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Extra info for Literary paths to religious understanding : essays on Dryden, Pope, Keats, George Eliot, Joyce, T.S. Eliot, and E.B. White

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Or how, or why Shou’d all conspire to cheat us with a Lye? Unask’d their Pains, ungratefull their Advice, Starving their Gain, and Martyrdom their Price. (134–45) “The Book” itself, argues Dryden, proves its own validity, for “what is Taught agrees with Natures Laws” (151), a telling point, indeed. Nature, from now on, becomes somewhat problematical, for Dryden begins to build on his earlier asseverations against the Deist, and no doubt others, whose “easie God instructs Thee to rebell” (96). Christianity is distinguished, says Dryden, precisely by means of its difference from and opposition to human nature (and easiness—he evidently has in mind socalled Latitudinarians): All Faiths beside, or did by Arms ascend; Or Sense indulg’d has made Mankind their Friend: This onely Doctrine does our Lusts oppose: Unfed by Natures Soil, in which it grows; Cross to our Interests, curbing Sense, and Sin; E s s ay i ng t h e V I A M E D I A 31 Oppress’d without, and undermin’d within, It thrives through pain; its own Tormentours tires; And with a stubborn patience still aspires.

It is by no means digressive, although it may appear gratuitous. These six couplets admit—they do not respond to the Deist, or anyone else, for that matter—that the charitable arguments he has advanced do not jibe with St. Athanasius’s widely respected views. The paragraph seems oddly important, certainly establishing the issue as a crux for the poet. Nor does it baulk my Charity, to find Th’ Egyptian Bishop of another mind: ’Tis hard for Man to doom to endless pains All who believ’d not all, his Zeal requir’d; Unless he first cou’d prove he was inspir’d.

It speaks it Self, and what it does contain, In all things needfull to be known, is plain. (364–69) Effectively, Dryden borrows the Deist argument, substituting for their Book of Nature that of Holy Scripture: the latter, he claims, is as clear to everyone (wherever it matters to the layperson) as Nature herself. Now, he is free to lambaste the clergy—and will include both Protestant preachers and Popish priests in his sweeping condemnations. ” First, then, the Papists, who insisted on “expounding” what, given its clarity, stands in no more need of interpretation than the everyday things seen in nature: In times o’ergrown with Rust and Ignorance, A gainfull Trade their Clergy did advance: When want of Learning kept the Laymen low, And none but Priests were Authoriz’d to know: When what small Knowledge was, in them did dwell; And he a God who cou’d but Reade or Spell; Then Mother Church did mightily prevail: She parcel’d out the Bible by retail: But still expounded what She sold or gave; To keep it in her Power to Damn and Save: Scripture was scarce, and as the Market went, Poor Laymen took Salvation on Content; As needy men take Money, good or bad: God’s Word they had not, but the Priests they had.

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