An Answer to WILD. OR, A POEM, Upon the Imprisonment of Robert Wild D. D. in Cripplegate.
DEar Friend and
Brother in the flesh this
page
I send thee
lying, in the
Cripple's Cage:
Not that I Envie, but
Rejoyce that we
Are
Fellow-feelers of one
Misery.
Old
Bishop Gout, by's Officer
Old Ale,
Hath sent thee limping to the
Black pot Goal:
But (
fie, that
Saints each other should abuse
So much ith' thing they all so often use?)
As I was
Preaching on the
secret point
Of
Venery, I did but slip a
joint
Too far, when straight old
Bishop pox, cry'd cease,
You do encroach upon my
Diocess,
Since which I have so rattled in the
Nose,
That all the
disaffected do suppose
It, as a
scandal to the
Brethren, and say
The
Presbyterian Tone first came that way:
Some call me
Popish Prelat, and protest,
My
No-nose is the onely
mark o'th'
beast.
Dear
brother, thus our punishments agree;
There is more difference 'twixt
Calamy
And you: some
Doctors hold ours be the same,
And that the
Pox as well as
Gout you claim.
But I am silent; though you roar your
Gout;
Saints should be wiser then to bring all out.
Yet why should we rail at the
Bishops? Can
You blame the Ingenuous
Husbandman,
For weeding his Corn, for driving to Pound
The Cattle which do trespass on his ground?
Had we not medled with
forbidden things,
Nor broke the just
Commandement of Kings,
But stickled for the
Churches settlement,
As much as we did for the
Covenant,
We made to break it; then your
State, our
Name
Of
Saints had shined with eternal same,
Baxter should then have been the
burning light,
For men to see to
pray by, not to
fight.
Could we disgarison the
Scottish Divel,
Be
Nonconformists only unto Evil;
Repent of false Oaths, lies, Rebellion, swear
Conformity to
God, and's
House of Prayer;
Then
Calamy should ne'r be th'
fixed Star
In
New gate Hell, but in the Hemisphere;
Nor
Wild a poor
Erratick finding no
place
For's Family, nor yet it seems for
Grace:
Thou
Gouty Goal-bird, could thy
red-fac'd-Muse
No other stuff into thy
Pate infuse,
Than
Libelling? Can
Nonconformists be
So
Conformable to iniquitie?
VVell hast thou said,
These Presbyterian Kis-sl-aves
Will ne'r leave back-biting, though in their Graves:
Their
Preaching is no better, and their
Prayers
Do nought but set's together by the ears:
Pull down, set up, set up, pull down's the cry.
Which flows
still from ne'r
still Presbytery.
Let
Egypt's plagues be mentioned no more,
One
Presbyter's more mischief than a score;
If
Puritans instead of Frogs had fell,
Pharaoh at first had let go
Israel.
Like Satan's
It is written, they can bring
A Text of
Scripture for the greatest
Sin.
But prithee what
Wild fancy made thee
rime,
That
lurching of a
Sermon is the
Crime
Canonical? Alas, didst ever know,
The
Gospel-fighting Ministers do so?
The
Lords Prayer and the
Common Prayer they hate,
Because not forg'd in a
Presbyterian pate:
So have I seen
Bears lick their
Whelps and roar
At purer Beasts; thus
Babylons old Whore,
Swadling her
Bastard-children, doth deny
An Entertainment to
chast honesty.
Is
Preaching down, and silenced because
The
Presbyters mayn't bawl against the Laws?
Nor rail at
Church and
State, nor bait the
King
With
Pulpit-bulls, like
Dogs a
Bear-baiting.
So
Wranglers, Cheats, and
Cozeners may say,
'Cause they shut out,
fair Gamesters do not play:
So
Quacksalvers and
Mountebanks proclaim,
No Physick's like to theirs, though of the same,
Once come to hear and they shall understand,
There ne'r was better
Preaching in the Land,
Nor
Prayers so well compos'd with
words & matter,
(Not like unto the
Puritanick Chatter)
Where
Hum, ha, and
Oh bear all the
sway,
And true
Devotion is a
Cast-away.
But cease my
Muse, the
Presbyterian See
Will fall with weight of it's own
Villany:
FINIS.