them are often sending after the Memory of the first Reformers, for
having left their Order in that Pickle, and almost at the Mercy of the
Laity, after they had been made dependent on the Clergy. If those
pious Leaders had understood, or at least consulted Human Nature, they
would have known, that strict Lives and Austerity of Manners don't go
by Inheritance, and must have foreseen, that as soon as the Zeal of
the Reformation should begin to cool both the Clergy and the Laity
would relax in their Morals; and consequently, that their Successors,
after Two or Three Generations, would make wretched Figures, if they
were still to continue to preach Christianity without Deceit or
Evasions, and pretend to live conformably to the Rules of it: If they
had but reflected on what had happen'd in the Infancy of their
Religion, they must have easily foreseen what I say.

Hor. What is it that happen'd then?

Cleo. That Christ and his Apostles taught by Example as well as
Precepts the Practice of Humility and the Contempt of Riches; to
renounce the Pomp and Vanity of the World, and mortify the Flesh, is
certain: And that this was striking at the very Fundamentals of Human
Nature, is as certain. This could only be perform'd by Men
preternaturally affected; and therefore the Founders of Christianity
being gone, it could not be expected, that the same Austerity of Life
and Self-denial should be continued among the Successors of them, as
soon as the Ministry of the Gospel became a Calling, that Men were
brought up to for a Livelihood; and considering how essential those
mortifying Principles are to Christianity, it is not easy to conceive,
how the one could be made still to subsist, when the other should
cease to be. But Nothing seems more impracticable than that the
Gospel, which those Principles are evidently taught, should ever be