The psalms :: :: University of Virginia Library

Lorde, our fathers true relation
Often made, hath made us knowe
How thy pow'r in each occasion,
Thou of old for them didst showe;
How thy hand the Pagan foe
Rooting hence, thie folke implanting,
Leavelesse made that braunch to grow,
This to spring, noe verdure wanting.

Never could their sword procure them
Conquest of the promist land:
Never could their force assure them
When theie did in danger stand.
Noe, it was thie arme, thie hand,
Noe, it was thie favors treasure
Spent uppon thie loved band,
Loved, whie? for thy wise pleasure.

Unto thee stand I subjected,
I that did of Jacob spring:
Bidd then that I be protected,
Thou that art my God, my king:
By that succour thou didst bring,
Wee their pride that us assailed,
Downe did tread, and back did fling,
In thy name confus'd and quailed.

For my trust was not reposed
In my owne though strongest, bowe:
Nor my scabberd held enclosed
That, whence should my saftie flowe
Thou, O God, from every foe
Didst us shield, our haters shaming:
Thence thy dailie praise wee showe,
Still thy name with honor naming.

But aloofe thou now dost hover,
Grieving us with all disgrace:
Hast resign'd and given over
In our Campe thy Captaines place.
Back wee turne, that turned face,
Flieng them, that erst wee foiled:
See our goods (O changed case,)
Spoil'd by them, that late we spoiled.

Right as sheepe to be devowred,
Helplesse heere wee lie alone:
Scattringlie by thee out-powred,
Slaves to dwell with lords unknown.
Sold wee are, but silver none
Told for us: by thee so prised,
As for nought to bee forgone,
Gracelesse, worthlesse, vile, despised.

By them all that dwell about us,
Tos'd we flie as balls of scorne;
All our neighbours laugh and flout us,
Men by thee in shame forlorne.
Proverb-like our name is worne,
O how fast in foraine places!
What hed-shakings are forborne!
Wordlesse taunts and dumbe disgraces!

Soe rebuke before mee goeth,
As my self doe daily goe:
Soe Confusion on me groweth,
That my face I blush to show.
By reviling slaundring foe
Inly wounded thus I languish:
Wreakfull spight with outward blow
Anguish adds to inward anguish.

All, this all on us hath lighted,
Yet to thee our love doth last:
As wee weare, wee are delighted
Still to hold thie cov'nant fast.
Unto none our hartes have past:
Unto none our feete have slidden:
Though us downe to dragons cast
Thou in deadly shade hast hidden.

If our God wee had forsaken,
Or forgott what hee assign'd:
If our selves we had betaken
Godds to serve of other kind
Should not hee our doubling find
Though conceal'd, and closlie lurking?
Since his eye of deepest minde
Deeper sincks then deepest working?

Surelie Lord, this daily murther
For thie sake we thus sustaine:
For thy sake esteem'd no further
Then as sheepe, that must be slaine.
Upp O Lord, up once againe:
Sleepe not ever, slack not ever:
Why does thou forgett our paine?
Why to hid thy face persever?

Heavie grief our soule abaseth,
Prostrate it on dust doth lie:
Earth our bodie fast embraceth,
Nothing can the Claspe untie.
Rise, and us with help supplie:
Lord, in mercie soe esteeme us,
That we may thy mercie trie,
Mercie may from thrall redeeme us.

Psalm 45 Eructavit cor meum

My harte endites an argument of worth,
The praise of him that doth the Scepter swaie:
My tongue the pen to paynt his praises forth,
Shall write as swift as swiftest writer maie.
Then to the king these are the wordes I saie:
Fairer art thou then sonnes of mortall race:
Because high God hath blessed thee for ay,
Thie lipps, as springs, doe flowe with speaking grace.

Thie honors sword gird to this mightie side,
O thou that dost all things in might excell:
With glory prosper, on with triumph ride
Since justice, truth, and meeknes with thee dwell.
Soe that right hande of thine shall teaching tell
Such things to thee, as well maie terror bring,
And terror such, as never erst befell
To mortall mindes at sight of mortall king.

Sharpe are thie shaftes to cleave their hartes in twaine
Whose heads do cast thy Conquestes to withstand
Good cause to make the meaner people faine
With willing hartes to undergoe thie hand.
Thie throne O God, doth never-falling stand:
Thie Scepter, ensigne of thie kinglie might,
To righteousnes is linckt with such a band,
That righteous hand still holds thie Scepter right.

Justice in love, in hate thou holdest wrong,
This makes that God, who soe doth hate and love:
Glad-making oile, that oile on thee hath flong,
Which three exaltes thine equalls farre above.
The fragrant riches of Sabean grove
Mirrh, Aloes, Casia, all thy robes doe smell:
When thou from ivorie pallace dost remove
Thie breathing odors all thie traine excell.

Daughters of kings among this cortlie band,
By honoring thee of thee doe honor hold:
On thie right side thie dearest queene doth stand
Richlie araid in cloth of Ophir gold.
O daughter heare what now to thee is told:
Mark what thou hear'st, and what thou mark'st obay
Forgett to keepe in memory enrold
The house, and folk, where first thou sawst the daie.

Soe in the king, thie king, a deere delight
Thie beautie shall both breed, and bredd, maintaine:
For onlie hee on thee hath lordlie right,
Him onlie thou with awe must entertaine.
Then unto thee both Tyrus shall be faine
Presents present, and richest nations moe,
With humble sute thie Roiall grace to gaine,
To thee shall doe such homage as they owe.

This Queene that can a king her father call,
Doth only shee in upper garment shine?
Naie under clothes, and what she weareth all,
Golde is the stuffe the fasshion Arte divine;
Brought to the king in robe imbrodred fine,
Hir maides of honor shall on hir attend
With such, to whome more favoure shall assigne
In nearer place their happie daies to spend.

Brought shall they bee with mirth and mariage joy
And enter soe the pallace of the king:
Then lett noe grief thie minde, O Queene, anoy,
Nor parents left thie sad remembraunce sting.
In steed of parents, children thou shalt bring
Of partadg'd earth the kings and lords to bee:
My self thie name in lasting verse will sing.
The world shall make no ende of thanks to thee.

Psalm 46 Deus noster refugium

God gives us strength, and keepes us sounde,
A present help when dangers call;
Then feare not wee lett quake the grounde,
And into seas let mountains fall,
Yea soe lett seas withall,
In watry hills arise,
As maie the earthlie hills appall,
With dread and dashing cries.

For lo, a river streaming joy,
With purling murmur saflie slides,
That cittie washing from annoy,
In holy shrine where God resides.
God in hir center bides:
What can this cittie shake?
God earlie aides and ever guides,
Who can this cittie take?

When nations goe against her bent
And kings with siege her walls enround:
The voide of aire his voice doth rent,
Earth failes their feete with melting ground.
To strength and keepe us sound,
The God of armies armes:
Our rock on Jacobs God wee found
Above the reach of harmes.

O come with me, O come and view
The trophes of Jehovas hand:
What wracks from him our foes pursue,
How cleerly he hath purg'd our land.
By him warrs silent stand:
He brake the archers bow
Made charretts wheele a firy brand,
And speare to shivers goe.

Bee still saith he; know, God am I:
Know I will be with conquest croun'd,
Above all nations raised high,
High rais'd above this earthy round.
To strength and keepe us sound
The God of armies armes:
Our rock on Jacobs God we found,
Above the reach of harmes.

Psalm 47 Omnes gentes, plaudite

All people, to Jehovah bring
A glad applause of clapping hands:
To God a song of triumph sing
Who high, and highlie feared stands,
Of all the earth sole-ruling king;

From whose allmightie grace it growes
That nations by our power opprest;
Our foote on humbled countries goes:
Who Jacobs honor loved best,
An heritage for us hath chose.

There past hee by: hark how did ring,
Harmonious aire with trumpetts sound:
Praise, praise our God; praise, praise our king,
Kings of the world your judgments sound,
With Skillful song his praises sing.

On sacred throne, not knowing end,
For God the king of kingdomes raignes
The folk of Abrahams God to frend
Hee, greatest prince, greate princes gaines;
Princes, the shields that earth defend.

Psalm 48 Magnus Dominus

He that hath eternall beeing
Glorious is, and glorious showes
In the cittie he hath chose,
Where stands his holie hill.
Hill Sion, hill of fairest seeing,
Cittie of the king most greate,
Seated in a northlie seate,
All climes with joy doth fill;
In each pallace shee containeth,
God a well-known rock remaineth.

One daie kings a daie appointed,
There with joined force to be,
See they it? the things they see,
Amaze their mated mindes.
Flyeng, trembling, disappointed,
Soe theie feare, and soe they fare,
As the wife, whose wofull care
The panges of child-bed findes;
Right as shipps from Tarshish going,
Crusht with blasts of Eurus blowing.

Now our sight hath matcht our hearing,
In what state Gods cittie stands
How supported by his hands
God ever holds the same.
In thie temples mid'st appeering
Wee thie favoure, Lorde, attend:
Righteous Lord both free from end,
Thie fame doth match thy name.
Thie just hand brings Sion gladnes
Turns to mirth all Judaes sadnes.

Compasse Sion in her standing
Tell her towres, mark her fortes:
Note with care the statelie portes
Her roiall houses beare;
For that ages understanding,
Which shall come, when wee shall goe,
Gladd in former time to know,
How manie what they weare.
For God, is our God for ever
Us till death forsaking never.

Psalm 49 Audite haec, omnes

World-dwellers all give heede to what I saie;
To all I speake, to rich, poore, high and low;
Knowledg the subject is my hart conceaves,
Wisdome the wordes shall from my mouth proceed:
Which I will measure by melodious eare,
And ridled speech to tuned harp accord.

The times of evil why should they me dismaie,
When mischief shall my foote stepps overflow?
And first from him whom fickle wealth deceaves,
Which his (though greate) vaine confidence doth breed,
Since no man can his brothers life out-beare,
Nor yeeld for him his ransome to the Lord?

For deere the price that for a soul must paie:
And death his prisoner never will forgoe;
Naie tell mee whome but longer time hee leaves
Respited from the tombe for treasures meed?
Sure at his sommons, wise and fooles appeare,
And others spend the riches they did hoord.

A second thinkes his house shall not decaie,
Nor time his glorious buildings overthrow,
Nam'd proudlie of his name, where folly reaves
Exalted men of sence: and theie indeed
A brutish life and death, as beasts they weare,
Doe live and die; of whom is noe record.

Yea these, whose race approves their peevish waie,
Death in the pitt his carrion foode doth stow
And loe, the first succeeding light perceaves
The just installed in the greate mans steed;
Nay, far his prince: when once that lovely cheere,
Lovely in house, in tombe becomes abhord.

But God, my God, to intercept the praie
Of my life from the grave will not foreslowe
For he it is, hee only me receaves:
Then though one rich doe growe, though glories seede
Spring with encrease: yet stand thou free from feare,
Of all his pomp death shall him nought affoord.

Please they them selves, and think at happiest stay
Who please them selves: yet to their fathers goe
Must they to endless dark: for folly reaves
Exalted men of sence, and they indeede
A brutish life and death, as beastes they weare,
Doe live, and die, of whome is noe record.

Psalm 50 Deus deorum

The mightie God, the ever living lord,
All nations from earthes uttermost confines
Sommoneth by his pursevant, his worde,
And out of beauties beautie, Sion shines.
God comes, he comes, with eare and tongue restor'd:
His garde huge stormes, hott flames his usshers goe:
And called, their apparrence to record,
Heav'n hasteth from above, earth from below.

He sits his peoples judge, and thus commandes:
Gather me hither that beloved line,
Whome solemn sacrifices holy bandes
Did in eternal league with me combine
Then when the heav'ns subsigned with their handes,
That God in justice eminentlie raignes:
Controlling soe, as nothing countermandes
What once decreed his sacred doome containes.

You then, my folke, to me your God attend:
Hark, Israell, and hear thy peoples blame:
Not want of sacrifice doth mee offend,
Nor doe I misse thy alters daily flame.
Too mee thy stall no fatted bull shall send:
Should I exact one hee-goat from thy fold?
I, that as farr as hills, woodes, fieldes extende,
All birdes and beasts in known possession hold?

Suppose mee hungrie; yet to beg thy meate,
I would not tell thee that I hungrie were:
My self maie take, what needs mee then entreate?
Since earth is mine, and all that earth doth beare?
But doe I long the brawnie flesh to eate
Of that dull beast that serves the plowmans neede?
Or doe I thirst, to quench my thirsty heate,
In what the throates of bearded cattell bleed?

100

O no: bring God of praise a sacrifice;
Thy vowed debts unto the highest paie:
Invoke my name, to mee erect thy cries,
Thy praying plaints, when sorow stopps thy waie;
I will undoe the knott that anguish tyes,
And thou at peace shalt glorifie my name:
Mildly the good, God schooleth in this wise,
But this sharpe check doth to the godlesse frame:

How fitts it thee my statutes to report?
And of my covenant in thy talk to prate
Hating to live in right reformed sort,
And leaving in neglect what I relate?
See'st thou a thief? thou grow'st of his consorte:
Dost with adult'rers to adultrie goe:
Thy mouth is slanders ever-open porte,
And from thy tongue doth nought, but treason flow.

Naie ev'n thy brother thy rebukes disgrace,
And thou in spight diffam'st thy mothers sonne:
And for I wink a while, thy thoughts imbrace:
God is like mee, and doth as I have done.
But loe thou see'st I march another pace,
And come with truth thy falshood to disclose:
Thy sinne, reviv'd, upbraides thy blushing face,
Which thou long dead in silence didst suppose.

O laie up this in marking memorie
You that are wont Gods judgments to forgett:
In vaine to others for release you flie,
If once on you I griping fingers sett.
And know the rest: my dearest worship I
In sweete perfume of offred praise doe place:
And who directs his goings orderlie,
By my conduct shall see Gods saving grace.

101

Psalm 51 Miserere mei, Deus

O Lord, whose grace no limits comprehend;
Sweet Lord, whose mercies stand from measure free;
To mee that grace, to mee that mercie send,
And wipe O Lord, my sinnes from sinfull mee
O clense, O wash my foule iniquitie:
Clense still my spotts, still wash awaie my staynings,
Till staines and spotts in me leave no remaynings.

For I, alas, acknowledging doe know
My filthie fault, my faultie filthines
To my soules eye uncessantly doth show.
Which done to thee, to thee I doe confesse,
Just judge, true witnes; that for righteousnes,
Thy doome may passe against my guilt awarded,
Thy evidence for truth maie be regarded.

My mother, loe! when I began to be,
Conceaving me, with me did sinne conceave:
And as with living heate she sherisht me,
Corruption did like cherishing receave
But loe, thy love to purest good doth cleave,
And inward truth which hardlie els discerned,
My trewand soule in thy hid schoole hath learned.

Then as thy self to leapers hast assign'd,
With hisop, Lord, thy Hisop, purge me soe:
And that shall clense the leaprie of my mind;
Make over me thy mercies streames to flow,
Soe shall my whitenes scorn the whitest snow.
To eare and hart send soundes and thoughts of gladnes,
That brused bones maie daunce awaie their sadnes.

Thy ill-pleas'd eye from my misdeedes avert:
Cancell the registers my sinns containe:
Create in me a pure, cleane, spottles hart:
Inspire a sprite where love of right maie raigne.
Ah! cast me not from thee: take not againe
Thy breathing grace! againe thy comfort send me,
And let the guard of thy free sp'rite attend me.

102

Soe I to them a guiding hand wilbe,
Whose faultie feete have wandred from thy way:
And turn'd from sinne will make retorne to thee,
Whom, turn'd from thee, sinne erst had ledd astraie.
O God, God of my health, O doe away
My bloody crime: soe shall my tongue be raised
To praise thy truth, enough can not be praised.

Unlock my lipps, shut up with sinnfull shame:
Then shall my mouth, O Lord, thy honor sing;
For bleeding fuell for thy alters flame,
To gaine thy grace what bootes it me to bring?
Burnt-offrings are to thee no pleasant thing.
The sacrifice that God will holde respected,
Is the heart-broken soule, the sprite dejected.

Lastly, O Lord, how soe I stand or fall,
Leave not thy loved Sion to embrace:
But with thy favour build up Salems wall,
And still in peace, maintaine that peacefull place.
Then shalt thou turne a well-accepting face
To sacred fires with offred giftes perfumed:
Till ev'n whole calves on alters be consumed.

103

Psalm 52 Quid gloriaris?

Tyrant, why swel'st thou thus,
Of mischief vaunting?
Since helpe from God to us,
Is never wanting?

Lewd lies thy tongue contrives,
Lowd lies it soundeth:
Sharper then sharpest knives
With lies it woundeth.

Falshood thy witt approves,
All truth rejected:
Thy will all vices loves,
Vertue neglected.

Not wordes from cursed thee,
But gulfes are powred;
Gulfes wherin daily bee
Good men devoured.

Think'st thou to beare it soe?
God shall displace thee;
God shall thee overthrow,
Crush thee, deface thee.

The just shall fearing see
These fearefull chaunces:
And laughing shoote at thee
With scornfull glances.

Loe, loe, the wretched wight,
Who God disdaining,
His mischief made his might,
His guard his gaining.

104

I as an olive tree,
Still green shall flourish:
Gods house the soile shall bee
My rootes to nourish.

My trust on his true love
Truly attending,
Shall never thence remove,
Never see ending.

Thee will I honor still
Lord, for this justice:
There fix my hopes I will
Where thy saincts trust is.

Thy saints trust in thy name,
Therin they joy them:
Protected by the same
Nought can annoy them.

105

Psalm 53 Dixit insipiens

There is no God, the foole doth saie,
If not in word, in thought and will:
This fancie rotten deedes bewraie,
And studies fixt on lothsome ill.
Not one doth good: from heav'nlie hill,
Jehovas eye one wiser minde
Could not discerne, that held the waie
To understand, and God to finde.

They all have strai'd, are cancred all:
Not one I saie, not one doth good.
But senslesnes, what should I call
Such carriage of this cursed brood?
My people are their bread, their food,
Upon my name they scorne to cry:
Whome vaine affright doth yet appall,
Where no just ground of feare doth ly.

But on their bones shall wreaked be
All thy invaders force and guile,
In vile confusion cast by thee,
For God him self shall make them vile.
Ah! why delaies that happy while
When Sion shall our saver bring?
The Lord his folk will one daie free:
Then Jacobs house shall daunce and sing.

106

Psalm 54 Deus, in nomine

Lord, let thy name my saving succor bee:
Defend my wronged cause by thy just might.
Lord, let my crieng voice be heard of thee,
Lett not my heavie words be counted light;
For strangers I against me risen see,
Who hunt me hard, and sore my soul affright;
Possest with feare of God in no degree.
But God, thou art my helper in my right,
Thou succour send'st to such as succour me;
Then pay them home, who thus against me fight,
And let thy truth cut downe their trechery.
Soe I with offrings shall thy Alters dight,
Praising thy name which thus hast sett me free:
Giving me scope to soare with happie flight
Above my evills: and on my enemy
Making me see what I to see delight.

107

Psalm 55 Exaudi, Deus

My God most glad to look, most prone to heere,
An open eare O let my praier find,
And from my plaint turne not thy face away.
Behold my gestures, harken what I say
While uttering mones with most tormented mind.
My body I no lesse torment and teare,
For loe, their fearful threatnings wound mine eare,
Who griefs on griefs on me still heaping laie,
A mark to wrath and hate and wrong assign'd;
Therefore my hart hath all his force resign'd
To trembling pants, death terrors on me pray,
I feare, nay shake, nay quiv'ring quake with feare.

Then say I, O might I but cutt the wind,
Born on the wing the fearfull dove doth beare:
Stay would I not, till I in rest might stay.
Far hence, O far, then would I take my way
Unto the desert, and repose me there,
These stormes of woe, these tempests left behind:
But swallow them, O Lord, in darkness blind,
Confound their councells, leade their tongues astray,
That what they meane by wordes may not appeare;
For Mother Wrong within their towne each where,
And daughter Strife their ensignes so display,
As if they only thither were confin'd.

These walk their cittie walles both night and day,
Oppressions, tumults, guiles of ev'ry kind
Are burgesses, and dwell the midle neere;
About their streetes his masking robes doth weare
Mischief, cloth'd in deceit, with treason lin'd,
Where only hee, hee only beares the sway.
But not my foe with mee this pranck did play,
For then I would have borne with patient cheere
An unkind part from whom I know unkind;
Nor hee whose forhed Envies mark had sign'd,
His trophes on my ruins sought to reare,
From whom to fly I might have made assay.

108

But this to thee, to thee impute I may,
My fellow my companion, held most deere,
My soule, my other self, my inward frend:
Whom unto me, me unto whom did bind
Exchanged secrets, who together were
Gods temple wont to visit, there to pray.
O lett a soddaine death work their decay,
Who speaking faire, such canckred malice mind,
Let them be buried breathing in their beare.
But purple morn, black ev'n, and midday cleare,
Shall see my praying voice to God enclin'd,
Rowzing him up; and nought shall me dismay.

He ransom'd me, he for my saftie fin'd
In fight where many sought my soule to slay;
He, still him self, (to noe succeeding heire
Leaving his Empire) shall no more forbeare:
But, at my motion, all these Atheists pay,
By whom (still one) such mischiefs are design'd;
Who but such caitives would have undermin'd,
Nay overthrowne, from whome but kindnes meare
They never found? who would such trust betray?
What buttred wordes! yet warr their harts bewray;
Their speach more sharp then sharpest sword or speare
Yet softer flowes then balme from wounded rinde.

But, my ore loaden soule, thy selfe upcheare:
Cast on Gods shoulders what thee down doth waigh,
Long borne by thee with bearing pain'd and pin'd;
To care for thee he shall be ever kinde.
By him the just, in safety held allway,
Chaunglesse shall enter, live, and leave the yeare:
But, Lord, how long shall these men tarry here?
Fling them in pitt of death where never shin'd
The light of life; and while I make my stay
On thee, let who their thirst with bloud allay
Have their life-holding threed so weakly twin'd
That it, half spunne, death may in sunder sheare.

109

Psalm 56 Miserere mei, Deus

Fountaine of pitty now with pitty flow:
These monsters on me daily gaping goe,
Dailie me devoure these spies,
Swarmes of foes against me rise,
O God that art more high then I am lowe.

Still when I feare, yet will I trust in thee:
Thy word, O God, my boast shall ever bee;
God shall be my hopefull stay,
Feare shall not that hope dismay
For what can feeble flesh doe unto me?

I as I can, think, speake, and doe the best:
They to the worst my thoughts, wordes, doings wrest.
All their hartes with one consent
Are to worke my ruine bent,
From plotting which, they give their heads no rest.

To that entent they secret meetings make,
They presse me neere my soule in snare to take,
Thinking slight shall keepe them safe.
But thou, Lord, in wrathfull chafe,
Their league soe surely linckt, in sunder shake.

Thou didst, O Lord, with carefull counting, looke
On ev'ry jorney I, poore exile, tooke:
Ev'ry teare from my sad eyes
Saved in thy bottle lyes,
These matters are all entred in thy book.

Then when soever my distressed sprite
Crying to thee, brings these unto thy sight,
What remayneth for my foes?
Blames, and shames, and overthrowes,
For God him self I know for me will fight.

110

Gods never-falsed word my boast shalbe,
My boast shalbe his word to sett me free,
God shall be my hopfull stay;
Feare shall not that hope dismay,
For what can mortall men doe unto me?

For this, to thee, how deeply stand I bound
Lord, that my soule dost save, my foes confound?
Ah, I can no paiment make,
But if thou for payment take
The vowes I pay, thy praises I resound:

Thy praises who from death hast set me free
Whither my feete did, hedlong, cary me;
Making me, of thy free grace,
There agayne to take my place,
Where light of life, with lyving men, I see.

111

Psalm 57 Miserere mei, Deus

Thy mercie Lord, Lord now thy mercy show,
On thee I ly
To thee I fly
Hide me, hive me as thine owne,
Till these blasts be overblown,
Which now doe fiercely blow.

To highest God I will erect my cry,
Who quickly shall
Dispatch this all.
Hee shall downe from Heaven send
From disgrace me to defend,
His love and verity.

My soule incaged lyes with lions brood,
Villains whose hands
Are firy brands,
Teeth more sharp then shaft or speare,
Tongues farr better edge do beare
Then swords to shed my bloud.

As high as highest heav'n can give thee place,
O Lord ascend,
And thence extend
With most bright, most glorious show,
Over all the earth below
The sunn-beames of thy face.

Me to entangle ev'ry waie I goe
Their trapp and nett
Is readie sett.
Holes they digg, but their own holes
Pitfalls make for their own soules:
Soe Lord, O serve them soe.

112

My hart prepar'd, prepared is my hart
To spread thy praise
With tuned laies:
Wake my tongue, my lute awake,
Thou my harp the consort make,
My self will beare a part.

