Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FAMILIAR EPISTLES TO A FRIEND: 6, by JOHN BYROM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FAMILIAR EPISTLES TO A FRIEND: 6, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: By 'reformation from the church of rome'
Last Line: May be the subject of succeeding rhimes.
Subject(s): Bible; Books; Christianity; Churches; Learning; Religious Reformers; Religious Education; Wisdom; Reading; Cathedrals; Sunday Schools; Yeshivas; Parochial Schools


BY "reformation from the Church of Rome"
We mean, "from faults and errors," I presume;
Against her truths to prosecute a war
Is protestant aversion push'd too far:
In them, should ease and honour not attend
The fair profession, one should be her friend.

She thinks that Christ has given to his bride,
His holy church, an ever-present Guide;
By whose divine assistance, she has thought,
That miracles sometimes were really wrought;
That, by the virtue which His gifts inspire,
Great Saints and martyrs have adorn'd her choir.
Now say the worst that ever can be said,
Of that corruption which might overspread
This church in gen'ral—cast at her the stone,
They who possess perfection in their own;
Yet, were instructive volumes to enlarge
On bright exceptions to the gen'ral charge,
They that love truth wherever it is found,
Would joy to see it, ev'n in Romish ground;
Where, if corruption grew to such a size,
The more illustrious must examples rise
Of life and manners—these, you will agree,
Are true reformers, wheresoe'er they be.

Of all the churches, (justly loth to claim
Exclusive title to a sacred name,)
What one, I ask, has ever yet denied
The inspiration of the promis'd Guide?
Our own—to which the def'rence that is due,
Forbids no just respect for others too—
Believes, asserts, that what reform she made
Was not without the Holy Spirit's aid:
If to expect His gifts, however great,
Be popish and fanatical deceit,
She, in her offices of ev'ry kind,
Has also been fanatically blind.
What form of her composing can we trace
Without a pray'r for His unstinted grace?
Taught, by the sacred volumes, to infer
A Saviour's promise reaching down to her,
Greatly she values the recording books;
But, for fulfilling, in herself she looks.

That she may always think aright, and act
By God's Good Spirit, is her prayed-for fact;
Without his grace, confessing, as she ought,
Her inability of act or thought:
Nor does she fear fanatical pretence,
When asking aid in a sublimer sense;
Where she records among the martyr'd host,
A Stephen—filled with the Holy Ghost—
She prays for that same plenitude of aid,
By which the martyr for his murd'rers pray'd;
That she, like him, in what she undergoes,
May love and bless her persecuting foes.

Did but one spark of so supreme a grace
Burn in the breast when preaching is the case,
How would a priest, unpersecuted, dare
To treat, when mounted on a sacred chair,
A church of Christ, or any single soul,
By will enlisted on the Christian roll,
With such a prompt and contumelious ire,
As love nor blessing ever could inspire?

Altho' untouch'd with the celestial Flame,
How could an English priest mistake his aim?
So far forget the maxims that appear
Throughout his church's Liturgy so clear?
Wherein the Spirit's ever constant aid,
Without a feign'd distinction, is display'd;
Without a rash attempting to explain,
By limitations foolish and profane,
When, and to whom, to what degree and end,
God's graces, gifts, and pow'rs were to extend;
So far withdrawn—that christians must allow
Of nothing extra-ordinary, now:
The vain distinction, which the world has found,
To fix an unintelligible bound
To gospel promise, equally sublime,
Nor limited by any other time
Than that, when want of faith, when earthly will,
Shall hinder heav'n's intentions to fulfill.

If, not confining any promis'd pow'rs,
The Romish church be faulty, what is ours?
Does our own church, in her ordaining day
Does any consecrating Bishop say,
When on the future priest his hand is laid,
"Receive the Spirit's ordinary aid?"
Do awful words—receive the Holy Ghost—
Imply that He abides in books the most?
Books—which the Spirit who first rul'd the hand,
They say themselves, must teach to understand.

His inspiration without limits too,
All churches own, whatever preachers do:
Not even miracles, tho' set aside
In private books, has any church denied:
How weak the proofs, which this discourse has brought,
To justify the fashionable thought,
That gospel promises of any kind,
By Spirit or by scripture are confin'd
To apostolic or to later times,
May be the subject of succeeding rhimes.





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