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self; and to separate them wholly from all other interests, ART. but those of the ecclesiastical authority: and that he might XXXII. load the married Clergy with an odious name, he called them all Nicolaitans; though the accounts that the ancients give us of that sect say nothing that related to this matter; but a name of an ill sound goes a great way in an ignorant age. The writers that lived near that time condemn this severity against the married Clergy, as a new and a rash thing, and contrary to the mind of the holy Fathers; and they tax his rigour in turning them all out. Yet Lanfranc among us did not impose the celibate generally on all the Clergy, but only on those that lived at cathedrals and in towns; he connived at those who served in villages. Anselm carried it farther, and imposed it on all the Clergy without exception: yet he himself laments that unnatural lusts were become then both common and public; of which Petrus Damiani made great complaints in Gregory the Seventh's time. Bernard, in a sermon preached to the Clergy of France, says it was common in his time, and then even Bishops with Bishops lived in it. The observation that Abbot Panormitan made of the progress of that horrid sin, led him to wish that it might be left free to the Clergy to marry as they pleased. Pius the Second said, that there might have been good reasons for imposing the celibate on the Clergy; but he believed there were far better reasons for leaving them to their liberty. As a remedy to these more enormous crimes, dispensations for concubinate became so common, that, instead of giving scandal by them, they were rather considered as the characters of modesty and temperance: in such concubinary Priests the world judged themselves safe from practices on their own families.

When we consider those effects that followed on the imposing the celibate on the Clergy, we cannot but look on them as much greater evils than those that can follow on the leaving it free to them to marry. It is not to be denied but that, on the other hand, the effects of a freedom to marry may be likewise bad: that state does naturally involve men in the cares of life, in domestic concerns, and it brings with it temptations both to luxury and covetousness. It carries with it too great a disposition to heap up wealth, and to raise families: and in a word, it makes the Clergy both look too like, and live too like the rest of the world. But when things of this kind are duly balanced, ill effects will appear on both hands: those arise out of the general corruption of human nature, which does so spread itself, that it will corrupt us in the most in

ART. nocent, and in the most necessary practices. There are XXXII. excesses committed in eating, drinking, and sleeping. Our depraved inclinations will insinuate themselves into us in our best actions: even the public worship of God and all devotion receive a taint from them. But we must not take away those liberties, in which God has left human nature free, and engage men to rules and methods, that put a violence upon mankind: this is the less excusable, when we see, in fact, what the consequences of such restraints have been for many ages.

Yet after all, though they who marry, do well; yet those who marry not, do better, provided they live chaste, and do not burn. That man, who subdues his body by fasting and prayer, by labour and study, and that separates himActs vi. 4. self from the concerns of a family, that he may give himself wholly to the ministry of the word, and to prayer, that lives at a distance from the levities of the world, and in a course of native modesty and unaffected severity, is certainly a burning and shining light: he is above the world, free from cares and designs, from aspirings, and all those restless projects which have so long given the world so much scandal: and therefore those, who allow themselves the liberty of marriage, according to the laws of God and the Church, are indeed engaged in a state of many temptations, to which if they give way, they lay themselves open to many censures, and they bring a scandal on the Reformation for allowing them this liberty, if they abuse it.

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It remains only to consider how far this matter is altered by vows; how far it is lawful to make them; and how far they bind when they are made. It seems very unreasonable and tyrannical to put vows on any, in matters in which may not be in their power to keep them without sin. No vows ought to be made, but in things that are either absolutely in our power, or in things in which we may procure to ourselves those assistances that may enable us to perform them. We have a federal right to the promises that Christ has made us, of inward assistances to enable us to perform those conditions that he has laid on us; and therefore we may vow to observe them, because we may do that which may procure us aids sufficient for the execution of them. But if men will take up resolutions, that are not within those necessary conditions, they have no reason to promise themselves such assistances: and if they are not so absolutely masters of themselves, as to be able to stand to them without those helps, and yet are not sure that they shall be given them, then they ought to make no vow, in a matter which they cannot keep by their

XXXII.

own natural strength, and in which they have not any ART. promise in the Gospel, that assures them of divine assistances to enable them to keep it. This is, therefore, a tempting of God, when men pretend to serve him, by assuming a stricter course of life than either he has commanded, or they are able to go through with. And it may prove a great snare to them, when by such rash vows they are engaged into such a state of life, in which they live in constant temptations to sin, without either command or promise, on which they can rest as to the execution of them.

