{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_Thelyphthora_Volume_3_Chapter_12/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Thelyphthora_Volume_3_Chapter_12","id":"wikisource_Thelyphthora_Volume_3_Chapter_12","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Thelyphthora/Volume_3/Chapter_12","summary":null,"tags":["Pages_using_ppoem_with_custom_stanza_classes","Subpages"],"text":"Layout 2\n\nCHAP. XII.\n\nShewing by what Means, and by what Degrees, the Laws of Jehovah, concerning Marriage, were opposed and abrogated, and a New System invented and established, by Christian Churchmen.\n\nCENTURY I. and II.\n\nIT is no easy matter to lay before the Reader, a detail of historical facts, relative to the transactions of the latter part of the first Century, and the beginning of the second, from any of the Ecclesiastical Histories; I know of none which were written at that time; for the works, which bear the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, were forged in the 5th Century, and illustrated with annotations by John of Scythopolis in the 6th. See Mosheim, vol. i. p. 298, 408. note u. Macl. edit.\n\nThe first testimony, therefore, with which I shall begin, is of the epistolary kind, and this, under the hand of Clemens Bishop of Rome. At the end of Wetstein's New Testament, vol. ii. are to be found two epistles of \"St. Clement the Roman, disciple of St. Peter, taken from the book of the Syriac MS. of the New Testament.\" Wetstein, in order to prove they are genuine, cites two testimonies, one of St. Jerome, the other of Epiphanius: the first of which, c. Jovinian, lib. i. writes thus\u2014\"Hi sunt eunuchi, quos castravit, non necessitas, sed voluntas propter regnum c\u00e6lorum. Ad hos & Clemens successor Apostoli Petri, cujus Paulus Apostolus meminit (Phil. iv. 3.) scribit epistolas, omnemque pen\u00e8 sermonem suum de virginitatis puritate contexuit, & deinceps multi Apostolici & Martyres, & illustres tam sanctitate quam eloquentia, quos ex propriis scriptis nosse perfacile est.\"\n\n\"These are eunuchs, which, not necessity, but their own will, hath castrated for the kingdom of heaven. To these Clement, the successor of the apostle Peter, (of whom the apostle Paul makes mention Phil. iv. 3.) writes epistles, and almost his whole discourse relates to the purity of virginity. After that, many apostolical men and martyrs, and illustrious as well for sanctity as eloquence, whom it is very easy to know from their own writings, did the same.\"\n\nEpiphanius, (H\u00e6res. 30. of the Ebionites, n. 15.) says, \"That Clement taught virginity, in all the circular epistles which he wrote, and which were red in the Churches.\"\n\nThe epistles themselves appear in Syriac, with a Latin translation; by which it seems evident, that this saint was as great an advocate for virginity as Jerome was himself.\n\nClement says,\u2014\"Whosoever professeth before the Lord, that he will preserve his chastity, ought to be girt with every holy virtue; and if indeed he hath crucified his body for the sake of piety, he prays against the Word, which saith\u2014\"increase and multiply, and the whole mind, and cogitation, and concupiscence of this world,\" &c.\u2014and afterwards\u2014\"For he who desires for himself these great and excellent things, on that account is discharged, and separates himself, from the whole world, that he may go away, and live a divine and heavenly life, like the holy angels,\" &c. \"On this account he separates himself from all the desires of the body, and not only prays against that\u2014\"Be fruitful and multiply\"\u2014but desires that hope, promised, prepared, and placed in heaven with God, who promised with his mouth and lyeth not, who is greater than sons and daughters, and will give to virgins a famous place in the house of God, more excellent than sons and daughters, and more excellent than to those who were yoked together in holiness, and who are not polluted by their matrimonial intercourse.\"\n\nA deal more of such impious piety is to be found in other parts of these epistles; but these quotations may serve to shew, how very early it became a fashion, in the Christian church, to put imagination in the place of scripture, and to invent schemes of sanctity, which directly militated against the will and word of God, as revealed in the holy scripture.\n\nWhat God had honoured with His primary blessing (Gen. i. 28.) they were to deprecate\u2014what he commanded they were to avoid\u2014and, in short, it seems as if the way to be thoroughly holy, was to counteract all that God had done and said upon the subject of marriage, by every method they possibly could, even to the \"avoiding the speech and society of the other sex, as the contagion of a plague.\" How this foundation was built upon in later times, the sequel will very sufficiently shew.\n\nIf the reader will turn to Is. lvi. 4, 5. which is the scripture alluded to in the latter part of the above quotation, he will see how the word of God could be perverted and abused, to answer the purposes of these delusions.\n\nAs for the genuineness of these two epistles, the reader may find what is said on that subject by Wetstein, vol. ii. N. T. Proleg. at the end of the volume; who seems to entertain little doubt of the matter.\n\nEusebius Pamphilus, Bishop of C\u00e6sarea in Palestine, a writer of the fourth century, whom Mosheim speaks of, as \"a man justly famous for his profound knowledge of ecclesiastical history,\" (Mosh. vol. i. p. 186.) has left us an history of the church; and in that part of it which relates to the above period, he tells us (B. 3. c. 29.) that\u2014\"at this time the heresy called the heresy of the Nicholaites, continued a very short time; of which also the Revelation of John makes mention. These boasted of Nicholas (one of the deacons, who, together with Stephen, were ordained by the apostles to minister to the poor) as the author of their sect.\" Eusebius then cites Clemens Alexandrinus, who flourished about the year 192, as a voucher for the following story, which he professes to transcribe from Clemens, word for word.\u2014\"He (i. e. Nicholas the deacon) they say, having a beautiful wife, being, after our Saviour's ascension, blamed for his jealousy by the apostles, brought his wife forth, and permitted her to marry whom she had a mind to, saying\u2014\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03c7\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7 \u03c3\u03b1\u03c1\u03ba\u03b9\u2014that we ought to abuse the flesh. Those therefore who follow his heresy, simply and rashly assenting to this saying, and imitating this deed, do most impudently give themselves over to fornication. But I am given to understand that Nicholas made use of no other woman, besides her he married; and that those of his children which were daughters, remained virgins when they were old; and his son continued undefiled by women. Which things being thus, his bringing his wife (over whom he is said to be jealous) to the apostles, was a sign of his rejecting and bridling his passion; and by those words of his, that we ought to abuse the flesh, he taught continence, and an abstaining from those pleasures, which are with so much earnestness desired by men. For, I suppose, he would not, according to our Saviour's commandment, serve two masters\u2014Pleasure and the Lord.\n\n\"Moreover they say, that Matthias taught the same doctrine, that we should war against the flesh, and abuse it, allowing it nothing of pleasure; but that we should enrich the soul with faith and knowledge.\n\n\"But Clemens, whose words we have even now cited, after that passage of his before quoted (saith Eusebius) does reckon up those apostles that are found to have been married, upon account of such as despise marriage, saying, what will they reprehend even the apostles also?\"\n\nNow though there are historical facts recorded by this Clemens, as well as by Eusebius himself, which deserve about as much credit as Mother Goose's Tales , yet it is easy to perceive, that marriage itself fell into great disrepute among the very early Christians:\u2014and Dr. Cave, as has been already noticed, (see Thelyph. vol. ii. p. 120. 1st edit. p. 112. 2d edit.) has collected evidence enough of this fact, to leave it without a doubt.\n\nThis Clemens of Alexandria, whatever he might write on behalf of marriage itself, did not approve of second marriages. Du Pin, who reckons Clemens among the writers of the third century, says, that though he does not entirely condemn second marriages, yet he blames them; that he held the d\u00e6mons to have sinned through incontinence; that it is not lawful to marry, but with a design of begetting children.\n\nThe learned Bishop Newton, in his ingenious and edifying \"Dissertations on the Prophecies,\" (vol. ii. p. 443.) observes from Theodoret, who was a writer of the fifth century (see Mosheim, vol. i. 246. Edit. Macl.) that \"Saturninus or Saturnilus, who flourished (early) in the second century, was the first Christian who declared matrimony to be the doctrine of the Devil. But according to Iren\u00e6us and Eusebius, Tatian, who had been a disciple of Justin Martyr, was the first author of this heresy; at least he concurred in opinion with Saturninus and Marcion, and their followers were called Encratites\u2014Continents\u2014from their continence with regard to marriage and meats.\n\n\"The Gnostics likewise, as Iren\u00e6us and Clemens Alexandrinus inform us, asserted, that to marry and beget children proceeded from the devil; and, under pretence of continence, were impious both against the Creature and the Creator, teaching that men ought not to bring into the world others, who would be unhappy, nor supply food for Death.\"\n\nTertullian\n\nAbsolutely condemns second marriages, as being adultery\u2014as did the whole sect of the Montanists. This father apologizes for the contempt of marriage among the early Christians, from their apprehension that the end of the world was near, and that this circumstance vacated the necessity of begetting children. See before, Thelyph. vol. i. p. 170. 2d edit. n.\n\nAthenagoras\n\nCommends virginity\u2014condemns second marriages, calling them honest adultery.\n\nCENTURY III.\n\nMinutius Felix\n\nSays\u2014The Christians commonly marry but once, and that they have no other design in their marriage, but the having of children.\n\nOrigen.\n\nThe violence which this father did on himself is well known;\u2014he was much blamed for it in general\u2014but, Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria, commended his zeal, and the fervency of his faith, and bid him not be discouraged on that account. In his time they did not admit persons that were twice married into holy orders.\n\nHe says, we ought not to make use of marriage, but only for the sake of having children. He at last fell into many errors and strange opinions\u2014and there were disputes in the church whether he was saved or damned:\u2014much it signifies to him, which way the disputants determined the question.\n\nCyprian,\n\nWho, when he was a Catechumen, resolved on continency, says much of the great advantages of virginity; that it was the nearest state to that of martyrdom; that virginity is not of absolute necessity, but a great deal more excellent than marriage\u2014and desires the virgins to remember him when they receive the recompence of their virginity\u2014\"Words,\" says Du Pin, \"which make it appear, that, in St. Cyprian's time, they believed that the saints interceded for us before God.\"\n\nThe book of the celibacy of the clergy is extremely useful (says Du Pin.) In it he proves, that churchmen ought not to live with women.\n\nMethodius,\n\nBishop of Olympus, and afterwards of Tyre, who, in a book intituled the Banquet of Virgins, has given as much pious nonsense on the subject of virginity, and its preference to marriage, as almost all the preceding fathers put together.\n\nIn Du Pin's summary of the discipline of the 3d century, he says, that it was lawful for priests to keep the wives they married before they were ordained, but marriage was never permitted after ordination; but both the one and the other was allowed to deacons. Monks were not as yet instituted; but there were abundance of persons of both sexes among the Christians, that lived in a state of celibacy, and chearfully submitted to the austerities of an ascetic life. There were likewise some women, in the third age of the church, that solemnly obliged themselves to keep their virginity all their life-time.\n\nCENTURY IV.\n\nFor an account of the Emperor Constantine's encouragement of celibacy, see before, Thelyph. vol. ii. 281. n. 1st edit. 252. n. 2d edit.\n\nEusebius of C\u00e6sarea,\n\nPraises the state of virginity as more perfect, and the celibacy of priests, without blaming marriage.\n\nAthanasius,\n\nIn a letter to Ammon the monk, refutes the error of some, who condemned the use of marriage, and shews, from scripture, that it is permitted, and that it is impiety to condemn it, though virginity is a more perfect state, and deserves greater rewards.\n\nHilary,\n\nIn his commentary on Psalm cxix. observes, that celibacy is more perfect than a state of marriage.\n\nHe approves of vows, and invocation of saints, and praises celibacy.\n\nDidymus of Alexandria,\n\nOf whom St. Jerome was a disciple\u2014teaches, that the use of marriage, though it is permitted, is called sin in comparison of virginity, which is a much more excellent state.\n\nCyril of Jerusalem,\n\nTakes notice that virginity is the more perfect state, but that married persons may hope for salvation, provided they use marriage aright. That their intention should not be to satisfy a brutal passion, but to have children. That we ought not to condemn even those who proceed to second marriages; and that this weakness should be pardoned in those who stand in need of this remedy to avoid fornication.\n\nSt. Ephraim of Syria,\n\nAnswered one of his monks, who asked him, who they were that might use that liberty which St. Paul gives to marry, rather than to burn? that it concerns only those who are not bound, and who live in the world, but not those who have renounced the world, and embraced a religious life.\n\nHe has a treatise, to shew the excellencies of a monastic life above the secular.\n\nSt. Basil of C\u00e6sarea,\n\nWas the first founder of a monastic life in Pontus and Cappadocia. He taught, that there are many things forbidden in the Gospel which the Law permitted; that the passage of Genesis, \"Increase and multiply,\" does not respect the New Testament. He observes, that second marriages are a remedy against fornication, and not an inlet to immoderate lust; but he condemns third marriages as a kind of fornication, and says that the custom of the church was to excommunicate those who married a third time, for five years\u2014that, in other places, they were only put under penance for two or three years. He enjoins the same thing to bigamists, for one or two years: though he would have neither the one nor the other reduced to the lowest penance that they should be in the first years in the rank of hearers\u2014the last years they should partake of the prayers\u2014though they were still excluded from the participation of the eucharist 'till their penance was finished, and they had given signs of their conversion.\n\nCan. 12. He declares, that the canons wholly exclude all bigamists from ecclesiastical functions.\n\nCan. 18. St. Basil observes, that the antients did not treat the virgins consecrated to God, who abandoned their profession, more rigorously than bigamists; they imposed only a penance of one year: but he adds, that the church, and the number of virgins, increasing every day, they should be treated as adulterers.\n\nCan. 19. He observes, that men make no vow nor profession of virginity, as virgins do; that those who enter into a monastical state seem tacitly to embrace celibacy; but, to oblige them to it, it was necessary they should be asked, and that they should make profession, and then if they should pass to a voluptuous life, they should be punished as fornicators.\n\nCan. 24. Is against widows, who, being deaconesses, married afterwards. He would have them more severely punished than bigamists, if they be above 60 years old. He excuses them if they be younger, because it was the bishop's fault to receive them too young.\n\nBy Can. 25. It is provided, that he who shall marry a woman after he hath abused her, shall be put under penance, but he shall have leave to keep her for his wife. N.\u00a0B. The law of God positively says, she shall be his wife. See Exod. xxii. 16. Deut. xxii. 28, 29.\n\nIn Can. 26. He declares that fornication is never marriage, and that it cannot lawfully be the beginning of marriage; and, therefore it would be better to part those who have committed this sin, than to marry them together; but yet, if they have a mind to marry, they should not be hindered, left some greater mischief should follow.\n\nQu? If by fornication this father means, the coming together without the rites of the church\u2014how doth this canon agree with the scriptures above referred to?\n\nCan. 40. A slave, who marries without consent of his master, has committed fornication, his marriage being void.\n\nCan. 50. The laws do not forbid nor punish third marriages, and yet the church looks upon them as shameful actions.\n\nThe treatise of true virginity, contains many precepts for preserving virginity. In it he extols very much the state of virgins, &c. There are in this treatise some passages which may offend nice ears; but it is to be considered (says Du Pin) it is addressed to a bishop, and not to the virgins themselves. But qu.? If the virgins did not read or hear it, how were they to be the better for it?\n\nThis father says much of a law of Jesus Christ\u2014and of the morality of Jesus Christ\u2014and seems to be one of those, who laid a foundation for separating the Old Testament from the New, by making Christ a new lawgiver, and a teacher of a new system of morality, independently of the law of Moses.\n\nSt. Gregory Nazianzen\n\nSays, that marriage is commendable, where the parties are contracted with a design of having children; but he prefers virginity to marriage.\n\nIn his poem in praise of virginity, he handles, with much wit and eloquence; the question about the pre-eminence of celibacy above marriage\u2014he then brings in married persons, and those who observe celibacy, speaking for both their opinions; each of them says all that can be said in favour of their state, but the latter have the better.\n\nSt. Gregory Nyssen\n\nWrote a treatise on virginity, wherein he describes the advantages of virginity, and the inconveniences of marriage.\n\nThis father speaks out about a new law and an old law, and seems to leave the latter out of the question. \"Sacrilege,\" says he, \"was punished under the old law, by stoning to death\u2014yet this punishment was mitigated under the new law, and now sacrilegious persons are treated less harshly than adulterers.\"\n\nThere is a passage in this father's writings, which shews how little regard they paid to the moral law of the Old Testament.\u2014\"Though the scripture\" (saith he) \"reproves all sins severely, yet the fathers\" (i. e. of the Christian church) \"have made no laws but against murder.\" He imposes twenty-seven years penance for wilful murder, and for involuntary murders the same space of time as for fornication, yet he allows \"this penance to be diminished according to the fervor of the penitent.\"\n\nSo that God's law, Gen. ix. 6. was quite laid aside. A strong instance this, of the small attention they paid to the Old Testament in forming their systems.\n\nTimothy of Alexandria\n\nWould have persons that are married, abstain from the use of marriage Saturday and Sunday, that they may be capable of receiving the holy communion.\n\nSiricius, Pope of Rome, anno 385,\n\nCan. 7th. He declares, that every clergyman who shall marry a second wife, or a widow, shall be turned out of holy orders, and reduced to lay communion. And he declares, that if for the future any bishop, priest, or deacon, shall not continue unmarried, he is to hope for no more pardon; because it was necessary to cut off, with the knife, those sores which could not be cured by other remedies.\n\nThe 8th Can. is against those who get themselves ordained after they have had several wives.\n\nCan. 9. Says, that a man may be an acolyth or subdeacon, provided that he marries but once, and then does not marry a widow. That, after, he should be ordained deacon, if he obliges himself to live unmarried.\n\nSt. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan,\n\nWrote three books in praise of virginity. In which he treats at large on the excellency of virginity. He shews that this virtue came from heaven, that God is the author of it, that the Heathens neither knew it, nor practised it as they ought; that the Jews themselves did not esteem it, and that it was not common among men 'till Jesus Christ came into the world. Afterwards he gives a catalogue of the advantages which virginity has above the marriage-state. \"I do not condemn marriage,\" (says he) \"but I will prove that virginity is more excellent;\"\u2014and then says all he can to frighten women from marrying.\u2014He reproves mothers who hindered their daughters from coming to hear him, lest they should embrace virginity, and commends those virgins who devoted themselves to God without their parents leave.\n\nHe wrote also a treatise of widows, wherein he exalts the state of widows, who do not marry again, as approaching near to the perfection of virgins. He does not absolutely condemn either first or second marriages, but he prefers the state of virgins and widows before that of married women.\n\nHe complains that there were few at Milan, who profited by his instructions; whilst a great many virgins, not only from Bologna and Placentia, but from Mauritania, came to receive the veil at Milan.\n\nSt. Ephiphanius\n\nPraises virginity, but does not condemn marriage, nor yet second marriages; but declares plainly, that the church does not admit any to holy orders, but such as observe celibacy, and that she excludes bigamists. He confesses, that there are still some places where the deacons and sub-deacons do not observe celibacy, but adds,\u2014\"This is done upon sufferance, because of the weakness of men, or the multitude of people.\" Lastly, he says, \"It is a great sin to violate the vow of virginity.\"\n\n\u00a0\n\nHaving briefly extracted some opinions of the Fathers, I will now lay before the reader, the wisdom of some of the Councils.\n\nCouncil of Eliberis, anno 305.\n\nCan. 7th. Those that relapse into adultery, after they have undergone penance, shall not be received even at death.\"\n\nCan. 8th. Subjects a woman to the same penalty, who has forsaken her husband, without cause, to marry another.\n\nCan. 14. Treats virgins with much moderation, who have lost their virginity: if they marry those who have abused them, they are restored to communion at the end of one year, without being obliged to do penance; but imposes five years penance if they had to do with other men.\n\nCan. 19. Ordains, that communion shall be refused, even at the point of death, to bishops, priests, and deacons, who have committed adultery.\n\nCan. 61. Imposes penance of five years upon him that marries his wife's sister, unless the extremity of sickness oblige us to give him the peace of the church sooner.\n\nCan. 65. If a clergyman knows that his wife commits adultery, and sends her not away, he is unworthy of the communion of the church, even at the point of death. N.\u00a0B. This canon is an authentic evidence of the marriage of the clergy in the church of Spain at this time.\n\nCan. 69. Imposes but five years penance on those who have fallen but once into the sin of adultery.\n\nCan. 70. If a woman commit adultery with the consent of her husband, he is unworthy of the communion at the point of death; but if he divorces her, he may be received after ten years penance.\n\nCan. 78. Imposes on him who commits adultery with a Pagan or Jewish woman, a penance of three years, if he confesses his crime, but of five years if detected by the testimony of others.\n\nCouncil of Arles, anno 314.\n\nCan. 10. Those who find their wives in the act of adultery, must be counselled not to marry others, though the law permits them to do it.\u2014Bravo!\n\nCouncil of Ancyra and Neo-C\u00e6sarea, anno 314.\n\nThere are twenty-five canons of the Council of Ancyra.\u2014The 10th concerns the celibacy of deacons. If they declared, at the time of their ordination, that they would marry, they shall not be deprived of their function if they did marry; but if ordained without making this declaration, and afterwards married, they should be obliged to quit their employment.\n\nCan. 16 and 17. Imposes long penances on those who have committed crimes contrary to nature. See Lev. xx. 13.\n\nCan. 20. Imposes seven years penance for adultery. See Lev. xx. 10.\n\nCan. 21. The synod observes, that the antient canons delayed the absolution of those women, who, having committed the sin of adultery, murdered their infants, 'till death; but, to mitigate this punishment, it imposes upon them only ten years penance. Note, For adultery and child murder!\n\nN. B. The canons of this council are signed by eighteen bishops. Bravi Tutti.\n\nNeo-C\u00e6sarea.\n\nCan. 1. If a priest marries after he has been ordained, he ought to be degraded.\u2014If he commit fornication or adultery, he ought to be punished more rigorously, and put under penance.\n\nCan. 3. The time of penance of those who marry often, is regulated by the canons, but it may be shortened proportionably to the conversion of the penitent, and the fervour of his penance.\n\nCan. 7. Forbids priests to be present at the marriage of bigamists.\n\nCan. 8. He cannot be admitted into holy orders, whose wife has been convicted of adultery.\n\nCan. 9. If a priest who has committed the sin of the flesh before ordination, confess his crime, he ought no more to offer, but he shall enjoy all his other rights: for as to other sins, 'tis thought, that they are pardoned by the imposition of hands. But if he does not confess his crime, and cannot be convicted of it, he shall be left to his own conscience.\n\nCan. 10. A deacon committing the same crime before his ordination, shall be placed in the rank of the other ministers.\n\nCouncil of Nice, anno 325.\n\nThis was called an Oecumenical\u2014i. e.\u2014a council of the whole world, because it was called together by the emperor Constantine from all parts of the Roman empire, and was composed of the eastern and western bishops.\n\nCan. 3. Forbids bishops, priests, and deacons, and other clergymen, to keep women in the house with them; yet it excepts mothers, sisters, and other persons of whom there could be no bad suspicion. N.\u00a0B. Nothing is said of wives.\n\nIn this council a canon was proposed for obliging bishops, priests, and deacons, who were married before ordination, to observe celibacy; but Paphnutius, a venerable confessor and prelate, withstood this, and brought the council to consent, that every one should be left to their liberty, and need not abstain from their wives unless they were willing so to do. See Jortin Rem. vol. ii. p. 249.\n\nCouncil of Laodicea, between 360, 370.\n\nCan. 44. Women ought not to come near the altar.\n\nCan. 52. That marriages should not be celebrated in Lent.\n\nCouncil of Valence, anno 374.\n\nCan. 1. Those are not to be ordained who have been twice married, or those who have espoused a widow, whether they did it before or since their baptism: but they do not intermeddle with the ordinations of bigamists made before their decision, lest they should disturb the church.\n\nCan. 2. Penance shall not be allowed immediately to those virgins who married after they had made a vow of virginity, and they shall not be received until they have made full satisfaction.\n\nCouncil of Saragosa, anno 381.\n\nCan. 8. Forbids virgins, that are devoted to Jesus Christ, to be veil'd, except they be forty years of age.\n\nCouncils of Rome and of Milan against Jovinian, anno 390.\n\nThough we ought not to despise marriage, yet virgins are more to be honoured. Their second letter contains proofs of these truths; and it is shewn, that the Blessed Virgin lost not her virginity by bringing forth Jesus Christ into the world.\n\nFirst Council of Carthage, anno 348.\n\nCan. 2. Forbids those persons who profess virginity, to cohabit or to have familiarity with any persons of the other sex, under pain of excommunication for the laity, and of deposition for the clergy.\n\nCan. 4. Contains the same prohibition to widows. Councils of Carthage, anno 397.\n\nCan. 4. Forbids the consecration of virgins before the age of twenty-five years.\n\nCan. 17. Forbids clergymen to cohabit with strange women, and permits them only to live with their mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, nieces, and those of their domestics who dwelt in the house with them before their ordination.\n\nCan. 19. Readers are to be obliged, when they come to age, to marry, or to make the vow of chastity .\n\nCan. 33. When virgins lose their relations who took care of them, the bishop, or, in his absence, the priest, ought to place them in a nunnery, or commit them to the care of women of known probity.\n\nCan. 36. Priests shall not consecrate virgins without the bishop's permission\u2014they are absolutely forbidden to make the holy chrysm.\n\nCouncil of Carthage, anno 398, called the fourth.\n\nThere are 104 canons relative to the ordination of bishops, &c.; and it is ordained, that every bishop shall be interrogated about the errors common in Africa, and among others\u2014\"Whether he does not condemn marriage, and second marriages? Whether he believes it is the same God who is the author of the Old and New Testament, the Law and the Gospel?\"\n\nCan. 10. Virgins who would be consecrated by the bishop, should present themselves in habits agreeable to their profession and vocation, like to those which they are to use for the future.\n\nCan. 11. Those who are contracted, and would receive the benediction of marriage, ought to be accompanied by their kindred, and to abstain from the use of marriage the night after the benediction.\n\nCan. 104. Excommunicates widows who marry again, after they have made profession of celibacy.\n\nDo, anno 401, called the fifth.\n\nCan. 70. Ordains bishops, priests, and deacons, to have no more to do with their wives, under pain of degradation; for the lesser orders, it does not oblige them to celibacy.\n\nCouncil of Toledo, anno 400.\n\nCan. 1. They permit the order of deacon to be given to married persons, provided they be chaste, and observe continence; but they impose no other penalty upon a priest or deacon, that has not lived in continence, and who had children before the law which the bishops of Lusitania made upon this subject: they impose upon them no other penalty but that they shall not be capable of rising to a higher dignity.\n\nCan. 3. If a reader marry a widow, he cannot be advanced to higher orders, at most he shall be only sub-deacon.\n\nCan. 4. A sub-deacon, who marries again, shall be put into the rank of porters or readers, without being capable of reading the epistles or gospels. He who marries a third time, shall be separated from the church for the space of two years, and after he is reconciled, he shall never rise higher than the rank of lay-men.\n\nCan. 16. Imposes ten years penance for adultery.\n\nCan. 17. He who has a concubine and wife both together, ought to be excommunicated, but he ought not to be excommunicated who has only a concubine; so that it is necessary for every one, that is a member of the church, to satisfy himself either with one wife or one concubine. This canon (says Du Pin) may give some trouble to those, who know not that the word concubine, which is at present odious, was formerly taken for a woman, to whom the marriage promise was given, though she was not married with all the solemnities which the laws required in marriage, as St. Austin has explained it, chap. 5. of the book about the advantages of marriage.\n\nCan. 18. We ought not to communicate with the widow of a bishop, a priest, or a deacon, if she marries again; she ought not to be reconciled until the point of death.\n\nCan. 19. Inflicts the same penalty on the daughters of bishops, &c. who marry after they have been consecrated to God.\n\nN. B. This council was composed of nineteen Spanish bishops.\n\nIn the abridgement of the doctrine of the fourth age of the church, it is said\u2014\"They approved of marriage, and would have the persons to be married, contracted in the face of the church, and in the presence of a priest, who gave a blessing. They honoured virginity, and commended those who professed it, and looked upon those as sacrilegious persons who violated that profession. They had much reverence and veneration for the blessed virgin and the saints, they prayed to them, and also honoured their reliques. They prayed for the dead. We have often (says Du Pin) taken notice of their opinion concerning the authority of holy scripture and tradition. They taught that there was but one Catholic church, out of which there was no salvation, and to whose authority all men ought to submit, because it can neither cease to be, nor err in matters of faith.\n\n\"Whereof one may say in general (adds Du Pin) that the doctrine of the fourth age was the belief of the church of that age, and so, the church not being capable of changing her belief, it necessarily follows, that the doctrine of that time is not at all different from that which the church teaches still at this day.\"\n\nIn the abridgement of the discipline of the fourth age, we are told\u2014\"Prayer for the dead was a common practice in the church, they were commemorated at the celebration of the eucharist; the invocation of saints and martyrs, and the celebration of their festivals, were common in all the churches; the use of crosses was frequent; the sign of the cross was made very often; there were images in many churches.\n\n\"A blessing was given for marriage; but the church never gave it for second marriages, and they even put bigamists under penance for some time. Marriages contracted between persons who could not lawfully marry, according to the civil laws, were looked upon as null . Divorce for adultery was permitted in some churches. The monastic state was established in this age, and became very common in a little time.\"\n\nCENTURY V.\n\nSt. John Chrysostom,\n\nIn his 19th and 20th fermons, which are on 1 Cor. 7. takes occasion to speak against dancing, and other profane pomps at weddings\u2014\"To what purpose (saith he) do ye bring in a priest to crave a blessing, and the next day yourselves commit base actions?\"\n\nFrom this, and other passages in the fathers, it does manifestly appear, that the marriage-contract, though sometimes made, according to some canons, in the face of the church, was of a civil nature, and that the only thing the priest did, was to pronounce a blessing; unless indeed he partook of the diversions of the wedding-feast, which also seems to have been the custom, and that pretty heartily too; for the council of Laodicea, Canon 14, says, \"that clergymen ought not to be present at shews or balls, that are made during marriage-feasts, but arise and be gone before the mask begins.\"\u2014So that we may conclude, there were many abuses of this kind, which gave rise to this canon.\n\nIn Chrysostom's 24th sermon on 2 Cor. 4. he gives great praises to virginity, and to a monastic life; which he thus describes:\u2014\"Do you take notice of those monks who live privately, and dwell upon the tops of mountains? What austerities and mortifications do they not practise? They are covered with ashes, cloathed with sackcloth, loaden with chains and irons, shut up in little cells; struggling continually with hunger, they spend their time in watchings, to blot out part of their sins.\" He observes also, that, though virginity is a supernatural gift, yet it is unprofitable, if it be not accompanied with charity and meekness.\n\nHe proves that second marriages are not forbidden, though it is better to forbear.\n\nIn his book of Virginity, he says, \"marriage is good, that's my opinion, but virginity is better. This I own, and if you will have my sense, it is as much above matrimony as heaven is above the earth, and makes men like to angels.\"\n\nAfterwards he makes an objection\u2014\"If it be better to live unmarried, why did God institute marriage? Why did he make women? And, should all men embrace virginity, how should mankind be propagated?