With papers in their hats, that show'd
As if they to the pillory rode?
Have all these courses, these efforts,
Been try'd by people of all sorts,620
Velis et remis, omnibus nervis,[1]
And all t' advance the Cause's service,
And shall all now be thrown away
In petulant intestine fray?
Shall we, that in the Cov'nant swore,625
Each man of us to run before
Another[2] still in Reformation,
Give dogs and bears a dispensation?
How will dissenting brethren relish it?
What will Malignants[3] say? videlicet,630
That each man swore to do his best,
To damn and perjure all the rest;
And bid the devil take the hin'most.
Which at this race is like to win most.
They'll say, our bus'ness to reform635
The Church and State is but a worm;
For to subscribe, unsight, unseen,[4]
T' an unknown Church's discipline,
What is it else, but, before-hand,
T' engage, and after understand?640
For when we swore to carry on
The present Reformation,
According to the purest mode
Of Churches best reform'd abroad,[5]
What did we else but make a vow645
To do, we knew not what, nor how?
- ↑ That is, with all their might. See Bohn's Dictionary of Latin Quotations.
- ↑ This was a common phrase in those days, particularly with the zealous preachers, and is inserted in the Solemn League and Covenant.
- ↑ The name given to the king's party by the parliament.
- ↑ This refers to the haste with which the nation was made to "engage" in the Solemn League and Covenant, as the price of the assistance of the Scotch army on the parliament's side.
- ↑ The Presbyterians pretended to desire such a reformation as had taken place in the neighbouring Churches; the king offered to invite any Churches to a National Synod, and could not even obtain an answer to the proposal.
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