MAR

THE

POEMS

OF

DR Y DE N.

VOLUME I.

載

MR.

IN PRAISE OF

DRY DE N.

On Mr. DRYDEN'S RELIGIO LAICI. By the Earl of RoscoMMO N.

BE gone, you flaves, you idle vermin go,

Fly from the scourges, and your master know; Let free, impartial, men from Dryden learn Myfterious fecrets, of a high concern,

And weighty truths, folid convincing sense,
Explain'd by unaffected eloquence.

What can you (Reverend Levi) here take ill?
Men ftill had faults, and men will have them ftill;
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 impofing feat,
Our fects a more tyrannic power assume,
And would for fcorpions change the rods of Rome;
That church detain'd the legacy divine;

Fanatics caft the pearls of heaven to swine:
What then have thinking honeft men to do,
But chufe a mean between th' ufurping two?
VOL. I.

B

Nor

Nor can th' Ægyptian patriarch blame thy muse, Which for his firmnefs does his heat excufe; Whatever councils have approv'd his creed, The preface fure was his own act and deed. Our church will have that preface read, you'll fay: 'Tis true but fo fhe will th' Apocrypha;

:

And fuch as can believe them, freely may.

But did that God (fo little understood)
Whofe 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 chiefeft care,
More wretched than the vileft infects are?

O! how much happier and more fafe are they?
If helpless millions must be doom'd a prey
To yelling furies, and for ever burn
In that fad 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 fo do all their followers that rebel :
If then a blind, well-meaning, Indian ftray,
Shall the great gulph be fhew'd him for the way?
For better ends our kind Redeemer dy'd,

Or the faln angels room will be but ill fupply'd.
That Chrift, who at the great deciding day,
(For he declares what he refolves to fay)
Will damn the goats for their ill-natur'd faults,
And fave the fheep for actions, not for thoughts,

C

Hath