Eugenia's tears for Great Britons distractions, or, Some slender observations reflecting on those sad…Evgenia's teares for Great Brittaynes distractions, or, Some slender observations reflecting on those sad…

which now (through the low ebb of true Religion or rather the abounding of so many false) gives the whole Kingdom so sufficient a warning; since both these extremes equally impart a blindfolded ignorance; let Religion be no longer turned into the stalking •orse of vain-glory and Hypocrisy, for though a ⟨p. 23⟩hansom garment may for a time obscure their crooked designs, yet when they have brought their ends to perfection (God grant the Kingdom not to a general combustion) those gilded Cups will prove full of poison, and those glittering stones merely counterfeit; why should Joab thus kill with embracing! Why should Judas thus kiss with betraying? nay why should the Pulpits or rather the unhallowed rooms of our too many Ps•do-zealots with the unlawful assemblies of illiterate Artists, so freely, though ignorantly, produce nothing but blasphemy, faction, and rebellions? what alas shall tender consciences in this age conclude to be truth, when those of that (once reverenced) habit, with Pilate shall wash their hands but not their heart, with Ca•phas shall beat the Pulpits and rend their garments, yet pretend Blasphemy; and with the Pharisees shall no sooner cry Master, but crucify. O that so foul a matter vented from the breath of so many Sectists in those times should be left to posterity in such fair Characters, that men with their hands should write to condemn their hearts, and without any remorse of conscience or feeling of their own weakness eternize their shame and false hood; such weather-cock• certainly (like Phillips Clisophi) will halt with the times; but yet let Jacobs voice be known from the rough hands of Esais, can those Hydra's disgorge nothing but poison: then let not every Mechanic make his dirty shop a consecrated Pulpit, every Libertine vent his scens•esse tenets, and S. Pauls decency be utterly extirpated: surely those things ought not so to be; the Torrid Zone is too violent for so temperate, and well moderated climate, and experience ⟨p. 24⟩acquaints us with that common Axiom (though in divers matters of less consequence) nullum violentum est perpetuum;