Divine poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

How weake, at strongest, is poore flesh & blood!
Samson, the greatnes of whose power withstood
A little world of armed men, with death,
Must now be foyled with a womans breath:

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The mother, sometimes lets her infant fall,
To make it hold the surer by the wall:
God lets his servant often goe amisse,
That he may turne, and see how weake he is:
David that found an overflowing measure
Of heavens high favours, and as great a treasure
Of saving grace, and portion of the Spirit,
As flesh and bloud was able to inherit,
Must have a fall to exercise his feares,
And make him drowne his restics couch with tears:
Wise Salomon, within whose heart was planted
The fruitfull stockes of heavenly wisdome, wanted
Not that, whereby his weakenesse understood
The perfect vanity of flesh and bloud:
Whose hand seem'd prodigall of his Isaacs life,
He durst not trust Gods providence with his wife:
The righteous Lot had slidings: Holy Paul
He had his pricke; and Peter had his fall:
The sacred Bride, in whose faire face remaines
The greatest earthly beauty, hath her staines:
If man were perfect, land entirely good,
He were not man: he were not flesh and blood:
Or should he never fall, he would at length,
Not see his weakenesse, and presume in strength:
Ere children know the sharpnesse of the Edge,
They thinke, their fingers have a priveledge
Against a wound; but having felt the knife,
A bleeding finger, sometime saves a life:

Lord, we are children, & our sharpe-edg'd knives,
Together with our bloud, lets out our lives;
Alas, if we but draw them from the sheath,
They cut our fingers, and they bleed to death.

Thou great Chirurgion of a bleeding soule,
Whose soveraigne baulme, is able to make whole

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The deepest wound, Thy sacred salve is sure;
We cannot bleed so fast, as thou canst cure:
Heale thou our wounds, that, having salv'd the sore
Our hearts may feare, and learne to sinne no more;
And let our hands be strangers to those knives,
That wound not fingers onely, but our lives.