\"\u2014To answer these objections, St. Chrysostom goes back as far as the creation of man, and takes notice, that \"while he was in the earthly paradise with Eve, he was taken up with a conversation with God, and he was then freed from lust and the desires of the flesh, and lived in perfect virginity, and the whole world was at that time a vast solitude. But man, having disobeyed God's commands, and becoming mortal and corruptible, with that happy life which he enjoyed, he lost also the glory of virginity: so that sin being the cause of death, became at the same time the cause of marriage. It is probable that though there had been no marriage, yet the world might have been peopled, and God have created other men as he had done the first.\" Adding, that \"it is not the frequent use of marriage that multiplieth mankind, but God's blessing:\" and he believes that \"marriage is more necessary to the world at present, for a remedy against incontinency, than for the preservation of mankind; he grants that it is necessary for the weak, but that virginity is far more honourable and profitable too: he pretendeth, that whatsoever St. Paul said of marriage, ought to induce men to embrace virginity.\"\n\nHe wrote two treatises, \"Against the cohabitation of clerks with women\"\u2014and \"A discourse to a widow;\"\u2014he exhorts her to continue in her widowhood. He made another little book on purpose to shew, that she ought not to marry again; where he proves, that though second marriages be not absolutely forbidden, yet it is much better to continue in widowhood.\n\nThis eminent father, in his discourses on the eucharist, affirmed, that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ; that we ought not to doubt of it, seeing Christ himself affirmeth it\u2014that fire from heaven consumeth the things offered, and changeth them into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.\n\nIn the Christian maxims, which are selected from his sermons, he lays it down, that, \"solitariness, and a monastic life, are more to be desired than the greatest kingdoms.\"\n\nPope Innocent I.\n\nCan. 4. Forbids orders to a person who has married a widow.\n\nCan. 5. Extends this prohibition even to those who have married such a woman before baptism.\n\nCan. 6. The same with regard to those who have been twice married.\n\nCan. 12. Prohibits the admitting virgins\u2014that, being consecrated to God, married, or were corrupted\u2014to penance, before the death of the person with whom they have committed the crime.\n\nCan. 13. Enjoins penance to virgins that marry, after promising virginity, though they had not been solemnly veiled by the bishop.\n\nCan. 1. Epist. 3. He confirms Siricius his law, concerning the celibacy of priests and deacons. Yet he forgiveth those, who through ignorance observed it not, on condition that they should continue in that order, and rise no higher. But he ordains that those should be degraded who violated it knowingly.\n\nIn Letter 5. To two bishops of Abruzzo, he bids them depose the priests that were accused of having had children since their ordination, if they be convicted of that crime.\n\nLetter 9. Declareth, that a man who married another woman, while his wife was in captivity, ought to return to the former; because a second marriage cannot be lawful, except the former wife be dead or separated by divorce.\n\nLetter 22. To Rufus, and other bishops of Macedonia, dated anno 414, he tells them, that \"he was much surprized by a letter directed to the see of Rome, as the chiefest of all churches, because they consulted him about things that had no difficulty, and concerning which he had plainly declared his opinion. One is, the ordination of such as had married widows.\" Pope Innocent saith, \"That there is no dispute that they should not be ordained;\" and affirms, \"that it was the practice of all, both eastern and western churches; nay, he would have those to be degraded who are found to be in orders.\"\n\nThe second is concerning those, who having lost a former wife, being yet unbaptized, had married a second after baptism. Some were of opinion, that this kind of bigamy did not hinder them from ordination. Pope Innocent alledgeth several reasons, to prove that such a practice is not to be followed.\n\nSt. Jerom\n\nWas born about the year 345. In his treatise of Virginity, to Eustochium, he highly extols it. In his directions to her for the maintenance of it, he advises her to shun reading profane books; and, to inforce what he says, tells her, that \"he, being once too earnest in reading Cicero, Plautus, and other profane authors, he fell into a violent fever, and, by it, into a kind of agony, and then was caught up in the spirit to the tribunal of Jesus Christ; where, having been soundly whipt for reading profane authors too much, he was forbidden to read them any more. He assures Eustochium that \"this story is not a dream, and calls the tribunal where he appeared, and the judgment that was given against him, to attest the truth of what he says.\" Yet, when Rufinus upbraided him afterwards, that, for all that, he had not given over reading profane books, he laughs at his simplicity, and jests upon him for taking a dream for truth. So much for this saint's sincerity!\n\nIn his polemical treatises, his bitterness against his opponents is excessive. When he disputeth with Helvidius, he commendeth virginity to that excess, that it was thought he designed to condemn matrimony;\u2014and he discourseth after such a manner of virginity, as would almost persuade men, that it was necessary to lead that sort of life, in order to be saved. Labour, fastings, austerities, and various mortifications, together with solitude and pilgrimages, make up the subject of almost all his advices and exhortations. His light was to hear of the lives of monks and hermits, and he easily believed whatsoever was told him upon that subject, though never so extraordinary.\n\nIn short, from the account which Du Pin gives of this Saint Jerom, his composition seems to have been a mixture, like that of the Cynic Diogenes, in point of temper and disposition, and like that of the visionary of La Mancha in point of judgment. See before Thelyph. vol. ii. 123\u2013128. 1st edit.\u2014p. 116\u2013121. 2d. edit.\n\nSt. Austin.\n\nIt being said, by some enemies to the Christian faith, that God had abolished the old law, either out of inconstancy, or because He was weary of it, St. Austin answered\u2014that \"God is unchangeable in all that concerns Himself; and that, as He hath given precepts and ordinances for the good of man, so it is for the same end that He sometimes changeth them, as He judgeth it may be more convenient for them.\"\n\nN. B. The Creator's changing His laws, in order to suit the creature's convenience, is a curious idea!\n\nHe adds, that, \"we should not believe, that, since the coming of Jesus Christ, those things can be observed, which were either permitted, or prescribed, only for the time of the old law; though at that time they were to be taken in their proper sense.\" He instanceth in the polygamy of the patriarchs, because they lived holily in marriage, with a prospect of having children; and he confidently preferreth that state, before that of such men, who, having but one wife, abuse matrimony to satisfy their brutish lust.\n\nHe taught, that of all that is done for the dead, nothing availeth them where they are, but the offering of the Eucharist, prayers, and alms-deeds: that these things are not useful to all, but only to such as deserved, in their life-time, to reap benefit by them after their death.\n\nHe wrote against Jovinian, who was called an heretic, and an enemy to virginity, for persuading some Roman virgins to marry, and for maintaining that \"married persons might be as holy, as persons in a state of celibacy.\" Jovinian's opinion was rejected at Rome; and Saint Austin wrote a book, to shew, that Jovinian's opinions might be refuted without condemning marriage; in which he examines how men could have had children had they persisted in a state of innocence.\n\nHe declares that man guilty of adultery, who should abuse a virgin, when he has a design to marry another. As for the young woman, she is guilty of sin, but not of adultery, if she is true to that man, and designs not to marry when he leaveth her. He doth not excuse from venial sin, either the man or the woman, who have another prospect in marriage than the begetting of children. N.\u00a0B.\n\nHe determines, that, though human laws permit a man to marry again, when he is divorced from a former wife, yet it is not lawful for Christians.\u2014He concludes, that marriage is of itself a good thing, but one of those good things which we should not look after, but in order to a greater good, or to avoid a great evil. That, before Christ, the most continent might marry, to multiply that people from whom the Messiah was to be born; but now, as many as are able to contain, do well not to marry. That, for this reason, men were permitted formerly to have several wives, but now no man is to have more than one wife. That the gospel purity is so great in this point, that a deacon was not to be ordained, who had ever had more than one wife. He approves their opinion who understand this maxim in its whole extent, and without restriction, as did Jerom, by excepting those who contracted a former marriage before baptism. And, as a young woman who had been defiled when she was a catechumen, cannot be consecrated as a virgin after baptism, even so it hath been thought reasonable, that the man, who hath had more than one wife, whether before or after baptism, should be looked upon as wanting one necessary qualification for orders.\n\nHis book Of Holy Virginity, says, that \"virginity is one of the most excellent gifts of God.\"\u2014He exalteth the excellency of virgins consecrated to God, by the example of the virginity of the mother of God, who, according to him, had made a vow of continency before the angel appeared to her.\u2014He says, that virginity should not be chosen as a thing necessary to salvation, but as a state of greater perfection; and afferts, that virgins shall have a particular reward in heaven.\n\nHe exhorts husbands that have left their wives to live in continency, alledging the example of churchmen, who abstain so religiously, though they often were forced to take that profession upon them against their wills.\n\nHe believes, that, by the inspiration of God, the martyrs know the necessities of the faithful, and hear their prayers. He does not question but martyrs help the living; but he knows not whether they do it by themselves, or whether God doeth it by angels at their request. He confesseth, that we cannot know by which of these means, or whether by both, the martyrs work miracles.\n\nSt. Austin's answer to the following question is very curious, viz.\u2014\"If concupiscence is evil, and an effect of sin, if all children are born in sin, how comes matrimony to be approved, which is the effect and spring of this sin?\" Answer. \"Though lust be a defect, and a consequence of the first man's sin, which remaineth even in the baptized, yet conjugal chastity is to be approved, which makes a good use of an evil thing.\"\n\nHere St. Austin, as well as St. Chrysostom, (see before p. 35.) evidently makes the natural desire of the sexes to each other, evil in itself\u2014an horrible blasphemy against God, who implanted it in man's nature for the wisest purposes, in the days of man's innocence! otherwise how could the command\u2014\"increase and multiply\"\u2014have been then given, Gen. i. 28\u2014and the way in which this was to be done, expressly commanded, Gen. ii. 24.? With as much reason these fathers might have said, that the appetite of hunger is evil, and the effect of sin, though God provided food for man. Gen. i. 29.\n\nSt. Austin has been styled the father of the Latin church.\n\nThe Rhemists quote this father's authority for thus commenting on 1 Cor. vii. 29.\u2014\"He exhorts that those who have wives, should not wholly bestow themselves in the vain transitory pleasure and voluptuousness of their flesh, but live in such moderation, that marriage hinder them, as little as may be, from spiritual cogitations: which is best fulfilled of them, who, by mutual consent, do wholly contain, whether they have had children or none, contemning carnal issue for the joys of heaven and these marriages be more blessed than any other, saith St. Aug. de Serm. Dom. in Monte, L. i. c. 14.\"\n\nCouncil supposed to be held at Rome under Pope Innocent I.\n\nCan. 1. and 2. Speak of those virgins penance, who having solemnly put on the veil, and received the priest's benediction, commit incest, or contract prohibited marriages. Penance is likewise imposed upon those that made a single vow of virginity\u2014though they made no solemn profession, nor received the veil\u2014when they happen to marry, or suffer themselves to be taken away.\n\nCan. 3. Concerns the sanctity of bishops, priests, and deacons: they are told, that they ought to give example to the people; that they are obliged to remain unmarried, and several reasons are alledged for it. Priests and bishops, say they, are to preach continence to the people: with what confidence shall they do this, if they keep it not themselves? They are obliged to offer frequently the holy sacrifice, to baptize, consecrate, and administer: to do it with the greater reverence, they must be chaste both in body and spirit.\n\nCan. 11. Speaks very ambiguously concerning a man's marrying his uncle's wife, or an aunt's marrying with the son of her husband's brother.\n\nCouncil of Carthage. Anno 407.\n\nCan. 8. Forbids divorced persons to be married to others. This regulation is there judged to be conformable to the law of the gospel, and the decision of the apostle St. Paul. (Quere, where?)\n\nDitto. Anno 418 and 419.\n\nCan. 3. Confirms the rule of the council of Carthage, anno 401, concerning the celibacy of bishops, priests, and deacons: it is said that their ministry obligeth them to it.\n\nFaustinus confirms this order in the 4th canon.\n\nCan. 16. Readers are obliged to marry when they come to the age of puberty, or to make a vow of continency.\n\nCan. 18. Forbids giving the eucharist to the dead.\n\nSt. Isidore Pelusiota\n\nPrefers a single life before marriage.\u2014He observes, that the polygamy of the antient patriarchs was then very excusable, because it was necessary that they should have a numerous posterity; but it may not be now used as a pretence to cover our incontinence.\n\nHe taught, that the veil, that covers the sacramental elements, doth undoubtedly overspread the body of Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit turns the wine into the blood of Jesus Christ. He approves of the honour given to martyrs, and the respect which is bestowed on their reliques; and disallows the presenting of offerings at their altars in honour of them.\n\nHe relates a story of a young woman, who coming into the sight of a young man, who was in love with her, cured him of that fond passion, by presenting herself with her hair crop'd, and her head covered with ashes.\n\nAs St. Isidore professed a monastic life, he extols a monastic state, and recommends the cloathing of monks to be of hair, and their food to be nothing but herbs.\n\nSt. C\u00e6lestine,\n\nChosen Bishop of Rome anno 423. He decreed\u2014that none be ordained bishop, who hath been married twice, or hath married a widow: which he ordains as a rule, not only for the future, but he requires, that the ordinations already made in prejudice of this law, be looked upon as unlawful, which may not be allowed in force.\n\nSt. Leo,\n\nChosen Pope anno 440, deservedly reckoned (says Du Pin) among the fathers of the church. He lays it down, as a condition necessary for holy orders, not to have married above one wife, and she not to have been a widow. He commands the bishops, to whom he wrote, to deprive them of their bishoprics who were found to had two wives, or had married a widow.\n\nHe orders, that the ministers of the altar, that is to say, the deacons and sub-deacons, should be subject to the law of continence, as well as the bishops and priests. He adds, that being laics or readers, they may be married and have children; but being arrived to the sacred ministry of the altars, it is not to be permitted to them. That their marriage ought to be changed from carnal to spiritual, that so they may neither forsake their wives, nor have any carnal knowledge of them. St. Leo is the first that extended the law of celibacy to sub-deacons.\n\nHe declares, that a clergyman who gives his daughter in marriage to one that hath a concubine, ought not to be treated as if he had given her to a person already married, because concubines cannot be counted lawful wives, nor the familiar commerce with them marriage, unless they be free, endowed, and joined together by public marriage.\n\nThat, young women, whose relations have married them to persons that have concubines, do not sin in dwelling with those to whom they are married.\n\nThat it is not the sin of adultery, but a virtuous action, for a man to cast off his concubine, that he may live only with his wife. The concubines, spoken of in this place, are slaves, with whom men lived as with their wives, without having any commerce with others, though they were not solemnly married to them.\n\nHe could wish that those who have done penance when they were boys, would not marry; yet he excuses young men who do it to avoid incontinency. See 1 Cor. vii. 9.\n\nHe orders that the monks who have married should be made to do penance, because they cannot leave that profession without sin, when they have once embraced it, but are obliged to perform their vows.\n\nHe condemns virgins, who married after they had voluntarily put on the habit, though they were not yet consecrated.\n\nCan. 4. He commands bishops, priests, and deacons to live unmarried; and observes, that the use of marriage was not allowed to sub-deacons. St. Gregory says, that it was hard to refuse it to the latter.\"\u2014But quere,\u2014Why more so than to the former?\n\nThe Gallican bishops wrote to St. Leo a letter full of high commendations and compliments, and they call the church of Rome\u2014\"Apostolica sedes, unde religionis nostr\u00e6 fons & origo manavit.\"\u2014\"The apostolic church, from whence comes the origin and source of our religion.\"\n\nIn one of his sermons, on St. Peter's day, he says, that, that apostle never forsakes his church, but continues to be the foundation of it\u2014that St. Peter is not only bishop of the Roman church, but the head of all the churches in the world.\n\nSt. Hilary, Bishop of Arles,\n\nA man of remarkable eloquence, and of great zeal.\u2014He did much good in his visitations to the Gallican churches. He often went to see St. Germanus, with whom he made an enquiry into the life and manners of the clergy. While he was with him, a certain bishop, named Celidonius, was accused before him, because he had married a widow before he was ordained, which is forbidden by the canons, and the authority of the Holy See. The case being discussed, with all fairness imaginable, and the witnesses heard, he pronounced, that he whom the holy canons deprived of his priesthood, ought to forsake it of himself: the poor bishop resolved with himself to go to Rome; he complains that he had been used with too much severity.\n\nSt. Hilary, understanding this, puts himself immediately upon his journey to go to Rome. The coldness of the season, the height of the Alps, and other troubles in the journey, could not take off the edge of his zeal; he conquered them all, and went to Rome on foot: after having paid his devotion to the tombs of the apostles and martyrs, he went to St. Leo, gave him all due respect and veneration, and humbly besought him, that he would make no alteration in the ordinary discipline of the church.\n\nHilary, Bishop of Rome,\n\nWas of opinion that bishops who had been twice married, or had married a widow, ought to be deprived.\n\nGelasius I. Bishop of Rome,\n\nRepeats the antient canons concerning the qualifications of such as they ought to ordain\u2014that they ought to be but once married.\n\nCouncil of Chalcedon.\n\nCan. 15. Forbids the ordination of a deaconess before forty years of age, and without strict examination; and declares, that if she shall marry after she has been some time in the service of the church, she shall be excommunicated with her husband.\n\nCan. 16. It is not permitted to virgins, devoted to God, to marry. They who have done so shall be excommunicated\u2014yet the bishop of the place may treat them with such lenity and mildness as he thinks fit.\n\nI. Council of Orange, anno 441.\n\nCan. 22. For the future no married persons shall be ordained deacons, unless they make a profession of living in chastity.\n\nCan. 23. If it be found out that one of those deacons do not abstain from his wife, he shall be deprived.\n\nCan. 24. Excepts from this law, those who have been ordained heretofore. The only penalty it inflicts on them is, that they cannot obtain any higher orders.\n\nCan. 25. Those who have been twice married, though never so worthy, shall be admitted to no other orders than that of sub-deacon.\n\nCan. 27. Of widows professing chastity\u2014orders, that it shall be done before the bishop, and that it be discovered by their widows garments, or by a kind of veil put upon them, as it is the Roman custom, and is decreed by the council of Toledo, can. 4. and of Carthage, can. 104.\n\nCan. 28. Such as break their vow of virginity, whether men or women, shall be made to do penance.\n\nII. Council of Arles, about anno 442.\n\nCan. 2. No man may be made a priest, who is married, unless he will renounce the use of marriage\u2014which they call by the name of conversion.\n\nCan. 21. A penitent may not marry.\n\nCan. 52. Is against those who marry after they have vowed virginity.\n\nCouncil of Anjou, anno 433.\n\nCan. 4. The clergy shall not dwell with women.\n\nCan. 5. They shall be treated very severely, who forsake their state of penance or virginity.\n\nCan. 11. No person shall be ordained deacon or priest, who hath had more than one wife.\n\nLetter of Lupus Bishop of Troyes, and Euphronius Bishop of Augustodunum, to Thalassius Bishop of Anjou.\n\nThis letter contains, 1. Rules concerning the different ways of celebrating the vigils of the festivals.\n\n2. About the clergy that had been twice married. They say that it may be tolerated in the lesser orders, as high as a porter: but exorcists and sub-deacons ought not to have been twice married. 3. They say, that it were better for the clergy to abstain from marriage, but in this they must follow the custom of the churches. As to the exorcists and sub-deacons, they must not be suffered to marry a second time; that, in the church of Augustodunum, none of the clergy, not the porters themselves, are allowed it.\n\nCouncil of Tours, 461.\n\nCan. 1. and 2. Recommend a single life to bishops, priests, and deacons.\n\nCan. 3. Forbids them to dwell with women.\n\nCan. 4. Prohibits the clergy, who might marry, to marry widows.\n\nCENTURY VI.\n\nPope Symmachus.\n\nHe condemns those who marry widows, or virgins consecrated to God, although they who are married mean well. He ordains that such shall be cast out of the communion of the church and he forbids widows who have lived a long while unmarried, and virgins who have been a considerable time in monasteries, to marry.\n\nEnnodius, Bishop of Pavia,\n\nTook orders by consent of his wife, who, for her part, embraced a chaste and religious life. He wrote a poem in praise of virginity.\n\nSt. Fulgentius.\n\nHis letter concerning the conjugal duty and the vow, is upon a particular case. Some had asked Fulgentius\u2014\"Whether a married person was obliged to keep a vow of continence?\" St. Fulgentius makes many observations concerning the use of marriage, and the obligation of vows. He remarks upon the first head, \"that the use of marriage is allowed, when it is intended for the procreation of children; but when it has no end but pleasure, although it is not a crime like adultery, yet it is always a small sin, which is blotted out by prayer and good works.\"\n\nAs to the vow, he says, that, \"there is no doubt, but, by it, an obligation is contracted to do the thing which was vowed.\" But he maintains, that \"the vow of continence made by one of the married persons, cannot oblige the other, nor dispense with that person who made the vow from paying the conjugal duty to the other, at least unless both parties had concurred in making the vow.\" Having laid down these principles, he concludes\u2014\"that if the persons who wrote to him, had both made a vow of continence, then they were obliged to keep it; and that if they found themselves tempted by carnal desires, they should humbly pray to God to give them grace to resist them; but if only one of the two had made a vow of continence, that party was obliged to pay the conjugal duty to the other who had not made it.\"\n\nThe Emperor Justinian,\nBegan his reign in 527, and died in 565.\n\nHe added many laws to those made by the princes his predecessors; viz.\n\nIf a monk enter into orders, he is forbidden to marry.\n\nHe who would be made a bishop, must be one who was never married but once, and also one who was not espoused to a widow.\n\nThe same precautions shall be observed in the ordination of inferior clergymen.\n\nThe deaconesses shall be ordained only of virgins, or of widows who were never married but once, and who have passed the fiftieth year of their age. If any younger are ordained, they shall enter into a monastery.\n\nIn treating of marriages, he first mentions the causes of the dissolution of marriage. He distinguishes them into two sorts: the first, are those, which he calls ex bona gratia, because it is to be presumed that both parties are willing. 1. When one of the two who are joined together makes a vow of chastity. 2. When the husband is impotent for the space of three years. 3. When he is a captive, or absent for the space of five years, without hearing of him: but not when he is a slave, or condemned to the mines, or exiled and banished for ever. 4. That if a woman be espoused who is found to be a slave, the marriage shall be null for the future, unless he was her master, who married her as a free woman, in which case she shall continue free. 5. Constantine had permitted a woman, whose husband had been four years in the wars, without writing to her, or giving her any marks of his affection, to marry another.\n\nJustinian repeals this law, and ordains that a woman cannot marry again until the end of ten years; and also till she has solicited her husband to return, and presented her petition to his captain or his colonel, whereby it may be evident that he has no mind to return to his wife.\n\nThese are the causes of dissolution of marriages which Justinian calls ex bona gratia.\n\nThe other causes are those which are rigorous: as, if a man or a woman be convicted of adultery, murder, poisoning, theft, treason, robbery, or any other crime: and if it happen that the woman be guilty of these crimes, she shall continue five years without being capable of marrying again; and also if it be she who convicts her husband of them, she shall at least continue one year before her second marriage.\n\nJustinian adds also three causes for which women may be divorced. If they make themselves miscarry. If they bathe with other men. If they speak of marriage to others while their husband liveth.\n\nJustinian repealed what he had before ordained concerning persons who were in the army, and ordains, that it shall never be lawful for a woman to marry again, unless she has sufficient proof or witnesses that her husband is dead.\n\nAnother law contains reasons for which a divorce may be granted. A man may divorce his wife\u2014if she has conspired against the state\u2014if she be convicted of adultery\u2014if she has attempted her husband's life\u2014if she has dwelt or washed with strangers against her husband's will\u2014if she be present at public sports in spite of him. The woman may also be parted from her husband\u2014if he be a criminal to the state\u2014if he has attempted her life\u2014if he would have prostituted her\u2014if he cohabits with other women, after his wife has admonished him to forsake their company.\n\nAs to what concerns the clergy\u2014they must have no concubine, nor natural children; but they must be virgins, or such as are married only once to one woman.\n\nIf he who is to be ordained, has not a wife, then, before he is ordained, he must engage to live in celibacy; but he who ordains a deacon, or sub-deacon, may permit him to marry after his ordination.\n\nThat if a priest, or deacon, or sub-deacon, espouse a woman after his ordination, he is to be turned out from the clergy.\n\nThat a reader may marry\u2014but if he contract a second marriage, or espouse a widow, he cannot ascend to higher dignity among the clergy.\n\nThat if any marry after they have been among the clergy, they shall return to their first condition.\n\nHe restores the antient custom, whereby married persons were allowed to separate, with the consent of one another, without any other formality.\n\nSt. Benedict.\n\nThis gloomy mortal, famous among the monks, shut himself up in a frightful cave.\u2014He declares that his rule contains only the first elements of a religious and spiritual life, and that the books of the fathers contain it in perfection.\n\nN. B. One should think that the scriptures bore a price something under par, in the eyes of these enthusiasts.\n\nPope Pelagius II.\n\nIn one of his decrees, he allows that a man may be ordained deacon, who, having left his wife, had children by a maid-servant without espousing her, although it be against the laws and the canons, merely on account of the want of those who are disposed to be clergymen.\n\nHe ordains also, that this maid-servant shall be put into a monastery, to make there profession of continence.\n\nSt. John, surnamed Climacus.\n\nThis saint was called Climacus, from his work intitled \u039a\u03bb\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1\u03be, i. e. a scale or ladder.\n\nThis scale contains thirty degrees, which are so many Christian and religious virtues. The 15th contains the praises of chastity. There he shews the consequences of this virtue, and the enormity of the crime which is opposite to it; he condemns it, even to the motions of lust, which happen in the time of sleep. He prescribes for a remedy, that they should clothe themselves with sackcloth, and cover themselves with ashes; that they should pass the night standing; that they should suffer hunger and thirst; and that they should lodge in the tombs, and be humble and charitable.\u2014See 1 Cor. vii. 9.\n\nSt. Gregory, Pope 590,\nSurnamed the Great.\n\nSt. Gregory proves (epist. 39. lib. ix.) that marriages are not dissolved by the entrance of one of the married persons into a religious house, although human laws permit the man to part from his wife, or the woman from her husband, that they may go into a monastery.\n\nHe adds, in epist. 44. of the same book, where he handles the same question, that the law of God does not allow a man to forsake his wife for any cause but adultery; nevertheless, he permits married persons to part from one another, that they may enter into a religious house, when this is done with the consent of both parties.\n\nSt. Gregory took it ill, that the sub-deacons of Sicily were obliged to abstain from their wives, according to the custom of the church of Rome. This law appeared to him harsh and unreasonable, because they found not continence established by any law for them, and they were not obliged to keep it before they were ordained. He feared lest something worse should happen if this yoke were imposed upon them.\n\nHe orders, that none shall be ordained for the future, who do not promise to live in continence.\n\nHe declares, that he will put in execution the order of the Pope, his predecessor, about the continence of sub-deacons, and that those who are married shall be obliged to abstain from the use of marriage, or else to forsake the service of the altar.\n\nHe would not have the wives punished, of those who desired rather to quit the service than renounce them, nor the women hindered from marrying again after their death. He orders, that, for the future, no sub-deacon shall be made, who is not obliged beforehand to observe celibacy.\n\nHe forbids to ordain a deacon bishop, who had a very young daughter, by whose age it manifestly appeared that he had not long observed continence.\n\nHe promised the Empress Constantina, some of the filings of St. Peter's chain, if the priest who was appointed for filing them could have any; for the file would not take hold, when those who desired to receive them do not deserve to receive them.\n\nHe sent every where some of these filings, enchased in keys.\n\nThis St. Gregory sent Austin a monk, of the order of St. Benedict, with forty missionaries, French priests and Italian monks, to establish Popery in England, under the notion of preaching the Christian religion. Austin was the first archbishop of Canterbury; he was nominated to that high office anno 597, by Pope Gregory, with the consent of Ethelbert, King of Kent. \"The Christianity which this pretended apostle and sanctified ruffian taught us, seemed to consist principally in two things; in keeping Easter upon a proper day, and in being slaves to our sovereign Lord God the Pope, and to Austin his deputy and vicegerent. Such were the boasted blessings and benefits which we received from the mission and ministry of this most audacious and insolent monk. He is strongly suspected, as Du Pin acknowledges, of having excited the Saxons to fall upon the Britons, and to cut the throats of twelve hundred monks of Bangor.\" See Jortin, Rem. vol. iv. p. 417. Also Fox, vol. i. p. 132.\n\nThe said St. Austin sent to St. Gregory, for a resolution of sundry questions. Among others\u2014\n\nQ. Whether ecclesiastics, who have not the gift of continence, may marry; and if they do, whether they may return to secular affairs?\n\nA. They may marry, if they be not engaged in holy orders, and such ought not to want subsistence; but they shall be obliged to lead a life agreeable to the ecclesiastical state, and to sing the psalms.\n\nQ. To what degree may the faithful marry together?\n\nA. A Roman law, of Arcadius and Honorius, permitted marriages between cousin-germans: But St. Gregory did not think these marriages lawful, for two reasons.\n\nBecause experience shews that no children are born of them.\n\nBecause the divine law forbids them.\n\nQ. Where?\n\nThis St. Austin sent also to St. Gregory for a resolution of sundry very filthy questions; which, with the answers to them, may be found in Du Pin, vol. v. p. 93. Eng. Trans. Likewise an account of the monstrous lyes which St. Gregory published in four books, p. 98, 99. See also p. 92.\n\nLucius Charinus\n\nSays, that the God of the Jews was a God of wickedness\u2014that, on the contrary, Christ is a God of goodness\u2014He condemns marriage, and looks upon generation as the work of the devil.\n\nN. B. Let those think on this, who talk of a new law of Christ, more pure and holy than the law of the Old Testament, and who represent the God of the Jews as allowing polygamy, and Christ as calling it adultery.\u2014Let them consider, that, frequently, there may be a verbal, where there is little real, difference.\n\nCouncil of Agatha, anno 506.\n\nCan. 1. Renews the prohibitions of the antient canons about the ordinations of bigamists, and of those who had married widows. It permits those who are already ordained priests and deacons, though they be bigamists, or married to widows, to retain the name of their order, but deprives them of the exercise of their function.\n\nCan. 9. The laws of the Popes Innocentius and Siricius, about the celibacy of priests and deacons, shall be observed.\n\nCouncil of Orleans, anno 511.\n\nCan. 21. A monk who quits the monastery and marries, can never enter into holy orders.\n\nCouncil of Gerunda, anno 517.\n\nCan. 6. All the orders of clergymen, from bishops down to sub-deacons, are forbidden to cohabit with their wives, or if they will dwell with them, they are commanded to have with them one of their brethren, who can give testimony of their continence.\n\nCan. 8. None shall be admitted into the clergy, who have had carnal dealings with a woman, after the death of their wife.\n\nCouncil of Epaone, anno 517.\n\nCan. 2 and 3. Renew the canons against the ordination of bigamists, and those who have done penance.\n\nCan. 21. Forbids to consecrate widows for deaconesses; insomuch that if widows are willing to be converted, i. e. to lead a religious life, the benediction of penance shall only be given to them.