CANTO I.]
HUDIBRAS.
271
What makes the breaking of all oaths
A holy duty?—Food and clothes.
What laws and freedom, persecution?—
B'ing out of power, and contribution.
What makes a church a den of thieves?— 1285
A dean and chapter, and white sleeves.[1]
And what would serve, if those were gone,
To make it orthodox?—Our own.
What makes morality a crime,[2]
The most notorious of the time; 1290
Morality, which both the saints
And wicked too cry out against?—
'Cause grace and virtue are within
Prohibited degrees of kin;
And therefore no true saint allows 1295
They should be suffer'd to espouse:
For saints can need no conscience,
That with morality dispense;
As virtue's impious, when 'tis rooted
In nature only, 'nd not imputed: 1300
But why the wicked should do so,
We neither know, nor care to do.
What's liberty of conscience,
I th' natural and genuine sense?
'Tis to restore, with more security, 1305
Rebellion to its ancient purity;
And Christian liberty reduce
To th' elder practice of the Jews;
For a large conscience is all one,
And signifies the same, with none.[3] 1310
It is enough, quoth he, for once,
And has repriev'd thy forfeit bones:
A holy duty?—Food and clothes.
What laws and freedom, persecution?—
B'ing out of power, and contribution.
What makes a church a den of thieves?— 1285
A dean and chapter, and white sleeves.[1]
And what would serve, if those were gone,
To make it orthodox?—Our own.
What makes morality a crime,[2]
The most notorious of the time; 1290
Morality, which both the saints
And wicked too cry out against?—
'Cause grace and virtue are within
Prohibited degrees of kin;
And therefore no true saint allows 1295
They should be suffer'd to espouse:
For saints can need no conscience,
That with morality dispense;
As virtue's impious, when 'tis rooted
In nature only, 'nd not imputed: 1300
But why the wicked should do so,
We neither know, nor care to do.
What's liberty of conscience,
I th' natural and genuine sense?
'Tis to restore, with more security, 1305
Rebellion to its ancient purity;
And Christian liberty reduce
To th' elder practice of the Jews;
For a large conscience is all one,
And signifies the same, with none.[3] 1310
It is enough, quoth he, for once,
And has repriev'd thy forfeit bones:
- ↑ That is, a bishop who wears lawn sleeves.
- ↑ Moral goodness was deemed a mean attainment, and much beneath the character of saints, who held grace and inspiration to be all meritorious, and virtue to have no merit; nay, some even thought virtue impious, when it is rooted only in nature, and not imputed; some of the modern sects are supposed to hold tenets not very unlike this. Nash.
- ↑ It is reported of Judge Jefferys, that taking a dislike to a witness who had a long beard, he told him that "if his conscience was as long as his beard, he had a swinging one:" to which the countryman replied, "My Lord, if you measure consciences by beards, you have none at all."
