they would so cruelly compel to punish them. 'I am right sorry,' wrote Cromwell's secretary to him, 'to see the foolishness and obstinacy of divers religious men, so addict to the Bishop of Rome and his usurped power, that they contemn counsel as careless men and willing to die. If it were not for the opinion which men had, and some yet have, in their apparent holiness, it made no great matter what became of them, so their souls were saved. And for my part, I would that all such obstinate persons of them as be ready to die for the advancement of the Bishop of Rome's authority were dead indeed by God's hand, that no man should run wrongfully into obloquy for their just punishment.'[1]
But the open resistance of mistaken honesty was not the danger which the Government most feared. Another peril threatened their authority, deeper and more alarming by far. The clergy possessed in the confessional a power of secret influence over the masses of the people, by which they were able at once (if they so pleased) to grant their penitents licenses for insincerity, to permit them to perjure themselves under mental reservations, and to encourage them to expiate a venial falsehood by concealed disaffection. The secrets of confession were inviolable. Anathemas the most fearful forbade their disclosure; and, secured behind this impenetrable shield, the Church might defy the most stringent provisions, and baffle every precaution.
From the nature of the case but little could transpire
- ↑ State Papers, vol. i. p. 422 et seq.