\n\nCan. 25. Forbids to place the reliques of saints in country chapels, unless there be clergy in the neighbouring parish, who can honour them, by singing in these chapels from time to time.\n\nCan. 30. None shall marry a cousin-german or the issue of a cousin-german.\n\nCan. 32. Separates from the church the wife of a priest or deacon who marries, and him that espouses her, until they be parted.\n\nCan. 34. Imposes two years penance on him who puts his slave to death by his own authority.\n\nCan. 40. The bishops who will not observe these canons, shall be guilty both before God and their brethren.\n\nCouncil of Lerida or Ilerda, anno 524.\n\nCan. 1. Forbids clergymen to shed human blood, under penalty of being deprived of the communion for two years.\n\nCan. 2. Imposes seven years penance upon those men or women that murder infants conceived and born in adultery. If they be clergymen, they also shall be put under penance, and not be restored again to their order: they shall only be permitted, after seven years, to sing in the quire. But as to those who give drugs for committing these detestable crimes, 'tis said they shall not receive the communion till death.\n\nCan. 6. He who has defiled a widow, or a nun, shall be excommunicated, the nun shall also be excommunicated, unless she part from him, in which case she shall be put under public penance.\n\nFourth Council of Arles, anno 524.\n\nCan. 3. Renews again the prohibition so often repeated, not to ordain a penitent or a bigamist.\n\nSecond Council of Toledo, anno 531.\n\nCan. 1. Concerns infants which the parents offer to be clergymen. It ordains, that, at the age of eighteen, they shall be asked, in the presence of the clergy and people, what is their design; and if they promise to observe chastity, they shall be made sub-deacons at the age of twenty. If they discharge this ministry well, they shall be deacons at twenty-five; but good heed shall be taken that they do not marry, or that they keep not company with women, and if they be convicted of doing it, they shall be looked upon as sacrilegious persons, and turned out of the church.\n\nAs to those who will not oblige themselves to observe celibacy, they shall be left to their liberty; but they shall not be promoted to holy orders, until such time as they shall renounce the use of marriage, after they are arrived to the age of maturity.\n\nSecond Council of Orleans, anno 533.\n\nCan. 8. A deacon who is married, being in captivity, cannot be restored to his ministry.\n\nCan. 17. Women who have received the benediction given to deacons, contrary to the canons, shall be turned out of communion, if it be proved that they marry: yet if, upon admonition of the bishop, they cease to cohabit with their husbands, they shall be received into communion, after they have done penance.\n\nCan. 18. The deacon's blessing shall no more be given to women.\n\nCouncil of Clermont in Arvernia, anno 535.\n\nCan. 13. Priests and deacons shall live in celibacy, and if they be found to keep company with their wives, after they are promoted to these dignities, they shall be deprived of them.\n\nA man must not marry his wife's sister's cousin-german, or the issue of her cousin-german.\n\nThird Council of Orleans, anno 538.\n\nCan. 6. Forbids ordaining those who have twice married.\n\nCan. 7. If clergymen who have been ordained with their own consent, being unmarried, do afterwards marry, they shall be excommunicated. If they were ordained against their will, they shall only be deposed, and the bishop who ordained them be suspended for one year.\n\nClergymen who commit adultery, shall be shut up in a monastery all their life-time, yet without being deprived of communion.\n\nCan. 10. A man must not marry his cousin-german or her issue.\n\nCan. 33. An imprecation against those who observe not these canons.\n\nFourth Do, anno 541.\n\nCan. 10. Suspends a bishop from the sacerdotal function, who had ordained a bigamist, or him that married a widow.\n\nCan. 17. Priests and deacons shall not have a bed and chamber common with their wives.\n\nFifth Do, anno 549.\n\nCan. 4. Clergymen who are obliged to celibacy, and do not observe it, shall be deposed.\n\nCan. 19. If women who come to a monastery and take the habit, do afterwards marry, they shall be excommunicated, together with those that marry them: but if they part, and do penance, they shall be restored to communion.\n\nSecond Council of Tours, anno 567.\n\nCan. 12. The bishop shall live with his wife as with his sister, without giving any cause of suspicion.\n\nCan. 14. Forbids priests and monks to take any person to bed with them. It orders that monks should not lie, two or three in several cells, but in one common hall, where some shall watch while others take their rest.\n\nN. B. This canon was, for certain reasons, a very necessary one.\n\nCan. 15. Monks who go out of their monastery to marry, shall be parted and put under penance.\n\nCan. 19. Hinders the clergy who are obliged to celibacy, from lying with their wives.\n\nCan. 20. Renews the penalties on those who marry virgins consecrated to God, or who consent to these marriages.\n\nSynod of Antisiodorum.\n\nCan. 12. The eucharist shall not be given to the dead, nor the kiss of peace.\n\nCan. 20. Priests, deacons, and sub-deacons, who shall have children, shall be deposed.\n\nCan. 24. It is not lawful for an abbot or monk to marry.\n\nCan. 36, 37. Women not to receive the eucharist with the naked hand, or to touch the linen cloth which covers the body of our Lord.\n\nCan. 42. Women to have the dominical for receiving the communion. Some think this is the linen upon which they receive the body of Jesus Christ, being forbidden to receive it with their naked hand. Others think it a kind of veil which covers the head. Whatever it be, this synod declares, that, if they have it not, they shall wait 'till another Sunday to receive the communion.\n\nCouncil of Mascon, anno 581.\n\nCan. 3. No women shall enter the chamber of a bishop, but in the presence of two priests or two deacons.\n\nCan. 11. Clergymen, obliged to celibacy, shall be deposed if they violate the obligation.\n\nCan. 12. Virgins consecrated to God, who marry, shall be excommunicated, both they and their husbands, till death. If they part, they shall continue under penance, during the pleasure of the bishop.\n\nCouncil of Lyons, anno 583.\n\nCan. 1. Clergymen forbidden to have any familiarity with their wives.\n\nSecond Council of Mascon, anno 585.\n\nCan. 16. Forbids the widows of sub-deacons, exorcists, and acolythists, to marry again.\n\nThis council, which was very numerous, consisting of 6 archbishops, 37 bishops, 20 deputies from other bishops, and 3 bishops who had no see, ordained\u2014in\n\nCan. 15. That laymen should shew respect to clergymen, and to salute them if they meet them on horseback in the way; to light off their horse and salute them, if they meet them on foot.\n\nThird Council of Toledo, anno 589.\n\nCan. 5. Renews the laws of celibacy for priests and deacons.\n\nCan. 9. Leaves widows and maids at liberty to marry or keep celibacy, and excommunicates those who hinder them from observing their vow of chastity.\n\nCan. 17. Against those fathers and mothers who put their children to death.\n\nCouncil of Barcelona, anno 599.\n\nCan. 4. If a virgin who has renounced the customs of the world, and promised to observe continence, or any other person who has desired of the priest benedictionem p\u00e6nitenti\u00e6\u2014i. e. the blessing for leading a religious life, for this is often called p\u00e6nitentia and conversio\u2014do marry, or, being taken away by force, will not part from their ravishers, they shall continue excluded from the communion of the faithful, and shall not have so much as the comfort of conversation.\u2014This canon may also be understood literally of penance, because it was not lawful for penitents to make use of marriage (if married) or to marry (if single).\n\nCENTURY VII.\n\nSt. Isidore\n\nSucceeded to the bishopric of Sevil about the year 595. He is likewise for the celibacy of the clergy. He says, that a bishop ought always to have lived single, or to have had but one wife\u2014that priests, deacons, and sub-deacons should be bound to continency. Among other works of discipline, he wrote the rules of the monks, accommodated to the use of his country.\n\nSt. Columbanus,\n\nAn Irish monk. He contended, that the celibacy of superior clerks was commanded\u2014that married persons should abstain from the use of marriage for three days before the communion\u2014that men were to be put to penance for bigamy and usury\u2014that women might receive the sacrament with a black veil on\u2014that, in case of necessity, confession might be made to God.\n\nSt. Eligius,\n\nA great lover of ecclesiastical discipline, and follower of the traditions of the fathers, Cyprian, Austin, Gregory, &c.\u2014however, he exceeded them all; for, in one of his homilies, he lays it down, that \"it is as great a crime for a man to lie with his wife, as to eat flesh in Lent.\" This may easily be believed to be very true; but, as St. Eligius meant it, who believed that eating flesh in Lent was a very horrible sin, it certainly exceeds, if possible, the folly of all the preceding saints and fathers put together.\n\nTheodorus of Canterbury,\n\nOrdained bishop by Pope Vitalian, and sent into England in 668, to govern the church of Canterbury. He laboured much in the establishing of the faith and church-discipline in England.\n\nIn the eleventh chapter of the ritual attributed to him, there are many questions about married persons. It is said there, they ought to abstain from the use of matrimony three days before the communion\u2014forty days before Easter\u2014forty days before and after childbearing. That a lawful marriage cannot be dissolved, but with the consent of both parties; but either of them may give his consent, that the other may withdraw into a monastery, and then, that the other may marry again, as if he had not been married before. If the husband be made a slave, the wife may marry at the year's end. That a man may marry again within one month after his wife's death, and a woman within one year after her husband's decease. That a woman, who hath vowed widowhood, cannot marry again; if she should, it shall be free for the husband to let her fulfil her vow or not. That the bishop may dispense with vows. It is free for one baptized to keep or put away his wife being a Pagan. If a woman forsake her husband, within five years after he may take another wife. If she be carried away captive, he may marry another one year after\u2014but if she cometh again, he shall leave this last. It is lawful, among the Greeks, to marry in the third degree, and among the Romans in the fifth only.\n\nChildren are in the power of their father 'till sixteen years old, but, that time being past, they may enter into a religious order.\n\nCouncil of Egara, anno 614.\n\nConfirmed the decree made in that of Huesca, concerning the celibacy of the clergy.\n\nFifth Council of Paris.\n\nCan. 1. The antient canons shall be kept.\n\nCan. 14. Prohibits marriage with a maiden that has taken a religious habit. It excommunicates those that contract such marriages, 'till they separate themselves.\n\nCouncil held in France, about anno 614, the place uncertain.\n\nCan. 12. Forbids presbyters and deacons to marry, upon pain of being turned out of the church.\n\nSecond Council of Sevil, anno 619.\n\nCan. 4. Is against the unlawful ordinations made at Astigi, where persons that had married widows had been ordained clerks. The ordinations are declared null; and they are forbidden to be raised to the order of deacons.\n\nCouncil of Rheims under Sonnatius.\n\nCan. 7. Threatens to excommunicate those who shall violently take away from the church the criminals fled into it.\n\nThe original of this privilege, allowed by the Heathens, and afterward by the Christians, to their temples or churches, was certainly taken from the divine constitution given to Moses, respecting the six cities of refuge in the Jewish nation (Numb. xxxv. 6.) though not altogether conformable to it: for Moses made the cities only a refuge, and that only for such manslayers as had killed their neighbours unawares; but the Heathens made their temples an asylum for all manner of wickednesses. So Livy says of the asylum erected by Romulus at Rome: Asylum aperuit, quo quisquis perfugerit, ab omni noxa liberatus esset. \"He opened an asylum, where, whosoever fled to it, should be freed from every crime.\" So Herodotus speaks of Hercules's asylum at Athens. These refuge-temples were afterwards much increased among the Heathen, and at length, about the year 300, came to be in use among the Christians; for they thought it a shame, that the temples of the Heathen gods should enjoy so great a privilege, as to be refuges for the oppressed, and the Christian temples should be destitute of it: whereupon they were made such by the edict of Theodosius and Valentinian, and also by the canons of the councils. But although such grants might be of very good advantage among Christians, being kept within due bounds of the first institution, to be a protection for the innocent and oppressed; yet, as they have been, and still are, abused in the Roman and other churches, being made a refuge for murderers (assassins) rebels, and other enormous criminals, they are grievous both to the church and all civil societies. See Editor's note on Du Pin, Eng. edit. vol. vi. p. 57.\n\nCan. 23. Forbids ravishing widows or virgins consecrated to God.\n\nN. B. The word ravishing means taking them away.\n\nFourth Council of Toledo.\n\nCan. 19. Forbids advancing those to the priesthood who have made themselves eunuchs\u2014those that have had many wives, or have married widows\u2014as also those that have had concubines.\n\nCan. 44. Clerks marrying widows, shall be separated from them by the bishop.\n\nCan. 56. Distinguisheth two sorts of widows\u2014some secular, who do not leave the secular habit, and other religious, which take a religious habit\u2014and declares, it is not lawful for these to marry.\n\nSixth Council of Toledo, anno 638.\n\nCan. 8. Explains a constitution of St. Gregory's, whereby they suppose he gave leave to a young man, who underwent penance under fear of death, to cohabit with his wife, till he was come to an age in which it were easier to live chastly. They say, that if he, or she, that was not put to penance, survive, he may marry again.\n\nNinth Council of Toledo, 655.\n\nCan. 10. They declare the sons of clergymen, who were obliged to celibacy, incapable of inheriting.\n\nTenth Council of Toledo, 656.\n\nCan. 5. Decrees that those who leave the habit of widowhood, after they have worn it, shall be excommunicated, and shut up in monasteries.\n\nFourth Council of Braga, 675.\n\nCan. 4. Ecclesiastical persons are forbidden to dwell with a woman, excepting their mother only, but not their very sisters, or any other near relations.\n\nCouncil held at Constantinople, anno 692.\n\nCan. 3. Those of the clergy, presbyters, or deacons, that had married two wives, if they will not leave that custom, shall be deposed. As to those whose second wives are dead, or who have left them, they shall keep the honour and place of their dignity, being forbidden only to perform the functions of it, it being not fitting, that he, who ought to heal his own wounds, should bless others. As for them who had married widows, or had married, being priests, deacons, or sub-deacons, they shall for a time be suspended from their function, but they grant them the power of being restored when they leave their wives, on condition, that they shall not be raised to a superior order. Lastly\u2014they ordain, that all those who have been married twice after baptism, or have had concubines, shall not be made clergymen.\n\nCan. 4. Such ecclesiastical persons as shall company with a virgin consecrated to God, shall be deposed. Laymen excommunicated.\n\nCan. 5. Forbids clerks to have with them women, not related to them, except those which the canons allow them to dwell withal. It extends this prohibition to eunuchs.\n\nCan. 6. Forbids those that are in orders, including the sub-deacons, to marry after their ordination.\n\nCan. 12. Ties the bishops of Afric and Lybia to the law of the celibacy.\n\nCan. 44. Against monks guilty of fornication or married.\n\nCan. 48. The wife of him who is to be made a bishop, shall be put away from him, and shall withdraw into a monastery, at a distance from the bishop's residence.\n\nCan. 83. Forbids giving the eucharist to the dead.\n\nCan. 93. Condemns the marriages of those men and women, who are not sure of the death of their wives or husbands. But after those marriages have been contracted, and when the first husband comes again, he is ordered to take his wife again.\n\nCENTURY VIII.\n\nSt. Boniface, Archbishop of Mentz, about anno 719.\n\nIn letter 11, he consults the bishop Pethelmus about the customs of France and Italy, by which it was forbidden to marry her to whose child he had been godfather. Whereupon he says, that, till then, he thought there was no harm in it, having never found that it was forbidden by the canons or decrees of the holy bishops. He desires him to inform him, whether he has met with any thing about it in the ecclesiastical writings.\n\nNear the end of a letter to St. Cuthbert, he tells him\u2014\"that it were convenient to restrain the women and virgins of England, from going in such numbers to Rome, because the greatest part of them were debauched, and caused great scandal in the whole church; for there is scarce a city, saith he, in Lombardy or France, where there are not some English women of a wicked life.\"\n\nPope Gregory II, anno 714.\n\nHe prohibits marriages between persons related in the fourth degree. He enjoins the bishops not to ordain such as have been twice married\u2014not to suffer any man to have more wives than one\u2014to esteem virginity more highly than marriage.\n\nPope Gregory III, anno 731,\n\nForbids marriage to the seventh generation.\n\nProhibits a widower to marry above twice.\n\nPope Zachary, anno 741.\n\nBoniface, a German bishop, writes to Zachary on many subjects: among the rest, he desires to know what he should do with those bishops, priests, and deacons, who lived in many disorders and debaucheries? Zachary answers him, that he ought not to suffer them to perform the functions and offices that belong to their orders and degrees.\n\nN. B. St. Paul would have answered\u2014If they cannot contain, let them marry.\n\nBoniface also enquires, whether it be true, that one of his country had obtained a dispensation from Gregory III. (Zachary's predecessor) to marry his uncle's widow, which had been his cousin-german's wife, and had received the veil? The Pope answers\u2014That his predecessor did not grant such a licence, because the holy see allows nothing contrary to the constitutions of the councils, and the holy fathers.\n\nHe prohibited a man from marrying his father's god-daughter, because of the spiritual consanguinity.\n\nSt. John Damascene\n\nHighly extols the state of virginity.\n\nSt. Chrodegand, Bishop of Mentz.\n\nCan. 15. Clerks guilty of heinous crimes, such as murders, adultery, robbery, or the like, shall be chastifed on their body; shall be exiled, or cast into prison, as long as the bishop pleases; and shall moreover do public penance.\n\nPope Stephen II. anno 752.\n\nCan. 2. Excuses a priest who had baptised with wine instead of water; and he intimates that baptism to be valid, in these words: Infantes sic permaneant in ipso baptismo\u2014\"The infants shall so abide in that baptism.\"\n\nCharlemagne.\n\nThis Emperor may be reckoned among the Latin ecclesiastical authors, as well as Constantine among the Greeks, for he not only laboured in the establishment of church discipline, but moreover he made several laws, wrote letters, and caused some treatises of ecclesiastical matters to be composed: these are called Capitularies.\n\nHe empowers bishops to order the life of widows.\n\nThat they shall observe the canons concerning the manner of veiling virgins. The prohibition of contracting marriages, was extended to the fourth degree of consanguinity.\n\nWomen were forbidden to come near the altars.\n\nThey forbad to receive children into monasteries without the parents consent, and to veil virgins before thirty years of age, and widows before the thirtieth day after their husband's decease.\n\nPrayers for the dead much practised.\n\nCouncil of Barkhamstead, anno 697.\n\nCan 3. Adulterers, if laymen, put to penance\u2014if clergymen, to be deposed.\n\nCan. 4. Foreigners, guilty of that crime, shall be expelled the realm.\n\nCan. 5. and 6. Those of the nobility, overtaken in that sin, shall be fined in an hundred pence, and the peasant in fifty.\n\nCan. 7. An ecclesiastical person guilty of adultery, if he break off that habit, shall continue in the priesthood, provided that he hath not maliciously refused to administer baptism, or that he be not a drunkard.\n\nCouncil of Rome, under Gregory II. anno 721.\n\nCan. 1\u201311. Against them that marry their kindred, persons consecrated to God, or the wives of priests and deacons, or who steal away widows or maidens.\n\nCan. 14\u201316. Against a private man who had married a deaconess.\n\nCouncil of Germany under Carloman.\n\nCan. 6. He or she, that hath committed fornication, shall be imprisoned, and shall do penance there with bread and water; and if he be a priest, he shall be shut up for two years, having been whipt till the blood comes; and then the bishop shall lay on him what penance he pleases. If it be a simple clerk or monk, he shall be whipt three times, and then shut up for one year. The nuns, which have received the veil, shall be used after the same manner, and shaved.\n\nN. B. What an instance of tyranny over their fellow-creatures, were these people to exhibit! they prevent them from using the means, and remedy, which God hath commanded in his word, and then punish them most severely, for the natural consequences of their own prohibition! This observation will still hold good to this hour, as will be observed in its proper place.\n\nCan. 7. Enjoins monks and nuns exactly to follow St. Benedict's rule.\n\nCouncil of Rome under Pope Zachary, anno 743.\n\nCan. 1. Bishops shall not dwell with women.\n\nCan. 5. Anathematizeth those who marry a priest's or a deacon's wife, a nun, or a religious woman, or their godmother.\n\nCan. 6. Forbids marriage with a cousin-german.\n\nCan. 7. Anathematizeth those who steal maidens and widows, to marry them.\n\nCan. 8. Against those clerks or monks that let their hair grow. Council of Soissons, anno 744.\n\nCan. 8. Clerks shall have no women in their houses, except their mother, sister, or niece.\n\nCouncil of Verberie, anno 752.\n\nCan. 1. Those that marry in the third degree of consanguinity, shall be put asunder, and, after having done penance, they may marry others. Those in the fourth degree only shall not be separated, but only be put to penance if they be married; or otherwise not suffered to marry.\n\nCan. 2. If any man hath had commerce with his daughter-in-law, he shall dwell no longer, neither with the mother nor with the daughter; and neither the daughter, nor he, shall marry others, but the mother may marry another.\n\nCan. 3. If a presbyter marry his niece, he shall be obliged to leave her, and lose his degree. If any body else marry her, he shall be obliged to leave her, but shall have liberty to marry another.\n\nCan. 5. If a wife conspire the husband's death, he may leave her, and marry another.\n\nCan. 7. Slaves, who have a concubine, may leave her to marry their master's maidservant, though they do better if they keep the first.\n\nCan. 8. Permits the master to oblige his slave to marry his maid-servant, if he hath had any carnal knowledge of her.\n\nCan. 9. Imports, that, if men be forced to go away from the place of their habitation, and their wives refuse to follow them, without any other reason but their love to their own country, it shall be free for those men, whose wives have thus left them, to marry others; but not for the wives to marry again.\n\nCan. 10. Forbids him to marry who hath lain with his mother-in-law, and the mother-in-law likewise, and permits the father-in-law to marry again.\n\nCan. 11. Inflicts the same punishment on defilers of their daughter-in-law, or sister-in-law.\n\nCan. 12. He that lies with two sisters, shall have neither, though one of them were his wife.\n\nCan. 17. Permits a woman, who complains that her husband never did cohabit with her, to try the proof of the cross; and if it appears, by this trial, that the thing is so, then she may do what she pleaseth.\n\nCan. 19. The slave who is set at liberty may put away his wife, being a bond-woman, and marry another.\n\nCouncil of Verneville, anno 755.\n\nCan. 15. Enjoins both nobles and the common people to be married publicly.\n\nCouncil of Metz, anno 756.\n\nCan. 1. Against incests committed either with a person consecrated to God, a she-gossip, a god-mother, whether at baptism or confirmation, or with a cousin-german.\n\nCan. 2. Appoints the deposition of the superior clergy, convicted of these crimes, and the inferior are to be whipped or imprisoned.\n\nSecond Council of Nice, anno 754.\n\nCan. 22. Forbids monks to eat with women, unless it be needful for their spiritual good, or upon a journey, yea though they be their relations.\n\nCouncil of Aquileia, anno 791.\n\nCan. 4. Against women's cohabiting with clergymen.\n\nCan. 8. Prohibits unlawful marriages between kindred, and clandestine marriages. It ordains that no marriages shall be contracted, but between parties which shall be known not to be a-kin; that there shall be an interval between betrothing and marriage; that the presence of the priest shall be requisite; that kindred, which shall be found to have married within the degrees prohibited [by the canons] shall be separated, and put to penance\u2014that, if it be possible, they shall remain unmarried; but yet, if they will have children, or if they cannot keep their virginity, they shall be permitted to marry others, and their children deemed legitimate.\n\nN. B. In this Popish law we may trace one source of the delay of marriage by asking banns\u2014the vacating clandestine marriages\u2014the presence of a priest made necessary\u2014all which, however improved in later times, owed their existence to Popish contrivance, and all for the advancement of priestly emolument and authority.\n\nCan. 10. Forbids a man or woman, which have been divorced for adultery, to marry again. It affirms, that Jesus Christ in this case only permitted a man to put away his wife, but not to marry another, and confirms this opinion by the authority of St. Jerom! The common practice was then contrary to this law.\n\nCan. 11. Virgins or widows, which have promised to live single, and have taken the habit, though they have not received the consecration from the bishop, if they do secretly marry, or suffer themselves to be defiled, they shall be punished according to the rigour of the civil laws: and besides this, they shall be put asunder, and do penance all their life-time, unless the bishop, considering the greatness of their repentance, shew them some favour; but at the point of death they shall not be deprived of the viaticum.\n\nCENTURY IX.\n\nCouncil of Metz, anno 813.\n\nCan. 55. Forbids parents presenting their own children at the font; or marrying one's god-daughter, or one's partner in the suretyship at a child's baptism, or even the person, whose son or daughter one has brought to be confirmed.\n\nCouncil of Mentz, anno 847.\n\nForbids all marriages, whether incestuous, or within the degrees of consanguinity prohibited by the laws.\n\nCouncil of Pavia, anno 850.\n\nCan. 9. Forbids the benediction to be given to those women, who marry after they have been deflowered.\n\nMarriage is forbidden to those who are under penance.\n\nCan. 10. Declares that men cannot lawfully marry the persons they have forced; and allows such persons no absolution, but just at the point of death. See Deut. xxii. 28, 29.\n\nCouncil of Rome under Leo IV. anno 853.\n\nCan. 29. Commands, that women, who professed a religious life, should not marry.\n\nCan. 36. Prohibits men's putting away their wives, and marrying others, unless in case of adultery, and orders. If a man and his wife are willing to part, to embrace a religious life, they must do it with consent of the bishop.\n\nCan. 37. Forbids polygamy.\n\nCan. 38. Against marriage within the degrees forbidden.\n\nSecond Council of Tullium or Toul, anno 860.\n\nCan. 2. Widows or virgins devoted to the service of God, who marry, shall be imprisoned, and put to penance 'till their death.\n\nCouncil of Worms, anno 868.\n\nCan. 9. Contains a law of celibacy for all in sacred orders.\n\nCan. 21. Widows who have taken the veil, prayed in the church among the professed nuns, offered oblations with them, and promised to continue in that state, shall never leave it.\n\nCan. 34. Prohibits to marry a god-mother or god-daughter.\n\nCan. 35. Condemns to the penance of murderers, those women who cause abortions in themselves.\n\nCan. 36. Subjects to penance, and separates him from his wife, who hath lain with his wife's daughter by another husband.\n\nCan. 44. Condemns adulterers to seven years penance.\n\nSecond Council of Douzy, anno 868.\n\nDuda, a nun, being with child by Huntburtus, a priest, an assembly of bishops met, and ordered Duda that she should be put to penance, and scourged by the abbess, in the presence of her sister nuns, and not be received into communion 'till after seven years penance. They condemned two nuns who knew of it, but did not discover it, to three years penance, after being moderately chastised with the rod. It is not said what became of Huntburtus.\n\nQu? How many child-murders must such proceedings be the occasion of? The canons which we find against these, and causing abortion, are sad proofs of their frequency.\n\nCouncil of Troyes, 878.\n\nThey made a canon, forbidding all Christians to marry a second wife while the first is living.\n\nCouncil of Cologne, anno 877.\n\nRevived the canons of councils against unlawful marriages.\n\nCouncil of Mentz.\n\nCan. 10. Enjoins clergymen absolutely to have no woman to cohabit with them.\n\nCan. 26. Forbids that widows shall be easily admitted to the veil\u2014if they embrace a single life, it orders, that they be put into the monasteries, where they shall live regularly with the nuns. If they violate their profession, they shall be punished canonically. They renew the canon of Eleria, made concerning virgins devoted to God, which violate their virginity.\n\nCouncil of Metz, anno uncertain.\n\nCan. 5. Priests shall have no women with them; no, not so much as their mother or sister.\n\nCan. 10. Excommunicates some persons that had gelt a priest, who would oblige one of their kinswomen to return to her husband.\n\nCouncil of Vienna, anno 892.\n\nCan. 5. Priests shall have no women with them.\n\nCouncil of Tribur, anno 895.\n\nCan. 5. He that kills a priest, shall do five years penance. After this he may come into the church, but shall not communicate 'till five more years be expired.\n\nCan. 12. Baptism shall not be administered but at Easter and Whitsuntide.\n\nN. B. There are many canons to this purpose in the preceding centuries, but they always add\u2014\"except in cases of necessity.\"\n\nCan. 23. Revives the laws against those who marry virgins consecrated to God.\n\nCan. 33. Revives those canons, which exclude such persons from holy orders as have made themselves eunuchs.\n\nQu? If, as the clergy were condemned to celibacy, these were not the properest persons for clergymen?\n\nCan. 40. Declares the marriage of a man and a widow null, who have committed adultery together in the life of the husband, under promise of marriage.\n\nCan. 41. If an impotent person marry a woman, and his brother abuse her, they shall be parted, and she shall not have commerce with either of them; yet the bishop may permit her to marry again, after the guilty person hath done penance.\n\nCan. 43. If a person commit fornication with a woman, who hath lain with his son or brother without his knowledge, and he deposeth upon oath that he is not conscious of any such thing, he may marry, after he hath done penance.\n\nCan. 47. Allows him who is godfather to a man's child, to marry his widow, if she was not his godmother.\n\nCan. 48. If a man by chance marry the daughter of his godmother, he may keep her, and live with her as his wife.\n\nCan. 49. Forbids, that such as have committed adultery together should ever marry, dwell, or have society together. If they have any estate, it shall be kept for the adulterous offspring.\n\nCan. 51. Repeats the prohibitions made to an adulterer, to marry the woman after her husband's death.\n\nCan 54 and 58. Appoints seven years penance for wilful murderers.\u2014Among other things\u2014he shall not lie with his wife. See Gen. ix. 6.\n\nCouncil of Nantes.\n\nThe canons which bear the name of this council, are a collection of constitutions made at different places.\n\nCan. 3. Forbids a priest to have any woman with him, yea, those that are accepted by the canons. It forbids also women to approach the altar.\n\nCan. 12. Allows a man to put away his wife for adultery, but not to marry another in her life-time. He may be reconciled to her, but on condition that he does penance with her.\n\nCan. 13. Three years penance for single fornication.\n\nCan. 14. Seven years penance on him that commits adultery, if married. Five on him that is not married.\n\nCan. 17. Lays fourteen years penance on a voluntary and public murderer. Five years he shall be separated from the church; the rest of the time he may be at prayers, but without offering or communicating. See Gen. ix. 6.\n\nThe bishops of Germany, in a letter to Pope John VIII. call Rome\u2014\"the holy apostolic see\u2014the original of the Christian religion\u2014and the source of priestly dignity.\"\n\nPope Nicholas I. anno 858.\n\nProves, by the canons, that those who have married two sisters, may not marry any more for the future.\n\nThat those who have married their relations, and are upon that account divorced, cannot marry as long as both of them live: but it is not forbidden when one of them dies.\n\nThat marriage ought not to be forbidden absolutely to such as have committed the crime of sodomy, provided they repent of their sin, and have left off that cursed habit.\n\nN. B. This cursed habit is punished less rigorously, than the having married two sisters.\n\nTouching the ceremonies of marriage, he says, that, after betrothing, the priest ought to cause the persons to come into the church with their offerings (i. e. to the priest) and there give them his benediction and the veil, which is not to be given in second marriages. That, being gone out of the church, they should wear crowns upon their heads. These are the ordinary and solemn ceremonies; which, as the Greeks say of theirs, need not nevertheless be always observed. That consent, according to the laws, might suffice, and that, if that be wanting, the rest signifies nothing.\n\nN. B. This article is very important\u2014it contains an authentic record, even upon the testimony of a Pope, that in the ninth century, sacerdotal benediction, or even interposition, or other ceremony of an ecclesiastical kind, were not necessary to the validity of marriage; but that consent of the parties, according to the laws, both in the eastern and western empire, was sufficient.\n\nHe forbids marrying in Lent. Leaves it to the bishop, or priest, to determine, after what manner, a man should live with his wife during that time.\n\nHe expressly forbids a man to have two wives at a time. Permits all believers to make the sign of the cross upon the table, and to give a benediction thereon in the absence of the priest.\n\nPope John VIII. 872,\n\nDecides, that a man ought not to be parted from his wife, because he had baptized his child himself in a case of necessity.\n\nThat it is not permitted to Christians to marry their kindred, so long as they can make out any relation. That all those who are so married, and will keep their wives, or those that shall so marry for the future, to be subject to the church's anathema by apostolic authority, and forbids all priests to give them the sacrament, 'till they have done penance.\n\nHe also declares it unlawful to have two wives, or to have a wife and a concubine at the same time.\n\nCENTURY X.\n\nDu Pin opens this century, with an account of the quarrel between Leo, Emperor of the East, and Nicholas, the patriarch of Constantinople, who refused to marry Leo to a fourth wife. Having had three before, but no issue male by them, he, being desirous of a son to succeed him, married a fourth wife; but Nicholas refusing to marry him to this lady, whose name was Zoe, a presbyter, whose name was Thomas, ventured to do it. Nicholas deposes Thomas for this, and excommunicates the Emperor himself.