The Remains of Sir Fulk Grevill Lord Brooke :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Remains of Sir Fulk Grevill Lord Brooke

Being Poems of Monarchy and Religion. Never before Printed

Greville, Fulke (1554-1628)

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A TREATISE OF MONARCHY.

A TREATISE OF RELIGION.

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A TREATISE OF MONARCHY.

By Sir Fulk Grevill Lord Brook.

SECT. I. Of the beginning of Monarchie.

1

There was a time before the times of Story,
When Nature raign'd instead of Laws or Arts,
And mortal Gods, with Men made up the Glory
Of one Republick by united Hearts;
Earth was the common seat, their Conversation
In saving Love, and ours in Adoration.

2

For in those Golden days, with Natures Chains
Both King and People seem'd conjoyn'd in one,
Both nurst alike, with mutual feeding veins
Transcendency of either side unknown,
Princes with Men using no other Arts
But by good dealing to obtain good hearts.

3

Power then maintaind it self even by those Arts
By which it grew, as Justice, Labor, Love;
Reserved sweetness did it self impart
Even unto Slaves, yet kept it self above,
And by a meek descending to the least,
Enviless swayd, and govern'd all the rest.

4

Order there equal was, Time Courts ordain'd
To hear, to judge, to execute, and make
Few and good Rules, for all griefs that complain'd,
Such care did Princes of their people take
Before this Art of Power allay'd the Truth:
So Glorious of Mans greatness is the Youth.

5

What wonder was it then if those Thrones found
Thanks as exorbitant, as was their Merit,
Wit to give highest Tributes being bound,
And wound up by a Princely ruling Spirit
To worship them for their Gods after death
Who in their life exceeded humane faith?

6

And shall it Error, nay Impiety
In Heathen Souls be thought to recompence
The Absent with immortal Memory,
Goodness with Praise, and Benefit with Sence?
Or rather such a Golden natur'd vein
As in the World might Golden days maintain.

7

For where should thankful Ingenuity
Think the Fear-thundring Scepter fit to rest,
With Knowledge, Vertue, and Felicity,
But in mild Jupiter's well-doing brest?
Or where but in Olympus, Heaven to be?
Which was his dwelling place in Thessaly,

8

And if departed souls must rise again
Severely to become examined
And bide the Judgement of Reward or Pain?
What Chancelors seem fitter for the dead,
Then Rhadamanthus, and stern Minos were,
True Types of Justice while they lived here?

9

Thus Kings may see, while greatness did descend,
And Care as far spread as Authority,
Grace did restrain and disgrace did amend,
The Vice was hateful and the Majesty
Of Justice held up for a common good,
A work by Kings and Men well understood.

10

Kings creatures then were no vain Favorites
But Guardians of the poor, Eyes of the Crown;
Lest height of place should oversee the right
And help the proud to pull the humble down;
All Laws like Cobwebs, catching little Flies
But never great ones without Princes Eyes.

11

Under Euristus that brave Prince of Greece
No Pallas, no Narcissus delicate
Were minions, whose Lusts did the people Fleece,
Nor could sufficed be with Midas State,
And whose effeminate unactivevness
To make themselves great, still made Scepters less.

12

But Hercules a brave laborious Spirit,
Who having freed Greece from home-Tyranny
As born of more then his own soyl to merit,
Was sent to purge the Earths iniquity
Egypt of Busyre, Diomedes of Thrace,
Italy of Cacus, Spain of Gerions Race,

13

Nor could a Goddess spite (which Juno veils
Under emploiments specious pretences)
Change Nature, or make true worth strike her sails,
One God appeasing other Gods offences,
When she that by his Labour sought his doom
There made him Trophies, where she meant his Tomb.

14

Yet did he raise no Pyramis for pain
But his Republick's good, his Masters Fame;
As thinking selfness but a trivial gain
To him that builds an universal frame;
No Trophies fit for worth, but Love and Praise
Which shadow-like still follow active Rays.

15

Jason, again (who serv'd Thessalia's King)
What else did he affect from dangers past,
When he the Fleece of Colchos home did bring,
Then in the Rolls of large time to be plac't,
For undertaking passages unknown,
Through which the wealth of many states have grown?

16

Now whilst pow'r did thus really proceed
Not on advantage, Humor, Slight, or Will,
Her Zeal with Honour mixt peaz'd every deed;
Time did not yet encline to mask her ill;
Words grew in hearts, Mens hearts were large & free,
Bondage had then not brought in Flattery.

17

But by decree of Fate this Corporation
Is alter'd since, and Earths fair Globe miscarried,
Mans Craft, above these Gods in estimation,
And by it wisdomes constant Standard varied;
Whereby the sway of many years are gone
Since any Godhead rul'd an earthly Throne.

18

Whether it were Mans false Pygmean wit
Captiving Envy,, or the Giants pride,
Which forc't these Worthies to abandon it
I know not; but some disproportion'd Tyde
Of Times self-humours hath that Commerce drownd
To which this Image shews those times were bound.

19

And when those Golden days were once expired
Time straight claim'd her succession in the Brass,
And to her ends new instruments inspired,
With narrow selfness staining all that was:
Power still affects more inequality
Which made Mankind more curious to be free.

20

Divided thus, Kings quit their Fathers hand
In Government, which men did earst adore,
People again by number sought to stand,
And scorn'd that power which earst they did implore,
Goodness goes from the Earth, and Greatness too,
In Will, Fear, Craft, Men forming all they do

21

Hence these Gods tir'd with neighborless deceit
Have rais'd their Thrones above Mortality
And chang'd their sweet Aspects with sour retreat.
Whence all things blest before now blasted be
With tempests, earthquakes, fire, and thunders terrors
Shewing and threatning Mans corrupting errors.

22

By which strange plagues these Gods do testify.
Mankind to be of such a Metal cast,
As neither Fire can melt, Air qualify,
Water dissolve, or stroke of Hammer waste,
No Native Notion, Law, or Violence,
Fashion his hard heart to an humble sence.

23

But that he should still grudge at Government,
Scorn Mercy, yet rebel at Tyranny,
Repine at Discipline, rest discontent
Both with his equals, and Authority;
As in whom pow'r might without goodness be,
And base subjection without Loyalty.

24

In which confused state of declination
Left by these Gods, Mankind was forc't to trust
Those light thoughts which were molds of his privation
And scorning Equals, raise a Soveriagn must,
For frailty with it self grown discontent,
Wardlike must live in others Government.

25

Man then repine not at the boundless Kings,
Since you endure the fate of your fore-fathers,
To whom God did foretell, on humane wings
How inequality once rais'd still gathers,
Their choice offended him, please you it must
Whose dregs still in you, on you, make it just,

26

Princes again, o'r-rack not your Creation,
Lest pow'r return to that whence it began,
But keep up Scepters by that reputation
Which raised one to rule this world of Man;
Order makes us the Body, you the Head,
And by disorder Anarchy is bred.

27

Let each then know by equal estimation,
That in his frail freehold of flesh and blood,
Nature her self declines unto Privation,
As mixt of real ill and seeming good;
And where Mans best Estate is such a strife,
Can Order there be permanent in life?

28

Now, if considered simply, Man be such,
Cast him into a Throne or Subjects mould,
The Function cannot take away this touch;
Since neither what he ought, or can, or would,
Both King and Man perplexed are in state,
Improve their ends, and set no other rate.

29

In which imperfect temper, expectation
Proves unto each perverse Enemy;
Whilst Pow'r with Soveraign partial Contemplation
Antient Ideas of Authority
[illeg.] then God himself requires,
[illeg.] onely what he gives, desires.

30

Again, while People do expect from Kings
Such a protecting popularity
As gives, forgives, intends no other things
But in a Crown a common slave to be,
Thus over-valuing each Estate too farre
Makes both full of Misprision as they are.

31

In judging other then let either know,
As they are men, they are a mean Creation
Betwixt the Heaven above and Hell below,
No more deserving hate, then Adoration:
Equal in some things are the great'st and least;
One disproportion must not drown the rest.

32

The odds to be examined then is Place,
What that doth challenge, what again it owes,
Not peazing these in dainty Scales of Grace
Where pure simplicity for wisdom goes;
Or vain Ideas formed in the Air,
To self-imagination onely fair.

33

But in the World as Thrones now moulded are
By Chance, Choice, Practice, Birth, or Martial awe,
Where Laws and Custome doe prescribe how far,
Either the King or Subject ought to draw
These mutual ties of Duty, Love, or Fear
To such a strain, as every man may bear.

34

Which place, what is it but of Reverence
A Throne rais'd on man's Reason, and Affection
Where that well happy mixt, and confluence
Of Earthly and Celestial reflection
Should wear the publick, in the private good,
And to protect both, govern Flesh and Blood.

35

Yet, since Election doth resign to Birth,
True worth to Chance, brave industry to Blood,
Nature to Art; and Force command the Earth,
That Native Commerce which wrought mutual good
'Twixt Crowns and Men, was soon exil'd from hence,
And we like Beasts left no right but in Sence.

36

To fortify which confident rais'd Throne
And keep Mankind with it in Unity,
The wit of Pow'r cannot suffice alone,
Man is not strong to bind Humanity;
Therefore above man, they that would man bound
Still sought some shews of everlasting ground.

37

Hence was pow'rs Zenith raised up, and fixt
Upon the Base of superstitious rights,
Whose visions with the Truth and Error mixt
Make humane wisdomes yet seem infinite,
By giving vain opinon (born of Sence)
Falsly the Sacred stile of Conscience.

38

For as by optick repercussions here
The Light with shadows mixt, makes Sence mistake,
Whereby the less oft greater doth appear,
Creating Castor God for Pollux sake;
And as the Rainbow but a shadow being,
By shadows forms another to our seeing,

39

So from the Mirror of these visions more
Second reflexions which doe represent
Forms of the ill below, and good above
As humane Laws, Fame, Honour, Government;
All shewing Man (though in unperfect Light)
That Thrones may seem, but are not Infinite.

40

Now if from these dumb shadows there break out
Light to shew Thrones are not indefinite;
In true Religions cleer beams who can doubt
But that Pow'r bounded is with wrong and right,
The Infinite in Wisdom drawing down
The Will of Tyrants to the Laws of Crown.

41

Wherein that other superstitious Sphere
Chance, and Opinions nimble Idols Raign,
Racking up Tributes out of Hope and Fear,
By which weak Mankind lose; strong Scepters gain;
As where no limits be to Pow'r or Will,
Nor true distinction between good and ill.

42

So then when Man beholds this boundless sea
Of Will, and no shoar left to shew her streams,
He straight beleeves Thoughts may sail every way
Till Pow'rs contrary winds disperse these dreams;
And make men see their freedom bound so fast,
As it of no forbidden fruit dare taste.

43

Yet happily had Man not thus been bounded
With Humane wrests, aswell as moulds Divine,
He in his passions must have been confounded,
Desire in him is such an endless Mine.
Eve would have Adam been, Man Kings, Kings more,
Till such destruction fall as fell before.

44

Therefore if Pow'r within these Scepter Lines
Could keep, and give as it would be repaid,
These mutual fed, and mutual feeding Mines
Would still enrich, could hardly be decayd;
For Chance gives mutual Confidence a bliss;
And God helps those frames, which shew likest his.

45

Besides this activeness it self maintains,
And rather then live idle, can do ill;
Those Images it raiseth in our Brains
Having alliance not with Truth, but Will,
And to confirm this, strives to pull all down
That limit the excesses of a Crown.

SECT. II. To Violence.

46

Now though the World on the Excentricks be
Fashion'd to move, and ballance her own weight,
Not much enclining to obliquity,
Yet is her Ruler Man, through self-conceit,
Violence of Pride, fate of corruption,
Apt to give all her best works interruption.

47

For since Religions name, not Nature, came
To Rule, those ancient forming pow'rs gave place,
The stile of Conscience over-weighing Fame,
And Reason yielding up her Soveraign Mace
Unto those lively Pictures which produce
Unactive apparitions of no use.

48

Which Change straight wrought, but was not straightways found,
Pow'r was so veil'd with formal laws and baits
Under which still the infinite lay bound
And Man bewitcht with wits confufed sleights,
To make pow'rs Throne the Idol of his heart
Transforming Zeal and Nature into Art.

49

So that without the guide of Cloud or Fire,
Man since sails fatal straights of hope and fear,
In Ebbs and Flouds of travelling desires,
Where what we have to us is never dear
Pow'r making men vainly, by off'ring more,
Hope to redeem that state they had before.

50

Hence falls it out that silly people loose
Still by these thin webs of Authority.
Which they that spin, yet therefore cannot use,
Because these threds no more inherent be
within themselves, but so transcrib'd to Crowns
As they raise Pow'r by pulling freedom down.

51

Thus by a credulous obedience,
Mankind gave Might a ground to build up more,
Cooling and kindling his desire with sence,
Even of such things as were his own before,
Disease and Error meeting both in this
That many follow where one rooted is.

52

For thus imbas'd, we since want pow'r to tie
Others to us, or us unto our own;
Our many passions serve to bind us by,
And our distractions keep our strengths unknown,
One holding that which others give away;
The Base, whereon all Tyranny doth stay.

53

Hence came these false Monarchal Councils in,
And instruments of Tyrants States apart,
Which to their private from the publick win,
While Man becomes the Matter, Pow'r the Art;
Making obedience too indefinite
As taxt with all the vanities of Might.

54

The Tenure chang'd, Nature straight chang'd the use
For all the active spirits follow Might;
Ignorance baseness; Negligence abuse;
Inconstancy disunion, oversight,
By Crowns to people so intail'd are they
As no subjection can put these away.

55

Whence neither makers now, nor Members held
Men are, but Blanks, where Pow'r doth write her Lust
A spriteless Mass, which, for it cannot weld
It self, at others pleasure languish must;
Resolve to suffer, and let pow'r do all
Weakness in Men, in Children natural.

56

From which Cras'd womb of frailty was brought forth,
A Giant Creature in excess of Might,
To work in all with every pow'r but worth,
Who to be sure, that never shall have right,
Takes not God as he is, but makes him new
Like to his ends, large, narrow, false, or true

57

Religion, Honour, Natures Laws and Nations
All moulds derived from that gift transcendent,
These Monsters stampt, or gave disestimation
As they did find them theirs or undependent;
Left nothing certain here on earth but Will,
And that yet never constant, for tis ill.

58

Instance proud Mahomet when he propos'd
The Empire of this world to his ambition,
Under Gods name were not his acts dispos'd
To change Mans faith and freedom of condition?
The sacred Dove whisp'ring into his Ear
That what his Will impos'd, the World must fear.

59

Unto Cambyses all his sages vow'd
That in their reading they of no Law wist
Which Marriage with his Sister had allow'd,
But that their Monarch might do what he list;
Licet si libet, and what be these other
Then hellish words of Caracalla's Mother.

60

And doth not our great Capitolian Lord
Use the same compass in each course he steers?
Are not those Acts which all Estates discord,
As Kings assasinate, mutiny of Peers
Stirr'd up by him under pretence Divine,
To force those Scepters he cannot encline?

61

Nay, hath he not a higher pitch attain'd,
A more compendious power of perswasion?
Having, since Phœbus and Cybele Raign'd,
Made himself, such a Trypode by occasion,
As may not be examin'd, or withstood,
But with a Godhead equally made good.

62

Which Errors (like the Hectick Feavers) be
Easie to cure, while they are hard to know;
But when they once obtain Supremacy,
Then easily seen; but hard to overthrow:
So that where Pow'r prevents not this excess,
Miters grow great, by making Scepters less.

63

Therefore did these proud Tyrants live awake,
Careful to Cancel all inferior Rights,
And in Creations still keep pow'r to make,
To fit each Instruments and fashion Spirits;
That as the Head Ideas rule the Heart,
So pow'r might print her Will in every part,

64

For active Rulers seldom fail of means,
Occasion, Colour, and Advantage too,
To bind by Force, by Wit, by Customes chains,
And make th'oppessed souls content to woe:
Fear suffering much, for fear to suffer more,
As still by smart made greater then before.

65

Knowing that Men alike touch't never were,
That divers sence works diversly in woe,
The nimblest Wits being still kept down by fear;
Dull wits not feeling neighbors overthrow;
The wise mistrust the weak, and strive to bear,
Thrones being strong, because men think them so:
Yet mark at length how Error runs in rounds,
And ever what it raiseth up confounds.

66

For when this pow'r transcendent grows secure
Flattering it self that all is made for one,
Then Will, which nothing but it self endures
And Pow'r that thinks it stands and works alone,
With an unsatiate pride and wanton ease
Surfets itself with other mens disease.

67

Hence Laws grow tedious, and the very names
Of God and Truth, whose Natures died before
A heavy burthen to these racking Frames,
That with a word would wrest up all and more;
Assemblies of Estate disparagements be,
Taxe, Custome, Fear, and Labor onely free.

68

Hence Thrones grew Idols, Man their Sacrifice,
And from the Earth as to the Sun above
Tributes of Dew and exhalations rise;
So humane Nature yields up all but Love,
Having this strange transcendency of Might,
As Child of no mean vice, but Infinite.

69

Whereby these strengths which did before concurre
To build, invent, examine, and conclude,
Now turn disease, bring question and demur,
Oppose, dissolve, prevaricate, delude,
And with opinions give the State unwrest
To make the new still undermine the best.

70

Cæsar was slain by those that objects were
Of Grace, and Engines of his Tyranny,
Brutus and Cassius work shall witness bear,
Even to the Comfort of posterity,
That proud aspirers never had good end;
Nor yet excess of Might a constant friend.

71

So that although this Tyrant usurpation
Stood peaz'd by humours from a present fall;
Thoughts being all forc't up to adoration
Of wit and pow'r (which such Thrones work within)
Yet both the Head and Members finite are
And must still by their miscreating marre.

72

The nature of all over-acting might,
Being to stirre offence in each Estate,
And from the deep impressions of despight
Enflame those restless instruments of Fate,
Which as no friends of Duty, or Devotion
Easily stirre up Incursion, or Commotion.

73

Occasion for a forreign Enemy,
Or such Competitors as do pretend
By any stile, or popularity,
Faction or Sect, all whose endeavors tend
To shake the Realm, or by assasinate,
Into the People to let fall the State

74

In which excess of Tyrants violence,
If Nero lack a foreign Enemy
Nero from Vindex shall receive offence,
Safe from his guard Caligula shall not be;
Or if these Tyrants find none worse then they.
Otho shall help to make himself away.

75

Put grant the World slept in her misery,
Yet greedy Time, that good and ill devours,
To cross this head-long course of Tyranny,
Takes from the Throne these ancient daring pow'rs;
And by succession of mans discontent,
Carries mischance upon misgovernment.

76

Wherein observe the wit of former days,
Which feign'd their Gods themselves (oft to prevent
Pow'rs inclination to oppressing ways)
Came down and gave offences punishment;
Lest Man should think, above mortality
Against injustice there were no decree.

77

For proof, when with Lycaon's Tyranny
Men durst not deal, then did Jove to reform
Descend, and savage natur'd cruelty
Fitly into the greedy wolf transform;
So was that Tyrant Tereus nasty Lust
Chang'd into Upupa's foul feeding dust.

78

Hence was Megæra, and her Sisters tied
By God to attend the crys of Mens oppressions;
Whether Orestes were for Parricide
To be distracted with his own impressions;
Or Pentheus for his proud blaspheming scorn
In many pieces by his Mother torn.

79

Thus as we see these guides of humane kind
Chang'd from Gods, and Fathers to oppressors;
So we see Tyrannie's excess of mind
Against her own Estate become transgressor;
And either by her subjects craft betraid
Slain by themselves, or by Gods Judgement swayd.

SECT. III. Of weak-minded Tyrants.

80

Olympus kept her Scepter without stain,
Till she let fall Pow'rs tender reputation,
By gracing Venus and her Son to Raign,
Who with the First Gods had no estimation,
For when these faint thoughts came to rule above
Pow'r lost at once both Majesty and Love.

81

A work of Saturn, who with narrow spite
Mow'd down the Fat, and let the Lean Ears spring,
That after his sithe nothing prosper might;
Time that begets and blasteth every thing,
To Barley making Wheat degenerate,
As Eagles did into the Kites estate.

82

But let us grant excess of Tyranny
Could scape the heavy hand of God and Man;
Yet by the natural variety
Of frailties, raigning since the world began;
Faint relaxations doubtless will ensue,
And change Force into Craft, old times to new.

83

Worth must decay, and height of pow'r decline,
Vices shall still, but not the same Vice, Raign;
Error in Mankind is an endless Mine,
And to the worst, things ever did constrain:
Unbound it would live, and delight by change
To make those formes still welcome that be strange

84

Hence like a Ball, how hath this world been tost
From hand to hand, betwixt the Persians, Medes,
Romans and Greeks, Each name in other lost?
And while Romes pride her Government misleads
To scorn the Asian Grecian Arms and Worth,
Made slave she was to those Lords she brought forth.

85

What marvel is it then to see the Earth
Thus chang'd from Order into Anarchy?
When these Ideas of refined birth
Were thus transform'd from reasons Monarchy
Into that false Oligarchy of passion,
Where Princes must bear every bodies fashion?

86

And whereby man may really conclude,
That in it self Time onely doth not change,
Nature affecting like vicissitude;
Whence to see Vice succeed worth is not strange,
Weakness and strength, aswell as Youth and Age
Having in each Estate a various stage.

87

So that out of this Phænix fire there bred
Birds that do wear no Feathers of their own,
But borrow'd Plumes, which imping ever need,
And such as are by divers colours known,
Not of or for themselves to move or be
But under them that guide their Infancy.

88

Which changling weakness made to serve, not raign,
Possessing all without a doing Lust;
To add more scorn to her fore-runners stain
Dare neither cherish ill, nor goodness trust;
But slacks those Engines which are wound before,
And so gives people back their own again and more.

89

Then, Man, mark by this change, what thou hast won
That leav'st a Torrid, for a frozen Zone;
And art by Vice-vicissitudes undone,
Whose state is ever fatal to her own,
The active Tyrant scarce allowing breath,
While this unactive threatens lingring death.

90

For where to Power absolute, such spirits
Are raised up, as unacquainted be
How to create, to censure faults or merits,
Where to be bound, to bind or to be free,
Amidst the ocean of Mans discontent,
They want both Map and Scale of Government.

91

Since where the Poyze, betwixt Heart, Wit, and Right
Unequal is, and Wit predominant,
Opinions shadows must seem infinite
To Passive Circles large, the Active scant,
All cleer Zones dimly overcast with fear,
And to those false Mists Mankind forc't to swear.

92

Whence from inferiors, visions fitted be,
Deceiving frailty with her own desire;
Ease is made Greatness, Trust a Liberty,
A point of Craft for power to retire,
To work by others held a Soveraign State,
Resting as God, who yet distributes Fate.

93

Under which Clouds, while Pow'r would shadow Sloth
And make the Crown a specious hive for Drones,
Unactiveness finds scorn, and ruine both,
Vice and Misfortune seldom go alone,
Pow'r loosing itself by distast of pain,
Since they that labor will be sure to raign.

94

For though like Æolus from the hills of Might,
Thrones can let winds out to move Earth and Sea,
Yet neither can they calm or guide them right
From blasting of that Mountain where they lay,
Because these spirits joyn, part, war, agree
To rob weak minds of strong authority,

95

Thus did old Galba Raign in Pupillage
Under the Tutorship of two or three
Who rob'd, built, spoil'd upon the publick stage,
Cloth'd with the vail of his authority:
Thus Claudius in his Empire liv'd a thrall,
Scorn'd by those slaves rais'd by him to do all.

