this case for that thereby we purchase an inestimable glory for a short passing combat the comfort whereof neither eye hath seene eare hath heard nor any heart conceiued And on the other side by the same we auoide other intollerable and eternall torments of hell the least whereof passeth all those that can be suffered in the world and therefore is our change most happie that by the paine of a short life auoide the misery of an eternall death and deserue the vnspeakeable happinesse of the life euerlasting For this cause saith Saint Iames Thinke you it all ioy my brethren when you shall fall into diuerse temptations knowing that the triall of your faith worketh patience and patience hath a perfect worke that you may be perfect and entire failing in nothing The third Consideration Of the watchfulnesse and attention required in the care of our soule SEeing this waightie affaire of our soules health is hemmed in and beset with so manifest perils and troubles it standeth vs vpon most watchfully to take heede to euery thought word and deed that passeth lest through the number and subtilties of enemies traines we be often entrapped for it is hard to touch pitch and not be defiled to liue in flesh a spirituall life to conuerse in the world without worldly affections Wherefore as a Legate that is to deliuer his embassage before a great presence of Peeres and Nobles hath not onely regard to his matter but also to his words voyee and actions that all be sutable to his message so we hauing to worke this exploit of our soule before God and all the court of heauen and also before the eyes of those that lay waite to take vs in any trippe ought to be very warie euen in our least thoughts and deeds for feare lest we offend the presence of God and giue occasion of triumph and victorie vnto our deadly foes And for this saith the Scripture Keepe thy selfe very watchfully Secondly to attaine this diligent and attentiue care in all our actions let vs consider what men vse to do that carry great treasure by places haunted with theeues how warily they looke to their way how often they turne about them how many times they prepare themselues sometimes to fight and other whiles to runne away Likewise how warily he walketh and how carefull he is neuer to stumble nor fall that carieth in each hand a thinne glasse of precious liquour through stony and rough places and when we haue marked these mens carefulnesse in these inferior matters let vs remember that much more respect is necessarie in vs whose treasure is more precious then any worldly iewels and yet do we carrie it in earthen and fraile vessels in the middest of so many theeues as there are passions and disordered appetites in vs as there are Diuels in waite for vs and as there are stumbling stones and occasions of sinne set round about vs to procure this attention the most effectuall helpes are these First to thinke how carefull we should be to do all things well if this present day were the last that euer we should liue in this world as peraduenture it may be and that at the end thereof we were to be conuented before a most seuere and rigorous Iudge who according to the desert of that dayes actions should passe the sentence of life or death vpon vs. Secondly to remember that God is in his owne substance power and true presence in euery place and seeth both our outward and inward actions more then we our selues and therefore let vs seeke in euery thing so to behaue our selues that we feare not to haue God a witnesse and beholder of all that we do thinke or say and let vs aske him grace to do nothing vnworthie his fight Thirdly we must consider the carelesnesse of our life past remembring how often we haue fought against God with his owne weapons and abused the force that he hath affoorded in euery part of our body and minde and therefore as Saint Paul warneth As we haue exhibited our members to serue vncleannesse and iniquitie so let vs now exhibite our members to serue iustice vnto sanctification Fourthly to procure this attention it is good oftentimes in the day when we ate about our ordinary actions to vse godly prayers and some verses out of the Psalmes with petition vnto God for his grace aide and assistance for such godly exercises are fewell of deuotion causes of attention foode of the soule preparatiues against temptations and assured helpes to attaine any vertues Therefore it is good to vse them in lieu of sightes and in the beginning of euery chiefe action directing therein our intention and action to Gods glory and seruice and our owne foules good health and fafetie The last Consideration Of the necessitie of perseuerance in continuing watchfull ouer our selues FIrst seeing the summe and complement of all vertue consisteth in the continuance and progresse of it perseuerance of all other things is most necessarie in this businesse to the better attaining whereof these considerations may preuaile First to consider by whose instinct and motion I beganne to take speciall care of my soule and I shall finde that being a thing contrary to the inclination of flesh and bloud and aboue the reach of nature to resolue vpon so painefull and warie a course in hope of a reward and ioy that faith doth promise that I say God onely and no other was the Authour and moouer of my heart vnto it and therefore vnlesse I meane directly to resist God and runne a contrary course to that which he prescribeth I must resolue my selfe to perseuer vnto the end in that which I haue happily begun Secondly the end of this enterprise was to serue God to bewaile my former sinnes and to worke by Gods helpe the saluation of mine owne soule and when I resolued vpon these meanes I was free from passion and as well able to chuse things conuenient as I could at any other time and wholly bent to do that thing which was for my greatest good Wherefore seeing I can neuer aime at a better end nor be in better plight to make a sounder choise my surest way is to perseuer still in my resolution to the end neuer altering my designment vnlesse it be to further my course Thirdly I must consider who is that that would make me forsake it for if God moued me vnto it doubtlesse it is the Diuell would moue me from it for God cannot be contrary to himselfe neither vseth he to alter our minds but onely from euill to good or from good to better therefore vnlesse I meane to yeeld willingly to the Diuell and to follow mine enemies counsell to mine owne perdition I must perseuer vnto the end for with what pretext soeuer the Diuell seeketh to couer his motion sure it is that his drift is to draw me from God and goodnesse and to damne my soule for how can he intend any thing for my good
sees that speech could not amend Yet higher powers must thinke though they repine When Sunne is set the little starres will shine While Pike doth range the silly Tench doth fly And crouch in priuy creekes with smaller fish Yet Pikes are caught when little fish go by These fleete aflote while those do fill the dish There is a time euen for the wormes to creepe And sucke the deaw while all their foes do sleepe The Marline cannot euer soare on high Nor greedy Grey-houn still pursue the chase The tender Larke will finde a time to fly And fearefull Hate to runne a quiet race He that high growth on Cedars did bestow Gaue also lowly Mushrumps leaue to grow In Hamans pompe poore Mardocheus wept Yet God did turne his fate vpon his foe The Lazar pinde while Diues feast was kept Yet he to heauen to hell did Diues go We trample grasse and prize the flowers of May Yet grasse is greene when flowers do fade away The Natiuitie of Christ BEhold the Father is his daughters sonne The bird that built the nest is hatcht therein The old of yeares an howre hath not out-runne Eternall life to liue doth now beginne The Word is duâ— the mirth of heauen doth weepe Might feeble is and force doth faintly creepe O dying soules behold your liuing spring O dazled eyes behold your Sunne of grace Dull eares attend what word this Word doth bring Vp heauy hearts with ioy your ioy embrace From death from darke from deafnesse from dispaires This life this light this Word this ioy repaires Gift better then himselfe God doth not know Gift better then his God no man can see This gift doth here the giuer giuen bestow Gift to this gift let each receiuer be God is my gift himselfe he freely gaue me Gods gift am I and none but God shall haue me Man altered was by sinne from man to beast Beasts food is hay hay is all mortall flesh Now God is flesh and lyes in Manger prest As hay the brutest sinner to refresh O happy field wherein this fodder grew Whose taste doth vs from beasts to men renew Christs Childhood TIll twelue yeares age how Christ his childhood spent All earthly pens vnworthy were to write Such acts to mortall eyes he did present Whose worth not men but Angels must recite No natures blots no childish faults defilde Where grace was guide and God did play the child In springing locks lay couched hoary wit In semblance yong a graue and ancient port In lowly lookes high maiesty did sit In tender tongue sound sence of sagest sort Nature imparted all that she could teach And God suppli'd where Nature could not reach His mirth of modest meane a mirrour was His sadnesse tempered with a milde aspect His eye to try each action was a glasse Whose lookes did good approue and bad correct His Natures gifts his grace his word and deed Well shewed that all did from a God proceed A Childe my Choice LEt folly praise that fancie loues I praise and loue that child Whose heart no thought whose tongue no word whose hand no deed defil'd I praise him most I loue him best all praise and loue is his While him I loue in him I liue and cannot liue amisse Loues sweetest marke laudes highest Theame mans most desired light To loue him life to leaue him death to liue in him delight He mine by gift I his by debt thus each to other's due First friend he was best friend he is all times will trie him true Though yong yet wise though small yet strong though man yet God he is As wise he knowes as strong he can as God he loues to blisse His knowledge rules his strength defends his loue doth cherish all His birth our ioy his life our light his death our end of thrall Alas he weepes he sighs he pants yet do his Angels sing Out of his teares his sighes and throbs doth bud a ioyfull Spring Almightie Babe whose tender armes can force all foes to fly Correct my faults protect my life direct me when I die Content and rich I Dwell in Graces Court Enrich with Vertues rights Faith guides my wit Loue leades my will Hope all my minde delights In lowly vales I mount To pleasures highest pitch My silly shroud true Honour brings My poore estate is rich My conscience is my Crowne Contented thoughts my rest My heart is happy in it selfe My blisse is in my breast Enough I reckon wealth A meane the surest lot That lyes too high for base contempt Too low for Enuies shot My wishes are but few All easie to fulfill I make the limits of my power The bounds vnto my will I haue no hopes but one Which is of heauenly raigne Effects attaind or not desir'd All lower hopes refrainâ— I feele no care of coyne Well-doing is my wealth My mind to me an Empire is While grace affoordeth health I clyp high-climing thoughts The wings of swelling pride Their fall is worst that from the height Of greater honour slide Sith sayles of largest size The storme doth soonest teare I beare so low and small a sayle As freeth me from feare I wrastle not with rage While furies flame doth burne It is in vaine to stop the streame Vntill the tide doth turne But when the flame is out And ebbing wrath doth end I turne a late enraged foe Into a quiet friend And taught with often proofe A tempered calme I finde To be most solace to it selfe Best cure for angrie minde Spare dyet is my fare My clothes more fit then fine I know I feede and clothe a foe That pamp'red would repine I enuie not their hap Whom fauour doth aduance I take no pleasure in their paine That haue lesse happie chance To rise by others fall I deeme a losing gaine All states with others ruines built To ruine runne amaine No change of Fortunes calmes Can cast my comforts downe When Fortune smiles I smile to thinke how quickly she will frowne And when in froward moode She proou'd an angrie so Small gaine I found to let her come Lesse losse to let her go Losse in delayes SHun delayes they breed remorse Take thy time while time doth serue thee Creeping Snayles haue weakest force Flie their fault lest thou repent thee Good is best when soonest wrought Lingring labours come to nought Hoyse vp sayle while gale doth last Tide and winde stay no mans pleasure Seeke not time when time is past Sober speed is Wisedomes leisure After-wits are dearely bought Let thy fore-wit guide thy thought Time weares all his locks before Take thou hold vpon his forehead When he flies he turnes no more And behind his scalpe is naked Workes adiourn'd haue many stayes Long demurres breed new delayes Seeke thy salue while sore is greene Festered wounds aske deeper launcing After-cures are seldome seene Often sought scarce euer chancing Time and place giues best aduice Out of season out of price Crush the Serpent in the head Breake ill
hearse doth hang which doth me tell That I ere morning may be dead Though now I feele my selfe ful well But yet alas for all this I Haue little mind that I must die The gowne which I do vse to weare The knife wherewith I cut my meate And eke that old and ancient chaire Which is my onely vsuall seate All these do tell me I must die And yet my life amend not I. My ancestors are turnd to clay And many of my mates are gone My yongers daily drop away And can I thinke to scape alone No no I know that I must die And yet my life amend not I. Not Salomon for all his wit Nor Sampson though he were so strong No king nor person euer yet Could scape but death laid him along Wherefore I know that I must die And yet my life amend not I. Though all the East did quake to heare Of Alexanders dreadfull name And all the West did likewise feare To heare of Iulius Caesars fame Yet both by death in dust now lie Who then can scape but he must die If none can scape deaths dreadfull dart If rich and poore his becke obey If strong if wise if all do smart then I to scape shall haue no way Oh grant me grace O God that I My life may mend sith I must die A vale of teares A Vale there is enwrapt with dreadfull shades Which thicke of mourning pines shrowds from the Sunne Where hanging cliffes yeeld short and dumpish glades And snowy flouds with broken streames do runne Where eye-roome is from rocke to cloudie skie From thence to dales which stormy ruines shrowd Then to the crushed waters frothie frie Which tumbleth from the tops where snow is show'd Where eares of other sound can haue no choice But various blustring of the stubburne wind In trees in caues in straits with diuers noise Which now doth hisse now howle now roare by kind Where waters wrastle with encountring stones That breake their streames and turne them into foame The hollow clouds ful fraught with thundering groanes With hideous thumps discharge their pregnant wombe And in the horror of this fearefull quier Consists the musicke of this dolefull place All pleasant birds their tunes from thence retire Where none but heauy notes haue any grace Resort there is of none but pilgrime wights That passe with trembling foote and panting heart With terrour cast in cold and shuddring frights And all the place to terror fram'd by art Yet natures worke it is of arte vntoucht So strait indeed so vast vnto the eye With such disordred order strangely coucht And so with pleasing horror low and hie That who it viewes must needs remaine agast Much at the worke more at the makers might And muse how Nature such a plot could cast Where nothing seemed wrong yet nothing right A place for mated minds an onely bower Where euerie thing doth sooth a dumpish mood Earth lies forlorne the cloudie skie doth lower The wind here weepes her sighes her cries aloud The strugling floud betweene the marble grones Then roaring beates vpon the craggie sides A little off amidst the pibble stones With bubling streames a purling noise it glides The pines thicke set high growne and euer greene Still cloath the place with shade and mourning vaile Here gaping cliffes there mosse growne plaine is seene Here hope doth spring and there againe doth quaile Huge massie stones that hang by tickle stay Still threaten foule and seeme to hang in feare Some withered trees asham'd of their decay Beset with greene and forc'd gray coates to weare Here christall springs crept out of secret vaine Straite findes some enuious hole that hides their graine Here seared tufts lament the wants of g ace There thunder wracke giues terror to the place All pangs and heauie passions here may find A thousand motiues suting to their griefes To feed the sorrowes of their troubled mind And chase away dame pleasures vaine reliefes To plaining thoughts this vale a rest may be To which from worldly toyes they may retire Where sorrow springs from water stone and tree Where euerie thing with mourners doth conspire Sit here my soule mourne streames of teares aflote Here all thy sinfull foyles alone recount Of solemne tunes make thou the dolefulst note That to thy ditties dolor may amount When Eccho doth repeate thy painefull cries Thinke that the very stones thy sinnes bewray And now accuse thee with their sad replies As heauen and earth shall in the latter day Let former faults be fuell of the fire For griefe in Limbeck e of thy heart to still Thy pensiue thoughts and dumps of thy desire And vapour teares vp to thy eyes at will Let teares to tunes and paines to plaints be prest And let this be the burthen to thy song Come deepe remorse possesse my sinfull breast Delights adue I harboured you too long The prodigall childs soule-wracke DIsankerd from a blisfull shore and lancht into the maine of cares Grewne rich in vice in vertue poore from freedome falne in fatall snares I found my selfe on euerie side enwrapped in the waues of wo And tossed with a toilesome tide could to no port for refuge go The wrastling winds with raging blasts still hold me in a cruell chace They breake my anchors saile and masts permitting no reposing place The boistrous seas with swelling flouds on euerie side did worke their spight Heauen ouercast with stormy clouds denide the Planets guiding light The hellish furies lay in wait to winne my soule into their power To make me bite at euery baite wherein my bane I might deuoure Thus heauen and hell thus sea and land thus stormes and tempests did conspire With iust reuenge of scourging hand to witnesse Gods deserued ire I plonged in this heauie plight found in my faults iust cause to feare My darknesse taught to know my light the losse thereof enforced teares I felt my inward bleeding sores my festred wounds began to smart Stept far within deaths fatall dores the pangs thereof went neare my heart I cried truce I craued peace a league with death I would conclude But vaine it was to sue release subdue I must or be subdude Death and deceit had picht their snares and out their wonted proofes in vre To sinke me in despairing cares or make me stoope to pleasures lure They sought by their bewitching charmes so to enchant my erring sense That whē they sought my greatest harmes I might neglect my best defence My dazled eyes could take no view no heed of their deceiuing shifts So often did they alter hew and practise new deuised drifts With Syrens songs they fed mine eares till luld asleepe on errors lap I found their tunes turnd into teares and short delights to long mishap For I enticed to their lore and soothed with their idle toyes Was trained to their prison doore the end of all such flying ioyes Where chaind in sinne I lay in thrall next to the dungeon of despaire Till mercy rais'd
had onely bene left aliue to be a perpetuall map of dead folkes misfortunes but this is to arme an enemie against our selues and to yeeld Reason prisoner to Passion putting the sword in the rebelles hand when we are least able to withstand his treason Sorrow once setled is not lightly remoued easily winning but not so easily surrendring possession and where it is not excluded in time it challengeth a place by prescription The Scripture warneth vs not to giue our hearts to sadnesse yea rather to reiect it as a thing not beneficiall to the dead yea preiudiciall to our selues Eccles 38. Ecclesiasticus alloweth but seuen dayes to mourning iudging moderation in plaint to be a sufficient testimony in good will and a needefull office of wisedome Much sorrow for the dead is either the child of selfe-loue or of rash iudgement If we should shead our teares for others death as a meane to our contentment we shew but our owne wound perfit louers of our selues if we lament their deceasse as their hard destinie we attache them of euill deseruing with too peremtory a censure as though their life had bene an arise and their death a leape into small perdition for otherwise a good departure craueth small condoling being but a harbour from stormes and an entrance vnto felicitie But you know your sister too well to incurre any blame in these respects And experience of her life hath stored your thoughts with notice of so rare vertues as might sooner make her memorie all enforcement to ioy then any inducement to sorrow and moue you to esteeme her last duties rather the triumph of her victory then the farewels of her deceasse She was by birth second to none but vnto the first in the realme yet she measured onely greatnesse by goodnesse making Nobilitie but the mirrour of vertue as able to shew things worthy to be seene as apte to draw many eyes to beholde it she suted her behauiour to her birth and enobled her birth with her piety leauing her house more beholding to her for hauing honored it with the glorie of her vertues then she was to it for the titles of her degree She was high minded in nothing but in aspiring to perfection and in the disdaine of vice in other things couering her greatnesse with humilitie among her inferiors and shewing it with curtesie among her peeres Of the carriage of her selfe and her sober gouâ—â—ment may be a sufficient testimony that enuy her selfe was dumbe in her dispraise finding in her much to re … at but nought to reprooue The clearenesse of her honour I neede not to mention she hauing alwaies armed it with such modestie as taught the most vntemperate tongues to be silent in her presence and answered their eyes with scorne and contempt that did but seeme to make her an ayme to passion yea and in this behalfe as almost in all orhers she hath the most honorable knowen Ladies of the land so common and knowen witnesses that those that least loued her religion were in loue with her demeanour deliuering their opinions in open prayses How mildly she accepted the checke of fortune fallen vpon her without desert experience hath bene a most manifest proofe the temper of her mind being so easie that she found little difficultie in taking downe her thoughts to a meane degree which true honour not pride hath raised to the former height Her faithfulnesse loue where she fouÌ„d true friendship is written with teares in many eyes and will be longer registred in gratefull memories of diuers that haue tried her in that kind auowing her for secrecie wisedome and constancie to be a miracle in that sexe yea when she found least kindnesse in others she neuer lost it in her selfe more willingly suffering then offering wrong and often weeping for their mishaps whom though lesse louing her she could not but affect Of the innocencie of her life this generall each one can auerre that as she was gratefull many wayes and memorable for vertues so was she free from all blemish of any vice vsing to her power the best meanes to keepe continually an vndefiled conscience her attire was euer such as might both satisfie a curious eye and yet beare witnesse of a sober minde neither singular nor vaine but such as her peeres of best report vsed her tongue was very little acquainted with oathes vnlesse either duty or distrust did enforce them and surely they were needelesse to those that knew her to whom the truth of her words could not iustly be suspected much lesse was she noted of any vnfitting talke which as it was euer hatefull to her eares so did it neuer defile her breath Of feeding she was very measureable rather too sparing than too liberall a diet so religious for obseruing of fasts that neuer in her sickenesse she could hardly be wonne to breake them and if our soules be possessed in our patience surely her soule was truely her owne whose rocke though often stricken with the rod of aduersity neuer yeelded any more then to giue issue of eye streames and though these through the tendernesse of her nature and aptnesse of her sexe were the customarie tributes that her loue payed more to her friends then her owne misfortunes yet were they not accompanied with distempered words or ill seeming actions reason neuer forgetting decencie though remembring pity Her deuotions she daily obserued offering the daily sacrifice of an innocent heart and stinting her felfe to her times of prayer which she performed with so religious a care as well shewed that she knew how high a Maiestie she serued I neede not write how dutifully she discharged all the behoofes of a most louing wife since that was the commonest theame of her praise yet this may be said without improofe to any that whosoeuer in this behalfe may be counted her equall none can iustly be thought her superiour Where she owed she paied dutie where she found she returned curtesie wheresoeuer she was knowen she deserued amitie desirous of the best yet disdaining none but euill companie she was readier to requite benefits then reuenge wrongs more grieued then angrie with vnkindnesse of friends when either mistaking or misreport occasioned any breaches for if their words carry credite it entred deepest into her thoughts they haue acquitted her from all spice of malice not onely against her friends whose dislikes were but a retire to slip further into friendship but euen her greatest enemies to whom if she had bene a iudge as she was a suppliant I assuredly thinke she would haue redressed but not reuenged her wrongs In summe she was an honour to her predecessors a light to her age and a patterne to her posteritie neither was her conclusion different from her premises or her death from her life she shewed no dismay being warned of her danger carrying in her conscience the safe conduct of innocencie But hauing sent her desires to heauen before with a milde countenance and a most
