If it were possible so far to look behind the screen of the past as to see the bishops of the province of Canterbury with the sight and knowledge of Colet, as he saw them assembled at St. Paul’s on that Friday morning, then, and then only, would it be possible to appreciate fairly what it must have cost him to preach the sermon he did on this occasion.

The bishops and their benefices.

The Archbishop and some of the bishops were friends of his and of the new learning; but even some of these were so far carried away by the habits of the times, as to fall inevitably under the censure of any honest preacher who should dare to apply the Christian standard to their episcopal conduct. There might be honourable exceptions to the rule, but, as a rule, the bishops looked upon their sees as property conferred upon them often for political services, or as the natural result of family position or influence. The pastoral duties which properly belonged to their position were too often lost sight of. A bishopric was a thing to be sued for or purchased by money or influence. It mattered little whether the aspirant were a boy or a greyheaded old man, whether he lived abroad or in England, whether he were illiterate or educated. There was one bishop, for instance, whom Erasmus speaks of as a ‘youth,’ and who was so illiterate that he had offered Erasmus a benefice and a large sum of money if he would undertake his tuition for a year—a bribe which Erasmus, albeit at the time anxiously seeking remunerative work of a kind which would not interfere with his studies, refused with contempt.[402] Then there was James Stanley, an old man, whose only title to preferment was his connection with the Royal Family and a noble house, who, in spite of his absolute unfitness, had been made Bishop of Ely in 1506, and was now living, it is said, a life of open profligacy, to the great scandal of the English Church, and of the noble house to which he belonged.[403]

There was a bishop, too, whom More satirised repeatedly in his epigrams, under the name of ‘Posthumus;’ at whose promotion he expresses his delight, inasmuch as, whilst bishops were ‘generally selected at random, this bishop had evidently been chosen with exceptional care. If an error had been made in this case, it could not certainly have arisen from haste in selection; for had the choice been made out of a thousand, a worse or more stupid bishop could not possibly have been found!’[404] From another epigram, it may be inferred that this ‘Posthumus’ was one of the ignorant Scotists whose opposition the Oxford Reformers had so often to combat; for More represents him as fond of quoting the text, ‘The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life,’—the text which is mentioned by Tyndale as quoted by the Scotists against the literal interpretation of Scripture;—and then he drily remarks, that this bishop was too illiterate for any ‘letters to have killed him, and that, if they had, he had no spirit to bring him to life again!’[405]

The bishops and their benefices.

These may, indeed, have been exceptional or, at all events, extreme cases; but, however the bishops of the province of Canterbury had come by their bishoprics, their general practice seems to have been to use their benefices only as stepping-stones to higher ones. No sooner were they promoted to one see than they aspired to another, of higher rank and greater revenue. This, at least, was no exceptional thing. The Bishop of Bath and Wells had been Bishop of Hereford; the Bishop of Chichester had been translated from the see of St. David’s. The Bishop of Lincoln had been Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. Audley had filled the sees of Rochester and Hereford in succession, and was now Bishop of Salisbury. Fitzjames had been first promoted to the see of Rochester, after that to the see of Chichester, and from thence, in his old age, to the most lucrative of all—the see of London. Fox had commenced his episcopal career as Bishop of Exeter; he had from thence been translated, in succession, to the sees of Bath and Wells, and Durham, and was now Bishop of Winchester. And be it remembered that these numerous promotions were not in reward for the successful discharge of pastoral duties: those who had earned the most numerous and rapid promotions were the men who were the most deeply engaged in political affairs, sent on embassies, and so forth, whose benefices were thus the reward of purely secular services, and who, consequently, had hardly had a chance of discharging with diligence their spiritual duties. The Bishop of Bath and Wells was a foreigner, and lived abroad; and so also the Bishop of Worcester owed his bishopric to Papal provision, and lived and died at Rome. His predecessor and his successor also both were foreigners.[406]

Wolsey.
Wolsey’s ambition.

There was also, amongst the clergy of the province of Canterbury, a man who was to surpass all others in these particulars; who was to be handed down to posterity as the very type of an ambitious churchman; who was already high in royal favour, always engaged in political affairs, and considered to be the instigator of the approaching war; who had the whole charge of equipping the army committed to his care; who had lately been promoted to the deanery of Lincoln, and was waiting for the bishopric as soon as it should be vacant; who had already had conferred upon him, in addition to the deanery, two rectories, a prebend, and a canonry; who, before another year was out, without giving up any of these preferments, was to be made Dean of York; and who was destined to aspire from bishopric to archbishopric, to hold abbeys and bishoprics in commendam, sue for and obtain from the Pope a cardinal’s hat and legatine authority, and to rule England in Church and State—England’s king amongst the rest—failing only in his attempt to get himself elected to the Papal chair. This Dean of Lincoln, so aspiring, ambitious, fond of magnificence and state, was sure to be found at his place in a convocation called that the clergy might tax themselves in support of his warlike policy, and in aid of his ambitious dreams. Wolsey, we may be sure, would be there to watch anxiously the concessions of his ‘dismes,’ as Bishop Fitzjames would be there also, to await the measures to be taken for the ‘extirpation of heresy.’

It was before an assembly composed of such bishops and churchmen as these, that Colet rose to deliver the following address:—

Colet’s sermon.
Need of reformation in the church.