Necessity of Reforming the Church 3 of 4 (1544) — John Calvin

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Reforming Worship According to God's Word

The Necessity of Reforming the Church. Presented to the Imperial Diet at Spires, A .D. 1544. In the Name of All Who Wish Christ to Reign. By John Calvin. As read by Samantha Ellosite. Take 3. The mockery which worships God with naught but external gestures and absurd human fiction, how could we without sin allow to pass unrebuked?

We know how much he hates hypocrisy, and yet in that fictitious worship which was everywhere in use, hypocrisy reigned. We hear how bitter the terms in which the prophets invade against all worship, fabricated by human rashness.

But a good intention, that is, an insane license of daring whatever man pleased, was deemed the perfection of worship. For it is certain that in the whole body of worship which had been established, there was scarcely a single observance which had an authoritative sanction from the word of God.

We are not in this matter to stand either by our own or by other men's judgment. We must listen to the voice of God and hear in what estimation He holds that profanation of worship which is displayed when men, overleaping the boundaries of His word, run riot in their own invention.

The reasons which He assigns for punishing the Israelites with blindness, after they had lost the pious and holy discipline of the church, are two. That is, the prevalence of hypocrisy and will-worship, meaning thereby a form of worship contrived by man.

For as much, saith He, as the people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor Me, but have removed their heart from Me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the precept of men. Therefore I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder, for the wisdom of the wise men shall perish and the understanding of the prudent men shall be hid.

Isaiah 29 verse 13 and 14. When God stirred us up, a similar or worse perversity openly domineered throughout the church. While God then was thundering from heaven, were we to sit quiet? Perhaps they will consider as a trivial error the custom which prevailed, in defiance of the clear prohibition of God of repeating the public prayers in an unknown tongue.

But since it is manifest that by such procedure God was mocked, they cannot deny that we had too good cause to object to it. Then what shall I say of the blasphemies which rung in the public hymn, and which no pious man is able to hear without the utmost horror?

We all know the epithets which they applied to Mary, styling her the gate of heaven, hope, life, and salvation, and to such a degree of infatuation and madness had they proceeded that they even gave her a right to order Christ.

For still in many churches is heard the execrable and impious stanza, Ask the Father, Command the Son. In terms in no respect more modest do they celebrate certain of the things, and these too saints of their own making, that is, individuals whom they on their own judgment have admitted into the catalogue of saints.

For among all the multitudes of praises which they sing to Claude, they call him the light of the blind, the guide of the erring, the life and resurrection of the dead. The forms of prayers in daily use are stuffed with similar blasphemies.

The Lord denounces the severest threatenings against those who, either in oaths or prayers, confounded his name with Balaam. What vengeance then impends over our heads when we not only confound him with saints as minor gods, but with signal insults rob Christ of the proper and peculiar titles with which he is distinguished, in order that we may bestow them on creatures?

Were we to be silent here also, and by perfidious silence call down on ourselves his heavy judgments? I say nothing of the fact that no man prayed, and that indeed no man could pray to God with firm faith, that is, in good earnest.

For Christ being in a manner buried, the necessary consequence was that men were always in doubt whether God had a father's kindness toward them, whether he was disposed to assist them, and whether he took any interest in their salvation.

Christ as the Only Mediator

What? Was it an error, either trivial or tolerable, when the eternal priesthood of Christ, as if it had been set up to be prayed upon, was bestowed without distinction on any individual among the saints?

Let us remember that Christ by his death purchased for himself the honor of being the eternal advocate and peacemaker to present our prayers and our persons to the Father, to obtain supplies of grace for us, and enable us to hope we shall obtain what we ask.

As he alone died for us and redeemed us by his death, so he admits of no partnership in this honor. Therefore, what fouler blasphemy than that which is ever and anon in the mouths of our opponents, that is, that Christ is indeed the only mediator of redemption, but that all the saints are mediators of intercession?

