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A Prayer-Song

Daniel Cudmore (nd) · 19,455 words · 86 min

The source for this document is https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A81112.0001.001

Project Note

This is licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND. This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.

The source of this document is the Early English Books Online (EEBO-TCP) website. Those books were transcribed in a character for character manner and can be very cumbersome to read since there was no standard spelling during that time. Many spelling variations such as "unlesse", "vnlesse", and "vnles" regularly appear.

This project was conceived to clean up those books as much as possible and make them more accessible to the interested reader, leading to the creation of a massive list of variant spellings and their corrections. This was used to clean up the text, but is of course only as complete as the list itself. Because of the nature of the original transcription, some words have missing characters or places where the original language (e.g., Greek) was not transcribed. This effort does not change that. Be aware that the original transcription can also be faulty and in some cases entire sentences may be missing.

Although this is no substitute for a properly compared, proofed, and scholarly edition, I believe that the result is a document which is far more accessible, particularly for searching for terms using standard spelling. The document has been cleaned and presented in what I hope is a pleasing and useful format for the vast majority of Christian brothers and sisters who just want access to read these spiritually nourishing works.

However, a word of warning: The Puritans were a very diverse group of people and their age was characterized with godliness, but also much upheaval, disputation and strife. They disagreed on many doctrines and some of these works contain less orthodox or Scriptural views than others. The reader is strongly advised to read with discernment, particularly if it is unknown whether author is trustworthy.

This project took a huge amount of time and skill to bring to fruition. I would particularly like to thank David Jonescue for the initial list of Puritans he found on EEBO and the concept behind this project as well as the continuous, unceasing efforts toward seeing this complete. Without his labor, this would not be available. Alex Sarrouf was invaluable in providing the initial list of over 7,000 spelling variations he had identified and corrected, as well as continuing to review more than 16,000 additions to that list for any typos.

Logan West
(with David Jonescue and Alex Sarrouf)
www.puritansearch.org

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Or, A PRAYER-SONG; BEING Sacred Poems ON THE HISTORY OF THE BIRTH and PASSION OF OUR Blessed SAVIOUR, And several other choice texts of SCRIPTURE.

In two PARTS.

By Daniel Cudmore, Gent.

LONDON, Printed by J. C. for William Ley in Paul 's Chain. 1655.

[illustration] [engraved title page]
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or A Prayer-Song. Being Sacred Poem • . On y e History of y e birth • passiō of our Blessed Savioiur. And several other choice texts of Scripture. by Daniel Cudmore Gent.

And We are his witnsses of these things.
Acts. 5.32.
[illustration] [engraved panel]

Behold a Virgin &
Matthew. 1.23.
[illustration] [engraved panel]

This Jesus which is taken up into.
Acts. 1.11.
[illustration] [engraved panel]
[illustration] [engraved panel]
[illustration] [engraved panel]
[illustration] [engraved panel]
[illustration] [engraved panel]

Behold the man
John 10.5.
[illustration] [engraved panel]

He is not hear but is risen
Mat 28.6.

La Printed by I:C: for William Ley at Paul's Chayne. 1655.

〈1 page duplicate〉

To his honored Friend HENRY WORTH Esq;

Sir,

IN Italy they have a Proverb, that Paper blusheth not: intimating thereby, I suppose, that what we are ashamed perhaps to tender in person, the pale messenger of an Epistle will not blush to present. On these terms it is, that (having usurped your Name in this Dedication, and being more happy (if in either) in my Pen then Tongue, (and so more obliged to the Printer then to Nature ) I beg your pardon and acceptance. I am not ignorant what censures I shall incur in this adventure; viz that the foundation indeed is good, as being portions of Scripture; but the superstructure, wood, hay, and stubble, as being not supplied with materials from those Hurams of Spirit and Learning; and so rather apples of lead, than of gold, in these pictures of silver: that what Socrates said in modesty of his Works, may be said in earnest of mine, That the Paper is more worth then the Work. These Objections, and more than I can anticipate, much less prevent, have pursued me to Sanctuary under the shadow of your EAGLES wing, where I doubt neither of acceptance nor safety. Not that I would make your Patronage an Asylum for Ignorance, or your Protection a Refuge for inconsiderate Boldness: but that I know your Noble nature to be ever ready to countenance the endeavors, and to protect the studies of Virtue and Honesty; whereof as I shall still endeavor to be a constant embracer, so of you always a true honourer: in token whereof, I humbly devote myself

From my Study in Tiverton this of

Your obliged servant, Daniel Cudmore.

To his industrious Friend, Mr. DANIEL CUDMORE.

I Dare presume to tell the bold-faced Times,
Divinity looks best, thus clothed in Rymes.
Of all the Factions that have crept of late
Into the bowels of our whining State,
None's like the Momusites; for everyone
Studies to carp, nay scarce lets God alone.
Destroy'd by tongues the tow'r of Babel lies;
Heaven grant we fall not by our Heresies.
Believe me, Friend, thy Labors show thou art
Indu'd with Wisdom; and thy serious heart
Hath no outrageous Faction, but each line
Distil'd from heaven, tells us that they are thine.
Go on with courage: though Religion lie
Now groaning under sad Deformity,
And at this time bears an Ecliptick stain,
'T will end in conquest, and shine bright again.

Jo. Quarles.

To the worthy Author.

GOod works are their own praisers: they that show
What 'tis to praise a work, praise what they know.
I will tell thee, friend, thy labor was my pain
In reading; and that reading, was my gain.
I did not only read, but understood
What 't was I read; and therefore say, 'T is good.
And if my erring judgment have mistook,
Let the world judge my Judgment, not thy Book.
I will therefore second what I said before:
'It is good, I am sure 'tis good; and what needs more?

Ric. Harrison, Inte. Tomp.

To the ingenious Author, upon his Book.

TO praise thy work were but to work thy praise;
'T is Virtue that thou aimst at, & not Bays:
Thy Work is thy Encomium; therefore I
Will spend no time in Prodigality
Of flatt'ring praise: but this in short I will tell;
I read, I liked, I praised: and so farewell.

Charles Hubburt, Gr. Inn.

The Introduction.


Psal. 90.

17 Prosper thou the works of our hands upon us; O prosper thou our handy-work.

LOrd, thou without whose-blessing & success,
Our Wits degenerate to Wickedness;
Who if thou bidst not Write, that book may die
In shame, or prove the Author's Tragedie:
Who David 's tongue madest as a ready pen,
When thee he praised the fairest of all men:
O make my pen as ready as his tongue,
In this my Euchodie and Prayer-song:
Refine my Wit, to Wisdom, in this Poem;
Accept the Dedication, speak the Proem.
Let Naaman love his proud Damascus streams,
And others hug their Heliconian dreams:
Those springs alone that flow from Zion's hill
Shall drench my barren brain, and moist my quill.
But since all springs inspire not, but befool,
Unless thy Angel of Bethesda's pool
Descend and move them with his healing grace;
Unless thy Spirit move upon their face:
Oh would they now descend and so baptize
My childish fancy in these Mysteries:
Then should I sing thy Birth, as if my breast
With one of those thy Angels were possessed;
And write thy deeds, as if thou hadst afforded
Me what th' Evangelists have not recorded:
So would I wail thy death, that some should think
Thy vinegar and gall my only Ink;
My Pen should be so tart, that it should tear,
And deeper pierce then did the Soldiers spear.
But thou who knew'st our weakness by the sense
Of a dear-purchased experience,
Have pity on my Ignorance, and daign
Some sparks of native wisdom here again;
That in this, men of a judicious head
If not thy Image, may thy footsteps read.
Yet let not th' earth, thus by thy footsteps trod,
Be proud, but still remember 't is a clod;
Lest it thy praises curtal, and abridge
Thee of thy right, by Paper-sacrilege.

On the Nativity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.


Luke 2.

10—Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be to all people.

11 For unto us is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

LEt none hence wonder that the souls vast nature
Is comprehended in so small a stature:
That wonder's crampt, that mirror here exploded;
For in this child there is comprised a Godhead.
But stay, do not the heavens crouch at his feet,
And beg the honor of a bearing-sheet?
Doth not the Sun descend on earth to shine
And take his Palace, for a nobler Sign?
Doth not the Moon, like some great maid of honor,
With all the troops of stars attending on her,
Sue for some office? No, blest Child, my Muse
Doth veil her crown, and humbly begs excuse:
A Quill from th' Angel's wing that sung thy birth,
Were a fit Pen to carol forth our mirth.
Thou didst devest thyself of much more glory,
That thou mightest clothe us with intransitory.
The Sun 's too weak of luster, it would frown
Amongst the glories of a Martyr's crown;
And the dull glory of the azur'd stage,
But a poor Pageant to their equipage.
But may I draw the veil, and not deserve
T' have one eternal on my visive nerve?
'Twas not long since thy fiery-pointed eye
Did sparkle with consuming Majesty;
And is it all confined, comprised all
Within the circuit of this gellied ball?
'Twas not long since thou breath'dst in us our souls;
And since, thy breath did kindle burning coles:
And do we dare thy nostrils? hark, O wonder!
He cries, whom erst I have heard to roar in thunder.
'Twas not long since such glory Moses drew
From see'ng thy back-parts none his face could view:
And can we see thy face? do not, w'implore,
Brandish destructive glory th'row each pore.
'Twas not long since, at thy commanding word,
The world sprung out of naught, like Jonah 's guord;
And since at Sinai 's mount, did Israel cry,
Let not the Lord speak to us, lest we die.
And is the mighty Counselor so weak;
And he that gave the tongue, can he not speak?
And must their glories all be understood
To be wrapped up in humble flesh and blood?
A Series of wonders! which nor men
Nor Angels can nor comprehend nor pen:
Therefore as Angels humbly veil at it
Their Wisdoms crowns, let us our crowns of Wit.
That Spirit who conceived thee, he can teach
How to conceive a Wonder of this reach:
By him my soul a knowledge of thy worth
Brings forth as easy as thou wert brought forth.
Hence then let's fetch our Epoche, and call
This blessed day the birth-day of us all.
What did our carnal birth boot us? this morn
Redeems us who condemned were ere born.
O might I now, by virtue of thy birth,
Be born anew! 'twould add to this days mirth;
And th' Angels who did at thy birth rejoice,
At mine in singing would lift up their voice.
Blest Child! that met'st the heaven with a span,
Yet in a span art couched; that dost contain
Th' earth in measure; Lord, yet 'tis thy pleasure
To be contained in an earthen measure.
The heaven of heavens cannot contain thy grace,
Nor art thou straiten'd in a little place.
Come then, take up my heart, and until death,
O make my breast thy blessed Nazareth.

On the murder of the Innocents.


Matth. 2.

16. Then Herod when he saw that he was mocked by the wise-men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise-men.

1.
GOod Babes! of whom I may say true,
For Christ ye did an off ring fall,
And died for Christ, ere Christ for you;
Although none could his love forestal.
Blest Infantry! your Sovereign's tasters
To him of Herod 's cup of Malice,
Ere Christ to finish his disasters,
Drank deep and free the final Chalice.
Blest Innocents! with whom the case thus stood,
First circumcised, then baptized in blood.
2.
Sweet Saplings! who to spell the Branch,
Fall subject under Herod 's rape;
Whose Boureauxes cut and blanch,
And rob you of your juice and sap.
You got (blest Cyons) by this craft;
And you may bless cursed Herod 's knife:
Be'ng hence transplanted, y'are ingraft,
And bourgeon on the tree of life;
Where each Herodian cicatrice doth bloom
Like Aaron 's rod: so may you bless your doom.
3.
Curs'd Fox! Hell with thy brains did club,
Thus needlessly to back thy claim:
But could not blind rage spare thy Cub?
Must he fall too, before thy aim?
Foxes use prey abroad, but thou
(Although unwittingly) at home:
Ambitious madness asks not now
Whoseit is thou prey'st upon, or whom.
Just! since thou hast no bowels, that thy son
Should fall amongst the rest a slaughtered one.
4.
Thus Pharaoh (like our greedy Hog,
Or of the kennel with this Fox )
Who more adored Anubis dog,
Then the plainness of Isis ox,
Once fearing Israel 's increase,
Enjoyn'd each one to drown each male,
Till Israel groaning for release,
Their prayers to their God exhale;
Till he descends, and in one fatal morn
Slew each Egyptian's, and the King's first-born.
5.
But you whose doctrine, like the crabs,
Swims backward 'gainst the stream of Truth;
Speak, In what Lymbus are these babes,
Or all the Isra'litish youth?
Say, In what fold of Purgatory,
Purg'd in what streams of fire or water,
Are these Lambs whom this Fox did worry,
Or dog slew? what can fancy flatter?
Name me what canonized Saint and Martyr
Annex'd this truth unto the Scriptures Charter.
6.
Peace, Rachel, peace; do not deplore
The murder of thy children, seeing
They're not; yet are they not no more,
And than thou gavest have better being:
Weep not thy buds so soon do bleed
Almost, as thou didst them disclose;
They should have grown here amongst weed,
Now flourish with their Jesse's rose.
Let Herod grieve for his son's death, and weep;
Thou hast no cause; then do not sigh so deep.

