Again, my Howel, lend a patient ear
To a kind Friend, who only seems severe
To Lines uncolour’d with insnaring Art,
By Love inspir’d, and flowing from the Heart:
No soft Address shall sooth thy secret Pride,
No skilfull Flattery of thy weaker side,
But friendly Boldness thro’ the Verse be shewn,
Plain, honest Truth, and Roughness like thy own,
Roughness by none despis’d, by most rever’d,
By Fools avoided, and by Villains fear’d.

When first thy Ministerial Course began,
Thy Hand was against every Child of man;
And every Child of man in vain withstood
The Weapons, and the Battleaxe of GOD:
By Thee the Nations He to pieces broke,
By Thee to Sinners He in thunder spoke,
And pleas’d his Strength in weakness to make known,
Turn’d the infernal Kingdom upside down,
While thy glad Soul confess’d The Work was all his own.

Ah! wherefore is thy former Zeal decay’d,
What Delilah thy Secret hath betray’d,
And shorn thee of thy Strength? in what Disguise
Came the sly Fiend, to put out both thine eyes?
Who hath bewitch’d my old Companion, who?
Say, shall I drag him into open view?
The Matchiavilian Sorcerer uncase,
And shew my H[arri]s all the Monster’s Face?

No; let him rest for me, secure from blame,
And change his Shape, as often as his Name:
My Fellow-servant once, without my Hand
To his own Master let him fall, or stand:
Whatever call’d, to GOD I give him up,
Bishop, or Count, or Ordinary, or Pope,
Fair, foul, or doubtfull be his Character,
I spare him; for perhaps he was sincere.

Yet will I touch the Apple of his eye,
And tax his blood and wound Theology,
The childish, dark, materializing Plan,
Which swallows up the Godhead in the Man,
Confounds the Persons in the Great Three-One,
And quite absorbs the Father in the Son.
Or GOD the Father our “Pappa” shall be,
And GOD the H[oly] Ghost—a Monstrous SHE,
“Mother of Jeshua, our dear heart’s flamelein”
Our Everlasting GOD—“our Brother Lamblein!”
Such the Divinity, and such the Words
Wherewith their Teachers catch the Cross-air-birds,
Teachers, who in a lisping Child’s disguise,
To captivate their Hearts, put out their eyes;
Who banish Carnal Reason in disgrace,
But set up Carnal Nonsense in its place:
Nonsense in Rhyme, from Rhyme and Reason free,
Sad, doggrell Stuff, miscall’d Simplicity!
Larded with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew Scraps,
Discreetly chatter’d by the Cross-air-apes,
Who bowing to the dark mysterious Power,
The less they understand, admire the more.
So in a Sister-Church, that cannot err,
The Votaries their learned Suit prefer
Not help’d by Reason, but their Beads alone,
They pray, quite simple, in a Tongue unknown,

Mixing the Parrot’s with the Cuckow’s Note,
Implicitly devout, they pray by rote!
Sweet Innocents, whom the old Pontiff rules,
They offer GOD the Sacrifice of Fools,
Confirm the Brethren’s precedented Plea,
And justify their vain Battology.
“What is it that in all their meetings sounds?[”]
Wounds, wounds, and woundholes, nothing else but wounds
Scorn on the Saviour’s Blood they vilely bring,
And talk of it, as of a Common thing;
As Literally drank by them, and chew’d,
Gross, corporal, material Flesh and Blood;
As Christ after the Flesh were only known,
And known the’ Eternal GOD by Them alone;
Nor can He to a gasping Sinner give
A Grain of Faith, without The Brethren’s Leave.
THE Brethren They! the Children, and the Bride!
Servants and Legalists are all beside,
Nor find him, whom without the Pale they seek;
The Philadelphian Church, The Catholic,
[“]Lo! here is Christ, and no where else,[”] they cry,
[“]Find him with us, or in your Sins ye die.”
Die in our Sins? nay, that can never be;
The Devils shall be saved, and why not we?
“A private Doctrine that, to few made plain:”
Private; yet such as all their Guides maintain,
No matter what the Augsburg Dotards teach,
No matter what the old Apostles preach.

“The old Apostles[”] (trembling I pursue
The blasphemous Suggestions of the new)
Inspir’d, as we suppose, and taught of GOD,
Yet never knew, or rightly understood
The Count’s Theology of wounds and blood.
By their false Tricks, the honest Gentlemen
Cross cut the Cloth and marr’d the Saviour’s plan.
The Plan they mangled, and they spoilt the Cloth:
Who then can chuse but mock the cred’lous Bible-moth?

