ition, those rash vows of monks and friars, and
such as live in religious orders, but far more tyrannical and much worse.
Nature, youth, and his furious passion forcibly inclines, and rageth on the
one side; but their order and vow checks them on the other. [5905]_Votoque
suo sua forma repugnat._ What merits and indulgences they heap unto
themselves by it, what commodities, I know not; but I am sure, from such
rash vows, and inhuman manner of life, proceed many inconveniences, many
diseases, many vices, mastupration, satyriasis, [5906]priapismus,
melancholy, madness, fornication, adultery, buggery, sodomy, theft, murder,
and all manner of mischiefs: read but Bale's Catalogue of Sodomites, at the
visitation of abbeys here in England, Henry Stephan. his Apol. for
Herodotus, that which Ulricus writes in one of his epistles, [5907]"that
Pope Gregory when he saw 600 skulls and bones of infants taken out of a
fishpond near a nunnery, thereupon retracted that decree of priests'
marriages, which was the cause of such a slaughter, was much grieved at it,
and purged himself by repentance." Read many such, and then ask what is to
be done, is this vow to be broke or not? No, saith Bellarmine, _cap. 38.
lib. de Monach._ _melius est scortari et uri quam de voto coelibatus ad
nuptias transire_, better burn or fly out, than to break thy vow. And
Coster in his _Enchirid. de coelibat. sacerdotum_, saith it is absolutely
_gravius peccatum_, [5908]"a greater sin for a priest to marry, than to
keep a concubine at home." Gregory de Valence, _cap. 6. de coelibat._
maintains the same, as those of Essei and Montanists of old. Insomuch that
many votaries, out of a false persuasion of merit and holiness in this
kind, will sooner die than marry, though it be to the saving of their
lives. [5909]Anno 1419. Pius 2, Pope, James Rossa, nephew to the King of
Portugal, and then elect Archbishop of Lisbon, being very sick at Florence,
[5910]"when his physicians told him, that his disease was such, he must
either lie with a wench, marry, or die, cheerfully chose to die." Now they
commended him for it; but St. Paul teacheth otherwise, "Better marry than
burn," and as St. Hierome gravely delivers it, _Aliae, sunt leges Caesarum,
aliae Christi, aliud Papinianus, aliud Paulus noster praecipit_, there's a
difference betwixt God's ordinances and men's laws: and therefore Cyprian
_Epist. 8._ boldly denounceth, _impium est, adulterum est, sacrilegum est,
quodcunque h