The psalms :: :: University of Virginia Library

The constant promises, the loving graces,
That cause our debt, eternall Lord, to thee,
Till ages shall fill up their still void spaces,
My thankfull songues unaltred theme shalbe.
For of thy bounty thus my thoughtes decree:
It shalbe fully built, as fairely founded:
And of thy truth attesting heav'ns shall see
The boundlesse periods, though theirs be bounded.

Loe I have leagu'd, thou saist, with my ellected,
And thus have to my servant David sworne:
Thy ofspring kings, thy throne in state erected
By my support, all threates of time shall scorne:
And Lord, as runing skies with wheeles unworne
Cease not to lend this wonder their commending:
Soe with one mind praise no lesse adorne
This truth, the holy troopes thy Court attending.

For who among the clouds with thee compareth?
What angell there thy paragon doth raigne?
Whose majesty, whose peerelesse force declareth
The trembling awe of thine immortall traine.
Lord God whom Hostes redoubt, who can maintaine
With thee in powrfullness a Rivalls quarrell?
Strongest art thou, and must to end remaine,
Whome compleate faith doth armor-like apparrell.

Thy lordlie check the Seas proud courage quailed,
And, highly swelling, lowly made reside:
To crush stout Pharao thy arme prevailed:
What one thy foe, did undisperst abide?
The heav'n, the Earth, and all in bosome wide
This huge rounde Engin clipps, to thee pertaineth;
Which firmly based, not to shake, or slide,
The unseene hinge of North and South sustaineth.

191

For North and South were both by thee created,
And those crosse points our bounding hills behould,
Thabor and Hermon, in whose joy related
Thy glorious grace from West to East is told:
Thy arme all powr, all puisance doth enfold:
Thy lifted hand a might of wonder showeth:
Justice and Judgment doe thy throne uphold;
Before thy presence Truth with Mercy goeth.

Happy the people, who with hasty running
Poast to thy court when trumpets tryumph blow:
On pathes, enlighted by thy faces sunning,
Their stepps, Jehova, unoffended goe.
Thy name both makes them gladd and holds them soe:
High thought into their hartes thy justice powreth:
The worshipp of their strength from thee doth flow,
And in thy love their springing Empire flowreth.

For by Jehovas shield stand we protected,
And thou gav'st Israel their sacred king,
What time in vision thus thy word directed
Thy loved Prophet: ayd I will you bring
Against that violence your state doth wring
From one among my folk by choise appointed;
David my servant: him to act the thing
Have I with holy oile my self anointed.

My hand shall bide his never-failing piller,
And from myne arme shall he derive his might:
Not closly undermin'd by cursed willer,
Nor overthrown by foe in open fight.
For I will quaile his vexers in his sight:
All that him hate by me shall be mischaunced
My truth my clemency on him shall light
And in my name his head shall be advaunced.

Advaunced so, that twixt the watry borders
Of seas and flouds this noble land define,
All shall obay, subjected to the orders
Which his imperious hand for laws shall signe.
He unto me shall say: thou father mine,
Thou art my God the fort of my salvation:
And I my first-bornes roome will him assigne,
More highly thron'd then king of greatest nation.

192

While circling time, still ending and begining,
Shall runne the race where stopp nor start appeares:
My bounty towards him, not ever linning,
I will conserve nor write my league in yeares.
Nay more, his sonnes, whom fathers love enderes,
Shall find like blisse for legacie bequeathed;
A stedfast throne I say, till heav'nly Spheares
Shall faint in course, where yet they never breathed.

Now if his children doe my lawes abandon,
And other pathes then my plaine Judgments chuse:
Breake my behestes, prophanely walke at randon,
And what I bidd with froward hart refuse:
I meane indeede on their revolt to use
Correcting rodd, their sinne with whipps to chasten:
Not in their fault my loves defect excuse,
Nor loose the promise, once my faith did fasten.

My league shall hold, my word persist unchanged:
Once sworne I have, and sworne in holinesse:
Never shall I from David be estranged,
His seede shall ever bide, his seate no lesse.
The daies bright guide, the nightes pale governesse
Shall claime no longer lease of their enduring:
Whome I behold as heav'nly wittnesses,
In tearmlesse turnes, my tearmlesse truth assuring.

And yet, O now by thee abjected, scorned,
Scorcht with thy wrath is thy anointed one:
Hated his league, the crowne him late adorned
Puld from his head, by thee, augments his moane.
Raz'd are his fortes: his walls to ruine gone:
Not simplest passenger but on hym praieth:
His neighbours laugh: of all his haters none
But boasts his wrack and at his sorrow plaieth.

Takes he his weapon? thou the edge rebatest:
Comes to the field to fight? thou makest him fly:
Would march with kingly pomp? thou him unstatest:
Ascend his throne? it overthrowne doth ly:
His ages spring, and prime of jollity
Winter of wo before the day defineth;
For praise, reproche, for honor, infamy
He over-loden beares, and bearing pineth.

193

How long O Lord, what still in dark displeasure
Wilt thou thee hide? and shall thine angry thought
Still flame? O thinck how short our ages measure;
Thinck if we all created were for nought,
For who is he whom birth to life hath brought,
But life to death, and death to grave subjecteth?
From this necessity (let all be sought)
No priviledg exemptes, noe age protecteth.

Kind Lord, where is the kindnesse once thou swarest,
Swarest in truth thy Davids stock should find?
Show Lord, yet show thou for thy servant carest,
Holding those shames in unforgetting mind,
Which we, embosom'd, beare of many a kind:
But all at thee and at thy Christ directed:
To endlesse whom be endlesse praise assign'd,
Be this, againe I saie, be this effected.