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First write Bezaliel, whose illustrious name Forestalls our praise, and gives his poet fame. The Kenites' rocky province his command, A barren limb of fertile Canaan's land; Which for its generous natives yet could be Held worthy such a president as he. Bezaliel, with each grace and virtue fraught, Serene his looks, serene his life and thought; On whom so largely nature heap'd her store, There scarce remain'd for arts to give him more! 950 To aid the crown and state his greatest zeal, His second care that service to conceal; Of dues observant, firm to every trust, And to the needy always more than just; Who truth from specious falsehood can divide, Has all the gownsmen's skill without their pride. Thus crown'd with worth, from heights of honour won, Sees all his glories copied in his son, Whose forward fame should every muse engage— Whose youth boasts skill denied to others' age. 960 Men, manners, language, books of noblest kind, Already are the conquest of his mind; Whose loyalty before its date was prime, Nor waited the dull course of rolling time: The monster faction early he dismay'd, And David's cause long since confess'd his aid.
Brave Abdael o'er the prophet's school was placed— Abdael with all his father's virtue graced; A hero who, while stars look'd wondering down, Without one Hebrew's blood restored the crown. 970 That praise was his; what therefore did remain For following chiefs, but boldly to maintain That crown restored? and in this rank of fame, Brave Abdael with the first a place must claim. Proceed, illustrious, happy chief! proceed, Foreseize the garlands for thy brow decreed, While the inspired tribe attend with noblest strain To register the glories thou shalt gain: For sure the dew shall Gilboa's hills forsake, And Jordan mix his stream with Sodom's lake; 980 Or seas retired, their secret stores disclose, And to the sun their scaly brood expose, Or swell'd above the cliffs their billows raise, Before the muses leave their patron's praise.
Eliab our next labour does invite, And hard the task to do Eliab right. Long with the royal wanderer he roved, And firm in all the turns of fortune proved. Such ancient service and desert so large Well claim'd the royal household for his charge. 990 His age with only one mild heiress bless'd, In all the bloom of smiling nature dress'd, And bless'd again to see his flower allied To David's stock, and made young Othniel's bride. The bright restorer of his father's youth, Devoted to a son's and subject's truth; Resolved to bear that prize of duty home, So bravely sought, while sought by Absalom. Ah, prince! the illustrious planet of thy birth, And thy more powerful virtue, guard thy worth! 1000 That no Achitophel thy ruin boast; Israel too much in one such wreck has lost.
Even envy must consent to Helon's worth, Whose soul, though Egypt glories in his birth, Could for our captive-ark its zeal retain. And Pharaoh's altars in their pomp disdain: To slight his gods was small; with nobler pride, He all the allurements of his court defied; Whom profit nor example could betray, But Israel's friend, and true to David's sway. 1010 What acts of favour in his province fall On merit he confers, and freely all.
Our list of nobles next let Amri grace, Whose merits claim'd the Abethdin's high place; Who, with a loyalty that did excel, Brought all the endowments of Achitophel. Sincere was Amri, and not only knew, But Israel's sanctions into practice drew; Our laws, that did a boundless ocean seem, Were coasted all, and fathom'd all by him. 1020 No rabbin speaks like him their mystic sense, So just, and with such charms of eloquence: To whom the double blessing does belong, With Moses' inspiration, Aaron's tongue.
Than Sheva none more loyal zeal have shown, Wakeful as Judah's lion for the crown; Who for that cause still combats in his age, For which his youth with danger did engage. In vain our factious priests the cant revive; In vain seditious scribes with libel strive 1030 To inflame the crowd; while he with watchful eye Observes, and shoots their treasons as they fly; Their weekly frauds his keen replies detect; He undeceives more fast than they infect: So Moses, when the pest on legions prey'd, Advanced his signal, and the plague was stay'd.
Once more, my fainting muse! thy pinions try, And strength's exhausted store let love supply. What tribute, Asaph, shall we render thee? We'll crown thee with a wreath from thy own tree! 1040 Thy laurel grove no envy's flash can blast; The song of Asaph shall for ever last.
With wonder late posterity shall dwell On Absalom and false Achitophel: Thy strains shall be our slumbering prophets' dream, And when our Sion virgins sing their theme; Our jubilees shall with thy verse be graced, The song of Asaph shall for ever last.
How fierce his satire loosed! restrain'd, how tame! How tender of the offending young man's fame! 1050 How well his worth, and brave adventures styled, Just to his virtues, to his error mild! No page of thine that fears the strictest view, But teems with just reproof, or praise as due; Not Eden could a fairer prospect yield, All Paradise without one barren field: Whose wit the censure of his foes has pass'd— The song of Asaph shall for ever last.
What praise for such rich strains shall we allow? What just rewards the grateful crown bestow? 1060 While bees in flowers rejoice, and flowers in dew, While stars and fountains to their course are true; While Judah's throne, and Sion's rock stand fast, The song of Asaph and the fame shall last!
Still Hebron's honour'd, happy soil retains Our royal hero's beauteous, dear remains; Who now sails off with winds nor wishes slack, To bring his sufferings' bright companion back. But e'er such transport can our sense employ, A bitter grief must poison half our joy; 1070 Nor can our coasts restored those blessings see Without a bribe to envious destiny! Cursed Sodom's doom for ever fix the tide Where by inglorious chance the valiant died! Give not insulting Askelon to know, Nor let Gath's daughters triumph in our woe; No sailor with the news swell Egypt's pride, By what inglorious fate our valiant died. Weep, Arnon! Jordan, weep thy fountains dry! While Sion's rock dissolves for a supply. 1080
Calm were the elements, night's silence deep, The waves scarce murmuring, and the winds asleep; Yet fate for ruin takes so still an hour, And treacherous sands the princely bark devour; Then death unworthy seized a generous race, To virtue's scandal, and the stars' disgrace! Oh! had the indulgent powers vouchsafed to yield, Instead of faithless shelves, a listed field; A listed field of Heaven's and David's foes, Fierce as the troops that did his youth oppose, 1090 Each life had on his slaughter'd heap retired, Not tamely, and unconquering, thus expired: But destiny is now their only foe, And dying, even o'er that they triumph too; With loud last breaths their master's 'scape applaud, Of whom kind force could scarce the fates defraud; Who for such followers lost, O matchless mind! At his own safety now almost repined! Say, royal Sir! by all your fame in arms, Your praise in peace, and by Urania's charms, 1100 If all your sufferings past so nearly press'd, Or pierced with half so painful grief your breast?
Thus some diviner muse her hero forms, Not soothed with soft delights, but toss'd in storms; Nor stretch'd on roses in the myrtle grove, Nor crowns his days with mirth, his nights with love, But far removed in thundering camps is found, His slumbers short, his bed the herbless ground. In tasks of danger always seen the first, Feeds from the hedge, and slakes with ice his thirst, 1110 Long must his patience strive with fortune's rage, And long-opposing gods themselves engage; Must see his country flame, his friends destroy'd, Before the promised empire be enjoy'd. Such toil of fate must build a man of fame, And such, to Israel's crown, the godlike David came.
