FRANCIS PATRICK KENRICK, Bishop of Philadelphia, as before cited, in his "TREATISE OF BAPTISM" admits that infant baptism cannot be satisfactorily sustained from the inspired writings. His words are--"Without the aid of tradition, the practice of baptizing infants cannot be satisfactorily vindicated, the Scripture proofs on this point not being thoroughly conclusive; yet we do not, on this account, neglect the arguments which it furnishes, and which have considerable force."¹

      Dr. Wall also relies much more on tradition than on apostolic testimony. He occupies a volume with quotations, and comments upon them, from the Fathers and the ancient Councils, both general and local. Tradition is, indeed, his main pillar. He quotes incomparably more from the Fathers and ancient writers than from Moses and the Prophets, or from Jesus and the Apostles. He begins with Clemens Romanus, and Hermas, and arrays before us in great pomp, Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Origen, St: Cyprian, St. Basil, St. Gregory, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Austin, &c. He even adduces Pelagius, the heterodox Coelestius, and Pope Zosimus. The Donatists, Arians, and Pelagians, equally with the orthodox, are made to pass in review, and to declare in favour of infant ablution or infant immersion. With Dr. Wall there was no baptism, in form or in fact, without immersion. But those who now rely upon him in sustaining the traditional subjects of baptism will not hear him on the apostolic form of the institution itself. They admit but one-half of his testimony, and reject the other half. They will have infant affusion, but Dr. Wall will have infant immersion.

      In the present essay, I shall attempt to show that the argument from tradition, drawn out with so much display, proves too much for any sect of Protestants in Christendom. Admitting that every author adduced relates with all truthfulness and fidelity the facts which he states, as transpiring in his own [339] age or country, on Protestant principles, with Protestants themselves it can afford no authority for infant baptism.

      It is a rule or law of evidence, of universal acquiescence and authority, that the testimony of any witness is admissible or inadmissible to the full extent of his deposition. So far, then, as it is his testimony, we are obliged to receive all or none of it. If, for example, we receive the testimony of Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, Chrysostom, &c. &c., as to the existence of infant baptism in their day and country, we must also receive their testimony in favour of infant communion, and in favour of the monastic and ascetic life. With whatever respect for them, or with whatever authority we receive their testimony in the one case, we must receive it in the other cases. If their testimony be authoritative touching any fact or opinion, as to the existence of it, the universality of it, or the meaning of it, it is equally so touching them all. This being an oracle of common sense--an axiom in moral evidence--we assume it, and proceed upon the assumption, as upon an incontrovertible fact.

      We, therefore, proceed to show that all the authors of note relied on by Dr. Miller, Dr. Wall, or any other doctor of Protestant theology, in proof of the early existence of infant baptism, who have distinctly named or alluded to it, as a custom, or rite, existing in their time, equally establish the existence, universality, and antiquity of religious celibacy, the sanctifying efficacy of virginity, and the superlative merit of the monastic life.

      Since writing my last essay on this subject, I have read, with more or less attention, some hundreds of pages, many of which, though read in former years, were again read as though entirely new, that I might repose in the full assurance that I give a faithful view of the testimony and opinions of the authors quoted. And, although in possession of the principal records of both Grecian and Roman Fathers and their opinions, I generally prefer to quote their opinions and statements from Taylor's "Ancient Christianity,", because now a popular work; and because he has with great fidelity and ability examined and reported the views of the Greek and Roman Fathers on the subjects named; and especially because his antagonists, the Oxford Tract theologians, with all their armour on, have not, so far as I have learned, presumed to cavil at his array of patristic authority and opinions. [340]

      I state the argument in the following terms:--Romanists quote the Greek and early Roman fathers of the four first centuries, in proof of monastic life--the celibacy of the clergy--the merit of perpetual virginity--the pontificate of Peter in Rome--and infant communion. Protestants quote the same authorities for infant baptism, and argue from them in the same manner as the Romanists for their other traditions. But Protestants repudiate the Greek and Roman Fathers as competent and credible witnesses for infant communion, the pontificate of Peter in Rome, the monastic life, and a bachelor priesthood; yet they quote with confidence and hear with gladness the same authors in favour of infant baptism. This we regard as an indefensible aberration from sound logic and fair play. If we receive their testimony in the one case, in evidence of the universality, antiquity, and authority of infant baptism, we ought by all means to receive the whole of their testimony in the case of the universality, antiquity, and authority of the monastic life--the celibacy of the clergy, the merits of perpetual virginity, &c. &c.