Is not Christ in this way left inglorious? As if, after having once in his death performed the office of the priest, he had ever after resigned in the it to the saints. Are we then to be silent when the peculiar dignity of Christ, the dignity which cost him such a price, is wrested from him with the greatest contumely and distributed among the saints, as if it were lawful spoil?

But it seems that when they speak of us, they do not deny that Christ intercedes for us even now. Only we are to understand that he does it along with the saints, that is, just as any other one in the catalogue.

It must have been a mighty honor which Christ purchased for himself by his blood, if all he obtained was to be the associate of Hugo, Lubin, or some of the merest dregs of saintship which the Roman pontiff has conferred at his own pleasure.

For the question is not whether the saints even do pray, this being a subject of which it is better to have no knowledge as Scripture does not mention it, but the question is whether after passing by Christ, or treating him with neglect, or positively abandoning him altogether, we are entitled to look around for the patronage of saints, or, if they will have it in plainer terms, whether Christ is the only priest who opens up an asylum for us in heaven, leads us thither by the hand, and by his intercession inclines the Father to listen to our prayers, so that we ought to cast ourselves entirely on his advocacy and present our prayers in his name, or whether, on the contrary, he holds his office in common with the saints.

The Sufficiency of Christ's Redemption

I have shown above that Christ was in a great measure defrauded, not of the honor of the priesthood merely, but also of the gratitude due for his benefits. True, he is called a redeemer, but in a manner which implies that men also, by their own free will, redeem themselves from the bondage of sin and death.

True, he is called righteousness and salvation, but so that men still procure salvation for themselves by the merit of their works. For this inestimable gift, which no eloquence of men or angels is able adequately to describe, the schoolmen are not ashamed to restrict, telling us that though he confers the first merit, that is, as they explain it, the occasion of meriting, yet after receiving this help we merit eternal life by our works.

True, they confess that we are washed from our sins by the blood of Christ, but so that every individual cleanses himself by washings elsewhere obtained. True, the death of Christ receives the name of a sacrifice, but so that sins are expiated by the daily sacrifices of men.

True, Christ is said to have reconciled us to the Father, but with this reservation, that men, by their own satisfaction, buy off the punishments which they owe to the justice of God. When supplementary aid is sought from the benefit of the keys, no more honor is paid to Christ than to Cyprian or Cyrus.

For in making up the treasury of the church, the merits of Christ and of martyrs are thrown together in the slump. In all these things have we not just as many execrable blasphemies as we have words, blasphemies by which the glory of Christ is rent and torn to shreds?

For being in a great measure despoiled of his honor, he retains the name while he wants the power. Here too, no doubt, we might have been silent, though we saw the Son, on whom the Father had bestowed all authority and power and glory, and whom alone he did thus glory, so classified with his servants that he had scarcely any preeminence above them.

When we saw his benefits thus in oblivion, when we saw his virtue destroyed by the ingratitude of men, when we saw the price of his blood held in no estimation, and the fruits of his death almost annihilated, when in fine we saw him so deformed by fulsome profane opinions that he had more resemblance to an unsubstantial phantom than to himself, did it behoove us to bear it calmly and silently?

O accursed patience! If when the honor of God is impaired, not to say prostrated, we are so slightly affected that we can wink and pass on. O ill-bestowed benefits of Christ! If we can permit the memory of them to be thus suppressed by impious blasphemies.

I again return to the second branch of Christian doctrine. Who can deny that men are laboring under a kind of delirium when they suppose that they procure eternal life by the merit of their works? I admit that they conjoin the grace of God with their works, but inasmuch as their confidence of obtaining acceptance is made to depend on their own worthiness, it is clear that the ground of their confidence in boasting lies in their works.

The trite and favorite doctrine of the schools, the opinion deeply seated in almost all minds, is that every individual is loved by God in exact proportion to his deserts. Entertaining this view are not souls, by means of a confidence which the devil inspires, raised to a height from which, as from a loftier precipice, they are afterwards plunged into the gulf of despair.