What sudden beams dispel the clouds so fast, Whose drenching rains laid all our vineyards waste? The spring, so far behind her course delay'd, On the instant is in all her bloom array'd; 1120 The winds breathe low, the element serene; Yet mark what motion in the waves is seen! Thronging and busy as Hyblaean swarms, Or straggled soldiers summon'd to their arms, See where the princely bark in loosest pride, With all her guardian fleet, adorns the tide! High on her deck the royal lovers stand, Our crimes to pardon, e'er they touch'd our land. Welcome to Israel and to David's breast! Here all your toils, here all your sufferings rest. 1130
This year did Ziloah rule Jerusalem, And boldly all sedition's surges stem, Howe'er encumber'd with a viler pair Than Ziph or Shimei to assist the chair; Yet Ziloah's loyal labours so prevail'd, That faction at the next election fail'd, When even the common cry did justice found, And merit by the multitude was crown'd: With David then was Israel's peace restored, Crowds mourn'd their error, and obey'd their lord. 1140
* * * * *
A KEY TO BOTH PARTS OF ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.
Aldael—General Monk, Duke of Albemarle.
Abethdin—The name given, through this poem, to a Lord-Chancellor in general.
Absalom—Duke of Monmouth, natural son of King Charles II.
Achitophel—Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury.
Adriel—John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave.
Agag—Sir Edmundbury Godfrey.
Amiel—Mr Seymour, Speaker of the House of Commons.
Amri—Sir Heneage Finch, Earl of Winchelsea, and Lord Chancellor.
Annabel—Duchess of Monmouth.
Arod—Sir William Waller.
Asaph—A character drawn by Tate for Dryden, in the second part of this poem.
Balaam—Earl of Huntingdon.
Balak—Barnet.
Barzillai—Duke of Ormond.
Bathsheba—Duchess of Portsmouth.
Benaiah—General Sackville.
Ben Jochanan—Rev. Samuel Johnson.
Bezaliel—Duke of Beaufort.
Caleb—Ford, Lord Grey of Werk.
Corah—Dr Titus Oates.
David—King Charles II.
Doeg—Elkanah Settle, the city poet.
Egypt—France.
Eliab—Sir Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington.
Ethnic-Plot—The Popish Plot.
Gath—The Land of Exile, more particularly Brussels, where King Charles II. long resided.
Hebrew Priests—The Church of England Clergy.
Hebron—Scotland.
Helon—Earl of Feversham, a Frenchman by birth, and nephew to Marshal Turenne.
Hushai—Hyde, Earl of Rochester.
Ishban—Sir Robert Clayton, Alderman, and one of the City Members.
Ishbosheth—Richard Cromwell.
Israel—England.
Issachar—Thomas Thynne, Esq., who was shot in his coach.
Jebusites—Papists.
Jerusalem—London.
Jews—English.
Jonas—Sir William Jones, a great lawyer.
Jordan—Dover.
Jotham—Saville, Marquis of Halifax.
Jothram—Lord Dartmouth.
Judas—Mr Ferguson, a canting teacher.
Mephibosheth—Pordage.
Michal—Queen Catharine.
Nadab—Lord Howard of Escrick.
Og—Shadwell.
Othniel—Henry, Duke of Grafton, natural son of King Charles II. by the Duchess of Cleveland.
Phaleg—Forbes.
Pharaoh—King of France.
Rabsheka—Sir Thomas Player, one of the City Members.
Sagan of Jerusalem—Dr Compton, Bishop of London, youngest son to the Earl of Northampton.
Sanhedrim—Parliament.
Saul—Oliver Cromwell.
Sheva—Sir Roger Lestrange.
Shimei—Slingsby Bethel, Sheriff of London in 1680.
Sion—England.
Solymaean Rout—London Rebels.
Tyre—Holland.
Uzza—Jack Hall.
Zadoc—Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Zaken—A Member of the House of Commons.
Ziloah—Sir John Moor, Lord Mayor in 1682.
Zimri—Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 67: 'Annabel:' Lady Ann Scott, daughter of Francis, third Earl of Buccleuch.]
[Footnote 68: 'Adam-wits:' comparing the discontented to Adam and his fall.]
[Footnote 69: 'Triple bond:' alliance between England, Sweden, and Holland; broken by the second Dutch war through the influence of France and Shaftesbury.]
[Footnote 70: 'Vare:' i.e., wand, from Spanish vara.]
[Footnote 71: 'Him:' Dr Dolben, Bishop of Rochester.]
[Footnote 72: 'Ruler of the day:' Phaeton.]
[Footnote 73: The second part was written by Mr Nahum Tate, and is by no means equal to the first, though Dryden corrected it throughout. The poem is here printed complete.]
[Footnote 74: 'Next:' from this to the line, 'To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee,' is Dryden's own.]
[Footnote 75: 'Who makes,' &c.: a line quoted from Settle.]
* * * * *
THE MEDAL.[76]
A SATIRE AGAINST SEDITION.
EPISTLE TO THE WHIGS.
For to whom can I dedicate this poem with so much justice as to you? It is the representation of your own hero: it is the picture drawn at length, which you admire and prize so much in little. None of your ornaments are wanting; neither the landscape of your Tower, nor the rising sun; nor the Anno Domini of your new sovereign's coronation. This must needs be a grateful undertaking to your whole party; especially to those who have not been so happy as to purchase the original. I hear the graver has made a good market of it: all his kings are bought up already; or the value of the remainder so enhanced, that many a poor Polander, who would be glad to worship the image, is not able to go to the cost of him, but must be content to see him here. I must confess I am no great artist; but sign-post painting will serve the turn to remember a friend by, especially when better is not to be had. Yet, for your comfort, the lineaments are true; and though he sat not five times to me, as he did to B., yet I have consulted history, as the Italian painters do when they would draw a Nero or a Caligula: though they have not seen the man, they can help their imagination by a statue of him, and find out the colouring from Suetonius and Tacitus. Truth is, you might have spared one side of your Medal: the head would be seen to more advantage if it were placed on a spike of the Tower, a little nearer to the sun, which would then break out to better purpose.
