Classic Poem

To thee my uprightness is known,
Who hast appointed me to own
Thy sacred Faiths defence;
O let me not of thee forlorn,
Against my Conscience be ore-born
By floods of violence.

Up Lord, in thine own cause arise;
Lest Schism make thy Church its prize,
And trample on her pow'r;
From thee continued to our time,
When Wealth is made her fatall crime;
Her sin is her fair Dow'r.

Whom, some have plunderd, others wound,
The rest deserted as they found,
Or in her sufferings joy:
May I her hurts, and wants relieve,
The power which I from thee receive:
Teach me for thee t'imploy.

To her that love be still sustain'd,
I owe as Christian, though restrain'd
As King from all my right;
The bounties on thy Church displaid:
By providence, let none invade,
With sacrilegious might.

Forgive their Errour, and their Sin,
Who wrought thy sufferance to let in
Sly Foxes and wild Boars,
To lay that goodly Vineyard wast,
Which thy right hand in planting grac'd,
Watred with heavenly showers.

Oh! never let such Infamy,
Brand my clear Name, as to agree
T'oppose the Church and those,
Whose Errours I should rather hide:
With silence, or with meekness chide,
Than to contempt expose.

The wrongs which with thy Church I bear,
And for her sake, to thee appear:
Hast, Lord, to set us free,
From ravenous men of reason void:
Who have old Bounds of Peace destroi'd,
To let in Heresie.

Thou God of Peace and Order, quell
The malice of our Foes, dispell
Their black devices, then
May we, who in thy Church delight,
The wonders of thy Prayse recite,
Before the Sons of men.