      But Protestants will say that the Romanists in these cases depend upon tradition alone for authority, while, in the case of infant baptism, we mainly depend upon scriptural authority, and only corroborate it by the ancient Greek and Roman Fathers, historians, and commentators. This, however, is not the fact. Romanists plead for scriptural authority for their traditions and found their arguments on what they call "Bible doctrine," if not upon express Bible precepts and positive enactments. Protestants are not able to maintain this ground with sensible and well read Romanists. For example, take the monastic life, the celibacy of the clergy, and the merits of perpetual virginity, and ask a well-bred and well read Romanist, What Bible authority have you, sir, for these traditions? What defence will he make? Probably he will begin with Paul, the great Apostle to the Gentiles, Barnabas his companion, and Timothy his adopted son; and show that they waived matrimony for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He will also tell of those who forsook houses, and lands, and husbands, and wives, for the Lord's sake. Nay, he will read you two learned homilies--one on a passage from Jesus, and one from Paul. That from Jesus is recorded Matthew xix. 12: "For there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb, and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs by men, and there be eunuchs who have [341] made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake: He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." Monks, say some Romanists, are eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. "They have made themselves so." "Now let him that can receive it, receive it;" that is, say they, "make themselves eunuchs, or monks, for the sake of gaining the kingdom of heaven." The famous Origen, literally made himself a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven's sake. The Essenes, contemporary with the Messiah, are by some supposed to be here alluded to by him. They were really monks, for the sake of greater seclusion from the world, and were regarded as the most pure and holy sect among the Jews. Here, then, says the Romanist, is high authority for the plea of the superior spirituality and sanctity of virginity and the ascetic life. Now who can make a more scriptural argument for infant baptism than this?--!

      But this is not all. Paul teaches the theory as well as the practice of celibacy. Hear him:--"It is good," says he, "for a man not to touch a woman." And certainly better for a woman not to touch a man! "I say, then, to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they abide" (single!) "even as I. For I would that all men were even as I myself. Art thou loosed from a wife, then seek not a wife. He that is unmarried careth for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he that is married careth for the things of the world how he may please his wife. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit; but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband." Doubtless, then, if "he that giveth his daughter in marriage doeth well, he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better." Now who may not hence infer that Paul was in favour of nuns as well as monks? From these premises, can any one reasonably say that the Romanist depends less on the Bible for his holiness of virginity and the excellency of monkery than does the Pedobaptist for his infant initiation and dedication to the Lord? I trow not: So far, to say the least, methinks, the Bible plea for the sanctity and blessedness of celibacy and that of infant holiness, or infant baptism, are inferentially equal.

      But our present business is with tradition. For this purpose, we have selected that prolific cause and fountain of Roman pollutions, the Monachism. We shall, therefore, give a few specimens [342] of the estimation in which it was held by the Ante-Nicene Fathers. To be understood by the least conversant with ecclesiastic history, in these brief allusions and quotations, I will state that the Fathers, so called by the Greek and Roman churches, are divided into three classes:--The Apostolic Fathers--viz. Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, or those who were conspicuous at or before the Council of Nice, which sat two or three months at Nice, in Bythinia, A. D. 325. Socrates says that 318 Bishops met in this council. The present Nicene Creed is, indeed, but a development or expansion of the Council of Nice, made by 150 Bishops at the second general council, which, in 381, met at Constantinople.

      The Ante-Nicene Fathers, so called, are the beau ideal of Protestant orthodoxy; and, hence, the names of Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, Lactantius, Eusebius, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Hilary, Basil, the two Gregories, Nazianzen and Nyssen, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustin, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Theodoret, are conspicuous--not all, indeed, but a majority of them, Ante-Nicene: for there are in all forty-two Fathers, a majority of which were Ante-Nicene, while the others are called Post-Nicene. These, together with the five Apostolic Fathers, make out the entire Fathers of the Greek, Roman, and Protestant churches, amounting in all to forty-seven.

