On a bold, profane Sinner

We may well fear great Judgments in our times,
That dare to boast and glory in our Crimes:
To sin, is humane frailty; but to slight
Religion, and to make't our chief delight
To show how we can triumph in the act
Of ev'ry sin, does aggravate the fact,
And make us worse than Heathens heretofore,
Who never scorn'd those Gods they did adore.
But Christians now do take the liberty
To own no Joy, but in the infamy
Of their worst deeds; and do a War proclaim
With Heaven, as if they could their God desame.
The Giants war (by Poets feign'd) came short
Of those, who use Devotion as a Sport;
And rally on their Priests, who stories tell,
To awe the ignorant with Heaven and Hell,
While Wit and Courage do disdain to be
Frighted from Pleasure, by such Foppery.
Thus some gay Gallants of our age do treat
Their God, as if his Precepts were a cheat,
To make us live in fear, and trembling die
With idle Dreams of an Eternity.
If these Opinions, like Contagions, spread,
God may in rigour strike the Nation dead;
Then sow the Land with Dragons teeth, fit seed
For soil, that does such monstrous people breed.