“Shall I speak plain, and, in a nation free,
  Assume an honest layman’s liberty? 
  I think, according to my little skill,
  To my own mother-church submitting still,
  That many have been saved, and many may,
  Who never heard this question brought in play. 
  The unlettered Christian, who believes in gross,
  Plods on to heaven, and ne’er is at a loss;
  For the strait gate would be made straiter yet,
  Were none admitted there but men of wit.”

This seems to be a plain admission, that the author was involved in a question from which he saw no very decided mode of extricating himself; and that the best way was to think as little as possible upon the subject.  But this was a sorry conclusion for affording firm foundation in religious faith.

Another doubt appears to have puzzled Dryden so much, as to lead him finally to the Catholic faith for its solution.  This was the future fate of those who never heard the gospel preached, supposing belief in it essential to salvation: 

  “Because a general law is that alone,
  Which must to all, and every where, be known.”

Dryden, it is true, founds upon the mercy of the Deity a hope, that the benefit of the propitiatory sacrifice of our Mediator may be extended to those who knew not of its power.  But the creed of St. Athanasius stands in the poet’s road; and though he disposes of it with less reverence to the patriarch than is quite seemly, there is an indecision, if not in his conclusion, at least in his mode of deducing it, that shows an apt inclination to cut the knot, and solve the objection of the Deist, by alleging, that belief in the Christian religion is an essential requisite to salvation.

If I am right in these remarks, it will follow, that Dryden never could be a firm or steady believer in the Church of England’s doctrines.  The arguments, by which he proved them, carried him too far; and when he commenced a teacher of faith, or when, as he expresses it, “his pride struck out new sparkles of its own,” at that very time, while in words he maintained the doctrines of his mother-church, his conviction really hovered between natural religion and the faith of Rome.  It is remarkable that his friends do not seem to have considered the “Religio Laici” as expressive of his decided sentiments; for Charles Blount, a noted free-thinker, in consequence of that very work, wrote a deistical treatise in prose, bearing the same title, and ascribed it with great testimony of respect to “his much-honoured friend, John Dryden, Esquire."[3] Mr. Blount, living in close habits with Dryden, must have known perfectly well how to understand his polemical poem; and, had he supposed it was written under a deep belief of the truth of the English creed, can it be thought he would have inscribed to the author a tract against all revelation?[4] The inference is, therefore, sufficiently plain, that the dedicator knew that Dryden was sceptical on the subject, on