But the secret foundation of this prohibition of marriage of priests is not likely to have been laid so slightly, as upon such errors in moral philosophy; nor yet upon the preference of single life, to the estate of matrimony; which proceeded from the wisdom of St. Paul, who perceived how inconvenient a thing it was for those that in those times of persecution were preachers of the Gospel, and forced to fly from one country to another, to be clogged with the care of wife and children; but upon the design of the Popes, and priests of after times, to make themselves the clergy, that is to say, sole heirs of the kingdom of God in this world; to which it was necessary to take from them the use of marriage; because our Saviour saith, that at the coming of His kingdom the children of God “shall neither marry, nor be given in marriage, but shall be as the angels in heaven”; that is to say, spiritual. Seeing then they had taken on them the name of spiritual, to have allowed themselves, when there was no need, the propriety of wives, had been an incongruity.