When he lies sick on his deathbed no sin troubles him so much as that he
did once eat flesh on a Friday; no repentance can expiate that, the rest
need none. There is no dream of his without an interpretation, without a
prediction; and if the event answer not his exposition, he expounds it
according to the event. Every dark grove and pictured wall strikes him
with an awful but carnal devotion. Old wives and stars are his
counsellors, his night-spell is his guard, and charms his physicians. He
wears Paracelsian characters for the toothache, and a little hallowed
wax is his antidote for all evils. This man is strangely credulous, and
calls impossible things miraculous. If he hear that some sacred block
speaks, moves, weeps, smiles, his bare feet carry him thither with an
offering; and if a danger miss him in the way, his saint hath the
thanks. Some ways he will not go, and some he dares not; either there
are bugs, or he feigneth them; every lantern is a ghost, and every noise
is of chains. He knows not why, but his custom is to go a little about,
and to leave the cross still on the right hand. One event is enough to
make a rule; out of these he concludes fashions proper to himself; and
nothing can turn him out of his own course. If he have done his task he
is safe, it matters not with what affection. Finally, if God would let
him be the carver of his own obedience, He could not have a better
subject; as he is, He cannot have a worse.
OF THE PROFANE.
The superstitious hath too many gods; the profane man hath none at all,
unless perhaps himself be his own deity, and the world his heaven.
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