equipage It is pretty to observe how they regulate all their actions as it were by weight and measure to so exact a proportion as if the whole loss of their religion depended upon the omission of the least Punctilio Thus they must be very critical in the precise number of Knots to the tying on of their sandals what distinct colours their respective habits and what stuff made of how broad and long their girdles how big and in what fashion their hoods whether their bald crowns be to a hairs breadth of the right cut how many hours they must sleep at what minute rise to Prayers c. And these several customs are altered according to the humours of different persons and places While they are sworn to the superstitious observance of these trifles they do not only despise all others but are very inclinable to fall out among themselves for though they make profession of an Apostolick charity yet they 'l pick a quarrel and be implacably passionate for such poor provocations as the girting on a coat the wrong way for the wearing of cloaths a little too darkish coloured or any such nicety not worth the speaking of Some are so obstinately superstitious that they 'l wear their upper garment of some course dogs-hair stuff and that next their skin as soft as silk But others on tbe contrary will have linnen frocks outermost and their shirts of wool or hair Some again will not touch a piece of money though they make no scruple of the sin of drunkenness and the lust of the flesh All their several Orders are mindful of nothing more than of their being distinguisht each from other by their different customs and habits They seem indeed not so careful of becoming like Christ and of being known to be his Disciples as the being unlike to one another and distinguishable for followers of their several Founders A great part of their Religion consists in their Title Some will be call'd Cordeliers and these subdivided into Capuchines Minors Minims and Mendicants Some again are stiled Benedictines others of the Order of St. Bernard others of that of St. Bridget some are Augustin Monks some Willielmites and other Iacobists as if the common name of Christian were too mean and vulgar Most of them place their greatest stress for salvation on a strict conformity to their foppish ceremonies and a belief of their Legendary Traditions wherein they fancy to have acquitted themselves with so much of Supererogation that one Heaven can never be a condign reward for their meritorious life little thinking that the Judge of all the Earth at the last day shall put them off with a who hath required These things at your hands and call them to an account only for the Stewardship of his Legacy which was the Precept of Love and Charity It will be pretty to hear their several Pleas before the great Tribunal One will brag how he mortified his carnal appetite by feeding only upon Fish Another will urge that he spent most of his time on earth in the Divine exercise of singing Psalms A third will tell how many days he fasted and what severe Penance he imposed on himself for the bringing his body into subjection Another shall produce in his own behalf as many Ceremonies as would load a Fleet of Merchant-men A fifth shall plead that in threescore years he never so much as toucht a piece of Money except he finger'd it through a thick pair of Gloves A sixth to testifie his former Humility shall bring along with him his Sacred Hood so old and nasty that any Seaman had rather stand bare-headed on the Deck than put it on to defend his ears from the sharpest storms The next that comes to answer for himself shall plead that for fifty years together he had lived like a Sponge upon the same place and was content never to change his homely Habitation Another shall whisper softly and tell the Judge he has lost his voice by a continual singing of holy Hymns and Anthems The next shall confess how he fell into a Lethargy by a strict reserved and sedentary life And the last shall intimate that he has forgot to speak by having always kept silence in obedience to the Injunction of taking heed least he should have offended with his Tongue But amidst all their fine excuses our Saviour shall interrupt them with this answer Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites verily I know you not I left you but one Precept of loving one another which I do not hear any one plead he has faithfully discharged I told you plainly in my Gospel without any Parable that my Father's Kingdom was prepared not for such as should lay claim to it by Austerities Prayers or Fastings but for those who should render themselves worthy of it by the exercise of Faith and the offices of Charity I cannot own such as depend on their own Merits without a reliance on my Mercy As many of you therefore as trust to the broken reeds of your own Deserts may e'en go search out a new Heaven for you shall never enter into That which from the foundations of the world was prepared only for such as are true of heart When these Monks and Friers shall meet with such a