96

Besides what Feavers then must raign, when these
Base idle fantosmes, Creatures of Grace,
Impossible to temper, hard to please,
Shall have the pow'r to raise up or deface?
Since mean born Natures, Artless fortune great,
Hate them that merit, scorn them that intreat.

97

Which blasting humours wound both Men and things,
Down go the Schools, the Pulpit and the Barr,
States fall where Power flies with feeble wings,
To make a man, such Kings of't Kingdoms marr,
Nothing and all alike are currant there,
Order springs up and dies, Change no shape bears.

98

Hence come contempt of Laws, and Bullions fall,
Riddles of State which get by doing harm;
Statutes for words, bondage unnatural,
Offices, Customes, Cittadels in farme,
Engaging Crowns, making pow'rs name a stile
To ruine worth, which it cannot beguile.

99

Yet mark how Vice (that it self only friends)
In her own web, still wears her own disease,
By disproportion compassing her ends,
And disproportion ruining her ways;
For those that rose by Providence, Care, Pain,
And over pow'r which wanted these, did raign

100

Grow fondly scornful, idle, imperious,
Despising form, and turning Law to Will,
Abridge our freedom to Lord over us,
Loosing the fruit of humors with the skill;
Till by degrees insensibly they fall
By leaving those Arts which they rose withal.

101

When instantly those undertaking pow'rs
Care, hazard, Wit, misplaced Industry
(Which helpt to build their oligarchal Tow'rs)
Fly from these downfals of prosperity;
As Spirits that to govern were created,
And cannot lower properly be rated.

102

The pride of such inferiors did constrain
The Swiss against the Austrians Cantonise;

Duke of Alva.

So were the Belgians likewise forc't again
A new Republick finely to devise.
In which that Monarch was compel'd to Treat
As with States equal Free, not equal Great.

103

For Vices soon to heights and periods rise,
Have both their Childhood, state and declination,
Are sometimes currant, but at no time wise;
Like blazing Stars that burn their own foundation,
Or shadows which the shew of bodies have
And in self-darkness both a Life and Grave.

104

Whence it proceeds that all the works of Error
Live not in state of health, but sick and cured,
Change carrying out Excess, to bring in Terror,
Never securing, nor to be secured;
But Physick-like in new diseases bred,
Either substracts or adds till all be dead.

105

Thus rose all States, thus grew they, thus they fall
From good to ill, and so from ill to worse;
Time for her due vicissitudes doth call,
Error still carrying in it self her curse;
Yet let this Light out of these Clouds break forth,
That Pow'r hath no long Being but in Worth.

SECT. IV. Cautions against these weak Extremities.

106

Now to prevent or stay these Declinations
And desperate diseases of Estate,
As hard is as to change the Inclinations
Of humane Nature in her Love or Hate;
Which whosoever can make straight or true
As wel is able to create her new.

107

Hence falls it out that as the wise Physitian,
When he discovers death in the disease,
Reveals his Patients dangerous condition;
And straight abandons what he cannot ease
Unto the Ghostly Physick of a Might
Above all second causes Infinite.

108

So many grave and great men of Estate
In such despaired times retire away,
And yield the stern of Government to Fate,
Foreseeing her remediless decay,
Loath in confused torrents of oppression
To perish as if guilty of transgression.

109

Who then can wary Seneca reprove?
After he had observ'd his Pupils rage,
The Brother poison'd (strange bewitching Love)
The Mother slain, of vice his patronage;
If he from bloody Nero did remove,
And as the Pilots do in Tempests groan,
To Fate give over Art, and all their own.

110

But grant such spirits were to be excus'd,
As by oppression or necessity
Disgraced live, restrained, or not us'd,
As part themselves of publick misery,
Yet who are free must labor and desire
To carry water to this common fire.

111

Have not some by equality of mind,
Even in the crossest course of evil times,
With passive goodness won against the wind?
So Priscus pass'd Domitian's torrid Climes,
And scapt't from danger to the full of days,
Helping frail Rome with un-offending ways.

112

Was it true Valour or Timidity
That made stern Cato so impatient
Of his own life, and Cæsar's victory?
Vanity it was, like smoak not permanent
That wrought this weak work of strong destiny
Where while he lost his life and Rome a friend,
He lost that Glory which he made his end.

113

For since the most Estates at first were founded
Upon the waving Basis of confusion;
On what but fear can his discourse be grounded
That in distress despairs of good conclusion?
With mysteries of which vicissitude
Fate oftentimes doth humane wit delude.

114

Again, who mark times revolutions, find
The constant health of Crowns doth not remain
In pow'r of Man, but of the pow'rs Divine,
Who fixe, change, ruine, or build up again
According to the period, wain or State,
Of good or evils seldom changing fate.

115

First then let Tyrants (as they do encline
By nature, either way unto excess)
Conceive, though true perfection be Divine
And no where ever brought to pass with less:
Yet in the world, which they would govern well,
Cures and Diseases both together dwell.

116

And though to live by rule proud man be loath;
Yet rules to Kings and Subjects are such stays
As Crutches be to feeble Ages sloth,
Or as the main turmoiled Mother seas
Do find those banks which then confine her course,
When rage blown up, would elf make all things worse.

117

Let no man then expect a constant Air
Between the sence of Men and senseless Might,
Where one man makes skies foul, another fair,
In Passive orbs who looks for other right,
Child like must break all toys for loss of one,
And by their fall add honour to a Throne.

118

Rather let People, as in Airs infected,
Not seek to master but avoid disease,
By absence now, by homage now protected,
Not looking high for stumbling in their ways;
Lest, as of old, curst with confused speech
They now find no word currant but, Beseech.

119

Again, let weak Kings keep their humour chaste,
Not daring violence, lest over-built
They help to lay their own foundation waste,
And failing themselves, multiply their guilt,
Since hearts as strong as their Estates must be,
That can enlarge themselves by Tyranny.

120

For as in weak Estates, so in weak Minds,
To injure or oppress humanity
Stirs up Right, Wit, and Heart in divers kinds,
To shew how easily hazard makes men free;
Where prospect must appear to these weak kings
A sign that ruine flies with nimble wings.

121

This weakness which I mean hath divers kinds,
Some water-like, easie to take impression,
And like it leave not any print behind,
Which I omit as fit for no profession:
The other wax like, take, and keep a mind,
And may in strengths they have, not of their own,
Be helpt by common Duties to a Throne.

122

For as, when Birds and Beasts would have a King,
To furnish this fair creature for a guide;
Out of their own they gave him every thing,
And by their gifts themselves more surely tyed;
Eyes, Voices, Wings, and of their natures skill,
To govern, raise, and ruine them at will.

123

So may these frail unactive kind of spirits
Be with the Milk of many Nurses fed,
All striving to hold up the Scepters rights
With Subjects strengths by Crowns authorised,
Whereby the feeble may again be wombed,
And there get life even where it was intombed.

124

Which outward help of others providence
Watcheth occasion, poizeth each intent,
Nor is Crown-wisdom any Quintescence
Of abstract Truth or art of Government,
More then sweet Sympathy or Counterpeaze
Of humours temper'd happily to please.

125

But their best help indeed is happy choice
Of under Ministers of every kind,
By whom discreetly Thrones may judge the voice
Of Images projected to their mind:
And so by weak but wakeful jealousie,
The true or false scope of propounders see.

126

Whence mark, how that young unexperienc'd spirit
Alexander (who was after nam'd Severe)
During his youth did of his people merit,
By help of Council uncorrupt, to bear
The practice of his publick government
Under good Laws, which gave good men content.

127

Now though pow'r hardly can fit spirits to place,
Which must want Judgement wanting industry,
And so as rarely well dispose of Grace,
Having but Chance, no true Nobility;
Yet kinless Fame helps weakness what to judge,
Till from an eccho, she become a drudge.

128

For as the Painter (curious in his Art)
Extream ill features easily represents,
And by deformity in every part,
Express the life and likeness to content;
As he in atures good proportions shews,
That in her pride Art equal with her goes.

129

So Fame this Quintescence of humane spirit,
Brings unto light the divers states of men,
And seldome to unworthiness gives merit,
Or lets Perfection languish in a Den;
But on her wings alike brings either forth;
The one as good, the other nothing worth.

130

Thus may Fames many Eyes, Heads, Wings and Heart,
Instruct weak pow'r to keep her state upright;
And as to rule these is a Masters Art;
So to rule by these is one way of Might,
Wherein the Crown can feel no great distress
And for the People, they must sure find less.

131

Besides the help of Fame weak Thrones shall find
The wit of Time, and selfness in mens hearts,
Will teach how one man, many men may bind,
And raise the head by counterpoize of parts,
All having charge and subaltern degree,
To ease the audits of Authority.

132

Where else weak hands in mighty works must fail,
And all transform'd be to Usurpers passion;
Thrones then reserve your selves, choice and appeal;
Greatness her way must with some labor fashion,
With many Eyes he must see wrong and Right,
That Finite being, would rule Infinite,

133

Or if Pow'rs tender thoughts will needs make pleasure
The end of Crowns, which God made publick good,
Yet give your seconds scope in such a measure,
As may for Chiefs still make you understood;
Which one poor priviledge you may reserve,
By thinking more, then one, can well deserve.

134

For: as in bodies living (though decay'd)
If all parts equally chance to be stain'd,
The whole is by an Æquilibrium sway'd,
As where no odds can easily be gain'd;
And so Mortality adjourn'd as far
Oft as in those: all whose parts sounder are.

135

So these weak Pow'rs (in whom States are diseas'd
By equal disproportion in each part)
May scape great fits and happily be eas'd
Keeping her tottering Ballance up by Art:
In making Faction which destroys the strong,
By peazing weak Pow'rs to preserve them long.

136

What had become of Romes vast Monarchy,
When Galienus buried was in Lust,
Sloth, Riot, and Excess of vanity,
Even while the Barbars swarm'd like barren dust;
Had not the Thirty Rivals to each other
From one Mans Tyranny preserv'd their Mother.

137

Let Place then Rule, let Favor raign, not Merit;
And each in his Predicament be King;
Do of a head use neither pow'r nor spirit
To audit, question or judge any thing;
Onely let Faction multiply her feed,
Two bodies headless seldom danger breed.

138

For equals soon each other will oppose,
And both in Thrones as suddenly unite,
To it they pray, they travel, they disclose;
Creation only ballanceth their Might;
Reserve, distribute that in jealous measure,
Then Crowns may stand, and Kings may take their pleasure.

139

These partial wits (which Faction works withal)
Though fatal Judges, yet good Sisters be,
Which while they strive each other to enthral,
Cleer up the dimme lights of authority;
And shew weak Crowns what weight of hope or fear
The State or mind of every man can bear.

140

Besides Thrones have all moulds of their forefathers,
Safe under-buildings of the wisdoms dead,
Exchequers that Revenues Judge and gather,
Courts that examine Treason to the head;
Parliaments, Councel-seats, Tripods of Law,
Engines of pow'r to keep desire in awe.

141

For forain practice they have spies of time
And place, to which intelligence is due;
For Church inferior functions, and sublime
To teach men God, and take a spiritual view
Of Schisme in Doctrine, and in life of sin,
That neither Sect, nor scandal enter in.

142

Onely let not weak pow'rs lay new foundations,
Who cannot judge how time works on the old;
But keep the ancient forms in reputation
To which Mans freedom is already sold,
Since Order over-worn is yet a frame,
Wherein Confusion rarely weavs her name.

143

Thus much for weakness in that Royal part
Which doth concern Justice that is supreme;
Whose Golden Links (though forg'd by powers Art)
Safe Circles are to compass every Realm;
And keep out all thoughts of irreverence,
As bearing in it every mans defence.

144

Where frailty else, ever unfortunate
Wanting true scales between Place, Wit, and Heart,
Scatters the strength, and honour of a State,
By suffering more to play one Tyrants part;
And blows the people like louds here and there,
As (till exhausted) objects of their fear.

145

Lastly, if these mild Cautions fail to stay
These frailties, which disease-like turn and toss,
And so for that change every where make way,
Which Change unguided still begetteth loss;
Then he who cannot take, must taken be,
Such sharp points hath frail mans Supremacy.

SECT. V. Of strong Tyrants.

146

Now from the setting of this evening Star
Ascends that morning Planets influence,
Which both in Light and Glory passeth far;
These Comets of strong pow'r in feeble sence,
And who from inequality of state
Strive to make all, for one, unfortunate,

147

I mean such confident imperious Spirits,
As over act with restless Scepter-wit,
Thinking the world inferior to their merits;
And brook no other bounds or laws in it,
Then to make all their own thoughts, words, and deeds
Receiv'd of people not as Rules, but Creeds.

148

Which souls thus over-swoln with windy vice,
Must wisely be allay'd, and moulded be;
Lest Forrent-like, they with the prejudice
Of People, wast their own transcendency;
And thus by cutting real grounds too thin,
Have their ambitions ever to begin.

149

For though Throne-vice be publick, like her State
(And therefore must (of force) wound many ways)
Yet some move scorn, some faults men wonder at,
Others harm not so many as they please,
Ill chosen vices vanish in despair,
Well chosen still leave somthing after fair.

150

Vitellius vertueless in Life and Raign,
Yet by a gluttons familiarity,
The German Armies did so finely gain,
As against Otho, he had victory;
Brake the Prætorian forces; and in vain
Vespatian had aspir'd his Monarchy,
But that each vice fits not all times and states,
For what one age affects another hates.

151

Pertinax again, in whom predominant
Few vices were, yet narrowness of heart
Made him the fortune of great Armies want,
Where Cæsar mixt with Vices, Worth, and Art,
Had with the people for his death such moan,
As if in him Rome had been overthrown.

152

In him that first did spoil her Treasury
Ravage her Provinces and Tyrannise,
While as bewitcht with prodigality,
They sell themselves for what in their pow'r lies:
Thus pleasing vices sometimes raise a Crown,
As austere vertues often pull it down.

153

Pow'r therefore must those womanish slight errors,
Which publish to the World self-love or fear,
Carefully shun, as crafty peoples mirroirs,
To shew both what the King and Crown can bear;
And teach Mankind on humors to take hold,
That otherwise with Thrones durst not be bold.

154

From hence the Macedonians did get heart
To dally with that tenderness they found
In their great King, and finely frame an Art
To keep the Monarch with his own thoughts bound;
For when Hephestion died he did aspire,
Through him to make a God of his desire.

155

Unto which God some straight did Altars build,
Some Sacrific'd, others sware by his name,
Some told their dreams, others were vision-fill'd;
All which inspirings from Hephestion's came:
As Grace or disgrace did in Nero's days,
To those that did his singing scorn or praise.

156

Aspirers therefore on corruption founded,
Should use their vice as Merchants do their ware;
Not choak the Market, lest their vents be bounded,
But martial these things which excesses are,
So as by Vice made slaves they may not be,
But rather Vice made Arts of Tyranny.

157

For Majesty then sinks, when private vice
Is not kept servant to the publick State,
But rather crowns with common prejudice
Subjected basely to their Vices fate;
Because of consequence then power must
Serve them in all things that observe their Lust.

158

Wise Salomon was taken in this Net,
When those strange Women which bewitcht his mind,
By it a pow'rful government did get,
To wave his own faith, and seduce Mankind;
For which Vice if his heirs did loose the Throne,
It proves, disorder never goes alone.

159

Again, as Tyrants are Eclips'd by this,
So falls the Scepter when it bankrupt grows
In common Fame, which Natures Trumpet is:
Defect, for ever finding scorn below;
For Reputation airy though it be,
Yet is the Beauty of Authority.

160

Which to improve, strong Princes must despise
All Arts that blemish Birth, Place, Courage, Worth;
For Tyrants unto men then Sacrifice
Their Thrones, when inward errors they shew forth,
Which curiously the wise have ever us'd
To keep conceal'd, well ballanc'd, or excus'd.

161

Such are extortions, cruelty, oppression,
Covetousness, endless anger, or displeasure,
Neglect, or scorn of person, or profession,
Pride, baseness, rudeness, vain expence of treasure;
All which like number multiplied by place,
Do in the Man the Monarchy disgrace.

162

Dissolving due respect and reverence,
Which gentle raines in active Princes hands
Give such restraint or latitude to sence,
As with the end of government best stands,
And who lets fall these pleasing inward ties
Must either fall in State or Tyrannise.

163

Let Rehoboam then in all his ways
Avoid yong Council which enflame the hearts,
And so on ruine pow'rs foundation lays
In which light youth hath still the chiefest parts:
Their wit is force, the old mans force is wit,
And then for Thrones, let no man judge what's fit.

164

But above all, such actions as may bring
His Faith in doubt, a strong Prince must eschew,
Because it doth concern a boundless king
To keep his words, and contracts, steddy, true,
His Grants entire, Graces not undermin'd;
As if both Truth and Pow'r had but one mind.

165

What did it profit that great Charles the fift
To traffick with the proud simplicity
Of German Princes, by unprincely shift,
Misletterd writs, a Conclave subtilty?
Since ill fate then, and ever did befall
That broken faith aspirers work withal.

166

The precepts of Lysander to beguile
Children with toys, and men with perfidie,
Records himself by this infamous wile,
To be their Tutor in malignity,
Who since conclude that perjury no sin,
Which by equivocation enters in.

167

A vice so hateful never as when it
Borrows the veil of justice for deceit;
Hollow Tiberius plays not with his wit,
But to give his false practice better weight;
Hence sacred Virgins are to be defil'd
By hangmen first, to have the Law beguil'd.

168

The Poets shew what credit with these Gods
Truth had, by Sacred oath of Stygian lake,
The heavy dooms, and still tormenting rods,
Which they reserv'd for them that sware and brake;
And freed from pain if these pow'rs could not be,
What shall we think of Tyrants blasphemie?

169

Did Tantalus, belov'd of Jupiter,
With his own Nectar, and Ambrosia nurst;
Or Battus painless in perjuring erre?
[OMITTED]
When Tantalus in hell sees store and starves,
Which senceless Battus for a Touchstone serves.

170

Thus see we how all times, all sorts of Faith,
Some by the Cloud of fained transformation,
Others by humane censure unto death,
And some by heavy doom of discreation,
To keep Truth sacred carefully have sought,
Without which no society is ought.

171

Therefore let pow'r in her deliberations,
Take time and care before she undertake,
That she an equal Princely calculation
Of wealth, strength, titles, fears, and hope may make,
Because if Tyrants there poize all things right,
To do, or to forbear, it gives them light.

172

The pain's no more, or rather not so much
To shun the sickness as to seek the cure,
And yet in gain, and honour far more rich,
It is within her strength to rest secure,
Then peece, veil, yield, when she hath done amiss,
Since great descent in Scepters fatal is.

173

Pow'r, make your leagues, gifts, contracts therefore just,
Since wrong prescribes not Crowns by time or deed;
Thrones never wanting means, occasion, Lust,
To try by hazard how their right shall speed,
In whose uncertain orb yet Princes shall
Oft find mischance, upon misdoing fall.

174

For howsoever to the partial Throne
Of mighty Pow'r, the acts of Truthless wit
May currant go, like Brass, amongst their own;
Yet when the World shall come to judge of it,
Nature that in her wisdom never lies,
Will shew deceit, and wrong are never wise.

175

But grant this honor unto faithlesness,
That sometimes it may prosper with occasion,
And make true wisdome in appearance less,
Yet what gains Pow'r by loss of reputation?
Since every blossome which ill-doing bears
Blasteth the fruit of good success with fears?

176

Again, as Tyrants ought to soar above
This reach of humours, so ought they to bear
A Rulers hand, and every Spirit move,
That under them shall govern hope or fear,
Since by whose wisdomes States are governed,
They of the same States, are reputed head.

177

Yet must not this supremacy descend
Of Sect or Faction to become a part,
Since all is theirs, all must on them depend,
And to make use of each side is their Art;
Else like Kings forc't for refuge to one Town,
They in that one, cast Dice for all their Crown.

178

Rather must they by providence unite
All parties so, as none may gage their state,
Or in their private ends withdraw from might,
But give their greatest, such a yielding rate,
As like the Earth plow'd up, they must not groan,
Though greedy pow'r exhaust more then their own.

179

For Faction else lurking in hopes and fears,
When it awakes by opportunity,
Straight Hydra-like, in many foreheads bears
Horror, division, multiplicity,
Nor safe unto it self, nor to those Kings
That unto mean birds will lend Eagles wings.

180

Therefore should this well masked Cockatrice
Be carefully even in the egg supprest,
Before the venome of her poisoning vice
Against the Prince and Kingdom be addrest;
It being not safe for strong-witted might
To give subjection any regal right.

181

For as we see in deep corrupted airs,,
Each petty sickness turns to pestilence,
And by infection common ruine bears,
So, in the Orb of Kings omnipotence,
Faction oft makes each private discontent
Swell above Law to plague the government.

182

For to make bodies strong, proves heads are weak,
And so two Sects prepared in one Realm,
Which doth the beauty of obedience break,
By tempting discontented minds to glean;
And so force Thrones to one side for protection
Whose being is to keep both in subjection.

183

Nor holds our rule alike with weak and strong,
Since weak Kings raigns do very seldom raise
Such spirits, as dare shuffle right and wrong,
At least what breeds them, breeds their counterpeaze,
Corruptions weak birth therefore yielding many,
Lest Liberty should be ingrost by any.

184

Whereas this other Princely stirring stuff,
Oft by example gives new Laws to Kings,
With danger to Soveraignity enough
By those new fashions which they give to things:
Therefore are factions here to be supprest,
Which in mild times support weak Princes best.

185

Now how pow'r so should ballance things and minds,
As all dissentions may in her unite,
Or from what place Pow'r arguments should find,
To make the crooked undergo the right;
How it should pierce the skin of passion,
And yet in these wounds instantly give fashion,

186

Strong hearts learn out of Practick wisdom must,
Which knowing how to pay each with his own,
By mixing good and ill, with fear and Lust,
Reap among Thorns, Seeds by them never sown;
And make the people yield up their Estate,
To add more still to government they hate:

187

Which artificial steerage of affection,
Having but small affinity with good,
No Essence, but an Essence like reflection;
Will best by opposites be understood,
The foul excess of ill being only that
Which to avoid in Pow'r I level at.

188

Therefore as little Bridles to restrain
Mans climing mind in Princes boundless might,
Let Tyrants that think all their acts remain
Spread, like Apollo's beams, in each mans sight,
Which by the divers fate of good or ill
Either produce scorn, malice, or good will,

189

Lastly, this Tyrant-pow'r (veil of the Man)
In peoples eyes must not assiduous be;
What hath respect appears but now and then;
Reservedness, that Art of Tyranny,
Equally graceth both pain and reward;
Demission works remission, not regard,

190

Thus much in brief, to temper head-strong vice
Which thorow Princes often wounds the Crown;
To shun which dangerous racking precipice,
Tyrants should all signs of their selfness drown;
And yet by odds of place work every man
To serve them with the best, and worst they can.

161

But if Pow'r will exceed, then, then let Mankind
Receive oppression, as fruits of their error,
Let them, again, live in their duties shrin'd,
As their safe Haven from the winds of terror.
Till he that rais'd Pow'r to mow mans sins down,
Please for Pow'rs own sins, to pluck off her Crown.

SECT. VI. Of Church.

192

Thus having in few Images exprest
The effect which each extremity brings forth,
Within Mans nature, to disturb mans rest;
What enemies again they be to worth,
As either Gyves, which freedom doe restrain,
Or Jubiles which let confusion raign.

193

There rests to shew, what these degrees of vice
Work. when they fixt be to the moulds of might;
As what relation to the prejudice,
Or help they yeeld of universal right;
Vice getting forces far above her own,
When it spreads from a person to a Throne.

