XV. JEREMIAH XXXII. XL.
I will put my feare in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.
So; now the soule's sublim'd: Her sowre desires
Are re-calcin'd in heav'ns well tempred Fires:
The heart restor'd and purg'd from drossie Nature,
Now finds the freedome of a new-borne Creature:
It lives another life, it breathes new Breath;
It neither feeless nor feares the sting of death:
Like as the idle vagrant (having none)
That boldly dopts each house he views, his owne:
Makes ev'ry purse his Checquer; and, at pleasure,
Walks forth, and taxes all the world, like Caesar,
At length, by virtue of a just Command,
His sides are lent to a severer hand;
Whereon, his Passe, not fully understood,
Is texted in a Manuscript of Blood;
Thus past from towne to towne, untill he come
A sore Repentant to his native home:
Ev'n so the rambling heart, that idly roves
From Crime to Sin; and, uncontrol'd, removes
From lust to lust, when wanton flesh invites
From old-worne pleasures to new choice delights,
At length corrected by the filiall Rod
Of his offended (but his gracious GOD)
And lasht from Sinnes to sighs; and, by degrees,
From sighs to vowes; From vowes, to bended knees,
From bended knees, to a true pensive brest
From thence, to torments, not by tongues exprest,
Returnes, and (from his sinfull selfe exil'd)
Finds a glad Father; He, a welcome Child:
O, then, it lives; O then, it lives involv'd
In secret Raptures; pants to be dissolv'd:
The royall Of-spring of a second Birth
Sets ope to heav'n, and shuts the doores to earth
If love-sick Jove-commanded Clouds should hap
To raine such show'rs as quickned Danaes lap:
Or dogs (far kinder than their purple Master)
Should lick his sores, he laughs nor weeps the faster.
If Earth (Heav'ns Rivall) dart her idle Ray;
To heav'n, 'tis Wax, and to the world, 'tis Clay:
If earth present delights, it scornes to draw,
But, like the Jet unrub'd, disdaines that straw:
No hope deceives it, and no doubt divides it;
No Griefe disturbes it; and no Errour guides it;
No Guilt condemnes it; and no Folly shames it;
No sloth besotts it; and no lust inthrals it;
No Scorne afflicts it; and no Passion gawles it:
It is a Carknet of immortall life;
An Arke of peace; The Lifts of sacred Strife;
A purer Peece of endlesse Transitory;
A Shrine of Grace; A little Throne of Glory;
A heav'n-borne Of-spring of a new-borne birth;
An earthly Heav'n; An ounce of heav'nly Earth.
S. AUGUST. de spir. & anima.
O happy heart, where piety affects; where, humility subject; where, repentance
corrects; where, obedience directs; where, perseverance perfects; where, power
protects; where, devotion projects; where, charity connects.
S. GREG.
Which way soever the heart turnes it self (if carefully) it shall commonly
observe, that in those very things we lose God, in those very things we shall
find God; It shall find the heat of his power in consideration of those things,
in the love of which things he was most cold; and by what things it fell,
perverted, by those things it is raised, converted.
EPIGRAM 15.
[My heart, but wherefore do I call thee so?]
My heart, but wherefore do I call thee so?
I have renounc'd my Interest long ago;
When thou wert false, and fleshly, I was thine;
Mine wert thou never, till thou wert not mine.
