“Every ecclesiastical election onght to be purely made in the first instance by the society of the faithful who are to be governed, and then confirmed by assent of the fathers of the church and their friends, if it be canonical; if not, it should be rectified in a spirit of charity. How can that which you have wrung from the people by war and bloodshed be innocently conferred on myself and others who despise the world and have voluntarily stripped ourselves of our own substance for Christ sake?

“It is the general rule of all who take religious vows to have no part in robbery, and, for the maintenance of justice, to reject offerings which are the fruits of pillage. For the scripture saith: ‘The sacrifice of injustice is a polluted offering’; and a little afterwards: ‘Whoso offereth a sacrifice of the substance of the poor is like one that slayeth a son in his father’s sight.’* Reflecting on these and other precepts of the divine law, I cannot but tremble. I look upon England as altogether one vast heap of booty, and I am afraid to touch it and its treasures as if it were a burning fire.”