Page:Eikonoklastes - in answer to a book intitl'd Eikon basilike - Milton (1649).djvu/30

 And this is the substance of his first section, till wee come to the devout of it, model'd into the form of a privat Psalter. Which they who so much admire, either for the matter or the manner, may as well admire the Arch-Bishops late Breviary, and many other as good Manuals, and Handmaids of Devotion, the lip-work of every Prelatical Liturgist, clapt together and quilted out of Scripture phrase, with as much ease, and as little need of Christian diligence or judgement, as belongs to the compiling of any ord'nary and salable peece of English Divinity, that the Shops value. But he who from such a kind of Psalmistry, or any other verbal Devotion, without the pledge and earnest of sutable deeds, can be perswaded of a zeale, and true righteousness in the person, hath much yet to learn; and knows not that the deepest policy of a Tyrant hath bin ever to counterfet Religious. And Aristotle in his Politics hath mentiond that special craft among twelve other Tyrannical Sophisms. Neither want wee examples. Andronicus Comnenus the Byzantine Emperor, though a most cruel Tyrant, is reported by Nicetas to have bin a constant reader of Saint Pauls Epistles; and by continual study had so incorporated the phrase & style of that transcendent Apostle into all his familiar Letters, that the imitation seem'd to vie with the Original. Yet this availd not to deceave the people of that Empire; who notwithstanding his Saints vizard, tore him to peeces for his Tyranny. From Stories of this nature both Ancient and Modern which abound, the Poets also, and som English, have bin in this point