The Works of William Mason :: :: University of Virginia Library

Dryden, if rightly of his powers I deem,
Apply'd with skill his numbers to his theme:
If 'twas heroic, then his nervous rhyme
Rose on an eagle's plume, and soar'd to heights sublime;
Or, if preceptive, then in vernal skies,
As near the ground the circling swallow flies
And skims, not touches; so his verses keep
Their march pedestrian, stoop, yet scorn to creep,
And, like his prose, perspicuous, manly, free,
Surpass it only in its melody.
Rare excellence! In this how few succeed!
How few, like him, could write a Layman's Creed,
Make logic's rules to metre's laws submit,
Blend truth with fancy, argument with wit!
Yet this he did; and in so smooth a lay,
It satisfied the nicer ear of Gray,
Who always held it as the guide supreme
Of bards employ'd on a didactic theme.

428

Yet whether or from mother-wit or use,
For constant practice surely drilled his Muse,
He here succeeded may create a doubt;
A veteran's talents let not me dispute:
Yet, now, so universal is the rage
Of writing, in our most enlighten'd age,
That myriads of each sex (I scorn to fib)
Now scan so nimbly, and now rhyme so glib,
They seem to claim all Dryden's eloquence,
And leave him merely spirit, meaning, sense.

So much for introduction. Now, my friend,
Best lov'd of few remaining, condescend
To hear his senior, though of after time
Yet mere apprentice in the craft of rhyme,
Produce his creed, not laical, yet free,
He trusts, from theologic pedantry,
Which you, who know him, will believe his own,
And not put on with surplice, band, and gown.
Nor blame him, if its import be the same
With that, which bears th' Egyptian bishop's name,
Whose rigid preface though the Bard arraign'd,
He own'd “the creed eternal truth contain'd.”

But here lay Dryden's error. He conceiv'd
The zealous prelate bade it be believ'd
On his own ipse dixit, and we find
Many good churchmen still of Dryden's mind:

429

Indeed so many mid a sceptic crowd,
I scarce can wonder Tillotson avow'd
His wish 'twere from the Liturgy remov'd.
Not because false; he ne'er suppos'd it so,
But if remov'd (vain hope) that it might draw,
By firmer cords of unity and love,
To one true faith, that creed who disapprove.

But why arraign the preface? if it came
From man, if scripture did not say the same;
Or if discordant from its gen'ral code,
With Dryden I'd refuse the Pharisaic load.
Yet if in Christian soil, and that alone,
The tree must spring, that by its fruit is known;
And if its root be Faith, all must agree
To take the scion from the parent tree;
No foreign stem, if grafted there, can shoot;
No truth can bloom on error's baneful root:
All hope to save it is a vain desire,
Down it is dash'd, and flung into the fire.

Methinks, I hear some pert Priestleian cry,
“Must Christians then on metaphors rely?
“The creed, you copy, tells us plain and brief,
“Endless perdition follows unbelief.”

Quit then the metaphor; its meaning take;
You'll find it His who spake as no man spake.

430

From him, not man, I copy; and his word
Shall be the sum and substance I record,
Touching my creed; if from his word I learn,
That faith in him is my supreme concern;
If wanting that, I lose the blessing high,
His blood has purchas'd, Immortality,
What may I hope? If I from reason draw
Conclusions unsupported by his law,
Mistate, abridge the doctrines he has given,
I lose all place in my Redeemer's heav'n;
And, whether I or Athanasius speak,
The prize is lost, he purchas'd for my sake.
What then remains? the unbeliever's doom,
Endless perdition in a life to come?

Who founds his faith on Revelation's base
Must hold, that all of Adam's sinful race
Inherit death from their delinquent sire:
Yet still may christian Charity aspire,
To nurse a modest hope that those who lie
Uncherish'd by the Day-spring from on high
May still be blest, ev'n though a tenfold shade
Of Pagan darkness now involves their head;
And only those, the obstinately blind,
Will meet the doom intail'd on lost mankind.
Hence the same Charity, heart-cheering guest,
That burnt, with fervent flame, in Dryden's breast,

431

Inspirits mine; that Charity, which Paul
Says “hopeth all things, and believeth all,”
But this is not reveal'd: what is alone
The true believer dares to call his own.
More he may hope, and he that hopes the most,
Though haply by some waves of error tost,
Will steer his Christian bark from quicksands free,
Whose helm is Faith, whose sail is Charity.

