But strive t' evade, and fear to find them true,
As conscious they were never meant to you:
All which the mother-church asserts her own,
And with unrivall'd claim ascends the throne:
So when of old th' Almighty Father sate
In council, to redeem our ruin'd state,
Millions of millions, at a distance round,
Silent the sacred consistory, crown'd,
To hear what mercy, mix'd with justice, could pro-
All prompt with eager pity to fulfil
The full extent of their Creator's will:
But when the stern conditions were declar'd,
A mournful whisper through the host was heard,
And the whole hierarchy, with heads hung down,
Submissively declin'd the pond'rous proffer'd crown.
Then, not till then, th' eternal Son from high, 511
Rose in the strength of all the Deity,
Stood forth t' accept the terms, and underwent
A weight, which all the frame of heav'n had bent,
Nor he himself could bear, but as Omnipotent.
Now, to remove the least remaining doubt,
That e'en the blear-eyed sects may find her out,
Behold what heav'nly rays adorn her brows,
What from his wardrobe her belov'd allows,
To deck the wedding-day of his unspotted spouse,
Behold what marks of majesty she brings,
Richer than ancient heirs of castern kings:
Her right hand holds the sceptre and the keys,
To shew whom she commands, and who obeys:
With these to bind, or set the sinner free,
With that t' assert spiritual royalty.
One in herself, not rent by schism, but sound,
Entire, one solid shining diamond;
Not sparkles, shatter'd into sects like you:
One is the church, and must be, to be true:
One central principle of unity,
As undivided, so from errors free,
As one in faith, so one in sanctity.
Thus she, and none but she, th' insulting rage
Of heretics oppos'd from age to age:
Still when the giant-brood invades her throne,"
She stoops from heav'n, and meets 'em half way
And with paternal thunder vindicates her crown.
But like Egyptian sorcerers you stand,
And vainly lift aloft your magic wand,
To sweep away the swarms of vermin, from the
You could like them, with like infernal force,
Produce the plague, but not arrest the course :
But when the boils and blotches, with disgrace
And public scandal sat upon the face,
Themselves attack'd, the magi strove no more,
They saw God's finger, and their fate deplore;
Themselves they could not cure of the dishonest sore.
Thus one, thus pure, behold her largely spread,
Like the fair ocean from her mother-bed;
From east to west triumphantly she rides,
All shores are water'd by her wealthy tides,
The Gospel-sound, diffus'd from pole to pole,
Where winds can carry, and where waves can roll,
The self same doctrine of the sacred page,
Convey'd to ev'ry clime, in ev'ry age.
Here let my sorrow give my satire place,
To raise new blushes on my British race;
Our sailing ships like common sewers we use,
And through our distant colonies diffuse
The draught of dungeons, and the stench of stews:
Whom, when their home-bred honesty is lost,
We disembogue on some far Indian coast:
Thieves, panders, paillards, sins of ev'ry sort,
Those are the manufactures we export;
And these the missioners our zeai has made:
For, with my country's pardon be it said,
Religion is the least of all our trade.
Yet some improve their traffic more than we;
For they on gain, their only god, rely,
And set a public price on piety.
Industrious of the needle and the chart,
They run full sail to their Japonian mart:
Prevention, fear, and prodigal of fame,
Sell all of Christian to the very name,
Nor leave enough of that to hide their naked shame.
Thus of three marks which in the creed we view, Not one of all can be apply'd to you;
Much less the fourth: in vain, alas! you seek
Th' ambitious title of Apostolic:
Godlike descent! 'tis well your blood can be
Prov'd noble in the third or fourth degree:
For all of ancient that you had before,
(I mean what is not borrow'd from our store)
Was error fulminated o'er and o'er;
Old heresies condemn'd in ages past,
By care and time recover'd from the blast.
'Tis said with ease, but never can be prov'd, 599 The church her old foundations has remov'd,
And built new doctrines on unstable sands:
Judge that, ye Winds and Rains: you prov'd her, yet
Those ancient doctrines charg'd on her for new,
Shew when, and how, and from what hands they grew.
We claim no pow'r, when heresies grow bold,
To coin new faith, but still declare the old :
How else could that obscene disease be purg'd,
When controverted texts are vainly urg'd?
To prove tradition new, there's somewhat more
Requir'd than saying, 'twas not used before.
Those monumental arms are never stirr'd,
Till schism or heresy call down Goliath's sword.
Thus what you call corruptions are, in truth,
The first plantations of the Gospel's youth;
Old standard faith: but cast your eyes again,
And view those errors which new sects maintain,
Or which of old disturb'd the church's peaceful
reign:
And we can point each period of the time
When they began, and who begot the crime;
Can calculate how long th' eclipse endur'd,
Who interpos'd, what digits were obscur'd:
Of all which are already pass'd away,
We know the rise, the progress, and decay.
Despair at our foundations then to strike,
Till you can prove your faith apostolic;
A limpid stream drawn from the native source;
Succession lawful in a lineal course.
Prove any Church, oppos'd to this our head,
So one, so pure, so unconfin'dly spread,
Under one chief of the spiritual state,
The members all combin'd, and all subordinate:
Shew such a seamless coat, from schism so free,
In no communion join'd with heresy.
If such a one you find, let truth prevail;
Till when, your weights will in the balance fail;
A church unprincipled kicks up the scale.
But if you cannot think (nor sure you can
Suppose in God what were unjust in man)
That he, the fountain of eternal grace,
Should suffer falsehood, for so long a space,
To banish truth, and to usurp her place;
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