BISHOPS, Priests, and Deacons, are not commanded by God's Law, either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage: therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other Christian men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness.
Why this Article? Clearly not so I could bring 34 of my 41 married years into the ordained ministry although that is a blessing.
No, the church had, at the time of the Reformation, taken on a post-monastic tradition to clericalism and insisted on an unmarried, celibate, male priesthood.
But marriage or singleness is a discretionary matter within the new Testament. There are no special stipulations for leaders, priests and deacons.
So priests in the Church of England can arrive married and be married once ordained. Bible trumps Pope.
O'Donovan points out that Articles 32-36 are about discretionary matters within the church. 37-39 will be different. These articles were honed at the time of the Divine Right of Kings and therefore tend to separate those matters which are separate to the State form those which are bound up with the State.
At a time when our country's constitutional monarchy is being stretched to breaking point and may need substantial re-imagining we do well to remind ourselves, as the Reformers did, that Kings have to obey God. Or else.
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