Page:Eikonoklastes - in answer to a book intitl'd Eikon basilike - Milton (1649).djvu/32

 other mens whole Prayers, hath as it were unhallow'd, and unchrist'nd the very duty of prayer itself, by borrowing to a Christian use Prayers offer'd to a Heathen God. Who would have imagin'd so little feare in him of the true all-seeing Deitie, so little reverence of the Holy Ghost, whose office is to dictat and present our Christian Prayers, so little care of truth in his last words, or honour to himself, or to his Friends, or sense of his afflictions, or of that sad howr which was upon him, as immediatly before his death to popp into the hand of that great Bishop who attended him, for a special Relique of his saintly exercises, a Prayer stol'n word for word from the mouth of a Heathen fiction praying to a heathen God; & that in no serious Book, but the vain amatorious Poem of Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia; a Book in that kind full of worth and witt, but among religious thoughts, and duties not worthy to be nam'd; nor to be read at any time without good caution; much less in time of trouble and affliction to be a Christians Prayer-Book. It hardly can be thought upon without som laughter that he who had acted over us so stately and so Tragically, should leave the World at last with such a ridiculous exit, as to bequeath among his deifying friends that flood about him, fuch a peece of mockery to be publisht by them, as must needs cover both his and their heads with shame and confusion. And sure it was the hand of God that lett them fall & be tak’n in such a foolish Trapp, as hath expos’d them to all derision, if for nothing els, to throw contempt and disgrace in the sight of all Men upon this