 | Poesis Rediviva |  |
The Polemick Protestant D.
Truths more calcining Recollects ore-read,To cure Truths wounds, Truth they afresh make bleed.
Itch of Dispute, the Scab of th' Church doth breed:
How comes Truth for a Champion Falshood need?
It from Contagion sprung, their Countreys Plague,
A Wickliff, Husse, and Malecontents of Prague:
Waldo's Disciples, Albingenses too,
Must to the Muster of Truths Champions go.
Thus Homer to see Truth was lent strange eyes,
And Virgil taught for to Evangelize.
What though in Tenets all do disagree?
In opposition of one Church they be.
Churches like floting Islands in the Sea,
Carried on th' giddy waves of Vanity:
How wisely for your Hierarchy you plead,
Your Church to raise, who Church defacers need?
11
To hedge these in, could you some Church-ground gain?
By th' Woman in the Wilderness understood,
As wisely as New-England Brotherhood.
Christian, not Pagan Rome, must Babylon be,
From Babylonish garments are you free?
Where Rome is Babylon, all your Orders hence,
They're Antichristian in a Brownists sense.
Rare art, to tie truth fast, twist ropes of sand,
Which every aire of Fancy may disband.
If Christs Coat no Seam, Church cann't Schism admit,
Ah then consider how your Knot you knit!
From what they hate, none think too far they run;
On rocks of errour fail, while shelfs they shun.
| Poesis Rediviva | |