[144] ‘Meanwhile the foster father who has undertaken the rearing of the child in Christ, gives a pledge and sacred promise, on behalf of the infant, of all things that true Christianity demands, viz. a renouncing of all sin, &c.... And this he says, not in the child’s stead, since it would be a fond thing for another to speak in place of one that was in ignorance; but when, in his own person, he speaks of renouncing, he professes that he will bring it to pass, so far as he can, that the little infant, as soon as ever it is capable of instruction, shall in reality and in his life utterly renounce, &c....
‘When the bishop, I say, hears him saying, “I renounce,” which means, as Dionysius explains it, “I will take care that the infant renounce,” &c.... Thus we see how in the primitive church, by the ordinance of the apostles, infants were not admitted unreservedly to the sacred rights, but on condition only that some one would be surety for them, that when they came to years of discretion they should thenceforward set before them in reality the pattern of Christ.
‘Mark thus how great a burden he takes upon himself who promises to be a godfather,’ &c.—Mr. Lupton’s translation of Colet’s abstract of the Eccl. Hier. ch. viii. pp. 158, 159.
[145] ‘Men execute the previous decisions of God, and by the ministry of men that is at length disclosed on earth,’ &c.—Mr. Lupton’s translation, p. 149. ‘It must be heedfully marked, lest bishops should be presumptuous, that it is not the part of men to loose the bonds of sins: nor does the power pertain to them of loosing or binding anything.’... ‘And if they do not proceed according to revelation, moved by the Spirit of God ... they abuse the power given to them, both to the blaspheming of God and the destruction of the Church.’—Ibid. 150.
[146] See Eras. Op. iii. p. 459, C and D.
[147] Mr. Lupton’s translation of Colet’s abstract of the Eccl. Hier. p. 83. This was a strictly Dionysian thought and one shared also by Pico. ‘The little affection of an old man or an old woman to Godward (were it never so small), he set more by than all his own knowledge as well of natural things as godly.’... He writeth thiswise [to Politian], ‘Love God (while we be in this body), we rather may than either know Him, or by speech utter Him.’—Life of Picus, E. of Mirandula, Sir Thomas More’s Works, p. 7.
To the same purport is the passage from Ficino, quoted by Colet in his MS. on the ‘Romans.’—Vide supra, p. 37.
[148] Mr. Lupton’s translation, pp. 76, 77.
[149] Ibid. p. 73.
[150] Mr. Lupton’s translation, pp. 150, 151.