sory wight the obiect of disgrace The Monument of feare the Map of shame The mirror of mishap the staine of place The scorne of time the infamy of fame An excrement of earth to heauen hatefull Iniurious to man to God ingratefull Ambitious heads dreame you of Fortunes pride Fill Volumes with your forged goddesse praise You Fansies drudges plung'd in follies tide Deuote your fabling wits to louers layes Be you O sharpest griefes that euer wrong Text to my thoughts Theame to my playning tong Sad subiect of my sinne hath stoard my minde With euerlasting matter of complaint My threnes an endlesse Alphabet do finde Beyond the pangs which Ieremy doth paint That eyes with errors may iust measure keepe Most teares I wish that haue most cause to weepe All weeping eyes resigne your teares to me A sea will scantly rince my ordur'd soule Huge horrors in high tides must drowned be Of euery teare my crime exacteth tole These staines are deepe few drops take out no such Euen salue with sore and most is not too much I fear'd with life to die by death to liue I left my guide now left and leauing God To breathe in blisse I fear'd my breath to giue I fear'd for heauenly raigne an earthly rod. These feares I fear'd feares feeling no mishaps O fond O faint O false O faulty lapse How can I liue that thus my life deni'd What can I hope that lost my hope in feare What trust to one that truth it selfe defi'd What good in him that did his God forsweare O sinne of sinnes of euils the very worst O matchlesse wretch O caytiffe most accurst Vaine in my vaunts I vowd if friends had fail'd Alone Christs hardest fortunes to abide Giant in talke like dwarfe in triall quaild Excelling none but in vntruth and pride Such distance is betweene high words and deeds In proofe the greatest vanter seldome speeds Ah rashnesse hasty rise to murdering leape Lauish in vowing blind in seeing what Soone sowing shames that long remorse must reape Nursing with teares that ouer-sight begat Scout of repentance harbinger of blame Treason to wisedome mother of ill name The borne-blind begger for receiued sight Fast in his faith and loue to Christ remain'd He stooped to no feare he fear'd no might No change his choice no threats his truth distain'd One wonder wrought him in his duty sure I after thousands did my Lord abiure Could seruile feare of rendring Natures due Which growth in yeares was shortly like to claime So thrall my loue that I should thus eschue A vowed death and misse so faire an ayme Die die disloyall wretch thy life detest For sauing thine thou hast forsworne the best Ah life sweet drop drownd in a sea of sowres A flying good posting to doubtfull end Still losing months and yeares to gaine new howres Faine time to haue and spare yet forc't to spend Thy growth decrease a moment all thou hast That gone ere knowne the rest to come or past Ah life the maze of countlesse straying wayes Open to erring steps and strew'd with baits To winde weake senses into endlesse strayes Aloofe from vertues rough vnbeaten straits A flower a play a blast a shade a dreame A liuing death a neuer turning streame And could I rate so high a life so base Did feare with loue cast so vneuen account That for this goale I should runne Iudas race And Caiphas rage in cruelty surmount Yet they esteemed thirty pence his price I worse then both for nought deny'd him thrice The mother Sea from ouerflowing deepe Sends forth her issue by deuided veines Yet backe her off-spring to their mother creeps To pay their purest streames with added gaines But I that drunke the drops of heauenly flud Bemyr'd the giuer with returning mud Is this the haruest of his sowing toile Did Christ manure thy heart to breed him briers Or doth it neede this vnaccustom'd soyle With hellish dung to fertile heauens desires No no the Marle that periuries doth yeeld May spoile a good not fat a barren field Was this for best deserts the duest meede Are highest worths well wag'd with spitefull hire Are stoutest vowes repeal'd in greatest neede Should frendship at the first affront retire Blush crauen sot lurke in eternall night Crouch in the darkest Caues from loathed light Ah wretch why was I nam'd sonne of a Doue Whose speeches voided spite and breathed gall No kinne I am vnto the bird of loue My stony name much better sutes my fall My othes were stones my cruell tongue the sling My God the marke at which my spite did fling Were all the Iewish tyrannies too few To glut thy hungry lookes with his disgrace That thou more hatefull tyrannies must shew And spot thy poyson in thy Makers face Didst thou to spare his foes put vp thy sword To brandish now thy tongue against thy Lord Ah tongue that didst his praise and God-head sound How wert thou stain'd with such detesting words That euery word was to his heart a wound And launc't him deeper then a thousand swords What rage of man yea what infernall Sprite Could haue disgorg'd more loathsome dregs of spite Why did the yeelding Sea like Marble way Support a wretch more wauering then the waues Whom doubt did plonge why did the waters stay Vnkind in kindnesse murthering while it saues O that this tongue had then beene fishes food And I deuour'd before this cursing mood There surges depths and Seas vnfirme by kinde Rough gusts and distance both from ship and shoare Were titles to excuse my staggering mind Stout feet might falter on that liquid floare But heere no Seas no Blasts no Billowes were A puffe of womans wind bred all my feare O Coward troupes farre better arm'd then harted Whom angrie words whom blowes could not prouoke Whom though I taught how sore my weapon smarted Yet none repaide me with a wounding stroke O no that stroke could but one moity kill I was reseru'd both halfes at once to spill Ah whither was forgotten loue exil'd Where did rhe truth of pledged promise sleepe What in my thoughts begat this vgly child That could through rented soule thus fiercely creepe O Viper feare their death by whom thou liuest All good thy ruines wrecke all euils thou giuest Threats threw me not torments I none assayd My fray with shades conceites did make me yeeld Wounding my thoughts with feares selfely dismayd I neither fought nor lost I gaue the field Infamous foyle a Maidens easie breath Did blow me downe and blast my soule to death Titles I make vntruths am I a rocke That with so soft a gale was ouerthrowne Am I fit Pastor for the faithfull Flocke To guide their soules that murdred thus mine owne A rocke of ruine not a rest to stay A Pastor not to feed but to betray Fidelity was flowne when feare was hatched Incompatible brood in vertues nest Courage can lesse with Cowardise be matched Prowesse nor loue lodg'd in diuided brest O Adams Child cast by a
those vnspotted eyes encountred mine As spotlesse Sunne doth on the dunghill shine Sweet volumes stor'd with learning fit for Saints Where blisfull quires imparadize their mindes Wherein eternall study neuer faints Still finding all yet seeking all it findes How endlesse is your labyrinth of blisse Where to be lost the sweetest finding is Ah wretch how oft haue I sweet lessons read In those deare eyes the registers of truth How oft haue I my hungry wishes fed And in their happy ioyes redrest my ruth Ah that they now are Heralds of disdaine That erst were euer pitiers of my paine You flames diuine that sparkle out your heates And kindle pleasing fires in mortall hearts You Nectar'd Aumbries of soule feeding meates You gracefull quiuers of loues dearest darts You did vouchsafe to warme to wound to feast My cold my stony my now famisht breast The matchlesse eyes matcht onely each by other Were pleas'd on my ill matched eyes to glance The eye of liquid pearle the purest mother Broch't teares in mine to weepe for my mischance The cabinets of grace vnlockt their treasure And did to my misdeed their mercies measure These blazing Comets lightning flames of loue Made me their warming influence to know My frozen heart their sacred force did proue Which at their lookes did yeeld like melting snow They did not ioyes in former plentie carue Yet sweet are crums where pined thoughts do starue O liuing mirrours seeing whom you shew Which equall shadowes worths with shadowed things Yea make things nobler then in natiue hew By being shap't in those life-giuing springs Much more my image in those eyes were grac't Then in my selfe whom sinne and shame defac't All-seeing eyes more worth then all you see Of which one is the others onely price I worthlesse am direct your beames on me With quickning vertue cure my killing vice By seeing things you make things worth the sight You seeing salue and being seene delight O Pooles of Hesebon the baths of grace Where happy spirits dine in sweet desires Where Saints delight to glasse their glorious face VVhose bankes make Eccho to the Angels quires An Eccho sweeter in the sole rebound Then Angels musicke in the fullest sound O eyes whose glances are a silent speech In cipherd words high mysteries disclosing Which with a looâ—e all Sciences can teach Whose texts to faithfull hearts need little glosing Witnesse vnworthy I who in a looke Learn'd more by rote then all the Scribes by booke Though malice still possest their hardned minds I though too hard learn'd softnesse in thine eye Which yron knots of stubburne will vnbinds Offring them loue that loue with loue will buy This did I learne yet they could not discerne it But wo that I had now such need to learne it O Sunnes all but your selues in light excelling Whose presence day whose absence causeth night Whose neighbour course brings Sommer cold expelling Whose distant periods freeze away delight Ah that I lost your bright and fostering beames To plonge my soule in these congealed streames O gracious Spheres where loue the Center is A natiue place for our selfe-loaden soules The compasse loue a cope that none can misse The motion loue that round about vs roules O Spheres of loue whose Center cope and motion Is loue of vs loue that inuites deuotion O little worlds the summes of all the best Where glory heauen God sunne all vertues starres Where fire a loue that next to heauen doth rest Ayre light of life that no distemper marres The water grace whose seas whose springs whose showers Cloth natures earth with euerlasting flowers What mixtures these sweet Elements do yel'd Let happy worldlings of those worlds expound But simples are by compounds farre exceld Both sute a place where all best things abound And if a banisht wretch ghesse not amisse All but one compound frame of perfect blisse I out-cast from these worlds exiled rome Poore Saint from heauen from fire cold Salamander Lost fish from those sweet waters kindly home From land of life stray'd Pilgrime still I wander I know the cause these worlds had neuer hell In which my faults haue best deseru'd to dwell O Bethlem cesterns Dauids most desire From which my sinnes like fierce Philistims keepe To fetch your drops what Champion should I hire That I therein my withered heart may steepe I would not shead them like that holy King His were but types these are the figured thing O Turtle twinnes all bath'd in Virgins milke Vpon the margine of full flowing banks Whose gracefull plume surmounts the finest silke Whose sight enamoureth heauens most happy ranks Could I forsweare this heauenly payre of Doues That cag'd in care for me were groning loues Twise Moses wand did strike the stubburne Rocke Ere stony veines would yeeld their chrystall bloud Thy eies one looke seru'd as an onely knocke To make mine heart gush out a weeping floud Wherein my sinnes as fishes spawne their frie To shew their inward shames and then to die But ô how long demurre I on his eyes Whose looke did pierce my heart with healing wound Launcing impostum'd sore of periur'd lyes Which these two issues of mine â—yes haue found Where runne it must till death the issues stop And penall life hath purg'd the finall drop Like solest Swan that swims in silent deepe And neuer sings but obsequies of death Sigh out thy plaints and sole in secret weepe In suing pardon spend thy periur'd breath Attire thy soule in sorrowes mourning weed And at thine eyes let guilty conscience bleed Still in the Limbecke of thy dolefull brest These bitter fruits that from thy sinnes do grow For fuell selfe accusing thoughts be best Vse feare as fire the coales let penance blow And seeke none other quintessence but teares That eyes may shead what entred at thine eares Come sorrowing teares the off-spring of my griefe Scant not your Parent of a needfull ayde In you I rest the hope of wisht reliefe By you my sinfull debts must be defrayd Your power preuailes your sacrifice is gratefull By loue obtaining life to men most hatefull Come good effects of ill-deseruing cause Ill gotten impes yet vertuously brought forth Selfe-blaming probates of infringed Lawes Yet blamed faults redeeming with your worth The signes of shame in you each eye may reade Yet while you guilty proue you pitty pleade O beames of mercy beate on sorrowes Clowd Proue suppling showers vpon my parched ground Bring forth the fruit to your due seruice vow'd Let good desires with like deserts be crown'd Water yong blooming vertues tender flowre Sinne did all grace of riper growth deuoure Weepe Balme and Myrrhe you sweet Arabian trees With purest gummes perfume and pearle your ryne Shead on your hony drops you busie Bees I barraine plant must weepe vnpleasant bryne Hornets I hyue salt drops their labour plyes Suckt out of sinne and shed by showring eyes If Dauid night by night did bathe his bed Esteeming longest dayes too short to moue Inconsolable teares if
Fiends do sell That men to monsters Angels turne to Deuils Wrong of all rights selfe ruine roote of euils A thing most done yet more then God can do Daily new done yet neuer done amisse Friended of all yet vnto all a foe Seeming an heauen yet banishing from blisse Serued with toyle yet paying nought but paine Mans deepest losse though false esteemed gaine Shot without noise wound without present smart First seeming light prouing in fine a lode Entring with ease not easily wonne to part Farre in effects from that the showes abode Endorc't with hope subscribed with dispaire Vgly in death though life did faine it faire O forfeiture of heauen eternall debt A moments ioy ending in endlesse fires Our natures scum the worlds entangling Net Night of our thoughts death of all good desires Worse then all this worse then all tongues can say Which man could owe but onely God defray This fawning Viper dum till he had wounded With many mouthes doth now vpbraid my harmes My sight was veild till I my selfe confounded Then did I see the disinchanted charmes Then could I cut th' Anatomy of sinne And search with Linxes eyes what lay within Bewitching euill that hides death in deceits Still borrowing lying shapes to maske thy face Now know I the deciphring of thy sleights A cunning dearely bought with losse of grace Thy sugred poyson now hath wrought so well That thou hast made me to my selfe an hell My eye reades mournfull lessons to my heart My heart doth to my thought the griefe expound My thought the same doth to my tongue impart My tongue the message in the eares doth sound My eares backe to my heart their sorrowes send Thus circling griefes runne round without an end My guilty eye still seemes to see my sinne All things Characters are to spell my fall What eye doth reade without heart rues within What heart doth rue to pensiue thought is gall Which when the thought would by the tongue digest The eare conueyes it backe into the breast Thus gripes in all my parts do neuer faile Whose onely league is now in bartring paines What I ingrosse they traffique by retaile Making each others miseries their gaines All bound for euer prentices to care Whilst I in shop of shame trade sorrowes ware Pleasd with displeasing lot I seeke no change I wealthiest am when richest in remorse To fetch my ware no Seas nor Lands I range For customers to buy I nothing force My home bred goods at home are bought and sold And still in me my interest I hold My comfort now is comfortlesse to liue In Orphan state deuoted to mishap Rent from the roote that sweetest fruit did giue I scorn'd to graffe in stock of meaner sap No iuyce can ioy me but of Iesses flower Whose heauenly roote hath true reuiuing power At sorrowes doore I knockt they crau'd my name I answered One vnworthy to be knowne What one say they One worthiest of blame But who A wretch not Gods nor yet his owne A man O no a beast much worse What creature A rocke How cald the rocke of scandale Peter From whence From Caiphas house Ah dwell you there Sinnes farme I rented there but now would leaue it What rent My soule What gaine Vnrest and feare Deare purchase Ah too deare will you receiue it What shall we giue Fit teares and times to plaine me Come in say they thus griefes did entertaine me With them I rest true prisoner in their Iayle Chayn'd in the yron linkes of basest thrall Till grace vouchsafing captiue soule to bayle In wonted See degraded loues install Dayes passe in plaints the night without repose I wake to sleepe I sleepe in waking woes Sleepe deaths ally obliuion of teares Silence of passiions balme of angry sore Suspence of loues security of feares Wraths lenitiue hearts ease stormes calmest shore Senses and soules repriuall from all cumbers Benumming sense of ill with quiet slumbers Not such my sleepe but whisperer of dreames Creating strange Chymeras fayning frights Of day discourses giuing fansie theames To make dum shewes with worlds of anticke sights Casting true griefes in fansies forged mold Brokenly telling tales rightly fore-told This sleepe most fitly suiteth sorrowes bed Sorrow the smart of euill Sinnes eldest child Best when vnkind in killing whom it bred A racke for guilty thoughts a bit for wild The scourge that whips the salue that cures offence Sorrow my bed and home while life hath sence Here solitarie Muses nurse my griefes In silent lonenesse burying worldly noise Attentiue to rebukes deafe to reliefes Pensiue to foster cares carelesse of ioyes Ruing lifes losse vnder deaths dreary roofes Solemnizing my funerall behoofes A selfe content the shrowd my soule the corse The Beere an humble hope the herse-clorh feare The mourners thoughts in blacks of deepe remorse The herse grace pitie loue and mercy beare My â—eares my dole the Priest a zealous will Penance the tombe and dolefull sighes the knill Christ health of feuer'd soule heauen of the mind Force of the feeble nurse of infant loues Guide to the wandring foote light to the blind Whom weeping windes repentant sorrow moues Father in care mother in tender heart Reuiue and saue me slaine with sinfull dart If King Manasses sunke in depth of sinne With plaints and teares recouered grace and Crowne A worthlesse worme some mild regard may winne And lowly creepe where flying threw it downe A poore desire I haue to mend my ill I should I would I dare not say I will I dare not say I will but wish I may My pride is checkt high words the speaker spilt My good ô Lord thy gift thy strength my stay Giue what thou bidst and then bid what thou wilt Worke with me what of me thou doest request Then will I dare the most and vow the best Prone looke crost armes bent knee and contrite heart Deepe sighs thicke sobs dew'd eyes and postrate prayers Most humbly beg release of earned smart And sauing shrowd in mercies sweet repaires If iustice should my wrongs with rigor wage Feares would dispaires ruth breed a hopelesse rage Lazar at pitties gate I vlcered lye Crauing the reffuse crums of childrens plate My sores I lay in view to mercies eye My rags beare witnesse of my poore estate The wormes of conscience that within me swarme Proue that my plaints are lesse then is my harme With mildnesse Iesu measure mine offence Let true remorse thy due reuenge abate Let teares appease when trespasse doth incense Let pitty temper thy deserued hate Let grace forgiue let loue forget my fall With feare I craue with hope I humbly call Redeeme my lapse with ransome of thy loue Trauerse th' inditement rigors doome suspend Let frailty fauour sorrowes succour moue Be thou thy selfe though changeling I offend Tender my suite cleanse this defiled denne Cancell my debts sweet Iesu say Amen The end of S. Peters Complaint MARIE MAGdalens blush THe signes of shame that staine my blushing face Rise from
the feeling of my rauing fits Whose ioy annoy whose guerdon is disgrace Whose solace flies whose sorrow neuer flits Bad seed I sow'd worse fruit is now my gaine Soone dying mirth begat long liuing paine Now pleasure ebbes reuenge begins to flow One day doth wreake the wrath that many wrought Remorse doth teach my guilty thoughts to know How cheape I sold what Christ so dearely bought Faults long vnfelt doth conscience now bewray All ghostly dynts that Grace at me did dart Like stubborne rocke I forced to recoyle To other flights an ayme I made mine heart Whose wounds then welcome now haue wrought my foyle Wo worth the bow wo worth the Archers might That draue such Arrowes to the marke so right To pull them out to leaue them in is death One to this world one to the world to come Wounds may I weare and draw a doubtfull breath But then my wounds will worke a dreadfull doome And for a world whose pleasures passe away I lose a world whose ioyes are past decay O sense ô soule ô had ô hoped blisse You woo you weane you draw you driue me backe Your crosse encountring like their combat is That neuer end but with some deadly wracke When sense doth winne the soule doth lose the field And present haps make future hopes to yeeld O heauen lament sense robbeth thee of Saints Lament O soules sense spoyleth you of Grace Yet sense doth scarce deserue these hard complaints Loue is the thiefe sense but the entring place Yet graunt I must sense is not free from sinne For thiefe he is that thiefe admitteth in MARY MAGDALENS complaint at Christs death SIth my life from life is parted Death come take thy portion Who suruiues when life is murdred Liues by meere extortion All that liue and not in God Couch their life in deaths abod Silly starres must needs leaue shining When the Sunne is shaddowed Borowed streams refraine their running When head-springs are hindered One that liues by others breath Dyeth also by his death O true Life since thou hast left me Mortall life is tedious Death it is to liue without thee Death of all most odious Turne againe or take me to thee Let me dye or liue thou in me Where the truth once was and is not Shadowes are but vanity Shewing want that helpe they cannot Signes not salue of misery Painted meat no hunger feeds Dying life each death exceeds With my loue my life was nestled In the summe of happinesse From my loue my life is wrested To a world of heauinesse O let loue my life remoue Sith I liue not where I loue O my soule what did vnloose thee From the sweet captiuity God not I did still possesse thee His not mine thy liberty O too happy thrall thou wart When thy prison was his heart Spitefull speare that break'st this prison Seat of all felicity Working this with double treason Loues and liues deliuery Though my life thou drau'st away Maugre thee my loue shall stay Times go by turnes THE lopped tree in time may grow againe Most naked plants renew both fruit and flowre The sorriest wight may finde release of paine The driest soyle sucke in some moystning showre Times go by turnes and chances change by course From foule to faire from better hap to worse The sea of Fortune doth not euer flow She drawes her fauours to the lowest ebbe Her tides haue equall times to come and go Her Loome doth weaue the fine and coursest webbe No ioy so great but runneth to an end No hap so hard but may in fine amend Not alwaies Fall of leafe nor euer Spring No endlesse night nor yet eternall day The saddest Birds a season finde to sing The roughest storme a calme may soone allay Thus with succeeding turnes God tempereth all That man may hope to rise yet feare to fall A chance may winne that by mischance was lost That net that holds no great takes little fish In some things all in all things none are crost Few all they need but none haue all they wish Vnmingled ioyes heere to no man befall Who least hath some who most hath neuer all LOOKE HOME REtyred thoughts enioy their owne delights As beauty doth in selfe-beholding eye Mans mind a mirrour is of heauenly sights Abriefe wherein all maruels summed lye Of fairest formes and sweetest shapes the store Most gracefull all yet thought may grace them more The minde a creature is yet can create To Natures patterns adding higher skill Of finest works wit better could the state If force of wit had equall power of will Deuice of man in working hath no end What thought can thinke another thought can mend Mans soule of endlesse beauties image is Drawne by the worke of endlesse skill and might This skilfull might gaue many sparks of blisse And to discerne this blisse a natiue light To frame Gods image as his worths requir'd His might his skill his word and will conspir'd All that he had his Image should present All that it should present he could afford To that he could afford his will was bent His will was followed with performing word Let this suffice by this conceiue the rest He should he could he would he did the best Fortunes falshood IN worldly merriments lurketh much misery Sly Fortunes subtilties in bayts of happinesse Shrowd hookes that swallowed without recouery Murder the innocent with mortall heauinesse She sootheth appetites with pleasing vanities Till they be conquered with cloaked tyranny Then changing countenance with open enmities Shee triumphs ouer them scorning their slauery With fawning flattery Deaths doore she openeth Alluring passingers to bloudy destiny In offers bountifull in proofe she beggereth Mens ruines registring her false felicity Her hopes are fastned in blisse that vanisheth Her smart inherited with sure possession Constant in cruelty she neuer altereth But from one violence to more oppression To those that follow her fauours are measured As easie premisses to hard conclusions With bitter corrosiues her ioyes are seasoned Her highest benifits are but illusions Her way 's a labyrinth of wandring passages Fooles common pilgrimage to cursed deities Whose fond deuotion and iole menages Are wag'd with wearinesse in fruitlesse drudgeries Blinde in her fauorites foolish election Châ—nâ—â— is â—er Aâ—â—â—rer a giuing dignity Heâ— choyse of visions shâ—wâ—s most discretion Sith â—â—â—â—th the vertuous might wrest from piety To humble suppliants tyrant most obstinate She suters answereth with contrarieties Proud with petition vntaught to mitigate Rigor with clemencie in hardest cruelties Like Tygre fugitiue from the Ambitious Like weeping Crocodile to scornefull enemies Suing for amitie where she is odious But to her followers forswearing curtesies No winde so changeable no sea so wauering As giddie Fortune in reeling varieties Now mad now mercifull now fierce now fauouring In all things mutable but mutabilities Scorne not the least VVHere wards are weake and foes incountring strong Where mightier do assault then do defend The feebler part puts vp enforced wrong And silent
