Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/426

Rh should be moderate, because too great prolixity engenders precipitancy, trouble and straying. The more psalmody is increased, as also orisons and prayers, in just an equal proportion is fervour and sanctity of regulars always

6. "No distinction perhaps should be admitted between monks, or those devoted to the choir or to the ministries; that inequality has at all time excited the most serious contentions and discords, and has driven the spirit of charity from communitics of regulars."

6. "A vow of perpetual stability is never to be tolerated. The old monks were not aware of that, who still were the consolation of the Church, and the ornament of Christianity. The vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, are not to be admitted as a common and stable rule. If any one should be disposed to make those vows, either all or some, he will demand advice and leave from the bishop, who, however, will never permit that they should be perpetual, nor shall they exceed the limits of a year. Only the power shall be given to renew them on the same conditions.

7. "The bishop shall have every care to examine into their life, studies, and progress in piety; to him it shall appertain to admit and expel monks; always, however, taking the advice of the associates."

8. "The regulars of the orders, which still remain, may be admitted into this monastery as priests, provided they should desire to devote themselves in silence and solitude to their own sanctification, in which case an opportunity would be created for a dispensation in the genenral rule set down as number 2, so, however, that they follow not a mode of life different from others, so that not more than one or two masses at most be celebrated every day, and that one ought to be sufficient for the other priests to celebrate with the community."

"Perpetual vows not to be allowed up to the fortieth or forty-fifth year! Nuns are to be devoted to solid exercises, especially to labour; to be called away from carnal spirituality, by which most of them are distracted; it is to be