§ 1. Whatever things have become deformed through negligence, wickedness, the lapse of time, and antiquity itself must be reformed. All, from the first head of the Church down to the lowest Chaplain, and from Caesar Augustus down to the praetor of the smallest little village, ought according to their office and powers to will, attempt, and accomplish this. To impious men who disdain sacred things and seek fattening from the patrimony of the Crucified, the name of reformation is hateful and the thing itself abominable, because the belly has no ears, nor do the things beneath the belly possess understanding. Nevertheless reformation must be urged and altogether accomplished.
§ 2. The primary cause is and ought to be the obligation by which the Supreme Pontiff, Bishops, and Prelates are most strictly bound; concerning this I shall speak elsewhere. Another cause is that it is known from experience and the whole history of antiquity that provinces and kingdoms have been publicly punished,
overthrown, and deformed by devastation and slaughter when vices grew so strong that the authority of the laws yielded to them and the magistracy did not labor to eliminate them. Thus the first-created world perished in the Flood; thus Sodom sank into flames; thus the Canaanites were extirpated when their iniquities had been carried to the highest point. For this is the vicissitude of affairs, this the circuit of calamities, which do not spread by chance but exact deserved punishments by divine judgment. The Babylonians overthrew the Assyrians, the Medes and Persians the Babylonians, the Macedonians the Medes and Persians, the Romans the Macedonians, and every form of barbarism the Romans—and this at the time when each nation was most vicious. Consult Augustine concerning Africa’s struggle against the Vandals, and Prosper concerning Gaul and Spain. Consider present events and those nearest to them: has not a great part of Hungary received the Turkish bridle, and does it not harass its neighbors with either a cruel or a faithless peace? This has place especially in the people of God, whom the providence of the divine power, raging mercifully with swift punishment against those ungrateful for its beneficence, has been accustomed to recall. Let the books of Judges and Kings be read: fortune always followed morals. It will be so also in the Christian world, which will be preserved so long as vices are punished and virtue is pursued; if the vices burst forth more unbridledly, it will be overthrown either by mutual slaughter or by a more powerful enemy. But vices will be extirpated by the reformation undertaken by rulers.
§ 3. The ambitious sloth of certain Prelates is damnable and will be punished with eternal fires. With soft words they enervate minds and grant room to vices growing of their own accord. They say that the times are now different; that things which can scarcely be amended must be dissembled; that the rigor of the canons must be relaxed; that reformations bring disadvantages; and that heresy impedes discipline. These words are destructive and impious. For laws were established not for times but for minds; nor do the common vices of the times excuse the deeds of individuals. No times have been so vicious as not to be bound by laws. Those who can be changed can also be amended. Those who despair of correction are injurious to the grace of the Redeemer. Will not God preserve his Church even to the end of the ages and purify for himself an acceptable Church? How, therefore, can the sins of its members not be at least diminished, if not altogether removed? How many things did one Ezra, one Maccabee, correct? When the entire nation was hastening headlong into the morals and vices of the Gentiles, he brought back the greatest part to piety. The hand of the Lord has not been shortened so that it cannot save; rather, the will of human beings has been cut off so that they do not labor to be saved. Since one century, so many thousands of barbarous nations, after acknowledging Christ and renouncing usury, slaughters, polygamy, and cannibalism, have handed themselves over to be formed in Christian morals—the two Indies and the regions of the Ethiopians scorched by the suns. Why, then, do we deny that the Christian people and Clergy can return to that place to which that barbarism has preceded them, coming from East and West and reclining with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, while marveling at the sons of the kingdom departing into the outer darkness? They cannot be ignorant that the most holy canons according to which I demand reformation can be observed not only by the best but even by those of middling quality, and that those who made them seriously commanded their observance. Within a few years there have been many provincial synods; the voice of them all is one: the Canons must be recalled into use. If one intends to count them, we shall find scarcely fewer canons of Councils by which we are ordered to observe the ancient canons than there are ancient canons whose observance is at issue.
But if one wishes to inspect our world more closely, many things have already been thoroughly amended, so that the rest appear easier. A hundred years ago great ignorance possessed the world; now there is almost an excess of arts, talents, and disputants. Now some single university city possesses more learned men than all Germany formerly did. Great progress has therefore been made. And so, as soon as the heresy snapped its fingers, almost half the Clergy and religious looked back and entered the broad and whitewashed roads of the age. Now, although apostates are precious in the camp of the sectarians, they are nevertheless rare.
There has been less, yet some, progress in morals. For the ancient religious families have recovered their former integrity and rigor and flourish more and more each day, with great hope of better times, since they show to a darkened world hearts so holy, brave, and entirely consecrated to God, despise the pomp of the age, and interpose themselves for us before God. And a select multitude of new religious, displaying the first fruits of the spirit, strive to bring aid to the aging world. This matter must therefore be urged, and care taken that the things which are lacking be added. In some places very many things are lacking, in others very few, according as the Bishops’ diligence or negligence has prevailed.