thing hath two handles and a foole alwayes takes it by the left Quicquid recipitur recipitur in modum recipientis BIte Cynick if thou wu't And fill thy invenom'd gut with poyson Burst Spider if one Bee Get one sweet smatch 't shall be M'rich foison Hence Momus be n't so rude S'unmannerly to intrude Dar'st venture The House is mine and thou 'Rt a Thiefe I 'l not allow Thee enter But wu't thou break the doore Turn not a Paper more 'T is Burglarie Steale not a glance upon A syllable be gone Thou Plagiary Chantez a l'asne il vous fera des coups BRing yee an Asse unto the Harp And he will at the Musick carp Skill hath no enemies but those Whose pride their ignorance doth pose But th' man that learnes humility Knowes Musick for with God dwels he And he-and-he full sweetly agree Whose very tunings Musick be MAy never eye great God behold this booke Whose eye-affected heart with thee 's not tooke O thou that mad'st the dead alive Speak but the word these words revive Thou free and freeing spirit that blowest where When as thou list'st O that thou wouldst blow here Let him that life to all things gives Reade to the Reader and he lives Carmina secessum scribentis otia quaerunt Ovid. At Anglica nostra Carina Pontificûm insanis exagitatur aquis Ac agitetur aquis etiam cantabimus illis Viribus ipsa suis Roma superba ruit Roma superba ruit resonantque Superna canorà Voce ruat summo pondere strata suo VVHat matters that from whom these Poems came Hee 's but the silent pen that ownes the blame God's be the praise the pleasant profit thine Bate thy mistakes be the misprisions mine For whatso'ver amisse thou 't see There wants discretion in thee or mee There wants discretion in thee and mee Beare Thou with me as I with thee Thinke th ' faults are thine I le thinke they 're mine And so they 'll be nor mine nor thine While each to lay'm on th' other's loth They 'll fall to th'ground between us both A politicke piece of charity To sweeten all in amity SOLILOQVIES THEOLOGICALL A Psalme a Hymne a spirituall Song A Ballad and Masse-chanting tongue A Davids Harp an aiery veine A vagrant Fiddle vapouring straine Fond wilfull blinde ind'stinct Devotions Th'inutterable sighs of faithfull Notions A Heaven diffused Supplicancie A torpid Rome-bred Lethargie A pompous gaudy Ceremony A Gospell-Simple decency Selfe-prating Priests Christ-preaching Pauls Gods and the worlds Episcopals These and a thousand more resemble Each other each other most disresemble Discretion is discerning He That sees but white from black can't see But he 'tis sees that seeth well That white fro'th ' brightest gray can tell To see sins of the foulest dye What i st But th' fair'st t 's a spirituall eye * Heb. 4.2 with 1 Cor. 2.14.15 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Iude 19. Soulie Betwixt the most clearly sensuall the most penctratingly rationall Soule and the Spirit T'divide betwixt the Soul and Spirit That that the name o' discretion merits Disguised Vertue Painted Vice The Proverbe turn'd More wise more nice But he who turnes this turnes to vice Is nice for want of being nice Her 's two men both high-minded be 'T is pride that this humility And her 's two more in feare each is 'T is courage that 't is cowardize this And so along of all the rest S' alike is good and evill drest Things most alike oft most unlike Doe prove and most unlike alike The wiser He that can descrie Th'great Distance when so close they lie Lay right i'th'East and wrong i'th'West E'rie fool'd be wise-and know what 's Best Cou'd they be clear'd by generall Rules Where'd be the Academicque Schooles But Limitings Sublimitings With often Subsublimitings And every Action 's of a Rate As duly Circumstantiate Who i st that naturally wu'd not good Yet all all ill by nature wu'd And how haps this but good and bad Are in the same apparell clad Or rather ' cause our sight 's so dull We can't the fruit fro'th ' refuse cull 'T is hence I feare my mirth is sad 'T is hence I finde my griefe is glad 'T is hence I feele my Melancholy Divine Delights my Laughter Folly 'T is hence I all things so suspect And what 's most pleasing most reject Till by the touch-stone I shall trie Whether 't be'nt th'delusion of the eye And what need Sences spiritualiz'd And those so often exercised Were't easie to be wise to know The discrepance from Concords flow Were't easie to be wise to know The Concords from Discordings flow Sages held Sots Sots Sages be Not view'd with perspicacity The * Esa◠3. with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To 〈◊〉 reason ◠gue red ◠gue wi◠Ioh. 7. ◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sights an unjust Judge if judge Aright he doe who all must judge 'T is not so subtle edg'd to decide An haires bredth and besides 't is brib'd To often blindnesse by the affections Thus humane light takes false inspections I 'le ne'r believe the man that will Believe's own eyes but count him will Among the Fooles that 's not acquaint 2 Thes 3.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 With Faith the Topicks of a Saint Unskili'd and feigned Sounds may cheat The Eare Sents the Smell the Palate meat Th'Touch Tangibles There 's Sophistrie Plenty in Hell for Fallacies Th' world Flesh Divle's so Legier de main Th'acut'st nimbl'st Look may be mista'ne And when we thinke a Blow's put by VVee're over-reach't by'a Falsisie Sense Reason's grosly cozen'd but Faith Can never for'ts information hath From Truth it selfe 't may be mista'ne But can't mistake There is a vaine A fansied Faith So still here 's worke For D'scretion Snakes i th' Verdure lurk ' i th' Snakes rich Cordials Who wise wu'd prove ' Mselfe 's rarest wisdome't doth behove T' have rarified by that great Light That shewst the brightest day but night To see men both of the same Clay And mould and both of the same way Substance and faculties of Soule Yet the one as faire as Heaven as foule As Hell the other and if there seeme To thee a difference thou 'd'st esteeme The Heaven were Hell the Hell were Heaven So soone so much maist be deceiven For what 's the best morality But finer spun hypocrisie While hee 'd be thought be godly too That with our God hath nought to doe So Heaven and Hell may weare th' same clothes The Troubles that and this th' Repose Th'World's God inrob'd'n Angelicque Light The God of gods in sable Night 'T is this that hurles the world to Hell Because they can't the difference tell 'Twixt good and bad 'twixt God and them 'T is only those that he condemnes That know him not but so mistake As that themselves their gods they make And so doe all that will not learne 'Twixt things that differ to discerne 'T is this that makes the soule
the ground This Palace Thou perkt up to Heaven adorn'st Thee'n specious self-admired Parts and scorn'st Thy neighbouring Underling whose humble heart Shall raise his praise as choosing th' Better part Who deeply founded on his Rock outstands The proudest structure on the crumbling sands That over-charg'd with its owne pondeur shall With lower-shooting violences fall Intomb'd in its owne ruines ' ith'Abysse 'T wixt which and Heaven the vastest Chasma is BEE proud who can Dost constant use to bow Thy serious minde by an intentive view Of God How Great How Good Vile Sinfull thou Mercies how excellnnt and those not few God! Man Mercie Such from Such to such a man These and their Suches Weighed So Where 's the man NO All. And now what letts what 's now between Why not now joyne claspe in a mutuall close And twine in full embraces Why not lose My Name my Life in Thee so ever bee With Thee with Thee the only Heaven I 'd see No No All All be gone For I have lost have lost my selfe in One. For ever ever Lord that I may feare No more to be my self but still be here And if thy wisdome see my foolish heart Wu'd surfet on thy kisses and convert This Grace to wantonnesse shu'dst still impart Unsowred sweets yet though our lips must part But shall they part never never shall our hands Though then in Hell I be yet what withstands But I may Vault my self to Heaven on This hold Whose touch is strength whose strength is uncontrol'd I Wonder how I live I 'm but a Shade A Ghost Doe dead men eat then I 'le eat too My life is hid with Christ in God I 'm made To men a stranger to my self nor doe I know ought aft'r th'flesh live in the Spirit Survey the Glories that I Now inherit How black 's this Sun how grim a night this cleare This flearing day O what an Aegypt's here While in my Heaven-illumin'd Goshen stand I viewing the palpablely-obscured land Which did they feel it as they think they see 't How to our Dwellings wu'd they speed their feet But still the world 's the world When shall I see The Sun the Day that make these thus to mee I see else knew I not these thus wu'd see More yet more that more knowing I might be I see but oft a cloud intrudes between And make's me say 't is darknesse to have seen I see one beam through th'Cranie blear's mine eye When all are pointed there O where am I My Light shall strength my sight nay I shall be All light for as He is I shall Him see No Dark of Folly-Sin-Sorrow shall there bee VVhen I Allight Allight shall Alwaies see ACTS 10.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 'T Is good 't is good being Here. Shall I go downe Shall I goe eat whose stomack kindly swels VVith for by Food-indeed Shall I goe drowne My Faith in Sence Or may my spirits as well Be lost as dull'd so too the work not hast Then goe flesh goe but dip but sip but Tast Goe not unenvyed of those precious houres VVherein thou laiest me out for dead and yet Extortest more for Life where funerall flowers Are welcome sweetes But what a sad regret Comes over if not overcomes my spirit To heare them talk of straws that Thrones inherit Nay t' heare them talk like two wh'ave but one soul bound for the same Heaven-Voyage They fall foule Keep up my Faith and there the while thee feed VVhere when I am no more I food shall need Keep up my Faith and talke thee there the while Where when I am this feare shall be my Spoile Keep up my Faith and then I may goe downe And through my Crosse the better view my Crowne HOw is my soule distracted with content How full of Joyes and yet how fill'd with Griefe How well compos'd my heart and yet how rent How often straights and yet as oft reliefe Impatient of delaies I patient stay Oh come away deare Lord I 'le not away The more I have the more I still desire The more I still desire the more I have Thrice happy thirst whereby I so acquire The drinke who drinkes he never more shall crave I aske no more but this but more of this No more this th' only blisse more still there 's misse Oh could I ever dwell where I have been Or once could be where I shall ever dwell In Kedars Tents I mourne when I have seen Th' Invisible how soon my heaven to hell Is turn'd The only hell that I can see To see the face reflects no God on me Cast me into those Roomes of this great Inne Where I may heare them talke that talke of Home And when these worldlings which thee ne'r have seen Chance in my-thy appointed way to come Oh iet me be so prepossest with thee Hearing I may not heare nor seeing see When highest I arise I lowest fall And when I lowest fall I highest rise The higher my sin and shame me more appall The lower the greater's mercy in mine eyes I fall rise rise fall move but nev'r remove So stedfast am I founded on his love Mount up my spirit what not Higher yet Yet Higher Higher yet this is too low Till quite above my selfe advanc'd I get Where my New self shall me His Glory show In this third Region shall my Eagles eye Th'unclouded splendour of his face descrie Before I heard but Now I Now behold Those holy beauties that first struck me dead Those holy beauties that first did unfold The riches of my life thus thus is bred Death out of Life Life out of Death by his Light More black 's mydark mydark his Light more bright Oh how I love to love such * Desirablenesses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. 5.16 Lovelinesses As Thou art Altogether how I hate My selfe I cannot love oh th'expedite distresses That my self-jealous soule doe intricate Cares Cleerings Feares Desires Zeale Indignation Revenge one smile caus'd cur'd blest perturbation By'agreeing discord how delight 's augmented By these harsh touches how well grac't the close VVith a full harmony never be repented Shall this Repentance VVhen thou dost Lord compose A heart thus broken 't is then an instrument And ne'r till then can give thine ears content For never thou pleas'd with thy self alone Break'st one in two but bring'st two hearts in one So am I whole again ' cause one with Thee So love my self ' cause Loving Lov'd of Thee O VVhat a Consort is thy Word VVhen Place falls into Place O what a Beauty is thy VVord VVhen Grace is matcht to Grace But what a What then is That Word That shews all Face to Face HOw faire a Casket is thy VVord VVhat broken sparkes it doth afford From every corner to invite My eyes to frequenter delight My eyes my wondering eyes to see Such radiant Christianity Cu'd I but sett these sparks in one VVhat floods of lustre thence were flow'n One's worth a world Heaven
