John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series

by John Dryden

  These are the cooler methods of their Crime,

  But their hot Zealots think ’tis loss of time:

  On utmost bounds of Loyalty they stand,

  And grin and whet like a Croatian band; 240

  That waits impatient for the last Command.

  Thus Out-laws open Villainy maintain;

  They steal not, but in Squadrons scoure the Plain;

  And, if their Pow’r the Passengers subdue;

  The Most have right, the wrong is in the Few. 245

  Such impious Axiomes foolishly they show;

  For in some Soils Republicks will not grow:

  Our Temp’rate Isle will no extremes sustain

  Of pop’lar Sway or Arbitrary Reign:

  But slides between them both into the best; 250

  Secure in freedom, in a Monarch blest.

  And though the Climate, vex’t with various Winds,

  Works through our yielding Bodies, on our Minds,

  The wholesome Tempest purges what it breeds;

  To recommend the Calmness that succeeds. 255

  But thou, the Pander of the Peoples hearts,

  (O crooked Soul and Serpentine in Arts;)

  Whose blandishments a Loyal Land have whor’d,

  And broke the Bonds she plighted to her Lord;

  What Curses on thy blasted Name will fall! 260

  Which Age to Age their Legacy shall call;

  For all must curse the Woes that must descend on all.

  Religion thou hast none: thy Mercury

  Has pass’d through every Sect, or theirs through Thee.

  But what thou giv’st, that Venom still remains; 265

  And the pox’d Nation feels Thee in their Brains.

  What else inspires the Tongues & swells the Breasts

  Of all thy bellowing Renegado Priests,

  That preach up thee for God; dispence thy Laws;

  And with thy Stumm ferment their fainting Cause? 270

  Fresh Fumes of Madness raise; and toile and sweat,

  To make the formidable Cripple great.

  Yet, shou’d thy Crimes succeed, shou’d lawless Powr

  Compass those Ends thy greedy Hopes devour,

  Thy Canting Friends thy Mortal Foes wou’d be, 275

  Thy God and Theirs will never long agree;

  For thine, (if thou hast any,) must be one

  That lets the World and Humane Kind alone;

  A jolly God that passes hours too well

  To promise Heav’n, or threaten us with Hell. 280

  That unconcern’d can at Rebellion sit;

  And wink at Crimes he did himself commit.

  A Tyrant theirs; the Heav’n their Priesthood paints

  A Conventicle of gloomy sullen Saints;

  A Heav’n, like Bedlam, slovenly and sad, 285

  Fore-doomed for Souls with false Religion mad.

  Without a Vision Poets can fore-show

  What all but Fools by common Sense may know:

  If true Succession from our Isle should fail,

  And Crowds profane with impious Arms prevail, 290

  Not thou nor those thy Factious Arts ingage

  Shall reap that Harvest of Rebellious Rage,

  With which thou flatter’st thy decrepit Age.

  The swelling Poison of the sev’ral Sects,

  Which, wanting vent, the Nations Health infects 295

  Shall burst its Bag; and fighting out their way,

  The various Venoms on each other prey.

  The Presbyter, puft up with spiritual Pride,

  Shall on the Necks of the lewd Nobles ride:

  His Brethren damn, the Civil Pow’r defy; 300

  And parcel out Republique Prelacy.

  But short shall be his Reign; his rigid Yoke

  And Tyrant Pow’r will puny Sects provoke,

  And Frogs, and Toads, and all the Tadpole Train

  Will croak to Heav’n for help from this devouring Crane. 305

  The Cut-throat sword and clamorous Gow shall jar

  In sharing their ill-gotten Spoils of War;

  Chiefs shall be grudg’d the part which they pretend,

  Lords envy Lords, and Friends with every Friend

  About their impious Merit shall contend. 310

  The surly Commons shall respect deny;

  And justle Peerage out with Property

  Their Gen’ral either shall his Trust betray

  And force the Crowd to Arbitrary sway;

  Or they suspecting his ambitious Aim, 315

  In hate of Kings shall cast anew the Frame;

  And thrust out Collatine that bore their Name.

  Thus in-born broils the Factions would ingage;

  Or Wars of Exil’d Heirs, or Foreign Rage,

  Till halting Vengeance overtook our Age: 320

  And our wild Labours, wearied into Rest,

  Reclin’d us on a rightfull Monarch s Breast.