My self when first the morning shall appeare,
With voice and string
Soe will thee sing:
That this earthly globe, and all
Treading on this earthly ball,
My praising notes shall heare.

For God, my only God, thy gracious love
Is mounted farr
Above each starr,
Thy unchanged verity
Heav'nly wings doe lift as hie
As cloudes have roome to move.

As high as highest heav'n can give thee place
O Lord ascend
And thence extend
With most bright, most glorious show
Over all the earth below,
The sunn-beames of thy face.

113

Psalm 58 Si vere utique

And call yee this to utter what is just,
You that of justice hold the sov'raign throne?
And call yee this to yeld, O sonnes of dust,
To wronged brethren ev'ry man his own?
O no: it is your long malicious will
Now to the world to make by practize known,
With whose oppression you the ballance fill,
Just to your selves, indiff'rent else to none.

But what could they, who ev'n in birth declin'd,
From truth and right to lies and injuries?
To shew the venim of their cancred mynd
The adders image scarcly can suffice;
Nay scarce the aspick may with them contend,
On whom the charmer all in vaine applies
His skillfull'st spells: ay missing of his end,
While shee self-deff, and unaffected lies.

Lord crack their teeth, Lord crush these lions jawes,
Soe lett them sinck as water in the sand:
When deadly bow their aiming fury drawes,
Shiver the shaft er past the shooters hand.
So make them melt as the dishowsed snaile
Or as the Embrio, whose vitall band
Breakes er it holdes, and formlesse eyes do faile
To see the sun, though brought to lightfull land.

O let their brood, a brood of springing thornes,
Be by untymely rooting overthrowne
Er bushes waxt, they push with pricking hornes,
As fruites yet greene are oft by tempest blowne.
The good with gladnes this reveng shall see,
And bath his feete in bloud of wicked one
While all shall say: the just rewarded be,
There is a God that carves to each his own.

114

Psalm 59 Eripe me de inimicis

Save me from such as me assaile:
Let not my foes,
O God, against my life prevaile:
Save me from those,
Who make a trade of cursed wrong
And, bredd in bloud, for bloud doe long.

Of these one sort doe seeke by slight
My overthrow:
The stronger part with open might
Against me goe
And yet thou God, my wittnes be
From all offence my soule is free.

But what if I from fault am free?
Yet they are bent,
To band and stand against poore me,
Poore innocent.
Rise God, and see how these things goe:
And rescue me from instant woe.

Rise, God of armies, mighty God
Of Israell
Looke on them all who spredd abrode
On earth doe dwell
And let thy hand no longer spare
Such as of malice wicked are.

When golden sunn in west doth sett,
Retorn'd againe,
As houndes that howle their food to gett,
They runn amaine
The cittie through from street to street,
With hungry maw some prey to meet.

115

Night elder growne, their fittest day,
They babling prate,
How my lost life extinguish may
Their deadly hate.
They prate and bable voide of feare,
For, tush, saie they, who now can heare?

Even thou canst heere, and heering scorne,
All that they say;
For them (if not by thee upborne)
What propps doe stay?
Then will I, as they wait for me
O God my fortresse, wait on thee.

Thou ever me with thy free grace
Prevented hast:
With thee my praier shall take place
Er from me past,
And I shall see who me doe hate
Beyond my wish in wofull state.

For feare my people it forgett
Slay not outright
But scatter them and soe them sett
In open sight
That by thy might they may be knowne,
Disgrac'd debas'd, and overthrowne.

No witness of their wickednesse
I neede produce
But their owne lipps, fitt to expresse
Each vile abuse:
In cursing proud, proud when they ly
O let them deare such pride aby.

At length in rage consume them soe,
That nought remayne:
Let them all beeing quite forgoe,
And make it playne,
That God who Jacobs rule upholds,
Rules all, all-bearing earth enfolds.

Now thus they fare: when sunn doth sett,
Retorn'd againe,
As hounds that howle their food to gett,
They runn amayne
The city through from street to street
With hungry mawes some prey to meet.

116

Abroad they range and hunt apace
Now that, now this,
As famine trailes a hungry trace;
And though they miss,
Yet will they not to kennell hye,
But all the night at bay do lye.

But I will of thy goodness sing
And of thy might,
When early sunn againe shall bring
His cheerefull light;
For thou my refuge and my fort
In all distress dost mee support

My strength doth of thy strength depend:
To thee I sing
Thou art my fort, me to defend.
My God, my king,
To thee I owe, and thy free grace,
That free I rest in fearless place.

117

Psalm 60 Deus, repulisti nos

Thy anger, erst in field
Our scatt'red squadrons brake:
O God bee reconcil'd,
Our leading now retake.
This land at thee did quake,
It chinkt and gaping lay:
O sound her ruptures make,
Her quaking bring to stay.

Worse happes no hart could think,
Then did thy wrath ensue:
Dull horror was our drinck,
We, drincking, giddy grew.
But now an ensigne new
Re-chearing all dismaies
To guide thy fearers view,
Thy truth, our chiefe doth raise.

Then sett thy loved free,
Preserve mee when I pray:
Hark, hark, soe shall it be
God from his howse doth say.
Then make a mery stay:
And share we Sichems fields:
The land in percells lay,
That Sucoths valey yelds.

Mine Gilead lo, by this,
Manasse lo, mine own:
My soldier Ephraim is,
My law by Judah shown;
My washpott Moab grown
My shoe at Edom flong!
Philistia overthrown:
Sing now thy triumph song.

118

But whom shall I attend,
Till I these conquests make?
On whose conduct depend
Till Edoms fortes I take?
O thine to whom we spake,
But spake before in vayn:
Thine God, that didst forsake
Our troupes for warr to trayn.

Against distressing foes
Let us thy succour finde:
Who trust in man repose,
Doe trust repose in winde.
In God lett hand and mind
Their force and vallor show,
Hee, hee in abject kind
Shall lay our haters low.

119

Psalm 61 Exaudi, Deus

To thee I cry,
My cryeng heare.
To thee my praying voice doth fly:
Lord, lend my voice a listning eare.
From country banished,
All comfort vanished,
To thee I runn when stormes are nigh.

Up to thy hill
Lord, make me clyme;
Which els to scale exceeds my skill:
For in my most distressed tyme
Thy eye attended me,
Thy hand defended me,
Against my foe my fortresse still.

Then where a tent
For thee is made,
To harbor still is my entent:
And to thy wings protecting shade
My self I carry will,
And there I tarry will,
Safe from all shot against me bent.

What first I crave
First graunting me,
That I the roiall rule may have
Of such as feare and honor thee:
Let yeares as manifold,
As can be any told,
Thy king, O God, keepe from the grave.

Before thy face
Graunt ever he
Maie sitt, and lett thy truth and grace
His endless guard appointed bee.
Then singing pleasantly,
Praising uncesantly,
I dayly vowes will pay to thee.

120

Psalm 62 Nonne Deo

Yet shall my soule in silence still
On God, my help, attentive stay:
Yet he my fort, my health, my hill,
Remove I may not, move I may.
How long then shall your fruitlesse will
An enimy soe farr from fall,
With weake endevor strive to kill,
You rotten hedg, you broken wall?

Forsooth, that hee no more may rise,
Advaunced eft to throne and crown:
To headlong him their thoughtes devise,
And, past reliefe, to tread him downe.
Their love is only love of lies:
Their wordes and deedes dissenting soe,
When from their lippes most blessing flyes,
Then deepest curse in hart doth grow.

Yet shall my soule in silence still
On God, my hope, attentive stay:
Yet hee my fort, my health, my hill,
Remove? O no: not move I may.
My God doth me with glory fill,
Not only shield me safe from harme:
To shun distresse, to conquer ill,
To him I clime, in him I arme.

O then on God, our certaine stay,
All people in all times rely:
Your hartes before him naked lay,
To Adams sonnes tis vain to fly,
Soe vain soe false, soe fraile are they,
Ev'n he that seemeth most of might
With lightnesse self if him you waigh,
Then lightnesse self will waigh more light.

121

In fraud, and force, noe trust repose:
Such idle hopes from thoughtes expell,
And take good heed, when riches growes
Let not your hart on riches dwell.
All powre is Gods, his own word showes,
Once said by him, twice heard by me:
Yet from thee, Lord, all mercy flowes,
And each manns work is paid by thee.

122

Psalm 63 Deus, Deus meus

O God, the God where all my forces ly,
How doe I hunt for thee with early haste!
How is for thee my spirit thirsty dry!
How gaspes my soule for thy refreshing taste!
Wittnesse this waterlesse, this weary waste:
Whence, O that I againe transfer'd might be,
Thy glorious might in sacred place to see.

Then on thy praise would I my lipps employ,
With whose kind mercies nothing may contend;
No, not this life it self, whose care and joy
In prayeng voice, and lifted hands should end.
This to my soule should such a banquet send,
That, sweetly fed, my mouth should sing thy name
In gladdest notes contented mirth could frame.

And lo, ev'n heer I mind thee in my bedd,
And interrupt my sleepes with nightly thought,
How thou hast bene the target of my hedd,
How thy wings shadow hath my safty wrought.
And, though my body from thy view be brought,
Yet fixt on thee my loving soule remaines,
Whose right right hand from falling, me retaines.

But such as seeke my life to ruinate,
Them shall the earth in deepest gulph receave.
First murdring blade shall end their living date,
And then their flesh to teeth of foxes leave;
As for the king, the king shall then conceave
High joy in God, and'll that God adore,
When lying mouthes, shall, stopped, ly no more.

123

Psalm 64 Exaudi, Deus

With gracious hearing entertain
This voice, the agent of my woe:
And let my life, O God, remain
Safe in thy guard from feared foe.
Hide me where none may know,
That hatefull plotts contrive;
And right to overthrow
With tumult wrongly strive.

For tongues they beare, not tongues, but swordes,
So piercing sharp they have them ground:
And words deliver, shaftes, not words,
With bitter dint soe deepe they wound;
Whose shott against the sound,
And, harmlesse, they direct:
In safe and fearelesse ground
Embusht without suspect.

Nay, obstinate to ill they are,
And meeting, all their talk apply
Who can most closely couch his snare,
And who, say they, shall us discry?
No guile so low doth ly,
Nor in so hidden part,
But these will sound and try,
Even out of deepest hart.

But thou, O God, from sodain blow
Death, striking them, a shaft shalt send:
And their own tongues to their own woe
Shall all their wounding sharpnes bend.
Thus wounded shall they end,
Thus ending shall they make
Each mortall eye attend,
Each eye, attending quake.

124

Not one, I say, but shall behold
This worke of God which he agayn
Shall, as he can, in wordes unfold,
If yet his feare he entertain.
In who doth tymelesse raign
The just shall joy and hope:
The hartes uprightly playn
Shall have their vaunting scope.

125

Psalm 65 Te decet hymnus

Sion it is where thou art praised,
Sion, O God, where vowes they pay thee:
There all mens praiers to thee raised
Retorne possest of what they pray thee.
There thou my sinns prevailing to my shame
Dost turne to smoake of sacrificing flame.

O he of blisse is not deceaved,
Whom, chosen, thou unto thee takest:
And whom into thy court receaved
Thou of thy checkrole number makest.
The dainty viands of thy sacred store
Shall feede hym so he shall not hunger more.

From thence it is thy threatning thunder,
Lest we by wrong should be disgraced,
Doth strike our foes with feare and wonder:
O thou on whom their hopes are placed,
Whom either earth doth steadfastly sustayn,
Or cradle rockes of restlesse wavy playn.

Thy vertue staies the mighty mountaynes,
Girded with pow'r, with strength abounding:
The roaring damm of watry fountaines
Thy beck doth make surcease hir sounding;
When stormy uproares tosse the peoples brayn,
That civill sea to calme thou bringst agayn.

Where earth doth end with endles ending,
All such as dwell, thy signes affright them:
And in thy praise their voices spending
Both howses of the sunn delight them;
Both whence he comes, when early he awakes,
And where he goes, when ev'ning rest he takes.

126

Thy eie from heav'n this land beholdeth,
Such fruitfull dewes down on it rayning,
That, storehowse-like hir lap enfoldeth
Assured hope of plowmans gayning.
Thy flowing streames hir drought doe temper so,
That buried seed through yelding grave doth grow.

Drunk is each ridg of thy cup drincking,
Each clodd relenteth at thy dressing:
Thy cloud-born waters inly sincking,
Faire spring sproutes foorth blest with thy blessing.
The fertile yeare is with thy bounty crown'd:
And where thou go'st, thy goings fatt the ground.

Plenty bedewes the desert places:
A hedg of mirth the hills encloseth:
The fieldes with flockes have hid their faces:
A robe of corn the vallies clotheth.
Desertes, and hills, and feilds, and valleys all,
Rejoyce, shout, sing, and on thy name doe call.

127

Psalm 66 Jubilate Deo

All lands, the lymms of earthy round,
With triumph tunes Gods honor sound:
Sing of his name the praisefull glory,
And glorious make his praises story.
Tell God: O God, what frightfull wonder
Thy workes doe wittnes, whose great might
Thy enimies so bringeth under,
Though frown in heart, they fawn in sight.

All earth, and ev'ry land therefore
Sing to this God, this God adore:
All earth, I say, and all earth dwellers,
Be of his worth the singing tellers.
O come, behold, O note beholding,
What dreadfull wonders from him flow:
More height, more weight, more force enfolding,
Then Adams earthy brood can show.

The sea up-dried by his hand,
Became a field of dusty sand:
Through Jordans streames we dry-shod waded,
The joy whereof not yet is faded.
His throne of strength unmoved standeth:
His eie on ev'ry coast is cast:
The rebell who against him bandeth
Of ruins cup shall quickly tast.

You folk his flock, come then employ
In lawding him your songes of joy
On God, our God, your voices spending,
Still praying, praising, never ending.
For he our life hath us re-given,
Nor would he let our goings slide:
Though for our triall neerly driven,
Yea silver like in furnace tryde.

128

For God thou didst our feete innett,
And pinching sadles, on us sett
Nay (which is worse to be abidden),
Ev'n on our heads a man hath ridden.
Hee rode us through where fiers flashed;
Where swelling streames did rudely roare:
Yet scorched thus, yet we thus washed,
Were sett by thee on plenties shoare.

I therefore to thy house will go,
To pay and offer what I owe:
To pay my vowes, my lippes then vowed
When under grief my body bowed;
To offer whole burnt sacrifices,
The fatt of Ramms with sweete perfume:
Nay goates, nay bulls, of greater sizes,
And greater prices to consume.

O come, all yee that God doe feare,
O come, and lend attentive eare;
While by my tongue shalbe expressed,
How blessed he my soule hath blessed.
I crid to him, my cry procured
My free dischardge from all my bandes:
His eare had not my voice endured,
But that my heart unstained standes.

Now as my heart was innocent,
God heard the harty sighes I spent:
What I to praiers recommended
Was gratiously by him attended.
Praise, praise him then, for what is left me,
But praise to him: who what I praid
Rejected not, nor hath bereft me
My hopefull helpe, his mercies aid.

129

Psalm 67 Deus misereatur

God on us thy mercy show,
Make on us thy blessings flow:
Thy faces beames
From heav'n uppon us show'r
In shining streames:
That all may see
The way of thee,
And know thy saving pow'r.

God, the nations praise thee shall,
Thee, shall praise the nations all:
To mirth and joy
All such as earth possesse
Shall them employ:
For thou their guide
Go'st never wide
From truth and righteousnes.

God, the nations praise thee shall,
Thee, shall praise the nations all:
Then ev'ry field,
As far as earth hath end,
Rich fruites shall yield:
And God our God
With blisse shall load
Who of his blisse depend.

God, I say with plenteous blisse
To enrich us shall not misse:
And from the place
The father of the yeere
Begins his race,
To Zephyrs nest,
His races rest,
All lands his force shall feare.

130

Psalm 68 Exurgat deus

Lett God but rise, his very face shall cast
On all his haters flight and disarray:
As smoke in wind, as wax at fire doth wast,
At Gods aspect th'unjust shall flitt away.
The just meane while shall in Jehovah's presence
Play, sing, and daunce. Then unto him, I say,
Unto our God, nam'd of eternall essence,
Present your selves with song, and daunce, and play.

Prepare his path, who throned on delightes,
Doth sitt a father to the orphan sonn:
And in hir cause the wronged widow rights,
God in his holy house late here begun.
With families he empty houses filleth,
The prisoners chaines are by his hands undone:
But barain sand their fruitlesse labour tilleth,
Who crossing him rebelliously doe runn.

O God, when thou in desert didst appeare,
What time thy folk that uncouth jorney tooke:
Heav'n at the sight did sweat with melting feare,
Earth bow'd hir trembling knee, Mount Sinay shook.
The land bedew'd; all wants by thee restored,
That well thy people might the contry brook,
As to a fold with sheep in plenty stored,
So to their state thy shepherds care did look.

They, taught by thee in this tryumphant song,
A virgin army did their voices try:
Fledd are these kings, fled are these armyes strong:
We share the spoiles that weake in howse did ly.
Though late the Chymney made your beauties loathed,
Now shine you shall, and shine more gracefully,
Then lovely dove in cleare gold-silver cloathed,
That glides with feathered oare through wavy sky.

131

For when God had (that this may not seeme strang)
Expeld the kings with utter overthrow:
The very ground hir mourning Cloudes did change
To weather cleare, as cleare as Salmon snow.
Basan, huge Basan, that soe proudly standest,
Scorning the highest hills as basely low,
And with thy top soe many tops commandest,
Both thou, and they, what makes yee brave it so?

This mountainett, not you, doth God desire:
Here he entends his lodging plott to lay:
Hither Jehova will him self retyre
To endlesse rest, and unremoved stay.
Here twise ten thousand, doubled twise hee holdeth,
Of hooked Charretts, clad in warrs array:
And hence more might, more majesty unfoldeth,
Then erst he did from Sinay mount display.

Ascended high, immortall God thou art,
And captyves store thou hast led up with thee,
Whose gathered spoiles to men thou wilt impart:
Nay, late thy rebells, now thy tenants bee.
Blest be the Lord, by whom our bliss encreaseth,
The God of might by whom we safety see:
God, our strong God, who us each way releaseth,
And ev'n through gates of death conducts us free.

God of his enimies the heads shall wound
And those proud lookes that stiff in mischief go.
From Basan safe, and from the deepe undround,
I brought thee once, and oft I will do so.
This said by hym, thy foote in bloud was stained,
Thy doggs tongues dide in bloud of slaughtred fo:
And God, my king, men saw thee entertained
In sacred house with this triumphant show.

In vantgard marcht who did with voices sing:
The rereward lowd on instruments did play:
The battaile maides, and did with tymbrells ring:
And all in sweete consort did jointly say:
Praise God, the Lord, of Jacob you descended,
Praise him upon each solemn meeting day:
Benjamyn, little, but with rule attended,
Juda's brave lordes, and troupes in faire array,

132

Stout Nephthaly with noble Zabulon:
And sith our might thy bidding word did make,
Confirme, O God, what thou in us hast done
From out thy house, and that for Salems sake.
So kings bring guiftes, so in thie check their ending
These furious wanton Bulls and calves shall take,
These arrow-armed bands, which us offending,
Are now soe ready warr to undertake.

They shall bring silver stooping humbly low,
Egipts greate peeres with homage shall attend:
And Aethiop with them shall not forslow
To God with speed like service to commend.
Then kingdoms all to God present your praises,
And on the Lord your singing gladnes spend:
Above the heav'n of heav'ns his throne he raises,
And thence his voice, a voice of strength doth send.

Then of all strength acknowledge God the well,
With brave magnificence and glory bright
Shining no less on loved Israell,
Then showing in the cloudes his thundring might;
Thou, from the shryne where Jacob thee adoreth,
All folk, O God, with terror dost affright:
He (prais'd be he) with strength his people storeth,
His force it is in which their forces fight.

133

Psalm 69 Salvum me fac

Troublous seas my soule surround:
Save, O God, my sinking soule,
Sinking, where it feeles noe ground,
In this gulph, this whirling hoale.
Waiting aid, with ernest eying,
Calling God with bootlesse crying:
Dymm and dry in me are found
Eye to see, and throat to sound.

Wrongly sett to worke my woe
Haters have I, more then haires:
Force in my afflicting foe
Bettring still, in me impaires
Thus to pay, and leese constrained,
What I never ought or gained;
Yet say I: thou God dost know
How my faultes and follies goe.

Mighty Lord, lett not my case
Blank the rest that hope on thee:
Lett not Jacobs God deface
All his friends in blush of me.
Thyne it is, thyne only quarrell
Dightes me thus in Shames apparell:
Note, nor spott, nor least disgrace,
But for thee, could taint my face.

To my kynn a stranger quite,
Quite an alian am I grown:
In my very bretherens sight
Most uncar'd for, most unknown;
With thy temples zeale out-eaten,
With thy slanders scourges beaten,
While the shott of piercing spight
Bent at thee, on me doth light.

134

If I weepe, and weeping fast,
If in sackcloth sadd I mourn,
In my teeth the first they cast,
All to Jeast the last they turn;
Now in streetes, with publique prating,
Powring out their inward hating:
Private now at banquetts plac't,
Singing songs of wyny tast.

As for me to thee I pray,
Lord, in tyme of grace assign'd:
Gratious God, my kindest stay,
In my aid be truly kind.
Keepe me safe unsunck, unmyred
Safe from flowing foes retyred:
Calme these waves, these waters bay,
Leave me not this whirlpooles pray.

In the goodness of thy grace,
Lord, make answere to my mone:
Ey my ill, and rue my case,
In those mercies told by none.
Lett not by thy absence languish
Thy true server dround in anguish.
Haste, and heare, come, come apace,
Free my soule from foemens chase.

Unto thee what needes be told
My reproch, my blott, my blame?
Sith both these thou didst behold,
And canst all my haters name.
Whiles afflicted, whiles hart-broken,
Waiting yet some frendshipps token,
Some I lookt would me uphold,
Lookt: but found all comfort cold.

Comfort? nay (not seene before)
Needing food they sett me gall:
Vineager they fil'd me store,
When for drinck my thirst did call.
O then snare them in their pleasures,
Make them, trapt ev'n in their treasures,
Gladly sadd, and richly poore,
Sightlesse most, yet mightlesse more.

135

Downe upon them fury raine
Lighten indignation downe:
Turne to wast, and desert plaine,
House and pallace, field and towne.
Lett not one be left abiding
Where such rancor had residing;
Whome thou painest, more they paine:
Hurt by thee, by them is slaine.

Causing sinne on Synne to grow,
Add still Cyphers to their summ.
Righter lett them never goe,
Never to thy justice come
But from out the booke be crossed,
Where the good men live engrossed:
While my God, me poore and low,
High shall mount from need and woe.

Then by me his name with praise,
Gladsome praise, shall be upborne
That shall more Jehova please
Then the beast with hoofe and horne.
With what joy, yee godly grieved
Shall your harts be then relieved?
When Jehova takes such waies
Bound to loose, and falne to raise?

Laud him then O heav'nly skies,
Earth with thine, and Seas with yours:
For by him shall Sion rise,
He shall build up Juda's towres.
There his servantes, and their races,
Shall in fee possesse the places:
There his name who love and prize,
Stable stay shall eternize.

136

Psalm 70 Deus in adjutorium

Lord, hy thee me to save
Lord, now to help me hast:
Shame lett them surely have
And of confusion tast,
That hold my soule in chase.
Lett them be forced back,
And no disgraces lack,
That joy in my disgrace.

Back forced lett them be,
And for a faire reward
Their owne foule ruine see
Who laugh and laugh out hard
When I most inly mone;
But mirth and joy renew
In them thy pathes ensue
And love thy help alone.

Make them with gladdnes sing:
To God be ever praise
And faile not me to bring,
My down-cast state to raise,
Thy speedy aid and stay.
In thee my succour growes:
From thee my freedom flowes:
Lord, make no long delay.

137

Psalm 71 In te, domine, speravi

Lord, on thee my trust is grounded:
Leave me not with shame confounded;
But in justice bring me aide.
Lett thine eare to me be bended:
Lett my life from death defended
Be by thee in safty staid.

Be my rock, my refuge tower,
Show thy unresisted power,
Working now thy wonted will:
Thou, I say, that never fainest
In thy biddings but remainest
Still my rock, my refuge still.

O my God, my sole help-giver,
From this wicked me delyver,
From this wrongfull spightfull man:
In thee trusting, on thee standing,
With my childish understanding,
Nay with life my hopes began.

Since imprison'd in my mother
Thou me freed'st, whom have I other
Held my stay, or made my song?
Yea, when all me so misdeemed,
I to most a monster seemed,
Yet in thee my hope was strong.