may have a firme superficies Hollow vaults a hard roofe The soule that takes things by the outside is like to goe away with out-side comforts that is not penetrating bottom-searching inward-looking is like to fall low for want of looking low Build then cauteously O my soule tread warily take heede of the rashnesse of fooles Esa 32.4 walke accurately circumspectly precisely keepe thy selfe close to thy God loase not thy hand thy hold the least time the least distance walke humbly love him intirely cleave to him inseperably follow him at every turne thou canst never be out of thy way while thou keepest thy way thy Christ whom thou sha't onely find in his fatheas who is who is already found of all them that seeke his face not themselves but him his holinesse his glory who of his just goodnesse and gratious wisedome to the manifestation of the power of his light of his love hath left thee among so many false lights fooles-fires in such a mist in such a night of darkenesse among so many misguiding guides like so many false voices in a wildernesse Now to know his from a strangers now to discerne is grace wisedome c. in its richest attire Resigne then thy selfe to thy Christ to thy God live by faith in all and feare not but when thou art gone out of thy selfe his spirit shall teach thee when what c. to see heare doe c. for while thou art with so farre as thou art with the Creator thou canst not want wisedome how to use the Creature so as it may bee most for his glory and that is the height of thy wisedome Certainly so long a wee are with him hee will bee with us counselling directing in all our wayes All our miscarriages ill doing and ill farings being from our departure from him our light life comfort so that not onely true faith is rationall in beleeving God beyond and against sence but true reason is faithfull in conversing with God in and thorough sence And hither I conceive lookes those places I am crucified to the world and the world to me am dead and this that I live in the very flesh incarnall sensuall things seeing hearing talking eating drinking commerce c. I live by the faith live the life of the son of God We are dead and our life is hid with Christ in God ARe dead and the spirit that raised up Jesus quickneth our mortall bodies the soule of our soules the life of our lives Senses spiritualized Whatsoever is not of faith is sinne c. Neither can there be any thing pleasing to God but what is done in him in whom onely he is well pleased but what wee doe in him we doe by faith The nature whereof were wee so happy fully to know wee should fully know our owne happinesse VVIsdome begins with ends makes first its last Not stirs a foot till wary feare forecast Vnto what good but good thence End 's but One Then doe speake thinke an act till feare hath shewne Thy faith that kinde to come from lead to God A sinfull folly ' t is Thus faith will plod Hee 's then the man that 's only wise That keepes his God before his eyes The head of wisdomes feare but there Are wisemens eyes see with their feare His Optick nerves his moving hence Derive their animall influence THings as their principles decay and thrive Th'most dying Christians are the most alive Reduce all ills to sin all sins to 'th First All goods to grace all graces unto Christ Then place thy selfe i' th' midst and thou sha't see How good 't is in a trembling joy to be VVhile every act and accident shall show Thee thee not thee ere blest thee so to know Thus shake thee from thy selfe and thou sha't finde How good 't is to enjoy anothers minde Thus shake thee from thy selfe and thou sha't see How good 't is in anothers life to be VVhile seeing whence and whether brought th' ast bin Grace shall thee humble make and faithfull sin But may this humble faith still acted be Still't wu'd from sin and sinfull sorrow free THere is nothing wherein we are more wanting then in what we thinke our selves least the grounds and principles of Christianity VVhat more commonly confessed than that we are all sinners children of wrath by nature More readily professed then that we believe in Christ that we preferthe will the glory of God above all c. and yet what is it we beleeve we do lesse What is it is more hard more excellent VVhile they are things meerely notionall and superficially swimming in the braine or at most but glide and coast upon the heart and carry it on in a way of action so far as pleases our selves and corrupt nature the devill lets us run on with the undoubted uncontraverted conceit that we know them that we believe them till they have at length brought us thither where we shall too late be forced to believe know that we believed that we knew them not But then is it that we meet with the crosse windes the stormes fluctuations temptations doubts questionings of their certainty their equity c. When they come with that weight upon the soule as to sinke into it to be received and entertained of it into its seriousest and solemnest consideration when they come with that force and power upon it as not to Herere inprimis viis to stay in the common sense fancy but to take the judgement and by that the heart and by that the whole man into their possession that they are not only on the soule but In it and it wholly given up to wholy in these things when we come to suck sweetnesse from them to live upon them to digest them throughly to gather strength from them to draw them forth to practise to make them such to our selves as they are in themselves c. certainly could wee fully understand firmely beleeve cordially affect and frequently or rather continually actuate these things what manner of men should wee be O could we experimentally know in all holinesse in all happinesse of conversation we should be Christians farre more in reallitie then wee can be in profession in substance then wee can be in shew It is as impossible for that heart to make the world know what it sindes within it selfe as it is to speake proportionably to make them know what is heaven Not the thousandth part of it selfe is that soule able to discover that hath the powerfull workings of these thoughts these meditations within it though too they be such whose very nature is to carry forth the soule in the most operative activitie The cause once knowne the cure 's halfe done the soule And why not adde the body purg'd o' this foule Distempering humourous faithlesse pride thou' rt sound Though sinne shame paine want div'ls beset thee round The man 's within and all 's in vaine without If he that 's hid in Christ will
command them off is indeede to command a mans selfe the most noble conquest And surely this magnanimitie this inlargeing this heighthning heate and vigour of heart is conveyed in equally with those beames of divine illumination Which wonderfully marvellous light which kingdome of Heaven first entering into us and wee into it at our first entrance on Mount Sion workes thus diffusively on the understanding-the-heart-the whole All things are as they are compared to God but him in the face of Christ I see the onely good and therefore as contraries illulustrate each other whom have I in earth in Heaven but Thee I see nothing in the whole creation in its best and setledest state but a blacke and horrid Caos of vanitie of deformitie farther then it partakes of him farther then I can espie in it the scatterings of the divine Raies And surely the men of the world comparing themselves with themselves and the things with the things of the world are not wise Rectum est index sui obliqui The light of the manifestation of it selfe and darkenesse He then that doth truth commeth to this light to see whether his workes be of God T 's the shining Sunne discovers those motes of sinne Those subtler mists of fleshie steames betweene Our spirit our light our life and us those beames Of shadowing lusts that darke our lightfull beames Still shine lo'd Sunne discovering still dispell And in dispelling discover our heart-bred hell Those uncouth Cells those shades of dismall death Those haunts of horrid Fiends whose mickle skeath Of mortall wounds hous'd in a golden sheath Of minion comforts steale away the breath With fatall kisses whilst th' guile-favouring night Maskes their infernall shapes till th' friendly light Of faithfull truth appeare and put to flight Their wilely force b' its wisely succouring might Thus more commended it my triumph more Increast such enemies so triumphed o're Thus the sincere heart brings himselfe and all the world to this all-revealing Sunne to see what they have of him in whom hee hath approved the onely and onely fincere-making excellencies by that single eye of faith that singles him out as its onely object as desiring to see nothing but him at least mediately if not immediately And though this latter is the way wherein the earnestly heartie desires of the soule run after the full and uninterrupted in oyment of God yet in regard of the frailtie of the flesh the weakenesse slendernesse imbecilitie of the intermediate spirits that are as the ties and ligaments betwixt the foule and the body and could not long conteine themselves without being utterly dissolved shud they be unintermittedly bent and held up to that extensive intensivenesse whereunto they are wrought by those great and glorious thoughts of those savoury and cordiall apprehensions which in the Lord Christ they have and without him they cannot have of that simple and infinite good which not onely carry forth the soule in a glad venture but transport it in an eager pursuit of this happy dissolution yet bethinking it self that there may be a selfe-seeking in this selfe-loosing that it is to live to others not it selfe to doe not receive it is willingly forced with a kind of unpleasant pleasantnesse to further entertaine its faith in naturall sense least it should wholly vanish into supernaturall So may our soules O Lord be incessantly continually devoted to thy feare so may they be devout even in all their earthly affaires may se devovere vow themselves from themselves and pay their vowes continually So may they ever live in thy fight in thy light that they may never depart from thy feare that they may never more give the lie to their professed knowledge fellowship with the light by walking in the wayes of darknes but shew forth the glory of their father in Heaven by the reflection of their serene sincere light some conversation on earth And certainly could we stand with this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this stretching forth of the head in an earnest looking on him and longing for him wee shu'd have such an assuence of light and life breake in upon our soules and shine on our wayes that we shu'd walke up and downe like starres shot from Heaven till having dazled the eyes of the world into an envious astonishment wee shu'd remount for ever fixed in our highest spheare Now according as our aspect is on Him so is it also to others if that but oblique this but dimme and obscure but if that perpendicular this lively and glorious O that wee were more excellently skilled in these holy optickes we cu'd not but be in Theologie and therefore in Ethicks Oeconomicks c. And cu'd we but live soberly righteously and godlily upon as we ran not but cannot chuse but upon the sight of God avant then false lights false comforts for ever then he that shall come will come and will not tarry for the Lord is certainly waiting to bee gratious to that soule that is thus stedfastly waiting to be guided by him This indeed being the product the effect of the sense of that Neither know I any such if any other sincere and constant seeking as that when I thought of an absent God I was troubled and refused to be comforted by any thing but himselfe as knowing nothing else true comfort Neither can there be such seeking but from a true and lively saith not such a waiting but from a sincere-and-fervent love therefore not unlikely the Apostle thus intimating the nature of these graces translates those passages of Esaiah 11.10 with Rom. 15.12 1 Cor. 2.9 with Isa 64.4 seeke trust waite love Seeking faith and waiting love Here is that great Art of a Christian to be seeking still seeking the face of God I have set the Lord Alwayes before my face therefore c. Seeke yee the Lord and seeke his face Evermore I am Continually With thee Be in the feare of the Lord all the day long Here is that great difference of sinceritie and hypocrisie Will the hypocrite pray alwayes Will he seeke God in prosperitie as well as in adversitie At mid day in his businesse all the day long hourely and minutely as well as morning evening and at the solemne assembly Will he live the life of faith in the flesh in all sensuall things is he crucified to the world and the world to him Is he dead and this that even his mortall body lives is it by the quickning of the spirit doth hee walke up and downe the world as a man that hath neither life nor soule but onely as inlivened as animated hence is he ever lifting up his face to God that that flood of light and life that thence with such mighty incomes flowes in upon the soule might beare downe before it every thought that exalts it selfe against the kingdome of the Lord Christ c. that wholy given over to the power sway and guidance of it wholly casting it selfe into its imbracings while it
