life of all men,
even of the devoutest and most Christian, both is, and evermore hath
been, such as one may always find some lack, even in the very best and
purest conversation. And such is the inclination of all creatures unto
evil, and the readiness of all men to suspect that the things which
neither have been done, nor once meant to be done, yet may be easily both
heard and credited for true. And like as a small spot is soon espied in
the neatest and whitest garment, even so the least stain of dishonesty is
easily found out in the purest and sincerest life. Neither take we all
them which have at this day embraced the doctrine of the Gospel, to be
angels, and to live clearly without any mote or wrinkle; nor yet think we
these men either so blind, that if anything may be noted in us, they are
not able to perceive the same even through the least crevice: nor so
friendly, that they will construe aught to the best: nor yet so honest of
nature nor courteous, that they will look back upon themselves, and weigh
our fashions by their own. If so be we list to search this matter from
the bottom, we know in the very Apostles' times there were Christians,
through whom the Name of the Lord was blasphemed and evil spoken of among
the Gentiles. Constantius the emperor bewaileth, as it is written in
Sozomenus, that many waxed worse after they had fallen to the religion of
Christ. And Cyprian, in a lamentable oration, setteth out the corrupt
manners in his time: "The wholesome discipline," saith he, "which the
Apostles left unto us, hath idleness and long rest now utterly marred:
everyone studied to increase his livelihood; and clean forgetting either
what they had done before whilst they were under the Apostles, or what
they ought continually to do, having received the faith they earnestly
laboured to make great their own wealth with an unsatiable desire of
covetousness. There is no devout religion," saith he, "in priests, no
sound faith in ministers, no charity showed in good works, no form of
godliness in their conditions: men are become effeminate, and women's
beauty is counterfeited." And before his days, said Tertullian, "O how
wretched be we, which are called Christians at this time! for we live as
heathens under the Name of Christ." And without reciting of many more
writers, Gregory Nazianzen speaketh thus of the pitiful state of his own
time: "We," saith he, "are in hatred among the heathen for our own vices'
sake; we