A Ranter

Is a Fanatic Hector, that has found out by a very strange Way of new Light, how to transform all the Devils into Angels of Light ; for he believes all Religion consists in Looseness, and that sin and Vice is the whole Duty of Man. He puts off the old Man, but puts it on again upon the new one, and makes his Pagan Vices serve to preserve his Christian Virtues from wearing out ; for if he should use his Piety and Devotion always it would hold out but a little while. He is loth that Iniquity and Vice should be thrown away, as long as there may be good Use of it ; for if that, which is wickedly gotten, may be disposed to pious Uses, why should not Wickedness itself as well? He believes himself shot-free against all the Attempts of the Devil, the World, and the Flesh, and therefore is not afraid to attack them in their own Quarters, and encounter them at their own Weapons. For as strong Bodies may freely venture to do, and suffer that, without any Hurt to themselves, which would destroy those that are feeble: so a saint, that is strong in Grace, may boldly engage himself in those great sins and Iniquities, that would easily damn a weak Brother, and yet come off never the worse. He believes Deeds of Darkness to be only those sins that are committed in private, not those that are acted openly and owned. He is but an Hypocrite turned the wrong side outward ; for, as the one wears his Vices within, and the other without, so when they are counterchanged the Ranter becomes an Hypocrite, and the Hypocrite an able Ranter. His Church is the Devil’s Chappel ; for it agrees exactly both in Doctorine and Disicipline with the best reformed Baudy-Houses. He is a Monster produced by the Madness of this latter Age ; but if it had been his Fate to have been whelped in old Rome he had past for a Prodigy, and been received among raining of stones and the speaking of Bulls, and would have put a stop to all public Affairs, until he had been expiated. Nero cloathed Christians in the skins of wild Beasts ; but he wraps wild Beasts in the skins of Christians.