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The true Bread of Life.
Bread is the staff of life, and life's the scopeOf every mans desier, aime, and hope;
Yet He who was the spoil of Death (for so
The Syriack renders him) yeelded thereto.
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Of Years and Dayes, did at the last withdraw,
To shew the frail condition here beneath
Of those who in their Nostrills bear their breath:
So that compar'd unto Eternall bliss,
A Shadow, Bubble, Span, all Emblem This.
Why then should Thoughts be tost to Court such Clay,
But that Our natures mandate we Obay?
And may doe so, whilst appetite puts on
No other garb 'save Moderation:
The bounty Ceres from her Golden Ear
Scatters to bless the painfull Labourer,
Comes from above too, yet when ground and bread,
'Tis but our Tabernacle's nourished,
And that but for a while; the Soul must be
Beholding to an Other Grainarie;
Not that which Moses Prayer caus'd to fall
To satiate the Israelites withall;
Nor of such Barley-loaves grew once on earth,
Wherewith Elisha fed some in a Dearth:
These might have hunger after; but Those blest
With the True batch of Life may ever rest
So satisfi'd, as with the height of store,
For such shall never need to hunger more,
But an Eternall life enjoy, wherein
No dearth or famine is, save that of Sin:
Plenty and Joyes for evermore dispose
Themselves to be the Comforters of those.
And whilst our Faith makes that a life indeed,
The other seems to trust a broken reed.
Afflictions sowre that Temporall bread with Leaven,
Which this is freed of, for it comes from Heaven.
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