Tomorrow I will be one of three speakers at a little symposium type thing on Baptist History. I will be speaking on the 17th century hymn-singing controversy among English Particular Baptists, and will end up with some of Benjamin Keach's most terribe doggerel, one sample of which is here:
Our wounds do stink and are corrupt,
Hard swellings do we see;
We want a little ointment, Lord,
Let us more humble be.
(Try singing it to Winchester Old (While Shepherds Watched) which is a tune that was around at the time - I have no idea of the tune originally employed)
Tomorrow is also Shakespeare's birthday/deathday, so by comparison here is what is allegedly one of his most overtly religious sonnets:
Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth,
[Thrall to] these rebel pow'rs that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more.
So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And death once dead, there’s no more dying then.
Beautiful poetry outside the church, and doggerel within... does anything much change?!