[2041] “Opesque totis viribus venamini
        At inde messis accidit miserrima.”

They toil and moil, but what reap they?  They are commonly unfortunate families that use it, accursed in their progeny, and, as common experience evinceth, accursed themselves in all their proceedings.  “With what face” (as [2042]he quotes out of Aust.) “can they expect a blessing or inheritance from Christ in heaven, that defraud Christ of his inheritance here on earth?” I would all our simoniacal patrons, and such as detain tithes, would read those judicious tracts of Sir Henry Spelman, and Sir James Sempill, knights; those late elaborate and learned treatises of Dr. Tilslye, and Mr. Montague, which they have written of that subject.  But though they should read, it would be to small purpose, clames licet et mare coelo Confundas; thunder, lighten, preach hell and damnation, tell them ’tis a sin, they will not believe it; denounce and terrify, they have [2043]cauterised consciences, they do not attend, as the enchanted adder, they stop their ears.  Call them base, irreligious, profane, barbarous, pagans, atheists, epicures, (as some of them surely are) with the bawd in Plautus, Euge, optime, they cry and applaud themselves with that miser, [2044]_simul ac nummos contemplor in arca_:  say what you will, quocunque modo rem:  as a dog barks at the moon, to no purpose are your sayings:  Take your heaven, let them have money.  A base, profane, epicurean, hypocritical rout:  for my part, let them pretend what zeal they will, counterfeit religion, blear the world’s eyes, bombast themselves, and stuff out their greatness with church spoils, shine like so many peacocks; so cold is my charity, so defective in this behalf, that I shall never think better of them, than that they are rotten at core, their bones are full of epicurean hypocrisy, and atheistical marrow, they are worse than heathens.  For as Dionysius Halicarnassaeus observes, Antiq.  Rom. lib. 7. [2045]_Primum locum_, &c.  “Greeks and Barbarians observe all religious rites, and dare not break them for fear of offending their gods;” but our simoniacal contractors, our senseless Achans, our stupefied patrons, fear neither God nor devil, they have evasions for it, it is no sin, or not due jure divino, or if a sin, no great sin, &c.  And though they be daily punished for it, and they do manifestly perceive, that as he said, frost and fraud come to foul ends; yet as [2046]Chrysostom follows it Nulla ex poena sit correctio, et quasi adversis malitia hominum provocetur, crescit quotidie quod puniatur:  they are rather worse than better,—­iram atque animos a crimine sumunt, and the more they are corrected, the more they offend:  but let them take their course, [2047]_Rode caper vites_, go on still as they begin, ’tis no sin, let them rejoice secure, God’s vengeance will overtake them in the end, and these ill-gotten goods, as an eagle’s feathers, [2048] will consume the rest