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And now got free from all their Trains and Wiles, He at their hateful Plots and Malice smiles, Plowing the Ocean for new Honour toils. | } |
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These were the chief; a good and faithful Band Of Princes, who against those men durst stand Whose Counsel sought to ruine all the Land. | } |
With grief they saw the cursed Baalites bent
To batter down the Jewish Government;
To pull their Rights and true Religion down,
By setting up a Baalite on the Throne.
These wisely did with the Sanhedrim joyn;
Which Council by the Jews was thought divine.
The next Successour would remove, ’tis true,
Onely because he was a Baalite Jew.
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Ills they foresaw, and the great danger found, Which to the King (as by their Dutie bound) They shew’d, and open laid the bleeding Wound. | } |
100 But such who had possest his Royal Ear,
Had made the King his Loyal Subjects fear;
Did their good Prince with causeless terrour fright,
As if these meant to rob him of his Right.
Said, They with other Rebels did combine,
And had against his Crown some ill designe:
That the wise Hushai laid a wicked Train,
And Azaria sought in’s stead to reign:
That the old Plot to ruine Church and State,
Was born from Hushai’s and the Levite’s Pate:
That Pharisees were bold and numerous grown,
And sought to place their Elders in his Throne.
No wonder then if Amazia thought
These Loyal Worthies did not as they ought;
That they did Duty and Obedience want,
And no Concessions from the Throne would grant.
They who in Amazia’s favour grew,
Themselves obnoxious to the People knew.
Some were accused by the Sanhedrim,
Most Friends and Allies to Eliakim:
For his Succession eagerly they strove,
And him, the rising Sun, adore and love.
When Doeg, who with Egypt did combine,
And to enslave Judea did designe,
Accus’d of Treason by the Sanhedrim,
Kept in the Tower of Jerusalem;
The Object prov’d of fickle Fortunes sport,
And lost the Honours he possest at Court.
Elam in favour grew, out stript by none,
And seem’d a Prop to Amazia’s Throne.
He had in foreign parts been sent to School,
And did in Doeg’s place the Kings thin Treasure rule.
He to Eliakim was neer alli’d;
What greater parts could he possess beside?
For the wise Jews believ’d the King did run
Some hazard, if he prov’d his Father’s Son.
But now, alas! th’ Exchequer was grown poor,
The Coffers empty, which did once run o’re.
101 The bounteous King had been so very kind,
That little Treasure he had left behind.
Elam had gotten with the empty Purse,
For his dead Father’s sake the Peoples Curse:
For they believ’d that no great good could spring
From one false to his Country and his King.
Jotham the fickle Shuttle-cock of Wit,
Was bandied several ways to be made fit:
Unconstant, he always for Honour tri’d,
At last laid hold upon the rising side.
If Wit he had, ’twas thought, by not a few,
He a better thing did want, and Wisdom too.
Then Amiel would scarce give place to him,
Who once the chief was of the Sanhedrim.
He then appeared for the Crowns defence;
But spoke his own, and not the Nations sense.
And tho he praised was by Shimei’s Muse,
The Jews of many Crimes did him accuse.
Harim, a man like a bow’d Ninepence bent,
Had tried all the ways of Government:
Was once a Rebel, and knew how to cant;
Then turn’d a very Devil of a Saint:
Peevish, morose, and some say, prov’d a fool,
When o’re the Edomites he went to rule.
When to his bent the King he could not bring,
He fairly then went over to the King.
Old Amalack, a man of cunning head,
Once in the cursed School of Rebels bred;
From thence his Maximes and his Knowledge drew,
Of old known Arts how to enslave the Jew.
For pardon’d Treason, thus sought to atone,
Had wrong’d the Father, would misguide the Son.
Once in Religion a strict Pharisee,
To Baal’s then turn’d, or else of none was he.
He long before seem’d to approve their Rites,
Marrying his issue to the Baalites.
A constant hunter after sordid Pelf;
Was never just to any but himself:
A very Proteus in all shapes had been,
And constant onely, and grown old in sin.
102 To speak the best of Amalack we can,
A cunning Devil in the shape of Man.
Muppim, a man of an huge working Pate,
Not how to heal, but to embroil the State;
Knew how to take the wrong, and leave the right;
Was once himself a Rebel Benjamite.
