Chapter II: Preface (1)

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 further 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 shewing 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 Cham 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 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 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.[8] 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 on as an orthodox believer.[9] 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 our faith, I have unavoidably created to myself two sorts of enemies; the papists, indeed, more directly, because they have kept the Scripture 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 distorted 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 peerage and commons are excluded from parliaments, 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.[10] As for the late design, Mr Coleman's letters, for aught I know, are the best evidence; and what they discover, without wire-drawing their sense, or malicious glosses, all men of reason conclude credible.[11] If there be any thing 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, Santarel, Simancha,[12] and at least twenty others of foreign countries, we can produce of our own nation, Campian, and Doleman or Parsons,[13] (besides many [who] 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 authorized. And their champion, Bellarmine, has told the world, in his Apology, that the king of England is a vassal to the pope, _ratione, directi dominii_,[14] 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 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 drunk:) but that saying of their father Cres.[15] 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 Tyndal[16] produced in few years, let my Lord Herbert's History of Henry the Eighth 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.[17] After the short reign of Edward the Sixth, (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;[18] 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 in 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,[19] or the account of his life, or more particularly the letter written to him on this subject, by George Cranmer,[20] 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,[21] (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 saintlike 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.[22]

It is true, the government was too strong at that time for a rebellion; but, to shew what proficiency they had made in Calvin's school, even then their mouths watered at it; for two of their gifted brotherhood, Hacket and Coppinger, as the story tells us, got up in a pease-cart and harangued the people, to dispose them to an insurrection, and to establish their discipline by force;[23] 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;[24] and in all probability they wanted but a fanatic lord-mayor, and two sheriffs of their party, to have compassed it.[25]

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,[26] 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 the 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:[27] the verses, therefore, are addressed to the translator of that work, and the style of them is, what it ought to be, epistolary.[28]

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 shewing their objects out of their true proportion, either greater than the life, or less; but instruction is to be given by shewing them what they naturally are. A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 8: "Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith.

"Which faith, except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.]

[Footnote 9: The controversy between Athanasius and Arius long divided the Christian church. The former was patriarch of Alexandria, and the latter bishop of Nicomedia, in Asia. The dispute regarded the godhead of the Trinity. The doctrine of Arius, that God the Son was not co-existent, consequently, not equal in dignity with God the Father, was condemned by the grand general council of Nice, and he was banished. But he was afterwards recalled by the emperor; and his heresy spread so widely, that almost all the Christian world were at one time Arians. As a test of the true orthodox doctrine, Athanasius composed the creed which goes by his name. Being written expressly for this purpose, and for the exclusive use of the Christian world, Dryden argues, with great apparent justice, that the anathema with which it is fenced, has no relation to the heathens, and that we cannot, with charity, or even logically, argue from thence concerning their state in the next world.]

[Footnote 10: "It is certain, that the restless and enterprising spirit of the Catholic church, particularly of the Jesuits, merits attention, and is, in some degree, dangerous to every other communion. Such zeal of proselytism actuates that sect, that its missionaries have penetrated into every nation of the globe, and, in one sense, there is a Popish-plot perpetually carrying on against all states, Protestant, Pagan, and Mahometan."--HUME, Vol. VII. p. 72.]

[Footnote 11: The unfortunate Edward Coleman was secretary to the Duke of York, and in high favour with his master. With the intriguing spirit of a courtier, and the zeal of a Catholic, he had long carried on a correspondence with Father La Chaise, confessor to the king of France, with the Pope's nuncio, and with other Catholics abroad, for the purpose, as he himself states it, of "the conversion of three kingdoms, and by that, perhaps, the utter subduing of a pestilent heresy, which has a long time domineered over a great part of the northern world." It would seem, from these letters, that it was the purpose of the Catholics, to begin by obtaining, if possible, a toleration, or exemption from the penal laws; and then, while strengthening themselves by new converts, to await the succession of James, or the open declaration of Charles in favour of their religion. From various points it appears, that Coleman was a better Catholic than an Englishman; and would not have hesitated to sacrifice the interests of his country to France, if, by so doing, he could have brought her faith nearer to Rome. There were also indications of both the king's and duke's accessibility to foreign influence, which were fraught with consequences highly dangerous to the country. But, while the Catholics were availing themselves of these unworthy dispositions in the royal brothers, it was quite absurd to suppose, that they should have forfeited every prospect of success, by assassinating these very persons, upon whose lives their whole plan depended, to place upon the throne the Prince of Orange, the head of the Protestant League. Yet, although not the least trace is to be found in Coleman's letters of the murders, invasions, fires, and massacres, which Oates and Bedloe bore witness to, the real and imaginary conspiracy were identified by the general prepossession of the nation; and Coleman, who undoubtedly deserved death for his unlawful and treasonable trafficking with foreign interests against the religion and liberty of his country, actually suffered for a plot which was totally chimerical.]

