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for the acquisition of territory and power, for CHAP. worldly pomp and aggrandizement, to the increasing loss of all their official influence, personal reputation, and individual virtue.

The corruptions of the clergy and the sense of the papal misconduct were as strong in England as elsewhere," even in the reign of Henry VIII., and were largely spreading the desire of reformation, which

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91 See the attacking works of Dr. Paulus in 1404, and of Ullerstone in 1408, mentioned in Hist. Mid. Ages, v. 3. p. 117. In 1515, Dr. Standish endeavored to subject the English clergy to the criminal jurisprudence of the country. They resisted, but the abuse became so palpable, that in the same year Leo X. was prevailed on by the English government to issue a bull, declaring, that as he learnt that some persons in England assumed the monastic tonsure, merely to be exempted from lay jurisdiction, no one for the next five years should have the tonsure without the order of subdeacon also; or he might be tried in the courts of law as if not a clerk. Rym. Fed. 13. p. 559.

92 It was in 1511, six years before Luther thought of writing or opposing, that the dean of St. Paul's, and the founder of its public school, in his sermon to the convocation of the clergy, stated, We wish that ye would mind the reformation of ecclesiastical affairs, for there never was more need of it. I come hither to-day, Fathers! to warn you, that in this your council ye think with your whole mind upon the reformation of the church.' Knight's Colet, p. 239.

He assumed this task by the command of the archbishop their president, who hath laid upon me this burden, because nothing has so disfigured the face of the church as the fashion of secular and worldly living in clerks and priests.' p. 240. Thus the evils of which he complains, represent to us, from the highest authority, the state of the Roman Catholic church in England, in the reign of Henry VIII., and the desire of its upright chiefs for its reformation, sixteen years before this king became acquainted with Anne Boleyn.

He classes what he censures, under the four heads of devilish pride, carnal lust, worldly covetousness, and secular business: these same things now are, and reign in the church and ecclesiastical persons: all that is in the church is either the lust of the flesh, or of the eyes, or the pride of life.' p. 241.

His first topic is their greediness and appetite of honor and dignity. How run they ever out of breath, from one benefice to another."

His second. In this most busy age, the far greater number of priests (maxima parte) mind nothing but what delights and pleases the senses. They give themselves to feasts and banquetings; spend their time in vain chit chat, give themselves up to plays and fun, and are addicted to hunting and hawking; drowned in the delights of this world.' p. 241.

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would have become efficiently active if its prime minister, from 1515 to 1530, had not been a cardinal, raised from social obscurity to his greatness, by the very system which he was making more offensive to the public eye, and who, aspiring till he fell, to

'Covetousness: this abominable pestilence hath so entered into the minds of almost all priests (fere omnium) that we are blind to every thing but what seems to bring unto us some gain. What other things seek we except fat benefices and promotions; yet he that hath many great, minds not the office of one small one; O covetousness! of thee cometh this heaping of benefices upon benefices; and so great pensions assigned from many benefices resigned. Of thee, so much suing for tithes, for offerings, for mortuaries, for dilapidations; for which things we contend as eagerly as for our lives. Of thee, the corruptness of courts, and those daily new inventions wherewith the poor silly people are so vexed, and the wantonness of officials. O covetousness! mother of all iniquity! of thee cometh this fervent study of ordinances to enlarge their jurisdiction; their peevish and raging contention on the insinuation of testaments, the untimely sequestrations of fruits, the superstitious observation of all those laws which are gainful, and the setting aside and despising of such as concern the amendment of manners all the corruption and ruin of the church, all the scandals of the world, arise from the avarice of the priests.' p. 242.

The fourth evil that deforms the face of the church, is continual secular occupation, wherein priests and bishops in these days so busy themselves. Under the garment and habit of a priest, they live plainly after the lay fashion; they see nothing but earthly things.' He also quotes St. Bernard, to say that the naughty lives of priests is the most perilous kind of heresy; these men are worse than heretics.' p. 244, 5.

He then proceeds to detail the reformations he recommends; beginning with advising them not to admit persons so indiscriminately into holy orders. Hence springs up and flows out all the crowd of untaught and evil priests. It is not enough to be a priest, to construe a collect, to put forth a question, or to answer a sophism. An honest, pure, and holy life is more necessary; approved manners; moderate learning in the Scriptures; some knowlege of the sacraments, and above all things, the fear of God, and love of heavenly life.' "It happeneth now-a-days, that boys and fools and bad persons reign and rule in the church, instead of old men, and wise and good.' p. 246. He advises the canons to be enforced, which forbid a clergyman to meddle with merchandize, to be an usurer, a hunter, a common gamer or player, to bear weapons, to haunt taverns, to be familiar with women, or to spend the goods of the church in costly buildings; in sumptuous apparel and pomps; in feasting and wantonness; in enriching kinsfolks, and in keeping of hounds. p. 246. Dr. Colet's sermon, printed in Latin, in Knight's Life of him; p. 239-250, with an old English translation, p. 251-264. Another version is in the Phenix, v. 2.

