Religion in Early Stuart England, 1603-1638: An Anthology of Primary Sources

Robert Shelford: Five pious and learned discourses (with prefatory lyric by Crashaw) 1635

790 Robert Shelford Five pious and learned discourses 1635 Upon the ensuing treatises Rise then, immortal maid! Religion rise! Put on thyself in thine own looks; t’ our eyes Be what thy beauties, not our blots, have made thee, Such as (ere our dark sins to dust betrayed thee) Heav’n set thee down new dressed, when thy bright birth Shot thee like lightning to th’ astonisht earth. From th’ dawn of thy fair eyelids wipe away Dull mists and melancholy clouds; take day And thine own beams about thee; bring the best Of whatsoe’er perfum’d thy Eastern nest. Girt all thy glories to thee; then sit down, Open this book, fair Queen, and take thy crown. These learned leaves shall vindicate to thee Thy holiest, humblest handmaid, Charity. She’ll dress thee like thyself, set thee on high Where thou shalt reach all hearts, command each eye. Lo where I see thy altars wake and rise From the pale dust of that strange sacrifice Which they themselves1 were, each one putting on A majesty that may beseem thy throne. The holy youth of heav’n whose golden rings Girt round thy awful altars, with bright wings Fanning thy fair locks (which the world believes 1 {i.e., the altars destroyed at the Reformation. See Kenneth Fincham and Nicholas Tyacke, Altars restored: the changing face of English religious worship, 1547–c. 1700 (Oxford UP, 2008).} 791 Robert Shelford As much as sees), shall with these sacred leaves Trick their tall plumes, and in that garb shall go If not more glorious, more conspicuous though. —Be it enacted then By the fair laws of thy firm-pointed pen: God’s services no longer shall put on Pure sluttishness for pure religion; No longer shall our churches’ frighted stones Lie scatter’d like the burnt and martyr’d bones Of dead Devotion, nor faint marbles weep In their sad ruins, nor Religion keep A melancholy mansion in those cold Urns. Like God’s sanctuaries they looked of old; Now seem they temples consecrate to none, Or to a new god, Desolation. No more the hypocrite shall th’ upright be Because he’s stiff and will confess no knee; While others bend their knee, no more shalt thou, Disdainful dust and ashes, bend thy brow, Nor on God’s altar cast two scorching eyes Bak’t in hot scorn for a burnt sacrifice; But, for a lamb, thy tame and tender heart New struck by love, still trembling on his dart; Or, for two turtle doves, it shall suffice To bring a pair of meek and humble eyes. This shall from henceforth be the masculine theme Pulpits and pens shall sweat in, to redeem Virtue to action, that life-feeding flame That keeps Religion warm; not swell a name Of Faith (a mountain word made up of air) With those dear spoils that wont to dress the fair And fruitful Charity’s full breasts of old, Turning her out to tremble in the cold. What can the poor hope from us, when we be Uncharitable ev’n to Charity?2 Nor shall our zealous ones still have a fling At that most horrible and horned thing— Forsooth the Pope, by which black name they call The Turk, the devil, furies, hell and all, And something more. “O he is antichrist; Doubt this, and doubt (say they) that Christ is Christ. Why, tis a point of faith.” What e’er it be, 2 {The final ten lines were omitted in the version printed in Crashaw’s Steps to the Temple (1646).} Religion in Early Stuart England, 1603–1638 792 I’m sure it is no point of charity. In sum, no longer shall our people hope To be a true Protestant’s but to hate the pope. Rich. Crashaw, Aul. Penb. A. B. The ten preachers, or a sermon preferring holy charity before faith, hope, & knowledge Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. There were a sort of Christians in the apostles’ time which would not consort with their fellows because they understood more then they did. They would eat meat in the idols’ temples with the idolaters because they had learned that an idol was nothing, and that all the creatures of God were good. The other, which knew less, durst not because they had neither warrant for it nor precedent. The like difference is at this day among our...