The Consequences of a 'Sleeping Clergy'

'The thoughts of poet William Cowper'

by Alan S. Flint

It is said of the poet and hymn-writer William Cowper "that although he was a faithful member of the Church of England, he very rarely spared his scorn for such clergy who gave their congregations stones instead of bread and substituted form and ceremony for true Christian experience." In his poem "Expostulation" Cowper wrote:

When nations perish in their sins,
'Tis in the church the leprosy begins:
The priest whose office is, with zeal sincere
To watch the fountain, and preserve it clear,
Carelessly nods and sleeps upon the brink,
While others poison what the flock must drink;
Or waking at the call of lust alone,
Infuses lies and errors of his own:
His unsuspecting sheep believe it pure,
And tainted by the very means of cure,
Catch from each other a contagious spot,
The foul forerunner of a general rot:
Then truth is hush'd that heresy may preach,
And all is trash that reason cannot reach;
Then God's own image on the soul impress'd,
Becomes a mock'ry and a standing jest,
And faith, the root whence only can arise,
The graces of a life that wins the skies,
Loses at once all value and esteem,
Pronounc'd by grey beards a pernicious dream:
Then ceremony leads her bigots forth,
Prepar'd to fight for shadows of no worth,
While truths on which eternal things depend,
As soldiers watch the signal of command,
They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand,
Happy to fill religion's vacant place,
With hollow form and gesture and grimace.

Note what it says in 1 Peter 4:17-18 "For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God: and if it begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?"