AN ELEGY Upon the DEATH of Pope INNOCENT the XI. Who Died the 12th. Day of August, 1689. Aged Seventy Eight Years and Three Months. After he had Held the Pontificate Twelve Years, Ten Months, and Two and Twenty Days.  


MOurn ye unhappy Sons of Mother Rome,  
And let your Sighs and Lamentations come,  
From the remotest Parts of Christendom:   
For now Pope Innocent the Eleventh's Dead,  
Whom Thirteen Years y'ave owned your Church's Head;  
Whom ye so long Infallible Believed,  
Death proved Infallibly, ye were Deceived:  
If in the Church diffusive it resided,  
Infallibility is now divided;  
Unless you think it to be like the Soul,  
Whole in each Part, and Total in the whole:  
Yet him that Title we may thus far give,  
That Politic Lewis ne'er could Him deceive,  
Nor make Him with his Cursed Ambition side,  
Or 'gainst Religion to promote his Pride:  
The haughty Tyrant's Threats he did withstand,  
Boldly inflexible to each demand;  
His Barbarous Persecutions disapproved,  
Which made him even by Protestants Beloved:  

That Power Usurped by some He did disown,  
With Bulls to thrust a Monarch from his Throne,  
For an Opinion differing from his own.   
But Tyranny in Kings, Rome's Sons Professed,  
Was ne'er Approved in His more Noble Breast;  
Else He had surely lent a helping Hand  
To a Late Monarch to Regain his Land,  
And from His Treasures, mighty Sums had given  
To Reinthrone him tho' De-throned by Heaven:  
But He found better ways t'exhaust His Store,  
And Free the Christian World from Turkish Power;  
And where 'twas needful Nobly He bestowed  
His-Church Revenues for the Christians Good.  
To Germans and Venetians a True Friend,  
Pecuniary Aids He oft did send,  
And for th'ungrateful Pole, great Sums Advance,  
(Although outdone by greater Sums from France:)  
These ways He knew His Bounty best became,  
T'oppose the Enemies of the Christian Name.   

Thus Peter's Patrimony He Employed,  
Before laid out in Luxury and Pride;  
His Train and Table both He did Retrench  
Christ's Enemies to Resist; The Turks and French:  
Temperate and Humble for Himself He showed,  
But fervent Zeal Transported Him for GOD.  
And as His Life His Virtuous Acts declare,  
So even in Death is seen His Pious Care;  
For in His Bed as Languishing He lay,  
Feeling how swiftly Nature did decay,  
And having the last Sacrament received,  
As by their Tenets firmly is believed:  
He to the Sacred Congregation sends,  
And does to their unbyass'd Choice commend  
(On His Departure from St. Peter's Chair)  
A Person worthy to Succeed Him there:  
And gave strict Charge they should Employ His Store,  
To Ease the People, and Relieve the Poor.   

If this be Christianlike, we may forgive  
Those falser Tenets that He might believe;  
Yet while alive, small Love He gained from some,  
So ill true Virtue is Maintained at Rome:  
Now Dead, His Loss they Justly do bemoan,  
Never truly Valuing their Good, till gone.  
Whom with Reproaches they pursued of late,  
And made the Object of their Causeless Hate;  
His Princely Robes they do to Relics shred,  
And pay Him Veneration now He's Dead.  
Well; let Him rest, and may the next Pope be,  
No less a Friend to Christendom than He;  
What more might have been said in His behalf,  
Let some Monk Crowd into an Epitaph.    

Licenced according to Order.   

LONDON, Printed in the Year of Our LORD GOD, 1689. 183.