Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
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A36673
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Religio laici, or, A laymans faith a poem.
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Dryden, John, 1631-1700.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing D2342; ESTC R71
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17,325
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45
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in the Page Or whether more abstractedly we look Or on the Writers or the written Book Whence but from Heav'n cou'd men unskill'd in Arts In several Ages born in several parts Weave such agreeing Truths or how or why Shou'd all conspire to cheat us with a Lye Vnask'd their Pains ungratefull their Advice Starving their Gain and Martyrdom their Price If on the Book it self we cast our view Concurrent Heathens prove the Story True The Doctrine Miracles which must convince For Heav'n in Them appeals to humane Sense And though they prove not they Confirm the Cause When what is Taught agrees with Natures Laws Then for the Style Majestick and Divine It speaks no less than God in every Line Commanding words whose Force is still the same As the first Fiat that produc'd our Frame All Faiths beside or did by Arms ascend Or Sense indulg'd has made Mankind their Friend This onely Doctrine does our Lusts oppose Unfed by Natures Soil in which it grows Cross to our Interests curbing Sense and Sin Oppress'd without and undermin'd within It thrives through pain it s own Tormentours 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 contain'd Sufficient clear and for that use ordain'd But stay the Deist here will urge anew No Supernatural Worship can be True Because a general Law is that alone Which must to all and every where be known A Style so large as not this Book can claim Nor ought that bears reveal'd Religions Name 'T is said the sound of a Messiah's Birth Is gone through all the habitable Earth But still that Text must be confin'd alone To what was Then inhabited and known And what Provision cou'd from thence accrue To Indian Souls and Worlds discover'd New In other parts it helps that Ages past The Scriptures there were known and were imbrac'd Till Sin spread once again the Shades of Night What 's that to these who never saw the Light Of all Objections this indeed is chief To startle Reason stagger frail Belief We grant 't is true that Heav'n from humane Sense Has hid the secret paths of Providence But boundless Wisedom boundless Mercy may Find ev'n for those be-wildred Souls a way If from his Nature Foes may Pity claim Much more may Strangers who ne'er heard his Name And though no Name be for Salvation known But that of his Eternal Sons alone Who knows how far transcending Goodness can Extend the Merits of that Son to Man Who knows what Reasons may his Mercy lead Or Ignorance invincible may plead Not onely Charity bids hope the best But more the great Apostle has exprest That if the Gentiles whom no Law inspir'd By Nature did what was by Law requir'd They who the written Rule had never known Were to themselves both Rule and Law alone To Natures plain indictment they shall plead And by their Conscience be condemn'd or freed Most righteous Doom because a Rule reveal'd Is none to Those from whom it was conceal'd Then those who follow'd Reasons Dictates right Liv'd up and lifted high their Natural Light With Socrates may see their Maker's Face While Thousand Rubrick-Martyrs want a place Nor does it baulk my Charity to find Th' Egyptian Bishop of another mind For though his Creed Eternal Truth contains 'T is hard for Man to doom to endless pains All who believ'd not all his Zeal requir'd Unless he first cou'd prove he was inspir'd Then let us either think he meant to say This Faith where publish'd was the onely way Or else conclude that Arius to confute The good old Man too eager in dispute Flew high and as his Christian Fury rose Damn'd all for Hereticks who durst oppose Thus far my Charity this path has try'd A much unskilfull but well meaning guide Yet what they are ev'n these crude thoughts were bred By reading that which better thou hast read Thy Matchless Author's work which thou my Friend By well translating better dost commend Those youthfull hours which of thy Equals most In Toys have squander'd or in Vice have lost Those hours hast thou to Nobler use employ'd And the severe Delights of Truth enjoy'd Witness this weighty Book in which appears The crabbed Toil of many thoughtfull years Spent by thy Authour in the Sifting Care Of Rabbins old Sophisticated Ware From Gold Divine which he who well can sort May afterwards make Algebra a Sport A Treasure which if Country-Curates buy They Junius and Tremellius may defy Save pains in various readings and Translations And without Hebrew make most learn'd quotations A Work so full with various Learning fraught So nicely pondred yet so strongly wrought As Natures height and Arts last hand requir'd As much as Man cou'd compass uninspir'd Where we may see what Errours have been made Both in the Copiers and Translaters Trade How Iewish Popish Interests have prevail'd And where Infallibility has fail'd For some who have his secret meaning ghes'd Have found our Authour not too much a Priest For Fashion-sake he seems to have recourse To Pope and Councils and Traditions force But he that