\n\nLeo had recourse to the Pope (Sergius) for his approbation of the marriage, which, because such successive marriages were tolerated in the West, he easily obtained. But Nicholas the patriarch, continuing obstinate, would not acknowledge the Emperor's marriage as valid. The Emperor banished him, and placed Enthymius in his room. Nicholas wrote to the Pope, and stiffly maintained, contrary to the practice and opinion of the church of Rome, that to marry a third or fourth time, was absolutely unlawful. But the patriarch, receiving no answer from Rome, wrote another letter to Pope John, wherein he offers, to observe a fair correspondence and union with the holy see, provided he would own, that a fourth marriage was not to be permitted to the Emperor, unless by way of indulgence, or consideration of his royal person, and that, in itself it was unlawful. The clergy were divided into two parties, one declaring for Nicholas, the other for Enthymius; but were re-united in the year 920; and made a treaty of union in an ecclesiastical convocation, by which (without disannulling any thing that was past) they absolutely prohibited for the future a fourth marriage, under pain of excommunication, to be inflicted on those who should contract such marriage, and to be in force during the continuance of such marriage. They likewise inflicted a penance, of five years, on such as should marry a third time, being above forty years old: and a penance of three years on such as should re-marry, after thirty years of age, if they had any children by their former marriages.\n\nAnno 956.\n\nOn the death of the patriarch Theophylact, the Emperor constituted Polyeucta in his room. This patriarch had a warm dispute with the Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, who having married Theophanes, the widow of the Emperor Romanus, Polyeucta threatened to excommunicate him, unless he would renounce her. 1. Because this was the second marriage which Nicephorus had contracted, without submitting to the penance due to those who were guilty of bigamy. 2. Because it was reported, that Nicephorus had stood godfather to one of Theophanes's children.\u2014The Emperor proposed these questions to the bishops who were then in Constantinople, and to the chief of his council; who left him at liberty to keep Theophanes as his wife: and Polyeucta himself did not insift any more on the dissolution of the marriage, after the Emperor had assured him upon oath, that he had never stood god-father to any of Theophanes's children.\n\nLeo VII.\n\nDeclares that marriage between a man and his god-mother or god-daughter is forbidden.\n\nThose priests who marry publicly, shall be deprived of their dignity; but their children shall not be endamaged thereby.\n\nAtto, Bishop of Verceil,\n\nShews, that, by the ecclesiastical and civil laws, marriage is prohibited to those who had contracted a spiritual affinity by baptism; contrary to the advice of that bishop, who found fault that one who had married his god-father's daughter, was divorced from her, and excommunicated, 'till such time as he made his appearance in a court of judicature, before the archbishop and bishops.\n\nAmbrose, a priest of Milan, writes to Atto, to tell him, that these sorts of marriages were likewise prohibited in his church. Atto writes to ecclesiastics in his own diocese, against those who kept company with lewd women, with whom they maintained a scandalous familiarity, and whom they kept and maintained out of the revenues of the church.\n\nAbout the end of this century, Robert, King of France, being a widower, by the death of Queen Lutgarde, his first wife, had married Bertha, sister to Radulphus the simple, King of Burgundy, who was the widow of Eudes, first Count of Chartres. But forasmuch as she was his kinswoman, and he had formerly stood godfather to one of her children, though he had taken the advice of several bishops of his kingdom about it, yet the Pope opposed this marriage as null, and contracted between persons, who, according to law, could not marry together. King Robert did what he could to confirm this marriage, and spake about it to Leo, the legate of Gregory V. in France; who made him believe, that he would obtain of the Pope what he desired, provided he would cause Arnulphus to be reinstated in the archbishopric of Rheims. In the mean time, notwithstanding the judgment which was passed in favour of the Archbishop, Pope Gregory V. held a council at Rome, anno 998, in the presence of the Emperor Otho III. at which assisted Gerbert, at that time archbishop of Ravenna, and twenty-seven bishops of Italy. In this council he declared, that King Robert ought to part from Bertha, whom he had married contrary to the laws, and do penance for seven years together, according to the degrees set down by the canons; and if he would not, he should be anathematized: that Bertha should submit to the same penalty; and he excommunicated Archembold, archbishop of Tours, who had celebrated that marriage, and the bishops of France, who had either assisted or consented thereto, 'till such time as they should come, and give the holy see satisfaction.\n\nThis sentence of the Pope made such an impression on the minds of men, that all the king's domestics, except two or three, abandoned him, and would no longer have any conversation with him, and even caused the vessels, out of which he had eaten or drunk, to be burnt. King Robert at last gave ear to the advice of Abbo the abbot, and parted with Bertha, two or three years afterwards. Leo IX. (as Ives of Chartres relates it) says, that they came to Rome with the bishops, to obtain their absolution, and get their penance mitigated.\n\nThe author of the life of Abbo does not say that King Robert went to Rome; but, that he confessed his fault both publicly and privately: that he asked pardon, and did penance for it. That which is most evident is, that the marriage was of no longer force.\n\nCouncil of Coblentz, anno 922.\n\nCan. 1. Forbids marriage between relations, to the sixth generation.\n\nCouncil of Ausburg, anno 952.\n\nCan. 1. Priests, deacons, and subdeacons that marry, shall be deposed, according to chap. 25. of the council of Carthage.\n\nCan. 2. Against those clergymen who keep suspicious women in their houses.\n\nCan. 7 and 8. Forbid them to hinder clergymen and canonesses from embracing the monastic life.\n\nCan. 11. Not only bishops, priests, deacons, and sub-deacons shall lead a single life, but also, the other clergy shall be obliged to live continently when they come to years of maturity.\n\nGeneral Council of ENGLAND,\nHeld by St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury,\n\nOrdained, that all priests, deacons, and subdeacons shall embrace a regular and monastic course of life, or retire. Accordingly, St. Dunstan, and Oswald and Ethelwold, bishops of Worcester and Winchester, turned the old clergymen out of most part of the churches, and put monks in their place, or else forced them to assume the monastical habit.\n\nA certain very potent earl having married one of his kinswomen, St. Dunstan excommunicated him, and refused to take off his excommunication, although the king (Edgar) had commanded him, and the earl had obtained a brief of the Pope for his restoration. At last the earl, in fear of those punishments which the divine vengeance inflicts on excommunicated persons, left his kinswoman, did public penance, and threw himself down prostrate before St. Dunstan, in a council, barefoot, cloathed with a woollen garment, holding a bundle of rods in his hand, and lamenting his sin; from which St. Dunstan gave him absolution, at the request of the bishops of the council. The arrogance of this proud priest, shews us to what a height of insolence and tyranny churchmen were now arrived.\n\n\"St. Dunstan was made archbishop of Canterbury, anno 961. His skill in the liberal arts and sciences (qualifications much above the genius of the age he lived in) gained him first the name of a conjurer, and then of a saint. He is revered as such by the Romanists, who keep an holy-day in honour of him, yearly on the 19th of May\"\u2014(vide also the Protestant Kalendar.)\u2014\"The monkish writers tell us, that he was once tempted to lewdness by the Devil, under the shape of a fine lady; but instead of yielding to her temptations, he took the Devil by the nose with a pair of red-hot tongs.\" See Grey's Hud. part 2. cant. 3. l. 618. n.\n\nAlfric, Archbishop of Canterbury,\n\nSuccessor of St. Dunstan\u2014wrote a letter concerning the monastic life\u2014and another against the marriage of clergymen.\n\nFew councils were held in this century. In most part of them the decrees were concerning tythes\u2014against churchmen who keep concubines\u2014and against marriage among near relations. The degrees of consanguinity were extended to the seventh, in which it was forbidden to contract marriage; and spiritual affinity took place, as well in the eastern as the western churches. Such as married with these impediments were divorced without redress; neither were any dispensations granted, as it appears from the case of King Robert, and that of the Emperor Nicephorus Phocas.\n\nFourth marriages were absolutely prohibited in the eastern, but not in the western parts.\n\nIn the reign of Edmund king of East-Anglia, about anno 944, a time when monks and priests had gotten full possession of the understandings and consciences of mankind, a mixed synod or assembly was held, wherein ceremonies of marriage, and preliminary securities, which the parties were to give one another, were settled. See Rapin, vol. i. 214.\n\nRatherius, Bishop of Verona,\n\nA man of great repute in Italy. A most violent stickler for the canons. He wrote several treatises: in one of which, he declaims against the irregular lives of the clergy of his time, and falls upon their immodesty, which was then at such an height, that \"one could scarce\" (says he) \"find a man fit to be ordained a bishop, or any bishop fit to ordain others.\" He reckons up several horrible stories, and charges them chiefly with an infamous commerce with women.\n\nAnother treatise is an injunction against the marriage of a clergyman's son of Verona, which was performed on a Sunday in Lent. He declares it irregular, and that no marriage ought to be celebrated during Lent, nor on fast-days, nor on Sundays, nor on holydays: and orders all those who commit such a fault, to fast forty days; that is to say, when others eat at nine o'clock, they should stay 'till noon ere they eat\u2014when others eat at noon, they should fast 'till three o'clock. He excommunicates such offenders, as would not submit to this penance, and declares that God would consign them over to eternal damnation.\n\nFulcus, Archbishop of Rheims, anno 882.\n\nThis archbishop wrote to several kings and princes, among others, to Alfrede King of Britain, whom he congratulates on the choice he had made of a worthy person to fill the see of Canterbury; because he heard, that, in his country, he advanced such sort of men, as permitted the bishops and priests to have women among them, and the laics to marry their kindred, as well as those virgins who were dedicated to God's service, and to have a wife and a concubine at the same time.\n\nCENTURY XI.\n\nSt. Fulbert, Bishop of Chartres,\n\nDetermines, that a woman who was engaged on oath to marry a man, could not marry another, 'till after his death, or by his consent. A woman, not being willing to live with her husband, and saying, she had rather live a nun, the husband desires he may have leave to marry another. St. Fulbert declares, that, 'tis his opinion, he could not have leave, 'till she were either dead, or turned recluse.\n\nAbout the middle of this century the famous dispute concerning the presence of Christ's body and blood in the eucharist was revived.\n\nBerenger, principal of the public school at Tours, and afterwards archbishop of Angers, a man of a most acute and subtle genius, and highly renowned both on account of his extensive learning, and the exemplary sanctity of his life and manners, (see Mosheim, edit. Maclaine, vol. i. p. 534.) had the assurance to deny the bodily presence; and to maintain, \"that the bread and wine were not changed into the body and blood of Christ, but preserved their natural and essential qualities, and were no more than figures and external symbols of the body and blood of the divine Saviour.\"\n\nThis wise, scriptural, and rational doctrine was no sooner published, than it was opposed by certain doctors of France and Germany: but Pope Leo IX. attacked it with peculiar vehemence and fury, in the year 1050; and in two councils, one at Rome, the other at Vercelli, had the doctrine of Berenger solemnly condemned, and the book of Scotus, from which it was drawn, committed to the flames. This example was followed by the council of Paris, which was summoned the same year by Henry\u00a0I. in which Berenger, and his numerous adherents, were menaced with all sorts of evils both spiritual and temporal.\n\nThese threats were executed in part against this unhappy prelate, whom Henry deprived of all his revenues. Mosheim, ibid.\n\nLanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, was one of Berenger's most formidable enemies. He, and numbers of other considerable churchmen, wrote against Berenger's heretical doctrine. But one of the most curious, was Guitmond, archbishop of Averse, who wrote books against that heretic, as Berenger was called; in one of which, Guitmond answers an objection made by Berenger, viz. \"That the flesh of Jesus Christ is incorruptible, but the sacraments of the altar are corruptible if kept too long.\"\n\nGuitmond's reply to this, contains such a proof of the size of men's understandings, where they are retrenched by prejudice and superstition, to the standard of vulgar notion and popular opinion, that I cannot forbear laying it before the reader, as the translator of Du Pin now lays it before me. Cent. xi. p. 18.\n\n\"Guitmond replies\u2014that, though the consecrated bread seems to be corrupted, to the apprehension of corrupted men; yet, in reality, it is not changed at all; and that it does not appear altered, unless as a punishment of the infidelity and negligence of men\u2014that it cannot be gnawn by mice, and other vermin; and, if at any time it appears to be so, 'tis only to punish the negligence, or try the faith of men.\n\n\"Nor will he admit, that the fire can consume these mysteries; and he says, that with veneration they commit it to this most pure element, to be carried up into heaven.\n\n\"Lastly, he affirms, that, though the eucharist may serve for nourishment, yet it does not turn to excrement: and as to that objection which might be made\u2014that, supposing a man should eat nothing for some considerable time, but consecrated bread, he would nevertheless have occasion to go to stool\u2014he answers, that, 'tis matter of fact which has never been yet experienced, and that it could never enter the heart of any Catholic to try such an experiment.\u2014That if any of Berenger's party thought fit to do it, one should not trouble one's head much, about what became of the mass of those infidels, which committed so great a crime; because, says he, we do not believe that the bread and wine are necessarily changed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, unless among those who have faith to believe this mystery, and that the words of Jesus Christ are efficacious.\n\n\"Lastly, if any of them should order a Catholic priest to consecrate one or more great loaves, to try the experiment, it is to be believed, that this loaf would not be turned into excrement; or rather, that God would permit these hereticks to be deceived, by ordering some angel or spirit to convey away this consecrated loaf, and to put an unconsecrated one in its stead.\"\n\nThis Berenger, or Beringarius, as Fox calls him, was the first that was deemed an heretic, for denying Transubstantiation. See Fox Mart. vol. ii. p. 383.\n\nLanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury.\n\nIn a letter to the archbishop of York, he very clearly determines, that it is not lawful for a man or a woman, divorced for adultery, to marry again.\n\nLetter 21. To bishop Herfast, about a man whom he had ordained deacon, without having any order for it, who, besides, was a married man, and would not turn off his wife. He enjoins the bishop to depose the man from his deaconship, to give him, for the future, only the four lesser orders, and not to place him among the deacons unless he would live single. If he did that, then he should not confer the order of deacon upon him again, but only grant him a power of discharging his functions, by giving him the gospels in a synod or assembly of the clergy.\n\nCouncil of Pavia, under Pope Benedict VII.\n\nDecr. 1. and 2. Prohibit the clergy from having any concubines, and from living with women.\n\nCouncil of Rome, 1051.\n\nGregory bishop of Verceil was deposed for adultery, and several laws made against incontinent clerks.\n\nDo, anno 1059.\n\nCan. 11. No person shall marry a relation, to the seventh generation, so long as the kindred may be known.\n\nDo, anno 1063.\n\nAlexander II. held this council, consisting of above 100 bishops. They revived the decrees of Leo IX. and Nicholas II. against those who married their kindred, till after the seventh degree.\n\nIn two other councils held at Rome, Alexander condemned those who maintained, that the degrees of consanguinity ought to reach no farther than to cousin-germans, which he calls the heresy of the Nicolaitans.\n\nHildebrand, or Gregory VII.\n\nThis Pope's decree against those clerks who either kept concubines or were married, removed, in Germany, Italy, and France, a great many ecclesiastics out of their places, who were found guilty of having unlawful commerce with women.\n\nThese men not only complained of this yoke, which the Pope would impose upon them, but they likewise inveighed against him, and accused him of advancing an insupportable error, and such as is contrary to the words of Our Saviour, who says, that all men are not able to live continently; and contrary to the words of the apostle, who enjoins those who cannot live continently, to marry.\n\nThey added, that this law, which he would impose on them, which obliged them to live like angels, by offering force to the ordinary course of nature, would be the cause of great disorders: that, moreover, if the Pope persisted in his resolution, they had rather renounce the priesthood than marriage, and let him see if he could get angels to take care of their flocks, since he would not make use of men. This was the language of those corrupted ecclesiastics (says Du Pin) according to the account of an historian of that time.\n\nBut the Pope pressed the execution of his decree, and wrote very warm letters to the bishops, to oblige them to take strict care of it.\n\nThe archbishop of Mayence doing his utmost therein, found how difficult it was to root out an abuse, so inveterate, and so general, as this was; and before he proceeded against the refractory, he gave them six months time to reclaim. Lastly, having called a synod at Erford, he told them, that they were either to renounce their pretended marriages, or else their attendance on the altar.\n\nWhen they found they could not, by their prayers, prevail upon him to alter his resolution, they withdrew from the council in great wrath, threatening either to turn the archbishop out or to kill him. He, to pacify them, ordered them to be called back again, and promised he would send to Rome, and endeavour to work the Pope over to another mind.\n\nThe decree of Gregory met with no less opposition in France, Flanders, England, and Lombardy, than it did in Germany; and this opposition rose so high at Cambray, that they caused a man to be burnt, who had asserted that married priests ought not to celebrate the mass, or any divine office, and that no man ought to assift them therein.\n\nAll this did not discourage Gregory VII. in the least: on the contrary, he wrote several letters to the princes and bishops of these countries, whereby he enjoins them not to tolerate clerks that were married, or kept concubines. He then ordered an apology of his decree to be issued out, in the nature of a manifesto, wherein he very much exalts the authority of the holy see, and the decretals of his predecessors.\n\nHe afterwards decreed, that the bishops, who shall permit priests, deacons, or sub-deacons of their diocese to live married, shall be suspended of their functions.\n\nDuring this Popedom, Hugh bishop of Dia, held a council at Poictiers, wherein it was decreed\u2014\n\nCan. 8. That the children of priests, and bastards, shall not be admitted into holy orders, unless they be monks, or live in a regular convent. But that they shall not hold any ecclesiastical preferments.\n\nCan. 9. Sub-deacons, deacons, and priests, shall have no concubines, or any other suspicious women in their houses; and all they who hear a mass of a priest that keeps a concubine, shall be excommunicated.\n\nWilliam Duke of Acquitain, and Count of Poitiers, having married one of his relations, the legate of the holy see, and the archbishop of Bourdeaux, called a synod, to oblige him to part from her. However, the duke, of his own accord, parted from his wife. With this submission Gregory was highly pleased.\n\nGregory determined that a woman, who had married one of her kinsmen, and was become a widow, ought not to receive any dowry, from any part of her husband's revenue, nor to have any advantage of that marriage, which was in its own nature null.\n\nLetter 48. He orders a man who had killed his brother, to be prevented marrying till he had done penance.\n\nLetter 50. He determines, that one who is not born in lawful wedlock (i.\u00a0e. such as the canons deemed lawful) cannot be advanced to the episcopacy\u2014because it is contrary to the canons.\n\nCouncil of Melphi, under Urban II. anno 1089.\n\nUrban II. renewed the decrees against the simoniacal, and concerning the celibacy of those who were in holy orders. He therein enjoins, that none shall be admitted into holy orders but such as had led chaste lives, and had never been married to more than one woman. He declares the sons of priests incapable of holy orders, unless they have taken upon them the monastical habit.\n\nCouncil of Benevento, anno 1091, under Urban II.\n\nCan. 4. Laics are forbidden to eat flesh after Ash-Wednesday\u2014and all the faithful of both sexes are enjoined to put ashes on their heads on that day.\n\nIt is likewise ordered, that no marriage shall be solemnized, from Septuagesima Sunday, till after the octave of Whitsuntide; and from the first Sunday in Advent, till after the octave of Epiphany.\n\nCouncil of Clermont.\n\nCan. 9, 10. Againft those clerks who keep concubines.\n\nCan. 11. Prohibits promoting to holy orders the sons of concubines, or the bestowing any benefices upon them, unless they have embraced the monastical or canonical life.\n\nCan. 25. The children of priests, deacons, and sub-deacons, shall not be promoted to holy orders, if they be not either monks or regular canons.\n\nCan. 29, 30. Those who fly to a cross, shall be as secure as those who fly to a church. They shall not be delivered up to justice, 'till they are assured that no violence shall be offered to their lives or members.\n\nCouncil of Nismes, anno 1096.\n\nCan. 10. Those who marry their relations shall be excommunicated.\n\nIn this century, there were violent controversies between the Latin and Greek churches; and among other curious particulars of accusation against the Greeks, Cardinal Humbert charges them with permitting married men to wait at the altars, even at the time when they had to do with their wives: and charges Nicetus with being a Nicolaitan, because he opposed the celibacy of the priests and deacons. He explains the canons, which prohibit priests from parting with their wives, of the care they ought to take of them, in looking upon them still as their wives, though they have no carnal knowledge of them.\n\nHe produces the canon of the council of Nice, concerning women who live with clerks, and several authorities of the Popes, to prove that priests ought to live chastly (i.\u00a0e. in celibacy.)\n\nHe charges the Greeks for not ordaining priests, till they had obliged them to marry, and concludes all with anathematizing Nicetus, who had written on these points against the Latin church.\n\nWhoever has a mind to read as much nonsense and absurdity as would reach from Rome to Constantinople, and back again, may meet with it in these famous controversies between the Latins and Greeks. One charge against the Latins was, that, \"monks might be permitted to eat flesh and bacon.\"\u2014Another\u2014\"that they were guilty of eating cheese and eggs in the holy week.\"\n\nPeter Damien, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia.\n\nIn a letter to his nephew Damien, (whom he exhorts to be zealous in the exercises of a monastical life) he reproves him for having gone from an hermitage to a monastery, and exhorts him to return thither again. In another, he reproves a monk, who delayed turning hermit, because he could hardly persuade himself not to drink wine.\n\nThis Cardinal wrote a treatise called the Gomorrhean, dedicated to Pope Leo IX. who approved of it, in a letter which is prefixed at the beginning. In this tract he proves that clergymen who have committed sins of uncleanness, which modesty does not permit to be named, ought to be deprived for ever. He rejects the canons of the penitential books, which impose too light penances for those sorts of crimes, of which he shews the enormity: he inveighs against those persons who are guilty of such notorious offences, and exhorts them to a speedy repentance, and to do severe penance.\n\nN. B. How is it, that this cardinal did not see, that the unnatural wickedness, which he complains of, among the clergy, was the natural consequence of their celibacy, and being shut up together in monasteries, where no women must ever enter?\n\nBut so blinded was this cardinal to the real source of the evil, that, when he began to think the time of his dissolution drew near, he excused himself from going to Mount Cassin on a visit, \"lest he should die out of the precincts of a monastery.\"\n\nIn a tract dedicated to John bishop of Cesena, and to the archdeacon of Ravenna, he confutes the opinion of the lawyers, who restrained the degrees of consanguinity, in which one might contract marriage, to the fourth degree, and imagined that grand-nephews and grand-nieces may intermarry. He maintains, that as far as any consanguinity or affinity can be discerned, matrimony ought not to be contracted; which takes place to the seventh degree.\n\nHe also treats at large of alms-giving, and shews the usefulness of it, both for the living and the dead.\n\nTreatise 17th, to Pope Nicholas II. he exhorts him to put a stop to enormities committed by unchaste clergymen, and to make use of the severity of the canons against them, in imitation of Phineas's zeal.\n\nHis eighteenth treatise consists of three letters, which shew, very evidently, whom he ranked among unchaste clergymen; for he shews that the clergy are obliged to lead a single life, and inveighs most bitterly against those who married or kept concubines.\n\nIn another letter, he recommends chastity to his nephew Damien, and persuades him to receive the communion every day, to be in a condition to preserve that virtue. Afterwards he gives him wholesome instructions to withstand the temptations of the Devil.\n\nSt. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1089.\n\nIn a treatise of marriages between near relations, he enquires into the reasons of that prohibition, which he extends only to the sixth degree of consanguinity.\n\nThis saint was a great opposer of priests' marriage. Under his auspices a council was held, in which was decreed, \"an order for priests to be sequestered from their wives, which before were not forbidden (in England) according as the words of mine author do purport (says Fox) whose words be these. Anselmus prohibuit uxores sacerdotibus Anglorum ante non prohibitas. Quod quibusdam mundissimum visum est, quibusdam periculosum, ne dum munditias viribus majores appeterent, in immunditias horribiles ad Christiani nominis summum dedecus inciderent. Henr. Hunt.\"\u2014\"Anselm prohibited wives to the priests of the English, which were not prohibited before. Which thing appeared to some most filthy, to others dangerous, lest, while they earnestly endeavoured after greater purity, they should fall into impurities, so horrible, as to bring a disgrace on the Christian name. Anselm did not attend to this, but made a canon for the excommunication of sodomites, which was never published.\" See Thelyph. vol. i. p. 177, n. first edit.\u2014171, second edit.\n\n\"After this council, Herbert, bishop of Norwich, had much ado with the priests of his diocese, for they would neither leave their wives, nor quit their benefices: whereupon he wrote to Anselm for advice. Anselm required him (as he did others at the same time, by writing) to persuade the people of Norfolk and Suffolk, that, as they professed Christianity, they should subdue them as rebels against the church, and utterly drive both them and their wives out of the country, placing monks in their rooms.\n\n\"The like business had also Gerard, archbishop of York, in depriving the priests of his province of their wives: which thing, with all his thunderings and excommunications, he could hardly bring about.\n\n\"Upon this ruffling of Anselm with married priests, were rhyming verses made, to help the matter withal, when reason could not serve; which verses, for the folly thereof, I thought here to annex.\n\n\"O male viventes, versus audite sequentes;\nUxores vestras, quas odit summa potestas,\nLinquite propter eum, tenuit qui morte troph\u00e6um,\nQuod si non facitis inferna claustra petetis.\nChristi sponsa jubet, ne Presbyter ille ministret,\nQui tenet uxorem, Domini qui perdet amorem:\nContradicentem fore dicimus insipientem:\nNon ex rancore loquor h\u00e6c, potius sed amore.\"\nSee Fox. Mart. vol. i. p. 216.\n\nI stand not to comment on the false prosody in these verses\u2014their quality, not their quantities, are most to the purpose; the English reader may be acquainted with the former by the following translation\u2014\n\n\"O ye evil-livers, hear the following verses;\nYour wives, which the Supreme Power hateth,\nLeave for his sake, who triumphed in death;\nWhich if ye do not, you will go to hell.\nThe spouse of Christ commands, that the Presbyter should not minister,\nWho keeps a wife, who will lose the love of the Lord.\nHe that contradicts this, we say, is foolish:\u2014\u2014\u2014\nI speak not this out of rancour, but rather from love.\"\n\nWe may observe, that now the seeds of opposition, and contempt of the word, and ways, and will of God, concerning marriage, in this kingdom, were growing up, from the planting of Austin the monk, anno 597, to the watering of his successor St. Anselm, who died anno 1109, towards that maturity, to which they will be found to have arrived, before we have finished our enquiries upon the subject.\n\nSome years after the above verses had been sent forth, they met with an answer, from the pen of Walter Mapes, archdeacon of Oxford, in the reign of Henry II. This same Walter seems to have been a very merry fellow, and to have indulged a vein of pleasantry in all his compositions; some of which I have seen, and among others the following drole on the prohibition of clerical marriage, which I will here insert for the entertainment of my learned readers; and if any of them will favour me with a suitable translation of them, it shall make its appearance in the next edition of this volume, that my unlearned readers, as well as they, may find a little entertainment in the midst of this dry and barren desart of Popish quotation.\n\nPart of the account which I find of this man, in an old book of Camden's, intitled, \"Remaines concerning Brittaine\"\u2014printed anno 1629, runs thus\u2014\n\n\"Walter de Mapes, arch-deacon of Oxford, who, in the time of K. Henrie II. filled England with his merriments, when the Pope forbad the clergie their wives, became proctor for himself and them, with these verses; desiring only for his fee, that every priest, with his sweet-heart, would say a pater-noster for him.\"\n\nPrisciani regula penitus cassatur,\nSacerdos per hic & h\u00e6c olim declinatur;\nSed per hic solummodo nunc articulatur,\nCum per nostrum pr\u00e6sulem h\u00e6c amoveatur.\n\u2003Ita quidem presbyter c\u00e6pit allegare,\nPeccat criminaliter qui vult seperare\nQuod Deus injunxerat, f\u0153minam amare:\nTales dignum duximus fures appellare.\n\u2003O qu\u00e0m dolor anxius, qu\u00e0m tormentum grave,\nNobis est dimittere quoniam suave!\nO Romane Pontifex, statuisti prav\u00e8,\nNe in tanto crimine moriaris, cave.\n\u2003Non est Innocentius, imo nocens ver\u00e8,\nQui quod facto docuit, studet abolere,\nEt quod olim juvenis voluit habere,\nModo vetus Pontifex studet prohibere.\n\u2003Gignere nos pr\u00e6cepit vetus testamentum,\nUbi novum prohibet nusquam est inventum:\nPr\u00e6sul qui contrarium donat documentum,\nNullum necessarium his dat argumentum.\n\u2003Dedit enim Dominus maledictionem\nViro qui non fecerit generationem;\nErgo tibi consulo, per hanc rationem,\nGignere ut hab as benedictionem.\n\u2003Nonne de militibus milites procedunt?\nEt reges a regibus, qui sibi succedunt?\nPer locum a simili omnes jura l\u00e6dunt,\nClericos qui gignere crimen esse credunt.\n\u2003Zacharias habuit prolem & uxorem,\nPer virum quem genuit adeptus honorem;\nBaptizavit enim nostrum Salvatorem:\u2014\nPereat qui teneat novum hunc errorem.\n\u2003Paulus c\u00e6los rapitur ad superiores,\nUbi multas didicit res secretiores:\nAd nos tandem red ens, instruensque mores,\nSuas (inquit) habeat quilibet uxores.\n\u2003Propter h\u00e6c, & alia dogmata doctorum,\nReor esse melius, & magis decorum,\nQuisque suam habeat & non proximorum,\nNe incurrat odium, & iram eorum.\n\u2003Proximorum f\u0153minas, filias, & neptes,\nViolare nefas est, quare nihil disceptes:\nVere tuam habeas, & in hac delectes,\nDiem ut sic ultimum tutius expectes.\n\u2003Ecce jam pro clericis multum allegavi,\nNecnon pro Presbyteris plura comprobavi:\u2014\nPater-noster nunc pro me quoniam peccavi,\nDicat quisque Presbyter cum sua suavi.\n\nSynod of Arras, anno 1025.\n\nNews being brought to Gerard, bishop of Cambray and Arras, that there was a sect of heretics arrived from Italy, who taught, that \"marriage was condemned by the ordinances of the gospel,\" the bishop summoned a synod at Arras, wherein this, and some other errors, were refuted, and the heretics brought to subscribe a recantation.\n\nCouncil of Bourges, anno 1031.\n\nCan. 5. Priests who cohabit with their wives, shall only be readers or chanters for the future. Deacons and sub-deacons shall not be suffered to keep their wives or concubines.\n\nCan. 6. The bishops shall oblige them to take an oath to that purpose, at their ordination.\n\nCan. 7. All who are employed in ministerial functions, shall have ecclesiastical tonsure\u2014i.\u00a0e. their beards shaved, and the crown made on their heads.\n\nCan. 8. The sons of deacons or sub-deacons shall not be admitted into the clergy.\n\nCan. 10. Such shall be deemed sons of clergymen, as were born after their fathers quitted the ecclesiastical state, and returned to that of laics.\n\nCan. 11. Bishops shall declare, at the time of ordination, that they excommunicate those who shall presume to present to them sons of clergymen to be ordained, and that such as have got their ordination by surprize shall be deposed.\n\nCan. 16. Those who leave their wives, except upon account of adultery, shall not marry others, as long as the former are living, nor the women other husbands in like cases.\n\nCan. 17. No man shall take to wife a relation, to the sixth and seventh degree of consanguinity.\n\nCan. 18. None shall marry, in like manner, his kinsman's wife.\n\nCan. 19. No man shall give his daughter in marriage to any priest, deacon, or sub-deacon, or to their sons.\n\nCan. 20. None shall marry the daughters of the clergy. After the session of this synod, Aimo the archbishop declared, that St. Martial should be styled an apostle in all the church offices.\n\nCouncil of Limoges, anno 1031.\n\nThe same question was debated, and after many arguments, the apostolical dignity was conferred on St. Martial.\n\nFor the nonsensical disputes about this St. Martial, between the priests and monks, see Mosheim, edit. Macl. vol. i. p. 540\u20131.