person who received sacred orders in the Latin church; therefore those who married after ordination were perjured.

Answer. In England, at least, there was no such promise of celibacy as there may have been else

P 1 Cor. x. 13.

The remedies recommended by Eusebius Amort, are prayer, mortification, caution, &c.Amongst mortifications he includes, "ciliciorum aliquoties per hebdomadam usus; flagellationes in tempore fortioris tentationis aut lapsus; cubatio in sacco stramineo, vel assere; somni ad sex aut septem horas limitatio; extensis brachiis oratio; recreationum alias acceptarum v. g. lusus, epulationis, confabulationis, &c. devitatio; ceræ liquefactæ in partem aliquam corporis affusio

VOL. II.

gustata; candelæ ardentis approximatio dolorifica; in hyeme palmarum ad gelida corpora, v. g. murum, ferrum, marmora, nives, aquas frigidas diuturna applicatio, præsertim in actuali effervescentia carnis; pedibus itineratio molesta; frigoris vel æstus molesta perpessio; per labores fatigatio, v. g. per scriptionem, instructionem, opera manualia, &c."-Theologia Eclect. Mor. et Schol. t. xviii. p. 177. It is not every one that could maintain this sort of mortification continually.

G g

where but it is disputed even now among Roman theologians whether there is any obligation to celibacy from any vow. Ligorio says, "An hæc obligatio sit immediate ex præcepto ecclesiæ, vel mediate per votum ordinatorum? Utraque est probabilis ex eodem cap. 9, Trident. Prima sententia, quam tenent Mastrius, Bosco, Herinx, &c. apud Holzmann, p. 268, n. 103, ac Scotus, Palaus, Valent. et Aversa, apud Salmant. cap. 6, n. 28, (qui cum Sanchez merito probabilem putant) dicit, quod non ex voto, sed ex sola ecclesiæ lege ordinati in sacris teneantur ad castitatem "."

CHAPTER X.

ON THE VALIDITY OF THE ENGLISH ORDINATIONS.

AMONGST the various deceptive arguments by which the ministers of the Romish schism have endeavoured to pervert the weak from the communion of the church, there is not one which has been urged with such unwearied assiduity, art, and audacity, as that which affects the validity of the English ordinations. It has been since the origin of the schism, the most popular of their devices to represent the uncertainty of our ministry, as contrasted with the assumed certainty of their own, and thence to argue the necessity of taking the "safer" side. Thus Lewgar, in the preface of his book, entitled "Erastus Senior," says, "the intent of this treatise is only of my charity to my friends and countrymen of the Protestant profession, to show them this