cross more than Christ. He prefers his church merely for the antiquity of it, and cares not how sound or rotten it be, so it be but old. He takes a liking to it as some do to old cheese, only for the blue rottenness of it. If he had lived in the primitive times, he had never been a Christian; for the antiquity of the Pagan and Jewish religions would have had the same power over him against the Christian, as the old Roman has against the modern Reformation. The weaker vessel he is, the better and more zealous member he always proves of his church; for religion, like wine, is not so apt to leak in a leathern Boraccio as a great cask, and is better preserved in a small bottle stopped with a light cork, than a vessel of greater capacity, where the spirits being more and stronger are the more apt to fret. He allows of all holy cheats, and is content to be deluded in a true, orthodox, and infallible way. He believes the

Pope to be infallible, because he has deceived all the world, but was never deceived himself, which was grown so notorious, that nothing less than an article of faith in the church could make a plaster big enough for the sore. His faith is too big for his charity, and too unwieldy to work miracles; but is able to believe more than all the saints in heaven ever made. He worships saints in effigy, as Dutchmen hang absent malefactors; and has so weak a memory, that he is apt to forget his patrons, unless their pictures prevent him. He loves to see what he prays to, that he may not mistake one saint for another; and his beads and crucifix are the tools of his devotion, without which it can do nothing. Nothing staggers his faith of the Pope's infallibility so much, as that he did not make away the Scriptures, when they were in his power, rather than those that believed in them, which he knows not how to understand to

be no error. The less he understands of his religion, the more violent he is in it, which, being the perpetual condition of all those that are deluded, is a great argument that he is mistaken. His religion is of no force without ceremonies, like a loadstone that draws a greater weight through a piece of iron, than when it is naked of itself. His prayers are a kind of crambe that used to kill schoolmasters; and he values them by number, not weight.

A HYPOCRITICAL NONCONFORMIST

Is an ambassador extraordinary of his own making, not only from God Almighty to His church, but from His church to Him; and pretending to a plenipotentiary power from both, treats with himself, and makes what agreement he pleases, and gives himself such conditions as are conducible to the advantage of his own affairs. The whole design of his transaction and employment is really nothing else but to procure fresh supplies for the good old cause and covenant while they are under persecution; to raise recruits of new proselytes, and deal with all those who are, or once were, good friends to both; to unite and maintain a more close and strict intelligence among themselves against the common enemy, and preserve their general interest alive, until they shall be in a condition to declare more openly for it; and not out of weakness to submit perfidiously to the laws of the land, and rebelliously endure to live in peace and quietness under the present government; in which, though they are admitted to a greater share of rich and profitable employments than others, yet they will never be able to recover all their rights which they once enjoyed, and are now un

justly deprived of, but by the very same expedients and courses which they then took.

The wealth of his party, of which he vapours so much to startle his governors, is no mean motive to inflame his zeal, and encourage him to use the means, and provoke all dangers, where such large returns may infallibly be expected. And that is the reason why he is so ready and forward to encounter all appearing terrors, that may acquire the reputation of zeal and conscience; to despise the penalties of the laws, and commit himself voluntarily to prison, to draw the members of his church into a more sensible fellow-feeling of his sufferings, and a freer ministration. For so many and great have been the advantages of this thriving persecution, that the constancy and blood of the primitive martyrs did not propagate the church more, than the money and good creatures earned by these profitable sufferings have done the discipline of the modern brethren.

He preaches the gospel in despite of itself; for though there can be no character so true and plain of him as that which is there copied from the scribes and Pharisees, yet he is not so weak a brother to apply anything to himself that is not perfectly agreeable to his own purposes; nor so mean an interpreter of Scripture, that he cannot relieve himself, when he is pressed home with a text, especially where his own conscience is judge; for what privilege have the saints more than the wicked, if they cannot dispense with themselves in such cases? This conscience of his (like the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, from whom it is descended) is wholly taken up with such slight and little matters, that it is impossible it should ever be at leisure to consider things of greater weight and importance. For it is the nature of all those that use to make great matters of

trifles, to make as little of things of great concernment. And therefore he delights more to differ in things indifferent; no matter how slight and impertinent, they are weighty enough in proportion to his judgment, to prevail with him before the peace and safety of a nation. But he has a further artifice in it; for little petulant differences are more apt and proper to produce and continue animosities among the rabble of parties than things of weightier consideration, of which they are utterly incapable, as flies and gnats are more vexatious in hot climates than creatures that are able to do greater mischief. And they that are taught to dislike the indifferent actions of others must of necessity abominate the greater. And as zeal is utterly lost, and has no way to shew itself but in opposition,-nor conscience to discover its tenderness, but in seeking occasions to take offence perpetually at something, and the slighter and more trivial the better, so that conscience, that appears strict and scrupulous in small matters, will be easily supposed by the erroneous vulgar to be more careful and severe in things of weight, though nothing has been more false upon all experience.

As his conscience is apt to quarrel upon small and trivial occasions, so it is as easily appeased with slight and trivial pretences, and in great matters with none at all; but rather, like the devil, tempts him to commit all manner of wickedness; for we do not find that any possessions of the devil ever produced such horrid actions as some men have been guilty of by being only possessed with their own consciences. And therefore, ever since the "Act of Oblivion" reprieved him from the gallows, he endeavours to supplant all law and government for being partial to him in his own case; as bad men never use to forgive those whom they have injured, or received any extraordinary obligation from; for he cannot

endure to think upon repentance, as too great a disparagement for a saint to submit to that would keep up the reputation of godliness. And because the Scripture says, "Obedience is better than sacrifice," he believes the less of it will serve. For he is so far from being sensible of God's mercy and the king's, for his pardon and restoration to a better condition than he was in before he rebelled, that his actions make it plainly appear that he accounts it no better than an apostasy and backsliding; and he expects a revolution. or rebellion as obstinately as the Turk does Mohammed's coming. For it is just with him as with other impenitent malefactors, whom a pardon or unexpected deliverance from suffering for the first crime does but render more eager to commit the same over again; for, like a losing gamester, he cannot endure to think of giving over, as long as he can by any means get money or credit to venture again. And as the most desperate of those people, after they have lost all, use to play away their clothes, he offers to stake down his very skin; and not only (as some barbarous people use) set his wife and children, but his head and four quarters to the hangman, if he chance once more to throw out.

And yet, as stubborn and obstinate as he is to obey his lawful sovereign, of whose grace and mercy he holds his life, he has always appeared true and faithful to all tyrannical usurpations, without the least reluctancy of conscience; for though he was fooled and cheated by them, yet they were more agreeable to his own inclination, that does not care to have anything founded in right, but left at large to dispensations and outgoings of Providence, as he shall find occasion to expound them to the best advantage of his own will and interest.

He cries down the Common Prayer, because there is no ostentation of gifts to be used in the reading of it, without