We take the unuseful scaffolding away. Reason by sense no more can understand; The game is played into another hand. Why chuse we then like bilanders[105] to creep} Along the coast, and land in view to keep, } When safely we may launch into the deep? } In the same vessel, which our Saviour bore, } Himself the pilot, let us leave the shore, } And with a better guide a better world explore.} Could he his Godhead veil with flesh and blood, And not veil these again to be our food? His grace in both is equal in extent, The first affords us life, the second nourishment. And if he can, why all this frantic pain, } To construe what his clearest words contain,} And make a riddle what he made so plain? } 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?} Rest then, my soul, from endless anguish freed; Nor sciences thy guide, nor sense thy creed. Faith is the best ensurer of thy bliss; The bank above must fail, before the venture miss. But heaven and heaven-born faith are far from thee, Thou first apostate to divinity. Unkennelled range in thy Polonian plains; A fiercer foe the insatiate Wolf remains. Too boastful Britain, please thyself no more, That beasts of prey are banished from thy shore; The bear, the boar, and every savage name, Wild in effect, though in appearance tame, Lay waste thy woods, destroy thy blissful bower, And, muzzled though they seem, the mutes devour. 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 clap'd for shame; but his rough crest he rears,} And pricks up his predestinating ears.[106] } His wild disordered walk, his hagard eyes, Did all the bestial citizens surprise. Though feared and hated, yet he ruled a while, As captain or companion of the spoil. Full many a year his hateful head had been For tribute paid, nor since in Cambria seen; The last of all the litter 'scaped by chance, And from Geneva first infested France. Some authors thus his pedigree will trace, But others write him of an upstart race; Because of Wickliffe's brood no mark he brings, But his innate antipathy to kings. These last deduce him from the Helvetian kind, Who near the Leman-lake his consort lined; That fiery Zuinglius first the affection bred, And meagre Calvin blest the nuptial bed. In Israel some believe him whelped long since, When the proud sanhedrim oppressed the prince; Or, since he will be Jew, derive him higher,