The knight and squire in hot dispute,
Within an ace of falling out,
Are parted with a sudden fright
Of strange alarm, and stranger sight;
With which adventuring to stickle,
They're sent away in nasty pickle.
'TIS strange how some men's tempers suit,
Like bawd and brandy, with dispute,
That for their own opinions stand fast,
Only to have them clawed and canvassed;
That keep their consciences in cases,
As fiddlers do their crowds and bases,
Ne'er to be used, but when they're bent To play a fit for argument;
Make true and false, unjust and just,
10 Of no use but to be discussed d;
Dispute and set a paradox,
Like a strait boot, upon the stocks,
And stretch it more unmercifully
Than Helmont, Montaigne, White, or Tully.
So th' ancient Stoics, in their porch,
With fierce dispute maintained their church,
Beat out their brains in fight and study,
To prove that virtue is a body;
That bonum is an animal,
20 Made good with stout polemic brawl;
In which some hundreds on the place
Were slain outright, and many a face
Retrenched of nose, and eyes, and beard,
To maintain what their sect averred.
All which the knight and squire, in wrath,
Had like t' have suffer'd for their faith;
Each striving to make good his own,
As by the sequel shall be shown.
The sun had long since, in the lap
Of Thetis, taken out his nap,
And like a lobster boiled, the morn From black to red began to turn; When Hudibras, whom thoughts and aching "Twixt sleeping kept, all night, and waking, 35 Began to rub his drowsy eyes,
And from his couch prepared to rise;
Resolving to despatch the deed
He vowed to do with trusty speed:
But first, with knocking loud and bawling, 40 He roused the squire, in truckle lolling: And after many circumstances,
Which vulgar authors in romances
Do use to spend their time and wits on,
To make impertinent description,
45 They got, with much ado, to horse,
And to the castle bent their course,
In which he to the dame before
To suffer whipping-duty swore:
Where now arrived, and half unharnessed,
To
50 carry on the work in earnest,
He stopped, and paused upon the sudden,
And with a serious forehead plodding,
Sprung a new scruple in his head,
Which first he scratched, and after said:
'Whether it be direct infringing
An oath, if I should wave this swingeing,
And what I've sworn to bear, forbear,
And so b' equivocation swear;
Or whether 't be a lesser sin
60 To be forsworn, than act the thing,
Are deep and subtle points, which must,
To inform my conscience, be discussed;
In which to err a tittle may
To errors infinite make way:
65 And therefore I desire to know
Thy judgment, ere we further go.'
Quoth Ralpho, 'Since you do enjoin 't,
I shall enlarge upon the point;
And, for my own part, do not doubt
70 Th' affirmative may be made out.
But first, to state the case aright,
For best advantage of our light;
And thus 'tis: Whether 't be a sin
To claw and curry your own skin,
Greater or less than to forbear,
And that you are forsworn forswear.
But first, o' th' first: The inward man,
And outward, like a clan and clan,
Have always been at daggers-drawing,
80 And one another clapper-clawing;
Not that they really cuff or fence,
But in a spiritual mystic sense;
Which to mistake, and make them squabble In literal fray, 's abominable;
85 "Tis heathenish, in frequent use,
With Pagans and apostate Jews,
To offer sacrifice of bridewells,
Like modern Indians to their idols;
And mongrel Christians of our times,
That expiate less with greater crimes,
And call the foul abomination,
Contrition and mortification.
Is 't not enough we're bruised and kicked,
With sinful members of the wicked;
Our vessels, that are sanctified,
Profaned, and curried back and side;
But we must claw ourselves with shameful And heathen stripes, by their example? Which, were there nothing to forbid it 100 Is impious, because they did it:
This therefore may be justly reckoned
A heinous sin. Now to the second;
That saints may claim a dispensation
To swear and forswear on occasion,
I doubt not but it will appear
With pregnant light: the point is clear.
Oaths are but words, and words but wind, Too feeble implements to bind ;
And hold with deeds proportion, so 110 As shadows to a substance do.
Then when they strive for place, 'tis fit
The weaker vessel should submit.
Although your church be opposite
To ours, as Black-friars are to White,
In rule and order, yet I grant
You are a reformado saint;
And what the saints do claim as due,
You may pretend a title to:
But saints, whom oaths and vows oblige,
120 Know little of their privilege;
Further, I mean, than carrying on
Some self-advantage of their own:
For if the devil, to serve his turn,
Can tell truth; why the saints should scorn,
When it serves theirs, to swear and lie,
I think there's little reason why:
Else h' has a greater power than they,
Which 'twere impiety to say.
We're not commanded to forbear,
130 Indefinitely, at all to swear;
But to swear idly, and in vain,
Without self-interest or gain ;
For breaking of an oath and lying,
Is but a kind of self-denying,
135 A saint-like virtue; and from hence
Some have broke oaths by Providence:
Some, to the glory of the Lord,
Perjured themselves, and broke their word:
And this the constant rule and practice
Of all our late apostles' acts is.
Was not the cause at first begun
With perjury, and carried on ?
Was there an oath the godly took,
But in due time and place they broke?
145 Did we not bring our oaths in first,
Before our plate, to have them burst,
And cast in fitter models, for
The present use of church and war?
Did not our worthies of the House,
150 Before they broke the peace, break vows?
For having freed us first from both
Th' Allegiance and Suprem'cy oath,
Did they not next compel the nation
To take and break the Protestation ?
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