Note 1121 — XXVI. THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.

In a sermon before the Convocation of 1512, Colet is very severe upon the vices of the church—“we are troubled in these days by heretics—men mad with strange folly—but this heresy of theirs is not so pestilential and pernicious to us and the people as the vicious and depraved lives of the clergy”—and he urges the prelates to revive the ancient canons, the enforcement of which would purify the church. (Seebohm’s Oxford Reformers of 1498, p. 170. London, 1867.)

The title of this work seems to me a misnomer. Neither Colet nor Erasmus had the aggressive spirit of martyrdom which was essential to the character of a reformer in those fierce times. They could deplore existing evils, but lacked all practical boldness in applying remedies, and their influence is only to be traced in the minds which they unwittingly trained to do work which they themselves abhorred.