This was their practice: what was their Constitution? Look in these Canons, which the Romish Church fathers upon the Apostles; and Franciscus Turrian, their Jesuit, sweats to defend it in a whole volume. There you find, Canon V. enacted, That "no Bishop, Presbyter, Deacon, shall forsake his wife," πρоþáσeι evλaßelas "in pretence of religion, upon pain of deposition." It would move laughter, to see how the Jesuits gnaw upon this bone, and suck in nothing but the blood of their own jaws; while the sixth General Council avers and proclaims this sense truly Apostolical, in spite of all contradiction'. Follow the times now; and descend lower: what did the ages succeeding? Search records: whatever some palpablyfoisted Epistles of Popes insinuate, they married, without scruple of any contrary injunction. Many of those ancients admired virginity; but imposed it not. Amongst the rest, Origen, though himself a wilful eunuch, is fain to persuade the sons of clergymen, not to be proud of their parentage. After this, when the Fathers of the Nicene Council went about to enact a law of continency, Socrates the historian expresses it thus: "It seemeth good," saith he, "to the Bishops, to bring in a new law into the Church." It was then new, and they but would have brought in it; therefore, before, it was not where we know how Paphnutius "; himself a virgin, famous for holiness, famous for miracles; rising, Boa μaxрà, "cried loud," that they ought not to lay this Bápov (vyòv "heavy yoke," upon men of the Church. His arguments won assent: he spake, and prevailed: so this liberty was still continued and confirmed. If this be not plain enough; holy Athanasius, a witness past exception, shall serve for a thousand histories till his age. "Many Bishops," saith he, “have not married; and, contrarily, Monks have been fathers of children: as, contrarily, you see Bishops, the fathers of children; and Monks, that have not sought posterity *."

4 Ἐπίσκοπος, ή πρεσβύτερος ἢ διάκονος τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα μὴ ἐκβαλλέτω (non ejiciat) προφάσει εὐλαβείας: Εάν δὲ ἐκβαλῆ, ἀφοριζέσθω; ἐπιμένων δὲ, καθαι· peio0w. Can. Apost. 5.

r Constant. 6. l. iii. Can. Quoniam Canon Apostolicæ áкpißeías. Nos, sequentes veterem canonem apostolicæ àкpißɛías, et constitutiones sacrorum virorum, legales nuptias amodò valire volumus, &c.

Qui à Christianis parentibus enutriti sunt, &c. maximè si fuerint ex patribus sacerdotali sede dignificatis. i. Episcopatus, presbyteratus, aut diaconatus, ne glorientur. Orig. Tr. 8. in Matt.

Visum erat Episcopis legem novam introducere in Ecclesiam. Socr. 1. i. c. 8. Signa per Paphnutium, non minùs, quàm dudum per apostolos fiebant. Ruff. 1. i. c. 4. Paphnutius, miraculis et pietate clarus, obtinuit in Nicená synodo habendum pro castitate cum propria uxore concubitum. Soc. 1. i. c. 8.

* Multi ex Episcopis matrimonia non iniêrunt: Monachi, contrà, parentes liberorum facti sunt: quemadmodum, vicissim, Episcopos filiorum patres, et Monachos generis potestatem non quæsivisse animadvertas. Athanas. Epist. ad Dracont.

Would you yet have instances of the former and the next age? Here you have Numidicus, the martyr, a married Presbyter; Cheremon, of Nilus, a married Bishop; Demetrianus, Bishop of Antioch, whose son Domnus succeeded Paulus Samosatenus; Philonomus and Phileas, Bishops of the Thmuites; Gabinius, brother of Eutychianus, Bishops of Rome; the father of Nazianzen, Basil, and the other Gregory, Hilarius, and that good Spiridion, Bishop of Cyprus, of whom Sozomen gives so direct testimony. To omit others, what should I speak of many Bishops of Rome, whose sons, not spurious as now-a-days, but, as Gratian himself witnesses, "lawfully begot in wedlock;" followed their fathers in the pontifical chair? The reason whereof, that author himself ingenuously rendereth; for that "marriage was every where lawful to the clergy, before the prohibition;" which must needs be late; "and, in the Eastern Church, to this day is allowed "." What need we more testimonies, or more examples? Whatever Heliodorus, Bishop of Trica, a man fitter for a wanton love-story than a Church controversy, brought into the Church of Thessalia, Socrates thus flatly writes of those Bishops of his time: "For many of them, in the place and function of Bishop, beget children of their lawful wives."

This was practised: see what was decreed in that sixth General Councils of Constantinople, to this purpose, to the confusion of all repliers. If any Protestant Church in Christendom can make a more peremptory, more full and absolute,

Numidicus presbyter, qui uxorem concrematam et adhærentem lateri lætus asperit. Cypr. 1. iv. Ep. 10.

