Divine poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Give leave a little to adjoyne your text,
And ease my soule, my soule with doubts perplext.
Can he be said to feare the Lord, that flyes him?
Can word confesse him, when as deed denies him?

My sacred Muse hath rounded in mine eare,
And read the mystery of a twofold feare:
The first, a servile feare, for judgements sake;
And thus hells Fire-brands doe feare and quake:
Thus Adam fear'd, and fled behinde a tree:
And thus did bloody Cain feare and flee.

Vnlike to this there is a second kinde
Of feare, extracted from a zealous minde,
Full fraught with love, and with a conscience clear
From base respects: It is a filiall feare;
A feare whose ground would just remaine, & level;
Were neither Heaven, nor Hel, nor God, nor devil.
Such was the feare that Princely David had;
And thus our wretched Ionah fear'd, and fled:
He fled asham'd, because his sinnes were such;
He fled asham'd, because his feare was much.
He fear'd Iehovah, other fear'd he none:
Him he acknowledg'd; him hee fear'd alone:
Vnlike to those who (being blinde with errour)
Frame many gods, and multiply their terrour.
Th'Egyptians, god Apis did implore.
God Assas the Chaldeans did adore:
Babel to the Devouring Dragon seekes;
Th'Arabian, Astaroth; Iuno, the Greekes;
The name of Belus, the Assyrians hallow,
The Troians, Vesta; Corinth, wise Apollo;
Th'Arginians sacrifice unto the Sunne;
To light-foot Mercury bowes Macedon;
To god Volunus, Lovers bend their knee:
To Pavor, they that faint and fearefull bee:
Who pray for health, and strength, to Murcia those,
And to Victoria, those that feare to lose:
To Muta, they that feare a womans tongue:
To great Lucina, women great with young:

To Esculapius, they that live opprest:
And such to Quies, that defier rest.

O blinded ignorance of antique times,
How blent with errour, and how stuft with crimes
Your Temples were! And how adulterate!
How clogg'd with needlesse gods! How obstinate!
How void of reason, order, how confuse!
How full of dangerous and foule abuse!
How sandy were the grounds, and how unstable!
How many Deities! yet how unable!

Implore these gods, that list to howle and barke,
They bow to Dagon, Dagon to the Arke:
But hee to whom the seale of mercy's given,
Adores Iehovah, the Great God of Heaven:
Vpon the mention of whose sacred Name,
Meeke Lambs grow fierce, & the fierce Lions tame:
Bright Sol shall stop, & heaven shal turn his course:
Mountains shall dance, and Neptune slake his force:
The Seas shall part, the fire want his flame,
Vpon the mention of Iehovah's Name:
A Name that makes the roofe of Heaven to shake,
The frame of Earth to quiver, Hell to quake:
A Name, to which all Angels blow their Trumps:
A Name, puts frolicke man into his dumps,
(Though ne're so blythe) A Name of high renown:
It mounts the meeke, and beats the loftie downe;
A Name, divides the marrow in the bone;
A Name, which out of hard, and flintie stone
Extracteth hearts of flesh, and makes relent.
Those hearts that never knew what mercy ment,

O Lord! how great's thy Name in all the Land:
How mighty are the wonders of thy hand?
How is thy glory plac't above the heaven?
To tender mouthes of Sucklings thou hast given

Coercive pow'r, and boldnesse to reproove,
When elder men doe what them not behoove.
O Lord,! how great's the power of thine hand?
O God! how great's thy Name in all the Land!