This is the modern church, no longer built with living stones, that is,
by Christians established in a living faith, and so formed of love. Go
to Rome and through all Christendom, in the houses of the great prelates
and the great lords, nothing is thought of but poetry and the art of
oratory.
Go and see, and you will find them with books of the humanities in their
hands, and giving themselves up to the belief that they know how to lead
the souls of men aright by Virgil, Horace, and Cicero. Do you wish to
see the church guided by the hand of the astrologer? Ye will not find
either prelate or great lord who is not in confidential intercourse with
some astrologer, who predicts to him the hour when he must ride or
engage in some other affair. These same great lords do not dare to move
a step contrary to what their astrologer tells them. There are only two
things in that temple in which they find delight, and these are the
paintings, and the gilding with which it is covered.
It is thus that in our church there are many beautiful external
ceremonies in the solemnization of the holy offices, splendid vestments
and draperies, with gold and silver candlesticks, and many chalices, all
of which have a majestic effect.
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