#romanist

"Even if I had the most powerful microscope in the world, I would not be able to locate my interest in an iron age round house."

This new invention of printing has produced various effects of which your holiness cannot be ignorant. If it has restored books and learning, it has also been the occasion of those sects and schisms which daily appear. Men begin to call in question the present faith and tenets of the church; and the laity read the Scriptures, and pray in their vulgar tongue. Were this suffered the common people might come to believe that there was not so much use of the clergy. If men were persuaded that they could make their own way to God, and in their ordinary language as well as Latin, the authority of the Mass would fall, which would be very prejudicious to our ecclesiastical orders. The mysteries of religion must be kept in the hands of priests—the secret and arcanum of church government. Nothing remains more to be done than to prevent further apostasy. For this purpose, since printing could not be put down, it were best to set up learning against learning ; and, by introducing able persons to dispute, to suspend the laity between fears and controversies. Since printing cannot be put down, it may still be made useful.

Guild of Romanists