University of Virginia Library

[Emblemes]

[By Fathers, backt; by Holy Writ, led on]

By Fathers, backt; by Holy Writ, led on,
Thou shew'st a way to Heav'n, by Helicon:
The Muses Font is consecrate by Thee,
And Poesie, baptiz'd Divinitie:
Blest soule, that here embark'st: Thou sayl'st apace,
'Tis hard to say, mov'd more by Wit, or Grace;
Each Muse so plyes her Oare; But O, the Sayle
Is fill'd from heav'n with a Diviner Gale:
When Poets prove Divines, why should not I
Approve, in Verse, this Divine Poetry?
Let this suffice to licence thee the Presse;
I must no more; nor could the Truth say lesse.

THE FIRST BOOKE

The Invocation

I. JAMES I. XIV.

Every man is tempted, when he is drawne away by his own lust, and enticed.

Serpent. Eve.
Serpent:
Not eat? Not taste? Not touch? Not cast an eye
Upon the fruit of this faire Tree? And why?
Why eat'st thou not what Heav'n ordain'd for food?
Or can'st thou think that bad, which heav'n call'd Good?
Why was it made, if not to be enjoy'd?
Neglect of favours makes a favour voyd:
Blessings unus'd pervert into a Wast,
As well as Surfeits; Woman, Do but tast;
See how the laden boughs make silent Suit
To be enjoyd; Look, how their bending Fruit
Meet thee halfe way; Observe but how they crouch
To kisse thy hand; Coy woman, Do but touch:
Mark what a pure Vermilion blush has dy'd
Their swelling Cheeks, and how, for shame, they hide
Their palsie heads, to see themselves stand by
Neglected: Woman, Do but cast an eye:
What bounteous heav'n ordain'd for use, refuse not;
Come, pull and eat; y'abuse the things ye use not.

Eve:
Wisest of Beasts, our great Creator did,
Reserve this Tree, and this alone forbid;
The rest are freely ours, which, doubtlesse, are
As pleasing to the Tast; to the eye, as faire
But touching this, his strict commands are such,
'Tis death to tast, no lesse than death, to touch.

Serpent:
P'sh; death's a fable. Did not heav'n inspire
Your equall Elements with living Fire,
Blowne from the Spring of life? Is not that breath
Immortall? Come; ye are as free from death
As He that made ye: Can the flames expire
Which He has kindled? Can ye quench His fire?
Did not the great Creator's voice proclaime
What ere he made (from the blue spangled frame
To the poore leafe that trembles) very Good?
Blest He not both the Feeder, and the Food?
Tell, tell me, then, what a danger can accrue
From such blest Food, to such Halfe-gods as you?
Curb needlesse feares, and let no fond conceit
Abuse your freedome; woman, Take and eat.

Eve:
'Tis true; we are immortall; death is yet
Unborne; and, till Rebellion make it debt,
Undue; I know the Fruit is good, untill
Presumtuous disobedience make it ill:
The lips that open to this Fruit's a portall
To let in death, and make immortall, mortall.

Serpent:
You cannot die; Come, woman, Tast and feare not:

Eve:
Shall Eve transgresse? I dare not, O I dare not.

Serpent:
Afraid? why draw'st thou back thy tim'rous Arme?
Harme onely fals on such as feare a Harme:
Heav'n knows and feares the vertue of this Tree:
'Twill make ye perfect Gods as well as He.
Stretch forth thy hand, and let thy fondnesse never
Feare death: Do, pull, and eat, and live for ever.

Eve:
'Tis but an Apple; and it is as good
To do as to desire: Fruit's made for food:
Ile pull, and tast, and tempt my Adam too
To know the secrets of this dainty;

Serpent:
Doe.

S. CHRYS. sup. Matth.

He forc'd him not: He touch'd him not: Onely said Cast thyself downe; that we may know, whosoever obeyes the Divell, casts himslf downe; For the Divell may suggest; compell, he cannot.

S. BERN. in Ser.

It is the Divels part to suggest; Ours, not to consent: As oft we resist him, so often we overcome him: as often as we overcome him, so often we bring joy to the Angels, and glory to God; Who proposes us, that we may contend, and assists us, that we may conquer.

EPIGRAM 1.

[Unluckie Parliament! wherein, at last.]

Unluckie Parliament! wherein, at last.
Both Houses are agreed, and firmly past
An Act of death, confirm'd by higher Powers:
O had it had but such success as Ours.

II. JAMES I. XV.

Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

S. AUGUST. lib. 1 de lib. arbit.

It is a most just punishment, that man should lose that Freedome which man would not use, yet had power to keep if he would: And that he who had knowledge to do what was right, and did not, should be deprived of the knowledge of what was right; And that he who would not doe righteously when he had the power, should lose the power to do it, when he had the will.

HUGO de anima.

They are justly punished that abuse lawfull things, but they are more justly punished, that use unlawful things; Thus Lucifer fell from heaven; thus Adam lost his Paradise.

EPIGRAM 2.

[See how these fruitfull kernels, being cast]

See how these fruitfull kernels, being cast
Upon the earth, how thick they spring! how fast!
A full-Crop, and thriving; rank and proud;
Prepost'rous man first sow'd, and then he plough'd.

III. PROVERBS XIV. XIII.

Even in laughter the heart is sorrowfull, and the end of that mirth is heavinesse.

S. AUGUST.

Sweetnesse in temporall matters is deceitfull: It is a labour and a perpetuall feare; It is a dangerous pleasure, whose beginning is without providence, and whose end is not without repentance.

HUGO.

Luxury is an enticing pleasure, a bastard mirth, which hath honey in her mouth, gall in her heart, and a sting in her taile.

EPIGRAM 3.

[What, Cupid, Are thy shafts already made?]

What, Cupid, Are thy shafts already made?
And seeking Honey, to set up thy Trade?
True Emblemes of thy sweets! Thy Bees do bring
Hony, in their mouths, but in their tailes, a sting.

IV. PSALMS LXII. IX.

To be laid in the ballance, it is altogether lighter than vanitie.

S. AUGUST. lib. Confess.

O you that dote upon this world, for what victory do ye fight? Your hopes can be crown'd with no greater reward than the world can give: and what is the world but a brittle thing full of dangers, wherein we travell from lesser to greater perills? O let all her vaine, light, and momentary glory perish with her selfe, and let us be conversant with more eternall things: Alas, this world is miserable: life is short, and death is sure.

EPIGRAM 4.

[My soule; What's lighter than a feather? Wind]

My soule; What's lighter than a feather? Wind:
Than wind? The fire: And what than fire? The mind:
What's lighter than the mind? A thought: Than Thought?
This bubble-world: What, than this Bubble? Nought.

V. I CORINTHIANS VII. XXXI.

The fashion of this world passeth away.

Gone are those golden dayes, wherein
Pale Conscience started not at ugly sin;
When good old Saturnes peacefull Throne
Was unusurped by his beardlesse Sonne:
When jealous Ops nev'r fear'd th'abuse
Of her chast bed, or breach of nuptiall Truce:
When just Astraea poys'd her Scales
In mortall hearts, whose absence earth bewailes:
When froth-borne Venus, and her Brat,
With all that spurious brood young Jove begat,
In horrid shapes, were yet unknowne;
Those Halcyon dayes, that golden Age is gone:
There was no Clyent then, to wait
The leisure of his long-tayl'd Advocate;
The Talion Law was in request,
And Chaunc'ry Courts were kept in ev'ry brest:
Abused Statutes had no Tenters,
And men could deale secure, without Indentures;
There was no peeping hole, to cleare
The Wittols eye from his incarnate feare;
There were no lustfull Cinders, then,
To broyle the Carbonado'd hearts of men;
The rosie Cheeke did, then, proclaime
A shame of Guilt, but not a guilt of Shame;
There was no whining soule, to start
At Cupids twang, or curse his flaming dart;
The Boy had, then, but callow wings,
And fell Erynnis Scorpions had no stings;
The better acted world did move
Upon the fixed Poles of Truth and Love;
Love essenc'd in the hearts of men;
Then, Reason rul'd; There was no Passion, then;
Till Lust and Rage began to enter,
Love the Circumf'rence was, and Love, the Center;
Untill the wanton dayes of Jove,
The simple world was all compos'd of Love;
But Jove grew fleshly, false, unjust;
Inferiour Beauty fill'd his veynes with Lust;
And Cucqueane Junos Fury hurld
Fierce Balls of Rage into th'incestuous World:
Astraea fled; and Love return'd
From earth: Earth boyl'd with Lust; with Rage, it burn'd
And ever since the world has beene
Kept going with the scourge of Lust, and Spleene.

S. AMBEROS.

Lust is a sharpe spurre to vice, which alwayes puts the Affections into a false Gallop.

HUGO.

Lust is an immoderate wantonnesse of the flesh: a sweet poyson; a cruell pestilence; a pernitious potion, which weakens the body of man, and effeminates the strength of an heroick mind.

S. AUGUST.

Envy is the hatred of anothers felicity: In respect of Superiours, because they are not equall to them; In respect of Inferiours, lest they should be equall to them; In respect of equals, because they are equall to them: Through Envy proceeded the fall of the world, and the death of Christ.

EPIGRAM 5.

[What? Cupid, must the world be lasht so soone?]

What? Cupid, must the world be lasht so soone?
But made at morning, and be whipt at noone?
'Tis like the Wagg that playes with Venus Doves,
The more 'tis lasht, the more perverse it proves.

VI. ECCLESIASTES II. XVII.

All is vanitie and vexation of spirit.

CASS. in Ps.

The Crosse is the invincible Sanctuary of the humble: The dejection of the proud; the victory of Christ: the destruction of the Divell; the confirmation of the faithfull; the death of the unbeleever; the life of the just.

DAMASCEN.

The Crosse of Christ is the key to Paradise; the weake mans staffe; the Converts Convoy, the upright mans perfection: the soule and bodies health; the prevention of all evill, and the procurer of all Good.

EPIGRAM 6.

[Worldling, whose whimpring folly holds the losses]

Worldling, whose whimpring folly holds the losses
Of Honour, Pleasure, health and Wealth such Crosses,
Looke here, and tell me what your Armes engrosse,
When the best end of what ye hugg's a Crosse.

VII. I PETER V. VIII.

Be sober; Be vigilant, because your adversary the Divell, as a roaring Lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour.

S. BERN.

Security is no where; It is neither in heaven; nor in Paradise; much lesse in the world: In heaven, the Angels fell from the divine presence; In Paradise, Adam fell from his place of pleasure: In the world, Judas fell from the Schoole of our Saviour.

HUGO.

I eat secure; I drinke secure: I sleepe secure, even as though I had past the day of death, avoided the day of judgement, and escaped the torments of hell fire: I play and laugh, as though I were already triumphing in the kingdome of heaven.

EPIGRAM 7.

[Get up, my soule; Redeeme thy slavish eyes]

Get up, my soule; Redeeme thy slavish eyes,
From drowzy bondage: O beware; Be wise;
Thy Foe's before thee; thou must fight, or flie:
Life lies most open in a closed Eye.

VIII. LUKE VI. XXV.

Woe be to you the laugh now, for ye shall mourne and weepe.

The world's a popular disease, that raignes
Within the froward heart, and frantick braines
Of poore distemper'd mortals, oft arising
From ill digestion, through th'unequall poysing
Of ill-weigh'd Elements, whose light directs
Malignant humors to maligne Effects:
One raves, and labours with a boyling Liver:
Rends haire by handfuls, cursing Cupids Quiver:
Another, with a Bloody-fluxe of oathes,
Vowes deepe Revenge; one dotes: the other loathes:
One frisks and sings, and vyes a Flagon more
To drench dry Cares; and makes the Welkin rore;
Another droopes; the sunshine makes him sad;
Heav'n cannot please; One's moap'd; the tother's mad;
On huggs his Gold; Another lets it flie,
He knowing not, for whom; nor, tother, why:
One spends his day in Plots; his night, in Play;
Another sleeps and slugs both night and day:
One laughs at this thing; tother cries for that;
But neither one, nor tother knowes for what:
Wonder of wonders! What we ought t'evite
As our disease, we hugg as our delight:
'Tis held a Symptome of approaching danger,
When disacquainted Sense becomes a stranger,
And takes no knowledge of an old disease;
But when a noysome Griefe begins to please
The unresisting Sense, it is a feare
That death has parlyed, and compounded there:
As when the dreadfull Thund'rers awefull hand
Powres forth a Viall on th'infected land,
At first th'affrighted Mortalls, quake, and feare,
And ev'ry noyse is thought the Thunderer;
But when the frequent Soule-departing Bell
Has pav'd their eares with her familiar knell,
It is reputed but a nine dayes wonder,
They neither feare the Thund'rer, nor his Thunder;
So when the world (a worse disease) began
To smart for sin, poore new-created Man
Could seek for shelter, and his gen'rous Son
Knew, by his wages, what his hands had done;
But bold-fac'd Mortalls, in our blushlesse times,
Can sin and smile, and make a sport of Crimes,
Transgresse of Custome, and rebell in ease;
We false-joy'd fooles can triumph in disease,
And (as the carelesse pilgim, being bit
By the Tarantula, begins a Fit
Of life-concluding laughter) wast our breath
In lavish pleasure, till we laugh to death.

HUGO de anima.

What profit is there in vaine Glory, momentary mirth, the worlds power, the fleshes pleasure, full riches, noble descent, and great desires? Where is their laughter? Where is their mirth? Where their Insolence? Their Arrogance? From how much joy, to how much sadnesse! After how much mirth, how much misery? From how great glory are they fallen to how great torments! What hath fallen to them, may befall thee, because thou art a man: Thou art of earth; thou livest of earth; Thou shalt returne to earth. Death expects thee every where; be wise therefore, and expect death every where.

EPIGRAM 8.

[What ayles the foole to laugh? Does something please]

What ayles the foole to laugh? Does something please
His vaine conceit? Or is't a meere disease?
Foole, giggle on, And wast thy wanton breath;
Thy morning laughter breeds an ev'ning death.

IX. I JOHN II. XVII.

The world passeth away, and all the lusts thereof.

S. GREG. in ho.

Behold, the world is withered in it self, yet flourishes in our hearts; every where, death; every where griefe; on every side fill'd with bitternesse, and yet with the blind mind of carnall desire we love her bitternesse; It flies, and we follow it; it fals, yet we sticke to it: And because we cannot enjoy it fallen, we fall with it: and enjoy it fallen.

EPIGRAM 9.

[If Fortune hale, or envious Time but spurne]

If Fortune hale, or envious Time but spurne,
The world turnes round; and, with the world, we turne;
When Fortune sees, and Lynx-ey'd Time is blind,
I'le trust thy Joyes, O world, Till then, the Wind.

X. JOHN VIII. XLIV.

Yee are of your father the Devill, and the lusts of your father yee will doe.

Here's your right ground: Wagge gently ore this Black;
'Tis a short Cast; Y'are quickly at the Jacke:
Rubbe, rubbe an Inch or two; Two Crownes to one
On this Boules side; Blow windes; 'Tis fairly throwne;
The next Boule's worse that comes; Come boule away;
Mammon, you know the ground un-tutor'd, Play;
Your last was gone; A yeard of strength, well spar'd,
Had touch'd the Block; your hand is still too hard.
Brave pastime, Readers, to consume that day,
Which, without pastime, flyes too swift away!
See how they labour; as if day and night
Were both too short, to serve their loose delight;
See how their curved bodies wreathe, and skrue
Such antick shapes as Proteus never knew:
One raps an oath; another deales a curse;
Hee never better bould; this, never worse:
One rubbes his itchlesse Elbow, shrugges, and laughs;
The tother bends his beetle-browes, and chafes,
Sometimes they whoope; sometimes their Stigian cries
Send their Black-Santos to the blushing Skies;
Thus, mingling Humors in a mad confusion,
They make bad Premises, and worse Conclusion;
But where's the Palme that Fortunes hand allowes
To blesse the Victors honourable Browes?
Come, Reader, come; Ile light thine eye the way
To view the Prize, the while the Gamesters play;
Close by the Jack, behold Gill Fortune stands
To wave the game; See, in her partiall hands
The glorious Garland's held in open show,
To cheare the Ladds, and crowne the Conq'rers brow;
The world's the Jack; The Gamsters that contend,
Are Cupid, Mammon. That juditious Friend,
That gives the ground, is Sathan; and the Boules
Are sinfull Thoughts: The Prize, a Crowne for Fooles.
Who breathes that boules not? what bold tongue can say
Without a blush, he hath not bould to day?
It is the Trade of man; And ev'ry Sinner
Has plaid his Rubbers; Every Soule's a winner.
The vulgar Proverb's crost: Hee hardly can
Be a good Bouler and an Honest man.
Good God, turne thou my Brazil thoughts anew;
New soale my Boules, and make their Bias true:
I'le cease to game, till fairer Ground be given,
Nor wish to winne untill the Marke be Heaven.

S. BERNARD. lib. de Consid.

O you Sonnes of Adam, you covetous Generation, what have you to doe with earthly Riches, which are neither true, nor yours. Gold and silver are reall earth red, and white, which the onely error of man makes, or rather reputes pretious: In short, if they be yours, carry them with you.

S. HIEROME in Ep.

O Lust, thou infernall fire, whose Fuell is Gluttony, whose Flame is Pride; whose sparkles are wanton words; whose smoake is Infamie; whose Ashes are uncleanenesse; whose end is Hell.

EPIGRAM 10.

[Mammon, well follow'd: Cupid bravely ledde]

Mammon, well follow'd: Cupid bravely ledde;
Both Touchers: Equall Fortune makes a dead:
No Reede can measure where the Conquest lies;
Take my advise; Compound, and share the Prize.

XI. EPHESIANS II. II.

Yee walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the Aire.

