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+. those vows.
TRUTH IS POWERFUL,
VOLT :
NEW-YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 16, 1825.
/ Englans.
: ”
CORBETT ON THE REFORMATION.
listory of the Protestant “ Reformation,” in England and Ire-
land; in a series of Letters, addressed to all sensible and just
; Englishmen... By Wittram Cossett.
(Continued from our last.)
LETTER IV. ,
"122. Now, thisis a very important matter. It isa
: great moral question ; and, therefore, we ought to en-
deavour to settle this question; to make up our minds
‘completely upon it, before we proceed any further.
“Fhe monastic state necessarily was accompanied with
vows of celibacy ; and, therefore, it is, before we give
an account of the putting down. of these institutions
in England, necessary to speak of the tendency, and,
“indeed, of the natural and inevitable consequences of
123. It has been’ represented as “ unnatural” to
‘compel men and women tolive in the unmarried state,
‘and as tending to produce propensities, to which it is
“hardly proper even to allude. Now, in the first place,
“have we heard of late days, of any propensities of this
.sort? Have they made their odious appearance amongst
‘clergymen and bishops? And, if they have, have
‘those clergymen and bishops been Catholics, or have
sthey been Protestants ?. The answer which every
-one now living in England and Ireland, can instantly
igive to these questions, disposes of this objection to
‘vows of celibacy. In the next place, the Catholic
“Church compels nobody to make-such vow. It only
: says, that it, will admit no one to be a priest, monk, |
‘ friar, or nun,who rejects such vow, ‘Sr. Pact strongly
“recommends to all Christian teachers an unmarried
‘life. © The Church has founded a rule on this recom-
,mendation ; and that, too, for the same reason that the
recommendation was given; namely, that those who
‘have flocks to watch over, or, in the language of our
_ own Protestant Church, who have the care of: souls,
should have as few as possible of other cares, and
and should, by’ all means, be free from those incessant,
“and, sometimes, racking cares, which are inseparable
from a wife and family. What priest, who has a wife
and family, will not think more about them than about
his flock? Will he, when any part of that family is
in distress, from illness pr other cause, be wholly de-
voted, body and mind, to his flock ? Will he be as
- ready to give alins, or aid of any sort, to the poor, as
he would be ifhe had no famjly to provide for? Will
he never be tempted to swerve from his duty, in order
to provide patronage for sons, and for the husbands
© of daughters ? Will he always stand up and as boldly
: reprove the Lord or the ’Squire for their oppressions
_and vices, as he would do if he had no sou for whom
- to get a benefice, a commission, or @ sinecure ? Will
his wife never have her partialitics, her tattlings, her
“ pickerings, amongst his lock, and never, on any ac-
: count, induce him to act towards any part of that flock,
contrary to the strict dictates of his sacred duty? And,
“+9 omit bundreds, yes, hundreds, of reasons that might,
—
in addition, be suggested, will the married priest be as
ready as the unmarried one to appear at the bed-side
of sickness and contagion?” Hire it is that the calls
on him are most imperative, and here it is that the
married priest will, and with. nature on his side, be
deaf to those’ calls, From amongst many instances
that I could cite, let me take one. ~ During the war of
1776, the King's house at \Winchestér was used as a
prison for French prisoners: of, war. A’ dreadfully
contagious fever broke out amongst them.” Many of
them died. .'They were chiefly, Catholics, and were
attended in their last moments by two or three Catho-
lic Priests residing in that elty- But, amongst the
sick prisoners, there were many Protestants ; and
these requested the attendance of Protestant Parsons,
There were the parsons of all the parishes at Winches-
ter. There were the Dean and all the Prebendarics.
But, not a man of them went.to console the dying
Protestants, in consequence of which several of them
desired the assistance of the priests, and, of course,
died Catholics. Doctor Miter, \in his Letters to
Docror Srurces (page 56,) mentions this matter, and
he says, “the answer” (of the Protestant parsons)
“ T understand to have been this : § We are not more
“ afraid, as individuals, to face death than the priests
“Cares but, we must not carry p.'s¢nous contagion in-
6 10 the bosoms of our families?” No, to be snre! But,
then; not to call this the cassock’s taking shelter be-
hind the petticoat, in what a di'emma does this place
the Dean and Chapter? Either they neglected their
most sacred duty, and left protestants to flee, in their
last moments, into the arms of “ popery;” or, that
clerical celibacy, against which they have declaimed
all their lives, and still declain, and still, hold up to
us, their flocks, as something toth contemptible and
wicked, is, after all, necessary to that “ care of souls”
to which they profess themselves to have been called,
aud for which they receive such munificent reward.
_ 124, But, conclusive, perfectly satisfactory, as these
reasons are, we should not, ifiwe were to stop here,
do any thing like justice to our subject; for, as to the
parochial clergy, -da-we_nat s¢e, aye, and feel too,
that they, if with families, or intending to have fami-
lies, find little to spare tothe poor of their flocks?
