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Meditation 2.

Farewell those pleasures which the creatures breed:
These carnall comforts shall be none of mine;
They slink away in time of greatest need:
I'll get me comforts that are more divine,
Such as God provideth for us
By his Spirit and in his word:
They are such as will afford
Joy unspeakable and glorious.
Unsanctified palates cannot find
A relish in Gods service: 't is their follie
That nothing in it suiteth with their mind,
That they account religion melancholie.
And the cause of their misprision
Is because they cannot see
Things divine; for yet they be
In their naturall condition.
But sanctified souls have better eyes.
Each Person in the sacred Trinitie
Sends comfort down, and such as farre outvies
The best delight that is below the skie.
Father, Sonne, and holy Ghost,
Be it spoke with reverence,
Seem to strive which shall dispense
Blessings that do comfort most.

The Father, as his title often writes
Himself a God of peace and consolation,
He sends me comforts by those sacred lights
Which bring me errands from his habitation:
And so firm and full and free
Is each promise in his book,
That on whichsoe'r I look
Blessed comforts I do see:
So firm, that first the hugest hills and mountains
Shall dance out of their places, starres shall fall,
Streams shall run backward to their mother-fountains,
The earth shall tumble, ere he will recall
One of's promises: For why,
(And this gives strong consolation
In the middest of temptation)
He's a God, and cannot lie.
So full, that there's not any thing left out
That I could wish. What I would have him be
God is. Would I be compassed about
With mercie? find relief in miserie?
Would I by his Spirit be led?
And have all my sinnes forgiven?
And hereafter go to heaven?
All this God hath promised.

So free, that to deserve that promis'd glory
I nothing have but what his mercie gave me:
'T is gratis rather then compensatorie
Whatever God doth to convert or save me.
And if any good I do,
'T is done by supplies Divine;
So Gods work and none of mine:
Grace begins and ends it too.
What if by nature I was made a sheep,
And by corruption I am gone astray,
Whether I think, or speak, or do, or sleep,
Or wake, do ever wander from the way
I was set in, and am toss'd
So by lust that my soul wanders
Into many by-meanders,
Like a sillie sheep that's lost?
Yet God's my shepherd: When his mercy spi'd me
Wandring it brought me home; and ever since
It doth watch over, feed, defend, and guide me,
And ever will do so till I go hence:
And hereafter in the even,
When my latest sand is runne,
And my pasture here is done,
It will fold my soul in heaven.

The Sonne doth comfort. 'T was his errand down
To preach glad tidings to the meek, and turn
Their wo to ease; to earn a glorious crown
For sinners, and to comfort those that mourn;
Broken-hearted ones to bind,
And to set at libertie
Pris'ners in captivitie,
And give eye-sight to the blind.
There's comfort in his wounds: His sacred stripes
Do heal our leprous souls of all their sores:
'T is nothing but his pretious bloud that wipes
Our guilt away and cancelleth our scores.
Six times did he shed his bloud,
(And sure our estate did need it
That so many times he did it)
And each drop was for our good.
Those circumcision-drops of's infancie,
Those drops that's anguish in the garden vented,
Those drops when he was scourged Jewishly,
Those drops when's head with sharpest thorns was tented,
Those drops when his limbs were nailed
To the crosse, those when the fierce
Souldiers spear his side did pierce;
Each drop for our good prevailed.

There's comfort in his crosse: That vile old man
That hangs about us to our dying day
Is crucified with him that it can
Not exercise half of its wonted sway:
Lessened is its kingly power.
Surely sinne, it struggles so,
Hath receiv'd a mortall blow,
And is dying everie houre.
There's comfort in his death: For us he dy'd,
For us he felt his Fathers heavie wrath,
And his impartiall justice satisfi'd,
And us his alsufficient passion hath
Pluck'd from Satan vi & armis,
And his meritorious pain
Freed us from sinnes guilt and stain,
And whatever else might harm us.
There's comfort in his resurrection too.
He rose again that we might be accounted
Righteous and just, (This no man else could do)
And that our sinnes, whose number farte surmounted
All the starres that shine in heaven,
All our hairs, and all the sand
That lies scattered on the strand,
For his sake might be forgiven.

And God the holy Ghost doth comfort bring:
By speciall office it is his imployment
To settle in the soul a lively spring,
From whence doth issue such a sweet enjoyment
Of divine, heart-pleasing blisse,
As the world will not believe,
Nor can any heart conceive
But the heart wherein it is.
It is this blessed Spirit that doth seal
Assurance to my conscience of a share
In what God, in and through his Sonne, doth deal
To needy sinners that converted are.
It assures me of Gods love
In the free and full remission
Of my sinnes, and exhibition
Of those joyes that are above.
Let now the world, that's wont to tell a storie
Of strange delights, shew me but such a pleasure,
As to be sure of God, and Christ, and glory,
And then I'll hug it as my choicest treasure.
Thus each Person of the three
Is imploy'd (if I do live
Holy as I ought) to give
Joy and comfort unto me.

Grant a man once to be in Christ, and he
On sublunarie pleasures soon will trample;
And yet for pleasures, who shews best, will vie
With all the world: give him but one example,
What gets pleasure, and what feeds it;
Whatsoe'r 'mongst earthly things
To the mind most pleasure brings;
He can shew what farre exceeds it.
Can learning please? he is a man of parts.
Me thinks sure at his very fingers end
He hath exactly all the liberall arts;
At least he hath such arts as will commend
Any man a great deal more,
And will sooner bring to heaven,
Then will any of those seven
On which learned men do pore.
His Logick is so scientificall,
His Syllogismes are in so blest a mood,
A thousand arguments his heart lets fall
That rightly from good premises conclude
Him a child of God on high,
And a member of his Sonne,
And an heir, when's race is runne,
Of a blest Eternitie.