194

For as in Princes natures, if there be
An Audit taken, what each kind of passion
Works and by what usurp't authority,
Order and reason's peace they do disfashion;
Within mans little world, it proves the same
Which of pow'rs great world doth confound the frame.

195

Whence spread Kings self-love into Church or Law,
Pulpit and Bar streight feel corrupted might
Which bounded will not be, much less in awe.
Of Heavenly censure, or of Earthly right:
Besides Creation and each other part
Withers, When Pow'r turns Nature into Art.

196

For as between the object and our sence,
Look where the mediums do prove dim or cleer,
Mens minds receive forms of intelligence,
Which makes things either fair or foul appear;
So between powers lust, and peoples right,
The mediums help to cleer or dazel light.

197

Therefore to let down these high pillar'd Thrones
To lower Orbs where Prince and People mixe,
As Church, Laws, Commerce, Rights well temper'd Zones,
Where neither part extremity can fixe,
Either to bind Transcendence by constraint,
Or spoil mankind of all rights but complaint,

198

And where by this well-ballancing of Might,
Regalities of Crowns stand undeclin'd,
Whose beings are not to be infinite,
And so of greater price then all mankind;
But in desire and function temper'd so
As they may current with their people go.

199

When Theopompus, Lacedemons King
Had rais'd up a Plebean Magistrate,
(Like Roman Tribunes) which the soaring wing
Of Soveraign excesses might abate;
He therein saw, although he bound his Child,
Yet in a less room he did surer build.

200

For infinite ambition to extend
The bounds of pow'r (which finite pow'rs must weld)
As vain is, as desire to comprehend,
And plant Eternity in natures field;
Whereby the idle, and the over-doing
Alike run on, their own destruction woing.

201

Active then yet without excess of Spirit,
Strong Princes must be in their Government,
Their influence in every thing of merit,
Not with an idle, glorious name content,
But quick in nimble use, and change of wombs,
Which else prove Peoples snares, and Princes tombs.

202

Placing the first foundation of their Raigns
Upon that frame, which all frames else exceeds;
Religion, by whose name the Scepter gains
More of the world, and greater reverence breeds
In Forrainer, and home-bred subjects too,
Then much expence of blood and wealth can do.

203

For with what force Gods true Religion spreads,
Is by her shadow superstition known;
When Midas having over Phrygia shed
Seeds of this Ceremony, till then unknown,
Made Asia safer by that empty word,
Then his forefathers had done by the sword?

204

And is not Mahomets forg'd Alcoran
Both with the Heathen in Authority:
And to the Christians misled Miter-throne
Become a very rack of Tiranny?
Their spirits united, eating men like food,
And making ill ends with strong Armies good.

205

Religions fair name by insinuation
Secretly seiseth all pow'rs of the mind,
In understanding raiseth admiration,
Worship in Will, which native sweet links bind
The soul of Man, and having got possession
Give pow'rfull Will an ordinate progression.

206

Forming in Conscience lines of equity,
To temper Laws, and without force infuse
A home-born practice of civility,
Currant with that which all the world doth use,
Whereby divided Kingdoms may unite
If not in truth, at least in outward rite.

207

Therefore I say Pow'r should be provident
In judging this chief strength of Tyranny
With caution, that the Clergy Government
Give not the Miter Crown-supremacy;

These were the places of residence of the Caliphes.

Making the Sultan and the Caliph one,
To Tyrannize both Cair and Babylon.

208

The Churches proper Arms be Tears and Prayers,
Peters true Keys to open Earth, and Sky,
Which if the Priest out of his prides despair
Will into Tybris cast, and Pauls sword try;
Gods sacred word he therein doth abandon,
And runs with fleshly confidence at random:

209

Mild people therefore honour you your King,
Reverence your Priests, but never under one
Frail Creature both your soul and body bring,
But keep the better part to God alone,
The soul his Image is, and onely he
Knows what it is, and what it ought to be

210

Lest else by some idolatrous conceit,
You give them, that at sin can cast no stone,
Means to pluck down the Godhead by deceit,
And upon Mans inventions raise a Throne:
Besides, where sword, and Canons do unite,
The peoples bondage there proves infinite.

211

Princes again wake, and be well advis'd,
How suddenly in Man Kings pow'r is drown'd,
The Miter rais'd, the Scepter prejudic'd,
If you leave all rights Superstition bound;
For then as souls more dear, then bodies are:
So these Church-visions may strain nature far.

212

Kings therefore that fear superstitious Might,
Must cross their courses in their infancy,
By which the Druids, with their shadow'd light,
Got Goods from them that took their words, to be
Treble rewarded in the life to come;
And works not Paradice the same for Rome?

213

For with such mystical dexterity,
Racking the living Souls through rage of sin,
And dying souls with horrors mystery,
Did not the Miter from the Scepter win
The third part of the world, till Luther came,
Who shak't the Doctrine of that double frame?

214

Lie not France, Poland, Italy and Spain
Still as the Snow doth, when it threatens more,
Like Engines, fitted to draw back again
Those that the true light severed before?
And was not Venice excommunicate,
For curbing such false purchases of late?

215

Which endless thirst of sacred Avarice,
If in the infancy it be not bounded
Will hardly by prosperity grow wise;
For as this Church is on apparence founded
So besides Schools, and Cells which vail her shame,
Hath she not Armies to extend her name?

216

Pow'r for a Pensil, Conscience for a Table,
To write opinion in of any fashion,
With Wits distinctions, ever Merchantable,
Between a Princes Throne and Peoples Passion?
Upon which Texts she raiseth or puls down
All, but those objects, which advance her Crown.

217

Pow'r therefore, be she needy, or ambitious,
Dispos'd to peace, or unto war enclin'd,
Whether religious in her life, or vicious,
Must not to Miters so enthral Mankind;
As above Truth, and Force, Moncks may prevail,
On their false visions Crown-Rights to entail.

218

Again, let not her Clerks by Simons ways,
Lay wast endowments of devoted spirits;
And so pull down, what their forefathers raisd
With honour in their actions, if not merit;
Least as by pride they once got up too high,
Their baseness feel the next extremity.

219

For first besides the scandal, and contempt
Which those base courses on their Doctrine cast;
The stately monuments are not exempt,
Because without means, no time-works can last;
And from high pomp a desperate descent
Shews both in State and Church misgovernment.

220

Whereof let her take heed, since when Estates
From such a greatness do begin to fall,
Descent is unto them precipitate:
For as one Gangren'd member ruines all;
So what the modesty of one time leaves,
The time succeeding certainly bereaves.

221

Therefore must Thrones (as Gods of forms exterior)
Cast up this Earthly mettal in good mould;
And when men to professions prove superior,
Restrain proud thoughts, from doing what they would,
Guiding the weak, and strong, to such extension,
As may to order sacrifice invention.

222

And hereby work that formal unity,
Which brooks no new, or irreligious Sects,
To nurse up Faction or Impiety,
Change ever teaching people to neglect:
But raise the painful, learned, and devout
To plant obeying conscience thorowout.

223

Veyling her Doctrine with Antiquity,
Whence, and where although contradicting Sects
Strive to derive, and prove their pedigree,
As safest humane levels to direct
Into what mould opinion should be cast,
To make her true, at least like truth to last.

224

Or if their times will not permit a Truce,
In wrangling questions, which break natures peace,
And therein offer God and Man abuse;
Let pow'r yet wisely make their practice cease,
In Church or Courts, and bind them to the Schools,
As business for idle, witty fools.

225

Ordering that people from the Pulpit hear
Nothing, but that which seems mans life to mend;
As shadows of eternal hope and fear,
Which do contract the ill, and good extend,
Not idle Theorick, to tickle wit,
Empty of goodness, much more nice then fit.

226

To which refining end, it may seem just,
That in the Church the supream Magistrates
Should ancient be, ere they be put in trust,
Since aged wit best tempers, and abates
These heady and exorbitant affections,
Which are of blind proud youth the imperfections.

227

The Roman Laws for Magistrates admit
None that had not pass'd the meridian line
Of youth, and humours incident to it;
And shall it not in functions Divine
Be more absurd, to let that youth appear,
And teach what wise men think scarce fit to hear?

228

Besides, chaste life years easilier may observe,
Which temper in Cathedral Dignity,
Though Wives be lawful, yet doth well deserve,
As to their functions leaving them more free:
Instance their Learned works that liv'd alone,
Where married Bishops left us few, or none.

229

And if men shall object, that this restraint
Of lawful Marriage will encrease the sin,
And so the beauty of the Church attaint,
By bringing scandal through mans frailty in,
I say mans fall is sins, not Churches shame,
Ordain'd by censure to enlarge her Fame.

230

Censure, the life of Discipline, which bears
Pow'rs spiritual Standard, fit to govern all
Opinions, Actions, Humours, Hopes, and Fears,
Spread knowledge, make obedience general;
Whence Man instructed well, and kept in awe,
If not the inward, yet keeps outward Law.

231

Which form is all that Tyranny expects,
I mean, to win, to change, and yet unite;
Where a true King in his estate affects
So from within man, to work out the right,
As his Will need not limit or allay
The liberties of Gods immortal way.

232

Where Tyrants discipline is never free,
But ballanced, proportioned, and bounded
So with the temporal ends of Tyranny,
And ways whereon pow'rs greatnesses are founded;
As in Creation, Fame, Life, Death, or War,
Or any other heads that Soveraign are.

233

Pow'r may not be opposed, or confounded;
But each inferior Orb command or serve,
With proper latitudes distinctly bounded,
To censure all States that presume to swerve,
Whereby the common people and the Throne
May mutually protected be in one.

234

Not rent asunder by sophistication
Of one frail sinner, whose supremacy
Stands by prophane or under-valuation
Of Gods anointed Soveraignity:
And by dividing subjects from their Kings
Soars above those Thrones, which first gave them wings.

235

Affecting such irrevocable might
With us, as to their Mufty, Turks liv'd under,
Or rather sacriledge more infinite,
From Jove to wrest away the fearful Thunder:
Salmoneus pride, as if the truth then fell,
When he alone rul'd not Earth, Heav'n and Hell.

236

Salmoneus who while he his Carroach drave
Over the brazen Bridge of Elis stream,
And did with artificial Thunder brave
Jove, till he pierc't him with a lightning beam;
From which example who will an Idol be,
Must rest assur'd to feel a Deity.

237

Thus much to shew the outward Churches use,
In framing up the superstitious sphear,
Subject alike to order, or abuse,
Chain'd with immortal seeming hopes and fear;
Which shadow-like their beings yet bereave,
By trusting to be, when their bodies leave.

238

Where if that outward work which pow'r pretends,
Were life indeed, not frail Hypocrisie,
Monarchs should need no other Laws to friend,
Conscience being Base of their authority;
By whose want, frailty flashing out mans error
Makes Thrones enwall themselves with Laws of terror.

SECT. VII. Of Laws.

239

Hence when these ancient friending Gods foresaw,
Schism and division would creep into Nations,
By this subjecting subtilty of Law,
Which yet did yield their makers reputation;
They out of Grace, sent down their progeny,
To keep men as they were created free.

240

Were not to this end Ceres well fram'd Laws
As proper for Mankind, as was her Corn?
Unto which cleer-ey'd Nature gives applause,
By mutual Duties to which man is born
And from which no soul can delivered be
By time, discretion, or authority.

241

Which Laws were not engrav'd in Stones, or Brass,
Because these Mettals must corrupt with time,
Mans understanding that impression was,
Which did contain these Images Divine;
Where Conscience seal'd with horror plagueth those
That against these born-duties doe oppose.

242

But after Mankinds hard and thankless heart
Had banisht mild Astræa from the Earth,
Then came this Sophistry of humane Arts,
Pictures, not life of that Celestial birth;
Falling from Laws of Heav'n-like harmony,
To Mans Laws which but corrupt reason be.

243

Of this kind Solon was in Athens one;
Lycurgus Cobwebs over Sparta spread;
The Locrians by Seleucus Nets were known,
By Zoroasters Bactria was misled;
Numa was he that first enthralled Rome,
And Natures freedom under legal doom.

244

After which Change, men have liv'd more divide
By Laws, then they at first by Language were;
For who before by reasons light were guided,
Since, fondly worship to such Idols bear;
As those new masters stir up in mans heart,
Who seldom find truth in the weaker part.

245

A Master-piece of pow'r which hath extinct
That former light of nature men liv'd in,
Holding the world to crown opinions linkt
Who simply prize not good, nor punish sin;

But whatsoever doth withstand their Will,
That bar, as if by nature it were ill.

246

Yet in Mans darkness since Church rites alone
Cannot guard all the parts of Government,
Lest by disorder States he overthrown,
Pow'r must use Laws as her best instrument;
Laws being Maps, and Councellors that do
Shew forth diseases, and redress them too.

247

For though perhaps at first sight Laws appear
Like prisons, unto Tyrants Soveraign Might,
Yet are they secrets, which pow'r should hold dear,
Since envyless they make her infinite;
And set so fair a gloss upon her Will,
As under this veil pow'r cannot do ill.

248

After Augustus had by civil sword
Made that large Empire thrall to his ambition,
Men yet retain'd their priviledge in words,
And freely censur'd every mans condition,
Till by the Laws of wounded Majesty,
Nor words, nor looks, nor thoughts were left them free.

249

For then was this reproof of publick vice
And censure of their Emperours misdeeds
Made Treason, and maintain'd with prejudice
Of men inforc't to nurse destroying weeds;
I mean that Vice which Tyranny protected,
And by example all the Earth infected.

250

Hence was it not a Trespass Capital
For men to say, vain Nero sang not well?
In nature then what Latitude at all,
If o're Mans freedom Tyranny thus swell?
Whether by Law men root or ruine take,
Sure am I, Scepters it doth Sacred make.

251

Besides, Laws fixe the bents of peoples minds
From prying up, while selfness doth intend
Other mens faults, and therein heedless binds
That common freedom. which they would extend,
Laying an impost upon every vice,
To spread the Crown by peoples prejudice.

252

This was that Apple fatally cast down
By Momus, to set Goddesses at war,
Which erst too busie were with Joves high Crown
And Cabinet, where all dooms fixed are,

Judg'd by a shepheard, for it was thought due
That to inferiors they submit that sue.

253

Old Rome again was never out of strife
Between the People and the Magistrates,
Till Appius brought from Athens rules of life,
Which are call'd Laws in every other state,
Whetting their edges so against their own,
As none found leisure to restrain a Throne.

254

Since then, by Laws, the best and worst affections
Of Pride-born-Tyrants form'd and disform'd be,
To give for them some general directions,
As stays against confounding Liberty,
I think were fit, as wel to shew the abuse
In making, as their good effect in use.

255

Therefore if sometimes pow'r do Laws apply
To humors, or occasions, time, or place,
Yet those are found of most equality
Which bear a careful universal face;
Whereas particular and present Laws
Diseases oft in time succeeding cause.

256

Again those Laws which universal be,
And thereby freely currant every where,
Doe with the grounds of nature best agree,
And so with Man most reputation bear;
As reason cast in frames to mould his passion,
Which kept in bounds, keeps all his acts in fashion.

257

But the true ground of all our humane Laws,
Ought to be that Law which is ever true,
His Light that is of every being cause;
Beyond whose providence what can be new?
Therefore as means betwixt these two extreams,
Laws should take light at least from those sweet beams.

258

Yet by the violence of superiors passion,
And wandring visions of inferior spirits,
Pow'r to make up it self strives to disfashion,
Creating error new aswel as merits,
In hope to form Mans outward vice by Laws,
Whose pow'r can never reach the inward cause.

259

Yet do these Laws make spirits of their profession,
Or such as unto them subject their state
Publickly wiser, warier of transgression,
Fitter to traffick, or negotiate,

Both in all other Countreys and their own,
Far more respected, and much better known.

260

For as the Man that means to write or draw,
If he unperfect be in hand or head,
Makes his straight lines unto himself a Law,
By which his after-works are governed,
So be these lines of life in every Realm,
To weigh mens acts, a well-contenting Beam.

261

Hence must their Aphorismes which do comprise
The summe of Law be published and stil'd,
In such a common Language as is priz'd
And us'd abroad not from the World exil'd;
Lest being both in Text and Language thrall,
They prove not Coyns for traffick general.

262

For is it meet that Laws which ought to be
Rules unto all men, should rest known to few?
Since then how can powr's Soveraignity
Of universal justice bear a shew,
Reform the Judge, correct the Advocate,
Who knowing Law alone command the State?

263

After the infancy of glorious Rome,
Laws were with Church rites secretly enshrin'd;
Poor people knowing nothing of their doom,
But that all rights were in the Judges mind:
Flavius reveal'd this snaring mistery
Great men repin'd, but Rome it self grew free.

264

So with the crafty priesthood was the year
Made short or large by their intercalation,
Selling the time to publicans more dear,
Till Cæsar did reform this computation,
And brake these threads of avarice they spun,
Measuring swift time by due course of the Sun.

265

Hard is it therefore for men to decree,
Whether it better were to have no Law,
Or Law kept onely as a mystery,
In their breasts that revenue from it draw;
Whether to bar all Mandates be not one
With spreading them in Dialects unknown.

266

For as when Liturgies are published
In forrain tongues, and poor souls forc't to pray,
The tongue is trusted without heart or head
To tell the Lord they know not what they say;

But only that this Priest-obedience,
'Twixt Grace and Reason, damns th'intelligence.

267

So when our Law, the beams of Life and Light,
Under a cloud or bushel shall burn out,
The forrain accents which are infinite,
Obscuring sence, and multiplying doubt;
We blinded in our ways by this Eclipse
Must needs Apologize for many slips.

268

Again, Laws order'd must be, and set down
So cleerly as each man may understand,
Wherein for him, and wherein for the Crown,
Their rigor or equality doth stand;
For Rocks, not Seamarks else they prove to be,
Fearful to men, no friends to Tyranny.

269

As making Judges, and not Princes great,
Because that doubtful sence which they expound
Raiseth them up above the Princes seat,
By offring Strength, Form, Matter, and a Ground
To fashion all degrees unto their end,
Through mens desires which covet Law to friend.

270

For as the Papists do, by Exposition
Of double sences in Gods testament,
Claim to their Chair a Soveraign condition;
So will these Legists in their Element
Get above Truth and Thrones, raising the Barr
As high as those unerring proud chairs are.

271

All which just ballancing of Judge and Law,
Be matks of wise and understanding Might,
As it is under Orders Lines to draw
These Courts Supream which manage wrong & right,
Well auditing ill Councels of Estate,
And giving each degree his proper rate.

272

Prohibiting those lawless Marts of place,
Which, by permission of a careless Crown,
Corrupt and give the Magistrate disgrace
With servile purchase of a selling Gown;
And so rate Justice at as vile a price,
As if her state were peoples prejudice.

273

Again, the length and strange variety
Of Processes and Trials, Princes must
Reform; for whether their excesses be
Founded upon Judges or Pleaders Lust,

The effect of either ever proveth one,
Unto the humble Subjects overthrown.

274

In course of Law beside pow'r must advise
Whether for tryal of mens private right,
It will be found just, equal, fit, or wise
To give the Judges any other light,
Then in mens Titles by cleer evidence:
In case of Crime by testimony of sence.

275

Again, if common justice of the King
Delay'd, dishonor'd, or corrupted be,
And so the subject rackt in every thing,
By these word-mongers, and their liberty,
Whether Gods Government amongst his own,
Was not more wise, which Advocates had none?

276

The warlike Lacedemon suffered not
In her Republick any Advocate;
The Learned Athens neither used Lot
Nor Plea, but party, and their Magistrate;
As if these Courts, would never stainless be,
Which did allow that gaining mistery.

277

Because their end being meerly Avarice,
Winds up their wits to such a nimble strain,
As helps to blind the Judge not give him eyes,
And when successively these come to Raign.
Their old acquainted traffick makes them see,
Wrong hath more Clyents then Sincerity.

278

Hence these new Judges made, sometimes adhere
Unto the plain words, sometimes sence of Law,
Then bind it to the Makers of their chair,
And now the whole Text into one part draw;
So that from home who shall but four years be
Will think Laws travell'd have aswell as he.

279

Moreover, to give Justice ready eyes
Kings here and there in Provinces remote
Should to establish proper Courts devise
That their poor Subjects might not live by vote,
Nor yet by charge of Cares far fetched right,
Give more advantage to oppressing might.

280

Such be those Seven Sinews mystical,
In the French Monarchy, sent from the Brain,
To spread both sence and motion thorough all,
And over sence, opinion, custome raign;

Paris, Grenoble, Tolous, Bourdeaux, Rone,
Dijon, and Aix, Seven pillars of a Throne.

281

Which, were they not oft subject to infection
From noisome Mists beyond the Alpes arising,
Would keep the health of that State in perfection
As well from falling as from tyrannizing,
But fate leaves no man longer quiet here,
Then blessed peace is to his neighbor dear.

282

Pow'r then, stretch no grounds for grace, spleen or gain,
But leave the Subject to the Subjects Law;
Since equals over equals glad to raign,
Will by advantage more advantage draw,
For Throne-examples are but seldom lost,
And follow'd ever at the publick cost.

283

People by nature love not to obey,
By force and use yet grow their humours mixt,
Now soft like wax, now hardned like the clay,
And so to make or marre, soon mov'd or fixt,
As these two Moderators Wit and Might
To their ends wave or let them stand upright.

284

Craft though unpunished in Majesty,
Yet never Governs, but works by deceit,
Base instrument of Humane frailty,
Which Audits not by Standard, Number, Weight,
But with false Lights makes Tyranny descend
To do, and hide, by which stairs none ascend.

285

Crowns therefore keep your oaths of Coronation,
Succession frees no Tyranny from those,
Faith is the Ballance of pow'rs reputation,
That Circle broken, where can man repose?
Since Scepter pledges, which should be sincere,
By one false Act grow Bankrupt every where.

286

Make not mens Conscience, Wealth, and Liberty,
Servile without book to unbounded Will,
Procrustus like he racks Humanity,
That in pow'rs own mould casts their good will,
And slaves men must be by the sway of time,
Where Tyranny continnes thus sublime.

287

Observe in greatness this one abstract notion,
That odds of place possest by spirits inferior,
Must find strange hills and dales in every motion,
Nature and Chance growing by turns superior;

Whence inward weakness never shall be able
To keep the outward borrow'd Glories stable,

288

Yet above all these, Tyrants must have Care,
To Cherrish those Assemblies of Estate
Which in Great Monarchies true Glasses are,
To shew mens Griefs, Excesses to abate,
Brave moulds for Laws, a Medium that in one
Joyns with content a people to the Throne.

289

Besides a safe wrest of these boundless Kings
To get supply, or envyless reform,
Those over-stretched, or relaxed strings,
Of many members which might else deform;
Still friends to Thrones, who (as Lords of the choice)
Give life or death to all acts by their voice.

290

For as in Man this little world of ours,
All objects which affect him diversly
With pain or pleasure under feeling pow'rs
Of common sence, are summon'd presently,
And there diminisht, judged, or approved,
A Crisis made, some changed, some removed.

291

So in the Kingdoms general Conventions
By confluence of all States doth appear,
Who nurseth peace, who multiplies contentions,
What to the people, what to great men dear,
Whereby Soveraignity still keeps above
And from her Center makes these Circles move.

292

Again, since Parliaments assembled be,
Not for the end of one State but of all,
Practice of no side can be counted free,
Anger of greatness there is short-breath'd fall,
Altring, displacing, raising, pulling down
Offends the Burroughs, adds not to the Crown.

