With Apologies to My Wesleyan Friends

Here are a few lines written in the 18th century by one of my ancestors Thomas Chatterton:

(commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Chatterton)

The Methodist

Says Tom to Jack, 'tis very odd,

These representatives of God,

In color, way of life and evil,

Should be so very like the devil.

Jack, understand was one of those,

Who mould religion like a rose,

A red hot methodist; his face

Was full of puritanic grace,

His loose lank hair, his slow gradation,

Declared a late regeneration;

Among the daughters long renown'd,

For standing upon holy ground;

Never in carnal battle beat,

Tho' sometimes forced to a retreat'

But C___t, hero as he is,

Knight of incomparable phiz,

When pliant Doxy seems to yield,

Courageously forsakes the field.

Jack, or to write more gravely, John

Thro' hills of Wesley's works had gone;

Could sing one hundred hymns by rote;

Hymns which would sanctify the throat;

But some indeed composed so oddly,

You'd swear 'twas bawdy songs made godly.