CUR PERCUSSISTI?  
OR BALAAM REPROVED, FOR Cudgelling the Ass.  

ALas! the Ass is cudgeled in good sadness:  
Why so I pray? To show the Prophet's madness.  
Patron of scandal and of ignorance;  
From which we prayed a deliverance.  
This was the sum of the Petition,  
Which guilty Balaam terms sedition.  
Who, but a soul empty of grace, and reason  
Would think this cry preparative to treason?  
At vice's Orthodox the poor Ass grieves:  
Not at the Cassocks or the reverend sleeves.  
These are, by Canon, decent, yet I shall  
Think constant preaching more Canonical.  
Are Mitres, Cassocks of so near a kin  
To sloth and drunkenness, that beastly sin,  
That who the Clergy warns these sins to flee,  
●oth mean, Bishops and Priests there, must not be?  
●he Crown and Mitre are so haply twisted,  
The last infringed, the first is then resisted.  
●●t both with equal zeal disown they do  
Factious Preachers, and bibbing Readers too.  
Where's the sedition then? 'tis in a dish  
Cooked up, yes the water turns pork to fish.  
Ill manners 'tis sure, soft, the man's well bred,  
His belly is not empty, but his head.  
Foul Patriot, scandal and vices support.  
Kicked by an Ass, thou puttest him into Court.  
A Priest well drenched, the Constable did seize on,  
'Twas cried, hold factious Officer, 'tis treason.  
At length the Prisoner swears, 'twas said, swear on,  
This Parish is full of sedition.  
'Tis an Essay to Church and State's confusion,  
To show the Larck's grief, or Priest's collusion,  
There needs no Cham, these secrets to betray,  
Darkness can't hid what's done in the midday.  
Is this the man of God? or is he sent  
To drink and swear, for th' Gospel's ornament?  
Revived impieties, Black mouthed debauchery,  
ne'er can be whitened with thy Poetry.  
Unhappy solecism, when was it true  
That Sin's ruin would make the State to rue,  
Or Church? whose noble growth and lasting age,  
Decay of vice increase of grace presage.  
Arm then (ye Mitred Lords) be clothed with power,  
Full charge your Canons and then let them Roar  
'Gainst Scandal, Ignorance, and Laziness,  
'Gainst saucy pride, and factious peevishness.  
Hophni and Phinehas, their fatal doom,  
Should startle those that succeed in their room.  
The Sacrifice was then abhorred, they're slain,  
Eli falls too, 'cause he did not restrain.   

Long live King Charles, prosper in Grace and Glory,  
Let's Name be written in Eternal Story.   By H. G.  

LONDON, Printed for the Author, 1661.