This stumbling-stone remov'd, I scarce shall need
To free our Alexandrian prelate's creed
From those objectors, who conceive it meant
Purely to threaten those, who dare dissent
From Faith established, not by Heav'n but man,
And hence abjure its persecuting plan.
Alas! while man is man there will be found
Those, who on this, or any creed will ground,
Or none at all, some false pretence to draw
The scymitar; and, scorning every law
Divine or human, like the deluge, flood
Their native country with their brethren's blood.
Ask you for proof from bigot zeal? review
Charles's dread deeds on Saint Bartholomew.
Ask you for proofs from want of Faith? They're clear
In the dread deeds of Danton and Robespierre.
Weigh'd on the beam of justice, not of Bayle!
See then which separate evil turns the scale,

432

What, equal! Surely then Lucretius ly'd,
Who cast his make-weight on Religion's side.

But he, who duly marks th' historic page,
Will find my creed confess'd in that same age,
When Arius triumph'd now, was now subdu'd,
As emp'rors or as empresses allow'd,
When common-sense was scorn'd, and quibbling priz'd,
When myst'ry found itself more mysticis'd,
Will sanely judge a creed, whose ev'ry phrase
Was form'd to free from the scholastic maze
Well-meaning christians: might securely fix
Their faith on Scripture, not on schismatics.

Thus far, methinks, with prudent step I steer,
Nor yet can have offended L---'s ear
With Trinity, to him a word of fear:
L---, who learns his heresy by rote,
And would be nothing, if deny'd to quote.
Nor will I use it from its adjunct free,
But join it evermore with Unity;
Reclaim the term, he and his tribe have stole,
(With them such larceny, though great, is small)
For, this purloin'd, they but to us concede
One fragment of this mutilated creed;
A creed, to those, who take its meaning right,
That strictly keeps one Deity in sight;

433

Form'd as a bulwark, and a bulwark strong,
'Gainst all, on that dread theme who swerve from right to wrong;
Yet, if we leave them of that term possest,
They brand us for idolators profest,
Who to three Gods our adoration pay,
And might with Papists to God's mother pray;
While they relinquishing their former name,
Flutter on Unitarian wings to fame,
To Unitarian worship rear the dome,
And bid all half-believing Christians come,
Provided they put off their wedding vest,
Like halt and blind, to their new-garnish'd feast
Of dishes second-hand, and badly drest.

But quit we these; and while we scorn to own
Our faith refers to Trinity alone,
Yet still it holds, as Scripture held before,
One undivided, one exalted pow'r,
That in the Father and the Son resides,
And Sacred Spirit, purest, best of guides.
But wherefore holds? only as far as man
The mystic height of godliness may scan,
We may conceive God gives our mortal race
Salvation, not for merit, but from grace;
That from the Son divine Redemption springs,
That the pure Spirit, once on dove-like wings

434

Descending visibly, still deigns to dart
Its secret aid on each submissive heart.
Thus, though deriv'd from one exhaustless spring
Three plenteous streams redundant blessings bring,
The fountain head united with them all
We may not three, but One conjointly call.

“This too is metaphor?” Socinian, yes:
But, if a false one, prove me that it is.
Water is still call'd water, if it glide
Or in a trinal, or a single tide;
So God in Gospel language is apply'd
To all the wonders of supernal power,
That from the Sire, and Son, and Spirit show'r.

Resting on this, I first believe with Paul
One God, who is, was, shall be, all in all;
Yet, as with him I find in holy writ,
Another person, and another yet
Reveal'd distinct, the Father, and the Son,
And hallow'd Spirit; I include in one
The three distinctions, and believe all three
One comprehensive sole Divinity.
Thus on the terms, by which I was baptis'd,
That charter great, which seal'd me christianiz'd,
I take with confidence the certain road,
That leads through Scripture up to Scripture's God.

