THE DISTRACTED PURITANE.
Reading edition
Am I madd, O noble Festus, When zeale and godly knowledge Have put me in hope To deal with the Pope, As well as the best in the Colledge? Boldly I preach, hate a crosse, hate a surplice, Miters, copes, and rotchets: Come heare mee pray nine times a day, And fill your heads with crotchets. In the house of pure Emanuel I had my education; Where my friends surmise I dazeled mine eyes With the Light of Revelation. Boldly I preach, &c. They bound mee like a bedlam, They lash’t my foure poore quarters; Whilst this I endure, Faith makes mee sure To be one of Foxes martyrs. Boldly I preach, &c. These injuryes I suffer Through Anti-Christs perswasions: Take off this chaine, Neither Rome nor Spaine Can resist my strong invasions. Boldly I preach, &c. Of the Beasts ten hornes (God blesse us!) I have knock’t off three already: If they let mee alone, I’ll leave him none; But they say I am too heady. Boldly I preach, &c. When I sack’d the Seaven-hill’d Citty I mett the great redd Dragon: I kept him aloofe With the armour of proofe, Though here I have never a rag on. Boldly I preach, &c. With a fiery sword and targett There fought I with this monster: But the sonnes of pride My zeale deride, And all my deedes misconster. Boldly I preach, &c. I unhorst the whore of Babel With a launce of inspirations: I made her stinke, And spill her drinck In the cupp of abominations. Boldly I preach, &c. I have seene two in a vision, With a flying booke betweene them: I have bin in dispaire Five times a yeare, And cur’d by reading Greenham[122]. Boldly I preach, &c. I observ’d in Perkins Tables[123] The black lines of damnation: Those crooked veines Soe struck in my braines, That I fear’d my reprobation. Boldly I preach, &c. In the holy tongue of Chanaan I plac’d my chiefest pleasure: Till I prickt my foote With an Hebrew roote, That I bledd beyond all measure. Boldly I preach, &c. I appear’d before the arch-bishopp, And all the high commission: I gave him noe grace, But told him to his face That he favour’d superstition. Boldly I preach, hate a crosse, hate a surplice, Miters, copes, and rotchets: Come heare mee pray nine times a day, And fill your heads with crotchets.