293

People like sheep and streams go all one way,
Bounded with Conscience, names and liberty;
All other Arts enhance, do not allay
The headlong passions they are governed by:
Craft teacheth Craft, practice goes not alone,
But ecchoes self-wit back upon a Throne.

294

Small punishments fail not to multiply
These Hydra heads, and gives them glory cheap,
Blood were too much, great bodies cannot die,
Pow'r that sows Truth, may wealth and honor reap,

Men joy in war for Conscience, and can die
Giving their wealth to save their liberty.

295

Conscience (I say) is to the people dear,
And liberty they (like all Creatures) love;
What then needs any force or practice here,
Where men upon such fair wheels easily move?
It may stir Jealousie, but cannot friend,
That which both King & Men should make their end.

296

Pow'r, therefore bring all ways degenerate
Back to their old foundations whence they grew,
And suffer not these Pillars of estate
By private selfness to become still new;
Of private Orbs th'Orizons are not great,
Must they not then diminish where they Treat?

297

The large times, strength-like, kept elections free,
Sheriff's us'd no self-Art in their County-days;
Great men forbore those shapes of Majesty
Which gave the people freedom in their ways,
And what can Scepters loose by this free choice,
Where they reserve the Royalty of voice?

298

At their Will, either to dispense with Law,
When they are made as prisons of Creation,
Or Legal yokes which still more bondage draw
By bringing penalties in reputation,
Mild people of the Throne desiring leave
More specious Nets on all estates to weave.

299

Freedom of speech ecchoes the peoples trust,
That credit never doth the Soveraign harm
Kings win the people by the people must,
Wherein the Scepter is the chiefest charme;
People, like Infants joy in little things,
Which ever draws their Councels under Kings.

300

Hence Power often in her largest days
Hath chosen free and active instruments,
From Subjects faith, that in the subjects ways
Humbly to suffer have been well content;
And since Man is no more then what he knows;
Ought he not pay that duty which he ows?

301

And what expect men for their lives and goods,
But some poor feathers out of their own wings?
Pardons (I mean) from those Law-catching moods,
Which they before had begged of their Kings:
Let them speak freely, then they freely pay;
Each Creature hath some kind of Sabbath-day.

302

Lastly, when Princes most do need their own,
People do spy false lights of Liberty;
Taxes there vanisht, impositions gone,
Yet doth the Parlamental Subsidy
Relieve Kings wants at home with peoples wealth,
And shews the World that both States are in health.

303

From these sweet Mountains therefore let us view
The former great Estates which govern'd all,
And by the use of many people knew,
Which way to frame things for the general;
Yet kept their Soveraignity above,
By using Councels not of Fear, but Love.

304

The Roman State, for all free States a Glass
In her deliberations of weight,
When she did strive to shun or bring to pass
Her real Councels, or well mask't deceit;
Had to her Five and Thirty Tribes recourse,
Assemblivg many, to keep all from worse:

305

By them determining in Mars his field
The denizing of Realms, Magistrates creation,
When Rome was barren, what did over yield,
When Peace or War, and why, had reputation,
Peazing the Senates pride, the Peoples rage,
Lest the excess of one should all engage.

306

And by this equal ballance kept upright
Her far extended Government and Law;
Till War, by over-adding unto Might
The scale uneven, did on her side draw,
And by a martial mutinous election
Of Emperors, brought Empire to defection.

307

Far different is the course of Tyranny,
Where Mans felicity is not the end,
But self-contracting Soveraignity,
Neither to Scepter nor to People friend,
The mystery of iniquity being there,
Not to assemble Parlament for fear.

308

Instance the present brutish Rapsody
Of Mankind under Ottoman's base line,
Where if in one Man should assembled be,
Of their well beings freely to define,
What were it but a liberal Commission,
For them, to cast off Bondage by sedition.

309

The true uniting Grecian policy,
Of course frequented twice in every year,
Their ancient Amphiction Synodie,
A Parliament for many causes dear,
Aswel at home to curb mens divers minds,
As all encroaching forrainers to bind.

310

For active pow'r must not her bounds enlarge
By stretching Crown rights (which by Law descend)
To Taxe, impose, monopolize, or charge,
As if both God and Man's Law had no end;
But to enhance Prerogatives as far,
By arts of Peace, as they by Conquests are.

311

Else when this Crown-assumed liberty
Hath shuffled all distinct Imperial rests,
To give confused will Soveraignity,
Order thus shak't in Thrones, in subjects breasts
Makes Duty nothing else but servile fears,
Where fruits alike for both, occasion bears.

312

And as these Laws which bind mans birth to Thrones,
Have therefore, under wise Kings government,
Never been Creatures of their wills alone;
But like Man-yokes made by Mankinds consent,
So taxe again to one from many paid,
Is not from one voice well, but many laid.

313

Much less ought Pulpit Doctrine, still'd above
Thorough Cathedral Chairs or Scepter Might,
Short, or beyond th'Almighties tenure move,
Varying her shape, as humors vary light,
Lest, when men see God shrin'd in humane Law,
Thrones find the immortal chang'd to mortal awe.

314

And to descend from visions of the best,
Both place and person from her shadows must
Be so upheld, as all may subject rest
To pow'r supream, not absolute in trust:
So to raise fees beyond reward or merit:
As if they might both Taxe and disinherit.

315

Which to avoid, as pow'rs chief Mystery,
Birth, Education may give Princes light,
Yea in each Art the Master-peeces be
Help to select among the infinite,
No work of Chance as from Pandora's Tunne,
But happy choice, by Fames cleer Eye-sight wonne.

316

Again, though use of taking from mans youth
Be but a doubtful way of discipline
To work a habit in the Love of Truth,
Though instrumental practice do refine
The serving, not the judging pow'rs of wit,
And for uprightness, so the more unfit,

317

Yet in the liberty of Advocates,
Which are of Judges now the nursery,
Fame is a Glass, where Governours of States,
May see what good or ill proportions be
In every heart fram'd to do wrong or right
Against temptations both of Gain and Might.

318

Nor ends this work when Men are chosen well,
Since place corrupts them as it shews them forth,
Some humours rais'd, some humbled do excel,
Security is no true nurse of worth:
Therefore that spirit of Fame, which made the choice,
Must still in ears of Princes keep a voice.

319

And whence hath Pow'r more safe intelligence?
Since Fame doth serve them at her proper cost,
And is not thrall to grace, or to offence,
Though sometime clouded, very seldom lost,
And where she lies by evil information,
She thinks retreat no loss of reputation.

320

Now since these rules for Laws, do even like Laws,
Equally serve the Tyrant and the King;
This, to good uses for the publick cause,
That, all mens freedoms under Will to bring,
One Spider-like, the other like the Bee,
Drawing to help or hurt humanity.

321

If I without distinction do set down
These humble precepts in a common stile,
Their difference being not placed in the Crown,
But Craft or Truth to govern, or beguile;
Let him that reads in this and in the rest
Each crudity to his fair end digest.

SECT. VIII. Of Nobility.

322

When wise Prometheus had his fine Clay drest
To fashion Man, he nothing more did shun
Then Natures uniformity in Beasts,
Of which by Art there can be nothing won,
Whence in these creatures frame he did comprize
Many both strong and strange varieties,

323

That as there divers kinds be of complexions,
So in them there might be preheminence,
Divers of spirit, vigor, and affections;
To keep up which degrees of difference,
Reason, of Life the Guardian, was ordain'd,
As Conscience to Religion was chain'd.

324

And to confirm this inequality
Have not the feigned Gods in Orbs above
Gloriously plac'd that specious Hierarchy
Whose influence doth inferior spirits move;
And in slack, or swift courses, high or low,
The divers honours of each being show?

325

So that of force he must a stranger be,
To their Republick that will not confess
The supream Synods of this Deity,
To be compos'd of differing Nobleness;
And partially who can be placed there,
Where they that cleerest shine, most honor bear?

326

By birth and worth that Hercules high-priz'd
Shines he not over Cassiopea's head?
Justice she being onely Canoniz'd
For Perseus sake who did her Daughter wed;
And he that for anothers sake doth rise,
His merit not in worth, but favour lies.

327

Would it not be an aukeward consequence
To see that Virgin frail Erigone
Who by compassion got preheminence,
Adored by our Mariners to be
Far above those two brothers saving light,
Whose Twinn-like Glory makes the Zodiack bright?

328

Doth not Orion worthily deserve
A higher place, even for the constant Love
Wherewith he did the chaste Diana serve,
Then frail Bootes who was plac'd above
Onely because the Gods did else foresee,
He should the Murtherer of his Mother be?

329

Let therefore no man mutine, when they see
Pow'r borrow patterns of creating Art
Out of these Thrones wherein the Majesty
Of Nature is maintain'd through every part,
By their well-laid distinctions of degree,
Which grow confus'd again by parity.

330

For as the Harmony which sence admires
Of discords (yet according) is compounded,
And as each creature really aspires
Unto that Unity, which all things founded;
So must the Throne and People both affect
Discording Tones united with respect.

331

By which consent of disagreeing movers,
There will spring up Aspects of reverence,
Equals and betters quarrelling like Lovers,
Yet all confessing one omnipotence,
And therein each estate to be no more,
Then instruments out of their Makers store.

332

From whence Nobility doth of Creation
A secret prove to Kings, and Tyranny:
For as the the stamp gives Bullion valuation,
So these fair shadows of authority
Are marks for people to look up unto,
And see what Princes with our Earth can do.

333

In whom it is great wisdom to reward
Unequal worth with inequality;
Since it doth breed a prosperous regard
Aswel to Princes as to Tyranny:
When People shall see those men set above,
That more with worth then fortune seem in Love.

334

Yet must this brave magnificence be us'd
Not really to dispossess the Crown,
Either of Pow'r or Wealth, but so infus'd
As it may rather raise then pull it down;
Which frugal Majesty in growing Rome
Gave her above all States a lasting doom.

335

For she discern'd, although her wealth were vast,
Yet People, and desire did far exceed it,
So as what spread too far, could never last,
And for a State to give away, and need it,
Shadows for bodies she saw were to choose,
Which must both strength and reputation loose.

336

The way she therefore did observe to prise
Well doing subjects, and encourage merit,
Were Titles, Trophies, which she did devise,
Costless, and yet of force to quicken spirits,
Thus unto Africanus Scipio's name,
Hannibals and Carthage eccho'd were by Fame.

337

His Brothers Sirname Asiaticus
The Story was of Asia subdued;
Perseus captiv'd by Macedonicus:
To Iugurth straight Numidicus ensued:
By which course as each conquest brought forth more
So they by giving still encreast their store.

338

Besides, proud Princes must in their Creations
Of Form, Worth, Number keep a providence,
For if too many; that wains reputation,
Bought worth, or none, lets fall their reverence,
With men, that think hability to do,
The scope creating-pow'r is bound unto.

339

For farewel publick Stiles and Dignity
When Nero's dark thoughts shall communicate,
Unto his fellow Minstrels levity
Triumphal Statues, offices of State,
Or honour to such spirits, as though in age
Never serv'd Mars, nor Muse but on a stage.

340

Nor must this specious body rise so high
As it short shadows may on people cast,
Or by reflexion dim the Princes Eye
Who Creatures over-greatness cannot taste:
But live like Clouds in middle Regions blown
Which rise and fall to make their mover known.

341

Slaves with the Romans were not justice-free,
If all but Nobles should stand so confin'd,
What wretched state were our humanity?
As if Step-mother-like, Nature combin'd
With Pow'r, not only to make most men slaves,
But in a few Lords to prepare them Graves.

342

Such Laws in Poland set so easie rates
On mean mens lives, rate great mens lives so high,
As they may murther all inferior States,
Yet subject to no other justice lie,
Then (as for Dogs) a senceless Money fine,
As if men were not Images Divine.

343

Against this can it strange or wonder be,
Where Creatures their Creators overgrow,
If Princes hold their Crowns by curtesie?
Poland and Germany are ballanc't so,
As Scepters glory is in both these lost,
And nothing left Kings but a name to boast.

344

Fair Albion, when she swel'd with subjects worth,
And by her Princes merits gather'd Fame,
Examples then did to the World bring forth,
That over-greatness often sways great frames;
Instance her active Barons Martial pride,
Which helpt the Royal issue to divide.

345

Likewise while glorious Naples did enjoy
Of home-born Princes the felicity,
Yet even then, Peer-greatness did annoy
That dainty Scepter with strange mutiny,
As oft as to the Pope it seemed good.
To serve his turn by hot aspiring blood;

346

Till at the length this waving course of theirs
Under a great Lord wrought their servitude,
Who now curbs all their mutiny with fears,
And yet that fear again with hope deludes,
Keeping men like Reeds, to his self-ends bent,
By making new Rome with her own content.

347

Kings therefore that would not degenerate
Their Scepter Arts to Artless Anarchy,
To many, few, or any other State
Must wisely bound their own Nobility,
Not raising men by charge, but specious shew,
Nor yet so high as they may overgrow.

348

In Scotland their hereditary sheriffs
(Each is a Vice-roy in his native shire;)
Add oft to Princes dangers Peoples grief;
Justice so like to Faction looking there,
As men are sometimes forc't to fall from Kings
For shadow, under subalternate wings.

349

Princes, then know it to be ominous
For you; to spread, or to participate
That Pow'r creating, which doth govern us,
Either to baseness, still unfortunate;
Or else to such a strengthned Corporation,
As easily cannot wave her reputation.

350

The Lustre wherein Pow'r is magnified
Being only to command that tame wild Beast,
People I mean, who oft prove dangerous tides,
And love equality undistinguisht best;
Against whose rage there is no better fence,
Then well advised pow'r may have from hence.

351

Where else, while both Nobility and Kings
To poize themselves, as neither can be great,
The People pulling feathers from both wings,
Will first like equals, not like subjects, Treat
Of all prerogatives, and then aspire
To be the doom, or standard of desire.

352

Wherefore this great and little Corporation
Should be so temper'd as they both may give
Unto their head a strengthning reputation,
And thence that freedom take in which they live;
People not rackt, exhausted or made proud,
But to be kept strait, evermore kept bow'd.

353

For Soveraign pow'r, which cannot stand alone,
Must by her subalternness supported be,
Keeping a distance between every one,
To shun contempt even in authority;
Whose little springs unto that Mother sea,
Whence they derived are, must tribute pay.

354

Nor were these humane gods so prodigal
Of given Honours, but they did reserve
A power to curb their Citizens withal;
Phæbus well did his banishment deserve
By offering to these Thunder-workers wrong,
Cyclops, which to his Father did belong.

355

Now when these ebbing, or still flowing states,
Thrones wisely have with bounds established;
Then that this frame prove not unfortunate,
Foe to itself, and doubtful to the head;
Pow'r must with constant stern of government,
Suppress dividing humorous discontent.

356

Especially that brutish ostentation
Of private courage, which sets life and soul
Not only at a trivial valuation,
But lifts a Subject farre above his Roll,
Into the Princely Orb of making laws;
As Judge and Party in his private cause.

357

Which confident assumings, if they be
Suffred, do much allay the Soveraign right,
Since all the moulds of Fame and Infamy,
Pow'r of mans life, and death, be acts of Might,
And must be form'd by Majesty alone;
As Royalties inherent to a Throne.

358

Whose delicate complexion is such,
That if in any member it be wounded,
It Gangrenes all; nay when man doth but touch
Her Mysteries, then is her state confounded:
Besides, who as a King, dare kill a man?
As Man again will kill Kings, if he can.

359

Lastly, where many States become united
Under one Throne, though not one Government,
Civil dissentions easily are invited,
And in mans nature (ever discontent)
Under the colour of a private feud,
More mischief stirr'd up is, then understood.

360

Thus absolute pow'rs that will respected live,
Must govern greatness, with a greater mind,
And care their actions may no scandal give,
As unto change or littleness inclin'd;
But with a constant universal care,
Make them good Subjects that ill people are.

SECT. IX. Of Comerce.

361

When these Gods saw Mankinds simplicity
Wander with Beasts, as fellows in Creation
To both their thirsts alike the water free,
Acorns their food, Earth bed and habitation,
They take compassion, and from Heaven sent
Their spirits, who did handicrafts invent.

362

Which mysteries the slownes of mans wit,
In many years could else not have attain'd,
That as men grew, so they might learn to fit
Nature with Art, to be by them maintain'd;
And on the earth find hearbs for food and health,
As well as underneath it, Mines for wealth.

363

To which end Ceres down to Sicil came
And spread her fruitful Art of sowing grain,
As Bacchus taught the Naxians how to frame
The Grape for Wine; and Pallas shew'd the vein
Of planting Olives, which do bear her name,
A Goddess Motherless, born of his brain,
That over all the other Gods did raign.

364

Which wisdome likewise first taught men to hide
Their naked skin, that bears no native wooll;
And by chaste Pallas did reveal beside,
How from the Worm of silken riches full,
The peoples hands might work choice Robes for Kings,
Which since the pride of man, in Common brings.

365

Again, when Mankind was thus finely taught
To use the Earth, with all that on it grew,
Instantly Vulcan, through her bowels sought
For precious Mettals, then to People new;
Helping this common Dame of ours the Earth,
By many Midwives, unto many births.

366

Lastly, left one Clime should abound, and burst
Starving the rest, which of their store had need;
This active Pallas likewise was the first
That found, and gave these moving Bridges speed
As well to import, as to carry forth,
From Zone, to Zone all Richesses of worth:

367

And of her loving Father did obtain
Castor and Pollux, as two saving lights.
To calme the storms, which hidden do remain
In furrows of the Oceans face, who spites
To have his deep complexion without leave
Plough'd up by those, that venture to deceive.

368

Thus did these Gods, ore great to doubt the might
Of all the World, though pride and wealth they knew
Apt to conspire against the ways of right,
In hope to make Soveraignity still new;
Yet suffer men to grow in wealth and pride,
As helps not to unite them, but divide.

369

Whence in the world they publisht, that each Zone
Created needful was of neighbor climes;
And (for they must corrupt that needed none)
God made them subject, both to want, and times,
That Art and Nature changing each with other,
Might nurse all Nations like a common Mother.

370

For long ere Jove, slye Mercury enjoyn'd
By the advantage of his Golden tongue,
To fashion grounds, from whence arts might be coyn'd,
To leave the weak, and qualifie the strong,
With an attentive sweet obedience,
Helping his reason, to command his sence;

371

Long, as I said, ere this felicity
Did these ingenious Goddesses descend;
And in that Golden times simplicity,
As unto need, and not excesses friend,
So finely Art, and Nature mixe in one,
As made Pow'r rich with more then was her own.

100

372

Thus see we in this native Image-light
No lack where Art and Nature joyned be;
Who therefore will in idleness delight,
And make not doing his felicity,
As earth by him turns wilderness again
So nature in him rusts for lack of pain.

373

Labor and care then must familiar be,
Thorough the vigor of mens education
To give mankind against necessity
Protection, in some honest occupation,
And all grow undertakers, not a drone,
Both ignorance and idleness unknown.

374

To which end pow'r must nurseries erect,
And those Trades cherish which use many hands,
Yet such as more by pains then skill'd effect,
And so by spirits, more then vigor stand;
Whereby each creature may it self sustain,
And who excel add honor to their gain.

375

For traffick is a quintescence confected
Of mixt complexions, in all living creatures:
The miracles of which may be collected
Out of those fine webs which on natures features
Art works to make men rich that are not good;
A Base, whereon all governments have stood.

101

376

Venice, that famous Merchant Common-wealth
Raised her rich magnificence by Trade,
Of Coasts, Towns, Creeks, erst refuges for stealth,
Along the midland sea she Suburbs made;
Spices of Ægypt, Barbaries fine Gold;
All Works of Syria her Marts bought and sold.

377

A City, till the Indian Trade was known,
That did like Europes Exchequer fill and spread,
Adding more Provinces unto her own,
By Mines of Money with her Traffick fed,
Then martial Philip had subdu'd in Greece,
Or he whose Art brought home the Golden Fleece.

378

Wherefore with curious prospect these proud Kings
Ought to survey the Commerce of their Land,
New Trades and Staples still establishing,
So to improve the work of every hand,
As each may thrive, and by exchange, the Throne
Grow rich indeed, because not rich alone.

379

Whose misteries, though tearm'd Mechanical,
Yet feed pow'rs Triumphs, nurse necessity
By venting, changing, raising, letting fall,
Framing works both for use and vanity
In mutual traffick, which, while Marts stand fair,
Make natures wealth, as free as is her air.

102

380

To ballance these by equal weights or measure,
The Audit of our own must be the guide
As what for use, for honour, gain or pleasure.
At home now is, or else might be supply'd:
The rest so by exchange to rise or fall,
As while none loose, we yet may gain by all.

381

For as in Leagues of States, when either might
Advantages of times, words, humours, wit
Unequally have lost, or gotten right,
This surfet ever brings disease with it;
Which (like a Torrent) fails not to break out,
Leaving with loss of faith both States in doubt.

382

So when these little limbs of great estates
By craft become on either side opprest,
Can Wit bind Pow'r with her deceiving rates,
Or hatch her Cuckoes in the Eagles nest?
No; Marts and Trades, which natures standards be
Straight find, and break this inequality.

383

Thus did the Hanse's sometimes Tyrannise
The Northern Princes in their infancy
Of Trade and Commerce, till with time grown wise,
Kings saw how Crowns deceiv'd with homage be;
Which once discern'd, these Contracts won by stealth,
Can never stand to harm a Common-wealth.

103

284

Now under Merchant, Miner, Clothier, Plough,
Are all these Arts and Mysteries contain'd,
Which out of each do teach our Princes how
Their pomp in war and peace may be maintain'd;
As in whose Choice, Use, Government, and Measure,
Though Bullion wants, yet States recover Treasure.

385

All which rich Mines, made for the good of all,
Are yet abus'd by short breath'd wits that will
The price and true encouragements let fail
Of Industry; and excellence in skill;
Hoping through ignorance, deceit, and stealth,
While they loose Art and Credit, to get wealth.

386

The cure of which contagious disease
Rests only in the pow'r of Government,
That must with real Arts her people raise;
Not marre her Markets to give fraud a vent,
And can almost as well make flesh and blood,
As Artisans, that shall be true, and good.

387

For though each vice brings for her occupation,
Wherein Earth yields the matter, Art the Forme,
To make gain infinite by transmutation,
Since Forms redoubled, triple gains return;
It being fatal to refined sin,
By staining manners to bring profit in.

104

388

Yet must there be a kind of faith preserv'd
Even in the Commerce of the vanity,
That with true Arts their Markets may be serv'd,
And credit kept to keep them great and free;
Weight, number, measure truly joyn'd in one,
By Trade with all States to enrich our own.

389

Among which mass of Arts, if one too much
Draw up, then Traffick stands, and Realms grow poor;
Whereas in States well temper'd to be rich,
Arts be the men's, and Men the Princes are;
Form, Matter, Trade, so working every where,
As Goverment may find her riches there.

390

Then must the supream pow'r, this wakeful spirit
Observe proportion in her industry,
Never her own from traffick disinherit,
But keep exchange in due equality,
Not bringing home more then she carries forth,
Nor buying toys, with things of Staple worth,

391

But work her matter with her home-born hands,
And to that use fetch forraign matters too,
Buying for toys the wealth of other Lands,
To gun by all the good or ill they do;
Keep up the Bullion, for it doth entice,
Yet not transport it, for 'tis prejudice,

105

392

Wherein wise Princes ought to imitate
The Saracens inriching-industry,
Who Ægypts wealth brought to their barren state,
Enticing vice by far-fetcht vanity;
And for their Ostridge feathers, toys of pride,
Get Staple wealth from all the world beside.

