 | Sion in distress |  |
A Complaint of Whoredom, Adultery, &c.
Did filthy Lust and Whoredom ever rage
With more success then in the present Age?
Abominations of so vile a Name,
That their bare mention is indeed a shame.
What Sin more hateful in Jehovah's Eye,
Then this of Whoredom and Adultery?
'Tis rank'd as Chief, and marches in the Van
Of all the gross Debaucheries of Man,
In those black Muster-Rolls God does record
Of grand Offences in his holy Word.
What more affronts the Second Table? Or
Provokes the Lord? No fitter Metaphor
Could be produc'd t'express Idolatry,
Then that abhorred Name, Adultery.
Besides the Terrors of Gods fiery Wrath,
Which judges such to everlasting Death;
On Earth, amongst all sober men, they gain
So vile a blot, so infamous a stain,
As all the Waters in the Sea can nev'r
Wipe off, nor can it be forgot for ever.
But O what dismal Consequences wait
For speedy entrance at the wretches gate!
For lewd Embraces of lascivious Dames
Will rot their bones, breed cankers in their names,
Beget consumption in Estate and Purse,
Produce Destruction, and a certain Curse:
The common ends that such arrive unto,
Are foul Diseases, Beggery and Wo.
They're sottish Fools (says wise Demosthenes)
That buy Repentance at such Rates as these:
That sin, to please an Enemy, that strives
To damn their Souls, and rob them of their lives.
God in his Sacred Ordinances hath
Appointed such to an immediate Death.
Would men but judge it as their greatest Foe,
They'd never love, nor hug it as they do.
Each Sex is bad, but Women seem to be
The very Brokers of Immodesty;
Which makes that passage to be born in mind,
A wise and vertuous Woman who can find?
Your City-Dames and Ladies are on fire
With wanton passion, and unchaste desire;
Providing Meats on purpose to inflame
Their pamper'd Gallants to their wonted shame.
Bare Brests and Naked Necks, a Harlots Dress,
Are strong Temptations unto Wickedness.
All other sins (th'Apostle does declare)
Which men commit, without the Body are:
But this abominable Act alone,
Against his Body by a man is done.
Marriage to all, the Undefiled Bed,
Is Honourable; he that will, may wed:
But Whoremongers God judges, and they shall
Be cast into the Lake, both great and small,
The Wiseman calls th'Adulterer, A Fool;
And well he may, for he destroys his Soul.
No Sots like them, for branded, still they show
The marks of Folly wheresoe'er they go.
O how th'unclean and bruitish man exceeds
Inferiour Sinners in reproachful Deeds!
With more success then in the present Age?
Abominations of so vile a Name,
That their bare mention is indeed a shame.
What Sin more hateful in Jehovah's Eye,
Then this of Whoredom and Adultery?
'Tis rank'd as Chief, and marches in the Van
Of all the gross Debaucheries of Man,
In those black Muster-Rolls God does record
Of grand Offences in his holy Word.
What more affronts the Second Table? Or
Provokes the Lord? No fitter Metaphor
Could be produc'd t'express Idolatry,
Then that abhorred Name, Adultery.
Besides the Terrors of Gods fiery Wrath,
Which judges such to everlasting Death;
On Earth, amongst all sober men, they gain
So vile a blot, so infamous a stain,
As all the Waters in the Sea can nev'r
Wipe off, nor can it be forgot for ever.
But O what dismal Consequences wait
For speedy entrance at the wretches gate!
13
Will rot their bones, breed cankers in their names,
Beget consumption in Estate and Purse,
Produce Destruction, and a certain Curse:
The common ends that such arrive unto,
Are foul Diseases, Beggery and Wo.
They're sottish Fools (says wise Demosthenes)
That buy Repentance at such Rates as these:
That sin, to please an Enemy, that strives
To damn their Souls, and rob them of their lives.
God in his Sacred Ordinances hath
Appointed such to an immediate Death.
Would men but judge it as their greatest Foe,
They'd never love, nor hug it as they do.
Each Sex is bad, but Women seem to be
The very Brokers of Immodesty;
Which makes that passage to be born in mind,
A wise and vertuous Woman who can find?
Your City-Dames and Ladies are on fire
With wanton passion, and unchaste desire;
Providing Meats on purpose to inflame
Their pamper'd Gallants to their wonted shame.
Bare Brests and Naked Necks, a Harlots Dress,
Are strong Temptations unto Wickedness.
All other sins (th'Apostle does declare)
Which men commit, without the Body are:
But this abominable Act alone,
Against his Body by a man is done.
Marriage to all, the Undefiled Bed,
Is Honourable; he that will, may wed:
14
Be cast into the Lake, both great and small,
The Wiseman calls th'Adulterer, A Fool;
And well he may, for he destroys his Soul.
