Of like nature is superstition, 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 humano furore statuitur, ut dispositio divina violetur, it is abominable, impious, adulterous, and sacrilegious, what men make and ordain after their own furies to cross God’s laws. [5911]Georgius Wicelius, one of their own arch divines (Inspect. eccles. pag. 18) exclaims against it, and all such rash monastical vows, and would have such persons seriously to consider what they do, whom they admit, ne in posterum querantur de inanibus stupris, lest they repent it at last.  For either, as he follows it, [5912]you must allow them concubines, or suffer them to marry, for scarce shall you find three priests of three thousand, qui per aetatem non ament, that are not troubled with burning lust.  Wherefore I conclude it is an unnatural and impious thing to bar men of this Christian liberty, too severe and inhuman an edict.