Poetical Works Author:Richard Hooper, John Dryden Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Though harsh the precept, yet the preacher charm'd. For letting down the golden chain from high, He drew his audience upward to the sky: 20 And oft, with hol... more »y hymns, he charm'd their ears: (A music more melodious than the spheres.) For David left him, when he went to rest, His lyre ; and after him he sung the best. He bore his great commission in his look : 25 But sweetly temper'd awe; and soften'd all he spoke. He preach'd the joys of heaven, and pains of hell; And warn'd the sinner with becoming zeal; But on eternal mercy lov'd to dwell. He taught the gospel rather than the law; so And forc'd himself to drive ; but lov'd to draw. For fear but freezes minds : but love, like heat, Exhales the soul sublime, to seek her native seat. To threats the stubborn sinner oft is hard, Wrapp'd in his crimes, against the storm prepar'd; But, when the milder beams of mercy play, He melts, and throws his cumbrous cloak away. Lightning and thunder (heaven's artillery) As harbingers before the Almighty fly : Those but proclaim his style, and disappear; 40 The stiller sound succeeds, and God is there. The tithes, his parish freely paid, he took ; But never su'd, or curs'd with bell and book, With patience bearing wrong; but offering none : Since every man is free to lose his own. 45 The country churls, according to their kind, (Who grudge their dues, and love to be behind,) The less he sought his offerings, pinch'd the more, And prais'd a priest contented to be poor. Yet of his little he had some to spare, so To feed the famish'd, and to clothe the bare: For mortified he was to that degree, A poorer than himself he would not see. True priests, he said, and preachers of the word, Were only stewards of their sovereign Lord ; u Nothing was theirs; but all the public store: I...« less