Whatever doubt existed in the reign of Elizabeth about the marriage of bishops and priests was set at rest in 2 Jas. I, cap. 25, secs. 49 and 50, by which Act the Acts of Edward VI were revived, and the children of ecclesiastical persons made legitimate and inheritable in such sort as children of lay persons do enjoy and may inherit; any canon or constitution to the contrary notwithstanding.1

The law of the English Church on the question of marriage of the clergy is, of course, expressed in Article XXXII: "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 also 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." This article makes no direct reference to S. Paul's injunction that he who is admitted to the oversight of souls must be "the husband of one wife." The words imply neither marriage as a qualification for the office of Eloxoлоç, 2 nor are they to be interpreted as meaning the husband of one wife at a time. Their only meaning is that the έлíoxолоs, if married, must have been married only once. This and the corresponding qualification for the admission to the ecclesiastical orders of widows, viz. marriage to a single husband, were phrases quite well understood at the time, and the words appear on tombstones to denote the self-control exhibited by widower or widow. The later condemnation of a second marriage as an act of adultery goes beyond S. Paul's teaching. The witness of the Apostolical Constitution is clear as to marriage being no bar to ordination, and as to second marriage being forbidden as well as marriage at all after ordination. "A Bishop, a Presbyter and a Deacon when they are constituted must be

1 Whilst the marriage of the clergy had received canonical and legal sanction by Article XXXII and royal sanction by the Injunctions, there was some doubt left: "The marriage of the clergy is not allowed and sanctioned by the public laws of the kingdom, but their children are by some persons regarded as illegitimate.' -Humphrey and Sampson to Bullinger, July 1566, Zurich Letters, Series I, p. 164.

21 Tim. iii. 2.

once married, whether their wives be alive or whether they be dead, and it is not lawful for them if they are unmarried when they are ordained to be married afterwards, or if they be then married to marry a second time, but to be content with that wife which they had when they came to ordination."

Whilst S. Paul required "only once married" as an evidence of self-control, and the "digami" were excluded from all orders of the ministry in the ancient Church, the prohibition of a clergyman's right to marry a second time is a matter of ecclesiastical discipline, and belongs to those traditions of the Church which "may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's Word." (Article XXXIV.)

Touching the general question of marriage, and in opposition to the slur cast upon it for centuries as a concession to human weakness, our Church has declared her mind in these words: Holy Matrimony "is an honourable estate instituted of God in the time of man's innocency signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and His Church; which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with His presence, and first miracle that He wrought, in Cana of Galilee; and is commended of S. Paul to be honourable among all men." (Marriage Service in the Book of Common Prayer.)

1 Apostolical Constitutions, book vi., p. 17.

APPENDIX B

THE DOOM OF SACRILEGE

THE question of Church endowments, says Dr. E. A. Freeman, "must not be confused by talk about ' national property' on the one hand, or about sacrilege' on the other." 1

With the former of these two subjects we are not at present concerned. But so much has been written and said about the guilt of sacrilege that the question demands an impartial investigation. It must suffice to refer to Spelman's History and Fate of Sacrilege, first published in 1698, and to Joyce's Doom of Sacrilege, which appeared in 1886. The latter of these two books is based largely upon the former, which is a long, elaborate and learned investigation of the whole subject. Spelman became possessed of certain abbey lands which involved him in continual and expensive lawsuits, at the end of which he deemed himself "happy in this, that he was out of the briars, but especially that hereby he first discerned the infelicity of meddling with consecrated places." With a conscience thus alarmed he set himself to inquire into the whole subject of sacrilege and to prove the following proposition

"Property, consecrated to God in the service of His Church, has generally, when alienated to secular purposes, brought misfortune on its possessors; whether by strange accidents, by violent deaths, by loss of wealth, or, and that chiefly, by failure of heirs male; and such property hardly ever continues long in one family."

In proof of this statement Spelman investigated with

1 Disestablishment and Disendowment, by E. A. Freeman, a most valuable little book, in which the whole question of the legal tenure of Church property is lucidly explained.

great learning and research Old Testament history, English biography, and family histories. He accumulates page after page of disasters which befell the families of those to whom the monastic lands were granted, and his conclusions reach beyond the line of family succession and include persons who legitimately purchased these lands in after years. The sincerity of this conscience-stricken writer is beyond question. He writes as one convinced that the doom of death and family extinction was upon any one who touched the monastic lands. The effect of the book at the time of its publication is stated to have been considerable, and not a few persons, conscience-stricken by its terrible indictment and awful warning, are said to have surrendered the impropriations and lands which they had inherited from their forefathers. The ghosts which were said to haunt the old abbey houses terrified many, and Spelman succeeded in carrying his own convictions into the hearts of a number of prominent English families. There is an appalling list of the judgments which Spelman contends happened to the children and posterity of Henry VIII as a consequence of the great sacrilege and spoil of Church lands done by this King.1

1 The following extract is slightly curtailed: Queen Elizabeth is described "as deeply guilty of sacrilege by forced exchanges of bishops' lands, the murderess of a crowned head, and the destroyer of the best families of her nobility," her life being one of constant calamities and danger.

Charles II, a stipendiary of the French Crown, with a court the hot-bed of vice, was cut off in the midst of his sins and died childless.

James II lost his crown, and his children never regained their possessions, ten of his children dying in early youth.

William engaged in constant wars, hated by his subjects, died a violent death, and left no children.

Anne had nineteen children who all died young.

George I was the persecutor and gaoler of his innocent wife, and involved in constant fear and rebellion, and was deservedly hated.

George II was all but dethroned in 1745, and died suddenly by an unusual and awful disease.

George III was involved for fifty-five years in a sanguinary war, and when peace was restored the mind of this good king was in no condition to enjoy it.

The fate of the lords spiritual and temporal who were present in Parliament in 1539 when the Bill for dissolving monasteries was passed is set out in alarming

colours.

་་

Stephen Gardiner's experiences in his bishopric of Winchester, including deprivation and imprisonment, are all set down. The burning of Latimer at Oxford in 1555 is recorded as a consequence. Spelman is compelled to qualify his general indictment by saying, Concerning the bishops it doth not appear how they gave their voices; but it may well be supposed that divers of them were against a total suppression; and seeing in other Acts it is recorded, after that when a Bill was granted with an unanimous consent of all parties, none dissenting, that then it was passed nemine dissentiente; yet it is not so recorded upon this, but although many might dissent, and that publicly, yet there was a major part of temporal lords present, and so carried by voices." I give two other selections from a more recent edition.

"Hurley, Berks. From the Howards this estate passed to the Kempenfelts. Admiral Kempenfelt's melancholy death, in the 'Royal George,' is well known."

"Abbotsford.-Belonged to the Abbey of Melrose. It is a deeply affecting thing to observe how, after he had purchased this property, Sir Walter Scott's affairs never prospered: the end is known to all. And with this knowledge it is painful to read his light allusions to the appropriation of a Cross, as 'a nice little piece of sacrilege from Melrose.'" 1

The fact that this book has been enlarged and brought up to date in recent years shows that certain persons are still convinced of the soundness of Spelman's arguments, and yet it is difficult to rise from a perusal of the book without a feeling that the moral sense has been outraged, that post hoc is continually made to do

1 The History of Fate and Sacrilege, by Sir Henry Spelman, edited in part from two MSS., revised and corrected, with a continuation, large additions and an introductory essay, 1888.