it had gotten head in the Church, ran like fire in a train. Those provinces, that held correspondence at Rome, according to the charge of Gregory *, spake as she did prompt them. What should they do, but follow their mistress? the Greek Church, and those that either had dependance upon it, or which had continued in the succession of this custom of marriage, still maintaining the lawfulness and use of it inviolable. So, then, in sum, this he hath gained, which I am ready ever to avow; the ancientest Councils are against him; the later are against us; and God, with us, against them: of which we have learned to say †, Væ vobis, filii desertores, ut faceretis Concilium, et non ex me; "Woe to you, rebellious children, that you should hold your Council, and not of me." And if his mistress of Rome have elsewhere found vassals, it follows not, that we may not be free. Yea, it is more than manifest, by those evidences we have already produced from their own records, that, notwithstanding this cogged number of his provincial Synods, and Private Decrees (as Volusian terms them ‡,) all the time of the first 700 years, the freedom of this practice continued in many parts of the Christian World. Insomuch as, amongst the rest, the Church of Armenia, for the time of the years mentioned, upheld a tradition, not to admit of any Clergyman, but those, which descended ex genere Sucerdotali; " descended from Priests §." Witness the Fathers of Constantinople, in their three and thirtieth Canon: where my Detector should do well to enquire, what Balsamon's Clerici Chrysobullati means. Sure I am, that this example sufficiently proves the practical liberty of those Churches, in the questioned limits of the seven first centuries. To which we may add the Church of Bulgaria, out of his Gratian -the Church of Germany, out of Aventine ¶-the Church of Ireland, out of Bernard ** : (who confesses the Episcopal See of Armagh to have been furnished with a lineal descent of Bishops for eight generations, before the time of his Malachias, which were still both uxorati and literati: how those men were Bishops and yet sine Ordinibus, is a riddle, which, I confess, I cannot aread: perhaps, they were without Roman Orders; but, if they were not Clerks after the then Irish fashion, what needed they be literati, that they might be Bishops ?)-the Church of our Britain, as we shall see in the process, and others. * Ad similitudinem Sedis Apostolicæ, eos cuncta observare constituat. Greg. Epist. l. iii. 34. † Gnapheus Orat, in defens. Io. Pistorii. Privata decreta. § Concil. Constant. vi. Can. 33. Quoniam cognovimus in Armeniorum regione eos solùm in Cleri Ordinem referri, qui sunt ex genere Sacerdotali. || Dist. 28. Annal. Boiorum: suprà. ** Vita. S. Malach. Lib. Synod. Wigorn. Eccles. Canon. Concil. Hibern, sub Patricio, Auxilio Isernino. Quicunque Clericus, ab ostiario usque ad Sacerdotem, sine tunicâ visus fuerit, &c. et uxor ejus sine velato capite ambulaverit, pariter à laicis contemnantur, &c. Matth. Park. Def. of Pr. Mar. These are more than enough, to let the world see this restraint, for all this pretence of provincial and partial Councils, never universally obtained. SECT. XVII. YET the man, having unmercifully crushed me in pieces with this empty bladder of windy and worthless authority, crows over me, thus, in conclusion: "And, truly, to me he seemeth not to be more mad, than blind: for, otherwise, he would never have proclaimed this freedom of seven hundred years, seeing the very form of words, used by his own Sacred Council, doth so strongly withstand his fond collection: for, there it is decreed, Qui sunt in sacris, &c. We will, that the marriages of such as be in Holy Orders, from this time forward, be firm and valid;' for, in case this freedom had been common before, why did they say, Deinceps, 'from this time forward?'" Thus he. Wherein I would his Superiors did but see, how kindly he buffets himself. For, if this be the force of deinceps, or a modò †, I thus argue against him: he hath pleaded before, that neither this nor any other Church ever allowed or ever practised the celebration of marriage after Ordination: now, if he turn to the Sixth Canon of this Council of Constantinople, he shall find Decernimus, ut nulli deinceps hypodiacono, &c: "We decree, that from henceforward no Sub-Deacon, Deacon, or Priest may marry after his Ordination ;" therefore, by the force of his inference, before this time, for almost seven hundred years, this was commonly practised. And now, to answer my Refuter's deinceps: if his wit had been any way matchable with his malice, he might have seen that this deinceps had relation to the Roman Church, not to the Greek: for, if he know not, this Synod meant to prescribe laws to his mistress ; and to correct that their injurious tradition of restraint; and to enlarge this liberty through all the territories of the Universal Church. For this purpose, is the deinceps of the Constantinopolitan Fathers; who well knew, how much it needed in the Western Church, which had enthralled their Clergy in the bondage of that unlawful prohibition. So as the Refuter, while he plays upon my want of logic, in not descrying the dangerous necessity of this inference upon me, plainly bewrays his own want of brains, in