Scotland/Scots > Life of John Knox ; and, The life of Alexander Henderson

MFE OF JOHN KNOX.
whole body. Avarice, ambition, and the love of secular
pomp, reigned among the superior orders. Bishops and
abbots rivalled the first nobility in magnificence, and
preceded them in honours: they were privy-councillors
and Lords of Session, as well as of Parliament, and had
long engrossed the principal offices of state. A vacant
bishopric or abbacy called forth powerful competitors,
who contended for it as for a principality or petty king¬
dom ; it was obtained by similar arts, and not unfrequent-
ly taken possession of by the same weapons. Inferior
benefices were openly put to sale, or bestowed on the
illiterate and unworthy minions of courtiers; on dice-
players, strolling bards, and the bastards of bishops.
Pluralities were multiplied without bounds, and benefices
given in commendam were kept vacant, during the life
of the commendatory, sometimes during several lives,
to the deprivation of extensive parishes of all provision
of religious service ; if a deprivation it could be called,
at a time when the cure of souls was no longer regarded
as attached to livings, originally endowed for this pur¬
pose. There was not such a thing known as for a
bishop to preach; indeed, I scarce recollect a single
instance of it, mentioned in history, from the erection
of the regular Scottish episcopate, down to the period
of the Reformation. The practice was even gone into
dissuetude among all the secular clergy, and was wholly
devolved on the mendicant monks, who employed it for
the most mercenary purposes.
The lives of the clergy, exempted from secular juris¬
diction, and corrupted by w'ealth and idleness, were
become a scandal to religion, and an outrage on decency.
While they professed chastity, and prohibited, under
the severest penalties, any of the ecclesiastical order from
contracting lawful wedlock, the bishops set the example
of the most shameless profligacy before the inferior
clergy; avowedly kept their harlots; provided their
natural sons with benefices; and gave their daughters m
marriage to the sons of the nobility and principal gen-