egges ere they be hatched Kill bad Chickins in the tread Fligge they hardly can be catched In the rising stifle ill Lest it grow against thy will Drops do pierce the stubburne Flint Not by force but often falling Custome kils with feeble dint More by vse then strength preuailing Single sands haue little waight Many make a drowning fraight Tender twigs are bent with ease Aged trees do breake with bending Yong desires make little prease Growth doth make them past amending Happie man that soone doth knocke Babels Babes against the rocke Loue seruile Lot LOue Mistresse is of many minds Yet few know whom they serue They reckon least how little Loue Their seruice doth deserue The will she robbeth from the wit The sense from reasons lore Shee is delightfull in the ryne Corrupted in the core She shrowdeth vice in Vertues veile Pretending good in ill She offereth ioy affoordeth griefe A kisse where she doth kill A hony showre raines from her lips Sweet lights shine in her face She hath the blush of Virgine mind The minde of Vipers race She makes thee seeke yet feare to find To find but none enioy In many frownes some gliding smiles She yeelds to more annoy She wooes thee to come neare her fire Yet doth she draw it from thee Farre off she makes thy heart to fry And yet to freeze within thee She letteth fall some luring baits For fooles to gather vp Too sweet too sowre to euerie tast She tempereth her cup. Soft soules she binds in tender twist Small Flyes in spinners webbe She sets aflote some luring streames But makes them soone to ebbe Her watrie eyes haue burning force Her flouds and flames conspire Teares kindle sparkes sobs fuell are And sighs do blow her fire May neuer was the Month of loue For May is full of flowers But rather Aprill wet by kind For loue is full of showers Like Tyrant cruell wounds she giues Like Surgeon salue she lends But salue and sore haue equall force For death is both their ends With soothing words enthralled soules She chaines in seruile bands Her eye in silence hath a speech Which eye best vnderstands Her little sweet hath many sowres Short hap immortall harmes Her louing lookes are murdrings darts Her songs bewitching charmes Like Winter Rose and Sommer Ice Her ioyes are still vntimely Before her hope behind remorse Faire first in fine vnseemely Moodes passions fancies iealous fits Attend vpon her traine She yeeldeth rest without repose A Heauen in hellish paine Her house is sloth her doore deceit And slipperie hope her staires Vnbashfull boldnesse bids her guests And euerie vice repaires Her dyet is of such delights As please till they be past But then the poyson kils the heart That did entice the taste Her sleepe in sinne doth end in wrath Remorse rings her awake Death cals her vp shame driues her out Despaires her vpshot make Plow not the Seas sow not the sands Leaue off your idle paine Seeke other mistresse for your mindes Loues seruice is in vaine Life is but Losse BY force I liue in will I wish to dye In plaint I passe the length of lingring dayes Free would my soule from mortall bodie fly And tread the tracke of Deaths desired wayes Life is but losse where death is deemed gaine And lothed pleasures breed displeasing paine Who would not dye to kill all murdering greeues Or who would liue in neuer-dying feares Who would not wish his treasure safe from Theeues And quit his heart from pangs his eyes from teares Death parteth but two euer fighting foes Whose ciuill strife doth worke our endlesse woes Life is a wandring course to doubtfull rest As oft a cursed rise to damning leape As happie race to winne a heauenly crest None being sure what finall fruits to reape And who can like in such a life to dwell Whose wayes are strait to Heauen but wide to Hell Come cruell death why lingrest thou so long What doth withhold thy dint from fatall stroke Now prest I am alas thou doest me wrong To let me liue more anger to prouoke Thy right is bad when thou hast stopt my breath Why should'd thou stay to worke my bouble death If Sauls attempt in falling on his blade As lawfull were as ethe to put in vre If Sampsons leaue a common Law were made Of Abels lot if all that would were sure Then cruell death thou should'st the Tyrant play With none but such as wished for delay Where life is lou'd thou readie art to kill And to abridge with sodaine pangs their ioy Where life is loath'd thou wilt not worke their will But dost adiourne their death to their annoy To some thou art a fierce vnbidden guest But those that craue thy helpe thou helpest least Auant oh viper I thy spite defie There is a God that ouer-rules thy force Who can thy weapons to his will apply And shorten or prolong our brittle course I on his mercie not thy might relye To him I liue for him I hope to dye I dye aliue O Life what lets thee from a quicke decease O death what drawes thee from a present prey My feast is done my soule would be at ease My grace is said O Death come take away I liue but such a life as euer dyes I dye but such a death as neuer ends My death to end my dying life denies And life my liuing death no whit amends Thus still I dye yet still I do reuiue My liuing death by dying life is fed Grace more then Nature keepes my heart aliue Whose idle hopes and vaine desires are dead Not where I breathe but where I loue I liue Not where I loue but where I am I dye The life I wish must future glorie giue The deaths I feele in present dangers lye What ioy to liue I Wage no warre yet peace I none enioy I hope I feare I frye in freezing cold I mourne in mirth still prostrate in annoy I all the World imbrace yet nothing hold All wealth is want where chiefest wishes faile Yea life is loath'd where loue may not preuaile For that I loue I long but that I lacke That others loue I loath and that I haue All worldly fraights to me are deadly wracke Men present hap I future hopes do craue They louing where they liue long life require To liue where best I loue death I desire Here loue is lent for loue of filthie gaine Most friends befriend themselues with friendships shew Here plentie perill want doth breed disdaine Cares common are ioyes faultie short and few Here Honour enuide meannesse is despis'd Sinne deemed solace Vertue little pris'd Here beauty is a baite that swallowed choakes A treasure sought still to the owners harmes A light that eyes to murdring sights prouokes A grace that soules inchants with mortall charmes A luring ayme to Cupids fierie flights A balefull blisse that damnes where it delights O who would liue so many deaths to trie Where will doth wish that wisedome doth reproue
Where Nature craues that grace must needs denie Where sense doth like that reason cannot loue Where best in shew in finall proofe is worst Where pleasures vp-shot is to dye accurst Lifes death Loues life VVHo liues in loue loues least to liue And long delayes doth rue If him he loue by whom he liues To whom all loue is due Who for our loue did choose to liue And was content to dye Who lou'd our loue more then his life And loue with life did buy Let vs in life yea with our life Requite his liuing loue For best we liue when least we liue If loue our life remoue Where loue is hote life hatefull is Their grounds do not agree Loue where it loues life where it liues Desireth most to be And sith loue is not where it liues Nor liueth where it loues Loue hateth life that holds it backe And death it best approues For seldome is he wonne in life Whom loue doth most desire If wonne by loue yet not enioyd Till mortall life expire Life out of earth hath not aboade In earth loue hath no place Loue setled hath her ioyes in Heau'n In earth life all her grace Mourne therefore no true louers death Life onely him annoyes And when he taketh leaue of life Then loue begins his ioyes At home in Heauen FAire soule how long shall veiles thy graces shrowd How long shall this exile with-hold thy right When will thy Sunne disperse this mortall cloud And giue thy glories scope to blaze their light O that a starre more fit for Angels eyes Should pine in earth not shine aboue the skies This ghostly beautie offered force to God It chain'd him in the linkes of tender loue It wonne his will with man to make abode It staid his sword and did his wrath remoue It made the rigor of his Iustice yeeld And crowned mercie Empresse of the field This lull'd our heauenly Sampson fast asleepe And laid him in our feeble Natures lap This made him vnder mortall load to creepe And in our flesh his God-head to inwrap This made him soiourne with vs in exile And not disdaine our titles in his stile This brough him from the ranks of heau'nly Quires Into the vale of teares and cursed soyle From flowers of grace into a world of bryers From life to death from blisse to balefull toyle This made him wander in our Pilgrim weed And taste our torments to releeue our need O soule do not thy noble thoughts abase To lose thy loue in any mortall wight Content thine eye at home with natiue grace Sith God himselfe is rauisht with thy sight If on thy beautie God enamoured be Base is thy loue of any lesse then he Giue not assent to muddie minded skill That deemes the feature of a pleasing face To be the sweetest baite to lure the will Not valuing right the worth of ghostly grace Let God and Angels censure winne beliefe That of all beauties iudge our selues the chiefe Queene Hester was of rare and peerlesse hiew And Iudith once for beautie bare the vaunt But he that could our soules endowments view Would soone to soules the Crowne of beauty graunt O soule out of thy selfe seeke God alone Grace more then thine but Gods the world hath none Lewd Loue is losse MIsdeeming eye that stoopeth to the lure Of mortall worths not worth so worthie Loue All beautie 's base all graces are impure That do thy erring thought from God remoue Sparkes to the fire the beames yeeld to the Sunne All grace to God from whom all graces runne If picture moue more should the patterne please No shadow can with shadowed things compare And fairest shapes whereon our loues do seaze But silly signes of Gods high beauties are Go staruing sense feed thou on earthly mast True loue in Heau'n seeke thou thy sweet repast Gleane not in barren soyle these off all eares Sith reape thou maist whole haruests of delight Base ioyes with griefes bad hopes do end in feares Lewd loue with losse euill peace with deadly fight Gods loue alone doth end with endlesse ease Whose ioyes in hope whose hope concludes in peace Let not the luring traine of fancies trap Or gracious features proofes of Natures skill Lull reasons force asleepe in errours lap Or draw thy wit to bent of wanton will The fairest flowers haue not the sweetest smell A seeming Heauen proues oft a damning Hell Selfe-pleasing soules that play with beauties bait In shining shrowd may swallow fatall hooke Where eager sight on semblant faire doth wait A locke it proues that first was but a looke The fish with ease into the Net doth glide But to get out the way is not so wide So long the Fly doth dally with the flame Vntill his singed wings do force his fall So long the eye doth follow Fancies game Till loue hath left the heart in heauie thrall Soone may the minde be cast in Cupids Iayle But hard it is imprisoned thoughts to bayle O lothe that loue whose finall ayme is lust Moth of the mind eclipse of reasons light The graue of grace the mole of Natures rust The wrack of wit the wrong of euerie right In summe an euill whose harmes no tongue can tell In which to liue is death to dye is Hell Loues Garden griefe VAine loues auaunt infamous is your pleasure Your ioy deceit Your iewels iests and worthlesse trash your treasure Fooles common bait Your pallace is a prison that allureth To sweet mishap and rest that paine procureth Your Garden griefe hedg'd in with thornes of Enuie And stakes of strife Your Allies errour grauelled with iealousie And cares of life Your bankes are seates enwrapt with shades of sadnesse Your Arbours breed rough fits of raging madnesse Your beds are sowne with seeds of all iniquitie And poys'ning weeds Whose stalkes ill thoughts whose leaues words full of vanitie Whose fruit misdeeds Whose sap is sinne whose force and operation To banish grace and worke the soules damnation Your trees are dismall plants of pyning corrosiues Whose root is ruth Whose barke is bale whose timber stubburne fantasies Whose pith vntruth On which in lieu of birds whose voyce delighteth Of guiltie conscience screeching note affrighteth Your coolest Sommer gales are scadling sighings Your showres are teares Your sweetest smell the stench of sinfull liuing Your fauours feares Your Gardener Satan all you reape is miserie Your gaine remorse and losse of all felicitie From Fortunes reach LEt fickle Fortune runne her blindest race I setled haue an vnremoued mind I scorne to be the game of Fancies chase Or vane to shew the change of euery wind Light giddie humours stinted to no rest Still change their choyce yet neuer chuse the best My choice was guided by foresightfull heed It was auerred with approuing will It shall be followed with performing deed And seal'd with vow till death the chuser kill Yea death though finall date of vaine desires Ends not my choice which with no time expires To beauties fading blisse I
hearts or feele my fire but I My faultlesse breast the fornace is the fuell wounding thornes Loue is the fire and sighes the smoake the ashes shames and scornes The fuell Iustice layeth on and mercie blowes the coales The mettall in this Fornace wrought are mens defiled soules For which as now on fire I am to worke them to their good So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood With this he vanisht out of sight and swiftly shronke away And straight I called vnto mind that it was Christmasse day New Heauen new Warre COme to your heauen you heauenly Quires Earth hath the heauen of your desires Remoue your dwelling to your God A stall is now his best abode Sith men their homage do deny Come Angels all their fault supply His chilling cold doth heat require Come Seraphins in lieu of fire This little Arke no couer hath Let Cherubs wings his body swathe Come Raphael this Babe must eate Prouide our little Toby meate Let Gabriel be now his groome That first tooke vp his earthly roome Let Michael stand in his defence Whom loue hath linkt to feeble sense Let graces rocke when he doth cry Let Angels sing his lullaby The same you saw in heauenly seate Is he that now suckes Maries teate Agnize your King a mortall wight His borrowed weed lets not your sight Come kisse the manger where he lyes That is your blisse aboue the skies This little Babe so few dayes old Is come to rifle Sathans fold All hell doth at his presence quake Though he himself for cold do shake For in this weake vnarmed wise The gates of hell he will surprise With teares he fights wins the field His naked breast stands for a shield His battering shot are babish cryes His arrowes lookes of weeping eyes His Martiall Ensignes cold and need And feeble flesh his warriers Steed His Campe is pitched in astall His bulwarke but a broken wall The Crib his trench hay-stalkes his stakes Of Shepheards he his Muster makes And thus as sure his fo to wound The Angels trumps alarum sound My soule with Christ ioyne thou in fight Sticke to the tents that he hath dight Within his crib is surest ward This little Babe will be thy guard If thou wilt foyle thy foes with ioy Then flit not from the heauenly Boy FINIS Moeoniae OR CERTAINE EXCELLENT POEMS AND SPIRITVAL Hymnes composed by R.S. AN CHO RA. SPEI LONDON Printed for W. Barret The Virgine Maries conception OVR second Eue puts on her mortall shrowd Earth breeds a heauen for Gods new dwelling place Now riseth vp Elias little cloud That growing shall distill the showre of grace Her being now begins who ere she end Shall bring our good that shall our ill amend Both Grace and Nature did their force vnite To make this babe the summe of all their best Our most her least our million but her mite She was at easiest rate worth all the rest What grace to men or Angels God did part Was all vnited in this infants heart Foure onely wights bred without fault are nam'd And all the rest conceiued were in sinne Without both man and wife was Adam fram'd Of man but not of wife did Eue beginne Wife without touch of man Christs mother was Of man and wife this babe was borne in grace Her Natiuitie IOy in the rising of our Orient starre That shall bring forth the Sunne that lent her light Ioy in the peace that shall conclude our warre And soone rebate the edge of Sathans spight Load-starre of all inclos'd in worldly waues The care and compasse that from ship-wracke saues The patriarkes and Prophets were the flowers Which time by course of ages did distill And call'd into his little clowd the showers Whose gracious drops the world with ioy shall fill Whose moisture suppleth euery soule with grace And bringeth life to Adams dying race For God on earth she is the royall throne The chosen cloth to make his mortall weede The quarry to cut out our corner stone Soile full of fruite yet free from mortall seede For heauenly flowre she is the Iessa rod The child of man the parent of a god Her Spousals WIfe did she liue yet virgine did she dye Vntoucht of man yet mother of a sonne To saue her selfe and child from fatall lie To end the web whereof the thred was spon In marriage knots to Ioseph she was tide Vnwonted workes with wonted wiles to hide God lent his Paradise to Iosephs care Wherein he was to plant the tree of life His sonne of Iosephs child the title bare Iust cause to make the mother Iosephs wife O blessed man betroth'd to such a spouse More blest to liue with such a child in house No carnall loue this sacred league procur'd All vaine delights were farre from their assent Though both themselues in wedlocke bands assur'd Yet chast by vow they seald their chast intent Thus had the Virgins wiues and widows crowne And by chaste child-birth doubled their renowne The virgins salutation SPell Eua backe and Aue shall you finde The first began the last reuerst our harmes An Angels Aue disinchants the charmes Death first by womans weaknesse entred in In womans vertue life doth now begin O Virgins breast the heauens to thee incline In thee they ioy and soueraigne they agnize Too meane their glorie is to match with thine Whose chast receit God more then heauen did prize Haile fairest heauen that heauen and earth do blisse Where vertues starre Gods Sunne of iustice is With haughty mind to godhead man aspired And was by pride from place of pleasure chac'de With louing mind our manhood God desired And vs by loue in greater pleasure plac'de Man labouring to ascend procur'd our fall God yeelding to descend cut off our thrall The Visitation PRoclaimed Queene and mother of a God The light of earth the soueraigne of Saints With Pilgrime foote vp tyring hils she trod And heauenly stile with handmaids toile acquaints Her youth to age her selfe to sicke she lends Her heart to God to neighbour hand she bends A prince she is and mightier prince doth beare Yet pompe of princely traine she would not haue But doubtlesse heauenly Quires attendant were Her child from harme her selfe from fall to saue Word to the voice song to the tune she brings The voice her word the tune her ditty sings Eternall lights inclosed in her breast Shot out such piercing beames of burning loue That when her voice her cosins eares possest The force thereof did force her babe to moue With secret signes the children greet each other But open praise each leaueth to his mother His Circumcision THe head is launc't to worke the bodies cure With angrie salue it smarts to heale our wound To faultlesse Sonne from all offences pure The faulty vassals scourges do redound The Iudge is cast the guiltie to acquit The Sunne defac'd to lend the starre his light The vine of life distilleth drops of grace Our rocke
giues issue to an heauenly spring Teares from his eyes bloud runnes from wounding place Which showers to heauen of ioy an haruest bring This sacred deaw let Angels gather vp Such dainty drops best fit their nectar'd cup With weeping eyes his mother rewd his smart If bloud from him teares came from her as fast The knife that cut his flesh did pierce her heart The paine that Iesus felt did Marie taste His life and hers hung by one fatall twist No blow that hit the Sonne the mother mist The Epiphanie TO blaze the rising of this glorious Sunne A glittering starre appeareth in the East Whose sight to pilgrims toile three sages wun To feeke the light they long had in request And by this starre to nobler starre they pace Whose armes did their desired sinne embrace Stall was the skie wherein those planets shinde And want the cloud that did eclipse their rayes Yet through this cloud their light did passage finde And pierc'd these sages hearts by secret wayes Which made them know the ruler of the skies By infant tongue and lookes of babish eyes Heauen at her light earth blusheth at her pride And of their pompe these peeres ashamed be Their crownes their robes their traines they set aside When Gods poore cottage clouts and crew they see All glorious things their glorie now despise Sith God Contempt duth more then Glorie prise Three gifts they bring three gifts they beare away For incense mirrhe and gold faith hope and loue And with their gifts the giuers heart do stay Their mind from Christ no parting can remoue His humble state his stall his poore retinew They fancy more then all their rich reuenew The Presentation TO be redeem'd the worlds redeemer brought Two silly turtle doues for ransome paies O wares with empires worthie to be bought This easie rate doth sound not drowne thy praise For sith no price can to thy worth amount A doue yea loue due price thou doest account Old Simeon cheape pennie worth and sweet Obtaind when thee in armes he did imbrace His weeping eyes thy smiling lookes did meet Thy loue his heart thy kisses blest his face O eyes O heart meane sights and loues auoide Base not your selues your best you haue enioyde O virgine pure thou dost those doues present As due to law not as an equall price To buy such ware thou wouldst thy selfe haue spent The world to reach his worth could not suffice If God were to be bought not worldly pelfe But thou wert fittest price next God himselfe The flight into Egypt ALas our day is forst to flie by night Light without light and Sunne by silent shade O nature blush that suffrest such a wight That in thy Sunne thy darke eclipse hast made Day to his eyes light to his steps denie That hates the light which graceth euerie eye Sunne being fled the starres do lose their light And shining beames in bloudy streames they drench A cruell storme of Herods mortall spight Their liues and lights with bloudy showers do quench The tyrant to be sure of murdring one For feare of sparing him doth pardon none O blessed babes first flowers of Christian spring though vntimely cropt raire garlands frame With open throats and silent mouthes you sing His praise whom age permits you not to name Your tunes are teares your instruments are swords Your dittie death and bloud in lieu of words Christs returne out of Egypt WHen death and hell their right in Herod claime Christ from exile returnes to natiue soile There with his life more deepely death to maime Then death did life by all the infants spoile He shewed the parents that the babes did mone That all their liues were lesse then his alone But hearing Herods sonne to haue the crowne The impious of-spring of a bloudy sire To Nazareth of heauen beloued towne Flowre to a flowre he fitly doth retire For he is a flower and in a flower he bred And from a thorne now to a flowre he fled And well deseru'd this flowre his fruite to view Where he inuested was in mortall weed Where first into a tender bud he grew In virgine branch vnstaind with mortall seed Young flowre with flowers in flower well may he be Ripe fruit he must with thornes hang on a tree Christs bloudy sweat FAt soile full spring sweet oliue grape of blisse That yeelds that streames that powers that dost distill Vntild vndrawne vnstampt vntoucht of presse Deare fruite cleare brookes faire oyle sweet wine at will Thus Christ vnforst preuents in shedding bloud The whips the thornes the naile the speare and roode He Pellicans he Phenix fate doth proue Whom flames consume when streames enforce to dye How burneth bloud how bleedeth burning loue Can one in flame and streame both bathe and frie How would he ioyne a Phenix fiery paines In foinring Pellicans still bleeding vaines Christs sleeping friends VVHen Christ with care and pangs of death opprest From frighted flesh a bloody sweat did raine And full of feare without repose or rest Did watch and pray in agonie and paine Three sundrie times he his disciples findes With heauie eyes with dull and heauy minds With milde rebuke he warned them to wake Yet sleepe did still their drowsie senses hold As when the Sunne the brightest shew doth make In darkest shrowds the night birds them infold His foes did watch to worke their cruell spight His drowsie friends slept in his hardest night As Ionas sayled once from Ioppaes shoare A boystrous tempest in the aire did broile The waues did rage the thundring heau'ns did roare The stormes the rocks the lightnings threatned spoile The ship was billowes game and chances pray Yet carelesse Ionas mute and slumbring lay So now though Iudas like a blustring gust Do stirre the furious sea of Iewish ire Though storming troopes in quarrels most vniust Against the barke of all our blisse conspire Yet these disciples sleeping lie secure As though their wonted calme did still endure So Ionas once his heauy limmes to rest Did shrowd himselfe in iuy pleasant shade But lo while him an heauy sleepe opprest His shadowy bowre to withered stalke did fade A cankered worme did gnaw the root away And brought the glorious branches to decay O gracious plant O tree of heauenly spring The paragon for leafe for fruite and flower How sweete a shadow did thy branches bring To shrowd those soules that chose thee for their bower But now while they with Ionas fall asleepe To spoile their plant an enuious worme doth creepe Awake you slumbring wights lift vp your eyes Marke Iudas how to teare your root he striues Alas the glory of your arbour dies Arise and guard the comfort of your liues No Ionas iuy no Zacheus tree Were to the world so great a losse as hee The virgine Mary to Christ on the Crosse WHat mist hath dimd that glorious face what seas of griefe my Sun doth tosse The golden raies of heauenly grace lie now eclipsed on the crosse Iesus