      Now, in glancing at these, we shall summon a few of the most famous, both as fathers and as writers, to represent the whole patristic brotherhood, whose opinions give laws to the Catholic church in all matters of opinion, faith, and practice. Before hearing them depose, we shall quote a few passages from the most conspicuous and authoritative of them, declarative of the Catholic views of the monastic life.

      But, as farther prefatory to these, we must allude to the Grecian fountain of errors, which, together with the Gnostic and Roman fountains, gradually corrupted the whole Christian church.

      The Greeks had a temple dedicated to HESTIA, who, as the tradition goes, when wooed by Neptune, laid her hand on the head of Jupiter and vowed perpetual virginity; for which he allotted to her a throne in the midst of every mansion, the choicest portions of the sacrifices, and to be honoured in all the temples of the gods. [343]

      The Roman VESTA, for whom was erected a splendid temple in Rome, was but a new version of the Grecian Hestia. On the altar of this splendid temple perpetually flamed a holy fire, tended by six priestesses. Hence, at an early period, arose in the Christian churches the idea of having in the cloister connected with them bands of females sworn to chastity and the Lord. These became the archetypes of all the sisterhoods in all the abbeys, convents, priories, nunneries, cloisters, in ancient and modern Christendom. The grand question which pioneered the way for the general admission into the church of these abominations, was, "Satan has his devoted widows and his virgin priestesses, and should not Christ have his?"

      Concerning this much extolled institution, so canonized and glorified as the only path to the highest honours of Paradise, we have the opinion of almost all the early Greek and Roman Fathers. It is set forth in such terms as the following:--"The celestial or angelic excellence of virginity," cultivated by "the spouses of Christ," who, "in the celestial and apostolic practice of vowing virginity to the Lord," have arisen to the loftiest pinnacle in the temple as "Christ's jewels."

      It would be disgusting rather than acceptable to most of our readers, to enter into the secrets of these holy vestal virgins, devoted to the church. Yet we must allude to the contaminations of sacerdotal virtue universally attendant on their existence, as expressed by their warmest advocates and apologists. Even Cyprian himself speaks of clerical paramours--of the spiritual intercourse of these father confessors with these immaculate angelic virgins, as to, make the whole institution a public scandal, a disgrace to even Rome or Corinth in their most wanton days, and to make his nunneries or abbeys any thing but houses of prayer--the residence of virgin purity and piety.

      These abuses, or rather legitimate fruits of the system, called forth many an excuse, and originated some singular expositions of Scripture; a sample of which we will give from Tertullian--"The command, 'Increase and multiply,' is abolished; yet, as I think, (contrary to the Gnostic opinion,) this command in the first instance, and now the removal of it, are from one and the same God; who then, and in that early seed-time of the human race, gave the reins to the marrying principle until the world should be replenished, and until he had prepared the elements of a new school of discipline. But now, in this conclusion of [344] the ages, he restrains what once he had let loose, and revokes what he had permitted. In a thousand instances, indulgence is granted at the beginning of things. So it is that a man plants a wood and allows it to grow, intending in due time to use the axe. The wood, then, is the old dispensation, which is done away by the gospel, in which the axe is laid at the root of the tree." So reasons the first man who, in any extant records of the church, first names infant baptism!! We shall next hear St. Cyprian, born A. D. 200.

      So early as the age of St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, born one hundred years after John the Apostle died, the notion of the divine virtue and excellency of celibacy had so generally prevailed in the church, that he complains, in no measured terms, of the abuses of it. "Concerning those," says he, "who, after having solemnly devoted themselves to continence, have been found cohabiting with men--(detectae in eodem lecto pariter mansisse cum masculis)--yet professing themselves inviolate, you have desired my advice. It is, then," replies the bishop, "by no means to be allowed that young women live with men. If, indeed, they have cordially dedicated themselves to Christ, let them modestly and chastely, and without subterfuge, hold to their purpose, and thus, constant and firm, look for the reward of virtue--premium virginitatis." So general was the idea of the angelic virtue of celibacy, that, in Cyprian's time, it had been so perverted by the priesthood as to call for Cyprian's denunciations against the clergy in such language as, "How shall the clergy be guides in the path of virtue and piety, if from them proceeds a contaminating warranty of vice. Thou hast, therefore, well done in withdrawing from the deacon and others qui cum virginibus dormire consueverunt."²