Yet of thee the thankfull story
Fild my mouth, thy gratious glory
Was my ditty long the day.
No not then, now age assaileth,
Coradge, verdure, vertue faileth,
Do not leave me cast away.

138

They by whom my life is hated,
With their spies have now debated,
Of their talk; and lo the summ:
God say they hath hym forsaken
Now pursue, he must be taken,
None will to his rescue come.

O my God bee not absented:
O my God, now, now, presented
Let in haste thy succours be,
Make them full disgraced, shamed,
All dissmighted, all diffamed,
Who this ill intend to me.

As for me, resolv'd to tary
In my trust, and not to vary:
I will heape thy praise with praise
Still with mouth thy truthes recounting,
Still thy aides, though much surmounting
Greatest summ that number laies.

Nay, my God, by thee secured
Where will I not march assured?
But thy truth what will I hold,
Who by thee from infant cradle
Taught still more, as still more able,
Have till now thy wonders told?

Now that age hath me attainted,
Ages snow my hed hath painted,
Leave me not, my God, forlorn.
Let me make thy mights relation,
To this coming generation,
To this age as yet unborn.

God, thy justice highest raised,
Thy greate workes as highly praised:
Who thy peere, O God, doth raign?
Thou into these woes dost drive me:
Thou againe shalt hence revive me:
Lift me from this deepe againe.

Thou shalt make my greatnes greater,
Make my good with comfort better,
Thee my lute, my harpe shall ring:
Thee my God that never slidest
From thy word but constant bidest,
Jacobs holy heav'nly king.

139

Soe my lipps all joy declaring,
Soe my soule no honor sparing,
Shall thee sing, by thee secure;
Soe my tongue all tymes, all places,
Tell thy wreakes and their disgraces,
Who this ill to me procure.

140

Psalm 72 Deus judicium

Teach the kings sonne, who king hym self shalbe,
Thy judgmentes Lord, thy justice make hym learn:
To rule thy realme as justice shall decree,
And poore mens right in judgment to discern.
Then fearelesse peace,
With rich encrease
The mountaynes proud shall fill:
And justice shall
Make plenty fall
On ev'ry humble hill.

Make him the weake support, th'opprest relyve,
Supply the poore, the quarrell-pickers quaile:
Soe agelesse ages shall thee reverence give,
Till eies of heav'n, the sunn and moone, shall faile
And thou againe
Shalt blessings rayne,
Which down shall mildly flow,
As showres thrown
On meades new mown
Wherby they freshly grow.

During his rule the just shall ay be greene,
And peacefull plenty joine with plenteous peace:
While of sad night the many-formed queene
Decreas'd shall grow, and grown again decrease.
From sea to sea
He shall survey
All kingdoms as his own:
And from the trace
Of Physons race
As farr as land is known.

The desert-dwellers at his beck shall bend:
His foes them suppliant at his feete shall fling:
The kinges of Tharsis homage guifts shall send;
So Seba, Saba, ev'ry island king.
Nay all, ev'n all
Shall prostrate fall,
That crownes and scepters weare:

141

And all that stand
At their command,
That crownes and scepters beare.

For he shall heare the poore when they complaine,
And lend them help, who helplesse are opprest:
His mercy shall the needy sort sustaine;
His force shall free their lyves that live distrest.
From hidden sleight,
From open might,
Hee shall their soules redeeme:
His tender eyes
Shall highly prise,
And deare their bloud esteeme.

So shall he long, so shall he happy live;
Health shall abound, and wealth shall never want:
They gold to hym, Arabia gold, shall give,
Which scantnes dere, and dereness maketh scant.
They still shall pray
That still he may
So live, and flourish so:
Without his praise
No nights, no daies,
Shall pasport have to go.

Looke how the woods, where enterlaced trees
Spread frendly armes each other to embrace,
Joyne at the head, though distant at the knees,
Waving with wind, and lording on the place:
So woods of corne
By mountaynes borne
Shall on their showlders wave:
And men shall passe
The numbrous grasse,
Such store each town shall have.

Looke how the sunne, soe shall his name remayne;
As that in light, so this in glory one:
All glories that, at this all lights shall stayne:
Nor that shall faile, nor this be overthrowne.
The dwellers all
Of earthly ball
In hym shall hold them blest:
As one that is
Of perfect blisse
A patterne to the rest.

142

O God who art, from whom all beings be;
Eternall Lord, whom Jacobs stock adore,
All wondrous works are done by only thee,
Blessed be thou, most blessed evermore.
And lett thy name,
Thy glorious fame,
No end of blessing know:
Lett all this Round
Thy honor sound,
So Lord, O be it so.

143

Psalm 73 Quam bonus Israel

It is most true that God to Israell,
I meane to men of undefiled hartes,
Is only good, and nought but good impartes.
Most true, I see, allbe allmost I fell
From right conceit into a crooked mynd;
And from this truth with straying stepps declin'd.
For loe, my boiling brest did chafe and swell
When first I saw the wicked proudly stand,
Prevailing still in all they tooke in hand.
And sure no sicknes dwelleth where they dwell:
Nay, so they guarded are with health and might,
It seemes of them death dares not claime his right.

They seeme as priviledg'd from others paine:
The scourging plagues, which on their neighbours fall,
Torment not them, nay touch them not at all.
Therefore with pride, as with a gorgious chaine,
Their swelling necks encompassed they beare;
All cloth'd in wrong, as if a robe it were:
So fatt become, that fattnes doth constraine
Their eies to swell: and if they thinck on ought,
Their thought they have, yea have beyond their thought.
They wanton grow, and in malicious vaine
Talking of wrong, pronounce as from the skies!
Soe high a pitch their proud presumption flyes.

Nay heav'n it self, high heav'n escapes not free
From their base mouthes; and in their common talk
Their tongues no less then all the earth do walk.
Wherefore ev'n godly men, when so they see
Their horne of plenty freshly flowing still,
Leaning to them, bend from their better will:
And thus, they reasons frame: how can it bee
That God doth understand? that he doth know,
Who sitts in heav'n, how earthly matters goe?
See here the godlesse Crue, while godly wee
Unhappy pine, all happiness possesse:
Their riches more, our wealth still growing lesse.

144

Nay ev'n within my self, my self did say:
In vain my hart I purge, my hands in vain
In cleanes washt I keepe from filthy stayn,
Since thus afflictions scurge me ev'ry day:
Since never a day from early East is sent,
But brings my payne, my check, my chastisement.
And shall I then these thoughtes in wordes bewray?
O lett me, Lord, give never such offence
To children thine that rest in thy defence.
So then I turn'd my thoughtes another way:
Sounding, if I, this secrets depth might find;
But combrous cloudes my inward sight did blynd.

Untill at length nigh weary of the chase,
Unto thy house I did my stepps direct:
There loe I learn'd what end did these expect,
And what? but that in high, but slippery place,
Thou didst them sett: whence, when they least of all
To fall did feare, they fell with headlong fall.
For how are they in lesse then momments space
With ruine overthrowne? with frightfull feare
Consum'd soe cleane, as if they never were?
Right as a dreame, which waking doth deface:
So, Lord, most vaine thou dost their fancies make,
When thou dost them from carelesse sleepe awake.

Then for what purpose was it? to what end
For me to fume with malcontented hart,
Tormenting so in me each inward part?
I was a foole (I can it not defend),
So quite depriv'd of understanding might,
That as a beast I bare me in thy sight.
But as I was, yet did I still attend,
Still follow thee, by whose upholding-hand,
When most I slide, yet still upright I stand.
Then guide me still, then still upon me spend
The treasures of thy sure advise, untill
Thou take me hence into thy glories hill.

145

O what is he will teach me clyme the skyes?
With thee, thee good, thee goodnes to remaine?
No good on earth doth my desires detaine.
Often my mind, and oft my body tries
Their weake defectes: but thou, my God, thou art,
My endlesse lott, and fortresse of my hart.
The faithlesse fugitives who thee despise,
Shall perish all, they all shall be undone,
Who leaving thee to whoorish idolls runn.
But as for me, nought better in my eyes
Then cleave to God, my hopes in hym to place,
To sing his workes while breath shall give me space.

156

Psalm 74 Ut quid, Deus

O God, why hast thou thus
Repulst, and scattred us?
Shall now thy wrath no lymmitts hold?
But ever smoke and burne?
Till it to Asshes turne
The chosen folk of thy deare fold?

Ah! think with milder thought
On them whom thou hast bought,
And purchased from endlesse daies:
Thinck of thy birthright lott,
Of Sion, on whose plott,
Thy sacred house supported staies.

Come, Lord, O come with speed,
This sacrilegious seed
Roote quickly out, and hedlong cast:
All that thy holy place
Did late adorne and grace,
Their hatefull hands have quite defast.

Their beastly trumpetts rore,
Where heav'nly notes before
In praises of thy might did flow:
Within thy temple they
Their ensignes eft display
The ensignes, which their conquest show.

As men with axe on arme
To some thick forrest swarme,
To lopp the trees which stately stand:
They to thy temple flock,
And spoiling, cutt and knock
The curious workes of carving hand.

157

Thy most, most holy seate
The greedy flames do eate,
And have such ruthlesse ruyns wrought,
That all thy house is raste,
So raste, and so defast,
That of that all remayneth nought.

Nay they resolved are,
We all alike shall fare,
All of one cruell cup shall taste.
For not one house doth stand
Of God in all the land,
But they by fire have laide it waste.

We see the signes no more
We wont to see before;
Nor any now with sp'ryt divine
Amongst us more is found,
Who can to us expound,
What tearme these dollors shall define.

How long, O God, how long
Wilt thou winck at the wrong
Of thy reviling railing foe?
Shall he that hates thy name,
And hatred paintes with shame,
So do, and do for ever soe?

Woe us! what is the cause
Thy hand his help withdrawes?
That thy right hand far from us keepes?
Ah lett it once arise,
To plague thine enimies,
Which now, embosom'd, idely sleepes.

Thou art my God, I know,
My king, who long ago
Didst undertake the chardg of me:
And in my hard distresse
Didst work me such release,
That all the earth did wondring see.

Thou by thy might didst make
That seas in sunder brake,
And dreadfull dragons which before
In deepe or swamme or cral'd
Such mortall strokes appal'd,
They floted dead to ev'ry shore.

158

Thou crusht that monsters head
Whom other monsters dread,
And soe his fishy flesh did'st frame,
To serve as pleasing foode
To all the ravening brood,
Who had the desert for their dame.

Thou wondrously didst cause,
Repealing natures lawes,
From thirsty flynt a fountayne flow
And of the rivers cleare
The sandy beds appeare,
Soe dry thou mad'st theyr chanells grow.

The day arraid in light,
The shadow-clothed night,
Were made, and are maintain'd by thee.
The sunn and sunn-like rays,
The boundes of nightes and daies,
Thy workmanshipp no lesse they be.

To thee the earth doth owe,
That earth in sea doth grow,
And sea doth earth from drowning spare:
The summers corny crowne,
The winters frosty gowne,
Nought but thy badge, thy lyvery are.

Thou then still one, the same,
Thinck how thy glorious name
These brain-sick mens despight have borne,
How abject enimies,
The Lord of highest skies,
With cursed taunting tongues have torne.

Ah! give noe hauke the pow're
Thy turtle to devowre,
Which sighes to thee with moorning mones:
Nor utterly out-rase
From tables of thy grace
The flock of thy afflicted ones.

But call thy league to mynd,
For horror all doth blind,
No light doth in the land remayne:
Rape, murther, violence,
Each outrage, each offence,
Each where doth range, and rage and raigne.

159

Enough, enough we mourne:
Let us no more returne
Repulst with blame and shame from thee,
But succour us opprest,
And give the troubled rest,
That of thy praise their songes may be.

Rise, God, pleade thyne owne case,
Forget not what disgrace
These fooles on thee each day bestow:
Forgett not with what cries
Thy foes against thee rise,
Which more and more to heav'n doe grow.

160

Psalm 75 Confitebimur tibi

Thee, God, O thee, wee sing, we celebrate:
Thy actes with wonder who but doth relate?
So kindly nigh thy name our need attendeth.
Sure I, when once the chardg I undergo
Of this assembly, will not faile to show
My judgments such, as justest rule commendeth.

The people loose, the land I shaken find:
This will I firmly propp, that straitly bind;
And then denounce my uncontrolled pleasure:
Bragg not you braggardes, you your saucy horne
Lift not, lewd mates: no more with heav'ns scorne
Daunce on in wordes your old repyning measure.

Where sun first showes; or last enshades his light;
Divides the day, or pricks the midst of night;
Seeke not the fountayne whence preferment springeth.
Gods only fixed course that all doth sway,
Lymits dishonors night, and honors day,
The king his crowne, the slave his fetters bringeth.

A troubled cupp is in Jehovas hand,
Where wine and wyny lees compounded stand,
Which franckly fild, as freely hee bestoweth;
Yet for their draught ungodly men doth give,
Gives all (not one except) that lewdly lyve,
Only what from the dreggs by wringing floweth.

And I, secure, shall spend my happie tymes
In my, though lowly, never-dying rymes,
Singing with praise the God that Jacob loveth.
My princely care shall crop ill-doers low,
In glory plant, and make with glory grow
Who right approves, and doth what right approveth.

161

Psalm 76 Notus in Judea

Only to Juda God his will doth signify;
Only in Jacob is his name notorious;
His restfull tent doth only Salem dignify;
On Syon only stands his dwelling glorious;
Their bow, and shaft, and shield, and sword he shivered,
Drave warr from us, and us from warr delivered.

Above proud princes, proudest in their theevery,
Thou art exalted high, and highly glorified:
Their weake attempt, thy valiant delivery,
Their spoile, thy conquest meete to be historified.
The mighty handlesse grew as men that slumbered,
For hands grew mightlesse, sence and life encombered.

Nay, God, O God, true Jacobs sole devotion,
Thy check the very carrs and horses mortifide,
Cast in dull sleepe, and quite depriv'd of motion.
Most fearefull God, O how must he be fortifide!
Whose fearelesse foote to bide thy onsett tarieth,
When once thy wrath displaied ensigne carieth.

From out of heav'n thy justice judgment thundred
When good by thee were sav'd, and bad were punished,
While earth at heav'n with feare and silence wondred.
Yea, the most ragefull in their rage astonished
Fell to praise thee: whom thou, how ever furious
Shall eft restraine, if fury prove injurious.

Then lett your vowes be paid, your offrings offered
Unto the Lord, O you of his protection:
Unto the fearefull lett your giftes be proffered,
Who loppeth princes thoughts, prunes their affection,
And so him self most terrible doth verify,
In terrifying kings, that earth do terrify.

162

Psalm 77 Voce mea ad Dominum

To thee my crying call,
To thee my calling cry
I did, O God, adresse,
And thou didst me attend:
To nightly anguish thrall,
From thee I sought redresse;
To thee unceassantly
Did praying handes extend.

All comfort fled my soule:
Yea God to mind I cal'd,
Yet calling God to mynde
My thoughts could not appease:
Nought else but bitter dole
Could I in thincking finde:
My sprite with paine appal'd,
Could entertaine no ease.

Whole troupes of busy cares,
Of cares that from thee came,
Tooke up their restlesse rest
In sleepie sleeplesse eies:
Soe lay I all opprest,
My hart in office lame,
My tongue as lamely fares,
No part his part supplies.

At length with turned thought
Anew I fell to thinck
Uppon the auncient tymes
Uppon the yeares of old:
Yea to my mynd was brought,
And in my hart did sinck,
What in my former rimes
My self of thee had told.

163

Loe then to search the truth
I sent my thoughts abroade;
Meane while my silent hart
Distracted thus did plaine:
Will God no more take ruth?
No further love impart?
No longer be my God?
Unmoved still remayne?

Are all the conduites dry
Of his erst flowing grace?
Could rusty teeth of tyme
To nought his promise turne?
Can mercy no more clyme
And come before his face?
Must all compassion dy?
Must nought but anger burne?

Then lo, my wrack I see,
Say I, and do I know
That chang lies in his hand,
Who changlesse sitts aloft?
Can I ought understand,
And yet unmindfull be,
What wonders from hym flow?
What workes his will hath wrought?

Nay still thy acts I minde,
Still of thy deedes I muse;
Still see thy glories light
Within thy temple shine.
What god can any find
(For tearme them so they use)
Whose majesty, whose might,
May strive, O God, with thine?

Thou only wonders dost;
The wonders by thee done,
All earth do wonder make,
As when thy hand of old
From servitude unjust
Both Jacobs sonnes did take;
And sonnes of Jacobs sonne,
Whom Jacobs sonnes had sold.

164

The waves thee saw, saw thee,
And fearefull fledd the field:
The deepe with panting brest,
Engulphed quaking lay:
The cloudes thy fingers prest,
Did rushing rivers yield;
Thy shaftes did flaming flee
Through firy airy way.

Thy voices thundring crash
From one to other pole,
Twixt roofe of starry Sphere
And earths then trembling flore,
While light of lightnings flash
Did pitchy cloudes encleare,
Did round with terror role,
And rattling horror rore.

Mean while through duskie deepe
On seas discovered bed,
Where none thy trace could view,
A path by thee was wrought:
A path whereon thy crue
As shepherds use their sheepe,
With Aaron Moses ledd,
And to glad pastures brought.

165

Psalm 78 Attendite, popule

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.

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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.

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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.

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Psalm 79 Deus, venerunt

The land of long by thee possessed,
The heathen, Lord, have now oppressed:
Thy temple holily maintained
Till now, is now prophanely stained.
Jerusalem quite spoil'd and burned,
Hath suffred sack
And utter wrack,
To stony heapes her buildings turned.

The livelesse carcasses of those,
That liv'd thy servants, serve the crowes:
The flock soe derely lov'd of thee
To ravening beastes dere foode they be;
Their bloud doth streame in every streete
As water spilled:
Their bodies killed
With sepulture can no where meete.

To them that hold the neighbour places
We are but objects of disgraces:
On ev'ry coast who dwell about us,
In ev'ry kind deride and flout us.
Ah, Lord! when shall thy wrath be ended?
Shall still thine yre,
As quenchless fire,
In deadly ardor be extended?

O kindle there thy furies flame,
Where lives no notice of thy name:
There lett thy heavie anger fall,
Where no devotions on thee call.
For thence, they be who Jacob eate,
Who thus have rased,
Have thus defaced,
Thus desert laid his ancient seate.

172

Lord ridd us from our sinnfull cumbers,
Count not of them the passed numbers:
But lett thy pitty soone prevent us,
For hard extreames have nerely spent us.
Free us, O God, our freedome giver;
Our misery
With help supply:
And for thy glory us deliver.

Deliver us, and for thy name
With mercy cloth our sinnfull shame;
Ah! why should this their byword be,
Where is your God? where now is he?
Make them, and us on them behold,
That not despised,
But deerly prised,
Thy wreakfull hand our bloud doth hold.

Where grace, and glory thee enthroneth,
Admitt the grones the prisoner groneth:
The poore condem'd, for death reserved,
Let be by thee in life preserved.
And for our neighbours, Lord, remember
Th'opprobrious shame
They lent thy name
With seav'n-fold gaine to them thou render.

Soe we thy servantes, we thy sheep,
Whom thy lookes guide, thy pastures keepe:
Till death define our lyving daies,
Will never cease to sound thy praise.
Nay, when we leave to see the sunn,
The after goers
We will make knowers
From age to age what thou hast done.

173

Psalm 80 Qui regis Israel

Heare thou, greate heardsman, that dost Jacob feed:
Thou, Josephs shepheard, shine from Cherubs throne:
In Ephraim, Benjamyn, Manasses need,
Awake thy power, and make thy puisance knowne.
Free us distressed, raise us overthrowne,
Reduce us straid, O God, restore us banish'd:
Display thy faces skies on us thine owne,
Soe we shall safely dwell, all darknesse vanish'd.

Lord God of hosts, what end, what meane appeares
Of thy wrathes fume against thy peoples cry?
Whom thou with teares for bread, for drink with teares
So diettest, that we abandon'd ly,
To foes of laughter, and to dwellers by,
A field of brall; but God restore us banish'd
Display on us thy faces cleered sky,
So we shall safly dwell, all darknes vanish'd.

A Vine thou didst translate from Zoan playnes,
And weeding them that held the place of old,
Nor planting care didst slack, nor pruning paines,
To fix hir rootes, whom fieldes could not enfold.
The hills were cloked with hir pleasing cold:
With Cedars state hir branches height contended:
Scarse here the sea, the River there controld
Hir armes, hir handes, soe wide she both extended.

Why hast thou now, thy self, dishedg'd this vine,
Carlesly left to passengers in pray?
Unseemly rooted by the woodbred swine,
Wasted by other beasts that wildly stray?
O God, retorne, and from thy starry stay
Review this Vyne, reflect thy looking hither;
This vineyard see, whose plott thy hande dyd lay,
This plant of choise, ordained not to wither.

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Consum'd with flames, with killing axes hewne
All at thy frown they fall, and quaile, and dy:
But heape thou might, on thy ellected one,
That stablest man in whom we may affy.
Then we, preserv'd, thy name shall magnify
Without revolt, Lord God restore us banish'd:
Display on us thy faces cleered sky,
Soe we shall safely dwell, all darknes vanish'd.

175

Psalm 81 Exultate Deo

All gladnes, gladdest hartes can hold,
In meriest notes that mirth can yeld,
Lett joyfull songues to God unfold,
To Jacobs god our sword and shield.
Muster hither musicks joyes,
Lute, and lyre, and tabretts noise:
Lett noe instrument be wanting,
Chasing grief, and pleasure planting.

When ev'ry month beginning takes,
When fixed tymes bring sacred daies;
When any feast his peoples makes;
Let trumpetts tunes report his praise.
This to us a law doth stand,
Pointed thus by Gods owne hand;
Of his league a signe ordained,
When his plagues had Aegipt pained.

There heard I, erst unheard by me,
The voice of God, who thus did say:
Thy shoulder I from burthen free,
Free sett thy hand from baked clay.
Vexed, thou my aide did'st crave;
Thunder-hid I answer gave:
Till the streames where strife did move thee,
Still I did, with triall, prove thee.

I bade thee then attentive be,
And told thee thus: O Israell,
This is my covenant that with thee
No false, nor forrein god shall dwell.
I am God, thy God, that wrought
That thou wert from Aegipt brought:
Open me thy mouth; to feede thee
I will care, nought els shall neede thee.

176

But ah, my people scorn'd my voice,
And Israell rebelled still:
So then I left them to the choise
Of froward way and wayward will.
Why alas? why had not they
Heard my voice, and held my way?
Quickly I their foes had humbled,
All their haters headlong tumbled.

Subdu'd by me who them anoi'd,
Had serv'd them now in base estate:
And of my graunt they had enjoy'd
A lease of blisse with endlesse date.
Flower of the finest wheate
Had byn now their plenteous meate:
Honny them from Rocks distilled
Filled had, yea over filled.

177

Psalm 82 Deus stetit

Where poore men plead at Princes barre,
Who gods (as God's viceregents) ar:
The God of gods hath his tribunall pight,
Adjudging right
Both to the judge, and judged wight.

How long will ye just doome neglect?
How long saith he, bad men respect?
You should his owne unto the helplesse give,
The poore releeve,
Ease him with right, whom wrong doth greeve.

You should the fatherlesse defend:
You should unto the weake extend
Your hand, to loose and quiet his estate
Through lewd mens hate
Entangled now in deepe debate.

This should you doe: but what doe ye?
You nothing know, you nothing see:
No light, no law; fy, fy, the very ground
Becomes unsound,
Soe right, wrong, all your faultes confound.

Indeed to you the stile I gave
Of gods, and sonnes of God, to have:
But err not, Princes you as men must dy:
You that sitt high
Must fall, and low, as others ly.

Since men are such, O God, arise:
Thy self most strong, most just, most wise,
Of all the earth king, judg, disposer be;
Since to decree
Of all the earth belongs to thee.

178

Psalm 83 Deus, quis similis

Be not, O be not silent still
Rest not, O God, with endlesse rest:
For lo thine enemies
With noise and tumult rise;
Hate doth their hartes with fiercenes fill,
And lift their heades who thee detest.

Against thy folk their witts they file
To sharpest point of secret sleight:
A world of trapps and traines
They forge in busy braines,
That they thy hid ones may beguile,
Whom thy wings shroud from searching sight.

Come lett us of them nothing make:
Lett none them more a people see:
Stopp we their verie name
Within the mouth of fame.
Such are the counsells these men take,
Such leagues they link, and these they be.

First Edoms sonnes, then Ismaell,
With Moab, Agar, Geballs traine:
With these the Amonites,
The fierce Amalekites,
And who in Palestina dwell,
And who in tentes of Tyre remaine.