435

That he is One, plain Reason can descry;
And when his word presents him to the eye,
Reliev'd by faith from error, still must shine
One Being indivisibly divine.
Hence, howsoe'er the artful Arians aim
This old confession of our faith to blame,
'Twas meant to One Divinity to raise
Due adoration both in prayer and praise:
Else why does it repeat “not three, but one”
Ev'n to tautology? Why not alone
To ev'ry person of the sacred Three
Ascribe a single, disjoin'd Deity?

Too soon, alas! ev'n in th' Apostles' age
Did heresy defile the Gospel page,
Led by false science and scholastic rage.
Then rose that zeal for novelty, which made
Verbal theology a gainful trade:
Nor could a common scholar open shop,
Till he of terms had gain'd a num'rous crop
To fill his mental granary: with his hoard
Of these he first the market price explor'd,
Then 'gan to speculate, as farmers do,
Reserv'd the old and traffick'd with the new:
And, if he well could vend false eloquence,
Car'd not what famine starv'd poor common sense.

But when scholastic owl-light was withdrawn,
And real science now had past its dawn,

436

Divines there were, who deem'd the deed no theft
To borrow what their ancestors had left,
Yet sifted ev'ry term before they us'd,
The good adopted, and the bad refus'd;
Then stampt the first for sterling. Thus, we see,
With others they selected Trinity;
Nor scrupled they, if Paganish, to use
A word, that none but Deists could abuse;
A word, with Unity when closely join'd,
Which brief and clear the scripture truth defin'd;
That God in trinal persons, trinal ways,
His one eternal majesty displays.
“But how?”—That question soon may be dismiss'd,
When Darwin shows how he and I exist;
For, by Lavoisier taught (that sage I mean
Whom Freedom's bastards chose to guillotine).
He knows two Gnomes produced from mine or moat,
In Gallic-Greek call'd Carbone and Azote,
By secret spells allure to their embrace
Bright Oxygen, a Sylph of heavenly race,
Mix with her purity their filth and fire
To form that atmosphere we both respire
Which did they not, nor he could screw his lyre
To that high pitch, which blabs what strange amours
Are carried on in Flora's secret bowers,
Nor I unscrew my own to tones so low,
It merely gives to prose a verse-like flow,
Truths to describe, which clearly to explain
Reason's dim lamp has burnt for centuries in vain.

437

“A strange confession!”—But does Darwin more?
He names three fluids; he describes their pow'r
When separate; he demonstrates that they give
Conjoin'd that pabulum by which we live;
But how they join'd at first, and why they still
Th' ethereal void with the same mixture fill,
Let him explain, ere you demand from me
What forms the undivided Trinity.

No more of Deity, than Gospel light
Reveals, can ere be plain to Reason's sight.
Is more reveal'd, than clearly she conceives?
Calm she submits, yet piously believes.
But, though she here perceives herself confin'd,
Let none but Atheists dare to call her blind.
She still is Reason, still exerts the pow'r,
By which she fixt her premises before,
That God is truth, and this conclusion drew
Justly, that all he speaks must needs be true,
Though all not clear alike to her contracted view.
Of these what follow are in Scripture strain,
Some beyond Reason, some to Reason plain.
It says creative Power, redeeming Love,
And sanctifying Grace are from above:
It bids us duely venerate the Son,
Ev'n as the Sire; it tells us not alone
From Sire, but Son, the Comforter is sent
To man; if then by both that gift be lent,

438

Which only they can lend, the three combine
In one ineffable sublime design,
And are, as one, all equally divine.
It tells us that, though nominally three,
And thence call'd persons, some diversity
To two attaches. All are uncreate,
Yet is the Son's a generated state,
Before all worlds begotten by the Sire,
And thence from both thy soul-inspiring fire,
O sacred Paraclete! proceeding free
Gives thee with both divine equality,
Which, whether God or Lord we choose to call,
Must not be said of One, but said of all.

Thus far some truths, all Christians should receive
Who hope salvation, I have try'd to give
In careless metre, not in labour'd lays;
Yet if a verse (as pious Herbert says)
“May chance to find him, who a sermon flies,
“And turn delight into a sacrifice,”
So these perus'd with candour, may dispel
Some scruples, that with almost-Christians dwell.
I trust, at least, that the impartial few
Will find that doctrine, they before thought true,
Not here disguis'd, though clad in vesture new.