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PDFIn which you all his arts out-do,
And prove yourselves his betters too.
Hence ’tis
Than mere temptations of the Devil,
Which, all the horrid’st actions done, 1485
Are charg’d in courts of law upon;
Because unless they help the elf,
He can do little of himself;
And therefore where he’s best possess’d
Acts most against his interest; 1490
Surprizes none, but those wh’ have priests
To turn him out, and exorcists,
Supply’d with spiritual provision,
And magazines of ammunition
With crosses, relicks, crucifixes, 1495
Beads, pictures, rosaries, and pixes;
The tools of working our salvation
By mere mechanick operation;
With holy water, like a sluice,
To overflow all avenues. 1500
But those wh’ are utterly unarm’d
T’ oppose his entrance, if he storm’d,
He never offers to surprize,
Although his falsest enemies;
But is content to be their drudge, 1505
And on their errands glad to trudge
For where are all your forfeitures
Entrusted in safe hands but ours?
Who are but jailors of the holes, 1510
And dungeons where you clap up souls;
Like under-keepers, turn the keys,
T’ your mittimus anathemas;
And never boggle to restore
The members you deliver o’re
Upon demand, with fairer justice 1515
Than all your covenanting Trustees;
Unless to punish them the worse,
You put them in the secular pow’rs,
And pass their souls, as some demise
The same estate in mortgage twice; 1520
When to a legal
You turn your excommunication,
And for a groat unpaid, that’s due,
Thought he, ’tis no mean part of civil
1525
State prudence to cajole the Devil
And not to handle him too rough,
When h’ has us in his cloven hoof.
T’ is true, quoth he, that intercourse
Has pass’d between your friends and ours;
1530
That as you trust us, in our way,
To raise your members, and to lay,
We send you others of our own,
Denounc’d to hang themselves or drown;
Or, frighted with our oratory,
1435
To leap down headlong many a story
Have us’d all means to propagate
Your mighty interests of state;
Laid out our spiritual gifts to further
Your great designs of rage and murther.
1540
For if the Saints are nam’d from blood,
We only have made that title good;
And if it were but in our power,
We should not scruple to do more,
And not be half a soul behind
1545
Of all dissenters of mankind.