shameful repulse and see that Ploughmen and Mechanicks are admitted into that Kingdom from which They themselves are shut out how sneakingly will they look and how pittifully slink away Yet till this last Trial they had more comfort of a future happiness because more hopes of it than any other men And These persons are not only great in their own eyes but highly esteem'd and respected by others especially Those of the Order of Mendicants whom none dare to offer any affront to because as Confessors they are intrusted with all the secrets of particular Intrigues which they are bound by Oath not to discover yet many times when they are almost drunk they cannot keep their tongue so far within their head as not to be babbling out some hints and shewing themselves so full that they are in pain to be delivered If any person give them the least provocation they 'l be sure to be reveng'd of him aud in their next publick harangue give him such shrewd wipes and reflexions that the whole congregation must needs take notice at whom they are levell'd nor will they ever desist from this way of declaiming till their mouth be stopt with a Bribe to hold their tongue All their Preaching is meer Stage-playing and their Delivery the very transports of Ridicule and Drollery Good Lord How mimical are their Gestures What heights and falls in their Voice What toning what bawling what singing what squeaking what grimaces making of mouths Apes faces and distorting of their countenance And this Art of Oratory as a choice mystery they convey down by tradition to one another The manner of it I may adventure thus farther to enlarge upon First in a kind of mockery they
is it to be a Child than to be a Fool and an Idiot It is the being such that makes that age so acceptable For who does not esteem it somewhat ominous to see a Boy endowed with the discretion of a Man and therefore for the curbing of too forward parts we have a disparaging Proverb soon ripe soon rotten And farther who would keep company or have any thing to do with such an old blade as after the wear and harrowing of so many years should yet continue of as clear a head and found a judgment as he had at any time been in his middle age and therefore it is a great kindness of me that old men grow fools since it is hereby only that they are freed from such vexations as would torment them if they were more wise They can drink briskly bear up stoutly and light pass over such infirmities as a far stronger constitution could scarce master Sometime with the old fellow in Plautus they are brought back to their horn-book again to learn to spell their fortune in love Most wretched would they needs be if they had but wit enough to be sensible of their hard condition but by my assistance they carry off all well and to their respective friends approve themselves good sociable jolly companions Thus Homer makes aged Nestor famed for a smooth oylytoung'd Orator while the delivery of Achilles was but rough harsh and haesitant and the same Poet elsewhere tells us of old men that sate on the walls and spake with a great deal of flourish and elegance And in this point indeed they surpass and out go children who are pretty forward in a softly innocent prattle but otherwise are too much toung-tied and want the others most acceptable embellishment of a perpetual talkativeness Add to this that old men love to be playing with children and children delight as much in them to verifie the Proverb that Birds of a feather stock together And indeed what difference can be discerned between them but that the one is more furrowed with wrinkies and has seen a little more of the world than the other for otherwise their whitish hair their want of teeth their smalness of stature their milk diet their bald crowns their pratling their p'aying their short memory their heedlesness and all their other endowments exactly agree and the more they advance in years the nearer they come back to their cradle till like children indeed at last they depart the world without any remorse at the loss of life or sense of the pangs of death And now let any one compare the excellency of my metamorphosing power to that which Ovid attributes to the Gods their strange seats in some drunken passions we will omit for their credit sake and instance only in such persons as they pretended great kindnesses for These they transformed into Trees Birds Insects and sometimes Serpents but alas their very change into somewhat else argues the destruction of what they were before Whereas I can restore the same numerical man to his pristine state of youth health and strength yea what is more if men would but so far consult their own interest as to discard all thoughts of wisdom and entirely resign themselves to my guidance and conduct Old age should be a Paradox and each mans years a perpetual Spring For look how your hard plodding Students by a close sedentary confinement to their books grow mopish pale and meagre as if by a continual wrack of brains and torture of invention their veins were pumped