ISIODOR. lib.1. De summo bono.

By how much more the nearer Sathan perceives the world to an end, by so much more fiercely Hee troubles it with persecution; that knowing himselfe is to be damned, hee may get company in his damnation.

CYPRIAN. in ep.

Broad and spatious is the road to infernall life: There are enticements and death-bringing pleasures; There the Devill flatters, that hee may deceive; Smiles, that hee may endamage; allures, that he may destroy.

EPIGRAM 11.

[Nay soft and faire, good world; Post not too fast]

Nay soft and faire, good world; Post not too fast;
Thy Journeys end requires not halfe this haste:
Unlesse that Arme thou so distainst, reprives thee,
Alas thou needs must goe: the devill drives thee

XII. ISAIAH LXVI. XI.

Yee may suck, but not be satisfied with the brest of her Consolation.

S. GREG. Hom: 3. secund. parte Ezech.

If wee give more to the flesh then wee ought, wee nourish an Enemy; If we give not to her necessity what we ought, we destroy a Citizen: The flesh is to be satisfied so farre as suffices to our good; whosoever allowes so much to her as to make her proud, knowes not how to be satisfied: To be satisfied, is a great Art; left by the saciety of the flesh wee breake forth into the Iniquity of her Folly.

HUGO. de Anima.

The heart is a small thing, but desires great matters: It is not sufficient for a Kites dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it.

EPIGRAM 12.

[What makes thee foole so fat? Foole, thee so Bare?]

What makes thee foole so fat? Foole, thee so Bare?
Yee suck the selfe same milke; the self same aire:
No meane, betwixt all Paunch; and skinne and bone?
The meane's a vertue; and the world has none.

XIII. JOHN III. XIX.

Men love darkness rather then light, because their deeds are evil.

Lord, when we leave the World and come to Thee,
How dull! how slugge are wee?
How backward! how praeposterous is the motion
Of our ungaine devotion!
Our thoughts are Milstones, and our soules are lead,
And our desires are dead:
Our vowes are fairely promised, faintly paid:
Or broken, or not made:
Our better worke (if any good) attends
Upon our private ends:
In whose performance one poore worldly scoffe
Foyles us, or beates us off:
If thy sharpe scourge finde out some secret fault,
Wee grumble, or revolt:
And thy gentle hand forbeare, wee stray,
Or idly loose the way:
Is the Roade faire? wee loyter: clogg'd with myre?
Wee sticke, or else retyre:
A Lambe appeares a Lyon; and we feare,
Each bush wee see's a Beare.
When our dull soules direct their thoughts to Thee,
The soft-pac'd Snayle is not so slow as wee:
But when at earth wee dart our wing'd desire,
We burne, we burne like fire:
Like as the am'rous needle joyes to bend
To her Magneticke Friend;
Or as the greedy Lovers eye-balls flye
At his faire Mistres eye,
So, so we cling to earth; wee fly, and puff,
Yet fly not fast enough;
If Pleasure becken with her balmey hand,
Her becke's a strong command;
If Honour call us with her courtly breath,
An hour's delay is death:
If profits golden fingerd Charmes enveigle's,
Wee clip more swift then Eagles.
Let Auster weep, or blustring Boreas rore
Till eyes or lungs be sore
Let Neptune swell untill his dropsie sides
Burst into broken Tides;
Nor threatning Rockes, nor windes. nor waves, nor Fyre
Can curbe our fierce desire;
Nor Fire nor Rocks can stop our furious mindes,
Nor waves, nor windes;
How fast and fearlesse doe our footsteps flee!
The lightfoot Roe-buck's not so swift as wee.

S. AUGUST. sup: Psal. 64.

Two severall Loves built two severall Cities; The love of God builds a Jerusalem; The love of the world builds a Babylon: Let every one enquire of himselfe what he loves, and hee shall resolve himselfe, of whence hee is a Citizen.

S. AUGUST. lib. 3. Confess.

All things are driven by their owne weight, and tend to their own Center: My weight is my love; By that I am driven, whithersoever I am driven.

EPIGRAM 13.

[Lord scourge my Asse if shee should make no hast]

Lord scourge my Asse if shee should make no hast,
And curbe my Stagge if hee should flee too fast:
If hee be over swift, or shee prove idle,
Let Love lend him a spurre: Feare, her, a Bridle.

XIV. PSALMS XIII. III.

Lighten mine eyes, O Lord, lest I sleepe the sleepe of death.

S. AUGUST. in Joh. ser. 19.

God is a all to thee; If thou be hungry, hee is bread; If thirstie, hee is water; If in darkness, hee is light; If naked hee is a Robe of Immortalitie.

ALANUS de conq. nat.

God is a light that is never darkned; An unwearied life, that cannot die; a Fountaine alwaies flowing; a garden of life; a Seminary of wisdome, a radicall beginning of all goodnesse.

EPIGRAM 14.

[My Soule, if Ignorance puffe out this light]

My Soule, if Ignorance puffe out this light
Shee'll do a favour that entends a spight:
'T seemes dark abroad; But take this light away,
Thy windowes will discover breake a day.

XV. REVELATION XII. XII.

The Devill is come unto you, having great wrath, because hee knoweth that hee hath but a short time.

PETR. RAV. in Math.

The Devill is the author of evill; the fountaine of wickednesse; the Adversary of the Truth; the corrupter of the world; mans perpetuall Enemy; Hee plants snares; digs ditches; spurres bodies; he goads soules; Hee suggests thoughts, belches Anger; exposes vertues to hatred; makes vices beloved; sowes Errours, nourishes contention; disturbes, and scatters Affections.

MACAR.

Let us suffer with those that suffer, and be crucified with those that are crucified, that wee may be glorified, with those that are glorified.

SAVANAR.

If there be no enemy, no fight; If no fight, no victory; if no victory, no crowne.

EPIGRAM 15.

[My Soule, sit thou a patient looker on]

My Soule, sit thou a patient looker on;
Judge not the Play before the Play be done:
Her Plot has many Changes: Every Day
Speakes a new Scene; The last Act crownes the Play.

THE SECOND BOOKE.

I. ISAIAH L. XI

You that walke in the light of your owne fire, and in the sparkes that yee have kindled, yee shall lie downe in sorrow.

S. AUGUST.

The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.

S. GREG. Mor. 25.

By how much the lesse, man sees himselfe, by so much the lesse hee displeases himselfe; And by how much the more hee sees the light of Grace, by so much the more hee disdaines the light of nature.

S. GREG. Mor.

The light of the understanding humilitie kindles and pride covers.

EPIGRAM 1.

[Thou blowst heav'ns fire, the whilst thou goest about]

Thou blowst heav'ns fire, the whilst thou goest about,
Rebellious foole, in vaine, to blow it out:
Thy Folly addes confusion to thy death;
Heav'ns fire confounds, when fann'd with Follies breath.

II. ECCLESIASTES IV. VIII.

There is no end of all his labour, neither is his eye satisfied with riches.

O, How our wid'ned Armes over-stretch
Their owne dimensions! How our hands can retch
Beyond their distances! How our yeelding brest
Can shrinke, to be more full, and full possest
Of this inferiour Orbe! How earth refinde
Can cling to sordid earth! How kinde to kinde!
Wee gape, we graspe, we gripe; adde store to store;
Enough requires too much; too much craves more;
Wee charge our Soules so farre beyond our stint,
That wee recoyle or burst; The busie Mint
Of our laborious thoughts is ever going,
And coyning new desires; desires, not knowing
Where next to pitch; but, like the boundless Ocean
Gaine, and gaine ground, and grow more strong by motion.
The pale-fac'd Lady of the black-eyed night
First tips her horned browes with easie light,
Whose curious traine of spangled Nymphs attire
Her next nights Glory with encreasing Fire;
Each ev'ning addes more luster, and adornes
The growing beautie of her grasping hornes;
Shee suckes and drawes her brothers golden store
Untill her glutted Orbe can sucke no more,
Ev'n so the Vulture of insatiate mindes,
Still wants, and wanting seekes; and seeking, findes
New fuell to encrease her rav'nous fire,
The grave is sooner cloyd then mans desire:
Wee crosse the Seas, and midst her waves we burne,
Transporting lifes, perchance that here returne:
Wee sacke, wee ransacke to the utmost sands
Of native kingdomes, and of forraine lands;
Wee travill Sea, and Soyle; wee pry; wee proule,
Wee progresse, and wee progge from pole to pole;
Wee spend our mid-day sweat, our mid-night oyle;
Wee tyre the night in thought; the day, in toyle;
Wee make Art servill, and the Trade gentile,
(Yet both corrupted with ingenious guile)
To compasse earth; and with her empty store,
To fill our Armes, and graspe one handfull more;
Thus seeking Rest, our labours never cease,
But as our yeares, our hot desires encrease;
Thus wee poore little worlds (with blood and sweat)
In vaine attempt to comprehend the great;
Thus, in our gaine, become wee gainfull losers,
And what's enclos'd, encloses the enclosers.
Now, reader, close thy Booke, and then advise:
Be wisely worldly; be not not wordlly wise;
Let not thy nobler thoughts be alwaies raking
The worlds base dunghill; Vermins took, by taking:
Take heede thou trust not the deceitfull Lappe
Of wanton Delilah; The world's a Trappe.

HUGO de anima.

Tell me where bee those now that so lately loved, and hugg'd the world? Nothing remaines of them but dust and wormes; Observe what those men were; what thoes men are: they were like thee; they did eate, drinke, laugh, and led merry dayes, and in a moment slipt into Hell; Here their flesh is food for wormes: There, their soules are fuell for fire, till they shall be rejoynd in an

unhappy fellowship, and cast into eternall torments; where they that were once companions in sinne shall be hereafter partners in punishment.

EPIGRAM 2.

[Gripe, Cupid, and gripe still untill that wind]

Gripe, Cupid, and gripe still untill that wind,
That's pent before, find secret vent behind:
And when th'ast done, hark here, I tell thee what,
Before I'le trust thy Armefull I'le trust that.

III. JOB XVIII. VIII.

He is cast into a net by his owne feet, and walketh upon a snare.

S. BERN. in Ser.

In this world is much trecherie, little truth: here, all things are traps: here, every thing is beset with snares; here soules are endanger'd, bodies afflicted; Here all things are vanity, and vexation of spirit.

EPIGRAM 3.

[Nay, Cupid, pitch thy Trammill where thou please]

Nay, Cupid, pitch thy Trammill where thou please,
Thou canst not faile to take such fish as these;
Thy thriving sport will nev'r be spent; no need
To feare, when ev'ry Cork's a world; Thou'lt speed.

IV. HOSEA CXIII. III.

They shalbe as the chaffe that is driven with a whirlewind out of the floore, and as the smoke out of the chimney.

Flint-brested Stoicks, you whose marble eyes
Contemne a wrinckle, and whose soules despise
To follow Natures too affected Fashion,
Or travell in the Regent walk of Passion;
Whose rigid hearts disdaine to shrinke at Feares,
Or play at fast and loose with Smiles and Teares;
Come burst your spleenes with laughter; to behold
A new-found vanity; which, dayes of old
Nev'r knew; A vanity, that has beset
The world, and made more slaves than Mahomet;
That has condemn'd us to the servile yoke
Of slavery, and made us slaves to smoke:
But stay! why taxe I thus our moderne times,
For new-blowne Follies, and for new-borne Crimes?
Are we sole guilty, and the first Age free?
No, they were smoak'd, and slav'd as well as we:
What's sweet-lipt Honours blast, but smoke? What's treasure;
But very smoke? And what more smoke than pleasure?
Alas! they'r all but shadowes, Fumes, and blasts;
That vanishes; this fades: the other waits:
The restlesse Merchant; he, that loves to steepe
His braines in wealth, and layes his soule to sleepe
In bags of Bullion, sees th'immortall Crowne,
And faine would mount, but Ingots keep him downe:
He brags to day, perchance, and begs tomorrow;
He lent but now; wants Credit, now, to borrow:
Blow wind? the Treasure's gone; the Merchant's broke;
A slave to silver's but a slave to smoke:
Behold the Glory-vying Child of Fame,
That from deep wounds sucks forth an honour'd name,
That thinks no purchase worth the stile of good,
But what is sold for sweat, and seal'd with blood,
That's for a Poynt, a blast of empty breath,
Undaunted, gazes in the face of death;
Whose deare-bought Bubble, fild with vaine renowne,
Breaks with a Phillip, or a Gen'rals frowne;
His stroke-got Honour staggers with a stroke;
A Slave to Honour is a Slave to Smoke:
And that fond soule which wasts his idle dayes
In loose delights, and sports about the Blaze
Of Cupids Candle; he that daily spies
'Twin Babies in his Mistresse Geminies,
Where to his sad devotion does impart
The sweet burnt offring of a bleeding heart;
See, how his wings are sing'd in Cyprian fire,
Whose flames consume with youth; in Age, expire:
The world's a Bubble; all the pleasures in it,
Like morning vapours vanish in a minit:
The vapours vanish, and the Bubble's broke;
A slave to Pleasure is a slave to smoke.
Now, Stoick, cease thy laughter, and repast
Thy pickled cheeks with Teares, and weep as fast.

S. HIEROM.

That rich man is great, who thinkes not himselfe great because he is rich: the proud man (who is the poore man) brags outwardly, but begs inwardly: He is blowne up, but not full.

PETR. RAV.

Vexation and anguish accompany riches and honour: The pompe of the world and the favour of the people are but smoake, and a blast suddenly vanishing: which, if they commonly please, commonly bring repentance, and for a minut of joy they bring an age of sorrow.

EPIGRAM 4.

[Cupid; thy diet's strange; It dulls; It rowzes]

Cupid; thy diet's strange; It dulls; It rowzes;
It cooles; it heats; it binds, and then it looses:
Dull-sprightly-cold-hot Foole, if ev'r it winds thee
Into loosenesse once, take heed; It binds thee.

V. PROVERBS XXIII. V.

Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches make themselves wings, they flie away as an Eagle.

PET. BLES.

This world is deceitfull; Her end is doubtfull; Her conclusion is horrible; Her Judge is terrible; And her punishment is intolerable.

S. AUGUST. lib. Confess.

The vaine glory of this world is a deceitfull sweetnesse, a fruitlesse labour, a perpetuall care, a dangerous honour; Her beginning is without providence, and her end not without repentance.

EPIGRAM 5.

[World; th'art a Traitor; Thou hast stampt thy base]

World; th'art a Traitor; Thou hast stampt thy base
And Chymick metall with great Caesars face;
And with thy bastard Bullion thou hast barterd
For wares of price; How justly drawne, and quarterd!

VI. JOB XV. XXXI.

Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity, for vanity shalbe his recompence.

HUGO lib.3 de anima.

It vaine he lifts the eye of his heart to behold his God, who is not first rightly advised to behold himselfe: First thou must see the visible things of thyself, before thou canst be prepared to know the invisible things of God, for if thou canst not apprehend the things within thee, thou canst not comprehend the things above thee: The best looking glasse wherein to see thy God, is perfectly to see thyselfe.

EPIGRAM 6.

[Be not deceiv'd, great Foole; There is no losse]

Be not deceiv'd, great Foole; There is no losse
In being small. Great bulks but swell with drosse:
Man is heav'ns Master-peece; If it appeare
More great, the valu's lesse; If lesse, more deare.

VII. DEUTERONOMY XXXX. XIX.

I have set before thee life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life, that thou and thy seed may live.

S. AUGUST. lib. 1 de doct. Christi

Temporall things more ravish in the expectation, than in fruition: but things eternall more in the fruition than expectation.

Ibid.

The life of man is the middle betweene Angels and beasts: If man takes pleasure in carnall things, he is compared to beasts; But if he delights in spirituall things, he is suited with Angels.

EPIGRAM 7.

[Art thou a Child? Thou wilt not then be fed]

Art thou a Child? Thou wilt not then be fed,
But like a Child, and with the Childrens bread:
But thou art fed with the chaffe, or corne undrest:
My soule thou favour'st too much of the Beast.

VIII. PHILIPPIANS III. XIX.

They minde earthly things, but our conversation is in heaven.

Venus. Divine Cupid.
Venus:
What meanes this peevish Brat? Whish, Lullaby;
What ailes my Babe? What ayles my Babe to cry?
Will nothing still it? Will it neither be
Pleas'd with the Nurses brest nor Mothers knee?
What ayles my Bird? What moves my froward Boy
To make such whimpring faces? Peace, my Joy:
Will nothing doe? Come, come, this pettish Brat,
Thus cry and bawle, and cannot tell for what?
Come busse and friends, my lambe; whish, lullaby;
What ayles my Babe? What ayles my Babe to cry?
Peace, peace my deare; alas, thy early yeares
Had never faults to merit halfe these teares:
Come smile upon me: Let thy mother spie
Thy Fathers Image in her Babies eye:
Husband these guiltlesse drops against the rage
Of harder fortunes, and the gripes of Age;
Thine eye's not ripe for teares: whish, lullaby;
What ayles my Babe, mine sweet-fac'd Babe to cry?
Look, look, what's here! A dainty Golden thing:
See how the dauncing Bells turn round and ring
To please my Bantling! Here's a knack will breed
A hundred kisses: Here's a knack indeed!
So, now my bird is white, and looks as faire
As Pelops shoulder, or my milk white payre:
Here's right the Fathers smile, when Mars beguil'd
Sick Venus of her heart, just thus he smil'd.

