Listen, catechist, to a plain observation made by the great apostle. A state of celibacy leaves us free to pursue a holy vocation without care, without obstruction; but the state of marriage involves the person who engages in it, in worldly concerns and anxious solicitude. If, therefore, the work of God should be performed not with negligence and indifference, but with religious zeal and holy fervour; if the salvation of souls demands the undivided care of the Christian minister, is it not highly proper and decorous, that the church should persevere in the plan which she has hitherto pursued ? If various situations in the service of temporal sovereigns often render inconvenient, and in many instances wholly preclude, the state of marriage; if numberless accidents constrain an immense mass of human beings to live unmarried, why should the church be debarred from claiming the undivided, the unobstructed care of its ministers? The catechist would probably have avoided, with extreme caution and reserve, all mention of this subject, if he had reflected on the doctrine laid down in the very first act of the legislature, by which the established clergy were permitted to marry. In this statute of the second of Edward VI. it is declared, that I were much to be desired, that priests and all others in holy orders might abstain from marriage, that thereby, being freed from the cares of wedlock, and abstracted from

the thoughts of domestical business, they might more diligently attend the ministry, and apply themselves unto their studies1. Such is the language contained in this celebrated statute: and let me ask, with what share of decency can any writer, belonging to the establishment, reproach the Catholic church with error, in following a doctrine which is thus rationally and forcibly commended in such a quarter? Let the inconsiderate catechist, whenever in future he shall engage in a religious contest, beware of turning his own weapons against himself.

I am really conferring too much honour on the flimsy statements of the catechist, to shew their fallacy, by authentic documents of Christian antiquity; but, perhaps, a few substantial proofs of the discipline, pursued by the church in this matter, may not prove unacceptable to the reader. The law of celibacy, by which Catholic clergymen are bound, is purely ecclesiastical, but founded on the grave and solid reasons before cited from St. Paul, and sanctioned even by a Protestant legislature. It is unquestionably derived from a pious and sacred custom, which prevailed in the apostolic age. During the three first centuries, it was enforced by the general fervour which animated every breast, and maintained by the spirit of zeal, which inflamed the

1 See Heylin's Hist. Reform. Ed. VI. ad an. 1548, p. 67.

ministers of religion. In the fourth century, we find it established by positive injunctions. In the council of Elvira, held in 305, we observe direct commands addressed to all bishops, priests, deacons, and sub-deacons, to live in a state of continence, under pain of degradation from their rank1. In the council of Neocæsarea, held about the same time, a similar law was framed under the same penalty. In the great council of Nice, it is strictly forbidden, that any clergyman should live in the society of a woman, except a mother, sister, aunt, or such as cannot excite suspicion3. A threat of degradation is pronounced against those who shall violate this injunction. So general was the observance of this law, that when about the close of the same century, St. Jerom wrote against Vigilantius, who censured the celibacy of the clergy, that learned father declared the conduct of his opponent to be an injury to the apostles and martyrs. He affirms it to be a general law of all the distinguished churches in the catholic world, to admit those only to holy orders who were unmarried, or lived in a state of continence; or who, if they had wives, should consent to a separation".

' Can. 33.

• Can. 1.

3 Can. 3.

▲ Vid. Carranz. fol, 33, 36, 45, 53.

5 Quæ (nempe ecclesiæ) aut virgines clericos accipiunt, aut continentes; aut si uxores habuerint, mariti esse desistunt. St. Hier. contra Vigilant. libello 2o versus init.

That this same salutary discipline was rigorously enforced by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, we learn from the most authentic sources. In a cannon framed in the eighth century, at the period when archbishop Egbert governed the see of York, we read the following injunction: "Let priests by no means marry wives, but love the church." And again occurs the following peremptory mandate :-" If a priest or deacon should take a wife, let him lose his rank1."

What answer will the wisdom of the catechist frame to all these grave authorities? Will he continue to repeat with his friends, in the true spirit of ignorance and misrepresentation, that the law of clerical celibacy is a tyrannical injunction, introduced by the Popes, during the middle ages, for political purposes, and that it is condemned even by writers in our own communion? The first of these pleas has been amply refuted; of the second, it may be briefly observed, that the opinion of any individual, however respectable, can have no weight, till the church shall think proper to make an alteration in her discipline. But let us hear the specific objections produced by the catechist.

I. He says, that St. Paul permits bishops and

I Wilks Conc. Vol. I. 112. can. 160 Sacerdotes autem nequaquam uxores ducant, sed ecclesiam diligant. Item 133, can. 1. Si presbyter vel diaconus uxorem ducat, perdat ordinem suum. Item 134. can. 5- it. 136.

priests to marry, as appears from 1 Tim. iii. 2, 11. Tit. i. 6.

Truly the catechist grossly mistakes the meaning of St. Paul, if he imagines that these passages give a license to bishops and priests to marry. It was indeed customary in that age of fervour, when sanctity pervaded every class of Christians, often to select married persons to fill the highest dignities of the church. Many of the brightest ornaments that have dignified her history, have been taken from that station. But even here the church has shewn extreme delicacy; for she has always declined to choose those who had been twice married. A second marriage, though lawful, has been deemed an indication of a sensual attachment to carnal pleasure. A bishop or a priest is thus required to be a husband of one wife; pas yuvaixòs ding; he must be one who has not engaged in a second marriage. Whenever the choice was made among married men for candidates for holy orders, the persons thus chosen lived ever afterwords in a state of continency; and of this fact, St. Jerom is an unexceptionable witness. His words are so clear on the subject, that language cannot supply information in a more perpicuous form. The apostles," says he, "were either virgins, or lived in a state of continence after marriage. Bishops, priests, deacons, are either selected among virgins or widowers;

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