[Footnote 12: These are all Jesuits and controversial writers.

Mariana maintains, that it is well for princes to believe, that if they become oppressive to their people, they may be killed, not only lawfully, but most commendably.--_Institut._ pp. 61, 64. In the 6th chapter of the same work, he calls the murder of Henry III. of France by Jaques Clement, "_insignem animi confidentiam--facinus memorabile--cæso rege, ingens sibi nomen fecit_."

Bellarmine declares roundly, that all heretics are to be cut off, unless they are the stronger party, and then the Catholics must remain quiet, and wait a fitter time.--_De Laicis_, Liber III. cap. 22.

Simancha affirms, "_propter Hæresin Regis, non solum Rex regno privatur, et a communione fidelium diris proscriptionibus separatur; sed et ejus filii a regni successione pelluntur_." Suarez expressly says, "_Regem excommunicatum impune deponi vel occidi quibuscunque posse_."--Suarez in Reg. Mag. Brit. Lib. 6. cap 6. § 24.

These are sufficient examples of the doctrine laid down in the text, which, I believe, is now as much detested by Roman Catholics as by those of other religions.]

[Footnote 13: Edmund Campian, and Robert Parsons, English Jesuits, in the year 1580, obtained a bull from the Pope, declaring, that the previous bull of Pius V., deposing and excommunicating Queen Elizabeth, did forever bind the heretics, but not the Catholics, till a favourable opportunity should occur of putting it into execution. Thus armed, they came into England, their native country, for the express purpose of proclaiming the pope's right to dethrone monarchs, and that Queen Elizabeth's subjects were freed from their allegiance. Campian was hanged for preaching this doctrine, A. D. 1581. Parsons, finding England too hot for him, fled beyond seas, and settled at Rome. He published many works, both in English and Latin, against the church and state of England; one of which is, "A Conference about the next Succession of the Crown of England." printed in 1593, under the name of N. Doleman. The first part contains the doctrine concerning the right of the church to chastise kings, and proceed against them. This book the fanatics found so much to their purpose, that they reprinted it, to justify the murder of Charles I.--_Athenæ Oxon._ Vol. I. p. 358. Doleman, under whose name it was originally published, was a quiet secular priest, who abhorred such doctrines. Parsons, the real author, died at Rome in 1610.]

[Footnote 14: The _Dominium directum_ is the right of seignory competent to a feudal superior, in opposition to the _Dominium utile_, or actual possession of the lands which is held by the vassal.]

[Footnote 15: Hugh Paulin Cressy, better known by the name of Serenus Cressy, which he adopted upon entering into a religious state, was originally chaplain to the unfortunate Strafford, and afterwards to the gallant Falkland; but, having gone abroad after the civil wars, he became a convert to the Catholic faith, and a benedictine monk in the English college of Douay. After the Restoration, he returned to England, and was appointed chaplain to Queen Catherine. He was remarkable for regularity of life, unaffected piety, modest and mild behaviour. But in mystical doctrines, he was an enthusiast; and in religion, a zealot. He was the principal conductor of controversy on the part of the papists; and published many treatises against Stillingfleet, Pierce, Bagshaw, and other champions of the protestant faith. His chief work was the Church History of Brittany, from the beginning of Christianity to the Norman Conquest.--See _Athenæ; Oxon._ II. p. 528.]

