He announces to his hearers in 1516 that, “to-day the clergy are enveloped in thick darkness”; “it troubles no one that all the vices prevail among the faithful, pride, impurity, avarice, quarrelling, anger, ingratitude” and every other vice; “these things you may do as much as you like so long as you respect the rights and liberties of the Church! but if you but touch these, then you are no longer a true son and friend of the Church.” The clergy, he continues, have received many possessions and liberties from the secular princes, but now they are quarrelling with their patrons and insisting on their exemptions: “Bad, godless men strut about with the gifts of their benefactors and think they are doing enough when they mutter a few prayers on their behalf,” “and yet Paul when describing the priest and his duties never even mentioned prayer[!]. But what he did mention, that no one complies with to-day.... They are priests only in appearance.... Where do you find one who carries out the intention of the Founders? Therefore they deserve that what they have received [from the princes] should be taken away from them again.”[743] “As a matter of fact,” the mystic continues, quite manifestly conveying a hint to the secular authorities, “it were better, and assuredly safer, if the temporalities of the clergy were placed under the control of the worldly authorities ... then they would at least be obliged to stand in awe of others and would be more cautious in all matters.” “Up to now the laity have been too unlettered, and from ignorance have allowed themselves to be led, though full of complaints and bitterness against the clergy. But now they are beginning to be aware of the secret of our iniquity (‘_nosse mysteria iniquitatis nostræ_’) and to examine into our duties.... In addition to this, it seems to me that the secular authorities fulfil their obligations better than our ecclesiastical rulers. They rigorously punish theft and murder, at least when the lawyers do not intervene with their artfulness. The Church authorities, on the other hand, only proceed against those who infringe their liberties, possessions and rights, and are filled with nothing but pomp, avarice, immorality and disputatiousness.” In the course of this strong outburst, which gives us an insight into the working of his mind, he goes on to brand the higher clergy as “whited sepulchres” and as the “most godless breakers of the law,” who purposely promote only stupid fellows to the priesthood, or even to the most exalted offices. Here the intemperance of his language is already that of his later days, though a year was yet to elapse before he published his Indulgence theses.