Classic Poem

When Temples lye like batter'd Quarrs,
Rich in their ruin'd Sepulchers,
When Saints forsake their painted Glasse
To meet their worship as they passe,
When Altars grow luxurious with the dye
Of humane bloud,
Is this the floud
Of Christianity?

When Kings are cup-boarded like cheese,
Sights to be seen for pence a piece,
When Dyadems, like Brokers tire,
Are custom'd reliques set to hire,
When Soveraignty & Scepters loose their names,
Stream'd into words,
Carv'd out by swords
Are these refining flames?

When Subjects and Religion stir
Like Meteors in the Metaphor,
When zealous hinting and the yawn
Excize our Miniver and Lawn;
When blue digressions fill the troubled ayr,
And th' Pulpit's let
To every Set
That will usurp the Chair?

Call ye me this the night's farewell,
When our noon day's as dark as Hell?
How can we lesse than term such lights
Ecclesiastick Heteroclites?
Bold sons of Adam when in fire you crawl,
Thus high to be,
Perch'd on the tree,
Remember but the fall.

Was it the glory of a King
To make him great by suffering?
Was there no way to build God's House
But rendring of it infamous?
If this be then the merry ghostly trade?
To work in gall?
Pray take it all
Good brother of the blade.

Call it no more the Reformation,
According to the new translation:
Why will you wrack the common brain
With words of an unwonted strain?
As Plunder? or a phrase in senses cleft?
When things more nigh
May well supply
And call it down-right theft.

Here all the School-men and Divines
Consent, and swear the naked lines
Want no expounding or contest,
Or Bellarmine to break a jest.
Since then the Heroes of the pen with me
Nere scrue the sense
With difference,
We all agree agree.