What makes a knave a child of God, And one of us?-A livelihood.

What renders beating out of brains, And murder, godlinefs?-Great gains.

1265

What's tender confcience ?—'Tis a botch That will not bear the gentleft touch;

But, breaking out, dispatches more
Than th' epidemical'st plague-fore.

What makes y' encroach upon our trade,
And damn all others?—To be paid.

What's orthodox and true believing

Against a confcience ?-A good living.
What makes rebelling against kings
A good old caufe ?-Adminift'rings.

1270

1275

What makes all doctrines plain and clear ? About two hundred pounds a year.

And that which was prov'd true before,

Prove false again ?—Two hundred more. 128°

What makes the breaking of all oaths A holy duty?-Food and clothes.

What laws and freedom, perfecution?B'ing out of power, and contribution.

What makes a church a den of thieves ?———
A dean and chapter, and white fleeves.
And what would ferve, if those were gone,
To make it orthodox ?-Our own.

What makes morality a crime,
The most notorious of the time;
Morality, which both the faints
And wicked too, cry out againft?—
'Cause grace and virtue are within
Prohibited degrees of kin ;
And therefore no true faint allows

They shall be fuffer'd to espouse :
For faints can need no confcience,
That with morality dispense;

1290

1295

As virtue's impious, when 'tis rooted
In nature only, and not imputed:
But why the wicked fhould do fo,
We neither know, nor care to do.

What's liberty of conscience,

I' th' natural and genuine fenfe ?-
'Tis to restore with more fecurity,
Rebellion to its ancient purity;
And christian liberty reduce
To th' elder practice of the Jews;
For a large confcience is all one,
And fignifies the fame with none.

It is enough, quoth he, for once,
And has repriev'd thy forfeit bones :
Nick Machiavel had ne'er a trick,

Tho' he gave his name to our old Nick,
But was below the least of these,

That pafs i' th' world for holiness.

1300

1305

1310

1315

This faid, the furies and the light
In th' instant vanish'd out of fight.
And left him in the dark alone,

With ftinks of brimftone and his own.

1320

The queen of night, whose large command

Rules all the sea, and half the land,

And over moist and crazy brains,

In high spring-tides, at midnight reigns,
Was now declining to the west,

To go to bed and take her rest;

When Hudibras, whose stubborn blows
Deny'd his bones that soft repose,
Lay still expecting worse and more,
Stretch'd out at length upon the floor;
And tho' he shut his eyes as fast

As if he'ad been to sleep his last,
Saw all the shapes that fear or wizards,
To make the devil wear for vizards,

1325

1330

And pricking up his ears, to hark

If he could hear, too, in the dark,
Was first invaded with a groan,

And after, in a feeble tone,

These trembling words: Unhappy wretch,
What hast thou gotten by this fetch,
Or all thy tricks, in this new trade,

Thy holy brotherhood o' th' blade ?
By faunt'ring still on some adventure,
And growing to thy horse a Centaur?
To stuff thy skin with swelling knobs
Of cruel and hard-wooded drubs ?

For ftill thou 'aft had the worst on 't yet,

As well in conqueft as defeat:

Night is the Sabbath of mankind,
To reft the body and the mind,
Which now thou art deny'd to keep,
And cure thy labour'd corps with fleep.

1335

1340

1345

1350