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Priesthood, that makes a merchandize of Heav'n! Priesthood, that sells ev'n to their pray'rs and blessings, And force us to pay for our own cos'nage!

Dryden's Troilus and Cressida.

You want to lead

My reason blindfold like a hamper'd lion,
Check'd of his noble vigour : then, when baited
Down to obedient tameness, may it couch,

And shew strange tricks, which you call signs of faith:
So silly souls are gulled, and you get money!

Otway's Venice Preserved.

Ill befal

Such meddling priests, who kindle up confusion,
And vex the quiet world with their vain scruples;
By Heav'n 'tis done in perfect spite to peace.
Rowe's Jane Shore, a. 3, s. 1.

It never was a prosperous world

Since priests have interfer'd with temporal matters;
The custom of their ancestors they slight,

And change their shirts of hair for robes of gold;
Thus luxury and interest rule the church,

Whilst piety and conscience dwell in caves.

Bancroft's Fall of Mortimer.

For this the clergy will still argue on,
Deny for pique, assert from prejudice;

Show us the lesson, seldom the example,

And preach up laws which they will ne'er obey.

Havard's King Charles I.

Babble on, ye priests, amuse mankind

With idle tales of flames, and tort'ring fiends,
And starry crowns, for patient sufferings here:
Yes, gull the crowd, and gain their earthly goods,
For feign'd reversions in a heavenly state.

W. Shirley's Parricide.

Whate'er

I may have been, or am, doth rest between
Heaven and myself.—I shall not choose a mortal

To be my mediator.

Byron's Manfred, a. 3, s. 1.
Then might ye see

Cowls, hoods, and habits with their wearers tost
And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,

The sport of winds: all these upwhirl'd aloft
Fly o'er the backside of the world far off
Into a limbo large and broad, since call'd

The Paradise of Fools. Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 3.
Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,

White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.

Ibid. b. 3.

Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous wolves,
Who all the sacred mysteries of Heaven

To their own vile advantages shall turn
Of lucre and ambition, and the truth
With superstitions and traditions taint.

Ibid, b. 12.

Then shall they seek to avail themselves of names,
Places, and titles, and with these to join
Secular pow'r, though feigning still to act
By spiritual, to themselves appropriating
The Spirit of God, promis'd alike and given
To all believers; and from that pretence,
Spiritual laws by carnal pow'r shall force
On every conscience; laws which none shall find
Left them enroll'd, or what the spirit within
Shall on the heart engrave.

Others of graver mien, behold, adorn'd
With holy ensigns, how sublime they move,
And bending oft their sanctimonious eyes
Take homage of the simple minded throng;
Ambassadors of Heaven!

Ibid.

Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination, b. 3.

Of right and wrong he taught

Truths as refined as ever Athens heard;

And (strange to tell!) he practis'd what he preached.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health, b. 4.

In man or woman, but far most in man,
And most of all in man that ministers
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe
All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn;
Object of my implacable disgust.

Cowper's Task, b. 2.

Behold the picture! Is it like? Like whom?
The things that mount the rostrum with a skip
And then skip down again. Pronounce a text,
Cry, hem; and reading what they never wrote,
Just fifteen minutes, huddle their work,
And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.

up

From such apostles, oh ye mitred heads

Preserve the church; and lay not careless hands

Ibid.

On sculls that cannot teach, and will not learn. Ibid.

I venerate the man, whose heart is warm,

Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life Coincident, exhibit lucid proof

That he is honest in the sacred cause.

He, that negociates between God and man,
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns,
Of judgment and of mercy, should beware
Of lightness in his speech. 'Tis pitiful
To court a grin, when you should woo a soul;
To break a jest, when pity would inspire
Pathetic exhortation; and address

The skittish fancy with facetious tales,

Ibid.

When sent with God's commission to the heart! Ibid.

42 COMET.-COMMONWEALTH.-CONSCIENCE.

COMET.

Hast thou ne'er seen the comet's flaming flight?
Th' illustrious stranger passing, terror sheds
On gazing nations, from his fiery train
Of length enormous, takes his ample round
Thro' depths of ether; coasts unnumber'd worlds,
Of more than solar glory; doubles wide
Heav'n's mighty cape; and then revisits earth,
From the long travel of a thousand years.

Young's Night Thoughts, n. 4.

Lo! from the dread immensity of space
Returning, with accelerated course,
The rushing comet to the sun descends :
And as he sinks below the shading earth,
With awful train projected o'er the heavens,
The guilty nations tremble.

Thomson's Seasons-Summer.

COMMONWEALTH.

We will renew the times of truth and justice,
Condensing in a fair free commonwealth
Not rash equality but equal rights,
Proportion'd like the columns to the temple,
Giving and taking strength reciprocal,

And making firm the whole with grace and beauty,
So that no part could be removed without

Infringement of the general symmetry.

Byron's Doge of Venice, a. 3, s. 2.

CONSCIENCE.

Conscience!

Poor plodding priests and preaching friars make
Their hollow pulpits; and empty aisles

Of churches ring, with that round word; but we,

That draw the subtile and more piercing air
In that sublimed region of a court,

Know all is good we make so, and go on

Secured by the prosperity of our crimes. Ben Jonson.

He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit i' th' centre, and enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.

Milton's Comus.

Here, here it lies; a lump of lead by day;
And in my short, distracted, nightly slumbers,
The hag that rides my dreams.

Dryden.

Conscience, what art thou? thou tremendous power!
Who dost inhabit us without our leave;
And art within ourselves, another self,
A master-self, that loves to domineer,
And treat the monarch frankly as the slave :
How dost thou light a torch to distant deeds?
Make the past, present, and the future frown?
How, ever and anon, awake the soul,

As with a peal of thunder, to strange horrors,
In this long restless dream, which idiots hug,
Nay, wise men flatter with the name of life.

Young's Brothers, a. 1.

'Tis ever thus

With noble minds, if chance they slide to folly;
Remorse stings deeper, and relentless conscience,
Pours more of gall into the bitter cup

Of their severe repentance.

Mason's Elfrida.

Conscience, and nice scruples Are taxes that abound in none but meagre soils, To choak the aspiring seeds of manly daring: Those puny instincts, which in feeble minds, Unfit for great exploits, are miscall'd virtue.

Jephson's Braganza.

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