Again, when they pretend to merit the favor of God, it is not merely by true obedience, but by frivolous observances of no value. The meritorious works to which the first place is assigned are these, to mumble over a multitude of little prayers, to erect altars and place statues or pictures thereon, to frequent churches and run up and down from one church to another, to hear many masses and to buy some, to wear out their bodies by I know not what abstinences, abstinences having nothing in common with Christian fasting, and in particular to be most careful in observing the traditions of men.

In the matter of satisfaction, is it not even a greater infatuation which makes them, after the manner of the heathens set out in quest of expiation, by which they may reconcile themselves to God? After all these attempts, after great and long fatigue, what did they gain?

Doing everything with a dubious and trembling conscience, they were always exposed to that fearful anxiety, or rather that dire torment of which I have already spoken, because they were enjoined to doubt whether their persons and their works were not hateful to God.

Confidence being in this way overthrown, the necessary consequence was, as Paul declares, that the promise of the eternal inheritance was made void. In such circumstances, what became of the salvation of men?

Where there was such necessity for speaking, had we kept silent, we should have been not only ungrateful and treacherous towards God, but also cruel towards men over whom we saw eternal destruction impending, unless they were brought back into the proper path.

Were a dog to see an injury offered to his master, equal to the insult which is offered to God in the sacraments, he would instantly bark and expose his own life to danger, sooner than silently allow his master to be so insulted.

Ought we to show less devotedness to God than a brute is wont to show to men? I say nothing of the fact that rights founded merely on human authority have been put on a footing with the mysteries instituted by Christ and recommended by His divine authority, though the procedure is deserving of the severest rebuke.

But when the mysteries themselves were thus corrupted by the many superstitions and dishonored by the many false opinions to which we have already adverted, forbase and filthy lucre, ought we to have dissembled and borne it, or pretended not to see it?

The Lord's Supper and the Abuse of Sacraments

Christ, with a whip that drove the money changers out of the temple, threw down their tables and scattered their merchandise. I admit it is not lawful for every man to take the whip into his own hand, but it is incumbent on all who professedly belong to Christ to burn with the zeal with which Christ was animated when He vindicated the glory of His Father.

Therefore, that profanation of the temple at which He, in a manner so marked, expressed His strong displeasure, it is at least our part to condemn in a free, firm, and decided tone. Who is ignorant that sacraments have now for a long time been sold in churches, as openly as the wares which stand exposed in the public market?

Other rites too have their fixed price, while as to some a bargain is not struck till after long higgling. But since the instances which are exhibited in the Lord's Supper are manifest, and of a nature more heinous than in the case of other rites, come and say with what conscience we could have connived at profanations of it at once so numerous and so blasphemous.

Seeing that even now I want words to express them, with what justice are we charged with excessive vehemence in inveying against them? By the sacred body of Christ which hung in sacrifice for us, by the holy blood which He shed for our ablution, I here beseech Your Imperial Majesty and you most illustrious princes that you will be pleased seriously to consider how great must be the mystery in which that body is set before us for meat, and that blood for drink, to consider how carefully, how religiously it ought to be kept unpolluted.

What ungratitude then must it be when this heavenly mystery which Christ has committed to us like a most precious jewel is trodden under feet of swine, for any man to look on and be silent. But we may see it not only trodden, but also defiled by every species of pollution.

What an insult was offered when the efficacy of Christ's death was transferred to a theatrical performance by men, when some priestling, as if he had been the successor of Christ, interposed himself as a mediator between God and man, when, after destroying the virtue of the only sacrifice, a thousand sacrifices of expiation were daily offered in a single city, when Christ was sacrificed a thousand times a day as if He had not done enough in once dying for us.

In heaping all these insults upon Christ, they abuse the character of the Holy Supper, for they are all included in this single notion of sacrifice. I am not ignorant of the glosses which our opponents employ in order to screen their absurdities.

Up to the present age, they impudently practiced all the abominations to which I have referred. But now, being detected, they burrow in new holes without being able, however, to hide their turpitude. They talk that the Mass was a sacrifice by which the sins not only of the living but also of the dead were expiated.

