ugh 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 of their substance; it is [2049]_aurum Tholosanum_,
and will produce no better effects. [2050]"Let them lay it up safe, and
make their conveyances never so close, lock and shut door," saith
Chrysostom, "yet fraud and covetousness, two most violen