TO RELIGION.
1 Religion, O thou life of life,
How worldlings, that profane thee rife,
Can wrest thee to their appetites!
How princes, who thy power deny,
Pretend thee for their tyranny,
And people for their false delights!
2 Under thy sacred name, all over,
The vicious all their vices cover;
The insolent their insolence,
The proud their pride, the false their fraud,
The thief his theft, her filth the bawd,
The impudent, their impudence.
3 Ambition under thee aspires,
And Avarice under thee desires;
Sloth under thee her ease assumes,
Lux under thee all overflows,
Wrath under thee outrageous grows,
All evil under thee presumes.
4 Religion, erst so venerable,
What art thou now but made a fable,
A holy mask on folly's brow,
Where under lies Dissimulation,
Lined with all abomination.
Sacred Religion, where art thou?
5 Not in the church with Simony,
Not on the bench with Bribery,
Nor in the court with Machiavel,
Nor in the city with deceits,
Nor in the country with debates;
For what hath Heaven to do with Hell?