Fifty of the Protestant Ballads :: :: University of Virginia Library

Sooner or later—and sooner is best—
To rescue the Church of this nation,
Up and down through the land from the East to the West,
We must fight for a new Reformation;

To baffle her treacherous clerical sons,
Who strive to be luring her Romeward,
And win back those silly degenerate ones
To return like the prodigal homeward.

By a touch here and there we must purge out small faults
From her liturgies, well nigh perfection,
And cure a few phrases that priesthood exalts,
Provoking indignant rejection;
Absolution by man, just a once on the whole,
And sham Apostolic succession,
And magical sacraments, giving the soul
Atonement for every transgression!

Our sacraments—all superstition apart
And waiving their exaggeration—
We honour them both, when received in the heart,
As helpers of grace and salvation;
But water and words are not Spirit and Faith,
Nor signs of more force than resemblance,
Nor is there a miracle worked when He saith,
This bread is My body's remembrance.

And priests?—we have none but the Saviour above,
King and Priest and full justification,
Whose gospel His many evangelists love
And preach in their wise ministration;
But, priests for a sacrifice? these we renounce
As Pagan, unchristian, Judaic,
And all sacerdotal effront'ry denounce
As harmful to cleric and laic!

Then, as to succession? Apostles were men
Who taught by the tongue in past ages,
But now we can teach by the press and the pen,
And in chief by the Book and its pages;
Succession? in spirit, but scarcely by touch;
Their doctrine is over all nations,
But often through Christians who, though they love much,
Have no theologic gradations.

We want reformation of matters in doubt,—
That the Prayer-book be not held “a jewel”
By Romanist-Anglicans creeping about,
And heaping our wrath with new fuel;
A jewel it may be, but not as they mean
By help of some rubrical mentors,
Not even by making a Pope of the Queen,
Nor worse, by ignoring Dissenters!

We want Reformation to bring these all in,
Wesleyans, and Baptists, and Brothers,
Independents, and all who wage war against sin,
And who preach Paul's pure creed, “not another's;”
For we fear and we feel, there must soon be here seen
A fierce and distinct separation,
When High Church and Low Church, the Pope and the Queen,
Contend for this new Reformation!