  RELIGIO LAICI

  OR, A LAYMAN’S FAITH

  THE PREFACE.

  A POEM with so bold a Title, and a Name prefix’d from which the handling of so serious a Subject wou’d not be expected, may reasonably oblige the Author to say somewhat 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 concern’d myself with Speculations which belong to the Profession of Divinity, I cou’d answer that perhaps Laymen, with equal advantages of Parts and Knowledge, are not the most incompetent Judges of Sacred things; But in the due sense of my own weakness and want of Learning, I plead not this: I pretend not to make myself a Judge of Faith in others, but onely to make a Confession of my own; I lay no unhallow’d hand upon the Ark, but wait on it with the Reverence that becomes me at a distance: In the next place I will ingenuously confess, that the helps I have us’d in this small Treatise, were many of them taken from the works of our own Reverend Divines of the Church of England; so that the Weapons with which I Combat Irreligion are already Consecrated, though I suppose they may be taken down as lawfully as the Sword of Goliah was by David, when they are to be employed for the common Cause, against the Enemies of Piety. I intend not by this to intitle them to any of my errours, which yet I hope are only those of Charity to Mankind; and such as my own Charity has caus’d me to commit, that of others may more easily excuse. Being naturally inclin’d to Scepticism in Philosophy, I have no reason to impose my Opinions, in a Subject which is above it: but whatever they are, I submit them with all reverence to my Mother Church, accounting them no further mine, than as they are Authoriz’d, or at least, uncondemn’d by her. And, indeed, to secure my self on this side, I have us’d the necessary Precaution of showing this Paper, before it was Publish’d, to a judicious and learned Friend, a Man indefatigably zealous in the service of the Church and State: and whose Writings, have highly deserv’d of both. He was pleas’d to approve the body of the Discourse, and I hope he is more my Friend than to do it out of Complaisance; ’Tis true he had too good a tast to like it all; and amongst some other faults recommended to my second view, which I have written perhaps too boldly on St. Athanasius, which he advis’d me wholy to omit. I am sensible enough that I had done more prudently to have followed his opinion; But then I could not have satisfied myself that I had done honestly not to have written what was my own. It has always been my thought, that Heathens who never did, nor without Miracle cou’d, hear of the name of Christ, were yet in a possibility of Salvation. Neither will it enter easily into my belief, that before the coming of our Saviour, the whole World, excepting only the Jewish Nation, shou’d lye under the inevitable necessity of everlasting Punishment, for want of that Revelation, which was confin’d to so small a spot of ground as that of Palestine. Among the Sons of Noah we read of one onely who was accurs’d; and if a blessing in the ripeness of time was reserv’d for Japhet (of whose Progeny we are,) it seems unaccountable to me, why so many Generations of the same Offspring as preceeded our Saviour in the Flesh should be al
l involv’d in one common condemnation, and yet that their Posterity should be Intitled to the hopes of Salvation: as if a Bill of Exclusion had passed only on the Fathers, which debar’d not the Sons from their Succession. Or that so many Ages had been deliver’d over to Hell, and so many reserv’d for Heaven, and that the Devil had the first choice, and God the next. Truly I am apt to think, that the revealed Religion which was taught by Noah to all his Sons, might continue for some Ages in the whole Posterity. That afterwards it was included wholly in the Family of Sem is manifest: but when the Progenies of Cham and Japhet swarm’d into Colonies, and those Colonies were subdivided into many others, in process of time their Decendants lost by little and little the Primitive and Purer Rites of Divine Worship, retaining onely the notion of one Deity; to which succeeding Generations added others: (for Men took their Degrees in those Ages from Conquerours to Gods.) Revelation being thus Eclips’d to almost all Mankind, the Light of Nature as the next in Dignity was substituted; and that is it which St. Paul concludes to be the Rule of the Heathens; and by which they are hereafter to be judg’d. If my supposition be true, then the consequence which I have assum’d in my Poem may be also true; namely, that Deism, or the Principles of Natural Worship, are onely the faint remnants or dying flames of reveal’d Religion in the Posterity of Noah: and that our Modern Philosophers, nay and some of our Philosophising Divines have too much exalted the faculties of our Souls, when they have maintain’d that by their force, mankind has been able to find out that there is one Supream Agent or Intellectual Being which we call God: that Praise and Prayer are his due Worship; and the rest of those deducements, which I am confident are the remote effects of Revelation, and unatainable by our Discourse, I mean as simply considered, and without the benefit of Divine Illumination. So that we have not lifted up our selves to God by the weak Pinions of our Reason, but he has been pleas’d to descend to us: and what Socrates said of him, what Plato writ, and the rest of the Heathen Philosophers of several Nations, is all no more than the Twilight of Revelation, after the Sun of it was set in the Race of Noah. That there is some thing above us, some Principle of motion, our Reason can apprehend, though it cannot discover what it is by its own Vertue. And indeed, ’tis very improbable, that we, who by the strength of our faculties cannot enter into the knowledg of any Beeing, not so much as of our own, should be able to find out by them that Supream Nature, which we cannot otherwise define than by saying it is Infinite; as if Infinite were definable, or Infinity a Subject for our narrow understanding. They who wou’d prove Religion by Reason, do but weaken the cause which they endeavour to support: ’tis to take away the Pillars from our Faith, and to prop it only with a twig: ’tis to design a Tower like that of Babel, which, if it were possible (as it is not) to reach heaven, would come to nothing by the confusion of the Workmen. For every man is Building a several way; impotently conceipted of his own Model, and his own Materials: Reason is always striving, and always at a loss; and of necessity it must so come to pass, while ’tis exercis’d about that which is not its proper object. Let us be content at last, to know God, by his own methods; at least, so much of him, as he is pleas’d to reveal to us in the sacred Scriptures; to apprehend them to be the word of God, is all our Reason has to do; for all beyond it is the work of Faith, which is the Seal of Heaven impress’d upon our humane understanding.