What do they now gain by quibbling except it be to betray their impudence? How deeply, too, is the sacrament polluted when instead of the open preaching of the Word, which constitutes its legitimate consecration, a charm is wrought with the bread by means of whiffs and whispers?

When, instead of being distributed among the assembly of the faithful, it is devoured apart by one man or set aside for another's use? And when, even in the case where a kind of distribution is made, the people are, in defiance of the clear injunction of our Lord, defrauded of the half, I mean the cup?

What delirium to fancy that by their exercises the substance of bread is transmuted into Christ? How shameful to see a trade in masses plied as unblushingly as a trade in shoes. For if it is true, as they say, that the thing they vend is the merit of Christ's death, the insult which they offer to Christ is not less gross than if they sat in his face.

Be pleased, most invincible emperor and most illustrious princes, to call to mind the disaster which of old befell the Corinthians on account of one, and that not at first sight, so very heinous an abuse of this sacrament.

Each brought from home his own supper, not as a common contribution, but that the rich might feast luxuriantly while the poor hungered. For this cause the Lord chastised them with a severe and deadly pestilence.

Such is the account of Paul, who at the same time bids us regard it as a paternal rod by which the Lord called them to repentance. From this infer what we have at this day to expect, who have not declined merely in some little iota from the genuine institution of Christ, but wandered to an immeasurable distance from it.

Who have not only corrupted its purity in one instance, but defaced it in numerous instances, and these too of a shocking description. Who have not merely interfered with its legitimate end by some single abuse, but perverted its whole administration.

Nor can it be doubted that now for some time God has begun to avenge this impiety. Now for many years in succession the world has been pressed by numerous varying troubles and calamities until it has at length arrived at almost the extreme of wretchedness.

We indeed stand amazed at our disasters or suggest other reasons why God still afflicts us. But if we reflect how slight the error by which the Corinthians had vitiated the sacred supper was, if contrasted with all the defilements by which in the present day it is sullied and polluted amongst ourselves, it is strange not to perceive that God, who so severely punished them, is justly more offended with us.

Corruption in Church Government and Ministry

Were I to follow out all the flagitious corruptions of ecclesiastical government, I should enter an interminable forest of the lives of the priests for many reasons I at present decline to speak. But there are three vices of an intolerable description on which each individual may reflect for himself.

First, disregarding the character of a holy vocation, clerical offices are everywhere acquired either by violence or by simony or by other dishonest and impious arts. Secondly, the rulers of the church, insofar as regards the performance of their duties, are more like empty shadows or lifeless images than true ministers.

And thirdly, when they ought to govern consciences in accordance with the word of God, they oppress them with an iniquitous tyranny and hold them in bondage by the fetters of many impious laws. Is it true that not only in contempt of the laws of God and man, but in the absence of everything like a sense of shame, foul disorder reigns in the appointment of bishops and presbyters?

That caprice assumes the place of justice, simony is seldom absent, and as if these were evils of no consequence, the correction of them is deferred to a future age? What has become of the duty of teaching, the proper characteristic of the ministry?

As to true liberty of conscience, we know how many struggles Paul engaged in and how earnestly he contended in its defense. But every person who judges impartially must certainly perceive that at the present time we have much more cause to contend for it.

In a corruption of sound doctrines so extreme, in a pollution of the sacraments so nefarious, in a condition of the church so deplorable, those who maintain that we ought not to have felt so strongly would have been satisfied with nothing less than a perfidious intolerance by which we should have betrayed the worship of God, the glory of Christ, the salvation of men, the entire administration of the sacraments, and the government of the church.

There is something specious in the name of moderation, and tolerance is a quality which has a fair appearance and seems worthy of praise. But the rule which we must observe at all hazards is never to endure patiently that the sacred name of God should be assailed with impious blasphemy, that His eternal truth should be suppressed by the devil's lies, that Christ should be insulted, His holy mysteries polluted, unhappy souls cruelly murdered, and the church left to writhe in extremity under the effect of a deadly wound.