[Footnote 16: The passage in Lord Herbert's history, referred to by Dryden, seems to be that which follows:

"For as the scriptures began then commonly to be read, so out of the literal sense thereof, the manner of those times was, promiscuously to draw arguments, for whatsoever in matter of state or otherwise was to be done. Insomuch, that the text which came nearest the point in question, was taken as a decision of the business; to the no little detriment of their affairs: The scriptures not pretending yet to give regular instructions in those points. But this is so much less strange, that the year preceding, the Scriptures (heretofore not permitted to the view of the people) were now translated in divers languages, and into English, by Tindal, Joy, and others, though, as not being warranted by the king's authority, they were publickly burnt, and a new and better translation promised to be set forth, and allowed to the people. It being not thought fit by our king, that under what pretence or difficulty soever, his subjects should be defrauded of that, wherein was to be found the word of God, and means of their salvation. Howbeit not a few inconveniences were observed to follow. For as the people did not sufficiently separate the more clear and necessary parts thereof, from the obscure and accessory; and as again taking the several authors to be equally inspired, they did equally apply themselves to all; they fell into many dangerous opinions: Little caring how they lived, so they understood well, bringing religion thus into much irresolution and controversie, while few men agreeing on the same interpretation of the harder places, vexed each others conscience, appropriating to themselves the gift of the spirit. Whereof the Roman church, (much perplext at first with these defections) did at last avail itself; as assuming alone the power of that decision, which yet was used more in favour of themselves, than such an analogy, as ought to be found in so perfect a book. So that few were satisfied therewith, but such as, renouncing their own judgment, and submitting to theirs, yielded themselves wholly to an implicit faith; in which, though they found an apparent ease, yet as, for justifying of themselves, the authority of their belief was derived more immediately from the church, than the scripture, not a few difficulties were introduced, concerning both: While the more speculative sort could not imagine, how to hold that as an infallible rule, which needed humane help to vindicate and support it; nevertheless, as by frequent reading of the scripture at this time, it generally appeared what the Roman church had added or altered in religion, so many recovered a just liberty, endeavouring together a reformation of the doctrine and manners of the clergy, which yet, through the obstinacy of some, succeeded worse, than so pious intentions deserved."]

[Footnote 17: William Tyndal, otherwise called Hitchens, was born on the borders of Wales, and educated at Oxford. He was one of the earliest Protestants, and so boldly maintained the doctrines of the Reformation, that he was obliged to leave England. He employed himself, while abroad, in executing a translation, first of the New Testament, and afterwards of the Pentateuch, with prologues to the different books. But as he was a zealous Lutheran, and as it had not pleased King Henry VIII. that his subjects should become Protestants, though they had ceased to be Papists, Tyndal's version of the New Testament was publickly burned, and prohibited by royal proclamation, as tending to disturb the brains of weak persons. This grossly indecorous expression was not altogether without foundation. A rule of faith, containing the most sublime doctrines both of faith and moral practice, and which had long been acknowledged the only guide to heaven, could not be exposed at once to the vulgar, who had been bred up in the grossest ignorance of its nature and contents, without dazzling and confounding them, as the beams of the sun suddenly let in upon the inmates of an obscure dungeon. It was not till the sacred Scriptures, with the expositions of judicious pastors, became a part of the regular education of the people, that their minds were duly prepared to make the proper use of that inestimable gift.

The fate of Tyndal was melancholy enough. By the influence of Henry, he was seized at Brussels; and, under pretence of his being a pragmatical incendiary, one of the first translators of the New Testament was strangled and burned, at Filford castle, about twenty miles from Antwerp, in 1536. His last words were, "Lord, open the king of England's eyes."]

[Footnote 18: Heylin says, the reformation would have rested with the first public liturgy, confirmed by act of parliament in the second and third years of Edward VI., "if Calvin's pragmatical spirit had not interposed. He first began to quarrel at some passages in this sacred liturgy, and afterwards never left soliciting the lord protector, and practising, by his agents, on the court, the country, and the universities, till he had laid the first foundation of the Zuinglian faction, who laboured nothing more than innovation both in doctrine and discipline."--_Ecclesia Restaurata._ Address to the Reader.]