Divine Cupid:
Well may they smile alike: Thy base-bred Boy
And his base Syre had both one Cause; A Boy:
How well their subjects and their smiles agree?
Thy Cupid finds a Toy, and Mars found thee:
False Queene of Beauty, Queene of false delights,
Thy knee presents an Embleme, that invites
Man to himselfe, whose selfe-transported heart
(Ov'rwhelm'd with native sorrowes, and the smart
Of purchas'd griefes) lies whining night and day,
Not knowing why, till heavy-heeld delay
The dull-brow'd Pander of despaire, layes by
His leaden Buskins, and presents his eye
With antick Trifles, which th'indulgent earth
Makes proper Objects of man's childish mirth:
These be the coyne that passe; the sweets that please;
There's nothing good, there's nothing great but these:
These be the Pipes that base-borne minds daunce after,
And turne immod'rate teares to lavish laughter;
Whilst heav'nly Raptures passe without regard;
Their Strings are harsh, and their high straines unheard:
The ploughmans Whistle, or the triviall Flute
Find more respect than great Apollo's Lute:
Wee'l look to heav'n, and trust to higher Joyes;
Let Swine love Husks, and children whine for Toyes.

S. BERN.

That is the true and chiefe joy, which is not conceived from the creature, but received from its Creator; which (being once possest therof) none can take from thee, whereto all pleasure being compared, is torment; all joy is griefe: sweet things are bitter, all glory is basenesse, and all delectable things are despicable.

S. BERN.

Joy in a changeable subject must necessarily change as the subject changes.

EPIGRAM 8.

[Peace, childish Cupid, peace: Thy finger'd eye]

Peace, childish Cupid, peace: Thy finger'd eye
But cries for what, in time, will make thee cry:
But are peevish wranglings thus appeas'd?
Well mayst thou cry, that art so poorely pleas'd

IX. ISAIAH X. III.

What will ye do in the day of your visitation? to whom will ye flie for help, and where will ye leave your glory?

HUGO.

O the extreame loathsomnesse of fleshly lust, which not onely effeminates the mind, but enerves the body; which not onely distaines the soule, but disguises the person! It is usher'd with fury and wantonnesse. It is accompanied with filthinesse and uncleannesse, and it is followed with griefe and repentance.

EPIGRAM 9.

[What? sweet-fac'd Cupid, has thy bastard-treasure]

What? sweet-fac'd Cupid, has thy bastard-treasure,
Thy boasted Honours, and thy bold-fac'd pleasure
Perplext thee now? I told thee long ago,
To what they'd bring thee, foole, To wit, to woe.

X. NAHUM II. X.

Shee is emptie, and void, and waste.

S. CHRYS. in Ep. ad Heb.

Contemne riches, and thou shalt be rich; Contemne glory, and thou shalt be glorious; Contemne injuries, and thou shalt be a conqueror; Contmne rest, and thou shalt gaine rest; Contemne earth, and thou shalt find Heaven.

HUGO lib. de Vanit. mundi.

The world is a vanity which affords neither beauty to the amorous, nor reward to the laborious, nor encouragement to the industrious.

EPIGRAM 10.

[This House is to be let; for life or yeares]

This House is to be let; for life or yeares;
Her Rent is sorrow, and her In-come, Teares:
Cupid, 't'as long stood void: Her bills make knowne,
She must be dearely Let; or let alone.

XI. MATTHEW VII. XIV.

Narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Prepost'rous foole, thou troul'st amisse:
Thou err'st; That's not the way, 'Tis this;
Thy hopes instructed by thine Eye,
Make thee appeare more neare than I;
My floore is not so flat, so fine,
And has more obvious Rubs than thine;
'Tis true; my way is hard, and strait,
And leads me through a thorny Gate;
Whose ranckling pricks are sharp, and fell;
The common way to heav'n's by Hell:
'Tis true; Thy path is short and faire,
And free of Rubbs. Ah, foole, beware,
The safest Road's not alwayes ev'n;
The way to Hell's a seeming Heav'n;
Think'st thou, the Crowne of Glory's had
With idle ease, fond Cyprian Lad?
Think'st thou, that mirth, and vaine delights,
High feed, and shadow-shortning nights,
Soft knees, full bones, and Beds of Downe
Are proper Prologues to a Crowne?
Or canst thou hope to come, and view,
Like prosperous Caesar, and subdue?
The bond-slave Usurer will trudge
In spite of Gouts, will turne a drudge,
And serve his soule-condemning purse,
T'increase it with the widowes Curse;
And shall the Crowne of glory stand
Not worth the waving of a hand?
The fleshly wanton, to obtaine
His minit-lust, will count it gaine
To lose his freedome, his Estate
Upon so deare, so sweet a rate;
Shall pleasures thus be priz'd, and must
Heav'ns Palme be cheaper than a lust?
The true-bred Spark, to hoyse his name
Upon the waxen wings of Fame,
Will fight, undaunted, in a Flood
That's rais'd with brackish drops, and blood:
And shall the promis'd Crowne of life
Be thought a Toy, not worth a Strife?
And easie Good brings easie Gaines,
But things of price are bought with paines:
The pleasing way is not the right:
He that would conquer heav'n, must fight.

S. HIEROM. in Ep.

No labour is hard, no time is long, wherein the glory of Eternity is the mark we levell at.

S. GREG. lib.8. Mor.

The valour of a just man is to conquer the flesh, to contradict his owne will, to quench the delights of this present life, to indure and love the miseries of this world for the reward of a better, to contmne the flatteries of prosperiy, and inwardly to overcome the feares of adversity.

EPIGRAM 11.

[O Cupid, if thy smoother way were right]

O Cupid, if thy smoother way were right,
I should mistrust this Crowne were counterfeit:
The way's not easie where the Prize is great:
I hope no virtues, where I smell no sweat.

XII. GALATIANS VI. XIV.

God forbid that I should glory, save in the Crosse.

S. AUGUST.

Christs Crosse is the Chriscrosse of all our happinesse; It delivers us from blindnesse of errour, and enriches our darknesse with light; It restores the troubled soule to rest; It brings strangers to Gods Acquaintance; It makes remote forreiners neare neighbours; It cuts off discord; concludes a league of everlasting peace, and is the bounteous Author of all Good.

S. BERN. in Ser. de resur.

We find glory in the Crosse; To us that are saved it is the power of God, and the fulnesse of all vertues.

EPIGRAM 12.

[I follow'd Rest, Rest fled, and soone forsooke me]

I follow'd Rest, Rest fled, and soone forsooke me;
I ran from Griefe, Griefe ran, and over-tooke me.
What shall I doe? Lest I be too much tost
On worldly Crosses, LORD, let me be crost.

XIII. PROVERBS XXVI. XI.

As a Dog returneth to his vomit, so a foole returneth to his follie.

O I am wounded! And my wounds do smart
Beyond my patience, or great Chirons Art;
I yeeld, I yeeld; The day, the Palme is thine;
Thy Bow's more true; thy shafts more fierce than mine;
Hold, hold, O hold thy conqu'ring hand. What need
To send more darts; The first has done the deed:
Oft have we struggled, when our equall Armes
Shot equall shafts; inflicted equall harmes;
But this exceeds, and with her flaming head,
Twyfork'd with death, has struck my Conscience dead;
But must I die? Ah me! If that were all,
Then, then I'd stroke my bleeding wounds and call
This dart a Cordiall; and with joy, endure
These harsh Ingredients, where my Griefe's my Cure.
But something whispers in my dying eare,
There is an After-day; which day I feare:
The slender debt to Nature's quickly payd,
Discharg'd, perchance, with greater ease than made;
But if that pale-fac'd Sergeant make Arrest,
Ten thousand Actions would (whereof the least
Is more than all this lower world can bayle)
Be entred, and condemne me to the Jayle
Of Stygian darknesse, bound in red-hot Chaines,
And grip'd with Tortures worse than Tytian paines:
Farewell my vaine, farewell my loose delights;
Farewell my rambling dayes; my rev'ling nights;
'Twas you betraid me first, and when ye found
My soule at vantage, gave my soule the wound:
Farewell my Bullion Gods, whose sov'raigne lookes
So often catch'd me with their golden hookes,
Go, seek another slave; ye must all go;
I cannot serve my God, and Bullion too:
Farewell false Honour; you, whose ayry wings
Did mount my soule above the Thrones of kings;
Then flattr'd me; tooke pet; and, in disdaine,
Nipt my greene Buds; then kickt me down againe:
Farewell my Bow: Farewell my Cyprian Quiver;
Farwell, deare world; farewell, deare world, for ever.
O, but this most delicious world, how sweet
Her pleasures relish! Ah! How jump they meet
The grasping soule! And, with their sprightly fire,
Revive, and raise, and rowze the rapt desire!
For ever? O, to part so long? What never
Meet more? Another yeare; and then, for ever:
Too quick resolves do resolution wrong;
What part so soone, to be divorc'd so long?
Things to be done are long to be debated;
Heav'n is not day'd: Repentance is not dated.

S. AUGUST. lib. de util. agen. paen.

Go up my soule into the Tribunall of thy Conscience; There set thy guilty selfe before thy selfe: Hide not thy selfe behind thy selfe, least God bring thee forth before thy selfe.

S. AUGUST. in Soliloq.

In vaine is that washing, where the next sin defiles: He hath ill repented whose sinnes are repeated: That stomack is the worse for vomiting, that licks up his vomit.

ANSELM.

God hath promised pardon to him that repenteth, but he hath not promised repentance to him that sinneth.

EPIGRAM 13.

[Braine-wounded Cupid, had this hasty dart]

Braine-wounded Cupid, had this hasty dart
As it hath prickt thy Fancy, pierc'd thy heart,
'T had been thy Friend: O how has it deceiv'd thee?
For had this dart but kill'd, this dart had sav'd thee.

XIV. PROVERBS XXIV. XVI.

A just man falleth seven times and riseth up againe; but the wicked shall fall into mischiefe.

S. AMBROS. in Serm. ad vincula.

Peter stood more firmely after he had lamented his fall, than before he fell: Insomuch that he found more grace than he lost grace.

S. CHRYS. in Ep. ad Heliod. monach.

It is no such heinous matter to fall, afflicted; as, being downe, to lie dejected: It is no danger for a souldier to receive a wound in battell; but after the wound received, through despaire of recovery, to refuse a Remedy; For we often see wounded Champions weare the Palme at last, and after flight, crown'd with victory.

EPIGRAM 14

[Triumph not, Cupid, His mischance does show]

Triumph not, Cupid, His mischance does show
Thy Trade; does once, what thou dost alwayes do:
Brag not too soone: Has thy prevailing hand
Foyl'd him? Ah, Foole, Th'ast taught him how to stand.

XV. JEREMIAH XXXII. XL.

I will put my feare in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.

So; now the soule's sublim'd: Her sowre desires
Are re-calcin'd in heav'ns well tempred Fires:
The heart restor'd and purg'd from drossie Nature,
Now finds the freedome of a new-borne Creature:
It lives another life, it breathes new Breath;
It neither feeless nor feares the sting of death:
Like as the idle vagrant (having none)
That boldly dopts each house he views, his owne:
Makes ev'ry purse his Checquer; and, at pleasure,
Walks forth, and taxes all the world, like Caesar,
At length, by virtue of a just Command,
His sides are lent to a severer hand;
Whereon, his Passe, not fully understood,
Is texted in a Manuscript of Blood;
Thus past from towne to towne, untill he come
A sore Repentant to his native home:
Ev'n so the rambling heart, that idly roves
From Crime to Sin; and, uncontrol'd, removes
From lust to lust, when wanton flesh invites
From old-worne pleasures to new choice delights,
At length corrected by the filiall Rod
Of his offended (but his gracious GOD)
And lasht from Sinnes to sighs; and, by degrees,
From sighs to vowes; From vowes, to bended knees,
From bended knees, to a true pensive brest
From thence, to torments, not by tongues exprest,
Returnes, and (from his sinfull selfe exil'd)
Finds a glad Father; He, a welcome Child:
O, then, it lives; O then, it lives involv'd
In secret Raptures; pants to be dissolv'd:
The royall Of-spring of a second Birth
Sets ope to heav'n, and shuts the doores to earth
If love-sick Jove-commanded Clouds should hap
To raine such show'rs as quickned Danaes lap:
Or dogs (far kinder than their purple Master)
Should lick his sores, he laughs nor weeps the faster.
If Earth (Heav'ns Rivall) dart her idle Ray;
To heav'n, 'tis Wax, and to the world, 'tis Clay:
If earth present delights, it scornes to draw,
But, like the Jet unrub'd, disdaines that straw:
No hope deceives it, and no doubt divides it;
No Griefe disturbes it; and no Errour guides it;
No Guilt condemnes it; and no Folly shames it;
No sloth besotts it; and no lust inthrals it;
No Scorne afflicts it; and no Passion gawles it:
It is a Carknet of immortall life;
An Arke of peace; The Lifts of sacred Strife;
A purer Peece of endlesse Transitory;
A Shrine of Grace; A little Throne of Glory;
A heav'n-borne Of-spring of a new-borne birth;
An earthly Heav'n; An ounce of heav'nly Earth.

S. AUGUST. de spir. & anima.

O happy heart, where piety affects; where, humility subject; where, repentance corrects; where, obedience directs; where, perseverance perfects; where, power protects; where, devotion projects; where, charity connects.

S. GREG.

Which way soever the heart turnes it self (if carefully) it shall commonly observe, that in those very things we lose God, in those very things we shall find God; It shall find the heat of his power in consideration of those things, in the love of which things he was most cold; and by what things it fell, perverted, by those things it is raised, converted.

EPIGRAM 15.

[My heart, but wherefore do I call thee so?]

My heart, but wherefore do I call thee so?
I have renounc'd my Interest long ago;
When thou wert false, and fleshly, I was thine;
Mine wert thou never, till thou wert not mine.

THE THIRD BOOKE.

The Entertainment.

I. ISIAH XXIX. VI.

My soule hath desired thee in the night.

Good God! what horrid darknesse do's surround
My groping soule! How are my Senses bound
In utter shades; and, muffled from the light,
Lusk in the bosome of eternall night!
The bold-fac'd Lamp of heav'n can set and rise;
And, with his morning glory, fill the eyes
Of gazing Mortals; his victorious Ray
Can chase the shadowes, and restore the day:
Nights bashfull Empresse, though she often wayne;
As oft repents her darknesse; primes againe;
And with her circling Hornes does re-embrace
Her brothers wealth, and orbs her silver face.
But, ah, my Sun, deep swallow'd in his Fall,
Is set, and cannot shine, not rise at all.
My bankerupt Waine can beg nor borrow light:
Alas, my darknesse is perpetuall night.
Fals have their Risings; Wanings have their Primes,
And desp'rate sorrowes wait their better times,
Ebbs have their Floods, and Autumns have their Springs;
All States have Changes hurried with the swings
Of Chance, and Times, still tiding to and fro:
Terrestriall Bodies and Celestiall too:
How often have I vainly grop'd about,
With lengthned Armes, to find a passage out,
That I might catch those Beames mine eye desires,
And bathe my soule in those Celestiall fires:
Like as the Hagard, cloyster'd in her Mue,
To scowre her downy Robes, and to renew
Her broken Hags, preparing t'overlooke
The tim'rous Malard at the sliding Brooke.
Jets oft from Perch to Perch; from Stocks to ground;
From ground to Window, thus surveying round
Her dove-befeatherd Prison, till, at length,
(Calling her noble Birth to mind, and strength
Whereto her wing was borne) her ragged Beake
Nips off her dangling Jesses, strives to breake
Her gingling Fetters, and begins to bate
At ev'ry glimpse, and darts at ev'ry grate:
Ev'n so my wearie soule, that long has bin
An Inmate in this Tenement of Sin,
Lockt up by Cloud-brow'd Error, which invites
My cloystred Thoughts to feed on black delights,
Now scornes her shadowes, and begins to dart
Her wing'd desires at Thee, that onely art
The Sun she seeks, whose rising beames can fright
These duskie Clouds that make so dark a night:
Shine forth, great Glory, shine; that I may see
Both how to loath my selfe, and honour Thee:
But if my weaknesse force Thee to deny
Thy Flames, yet lend the Twilight of thine Eye:
If I must want those Beames I wish, yet grant,
That I, at least, may wish those Beames I want.

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. cap. 33.

There was a great and darke cloud of vanity before mine eyes, so that I could not see the Sun of Justice, and the light of Truth: I being the Son of darknesse, was involved in darknesse: I loved my darknesse, because I knew not thy Light: I was blind, and loved my blindnesse, and did walke from darkenesse to darkenesse: But Lord, thou art my God, who hast led me from darknesse, and the shadow of death; hast called me into this glorious light, and behold, I see.

EPIGRAM 1.

[My soule, cheare up: What if the night be long?]

My soule, cheare up: What if the night be long?
Heav'n finds an eare, when sinners find a tongue:
Thy teares are Morning show'rs: Heav'n bids me say,
When Peters Cock begins to crow, 'tis Day.

II. PSALMS LXIX. III.

O Lord, thou knowest my foolishnesse, and my sinnes are not hid from thee.