shame to vtter nor sinne to feele But whether my wishes in this behalfe take effect or not I reape at the least this reward of my paines that I haue shewed my desire to answer your curtesie and set forth the due praises of this glorious Saint Your louing friend R.S. To the Reader MAny suiting their labours to the popular vaine and guided by the gale of vulgar breath haue diuulged diuerse patheticall discourses in which if they had shewed as much care to profit as they haue done desire to please their workes would much more haue honored their names and auailed the Reader But it is a iust complaint among the better sort of persons that the finest wits lose themselues in the vainest follies spilling much Art in some idle fancie and leauing their workes as witnesses how long they haue beene in trauaile to be in fine deliuered of a fable And sure it is a thing greatly to be lamented that men of so high conceit should so much abase their habilities that when they haue racked them to the vttermost endeuour all the praise that they reape of their employment consisteth in this that they haue wisely told a foolish tale and carried a long lye very smoothly to the end Yet this inconuenience might find some excuse if the drift of their discourse leuelled at any vertuous marke For infables are often figured morall truths and that couertly vttered to a common good which without a maske would not find so free a passage But when the substance of the worke hath neither truth nor probability nor the purport thereof tendeth to any honest end the writer is rather to be pitied than praised and his bookes fitter for the fire than for the presse This common ouersight more haue obserued than endeuored to salue euery one being able to reprooue none willing to redresse such faults authorised especially by generall custome And though if necessitie the lawlesse patron of enforced actions had not more preuailed than choise this worke of so different a subiect from the vsuall vaine should haue bene no eye-sore to those that are pleased with worse matters Yet sith the copies thereof flew fo fast and so false abroad that it was in danger to come corrupted to the print it seemed a lesse euill to let it fly to common view in the natiue plume and with the owne wings than disguised in a coat of a bastard feather or cast off from the fast of such a corrector as might hapily haue perished the sound and imped in some sicke and sory feathers of his owne fansies It may be that curteous skill will reckon this though course in respect of others exquisite labours not vnfit to entertaine wel-tempered humours both with pleasure and profite the ground thereef being in Scripture and the forme of enlarging it an imitation of the ancient Doctors in the same and other points of like tenour This commodity at the least it will carry with it that the Reader may learne to loue without improofe of puritie and teach his thoughts either to temper passion in the meane or to giue the bridle onely where the excesse cannot be faulty Let the worke defend it selfe and euery one passe his censure as he seeth cause Many Carps are expected when curious eyes come a fishing But the care is already taken and patience wayteth at the cable ready to take away when that dish is serued in and to make roome for others to set on the desired fruit R.S. MARIE MAGDALENS FVNERAL TEARES AMongst other mourneful accidents of the passion of Christ that loue presenteth it selfe vnto my memory with which the blessed Marie Magdalene louing our Lord more than her selfe followed him in his iourney to his death attending vpon him when his disciples fled and being more willing to dye with him than they to liue without him But not finding the fauour to accompany him in death and loathing after him to remaine in life the fire of her true affection enflamed her heart and her enflamed heart resolued into vncessant teares so that burning and bathing betweene loue and griefe she led a life euer dying and felt a death neuer ending And when he by whom she liued was dead and she for whom he dyed enforcedly left aliue she praised the dead more than the liuing and hauing lost that light of her life she desired to dwell in darkenesse in the shadow of death choosing Christs Tombe for her best home and his coarse for her chiefe comfort For Mary as the Euangelist saith Stood without at the Tombe weeping But alas how vnfortunate is this woman to whom neither life will affoord a desired farewell nor death allow any wished welcome She hath abandoned the liuing and chosen the company of the dead and now it seemeth that euen the dead haue forsaken her sith the coarse she seeketh is taken away from her And this was the cause that loue induced her to stand and sorrow enforced her to weepe Her eye was watchfull to seeke whom her heart most longed to enioy and her foot in a readinesse to runne if her eye should chance to espy him And therefore she standeth to be still stirring prest to watch euery way and prepared to go whither any hope should call her But she wept because she had such occasion of standing and that which moued her to watch was the motiue of her teares For as she watched to finde whom she had lost so she wept for hauing lost whom she loued her poore eyes being troubled at once with two contrarie offices both to be cleare in sight the better to seeke him and yet cloudy with teares for missing the sight of him Yet was not this the entrance but the increase of her griefe not the beginning but the renewing of her moane For first she mourned for the departing of his soule out of his body and now she lamented the taking of his body out of the graue being punished with two wreckes of her onely welfare both full of miserie but the last without all comfort The first originall of her sorrow grew because she could not enioy him aliue yet this sorrow had some solace for that she hoped to haue enioyed him dead But when she considered that his life was already lost and now not so much as his body could be found she was wholly daunted with dismay sith this vnhappinesse admitted no helpe She doubted lest the loue of her maister the onely portion that her fortune had left her would soone languish in her cold breast if it neither had his words to kindle it nor his presence to cherish it nor so much as his dead ashes to rake it vp She had prepared her spices and prouided her oyntments to pay him the last tribute of externall duties And though Ioseph and Nicodemus had already bestowed an hundreth pounds of Mirrhe and Aloes which was in quantity sufficient in quality of the best and as well applyed as art and deuotion could deuise yet such was
her loue that she would haue thought any quantitie too little except hers had bene added the best in qualitie too meane except hers were with it and no diligence in applying it enough except her seruice were in it Not that she was sharpe in censuring that which others had done but because loue made her so desirous to do all her selfe that though all had bene done that she could deuise and as well as she could wish yet vnlesse she were an actor it would not suffice sith loue is as eager to be vttered in effects as it is zealous in true affection She came therefore now meaning to enbalme his corps as she had before annointed his feet and to preserue the reliques of his body as the onely remnant of all her blisse And as in the spring of her felicitie she had washed his feet with her teares bewayling vnto him the death of her owne soule so now she came in the depth of her miserie to shed them afresh for the death of his body But when she saw the graue open and the bodie taken out the labour of enbalming was preuented but the cause of her weeping increased and he that was wanting to her obsequies was not wanting to her teares and though she found not whom to annoynt yet found she whom to lament And not without cause did Marie complaine finding her first anguish doubled with a second griefe and being surcharged with two most violent sorrowes in one afflicted heart For hauing setled her whole affection vpon Christ and summed all her desires and wishes into the loue of his goodnesse as nothing could equall his worthes so was there not in the whole world either a greater benefit for her to enioy than himselfe or any greater dammage possible than his losse The murdering in his owne death the life of all liues left a generall death in all liuing creatures and his decease not onely disrobed our nature of her most royall ornaments but impouerished the world of all highest perfections What maruell therefore though her vehement loue to so louely a Lord being after the wrecke of his life now also depriued of his dead body feele as bitter pangs for his losse as before it tasted ioyes in his presence and open as large an issue to teares of sorrow as euer heretofore to teares of contentment And though teares were rather oyle than water to her flame apter to nourish than diminish her griefe yet now being plonged in the depth of paine she yeelded her selfe captiue to all discomfort carrying an ouerthrowne mind in a more enfeebled body and still busie in deuising but euer doubtfull in defining what she might best do For what could a silly woman do but weepe that floating in a sea of cares found neither eare to heare her nor tongue to direct her nor hand to helpe her nor heart to pittie her in her desolate case True it is that Peter and Iohn came with her to the Tombe and to make triall of her report were both within it but as they were speedy in comming and diligent in searching so were they as quicke to depart and fearefull of farther seeking And alas what gained she by their comming but two witnesses of her losse two dismayers of her hope and two patternes of a new despaire Loue moued them to come but their loue was soone conquered with such feare that it suffered them not to stay But Mary hoping in despaire and perseuering in hope stood without feare because she now thought nothing left that ought to be feared For she hath lost her maister to whom she was so entirely deuoted that he was the totall of her loues the height of her hopes and the vttermost of her feares and therefore besides him she could neither loue other creature hope for other comfort nor feare other losse The worst she could feare was the death of her body and that shee rather desired than feared sith shee had alreadie lost the life of her soule without which anie other life would be a death and with which any other death would haue bene a delight But now she thought it better to dye than to liue because she might happily dying find whom not dying she looked not to enioy and not enioying she had little will to liue For now she loued nothing in her life but her loue to Christ and if any thing did make her willing to liue it was onely the vnwillingnesse that his Image should dye with her whose likenesse loue had limited in her heart and treasured vp in her sweetest memories And had she not feared to breake the table and to breake open the closet to which she had entrusted this last relique of her lost happinesse the violence of griefe would haue melted her heart into inward bleeding teares and blotted her remembrance with a fatall obliuion And yet neuerthelesse she is now in so imperfect a sort aliue that it is proued true in her that Loue is as strong as death For what could death haue done more in Mary than loue did Her wits were astonied and all her senses so amazed that in the end finding she did not know seeing she could not discerne hearing she perceiued not and more than all this she was not there where she was for she was wholly where her maister was more where she loued than where she liued and lesse in her selfe than in his body which notwithstanding where it was she could not imagine For she sought as yet she found not and therefore stood at the Tombe weeping for it being now altogether giuen to mourning and driuen to misery But ô Mary by whose counsaile vpon what hope or with what heart couldest thou stand alone when the Disciples were departed Thou wert there once before they came thou turnedst againe at their comming and yet thou stayest when they are gone Alas that thy Lord is not in the Tombe thine owne eyes haue often seene the Disciples hands haue felt the empty Syndon doth auouch and cannot all this winne thee to beleeue it No no thou wouldest rather condemne thine owne eyes of errour and both their eyes and hands of deceit yea rather suspect all testimonies for vntrue than not looke whom thou hast lost euen there where by no diligence he could be found When thou thinkest of other places and canst not imagine any so likely as this thou seekest againe in this and though neuer so often sought it must be an haunt for hope For when things dearely affected are lost loues natures is neuer to be weary of searching euen the oftenest searched corners being more willing to thinke that all the senses are mistaken than to yeeld that hope should quaile Yet now sith it is so euident that he is taken away what should moue thee to remaine here where the perill is apparent and no profit likely Can the wit of one and she a woman wholly possessed with passion haue more light to discerne danger than two wits of two men and both
liberty is a penaltie and euery penaltie supposeth some offence but an offence it is not to weepe for my selfe for he would neuer commande it if it were not lawfull to do it The fault therefore must be in being one with him that maketh the weeping for my selfe a weeping also for him And if this be a fault I will neuer amend it and let them that thinke it so do penance for it for my part sith I haue lost my mirth I will make much of my sorrow and sith I haue no ioy but in teares I may lawfully shed them Neither thinke I his former word a warrant against his latter deed And what need had he to weepe vpon the Crosse but for our example which if it were good for him to giue it cannot be euill for me to follow No no it is not my weeping that causeth my losse sith a world of eyes and a sea of teares could not worthily bewaile the misse of such a maister Yet since neither thy seeking findeth nor thy weeping preuaileth satisfie thy selfe with the sight of Angels Demaund the cause of their comming and the reason of thy Lords remoue and sith they first offer thee occasion of parley be not thou too dainty of thy discourse It may be they can calme thy stormes and quiet thy vnrest and therefore conceale not from them thy sore lest thou lose the benefit of their emplaister But nothing can moue Mary to admit comfort or entertaine any company for to one alone and for euer she hath vowed her selfe and except it be to him she will neither lend her eare long to others nor borrow others helpe lest by the seeking to allay her smart she should lessen her loue But drawing into her mind all pensiue conceits she museth and pineth in a consuming languor taking comfort in nothing but in being comfortlesse Alas saith she small is the light that a starre can yeeld when the Sunne is downe and a sorry exchange to go gather the crums after the losse of an heauenly repast My eyes are not vsed to see by the glimse of a sparke and in seeking the Sunne it is either needlesse or bootlesse to borrow the light of a candle sith either it must bewray it selfe with the selfe light or no other light can euer discouer it If they come to disburden me of my heauinesse their comming will be burdensome vnto me and they will load me more while they labour my reliefe They cannot perswade me that my maister is not lost for my owne eyes will disproue them They can lesse tell me where he may be found for they would not be so simple to be so long from him or if they can forbeare him surely they do not know him whom none can truly know and liue long without him All their demurres would be tedious and discourses irksome Impaire my loue they might but appay it they could not to which he that first accepted the debt is the onely payment They either want power will or leaue to tell me my desire or at the first word they would haue done it sith Angels are not vsed to idle speeches and to me all talke is idle that doth not tell me of my maister They know not where he is and therfore they are come to the place where he last was making the Tombe their heauen and the remembrance of his presence the food of their felicitie Whatsoeuer they could tell me if they told me not of him and whatsoeuer they could tell me of him if they told me not where he were both their telling and my hearing were but a wasting of time I neither came to see them nor desire to heare them I came not to see Angels but him that made both me and Angels and to whom I owe more than both to men and Angels And to thee I appeale ô most louing Lord whether my afflicted heart doth not truly defray the tribute of an vndeuided loue To thee I appeale whether I haue ioyned any partner with thee in the small possession of my poore selfe And I would to God I were as priuie where thy body is as thou art who is onely Lord and owner of my soule But alas sweet Iesu where thou wert thou art not where thou art I know not wretched is the case that I am in and yet how to better it I cannot imagine Alas ô my onely desire why hast thou left me wauering in these vncertainties and in how wild a maze wander my doubtful perplexed thoughts If I stay here where he is not I shall neuer finde him If I go further to seeke I know not whither To leaue the Tombe is a death and to stand helplesse by it an vncurable disease so that all my comfort is now concluded in this that I am free to chuse whether I will stay without helpe or go without hope that is in effect with what torment I will end my life And yet euen this were too happy a choise for so vnhappy a creature If I might be chuser of mine owne death ô how quickly should that choise be made and how willingly would I runne to that execution I would be nailed to the same crosse with the same nailes in the same place my heart should be wounded with his speare my head with his thornes my body with his whippes Finally I would taste all his torments and tread all his embrued and bloudie steps But ô ambitious thoughts why gaze you vpon so high a felicitie why thinke you of so glorious a death that are priuie to so infamous a life Death alas I deserue yea not one but infinite deaths But so sweete a death seasoned with so many comforts the very instruments whereof were able to raise the deadest corps and depure the most defiled soule were too small a scourge for my great offences And therefore I am left to feele so many deaths as I liue houres and to passe as many pangs as I haue thoughts of my losse which are as many as there are minutes and as violent as if they were all in euery one But sith I can neither die as he died nor liue where he lyeth dead I I will liue out my liuing death by his graue and dye on my dying life by his sweete Tombe Better is it after losse of his body to looke to his Sepulcher than after the losse of the one to leaue the other to be destroyed No no though I haue bene robbed of the Saint I will at the least haue care of the shrine which though it be spoiled of the most soueraigne hoast yet shall it be the Altar where I will daily sacrifice my heart and offer vp my teares Here will I euer leade yea here do I meane to end my wretched life that I may at the least be buried by the Tombe of my Lord and take my iron sleepe neare this couch of stone which his presence hath made the place of sweetest repose It may be also that
this empty Syndon lyeth here to no vse and this Tombe being open without any in it may giue occasion to some mercifull heart that shall first light vpon my vnburied body to wrap me in his shroud and to interre me in this Tombe O too fortunate lot for so vnfortunate a woman to craue no no I do not craue it For alas I dare not yet if such an ouer-sight should be committed I do now before-hand forgiue that sinner and were it no more presumption to wish it aliue than to suffer it dead if I knew the party that should first passe by me I would woo him with my teares and hire him with my prayers to blesse me with this felicity And though I dare not wish any to do it yet this without offence I may say to all that I loue this Syndon aboue all clothes in the world and this Tombe I esteeme more than any Princes monument yea and I thinke that coarse highly fauored that shall succeed my Lord in it and for my part as I meane that the ground where I stand shall be my death-bed so am I not of Iacobs mind to haue my body buried farre from the place where it dyeth but euen in the next and readiest graue and that as soone as my breath faileth sith delayes are bootlesse where death hath won possession But alas I dare not say any more let my body take such fortune as befalleth it my soule at the least shall dwell in this sweet Paradise and from this brittle case of flesh and bloud passe presently into the glorious Tombe of God and man It is now enwrapped in a masse of corruption it shall then enioy a place of high perfection where it is now it is more by force than by choise and like a repining prisoner in a loathed gaile but there in a little roome it should find perfect rest and in the prison of death the liberty of a ioyfull life O sweet Tombe of my sweetest Lord while I liue I will stay by thee when I die I will cleaue vnto thee neither aliue nor dead will I euer be drawne from thee Thou art the Altar of mercie the temple of truth the sanctuary of safeâ—ie the graue of death and the cradle of eternall life O heauen of my eclipsed Sunne receiue vnto thee this silly starre that hath now also lost all wished light O Whale that hast swallowed my onely Ionas swallow also me more worthy to be thy prey sith I and not he was the cause of this bloudie tempest O Cesterne of my innocent Ioseph take me into thy drie bottome sith I and not he gaue iust cause of offence to my enraged brethren But alas in what cloud hast thou hidden the light of our way Vpon what shore hast thou cast vp the Preacher of all truth or to what Ismaelite hast thou yeelded the purueiour of our life Oh vnhappy me why did I not before thinke of that which I now aske Why did I leaue him when I had him thus to lament him now that I haue lost him If I had watched with perseuerance either none would haue taken him or they should haue taken me with him But through too much precisenesse in keeping the Law I haue lost the Law-maker and by being too scrupulous in obseruing his ceremonies I am proued irreligious in losing him selfe sith I should rather haue remained with the truth than forsaken it to solemnize the figure The Sabboth could not haue bene prophaned in standing by his coarse by which the prophaned things are sanctified and whose touch doth not defile the cleane but cleanseth the most defiled But when it was time to stay I departed when it was too late to helpe I returned and now I repent my folly when it cannot be amended But let my heart dissolue into sighes mine eyes melt in teares and my desolate soule languish in dislikes yea let all that I am and haue endure the deserued punishment that if he were incensed with my fault he may be appeased with my penance and returne vpon the amendment that fled from the offence Thus when her timorous conscience had indited her of so great an omission and her tongue enforced the euidence with these bitter accusations Loue that was now the onely vmpire in all her causes condemned her eyes to a fresh showre of teares her breast to a new storme of sighes and her soule to be perpetuall prisoner to restlesse sorrowes But ô Mary thou deceiuest thy selfe in thy owne desires and it well appeareth that excesse of griefe hath bred in thee a defect of due prouidence And wouldest thou indeed haue thy wishes come to passe and thy words fulfilled Tell me then I pray thee if thy heart were dissolued where wouldest thou harbour thy Lord what wouldest thou offer him how wouldest thou loue him Thine eyes haue lost him thy hands cannot feele him thy feet cannot follow him and if it be at all in thee it is thy heart that hath him and wouldest thou now haue that dissolued from thence also to exile him And if thine eyes were melted thy soule in langour and thy senses decayed how wouldest thou see him if he did appeare how shouldest thou heare him if he did speake how couldest thou know him though he were there present Thou thinkest haply that he loued thee so well that if thy heart were spent for his loue he would either lend his own heart vnto thee or create a new heart in thee better than that which thy sorrow tooke from thee It may be thou imaginest that if thy soule would giue place his soule wanting now a bodie would enter into thine with supply of all thy senses and release of thy sorrowes O Mary thou diddest not marke what thy maister was wont to say when he told thee that the third day he should rise againe For if thou hadst heard him or at the least vnderstood him thou wouldest not thinke but that he now vsed both his heart and soule in the life of his owne body And therefore repaire to the Angels and enquire more of them lest the Lord be displeased that comming from him thou wilt not entertaine them But Mary whose deuotions were all fixed vpon a nobler Saint and that had so straightly bound her thoughts to his only affection that she rather desired to vnknow whom she knew already than to burthen her mind with the knowledge of new acquaintance could not make her will long since possessed with the highest loue stoope to the acceptance of meaner friendships And for this though she did not scornefully reiect yet did she with humilitie refuse the Angels company thinking it no discourtesie to take her selfe from them for to giue her selfe more wholly to her Lord to whom both she and they were wholly deuoted ought most loue and greatest duty Sorrow also being now the onely interpreter of all that sense deliuered to her vnderstanding made her conster their demand in a more doubtfull than true
