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ME RICHARD HOOKER.

THE LIFE

OF

MR. RICHARD HOOKER,

THE AUTHOR OF THOSE LEARNED BOOKS

OF THE LAWS OF ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY.

TO HIS VERY WORTHY FRIEND

MR. IZAAK WALTON,

Upon his writing and publishing the LIFE of the venerable and judicious

MR. RICHARD HOOKER.

I.

HAIL, facred mother'! British Church, all hail!
From whofe fruitful loins have sprung

Of pious fons fo great a throng

That Heav'n t'oppose their force, of ftrength did fail, And let the mighty conqu'rors o'er Almighty arms prevail; How art thou chang'd from what thou wert a late!

When deftitute and quite forlorn,

And scarce a child of thousands with thee left to mourn,
Thy veil all rent, and all thy garments torn:

With tears thou didft bewail thine own and children's fate.
Too much, alas! thou didst resemble then

Sion thy pattern-Sion in afhes laid,
Defpis'd, forfaken, and betray'd;

Sion thou doft refemble once agen,

And, rais'd like her, the glory of the world art made.
Threnes only to thee could that time belong,

But now thou art the lofty fubject of my song.

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The church of England emerging from those dreadful calamities in which she had been involved by the artifices of those men, who, under the pretence of zeal for the cause of religion, meditated her entire deftruction, is here not unaptly pourtrayed under the figure of an afflicted parent

"Her veil all rent, and all her garments torn."

She was then the fubject of elegiac lamentation. The fcene is happily changed; and the is here addreffed in the language of praife and exultation.

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