href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@35708@[email protected]#Page_172" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">ibid.

Honesty, ibid. Hypocrisy, 173 Injuries, ibid. Integrity, 174 Justice, ibid. To Love, and to be in Love different, 175 Lucre, ibid. Lying, ibid. Names, 176 Partiality, ibid. Patience, 177 Positiveness, 177 Prosperity, ibid. Quiet, ibid. Reason and Passion, 178 Reputation, 179 Self-Love, ibid. Shame, ibid. Singularity, ibid. Slander, 180 Speakers in Publick, ibid. Time, the Loss of it, 181 Truth, ibid. Wisdom, ibid. Youth, 182

 

 

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A

CHARACTER

OF

KING CHARLES II.

 

I. Of his Religion.

A Character differeth from a Picture only in this, every Part of it must be like, but it is not necessary that every Feature should be comprehended in it as in a Picture, only some of the most remarkable.

This Prince at his first entrance into the World had Adversity for his Introducer, which is generally thought to be no ill one, but in his case it proved so, and laid the foundation of most of those Misfortunes or Errors, that were the causes of the great Objections made to him.

The first Effect it had was in relation to his Religion.

The ill-bred familiarity of the Scotch Divines had given him a distaste of that part of the Protestant Religion. He was left then to the little Remnant of the Church of England in the Fauxbourg St. Germain; which made such a kind of figure, as might easily be turn’d in such a manner as to make him lose his veneration for it. In a refined Country where Religion appeared in Pomp and Splendor, the outward appearance of such unfashionable Men was made an Argument against their Religion; and a young Prince not averse to rallery, was the more susceptible of a contempt for it.

The Company he kept, the Men in his Pleasures, and the Arguments of State that he should not appear too much a Protestant, whilst he expected Assistance from a Popish Prince; all these, together with a habit encouraged by an Application to his Pleasures, did so loosen and untie him from his first Impressions, that I take it for granted, after the first Year or two, he was no more a Protestant. If you ask me what he was, my answer must be, that he was of the Religion of a young Prince in his warm Blood, whose Enquiries were more applied to find Arguments against believing, than to lay any settled Foundations for acknowledging Providence, Mysteries, &c. A General Creed, and no very long one, may be presumed to be the utmost Religion of one, whose Age and Inclination could not well spare any Thoughts that did not tend to his Pleasures.