It is no wonder that he lived (as we do still) in a staggering age, for the fall of _Adam_, broke the bones of his Children, and crippled his posterity, so that we are both blind in our Judgments, and lame in our Practises. At first he was made perfect, which was intimated by being brought into the world naked, to signifie that the great Former of all things was not ashamed of his Workmanship; but when the Devil sent erroneous Tenents, attended with damned Practices into the world, he advised the Brochers and Professors thereof to cover their deformity, with the Mouth of tenderness of Conscience; but were their skins are as tough as their Consciences, and their Flesh as hard as their Hearts, they would be both Ax and Halter-proof; they might laugh at the Block, and defie the Gallows. This religious _Proteus_, this _Heteroclite_ in Divinity, (for he was deficient in what he ought to do, or believe, and redundant in what he ought not,) when he first appeared in a Tub, or a thing like a Pulpit, he was, (as he acknowledged) like _Æsop’s_ Jay, in a dress of borrowed Feathers, preaching the Works of other men, which must needs be the worse for coming out of his defiled Mouth, as a Shirt worn by a polluted Body. He mangled the modern Divines more barbarously, than an Executioner a Traytors Body; not forbearing to give old _Priscian_ a knock on the bald Crown. The height of his Eloquence consisted in railing against Popery, calling Episcopacy the Sister of the Whore of _Babylon_, running on in his Preachment like a mad-Dog, foaming and open-mouth’d, yelping at the Honourable Clergy in general, and biting his Brethren the Sectaries, whom he would have his Auditory believe are as mad as himself; but having run himself out of Breath, what a humming, and a spitting there was, and by the blowing his Nose, made many a filthy Parenthesis; having concluded his Sermon, he Prayed, shutting his eyes, and would rather utter non-sence, and tautologis, than use any studied Form. All being finished, he steals out demurely out of the Meeting-house with his Sword by his side (a Captain and an Independent) and though he neither obeyed Christs Commission, or wore his Livery, yet would be accounted one of his Menial Servants. Being got out, one would thank him for the great pains he took; another invited him to Dinner; a third, a fourth, fifth, letting them all alone till the tenth made his proffer: at last, where he thought he should have the best entertainment, there he would express the acceptance of the proffer. He could not go amiss for his Supper; and to retaliate their kindness, before the Cloth was laid, he would bestow on them a sleeping Prayer of an hour and half, most commonly proportioning the time to that of Supper-dressing. Certainly his design therein was like the Scribes and Pharisees, who had never been condemned for long Prayers, had they not been used as so many Graces before their cursed Meals of Orphans Estates, and Widows Houses.