ON THE REVIVAL OF LITERATURE. 



351 



wade in such a slough of moral filth, we behold the council of Lateran in- 

 veighing with all its authority against the scandalous hves of many of ita 

 own ministers, who, not satisfied with fiving in a state of concubinage 

 themselves, consented to receive the wages of iniquity, and sell licenses ta 

 the laity for the grant of a like indulgence.*" 



But it may, perhaps, be said, that in these instances the soft enervating' 

 power of an Itahan climate, and the licentious habits which so pecuharly 

 characterized the decline of the Roman empire, and which to the period be- 

 fore us had never been altogether eradicated, laid a foundation for vices 

 which would not otherwise have been exhibited. Let us then direct our 

 attention to a climate of another kind ; let us turn to the hardy and prover- 

 bially virtuous inhabitants of Scotland, and proverbially virtuous, too, from 

 the very nature of the climate itself : what was the effect of ignorance and 

 papal superstition amidst the corruption of the fourteenth and fiileenth cen- 

 turies upon the physical temperance and chastity of the Highlands ? The 

 following is Dr. M'-Crie's account in his life of John Knox, and which he 

 supports by sufficient authorities : — 



" The corruptions by which the Christian religion was universally de- 

 praved, before the Reformation, had grown to a greater height in Scot- 

 land than in any other nation within the pale of the western church. 

 Supertitition, and religioiis imposture, in their grossest forms, gained an 

 easy admission among a rude and ignorant people. By means of these 

 the clergy attained to an exorbitant degree of opulence and power ; which 

 were accompanied, as they always have been, with the corruption of their 

 order, and of the whole system of religion. The full half of the w ealth of 

 the nation belonged to the clergy ; and the greater part of this was in the 

 hands of a few of their number, who had the command of the whole 

 body. Avarice, ambition, and the love of secular pomp, reigned among 

 the superior orders. Bishops and abbots rivalled the first nobility in mag- 

 nificence, and preceded them in honours. They were privy-councillors 

 and lords of session as well as of parliament, and had long engrossed 

 the principal officers of state. A vaca^it bishopric or abbacy called forth 

 powerful competitors, who contended for it as a principality or petty 

 kingdom : it was obtained by similar arts, and not unfrequently taken 

 possession of by the same weapons. Inferior benefices were openly put 

 to sale or bestowed on the illiterate and unworthy ministers of courtiers ; 

 on dice players, strolhng bards, and bastards of bishops. — There was not 

 such a thing known as for a bishop to preach . — the practice was even 

 gone into desuetude among all the secular clergy, and wholly devolved 

 on the mendicant monks, who employed it for the most mercenary pur- 

 poses. 



The lives of the clergy, exempted from secular jurisdiction, and cor- 

 rupted by wealth 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 contract- 

 ing lawful wedlock, the bishops set the example of the most shameless 

 profligacy before the inferior clergy ; avowedly kept their harlots ; pro- 

 vided their natural sons with benefices, and gave their daughters in mar- 

 riage to the sons of the nobility and principal gentry ; many of whom were 



♦ Quia vero in quibusdam regionibua nonnulii jurisdictionem habentes, pecuniarios qases- 

 tiis a concubinariis percipere non erubescimt, patientes eos in tali foeditate sordescere, sub 

 ptena malcdictionis aeternae prsecipirans, ne deinceps sub pacto, compositione aut spe alterins 

 qusRstits, talia quovis modo tolerent, aut dissimulent.— S. S. Concil. torn. xiv. p. 302» 



