Hymn XIIII. For Parents who have lost their Children.
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This consolatory Hymn, may be usefull for Parents,
who being deprived of all their Children, are nigh
oppressed with grief; for, they are hereby remembred,
that (all casualties considered) they may have as much cause to rejoyce as grieve.
Sing this as the Lamentation.
[1]
Qvite lost, are now mine ayerie Joyes,
Once promis'd by a fruitfull wombe:
For my Dear-issue, Death destroies;
And, full of grief, I am become.
Those eyes, whereon I lov'd to look;
The Voices, which made glad mine eare;
Are out of sight, and hearing, took:
And, shall no more delight me, here.
2
I am a plant whose leaves are cropt;
Whose pleasant fruit is pluck'd away;
Whose hopefull branches, down are lopt;
And left without a living-Spray.
To call me Father none is left;
My Songs, to mournfull tunes are made,
And, all the pleasures are bereft,
Which in a Childe, I might have had.
3
Yet, all rejoycing is not gone;
For, in my sorrows, comforts be:
Because, the Soul which I bemone,
Is found of God, though lost to me.
And as those hopes are frustrate made
Wherein I would have took delight;
Even so the Feares I should have had,
Prevented are, and put to flight.
4
By want, by sicknesse, or disgrace,
By folly or by wilfull sin,
My seed, in this unsteddy place;
To me great sorrows might have bin.
But I (who now do hope the best
And see the worst that can succeed)
From all such fears, am now releast;
And, from ten thousand doubtings, freed.
5
This, likewise, adds to my content
That while I militant shall be,
God, his Triumphant-Church, augments,
By, thereto, making use of me:
I, therefore, with a ready Will,
And with our humble heart, resign
To him, (his pleasure to fulfill)
My Seed; my Self; and all that's mine.
