 | Christs Passion |  |
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THE FIRST ACT.
Jesvs.O thou who govern'st what thou didst create
With equall sway, great Arbiter of Fate,
The Worlds Almighty Father; I, thy Son,
Though born in Time, before his Course begun;
Thus far my Deeds have answered thy Commands:
If more remain, my Zeale prepared stands
To execute thy Charge: all that I feare,
All that I hate, I shall with patience beare;
No misery refuse, no toile, nor shame:
I know for this into the world I came.
And yet how long shall these extreames indure!
What Day or Night have known my life secure!
My burthen, by induring, heavier grows;
And present ills a way to worse disclose.
My Kingdome, Heaven, I left, to visit Earth;
And suffer'd banishment before my Birth.
An unknown Infant, in a stable born,
Lodg'd in a manger: little, poore, forlorn,
And miserable: though so vile a Thing,
Yet worthy of the envy of a King.
Two yeers scarce yet compleat, too old was thought
By Herods fears: while I alone was sought,
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Of their dear Babes; through wounds they exhal'd their lives.
Secur'd by flying to a forreign Clime,
The Tyrant through his Error lost his Crime.
A Thousand Miracles have made me known
Through all the World, and my extraction shown.
Envy against me raves: yet Vertue hath
More storms of Mischiefe rais'd, then Herods wrath.
Is it decreed by thy unchanging Will,
I should be acknowledg'd, and rejected still?
Th'inspired Magi from the Orient came,
Prefer'd my Starre before their Mithra's flame,
And at my infant feet devoutly fell:
But Abrahams Seed, the House of Israel,
To thee sequestred from Eternity,
Degenerate and ingrate! their God deny.
Behold the contumacious Pharisies,
Arm'd with dissembled Zeale, against me rise
The bloody Priests to their stern Party draw
The Doctors of their unobserved law:
And impious Saduces, to perpetrate
My intended Overthrow incense the State.
What rests to quicken Faith? Even at my Nod
Nature submits, acknowledging her God.
The Galilean Youth drink the pure bloud
Of generous Grapes, drawn from the Neighbor floud:
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Life-strengthning food for fourty dayes unknown.
Twixt the Dispensers hands th'admired Bread
Increas'd, great multitudes of People fed,
Yet more then all remain'd. The Winds asswage
Their stormes; & threatning Billows calme their rage.
The hardned Waves unsinking feet indure:
And pale Diseases which despise their cure,
My Voice subdues. Long Darknesse chac'd away,
To me the Blind by Birth now owes his Day.
He hears who never yet was heard; now speaks,
And in my Praises first his silence breaks.
Those damned Spirits of infernall Night,
Rebels to God, and to the Sonnes of Light
Inveterate foes; my Voice but heard, forsake
The long possest, and struck with terror quake.
Nor was't enough for Christ, such wonders done,
To profit those alone who see the Sunne:
To vanquish Death my powerfull hand invades
His silent Regions and inferior Shades.
The Starres, the Earth, the Seas, my triumphs know:
What rests to conquer but the Deeps below?
Through op'ning Sepulchers, Nights gloomy Caves,
The violated priviledge of Graves,
I sent my dread Commands: A heat new born:
Reanimates the Dead, from funerals torn;
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For Soules departed to review the Day.
The Ashes from their ransackt Tombs receive
A second life, and by my bounty breathe.
But Death, his late free Empire thus restrain'd,
Not used to restore his Spoyles, complain'd
That I should thus unweave the web of Fate,
Decrease his Subjects, and subvert his State:
I, for so many ransomed from Death,
Must to his anger sacrifice my breath.
And now that horrid Houre is almost come,
When sinfull Mortalls shall their Maker doom:
When I, the worlds great Lord, who life on all
Mankinde bestow'd, must by their fury fall.
That Tragick Time to my last Period hasts;
And Night, who now on all her Shadows casts,
While with the motion of the Heavens she flies,
This short delay of my sad life envies.
Fate, be lesse sterne in thy intended Course;
Nor drag him who will follow without force.
After so many miseries indur'd;
Cold, Heat, Thirst, Famine, eyes to teares inur'd;
The end, yet worst of ills, draws neare: their breath,
For whom I suffer, must procure my death.
The Innocent, made guilty by the foule
Defects of others, must his weary Soule
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With his chaste bloud distain th'ungratefull Earth.
They traffick for my Soule: my death, long sought,
Is by the mitred Merchants faction bought;
And Treason findes reward. My travels draw
Neare their last end. These practices I saw;
See what this Nights confederate Shadows hide:
My Minde before my Body crucifi'd.
Horrour shakes all my Powers: my entrailes beat,
And all my Body flowes with purple sweat.
O whither is my ancient Courage fled,
And God-like Strength! by Anguish captive led.
O Death, how farre more cruell in thy kinde!
Th'anxiety and torment of the Minde!
Then must I be of all at once bereft?
Or is there any hope of safety left?
O might I to my heavenly Father pray,
So supple to my teares, to take away
Part of these ills! But his eternall Doome
Forbids, and ordered Course of things to come.
His purpose, fixt when yet the world was young,
And Oracles, so oft by Prophets sung,
Now rushing on their destinated end,
No Orisons, nor Sacrifice can bend.
Why stay I with triumphant feet to tread
Vpon th'infernall Serpents poysnous Head,
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First Parents must be cleansed with a showre
Of bloud, rain'd from my wounds: my death appease,
And cure the venome of that dire Disease.
All you who live, rejoyce; all you who die:
You sacred ashes of the just which lie
In peacefull Vrnes, rejoyce in this my fall:
I for the living liv'd, but die for all.
My sufferings are not lost. To Earth I owe
These promis'd ills: bonds, whips, and thorns to grow
About our bleeding brows; the Crosse, the scorne
Of a proud People, to destruction borne.
