. . . . . . . . . . .  But cast your eyes again
And view those errors which new sects maintain,
Or which of old disturbed the Church’s peaceful reign;
And we can point each period of the time
When they began and who begat the crime;
Can calculate how long th’ eclipse endured;
Who interposed; what digits were obscured;
Of all which are already passed away
We knew the rise, the progress, and decay. 
Dryden, Hind and Panther

Oh, said the Hind, how many sons have you
Who call you mother, whom you never knew! 
But most of them who that relation plead
Are such ungracious youths as wish you dead;
They gape at rich revenues which you hold,
And fain would nibble at your grandame gold.
                                                ibid.
           --------------------

Sects and professions in religion.

Sects and Professions in Religion are numerous and successive—­ General effect of false Zeal—­Deists—­Fanatical Idea of Church Reformers—­The Church of Rome—­Baptists—­Swedenborgians—­ Univerbalists—­Jews—­Methodists of two Kinds:  Calvinistic and Arminian—­The Preaching of a Calvinistic Enthusiast—­His contempt of Learning—­Dislike to sound Morality:  why—­His Ideas of Conversion—­ His Success and Pretensions to Humility.  The Arminian Teacher of the older Flock—­Their Notions of the operations and power of Satan--Description of his Devices—­Their opinion of regular Ministers—­ Comparison of these with the Preacher himself—­A Rebuke to his Hearers; introduces a description of the powerful Effects of the Word in the early and awakening Days of Methodism.

“Sects in Religion?”—­Yes of every race
We nurse some portion in our favour’d place;
Not one warm preacher of one growing sect
Can say our Borough treats him with neglect: 
Frequent as fashions they with us appear,
And you might ask, “how think we for the year?”
They come to us as riders in a trade,
And with much art exhibit and persuade. 
   Minds are for Sects of various kinds decreed,
As diff’rent soils are formed for diff’rent seed;
Some when converted sigh in sore amaze,
And some are wrapt in joy’s ecstatic blaze;
Others again will change to each extreme,
They know not why—­as hurried in a dream;
Unstable, they, like water, take all forms,
Are quick and stagnant; have their calms and storms;
High on the hills, they in the sunbeams glow,
Then muddily they move debased and slow;
Or cold and frozen rest, and neither rise nor flow. 
   Yet none the cool and prudent Teacher prize. 
On him ther dote who wakes their ectasies;
With passions ready primed such guide they meet,
And warm and kindle with th’ imparted heat;
’Tis he who wakes the nameless strong desire,
The melting rapture and the glowing fire;
’Tis he who pierces deep the tortured breast,
And stirs the terrors never more to rest.