dry and their whole body squeez'd sapless whereas my followers are smooth plump and bucksom and altogether as lusty as so many Bacon-hogs or sucking Calves never in their career of pleasure to be arrested with old age if they could but keep themselves untainted from the contagiousness of Wisdom with the leprosie whereof if at any time they are infected it is only for prevention lest they should otherwise have been too happy For a more ample confirmation of the truth of what foregoes it is on all sides confess'd that Folly is the best preservative of Youth and the most effectual antidote against Age. And it is a never failing observation made of the people of Brabant that contrary to the Proverb of Older and wiser the more antient they grow the more fools they are and there is not any one Country whose inhabitants enjoy themselves better and rub through the world with more ease and quiet To these are nearly related as well by affinity of customs as of neighbourhood my friends the Hollanders Mine I may well call them for they stick so close and lovingly to me that they are stiled Fools to a Proverb and yet scorn to be ashamed of their name Well let fond mortals go now in a needless quest of some Medea Circe Venus or some enchanted fountain for a Restorative of age whereas the accurate performance of this feat lies only within the ability of my art and s kill It is I only who have the Receipt of making that liquor wherewith Memnons daughter lengthened out her grandfather's declining days It is I that am that Venus who so far restored the languishing Phaon as to make Sapho fall deeply in love with his beauty Mine are those herbs mine those charms that not only Iure back swift Time when past and gone but what is more to be admired clip its wings and prevent all farther flight So then if you will all agree to my verdict that nothing is more desirable than the being young nor any thing more loathed than contemptible old age you must needs acknowledge it as an unrequitable obligation from me for fencing off the one and perpetuating the other But why should I confine my discourse to the narrow subject of mankind only View the whole Heaven it self and there tell me what one of that Divine tribe would not be mean and despicable if my name did not lend him some respect and authority Why is Bacchus alway painted as a young man but only because he is freakish drunk and mad and spending his time in toping dancing masquing and revelling seems to have nothing in the least to do with Wisdom nay so far is he from the affectation of being accounted wise that he is content all the rites of devotion which are paid unto him should consist of apishness and drollery Farther what scoffs and jeers did not the old Comedians throw upon him O swinish paunch-gut God say they that smells rank of the thigh he was sowed up in and so on But prethee who in his case alway merry youthful soaked in wine and drowned in pleasures who I say in such a case would change conditions either with the lofty menace-looking Iove the grave yet timerous Pan the stately Pallas or indeed any one other of heavens Land lords Why is Cupid feigned as a boy but only because he is an under-witted whipster that neither acts nor thinks any thing with discretion Why is Venus adored
generally till Noon and then their mercenary Chaplains shall come to their bed-side and entertain them perhaps with a short Morning Prayer As soon as they are drest they must go to Break-fast and when That is done immediately to Dinner When the Cloath is taken away then to Cards Dice Tables or some such like diversion After this they must have one or two Afternoon Banquets and so in the Evening to Supper When they have supp'd then begins the game of Drinking the Bottles are marshall'd the Glasses ranked and round go the Healths and Bumpers till they are carried up to Bed And this is the constant method of passing away their hours days months years and ages I have many times took great satisfaction by standing in the Court and seeing how the tawdry Butterflies vie upon one another The Ladies shall measure the height of their Honours by the length of their Trails which must be bore up by a Page behind The Nobles justle one another to get nearest to the King's elbow and wear Gold chains of that weight and bigness as require no less strength to carry than they do wealth to purchase And now for some reflexions upon Popes Cardinals and Bishops who in pomp an splendour have almost equall'd if not out-gone secular Princes Now if any one consider that their upper Crotchet of white Linnen is to signifie their unspotted purity and innocence That their forked Mitres with both divisions tied together by the same knot are to denote the joynt knowledge of the Old and New Testament That their always wearing Gloves represents the keeping their hands clean and undefiled from lucre and covetousness That their Pastoral staff implies the care of a Flock committed to their charge That the Cross carried before them expresses their victory over all carnal affections