celibacy.

9

for it is not true, but a malicious slander, that "some arc already turned aside after Satan! Do not these contradictions of God look something like the man "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped?"

If God had required all his ministers to live unmarried, doubtless he would have enabled them to do so. But are we to imagine, that he will restrain and subdue the passions of men to enable them to observe one of "the traditions of men"   a law directly in the face of his word? It was but reasonable to anticipate the shameful immoralities which have prevailed, as the inevitable consequence of the arbitrary and unscriptural law of celibacy. It is not surprising, that in every age licentiousness has been the crying sin of the Roman clergy. The following dark picture of the morals of the Popes and inferior clergy at the beginning of the 11th cGntury, is drawn by Rev. Joseph Reeve, a Roman Catholic historian:

"Simony and incontinence had struck deep root among the clergy of England, Italy, Germany, and France. The evil began under those unworthy Popes, who so shamefully disgraced the tiara by their immoral conduct, in the tenth century; the scandal spread, and had now continued so long, that the inferior clergy pleaded custom for their irregularities. Many even of the bishops were equally unfaithful to their vow, and with greater guilt. Hence the corrupt laity, being under no apprehension of a reproof from men as deeply immersed in vice as they, gave free scope to their passions. To