On John the Baptist's being beheaded.


Mark 6.

27 And immediately Herod the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought: and he went, and beheaded him in the prison,

28 And brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel, and the damsel gave it to her mother.

1.
THrice-happy morning-star, that didst fore-run
The Sun of righteousness his near approach;
As that Postilion precedes the Sun,
And ushers to the world his glorious Coach.
Blest Prodrom! who by th'art of Philip 's wife
Didst Christ fore-run in death, as well as life.
2.
Thrice-happy Jacob's Shiloh's Prolocutor!
Blest Mercury to Jacob 's glorious Star;
Our Savior's Harbinger, the Gentiles Tutor,
To show their expectation was not far;
Who in a purer stream then Jordan 's flood,
At last baptized thy Baptism with thy blood.
3.
Curst Herod! who as John Elijah 's spirit
Had by a gracious influence bequeathed;
So thou, as by possession, didst inherit
Thy father's rage, which here on John was breathed.
Hadst thou no Trophy to adorn thy birth,
But th' Baptist 's head? no triumph but such mirth?
4.
Bloody Herodias! that wert so rough,
To recompense John 's zeal with such requitals:
Was not thy Music spirited enough,
Not join'd in consort with the Baptist 's vitals?
Never was Music of so gross a crime
Arraigned guilty, since old Iubal 's time.
5.
Vile Wretch! who thus wouldst make rash Herod 's oath
A Pander to a hot incest'ous Bed:
Neither did Thomyris that famous Goth,
As thou on John 's, insult on Cyrus head.
Vile Monster! thus to nustle up thy daughter,
Even from her tender years, to blood & slaughter.
6.
Wretch'd Damsel! thou whose too too active feet
Were only swift to shed the harmless blood
Of th' innocent: even so a dancing Fleet
Waits for her prey, while 't wantons on the flood.
Even so a Hawk doth quaver in the air,
Before she souse: so danc'd thy wicked pair.
7.
Blest John! as was Elijah, so wert thou
Into a wilderness by fury banished;
Both forced by women, both pursued by vow,
Though both not in a fiery Chariot vanished.
Yet herein thou an equal share mayst plead;
Th'art member'd to a far more glorious Head.
8.
Good God! how are we honor'd! that as John
Fore-ran to fit Christ's way before his face;
Even so our Savior, thy blessed Son,
Prepares our way, and fits our resting place:
O let's succeed, where we shall be no other
Then joint-heirs with thy Son our elder brother.

On the woman of Canaan.


Matth. 25.

28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

1.
GOod-woman! who couldst thus not only brook
A stern disdainful look,
But the disciples wrath, who held thy suit
Some clamorous pursuit;
As who would give no answer to a Cur,
But with a staff or spur.
Nay, though that Christ retorted thy Lord help,
With no relief but Whelp,
And whom thou hop'dst thy Advocate, we read,
Did thus against thee plead:
How heldst thou his denials of thy want
A prologue to a grant?
As if repulse were the proposed condition
To faith, before admission.
How by thy constancy was he esteemed
Then most propitious, when he farthest seemed?
2.
When he seemed deaf, how thy importuned prayer
To music tuned the air,
And with ingeminated violence,
Monopoliz'd his sense?
And when he seemed to thee no less then dumb,
How for thy faithful crumb,
He having with his bread supplied thy cause,
Dismiss'd thee with applause.
Denials made not thy affections froward,
Nor yet thy zeal a coward.
Thy quick-ey'd faith, smiles through his frowns did view,
And through his wrath love knew:
It through his threats an invitation saw,
Which by repulse did draw,
And in the sharp reproaches he avouch'd,
Discern'd a welcome couched.
Let others hope of Force, and boast of Fortune;
When they shall fail, I gain when I importune.
3.
But how is Christ, but now so much estranged,
Now all to mercy changed?
And thou, at first a dog, art now inrol'd
One of his flock and fold.
For Faith's the mark by which his sheep are known,
And such said he's thine own.
Even so wise Joseph held the ten for Spies,
Though brethren in his eyes;
And Benjamin, whom he reputed chief,
Pursu'd was for a thief
But when he was disclos'd, each threat of his
Is changed to a kiss;
And for his late experimental check,
Wept on his brothers neck.
So as we ought to fear God's hand that savors
Of peace, and such-like favors:
So ought we not despair: God oft doth frown,
And seems then strange, when he intends to crown.
4.
Lord, what she here would for her daughter have,
I for my sister crave:
I for my soul, and she, the better I,
Doth for her body vie.
That thou wouldst dispossess my haunted twins
Of legions of sins;
Which though perhaps not devils, yet the spawns
Which here their father pawns.
I will not pray, If thou canst; for, Lord, I know it,
I know well thou canst do it:
Although with him I will pray, with tears and grief,
Lord help my unbelief.
Come, purge thy Temple; let it not thus stink
Like to a noisesome sink.
Lord, if thou wilt not hear me, I will force
Thy mercy for remorse.
The unjust judge at length did hear her suit;
Why then 's the Judge of all the world so mute?

On the man healed at the pool of Bethesda.


John 5.

5 And a certain man was there, who had an infirmity thirty eight years.

6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?

7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man when the water is troubled to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.

8 Jesus saith unto him, Arise, take up thy bed and walk.

9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked.

1.
AS one long wind-bound in the Cape of hope,
Until his gales
Kind Aeolus exhales,
Bans the too faithful Cable-rope,
And th' Anchors, which of Hope true emblems are,
To him occasion matter of despair:
2.
So lay thy patience at Bethesda 's pool,
The soul so waits,
Till death-divorcing straits
Shall waft her hence. So in a School,
A full-ag'd youth, more ripe then rich, waits long
Till wafted thence to th' Academic throng.
3.
The Tide did serve thee often to thy will,
By th' Angel moved,
Not by the Moon improved:
But gales of Love were wanting still,
To launch thee forth. So, far from Shore or Tide,
I have seen a ship lie on her useless side.
4.
But who would not than thee much longer wait,
If thus assured
By Christ he should be cured?
And count all Physic but deceit.
The virtue of this pool's not worth thy strife,
Compar'd with Christ the Well, and Well of life.
5.
Oh who with Lazarus would not sustain
The pangs of death,
Even to their utmost breath,
So by Christ to be raised again?
Much more with thee who would not wait a time,
With faithful patience, to be healed by him?
6.
Lord, thus I well remember, when infected,
Expecting still
Aid from the Doctor's still,
Which yet in vain I long expected:
Yet evermore some passage intervenes,
And robs me of my hope of outward means.
8.
While thus I lay like an exposed elf,
While death upbraids
My hope of future aids,
My best Physician came himself.
Thus if thou come, let other Doctors stay,
And I will fee them after for delay.
9.
Lord, when my heart's thus troubled by thy Spirit,
Thy South nor North
Can hardly launch me forth;
Neither thy love nor wrath can stir it.
I am anchor'd to the world: but call the rocks,
They'll come; but I stick fast in leaden socks.

On the Prodigal.


Luke 15.

20 And he arose, and came to his father: and when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

21. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

1.
FOol-hardy Prodigal! what, couldst not brook
The disc'pline of thy father's house,
But wander'dst like the errant spouse,
Even as a sheep that hath her fold forsook,
Among the vagrant goats to brouze,
From the tuition of her shepherds crook:
When in a ragged fleece,
Each briar having snatched a piece,
He's found and welcomed as his Child or Niece.
2.
Thus didst thou rove & rome, thus wert thou errant,
Thus didst thou from thy Father range,
And leftst his Palace from some grange;
Thus thou embrac'dst a stranger for thy Parent;
Thy Native Land leftst for one strange,
Till Death arrests thee with a meagre warrant.
No Confessor or Flamine,
So can reduce, check or examine,
Like th' Inquisition of exacting famine.
3.
Thy wine is turned to tears, thy robes to rags:
Thy Father did not get thy Portion
By griping us'ry or extortion;
That's not the cause th' hast lavisht out thy bags,
Yet he woe'nit count thee an abortion,
Though his love draw thee not, but famine drags.
Thy cates are turned to husks,
To ordure thy Odours and Musks,
Thy Songs to whines, thy greets to churlish tusks.
4.
Let these inducements thy return constrain.
So Jacob kissed his lost son.
And David wandering Absalom;
So Mary having often sought in vain,
Found and embraced her holy One,
As thou shalt be when thou returnst again.
The longing Soul of Kish
Ne'r did for Saul more strongly wish,
Nor welcome him with a more joyful dish.
5.
'Twill be a Resurrection, no return.
So Abraham took his son repriev'd,
The Shunamite so hers revived,
As thou shalt be received as from thy urn;
So Naim 's widow took retriv'd
Her sons life, when Christ did his death adjourn.
Dead Lazarus but kept
His grave four days, as Martha wept;
But thou hast many years in darkness slept.
6.
Should any one thy Father now inform
Of a third brothers happy birth,
It would administer less mirth,
Than that th'art regular, late so enorm.
So Jacob blest that happy dearth,
As he this famine. Let thy Brother storm:
Think why, where, what thou servest:
Death here's thy wages, for thou starvest;
Think on thy Fathers mercies, and his harvests.
7.
'Gainst heaven and in thy sight I sin have wrought,
In such a Di'lect couch thy shrift;
Say of thy patrimonial gift,
I have not one talent in a napkin brought;
Not one to testify my thrift:
Then weep the meaning of each lab'ring thought:
Say, thy dejected Spirit
Counts thee not of such worth and merit,
To serve him, and much less, much less t' inherit.
8.
Lord, I am a prodigal, far worse then this:
When he away but once did rome
Thou (we never read) invit'dst him home;
But thou hast often wooed me with a Kiss,
Yet how unwillingly I come!
Then threatst me with a dearth far worse then his:
Yet I had rather whine,
Then sing; attend and feed with swine,
Then with the Lamb to sup, with thee to dine.

On the Woman taken in Adultery.


John 8.

3 And the Scribes and Pharisees brought unto him, a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,

4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.

5 Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?

7 So when they continued asking him, he lift up himself, and said unto them. He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone at her.

1.
VIle Phar'sees! who would make Christ 's truth the Pander
T'accuse him but with a more specious slander
His Statute-book hath no such Law
Which doth vice both indulge and awe;
Nor made Law of that kind,
Which both doth loose and bind:
Though your Law asks
Egyptian tasks,
Which you will not so much
As with one finger touch.
His Justice is too strict a Martial,
Which is to sin nor fond nor partial.
And since man is too weak to satisfy
His Father 's wrath, the Lord himself will die.
2.
Yet your hypocrisy, false weights, and hins,
Neglect of truth and love, are greater sins;
Which ere digested into fact
He sees, and much more in the act.
Look how the woman's lust
Christ 's mercy writes in dust,
Which the next wind
Blows out of mind.
And yet, whate'er you claim,
Your malice doth but aim
To stone our Savior in steed
Of the adult'ress, for the deed.
And though you for her sin do Law enforce,
Your sp'ritual adultery is worse.
3.
Your zeal may with her lust go hand in hand;
Both kindled were at one infernal brand.
Your zeal's a particle of light
Sprung from the gloomy Prince of night,
When in an Angel's shape
Of light, he acts a rape.
Your zeal is baud
T'envy and fraud,
As her Concupiscence
Was baud to this offense.
'T is not true zeal, but hot-brained zanie,
Which views each fault, squints through each crannie;
To carp at others failings, but still dallies
With her own self, nor sees her craft and malice.
4.
Although some blasphemously dare distrust
Christ 's mother's honor, he 's no friend to lust:
With Harlots though he eats and drinks,
He at their sin connives nor winks.
There's nothing now obscene.
In Mary Magdalene.
Hell well enough
Knows he's sin-proof.
He may touch pitch, yet not
Receive thereby a blot;
And he with sinners may converse,
Yet never be tainted by commerce.
And though Physicians need an Antidote
Ere they to sick-men go, he wants them not.
5.
Even so would partial Judah Tamar stone,
Till Shame retarded Resolution:
The Serpent, while he would implead
Thus Eve, receives a bruised head.
As hist by guilt and blame,
Ye drop away for shame.
Seth 's pillar stood
So, when the flood,
Wherein it late was drowned,
Was now departed round.
As stands the woman thus alone,
While you convicted all are gone;
Even so stood weeping Niobe, when all
Her hopeful sons did by Apollo fall.
6.
Th'art free, as if thy sin were never committed;
Free as Susanna, by that Child acquitted:
Th'art clear and clean from this offense,
White as Susanna 's innocence:
And such as hers I dare
Say thy Accusers are:
Both Law enforce,
Without remorse:
As they were hurried thence,
So these, by Conscience:
Both out of malice, not true zeal,
For sentence unto Law appeal.
Th'art cleared by him whom thou hast grieved alone;
And who dares mention what thou ill hast done?
7.
Her lust, deep in repentant tears is drench'd
In waters which might Sodom's flames hav quenched.
How bitterly flows from her brain
The former and the later rain!
Not only for this sin:
She doth for all begin
To sigh and sob,
To groan and throb.
Were thus your malice rins'd,
Y'had not been thus convinced.
Her tears your malice may confound;
They show how deep her sin is drowned
In the Seas depth. Nor doth it need your stones;
Her fist, lo, beats her bosom till it groans.
8.
My soul's the woman, Lord, found guilty in
The sin of lust, and in the lust of sin:
And as the devil still conspires
With my affections and desires;
So joins with Conscience
To aggravate offense:
Both sue for sentence
Against repentance.
Lord, at one word of thine,
Their malice will decline.
No Ottacus on thy acquittance,
Will to thy court sue for admittance.
From sin and guilt thus cleared when I die,
I shall stand free, and none but thee and I.

