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As if our Lord had said, "You my disciples do not consider what you say. All men without sinning against God cannot abstain from marriage, but those only to whom God had given the gift of continency, and grace of chastity. Some indeed by nature, or natural impotency are unfit for marriage. Others wickedly are made unfit by castration; others by religious mortification, bring under their bodies that being free from the incumbrances that attend a marriage state, they may give up themselves the better to the exercises of a holy life."
Learn, 1. That Almighty God has given us diverse persons, different tempers, and constitutions: some can subdue their impure desires and affections without the remedy of marriage, others cannot.
2. That continency or ability to live chastely, without the use of marriage, is the special gift of God; not common to all, but bestowed only upon some. A gift it is, worthy of our fervent prayers, worthy of our best endeavours.
3. That a vow of chastity is not in our power; to quench a natural affection requires a supernatural gift. All have not received it: that is, all men cannot live single, and abstain from matrimony.
From whence it follows, That men and women are not by monastical vows to be obliged to live a single life, which some cannot perform without sin.
Note farther, When Christ says, that some have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake: the meaning is, That some have abstained from matrimony that they might be more expedite in preaching the gospel, if ministers; or more prompt, fit and ready to regard only the things of the Lord, if private Christians.