[Footnote 19: The learned and judicious Richard Hooker, one of the most eminent divines of the church of England, wrote a treatise upon Ecclesiastical Policy, in which he vindicates that communion, both against the Puritans and Papists. It is in eight books; five were published during Hooker's lifetime, and the other three after his death. The last are supposed to be interpolated, as they bear some passages tending to impugn the doctrine of non-resistance, which at that time was a shibboleth of orthodoxy. Hooker died in 1600. His Life, to which Dryden refers, was written by the worthy Isaac Walton, better known as the author of the "Complete Angler;" a delightful work, where the innocent simplicity, unclouded cheerfulness, and real worth of the author, beam through every page. His Life of Hooker was published about 1662. See HAWKIN'S edition of the _Complete Angler_, Introduction, p. 19. _Athenæ Oxon._ Vol. I. p. 302.]

[Footnote 20: George Cranmer, whom Wood calls a gentleman of singular hopes, was grandson to Edmund Cranmer, arch-deacon of Canterbury, brother to Thomas the primate, who suffered martyrdom in the reign of Queen Mary. He was bred to state affairs under Secretary Davison; and after serving in various diplomatic capacities, became secretary to Lord Mountjoy, Lieutenant of Ireland. On the 13th November, 1600, Cranmer was slain in a skirmish at Carlingford between the English and the forces of Tyrone. Camden thus records his death: "_Cecidit tamen ex Anglis, præter alios, Cranmerus, Proregi ab epistolis, et ipsi eo nomine longe charissimus_." He wrote to Hooker, under whom he had studied, the letter mentioned in the text concerning the new church discipline, which is dated February 1598. It is inserted by Walton in his Life of Hooker. _Athenæ Oxon._ Vol. I. p. 306.]

[Footnote 21: John Penry, or Ap Henry, better known by the name of Martin Mar-prelate, or Mar-priest, as having been a plague to the bishops and clergy of his time. He was a native of Wales, and originally a sub-sizer of Peter-house, in Cambridge. Afterwards he obtained the degree of Master of Arts in Oxford, and, having taken orders, was for some time a regular clergyman. But being a person "full of Welch blood, of a hot and restless head," Anthony Wood tells us, he became a furious Anabaptist, and the most bitter enemy to the church of England that appeared in the long reign of Queen Elizabeth. He wrote a great number of _pestilent_ pamphlets, with burlesque titles; such as, "Oh, read over John Bridges, for it is a worthy work. Printed over sea, in Europe, within two furlongs of a bouncing Priest, at the cost of Martin Mar-prelate, gent." All his writings were filled with the most virulent invectives against the Episcopal church. At length, being apprehended, and tried for writing and publishing infamous books and libels against the established religion, he was condemned and executed at St Thomas a Watering, 29th May, 1593. Dryden compares him to Andrew Marvel, the well known opposer of the court, during the reign of Charles II.]

[Footnote 22: The court writers at this period were anxious to fix upon the presbyterians and the non-conformists in general, the anti-monarchical principles of the fanatics, who brought Charles I. to the scaffold. Their arguments may be seen at length in a book entitled, "Seditious Teachers, ungodly Preachers exemplified." These charges are carried too far; yet as the Episcopalians made church and king their watchword, the fanatics, on the contrary, in England, and the Huguenots in France, had a certain tendency to oppose monarchical government. One of their authors, as early as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, maintains, that if kings and princes refused to reform religion, the inferior magistrates or people, by direction of the ministry, might lawfully, and ought, if need required, even by force of arms, to reform it themselves.--_Whittingham's Preface to Goodman on Obedience to Superior Powers._]

[Footnote 23: The freaks of these unhappy enthusiasts may be seen in the histories of the time. Hacket, a man of some learning, had his brain turned by enthusiasm, and seduced Coppinger and Arthington, two fanatic preachers, by his example and exhortation, to sally forth into the streets of London, where he proclaimed himself to be the Messiah, and Coppinger and Arthington, his prophet of mercy, and his prophet of judgment. As they continued to utter the most horrible blasphemies, and to exhort the citizens to take arms, to further the reign of Hacket, who, they said, was come with his fan in his hand to purify the discipline of the church of England, they were seized and lodged in prison. Hacket was executed, though fitter for Bedlam, persisting to the last in the most insane blasphemy. The discipline of the prison restored Arthington to his senses, and he published a recantation, expressing great remorse for his errors. Coppinger starved himself to death in jail. This explosion of madness took place in 1591. Hacket is stated by Camden to have been a determined enemy to Queen Elizabeth, and to have stabbed her picture with his dagger.]

