19. It remains for your consideration to survey the condition of the Church generally, and to ascertain whether the people are subject to the clerks,1 the clerks to the priests,2 the priests to God, in all due humility; if in monasteries and places of religion order is preserved, and discipline is watchful; if ecclesiastical censures are enforced against corrupt practice and perverse doctrine; if the vineyards show the goodly bloom of priestly integrity and holiness ; if the blossoms bear fruit in the obedience of faithful peoples ; if, now at length, your own apostolic commands and ordinances are observed with fitting care, lest any portion of your Master's field be found uncultivated through neglect, or filched through fraud. You may be sure that such defects may be found. To omit countless other details, I could easily point to parts of the vineyards on all sides which are lying waste ; I could show you that even of those which your own right hand has planted some are rooted up. At Rheims was it not your own mouth that published the canons submitted to the Council ?3 Who observes them ? Who has observed them ? You are deceived if you think they are observed. If you do not think so, you have yourself erred, either in decreeing what was not to be observed, or pretending that it is observed. ' We enjoin ', you said, ' that bishops as well as clergy see that they do not, either by superfluous apparel, or an unbecoming medley of colours, or by divided garments, or by the tonsure, offend the eye of the beholders, to whom they ought to be a pattern and example ; but rather by their own conduct so condemn these things, and by their mode of life evidence their love of innocence, as the dignity of the clerical order requires. But if after warning from their own bishops any do not submit within forty days, let them by authority of the same be deprived of their ecclesiastical benefices. If, however, the bishops neglect to enforce the aforesaid penalty, inasmuch as the faults of inferiors are to be attributed to none more than to indolent and negligent rulers, let them abstain from their pontifical office until such time as they do inflict the punishment appointed by us on the clergy subject to them. With this we have thought well to couple the order that no one be ordained archdeacon or dean, unless he be deacon and priest. Moreover, if archdeacons, deans, and priors, below the aforementioned orders, contemptuously refuse to be ordained, let them be deprived of the honour they have taken upon themselves. We further forbid the bestowal of the aforesaid honours on youths not even as yet admitted to holy orders, but distinguished for their capacity and meritorious lives.'
20. These are your words; you authorized them. What effect was given to them? To this day youths, although not admitted to holy orders, are promoted in the Church. As regards the first canon, luxurious dress was forbidden, but it is not checked; the punishment was declared, but it has by no means followed the offence. It is now the fourth year since we heard the command given, and we have not as yet lamented a single cleric deprived of his benefice, or a single bishop suspended from his office. But the sequel is intensely sad. What is the sequel? Impunity, the child of carelessness, the mother of insolence, the root of impudence, the nurse of transgressions. And blessed will you be if you make it your earnest care to guard against carelessness, the first parent of all evils. But you will do your best in this respect. Now lift up your eyes and see if the spotted fur does not disgrace the clergy just as much as ever; if the immoderate division in the robe does not as much as ever almost show their nakedness. 'Does God care what a man wears? Does He not rather regard his character?' This is how men talk. But the clothing I refer to indicates deformity of mind and morals. How is it that the clergy wish to be one thing and seem another? The truth is that they are not so innocent and upright as they ought to be. Forsooth, in dress they are soldiers, in profession clergy, in conduct neither. For they neither fight like soldiers, nor preach the Gospel like clergymen.4 To which order do they belong? In their eagerness to belong to both, they forsake both, confound both. 'Every one', says the Apostle, 'shall rise in his own order.'5 What is their order? Having sinned without order, shall they perish without order? I rather think that if the all-wise God is truly believed to leave nothing unordered, from the height above to the depth beneath, there is reason to fear their 'order' can be only where there is no 'order', but where everlasting horror dwells. O unhappy bride entrusted to the care of bridesmen such as these, who are not afraid to appropriate to themselves what was intended for her adorning! They are surely not the friends of the bridegroom, but his rivals. And now I have said enough about the things beneath you; not enough, it is true, for the adequate treatment of the subject, which is far too great for me to handle, but enough for my purpose. We must now view the things around you; but the fourth book will open the door and admit us to them.