thy baite At noone and at the falling Sunne wut roule Thy wearied Limbes He that Thee did create And Re-create He shall thee recreate He feed He lodge Thee and He be thy Mate Thy Mate then like the faithfull Dove complain Watch on th' house top alone till He come back Who is not gone be all thy pleasures paine Thy Food thy Famine and thy Bed thy Wrack Till He 's all These to Thee that 's All in All No vaine no chaffie joyes thy minde forestall I can't feed on a Stone a Scorpion 'T is only Bread 't is Egge that I can eate Not on this Vanity and Vexation 'T is Angels food 't is Manna is my meate To th' poys'nous breath'd Aegyptians I resigne The Leekes and Onions the huskes unto the Swine I tell thee worldling in my meate 's such might That on one feast I forty dayes can travell Expos'd to winde and weather watch ward fight Defie the gates of Hell wu'd not this gravell Thy Earth-fed strength Keep the' an Aegyptian slave And make thee-Canaan leave to spirits more brave O how I cu'd even melt into Compassion Poure out my soule in pitty to behold Those that for godlinesse are in the fashion But for the power have they skill are they bold About them with the two edg'd Sword to play Through right left hand temptations cut their way Poore soules a taste that ne'r yet did enjoy How good is God it may be wet their Lip In a Communion Cup or like the Boy O'th'Vint'ners palates the essaying sip Commends 't for good and spurts it on the ground God in their Mouthes not in their Reines is found Poore soules that never drew their draught so deep Of this Rich Philtre that it threw their veines Into those inward hidden parts might creep There on Loves Hearth to tine the fire disdaines An Ocean which shu'd it it surprise ' Twu'd but zeales heate antiperistasize HOw oughten hath thy Servant wish'd his knees Were glu'd to 'th ground they were for did he rise The skin untorn fro'th ' flesh T 's his death who sees Such holy Beauties to divert his eyes But Thou bid'st rise Well-'t's but a turn still walk I with my God still Heare still See still Talk I turn not from but with we 've many a walk All Mercy and Truth Paths rugged lower ground Yet Could nor wrench my foot shall make to stray From Him His Angels keep me thus I found Not th' World not Hell perverts the conversation As th' heart unshoo'd with 's Gospels preparation Lord did I love Thee as I love to love Mid'st crooked Men Things can't I be upright When in afflictions waters thou dost prove My affections Sha'nt their fire increase its might But on command the world I de never touch Search me and try me if my heart been't such Wu'd I not still keep in immediate vision How ' fraid again lest Tenter-hook'd I be By mediate things lest ought should cause division Between my soul and body God and me Leade me not hence unlesse 't be in thine hand Thy Mandates Promises Promises Command I de shake off all men businesse turn Anchorite And wrap my quiet soule int's own content Hows'd from the winde and weather wu'd delight My selfe in my New World till having spent M' appointed time my wished change shu'd come And fetch me from my Cell t' my Fathers home Try Try my heart deare Lord. O where 's the man That loves his neighbour as himselfe his God Above ten thousand worlds and lives that can With filiall thankfulnesse runt ' kisse the rod And pray as heart'ly for it as his food As oft as his good Father sees it good O where 's the man that is the Inward man Whose Eyes Tongue Sences all keep still within With God n'er step without untill he can Receive his warrant thence skill strength the ginne To shun to break that lies in every thing And so thorow all himself to God Re-bring O where 's the man that watches every thought That cannot misse his God a minutes space But 's in a sowne who 's heart at th'smallest fault Boyles with revenge against himselfe Where th' face Whose smiles are all reflects all h's sadnesses Eclipses of the Sun of Righteousnesse His lookes thus a true Lookinglasse o'h's Soule His Words are Ecco's to that Word was ever With God was God he can't indure to foule His fingers with the world if fowl'd were never Never lin rubbing with his Fuller soape Till th' are more white than ever Wher 's th' man can hope Whose hope can silence all his earthly wishes Make them subscribe to heaven Tell him ' f a Crowne Of Tempes Indies He answers 'em with Pishes But name but Jesus you 'le see him strait bow downe But what No fooles Cap nor no Asses knee With 's humble'd eye rebound to heaven will he O where 's the man that glories in his shame Too many 't's true yet not enough 't's as true Millions that are a shame to God but name The man that hee 's a shame for God How few Who only wish that they may bee to be Gods glory though through greatest infamy Where 's Hee 'le make godlinesse his only gain Count so much got as got of God Account Him for his end all else as meanes refraine All paines all gaines that he sees not amount T' a thriving Summe of this will live on Bread On Water die but Hee 'le be here well fed Think'st thou deluded Worldling Christ is Thine Bid'st Him good-morrow for all day and then Hurriest to th' World toyl'st moyl'st when thy spirits decline If th'st breath enough salut'st Him with good-den Or once a week com'st with thy Dog to visit His House not Him no nor His House what is it Poore soules wu'd my Teares Eye-bright water be Unto your blinded Eyes how fast I 'd weep But godlinesse is such a mistery As God t' All save His House unknown doth keep Let thy Life say thou know'st this mistery Or thy Presumption gives but God the lie Cud'st once say thus I le ne'r indure this life Goe th' World to 'th World Not all day make a meale Upon a Promise How faint I'm I a wife Of such a husband I o' th' Common weale Of Israel Not seene my Love to day No care o's ' Kingdome then well hope I may Nay where in whom when all ill sensuals meet Hath Christ so cast in 's heart that He can turn To wine His water His bitter into sweet VVher 's He can sit and see his City burn VVhile mounted on th' high Tower of his Salvation VVarbles the Praises of his New Creation Yet be no Nero neither but from those Heights Lookes and condoles poore soules can't sit and sing In Blood and Flames keepes pauses with his sigthes And time w'th's Teares strikes flats on every string Ecco's w'th's Voice re-ecco's with his Heart VVith Ciprus face in mourning beares his part Still glitters in his eye milde
thou want'st In earth and be as troubled as thou canst Be steady immoveable if thou 't approve By alway abounding workes thy trust above Hast seen the palsie hand how'ts shaking sinews Bungle at its worke it often discontinues And slowly rids away while marrs th'little part It do's So th'feare-griefe-care-disturbed heart All things cooperate thy good How dar'st Deny 't How dar'st affirm it while thou scar'st Thy self vvith thine own shadow fondly cast O' th' love shines clearest vvhen the Cloud is past The Cloudy world the cleare quick-sighted soule Transpeirces vvhen't detaines the dully foule And thus me thinkes afflictions makes us sing How good How good they are while they re-bring Our stragling hearts to more demeuring views Of him vvhom vve cause he us first did chuse And thus by them his holinesse partake When disincumbred frequenter we make Immediater approaches so to limbe Us form and feature more his own and trim 'S more accurately to him vvhile more see Him as he is the vvorld as it is Vanity Of all except vexation and thereof Full in its serled'st state and are we lo'th To be unmanicled to have our hand Strengthned to hold truth more of Christ while stand Happily ' nfetterd in these freeing Cords That make our erst enslav'd affections Lords Where closer kept in perfect libertie Imperfect onely in that t' shall closer be Hee 'l point out our misprisions and give Instructions how we may more like him live How good ' Twu'd make thee covet povertie And be ambitious of disgrace and flee Upon the wracke presented by thy God Wu'd'st thou beleeve that glorious abode O' th' spirit of spirits What is thy state If once with all our States and Lives thou weigh it I knew a man the moone hath twelve times since And onely twelve by quarterly dissents Lighted the winking world t' see how 't beclings Th' inconstancy of sublunary things This man whose Age stood i' th mid'st of all The earth's temptations while they roundly fall About his necke to steale his heart with kisses Downe to 'th infernall Chambers forearm'd withblisses Of never failing proofe where ere they cover Marches where that sweet Dove is us'd to hover Upon his God exploring head that sought Him in the Garden and imbracing caught Him in his walking voice that i' the fresh O' th' day wont there to meet him and expresse Farre fresher loves VVhen suddenly he teares A dismall cracke invade his quiet eares As when some mighty Structure craz'd with yeares And reparations negligences beares 'Ts decrepid limbs upon its friendly props Who straite deceived of the ground that drops From under 'm not o're sound no little part Themselves forc't from their tottering Charge they start Assunder from their close conjunction Now Now All 's agoing her massie bodie bowes Her longue-time-drooping now quite falling head O' th' weaker Ayre that overburthened Finds strength enough to lift her dolefull voyce Unto the lofty skies seem'd to rejoyce By their cleare cheerie countenance that they Were so farre distant from so shroud a fray But still the loud mouth'd Ayre not able beare Th' oppression fumes in a furious rage and teares Her deadly throat with envious exclamation To rend the restie eares o th' drousie Nation Whose feeble Portalls too too weake to stand So hard a stresse flie up before the grand Tumultuous noise attended with its Troupes Of hiddious feares t' whom straite their spirit stoopes With yeelding slavery while they represent Them spectacles as Potent to torment See Citties broyling in their bloody flames And choak't in sweltring smoake the mincing dames Their fashion-brooding braines dasht on the streete They thought too base a pavement for their feete The canker'd Usurer hugging o' the bagges Betray his Life the fine-mouth'd Wanton draggs Some poysonous carrion from a loathsome hole For his restorative and now there 's nothing stole That 's felony nor slaughter's murther to Those divle-inspired Pontificians who With more than Savage cruelty make death laugh 'T selfe fat with'flesh't devoures the blood it quaffes In full Carrowses from the Parricide hands Of Hell-sprung Catilines whose Rome-bred Bands Arm'd with Hierarquique powers make sculls their Cups Bouse of their Rounds to fate and wallow up To th' reaking knees in vast Acheldamas Thus and beyond Thus in a thousand wayes That grim-fac't Monster shooke his angry dart Against the fearing but God fearing heart Rose in undanted courage to that height That Nature ne're can beare advanc't by th' sight O' th' Beautie in that breach the Musicke in That Crack that vailed beautie that was seene More faire through black that Musick that Was heard more sweete through waters that begat That well composed temper in his heart So fixedly prepar'd no force might part It from t 's Elshaddai by whose blisse-full name 'T was so enlivened with transporting flames So man'd with Heaven-animated spirits So carried forth with brave resolves 't demerits Some Angells Pensill to describe the joy Intranc'd the soule who while on All it saw This Motto There 's no evill but the Lord Hath don 't full nimbly aptly sweetly accords The will o'th'Lord be done for He can doe Nothing but Good but very Good And who VVhos 's heart 's inflam'd with Thy Great Love Great Go Can say that any thing Thou dost is odd Who 's he shall teach thee wisdome Canst thou draw The Heavens out like a Curtaine give a Law To th' Earth to hang on nothing Who shall lend Him bowels that steeres our hearts Or who extend His goodnesse unto Him Shall th'fountain come To drink o' th' streames Shall I be cal'd to summe M' account to Thee Thou scan my Poesie On thy crook't fingers Ar'nt my wayes eaven Thy First framings of thy thoughts wholly perverse And that continually and thou redresse Thou make thy Maker Or was I so o're taken Like some unwary Father who hath forsaken His goods to live at 's Sons provision or Hast thou them of thy selfe and dost abhor To be beholding unto me Behold the man 'S become's own God himselfe and scornes to stand T' our pleasure but to thy dust proud dust goe drudge About thy Thorny Earth learn hence not t' grudge Me my prerogative and if thou dost Deale proudly still still I 'le be uppermost But are my doings all good whence then this mutter Ar'nt they Shew me my Master let him utter His skill Come Mushrome thou of yesterday Come teach the Ancient of dayes to sway His Scepter Or what milder sounds th' attempts That quarrel'st at his prudent Regiment Who 's not a truly-throughly-humble man Hee 's but a practicall Arminian Had'st but thou well studyed his revealed will And pray'd thee to'ts perswasion wu'd't not still Thy murmuring at the loosing of a Straw Who had'st digested that Eternall Law Of pretermission and receipt to grace Wu'd this in all thy Topicks find no place More than the proud Pelagian will see Even so my Father ' cause it pleased thee What shall the child
th' creature can For he hath most of God and who hath so He little cares which way the world will goe 'T shall never touch his heart nor taske his braine To lay about to fetch it backe againe As he whose lines are fallen in a faire Large pleasant place is made for th' worse to care If 't 'll come by faire meanes well and good hee 'le use It when and as he thinks convenient loose 'T he will ere hee 'le imploy the smallest foule Imploy't he doth that lets it pinch his soule T 's the soundest body that feeds o' th' simplest fare The soundest soule that makes his God his fare A happy man the spirit ' f a healthie mind Can in a health-injoying body finde A happie man the spirit ' f a healthy minde Can in a health-deprived body finde LIft up prevailing hands in praysing action ' Gainst Edom and the Edomitish faction There are they fallen proud Prilistims withall Their Ashdod brats so let them let them fall And never rise while on our Harpes we sing The song of Moses and the Lambe our King Victorious meekenesse gird thy all-conquering sword Unto thy potent thigh give give the word Unto thy Heavenly Host they 'l straight conjoyne With earths celestiall Armies then combine Rome Spaine France Hell take the devill and all The Mitred Captaines of the high Priests Hall Come on brave Borgias with your pransing horse Yee Popes deare Nephewes or which sounds the worse Though th' same his Base Sons whom he hath begot On an unwedded Church Change Cannon shot Into the shot of Cannon Tout d'an coup Devoure th' Presicians they 're a slender soup T' a Pulpit full of Sack a slippery yolke In lustie Muskadine they 'l never choake So well wash't downe with blood but if you thinke You'z finde as hard worke as ye had to get a drinke O' th' wary Scot close noddles constult together Hoord up i' th' deep'st Abbisse ' f y'r holy Father Jesuitick plots say a confederacie But 't shall not stand till truth it selfe can lie Come gather then together and be ye broke T'irrecomposible peeces He hath spoke Still will he thinke ye ride upon an Asse No no his white steed 's mounted Hee 'l surpasse Your forciblest finenesses Jerusalem Leape leape for joy Thy King comes and doth hem Thee round with mightie mountaines and his Hoste Is all prepar'd thine enemies to accoast For His are thine for thou art His then boast The in thee Lord thy God when thou art in th emost Inextricable dangers Here I here 's A Saint-like patience thus to chant the blisse Of bleeding