The psalms :: :: University of Virginia Library

A grave discourse to utter I entend;
The age of tyme I purpose to renew,
You, O my charge, to what I teach attend;
Heare what I speake, and what you heare ensue,
The thinges our fathers did to us commend,
The same are they I recommend to you:
Which though but heard, we know most true to be:
We heard, but heard, of who them selves did see.

Which never lett us soe ungratefull grow,
As to conceale from such as shall succeed:
Let us the praises of Jehova show,
Each act of worth, each memorable deede,
Chiefly since he him self commanded so:
Giving a law to Jacob and his seed,
That fathers should this use to sonnes maintayne,
And sonnes to sonnes, and they to theirs again:

That while the yong shall over-live the old,
And of their brood some yet shalbe unborn,
These memories, in memory enrold,
By fretting time may never thence be worn;
That still on God, their anchor, hope may hold,
From him by no dispairefull tempest torn;
That with wise hartes and willing mindes they may
Think what he did, and what he bidds obay;

And not ensue their fathers froward trace,
Whose stepps from God, rebelliously did stray:
A waiward, stubborn, stailesse, faithlesse race,
Such as on God no hold by hope could lay;
Like Ephraims sonnes, who durst not show their face,
But from the battaill fearefull fled away:
Yet bare, as men of warrlike excellence,
Offending bowes, and armor for defence.

166

And why? they did not hold inviolate
The league of God: nor in his pathes would go.
His famous workes, and wonders they forgate,
Which, often hearing, well might cause them know
The workes and wonders which, in hard estate,
He did of old unto their fathers show:
Whereof all Egipt testimony yeelds,
And of all Egypt, chiefly Zoan fields.

There where the deepe did show his sandy flore,
And heaped waves an uncouth way enwall:
Whereby they past from one to other shore,
Walking on seas, and yet not wett at all:
He ledd them so; a cloud was them before
While light did last: when night did darknes call,
A flaming piller glitt'ring in the skies
Their load starr was, till sunne again did rise.

He rift the Rocks and from their perced sides,
To give them drinck, whole seas of water drew:
The desert sand no longer thirst abides;
The trickling springs to such huge rivers grew.
Yet not content their furie further slides;
In those wild waies they anger God anew.
As thirst before, now hunger stirrs their lust
To tempting thoughtes, bewraying want of trust;

And fond conceites begetting fonder wordes:
Can God, say they, prepare with plentious hand
Deliciously to furnish out our boordes
Here in this waste, this hunger-starved land?
We see indeed the streames the Rock affordes:
We see in pooles the gathered waters stand:
But whither bread and flesh so ready be
For him to give, as yet we do not see.

This heard, but heard with most displeased eare,
That Jacobs race he did so dearly love,
Who in his favoure had no cause to feare,
Should now so wav'ring, so distrustfull prove;
The raking sparkes in flame began appeare,
And staied choller fresh again to move;
That from his trust their confidence should swerve,
Whose deedes had shown, he could and would preserve.

167

Yet he unclos'd the garners of the skies,
And bade the cloudes Ambrosian manna rain:
As morning frost on hoary pasture lies,
So strawed lay each where this heav'nly grain
The finest cheat that dearest princes prise,
The bread of heav'n could not in finenes stain:
Which he them gave, and gave them in such store,
Each had so much, he wish't to have no more.

But that he might them each way satisfie,
He slipt the raines to east and southerne wind;
These on the cloudes their uttmost forces try,
And bring in raines of admirable kind.
The dainty Quailes that freely wont to fly,
In forced showers to dropp were now assign'd:
And fell as thick as dust on sunn-burnt field,
Or as the sand the thirsty shore doth yeeld.

Soe all the plain, whereon their army lay,
As farr abroad as any tent was pight,
With feathred rain was wat'red ev'ry way,
Which showring down did on their lodgings light.
Then fell they to their easy gotten pray,
And fedd till fullnes vanquisht had delight:
Their lust still flam'd, still God the fuell brought
And fedd their lust beyond their lustfull thought.

But fully filld, not fully yet content,
While now the meate their weary chaps did chew:
Gods wrathfull rage upon these gluttons sent,
Of all their troupes the principallest slew.
Among all them of Israells descent
His stronger plague the strongest overthrew.
Yet not all this could wind them to his will,
Still worse they grew, and more untoward still.

Therfore he made them waste their weary yeares
Roaming in vain in that unpeopled place;
Possest with doubtfull cares and dreadfull feares:
But if at any time death show'd his face,
Then lo, to God they su'de and su'de with teares:
Then they retorn'd, and earely sought his grace:
Then they profest, and all did mainly cry
In God their strength, their hope, their help did ly.

