Is a fanatic Hector that has found out, by a very strange way of new
light, how to transform all the devils into angels of light; for he
believes all religion consists in looseness, and that sin and vice is
the whole duty of man. He puts off the old man, but puts it on again
upon the new one, and makes his pagan vices serve to preserve his
Christian virtues from wearing out, for if he should use his piety and
devotion always it would hold out but a little while. He is loth that
iniquity and vice should be thrown away as long as there may be good use
for it; for if that which is wickedly gotten may be disposed to pious
uses, why should not wickedness itself as well? He believes himself
shot-free against all the attempts of the devil, the world, and the
flesh, and therefore is not afraid to attack them in their own quarters
and encounter them at their own weapons. For as strong bodies may freely
venture to do and suffer that, without any hurt to themselves, which
would destroy those that are feeble, so a saint that is strong in grace
may boldly engage himself in those great sins and iniquities that would
easily damn a weak brother, and yet come off never the worse. He
believes deeds of darkness to be only those sins that are committed in
private, not those that are acted openly and owned. He is but a
hypocrite turned the wrong side outward; for, as the one wears his vices
within and the other without, so when they are counterchanged the ranter
becomes a hypocrite, and the hypocrite an able ranter. His church is the
devil's chapel, for it agrees exactly both in doctrine and discipline
with the best reformed bawdy-houses. He is a monster produced by the
madness of this latter age; but if it had been his fate to have been
whelped in old Rome he had passed for a prodigy, and been received among
raining of stones and the speaking of bulls, and would have put a stop
to all public affairs until he had been expiated. Nero clothed
Christians in the skins of wild beasts, but he wraps wild beasts in the
skins of Christians.