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be pope himself, would not suffer any part of its CHAP. political machinery to be disturbed. Hence the antient system rolled awhile heavily on with its creaking wheels, altho Wolsey saw such a rising spirit about him, that he pretended to be meditating the reformation that was wished for.93 The public hope waited in quiescent expectation, and none of the new opinions which arose were connected with any social turbulence. Some of these were the highest feelings of the purest piety," others the calm decisions of rational judgment. Objections against images, pilgrimages, masses and offerings for the dead, relics, fastings, auricular confession, penances, transubstantiation, begging friars, saints' days, processions, holy water, consecrated wax tapers, and what may be called the drapery and theatricals of popery, were the alleged offences of the greater number. Denial of the pope's supremacy or power in England, reading the New Testament, the possession of proscribed books, and opinions hostile to

93 It was in 1523, that Wolsey, as legate, summoned the clergy to meet in April, ad tractandum de reformatione; and Fox, bishop of Winchester, wrote to him, that this was a day he had earnestly longed for, and hoped it would be a reformation of the whole hierarchy of England, as all that belonged to the antient integrity of the clergy, and especially the monks, were depraved by licentiousness and corruption. See his Letter in Strype's Mem. v. 1. p. 72. Skelton's Pictures of the English Clergy at this time may be read as a poet's comment on the facts alluded to by Dr. Colet, tho with the recollection that all poetical satire tends too much to caricature instead of faithful delineation. It exaggerates for effect, and therefore makes large deductions necessary, if we wish to see the simple truth. See Chalmers's Poets, v. 1. p. 237, 285, 6, 282.

94 So we must deem those of Taylor, who was burnt for expressing his belief, that no human person is to be worshipped; that God only is to be adored; and that prayer should be directed to him alone; and therefore that saints should not be worshipped or invocated. Foxe, 1. p. 605.

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monachism and the celibacy of the clergy, caused the persecution of many; while a few censured the property of the church, and fewer objected to tithes." The dislike of the religious worship paid to saints, and the union of their names with the Divinity by the close and equalizing association of the immediately connecting particle, dissatisfied more and more the cultivated mind. The apprehended and destroyed persons were mostly priests, and the others were private and obscure individuals; but all were peaceable and unoffending as subjects.

From the accession of Edward IV. to the death of Henry VIII. no reforming spirit attempted to realize its wishes in England by conspiracy, insurrection or warfare. It was the Roman see and its partisans,

See the opinions of those who are noticed with the references in the preceding note 36.

96 The canonization of saints in the Catholic church seems to me to have been taken from the Roman custom of deifying their friends and sovereigns. Cicero gives us in his own conduct a remarkable instance of this practice, which is so analogous to the Papal beatification of saints, that it deserves our recollection. His daughter Tullia died in child-bed. He rejects the common mode of perpetuating her remembrance by a sepulchral monument, and resolved to build a temple to her, and erect her into a sort of deity. In his fragments on Consolation, he says, 'As we see many men and women raised by men among the number of the Gods, and venerate their most august temples in cities and fields, the same honor shall be devoted to her. I will consecrate thee, O best of all, with the approbation of the Gods themselves; and place thee in their assembly, for the reverence of all mortals.' То Atticus, he writes, I will have a fane made and finished this summer. It shall be of Chian marble, with columns by a Chian artist. It shall be a fane, not a sepulchre, that I may effect her apotheosis. Groves and remote places are proper only for deities of an established name, but for the deification of mortals, public situations are necessary, to strike the eye, and attract the notice of the people.' Therefore he wished to buy some public gardens, to attract a resort of votaries to his new temple. See his Letters to Atticus, 12, 18, 19, 22, 35, 36, 37, 41; and Midd. Cicero, v. 2. p. 174-6. If we substitute shrine for fane, we have a Catholic saint. Cicero was also a priest and augur.

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which made revolt and civil violences their instru- CHAP. ments, to embarrass and overthrow the governments which resisted its domination; as our own experience has seen its priesthood repeating lately such practices in Portugal, Spain and elsewhere. Its moral code appears to omit treason from its catalogue of social crimes, whenever it chooses to be in hostility with any sovereign or with his administration.