168

But all was built uppon no firmer ground
Then fawning mouthes, and tongues to lying train'd:
They made but showes, their hart was never sound:
Disloiall once, disloiall still remain'd.
Yet he (so much his mercy did abound)
Purged the filth, wherwith their soules were staind:
Destroid them not, but oft revok'd his ire,
And mildly quencht his indignations fire.

For kind compassion called to his mynd,
That they but men, that men but mortall were,
That mortall life, a blast of breathing wind,
As wind doth passe, and, past, no more appeare,
And yet (good God) how ofte this crooked kind
Incenst him in the desert every where!
Againe repin'd, and murmured againe,
And would in boundes that boundles pow'r contain.

Forsooth their weake remembrance could not hold
His hand, whose force above all mortall hands
To Aegipts wonder did it self unfold,
Loosing their fetters and their servile bands:
When Zoan plaines where cristall Rivers rold,
With all the rest of those surrounded lands,
Saw watry clearnes chang'd to bloudy gore,
Pining with thirst in middst of watry store.

Should I relate of flies the deadly swarmes?
Of filthy froggs the odious annoy?
Grashoppers waste, and Caterpillers harmes,
Which did their fruites, their harvest hope enjoy?
How haile and lightning breaking of the armes
Of vines and figgs, the bodies did destroy?
Lightning and haile, whose flamy, stony blowes,
Their beastes no less and cattell overthrowes?

These were but smokes of after-going fire:
Now, now his fury breaketh into flame:
Now dole and dread, now pine and paine conspire
With angry Angells wreak and wrack to frame.
Nought now is left to stopp his stailesse ire;
So plaine a way is opened to the same
Abroad goes Death, the uttermost of ills,
In house, in field, and men and cattell kills.

169

All that rich land, where over Nilus trailes
Of his wett robe the slymy seedy train,
With millions of mourning cries bewailes
Of ev'ry kind their first begotten slain.
Against this plague no wealth, no worth prevailes:
Of all that in the tentes of Cham remayn,
Who of their house the propps and pillers were,
Themselves do fall, much lesse can others beare.

Mean while, as while a black tempestuous blast
Drowning the earth in sunder rentes the skies,
A Shepheard wise to howse his flock doth haste,
Taking nere waies, and where best passage lies:
God from this ruine, through the barrain waste
Conducts his troupes in such or safer wise:
And from the seas his sheepe he fearelesse saves,
Leaving their wolves intombed in the waves.

But them leaves not untill they were possest
Of this his hill, of this his holy place,
Whereof full Conquest did him, Lord, invest,
When all the dwellers fledd his peoples face,
By him subdu'd, and by his hand opprest;
Whose heritage he shared to the Race,
The twelve-fold race of godly Israell,
To lord their landes, and in their dwellings dwell.

But what availes? not yet they make an end
To tempt high God, and stirre his angry gall:
From his prescript another way they wend,
And to their fathers crooked by-pathes fall.
So, with vaine toile, distorted bowes we bend:
Though level'd right, they shoote not right at all.
The idoll honor of their damned groves,
When God it heard, his jealous anger moves.

For God did heare, detesting in his hart
The Israelites, a people soe perverse:
And from his seate in Silo did depart
The place where God did erst with men converse;
Right well content that foes on every part
His force Captyve, his glory should reverse:
Right well content (so ill content he grew)
His peoples bloud should tyrantes blade imbrue.

170

Soe the yong men the flame of life bereaves:
The virgins live despair'd of mariage choise:
The sacred priests fall on the bloudy glaives;
No widow left to use hir wailing voice.
But as a knight, whome wyne or slumber leaves,
Hearing alarm, is roused at the noise:
Soe God awakes: his haters fly for feare,
And of their shame eternall marks do beare.

But God chose not, as he before had chose,
In Josephs tents, or Ephraim to dwell:
But Juda takes, and to Mount Syon goes,
To Syon mount, the mount he loved well.
There he his house did castle-like enclose;
Of whose decay no after times shall tell:
While her own weight shall weighty earth sustain,
His sacred seate shall here unmov'd remain.

And where his servant David did attend
A shepherds charge, with care of fold and field:
He takes him thence and to a nobler end
Converts his cares, appointing him to shield
His people which of Jacob did descend,
And feede the flock his heritage did yeld:
And he the paines did gladly undergoe,
Which hart sincere, and hand discreet did show.