not one of them has held a mass or vigil _gratis_. So,
too, there is never a cloister or monastery built, whereto there must
not fall a full measure of tribute. So, too, there is not a cloister
in the world that serves the world for God's sake. It is all of it
done merely for gold. But if any one really preaches faith, _that_
does not bring in much gold; for then, all pilgrimages, indulgences,
cloisters, and monasteries, to which more than half the wealth of the
world has been devoted and given, must cease; whereof none has any
use but the priests and monks only.

But how do they act to get the gold into their own hands? _With
feigned words_, says Peter, _shall they make merchandise of you_. For
they have selected the word by which they make money of the people,
for this very purpose, as when they say, "If you give the dear
Virgin, or this or that saint so many hundred florins, you do a most
excellent good work, and merit so much indulgence and forgiving of
sin, and ransom as many souls from purgatory."

This and the like are just carefully feigned words, to the end that
they may shave us of our gold; for in all this there is really no
desert, nor grace, nor blotting out of sin. Still they explain the
noble words of Scripture all of them in such a way, that they may
traffic with them for gold. So, also, there has come of the holy,
gracious Sacrament, nothing else but a traffic, for they do nothing
with it but smear the people's mouth, and scrape their gold from
them. Observe, then, whether St. Peter has not drawn and painted our
clergy to the life.

_Whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation
slumbereth not._ They shall not drive this on at length, nor carry it
out, (he would say); for when they urge it most strongly, their
sentence and condemnation shall fall upon them. Even now it goes
forth; they shall not escape it,--as St. Paul also says, II. Tim.
iii.: "Their folly shall be revealed to all, so that they shall be
put to shame;" God grant that they may be converted and come out from
their dangerous state, when they hear and understand it, for though
there are some who have not been seduced into this state, yet is it
in itself nothing but a mere pernicious sect.

Thus St. Peter has attempted to describe the shameful, godless life
that should succeed to the genuine doctrines of the Gospel, which the
Apostles preached. Now he goes further, and sets before us three
terrible examples--of