His Rhetorick excells. He can perswade
More then those well-penn'd sweet orations which
Demosthenes or Tullie ever made.
Doth he that prayer-hearing God beseech?
Presently his eare he gains.
For fine words it is no matter:
Let him like a swallow chatter
Or a crane, yet he obtains.
And for Arithmetick; his numeration
Is of his dayes: this makes the man applie
His heart to wisdome, that in any station
He may perform his dutie prudently.
And those sinnes, to make them hatefull,
Which his conscience most do cumber
Everie day the man doth number;
And Gods blessings, to be gratefull.
And for Addition; 't is his diligence
Vertue to adde to faith; to vertue, knowledge;
Love, godlinesse, peace, kindnesse, patience,
One to another: that his soul's a Colledge
Filled with divinest graces:
And not one grace idle lies,
But all do their exercise
In their severall turns and places.

When he subtracteth, 't is not from the poore,
As most men do, not from the King nor Church;
But from sinnes monstrous bodie. More and more
He weakens the old man that lies at lurch
In each of his faculties,
And his master-sinne, the strongest
Lust that hath been harboured longest
In his soul he mortifies.
He multiplies not, as in many places
Men do, his riches; but he multiplies
And doth augment his saving gifts and graces,
If not in habit yet in exercise.
He divides his goods, he feedeth
Hungrie bellies, and relieveth
Such as are distress'd, and giveth
Unto everie one that needeth.
When he reduceth, 't is his conversation
In ev'rie point from what it was by nature:
He moulds his life into another fashion,
And shews himself to be a new-made creature.
And for such a mans Progression;
He's not fixed in his place
Like a statue, but in grace
Grows to credit his profession.

He ever worketh by the Rule of Three
That do above in heaven bear record.
The Golden Rule, whereby his actions be
Squar'd and directed, is their written word.
Though sometimes he work by Fractions,
Gives God broken services,
'Cause he's flesh in part; yet is
He sincere in all his actions.
And for a pious mans Astronomie;
What if he cannot tell the sev'rall motions
Those orbs have which do roll about the skie?
Starres names, site, bignesse, and such other notions?
What if he know not how soon
The sunne will eclipsed be?
Nor hath wit enough to see
The new world that's in the moon?
Yet he doth know the milkie way that leads
Unto the palace of the highest King:
Whose presence the whole host of heaven dreads,
Who made the starres, the spheres, and everie thing;
Steers the course that each orb runnes,
Binds starres influence, looseth the bands
Of Orion, and his hands
Guide Arcturus with his sonnes.

For Geometrie; what if he cannot tell
How many miles the vast earth is about?
Yet doth his pious art by farre excell
In finding many greater matters out:
Matters that exceed the strength
Of best wits, the full extension
Of Christ's love in each dimension,
Height, and depth, & breadth, & length.
For Grammar; he can wickednesse decline.
His supernaturall Philosophie
Is wisdome to salvation. Most divine
His musick is: That God that dwells on high
Is pleas'd with no other tone.
There is nothing he can heare
Makes such musick in his eare
As a sanctified grone.
For Physick; his most admirable knowledge
Hath found out a Catholicon. (This ranks
His skill deservedly above the Colledge,
Above French or Italian mountebanks.)
There's no sicknesse, he is sure,
Be it ne'r so strong or foul,
That affecteth any soul,
But the bloud of Christ can cure.

The greatest Clerk is but a learned fool,
If's learning be not mixt with godlinesse.
The greatest Scholar's he that goes to school
To learn of Christ the wayes of holinesse.
Thus if learning be a treasure
That doth please, or skill in arts,
Or to be a man of parts;
He that's holy finds this pleasure.
Doth toothsome and delicious chear delight?
The godly have it once a week at least.
Our bounty-handed Saviour doth invite
His servants to a rich and sumptuous feast,
Where his own self is our server;
Such a feast of fattest things
As if all the guests were Kings:
Where faith may be her own carver.
Do riches please? A godly mans estate
Surpasseth that of Crœsus: he hath more
Then out of Christ is had at any rate.
God hath endow'd him with a blessed store
Better then a heap of gold,
Which nor thief, nor moth, nor rust,
Can steal, eat, or turn to dust:
His are bags that ne'r wax old.

Gods rich and precious promises are his,
Which by a precious faith he makes his own:
Gods richest mercy; there's no wealth like this:
Christs precious bloud, whereof a drop alone
Was of higher valuation
Then all men and Angels be,
Or what e'r the sunne did see
Ever since the first creation.
Doth rich apparel please? Christs righteousnesse
Clothes all his members to conceal their shame.
Ne'r was Kings daughter in so pure a dresse,
Unlesse she were adorned with the same.
'T is a robe that God doth please:
Angels that on God do wait,
And ne'r lost their first estate,
Are not cloth'd like one of these.
For all delights, the cheating world hath none
So good by half 'mongst all her painted store
As those the soul finds in religion:
With purest joy the pious heart runnes o'r.
Let the world diversifie
Her delights a thousand wayes,
Yet they come short of those joyes
That are found in pietie.

When I must die, my joy that's naturall
Forsaketh me; that which is secular
Takes leave assoon as ever Death doth call;
Joyes that were criminall converted are
Into most tormenting fears:
Onely that which is divine
On a Death-bed will be mine.
And what if when Death appears
It cannot shield me from that fatall blow?
(I would not it should do me so much wrong:
For if I were immortall here below
I were not happie) yet 't will go along
With me when I do depart.
Carnall joyes, Lord, from me banish,
Let divine delights replenish
Ev'rie corner of my heart.
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