Schola Cordis or the Heart of it Selfe, gone away from God ::

Like minded minds, hearts al ke heartily
Affected will together live, and die:
Many things meete, and part: but loves great gable
Tying two hearts makes them inseparable.

Ode. 39.

The Soule.
All this is not enough: me thinks I grow
More greedy by fruition: what I get
Serves but to set
An edge upon mine appetite,
And all thy gifts doe but invite
My pray'rs for more.
Lord, if thou wilt not still encrease my store,
Why did'st thou any thing at all bestow?

Christ.
And is 't the fruit of having still to crave?
Then let thine heart united be to mine,
And mine to thine
In a firme union, whereby
We may no more be thou, and I,
Or, I, and thou,
But both the same: and then I will avow,
Thou canst not want what thou do'st wish to have.

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The Soule.
True, Lord, for thou art All in All to me,
But how to get my stubborne heart to twine,
And close with thine,
I doe not know, nor can I guesse
How I should ever learne, unlesse
Thou wilt direct
The course that I must take to that effect.
'Tis thou, not I, must knit mine heart to thee.

Christ.
'T is true, and so I will: but yet thou must
Doe something tow'rds it too: First, thou must lay
All sinne away,
And separate from that, which would
Our meeting intercept, and hold
Us distant still:
I am all goodnesse, and can close with ill
No more, then richest diamonds with dust.

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Then thou must not count any earthly thing,
How ever gay, and gloriously set forth,
Of any worth,
Compar'd with me, that am alone
Th' eternall, high, and holy One:
But place thy love
Onely on me, and on the things above:
Which true content, and endlesse comfort bring.

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Love is the loadstone of the heart, the glew,
The cement, and the foder, which alone
Unites in one
Things that before were not the same,
But only like, imparts the name,
And nature too

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Of each to th' other: nothing can undoe
The knot that's knit by love, if it be true.

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But if in deed, and truth thou lovest me,
And not in word alone, then I shall find
That thou dost mind
The things I mind, and regulate
All thine affections, love, and hate,
Delight, desire,
Feare, and the rest, by what I doe require,
And I in thee my self shall alwayes see.

University of Virginia Library

The union of the Heart.

Epigr. 39.

Ode. 39.

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