On Mary Magdalene.


Matth. 26.

6 Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,

7 There came unto him a woman having an alabaster-box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head as he sat at meat.

1.
BLest Mary! whose repentant rheums
Were far more precious then thy Nard:
Thy tears nor age nor time consumes,
Which wastes and dries the richest Lard.
Thy Nard afforded rich perfumes;
Thy vocal tears each where are heard.
Thy Nard which on Christ 's head did fleet,
Though grateful to him, was less sweet
Then were the tears wherewith thou bath'dst his feet.
2.
The rich ingredient which thy tears
Gave to thy Nard, surpass'd all alms,
Though of continuance of years:
True tears are of themselves a balm,
Thy Nard forestalling both his ears,
Presents each groan a Mercy-psalm.
See, he accepts thy love and thee,
Nor doth at all esteemit to be,
T'anoint th' Anointed, a Tautologie.
3.
Do not esteemit an act uncouth,
False-hearted Judas, what she doth.
So Eli marked Hannah 's mouth.
And with her causelessly was wroth.
So Boreas chides the healing South:
So on the Church boors friend and froth.
Lov'dst thou the poor, yet wert so speedy
To prosecute them, and so greedy,
To sell thy Master that was poor and needy?
4.
As Ice to Crystal is congeal'd,
That it nor sun nor fire can melt;
So seem our hearts and eye-balls sealed
To hardness, that no grief is felt.
Our frost-bound hearts lie still concealed:
Let Love inflame, or Anger swellit:
Yet tears cannot blind, nor watery cries
Dissolve the gelly of our eyes,
No more then rain can melt the Crystal skies.
5.
Good-woman! who esteemed no paint
Like to a face blubbered with tears;
All other tinctures are but faint,
But these out-wear all age and years.
No Venus -mole bespeaks a Saint,
No beauty-spot like these appears.
And as the Moon 's each thinner place
Shows somewhat dark, yet no disgrace:
True tears so never stain a beauteous face.
6.
For sin, hair-rending fingers ought
To be our only crisping-pins:
Although indeed our hair's too soft
To make a hair-cloth for our skins.
No powder is like ashes thought,
To roll our tresses in for sins.
Hair is the moisture of the brain,
And so are tears: then 'twere not vain
With Mary here, to mix them once again.
7.
Thrice-blessed Convert! from whose breast
Christ having seven devils cast,
Left not thy bosom unpossest,
But there the spirit of Grief placed.
The former made thee worse then beast,
The later gave thee rest at last.
Oh were I so possessed! these fits
Bespeak us best to b'in our wits:
No joy should chase it by removal-Writs.
8.
For Lazarus my outward man,
If sick, my Mary, Lord, can mourn;
Groan like a dove, throb like a swan,
Till thou hast raised him from his urn:
But for herself she now and than
Can weep, but doth her grief adjourn.
And yet we see, when thou dost move
Womens devotions unto love,
Man ever doth the weaker vessel prove.

On Peter 's denial of his Master.


Matth. 26.

74 And Peter remembered the words of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.

1.
WHat, Peter, hast denied thy Master
In his disaster?
Couldst not withstand, thou easy rock,
So small a shock?
Loor'd thy foundation from beneath,
At a maids breath?
Thou bear a Church? who wert thyself
A sandy shelf,
Till Christ toa rock confirmed thy gravel,
Which none could ravel.
Thee, rather then a rock, we style,
For thy inconstancy, A floating I will.
2.
Weak fisher of men! if thus caught
At a maids draught:
How wilt thou hence oppose the harms
Of Mermaids charms?
If thee so much this common fry
Did terrify;
How will the huge Leviathan,
Or th' Hurricane?
How wilt withstand that Polypheme,
That spouts a stream
Of fury on all Christian matters,
Disturbs your rivers, and pollutes your waters?
3.
If thou wert put to such extremes
On tender streams,
How wilt thou stand it on those Seas
That know no pleas?
How wilt oppose those Zyphia's
And Remora's?
When Seas with angry winds do surge,
When tempests purge,
Unless that Christ arise, like that
Mount Ararat;
How quickly will the raging billows
Make Seas your Down-bed, and the Rocks your pillows?
4.
Are all thy promises so toward
So soon turned coward!
When of thy love there should be proof,
Thou stoodst aloof:
And yet thy fortitude, I wote,
Was more remote.
Was all thy valor but t' attend
To see the end?
More fickle far then was the maid
Which thee betrayed:
She not denied her words, while thou
Didst start aside like a deceitful bow.
5.
Look, Peter, look, thy Master's minion,
How Christ they pinion,
By Judas treason, and thy fear:
He's captiv'd here,
Whom (worse then Jewish rage and scorn)
Thou hast forsworn.
Two have bely'd him even now
By perjured vow:
But thou hast him denied far worse,
By oath and curse.
Hark, hark, how sprightly Chaunticleer
Proclaims thee coward for thy dastard-fear.
6.
Look with what glance thy Savior eyes
Thy perjuries:
Let it dissolve thy frozen fears
To melting tears.
Let Marah -waters be alone
Thy Helicone;
Not Sodom 's lake, tears gross and thick,
But sharp and quick.
And as the Pontick Ocean 's pride
Ne'er ebbs by Tide;
Let tears never ebb, but ever rise,
Till they have got the custom of thy eyes.
7.
In Lot's wife's obelisk of salt,
Go read thy fault;
And let it all thy moisture season
To tears for treason.
But if thy holy sorrow lusts
For sharper gusts,
Christ's vinegar and gall would fitter
Thy grief embitter.
With such intoxications whole,
Go drench thy soul.
Confess him with the penitent thief;
And as th' hast freez'd for fear, go melt for grief.
8.
Good God! our weakness will without thee,
Not only doubt thee,
But of thee make a flat denial,
On easy trial;
Nay, shall not only thus deny thee,
But shall defy thee.
If th' rock could not withstand these floats.
Can empty boats?
If that such casks soon buoy'd thy rock,
Like some light block.
Can we hold out, who of ourselves
No anch'rage have, but only sands and shelves?

On the Passion and Death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.


Zech. 12.

10 And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son; and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.

NOw hath bright Phoebus, through his heat,
Drawn up a cloud of vapors, which do threat
T'obscure his glorious face; and therefore muster
Their pitchie beds, to smother up his luster.
God long hath rebels nourished, who now further,
From damned rebellion proceed to murder.
Could not your sins be died enough in grain,
From all the Prophets, but from such a vain?
Could not the measure of your sins be filled
In murth'ring them, except their God you killed?
Was this to make your crimson, wool, (vile brood)
To bathe the Lamb thus in his crimson blood?
We doit by application, thus being done:
But meant you so in your intention?
Was your damnation of so gross a weight,
That naught could raise the scales toan equal height,
But such an act as this? O cursed stir!
The Saw's in arms against the Carpenter.
Wasit not enough thou wert in flesh benumbed,
But when thy years toa perfect age th' hadst summed,
Blest Vine, were thy ripe grapes smote by the rod,
And in thy Father's angry wine-press trod.
Curs'd Olivet! bear, hence, no fruit nor leaf,
Nor in thy vale be cropped a fruitful sheaf.
Unhappie mount, fatal to Absalom;
To David once, now to his glorious Son,
By Judah 's fraud. Here David mourned and wept,
And Jesus here his mourning vesper kept.
Gethsemane! may neither dew nor rain
Hence dy thy garden in a verdant grain:
For Jesse's Rose, plucked from thy teeming breast,
Was ravished hence by that rebellious beast.
Here roar'd the Lion; in this dismal grove,
The princely Eagle mourned like a dove.
As the condoling heavens, from the sky,
Weep blood, as Omen of some Prodigie:
So, in his passion, an excessive heat
Forced th'row his blessed pores a bloody sweat.
Who by his word foiled hell, could not sustain
The weight of sin without this heavy pain.
And this proves true his moan i' th' sacred leaves:
I am sin burden'd, as a cart by sheaves.
Here was the Lord of hosts surprised and taken
By Roman forces; here by 's friends forsaken.
Blest Savior! what, couldst thou not command
A with'ring dryness on each treach'rous hand?
Couldst thou send fire from heaven at his clause,
If I am a man of God, to plead thy cause,
Twice following on the captains and their fifty;
And of thy vengeance wert thou here so thrifty?
Didst thou benight the Syrians eyes who came
To seize that Prophet, when he begged the same?
Yet did thy Majesty thus humbly stoop
To the surprisal of so small a Troop?
Accursed Judas! had Cham in the flood
So guilty been of treason and of blood,
H' had drowned the Ark, with all the rest. At first,
God with sterility, in part, th'earth accurst,
For Adam 's sin: and could we look for less,
For thy cursed sake, then total barrenness?
Abstract of wickedness! For if had Cain
His mother ravished, and his father slain,
Thou wert more guilty, in just balance weighed,
Who hast unnat'rally thy Lord betrayed.
Wretch'd Pilate! what, did not thy conscience grudge
Against thy tongue, when thou condemn'st thy Judge,
Who could have doomed thee, for thy horrid crime,
Unto the shameful Tree prepared for him?
But thus hath God decreed: dost thou not sentence
Thy hasty doom with a too late repentance?
Accurs'd Jerusalem! the bloody stage
Of wanton murder, and inconstant rage:
Fell not the just results of Hiel 's guilt
On Aelius, who so vile a town rebuilt?
You would no king but Caesar: in conclusion,
Who but a Caesar was your just confusion?
Accursed Calvary! henceforward we
Will never curse from Ebal, but from thee.
May envious Mice hence gnaw thee from the Map:
For here the Branch was robbed of fruit and sap.
But why d' I curse? Each place a Gerizim,
By these his blessed pains, is made by him.
And my sin with the Soldiers, hand in hand,
Betraid my Savior, and bid him stand.
Mine mocked, mine scourged him too: my sins in gross
Help'd, with the Jews, to nail him on the Cross.
I know not whe'er my heart should dance or bleed
At this, this so accursed blessed deed.
O for a fancy at his shameful death,
To curse and bless these actions in a breath!
I should not call good ill, nor evil good;
For both are so, as they are understood.
And now, methinks, I see him on the Cross:
What shall I descant? what define or gloss?
Forgive my murth'ring Fancy; 't is no Jew,
Although it feign thee crucified in view.
I will rise in spite of their confused swarms,
And beg th' embracement of his outstretch'd arms:
Nor will I cease, till I have that promise made
To me, which even now blest Gismas had.
I will kiss his lips, embrace his glorious neck;
But not unnail him fearing Peter 's check;
Get thee behind me, Satan: for this favor
Doth not of heaven, but of Satan savor.
I will suck his crimson wounds, till I have found
My glutton-soul is tinctured from each wound.
I will strive t' outweep his wounds: and lest it breed
Distake I bleed not too, my heart shall bleed.
But lo, the Sun's eclipsed, withdraws his ray,
And all in mourning darkness clothes the day.
And durst the stars to shine? have they endured
To see the Star of Jacob thus obscured?
No, beauteous light (as if that now were furl'd
Heavens gaudy curtains) hath forsook the world,
Not with the luster of a Comet fring'd;
And th' earth, as by an earthquake, seems unhing'd.
At which (as frighted from that sweet repose)
The Saints that slept long in their graves, arose:
The Temple's veil 's rent from the top to th' roof;
For why? its Type is rent and pierced through.
Now is well-nigh our Savior 's soul extorted,
His body thus by wounds and nails supported:
Nor was his bodies weight so great, as were
Our sins, which he upon his soul did bear.
Hark, how his soul's expired with a cry:
Whose sin's so great, to cause a God to die?
Not his: for he appeals to th' envious Jews;
Which of you can me of a sin accuse?
And even Pilate, Caesar's wicked groom,
Did clear his inn'cence ere he cleared his doom.
We sinned in the first Adam, and deprived
The second of his life, all, ere we lived:
But gracious mercy (as Rebekka 's twins,
Jacob and Esau ) struggled with our sins
In the womb of Eternity; and thus
Smooth mercy did supplant rough sin for us:
And thus the birth-right's ours, our title's good:
For Christ even now hath sealed it with his blood.
Now hath the Sun with more then common haste
(Scarf'd in his Sphere) descended Vesta 's waste,
And (as hence frighted) of such acts as these
Hath carried news to the Antipodes.
Here for a time though we in darkness grope,
Let's not despair, as men being void of hope:
For, surer then the Sun will rise, though slain,
Our Sun of righteousness will rise again.