This would be not meekness but indifference about things to which all others ought to be postponed. I trust I have now clearly shown, as I proposed, that in correcting the corruption of the church we have by no means been more urgent than the case demanded.

Defending the Reformation Against Charges of Disorder

Even those who blame us are aware of this, and accordingly they have recourse to another charge, that is, that the utmost we have gained by our interference has been to fill the Christian world, which was formerly at peace, with intestine discord, that so far from any amendment appearing things have gone on to worse, that of those who have embraced our doctrine few have been made better, nay, that some have been emboldened, if not to greater, at least to more unrestrained licentiousness.

They object, moreover, that in our churches there is no discipline, no laws of abstinence, no exercises of humility, that the people, thrown loose from the yoke, riot with impunity in vicious courses.

Lastly, they throw upon us the odium of seizing on the property of ecclesiastics, asserting that our princes have made a rush upon it as if it had been lawful spoil, that in this way the church has been violently and shamefully plundered, and that now the patrimony of the church is possessed indiscriminately by those who amid the uproar of contention have usurped it without law or any proper title.

I, for my part, deny not that when in piety reigned her kingdom was disturbed by us, but if at the moment when the light of sound and pious doctrine beamed upon the world, all as in duty bound had spontaneously and with ready mind lent their aid, there would at the present day be no less peace and quietness in all the churches, the kingdom of Christ flourishing, than in the days when Antichrist tyrannized.

Let those who, it is manifest, impede the course of truth, desist from the waging war with Christ, and there will instantly be perfect concord. Or let them desist from throwing upon us the blame of dissensions which they themselves excite.

For it is certainly most unfair, while they refuse all terms of peace, unless Antichrist be permitted, after putting the doctrine of piety to flight, and as it were, again consigning Christ to the tomb, to subjugate the church.

It is most unfair, not only to boast as if they themselves were innocent, but also to insult over us, and that we, who desire nothing else than unity, and whose only bond of union is the eternal truth of God, should bear all the blame and odium as much as if we were the authors of dissension.

The Gospel's Fruit and the Charge of Licentiousness

In regard to the allegation that no fruit has been produced by our doctrine, I am well aware that profane men deride us and allege that in probing sores which are incurable, we only enlarge the ulcer.

For their opinion is that the desperate condition of the church makes it vain to attempt remedies, there being no hope of cure. And they hence conclude that the best course is not to meddle with an evil well fixed.

Those who speak in this way understand not that the restoration of the church is the work of God, and no more depends on the hopes and opinions of men than the resurrection of the dead, or any other miracle of that description.

Here, therefore, we are not to wait for a facility of action, either from the will of men or the temper of the times, but must rush forward through the midst of despair. It is the will of our Master that His gospel be preached.

Let us obey His command and follow whithersoever He calls. What the success will be is not ours to inquire. Our only duty is to wish for what is best and beseech it of the Lord in prayer, to strive with all zeal, solicitude and diligence to bring about the desired result, and at the same time to submit with patience to whatever that result may be.

Groundless, therefore, is the charge brought against us of not having done all the good which we wished and which was to be desired. God bids us plant and water. We have done so. He alone gives the increase.

What, then, if He chooses not to give according to our wish? If it is clear that we have faithfully done our part, let not our adversaries require more of us. If the result is unfavorable, let them expostulate with God.

But the pretense that no benefit has resulted from our doctrine is most false. I say nothing of the correction of external idolatry and of numerous superstitions and errors, though that is not to be counted of no moment.

But is there no fruit in this, that many who are truly pious feel their obligation to us, in that they have at length learned to worship God with a pure heart, and to invoke Him with a calm conscience, having been freed from perpetual torment and furnished with true delight in Christ, so as to be able to confide in Him?

But if we are asked for proofs which every eye can see, it has not fared so unhappily with us that we cannot point to numerous sources of rejoicing. How many who formerly led a vicious course of life have been so reformed as to seem converted into new men?

