scious they were never meant to you:
All which the Mother Church asserts her own,
And with unrivall'd claim ascends the throne.
So, when of old the Almighty Father sate
In council, to redeem our ruin'd state, 500
Millions of millions, at a distance round,
Silent the sacred consistory crown'd,
To hear what mercy, mix'd with justice, could propound:
All prompt, with eager pity, to fulfil
The full extent of their Creator's will.
But when the stern conditions were declared,
A mournful whisper through the host was heard,
And the whole hierarchy, with heads hung down,
Submissively declined the ponderous proffer'd crown.
Then, not till then, the Eternal Son from high 510
Rose in the strength of all the Deity:
Stood forth to accept the terms, and underwent
A weight which all the frame of heaven had bent.
Nor he himself could bear, but as Omnipotent.
Now, to remove the least remaining doubt,
That even the blear-eyed sects may find her out,
Behold what heavenly rays adorn her brows,
What from his wardrobe her beloved allows
To deck the wedding-day of his unspotted spouse.
Behold what marks of majesty she brings; 520
Richer than ancient heirs of eastern kings!
Her right hand holds the sceptre and the keys,
To show whom she commands, and who obeys:
With these to bind, or set the sinner free,
With that to assert spiritual royalty.

One in herself, not rent by schism,[114] but sound,
Entire, one solid shining diamond;
Not sparkles shatter'd into sects like you:
One is the Church, and must be to be true:
One central principle of unity. 530
As undivided, so from errors free,
As one in faith, so one in sanctity.
Thus she, and none but she, the insulting rage
Of heretics opposed from age to age:
Still when the giant-brood invades her throne,
She stoops from heaven, and meets them half way down,
And with paternal thunder vindicates her crown.
But like Egyptian sorcerers you stand,
And vainly lift aloft your magic wand,
To sweep away the swarms of vermin from the land: 540
You could like them, with like infernal force,
Produce the plague, but not arrest the course.
But when the boils and blotches, with disgrace 543
And public scandal, sat upon the face,
Themselves attack'd, the Magi stro