There’s no such Cloak as Religion for all manner of Wickedness, and the
Man is a stark Fool that cannot Impose upon his Neighbour, when he has
once got the Mastery of his own Conscience: There’s no Evidence of our
Thoughts, but our Works; and if any Hypocrite can but Conceal himself
from the Eyes of his Companions, he never troubles his Head to Consider
how Open he lyes to the Searcher of his Heart. What was the Penitent’s
Confession here, but a Cover for his Calumny? And her Husband’s way after
that of giving the Holy Father to Understand the Truth of the Matter, was
a Turn Pleasant enough.
’Tis a Field of a Huge Latitude that the Devil has to Dance and to
Play his Gambols in, when he sets himself to Preach upon the Text of
Religion and Conscience. In the Troubles of King _Charles the First_,
what with Humiliations and Thanksgivings, Seditious Lectures, and
Pulpit-Invectives, the People had hardly any other Business at Church
then to tell God Almighty Tales of their Sovereign: So that this Unhappy
Prince might have Answerd his _Confessarius_ upon the shrift of an
Auricular _Confession_, as our Husband Answerd his here in the Fable,
That _Others had done it for him, and told more then All beforehand_.
This was the Method of their Proceedings toward him through the whole
Course of his Distresses, from the First Odious Remonstrance, to the
Last Execrable Stroke upon the Scaffold. They began with Blasting him in
his Reputation; they took up Arms against him, Hunted and Pursued him;
Seized his Revenues and his Person, Depos’d him from his Royal Dignity,
Usurp’d the Government to Themselves, and under the Colour of a Formality
of Law, put him upon a Judicial Tryal, and took away his Life. And not
One Step did they set all this while in the whole Tract of this Iniquity,
without _Seeking the Lord_ first, and _going up to enquire of the Lord_,
according to the Cant of those Days. Which was no other then to Make God
the Author of Sin, and to Impute the Blackest Practices of Hell to the
Inspiration of the Holy Ghost.