Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

Even now is your church undermin'd
With PRIESTLEY'S polemical nitre : *
Which, exploded, you'll presently find
The red night-cap † take place of the mitre.

justly celebrated Cooks of Colnbrook, if they are yet in being, will surrender with pleasure to the Archimagiri Gallici those heroi-culinary titles under which themselves have figured in the old catch with such meritorious distinction.

There was Slice-cook, and Hash-cook, &c. &c.

* We are, as it were, laying gunpowder, grain by grain, under the old building of error and superstition, which a single spark may hereafter inflame, so as to produce an instantaneous explosion, in consequence of which, that Edifice, the erection of which has been the work of ages, may be overturned in a moment, and so effectually, as that the same foundation can never be built upon again.

Priestley's Import. of Free Enquiry in Matters of Religion, p. 40.

I rejoice to see the warmth with which the cause of orthodoxy, that is, long established opinions, however erroneous, and that of the hierarchy, is now taken up by its friends; because, if their system be not well founded, they are only accelerating its destruction. In fact, they are assisting Me in the proper disposal of those trains of gunpowder which have been some time accumulating, and at which they have taken so great an alarm, and which will certainly blow it up at length as suddenly, as unexpectedly, and as completely as the overthrow of the late arbitrary government in France.-Priestley.

+ The Cap of Liberty with which, Fennel tells us (p. 25,) the devout Parisian reformers have decorated the images of our

As sure as his regimen works,

From old orthodox leaven 'twill purge ye;
And of Hebrews,* Dissenters, and Turks,
Make right apostolical clergy.

Strike the flint of his heart on the steel
Of freedom; lawn sleeves be the tinder :
Well brimstone your match with his zeal,
And again make St. Paul's a huge cinder: †
Rare news for the Shade of good PRICE !‡
With joy he will sing like a throstle :

Saviour in their churches.-It was brought into fashion by the
Jacobin Club: a red thrum cap-without ears or bells.

See Preface to that excellent story, "The Monkies in Red Caps." Addressed to the Jacolins.—Debrett, 1792.

* I am told that the sons of Jew-jobbers have been made bishops; persons not to be suspected of any Christian supertition. Burke.

+ Consumed formerly in the fire of London.

How ought we then to be affected, who firmly believe, that in so short a space of time, (i. e. about fourteen or twenty years, agreeably to a previous accurate calculation,) we may see our deceased friend again, and be able to tell him, what he will be as eager to learn, how those things, about which he most interested himself, went on after his death; and such is the prospect now opening before us, respecting the enlargement of civil and religious liberty, that the longest liver will have the best news to carry him.

Priestley's Sermon on the Death of Dr. Price.

So let PERIGORD*

post with advice,

To exhilarate Freedom's Apostle.+

Then serve up a dish piping hot

Of the calves heads that govern the nation;
And reviving Guy Vaux's old plot,

By murder effect reformation:

Lords and Commons exalt to the skies,

Taught by PRIESTLEY new flights of devotion,
When both Houses together shall rise,

And each member at once make a motion.

His Birmingham thunder shall 'wake
Those blind watchmen ‡ your bishops suffragan,

* M. Talleyrand-Perigord, ancien Evêque d'Autun, who testified his extraordinary affection for the Sacred order, by recommending the confiscation of the French clergy; and who (after the refusal of all the ancient prelates, not excepting the arch apostate of Sens) readily afforded his ministry in consecrating the new constitutional bishops. The Convention, which he has lately deserted, having no farther occasion for his services above ground, he cannot be better disposed of than in an embassy ad inferos.

+ The most august assembly in the world, by which I wish to be understood the National Assembly of France, have justly styled him (Dr. Price) the Apostle of Freedom.

Priestley's Sermon on the Death of Dr. Price, p. 8. His watchmen are blind :-they are all ignorant,-sleeping,

And the pillars of monarchy shake;
PAINE calls it the Temple of Dagon:
Like a Sampson + he lustily strains

To pull down that pile Antichristian,

Which shall tumble, and beat out the brains
Of each aristocratic Philistine.

For instruction repair to PAINE's school,
And observe what a picture he'll draw,
Of a Brother of Mahomet's Mule,

Call'd "The Church as establish'd by Law;" +
By the Hierarchy 'got on the State

That with fishes and loaves loads his crupper,

lying down, loving to slumber. Isaiah, lxvi. 10.—A prophetic passage which charitable dissenters aver to be typical of the orthodox tranquillity of our right reverend bench.

* Sampson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood-and he bowed himself with all his might, and the house fell upon the Lords, &c. Judges, xvi. 29, 30.

+ By engendering the church with the state, a sort of Mule animal, capable only of destroying, and not breeding up, is produced, called, The Church established by Law. It is a stranger, even from its birth, to any parent mother on which it is begotten, and whom in time it kicks out and destroys.

Paine's Rights of Man, p. 81.

While Sectaries squint at the bait,

And get nothing but kicks for their supper.*

Nor believe the assertion that those

Who would level the altar and throne,
Who all faith and allegiance oppose,

No religion can have of their own:
For David describ'd long ago

Some lambs of this very same fold,
Whose religion was Rapine, I trow,
Since their idols were silver and gold.” ↑

Some that with coin to supply us,

say

The spoils of the church we engross,

And as for our churchmen so pious,

Neither pile we have left them, nor cross;†

* Peace is the cure of fanaticism, as fanaticism is the bane of peace. Sectaries must either kick or be kicked. They must either persecute, or they must provoke persecution. To be in this turbulent state is living in their proper element.

Psalm cxxxv. ver. 15.

Warburton on Grace, p. 136.

Whackum had neither cross nor pile,

His plunder was not worth the while.

Hudibras.

Your assembly tells the people that they have brought the Church to its primitive condition. In one respect their declara

« VorigeDoorgaan »