Ashur, though further of he ly,
Assisteth Lotts incestious brood.
But Lord, as Jabin thou
And Sisera didst bow:
As Midian did fall and dy
At Endor walls, and Kyson flood:

179

As Oreb, Zeb, and Zeba strong,
As Salmuna who ledd thy foes:
(Who meant, nay, said no lesse
Then that they would possesse
Gods heritage) became as donge:
Soe Lord, O soe, of these dispose.

Torment them, Lord, as tossed balls;
As stuble scattred in the aire:
Or as the branchy brood
Of some thick mountain wood,
To naught, or nought but asshes falls,
When flames doe sindge their leavy haire:

Soe with thy tempest them pursue,
So with thy whirlewind them affright:
So paint their daunted face,
With pencell of disgrace,
That they at length to thee may sue,
And give thy glorious name his right.

Add feare and shame, to shame and feare:
Confound them quite, and quite deface;
And make them know that none
But thou, and thou alone,
Dost that high name Jehovah beare,
High plac't above all earthly place.

180

Psalm 84 Quam dilecta!

How lovely is thy dwelling,
Greate God, to whom all greatness is belonging!
To view thy Courtes farre, farre from any telling,
My soule doth long, and pine with longing.
Unto the God that liveth
The God that all life giveth
My hart and body both aspire,
Above delight, beyond desire.

Alas! the Sparow knoweth
The house where free and fearelesse she resideth:
Directly to the neast the swallow goeth,
Where with hir sonnes she safe abideth.
O Alters thine, most mighty
In warre, yea most allmighty:
Thy Alters, Lord: ah! why should I
From altars thine, excluded ly?

O happy who remaineth
Thy houshold-man, and still thy praise unfoldeth;
O happy who him self on thee sustaineth,
Who to thy house his jorney holdeth!
Me seemes I see them going
Where mulberies are growing:
How wells they digg in thirsty plaine,
And Cesternes make, for falling Rayne.

Me seemes I see augmented
Still troop with troop, till all at length discover
Sion, wherto their sight is represented
The Lord of hostes, the Sion lover.
O Lord, O God, most mighty
In warre, yea most allmighty:
Heare what I begg, harken I say,
O Jacobs God, to what I pray.

181

Thou art the shield us shieldeth:
Then Lord, behold the face of thine anointed:
One day spent in thy courtes more comfort yeldeth,
Then thousands otherwise appointed.
I count it cleerer pleasure
To spend my ages treasure
Waiting a porter at thy gates,
Then dwell a lord with wicked mates.

Thou art the sunn that shineth,
Thou art the buckler, Lord, that us defendeth:
Glory and grace Jehovas hand assigneth:
And good, without refusall, sendeth
To him who truly treadeth
The path to purenes leadeth.
O Lord of might, thrice blessed he,
Whose confidence is built on thee.

182

Psalm 85 Benedixisti, Domine

Mighty Lord from this thy land,
Never was thy love estrang'd:
Jacobs servitud thy hand
Hath, we know, to freedome chang'd.
All thy peoples wicked parts
Have byn banisht from thy sight,
Thou on them hast cured quite
All the woundes of synnfull dartes;
Still thy Choller quenching soe,
Heate to flame did never grow.

Now then God as heretofore,
God, the God that dost us save,
Change our state, in us no more
Lett thine anger object have.
Wilt thou thus for ever grive?
Wilt thou of thy wrathfull rage
Draw the threed from age to age?
Never us againe relive?
Lord yet once our hartes to joy
Show thy grace, thy help employ.

What speake I? O lett me heare
What he speakes: for speake hee will
Peace to whome he love doth beare,
Lest they fall to folly still.
Ever nigh to such as stand
In his feare, his favour is:
How can then his glory misse
Shortly to enlight our land?
Mercy now and truth shall meete:
Peace with kisse shall Justice greete.

183

Truth shall spring in ev'ry place,
As the hearb, the earthes attire:
Justices long absent face
Heav'n shall show, and Earth admire.
Then Jehova on us will
Good in good in plenty throw:
Then shall we in gladdnes mow,
Wheras now in grief we till.
Then before him in his way
All goe right, not one shall stray.

184

Psalm 86 Inclina, Domine

Aeternall Lord, thine eare incline:
Heare me most helplesse, most oppressed:
This Client save, this servant thine,
Whose hope is whole to thee addressed.
On me, Jehova, pitty take:
For daily cry to thee I make.
Thy servantes soule from depth of saddnes
That climes to thee, advance to gladdnes.

O Lord, I know thee good and kind,
On all that aske much mercy spending:
Then heare O Lord with heedfull mynd
These carefull suites of my commending.
I only call when much I neede:
Needes of thy help I then must speed:
A God like whom (if gods be many)
Who is, or doth, there is not any.

And therefore, Lord, before thy face
All nations which thy hand hath framed,
Shall come with low adoring grace,
And praise the name upon thee named.
For thou art greate, and thou alone
Dost wonders, God, done els by none:
O in thy truth my path discover,
And hold me fast thy fearing lover.

Lord, all my hart shall synge of thee:
By me thy name shall still be praised,
Whose goodnesse richly powr'd on me
From lowest pitt my soule hath raised.
And now againe mine enimies
Doe many, mighty, prowd arise:
By whom with hate my life is chased,
While in their sight thou least art placed.

185

But thou, Jehova, swift to grace,
On light entreaty pardon showest:
To wrath dost goe a heavy pace,
And full with truth and mercy flowest.
Then turne and take of me remorse:
With strength my weaknesse re-enforce:
Who in thy service have attended,
And of thy handmaid am descended.

O lett some token of thy love
Be eminently on me placed;
Some Cognisance, to teach and prove,
That thine I am, that by thee graced,
To dye their cheekes in shamefull hue
That now with spite my soule pursue;
Eye-taught, how me thou dost deliver
My endlesse aid and comfort giver.

186

Psalm 87 Fundamenta ejus

Founded upon the hills of holinesse
Gods city stands: who more love beareth
To gates of Sion, high in lowlinesse,
Then all the townes that Juda reareth.
City of God, in Gods decree
What noble things are said of thee!

I will, saith he, hence foorth be numbered
Egipt and Babell with my knowers:
That Palestine and Tyre, which cumbered
The fathers, with the after-goers
Shall joyne: soe Aethiope from whence
The borne shall be, as borne from hence.

Yea this, men shall of Sion signify:
To him, and him it gave first breathing;
Which highest God shall highly dignify,
Eternall stay to it bequeathing.
Jehova this account shall make,
When he of his shall muster take:

That he, and he who ever named be,
Shall be as borne in Sion named:
In Sion shall my musique framed be,
Of lute and voice most sweetly framed:
I will, saith he, to Sion bring
Of my fresh fountaines ev'ry spring.

187

Psalm 88 Domine Deus

My God, my Lord, my help, my health;
To thee my cry
Doth restles fly,
Both when of sunn the day
The treasures doth display,
And night locks up his golden wealth.

Admitt to presence what I crave:
O bow thine eare
My cry to heare,
Whose soule with ills and woes
Soe flowes, soe overflowes,
That now my life drawes nigh the grave.

With them that fall into the pitt
I stand esteem'd:
Quite forcelesse deem'd,
As one who free from strife
And sturr of mortall life,
Among the dead at rest doth sitt.

Right like unto the murdred sort,
Who in the grave
Their biding have;
Whom now thou dost no more
Remember as before,
Quite, quite cut of from thy support.

Throwne downe into the grave of graves
In darknes deepe
Thou dost me keepe:
Where lightning of thy wrath
Upon me lighted hath,
All overwhelm'd with all thy waves.

188

Who did know me, whome I did know,
Remov'd by thee
Are gone from me;
Are gone? that is the best:
They all me so detest,
That now abrode I blush to goe.

My wasted eye doth melt away
Fleeting amaine,
In streames of paine
While I my praiers send,
While I my hands extend,
To thee, my God, and faile noe day.

Alas, my Lord, wilt then be tyme,
When men are dead,
Thy truth to spread?
Shall they, whome death hath slaine,
To praise thee live againe,
And from their lowly lodgings clime?

Shall buried mouthes thy mercies tell?
Dust and decay
Thy truth display?
And shall thy workes of mark
Shine in the dreadfull dark?
Thy Justice where oblivions dwell?

Good reason then I cry to thee,
And ere the light
Salute thy sight,
My plaint to thee direct.
Lord why dost thou reject
My soule, and hide thy face from me?

Ay me, alas, I faint, I dy,
So still, so still
Thou dost me fill,
And hast from yongest yeares,
With terrifying feares,
That I, in traunce, amaz'd doe ly.

189

All over me thy furies past:
Thy feares my mind
Doe fretting bind
Flowing about mee soe,
As flocking waters flow:
No day can overrun their haste.

Who erst to me were neare and deare
Far now, O farr
Disjoyned ar:
And when I would them see,
Who my acquaintance be,
As darknesse they to me appeare.

190

Psalm 89 Misericordias Domini

The constant promises, the loving graces,
That cause our debt, eternall Lord, to thee,
Till ages shall fill up their still void spaces,
My thankfull songues unaltred theme shalbe.
For of thy bounty thus my thoughtes decree:
It shalbe fully built, as fairely founded:
And of thy truth attesting heav'ns shall see
The boundlesse periods, though theirs be bounded.

Loe I have leagu'd, thou saist, with my ellected,
And thus have to my servant David sworne:
Thy ofspring kings, thy throne in state erected
By my support, all threates of time shall scorne:
And Lord, as runing skies with wheeles unworne
Cease not to lend this wonder their commending:
Soe with one mind praise no lesse adorne
This truth, the holy troopes thy Court attending.

For who among the clouds with thee compareth?
What angell there thy paragon doth raigne?
Whose majesty, whose peerelesse force declareth
The trembling awe of thine immortall traine.
Lord God whom Hostes redoubt, who can maintaine
With thee in powrfullness a Rivalls quarrell?
Strongest art thou, and must to end remaine,
Whome compleate faith doth armor-like apparrell.

Thy lordlie check the Seas proud courage quailed,
And, highly swelling, lowly made reside:
To crush stout Pharao thy arme prevailed:
What one thy foe, did undisperst abide?
The heav'n, the Earth, and all in bosome wide
This huge rounde Engin clipps, to thee pertaineth;
Which firmly based, not to shake, or slide,
The unseene hinge of North and South sustaineth.

191

For North and South were both by thee created,
And those crosse points our bounding hills behould,
Thabor and Hermon, in whose joy related
Thy glorious grace from West to East is told:
Thy arme all powr, all puisance doth enfold:
Thy lifted hand a might of wonder showeth:
Justice and Judgment doe thy throne uphold;
Before thy presence Truth with Mercy goeth.

Happy the people, who with hasty running
Poast to thy court when trumpets tryumph blow:
On pathes, enlighted by thy faces sunning,
Their stepps, Jehova, unoffended goe.
Thy name both makes them gladd and holds them soe:
High thought into their hartes thy justice powreth:
The worshipp of their strength from thee doth flow,
And in thy love their springing Empire flowreth.

For by Jehovas shield stand we protected,
And thou gav'st Israel their sacred king,
What time in vision thus thy word directed
Thy loved Prophet: ayd I will you bring
Against that violence your state doth wring
From one among my folk by choise appointed;
David my servant: him to act the thing
Have I with holy oile my self anointed.

My hand shall bide his never-failing piller,
And from myne arme shall he derive his might:
Not closly undermin'd by cursed willer,
Nor overthrown by foe in open fight.
For I will quaile his vexers in his sight:
All that him hate by me shall be mischaunced
My truth my clemency on him shall light
And in my name his head shall be advaunced.

Advaunced so, that twixt the watry borders
Of seas and flouds this noble land define,
All shall obay, subjected to the orders
Which his imperious hand for laws shall signe.
He unto me shall say: thou father mine,
Thou art my God the fort of my salvation:
And I my first-bornes roome will him assigne,
More highly thron'd then king of greatest nation.

192

While circling time, still ending and begining,
Shall runne the race where stopp nor start appeares:
My bounty towards him, not ever linning,
I will conserve nor write my league in yeares.
Nay more, his sonnes, whom fathers love enderes,
Shall find like blisse for legacie bequeathed;
A stedfast throne I say, till heav'nly Spheares
Shall faint in course, where yet they never breathed.

Now if his children doe my lawes abandon,
And other pathes then my plaine Judgments chuse:
Breake my behestes, prophanely walke at randon,
And what I bidd with froward hart refuse:
I meane indeede on their revolt to use
Correcting rodd, their sinne with whipps to chasten:
Not in their fault my loves defect excuse,
Nor loose the promise, once my faith did fasten.

My league shall hold, my word persist unchanged:
Once sworne I have, and sworne in holinesse:
Never shall I from David be estranged,
His seede shall ever bide, his seate no lesse.
The daies bright guide, the nightes pale governesse
Shall claime no longer lease of their enduring:
Whome I behold as heav'nly wittnesses,
In tearmlesse turnes, my tearmlesse truth assuring.

And yet, O now by thee abjected, scorned,
Scorcht with thy wrath is thy anointed one:
Hated his league, the crowne him late adorned
Puld from his head, by thee, augments his moane.
Raz'd are his fortes: his walls to ruine gone:
Not simplest passenger but on hym praieth:
His neighbours laugh: of all his haters none
But boasts his wrack and at his sorrow plaieth.

Takes he his weapon? thou the edge rebatest:
Comes to the field to fight? thou makest him fly:
Would march with kingly pomp? thou him unstatest:
Ascend his throne? it overthrowne doth ly:
His ages spring, and prime of jollity
Winter of wo before the day defineth;
For praise, reproche, for honor, infamy
He over-loden beares, and bearing pineth.

193

How long O Lord, what still in dark displeasure
Wilt thou thee hide? and shall thine angry thought
Still flame? O thinck how short our ages measure;
Thinck if we all created were for nought,
For who is he whom birth to life hath brought,
But life to death, and death to grave subjecteth?
From this necessity (let all be sought)
No priviledg exemptes, noe age protecteth.

Kind Lord, where is the kindnesse once thou swarest,
Swarest in truth thy Davids stock should find?
Show Lord, yet show thou for thy servant carest,
Holding those shames in unforgetting mind,
Which we, embosom'd, beare of many a kind:
But all at thee and at thy Christ directed:
To endlesse whom be endlesse praise assign'd,
Be this, againe I saie, be this effected.

194

Psalm 90 Domine refugium

Thou our refuge, thou our dwelling,
O Lord, hast byn from time to time:
Long er Mountaines proudly swelling
Above the lowly dales did clime:
Long er the Earth embowl'd by thee
Bare the forme it now doth beare:
Yea, thou art God for ever, free
From all touch of age and yeare.

O but man by thee created,
As he at first of earth arose,
When thy word his end hath dated,
In equall state to earth he goes.
Thou saist, and saying makst it soe:
Be noe more, O Adams heyre;
From whence ye came, dispatch to goe,
Dust againe, as dust you were.

Graunt a thousand yeares be spared
To mortall men of life and light:
What is that to thee compared?
One day, one quarter of a night.
When death upon them storm-like falls,
Like unto a dreame they grow:
Which goes and comes as fancy calls,
Nought in substance all in show.

As the hearb that early groweth,
Which leaved greene and flowred faire
Ev'ning change with ruine moweth,
And laies to roast in withering aire:
Soe in thy wrath we fade away,
With thy fury overthrowne
When thou in sight our faultes dost lay,
Looking on our synns unknown.

195

Therefore in thy angry fuming,
Our life of daies his measure spends:
All our yeares in death consuming,
Right like a sound that, sounded, ends.
Our daies of life make seaventy yeares,
Eighty, if one stronger be:
Whose cropp is laboures, dollors, feares,
Then away in poast we flee.

Yet who notes thy angry power
As he should feare, soe fearing thee?
Make us count each vitall hower
Make thou us wise, we wise shall be.
Turne Lord: shall these things thus goe still?
Lett thy servantes peace obtaine:
Us with thy joyfull bounty fill,
Endlesse joyes in us shall raigne.

Glad us now as erst we greeved:
Send yeares of good for yeares of ill:
When thy hand hath us releeved,
Show us and ours thy glory still.
Both them and us, not one exempt,
With thy beauty beautify:
Supply with aid what we attempt,
Our attempts with aid supply.

196

Psalm 91 Qui habitat

To him the highest keepes
In closet of his care,
Who in th'allmighties shadow sleepes,
For one affirme I dare:
Jehova is my fort
My place of safe repaire:
My God in whom, of my support,
All hopes reposed are.

From snare the fowler laies
He shall thee sure unty:
The noisome blast that plaguing straies
Untoucht, shall passe thee by.
Soft hiv'd with wing and plume
Thou in his shrowd shalt ly
And on his truth noe lesse presume,
Then most in shield affy.

Not mov'd with frightfull night
Nor arow shott by day;
Though plague, I say, in darknesse fight,
And wast at noontide slay,
Nay, allbe thousands here,
Ten thousands there, decay:
That Ruine to approch thee nere,
Shall finde no force nor way.

But thou shalt live to see,
And, seeing, to relate,
What recompence shared be
To ev'ry godlesse mate,
When once thou mak'st the Lord
Protector of thy state,
And with the highest canst accord
To dwell within his gate:

197

Then ill, nay cause of ill,
Shall farr excluded goe:
Nought thee to hurt, much lesse to kill,
Shall nere thy lodging grow.
For Angells shall attend
By him commanded soe:
And thee in all such waies defend,
As his directions show.

To beare thee with regard
Their hands shall both be spred:
Thy foote shall never dash to hard,
Against the stone misled.
Soe thou on lions goe
Soe on the Aspicks head:
On Lionet shalt hurtlesse soe
And on the Dragon tread.

Loe me, saith God: he loves
I therfore will him free:
My name with knowledg he approves,
That shall his honor be.
He asks when paines are rife,
And streight receiv'd doth see
Help, glory, and his fill of life,
With endlesse health from me.

198

Psalm 92 Bonum est confiteri

O lovly thing
To sing and praises frame
To thee, O Lord, and thy high name;
With early spring
Thy bounty to display,
Thy truth when night hath vanquisht day:
Yea soe to sing,
That ten string'd instrument
With lute, and harp, and voice consent.

For, Lord, my mind
Thy works with wonder fill;
Thy doings are my comfort still.
What witt can find,
How bravely thou hast wrought,
Or deeply sound thy shallow'st thought?
The foole is blind,
And blindly doth not know,
How like the grasse the wicked grow.

The wicked grow
Like fraile though flowry grasse:
And, falne, to wrack past help doe passe.
But thou not soe,
But high thou still dost stay:
And loe thy haters ran away.
Thy haters loe,
Decay and perish all;
All wicked hands to ruine fall.

Fresh oiled I
Will lively lift my horne,
And match the matchlesse Unicorne:
Mine ey shall spy
My spies in spightfull case:
Mine eare shall heare my foes disgrace.
Like Cedar high
And like Date-bearing tree,
For greene, and growth the just shall be.

199

Where God doth dwell
Shall be his spreading place:
Gods Courts shall his faire bowes embrace.
Even then shall swell
His blossoms fatt and faire,
When aged rinde the stock shall beare.
And I shall tell
How God my Rock is just,
So just, with him is nought unjust.

200

Psalm 93 Dominus regnavit

Cloth'd with state and girt with might,
Monark-like Jehova raignes:
He who Earthes foundation pight,
Pight at first, and yet sustaines;
He whose stable throne disdaines
Motions shock, and ages flight:
He who endles one remaines,
One, the same, in changlesse plight.

Rivers, yea, though Rivers rore,
Roring though sea-billowes rise,
Vex the deepe, and breake the shore:
Stronger art thou, Lord of skies.
Firme and true thy promise lies
Now and still, as heretofore:
Holy worshipp never dies
In thy howse where we adore.

200a

Psalm 94 Deus ultionum Dominus

God of revenge, revenging God, appeare:
To recompence the proud, Earthes judge arise.
How long, O Lord, how long unpunisht beare
Shall these vile men their joyes, their jolities?
How long thus talk, and talking tiranize?
Cursedly doe and, doing, proudly boast?
This people crush, by thee affected most?
This land afflict, where thy possession lies?

For these, the widow and the stranger slay:
These work the orphans deadly overthrow.
God shall not see, then in their thoughts they say,
The God of Jacob he shall never know.
O fooles, this folly when will you forgoe,
And wisdome learne? who first the eare did plant,
Shall he him self not heare? sight shall he want,
From whose first workmanshipp the eye did grow?

Who checks the world, shall he not you reprove?
Shall knowledge lack, who all doth knowledge lend?
Nay, ev'n the thoughtes of men who raignes above,
He knowes, and knowes they more then vainly end.
Then blest who in thy schoole his age doth spend,
Whom thou O Lord, dost in thy law enforme,
Thy harbour shall him shrowd from ruines storme,
While pitts are dig'd where such men shall descend.

For sure the Lord his folk will not forsake,
But ever prove to his possession true;
Judgment, againe, the course of Justice take,
And all right hartes shall God, their guide, ensue.
See, if you doubt: against the canckred crue,
Those mischief-masters, who for me did stand?
The Lord, none els: but for whose aiding hand,
Scilence by now had held my soule in mew.

200b

But Lord, thy goodnes did me then uphold,
Ev'n when I said now, now I faint, I fall:
And, quailed in mind-combats manifold,
Thie consolations did my joyes recall.
Then what society hold'st thou at all,
What frendshipp with the throne of missery?
Which law pretends, intends but injury,
And Justice doth unjust vexation call?

To counsell where conspired caitives flock
The just to slay, and faultlesse bloud to spill?
O no: my God Jehova is my Rock,
My rock of refuge, my defensive hill,
He on their heades shall well repay their ill:
Jehova, loe! the God in whome we joy,
Destroy them shall, shall them at once destroy:
And what the meane? their owne malicious will.

201

Psalm 95 Venite exultemus

Come, come lett us with joyfull voice
Record and raise
Jehovas praise:
Come lett us in our safties Rock rejoyce.
Into his presence lett us goe
And there with Psalmes our gladdness show;
For he is God, a god most greate,
Above all gods a king in kingly seate.

What lowest lies in earthy masse,
What highest stands,
Stands in his hands:
The Sea is his, and he the Sea-wright was.
He made the Sea, he made the shore:
Come let us fall, lett us adore:
Come let us kneele with awfull grace
Before the Lord, the Lord our makers face.

He is our God, he doth us keepe:
We by him ledd,
And by him fedd,
His people are, we are his pasture sheepe.
Today if he some speach will use,
Doe not, O doe not you refuse
With hardned hartes his voice to heare,
As Masha now, or Meriba it were,

Where me your fathers, God doth say,
Did angring move,
And tempting prove:
Yet oft had seene my workes before that day.
Twise twenty times my poast, the sunn,
His yearly race to end had runn,
While this fond Nation, bent to ill,
Did tempt, and try, and vex, and greeve me still.

202

Which when I saw, thus said I, loe,
These men are madd,
And too too badd
Erre in their harts; my waies they will not know.
Thus therefore unto them I sweare:
(I angry can noe more forbeare)
The rest for you I did ordaine,
I will soe work you never shall obtaine.

203

Psalm 96 Cantate domino

Sing and let the song be new,
Unto him that never endeth:
Sing all Earth and all in you.
Sing to God and blesse his name;
Of the help, the health he sendeth,
Day by day new ditties frame.

Make each country know his worth;
Of his actes the wondred story
Paint unto each people forth.
For Jehova greate alone
All the gods, for awe and glory,
Farre above doth hold his throne.

For but Idolls what are they,
Whom besides madd Earth adoreth?
He the Skies in frame did lay:
Grace and Honor are his guides
Majesty his temple storeth:
Might in guard about him bides.

Kindreds come Jehova give,
O give Jehova all together,
Force and fame whereso you live.
Give his name the glory fitt:
Take your Offrings gett you thither,
Where he doth enshrined sitt.

Goe adore him in the place
Where his pompe is most displaied:
Earth, O goe with quaking pace,
Goe proclaime Jehova king:
Staylesse world shall now be staied;
Righteous doome his rule shall bring.

204

Starry roofe, and earthy floore,
Sea and all thy widnesse yeldeth:
Now rejoyce and leape and rore.
Leavy Infants of the wood,
Fieldes and all that on you feedeth,
Daunce O daunce, at such a good.

For Jehova commeth loe!
Loe to raigne Jehova cometh:
Under whome you all shall goe.
He the world shall rightly guide:
Truly as a king becommeth,
For the peoples weale provide.

205

Psalm 97 Dominus Regnavit

Jehova comes to raigne
Rejoyce, O Earthy maine:
You isles with waves enclosed,
Be all to joy disposed.
Cloudes him round on all sides,
And pitchy darknesse hides.
Justice and judgment stand
As propps on either hand,
Whereon his throne abides.

The fire before him goes,
To asshes turnes his foes:
His flashing lightnings maketh,
That Earth beholding quaketh.
The mountaines at his sight,
His sight that is by right
The Lord of all this all,
Doe fast on melting fall;
As wax by fiers might.

