How fatally this Caffandra has foretold, we know too well by fad experience: the feeds were fown 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 fhedding fome 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 fuffered to quote an adversary to our religion, when he speaks truth and it is the obfervation of Maimbourg, in his History of Calvinism, that wherever that difcipline was planted and embraced, rebellion, civil war, and mifery, attended it. And how indeed should it happen otherwife? Reformation of church and state has always been the ground of our divifions in England. While we were papists, our holy father rid us, by pretending authority out of the fcriptures to depofe princes; when we fhook off his authority, the fectaries furnished themselves with the fame weapons; and out of the fame magazine, the Bible: fo that the scriptures, which are in themselves the greateft fecurity of governors, as commanding express obedience to them, are now turned to their destruction ; and never, fince 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 kingkilling and deposing, which have been taken up only by the worst party of the papifts, 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 themfelves the people of God, which it is the interest of their preachers to tell them they are, and their own intereft 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 perfecution, as they call it, then that is a mark of their election; if they flourish, then God works miracles for their deliverance, and the faints are to poffefs the earth.

They may think themselves to be too roughly handled in this paper; but I, who know beft how far I could have gone on this fubject, muft be bold to tell them they are fpared though at the fame time I am not ignorant that they interpret the mildnefs 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 Papifts, 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 churchdifcipline.

It remains that I acquaint the reader, that these verses were written for an ingenious young gentleman my friend, upon his translation of the critical history of the old teftament, compofed by the learned father Simon: the verfes therefore are addreffed to the tranflator of that work, and the ftyle of them is, what it ought to be, epiftolary.

If any one be fo lamentable a critic as to require the fmooth

R 2

in this

fmoothness, the numbers, and the turn of heroic poetry poem ; I must tell him, that if he has not read Horace, I have studied him, and hope the ftyle of his epiftles is not ill imitated here. The expreffions of a poem defigned purely for instruction, ought to be plain and natural, and yet majestic: for here the poet is prefumed to be a kind of lawgiver; and those three qualities which I have named, are proper to the legislative ftyle. The florid, elevated, and figurative way is for the paffions; for love and hatred, fear and anger, are begotten in the foul, by fhewing their objects out of their true proportion, either greater than the life, or lefs but inftruction is to be given by fhewing them what they naturally are. A man is to be cheated into paffion, but to be reasoned into truth.

RELIGIO LAICI.

DIM

ΑΝ

EPISTLE.

IM as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wandering travellers,

Is reafon to the foul and as on high,

Thofe rolling fires difcover but the sky,
Not light us here; fo reafon's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as thofe nightly tapers disappear

When day's bright lord afcends our hemisphere;
So pale grows reason at religion's fight;

So dies, and fo diffolves in fupernatural light.

Some few, whofe lamp shone brighter, have been led
From cause to caufe, to nature's fecret head;
And found that one first principle must be :
But what, or who, that universal He;
Whether fome foul incompaffing this ball
Unmade, unmov'd; yet making, moving all;
Or various atoms, interfering dance,

Leap'd into form, the noble work of chance;
Or this great all was from eternity;
Not ev❜n the Stagirite himself could see;
And Epicurus guefs'd as well as he;
As blindly grop'd they for a future ftate;
As rafhly judg'd of providence and fate :
But leaft 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:

The wifer madmen did for virtue toil :

A thorny, or at best a barren foil :

In pleasure some their glutton fouls would steep;
But found their line too fhort, the well too deep;
And leaky veffels which no blifs could keep.
Thus anxious thoughts in endless circles roll,
Without a centre where to fix the foul:

In this wild maze their vain endeavours end :
How can the less the greater comprehend?
Or finite reafon reach Infinity?

For what could fathom God were more than He.

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The Deift thinks he ftands on firmer ground;
Cries spa, the mighty fecret's found :
God is that fpring of good; fupreme, and beft;
We made to ferve, and in that fervice bleft.
If fo, fome rules of worship must be given,
Diftributed alike to all by heaven :

Elfe God were partial, and to fome deny'd
The means his juftice fhould for all provide.
This general worship is to praise and pray :
One part to borrow bleffings, one to pay :
And when frail nature flides into offence,
The facrifice for crimes is penitence.
Yet, fince the effects of providence, we find,
Are variously difpens'd to human kind;
That vice triumphs, and virtue suffers here,
A brand that fovereign juftice cannot bear;
Our reafon prompts us to a future state:
The laft appeal from fortune and from fate :
Where God's all-righteous ways will be declar'd ;
The bad meet punishment, the good reward.

Thus man by his own ftrength to heaven would foar:
And would not be oblig❜d, to God for more.
Vain wretched creature, how art thou mifled
To think thy wit thefe god-like notions bred!
These truths are not the product of thy mind,
But dropt from heaven, and of a nobler kind.
Reveal'd religion firft inform'd thy fight,
And reafon faw not till faith fprung the light.
Hence all thy natural worship takes the source :
'Tis revelation what thou think'ft difcourfe.

Elfe