meaning If saith she they came to ease my affliction they could not be ignorant of the cause and if they were not ignorant of it they would neuer aske it why then did they say Woman why weepest thou If their question did import a prohibition the necessitie of the occasion doth countermand their counsaile and fitter it were they should weepe with me than I in not weeping obey them If the Sunne were ashamed to shew his brightnesse when the father of lights was darkned with such disgrace if the heauens discolouring their beauties suted themselues to their makers fortune if the whole frame of nature were almost dissolued to see the author of nature so vnhaturally abused why may not Angels that best knew the indignitie of the case make vp a part in this lamentable consort And especially now that by the losse of his body the cause of weeping is increased and yet the number of mourners lessened sith the Apostles are fled all his friends afraid and poore I left alone to supply the teares of all creatures O who will giue water to my head and a fountaine of teares vnto mine eyes that I may weepe day and night and neuer ceasse weeping O my onely Lord thy griefe was the greatest that euer was in man and my griefe as great as euer happened to woman for my loue hath carued me no small portion of thine thy losse hath redoubled the torment of my owne and all creatures seeme to haue made ouer to me theirs leauing me as the vicegerent of all their sorrow Sorrow with me at the least ô thou Tombe and thaw into teares you hardest stones The time is now come that you are licensed to cry and bound to recompence the silence of your Lords Disciples of whom he himselfe sayd to the Pharises that if they held their peace the very stones should cry for them Now therefore sith feare hath locked vp their lips and sadnesse made them mute let the stones cry out against the murd erers of my Lord and bewray the robbers of his sacred body And I feare that were it well knowne who hath taken him away there is no stone so stony but should haue cause to lament It was doubtlesse the spite of some malicious Pharisee or bloudy Scribe that not contented with those torments that he suffered in life of which euery one to any other would haue bene a tyrannicall death hath now stolen away his dead body to practise vpon it some sauage cruelty and to glut their pitilesse eyes and brutish hearts with the vnnaturall vsage of his helplesse corps O yee rocks and stones if euer you must cry out now it is high time sith the light the life and the Lord of the world is thus darkned massacred and outragiously misused Doth not his tongue whose truth is infallible and whose word omnipotent commanding both winds and seas and neuer disobeyed of the most sensible creatures promise to arme the world and make the whole earth to fight against the senslesse persons in defence of the iust And who more iust than the Lord of iustice who more senslesse than his barbarous murtherers whose insatiable thirst of his innocent bloud could not be staunched with their cruell butchering him at his death vnlesse they proceeded further in this hellish impiety to his dead body Why then do not all creatures addresse themselues to reuenge so iust a quarrell vpon so senslesse wretches left of all reason forsaken of humanitie and bereaued of all feeling both of God and man O Mary why doest thou thus torment thy self with these tragicall surmises Doest thou thinke that the Angels would sit still if their maister were not well Did they serue him after his fasting and would they despise him after his deceasse Did they comfort him before he was apprehended and would not defend him when he was dead If in the garden he might haue had twelue Legions of them is his power so quite dead with his body that he could not now command them Was there an Angell found to helpe Daniel to his dinner to saue Toby from the fish yea and to defend Balaams poore beast from his maisters rage and is the Lord of Angels of so little reckoning that if his body stood in need neuer an Angell would defend it Thou seest two here present to honour his Tombe and how much more carefull would they be to do homage to his person Beleeue not Mary that they would smile if thou haddest such occasion to weepe They would not so gloriously shine in white if a blacke and mourning weede did better become them or were a fitter liuery for thy maister to giue or them to weare Yeeld not more to thy vncertaine feare and deceiued loue than to their assured knowledge and neuer erring charitie Can a materiall eye see more than an heauenly spirit or the glimmering of the twi-light giue better aime than the beams of their eternall Sunne Would they thinkest thou waite vpon the winding sheete while the coarse were abused or be here for thy comfort if their Lord did need their seruice No no he was neither any theeues booty nor Pharisees pray neither are the Angels so carelesse of him as thy suspition presumeth And if their presence and demeanour cannot alter thy conceit looke vpon the clothes and they will teach thee thine errour and cleare thee of thy doubt Would any thiefe thinkest thou haue bene so religious as to haue stolen the body and left the clothes yea would he haue bene so venturous as to haue stayed the vnshrowding of the coarse the well ordering of the sheets and folding vp the napkins Thou knowest that the Mirrhe maketh linnen cleaue as fast as pitch or glue and was a thiefe at so much leisure as to dissolue the Myrrhe and vncloath the dead what did the watch while the scales were broken the Tombe opened the body vnfolded all other things ordered as now thou seest And if all this cannot yet perswade thee beleeue at the least thy owne experience When thy maister was stripped at the crosse thou knowest that his onely garment being congealed to his goarie backe came not off without many parts of his skin doubtlesse would haue torne off many more if he had bene annointed with Myrrhe Looke then into the sheete whether there remaine any parcell of skin or any one haire of his head and sith there is none to be found beleeue some better issue of thy maisters absence than thy feare suggesteth A guiltie conscience doubteth want of time and therefore dispatcheth hastily It is in hazard to be discouered and therefore practiseth in darknesse and secresie It euer worketh in extreame feare and therefore hath no leisure to place things orderly But to vnwrap so mangled a body out of Mirrhed cloathes without tearing of any skinne or leauing on any Mirrhe is a thing either to man impossible or not possible to be done with such speed without light or helpe and with so good order Assure
say that a gift once giuen cannot be reuoked and therefore though it were before in his choise not to giue himselfe vnto thee yet the deed of gift being once made he cannot be taken from thee neither can the donor dispose of his gift without the possessors priuity And sith this is a rule in the law of nature thou maist imagine it a breach of equine and an impeachment of thy right to conuey himselfe away without thy consent But to this I will answer thee with thine owne ground For if he be thine by being giuen thee once thou art his by as many gifts as dayes and therefore he being absolute owner of thee is likewise full owner of whatsoeuer is thine and consequently because he is thine he is also his owne and so nothing lyable vnto thee for taking him selfe from thee Yea but he is my Lord sayest thou and in this respect bound to keepe me at the least bound not to kill me and sith killing is nothing but a seuâ—ring of life from the body he being the chiefe life both of my soule and bodie cannot possibly go from me but he must with a double death kill me And therefore he being my Lord and bound to protect his seruant it is against all lawes that I should be thus forsaken But ô cruell tongue why pleadest thou thus against him whose case I feare me is so pitifull that it might rather moue all tongues to pleade for him being peraduenture in their hands whose vumercifull hearts make themselues merry with his miserie and build the triumphs of their impious victorie vpon the dolefull ruines of his disgraced glorie And now ô griefe because I know not where he is I cannot imagine how to helpe for they haue taken him away and I know not where they haue put him Alas Mary why doest thou consume thy felfe with these cares His father knoweth and he will helpe him The Angels know and they will guard him His owne soule knoweth and that will assist him And what neede then is there that thou silly woman shouldest know it that canst no way profit him But I feele in what vaine thy pulse beateth and by thy desire I discouer thy disease Though both heauen and earth did know it and the whole world had notice of it yet except thou also wert made priuie vnro it thy woes would be as great and thy teares as many That others see the Sunne doth not lighten thy darknesse neither can others eating satisfie thy hunger The more there be that know of him the greater is thy sorrow that among so many thou art not thought worthy to be one And the more there be that may helpe him the move it grieueth thee that thy poore helpe is not accepted among them Though thy knowiedge needeth not thy loue doth desire it and though it auaile not thy desire wil seeke it If all know it thou wouldest know it with all if no other thou wouldest know it alone and from whom soeuer it be concealed it must be no secret to thee Though the knowledge would discomfort thee yet know it thou wilt yea though it would kill thee thou couldest not forbeare it Thy Lord to thy loue is like drinke to the thirstie which if they cannot haue they die for drouth being long without it they pine away with longing And as men in extremitie of thirst are still dreaming of fountaines brookes and springs being neuer able to haue other thought or to vtter other word but of drinke and moisture so louers in the vehemencie of their passion can neither thinke nor speake but of that they loue and if that be once missing euery part is both an eye to watch and an eare to listen what hope or newes may be had If it be good they die till they heare it though bad yet they cannot liue without it Of the good they hope that it is the very best and of the euill they feare it to be the worst and yet though neuer so good they pine till it be told and be it neuer so euill they are importunate to know it And when they once know it they can neither beare the ioy nor brooke the sorrow but as well the one as the other is enough to kill them And this ô Mary I guesse to be the cause why the Angels would not tell thee thy Lords estate For if it had beene to thy liking thou wouldest haue died for ioy if otherwise thou wouldest haue sunke downe for sorrow And therefore they leaue this newes for him to deliuer whose word if it giue thee a wound is also a salue to cure it though neuer so deadly But alas afflicted soule why doth it so deepely grieue thee that thou knowest not where he is Thou canst not better him if he be well thou canst as little succour him if he be ill and sith thou fearest that he is rather ill than well why shouldest thou know it so to end thy hopes in mishap and thy great feares in farre greater sorrowes Alas to aske thee why is in a manner to aske one halfe starued why he is hungrie For as thy Lord is the food of thy thoughts the reliefe of thy wishes the onely repast of all thy desires so is thy loue a continuall hunger and his absence vnto thee an extreame famine And therefore no maruell though thou art so greedy to heare yea to deuoure any be it neuer so bitter notice of him sith thy hunger is most violent and nothing but he able to content it And albeit the hearing of his harmes should worke the same in thy mind that vnwholsome meat worketh in a sick stomacke yet if it once concerne him that thou louest thy hungrie loue could not temper it selfe from it though after with many wringing gripes it did a long and vnpleasant penance But why doth thy sorrow quest so much vpon the place where he is were it not enough for thee to know who had him but that thou must also know in what place he is bestowed A worse place than a graue no man will offer and many farre better many titles will allow and therefore thou maist boldly thinke that wheresoeuer he be he is in a place fitter for him than where he was Thy sister Martha confessed him to be the Sonne of God and with her confession agreed thy beliefe And what place more conuenient for the sonne than to be with his Father the businesse for which he hath bene so long from him being now fully finished If he be the Messias as thou diddest once beleeue it was said of him That he should ascend on high and leade our captiuitie captiue And what is this height but heauen what our captiuitie but death Death therefore is become his captiue and it is like that with the spoyles thereof he is ascended in triumph to eternall life But if thou canst not lift thy minde to so fauourable a beliefe yet maiest thou very well suppose that he is
busie about him and notwithstanding all this hast thou now forgotten him His countenance auoucheth it his voice assureth it his wounds witnesse it thine owne eyes behold it and doest thou not yet beleeue that this is Iesus Are thy sharpe seeing eyes become so weake sighted that they are dazeled with the Sunne and blinded with the light But there is such a shower of teares betweene thee and him and thine eyes are so dimmed with weeping for him that though thou seest the shape of a man yet thou canst not discerne him Thy eares also are still so possessed with the dolefull Eccho of his last speeches which want of breath made him vtter in a dying voice that the force and loudnesse of his liuing words maketh thee imagine it the voyce of a stranger and therefore as he seemeth vnto thee so like a stranger he asketh this question of thee O woman why weepest thou whom seekest thou O desire of the heart and onely ioy of her soule why demandest thou why she weepeth or for whom she seeketh But a while since she saw thee her onely hope hanging on a tree with thy head full of thornes thy eyes full of teares thy eares full of blasphemies thy mouth full of gall thy whole person mangled and disfigured and doest thou aske her why she weepeth Scarce three dayes passed she beheld thy armes and legges racked with violent puls thy hands and feete boared with nayles thy side wounded with a speare thy whole bodie torne with stripes and goared in blood and doest thou her onely griefe aske her why she weepeth She beheld thee vpon the Crosse with many teares and most lamentable cryes yeelding vp her ghost that is thy owne ghost and alas asketh thou why she weepeth And now to make vp her miserie hauing but one hope aliue which was that for a small reliefe of her other afflictions she might haue annointed thy body that hope is also dead since thy body is remoued and she now standeth hopelesse of all helpe and demandest thou why she weepeth and for whom she seeketh Full well thou knowest that thee onely she desireth thee onely she loueth all things beside thee she contâ—mneth and canst thou finde in thy heart to aske her whom she seeketh To what end ô sweet Lord doest thou thus suspend her longings prolong her desires and martyr her with these tedious delayes Thou onely art the fortresse of her faint faith the anker of her wauering hope the very center of her vehement loue to thee she trusteth vpon thee she relyeth and of her selfe she wholly despaireth She is so earnest in seeking thee that she can neither seeke nor thinke any other thing and all her wits are so busied in musing vpon thee that they draw all attention from her senses wherewith they should discerne thee Being therefore so attentiue to that she thinketh what maruell though she marke not whom she seeth and sith thou hast so perfect notice of her thought and she so little power to discouer thee by sense why demandest thou for whom she seeketh or why she weepeth Doest thou looke that she should answere for thee I seeke or for thee I weepe vnlesse thou wilt vnbend her thoughts that her eyes may fully see thee or while thou wilt be concealed doest thou expect that she should be able to know thee But ô Mary not without cause doth he aske thee this question Thou wouldest haue him aliue and yet thou weepest because thou doest not find him dead Thou art some that he is not here and for this very cause thou shouldest rather be glad For if he were dead I it is most likely he should be here but not being here it is a signe that he is aliue He reioyceth to be out of his graue and thou weepest because he is not in it He will not lie any where and thou sorrowest for not knowing where he lyeth Alas why be wailest thou his glory and iniurest the reuiuing of his body as the robbery of his coarse He being aliue for what dead man mournest thou and he being present whose absence doest thou lament But she taking him to be a Gardener said vnto him O Lord if thou hast carried him from hence tell me where thou hast layd him and I will take him away O wonderfull effects of Maries loue if loue be a languor how liueth she by it If loue be her life how dyeth she in it If it bereaued her of sense how did she see the Angels If it quickened her of sense why knew she not Iesus Doest thou seeke for one whom when thou hast found thou knowest not or if thou dost know him when thou findest him why doest thou seek when thou hast him Behold Iesus is come and the partie whom thou seekest is he that talketh with thee ô Mary call vp thy wits and open thine eyes Hath thy Lord liued so long laboured so much died with such paine and shed such showers of bloud to come to no higher preferment than to be a Gardener And hast thou bestowed such cost so much sorrow and so many teares for no better man than a silly Gardener Alas is the sorry Garden the best inheritance that thy loue can affoord him or a Gardeners office the highest dignitie that thou wilt allow him It had bene better he had liued to haue bene Lord of thy Castle than with his death so dearely to haue bought so small a purchase But thy mistaking hath in it a further mysterie Thou thinkest not amisse though thy sight be deceiued For as our first Father in the state of grace and innocencie was placed in the Garden of pleasure and the first office allotted him was to be a Gardener so the first man that euer was in glorie appeareth first in a Garden and presenteth himselfe in a Gardeners likenesse that the beginnings of glorie might resemble the entrance of innocencie and grace And as the Gardener was the fall of mankinde the parent of sinne and authour of death so is this Gardener the raiser of our ruines the ransome of our offences and the restorer of life In a Garden Adam was deceiued and taken captiue by the deuill In a Garden Christ was betrayed and taken prisoner by the Iewes In a Garden Adam was condemned to earne his bread with the sweat of his browes And after a free gift of the bread of Angels in the last Supper in a Garden Chrid did earne it vs with a bloudy sweate of his whole body By disobedient eating the fruite of a tree our right to that Garden was by Adam forfeited and by the obedient death of Christ vpon a tree a farre better right is now recouered When Adam had sinned in the Garden of pleasure he was there apparelled in dead beasts skinnes that his garment might betoken his graue and his liuery of death agree with his condemnation to die And now to defray the debt of that sinne in this Garden Christ lay clâ—d in the dead mans shrowd
and buried in his Tombe that as our harmes began so they might end and such places and meanes as were the premises to our miserie might be also the conclusions of our misfortune For this did Christ in the Canticles inuite vs to an heauenly banquet after he was come into this Garden and had reaped his myrrhe and his spice to forewarne vs of the ioy that after this haruest should presently ensue namely when hauing sowed in this Garden a body the mortalitie whereof was signified by those spices he now reaped the same neither capable of death nor subiect to corruption For this also was Mary permitted to mistake that we might be informed of the mysterie and see how aptly the course of our redemption did answer the processe of our condemnation But though he be the Gardener that hath planted the tree of grace and restored vs to the vse and eating of the fruites of life Though it be he that soweth his giftes in our soules quickening in vs the seeds of vertue and rooting out of vs the weedes of sinne yet is he neuerthelesse the same Iesus he was and the borrowed presence of a meane laborer neither altereth his person nor diminisheth his right to his diuine titles Why then canst thou not as well see what in truth he is as what in shew he seemeth but because thou seest more than thou diddest beleeue and findest more thrn thy faith serueth thee to seek and for this though thy loue was worthy to see him yet thy faith was vnworthy to know him Thou diddest seeke for him as dead and therefore doest not know him seeing him aliue and because thou beleeuest not of him as he is thou doest onely see him as he seemeth to be I cannot say thou art faultlesse sith thou art so lame in thy beleefe but thy fault deserueth fauour because thy charitie is so great and therefore ô mercifull Iesu giue me leaue to excuse whom thou art minded to forgiue She thought to haue found thee as she left thee and she sought thee as she did last see thee being so ouercome with sorow for thy death that she had neither roome nor respite in her minde for any hope of thy life and being so deepely interred in the griefe of thy buriall that she could not raise her thoughts to any conceit of thy resurrection For in the graue where Ioseph buried thy body Mary together with it entombed her soule and so straightly combined it with thy coarse that she could with more ease sunder her soule from her owne body that liueth by it than from thy dead body with which her loue did burie it for it is more thine and in thee than her owne or in her selfe and therefore in seeking thy body she seeketh her owne soule as with the losse of the one she also lost the other What maruell then though sense faile when the soule is lost sith the lanterne must needes be darke when the light is out Restore vnto her therfore her soule that lieth imprisoned in thy body and she will soone both recouer her sense and discouer her errour For alas it is no errour that proceedeth of any will to erre and it riseth as much of vehemencie or affection as of default in faith Regard not the errour of a woman but the loue of a Disciple which supplyeth in it selfe what in faith it wanteth O Lord saith she If thou hast carried him hence tell me where thou hast laide him and I will take him away O how learned is her ignorance and how skilfull her errour She charged not the Angels with thy remouing nor seemed to mistrust them for carrying thee away as though that her loue had taught her that their helpe was needlesse where the thing remoued was remouer of it selfe She did not request them to enforme her where thou wert layd as if she had reserued that question for thy selfe to answer But now he iudgeth thee so likely to be the authour of her losse that halfe supposing thee guilty she sueth a recouerie and desireth thee to tell her where the body is as almost fully perswaded that thou art as priuie to the place as well acquainted with the action So that if she be not altogether right she is not very much wrong and she erreth with such ayme that she very little misseth the truth Tell her therefore ô Lord what thou hast done with thy selfe sith it is fittest for thy owne speech to vtter that which was onely possible for thy owne power to performe But ô Mary sithens thou art so desirous to know where thy Iesus is why doest thou not name him when thou askest for him Thou saidest to the Angels that they had taken away thy Lord and now the second time thou askest for him Are thy thoughts so visible as at thy onely presence to be seene or so generall that they possesse all when they are once in thee When thou speakest of him what him doest thou meane or how can a stranger vnderstand thee when thou talkest of thy Lord Hath the world no other Lords but thine or is the demanding by no other name but him a sufficient notice for whom thou demandest But such is the nature of thy loue thou iudgest that no other should be entitled a Lord sith the whole world is too little for thy Lords possession and that those few creatures that are cannot chuse but know him sith all the creatures of the world are too few to serue him And as his worthinesse can appay all loues and his onely loue content all hearts so thou deemest him to be so well worthy to be owner of all thoughts that no thought in thy conceit can be well bestowed vpon any other Yet thy speeches seeme more sudden than sound and more peremptory than well pondered Why doest thou say so resolutely without any further circumstance that if this Gardener haue taken him thou wilt take him from him If he had him by right in taking him away thou shouldst do him wrong If thou supposest he wrongfully tooke him thou layest theft to his charge and howsoeuer it be thou either condemnest thy selfe for an vsurper or him for a thiefe And is this an effect of thy zealous loue first to abase him from a God to a Gardener and now to degrade him from a Gardener to a thiefe Thou shouldest also haue considered whether he tooke him vpon loue or malice If it were for loue thou maiest assure thy selfe that he will be as wary to keepe as he was venturous to get him and therefore thy pollicie was weake in saying thou wouldest take him away before thou knewest where he was sith none is so simple to bewray their treasure to a knowne thiefe If he tooke him of malice thy offer to recouer him is an open defiance sith malice is as obstinate in defending as violent in offering wrong and he that would be cruell against thy maisters dead body is likely to be more furious against his liuing