wounds while their Te Deums charmes Fond soules with Swan-like songs our harmelesse harmes Shall sweetly breathe in sighes triumphant layes Of conquering Iös while our blood shall praise That name above the proudest wrath and raise A generation that shall Babell raze Stones shall be Churches and dead bones shall live E're God his glory unto Rome shall give Ther 's breath enough in heaven and dust on earth To build more men to ruine all her mirth How heaven derides these Gotham sages wu'd Drowne Eeles i' th' water drowne the Church in blood What 's the Parisian massacre forgot How crown'd with many a thousand Huganot Or th' Marian flames how oft th' Prelatique hands Were crowded with increasing Puritans Or those Ten Prim'tive persecutions what But more Christs-honourers hath their crueltio got But still the devill 's the divill although he know He workes the Saints more weale himselfe more woe So mad is envie 't had rather loose both eyes Then 'ts neighbour's one shud see 'ts deformities Courage my hearts we nor our cause can die Nay we may live to see proud Aegipt lie Dead on the shore What feare we Th' Wonderfull In Skill Power Peace Love 's ours what shall they pull The Palme from Him or shall they rend a Limbe Fro' th' Father of Spirits hurt the eye of Him Whose voyce is thunder and his eves are fire Who hands their breath then have they their desire And ne'r till then Thus in my Fort my Peace My Castle-Christ my flaming Wall ne'r cease There are they fallen yea though I thinke I fall And all my fellow souldiers for thus call We death because we thinke it so when 't is The onely rise unto our perfect blisse Th' irrevocable word 's past decree 's sign'd All things are present to a faithfull minde For hee sees all in God but he sees all At once and thus while he beholds hee 'le call Things past and future present things that are As they were not that are not as they were Let kingdomes clash and their foundations shake Haughtie hearts shrinke to their heele let fury take The loftiest Hills and hurle them in the Maine Let th' lively Sun his sprightly raies refraine And wraps 's in sable might let heaven and earth Meet in confusion while hell yawnes our mirth Shall that be swallowed up by this our joy That none can take away no foe n' annoy Rouse up brave spirits glorifie the name Of that great God that ever is the same And we in Him life death principalities Powers things present things to come shall these Disjoyne us from our God if once in Him One as He is One What is it that can dim Our glorious inutterable joy That sparkles purer luster from th' alloy That streames more radiant luster from th' alloy Of foyling griefe A joy whose native heate Growes stronger by the winter winds that beate Upon 'ts concentred spirits A joy that rises Higher yet higher by the fresh surprises Of 'ts Arke-secured braveries from all The Ocean-inundations can befall Nay leade me captive griefe yet one I know Shall captive thy captivitie and show Thy open spoyles as Trophes while I sing How sweet's the memory of sower to bring To minde those tempests past while hous'd in heaven I feast on Leelesse Wines rich marrow and leaven Untouched bread So great ill turn'd to well 'T is makes his glory-and-my good excell Ther 's nothing nothing ill but all is well Is alway well to those whose wayes excell Thus is th' upright as farre from 's neighbour as hell From heaven here well is ill there ill is well Nullius addictus jurare in verba Magistri NO give me A Philosophick Ingenuitie A Bacon Luther truth-exploring braine Can cull the Wheate from th' Chaffe and bring a graine To th' graynarie of knowledge no lazie pate Will nothing else but reade heare transcribe translate And take what 's brought it at adventure an idle drone Will suffer any thing ere 't will worke but one Whose naturalls can't indure t' be Aristotl'd With ipse dixits nor his spiritualls throtl'd W'th a Spirituall Lord's irrefragable propositions But h's free-borne spirit mak's exquisite inquisitions I' th' depths of grace and nature scornes to have His judgement strangled like a Turkish slave B' usurping tiranny a noble soule Whose understanding w'll suffer no controule But from
And teach my grievingst griefe delight Heavens harpers did Romes Epicedium play Hundreds of yeares before her fatall day Then come sweet Lute with gentle Aires Come kindly touch me with the Cares Of Christs-Crosse-bearing soules whose share Of common woe and weale I beare With Voltos then come raise my spirits Unto the Triumphs they inherit Whose wo's their weale whose wound 's their cure whose Heaven 'S their sweet whose want's their wealth whose hel's their Heaven VVHere am I How this turne hath giddied mee Decemb. 1640. Can hardly credit what I plainly see So farre fro'th doore so backward on the stage Still to protract this wearie pilgrimage Blest Lord so turnd'st our feare-led captive thoughts As those that dreampt we saw devouring Vaultes Heapt by the foaming Beast with Virgin Slaine Indign'd his I doll-lust We dreampt againe Christs-warre-preventing Throne became the Theame Of speedy praise but fear'd this was a dreame But we awake in Paradise And that no fooles be we but wise To keepe our hold'our God so close Nor becks nor blowes shall make us loase Then prove the former dreame yet true Change but the time the latter's too AS he whose braines are weak and businesse much Walks here there now this now that will touch Takes up layes down wu'd somewhat knows not what Even so my Good my God I had forgot Craz'd by my fall Still were my braines imploy'd With swarmes of busie follies still annoy'd With great paines taking in great trifles void Of all successe and got as soone was cloy'd Thus hither thither flew but ne'r cu'd finde An object sutable unto my minde Beauty honour riches seem'd an empty shade Before I saw the substance ere I 'd made Discovery of the Truth they seem'd a lie But that being seen they seem'd a lying lie A shade of shades Natures dim glimmering light Burnt clearer in my heart and shew'd me a sight Far worthyer choyce A soule a beautious soule Inrich'd with rarer honour a prudent soule A meek-sweet lovefull heart whose noble spirit Scornes a few-thousand-miled world shu'd bury it ' N a petty speck of dirt but pleasures in Its larger glories by the eye unseen Then after this while carefull search I made Straite shun a light shew'd this too but a shade A Heaven-sent light was darted in my heart And made me this perverting course divert The world in 'ts richest ornaments is but A show a show th'compleat'st nature but Thon only good and therefore only true Give m' in a recapitulated view Those Scripture-scattered Glories O cu'd I those Thy analysized Graces well compose Into their lovely face How deep I de fall In love and say thy beauty darkens all The creatures beautie's but a skin-deep lawne That by some slight distemper soon undrawne Reveales the lurking messengers of death That lie in waite to snatch away the breath And so possesse their Master of the face That seem'd but now above a creatures grace But take the purest in 'ts admired'st hew If modest else 't is none it dares but shew Its hands and face but He but alwayes Hee Is altogether Lovelinesses Hee Is Lovelinesses altogether every one Is in Him and but in Him there is none The creatures Vertue 's but a fairer foule Lodg'd in too straite a roome t' content my soule That only recreated splendors loves Whereon simplicity and infin'ty moves And where may I enjoy it better then Admitted to its near'st approaches when No intervenient object bars my sight In its impure and narrow Channell Light Pure perfect boundlesse inaccessible light VVhen shall I live in thy delighting sight I live but I wu'd live another life VVhere light and darknesse know no longer strife I live but I wu'd live another life That might informe me what a death 's this life How how m'abhorring spirit starts me back When by thy faire I see their ugly black VVhen by thy wisdome I their folly see And by their folly may the wiser be With what a mightier force my soule returnes To thee in thee with mightier fervour burnes O Light of Lights when shall I see Thee as I 'm seen VVhen shall I bee Thou Love of Loves with Thee i' th' high'st VVho long to learn yet what 's my Christ May Thoughts Men Bookes may all I see But answers to this question be May Thoughts Men Bookes may all I see Be Thoughts Men Bookes be All of Thee May every Sermon that I heare But breake the Clouds this Sun may cleare May every thing I heare or see Be all but Testaments of Thee And when th 'ave told me all they can I still must aske as I began VVell satisfied in seeking till My search with satisfaction fill VVHat 's white compar'd to blacke to browne to gray What mar'le 't excels but take the lightest gray Nay th'purest white the strongest sight e're saw Sublime thy apprehension yet and draw A purer unto which this bright'st's as black As th' face of Hell and yet beleeve there lacks As much resemblance in this draught to th' Life As Earth of Heaven of Heaven for all our strife 'S but pourtrai'd with a coale revealed God In h's holyest glories by a dirty Clod O' th' work-besoiling Clay and yet beleeve Thou' rt altogether unable to beleeve The difference till thou seest it Thou't see a light Is able to discerne an Hypocrite A man s'inlightned he hath skill enough To cheate himselfe and all the world this snuffe This dying snuffe shall burne as black as Hell When with its Christ sincerity shall dwell But what 's that all-surpassing splendor O Where 's he Where 's he will lead me to that show And teach my thoughts my rude and artlesse lines To draw the features of that face divine Divine That every foolish fondling w'll blurt On a neat piece of finer-formed durt O beauty Cu'd I speak but I have lost Expressions in impressions I 'de rather lie Admiring Adoring More sweetnesses suck I So but fire will out must speak of him Rightly if I can however speak of him The best of things so earnestly I covet Th'Unspeakable Gift yet can I say I love it And love will praise its object so must I And yet now I begin to praise I die O may my life so porutrait forth my Love To win Corrivals mount their spirits above With sacred flames while I stand peering there Where all Terrestriall beauties shad dowes are O see prie gaze b'inamour'd here is fare For Myriads of Love-sick worlds and spare O see prie gaze b'inamour'd here is fare Whose Rivals bring each other greater share For many eyes hearts see love more then one Fresh Graces spie to feed fresh hungers on O here 's a banquet where the guests finde ever The more the merrier for the cheare failes never Discovered such a goodly plenty show's Whose there can grieve but that his friends it loose Whose there can grieve but that his griefe 's his sauce To make him rellish more his wiser choice
thought rul'd in Thy princely mind thou cou'dst not cou'dst not sinne 'T is death to such a one to sinnne Nay death thou d'st runne to death to free thee from this death Live like thy selfe then Christian act act act Set keepe thy faith on worke in every fact In vain 's the power that 's not produc'd to act Where what is had 's not us'd what 's had is lack't O Leave me not my head O stint the strife Canst pull my head off Canst see me so to flutter Bustle and struggle So labour for my life Do'st pleasure in my paine or hear'st me utter ' Blasphemous word yet with the tender Fowle Or quiet lambe I de faine retaine my soule My soule Thou art 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal 31.24 Hold fast and now I 'm ' ready die Canst see me gripe and graspe the cloathes my heart Not strength yet Canst heare me say I die I die griev'd nothing but with Thee to part Deare friend dear'st husband and yet thou my death What shall our children doe too O give breath Breath still blest spirit and while I am alive I le have a care to see thy graces thrive VVHat sweet repasts when God and hunger meet And stay the hungry soule whose hunger's sweet How sweet the draughts when God and thirstings meet And stay not quench their thirsts whose thirst's so sweet I here 's the soule shall eate drinke once for all When want of praise no more for prayer shall Oh cu'd I praise what need I pray But I shall praise shall praise for aye That 's m' onely worke both here and there What is no praise can be no prayer I 'M dull I 'm dull with this my clod O breath these earth-rejecting veines and make Them full with praise of purer worth I 'm full I 'm full of Thee my God O breath my blessing-turgent veines and make Them run them spring Thy prayses forth Winde up my soule to those Seraphique straines Wherewith that noble Quire entertaines Their farre-above all praise-exalted Maker That joyes in this that thou art his partaker Whose joy 's his glory glory will will thine Thine his will-pleased joy his glory thine Who onely happy will not happy be Unlesse thee as himselfe hee happy see I tremble and this shaking gives a grace Unto my singing voice VVhat This my place I tremble and this shaking opes my pores And thrusts my sluggish humors out of doores I tremble and this shaking makes me catch My God more fast in h's faster foulds doth catch I tremble and this shaking cleares my wings Rouses my spirits up the speedier brings To sit among the gods t' exalt the name That deignes to Christian creatures by the same To sit among the gods to give receive Eternall blessings thus to interweave My joy inseparably with his glory Be all my pleasures hushed with this story Admire Let this still musicke still my griefe Till sence supply what 's wanting in beleefe For carnall sence is not so farre below My faith but spirituall may overflow To powre out mutuall blessings and to be Most blessed by my blessing so to see It is more blest to give then to receive Honor'd by him all honour with him leave To power out mutuall blessings whilst I lie Drown'd in the fountaine where no sooner I Cry blessed but my blessing strait redounds With millions to my brest and heaven resounds With Echoed praises of those beautious creatures