Their piety a system of deceit,
Scripture employed to fanctify 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 fins,
'Tis in the church the leprofy begins:
The priest, whose office is with zeal fincere
To watch the fountain, and preserve it clear,
Carelessly nods and sleeps upon the brink,
While others poifon what the flock muft drink;
Or waking at the call of luft alone,
Infufes lies and errors of his own:
His unfufpecting sheep believe it pure,
And, tainted by the very means of cure,
Catch from each other a contagious spot,
The foul forerunner of a general rot:
Then truth is hush'd that heresy may preach,
And all is trash that reason cannot reach;
Then God's own image on the foul impress'd,
Becomes a mock'ry and a standing jeft;
And faith, the root whence only can arise
The graces of a life that wins the skies,
Lofes at once all value and efteem,
Pronounc'd by gray-beards a pernicious dream :
Then ceremony leads her bigots forth,
Prepar❜d to fight for shadows of no worth,
With truths on which eternal things depend,
Find not, or hardly find, a fingle friend:
As foldiers watch the fignal of command,
They learn to bow, to kneel, to fit, to stand,
Happy to fill religion's vacant place
With hollow form and gefture and grimace.
Such, when the teacher of his church was there,
People and prieft, the fons of Ifrael were,
Stiff in the letter, lax in the defign
And import, of their oracles divine;
Their learning, legendary, falfe, 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 foft fummer airs,
Had grace for other fins, 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' aftonifh'd vulgar trembl'd while he tore
The mask from faces never feen before;
He ftripp'd th' impoftors in the noon-day fun,
Show'd that they follow'd all they feem'd to fhun,
Their pray'rs made public, their excesses kept
As private as the chambers where they flept;
The temple and its holy rites, profan'd,
By mumm'ries he that dwelt in it disdain'd;
Uplifted hands that at convenient times
Could 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 obftinacy once has conquer'd grace.
They faw distemper heal'd, and life reftor'd,
In answer to the fiat of his word;
Confefs'd the wonder, and with daring tongue,
Blafphem'd th' authority from which it sprung.
They knew by fure prognostics seen on high,
The future tone and temper of the sky,
But grave diffemblers, could not understand
That fin let loofe fpeaks punishment at hand.
Afk now of history's authentic page,
And call up evidence from ev'ry age,
Difplay with busy and laborious hand
The bleflings of the most indebted land,
What nation will you find, whose annals prove
So rich an int'reft in almighty love?
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 coft
Of all their hard oppreffors valued moft,
Their title to a country not their own,
Made fure by prodigies 'till then unknown;
For them, the ftate 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 fignal fummoning, when beft
Their hoft to move, and when it stay'd to reft.
For them the rocks diffolv'd into a flood,
The dews condens'd into angelic food.
Their very garments facred, old yet new,
And time forbid to touch them as he flew ;
Streams fwell'd above the bank, enjoin'd to ftand,
While they pafs'd through to their appointed land;
Their leader arm'd with meeknefs, zeal and love,
And grac'd with clear credentials from above,
Themselves fecur'd beneath th' Almighty wing,
Their God their captain, lawgiver and king;
Crown'd with a thoufand vict'ries, and at last
Lords of the conquer'd foil, there rooted fait,
In peace poffeffing what they won by war, Their name far publish'd and rever'd as far; Where will you find a race like theirs, endow'd With all that man e'er wish'd, or heav'n bestow'd? They and they only amongst all mankind Receiv'd the transcript of th' eternal mind, Were trufted with his own engraven laws, And conftituted guardians of his caufe; Theirs were the prophets, theirs the priestly call, And theirs by birth the Saviour of us all. In vain the nations that had feen them rife, With fierce and envious yet admiring eyes, Had fought to crush them, guarded as they were By power divine, and skill that could not err; Had they maintain'd allegiance firm and sure, And kept the faith immaculate and pure, Then the proud eagles of all-conqu❜ring Rome, Had found one city not to be o'ercome, And the twelve ftandards of the tribes unfurl'd, Had bid defiance to the warring world. But grace abus'd brings forth the fouleft d As richeft foils the most luxuriant weeds; Cur'd of the golden calves, their fathers fin, They fet up felf, that idol god within, View'd a Deliv'rer with difdain and hate, Who left them ftill a tributary state,
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