The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 10Dryden, John
Religion
The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 10
Dryden, John
English literature
To take up half on trust, and half to try,
Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry;
Both knave and fool the merchant we may call,
To pay great sums, and to compound the small;
For who would break with heaven, and would not break for all?
This heretical belief was adopted by the Protestants of Poland and of
Hungary, especially those who were about this time in arms under Count
Teckeli against the emperor. Hence Dryden bids the Fox,
Unkennelled, range in thy Polonian plains.
Note VII.
_Let them declare by what mysterious arts
He shot that body through the opposing might,
Of bolts and bars, impervious to the light,
And stood before his train confessed in open sight._--P. 122.
"Then the same day, at evening, being the first day of the week, when
the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the
Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be
unto you."
Again, "And after eight days, again his disciples were within, and
Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in
the midst, and said, Peace be unto you."--_The Gospel of St John_,
chap. xx. verses 19. 26.
From these passages of Scripture, Dryden endeavours to confute the
objection to transubstantiation, founded on the host being consecrated
in various places at the same time, in each of which, however, the
body of Christ becomes present, according to the Papist doctrine.
This being predicated of the real body of our Saviour, the Protestants
allege is impossible, as matter can only be in one place at the same
time. Dryden, in answer, assumes, that Christ entered into the meeting
of the disciples, by actually passing through the closed doors of the
apartment; and as, at the moment of such passage, two bodies must have
been in the same place at the same instant, the body of Jesus namely,
and the substance through which he passed, the poet founds on it as an
instance of a transgression of a natural law, proved from Scripture, as
violent as that of one body being in several different places at once.
But the text does not prove the major part of Dryden's proposition; it
is not stated positively by the evangelist, that our Saviour passed
_through_ the doors which were shut, but merely that he _came and stood
among his disciples_ without the doors being opened; which miraculous
appearance might take place many ways besides that on which Dryden has
fixed for the foundation of his argument.
Note VIII.
_More haughty than the rest, the Wolfish race}
Appears with belly gaunt, and famished face; }
Never was so deformed a beast of grace. }
His ragged tail betwixt his legs he wears,
Close clapped for shame; but his rough crest he rears,
And pricks up his predestinating ears._--P. 124.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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