Are all in love with one anothers features Spirits spiritualiz'd rarifide to such Sublim'd simplicitie there 's not so much As th' smallest specke of dust the Atom'st moate With 'ts interpos'd obscurity to floate Betwixt their light and beautie God and them Their every-way-surrounding glorious stem I tremble and this shaking gives a grace Unto my singing voyce is this my place I heare eternitie speake and say I love Thee as my selfe whom no affections move I 'le be thy crowne of everlasting glory While thou sha't banquet on the endlesse story Of all my councells and survey the depths Highth breadths lengths of my er'st-untracted steps While thou sha't heare my thwarting feet agree I' th' perfect'st set o' th' pleasant'st melodie While still perfused i' the richest savours Th' art fed with kisses e're refreshing favours Still lost in admiration of thy blisse Thou't finde so blessed ' cause s'admir'd it is Well if the master of the feast shall say Friend sit up here shall I dare disobey God knowes no compl'ments hee 's sinceritie A word 's enough where all 's realitie Mount mount my soule and keepe upon the winge Jehovah see and Hallelujah sing O How my soule 's inheaven'd in the sound That descants on so beautifull a ground See eye love heart sing glory and all accord To make my life the musicke of my Lord. Rejoyce my spirits and all my thoughts within Ride triumph with the speedie Cherubim While death and hell attend my conquering Carre Whose glory duskes the brightest glizning Starre The brightest Sun in all his Summers pride 'S a cloud of darkenesse when together ey'd Thankes thankes my soule for when my soule sings thanks Then onely then my joy 'ore flowes its bankes Praise praise my spirit for while my spirit sings praise Then onely then I weare the crowning bayes Blesse blesse my heart for when my heart sings blesse Then onely then my heart feeles blessednesse Heart soule spirit spirit heart soule zeale fire Breake breath burne blaze and in his brest expire Earth hold me not O pinnion me no more When shall I be whence I shall be no more Still hold me earth for heaven wu'd be no heaven Shu'd not my will keepe time and fall in eaven With his O could I blesse thee here here were My heaven but want both heart and art how ere Can 't hold while some want matter for their words I words f'r Immatteriatnesse yet like the tender Birds That in the silent shadow sit forlorne Bill dresse their feathers by the dawning morne Stand perking pearing in the blooming Sunne And teach their light-delighted tongues to run Their chirping welcomes to its glorious raies So doe I strive to chatter forth Thy praise Praise praise him soule I le never cease to praise And when I cry I le cry I cannot praise Why sorry but for sinne t is folly why For sinne but that unthankfull praiselesse I Praise my petitions praise him my confessions Praise deprecations praise him intercessions And if my tongue cease praise in griefes and feares I le make my tongue recant in praysing teares In every thing give thankes for 't is his will That gives me cause to sing 't is well 't is ill O praise praise praise let me no longer live Then doe my masters businesse prayses give Nay life is praise for then I truly live When joy then truly joy when praises give The life is best 's most like the life above Hence I so much Psalme-singing tempers love The man is best comes nearest to
yet unwrought Must I be one how sweet a trembling joy Runs through my veines and kindly doth imploy Me in a fearefull love must I be one â—e then be Thine shu'd all the world be none â— I be one I le then be none alone But I le be thine shu'd all the world be none O blesse blesse blesse my soule still blesse thy Blisse VVhat sweeter worke unto my soule then this Or what more acceptable unto thee Thou lovest it and I love it then ever be Thou blest of ever-ever-blessing me Of ever blessing me ever blessed be O blesse when wu'd I cease when thou sha't cease To be then not till then I 'd blessing cease O blesse were I in Hell yet cud I blesse I were in heaven but I cannot blesse I cannot cannot blesse is this to blesse To call thee blessed while thinke nothing lesse Or can I thinke I thinke it while not part VVith all for Thee Thou onely blessed while my hearâ— 'S not wholly given up into thine hands T' be melted moulded fashn'd by thy commands T' be cast into a full conformitie VVith thee if thought Thee th' sole felicitie Blessed art thou O Lord th' art good and Dost good no unaccustom'd song but stand Not deedes thoughts words at mutuall defiance Thought I't wud not there be a quicke compliance VVith all thy wills wud not I hast to know Presse hard to learne thy statutes th' wayes thou 't goe To meete with Thine thou onely blessed goodnesse VVu'd not I still be in thy presence Oh! th' woodnes Th' wilde wandring madnesse hath seduc'd my soule Since first I turn'd my backe upon Thee to proule And filtch an independant blessednesse whence grew My aye-depending misery while fondly threw Me from my Eden where the all-creating spirit VValke't with his fleshie workemanship But wu't blest spirit Returne againe and be Emmanuell VVu't teach my heart to call Thee good wut dwell There make 't thy temple hence helpe me breath petitions I see thy goings here th' glorious exhibitions Of the invisible flesh spirit God man heaven earth A marriage song of everlasting mirth And must I sing ' t who since thou took'st me in And trim'st we for thy selfe weedest my sinne â—lantedst thy grace the dore wide open hurl'd And made my heart the through faire of the world Thou mad'st thy garden this then the pully be VVith greater swing to clap me close to Thee The pully be to make me sticke so close The greatest pull may never make me loase But when I heare the stillest voyce behind And heare it ecco'd by thy written minde â—ay thy beloved's here straite ope I flie And blest who knowes what meaneth He and I. This opening shuts me in the fastest close VVhile in h's revealed loves my selfe I loose O how this smiling favour quite prevailes â—isolves me all in teares and then exhales â— ' ascending soule to that refining Sun Resolves me into it selfe O turne heart turne And never never teturne Thus is begun Consummate glory when I 'm all undone Undoe undoe apace dissolve melt run Thy onely undoing is th' art not undone Draw out shed shed abroad thy selfe in praises Leave not a drop behind let all turne praises But what am I thou shud'st put such a thing Into my heart so cordially to sing The glories of the God ' gainst whom I have beene A constant belcher of blaspheming sinne What thought I spake I did I but in all My cursed life did Thee accursed call And must I blesse I blesse Shall I sinke O! Hold me Hold me in this bless'd pleasure So So may I over sinke and sing how sweete Sweet sound the praises in these depths O meet Meete me a diving plundring through my heart 'S false-bottome thorough whatsoever wu'd part Me from Thee Catch me in those lasting armes VVhose closings are a close of warbled charmes Charmes warble still and shake me up and downe Untill you rest me with my fixed Crowne Rest warble still for still this is my rest To see to sing my worthlâ—snesse so blest Blest spirit shake shake on loosen my soule From this false world break downe beare through the foule False bottome of my heart still more to meete With truth i' th' inward parts still more to greet Those peace-heaven-sounding wellcommings those sure And never-over-burthened armes those pure Those pure imbraces whose harmonious close Shall blesse my blessing soule with full repose Thus may my rising falling heart in praying praise My falling rising heart sing on my dayes Steadfast in joyes discoursing that vast distance That 's swallow'd up in an unite persistance And wu't thou me forsake Just now I saw thee Oh draw faine'd overtake Cud cud I but beleeve Were I in Hell yet shu'd I nothing grieve I waite trust walke with thee Revive in peace shall ne're confounded be REtire sad thoughts into your inmost Cells There view the Hell of Hells Thy sinne-foul'd soule In blacke flames howle Those never-lightned hearts Wh'in this their day ha' n't done their studious parts In their false purifying while hope Hath Judah's fountaine doore kept ope Returne glad thoughts and mount the utmost bounds O' th' boundlesse heavens There 's he Yea he is here The word is neare And hence my joy redounds To see the Ruddy VVhite in him and me The watry blood so pure so just To white to quench my pitthy lust HAng all these Puritans A Puritan what 's that an Hipocrite Nay hold there man for so thou dost but fit The noose for thine owne necke Dost n't thou professe The service feare of God yet what dost lesse From thine owne mouth th' unrighteous servant th' art Condemned for a Puritan wu'd thou wert So happy t' owne the honour of the name Who that description canst not but disolaime And say he is no Hipocrite then sincere I there it is the object of thy jeere I tell thee man Thou art an Atheist or a Puritan Within my heart the wicked's wickednesse cries There is no feare of God before his eyes VVithin his heart the foole hath madly said There is no God why should I be afraid Selfe-cozening soule did'st see the curious eye Thy bosome thoughts did at a distance prie How dar'd thy fond affections say within There is no God for speculative sinne So say there is no God for hee 's his name VVhose vengeance teares the tearers of the same Heart-searching and sinne-visiting he is Deny it and deny thy eternall blisse Canst count thy pastime-words but passing winde Thy irreforming tongue shall shortly finde A word no scruple but a tun of leade To sinke thy soule to an Infernall dread Then shal't thou see each minute on the scoare VVhat thought spoake acted while thou sha't implore That great tribunall with Lord Lord for all Thou 'st done i'th'flesh though minced n're so small Presumptuous wretch thou d'st thought'st there were a God Run trembling up and down at every nod VVhat art thou to the world that
my brest Thence Councells furnish take thee to my rest Thou jealous of mine honour did Thy thoughts Run on my beauties day and night that nought Cud please thee else thy feet i' th' pleasant wayes Of my commands did'st count them so How sayes saith Thy heart and they is this thy holy faith Cleane feare God ' ndwelling love Now now what saith Thy conscience Did thy heart er'e feele a dagger yet Survive the thorough-strucken wound and yet Thy-heart-still-killing smart survive the hope Of Cure this daggers it kills heart and hope With minute mortall stabbes of quicke dispaire Myriads of endlesse living dyings are I tell thee man Th' art not a man or art a Puritan A beast a dog a hog a what-he-will Whose Jesu-countermands thy lustes fulfill I tell thee man Thou art a Devill or a Puritan There are but two unelimentary spirits Good bad God the divill and justly he demerits T' be counted th'latter who 'l not be the first Who scoffes at th' blessed spirit to be th' accurs'd Bad in th' extreame who wu'd be i' th' meane Of absolute good who wu'd no nearer come To God then needs t' be cast i' th' farthest roome Of utmost darkenesse there to learne too late Th' remotest distance of the middle state Of wilfull neutralists a semblance make Of friends to heaven when Tophets part they take HOw now mad sparke what pride thee in thy wit When pride 's the Principle follie and what is it What is thy wit when it is at the best And worth the name but judgement neately drest The wit that 's made the judgements recreation This play the ground while that the variation That made the sauce unto a weaker braine That else wu'd of the stronger meate complaine And what is judgement but a childish thought When to the full'st maturitie 't is brought What all our parts but parts and those received And in a moment may be quite bereav'd The best are bad for else they never cu'd Be tane away but are th' parts of that good That onely good compleate then not our owne So then who hath th' great'st the best hath none But what in Him but what in Him we see We see 't we feel 't in humbling humilitie VVEll say thou saydst thou thought'st 't were somewhat well Why not confesse his gratious gifts as free As of th' ungracious retributions tell By that that humbly thankefull thou mayst be By this thankfully humble be sincere Nor shame nor praises need'st thou then so feare I Have sat downe and councell held I cannot fight I cannot build And yet I can't but fight and build The warre the building 's great Great wants do threate My strength my stocke is small Is none at all What shall I doe I le doe thy word A Toole in this that hand a sword My Christ will helpe and wealth afford My strength my stock 's not small For they are all The building warre shall thrive While hee 's alive Here then I le minutely repaire Nay hence not budge a foot my care ' Sonl ' he who ' h's life so freely'd spare Me and I not fetch 't but spare Such gainefull care Such life such strength whereby 'T is I am I Ungratefull sloath had rather fall and die Then stretch his bosom'd hand to ' th' life so nie THe world 's uncertaine and my knowledge too But I desire to be certified Of nothing but Christ and him crucisied Christ from this head all goods all grace convay And on him crucified all ills sinnes lay So see my all while see my Christ My evills on my goods in Christ So has my foote a sure place Nor will I longer wandring trace The world to finde a setling stay For I have one and that 's my way VVArre peace life death A harbour and a shelfe The death of death The Image of himselfe Th' omnipotent Prophet and the Priestly King That Learnt Obedience by his Suffering A sacrificing sacrifice Simplicitie Lodg'd in a house of clay Omnipotencie Sensible of humane frailties The Lord of life Slaine The God of glory undergoing the strife Of vilifying tongues The administrator Of heaven and earth administred to th' Creator Poore reliev'd by th' Creature Aeternall happinesse Afflicted stupendious godlinesse Great mistery and they that thinke it small As doe all worldlings they