No Sots like them, for branded, still they show
The marks of Folly wheresoe'er they go.
O how th'unclean and bruitish man exceeds
Inferiour Sinners in reproachful Deeds!
My Grievances are many, and my Fear
Is more then my distressed Soul can bear:
My panting Breast and aking Heart is sad,
To think of what I further have to add.
Is more then my distressed Soul can bear:
My panting Breast and aking Heart is sad,
To think of what I further have to add.
But O amazing master-piece of wonder!
That's like to rend my very heart a sunder,
When I consider that an Age of Light
Produces Monsters blacker then the Night:
A Cursed Tribe of wretched Atheists dare,
Without all Dread and Reverential Fear,
Strike at the Essence of the Great Jehove,
And all the Glories that reside Above:
As if meer Fancies of a Cloudy Brain,
And all Religion an Intrigue of Man:
That dare pronounce all Evangelick Law
A Trick of State to keep the World in aw.
Creating Idols in their Brains; that even
Make mocks of Hell, and a meer scorn of Heaven.
But can such Fancies challenge an abode
Within your Hearts, to Dis-believe a GOD?
On th'Universal Fabrick cast an Eye,
The Sea, the Earth, and the expanded Sky:
Can so Sublime Illustrious an Effect
Be form'd without a Glorious Architect?
If Reason be your Rule, true Logicks Laws
Pronounce Effects resulting from a Cause,
Whose Order leads us to Infinity,
Sure Arguments of a Divinity.
Created Things must a Creator have;
And that Begetter who first Being gave
To Essences produc'd, can't be Begot;
He's therefore GOD, and other else is not.
This Causa Prima, without Time or Date,
Is He that did all Entity create.
The First could not Himself create; so He
Must have His Essence from Eternity.
Who can make Phœbus his swift Course Reverse?
Or ballance in his Palm the Universe?
Who can the Ocean in a Sieve confine?
If none can do't, then none can GOD define.
First Principles are beyond Definition;
No Logick reaches at so high a Vision:
Tis unreveal'd to Reason, for no strain
Of lofty Metaphysicks can contain
Those Mysteries; true Wisdom therefore hath
Commanded Reason to give room to Faith.
If what we see had not a first Creator,
Then 'tis its own immediate Operator;
If so, it Acts, before it had a Being:
But such Conclusions are too disagreeing
With Reasons Maxims: For all things that be,
May say they are their own Divinity,
If each can make it self, and that which can
Create it self, can so it self sustain
In infinitum, and will ne'er dissolve
Its self; for Nature's principal Resolve
Is, That no Essence will forbear to be,
If it can keep up its own Entity.
This strain of Atheistick Sophistry
Makes all of equal Independancy,
Without Subordination: 'Tis a Theam,
Without Inferior, making all Supreme.
FIRST CAUSE supposes Time, & Time supposes
Some second Acts, which After-Time discloses.
So view their Series, you may trace them all
(As Links in Chains) to their Original,
The Great JEHOVAH, whose unfathomd Glory
Is Emblem'd in the Universe before ye.
That's like to rend my very heart a sunder,
When I consider that an Age of Light
Produces Monsters blacker then the Night:
A Cursed Tribe of wretched Atheists dare,
Without all Dread and Reverential Fear,
Strike at the Essence of the Great Jehove,
And all the Glories that reside Above:
As if meer Fancies of a Cloudy Brain,
And all Religion an Intrigue of Man:
That dare pronounce all Evangelick Law
A Trick of State to keep the World in aw.
Creating Idols in their Brains; that even
Make mocks of Hell, and a meer scorn of Heaven.
But can such Fancies challenge an abode
Within your Hearts, to Dis-believe a GOD?
On th'Universal Fabrick cast an Eye,
The Sea, the Earth, and the expanded Sky:
15
Be form'd without a Glorious Architect?
If Reason be your Rule, true Logicks Laws
Pronounce Effects resulting from a Cause,
Whose Order leads us to Infinity,
Sure Arguments of a Divinity.
Created Things must a Creator have;
And that Begetter who first Being gave
To Essences produc'd, can't be Begot;
He's therefore GOD, and other else is not.
This Causa Prima, without Time or Date,
Is He that did all Entity create.
The First could not Himself create; so He
Must have His Essence from Eternity.
Who can make Phœbus his swift Course Reverse?
Or ballance in his Palm the Universe?
Who can the Ocean in a Sieve confine?
If none can do't, then none can GOD define.
First Principles are beyond Definition;
No Logick reaches at so high a Vision:
Tis unreveal'd to Reason, for no strain
Of lofty Metaphysicks can contain
Those Mysteries; true Wisdom therefore hath
Commanded Reason to give room to Faith.