To that stiff Tribe he did a while give Law,
And with his iron Yokes kept them in aw.
The Tyrant Zabed less did them provoke,
And laid upon their necks a gentler Yoke.
Amongst that Tribe he left an hated Name,
And to Jerusalem from thence he came,
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Where he tyrannick Arts sought to intrude, To learn which, Amazia was too good, And better the Jews temper understood. | } |
Refus’d, the Serpent did with Woman joyn,
And Counsels gave th’Egyptian Concubine.
Adam, first Monarch, fell between these two;
What can’t the Serpent and a Woman do?
These with some more of the like size and sort,
In Sion made up Amazia’s Court:
Whilst his best friends became these Rulers scorn,
Saw how they drove, and did in silence mourn.
Sion did then no Sacrifice afford;
Gibbar had taught the frugal King to board.
Void were its Cellars, Kitchins never hot,
And all the Feasts of Solomon forgot.
Others there were, whose Names I shan’t repeat;
Eliakim had friends both small and great:
And many, who then for his Favour strove,
With their hot heads, like furious Jehu, drove.
Some Wits, some Witless, Warriors, Rich and Poor,
Some who rich Clothes and empty Titles wore;
Some who knew how to rail, some to accuse,
And some who haunted Taverns and the Stews.
Some roaring Bullies, who ran th’row the Town
Crying, God damn ’um, they’d support the Crown:
Whose wicked Oaths, and whose blasphemous Rant,
Had quite put down the holy zealous Cant.
103 Some were for War, and some on Mischief bent;
And some who could, for gain, new Plots invent.
Some Priests and Levites too among the rest,
Such as knew how to blow the Trumpet best:
Who with loud noise and cackling, cri’d like Geese,
For Rites, for Temple, and for dearer Fleece.
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’Twixt God and Baal, these Priests divided were; Which did prevail, these greatly did not care; But headlong drove, without or wit or fear. | } |
The Pharasees they curse, as Sons of Cham,
And all dissenting Jews to Hell they damn.
Shimei the Poet Laureate of that Age,
The falling Glory of the Jewish Stage,
Who scourg’d the Priest, and ridicul’d the Plot,
Like common men must not be quite forgot.
Sweet was the Muse that did his wit inspire,
Had he not let his hackney Muse to hire:
But variously his knowing Muse could sing,
Could Doeg praise, and could blaspheme the King:
The bad make good, good bad, and bad make worse,
Bless in Heroicks, and in Satyrs curse.
Shimei to Zabed’s praise could tune his Muse,
And Princely Azaria could abuse.
Zimri we know he had no cause to praise,
Because he dub’d him with the name of Bays.
Revenge on him did bitter Venome shed,
Because he tore the Lawrel from his head;
Because he durst with his proud Wit engage,
And brought his Follies on the publick Stage.
Tell me, Apollo, for I can’t divine,
Why Wives he curs’d, and prais’d the Concubine;
Unless it were that he had led his life
With a teeming Matron ere she was a Wife:
Or that it best with his dear Muse did sute,
Who was for hire a very Prostitute.
The rising Sun this Poets God did seem,
Which made him tune’s old Harp to praise Eliakim.
Bibbai, whose name won’t in Oblivion rot,
For his great pains to hide the Baalites Plot,
104 Must be remembred here: A Scribe was he,
Who daily damn’d in Prose the Pharisee.
With the Sectarian Jews he kept great stir;
Did almost all, but his dear self, abhor.
What his Religion was, no one could tell;
And it was thought he knew himself not well:
Yet Conscience did pretend, and did abuse,
Under the notion of Sectarian Jews,
All that he thought, or all that did but seem
Foes to Baal’s Rites, Eliakim, and him.
He was a man of a pernicious Wit
For railing, biting, and for mischief fit:
He never slept, yet ever in a Dream;
Religion, Law, and State, was all his Theam.
On these he wrote in Earnest and in Jeast,
Till he grew mad, and turn’d into a Beast,
Zattue his Zanie was, Buffoon, and Fool,
Who turn’d Religion into Ridicule:
Jeer’d at the Plot, did Sanhedrims abuse,
Mock’d Magistrates, damn’d all Sects of the Jews.
Of little Manners, and of lesser Brains;
Yet to embroil the State, took wondrous pains.
In jeasting still his little Talent lay;
At Hushai scoft in’s witless grinning way.