Resolutions
by
PASSED AT A LATE MEETING OF REVERENDS AND RIGHT REVERENDS.
Resolved–to stick to every particle
Of every Creed and every Article;
Reforming naught, or great or little,
We’ll stanchly stand by every tittle,
And scorn the swallow of that soul
Which cannot boldly bolt the whole.[1]
Resolved that tho’ St. Athanasius
In damning souls is rather spacious–
Tho’ wide and far his curses fall,
Our Church “hath stomach for them all;”
And those who’re not content with such,
May e’en be damned ten times as much.
Resolved–such liberal souls are we–
Tho’ hating Nonconformity,
We yet believe the cash no worse is
That comes from Nonconformist purses.
Indifferent whence the money reaches
The pockets of our reverend breeches,
To us the Jumper’s jingling penny
Chinks with a tone as sweet as any;
And even our old friends Yea and Nay
May thro’ the nose for ever pray,
If also thro’ the nose they’ll pay.
Resolved that Hooper,[2] Latimer,[3]
And Cranmer,[4] all extremely err,
In taking such a low-bred view
Of what Lords Spiritual ought to do:–
All owing to the fact, poor men,
That Mother Church was modest then,
Nor knew what golden eggs her goose,
The Public, would in time produce.
One Pisgah peep at modern Durham
To far more lordly thoughts would stir ’em.
Resolved that when we Spiritual Lords
Whose income just enough affords
To keep our Spiritual Lordships cosey,
Are told by Antiquarians prosy
How ancient Bishops cut up theirs,
Giving the poor the largest shares–
Our answer is, in one short word,
We think it pious but absurd.
Those good men made the world their debtor,
But we, the Church reformed, know better;
And taking all that all can pay,
Balance the account the other way.
Resolved our thanks profoundly due are
To last month’s Quarterly Reviewer,
Who proves by arguments so clear
(One sees how much he holds per year)
That England’s Church, tho’ out of date,
Must still be left to lie in state,
As dead, as rotten and as grand as
The mummy of King Osymandyas,
All pickled snug–the brains drawn out–
With costly cerements swathed about,–
And “Touch me not,” those words terrific,
Scrawled o’er her in good hieroglyphic.
NOTES:
[1] One of the questions propounded to the Puritans in 1573 was–“Whether the Book of Service was good and godly, every tittle grounded on the Holy Scripture?” On which an honest Dissenter remarks–“Surely they had a wonderful opinion of their Service Book that there was not a tittle amiss, in it.”
[2] “They,” the Bishops, “know that the primitive Church had no such Bishops. If the fourth part of the bishopric remained unto the Bishop, it were sufficient.”–On the Commandments, p. 72.
[3] “Since the Prelates were made Lords and Nobles, the plough standeth, there is no work done, the people starve.”–Lat. Serm.
[4] “Of whom have come all these glorious titles, styles, and pomps into the Church. But I would that I, and all my brethren, the Bishops, would leave all our styles, and write the styles of our offices,” etc.–Life of Cranmer, by Strype, Appendix.