Then, offices of authority: If men desire them only for their
worldly fancies, who can look that ever they shall occupy them
well, and not rather abuse their authority and do thereby great
hurt? For then shall they fall from indifference and maintain false
suits for their friends. And they shall bear up their servants, and
such as depend upon them, with bearing down of other innocent folk,
who are not so able to do hurt as easy to take harm. Then the laws
that are made against malefactors shall they make, as an old
philosopher said, to be much like unto cobwebs, in which the little
gnats and flies stick still and hang fast, but the great
humble-bees break them and fly quite through. And then the laws
that are made as a buckler in the defence of innocents, those shall
they make serve for a sword to cut and sore wound them with--and
therewith wound they their own souls sorer.
And thus you see, cousin, that of all these outward goods which men
call the goods of fortune, there is never one that, unto those who
long for it not for any godly purpose but only for their worldly
welath, hath any great commodity to the body. And yet are they all,
beside that, very deadly destruction unto the soul.
XIII
VINCENT: Verily, good uncle, this thing is so plainly true that no
man can with any good reason deny it.
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