Mistake me not (I say again) Vos ô Patritius sanguis, you that are worthy Senators, Gentlemen, I honor your names and persons, and with all submissness, prostrate my self to your censure and service. There are amonst you, I do ingeniously confess, many well deserving Patrons, and true patriots, of my knowledge, besides many hundreds which I never saw, no doubt, or heard of, pillars of our common-wealth, whose worth, bounty, learning, forwardness, true zeal in Religion, and good esteem of all Schollers, ought to be consecrated to all posterity;

but of your rank, there are a deboshed, corrupt, covetous, illiterate crew again, no better than stocks, merum pecus (testor Deum, non mihi videri dignos ingenui hominis appellatione) barbarous Thracians, & quis ille thrax qui hoc neget? a sordid, prophane, pernicious company, irreligious, impudent and stupid, I know not what Epithets to give them, enemies to learning, confounders of the Church, and the ruin of a common-wealth:

Patrons they are by right of inheritance, and put in trust freely to dispose of such Livings to the Churches good; but (hard taske masters they prove) they take away their straw, and compel them to make their number of brick: they commonly respect their own ends, commodity is the steer of all their actions, and him they present in conclusion, as a man of greatest gifts, that will give most; no penny, no Pater Noster, as the saying is.

Nisi preces auro fulcias, amplius irritas: ut Ceberus offa, their attendants and officers must be bribed, feed, and made, as Cerberus is with a sop by him that goes to hell. It was an old saying, Omnia Romæ venalia, ’tis a rag of Popery, which will never be rooted out, there is no hope, no good to be done without mony.

A Clark may offer himself, approve his worth, learning, honesty, religion, zeale, they will commend him for it; but —— probitas laudatur & alget. If he be a man of extraordinary parts, they will flock afar off to hear him, as they did in Apuleius, to see Psyche:

multi mortales confluebant ad videndum sæculi decus, speculum gloriosum, laudatur ab omnibus, spectatur ab omnibus, nec quisquam non rex, non regius, cupidus ejus nuptiarum petitor accedit; mirantur quidem divinam formam omnes, sed ut simulacrum fabre politum mirantur;

many mortal men came to see fair Psyche the glory of her age, they did admire her, commend, desire her for her divine beauty, and gaze upon her; but as on a picture; none would marry her, quod indotata, fair Psyche had no money. So they do by learning;

—— didicit jam dives avarus Tantum admirari, tantum laudare disertos, Ut pueri Iunonis avem ——

Your rich men have now learn’d of latter daies T’admire, commend, and come together To hear and see a worthy Scholler speak, As children do a Peacocks feather.

He shall have all the good words that may be given, a proper man, and ’tis pitty he hath no preferment, all good wishes, but inexorable, indurat as he is, he will not prefer him, though it be in his power, because he is indotatus, he hath no mony. Or if he do give him entertainment, let him be never so well qualified, plead affinity, consanguinity, sufficiency, he shall serve seven years, as Iacob did for Rachel, before he shall have it.

If he will enter at first, he must yet in at that Simoniacal gate, come off soundly, and put in good security to performe all covenants, else he will not deale with, or admit him. But if some poor scholler, some parson chaff, will offer himself; some Trencher Chaplain, that will take it to the halfes, thirds, or accept of what he will give, he is welcome; be comformable, preach as he will have him, he likes him before a million of others; for the best is alwayes best cheap:

and then as Hierom said to Cromatius, patellâ dignum operculum, such a Patron, such a Clark; the cure is well supplied, and all parties pleased.

So that is still verified in our age, which Chrysostome complained of in his time, Qui opulentiores sunt, in ordinem parasitorum cogunt eos, & ipsos tanquam canes ad mensas suas enutriunt, eorumque impudentes Ventres iniquarum cœnarum reliquiis differtiunt, iisdem pro arbitro abutentes:

Rich men keep these Lecturers, and fawning Parasites, like so many dogs at their tables, and filling their hungry guts with the offals of their meat, they abuse them at their pleasure, and make them say what they propose.

As children do by a bird or a butterflye in a string, pull in and let him out as they list, do they by their trencher Chaplaines, prescribe, command their wits, let in and out as to them it seems best. If the Patron be precise, so must his Chaplain be, if he be papistical, his Clark must be so too, or else be turned out.

These are those Clarks which serve the turne, whom they commonly entertain, and present to Church livings, whilst in the mean time we that are University men, like so many hide-bound Calves in a Pasture, tarry out our time, wither away as a flower ungathered in a garden, & are never used: or as so many candles, illuminate our selves alone, obscuring one anothers light, & are not discerned here at all, the least of which, translated to a dark room, or to some Country benefice, where it might shine apart, would give a fair light, and be seen over all.

Whilst we lye waiting here as those sick men did at the poole of Bethesda, till the Angel stirred the water, expecting a good houre, they step between, and beguile us of our preferment. I have not yet said, if after long expectation, much expence, travel, earnest suit of our selves and friends, we obtain a smal Benefice at last: our misery begins afresh, we are suddenly encountred with the flesh, world, and Divel, with a new onset; we change a quiet life for an ocean of troubles,

we come to a ruinous house, which before it be habitable, must be necessarily to our great damage repaired; we are compelled to sue for dilapidations, or else sued our selves, and, scarce yet setled, we are called upon for our Predecessors arrerages; first fruits, tenths, subsidies, are instantly to be paid, benevolence, procurations, &c. and which is most to be feared, we light upon a crackt title,

as it befel Clenard of Brabant, for his rectory and charge of his Beginæ; he was no sooner inducted, but instantly sued, cœpimusque, (saith he) strenuè litigare, & implacabili bello confligere: at length after ten years suit, as long as Troyes siege, when he had tired himself, and spent his mony, he was fain to leave all for quietness sake, and give it up to his adversary.

Or else we are insulted over, and trampled on by domineering officers, fleeced by those greedy Harpyes to get more fees; we stand in fear of some precedent Lapse; we fall amongst refractory, seditious Sectaries, peevish Puritans, perverse Papists, a lascivious rout of Atheistical Epicures, that will not be reformed, or some litigious people, (those wild beasts of Ephesus, must be fought with) that will not pay their dues without much repining, or compelled by long suit;

for Laici clericis oppido infesti, an old axiome, all they think well gotten that is had from the Church, and by such uncivil, harsh dealings, they make their poor Minister weary of his place, if not his life: and put case they be quiet honest men, make the best of it, as often it fals out, from a polite and terse Academick, he must turne rustick, rude, melancholick alone, learne to forget, or else, as many do, become Maulsters, Grasiers, Chapmen, &c. (now banished from the Academy, all commerce of the Muses, and confined to a country village, as Ovid was from Rome to Pontus, ) and daily converse with a company of Idiots and Clownes.

Nos interim quod attinet (nec enim immunes ab hac noxâ sumus) idem reatus manet, idem nobis, & si non multò gravius, crimen objici potest: nostrâ enim culpâ fit, nostrâ incuriâ, nostrâ avaritiâ, quod tam frequentes, fœdæque fiant in Ecclesiâ nundinationes, (templum est vænale, deusque) tot sordes invehantur, tanta grassetur impietas, tanta nequitia, tam insanus miseriarum Euripus, & turbarum æstuarium, nostro inquam, omnium (Academicorum imprimis) vitio fit.