An Answer to WILD. OR, A POEM, Upon the Imprisonment of Robert Wild D. D. in Cripplegate.  By a Brother of the same Congregation. 

DEar Friend and Brother in the flesh this page  
I send thee lying, in the Cripple's Cage:  
Not that I Envy, but Rejoice that we  
Are Fellow-feelers of one Misery.   

Old Bishop Gout, by's Officer Old Ale,  
Hath sent thee limping to the Black pot Goal:   

But (fie, that Saints each other should abuse  
So much i'th' thing they all so often use?)  
As I was Preaching on the secret point  
Of Venery, I did but slip a joint  
Too far, when strait old Bishop pox, cried cease,  
You do encroach upon my Diocese,  
Since which I have so rattled in the Nose,  
That all the disaffected do suppose  
It, as a scandal to the Brethren, and say  
The Presbyterian Tone first came that way:  
Some call me Popish Prelate, and protest,  
My No-nose is the only mark o'th' beast.   

Dear brother, thus our punishments agree;  
There is more difference 'twixt Calamy  
And you: some Doctors hold ours be the same,  
And that the Pox as well as Gout you claim.  
But I am silent; though you roar your Gout;  
Saints should be wiser than to bring all out.   

Yet why should we rail at the Bishops? Can  
You blame the Ingenuous Husbandman,  
For weeding his Corn, for driving to Pound  
The Cattle which do trespass on his ground?  
Had we not meddled with forbidden things,  
Nor broke the just Commandment of Kings,  
But stickled for the Church's settlement,  
As much as we did for the Covenant,  
We made to break it; then your State, our Name  
Of Saints had shined with eternal same,  
Baxter should then have been the burning light,  
For men to see to pray by, not to fight.   

Can we disgarison the Scottish Devil,  
Be Nonconformists only unto Evil;  
Repent of false Oaths, lies, Rebellion, swear  
Conformity to God, and's House of Prayer;  
Then Calamy should ne'er be th' fixed Star  
In New gate Hell, but in the Hemisphere;  
Nor Wild a poor Erratic finding no place  
For's Family, nor yet it seems for Grace:   

Thou Gouty Goal-bird, could thy red-fac'd-Muse  
No other stuff into thy Pate infuse,  
Than Libelling? Can Nonconformists be  
So Conformable to iniquity?  
Well hast thou said, These Presbyterian Kis-sl-aves  
Will ne'er leave backbiting, though in their Graves:  
Their Preaching is no better, and their Prayers  
Do nought but set's together by the ears:  
Pull down, set up, set up, pull down's the cry.  
Which flows still from ne'er still Presbytery.   

Let Egypt's plagues be mentioned no more,  
One Presbyter's more mischief than a score;  
If Puritan instead of Frogs had fell,  
Pharaoh at first had let go Israel.  
Like Satan's It is written, they can bring  
A Text of Scripture for the greatest Sin.  
But prithee what Wild fancy made thee rhyme,  
That lurching of a Sermon is the Crime  
Canonical? Alas, didst ever know,  
The Gospel-fighting Ministers do so?  
The Lord's Prayer and the Common Prayer they hate,  
Because not forged in a Presbyterian pate:  
So have I seen Bears lick their Whelps and roar  
At purer Beasts; thus Babylon's old Whore,  
Swaddling her Bastard-childrens, doth deny  
An Entertainment to chaste honesty.  
Is Preaching down, and silenced because  
The Presbyters mayn't bawl against the Laws?  
Nor rail at Church and State, nor bait the King  
With Pulpit-bulls, like Dogs a Bear-baiting.  
So Wranglers, Cheats, and Cozeners may say,  
'Cause they shut out, fair Gamesters do not play:  
So Quacksalvers and Mountebanks proclaim,  
No Physic's like to theirs, though of the same,  
Once come to hear and they shall understand,  
There ne'er was better Preaching in the Land,  
Nor Prayers so well composed with words & matter,  
(Not like unto the Puritanick Chatter)  
Where Hum, ha', and Oh bear all the sway,  
And true Devotion is a Castaway.   

But cease my Muse, the Presbyterian See  
Will fall with weight of its own Villainy:   
FINIS.