  And now for what concerns the Holy Bishop Athanasius, the Preface of whose Creed seems inconsistent with my opinion; which is, That Heathens may possibly be sav’d; in the first place, I desire it may be consider’d that it is the Preface onely, not the Creed it self, which, (till I am better informed) is of too hard a digestion for my Charity. ’Tis not that I am ignorant how many several Texts of Scripture seemingly support that Cause; but neither am I ignorant how all those Texts may receive a kinder, and more mollified Interpretation. Every man who is read in Church History, knows that Belief was drawn up after a long contestation with Arrius concerning the Divinity of our Blessed Saviour, and his being one Substance with the Father; and that, thus compil’d, it was sent abroad among the Christian Churches, as a kind of Test, which whosoever took, was look’d on as an Orthodox Believer. ’Tis manifest from hence, that the Heathen part of the Empire was not concerned in it: for its business was not to distinguish betwixt Pagans and Christians, but betwixt Hereticks and true Believers. This, well consider’d, takes off the heavy weight of Censure, which I wou’d willingly avoid from so venerable a Man; for if this Proportion, whosoever will be saved, be restrain’d onely to those to whom it was intended, and for whom it was compos’d, I mean the Christians, then the Anathema, reaches not the Heathens, who had never heard of Christ and were nothing interessed in that dispute. After all, I am far from blaming even that Prefatory addition to the Creed, and as far from cavilling at the continuation of it in the Liturgy of the Church, where on the days appointed, ’tis publickly read: for I suppose there is the same reason for it now, in opposition to the Socinians, as there was then against the Arrians; the one being a Heresy, which seems to have been refin’d out of the other; and with how much more plausibility of Reason it combats our Religion, with so much more caution to be avoided: and therefore the prudence of our Church is to be commended, which has interposed her Authority for the recommendation of this Creed. Yet to such as are grounded in the true belief, those explanatory Creeds, the Nicene and this of Athanasius, might perhaps be spar’d: for what is supernatural will always be a mystery in spight of Exposition: and for my own part the plain Apostles Creed, is most sutable to my weak understanding; as the simplest diet is the most easy of Digestion.

  I have dwelt longer on this Subject than I intended; and longer than perhaps I ought; for having laid down, as my Foundation, that the Scripture is a Rule; that in all things needfull to Salvation it is clear, sufficient, and ordain’d by God Almighty for that purpose, I have left my self no right to interpret obscure places, such as concern the possibility of eternal happiness to Heathens: because whatsoever is obscure is concluded not necessary to be known.