How many whose past lives had been freed from censure, nay, who were held in the highest estimation, have, instead of retrograding, been able to testify by their conduct that our ministry has proved neither barren nor unfruitful?

Our enemies, no doubt, have it in their power to traduce and lacerate us by their calumnies, especially among the ignorant. But this they can never wrest from us, that is, that in those who have embraced our doctrine greater innocence, integrity and true holiness are found than in all who among them are deemed of greatest excellence.

But if there are any, and we confess the number is but two great, who pervert the gospel by giving loose reins to their passions, the circumstance assuredly is not new. And if it was, how can we be made to bear the blame of it?

It is admitted that the gospel is the only rule of a good and holy life, but in the fact that all do not allow themselves to be ruled by it, and that some, as if set free from restraint, even sin more presumptuously, we recognize the truth of Simeon's saying that Christ is set up that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

Luke 2 verse 35. If God sees meet to kindle the light of the gospel in order that the hidden iniquity of the wicked may be exposed, out of this to concoct a charge against the ministers of the gospel and their preaching is yet utmost stretch of malice and effrontery.

But I do them no injury when I retort upon them the very thing out of which they attempt to rear up a charge against us. For where do the despisers of God learn their daring licentiousness except to be from imagining, amid the uproar of dissensions, that there is nothing which they are not licensed to do?

In this, therefore, let them recognize it as their own crime, that is, that by retarding the course of truth they encourage the wicked with hopes of impunity. As to the vituperative allegation that we are devoid of discipline and laws fitted to keep the people under due restraint, we are provided with a twofold answer.

The Need for Christian Discipline

Were I to say that discipline is adequately established among us, I should be refuted by the daily discourses in which our teachers lament that it still lies neglected. But while I deny not that we want the blessing of thorough discipline, still I say it ought to be considered who the persons are to whom it has hitherto been and still is owing that we do not enjoy it in order that they may be made to bear the blame.

Let our enemies deny, if they can, that they employ every artifice for the purpose not only of hampering our exertions in forming and constituting our churches, but also of defeating and overthrowing whatever we begin.

We labor sedulously in building up the church, and when we are intent on the work, they, ever and anon, make a hostile entrance to disturb our operation and allow us no interval which we might employ in arranging the domestic concerns of the church.

After this they upbraid us with the dilapidation of which they are themselves the cause. What kind of ingeniousness is this, to give us a constant annoyance and then make it a charge against us, that in consequence of that annoyance we are not at leisure to arrange all the departments of the church?

God is witness to our grief, men witness to our complaints, on account of the distance we still are from perfection. But then it is said there are some things pertaining to discipline which we have discarded.

True, but as men are wont, in rebuilding a fallen edifice, to drag out and collect the fragments which lie in heat or scattered about, in order that they may fit each into its proper place, so were we obliged to act.

For if any part of ancient discipline survived, it was so mixed and buried with the confused mass of ruins, it had so lost its pristine form, that no use could be made of it till it was gathered out from amidst the confusion.

I wish at all events our opponents would stimulate us by their example. But how, the discipline which they clamorously maintain that we have not, do they themselves possess? Would it not be better were they to unite with us in admitting and confessing their fault before God, than to upbraid us with what may instantly be retorted on their own head?

Discipline consists of two parts, the one relating to the clergy, the other to the people. Now, I wish to know with what strictness they confine their clergy to an upright and chaste behavior, that pure and more refined holiness to which the ancient canons bind the clergy, I exact not of them, for I know how they laugh in their hearts when anyone raises up from oblivion those laws which have now been dead for several ages.

All I ask of their clergy is common decency, so that if they are not distinguished for purity of life, they may at least not be infamous for turpitude. When anyone, by means of gifts or favor or sordid obsequiousness or surreptitious certificates, winds his way into the priesthood, the canons pronounce its simony and order it as such to be punished.

