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All this without a glofs, or comment,
He could unriddle in a moment,

In proper terms, fuch as men fmatter,
When they throw out, and miss the matter.

For his Religion, it was fit

To match his learning and his wit:

'Twas Presbyterian, true blue,

For he was of that ftubborn crew

Of errant faints, whom all men grant

To be the true church militant:

Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controverfy by

Infallible artillery ;

And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apoftolic blows, and knocks;

185

190

195

200

Call fire, and fword, and defolation,

A godly-thorough-Reformation,

James Rojs sculp

Part 1. Canto 1. Line 192. & seq.

Dobson pinx!

Which always must be carry'd on,
And still be doing, never done:
As if Religion were intended

For nothing else but to be mended.
A fect, whofe chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies:
In falling out with that or this,
And finding fomewhat still amiss:

More peevish, cross, and splenetic,

205

210

Than dog distract, or monkey fick.
That with more care keep holy-day
The wrong, than others the right way:
Compound for fins they are inclin'd to,
By damning those they have no mind to:
Still so perverse and opposite,

As if they worship'd God for spite.
The self-fame thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for.

215

220

Free-will they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow.
All piety consists therein

In them, in other men all fin.
Rather than fail, they will defy

225

That which they love most tenderly ;
Quarrel with minc'd pies, and difparage
Their best and dearest friend—plumb-porridge;
Fat pig and goose itself oppose,

And blafpheme custard through the nose.
Th' apostles of this fierce religion,
Like Mahomet's, were afs and widgeon,

To whom our knight, by fast instinct

Of wit and temper, was fo linkt,

As if hypocrify and nonsense

Had got th' advowson of his conscience,

235

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