THE ODDS OR DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE KNAVE'S PURITAN AND THE KNAVE PURITAN.
The Knave's Puritan.
He that resisteth the world, the flesh, and fiend,
And makes a conscience how his days to spend,
Who hates excessive drinking, drabs, and dice,
And (in his heart) hath God in highest price,
That lives conformable to law and state,
Nor from the truth will fly or separate,
But strives in God's fear how to live and die;
He that seeks this to do the best he can,
He is the knave's abused Puritan.
The Knave Puritan.
He whose best good is only good to seem,
And, seeming, holy gets some false esteem;
Who makes religion hide hyprocisy
And zeal to cover o'er his villany;
Whose purity (much like the devil's ape)
Can shift himself into an angel's shape;
And play the rascal most devoutly trim,
Not caring who sinks, so himself may swim;
He's the Knave Puritan, and only he
Makes the Knave's Puritan abused be.
It is now come to that pass that if any one give up his name to Christ, or but look toward religion, he is presently branded with the infamous name of Puritan; but the truth is, it is no disgrace to be so styled, but rather, as now, it is an honour. Once (as a learned bishop could say) only such passed for Puritans as opposed the church-government, and cried out for discipline, but now to be truly religious is to become a Puritan;...yea, to be a mere moral honest man is to incur that censure. Yea, if a man be but orthodoxal, evangelical, papists will not doubt to load him with names more than a few. -- P. 391 of Works of R[obert]. Harris, B.D., one of the members of the [Westminster] Assembly. See also E 85, No. 20.