      Clement of Alexandria, who rather preceded St. Cyprian as a writer, speaks in terms as bold as the Bishop of Carthage. But we prefer to quote a few words more from St. Cyprian, because Dr. Miller and Dr. Wall make much of his testimony as to the prevalence of infant baptism in his Carthaginian diocese. How monkery prospered under his dispensations, we may learn from encomiums upon it. In addressing nuns, he says, "These are the flowers of the ecclesiastical plant--the grace and ornament of the heavenly grace--a gladsome produce--a work, whole [345] and incorrupt, of all honour and all praise--the image of God reflecting the sanctity of the Lord and the most illustrious portion of Christ's flocks. By these, [nuns,] and in these, is the noble fecundity of Mother Church recommended and made copiously to flourish; and just so much as this plentiful virginity swells its numbers, does the Mother herself augment her joys. It is to these, then, that I speak--it is these that I proceed to exhort--yet in affection rather than in the tones of authority." Farther, our good Archbishop Cyprian says, "The continence and pudicity proper to a nun do not consist merely in the inviolate perfection of the body; but, besides, the integrity of the body consists in the fair and modest attire and ornament of the person." After this quotation, Mr. Taylor exclaims, and we exclaim with him, "Here is excellent Quakerism as well as Popery, and both sixteen hundred years old." Modesty forbids us from quoting Cyprian in what he says farther of this "plentiful virginity," when reproving them for their shameful pranks at the public baths. He asks, "What have virgins of the church to do at promiscuous baths--to violate the commonest dictates of feminine modesty?! With your robes, your personal honour and reserve are cast off." According to Mr. Taylor, modern Popery is quite a reform upon "ancient Christianity," or the Christianity contemporary with the origin of infant baptism.

      If I might quote St. Bernard here, though, not of the fathers of the church, but as one who had more personal authority and popularity than any one man that ever lived since the Council of Nice--to whom popes and their vassals gave equal reverence--of whom Luther said, "If ever there has been a pious monk who feared God, it was St. Bernard, whom I hold," said the reformer, "in much higher esteem than all other monks and priests throughout the globe."

      Of virginity, which he calls chastity, he says, "What so fair as this chastity, which makes of a man an angel! An angel and a churchman differ, indeed, as to purity, but not as to virtue--for, although the purity of the angel be the happier of the two, that of the man must be admitted to be the more energetic." "Who, then," continues he, "would scruple to call the life of the Cœlebs a celestial and angelic life! or what will all the elect be at the resurrection which ye are not even now, as the angels of God in heaven, who abstain from matrimonial [346] connections." "You grasp, my beloved brethren, the pearl of great price, ye grasp that sanctity which renders you like to the saints in glory, and the home servants of God, as saith the Scriptures, incorruptness places us next to God; not by your own merits are you what you are, but by the grace of God; and, as chastity and sanctity, I may call yon TERRESTRIAL ANGELS."

      It would be easy for me to fill many pages from Tertullian and Cyprian to the same effect. They are, indeed, followed in their views by almost all the ancient church. Isidore says, "As high as the heavens are above the earth, and as far as the soul excels the body, so does the state of virginity surpass that of matrimony." That these were not novelties or innovations, even in the times of Tertullian and Cyprian, may be inferred from a passage in Justin Martyr's Second Apology. His words are, "Many men as well as women who, having followed the Christian institution from their earliest years, have remained to an advanced age--sixty or seventy years incorrupt--diaphoroi diamenousai--unmarried or inviolate." Nay, we find in the Epistles of Ignatius to Polycarp, contemporaries, if not converts, of John the Apostle, indications of the germ of this opinion or theory of asceticism. His words axe, "If any one be able to abide in purity, (celibacy,) in honour of the Lord's flesh, let him do so without boasting. If he boasts, he is lost; or, if he consider himself, on that account, more than the bishop, he perishes."