On the good Thief.


Luke 23.

43 And Jesus said unto him Verily I say unto thee, This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.

1.
WHat shall I gloss,
Good Gismas, on thy Cross?
Why may it resemble not
To the tree of Elijah 's Chariot?
By which,
To th' highest pitch
Thou shalt b' advanced of bliss:
Thy Jacob 's ladder 't is,
Where Angels stand
At hand.
Thy Cross is but a type how Christ thy soul
This day will fix above each pole.
O happy punishment,
Beyond extent!
2.
Did Barabbas
Know who our Savior was,
He'd scorn his life: that Jewish favor
Would in his choice no relish find, or savor:
But begged,
By Conscience egg'd,
That he might spell him yet,
Their ears how would he fret?
Accuse that throng
Of wrong?
That Christ's blood spilled surpass'd that deed of Cain,
'T would die Jerusalem in grain;
That they had now gone further
Than he in murder.
3.
Good Thief, from whence
Knew'st thou Christ? not from Sense:
Pain 's no respirer: its extremes
No respite gives to think on serious Themes.
No, 't was
The wind of grace,
Which as it breathes on men
Where it doth please: so when.
Which here did breath
In death:
So through a day so dark, that I might say
A ling'ring twilight 't were, no day;
I have seen the setting Sun
Display'd anon,
4.
O happy time
Thou di'dst now for thy crime.
So have I seen a neighb'ring cloud,
Th'row which the Sun seemed to look beetle-brow'd,
Ere night
Sun-burnt so bright,
As thou by suff'ring near
The righteous Phoebus here,
Thus grew'st acquainted,
Thus Sainted:
He of thy shame partook, thou of his glory;
Blest change, beyond conceit or story!
Thy Cross each wise Invention
Stiles thy Ascension.
5.
Laverna now
No longer hath thy vow:
But he alone hath thy belief,
Whose inn'cence suffers with thee as a Thief.
This craft
He thee hath taught,
To rob hell of her aim.
Though Death not of her claim;
Not to redeem
esteem:
For thou givest Christ the praise, thyself the shame,
Though Dismas doth blaspheme his name,
And, even in death, pants
His wicked taunts.
6.
Peace, Satan's martyr,
Though Christ nor law nor charter
Hath broke, the Scriptures have not slumber'd,
Which have foretold that Christ must thus be numbered.
But if
Th' hadst been no Thief,
Christ had, t' appease their pride,
With Barabbas thus died,
In equipage
Of rage:
But now thy theft 's in grain; thou dost contract
Blood to 't, while thou approv'st their act:
And while thou shouldst condole,
Dost vex his soul.
7.
Didst never read?
Good thief, lift up thy head;
With th' eye of faith look, and condole
The Brazen Serpent on you cursed pole.
The grief
Thou wert a Thief,
Did wound his soul more fierce
Then nail or spear can pierce.
How for thy deeds
He bleeds!
His bloody sweat, sweat through each gracious pore,
Claims but unfeigned tears, no more;
His giving up the ghost,
But sighs at most.
8.
Thy Scripture's, Lord,
Thy gracious Record,
That shining light which through the dark
Directs us in our race unto that mark.
But this
Thy passage is
A circumstance more ample
For precept then example:
We find this one
Alone,
Whose late repentance Christ in death vouchsafed:
Although thy wisdom hath me taught
This Scene not to prorogue
Till th' Epilogue.

On the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Cnrist.


Matth. 28.

5 And the angel answered and said to the woman, Fear not: for I know that ye seek Jesus which was crucified.

6 He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

1.
ARise, my active soul, and run;
Keep measure with you dancing Sun,
Who seems as weary of his Sphere,
As thou to be confined here:
Look, how his sprightly beams do spark:
So David danc'd before the Ark.
How he descends his Chariot! he, in this,
Worships Christ's rising, as the Persian his.
2.
But why doth Phoebus mount his head
So soon up from Aurora 's bed?
The tother night, when we, my soul,
Our Savior 's Passion did condole,
The frighted Sun forsook our clime
Two hours before his wonted time;
And therefore now the sooner gilds the heaven,
By two hours time, to make his course up even.
3.
But how rid Satan and his Legions
In triumph th'row th' infernal Regions?
The Sp'rits which Christ outcast, did come,
With Songs of triumph on his Tomb:
All mankind was proscrib'd; whom death
Did in conceit to hell bequeath.
Oh how death gloried that all now was safe!
And hell in triumph wrote his Epitaph.
4.
How did the Devil Man upbraid,
That Christ so weakly was betrayed?
And he who took not Angels seed,
But Abraham's, failed in the deed;
And by that seed spurn'd to his grave,
Whom he in mercy came to save.
That now the God of life was dead, this mirth
Had balm to cure the wounds made by his birth.
5.
But Satan, at the third days dawn,
Christ now hath re-assumed his pawn.
Thoughtst thou on his t' insult, as once
Thou proudly didst for Moses bones?
Thy two days triumph 's like the story
Of the Persian pris'ners glory.
So thought the Gazites Samson safe, till day,
When he arose, and bore the gates away.
6.
Descend, damned sp'rits; as you began,
Howl on. The death of great God Pan,
At this Christ 's conquest, we may call
Your ruin, Satan's second fall.
Come, King of terrors, yield thy trophies
On Heroes, Soldiers, and Sophies,
Unto our Savior; for thou art undone;
Thy Triumph 's but an empty Skeleton.
7.
My soul, that Christ was born, nay died,
Did not so much quench Satan 's pride:
But when he rose, this blessed morn,
Hell was confounded, Death forlorn.
Were 't not for what this day brings forth,
The rest had lost that solemn worth.
Hence, on this day let no foul spirit dare
T' ascend the Regions of our earth or air.
8.
Lord, as by thine I am assured
My bodies rise shall be procured:
So, let my soul feel 't here begin
Her resurrection too from sin.
Lord, 'tis too much she's thus confined:
But is she buried in this kind?
Oh raise her up: if thus thou please to do,
My heart (my bodies Sun) shall triumph too.

On the Ascension of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.


Psal. 24.

8. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.

9. Who is the King of glory? even the Lord of hosts he is the King of glory.

1.
YE blest immortals,
Divide your glorious portals.
Who not dilates
The everlasting gates,
While that the King of glory mounts his throne?
Though by his own
Here nor received nor known:
We rather worry
The blessed Lamb of glory.
Your Wisdom knows him God's eternal Son.
2.
His work is ended,
Nought partial or suspended.
Blest Angels too,
He purchased hath for you
A nature fixed, which seemed before unfinish'd.
And of a worm
Though here he took the form;
It, since he died,
Is so much glorified,
His Godhead 's neither clouded nor diminish'd.
3.
'T is now no Shrine
T' his Godhead more divine:
His glorious flesh
He needs not now refresh
With food or rest, from hunger or from labor.
And if he here
Shone on the mount so clear,
As if the Sun
With rays his coat had spun;
How brighter shines he now than on mount Tabor!
5.
Since Christ so clear
Shines in his Manhood 's Sphere,
That at its graces
Ye Angels hide your faces:
See in the Trinities transparent mirror
How he 's instal'd,
And in his robes impall'd;
How he 's renowned,
And by his Father crowned
With gracious Majesty, and awful terror.
5.
At his return,
The Pearlie gates do burn;
Jerusalem
Shines with each kind of Gem;
The new Jerusalem with glory burnisht:
Nought here is built
With superficial gilt;
But all in gold
The City is inrol'd;
All thus against his blest Ascension furnished.
6.
Of Precious stones
Are her foundations;
Her Pearlie streets
Do brandish beaming sheets,
Reflecting from the Lamb 's most glorious face.
Here 's constant noon,
No need of Sun or Moon:
Our glim'ring Globe,
Deck'd in his azur'd robe,
Here an Eclipse were to the lowest Grace.
7.
How are we blest!
That have so sweet a rest
Got by the care
Of such a Harbinger,
Who all things can command, all consummate.
The way to heaven
He hath made plain and even;
And what with thorns
Was choked, his grace adorns
With rose-beds, & makes wide heavens narrow gate.
8.
As Olivet,
Some say, retains as yet
Thy foot 's last print,
That naught can close the dint:
Grave on my stupid soul (Lord) this days love,
Even at the mention
Of this thy blest ascension:
Let her aspire,
Like an excentrick fire,
To thee her Centre that art fixed above.

On Christ his Session at the right hand of God.


Mark 16.

19 So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.

1.
HOw well the throne
Becomes God's holy One!
How fit the Rod
Beseems the hand of God!
How meet the Crown
Befits him! 't is his own.
How well, meet, fit, his Throne, Rod, Diadem,
Deck him with glory; but he much more them.
2.
We wish Good luck
To thee with these: go pluck
Hell by the root;
Make it quake at thy foot:
To right thy Spouse,
Damn Death t' a Charnel-house.
Good luck have with thy right. Oh how we bless
Thee and thy Father, for thy good success!
3.
With how sweet bliss
Do Grace and Glory kiss!
So Light and Heat
We see in Phoebus met.
By these 't is known
Thou not usurpst thine own.
Good luck have with thy right: we willingly
Submit unto thy yoke of Liberty.
4.
We, if we might,
Would not supplant thy right;
But yield as well,
As if nor heaven nor hell
Should crown or damn
With endless bliss or shame.
Our better Natures will this just embrace;
Nor can we other by instinct of Grace.
5.
Satan, as heir,
Long kept his steely Chair;
Nay, yet usurps
The unregen'rate corps:
But when Christ claimed
His right, how was all maim'd?
Our blessed Giant having run his course,
Now on the heavens rides, as on a horse.
6.
On man 's agreeing
With Hell, sin had its being;
And by this blot,
Death had her essence got.
Should Christ these things
Suffer as fellow-Kings?
No, if they stir in us while here we breath,
They 're the last pangs but of a dying Death.
7.
But how large Scenes
Hath this Christ 's act? What means
He to prorogue
His wished Epilogue?
And not concludes
Without more Interludes?
Is not th' earths harvest ripe? hath it so dull
In sinning been? yet are the Fats not full?
8.
Hell, Sin, and Death,
Which yet too strongly breath,
Seem to blaspheme,
As if they were Supreme,
Or their power here,
Some Interregnum were.
Lord, 'tis long since, long, since thy promise spake,
These days I will shorten, for my chosen's sake.

On Christ's Intercession with the Father for us.


Heb. 7.

