fees or stipends, and how many celebrate them contrary to
the Canons. But Paul severely threatens those who deal unworthily with
the Eucharist when he says, 1 Cor.11,27: Whosoever shall eat this bread,
and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, 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
brought forth that infinite multitude of Masses. [With this work men
wished to obtain from God all that they needed, and in the mean time
faith in Christ and the true worship were forgotten.]

Concerning these opinions our teachers have given warning that they
depart from the Holy Scriptures and diminish the glory of the passion of
Christ. For Christ's passion was an oblation and satisfaction, not for
original guilt only, but also for all other sins, as it is written to
the Hebrews, 10, 10: We are sanctified through the offerin