A HUE AND CRY AFTER RELIGION and JUSTICE. Lost in the year 1641. and hath not been heard of since charles the first, left the City of LONDON. With the Descriptions, Marks, Causes, symptoms and effects thereof. Also the practices of Injustice and Irreligion, with the execution thereof, characterised.  
Printed in the Year 1649.   

A Hue and Cry after Religion and Justice.  
O Yes,— O yes,— O yes: If any man or woman can bring us tidings of the greatest loss that ever came to this Kingdom and City, since charles the first left the place; you may know her by these marks, her head is fil'd with divine learning; from her eyes drop the heavenly due of sacred Scripture; her tongue is not tipped with fil'd oratory, but truths holy method; in one hand shee carries Charity, in the other Justice: In her heart the word of God; her feet fixed upon a Rock; and on each side stands Faith and Hope: her handmaids that attends her, true Doctrine and sincerity: since we lost this inestimable( not to be prized) jewel, is crept in irreligion, she carries these marks about her; her head is filled with schismatical inventions and opinions, bringing up Atheists, Anabaptists, separatists, Arrians, Independents, and the Devil and all; that by their damned heresies, has begot more sects and schisms( religious I cannot call them) then the blind Mollossians had Idols, who for every day in the year had a several God; and by these swarms of Locusts, the whole land hath been infected, and involved in blood and destruction of Prince and People: from her eyes drop the tears of faction and dissimulation: The crocodiles of Nile, are no more killing, nor destructive to the body, then their hypocrisies to the soul. The dissembling zealots( like the picture of Mary Magdalem, are pouring forth their penitential tears in formality; you shall know him by these characters( I mean a holy brother or a Saint of Reformation) he is the disgrace of learning when the want of literature, or the abuse of understanding in the speech or error, which begets Idolatry: he is an enemy to God, in the hurt of the People, and his own woe, in the abuse of the sacred Word of God: He is the shadow of a Candle that gives no light, but that which leads to darkness: The sheep are unhappy that live in his fold, when they shall either starve or feed on the ground: he breeds this war in the wits of his audience, when his life is contrary to the nature of his instructions: He lives in a Room where he troubles a world, and in the shadow of a Saint is little better then a Devil: he makes Religion of sin, and with a counterfeit humility, covereth imcomparable pride. In sum, he is the picture of hypocrisy, the spirit of heresy; a scandal to the Church, and calamity to the Common-wealth.  
Irreligion, are like golden pills, that seem fair to the eye, but are bitter to the taste; shee hath her eloquent glosses to deceive the ignorant, and delude the simplo with erroneous doctrine; she thunders out what torments are appointed for pride, malice, vain-glory, Adultery, Murder, Religion, and covetousness; when shee her self is the nurse of all these vices; In one hand she holds fast Charity; and though she will take from the poorest, yet the fatherless and widow shall not be relieved with a penny; she perhaps will pray for you; but if her prayers were worth a penny, she scarce would part with them; sometimes a large oration for the poor shee will make to stir up good peoples charity; and what's the cause? that shee may catch the fish, and give the poor the shell: she is not only the Tyth-taker, but the gleaner of the harvest; leaving nothing to feed the hungry, but the stubble of the field, stuffed with the weeds of schism and Rebellion; these are the tenths of the times, and these are our ages charity.  
In the other hand shee holds forth large volumes of soul-cheating doctrines, in which is writ such cunning sophistry, such persuasive oratories, deluding principles, and counterfeit characters of seeming honesty, with such ample quotations out of Scriptures, as if her hear and tongue were Relatives, when they are as far distant as the North Pole is from the South; these are the State Iuglers of the Church, the black Saints of the times, the righteous of the Land, that love peace and truth, and yet have banished and destroyed both; these are the upright Pilots, that hath split us upon Rocks of desperation: the true guides that led a stray all that follow them. On each side of her stands dissimulation and deceit; her foot fixed upon the world and worldly things: her attendants are time pleasers, or temporizers, such who( more for coin then conscience; more for Revenues, then Religion) walk in sheeps clothings, but inwardly they are ravening wolves; these are the Monsters of our times.  
Truth says, 'tis better save then kill; falsehood says, 'tis better kill then save: Truth saith, give unto God the things that belong unto God, and unto Caesar the things that belong unto Caesar: falsehood robs both God and Caesar of their due. Truth says, have not an evil thought of thy King, not in thy private chamber; falsehood studies to deprave with calumnious language( him whom God hath set over us, to be obeied and honoured of all honest men) but to depose and murder, is the doctrine of Devils. Religion warrants us to pray for the King; Irreligion counts it a sin( makes it Treason) to mention him in our prayers, or once to hear his name, and superstition to behold the lion and Unicorn in any Church-window; or painted cloath.  
If any one there be can bring tidings thereof( for true Religion is lost) let them bring news to the crier( the man in the Moon) and they shall be well rewarded for their pains, and have M. Peters large revenues that is given him for his false doctrine; unless it be that which the Butcher cudgeled out of him; and M. Walker( the supposed Hebritian) his large bnfice of Uxbridge, and instead of the pillory, leave him the gallows.  
And so God save King charles the second.   
〈…〉 
Wonder of Ages how is Brittains State,  
Whose Glory once the World did wonder at;  
Thus Metamorphised: and of late become,  
The scorn and scandal of all Christendom.  
Did ever Land with blessings more abound  
then this? Oh this do's as it were confounded  
My senses; when I think what once we were;  
And what in these distracted times now are:  
Nay, what as yet we may be; can a Land,  
Against itself divided, safely stand?  
Such is our sad condition; whilst that we,  
Thus strangely 'mongst ourselves do disagree:  
And what is worse, we still pretend the Cause  
To be Religion, Liberties and Laws;  
For which we struggle thus: when as we know,  
By sad experience, it is nothing so.  
Then toll the Bell, Religion gasping lies;  
And bid farewell to laws and Liberties.  
Till charles the second, our dread sovereign shall,  
Return in Triumph to content you all.  
FINIS.