l’auteur des Fifty Reasons. Oui, voilà cette vertu, qui fait de l’homme un ange ; qui est la gloire de l’humanité, l’ornement de l’Église et du ciel ; mais qu’eux, ils nient et ne possèdent pas ; qu’ils ne peuvent ni concevoir ni admettre comme un avantage et une perfection, comme un don surnaturel et un angélique privilège ; voilà cette vertu, que l’Église accueille, encourage toujours, et qu’elle consacre souvent par des vœux irrévocables, accompagnés de cérémonies aussi touchantes que solennelles.
Cependant, qu’il soit permis à notre charité, malgré leur aveugle aversion, de les exhorter, au nom de la raison et de la révélation, à réfléchir avec calme et à juger sans passion, après qu’ils auront lu et ce qui précède et ce qui suit ; car c’est pour eux un devoir, aussi bien que c’est leur intérêt capital.
« I remember that in my youth I heard two Lutheran ministers discoursing, concerning a young man of an admirable disposition, with whom I was very well acquainted. If I am not mistaken, said one of the ministers to the other, this young man will never marry. The other made answer : He will do very well ; for continency and celibacy is a great gift and a singular grace of God. I, who was then very young and a Lutheran too, being amazed at this answer, I began thus to reason the matter with myself. Since our ministers style themselves reformers of the church, and preachers of the pure gospel, and own that continency is a great gift and a singular grace of God, how comes it to pass, that God bestows not this singular grâce on them ; for you will seldom or never find that the ministers live unmarried ? And how chances it, that this gift and grace is bestowed on so many Papists, whom we call idolators ; for among them there are infinite numbers of religious men and women and ecclesiastics, that pass their lives in the strict observance of continency and chastity. Their religion must certainly be more acceptable to God, because no man can be chaste unless God give the grace, (Wisdom, 8. v. 21.) When I came to riper years, I frequently had this in my thoughts ; and it was one of the motives that inclined me to the Roman Catholic faith. » (Fifty Reasons.)
{{t|« St. Paul declares, that he who giveth his virgin in marriage doth well, but he that giveth her not, doth better ; and can there be any thing wrong in following this advice of the Apostle, in vowing and preserving that brightest of all virtues — chastity ? Christ declares, that we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him ; can there then be any thing wrong in those, who, finding that they cannot do this well in the midst of this world’s temptations, retire from it into the cloister, and there practise the counsels of Christ in obedience to, and under the guidance of, the great masters of religious life, always to be found in every religious establishment ? » (Doctrinal Catechism, by the Rev. Stephen Keenan.)
« The Papist, truly represented, is taught to have a high esteem for those of his communion, who undertake that sort of life, which, according to Christ’s own direction, and his Apostles, is pointed out as best. A sort of people who endeavour to perform all that God has commanded, and also what he has counselled as the better, and in order to more perfection. They hear Christ declaring the dangers of riches ; they therefore embrace a voluntary poverty, and lay aside all titles to wealth and possessions. St. Paul preaches, that he that giveth not his virgin in marriage, doth better than he that does ; and she that is unmarried, cares for the things of the Lord, how she may be holy both in body and in spirit ; they therefore choose a single state, consecrating their virginity to God ; that so they may be wholly intent on his service, and be careful how to please him ; while she that is married, cares for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. (Cor. vii, 32,34, 38.) The gospel proclaims that those that will follow Christ, must deny themselves ; they therefore renounce their own wills, and without respect to their own proper inclinations, pass their lives in a perpetual obedience. And because the world is corrupt — so that to a pious soul every business is a distraction, every diversion a temptation, and more frequently provocations to evil than examples to good ; they therefore retire from it as much as possible, and confining themselves to a little corner or cell, apply
