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There you see great prelates, wearing
golden miters, set with precious stones, on their heads, and with silver
crosiers, standing before the altar with copes of brocade, slowly
intoning vespers and other masses with much ceremony, accompanied by an
organ and singers, until ye become quite stupefied; and these men appear
to you to be men of great gravity and holiness, and ye believe that they
are incapable of error, and they themselves believe that all they say
and do is commanded by the gospel to be observed.
Men feed upon those vanities, and rejoice in those ceremonies, and say
that the church of Christ was never in so flourishing a state, and that
divine worship was never so well conducted as in this day; and that the
first prelates were very contemptible preachers in comparison with those
of modern times. They certainly had not so many golden miters, nor so
many chalices; and they parted with those they had to relieve the
necessities of the poor; our prelates get their chalices by taking that
from the poor which is their support.


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