[Footnote 24: The birth-night of Queen Elizabeth was that which the Whigs chose to solemnize, by their grand pope-burnings and processions; considering her as the patron of the Protestant religion. Yet Queen Elizabeth was very severe against the Puritans, and passed several statutes against them.]

[Footnote 25: See the notes on "Absalom and Achitophel," Vol. IX. pages, 280, 404.]

[Footnote 26: Lewis Maimbourg, a secularized Jesuit, wrote a History of Calvinism, in which he charges upon the Huguenots the principal share of the guilt of the civil wars of France. He charges them particularly with the conspiracies of Amboise and Meaux against the crown; and alleges, it was their intention, by the assistance of England, and the Protestant states of Germany, with whom they corresponded, to establish a republic in France. His arguments are controverted in an "Apology for the Protestants of France, in six letters." London, 1683.]

[Footnote 27: Pere Richard Simon was an excellent Orientalist. He was an oratorian priest, and published, besides the work here mentioned, "A critical History of the New Testament," and a new Version of it, which was censured by Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, and opposed by Bossuet, the learned Bishop of Meaux. Pere Simon was an able biblical critic, an excellent scholar, and one of the most learned divines of his age.]

[Footnote 28: Derrick erroneously states this young gentleman to have been Hampden, son of the famous parliamentary leader, who was deeply engaged in the Rye-house Plot, and some years afterwards killed himself. Dryden was not likely, in the very hottest of his political controversy, to be on very intimate habits with a leader of the Whigs, much less to inscribe to him a poem, the preface of which, at least, is levelled against the most zealous of that party. Besides, the translation of Pere Simon's Critical History, which was published in 1682, bears to have been made by H. D. which initials can hardly stand for John Hampden. Mr Malone conjectures he may have been of the Digby family, or perhaps Mr Dodswell, who translated one of Plutarch's Lives, But it appears, from a poem addressed to the Translator by Duke, that his name was Henry Dickinson, probably a son of Edmund Dickinson, a physician, and author of the _Delphi Phenecizantes_, and other learned pieces. _Athenæ Oxon._ Vol. II. p. 946. There is another copy of verses, addressed to the Translator of the "Critical History" in Dryden's "Miscellanies." So that Dickinson's work seems to have attracted much notice at the time of its publication.]

RECOMMENDATORY VERSES.

ON

MR DRYDEN'S

RELIGIO LAICI.

Begone, you slaves, you idle vermin, go,
Fly from the scourges, and your master know;
Let free, impartial men from Dryden learn
Mysterious secrets of high concern,
And weighty truths, solid convincing sense,
Explained by unaffected eloquence.
What can you, Reverend Levi, here take ill?
Men still had faults, and men will have them still;
He that hath none, and lives as angels do,
Must be an angel;--but what's that to you?
While mighty Lewis finds the Pope too great,
And dreads the yoke of his imposing seat,
Our sects a more tyrannic power assume,
And would for scorpions change the rods of Rome.
That church detained the legacy divine;
Fanatics cast the pearls of heaven to swine:
What, then, have honest thinking men to do,
But chuse a mean between the usurping two?
Nor can the Egyptian patriarch blame a muse,
Which for his firmness does his heat excuse;
Whatever counsels have approved his creed,
The preface, sure, was his own act and deed.
Our church will have the preface read, you'll say:}
'Tis true, but so she will the Apocrypha; }
And such as can believe them freely may. }
But did that God, so little understood,
Whose darling attribute is being good,
From the dark womb of the rude chaos bring
Such various creatures, and make man their king,
Yet leave his favourite, man, his chiefest care,
More wretched than the vilest insects are?
O! how much happier and more safe are they,
If helpless millions must be doom'd a prey
To yelling furies, and for ever burn
In that sad place, from whence is no return,
For unbelief in one they never knew,
Or for not doing what they could not do!
The very fiends know for what crime they fell,
And so do all their followers that rebell;
If then a blind, well-meaning Indian stray,
Shall the great gulph be shewed him for the way?
For better ends our kind Redeemer died,
Or the fallen angels' rooms will be but ill supplied.
That Christ, who at the great deciding day,
(For he declares what he resolves to say,)
Will damn the goats for their ill-natured faults,
And save the sheep for actions, not for thoughts,
Hath too much mercy to send them to hell,
For humble charity, and hoping well.
To what stupidity are zealots grown, }
Whose inhumanity, profusely shewn }
In damning crowds of souls, may damn their own!}
I'll err, at least, on the securer side,
A convert free from malice and from pride.