In short, do we not know that z. marricd priesthood
and pauperism and poor-rates, all come upon this
country at one and the'same moment? And, what was
the effect of clerical celibacy with regard tothe
higher orders of the clergy? » A bishop, for instance,
having neither wife nor child, naturally expended his
revenues amongst the people in his dioceses Me ex-
pended a part of them on his ©athedral Church, or in
some other way sent his revenues back to the people.
If Witnran or Wyxuam, had been a married man,
the parsons would not now lave had a‘'CottecE at
Winchester, nor would there have been a College
either at Eton, Westminster, Rexford, or Cambridge,
if the bishops, in those days, nad been married wen.
Besides, who is to expect: of human nature, that a
bishop with a wife and family will, in his distribation
of church preferment, consider, nothing but the inte-
rest of religion? We are not to expect of man more
than that, of which we, from experience, know that
man is capable. It is for the lawgiyer to interpose,
and to take care that the comvaunity suffer not from
the frailty of the vature of ind viduals, whose private
virtucs even may, in soine casts, and those not a few,
not have a tendency to produce public good. I do
Dot say, that married bishops ever do wrong, because
{ am not acquainted with them well enough to ascer-
tain the fact; but in speaking of the diocese, in which
I was born, and with which I am best acquainted, I
may say, that it is certain, that, if the late Bishop of
Winchester had lived in Cat lie times, he could not
G:
wife’s sister, to marry Mr. Epwunp Poutter, in
which case, I may be allowed to think it possible, that
Mr. Pocuter would not have quitted the Lar for te
pulpit, and that he would not have had the two livings
‘of Mcon-Stoke and Soberton and a Prebend besides 5
that his son Browxtow .Poutter would not have
had the tio licings of Buriton and Petersfield that
his. son Cuartes Poutrer would not have had the
three livings of Alton, Binstead and Kingsley ; that
his son-in-law Ocxe would not have had the living
of Bishop’s Waltham ; and that his son-in-law Iay-
Ganru would not have had the two livings of Upham
and Durley. If the Bishop had lived in Catholic
times, he could not have had a son, Cnanres Av-
ctstcs Nort, to have’ the tio livings of Alver
stoke and Havant and to ‘be a Prebend; that he
could not have had another son, Francis Nort, to
have the four livings of Old Alresford, Medstead,
New Alresford, and St, Mary’s Southampton, and to
be, moreover, a Prebend and Master of St. Crass ;
that he could not have had a daughter to marry Mr.
Wituram Garster, to have the tro livings of Drox-
ford and Brightwell Baldwin, and to be a Prebend and
a Chancellor besides; that he could not have had
Mr, William Garnier’s brother Tuomas Garster for
a relation, and this latter might not, then, have hed
the geo liviags of Aldingbourn apd Bishop's Sicke 3.
that he could not have another daughter to marry
Mr. Tuomas pe Grey, to have the four livings or
Calbourne, Fawley, Merton, and Rounton, and to be
a Prebend and also an Archdeacon besides! In short,
if the late Bishop had lived in Catholic times, it is u
little’ too much-to believe, that these twenty-four
livings, five Prebends, one Chancellorship, one Arch-
deaconship, and one Mastership, worth, perhaps, al!
together, more than twenty thousand pounds a ycar,
would have fallen to the ten persons above named.
And, may we not reasonably suppose, that the Bishop,
instead of leaving behind him (as the. newspapers
told us he did) savings to: nearly the amount of three
hundred thousand pounds in moncy, would, if he had
had no children ner grand-children, have expended 4
part of this money ov that ancient aud magnificent ©
Cathedral, the roof of which hus recently been iu
danger of falling in, or, would have been the founder
of something for the public good and national honor,
or would have been a most munificent friend and
protector of the poor, and would never, at any rate,
have suffered SMALL BEER TO BE SOLD OUT
OF HIS EPISCOPAL PALACE AT FARNITAM.
With an ezcise licence mind you! Ido not say, or ia-
sinuate, that there was any- smuggling tarried on at
the Palace. - Nor do'l pretend to censure the act.—
A man who has a large-family to provide for, must
be allowed to be the best judge of his means ; and, if
he happen to have an overstock of small becr, it is
natural cnough for him to sell it, in order to get money |
to buy meat, bread, grocerics, or other necessaries,
What 1 say is, that I do not think, that Wituras oF
Wrynxnam ever sold small beer, cither by wholesale or
retail ; and I most distinctly assert, that this was done
during the late Bishop's life-time, from his Episcopal
Palace of Farnham! Wisaam or Wyxnan (who
took his sur-name from a title village in Hampshire}
was not Bishop of Winchester half so long as the late
Bishop ; but, out of his revenues, he built and en-
dowed one of the Colleges at Oxford, the College of
Winchester, and did numerous other most muniticent -
things, in some of which, however, he was not without
examples ia his predecessors, nor: without imitators
in his successors as long as the Catholic Church re-
mained ; but, when a married clergy came, then +
ended all that was munificent in the Behions ofthis: ”
once fymous city. has hate
have had a wife, and that hf ‘could net have had a
{Tobe continwh) 6 8