You tell us in your preface to the "No-Protestant Plot",[77] that you shall be forced hereafter to leave off your modesty: I suppose you mean that little which is left you; for it was worn to rags when you put out this Medal. Never was there practised such a piece of notorious impudence in the face of an established government. I believe when he is dead you will wear him in thumb rings, as the Turks did Scanderbeg; as if there were virtue in his bones to preserve you against monarchy. Yet all this while you pretend not only zeal for the public good, but a due veneration for the person of the king. But all men who can see an inch before them, may easily detect those gross fallacies. That it is necessary for men in your circumstances to pretend both, is granted you; for without them there could be no ground to raise a faction. But I would ask you one civil question, what right has any man among you, or any association of men (to come nearer to you), who, out of parliament, cannot be considered in a public capacity, to meet as you daily do in factious clubs, to vilify the government in your discourses, and to libel it in all your writings? Who made you judges in Israel? Or how is it consistent with your zeal for the public welfare, to promote sedition? Does your definition of loyal, which is to serve the king according to the laws, allow you the licence of traducing the executive power with which you own he is invested? You complain that his majesty has lost the love and confidence of his people; and by your very urging it, you endeavour what in you lies to make him lose them. All good subjects abhor the thought of arbitrary power, whether it be in one or many: if you were the patriots you would seem, you would not at this rate incense the multitude to assume it; for no sober man can fear it, either from the king's disposition or his practice; or even, where you would odiously lay it, from his ministers. Give us leave to enjoy the government and the benefit of laws under which we were born, and which we desire to transmit to our posterity. You are not the trustees of the public liberty; and if you have not right to petition in a crowd, much less have you to intermeddle in the management of affairs; or to arraign what you do not like, which in effect is everything that is done by the king and council. Can you imagine that any reasonable man will believe you respect the person of his majesty, when it is apparent that your seditious pamphlets are stuffed with particular reflections on him? If you have the confidence to deny this, it is easy to be evinced from a thousand passages, which I only forbear to quote, because I desire they should die and be forgotten. I have perused many of your papers; and to show you that I have, the third part of your "No-Protestant Plot" is much of it stolen from your dead author's pamphlet, called the "Growth of Popery;" as manifestly as Milton's "Defence of the English People" is from Buchanan "De jure regni apud Scotos:" or your first Covenant and new Association from the holy league of the French Guisards. Any one who reads Davila, may trace your practices all along. There were the same pretences for reformation and loyalty, the same aspersions of the king, and the same grounds of a rebellion. I know not whether you will take the historian's word, who says it was reported, that Poltrot, a Huguenot, murdered Francis Duke of Guise, by the instigations of Theodore Beza; or that it was a Huguenot minister, otherwise called a Presbyterian (for our church abhors so devilish a tenet), who first writ a treatise of the lawfulness of deposing and murdering kings of a different persuasion in religion: but I am able to prove, from the doctrine of Calvin, and principles of Buchanan, that they set the people above the magistrate; which, if I mistake not, is your own fundamental, and which carries your loyalty no further than your liking. When a vote of the House of Commons goes on your side, you are as ready to observe it as if it were passed into a law; but when you are pinched with any former, and yet unrepealed act of parliament, you declare that in some cases you will not be obliged by it. The passage is in the same third part of the "No-Protestant Plot," and is too plain to be denied. The late copy of your intended Association, you neither wholly justify nor condemn; but as the Papists, when they are unopposed, fly out into all the pageantries of worship, but in times of war, when they are hard pressed by arguments, lie close intrenched behind the Council of Trent: so now, when your affairs are in a low condition, you dare not pretend that to be a legal combination, but whensoever you are afloat, I doubt not but it will be maintained and justified to purpose. For, indeed, there is nothing to defend it but the sword: it is the proper time to say anything when men have all things in their power.
In the mean time, you would fain be nibbling at a parallel betwixt this Association, and that in the time of Queen Elizabeth.[78] But there is this small difference betwixt them, that the ends of one are directly opposite to the other: one with the queen's approbation and conjunction, as head of it; the other, without either the consent or knowledge of the king, against whose authority it is manifestly designed. Therefore you do well to have recourse to your last evasion, that it was contrived by your enemies, and shuffled into the papers that were seized; which yet you see the nation is not so easy to believe as your own jury; but the matter is not difficult to find twelve men in Newgate who would acquit a malefactor.
I have only one favour to desire of you at parting, that when you think of answering this poem, you would employ the same pens against it, who have combated with so much success against Absalom and Achitophel: for then you may assure yourselves of a clear victory, without the least reply. Rail at me abundantly; and, not to break a custom, do it without wit: by this method you will gain a considerable point, which is, wholly to waive the answer of my arguments. Never own the bottom of your principles, for fear they should be treason. Fall severely on the miscarriages of government; for if scandal be not allowed, you are no freeborn subjects. If God has not blessed you with the talent of rhyming, make use of my poor stock, and welcome: let your verses run upon my feet; and for the utmost refuge of notorious blockheads, reduced to the last extremity of sense, turn my own lines upon me, and, in utter despair of your own satire, make me satirize myself. Some of you have been driven to this bay already; but, above all the rest, commend me to the nonconformist parson, who writ the "Whip and Key." I am afraid it is not read so much as the piece deserves, because the bookseller is every week crying help at the end of his Gazette, to get it off. You see I am charitable enough to do him a kindness, that it may be published as well as printed; and that so much skill in Hebrew derivations may not lie for waste-paper in the shop. Yet I half suspect he went no further for his learning, than the index of Hebrew names and etymologies, which is printed at the end of some English Bibles. If Achitophel signifies the brother of a fool, the author of that poem will pass with his readers for the next of kin. And perhaps it is the relation that makes the kindness. Whatever the verses are, buy them up, I beseech you, out of pity; for I hear the conventicle is shut up, and the brother[79] of Achitophel out of service.
Now, footmen, you know, have the generosity to make a purse for a member of their society, who has had his livery pulled over his ears, and even protestant socks are bought up among you, out of veneration to the name. A dissenter in poetry from sense and English will make as good a Protestant rhymer, as a dissenter from the Church of England a Protestant parson. Besides, if you encourage a young beginner, who knows but he may elevate his style a little above the vulgar epithets of profane, and saucy jack, and atheistic scribbler, with which he treats me, when the fit of enthusiasm is strong upon him: by which well-mannered and charitable expressions I was certain of his sect before I knew his name. What would you have more of a man? He has damned me in your cause from Genesis to the Revelations; and has half the texts of both the Testaments against me, if you will be so civil to yourselves as to take him for your interpreter; and not to take them for Irish witnesses. After all, perhaps you will tell me, that you retained him only for the opening of your cause, and that your main lawyer is yet behind. Now, if it so happen he meet with no more reply than his predecessors, you may either conclude that I trust to the goodness of my cause, or fear my adversary, or disdain him, or what you please; for the short of it is, it is indifferent to your humble servant, whatever your party says or thinks of him.
