to those,
Who, led by David, warr’d with Israels foes;
Unlike to those whom his imperial son
Taught truths divine—­the Preacher Solomon;
Nor war nor wisdom yield our Jews delight;
They will not study, and they dare not fight. 
   These are, with us, a slavish, knavish crew,
Shame and dishonour to the name of Jew;
The poorest masters of the meanest arts,
With cunning heads, and cold and cautious hearts;
They grope their dirty way to petty gains,
While poorly paid for their nefarious pains. 
Amazing race! deprived of land and laws,
A general language and a public cause;
With a religion none can now obey,
With a reproach that none can take away: 
A people still, whose common ties are gone;
Who, mix’d with every race, are lost in none. 
   What said their Prophet?—­“Shouldst thou disobey,
The Lord shall take thee from thy land away;
Thou shalt a by-word and a proverb be,
And all shall wonder at thy woes and thee;
Daughter and son, shalt thou, while captive, have,
And see them made the bond-maid and the slave;
He, whom thou leav’st, the Lord thy God, shall bring
War to thy country on an eagle-wing. 
A people strong and dreadful to behold,
Stern to the young, remorseless to the old;
Masters whose speech thou canst not understand
By cruel signs shall give the harsh command: 
Doubtful of life shalt thou by night, by day,
For grief, and dread, and trouble pine away;
Thy evening wish,—­Would God I saw the sun
Thy morning sigh,—­Would God the day were done! 
Thus shalt thou suffer, and to distant times
Regret thy misery, and lament thy crimes.” 
   A part there are, whom doubtless man might trust,
Worthy as wealthy, pure, religious, just;
They who with patience, yet with rapture, look
On the strong promise of the Sacred Book: 
As unfulfill’d th’ endearing words they view,
And blind to truth, yet own their prophets true;
Well pleased they look for Sion’s coming state,
Nor think of Julian’s boast and Julian’s fate. 
   More might I add:  I might describe the flocks
Made by Seceders from the ancient stocks;
Those who will not to any guide submit,
Nor find one creed to their conceptions fit —
Each sect, they judge, in something goes astray,
And every church has lost the certain way! 
Then for themselves they carve out creed and laws,
And weigh their atoms, and divide their straws. 
   A Sect remains, which, though divided long
In hostile parties, both are fierce and strong,
And into each enlists a warm and zealous throng. 
Soon as they rose in fame, the strife arose,
The Calvinistic these, th’ Arminian those;
With Wesley some remain’d, the remnant Whitfield chose. 
Now various leaders both the parties take,
And the divided hosts their new divisions make. 
   See yonder Preacher! to his people pass,
Borne up and swell’d by tabernacle-gas: