shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. When,
therefore our priests were admonished concerning this sin,
Private Masses were discontinued among us, as scarcely any
Private Masses were celebrated except for lucre's sake.

Neither were the bishops ignorant of these abuses, and if they
had corrected them in time, there would now be less
dissension. Heretofore, by their own connivance, they suffered
many corruptions to creep into the Church. Now, when it is too
late, they begin to complain of the troubles of the Church,
while this disturbance has been occasioned simply by those
abuses which were so manifest that they could be borne no
longer. There have been great dissensions concerning the Mass,
concerning the Sacrament. Perhaps the world is being punished
for such long-continued profanations of the Mass as have been
tolerated in the churches for so many centuries by the very
men who were both able and in duty bound to correct them. For
in the Ten Commandments it is written, Ex. 20, 7: The Lord
will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain. But
since the world began, nothing that God ever ordained seems to
have been so abused for filthy lucre as the Mass.

There was also added the opinion which infinitely increased
Private Masses, namely that Christ, by His passion, had made
satisfaction for original sin, and instituted the Mass wherein
an offering should be made for daily sins, venial and mortal.
From this has arisen the common opinion that the Mass takes
away the sins of the living and the dead by the outward act.
Then they began to dispute whether one Mass said for many were
worth as much as special Masses for individuals, and this