Yet spite of all the Brethren’s pious Pains
Our love for the old slighted Book remains:
Whether they pity, or expose our Foible,
Our superstitious Fondness for the Bible,
They cannot cure it yet, or disincumber
Our Head, and Conscience of its biblish Lumber,
And vainly for our blind Obedience look,
Unless we first deliver up The Book.
Their Rabbi cannot be by Us ador’d,
Who use our Reason, and hold fast the Word,
Who by the Sacred Oracles abide,
And only trust in One Unerring Guide:
Howe’er beset, insnar’d we shall not be
By cloudy Cant, or plain Obscenity,
Nor will receive, by whomsoe’er allow’d
“A sleeping, ignorant, adulterous God!”
But who can paint the Conjugal Intrigues,
The Secrets of the wallowing Cross-air-pigs?
Themselves their own Interpreters should be,
And comment on their marriage Mystery.
Yet O! the Text doth no Expounder need,
The shamefull meaning he who runs may read;
Too plain in their authentic Page it lies,
To shock the chast, and feed the wanton eyes,
Break down ingenuous Nature’s sacred Fence
And undermine her thoughtless Innocence;
To poison and corrupt the tender Mind,
No more in Bonds of Discipline confin’d,
To set frail Youth from Virtue’s Fetters free,
And wipe off all the Blush of Modesty.
Lo! they expose to view the naked Plan,
And dare proclaim “find fault with it who can!”
Of Honour destitute, but not of Pride,
The Veil of Decency they cast aside,
As Adamites despise our needless dress,
Our Superfluity of Bashfulness,
Which weakly to the Shades for Refuge flies;
Their Virtue scorns the Fig-leaves of Disguise,
In Filthiness their Virtue dwells secure
From Stain—for all things to the pure are pure.
What shall I do? declare it, or suppress
Their Scheme of consecrated Wantonness,
Which dares the Beastly Appetite inshrine,
And teaches us, that “Lust is all Divine!”
Lewdly restores the “Worship Conjugal”
Set up at Lampsacus, and hatch’d in Hell,
While Earth is shock’d, and Hell orejoy’d to hear
The horrid, execrable devilish Prayer!
In vain I would their “Vice-god Husband” hide,
Or draw the Veil they madly cast aside,
Who blasphemously glorying in their shame,
With harden’d Front on the House-top proclaim
What all the MITRED Heathen blush to name!

What could the Author of so foul a Scheme
Do more, to make the Infidel blaspheme?
To make Religion (by her Friends prophan’d,
Her sole Supporters) stink throughout the Land
To turn the Lame out of the Narrow Way,
The Souls of simple Innocents to slay,
Excite a Loathing of the Saviour’s Blood,
And force the World to cry “There is no GOD!”
How could the Leader of so wise a Sect
So long deceive, and captivate th’ Elect?
By what Inchantment, what Satanic Art
Steal, and detain my Howel’s upright Heart?
He could not keep thee, for a time misled,
Thy upright Heart hath rectified thy Head:
Prostrate to man Thou canst no longer fall,
Divinely taught the Saviour GOD to call
Thy Prophet, Priest, and King, thine all in all.
Didst Thou the Gift of Faith from Man receive,
Or by the German Ministry believe?
Reflect; the solemn Day recall to mind,
When the good Shepherd came his Stray to find:
His pitying eye thy helpless Soul pursued,
Polluted in its Sins and in its Blood,
Caught by his Wrath, with hellish Pains dismay’d
He saw thee prostrate at his Altar laid,
Nor could from thy Distress his Face avert,
But spake the sudden Pardon to thy Heart;
Thou didst the unexpected Grace receive,
And Mercy bad the Dying Sinner live.
O what a Flame within thy Bosom burn’d
When to Himself thy Heart the Saviour turn’d!

Thy Heart was simple Love, and pure Desire,
Thy Lips were touch’d with consecrated Fire,
Thy work was Publishing the Saviour’s Grace,
And all thy Life a Sacrifice of Praise.

Who with that Zeal thy fervent Spirit stirr’d?
Who thy Mouth open’d to dispense the Word?
A Messenger of joyfull Tidings made,
And bless’d thee with a Voice which woke the dead?
The Lord (let Him alone the glory have)
The Lord thy Gospel and Commission gave,
Himself, without the Help of man, reveal’d
His Spirit taught thee, and his Arm upheld.
No foreign Church did then thy Light supply,
Or added to thy powerfull Ministry:
No Tempter then with soft persuasive Art
From thy old Mother stole thine honest Heart:
No Man of Sin, above the Scripture wise,
With childish Gibberish charm’d thy dazzled eyes.
Or in foul Phrase audaciously exprest
Ideas foul—the Language of the Beast!
But Jesus did his prosperous Servant own
And thy Sufficiency was all from GOD alone.

Then let the Lord thy GOD be still thy Guide,
And cast thy German Oracles aside,
Wise to untwist the Evil from the Good,
Abhor the Poison, and admit the Food,
The Upright own, the Hypocrite reject,
But shake off all the Spirit of their Sect,
Their Yoke shake off, assert thy Liberty,
And in thy former Calling live, and die.

So may the Lord thy Usefulness restore,
Thy true Simplicity, and gracious Power,
With all Increase of Good thy Soul increase,
With all his Plenitude of Blessings bless;
So may thy latest Works thy first exceed,
While thousand Saints with Harris at their head,
Fight their way thro’ to the Eternal Throne,
And seize the glorious Kingdom for their own,
And all the Hosts of GOD are swallow’d up in One.