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birth night, as that of their saint and patroness; yet then they were for doing the work of the Lord by arms against her; and in all probability they wanted but a fanatic lord mayor and two sheriffs of their party, to have compassed it. Our venerable Hooker, after many admonitions which he had given them, towards the end of his preface, breaks out into this prophetic speech: There is in every one of these considerations most just cause to fear, lest our hastiness to embrace a thing of so perilous consequence,' (meaning the presbyterian discipline,) 'should cause posterity to feel those evils, which as yet are more easy for us to prevent, than they would be for them to remedy.'

How fatally this Cassandra has foretold we know too well by sad experience: the seeds were sown in the time of Queen Elizabeth, the bloody harvest ripened in the reign of King Charles the Martyr: and because all the sheaves could not be carried off without shedding some of the loose grains, another crop is too like to follow; nay, I fear it is unavoidable if the conventiclers be permitted still to scatter.

A man may be suffered to quote an adversary to our religion, when he speaks truth: and it is the observation of Maimbourg, in his History of Calvinism, that wherever that discipline was planted and embraced, rebellion, civil war, and misery, attended it. And how indeed should it happen otherwise? Reformation of Church and State has always been the ground of our divisions in England. While we were papists, our holy father rid us, by pretending authority out of the Scriptures to depose princes; when we shook off his authority, the sectaries furnished themselves with the same weapons; and out of the same magazine, the Bible: so that the Scriptures, which are in themselves the greatest security of governors, as commanding express obedience to them, are now turned to their destruction; and never since the Reformation has there wanted a text of their interpreting to authorize a rebel. And it is to be noted by the way, that the doctrines of king killing and deposing, which have been taken up only by the worst party of the papists, the most frontless flatterers of the pope's authority, have been espoused, defended, and are still maintained by the whole body of nonconformists and republicans. It is but dubbing themselves the people of God, which it is the interest of their preachers to tell them they are, and their own interest to believe; and after that, they cannot dip into the Bible, but one text or another will turn up for their purpose: if they are under persecution, as they call it, then that is a mark of their election: if they flourish, then

God works miracles for their deliverance, and the saints are to possess the earth.

They may think themselves to be too roughly handled in this paper: but I, who know best how far I could have gone on this subject, must be bold to tell them they are spared: though at the same time I am not ignorant that they interpret the mildness of a writer to them, as they do the mercy of the government; in the one they think it fear, and conclude it weakness in the other. The best way for them to confute me is, as I before advised the papists, to disclaim their principles and renounce their practices. We shall all be glad to think them true Englishmen when they obey the king, and true Protestants when they conform to the Church discipline.

It remains that I acquaint the reader, that these verses were written for an ingenious young gentleman, my friend, upon his translation of The Critical History of the Old Testament, composed by the learned father Simon: the verses therefore are addressed to the translator of that work, and the style of them is, what it ought to be, epistolary.

If any one be so lamentable a critic as to require the smoothness, the numbers, and the turn of heroic poetry in this poem, I must tell him, that if he has not read Horace, I have studied him, and hope the style of his epistles is not ill imitated here. The expressions of a poem designed purely for instruction ought to be plain and natural, and yet majestic; for here the poet is presumed to be a kind of lawgiver, and those three qualities which I have named are proper to the legislative style. The florid, elevated, and figurative way is for the passions; for love and hatred, fear and anger, are begotten in the soul, by showing their objects out of their true proportion, either greater than the life or less; but instruction is to be given by showing them what they naturally are. A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.

RELIGIO LAICI.

