ns committed against the statutes of men. I say this
because of the mad opinion, which is now prevalent, that sins
which are committed against the decretals of the popes are to be
noted with wondrous care, but sins committed against God, with
little or none.

Let me give you some illustrations:

You will find priests and monks who are horrified, as at some
prodigy, if they stammer, or repeat even a syllable in the Canon
of the Mass,[16] though this may be a natural defect of the
tongue, or an accident, and is not a sin. Again, there is no
priest who does not confess that he was distracted, or failed to
read his _Preparatoria_, or other old-womanish trifles of the
kind. There was one who, even when he was at the altar
celebrating, called a priest three times and confessed that
something had happened. Indeed, I have seen these endless jests
of the devil taken by many so seriously that they almost lost
their minds. And yet the fact that they cherished hatred or envy
in their hearts, that they had cursed before or after Mass, that
they had intentionally lied or slandered, all this moved them not
at all. Whence this perversity? From the "traditions of men who
turn from the truth," [Tit. 1:14] as the Apostle says. Because we
have neglected to offer God a confession of true sins, He has
given us up to our reprobate sense, [Rom. 1:24] so that we delude
ourselves with fictitious sins and deprive ourselves of the
benefit of the sacrament,[17] and the more we seem to seek it,
the more this is true.

[Sidenote: They Tyranny of Ordinances]

Of this stuff are those who make the neglect of the canonical
hours[18] an almost irremissible sin, while they easily remit
fornication, which is against the commandments of God, or the
neglect of duty toward our neighbor. These are they who so
approve of that dream or story about St. Severinus[19] that they
think they cannot read their Hours in advance, or afterward make
them up without sin, even if they have been hindered at the
proper time by the most just cause, such as ministering to the
necessities of a neighbor, which is of six hundred times more
merit than their worthless and all but damnable prayers. So far
do they go in their failure to observe that the commandment of
God, in the service of one's neighbor, should be preferred to the
commandment of men, in the thoughtless mumbling of the words of
the Hours. To this class too belong those who think it a crime to
speak or to call a