\n\nThe canons against incontinent clergymen were revived.\n\nThe bishop of Puy en Valay reported, that the Count of Clermont being excommunicated, for leaving his lawful wife to marry another, made a journey to the court of Rome, where he obtained absolution of the Pope, who had no notice of the sentence passed against him. That the bishop having made a complaint, the Pope returned for answer, that he ought to blame himself for what had happened, as he did not inform him that the Count was excommunicated. The Pope added, that, if he had known it, he would have confirmed the bishop's sentence, because he makes profession to assist his brethren in every thing, and not oppose them: therefore he abrogated and made void the penance and absolution granted to that excommunicated person, who ought to expect nothing but a curse, 'till he has made satisfaction, and has been duly absolved by his diocesan.\n\nCouncils held in France, 1040.\n\nIt was ordained in all these councils, that the people should abstain from eating flesh on Fridays and Saturdays, and from drinking wine on Fridays; and that, in consideration of this abstinence, offenders should be discharged from other penances, provided they bound themselves by oath to observe it.\n\nA great number of bodies of saints, and abundance of relics, were brought into these councils; and it was generally believed, that many miracles were wrought therein.\n\nCouncil of Rheims, anno 1049.\n\nThe bishop of Langres was accused by one of his clerks, for that he, the said bishop, took away the wife of him, the said clerk, and after having abused her, made her a nun. The bishop, not appearing, was excommunicated: as were all those prelates, who, being summoned to this council, and did not appear. N.\u00a0B. Here is a precedent of excommunication for non-appearance on citation.\n\nCan. 11. No man shall take to wife any of his near relations.\n\nLastly. All those persons were excommunicated, who should protect, or hold correspondence with, the new heretics of France, the sodomites, and certain lords who had contracted forbidden marriages, and assaulted some bishops and other clergymen.\n\nCouncil of Tours, 1060.\n\nCan. 9. Those men who marry their kinswomen, or those women who keep an unchaste correspondence with their kinsmen, and refuse to leave them, or to do penance, shall be excluded from the communion of the faithful, and turned out of the church.\n\nNormandy.\n\nCouncil of Rouen, anno 1050.\n\nCan. 1. The articles of faith, comprized in the creed of the catholic and apostolic church, ought to be firmly adhered to.\n\nQu? What was become of the scriptures?\n\nCouncil of Lisieux, anno 1055; and that of Rouen, anno 1063.\n\nThe archbishop of Rouen, under whom the preceding council was held, was deposed anno 1055, in another council convened at Lisieux:\u2014that which chiefly brought on him this condemnation, was the displeasure of duke William, his nephew, who was incensed against him, because he had excommunicated that prince, upon account of his marriage with the princess Matilda, his kinswoman, the daughter of Baldwin count of Flanders.\n\nThis prelate published a confession of faith against Berenger's erroneous opinions. See before, 113.\n\nCouncil of Rouen, anno 1072.\n\nCan. 14. No marriages shall be solemnized privately, nor after meals. The bridegroom and bride, being fasting, shall be blessed by a priest, in like manner fasting. Before he proceed to marry them, enquiry shall be made, whether the parties be not relations, in the seventh degree of consanguinity.\n\nCan. 15. Priests, deacons, and sub-deacons, who are married, cannot enjoy any church revenues, nor dispose of them by themselves or by others.\n\nCan. 16. A man cannot marry a widow, with whom he is suspected to have conversed scandalously, in her husband's life-time.\n\nCan. 17. A man, whose wife is veiled a nun, cannot take another as long as she is living.\n\nGermany.\n\nCouncil of Selingenstadt, anno 1023.\n\nCan. 1. Abstinence from eating flesh shall be observed fourteen days before the festival of St. John, and before Christmas; on the vigils of the Epiphany, of the festivals of the apostles, of the assumption of the Virgin Mary, of St. Lawrence, and of all the saints.\n\nCan. 2. Fixes the Ember weeks.\n\nCan. 3. Denotes the time when the solemnization of matrimony is forbidden, viz. from Advent 'till after the Epiphany (five weeks) and from Septuagesima 'till after Easter (nine weeks) making together above a quarter of a year; as also on the above-specified days of abstinence. N.B. Let the reader add all these together, and he will be at a loss to conceive when marriage could be solemnized.\n\nCan. 11. The first degree of consanguinity shall be reckoned from the cousins-german.\n\nThe Council of Mentz, anno 1069.\n\nSigefroy, or Sigefrid, archbishop of Mentz, held this council, in which the emperor Henry IV. made a proposal to divorce his wife, because he could have no issue of her body. Sigefrid inclined to this opinion; but Peter Damien, the Pope's legate, being arrived, prevented the divorce. The archbishop wrote to Alexander II. that \"he had prohibited the emperor from divorcing his wife under pain of excommunication; but that this prince having alledged, that he could not have carnal copulation with her, and the empress having owned her impotency, he found himself obliged to consult the Holy See about so extraordinary a case; that he was unwilling to pass judgment on the affair in a council, which was called upon that occasion, till he received his answer, and entreated him to send his legates, to examine and decide the matter in Germany.\"\n\nHow this matter ended is not said, but, it is to be supposed, in favour of the divorce; and that the emperor married again: as we find him, with his empress and his son, afterwards waiting, bare-legged and bare-footed, at the gates of Canusium, three days and three nights, in the depth of winter, before he could be admitted to have an audience of Pope Hildebrand, who had excommunicated him. See Fox, vol. i. 202.\n\nEngland.\n\nThe Council of Aenham, anno 1010.\n\nKing Ethelred called a council, in which Elphegus, archbishop of Canterbury, and Ethelred, archbishop of York, assisted, and made several constitutions and rules, that ought to be followed by the clerks and monks\u2014concerning the celibacy of priests, and other clergymen\u2014against superstitious practices and incontinency\u2014about the rights of churches, particularly St. Peter's pence\u2014the great festival of the Virgin Mary\u2014the Ember weeks\u2014concerning the time in which marriages are forbidden to be solmenized\u2014about the interval to be observed by widows before they marry again, which is a year.\n\nCouncil held at London, anno 1075.\n\nSuperstitions were forbidden, and the celibacy of the clergy was strictly enjoined.\n\nDo anno 1102 .\n\nCan. 4. Revives the constitutions about celibacy.\n\nCan. 12. Declares promises of marriage, made without witnesses, to be null, if denied by one of the parties.\n\nCan. 14. Prohibits marriages to the seventh degree of consanguinity.\n\nCan. 16. Sodomy is forbidden under very severe penalties, and this case is reserved to the cognizance of the bishops. These constitutions were confirmed by the see of Rome.\n\nIn the year 1108, St. Anselm held another council at London, in which he made ten very rigid canons against priests and deacons, who married, or lived incontinently.\n\nSpain.\n\nCouncil of Coyaco, anno 1050.\n\nCan. 3. Priests and deacons shall not keep any women in their houses, unless their mother, sister, aunt, or mother-in-law.\n\nCan. 4. Persons guilty of murder, adultery, or any sort of uncleanness, shall be obliged to do penance; and if they refuse to do it, they shall be separated from the church and the communion.\n\nCan. 12. Those who have taken sanctuary in a church, nay even within thirty paces of it, shall not be taken from thence by violence.\n\nDu Pin, in his observations on this eleventh century, says, that marriage, and concubinage of clergymen, had their career, at last, quite stopped, by the means of a vast number of decrees; that the sentences of excommunication were so frequent as to become contemptible. They extended even to the third generation of those who conversed or corresponded with the excommunicate.\n\nThe use of the disciplining whip, unknown to all antiquity, began in the end of this century\u2014the custom of doing penance for another, was likewise introduced at that time.\n\nCENTURY XII.\n\nIvo, Bishop of Chartres,\n\nWas a great writer; Du Pin mentions 287 letters of his, yet extant.\n\nLetter 99. Is the resolution of a question proposed by Gualon, abbot of St. Quintin in Beauvais, viz. \"If children under six years of age can be contracted or married with one another; and in case there be only a contract between them, and one of the parties die, whether the surviving party may marry the brother or sister of the other?\"\n\n\"Answer. None can actually marry 'till the age of fourteen, but that children may promise marriage to each other, as soon as they are at years of discretion, which he determines to be at seven years of age; and that a contract agreed on at that age, shall hinder either party, if one of them die before they are compleatly married, from marrying with the brother or sister of the deceased.\"\n\nLetter 122. To Volgrin, archdeacon of Paris, asserts, that a Jewish woman, marrying a Christian husband, and afterwards returning to Judaism, is not freed from her conjugal vow, nor, though she leave him, can the man marry with another during her life.\n\nIn Letter 123. To Gaultier, library-keeper of the church of Beauvais, he gives his opinion on a difficult case, which he had consulted him upon\u2014viz.\u2014\"how he should proceed against a priest, who had, in a profane manner, made use of other ceremonies and words than are prescribed in the form of marriage?\" Ivo tells him, that \"he had never yet heard of so foul a sacrilege, nor was there any provision against it in the canons; and therefore, this being a crime wholly new and unparalleled, some more than ordinary punishment ought to be inflicted on the author of it: however, not to deal too severely, without warrant and authority from scripture, or the ecclesiastical laws, he thinks it sufficient, that such punishment be laid on him, as the canons order to be inflicted upon those that violate the sacraments and holy things.\"\n\nOn the above we may observe, that marriage was getting more into the hands of the priests\u2014that the church had increased its ceremonies since the time when the priest only attended to give a benediction\u2014that they were very jealous of any disrespect to these ceremonies\u2014but that marriage was not yet a sacrament.\n\nLetter 155. To Odo, archdeacon of Orleans, Ivo treats of this question, \"If a woman who has committed fornication, and is great with child, may marry? and concludes, that, in strictness, no great-bellied woman ought to have carnal knowledge with any man\u2014but, considering the infirmity of the flesh, St. Paul advises men to use their own wives, for avoiding fornication, although they are with child, and therefore, by consequence, a man may marry a woman in that condition.\"\n\nN. B. Here we may suppose what they meant by fornication, namely, the man and woman coming together without a priest: this, as we shall find, was not brought to its perfection 'till the next century.\n\nLetter 158. He acquaints Hugh, archbishop of Lyons, that King Philip and his son are resolved to make the marriage void, of Constance, the king's daughter, and Hugh earl of Troyes, because of their being too nearly related; and desires the archbishop to send speedily to all the bishops, summoned to court on this occasion, the genealogy of both families.\n\nLetter 161. He asserts, that a man, who promises marriage to a woman, and afterwards marries another, ought to be divorced, and to return to his first engagement.\n\nLetter 167. He writes to the bishop of Mans, to hinder the marriage of one who had already engaged himself to another woman.\n\nLetter 174. He assures Mathilda, Queen of England, that he will pray for the soul of her brother (Edgar, King of Scotland, who died without issue anno 1107;) for though he doubts not but his soul is in Abraham's bosom, yet, since we cannot be certain of the state of souls in the other world, it is a piece of commendable devotion to pray even for those in heaven, that their happiness may be augmented, and for those in purgatory, that their sins may be forgiven them.\n\nLetter 187. He admonishes the Countess of Chartres, to leave troubling the abbot and monks of Bonneval, on account of the murder of Hugh the black. Qu? If Hugh the black had murdered the abbot and monks, whether this good bishop would have been so merciful?\n\nLetter 202. He admonishes Daimbert, archbishop of Sens, to correct two scandalous abuses in his church; one, of the chaunter's holding another preferment, contrary to his oath; the other, in one of the chapter's keeping in his house two women of ill fame.\n\nLetter 205. Is written to a knight, who suspected his wife to be with child by another, because he had been absent from her seven days longer than is usual, between the times of conception and bringing forth, and because the person, whom he suspected of being too familiar with her, had been burnt in passing the trial of ordeal. As to the computation of time, Ivo tells him, that ought not to sway him, since many women go much longer with child; and for the trial by fire, no heed is to be given to it: so that these two reasons prove nothing against the honesty of his wife; whose oath, and the good word of her neighbours and acquaintance, ought fully to suffice in vindication of her.\n\nLetter 218. He writes to Gualon, bishop of Paris, that the canon of that church, who had lately been married, ought to lose his preferment, and be degraded from being a clergyman, but that his marriage must remain good and valid.\n\nLetter 221. To John, bishop of Orleans, concerning a freeman's having married a slave, without knowing her to be so. Ivo says, that by the civil law, the marriage is void, and he may quit her, and marry another woman; but that, by the laws of God and nature, they ought to keep together, or at least, if he put her away, he may not marry again.\n\nLetter 222. To the clergy of Autun, he enquires, if a woman, who has been guilty of adultery, must necessarily be divorced from her husband? and concludes, that, in strictness, she ought; but by the wisdom of the gospel, such a temper was prescribed as may reconcile her to her husband.\n\nLetter 242. To Owen, bishop of Eureux, he explains himself concerning his having given his opinion that a freeman, who had married a slave, without knowing her to be such, ought to be divorced from her; and adds, that this is not dissolving a lawful marriage, but only declaring that it is unlawful for them to live together any longer, their marriage being null by law\u2014i.\u00a0e. the civil law. See before, p. 144.\n\nLetter 145. To Hugh, earl of Troyes, who having listed himself for the holy land, designed to put away his wife, and live in celibacy\u2014he commends his resolution.\n\nLetter 246. He declares, that it is not allowable for a man to marry two sisters successively, though the marriage with the former was never consummated.\n\nLetter 162. To Pontius, abbot of Cluny, he shews him the reason, why, in the consecration of the cup, at the Lord's supper, the words \"mystery of faith\" are added, which were not used by our Saviour, at the institution of the sacrament; and says, that this is done, because we judge of the greatness of the mystery contained in it, not by the senses, but by faith.\n\nN. B. To believe what contradicts the senses, is not faith, but folly.\u2014See Locke, Hum. Und. b. iv. c. 18.\n\nThe Contents of the XVII. parts of the Decretal.\n\nVII. Is of the retirement and single lives of monks and nuns, and of the penance to be undergone for the breach of the vow of continency.\n\nXV. Of penances, and commutations of penances.\u2014N.\u00a0B. See Thelyph. App. to chap. X.\n\nPope Paschal II.\n\nHeld a second Lateran council, in the which he made an oration to the bishops there assembled, anno 1116, on the infallibility of the church, and to prove that it had never been guilty of heresy, nor, as it should seem, ever could.\u2014It is for this church, said he, that the Son of God prayed, just before His passion, when he said\u2014Peter, I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.\u2014N.\u00a0B. It is to be remarked, that these people seldom quote scripture, but, as the Devil did, to abuse it.\n\nCouncil of Rheims, anno 1119.\n\nHere Pope Calixtus II. published five canons.\n\nCan. 5. Against the priests, deacons, and sub-deacons, who had wives or concubines.\n\nLateran Council, anno 1123.\n\nCan. 3. Renews the prohibitions made by the laws of the church, against clerks having wives or concubines, or to live with women; excepting such as are exempted by the council of Nice.\n\nCan. 5. Renews the prohibition of marriage among relations.\n\nCan. 21. Does again prohibit the marriages of the clergy, and declares the marriages which they have contracted null. This is the canon (says Du Pin) which expressly pronounces the nullity of the marriages of such persons as are in holy orders.\n\nThe Pope wrote to the clergy of Terrouane, that they ought not suffer any married clergy among them.\n\nSt. Bernard.\n\nWilliam, Duke of Guienne, having quarrelled with the bishop of Poictiers, refused to be reconciled to him: to surmount his obstinacy, Saint Bernard took the blessed sacrament, and carrying it to the place where the duke was, conjured him in the name of Jesus, and with such terrible words, that the frightened duke fell flat upon the ground, and was forced to be reconciled to the bishop of Poitiers. Among other things, St. Bernard assured the duke, that the Son of God was come in person to him. This saint was a great hero in monkery, and at his death left behind him near 160 monasteries of his order, founded by him.\n\nPope Eugenius III.\n\nWrites to Hildegarda, abbess of Mont St. Rupert, commending her spirit of prophecy, advising her to preserve, by her humility, God's grace granted unto her, and always to make use of prudence, in the unfolding of those mysteries which God had revealed to her.\n\nIn this century various sects of heretics arose, some of which maintained, that \"the forbidden fruit was Adam's carnal knowledge of Eve,\" and that \"no person could be saved in a married state.\" These called themselves Cathari, or Puritans. Absurd and unscriptural as these heresies were, yet they were as defensible as Jerome's\u2014Co\u00eftus pr\u00e6mium mors\u2014the celibacy of the clergy\u2014and monkery. The only very material difference between the Catharists and their opposers, seems to have been, that the latter had the authority of the church to maintain their errors, while the former were unprotected by priestly power in theirs. Thus\u2014\n\nLittle villains must submit to fate,\nThat great ones may enjoy the world in state.\nGarth.\n\nPeter Abelard.\n\nThe history of this unfortunate man is well known. I will only observe, that all the miseries he underwent, were wholly occasioned by the enormous and wicked institution of clerical celibacy. His story is told at large in Du Pin, Cent. 12. chap. 7.\n\nOne of the errors imputed to this father, is, that he maintained, the bread and wine at the altar, to remain the same in substance after consecration, as before it.\n\nPope Alexander III.\n\nLetter 23. Inveighs against clandestine marriages, that were contracted without the benediction of a priest. See Thelyph. vol. ii. 149\u2013156, 1st edit.\u2014p. 141\u2013149, 2d edit.\n\nHildebert Bishop of Mans. Afterwards Archbishop of Tours.\n\nLetter 7. He determines that a virgin, betrothed before she was marriageable, whose husband died without knowing her carnally, cannot marry the brother of her former husband, because marriage does not consist in carnal copulation, but in the consent of the parties.\n\nLetter 34. He declares, that he refused to approve the intended marriage of a count, with one of his kinswomen; although it might put an end to a war, which was carried on between him and his future father-in-law.\n\nLetter 51. Is a large refutation of a person, who revived the error of Vigilantius, viz. \"That the invocation of saints was unprofitable, because they do not hear our prayers, and have no knowledge of transactions on earth.\"\u2014This man gave out, that Hildebert was of his mind; which obliged him, not only to disown that opinion, but also to shew, by the testimony of the fathers, that the saints hear our prayers, and that they make intercession for us with God.\n\nErnulphus, Bishop of Rochester,\n\nWrote to Waquelin, bishop of Windsor, in answer to a question, which that bishop proposed to him in a conference at Canterbury, viz. \"Whether a woman, committing adultery with her husband's son by a former wife, ought to be divorced from her husband?\" He maintained the affirmative; the bishop, to whom he wrote, the negative. In this treatise, he shews, that all the passages of scripture in which 'tis forbidden to part man and wife, ought only to be understood of a voluntary separation, between persons who are not guilty of adultery; and afterwards confirms his opinion, by making it appear, that the bishops, to prevent disorders, have often condemned adulterers, to abstain for ever from the use of marriage; that it is the usual custom of the church; that this punishment is ordained in the penitential books; and that a divorce is justly allowed on account of spiritual alliance (as being god-fathers and god-mothers, either at baptism or confirmation, and the like) although it be not expressed in scripture as adultery. He adds, that 'tis not unjust, that a husband should be divorced from his wife, although he be innocent of the crime committed by her; and that there are many other causes, for which a husband is obliged to put away his wife.\n\nPeter of Blois, Archdeacon of Bath.\n\nLetter 83. Advises the bishop of Exeter to declare the marriage null, that was contracted between Robert and Ismenia his kinswoman; according to the express order he had received from the Pope.\n\nHugh Archbishop of Roan, anno 1130,\n\nWrote a discourse on the dignity of the clergy\u2014of the manners of clerks\u2014of the celibacy which they are obliged to observe\u2014of the vow of chastity.\n\nPeter Lombard,\n\nCalled master of the sentences. He was esteemed the chief of all the school-divines, and his writings were in greater repute than the Bible. (See Mosheim, edit. Maclaine, vol. i. p. 600. n.) This man found out that there were seven sacraments under the new law, of which marriage is one. He wrote a book on the holy sacraments, in which he treats of the antiquity of the sacrament of marriage\u2014He enquires of what marriage consists\u2014distinguishes a promise of future marriage, from marriage contracted by the present consent of the parties\u2014gives an account of the conditions that ought to be annexed to such a consent as is necessary for consummation of marriage\u2014explains the advantages of marriage, which are, fidelity, the lawful procreation of children, and the benefit of the sacrament:\u2014he discourses of matters relative to the continency of married persons at certain times\u2014relates divers considerations of the fathers, with respect to the polygamy of the patriarchs:\u2014he treats of the impediments, that render persons incapable of contracting marriage, and which make their marriage void and of none effect. See Thelyph. vol. ii. 147, 1st edit.\u2014p. 139, 2d edit.\n\nHe shews that a man may be divorced from his wife for adultery, and that they may be afterwards reconciled\u2014that he who has committed adultery with a woman, may marry her after her husband's death, provided he were not accessary to his death, and did not promise to marry the wife in his life-time.\u2014He treats of the impediment which arises from the difference of age and condition between the parties contracting.\n\nHe discourses of the injunction of celibacy observed by bishops, priests, deacons, and sub-deacons, and of Pope Calixtus' ordinance, declaring such marriages null.\n\nThis great Doctor taught, that, if the first man had not sinned, those who are now damned, would not have been brought forth into the world; and that St. Benedict had as clear a knowledge of God in this world, as the blessed spirits have in heaven.\n\n\"The book of sentences, which rendered the name of Peter Lombard so illustrious, was a compilation of sentences, and passages, drawn from the fathers, whose manifold contradictions, this eminent prelate endeavoured to reconcile. This work was the wonder of the 12th Century, and is little more than an object of contempt in ours.\" Mosheim, Macl. vol. i. p. 598. n.\n\nCouncil of London, anno 1125.\n\nClerks are prohibited to cohabit with strange women.\u2014Marriages are prohibited between relations to the seventh degree.\n\nCouncil of Cassel, in Ireland, 1172.\n\nCan. 1. All the faithful in Ireland, shall be obliged, not to intermarry with their near relations, but to contract lawful marriages.\n\nCouncil of Avranches, 1172.\n\nCan. 10. Forbids an husband to turn monk, whilst his wife remains in a secular state, unless both are too old to have children\u2014the same with respect to the wife.\n\nCan. 13. Relates to perquisites claimed for the benedictions of marriages.\n\nN. B. After marriage was determined to be a sacrament, the church was at no small trouble, how to reconcile the taking money for the administration of it. However, Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, Cent. XIII. made the matter easy by the following injunction.\n\n\"We do firmly injoin, that no sacrament of the church shall be denied to any one, upon the account of any sum of money, nor shall matrimony be hindred therefore: because, if any thing hath been accustomed to be given by the pious devotion of the faithful, we will that justice be done thereupon to the churches by the ordinary of the place afterwards.\" See Burn's Eccl. Law, tit. Marriage.\n\nCouncil of London, anno 1175.\n\nCan. 1. They who have entered into holy orders, and keep a concubine, whom they refuse to expel, shall be deprived of office and benefice.\n\nClerks below a sub-deacon, and are married, shall not be divorced from their wives, but shall no longer enjoy their spiritual livings.\n\nSub-deacons, and those in superior orders, who contract marriage, shall be compelled to part with their wives. The sons of priests shall be incapable to succeed their fathers, in the churches possessed by them.\n\nCan. 18. Clandestine marriages are forbidden.\n\nCan. 19. Prohibits marrying children that are not come to age of maturity, unless in case of necessity, or for promoting peace.\n\nSynod of York, anno 1195.\n\nCan. 4. More than three persons shall not be required to stand as sureties at the baptismal font, viz. Two god-fathers and one god-mother for a boy; or two god-mothers and one god-father for a girl.\n\nN. B. The rubric of the Protestant church of England, confirmed by act of parliament, has adopted this wise regulation.\n\nCan. 12. Renews the prohibitions so often made, that clergymen should keep unchaste correspondence with women, and regulates the manner of trying those who are accused of that crime.\n\nSecond General Council of Lateran, 1139.\n\nCan. 6. Sub-deacons, or those in higher orders, if they marry, or keep concubines, shall be deprived of their offices and benefices.\n\nCan. 7. Prohibits hearing masses of priests who are married, or keep concubines\u2014declares the marriage of priests to be null; and ordains that those who have contracted it, shall be divorced and put to penance.\n\nCan. 8. Regulates the same things, with respect to virgins consecrated to God, if they marry.\n\nCan. 17. Re-enforces the laws against marrying relations.\n\nThird General Council of Lateran, anno 1179.\n\nCan. 7. Condemns abuses, which passed into a custom, of exacting money for the benediction of marriages.\n\nCan. 11. Renews the prohibition, so often reiterated, with respect to the clergy companying with women; condemns sodomites to very severe punishments; and forbids ecclesiastical persons to frequent the monasteries of nuns, unless upon some emergent occasion.\n\nIvo bishop of Chartres, on being asked, Whether it was lawful for a man to marry his concubine? answered\u2014That some laws forbid it, others have permitted it; and leaves the whole matter to the discretion and judgment of the bishops.\n\n\u00a0\nCENTURY XIII.\n\nPope Innocent III.\n\nIn a letter to the bishop of MarsI, he decides the following case, viz. A man married a woman, with whom he had before been carnally acquainted: after that, he married another, by whom he had had children. The first woman demands, either that he may live with her, or else that she may have leave to marry another. The Pope answers, \"That if this man married the former by verba de pr\u00e6senti, he then ought to return to her; but if per verba de futuro, they must then both have a penance injoined them, and the woman be at liberty to marry whom she would.\"\n\nN. B. By this time, the reader must be supposed to see, how, and by what degrees, marriage, and all that belonged to it, was taken out of God's hands, into the hands of men, and how the word of God began to be of no avail in the matter.\u2014But to proceed.\n\nLetter 45. He determines that women may come into the church, in a short time after their lying-in; but yet, if they think to stay away out of respect, their devotion is not to be condemned.\n\nLetter 92. Is against the incestuous marriage of the king of Castile's daughter, with the king of Leon. He charges Cardinal Rainier to excommunicate them if they did not part.\n\nLetter 102. He tells the chapter of Spoletto, that the marriage of a man, with a concubine, which he kept while his wife was alive, is valid; except it could be proved, that one of them had a hand in her death.\n\nLetter 326. He gave leave to the bishop of Faience to remove to the bishopric of Pavia. There are very pretty things in this letter (says Du Pin) about the spiritual marriage of a bishop with the church his spouse. What is said in scripture of the indissolubility of a carnal marriage, he presumes may be as well applied to the spiritual. He adds, that it should seem, then, as if it were not in the power of the Pope to break the spiritual marriage of a bishop with his church:\u2014and yet Custom, which is the interpreter of the Laws, and the holy Canons, always gave full power to the holy see, to which alone belong the placing, the deposing, the translating of bishops: wherein, he saith, the Popes do not exercise human authority, but that of Jesus Christ, whose vicars they are. Lastly, he declares that he consents to this translation, merely for the good which would ensue to the church of Pavia.\n\nLetter 362. He decides the case of a man who was accused of adultery by his wife, thus; that judgment could not be given upon an information that was made lite non contestata; and all that could be done, was to excommunicate the man for refusing to make his appearance.\n\nN. B. We may observe whence ecclesiastical courts took cognizance of matrimonial causes, and whence the dreadful engine of excommunication proceeded, for contempts of their usurped authority.\n\nLetter 380. He declared a marriage null, because the woman had, before they were married, been god-mother to a natural son, which the man had by another woman.\n\nLetters 28, 29, 30. Are about a crooked man, that had married a widow, being chosen bishop of Cambray.\u2014He declares the election null.\n\nLetter 455. A religious vow, made before the year of probation, is valid. That the vow of a married person ought not to be accepted, except she likewise, to whom he is married, makes a vow of perpetual continence.\n\nLetter 458. He confirms the sentence given in favour of the church of St. Paul, about the privilege of having a font, and baptizing; which was disputed by the church of St. Mary of Cervaro, near Monte-Cassino.\n\nLetter 514. Determines, that the marriage of infidels with such as were akin to them, could not be dissolved when they turned Christians.\n\nLetter 50, Book 2. Though the marriage between infidels be dissolved, when one of them is converted to the faith, yet it is not the same thing of those who were married while they were believers, when one of them becomes an heretic or Pagan.\n\nLetter 66. He determined, that not only those, who have contracted two valid marriages, are to be accounted bigamous, but those too who have contracted such as were nulled; because, that although they were not in facto bigamists, for want of the Sacrament, yet the intention of being so was the same; and there was a fault committed besides, therefore he would not have a dispensation granted to such, as there is to other bigamous persons.\n\nLetter 178. From the archbishop of Dioclia and Antivari to the Pope; in which he presents him with the orders made by the legates of the holy see, about the celibacy of the clergy\u2014the degrees of affinity within which it is not allowable to marry\u2014Lastly\u2014A prohibition from putting the children of priests, or bastards, into holy orders.\n\nLetter 229. Clergymen not to be allowed to have any women live with them, except they be of their kindred.\n\nLetter 232. He declared, that a woman, who had taken upon her a vow of chastity, to avoid being married, but upon condition of tarrying in her own house, and had afterwards married a man, by whom she had children, ought to take her religious habit again, and observe her vow.\n\nLetter 261. To the bishop of Rossano, in which he answers divers questions. 1.\u00a0That the kindred of a woman might marry the kindred of her husband. 2.\u00a0That although husband and wife are god-father and god-mother to a child, yet they do not thereby contract any such compaternity, as can hinder them from living as man and wife. 3.\u00a0The Latin priests might neither have wives nor concubines. Lastly\u2014that the chaplains of Rossano had nothing to do with the validity or invalidity of marriages.\u2014Qu? Who or what, but God and his word, have any thing to do either with the one or the other?\n\nLetter 7, Book 5. He determined, that the son of a god-father could not marry the daughter of the god-mother to the same child, although he was born before they baptized the child. That if these two persons had married, they ought to be parted; and that whosoever knew of any such thing they ought to discover it.\n\nLetter 48. To the archbishop of Rheims, about the design of Philip King of France to get himself separated from his wife. He wrote also to that prince upon the subject: he talks with him about his complaining of harder usage than other princes had met with on the like occasion, seeing that King Lewis his father, the Emperor Frederic, and, very lately, John King of England, had been separated from their wives, by the judgment of their prelates and estates, which the holy see had, without any scruple, confirmed. The Pope answers\u2014\"They were his legates who separated the Emperor Frederic; and that King Lewis, and the King of England, were parted by their prelates, but that was because there had been no complaint made to the holy see; which was the very reason why the judgment was not revoked, because no body protested against it: but the matter now in hand had been laid before the holy see; Pope Celestin had revoked the sentence of divorce, and had sent his legates into France, who perhaps might have put an end to the affair, if he had not eluded their judgment: that it was in the power of the holy see, not only to annul the sentence, but likewise to use censures against those that had given it: as Pope Nicholas had done against Gontierus archbishop of Cologn, and Tetgaudus archbishop of Treves, for having divorced King Lotharius of Tetberge.\"\n\nLetter 128. Is to William Earl of Monpellier, who had, by the archbishop of Arles, desired the Pope to legitimate his children. Innocent proves first of all, that the legitimation of the holy see is valid, not only in what concerns the spirituals but the temporals too: and, because this Earl alledges the example of the King of France's children, which Philip had by a wife which he took after having left Isemburga, to obtain the same favour for those whom he had by a wife that was married in the same manner, Innocent tells him, there is a great deal of difference. 1.\u00a0Because the King of France by his lawful wife had a son who was presumptive heir of the crown\u2014whereas he had no son by his lawful wife. 2.\u00a0Because the King of France had no more from the holy see than what concerned the spirituals\u2014whereas he desired it both for spirituals and temporals. 