Seest thou this fulsome Ideot? In what measure
He seemes transported with the antick pleasure
Of childish Baubles? Canst thou but admire
The empty fulnesse of his vaine desire?
Canst thou conceive such poore delights as these
Can fill th'insatiate soule of Man, or please
The fond Aspect of his deluded eye?
Reader, such very fooles are thou and I:
False puffs of Honour; the deceitfull streames
Of wealth; the idle, vaine, and empty dreames
Of pleasure, are our Traffick, and ensnare
Our soules; the threefold subject of our Care:
We toyle for Trash, we barter solid Joyes
For ayry Trifles; sell our Heav'n for Toyes:
We snatch at Barly graines, whilst Pearles stand by
Despis'd; Such very Fooles are Thou and I:
Aym'st thou at Honour? Does not th'Ideot shake it
In his left hand? Fond man, step forth and take it:
Or wouldst thou Wealth? See how the foole presents thee
With a full Basket; if such Wealth contents thee:
Wouldst thou take pleasure? If the Foole unstride
His prauncing Stallion, thou mayst up, and ride:
Fond man: Such is the Pleasure, Wealth, and Honour
That earth affords such Fooles as dote upon her;
Such is the Game whereat earths Ideots flie;
Such Ideots, ah, such Fooles are thou and I:
Had rebell-mans Foole-hardinesse extended
No further than himselfe, and there, had ended,
It had been Just; but, thus, enrag'd to flie
Upon th'eternall eyes of Majesty,
And drag the Son of Glory, from the brest
Of his indulgent Father: to arrest
His great and sacred Person; in disgrace,
To spit and spaule upon his Sun-bright face;
To taunt him with base termes; and, being bound,
To scourge his soft, his trembling sides; to wound
His head with Thornes; his heart, with humane feares;
His hands, with nayles; and his pale Flanck with speares;
And, then, to paddle in the purer steame
Of his spilt Blood, is more than most extreame:
Great Builder of mankind, canst thou propound
All this to thy bright eyes, and not confound
Thy handy-work? O, canst Thou choose but see,
That mad'st the Eye? Can ought be hid from Thee?
Thou seest our persons, LORD, and not our Guilt;
Thou seest not what thou maist, but what thou wilt:
The Hand, that form'd us, is enforc'd to be
A Screene set up betwixt thy Work and Thee:
Looke, looke upon the Hand, and thou shalt spy
An open wound, a Throughfare for thine Eye;
Or if that wound be clos'd, that passage be
Deny'd betweene Thy gracious eyes, and me,
Yet view the Scarre; That Scarre will countermand
Thy Wrath: O read my Fortune in thy Hand.

S. CHRYS. Hom. 4. Ioan.

Fooles seeme to abound in wealth, when they want all things; they seeme to enjoy happinesse, when indeed they are onely most miserable; neither do they understand that they are deluded by their fancy, till they be delivered from their folly.

S. GREG. in mo.

By so much the more are we inwardly foolish by how much we strive to seeme outwardly wise.

EPIGRAM 2.

[Rebellious foole, what has thy Folly done?]

Rebellious foole, what has thy Folly done?
Controld thy GOD, and crucified His Son:
How sweetly has the LORD of life deceiv'd thee?
Thou fledst His Blood, and that shed Blood has sav'd thee.

III. PSALMS VI. II.

Have mercy, Lord, upon me, for I am weak; O Lord heale me, for my bones are vexed.

Soule. Jesus.
Soule:
Ah, Son of David, help:

Jesus:
What sinfull crie
Implores the Son of David?

Soule:
It is I:

Jesus:
Who art thou?

Soule:
Oh, a deeply wounded brest
That's heavy laden, and would faine have rest.

Jesus:
I have no scraps, and dogs must not be fed
Like household Children, with the childrens bread:

Soule:
True Lord; yet tolerate a hungry whelp
To lick their crums: O, Son of David, help.

Jesus:
Poore Soule, what ail'st thou?

Soule:
O I burne, I fry;
I cannot rest; I know not where to fly
To find some ease; I turne my blubber'd face
From man to man; I roule from place to place,
T'avoid my tortures, to obtaine reliefe,
But still am dogg'd and haunted with my griefe:
My midnight torments call the sluggish light,
And when the morning's come, they woo the night.

Jesus:
Surcease thy teares, and speake thy free desires;

Soule:
Quench, quench my flames, and swage these scorching fires:

Jesus:
Canst thou believe my hand can cure thy griefe;

Soule:
Lord, I believe; Lord, help my unbelefe:

Jesus:
Hold forth thy Arme, and let my fingers try
Thy Pulse; where (chiefly) does the torment lie?

Soule:
From head to foot; it raignes in ev'ry part
But playes the selfe-law'd Tyrant in my heart.

Jesus:
Canst thou digest? canst relish wholsome food?
How stands thy tast?

Soule:
To nothing that is good:
All sinfull trash, and earths unsav'ry stuffe
I can digest, and relish well enough:

Jesus:
Is not thy bloud as cold as hot, by turnes?

Soule:
Cold to what's good; to what is bad, it burnes:

Jesus:
How old's thy griefe?

Soule:
I tooke it at the Fall
With eating Fruit.

Jesus:
'Tis Epidemicall;
Thy blood's infected, and th'Infection sprung
From a bad Liver: 'Tis a Fever strong,
And full of death, unlesse, with present speed,
A veine be op'ned; Thou must die, or bleed.

Soule:
O I am faint, and spent. That Launce that shall
Let forth my bloud, lets forth my life withall;
My soule wants Cordialls, and has greater need
Of blood, than (being spent so farre) to bleed;
I faint already: If I bleed, I die;

Jesus:
'Tis either thou must bleed, sicke soule, or I:
My blood's a cordiall: He that suckes my veines,
Shall cleanse his owne, and conquer greater paines
Than these: Cheere up: this precioius Blood of mine
Shall cure thy Griefe; my heart shall bleed for thine:
Believe, and view me with a faithfull eye;
Thy soule shall neither languish, bleed, nor die

S. AUGUST. lib. 10. Confess.

Lord, Be mercifull unto me: Ah me: Behold, I hide not my wounds: Thou art a Physitian, and I am sicke; Thou art mercifull, and I am miserable.

S. GREG. in Pastoral.

O Wisedome, with how sweet an art does thy wine and oyle restore health to my healthlesse soule! How powerfully mercifull, how mercifully powerfull art thou! Powerfull, for me, Mercifull, to me!

EPIGRAM 3.

[Canst thou be sick, and such a Doctor by?]

Canst thou be sick, and such a Doctor by?
Thou canst not live, unlesse thy Doctor die:
Strange kind of griefe, that finds no med'cine good
To swage her paines, but the Physitians Blood!

IV. PSALMS XXV. XVIII.

Looke upon my affliction and my paine, and forgive all my sinnes.

Both worke, and stroakes? Both lash, and labour too?
What more could Edom, or proud Ashur doe?
Lord, has thy scourge no mercy, and my woes
No end? My paines no ease? No intermission?
Is this the state? Is this the sad condition
Of those that trust thee? Will thy goodnesse please
T'allow no other favours? None but these?
Will not the Rethrick of my torments move?
Are these the symptoms? these the signs of love?
Is't not enough, enough that I fulfill
The toylsome task of thy laborious Mill?
May not this labour expiate, and purge
My sinne, without th'addition of thy scourge?
Looke on my cloudy brow, how fast it raines
Sad showers of sweat, thus the fruits of fruitlesse paines:
Behold these ridges; see what purple furrowes
Thy plow has made; O think upon those sorrowes,
That once were thine; wilt, wilt thou not be woo'd
To mercy, by the charmes of sweat and blood?
Canst thou forget that drowsie Mount, wherein
Thy dull Disciples slept? Was not my sinne
There, punish'd in thy soule? Did not this brow
Then sweat in thine? Were not those drops enow?
Remember Golgotha, where that spring-tide
Oreflow'd thy sov'raigne Sacramentall side;
There was no sinne; there was no guilt in Thee,
That call'd those paines; Thou sweatst; thou bledst for me:
Was there not blood enough, when one small drop
Had pow'r to ransome thousand worlds, and stop
The mouth of Justice? Lord, I bled before,
In thy deepe wounds: Can Justice challenge more?
Or doest thou vainly labour to hedge in
Thy losses from my sides? My blood is thin;
And thy free bounty scornes such easie thrift;
No, no, thy blood came not as lone, but gift:
But must I ever grinde? And must I earne
Nothing but stripes? O, wilt thou disalterne
The rest thou gav'st? Hast thou perus'd the curse
Thou laidst on Adams fall, and made it worse?
Canst thou repent of mercy? Heav'n thought good
Lost man should feed in sweat; not work in blood:
Why dost thou wound th'already wounded brest?
Ah me; my life is but a paine at best?
I am but dying dust: my dayes, a span;
What pleasure tak'st thou in the blood of man?
Spare, spare thy scourge, and be not so austere;
Send fewer stroakes, or lend more strength to beare.

S. BERN. Hom. 81 in Cant.

Miserable man! Who shall deliver me from the reproach of this shamefull bondage? I am a miserable man; but a free man: free, because a man; Miserable, because a servant: In regard of my bondage, miserable; In regard of my will, inexcusable: For my will, that was free, beslaved it selfe to sinne, by assenting to sinne; for he that commits sin, is the servant to sinne.

EPIGRAM 4.

[Taxe not thy God: Thine owne defaults did urge]

Taxe not thy God: Thine owne defaults did urge
This twofold punishment; the Mill, the Scourge:
Thy sin's the Author of thy self-tormenting:
Thou grind'st for sinning; scourg'd for not repenting.

V. JOB X. IX.

Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay, and wilt thou bring me to dust againe?

Thus from the bosome of the new-made earth
Poore man was delv'd, and had his unborne birth:
The same the stuff; the selfe-same hand does trim
The Plant that fades; the Beast that dies; and Him:
One was their Syre; one was their common mother:
Plants are his sisters; and the Beast; his brother,
The elder too, Beasts draw the selfe-same breath,
Waxe old alike, and die the selfe same-death:
Plants grow as he, with fairer robes arraid;
Alike they flourish, and alike they fade:
The beast, in sense, exceeds him; and, in growth,
The three-ag'd Oake doth thrice exceed them both:
Why look'st thou then so big, thou little span
Of earth? What art thou more, in being man?
I; but my great Creator did inspire
My chosen earth with that diviner fire
Of Reason; gave me Judgement, and a Will;
That, to know good; this, to chuse good from ill:
He puts the raines of pow'r in my free hand,
And juridiction over sea and land:
He gave me art, to lengthen out my span
Of life, and made me all, in being man:
I; but thy Passion has committed treason
Against the sacred person of thy Reason:
Thy Judgement is corrupt; peverse thy Will;
That knowes no good; and this makes choice of ill:
The greater height sends downe the deeper fall,
And good, declin'd, turnes bad; turnes worst of all.
Say then, proud inch of living earth, what can
Thy greatnesse claime the more in being man?
O, but my soule transcends the pitch of nature,
Borne up by th'image of her high Creator;
Out-braves the life of reason, and beats downe
Her waxen wings, kicks off her brazen Crowne;
My earth's a living Temple t'entertaine
The King of Glory, and his glorious traine:
How can I mend my Title then? where can
Ambition find a higher stile than man?
Ah, but that Image is defac'd and soil'd;
Her Temple raz'd, her altars all defil'd;
Her vessels are polluted, and distain'd
With loathed lust; her ornaments prophan'd;
Her oyle-forsaken lamps, and hallow'd Tapours
Put out; her incense breaths unsav'ry vapours:
Why swel'st thou then so big, thou little span
Of earth? What art thou more in being man?
Eternall Potter, whose blest hands did lay
My course foundation from a sod of clay,
Thou know'st my slender vessell's apt to leake:
Thou know'st my brittle Temper's prone to breake;
Are my Bones Brazzill, or my Flesh of Oake?
O, mend what thou hast made, what have I broke:
Looke, looke with gentle eyes, and in thy day
Of vengeance, Lord, remember I am clay.

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. 32.

Shall I ask, who made me? It was thou that madest me, without who nothing was made: Thou art my Maker, and I thy worke: I thank thee my Lord God, by whom I live, and by whom all things subsist, because thou madest me: I thank thee O my Potter, because thy hands have made me, because thy hands have formed me.

EPIGRAM 5.

[Why swell'st thou, Man, puft up with Fame, and Purse?]

Why swell'st thou, Man, puft up with Fame, and Purse?
Th'art better earth, but borne to dig the worse:
Thou cam'st from earth, to earth thou must returne;
And art but earth, cast from the wombe, to th'urne.

VI. JOB VII. XX.

Lord I have sinned: What shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men; why hast thou set me as a marke against thee?

Lord I have done: and Lord, I have misdone;
'Tis folly to contest, to strive with one,
That is too strong; 'tis folly to assaile
Or prove an Arme, that will, that must prevaile?
I've done, I've done; these trembling hands have throwne
Their daring weapons downe: The day's thine owne;
Forbeare to strike, where thou hast won the field;
The palme, the palme is thine: I yeeld, I yeeld.
These treach'rous hands, that were so vainly bold
To try a thrivelesse combat, and to hold
Selfe-wounding weapons up, are now extended
For mercy from thy hand; that knee that bended
Upon her guardlesse guard, does now repent
Upon this naked floore; See, both are bent,
And sue for pitie; O, my ragged wound
Is deep and desp'rate; it is drench'd and drown'd
In blood, and briny teares: It does begin
To stink without, and putrifie within:
Let that victorious hand, that now appeares
Just in my blood, prove gracious to my teares:
Thou great Preserver of presumptuous man,
What shall I do? What satisfaction can
Poore dust and ashes make? O, if that blood
That yet remaines unshed, were halfe as good
As the blood of Oxen; if my death might be
An offring to attone my God and me,
I would disdaine injurious life, and stand
A suiter, to be wounded from thy hand:
But may thy wrongs be measur'd by the span
Of life? or balanc'd with the blood of man?
No, no, eternall sin expects, for guardon,
Eternall penance, or eternall pardon:
Lay downe thy weapons; turne thy wrath away;
And pardon him that hath no price to pay;
Enlarge that soule, which base presumption binds;
Thy justice cannot loose what mercy finds:
O thou that wilt not bruise the broken reed,
Rub not my sores, nor prick the wounds that bleed:
Lord, if the peevish Infant fights, and flies,
With unpar'd weapons, at his mothers eyes,
Her frownes (halfe mixt with smiles) may chance to show
An angry love-trick on his arme, or so;
Where, if the babe but make a lip and cry,
Her heart begins to melt; and, by and by,
She coakes his deawy cheeks; her babe she blisses
And choaks her language with a thousand kisses:
I am that child; loe, here I prostrate lie,
Pleading for mercy: I repent, and cry
For gracious pardon: let thy gentle eares
Heare that in words, what mothers judge in teares:
See not my frailties, Lord, but through my feare,
And looke on ev'ry trespasse through a teare:
Then calme thy anger, and appeare more mild:
Remember, th'art a Father; I, a child.

S. BERN. Ser. 21 in Cant.

Miserable man! Who shall deliver me from the reproach of this shamefull bondage? I am miserable man, but a free man: Free, because like to God, miserable, because against God: O keeper of mankind, why hast thou set me as a marke against thee? Thou hast set me, because thou hast not hindred me: It is just that thy enemy should be my enemy, and that he who repugnes thee, should repugne me: I who am against thee, am against my self.

EPIGRAM 6.

[But form'd, and fight? But borne, and then rebell?]

But form'd, and fight? But borne, and then rebell?
How small a blast will make a bubble swell?
But dare the floore affront the hand that laid it?
So apt is dust to fly in's face that made it.

VII. JOB XIII. XXIV.

Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thy enemie?

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. Cap.1.

Why dost thou hade thy face? Happily thou wilt say, none can see thy face and live: Ah Lord, let me die, that I may see thee; let me see thee, that I may die: I would not live, but die; That I may see Christ. I desire death; that I may live with Christ, I despise life.

ANSELM. Med. Cap. 5.

O excellent hiding, which is become my perfection! My God, thou hidest thy treasure, to kindle my desire; Thou hidest thy pearle, to inflame the seeker; thou delay'st to give, that thou maist teach me to importune: seem'st not to heare, to make me persevere.

EPIGRAM 7.

[If heav'ns all-quickning Eyes vouchsafe to shine]

If heav'ns all-quickning Eyes vouchsafe to shine
Upon our soules, we slight; If not, we whine;
Our Eqinoctiall hearts can never lie
Secure, beneath the Tropicks of that eye.

VIII. JEREMIAH IX. I.

O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountaine of teares, that I might weepe day and night.

O that mine eyes were springs, and could transforme
Their drops to seas! My sighs, into a storme
Of Zeale, and sacred Violence, wherein
This lab'ring vessell, laden with her sin,
Might suffer sodaine shipwracke, and be split
Upon that Rock, where my drench'd soule may sit
Orewhelm'd with plenteous passion; O, and there
Drop, drop into an everlasting teare!
Ah me! that ev'ry sliding veine that wanders
Through this vast Isle, did worke her wild Meanders
In Brackish teares, instead of blood, and swell
This flesh with holy Dropsies, from whose Well,
Made warme with sighs, may fume my wasting breath,
Whilst I dissolve in steames, and reeke to death!
These narrow sluces of my dribling eyes
Are much too streight for those quick springs that rise,
And hourely fill my Temples to the top;
I cannot shed for ev'ry sin a drop;
Great builder of mankind, why hast thou sent
Such swelling floods, and made so small a vent?
O that this flesh had been compos'd of snow,
Instead of earth; and bones of Ice, and so,
Feeling the Fervor of my sin; and lothing
The fire I feele, I might be thaw'd to nothing!
O thou, that didst, with hopefull joy, entombe
Me thrice three Moones in thy laborious wombe,
And then, with joyfull paine, brought forth a Son,
What worth thy labour, has thy labour done?
What was there? Ah! what was there in my birth
That could deserve the easiest smile of mirth?
A man was borne: Alas, and what's a man?
A scuttle full of dust, a measur'd span
Of flitting Time; a furnish'd Pack, whose wares
Are sullen griefs, and soule-tormenting Cares:
A vale of teares; a vessell tunn'd with breath,
By sicknesse broacht, to be drawne out by death:
A haplesse, helplesse thing; that, borne, does cry
To feed; that feeds to live; that lives to die.
Great God and Man, whose eyes spent drops so often
For me, that cannot weepe enough; O soften
These marble braines, and strike this flinty rock;
Or if the musick of thy Peters Cock
Will more prevaile, fill, fill my hearkning eares
With that sweet sound, that I may melt in teares:
I cannot weepe, untill thou broach mine eye;
Or give me vent, or els I burst, and die.