DIM as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wandering travellers,
Is Reason to the soul; and as on high,
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light us here; so Reason's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as those nightly tapers disappear,
When day's bright lord ascends our hemi-
sphere;

So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight;
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.
Some few, whose lamp shone brighter, have
been led

From cause to cause, to nature's secret head;
And found that one first principle must be:
But what, or who, that universal He;
Whether some soul encompassing this ball,
Unmade, unmov'd; yet making, moving all;
Or various atoms' interfering dance
Leap'd into form, the noble work of chance;
Or this great all was from eternity;
Not e'en the Stagirite himself could see;
And Epicurus guess'd as well as he :
As blindly grop'd they for a future state;
As rashly judg'd of providence and fate:
But least of all could their endeavours find*
What most concern'd the good of human kind:
For happiness was never to be found;
But vanish'd from 'em like enchanted ground.
One thought Content the good to be enjoy'd:
This every little accident destroy'd:
The wiser madmen did for Virtue toil:
A thorny, or at best a barren soil:

In Pleasure some their glutton souls would steep;
But found their line too short, the well too deep;
And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep.
Thus anxious thoughts in endless circles roll,
Without a centre where to fix the soul:
In this wild maze their vain endeavours end:
How can the less the greater comprehend?
Or finite reason reach Infinity?

For what could fathom God were more than He.
The Deist thinks he stands on firmer ground;*
Cries ευρηκα,
the mighty secret's found:
God is that spring of good: supreme and best;
We made to serve, and in that service blest;
If so, some rules of worship must be given,
Distributed alike to all by Heaven:
Else God were partial, and to some denied
The means his justice should for all provide.
This general worship is to praise and pray:
One part to borrow blessings, one to pay:
And when frail nature slides into offence,
The sacrifice for crimes is penitence.
Yet since the effects of providence, we find,
Are variously dispens'd to human kind;
That vice triumphs, and virtue suffers here,
A brand that sovereign justice cannot bear;
Our reason prompts us to a future state:
The last appeal from fortune and from fate:
Where God's all-righteous ways will be de-
clar'd;

The bad meet punishment, the good reward. Thus man by his own strength to heaven would soar:†

System of Deism. Marginal note, orig. ed.
Of revealed religion. Marginal Note, orig. ed.

And would not be obligd to God for more.
Vain, wretched creature, how art thou misled,
To think thy wit these godlike notions bred!
These truths are not the product of thy mind,
But dropp'd from Heaven, and of a nobler kind.
Reveal'd religion first inform'd thy sight,
And Reason saw not, till Faith sprung the light.
Hence all thy natural worship takes the source :
"T is revelation what thou think'st discourse.
Else how com'st thou to see these truths so clear,
Which so obscure to heathens did appear?
Not Plato these, nor Aristotle found;
Nor he whose wisdom oracles renown'd.‡
Hast thou a wit so deep, or so sublime,
Or canst thou lower dive, or higher climb?
Canst thou by reason more of Godhead know
Than Plutarch, Seneca, or Cicero ?
Those giant wits, in happier ages born,
(When arms and arts did Greece and Rome
[raise
Knew no such system: no such piles could
Of natural worship, built on prayer and praise
To one sole God.

adorn,)

Nor did remorse to expiate sin prescribe;
But slew their fellow-creatures for a bribe :
The guiltless victim groan'd for their offence;
And cruelty and blood was penitence.
If sheep and oxen could atone for men,
Ah! at how cheap a rate the rich might sin!
And great oppressors might Heaven's wrath
beguile,

By offering his own creatures for a spoil!

Dar'st thou, poor worm, offend Infinity? And must the terms of peace be given by thee? Then thou art Justice in the last appeal; Thy easy God instructs thee to rebel: And, like a king remote, and weak, must take What satisfaction thou art pleas'd to make.

But if there be a power too just and strong To wink at crimes, and bear unpunish'd wrong; Look humbly upward, see his will disclose The forfeit first, and then the fine impose : A mulct thy poverty could never pay, Had not eternal wisdom four.d the way; And with celestial wealth supplied thy store: His justice makes the fine, his mercy quits the

score.

See God descending in thy human frame;
The offended suffering in the offender's name
All thy misdeeds to him imputed see,
And all his righteousness devolv'd on thee.

For granting we have sinn'd, and that the
Of man is made against Omnipotence, [offence
Some price that bears proportion must be paid
And infinite with infinite be weigh'd.
See then the Deist lost : remorse for vice,
Not paid; or paid, inadequate in price:

¡Socrates. Marginal Note, orig. ed.

