Immorality.

It is not enough to prove a Man is a Moralist, only because he is noted for a Regular Life; that may be one good instance indeed; but it can never arrive to a proof of the whole, for his living Soberly, and by Rule, may as well be caus’d by the defect of his Constitution, as by the effect of his Inclination, but ’tis the Spirit and Will, by the fire of whose other Virtues, this of Morality is kindled and illustrated.  Now I will not be so byass’d by other Peoples opinions that know him, to say, That our devout Critick owes him seeming Piety, and good life, to his ill habit of Body; nor will I load him with Abuse, right or wrong, as he has done me, particularly through a whole Chapter, but leave that charitably to natural Conscience, or studied Artifice, which he pleases, and only reflect a little on the temper of his Mind, as I have found it blazing in this last, as well as others of his Books.  In the first place, if Stubbornness, which causes wrong opinion of the present Regal Authority and Government, is an Immoral Vice, if he is not tainted, I know not who is; for let any one, who is not blinded with Partiality, but read his Desertion Discuss’d, with the admirable Answer to it, and I am satisfied he cannot help joining with me in this opinion, That what he would insinuate to be the effect of Right in others, and of Conscience in himself, is nothing but the effect of Error in one, and Obstinacy and Stubborn Will in t’other, a humour resolv’d to defend and carry on a hot Argument, tho it has been never so plain and reasonably confuted:  the Positions and Answers on this subject I shall not insert here, but leave the Reader, whose curiosity obliges him, to the Papers themselves, only I wish the Absolver had made Newgate the last Scene of that part of his Immorality, and by an humble acknowledgment to his Patron that redeemed him, (I hope the word will bear in this place) have spar’d his Office of Absolution in another Scene, and consequently given no occasion to believe that his disobedient humour, and turbulent nature, still proceeds daily, to cultivate his Party with the same Principles as far as he can.

Another spice of Immorality I believe I can make appear by his Pride, and tho’ in other places it is to be found, yet is most fairly instanc’d in his Book of Essays, where, tho’ we find one Chapter wholly upon that Vice, which, to shew his Justice, begins with a Compliment upon the same Juvenal, now he has use for him whom he call’d Pimp before, yet it has not bulk enough to Skreen from us his haughtiness in another, which he calls the Office of a Chaplain, for there you shall find he has collected the Spirit of them all, and blended them into one Character; I mean the ill Spirits of the ill Chaplains, those that are good I honour.  Here you may find his Likeness in Don Quixot, Roger in the Scornful