Perfectly consistent with this feeling, Colet did not now show any anxiety to perpetuate his own particular views by means of the power which, as the founder of the endowment, he had a perfect right to exercise. The truth was, I think, that he retained the spirit of free enquiry—the mind open to light from whatever direction—to the last, in full faith that the facts of Christianity—in so far as they are facts—must have everything to gain and nothing to lose from the discovery of other facts in other fields of knowledge. As I have before pointed out, the Oxford Reformers felt that they were living in an age of discovery and progress; they never dreamed that they had reached finality either in knowledge or creed; it would have been a sad blow to their hopes if they had been told that they had. They took a humble view of their own attainments, and had faith in the future.
Colet settles the statutes of his school.
In this spirit do we find Colet in these days of peril from the sweating sickness, and conscious that his shattered health must soon give way, settling the statutes of his school with a wisdom seldom surpassed even in more modern times.
First, with great practical shrewdness, instead of putting his school under the charge of ecclesiastics or clergymen, he intrusted it entirely ‘to the most honest and faithful fellowship of the Mercers of London.’ As Erasmus expressed it, ‘of the whole concern, he set in charge, not a bishop, not a chapter, not dignitaries, but married citizens of established reputation.’[725] Time had been when Colet had regarded ‘marriage’ as almost an unholy thing. But he had seen much both of the church and the world since then; and as perhaps his faith in Dionysian speculations had lessened, his English common sense had more and more asserted its own. He had, as already mentioned, wisely advised Thomas More to marry. In his ‘Right fruitful Admonition concerning the Order of a good Christian Man’s Life,’ from which I have quoted before, he had said, ‘If thou intend to marry, or be married, and hast a good wife, thank our Lord therefor, for she is of his sending.’ So now he intrusted his school to ‘married citizens;’ and Erasmus adds, ‘when he was asked the reason, he said, that nothing indeed is certain in human affairs, but that yet amongst these he had found the least corruption.[726]... He used to declare that he had nowhere found less corrupt morals than among married people, because natural affection, the care of their children, and domestic duties, are like so many rails which keep them from sliding into all kinds of vice.’[727]
In defining the duties and salaries of the masters of his school, he provided expressly that they might be married men (and those chosen by him actually were so);[728] but they were to hold their office ‘in no rome of continuance and perpetuity, but upon their duty in the school.’ The chaplain was to be ‘some good, honest, and virtuous man, and to help to teach in the school.’
Respecting the children he expressed his desire to be that they should not be received into the school until they could read and write fairly, and explained ‘what they shall be taught’ in general terms; ‘for,’ said he, ‘it passeth my wit to devise and determine in particular.’
Then, last of all, he added the following clause, headed, ‘Liberty to Declare the Statutes:’—
Colet wisely gives power to alter the statutes.
‘And notwithstanding these statutes and ordinances before written, in which I have declared my mind and will; yet because in time to come many things may and shall survive and grow by many occasions and causes which at the making of this book was not possible to come to mind; in consideration of the assured truth and circumspect wisdom and faithful goodness of the most honest and substantial fellowship of the Mercery of London, to whom I have committed all the care of the school, and trusting in their fidelity and love that they have to God and man and to the school; and also believing verily that they shall always dread the great wrath of God:—Both all this that is said, and all that is not said, which hereafter shall come into my mind while I live to be said, I leave it wholly to their discretion and charity: I mean of the wardens and assistances of the fellowship, with such other counsel as they shall call unto them—good lettered and learned men—they to add and diminish of this book and to supply it in every default; and also to declare in it every obscurity and darkness as time and place and just occasion shall require; calling the dreadful God to look upon them in all such business, and exhorting them to fear the terrible judgment of God, which seeth in darkness, and shall render to every man according to his works; and finally, praying the great Lord of mercy, for their faithful dealing in this matter, now and always to send unto them in this world much wealth and prosperity, and after this life much joy and glory.’[729]
This done, he wrote in the Book of Statutes the following memorandum:—‘This book I, John Colet, delivered into the hands of Master Lilly the 18th day of June 1518, that he may keep it and observe it in the school.’[730]