band and obligation (a desperate, a fearful case) to satisfy thy lust, or to be revenged of thine enemies, thou didst never pray, come to church, hear, read, or do any divine duties with any devotion, but for formality and fashion’s sake, with a kind of reluctance, ’twas troublesome and painful to thee to perform any such thing, praeter voluntatem, against thy will.  Thou never mad’st any conscience of lying, swearing, bearing false witness, murder, adultery, bribery, oppression, theft, drunkenness, idolatry, but hast ever done all duties for fear of punishment, as they were most advantageous, and to thine own ends, and committed all such notorious sins, with an extraordinary delight, hating that thou shouldst love, and loving that thou shouldst hate.  Instead of faith, fear and love of God, repentance, &c., blasphemous thoughts have been ever harboured in his mind, even against God himself, the blessed Trinity; the [6786]Scripture false, rude, harsh, immethodical:  heaven, hell, resurrection, mere toys and fables, [6787]incredible, impossible, absurd, vain, ill contrived; religion, policy, and human invention, to keep men in obedience, or for profit, invented by priests and lawgivers to that purpose.  If there be any such supreme power, he takes no notice of our doings, hears not our prayers, regardeth them not, will not, cannot help, or else he is partial, an excepter of persons, author of sin, a cruel, a destructive God, to create our souls, and destinate them to eternal damnation, to make us worse than our dogs and horses, why doth he not govern things better, protect good men, root out wicked livers? why do they prosper and flourish? as she raved in the [6788]tragedy—­pellices caelum tenent, there they shine, Suasque Perseus aureas stellas habet, where is his providence? how appears it?

[6789] “Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet, at Cato parvo,
        Pomponius nullo, quis putet esse Deos.”

Why doth he suffer Turks to overcome Christians, the enemy to triumph over his church, paganism to domineer in all places as it doth, heresies to multiply, such enormities to be committed, and so many such bloody wars, murders, massacres, plagues, feral diseases! why doth he not make us all good, able, sound? why makes he [6790]venomous creatures, rocks, sands, deserts, this earth itself the muck-hill of the world, a prison, a house of correction? [6791]_Mentimur regnare Jovem_, &c., with many such horrible and execrable conceits, not fit to be uttered; Terribilia de fide, horribilia de Divinitate. They cannot some of them but think evil, they are compelled volentes nolentes, to blaspheme, especially when they come to church and pray, read, &c., such foul and prodigious suggestions come into their hearts.