tire kingdom or province, to prevent the exposure
of the entire kingdom or province to wars, carnage, pillae, debauchery,
conflagrations, murders,--nevertheless, in private persons who abandon
vows in apostasy such grounds for dispensations cannot be urged. For
the assumption is repelled that the vow concerns a matter that is
impossible. For continence, which so many thousands of men and virgins
have maintained, is not impossible. For although the wise man says
(Wisd. 8:21): "I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, unless
God gave it me," nevertheless Christ promised to give it. "Seek," he
says, "and ye shall find," 11:9; Matt 18:28; and St. Paul says: "God is
faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able,
but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be
able to bear it," 1 Cor. 10:13. They are also poor defenders of their
cause when they admit that the violation of a vow is irreprehensible,
and it must be declared that by law such marriages are censured and
should be dissolved, C. Ut. Continentiae, xxvii. Q. 1, as also by the
ancient statutes of emperors. But when they allege in their favor C.
Nuptiarum, They accomplish nothing, for it speaks of a simple not of a
religious vow, which the Church observes also to this day. The marriages
of monks, nuns, or priests, have therefore never been ratified. Futile
also is their statement that a votive life is an invention of men, for
it has been founded upon the Holy Scriptures, inspired into the most
holy fathers by the Holy Ghost. Nor does it deny honor to Christ, since
monks observe all things for Christ's sake and imitate Christ. False,
therefore, is the judgement whereby they condemn monastic service as
godless, whereas it is most Christian. For the monks have not fallen
from God's grace, as the Jews of whom St. Paul speaks, Gal. 5:4, when
they still sought justification by the law of Moses; but the monks
endeavor to live more nearly to the Gospel, that theymay merit eternal
life. Therefore, the allegations here made against monasticism are
impious. Moreover, the malicious charge that is still further added,
that those in religious orders claim to be in a state of perfection,
has never been heard of by them; for those in these orders claim not for
themselves a state of perfection, but only a state in which to acquire
perfection--because their regulations are instruments of perfection, and
not perfection itself. In this ma