Nevertheless, again and again he speaks in lofty language of the value of the lowliness of the religious life. Now especially, he writes in the Commentary on Romans under the influence of his mystical “_theologia crucis_,” it is a good thing to be a religious, better than during the last two centuries. Why? Because now monks are no longer so highly esteemed as formerly, they are hated by the world and looked upon as fools, and are “persecuted by the bishops and clergy”; therefore the religious ought to rejoice in their cross and in their state of humiliation.[701] Whoever takes vows imposes upon himself “a new law” out of love for God; he voluntarily renounces his own freedom in order to obey his superiors, who stand in God’s place. The vows are for him indissoluble bonds, but bonds of love.[702] “Whoever wishes to enter the cloister,” he says,[703] “because he thinks he cannot otherwise be saved, ought not to enter. We must beware of exemplifying the proverb: ‘despair makes a monk’; despair never made a monk, but only a devil.[704] We must enter from the motive of love, namely, because we perceive the weight of our sins and are desirous of offering our Lord something great out of love; for this reason we sacrifice to Him our freedom, assume the dress of a fool, and submit to the performance of lowly offices.” His complaints are very serious and certainly somewhat prejudiced, owing partly to his new theology, partly to his wrong perception of the facts. “Whoever keeps his vows with repugnance is behaving sacrilegiously.”[705] Even he who is animated by the best of motives scarcely acts from perfect love, but when this is entirely absent, he says, “we sin even in our good works.”[706] Many who fulfil their religious duties merely from routine and with indolence “are apostates though they do not appear to be such,” and in his excessive zeal he continues: “the religious in the Church to-day are held captive under a Mosaic bondage, and together with them the clergy and the laity because they cling to the doctrines of men (‘_doctrinæ hominum_’); we all believe that without these there is no salvation, but that with these salvation is assured without any further effort on our part.”[707]