How many in the present day enter the priesthood by any other means? But adio, as I have said, to that stern rigor. Still, were no enactment on the subject in existence, how disgraceful is it that the houses of bishops should be forges of open and adulterous simony.

What shall I say of the Roman see, where it now seems matter of course that sacerdotal offices are openly disposed of to the highest bidder, and where they are the higher paid for panderism and sorcery and the obscener crimes?

If common sense has any influence amongst us, can it but seem monstrous that boys of twelve years of age should be made archbishops? When Christ was buffeted, was he more insulted than by this? Can there be a greater mockery to God and man than when a boy is set to rule a Christian people and installed in the seat of a father and pastor?

The injunctions of the canons concerning bishops and presbyters are that all should be vigilant in their stations and no one long absent from his church. But let us suppose that there was no such precept, who sees not that the Christian name is subjected to the derision even of Turks, when the denomination of pastor of a church is given to one who does not pay it a single visit during his whole life?

For as to constant residence in the place where he has been appointed pastor, it is now long since an example of it became rare. Bishops and abbots either hold their own courts or dwell in ordinary in the courts of princes.

Each, according to his disposition, selects the place where he may live in luxury. Those again who take more pleasure in their nest are truly said to reside in their benefices, for they are lazy bellies to whom nothing is less known than their duty.

It was forbidden by the ancient canons to give two churches to one individual. Well, let this prohibition be as it had never been. Still, with what gloss will they excuse the absurdity of bestowing five benefices or more on one man, of allowing one, and that one sometimes a boy, to possess three bishoprics, seated at such a distance from each other that he could scarcely make the circuit of them in a year, were he to do nothing else?

The canons require that in promoting priests a strict and minute examination be made into life and doctrine. Let us concede to the present times that they cannot be tied down to so sterner rule. But we see how the ignorant and those utterly devoid both of learning and prudence are inducted without discrimination, even in hiring a mule driver more regard is paid to his past life than in choosing a priest.

This is no fiction, no exaggeration. True, they go through the form like players on a stage that they may exhibit some image of ancient practice. The bishops or the suffragans put the question whether those whom they have determined to ordain are worthy.

There is some one present to answer that they are worthy. There is no occasion to go far for a witness or to bribe him for his testimony. The answer is merely a form. All beetles, tonsors, and doorkeepers know it by heart.

Then, after ordination, the least suspicion of lewdness in the clergy ought, according to the ancient canons, to be corrected and the proof of it punished with deposition and excommunication. Let us remit somewhat of this ancient rigor.

Yet what will be said to such a toleration of daily lewdness as might almost imply a right to commit it? The canons declare that on no account shall a clergyman be permitted to indulge in hunting or gaming or revelry and dancing.

Nay, they even expel from the ministry every man to whom any kind of infamy attaches. In like manner, all who involve themselves in secular affairs or so intermeddle in civil offices as to distract their attention from the ministry, all, in fine, who are not assiduous in the discharge of their duties, they order to be severely censured and, if they repent not, deposed.

It will not be objected that these severe remedies, which cut all vices to the quick, this age cannot bear. Be it so, I do not call upon them for so much purity, but that an unbridled licentiousness should reign in the clergy, a licentiousness so unbridled that they, more than any other order, give additional taint to a world already most corrupt, who can forgive them?

Discipline Among the People and the Use of Excommunication

With regard to the discipline exercised over the people, the matter stands thus. Provided the domination of the clergy remains intact, provided no deduction is made from their tribute or plunder, almost anything else is done with impunity or carelessly overlooked.

We see the general prevalence of all kinds of wickedness in the manners of society. In proof of this, I will call no other witnesses than your imperial majesty and most illustrious princes. I admit that the fact is attributable to many causes, but among the many, the primary cause is that the priests, either from indulgence or carelessness, have allowed the wicked to give loose reins to their lusts.

How do they act at the present hour? What care do they employ in eradicating vices, or at least in checking them? Where are their admonitions? Where are their censures? To omit other things, what use is made of excommunication that best nerve of discipline?