This is to lead themselves into temptation, in opposition to that which our Saviour has made a petition of that prayer which he himself has taught us. Out of this, great distractions of mind, and a variety of different temptations may, and probably will, arise; and that the rather, because the vow is made; there being somewhat in our natures that will always struggle the harder, because they are restrained. It is certain that every man, who dedicates himself to the service of God, ought to try if he can dedicate himself so entirely to it, as to live out of all the concerns and entanglements of life. If he can maintain his purity in it, he will be enabled thereby to labour the more effectually, and may expect both the greater success here, and a fuller reward hereafter. But because both his temper and his circumstances may so change, that what is an advantage to him in one part of his life, may be a snare and an incumbrance to him in another part of it, he ought therefore to keep this matter still in his own power, and to continue in that liberty, in which God has left him free, that so he may do, as he shall find it to be most expedient for himself, and for the work of the Gospel.

Therefore it is to be concluded, that it is unlawful either to impose, or to make such vows. And, supposing that any have been engaged in them, more, perhaps, out of the importunity or authority of others, than their own choice; then, though it is certainly a character of a man that shall dwell in God's holy hill, that though he swears Psal. xv. 4. to his own hurt, yet he changes not; he is to consider, whether he can keep such a vow, without breaking the commandments of God, or not: if he can, then, certainly, he ought to have that regard to the name of God, that was called upon in the vow, and to the solemnities of it, and to the scandals that may follow upon his breaking it, that if he can continue in that state, without sinning against God, he ought to do it, and to endeavour all he can to keep his

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ART. vow, and preserve his purity. But if, after he has used XXXII. both fasting and prayer, he still finds that the obligation

Matth. xv.

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of his vow is a snare to him, and that he cannot both keep it, and also keep the commandments of God; then the two obligations, that of the law of God, and that of his vow, happening to stand in one another's way, certainly the lesser must give place to the greater. Herod's oath Matth. xiv. was ill and rashly made, but worse kept, when, for his oath's sake, he ordered the head of John the Baptist to be cut off. Our Saviour condemns that practice among the Jews, of vowing that to the Corban or treasure of the Temple, which they ought to have given to their parents, and imagining that, by such means, they were not obliged to take care of them, or to supply them. The obligation to keep the commandments of God is indispensable, and antecedent to any act or vow of ours, and therefore it cannot be made void by any vow that we may take upon us and if we are under a vow, which exposes us to temptations that do often prevail, and that probably will prevail long upon us, then we ought to repent of our rashness in making any such vow, but must not continue in the observation of it, if it proves to us like the taking fire into our bosom, or the handling of pitch. A vow that draws many temptations upon us, that are above our strength to resist them, is, certainly, much better broken and repented of, than kept. So that, to conclude, celibate is not a matter fit to be the subject either of a law, or a vow; every man must consider himself, and what he is able to receive: He that marries does well, but he that marries not does better.

ARTICLE XXXIII.

Of Excommunicate Persons, how they are to be avoided.

That Person which, by open Denunciation of the Church, is rightly cut off from the Unity of the Church, and Excommunicate, ought to be taken of the whole Multitude of the Faithful, as a Heathen and a Publican: Until he be openly reconciled by Penance, and be received into the Church by a Judge that hath Authority thereunto.

ALL Christians are obliged to a strict purity and holi

ness of life and every private man is bound to avoid all unnecessary familiarities with bad and vicious men; both because he may be insensibly corrupted by these, and because the world will be from thence disposed to think, that he takes pleasure in such persons, and in their vices. What every single Christian ought to set as a rule to himself, ought to be likewise made the rule of all Christians, as they are constituted in a body under guides and pastors. And as, in general, severe denunciations ought to be often made of the wrath and judgments of God against sinners; so if any that is called a Brother, that is, a Christian, lives in a course of sin and scandal, they ought to give warning of such a person to all the other Christians, that they may not so much as eat with him, but may sepa-1 Cor. v. rate themselves from him.

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In this, private persons ought to avoid the moroseness and affectation of saying, Stand by, for I am holier than Gal. vi. 1. thou: if one is overtaken in a fault, then those who are spiritual ought to restore such an one in the spirit of meekness: every one considering himself, lest he be also tempted. Excessive rigour will be always suspected of hypocrisy, and may drive those on whom it falls either into despair on the one hand, or into an unmanageable licentiousness on the other.

The nature of all societies must import this, that they have a power to maintain themselves according to the design and rules of their society. A combination of men, made upon any bottom whatsoever, must be supposed to have a right to exclude out of their number such as may be a reproach to it, or a mean to dissolve it: and it must be a main part of the office and duty of the pastors of the

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