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1718
The Tower of Babel: An Anti-Heroic Poem. Humbly Dedicated to the B____p of B____r. [Motto]. London, Printed for J. Morphew, near Stationers-Hall MDCCXVIII. (Price, Six-pence.) [B. M.]
pp. 3-32 o.c.
Hudibrastic.
The poem is a debate with Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, who
in 1717 delivered a famous sermon in which he denied that there was such
a thing as a visible Church of Christ and stressed the supreme importance
of the individual's relationship with God. A major subject of the poem is
the nature of prayer, and the form it should take:
I own with you, that he's a Wigeon,
Who makes a Garb of his Religion,
Whose Worship turns on Bows and Cringes
Much like a Door upon the Hinges;
But yet since Man's a sort of Creature,
Or Sound of so complex a Nature,
That Flesh and Spirit joyn'd become
One physical Compositum:
'Tis fit the Offices and Duties,
Concerning which the great Dispute is,
Should be in some Proportion equal,
Or both will quarrel in the Sequel; . . . [p. 21]
I own with you, that he's a Wigeon,
Who makes a Garb of his Religion,
Whose Worship turns on Bows and Cringes
Much like a Door upon the Hinges;
But yet since Man's a sort of Creature,
Or Sound of so complex a Nature,
That Flesh and Spirit joyn'd become
One physical Compositum:
'Tis fit the Offices and Duties,
Concerning which the great Dispute is,
Should be in some Proportion equal,
Or both will quarrel in the Sequel; . . . [p. 21]
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