extrinsic influence, led him finally into the opposite extreme of credulity.  His view of the doctrines of Christianity, and of its evidence, were such as could not legitimately found him in the conclusions he draws in favour of the Church of England; and accordingly, in adopting them, he evidently stretches his complaisance towards the national religion, while perhaps in his heart he was even then disposed to think there was no middle course between natural religion and the Church of Rome.  The first creed which he examines is that of Deism; which he rejects, because the worship of one sole deity was not known to the philosophers of antiquity, and is therefore obviously to be ascribed to revelation.  Revelation thus proved, the puzzling doubt occurs, whether the Scripture, as contended by Calvinists, was to be the sole rule of faith, or whether the rules and traditions of the Church are to be admitted in explanation of the holy text.  Here Dryden does not hesitate to point out the inconveniences ensuing from making the sacred page the subject of the dubious and contradictory commentary of the laity at large:  when

  “The common rule was made the common prey,
  And at the mercy of the rabble lay;
  The tender page with horny fists was galled,
  And he was gifted most that loudest bawled;
  The spirit gave the doctoral degree,
  And every member of a company
  Was of his trade and of the Bible free.”

This was the rule of the sectaries,—­of those whose innovations seemed, in the eyes of the Tories, to be again bursting in upon monarchy and episcopacy with the strength of a land-flood.  Dryden, therefore, at once, and heartily, reprobates it.  But the opposite extreme of admitting the authority of the Church as omnipotent in deciding all matters of faith, he does not give up with the same readiness.  The extreme convenience, nay almost necessity, for such authority, is admitted in these remarkable lines: 

  “Such an omniscient church we wish indeed;
  ’Twere worth both Testaments, cast in the Creed.”

A wish, so forcibly expressed, shows a strong desire on the part of the poet to be convinced of the existence of what he so ardently desired.  And the argument which Dryden considers as conclusive against the existence of such an omniscient church, is precisely that which a subtle Catholic would find little trouble in repelling.  If there be such a church, says Dryden, why does it not point out the corruption of the canon, and restore it where lost?  The answer is obvious, providing that the infallibility of the church be previously assumed; for where can the necessity of restoring or explaining Scripture, if God has given, to Pope and Council, the inspiration necessary to settle all doubts in matters of faith?  Dryden must have perceived where this argument led him, and he rather compounds with the difficulty than faces it.  The Scripture, he admits, must be the rule on the one hand; but, on the other, it was to be qualified with the traditions of the earlier ages, and the exposition of learned men.  And he concludes, boldly enough: