AN ENGLISH DIVINE AT COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 7 I and the preacher says that the Bishop of Lincoln CHAP had preached before the Pope in the same strain. He protests especially against exemptions, quoting St. Bernard and Peter of Blois in support of his argument, and declaring that the pastoral work of the Anglican Church was greatly hindered by them. On the bishops Abendon is very severe, alleging that many busied themselves in litigious and lucrative pursuits to the neglect of their proper studies. Harping upon his text, "Be ye filled with the fruits of righteousness," he accuses the bishops of being very profound and subtle as to the best ways of seeking the fruits of prebends, but, on the other hand, of knowing little or nothing about the science of morals or that of theology. With a quaint, grave humour, Abendon applies to the non-resident clergy of all grades the words A.D. 1415 of Prov. vii. 19: "The good man is not at home, he is gone a long journey. He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the full moon." [Vulg.] When the harvest moon comes, says the preacher, and the barns are full, then these beneficed men will be at home. At other times they live far enough off from their parishes, going even to the gate of the Pope himself, and not forgetting to carry their bags of money, which they spend in luxurious living and bribery, or, still worse, in usury. "O bishops of Christ!" he goes on to say, with no little eloquence, "O princes of the Church, O shepherds of shepherds, arise, for the love of Jesus, and bring them back to their pastures, each one to his own ecclesiastical fold. According to the secular laws fugitive servants may be brought back to obedience even with stripes. I be necessary; CHAP Stretch forth therefore the rod of discipline, if it compel all who have care of souls to return to their flocks, to visit their sheep, to live among them, to feed and to teach the people of God." Then he tells the bishops plainly that this matter rests in their hands to be done or to be left undone; that the honour of God, the health of the Church, and the good of all Christian people, depends on their action or inaction, and that he trusts the reform he desires may be one of many benefits arising by the grace of God from the gathering of the Council of Constance.* The hopes of this wise and religious class of reformers were set upon the authoritative action of a general council of the Church, in which they rightly looked for the highest gift of Divine guidance. And that they were not merely a few ascetic a Reforma- or crotchety clergy who had such opinions about 1425 the necessity for a reformation is shown by an Official de mands for tion, A.D. official document sent from the Kings of France and England to the Pope in the year 1425, before the assembly of the Council of Basle, and by the instructions given to the English deputies who attended there by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and other leading men of the King's Council. Both these documents urge the great need that existed for the consideration of the Reformation question by the Council about to assemble. When it did actually meet, however, as it did in 1431, it became engrossed by another question, the dispute between itself and the Pope as to which had 4 Walchius: Monumenta medii ævi, ii. 183. 5 Brown's Fasciculus, vol. I. vi, X. Convocation sent delegates men. supreme authority in the Church, and a great oppor- CHAP tunity was lost for ever. I reformer Spain, The great Cardinal Ximenes effected some im- Ximenes a portant reforms in the Church of Spain at the close of the of the fifteenth century. Queen Isabella obtained Church of a bull from the Pope in 1494 for the reformation of A.D. 1497 monasteries, and she acted, of course, on the advice of Ximenes, to whom its practical administration fell. The Cardinal was himself an Observant Friar, that is, a strict Franciscan, who observed his rule, as distinguished from the Conventuals, who lived in great luxury and managed to secure great estates. He set to work to reform his own order first, and then the diocese of Toledo (of which he was archbishop) in general. But opposition met him at the outset. An agent was sent secretly by the clergy to the Papal court, and it was only by the vigorous act of sending a quick sailing ship to overtake him that Ximenes prevented the appeal from being lodged at Rome. In the end a thousand Franciscans emigrated to Barbary rather than submit to the reforms he proposed, and Alexander VI. issued a brief on November 9, 1496, forbidding all further interference, which, however, was withdrawn in the following year, when full powers of reformation were given by another bull to Ximenes and the papal legate. 6 reformer At this time there was so close an intercourse Wolsey a between Spain and England as to make it very probable that Wolsey was consciously following in the steps of Ximenes when he undertook the work 6 Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, ii. 481, ed. 1838. The bull issued to Ximenes in 1497 seems to have been the precedent for a I let's Con vocation Reforma 1511 CHAP of reforming the Church of England. But about the time when Wolsey was coming into the full Dean Co- tide of power, in the year 1511, a memorable sermon was preached before the Convocation of CanterSermon on bury, in St. Paul's Cathedral, by Colet, then Dean tion, A.D. of St. Paul's. He was a man of some eccentricity, over-confident in argument, and not so deeply learned in theology as some writers have taken for granted. But of his truthfulness and earnest desire to promote holy living there can be no doubt: and his testimony to the need of reformation in the Church of England is that of a witness whose character makes it worth while to give his words in some detail. ments; The sermon was preached on the text, Romans xii. 2: "Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." "I am about," he said, "To exhort you reverend fathers to the endeavour of reformation of the Church's estate; because that nothing hath so disfigured the face of the Church as hath the fashion of secular and worldly living in clerks and priests." After quoting St. Paul against conformity to the world, and also St. John against the "lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," he goes on to say : Clergy 'And, first, for to speak of pride of life, how much greedihankering after better ness and appetite of honour and dignity is now-a-days in men prefer- of the Church. How run they, yea, almost out of breath, from one benefice to another, from the less to the more, from the lower to the higher. Who seeth not this? who seeing this, sorroweth not? Moreover, these that are in the same dignities, the most part of them do go with so stately a I and too countenance and with so high looks, that they seem not to be CHAP put in the humble bishopric of Christ, but rather in the high lordship and power of the world, not knowing nor advertising what Christ, the master of all meekness, said to His disciples, stately in whom He called to be bishops and priests,-'the Son of man their ways came not to be ministered unto, but to minister;' by which words our Saviour doth plainly teach that the mastery in the Church is none other thing than a ministration, and the high dignity in a man of the Church to be none other thing than a meek service. also world ly, luxur. "The second secular evil is carnal concupiscence. Hath They are not this vice so grown and waxen in the Church as a flood of their lust? so that there is nothing looked for more diligently rious, in this most busy time, of the most part of priests, than that that doth delight and please the senses. They give themselves to feasts and banqueting, they spend themselves in vain babbling, they give themselves to sports and plays, they apply themselves to hunting and hawking, they drown themselves in the delights of the world. Procurers and finders of lusts they set by. Against which kind of men Jude the apostle crieth out, in his Epistle, Woe unto them which have gone the way of Cain,' &c. ous "Covetousness is the third secular evil, which St. John and covetcalls 'concupiscence of the eyes;' St. Paul calleth it idolatry. This abominable pestilence hath so entered in the mind almost of all priests, and so hath blinded the eyes of the mind, that we are blind to all things but only those which seem to bring unto us some gains. For what other thing seek we now-adays in the Church than fat benefices and high promotions? yea, and in the same promotions, of what other thing do we. pass upon than of our titles and rents? That we care not Excess of pluralities. how many, how chargeful, how great benefices we take, so that they be of great value. O covetousness! St. Paul justly called thee the root of all evil. Of thee cometh this heaping of benefices upon benefices; of thee so great pensions assigned of many benefices resigned; of thee all the sueing for tithes, Too much for offerings, for mortuaries, for dilapidations, by the right and standing title of the Church; for which thing we strive no less than money for our own life. O covetousness! of thee cometh the cor- rights out for |