Ex Dionysio. Euseb. I. vi. c. 41. Euseb. 1. vii. cap. 29. 1. viii. c. 9. in locum patris sui Episcopus subrogatus. Greg. Nissen, frater Basilii, teste habuit: sed non propterea fuit in rebus et Sozom.

Gregorius verò apud Nazianzum oppidum
Ruffin. 1. ii. c. 9.

Nicephoro, uxoratus, uxorem_et_liberos
exercitiis diurnis inferior vel deterior.

e De legitimis conjugiis nati. d Cùm ergo ex sacerdotibus nati in summos Pontifices legantur esse promoti, non sunt intelligendi de fornicatione sed de legitimis connubiis nati; que sacerdotibus ubique ante prohibitionem licita erant, et in Orientali Ecclesiá usque hodie eis licere probantur. Dist. lvi. Cenoman. e The Author of the Ethiopic History.

Nam non pauci illorum, dum Episcopatum gerunt, etiam liberos ex uxore legitima procreant. Socrat. lib. v. cap. 21.

The words of that Council are thus truly translated by Chemnitius : Quoniam in Romaná Ecclesiá, loco canonis seu decreti, traditum esse cognovimus, at ii, qui digni habendi sunt ordinatione diaconi vel presbyteri, profiteantur se deinceps cum uxoribus suis non congressuros; nos, sequentes veterem canonem apostolica, sincera, exquisita et ordinata constitutionis, legitimas sacrorum virorum cohabitationes conjugales etiam ex hodierno die in posterum valere ratas et firmas esse volumus; nullo modo eorum cum uxoribus propriis conjunctionem seu copulationem dissolventes. Itaque, si quis dignus inveniatur, &c. is minimè prohibendus est ad hunc gradum ascendere, ideò quòd cum legitimá uxore cohabitet: nec tempore ordinationis suæ ab eo postuletur, seu cogatur ut abstinere velit aut debeat legitimo congressu cum propriá uxore.

sons,

more cautelous decree, for the marriage of ecclesiastical perlet me be condemned as faithless: a place, I grant, miserably handled by our adversaries; and, because they cannot blemish it enough, indignly torn out of the Councils. What dare not impudency do: against all evidences of Greek copies", against their own Gratian, against pleas of antiquity? This is the readiest way: whom they cannot answer, to burn; what they cannot shift off, to blot out; and, to cut the knot, which they cannot untie.

The Romanists of the next age were somewhat more equal: who, seeing themselves pressed with so flat a decree, confirmed by authority of emperors, as would abide no denial, began to distinguish upon the point; limiting this liberty only to the Eastern Church, and granting that all the Clergy of the East might marry, not theirs. So Pope Stephen the Second freely confesses: "The tradition," saith he, "of the Eastern Churches is otherwise, than that of the Roman Church: for, their priests, deacons, or subdeacons, are married; but, in this Church, or the Western, no one of the clergy, from the subdeacon to the bishop, hath leave to marry." Liberally; but not enough: and, if he yield this, why not more? Shall that be lawful in the East, which in the West is not? Do the Gospels or Laws of equity alter, according to the four corners of the world? Doth God make difference betwixt Greece and England? If it be lawful, why not every where? if unlawful, why is it done any where? So then you see, we differ not from the Church in this; but from the Romish Church. But this Sacred Council doth not only universally approve this practice, with pain of deposition to the gainsayers; but avouches it for a Decree Apostolical. Judge now, whether this one authority be not enough to weigh down a hundred petty conventicles; and many legions, if there had been many, of private contradictions.

Thus, for seven hundred years, you find nothing but open freedom. All the scuffling arose in the eighth age: wherein yet this violent imposition found many and learned adversaries; and durst not be obtruded, at once. Lo, even then Gregory the Third, writing to the Bishops of Bavaria, gives this disjunct charge: "Let none keep a harlot, or a concubine; but either let him live chastely, or marry a wife; whom it shall not be lawful for him to forsake:" according to that rule of Clerks, cited from Isidore', and renewed in the Council of Mentzm; to h Citatur â Nilo Thessalonicensi.

Aliter se Orientalium habet traditio Ecclesiarum; aliter hujus sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesia: nam, eorum sacerdotes, diaconi, aut subdiaconi, matrimonio copulantur; istius autem Ecclesia, vel Occidentalium, nullus sacerdotum, à subdiacono usque ad episcopum, licentiam habet conjugium sortiendi, Dist. xxxi.

Nemo scorta, aut concubinam, alat; sed aut custè vivat, aut uxorem ducat; quam repudiare fas non esto. Dist. xxiii. m Anno 813.

the perpetual shame of our juggling adversaries. Nothing can argue guiltiness, so much, as unjust expurgations. Isidore saith, "Let them contain; or let them marry but one":" they cite him, "Let them contain ;" and leave out the rest: somewhat worse than the Devil cited Scripture.

