motions whereof, when matter and words fail (as they
often do), must be patched up to accomplish his four
hours in a day at the least with long and fervent
hums. Anything else, either for language or matter,
he cannot abide, but thus censureth: Latin, the
language of the beast; Greek, the tongue wherein the
heathen poets wrote their fictions; Hebrew, the speech
of the Jews that crucified Christ; controversies do
not edify; logic and philosophy are the subtilties
of Satan to deceive the simple; human stories profane,
and not savouring of the Spirit; in a word, all decent
and sensible form of speech and persuasion (though
in his own tongue) vain ostentation. And all this
is the burden of his Ignorance, saving that sometimes
idleness will put in also to bear a part of the baggage.
His other beast, Imperiousness, is yet more proudly
laden; it carrieth a burden that no cords of authority,
spiritual nor temporal, should bind if it might have
the full swing. No Pilate, no prince should command
him, nay, he will command them, and at his pleasure
censure them if they will not suffer their ears to
be fettered with the long chains of his tedious collations,
their purses to be emptied with the inundations of
his unsatiable humour, and their judgments to be blinded
with the muffler of his zealous ignorance; for this
doth he familiarly insult over his maintainer that
breeds him, his patron that feeds him, and in time
over all them that will suffer him to set a foot within
their doors or put a finger in their purses. All
this and much more is in him; that abhorring degrees
and universities as reliques of superstition, hath
leapt from a shop-board or a cloak-bag to a desk or
pulpit; and that, like a sea-god in a pageant, hath
the rotten laths of his culpable life and palpable
ignorance covered over with the painted-cloth of a
pure gown and a night-cap, and with a false trumpet
of feigned zeal draweth after him some poor nymphs
and madmen that delight more to resort to dark caves
and secret places than to open and public assemblies.
The lay-hypocrite is to the other a champion, disciple,
and subject, and will not acknowledge the tithe of
the subjection to any mitre, no, not to any sceptre,
that he will do to the hook and crook of his zeal-blind
shepherd. No Jesuits demand more blind and absolute
obedience from their vassals, no magistrates of the
canting society more slavish subjection from the members
of that travelling State, than the clerk hypocrites
expect from these lay pulpits. Nay, they must
not only be obeyed, fed, and defended, but admired
too; and that their lay-followers do sincerely, as
a shirtless fellow with a cudgel under his arm doth
a face-wringing ballad-singer, a water-bearer on the
floor of a playhouse, a wide-mouthed poet that speaks
nothing but blathers and bombast. Otherwise,
for life and profession, nature and art, inward and
outward, they agree in all; like canters and gypsies,
they are all zeal no knowledge, all purity no humanity,
all simplicity no honesty, and if you never trust
them they will never deceive you.