What farther means can Reason now direct,
Or what relief from human wit expect?
That shows us sick; and sadly are we sure
Still to be sick, till Heaven reveal the cure:
If then Heaven's will must needs be understood,
(Which must, if we want cure, and Heaven be
good,)

Let all records of will reveal'd be shown;
With Scripture all in equal balance thrown,
And our one sacred book will be that one.
Proof needs not here, for whether we com-
That impious, idle, superstitious ware [pare
Of rites, lustrations, offerings, (which before,
In various ages, various countries bore,)
With Christian faith and virtues, we shall find
None answering the great ends of human kind,
But this one rule of life, that shows us best
How God may be appeas'd, and mortals blest.
Whether from length of time its worth we draw,
The world is scarce more ancient than the law:
Heaven's early care prescrib'd for every age;
First, in the soul, and after, in the page.
Or, whether more abstractedly we look,
Or on the writers, or the written book,
Whence, but from Heaven, could men unskill'd
In several ages born, in several parts, [in arts,
Weave such agreeing truths? or how, or why,
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?
Unask'd their pains, ungrateful their advice,
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price.
If on the book itself we cast our view,
Concurrent heathens prove the story true:
The doctrine, miracles; which must convince,
For Heaven in them appeals to human sense :
And though they prove not, they confirm the
cause,

When what is taught agrees with Nature's laws.
Then for the style, majestic and divine,
It speaks no less than God in every line:
Commanding words; whose force is still the
As the first fiat that produc'd our frame. [same
All faiths beside, or did by arms ascend;
Or sense indulg'd has made mankind their friend:
This only doctrine does our lusts oppose :
Unfed by nature's soil, in which it grows;
Cross to our interests, curbing sense, and sin;
Oppress'd without, and undermin'd within,
It thrives through pain; its own tormentors
tires;

And with a stubborn patience still aspires.
To what can Reason such effects assign,
Transcending nature, but to laws divine?
Which in that sacred volume are contain'd;
Sufficient, clear, and for that use ordain'd.

But stay: the Deist here will urge anew,
No supernatural worship can be true:

Objection of the Deist. M. N. Orig ed.

Because a general law is that alone
Which must to all, and every where, be known:
A style so large as not this book can claim,
Nor aught that bears reveal'd religion's name.
'Tis said the sound of a Messiah's birth
Is gone through all the habitable earth:
But still that text must be confin'd alone
To what was then inhabited, and known:
And what provision could from thence accrue
To Indian souls, and worlds discover'd new?
In other parts it helps, that ages past, [brac'd,
The Scriptures there were known, and were em-
Till Sin spread once again the shades of night:
What's that to these who never saw the light?

Of all objections this indeed is chief*
To startle reason, stagger frail belief: [senso
We grant, 't is true, that Heaven from human
Has hid the secret paths of Providence:
But boundless wisdom, boundless mercy, may
Find e'en for those bewilder'd souls a way:
If from his nature foes may pity claim, [name.
Much more may strangers who ne'er heard his
And though no name be for salvation known,
But that of his eternal Son's alone;
Who knows how far transcending goodness can
Extend the merits of that Son to man?
Who knows what reasons may his mercy lead;
Or ignorance invincible may plead?
Not only charity bids hope the best,
But more the great apostle has express'd:
That if the Gentiles, whom no law inspir'd,
By nature did what was by law requir'd;
They, who the written rule had never known,
Were to themselves both rule and law alone:
To Nature's plain indictment they shall plead
And by their conscience be condemn'd or freed.
Most righteous doom! because a rule reveal'd
Is none to those from whom it was conceal'd.
Then those who follow'd Reason's dictates right,
Liv'd up, and lifted high their natural light;
With Socrates may see their Maker's face,
While thousand rubric-martyrs want a place.

Nor does it balk my charity, to find The Egyptian bishop of another mind For though his creed eternal truth contains, 'T is hard for man to doom to endless pains All who believ'd not all his zeal requir'd, Unless he first could prove he was inspir'd. Then let us either think he meant to say This faith, where publish'd, was the only way; Or else conclude that, Arius to confute, The good old man too eager in dispute, Flew high; and, as his Christian fury rose, Damn'd all for heretics who durst oppose.

Thus far my charity this path has tried; (A much unskilful, but well-meaning guide ;)

↑ The objection answered. M. N. Orig, ed.