dying heart with taking in the first gaspes of his liuing breath or to haue heard the first words of his pleasing voice Finally if thou haddest thought to haue seene his iniuries turned to honours the markes of his miserie to ornaments of glorie and the depth of thy heauinesse to such an height of felicity whatsoeuer thou haddest done to obtaine him had bene but a mite for a million and too slender a price for so soueraigne a peniworth But hauing no such hopes to vphold thee and so many motiues to plonge thee in despaire how could thy loue be so mighty as neither to feele a womans feare of so deformed a coarse nor to thinke the weight of the burthen too heauy for thy feeble armes nor to be amated with a world of dangers that this attempt did carry with it But affection cannot feare whom it affecteth loue feeleth no load of him it loueth neither can true frendship be frighted from rescuing so affied a friend What meanest thou then ô comfort of her life to leaue so constant a wel-willer so long vncomforted and to punish her so much that so well deserueth pardon Dally no longer with so knowne a loue which so many trials auouch most true And sith she is nothing but what it pleaseth thee let her tast the benefit of being onely thine She did not follow the tide of thy better fortune to shift saile when the streame did alter course She began not to loue thee in thy life to leaue thee after death Neither was she such a guest at thy table that meant to be a stranger in thy necessitie She left thee not in thy lowest ebbe she reuolted not from thy last extremitie In thy life she serued thee with her goods in thy death she departed not from the Crosse after death she came to dwell with thee at thy graue Why then doest thou not say with Naomi Blessed be she of our Lord because what courtesie she afforded to the quicke she hath also continued towards the dead A thing so much the more to be esteemed in that it is most rare Do not sweete Lord any longer delay her Behold she hath attended thee these three dayes and she hath not what to eate nor wherewith to foster her famished soule vnlesse thou by discouering thy selfe doest minister vnto her the bread of thy body and feede her with the food that hath in it all taste of sweetnesse If therefore thou wilt not haue her to faint in the way refresh her with that which her hunger requireth For surely she cannot long enioy the life of her soule But feare not Mary for thy teares will obtaine They are to o mighty oratours to let any suit fall and though they pleaded at the most rigorous barre yet haue they so perswading a silence so conquering a complaint that by yeelding they ouercome and by intreating they command They tie the tongues of all accusers and soften the rigour of the seuerest Iudge Yea they winne the inuincible and binde the omnipotent When they seeme most pitifull they haue great power and being most forsaken they are more victorious Repentant eyes are the Cellers of Angels and penitent teares their sweetest wines which the sauour of life perfumeth the taste of grace sweeteneth and the purest colours of returning innocencie highly beautifieth This deaw of deuotion neuer faileth but the Sunne of iustice draweth it vp and vpon what face soeuer it droppeth it maketh it amiable in Gods eye For this water hath thy heart bene long a limbecke sometimes distilling it out of the weedes of thy owne offences with the fire of true contrition Sometimes out of the flowers of spirituall comforts with the flames of contemplation and now out of the bitter hearbes of thy maisters miseries with the heat of a tender compassion This water hath better graced thy lookes than thy former alluring glances It hath setled worthier beauties in thy face than all thy artificiall paintings Yea this onely water hath quenched Gods anger qualified his iustice recouered his mercy merited his loue purchased his pardon and brought forth the spring of all thy fauours Thy teares were the procters for thy brothers life the inuiters of those Angels for thy comfort and the suters that shall be rewarded with the first sight of thy reuiued Sauiour Rewarded they shall be but not refrained altered in their cause but their course continued Heauen would weepe at the losse of so precious a water and earth lament the absence of so fruitfull showers No no the Angels must still bath themselues in the pure streames of thine eyes and thy face shall still be set with this liquid pearle that as out of thy teares were stroken the first sparkes of thy Lords loue so thy teares may be the oyle to nourish and feede his fame Till death dam vp the springs they shall neuer ceasse running and then shall thy soule be ferried in them to the harbour of life that as by them it was first passed from sinne to grace so in them it may be wasted from grace to glorie In the meane time reare vp thy fallen hopes and gather confidence both of thy speedy comfort and thy Lords well being Iesus saith vnto her Marie She turning saith vnto him Rabboni O louing maister thou diddest onely deferre her consolation to increase it that the delight of thy presence might be so much the more welcome in that through thy long absence it was with so little hope so much desired Thou wert content she should lay out for thee so many sighes teares and plaints and diddest purposely adiourne the date of her payment to requite the length of these delayes with a larger loane of ioy It may be she knew not her former happinesse till she was weaned from it nor had a right estimate in valuing the treasures with which thy presence did inrich her vntill her extreame pouertie taught her their vnestimable rate But now thou shewest by a sweete experience that though she payde thee with the dearest water of her eyes with her best breath and tenderest loue yet small was the price that she bestowed in respect of the worth she receiued She sought thee dead and imprisoned in a stonie gayle and now she findeth thee both aliue and at full libertie She sought thee shrined in a shrowd more like a leaper than thy selfe left as the modell of the vttermost miserie and the onely patterne of the bitterest vnhappinesse and now she findeth thee inuested in the robes of glorie the president of the highest and both the owner and giuer of all felicitie And as all this while she hath sought without finding wept without comfort and called without answers so now thou diddest satisfie her seeking with thy comming her teares with thy triumph and all her cryes with this one word Mary For when she heard thee call her in thy wonted manner and with thy vsuall voice her onely name issuing frō thy mouth wrought so strange an alteration in her
the first is counted vaine So is' t praise-worthy to conceit the latter The grauest wits that most graue works expect The qualitie not quantitie respect The smallest sparke will cast a burning heate Base cottages may harbour things of worth Then though this volume be nor gay nor great Which vnder your Protection I set forth Do not with coy disdainefull ouersight Deny to reade this well meant orphans mite And since his father in his infancie Prouided patrons to protect his heire But now by Deaths none-sparing crueltie Is turn'd an orphan to the open ayre I his vnworthy foster-sire haue darde To make you Patronizer of this warde You glorying issues of that glorious dame Whose life is made the subiect of deaths will To you succeeding hopes of mothers fame I dedicate this fruite of South wels quill He for your vnkles comfort first it writ I for your consolation priat and send you it Then daine in kindnesse to accept the worke Which be in kâ—ndnesse writ I send to you The which till now clouded obscure did lurke But now opposed to ech Readers view May yeeld commodious fruite to euerie wight That feeles his conscience prickt by Parcaes spight But if in ought I haue presumptuous bene My pardon-crauing pen implores your fauour If any fault in print be past vnseene To let it passe the Printer is the crauer So shall he thanke you and I by duty bound Pray that in you may all good gifts abound S. W. The Authour to the Reader IF the Athenians erected an altar to an vnknowne god supposing he would be pleased with their deuotion though they were ignorant of his name better may I presume that my labour may be gratefull being deuoted to such men whose names I know and whose fame I haue heard though vnacquainted with their persons I intended this comfort to him whom a lamenting sort hath left most comfortlesse by him to his friends who haue equall portions in this sorrow But I think the Philosophers rule will be heere verified that it shall be last in execution which was first designed and he shall last enioy the effect which was first owner of the cause Thus let Chance be our rule since Choice may not and into which of your hands it shall fortune much honour and happinesse may it carry with it and leaue in their hearts as much ioy as it found sorrow Where I borrow the person of an Historie as well touching the dead as the yet suruiuing I build vpon report of of such Authours whose hoarie heades challenge credit and whose eyes and eares were witnesses of their words To craue pardon for my paine were to slander a friendly office and to wrong their curtesies whom Nobilitie neuer taught to answer affection with anger or to wage dutie with dislike and therefore I humbly present vnto them with as many good wishes as good will can measure from the best meaning mind that hath a willingnesse rather to offoord then to offer due seruice were not the meane as worthlesse as the mind is willing R. S. The Triumphs ouer Death OR A Consolatorie Epistle for troubled minds in the affects of dying friends IF it be a blessing of the vertuous to mourn it is the reward of this to be comforted and he that pronounced the one promised the other I doubt not but that Spirit whose nature is Loue and whose name Comforter as he knowes the cause of our griefe so hath he salued it with supplies of grace powring into your wound no lesse oyle of mercy then wine of iustice yet sith courtesie oweth compassion as a dutie to the afflicted and nature hath ingrafted a desire to finde it I thought good to shew you by proofe that you carry not your cares alone though the loade that lieth on others can little lighten your burthen her deceasse can not but sit nearer your heart whom you had taken so deepe into a most tender affection That which dieth to our loue being alwayes aliue to our sorrow you would haue bene kind to a lesse louing sister yet finding in her so many worths to be loued your loue wrought more earnestly vpon so sweete a subiect which now being taken from you I presume your griefe is no lesse then your loue was the one of these being euer the measure of the other the Scripture moueth vs to bring forth our teares on the dead a thing not offending grace and a right to reason For to be without remorse in the death of friends is neither incident nor conuenient to the nature of man hauing too much affinitie to a sauage temper and ouerthrowing the ground of all piety which is a mutuall sympathie in each of others miseries but as not to feele sorrow in sorrowfull chances is to want sense so not to beare it with moderation is to want vnderstanding the one brutish the other effeminate and he hath cast his account best that hath brought his summe to the meane It is no lesse fault to exceede in sorrow then to passe the limits of competent mirth sith excesse in either is a disorder in passion though that sorrow of curtesie be lesse blamed of men because if it be a fault it is also a punishment at once causing and tasting torments It is no good signe in the sicke to be senslesse in his paines as bad it is to be vnusually sensitiue being both either herbingers or attendants of death Let sadnes sith it is a due to the dead testifie a feeling of pitty not any pang of passion and bewray rather a tender then a deiected minde Mourne as that your friends may finde you a liuing brother all men a discreet mourner making sorrow a signell not a superiour of reason some are so obstinate in their owne will that euen time the naturall remedy of the most violent agonies cannot by any delayes asswage their griefe they entertaine their sorrow with solitary muses and feede their sighes and teares they pine their bodies and draw all pensiue consideration to their minds nursing their heauinesse with a melancholy humour as though they had vowed themselues to sadnesse vnwilling it should end till it had ended them wherein their folly sometimes findeth a ready effect that being true which Salomon obserued Pro 1.25 that as a moath the garment and a worme the wood so doth sadnesse perswade the heart But this impotent softnes fitteth not sober mindes We must not make a liues profession of a seuen nights duety nor vnder colour of kindnesse to other be vnnaturall to our selues if some in their passion ioyned their thoughts into such labyrinths that neither wit knoweth nor will careth how long or how farre they wander in them it discouereth their weakenesse but discerneth our meditation It is for the most the fault not of all but of the silliest women who next to the funerall of their friends deeme it a second widowhood to force their teares and make it their happinesse to seeme most vnhappy as though they
calme minde in more hope then feare she expected her owne passage she commended both her duty and good will to all her friends and cleared her heart from all grudge towards her enemies wishing true happinesse to them both as best became so soft and gentle a mind in which anger neuer stayed but as an vnwelcome stranger She made open profession that she did die true to her religion true to her husband true to God and the world she enioyed her iudgement as long as she breathed her body earnestly offering her last deuotions supplying in thought what faintnesse suffered not her tongue to vtter in the end when her glasse was runne out and death began to challenge his interest some labouring with too late remedies to hinder the deliuery of her sweet soule she desired them eftsoones to let her go to God and her hopes calling her to eternall kingdomes as one rather fallen asleepe then dyieg she most happily tooke her leaue of all mortall miseries Such was the life such was the death of your dearest sister both so full of true comfort that this surely of her vertues may be a sufficient lenitiue to your bitterest griefes For you are not I hope in the number of those that reckon it a part of their paine to heare of their best remedies thinking the rehearsall of your dead friends praises an vpbraiding of their losse but sith the obliuion of her vertuues were iniurious to her let not the mention of her person be offensiue vnto you and be not you grieued with her death with which she is best pleased So blessed a death is rather to be wished of vs then pitied in her whose soule triumpheth with God whose vertue still breatheth in the mouths of infinite praises and liueth in the memories of all to whom either experience made her knowne or fame was not enuious to conceale her deserts She was a iewell that both God and you desired to enioy he to her assured benefit without selfe interest you for allowable respects yet employing her restraint among certaine hazards and most vncertaine hopes Be then vmpire in your owne cause whether your wishes or Gods will importeth more loue the one the adornement of her exile the other her returne into a most blessed countrey And sith it pleased God in this loue to be your riuall let your discretion decide the doubt whom in due should carry the suite the prerogatiue being but a right to the one for nature and grace being the motiues of both your loues she had the best litle in them that was authour of them and she if worthy to be beloued of either as she was of both could not but preferre him to the dearest portion of her deepest affection let him with good leaue gather the grape of his owne vine and plucke the fruite of his owne planting and thinke so curious workes euer safest in the artificers hand who is likeliest to loue them and best able to preserue them She did therefore her duty in dying willingly and if you will do yours you must be willing with her death sith to repine at her liking is discurtesie at Gods an impiety both vnfitting for your approued vertue she being in place where no griefe can annoy her she hath little neede or lesse ioy of your sorrow neither can she allow in her friends that she would loathe in her selfe loue neuer affecting likenesse if she had bene euill she had not deserued our teares being good she cannot desire them nothing being lesse to the likenesse of goodnesse than to see it selfe any cause of vniust disquiet or trouble to the innocent Would Saul haue thought it friendship to haue wept for his fortune in hauing found a kingdome 1. Sam. 17. by seeking of cattell or Dauid account it a curtesie to haue sorrowed at his successe that from following sheepe came to foyle a giant and to receiue in fine a royall crowne for his victorie why then should her lot be lamented whom higher fauour hath raised from the dust to sit with princes of Gods people Psal 112 if security had bene giuen that a longer life should still haue bene guided by vertue and followed with good fortune you might pretend some cause to complaine of her deceasse But if different effects should haue crossed your hopes processe of time being the parent of strange alterations then had death bene friendlier then your selfe and sith it hung in suspence which of the two would haue happened let vs allow God so much discretion as to thinke him the fittest arbitrator in decision of the doubt her foundations of happinesse were in the holy hills Psal 86. and God sawe it fittest for her building to be but low in the vale of teares better it was it should be soone taken downe then by rising too high to haue oppressed her soule with the ruines Thinke it no iniurie that she is now taken from you but a fauour that she was lent you so long and shew no vnwillingnesse to restore God his owne sith hitherto you haue payed no vsurie for it Consider not how much longer you might haue enioyed her but how much sooner you might haue lost her and sith she was held vpon curtesie not by any couenant take our soueraigne right for a sufficient reason of her death our life is but lent a good to make thereof during the loane our best commodity It is due debt to a more certaine owner than our selues and therefore so long as we haue it we receiue a benefite when we are depriued of it we haue no wrong we are tennants at will of this clayie farme not for tearme of yeares when we are warned out we must be ready to remoue hauing no other title but the owners pleasure it is but an Inne not an home we came but to baite not to dwell and the condition of our entrance was in fine to depart If this departure be grieuous it is also common this to day to me to morrow to thee and the case equally afflicting all leaues none any cause to complaine of iniurious vsage Natures debt is sooner exacted of some than of other yet is there no fault in the creditor that exacteth but his owne but in the greedinesse of our eager hopes either repining that their wishes faile or willingly forgetting their mortalitie whom they are vnwilling by experience to see mortall yet the generall tide wafteth all passengers to the same shore some sooner some later but all at the last and we must settle our minds to take our course as it commeth neuer fearing a thing so necessary yet euer expecting a thing so vncertaine It seemeth that God purposely concealed the time of our death leauing vs resolued betweene feare and hope of longer continuance Cut off vnripe cares lest with the notice and pensiuenesse of our diuorce from the world we should lose the comfort of needfull contentments and before our dying day languish away with expectation of death Some
are taken in their first steppe into this life receiuing in one their welcome and farewell as though they had bene borne onely to be buried and to take their pasport in this hourely middle of their course the good to preuent change the bad to shorten their impietie Some liue till they be weary of life to giue proofe of their good hap that had a kindlier passage yet though the date be diuers the debt is all one equally to be answered of all as their time expireth Psal 88. for who is the man shall liue and not see death sith we all dye and like water slide vpon the earth In Paradice we receiued the sentence of Death Gen. 5. and here as prisoners we are kept in ward tarying but our times till the Gaoler call vs to our execution Whom hath any vertue eternized or desert commended to posterity that hath not mourned in life and bene mourned after death no assurance of ioy being sealed without some teares Euen the blessed Virgin the mother of God was thrown downe as deepe in temporall miseries as she was aduanced high in spirituall honours none amongst all mortall creatures finding in life more proofe then she of her mortalitie For hauing the noblest sonne that euer woman was mother of not onely aboue the condition of men but aboue the glorie of Angels being her sonne onely without temporall Father and thereby the loue of both parents doubled in her breast being her onely Sonne without other issue and so her loue of all children finished in him Yea he being God and she the nearest creature to Gods perfections yet no prerogatiue either quitted her from mourning or him from dying and though they surmounted the highest Angels in all other preheminences yet were they equall with the meanest men in the sentence of Death And howbeit the blessed Virgine being the patterne of Christian mourners so tempered her anguish that there was neither any thing vndone that might be exacted of a mother nor any thing done that might be misliked in so perfect a matron yet by this we may ghesse with what curtesies death is likely to friend vs that durst cause so bloudy funerals in so heauenly a stocke not exempting him from the law of dying that was the authour of life and soone after to honour his triumphs with ruines and spoile of death Seeing therefore that Death spareth none let vs spare our teares for better vses being but an idoll sacrifice to this deafe and implacable executioner And for this not long to be continued where they can neuer profit Nature did promise vs a weeping life exacting teares for custome at our first entrance and for suting our whole course in this dolefull beginning Therefore they must be vsed with measure that must be vsed so often and so many causes of weeping lying yet in the debt sith we cannot end our teares let vs at the least reserue them if sorrow cannot be shunned let it be taken in time of neede sith otherwise being both troublesome and fruitlesse it is a double miserie or an open folly We moisten not the ground with precious waters they were stilled to nobler ends either by their fruits to delight our senses or by their operation to preserue our healths Our teares are water of too high a price to be prodigally powred in the dust of any graues If they be teares of loue they perfume our prayers making them odour of sweetnesse fit to be offered on the Altar before the throne of God if teares of contrition they are water of life to the dying and corrupting soules Apoc. 8. they may purchase fauour and repeale the sentence till it be executed 3 King 26. as the example of Ezechias doth testifie but when the punishment is past and the verdict performed in effect their pleading is in vaine 2 Kin 8.11 as Dauid taught vs when his child was dead saying that he was likelier to go to it than it by his weeping to returne to him Learne therefore to giue sorrow no long dominion ouer you Wherfore the wise should rather marke than expect an end Meet it not when it commeth do not inuite it when it is absent when you feele it do not force it sith the bruite creatures which Nature seldome erring in her course guideth in the meane haue but a short though vehement sense of their losses You should bury the sharpnesse of your griefe with the course and rest contented with a kind yet a milde compassion neither lesse than decent for you nor more than agreeable to your nature iudgement Your much heauinesse would renew a multitude of griefes and your eyes would be springs to many streames adding to the memory of the dead a new occasion of plaint by your owne discomfort The motion of your heart measureth the beating of many pulses which in any distemper of your quiet with the like stroke will soone bewray themselues sicke of your disease your fortune though hard yet is it notorious and though moued in mishap and set in an vnworthy lanterne yet your owne light shineth farre and maketh you markeable euery one will bend an attentiue eye vpon you obseruing how you ward this blow of temptation and whether your patience be a shield of proofe or easily entred with these violent strokes It is commonly expected that so high thoughts which haue already climed ouer the hardest dangers should not now stoupe to any vulgar or female complaints Great personages whose estate draweth vpon them many eyes as they cannot but be themselues so may not they vse the libertie of meaner estates the lawes of Nobilitie not allowing them to direct their deeds by their desires but to limit their desires to that which is decent Nobility is an ayme for lower degrees to leuell at markes of higher perfection and like stately windowes in the Northeast roomes of politicke and ciuill buildings to let in such light and lie open to such prospects as may affoord their inferiours both to finde meanes and motions to Heroicall vertues If you should determine to dwell euer in sorrow it were a wrong to your wisedome and countermanded by your qualitie If euer you mind to surceasse it no time fitter than the present sith the same reasons that hereafter might moue you are now as much in force Yeld to Wisedome that which you must yeeld to Time be beholding to your selfe not to Time for the victory make it a voluntary worke of discretion that will otherwise be a necessary worke of delay We thinke it not enough to haue our owne measure brim full with euill vnlesse we make it runne ouer with others miseries taking their misfortunes as our punishments and executing forreine penalties vpon our selues Yea disquiet mindes being euer bellowes to their owne flames mistake oft times others good for ill their follie making it a true scourge to them howsoeuer it seemed t was to others a benefit Iacob out of Iosephs absence sucked such surmises as he