  But, by asserting the Scripture to be the Canon of our Faith, I have unavoidably created to my self two sorts of Enemies: The Papists indeed, more directly, because they have kept the Scripture from us, what they cou’d; and have reserved to themselves a right of Interpreting what they have deliver’d under the pretence of Infallibility: and the Fanaticks more collaterally, because they have assum’d what amounts to an Infallibility in the private Spirit: and have detorted those Texts of Scripture, which are not necessary to Salvation, to the damnable uses of Sedition, disturbance and destruction of the Civil Government. To begin with the Papists, and to speak freely, I think them the less dangerous, (at least in appearance) to our present State; for not onely the Penal Laws are in force against them, and their number is contemptible; but also their Peerage and Commons are excluded from Parliaments, and consequently those Laws in no probability of being Repeal’d. A General and Uninterrupted Plot of their Clergy, ever since the Reformation, I suppose all Protestants believe; for ’tis not reasonable to think but that so many of their Orders, as were outed from their fat possessions, wou’d endeavour a reentrance against those whom they account Hereticks. As for the late design, Mr. Colemans Letters, for ought I know are the best Evidence; and what they discover, without wyre-drawing their Sense or malicious Glosses, all Men of reason conclude credible. If there be anything more than this requir’d of me, I must believe it as well as I am able, in spight of the Witnesses, and out of a decent conformity to the Votes of Parliament: for I suppose the Fanaticks will not allow the private Spirit in this Case: Here the Infallibility is at least in one part of the Government; and our understandings as well as our wills are represented. But to return to the Roman Catholicks, how can we be secure from the practice of Jesuited Papists in that Religion? For not two or three of that Order, as some of them would impose upon us, but almost the whole Body of them are of opinion, that their Infallible Master has a right over Kings, not onely in Spirituals but Temp
orals. Not to name Mariana, Bellarmine, Emanuel Sa, Molina, Santarel, Simancha, and at least twenty others of Foreign Countries; we can produce of our own Nation, Campian, and Doleman or Parsons, besides many are nam’d whom I have not read, who all of them attest this Doctrine, that the Pope can depose and give away the Right of any Sovereign Prince, si vel paulum deflexerit, if he shall never so little Warpe: but if he once comes to be Excommunicated, then the Bond of obedience is taken off from Subjects; and they may and ought to drive him like another Nebuchadnezzar, ex hominum Christianorum Dominatu, from exercising Dominion over Christians: and to this they are bound by virtue of Divine Precept, and by all the tyes of Conscience, under no less Penalty than Damnation. If they answer me (as a Learned Priest has lately written,) that this Doctrine of the Jesuits is not de fide, and that consequently they are not oblig’d by it, they must pardon me, if I think they have said nothing to the purpose; for ’tis a Maxim in their Church, where Points of Faith are not decided, and that Doctors are of contrary opinions, they may follow which part they please; but more safely the most receiv’d and most Authoriz’d. And their champion Bellarmine has told the World, in his Apology, that the King of England is a vassal to the Pope, ratione directi Domini, and that he holds in Villanage of his Roman Landlord. Which is no new claim put in for England. Our chronicles are his Authentique Witnesses, that King John was depos’d by the same plea, and Philip Augustus admitted Tenant. And which makes the more for Bellarmine, the French King was again ejected when our King submitted to the Church, and the Crown receiv’d under the sordid Condition of a Vassalage.

  ’Tis not sufficient for the more moderate and well-meaning Papists (of which I doubt not there are many) to produce the Evidences of their Loyalty to the late King, and to declare their Innocency in this Plot; I will grant their behaviour in the first, to have been as loyal and as brave as they desire; and will be willing to hold them excus’d as to the second (I mean when it comes to my turn, and after my betters; for ’tis a madness to be sober alone, while the Nation continues Drunk:) but that saying of their Father Cres: is still running in my head, that they may be dispens’d with in their Obedience to an Heretick Prince, while the necessity of the times shall oblige them to it: (for that (as another of them tells us,) is only the effect of Christian Prudence) but when once they shall get power to shake him off, an Heretick is no lawful King, and consequently to rise against him is no Rebellion. I should be glad therefore, that they wou’d follow the advice which was charitably given them by a Reverend Prelate of our Church; namely, that they would joyn in a publick Act of disowning and detesting those Jesuitick Principles; and subscribe to all Doctrines which deny the Popes Authority of Deposing Kings, and releasing Subjects from their Oath of Allegiance: to which I shou’d think they might easily be induced, if it be true that this present Pope has condemn’d the doctrine of King-killing (a thesis of the Jesuites) amongst others ex Cathedra (as they call it) or in open consistory.