S. AMBROS. in Psal. 118.

He that commits sinnes to be wept for, cannot weepe for sinnes committed: And being himselfe most lamentable, hath no teares to lament his offences.

NAZIANZ. Orat. 3.

Teares are the deluge of sinne, and the worlds sacrifice.

S. HIEROM. in Esaiam.

Prayer appeases God, but a teare compels him: That moves him but this constraines him.

EPIGRAM 8.

[Earth is an Island ported round with Feares]

Earth is an Island ported round with Feares;
The way to Heav'n is through the Sea of teares:
It is a stormy passage, where is found
The wracke of many a ship, but no man drown'd.

IX. PSALMS XVIII. V.

The sorrowes of hell compassed me about, and the snares of death prevented me.

Is not this Type well cut? In ev'ry part
Full of rich cunning? fil'd with Zeuxian Art?
Are not the Hunters, and their Stygean Hounds
Limm'd full to th'life? Didst ever heare the sounds,
The musicke, and the lip-divided breaths
Of the strong-winded Horne, Recheats, and deaths
Done more exact? Th'infernall Nimrods hollow?
The lawlesse Purliews? and the Game they follow?
The hidden Engines? and the snares that lie
So undiscover'd, so obscure to th'eye?
The new-drawne net? and her entangled Pray?
And him that closes it? Beholder, say,
Is't not well-done? seemes not an em'lous strife
Betwixt the rare cut picture, and the life?
These Purlieu-men are Devils; And the Hounds,
(Those quick-nos'd Canibals that scoure the grounds)
Temptations; and the Game these Fiends pursue,
Are humane soules, which still they have in view;
Whose Fury if they chance to scape, by flying,
The skilfull Hunter plants his net, close lying
On th'unsuspected earth, baited with treasure,
Ambitions honour, and selfe-wasting pleasure;
Where if the soule but stoope, death stands prepar'd
To draw the net, and drawne, the soule's ensnar'd.
Poore soule! how art thou hurried to and fro?
Where canst thou safely stay? where safely go?
If stay; these hot-mouth'd Hounds are apt to teare thee,
If goe; the snares enclose, the nets ensnare thee:
What good in this bad world has pow'r t'invite thee
A willing Guest? wherein can earth delight thee?
Her pleasures are but Itch; Her wealth, but Cares;
A world of dangers, and a world of snares:
The close Pursuers busie hands do plant
Snares in thy substance; Snares attend thy want;
Snares in thy credit; Snares in thy disgrace;
Snares in thy high estate; Snares in thy base;
Snares tuck thy bed; and Snares arround thy boord;
Snares watch thy thoughts; and Snares attache thy word;
Snares in thy quiet; Snares in thy Commotions;
Snares in thy diet; Snares in thy devotion;
Snares lurk in thy resolves; Snares, in thy doubt;
Snares lie within thy heart, and Snares, without;
Snares are above thy head, and Snares, beneath;
Snares in thy sicknesse; Snares are in thy death:
O, if these Purlieus be so full of danger,
Great God of Harts, the worlds sole sov'raigne Ranger,
Preserve thy Deere, and let my soule be blest
In thy safe Forrest, where I seeke for rest:
Then let the Hell-hounds roare; I feare no ill;
Rouze me they may, but have no pow'r to kill.

S. AMBROS. Lib. 4 in Cap. 4 Lucae.

The reward of honours, the height of power, the delicacie of diet, and the beauty of a harlot are the snares of the Devill.

S. AMBROS. de bono mortis.

Whilst thou seekest pleasures, thou runnest into snares, for the eye of the harlot is the snare of the Adiulterer.

SAVANAR.

In eating, he sets before us Gluttony; In generation, luxury; In labour, sluggishnesse; In conversing, envy; in governing, covetousnesse; In correcting, anger; In honour, pride; In the heart, he sets evill thoughts; In the mouth, evill words; in actions evill workes; when awake, he moves us to evill actions; when asleepe, to filthy dreames.

EPIGRAM 9.

[Be sad, my Heart, Deep dangers wait thy mirth]

Be sad, my Heart, Deep dangers wait thy mirth;
Thy soule's way-laid by sea; by Hell; by earth;
Hell has her hounds; Earth, snares; the Sea, a shelfe;
But most of all, my heart, beware thy selfe.

X. PSALMS CXLIII. II.

Enter not into judgement with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living bee justified.

Jesus. Justice. Sinner.
Jesus:
Bring forth the prisner, Justice.

Justice:
Thy comands
Are done, just Judge; See, here the prisner stands

Jesus:
What has the prisner done? Say; what's the cause
Of his committment?

Justice:
He has broken the lawes
Of his too gracious God; conspir'd the death
Of that great Majesty that gave him breath.
And heapes transgression, Lord, upon transgression:

Jesus:
How know'st thou this?

Justice:
Ev'n by his own confession:
His sinnes are crying; and they cry'd aloud;
They cry'd to heav'n; they cry'd to heav'n for blood:

Jesus:
What sayst thou sinner? Hast thou ought to plead,
That sentence should not passe? Hold up thy head,
And shew thy brazen, thy rebellious face.

Sinner:
Ah me! I dare not: I'm too vile, and base,
To tread upon thy earth, much more, to lift
Mine eyes to heav'n; I need no other shrift
Than mine owne conscience; Lord, I must confesse,
I am no more than dust, and no whit less
Than my Inditement stiles me; Ah, if thou
Search too severe, with too severe a Brow,
What Flesh can stand? I have transgrest thy lawes;
My merits plead thy vengeance; not my cause.

Justice:
Lord shall I strike the blow?

Jesus:
Hold, Justice, stay,
Sinner, speake on; what hast thou more to, say?

Sinner:
Vile as I am, and of my selfe abhor'd,
I am thy handy-worke, thy creature, Lord,
Stampt with thy glorious Image, and first,
Most like to thee, though now a poore accurst
Convicted Caitiffe, and degen'ous creature,
Here trembling at thy Bar.

Justice:
Thy fault's the greater;
Lord shall I strike the blow?

Jesus:
Hold, Justice, stay,
Speake, sinner; hast thou nothing more to say?

Sinner:
Nothing but Mercy, Mercy; Lord, my state
Is miserably poore, and desperate;
I quite renounce my selfe, the world, and flee
From Lord to Jesus; from thy selfe, to Thee,

Justice:
Cease thy vaine hopes; my angry God has vow'd:
Abused mercy must have blood for blood:
Shall I yet strike the blow?

Jesus:
Stay, Justice, hold;
My bowels yearne, my fainting blood growes cold,
To view the trembling wretch; Me thinks, I spye
My fathers Image in the prisners eye:

Justice:
I cannot hold.

Jesus:
Then turne thy thirsty blade
Into my sides: let there the wound be made
Cheare up, deare soule; Redeeme thy life with mine:
My soule shall smart; My heart shall bleed for thine.

Sinner:
O ground-lesse deepes! O love beyond degree!
Th'offended dies, to set th'offender free.

S. AUGUST.

Lord, if I have done that, for which thou mayest damne me: thou hast not lost that, whereby thou mayest save me: Remember not, sweet Jesus, thy Justice against the sinner, but thy benignity towards thy Creature: Remember not to proceed against a guilty soule, but remember thy mercy towards a miserable wretch: Forget the insolence of the provoker, and behold the misery of the invoker; for what is Jesus but a Saviour.

ANSELM.

Have respect to what thy Sonne hath done for me, and forget what my sinnes have done against thee: My flesh hath provoked thee to vengeance; let the flesh of Christ move thee to mercy: It is much that my rebellions have deserved; but it is more that my Redeemer hath merited.

EPIGRAM 10.

[Mercy of mercies! He that was my drudge]

Mercy of mercies! He that was my drudge
Is now my Advocate, is now my Judge:
He suffers, pleads, and sentences, alone;
Thee I adore, and yet adore but One.

XI. PSALMS LXIX. XV.

Let not the water-flood over-flow me, neither let the deepes swallow me up.

The world's a Sea; my flesh, a ship, that's man'd
With lab'ring Thoughts; and steer'd by Reasons hand:
My heart's the Sea-mans Card, whereby she sailes;
My loose Affections are the greater Sailes:
The Top-saile is my Fancy; and the Gusts
That fill these wanton Sheets, are worldly Lusts.
Pray'r is the Cable, at whose end appeares
The Anchor Hope, nev'r slipt but in our feares:
My Will's th'unconstant Pilot, that commands
The staggring Keele; my Sinnes are like the Sands.
Repentance is the Bucket; and mine Eye
The Pumpe, unus'd (but in extreames) and dry.
My conscience is the Plummet, that does presse
The deepes, but seldome cryes, A fathom lesse:
Smooth Calm's security; The Gulph, despaire;
My Freight's Corruption, and this Life's my Fare:
My soule's the Passenger, confusedly driven
From feare to fright; her landing Port, is Heaven.
My seas are stormy, and my Ship does leake;
My Saylers rude: My Steersman faint and weake:
My Canvace torne, it flaps from side to side;
My Cable's crackt; my Anchor's slightly ty'd;
My Pilot's craz'd; my shipwrack sands are cloak'd;
My Calm's deceitfull; and my Gulph too neare;
My wares are slubber'd; and my Fare's too deare:
My Plummet's light, it cannot sink nor sound;
O shall my Rock-bethreatned Soule be drown'd?
Lord still the seas, and shield my ship from harme;
Instruct my saylours; guide my Steersmans Arme;
Touch thou my Compasse, and renew my Sailes;
Send stiffer courage, or send milder gales;
Make strong my Cable; bind my Anchor faster;
Direct my Pilot, and be thou his Master;
Object the Sands to my more serious view,
Make sound my Bucket; bore my Pumpe anew;
New cast my Plummet, make it apt to try
Where the Rocks lurke, and where the Quicksands lie;
Guard thou the Gulph, with love; my Calmes, with Care;
Cleanse thou my Freight; accept my slender Fare;
Refresh the sea-sick passenger; cut short
His Voyage; land him in his wished Port:
Thou, thou, whom winds and stormy seas obay,
That, through the deeps, gav'st grumbling Isr'ell way,
Say to my soule, be safe; and then mine eye
Shall scorne grim death, although grim death stand by;
O thou whose strength-reviving Arme did cherish
Thy sinking Peter, at the point to perish,
Reach forth thy hand, or bid me tread the Wave,
Ile come, Ile come, The voice that cals will save.

S. AMBROS. Apol. post. pro David. Cap. 3.

The confluence of lusts makes a great Tempest, which in this sea disturbes the sea-faring soule, that reason cannot governe it.

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. Cap. 35.

We labour in a boysterous sea: Thou standest upon the shore and seest our dangers: Give us grace to hold a middle course betwixt Scylla and Charybdis, that both dangers escaped, we may arrive at our Port, secure.

EPIGRAM 11.

[My soule; the seas are rough; and thou a stranger]

My soule; the seas are rough; and thou a stranger
In these false coasts; O keep aloofe; there's danger:
Cast forth thy Plummet; see a rock appeares;
Thy ship wants sea-roome; Make it with thy teares.

XII. JOB XIV. XIII.

O that thou wouldst hide me in the grave, and thou wouldst keepe me secret untill thy wrath be past.

S. AUGUST. in Psal. 30.

Whether flie I? To what place can I safely flie? To what mountaine? To what den? To what strong house? What Castle shall I hold? What wals shall hold me? Whethersoever I go, myself followes me: For whatsoever thou flyest, O man, thou mayst, but thy owne Conscience: wheresoever O Lord I go, I find thee, if angry, a Revenger; if appeas'd, a Redeemer: What way have I, but to flee from thee, to thee: That thou maist avoid thy God, address thee to thy Lord.

EPIGRAM 12.

[Hath vengeance found thee? Can thy feares command]

Hath vengeance found thee? Can thy feares command
No Rocks to shield thee from her thundring hand?
Know'st thou not where to scape? Ile tell thee where;
My soule make cleane thy Conscience; Hide thee there.

XIII. JOB X. XX.

Are not my dayes few? Cease then, and let me alone, that I may bewaile my selfe a little.

S. AUGUST. lib. 7 de Civit. Dei cap. 10.

The time wherein we live is taken from the space of our life; and what remaines is daily made lesse and lesse, insomuch that the time of our life is nothing but a passage to death.

S. GREG. lib. 9 mor cap. 44 in Cap. 10 Job.

As moderate afflictions bring teares; so immoderate take away teares; Insomuch that sorrow becomes no sorrow which swallowing up the mind of the afflicted, takes away the sense of the affliction.

EPIGRAM 13.

[Fear'st thou to go, when such an Arme invites thee?]

Fear'st thou to go, when such an Arme invites thee?
Dread'st thou thy loads of sin? or what affrights thee?
If thou begin to feare, thy feare begins;
Foole, can he beare thee hence, and not thy sinnes?

XIV. DEUTERONOMY XXXII. XXIX.

O that men were wise, and that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end.

Flesh. Spirit.
Flesh:
What meanes my sisters eyes so oft to passe
Through the long entry of that Optick glasse?
Tell me; what secret virtue does invite
Thy wrinckled eye to such unknowne delight?

Spirit:
It helps the sight; makes things remote appeare
In perfect view; It drawes the object neare.

Flesh:
What sense-delighting objects doest thou spie?
What does that Glasse present before thine eye?

Spirit:
I see thy foe, my reconciled friend,
Grim death, even standing at the Glasses end;
His left hand holds a branch of Palme; his right
Holds forth a two-edg'd sword.

Flesh:
A proper sight!
And is this all? does thy Prospective please
Th'abused fancy with no shapes but these?

Spirit:
Yes, I behold the dark'ned Sun bereav'n
Of all his light, the battlements of heav'n
Sweltring in Flames; the Angell-guarded Sonne
Of glory on his high Tribunall Throne;
I see a Brimstone Sea of boyling Fire,
And Fiends, with knotted whips of flaming Wyre,
Tort'ring poore soules, that gnash their teeth, in vaine,
And gnaw their flame-tormented tongues, for paine;
Looke sister, how the queazie-stomack'd Graves
Vomit their dead, and how the puple waves
Scal'd their consumelesse bodies, strongly cursing
All wombes for bearing, and all paps for nursing:

Flesh:
Can thy distemper'd fancie take delight
In view of Tortures? These are showes t'affright:
Looke in this glasse-Triangular; looke here,
Here's that will ravish eyes.

Spirit:
What seest thou there?

Flesh:
The world in colours; colours that distaine
The cheeks of Proteus, or the silken Traine
Of Floras Nymphs; such various sorts of hiew,
As Sun-confronting Iris never knew:
Here, if thou please to beautifie a Towne,
Thou maist; or, with a hand, turn't upside downe;
Here, maist thou scant or widen by the measure
Of thine owne will; make short or long, at pleasure:
Here maist thou tyre they fancie, and advize
With showes more apt to please more curious eyes;

Spirit:
Ah foole! that dot'st on vaine, on present toyes,
And disrespects those true, those future joyes!
How strongly are thy thoughts befool'd, Alas,
To dote on goods that perish with thy Glasse!
Nay, vanish with the turning of a hand!
Were they but painted colours, it might stand
With painted reason, that they might devote thee;
But things that have no being, to besot thee?
Foresight of future torments is the way
To baulk those ills which present joyes bewray;
As thou hast fool'd thy selfe, so now come hither,
Break that fond glasse, and let's be wise together.

BONAVENT. de contemptu seculi.

O that men would be wise, understand, and foresee: Be wise, to know three things: The multitude of those that are to be damned; the few number of those that are to be saved; and the vanity of transitory things: Understand three things: the multitude of sinnes, the omission of good things, and the losse of time: Foresee three things, the danger of death, the last judgement, and eternall punishment.

EPIGRAM 14.

[What soule, no father yet? what nev'r commence]

What soule, no father yet? what nev'r commence
Master in Faith? Still Batchelour of Sense?
Is't insufficiency? Or, what has made thee
Oreslip thy lost degree? Thy lusts have staid thee.

XV. PSALMS XXX. X.

My life is spent with griefe, and my yeares with sighing.

What sullen Starre rul'd my untimely birth,
That would not lend my dayes one houre of mirth!
How oft have these bare knees been bent, to gaine
The slender Almes of one poore smile, in vaine!
How often, tir'd with the fastidious light,
Have my faint lips implor'd the shades of night?
How often have my nightly Torments praid
For lingring twilight, glutted with the shade!
Day, worse than night; night, worse than day, appeares;
In feares I spend my nights; my dayes; in teares:
I moane, unpitti'd; groane without reliefe,
There is nor end, nor measure of my griefe;
The smiling flow'r salutes the day; it growes
Untouch'd with care; It neither spins, nor sowes;
O that my tedious life were, like this flow'r,
Or freed from griefe; or finish'd with an houre:
Why was I borne? Why was I borne a man?
And why proportion'd by so large a Span?
Or why suspended from the common lot,
And being borne to die, why die I not?
Ah me! why is my sorrow-wasted breath
Deny'd the easie priviledge of death?
The branded Slave, that tugs the weary Oare,
Obtaines the Sabbath of a welcome Shore;
His ransom'd stripes are heal'd; His native soile
Sweetens the mem'ry of his forreigne toyle:
But ah! my sorrowes are not halfe so blest;
My labour finds no point; my paines, no rest:
I barter sighs for teares; and teares for Grones,
Still vainly rolling Sysiphaean stones:
Thou just Observer of our flying houres,
That, with thy Adamantine fangs, devoures
The brazen Monuments of renowned Kings,
Does thy glasse stand? Or be thy moulting wings
Unapt to flie? If not, why dost thou spare
A willing brest; a brest, that stands so faire?
A dying brest, that has but onely breath
To beg a wound; and strength, to crave a death:
O, that the pleased Heav'ns would once dissolve
These fleshly fetters, that so fast involve
My hampred soule; then should my soule be blest
From all these ills, and wrap her thougts in rest:
Till then, my dayes are moneths, my moneths are yeares;
My yeares are ages, to be spent in teares:
My Grief's entayl'd upom my wastfull breath,
Which no Recov'ry can cut off, but death;
Breath drawne in Cottages, pufft out in Thrones,
Begins, continues, and concludes in Grones.