3.\u00a0Because the King had not left his wife 'till divorced by the archbishop of Rheims, and had these lawful issue by the other wife, before the holy see had forbidden him to live with her\u2014whereas he had observed no form nor law in the matter. 4.\u00a0Because the King, acknowledging no superior in temporals, had submitted himself to the holy see in this case, though perhaps he could have given himself this dispensation as to temporals;\u2014but as for him (the Earl) who depended upon other sovereigns, this dispensation could not be granted him, without incroaching upon their right, and he could not grant it to himself.\n\nAbout the end, he begins to establish the power, which he had, not only over the temporality of St. Peter's patrimony, but over that of other states.\n\n\"This audacious prelate had the honour of introducing and establishing the use of the term transubstantiation, which was hitherto absolutely unknown. He also placed, by his own authority, among the divine laws, that of auricular confession to a priest.\" Mosheim. Macl. vol. i. p. 683.\n\n\"About the conclusion of this century Boniface VIII. added to the public rites and ceremonies of the church, the famous jubilee, still celebrated at Rome, at a stated period, with the utmost profusion of pomp and magnificence.\" Mosh. ib.\n\nPope Innocent IV. anno 1243.\n\nLetter 10. To his legate in Cyprus, determines, that married priests, having the care of souls, ought not to be hindered from taking the confessions of penitents, to enjoin penances, and to act in their name.\u2014That fornication soluti cum soluta was a deadly sin (Qu? If his holiness meant any thing more by fornication, than the act of those who came together without the sacrament of marriage, as it was now called?)\u2014that the Greeks ought not to condemn all third and fourth marriages\u2014that the priests should not give their blessing upon second marriages\u2014that they should not marry, so as they did, within the fourth degree\u2014that those Greeks who acknowledged that the souls of those who died, not wholly cleansed, might exist after death, and be eased by the prayers of the living, were obliged to call the place where they are\u2014purgatory.\n\nGregory the Tenth, anno 1271.\n\nAmong his other letters, there is one to the bishop of Liege, who was deposed, in the council of Lyons, for his incontinency.\n\nManuel Charitopula Patriarch of Constantinople.\n\nInstitut. 1. Women, forsaken by their husbands, of whom they have heard no news for five years together, may afterwards marry.\n\nThe bishop of Pella asks, what penance ought to be inflicted on priests, by whose negligence it happens, that the consecrated bread is eaten by rats? and what ought to be done, when, the priest being at the altar, a mouse happens by chance to eat the consecrated host?\n\nWe may remember, that some time ago, a father of the Latin church declared against Berenger, that neither mice nor other vermin would touch it. See before p. 113.\n\nQu? 4. Laics above 40 years old, and that have been married twice, and have children, may not marry again.\n\nQu? 6. What punishment those priests deserve, who celebrate marriages in Lent, and what one ought to think of such marriages? Ans. Those priests who did it out of ignorance and simplicity, ought to bear less punishment than if they did it wilfully; but such marriages are valid.\n\nCouncil of Paris, anno 1212.\n\nCan. 4. Prohibits the clergy from having women in their houses.\n\nCan. 21. Forbids monks to lie two in a bed. That the nuns lie single.\n\nCan. 14. The abbots not to suffer young women to come into monasteries.\n\nCan. 20. To extirpate that crime which is odious to name.\n\nCan. 21. To punish that disorder severely, according to the rule made in the Lateran council.\n\nFourth Lateran Council, anno 1215, under Innocent III.\n\nCan. 50. Repeals the prohibition of marriage in the second and third degree of affinity, and between children issuing from a second marriage and the relations of a former husband; and restrains the degrees wherein marriages were unlawful, to the fourth degree of consanguinity.\n\nCan. 51. Prohibits clandestine marriages, and orders that the priests shall publish banns in churches, that so such impediments as are lawful may be objected against them. Penalties are also inflicted on those who countenance or authorize incestuous or clandestine marriages.\n\nN. B. By incestuous, are here meant, such marriages as are not within the degrees allowed by the canons. The Bible is out of the question.\u2014N.\u00a0B. The origin of banns.\n\nCouncil of Oxford, anno 1222.\n\nCan. 19. Prohibits rural deans from taking cognizance of matrimonial causes.\n\nCan. 42. Advocates, who shall dispute the validity of a marriage, which shall be declared good by the sentence of a judge, shall be suspended for a year.\n\nCouncil of Mentz, anno 1225.\n\nCan. 1, 2, 3. Against clerks who keep concubines.\n\nCan. 5. Declares legacies of church goods, by clerks, to their natural children, or concubines, null.\n\nCouncil of Chateau Gonthier, anno 1231.\n\nCan. 1. Prelates ought not to tolerate clandestine marriages, and to proceed without delay and without excuse, to the divorcing of those who had contracted them. Comp. Mat. xix. 6. and Stat. 26 Geo. II. c. 33.\u2014the marriage-act.\n\nCan. 34. Prohibits, under pain of excommunication, the contracting of marriage till after the banns have been published; that so an engagement to marry may be granted, and given in the face of the congregation.\n\nCouncil of Arles, anno 1234.\n\nCan. 3. Heretics to be rooted out.\n\nCan. 6. Condemned to perpetual imprisonment\u2014those who will recant, to be delivered up to the secular power\u2014every Sunday an excommunication shall be published against heretics and their favourers.\n\nCouncil of L'isle en Provence, anno 1251.\n\nCan. the last. Against clandestine marriages.\n\nCouncil of Tours, anno 1236.\n\nCan. 8. Declares those who contract two marriages at a time infamous, and to be whipped.\n\nCouncil of London, anno 1237.\n\nCan. 1. Concerns the dedication of churches, and implies, that it derived its original from the Old and New Testaments, and has been observed by the holy fathers under the New. That it ought to be solemnized with greater dignity and care, since then they only offered sacrifices of dead beasts, whereas now they offer on the altar, by the hands of the priest, a living and true sacrifice, namely, the only Son of God; therefore the fathers have with reason ordered, that so sublime an office should be celebrated only in consecrated places, &c.\n\nN. B. How one lye begets another, and how they travel on from generation to generation!\n\nCan. 15. To prevent some marriages, which some clerks contracted clandestinely, to save their benefices, declares the children born of such marriages incapable of holding benefices.\n\nCan. 16. Renews the ecclesiastical statutes against clerks who keep concubines.\n\nCan. 17. Prohibits children of clerks from possessing the benefices of their fathers.\n\nCan. 23. Care shall be taken to place able judges, especially in matrimonial causes; and that the judges of abbots who are in possession, shall not pass a definitive sentence, 'till after they have consulted the bishop of the diocese.\u2014Qu? Who placed matrimonial causes in the hands of ecclesiastical judges?\n\nCouncil of Cognac, anno 1238.\n\nCan. 9. The bishops shall see that the sentences of excommunication, issued out by their colleagues, be duly executed in their dioceses.\n\nCan. 10. That none shall be commissioned to try causes of matrimony, but able and discreet persons.\n\nCan. 11. Excommunicates lay-judges, who oblige ecclesiastics to plead before them.\u2014N.\u00a0B. How gloriously was the power of churchmen now increased!\n\nHere we may see, whate'er we see beside,\nThe laymen bridled, and the clergy ride.\n\nCouncil of Saumur, anno 1253.\n\nCan. 11. Prohibits the admitting any canon, who is not born in lawful wedlock: i. e. according to the laws of the church.\n\nCan. 27. Prohibits clandestine marriages.\n\nCouncil of Alby, anno 1254.\n\nCan. 41. Prohibits priests from keeping women within the inclosures of the church.\n\nCouncil of Arles, anno 1260.\n\nCan. 4. None shall contract marriage without leave of the church.\u2014Bravo! This is speaking out.\n\nCouncil of Cognac, anno 1260.\n\nCan. 5. Prohibits curates from marrying of women of another parish, without the consent of their curate.\n\nCouncil of Bourdeaux, anno 1262.\n\nCan. 5. Those who shall contract clandestine marriages, both the ministers and witnesses, shall be excommunicated, and suspended ab officio & beneficio. Those marriages shall be reckoned clandestine, which are not contracted by the proper curate or pastor of the husband or the wife, with the consent of the other curate.\n\nCouncil of London, 1268.\n\nCan. 3. Churches shall be consecrated.\n\nCan. 14. Against those who obstruct the celebration of matrimony.\n\nCan. 15. Relates to wills and testaments, and obliges the executor to renounce the right which he hath to plead in his jurisdiction.\n\nCouncil of Langeis, anno 1276.\n\nCan. 3. Against clandestine marriages.\n\nCan. 4. Against priests keeping in their houses children born of their concubines, and from bequeathing any thing to them.\n\nN. B. See 1 Tim. v. 8.\n\nCouncil of Buda, 1279.\n\nCan. 26. Prohibits clerks from keeping in their houses the children which they have had whilst in holy orders, and declares those children to be the vassals of the church.\n\nCan. 39. Reserves the cognizance of matrimonial causes to prudent and discreet persons.\n\nCan. 4. Prohibits ecclesiastics from keeping concubines.\n\nCouncil of Ravenna, anno 1286.\n\nCan. 8. Against clandestine marriages.\n\nCouncil of Bourges, 1286.\n\nCan. 2. Prohibits clandestine marriages.\n\nCan. 3. Prohibits ecclesiastical judges from cognizance of matrimonial causes out of their jurisdiction.\n\nCan. 24. Prohibits women inhabiting in the houses of monks.\n\nSynodal Canons of Peter, Bishop of Exeter,\n\nContain an instruction to his clergy about the seven sacraments, and about the celebration of marriage\u2014appeals\u2014questors\u2014the relics of saints\u2014last wills and testaments\u2014excommunications, &c. &c. cum multis aliis, qu\u00e6 nunc pr\u00e6scribere longum est.\n\nCouncil of L'isle in Provence, anno 1288.\n\nCan 14. Against those who give poison or physic to cause abortion.\u2014Mark, reader, this horrid evil, and from whence it sprang; even from leaving the laws of God and nature, for the doctrines and commandments of men!\n\nCouncil of Saltzburgh, anno 1291.\n\nCan. 1. It is ordered, that to remedy the abuse of marriages clandestinely contracted, there shall be six honest and creditable persons, of the neighbourhood or parish of the contractors, who shall be present, and serve as witnesses of the marriage.\n\nThe same canon issues forth the penalty of excommunication, ipso facto, against those who shall transgress this order, or shall be present at clandestine marriages, or shall suffer them to be contracted in their houses.\u2014N.\u00a0B. What wicked pains did these fellows take to bring grist to their mill!\n\nWaldenses or Vaudois, and Albigenses.\n\nAmidst all the darkness, superstition, and folly of Popery, God did not leave himself without witnesses of his truth. These poor people, though persecuted with all the malice and cruelty that Hell or Rome could invent, nobly stood in defence of God's word against the Popish encroachments. Their tenets were called heresy, and their persons heretics, because they opposed the doctrines of the scriptures to the inventions of men.\u2014Among other things, they condemned the ceremonies used in the celebration of marriage, as having no foundation in the word of God\u2014they taught\u2014\"that the consent of a willing couple, without the formality of sacerdotal benediction, made a lawful marriage.\"\u2014They did not acknowledge the spiritual alliance [as between godfathers and godmothers] nor the impediments of affinity and consanguinity appointed by the church\u2014no more than those of public order and decency [i. e. the throwing marriage into the hands of priests, and the ceremonies invented and used thereon] thus casting a blemish on the sacrament of marriage. That women needed no benediction after their lying-in [this we call churching of women.] That the church was wrong in prohibiting the clergy from marrying.\u2014They invocated no saints, but worshipped God alone\u2014they despised the canonizations, translations, and vigils of the saints\u2014they taught, that the doctrine of Jesus Christ and the apostles is sufficient to salvation, without being obliged to observe the laws of the church, and that the tradition of the church is the tradition of the Pharisees\u2014that the church of Rome is not the church of Christ, but a church of wicked men; and that it has ceased from being the church of Christ ever since the time of Pope Sylvester\u2014(Du Pin calls him St. Sylvester)\u2014when the poison of temporalities entered into the church:\u2014they denied purgatory, and transubstantiation by the hands of a priest.\n\nThefe, and other as great heresies, did these excellent reformers teach. For which an open war was carried on against them, under the general name of Albigenses, which, after the utmost exertions of cruelty, and of the most barbarous massacres, ended in their destruction.\u2014See Mosheim, Macl. vol. i. p. 700. These might well be numbered among the champions for the word of God\u2014of whom the world was not worthy. Heb. xi. 38. Du Pin ranks them among those heretics, who subverted the fundamentals of the Christian religion, by openly oppugning the authority, the sacraments, the ceremonies, and the discipline of the church.\n\nThe Inquisition.\n\nIt may perhaps lead me for a while from the immediate and particular subjects of this book, but I cannot help observing here, that, in this century, appeared that monster of all monsters, that most horrible, iniquitous, hellish tribunal, the Court of Inquisition, the most formidable engine of church power that ever was invented. It was generated between the ecclesiastical courts, and the great whore, mentioned Rev. xvii. 1. 5. xix. 2. and it may be truly said, that of all the abominations of which she has been the mother, this has been the most dangerous and destructive to the persons, lives, and properties of mankind; and stands as a melancholy proof of the ascendency which priestcraft and superstition are capable of gaining over the human mind, when creatures, endowed with reason, could so lose all sense of self-preservation, as not to arise with one consent, and strangle it in its birth.\n\nBut the comparatively petty tyranny of ecclesiastical courts, which, from the days of Constantine, had been gradually subjugating the understandings of men, more and more, under the assumed and ungodly power of churchmen, had paved the way; and therefore we are told by Du Pin\u2014Cent. xiii. p. 154. Eng. trans.\u2014\n\n\"The Pope and the Prelates\" (he might have added the Devil, and made it a sort of triumvirate) \"perceiving that the former\" [i. e. those notorious heretics the Albigenses] \"contemned the spiritual power, and that excommunication, and the other ecclesiastical penalties, were so far from reducing them, that they rendered them the more insolent, and put them upon using violence\" [i. e. defending themselves when they were most inhumanly and unjustly attacked, and standing for their lives and properties] \"were of opinion, that it was lawful to make use of force, to see whether those who were not reclaimed out of a sense to their salvation, might be so by the fear of punishments, and even of temporal death.\n\n\"There had already been several instances of heretics condemned to fines, banishments, punishments, and even to death itself; but there had never yet been any war proclaimed against them, nor any croisado preached up for the extirpation of them. Innocent III. was the first who proclaimed such a war against the Albigenses and Waldenses, and against Raymond, count of Thoulouse, their protector. War might subdue the heads, and reduce whole bodies of people; but it was not capable of altering the sentiments of particular persons, or of hindering them from teaching their doctrines secretly.\n\n\"Whereupon the Pope thought it adviseable to set up a tribunal of such persons, whose business it should be to make enquiry after heretics, and to draw up their processes. For this purpose, he made choice of the Dominican and Franciscan fryars, who were newly established; to whom he gave commission to make exact enquiry after heretics, and to draw up informations against them: and, from hence, this tribunal was called The Inquisition.\n\nBy degrees the authority of those inquisitors increased; and whereas, at the first, they only drew up the process of heretics, and solicited the ordinary judges to condemn them, they afterwards had power granted them of trying the crime of heresy conjointly with the bishops.\n\n\"The emperor Frederic II. approved of this tribunal, took the inquisitors into his protection, and attributed to the ecclesiastics the taking cognizance of the crime of heresy; leaving only to the secular judges, the power of inflicting the punishment of death on those who were condemned.\n\n\"This tribunal of the Inquisition was at first set up at Thoulouse, and in the other cities of Languedoc, where the heresy of the Albigenses and Waldenses had the deepest rooting. The Popes likewise set it up in Italy, from whence it passed, a long time after, into Spain and Portugal; but it was banished France, and could never be introduced into Germany.\"CENTURY XIV.\n\nCouncil of Compeigne, anno 1304.\n\nCan. 1. Excommunicate persons, and such as have contracted clandestine marriages, with all persons that procured them, or were present at them, shall not be admitted to the divine service of the church, nor allowed Christian burial.\n\nCouncil of Presburg, anno 1309.\n\nRenews the decretal of Pope Benedict XI. against such clergymen as keep concubines, and deprives such as are beneficed, of a fourth part of their benefice, if they observe it not.\n\nCouncil of Colen, anno 1310.\n\nCan. 9. Confirms the punishments on clerks that keep concubines.\n\nCan. 10. Forbids that clergymen should do public penance.\n\nCan. 22. None shall be present at clandestine marriages, but the banns of all marriages shall be published.\n\nCouncil of Ravenna, anno 1311.\n\nCan. 19. That the banns of marriages shall be published, that the curates may know whether there be no impediments. Marriages shall not be celebrated from the first Sunday in Advent, till after the octaves of the Epiphany\u2014from Septuagesima Sunday, till the octaves of Easter\u2014from the day before the Ascension, to the octaves of Pentecost.\n\nCouncil of Nogarol, anno 1315.\n\nCan. 2. Declares the children of such as have contributed to lay taxes upon the clergy, incapable of receiving holy orders to the fourth generation, and deprives their family of Christian burial.\n\nCouncil of Valladolid, anno 1322.\u2014Of Toledo, anno 1323.\n\nCan. 6. Forbids all clergymen to be present at the marriages of their children and nephews.\n\nCan. 7. Against clergymen who keep concubines.\n\nAnno 1324. Can. 20. A clergyman shall not go out at night without a candle.\u2014N.\u00a0B. This must be to prevent deeds of darkness.\n\nCouncil of Senlis, anno 1326.\n\nCan. 6. Forbids clandestine marriages.\n\nCouncil of Alcala, or Complutum, anno 1326.\n\nCan. 2. Against clergymen who keep concubines openly.\n\nCouncil of Narbonne, anno 1374.\n\nCan. 22. Against clandestine marriages.\n\nCouncil of Palenza, anno 1388.\n\nCan. 3. Married clerks to wear the clerical crown and tonsure, if they will enjoy the privileges of their priesthood.\n\nCan. 7. Against adulterers, and such as keep concubines publicly.\n\nEngland.\n\nCouncil at London, anno 1328.\n\nCan. 8. Marriages shall not be solemnized without the publication of banns.\n\nCouncil of Lambeth, anno 1330.\n\nCan. 5. Priests shall not celebrate marriages, which are clandestine, or without publication of banns.\n\nCouncil of York, anno 1367.\n\nCan 9. Against clandestine marriages, and such as are without publication of banns. See Thelyph. vol. ii. p. 147, n. 2d edit.\n\nLollards.\n\nThe sect of the Lollards spread throughout Germany, and had for their leader Walter Lollard, who began to disperse his errors about 1315. Du Pin's charge against them consists of many particulars\u2014among the rest\u2014that they despised the sacraments of the church (i. e. five of Peter Lombard's seven, of which one was marriage by priests) and derided her ceremonies and her constitutions\u2014observed not the fasts of the church, nor its abstinences, and acknowledged not the intercession of saints. Trithemius says, that Bohemia and Austria were infected with them, that there were above 24,000 persons in Germany who held these errors, and that the greater part defended them with obstinacy, even unto death.\n\nN. B. Error and heresy are two ecclesiastical scare-crows, and signify, usually, any thing which the ruling powers chuse to call by those names. These, with the word schism, have done special service in their day. See Index to Thelyph. vol. ii. tit. Lollards.\n\nCENTURY XV.\n\nThomas Waldensis.\n\nSo called from being born at Walden in Essex. Studied at Oxford. Was chosen confessor to Henry V. King of England, with whom he went to France, and died at Roan, November 3, 1430.\n\nThis learned and famous Doctor stoutly opposed the errors of Wickliffe. He wrote a great book\u2014intitled\u2014\"A Doctrinale of the Antiquities of the Faith of the Catholic Church,\" against the Wickliffites and Hussites, divided into three tomes. In tom. 2. he lays down the doctrine of the church, about the (seven) sacraments\u2014proves the real presence, and transubstantiation. On the sacrament of orders he proves\u2014that the celibacy of the clergy is according to the spirit and genius of the holy scripture, and agreeable to the practice of the antient church.\n\nOn marriage.\u2014He shews that this sacrament may subsift between persons that observe continence\u2014that it ought to be contracted according to the forms prescribed by the church\u2014and with the benediction of the priest; and distinguishes between marriages which are lawful and which are unlawful.\n\nThis book is said to be the fountain from whence many writers of controversy, since, have drawn their arguments against heretics of later times.\n\nAlphonsus Tostatus, Bishop of Avila,\n\nA most voluminous writer.\u2014He left behind him twenty-seven volumes folio. He wrote a book against Concubinary Priests\u2014A Treatise of Five Laws\u2014of the Law of Nature\u2014of the Law of Moses\u2014of the Law of Pagans\u2014of those of Mahomet\u2014and of the Laws of Christians.\n\nHe died anno 1454, aged 40 years, and was interred in the church of Avila, with this epitaph.\n\nHic stupor est mundi qui scibile discutit omne.\n\ni. e.\n\nHere is the wonder of the world, the discusser of all that is knowable.\n\n\u00c6gidius Carlerius, Dean of Cambray,\n\nWrote many learned treatises; among others\u2014a Treatise on the perpetual Virginity of the Virgin Mary\u2014against the Opposers of Images\u2014of the Celibacy of Ecclesiastics\u2014and of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.\n\nCouncil of Oxford, anno 1408.\n\nCan. 4. Nothing shall be taught about the sacraments, but what is agreeable to the doctrine of the church.\n\nThis council, which was held under Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, made thirteen regulations, to put a stop to the progress of Wickliff's errors.\n\nCouncil of Saltzburg, anno 1420.\n\nCan. 6. Excludes bastards from the order of the clergy.\n\nCouncil of Collen, anno 1423.\n\nCan. 1. Against concubinary clergymen.\n\nCan. 8. Concerns public concubinaries.\n\nCouncil of Paris, anno 1429.\n\nJohn of Nanton, archbishop of Sens, forbad the licences dispensing with the banns of matrimony to be granted easily.\u2014With us they are easily granted where grantable to all who can afford to pay for them.\n\nN. B. There was a council held at Bourges, anno 1438, but as Du Pin does not mention it in its place, the reader will find it, as in Du Pin, under the next century, art.\u00a01.\n\nCouncil of Angers, anno 1448.\n\nCan. 12. Forbids clandestine marriages.\n\nCouncil of Toledo, anno 1473.\n\nCan. 16. Forbids to celebrate marriage at any other time than what is permitted by the laws of the church, and condemns those clergy to be fined, who give the nuptial blessing at the times forbidden. See canon 62 of the church of England.\n\nCan. 17. Against clandestine marriages.\n\nCouncil of Sens, anno 1485.\n\nThe archbishop of Sens assembled a synod at Sens, wherein he confirmed the constitutions made in a synod held twenty-five years before, for the celebration of marriages.\n\nOne of the errors imputed to Wickliff, was, his saying, \"that the causes of divorce, on account of consanguinity and affinity, as established by the church, are human constitutions, and groundless.\"\n\nOne Lailier, a licentiate in theology at Paris, was severely persecuted, for saying, \"1.\u00a0You ought to keep the commands of God and His apostles; and, as to the commands of the bishops, they are no better than chaff, for they have destroyed the church by their reveries. 2.\u00a0 Saying St. Francis was rather in hell than in heaven. 3.\u00a0I am not bound to believe a man is a saint because he is canonized, since he is canonized for money, and none are canonized but those who give something for it. 4.\u00a0If a priest marry clandestinely, and come to me and confess it, I would not enjoin him penance. 5.\u00a0The priests of the eastern church do not sin in marrying, and I believe that neither should we sin in the western church, if we should marry. 6.\u00a0400 years ago the priests were forbidden to marry, by a Pope or a butterfly\u2014[D'un pape ou un papillon]\u2014I don't know whether he could do it. 7.\u00a0I would give two blancs to him, that will produce any passage in scripture, whereby we are obliged to fast in Lent.\"\n\nThe faculty condemned these propositions as heretical, erroneous, schismatical, rash, &c.; for which Lailier was excommunicated, and would probably have fared much worse, if the poor man had not been put into the hands of an inquisitor and a bishop, who frightened him into a recantation.\n\nThis century was disgraced with the burning of Sir John Oldcastle, John Huss, Jerome of Prague, and other champions for the religion of the Bible, as heretics\u2014hereby giving a deadly proof of the sad consequences to mankind, when the ecclefiastical and secular powers unite, for the maintenance of error and superstition, and of course to destroy those who dare to discover and oppose them.\n\nCENTURY XVI.\n\nWe are now coming to the most remarkable period in all the annals of Europe. In Germany Luther rises, sees the papacy disowned in Saxony, Brandenburgh, Hesse, Pomerania, the greatest part of the territories that belong to the house of Lunenburg, and most of the free cities. In Sweden and Denmark his doctrine is absolutely and quietly settled.\n\nIn England, Henry VIII. takes away the Pope's power, pulls down monasteries, and scatters the sworn defenders of the papal hierarchy. His son Edward VI. builds upon his foundation, and goes on with that reformation which his father had begun. All this was first occasioned by the preaching of Luther, a private monk, whom his enemies would have crushed with an high hand, and despised till it was too late.\n\nHaving seen, during a long succession of ages, the church of Rome gradually rising into its plenitude of power\u2014all matters relative to marriage taken into the hands of men, and regulated as they thought most conducive to the advancement of ecclesiastical interest and authority; insomuch that God's word was entirely abolished, as having any share in the laws which were made concerning it\u2014one might expect to find, that the reformation would have totally changed the face of things, in this respect\u2014that marriage would have been restored to its antient simplicity, and, instead of being suffered to remain on that papistical plan, where Popes, councils, and fathers had placed it, and as our reformers found it, we should have seen the Bible made the only rule of faith, in this respect, as in others, perhaps of inferior consequence to the present and eternal interests of mankind.\u2014Whether we have reason to complain of disappointment, will appear in the sequel.\n\nCouncil of Bourges, anno 1438.\nReferred to by Du Pin, Cent. XVI. c. i.\n\nArt. 20. Against such clergymen as kept concubines publicly. It deprives them of the profits of their benefices, and declares them incapable of being promoted to any honours, dignities, and benefices, without a dispensation from their superiors; and if they relapse after such dispensation, they shall be out of hope of ever having another.\n\nIt also orders how such superiors shall be proceeded against, who are not careful to punish them: and as to those who ought to be deposed by the Pope, the provincial councils or their superiors may inform against them, or send informations to the holy see.\n\nIt is declared, that a person who keeps concubines publicly, is not only he that is so declared by a sentence of law, or by his own confession made judicially, or by the notoriety of the fact, which cannot be concealed; but he that keeps a suspicious, or infamous woman in his house, and, being admonished by his superior, doth not put her away. The council also decrees the punishment of those ecclesiastical judges, who shall commute with those that keep concubines, or that suffer, or neglect to punish them. It enjoins superiors to force their inferiors to cast off their concubines, and forbids secular judges, yea, kings themselves, to hinder the proceedings of ecclesiastical judges against them. It also advises the laity to marry, and not live in concubinage.\n\nN. B. Concubinage brought in no grist to the Pope's mill\u2014for by concubinage we are to understand cohabitation, independently of priestly ceremony; which cobabitation, in process of time, grew into a mortal sin, though such concubinary parents, as they were called, might get their marriage ratified, and their issue legitimated, by a proper sum of money, and attending while a priest performed the mass, or office of matrimony. See Reynold's Historical Essay, p. 71. See Thelyph. vol. ii. 155\u20136, 1st edit.\u2014p. 148, 2d edit.\n\nIn short, the ecclesiastical powers had now got full possession of the ordinance of marriage; it was now numbered among the sacraments; its nullity, except administered according to the rites and ceremonies of the church, inculcated; and we find its \"essence made to consist, in the contract and in the sacrament, not in one without the other. This was said to be the opinion of councils, fathers, and divines, and the most judicious of the canonists.\" See Du Pin, cent. xvi. p. 143. Eng. Trans. fol.\n\nFrom hence arose the doctrine\u2014\"No priest no marriage\"\u2014if no marriage no obligation\u2014if no obligation, no security whatever to the seduced:\u2014hence was derived that inundation of whoredom and prostitution, which has been, is, and will be, the disgrace and curse of this, and every other Christian country, where this Popish lye is adopted; which is so bare-faced, as not to dare to appeal to a single text of scripture for its defence and support.\n\nOn their part, the lawyers defined marriage to be \"a lawful and perpetual union of man and wife, in order to the procreation of children, which includes a partnership of life and goods.\"\n\nThis definition looks fairly, but the grass which conceals the snake is in the word lawful; and on due examination we shall find, that the civil and ecclesiastical laws, which, from the days of Constantine, were entering into an alliance for the support of church power, against the natural rights and liberties of mankind, both agreed to define that to be lawful, which was made so by the legislative contrivances of human power and policy.\n\nWhat is lawful according to the scripture, and in God's sight, would have been a dangerous question to their whole system, and must have laid their Popes, councils, divines, canonists, and casuists, under the most unsurmountable difficulties to maintain their plan. They seem to have feared and dreaded the testimony of the pure scripture, as a thief would dread the testimony of a witness that could hang him.\u2014They seldom mention that of the holy scripture, but they couple it with tradition and the fathers; which two last they introduce, as the people in Bengal are said to introduce their interpreters before the European judges, in order to mislead them by false interpretations of what the witnesses depose.\n\nAs for this country\u2014we cannot easily forget can. 4. of the council of Oxford, anno 1408, by which it was decreed, that \"nothing shall be taught about the sacraments, but what is agreeable to the doctrine of the church.\" Here was a stop put to all enquiry upon the subject, on the footing of divine revelation; and thus the man of sin placed himself in the temple of God, exalting himself above all that is called God, or worshipped. See 2 Thess. ii. 4.\n\nMartin Luther.\n\nAt length, Martin Luther arose\u2014He opened his Bible\u2014by the light of this, he enabled numbers to see, as he did himself, the monstrous iniquity, that, for so many ages, had been deceiving the Christian world. He had, at first, in a manner, all the world against him, and he was persecuted with all the malice that could be poured out upon him. He was an instrument, every way fitted for the work he had to do\u2014vehemence of temper\u2014unshaken courage\u2014invincible resolution\u2014were in his composition\u2014these, with truth on his side, proved too hard for all the efforts of, what was then called legal authority;\u2014the Pope\u2014the Emperor, with other kings and princes of the earth, in vain opposed; he fairly set them at defiance, and, in the face of difficulty, danger, and, as it were, of death itself, was the great instrument, in the hands of Providence, to break off the yoke of papal power, and to loose the bands of ignorance, error, and superstition, from the necks of many countries.\n\nHe was wonderfully preserved, from the time when he published his first thesis against indulgences at Wittemberg, anno 1517, 'till his death, which happened at Isleben, anno 1546, a space of 29 years.\n\nIt would be beside my present purpose, to enter farther into Luther's history, than is necessary to elucidate the subjects of this book; but we may learn this useful lesson from it\u2014that intrepidity in the cause of truth, however offensive to them that live in error, and to those who chuse their own delusion to believe a lye (see 2 Pet. ii. 18. and 2 Thess. ii. 11.) is not to despair of meeting with success in the end.\n\nThree of Luther's noble and scriptural positions, with respect to marriage, which were censured by the divines at Paris, held at the Mathurins, anno 1521, were as follow: \"1.\u00a0That matrimony is not a sacrament of Christ's institution, but invented by men.\" \"2.\u00a0 That the union between the man and woman ought to hold, although it be made contrary to human laws.\" \"3.\u00a0That the priests ought to approve all marriages contracted against the ecclesiastical laws, with which the Popes can dispense, except the marriages of those that are expressly forbidden in scripture.\"\n\nAll the doctors in the assembly determined Luther's doctrine \"to be proper only to deceive simple people\u2014injurious to all the doctors\u2014derogatory from the power of the church, and hierarchical order\u2014openly schismatical\u2014contrary to the scripture, whose sense it corrupts\u2014blasphemous against the Holy Spirit\u2014pernicious to the Christian commonwealth\u2014and so it ought to be suppressed, the writings which contain it to be burnt, and the author forced, by all lawful means, to recant\u2014for that all his doctrine contained detestable errors both in faith and manners.\"\n\nNever was man who experienced more abuse than M. Luther.\u2014The Popish rulers saw, very plainly, that the doctrines which he had set forth in his writings, were too well founded on the authority of the scripture, to be shaken by fair and plain argument. They therefore essayed two modes of refutation, which, backed by the credit they themselves were in with the ignorant vulgar, they imagined would answer the purpose which they despaired of from fair argument.