If what we see had not a first Creator,
Then 'tis its own immediate Operator;
If so, it Acts, before it had a Being:
But such Conclusions are too disagreeing
With Reasons Maxims: For all things that be,
May say they are their own Divinity,
16
Create it self, can so it self sustain
In infinitum, and will ne'er dissolve
Its self; for Nature's principal Resolve
Is, That no Essence will forbear to be,
If it can keep up its own Entity.
This strain of Atheistick Sophistry
Makes all of equal Independancy,
Without Subordination: 'Tis a Theam,
Without Inferior, making all Supreme.
FIRST CAUSE supposes Time, & Time supposes
Some second Acts, which After-Time discloses.
So view their Series, you may trace them all
(As Links in Chains) to their Original,
The Great JEHOVAH, whose unfathomd Glory
Is Emblem'd in the Universe before ye.
There is a thing in Man call'd CONSCIENCE,
Which of his Actions gives clear Evidence,
Whether he likes or not: That's ready still
To check the Course of his Disorder'd Will:
It is Eccentrick to his Sensual Part,
Arraigns his Words, his Deeds, his very Heart;
And if it finds they be irregular,
It does pursue them with continual War.
What can this Just, this Inward Witness be,
But some bright Beam of a Divinity?
Which of his Actions gives clear Evidence,
Whether he likes or not: That's ready still
To check the Course of his Disorder'd Will:
It is Eccentrick to his Sensual Part,
Arraigns his Words, his Deeds, his very Heart;
And if it finds they be irregular,
It does pursue them with continual War.
What can this Just, this Inward Witness be,
But some bright Beam of a Divinity?
In former Times was not Jehovah known
By Miracles which visibly were shown?
Can Reason brag that Causes Natural
Could raise the Dead? Or that a Word can call
An Intomb'd Carcass to behold the Light?
Make sound a Cripple? give the blind their sight?
If not, then surely it will follow hence,
That 'tis an Act of some Omnipotence:
That such were done we have the Common Vote
Of Pagans, Jews, and all the Men of Note,
Whose Works are Extant, whom we may believe,
Because they had no Int'rest to deceive.
Whence come those Judgments which you daily hear,
Of Wrath and Vengeance darted every where
Against Prophaners of that Sacred Name?
Whence come those Arrows, that Consuming flame
Which terrrifys the World? & whence the breath
That strikes Blasphemers with a sudden Death?
Which of these rare Philosophers can show
What makes the Spacious Deep to Ebb and Flow?
Let them produce their Maxims, if they can,
How scatter'd Atomes can compose a Man?
Who brandishes those blazing Signs of Wonder?
Who frights the Earth with rapid Peals of Thunder?
Who did defeat the Fatal Enterprize
Which Rome, by Devils Counsel, did devise?
Who sets the Comet in the Angry Sky,
Those dismal Harbingers of Misery?
God does Himself by many Ways make known;
Forewarning Men of what's a coming on:
Yet Senseless Mortals faulter more and more,
Though hovering Vengeance threaten at the Door;
Deceit, Soul-killing-Errors, Perjury,
Injustice, Murder, Theft, Hipocrisy,
Do so abound through our enlightned Isle,
That Sodom hardly e'er appear'd more vile.
By Miracles which visibly were shown?
Can Reason brag that Causes Natural
Could raise the Dead? Or that a Word can call
17
Make sound a Cripple? give the blind their sight?
If not, then surely it will follow hence,
That 'tis an Act of some Omnipotence:
That such were done we have the Common Vote
Of Pagans, Jews, and all the Men of Note,
Whose Works are Extant, whom we may believe,
Because they had no Int'rest to deceive.
Whence come those Judgments which you daily hear,
Of Wrath and Vengeance darted every where
Against Prophaners of that Sacred Name?
Whence come those Arrows, that Consuming flame
Which terrrifys the World? & whence the breath
That strikes Blasphemers with a sudden Death?
Which of these rare Philosophers can show
What makes the Spacious Deep to Ebb and Flow?
Let them produce their Maxims, if they can,
How scatter'd Atomes can compose a Man?
Who brandishes those blazing Signs of Wonder?
Who frights the Earth with rapid Peals of Thunder?
Who did defeat the Fatal Enterprize
Which Rome, by Devils Counsel, did devise?
Who sets the Comet in the Angry Sky,
Those dismal Harbingers of Misery?
God does Himself by many Ways make known;
Forewarning Men of what's a coming on:
Yet Senseless Mortals faulter more and more,
Though hovering Vengeance threaten at the Door;
Deceit, Soul-killing-Errors, Perjury,
Injustice, Murder, Theft, Hipocrisy,
18
That Sodom hardly e'er appear'd more vile.
| Sion in distress | |