made his heart a prey to his agonies whereas that that buried him in his owne melancholies raised Ioseph to his highest happinesse If Mary Magdalen said and supposed she could haue suncke no deeper in griefe than she had already plunged her selfe and yet that which she imagined the vttermost of euils proued in conclusion the very blisse of her wishes the like may be your errour if you cumber your minde with thinking vpon her death which could neuer be discharged from cares till death set his hand to her acquittance nor receiue the charter of an eternall being till her soule were presented at the sealing I loath to rubbe the scarre of a deeper wound for feare of renewing a dead discomfort yet if you will fauour your owne remedies the maisterie ouer that griefe that springs from the roote may learne you to qualifie this that buddeth from the branch Let not her losses moue you that are acquainted with greater of your owne and taught by experience to know how vncertaine then change is for whō vnconstant fortune throweth the dice. If she want the wonted titles her part is now ended and they were due but vpon the stage her losse therein is but a wracke of wounds in which she is but euen with the height of Princes surpassing both her selfe in them and the new honours of heauenly stile If she haue left her children it was her wish they should repay her absence with vsury yet had she sent her first fruits before her as pledges of her owne comming And now may we say that the Sparrow hath found an home and the Turtle doue a neast where she may lay her yonglings enioying some and expecting the rest If she be taken from her friends she is also deliuered from her enemies in hope hereafter to enioy the first out of feare of euer being troubled with the latter If she be cut off in her youth no age is vnripe for a good death and hauing ended her taske though neuer so short yet she hath liued out her full time Old age is venerable not long to be measured by increase of vertues not by number of yeares for grauity cōsisteth in wisedom Sap. 4. and an vnspotted life is the ripenesse of the perfectest age If she were in possibilitie of preferment she could hardly haue mounted higher than from whence she was throwne hauing bene brused with the first she had little will to clime for a second fall We might hitherto truly haue said this is that Naomi Ruth 1. she being to her end enriched with many outward and more inward graces But whether hereafter shee would haue bid vs not to call her Naomi that is faire but Mara that signifieth bitter it is vncertaine sith she might haue fallen into the widdows felicitie that so changed her name to the likenesse of her lot Insomuch that she is freed from more miseries then she suffered losses and more fortunate by not desiring then she would be by enioying fortunes fauour which if it be not counted a follie to loue yet it is a true happinesse not to need we may rather thinke that Death was prouided against her imminent harmes then enuious of any future prosperities the times being great with so many broyles that when they once fall in labour we shall thinke their condition securest whom absence hath exempted both from feeling the bitter throwes and beholding the monstrous issue that they are likely to bring forth The more you tender her the more temperate should be your griefe sith seeing you vpon going she did but step before you into the next world to which she thought you to belong more than to this which hath already giuen you the most vngratefull congee They that are vpon remouing send their furniture before them and you still standing vpon your departure what ornament could you rather wish in your future abode then this that did euer please you God thither sendeth your Adamants whither he would draw your heart and casteth your anchors where your thoughts should lie at roade that seeing your loue taken out of the world and your hopes disanchored from the stormie shoare you might settle your desires where God seemeth to require them If you would haue wished her life for an example to your house assure your selfe she hath left her friends so inherited with her vertues and so perfect patternes of her best part that who knoweth the suruiuours may see the deceassed and shall finde little difference but in the number which before was greater but not better vnlesse it were in one repetition of the same goodnesse wherefore set your selfe at rest in the ordinance of God whose works are perfect and whose wisedome is infinite The termes of our life are like the seasons of the yeare some for sowing some for growing and some for reaping in this onely different that as the heauens keepe their prescribed periods so the succession of times haue their appointed changes But in the seasons of our life which are not the law of necessarie causes some are reaped in the seed some in the blade some in the vnripe eares all in the end this haruest depending vpon the Reapers will Death is too ordinary a thing to seeme any nouelty being a familiar guest in euery house and sith his comming is expected and his errand vnknowne neither his presence should be feared nor his effects lamented What wonder is it to see fuell burned spice-pouned or snow melted And as little feare it is to see those dead that were borne vpon condition once to dye She was such a compound as was once to be resolued vnto her simples which is now performed her soule being giuen to God and her body resorted into her first elements It could not dislike you to see your friend remoued out of a ruinous house the house it self destroyed and pulled down if you knew it were to build it in a statelier forme and to turne the inhabitant with more ioy into a fairer lodging Let then your sisters soule depart without griefe let her body also be altred into dust withdraw your eyes from the ruine of this cottage and cast them vpon the maiestie of the second building which Saint Paul saith shall be incorruptible glorious strange spirituall and immortall Night and sleepe are perpetuall mirrours figuring in their darknesse silence shutting vp of senses the finall end of our mortall bodies and for this some haue entituled sleepe the eldest brother of Death but with no lesse conuenience it might be called one of Deaths tenants neare vnto him in affinity of condition yet farre inferiour in right being but tennant for a time of that Death is the inheritance for by vertue of the conueyance made vnto him in Paradice that dust we were and to dust we must returne he hath hitherto shewed his seigniory ouer all exacting of vs not onely the yearely but hourely reuerence of time which euer by minuts we defray vnto him so that our very life is
not onely a memory but a part of our death sith the longer we haue liued the lesse we haue to liue What is the daily lessâ—ning of our life but a continuall dying and therefore none is more grieued with the running out of the last sand in an houre glasse the with all the rest so should not the end of the last houre trouble vs any more theÌ„ of so many that went before sith that did but finish the course that all the rest were still ending not the quantity but the quality commendeth our life the ordinary gaine of long liuers being onely a great burthen of sinne For as in teares so in life the value is not esteemed by the length but by the fruit goodnesse which often is more in the least than in the longest What your sister wanted in continuance she supplyed in speed and as with her needle she wrought more in a day than many Ladies in a yeare hauing both excellent skill and no lesse delight in working so with her diligence doubling her endeuours she wonne more vertue in halfe than others in a whole life Her death to time was her birth to eternitie the losse of this world an exchange of a better one endowment that she had being impaired but many farre greater added to the store Mardocheus house was too obscure a dwelling for so gracious an Hester shrowding royall parts in the mantle of a meane estate and shadowing immortall benefits vnder earthly veiles It was fitter that she being a summe of so rare perfections and so well worthy a spouse of our heauenly Ahashuerus should be carried to his court from her former abode there to be inuested in glorie and to enioy both place and preheminence answerable to her worthinesse her loue would haue bene lesse able to haue borne your death then your constancy to brooke hers and therefore God mercifully closed her eyes before they were punished with so grieuous a sight taking out to you but a new lesson of patience out of your old booke in which long study hath made you perfect Though your hearts were equally ballanced with a mutuall and most entire affection and the doubt insoluble which of you loued most yet Death finding her weaker though not the weaker vessell layd his weight in her ballance to bring her soonest to her rest Let your mind therefore consent to that which your tongue daily craueth that Gods will may be done as well here in earth of her mortall body as in that little heauen of her purest soule sith his will is the best measure of all euents There is in this world continuall enterchange of pleasing and greeting accidents still keeping their succession of times and ouertaking each other in their seuerall courses No picture can be all drawne of the brightest colours nor an harmonie consorted onely of trebbles shadowes are needfull in expressing of proportions and the base is a principall part in perfect musicke the condition of our exile here alloweth no vnmingled ioy our whole life is temperate betweene sweete and sower and we must all looke for a mixture of both The wise so wish better that they still thinke of worse accepting the one if it come with liking and bearing the other without impatience being so much maisters of each others fortunes that neither shall worke them to excesse The dwarfe groweth not on the highest hill nor the tall man loseth not his height in the lowest valley And as a base minde though most at ease will be deiected so a resolute vertue in the deepest distresse is most impregnable They euermore most perfectly enioy their comforts that least feare their contraries for a desire to enioy carieth with it a feare to lose and both desire and feare are enemies to quiet possession making men rather owners of Gods benefits then tenants at his will The cause of our troubles are that our misfortunes hap either to vnwitting or vnwilling minds Foresight preuenteth the one necessity the other for he taketh away the smart of present euills that attendeth their comming and is not amated with any crosse that is armed against all Where necessitie worketh without our consent the effect should neuer greatly afflict vs griefe being bootlesse where it cannot helpe needlesse where there was no fault God casteth the dice and giueth vs our chance the most we can do is to take the poynt that the cast will affoord vs not grudging so much that it is no better as comforting our selues it is no worse If men should lay all their euils together to be afterwards by equall portions deuided among them most men would rather take that they brought then stand to the diuision yet such is the partial iudgement of selfe loue that euery man iudgeth his selfe-misery too great fearing if he can find some circumstance to increase it and making it intollerable by thought to induce it When Moses threw his rod from him it became a serpent ready to sting and affrighted him insomuch as it made him to flie but being quietly taken vp it was a rod againe seruiceable for his vse no way hurtfull The crosse of Christ and rod of euery tribulation feeming to threaten stinging and terrour to those that shunne and eschue it but they that mildly take it vp and embrace it with patience may say with Dauid thy rod and thy staffe haue bene my comfort Psal 12. In this affliction resembleth the Crocadile flie it pursueth and frighteth followed it flieth and feareth a shame to the constant a tyrant to the timorous Soft mindes that thinke onely vpon delights admit no other consideration but in soothing things become so effeminate as that they are apt to bleed with euery sharpe impression But he that vseth his thoughts with expectation of troubles making their trauell through all hazards and apposing his resolution against the sharpest encounters findeth in the proofe facilitie of patience and easeth the loade of most heauy combers We must haue temporall things in vse but eternall in wish that in the one neither delight exceede in that we haue no desire in that we want and in the other our most delight is here in desire and our whole desire is hereafter to enioy They straighten too much their ioyes that draw them into the reach and compasse of their senses as if it were no facilitie where no sense is witnesse whereas if we exclude our passed and future contentments pleasant pleasures haue so fickle assurance that either as forestalled before their arriuall or interrupted before their end or ended before they are well begun the repetition of former comforts and the expectation of after hopes is euer a reliefe vnto a vertuous mind whereas others not suffering their life to continue in the conueniences of that which was and shall be deuided this day from yesterday and to morrow and by forgetting all and forecasting nothing abridge their whole life into the moment of present time Enioy your sister in her former vertues enioy her
also in her future meeting being both titles of more certaine delights than her casuall life could euer haue warranted If we will thinke of her deâ—th let it be as a warning to prouide vs sith that what happeneth to one may happen to another yea none can escape that is common to all It may be that blow that hither was meant to some of vs and this missing was but a proofe to take better aime in the next stroke If we were diligent in thinking of our own we should haue little leisure to bewaile others death When the souldier in skirmish seeth his next fellow slaine he thinketh more time to looke to himselfe then to stand mourning an haplesse mischance knowing the hand which sped so neare a neighbour cannot be farre from his owne head But we in this behalfe are much like the silly birds that seeing one sticke in the lime bush striuing to get away with a kind of natiue pitty are drawen to go to it and to rush themselues into the same misfortune euen so many for their friends deceasse by musing on their lot wittingly surfet of too much sorrow that sometimes they make mourning their last deceasse But slippe not you into this toyle that hath taken none but weake affections hold not your eyes alwayes vpon your hardest happes neither be you still occupied in counting your losses There are fairer parts in your body than scarres better eye-markes in your fortune than a sisters losse You might haply find more comfort left than you would willingly lose but that you haue already resigned the solaces of life and shunned all comforts into the hopes of heauen yet sith there is some difference betweene a purpose and proofe intending and performing a subdued enemy being euer ready to rebell when he findeth mighty helpes to make a party it is good to strengthen reason against the violence of Nature that in this and like cases will renew her assaults It was a forcible remedie that he vsed to withstand the conceit of a most lamentable occurrent who hauing in one ship lost his children and substance and hardly escaped himselfe from drowning went presently into an hospitall of lazars where finding in a little roome many examples of great miseries he made the smart of others sores a lenitiue to his owne wound For besides that as lownesse and pouerty was common to them they had also many combers priuate to themselues some wanting their senses some their wits other their limmes but all their health in which consideration he eased his minde that Fortune had not giuen him the greatest fall If God had put you to Abrahams triall commanding you to sacrifice the hope of your posteritie and to be to your onely sonne an authour of death as you were to him of life If you had bene tied in the straights of Iepthaes bitter deuotions embruing his sword in his owne daughters bloud and ending the triumphs ouer his enemies with the voluntary funerals of his only ofspring yet sith both their liues their labours had bene Gods vndeniable debt your vertues ought to haue obeyed maugre all encounters of carnall affection And how much more in this case should you encline your loue to Gods liking in which he hath receiued a lesse part of his owne and that by the vsuall easiest course of natures lawes Let God strippe you to the skinne yea to the soule so he stay with you himselfe let his reproach be your honour his pouerty your riches and he in lieu of all other friends Thinke him enough for this world that must be all your possession for a whole eternity Let others ease their carefullnesse with borrowed pleasures not bred out of the true roote but begged of externall helpes They shall still carry vnquiet mindes easily altered with euery accident sith they labour not for any change in their inward distempers but by forgetting them for a time by outward pastimes Innocencie is the onely mother of true mirth and a soule that is owner of God will quietly beare with all other wants nothing being able to empouerish it but voluntary losses Beare not therefore with her losses for she is won for euer but with the momentary absence of your most happy sister yea it cannot iustly be called an absence many thoughts being daily in parley with her onely mens eyes and eares vnworthy to enioy so sweete an obiect haue resigned their interest and interested this treasure in their harts being the fittest shrines for so pure a Saint whom as none did know but did loue so none can now remember but with deuotion Men may behold her with shame of their former life seeing one of the weaker sexe honor her weaknesse with such a traine of perfections Ladies may admire her as a glorie to their degree in whom honour was portraied in her full likenesse grace hauing perfected Natures first draught with all the due colours of an absolute vertue All women accept her as a patterne to imitate her gifts and her good parts hauing bene so manifested that euen they that can teach the finest stitches may themselues take new workes out of this Sampler Who then could drinke any sorrow out of so cleare a Fountaine or bewaile the estate of so happy a creature to whom as to be her selfe was her praise so to be as she is was her highest blisse You still floate in a troublesome sea and you find it by experience a sea of dangers how then can it pitty you to see your sister on shoare and so safely landed in so blisfull an harbour Sith your Iudith hath wrought the glorious exploite against her ghostly enemies Iud. 15. for the accomplishing whereof she came into the dangerous campe warfare of this life you may well giue her leaue to looke home to her Bethulia to solemnize her triumph with the spoiles of her victorie Yea you should rather haue wished to haue bene Porter to let her in than mourne to see her safe returned For so apparent hazards she carried an heauenly treasure in an earthly vessell 2. Cor. 4. which was too weake a treasurie for so high riches sinne creeping in at the window of our senses and often picking the locks of the strongest hearts And for this it was layd vp in a surer to the which the heauens are walles and the Angels keepers She was a pure fish but yet swimming in muddy streames it was now time to draw her to shoare and to employ the inwards of her vertues to medicinable vses that layd on the coals of due consideration they may draw from our thoughts the Diuels suggestions and applied to their eyes Tob. 6. which are blinded with the dung of flying vanities the slime of their former vanities may fall off and leaue them able to behold the cleare light The base shell of a mortall body was vnfit for so precious a Margarite Mat. 13. and the Ieweller that came into this world to seeke good pearles and gaue not
only all he had but himselfe also to buy them thought now high time to bring her vnto his bargaine finding her growne to a Margarites full perfection She stood vpon too low a ground to take view of her Sauiours most desired countenance and forsaking the earth with Zacheus Luk. 9. she climed vp into the tree of life there to giue her soule a full repast of her beauties She departed with Iepthaes daughter from her fathers house but to passe some moneths in wandring about the mountaines of this troublesome world which being now expired she was after her pilgrimage by couenant to returne to be offered vnto God in a gratefull sacrifice and to ascend out of this desart like a stemme of perfume out of burned spices Let not therefore the crowne of her vertue be the foile of her constancie nor the end of her combers a renewing of yours But sith God was well pleased to call her she not displeased to go and you the third twist to make a triple cord saying Our Lord gaue and our Lord tooke away as it hath pleased our Lord so hath it fallen out the name of our Lord be blessed Clara ducum soboles superis noua sedibus hospes Clausit in offenso tramite pura diem Dotibus ornauit superauit moribus ortum Omnibus vna prior par fuit vna sibi Lux genus ingenio generi lux inclita virtus Virtutisque fuit mens generosa decus Mors muta at properata dies orbémque relinquit Prolem matre verum coniuge flore genus Occidit à se alium tulit hic occasus in ortum Viuat ad occiduas non reditura vices OF Howards stemme a glorious branch is dead Sweete lights eclipsed were at her decease In Buckhurst line she gracious issue spread She heau'n with two with foure did earth increase Fame honour grace gaue ayre vnto her breath Rest glory ioyes were sequels of her death Death aymde too high he hit too choise a wight Renown'd for birth for life for liuely parts He kild her cares he brought her worths to light He robd our eyes but hath enricht our hearts Lot let out of her Arke a Noyes Doue But many hearts were Arkes vnto her loue Grace Nature Fortune did in her conspire To shew a proofe of their vnited skill Sly Fortune euer false did soone retire But double Grace supplied false Fortunes ill And though she raught not to Fortunes pitch In Grace and Vertue few were found so rich Heauen of this heauenly Pearle is now possest In whose lustre was the blaze of honours light Whose substance pure of euery good the best Whose price the crowne of highest right Whose praise to be her selfe whose greatest blisse To liue to loue to be where now she is FINIS SHORT RVLES OF Good life by R. S. AN CHO RA. SPEI LONDON Printed for W. Barret TO MY DEARE AFFECTED FRIEND M. D. S. Gentleman AS there is a method and order to be obserued in all artes for the practitioners more facile attayning the effects of his endeuours so is there no lesse vniformity to be propounded in ayming at the true course of vertue the rules whereof albeit they are directorie to the sum of all happinesse yet do worldly courser studies entertaine far more followers whose erring iudgements entangled with dull ignorance cannot rightly preferre vertue nor effectually censure vice For what cleare sighted iudgement will rely eternall affaires vpon the gliding slippernesse and running streame of this vncertaine life or who but one of distempered wits would offer to dissemble with the Amightie decipherer of all thoughts in pretending vertue and pursuing vanitie It is a most seruile disposition that will yeeld the prerogatiue of the soule vnto the body and giue flesh and bloud libertie to determine the course of this life which are in manner but the barke and rinde of a man being that the soule is the soueraigne part ordained to an high end of so peerelesse dignitie and such estimate that not all the gold and treasure of the world nor anything in heauen of lesse worth then the bloud and life of Almighty God was able to buy it Let vs not then iniuriously depriue our soules of the due interest of grace and vertue but account this vaine world with the wares thereof sutable to the shop of idle Marchandise vnto which we haue already beene too long customers the trafficke being toile the wealth trash the gaine miserie and the whole contents thereof detriments in grace pietie and vertue Yours in firme affection R. S. To the Christian Reader IF vertue by thy guide True comfort is thy path And thou secure from erring steps That leade to vengeance wrath Not widest open dore Nor spacious wayes she goes To straight and narrow gate and way She cals she leades she shewes She cals the fewest come She leades the humble sprited She shewes them rest at rases end Soules rest to heauen inuited T is she that offers most T is she that most refuse T is she preuēts the broad way plagues Which most do wilfull chuse Do chuse the wide the broad The left hand way and gate These vice applauds these vertue loaths And teacheth hers to hate Her wayes are pleasant wayes Vpon the right hand side And heauenly happie is that soule Takes vertue for her guide R. S. A Preparatiue to prayer WHen thou doest talke with God by prayer I meane Lift vp pure hands lay downe all lusts desires Fixe thoughts on heauen present a conscience cleane Such holy balme to mercies throne aspires Confesse faults guilt craue pardon for thy sinne Tread holy pathes call grace to guide therein It is the spirit with reuerence must obey Our makers will to practise what he taught Make not the flesh thy counsell when thou pray T is enemie to euery vertuous thought It is the foe we daily feed and cloath It is the prison that the soule doth loath Euen as Elias mounting to the skie Did cast his mantle to the earth behind So when the heart presents the prayer on high Exclude the world from traffique with the mind Lips neare to God and ranging heart within Is but vaine babling and conuerts to sinne Like Abraham ascending vp the hill To sacrifice his seruants left below That he might act the great commanders will Without impeach to his obedient blow Euen so the soule remote from earthly things Should mount saluations shelter mercies wings The effects of prayer THe Sunne by prayer did ceasse his course and staid The hungrie Lions fawnd vpon their pray A walled passage through the sea it made From furious fire it banisht heate away It shut the heauens three yeares from giuing raine It opened heauens and clouds powrd downe againe Ensamples of our Sauiour OVr Sauiour patterne of true holinesse Continuall praide vs by ensample teaching When he was baptized in the wildernesse In working miracles and in his preaching Vpon the mount in garden grones of death At his last Supper