INOCENT. de vilitate condit. humanae.

O who will give mine eyes a fountaine of teares, that I may bewaile the miserable ingresse of mans condition; the sinfull progresse of mans conversation, the damnable egresse in mans dissolution? I will consider with teares, whereof man was made, what man does, and what man is to do: Alas, he is formed of earth, conceived in sinne, borne to punishment; He does evill things, which are not lawfull; He does filthy things, which are not decent: He does vaine things, which are not expedient.

EPIGRAM 15.

[My heart, Thy life's a debt by Bond, which beares]

My heart, Thy life's a debt by Bond, which beares
A secret date; The use, is Grones and teares:
Plead not; Usurious Nature will have all,
As well the Int'rest, as the Principall.

THE FOURTH BOOKE.

I. ROMANS VII. XXIII.

I see another Law in my members warring against the Law of my mind, and bringing me into captivitie to the Law of sin.

S. BERN. Med. 9.

My heart is a vaine, a vagabond, and instable heart; whilst it is led by its owne judgement, and wanting divine counsell, cannot subsist in it selfe, and whilst it divers ways seeks rest, finds none, but remaines miserable through labour, and void of peace: it agrees not with itselfe; it dissents from itselfe; it alters resolutions, changes the judgement, frames new thoughts, puls downe the old, and builds them up againe: It wils and wils not, and never remaines in the same state.

S. AUGUST. de Ver. Apost.

When it would it cannot, because when it might, it would not: Therefore, by an evill will man lost his good power.

EPIGRAM 1.

[My soule, how are thy thoughts disturb'd! confin'd]

My soule, how are thy thoughts disturb'd! confin'd,
Enlarg'd betwixt thy Members, and thy Mind!
Fix here, or there; Thy doubt-depending cause
Can nev'r expect one verdict, 'twixt two Lawes.

II. PSALMS CXIX. V.

O that my wayes were directed to keepe thy statutes.

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. Cap. 4.

O Lord, who art the Light, the Way, the Truth, the Life; in whom there is no darknesse, The way without which there is wandring; The Truth, without which there is errour; Life, without which there is death; Say, Lord, let there be light, and I shall see light, and eschue darknesse; I shall see the way, and avoid wandring; I shall see the truth, and shun errour; I shall see life, and escape death; Illuminate. O illuminate my blind soule, which sits in darknesse and the shadow of death, and direct my feet in the way of peace.

EPIGRAM 2.

[Pilgrim trudge on: What makes thy soule complaine]

Pilgrim trudge on: What makes thy soule complaine,
Crownes thy complaint: The way to rest is paine:
The Road to Resolution lies by doubt:
The next way Home's the farthest way about.

III. PSALMS XVII. V.

Stay my steps in thy paths, that my feet do not slide.

S. AUGUST. Ser. 15 de Verb. Apost.

Be alwayes displeased at what thou art, if thou desirest to attaine to what thou art not: For where thou hast pleas'd thy selfe, there thou abidest: But if thou sayest, I have enough, thou perishest: Alwayes add, alwayes walke, alwayes proceed; neither stand still, nor go backe, nor deviate: He that stands still, proceeds not; He goes back, that continues not: He deviates, that revolts: He goes better that creepes, in his way, than he that runs, out of his way.

EPIGRAM 3.

[Feare not, my soule, to lose for want of cunning]

Feare not, my soule, to lose for want of cunning;
Weepe not; heav'n is not alwayes got by running:
Thy thoughts are swift, although thy legs be slow;
True love will creepe, not having strength to go.

IV. PSALMS CXIX. CXX.

My flesh trembleth for feare of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgements.

Let others boast of Luck: and go their wayes
With their faire Game; Know, vengeance seldome playes,
To be too forward; but does wisely frame
Her backward Tables, for an After-Game:
She gives thee leave to venture many a blot;
And, for her owne advantage, hits thee not;
But when her pointed Tables are made faire,
That she be ready for thee, then beware;
Then, if a necessary blot be set,
She hits thee; wins the Game; perchance the Set:
If prosperous Chances make thy Casting high,
Be wisely temp'rate; cast a serious eye
On after-dangers, and keep back thy Game;
Too forward seed-times make thy Harvest lame:
If left-hand Fortune give thee left-hand chances,
Be wisely patient; let no envious glances
Repine to view thy Gamesters heape so faire;
The hindmost Hound takes oft the doubling Hare:
The worlds great Dice are false; sometimes they goe
Extremely high; sometimes, extremely low:
Of all her Gamesters, he that playes the least,
Lives most at ease; playes most secure, and best:
The way to win, is to play faire, and sweare
Thy selfe a servant to the Crowne of Feare:
Feare is the Primmer of a Gamsters skill;
Who feares not Bad, stands most unarm'd to Ill:
The Ill that's wisely fear'd, is halfe withstood;
And feare of Bad is the best foyle to Good:
True Feare's th'Elixar, which, in dayes of old,
Turn'd leaden Crosses into Crownes of Gold:
The World's the Table; Stakes, Eternall life;
The Gamesters, Heav'n and I; Unequall strife!
My Fortunes are my Dice, whereby I frame
My indisposed Life: This Life's the Game;
My sins are sev'rall Blots, the Lookers on
Are Angels; and in death, the Game is done:
Lord, I'm a Bungler, and my Game does grow
Still more and more unshap'd; my Dice run low:
The Stakes are great; my carelesse Blots are many;
And yet, thou passest by, and hitst not any:
Thou art too strong; And I have none to guide me
With the least Jogge; The lookers on deride me;
It is a Conquest, undeserving Thee,
To win a Stake from such Wormes as mee:
I have no more to lose; If we persever,
'Tis lost; and, that, once lost, I'm lost for ever.
Lord, wink at faults, and be not too severe,
And I will play my Game, ere Feare has past her date:
Whose blot being hit, then feares; feare's then, too late.

S. BERN. Ser. 54 in Cant.

There is nothing so effectuall to obtaine Grace, to retaine Grace, and to regaine Grace, as alwayes to be found before God not over-wise, but to feare: Happy art thou if thy heart be replenished with three feares, a feare for received Grace, a greater feare for lost Grace, a greatest feare to recover Grace.

S. AUGUST. super Psalm.

Present feare begets eternall security: Feare God, which above all, and no need to feare man at all.

EPIGRAM 4.

[Lord shall we grumble, when thy flames do scourge us?]

Lord shall we grumble, when thy flames do scourge us?
Our sinnes breath fire; that fire returnes to purge us:
Lord, what an Alchymist art thou, whose skill
Transmutes to perfect good, from perfect ill!

V. PSALMS CXIX. XXXVII.

Turne away mine eyes from regarding vanitie.

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. Cap. 4.

O thou Sonne that illuminates both Heaven and Earth: Woe be unto those eyes which do not behold thee: Woe be unto those blind eyes which cannot behold thee: Woe be unto those which turne away their eyes that they will not behold thee: Woe be unto those that turne not away their eyes that they may behold vanity.

S. CHRYS. sup. Matth. 19

What is an evill woman but the enemy of friendship, an unavoidable paine, a necessary mischiefe, a naturall tentation, a desiderable calamity, a domestick danger, a delectable inconvenience, and the nature of evill painted over with the colour of good!

EPIGRAM 5.

['Tis vaine, great God, to close mine eyes from ill]

'Tis vaine, great God, to close mine eyes from ill
When I resolve to keep the old man still:
My rambling heart must cov'nant first with Thee,
Or none can passe betwixt mine eyes and me.

VI. ESTHER VII. III.

If I have found favour in thy sight, and if it please the King, let my life be given me at my petition.

S. AUGUST. in Ep.

O holy Spirit, alwayes inspire me with holy works; constraine me, that I may doe: Counsell me that I may love thee: Confirme me, that I may hold thee; Conserve me that I may not lose thee.

S. AUGUST. sup. Ioan.

The Spirit rusts where the flesh rests: For as the flesh is nourished with sweet things, the Spirit is refreshed with sowre.

Ibid.

Wouldst thou that thy flesh obey thy Spirit? Then let thy Spirit obey thy God: Thou must be govern'd, that thou mayst governe.

EPIGRAM 6.

[Of Merc' and Justice is thy Kingdome built]

Of Merc' and Justice is thy Kingdome built;
This plagues my Sin; and that removes my guilt:
When ere I sue, Assuerus like decline
Thy Scepter; Lord, say, Halfe my kingdome's thine.

VII. CANTICLES VII. XI.

Come my beloved, let us goe forth into the fields, and let us remaine in the villages.

Christ. Soule.
Christ:
Come, come, my deare, and let us both retire
And whiffe the dainties of the fragrant fields:
Where warbling Phil'mel and the shrill-mouth'd Quire
Chaunt forth their raptures; where the Turtle builds
Her lonely nest; and where the new-borne Bryer
Breaths forth the sweetnesse that her Aprill yeelds:
Come, come, my lovely faire, and let us try
These rurall delicates; where thou and I
May melt in private flames, and feare no stander by.

Soule:
My hearts eternall Joy, in lieu of whom
The earth's a blast, and all the world, a Buble;
Our Citie-mansion is the fairer Home,
But Country-sweets are tang'd with lesser Trouble;
Let's try them both, and choose the better; Come;
A change in pleasure makes the pleasure double:
On thy Commands depends my Goe, or Tarie;
Ile stirre with Martha; or Ile stay with Marie:
Our hearts are firmly fixt, although our pleasures varie.

Christ:
Our Country-Mansion (situate on high)
With various Objects, still renewes delight;
Her arched Roofe's of unstain'd Ivory;
Her wals of fiery-sparkling Chrysolite;
Her pavement is of hardest Porphery;
Her spacious windowes are all glaz'd with bright
And flaming Carbuncles; no need require
Titans faint rayes, or Vulcans feeble fire;
And ev'ry Gate's a Pearle; and ev'ry Pearle, entire.

Soule:
Foole, that I was! how were my thought deceiv'd!
How falsly was my fond conceit possest!
I tooke it for an Hermitage, but pav'd
And daub'd with neighbring dirt, and thatch'd at best;
Alas, I nev'r expected more, nor crav'd;
A Turtle hop'd but for a Turtles nest:
Come, come, my deare, and let no idle stay
Neglect th'advantage of the head-strong day;
How pleasure grates, that feeles the Curb of dull delay!

Christ:

Soule:
And in thine Armes Ile tell my passion story:

Christ:
O there Ile crowne thy head with all my Graces;

Soule:
And all those Graces shall reflect thy Glory;

Christ:
O there, Ile feed thee with celestiall Manna;
Ile be thy Elkanah.

Soule:
And I thy Hanna.

Christ:
Ile sound my Trump of Joy.

Soule:
And Ile resound Hosanna.

S. BERN.

O blessed Contemplation! The death of vices, and the life of virtues! Thee the Law and Prophets admire: Who ever attain'd perfection, if not by Thee! O blessed solitude, the Magazine of celestiall Treasure: by thee things earthly, and transitory, are chang'd into heavenly, and eternall.

S. BERN. in Ep.

Happy is that house, and blessed is that Congregation, where Martha still complaines of Mary.

EPIGRAM 7.

[Mechanick soule; thou must not only doe]

Mechanick soule; thou must not only doe
With Martha; but, with Mary, ponder too:
Happy's that house, where these faire sisters vary;
But most, when Martha's reconcil'd to Mary.

VIII. CANTICLES I. III.

Draw me; we will follow after thee by the savour of thy Oyntment.

S. BERN. Serm. 21 in Cant.

Let us run: let us run, but in the savour of thy Oyntments, not in the confidence of our merits, nor in the greatnesse of our strength: we trust to run, but in the multitude of thy mercies, for though we run and are willing, it is not in him that wills, nor in him that runs, but in God that sheweth mercy: O let thy mercy returne, and we will run: Thou, like a Gyant, run'st by thy own power; We, unlesse thy oyntment breath upon us, cannot run.

EPIGRAM 8.

[Looke not, my Watch, being once repair'd, to stand]

Looke not, my Watch, being once repair'd, to stand
Expecting motion from thy Makers hand.
H'as wound thee up, and cleans'd thy Coggs with blood:
If now thy wheeles stand still; thou art not good.

IX. CANTICLES VIII. I.

O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the brest of my mother, I would find thee without, and I would kisse thee.

BONAVENT. Soliloq. Cap. 1.

O sweet Jesu, I knew not that thy kisses were so sweet, nor thy society so delectable, nor thy Attraction so vertuous: For when I love thee, I am cleane: when I touch thee, I am chast; when I receive thee, I am a virgin: O most sweet Jesu, thy embraces defile not, but cleanse; thy attraction pollutes not, but sanctifies: O Jesu, the fountaine of universall sweetnesse, pardon me, that I believed so late, that so much sweetnesse is in thy embraces.

EPIGRAM 9.

[My burthen's greatest: Let not Atlas bost]

My burthen's greatest: Let not Atlas bost:
Impartiall Reader, judge, which beares the most:
He beares but Heav'n; My folded Armes sustaine
Heav'ns Maker; whom heav'ns heav'n cannot containe.

X. CANTICLES XXX. I.

In my bed, by night, I sought him, that my soule loved: I sought him, but I found him not.

The learned Cynick, having lost the way
To honest men, did, in the height of day,
By Taper-light, divide his steps about
The peopled Streets, to find this dainty out;
But fail'd. The Cynick search'd not where he ought;
The thing he sought for was not where he sought:
The Wisemens taske seem'd harder to be done,
The Wisemen did, by Starre-light seeke the Son,
And found; the Wisemen search'd it where they ought;
The thing they hop'd to find, was where they sought:
One seeks his wishes where he should; but then
Perchance he seeks not where he should, nor when:
Another searches when he should, but there
He failes; not seeking as he should, nor where:
Whose soule desires the good it wants; and would
Obtaine, must seek Where, As, and When he should:
How often have my wilde Affections led
My wasted soule to this my widdow'd Bed,
To seeks my Lover, whom my soule desires!
(I speak not, Cupid, of thy wanton fyres;
Thy fires are all but dying sparks to mine;
My flames are full of heav'n, and all divine)
How often have I sought this Bed, by night,
To find that greater, by this lesser light!
How oft has my unwitnest groanes lamented
Thy deares absence! Ah, how often vented
The bitter Tempests of despairing breath,
And tost my soule upon the waves of death!
How often has my melting heart made choice
Of silent teares, (teares lowder than a voice)
To plead my griefe, and woo thy absent eare!
And yet thou wilt not come; thou wilt not heare:
O is thy wonted love become so cold?
Or do mine eyes not seeks thee where they should?
Why do I seek thee, if thou art not here?
Or find thee not, if thou art ev'rywhere?
I see my error; 'Tis not strange I could not
Find out my love; I sought him where I should not:
Thou art not found in downy Beds of ease;
Alas, thy musick strikes on harder keyes:
Nor art thou found by that false, feeble light
Of Natures Candle; Our Aegyptian night
Is more than common darknesse; nor can we
Expect a morning, but what breaks from Thee.
Well may my empty Bed bewaile thy losse,
When thou art lodg'd upon thy shamefull Crosse:
If thou refuse to share a Bed with me;
Wee'l never part, Ile share a Crosse with Thee.

ANSELM. in Protolog. Cap. 1.

Lord, if thou art not present, where shall I seeke thee absent? If every where, why do I not see thee present? Thou dwellest in light inaccessible; and where is that inaccessible light? Or how shall I have accesse to light inaccessible? I beseech thee, Lord, teach me to seeke thee, and show thyselfe to the seeker, because I can neither seeke thee, unlesse thou teach me, nor find thee, unlesse thou show thyselfe to me: Let me seeke the, in desiring thee, and desire thee in seeking thee: Let me find thee in loving thee, and love thee in finding thee.

EPIGRAM 10.

[Where shouldst thou seek for rest, but in thy Bed?]

Where shouldst thou seek for rest, but in thy Bed?
But now thy Rest is gone; thy Rest is fled:
'Tis vaine to seeke him there; My soule, be wise;
Go ask thy sinnes; They'l tell thee where he lies.

XI. CANTICLES III. II.

I will rise, and go about the City, and will seeke him that my soule loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

S. AMBROS. Lib. 3 de Virg.

Christ is not in the market; not in the streets: For Christ is peace; in the market are strifes: Christ is Justice: in the market is iniquity: Christ is a Labourer; in the market is idlenesse: Christ is Charity; in the market is slander: Christ is Faith; in the market is fraud: Let us not therefore seeke Christ, where we cannot find Christ.

S. HIEROM. Ep. 22 Eustoch.

Jesus is jealous: He will not have thy face seene: Let foolish virgins ramble abroad; seeke thou thy Love at home.

EPIGRAM 11.

[What lost thy Love? Will neither Bed nor Board]

What lost thy Love? Will neither Bed nor Board
Receive him? Not by teares to be implor'd
It is the Ship that mooves, and not the Coast;
I feare, I feare, my soule, 'tis thou art lost.

XII. CANTICLES III. III.

Have you seene him whom my soule loveth? When I had past a little from them, then I found him, I took hold on him, and left him not.

ORIG. Hom. 10 in divers.