* * * * *
Of all our antic sights and pageantry, Which English idiots run in crowds to see, The Polish[80] Medal bears the prize alone: A monster, more the favourite of the town Than either fairs or theatres have shown. Never did art so well with nature strive; Nor ever idol seem'd so much alive: So like the man; so golden to the sight, So base within, so counterfeit and light. One side is fill'd with title and with face; 10 And, lest the king should want a regal place, On the reverse, a tower the town surveys; O'er which our mounting sun his beams displays. The word, pronounced aloud by shrieval voice, Laetamur, which, in Polish, is rejoice. The day, month, year, to the great act are join'd: And a new canting holiday design'd. Five days he sate, for every cast and look— Four more than God to finish Adam took. But who can tell what essence angels are, 20 Or how long Heaven was making Lucifer? Oh, could the style that copied every grace, And plough'd such furrows for an eunuch face, Could it have form'd his ever-changing will, The various piece had tired the graver's skill! A martial hero first, with early care, Blown, like a pigmy by the winds, to war. A beardless chief, a rebel, e'er a man: So young his hatred to his prince began. Next this (how wildly will ambition steer!) 30 A vermin wriggling in the usurper's ear. Bartering his venal wit for sums of gold, He cast himself into the saint-like mould; Groan'd, sigh'd, and pray'd, while godliness was gain— The loudest bagpipe of the squeaking train. But, as 'tis hard to cheat a juggler's eyes, His open lewdness he could ne'er disguise. There split the saint: for hypocritic zeal Allows no sins but those it can conceal. Whoring to scandal gives too large a scope: 40 Saints must not trade; but they may interlope: The ungodly principle was all the same; But a gross cheat betrays his partner's game. Besides, their pace was formal, grave, and slack; His nimble wit outran the heavy pack. Yet still he found his fortune at a stay: Whole droves of blockheads choking up his way; They took, but not rewarded, his advice; Villain and wit exact a double price. Power was his aim: but, thrown from that pretence, 50 The wretch turn'd loyal in his own defence; And malice reconciled him to his prince. Him, in the anguish of his soul he served; Rewarded faster still than he deserved. Behold him now exalted into trust; His counsel's oft convenient, seldom just. Even in the most sincere advice he gave, He had a grudging still to be a knave. The frauds he learn'd in his fanatic years Made him uneasy in his lawful gears; 60 At best, as little honest as he could, And, like white witches[81], mischievously good. To his first bias longingly he leans; And rather would be great by wicked means. Thus framed for ill, he loosed our triple hold[82]; Advice unsafe, precipitous, and bold. From hence those tears! that Ilium of our woe! Who helps a powerful friend, forearms a foe. What wonder if the waves prevail so far, When he cut down the banks that made the bar? 70 Seas follow but their nature to invade; But he by art our native strength betray'd. So Samson to his foe his force confess'd, And, to be shorn, lay slumbering on her breast. But when this fatal counsel, found too late, Exposed its author to the public hate; When his just sovereign, by no impious way Could be seduced to arbitrary sway; Forsaken of that hope he shifts his sail, Drives down the current with a popular gale; 80 And shows the fiend confess'd without a veil. He preaches to the crowd that power is lent, But not convey'd, to kingly government; That claims successive bear no binding force, That coronation oaths are things of course; Maintains the multitude can never err, And sets the people in the papal chair. The reason's obvious: interest never lies; The most have still their interest in their eyes; The power is always theirs, and power is ever wise. 90 Almighty crowd, thou shortenest all dispute— Power is thy essence; wit thy attribute! Nor faith nor reason make thee at a stay, Thou leap'st o'er all eternal truths, in thy Pindaric way! Athens, no doubt, did righteously decide, When Phocion and when Socrates were tried: As righteously they did those dooms repent; Still they were wise whatever way they went. Crowds err not, though to both extremes they run; To kill the father, and recall the son. 100 Some think the fools were most, as times went then, But now the world's o'erstock'd with prudent men. The common cry is even religion's test— The Turk's is at Constantinople best; Idols in India; Popery at Rome; And our own worship only true at home: And true, but for the time 'tis hard to know How long we please it shall continue so. This side to-day, and that to-morrow burns; So all are God Almighties in their turns. 110 A tempting doctrine, plausible and new; What fools our fathers were, if this be true! Who, to destroy the seeds of civil war, Inherent right in monarchs did declare: And, that a lawful power might never cease, Secured succession to secure our peace. Thus property and sovereign sway, at last, In equal balances were justly cast: But this new Jehu spurs the hot-mouth'd horse— Instructs the beast to know his native force; 120 To take the bit between his teeth, and fly To the next headlong steep of anarchy. Too happy England, if our good we knew, Would we possess the freedom we pursue! The lavish government can give no more: Yet we repine, and plenty makes us poor. God tried us once; our rebel-fathers fought, He glutted them with all the power they sought: Till, master'd by their own usurping brave, The free-born subject sunk into a slave. 130 We loathe our manna, and we long for quails; Ah, what is man when his own wish prevails! How rash, how swift to plunge himself in ill! Proud of his power, and boundless in his will! That kings can do no wrong, we must believe; None can they do, and must they all receive? Help, Heaven! or sadly we shall see an hour, When neither wrong nor right are in their power! Already they have lost their best defence— The benefit of laws which they dispense. 140 No justice to their righteous cause allow'd; But baffled by an arbitrary crowd. And medals graved their conquest to record, The stamp and coin of their adopted lord.
The man[83] who laugh'd but once, to see an ass Mumbling make the cross-grain'd thistles pass, Might laugh again to see a jury chaw The prickles of unpalatable law. The witnesses, that leech-like lived on blood, Sucking for them was medicinally good; 150 But when they fasten'd on their fester'd sore, Then justice and religion they forswore, Their maiden oaths debauch'd into a whore. Thus men are raised by factions, and decried; And rogue and saint distinguish'd by their side. They rack even Scripture to confess their cause, And plead a call to preach in spite of laws. But that's no news to the poor injured page; It has been used as ill in every age, And is constrain'd with patience all to take: 160 For what defence can Greek and Hebrew make? Happy who can this talking trumpet seize; They make it speak whatever sense they please: 'Twas framed at first our oracle to inquire; But since our sects in prophecy grow higher, The text inspires not them, but they the text inspire.
London, thou great emporium of our isle, O thou too bounteous, thou too fruitful Nile! How shall I praise or curse to thy desert? Or separate thy sound from thy corrupted part? 170 I call thee Nile; the parallel will stand; Thy tides of wealth o'erflow the fatten'd land; Yet monsters from thy large increase we find, Engender'd on the slime thou leav'st behind. Sedition has not wholly seized on thee, Thy nobler parts are from infection free. Of Israel's tribes thou hast a numerous band, But still the Canaanite is in the land. Thy military chiefs are brave and true; Nor are thy disenchanted burghers few. 180 The head[84] is loyal which thy heart commands, But what's a head with two such gouty hands? The wise and wealthy love the surest way, And are content to thrive and to obey. But wisdom is to sloth too great a slave; None are so busy as the fool and knave. Those let me curse; what vengeance will they urge, Whose ordures neither plague nor fire can purge? Nor sharp experience can to duty bring, Nor angry Heaven, nor a forgiving king! 190 In gospel-phrase, their chapmen they betray; Their shops are dens, the buyer is their prey. The knack of trades is living on the spoil; They boast even when each other they beguile. Customs to steal is such a trivial thing, That 'tis their charter to defraud their king. All hands unite of every jarring sect; They cheat the country first, and then infect. They for God's cause their monarchs dare dethrone, And they'll be sure to make his cause their own. 200 Whether the plotting Jesuit laid the plan Of murdering kings, or the French Puritan, Our sacrilegious sects their guides outgo, And kings and kingly power would murder too.
