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 'tis 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. Tis but dubbing themselves the people of God, which 'tis 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 govern ment; 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: 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.

* Derrick stated that "the ingenious young gentleman" to whom the poem is addressed was Richard Hampden, grandson of the celebrated John Hampden, who was connected with the Rye House Plot, and committed suicide in the reign of William and Mary. This is altogether a mistake, arising probably from a conjecture founded on Bishop Burnet's character of Richard Hampden in 1683: He was a young man of great parts, one of the learnedest gentlemen I have ever known, for he was a critic both in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew: he was a man of great zeal and vivacity, but too unequal in his temper; he had once great principles of religion, but he was much corrupted by P. Simon's conversation at Paris." Simon's work had for its professed object to collect and represent all the difficulties connected with the text of Scripture, in order to show the necessity of admitting oral tradition, and an infallible interpreter. This argument struck at the truth and authenticity of the Scriptures; and many divines regarded Simon's work as injurious to Christianity; some have said that it was his real object to undermine the Christian religion. This serves to explain Burnet's allusion to the effect of Simon's conversation on Richard Hampden. The young translator of Simon's work, so complimented by Dryden, was Mr. Henry Dickinson. A poem is addressed to him by name on this Translation, by Dryden's friend, Duke.

Translator, printed translatour here in Dryden's early editions; at line 249 of the poem printed translater. See note on travellour, in “Astræa Redux," 148. Oppressours occurs in Dryden's early editions in line 91, and tormentours in line 162 of the following poem.

24

Opinions of the several sects of Philosophers concerning the Summum Bonum.

RELIGIO LAICI.

DIM as the borrowed 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,
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; REA
Whether some soul encompassing this ball,.
Unmade, unmoved, yet making, moving all,
Or various atoms' interfering dance
Leapt into form (the noble work of chance,)
Or this great All was from eternity,
Not even the Stagirite + himself could see,
And Epicurus guessed 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 concerned the good of human kind;
For Happiness was never to be found,

But vanished from them like enchanted ground.
One thought Content the good to be enjoyed;
This every little accident destroyed.
The wiser madmen did for Virtue toil,
A thorny, or at best a barren soil;

5

ΙΟ

15

20

25

30

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?

35

* This rhyme of travellers and stars has been noticed in the note on "Astræa Redux," 148. The termination er was probably pronounced more broadly, and more like ar than now. In "Absalom and Achitophel," Part II. 934, stars rhymes with disperse, which would have been pronounced disparse. In "The Medal," 21, Lucifer rhymes with are. See note on starve, in Threnodia Augustalis," 501.

† Aristotle.

Or finite Reason reach Infinity?

For what could fathom GOD were more than He.
The Deist thinks he stands on firmer ground,
Cries euрnka, 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;
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,
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 dropped from Heaven, and of a nobler kind.
Revealed Religion first informed thy sight,
And Reason saw not till Faith sprung the light.
Hence all thy natural worship takes the source :
'Tis Revelation what thou thinkst Discourse. *
Else how comest 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 renowned.*

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

* The verb renown is similarly used by Pope:

+ "Magnanimi heroes, nati melioribus annis."-VIRG. Æn. vi. 649.

To one sole GOD:

Nor did remorse to expiate sin prescribe,
But slew their fellow creatures for a bribe:
The guiltless victim groaned 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!

85

90

And great oppressors might Heaven's wrath beguile
By offering his own creatures for a spoil!
Darest thou, poor worm, offend Infinity?

95

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 unpunished wrong,
Look humbly upward, see his will disclose
The forfeit first, and then the fine impose:

100

A mulct thy poverty could never pay,

Had not Eternal Wisdom found the way,

And with celestial wealth supplied thy store;

105

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.

For granting we have sinned, and that the offence

Of man is made against Omnipotence,

Some price that bears proportion must be paid,
And infinite with infinite be weighed.

See then the Deist lost: remorse for vice

115

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 suge
Still to be sick, till Heaven reveal the cure:
If then Heaven's will must needs be understood,
Which must, if we want cure and Heaven be good,
Let all records of will revealed be shown;
With Scripture 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
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 world 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, unskilled 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?
Unasked 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;

145

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 thrives through pain; its own tormenters 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 contained;
Sufficient, clear, and for that use ordained.

But
But stay: the Deist here will urge anew,

Because a general law is that alone

165

Objection of the Deist.

170

In other parts it helps, that, ages past,

180

The Scriptures there were known, and were embraced,

We grant, 'tis true, that Heaven from human sense
Has hid the secret paths of Providence ;