      The early attempts to fabricate tales of the perpetual virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus, owe their origin to the same spirit of error. They will have her still the Virgin Mary, though the wife of Joseph, after she had brought forth her first born son. Could Jesus have been her first born, if she had never had a second child? Or could it be said that he knew her not, until she had brought forth her first born son, if he had never known her? But there is nothing can stand erect, however strong and clear, before the spirit of fraud or fiction.

      It is alleged that Ignatius is the first that called the nuns "the espoused of Christ," and "Christ's jewels." But this is a matter of little moment, inasmuch as at a very early period a new nomenclature was introduced. We hear Tertullian asking with indignation, "Shall one who has contracted a second marriage baptize?" "Or, shall such a one make the eucharistic [347] oblation?" But before this style and terminology, we have the Gnostics, the Nicolaitans, the Essenes, the Ebionites, and the Cabalistic Jews foisting into the Christian vocabulary an impure speech, from which it has never been expurgated. In view of this fact, and the history of the first century of Christianity, I concur with Isaac Taylor, author of "Spiritual Despotism," and the "Natural History of Enthusiasm," &c. &c., in the following opinions:--"The opinion that has forced itself upon my own mind is to this effect; that the period, dating its commencement from the death of the last of the Apostles or apostolic men, was altogether as little deserving to be selected and proposed as a pattern as any one of the first five of church history; it had, indeed, its single points of excellence, and of a high order; but by no means shown in those consistent and exemplary qualities which should entitle it to the honour of being considered as a model to after ages." "THE GROSSEST ERRORS OF THEORY AND PRACTICE ARE TO BE TRACED TO THEIR ORIGIN IN THE FIRST CENTURY."

      Of course, we should not wonder to see such men as Ambrose, Basil, Gregory Nyssen, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustine, endorsing for celibacy, monkery, and the whole ascetic system, as set forth in the writings of Tertullian, Cyprian, and their predecessors. We can endorse the great Basil affirming that "Virginity is that which makes man resemble the incorruptible God;" and I can believe J. Taylor in affirming, "that an unreserved translation of Basil, one of the best of the fathers, could it be tolerated, would astound the Christian world." And what shall we say of Chrysostom, addressing a nun, saying that, "like cherubim and seraphim, she and her order constituted not the attendants of the Eternal King, but his very chariot." And, again, "gold hath, indeed, by nature its splendour; but when saturate with fire, how admirable, nay, even fearful it is! And thus, when a soul such as this occupies the body, not only shall the spectacle be wondered at by men, but by angels." Glory, honour, and immortality to the nuns!!

      To complete the picture of ancient (but not Apostolic) Christianity, to which Dr. Wall and Dr. Miller trace up infant baptism in the argument now under consideration, I feel disposed to introduce St. Athanasius himself, "the chief of the first three" in the esteem of them that worship antiquity. But I have space only to say of him what is equally true, and truly said by Mr. [348] Taylor, of his contemporaries--Gregory of Nyssa, his brother Basil, and Ambrose--in the following interrogatories:--

      1st. "Aside from the mere ecclesiastical question of the pretensions of the Bishop of Rome, can any broad and intelligible distinction be established between Gregory Nyssen and the Popery of the tenth century?"

      2d. "Can any important distinction be made good between this Gregory and his contemporaries, Basil, Athanasius, and Ambrose?"

      3d. "And this question I would humbly and seriously address to men fearing God, (and completely informed,) whether EACH ARTICLE of Paul's explicit prediction of the coming apostasy, does not find its pointed and complete fulfilment in the system which this writer's works imbody?"

      And of Jerome--Jerome, the author of the Vulgate--the more learned and intelligent Jerome, the same author says, "Jerome must take his place among the foremost promoters of the false principles of the Nicene church system"--of Popery in its worst form.

      I prefer interposing between myself and a portion of the reading public, the learned, the evangelical, the popular, and eloquent author of "Spiritual Despotism," "Saturday Evening," "Ancient Christianity," and other interesting and instructive treatises; because he cannot be suspected of any squinting to what some might call our own peculiarities on the proper scriptural evangelical subject of Christian baptism.

