Chapter V. The Sovereign Pontiff should uphold the Apostolic decrees and ancient ordinances throughout the world

It remains for your consideration to survey the condition of the Church generally, and to ascertain whether the people are subject to the clerks, the clerks to the priests, the prints to God, in all due humility ; if in monasteries and places of religion order is preserved, and discipline is watchful ; if ecclesiastical censures are enforced against corrupt practice and perverse doctrine ; if the vineyards show the goodly bloom of priestly integrity and holiness ; if the blossoms bear fruit in the obedience of faithful peoples ; if, now at length, your own apostolic commands and ordinances are observed with fitting care, lest any portion of your Master's field be found uncultivated through neglect, or filched through fraud. You may be sure that such defects may be found. To omit count less other details, I could easily point to parts of the vineyards on all sides which are lying waste ; I could show you that even of those which your own right hand has planted some are rooted up. At Rheims was it not your own mouth that published the canons submitted to the Council ? * Who observes them ? Who has observed them ? You are de ceived if you think they are observed. If you do not think so, you have yourself erred, either in decreeing what was not to be observed, or pretending that it is observed. ' We enjoin ', you said, ' that bishops as well as clergy see that they do not, either by superfluous apparel, or an unbecoming medley of colours, or by divided garments, or by the tonsure, offend the eye of the beholders, to whom they ought to be a pattern and example ; but rather by their own conduct so condemn these things, and by their mode of life evidence their love of innocence, as the dignity of the clerical order requires. But if after warning from their own bishops any do not submit within forty days, let them by authority of the same be de prived of their ecclesiastical benefices. If, however, the bishops neglect to enforce the aforesaid penalty, inasmuch as the faults of inferiors are to be attributed to none more than to indolent and negligent rulers, let them abstain from their pontifical office until such time as they do inflict the punishment appointed by us on the clergy subject to them. With this we have thought well to couple the order that no one be like clergymen. To which order do they belong ? In their eagerness to belong to both, they forsake both, confound both. ' Every one ', says the Apostle, ' shall rise in his own order.' 2 What is their order ? Having sinned without order, shall they perish without order ? I rather think that if the all-wise God is truly believed to leave nothing unordered, from the height above to the depth beneath, there is reason to fear their ' order ' can be only where there is no ' order ', but where everlasting horror dwells. O unhappy bride entrusted to the care of bridesmen such as these, who are not afraid to appropriate to themselves what was intended for her adorning ! They are surely not the friends of the bridegroom, but his rivals. And now I have said enough about the things beneath you ; not enough, it is true, for the adequate treatment of the subject, which is far too great for me to handle, but enough for my purpose. We must now view the things around you ; but the fourth book will open the door and admit us to them.