The heav'ns his justice tell,
Noe lesse they all that dwell
And have on earth their beeing,
Are gladd his glory seeing.
Shame then, shame may you see,
That Idoll-servers be,
And trust in Idolls place:
But let before his face
All Angells bow their knee.

When Sion this did here,
How did her joyes appeare!
How weare to mirth invited
All townes in Juda sited!
For thou Lord rulest right:
Thou thron'd in glory bright
Sitt'st high: they all by thee
Be rul'd who Rulers be,
Thy might above all might.

206

Who love God, love him still:
And haters be of ill.
For he their lives preserveth,
Whome he as his reserveth
Now light and joy is sowne
To be by good men mowne.
You just, with joyfull voice
Then in the Lord rejoyce:
His holynesse make knowne.

207

Psalm 98 Cantate Domino

O sing Jehova, he hath wonders wrought,
A song of praise that newnesse may commend:
His hand, his holy arme alone hath brought
Conquest on all that durst with him contend.
He that salvation doth his ellect attend,
Long hid, at length hath sett in open view:
And now the unbeleeving Nations taught
His heav'nly justice, yelding each their due.

His bounty and his truth the motives were,
Promis'd of yore to Jacob and his race
Which ev'ry Margine of this earthy spheare
Now sees performed in his saving grace.
Then earth, and all possessing earthy place,
O sing, O shout, O triumph, O rejoyce:
Make lute a part with vocall musique beare,
And entertaine this king with trumpetts noise.

Rore, Sea, all that trace the bryny sands:
Thou totall globe and all that thee enjoy:
You streamy rivers clapp your swymming hands:
You Mountaines echo each at others joy,
See on the Lord this service you imploy,
Who comes of earth the crowne and rule to take:
And shall with upright justice judg the lands,
And equall lawes among the dwellers make.

208

Psalm 99 Dominus regnavit

What if nations rage and frett?
What if Earth doe ruine threate?
Loe our state Jehova guideth,
He that on the Cherubs rideth.

Greate Jehova Sion holdes,
High above what Earth enfolds:
Thence his sacred name with terror,
Forceth truth from tongues of error.

Thron'd he sitts a king of might,
Mighty soe, as bent to right:
For how can but be maintained
Right, by him who right ordained?

O then come Jehova sing:
Sing our God, our Lord our king:
At the footstoole sett before him,
(He is holy) come, adore him.

Moses erst and Aron soe,
(These did high in Priesthood goe)
Samuell soe unto him crying,
Got their sutes without denying.

But from cloudy Piller then
God did daine to talk with men:
He enacting they observing,
From his will there was no swerving.

Then our God Jehova thou,
Unto them thy eare didst bowe:
Gratious still and kindly harted,
Though for sinne they somwhile smarted.

209

O then come Jehova sing:
Sing our God, our Lord, our king.
In his Sion mount before him
(He is holy) come, adore him.

210

Psalm 100 Jubilate Deo

O all you landes, the treasures of your joy
In mery shout upon the Lord bestow:
Your service cheerfully on him imploy,
With triumph song into his presence goe.
Know first that he is God; and after know
This God did us, not we our selves create:
We are his flock, for us his feedings grow:
We are his folk, and he upholds our state.
With thankfullnesse O enter then his gate:
Make through each porch of his your praises ring,
All good, all grace, of his high name relate,
He of all grace and goodnesse is the spring.
Tyme in noe termes his mercy comprehends,
From age to age his truth it self extends.

211

Psalm 101 Misericordiam et judicium

When, now appointed king, I king shall be,
What mercy then, what justice use I will,
I here, O Lord, in song protest to thee.

Till that day come thou me the crowne shalt give,
Deepe study I on vertue will bestow:
And pure in hart at home retired lyve.

My lowly eye shall levell at no ill:
Who fall from thee, with me not one shall stand:
Their waies I shall pursue with hatred still.

Mischievous heads farre off from me shall goe:
Malicious hartes I never will admitt:
And whisp'ring biters all will overthrow.

Ill shall I brooke the proud ambitious band,
Whose eyes looke high, whose puffed hartes doe swelle:
But for truth-tellers seek and search the land.

Such men with me my Counsailors shall sitt:
Such evermore my officers shall be,
Men speaking right, and doing what is fitt.

Noe fraudulent within my house shall dwell:
The cunning coyning tongue shall in my sight
Be not endur'd, much lesse accepted well.

As soone as I in all the land shall see
A wicked wretch, I shall him hate outright;
And of vile men Jehovas city free.

212

Psalm 102 Domine, exaudi

O Lord, my praying heare:
Lord lett me cry come to thine eare.
Hide not thy face away,
But haste and aunswer me,
In this my most, most misserable day,
Wherein I pray, and cry to thee.

My daies as smoke are past:
My bones as flaming fuell waste:
Mowne downe in me (alas)
With Sithe of sharpest paine,
My hart is withered like the wounded grasse,
My Stomak doth all foode disdaine.

Soe leane my woes me leave,
That to my flesh my bones do cleave:
And soe I bray and howle,
As use to howle and bray
The lonely Pellican and desert Owle,
Like whom I languish long the day.

I languish soe the day,
The night in watch I waste away;
Right as the Sparow sitts,
Bereft of spowse, or sonne:
Which, irk'd, alone with dolors deadly fitts,
To company will not be wonne.

As day to day succeeds,
So shame on shame to me proceeds
From them that doe me hate:
Who of my wrack soe boast,
That wishing ill, they wish but my estate,
Yet think they wish of ills the most.

213

Therefore my bread is clay,
Therefore my teares my wine alay:
For how else should it be,
Sith thou still angry art,
And seem'st for nought to have advaunced me,
But me, advaunced, to subvert?

The sunn of my life daies
In clines to west with falling raies,
And I as hay am dride:
While yet in stedfaste seate
Eternall thou, eternally dost bide,
Thy memory noe yeares can freat.

O then at length arise:
On Sion cast thy mercies eyes.
Now is the time that thou
To mercy shouldst incline
Concerning hir: O Lord, the tyme is now,
Thy self for mercy didst assigne.

Thy servauntes waite the day
When she, who like a carcasse lay
Stretch'd forth on Ruines beare
Shall soe arise and live,
That Nations all Jehovas name shall feare,
All kings to thee shall glory give:

Because thou hast a new
Made Sion stand, restor'd to view
Thy glorious presence there:
Because thou hast, I say,
Beheld our woes, and not refus'd to heare
What wretched we did playning pray.

This of record shall bide
To this and ev'ry age beside:
And they commend thee shall
Whom thou a new shalt make,
That from the prospect of thy heav'nly hall
Thy eye of earth survey did take,

Harkning to prisoners grones,
And setting free condempned ones:
That they, when Nations come,
And Realmes to serve the Lord,
In Sion, and in Salem might become
Fitt meanes his honor to record.

214

But what is this? if I
In the mid way should fall and dye?
My God to thee I pray,
Who canst my praier give;
Turne not to night the noonetide of my day,
Since endlesse thou dost aglesse live.

The earth, the heaven stands
Once founded, formed by thy hands:
They perish, thou shalt bide:
They olde, as clothes, shall weare,
Till changing still, full change shall them betide
Uncloth'd of all the clothes they beare.

But thou art one, still one:
Tyme interest in thee hath none,
Then hope, who godly be,
Or come of godly Race:
Endlesse your blisse; as never ending he,
His presence your unchanged place.

215

Psalm 103 Benedic, anima

My soule, my hart,
And every inward part,
Praise high Jehova, praise his holy name:
My hart, my soule,
Jehovas name extoll:
What gratious he
Doth, and hath done for thee,
Be quick to mind, to utter be not lame.

For his free grace
Doth all thy sinnes deface,
He cures thy sicknesse, healeth all thy harme.
From greedy grave
That gaspes thy life to have,
He setts thee free:
And kindly makes on thee
All his Compassions, all his mercies swarme.

He doth thee still
With flowing plenty fill:
He eagle-like doth oft thy age renew,
The Lord hys right
Unto the wronged wight
Doth ever yeld:
And never cease to shield
With Justice them, whom guile and fraude pursue.

His way and trade
He knowne to Moses made,
His wonders to the sonnes of Israell
The Lord, I meane,
Jehova; who doth leane
With mildest will
To Ruth and mercy still;
As slow to wrath, as swift to doing well.

216

When he doth chide
He doth not chiding bide:
His anger is not in his treasures laide.
He doth not serve
Our synnes, as sinnes deserve:
Nor recompence
Unto us each offence
With due revenge in equall ballance weighd.

For looke how farre
The Sphere of farthest starre
Drownes that proportion earthly Center beares:
Soe much, and more
His never empty store
Of grace and love
Beyond his synnes doth prove
Who ever hym with due devotion feares.

Nay looke how farre
From east removed ar
The westerne lodgings of the weary sunne:
Soe farre, more farre,
From us removed are,
By that greate love
Our faultes from him doe prove,
What ever faultes and follies we have done.

And looke how much
The neerly touching touch
The father feeles towards his sonne most deare,
Affects his hart,
At ev'ry froward part
Plaid by his child:
Soe mercifull, soe mild,
Is he to them that beare him awfull feare.

Our potter he
Knowes how his vessells we
In earthy matter lodg'd this fickle forme:
Fickle as glasse
As flowres, that fading passe,
And vanish soe,
No not their place we know,
Blasted to death with breath of blustring storme.

217

Such is our state;
But farre in other rate,
Gods endlesse Justice and his mercy stand,
Both on the good,
And their religious brood;
Who uncontrol'd
Sure league with him doe hold,
And doe his lawes not only understand.

Jehova greate
Sits thron'd in starry seate:
His kingdome doth all kingdoms comprehend.
You angells strong,
That unto him belong,
Whose deedes accord
With his commanding word,
Praises and thanks upon Jehova spend.

Spirits of might,
You that his battaills fight,
You ministers that willing work his will:
All things that he
Hath wrought, where soe they be,
His praise extoll:
Thou with the rest, my soule,
Praises and thanks spend on Jehova still.

218

Psalm 104 Benedic, anima mea

Make O my soule the subject of thy Songe
Th'eternall Lord: O Lord, O God of might,
To thee, to thee, all roiall pompes belonge,
Clothed art thou in state and glory bright:
For what is else this Eye-delighting light
But unto thee a garment wide and long?
The vaunted heaven but a Curtaine right,
A Canopy, thou over thee hast hunge?

The rafters that his Parlors roofe sustaine,
In Chev'ron he on christall waters bindes:
He on the windes, he on the cloudes doth raigne,
Riding on cloudes, and walking on the windes.
Whose winged blasts his word as ready findes
To poast from him, as Angells of his traine:
As to effect the purposes he mindes
He makes, no lesse, the flamy fier faine.

By him the earth a stedfast base doth beare,
And stedfast soe, as tyme nor force can shake:
Which once round waters garment-like did weare,
And hills in seas did lowly lodging take.
But seas from hills a swift descent did make,
When swelling high by thee they chidden were:
Thy thunders rore did cause their conduites quake,
Hastning their hast with spurr of hasty feare.

Soe waters fledd, so mountaines high did rise,
So humble Valleis deepely did descend,
All to the place thou didst for them devise:
Where bounding Seas with unremoved end,
Thou badst they should them selves no more extend
To hide the earth which now unhidden lies:
Yet from the mountaines rocky sides didst send
Springs whispring murmurs, Rivers roring cries.

219

Of these the beasts which on the planes doe feede
All drinck their fill: with these their thirst allay
The Asses wild and all that wildly breede:
By these in their self-chosen stations stay
The free-borne fowles, which through the empty way
Of yeelding aire wafted with winged speed,
To art-like notes of nature-tuned lay
Make earelesse bushes give attentive heed.

Thou, thou of heav'n the windowes dost unclose,
Dewing the mountaines with thy bounties raine:
Earthe, greate with yong, her longing doth not lose,
The hopfull ploughman hopeth not in vayne.
The vulgar grasse, whereof the beast is faine,
The rarer hearb man for him self hath chose:
All things in breef, that life in life maintaine,
From Earths old bowells fresh and yongly growes.

Thence Wyne, the counter-poison unto care:
Thence Oile, whose juyce unplaites the folded brow:
Thence bread, our best, I say not daintiest fare,
Propp yet of hartes, which else would weakly bow:
Thence, Lord, thy leaved people bud and blow
Whose Princes thou, thy Cedars, dost not spare
A fuller draught of thy cupp to allow,
Thus highly rais'd above the rest they are.

Yet highly rais'd they doe not proudly scorne
To give small birdes an humble entertaine,
Whose brickle neastes are on their branches borne,
While in the Firrs the Storks a lodging gaine.
Soe highest hills rock-loving Goates sustayne;
And have their heads with clyming traces worne:
That safe in Rocks the Connyes may remaine,
To yield them Caves, their rocky ribbs are torne.

Thou makest the Moone, the Empresse of the night,
Hold constant course with most unconstant face:
Thou makst the sunne the Chariot-man of light,
Well know the start and stop of dayly race.
When he doth sett and night his beames deface,
To roame abroade wood-burgesses delight,
Lions, I meane, who roreing all that space,
Seeme then of thee to crave their food by right.

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When he retornes, they all from field retire,
And lay them downe in Cave, their home, to rest:
They rest, man stirrs to win a workmans hire,
And works till sunn hath wrought his way to west.
Eternall Lord who greatest art and best,
How I amaz'd thy mighty workes admire!
Wisdome in them hath every part possesst,
Wherto in me, no wisdome can aspire.

Behold the Earth, how there thy bounties flow!
Looke on the Sea extended hugely wide:
What watry troops swymme, creepe, and crawle, and goe,
Of greate, and small, on that, this, ev'ry side!
There the saile-winged shipps on waves doe glide:
Sea-monsters there, their plaies and pastymes show:
And all at once in seasonable tyde
Their hungry eyes on thee their feeder throw.

Thou givst, they take; thy hand it self displaies,
They, filled, feele the plenties of thy hand:
All darkned lye deprived of thy Raise,
Thou tak'st their breath, not one can longer stand.
They dye, they turne to former dust and sand,
Till thy life-giving Sp'rit doe mustring raise
New companies, to reenforce each band
Which still supplied, never whole decaies.

Soe may it, oh! may it ever goe,
Jehovas workes his glorious gladdnesse be,
Who touching Mountaynes, Mountaynes smoaking grow,
Who eyeing Earth, Earth quakes with quivering knee.
As for my self, my seely self, in me
While life shall last, his worth in song to show
I framed have a resolute decree,
And thankfull be, till being I forgoe.

O that my song might good acceptance finde:
How should my hart in great Jehova joy!
O that some plague this irreligious kinde,
Ingrate to God, would from the earth destroy!
Meane while, my soule, uncessantly employ
To high Jehovas praise my mouth and mynd:
Nay, all (since all his benefitts enjoy)
Praise him whom bandes of time noe age can binde.

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Psalm 105 Confitemini Domino

Jehovas praise, Jehovas holy fame
O shew O sound, his actes to all relate:
To him your songs, your psalmes unto him frame;
Make your discourse his wonders celebrate.
Boast ye God-searchers in his sacred name
And your contracted hartes with joy dilate:
To him, his arke, his face, lett be intended
Your due inquest, with service never ended.

Record, I say, in speciall memory
The miracles he wrought, the lawes he gave,
His servantes you, O Abrahams progeny
You Jacobs sonnes, whome he doth chosen save.
We first and most on him our God relye
All be noe boundes his jurisdiction have:
And he eternally that treaty mindeth,
Which him to us, untearmed ages bindeth:

A treaty first with Abraham begun,
After againe, by oath, to Isaack bound,
Lastly to Isaacks god-beholding sonne
Confirm'd, and made inviolably sound.
I give in fee (for soe the graunt did runne),
Thee and thine heirs the Cananeian ground:
And that when few they were, few, unregarded,
Yea strangers too, where he their lott awarded.

They strangers were, and roam'd from land to land,
From Realme to Realme: though seatlesse, yet secure;
And soe remote from wrong of meaner hand
That kings for them did sharp rebuke endure.
Touch not I chardge you, my anointed band,
Nor to my Prophetts least offence procure.
Then he for Famyn spake: scarse had he spoken,
When Famyn came, the staff of bread was broken.

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But he for them to Aegipt had foresent
The slave-sold Joseph kindly to prepare:
Whose feete if fretting Irons did indent,
His soule was clog'd with steely boultes of care;
Till fame abroad of his divining went,
And heav'nly sawes such wisdome did declare
That him a message from the king addressed
Of bondage ridd, of freedome repossessed.

Noe sooner freed, the Monark in his handes
Without controll both house and state doth lay;
He Rulers rules, Commanders he commands;
Wills and all doe: prescribes and all obay.
While thus in tearmes of highest grace he stands,
Loe, Israell to Aegipt takes his way,
And Jacobs lyne from Holy Sem descended,
To sojourne comes where Cham his tentes extended.

Who now but they in strength and number flowe?
Rais'd by their god their haters farre above?
For, chang'd by him, their entertainers grow
With guile to hate, who erst with truth did love.
But he with sacred Moses wills to goe
Aron his choise, those mischiefes to remove:
By whose greate workes their senders glory blazed,
Made Chams whole land with frightfull signes amazed.

Darknes from day the wonted sunne doth chase
(For both he bidds and neither dares rebell),
Late watry Nilus lookes with bloudy face:
How fisshes die, what should I stand to tell?
Or how of noisome froggs the earth-bred race
Croak where their princes sleepe, not only dwell?
How lice and vermyn heav'nly voice attending
Doe swarming fall, what quarter not offending?

Noe rayny cloude but breakes in stony haile:
For cheerefull lightes dismayfull lightnings shine:
Not shine alone, their firy strokes assaile
Each taller plant: worst fares the figg and vyne,
Nor, cal'd, to come, doe Catterpillers faile
With locustes more then counting can define:
By these the grasse, the grace of fieldes is wasted,
The fruites consum'd by owners yet untasted.

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Their eldest-borne, that Countries hopefull spring,
Prime of their youth, his plague doth lastly wound;
Then rich with spoile, he out his flock doth bring;
In all their tribes not one a weakling found.
Aegipt once wisht, now feares, their tarrying,
And gladdly sees them on their journey bound;
Whome God in heate a shading cloude provideth,
In dark with lamp of flamy piller guideth.

Brought from his store, at sute of Israell
Quailes in whole Beavies each remove pursue;
Himself from skies, their hunger to repell,
Candies the grasse with sweete congealed dew.
He woundes the Rock, the Rock doth, wounded, well:
Welling affoordes new streames to Channells new,
All for God's mindfull will can not be dryven
From sacred word once to his Abraham given.

Soe then in joyfull plight, his loved bands
His chosen troupes with triumph on he traines:
Till full possession of the neighboure lands,
With painlesse harvest of their thancklesse paines,
He safely leaves in their victorious hands,
Where nought for them to doe henceforth remaines,
But only to observe and see fullfilled,
What he (to whome be praise) hath said and willed.

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Psalm 106 Confitemini Domino

Where are the hymnes, where are the honors due
To our good God, whose goodnes knowes no end?
Who of his force can utter what is true?
Who all his praise in praises comprehend?
O blessed they whose well advised sight
Of all their life the levell straight doe bend,
With endlesse ayming at the mark of right.

Lord for the love thou dost thy people beare,
Graunt thought of me may harbor in thy mind:
Make me with them thy safeties liv'ry weare,
That I may once take notice in what kinde
Thy kindnesse is on thine elected showne:
That I may gladdnes in their gladdnes finde,
Boasting with them, who boast to be thine owne.

Indeede we have as our fore-fathers done,
Done ill, done wronge, unjustly, wickedly:
For (that I may begin where they begun)
Thy workes in Egipt wrought, they passed by,
Quite out of thought thy many bounties fell,
And at the sea they did thy pacience try:
At the Red Sea, they did, I say, rebell.

Yet God (O goodness) saved from his name
These Mutiners that this his might might show,
For he the waters did rebuking blame,
The waters left at his rebuke to flow
On sandy deepe as on the desert sands;
Unwett in waves he made his people goe:
Setting them safe from all their haters hands.

For look how fast their foes did them pursue,
Soe fast, more fast the sea pursu'd their foes:
All drent, all dead, not one left of the Crue.
Then loe beliefe, then thankfullnesse arose
In faithlesse, gracelesse hartes: but in a trice
Oblyvion all remembraunce overgrowes
Of his great workes, or care of his advise.

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For, gluttonous, they flesh in desert crave,
That they forsooth might try th'allmighties might:
As glutton fitts, they flesh in desert have,
For fully fedd, yet far'd in pining plight.
What should I utter how from Moses they
And holy Aron, sacred in Gods sight,
Through envy sought to take the rule away?

The very earth such mischiefe griv'd to beare
And, opning, made her gaping throate the grave,
Where Dathan and Abiran buried were,
Buried alive with Tentes and all they have;
Whose complices the flash of angry fire
Surprised soe, none could from burning save,
In asshes rak'd they found their treasons hire.

A molten god they did in Horeb frame,
And what? forsooth, the suckling of a Cow;
Their heav'nly glory chang'd to beastly shame,
They more then beastes, before a beast did bow.
A Calfe, nay image of a Calfe they serv'd,
Whose highest worshipp, hay they should alow;
God was forgott, who had them soe preserv'd;

Preserv'd them soe by miracles of might,
Done in the plaines where fertile Nilus flowes
And wondred workes, which fearefully did fright,
The Oker bancks their passage did inclose.
Therefore their wrack he meant; which while he meant,
Moses, his chosen, in the gapp arose,
And turn'd his wrath from wrackfull punishment.

What more? the land that well deserv'd desire
With fond disdaine, mistrustfull, they reject:
Their tentes doe flame with hott rebellious fire,
Jehovas wordes reveav'd with no respect.
For which he in the desert overthrew
Them selves, their sonnes, with fathers fault infect,
Scatt'red, exil'd, no certaine Country knew.

For they to Pehor, filthy idol, went,
And what had bin to dead things sacrific'd,
Forbidden foode, abhominably spent,
Soe God with anger, mightely surpris'd,
His hurtfull hand against their health did raise;
But Phinees, justice done, their lives repris'd,
And for that justice purchas'd endlesse praise.

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Could this suffice? Nay farther at the brooke,
The brooke of brall, they did the Lord incense:
Which then his name of their contention tooke;
Where Moses self did smart for their offence,
For inly angred that he rashly spake,
Forgetting due respect and reverence,
Which for his rashnesse God did angry make.

After their sonnes came to that lovely land,
Noe better minded, albe better blest,
Would not roote out, as stoode with his command,
The Pagan plants, who then the place possest,
But grew together up, and did as they,
In Idoll service forward as the best:
In Idoll service roote of their decay.

For they both sonnes and daughters offered
Unto their gods; gods? no, they devills were:
Whose guiltlesse bloud, which wastfully they shed,
Imbru'd the Idolls Canaan did beare:
The land defiled was with murthers done,
Whiles they in workes no filthines forbeare,
And, in conceiptes, a whooring mainly run.

Soe God incensed grew against his owne,
And plainly did his heritage detest:
Left them to be by strangers overthrowne,
Lorded by foes, by enimies opprest.
Often he freed them by his force divine:
But when their witts would give his wrath no rest,
Left them at length in worthy plagues to pine.

He left them long yet left them not at last
But saw their woes, and heard their waylfull cries
Which made him call to thought his cov'nant past.
Soe chang'd, not only in him self did rise
Repentant pitty of their passed paines:
But their captivers now relenting eyes
His ruth of them to tender yelding traines.

Goe on, O God, as them, soe us to save:
Rally thy troopes that widely scattred be,
That their due thankes, thy holynesse may have;
Their glorious praise, thy heav'nly pow'r may see.
O God, of Izrael our God, our Lord,
Eternall thankes be to eternall thee:
Lett all the earth with praise approve my word.

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Psalm 107 Confitemini Domino

O celebrate Jehovas praise,
For gratious he and good is found;
And noe precinct, noe space of daies,
Can his greate grace and goodness bound.
Say you with me, with me resound
Jehovas praise with thankfulness:
Whose bands of perill he unbound,
When tyrants hate did you oppresse.

How many, and how many tymes,
From early East, from evening West,
From thirsty wasts, from frosty clymes,
Hath he dispersed, brought to rest!
How many sav'd, who deepe distrest,
And straying farre from path and towne,
With want and drouth soe sore were prest,
That drouth well neer their lives did drowne!

They cry'd to him in woefull plight;
His succour sent did end their woe.
From error, train'd, he led them right,
And made to peopled places goe.
Such then in song his mercies show,
His wonders done to men display:
Who, in the hungry, hunger soe,
Soe doth in thirsty, thirst alay.

