If any physician in the mean time shall infer, _Ne sutor ultra crepidam_,
and find himself grieved that I have intruded into his profession, I will
tell him in brief, I do not otherwise by them, than they do by us. If it be
for their advantage, I know many of their sect which have taken orders, in
hope of a benefice, 'tis a common transition, and why may not a melancholy
divine, that can get nothing but by simony, profess physic? Drusianus an
Italian (Crusianus, but corruptly, Trithemius calls him) [164]"because he
was not fortunate in his practice, forsook his profession, and writ
afterwards in divinity." Marcilius Ficinus was _semel et simul_; a priest
and a physician at once, and [165]T. Linacer in his old age took orders.
The Jesuits profess both at this time, divers of them _permissu
superiorum_, chirurgeons, panders, bawds, and midwives, &c. Many poor
country-vicars, for want of other means, are driven to their shifts; to
turn mountebanks, quacksalvers, empirics, and if our greedy patrons hold us
to such hard conditions, as commonly they do, they will make most of us
work at some trade, as Paul did, at last turn taskers, maltsters,
costermongers, graziers, sell ale as some have done, or worse. Howsoever in
undertaking this task, I hope I shall commit no great error or _indecorum_,
if all be considered aright, I can vindicate myself with Georgius Braunus,
and Hieronymus Hemingius, those two learned divines; who (to borrow a line
or two of mine [166]elder brother) drawn by a "natural love, the one of
pictures and maps, prospectives and chorographical delights, writ that
ample theatre of cities; the other to the study of genealogies, penned
_theatrum genealogicum_." Or else I can excuse my studies with [167]Lessius
the Jesuit in like case. It is a disease of the soul on which I am to
treat, and as much appertaining to a divine as to a physician, and who
knows not what an agreement there is betwixt these two professions? A good
divine either is or ought to be a good physician, a spiritual physician at
least, as our Saviour calls himself, and was indeed, Mat. iv. 23; Luke, v.