393

Which as a watch word, shews pow'r may impose,
With less hurt on the Commerce of delight,
For there by dearness, what can credit lose,
Where fancies value is so infinite,
As wealth and reason judge not, but devise
To serve her both with Objects and with Eyes?

394

Thus the Sabeans heapt up mass of Treasure,
By venting Incense unto every Nation,
Aswel for superstition as for pleasure;
Thus Syria got by Balsam estimation,
And Millions brought by Custom to the Jew;
Wealth kept for him that their State overthrew.

395

Hence trains the Hollander his little Child,
To work toys for the vanity of us,
And in exchange our Cloth to them we yield;
Wise men and fools, even serve each other thus,
The standard of the whole world being seen
To furnish hers, by carriage out and in.

106

396

Now though wise Kings do by advantage play
With other States, by setting Tax on toyes,
Which, if Leagues do permit, they justly may,
As punishment for that vice which destroys;
Of real things yet must they careful be,
Here and abroad to keep them custome free.

397

Providing Cloth and Food no burthen bear,
Then equally distributing of Trade,
So as no one rule, what we Eat or Wear,
Or any Town the Gulf of all be made;
For though from few wealth soon be had & known,
And still the rich kept servile by their own.

398

Yet no one City rich, or Exchequer full
Gives States such Credit, Strength or Reputation,
As that foreseeing long breath'd wisdom will,
Which, by a well-disposing of Creation,
Breeds universal wealth, gives all content,
Is both the Mine and Scale of Government.

399

Admit again the Holland industry
Lay Tax on Victual, spare their Merchandise;
Yet is it not ground for a Monarchy,
To view his own frame with Democrate eyes;
Since Soveraign Pow'r in One, and Many plac't
From divers lights, must divers shadows cast.

107

400

Do we not see the fertile soyls decay'd
And Eastern Cities by the Tiranny
Of that great Lord, who his vast wealth allay'd

Constantinople. Cairo. Aleppo.

By bringing all those Cities into three?
Which three prove greedy ill digesting wombs,
Not Treasuries of wealth, but rather Tombs.

401

And while the forraign Gulfs I thus discribe,
My wish is that I may not seem to stain
Some ore-swoln City of the Albian-tribe,
Which starving many, smother'd doth remain,
And yet will not be cured of this grief,
By yielding to the neighbor Towns relief.

402

Moreover, fix and Marshal in such wise
Pow'r Commerce must, of strangers with her own,
As neither may the other Tyrannize,
But live like Twins out of one body grown;
The strangers ships not banisht, nor their ware,
Which double Custome brings, and gages are.

403

No Monopolies suffered in the Land,
All interpoling practices withstood,
In Merchant Laws, a constant gentle hand
Imposing, parallel'd with letting blood;
The Bullion not enhanced nor embased,
The Forrainers not dandled nor disgraced.

108

404

Lastly, she labor must to draw her Marts
Within her Ports, and so the strangers wealth,
Framing such Laws and Rates for forrain parts,
As publick Commerce may be kept in health;
Their Goods as pawns, their Industry as vents
To multiply our Traffick, Shipping, Rents.

405

Which may be done in any great Estate,
Whose native Riches others do exceed
In real worth, and thereby may give rate
And draw home forrain States by gain or need;
But where this wants, there Treaty must supply,
Farming our neighbors wares to work this by.

406

So had that Worthy, Great and Maiden Queen,

Queen Eliz.

If she had liv'd, brought home that staple wealth
Of the Muscovian Empire to have been
Conjoyn'd with hers, for either Countreys health;
He selling his here dearer then elsewhere,
She fixing by them both a Staple here,

407

And when these had been Stapled here together,
The Silks and Riches of all other parts,
Must needs have follow'd these great Standards hither,
With such as live by Commerce or by Arts;
A work already by experience known,
Trade having staid or chang'd with ours alone.

109

408

And though the stranger rarely will commit
His ship and ware to Island Princes States,
Yet if he wealth or freedom find with it,
Fear of Imbargo it easily abates;
Since by the present gain, if evil come,
He hath to buy, or bear out heavy doom.

409

Therefore let Thrones, whose States have seas to friend
Study by Trade to make her Navies great;
As glorious Engines, when they will offend,
Magnificent Theaters when they Treat,
Bridges that will transport, and moving Tow'rs,
To carry in and out Triumphing Pow'rs.

410

Under which safe, yet moving policy,
Did Finite Athens make the Infinite
Forces of Xerxes out of Greece to fly;
Lepanto likewise proves the Christians Might
Able by sea to shake the Turkish pow'r,
Where his Land-Armies all the World devour.

411

England, this little, yet much envy'd Isle,
By spreading Fame and Power many ways.
Admit the World at her Land-Conquests smile,
Yet is her Greatness reverenc'd by seas;
The Ocean being to her both a Wall,
And Engine to revenge her wrongs withall.

110

412

To which end Kings must strive to add a spirit
Unto the Mariner, in war and peace,
A Minister of use and double merit,
Train'd without charge, to travel without cease;
Pow'r hath no Nobler, nor yet surer way
Then that by which both save and get they may.

413

Now though this course of traffick may appear
To multiply strange shipping, not our own,
Yet in the practice all States find it cleer,
That still by traffick Mariners have grown;
As ships by Manufactures multiply,
And where good ships be us'd, Vents cannot dye.

414

Instance of both the Netherlanders be,
Who have encreast their Shipping with their Marts,
Adding to each by that fair industry
Of manufactures, many forming Arts,
By wealth and concourse of all other nations,
Even in war, grown rich with reputation.

415

And though of Staple riches they have none,
By nature in their native Countrey bred,
To sway or to induce more then their own,
Yet are they by these Arts established;
Merchant and Mars his well mixt policy
Of all Exchanges grown the Nursery.

111

416

Whereby they want no Bullion, Cloth, or Food,
But with the Surplus, when need is, supply'd,
Enrich themselves, raise Custome, yet do good
To all their Limbs, amongst whom they divide
Here Law, there Court, here one Trade, there another,
Lest any should engross to hurt their Mother.

417

Again, Thrones must, by regal providence,
Govern that much us'd unknown mystery,
And costless Model of intelligence;
Exchange the Type of Merchants policy,
Whereby he raiseth or lets fall all things;
And, though inferiour, binds and looseth Kings.

418

By which large providence of Government,
Both over native, and the forrain wealth,
None shall be over-strain'd or discontent,
But from the heart each Limb receive his health;
The Crown reliev'd without restraint or craving,
By Tributes for our safety, of our saving.

419

In all which fair particulars recited,
Pow'r shall concurrence and assistance find
From every subject, with self-ends invited,
To improve Arts, Earth, men in every kind,
Making the Harvest great, the Labor small,
By doing all things with the help of all.

112

420

Now, if against these Noble Mines of wealth,
Any from forrain strains of Tiranny,
With colour to keep all degrees in health,
Would bind or limit this prosperity,
As nursing pride and luxury in one,
Vices that easily climb up to a Throne;

421

And out of these false grounds make pow'r conceive
Poverty to be the best end of subjection,
Let him, to judge how much these mists deceive,
First, put himself in poverties protection,
And he shall find all wisdoms that suppress,
Still by misforming, make their own forms less.

422

For every open heart knows riches be
The safest gages to keep men in peace,
Whose natures cannot rest in misery,
No more then flesh can, till her anguish cease;
So that who over slaves do tyrannize
By choice, are neither truly great nor wise.

423

Therefore proud Princes ever must propound
That Royal and ingenious design
Of making all men rich, not minute bound,
And to the same end, study to refine
Nurseries for Traffick, Mysteries and Art,
To furnish equal wealth in every part,

113

424

For poor then, tell me, how can Scepters be
When all their Subjects shall in wealth abound?
Or how, not great in Fame and Majesty
When strangers help to frame our traffick sound?
And so make people strengths unto their King,
Who, without these moulds, charge and danger bring.

425

Besides, severely here may Laws proceed
Against the drone, the vagrant, or the thief,
Where occupations doe supply mens need,
And labor give each family relief;
Lastly, how can mens spirits mutiny here,
Where each mans private, to himself is deer?

114

SECT. X. Of Crown Revenue.

426

The ancient Sages took our Earth to be
A simple Element of one Complexion,
Differing onely in variety
Of heats and cold from Heavenly reflexion;
But nature which can never be confin'd
To narrow contemplations of one mind,

427

This abstract dream of former time confutes;
For in the circuit of one clime her womb
Compos'd as various is, as are her fruits;
Here Gold for life's use, Marble for her Tomb,
Here veins of silver, there quick Mercury,
Here Pales, there Pomona fruitful be.

428

Which sweet variety doth not proceed,
From influence, or temper by the Sun;
But from the first diversity of seed
Which did through her created vessels run,
And to the heat (as Tributes) pay their springs
Which unto ripeness Phœbus after brings.

115

429

Cold Germany thus yields from her deep Mines
Under the Earth, a lasting spring of Treasure,
Thus Hungary, where Phœbus neerer shines,
Above the Earth, yields native wealth and pleasure;
As in her Center she besides contains
Of Gold and Silver many hidden veins.

430

Hence again France, though ever martial bent,
Was by her late Fourth Henry's policy,
Known for a Paradice-like Continent,
Who out of that discern'd fertility
Both multiplied the Crown, and peoples part,
By Natures emulation with his Art.

431

From both which Mines in and above the earth,
Nature excludes the sloth of each degree,
Offring the riches of her many births,
Onely where she her self gives industry;
As if both man and things, must there consent
Where wealth is multiplied to ornament.

432

For as rich nature is the mould of plenty;
So Art again is natures consummation:
Again, as Phœbus Throne in stuff was dainty,
And yet the work of far more estimation;
So under Kings, not Earth, or Creatures dumb,
But Art of man it is that yields the sum.

116

433

Pow'r therefore, that these pillars of estate
Church, Laws, Trade, Honor have established,
Must then take care as equally to rate
Rents, and expence, that by those to the head,
Wealth Sinew-like may give a strength to move,
And breed respect by mixing Fear with Love.

434

First, because Forrain States bear reverence
Where they find wealth in Soveraignity,
As they which need keep no intelligence;
Besides the example of frugality,
By cutting of excess, that else consumes;
Tempers proud vice, which otherwise presumes.

435

Again, for wealth though these fair grounds he laid,
And treasure gotten by these harmless Mines;
If Order yet be not as well obey'd
In the expence, wealth suddenly declines;
And want pressing through mans faults, on the Crown,
More fatally pulls King and People down.

436

Therefore ought Monarchs to be provident,
In weighing things, which though they trivial seem,
Yet are of consequence in Government;
As difference of Diet, Custome, Clime,
Since high rais'd Athens, and Piræum Port
Had manners, and askt Laws of different sort:

117

437

Whence I conclude that Northern Princes must
Cherish the Staple rent of their demesnes,
And to their own inheritances trust,
Which to the Crown of old did appertain,
At least by Parliaments supply their Lust;
Else shall these Kings be easily overthrown,
That Taxe, and give the peoples with their own.

438

And though the finer heats scorn these safe stays
Of Crown Revenues, as if pow'r and wit
From peoples wealth might endless profit raise,
Yet in the practice, who observeth it,
Shall find those Taxes, which the south brooks well,
Do often make the colder climes rebel.

439

Besides, who well observes a Monarchy,
Shall find disorder there a fatal thing;
The head being both of unprosperity,
Good Fortune, Fame, or infamy the spring:
So that oppression, which makes both sides poor,
Ought to have entrance at a narrow door.

440

Again in Taxes, differences be
Some from the Crowns prerogative alone,
Pleading an over-racking pedigree,
Others by Parliaments, so mixe the Throne
With commen peoples good, as but excess
Nothing can thence rise, to make Scepters less,

118

441

France then, thou large extended Monarchy,
Keep to thy self the charge of Crown-demesne,
For bleeding Taxes which breed misery
In men, and so reflect on Crowns again,
By forcing them to sell Tribunal seats,
Which make thy Justice vile, thy Judges great.

442

Lewis th'Eleventh of Craft, not Majesty,
The perfect Type, being asked what the Crown
Revenues might of France amount to be,
Said, France a Medow was, which mow it down
As oft as need, or pleasure did require,
Would yet grow up again to feed desire.

443

Where Majesty indeed is kept above
By true Magnificence, rais'd of her own;
Riot a steep is where States headlong move;
The rage of Pow'r is by low stooping known,
For as, but Miters, few by Stews do get,
So who but Negars tax on breathing set?

444

Kings then that would have their Magnificence
To be maintain'd by springs which should not fail,
Must with that Council keep intelligence,
Wherewith the dying Farmer did prevail,
To make his Children dig his Vine for Gold,
Who found it not in Mettal, but in mould.

119

445

This Vineyard in a King is his demesne,
Joyn'd with that Art of Arts, which man improves
And envyless makes active Monarchs Reign,
Rich both in peoples Treasures and their Loves:
What Midas wish, what dreams of Alchimy
Can with these true Crown-Mines compared be?

446

Again, Prerogatives in Government,
Which priviledg'd pow'r at first to take, then prise
What might her true necessity content,
Kings should not multiply, to prejudice
That Infancy, where men, by what they gave,
The rest intended for their use to have.

447

But where excess of times makes pow'r exceed
This safe equality of old foundations;
Rather with temperance qualifie that need,
Then strain old words to modern intimation,
And thereby wrack men to provide for more
Excess, then all those ages knew before.

448

Of which excess, whether the root proceed
From humours naturally unsatiate,
Or Casually made violent by need;
Odious those cures are which equivocate,
As did Caligula when by quirks of Law
Sibi & suis he to Sons did draw.

120

449

And though it for a wisdom of estate
Enrolled be in the Senate house of Rome,
When they with Carthage did capitulate,
That she must from her old sea-nurses come;
Inferring (City) signified no wall,
But Laws, which men obey and rule withal.

450

Whereby although more got was, then was meant,
And by advantage evil acts made good;
Yet what this adds to any government,
Is in dishonour ever understood:
Since crafty webs, which oft serve present turn
To warn times coming, do like Beacons burn.

451

Besides, if pomp of Princes must exceed,
In those kinds rather let their riot be,
Whose natures though they leave the Crown in need,
And so embase the State of Majesty;
Yet keep the Bullion still within the Land;
And go, and grow, like fame, from hand to hand;

452

Yet as a spring for ever feed the Crown,
By making people able to relieve,
Where riots that transport, pull Scepters down,
Give Kings and People mutual cause to grieve,
At that extreme and fatal consequence
Of Coin trans ported by misgovernment.

121

453

Among whose many heads, though of the chief,
Is that most idle and unmeasured charge
Of Leager Agents, sent to take a brief,
How forrain Princes alter, or enlarge
Alliance, Councels, Undertakings, Trade;
Provisions to defend, or to invade.

454

Which indigested pomp was never known
Nor us'd of old, but in the Factorage
Of Merchants States to pass away their own,
By making Princes Marts, their proper stage,
Whereby exchange, want, folly, or desire
To self ends they let fall, or raise things higher.

455

Else springs it from improper imitation
Of that long breath'd incroaching Court of Rome,
Which to give her stain'd wares deer valuation,
And govern all by superstitious doom;
From her false Ark these Cormorants sends forth,
To prey on every thing they find of worth:

456

And to that end retaineth every where
A spy, promoter, treasurer, and Mint;
Whose charge those humble provinces must bear,
That are besides, exhausted without stint,
By Priests who cherish for their pride and gain
Those sins the very heathen did restrain.

122

457

The narrow Center of which Cloister wit,
As it seeks to contract the Deity,
In finite frames of Arts contriv'd by it;
So are the large acts of humanity
Shut up in Dungeons, by their muddy sence,
That, except error, nothing comes from thence.

458

Now what affinity can other Kings
Assume with this, that only spend to know
Which feathers soar in forraign Eagles wings?
From whence there can no other profit grow,
But vainly by expence of wealth, to buy
The vicious forms of forrain Tyranny.

459

And so, by these mistrained instruments
Bring Faction home among the liberal arts,
With her unequal moulds of Government,
To traffick or distract the peoples hearts;
Free denizing that practical deceit,
By which not small, but great States gather weight.

460

Out of the insight of which error, many
Wise Kings this modern course have alter'd,
And rarely either sent, or taken any,
Unless for present good occasioned
To treat of Marriage, Commerce, Peace or War,
In which returns the expences answered are.

123

461

Again, since as of duties, so expence,
There is a divers nature, and degree,
Kings in the choice of their magnificence,
Though absolute they seem, yet cannot be;
But bound amongst the many heads of charge
Chiefly their Fame or Empire to enlarge.

462

Nay, even in these expences which be founded
Upon the Laws of Nature, Honor, State;
Wise Princes with their fortunes must be bounded,
Since all excesses be unfortunate,
And do not onely prejudice a Throne,
But leave no creature master of his own.

463

Of this kind charge of Children, buildings be.
House-keeping, Furnitures, Gifts and Rewards,
All lively shadows of authority,
To multiply obedience, and regard;
Wherein yet Kings should therefore keep a measure,
As in things fram'd to live, and die with treasure.

464

Whence I conclude it for a Monarchy
Wisdome, in her expences and creations,
To use a spare discreet frugality
Which gives the work and workmen reputation;
And so again by all ingenious ways
Descending Rents not impositions raise.

124

465

And when with these fair cautions Princes have
Forrain Revenues, and their native Rents,
Disposed thus both to beget, and save,
They may with costless grace or disgrace vent
Mens thoughts, and frame their due obedience
More then can be wrought in them by expence.

466

For Kings are Types of Heavenly excellence,
How be it drawn in finite colours mixt,
With Pow'r and wit, both earthly influence;
Yet were but these Arts in our Princes fixt,
How to be strong by others Love, and Might,
Their States would soon clime far above their Right.

125

SECT. XI. Of Peace.

467

Peace is the next in Order, first in end;
As the most perfect State of Government,
Where Art and Nature each to other friend,
Enlarge the Crowe by giving men content;
And what by Laws within and Leagues without,
Leaves nothing but prosperity to doubt.

468

So that in her Orbe there is left for Kings
Great undertakings, far beyond the flight
Or pitch, of any lower feather'd wings,
The Charge, Care, Council being infinite,
As undertaking rage of time, and seas,
Which Tyrant-like, to ruine else finds ways.

469

Ordering of Boats, and Bridges to be placed
Upon advantage, for the trade of men,
Rebuilding Monuments, or Towns defaced,
Cleansing of Havens, draining dry of Fenns,
Fitting out Brooks, and Mears for navigation.
All works of Princely Art, Charge, Reputation.

126

470

Such was the cleansing of the Ægyptian sluces,
Which got Augustus Ornament and Food,
For his Prætorian bands, and peoples uses,
In this kind prov'd the Appian high-way good;
Those publick works which active States bring forth,
Shewing the stranger Maps of wealth and worth.

471

Therefore Kings providence should still adorn
Natures producements, by the pow'r of Art;
But to subvert her frames proves Scepters scorn;
Through Athos, who yet sails in any part?
Is Corinths Istmus from the main Land torn?
Cæsars vain dreams, as if fall'n flattering Rome
Over the free made Elements, had doome.

472

The Base of great works, and the Majesty,
Is when the the workers Pow'r, and wisdom shew,
Both in the use and possibility;
So over Ister, Trajan's bridge did goe;
Amasis and Cheops how can time forgive,
Who in their useless Pyramids would live?

473

Next, and of more refined policy,
The founding is of these sweet nurseries,
Where knowledge, and obedience multiply
The Fame, and Sinews of great Monarchies;
As Schools, which finely do between the Sence
And natures large forms, frame intelligence.

127

474

Unto which end in Achai, Athens, Creet,
Rhodes, Lacedemon, and more, were erect
Illustrious States, and Pædagogies meet,
By reason and example to protect
The coming ages from that Barbarisme
Which first breeds Ignorance, and after Schisme.

475

Whence again Rome in all her Colonies,
Even while her Eagles march't, had yet a care,
To plant the Muses in the soldiers Eyes;
Such means to move or qualifie they are;
Where, in the Turks excess of Tiranny,
These dainty Nymphs excel'd for ever be.

476

And to give more faith to this Sympathy,
Which between Mars and Muses ought to rest,
The Poets in Idea's far more free,
Then any other Arts of mortal breast,
Have in their fables ever shew'd them mixt,
As, if divided, neither could be fixt.

477

Hence feign they, when Jove sent his Daughters Nine,
To polish Greece, he would not have them pass
Alone, expos'd to every savage Myne,
Or rage, wherein the earth abundant was;
But gave them Hercules for such defence,
As active vertue is to innocence.

128

478

Have not again these Muses, when they sing
The Jo Pæan of their thundering Father
Apollo, with his shafts nock't in the string,
For Consort of their Quire, or Master rather;
To shew where Truth chains not men by the ear,
There Savage nature must be rul'd by fear.

479

Whence amongst all the famous victories,
Which old Rome frome the East did triumph on,
Even that of Fulvius did deserve the prize,
Who for a Trophy of Pow'r overthrown
Brought home the Statues of these Sisters Nine
And that of Hercules, alike Divine.

480

For which the City did a Temple build,
As spoils that their God Mars did better fit,
Then all those dainties which fine Asia yield,
Or curious Cobwebs of Ægyptian wit,
Plenties of Nylus, wealth of Macedone,
Which helpt not to raise up, but wain a Throne.

481

Hard by which Temple, Rome built up two more,
The one to Worth, the other unto Fame,
From Worth to Fame, there was an open door,
From Fame to Worth she did no passage frame;
The mind of which brave Nation was in this
To shew that Fame, but Vertue's shadow is.

129

482

Now, though it rarely be to be expected.
That all Kings perfect should, like Cæsar, be,
Who in himself both Muse and Mars erected,
At least with Trajans ingenuity,
Let them that do in either branch excel,
Still, in the other, cherish doing well.

483

And as the Elephant, who not created
To swim, yet loves and haunts the waters shoar;
So let wise Pow'r in Mighty Empires stated,
Though boast they cannot in the Muses store,
Yet honor spirits of Parnassus free,
As knowing best what fits humanity.

484

Nor is the building of the Muses Cell
Pow'rs chief work, but to manage every spirit,
And frame each Science so to doing well,
As States and Men may multiply by merit;
All Arts prefer'd by odds of practick use,
The meer Contemplative scorn'd as abuse.

485

Chiefly this Cell-Art of the wrangling Monks,
Captiving both Mans Reason and his Sence,
In dreams of yesterday, wherewith these Trunks
Strive to corrupt Divine intelligence;
Their nominal and real Pedigrees
Being but descents of curious Vanities.

130

486

And hence it is, the acts of Peace and War
Never recorded here so bravely were,
As when these abstract wits liv'd not to mar,
By making their fond visions Characts bear,
Of these mens deeds, who, what by sword they wan,
By Pen as lively Registred to man.

487

For as that active Worth was then admir'd,
The effects it wrought being of large extent;
So in those times less actively inspir'd,
The stiles of that time seem Magnificent:
As if God made them Trumpets fit for Fame,
Who by their Deeds deserv'd to bear her name.

488

Meaning that when times iron days should blast
That Manly discipline of doing well,
The Art of Writing should no longer last;
Like Natures Twinns that must together dwell;
Doing and Writing being each to other,
As Bodies be of their own shadows Mother.

489

This was the Form, the Birth, the Education,
And Art of that Age, which did train her own,
To keep up great estates in reputation,
Making them stand, by Worth, as they had grown;
And drawing men from visions of abuse
To Arts, whereof both War and Peace find use.

