presented the _Confutation_ are so blind and without shame that they
defend the law of the Pope by which marriage is prohibited, and that,
with the specious claim that they are defending a spiritual state.
Moreover, although it would be proper for them to be heartily ashamed
of the exceedingly shameful, lewd, abandoned loose life of the
wretches in their abbeys and cloisters, although on this account
alone they should not have the courage to show their face in broad
daylight, although their evil, restless heart and conscience ought to
cause them to tremble, to stand aghast, and to be afraid to lift
their eyes to our excellent Emperor, who loves uprightness, still
they have the courage of the hangman, they act like the very devil
and like all reckless, wanton people, proceeding in blind defiance
and forgetful of all honor and decency. And these pure chaste
gentlemen dare to admonish His Imperial Majesty, the Electors and
Princes not to tolerate the marriage of priests _ad infamiam et
ignominiam imperti_, that is, to ward off shame and disgrace from the
Roman Empire. For these are their words, as if their shameful life
were a great honor and glory to the Church.]

What greater impudence has ever been read of in any history than this
of the adversaries? [Such shameless advocates before a Roman Emperor
will not easily be found. If all the world did not know them, if
many godly, upright people among them, their own canonical brethren,
had not complained long ago of their shameful, lewd, indecent conduct,
if their vile, abominable, ungodly, lewd, heathenish, Epicurean life,
and the dregs of all filthiness at Rome were not quite manifest, one
might think that their great purity and their inviolate virgin
chastity were the reason why they could not bear to hear the word
woman or marriage pronounced, and why they baptize holy matrimony,
which the Pope himself calls a sacrament, _infamiam imperil_.] For