There’s No Corruption like Ecclesiastical Avarice; No Cruelty so
Merciless as That of a Debauch’d Church-man. ’Tis the Devil’s
Master-Piece to begin There; for he knows very Well, that the Scandalous
Examples of a Perfidious, and an Apostate Clergy, are the Ready Way to
bring the Holy Order of Priesthood it self into _Odium_, and _Disgrace_.
_Here’s Your Church_, they cry presently; as if the very _Function_ were
_Unhallow’d_ by the _Mercenary Practices_ of some _Backsliding Members_
of that Communion. Let them Live as they Preach, and Preach as they
Ought, and let there be No Moralizing in the Pulpit upon the Fable of the
_Man_, and the _Satyr_, by _Blowing Hot and Cold_ out of the same Mouth.
There are _Simoniacal_ Contracts on the Buying side, as well as on the
Selling, when People shall Preach One Doctrine to get Into a Living, and
the Contrary to Keep it. What is This, but the Selling of the Truth, and
of Souls, for Money, and the Prostituting of All that’s Sacred, for the
saving of their Skins and their Stakes?
Not but that Charity is Free, and much at the Discretion of Him that
is to Exercise it. It is Free, I say, to All Intents and Purposes, as
to any Legal Coertion upon it, though at the same time, in Point of
Conscience, a Man may lye under the Obligation of an Indispensable Duty.
So that without forcing the Drift of this Fable, the Bishop is not to
Blame here, the Matter simply Consider’d; for the First, Second, or Third
Denyal, or for All together; for such Circumstances may be Suppos’d,
with a Regard to the Manner, Time, and Persons, as might not only Acquit
him for the Refusal, but have Reflected upon his Conduct, and Prudence,
if he had Granted the Request: So that (with Veneration to the Divine
Institution it self, and to Those that Live up to’t) we are to take This
for the Figure of a _Loose_ and a _Covetous Prelate_, that Disgraces his
_Character_ by his _Conversation_, and sets a Higher Rate upon a _Copper
Farthing_, then upon an _Apostolical Benediction_. Now if This Bishop
could have said, _Silver and Gold have I none_, the Author of This Fable
would have Absolv’d him.