know nought of all God manifest i' th' flesh heaven dwell in earth Descend in hell O how divine's my mirth When I can in my flesh my earth my hell See Him See in my flesh my earth my hell This spirit this heaven O spiritualize me more Him more t' approve whom Angels so explore Adore A God poore heathen gospells th' God to whom The sensuall sense-refined world doth come Drawne by beleeving hearts Unbonnded glory Caught up to glory what created oratory Can reach can teach these wonders so sublime Profound Th' celestiall theame of timelesse time How humble shu'd I be cu'd I still bow My selfe to pry into this mistery How Heighthned inlarg'd cu'd I still soare aloft In this so broad so long deep-heighth t' be taught Gen. 1.31 2 Cor. 3.18 THou Lord mad'st onely good my object be 'T is onely good then I shud see But I wu'd ill and ill now onely see 'T is onely sinne then I 'de not be But I 'd be Christ when shall I onely be T is onely God then I shall see Thou Lord madst onely good my object be 'T is only good then I shu'd see But I wud ill and ill now only see 'T is onely I then I 'd not be But I 'd be thee when shall I onely be 'T is onely thee then I shall see Thou' rt only good and I wu'd see All but as spots to draughts of Thee All but as spots to draughts of Thee Who art the only good I see The world 's the Image of thy Image word The mire sin that Satan blur'd Man with the stain straite through th'Creation crept But this untouch't him selfe hath kept And h's glorious-face-resplendent glasse hath left To daily dresse me quite bereft Of sight by that foule filth His Spirits breath Upon this Mirror quicks my death Struck-eyes And now since such a foulnesse in My fairest I see I 'le never lin To eye to pry to dresse redresse me by This God-conforming Theory VVHy shu'd I envie grace insult o're sinne Are not the Saints sins mine my graces theirs All sinn's in one in one all grace we in Them both he onely well himselfe compares Whose humble thankfull watchfull soule makes true One flesh one spirit one Adam old and new THou art Thou onely art Man 's but a But An adj'ctive accident a what-Thou-wut Thou art art onely excellent to be 'T is that 't is that 's the onely excellencie Bee 't all my businesse t' get more Thee That being more Thee I may more be More be in more to be To Thee PAsse world along with all thy pompous traine Goe ruffling in thy pride thy richest
show Drawne in Thy stateliest Chariot thou' rt too low Too base an object for my high disdaine Contemne the world I wud wer 't worth contempt Or give my indignation footing or On what shalt trample tell me of somewhat for My vilifying or how w'lt cause more contempt then tempt All th' world is lesse then nothing none is but Who is I Am and by whom every thing Is what it is they 're not then rich that bring Th' world in possession since when 't is got 't is not I De have the World at will And yet I care No more for 't then to buy me food and frize I de have 't th' obedient toole I de make to reare My building soule and when my Master sees It meet lay 't by and take me to my hands Faith freer workes the lesse the sence withstands And this is all I care for th' carefull world To keepe it by my hand and from my heart To have 't an inferiour helpe away to hurle't When told here is a worke of curious art Derides the bunglings of unskilfull sense A heaven-silenc'st active patience THe World 's a straw through which I draw My Canaan-milke's sweet nourishment But if 't be tane away I gaine The wider draughts of deep content While he thinkes fit I 'le sucke through it But if he speake but halfe a word A way it goes and well he throwes That hath i' th' steede such store confer'd DId not I feare Thee Lord The world hath not the cord Cu'd binde this strong desire From what it doth require So vehement yet so stai'd 'S the motion 'ts not afraid Of Hell Onely thy Love Maintaines the fight and proves Of power to withhold What else were uncontrol'd And yet the fight is sore And yet I can't give ore O were I not so free Or had more libertie And yet if neither must Thou' rt very good and just Even this too is for good The more the selfe 's withstood The more the spirit is That crownes with victories Good very good are all thy wayes Thou onely wise and he who staies His marking minde thereon shall know What loving kindnesse thou dost show THou heart-rein-searching spirit-pondering God Turne mine eyes inward teach my head to plod To looke to what thou look'st the maine the man The soule the selfe for when I gadding ranne So oft abroad the divill he gat him home And made my wanton heart the teeming wombe Of stolen pleasure stoale th' word and sow'd instead A world of tares a world of griefe doe breed Still may I watch my yessell keepe sincere Th'infusion else corrupts though ne're so cleare And yet if thou deare God wu't please to come Into my heart my heart'l sincere become Tho' ne're so foule And long'nough may 't contrive Wayes how to cleanse it and to th' utmost strive And all in vaine unlesse that foulenesse cu'd Make faire My sorrowes watchings cares what good Can all from him who of himselfe is all Pollution VVu't heare the humble call O come come come away and doe not stay Untill thou comest and then for ever stay Sure there is somewhat of thee here so longs To see thee while my spirits in such throngs Come forth to welcome thee nay a' nt I all Lovely in my Christ unto thy sight yet shall My blacke abide still will I sweetly grone To hast thy comming till I 'm to mine owne Then come blest day come inside outside turne And try each thought by th' all discerning Sunne How humbly then sinceritie shall smile When proud Hipocrisies unpainted guile Shall show her devill-like face More humble were I I must needes become the more sincere Cause I have more o' th' God-of-puritie Sincerity holinesse and while I spie More beautious glories th' obstacles more remov'd He needs must be more humbly belov'd POwre out the pretious oyntment of thy name That sumptuous box inrich'd with all 's divine Upon my wounded soule so heale the same Allay its dolours make its surface shine Smooth 'ts rigor's cleare its rust soften its hard Make dulnesse nimble mend what pride hath mard Perfume the roome thy guests doth entertaine Free't from those brimstone fumes o'ne overcame My tender Virgin-thoughts had not I tane A scent of life to life so aptly came With rescuing redolencies O open 't wide Powr 't freely forth thou hast enough beside O how these welcome Savours steale my heart And make me shrug for joy at this depart O how this pawne e'ne makes me wish more hearts That I might feele such more desir'd departs O how I love these sweets my sweet O how My pleased midriffe trims my smiling brow O how my humble thoughts revived aspire Borne up with spirits to their high desire How how my unstraitned soule doth boundlesse flie Its gazing circuits through the highest high Where am I now am I a man I see I see but cannot say Mine eyes have borrowed all they may Of tongue of all doe what I can My assembled spirits cannot yet devise To tell my tongue the pleasure of mine eyes Stupendious sights O cu'd I reade The world a lecture of those joyes The cleere-eyd soules so richly feed How they'd indigne these cheating toies And hourely watch at wisedomes gate a glance Might ope their eyes and thence their soules advance Transcendent sounds O too too rare 'S this Nay too grosse these carnall eares O tones O tunes what compasse beare's This stately consorts curious Aires Their strings are true high wound incessant play Musitians skilfull play well well they may Pure understanding zeale responds To God Christ h's Spirit Endlesse straines Of multiplied blisse detaines The blessed soules in boundlesse bonds But if such sights such sounds such distance brings O what 's the mid'st where Glory shines Grace sings O Cud I keepe me in this Option I Wu'd wish to live because I wish to die How like a little God I wu'd converse With men let downe a while here to rehearse Those joyes above till I had drawne up more Harbour'd their Hearts upon thy Haven's shore He onely lives wh ' inthron'd In 's mansion can Yet condescend to sejourne with for man He onely lives who in his Jesus lives But he so liv'd who h's life to if for gives How he derides his feares his cares his griefe That seeke to hast his so-much-sought reliefe O how he pleasure's pleasure 's in his paine That but contrives more treasure to his gaine Christ is his life his death is more of Christ His joy 's now high but then shall be at th' high'st Now ebbes now flowes then an e're-flowing tide O're flowes and swallowes all the woes of pride Morne even eclipse now then a constant no one Th' Sunne lights to th' earth-uninterposed moone O draw this earthy Curtaine draw that darkes M' inlightned eyes from their beloved sparkes Those lovefull beames of dreadfull Majestie In whose exchanged rayes my life doth lie O how I strive I wrastle to be
and unadvised advise of one of his Captaines It is good to feare all that may be feared that so indeed we may feare nothing And such a and but such a feare is that which is becomming a Christian Of whom there is nothing more unworthy then base derecting unmanning and for so much unchristianizing feare God having ex consulto and out of a gratious forefight left our enemies subdutos expugnatos though not funditus stratos brought under overcome though not utterly subverted that that in nothing we might bee terrified this that in nothing we might be secure lasche remisse dull blunt but might still have them as Coticulas as whetstones to our mettle and animositie as those on whose fall and ruine wee may bee raised to an higher pitch of an unreachable and undaunted spirit As it was well counselled by that wise Statist for the sparing of Carthage from an utter demolition for the keeping in heart of the Roman valour that wu'd else languish i' the want of exercise And God sometimes like that dedemeanure of Edward the third to the young Prince at the battle of Cresey withdrawes himselfe as it were and stands aloofe of at a convenient distance on the hills of his salvation environed with his auxiliary troopes and thence viewes us in the valley how we fight how we are matcht how we quit our selves with the strength already received without a more extraordinary recreut and suffers us often to be brought to hard stresses pressing exigences and almost inextricable streights yea to the very jawes of death yea to bee swallowed up of death that living and dying Conquerours like that late-and ever-famous Swead he may in a more speciall manner share to us with himselfe the honour of the day may demonstrate ours in his owne glory That wee are the Sonnes of such a Father and he the Father of such Sons That we shu'd bee so honored to bee made the instruments of his power and hee to be the Maker of such instruments Now the feare that thus strengthens us in the Lord and in the power of his might and makes us stand fast and quit our selves like Men in Christ Jesus that workes up the soule to such noble and Princely atchievements that all sordid earth-bred-feares fall below it as Lucifer before that pure and spotlesse Light This is The feare The feare of the Lord. Which since it is a grace and therefore supernaturall must as all other graces being homogenous be conducible to the rest and all to an active and ready performance of the good pleasure of God So farre therefore as it turmoyles perplexes casts of the hookes and makes the soule that it is not in a fit posture to turne and winde any way with the first significations of the divine command so farre as it is not a feare of furtherance to but of hinderance from our duty so farre is it not a feare of God not a feare that drawes us to him but as all our owne feares from him And so is it extravagant and wandring out of the way of those inseperable companions the graces that all joyntly convey the soule to a more strict close and intimate fellowship with its God It will therefore be great wisedome to keepe this kind of feares so farre as meerely concerning us and the evils from our heart and seat it in the head that it might not take hold of us but wee of it we act and command that not that us that it may be as a Sword in our hand to defend us and not as one at our heart to offend us that while the heart is carryed on with the fullest gale of animositie and courage boarne up to the bravest and highest resolves of a magnanimous spirit the head may wisely plot and the hands seasonably act That we may undertake this feare as a voluntary worke an expedient injunction and not be overtaken by it as a meere naturall and necessitating affection But thus supernaturaliz'd spiritualiz'd we doe wee suffer with delight all the wills of God looking on them as designes as ordinances wherein our good is inviolably interwoven with the most high glory So that the horse should not more neigh to the battle nor the souldier shout at the warning Peece then the heaven-animated spirit summoned to the Almighty-might-glorifying encounters springs forth with a nimble and cheerefull alacritie And certainely there is nothing can guard us better against base misbeseeming feares then the unspeakable unconceiveable peace that rules in the heart that is ruled by the feare that is moved by the faith of God There is nothing that carries up the heart to a more elevated pitch of courage and confidence then a selfe-diffident humilitie a carefull serving of Gods providence in the use of all good meanes with a well-grounded and full reliance on him alone above and when he pleaseth without meanes And undoubtedly what ever the selfe conceited world may thinke the most God-fearing the most-mortified the most-meekned-humbled-soule is fortified with the truest with the onely true courage because he onely is with God the onely sound ground of confidence And he hath he onely hath and that worthily the name of a generous man of a gentleman who is the compleate the accomplisht man furnished with all vertuous qualifications though never so seemingly different He whose gentle milde selfe-debasing courteous debonnairete is armed with the most invincible impregnable prowesse and valour commanded and drawne forth by a judicious conducture So the severall denominations of the Latin and English meet well well couched in and accompanied with that primary and all including vertue in that one word of the French un Preud home importing as one may gather from their use of it a man discreet and wise a man of fortitude and prowesse of a sweet and gracious comportment a man of honestie faithfulnesse integritie rondeur of minde All vertue is of choice And where all is not chosen none is chosen To suffer in any case upon any termes is necessitie not patience meakishnesse not meeknesses a flegmaticke dulnesse a stoicall stupiditie not a heaven-taught compositure of spirit Neither can the intermission of the act argue the privation of the habit and though the world count them sheepish moapish c. because they are the quiet of the land that walke softly in the humilitie of their soule yet present them with a fitting object and see whether they doe not give it sutable entertainment the same command the same spirit having wrought in the same heart all requisite graces the manifestation onely of either accommodated to a fit occasion and drawne forth by a prudent observation And since they know not their Genius no marvell they hold so little friendship with them whose foundation is acquaintance Little doe they thinke a Chrisitian is such a one as such a one he is if not unlike himselfe as can bring the Drum and Trumpet in consort with the Lute and Violl or could thence gather