O most holy Lord, and sweetest Master, how good art thou to those that are of upright heart, and humble spirit! O how blessed are they that seek thee with a simple heart! How happy that trust in thee! It is a most certaine truth, that thou lovest all that love thee, and never forsakest those that trust in thee: For behold thy Love simply sought thee, and undoubtedly found thee: She trusted in thee, and is not forsaken of thee, but hath obtained more by thee, than she expected from thee.

BEDE in Cap. 3. Cant.

The longer I was in finding whom I sought, the more earnestly I held him being found.

EPIGRAM 12.

[What? found him out? Let strong embraces bind him]

What? found him out? Let strong embraces bind him;
Hee'l fly perchance, where teares can never find him:
New Sins will lose what old Repentance gaines:
Wisedome not onely gets, but got, retaines.

XIII. PSALMS LXXII. XXVIII.

It is good for me to draw neare to God; I have put my trust in the Lord God.

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. Cap. 13.

I follow this thing, I pursue that; but am fill'd with nothing. But when I found thee, who art that immutable, individed, and onely good, in myselfe, what I obtained, I wanted not; for what I obtained not, I grieved not; with what I was possest, my whole desire was satisfied.

S. BERN. Ser. 9 sup. beati qui habent, &c.

Let others pretend merit: let him brag of the burthen of the day; let him boast of his Sabbath fasts, and let him glory that he is not as other men: but for me, it is good to cleave unto the Lord, and to put my trust in my Lord God.

EPIGRAM 13.

[Let Boreas blasts, and Neptunes waves be joyn'd]

Let Boreas blasts, and Neptunes waves be joyn'd,
Thy Eolus commands the waves, the wind:
Feare not the Rocks or worlds imperious waves:
Thou climbst a Rock (my soule) a Rock that saves.

XIV. CANTICLES II. III.

I sate under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

GUILL. in Cap. 2 Cant.

Who can endure the fierce rayes of the Sun of Justice? Who shall not be consumed by his beames? Therefore the Sun of Justice took flesh, that through the conjunction of that Sun and this humane, body, a shadow may be made.

S. AUGUST. Med. Cap. 37.

Lord, let my soule flee from the scorching thoughts of the world under the Covert of thy wings, that being refreshed by the moderation of thy shadow, she may sing merrily. In peace will I lay me downe and rest.

EPIGRAM 14.

[Ah, treach'rous soule, would not thy Pleasures give]

Ah, treach'rous soule, would not thy Pleasures give
That Lord which made thee living, leave to live?
See, what thy sinnes have done: Thy sinnes have made
The Sun of Glory now become thy Shade.

XV. PSALMS CXXXXVII. IV.

How shall we sing a song of the Lord in a strange land?

Urge me no more: This Ayry mirth belongs
To better times: These times are not for songs:
The sprightly Twang of the melodious Lute
Agrees not with my voice: and both unsuit
My untun'd fortunes: The affected measure
Of straines that are constrain'd, affoord no pleasure;
Musick's the Child of mirth: where griefs assaile
The troubled soule, both voice and fingers faile;
Let such as ravill out their lavish dayes
In honourable Ryot; that can raise
Dejected hearts, and conjure up a Sprite
Of madnesse by the Magick of delight;
Let those of Cupids Hospitall that lie
Impatient Patients to a smiling eye,
That cannot rest, untill vaine hope beguile
Their flatter'd Torments with a wanton smile;
Let such redeeme their peace, and salve the wrongs
Of froward Fortune with their frolick Songs:
My grief, my grief's too great for smiling eyes
To cure, or Counter-charmes to exercise;
The Ravens dismall Croakes; the midnight howles
Of empty Wolves, mixt with the screech of Owles;
The nine sad knowles of a dull Passing Bell,
With the loud language of a nighty knell,
And horrid out-cries of revenged Crimes,
Joyn'd in a Medley's Musick for these Times;
These are no Times to touch the merry string
Of Orpheus; No, these are no times to sing:
Can hide-bound Prisners, that have spent their soules
And famish'd Bodies in the noysome holes
Oh hell-black dungeons, apt their rougher throats,
Growne hoarse with begging Almes, to warble notes?
Can the sad Pilgrim, that has lost his way
In the vast desarts; there, condemn'd a Prey
To the wild Subject, or his Salvage King,
Rouze up his palsey-smitten spir'ts, and sing?
Can I a Pilgrim, and a Prisner too,
(Alas) where I am neither knowne, nor know
Ought but my Torments, an unransom'd stranger
In this strange Climat, in a land of danger,
O, can my voice be pleasant, or my hand,
Thus made a Prisner to a forreigne land?
How can my musick relish in your eares,
That cannot speake for sobs, nor sing for teares?
Ah, if my voice could, Orpheus-like, unspell
My poore Euridice, my soule, from hell
Of earths miscontru'd Heav'n, O then my brest
Should warble Ayres, whose Rapsodies should feast
The eares of Seraphims, and entertaine
Heav'ns highest Deity with their lofty straine,
A straine well drencht in the true Thespian Well:
Till then; earths Semiquaver, mirth, farewell.

S. AUGUST. Med. Cap. 33.

O infinitely happy are those heavenly virtues which are able to praise thee in holinese and purity, with excesssive sweetnesse and inutterable exultation! From thence they praise thee, from whence they rejoyce, for what they praise thee: But wee prest downe with this burthen of flesh, farre remov'd from thy countenance in this pilgrimage, and blowne up with worldly vanities, cannot worthily praise thee: We praise thee by faith; not face to face; but those Angelicall Spirits praise thee face to face, and not by faith.

EPIGRAM 15.

[Did I refuse to sing? Said I these times]

Did I refuse to sing? Said I these times
Were not for Songs? nor musick for thee Climes?
It was my Errour: Are not Groanes and teares
Harmonious Raptures in th'Almighties eares?

THE FIFT BOOK.

I. CANTICLES V. VIII.

I charge you, O daughter of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I am sick of love.

S. AUGUST. Med. cap. 40.

What shall I say? What shall I doe? Whether shall I goe? Where shall I seek him? Or when shall I find him? Whom shall I ask? Who will tell my beloved that I am sick of love?

GULIEL. in Cap. 5. Cant.

I live; But not I: It is my beloved that lives in me: I love my selfe, not with my owne love, but with the love of my beloved, that loves me: I love not my selfe in my selfe, but my selfe in him, and him in me.

EPIGRAM 1.

[Grieve not (my soule) nor let thy love waxe faint]

Grieve not (my soule) nor let thy love waxe faint,
Weepst thou to lose the cause of thy Complaint?
Hee'l come; Love nev'r was bound to the Times nor Lawes:
Till then, thy teares complaine without Cause.

II. CANTICLES II. V.

Stay me with Flowers, and comfort me with Apples, for I am sicke with love.

GISTEN. in Cap. 2 Cant. Expos. 3.

O happy happy sicknesse! where the infirmity is not to death, but to life, that God may be glorified by it: O happy fever, that proceeds not from a consuming, but a calcining fire! O happy distemper, wherein the soule relishes no earthly things, but onely savours divine nourishment!

S. BERN. Serm. 51 in Cant.

By flowers understand faith; by fruit, good works: As the flower or blossome is before the fruit, so is faith before good works: So neither is the fruit without the flower, nor good works without faith.

EPIGRAM 2.

[Why Apples, O my soule? Can they remove]

Why Apples, O my soule? Can they remove
The Pangs of Griefe, or ease the flames of love?
It was that Fruit which gave the first offence;
That sent him hither; that remov'd him hence.

III. CANTICLES II. XVI.

My beloved is mine, and I am his; He feedeth among the Lillies.

S. AUGUST. Manu. Cap. 24.

O my soule stampt with the Image of thy God; love him, of whom thou art so much beloved: Bend to him that bowes to thee, seeke him that seeks thee: Love thy lover, by whose love thou art prevented, being the cause of thy love: Be carefull with those that are carefull, want with those that want; Be cleane with the cleane, and holy with the holy: Choose this friend above all friends, who, when all are taken away, remaines onely faithfull to thee: In the day of thy buriall, when all leave thee, he will not deceive thee, but defend thee from the roaring Lions, prepared for their prey.

EPIGRAM 3.

[Sing Hymen to my soule: What? lost and found]

Sing Hymen to my soule: What? lost and found,
Welcom'd, espous'd, enjoy'd so soone, and crown'd!
He did but climbe the Crosse; and then came downe
To th'Gates of Hell; triumph'd, and fetch'd a Crowne.

IV. CANTICLES VII. X.

I am my Beloveds, and his desire is towards me.

S. AUGUST. Med. Cap, 25.

If man can love man with so entire affection, that the one can scarce brooke the others absence; If a Bride can be joyned to her Bride-groome with so great an ardency of mind, that for the extremity of love she can enjoy no rest, nor suffring his absence without great anxiety with what affection, with what fervency ought the soule whom thou hast espoused by faith and compassion, to love thee her true God and glorious Bridegroom?

EPIGRAM 4.

[My soule; thy love is deare; 'Twas thought a good]

My soule; thy love is deare; 'Twas thought a good
And easie pen'worth of thy Saviours Blood:
But be not proud; All matters rightly scan'd,
'Twas over-bought: 'Twas sold at second hand.

V. CANTICLES V. VI.

My Soule melted whilst my Beloved spake.

Lord, has the feeble voice of flesh and blood
The pow'r to work thine eares into a flood
Of melted Mercy? or the strength, t'unlock
The gates of Heav'n, and to dissolve a Rock
Of marble Clouds into a morning show'r?
To stop, or snatch a falling Thunderbolt
From thy fierce hand, and make thy hand revolt
From resolute Confusion, and instead
Of Vyals, poure full Blessings on our head?
Or shall the wants of famisht Ravens cry,
And move thy mercy to a quick supply?
Or shall the silent suits of drooping flowr's
Woo thee for drops, and be refresh'd with Showr's?
Alas, what marvell then, great GOD, what wonder
If thy Hell-rouzing voice, that splits in sunder
Thy brazen Portals of eternall death;
What wonder if that life-restoring breath
Which drag'd me from th'infernall shades of night,
Should melt my ravisht soule with ore-delight?
O can my frozen gutters choose but run,
That feel the warmth of such a glorious Sun?
Me thinks his language, like a flaming Arrow,
Doth pierce my bones, and melts their wounded marrow;
Thy flames O Cupid (though the joyfull heart
Feeles neither tang of griefe, nor feares the smart
Of jealous doubts, but drunk with full desires)
Are torments weigh'd with these celestiall fires;
Pleasures that ravish in so high a measure,
That O I languish in excesse of pleasure:
What ravisht heart, that feeles these melting Joyes,
Would not despise and loathe the trech'rous Toyes
Of dunghill earth! what soule would not be proud
Of wry-mouth'd scornes, the worst that flesh and bloud
Had rancor to devise? Who would not beare
The worlds derision with a thankfull eare?
What palat would refuse full bowles of spight,
To gaine a minuts tast of such delight?
Great spring of light, in whom there is no shade
But what my interposing sinnes have made,
Whose marrow-melting Fires admit no screene
But what my owne rebellions put betweene
Their precious flames, and my obdurate eare:
Disperse these plague-distilling Clouds, and cleare
My mungy Soule into a glorious day;
Transplant this screene, remoove this Barre away;
Then, then my fluent soule shall feele the fires
Of thy sweet voice, and my dissolv'd desires
Shall turne a sov'raigne Balsome, to make whole
Those wounds my sinnes inlicted on thy soule.

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. Cap. 34.

What fire is this that so warmes my heart? What light is this that so enlightens my soule! O fire, that alwayes burnest, and never goest out, kindle me: O light, which ever shinest, and art never darkned, illuminate me: O that I had my heat from thee, most holy fire! How sweetly doest thou burne! How secretly dost thou shine! How desiderably doest thou inflame me!

BONAVENT. Stim. amoris Cap. 8.

It makes God man; and man God; things temporall, eternall; mortall, immortall; it makes an enemy a friend; a servant, a Son: vile things, glorious; cold hearts fiery, and hard things liquid.

EPIGRAM 5.

[My soule; Thy gold is true; but full of drosse]

My soule; Thy gold is true; but full of drosse;
Thy SAVIOURS breath refines thee with some losse;
His gentle Fornace makes thee pure as true;
Thou must be melted, ere th'art cast anew.

VI. PSALMS LXXIII. XXV.

Whom have I in heav'n but Thee? and what desire I on earth in respect of Thee?

BONAVENT. Cap. 1. Soliloq.

Alas my God, now I understand (but blush to confesse) that the beauty of thy Creatures have deceived mine eyes; and I have not observed that thou art more amiable than all thy creatures; to which thou hast communicated but one drop of thy inestimable Beauty; For who hath adorned the heaven with Starres? Who hath stored the ayre with fowle? the waters, with fish? the earth, with plants and flowers? But what are all these, but a small spark of divine beauty.

S. CHRYS. Hom. 5 in Ep. ad Rom.

In having nothing I have all things, because I have Christ; Having therefore all things in Him, I seek no other reward, for he is the universall Reward.

EPIGRAM 6.

[Who would not throw his better thoughts about him]

Who would not throw his better thoughts about him,
And scorne this drosse within him; that, without him?
Cast up (my soule) thy clearer eye; Behold.
If thou be fully melted: There's the Mould.

VII. PSALMS CXX. V.

Woe is to me! that I remaine in Meshech and dwell in Tents of Kedar.

Is Natures course dissolv'd? Does Times glasse stand?
Or has some frolick heart set back the hand
Of Fates pepetuall Clock? Wil't never strike?
Is crazy Time growne lazy, faint, or sick
With very Age? Or has that great Purroyall
Of Adamantine sisters late made tryall
Of some new Trade? Shall mortall hearts grow old
In sorrow? Shall my weary Armes infold
And underprop may panting sides for ever?
Is there no charitable hand will sever
My well-spun Thred, that my imprison'd soule
May be deliver'd from this dull dark hole
Of dungeon flesh? O shall I, shall I never
Be ransom'd, but remaine a slave for ever?
It is the Lot of man but once to die,
But ere that death, how many deaths have I?
To entertaine heav'ns joy? because conveigh'd
By the hand of death? Will nakednesse refuse
Rich change of robes, because the man's not spruise
That bought them? Or will Poverty send back
Full bags of gold, because the bringer's black?
Life is Bubble, blowne with whining breaths,
Fil'd with the torments of a thousand death's;
Which, being prickt by death (while death deprives
One life) presents the soule a thousand lives:
O frantick mortal; how has earth bewitch'd
Thy bedlam soule, which has so fondly pitch'd
Upon her false delights! Delights, that cease
Before enjoyment finds a time to please;
Her fickle joyes breed doubtfull feares; her feares
Being hopefull Griefes; her griefes weep fearfull teares,
Tears coyne deceitfull hopes; hopes, carefull doubt,
And surly passion justles passion out:
To day, we pamper with a full repast
Of lavish mirth; at night, we weepe as fast:
To night we swim in wealth, and lend; To morrow,
We sink in want, and find no friend to borrow:
In what a Climat does my soule reside!
Where pale-fac'd Murther, the first-borne of pride,
Sets up her kingdome in the very smiles,
And plighted faiths of men-like Crocadiles;
A land, where each embroydred Sattin word
Is lin'd with Fraud; where Mars his lawlesse sword
Exiles Astraeas Balance; where that hand
Now slayes his brother, that new-sow'd his land:
O that my dayes of bondage would expire
In this lewd Soyle! Lord, how my Soule's on fire
To be dissolv'd! that I might once obtaine
These long'd for joyes, long'd for, so oft, in vaine!
If Moses-like, I may not live possest
Of this faire land; LORD, let me see't, at least.

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. Cap. 2.

My life is a fraile life; a corruptible life; A life, which the more increases, the more decreases: The farther it goes, the nearer it comes to death: A deceitfull life, and like a shadow; full of the snares of death: Now I rejoyce; now I languish; now I flourish; now infirme; now I live, and straight I die; now I seeme happy, alwayes miserab; le, now I laugh, now I weepe: Thus all things are subject to mutability, that nothing continues an houre in one state: O Joy above Joy, exceeding all Joy, without which there is no Joy, when shall I enter into thee, that I may see my God that dwels in thee?

EPIGRAM 7.

Art thou so weake? O canst thou not digest
An houre of travell for a night of Rest?
Cheare up, my soule; call home thy spir'ts, and beare
One bad Good-Friday; Full-mouth'd Easter's neare.

VIII. ROMANS VII. XXIV.

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Behold thy darling, which thy lustfull care
Pampers; for which thy restlesse thoughts prepare
Such early Cates; For whom thy bubbling brow
So often sweats, and bankrupt eyes do owe
Such midnight scores to Nature, for whose sake
Base earth is Sainted, the Infernall Lake
Unfear'd; the Crowne of Glory poorely rated;
Thy GOD neglected, and thy brother hated:
Behold thy darling, whom thy soule affects
So dearely; whom thy fond Indulgence decks
And puppets up in soft, in silken weeds:
Behold thy darling, whom thy fondnesse feeds
With farre-fetch'd delicates, the deare-bought gaines
Of ill-spent Time, the price of halfe thy paines:
Behold thy darling, who, when clad by Thee,
Derides thy nakednesse; and, when most free,
Proclaimes her lover, slave; and, being fed
Most full, then stikes th'indulgent Feeder dead:
What meanst thou thus, my poore deluded soule,
To love so fondly? Can the burning Cole
Of thy Affection last without the fuell
Of counter-love? Is thy Compere so cruell,
And thou so kind, to love unlov'd againe?
Canst thou sow favours, and thus reape disdaine?
Remember, O remember thou art borne
Of royall blood; remember, thou art sworne
A Maid of Honour in the Court of Heav'n;
Remember what a costly price was giv'n
To ransome thee from slav'ry thou wert in;
And wilt thou now, my soule, turne slave agin?
The Son and Heire to Heav'ns triune JEHOVE
Would faine become a suitor of thy Love,
And offers for thy dow'r, his Fathers Throne,
To sit for Seraphims to gaze upon;
Hee'l give thee Honour, Pleasure, Wealth, and Things
Transcending farre the Majesty of Kings:
And wilt thou prostrate to the odious charmes
Of this base Scullion? Shall his hollow Armes
Hugg thy soft sides? Shall these course hands untie
The sacred Zone of thy Virginitie?
For shame, degen'rous soule, let thy desire
Be quickned up with more heroick fire;
Be wisely proud; let thy ambitious eye
Read nobler objects; let thy thoughts defie
Such am'rous basenesse; Let thy soule disdaine
Th'ignoble profers of so base a Swaine;
Or if thy vowes be past, and Himens bands
Have ceremonyed your unequall hands,
Annull, at least avoid thy lawlesse Act
With insufficience, or a Praecontract:
Or if the Act be good, yet maist thou plead
A second Freedome; for the flesh is dead.