131

490

In which account of objects still are, Life,
Speech, Manners, Scepter, Sphear, Earth, Shield, & Sea,
All Reasons Children, by the Sence his wife,
Fram'd to guide Nature in an active way;
Whether she would be rich, or serve her need;
Raising no Trophies for her, but by deed.

491

Now when of Monarchies the Mother seat
On these chief pillars thus shall setled be;
Then active Princes may grow rich, and great,
By striving under one self-policy,
Their Provinces divided to unite,
As worths addition unto native right.

492

Which union must all divers things attone
As Councils, Laws, Church, Commerce, Language, Coin,
Degrees, and Forces, so that in the Throne,
As in one head, they may like Members joyn;
Intirely, without any reservation;
Which Union is, all else but Combination.

493

A State, like unto Coats with many seams,
Subject to all the rents of Time and Chance,
As floating high upon occasions streams,
Which one by harming others, doth advance,
The witty selfness of each humour hiding
That which in common traffick proves dividing.

132

494

Whereas that first and well united frame
With Head and Members joyned to one end,
Can bring forth nothing to divide the same,
Each in the whole to it self being friend,
Whereby no inward storm can easily rise,
Nor outward forces do it prejudice.

495

And though of these the Rights divided be,
Some into hands of People, some of Kings;
Yet must not Scepters by Transcendencie
Draw home their own Right with Imperial strings,
But by applause, to make up this new Chain,
Rather perswade the people then constrain.

496

More tenderly of force ought Thrones to deal
With those, where men prescribe by right or use,
For common liking must to common weal
Be wonne, or Man his profit will refuse,
And turn his waxen Mettal into Steel,
Which, harming others, self-harm cannot feel.

497

And when unto a true equality
All inequalities pow'r hath reduced,
Leaving her subjects no regality,
Lest divers minds should easily be seduced;
They that enjoy them, to restrain a Throne,
And they again to mutiny, that have none.

133

498

Then yet all wandring Titles of succession
Wise Princes must with Providence unite;
Else will these Crown-rights leave a deep impression,
That no set course can long continue right;
Since when the one line shall become extinct,
All Union built on that Base lies unlinckt.

499

Moreover, Realms of natural descent,
When they with those which Chance or Conquest win,
Shall be united in one government,
Then Scepters may more famous works begin;
Planting new Colonies in savage parts,
There to spread Wisdom, Pow'r, Laws, Worth, and Arts

500

Following, for guide of this establishment,
Either the common standard of Mans reason,
Or else the second light of government.
Which stories yield, and no time can disseason,
Drawn from those Monarcies which overran
In little time all this known world of Man.

501

Whose bent ambition still to conquer more,
Compell'd them wisely to dispose their own,
And by that discipline they us'd before,
Work nations conquer'd neer as soon as known,
To live in Order, and by Trade get wealth;
With equal justice, keeping both in health.

134

502

By which mild wisdome, they grew Lords of Fame,
As well as Crowns; and rather wanted Men
Then Stages, Means, or Models how to frame
Ruines, mishaps to better form again;
Building upon the Barbarous conquered,
The uttermost of ill, well governed.

503

See we not even among the brutish Nations,
If men to them transport Civility,
Those Colonies are dear in reputation,
And soon link't with them in affinity?
Their comings construed not to spoil, or take;
But as come from their dwellings for their sake.

504

So Athens with Jonian Colonies
Did people Asia; Lacedemon spread
Her Dorian Tribes thorough fertile Italy
[OMITTED]
And so by her that Euxine barbarous sea
Made hospitable is unto this day.

505

This the chief Pillar is of Policy,
That ever by the Romans was invented,
Envyless to uphold their Monarchy,
And make the stranger with their yoke contented;
Prodigal of Rome they to their neighbors were
Whereby her own womb did the Empire bear.

135

506

For by the long breath'd course it came to pass,
That all States did not onely stand in awe,
Of Rome as Mistriss; but all the whole world was
Link't unto her in Traffick, League, and Law;
And did so much adore the Romans Fame,
As they forsook their own to bear her Name.

507

Where, in this crafty worlds declining age,
Those large spread roots, are withered, or dead;
All spirits of Worth to present Pow'r engage,
And there so master'd, dull'd or measured,
As while men fear their litle toys to loose,
Worth they choose rather to suppress, then use.

508

From whence it is, that we find of erecting
Decayd Estates, or Colonies deriving,
Or proper Laws, the present time directing
Examples few; but many Princes striving
Through fear of change, and fatal hate of pains;
With publick loss to bring in private gains.

509

Which privateness forgets Times glory past,
And useth Time to come but to despise;
Her narrow ends being on the present plac'd,
And so in narrow selfness onely wise;
No undertaking Empire to extend,
To purchase Fame, or any Noble end.

136

510

But selfly to root out our Enemies,
Deface fair Monuments, spoil civil places,
Dispeople Realms of Men, and Earth, of Trees,
Spoiling, to varnish Tyrannies disgraces,
And bring the World to those days back again,
Where Pow'r did over Beasts, not People Raign.

511

Again, this Art of Tyrant Cittadel,
Not suffering free Citizens but slaves,
What is it, but a Council out of Hell,
Making the Princes Triumphs, Peoples graves?
And sorts it not well with the Sultans word,
Who vaunts, Grass grows not, where his horse hath stood?

512

This is the cause the Holy Prophet spake
And wrote, but of four Monarchies alone,
As if the rest, these Lights did rather take
To be on slaves a strict Dominion;
Not Empire but a crafty violence,
Whose Ruines never raise Magnificence.

513

For that indeed is no true Monarchy,
Which makes Kings more then Men, Men less then Beasts,
But that which works a perfect Unity,
Where Kings as heads, and Men as members rest,
With mutual ends like Twinns, each helping other,
In service of the Common-wealth, their Mother.

137

514

Thus unto Kings their Provinces remote
(Which oft else grudge at subaltern Subjection,)
May with good government be kept devote,
Men do ascribe so much unto Protection,
And oft adore most what they least do know,
Like specious things which far off fairest shew.

515

And as Mans heart, though in one place confin'd,
Yet to remote. Limbs sends forth vital pow'rs,
With ease or disease to affect the mind,
According to her good or evil hours;
Whence sometimes Arms have of her Pulse more sence,
Then other Members less far off from thence,

516

Even so, that providence of Heavenly love,
Which holds the opposing Elements in awe,
Though in her Throne advanced far above
The finite reach of any mortal Law,
Yet never rests confin'd to any seat
But by far spreading, proves her own pow'r great.

517

Therefore, since wisdom works both far and nigh,
As boundless, not restrain'd to time or place,
Ador'd when absent, honour'd in our Eye,
The more assiduous, still the more in grace;
Repressing Mans ambition with his fear,
A Ballance Kings must use, and People bear.

138

518

On these States, what true judgement can we lay
Which by the arts of crafty Tyranny,
So to their ends do peoples humours sway,
As Thrones rights grow a kind of mistery?
Whence Mahomet himself an Idol makes,
And draws Mankind to Mecha for his sake.

519

Thus did the Caliph of great Babilon,
In former times, bewitch the Barbarous nations,
With sight of rich Robes, shadows of his Throne;
Reserv'd Magnificence gives such reputation,
Adding to arts of pow'r, which still seem more,
By making those souls less that must adore.

520

But to conclude, as Modern Tyranny
Hath not in any kind established
A State by peace unto prosperity
Of people, or of honor to the head;
But rather to the prejudice, or shame
Of both, like torrents, spread abroad ill name.

521

So against this, Pow'r absolute should strain
In their Estates to settle such a Peace,
As, People pleas'd; Kings might with pleasure Raign,
By making mens wealth to their use increase;
Which so will link all members to the head:
As Change shall there find all her movers dead.

139

SECT. XII. Of War.

522

Man's error having fram'd his Mind and Sence
So divers, as no real works long please,
Is justly scourg'd by that Omnipotence
Which never in it self lets Vice find ease;
Whence the vicissitudes of Peace and War,
Pow'rs punishments, as well as Glories, are.

523

Yet since excess in some bounds must subsist,
And War have bounds from other heads then Might,
Because her torrents else run where they list,
And in desire raise titles infinite;
Right and Defence must therefore be her Base,
Which yet may varied be, in many a case,

524

Among which, let Protection be a chief,
When weak Crowns threatened are to be opprest,
An Image of the Deities relief,
Shewing that Thrones at once can move and rest
And so grow greater by that aid they give,
As in whose pow'r more then their own States live.

140

525

Crown-right again which natively descends,
Claiming Estates in other Crowns possession,
Must not neglected be in Princes ends,
And yet have curious Audits in progression,
Wealth, Right, Occasion from the Barr of words,
In Princes States appealing to their swords.

526

In petty Rights therefore proportion'd care
Doth well become the Royal States of Pow'r;
But that indeed by which Crowns honour'd are,
Is care, no one Throne may the rest devour;
So that to wain a growing Empires Might,
Infallibly is every Princes Right.

527

Lastly, it much more danger will be found,
Where Princes shall be thought adverse to war,
Out of the hearts Effiminatish ground,
Then to be held as Wit and Courage are,
Ambitious undertakers, and no friends
To any Right that interrupts their ends.

528

For since most Crowns were first established
By War, can times or States vicissi tudes
So constantly by Man be governed,
As they shall not his idle times delude;
And on those Monarchs desolation lay,
That will neglect that Base whereon they stay?

141

529

Hence sprang that wisdom, whereby Martial Rome
Did Janus Temple, in Eight hundred years,
Not Three times shut, but open to the doom
Kept them of Mars, whose force each question cleers,
And to his Banners did one Consul fit,
As she in justice made the other sit.

530

Then let not Kings by their neglect invite
Aspiring States or Princes to do wrong;
Security exposeth Wealth and Right,
And prays to their ambitions that are strong;
Nor is the spoilers hand so soon made free,
By any thing as inhabilitie.

531

But so provide for unprosperities,
As fate at least may qualified succeed,
Framing for change of time such Policies,
As no distempers or diseases breed;
By home broils to tempt forrain Enemies;
Lest we for them, not for our selves prove wise.

532

To which end Princes must raise Ordinance,
Provide Munition, Armor, Fortify
Such places as may best secure mischance,
Siege, or surprize, which Conquest trafficks by;
And such again, as if a tumult grow,
Wise Princes to them may for Refuge go.

142

533

Euphrat, Danuby, Rhene were those old bounds
Of Rome, which Barbars ventur'd not to pass,
While many Legions kept their winter grounds,
But chang'd by Constantine when that force was,
Goths, Hunnes, and Scythians over-spread her face,
Like Horses running in a champian Race.

534

Such Bulwarks modernly have held out Spain,
From her mixt stiles of Right and usurpation;
Such have withstood the Sultan's force again,
And sav'd the Germans from depopulation
Whereas for want of these, fair Albion
Hath Five times been assail'd, Four times orecome.

535

Besides, strong Kings must arm and exercise
Troops of their people in securest times;
And to the same end ever patronise
Some active spirits in wars of forrain Climes,
To train up Leaders, who, before need come,
May discipline their men for Mars his doom.

536

Luctatius, who the good luck had to end
Romes first great Punick war, did on the Land
By practice teach his Seamen how to mend
That discipline in peace by which wars stand;
As Philopœmen made Achaia spread
By lazy peace, yet lively governed.

143

537

If Roderigo that unlucky King,
Over those Goths which did inhabit Spain,
Had well observ'd these Rules, that savage Spring
Of Saracens could not have shak'd his Raign,
But still confin'd unto the Africk shore,
Must have remain'd and not have sought for more.

538

Where he at home, afraid of Civil war,
Disarm'd his Men; which to bold Tarrif was
A sign that active force might venture far,
And by Spains weakness bring his ends to pass:
Which shews again, when friends or foes draw swords
They ever loose that rest or trust in words.

539

Who knows not that the Roman conquering nation,
Lest their brave people should degenerate
By peace, to keep up spirit and reputation,
Trained their soldiers in each neighbor State,
And under colour of protecting friends,
Laid new foundation for her own new ends.

540

Sounding the wit and force of every Nation,
That when time serv'd, they might their Masters grow;
Thus held they up the Ætolians reputation,
To conquer Greece, and Asia overthrow:
By friending Eumenes, Africk's made theirs,
Colour'd by help to Masanissa's heirs.

144

541

Pow'r must again so plant intelligence,
And Ballance neighbor Princes by their good,
As in our dangers they may feel offence,
And hold it fit even with their Subjects blood,
In our protection so to work out theirs,
That publick pow'r may warrant publick fears.

542

Not highly changing Party, ends, or way,
But constant keep their course on beaten grounds,
Urging, that equally all Princes may
Abjure incroaching, rest within their bounds,
Not strive by adding others to their own,
To make the Worlds divided Empire one.

543

And as the times now stand, unto this end
They must keep open still that chief division,
Not peiecing it for Enemy or friend,
Fear, Want, or any false gloss of misprision;
For it takes hold upon the Soveraign part,
Which still by Conscience multiplies the heart.

544

I mean that many-headed separation,
Which irreligious being, yet doth bear
Religions name, affects her reputation,
And which, (as it is now us'd every where)
Becomes the ground for each ambitious thought,
And shadow of all actions that be naught.

145

545

Her name being dearer far, then Peace, and Wealth,
Hazard for her, of Freedom, Life and Goods,
Welcome, as means to everlasting health,
Hope with no mortal pow'r to be withstood;
So much of greater force is Conscience,
Then any lower vision of the Sence.

546

This Rupture therefore never must unite,
Nor yet the heat of opposition slack,
Chiefly, because her Pope is infinite,
And to his own ambition lives awake;
Affecting greatness by that temporal pow'r,
Which in all else he studies to devour,

547

Deposing Kings as Hereticks that leave her,
And poizing of her own Kings in such manner,
As of Supremacy none shall bereave her,
But march as soldiers underneath her Banner,
And all her Armies, both of War and Faction,
Wage at their charge, to serve the Church in Action.

548

So that to let her Seminaries spread
Within the bowels of a Soveraign State,
Or leave her Enemies abandoned,
By force, or secret practice unto fate;
Were to let friends decrease, and factions grow,
As still they do by Neuters overthrow.

146

549

Nor let this falacy of her declination
Perswade, that with her strength, her ends are chang'd;
Since Pride had never such an elevation,
As when aspiring superstition rang'd;
Which sin was at the first the Angels fall,
And in the outward Church, since natural.

550

Whereby she still unform'd lives, till a head
Supreame she finds, or to her self makes many;
A body such as must be governed,
Within it self, not subject unto any
And in each minute of her nature swels,
Even with that Pride, wherewith the whole excels.

551

So as this Flesh-born Church Supremacy,
Whether form'd in Monarchal Government,
Or State Aristocratical it be,
With less then all can never be content;
But by the Sophistries of Wit and Will,
Strive ever to be head of good and ill.

552

Therefore I say, let not this gathering Mass
Of Superstition (whose true Base is fear)
Lurk, and by false faith, bring her ends to pass,
Or to the World such threatening Ensignes bear,
As Time will shew are form'd to serve the turn,
Of other Kings, that in her Lust do burn.

147

553

But let Kings rather watch this Governess,
That by her wisdom, they may fashion theirs;
When to be merciful, when merciless,
Time having taught her, to use hopes, and fears,
Power, and Wit, that each may help her ends,
Which are to have all slaves, no foes, no friends,

554

Therefore when she lets Inquisitions raign,
Pow'rs, Laws, as freely should their Process use;
When by Confession she seeks to maintain,
That mapp of Secrets which she doth abuse;
Then must Kings by all Tryals gage her Nest,
So as her Birds may neither Hatch nor Rest.

555

Nor must we give her ear when she propounds
Freedom of Conscience, that yields others none;
But work against her on the same strict ground,
Whereby she would bind strangers to her own,
Suffring no freedom in Dispute, or Book,
But such as her false Discipline doth brook:

556

For if she Conscience plead, the like do we,
And so in Faith the same Religious bands;
If she doth therein claim Supremacy;
Soveraignity (which under no pow'r stands)
Plead, that we may deal so with forraign pow'rs,
Here, or abroad, as they shall deal with ours.

148

557

Lastly, when she, and her sword-bearers strive
In Peace, War, League, or any Combination,
By fall of other Princes States to thrive,
We must of force break that association;
And if they arm in clouds, then arme so too,
And Countermine by doing as they do.

558

Or else she by her Contracts without charge
As well as War, will still divide in gain;
Where Kings their Crowns, she there her Cells enlarge,
And bring her Harvest home with others pain;
Making poor Princes by her dreams of spirit,
Like slaves, that onely for their Lord can merit.

559

Trust not their Church with her scope infinite,
As King-ships in this world, more in the other;
Here to seem greater then refined right,
There both of Grace and Innocence a Mother;
For God, a Pope; for Angels, Cardinals;
A Church more over-built then Babels walls.

560

An outward Church, that must stand as it grew,
By Force, Craft, Rapine, and Hypocrisie,
An earthly Faith, even every day made new,
Built on the Base of one's Supremacy;
A pride born of that Angels pride that fell,
Prising for Peters pence, Heav'n, Purgatory, Hell.

149

561

Trust not this Miter which forgiveth none,
But damns all souls that be not of her Creeds,
Makes all Saints Idols, to adorn her Throne,
And reaps vast wealth from superstitious seeds:
For must not she with wet or burnt wings fall,
Which soars above him that created all?

562

Suffer not men of this Divine profession,
Which should be great within, Religious, True,
As Heralds sent by God to work progression
From Sin, to Grace, and make the old Man new;
Let them not with the worlds Moralities,
Think to hold up their Doctrine with the wise.

563

Let them not fall into those common moulds
Of frail humanity, which scandal give;
From God they must take notice what they should;
Men watch not what they speak, but how they live.
Malice soon pierceth pomps mortality,
The sin derides her own hypocrisie.

564

The Clergies praise, when they from Pulpit come,
Is to keep that Decorum in their lives,
Which wall them in, from each unreverend doom
Of Libertines, who to deface them strive:
For messengers of Heav'n must still appear,
As if that Heav'n, not Earth, were to them deer.

150

565

From Abbies let them not hope to uphold
Excess and Riot by the peoples voice;
Where good and ill alike are cheaply sold,
And frail Mankind confounded in his choice.
Good Life, and Doctrine, are both Light and Food
To starve the Ill, yet doe the chosen good.

566

Now though this Council seem to fit a King,
And not the steep excess of Tyranny:
Yet Beams and Bodies being divers things,
Finely in shadows may resembled be;
Whence in the outward varying forme of things,
Tyrants may well use rules set down for Kings.

567

Let not Kings therefore on this old foundation
Fear to continue Taxe, to hazard paid,
Since War and Crowns consist by reputation,
Which must not eas'ly from their course be sway'd
Either by want of Ship, or Sail, or Shroud,
Unless Kings will loose Tides, for every Cloud.

568

But rather follow Mars in forrain parts,
Who ever friends the undertaking spirit,
With honor, hope of spoil, and all those Arts,
Which still as Treasure are reserv'd for merit;
Nor be these helps in Minutes understood,
Which in the Mass, make undertakings good.

151

569

Since here admit the worst that threatens come,
And causeless Fortune like her felf should raign,
How can the assistance yet find heavy doom,
Whose Chance at home is to be cast again?
And by their neighbors stumbling, not their fall,
Each Monarch taught to have an eye to all.

570

Nay, grant these mutual succors should at length
Engage our own Estates into a war;
Yet can they never take us in their strength,
Who in their growings interrupted are,
And to assail those pow'rs which wounded come,
Doth certainly pronounce them fatal doom.

571

Besides, it often falls out in distress,
Where States by want exhausted are, and spent;
That change of vices give their wounds redress,
And qualify the common discontent
In people, who when Peace is turn'd to War,
Find Subsidies no Taxes, but Revenues are.

572

Whereby disease grows cure unto diseases,
A wisdom proper to humanity;
For while in something, she her self ore-peazes,
Yet stands by equal ballanc't vanity,
And unto Chance things present sacrificing,
Finds from those Ashes better times arising.

152

573

And so we see in muddy Northern air,
Winds, Thunders, Storms, (Earths present misery)
Yet instantly makes foul horizons fair;
So doth the war and her impiety
Purge the imposthum'd humors of a Peace,
Which oft else makes good government decrease.

574

Only let Princes that will Martial be,
Reform that common stained Discipline,
Which is the Base of unprosperity,
Sin against nature, Chance, and Pow'r Divine,
Wherein I fear the Turk doth us excell.
They keeping deeds, we words of doing well.

575

Again, for those which unto war are bent,
To right their wrongs, revenge themselves, or gain,
How brave advantageous an instrument
A well-fram'd Navy is to entertain,
Let them be judge who understand how sea
For hers, like Air, doth every where make way.

576

For whatsoever odds in Man or Beast
Between the Christian, and the Turk there be,
By delicacy, hardness, industry or rest,
Our fatal discord, or their unity;
Yet we that thus on disadvantage stand,
Stand fast, because he makes his wars by Land.

153

577

Whereas each man of understanding spirit
Knows well, that if this Mighty Tyrant would
Have chang'd his war, and so his ways of merit,
From Land, and made the waving Ocean mould
Of all his Expeditions undertaken,
The Christian Churches had long since been shaken.

578

Nay in the Indians East and West again,
What great things men may with sea forces do,
Not only in suppressing of the main,
But in possessing Land and Cities too,

Queen Eliz.

By undertakings of a Maiden Queen,
May as in Models to the world be seen.

579

So as since seas be Mothers unto Fame,
Whose bravest Feathers Martial actions be;
And Mother-like, since their breasts nurse that name
Which they beget by strange prosperity;
Let those Kings seek the secret of that womb,
That will of Riches, Right and Wrong give doom.

154

SECT. XIII. The Excellency of Monarchy compared with Aristocracy.

580

Now, if the tediousness of Mortal days,
(Which suffers no man in his state content)
Will seek a change in all things that displease,
Then can no real form be permanent;
Vain Lust and Novelty will never rest,
Pleasing diseased natures ever best.

581

Yet first let these light spirits which love change,
Consider whence and whether they would go;
Lest while they grow bewitcht with what is strange,
They think that, Happiness, which is not so;
And by affecting Mortal Heavens here.
Hold only those things which they have not, dear.

582

Doleful Alcyon had, perchance, good cause
Both to suspect the frauds of Men and Beasts;
Yet over-acting passion makes ill Laws,
For to avoid which fear, she built her nest
Upon the Oceans shoar, where storm and wind
Since Tyrannise both her and all her kind.

155

583

From like grounds, do not thoughts impatient,
Which work new fangledness in peoples minds,
And have their proper Lord in discontent,
By such dislike of every air they find,
While they would run from shadows that offend,
Like rowling stones change place, but never mend?

584

For if men will according to the name,
Conceive th'Aristocratical estates
Of Government, to be the perfect frame,
And number able to give proper rates
To lavish humours, then a Monarch can;
What is this but new fangledness in man?

585

And let not man examine this by book,
As States stand painted, or enamel'd there;
But rather upon life then pictures look,
Where practice sees what every State can bear;
And where the Peoples good, the wealth of Realms.
Shew cleerly what forms spread forth sweetest beams.

586

Which view will prove, how speciously soever
These many heads enter with glorious stile
Of conquering Worthies, yet they have never
Long born those Titles, but within a while
Been forc't to change their many heads to one;
As blest by inequalities alone.

156

587

For instance of which strange inconstancy,
Take Rome, that sublime Senators estate;
Did she not first the Sons iniquity
Plague in the aged guiltless Fathers fate?
And then her Monarch into Consuls throw,
Under which yet Rome did an Empress grow?