How many fast imprisoned lye
In shade of death, and horrors blind,
Whose feete as Iron fetters tye,
Soe heavy anguish cloggs their mind!
Whom though the Lord did Rebells finde,
Despising all he did advise,
Yet when their hart with grief declin'd
Now helplesse quite and hoplesse lies.

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They cry to him in wofull plight;
His succour sent doth end their woe.
From death to life, from darke to light
With broken boltes he makes them goe.
Such then in song his mercy show,
His wonders done to men display;
The gates of brasse who breaketh so,
So make the iron yeld them way.

How many wantonly missled,
While, fooles, they follow Follies traine,
For sinne confined to their bed,
This guerdon of their folly gaine!
Their lothing soule doth foode refraine,
And hardly, hardly failing breath
Can now his ending gasp restraine
From entring at the gate of death.

They cry to him in wofull plight:
His succour sent doth end their woe,
His word puts all their paine to flight,
And free from sicknesse makes them goe.
Such then in song his mercy show
His wonders done to men display,
Tell gladly of his workes they know
And sacrifice of praises pay.

How many mounting winged tree
For traffique, leave retiring land,
And on huge waters busied be,
Which bancklesse flow on endlesse sand!
These, these indeed, well understand,
Enform'd by their feare-open ey,
The wonders of Jehovas hand
While on the waves they rocking ly.

He bids, and straight on moisty maine
The blustring tempest falling flies:
The starrs doe dropp bedasht with raine,
Soe huge the waves in combat rise.
Now shipp with men do touch the skies:
Now downe, more downe then Center falls;
Their might doth melt, their courage dies
Such hideous sights, each sense apalls.

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For now the whirlwinde makes them wheele:
Now stop'd in midst of broken round
As drunckard use, they staggring reele,
Whose head-lame feete can feele no ground.
What helpes to have a Pilot sound,
Where wisdome wont to guide the sterne
Now in dispairfull danger droun'd,
With wisdoms eye can nought discerne?

They cry to him in wofull plight;
His succour sent doth end their woe.
Of Seas and winds he partes the fight:
To wisshed port with joy they row.
Such then in song his mercies show;
His wonders done to men display:
Make peoples presse his honor know,
At princes thrones his praise bewray.

How many whers doth he convert
Well watred grounds to thirsty sand!
And saltes the soile for wicked hart
The dwellers beare that till the land!
How oft againe his gratious hand,
To watry pooles doth desertes change!
And on the fields that fruitlesse stand,
Makes trickling springs unhoped rang!

Suppose of men that live in want
A Colony he there do make,
They dwell, and build, and sow, and plant,
And of their paines greate profitt take.
His blessing doth not them forsake,
But multiplies their childrens store:
Nay, ev'n their Cattaill, for their sake,
Augmentes in number more and more.

They stand while he their state sustaines:
Then comes againe that harmefulle day
Which brings the enterchange of paines,
And their encrease turnes to decay.
Nor strange; for he, exiled stray,
Makes greatest kings scorn'd where they goe:
The same from want the poore doth waigh,
And makes like heards their houses grow.

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See this, and joy this thus to see,
All you whose judgements judge aright:
You whose conceites distorted be,
Stand mute amazed at the sight.
How wise were he, whose wisdome might
Observe each course the Lord doth hold,
To light in men his bounties light,
Whose providence doth all enfold!

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Psalm 108 Paratum cor meum

To sing and play my hart is bent,
Is bent God's name to solemnize,
Thy service O my tong, present:
Arise my lute, my harp arise.
My self will up with dawning skies,
And so in song report thy praise,
No eare but shall conceave my laies
As farre as Earth extended lies.

For, Lord, the heav'ns how ever high,
Are lower farre then thy sweet grace:
Thy truth on stedfast wings doth fly,
Aspiring up to cloudy space.
O then thy self in highest place
Above the heav'ns, Jehova, show:
And thence on all this earth below
Display the sunn-beames of thy face,

To sett thy dearly loved free,
To helpe and heare me when I pray.
Hark, hark, so shall, so shall it be,
Him self doth from his temple say.
Then make we heere a mery stay,
And let me part out Sichems fields:
The land that Succothes valley yelds,
By Pearch and pole divided lay.

Myne Gilead is, Manashe mine:
Ephraims armes shall guard the king:
My law shall Juda right define,
While I my shoe at Edom fling.
Thee Moab, I will humbled bring
To wash my feete in servile place:
Thou Palestine, my late disgrace,
Triumphed, shalt my triumph sing.

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But who shall cause us Edom take,
And enter Edoms strongest towne;
Who; but thou God, us'd to forsake
Our troopes, and at our sutes to frowne?
Then help us ere distrest we drowne:
Who trusts in man doth vainly trust.
In only God prevaile we must,
He, he, shall tread our haters downe.

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Psalm 109 Deus laudem

Since thus the wicked, thus the fraudulent,
Since liers thus enforce my blame:
O God, God of my praise,
Be not in silence pent:
For their malitious wordes against me raise
Engins of hate, and causelesse battry frame.

Causeless? ay me! quite contrary to cause
My love they doe with hate repay:
With treasons lawlesse spight
They answer frendshipps lawes,
And good with ill, and help with harme requite:
What resteth now, but that to thee I pray?

I pray then what? that lorded at command
Of some vile wretch I may him see:
That fittly still his foe
To thwart his good may stand:
That, judg'd, from judgment he condempn'd may goe,
Yea to his plague, his praier turned be:

That speedy death cutt off his wofull life,
Another take his place and port:
His children fatherlesse,
And husbandlesse his wife,
May wandring begg, and begg in such distresse,
Their beggred homes may be their best resort:

That usurers may all he hath ensnare,
And strangers reape what he hath sowne:
That none him friend at all,
None with compassions care
Embrace his brood, but they to wrack may fall,
And, falne, may lye in following age unknowne:

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That not his owne alone, but ev'ry cryme
Of fathers and forefathers hand,
May in God's sight abide:
Yea, to eternall tyme,
Synne of his mother and his mothers side,
May in his mind, who is eternall, stand:

That he and they soe farre may be forgott,
That neither print of being leave
What humane nature will;
For he remembred not,
But sought a wretch inhumanly to spill
And would of life an humbled hart bereave.

He loved mischief; mischief with him goe:
He did noe good; then doe him none,
Be wretchednes his cloake,
Into him soaking soe,
As water dronken inwardly doth soake,
As oile through flesh doth search the hidden bone.

Be woe, I say, his garment large and wide
Fast girt with girdle of the same.
Soe bit it, be it aye,
Such misery betide
Unto all such as thirsting my decay
Against my soule such deadly falshood frame.

But thou, O Lord, my Lord, soe deale with me
As doth thy endlesse honor fitt:
And for thy glories sake
Let me deliverance see,
For want and woe my life their object make,
And in my brest my hart doth wounded sitt.

I fade and faile as shade with falling sunn:
And as the Grasshopper is tost,
Place after place I leese;
While fast hath nigh undone
The witherd knotts of my disjoynted knees,
And dried flesh all juyce and moisture lost.

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Worse yet alas! I am their scorne, their nod,
When in their presence I me show;
But thou, thou me uphold,
My Lord, my gratious God:
O save me in thy mercies manifold,
Thy hand, thy work, make all men on me know.

They curse me still, but blesse thou where they curse:
They rise, but shame shall bring them downe.
And this my joy shall be,
As bad disgrace, or worse,
Shall them attyre then ever clothed me,
Trailing in trayne a synfull shamefull gowne.

Then, then will I Jehovas workes relate
Where multitudes their meeting have:
Because still nigh at hand
To men in hard estate
He in their most extreamities doth stand,
And guiltlesse lives from false condempners save.

236

Psalm 110 Dixit Dominus

Thus to my lord, the Lord did say:
Take up thy seate at my right hand,
Till all thy foes that proudly stand,
I prostrate at thy footestoole lay.
From me thy staffe of might
Sent out of Sion goes:
As victor then prevaile in fight,
And rule repining foes.

But as for them that willing yeld,
In solempne robes they glad shall goe:
Attending thee when thou shalt show
Triumphantly thy troopes in field:
In field as thickly sett
With warlike youthfull trayne
As pearled plaine with dropps is wett,
Of sweete Auroras raine.

The Lord did sweare, and never he
What once he sware will disavow:
As was Melchisedech soe thou,
An everlasting priest shalt be.
At hand still ready prest
To guard thee from annoy,
Shall sitt the Lord that loves thee best,
And kings in wrath destroy.

Thy Realme shall many Realmes containe:
Thy slaughtred foes thick heaped ly:
With crusshed head ev'n he shall dye,
Who head of many Realmes doth raigne.
If passing on these waies
Thou tast of troubled streames:
Shall that eclips thy shining raies?
Nay light thy glories beames.

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Psalm 111 Confitebor tibi

At home, abroad most willingly I will
Bestow on God my praises uttmost skill:
Chaunting his workes, workes of unmatched might,
Deem'd so by them, who in their search delight.
Endlesse the honor to his powre pertaines:
From end as farre his justice eake remaines,
Gratious and good and working wonders soe
His wonders never can forgotten goe.
In hungry waste he fedd his faithful Crue,
Keeping his league, and still in promise true.
Lastly his strength he caus'd them understand,
Making them lords of all the heathens land.
Now what could more each promise, doome, decree,
Of him confirme sure, just, unmov'd to be!
Preserv'd his folk, his league eternall fram'd:
Quake then with feare when holy he is nam'd.
Reverence of him is Perfect wisdoms well:
Stand in his lawe, so understand you well.
The praise of him (though wicked hartes repine)
Unbounded bides, noe time can it define.

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Psalm 112 Beatus vir

O in how blessed state he standeth,
Who soe Jehova feareth,
That in the things the Lord commandeth
His most delight appeareth!

The branches from that body springing
On the earth shall freshly flourish:
Their pedigree from good men bringing
The Lord with blisse will nourish.

The happy house wherein he dwelleth
Well stored shall persever:
The treasure, justly got, he telleth,
Shall bide his owne for ever.

For he, when woe them over-cloudeth,
The darkned hartes enlighteth:
His mildness them and mercy shrowdeth
His justice for them fighteth.

He is both good and goodness loveth,
Most liberall and lending:
All business wherein he moveth
With sound advice attending.

He, firmly propt for ever falling,
His name exempt from dying:
Can heare ill newes without appalling,
His hart on God relying;

Hys hart (I say) which strongly staid
Is free from feare preserved:
Till on his foes he view displaid
The plagues by them deserved.

239

He gives where needs, nay rather straweth,
His justice never ending:
Soe honors hand him higher draweth
With glad applause ascending.

Of good I meane: for wicked wretches
Shall seeing fume, and fuming
Consume to nought, their fruitless fetches
To nought with them consuming.

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Psalm 113 Laudate, pueri

O you that serve the Lord,
To praise his name accord:
Jehova now and ever
Commending, ending never,
Whom all this earth resoundes,
From East to Westerne boundes.

He Monarch raignes on high;
His glory treades the sky.
Like him who can be counted,
That dwells soe highly mounted?
Yet stooping low beholds
What heav'n and earth enfolds.

From dust the needy soule,
The wretch from miry hole
He lifts: yea kings he makes them,
Yea kings his people takes them.
He gives the barren wife
A fruitfull mothers life.

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Psalm 114 In exitu Israel

At what tyme Jacobs race did leave of Aegipt take,
And Aegipts barbrous folk forsake:
Then, then our God, our king, elected Jacobs race
His temple there and throne to place.
The sea beheld and fledd: Jordan with swift returne
To twinned spring his streames did turne.
The mountaines bounded soe, as, fedd in fruitfull ground,
The fleezed Rammes doe frisking bound.
The hillocks capreold soe, as wanton by their dammes
We capreoll se the lusty lambes.
O sea, why didst thou fly? Jordan, with swift returne
To twinned spring, what made thee turne?
Mountaines, why bounded ye, as, fedd in fruitfull ground,
The fleezed Rammes doe frisking bound?
Hillocks why capreold ye, as wanton by their dammes
We capreoll see the lusty lambes?
Nay you, and Earth with you, quake ever at the sight
Of God Jehova, Jacobs might,
Who in the hardest Rocks makes standing waters grow
And purling springs from flints to flow.

242

Psalm 115 Non nobis, domine

Not us I say, not us,
But thine owne name respect, eternall Lord:
And make it glorious,
To show thy mercy and confirme thy word.
Why Lord, why should these nations say,
Where doth your God now make his stay?

You ask where our God is?
In heav'n enthron'd, no mark of mortal ey.
Nor hath, nor will he misse
What likes his will, to will effectually.
What are your idolls? we demand:
Gold, silver, workes of workmens hand.

They mouthes, but speechlesse, have:
Eyes sightlesse; eares, no newes of noies can tell:
Who them their noses gave
Gave not their noses any sence of smell;
Nor handes can feele, nor feete can goe,
Nor signe of sound their throates can show.

And wherin differ you,
Who having made them, make of them your trust?
But Israel pursue
Thy trust in God, the targett of the just.
O Arons howse, the like doe yee:
He is their aid, their targett he.

All that Jehovah feare,
Trust in Jehovah, he our aid and shield:
He us in mind doth beare,
He will to us aboundant blessings yeeld;
Will evermore with grace and good
Bless Jacobs howse, blesse Arons brood.

243

Blesse all that beare him awe,
Both great and small, the conduites of his store,
He never dry shall draw,
But you and youres enrich still more and more.
Blest, O thrice blest, whom he hath chose,
Who first with heav'ns did earth enclose.

Where height of highest skies
Removed most from floore of lowly ground
With vaulted roofe doth rise:
Him selfe tooke up his dwelling there to found.
To mortall men he gratious gave
The lowly ground to hold and have.

And why? his praise to show:
Which how can dead men, Lord, in any wise?
Who downe descending goe
Into the place where silence lodged lies?
But save us: we thy praise record
Will now, and still: O praise the Lord.

244

Psalm 116 Dilexi quoniam

The Lord receaves my cry,
And me good eare doth give:
Then love hym still will I,
And praise him while I live.
Fast bound in bonds of death,
With deadly anguish thralled:
When grief nigh stopt my breath,
Upon his name I called.

I call'd, and thus I said:
O Lord my bands unbind.
I found him prone to aid,
I found him just and kind,
The simples surest guard
By me of right esteem'd:
Whom he distressed heard
From hard distresse redeem'd.

My soule turmoild with woes,
Now boldly turne to rest,
Such changes on thee showes
Who greatest is and best.
My life from death is past,
Mine eyes have dried their weeping:
My slipping foote stands fast,
My self live in his keeping.

Beleeving as I spake,
(Such woe my witts did blind)
I said when I did quake,
I all men liers finde;
Which, finding false, to thee
What thancks, Lord, shall I render,
Who showring blisse on me
Dost me soe truly tender?

245

My cup with thanks shall flow
For freedom from my thrall:
Which I in flames will throw,
And on thy name will call.
To thee my vowes will pay,
Thy people all beholding:
Who deare their deaths dost weigh,
That are to thee beholding.

This I, thy servant, taste,
Thy slave, thy handmaids sonne:
Whose bands thou broken hast,
And fettring chaines undone;
Who unto thee for this
A sacrifice of praising
To offer will not misse,
Thy name with honor raising.

Thou, whom no times enfold,
Shalt have what I did vow:
And they shall all behold,
Who to thy scepter bow,
The place, that holy place
Before thy house extended;
The very middle space
In Sion comprehended.

246

Psalm 117 Laudate Dominum

Praise him that ay
Remaines the same:
All tongues display
Iehovas fame.
Sing all that share
This earthly ball:
His mercies are
Expos'd to all:
Like as the word
Once he doth give
Rold in record,
Doth tyme outlive.

247

Psalm 118 Confitemini Domino

The Lord is good, you see and know;
Acknowledg then and praise him soe:
For soe his bounty it extendeth,
Noe age can say, loe here it endeth.

Thou chosen Israel allway,
With me be prest the same to say:
For soe his bounty it extendeth,
Noe age can say, loe here it endeth.

You that of sacred Aron came
Be prest with me to say the same:
For soe his bounty it extendeth,
Noe age can say, loe here it endeth.

And you his fearers all the rest
The same to say with me be prest:
For soe his bounty it extendeth,
Noe age can say, loe here it endeth.

I somtime straitned lay in thrall:
So lying I on God did call,
God answere gave me, when I called,
And me unlarging, me unthralled.

Jehova doth my party take;
Should feare of man then cause me quake?
Nay with my frends sith God is placed,
How can my foes but be disgraced?

More safe it is on God to stay,
Then confidence on man to lay:
More safe who God his refuge taketh,
Then he who kings his succour maketh.

248

Of enimies all sortes that be,
On ev'ry part inviron'd me:
But I their sinewes cut and quailed,
Jehovas name soe much prevailed.

They me inviron'd yet againe,
Againe they did me straitly strayne:
But I their sinewes cut and quailed,
Jehovas name soe much prevailed.

They me inviron'd yet anew,
And swarming fast like bees they flew:
As fire in thornes they quickly quailed,
Soe to their wrack his name prevailed.

Indeede thou sore at me did thruste,
Yet by his succour stand I must.
In him my strength, of him my ditty,
He did my soule in thralldom pitty.

You righteous troupe with me rejoyce:
Consort with myne your joyfull voice:
Say prais'd his hand, yea double praised,
Be his strong hand so highly raised.

For be assur'd I shall not dy;
But live Gods works to testify:
Who though he sore did scurging paine me,
He hath but scurg'd, he hath not slaine mee.

Who opens to me Justice gate?
I, entring, may Gods praise relate.
This gate unto Jehova showeth
By this to Him the righteous groweth.

Here, here O Lord, I will thee praise,
Who didst my life to safty raise:
The stone the builders erst refused
In corner now is laied and used.

This workmanshipp in deed divine
Doth in our eyes with wonder shine:
God made this day, he did us send it,
In joy and mirth then lett us spend it.

249

O help us Lord, O help, we say,
O prosper, prosper us we pray:
Blest in thy name who comming rideth,
Blest in thy house who dwelling bideth.

Thy house, Lord mighty God, whence we
Both have our light and sight to see:
Tie fast the lambe on Alter lying,
The cords to horned corners tying.

O God, my mighty God thou art,
And I to thee will praise impart:
O God thou art my God, and ever
I will extoll thee, ceasing never.

The Lord is good you see and know:
Acknowledg then and praise him soe,
For soe his bounty it extendeth,
Noe age can say, loe here it endeth.

250

Psalm 119 Beati immaculati

A

An undefiled course who leadeth,
And in Jehovas doctrine treadeth,
How blessed he!
How blest they be
Who still his testimonies keeping,
Doe seeke Himself with hearty seeking!

For whom in walke Gods way directeth,
Sure them no sinnfull blott infecteth
Of deede or word:
For thou, O Lord,
Hast to be done thy lawes commanded,
Not only to be understanded.

O weare my stepps soe staid from swerving,
That I me to thy hests observing
Might wholy give:
Then would I live
With constant cheere all chaunces brooking,
To all thy precepts ever looking:

Then would I worshipp thee sincerely,
When what thy Justice bidds severely
Thou shouldst me teach:
I would noe breach
Make of thy law to me betaken:
O leave me not in whole forsaken.

251

B

By what correcting line
May a yong man make streight his crooked way
By levell of thy lore divine?
Sith then with soe good cause
My hart thee seekes, O Lord, I seeking pray
Let me not wander from thy lawes.

Thy speeches have I hidd
Close locked up in Caskett of my hart:
Fearing to do what they forbid.
But this cannot suffice:
Thou wisest Lord, who ever blessed art,
Yet make me in thy statutes wise.

Then shall my lipps declare
The sacred lawes that from thy mouth proceed:
And teach all nations what they are;
For what thou dost decree
To my conceit, farre more delight doth breed,
Then worlds of wealth, if worlds might be.

Thy precepts, therefore, I
Will my continuall meditation make:
And to thy pathes will have good eye;
The orders of thee sett
Shall cause me in them greatest pleasure take,
Nor once will I thy wordes forgett.

C

Conferre, O Lord
This benefitt on me,
That I may live, and keepe thy word.
Open mine eyes,
They may the riches see,
Which in thy law enfolded lies.

A Pilgrim right
On earth I wandring live,
O barre me not thy statutes light.
I wast and spill,
While still I longing grieve,
Grive, longing for thy judgments still.

252

Thou proud and high
Dost low and lowly make:
Curst from thy rule who bend awry.
What shame they lay
On me, then from me take:
For I have kept thy will allway.

Let princes talk,
And talk their worst of me:
In thy decrees my thoughts shall walk.
All my delight
Thy witnest will shalbe:
My councell to advise me right.

D

Dead as if I were,
My soule to dust doth cleave:
Lord keepe thy word, and doe not leave
Me here:
But quicken me anew.
When I did confesse
My sinnfull waies to thee,
As then thy eare thou didst to me
Addresse:
Soe teach me now, thy statutes true.

Make that I may know
And throughly understand
What waie to walk thou dost command,
Then show
Will I thy wonders all.
Very woe and greif
My soule doe melt and fry;
Revive me Lord, and send me thy
Relief;
And lett on me thy comfort fall.

From the lyers trace,
From falshoods wreathed way,
O save me Lord, and graunt I may
Embrace
The law thou dost commend.
For the path ay right,

253

Where truth unfained goes,
My tongue to tread hath gladly chose:
My sight
Thy judgmentes doth, as guides, attend.

Since therefore, O Lord,
Still did I, still I doe
So neerly, deerly cleave unto
Thy word:
All shame from me avert.
Then loe, loe then I
Will tread, yea running tread
The trace which they commandements lead:
When thy
Free grace hath fully freed my hart.

E

Explaine, O Lord, the way to me,
That thy divine edicts enfold:
And I to end will runne it right.
O make my blinded eyes to see,
And I thy law will hold: yea hold
Thy law with all my hartes delight.

O be my guide, O guide me soe,
I thy commandments path may pace:
Wherein to walk my hart is faine.
O bend it then to things that show
True wittness of thy might and grace,
And not to hungry thirst of gaine.

Avert mine eye, it may not view
Of vanity the falsed face:
And strength my treadings in thy trade.
Lett doings prove thy sayings true
To him that holds thy servants place,
And thee his awe, his feare hath made.

Thou then my feare, remove the feare
Of comming blame from carefull me,
For gratious are thy judgmentes still:
Behold, to me thy precepts deare,
Most deare, and most delightful be:
O lett thy justice aid my will.

254

F

Franckly poure O Lord on me
Saving grace to sett me free:
That, supported, I may see
Promise truly kept by thee.

That to them who me defame,
Roundly I may answere frame:
Who because thy word and name
Are my trust, thus seeke my shame.

Thy true word O do not make
Utterly my mouth forsake:
Since I thus still waiting wake,
When thou wilt just vengaunce take.

Then loe I thy doctrine pure,
Sure I hold, will hold more sure:
Nought from it shall me alure,
All the time my time shall dure.

Then as brought to widest way
From restraint of straitest stay,
All their thincking night and day:
On thy law my thoughtes shall lay.

Yea then unto any king
Wittnesse will I any thing,
That from thee can wittnesse bring:
In my face no blush shall spring.

Then will I sett forth to sight
With what pleasure, what delight,
I embrace thy preceptes right,
Whereunto all love I plight.

Then will I, will either hand
Clasp the rules of thy command:
There my study still shall stand,
Striving them to understand.

255

G

Grave deeply in remembring mind
My trust, thy promise true:
This only joy in griefe I find,
Thy words my life renue.
Though proudly scorn'd, yet from thy lore
I no way have declin'd:
I hold for comfort what of yore
Thy dooms, O Lord, defin'd.

I quake to view how people vile,
Doe from thy doctrine swerve:
Thy just edicts ev'n in exile
Did me for musick serve.
I keepe thie learning and in night
Record Jehovas stile:
Observing still thy precepts right,
Loe this I have the while.

H

High Jehova once I say,
For my choice and lott I take,
I will sure his wordes obay.
Hott and harty sute I make,
Praying thus ev'n to thy face:
Pitty me for thy words sake.
Ev'ry path, and every pace
Taught by thee, observing well,
To thy rule I frame my race.
Least upon delaies I dwell
But to keepe, contend with speed
What to me thy precepts tell.
By lewd robbers brought to need,
From my losses of thy lawes
Never did neglect proceed.
Midnights watch thy praises cause,
While that me from bed and rest
Thought of thy just judgments drawes.
Felowship and frendshipps hest,
With thy fearers all I hold,
Such as hold thy biddings best.
Lord the earth can scarce enfold,
What thou dost benignly give:
Let me then by thee be told
In thy learning how to live.

256

I

In all kindnes, thou, O Lord,
Hast to me perform'd thy word:
This now resteth that I learne
From thy skill a skillfull tast,
Good from evill to discerne,
On thy lawes whose trust is plac't.