But, I might have spared all this labour of writing, could I persuade whosoever either doubts or denies this, to read over that one Epistle, which Huldericus, Bishop of Auspurge, wrote, learnedly and vehemently, to Pope Nicholas the First, in this subject: which if it do not answer all cavils, and satisfy all readers, and convince all (not wilful) adversaries, let me be cast, in so just a cause. There you shall see, how just, how expedient, how ancient this liberty is; together with the feeble and injurious grounds of forced continency. Read it; and see whether you can desire a better advocate.

After him, so strongly did he plead and so happily, for two hundred years more, this freedom still blessed those parts; yet, not without extreme opposition. Histories are witnesses of the busy and not unlearned combats of those times, in this argument.

But now, when the body of antichristianism began to be complete, and to stand up in his absolute shape, after a thousand years from Christ; this liberty, which before wavered under Nicholas I. now, by the hands of Leo IX. Nicholas II. and that brand of hell, Gregory VII. was utterly ruined, wives debarred, single life urged: "A good turn for whoremasters," saith Aventine, "who now, for one wife, might have six hundred bedfellows P." But, how approved of the better sort, appears, besides that the Churches did ring of him eachwhere for Antichrist, in that, at the Council of Worms, the French and German Bishops deposed this Gregory; in this name, amongst other quarrels, for "separating man and wife "." Violence did this; not reason: neither was God's will here questioned; but, the Pope's wilfulness. What broils hereon ensued, let Aventine witness".

The bickerings of our English Clergy with their Dunstans, about this time, are memorable in our own histories; which

■ Clerici castimoniam inviolati corporis perpetuò conservare studeant; aut certè unius matrimonii vinculo fæderentur, Isid. Reg. Cleric.

• Whether Huldericus, or, as he is somewhere entitled, Volusianus; I enquire not the matter admits of no doubt. Huldericus Episcopus Augustæ. Anno 860. Æneas Sylv. in suâ Germ. Hedim. Eccl. hist. lib. viii. cap. 2. Fox, in Acts and Monum., hath it fully translated.

P Aventin. 1. 5. Gratum scortatoribus, quibus, pro uná uxore, sexcentas jam mulierculas inire licebat. 4 Anno 1076. r Maritos ab uxoribus separat. • Ex interdicto sacerdotum conjugio, gravissima seditio gregem Christi perculit: nec unquam talis lues populum Christi afflixit. Avent. 1. v.

Henric Huntingdon, de Anselmo 1. vii. de An. 1100, in Synodo Londinensi: Prohibuit sacerdotibus uxores, ante non prohibitas. Anselm," saith that

VOL. VI.

M

teach us how late, how repiningly, how unjustly, they stooped under this yoke. I would rather send my reader to Bale and Fox, than abridge their Monuments, to enlarge my own.

I have, I hope, fetched this truth far enough; and deduced it low enough, through many ages, to the midst of the rage of antichristian tyranny. There, left our liberty: there, began their bondage. Our liberty is happily renewed with the Gospel: what God, what his Church hath ever allowed, we do enjoy. Wherein we are not alone: the Greek Church, as large for extent as the Roman, and in some parts of it better for their soundness, do thus; and thus have ever done.

Let Papists and Atheists say what they will; it is safe erring with God, and his purer Church.

EPISTLE IV.

TO MY SISTER MRS. B. BRINSLY.

Of the Sorrow not to be repented of.

It is seldom seen, that a silent grief speeds well: for, either a man must have strong hands of resolution to strangle it in his bosom; or else it drives him to some secret mischief: whereas, sorrow revealed, is half remedied; and ever abates in the uttering. Your grief was wisely disclosed; and shall be as strangely answered.

I am glad of your sorrow; and should weep for you, if you did not thus mourn. Your sorrow is, that you cannot enough grieve for your sins. Let me tell you, that the angels themselves sing at this lamentation; neither doth the earth afford any so sweet music, in the ears of God. This heaviness is the way to joy. Worldly sorrow is worthy of pity; because it leadeth to death: but this deserves nothing but envy and gratulation.

If those tears were common, hell would not so enlarge itself. Never sin, repented of, was punished; and never any thus mourned, and repented not. Lo, you have done that, which you grieve you have not done. That good God, whose act is his will, accounts of our will as our deed. If he required sorrow proportionable to the heinousness of our sins, there were no end of mourning: now, his mercy regards not so much the measure, as the truth of it; and accounts us to have that, which we complain to want.

historian, "was the first, that forbad marriage to the clergy of England;" and this was about the year of our Lord 1080; "till then ever free." Item Fabianus liberos ait fuisse sacerdotes per annos 1080.