ROSCOMMON.

TO

MR DRYDEN,

ON HIS POEM CALLED

RELIGIO LAICI.

Great is the task, and worthy such a muse,
To do faith right, yet reason disabuse.
How cheerfully the soul does take its flight
On faith's strong wings, guided by reason's light?
But reason does in vain her beams display, }
Shewing to th' place, whence first she came, the way,}
If Peter's heirs must still hold fast the key. }
The house, which many mansions should contain,
Formed by the great wise Architect in vain,
Of disproportion justly we accuse,
If the strait gate still entrance must refuse,
The only free enriching port God made, }
What shameful monopoly did invade? }
One factious company engrossed the trade.}
Thou to the distant shore hast safely sailed,
Where the best pilots have so often failed.
Freely we now may buy the pearl of price; }
The happy land abounds with fragrant spice,}
And nothing is forbidden there but vice. }
Thou best Columbus to the unknown world!
Mountains of doubt, that in thy way were hurled,
Thy generous faith has bravely overcome,
And made heaven truly our familiar home.
Let crowds impossibilities receive;
Who cannot think, ought not to disbelieve.
Let them pay tithes, and hood-winked go to heaven;
But sure the quaker could not be forgiven,
Had not the clerk, who hates lay-policy, }
Found out, to countervail the injury, }
Swearing, a trade of which they are not free.}
Too long has captive reason been enslaved,
By visions scared, and airy phantasms braved,
List'ning to each proud enthusiastic fool,
Pretending conscience, but designing rule;
Whilst law, form, interest, ignorance, design,
Did in the holy cheat together join.
Like vain astrologers, gazing on the skies,
We fall, and did not dare to trust our eyes.
'Tis time at last to fix the trembling soul,
And by thy compass to point out the pole;
All men agree in what is to be done,
And each man's heart his table is of stone,
Where he the god-writ character may view;
Were it as needful, faith had been so too.
Oh, that our greatest fault were humble doubt,
And that we were more just, though less devout!
What reverence should we pay thy sacred rhymes,
Who, in those factious too-believing times,
Has taught us to obey, and to distrust;
Yet, to ourselves, our king, and God, prove just.
Thou want'st not praise from an insuring friend;
The poor to thee on double interest lend.
So strong thy reasons, and so clear thy sense,
They bring, like day, their own bright evidence;
Yet, whilst mysterious truths to light you bring,}
And heavenly things in heavenly numbers sing, }
The joyful younger choir may clap the wing. }

TO

MR DRYDEN,

ON

RELIGIO LAICI.

'Tis nobly done, a layman's creed profest,
When all our faith of late hung on a priest;
His doubtful words, like oracles received,
And, when we could not understand, believed.
Triumphant faith now takes a nobler course,
Tis gentle, but resists intruding force.
Weak reason may pretend an awful sway,
And consistories charge her to obey;
(Strange nonsense, to confine the sacred Dove,}
And narrow rules prescribe how he shall love, }
And how upon the barren waters move.) }
But she rejects and scorns their proud pretence,
And, whilst those grovling things depend on sense,
She mounts on certain wings, and flies on high,}
And looks upon a dazzling mystery, }
With fixed, and steady, and an eagle's eye. }
Great king of verse, that dost instruct and please,
As Orpheus softened the rude savages;
And gently freest us from a double care,
The bold Socinian, and the papal chair:
Thy judgment is correct, thy fancy young,
Thy numbers, as thy generous faith, are strong:
Whilst through dark prejudice they force their way,
Our souls shake off the night, and view the day.
We live secure from mad enthusiasts' rage,
And fond tradition, now grown blind with age.
Let factious and ambitious souls repine, }
Thy reason's strong, and generous thy design;}
And always to do well is only thine. }

THO. CREECH.

RELIGIO LAICI.