25 Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost, that come unto God by him; seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

1.
NOr is our Savior so much given
Unto the contemplation of himself,
That he forgets us now in heaven,
As, once, profanely thought that glutton elf:
But having travers'd hence his journey,
He still remembers us amidst his glory;
He still remains our blest Attorney,
Whereof the least act, on our true repentance,
Is able to reverse the strongest sentence.
2.
Hence, then, let 's Fortune fear, nor Fate,
Or what blear-ey'd Stargazers can rehearse;
Because we have an Advocate,
Who can each ominous presage reverse.
Let Satan never hence appeal
To heaven, in his wonted Dialect,
Lest he be doomed by Christ his zeal,
As who would make his Death of none effect;
And aimed to hinder him, lest he inherit
The dear-bought purchase which his death did merit.
3.
But if he dare us to attaint,
He'll strait be silenced at Christ 's counter-suit,
As daring to accuse a Saint
To whom Christ will his righteousness impute.
You then, whose troubled souls do languish
In pining sorrow for your sins and follies,
Banish your fears, and calm your anguish;
Exult, and vent your joy in sprightly vollies:
Go, see him with your tears, & leave the trial
To him alone, whose Suit never found denial.
4.
If Artaxerxes took so kind
A handful but of water from a Peasant,
Present thy tears, and thou shalt find
More gracious acceptance of that present.
And if thy sins so thick should crowd,
To fill heavens ears with a condemning matter,
And stand between you like a cloud,
Which not the winds of all thy sighs can scatter;
By him that sable cloud shall be dissolved,
Wherein the Sun of glory seemed involved.
5.
In vain let Satan henceforth wander,
Like to a base accusing Ottacus,
As daring to inform by slander
Him that's all ear and eye, concerning us:
Thus let us then forestal his malice;
Accuse ourselves; let not that seem uncouth:
Who will not so; with Justice dallies:
But so we do his office, stop his mouth.
Our Case thus op'ned, if Christ intercede,
What envious boldness dares against us plead?
6.
What means that Man of sin, that rallies
The Saints as Christ's corrivals in this Function?
And if they were so near his allies,
How was it purchased? when was their Unction?
True, with him are the Saints co-heirs;
But Christ did purchase it, and them elected:
And they to whom now Rome repairs,
If Saints, now by him reign, so here expected.
He is our elder Brother, and he sure
Enjoys his right of primogeniture.
7.
Then have our hands transgressed the warrant
Of heavens Laws? Christ pleads his hands bor'd through:
Or have our devious feet been errant?
He pleads his pierced, by a sufficient proof.
Or if our hearts have Ill invented,
Christ pleads his for us by the Soldier pierced;
All was on him by stripes indented:
He sues the Fine of all on him amerc'd.
In him our sins were scourged, bor'd, nailed, and racked;
Nor will his Father them again exact.
8.
Our sins but whisper to that cry
Which his wounds make; the sorrow & compunction
Of his perplexed Agony;
Nay, with our sins if hell howl'd in conjunction.
Our thanks he graciously perfumes;
Our supplications with odors balms;
Sweetens with myrrh repentant rheums;
With incense sanctifies our vows and alms.
Blest be thy Father, and that sacred Unction.
That did consigne thee to this blessed Function.

On Christ his final coming to Judgment.


Revel. 5.

12 And the Sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.

13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

14 And the heaven departed as a seroll when it is rolled together, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

1.
NOr here our Savior concludes
His act: these are his Interludes:
The eye of faith in these he asks,
As being an Interview of Masks.
But he upon a flaming stage,
In an Angelic equipage;
Now comes in person at the day of Audit,
When troops of angels shall trump forth his plaudit.
2.
When righteousness and equity
The pillars of his Seat shall be;
The elements together mixed,
And the two Poles of th' world unfixt:
Whose Genius shall feel that story
Of the imagined Purgatory,
When wild Disorder, and amazed Confusion,
Shall be the Whifflers to a sad conclusion?
3.
But, Lord, how long wilt thou defer
To hear! Wilt still our hopes deter?
How long that Quaere wilt suspend,
Whether the world shall have an end?
Come, let thy judgment and thy mercy
Finish at length that Controversy.
Come, come away, our panting hearts are drumming
At thy approach, and yet thou seemest not coming.
4.
Haste, Lord, descend, thy Saints to gather,
And to resign them to thy Father.
What wilt thou lose by that thy tender?
'It is no surprisal or surrender:
Thou 'lt be the King of glory still.
For who dares to oppose thy will?
Safe in thy Eden grows the tree of life:
Thou now not doubtst of Adam or his wife.
5.
But stay, my soul; what, canst thou meet
Thy Judge with clean prepared feet?
Art thou not naked, or art clothed
As one to such a Lord betroth'd?
If so, go meet thy coming Groom;
Thy wedding-day's the day of Doom.
But, Lord, we build, wed, feast; we vaunt and jet,
As 't were but now thou saidst, But the end's not yet.
6.
As morning-light precedes the Sun,
Let grace thy glory here fore-run:
For glory never there will come,
Where grace hath not prepared the room.
Give grace, Lord, and, with that, the sinew
Of strength and vigor to continue.
Thou hast been 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and begun to do;
But seemest 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 too.
7.
O let not Hell upbraid thy power,
As his that 'gan to build that tower
He could not end. Finish at length
My Citadel with mighty strength.
Yet, faith and hope faint; joys are sory,
Till grace be swallowed up of glory.
As grace, like Orphah, leaves me when I die;
Let Ruth -like glory fill my Naomi.
8.
Blest God, I know we ought to pray,
Thy kingdom come, each day by day;
And should thy coming damn us all,
We durst but it a mercy call.
Thy time, dread Lord, 's the best; and thou
Long-suff'ring art, of old and now.
O let thy grace make way for glory; then
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Amen.

On the Joys of heaven after the day of Judgment.


2 Cor. 2.

9 Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

1.
GHess now the Scenes of every age
Upon one Stage
Re-acted, and all shifted clean,
Both Stage and Scene;
Each hath his pay, and wafted home,
With Go or Come;
To act a better part, or worse,
With bliss or curse.
Both played have to my Fancies eye,
A Tragi-Comi-Comi-Tragedy.
2.
As heaven Astronomy confines
To Zones and Lines;
And with conceited Poles supports
The azure Courts;
And th'row its fancied Zodiac,
Can Titan track;
And takes heavens length and breadth, if bid,
As th' Angel did:
Their Jacob's staff no less can do
Then if they had got Jacob's ladder too.
3.
Yet all this serves but to advance
Gilt Ignorance:
So heavens joys by blind devotions
Are clothed in notions,
Which only gild our Nescience
With seeming sense.
Them we are forced to ghess by pleasures,
And earthly treasures:
Since though the Turkish Alcharon
Describes their Par'dise, ours can be by none.
4.
But could our Merlins, by discerning
And Lynx -ey'd learning,
Who can the starry Alphabet
In language set;
And though the clouds should blot their book,
Can th'row them look:
Could they define the blessed mansions
B'yo • d these expansions;
I'd love their Art: Divinity
Should then be handmaid to Astronomy.
5.
As on their Babel of Conceit
They mount heavens height:
So, though its beauty and dimension
Befools Invention,
Transcends the Zenith of all mancie
Of Art and Fancie;
Yet since that faculty of soul
Doth more inroll
Then 's seen or heard, we ghess those joys,
Though far above our knowledge, wish, or choice.
6.
To call them Riches, were not high,
But beggarly:
To call them Honors, were a vile
Inglorious style:
To call them Pleasures, were a gross
And tedious gloss,
These Joys by myriads of pitches
Exceed such Riches:
Though by such names the blessed Spirit
Describes those joys which now the Saints inherit.
7.
Since no man th' heavens ever knew,
By Art or view;
Though some the Stars boast to describe,
By name and tribe:
As if when first the heavens were,
They had been there,
And knew them all as well as he,
His silver sky.
Not knowing these, so plain and even,
Who can define the non-apparent heaven?
8.
Lord, since more then I can conceive,
I must believe;
And far beyond my Fancies scope,
I still must hope:
Grant, what's conceived by my youth
Agree with truth:
And whatsoever doth out-stretch
My Fancies reach,
She at forbidden fruit not glance,
But flag her wing in humble Ignorance.

On the Torments of Hell.


Luke 16.

22 And it came to pass that the beggar died, and was buried, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried.

23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and sees Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

24 And he cried, and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue: for I am tormented in this flame.

1.
POor souls! whom endless flames do scorch,
Since that the earth flam'd like a pendant Torch;
Since at the Trumpets final sound,
Our Jericho 's high walls fell flat to ground,
And all was burnt: What Verse hath tones
Sufficient to accent forth your groans?
2.
Should all the Poets add each Fury,
And of the Muses Nine make up a Jury,
And beg their Verdict to define
Hell 's miseries; they must the Suit decline,
Should they exhaust their Helicon,
And these should drain their Styx and Acharon.
3.
Let Wit excite her fruitless strife,
To limn Eternal Death unto the Life,
And in a Synod call the Choir
Or Arts, all served but to paint a fire;
Fire which but makes the brain to sweat,
As void of true description, as of heat.
4.
Reader, let thy Orpheus-like Fancie
Descend to Hell in some conceited Maney,
And with brisk Nectar oil the mouth
Of tortured Dives, which is parch'd with drouth;
All he could say how Furies wreak
Their rage, would be, I know not what to speak.
5.
Aetna 's to this an idle tapor,
Vesuvius a thin incensed vapor;
Or as the Pyramids, whose spires
Mount only in proportioned shapes of fires:
No fire to these is worth a name;
Even Sodom 's but the shadow of this flame.
6.
And what need Poets feign a Styx
Or Acharon, since floods of tears here mix
Into a Sea, which wildly lurks
In darkness, and confused water-works;
Which all Hydrography no better
Can quote, then Xerxes th' Hellespont could fetter.
7.
But cannot Dives from These drench
His thirst-parch'd mouth, and burning liver quench?
No: fire and water here are both
One element, which flaming streams do froth:
Both having purged the world so gross,
Meet in Hell 's furnace, to consume the dross.
8.
Lord since Hell 's pains exceed conceit,
Each gloss on them 's a naked counterfeit:
Our Fancies still have some remorse;
Let us the worst imagine, still 't is worse.
If heavens joys cannot draw me home,
Let these true terrors fright me till I come.

The second Part. On several occasions, and several texts of Scripture.


Psal. 119.

37 O turn away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity.

1.
LOrd, what 's a Beauty! but a paint, at most,
Which with a breath's gone, 't is so vainly glost.
What beauty's died so deep in grain, that dolour,
Or age, or sickness, cannot blast its color?
Since there's within 't no principle to nourish
Its verdant vigor to a constant flourish,
Lord, let me think 't but a more specious worm,
And wink its beauty to an Antick form.
2.
Lord, what's a beauty! in it could I see
The Image which I lost in losing thee,
I'd court, and gaze, till through mine eyes that face
Reprinted on my soul that former grace.
Here's no such form: although indeed some few
Think that in it we may thy footsteps view.
What's beauty then, for which we so much brawl,
But flesh transparent th'row a smoother cawl?
3.
Lord, what's a Beauty? Did a more divine
Saint dwell withinit, I would adore the shrine;
My captiv'd heart with zealous love should boil;
I'd count each beauty as this beauty's foil.
But since the soul, the better part, is tainted,
Can th' outward part be free? must that be Sainted?
What's beauty then, if it be void of grace?
Thy Philip's Blackmore had the fairer face.
4.
Lord, what's a Beauty! our fair Grannam Eve
Soon proved a strong Suadela, to deceive.
This treach'rous White & Red hath bred more war,
Then they did once 'twixt York and Lancaster.
Lord, let me think those eyes by th' wanton Muse
Stil'd Stars, are Ignes fatui, to seduce:
Those Coral-lips, my credit would explode;
These Yv'ry teeth, my good report corrode.
5.
Lord, what's the world! Thou didst not mean, I ghess,
Th'worlds for Impostures, either great or less;
Nor mean'st the lesser, whom thou madest compleater,
Should be at all seduced by the greater.
Yet as they represent each others parts,
The greater too hath its delusive Arts.
Since then they are objects both to tempt mine eyes,
O turn them from beholding vanities.
6.
Lord, what's the world? 't is but a turning Globe,
Which whirls us now on high, then low as Job;
Or a tossed ship, whose now-aspiring Mast
Seems for to boar the clouds, then back doth cast
Her rolling passengers, to seek a Tomb
In some vast Sea-shell, or some fishes womb.
Then what's the world? a bubble 'tis at most;
With wind 'tis only full, with wind 'tis tost.
7.
Lord, what's the world? I will not wish me blind,
Because mine eyes thus tempt me; though I find
A grave one bid one, of one eye bereft,
Not t' weep that loss, but that one yet was left:
Nor will mistake thee, when thou bidst not doubt,
If that mine eye offend, to pluck it out.
Lord, turn away mine eyes: all's one to me,
If so thou dost, as if I did not see.
8.
Lord, what's the world? indeed the heavens array'd
Are in thy Livery; we see displayed
In them thy glorious Coat; they each night story
In Starry characters their Makers glory.
But since a fly, worm, or the meanest elf,
If animate, excels the world itself;
Why then's the world by noble man thus held
In such esteem, that is by such excel'd?

The Author's Epainicron to God, for his Recovery from a sharp Fever.


Psal. 118.

18 The Lord hath chastened and corrected me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death.


Isai. 38.

18 For the grave cannot praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down to the pit, canner hope for thy truth.

19. The living the living he shall praise thee, as I do this day.

1.
Lord, THough Scripture say,
A thousand years one day
Are unto thee; yet must I think again,
To thee appears
Each day a thousand years,
Till I thee thank for freedom from my pain.
2.
Late I was sick;
'Twere vain with Launcet's prick
To vent my blood corrupted too too long:
I looked for death,
As he that lay beneath
A threatening sword which by a thread was hung.
3.
The active strife
For hope or help of life,
Now failed me quite. And while the Doctor lingers,
How did I feel
A hasty Death to ceel
My falling eye-lids with her Ycie fingers?
4.
The quick results
Within my fev'rish Pulse,
The minutes were by which the hours I counted;
Wherein delayed
The tarder Doctors aid:
So hours to days, and days to weeks amounted.
5.
To hold me home,
My last Viaticum
Was tendered, to sustain me in my journey:
Nor was I mute
For to present my suit
To th' mediation of my sweet Attorney.
6.
Life's influence,
Scar'd from my outward sense,
Now to my hearts Metropolis was gone;
And in this strait,
My ready soul did wait
With nimble wing for dissolution.
7.
But like a brand
Pluck'd by thy gracious hand,
I have escaped the burning unconsum'd:
Though death by Fever
Did rage as bad as ever.
Chaldee 's King on the furnac'd children fum'd.
8.
But as they, freed,
With one consent agreed
To praise thee for thy kindness and thy love:
So let me praise
Thy mercy all my days;
So shall this mercy not my judgment prove.

