Chapter 12: OF MONKERY

OF MONKERY

For the same reason, that all our justification consists in faith in Jesus Christ, whence we derive liberty in all external things, we have permitted the bonds of monkery also among us to be relaxed. For we saw that this liberty of Christians was everywhere earnestly asserted by St. Paul, whereby every Christian, being of himself sure that all righteousness and salvation must be sought for only in Jesus Christ our Lord, and also that he must always use all things of this life as for the advantage of his neighbor, so also for the glory of God, freely permits himself and all that he has to be arbitrated and directed by the Holy Spirit of Christ, the bestower of true adoption and liberty, and also to be appointed and bestowed not only for the profit of his neighbors, but also to the glory of God. In retaining this liberty we show that we are servants of God; in betraying it to men, addicting ourselves to their inventions, we, like renegades, forsake Christ and flee to men. This we do the more wickedly as Christ has purchased us with no common price, as he has redeemed us by his blood from the deadly servitude of Satan. This is the reason why St. Paul, in writing to the Galatians, so greatly detested that they had bound themselves to the ceremonies of the law, although they were divine; yet, as we have shown above, the excuse for this was far better than to submit themselves to the yoke of those ceremonies which men devised of themselves. For he wrote, and of a truth, that those who admit the yoke of these ceremonies despise the grace of God and count the death of Christ as a thing of naught. And hence he says that he fears that he has labored for them in vain, and exhorts them to stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free, and not to be entangled again in the yoke of bondage. Now, it is manifest that monkery is nothing else than a bondage of human traditions, and of such indeed as Paul has condemned by name in the passages which we have cited. For undoubtedly they who profess monkery consecrate themselves to these inventions of men in the hope of merits. Hence it is that they regard it so heinous an offence to desert these for the liberty of Christ. Therefore as our body as well as our spirit belongs to God (and that in a double respect - viz. of condition and of redemption) , it cannot be lawful for Christians to make themselves slaves to this monastic servitude, much less than for temporal servants to change their masters. Besides, it cannot be denied that by such bondage and vows to live after the commandments of men a necessity, as it always used to be formerly, of transgressing God's law is occasioned, since God's law requires that, according to his ability, a Christian should be of service to the magistrate, parents, relatives and all others whom God has made nearest to him and brought to him for assistance, in what place, time or manner soever their profit demands. Then let him embrace that mode of living whereby he may chiefly provide for the affairs of his neighbors. Neither let him choose celibacy, unless it be given him for the kingdom of God - i.e. in order to promote godliness and God's glory to renounce marriage and make himself a eunuch. For the commandment of God, published by Paul, abides, which no vows of men can render void: "To avoid fornication let every man" (he excepts no one) " have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband." For all do not receive this word concerning adopting a single life for the kingdom of heaven, as Christ himself testifies, than whom no one more exactly knew and more faithfully taught either what is the power of human nature or what is acceptable to the Father. Now, it is well known that by these monastic vows they who assume them are so bound to a certain kind of men that they think it unlawful to be obedient and dutiful any longer to either the magistrate or their parents or any men (the head of the monastery alone excepted) , or to relieve them with their substance, and least of all to marry, even when they greatly burn; and hence they necessarily fall into all sorts of disgraceful ways of life. Since, therefore, it is clear that these monastic vows render a man who is freed from the service of Christ subject not so much to the bondage of men as of Satan, and bring a necessity of transgressing God's law, as is the nature of all human traditions, and therefore conflict manifestly with God's commandments, we very properly believe that they are to be regarded void, as not only the written law, but also the law of nature, commands that a promise be disannulled if its observance hinder good morals, and much more if it hinder religion. Therefore we could not withstand any one who wished to exchange a monastic life - undoubtedly a bondage to Satan -for a Christian life. So also we could not withstand others of the ecclesiastical order who, marrying, embraced a kind of life wherefrom more advantage to their neighbors and greater purity of life could be expected than from that wherein they lived before. To conclude: neither did we undertake to prohibit from the right of marriage those among us who have persevered in the ministry of God, whatever were the vows of chastity that they had assumed. In this we were influenced by the reasons above specified, since St. Paul, the advocate of true chastity, assumes even a bishop to be a married man. For we have justly preferred this one divine law above all human laws - viz.: "To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife." It is doubtless because this law has been rejected for so long a time that all kinds of lusts, even those that are unmentionable (with all reverence to Your Worshipful Majesty, Most Excellent Emperor) , have more than overwhelmed the ecclesiastical order, so that today there is no kind of mortals more abominable than those who bear this name.