Our schismatics so vastly differ,
Th' hotter they're they grow the stiffer ;
Still setting off their fp'ritual goods
With fierce and pertinacious feuds :
For zeal's a dreadful termagant,
That teaches faints to tear and rant,
And independents to profefs
The doctrine of Dependences;
Turns meek, and fecret, sneaking ones,
To raw heads fierce, and bloody bones;
And not content with endless quarrels
Against the wicked and their morals,
The Gibellines, for want of Guelfs,
Divert their rage upon themselves.
For now the war is not between
The brethren and the men of sin,
But faint and faint to spill the blood
Of one another's brotherhood,
Where neither fide can lay pretence
To liberty of conscience,
Or zealous fuff'ring for the cause,
To gain one groat 's worth of applause ;
For tho' endur'd with refolution,
"Twill ne'er amount to perfecution;
Shall precious faints, and secret ones,
Break one another's outward bones,
And eat the flesh of brethren,
Instead of kings and mighty men?
When fiends agree among themselves,
Shall they be found the greater elves?
When Bell's at union with the dragon,
And Baal Peor friends with Dagon;
When favage bears agree with bears,
Shall fecret ones lug faints by th' ears,
And not atone their fatal wrath,
When common danger threatens both?
Shall mastiffs, by the collars pull'd,
Engag'd with bulls, let go their hold,
And faints, whose necks are pawn'd at stake,
No notice of the danger take ;
But tho' no pow'r of heav'n or hell
Can pacify fanatic zeal,
Who would not guess there might be hopes 715
The fear of gallowfes and ropes,
Before their eyes might reconcile
Their animofities awhile.
At least, until they 'ad a clear stage,
And equal freedom to engage,
Without the danger of surprise
By both our common enemies?
This none but we alone could doubt, Who understood their workings-out,
And know 'em both in foul and conscience, 725 Giv'n up t' as reprobate a nonsense
As fpiritual out-laws, whom the pow'r
Of miracle can ne'er restore.
We, whom at first they set up under,
In revelation only of plunder,
Who fince have had so many trials
Of their encroaching self-denials,
That rook'd upon us with design
To out-reform and undermine;
Took all our int'refts and commands
Perfidiously out of our hands :
Involv'd us in the guilt of blood,
Without the motive gains allow'd,
And made us ferve as ministerial,
Like younger fons of Father Belial.
And yet, for all th' inhuman wrong
Th' had done us, and the cause so long,
We never fail'd to carry on
The work still, as we had begun :
But true and faithfully obey'd,
And neither preach'd them hurt, nor pray'd;
Nor troubled them to crop our ears,
Nor hang us, like the cavaliers;
Nor put them to the charge of jails,
To find us pill'ries and carts-tails,
Or hang-man's wages, which the state
Was forc'd, before them, to be at;
That cut, like tallies, to the ftumps,
Our ears for keeping true accompts,
And burnt our veffels, like a new-
Seal'd peck, or bushel, for being true.
But hand in hand, like faithful brothers,
Held forth the cause against all others,
Difdaining equally to yield,
One fyllable of what we held.
And though we differ'd now and then
'Bout outward things, and outward men,
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