Yet unhumbled I did stray:
Now I will thy words obay.
Thou that art soe highly good
Nothing can thy goodnes reach,
Thou where floweth bounties flood
Willing me thy statutes teach.

What if proud men on me lie?
I will on thy lawes rely.
Wallow they in their delights,
Fatt in body, fatt in mind:
I the pleasures of my sprightes
Will unto thy doctrine bind.

Now I find the good of woe,
How thy hests it makes me know:
Of whose mouth the lectures true,
Are alone all wealth to me:
Millions then, and Mines adue,
Gold and silver drosse you be.

K

Knitt and conformed by thy hand
Hath been ev'ry part of me:
Then make me well to understand,
Conceiving all thou dost command:
That when me thy fearers see,
They for me may justly joy:
Seeing what I look't from thee
In thy word I now enjoy.

257

O Lord, thy judgmentes just I know;
When thy scurges scurged me,
Thou, in that doing, nought didst show
That might thy promise overthrow.
Let me then thy comfort see
Kindly sent as thou hast said:
Bring thy mercies life from thee:
On thy lawes my joyes are laid.

Let blame and shame the proud betide
Falsly who subverted me:
Whose meditations shall not slide,
But fast in thy commandments bide.
So shall I thy fearers see
On my part who know thy will:
While I purely worshipp thee,
Blott nor blush my face shall fill.

L

Looking and longing for deliverance
Upon thy promise, mightlesse is my mind,
Sightlesse myne eyes, which often I advaunce
Unto thy word,
Thus praying: when, O Lord,
When will it be I shall thy comfort find?

I like a smoked bottle am become:
And yet the wine of thy commandments hold.
Ay me! when shall I see the totall summe
Of all my woes?
When wilt thou on my foes
Make wronged me thy just reveng behold?

Their pride hath digged pitts me to ensnare,
Which with thy teachings, how doth it agree?
True or more truly, Truth thy precepts are:
By falshood they
Would make of me their pray:
Let truth, O Lord, from falshood rescue me.

258

Nigh quite consum'd by them on earth I ly:
Yet from thy statutes never did I swerve.
Lord, of thy goodnes quicken me, and I
Will still pursue
Thy testimonies true,
And all the biddings of thy lipps observe.

M

Most plainly, Lord, the frame of sky
Doth show thy word decayeth never;
And constant stay of earth descry
Thy word, that staid it, staieth ever.
For by thy lawes they hold their standings,
Yea all things do thy service try:
But that I joy'd in thy commandings,
I had my self bene sure to dye.

Thy word that hath revived me
I will retaine, forgetting never:
Lett me, thine owne, be sav'd by thee
Whose statutes are my studies ever.
I mark thy will the while their standings
The wicked take, my bane to be:
For I no close of thy commandings,
Of best things else an end, I see.

N

Nought can enough declare
How I thy learning love:
Whereon all day my meditation lies;
By whose edicts I prove
Farre then my foes more wise,
For they a wisdome never-failing are.

My teachers all of old
May now come learne of me,
Whose studies tend but to thy wittnest will:
Nay who most aged be,
Thought therefore most of skill,
In skill I passe, for I thy precepts hold.

259

I did refraine my feete
From ev'ry wicked way,
That they might firmly in thy statutes stand.
Nor ever did I stray
From what thy lawes command,
For I of thee have learned what is meete.

How pleasing to my tast!
How sweete thy speeches be!
Noe touch of hony so affects my tong.
From whose edicts in me
Hath such true wisdome sprong,
That all false waies quite out of love I cast.

O

O what a lanterne, what a lampe of light
Is thy pure word to me
To cleere my pathes, and guide my goings right!
I sware and sweare againe,
I of the statutes will observer be,
Thou justly dost ordaine.

The heavy weightes of greif oppresse me sore:
Lord, raise me by thy word,
As thou to me didst promise heretofore.
And this unforced praise,
I for an offring bring, accept O Lord,
And show to me thy waies.

What if my life ly naked in my hand,
To ev'ry chaunce expos'd!
Should I forgett what thou dost me command?
No, no, I will not stray
From thy edicts though round about enclos'd
With snares the wicked lay.

Thy testimonies, as mine heritage,
I have retained still:
And unto them my hartes delight engage;
My hart which still doth bend,
And only bend to do what thou dost will,
And doe it to the end.

260

P

People that inconstant be,
Constant hatred have from me:
But thy doctrine changelesse ever
Holds my love that changeth never.
For thou, the closett where I hide
The shield whereby I safe abide:
My confidence expects thy promise just.
Hence, away you cursed crue,
Gett you gone, that rid from you
I at better ease and leisure,
Maie performe my Gods good pleasure:
O Lord, as thou thy word didst give,
Sustaine me soe that I may live,
Nor make me blush, as frustrate of my trust.

Be my Piller, be my stay,
Safe then I shall swerve no way:
All my witt and understanding
Shall then work on thy commanding,
For under foote thou treadst them all,
Who swerving from thy preceptes fall:
And vainly in their guile and treason trust.
Yea the wicked sort by thee
All as drosse abjected be:
Therefore what thy proof approveth,
That my love entirely loveth.
And such regard of thee I make,
For feare of thee my flesh doth quake:
And of thy lawes, thy lawes severely just.

Q

Quitt and cleere from doing wrong,
O lett me not betraied be
Unto them who ever strong
Doe wrongly seeke to ruine me.
Nay, my Lord,
Baile thy servant on thy word:
And lett not these that soare too high
By my low stoope yet higher fly.

261

Eye doth faile while I not faile
With eye thy safety to pursue:
Looking when will once prevaile,
And take effect thy promise true.
All I crave,
I at mercies hand would have:
And from thy wisdome, which I pray
May cause me know thy law and way.

Since thy servant still I stay,
My understanding, Lord, enlight:
So enlight it that I may
Thy ordinaunces know aright.
Now, O now
Time requires, O Lord, that thou
Thy lawes defence shouldst undertake:
For now thy law they sorely shake.

Hope whereof makes that more deere
I thy edicts and statutes hold,
Then if gold to me they were,
Yea then they were the purest gold;
Makes that right
Are thy precepts in my sight:
Makes that I hate each lying way,
That from their truth may cause me stray.

R

Right wonderfull thy testimonies be;
My hart to keepe them I therefore bend.
Their very threshold gives men light,
And gives men sight,
That light to see:
Yea ev'n to babes doth understanding lend.

Opening my mouth: I dranck a greedy draught,
And did on them my whole pleasure place.
Looke then, O Lord, and pitty me
As erst I see
Ordain'd and taught
By thee, for them whose hartes thy name embrace.

262

Of all my goings make thy word the guide,
Nor lett injustice upon me raigne:
From them that false accusers be
Lord, sett me free:
Soe never slide
Shall I from what thy statutes do ordayne.

Shine on thy servant with thy faces beames,
And thoroughly me thy commandments teach;
From fountaines of whose watry eyes
Doe welling rise
Of teares huge streames,
Viewing each where thy doctrines daily breach.

S

Sure, Lord, thy self art just,
Thy lawes as rightful be:
What rightly bid thou dost,
Is firmly bound by thee.
I flame with zeale to see
My foes thy word forgett:
Pure wordes, whereon by me
A servantes love is sett.

Though bare, and though debast
I yet thy rules retaine:
Whose doomes do endlesse last,
And doctrine true remayne.
In presure, and in paine
My joyes thy preceptes give:
No date thy judgmentes daine;
O make me wise to lyve.

T

To thee my harty plaint I send,
Lord turne thine eare
My plainte to here,
For to thy law my life I bend
Since I have envoked thee;
Lett me, Lord, thy succour see:
And what thy ordinaunces will
I will persist observing still.

263

My cry more early then the day
Doth daily rise:
Because mine eyes
Upon thy promise waiting stay;
Eyes, I say, which still prevent
Watches best to watching bent:
Esteeming it but pleasing paines
To muse on that thy word containes.

O in thy mercy here my voice,
And as thy lawes
Afforde the cause
So make me, Lord, revyv'd rejoyce.
Lord, thou seest the gracelesse crue
Presse me neere, who me pursue.
As for the doctrine of the law
They farre from it them selves withdraw.

That Lord, thou seest, and this I see:
Thou ev'ry where
To me art neere,
For true, nay, truth thy precepts be.
Now, though not now first, I know,
For I knew it long ago:
That firmly founded once by thee
Thy ordinance no end can see.

V

View how I am distressed,
And lett me be released:
For looke what me thy word hath bidden
Out of my mind hath never slidden.

Then be my causes deemer:
Be thou my soules redeemer:
And as good hope thy word doth give me,
Lett with good help thy worke relive me.

Where wickednesse is loved,
There health is farre removed.
For since thy sole edicts containe it,
Who serch not them, how can they gaine it?

264

Thy mercies are so many,
Their number is not any:
Then as thou usest, Lord, to use me,
Revive me now, and not refuse me.

Exceeding is their number
That me pursue and cumber:
Yet what thy wittnesse hath defined,
From that my stepps have not declined.

I saw, and grieved seeing
Their waies, who wayward beeing,
With guilefull stubborness withstanded
What by thy speeches was commanded.

Since therefore plaine is proved
That I thy lawes have loved:
Looke Lorde, and here thy bounty showing
Restore my life now feeble growing.

This in thy doctrine raigneth
It nought but truth containeth:
This in thy Justice brightly shineth,
Thy just edictes no date defineth.

W

Wrong'd I was by men of might,
Hottly chas'd and hard assailed:
Little they my hart to fright,
But O much thy words prevailed:
Words to me of more delight,
Then rich booty wonne by fight.

Fraud doe I with hate detest,
But with love embrace thy learnings,
Seav'n times daily ere I rest,
Sing thy doomes and right discernings.
Whom who love, with peace are blest,
Plenteous peace without unrest.

265

Doing what thy precepts will
I thy help have long expected:
My soule by thy doctrine still,
Loved most, is most directed.
Thy edicts my deedes fullfill
Who survaist my good and ill.

Y

Yeeld me this favour, Lord,
My plaint may presse into thy sight,
And make me understand aright
According to thy word.

Admitt to sight I say
The praier that to thee I send,
And unto me thy help extend,
Who on thy promise stay.

Then from my lipps shall flow
A holy hymn of praise to thee:
When I, thy scholer, taught shalbe
By thee thy lawes to know.

Then shall my tongue declare
And teach againe what thou hast taught:
All whose decrees to triall brought
Most just, nay justice are.

O then reach out thy hand,
And yeeld me aid I justly crave,
Since all things I forsaken have,
And chosen thy command.

I looke, I long, O Lord,
To see at length thy saving grace:
And only doe my gladdness place,
In thy glad-making word.

I know my soule shall live,
And, living, thee due honor yeeld:
I know thy law shall be my shield,
And me all succour give.

266

As sheep from shepherd gone
So wander I: O seeke thy sheep,
Who soe in mind thy precepts keep,
That I forgett not one.

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Psalm 120 Ad Dominum

As to th'Eternall often in anguishes
Erst have I called, never unanswered,
Againe I call, againe I calling
Doubt not againe to receave an answer.

Lord ridd my soule from treasonous eloquence
Of filthy forgers craftily fraudulent:
And from the tongue where lodg'd resideth
Poison'd abuse, ruine of beleevers.

Thou that reposest vainly thy confidence
In wily wronging; say by thy forgery
What good to thee? what gaine redoundeth?
What benefitt from a tongue deceitfull?

Though like an arrow strongly delivered
It deeply pierce, though like to a Juniper
It coales doe cast, which quickly fired,
Flame very hott, very hardly quenching?

Ah God! too long heere wander I banished,
Too long abiding barbarous injury:
With Kedar and with Mesech harbour'd,
How? in a tent, in a howslesse harbour.

Too long, alas, too long have I dwelled here
With frendly peaces furious enemies:
Who when to peace I seeke to call them,
Faster I find to the warre they arme them.

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Psalm 121 Levavi oculos

What? and doe I behold the lovely mountaines,
Whence comes all my reliefe, my aid, my comfort?
O there, O there abides the worlds Creator,
Whence comes all my reliefe, my aid, my comfort.

March, march lustily on, redoubt no falling:
God shall guide thy goings: the Lord thy keeper
Sleepes not, sleepes not a whit, no sleepe no slumber
Once shall enter in Israells true keeper.

But whome named I Israells true keeper?
Whome? but only Jehova: whose true keeping
Thy saving shadow is: not ever absent
When present perill his reliefe requireth.

March then boldly, by day no sunne shall hurt thee
With beames too violently right reflected.
Feare no jorny by night: the Moony vapors
Shall not cast any mist to breed thy grevaunce.

Nay from ev'ry mishapp, from ev'ry mischief
Safe thou shalt by Jehovas hand be garded:
Safe in all thy goings, in all thy commings,
Now thou shalt by his hand, yea still be guarded.

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Psalm 122 Laetatus sum

O fame most joyfull! O joy most lovly delightfull!
Loe, I do heare Godds temple, as erst, soe againe be frequented,
And we within thy porches againe glad-wonted abiding,
Lovly Salem shall find: thou Citty rebuilt as a Citty,
Late disperst, but now united in absolute order.
Now there shalbe the place for Gods holy people appointed
First to behold his pledg, then sing allmighty Jehova.
Now there shalbe the seate, where not to be justiced only
All shall freely resort whom strife, hate, injury vexeth:
But where Davids house and ofspring, heav'nly beloved,
Shall both Judges sitt and raigne Kings throned in honor.
Pray then peace to Salem: to her frends all happy proceeding,
Wish to hir walls all rest, to hir fortes all blessed aboundance.
This with cause I doe pray, since from these blisses a blessing
My brother and kinsman, my friend and contry deriveth;
This I doe wish and more, if more good rest to be wished,
Since our God here builds him an howse, allmighty Jehova.

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Psalm 123 Ad te levavi oculos meos

Unto thee, oppressed, thou greate commander of heaven
Heav'nly good attending, lift I my earthy seeing
Right as a waiters eye on a graceful master is holden;
As the look of waitresse fix'd on a lady lieth:
Soe with erected face, untill by thy mercy relived,
O Lord, expecting, begg we thy frendly favour.
Scorn of proud scorners, reproach of mighty reprochers,
Our sprights cleane ruined, fills with an inly dolor.
Then frend us, favour us, Lord then with mercy relieve us,
Whose scornfull miseries greatly thy mercy needeth.

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Psalm 124 Nisi quia Dominus

Say Israel, doe not conceale a verity
Had not the Lord assisted us,
Had not the Lord assisted us what tyme arose
Against us our fierce enimies:
Us all at once long since they had devoured up,
They were soe fell, soe furious.
If not, the angry gulphes, the streames most horrible
Had drowned us: soe drowned us,
That in the deepe bene tombed, at least on the deepe
Had tumbled our dead Carcases.
But Lord, what honor shall thy people yeeld to thee,
From greedy teeth delivered?
Escaped as the fowle, that oft breaking the ginn,
Beguiles the fowlers wilynesse.
For sure this is thy work, they name protecteth us,
Who heav'n, who earth hast fashioned.

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Psalm 125 Qui confidunt

As Sion standeth very firmly stedfast,
Never once shaking: soe, on high, Jehova
Who his hope buildeth, very firmly stedfast
Ever abideth.

As Salem braveth with hir hilly bullwarkes
Roundly enforted: soe the greate Jehova
Closeth his servantes, as a hilly bullwark
Ever abiding:

Though Tirantes hard yoke with a heavy pressure
Wring the just shoulders: but a while it holdeth
Lest the best minded by too hard abusing
Bend to abuses.

As to the well-workers, soe the right beleevers;
Lord favour further; but a vaine deceiver,
Whose wryed footing not aright directed
Wandreth in error,

Lord hym, abjected, set among the number
Whose doings lawles, study bent to mischiefe
Mischief expecteth: but upon thy chosen
Peace be for ever.

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Psalm 126 In convertendo

When long absent from lovly Sion
By the Lords conduct home we returned,
We our sences scarsly beleeving
Thought meere visions moved our fancy.

Then in our merry mouthes laughter abounded,
Tongues with gladdness lowdly resounded
While thus wondring Nations whispered:
God with them most roially dealeth.

Most true: with us thou roially dealest,
Woe is expired, sorow is vanished:
Now Lord, to finish throughly thy working
Bring to Jerusalem all that are exiles.

Bring to Jerusalem all that are exiles,
So by thy comfort newly refreshed
As when southern sunn-burnt regions
Be by cold fountaines freshly relieved.

Oft to the plowman soe good happ hapneth,
What with teares to the ground he bequeathed,
Season of harvest timely retorning,
He, before wofull, joyfully reapeth.

Why to us may not as happly happen
To sow our businesse, wofully weeping:
Yet when businesse growes to due ripenes,
To see our businesse joyfully reaped?

274

Psalm 127 Nisi Dominus

The house Jehova builds not,
We vainly strive to build it:
The towne Jehova guards not,
We vainly watch to guard it.

No use of early rising:
As uselesse is thy watching:
Not ought at all it helpes thee
To eate thy bread with anguish.

As unto weary sences
A sleepie rest unasked:
Soe bounty commeth uncaus'd
From him to his beloved.

Noe not thy children hast thou
By choise, by chaunce, by nature;
They are, they are Jehovas
Rewardes from him rewarding.

The multitude of infantes
A good man holdes, resembleth
The multitude of arrowes,
A mighty Archer holdeth.

Hys happines triumpheth
Who beares a quiver of them:
Noe countenance of haters
Shall unto him be dreadfull.

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Psalm 128 Beati omnes

All happines shall thee betide,
That dost Jehova feare:
And walking in the pathes abide,
By him first troden were.
The labours of thy handes
Desired fruit shall beare,
And where thy dwelling stands
All blisse, all plenty there.

Thy wife a vine, a fruitfull vine
Shall in thy parlor spring:
Thy table compasse children thine
As Olive plants in ring.
On thee I say, on thee,
That fear'st the heav'nly king,
Such happinesse shall he,
He shall from Sion bring.

Yea while to thee thy breath shall hold,
Though running longest race,
Thou Salem ever shalt behold
In wealth and wished case:
And childrens children view
While Jacobs dwelling place
Noe plagues of warre pursue,
But giftes of peace shall grace.

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Psalm 129 Saepe expugnaverunt

Oft and ever from my youth,
Soe now, Israel may say:
Israel may say for truth,
Ofte and ever my decay
From my youth their force hath sought:
Yet effect it never wrought.

Unto them my back did yeeld
Place and paine (O height of woe)
Where as in a plowed field,
Long and deepe did furrowes goe.
But O just Jehova, who
Hast their plow-ropes cutt in two!

Tell me you that Sion hate,
What you thinck shall be your end?
Terror shall your mindes amate:
Blushe and shame your faces shend.
Mark the wheate on howses topp:
Such your harvest, such your cropp.

Wither shall you where you stand;
Gather'd? noe: but, wanting sapp,
Filling neither reapers hand,
Nor the binders inbow'd lapp.
Nay who you shall reape or bind
Common kindnesse shall not find.

Such as travail by the way,
Where as they their paines imploy,
Shall not once saluting say,
God speed frendes, God give you joy:
He in whome all blessing raignes,
Blesse your selves, and blesse your paines.

277

Psalm 130 De profundis

From depth of grief
Where droun'd I ly,
Lord for relief
To thee I cry:
My earnest, vehement, cryeng, prayeng,
Graunt quick, attentive, hearing, waighing.

O Lord, if thou
Offences mark,
Who shall not bow
To beare the cark?
But with thy justice mercy dwelleth,
Whereby thy worshipp more excelleth.

On thee, my soule
On thee, O Lord
Dependeth whole,
And on thy word,
Though sore with blott of sinne defaced,
Yet surest hope hath firmly placed.

Who longest watch,
Who soonest rise,
Can nothing match
The early eyes;
The greedy eyes my soule erecteth,
While Gods true promise it expecteth.

Then Israel
On God attend:
Attend him wel,
Who still thy frend,
In kindnes hath thee deere esteemed,
And often, often, erst redeemed.

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Now, as before;
Unchanged he
Will thee restore
Thy state will free;
All wickednes from Jacob driving
Forgetting follies, faultes forgiving.

279

Psalm 131 Domine, non est

A lofty hart, a lifted ey
Lord thou dost know I never bare:
Lesse have I borne in things too hygh
A medling mind, or clyming care.
Looke how the wained babe doth fare,
O did I not? yes soe did I:
None more for quiett might compare
Ev'n with the babe that wain'd doth ly.
Heare then and learne, O Jacobs race,
Such endlesse trust on God to place.

280

Psalm 132 Memento, Domine

Lord call to mynd, nay keepe in minde
Thy David and thy Davids paines:
Who once by othe and vow did bind
Himself to him who ay remaynes,
That mighty one,
That God in Jacob known.

My howse shall never harbor mee,
Nor bedd alow my body rest,
Nor eyes of sleepe the lodging bee,
Nor ey-lidds slendrest slumbers nest:
Untill I finde
A plott to please my mind:

I find, I say, my mind to please,
A plott wherin I may errect
A howse for him to dwell at ease,
Who is ador'd with due respect:
That mighty one
The God in Jacob known.

The plott thy David then did name,
We heard at Ephrata it lay:
We heard, but bent to find the same,
Were faine to seeke an other way:
Ev'n to the fields
That woody fear yeelds.

And yet not there, but heere O heere
We find now settled what we sought:
Before the stoole thy feete doth beare
Now entring in, wee, as wee ought,
Adore thee will,
And duly worshipp still.

281

Then enter Lord, thy fixed rest,
With Arke the token of thy strength,
And let thy priests be purely drest
In robes of Justice laied at length:
Let them bee glad
Thy gracefull blisse have had.

For David, once thy servants sake
Doe not our kings, his seede reject:
For thou to him this othe did'st make,
This endless othe: I will erect,
And hold thy race
Enthron'd in Roiall place.

Nay if thy race my league observe,
And keepe the cov'nants I sett down,
Their race againe I will preserve
Eternally to wear thy Crown:
No lesse thy throne
Shall ever bee their owne.

For Syon which I loved best
I chosen have, noe seate of change:
Heere heere shall bee my endles rest,
Heere will I dwell, not hence will range:
Unto the place
I beare such love and grace.

Such grace and love that evermore
A blisse from gratious loving me,
Shall blesse hir vittaile, blesse hir store,
That ev'n the poore who in hir bee
With store of bread
Shall, fully, all bee fedd.

In her my priests shall nought anoy:
Nay cladd they shall with safty be.
O how in her with cause shall joy
Who there as tenants hold of mee!
Whose tenure is
By grace my fields of blisse.

O how in her shall sprowt and spring
The scepter Davids hand did beare!
How I my Christ, my sacred king,
As light in lantern placed there
With beames devine,
Will make abroad to shine!

282

But as for them who spite and hate
Conceave to him, they all shall down,
Down cast by mee to shamefull state,
While on him self his happy Crown
Shall up to skies
With fame and glory rise.

283

Psalm 133 Ecce quam bonum

How good, and how beseeming well
It is that wee,
Who brethren be,
As brethren, should in concord dwell.

Like that deere oile, that Aron beares,
Which fleeting down
To foote from crown
Embalms his beard, and robe he weares.

Or like the teares the morne doth shedd,
Which ly on ground
Empearled round
On Sion or on Hermons hedd.

For join'd therewith the Lord doth give
Such grace, such blisse:
That where it is
Men may for ever blessed live.

284

Psalm 134 Ecce nunc

You that Jehovas servants are,
Whose carefull watch, whose watchfull care,
Within his house are spent;
Say thus with one assent:
Jehovas name be praised.
Then let your handes be raised
To holiest place,
Where holiest grace
Doth ay
Remaine:
And say
Againe,
Jehovas name be praised.
Say last unto the company,
Who tarryeng make
Their leave to take:
All blessings you accompany,
From him in plenty showered,
Whom Sion holds embowered,
Who heav'n and earth of nought hath raised.

285

Psalm 135 Laudate nomen

O praise the name whereby the Lord is known,
Praise him I say, you that his servants be:
You whose attendance in his howse is shown,
And in the courtes before his howse we see,
Praise God, right tearmed God, for good is he:
O sweetly sing
Unto his name, the sweetest, sweetest thing.

For of his goodnes Jacob hath he chose,
Chose Israel his own Domain to be.
My tongue shall speake, for well my conscience knowes,
Greate is our God, above all gods is he;
Each branch of whose inviolate decree
Both heav'ns doe keepe,
And earth, and sea, and seas unbounded deepe;

From whose extreames drawne up by his command
In flaky mists, the reaking vapors rise:
Then high in cloudes incorporate they stand:
Last out of cloudes raine flowes, and lightning flies;
No lesse a treasure in his storehouse lies
Of breathing blasts,
Which oft drawn foorth in wind his pleasure wastes.

He, from best man to most despised beast,
Aegipts first borne in one night overthrew:
And yet not so his dreadfull showes he ceas'd,
But did them still in Aegipts mid'st renew:
Not only meaner men had cause to rue,
But ev'n the best
Of Pharos court, the king among the rest.

