no man but he seeth, that
these use much more policy in procuring the hurt and damage of the good,
than those in defending themselves. Therefore, brethren, gather you the
disposition and study of the children by the disposition and study of the
fathers. Ye know this is a proverb much used: "An evil crow, an evil
egg." Then the children of this world that are known to have so evil a
father, the world, so evil a grandfather, the devil, cannot choose but be
evil. Surely the first head of their ancestry was the deceitful serpent
the devil, a monster monstrous above all monsters. I cannot wholly
express him, I wot not what to call him, but a certain thing altogether
made of the hatred of God, of mistrust in God, of lyings, deceits,
perjuries, discords, manslaughters; and, to say at one word, a thing
concrete, heaped up and made of all kind of mischief. But what the devil
mean I to go about to describe particularly the devil's nature, when no
reason, no power of man's mind can comprehend it? This alonely I can say
grossly, and as in a sum, of the which all we (our hurt is the more) have
experience, the devil to be a stinking sentine of all vices; a foul
filthy channel of all mischiefs; and that this world, his son, even a
child meet to have such a parent, is not much unlike his father.

Then, this devil being such one as can never be unlike himself; lo, of
Envy, his well-beloved Leman, he begat the World, and after left it with
Discord at nurse; which World, after that it came to man's state, had of
many concubines many sons. He was so fecund a father, and had gotten so
many children of Lady Pride, Dame Gluttony, Mistress Avarice, Lady
Lechery, and of Dame Subtlety, that now hard and scant ye may find any
corner, any kind of life, where many of his children be not. In court,
in cowls, in cloisters, in rochets, be they never so white; yea, where
shall ye not find them? Howbeit, they that be secular and laymen, are
not by and by children of the world; nor they children of light, that are
called spiritual, and of the clergy. No, no; as ye may find among the
laity many children of light, so among the clergy, (how much soever we
arrogate these holy titles unto us, and think them only attributed to us,
_Vos estis lux mundi, peculium Christi, &c_. "Ye are the light of the
world, the chosen people of Christ, a kingly priesthood, an holy nation,
and such other,") ye shall find many children of the world; because in
all pla