not descrying the folly of his objection: and where he tells me ‡, like a dull jester, that "all the walls and windows, from the hall to the kitchen, may mourn to see an University-man have so little wit;" I must tell him, that all the doors of Doway may leap off their hinges, to see their champion so childishly absurd. Now, then, to answer his idle epilogue §: if it appear that his own Pope and Canonist, and the received histories of the Church, and the examples of several nations and persons acknowledge this ancient liberty, both in the Eastern and (some) Western Churches, de facto; and Moses and the Prophets, Christ and his Apostles, the ancient Councils with this Sixth of Constantinople, approve it de jure it follows, that the necessary imposition of professed continency is but a part of that sour milk, wherewith the She-Wolf of the Seven-Hills feeds the faction of her Romulists and Rhemists; and none of that wholesome sustenance, which God and his purer Church have provided for their children. THE HONOUR OF THE MARRIED CLERGY MAINTAINED, &c. THE THIRD BOOK. SECT. I. THE marriage of Ecclesiastics, which had the common allowance of the first times, had, in some parts, but the connivance of the subsequent, and the prohibition of the last. Those Churches, that were not parties to the faction of Rome, could not but be much moved with so peremptory a decree of a famous Council; reducing them, in this point, to the exactness of Apostolic institution; and professing to rectify that Roman deviation. No marvel, therefore, if, not long after, there ensued a collision of opposite parts, and much scuffling betwixt the abettors of antichristian servitude and evangelical liberty; whom this hedgecreeper dare term "incontinent Grecians," "Schismatics," "Heretics." His pen is no slander. The multitude of his Synods, wherein was such reiteration of the same law, shews the opposition which it still found in the Church, and the prevailing use of the contrary practice. The Epistle of Pope Gregory the Third to the Clergy of Bavaria, which gives that disjunct charge, "Of either living chastely, or marrying a wife whom they may not divorce," is no where, forsooth, extant, because he finds it not in his Binius, or Baronius +! As if no water had gone beside their mill. And, here, I am threatened with the Cornelian Law for forgery; no less crime. To avoid the peril whereof, let my far-seen Detector turn to the Bavarian Annals of Aventine *, in the third book: there he shall find it: an Epistle, sent to Vivilus and the other Clergy of Bavaria, by the hands of Martinian, George, Dorotheus, a Bishop, Priest, Deacon, with this express disjunction, Aut castè vivat, aut uxorem ducat, &c. That, which he brings † from the successor of this Gregory, Zacharias, shews what his Pope wished, when he had gotten better footing in Germany: but the success makes for us; for B. Boniface either never durst, or at least never did urge these rules to his Germans. So, I hope, his mouth is stopt for my forged testimony of his Gregory; which could not, in his conceit be other, because he never saw it peep forth "before this, in other men's books." I wis nothing ever looked forth of the press, that escaped that bookish eye! Witness the next passage, which if his Superiors could have had the leisure to have viewed, they had blushed at their champion. This charge of Gregory, I said, was "according to that rule of Clerks, cited from Isidore, and renewed in the Council of Mentz;' but, by our juggling adversaries, clipped in the recital. Here, the man cries out, as before of forgery, so now of ignorance ; telling his readers, that I have only taken this upon trust from another's note-book. Reader, by this judge of the spirit of my Detractor. It is true; Isidore wrote no book of this title: but, in the second book of his Ecclesiastical Offices, he makes the title of his second chapter, De Regulis Clericorum; "Of the Rules of Clerks." From this chapter, I cite a confessed passage, and am thus censured; whereas, the Council of Mentz cites it by this very style, Sicut in Regulá Clericorum dictum est; "As it is said in the Rule of Clerks.” Is it simplicity, that he knows not this title of Isidore? or maliciousness, that he conceals it? One of them is unavoidable. It is clear then, to his shame, if he have any, that the testimony is aright cited. And is it less clear, that it is maimed, and cut off by the hams, in their Moguntine Council §? Compare the places, the fraud shall be manifest. That Council, in the tenth chapter, professes to transcribe verbatim the words of Isidore in the fore-cited tract: and, where Isidore saith, Castimoniam inviolati corporis perpetuò conservare studeant, aut certè unius matrimonii vinculo fæderentur; "Let them live chaste, or marry but one;" their good Clerks have utterly left out the latter clause, and make Isidore charge his Clerks with perpetual continency; "Let them live chaste." He, that denies this, let him deny that there is a sun in the heaven, or light in that sun. What need I say more? Let the books speak. Here, my Refuter doth so shuffle and cut, that any man may see he speaks against his own heart. For, to omit his strained mis-inter * Avent, Boiorum Annot. 1. iii. + Refut. p. 244. § Conc. Mogunt. i. |