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XXXII.

OF THE MARRIAGE OF PRIESTS.

Bishops, priests, and deacons, are not commanded by God's law, either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage: therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other Christian men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness.

Q. What do you say of bishops, priests, and deacons ?

A. That they are not commanded by God's law, either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage.

Q. What is therefore lawful for them to do?

A. As for all other Christian men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness.

Scripture Proofs.

1 Timothy iii. 2. A bishop then must be blameless, the

husband of one wife.

1 Timothy iv. 1, 3.

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly,

that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, forbidding to marry.

Hebrews xiii. 4. Marriage is honourable in all.

1 Corinthians ix. 5. Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles.

Matthew viii. 14. And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother sick of a fever.

1 Corinthians vii. 2.

Let every man have his own wife,

However expedient the single life might be in some cases, for instance, in "the present distress," that is, in the times of persecution, alluded to by the Apostle, yet marriage not only consists with the office of a stated pastor, but with that of a missionary, as it did with that of the holy Apostles. The "forbidding to marry" is mentioned as a character of the apostacy of the latter times. St. Peter was certainly a married man: Philip, the deacon, was a married man; (Acts xxi. 8, 9.) and St. Paul says, Let every man have his own wife, not excluding either bishop, priest or deacon.

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 ex-communicated, ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful, as an heathen and publican, until he be openly reconciled by penance, and received into the church by a judge that hath authority thereunto.

Q. How ought that person who by open denunciation of the church is rightly cut off from the unity of the church, to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful?

A. He ought to be taken as a heathen and publican, until he be openly reconciled by penance. Q. By whom should he be received again into the church.

A. By a judge that hath authority thereunto.

Scripture Proofs.

1 Corinthians v. 13. Therefore put away from yourselves that wicked person.'

Romans xvi. 16. Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.

2 Corinthians ii. 6, 7. Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many. So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such an one should be swallowed up with overmuch

sorrow.

Every community must possess the right of expelling those members who will not conform to its regulations; but a Christian minister is not to call upon God from the altar to fulfil execrations which the devil himself might seem to have inspired. In the forms of malediction appointed for this service in the Romish church, a curse is pronounced (by those who ought to know better) against the obnoxious persons, in soul and body. They are cursed at home and abroad, by day and by night, and every hour, in all places and at all times, every where and always. God is invoked to afflict them with hunger and thirst, with poverty and want, with cold and with fever, with blindness and madness, to make their wives widows, and their children orphans and beggars. This denunciation, horrible as it may seem, is continually had recourse to, by the Agitator's' political priests in Ireland,

when they wish to frighten their poor deluded followers into their measures. In England the priests know better than to try such an experiment, for they are well aware that it would not answer.

The following is a table of the supposed dates of the introduction of the leading papal superstitions, copied from the Christian Observer for the year 1827, page 565.

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