What means their traitorous combination less, Too plain to evade, too shameful to confess! But treason is not own'd when 'tis descried; Successful crimes alone are justified. The men, who no conspiracy would find, Who doubts, but had it taken, they had join'd, 210 Join'd in a mutual covenant of defence; At first without, at last against their prince? If sovereign right by sovereign power they scan, The same bold maxim holds in God and man: God were not safe, his thunder could they shun, He should be forced to crown another son. Thus when the heir was from the vineyard thrown, The rich possession was the murderer's own. In vain to sophistry they have recourse: By proving theirs no plot, they prove 'tis worse— 220 Unmask'd rebellion, and audacious force: Which, though not actual, yet all eyes may see 'Tis working in the immediate power to be. For from pretended grievances they rise, First to dislike, and after to despise; Then, Cyclop-like, in human flesh to deal, Chop up a minister at every meal: Perhaps not wholly to melt down the king, But clip his regal rights within the ring. From thence to assume the power of peace and war, 230 And ease him, by degrees, of public care. Yet, to consult his dignity and fame, He should have leave to exercise the name, And hold the cards, while commons play'd the game. For what can power give more than food and drink, To live at ease, and not be bound to think? These are the cooler methods of their crime, But their hot zealots think 'tis loss of time; On utmost bounds of loyalty they stand, And grin and whet like a Croatian band, 240 That waits impatient for the last command. Thus outlaws open villainy maintain, They steal not, but in squadrons scour the plain; And if their power the passengers subdue, The most have right, the wrong is in the few. Such impious axioms foolishly they show, For in some soils republics will not grow: Our temperate isle will no extremes sustain, Of popular sway or arbitrary reign; But slides between them both into the best, 250 Secure in freedom, in a monarch blest: And though the climate, vex'd with various winds, Works through our yielding bodies on our minds. The wholesome tempest purges what it breeds, To recommend the calmness that succeeds.
But thou, the pander of the people's hearts, O crooked soul, and serpentine in arts, Whose blandishments a loyal land have whored, And broke the bonds she plighted to her lord; What curses on thy blasted name will fall! 260 Which age to age their legacy shall call; For all must curse the woes that must descend on all. Religion thou hast none: thy mercury Has pass'd through every sect, or theirs through thee. But what thou giv'st, that venom still remains, And the pox'd nation feels thee in their brains. What else inspires the tongues and swells the breasts Of all thy bellowing renegado priests, That preach up thee for God, dispense thy laws, And with thy stum ferment their fainting cause? 270 Fresh fumes of madness raise; and toil and sweat To make the formidable cripple great. Yet, should thy crimes succeed, should lawless power Compass those ends thy greedy hopes devour, Thy canting friends thy mortal foes would be, Thy God and theirs will never long agree; For thine, if thou hast any, must be one That lets the world and human kind alone: A jolly god that passes hours too well To promise heaven, or threaten us with hell; 280 That unconcern'd can at rebellion sit, And wink at crimes he did himself commit. A tyrant theirs; the heaven their priesthood paints A conventicle of gloomy, sullen saints; A heaven like Bedlam, slovenly and sad, Foredoom'd for souls with false religion mad.
Without a vision poets can foreshow What all but fools by common sense may know: If true succession from our isle should fail, And crowds profane with impious arms prevail, 290 Not thou, nor those thy factious arts engage, Shall reap that harvest of rebellious rage, With which thou flatterest thy decrepit age. The swelling poison of the several sects, Which, wanting vent, the nation's health infects, Shall burst its bag; and, fighting out their way, The various venoms on each other prey. The presbyter, puff'd up with spiritual pride, Shall on the necks of the lewd nobles ride: His brethren damn, the civil power defy; 300 And parcel out republic prelacy. But short shall be his reign: his rigid yoke And tyrant power will puny sects provoke; And frogs and toads, and all the tadpole train, Will croak to heaven for help, from this devouring crane. The cut-throat sword and clamorous gown shall jar, In sharing their ill-gotten spoils of war: Chiefs shall be grudged the part which they pretend; Lords envy lords, and friends with every friend About their impious merit shall contend. 310 The surly commons shall respect deny, And justle peerage out with property. Their general either shall his trust betray, And force the crowd to arbitrary sway; Or they, suspecting his ambitious aim, In hate of kings shall cast anew the frame; And thrust out Collatine that bore their name.
Thus inborn broils the factions would engage, Or wars of exiled heirs, or foreign rage, Till halting vengeance overtook our age: 320 And our wild labours, wearied into rest, Reclined us on a rightful monarch's breast.
—"Pudet haec opprobria, vobis Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli."
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 76: 'The Medal:' see 'Life.']
[Footnote 77: A pamphlet vindicating Lord Shaftesbury from being concerned in any plotting designs against the King. Wood says, the general report was, that it was written by the earl himself.]
[Footnote 78: When England, in the sixteenth century, was supposed in danger from the designs of Spain, the principal people, with the queen at their head, entered into an association for the defence of their country, and of the Protestant religion, against Popery, invasion, and innovation.]
[Footnote 79: 'Brother:' George Cooper, Esq., brother to the Earl of Shaftesbury, was married to a daughter of Alderman Oldfield; and, being settled in the city, became a great man among the Whigs and fanatics.]
[Footnote 80: 'Polish:' Shaftesbury was said to have entertained hopes of the crown of Poland.]
[Footnote 81: 'White witches:' who wrought good ends by infernal means.]
[Footnote 82: 'Loosed our triple hold:' our breaking the alliance with Holland and Sweden, was owing to the Earl of Shaftesbury's advice.]
[Footnote 83: 'The Man:' Crassus.]
[Footnote 84: 'The head,' &c.: alluding to the lord mayor and the two sheriffs: the former, Sir John Moor, being a Tory; the latter, Shute and Pilkington, Whigs.]
* * * * *
RELIGIO LAICI; OR, A LAYMAN'S FAITH.
AN EPISTLE.
THE PREFACE.
