Until the Spirit comes and sets us free.
Yet hear you nothing from such man but works;
They make the Christian service like the Turks.
“Hark to the Churchman: day by day he cries,
‘Children of Men, be virtuous and be wise:
Seek patience, justice, temp’rance, meekness, truth;
In age be courteous, be sedate in youth.’ -
So they advise, and when such things be read,
How can we wonder that their flocks are dead?
The Heathens wrote of Virtue: they could dwell
On such light points: in them it might be well;
They might for virtue strive; but I maintain,
Our strife for virtue would be proud and vain.
When Samson carried Gaza’s gates so far,
Lack’d he a helping hand to bear the bar?
Thus the most virtuous must in bondage groan:
Samson is grace, and carries all alone.
“Hear you not priests their feeble spirits spend,
In bidding Sinners turn to God, and mend;
To check their passions and to walk aright,
To run the Race, and fight the glorious Fight?
Nay more - to pray, to study, to improve,
To grow in goodness, to advance in love?
“Oh! Babes and Sucklings, dull of heart and slow,
Can Grace be gradual? Can Conversion grow?
The work is done by instantaneous call;
Converts at once are made, or not at all;
Nothing is left to grow, reform, amend,
The first emotion is the Movement’s end:
If once forgiven, Debt can be no more;
If once adopted, will the heir be poor?
The man who gains the twenty-thousand prize,
Does he by little and by little rise?
There can no fortune for the Soul be made,
By peddling cares and savings in her trade.
“Why are our sins forgiven? - Priests reply,
- Because by Faith on Mercy we rely;
‘Because, believing, we repent and pray.’
Is this their doctrine? - then they go astray;
We’re pardon’d neither for belief nor deed,
For faith nor practice, principle nor creed;
Nor for our sorrow for our former sin,
Nor for our fears when better thoughts begin;
Nor prayers nor penance in the cause avail,
All strong remorse, all soft contrition fail:
It is the Call! till that proclaims us free,
In darkness, doubt, and bondage we must be;
Till that assures us, we’ve in vain endured,
And all is over when we’re once assured.
“This is Conversion: - First there comes a cry
Which utters, ‘Sinner, thou’rt condemned to die;’
Then the struck soul to every aid repairs,
To church and altar, ministers and prayers;
In vain she strives, - involved, ingulf’d in sin,
She looks for hell, and seems already in:
When in this travail, the New Birth comes on,
And in an instant every pang is gone;
The mighty work is done without our pains, -
Claim but a part, and not a part remains.
“All this experience tells the Soul, and yet
These moral men their pence and farthings set
Against the terrors of the countless Debt;
But such compounders, when they come to jail,
Will find that Virtues never serve as bail.
“So much to duties: now to Learning look,
And see their priesthood piling book on book;
Yea, books of infidels, we’re told, and plays,
Put out by heathens in the wink’d-on days;
The very letters are of crooked kind,
And show the strange perverseness of their mind.
Have I this Learning? When the Lord would speak;
Think ye he needs the Latin or the Greek?
And lo! with all their learning, when they rise
To preach, in view the ready sermon lies;
Some low-prized stuff they purchased at the stalls,
And more like Seneca’s than mine or Paul’s:
Children of Bondage, how should they explain
The Spirit’s freedom, while they wear a chain?
They study words, for meanings grow perplex d,
And slowly hunt for truth from text to text,
Through Greek and Hebrew: - we the meaning seek
Of that within, who every tongue can speak:
This all can witness; yet the more I know,
The more a meek and humble mind I show.
“No; let the Pope, the high and mighty priest,
Lord to the poor, and servant to the Beast;
Let bishops, deans, and prebendaries swell
With pride and fatness till their hearts rebel:
I’m meek and modest: - if I could be proud,
This crowded meeting, lo! th’ amazing crowd!
Your mute attention, and your meek respect,
My spirit’s fervour, and my words’ effect,
Might stir th’ unguarded soul; and oft to me
The Tempter speaks, whom I compel to flee;
He goes in fear, for he my force has tried, -
Such is my power! but can you call it pride?
“No, Fellow-Pilgrims! of the things I’ve shown
I might be proud, were they indeed my own!
But they are lent: and well you know the source
Of all that’s mine, and must confide of course:
Mine! no, I err; ’tis but consigned to me,
And I am nought but steward and trustee.”
--------------------------
FAR other Doctrines yon Arminian speaks;
“Seek Grace,” he cries, “for he shall find who seeks.”
This is the ancient stock by Wesley led;
They the pure body, he the reverend head:
All innovation they with dread decline,
Their John the elder was the John divine.
Hence, still their moving prayer, the melting hymn,
The varied accent, and the active limb:
Hence that implicit faith in Satan’s might,
And their own matchless prowess in the fight.
In every act they see that lurking foe,
Let loose awhile, about the world to go;
A dragon flying round the earth, to kill
The heavenly hope, and prompt the carnal will;
Whom sainted knights attack in sinners’ cause,
And force the wounded victim from his paws;
Who but for them would man’s whole race subdue,
For not a hireling will the foe pursue.
“Show me one Churchman who will rise and pray
Through half the night, though lab’ring all the day,
Always abounding - show me him, I say:” -
Thus cries the Preacher, and he adds, “Their sheep
Satan devours at leisure as they sleep.
Not so with us; we drive him from the fold,
For ever barking and for ever bold:
While they securely slumber, all his schemes
Take full effect, - the Devil never dreams:
Watchful and changeful through the world he goes,
And few can trace this deadliest of their foes;
But I detect, and at his work surprise
The subtle Serpent under all disguise.