Temptation.


Ephes. 6.

14 Stand fast therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breast-plate of righteousness,

15 And your feet shed with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.

16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, whereby ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

1.
NOr was with Death my combat such,
But now I am tempted all so much;
So that me thinks my Senses halt
'Twixt two; which was the worst assault:
Unless thou, Lord, who conquer'dst Death,
And lately crown'dst me with that wreath;
As thou hast vanquished Hell too, I am undone,
Unless thou finish what thou hast begun.
2.
Isit not enough, by the sinister
Temptations of her whisp'ring sister
My soul's seduced, with frailty clothed;
And to infirmity betroth'd;
That th'easy soul by flesh is tempted,
Nor night, nor day, nor place exempted;
As if in slights she did the Devil ape,
And meant them no temptations, but a rape?
3.
Isit not enough, that by the fraud
of Hell, that makes the World her Band,
I am by the World seduced; and Sense
Wooes, not refists its influence;
Whose very blessings are but Baits,
As if th' air breathed naught but deceits:
So that we all might breathe our mourning thus;
False world, Imposture is thy Genius?
4.
But are we subject to the darts
Of hellish Fiends, which seize our hearts,
Like subtle Lightning's fierce inquests,
Which melts the gold within the chests?
As if they aimed tousurp thy part,
Who only knowest and try'st the heart;
Into whose Closets they themselves convey,
Unless thou, Lord, vouchsafe to keep the key.
5.
Lord, gird my loins with truth, and dress
Me in thebreast-plate of righteousness;
Let my feet be prepared, (my God)
And with the peaceful Gospel shod:
Shield me with faith, (the chiefest Spell)
To quench the firy darts of hell:
Daign th'helmet of salvation, and the sword
Of thy blest Spirit, Lord, which is thy Word.
6.
But I no more can wear this armor,
Then thy Delight and Judah's Par'mour
Could stout Saul 's against him of Gath;
For such too are Hell 's arms and wrath:
Nor can no more foil with thy Word,
Then could that Turk with Castriot 's sword:
I am weak and ignorant; 't is thou alone
Must teach me both to fight, and put it on.
7.
But where's this Armor to be found?
No Cyclops frame it under ground.
He hopes in vain to win the field,
Who fights against Hell with Hell's shield:
Such Armours are but empty shrouds,
As thin and airy as the clouds.
Thou, who wilt crown our conquest, dost impale
Our souls with these Arms, from thy Arsenal.
8.
Then if thou stor'st me with these Arms,
My soul shall need no other Charms;
If thou with these my spirit furnish,
They'll fright Hell with their very burnish;
Nor doubt I lest Hells arrows points
Should wound me th'row these armors joints:
I then might send that answer, Let him scoff,
And boast at last, that puts his armor off.

Psal. 62.

9 As for the children of men, they are but vain; the children of men are deceitful upon the weights: they are altogether lighter then vanity itself.

1.
DRead Lord! w'are all too light: the empty scale
Towards heaven mounts with a complaining tale:
The over-balanc'd one on Orcus knocks,
As if it means to rend the brazen locks
That prison vengeance; and it presseth deep,
As if it thought Destruction were asleep.
2.
If thus our Case with dreadful Justice stand,
How shall we scape her tother armed hand?
Think we God is not with our ways acquainted,
And Justice 's Sword no sharper then 't is painted?
The Lion's painted fiercer then he is:
But deeming Justice so, we judge amiss.
3.
Thus stands our Case: but if thy Mercy buoys
Th' over-balanc'd Scale in even counterpoize,
Then may we pass good, with a grain or two
Of thy dear blood, as oft light Pieces do:
And then if Justice should be most extreme,
We should over-weigh with a declining beam.
4.
But since Sin's heavy too, how can agree
In truth this various levi-gravity?
Unless it be, that weighty things we fleight,
And over-value things of slender weight.
Thus Scriptures justly their complaints may levy:
In weighty things w'are light, in light things heavy
5.
But shouldst thou weigh us as w'are in ourselves,
Vain as Inconstancy, and light as Elves;
Mightst thou not by the breath of thy displeasure,
Breath into naught at all our empty measure?
And mightest Belshazzar 's doom with that same hand,
Not only on our walls, but foreheads brand?
6.
Dread Lord, the best are as the smalled dust
Within the balance: so thy Truth discust:
How can we then expect but to miscarry,
Weigh'd with the Shekel of thy Sanctuary?
Such, angry Justice soon to hell proscribes,
Who hath quick eyes to judge, though' none for bribes.
7.
If could our Churls with Gold, our airy Gallants,
With all their Glories, raise the stooping balance;
In sheets of Gold I'd clothe me; never check
At Honors Lure, but still obey its beck:
But Gold is vain, and Honor light; and they,
The more they are lined with these, the less they weigh.
8.
Thus shouldst thou weigh what man amiss hath don,
What man could stand it, but thy only Son?
Who was weighed in man's balance of deceit,
That we might be found of sufficient weight;
Who was out-weighed by thirty pence, that we
Might so pass currant in thy Treasury.

Eccles. 5.

11 When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?

GO, Worldings, set your eye-lids on the rack;
Gaze on your wealth, until your eye-strings crack.
With too intensive views, all your delight
May weary, but never satisfy your sight;
No, though the windows of your eyes were glaz'd
With Multiplying-glasses while you gaz'd.
You that adore your heaps with admiration,
As doth Astronomy a Constellation;
And if with th' heavens you in love do join,
'It is 'cause they are of the color with your Coyn:
Go hug yourselves in your beloved condition;
You only have in use, I in fruition
These gifts of Fortune: Virtue may indeed
Them be without; but you do stand in need
Amidst your wealth; neither can you boast more
Of being rich, then I of being poor.
Now can my soul mount freely with her wings,
Not with the baggage clogged of earthly things.
Here parents may, by underserv'd removes,
Devest us of our birth-right, and their loves:
So that all duty cannot induce their mind,
No, not to share their store by Gavel-kind;
So leaving grief and poverty their portion,
As if their first-born were but an abortion.
There Satan 's Vouchers can nor dis-inherit,
Nor Justice cause divorce, where Christ 's my merit.
As false, as sad, is that conclusion,
That thinks God's blessing's with a birth-right gone.
Come, worldlings, come, who wish to have no pledge
Of your salvation, but Achan 's wedge;
I will show you wealth, to which your gold is dross,
And all your Gallants bravery but moss.
Within you glorious curtains thou mayst find
A Carkanet of Jewels is enshrin'd.
Ascend, and tell me if a Pearl ere shone
In equal luster with you Jasper-stone.
The Jewels of a Monarch 's Crown, the cost
Wherewith of old were Aaron 's Robes imbost,
Were childish shells to these, true Midas dishes,
Which do but choke the owner with his wishes.
There's the true Topaz, Iacinth, and Beryl;
What Jewel not? which thou without the peril
Of coveting mayst lust for: there's a Mine,
Which only if thou wilt desire, is thine.
'It is not Idolatry to be thus greedy,
But Piety: thrice-blessed are such needy.
Why dost thou startle at this wealthy tender,
Which Thieves cannot rob, nor Fortune cause surrender?

Prov. 28.

13. He that covereth his sin, shall not prosper.

1.
COver our sins!
Sees not bright Phosper
False Weights and Hins;
And can they prosper?
Sin may, like a false Nun,
Cloister'd in darkness lie:
It may avoid the Sun,
Not God's revenging eye.
Some, yet, to clothe their naked sin,
With Eve and Adam sow fig-leaves;
And one to hide his Vices in,
Such webs as doth the Spider, weaves.
But if could foolish sin avail to cover
The skies with these imaginary clouds;
Would not a quick-ey'd pendant veng'ance hover,
To rend and pierce their artificial shrouds?
2.
Cover our sins
From God? From him
What wings or fins
Can fly or swim?
We Wizards need, nor Weirds,
No torturing extremes:
Truths Vouchers, flocks or herds,
Or walls will be, or beams.
What Medium's so gross, t' exclude
God, who's all, whe'er in earth or sky?
Who's in so close a Parlour mew'd,
To shun his sight, who is all eye?
What darkness, but the God of light can scatter?
His searching wind doth enter every cranny.
Justice puts off her Vizor, though some flatter,
'It is at wild aim if that her sword smite any.
3.
Cover our sins!
Since punishment
And vice are twins,
Though different.
Wrath takes sin by the heel,
As Jacob Esau once;
And makes it fall or kneel
T'hell, or repentant groans.
No eager hoof, or flipp'ry keel,
Can sin to safe Asylums bear;
Though hid within a winding eel,
Or in evasions couched it were.
Let's not in private dare an evil fact,
Lest with a Cockatrices killing eye,
God make his Seeing and Revenge one act:
No time or place knew long immunity.
4.
Cover our sins!
Sees Israel 's keeper
Only the skin,
And sees no deeper?
Ere done, he sees our deeds;
Much more when they are done:
He sees them in their seeds;
Much more when they are grown.
If we could hide us in the air,
Heaven is God's molten Looking-glass:
Should we for safety t' hell repair,
Holl hath nor covering nor case.
But if we so much lust to lurk and hide,
Let's take Asylum in those blest five clifts
Of that great Rock; let's nestle in his side:
Let us his Priesthood feed upon these fifts.

Psal. 60.

2 Thou hast moved the land, and divided it: heal the sores thereof, for it shaketh.

1.
TH'ast moved us, Lord; our troubled times resemble
An earth-quake best; for so we quake & tremble.
The lofty fabrics of our beauteous Isles
Now lie confused, and heaped in ru'nous piles.
Lord, thou hast moved us, as corn-fields we find
Decline their knotty stems before the wind.
2.
Yet thou canst move worse then by Civil wars;
When thou shalt move the world, when fixed stars
Like Autumn-leaves shall from the heavens drop,
When the feigned Poles shall fail to under-prop
Their massy weight: yet Lord, now, let thy love
And mercy move us, ere thy power thus move.
3.
Lord, thou hast moved our land; it moved hath
Been by the breath of thy provoked wrath,
Worse then that wind that would dispeople th'woods,
And make proud Masts to kiss the angry floods:
Yet since thy breath can kindle coals worse far
Then those of Juniper, untouched we are.
4.
Our land's a broken bone, by Discord burst;
Which timely set, may prove as strong as first;
But if delayed until a Gangrene seize it,
What art can cure it, or what hand can ease it?
When man's help fails, thou only canst complete it:
None but thy hand, that broke the bone, can set it.
5.
W' are sick; no part in or 'twixt th' head or foot,
But is dise as'd, sick both in branch and root:
But since most Doctors, while they cure, exhaust
The moisture radical, and spirits wast;
Let's unto him, whose wisdom knows at length
To cure the wound, yet not t' impair the strength.
6.
My heart bleeds, Lord, to think our Nation hath
So few to stand betwixt us and thy wrath:
Our fins so heinous might most justly shame
The mouth of Mercy for to plead our name;
And Justice seems to plead, at Mercy vext,
Bold Mercy cease thy chat, my turn is next.
7.
How gross is Nature's sin, that thus can move,
As here on earth, so war in heaven above?
Sets God against himself, can raise disputes
Betwixt his just and gracious Attributes.
Will not the angry heavens the world impeach
As true occasioners of this their breach?
8.
But thou, who both in one hast reconciled,
That Mercy sat content, stern Justice smiled;
On thee the weight of all our sins was laid:
Oh do not us again with them upbraid.
Thou raz'dst not the partition-wall in vain:
Oh do not sufferit to be built again.

On the Spring.