He I say that considers this and much more of like nature must needs conclude They are intrusted with a very weighty and difficult office But alass They think it sufficient if they can but feed themselves and as to their Flock either commend them to the care of Christ himself or commit them to the guidance of some inferiour Vicars and Curates not so much as remmembring what their name of Bishop imports to wit Labour Pains and Diligence but by base Simoniacal contracts They are in a profane sense Episcopi i.e. Overseers of their own Gain and Income So Cardinals in like manner if they did but consider that the Church supposes them to succeed in the room of the Apostles That therefore they must behave themselves as their Predecessors and so not be Lords but Dispensers of Spiritual gifts of the disposal whereof they must one day render a strict account or if they would but reflect a little on their Habit and thus reason with themselves what means this white upper garment but only an unspotted innocence What signifies my inner Purple but only an ardent love and zeal to God What imports my outermost Pall so wide and long that it covers the whole Mule when I ride nay would be big enough to cover a Camel but only a Diffusive Charity that should spread it self for a succour and protection to all by Teaching Exhorting Comforting Reproving Admonishing Composing of differences Couragiously withstanding wicked Princes and Sacrificing for the safety of our stock our Life and Bloud as well as our Wealth and Riches though indeed Riches ought not to be at all posses'd by such as boast themselves Successours to the Apostles who were poor needy and destitute I say if they did but lay these considerations to heart they would never be so ambitious of being created to this Honour they would willingly resign it when conferr'd upon them or at least would be as industrious watchful and laborious as the primitive Apostles were Now as to the Popes of Rome who pretend themselves Christ's Vicars if They would but imitate his Exemplary Life in the being imployed in an unintermitted course of Preaching in the being attended with Poverty Nakedness Hunger and a Contempt of this world if they did but consider the import of the word Pope which signifies a Father or if they did but practise their Sirname of Most Holy What order or degrees of men would be in a worse condition There would be then no such vigorous making of parties and buying of Votes in the Conclave upon a vacancy of that See And those who by Bribery or other indirect courses should get themselves elected would never secure their sitting firm in the Chair by pistol poyson force and violence How much of their pleasure would be abated if they were but endowed with one dram of Wisdom Wisdom did I say nay with one grain of that Salt which our Saviour bid them not loose the savour of All their Riches all their Honour their Jurisdictions their Peter's Patrimony their Offices their Dispensations their Licenses their Indulgences their long Train and Attendants see in how short a compass I have abbreviated all their marketing of Religion in a word all their Perquisites will be forfeited and lost and in their room would succeed Watchings Fastings Tears Prayers Sermons hard Studies Repenting Sighs and a thousand such like severe Penalties Nay what 's yet more deplorable it would then follow that all their Clerks Amanuenses Notaries Advocates Proctors Secretaries the offices of Grooms Ostlers Serving-men Pimps and somewhat else which for modesty sake I shall not mention In short all those troops of Attendants which depend on his Holiness would all loose their several Employments This indeed would be hard but what yet remains would be more dreadful The very Head of the Church the Spiritual Prince would then be brought from all his splendour to the poor equipage of a Scrip and Staff But all this is upon the Supposition only that they understood what circumstances they are placed in whereas now by a wholsom neglect of thinking they live as well as heart can wish Whatever of toil and drudgery belongs to their office That they assign over to St. Peter or St. Paul who have time enough to mind it but if there be any thing of pleasure and grandeur That they assume to themselves as being here unto called So that by my influence no sort of people live more to their own ease and content They think to satisfie that Master they pretend to serve our Lord and Saviour with their great state and magnificence with the ceremonies of Instalments with the titles of Reverence and Holiness and with exercising their Episcopal function only in blessing and cursing The working of Miracles is old and out dated to teach the people is too laborious to interpret Scripture is to invade the Prerogative of the Schoolmen to pray is too idle to shed tears is cowardish and unmanly to fast is too mean and sordid to be easie and familiar is beneath the grandeur of him who without being sued to and intreated will scarce give Princes the honour of kissing his Toe finally to