old Traditions cou'd subdue Cou'd not but find the weakness of the New If Scripture though deriv'd from heav'nly birth Has been but carelesly preserv'd on Earth If God's own People who of God before Knew what we know and had been promis'd more In fuller Terms of Heaven's assisting Care And who did neither Time nor Study spare To keep this Book untainted unperplext Let in gross Errours to corrupt the Text Omitted paragraphs embroyl'd the Sense With vain Traditions stopt the gaping Fence Which every common hand pull'd up with ease What Safety from such brushwood-helps as these If written words from time are not secur'd How can we think have oral Sounds endur'd Which thus transmitted if one Mouth has fail'd Immortal Lyes on Ages are intail'd And that some such have been is prov'd too plain If we consider Interest Church and Gain Oh but says one Tradition set aside Where can we hope for an unerring Guid For since th' original Scripture has been lost All Copies disagreeing maim'd the most Or Christian Faith can have no certain ground Or Truth in Church Tradition must be found Such an Omniscient Church we wish indeed 'T were worth Both Testaments and cast in the Creed But if this Mother be a Guid so sure As can all doubts resolve all truth secure Then her Infallibility as well Where Copies are corrupt or lame can tell Restore lost Canon with as little pains As truly explicate what still remains Which yet no Council dare pretend to doe Unless like Esdras they cou'd write it new Strange Confidence still to interpret true Yet not be sure that all they have explain'd Is in the blest Original contain'd More Safe and much more modest 't is to say God wou'd not leave Mankind without a way And that the Scriptures though
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 bloudy 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 't is unavoidable if the Conventiclers be permitted still to scatter A man may be suffer'd to quote an Adversary to our Religion when he speaks Truth and 't is the observation of Meimbourg in his History of Calvinism that where-ever that Discipline was planted and embrac'd 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 furnish'd 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 Governours as commanding express obedience to them are now turn'd to their destruction and never since the Reformation has there wanted a Text of their interpreting to authorize a Rebel And 't is to be noted by the way that the Doctrines of King-killing and Deposing which have been taken up onely by the worst Party of the Papists the most frontless Flatterers of the Pope's Authority have been espous'd defended and are still maintain'd by the whole Body of Nonconformists and Republicans 'T is but dubbing themselves the People of God which 't 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 spar'd 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 advis'd 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 compos'd by the learned Father Simon The Verses therefore are address'd to the Translatour of that Work and the style of them is what it ought to be Epistolary If any one be so lamentable a Critique as to require the Smoothness the Numbers and the Turn of Heroick 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 design'd purely for Instruction ought to be Plain and Natural and yet Majestick for here the Poet is presum'd to be a kind of Law-giver and those three qualities which I have nam'd 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 reason'd into Truth TO Mr. Dryden On his POEM called RELIGIO LAICI GReat is the task and worthy such a Muse To doe Faith right yet Reason disabuse How chearfully 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 shou'd contain Form'd by the great wise Architect in vain Of Disproportion justly we accuse If the streight-gate still entrance must refuse The onely free enriching Port God made What shamefull Monopoly did invade One Factious Company ingross'd the Trade Thou to the distant Shore hast safely sail'd Where the best Pilots have so often fail'd 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 hurld 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 'em pay Tithes and hud-wink'd go to Heaven But sure the Quaker cou'd 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 captiv'd Reason been enslav'd By Visions scar'd and airy Phantasms brav'd Listning t' each proud Enthusiastick Fool Pretending Conscience but designing Rule Whilst Law Form Interest Ignorance Design Did in the holy Cheat together joyn Like vain Astrologers gazing on the Skyes We fell and did not dare to trust our Eyes 'T is 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 needfull Faith had been so too Oh that our greatest fault were humble Doubt And that we were more Iust though less Devout What reverence shou'd we pay thy sacred Rhimes Who in these Factious too-believing Times Hast taught us to obey and to distrust Yet to our selves our King and God prove just Thou wantst not Praise from an ensuring 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 joyfull Younger Choir may clap the Wing To Mr. DRYDEN on Religio Laici 'T Is nobly done a Layman's Creed profest When all our Faith of late hung on a Priest His doubtfull words like Oracles receiv'd And when we could not understand believ'd Triumphant Faith now takes a nobler course T is gentle but resists intruding force Weak Reason may pretend an awfull