588

Soon after she erects the state of Ten,
And even before th'ungrateful memory
Of Appius Claudius buried was with men,
She still affecting change of policy;
Carelesly left her Government in trust,
For some years, to her Martial Tribunes Lust.

589

Lastly, as if in that unconstant wit
They had concluded to dissolve the frame
Of their Republick, by oft changing it;
To such descent of Anarchy they came;

Livius lib. 2,

As in five years they Governours had none,
But stood upright by hap of time alone.

590

For had there any undertaking state
Assail'd them then, this France wherein they stood
'Twixt life and death, must needs have given fate
To wandring humours stain'd with native blood,
And by the factious government of Three,
Have freed her slaves, to bring in Tyranny.

157

591

Thus sick, and fully ripe for cure, or death,
Rome did enforce a Cæsar of her own
To loose his honour or to break his faith;
Her state alike being each way overthrown;

Velleius Paterculus. lib. 2.

Wherein yet he that brought back Monarchy
Err'd less then he that set the people free.

592

For after Tarquin, though Rome stood entire,
Yet fell she into many headed pow'r.
By which, like straws, light people set on fire,
Did by confusion, which waits to devour,
Yet raise again that brave Monarchal State;
As souls well organ'd to be fortunate.

593

Besides in Athens, what were Codrus merits
That after him they should endure no King?
Was it not he that sacrific'd his spirits,
To qualifie Apollo's threatening?
In which work this captiv'd unthankfulness,
Which stained her, soon made her fortune less.

594

Again, what comfort, or true estimation
Can active vertue either take or give,
Where many heads have power of Creation?
Or wherein can these brave enticements live,
Which raise exorbitant aspiring merit,
Since many Judges never have one spirit?

158

595

Must not Laws there, and Ordinances be
Like Oracles, meer abstract and ambiguous,
Fit for discourse, or books, not Policy,
All practice dull, delaying, or litigious?
Mans Justice seldom cleer, and never wise,
As seeing right or wrong with chances Eyes?

596

What Symptome is besides so dangerous
To Mortal Orders, apt to be diseas'd,
As Faction, on whose Crisis ominous
Those States depend where many must be pleas'd,
And where unequals are, by government,
With equal measure forc't to be content.

597

For as to make all Rulers of estate
Alike wise, honest, rich, and honourable,
A work is hardly possible to fate;
So (without disproportion) who is able
True worth and inequalities ambition,
To please with equal ballanced condition?

598

Out of which swallowed discontentment grows
That Monster which then most the publick spoils,
When to the world it best pretences shews,
And as with Faction, Emulation, Broils,
These many heads oft Civil war invite,
So against forraign force they worse unite.

159

599

Charo. Timotheus. Iphicrates. Emil. Prob 9. in vita Timothei. Iustin. lib. 4.

Under three Leaders did not Athens wain
Her right to Samos, and her reputation?
As she before at Siracuse did stain
Her Glory, and let fall her Estimation
Under the guide of Alcibiades
Joyn'd with stern Nicias, faint Demosthenes.

600

Isocrates in nicocles.

Whence the Athenian Orator aver'd,
That their State never prospered in War,

Terentius Varro, Paulus Emilius. Livius.

But when all pow'r was upon one confer'd;
And when again was Rome engag'd so far,
As under Canna's many-headed flight;
Where chance & mischance, had pow'r infinite.

601

Besides, as mild streams in an Ocean sea
Loose both their Current, Sweetness and their Name:
So here the best men must be sent away
By Ostracisme, to qualifie their Fame,
As for this State too great, which feareth Worth,
Knowing that it still Monarchy brings forth.

602

For is it not to them of Banishment
Sufficient ground, to be reputed just?
What other cause was there of discontent
'Gainst Aristides, but his worth's mistrust?
How us'd they him that conquer'd Marathon?
Or him, who Xerxes host had overthrown?

160

603

Rome shew'd her greatness, when she did subdue
Africk and Carthage, yet who will observe
How little she thought to the Scipio's due,
Or from Camillus how soon she did swerve,
Shall see, in Aristocracies, the fate
Of Noble actions is the peoples hate.

604

Besides, where this name publick shall have pow'r
To bind reward, with wreath'd frugality;
Where sad stil'd Justice shall Mankind devour,
Thorough a bloody stern severity;
Must not these Glorious stiles of Common-weal,
Wound even that worth wherewith it should deal?

605

Faction again is ever soonest made,
Where many heads have part, and Councils known
There soonest are, where men with many Trade;
Besides alliance here binds not her own;
Nor adds unto the publick any might:
Which makes their League, their Love, their Malice slight.

606

Lastly our finite natures do not love
That infinite of multiplicity:
Our hopes, affections, fears, which ever move,
Can neither fixt, nor yet well govern'd be,
Where idle, busie rulers, with a breath,
Give doom of honor, Grace, Shame, Life, or Death.

161

607

Thus is Mankind, in numerous estates
Wantonly discontent with liberty,
Where equals give and take unequal rates,
Moulding for good and bad one destiny:
Whence Athens swaying to Democracy,
For ever changing her Archontes be.

608

And as ill luck makes man of man despair,
And thence appeal a Supreme Soveraign,
So grows adversity the peoples stair,
Whereby they clime to Monarchy again:
What wants Dictator but the name of King,
Being as Soveraign else in every thing?

609

So as if Aristocracies will claim
To be the best of humane Government,
Why do they from their Magistrates disclaim,
As in extremities still impotent?
Since who in storms the fittest Pilots be,
Are ablest sure to guide prosperity.

162

SECT. XIV. The Excellency of Monarchy compared with Democracy.

610

Now, if the best, and choicest Government
Of many heads, be in her nature this;
How can the Democratical content,
Where that blind multitude chief Master is?
And where besides all these forespoken fates,
The most, and worst sort govern all estates?

611

Since as those persons usually do haunt
The Market places, which at home have least;
So here those spirits most intrude and vaunt
To do the business of this common beast,
That have no other means to vent their ill,
Then by transforming real things to will.

612

Besides, this equal stil'd Democracy
Lets fall mens minds, and makes their manners base;
Learning and all Arts of Civility;
Which add both unto nature, and to place,
It doth Ecclipse, as death to that estate;
Wherein not worth, but idle wealth gives fate.

163

613

Nay, where Religion, God, and humane Laws,
No other use, or honor, can expect
Then to serve idle Liberties applause,
As painted toys, which multitudes affect;
Who judging all things, while they nothing know,
Lawless, and Godless are, and would live so.

614

Therefore if any to protect this State,
Alledge, Imperial Rome grew great by it;
And Athens likewise far more fortunate,
As raising Types up both of worth and wit;
Such as no Monarchy can parallel,
In the rare ways of greatnes doing well;

615

Or if again, to make good this position,
Any averr that Romes first Monarchy,
For lack of courage, soon chang'd her condition
Of Union, into multiplicity;
Whence Germans over France, and Goths in Spain,
In Africk Saracens, and Turks in Asia Raign.

616

I answer first, that those subduing prides
(Whereof the people boast) were to the hand
Form'd, by the three preceding Monarch tides,
And what succeeded (if exactly scan'd)
But imitation was of their brave deeds,
Who, but their own worth no example needs.

164

617

For did not their Tarquinus, ere he fell,
Conquer the Latine and the Sabine nation,
Making their Martial discipline excel,
And so increase their strength by reputation?
Out of which active Legionary worth,
That City brought her after Conquests forth.

618

But be this as it may be, I deny
Either the Empires growth or consummation
To be the work of Romes Democracy;
Since between her first Cæsars Domination,
And Tarquin, her Soveraignity was mixt,
Of one, few, many, waving, never fixt.

619

As Consuls, Senate, or the Peoples Might;
The first a pow'r which Rome did conquer by,
The Second set her publick Councils right,
The last approve, increase or qualifie
Pain, and Rewards of good or evil deeds;
Two beams of Justice, weighing out good speed.

620

Whence you may easily pregnant reasons draw,
To attribute the Glory of old Rome
Unto the Monarch part, which held in awe
The conquer'd world; and not the peoples doome,
Proportion from the great world to the small,
Shewing, with many limbs, one head rules all.

165

621

What but the peoples mutinous Conventions
Under the factious Tribunes, scattered
Romes publick patrimonie? and with dissentions

Cic. de lege Agraria. contra Rutilium.

Her wise opposing Senate threatned,
By their Agrarian Laws, Engines of wrong,
Dispersing laws which to the state belong?

622

Besides, as who at home ill Husbands be,
Seldome make dainty to stretch out their hand
Into their neighbors harmless Treasury,
So did it with these Bankrupt people stand;

Ptolomœus, Florus lib. 3.

Who sent their armies out by force, & stealth,
To bring them home the King of Cyprus wealth.

623

Allur'd by no pretence of wrong, or right
But only that he must not be their friend,
Whose wealth was reckoned so indefinite;
Not caring how they get or what they spend;
But making good their ill by confidence,
A worth of more use there, then Innocence.

624

Lastly, where they had many times proclaim'd
Against the Mamertines their just offence;
Yet came they to their succor, and disclaim'd
With Carthage their long liv'd intelligence;

Polybius lib. 1.

Whence the first Punick quarrel did proceed,
And had the fates been just, with far worse speed

166

625

Wherein the Senate Nobly did oppose
This heady peoples incivility,
As besides faith, in wisdom loath to loose
The rich returns of that affinity:
Publick respect, and shame wrought in the one,
Who saw that ill deeds seldom pass alone.

626

Whereas the People, which no notice take
Of these small Minutes of humanity,
But ways above these thin-lin'd duties make,
Thinking they rule not, that restrained be;
With ravening and irregular excess,
Stain good and ill to serve their wantonness.

627

Now for the Empires final overthrow,
Falsly imputed to the Monarchy;
Who doth not by the course of nature know,
That periods in the growth of all States be
Ordain'd? Which no Republick can exceed;
For making each form self-diseases breed.

628

Or if too abstract this reply appears;
Forget not how the Monarchy preserv'd
Rome for a thousand and seaven hundred years,
245 years.Part of her Glory her first Kings deserv'd:
The rest by Cæsars in successive Raign,
Till Mahomet the second made her wain.

167

629

Where on the other side Democracy
Did in few ages rise and fall again;
There being but four hundred sixty three
Years, between Cæsars and Tarquinius Raign;
In which time Rome corrupted her self so,
As change she must or suffer overthrow.

630

But that indeed which brake the Empires frame
Was floating swarms, and mighty inundations
Of rude Barbarians, which from Scythia came,
To traffick vices with all civil Nations;
Nor can that be peculiar stain to Rome,
Which of all other Empires was the doom.

631

Attyla, Alarick, Omar, Tamerlane
Being in Martial worth rais'd up as high,
As he that most unto the Empire wan,
And against whom old Romes Democracy
Even in her pride must have made such retreat,
As would have shew'd at home she was not great.

632

Such as she did at Allia of old,

Livy. lib 5. Plutarch in vita Camilli.

When naked Gauls both took and burnt the Town
Or Italy from Spartacus the bold;
When by a slave their Eagles were thrown down,
So that the Monarch fell by outward fate,
Whereas the peoples own faults shak't their state.

168

633

Nor do I doubt but that the Roman frame
Of Monarchy might have outlasted all
The Governments of whatsoever name,
But that excess did make her old age fall
Into a Gulf, whose two streams soon devour
The Rights and Majesty of real Pow'r.

634

The first was, their tumultuous election
Of Cæsars, which did many times make way
To civil broils, disorder, and defection,
Whence she became to forreiners a prey:
This pow'r of choice making the soldiers know,
Their head above had yet a head below.

635

The second was their lack of Crown demesne,
By which the Emperours still forced were
In publick and self-Indigence to strain
Laws, by mens voices; men by hope, and fear;
Who saw their wealths and freedom both in one
By this course of exactions overthrown.

636

And yet, in this disease of Monarchs state,
I dare avow their breed of home born spirits
To have been active, worthy, fortunate
Above Democracies in every merit,
For instance, whom can that State parallel
With Trajan in the pow'r of doing well?

169

637

Who with Augustus in felicity?
With Constantine in true Magnificence?
With Marcus can in wisdom ballanc't be?
Or with good Anthony in Innocence?
Julian in Learning? Julius in Worth?
That ever yet Democracy brought forth.

638

For Tribunes be the Champions they can boast,
An Hetoroclite Magistrate, devis'd
Without Rule, to have all Rules by him lost,
Religion scorn'd, Laws duty tyrannis'd,
A fiery spark which lacking forrain stuff,
At home finds Fuel to make blaze enough.

639

So as if Chilo truly call'd those States
The best, which most unto their Laws do give,
And kept their Demagogues at humblest rates,
Then this Conclusion ratified must live,
Democracies are most unnatural,
Where real things with humours rise and fall.

640

Whence I conclude, that since Democracy
In her craz'd moulds great Empires cannot cast,
Of force, these frail confused policies,
Which cannot breed states, can make no state last;
But as the viper doth, must tear the womb
Of Monarchy, whence her foundations come.

170

SECT. XV. The excellency of Monarchy compared with Aristocracy and Democracy joynty.

641

Now, though I know our books are fill'd with praise
Of good mens vertues, freedoms popular;
Yet he that will not Audit words, but ways,
And over-look the dreams of time with care,
In smart succession, he shall cleerly find
No long liv'd state hath been of either kind.

642

For whatsoever stile these men affect
Of Optimates, or of Democracy,
Their courses basely practice, and effect
A servile Oligarchal Tyranny;
Aswell in Laws as in establishment,
Like ill mixt humours, never well content.

643

So that such onely have escap'd mischance,
As luckily, by publick opposition,
To ballance Consuls, Tribunes did advance,
Or by a more refined composition,
Have rais'd (like Venice) some well bounded Duke
Their self-grown Senators to overlook:

171

644

So managing the whole in every part,
As these vast bodies valetudinary,
May, in the native Feavers of the heart,
Yet some degrees of good complexion carry;
And while they keep their forrain foes at rest,
Win time thier own confusion to digest.

645

Besides, if either of these States do choose
Their Magistrates, or Officers by Lot,
And chance instead of worth, and knowledge use;
What strange confusions then beget they not?
So that no wise man will himself commit,
Much less wise State to be dispos'd by it.

646

Again, if they by suffrages elect,
Then, what scope that doth unto practice give;
The old Comitia, and the new erect
Conclave of Rome pregnant examples live;
To shew worth there must be abandoned,
Where real grounds are passion-governed.

647

Nay more, let us consider if it be
Easie at once of good men to find many;
Since we with odds of birth and breeding see,
Even among Kings, how rarely time yields any
That out of Conscience, or for Countreys sake
Will hazard, care, restrain or undertake?

172

648

But grant such may be found, yet States thus peaz'd
Must of necessity (as fortune-bound)
Either by Princes have the ballance rais'd,
Or loose to undertaking Princes ground:
In which the thanks they offer to a Crown
Is often thankless Mines, to pull it down,

649

And foolishly; since union contains
All native strengths of Soveraignity;
As bearing over nature meekest rains;
Whereby all other forms of Policy
Must either freely yield to her subjection,
Or else at least crave under it protection.

650

Whence to conclude, since in this abstract view
Of these estates, the multiplicity
Proves apt to over-wrest, or loose their due
As onely true friends to extremity;
Can mankind under any Soveraign
Hope to find rest, but in a Monarchs Raign?

651

Out of which ground, the Poet, making Fates,
Hath Registred Three thousand Deities,
The least of whose powers govern'd many States,
And yet acknowledg'd Joves supremacy,
A work of supernatual succession,
Deriv'd from God heads of the first impression.

173

652

Again, who looks down from these Chrystal spheres,
To view the Ocean where Jove's brother Raigns,
Shall he not find the water Nereid's there
In Office subaltern, not Soveraign?
Yet us'd to stirre, or calm the Ocean's race,
As Royalties of his three-forked Mace.

653

Whence, if these lively Images prove true,
It must be 'alike true, that the best times priz'd
That old Monarchal form, before the new
Confused Moulds, by error since devis'd:
For else their Types of ruling providence,
Absurdly, will seem far excell'd by sence.

654

Let Man then weigh, whether this strange excess
Follow the nature of each mortal frame
As time-born, with her to grow more or less;
And like her, never to remain the same?
Or whether this relaxe or over-bent,
Spring from the Subject or the Government?

655

And he shall find the ground of change to be
A wandering, and unmeasured affection
Of Pow'r to bind, and People to be free,
Not in the Laws, Church Rites, or their Connexion;
But practice meerly to raise, or keep down
Crowns by the people, people by the Crown.

174

656

In which misprision, while each doth suppress,
That true relation, by which States subsist,
They first loose names, then make their natures less,
Growing deform'd, by forming what they list:
For they that still cast old foundations new,
Make many shapes, but never any true.

657

And as we do in humane bodies see,
Where Reason Raigns in chief, not the affection,
Order is great, not wanton liberty;
Man to himself, and others a direction;
Where if too much abstracted or let fall,
The tares of passion there run over all.

658

So when men fall away from Monarchy
Whether it be to States of few or more,
Change leads them neerer unto Anarchy
By divers Minutes, then they were before;
Since unity divided into many,
Begets Confusion, never friend to any.

659

For in each kind of humane government,
Where Custome, Laws, or ancient Constitutions
Serve as true scales, to weigh out pow'rs intent,
Honour and Wealth there find no dimunitions,
But where Will Raigns, and over-leaps those bounds.
What can establish, but that which confounds?

165

660

Therefore to end this point, if any one
(According to our natures) fond of new,
Into more Rulers would translate a Throne,
Let him at home this Paradox find true;
Or else yield, that unfit for publick states,
Which in his private every creature hates.

661

Thus have we view'd the spirit of Government,
Shew'd both her ends, and errors in some kinds,
And by comparing yet made excellent
This brave Imperial Monarchy of minds,
Not making Tyrants Gods to unmake Kings
With flattering air for over-soaring wings.

662

And though the ways of wit be infinite,
Not to be cast in any Mould or Art,
Like shadows, changing shape with every light,
Ever and, never, still the same in part;
Yet by this Model, wiser men may see,
That there is choice even in the vanity.

663

And forms establisht, which must be obey'd
As levels for the world to guide her own
Foundations against Anarchy well laid,
Whose Being is but Beings overthrown;
Where Thrones (as mortal shrines) with mortal fear
Must be ador'd and worshipt everywhere.

176

664

Therefore I thus conclude this fruitless dream,
That if the body have imperfect features,
Or swim (like Æsops wife) against the stream,
Each age must adde to all the works of Creatures,
And perfect things unperfectly begun,
Or else in vain, sure, I have roul'd this Tun.

He took Constantinople Anno Dom. 1453.

It was a proverb amongst them Felicior Augusto, melior Trajano.

177

A TREATISE OF RELIGION.

By Sir Fulk Grevill, Lord Brook.

1

What make these many laws, these rains of pow'r
Wherewith Mankind thus fetter'd is and bound;
These divers worships, which mens souls de flow'r
Nature, and God, with novelty confound?
'Tis ignorance, Sin, Infidelity
By which we fall'n from our Creation be.

2

What is the Chain which draws us back again,
And lifts Man up unto his first Creation?
Nothing in him his own heart can restrain,
His reason lives a Captive to Temptation,
Example is corrupt, precepts are mixt,
All fleshly knowledge frail, and never fixt.

3

It is a Light, a Gift, a Grace inspir'd,
A spark of Pow'r, a goodness of the Good;
Desire in him, that never is desir'd;
An Unity, where desolation stood;
In us not of us, a Spirit not of earth,
Fashioning the mortal to immortal birth.

178

4

His Image that first made us in perfection,
From Angels differing most in time and place,
They fell by Pride, and we by their Infection,
Their doom is past, we yet stand under Grace;
They would be Gods, we would their evil know,
Man finds a Christ, these Angels did not so.

5

Sence of this God, by fear, the sensual have,
Distressed Nature crying unto Grace,
For Soveraign reason then becomes a slave,
And yields to servile sence her Soveraign place,
When more or other she affects to be,
Then seat or shrine of this Eternity.

6

Yea, Prince of Earth let Man assume to be,
Nay more; of Man, let Man himself be God,
Yet without God, a Slave of Slaves is he,
To others, Wonder; to himself, a Rod;
Restless despair, desire, and desolation;
The more secure, the more abomination.

7

Then by affecting pow'r, we cannot know him.
By knowing all things else, we know him less,
Nature contains him not, Art cannot shew him,
Opinions Idols and not God express.
Without, in Pow'r, we see him every where,
Within, we rest not, till we find him there.

179

8

Then seek we must, that course is natural
For owned souls to find their owner out,
Our free remorses, when our Natures fall;
When we do well, our hearts made free from doubt,
Prove service due, to one omnipotence;
And Nature of Religion to have sence.

9

Questions again, which in our hearts arise
(Since loving knowledge, not humility)
Though they be Curious, Godless, and Unwise,
Yet prove our Nature feels a Deity,
For if these strifes rose out of other grounds,
Man were to God, as deafness is to sounds.

10

Religion thus we naturally profess
Knowledge of God is likewise universal;
Which divers Nations diversly express,
For Truth, Pow'r, Goodness, Men do worship all;
Duties to Parent, Child, Time, Men, and Place,
All known by Nature, but observ'd by Grace.

11

And that these are no positive made Laws
Appears in this, since no consent of Nations,
No Custome, Time, or any other Cause
Can unto Vice give Vertues estimation,
Or root out those impressions from our hearts
Which God by Nature unto Man imparts,

180

12

Yea, these impressions are so finely fixt
In understanding, and the Conscience too,
That if our nature were not strangely mixt,
But what we knew it could as easily do,
Men should (even by this spirit) in flesh and blood
Grow happily, Adorers of the Good.

13

But there remains such natural corruption
In all our Pow'rs, even from our Parents seed,
As to the good gives native interruption;
Sence stains affection; that Will, and Will Deed,
So that what's good in us, and others too
We praise; but what is evil, that we do.

14

Our knowledge thus corrupted in our lives,
Serves to convince our Consciences within,
Which sentence of Record with self-love strives,
Leads us for rest, and remedy of sin,
To seek God and Religion from without,
And free this condemnation which we doubt.

15

Yet in this strife, this natural remorse,
If we could bend the force of Pow'r and Wit
To work upon the heart, and make divorce
There from the evil which perverteth it;
In judgement of the Truth we should not doubt
Good Life would find a good Religion out.

181

16

But our infirmity which cannot brook
This strong, intestine, and rebellious war,
In wit and our affections, makes us look
For such Religions as there imag'd are;
Hence grow these many Worships, Gods, and Sects
Wherewith mans error all the world infects.

17

For when the Conscience this Religion fashions
In blind affections, there it straight begets
Gross superstition; when in witty passions
It moulded is, a Luster there it sets
On hearts prophane, by politick pretence,
Both buying shadows with the souls expence.

18

For they, Gods true Religion (which a State
And being is, not taken on, but in)
To bottomless hypocrisie translate,
The superstitious doth with fear begin;
And so deceiv'd, deceives and under-rates
His God, and makes an idol of his sin:
The politick with Craft inthralls Mankind,
And makes his body sacrifice his Mind.

19

Both, in our selves, make us seek out a God,
Both, take self-love and fear, for Scale and measure,
They both, become their own and others rod;
The one takes care, the other wrong for pleasure;
As many minds, as many Gods they make,
Men easily change all they easily take.

182

20

This superstitious Ignorance and Fear
Is false Religion, offring sacred things
Either to whom it should not, or elsewhere,
The manner to the Godhead scandal brings;
It fears Sea, Earth, Skie, Silence, Darkness, Light,
And in the weak soul still hath greatest Might,

21

Which natural disease of mortal Wit,
Begets our Magick, and our Star-Divines,
Wizards, Impostors, Visions stand by it,
For what Fear comprehends not, it enclines
To make a God whose nature it believes,
Much more enclin'd to punish, then relieve.