the world makes to their pride the consideration of their owne parts gifts indowments abilities eminencies whatsoever As then most truly and throughly humbled when thou risest to thy highest station and takest the fullest view of all thy excellencies As seeing nothing but what thou hast of him in him and for him the onely ground of humilitie because of glory To see thy selfe thus and thus richly qualified and yet to see thy selfe to be miserable poore blinde and naked to have so much and yet to have nothing argueth that the Candle of God hath shined over thy head in its brighter beames and his secrets have dwelt more intimately more abidingly in thy Tabernacle While seeing thy selfe of the noblest stocke of the choysest of nations as touching learning with the learned'st concerning zeale with the most active touching the righteousnesse in the Law blamelesse c. and yet to treade and trample all these things under thy feete with the utmost indignation and detestation as the most despicable drosse and dunge in comparison of one thought of revealed Christ that hast knowne or rather art knowne of Him that is the onely excellency I such a light shining in upon the soule and out-shining the most glorious Sunne even at mid day is that which will cast the greatest Apostle upon his face and make him cry out that he is lesse then the least of Saints And certainly there may be a due and selfe-denying acknowledgement of parts indowments performances c. while there may be an impudently modest and selfe-seeking selfe-denyall of all the most desperate the most detestable hypocrisie Besides for a man to carry himselfe lowly dejectedly discontentedly upon the meere convincements of his defects and faults may be meere basenesse and pusilanimitie that will soone upon the least conceit of its owne worth turne into and indeed narrowly looke into proceeds from and carries along with it pride and selfe-love Neither is that to bee thought true humilitie that is not a furtherance to thankefulnesse And the only course to keep from boasting being to learn how to know all of grace how to glory boast in the Lord. We being onely so farre humbled as outed of our selves so far outed of our selves as filled with God so far as he is pleased gloriously to condescend to humble himselfe unto us and graciously to take us up to advance us into himselfe There being nothing that layes the soule lower in its owne eyes then its highest exaltation in Gods Nothing that makes it better know better keepe its distance in an humble lovefull trembling joyfull every-way-duly-affectionate active obedient walking before him then the knowledge then the assurance of its communion of its union with him I know the wisedome of God is foolishnesse to the world it is ignorant it is wulfully ignorant of it But I speake to them whose hearts have the minde of Christ and can sensibly interpret the meaning of his spirit And certainly he that speaks not nonsence to nature speakes but little supernaturall sence Besides nature may have a kinde of Ahab-like Judas-like humilitie on the apprehensions of evills morrall or naturall But to be humbled at the thoughts of our selfe-sufficiency in him who is our onely sufficiency our new selfe this of grace While our hearts understand that sweet harmony of that seeming contradiction I and yet not I but the Spirit of Christ that dwelleth in me that humble meeke gentle spirit Thou whose maine whose principall study is to know all the excellencies of the World in the face of Christ to know it by them and them by it that through it thou maist know him who hath ordained it as the conveying Medium of the light of the knowledge of his Glory Thou whose world-and selfe-contemning behaviour speakes thee one of those finding seekers and seeking finders that with asweet sharpenesse and unsatisfied satisfaction followest on to the knowledge of him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisedome and knowledge Thou sweetly passionated heart that knowest what are those flutterings of the soule to flie those holy efforts those lanchings forth into the great depths what it is to be given up to to lye under the power of the Divine Spirit while on thy water-like diffused soule it hatcheth new formes of the Divine nature Thou tender humbled shivered and shivering spirits that worke out thy salvation with feare and trembling while thou biddest defiance to the gates of Hell and laughest death and destruction in the face Thou who though often assaulted with Thornes in the flesh with buffetings in thy spirit art kept in such a compleate peace in the sense of the Al-sufficient Grace and canst glory canst pleasure in count gaines of thy infirmities thy distresses necessities persecutions c. as the advancers of the overcomming strength of thy Christ thy only joy glory gaine Thou poore weake feeble wretch that canst doe nothing and yet canst doe all things through him that strengthens thee Thou whose inward and heart-disolving sighes are the daily harbingers for thy speedy admission to that great and eternall Supper of thy solemniz'd espousalls Thou whose love-sicke Christ-inamoured soule bursts for the longings that it hath that it alwayes hath after the full and never-interrupted imbraces of thy deare thy onely deare beloved Thou that countest every minute an age till thou art with Him and yet countest seaven and seaven yeares ages and ages spent in the greatest hardship he shall appoint thee but as a minut in thy sweete waitings on him Thou whose Heaven-visited soule cannot but break forth in exalting exclamations O the beauties the harmonies the sweetnesses the riches the glories the Crownes the inexpressiblenesses the inconceivablenesses of the knowledge of the love of God in Christ Jesus by his holy Spirit Thou who art Heaven inside and outside Who art cloathed with the Sunne and treadest the Moone under thy feete while thou hast that within thee that could it be seene would dazle the eyes of the world into an envious astonishment In whom is the Kingdome of Heaven the righteousnes the peace the joy in the Holy-ghost unspeakable glorious Thou that countest the doing of his Will on Earth as it is done in Heaven the turning of Heaven into Earth and men into Angels And therefore seest infinite more beautie in the poorest Priest-deridest Mecanicke conscionably and sincerely busied in his calling though but in the shoveling up of dirt and sweeping of Chimnies then thou dost in all the guildings and paintings the Copes and Surplusses c. all the sumptuous gallant trickings of the Beast in the wilfull sensuall hypocriticall worship of God Yea then in the hearing the reading of Sermons meditating praying conferring c. or whatever more immediate services more world-withdrawing exercises so as excluding the seasonable discharge of thy severall relations the performance of thy dutie to God in and through that to men As knowing the worth of every thing to be as it is to the will of God
who hath made these latter ordinances in their time as well as those former And that the God of nature who made nothing in vaine hath given forth such a diversitie of commands not with most wise ends To shew what concord he can make in such a seeming discrepancie betweene worke and worke men and men betweene heaven and earth in such a multiplicitie of imployments in due time and place while they are all According to his will And make an inconceiveable melody in the answering of a good conscience to him To shew thorough what a varietie of occurrents he can carry the faithfull soule while he still keepes it with Him And that hee might keepe them in an humble dependencie on him to learne how to bring forth their fruits in due season To set forth the glory of Christianitie in the sutable composure of such a change of Ornaments The excellencie of it in over-comming so many difficulties in passing so many turnings and windings conducted by the thus-more-commended manifold wisedome power goodnesse of God That takest it for so much superstition so much idolizing of the best duties and therefore for so much no duties while they are set up against the will of God Thou whom prosperitie keepes praying adversitie praysing That art exalted by thy humiliation incouraged by thy feare rejoyced by thy sorrow that gettest thy life by throwing it away that findest thy selfe by losing it that art watchfull in every thing carefull in nothing That art encountred with often doubts scruples irresolutions self-disputes and yet livest at the highest rate of assurance of the divine favour That yea by feeding thy selfe with feare thy watchings prayings fastings art carryed forth in the liveliest vigorousnesse and luxuriancy of spirits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mic. 4. Thou that art now at the top of the third Heavens in the highest exaltations of thy spirit and now againe at the bottome of the lowest Hell while thou still lyest as fast in the hugging imbraces of the omnipresent as ever Thou whose modest sober pure peaceable guilelesse discreet unblamable zealous lively active deportment of thy selfe speakes the one that hath been brought up at thee feet of Jesus Thou whose generous magnanimous God-resembling Spirit stoopes to humilty and overtops Pride That while thou lyest below the lowest dejection of the meanest Sainted Pesant bearest thee above the most disastrous dismallest aspects of the arrogantest Prelatickst highest-aspiring Kingdome-dooming Comet as far as the third Heaven is above the Meteory Region Thou that canst gladly stoope with that meeke Lamb to wash the feete of the meanest Minister of the Gospell Lay downe thy life for the God-loved and therefore world hated brethren while Lyon-like thy righteous soule rouseth up it selfe against the Hypocriticall Pharisee with the most contemptuous and undervaluing disdaine Thou that with a heartie willingnesse canst gladly abase thy selfe to unloose the latchet of the meanest Saint while thou knowest not how to give a Pontificall Peacocke the dissembling Complement of thy hast though he swell though he burnish though he bustle though he crow it never so domineeringly till he be furtivis nudatus coloribus Thou that like thy Heavenly Father knowest how to bee afflicted in all the afflictions of his holy ones his humble ones while wherein soever the Presumptuous deale proudly Thou wilt in Him be above them and make their proudest wrath to praise Him Thou that seest far more beauty on the very feet of the poorest Embassadour of the Gospel then on the honour-pleasure-profit-Triple-crowned head of those enemies to the Crown because to the vertue because friends to the signe of the Crosse of Christ In making the earth their study their belly their God their glorious Titles their shame themselves destruction and their Country distraction Thou that knowest how to turn the other cheeke to him that smites thee and to let goe thy cloake too to him that wud take away thy coate and yet knowest thy time too when to sell it for a sword and thy life by it as deare as thou canst While yet thou seekest not so much the destruction of the enemy no nor the preservation of thy selfe as the obedience too as the glory of God by it Thou that hast learnt how to render blessing for cursing and pray for them that despitefully use thee while still thou remembrest that the same Michael that brought no railing accusation against the devill called the Pharisees a generation of Vipers the evill-working Jewes the children of the devil Thou whose well tempered soule knowest the meaning of a zealous meeknesse a milde indignation a faceat gravity a sollid pleasantnesse c. Thou who while thy cautelous heart is still agitated with the most quick resentments readiest apprehensions of dangers art most firmly setled in a most unshaken peace of a providentiall security Thou whose giving heart is streaming it selfe forth in the most inlarged and selfe-loosing compassions the most liberall supplyes and contributions to the suffering Saints and hast thy awakened feare continually exercised with the alarmes of war and death while thou standest with an undaunted magnanimity in a close fast fixed Communion with thy God like Mount Sion that cannot be shaken triumphing over Hell and Death That while thou bleedest in their wounds art bound in their bonds dyest in their death blessest for thy wounds art freed with thy bonds livest in thy death That walking in the shadow of death in the presence of thine enemies hast a set banquet of heavenly delicacies thy head annointed with the oyle of joy and gladnesse by the over-shadowing hand of the Almighty Redeemer while thy soule is like a brim-full Cup over-running with joy and praises with joy and praises Thou that amandest the wicked from thee that thou maist keep the Commandements of thy God whom thou findest so so inapprehensibly good Thou that abhorrest none more then pragmaticall busie-body censorious men as the most slight-spirited idle self-ignorant worthlesse men that are and yet seekest not thine own things but the things of others and canst not so hate thy brother in thy heart as not to rebuke him and therefore as not to rebuke him in love Thou in whose eyes a vile person is contemned whose God-acquainted spirit can not sit with vaine empty triviall-spirited persons Sons of Belial whose foolish hearts are not lift up in-to the wayes of God that are above to the wise Triflers away of precious houres in frothie frivolous fruitlesse communications that have no and therefore can administer no grace to the hearer Men not of Heaven-ascending discourse spirit life Thou that hast found the two edged sword of the word dividing between the soule and the spirit and raising this as far above that as that is above the body That thou mayest serve him in the spirit of thy minde in the more extracted as it were and more sublimed quintessence the morefree noble 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of life love zeal Thou that like that Purites
