Partridge's Advice To the PROTESTANTS of ENGLAND.
NOW, to your cost, you see with grief and tears,
The tricking Shams of the proceeding Years:
You that now see, scorn'd to believe it then
Impos'd upon, even by the worst of Men.
Now hang your Freedom on each Villains Sword;
Cheated your selves, taking your Princes Word.
Thus folly still helps to compeeat your fate:
And all that can be said, You Repent to late.
But, come, chear up, Heaven will relieve your need;
'Tis from that Throne, your happy Fates decreed.
He had his orders then to spare you too:
A
[...]
[...]ipping is the Scholars due.
The troops of Gods are brought you to carress:
The dextrous Arts of Priests and Idleness.
Religions scandal, to encrease Rome
's store;
Which Fools believe, and mad Men do adore.
Tricks made by Priests, the Ignorant to surprise.
Who Sacred Writ and Reason do despise:
But you know better, and have oft been told
Of those damn'd Cheats, you know they want your Gold.
Preserve your Faith, your Ancestors have won:
You know the Truth, the Mistick Three in One.
Stoop not to Idols, nor lay Reason by.
Give not your Faith up, nor yet tamely die.
The Sun will rise, the Actors fill the Stage:
And One and Twenty Months is not an Age.
Therefore be Wise, attend the Hand Divine,
Till the still Voice gives you the Sacred Sign.
I.
TOuch't with a teeming strain of
English growth,
My burning Muse into a flame breaks forth
In Sacred Passions, scorns to be afraid
Of those vast Murders pious
Rome hath made.
A gracious Mother, merciful and good,
Her Thoughts are murder, and her Bosom's blood.
II.
The
Priests of
Rome are like their Mother true,
Lazy and Letcherous, yet Obedient too;
Furnish'd with all the Vice that Nature gives:
They are the only
Epicures that lives.
Yet they converse with God, disperse their Powers,
Confess your Wives, and also get you Heirs.
III.
Of all the Arts the Devil yet made choice,
This thing of
Popery was his Master-piece.
For in revenge with Heaven, being at ods,
He taught the
Papists how to
Eat their Gods.
Then 'twould not be amiss, since thus they do,
To make clear work, and
Eat the Devil too.
IV.
Can you forswear your Faith, give God the lye,
Cant with a
Priest, and lay your Reason by:
Lay down your Wealth to serve the Church & they
That suck your Blood, when they pretend to Pray?
Can ye be
Priest-rid, and be aw'd by Threats?
Can ye believe a Crew of Pious Cheats?
V.
Can ye believe a little Dow-bak'd God,
A Conjuring Bell, and a
Good-Friday Rod,
A Lying Legend, and a Priestly Curse,
A Dish of Holy-water, and a Cross?
When
Rome grows Rampant, Hell it self contrives.
When
Satan Preacheth,
Belzebub believes.
VI.
What Man can think the
Inquisition good,
When
Church-men wash their Hands in
Lay-mens Blood?
Can ye adore a Cross, be damn'd in Jest,
Cheat all your Senses, and believe a
Priest?
Heretick can't believe, ye're only fit.
True slaves to
Rome will never question it.
VII.
Should but a
Priest say to his Zealot, Go
Murder that
Heretick: it must be so;
He dares not ask the Reason: goes his ways,
The Father says it; and the Fool obeys.
What Man of Sense, but must amazed stand,
To see Fools act, what Bloody Rogues command?
VIII.
Consider
France and
Spain, see what's there done;
Under what Plagues those
Neighbouring Nations groan.
And all this done by
Holy Churches care:
For where
Priests sway, be sure oppressions there.
Priest! P— on the name, I loath the very smell:
They'r wretched things, scarce good enough for Hell.
IX.
The Flux of Fate, that gives us hopes and fears,
Sets
Rome in Triumph;
London all in Tears.
That Brood, by Flames, that made your City rue,
Will, if they can, next burn your Bodies too.
Rome's Bloody Bigots,
Londons Fate once chang'd;
Yet of a Crew of Rogues, but one Fool hang'd.
X.
Apostate Church; a Faith built up in Blood.
A lazy
Priest, a little sensless God.
All their Religions Lyes: its proofs a sin.
When Scripture fails, then Miracles come in.
Yet nee'r forget, nor it forgive them Knaves,
While Martyr'd
Godfrey's Blood for Vengeance craves.
XI.
Creation, What is that? What Noyse ye make?
The Thing's not strange that Priests do undertake;
Nay, and do more, the Church hath here the odds,
God made but Man, but now the
Priests make Gods.
Never be bubled by a
Popish Lye,
Rather than that, resolve Revenge, and dye.
XII.
Let not
Rom's Court,
Hozo proud, e're expect
On
English Men her lawless Laws t' erect;
Nor let the
Popish-brood think to controul
One single Attom of a true
English Soul:
God loaths their Worship, they hate Holy Writ,
We hate their Faith, Hell waits to punish it.