Clerk.  Sir, we concern not ourselves with your greatness; (though the higher, the better you should have been;) but we are concerned, and so are you now, about an indictment preferred against you.  How say you?  Are you guilty of it, or not?

Lust.  Not guilty.

Clerk.  Crier, call upon the witnesses to stand forth and give their evidence.

Crier.  Gentlemen, you, the witnesses for the King, come in and give in your evidence for our Lord the King against the prisoner at the bar.

Clerk.  Come, Mr. Know-All, look upon the prisoner at the bar; do you know him?

Know.  Yes, my lord, I know him.

Clerk.  What is his name?

Know.  His name is Lustings; he was the son of one Beastly, and his mother bare him in Flesh Street:  she was one Evil-Concupiscence’s daughter.  I knew all the generation of them.

Clerk.  Well said.  You have heard his indictment; what say you to it?  Is he guilty of the things charged against him, or not?

Know.  My lord, he has, as he saith, been a great man indeed, and greater in wickedness than by pedigree more than a thousandfold.

Clerk.  But what do you know of his particular actions, and especially with reference to his indictment?

Know.  I know him to be a swearer, a liar, a Sabbath-breaker; I know him to be a fornicator and an unclean person; I know him to be guilty of abundance of evils.  He has been, to my knowledge, a very filthy man.

Clerk.  But where did he use to commit his wickedness? in some private corners, or more open and shamelessly?

Know.  All the town over, my lord.

Clerk.  Come, Mr. Tell-True, what have you to say for our Lord the
King against the prisoner at the bar?

Tell.  My lord, all that the first witness has said I know to be true, and a great deal more besides.

Clerk.  Mr. Lustings, do you hear what these gentlemen say?

Lust.  I was ever of opinion that the happiest life that a man could live on earth was to keep himself back from nothing that he desired in the world; nor have I been false at any time to this opinion of mine, but have lived in the love of my notions all my days.  Nor was I ever so churlish, having found such sweetness in them myself, as to keep the commendations of them from others.

Then said the Court, ’There hath proceeded enough from his own mouth to lay him open to condemnation; wherefore, set him by, gaoler, and set Mr. Incredulity to the bar.’

Incredulity set to the bar.

Clerk.  Mr. Incredulity, thou art here indicted by the name of Incredulity, (an intruder upon the town of Mansoul,) for that thou hast feloniously and wickedly, and that when thou wert an officer in the town of Mansoul, made head against the captains of the great King Shaddai when they came and demanded possession of Mansoul; yea, thou didst bid defiance to the name, forces, and cause of the King, and didst also, as did Diabolus thy captain, stir up and encourage the town of Mansoul to make head against and resist the said force of the King.  What sayest thou to this indictment?  Art thou guilty of it, or not?