      No one, however, in England or in America, in the present century, nor in any century since Luther fulminated against the Lion of Popery, has given a more complete and decisive blow to English and Scottish pedobaptism and pedorantism, so far as any appeal or reference to human tradition, ecclesiastic history, or patristic authority, however nearly approximating the apostolic age, the days of Saint John, Saint Peter, or Saint Paul, than this same Mr. Isaac Taylor, in his treatise, from which I have drawn so freely in this essay.

      Courteous reader, ask no more how could the custom of baptizing infants, or unbelieving boys, so soon and so generally appear in the ages immediately succeeding the Apostles. This, however, is not the fact, as is too often assumed, and as we may hereafter show; but admitting, for the sake of argument, that it is named by Tertullian at the close of the second or at the [349] commencement of the third century, what of it, since then, or long before that time, also appeared monkery, asceticism, the omnipotence of virginity, and the embryo blossoms of all the abominations of Popery?--! Errors universally reprobated by all Protestants, which Papistical writers advocate, and without which Popery would immediately die, are still more ancient, more venerable, more universal than infant affusion or infant immersion, and advocated by all and by more than all the ancient writers that are quoted in proof of the antiquity, universality, or of the importance of infant ablution.

      Let no one ask, How could infant baptism be so early introduced and spread so fast or so far, unless originally of apostolic authority, because of his own inability to answer the question. Is he a Protestant? Let him, then, rather ask, How a virgin priesthood, refusing to ordain the husband of one wife, could so early have been imagined, much less enacted in the face of him who said, "Let him be the husband of one wife--ruling his own children well," &c. Is he a Protestant? Then let him ask, How could they so early refuse the cup to the laity, in the face of the oracle of Christ--saying, "Drink you all of it." Is he a Protestant? Let him then explain how could they have converted Mary, the mother of Jesus, into a virgin, and christened her the immaculate holy Mary. And although Jesus repudiated her having any peculiar power with him, because she was his fleshly mother, making all the faithful women severally his mother or his sister, as the case might be, how can they invoke her name ten times for once they invoke that of her Son, and then always to intercede for them with her Son, as possessing still fleshly maternal authority with him! Is he a Protestant? Let him show how auricular confession, transubstantiation, invocation of the saints, prayers for the dead, purgatory, and penance began, before he perplexes himself or any one else upon the question, How originated infant ablution?

      Dr. Miller's tenth argument in favour of infant baptism, as reported from his own book in our last essay, is--"Finally, the history of the Christian church from the apostolic age furnishes an argument of irresistible force in favour of the Divine authority of infant baptism." From the documentary evidence we have furnished from the history of the Christian church, may we not now ask, not only the reader of Dr. Miller's book, but Dr. Miller himself, Whether Leo X. or Plus IX., both old bachelors, might [350] not, with equal show of reason and evidence, have said, "Finally, the history of the church from the apostolic age furnishes an argument of irresistible force in favour of the divine authority of sacerdotal celibacy, of the sanctity of virginity, and the sublime excellency of a monastic life."

      Dr. Miller's logic is evidently at fault here, as in some other points. His witnesses prove too much for him; and would, if he dare listen to them to the end of their testimony, compel him to become the advocate of an unmarried ministry, and of the paramount purity of monks, and friars, and vestal nuns. He has as venerable, as learned, and as numerous a host of ecclesiastic fathers, confessors, and historians in favour of clerical celibacy as in favour of infant baptism,--nay, I will strongly affirm, a much more numerous and powerful host in favour of the heaven-subduing grace of pure virginity, sanctified at the altar of the church, than he or any other man on this continent can adduce in favour of infant affusion or infant baptism.

      If, then, the number or reputation of the authorities, according to Dr. Miller, renders the argument from church history "irresistible" as respects the divine authority of infant baptism; the argument from church history must be equally irresistible in favour of monkery and an unmarried priesthood for we have all the same authorities, and a few more of as high, if not of a still higher reputation than they, in favour of the most baseless, most unreasonable, most desolating tenet of Popery--the heaven-subduing potency of perpetual bachelorship or celibacy, and its indispensability to the efficacious administration of ecclesiastical institutions, and to the virtue of prayers, penances, and intercessions. [351]

[CBAC 339-351]