their parents, because
they be most like them, so lively representing them in countenance and
conditions, that their parents seem in them to be young again, forasmuch
as they ever say one thing and think another. They shew themselves to be
as sober, as temperate, as Curius the Roman was, and live every day as
though all their life were a shroving time. They be like their parents,
I say, inasmuch as they, in following them, seem and make men believe
they hate them. Thus grandfather Devil, father World, and mother
Hypocrisy, have brought them up. Thus good obedient sons have borne away
their parents' commandments; neither these be solitary, how religious,
how mocking, how monking, I would say, soever they be.

O ye will lay this to my charge, that _monachus_ and _solitarius_
signifieth all one. I grant this to be so, yet these be so solitary that
they be not alone, but accompanied with great flocks of fraternities. And
I marvel if there be not a great sort of bishops and prelates, that are
brethren germain unto these; and as a great sort, so even as right born,
and world's children by as good title as they. But because I cannot
speak of all, when I say prelates, I understand bishops, abbots, priors,
archdeacons, deans, and other of such sort, that are now called to this
convocation, as I see, to entreat here of nothing but of such matters as
both appertain to the glory of Christ, and to the wealth of the people of
England. Which thing I pray God they do as earnestly as they ought to
do. But it is to be feared lest, as light hath many her children here,
so the world hath sent some of his whelps hither; amongst the which I
know there can be no concord nor unity, albeit they be in one place, in
one congregation. I know there can be no agreement between these two, as
long as they have minds so unlike, and so contrary affections, judgments
so utterly diverse in all points. But if the children of this world be
either more in number, or more prudent than the children of light, what
then availeth us to have this convocation? Had it not been better we had
not been called together at all? For as the children of this world be
evil, so they breed and bring forth things evil; and yet there be more of
them in all places, or at the least they be more politic than the
children of light in their generation. And here I speak of the
generation whereby they do engender, and not of that whereby they are
engendered, because it sho