at his parting breath O fortresse of the faithfull sure defence In which doth Christians cognizance consist Their victorie their triumph comes from thence So forcible hell gates cannot resist A thing whereby both Angels clouds and starres At mans request fight Gods reuengefull wars Nothing more gratefull in the Highest eyes Nothing more firme in danger to protect vs Nothing more forcible to pierce the skies And not depart till mercy do respect vs And as the soule life to the body giues So prayer reuiues the soule by prayer it liues R. S. Of the Foundations of vertuous and godly life The first Foundation THe first Foundation of a vertuous life is often and seriously to consider for what end and purpose I was created and what Gods designement was when he made me of nothing and that not to haue a being onely as a stone nor with a bare kinde of life or growing as a plante or tree nor a power of sence or feeling onely as a brute beast but a creature to his owne likenesse endued with reason and vnderstanding also why he now preserueth me in this health state and calling Finally why he redeemed me with his owne bloud bestowed so infinite benefits vpon me and still continueth his mercy towards me The end of mans creation THe end of my being thus made redeemed preserued and so much benefited by God is this and no other that I should in this life serue him with my whole body soule and substance and with what else soeuer is mine and in the next life enioy him for euer in heauen Rules that follow of this Foundation I Was made of nothing by God and receiued bodie and soule from him and therefore am I onely his not mine owne neither can I so binde or giue my selfe to any creature but that I ought more to serue loue and obey God then any creature in this world Secondly I commit a kind of theft and do God great wrong so often as I employ any part of my body or soule to any other end then to his seruice for which onely I was created Thirdly for this I do liue and for no other end but for this do all creatures serue me and when I turne the least thing whereof God hath giuen me the vse or possessing to any other end then the seruice of God I do God wrong and abuse his creatures The second Foundation SEeing I was made to serue God in this life and to enioy him in the next the seruice of God and the saluation of mine owne soule is the most weightie and important businesse and the most necessarie matter wherein I must imploy my body mind time and labour and all other affaires are so farre forth to be esteemed of me waightie or light as they more or lesse tend to the furtherance of this principall and most earnest businesse for what auaileth it a man to gaine the whole world and lose his owne soule Rules that follow of this Foundation FIrst what diligence labour or cost I would employ in any other temporall matter of credite liuing or life all that I am bound to employ in the seruice of God and the saluation of my soule and so much more as the waight of my soule passeth all other things Secondly I ought to thinke the seruice of God and saluation of my soule my principall businesse in this world and to make it my ordinary study and chiefe occupation and day and night to keepe my mind so fixed vpon it that in euery action I still haue it before mine eyes as the onely marke I shoot at The third Foundation I Cannot serue God in this world nor go about to enioy him in the next but that Gods enemies and mine owne will repine and seeke to hinder me which enemies are three the world the flesh and the Diuell Wherefore I must resolue my selfe and set it downe as a thing vndoubted that my whole life must be as a continuall combat with these aduersaries whom I must assure my selfe to lie hourely in waite for me to seeke their aduantage and that their malice is so vnplacable and their hatred against me so rooted in them that I must neuer looke to haue one houre secure from their assaults but that they will from time to time so long as there is breath in my body still labour to make me forsake and offend God allure me to their seruice and draw me to my damnation Rules following of this Foundation I Must prepare my body and minde to all patience and thinke it no newes to be tempted but a point annexed necessarily to my profession and therefore neuer must I be wearied with the continuance nor dismaied with the difficultie considering the malice and wickednesse of mine aduersaries and my professed enmity with them Secondly I must alwayes stand vpon my guard and be very watchfull in euery action seeing that whatsoeuer I do they will seeke to peruert it and make it offensiue to God euen my very best endeuours Thirdly I must neuer looke to be free from some trouble or other but knowing my selfe to be a perpetuall warfare I must rather comfort my sel e with hope of a glorious crowne for my victories then of any long or assured peace with my enemies The fourth Foundation THe thing which these enemies endeuour to draw me to is sinne and offence to God which is so odious hatefull and abhominable that God doth more detest and dislike it then he did the cruell vsage the wounds the torments and the death it selfe that for vs he suffered of the Iewes and it maketh our soules more vglie then the plague leprosie or any other filthie disease doth the body Rules following this Foundation SO carefull as I would be not to wound torment or murther Christ so carefull must I be not to commit any mortall sinne against him yea and so much more seeing that he hateth sinne more then death hauing voluntarily fuffered the one and yet neuer committed the other Secondly when I am tempted with any sinne let me examine my selfe whether I would buy the fulfilling of mine owne appetite with being a Leaper or full of the plague or with death presently to ensue after it If not then much lesse ought I to buy it with the leprosie losse and death of my soule which is of farre more worth then my body The fift Foundation BEing Gods creature made to serue him in this life my body soule and goods and all things any way pertaining vnto me are but lent or onely let me for this end and I am onely a Bailife Tenant or officer to demaund or gouerne these things to his best seruice and therefore when the time of my stewardship is expired I shall be summoned by death to appeare before my Landlord who with most rigorous iustice will demand account of euery thing and creature of his that hath bene to my vse yea of all that I haue receiued promised omitted committed lost and robbed and as
I can then discharge this account so shall I be either crowned in eternall ioy or condemned to perpetuall damnation Rules following of this Foundation FIrst I must vse all things in this life as another bodies goods for which I must be accountable to the vttermost farthing Secondly the more I haue the greater and harder will be mine account of the good vse thereof and therefore the more warie ought I to be in disposing of it Thirdly let me often consider what bodily ghostly and externall gifts of God I haue receiued what in baptisme and at other times I haue promised how profitable and necessarie good works I haue omitted how many grieuous and hainous sinnes I haue committed how often I haue lost the grace of God and my right to heauen Finally how much honour and how many soules I haue robbed from God And these things being well perused let me seeke to make that recompence satisfaction for them which I would wish to haue made when death shall summon me before my heauenly Iudge to giue a most strict account of them The fruite of these Foundations consisteth in the often considering of them as most necessarie points and as it were the very first principles of good life vpon the vnderstanding and practising whereof dependeth my progresse in vertue and therefore I must very often read them and examine my selfe whether my mind and actions be answerable vnto them How we ought to be affected towards God First of the consideration of Gods presence THese Foundations being laid it behooueth me further to descend to the notice of my dutie to God my neighbour and my selfe And first concerning my dutie vnto God a very fit meane I can vse to please him is to beare alway in mind his presence for sure it is that as God he is euery where in substance power and presence as in him I liue moue and am as the Scripture saith because he worketh with me in all my deeds thoughts and words in so much that as the beame of the Sunne the heate of the fier or the wetnesse of the water so depend I of God and should he but withdraw himselfe from me one moment I should forth with turne into nothing and therefore it is a very forcible meanes for my good to do all things as if I did see God visibly working with me in euery action as in truth he doth and knowing that what words thoughts or deeds soeuer passe me and what part of my bodie or mind soeuer I vse Gods concourse and helpe therunto is more then mine owne I must be afraid to vse them in any such thing wherein I might offend him but rather seeke to do all things so that they be worthy of his presence helpe and assistance in them and if I can get a custome or habite to remember still the presence and assistance of God as by vse easily I may I shall with due regard reuerence consideration abstaine from such behauiour as I thinke may be any way offensiue vnto him I shall also get a great facilitie in turning my mind and heart to him and in talking often with him by prayers which are the fuell of deuotion Other Affections that we ought to haue vnto God SEcondly I must endeuour to to kindle in my selfe these affections towards God The first Affection FIrst of a sincere and tender loue of him as the fountaine of all beautie and felicity of which loue I may ghesse by these signes By often thinking and an earnest desire of God by sorrow of his absence and contentment in consideration of his presence By my diligence in performing without delay or tediousnesse that which pleaseth best my Sauiour and by finding such comfort in doing it that it grieueth me when for things of lesse value and goodnesse I am enforced to deferre it By withdrawing all disordred loue from all creatures and especially my selfe and by louing nothing but in God and for God By seeking to increase this loue by consideration of Gods goodnesse and his daily benefit By taking delight in Gods seruice or things tending thereunto not because I finde contentment in it but because it is to Gods glorie to the which I would haue all things addressed By taking tribulations or troubles of body or minde patiently yea and with ioy knowing that they come by Gods permission and thinking them as fauours which he affoordeth to his dearest friends The second Affection THe second affection is a reuerent and dutifull feare of God which I may gather by these signes If when I remember the presence and maiestie of God I frame both my body and minde to reuerence and honour him with all humility and decency fearing lest by any vnseemely and light behauiour I should seeme to be contemptuous and carelesse of my dutie towards him If I finde great feare to do any thing that may displease God not onely mortally but euen venially and be withall â—â—â—y wâ—tchfull to auoide the least offâ—nce lest â—ny frailtie which is great should draw me to it and so to farther inconuenience If I feare to be banished from him or forsaken for my sinnes and endeuour what I may to preferre his loue and fauour towards me The third Affection THe third affection is zeale of Gods honour and desire that he should be duely serued and obeyed of all his creatures of which I may iudge by these signes First if I finde a griefe in my selfe and am heartily fory when I see or heare of other folkes faults or thinke on mine owne considering how by them a base and wretched creature dishonoreth and displeaseth his Creator in steade of him seruing his professed enemies the flesh the world and the diuell The second signe is an earnest desire to helpe my neighbour or mine owne soule out of sinne by praying for this effect and refusing no conuenient labour to accomplish the same so that my Lord God be no more or at least wise offended then before The fourth Affection THE fourth affection is to endeuour as neare as I can to take occasion of euery thing that I heare see or thinke of to praise God as if the things were good then to praise God that he gaue grace to do them and if the things were euill to thanke God that either he preserued me or others from them or at least hath not suffered me to continue still in them or to be in his wrath condemned for them Also I must consider and with my inward eye see God in euery creature how he worketh in all things to my benefit and weigh how in all creatures both within and without me he sheweth his presence by keeping them in their being and course of nature for without him they would presently turne to nothing and I must assure my selfe that in all this he hath as well regard to my good as to others and therefore all creatures must be as it were bookes to me to reade therein the loue presence prouidence and
that beareth me such a cankred malice that he careth not to increase his owne paine so that he may worke me any spirituall yea or corporall harme Fourthly I must print that saying of Christ in my minde He that perseuereth vnto the end shall be saued for not he that beginneth nor he that continueth for a moneth or a yeare or a short time but onely he that perseuereth vnto the end of his life shall be saued Wherfore the same cause that moued me to beginne ought also to moue me to continue that the reward and crowne of my good resolution be not cut off by any want of perseuerance Let not the cries of mine enemies moue me let me with Saint Paul say The world is crucified to me and I to the world And with Dauid It is good for me to cleane vnto God Finally let me imitate the ensample of Christ that perseuered on the crosse vnto death for my sake though often called vpon to come downe Fiftly I must consider that in what state so euer of grace or merit of damnation I beginne the next life I must and shall vndoubtedly perseuer in it according to the words of Salomon Wheresoeuer the tree falleth there shall it be whether it be towards South or North that is towards heauen or hell for both the paine of this continueth for euer and the ioy of the other is also euerlasting If therefore I will perseuer in heauen let me perseuer in the way that leadeth vnto it and neuer forsake the painefulnesse of it vnto the iourneyes end The passions of this life are not condigne and comparable to the future glorie and it is extreame follie for auoiding a short and transitorie paine to hazard the losse of euerlasting ioy and put my selfe in perill of perpetuall bondage in sarre more extreame and endlesse torments The sinners perseuer still in wickednesse and seruice of the Diuell The worldlings perseuer in pursuing vanities and following the world yea and that with most seruile toile and base drudgerie and not without many bodily and ghostly harmes how much more ought a true seruant of God perseuer in Gods seruice and not seeme by forsaking him in the way to condemne him for a worse maister then the world or the Diuell whom many thousands serue to the end to their owne damnation Let me remember that the first Angell for want of perseuerance became a diuell Adam for want of the same was thrust out of Paradise and Iudas of an Apostle became a prey of hell Finally there be many thousands in hell fire burning that beganne very good courses and for a time went forward in the same and yet in the end for want of perseuerance were damned for euer What good a soule loseth by mortall sinne THe grace of the holy Ghost The friendship and familiaritie with God All morall vertues infused and gifts of Gods Spirit The inheritance of the kingdome of heauen The portion of Gods children and patronage of his fatherly prouidence which he hath ouer the iust The peace and quietnesse of a good and quiet conscience Many comforts and visitations of the holy Ghost The fruite and merits of Christs death and passion What misery the soule gaineth by mortall sinne COndemnation to eternall paine To be quite cancelled out of the booke of life To become of the child of God the thrall of the diuell To be changed from the temple of the holy Ghost into a denne of theeues a nest of vipers and a sinke of all corruption How a Soule is prepared to iustification by degrees Faith setteth before one eyes God as a iust Iudge Angrie with the bad Mercifull to the repentant Of this faith by the gift of Gods Spirit ariseth a feare by consideration of Gods iustice and Our ownâ— sinnes This feare is comforted by hope grounded in Gods mercie and the Merits of Christ Of this hope ariseth loue and charity to Christ for Louing vs without desert Redeeming vs with so many torments Of this loue followeth sorrow for offending Christ of whom we haue bene so mercifully Created Redeemed Sanctified Called to by Faith Of this sorrow ariseth a full purpose to auoid all sinne which God aboue all things detesteth The diuell aboue all things desireth Aboue all things hurteth the soule A short Meditation of mans miseries VVHat was I O Lord what am I what shall I be I was nothing I am now nothing worth and am in hazard to be worse then nothing I was conceiued in originall sinne I am now full of actuall sinne I may hereafter feele the eternall smart of sinne I was in my mother a lothsome substance I am in the world a sacke of corruption I shall be in my graue a prey of vermine When I was nothing I was without hope to be saued or feare to be damned I am now in a doubtfull hope of the one and in a manifest danger of the other I shall be either happie by the successe of my hope or most miserable by the effect of my danger I was so that I could not then be damned I am so that I can scarce be saued what I haue bene I know to wit a wretched sinner what I am I cannot say being vncertaine of Gods grace what I shall be I am ignorant of being doubtfull of my perseuerance O Lord erect my former weaknesse correct my present sinfulnesse direct my future frailtie from passed euill to present good and from present good to future glorie sweete Iesus A deuout prayer to desire pardon and remission of our sinnes O Most mightie Lord and Creator of all things when I thinke with my selfe how grieuously I haue offended thine infinite Maiestie with my sinnes I wonder at mine owne follie when I consider what a louing and bountifull father I haue forsaken I accurse mine ingratitude when I behold how I am fallen from such a noble libertie into such a miserable bondage I condemne my selfe for an inconstant foole and know not what other thing I may set before mine eyes but onely hell and damnation for so much as thy iustice from which I cannot flie putteth a great tetror into my conscience but contrariwise when I consider thy great mercie which as the Prophet witnesseth exceedeth all thy workes then do I feele forthwith a fresh and pleasant aire of hope to refresh and strengthen againe my weake and sorrowfull soule Wherefore should I then dispaire to obtaine pardon of him who hath so often times in the holy Scriptures inuited sinners to repentance saying I desire not the death of a sinner but that he should liue and be conuerted Moreouer thine onely begotten Sonne our sweete Sauiour Iesus Christ hath reuealed vnto vs by many parables how ready and willing thou art to graunt pardon vnto all such as are penitent for their sinnes This he signifieth vnto vs by the Iewell lost and found againe By the strayed sheepe brought home againe vpon the shepheards shouldiers and much more by the comparison of the prodigall sonne
Father grant me pardon of all my sinnes through the death of thy beloued Sonne Iesus Christ make me to please thee alone grant me to be thy gratefull sonne heire increase in me that iustice whatsoeuer which is giuen me and granted from heauen that I may continue and end my life in the same increase in me that faith which thou hast giuen me kindle my loue of thee and make it more apparent that by thy helpe and the presence of thy grace and the accomplishment of thy holy wil I may obtaine euerlasting life which thou hast promised vs to the end I may praise thee and giue thee thankes in thy kingdome for euer and euer Amen A Prayer to God the Sonne O Thou maker and redeemer of mankind Iesus Christ who saidest I am the way the truth and the life the way in doctrine precept and examples the truth in promises the life in reward I pray thee by thy vnspeakable charitie wherewith thou daignest to imploy thy selfe wholly for our saluation suffer me neuer to wander from thee who art the way neither euer to distrust in thy promises who art the truth and performest whatsoeuer thou doest promise neither to repose or relie on any other thing because thou art eternall life than which there is nothing more to be desired neither in heauen nor in earth By thee haue we learned the true and ready way to eternall saluation lest we should wander any longer in the Labyrinthes of this life Thou didst teach vs exactly how to beleeue what to do what to hope and in whom we ought to rest by thee we haue learned how vnhappie we were borne through our first father Adam by thee we haue learned that there is no hope of saluation except by faith in thee Thou hast taught vs that thou art the onely light that shinest to all men in the desart of this wolrd coÌ„ducting them through the night of their minds from the Egyptian darknesse to that blessed Land which thou promisest vnto the meeke and such as follow thy humility For in vs was nothing but vtter darknesse who neither could see our calamity neither know from whence to seeke the remedie of our misery thou daignedst to enter into the world vouchsafedst to take vpon thee our nature that thy doctrine might disperse the cloud of our ignorance that by thy precepts thou mightst direct our feete in the way of peace by the examples of thy life thou didst limit out a path for vs to immortality and beating it with thy steps thou madest it of a tedious and rough an easie and beaten way So becamest thou vnto vs a way that knoweth no errour in which lest we should be wearied thy bounty with great assured promises vouchsafed to assure vs for who could be wearied that thinketh how in following thy footsteps there is an heritage of eternall life prepared for him Therefore whilst we are in this iourney thou wouldest in stead of a staffe be an assured hope vnto vs whereby we might be sustained Neither was thy goodnesse coÌ„tented herewith but acknowledging the frailty of our natures in the meane space with the comfort of the holy Spirit thou repairest our courages to the end that we may more willingly run vnto thee And as thou being made a way vnto vs driuest away all errour so becoming our truth thou takest away al distrust Finally being made life vnto vs thou giuest heate vnto those that are dead in sinne a life through thy holy Spirit which quickeneth all things vntill all mortality laid aside in the resurrection we may alwaies liue with thee and in thee by reason that thou art vnto vs all in all things For it is eternall life to know the Father and the Sonne and the holy Ghost to be one true God Wherefore I beseech thee O most mercifull Father to increase faith in me who am thy vnworthie seruant lest at any time I wauer in thy celestiall doctrine increase obedience in me lest I swerue from thy precepts increase constancy that walking in thy waies I neither be allured by the inticements of Satan nor deiected by his terrors but that I may perseuere in thee who art rhe true way to my liues end Increase my faith that possessed of thy promises I may neuer waxe slow in the study of godlinesse but forgetting those things I haue left behind me I may alwaies striue and endeuour for more perfection Increase thy grace in me that daily more and more being mortified my selfe I may liue and be incouraged by thy holy Spirit fearing nothing but thee than whom there is nothing more amiable glorying in none but in thee who art the true glorie of all the Saints wishing nothing but thee than whom there is nothing better desiring nothing but thee who art full and perfect felicitie with the Father and the holy Ghost world without end Amen A prayer to God the holy Ghost HOly Spirit our Aduocate who on Whitsunday didst descend vpon thy Apostles filling their bosomes with charitie grace and wisedome I pray thee by that thy vnspeakable mercie and liberalitie that thou wilt vouchsafe to fill the secrets of my soule with thy grace and water my inward heart with the vnspeakable sweetnesse of thy loue Come holy Ghost from heauen send a beame of thy light Come thou Father of the poore come thou giuer of gifts come thou light of hearts come thou gracious comforter thou sweete guest of my soule my pleasant refresher Come thou Physition of those that faint come thou purger of eies come thou streÌ„gth of the fraile come thou remedie of sinnes come thou doctor of the humble come thou destroyer of the proud come thou excellent ornament of all vertues come thou onely saluation of the dying Come my God adorne a bed for thee in which I may worthily entertaine thee with all thy riches and mercies fill me with the gifts of thy wisdome illuminate me with the benefit of vnderstanding gouerne me with the gift of counsell confirme me with the gift of fortitude instruct me with the gift of science wound me with the gift of pietie and pierce my heart with the gift of thy holy feare O sweet louer of cleane hearts burne inflame all my bowels with the sweete fire of thy loue that being inflamed they may be carried rauished into thee who art the center and finall end of all my good ô sweete louer of â—oly soules since thou art not ignorant that I can do nothing of my selfe nor by my selfe stretch out thy fauorable hand ouer me grant that I may forsake my selfe flie vnto thee mortifie extinguish and dissolue in me whatsoeuer is displeasant vnto thee that in all things thou mayest conforme me vnto thy will that my life hereafter may be a perfect sacrifice in thy sight or rather an offering which may wholly be consumed in the fire of thy loue O who shall giue me the grace that I may at least attaine this chiefe good Looke vpon me ô Lord looke vpon me and see here this thy poore creature my soule sighing after thee day and night how she thirsteth after God when shall I come and appeare before the presence of thy grace When shall I enter into that admirable place of thy Tabernacle that I may attaine thâ— house of my God When wiâ—â— thou fill me with the light of thâ— countenance When shall I bâ— satiate with the presence of thy glory When shall I by thâ—â— meanes be deliuered from aâ—â— temptations and when shall ouercome this frailty of my moâ—talitie O eternall fountaine oâ— light bring me backe againe 〈◊〉 the Abysse of eternall goodnesse by whom I am created that â—ere I may know thee euen as I am knowne of thee and may so loue thee as I am loued by thee that I may see and enioy thee in the societie of all the elect euen as thou also hast seene me from euerlasting Amen FINIS