_The Smalcald Articles.
                      Articles of Christian Doctrine
               which were to have been presented on our part
           to the Council, if any had been assembled at Mantua
               or elsewhere, indicating what we could accept
                      or yield, and what we could not._
                         by Dr. Martin Luther, 1537
                   Translated by F. Bente and  W. H. T. Dau
                                Published in:
                  _Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books
                        of the Ev. Lutheran Church_.
        (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921), pp. 453-529.
 
        THE THIRD PART OF THE ARTICLES.
         
        XI. Of the Marriage of Priests. 
         
        To prohibit marriage, and to burden the divine order of
        priests with perpetual celibacy, they have had neither
        authority nor right [they have done out of malice, without any
        honest reason], but have acted like antichristian, tyrannical,
        desperate scoundrels [have performed the work of antichrist,
        of tyrants and the worst knaves], and have thereby caused all
        kinds of horrible, abominable, innumerable sins of unchastity
        [depraved lusts], in which they still wallow. Now, as little
        as we or they have been given the power to make a woman out of
        a man or a man out of a woman, or to nullify either sex, so
        little have they had the power to [sunder and] separate such
        creatures of God, or to forbid them from living [and
        cohabiting] honestly in marriage with one another. Therefore
        we are unwilling to assent to their abominable celibacy, nor
        will we [even] tolerate it, but we wish to have marriage free
        as God has instituted [and ordained] it, and we wish neither
        to rescind nor hinder His work; for Paul says, 1 Tim. 4, 1
        ff., that this [prohibition of marriage] is a doctrine of
        devils. 
         
        
 
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