Yet what they are, e'en these crude thoughts were bred

By reading that which better thou hast read:
Thy matchless author's work: which thou, my
friend,

By well translating better dost commend:
Those youthful hours which, of thy equals, most
In toys have squander'd, or in vice have lost,
Those hours hast thou to nobler use employ'd;
And the severe delights of truth enjoy'd.
Witness this weighty book, in which appears
The crabbed toil of many thoughtful years,
Spent by thy author, in the sifting care
Of rabbins' old sophisticated ware

For since the original Scripture has been lost,
All copies disagreeing, maim'd the most,
Or Christian faith can have no certain ground,
Or truth in Church Tradition must be found.

Such an omniscient Church we wish indeed;
'T were worth both Testaments; and cast in the
But if this mother be a guide so sure, [Creed.
As can all doubts resolve, all truth secure,
Then her infallibility, as well,
Where copies are corrupt or lame, can tell;
Restore lost canon with as little pains,
As truly explicate what still remains:
Which yet no Council dare pretend to do;
Unless like Esdras they could write it new:

From gold divine; which he who well can sort Strange confidence, still to interpret true,
May afterwards make algebra a sport.
A treasure, which if country curates buy,
They Junius and Tremellius may defy:
Save pains in various readings and translations,
And without Hebrew make most learn'd quota-
tions.

A work so full with various learning fraught,
So nicely ponder'd, yet so strongly wrought,
As Nature's height and Art's last hand requir'd,
As much as man could compass, uninspir'd.
Where we may see what errors have been made
Both in the copiers' and translators' trade:
How Jewish, Popish, interests have prevail'd,
And where infallibility has fail'd. [guess'd,
For some, who have his secret meaning
Have found our author not too much a priest:
For fashion's sake he seems to have recourse
To Pope, and Councils, and Tradition's force;
But he that old traditions could subdue,
Could not but find the weakness of the new:
If Scripture, though deriv'd from heavenly birth,
Has been but carelessly preserv'd on earth:
If God's own people, who of God before [more,
Knew what we know, and had been promis'd
In fuller terms, of Heaven's assisting care,
And who did neither time nor study spare
To keep this book untainted, unperplex'd,
Let in gross errors to corrupt the text,
Omitted paragraphs, embroil'd the sense,
With vain traditions stopp'd the gaping fence,
Which every common hand pull'd up with ease;
What safety from such brushwood-helps as these,
If written words from time are not secur'd,
How can we think have oral sounds endur'd?
Which thus transmitted, if one mouth has fail'd,
Immortal lies on ages are entail'd; [plain;
And that some such have been, is prov'd too
If we consider Interest, Church, and Gain.
O but, says one, Tradition set aside,*
Where can we hope for an unerring guide?

Of the infallibility of tradition in general. M. N. Orig. ed.

Yet not be sure that all they have explain'd
Is in the blest original contain'd.
More safe, and much more modest 't is, to say
God would not leave mankind without a way:
And that the Scriptures, though not every where
Free from corruption, or entire, or clear,
Are uncorrupt, sufficient, clear, entire,
In all things which our needful faith require.
If others in the same glass better see,
'Tis for themselves they look, but not for me :
For my salvation must its doom receive,
Not from what others but what I believe.

Must all tradition then be set aside ?†
This to affirm were ignorance or pride.
Are there not many points, some needful sure
To saving faith, that Scripture leaves obscure?
Which every sect will wrest a several way,
(For what one sect interprets, all sects may :)
We hold, and say we prove from Scripture
That Christ is God; the bold Socinian [plain,
From the same Scripture urges he's but man.
Now what appeal can end the important suit;
Both parts talk loudly, but the rule is mute?
Shall I speak plain, and in a nation free
Assume an honest layman's liberty?
I think (according to my little skill,
To my own mother-church submitting still)
That many have been sav'd, and many may,
Who never heard this question brought in play.
The unletter'd Christian, who believes in gross,
Plods on to heaven, and ne'er is at a loss:
For the strait gate would be made straiter yet,
Were none admitted there but men of wit.
The few by nature form'd with learning fraught,
Born to instruct, as others to be taught,
Must study well the sacred page, and see
Which doctrine, this, or that, does best agree
With the whole tenor of the work divine,
And plainliest points to Heaven's reveal'd de-
sign:

Objection in behalf of tradition urged by Father Simon. M. N. Orig. ed.

