XI. OF THE MARRIAGE OF PRIESTS.*

*original Henkel, 1854: OF THE MARRIAGE PRIEST.

Their prohibition of marriage, and their imposition of perpetual continence on the divine order of priests, they have effected without due cause and authority; and in this they have acted like antichristian, tyrannical, and desperate knaves, and have given cause for horrible, abominable, and incalculable sins of incontinence, in which they still persist. As little as the power is given to us or to them to constitute out of a male a female, or out of a female a male, or to annihilate both, so little had they power to separate or forbid these creatures of God, to live together honorably in a state of matrimony. We shall not therefore consent to their obscene celibacy, or tolerate it; but marriage shall be free, as God has ordained and instituted it, and we will not destroy or impede his work; for St. Paul says that this is a doctrine of the devil, 1 Tim. 4, 1-3.