Giddy wth fond ambition, mad wth pride, <br />Apostate angells once ev'n heavn defi'de; <br />Avenging heavn its hottest bolts prepard, <br />And hell and thunder provd their sad reward. <br /> <br />Yet foolish man by no example won, <br />perverse in ill, dare rashly venture on, <br />Wildly rebells, calls reason to his aid, <br />And uses it on him who reason made. <br />For crimes like this what vengeance is in store? <br />What but the same wch heaven showrd down on fiends before? <br />What milder could wee hope wee should receive? <br />But god is kindly willing to forgive, <br />He usd his Justice then, but mercy now, <br />Was then wth thunder armd, but now wth you: <br />He bid you rise truths champion, & oppose <br />Wth their own arms wth reason his audacious foes. <br />You take ye lists, & in your gods defence, <br />Unravell all their specious arguments, <br />Who lull their hearers with a show of sense, <br />In artfull words their best objections place, <br />and in fair terms their sly delusions dress; <br />this guilding you remove, & streight we see <br />What nothings all their demonstrations be. <br /> <br />Thus when a fiend upon their sabbats cheats <br />The witches he has made wth fancyd treats, <br />The air condenses round to costly meates: <br />But if a stranger who by chance has viewd <br />their rites, dares venture to be boldly good, <br />No more the pleasing Phantome does remain, <br />But to its former air dissolves again.<br /><br />Thomas Parnell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-mr-brown-on-his-book-against-t/