\n\nOne of these was, devising scandalous and opprobrious terms for the writings themselves, which implied great mischiefs to the church from the consequences of Luther's \"damnable and antichristian errors,\" as they called the doctrines which he set forth.\n\nThe other was, raking together all the personal scandal they could, in order to vilify and blacken the author in the estimation of mankind, and thus shake the credit of his writings in the public opinion.\u2014In what manner this is set forth in the canon of St. Victor, may be seen in the Gen. Dict. Hist. & Crit. Art. Luther. See before vol. ii. 164, n. 1st edit.\u2014154, n. 2d edit.\n\nHowever powerful such methods as these may prove, in vulgar, weak, low, ignorant, and malicious minds, yet what do they amount to in the eyes of dispassionate, moderate, and considerate men? These will always reflect, that the merit or demerit of any writing, is to be demonstrated by itself, and to be gathered by a sober, attentive, unprejudiced, and deliberate perusal of it; not from this or that epithet, which malice, prejudice, and ignorance may have bestowed upon it; this, perhaps, from mere report of those who have never red a line of the book in question, and who owe, very probably, their opinions to the reports of others as ignorant as themselves.\n\nThe meanest, and lowest, and most wicked of all, is, the second experiment, which was tried on Luther's personal character. This doubtless had its effect with many empty and ignorant professors, who had not recollection enough to make them reflect on its total inconclusiveness, with respect to the truth or falshood of the doctrines which Luther had advanced. His attack on the villainous traffic of indulgences\u2014on the doctrine of purgatory\u2014the worship of the Virgin Mary and the saints\u2014the merit of works\u2014the papistical schemes of celibacy and matrimony\u2014&c.\u2014had little to do with all they could say against Luther himself. The truth or falshood of what he said, did not in the least depend on the man, but on the word of God, on which he rested the whole evidence of what he published.\n\nLuther full well knew the truth of these observations in his own mind, and therefore all that was said against him and his writings, was treated with deserved contempt.\n\nHe still had a friend in the Elector of Saxony; who, foreseeing that the Emperor was about to make a bloody edict against Luther, and that he could protect him no longer after that, nor suffer him in his countries, without bringing trouble upon himself from the Emperor, resolved to have him taken, and put into a castle, where he might lie concealed, and no man know where he was; which was accordingly done. For when Luther went to Eysenac, May 3, and was passing through a forest in his way to Wittemberg, he was set upon by some horsemen in disguise, who threw him down, and took him, as it were by force, to carry him into the castle at Wittemberg, where he lay concealed nine months.\n\nWhile Luther was shut up in his castle, which he called his hermitage and his Patmos, he composed several books, to maintain his opinions, and to destroy the discipline of the church, threatening the Pope and the bishops, if they did not change their customs, after they were warned by his writings, God would permit others to oblige them to it.\n\nIt is not to be wondered at (says Du Pin) that Luther's doctrine, which was so favourable to concupiscence, should meet with many followers\u2014that the monks left the cloysters, and dispensed with the observation of their vows; that the priests married, and the people were pleased, to see themselves discharged of all that was penal by the laws of the church, as fasting, confession, penance, &c. and embraced greedily these novelties: Carolostadius was one of the first, that gave the priests an example of marrying. Justus Jonas, provost of Wittemburg, and Bernard Veltkirck, pastor of Kenbergen, did the same, as also John Buginhagius, who had been a schoolmaster at Treptow in Pomerania, but then settled at Wittemburg. Veltkirck was accused of the matter before the Elector of Mentz, Archbishop of Magdeburgh, and Veltkirck made an apology to him, to justify what he had done.\n\nLuther scrupled not to defend his doctrines in many writings, in which he severely attacked the Pope and the bishops; he accuses the latter of ignorance, debauchery, and tyranny\u2014of being enemies to the gospel, and the truth\u2014of being idolaters, because they followed the traditions of men, and worshipped their idol the Pope. He said that monasteries, cathedral and collegiate churches, are the gates of hell, and shops of useless ceremonies. He declaims against celibacy and vows\u2014\"hiding his malignity (says Du Pin) under an appearance of zeal for the truth, and citing several texts of scripture to shew, that the doctrine and behaviour of the bishops of his time, were opposite to those which St. Paul requires in a bishop. Lastly, he says his design is to perform the office of a public herald, to make it manifest every where, that the bishops, which govern the greatest part of the world, are not of God's appointment, but by the delusion of Satan, and by error and traditions of men, and, in one word, the nuncios and vicars of the devil.\"\n\nThere lived in the sixth century one Gildas, surnamed the Wise, who was made abbot of Bangor; this man was born in England, anno 520, and by his writings we find, that, from his time to Luther's, churchmen were no changelings; for of the clergy of England Gildas writes\u2014\"England has bishops enough, but they are either fools, or ministers to the passions of the great, or unchaste men\u2014it has clergy enough, but, for the most part, they have only the name of pastors, and are, at the bottom, wolves prepared to kill the souls of their sheep; they never think of doing good to the people, but only how to fill their own bellies.\u2014They seek for churches, but it is only out of a desire of filthy gain\u2014they teach the people, but at the same time they give them bad examples\u2014they very seldom offer sacrifice, and never go to the altar with a clean heart\u2014they flatter the people in their crimes, and seek only to satisfy their passions\u2014they very seldom speak the truth\u2014they despise the poor, and make court to riches\u2014they canvass for and purchase ecclesiastical offices, &c. He concludes with a prayer to God, to preserve the small number of good pastors that was left.\" See Du Pin, cent. 6. tit. Gildas.\n\nLuther's writings gave great offence, and raised up many answerers; among the rest he had a royal adversary, Henry VIII. King of England, who, for the book which he wrote against Luther, was honoured by the Pope with the title of defender of the faith, which has ever since been given to our kings.\n\nHowever, nothing could daunt Luther's truly heroical spirit; he found, that all the calumny and abuse from his enemies, and with which they loaded him in their attacks upon his writings, tended to little else than to expose the nakedness of their cause, and but badly supplied the place of rational and scriptural arguments, he therefore was no more troubled at them, than at the whistling of the wind.\u2014His pen was kept constantly at work: and in anno 1522 the Pope sent his nuncio Cheregatus to the diet of the empire, held at Nuremburg, to declare, that though he was \"comforted to think that Luther's doctrine was so visibly bad, that he could not believe it would be tolerated, yet this poisonous plant had taken root\u2014that it appeared strange, that so large and religious a nation as Germany, could be seduced, in so great a part of it, by a wretched fryar, who had apostatized from, and left the way, which our Lord, the apostles, martyrs, and so many illustrious persons for doctrine and holiness, and lastly, their ancestors, had followed to that very time\u2014that Luther still continued to teach and put out books full of errors\u2014that he takes the same methods to seduce the people that Mahomet used; for, as Mahomet allowed men to have several wives, and divorce them when they pleased, so Luther, to draw monks, nuns, and lascivious priests to him, he allowed them to marry.\n\n\"That having represented these things to them, he exhorted the princes, prelates, and people, to rouse up themselves to oppose the injuries which the Lutherans do to God and to religion\u2014that the Pope's sentence and the Emperor's edict should be executed\u2014that Luther should not be allowed to defend what he hath taught about matters of faith, because most of the truths which he opposeth, have been determined by general councils, and such things ought never to be called in question, as have been once approved by those councils, and all the church.\"\u2014N.\u00a0B.\n\nThe diet answered the Pope very respectfully\u2014at the same time giving him to understand, that they did not chuse to enter upon the violent measures, with respect to the Emperor's edict and the Pope's sentence against Luther, which his holiness had recommended\u2014\"As to the advices which the Pope had desired, that, they did not mean to treat only about the business of Luther, but also concerning the extirpation of many other errors, abuses, and vices, rooted by custom and time, and maintained by the ignorance of some, and malice of others.\n\nThey then speak of taking away the liberty of the press, that \"Luther, and his followers, might not write, print, or put any thing out in public\u2014that the magistrates should appoint men, of probity and learning, to license new books, and without this, no new books should be published; and thus things would be kept quiet, till a free council could be called, with consent of the Emperor, in some convenient place in Germany.\n\n\"As to the priests which are married, and the monks who have left their convents, they should be punished by their ordinaries according to the canons, by deprivation of their benefices, or the like, since the civil laws had declared nothing against them.\"\n\nThe Nuncio, in his reply, said, \"that for the future, they should put in execution the decree of the council of Lateran, by which it is forbidden to print any book about matters of religion, that had not been allowed by the ordinary.\" About the matter of married priests, he said\u2014\"the answer of the diet did not displease him, if it had not this clause at the end, That the breakers of their vows, if they committed any crime, should be punished by the secular magistrates, pretending that it was contrary to the liberties of the church, and that the judgment of such persons belonged to the ecclesiastical judges.\"\n\nAfter this the diet sent a memorial, of \"an hundred grievances,\" to the Pope. Some of which were, about constitutions\u2014they complained, that there was too great a number of human constitutions, about things which are neither commanded nor forbidden by the commandments of God; among others, \"the hindrances of kindred and affinity, legal and spiritual\u2014about marriage, abstinence from meats, &c. which they dispensed with for money; by which means, they got great summ out of Germany, besides the scandals and other evils which this multitude of laws caused.\"\n\nThey also complained of the incroachments of ecclesiastical judges, in laymen's causes, and the malversations which they committed in their judgments\u2014of the exactions of the clergy for the sacraments, and also for licences to keep a concubine.\u2014Also of the faculties given to the Pope's legates and Nuncios to legitimate bastards, &c. &c.\n\nThey told the Pope, that, \"if he gave them not satisfaction, they were resolved not to suffer these charges, nor those of indulgences, which freed men from punishment for money; they would seek means to release themselves from them.\"\n\nThis resolution of the diet of Nuremberg, was made into the form of an edict; and published March 6, 1523.\n\nLuther's exhortations were soon followed with effects. The same year Leonard Coppen, a burgess of Targaw, took away nine nuns, on a Good Friday, among which was Catherine Bora (whom Luther married two years after) from the nunnery of Nimptschen, and carried them to Wittemberg. This action (says Du Pin) Luther dared to extol, in a book in the German language, where he has the impudence to compare that deliverance, to that of the souls which Christ delivered by his death.\n\nLuther, desiring utterly to ruin the monastic orders, and mix them with the public, made a kind of manifesto in the German tongue, which he intitled, \"The Common Treasury;\" in which he affirms, that there ought to be a treasury made out of all the revenues of the monasteries, bishoprics, and chapters, and in general out of all ecclesiastical benefices, and be given partly to the pastors and preachers, and other parts to different beneficial and charitable uses.\n\nZuinglius made no less progress in Switzerland, than Luther did in Saxony. He taught that marriage is allowed to all the world, and no man is obliged to make a vow of chastity, and that priests are not at all obliged to live unmarried.\u2014That the power which the Pope and bishops assumed to themselves, is a piece of pride, which hath no foundation in the scriptures.\u2014That the character which the sacraments are said to impress, is a modern invention, of which the scripture makes no mention.\n\nJohn Faber, chief vicar of the bishop of Constance, who opposed Zuinglius at the conference of Zurich, maintained, that where a doctrine had long been settled in the church, and authorized by the practice of all nations, such customs ought not to be abolished by any allegations out of the scriptures, or pretences that they are contrary to them.\u2014Zuinglius replied, that we ought not to regard how long a thing has been, or has not been in use; but observe only whether it be agreeable to the truth, or law of God to which custom could not be opposed.\u2014N.\u00a0B.\n\nAugust 23, 1522, Zuinglius presented, in his own name, and in the name of many of his followers, a petition to the bishop of Constance, to intreat him to allow, at least to tolerate, the marriage of priests. He wrote also a letter, against such impediments of marriage, as were thought to be made by spiritual affinity.\n\nThe Pope's legate, not satisfied with the decrees of the diet of Nuremberg, held an assembly at Ratisbon, with some princes and several bishops, where it was decreed, that there should be no alterations in the celebration of the mass, administration of the sacraments, and other ceremonies of the church, or in other antient usages\u2014that the marriages of monks and priests should be hindered, and those punished that should do the contrary\u2014that printers should not commit any book to the press, till it had been examined and approved\u2014that no prince should entertain a Lutheran in his dominions\u2014that priests, who keep concubines, shall be severely punished\u2014that marriages shall be celebrated in a full congregation in the church, unless there be a necessity to ask the bishop's consent, except in Lent, the last weeks of Advent, at the feast of Easter, Whitsuntide, and the Nativity, and their octaves, and the Rogation days\u2014that monks and priests which marry, shall be proceeded against, and if the ordinaries neglect to do it, the Pope shall appoint judges to punish the guilty.\n\nAbout this time arose great troubles in Germany, greatly owing to the disputes and controversies among the Protestants themselves. Still Lutheranism increased, and settled itself in several cities. The Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Duke of Brunswick, professed it; the city of Strasburg received it; and the Senate of that city maintained the married clergy, in opposition to the bishop.\u2014In almost all the states of the Empire, Lutheranism was preached, and gained many followers.\n\nIn the same year 1525, Luther married Katherine Bora, a person of quality, who had been a nun, and was taken (as before is mentioned) out of the nunnery of Nimptschen, in 1523; he defended the fact, without blushing, in the face of all the world, and had the boldness to advise the archbishop of Mentz to do the like.\n\nDiet of Augsburg, 1530.\n\nThe Emperor published the decree of the Diet, which ordered, \"that the doctrine of justification by faith should be rejected\u2014that the sacraments of the church should be preserved in the same number and manner as formerly\u2014that the ceremonies and other usages of the church should be observed\u2014that married priests and clerks should be deprived of their benefices, unless they would leave their wives.\"\n\nHenry VIII. King of England.\n\nWe must now go back a little, in point of time, in order briefly to state the beginning and progress of reformation in this country.\n\nHenry VII. married his eldest son Arthur, prince of Wales, to Katherine the daughter of Ferdinand, king of Arragon\u2014Nov. 14, 1501. Arthur dying in a few months after, it was promised that Katherine should be married to Henry duke of York, the king's second son.\n\nBut because this could not be done without a dispensation, Pope Julius II. was sued to for one; who granted it, by his Bull, bearing date December 26, 1503, wherein he recites\u2014\"That Katherine had been married to prince Arthur, and that perhaps this marriage was consummated\u2014that nevertheless, Arthur being dead, Henry his brother and she desired to be married together; whereupon, to preserve peace among catholic kings and princes, he dispensed with the impediment of consanguinity in Henry and Katherine, all ordinances and apostolic constitutions notwithstanding; he allowed them to marry, and, if they were already married, he confirmed it.\"\u2014See Lev. xviii. 16.\n\nAfter this dispensation, Henry, who was still under age, was married to his brother's wife.\u2014See Thelyph. vol. ii. 1st edit. p. 76, n.\u2014p. 70, 2d edit. and p. 13, n.\n\n'Tis not known upon what account his father obliged him to enter a protestation against this marriage, June 27, 1505, before Fox, bishop of Winchester; \"that, being of age, he now revoked the marriage, which he had made with his brother's widow; that he thought it null; and would have it legally dissolved.\" Nevertheless it remained still as it was.\n\nHenry VII. dying April 7, 1509, the young king caused the validity of his marriage to be examined by his council; and Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, was hardly brought to approve it; but the contrary opinion being the stronger, the king married Katherine publicly, June 25, 1709. This princess was with child several times, but either miscarried, or the issue lived but a little while, except one daughter, Mary.\n\nHenry lived with Katherine till 1525, without any scruple about his marriage, for he did not think of the divorce till 1526. What moved him to begin is not certainly known. He only pretended conscience. The distaste which he took to Katherine's infirmities did contribute to it, but the love which he entertained for Anne Boleyn fixed his resolution more than all the rest, to require a divorce from Katherine, that he might marry Anne.\n\nCardinal Wolsey, out of revenge for some treatment he had received from the emperor Charles V. nephew of queen Katherine, resolved to make king Henry an irreconcileable enemy to the emperor, confirmed Henry's scruples about the lawfulness of his marriage; well knowing, that as Katherine was sister of Joan of Arragon, the mother of Charles V. it would be an horrid affront, that would fall upon the whole family, to have her despoiled of her quality of Queen, her daughter Mary thereby declared illegitimate, and incapable of inheriting the crown of England.\n\nThe whole affair may be seen in Du Pin, and Burnet Hist. Ref. at a much greater length than it is at all to my purpose to mention here. I would only observe, that after much chicanery and disputation, among divines and casuists, in almost all the countries of Europe, the question was decided against the poor Queen, and a sentence of divorce pronounced by Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, as legate of the Holy See, May 23, 1533. Five days after which, king Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn was confirmed, she came to London in triumph, May 29, made a magnificent entrance, and was proclaimed Queen on the 30th, and the King commanded all his subjects not to give Katherine the name of queen.\u2014He also caused her to be importuned not to stand on the validity of the marriage, but all in vain.\n\nNews being carried to Rome, whither Katherine had appealed, incensed that court against Cranmer; the Pope made all his proceedings void, denouncing excommunication against the King and Anne Boleyn, if they did not appear at Rome before the end of September, or if they parted not before that time.\n\nFew among the Protestants favoured the king's cause, or approved of his divorce from Katherine. Melancthon, and the other Lutheran divines, held that the marriage with her was valid. Oeclampadius, Zuinglius, and Calvin, asserted the nullity of the marriage, grounded on the prohibition in Leviticus. Several books were put out, for and against the marriage of Henry with Katherine, and the question was hotly disputed between the divines and casuists.\n\nAt Rome the affair was debated in a consistory, May 23, 1534, and of twenty-two cardinals, nineteen were of opinion, that the marriage of Katherine with Henry was good, and the divorce null and void.\u2014He was enjoined to take her again for his wife, and forbidden to continue his separation from her any longer.\n\nThis proceeding laid the foundation of abolishing the Pope's power in England, and occasioned many acts of parliament for that purpose; but Popery still remained, and some of its most horrid cruelties placed in the power of the king. They also settled the succession of the crown upon the children that should be born of Anne Boleyn; and the princess Mary, the daughter of Katherine, was excluded.\n\nAnne Boleyn did not long enjoy her dignity: the king, being enamoured with Jane Seymour, found a means to get rid of his wife Anne, by accusing her of adultery; for which she was condemned to death.\n\nBefore this sentence was executed, she was forced to declare, before the archbishop of Canterbury, and the ecclesiastical court, that, before she married the king, there was a promise or contract of marriage between her and the lord Percy, who was then become earl of Northumberland; and, upon this declaration, Cranmer passed a sentence, by which her marriage with the king was declared null, and her daughter Elizabeth declared illegitimate, as Mary the daughter of Katherine had been. Anne was beheaded, May 19, 1536.\n\nThe next day after her death, Henry married Jane Seymour, with whom he was passionately in love. The princess Mary was received into favour, after acknowledging in writing that the king was supreme head over the church of England, and that the marriage of her mother was null and incestuous.\n\nIn the following parliament a very severe law was made, anno 1536, against those who should acknowledge the power of the Pope.\n\nThe convocation of the clergy agreed on several matters, by which the Popish doctrines were established, as transubstantiation, auricular confession, and that the ceremonies are to be retained as good and commendable; with many other matters of the like sort. These were all confirmed by the king.\n\nNevertheless he did not spare the abbies and nunneries, but dissolved them all, and seized their revenues.\n\nIn 1539 he caused six articles to be drawn up, and to be established by the parliament. One among which was, that it is not lawful for those in holy orders to marry\u2014the marriages of priests declared void, and those ordered to be punished with death who should marry, as well as those who, by preaching, writing, or open discourse, should declare or maintain it lawful for them so to do.\n\nJane Seymour, the third wife of Henry, dying in 1537, two days after her delivery of Edward (afterwards Edward VI.) the king, by the advice of Cromwell, whom he had made his vicegerent in spiritual affairs, and lord privy seal, and had lately created earl of Essex, married Anne of Cleves; but the king took a distaste to her, and, immediately after his marriage, endeavoured to break it. Poor Cromwell was disgraced\u2014accused of heresy, and other offences, for which he was beheaded, July 28, 1540.\n\nHe was no sooner condemned, than the king sought to dissolve his marriage with Anne of Cleves. The causes alledged for it were, that she had been before contracted to the marquis of Lorrain\u2014that the king, having married her against his inclination, had never consummated the marriage. Upon these reasons, the parliament declared the marriage null, and Cranmer, and the rest of the clergy, were of the same opinion, and so sentence was given July 9th.\n\nThe queen consented to it, and remained ever after in England. The king, soon after, married Katherine Howard, whom he loved passionately.\n\nThe commissioners, whom the king had appointed for ecclesiastical affairs, drew up a long instruction, in which they owned all the Catholic doctrines except the Pope's supremacy. They regulated all the ceremonies and rites then in use, according to the practice of the primitive church. They also held free-will, and the merit of good works.\n\nDoctor Barnes, and some others, having preached against these doctrines, were condemned to death as heretics. In short, Henry punished with death, Lutherans, and the defenders of the Pope's supremacy, alike.\n\nKatherine Howard was discovered to lead a loose life; which being proved against her, she was beheaded, February 12, 1542.\n\nKing Henry's sixth wife was Katherine Parr, the widow of Nevil lord Latimer, whom he married in July 1543. Though she favoured the Protestants, yet the king did not stop the execution of the Lutherans, or Sacramentarians. Henry to his death continued in the same judgment, as to his religion, but would never return to the church of Rome, and in this disposition he died, January 27, 1547, being fifty-six years old, having reigned thirty-seven years and nine months, and having passed many laws, which made him a Pope, and the archbishop of Canterbury, and the rest of the bishops and clergy in convocation, so many Popes under him.\n\nDiet of Ratisbon, anno 1541.\n\nBefore we proceed any farther in the affairs of religion in England, it will be necessary for us to return to the Continent, in order to acquaint ourselves with those transactions, which may be said to have had so great an effect with regard to religion in general, and particularly afterwards in England.\n\nThe diet of Ratisbon was attended by the emperor in person, and by all the princes of the empire, either in person or by deputies. The Pope sent to it cardinal Contaremus, a man famous for wisdom and profound learning.\n\nAt this diet there was a conference appointed, between the Catholic and Protestant divines, nominated by the emperor for this purpose. He chose for the Catholics\u2014Julius Pflugius, John Eckius, and John Groppen:\u2014And, for the Protestants\u2014Philip Melancthon, Martin Bucer, and John Pistorius.\n\nA book was delivered to the collocutors, thought to be drawn up by Groppen, which contained 22 articles.\n\nArt. 15. Is about the sacrament of marriage, and tells us, \"That it is appropriated to Christians; that it is grounded upon the words of Christ, when the inseparable union of male and female is commanded, and the outward conjunction of them is the element, and the virtue consists, in acknowledging that man and wife are joined together by the authority of God, and have received a grace which makes their union lawful.\"\n\nArt. 21. Concerns the ecclesiastic discipline of the clergy, and it is said, \"That if the latter canons, which obliged priests to live unmarried, be retained, the antient censures against priests that keep concubines, ought to be revived.\" Some of the antient rules, concerning the continence of priests, are here set down.\n\nThese, and others of the articles, were objected to by the Protestants. The Pope's legate gave an answer which they did not like; this provoked the Protestants, displeased the emperor and the Catholic princes; but the legate said, that the articles should be generally reserved to the judgment of the Pope, and the Apostolical See, in a council, to which he remitted that business entirely.\n\nWhile the emperor and king of France were waiting for the calling of a general council, they consulted the divines of the University of Louvain, which was one of the most famous in Europe, who drew up 32 articles against the innovators, Nov. 6, 1544.\n\nArt. 18. Marriage, lawfully contracted, and consummated, among Christians, cannot be dissolved, though it happens to either of them, who are so joined together, that they commit adultery, or become barren, or be heretics.\n\nArt. 19. It was never allowed to a Christian man to marry again after a divorce, so long as the woman from whom he was parted be alive.\n\nArt. 20. That marriages contracted against the canons, which have laid down the invincible impediments, are null.\n\nArt. 32. That it is good to make monastic and other vows, and that being made they are obligatory before God.\n\nThe divines of Paris, by the king's order, March 10, 1542, composed 25 articles of faith.\n\nArt. 11. It is not to be doubted but the saints in heaven and earth work miracles.\n\nArt. 12. It is a pious thing, and agreeable to God, to pray to the virgin Mary, and to the saints, that they would be our advocates and intercessors with God.\n\nArt. 15. That if any one prays to the virgin Mary, or to some saint, rather than to God, he doth not sin.\n\nArt. 20. It is certain we ought to believe many things, which are not mentioned in scripture, but received by the tradition of the church.\n\nArt. 25. That monastical vows of chastity, poverty, and perpetual obedience, oblige in conscience.\n\nThat the constitutions of the church oblige in foro conscienti\u00e6.\n\nThere were several provincial councils held in France and Germany, before the council of Trent, against the new heresies.\n\nCouncil of Bourges, anno 1528.\n\nCan. 1, 3. The heresy of Luther having been condemned by the holy see, no person shall print, sell, or keep any books, in which the said heresy shall be diffused.\n\nCan 12. Injoins the curates not to suffer certain ridiculous ceremonies any longer to be used in the administration of the sacraments of baptism and marriage.\n\nCan. 18. No school-masters shall read such books to their scholars, as may make them averse to the ceremonies of the church.\n\nCouncil of the Province of Sens, held at Paris, anno 1528.\n\nCan. 1. Is about the unity and infallibility of the church. It is there declared, that it cannot fall into any error about faith and manners; and he that doth not depend on its authority, both in doctrine and manners, is worse than an infidel.\n\nCan. 3. He that resists the authority of general councils, ought to be accounted an enemy to the faith.\n\nCan. 4. It belongs to the church to interpret the scriptures; and those who do not follow the canons of the council of Carthage, Innocent, and Gelasius, and refuse the sense which the holy fathers have put upon them, are schismatics and heretics.\n\nCan. 5. Establishes the necessity and validity of traditions, and tells us, that such things as are derived to us that way, ought to be believed, and observed, and whosoever refuseth to accept any truth, for this reason only, \"because 'tis not clearly delivered to us in holy scripture,\" ought to be esteemed an heretic and schismatic.\n\nCan. 6. Concerns the obedience due to the constitutions and canons of the church, and condemns those that despise them.\n\nCan. 7. They are pronounced accursed, who do not observe the Lent fast, and other fasts, and times of abstinences commanded by the decrees of the church.\n\nCan. 8. Numbers those among heretics, who teach that priests, deacons, and sub-deacons, are not obliged to live a single life, and so leave them at liberty to marry.\n\nCan. 9. Against those who count perpetual vows unlawful, and especially monastical vows. They prove the obligation of them, and order those to be punished according to the canons, who say that it is lawful to break them.\n\nCan. 10. Condemns such as lessen the number of sacraments, or deny that they have a power to confer grace\u2014that marriage is a true sacrament, by which the persons joined together receive a celestial blessing.\n\nLastly. All those that acknowledge not the seven sacraments are to be esteemed heretics.\n\nIn another set of canons\u2014It is ordered, that all shall attend the parochial mass on Sundays, and inform the officers of the ecclesiastical courts, of those who are absent three Sundays together.\n\nCan. 39. Marriage, being a sacrament, ought to be received with reverence, and all persons shall forbear laughter, and merry talk, while the office is celebrating, and the marriage-blessing is pronouncing\u2014that the persons espousing, shall prepare themselves for this sacrament by fasting and penance\u2014that none shall be married for the future 'till after sun-rising, and not immediately after midnight, as has been usual; which has been the occasion of many clandestine marriages, from whence many very great scandals have arisen; and therefore all such as contract or favour them, are excommunicated ipso facto.\n\nCan. 40. No new miracle shall be published, without the express licence of the bishop.\n\nFirst Provincial Council of Cologne, anno 1536.\n\nThis provincial council was called in the time of Paul III. and of the Emperor Charles V. by Herman de Meurs, archbishop of Cologne; who afterwards embracing the new doctrine of Luther, sent for Bucer and Melancthon to preach it in his archbishopric; and whose engagement to this new doctrine was so strong, that he rather chose to leave his archbishopric than renounce it; and so he died in 1552, in the heresy which he had embraced.\n\nArt. 32, 33. Contain an advice to such as have several benefices, especially with the cure of souls, not to satisfy themselves, that they have gotten the Pope's (hodie the archbishop of Canterbury's) dispensation for it; but to examine themselves, and see whether they have one from God: nevertheless, for fear they should injure their own consciences, they are ordered to submit their dispensations to the bishops, that they may judge impartially whether the pretences be just.\n\nIn the second part of the council are 32 articles.\n\nArt. 25. It were to be wished that clergymen would not be present at weddings.\n\nArt. 40\u201347. Speak of the sacrament of marriage, and wish that the good custom of fasting and receiving the communion before marriage, were again restored. It enjoins curates to marry none, unless the banns were published three times; as also not to marry any strangers without certificate from the place of their abode, to testify that they are not already married, and without a licence from their curates that they may be married by another. And if there be any degrees of consanguinity between the persons, who are to be joined in marriage, and if they have obtained a dispensation from the Pope, to examine it, and if they find the copy is not true, to declare their dispensation null: as also to forbid those sports at church, which are usual after the celebration of marriage, with the new-married couple.\n\nIt is also forbidden to eat flesh in the holy time of Lent, upon account of weakness, without licence from a curate.\n\nCouncil of Mentz, anno 1549,\n\nDetermines that the marriage of children, without the consent of their parents, is null and void; and orders, that all marriages shall be celebrated in the church, with the usual ceremonies, and after the banns have been thrice published. See Stat. 26 Geo. II. c. 33.\n\nDivines of Paris, assembled at Mathurins, May 6, 1518.\n\nThey gave their judgment on two propositions concerning indulgences. The first was\u2014\"Whosoever shall put into the crusade-box a testoon, or the value of it, for a soul that is in purgatory, he shall free that soul immediately, and it shall infallibly and directly go to paradise. Item. If he cast in ten testoons for ten souls, or a thousand testoons for a thousand souls, they shall go immediately and certainly into paradise.\"\n\nThis, the Paris divines, alarmed with what Luther had published about indulgences, were afraid to approve of; however, they approved of a second proposition, which softened the first, by saying\u2014\"We must leave it to God to apply the treasure of the church to such souls as He pleaseth.\"\n\nOn May 16, 1526, The faculty passed a general censure on Erasmus's Colloquies, as a work wherein the fasts and abstinences of the church are little esteemed, prayers to the virgin and saints laughed at, and virginity is set below marriage.\n\nThere is also another censure, April 30, 1530, on the two following propositions, viz.