MY Sense is ravished, when I see
This happy Seasons Jubilee.
What shall I term it? a new birth,
The resurrection of the earth,
Which hath been buried, we know,
In a cold Winding-sheet of snow.
The Winters breath had pav'd all over
With Crystal Marble th'world's great floor:
But now the earth is livery'd
In verdant suits, by April died;
And, in despite of Boreas spleen,
Deck'd with a more accomplished green.
The gaudy Primrose long since hath
Disclos'd her beauty by each path.
The floods, as freez'd for Chariot-proof,
Were planch'd over with a Crystal roof:
Now in their channels sweetly glide,
As Nyle, when they his banks divide.
The trees robbed of their leafie pride,
With mossie frize had clothed each side;
Whose hoary beards seemed to presage
To blooming youth their winters age:
But now invite to come and lie
Under their quilted Canopy.
Blithe Damon, like a jolly man,
Long since unto the mountains ran,
Where quietly he sits to pipe,
Whereat his lambs do seem to skip;
Then running to their dams, they tug,
With pleasant speed, the swelling dug.
Anon, let's to yon hawthorn steal,
And hearken how sweet Philomele
Grieves not so much at Tereus crime,
As joys to see the Summer's prime.
How to the Spring the whistling Thrush
His Sonnets sings on every bush!
The Sun late squinted from the skye,
And looked on us with half an eye:
But now with glad and golden cheer
Phlegon mounts up our Hemisphere.
Our blood's mild, as if by some art
W' had sucked some new-born infant 's heart.
In brief, quaint Nature seems here nice
In type to shadow Paradise.
Lord, all things bud, and shall I davour
Without the sunshine of thy favor?
Wilt never prime? hast passed a doom,
That season never more shall bloom?
Inflict not on me such a dearth,
A greater curse then on the earth.
If did my sin in Tereus shape
Act on thy Philomel a rape;
My soul like Progne shall be just,
And on his brats revenge his lust.
Let Primrose-like Repentance rise,
Dew'd by the April of mine eyes:
Then will I not doubt but next thou
Wilt make each grace in order blow.

Psal. 22.

9 But thou art he that took me out of my mothers womb: thou wast my hope, when I hanged yet on my mothers breasts.

10 I have been left unto thee ever since I was born: thou art my God, even from my mothers womb.

1.
LOrd, when the Ostrich leaves her forlorn eggs,
Nor ey'd nor watched,
They by the sand are hatched:
The young soon use their wing-born legs,
And for themselves with eager speed can prey:
But Lord, thou foundst me in worse case then they.
2.
The Halcyon can promise on the flood,
That South nor North
Rage, till she have brought forth
Among the waves her sea-born brood:
But I was sent, young far on sea and land,
But found thus good to me nor sea nor sand.
3.
I was cast forth, like an exposed Elf,
As soon as born,
Most wretched and forlorn:
Until thou tookest me up thyself.
As if my Parents knew no other debt,
They ow'd their child, but only to beget.
4.
Like Moses, young, exposed to the floods,
Where I might weep
To the remorsless deep:
Left since, like Ishm'el, to the woods
Of this uncertain world, where I aside
Might wander, if thou hadst not been my guide.
5.
And as the earth (held by thy secret hand)
Hangs in the air;
There is no thread or hair
Supports the smallest dust or grain of sand:
So while some wonder how it is they fall,
To me 't is strange, Lord, how I stand at all.
6.
Blest God, that tookest me from my mothers womb,
My heritance
Here, is not worth a glance;
In length and breadth all but a Tomb:
For as th' hast weaned me ever since my birth,
So still th'hast weaned me from my mother earth.
7.
Yet though my friends have thrust me from my right,
As from their nest
The Eagles do devest
Theirs who cannot dare the sun by sight:
Yet this is still my glory, in all things,
Th' hast born me th'row, as 't were on Eagles wings.
8.
Wealth is no needful adjunct unto grace.
If riches are
The true undoubted stair
That lead to glory, Jacob 's case,
In purchasing his blessing, were but poor:
For he lived mean, while Esan swelled with store.
9.
The blessing stood not in the promised land
So much indeed,
As in the promised Seed
Bequeath'd by Isaac 's blessing hand.
God's right-hand-blessing's seldom clods of earth,
But such as fear invasion, plagues, nor dearth.
10.
Yet here each birth-right's not a Type of heaven,
As Canaan was
T' Abraham 's seed; but as
Th' earth 's cursed oft, as a curse 't is given:
But seldom (for w' are oft deceived in ghessing)
The Earnest or th' Appendix of a blessing.
12.
Lord, be 't all as thy wisdom hath decreed,
Since th' art my portion,
I fear no such extortion;
I pass by all, and bid God speed.
Let them go view their Landskips, while that I
Do with a better birth-right please mine eye.

Job 7.

20 I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men?

1.
LOrd, I have sinned: O weighty words! what more
Could Hell, if it repentant were, deplore?
It could but say, We merit thus to die:
Even so do I confess, even so have I.
Yet though my sins do bear an equal bulk
With some of Hell's, unequal is our mulct.
2.
Lord, I have sinned; to tell how much, there wants
A sea of Ink, as many Pens as plants
Grow on the teeming earth; and sheets as large
As are the heavens, to contain the Charge:
As many Items to the Charge amount,
Which none but thy Arithmetic can count.
3.
Lord, I have sinned: what shall I say? O brief
Yet full expression of sin and grief!
Thus humble Penitents vent much in little,
While Pharisees yet vent their frothy spittle
In self-applause. But in my grief this clause
I will only vent, and then sit down and pause.
4.
Lord, I have sinned; when not? in life and function:
What time or age can plead a free dis-junction?
Not childhood: for sin soon outgrew that age,
And proved a Graduate in my Pupillage:
So that I justly may lament, that sin
And I were born inseparable twin.
5.
Lord, I have sinned: Nay, sleep, that locks my sense,
Can hardly bat that bold intruder thence:
Corruption still her sentinel doth keep;
What Lullabee can rock her watch asleep?
Poets may feign at will; but she nor weighs
Dull Morpheus nor his bunch of leaden keys.
6.
Lord, I have sinned: but if I once were clear,
When wheels about that same Platonic year?
That I might hope, when my (now-tainted) duty
Might innocent appear in perfect beauty.
O for that Anniverse, to set me free;
Hence would I fetch my blessed Epoche.
7.
Lord, I have sinned: but were I free, where's found
That happy and no less then holy ground?
O might I know the place, there would I raise
And dedicate a Temple to thy praise.
But thy blest wind, that breathes at list his grace,
Can breathe his Zephyres here in every place.
8.
Lord, I have sinned: and for my Irritavies
If thou shouldst not vouchsafe me true Peccavies,
I still should sin: let others use their mind,
My El'gies burden still shall be, I have sinned.
And since I cannot weep for each sin; till death,
I have sinned should be the burden of each breath.

Mark 7.

21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,

22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.

1.
IF could some Delius with divided hands
Sound the Seas depth, and on his souls recorder
Imprint the wracks, huge rocks, and heaps of sands,
Which there lie scattered in confused disorder:
This could he do, by Natures's strength or art,
Yet none could sound the bottom of the heart.
2.
Should some Ship-master make's fore-split the Probe
Of Nature's secrets, and so bring to view
Land to make up a perfect earthly Globe,
Which Drake nor Kit Columbus never knew:
Yet, as in the great world, so in his own,
He must confess there 's yet much land unknown.
3.
The heart's a Sea for depth, like Sodom-lake,
Dead, thick, & gross; in it will sink no good:
Th' hearts land 's unknown; wherein what monsters make
Their hides and dens, few yet have understood.
The center may be purest earth; yet th' heart
The bodies center's the corrupter part.
4.
Our heart-strings are the cords of vanity;
Their caverns are the devil 's lurking-holes;
No fit Triangle for the Trinity;
An habitation more fit for moles:
Their cauls the veils of damned Hypocrisy.
Thus is summed up man 's wretched Majesty.
5.
If thus the Sun within our firmament
Into a Meteor degenerate;
If thus the King within our continent
Let 's sin and lust usurp his Royal state:
If thus corrupted be the bodies leaven,
How shall we manchets be prepared for heaven?
6.
Whe'er Hell be in th' earth's center, I suspend;
But in man 's center 's couched an Hell of sin:
Nor do so many lines to th' center tend,
As in a wicked heart fiends make their Inn:
Which yet most know no more, then can be found
Where Arethusa winds beneath the ground.
7.
Lord, show me in the Mirrour of thy Law
The horror of my heart by bright reflection:
In that thy Glass, there falsehood is nor flaw:
Though wickedly some scorn its true direction,
And whip the Tutor for his discipline;
Yet Lord direct me by that Glass of thine.
8.
Oh daign my heart with graces to perfume,
And th'rowly purge it from each noisome vapor,
Whose rank infection chokes each neighb'ring room,
And strives to damp my soul's aspiring tapor.
O make my heart-strings, Lord, thy cords of love;
So mine according to thy heart shall prove.

1 Pet. 4.

18. If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

1.
IS then with fraud
The way to heaven straw'd?
And is it granted that our race
Is scattered with caltraps every pace?
Which if but trod on, pierce us to the ankles;
And more, no wound they give, but rankles:
So that it seems a venter
At all to enter.
The way to heaven's not dam'd with trifling burs,
But block'd and barricado'd with demurs.
2.
The world's no less
Than a vast wilderness;
Whence if heavens guides lead us not home,
Officious hell will seem to lend us some:
His fiery pillar of false joy he grants,
His cloudy one of Ignorance.
But to these who confides
To be his guides,
Is straightway swallowed in some dang'rous gulf,
Or prey'd by sin, as by some bear or wolf.
3.
Who look well in 't,
The world's a Labyrinth;
At each whose Maze whoever touched,
But found that damned Minotaur lay couched;
Who takes each yielding for a firm contract,
And proudly will each grace exact,
Till he have all deflowr'd,
And all devoured.
Let not thy Theseus Lord, be too remiss:
My soul, my Ariadne, shall be his.
4.
Is then each path
All thus scattered with wrath?
We hoped, amongst the Jewish scorns,
Christ from these ways had fetched his crown of thorns;
And from these Turn-pikes and these armed Rails,
Had daign'd to take his Cross and Nails;
And hence had fetched that dart
Which pierced his heart;
And triumphed had in conquest of these spoils,
And purged his high-way of these snares and toils.
5.
W' are not withstood
By easy flesh and blood;
But Satan with our weakness wrestles,
The Prince of th' air which in our Region nestles:
Nay we with these, like Gibellines and Guelves,
Do side and fight against ourselves;
Fraud's Convoy, and Deceit
Th' Inn where we bait.
Though Christ have bought us heaven, without doubt
We both must sue for it, and fight it out.
6.
No Saint nor Martyr
Can boast of other Charter;
All at this Cross have Inn'd, as well
As Christ that went that way to heaven by hell.
Virtue's a narrow mean betwixt two Vices;
On each hand are deep precipices:
Let's take (if guide we lack)
That bloody track
Which issu'd from that blessed Roe 's five wounds,
When pierced and pursued by the Jewish hounds.
7.
It cannot be wav'd,
The righteous scarce are saved:
Shall not the wicked then be swallowed
Up in the mire wherein they thus have wallow'd?
If trouble ever do attend on grace,
Shall peace wait on a wicked case?
If scarce be saved the just,
Shall pride and lust?
If thus the case stood with that verdant tree,
How shall the stubble and the chaff go free?
8.
In sack and down
All thoughts of hell they drown:
Even so th' Hart ends the controversy,
When he, pursued, flies to the Hunter 's mercy.
Even so the Sparrow, by the Falcon chas'd,
Did to the Stoic 's bosom haste.
Each path with pleasure's pav'd,
With beauty grav'd,
Until that footing fails them ere they think;
Oh then how quickly into hell they sink!

Grief for not grieving.


Psal. 126.

6 They that sow in tears, shall reap in joy.

7 He that now goeth on his way weeping, and beareth forth good seed, shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him.

1.
IF ever anything be heard or seen
That might provoke or raise my jocund spleen;
How could I wish my lungs were made of buff,
For clasps to hold me till I have laughed enough?
But godly grief cannot one tear extort;
As if my senses all were made for sport.
2.
Have I sustained a trivial loss? how apt
My active senses are for to be wrapped
To th' highest strain of passion? I can gloss,
Heaven never could impose a greater cross.
My floodgate-sense can stand wide ope at those;
But godly grief's against the stream; they close.
3.
If that I hear Death's universal doom
Hath on my friend to execution come;
Methinks then had I at his funeral
All Argus eyes, I could supply them all:
But when one tells me what a Lethargy
Hath seized my soul, I can nor moan nor cry.
4.
If little bigger then an atom fall
Into my eye, it smarts, though never so small:
But what's an atom to a mountain? such
Like sins I bear, yet start not half so much.
Why have I not within, through conscience,
A sense of pain, as outward pain of sense?
5.
If that the clouds some foggy mists have sucked,
They'll show'r them back; what can their course obstruct?
The Moon by tides doth purg the frothy main;
The poisoned Spring doth clear itself again:
Yet I am sin-tainted, and what motions urge me
Unto repentance, that should clear and purge me?
6.
Were I to live the old Methus'lem 's years
A living Conduit of incessant tears,
I could not vie a tear for every sin;
So vain and foolish all my youth hath been.
Yet th'earth to bear our villainies may groan;
But I am dead and senseless of mine own.
7.
My Conscience, Lord, though I it light esteem,
Doth with a secret issue closely teem:
Oh let her pregnant womb be now disclosed,
Till that disease or age have incomposed
My sense. I now should court it as my friend,
Which then, perhaps, may prove my foe in theend.
8.
Lord, wound me, or I die: for I, although
My case be deadly, am not sick enough:
O let me know I am taken in Death's jaw,
Till I am quite digested in her maw.
For if any Conscience, like a Lethargy,
Stir not till th' hour of death, I sadly die.

