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Essays on the Stage - Preface to the Campaigners (1689) and Preface to the Translation of Bossuet's Maxims and Reflections on Plays (1699) by Thomas D'Urfey
page 30 of 76 (39%)
sleeve, Shoes without heels, miserable Antichristian breeches, with
some two dozen of creepers brooding in the seams; and tho' you take
him charitably to your House, feed, clothe, and give him wages, yet
he belongs only _to God_, and not you, and you must not think him your
_Domestick_, but your _Superior_. Why, what a Scheme is here laid for
Vanity and Folly, add how much more shining and beautiful does gratitude
and humility appear in such a Depender, than such a bloated opinion as
this? Would any honest Gentleman, that has his sences, shew his
Indulgence and Generosity to Wit or Learning, on such terms as these?
And does not this Chapter shew more the Spirit of Pride in our
_Absolver_, relating to his own humour, than the veneration he has for
the Clergy, or the Justice he would seem to do them in it? I dare
affirm, most of them are against this Opinion, at least I'm sure all
the modest part are, who cannot but own themselves subservient to their
Patrons that maintain them, tho' at the same time they are Ministers of
_Gods holy Words and Sacraments_. Yet he buffly goes on, _He is Gods
Minister, not Mans Servant_. [Footnote: _Office of a Chaplain_, p. 178.]
And a little way further, he clenches this admirable Notion through and
through; therefore, says he, _for a Patron to acconnt such a Consecrated
Person, as if he belong'd to him as a Servant, is in effect to challenge
Divine Honours, and set himself up for a God_. [Footnote: Ib. _p._ 185.]
Here's Ambition, here's Perfection, here's old _Bonner_ for ye. Now by
his _Hollidame_, for I can't forbear that Oath now, what can a squeamish
Critick, that would make _Remarks_ upon the _Remarker_ call this? But
stay, he's at it again, _Dolopion_, says he, _was Priest to _Scamander_,
and regarded like the God he belong'd to_. [Footnote: Collier, _p.
113._] Pray mind him, the Priest was worshipp'd equal with the God--oh
rare Moralist--if he were, 'twas an _Ægyptian_ Worship, where only
_Calves_ and _Apes_, and _Carrots_ and _Onions_, were _Gods_. But pray
let us see a little, has not this Divine quotation a tang of _Blasphemy_
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