CELIBACY
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CELIBACY
pKMichesitoiiljinpractloe. It sets virginity ftf above marriage, and regards marriage only in its aspect of negative- utility. In tlie single marriage of a priest it sees, in a measure, a necessary evil — at best only a con- ditional good, a wholesome concession to the flesh for the prevention of inmiorality — and requires of its higli- est office-bearers total abstinence from all matrimonial intercourse. It wavers, therefore, between a partial permission and a partial condemnation of priestly mar- riage" (Schafl; Ch. History, ii, § 50).
y. Since the RefartnatioH,-^The evils brought upon the Church l^ the celibacy of the clergy formed one cause of the movement towards reform which culmi- nated in the 16th century. The leading Reformers declared against the celibacy of the clergy as unfound- ed in Scripture, and contrary to the natural ordinance of God, and the spell was finally broken by the mar- riage of Luther with Catharine Bora. His example was soon widely followed ; and his writings, and those of his coadjutors, soon put an end to celibacy among all the reforming clergy (comp. Luther, ErmcAmmg an hcdterl May 1520, etc. ; Z>e Votis Monasticii), Calvin speaks as follows of the evil of clerical celibacy, as de- veloped among the Romanists : ** With what impunity fornication rages among them it is unnecessary to re- mark; emboldened by their polluted celibacy, they have become hardened to every crime. Yet this pro- hibition clearly shows how pestilent are all their tra- ditions, since it has not only deprived the Church of upright and able pastors, but has formed a horrible gulf of enormities, and precipitated many souls into the abyss of despair. The interdiction of marriage to priests was certainly an act of impious tyranny, not only contrary to the Word of God, but at variance with every principle of justice. In the first place, it was on no acconnt lawAil for men to prohibit that which the Lord had left free. Secondly, that God had expressly provided in his Word that this liberty should not h» infringed, is too clear to require much proof* (/n- gliiutes, iv, 12, 18). The Protestant Confessions of Faith generally touch on the subject more or less di- rectly : e. g. the Augsburg Confession has a long arti- cle (xxiii) on the subject, from which we extract a passage: "Matrimony is moreover declared a lawful and honorable estate by the laws of your imperial maj- esty, and by the code of every empire in which justice and law prevailed. Of late, however, innocent sub- jects, and especially ministers, are cruelly tormented on account of their marriage. Nor is such conduct a violation of the divine laws alone ; it is equally op- posed to the canons of the Church. The apostle Paul denominates that a doctrine of devils which forliids marriage (1 Tim. iv, 1, 8) ; and Christ says (John viii, 44), *llie devil is a murderer from the beginning.* For that may well be regarded as a doctrine of devils which forbids marriage and enforces the prohibition by the shedding of blood.** The Church of England : "Art. xxxli. Of the Marriage of Priei^.— Bishops, # priests, and deacons are not commanded by God's law either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain fh>m marriage ; therefore it is lawfril for them, as for all other Christian men, to marry at their own discre- tion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to god- liness.*' See also the Helvetic Conf. 1, ch. xxxvii ; ii, ch. xxix. All the modem evangelical denominations are agreed in rejecting eAforced celibacy as unscriptural and immoral. "When an institution has been tried during a dozen centuries in all parts of the world, and has uniformly been found productive of the same evil effects, there cannot well be a doubt what sentence ought to be pronounced on it : Cut it down. That the papacy should have refrained from pronouncing this sentence — ^that, on the contrary, it should have retain- ed and upheld that institution with dogged pertinac- ity, notwithstanding the horrors which streamed in whelming torrents from it, is perhaps the most damn-
"* proof how the papacy recklessly sacrificed every
moral consideration, recklessly saorifioed the eonls of its ministers, for the sake of maintaining its own pow- er, by surrounding itself with an innumerable ^lost of spiritual Mamelukes, bound to it by that which sever- ed them from all social ties. And this is the Chmcfa for which our modem dreamras claim the excloaive tide of holy— a Church headed by his holiness Pope Alexander the Sixth I This triiole question of the celibacy of the clergy has been treated in a masteriy manner by Jeremy Taylor, in that wonderfbl book, his Ductor Dubitantiwn (b. iii, c. iv, rule 20), where (in § 28) he gives the following summary of his ob|ee- tions t * The law of the Church was an evil law, made by an authority violent and usurpt, insufficient as to that charge. It;was not a law of God ; it was against the rights and against the necessities of Nature ; it was unnatural and unreasonable ; it was not for edifi- cation of the Church ; it was no advantage to spirit- ual life ; it is a law that is therefore against pnblie honesty, because it did openly and secretly introduce dishonesty ; it had nothing of the requisites of a good law — no consideration of human frailty nor of hmnan comforts ; it was neither necessary, nor profitable, nor innocent — neither fitted to time, nor plaoe, nor person ; it was not accepted by them that could not bear it ; it was complained of by them that could ; it was never admitted in the East ; it was fought against, and de- claimed, and railed at in the West ; and at last it is laid aside in the churches, especially of the North, as the most Intolerable and most unreasonable tyriuiy in the world ; for it was not to be endured th^ upon the pretence of an unreasonable perfection, so mudi impurity should be brought into the Church, and so many souls thmst down to hell.' " — ^Hare, Comat wttk Borne, p. 268.