A SENSUAL HEAVEN, AN ACTUAL HELL.

1

All this the world well knows; yet none 1 knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.2

III

Sonnet cxxix.

Macbeth. Had I but died an hour before this chance,

I had lived a blessed time; for, from this instant,

There's nothing serious in mortality:

All is but toys renown and grace is dead;

The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.

Macbeth, Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 96.

1 They are altogether become abominable; there is none that doeth good, no not one. - Psalm xiv. 4.

2 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. xxxiii. 32.

- - Prov.

Perversion of the Truth.

Nothing can be said so absurd, that has not been said before by some of the philosophers. — CICERO, De Divinatione, ii. 58.

MARK you this, Bassanio,

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,

A goodly apple rotten at the heart :

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath !

Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 98.

Men may construe things after their fashion,

Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.

Julius Cæsar, Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 34.

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile :
Filths savour but themselves.1

King Lear, Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 38.

Take heed you dally not before your king;

Lest he that is the supreme King of kings

Confound your hidden falsehood.

King Richard III., Act ii. Sc. 1, 1. 12.

1 With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the froward thou

wilt show thyself froward. - Psalm xviii. 26.

Hypocrisy.

Deceit is base, unfit for noble souls.

Wherefore conceal thou nothing. Time that sees
And heareth all things bringeth all to light.

SOPHOCLES, Fragments, 11. 100, 284.

No man that reads the Evangelists, but must observe that our blessed Saviour does upon every occasion bend all his force and zeal to rebuke and correct the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Upon that subject he shows a warmth which one meets with in no other part of his sermons.

DR. WILLIAM WOTTON, in The Guardian, No. 93.

THIS is some fellow,

Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect

A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb

Quite from his nature: he cannot flatter, he,

An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth!

An they will take it, so; if not, he 's plain.

These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness

Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends

Than twenty silly ducking observants

That stretch their duties nicely.

King Lear, Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 101.

Who should be pitiful, if you be not?
Or who should study to prefer a peace,
If holy churchmen take delight in broils? . .
Fie, Uncle Beaufort! I have heard you preach
That malice was a great and grievous sin;
And will not you maintain the thing you teach,
But prove a chief offender in the same?

First Part of King Henry VI., Act iii. Sc. 1, l. 109, 126.

He who the sword of heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe;

Pattern in himself to know,

Grace to stand, and virtue go;
More nor less to others paying
Than by self-offences weighing.
Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking!
Twice treble shame on Angelo,
To weed my vice and let his grow!
O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!

Measure for Measure, Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 275.

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,

As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,

HYPOCRISY.

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.

115

Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 3, l. 471.

When devils will the blackest sins put on,

They do suggest at first with heavenly shows.1

Othello, Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 357.

Were they not mine?

Did they not sometime cry, 'All hail!' to me?

So Judas did to Christ.2

King Richard II., Act iv. Sc. 1, 1. 168.

Though some of you with Pilate wash your hands,

Showing an outward pity; yet you Pilates

Have here deliver'd me to my sour cross,

And water cannot wash away your sin.

King Richard II., Act iv. Sc. 1, 1. 239.

Ever note, Lucilius,

When love begins to sicken and decay,

It useth an enforced ceremony.

There are no tricks in plain and simple faith;

But hollow men, like horses hot at hand,

1 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

2 Cor. xi. 14.

2 And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master, and kissed him. -Matt. xxvi. 49.