A Poem with so bold a title, and a name prefixed from which the handling of so serious a subject would not be expected, may reasonably oblige the author to say somewhat in defence, both of himself and of his undertaking. In the first place, if it be objected to me, that, being a layman, I ought not to have concerned myself with speculations which belong to the profession of divinity; I could answer, that perhaps laymen, with equal advantages of parts and knowledge, are not the most incompetent judges of sacred things; but in the due sense of my own weakness and want of learning, I plead not this: I pretend not to make myself a judge of faith in others, but only to make a confession of my own. I lay no unhallowed hand upon the ark, but wait on it, with the reverence that becomes me, at a distance. In the next place, I will ingenuously confess, that the helps I have used in this small treatise, were many of them taken from the works of our own reverend divines of the Church of England: so that the weapons with which I combat irreligion, are already consecrated; though I suppose they may be taken down as lawfully as the sword of Goliah was by David, when they are to be employed for the common cause against the enemies of piety. I intend not by this to entitle them to any of my errors, which yet I hope are only those of charity to mankind; and such as my own charity has caused me to commit, that of others may more easily excuse. Being naturally inclined to scepticism in philosophy, I have no reason to impose my opinions in a subject which is above it; but whatever they are, I submit them with all reverence to my mother church, accounting them no farther mine, than as they are authorised, or at least uncondemned by her. And, indeed, to secure myself on this side, I have used the necessary precaution of showing this paper, before it was published, to a judicious and learned friend, a man indefatigably zealous in the service of the church and state; and whose writings have highly deserved of both. He was pleased to approve the body of the discourse, and I hope he is more my friend than to do it out of complaisance: it is true he had too good a taste to like it all; and amongst some other faults recommended to my second view, what I have written perhaps too boldly on St Athanasius, which he advised me wholly to omit. I am sensible enough that I had done more prudently to have followed his opinion: but then I could not have satisfied myself that I had done honestly not to have written what was my own. It has always been my thought, that heathens who never did, nor without miracle could, hear of the name of Christ, were yet in a possibility of salvation. Neither will it enter easily into my belief, that before the coming of our Saviour the whole world, excepting only the Jewish nation, should lie under the inevitable necessity of everlasting punishment, for want of that revelation, which was confined to so small a spot of ground as that of Palestine. Among the sons of Noah we read of one only who was accursed; and if a blessing in the ripeness of time was reserved for Japhet (of whose progeny we are), it seems unaccountable to me, why so many generations of the same offspring, as preceded our Saviour in the flesh, should be all involved in one common condemnation, and yet that their posterity should be entitled to the hopes of salvation: as if a bill of exclusion had passed only on the fathers, which debarred not the sons from their succession: or that so many ages had been delivered over to hell, and so many reserved for heaven; and that the devil had the first choice, and God the next. Truly I am apt to think, that the revealed religion which was taught by Noah to all his sons, might continue for some ages in the whole posterity. That afterwards it was included wholly in the family of Shem is manifest; but when the progenies of Ham and Japhet swarmed into colonies, and those colonies were subdivided into many others, in process of time their descendants lost by little and little the primitive and purer rites of divine worship, retaining only the notion of one Deity; to which succeeding generations added others: for men took their degrees in those ages from conquerors to gods. Revelation being thus eclipsed to almost all mankind, the light of nature, as the next in dignity, was substituted; and that is it which St Paul concludes to be the rule of the heathens, and by which they are hereafter to be judged. If my supposition be true, then the consequence which I have assumed in my poem may be also true; namely, that Deism, or the principles of natural worship, are only the faint remnants or dying flames of revealed religion in the posterity of Noah: and that our modern philosophers—nay, and some of our philosophising divines—have too much exalted the faculties of our souls, when they have maintained that by their force mankind has been able to find out that there is one supreme agent or intellectual Being which we call God: that praise and prayer are his due worship; and the rest of those deducements, which I am confident are the remote effects of revelation, and unattainable by our discourse, I mean as simply considered, and without the benefit of divine illumination. So that we have not lifted up ourselves to God, by the weak pinions of our reason, but he has been pleased to descend to us; and what Socrates said of him, what Plato writ, and the rest of the heathen philosophers of several nations, is all no more than the twilight of revelation, after the sun of it was set in the race of Noah. That there is something above us, some principle of motion, our reason can apprehend, though it cannot discover what it is by its own virtue. And, indeed, it is very improbable, that we, who by the strength of our faculties cannot enter into the knowledge of any Being, not so much as of our own, should be able to find out by them, that supreme nature, which we cannot otherwise define than by saying it is infinite; as if infinite were definable, or infinity a subject for our narrow understanding. They who would prove religion by reason, do but weaken the cause which they endeavour to support: it is to take away the pillars from our faith, and to prop it only with a twig; it is to design a tower like that of Babel, which, if it were possible, as it is not, to reach heaven, would come to nothing by the confusion of the workmen. For every man is building a several way; impotently conceited of his own model and his own materials: reason is always striving, and always at a loss; and of necessity it must so come to pass, while it is exercised about that which is not its own proper object. Let us be content at last to know God by his own methods; at least, so much of him as he is pleased to reveal to us in the sacred Scriptures: to apprehend them to be the Word of God is all our reason has to do; for all beyond it is the work of faith, which is the seal of Heaven impressed upon our human understanding.
And now for what concerns the holy bishop Athanasius; the preface of whose creed seems inconsistent with my opinion; which is, that heathens may possibly be saved. In the first place, I desire it may be considered that it is the preface only, not the creed itself, which, till I am better informed, is of too hard a digestion for my charity. It is not that I am ignorant how many several texts of Scripture seemingly support that cause; but neither am I ignorant how all those texts may receive a kinder and more mollified interpretation. Every man who is read in Church history, knows that belief was drawn up after a long contestation with Arius, concerning the divinity of our blessed Saviour, and his being one substance with the Father; and that thus compiled, it was sent abroad among the Christian Churches, as a kind of test, which whosoever took was looked upon as an orthodox believer. It is manifest from hence, that the heathen part of the empire was not concerned in it; for its business was not to distinguish betwixt Pagans and Christians, but betwixt Heretics and true Believers. This, well considered, takes off the heavy weight of censure, which I would willingly avoid, from so venerable a man; for if this proportion, "whosoever will be saved," be restrained only to those to whom it was intended, and for whom it was composed, I mean the Christians; then the anathema reaches not the heathens, who had never heard of Christ, and were nothing interested in that dispute. After all, I am far from blaming even that prefatory addition to the creed, and as far from cavilling at the continuation of it in the Liturgy of the Church, where, on the days appointed, it is publicly read: for I suppose there is the same reason for it now, in opposition to the Socinians, as there was then against the Arians; the one being a heresy, which seems to have been refined out of the other; and with how much more plausibility of reason it combats our religion, with so much more caution it ought to be avoided: therefore the prudence of our Church is to be commended, which has interposed her authority for the recommendation of this creed. Yet to such as are grounded in the true belief, those explanatory creeds, the Nicene and this of Athanasius, might perhaps be spared; for what is supernatural will always be a mystery, in spite of exposition; and for my own part, the plain Apostles' creed is most suitable to my weak understanding, as the simplest diet is the most easy of digestion.
I have dwelt longer on this subject than I intended, and longer than perhaps I ought; for having laid down, as my foundation, that the Scripture is a rule; that in all things needful to salvation it is clear, sufficient, and ordained by God Almighty for that purpose, I have left myself no right to interpret obscure places, such as concern the possibility of eternal happiness to heathens: because whatsoever is obscure is concluded not necessary to be known.
But, by asserting the Scripture to be the canon of oar faith, I have unavoidably created to myself two sorts of enemies: the Papists indeed, more directly, because they have kept the Scriptures from us what they could; and have reserved to themselves a right of interpreting what they have delivered under the pretence of infallibility: and the Fanatics more collaterally, because they have assumed what amounts to an infallibility, in the private spirit; and have detorted those texts of Scripture which are not necessary to salvation, to the damnable uses of sedition, disturbance, and destruction of the civil government. To begin with the Papists, and to speak freely, I think them the less dangerous, at least in appearance to our present state; for not only the penal laws are in force against them, and their number is contemptible, but also their peers and commons are excluded from parliament, and consequently those laws in no probability of being repealed. A general and uninterrupted plot of their clergy, ever since the Reformation, I suppose all Protestants believe; for it is not reasonable to think but that so many of their orders, as were outed from their fat possessions, would endeavour a re-entrance against those whom they account heretics. As for the late design, Mr Coleman's letters, for aught I know, are the best evidence; and what they discover, without wiredrawing their sense, or malicious glosses, all men of reason conclude credible. If there be anything more than this required of me, I must believe it as well as I am able, in spite of the witnesses, and out of a decent conformity to the votes of parliament; for I suppose the Fanatics will not allow the private spirit in this case. Here the infallibility is at least in one part of the government; and our understandings as well as our wills are represented. But to return to the Roman Catholics, how can we be secure from the practice of Jesuited Papists in that religion? For not two or three of that order, as some of them would impose upon us, but almost the whole body of them are of opinion, that their infallible master has a right over kings, not only in spirituals but temporals. Not to name Mariana, Bellarmine, Emanuel Sa, Molina, Santare, Simancha,[85] and at least twenty others of foreign countries; we can produce of our own nation, Campian, and Doleman or Parsons; besides, many are named whom I have not read, who all of them attest this doctrine, that the pope can depose and give away the right of any sovereign prince, si vel paulum deflexerit, if he shall never so little warp: but if he once comes to be excommunicated, then the bond of obedience is taken off from subjects; and they may, and ought to drive him, like another Nebuchadnezzar, ex hominum Christianorum dominatu, from exercising dominion over Christians; and to this they are bound by virtue of divine precept, and by all the ties of conscience, under no less penalty than damnation. If they answer me, as a learned priest has lately written, that this doctrine of the Jesuits is not de fide; and that consequently they are not obliged by it, they must pardon me, if I think they have said nothing to the purpose; for it is a maxim in their church, where points of faith are not decided, and that doctors are of contrary opinions, they may follow which part they please; but more safely the most received and most authorised. And their champion Bellarmine has told the world, in his Apology, that the king of England is a vassal to the pope, ratione directi domini, and that he holds in villanage of his Roman landlord: which is no new claim put in for England. Our chronicles are his authentic witnesses, that King John was deposed by the same plea, and Philip Augustus admitted tenant. And which makes the more for Bellarmine, the French king was again ejected when our king submitted to the church, and the crown was received under the sordid condition of a vassalage.
