retals venture
many statements about it which I do not believe.

This, however, I would readily believe, that a vow of chastity
given before puberty, neither holds nor binds, because he who
made the vow was ignorant of what he was promising, since he had
not yet felt the "thorn of the flesh." [2 Cor. 12:7] It is my
pious opinion that such a vow is counted by God as foolish and
void, and that the fathers of the monasteries should be forbidden
by a general edict of the Church to receive a man before his
twentieth, or at least his eighteenth, year, and girls before
their fifteenth or sixteenth, if we are really concerned about
the care of souls.

[Sidenote: Commutation of Vows]

It is also a great piece of boldness, in commuting or remitting
vows, to impose what they call "a better work." In the eyes of
God there is no difference in works, and He judges works not
according to their number or greatness, but according to the
disposition of the doer; moreover, "the Lord is the weigher of
spirits," [Rom. 8:27] as the Scripture says, and He often prefers
the manual labor of the poor artisan to the fasting and prayer of
the priest, of which we find an illustration in St. Anthony and
the shoemaker of Alexandria.[31] Since these things are so, who
shall be so bold and presumptuous as to commute a vow into some
"better work"? But these things will have to be spoken of
elsewhere, for here we have undertaken to speak of confession
only as it concerns the Commandments of God, for the quieting and
composing of consciences which are troubled by scruples.

[Sidenote: Abuses of Penance]

I shall add but one thing. There are many who set perilous snares
for married folk, especially in case of incest; and when any one
(for these things can happen, nay, alas! they do happen) has
defiled the sister of his wife, or his mother-in-law, or one
related to him in any degree of consanguinity, they at once
deprive him of the right to pay the debt of matrimony, and
nevertheless they suffer him not, nay, they forbid him, to desert
his wife's bed. What monstrous thing is this? What new remedy for
sin? What sort of satisfaction for sin? Does it not show how
these tyrants make laws for other men's infirmity and indulge
their own? Show me the law-giver, however penitent and chaste,
who would allow such a law to be made for himself. They put dry
wood on the fire and say, Do not burn; they put a man in a
woman's arms and forbid him to touch her or k