whereby the cure is not substantially looked into, nor the parishioners taught as they should be; we reply to this that the thing which is not lawful in others is in spiritual men more detestable. Benefices should be disposed of not secundum carnem et sanguinem, sed secundum merita. And when there is a default it is not authorized by the clergy as good, but reproved; whereupon in this the clergy is not to be blamed, but the default as it may appear must be laid to particular men.
'And where they say that we take the profit of such benefices for the time of the minority of our said kinsfolk, if it be done to our own use and profit it is not well; if it be bestowed to the bringing up and use of the same parties, or applied to the maintenance of the Church and God's service, or distributed among the poor, we do not see but that it may be allowed.
'Item where they say that divers and many spiritual persons, not contented with the convenient livings and promotions of the Church, daily intromit and exercise themselves in secular offices and rooms, as stewards, receivers, auditors, bailiffs, and other temporal occupations, withdrawing themselves from the good contemplative lives that they have professed, not only to the damage but also to the perilous example of your loving and obedient subjects; to this we your bedesmen answer that beneficed men may lawfully be stewards and receivers to their own bishops, as it evidently appeareth in the laws of the Church; and we by the same laws ought to have no other. And as for priests to be auditors and bailiffs, we know none such.
