For what a thing was that, that once every hundred year was brought forth
in Rome of the children of this world, and with how much policy it was
made, ye heard at Paul's Cross in the beginning of the last parliament:
how some brought forth canonizations, some expectations, some pluralities
and unions, some tot-quots and dispensations, some pardons, and these of
wonderful variety, some stationaries, some jubilaries, some pocularies
for drinkers, some manuaries for handlers of relicks, some pedaries for
pilgrims, some oscularies for kissers; some of them engendered one, some
other such fetures, and every one in that he was delivered of, was
excellent politic, wise; yea, so wise, that with their wisdom they had
almost made all the world fools.
But yet they that begot and brought forth that our old ancient purgatory
pick-purse; that that was swaged and cooled with a Franciscan's cowl, put
upon a dead man's back, to the fourth part of his sins; that that was
utterly to be spoiled, and of none other but of our most prudent lord
Pope, and of him as oft as him listed; that satisfactory, that missal,
that scalary: they, I say, that were the wise fathers and genitors of
this purgatory, were in my mind the wisest of all their generation, and
so far pass the children of light, and also the rest of their company,
that they both are but fools, if ye compare them with these.
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