 | The Mournful Nuptials, or Love the Cure of all Woes |  |
THE EPILOGUE.
Abounds in schisms both in the church and stage:
They who are born to taste with pleasure throng
To Shakespear's sense, or Farinello's song:
The tasteless vulgar, as experience tells,
Warmly espouse their Harlequins and Nells.
As great the difference in the church is seen,
Where Wesley is, and Whitefield
And butchers drop their marrow-bones and cleavers;
And, while the weaver's wife forsakes the loom,
Susan leaves half unmop'd the dining-room:
These are the dregs, the rubbish, of mankind,
Sightless themselves, and guided by the blind,
Strangers to virtue, as unknown to schools:
As ev'ry like its like, fools cherish fools.
In the fair temples which the laws ordain,
Where Berriman, or Denne, or Terrick, preach
What well becomes the good and wise to teach,
The rabble herd (to novelty and fear
Eternal slaves) to Kennington repair:
'Tis there the human hogs on offal feed,
And cripples lean upon a broken reed.
In the reign of king GEORGE the Second these men pretended to a New Birth, and called themselves and their followers Methodists: they were too mean, and ignorant, to be taken notice of but for the concourse of idle low people, whom they drew from their busyness and care of their familys. The consequence of their nonsensical doctrine, if put in practice, would have been a total neglect of trade and commerce, and men must have turned out to graze on the common. The discerning part of mankind were divided in their opinions of there people, whether they were only fools, or fools and knaves; for they raised contributions from their followers for pretended charitys abroad; and odd storys were told of their prevailing on many weak persons, wives and servants, to advance them money for charitable uses, not reguarding how those wives and servants got that money. They were regularly ordained, but were prohibited preaching in the churches; and they afterwards tumultuously assembled in lanes, fields, commons, and the highways. This note is necessary, because it is almost impossible that the names of these men should be known many years hence.
| The Mournful Nuptials, or Love the Cure of all Woes | |