and that vows about trifles are irreverent, and should neither be made nor regarded, but should be repented of as sins. Even Thomas Aquinas says, " Vota quae sunt de rebus vanis et inu- tilibus, sunt magis deridenda, quam servanda." 1
Monastic Vows.
At the time of the Reformation the doors of all the monas- teries in lands in which Protestants had the power, were thrown open, and their inmates declared free in the sight of God and man, from the vows by which they had hitherto been bound. Protestants did not maintain that there was anything intrinsic- ally wrong in a man, or a company of men renouncing the ordi- nary avocations of life, and devoting himself or themselves to a religious life. Nor did they object to such men living together and conforming to a prescribed rule of discipline ; nor did they deny that such institutions under proper regulations, might be, and in fact had been of great and manifold utility. They had been places of security for those who had no taste for the conflicts by which all Christendom was so long agitated. In many cases they were places of education and seats of learning. Their ob- jections to them were, —
1. That they had been perverted from their original design, and had become the sources of evil and not of good, in every part of the Church. Instead of its being free to every one to enter and to leave these institutions at discretion, those once initiated were bound for life by the vows which they had made, and in- stead of the obligations assumed being rational and Scriptural, they were unreasonable and unscriptural. Instead of the inmates of these institutions supporting themselves by their own labour, they were allowed to live in idleness, supported by alms or by the revenues of the convents, which had in many cases become enor- mous. This objection was directed to the very principle on which the monastic institutions of the Romish Church were founded. On this point Calvin says, " Proinde meminerint lectores, fuisse me de monachismo potius quam de monachis loquutum, et ea vitia notasse, non quae in paucorum vita haerent, sed quae ab ipso vivendi instituto separari nequeunt." 2
2. To this, however, was added the argument from experience. Monastic institutions had become the sources of untold evils to the Church. Being in a great measure independent of the ordi-
1 Summa, h. ii. quaest. lxxxviii. 2 ; edit. Cologne, 1640, p. 164, b, of third set. a Institution iv. xiii. 15 ; edit. Berlin, 1834, vol. ii. p. 345.
320 PART m. Ch. XIX. -the law.
nary ecclesiastical authorities, they were the cause of conflict and agitation. Each order was an u imperium in imperio," and one order was arrayed against another, as one feudal baron against his fellows. Besides, the corruption of manners within the con- vents as portrayed by Romanists themselves, rendered them such a scandal and offence as to justify their summary suppression. Much is implied in the answer of Erasmus to Frederick the Wise, " Lutherus peccavit in duobus, nempe quod tetigit coronam pon tificis et ventres monachorum." 1
3. Practical evils might be reformed, but Protestants objected that the whole system of monkery was founded on the false prin- ciple of the merit of good works. It was only on the assump- tion that men could work out a righteousness of their own, that they submitted to the self-denial and restraints of the monastic life. If, however, as Protestants believe, there is no merit in the sight of God in anything fallen men can do, and the righteous- ness of Christ is the sole ground of our acceptance with God, the whole ground on which these institutions were defended is under- mined. To enter a frionastery, on the theory of the Romish Church, was to renounce the doctrine of salvation by grace. Be- sides, it was also taught that celibacy, obedience, and voluntary poverty, being uncommanded, the monastic vow to observe these rules of life, involved special merit. This was a twofold error. First, it is an error to suppose that there can be any work of su- pererogation. The law of God demanding absolute perfection of heart and life, there can be no such thing as going beyond its re- quirements. And, secondly, it is an error to assume tiiat there is any virtue at all in celibacy, monastic obedience, or voluntary poverty. These are not " meliora bona " in the Romish sense of the words. In this view, also, monastic vows are antichristian.
4. A fourth reason urged by Protestants for pronouncing mo- nastic vows invalid, was that they were unlawful, not only for the reason just assigned, but also because they were contrary to the law of Christ. No man has the right to swear away his liberty ; to reduce himself to a state of absolute subjection to a fellow- mortal. To his own master he must stand or fall. The vow of obedience made by every monk or nun was a violation of the apostolic injunction, " Be not ye the servants of men." The same remark is applicable to the vow of celibacy. No one has a right to take that vow ; because celibacy is right or wrong ac- cording to circumstances. It may be a sin, and therefore no such vow can bind the conscience.
1 Guericke's Kirchengeschichte, vn. I. ii. § 174, 6th edit. Leipzig, 1846, vol. Hi. p. 69.