“Thus to Man’s soul the Foe of Souls will speak,
- ‘A Saint elect, you can have nought to seek;
Why all this labour in so plain a case,
Such care to run, when certain of the race?’
All this he urges to the carnal will,
He knows you’re slothful, and would have you still:
Be this your answer, - ‘Satan, I will keep
Still on the watch till you are laid asleep.’
Thus too the Christian’s progress he’ll retard: -
‘The gates of mercy are for ever barr’d;
And that with bolts so driven and so stout,
Ten thousand workmen cannot wrench them out.’
To this deceit you have but one reply, -
Give to the Father of all Lies the lie.
“A Sister’s weakness he’ll by fits surprise,
His her wild laughter, his her piteous cries;
And should a pastor at her side attend,
He’ll use her organs to abuse her friend:
These are possessions - unbelieving wits
Impute them all to Nature: ‘They’re her fits,
Caused by commotions in tne nerves and brains;’ -
Vain talk! but they’ll be fitted for their pains.
“These are in part the ills the Foe has wrought,
And these the Churchman thinks not worth his thought;
They bid the troubled try for peace and rest,
Compose their minds, and be no more distress’d;
As well might they command the passive shore
To keep secure, and be o’erflow’d no more;
To the wrong subject is their skill applied, -
To act like workmen, they should stem the tide.
“These are the Church-Physicians: they are paid
With noble fees for their advice and aid;
Yet know they not the inward pulse to feel,
To ease the anguish, or the wound to heal.
With the sick Sinner, thus their work begins:
‘Do you repent you of your former sins?
Will you amend if you revive and live?
And, pardon seeking, will you pardon give?
Have you belief in what your Lord has done,
And are you thankful? - all is well my son.’
“A way far different ours - we thus surprise
A soul with questions, and demand replies:
‘How dropp’d you first,’ I ask, ‘the legal Yoke?
What the first word the living Witness spoke?
Perceived you thunders roar and lightnings shine,
And tempests gathering ere the Birth divine?
Did fire, and storm, and earthquake all appear
Before that still small voice, What dost thou here?
Hast thou by day and night, and soon and late,
Waited and watch’d before Admission-gate;
And so a pilgrim and a soldier pass’d
To Sion’s hill through battle and through blast?
Then in thy way didst thou thy foe attack,
And mad’st thou proud Apollyon turn his back?’
“Heart-searching things are these, and shake the mind,
Yea, like the rustling of a mighty wind.
“Thus would I ask: ‘Nay, let me question now,
How sink my sayings in your bosoms? how?
Feel you a quickening? drops the subject deep?
Stupid and stony, no! you’re all asleep;
Listless and lazy, waiting for a close,
As if at church; - do I allow repose?
Am I a legal minister? do I
With form or rubric, rule or rite comply?
Then whence this quiet, tell me, I beseech?
One might believe you heard your Rector preach,
Or his assistant dreamer: - Oh! return,
Ye times of burning, when the heart would burn;
Now hearts are ice, and you, my freezing fold,
Have spirits sunk and sad, and bosoms stony-cold.
“Oh! now again for those prevailing powers,
Which, once began this mighty work of ours;
When the wide field, God’s Temple, was the place,
And birds flew by to catch a breath of grace;
When ’mid his timid friends and threat’ning foes,
Our zealous chief as Paul at Athens rose:
When with infernal spite and knotty clubs
The Ill-One arm’d his scoundrels and his scrubs;
And there were flying all around the spot
Brands at the Preacher, but they touch’d him not:
Stakes brought to smite him, threaten’d in his cause,
And tongues, attuned to curses, roar’d applause;
Louder and louder grew his awful tones,
Sobbing and sighs were heard, and rueful groans;
Soft women fainted, prouder man express’d
Wonder and woe, and butchers smote the breast;
Eyes wept, ears tingled; stiff’ning on each head,
The hair drew back, and Satan howl’d and fled.
“In that soft season when the gentle breeze
Rises all round, and swells by slow degrees;
Till tempests gather, when through all the sky
The thunders rattle, and the lightnings fly;
When rain in torrents wood and vale deform,
And all is horror, hurricane, and storm:
“So, when the Preacher in that glorious time,
Than clouds more melting, more than storm sublime,
Dropp’d the new Word, there came a charm around;
Tremors and terrors rose upon the sound;
The stubborn spirits by his force he broke,
As the fork’d lightning rives the knotted oak:
Fear, hope, dismay, all signs of shame or grace,
Chain’d every foot, or featured every face;
Then took his sacred trump a louder swell,
And now they groan’d, they sicken’d, and they fell;
Again he sounded, and we heard the cry
Of the Word-wounded, as about to die;
Further and further spread the conquering word,
As loud he cried - ‘The Battle of the Lord.’
E’en those apart who were the sound denied,
Fell down instinctive, and in spirit died.
Nor stay’d he yet - his eye, his frown, his speech,
His very gesture, had a power to teach:
With outstretch’d arms, strong voice, and piercing call,
He won the field, and made the Dagons fall;
And thus in triumph took his glorious way,
Through scenes of horror, terror, and dismay.”
LETTER V.
Say then which class to greater folly stoop,
The great in promise, or the poor in hope?
Be brave, for your leader is brave, and vows reformation; there shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny; and the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops. I will make it felony to drink small beer: all shall eat and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery,that they may agree like brothers; and they shall all worship me as their lord.
SHAKSPEARE, Henry VI.
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