22

The reason is, when fears dim eyes look in,
They guilt discern, when upwards justice there
Reflects self-horror back upon the sin,
Where outward dangers threaten every where:
Flesh the foundation is, Fancy the work,
Where rak'd up and unquencht, the evils lurk,

23

For Fear, whose motion still it self improves
Hopes not for Grace, but prays to shun the Rod;
Not to do ill more then do well it loves;
Fashions God unto Man, not Man to God:
And to that Deity, gives all without,
Of which within it lives and dies in doubt.

183

24

The other branch is meer Hypocrisie,
The worlds Religion, born of Wit and Lust;
All which like hunters follow things that flie,
And still beyond things found, find somthing must,
As God is boundless, endless, infinite,
So seem these Idols to the Hypocrite.

25

Wit there is Priest, who sacrifice doth make
Of all in Heaven and Earth to his desire;
For from this Wit, God and Religion take
As many shapes, as many strange attires
As there be in the World degrees of change,
Which upon humours, time, occasion range.

26

This teacheth all ambitious Magistrates,
On sins unquiet, humors how to build
Idols of Pow'r, to alter natures rates,
And by false fears and hopes make people yield
Their hearts for Temples unto Tyrants Laws,
Which Zeal divine, to humane Homage draws.

27

And when spiritual Lights, which Truth expound,
Once to the traffick of Mans Will descend;
With chains of Truth, Mankind no more is bound,
Whereby their hearts should up to Heaven ascend;
But vainly link't unto their tongues, which draw
Religion to a fleshly outward awe.

184

28

And though this Fear a Holiness, in shew
Such as no Eye of Man can pierce the veil,
But least Gods houshold, to contempt should grow,
Or this Hypocrisie not still prevail,
To raise them reverence above their worth;
Blood, Inquisition, Question, they bring forth.

29

They draw the sword of Pow'r, against her own,
Or else hir people up, to war their Kings,
Both must be theirs, or both be overthrown;
They bind Man unto words, God binds to things;
For these false heads of holy Mother see
Scepters to Miters, there inferior be.

30

Among our selves likewise there many be
That make Religion nothing else but Art,
To master others of their own degree,
Enthral the simple well believing heart;
These have opposers, scorn obedient fools,
Affecting Raign by educations tools.

31

And though they serve Ambitious Princes use,
While they protect them like a nursing Father,
And while this common traffick of abuse
Mutually helpeth either side to gather;
Yet mark the end of false combined trust,
It will divide, and smart the people must.

185

32

For sure in all kinds of Hypocrisie
No bodies yet are found of constant being;
No uniforme, no stable Mistery,
No inward Nature, but an outward seeming,
No solid Truth, no Vertue, Holiness,
But types of these, which Time makes more or less.

33

And from these Springs, strange inundations flow,
To drown the Sea-marks of Humanity,
With Massacres, Conspiracy, Treason, Woe,
By Sects and Schisms, prophaning Deity:
Besides with Furies, Fiends, Earth, Air and Hell
They fit, and teach Confusion to rebell.

34

But as their lives a true God in the Heaven,
So is there true Religion here on earth:
By nature? No, by Grace not got, but given;
Inspir'd, not taught; from God a second Birth:
God dwelleth neer about us, even within,
Working the goodness, censuring the sin.

35

Such as we are to him, to us is he,
Without God there was no man ever good;
Divine the Author and the matter be,
Where goodness must be wrought in flesh and blood:
Religion stands not in corrupted things,
But vertues that descend have Heavenly wings.

186

36

Not heathen vertue, which they do define
To be a state of mind by Custome wrought,
Where sublime Religion seems to refine
Affection, perturbation, every thought,
Uunto a Mens Adepta, which work spent
Half of the days to humane Hermes lent.

37

For in his work, Man still rests Slave to Fame,
To inward Caution, outward form and pride,
With curious watch to guard a rotten frame
Safe undiscovet'd from the piercing ey'd,
Assiduous caution tyrannizing there,
To make frail thoughts seem other then they are.

38

Under this Mask, besides, no vice is dead,
But passion with her counter-passion peaz'd;
The evil with it self both starv'd and fed,
And in her woes with her vain glories eas'd;
The work and tools alike, vain flesh and blood,
The labour great, the harvest never good.

39

For in this painted Tomb, let Mans own spirit
Really judge, what that estate can be
Which he begetting in himself inherits,
Other then DESERTS of Hypocrisie,
Within the darkning shadows of his wit,
Hiding his stains from all the world but it.

187

40

And if the habits of Hypocrisie
With such attention must be kept and wrought;
If to mask vice be such a mistery,
As must with her captivity be sought;
If to be nothing, and yet seem to be,
So nicely be contriv'd and dearly bought,
As vanity must in a Phænix fire
Smother her self to hatch her false desire.

41

Then Judge, poor Man, Gods Image once, 'tis true;
Though now the Devils, be thine own defection;
Judge Man (I say) to make this Image new,
And cleanse thy flesh from this deep dy'd infection,
What miracles must needs be wrought in you,
That thus stand lost in all things but election?
What living death, what strange illumination
Must be inspir'd to this Regeneration?

42

Must not the Grace be supernatural,
Which in forgiving gives sanctification;
And from this second Chaos of his fall
Forms in Mans little world a new Creation?
And must not then this twice born Child of Heaven
Bring forth in life this new perfection giv'n?

43

Then Man; pray and obtain; believe and have;
Omnipotence and goodness ready be
To raise us with our Saviour from the Grave,
Whence Enoch and Elias lived free;
He made all good, yet suffred sin and death
To Raign, and be exil'd again by faith.

188

44

Then, till thou find this Heavenly change in thee
Of Pride to Meekness; Atheisme to Zeal,
Lust to Continence; Anger to Charity,
Thou feel'st of thy election no true seal;
But knowledge only, that poor infancy
Of this new Creature, which must thence appeal
Unto the father for obedience,
Judging his hopes or condemnation thence.

45

For what else is Religion in Mankind,
But raising of Gods Image there decay'd?
No habit, but a hallowed state of Mind
Working in us, that he may be obey'd;
As God by it with us Communicates,
So we by Duties must with all estates:

46

With our Creator, by sincere devotion;
With Creatures, by observance and affection;
Superiors, by respect of their promotion,
Inferiors, with the nature of protection:
With all, by using all things of our own
For others good, not to our selves alone

47

And ev'n this sacred band, this Heavenly Breath
In Man his understanding, knowledge is;
Obedience, in his Will; in Conscience, Faith;
Affections, Love; in death it self a bliss;
In body, Temp'rance; life, Humility,
Pledge to the mortal of Eternity.

189

48

Pure onely, where God makes the Spirits pure;
It perfect grows, as imperfection dies;
Built on the rock of truth, that shall endure;
A Spirit of God, that needs must multiply;
He shews his Glory, cleerly to the best,
Appears in Clouds and Horror to the rest.

49

Such was the soul in our first Sires Creation,
When Man knew God and goodness, not the evil:
Far greater in the Godheads incarnation,
Where Truth subdu'd the sin that made the devil;
She still is Gods, and God for ever one,
Both unbeliev'd in flesh, and both unknown.

50

Then, Man, learn by thy fall, to judge of neither;
Our flesh cannot this spirit comprehend;
Death and new birth in us must joyn together,
Before our nature where it was ascend:
Where man presumes on more then he obeys,
There, straight Religion to opinion strays.

51

Then since 'tis true, we onely here possess
These Treasures, but in veslels made of slime;
Religion we by consequence confess
Here to be mixt of base things and sublime,
Of native evil, supernatural good,
Truth, born of God, and error of our blood.

190

52

Yet Gold we have, though much allay'd with dross,
Refining, never perfect in this life;
Still in our journey, meeting gain and loss;
Rest in our deaths, and until then a strife:
And as our days are Want, Temptation, Error;
So is our Zeal, War, Prayers, Remorse, and Terror.

53

Such is the state of Infants in new birth,
Fed first with Milk, too weak for stronger food,
Who learn at once to know and doe in earth
(both enemy and impotent in good)
Must feel, that our Christ can of his loose none,
Which unto us makes Grace and Merit one

54

These be true Antidotes against despair;
Cradles for weakness; stories, for corruption
To read, how faith begins to make her fair
By cleansing sensual sinks of interruption,
Whereby the throws of many thoughts bring forth
Light, onely shewing, Man is nothing worth.

55

For this word Faith, implies a state of Mind;
Is both our woing, and our Marriage Ring;
The first we meet, and last, but Love we find
A given hand, that feeleth Heavenly things;
And who believe indeed God, Heav'n and Hell
Have past in that chief letts of doing well.

191

56

Then let not man too rashly judge this Light,
Nor censure God, by his own imperfections;
What can give limit to the infinite,
When he by works will witness our election?
Degrees I grant there be of Will and Might,
Some to beget, some onely to inherit,
Yet still the Conscience must obey the Spirit.

57

Yea, though God call his Labourers every hour
And pay the Last and First with Heavenly gain,
Though he give faith, beyond the Law, and Pow'r,
Yet is Gods nature where he is to raign;
His word is Life, the Letter all mens fall,
That it without the Spirit measure shall.

58

This Sacred word is that Eternal Glass,
Where all mens souls behold the face they bring;
Each sees as much as life hath brought to pass;
The Letter can shew Life no other thing:
The hearts Grace works to know what they obey,
All else prophane God, and the World betray.

59

This work is Gods, even his that works all wonder,
His Arm not shorned, and his goodness one,
Whose Presence breaks sins middle wall in sunder,
And doth in flesh deface the evils throne;
He is all, gives all, hath all where he is,
And in his absence never soul finds bliss.

192

60

His Ægypt wonders here he doth exceed,
For there he mixt with Winds, Rain Natures line:
Now by his spirit, he doth blast our weeds,
Immediate Grace, true miracles Divine;
Guides not by Fires and Meteors, night and day,
His wandring people how to move or stay,

61

But into sinners hearts, shadows of death,
The saving light of truth he doth inspire;
Fitteth our humane Lungs with Heavenly breath,
Our mortal Natures with immortal fire;
He draws the Camel through the Needles eye,
And makes the chosen flesh die, ere they die.

62

Yet keeps one course with Israel and us,
The flesh still knew his Pow'r, but not his Grace,
All outward Churches ever know him thus,
They bear his name, but never run his race;
They know enough for their self-condemnation,
His, doing, know him, to their own salvation.

63

His Church invisible are few and good,
The visible, erroneous, evil, many;
Of his, the Life and Letter understood;
Of these, nor Life, nor Letter, dwell in any,
These make his word Sect, Scisme, Phisosophy,
And those from Fishers call'd, Apostles be.

193

64

They do in praying, and still pray in doing,
Faith and obedience are their contemplation,
Like Lovers still admiring, ever woing
Their God, that gives this Heavenly constellation,
They war that Finite, Infinite of sin;
All Arts and Pomps, the error wanders in.

65

God is their strength, in him, his are not weak,
That Spirit Divine which Life, Pow'r, wisdome is
Works in these new born Babes a life to speak
Things which the world still understands amiss:
The Lye hath many tongues, Truth only one,
And who sees blindness, till the sin be gone?

66

Fools to the world these seem, and yet obey
Princes oppressions, whereat fools repine;
They know these Crowns, these Theaters of Clay
Derive their earthly pow'r from pow'r Divine:
Their sufferings are like all things else they do,
Conscience to God, with men a wisdom too.

67

Book-Learning, Arts, yea School Divinity
New types of old Law-munging Pharisies
(Which curst in bondage of the Letter be)
They know, they pitty, and would fain advise;
The goodness moves them, yet the wisdom stays
From sowing Heavenly seed in stony ways.

194

68

To you they cry, O you, that hold the shrine
As sent by God, yet Priests of chance and gain!
Your charge is to distribute things Divine;
O do not lie for God, and sin in vain!
Reveal his word, his misteries expound,
Else what he works you travel to confound.

69

You should be keys to let his Will pass out,
Bind sin, and free repentance by his word;
Fear those that scorn, and comfort them that doubt;
What drowned Pharaoh, still is Israels forde:
Wisdome above the truth was Adams sin;
That veyle which Christ rent off, will you walk in?

70

Observe Faiths nature, in these hallow'd shrines,
Both of the old and perfect Testament;
Works be her fruits, her nature is Divine,
Infus'd by him that is omnipotent;
Doe we believe on him, on whom we stay not?
Can we believe on him, whom we obey not?

71

His Pen left two examples, it is true;
First of his chosen, how he grosly fell;
Then, of the Thief born instantly anew;
Vice rais'd to Heaven, perfection fall'n to hell;
And of each nature therefore left not many,
Lest hope, or fear should over-work in any.

195

72

Is it not then by warrant from above,
That who gives faith, gives true obedience?
What other Medium hath our flesh to prove
That sin with God keeps no intelligence?
Takes this from Man the fruits of Christ his death?
No, it translates him into it by faith.

73

For though God gave such measure of his Grace
As might in flesh fulfill the second Table,
Yet sin against the first, did quite deface
Gods Image, and to raise that who is able?
Between the Flesh and Grace that spiritual Fight
Needs Father, Son, and their proceeding Might

74

Nay, let us grant, God would enable Man,
After his calling, to accomplish all;
From Adams sin who yet redeem him can,
Or Pauls transgression cleer before his call,
But Christ that comes to none of Gods in vain?
The justest need him, for the worst he is slain.

75

His life he makes example where he please
To give his spirit, which is, to forgive:
What can the flesh assume it self in these,
Since reason dies, before his faith can live?
Who knows Gods pow'r, but where he sin removes?
What should restrain the Almighty where he loves?

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76

Besides, who marks Gods course, from our Creation
Down unto Christ, shall by succession see
Bliss of the goodness, evils condemnation
Establisht by unchanging destiny:
The Word is cleer, and needs no explanation,
Onely the Council is a Mystery;
Why God commanded more then Man could do,
Being all things that he will, and Wisdom too.

77

Why came our Saviour, if flesh could fulfill
The Law enjoyn'd? or if it must transgress,
Whence took that Justice this unequal Will
To bind them more, to whom he giveth less?
Here Pow'r indeed to wisdom must direct,
Else Light saves few, and many doth detect.

78

Strive not then, wit corrupt and disobeying,
To fetch from Popes stools, Pow'rs commanding Thrones
Doctrines of Might, that suffer no denying,
Yet divers, as Earths Tempers in her Zones;
Since Christs own heard him, saw him live and dye,
Yet till he rose, knew not the mistery.

79

Pray then, and think, Faith hath her mediation,
Ask for thy self that spirit which may judge,
Wait the degrees of thy Regeneration,
Count not without thy God, nor do thou grudge
Limits and bounds of thine illumination;
But give account of that which God hath given,
Since Grace, not Merit, with the Law makes even.

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80

And if thou seek'st more Light to cleer thy mind,
Search not Gods councils in himself contracted,
But search his written word where thou shalt find,
That Adams fall was breach of Law enacted,
By which in stained womb the chosen seed
Together with the reprobate did breed.

81

The one shew'd forth the Light which he receiv'd
Fashion'd within him by the infinite;
The other serv'd the evil, was deceiv'd,
And in that which condemn'd him took delight:
Both States partakers of Eternity,
In Life, or death, as good, or ill they be.

82

Both had one School, one form and Education,
Each knew one God; but onely one obey'd,
Where in the odds was spiritual adoration,
And outward Rites, which ever have betray'd;
Abel sought God alone, Cain would have more,
Which Pride was in the Angels judg'd before.

83

Thus when Creation was a fresh Tradition,
And miracle the proper ground of faith,
Guiding the sin unto her true Physitian,
Yet then (we see) sin multiplyed death:
For him that made them men would not obey;
Idols, and Sects ne'r had any other way,

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84

Men would be Gods, or earthly Giants rather,
Number their strength, and strength their number is,
Their Doctrine sin, which as it spreads doth gather
This present world, Flesh seeks no other bliss.
As God, by goodness, saves those souls he chooseth,
So Hell condemns those wicked souls it useth.

85

Now while both Churches lived thus together
Parted by Grace, by miracles united,
The outward worship common was to either,
And both alike by benefits invited:
Yet murmure and obedience prov'd them two,
For while both knew, yet onely one would doe.

86

Thus though by life the Spirit Spirits trieth,
So as Gods goodness is by his exprest;
Which goodness in the devils ever dieth
Yet God hath here more latitude imprest:
For unto those who only bear his name,
He gave such Gentiles as deny'd the same.

87

But when with idols they prophan'd the Land
Which he gave them, for seeming to adore him,
When they that held by form, even brake that Band,
And Israel in the outward fail'd before him;
Then came captivity, that earthly Hell,
Planting the Gentiles where his did dwell.

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88

In this times womb, this uttermost defection
Of fleshly Israel, came the Virgins seed,
That rightfulness which wrought Gods own election,
And in the flesh fulfill'd the Law indeed:
When Doctrine, Miracles, benefits prov'd vain,
Then was this Lamb ordained to be slain.

89

Thus by defection from obedience,
Successively both Sin and Sects have grown;
Religion is a miracle to sence,
The new man of the old is never known:
And to those hearts where gross sins do not die,
Gods Testaments are meer Philosophy.

90

What Latitude this to the world allows,
Those souls in whom Gods image was decay'd
Then know when they perform such spiritual vows
As underneath our Saviours Cross are laid,
They that receive his wages, bear his Arms,
Know onely what avails us, and what harms.

91

Wherein to take Thrones first, as chief in Might,
Davids we wish, of Salomons find some,
Not in those wisdoms of the infinite,
But in the rest, which bide more doubtful doom:
Thrones are the worlds, how they stand wel with heaven,
Those pow'rs can iudge to whom such grace is given.

200

92

Next that, High Priesthood, which the spirit fall'n Jew
So prized, and erroneously maintain'd,
Ceased in him, whose sacrifice was due
To all the world, by her defections stain'd:
Small hopes this gives to our Cathedral Chairs,
The spirit onely choosing spiritual Heirs.

93

Again, for such as strive to undermine
The vanity of Romes ore-built foundation,
With sins ambition, under words Divine,
Hoping to raise Sects from her declination;
O let them know, God is to both alike,
The one he hath, the other he will strike.

94

And in the world where pow'r confirms opinion,
Advantage, disadvantage as they stand;
Rome hath the odds in Age and in Dominion;
By which the Devils all things understand,
The Superstition is too worn a womb
To raise a new Church now to equal Rome.

95

Last, for our selves which of that Church would be
Which (though invisible) yet was, is, shall
For ever be the State and Treasurie
Of Gods elect, which cannot from him fall:
Arks now we look for none, nor signes to part
Ægypt from Israel, all rests in the heart.

201

96

Our three Crown'd Miters, are but works of Spirit,
Faith, Key and Scepter; our Ambition, Love;
Built upon Grace we are, and thence inherit
Temptation, which in us doth purge and prove,
Mortifie, regenerate, sanctify and raise
Our old fall'n Adam to new Adams ways.

97

This word of life, then, let not fleshly Man
Corrupt and unregenerate expound;
As well the Mortal judge the immortal can,
Or deafness find the discords out of sound,
Or Creatures their Creator comprehend,
Which they presume that judge before they mend.

98

Mixe not in Functions God and Earth together;
The wisdom of the world and his are two;
One Latitude can well agree to neither,
In each men have their beings as they do:
The world doth build without, our God within;
He trafficks Goodness, and she trafficks sin.

99

Schools have their Limits, wherein Man prescribes;
What Credit hopes Truth there, which contradicts?
States have their Laws, all Churches have their Tribes,
Where sin is ever strongest, and inflicts;
For Man is judge, and force still wisdom there,
How can God thence expect a spiritual Heir.

202

100

But Gods elect still humbly pass by these,
Make Love their School, and scale of righteousness;
Which infinite those hearts desire to please,
While to the world they leave her wickedness;
Sect and division cannot here arise,
Where every Man in God is only wise.

101

Can it then be a Doctrine of despair
To use the words or Councils of our God;
As they stand in him? though they seem severe,
Health of the chosen is the lost childs rod.
Though flesh cannot believe, yet God is true,
And onely known, where he creates anew.

102

Things possible with man are yet in question,
Gods pow'r, Gifts, Will, here faith's true Bases be
All Mediums else are but the sins suggestion,
The mover onely makes our nature free,
Faith and obedience he that asketh gives;
And without these Gods spirit never lives.

103

Again, in this strange war, this wilderness,
These Ægypt Brick-kills, from our straw depriv'd,
God ever liveliest doth himself express,
Help being here from Heavenly pow'r deriv'd:
Affliction of the Spirit made mans true Glass,
To shew him, God brings what he will to pass.

203

104

Now in this fight, wherein the man despairs,
Between the sin, and his regeneration
Faith upon Credit never takes her Heirs,
Gods wonder in us works her adoration:
Who from the Heaven sends his graces down,
To work the same obedience he will Crown.

105

This leads us to our Saviour; who no more
Doth ask then he enables us to do;
The rest he frees, and takes upon his score,
Faith and obedience onely binds us to:
All other Latitudes are Flesh and Devil.
To stain our knowledge and enlarge our evil.

106

Offer these Truths to Pow'r, will she obey?
It prunes her pomp, perchance ploughs up the root;
It pride of Tyrants humors doth allay,
Makes God their Lord, and casts them at his foot,
This Truth they cannot wave, yet will not do,
And fear to know because that binds them too,

107

Shew these to Arts; those Riddles of the sin
Which error first creates, and then inherits;
This Light consumes those Mists they flourish in,
At once deprives their Glory and their Merit;
Those mortal forms, moulded of humane error,
Dissolve themselves by looking in this mirror.

204

108

Shew it to Laws; Gods Law, the true foundation,
Proves how they build up earth, and loose the Heaven;
Give things Eternal, mortal limitation,
O're-ruling him from whom thair Laws were given:
Gods Laws are right, just, wise, and so would make us;
Mans, captious, divers, false, and so they take us.

109

Shew it the outward Church, strange speculation
For that Hypocrisie to see the Life,
They that sell God for earthly estimation,
Are here divorc't from that adulterous wife:
For this truth teacheth Mankind to despise them,
While God more justly for his own denies them.

110

Offer these Truths to flesh; in General,
God in his pow'r, and Truth they do confess;
But want of faith, that venome of their fall,
Despairs to undergo his righteousness,
They think God good, and so his Mercy trust,
Yet hold good life impossible to dust.

111

Onely that little flock, Gods own elect,
Who living in the world, yet of it are not,
God is the wealth, Will, Empire they affect,
His Law, their wisdom, for the rest they care not;
Among all floods this Ark is still preserv'd,
Storms of the world are for her own reserv'd.

205

112

For their sake, God doth give restraining Grace
To his seen Church, and to the Heathen too;
Sets sin her Latitude of time and place,
That onely she her own may still undoe;
And where the sin is free to all, as one,
He binds temptation to preserve his own.

113

So as though still in wilderness they live,
As gone from Ægypt, suffer Israels care,
Yet Food and Clothes that wear not out he gives,
Of them that hate them they preserved are,
This Grace restraining bounds the Hypocrites,
Whose ravine else might spoil the world of Lights.

114

Then, Man! rest on this feeling from above,
Plant thou thy faith on this Celestial way,
The world is made for use, God is for Love,
Sorrow for sin, Knowledge but to obey;
Fear and Temptation to refine and prove,
The Heaven for Joy; desire thou that it may
Find peace in endless, boundless, Heavenly things;
Place it else where, it desolation brings.

FINIS.