Which exposition flows from genuine sense;
And which is forc'd by wit and eloquence.
Not that tradition's parts are useless here;
When general, old, disinteress'd, and clear:
That ancient Fathers thus expound the page,
Gives truth the reverend majesty of age;
Confirms its force, by biding every test;
For best authority's next rules are best.
And still the nearer to the spring we go,
More limpid, more unsoil'd the waters flow.
Thus, first traditions were a proof alone;
Could we be certain such they were, so known:
But since some flaws in long descent may be,
They make not truth but probability.
E'en Arius and Pelagius durst provoke
To what the centuries preceding spoke.
Such difference is there in an oft told tale:
But truth by its own sinews will prevail.
Tradition written therefore more commends
Authority, than what from voice descends:
And this, as perfect as its kind can be,
Rolls down to us the sacred history:
Which, from the Universal Church receiv'd,
Is tried, and after, for itself believ'd.

The partial Papists would infer from hence* Their church, in last resort, should judge the

sense.

But first they would assume,with wondrous art, Themselves to be the whole, who are but part Of that vast frame, the Church; yet grant they

were

The handers down, can they from thence infer
A right to interpret? or would they alone
Who brought the present, claim it for their own?
The book's a common largess to mankind,
Not more for them than every man design'd;
The welcome news is in the letter found;
The carrier's not commission'd to expound.
It speaks itself, and what it does contain,
In all things needful to be known, is plain.
In times o'ergrown with rust and ignorance,
A gainful trade their clergy did advance:
When want of learning kept the laymen low,
And none but priests were authoriz'd to know:
When what small knowledge was, in them did
dwell;

And he a god who could but read or spell :
Then mother church did mightily prevail :
She parcell'd out the Bible by retail:
But still expounded what she sold or gave;
To keep it in her power to damn and save:
Scripture was scarce, and, as the market went,
Poor laymen took salvation on content;
As needy men take money good or bad:
God's word they had not, but the priest's they
had.

The second objection. M. N. Orig. ed.
↑ Answer to the objection. M. N. Orig. ed.

Yet, whate'er false conveyances they made,
The lawyer still was certain to be paid.
In those dark times they learn'd their knack so
That by long use they grew infallible: [well,
At last, a knowing age began to inquir
If they the book, or that did them inspire:
And, making narrower search, they found, tho'
late,
[estate;

That what they thought the priest's was their
Taught by the will produc'd, (the written word,)
How long they had been cheated on record.
Then every man, who saw the title fair,
Claim'd a child's part, and put in for a share :
Consulted soberly his private good,
And sav'd himself as cheap as e'er he could.
'Tis true, my friend, (and far be flattery

hence,)

This good had full as bad a consequence :
The book thus put in every vulgar hand,
Which each presum'd he best could understand,
The common rule was made the common prey,
And at the mercy of the rabble lay.
The tender page with horny fists was gall'd;
And he was gifted most that loudest bawl'd:
The spirit gave the doctoral degree;
And every member of a company
Was of his trade and of the Bible free.
Plain truths enough for needful use they found:
But men would still be itching to expound:
Each was ambitious of the obscurest place,
No measure ta'en from knowledge,all from grace.
Study and pains were now no more their care;
Texts were explain'd by fasting and by prayer:
This was the fruit the private spirit brought;
Occasion'd by great zeal and little thought.
While crowds unlearn'd, with rude devotion

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What then remains but, waiving each extreme, The tides of ignorance and pride to stem? Neither so rich a treasure to forego; Nor proudly seek beyond our power to know: Faith is not built on disquisitions vain; The things we must believe are few and plain : But since men will believe more than they need, And every man will make himself a creed, In doubtful questions 't is the safest way To learn what unsuspected ancients say; For 't is not likely we should higher soar [fore In search of Heaven, than all the Church be

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