supposed (72) or openly commanded (73). The sentence of degradation is pronounced against the priest or deacon who shall presume to marry (74): and the ecclesiastic who had separated from his wife to receive the sacred rite of ordination, and had returned to her again, was condemned to a penitential course of ten or seven years (75). An improvement was made on the severity of the fathers assembled in the great council of Nice, and even female relations were forbidden to dwell in the

ohne Goder deopar de on halıgdom. 7 halig bec

handligan. da rcylon rýmble hyna clannýrre healpan. "God's "priests and deacons, and God's other servants, that should "serve in God's temple, and touch the sacrament and the holy "books, they shall always observe their chastity." Poenit. Eg. p. 133, iv.

(74) Lig mærre preost oppe diacon pifige. doligon hýra hader. "If priest or deacon marry, let them lose their orders." Ibid. i. and p. 134, v. But deposition was the only punishment: the marriage was not annulled. It was only in the twelfth century that holy orders were declared to incapacitate a person for marriage. Pothier, traite du contrat de marr. p. 135./

(75) F hpyle gehadod man, birceop oppe mærre preort oppe munuc oppe diacon hir gemæccan hærde æn he gehadod pæne. I da for Loder luron hig forlet. to have feng. hig donne eft syppan togædere hpyrfdon duɲh hæmed ding. færte ælc be hir endebynoпyrre. rpa hit buran apɲiten yr be manrlite "If any man in orders, bishop, priest, monk, or deacon, had his "wife, ere he were ordained, and forsook her for God's sake, and "received ordination, and they afterwards return together again "through lust, let each fast according to his order, as is written "above with respect to murder." Ibid. p. 136.

same house with a priest (76). During more than two hundred and fifty years from the death of Augustine, these laws respecting clerical celibacy, so galling to the natural propensities of man, but so calculated to impart an elevated idea of the sanctity which becomes the priesthood, were enforced with the strictest rigour: but during part of the ninth, and most of the tenth century, when the repeated and sanguinary devastations of the Danes threatened the destruction of the hierarchy no less than of the government, the ancient canons opposed but a feeble barrier to the impulse of the passions: and of the clergy who escaped the swords of the invaders, several scrupled not to violate the chastity which at their ordination they had vowed to observe. Yet even then the marriage of priests was never approved, perhaps never expressly tolerated, by the Saxon prelates (77): and as often as a transient gleam of tranquillity invited them to turn to their attention to the restoration of dis

(76) . . . Ælcon Lover deope de on clænnyrre Lode deopigan scÿle. ÿs forboden †he napor ne his magan ne operne pifman for nanes peorces dingon inne mid him næbbe. ðilær he duɲh deofler cornunge dær on geringige. Ibid. p. 134, vi.

(77) The only semblance of a proof that these marriages were tolerated, occurs in the regulations for the clergy of Northumbria, published about the year 950, and designed, as I conceive, to direct the officers in the bishop's court. LiF preost cpenan forlate. opɲe nime. anaþema sit. "If a priest forsake his "concubine and take another, let him be accursed." (Wilk p. 219, xxxv.) This by some is explained to imply a permission to keep one concubine, provided she be put on the same footing as a wife: but others, with greater probability, conceive the curse to be directed against him, who having put away one concubine at the requisition of the bishop, had afterwards taken another.

cipline, the prohibitions of former synods were revived, and the celibacy of the clergy was recommended by paternal exhortations, and enforced by the severest penalties (78).

To calculate the probable influence of this institution on the population of nations has frequently amused the ingenuity and leisure of arithmetical politicians; of whom many have not hesitated to arraign the wisdom of those by whom it was originally devised, and of those by whom it is still observed. Yet in defiance of their speculations, several catholic countries continue to be crowded with inhabitants; and to account for the scanty population of others we need only advert to the defects of their constitution, the insalubrity of the cli mate, the establishment of foreign colonies, and the barrenness of a parched and effete soil (79). Neither is it certain that to increase the number of inhabitants is, in all circumstances, to increase the resources of the state; but it is evident that the man, who spends his life in promoting the interests of morality, and correcting the vicious propensities of his fellow creatures, adds more to the sum of public virtue and of public happiness than he whose principal merit is the number of his children. If it be granted that the clerical functions are of

(78) See Wilkins, p. 214, i. 225, viii. 229, Ix. 233, xxxi. 250, v. vi. 268, xii. 286, i. 293, 301, vi. From the severity of the thirty-first canon, published in the reign of Edgar, Johnson is convinced that it must have been composed by St Dunstan. The learned translator had probably forgotten that it was composed two centuries before, and published by Archbishop Egbert. Compare Wilk. p. 136, with p. 233, xxxi.

(79) See on the last cause a curious Dissertation by the Abbe Mann. Transactions of Acad. of Sciences at Manheim, vol. vi.

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high importance to the welfare of the state, it must also be acknowledged that in the discharge of these functions, the unmarried possesses great and numerous advantages over the married clergyman. Unincumbered with the cares of a family, he may dedicate his whole attention to the spiritual improvement of his parishioners: free from all anxiety respecting the future establishment of his children, he may expend without scruple the superfluity of his revenue, in relieving the distresses of the sick, the aged, and the unfortunate. Had Augustine and his associates been involved in the embarrassments of marriage, they would never have torn themselves from their homes and country, and have devoted the best portion of their lives to the conversion of distant and unknown barbarians. Had their successors seen themselves surrounded with numerous families, they would never have founded those charitable establishments, nor have erected those religious edifices, that testify the use to which they devoted their riches, and still exist to reproach the parsimony of succeeding generations (80). But it was not from the

(80) "He that hath wife and children," saith Lord Bacon, "hath given hostages to fortune: for they are impediments to "great enterprises either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the

"best works, and of the greatest merit for the public, have pro❝ceeded from the unmarried or the childless man, which both "in affection and means have married and endowed the public. "... Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best ser"vants.... A single life doth well with churchmen: for "charity will hardly water the ground, where it must first fill a "pool." Bacon's essays, p. 17, London 1696. A Roman philosopher was of the same opinion. Vita conjugalis altos et generosos spiritus frangit, et a magnis cogitationibus ad humillimas detrahit. Seneca.

impolicy of the institution, that the reformers attempted to justify the eagerness with which they emancipated themselves from its yoke (81). They contended that the law of clerical celibacy was unjust, because it deprived man of his natural rights, and exacted privations incom> patible with his natural propensities. To this objection a rational answer was returned: that to accept the priestly character was a matter of election, not of necessity: and that he, who freely made it the object of his choice, chose at the same time the obligations annexed to it. The insinuation that a life of continency was above the power of man, was treated with the contempt which it deserved. To those, indeed, whom habit had rendered the obsequious slaves of their passions, it might appear with reason too arduous an attempt: but the thinking part of mankind would hesitate before they sanctioned an opinion which was a libel on the character of thousands, who in every department of society, are confined by their circumstances to a state of temporary or perpetual celibacy.

(81) It is amusing to hear the reasons assigned by Bale for his union with the faithful Dorothy. Scelestissimi antichristi characterem illico abrasi, et ne deinceps in aliquo essem tam detestabilis bestiæ creatura, uxorem accepi Dorotheam fidelem, divinæ huic voci auscultans; qui se non continet, nubat. Baleus de seip. Cent. viii. c. ult.