Note 2103 — THE FIRST PARTITION. (continued 6)

. As for ourselves (for neither are we free from this fault) the same guilt, the same crime, may be objected against us: for it is through our fault, negligence, and avarice, that so many and such shameful corruptions occur in the church (both the temple and the Deity are offered for sale), that such sordidness is introduced, such impiety committed, such wickedness, such a mad gulf of wretchedness and irregularity—these I say arise from all our faults, but more particularly from ours of the University. We are the nursery in which those ills are bred with which the state is afflicted; we voluntarily introduce them, and are deserving of every opprobrium and suffering, since we do not afterwards encounter them according to our strength. For what better can we expect when so many poor, beggarly fellows, men of every order, are readily and without election, admitted to degrees? Who, if they can only commit to memory a few definitions and divisions, and pass the customary period in the study of logics, no matter with what effect, whatever sort they prove to be, idiots, triflers, idlers, gamblers, sots, sensualists,

only let them have passed the stipulated period in the University, and professed themselves collegians: either for the sake of profit, or through the influence of their friends, they obtain a presentation; nay, sometimes even accompanied by brilliant eulogies upon their morals and acquirements; and when they are about to take leave, they are honoured with the most flattering literary testimonials in their favour, by those who undoubtedly sustain a loss of reputation in granting them. For doctors and professors (as an author says) are anxious about one thing only, viz., that out of their various callings they may promote their own advantage, and convert the public loss into their private gains. For our annual officers wish this only, that those who commence, whether they are taught or untaught is of no moment, shall be sleek, fat, pigeons, worth the plucking. The Philosophastic are admitted to a degree in Arts, because they have no acquaintance with them. And they are desired to be wise men, because they are endowed with no wisdom, and bring no qualification for a degree, except the wish to have it. The Theologastic (only let them pay) thrice learned, are promoted to every academic honour. Hence it is that so many vile buffoons, so many idiots everywhere, placed in the twilight of letters, the mere ghosts of scholars, wanderers in the market place, vagrants, barbels, mushrooms, dolts, asses, a growling herd, with unwashed feet, break into the sacred precincts of theology, bringing nothing along with them but an impudent front, some vulgar trifles and foolish scholastic technicalities, unworthy of respect even at the crossing of the highways. This is the unworthy, vagrant, voluptuous race, fitter for the hog sty (haram) than the altar (aram), that basely prostitute divine literature; these are they who fill the pulpits, creep into the palaces of our nobility after all other prospects of existence fail them, owing to their imbecility of body and mind, and their being incapable of sustaining any other parts in the commonwealth; to this sacred refuge they fly, undertaking the office of the ministry, not from sincerity, but as St. Paul says, huckstering the word of God. Let not any one suppose that it is here intended to detract from those many exemplary men of which the Church of England may boast, learned, eminent, and of spotless fame, for they are more numerous in that than in any other church of Europe: nor from those most learned universities which constantly send forth men endued with every form of virtue. And these seminaries would produce a still greater number of inestimable scholars hereafter if sordidness did not obscure the splendid light, corruption interrupt, and certain truckling harpies and beggars envy them their usefulness. Nor can any one be so blind as not to perceive this—any so stolid as not to understand it—any so perverse as not to acknowledge how sacred Theology has been contaminated by those notorious idiots, and the celestial Muse treated with profanity. Vile and shameless souls (says Luther) for the sake of gain, like flies to a milk-pail, crowd round the tables of the nobility in expectation of a church living, any office, or honour, and flock into any public hall or city ready to accept of any employment that may offer. “A thing of wood and wires by others played.” Following the paste as the parrot, they stutter out anything in hopes of reward: obsequious parasites, says Erasmus, teach, say, write, admire, approve, contrary to their conviction, anything you please, not to benefit the people but to improve their own fortunes. They subscribe to any opinions and decisions contrary to the word of God, that they may not offend their patron, but retain the favour of the great, the applause of the multitude, and thereby acquire riches for themselves; for they approach Theology, not that they may perform a sacred duty, but make a fortune: nor to promote the interests of the church, but to pillage it: seeking, as Paul says, not the things which are of Jesus Christ, but what may be their own: not the treasure of their Lord, but the enrichment of themselves and their followers. Nor does this evil belong to those of humbler birth and fortunes only, it possesses the middle and higher ranks,

bishops excepted

. “O Pontiffs, tell the efficacy of gold in sacred matters!” Avarice often leads the highest men astray, and men, admirable in all other respects: these find a salvo for simony; and, striking against this rock of corruption, they do not shear but flay the flock; and, wherever they teem, plunder, exhaust, raze, making shipwreck of their reputation, if not of their souls also. Hence it appears that this malady did not flow from the humblest to the highest classes, but

vice versa

, so that the maxim is true although spoken in jest—“he bought first, therefore has the best right to sell.” For a Simoniac (that I may use the phraseology of Leo) has not received a favour; since he has not received one he does not possess one; and since he does not possess one he cannot confer one. So far indeed are some of those who are placed at the helm from promoting others, that they completely obstruct them, from a consciousness of the means by which themselves obtained the honour. For he who imagines that they emerged from their obscurity through their learning, is deceived; indeed, whoever supposes promotion to be the reward of genius, erudition, experience, probity, piety, and poetry (which formerly was the case, but nowadays is only promised) is evidently deranged. How or when this malady commenced, I shall not further inquire; but from these beginnings, this accumulation of vices, all her calamities and miseries have been brought upon the Church; hence such frequent acts of simony, complaints, fraud, impostures— from this one fountain spring all its conspicuous iniquities. I shall not press the question of ambition and courtly flattery, lest they may be chagrined about luxury, base examples of life, which offend the honest, wanton drinking parties, &c. Yet; hence is that academic squalor, the muses now look sad, since every low fellow ignorant of the arts, by those very arts rises, is promoted, and grows rich, distinguished by ambitious titles, and puffed up by his numerous honours; he just shows himself to the vulgar, and by his stately carriage displays a species of majesty, a remarkable solicitude, letting down a flowing beard, decked in a brilliant toga resplendent with purple, and respected also on account of the splendour of his household and number of his servants. There are certain statues placed in sacred edifices that seem to sink under their load, and almost to perspire, when in reality they are void of sensation, and do not contribute to the stony stability, so these men would wish to look like Atlases, when they are no better than statues of stone, insignificant scrubs, funguses, dolts, little different from stone. Meanwhile really learned men, endowed with all that can adorn a holy life, men who have endured the heat of mid-day, by some unjust lot obey these, dizzards, content probably with a miserable salary, known by honest appellations, humble, obscure, although eminently worthy, needy, leading a private life without honour, buried alive in some poor benefice, or incarcerated for ever in their college chambers, lying hid ingloriously. But I am unwilling to stir this sink any longer or any deeper; hence those tears, this melancholy habit of the muses; hence (that I may speak with Secellius) is it that religion is brought into disrepute and contempt, and the priesthood abject; (and since this is so, I must speak out and use a filthy witticism of the filthy) a foetid. crowd, poor, sordid, melancholy, miserable, despicable, contemptible.