A jolly god, that paffes hours too well To promise heaven, or threaten us with hell. And wink at crimes he did himself commit. A tyrant theirs; the heaven their priesthood paints A heaven like Bedlam, flovenly and fad; What all but fools by common fenfe may know: But short shall be his reign: his rigid yoke And frogs and toads, and all the tadpole train Will croak to heaven for help, from this devouring crane. The cut-throat fword and clamorous gown fhall jar, In fharing their ill-gotten fpoils of war: Chiefs fhall be grudg'd the part which they pretend; Lords envy lords, and friends with every friend engage, Thus inborn broils the factions would Or wars of exil'd heirs, or foreign rage, Till halting vengeance overtook our age: And our wild labors wearied into rest, Reclin'd us on a rightful monarch's breast. Pudet hæc opprobria, vobis Et dici potuiffe, & non potuiffe refelli. THE PREFACE. A Poem with fo 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 fay fomewhat 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 myfelf with fpeculations, which belong to the profeffion of divinity; I could anfwer, that perhaps laymen, with equal advantages of parts and knowlege, are not the most incompetent judges of facred things; but in the due fenfe of my own weaknefs and want of learning I plead not this: I pretend not to make myfelf a judge of faith in others, but only to make a confeffion of my own. I lay no unhallowed hand upon the ark, but wait on it with the reverence that becomes me at a diftance. In the next place I will ingenuoufly confefs, that the helps I have used in this small treatife, were many of them taken from the works of our own reverend divines of the church of England; fo that the weapons with which I combat irreli |