It is not sufficient for the more moderate and well-meaning Papists, of which I doubt not there are many, to produce the evidences of their loyalty to the late king, and to declare their innocency in this plot: I will grant their behaviour in the first to have been as loyal and as brave as they desire; and will be willing to hold them excused as to the second, I mean when it comes to my turn, and after my betters; for it is a madness to be sober alone, while the nation continues drank: but that saying of their father Cres. is still running in my head, that they may be dispensed with in their obedience to an heretic prince, while the necessity of the times shall oblige them to it: for that, as another of them tells us, is only the effect of Christian prudence; but when once they shall get power to shake him off, an heretic is no lawful king, and consequently to rise against him is no rebellion. I should be glad, therefore, that they would follow the advice which was charitably given them by a reverend prelate of our church; namely, that they would join in a public act of disowning and detesting those Jesuitic principles; and subscribe to all doctrines which deny the pope's authority of deposing kings, and releasing subjects from their oath of allegiance: to which I should think they might easily be induced, if it be true that this present pope has condemned the doctrine of king-killing, a thesis of the Jesuits maintained, amongst others, ex cathedra, as they call it, or in open consistory.
Leaving them, therefore, in so fair a way, if they please themselves, of satisfying all reasonable men of their sincerity and good meaning to the government, I shall make bold to consider that other extreme of our religion—I mean the Fanatics, or Schismatics, of the English Church. Since the Bible has been translated into our tongue, they have used it so, as if their business was not to be saved, but to be damned by its contents. If we consider only them, better had it been for the English nation that it had still remained in the original Greek and Hebrew, or at least in the honest Latin of St Jerome, than that several texts in it should have been prevaricated, to the destruction of that government which put it into so ungrateful hands.
How many heresies the first translation of Tindal produced in few years, let my Lord Herbert's history of Henry VIII. inform you; insomuch, that for the gross errors in it, and the great mischiefs it occasioned, a sentence passed on the first edition of the Bible, too shameful almost to be repeated. After the short reign of Edward VI., who had continued to carry on the Reformation on other principles than it was begun, every one knows that not only the chief promoters of that work, but many others, whose consciences would not dispense with Popery, were forced, for fear of persecution, to change climates: from whence returning at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, many of them who had been in France, and at Geneva, brought back the rigid opinions and imperious discipline of Calvin, to graft upon our Reformation: which, though they cunningly concealed at first, as well knowing how nauseously that drug would go down in a lawful monarchy, which was prescribed for a rebellious commonwealth, yet they always kept it in reserve; and were never wanting to themselves either in court or parliament, when either they had any prospect of a numerous party of fanatic members of the one, or the encouragement of any favourite in the other, whose covetousness was gaping at the patrimony of the Church. They who will consult the works of our venerable Hooker, or the account of his life, or more particularly the letter written to him on this subject by George Cranmer, may see by what gradations they proceeded: from the dislike of cap and surplice, the very next step was admonitions to the parliament against the whole government ecclesiastical: then came out volumes in English and Latin in defence of their tenets: and immediately practices were set on foot to erect their discipline without authority. Those not succeeding, satire and railing was the next: and Martin Mar-prelate, the Marvel of those times, was the first Presbyterian scribbler, who sanctified libels and scurrility to the use of the good old cause: which was done, says my author, upon this account; that their serious treatises having been fully answered and refuted, they might compass by railing what they had lost by reasoning; and, when their cause was sunk in court and parliament, they might at least hedge in a stake amongst the rabble: for to their ignorance all things are wit which are abusive; but if Church and State were made the theme, then the doctoral degree of wit was to be taken at Billingsgate: even the most saint-like of the party, though they durst not excuse this contempt and vilifying of the government, yet were pleased, and grinned at it with a pious smile; and called it a judgment of God against the hierarchy. Thus sectaries, we may see, were born with teeth, foul-mouthed and scurrilous from their infancy: and if spiritual pride, venom, violence, contempt of superiors, and slander, had been the marks of orthodox belief, the presbytery and the rest of our schismatics, which are their spawn, were always the most visible church in the Christian world.
It is true, the government was too strong at that time for a rebellion; but, to show what proficiency they had made in Calvin's school, even then their mouths watered at it: for two of their gifted brotherhood, Hacket[86] and Coppinger, as the story tells us, got up into a pease-cart and harangue the people, to dispose them to an insurrection, and to establish their discipline by force: so that however it comes about, that now they celebrate Queen Elizabeth's 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 authorise 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,[87] 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.
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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 hemisphere; So pale grows reason at religion's sight; 10 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, unmoved; 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; 20 Not even the Stagyrite himself could see; And Epicurus guess'd as well as he: As blindly groped they for a future state; As rashly judged 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 them like enchanted ground. One thought Content the good to be enjoy'd— This every little accident destroy'd: 30 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? 40 For what could fathom God were more than He.
The Deist thinks he stands on firmer ground; Cries [Greek: eureka], 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: 50 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 dispensed 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 declared— 60 The bad meet punishment, the good reward.
Thus man by his own strength to heaven would soar, And would not be obliged to God for more. Vain, wretched creature, how art thou misled, To think thy wit these God-like 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: 70 'Tis 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, 80 When arms and arts did Greece and Rome adorn, Knew no such system: no such piles could raise Of natural worship, built on prayer and praise, To one sole God. 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! 90 And great oppressors might Heaven's wrath beguile, By offering His own creatures for a spoil!
Darest 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 pleased to make.
But if there be a Power too just and strong To wink at crimes, and bear unpunish'd wrong, 100 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 found 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 devolved on thee. 110 For, granting we have sinn'd, and that the offence Of man is made against Omnipotence, 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: What further 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: 120 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 Scripure all in equal balance thrown, And our one Sacred Book will be that one.
