by their height:          Thus primitive Sancroft moves too high To be observed by vulgar eye, And rolls the silent year On his own secret regular sphere, And sheds, though all unseen, his sacred influence here. 

      VIII Kind star, still may'st thou shed thy sacred influence here, Or from thy private peaceful orb appear; For, sure, we want some guide from Heaven, to show The way which every wand'ring fool below Pretends so perfectly to know; And which, for aught I see, and much I fear, The world has wholly miss'd; I mean the way which leads to Christ:      Mistaken idiots! see how giddily they run, Led blindly on by avarice and pride, What mighty numbers follow them; Each fond of erring with his guide:        Some whom ambition drives, seek Heaven's high Son In Caesar's court, or in Jerusalem:          Others, ignorantly wise, Among proud doctors and disputing Pharisees:      What could the sages gain but unbelieving scorn; Their faith was so uncourtly, when they said That Heaven's high Son was in a village born; That the world's Saviour had been In a vile manger laid, And foster'd in a wretched inn? 

      IX       Necessity, thou tyrant conscience of the great, Say, why the church is still led blindfold by the state; Why should the first be ruin'd and laid waste, To mend dilapidations in the last? And yet the world, whose eyes are on our mighty Prince, Thinks Heaven has cancell'd all our sins, And that his subjects share his happy influence; Follow the model close, for so I'm sure they should, But wicked kings draw more examples than the good:        And divine Sancroft, weary with the weight Of a declining church, by faction, her worst foe, oppress'd, Finding the mitre almost grown A load as heavy as the crown, Wisely retreated to his heavenly rest. 

      X Ah! may no unkind earthquake of the state, Nor hurricano from the crown, Disturb the present mitre, as that fearful storm of late, Which, in its dusky march along the plain, Swept up whole churches as it list, Wrapp'd in a whirlwind and a mist; Like that prophetic tempest in the virgin reign, And swallow'd them at last, or flung them down. Such were the storms good Sancroft long has borne; The mitre, which his sacred head has worn, Was, like his Master's Crown, inwreath'd with thorn. Death's sting is swallow'd up in victory 

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