He many Nations, mighty Kings destroi'd:
Sehon for one, who rul'd the Amorites,
And huge-lim'd Og, who Basans crown enjoy'd,
Yea all the kingdoms of the Cananites,
Whose heritage he gave the Izraelites,
His chosen train,
Their heritage for ever to remain.

286

Therefore, O Lord, thy name is famous still,
The memory thy ancient wonders gott,
Tyme well to world his message may fulfill,
And back retorne to thee, yet never blott
Out of our thoughts: for hos should be forgott
The Lord that so
Forgives his servant, plagues his servants fo?

What difference, what unproportion'd odds
To thee, these Idolls gold and silver beare;
Which men have made, yet men have made their godds!
Who though mouth, ey, and eare, and nose they weare
Yet neither speake, nor looke, nor smell, nor here.
O Idolls right
Who Idolls make, or Idolls make your might.

But you that are of Israells descent,
O praise the Lord: you that of Aron came
O praise the Lord; you Levies howse assent
To praise the Lord: you, all his fearers, frame
Your highest praise to praise Jehovas name.
His praises still
Salem resound, resound O Sion hill.

287

Psalm 136 Confitemini

O praise the Lord where goodnes dwells,
For his kindnes lasteth ever:
O praise the God all gods excells,
For his bounty endeth never.

Praise him that is of lords the Lord,
For his kindnesse lasteth ever:
Who only wonders doth afford,
For his bounty endeth never;

Whose skillfull art did vault the skies,
For his kindnesse lasteth ever:
Made earth above the waters rise,
For his bounty endeth never;

Who did the luminaries make,
For his kindnesse lasteth ever:
The Sunn, of day the charge to take,
For his bounty endeth never;

The Moone and Starrs in night to raign,
For his kindnesse lasteth ever:
Who Egipts eldest born hath slayn,
For his bounty endeth never;

And brought out Israel from thence,
For his kindnesse lasteth ever:
With mighty hand and strong defence,
For his bounty endeth never;

Who cutt in two the russhy sea,
For his kindnesse lasteth ever:
And made the middest Jacobs way,
For his bounty endeth never;

288

289

Who Pharo and his Army droun'd,
For his kindnesse lasteth ever:
And led his folk through desert ground,
For his bounty endeth never;

Greate kings in battaile overthrew,
For his kindnesse lasteth ever:
Yea mighty kings, most mighty slue,
For his bounty endeth never;

Both Sehon king of Amorites,
For his kindnesse lasteth ever:
And Ogg the king of Basanites,
For his bounty endeth never;

For heritage their kingdoms gave,
For his kindnes lasteth ever:
His Israell to hold and have,
For his bounty endeth never;

Who minded us dejected low,
For his kindness lasteth ever:
And did us save from force of foe,
For his bounty endeth never;

Who fills with foode each feeding thing,
For his kindnesse lasteth ever:
Praise God who is of heav'ns the king,
For his bounty endeth never.

290

291

Psalm 137 Super flumina

Nigh seated where the river flowes,
That watreth Babells thanckfull plaine,
Which then our teares in pearled rowes
Did help to water with their raine,
The thought of Sion bred such woes,
That though our harpes we did retaine,
Yet uselesse, and untouched there
On willowes only hang'd they were.

Now while our harpes were hanged soe,
The men whose captives then we lay
Did on our griefs insulting goe,
And more to grieve us, thus did say:
You that of musique make such show,
Come sing us now a Sion lay.
O no, we have nor voice, nor hand
For such a song, in such a land.

Though farre I lye, sweete Sion hill,
In forraine soile exil'd from thee,
Yet let my hand forgett his skill,
If ever thou forgotten be:
And lett my tongue fast flued still
Unto my roofe ly mute in me:
If thy neglect within me spring,
Or ought I do, but Salem sing.

But thou, O Lord, shalt not forgett
To quitt the paines of Edoms race,
Who causelessly, yet hottly sett
Thy holy citty to deface,
Did thus the bloody victors whett
What time they entred first the place:
Downe, downe with it at any hand
Make all flatt plaine, lett nothing stand.

292

And Babilon, that didst us wast,
Thy self shalt one daie wasted be:
And happy he, who what thou hast
Unto us done, shall do to thee,
Like bitternes shall make thee tast,
Like wofull objects cuase thee see:
Yea happy who thy little ones
Shall take and dash against the stones.

293

Psalm 138 Confitebor tibi

Ev'n before kings by thee as gods commended,
And angells all, by whom thou art attended,
In harty tunes I will thy honor tell.
The pallace where thy holines doth dwell
Shall be the place, where falling downe before thee,
With reverence meete I prostrate will adore thee.

There will I sing how thou thy mercy sendest,
And to thy promise due performance lendest,
Whereby thy name above all names doth fly.
There will I sing, how when my carefull cry
Mounted to thee, my care was streight released,
My courage by thee mightily encreased.

Sure Lord, all Kings that understand the story
Of thy contract with me, nought but thy glory
And meanes shall sing whereby that glory grew;
Whose highly seated eye yet well doth view
With humbled look the soule that lowly lieth,
And, farr aloofe, aspiring things espieth.

On ev'ry side, though tribulation greive me,
Yet shalt thou aid, yet shalt thou still relive me,
From angry foe thy succor shall me save.
Thou Lord shalt finish what in hand I have:
Thou Lord, I say, whose mercy lasteth ever,
Thy work begun, shall leave unended never.

294

Psalm 139 Domine, probasti

O Lord in me there lieth nought,
But to thy search revealed lies:
For when I sitt
Thou markest it:
No lesse thou notest when I rise:
Yea closest closett of my thought
Hath open windowes to thine eyes.

Thou walkest with me when I walk,
When to my bed for rest I go,
I find thee there,
And ev'ry where:
Not yongest thought in me doth grow,
No not one word I cast to talk,
But yet unutt'red thou dost know.

If forth I march, thou goest before,
If back I torne, thou com'st behind:
Soe foorth nor back
Thy guard I lack,
Nay on me too, thy hand I find.
Well I thy wisdom may adore,
But never reach with earthy mind.

To shunn thy notice, leave thine ey,
O whither might I take my way?
To starry spheare?
Thy throne is there.
To dead mens undelightsome stay?
There is thy walk, and there to ly
Unknown, in vain I should assay.

O Sun, whome light nor flight can match,
Suppose thy lightfull flightfull wings
Thou lend to me,
And I could flee
As farr as thee the ev'ning brings:
Ev'n ledd to West he would me catch,
Nor should I lurk with western things.

295

Doe thou thy best, O secret night,
In sable vaile to cover me:
Thy sable vaile
Shall vainly faile:
With day unmask'd my night shall be,
For night is day, and darkness light,
O father of all lights, to thee.

Each inmost peece in me is thine:
While yet I in my mother dwelt,
All that me cladd
From thee I hadd.
Thou in my frame hast strangly delt:
Needes in my praise thy workes must shine
So inly them my thoughts have felt.

Thou, how my back was beam-wise laid,
And raftring of my ribbs, dost know:
Know'st ev'ry point
Of bone and joynt,
How to this whole these partes did grow,
In brave embrod'ry faire araid,
Though wrought in shopp both dark and low.

Nay fashionles, ere forme I toke,
Thy all and more beholding ey
My shapelesse shape
Could not escape:
All these tyme fram'd successively
Ere one had beeing, in the booke
Of thy foresight, enrol'd did ly.

My God, how I these studies prize,
That doe thy hidden workings show!
Whose summ is such,
Noe suume soe much:
Nay summ'd as sand they summlesse grow.
I lye to sleepe, from sleepe I rise,
Yet still in thought with thee I goe.

My God if thou but one wouldst kill,
Then straight would leave my further chase
This cursed brood
Inur'd to blood:
Whose gracelesse tauntes at thy disgrace
Have aimed oft: and hating still
Would with proud lies thy truth outface.

296

Hate not I them, who thee doe hate?
Thyne, Lord, I will the censure be.
Detest I not
The canckred knot t,
Whom I against thee banded see?
O Lord, thou know'st in highest rate
I hate them all as foes to me.

Search me, my God, and prove my hart,
Examyne me, and try my thought:
And mark in me
If ought there be
That hath with cause their anger wrought.
If not (as not) my lives each part,
Lord safely guide from danger brought.

297

Psalm 140 Eripe me, Domine

Protect me Lord, preserve me, sett me free
From men that be soe vile, soe violent:
In whose entent both force and fraud doth lurk
My bane to work: whose tongues are sharper things
Then Adders stings: whose rusty lipps enclose
A poisons hoord, such in the Aspick growes.

Save I say Lord, protect me, sett me free
From these that be so vile, so violent:
Whose thoughts are spent in thinking how they may
My stepps betray: how nett of fowle misshape
May me entrapp: how hidd in traitor grasse
Their conning cord may catch me as I passe.

But this, O Lord, I hold: my God art thou:
Thou eare wilt bowe, what time thy aid I pray,
In thee my stay, Jehova: thou dost arme
Against all harme, and guard my head in field.
O then to yeeld these wicked their desire
Do not accord, for still they will aspire.

But yeeld O Lord, that ev'n the head of those
That me enclose, of this their hott pursute
May taste the frute: with deadly venome stung
Of their owne tongue, loe, loe, I see they shall:
Yea coales shall fall, yea flames shall fling them low,
Ay unrestor'd to drown in deepest wo.

For liers, Lord, shall never firmly stand
And from the land who violently live
Mischief shall drive: but well I know the poore
Thou wilt restore: restore th'afflicted wight,
That in thy sight the just may howses frame,
And glad record the honor of thy name.

298

Psalm 141 Domini, clamavi

To thee Jehova, thee I lift my cryeng voice,
O banish all delay, and lett my plaintfull noise,
By thy quick-hearing-eare be carefully respected.
As sweete perfume to skies lett what I pray ascend:
Lett these uplifted hands, which prayeng, I extend,
As ev'ning sacrifice be unto thee directed.

Ward well my words, O Lord, (for that it is I pray)
A watchfull Sentinell at my mouthes passage lay,
At wickett of my lipps stand ay a faithfull porter;
Incline me not to ill, nor lett me loosly goe
A mate in work with such, whence no good work doth grow,
And in their flattring baites, lett me be no consorter.

But lett the good-man wound, most well I shall it take,
Yea price of his rebukes as deerest balme shall make,
Yea more shall for him pray, the more his words shall grive me,
And as for these, when once the leaders of their crue
By thee be brought to stoope, my wordes most sweetly true
Shall in the rest so worke that soon they shall believe me.

Mean while my bones the grave, the grave expects my bones,
Soe broken, hewn, disperst, as least respected stones,
By careles Mason drawn from caves of worthless quarry;
But thou O Lord, my Lord, since thus thy servants ey
Repleate with hopfull trust doth on thy help rely,
Faile not that trustfull hope, that for thy helpe doth tarry.

O soe direct my feete they may escape the hands
Of their entangling snare, which for me pitched stands;
And from the wicked netts for me with craft they cover.
Nay for these fowlers, once, thy self a fowler be,
And make them fowly fall where netts are laid by thee;
But where for me they lay, let me leap freely over.

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Psalm 142 Voce mea ad Dominum

My voice to thee it self extreamly strayning,
Cries praying, Lord, againe it cryeng praieth:
Before thy face the cause of my complayning,
Before thy face my cases mapp it laieth
Wherein my soule is painted
In doubtfull way a stranger:
But, Lord, thou art acquainted,
And knowst each path, where stick the toiles of danger.
For me, mine ey to ev'ry coast directed
Lights not on one that will soe much as know me:
My life by all neglected,
Ev'n hope of help is now quite perish'd from me.

Then with good cause to thee my spiritt flieth,
Flieth, and saith: O Lord my safe abiding
Abides in thee: in thee all-only lieth
Lott of my life, and plott of my residing.
Alas, then yeeld me hearing,
For wearing woes have spent me:
And save me from their tearing,
Who hunt me hard, and daily worse torment me.
O change my state, unthrall my soule enthralled:
Of my escape then will I tell the story:
And with a crown enwalled
Of godly men, will glory in thy glory.

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Psalm 143 Domine, exaudi

Heare my entreaty Lord, the suite, I send,
With heed attend,
And as my hope and trust is
Reposed whole in thee:
So in thy truth and justice
Yeeld audience to me.
And make not least beginning
To judge thy servants sinning:
For Lord what living wight
Lives synnlesse in thy sight?

O rather look with ruth upon my woes,
Whom ruthlesse foes
With long pursute have chased,
And, chased, at length have cought,
And, cought, in tomb have placed
With dead men out of thought.
Ay me! what now is left me?
Alas! all knowledg reft me,
All courage faintly fledd,
I have nor hart, nor hedd.

The best I can is this, nay this is all
That I can call
Before my thoughts, surveying
Tymes evidences old,
All deedes with comfort waighing,
That thy hand-writyng hold.
Soe hand and hart conspiring
I lift, no lesse desiring
Thy grace I may obtayne,
Then drougth desireth raine.

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Leave then delay, and let his cry prevaile,
Whom force doth faile:
Nor lett thy face be hidden
From one, who may compare
With them whose death hath bidden
Adiew to life and care.
My hope, let mercies morrow
Soone chase my night of sorrow.
My help, appoint my way,
I may not wandring stray.

My cave, my closett where I wont to hide,
In troublous tyde
Now from these troubles save me,
And since my God thou art,
Prescribe how thou wouldst have me
Performe my duties part.
And lest awry I wander,
In walking this Meander,
Be thy right sprite my guide,
To guard I go not wide.

Thy honor, justice, mercy crave of thee
O Lord that me,
Reviv'd, thou shouldst deliver
From pressure of my woes,
And in destructions river
Engulph and swallow those,
Whose hate thus makes in anguish,
My soule afflicted languish:
For meete it is so kind
Thy servant should thee find.

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Psalm 144 Benedictus Dominus

Prais'd bee the Lord of might,
My rock in all allarms,
By whom my handes doe fight,
My fingers manage armes;
My grace, my guard, my fort,
On whom my safety staies:
To whom my hopes resort
By whom my realme obaies.

Lord what is man that thou
Should'st tender soe his fare?
What hath his child to bow
Thy thoughts unto his care?
Whose neerest kinn is nought,
No Image of whose daies
More livly can bee thought,
Then shade that never staies.

Lord bend thy arched skies
With ease to let thee down;
And make the stormes arise
From mountaines fuming crown.
Let follow flames from sky,
To back their stoutest hand:
Lett fast thy Arrowes fly,
Dispersing thickest band.

Thy heav'nly helpe extend
And lift me from this flood:
Let mee thy hand defend
From hand of forraine brood,
Whose mouth no mouth at all,
But forge of false entent,
Wherto their hand doth fall
As aptest instrument.

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Then in new song to thee
Will I exalt my voice:
Then shall, O God, with mee
My tenn-string'd Lute rejoyce.
Rejoyce in him, I say,
Who roiall right preserves
And saves from swords decay
His David that him serves.

O Lord thy help extend,
And lift mee from this flood:
Lett mee thy hand defend
From hand of forrain brood
Whose mouth no mouth at all
But forge of false entent,
Whereto their hand doth fall
As aptest instrument.

Soe then our sonnes shall grow
As plants of timely spring:
Whom soone to fairest show
Their happy growth doth bring.
As pillers both doe beare
And garnish kingly hall:
Our daughters straight and faire,
Each howse embellish shall.

Our store shall ay bee full,
Yea shall such fullness finde
Though all from thence wee pull,
Yet more shall rest behind.
The millions of encrease
Shall breake the wonted fold:
Yea such the sheepy prease,
The streetes shall scantly hold.

Our heards shall brave the best:
Abroad no foes alarme:
At home to breake our rest,
No cry, the voice of harme.
If blessed tearme I may
On whom such blessings fall:
Then blessed blessed they
Their God Jehovah call.

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Psalm 145 Exaltabo te

My God, my king, to lift thy praise
And thanck thy most thank-worthy name
I will not end, but all my daies
Will spend in seeking how to frame
Recordes of thy deserved fame
Whose praise past-praise, whose greatness such,
The greatest search can never touch.

Not in one age thy works shall dy,
But elder eft to yonger tell
Thy praisefull powre: among them I
Thy excellencies all excell
Will muse and marke: my thoughts shall dwell
Upon the wonders wrought by thee,
Which wrought beyond all wonder be.

Both they and I will tell and sing
How forcefull thou, and fearefull art:
Yea both will willing wittnes bring,
And unto comming tymes impart
Thy greatness, goodnes, just desert:
That all who are, or are to be,
This hymne with joy shall sing to thee.

Jehova doth with mildnes flow,
And full of mercy standeth he:
Greate doubt if he to wrath more slow,
Or unto pardon prompter be,
For nought is from his bounty free:
His mercies do on all things fall
That he hath made, and he made all.

Thus Lord, all creatures thou hast wrought,
Though dumb, shall their Creator sound:
But who can uttraunce add to thought,
They most whom speciall bonds have bound,
(For best they can, who best have found)
Shall blaze thy strength, and glad relate
Thy more then glorious kingdoms state;

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That all may know the state, the strength
Thy more then glorious kingdom showes
Which longest tyme to tymelesse length
Leaves undefin'd: nor ages close
As age to age succeeding growes,
Can with unstedfast chang procure
But still it must, and stedfast dure.

Thou dost the faint from falling stay,
Nay more, the falne againe dost raise:
On thee their lookes all creatures lay,
Whose hunger in due tyme alaies
Thy hand: which when thy will displaies,
Then all that on the aire do feede,
Receave besides what food they neede.

Each way, each working of thy hand
Declare thou art both just and kind,
And nigh to all dost alway stand.
Who thee invoke, invoke with mynd,
Not only mouth: O they shall fynd,
He will his fearers wish fulfill,
Attend their cry, and cure their ill.

He will his lovers all preserve:
He will the wicked all destroy.
To praise him then as these deserve,
O then my mouth thy might employ:
Nay all that breath, recorde with joy
His sacred names eternall praise,
While race you runne of breathing daies.

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Psalm 146 Lauda anima mea

Upp, up my soule, advaunce Jehovas praise,
His only praise: for fixed is in me
To praise Jehova all my living daies
And sing my God, untyll I cease to be.
O lett not this decree
A fond conceite deface,
That trust thou maist in earthy princes place:
That any sonne of man
Can thee preserve, for not him self he can.

His strength is none: if any in his breath:
Which, vapor'd foorth, to mother earth he goes:
Nay more, in his, his thoughts all find their death.
But blessed he, who for his succour knowes
The God that Jacob chose:
Whose rightly level'd hope
His God Jehova makes his only scope,
So strong he built the skies,
The feeldes, the waves, and all that in them lies.

He, endles true, doth yeeld the wronged right,
The hungry feedes, and setts the fett'red free:
The lame to lyms, the blind restores to sight,
Loveth the just, protects who strangers be.
The widowes piller he,
He orphans doth support:
But heavy lies upon the godlesse sort.
He everlasting raignes,
Syon, thy God from age to age remaines.

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Psalm 147 Laudate Dominum

Sing to the Lord, for what can better be,
Then of our God that we the honor sing?
With seemly pleasure what can more agree,
Then praisefull voice, and touch of tuned string?
For lo, the Lord againe to forme doth bring
Jerusalems long ruinated walls:
And Jacobs house, which all the earth did see
Dispersed erst, to union now recalls.
And now by him their broken hearts made sound,
And now by him their bleeding wounds are bound.

For what could not, who can the number tell
Of starrs, the torches of his heav'nly hall?
And tell so readily, he knoweth well
How ev'ry starre by proper name to call.
What greate to him, whose greatnes doth not fall
Within precincts? whose powre no lymits stay?
Whose knowledges all number soe excell,
Not numbring number can their number lay?
Easy to him to lift the lowly just;
Easy to down proud wicked to the dust.

O then Jehovas causefull honor sing,
His, whom our God we by his goodnes find:
O make harmonious mix of voice and string
To him, by whom the skies with cloudes are lin'd:
By whom the rayne from cloudes to dropp assign'd
Supples the clodds of sommer-scorched fields,
Fresheth the mountaines with such needefull spring,
Fuell of life to mountaine cattaile yeeldes,
From whom young ravens careles old forsake,
Croaking to him of Almes, their diett take.

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The stately shape, the force of bravest steed
Is farre too weake to work in him delight:
No more in him can any pleasure breed
In flying footman, foote of nimblest flight.
Nay, which is more, his fearers in his sight
Can well of nothing but his bounty brave;
Which never failing, never letts them neede,
Who fixt their hopes upon his mercies have.
O then Jerusalem, Jehova praise,
With honor due thy God, O Sion, raise.

His strength it is thy gates doth surely barre:
His grace in thee thy children multiplies:
By him thy borders ly secure from warre:
And finest flowre thy hunger satisfies.
Nor meanes he needes: for fast his pleasure flies,
Borne by his word, when ought him list to bid.
Snowes woolly locks by him wide scatt'red are,
And hoary plaines with frost, as asshes, hid;
Gross icy gobbetts from his hand he flings,
And blowes a cold too strong for strongest things.

He bidds again and yce in water flowes,
As water erst in yce congealed lay:
Abroad the southern wind, his melter, goes,
The streames relenting take their wonted way;
O much is this, but more I come to say,
The wordes of life he hath to Jacob tolde:
Taught Israell, who by his teaching knowes
What lawes in life, what rules he wills to hold.
No Nation els hath found him half soe kind,
For to his light, what other is not blynd?

309

Psalm 148 Laudate Dominum

Inhabitants of heav'nly land
As loving subjectes praise your king:
You that among them highest stand,
In highest notes Jehova sing.
Sing Angells all, on carefull wing,
You that his heralds fly,
And you whom he doth soldiers bring
In feild his force to try.

O praise him Sunne, the sea of light,
O praise him Moone, the light of sea:
You preaty starrs in robe of night,
As spangles twinckling do as they.
Thou spheare within whose bosom play
The rest that earth emball:
You waters banck'd with starry bay,
O praise, O praise him all.

All these I say advaunce that name,
That doth eternall beeing show:
Who bidding, into forme and frame,
Not beeing yet, they all did grow.
All formed, framed, founded so,
Till ages uttmost date
They place retaine, they order know,
They keepe their first estate.

When heav'n hath prais'd, praise earth anew:
You Dragons first, her deepest guests,
Then soundlesse deepes, and what in you
Residing low, or moves, or rests;
You flames affrighting mortall brests:
You stones that cloudes do cast,
You feathery snowes from wynters nests,
You vapors, sunnes appast.

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You boisterous windes, whose breath fullfills
What in his word, his will setts down:
Ambitious mountaines, curteous hills:
You trees that hills and mountaines crown:
Both you that proud of native gown
Stand fresh and tall to see:
And you that have your more renown,
By what you beare, then be.

You beasts in woodes untam'd that range:
You that with men famillier go:
You that your place by creeping change,
Or airy streames with feathers row;
You stately kings, you subjects low
You Lordes and Judges all:
You others whose distinctions show,
How sex or age may fall;

All these I say, advaunce that name
More high then skies, more low then ground
And since, advaunced by the same,
You Jacobs sonnes stand cheefly bound;
You Jacobs sonnes be cheefe to sound
Your God Jehovas praise:
So fitts them well on whom is found,
Such blisse he on you laies.

311

Psalm 149 Cantate Domino

In an earst unused song
To Jehova lift your voices:
Make his favourites among
Sound his praise with cheerefull noises.
Jacob, thou with joy relate
Him that hath refram'd thy state:
Sonnes whom Sion entertaineth
Boast in him who on you raigneth.

Play on harp, on tabret play,
Daunce Jehova publique daunces:
He their state that on him stay,
Most afflicted, most advaunces.
O how glad his saincts I see!
Ev'n in bed how glad they be!
Heav'nly hymnes with throat unfolding,
Swordes in hand twice-edged holding.

Plague and chastise that they may
Nations such as erst them pained,
Yea, their kings, in fetters lay;
Lay their Nobles fast enchained,
That the doom no stay may lett,
By his sentence on them sett.
Lo! what honor all expecteth,
Whom the Lord with love affecteth!

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Psalm 150 Laudate Dominum

O laud the Lord, the God of hosts commend,
Exault his pow'r, advaunce his holynesse:
With all your might lift his allmightinesse:
Your greatest praise upon his greatness spend.

Make Trumpetts noise in shrillest notes ascend:
Make lute and lyre his loved fame expresse:
Him lett the pipe, him lett the tabret blesse,
Him organs breath, that windes or waters lend.

Lett tinging Timbrells soe his honor sound,
Lett sounding Cymballs soe his glory ring,
That in their tunes such mellody be found,
As fitts the pompe of most Triumphant king.
Conclud: by all that aire, or life enfold,
Lett high Jehova highly be extold.