Ephes. 4.

30 Grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

1.
GRieve not the Spirit! can it be believed
The Spirit can be grieved?
Thought we God, void of passion, could be vext.
Except we saw this text?
When Christ indeed was heres in flesh confined,
He wept and grieved we find;
But thought we that a Dove which hath no gall
Could once be grieved, at all?
Oh I should groan 't, not measur 't in an Ode;
Sin grieves the holy Spirit of my God.
2.
Who would resist that sacred Dove that pecks
The conscience with checks?
Who would resist that Dove that helps to groan
In an accepted tone?
Who would resist that Dove whose harmless beak
Instructs us how to speak?
Who would resist that Dove whose in'cent feet
Shew to walk as is meet?
Let not this Dove back to the Ark, and grieve
That we on earth will none of him receive.
3.
Here let him bring his Olive-leaf and rest,
And nestle in our breast.
O! never let us at his gracious billing
Once show ourselves unwilling,
Until we new begotten are, and breed
Through his eternal seed.
O! let us never hence resist this Dove,
This blessed Bird of love.
This Dove at Muhammad's ear never bill'd,
Though so he fain the Alcharon instill'd.
4.
Think we, because some say, Doves have no gall,
God's vengeance feigned at all,
That we thus with his Spirit dare to dally,
As with our Friend or Ally?
Such wanton cruelty to Christ we dealt
When he among us dwelt;
Such entertainment he whiles here received,
When he among us grieved:
We could him to no other Inn bequeath,
But to his Grave; and to no Hoast, but Death.
5.
But let not sin usurp us; but the Spirit,
His right in us inherit:
And since he made the heart, let none abridge
Him of that privilege.
O let not sin be Porter still, which mocks
His sweet, his Patient knocks.
Delay, like that false Brother, cries, I go,
But means no less then so.
Who but a beggar for a slender pittance,
Would with such patience dance for an admittance?
6.
O let us open, lest his wrath break through!
We are not thunder-proof:
O let us open to his calls! such knocks
Even might awake deaf rocks:
Who might (enamored on his gracious gifts)
Divide their flinty clifts,
Lest he appear next in a Vulture 's shape,
T' act on our souls a rape:
Lest with his lightning he our bodies harrow,
Incinerate our bones, and drink our marrow.
7.
Lord, I am dull; O let thy Spirit pierce
Way for a quick commerce.
'It is wholesome Physic, Lord, to be soul-sick;
Health, to be pierced at quick.
When ere thou comest, I am either gone from home,
Or thou before I come:
Next, if denied, break th' house, 't is thine, and I
Allow the Burglary;
And let thy holy wind, with quick inquest,
Enter, and raise his Earthquakes in my breast.
8.
Then purge thy Temple; let my flesh even long:
O give each pore a tongue,
To cry, Come blessed Spirit: let each mouth
Breathe, Rise, O North, come South;
Breathe on thy Spices, breathe, lest that thy garden,
Not blow'd, or dew'd on, harden,
Like to that quondam-Nursery of thine,
Once-fruitful Palestine.
Thus by thy grace refreshed, in thy good time,
It flourish may, like Eden in its prime.

Psal. 63.

4 For thy loving kindness is better then life itself.

1.
BEtter then life itself! what's life? what blindness
Prefers his life before thy loving kindness?
Were life possessed of all that feigned bliss
The Quran can promise after this;
Yet what were all these joys? what gust or savor
Had all these pleasures yet, without thy favor?
2.
Could man re-purchase, by some unknown price,
His ancient Manor, real Paradise:
Should he be re-saluted, The sole Lord,
And seisin given him by that flaming sword:
Could Man have all these joys, what were 't to be
At peace with Creatures, and at war with Thee?
3.
Should man be with that chosen vessel wrapped
Up into heaven, and there in glories wrapped:
Should he with such a holy violence
As was Elijah once, be wafted hence:
Could man have these, without thy love what were it
To what Elijah and blest Paul inherit?
4.
If the wings of our time of life did flag
Nothing below the age of crow or stag;
If in man's body fitly did condense,
An equal temper of the elements:
Yet what were life, without thine from above?
Or breath, without the breathings of thy love?
5.
Life is a noble thing, by God 't was breathed;
A jewel to man's carkanet bequeathed,
To cherish 't by instinct is all our strife,
All good 's included in the Name of Life
Yet if thy gracious Spirit not revive,
We but dead, and only seem to live.
6.
True, a live dog exceeds a lion dead;
But a dead dog excels a life that 's led.
Without thy favor, without thy direction:
Thy breath in us corrupts by sins infection.
Without thy love, each creature's both our Foe,
And all enjoyments turn to bitter woe.
7.
Except our money with thy stamp be coin'd,
Except our friendship with thy love be join'd,
Except thy marrow do our dish imbellish,
Except our wine do savor of thy relish;
Our money, friendship, all our wine and sood,
Not currant is, not true, not sweet, not good.
8.
Dear God! without thy love all creatures may
Match me; I live and am, and so are they:
No difference, without thy quickening presence,
There is 'twixt me, and unbelieving peasants.
If here thy love bear witness of thy choice,
I in thy loving kindness shall rejoice.

2 Pet. 3.

10. But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away, with great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up.

11. Seeing then, that all these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness?

12. Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens, being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.

1.
Thus learned,
Let 's be fore-warned;
And thus astonished,
In time let 's be admonished.
In vain our brains we pump,
To tell the terrors of that trump:
Cloud-rending thunders are but soft,
Quiet as night, and silent as a thought;
Or as the noisless music of the Spheres,
To this sound that shall deaf our ears.
No vapors bellowing from the ground
At all are like this sound.
And if that Trump shall make
The dead t' awake;
Where shall it drive
Th' alive?
If shall the senseless graves and th' earth obey,
Shall we not quake and tremble worse then they?
2.
I wonder,
If that the Thunder
Makes beasts to flee
For safety to some tree:
Let 's think then with what terror
Shall that loud Trump wake sin and error!
How do we tremble if we meet
The eager flashes of a lightning sheet?
How do we wish to quench a burning City,
If possible, with tears of pity?
If with our fev'rish friend we fry
In hearty sympathy;
How shall we melt as fast
As th' heavens wast,
When I and you
Shall view
The heavens to dissolve, the skies to swelter,
And stars in melting elements to welter,
3.
We count,
At Sinai 's mount,
When God propounded
The Law, all were confounded:
God 's thunder-rhetoric
With lightning flash'd, made Nature sick:
Sinai like some Vesuvius seemed;
Its trembling womb with constant earth-quakes teem'd,
As if the feigned Cyclops there were under,
And there did forge and frame their thunder:
His Law God with such terror spake,
It made the just to quake:
How will he then impeach
His statutes breach!
And sin how strict
Convict?
Shall they not feel those terrors of the Law.
Which they at Sinai only heard and saw?
4.
The torrid
Zone 's not so horrid
As some do feign;
Nor is the dog-stars reign:
Our wits foment more fuel
Then Nature gave; they 're not so cruel:
But who hath so his thoughts indulged,
To think these flames less then they are divulged,
May fear to be cast from this burning frame,
Into an everlasting flame,
'Mong those contemners of that Prophet
Who did denounce that Tophet,
Whereon a forced belief,
Shame pain and grief,
Shall without end
Attend:
Where sighs shall serve but to blow up the flame,
And tears the oil, which shall foment the same.
5.
And thus
We now discuss,
The world of old
By Noah was foretold;
And as they at his Ark,
Some at our preparations bark:
The Atheist 's ready to ask whether
Our Christ and Mahomet will come together;
Since both have been expected long, t' invest
Theirs in a Paradise of rest.
There 's none but both upbraids and pities
Wretch'd Sodom and her Cities:
Even they were thus surprised,
When unadvis'd
They reck'ned not
Just Lot.
And who knows Sodom 's fate, but counteth it
Th' world 's future in a lesser volume writ?
6.
But ghess
To what distress
Was th' old world brought,
Beyond conceit or thought,
When void of Ark or Boat,
They saw just Noah's Ark afloat!
Ghess one upon a rock that snores,
While the wild Sea hath drowned all neighb'ring shores.
Anon awaking, casts his frighted eyes
Upon a ship which scorns his cries;
Now looks each minute for some wave,
To waft him to his grave:
Such even was their fate,
When they too late.
Like Pharaoh 's host,
Were lost.
And now what saving knowledge will dissever
From serious thoughts, that dropsy and this sever?
7.
Oh how
Methinks I now
See that day dawn,
Tombs split, and graves to yawn!
Methinks I hear no noise,
But seems to accent forth that voice,
Some have let loose the Torrid Zone;
The sky 's one fiery element alone;
Th' earths veins and minerals run in one stream,
At th' heavens all-dissolving beam:
All waters (as those that did drench
Divine Elijah 's trench)
The fire doth seem to sup,
And swallow up.
What flames display
The day!
Now let nor Daedalus trust to his wing,
Nor Gyges walk invisibly in 's Ring.
8.
This we
May all foresee:
Hear we not rumors
Of war, revenge, and humors?
As if we would th' earth 's fall
With flames of rage and lust forestal:
Some stars are fallen, and long since,
That they were flashie Meteors convince.
The fixed stars seem Planets, and, God knows,
Meet in conjunction but t' oppose:
They who did pillars seem, and props,
Prov'd Egypt's reeds t' our hopes.
And if these are not signs
How th' world declines.
I to just Zeal
Appeal.
Our Gospels sun in darkness hath been urn'd,
And into blood the Moon our Church been turned.
9.
What men
Should we be then?
How faithful we
In measure and degree:
How watchful, wise, and wary,
He that comes, will come, and not tarry.
How ought we now to heaven exhale
Our timely sighs in a repentant gale?
How ought we now, against this day of fears,
God's bottle fill with mourning tears?
That in this day, when air nor pool
Shall not refresh nor cool;
When waters shall not drench,
And much less quench,
Nor ought refresh
Our flesh:
We may be cheered by that North and South,
Which shall refresh our scorchings, cool our drouth.
10.
Dread God,
This Period
Cannot be far;
Though thou wilt send no star
Before thee now, as when
Thou didst at first to those Wise-men:
Yet Wise-men now, with eyes as steady,
View in the east thy star there fixed already.
O send thy Spirit, by a privy Session,
T' arraign and sentence each transgression:
Let 's now condemn ourselves, that we
May then b' absolved by thee.
O let 's now for each fault
Our hearts assault;
Our selves contemn,
Condemn:
Then shall that flame our joyful Bonefire be,
And that Trump sound our happy Jubilee.

On the death of that worthy ingenious GENTLEMAN, John Ayshford Esq; Who departed this life, May 19. _____ 54.

ANd art thou dead? nor can Religion raise
Thy body as immortal as thy praise?
Neither can quick'ning Virtue, as a sign
Thou lov'dst her, choose thy body for her shrine?
My grief 's too dull; I 'd in a serious plea
'Twixt Grief and Reason, melt into a Sea.
Come, in a weeping cloud let 's mix our tears,
Till they through his drop, as through Rispah's herse;
And as Rome's Emperor by a remote
Kind of excess, made ships in wine to float;
Let 's make our friends chest swim in pious Brine,
And riot more in tears, then he in wine.
Could after-ages know thee, with what flashes
Of love and praise would Wit adore thy ashes!
How would they for thy sacred dust explore,
As greedily as some for golden Ore!
How would they seek thy bones, (as some of old
Did Skanderbeg 's) t' enamel them in gold!
All in remembrance that the time was, when
Thou liv'dst the Jewel and delight of men.
Youth could not wish society more sweet,
Nor graver age, more solid and discreet:
As fervent in Religion as any,
Yet knew to difference 'twixt Zeal and Zany.
A Gentleman, yet learned; rich, yet free,
Not out of lust, but liberality.
Poor Truth hath lost a shoulder of support,
And innocence an arm for to retort
Her injuries: the poor, the lame, the dim,
Have lost a hand, a foot, an eye in him.
What can I more? w' have lost, by this remove,
A head of counsel, and a heart of love.
Reader, didst know how worth? I need not borrow
Terms to persuade thee, then, to raise thy sorrow:
But if thou knew'st him not, or liv'dst remote,
I am sure th' hast cause to weep thou knew'st him not.

Sic flevit Daniel Cudmore.

FINIS.