Can govern that aright but God alone. Nor can a well-informed conscience lower Her sails to any temporary power, Or bow to men’s decrees; for that would be Treason in a superlative degree; For God alone can laws to conscience give, And that’s a badge of His prerogative. This is the controversy of this day Between the holy God and sinful clay. God hath throughout the earth proclaim’d that He Will over conscience hold the sovereignty, That He the kingdom to Himself will take, And in man’s heart His residence will make, From whence His subjects shall such laws receive As please His Royal Majesty to give. Man heeds not this, but most audaciously Says, “Unto me belongs supremacy; And all men’s consciences within my land, Ought to be subject unto my command.” God by His Holy Spirit doth direct His people how to worship; and expect Obedience from them. Man says: “I ordain, That none shall worship in that way, on pain Of prison, confiscation, banishment, Or being to the stake or gallows sent.” God out of Babylon doth people call, Commands them to forsake her ways, and all Her several sorts of worship, to deny Her whole religion as idolatry. Will man thus his usurped power forego, And lose his ill-got government? Oh no: But out comes his enacted, be it “That all Who when the organs play will not downfall Before this golden image, and adore What I have caused to be set up therefor, Into the fiery furnace shall be cast, And be consumed with a flaming blast. Or in the mildest terms conform, or pay So much a month or so much every day, Which we will levy on you by distress, Sparing nor widow nor the fatherless; And if you have not what will satisfy, Ye’re like in prison during life to lie.” Christ says, swear not; but man says, “Swear [or lie] In prison, premunired, until you die.” Man’s ways are, in a word, as opposite To God’s as midnight darkness is to light; And yet fond man doth strive with might and main By penal laws God’s people to constrain To worship what, when, where, how he thinks fit, And to whatever he enjoins, submit. What will the issue of this contest be? Which must give place—the Lord’s or man’s decree? Will man be in the day of battle found Able to keep the field, maintain his ground, Against the mighty God? No more than can The lightest chaff before the winnowing fan; No more than straw could stand before the flame, Or smallest atoms when a whirlwind came. The Lord, who in creation only said, “Let us make man,” and forthwith man was made, Can in a moment by one blast of breath Strike all mankind with an eternal death. How soon can God all man’s devices squash, And with His iron rod in pieces dash Him, like a potter’s vessel? None can stand Against the mighty power of His hand.