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THE FUNCTION OF CONSCIENCE.
the judges, and attended public worship in the same meeting-house with the fugitive, the congregation sung an awful hymn in his very ears.[1]
Would the men of Connecticut have done right, bewraying him that wandered, and exposing the outcast, to give up the man who had defended the liberties of the world and the rights of mankind against a tyrant,—give him up because a wanton king, and his loose men and loose women, made such a commandment? One of the regicides dwelt in peace eight-and-twenty years in New England, a monument of the virtue of the people.
Of old time the Roman statute commanded the Christians to sacrifice to Jupiter; they deemed it the highest sin to
- ↑ * Why dost thou, Tyrant, boast abroad
thy wicked works to praise?
Dost thou not know there is a God,
whose mercies last alwaies?
***
On mischiefe why sett'st thou thy minde,
and wilt not walke upright?
Thou hast more lust false tales to find,
than bring the truth to light.
Thou dost delight in fraud and guile,
in mischiefe, bloud and wrong.
Thy lips have learned the flattering stile,
oh false deceitful tongue.Therefore shall God for aye confound,
and pluck thee from thy place;
Thy seed root out from off the ground,
and so shall thee deface.
The just, when they behold thy fall,
with feare shall praise the Lord;
And in reproach of thee withall,
crie out with one accord:—"Behold the man that woulde not take
the Lord for his defence;
But of his goods his God did make,
and trust his corrupt sense.
But I, as olive, fresh and green,
shall spring and spread abroad;
For why ? my trust all times hath been,
upon the living God!"For this therefore will I give praise
to Thee with heart and voyce;
I will set forth Thy name alwayes,
wherein Thy saints rejoyce."
Psalm lii. in Sternhold and Hopkins.