NAZIANZ. Orat. 16.

How am I joyned to this body, I know not; which when it is healthfull, provokes me to warre, and being damaged by warre, affects me with grief; which I both love as a fellow servant, and hate as an utter enemy: It is a pleasant foe, and a perfidious friend: O strange Conjunction and Alienation! What I feare I embrace, and what I love I am afraid of; Before I make warre, I am reconcil'd; Before I enjoy peace, I am at variance.

EPIGRAM 8.

[What need that House be daub'd with flesh and blood?]

What need that House be daub'd with flesh and blood?
Hang'd round with silks and gold; repair'd with food?
Cost idly spent! That cost does but prolong
Thy thraldome; Foole, thou mak'st thy Jayle too strong.

IX. PHILIPPIANS I. XXIII.

I am in a streight betweene two, having a desire to be dissolv'd, and to be with Christ.

BONAVENT. Cap. 1. Soliloq.

Ah sweet Jesus, pierce the marrow of my soule with the healthfull shafts of thy love, that it may truly burne, and melt, and languish with the onely desire of thee; that it may desire to be dissolv'd, and to be with thee: Let it hunger alone for the bread of life; let it thirst after thee, the spring and fountaine of eternall light, the streame of true pleasure: let it alwayes desire thee, seek thee, and find thee, and sweetly rest in thee.

EPIGRAM 9.

[What? will thy shackles neither loose, nor breake?]

What? will thy shackles neither loose, nor breake?
Are they too strong? or is thy Arme too weake?
Art will prevaile where knotty strength denies;
My soule; there's Aqua fortis in thine eyes.

X. PSALMS CXLII. VII.

Bring my soule out of prison, that I may praise thy Name.

My Soule is like a Bird; my Flesh, the Cage;
Wherein, she weares her weary Pilgrimage
Of houres as few as evill, daily fed
With sacred Wine, and Sacramentall Bread;
The keyes that locks her in, and lets her out,
Are Birth, and Death; 'twixt both, she hopps about
From perch to perch; from Sense to Reason; then,
From higher Reason, downe to Sense agen:
From Sense she climbes to Faith; where, for a season,
She sits and sings; then, down againe to Reason;
From Reason, back to Faith; and straight, from thence
She rudely flutters to the Perch of Sense;
From Sense, to Hope; then hopps from Hope to Doubt;
From Doubt, to dull Despaire; there, seeks about
For desp'rate Freedome; and at ev'ry Grate,
She wildly thrusts, and begs th'untimely date
Of unexpired thraldome, to release
Th'afflicted Captive, that can find no peace:
Thus am I coop'd within this fleshly Cage,
I weare my youth, and waste my weary Age,
Spending that breath which was ordain'd to chaunt
Heav'ns praises forth, in sighs and sad complaint:
Whilst happier birds can spread their nimble wing
From Shrubs to Cedars, and there chirp and sing
In choice of raptures, the harmonious story
Of mans Redemption and his Makers Glory:
You glorious Martyrs; you illustrious Troopes,
That once were cloyster'd in your fleshly Coopes
As fast as I, what Reth'rick had your tongues?
What dextrous Art had your Elegiak Songs?
What Paul-like pow'r had your admir'd devotion?
What shackle-breaking Faith infus'd such motion
To your strong Pray'rs, that could obtaine the boone
To be inlarg'd, to be uncag'd so soone?
When I (poore I) can sing my daily teares,
Growne old in Bondage, and can find no eares:
You great partakers of eternall Glory,
That with your heav'n-prevailing Oratory,
Releas'd your soules from your terrestriall Cage,
Permit the passion of my holy Rage
To recommend my sorrowes (dearely knowne
To you, in dayes of old; and, once, your owne)
To your best thoughts, (but oh't does not befit ye
To moove our pray'rs; you love and joy; not pitie:
Great LORD of soules, to whom should prisners flie,
But Thee? Thou hadst thy Cage, as well as I:
And, for my sake, thy pleasure was to know
The sorrowes that it brought, and feltst them too;
O set me free, and I will spend those dayes,
Which now I wast in begging, in Thy praise

ANSELM. in Protolog. Cap. 1.

O miserable condition of mankind, that has lost that for which he was created! Alas! What has hee left? And what has hee found? He has lost happinesse for which he was made, and found misery for which he was not made: What is gone? and what is left? That thing is gone, without which hee is unhappy; that thing is left, by which he is miserable: O wretched men! From whence are we expell'd? To what are we impell'd? Whence are we throwne? And whether are we hurried? From our home into banishment; from the sight of God into our owne blindnesse; from the pleasure of immortality to the bitternesse of death: Miserable change? From how great a good, to how great an evill? Ah me: What have I enterpriz'd? What have I done? Whither did I goe? Whither am I come?

EPIGRAM 10.

[Pauls Midnight voice prevail'd; his musicks thunder]

Pauls Midnight voice prevail'd; his musicks thunder
Unhing'd the prison doores; split bolts in sunder:
And fitst thou here? and hang'st the feeble wing?
And whin'st to be enlarg'd? Soule, learn to sing.

XI. PSALMS XLII. I.

As the Hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soule after thee O God.

CYRIL. lib. 5 in Joh. Cap. 10.

O precious water, which quenches the noysome thirst of this world, that scoures all the staines of sinners; that waters the earth of our soules with heavenly showers, and brings backe the thirsty heart of man to his onely God!

S. AUGUST. Soliloq. 35.

O fountaine of life, and veine of living waters, when shall I leave this forsaken, impassible, and dry earth, and taste the waters of thy sweetnesse, that I may behold thy vertue, and thy glory, and slake my thirst with the streames of thy mercy? Lord, I thirst: Thou art the spring of life, satisfie me; I thirst, Lord, I thirst after thee the living God.

EPIGRAM 11.

[The Arrow-smitten Hart, deep wounded, flies]

The Arrow-smitten Hart, deep wounded, flies
To th'Springs with water in his weeping eyes:
Heav'n is thy Spring: If Sathans fiery dart
Pierce thy faint sides; do so, my wounded Hart.

XII. PSALMS XLII. II.

When shall I come and appeare before God?

What is my soule the better to be tinde
With holy fire? What boots it to be coynd
With heav'ns own stamp? What vantage can there be
To soules of heav'n-descended Pedegree,
More than to Beasts, that grovell? Are not they
Fed by th'Almighties hand? and, ev'ry day,
Fill'd with His Blessing too? Do they not see
GOD in His creatures, as direct as we?
Do they not tast Thee? heare Thee? nay, what Sense
Is not partaker of Thine Excellence?
What more do we? Alas, what serves our reason,
But, like dark lanthornes, to accomplish Treason
With greater closenesse? It affords no light,
Brings Thee no nearer to our purblind sight;
No pleassure rises up the least degree,
Great GOD, but in the clearer view of Thee:
What priv'ledge more than Sense, has Reason than?
What vantage is it to be borne a man?
How often has my patience built, (deare LORD)
Vaine Tow'rs of Hope upon Thy gracious Word?
How often has Thy Hope-reviving Grace
Woo'd my suspitious eyes to seek Thy face!
How often have I sought Thee? Oh how long
Hath expectation taught my perfect tongue
Repeated pray'rs, yet pray'rs could nev'r obtaine;
In vaine I seek Thee, and I beg in vaine:
If it be high presumption to behold
Thy face, why didst Thou make mine eyes so bold
To seek it? If that object be too bright
For mans Aspect, why did thy lips invite
Mine eye t'expect it? If it might be seene,
Why is this envious curtaine drawne betweene
My darkened eye and it? O tell me, why
Thou dost command the thing Thou dost deny?
Why dost thou give me so unpriz'd a treasure,
And then deny'st my greedy soule the pleasure
To view thy gift? Alas, that gift is void,
And is no gift, that may not be enjoy'd:
If those refulgent Beames of heav'ns great light
Guild not the day, what is the day, but night?
The drouzie Shepheard sleeps; flowres droop and fade;
The Birds are sullen, and the Beast is sad;
But if bright Titan art, his golden Ray,
And, with his riches, glorifie the day,
The jolly Shepheard pipes; Flowres freshly spring;
The beast growes gamesome, and the birds they sing:
Thou art my Sun, great GOD, O when shall I
View the full beames of thy Meridian eye?
Draw, draw this fleshly curtaine, that denies
The gracious presence of thy glorious eyes;
Or give me Faith; and, by the eye of Grace,
I shall behold Thee, though not face to face.

S. AUGUST. in Psal. 39

Who created all things is better than all things; who beautified all things is more beautifull than all things: who made strength is stronger than all things: who made great things is greater than all things: Whatsoever thou lovest he is that to thee: Learne to love the workman in his worke; the Creator in his creature: Let not that which was made by Him possesse thee, lest thou lose Him by whom thy selfe was made.

S. AUGUST. Med. Cap 37.

O thou most sweet, most gracious, most amiable, most faire, when shall I see Thee? when shall I be satisfied with Thy beauty? When wilt thou lead me from this darke dungeon, that I may confesse thy name?

EPIGRAM 12.

[How art thou shaded in this vale of night]

How art thou shaded in this vale of night,
Behind thy Curtaine flesh? Thou seest no light,
But what thy Pride does challenge as her owne;
Thy Flesh is high: Soule, take this Curtaine downe.

XIII. PSALMS LV. VI.

O that I had the wings of a Dove, for then I would flee away and be at rest.

S. AUGUST. in Psal. 138.

What wings should I desire but the two precepts of love, on which the Law and the Prophets depend? O if I could obtaine these wings, I could fly from thy face to thy face, from the face of thy Justice to the face of thy Mercy: Let us find those wings by love which we have lost by lust.

S. AUGUST. in Psal. 76.

Let us cast off whatsoever hinders, entangles or burthens our flight untill we attaine that which satisfies: beyond which nothing is; beneath which, all things are; of which, all things are.

EPIGRAM 13.

[Tell me, my wishing soule, didst ever trie]

Tell me, my wishing soule, didst ever trie
How fast the wings of Red-crost Faith can flie?
Why beg'st thou the the pineons of a Dove?
Faiths wings are swifter, but the swiftest, Love.

XIV. PSALMS LXXXIV. I.

How amiable are thy Tabernacles O god of Hosts.

Ancient of dayes, to whom, all things are Now,
Before whose Glory, Seraphims do bow
Their blushing Cheeks, and vale their blemisht faces:
That, uncontaind, at once, dost fill all places,
How glorious, O how farre beyond the height
Of puzzled Quils, or the obtuse conceit
Of flesh and Blood, or the too flat reports
Of mortall tongues, are thy expreslesse Courts!
Whose glory to paint forth with greater Art,
Ravisht my Fancy, and inspire my heart,
Excuse my bold attempt, and pardon me
For shewing Sense, what Faith alone should see.
Ten thousand Millions, and ten thousand more
Of Angell-measur'd leagues from th'Easterne shore
Of dungeon earth this glorious Palace stands,
Before whose pearly gates, ten thousand Bands
Of armed Angels wait, to entertaine
Those purged soules, for whom the Lamb was slaine,
Whose guiltlesse death, and voluntary yeelding
Of whose giv'n life gave this brave Court her building;
The lukewarme Blood of this deare Lamb being spilt,
To Rubies turn'd, whereof her posts were built;
And what dropte downe in cold and gelid gore,
Did turne rich Saphyrs, and impav'd her floore:
The brighter flames, that from his eye-balls ray'd,
Grew Chrysolites, whereof her wals were made:
The milder glaunces sparkled on the Ground.
And grunsild ev'ry doore with Diamond:
But, dying, darted upwards, and did fixe
A Battlement of puret Sardonix:
Her streets with burnisht Gold are paved round:
Starres lie like pebbles scattered on the ground:
Pearle, mixt with Onyx, and the Jasper stone,
Made gravil'd Causewayes to be trampled on:
There shines no Sun by day; no Moone, by night;
The Pallace glory is the Pallace light:
There is no time to measure motion by,
There, time is swallow'd with Eternity;
Wry-mouth'd disdaine, and corner-haunting lust,
And twy-fac'd Fraud; and beetle-brow'd Distrust;
Soule-boyling Rage; and trouble-state sedition;
And giddy doubt; and goggle-ey'd suspition;
And lumpish sorrow, and degen'rous feare
Are banisht thence, and death's a stranger there:
But simple love, and sempiternall joyes,
Whose sweetnesse neither gluts, nor fulnesse cloyes;
Where face to face, our ravisht eye shall see
Great ELOHIM, that glorious One in Three,
And Three in One; and, seeing Him, shall blesse Him,
And blessing, love Him; and, in love, possesse Him:
Here stay, my soule, and ravish in relation:
Thy words being spent; spend now, in Contemplation.

S. GREG. in Psal. 7 poenitent.

Sweet Jesus, the World of the Father, the brightnesse of paternall glory, whom Angels delight to view, teach me to do thy will; that, led by thy good Spirit, I may come to that blessed City, where day is eternall, where there is certaine security, and secure eternity, and eternall peace, and peacefull happinesse, and happy sweetnesse, and sweet pleasure; where thou O God with the Father and the holy Spirit livest and raignest world without end.

Ibid.

There is light without darknesse; Joy without griefe; desire without punishment; love without sadnesse; satiety without loathing; safety without feare; health without disease; and life without death.

EPIGRAM 14.

[My soule, pry not too nearely; The Complexion]

My soule, pry not too nearely; The Complexion
Of Sols bright face is seen, but by Reflexion:
But wouldst thou know what's heav'n? Ile tell thee what;
Think what thou canst not think, and Heav'n is that.

XV. CANTICLES VIII. XIV.

Make haste my Beloved, and be like the Roe or the young Hart upon the Mountaines of Spices.

Go, gentle Tyrant, goe; thy flames do pierce
My soule too deep; thy flames are too too fierce:
My marrow melts; my fainting Spirits fry
Ith'torrid Zone of thy Meridian Eye;
Away, away: Thy sweets are too perfuming;
Turne, turne thy face; Thy fires are too consuming:
Hast hence; and let thy winged steps out-goe
The frighted Roe-buck, and his flying Roe.
But wilt thou leave me then? O thou that art
Life of my Soule, Soule of my dying heart,
Without the sweet Aspect of whose faire Eyes,
My soule does languish, and her solace dies;
Art thou so easly woo'd? So apt to heare
The frantick language of my foolish Feare?
Leave, leave me not; nor turne thy beauty from me,
Looke, looke upon me, though thine eyes ov'rcome me.
O how they wound! But, how my wounds content me!
How sweetly these delightfull paines torment me!
How I am tortur'd in excessive measure
Of pleasing cruelties too cruell pleasure!
Turne, turne away; remove they scorching beames;
I languish with these bitter-sweet extreames:
Hast then, and let thy winged steps out-goe
The flying Roe-buck, and his frighted Roe.
Turne back, my deare; O let my revisht eye
Once more behold thy face before thou flie;
What? shall we part without a mutuall kisse?
O who can leave so sweet a face as this?
Looke full upon me; for my soule desires
To turne a holy Martyr in those fires:
O leave me not, nor turne thy beauty from me;
Looke, looke upon me, though thy flames ov'rcome me.
If thou becloud the Sun-shine of thine eye,
I freeze to death; and if it shine, I frie;
Which like a Fever, that my soule has got,
Makes me burne too cold, or freeze to hot:
Alas, I cannot beare so sweet a smart,
Nor canst thou be lesse glorious than thou art:
Hast then, and let thy winged steps out-goe
The frighted Roe-buck, and his flying Roe.
But goe not farre beyond the reach of breath;
Too large a distance makes another death:
My youth is in her Spring; Autumnall vowes
Will make me riper for so sweet a Spouse,
When after-times have burnish'd my desire,
Ile shoot thee flames for flames, and fire for fire.
O leave me not, nor turne thy beauty from me;
Looke, looke upon me, though thy flames ov'rcome me.

Author scalae Paradisi. Tom. 9. Aug. Cap. 8.

Feare not O Bride, nor despaire; Thinke not thy self contemn'd, if thy Bridegroome withdraw his face awhile: All things co-operate for the best: Both from his absence, and his presence thou gainest light: He comes to thee, and he goes from thee: He comes, to make thee consolate; He goes, to make thee cautious, lest thy abundant consolation puffe thee up: He comes, that thy languishing soule may be comforted; He goes; lest his familiarity should be contemned; and, being absent, to be more desired; and being desired, to be more earnestly sought; and being long sought, to be more acceptably found.

EPIGRAM 15.

[My soule, sinnes monster, whom, with greater ease]

My soule, sinnes monster, whom, with greater ease
Ten thousand fold, thy GOD could make than please:
What wouldst thou have? Nor pleas'd with Sun, nor shade?
Heav'n knowes not what to make of what He made.

THE FAREWELL.