O let my Fathers wrath through singed aire
On me in thunder dart, so mine it spare.
Lest the World should, I perish; and must beare
The punishments of all that ever were.
You who inhabit where the Sunne displaies
His early light, or neer his setting Raies;
Who suffer by his perpendicular
Aspect, or frieze beneath the Northerne starre;
Affect this ready Sacrifice, who am
A greater Offering then the Paschal Lamb.
My precious bloud alone the vertue hath
To purge your sins, and quench my Fathers wrath.
Now the full Moone succeeds that Vernal Light
Which equally divides the Day and Night;
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One brighter then himselfe, and loose his Day.
False Traitor, through thy guilt so timerous growne,
Although thou leadst an army against One,
Shrouded in Night; I am not taken by
Thy guile, but know thy fraud, and hast to die.
But you my chosen friends, who yet preserve
Your faith intire, nor from your duty swerve;
Your festivall, our washings past, reherse
Your Makers excellence in sacred Verse;
While I to those frequented Shades repaire
Where the trees answer to the sighing Aire.
Learne, as we walk along, unto what place
I shortly shall returne; what heavenly Grace
Is to descend upon you from above;
What are the laws of Charity and Love.
While my last praiers solicit Heaven, to Sleep
Give no accesse: this Night my Vigil keep.
CHORVS OF JEWISH WOMEN.
The rapid Motion of the Spheres
Old Night from our Horizon beares;
And now declining Shades give way
To the returne of chearefull Day.
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And Day's illustrious Path prepares,
Who last of all the Hoast retires,
Not yet with-draws those radiant Fires:
Nor have our Trumpets summoned
The Morning from her dewy Bed:
As yet her Roses are unblown,
Nor by her purple Mantle known.
All night we in the Temple keep,
Not yeelding to the charmes of Sleep;
That so we might with zealous praier
Our thoughts and cleansed hearts prepare
To celebrate th'insuing Light,
When Phœbe shall her hornes unite.
This annuall Feast to Memory
Is sacred, nor with us must die:
Thus by that dreadfull Exul taught,
When God his plagues on Ægypt brought.
Those Cities these our Rites bereave
Of Citizens, and widdows leave,
Where Jordan from two bubling Heads
His oft-returning waters leads;
Till they their narrow bounds forsake,
And grow a Sea-resembling Lake.
Those Woods of Palme, producing Dates;
Of fragrant Balsamum, which hates
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Of trumpets level'd with the ground
Vnbatter'd Wals; that Mount which shrouds
His aiëry head in hanging Clouds,
Where Death clos'd our lost Prophets eies;
Admire to see their Colonies
Ascend the hills of Solyma
In celebration of this Day.
Cephæans, whose strong Wals with-stood
The ruines of the Generall Flood,
To solemnize this Day forsake
Ador'd Dercetis, and her Lake.
Hither the Palestines from strong
Azotus, both the Jamnes throng.
Not Lydda could her Own restraine;
Nor Caparorsa's wals containe
Her Edomites; Damascus could
Not hers, though she ten Nations ruld:
Nor yet Sabaste, long the Nurse
Of impious Sons, sprung from our Surse.
Phœnicians, who did first produce
To Mortals letters, with their use;
Where Tyrus full of Luxury
With Mother Sidon, front the Sky,
Hither with hasty zeale repaire:
Among the Syrians, those who dare
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The Deitie of a Dove adore.
From Belus, whose flow waters passe
On glittering sands, which turn to glasse:
From Arnons banks; those Borderars
The subject of our ancient warres:
Whose sulphurous Bitumen take
From salt Asphaltis deadly lake.
No Tempest on that Sea prevailes;
No ship upon her bosome sailes;
Vnmov'd with oares: what over-flies,
Struck by her breath, falls down and dies:
Hates all that lives; in her Profound
None are receiv'd, but flote undrownd:
No Seas, by slymie shores imbras't,
So pestilent a vapor cast:
This blasts the corne before it bears,
And poysons the declining Ears:
Sad Autumns fruits to cinders turn,
And all the fields in ashes mourn:
Lest Time should wast the memory
Of those revengefull flames, the sky
On Earth in melting sulphur showr'd,
Which that accursed Race devour'd:
When she who did commiserate
With impious griefe her Cities fate,
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A Statue of congealed Salt.
Hither devout Esseans fly,
Who without issue multiply,
And Virtue onely propagate:
All sensuall loves, all lucre hate,
And equall Povertie imbrace:
Thrice happy, of a noble Race,
Who slight your own particular,
Transported with a publique care.
He flies a pitch above our woes,
Or crimes, who gladly undergoes
Their toile and want; nor would possesse
What others miscall Happinesse.
What numbers from the Suns up-rise,
From where he leaves the mourning Skies,
Of our dispersed Abrahamites,
This Vesper to their Homes invites!
Yet we, in yeerly triumph, still
A Lamb for our deliverance kill.
Since Libertie our Confines fled,
Given with the first unleaven'd Bread,
She never would return; though bought
With wounds, and in destruction sought.
Some stray to Lybia's scorched Sands,
Where horned Hammons Temple stands:
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VVho all the rifled Orient won,
Built his proud City: others gon
To their old Prison, Babylon:
A part to freezing Taurus fled;
And Tiber, now the Oceans Head.
Our Ruines all the world have fill'd:
But you, by use in sufferings skill'd,
Forgetting in remoter Climes
Our vanisht Glory; nor those Times,
Those happy Times, compare with these,
Your burdens may support with ease.
More justly we of Fate complaine,
VVho Servitude at home sustaine:
VVe, to perpetuall woes design'd,
In our owne Countrey Ægypt find.
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