How much better had the Church of _Rome_ consulted her own Reputation, had she either, in Opposition to the Pagan Priesthood, allowed her Clergy the Use of Matrimony, or, by a more perfect Imitation of their Discipline, with the Law of Celibacy, prescribed the like Methods of observing it! How many Enormities had been prevented by either of these Means, the World knows. But none of her Clergy have the Observance of their Vows so much at Heart as to imitate either the _Athenian_ or the _Egyptian_ Priests: and as for those of _Cybele_, they are so far from conforming to their Practice, that a Law subjecting them to it has kept them out of Protestant Kingdoms, when the Fear of Death could not. [Sidenote: _The Celibacy of the Clergy a bad Institution._] If every Law or Institution is to be judged good or evil, according to the Good and Evil attending them, it is by daily Experience but too manifest, that the forced Celibacy of the Clergy ought to be deemed of all Institutions the very worst. Indeed all sensible Men of that Church know and lament the innumerable Evils which the Celibacy of her Clergy occasions, and must always occasion, in spite of all Remedies that can be applied to it. But she finds one Advantage in it, which, in her Eyes, makes more than sufficient Amends for all those Evils, _viz._ her ingrossing by that means to herself all the Thoughts and Attention of her Clergy, which, were they allowed to marry, would be divided between her and their Families, and each of them would have a separate Interest from that of the Church. Several Customs and Practices, once warmly espoused by that Church, have, in Process of Time, been abrogated, and quite laid aside, on account of the Inconveniences attending them; and this, which long Experience has shewn to be attended with more pernicious Consequences than any other, had, but for that political View, been likewise abolished. [Sidenote: _Another Letter of_ Syricius.]