Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/295

262 of one church several, out of several one, according as the advantage and state of the people shall demand, will be formed. Those who quest for alms, who, by seeking after their own interest, not after the things of Jesus Christ, brought great damage, great disgrace upon our religion, will—which must be put in the place of extreme happiness—be utterly rooted out of the whole memory of men. Hence our present calamity took its rise; hence the infinite evil ceased not to glide and flow wider and wider daily, nor could it hitherto be met by the cautions and provisions made by many councils. Who, therefore, will not say that it has most wisely been brought to pass, that this member, in the healing of which long and great trouble has been spent in vain, should be cut off? Moreover, worship will be offered unto God in a more pious and correct manner; and they who bear the Lord's vessels will be cleansed, that they may draw others to imitate them. For which it was most excellently devised, that they who were to be initiated into holy orders should in each church be instructed in such morals and letters from their earliest years, that it might be as it were a seminary of all virtues. But now, the provincial synods being restored, the visitations renewed, for the benefit of the people, not for complaint and expense; the power being delivered unto pastors of more conveniently governing and feeding their own; public penance being brought back to use; hospitality enjoined both on ecclesiastical persons and on pious places; a memorable and almost heavenly system laid down respecting conferring priesthoods having cure [of souls]; plurality (as it is called) of benefices removed; the hereditary possession of the sanctuary of God prohibited; the manner of excommunication imposed and determined; the first trials being assigned to those places where the quarrels arise; duelling interdicted; a certain curb, as it were, which cannot easily be shaken off, being imposed upon the luxury, avarice, and licentiousness of all men, especially in holy orders; kings and princes being admonished of their duty, and other matters of this kind most prudently ordained, who does not see that you, most excellent fathers, have fulfilled your parts in this affair to the fullest extent? In former councils measures have been