When Nations are punish'd by their Sins,

Came, not expected in that humble guise,
To sift and search them with unerring eyes,
He found, conceal'd beneath a fair outside,
The filth of rottenness and worm of pride;
Their piety a system of deceit,
Scripture employ'd to sanctify the cheat;
The pharisee the dupe of his own art,
Self-idoliz'd, and yet a knave at heart!
When nations are to perish in their sins,
'Tis in the church the leprosy begins.
The priest, whose office is, with zeal sincere,
To watch the fountain and preserve it clear,
Carelessly nods and sleeps upon the brink,
While others poison what the flock must drink;
Or, waking at the call of lust alone,
Infuses lies and errors of his own.
His unsuspecting sheep believe it pure ;
And, tainted by the very means of cure,
Catch from each other a contagious spot,
The foul forerunner of a gen'ral rot.

their Misconduct originates with Priests,

Then truth is hush'd, that heresy may preach;
And all is trash that reason cannot reach:
Then God's own image on the soul impress'd
Becomes a mock'ry, and a standing jest ;
And faith, the root whence only can arise
The graces of a life that wins the skies,
Loses at once all value and esteem,
Pronounc'd by grey-beards a pernicious dream :
Then ceremony leads her bigots forth,
Prepar'd to fight for shadows of no worth;
While truths, on which eternal things depend,
Find not, or hardly find, a single friend :
As soldiers watch the signal of command,
They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand;
Happy to fill religion's vacant place

With hollow form, and gesture, and grimace.

Such, when the teacher of his church was there,

People and priest, the sons of Israel were;

Stiff in the letter, lax in the design

And import of their oracles divine;

whose Learning is legendary and absurd,

Their learning legendary, false, absurd,
And yet exalted above God's own word;
They drew a curse from an intended good,
Puff'd up with gifts they never understood.
He judg'd them with as terrible a frown
As if not love, but wrath, had brought him down:
Yet he was gentle as soft summer airs;
Had grace for others' sins, but none for theirs.
Through all he spoke a noble plainness ran-
Rhet'ric is artifice, the work of man;
And tricks and turns, that fancy may devise,
Are far too mean for him that rules the skies.
Th' astonish'd vulgar trembled while he tore
The mask from faces never seen before:
He stripp'd th' impostors in the noon-day sun ;
Show'd that they follow'd all they seem'd to shun;
Their pray'rs made public, their excesses kept
As private as the chambers where they slept;
The temple and its holy rites profan'd
By mumm'ries he that dwelt in it disdain'd;

and whose Piety hypocritical.

Uplifted hands, that at convenient times
Coul'd act extortion and the worst of crimes,
Wash'd with a neatness scrupulously nice,
And free from ev'ry taint but that of vice.
Judgment, however tardy mends her pace
When obstinacy once has conquer'd grace.
They saw distemper heal'd, and life restor'd,
In answer to the fiat of his word;
Confess'd the wonder, and, with daring tongue,
Blasphem'd th' authority from which it sprung.
They knew, by sure prognostics seen on high,
The future tone and temper of the sky;
But, grave dissemblers! could not understand
That sin let loose speaks punishment at hand.
Ask now of history's authentic page,
And call up evidence from ev'ry age;
Display with busy and laborious hand
The blessings of the most indebted land!

What nation will you find, whose annals prove

So rich an int'rest in almighty love?

Plagues of Egypt-Woes of Canaan Miracles.

Where dwell they now, where dwelt in ancient day,
A people planted, water'd, blest as they?
Let Egypt's plagues and Canaan's woes proclaim
The favours pour'd upon the Jewish name-
Their freedom, purchas'd for them at the cost
Of all their hard oppressors valued most;
Their title to a country not their own
Made sure by prodigies 'till then unknown;
For them, the states they left made waste and void;
For them, the states to which they went destroy'd;
A cloud to measure out their march by day,
By night a fire to cheer the gloomy way;
That moving signal summoning, when best,
Their host to move; and, when it stay'd, to rest.
For them the rocks dissolv'd into a flood,
The dews condens'd into angelic food;
Their very garments sacred-old, yet new,
And Time forbid to touch them as he flew;
Streams, swell'd above the bank, enjoin'd to stand,
While they pass'd through to their appointed land;