\n\nFirst. That the scriptures can't be well understood without a knowledge in the Hebrew and Greek tongues.\n\nSecond. That a preacher can't explain the epistles and gospels aright without the said tongues.\n\nThe first is condemned as rash and scandalous\u2014the second as false and impious, and which discourages Christian people from hearing the word of God. They add, that both of them render their authors suspected of Lutheranism.\n\nN. B. One precedent, at least, of that neglect, and indeed, of that contempt, among Christians, of the original scriptures.\n\nHow would it sound to the ears of common-sense and right reason, to be told of a people who cultivate the knowledge of most other languages, and despise the attainment of those, in which the only foundation of their religion is contained?\u2014We should be ready to say\u2014\"Surely, ignorance is the mother of that people's devotion\"\u2014yet in so saying we must reproach ourselves.\n\nIt is to be remarked, that whenever men have sought dominion over the minds and consciences of their fellow-mortals, they have ever wished to keep them in ignorance; this is by no means to be confined to the church of Rome; the leaders among the fanatical sectaries in the last century, decried all human learning as heathenish, antichristian, and profane.\u2014Dr. South (Sermons, vol. iii. p. 500) observes, that all \"learning was then cried down, so that, with them, the best preachers were they that could not read, and the best divines, such as could not write.\"\u2014\"Latin,\" says he (Sermon intitled Christian Pentecost) \"unto them was a mortal crime, and Greek, instead of being the language of the Holy Ghost (as in the New Testament it is) was looked upon as the sin against it: so that, in a word, they had all the confusion of Babel among them, without the diversity of tongues.\"\n\nWhat's Latin, but the language of the beast?\nHebrew and Greek is not enough a feast:\nHan't we the Word in English, which, at ease,\nWe can convert to any sense we please?\nLet them urge the original, if we\nSay 'twas first writ in English, so't shall be.\nFor we'll have our own way, be't wrong or right,\nAnd say, by strength of faith, the crow is white.\nSee Grey. Hud. vol. i. 280, n. 3d edit.\n\nThe great and learned Mr. Selden was a member of the assembly of divines, anno 1643; and sometimes, when they had cited a text of scripture to prove their assertion, he would tell them\u2014\"Perhaps in your little pocket-Bibles with gilt leaves\" (which they would often pull out and read) \"the translation may be thus, but the Greek or the Hebrew signifies thus and thus;\" and so would totally silence them. Whitlocke, 71.\n\nErasmus.\n\nThis great and learned man was born at Rotterdam, anno 1464 or 1465. Du Pin relates a curious anecdote relative to him. His father Gerard had two sons, by Margaret the daughter of a physician of Tergoes, to whom he had made a promise of marriage; the eldest of these sons was named Peter, and the younger Erasmus. Gerard was resolved to have married Margaret, but his father and brothers would not suffer him to do it; therefore he stole away out of that country and went to Rome, leaving Margaret great with child of her second son. She went to Rotterdam to lie in there, where Erasmus was born.\n\nHis father was at Rome, where he got his bread by writing, when he was informed that Margaret his spouse-elect was dead. He had always entertained hopes, that she should at last become his wife, and was so sensibly touched with the news of her death, that he gave over all thoughts of marriage, and entered into priest's orders. Yet the news proved false; for when he returned into Flanders, he found her still alive, with his two sons, whom she was forced to provide for. Now, though he was no more in a condition to marry, or to live with her, yet he always loved her, and, so long as he lived, he took care of the two sons he had by her. As for himself, he was a man of good learning, had a talent for preaching, and in that employed himself the rest of his life.\n\nErasmus entered into the order of the canons regulars at Stein, when he was about nineteen years of age, but disliking the way of life, he left it, and, at his intreaty, Julius II. gave him a dispensation from his vows. This great man had a soul too enlarged, and a mind too well cultivated, to relish the wretched school-divinity of his day; he wrote many treatises, and brought much controversy upon himself, from men who seemed to have become his enemies, because he wished to tell them some truth. At the request of the Pope, the Emperor, the King of England, the Cardinals, Prince George of Saxony, and his own friends, he at last attacked Luther's book \"de Servo Arbitrio,\" which engaged him in a long controversy with Luther. However, he was suspected in some points of Lutheranism, and some propositions were presented to the parliament of Paris, in 1523, which were censured as erroneous and schismatical, by Natalis Bedda, syndic of the faculty.\n\nErasmus wrote an Apology, in which he detected Bedda's disingenuousness, and refuted his censures; however, a decree against Erasmus was published at Paris 1532.\n\nThe offence which Erasmus gave, by speaking too freely against the monks, the school-divines, and against some superstitions, occasioned him many bitter enemies among the school-divines and monks, who charged him with error, heresy, and impiety. The freedom with which he reproved them, the prejudices they were possessed with against every thing that appeared new, their bigotry in adhering to some common opinions and customs, were the causes of all that trouble which he suffered from them.\n\nIn short, Erasmus, notwithstanding his early prejudices for the church of Rome, declaimed openly against those, who, neglecting those sacred fountains of truth the holy scriptures, spent their time about questions of no moment, and who, neglecting the duties of true religion, too much confided in ceremonies.\u2014He longed for a reformation of manners among the clergy, as the best way of putting an end to those disorders and confusions, which had been occasioned by the handle they had given to their opponents the Lutherans. Instead of this being taken in good part, they selected pieces of his writings, lame and imperfect sentences, detached from what went before, and from what followed after, and thus they obtained the decree against him as before mentioned. His maxim was\u2014\"I desire to do good to all mankind, without offending any man,\"\u2014but he found, as every man will, that this is impossible.\n\nHe died, however, a true Catholic (after refusing a Cardinal's hat) at Basil, where he was rector of the university, anno 1536.\n\nIn one of his epistles he speaks of Tertullian, and seems to endeavour to soften many errors of that father, wherein he mentions the antients as against second marriages, and that they even enjoined celibacy.\n\nIn another, to the bishop of Rochester, he tells him, that, on one side, he had the monks and divines to encounter with, and they designed his ruin; and, on the other, the Lutherans, who fretted at him, because he retarded their triumphs, as they pretended, and would not openly profess Luther's doctrine. He says, there were some things in that doctrine which he did not understand\u2014some which he doubted of\u2014and some which his conscience would not allow him to maintain: and he wished that the disorders which Luther had raised, might be as a bitter and violent potion, which might purge the church.\n\nIn an epistle to Franciscus a Victoria, he mentions an horrid saying of St. Jerome's on the subject of marriage, viz. \"What kind of good can that be, that is only approved of in comparison with something that is more sinful?\"\n\nErasmus wrote a book intitled\u2014\"The institution of a Christian marriage.\"\u2014In the preface he observes, that, \"Of all things in this life, marriage is of the greatest importance\u2014the Pagan philosophers have written of it, with all the prudence that reason could suggest to them. There have been an infinite number of laws made for the durableness and sacredness of marriages.\n\n\"It seems the antient Christians were more negligent of this, than of other things, because the greatest part of them were, by a fervent zeal, wonderfully inclined to celibacy and perpetual virginity. This is the reason that so many of them have made panegyrics on virginity, and have prescribed rules to widows and virgins how to live devoutly, and that few or none of them have done the same to married persons.\"\n\nHe defines marriage, with the lawyers, to be \"A lawful and perpetual union of man and wife, in order to the procreation of children; which includes a partnership of life and goods. That procreation being the end of marriage, it cannot properly be said that marriages, between persons not capable of having children, are true marriages, yet he is satisfied that the church doth approve of them, and that they are in themselves lawful.\n\n\"He speaks occasionally of the ceremonies of antient Pagans in their marriages. He treats very fully of the marriage between Jesus Christ and his church, of which, marriage among Christians is a sacrament or sign.\"\n\nHe says, \"That some antient divines considered marriage only as a sign, and did not acknowledge that it conferred grace, and therefore did not place it in the rank of those that are properly called sacraments of the New Testament; in which, the signs are efficacious by virtue of the covenant, in which God has declared his will. But that the more plausible opinions of modern divines had prevailed, who taught, that in marriage, lawfully solemnized, there is conferred, as in other sacraments, a special gift of the Holy Ghost; by which the man and the woman are confirmed in their resolutions to live together in perpetual agreement\u2014but, as in the other sacraments, we do incur the displeasure of Heaven, if we do not receive them as we ought to do, so the same thing happens in marriage.\"\n\nHe confesses, \"that the primitive Christians had so great a veneration for virgins, that their glory did obscure the glory of marriage. He does not think that every consent makes a true and lawful marriage. It is necessary, that the consent be given by verba de pr\u00e6senti: that it be free and voluntary, and according to the laws.\"\n\nHe relates \"many subtle questions of lawyers concerning this consent, and treats very fully of the obstacles of marriage, as well of those which make it void, as of those which make it unlawful, and would have the obstacle of spiritual relation altogether suppressed.\n\n\"That parents should instruct their children, at about three years of age, to bow at the name of Jesus, and to kiss the crucifix, &c.\"\n\nErasmus was of opinion that St. Paul was married, and he translated \u03b3\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03b5 \u03c3\u03c5\u03b6\u03c5\u03b3\u03b5, Phil. iv. 3. by Germana conjunx, by which, he believed, St. Paul meant his wife, because the person here spoken to, was to minister to the necessities of the female saints.\n\nGaufridus Boussardus,\n\nWrote a treatise concerning the celibacy of the clergy. Upon that question, \"Whether the Pope can permit a priest to marry\"\u2014he lays down seven propositions, viz.\n\nIt is, and always has been, permitted in every place, as well in the Eastern as in the Western church, for the clergy that are in lesser orders to marry.\n\nThat it was allowed, as well in the Eastern as in the Western churches, from the very first beginning of the church, 'till the times of Pope Siricius and Innocent I. to promote married men to the higher orders, including that of the priesthood; and the priests, as well as others, were allowed to live with their wives.\n\nSince the times of the above Popes, it seems it had never been allowed, in the Western church, that married men, who lived with their wives, should be promoted to deacon's or priest's orders; or that those who were promoted to those orders should have wives\u2014or, if they had any, they were obliged to promise that they should live in continency with them. But 'till the times of Pope Gregory, married men might be ordained deacons, without obliging themselves to continence.\n\nSince the time of Pope Gregory I. it has never been allowed in the Western church to ordain any deacons, but those who promise solemnly to live in continence.\n\nIt is and always has been allowed, in the Greek and Oriental churches, that those who are married, may be advanced to orders, even priest's orders, and that they may live with their wives.\n\nIt is not, nor ever was, allowed, that those who are already in holy orders (priests, deacons, or sub-deacons) should marry.\n\nThe Pope may, in some cases, grant a dispensation to a man that is in holy orders to marry.\n\nCardinal Cajetan.\n\nIn a treatise on marriage he teaches, that a marriage solemnized by proxy is not a sacrament, if it be not afterwards ratified by the parties present\u2014That clandestine marriages may be sometimes permitted\u2014That it is absolutely unlawful to converse together as man and wife, before they receive the benediction of the church\u2014That the priesthood does not make a priest absolutely incapable of marrying, and that it does not make void a marriage already contracted\u2014That the priests, when they enter into orders, take upon them the vow of virginity, but the Pope may dispense with it. He may also dispense with the law, which obliges them to live unmarried\u2014That the Pope may dissolve a marriage contracted, but not consummated, and that he may do this not only when either of the parties, or both, are to enter into a monastery, but also for other reasons; because the only reason why the sacrament of marriage is not dissolvable is, that it is the sign of the union of Jesus Christ with his church; but marriage is not a compleat sign of that union, 'till it be consummated. That the Pope can dispense with the vow of chastity, but not with the vow of living unmarried. He maintains the validity of Henry VIII.'s marriage with his sister-in-law.\n\nCornelius Agrippa,\n\nIn his treatise of the sacrament of marriage, extols that sacrament, for the antiquity of its institution, for its generality, and for its being indissoluble, because, that, by marriage, the man and his wife become one flesh, and that a man cannot part with his own flesh; yet he excepts the case of fornication.\n\nHe was greatly censured, for saying \"that marriage was dissolved by adultery.\" He held, that Adam's sin, \"was nothing else, but the carnal knowledge of Eve\"\u2014Et \"serpens Evam tentans, Adami veretrum.\"\n\nJohn Fisher, Bishop of Rochester.\n\nHe maintained, that Jesus Christ has taught, and appointed many things, that are not written in the four gospels, and that the Holy Ghost might teach the church some truths, which Jesus Christ had not taught before. He censures Luther's arrogance, in despising the laws, customs, opinions, and faith of the church: and exhorts all Christian princes not to give ear to his gross impieties; and to employ the same force against Luther's heresies, as they would against Turks, Saracens, and Infidels.\n\nFisher was one of those who refused to put King Henry VIII. in the Pope's place, by acknowledging his Majesty supreme head of the church of England, and taking the appointed oaths\u2014for which he was beheaded, June 17, 1535.\n\nJacobus Latomus.\n\nHe was doctor and professor of divinity at Louvain, and a great controversialist against Luther and his doctrines.\n\nIn a treatise on Marriage, he begins with laying down some principles concerning that sacrament. To prove that a marriage contracted and consummated can only be dissolved by death, he lays it down\u2014\n\nThe sacrament presupposes the contract, and if a stop be put to the contract, the sacrament is null; as if, in baptism, the water were hindered from touching the body, then there would be no baptism.\n\nWhen the contract is valid, and made according to the laws, then, neither the contract nor the sacrament can be made void by the sins of the contractors.\n\nMarriage is indissoluble by the law of God, founded on this divine oracle\u2014They two shall be one flesh\u2014what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.\n\nIt is contrary to the law of the gospel, to say, that a marriage contracted, and consummated, can be dissolved during the lives of the parties; which he proves by the authorities of St. Austin, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, and some other fathers.\n\nFrom these principles he concludes, that a marriage contracted and consummated, can never be dissolved, in the case of adultery. But he maintains, that, when it is not consummated, it is dissolved if either of the parties do enter into a religious order, because the person that does so, is civilly dead.\n\nFranciscus de Victoria,\n\nProfessor of divinity at Salamanca, where he died anno 1546.\n\nIn a lecture on marriage, which he composed on occasion of the divorce of the King of England, he says\u2014\n\nMarriage is an indissoluble contract between man and wife; and there are two ends of it; the one is, the procreation and education of children; and the other is, the mutual assistance that they ought to give one another; that the consent of husband and wife is absolutely necessary to marriage, and to be plain and express per verba de pr\u00e6senti.\n\nThat princes, as well as the church, have power to determine obstacles that break marriages; but that it is in the power of the church to take that power from them, and to discharge them to take the concerns of marriage under their cognizance.\n\nThe obstacles of marriage mentioned in Leviticus, are not all of perpetual obligation, by the laws of God and of nature.\n\nJohannes Cochl\u00e6us,\n\nA great writer against the Lutherans.\u2014He declaimed boldly against the impudence of those, who allowed priests and monks to marry, and all sorts of people to carry away the spouses of Jesus Christ.\n\nCouncil of Trent, begun Dec. 13th, 1545, ended 1563.\n\nThis council may be said to have finally settled and fixed the canon of Popery\u2014to have collected together all the Popish doctrine relative to the sacrament of marriage, celibacy of priests, polygamy, clandestine marriages, and marriage ceremonies, &c. and to have formed the whole into one connected system, which, receiving the Pope's approbation, became the rule of faith touching these matters, and remains so in the church of Rome to this day.\n\nIt would extend this work beyond all reasonable bounds, to set down the various arguments, pro and con, on the several subjects relative to marriage, which were solemnly treated at this famous synod; they may all be found in Brent's translation of \"The History of the Council of Trent, written in Italian by Pietro Soave Polano.\"\u2014Let it suffice that I transcribe the canons formed and published on the occasion, as I find them in my author, p. 784.\n\n\"The doctrine of the sacrament of marriage did contain; that Adam did pronounce the bond of matrimony to be perpetual, and that only two persons may be joined therein; a thing more plainly declared by Christ, who also by his passion hath merited grace to confirm it, and to sanctify those that are joined; which is intimated by St. Paul, when he said that, \"this was a great sacrament in Christ and the church.\" Whereupon matrimony in the evangelical law, exceeding the antient marriages, by addition of grace, is justly numbered among the sacraments of the new law. Therefore the synod, condemning the heresies in this matter, doth constitute the Anathematisms.\u2014N.\u00a0B.\n\n\"Against him that shall say, that matrimony is not one of the seven sacraments instituted by Christ, and doth not confer grace.\n\n\"Or that it is lawful for Christians to have many wives at once, and that it is not forbidden by any law of God.\u2014N.\u00a0B.\n\n\"Or that only the degrees of affinity and consanguinity, expressed in Leviticus, may nullify the marriage, and that the church may not add others, or dispense with some of them.\n\n\"Or that the church cannot constitute impediments, or hath erred in constituting them.\n\n\"Or that one of those who are married may dissolve the matrimony for heresy, troublesome conversation, or voluntary absence of the other.\n\n\"Or that lawful matrimony, not consummated, is not dissolved by a solemn religious vow.\n\n\"Or that the church hath erred in teaching, that the matrimonial bond is not dissolved by adultery.\n\n\"Or that the church doth err in separating those who are married for a determinate or indeterminate time, in respect of carnal conjunction or cohabitation.\n\n\"Or that the ecclesiastics of holy order, or professed regulars, may marry, as also all those who find they have not the gift of chastity, in regard that God doth not deny the gift to him that doth demand it.\n\n\"Or that shall prefer the state of marriage, to virginity and chastity.\n\n\"Or that the prohibition of marriage, in certain times of the year, is superstition, or shall condemn the benedictions and other ceremonies.\n\n\"Or that matrimonial causes do not belong to ecclesiastical judges.\n\n\"The decrees of the reformation of marriage did contain,\n\n\"That, howsoever it be true, that clandestine marriages have been true and lawful, so long as the church hath not disallowed them, and that the synod doth anathematize (i.\u00a0e. curse) him who doth not hold them for such; as also those who affirm, that marriages contracted without consent of parents, in whose power the married persons are, are void, and that the fathers may entirely approve or disapprove them, yet the church hath ever forbidden and detested them.\n\n\"And because prohibitions do no good, the synod doth command, that the matrimony shall be denounced in the church, three festival days, before it be contracted, and, no impediment being found, shall be celebrated in the face of the church, where, the parish priest, having interrogated the man and the woman, and heard their consent, shall say\u2014I join you in matrimony, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and shall use other words accustomed in the province.\n\n\"Notwithstanding, the synod doth refer it to the will of the bishop to omit the banns, but doth declare those to be incapable of marriage who attempt to contract it without the presence of the parish priest, or another priest of equal authority, and of two or three witnesses, making void and nullifying such contracts, and punishing the transgressors.\n\n\"Afterwards it exhorts the parties not to dwell together, before the benediction, and commands the parish priest to have a book, in which marriages, so contracted, shall be written.\n\n\"It exhorts the parties that are to be married to confess, and communicate, before the contract, or consummation of the marriage.\n\n\"It reserveth the customs and ceremonies of every province, and will have this decree to be of force, within thirty days after it shall be published in every parish.\n\n\"Concerning the impediments of marriage; the synod doth affirm, that the multitude of prohibitions, did cause great sins and scandals: therefore it doth restrain that of spiritual cognation, to that which the baptized, and their parents, have with the god-fathers and god-mothers, and the number of these to one man and one woman only. Ordaining the same about the kindred, which doth arise by the sacrament of confirmation.\n\n\"It doth restrain the impediment of honesty, which hath its beginning from contracts, to the first degree only.\n\n\"That of affinity by fornication to the first and second.\n\nN. B. The Albigenses, about the year 1175, taught\u2014that, \"the consent of a willing couple, without the formality of sacerdotal benediction, made a lawful marriage.\"\n\nThe Lollards, cent. 14, laid it down as sound doctrine, that, \"if a man and woman came together with an intention to live in wedlock, this intention is sufficient, without passing through the forms of the church.\"\u2014See before, vol. i. p. 148, 149, 1st edit.\u2014p. 140, 2d edit.\n\nOn the other hand, the church of Rome, and more especially after the time of Pope Innocent III. converted the above scriptural ideas of lawful marriage, into the damnable sin of fornication and whoredom; in this the Protestants have followed them. But where is there so much as a glimpse of scriptural authority for this? Where can there be found a single lawful marriage throughout the whole Bible, if the formality of sacerdotal benediction, or passing through the forms of the church, are necessary to constitute it? There is not the smallest trace of any such thing. Therefore, however this piece of ecclesiastical knavery may be part of the craft by which some have gotten their wealth\u2014yet, as has been shewn at large, as it is subversive of the order of Providence\u2014an insult on the truth of God\u2014and big with ruin to the weaker sex, it may be deemed one of the most wicked, dangerous, and destructive impositions, that ever were invented, or forced on the credulity of mankind.\n\nBut there is something in the words of this canon, as of others to the same purpose, which are to be found in the course of the preceding evidence, which evince the nature and force of truth\u2014it is like the sun; though clouds overwhelm its brightness, and conceal the full blaze of its splendor from our eyes, still it will be perceived sufficiently to make our day\u2014thus will the truth of God, however darkened by error, shine sufficiently through it, to discover its power and influence on the human mind. Here it has forced the Papists into an acknowledgment of it, and such a one as contradicts their whole system on the subject of marriage. For if this be a mere nullity without the forms of the church, how can it raise an affinity between the parties? If it does, what is that affinity or relationship, but that which the scripture hath holden forth to us under the idea of marriage? If it does not, how can there be any affinity reaching between descendents to the first and second degree, when there was none between the parents or ancestors? The idea of a nullity destroys that of affinity\u2014and that of affinity destroys that of nullity. Take the matter either way, it proves that the truth was too hard for them, and above their art to conceal entirely.\n\nWheatly, on the Common Prayer, edit. 7th, p. 424, tells us, that \"bastard children\" (i.\u00a0e. those born only under the law of God and nature) \"are no more at liberty to marry within the degrees of the Levitical law, than those that are legitimate\" (i.\u00a0e. born of parents joined by priestly ceremony.) But why not? If the marriage of the parents is a nullity, the supposed consanguinity or affinity between the descendents must be a nullity also\u2014for out of nothing can come nothing.\n\nThis strange jumble between truth and falshood, making the same marriage to be so valid as to fall within the reach of the Levitical law in respect of the issue, and yet such a nullity with respect to the parties themselves as to be no better than whoredom and fornication, is too palpable inconsistency and contradiction to agree even with itself, and can never be proved to harmonize with the uniform and consistent scheme in God's word.\n\nMr. Wheatly, p. 219. concerning the place where the ceremony is to be performed, expresses himself thus\u2014\"And since God himself doth join those that are lawfully married; certainly the house of God is the fittest place wherein to make this religious covenant. And therefore, by the antient canons of this church, the celebration of matrimony in taverns, and other unhallowed places, is expressly forbidden.\" Here he cites an old Popish canon of Winton, made anno 1287, which was not long after marriage was made a sacrament. And the office is commanded to be performed in the church, not only to prevent all clandestine marriages; but also that the sacredness of the place may strike the greater reverence into the minds of the married couple, while they remember they make this holy vow in the place of God's peculiar presence.\"\n\nThus we see, what reverence is to be paid to the marriage-ceremony, of man's invention, while the ordinance of God's institution (Gen. ii. 24.) if without the former, is dishonoured with the opprobrious stigma of whoredom and fornication.\u2014Surely nothing but the impudence of Popery could ever have dared to have set such an example of contempt.\n\nA Jewish priest, under the law, who had taken upon himself to introduce an uncommanded ceremony into the temple-worship, and had so spoken of it, as to endeavour to persuade the people that it was ordained of God\u2014and that some other ordinance, which was of God, was not to be regarded but as criminal without it\u2014would probably have been stoned to death for sacrilege and blasphemy, by the sentence of the judges of Israel.\n\nFor my own part, I can find just as much scripture authority for changing a civil contract into the form of a sacrament, to be administered, as such, by the hands of a Popish priest, as for turning it into a religious ceremony, to be administered by a Protestant minister at the communion table in a church. And I do believe, that we may venture to suppose, if the former had never been invented, the latter had never been thought of.\n\nOne thing is very certain, that, they almost equally contribute to hide from the eyes of men, the real nature, the true essence, the certain obligation, the antient simplicity, and the appointed efficacy of the primary institution, and thus assist to carry on that scheme of female ruin, which evidently results from vacating every contract but what arises from their own authority.\n\n\"It doth take away all hope of dispensation, for matrimony wittingly contracted in degrees prohibited; and to those who have ignorantly contracted, without the solemnities, in case of probable ignorance, a dispensation\u2014gratis.\n\n\"But to contract in degrees prohibited, a dispensation shall never be granted, or seldom only, for a just cause, without cost; nor in the second degree among princes, except for a public cause.\n\n\"Matrimony shall not be contracted with a woman stolen away, so long as she is in the power of him that did steal her; and doth declare those raptors, and those who do assist them with counsel, aid, or favour, excommunicated, infamous, incapable of all dignity; and the raptor, whether he marry the woman or not, shall be bound to give her a dowry, at the pleasure of the judge.\n\n\"It ordains that vagabonds shall not marry, without a diligent inquisition first made, and licence of the ordinary, exhorting the secular magistrates to punish them severely.\n\n\"It doth ordain against concubinaries, that being admonished thrice by the ordinary, in case they separate not themselves, they shall be excommunicated, and persevering one year after the censure, the ordinary shall proceed severely against them; and the concubines, after three admonitions, shall be punished, and, if the bishop shall think fit, chased out of the territory, by assistance of the secular power.\n\n\"It commandeth every temporal lord and magistrate, upon pain of excommunication, not to compel their subjects, or any others, to marry, directly or indirectly.\n\n\"It doth restrain the antient prohibitions of nuptial solemnities, from Advent to the Epiphany, and from Ash-Wednesday to the octaves of Easter.\"\n\nThe Papists borrowed many things from the heathens, and, among others, the prohibiting marriage at certain religious seasons of their own creating: thus the Romans would not permit those days that were dedicated by them to acts of religion, to be hindered or violated by nuptial ceremonies. See Wheatly on Com. Prayer, edit. 7. p. 427.\n\nThe heathens also were so severe on children's marrying without consent of parents or guardians, as to declare the marriage to be null, and the children to be bastards. The antient canon law of the Greek church, accounts all children who marry without consent of parents, while under their power, to be no better than fornicators, The church of England, before the marriage-act, did not proceed to such extremities, though she took all imaginable care before-hand to prevent such marriages. See Wheatly, 427.\n\nAfter the evidence which has been produced in this chapter, of the insolent and daring attacks upon the divine \u0153conomy, respecting marriage, which were made and carried on for above 1500 years together, to the utter demolition of that plan which was ordained by the Creator, and by His command recorded in the Hebrew scriptures, it is to be hoped we shall hear no more of church-authority for the truth of any thing which is to be believed upon the subject.\n\nWe have been told, \"that the primary command of God Almighty, in which He ordained and blessed the increase of mankind, is antiquated and passed away\u2014that it does not relate to Christians\u2014that the intercourse of the sexes is evil in itself\u2014that marriage was the consequence of sin\u2014that celibacy makes men like angels, and, that in comparison thereof, marriage is sinful\u2014that all second marriages are no better than fornication\u2014that those who do not marry according to the laws of the church, live in whoredom, if they cohabit together\u2014that a new ordinance of marriage was ordained by Jesus Christ, appropriated to Christians, and that the divine \u0153conomy respecting the commerce of the sexes, as revealed by Moses, is totally vacated and destroyed by the law of the gospel\u2014that when the race of mankind was to be increased, before the coming of the Messiah, marriage was to be sought after, and even polygamy allowed; but now it is forbidden\u2014that celibacy and virginity ought to be looked upon as the highest degrees of perfection\u2014that, next to this, is the total abstinence of persons who are married from each other.\"\u2014These most notorious and horribly-destructive lyes, with as many more as would fill a Winchester bushel, may be picked out of the preceding evidence, and may serve to shew us how the credulity of one part of the world can be imposed on by the knavery of the other\u2014and, consequently, how careful we should be, of adverting to any other authority for what we believe, than God's written word.\n\nIn short, the Christian fathers, &c. seem to have endeavoured to contrive a religion of their own, as unlike that of the Bible as they possibly could; insomuch that Jehovah might well complain of them as of revolted Ephraim (Hos. viii. 12.) and say\u2014I have written to them the great things of my law, but they were accounted a strange thing.\n\nThe two great commandments, on which hang all the law and the prophets, contained nothing favourable to clerical ambition, pride, and covetousness, and those more particular precepts, which were derived from them, were too inconsistent with the views of the clergy, to maintain their weight and consequence among them\u2014therefore neither root nor branch were spared, but destroyed by a series of traditional imposition on the minds of men, till the laws of the church, and not the laws of Jehovah, became the measure and rule of right and wrong. Christianity was not looked upon as the unfolding and completion of the mind and will of Jehovah, as revealed and promised in the Hebrew scripture, directing us to make His laws our rule, His word our guide; but as a system independent of every thing but itself, which was to be fashioned and formed into as many shapes as the imaginations of churchmen could give it, and as best suited to promote their total ascendency over the human understanding, their entire dominion over the conscience, and their uncontroulable disposal of the persons and properties of mankind.\n\nThe antient and perfect law of Jehovah, which He, in His infinite wisdom, ordained for the moral government of His reasonable creatures, was too inimical to the designs of ecclesiastical fraud, deceit, and violence, to gain an admission into the plan, either on the subject of marriage, or any thing else.\u2014\"Thus saith the church,\" was the warrant for men's belief; and those who opposed this, were certain to suffer every pain and penalty, which the meanest and most wanton cruelty could suggest:\u2014while wilful murder, adultery, sodomy, crimes made capital by the law of God, were absolved on a few years penance.\n\nSuch was the state of our national Christianity, at the beginning of the reformation\u2014the reformers once more brought the scriptures into view, with what success, as to the matters which are the subjects of these volumes, will be considered in the following chapter.\n\nReferences:\n\nErrata:","title":"Thelyphthora/Volume 3/Chapter 12","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":49524}