Proof needs not here, for whether we compare That impious, idle, superstitious ware Of rites, lustrations, offerings, which before, In various ages, various countries bore, With Christian faith and virtues, we shall find 130 None answering the great ends of human kind, But this one rule of life, that shows us best How God may be appeased, and mortals blest. Whether from length of time its worth we draw, The word is scarce more ancient than the law: Heaven's early care prescribed 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 arts, 140 In several ages born, in several parts, 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, 150 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 same As the first fiat that produced our frame. All faiths beside, or did by arms ascend; Or, sense indulged, 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; 160 Oppress'd without, and undermined 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: Because a general law is that alone 170 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 confined 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, 180 The Scriptures there were known, and were embraced, 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: We grant, 'tis true, that Heaven from human sense Has hid the secret paths of Providence: But boundless wisdom, boundless mercy may Find even for those bewilder'd souls a way. If from His nature foes may pity claim, 190 Much more may strangers who ne'er heard His name. And though no name be for salvation known, But that of his Eternal Son 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 inspired, 200 By nature did what was by law required; 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, Lived up, and lifted high their natural light; With Socrates may see their Maker's face, 210 While thousand rubric-martyrs want a place. Nor does it balk my charity to find The Egyptian bishop[88] of another mind: For though his creed eternal truth contains, 'Tis hard for man to doom to endless pains All who believed not all his zeal required; Unless he first could prove he was inspired. 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, 220 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:) Yet what they are, even 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 230 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 From gold divine; which he who well can sort May afterwards make algebra a sport: A treasure, which if country curates buy, 240 They Junius and Tremellius[89] may defy; Save pains in various readings, and translations; And without Hebrew make most learn'd quotations. 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 required: As much as man could compass, uninspired. Where we may see what errors have been made Both in the copiers' and translators' trade; How Jewish, Popish interests have prevail'd, 250 And where infallibility has fail'd.
For some, who have his secret meaning guess'd, Have found our author not too much a priest: For fashion-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 derived from heavenly birth, Has been but carelessly preserved on earth; If God's own people, who of God before 260 Knew what we know, and had been promised more, 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 secured, 270 How can we think have oral sounds endured? Which thus transmitted, if one mouth has fail'd, Immortal lies on ages are entail'd: And that some such have been, is proved too plain, If we consider interest, church, and gain.
O but, says one, tradition set aside, Where can we hope for an unerring guide? For since the original Scripture has been lost, All copies disagreeing, maim'd the most, Or Christian faith can have no certain ground, 280 Or truth in Church Tradition must be found.
Such an omniscient Church we wish indeed: 'Twere worth both Testaments, cast in the Creed: But if this mother be a guide so sure, 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; 290 Unless, like Esdras, they could write it new: Strange confidence still to interpret true, Yet not be sure that all they have explain'd Is in the blest original contain'd! More safe, and much more modest 'tis 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. 300 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. 310 We hold, and say we prove from Scripture plain, That Christ is God; the bold Socinian 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 saved, and many may, 320 Who never heard this question brought in play. Th' 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: 330 And plainliest points to Heaven's reveal'd design: Which exposition flows from genuine sense; And which is forced 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, 340 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. Even 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 350 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 received, Is tried, and after for itself believed.
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 360 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 commissioned 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, 370 A gainful trade their clergy did advance: When want of learning kept the laymen low, And none but priests were authorised to know: When what small knowledge was, in them did dwell; And he a god, who could but read and 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, 380 Poor laymen took salvation on content; As needy men take money, good or bad: God's Word they had not, but th' priest's they had. 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 well, That by long use they grew infallible. At last a knowing age began to inquire If they the Book, or that did them inspire: And making narrower search, they found, though late, 390 That what they thought the priest's, was their estate; Taught by the will produced, 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 saved 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, 400 Which each presumed 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: 410 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 warm, About the sacred viands buzz and swarm. The fly-blown text creates a crawling brood, And turns to maggots what was meant for food. 420 A thousand daily sects rise up and die; A thousand more the perish'd race supply; So all we make of Heaven's discover'd will, Is, not to have it, or to use it ill. The danger's much the same; on several shelves If others wreck us, or we wreck ourselves.
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: 430 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 'tis the safest way To learn what unsuspected ancients say: For 'tis not likely we should higher soar In search of heaven, than all the Church before: Nor can we be deceived, unless we see The Scripture and the Fathers disagree. 440 If, after all, they stand suspected still, (For no man's faith depends upon his will): 'Tis some relief, that points not clearly known, Without much hazard may be let alone: And after hearing what our Church can say, If still our reason runs another way, That private reason 'tis more just to curb, Than by disputes the public peace disturb. For points obscure are of small use to learn: But common quiet is mankind's concern. 450
Thus have I made my own opinions clear; Yet neither praise expect, nor censure fear: And this unpolish'd, rugged verse I chose, As fittest for discourse, and nearest prose: For while from sacred truth I do not swerve, Tom Sternhold's or Tom Shadwell's rhymes will serve.
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FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 85: 'Not to name Mariana, Bellarmine,' &c.: all Jesuits and controversial writers in the Roman Catholic Church.]
[Footnote 86: Hacket was a man of learning; he had much of the Scriptures by heart, and made himself remarkable by preaching in an enthusiastic strain. In 1591, he made a great parade of sanctity, pretended to divine inspiration, and visions from God.]
[Footnote 87: The son of the celebrated John Hampden. He was in the Ryehouse Plot, and fined L15,000, which was remitted at the Revolution.]
[Footnote 88: 'Bishop:' Athanasius.]
[Footnote 89: 'Junius and Tremellius:' Francis Junius and Emanuel Tremellius, two Calvinist ministers, who, in the sixteenth century, joined in translating the Bible from Hebrew into Latin.]
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THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS:
A FUNERAL PINDARIC POEM, SACRED TO THE HAPPY MEMORY OF KING CHARLES II.
I.
Thus long my grief has kept me dumb: Sure there's a lethargy in mighty woe, Tears stand congeal'd, and cannot flow; And the sad soul retires into her inmost room: Tears, for a stroke foreseen, afford relief; But, unprovided for a sudden blow, Like Niobe we marble grow; And petrify with grief.
Our British heaven was all serene, No threatening cloud was nigh, Not the least wrinkle to deform the sky; We lived as unconcern'd and happily As the first age in Nature's golden scene; Supine amidst our flowing store, We slept securely, and we dreamt of more: When suddenly the thunder-clap was heard, It took us unprepared and out of guard, Already lost before we fear'd. The amazing news of Charles at once were spread, At once the general voice declared, "Our gracious prince was dead." No sickness known before, no slow disease, To soften grief by just degrees: But like a hurricane on Indian seas, The tempest rose; An unexpected burst of woes; With scarce a breathing space betwixt— This now becalm'd, and perishing the next. As if great Atlas from his height Should sink beneath his heavenly weight, And with a mighty flaw, the flaming wall (At once it shall), Should gape immense, and rushing down, o'erwhelm this nether ball; So swift and so surprising was our fear: Our Atlas fell indeed, but Hercules was near. |
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