strikest fire and throwest sparks about thee to quicke the dead and scindry soules and countest it far more honour to be denominated a zelot with thy Saviour from that which fed on his marrow that pure and undefiled zeale of his Fathers house that consumed him then to be counted a dead carkase of Him who bid the dead bury the dead Thou Precisian that walkest as accurately curiously as upon the ridge of an house and therefore as wisely if the Spirit of Wisdome be a competent Judge Thou that art one of the holy brethren that labourest to be holy as hee that called thee is holy to be holy as though thou canst not be as holy as thy heavenly Father and therefore hast that title linked to it as a concomitant of the pertaking of the heavenly calling Thou that art counted as so much off scouring and dung while thou art one of whom the world is not worthy a seditious factious turbulent fellow that turnest the world topsie turvey while thou art among the proppes and pillars without which it would instantly and irrecoverably sinke Thou that hast God for thy Father Christ for thy Brother the holy Spirit for thy companion the Angells for thy attendance Heaven-the-full injoyment of God for thy perpetuall home Thou that art his undefiled one his jewell his glory the Apple of his eye his pleasant portion the dearely beloved of his soule the darling of the Deitie Himselfe Thou that art the subject of so rare a peece of the divine wisedome in bringing him that stood at the vastest distance the deadliest defiance to the nearest the closest the most endeared intimacie In making a lumpe of rude and unformed darkenesse a lampe of pure and undefiled splendour in that inapproachable light A wispe of straw the fewell of everlasting burning a mingling flame in ever-loving imbraces But whither will this sweet-sounding name transport me Thou man that art worthy of the name as fearing God and keeping his commandements which is the whole the compleatnesse of a man in him in whom wee are compleate pertaking of an higher nature being not carnall walking like a man but spirituall and walking as thou mayst say it In as the knowledge of it will sweetly enforce thee to say it in the deepest the feelingst humilitie as a dimunitive as an opitome of Christ of God While all murmurings envying strifes evill surmises backbitings c. purged out thou possessest thy meeke patient soule like a pure and untroubled Rivulet over flowing in superabundancie of loves and sweetnesses But what shall I say of thee thou Vniforme Multiformitie beautifull blacke crosse-divided ground concording discord Thou that hast eternitie assigned thee to contemplate thy owne worth in thy onely worth the Lord Christ To thee candid Christian as having knowne the wisedome that is from above that is first pure and therefore gentle easie to bee entreated without partialitie prejudicatenesse sensoriousnesse Hypocrisie to thee doe I present hoc qualecunque meum this tenue munusculum these broken and rudely ordered meditations the off-springs of those more serene lucid benign houres those horae blandiores breathing themselves forth in these Canzonets of their serious pleasure which have long laine by me in loose and scribled Adversaria and now after many and oft selfe-disputes suddenly and confusedly according to the condition of the time scrabled up together into this Miscellanie as willing rather then the growing mischiefes of hardned hearts hearts lifted up to their ruine shud prevent thee of all thou shudst have some though too those but preposterously and promiscuously hudled together In which ruder Rapsodie if thou shat espie any brillantes estincellettes any little sparklings forth any glimpses and glances shat heare any hints and relishes that may be suitable to thy word-conformed spirit and like the concurrent rayes of two apposite jewells the concording tones of two Co-tuned instruments might more take thee with thy owne graces more sweeten thy soule in the sence of the divine goodnesse and annimate thee on to a more full obedience to a further activitie in the wayes of holinesse I have my desire and thou shalt not misse of thine Errata PAge 2. Line 5. for turnes to reade turne to p. 26. l. 3. r. sprawle p. 28. l. 12. r. through them converse p. 29. l. 2. r. cheare them to p. 33. l. 17. r. thorough p. 48. l 12. for pleasure r. heaven p. 58. l. 6. Psal 8.9.10 p. 65. l. 22. r. unshod wi'th ' p. 66. l. 10. r. promise p 67. l. 10. for were r. will p. 70. l. 17. r. altar'd p. 71. l. 18. r. for though r. then l. 27. r. still p. 73. l. 16. r. glympses p. 74. l. 5. r. hand l. 32. r. my r'bellious flesh p. 75. l. 7. r. what 's l 10. r. followes Creator p. 80. l. 4. for truth r. forth l 31. r. heares p. 83. l. 29. dele thou page 91. reade line 31. and 32. after p. 92. l. 2. p. 107. l. 5. r. that p. 108. l. 4 r. him p. 121. before vers 21. r. 2 Chron. 20.21.22 c. p. 128. l. 4 r. heeles p. 131. l. 5. r. leaven p. 145. l. 27. r. I th' p. 148. l. 14. r. Is it p. 152. l. 24. r. father's p. 153. l. 9. r. as p. 157. l. 18. r. Angelicque l. 32. r. worlds p. 170. l. 14. r. live p. 175. l. 7. for false r. selfe p. 195. l. 1. r. Vacation I Call to minde my song in the night Psal 77. Admonishing one another in Psalmes and Hymnes and spirituall Songs singing to the Lord with grace in your hearts Ephes 5. Heaven's Harmony the Heaven-speaking strain That meets in Meeter is the meeter strain Heaven's Harmony and the Harmonious man Whose Hearts's right set to God 's the Heavenly man NE're drank'st thou drop of Helicon Nor know'st thou where Pernassus lies What is it then thus beares thee on Into this vein to Poetize Ne're read'st thou Play nor working Poet That in the weightier measures sings But all thy vacant houres bestowedst In haunting of the spring of springs Nor usest artificiall cheare No fumes of Wine brain-hopping Beere No swelling Ale yet still I heare My simple Musa round mine eare But whither Nympha Warbling lie Still in my nursing brest Stay where Wu't finde wi'th ' narrowest scrutiny A serious sober candid eare Hast found ' em Goe long-versed in An Element of Purity Th' rt well content thou heard and seen O' th' purest Puritans may be You 'll finde her like a Traveller I' th' Valley now drink of the Brooke That runs by th' way and thence transfer Her rising feet and mounting looke Then down again deject below Yet still doth sing ' cause still doth goe Where never more shall be below Yet still doth sigh ' cause doth but goe Still sigh and sing and sing and sigh Still sweetly steale the love-drawne heart Insensibly carried to those highths Whence it shall never more depart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epict. Every
as God T' know good and evill I 'le then plod Upon this narrow Scrutiny With all submissive industry I 'le then resigne mine eyes to thee Thou Only Wise to see for mee I 'le be a foole the only way To passe for Wise another Day CHristian O how I tremble at the Name That holds the God that holds the world in frame O what an Earthquake-Palsey shakes my limbs What Spirit-intercluding feare bedims Mine eye What quivering Agues hurry through My panting veines surpris'd with chilling dewes I tremble how I tremble at the Name Christian Shall I say so I must my Joy constraines My Joy that serves it selfe by lighter paines With weightier comforts I professe Ah Lord Make thou my Life unto my Tongue accord Christian A piece of undivided Christ Watch soule for if thy selfe thou God beliest Off Sacrilegious hands th'ungodlike man Ungodly is is not a Christian For God is Christ and Christ is Man CReep sneaking Earthworm to thy bags of Gold And glutt thy greedy Panch with hungry Clay Climbe lofty Spider to thy Heights take hold Of Princes Palaces toile night and day Spin out thy braines into a curious plot Kings Kingdomes are but silly flies soon caught And thou whose Life sayes Time was made for leisure Thou for an Ocean-sporting Behemoth To tosse to rowle thy self in Seas of pleasure Yet know the Foot the Broome the Sluce whose Breakes through th' condensed'st Earth the Aire most wrath high Reaches and draws the abounding'st Waters dry Poore Base Wretcht man Are these things to compare That are so short that Are not while they are With Him that is our Substance With the Rare Th' only Honor t' be his Son his Wisdome Th'faire Sole-pleasing Love whose pure Essentiall Light Breaths flames in all with mutuall Delight God! Christ Blest Spirit Yee-Thou-Are-art mine For ever art One With thy Self-and-Thine MAT. 12. 43 44. GOe sweep thy House and weare out all the brooms Of Ethicks to the stumps collect the sweets Of Scripture flowers garnish perfume thy roomes Thou' rt yet the Rendevous where Legion meets And revell rout's more safe till Christ ha'indwelt Thee'nd kept Possession Which had he then th'hadst felt Thy sin-purg'd-thirsty soule draw wholy up Thy daily draughts of his reviving Cup. This sin-drean'd-Christ-replenisht soule 's no rest For th'unclean Spirit but the self-full brest OH where 's a quiet Lambe a gaulelesse Dove An humble soule an all-enduring Love A Glorious-and-offence-by-passing man That sweetly smiles at All the creature can A a Psa 131. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 smoothly plained silenc't soule abides No b Isa 40.4 cum Psal 31.20 rugged rough excrescencies of Pride A fitted soule to fall in close conjunction With God t' apply it selfe to every function A patient Job meek Moses gentle Paul Upright Gods Friend Heavens Seer well may y'him call The lively Image of his Christ VVho was the lowliest-and-the High'st Blest man Hath found the Philosophique Stone That with a touch turnes Dunghils into Thrones And of a Thorny makes a Golden Crowne Admir'd Believer While he'humbly laies him downe Below th'least mercy i' the nethmost Pit Walkes as a man not worthy o' the Name He forfeited unto Eternall shame Not worthy t'look to th'God he sold for nought On any creature who all in bondage brought Below the lash o th' Diabolicqu'st tongue Satanicqu'st hand in doing doth no wrong Sits still in Heaven with Him in Heaven did sit While in the Grave far far above the reach O' th' highest reaching sins can make no breach Upon his praising Obncords far above The barking or the fawning World but prove Th'increasers of his mirth by what he felt From their attempts while here below he dwelt DEny my selfe Take Up My! Crosse Each Day And follow Thee Selfe Friends gain ease name may Not one of these parts of my self not all Serve But my self and all my self must call Thee Lord What no propriety at home An Inmate to my self And yet must come And beare Must bring my shoulders to this Crosse Nay stoope for 't too and that for My My Crosse How lights anothers though heavier far And say 'T were once ones Life a Yeare a Moneth but every day And that including subdivided times As oft as he shall please recall our crimes Unto our memory And yet thus loaden travell Nay after perfectnesse her 's that would ravell The fin'st spun with into a sad confusion To draw these premisses into a glad conclusion But wisdom 's from above and 't is not nature That sees the height bredth length depth o' th' Creator H's incomprehensible love in Christ How light 's The burthen How unconceiv'd th'delights Thus made more capable of vaster Blisse By these impos'd impossibilities To flesh and blood how much th' more room for grace For God to make our soules the happier Place Of his such wonder-working residence That makes our Faith so far exceed our Sence His Spirit his powre our own that we might be Th'more glorious Proofe of his Omnip'tencie Omnia mea mecum porto TIll thou canst make the Cross of Christ uncrown'd And snatch the Scepter from his hand confounds Kingdomes like Potsheards till thou canst controule Him that shall rowle the Heavens like a scroule And make them melt with fervent heat to give Me passage to my high prerogative It s full enjoyment till thou canst untie Or cut in two the Gordian knot where I 'M inseperably interwoaven with himselfe Till thou canst rob the everlasting wealth And dry the inexhausted Spring Or stop The invisible Influxes that doe drop That poure out * Cant. 5.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sweetnesses come streaming through Their pure and undiscover'd Channell to M'inlivened soule th'ebbing world shall still redound VVith flouds of overflowing comforts ground My soule above the reach of worldly cares To feast upon the sweets of heavenly fare LUKE 1.53 O May I daily empty me of me Could'st thou but fill me daily more with Thee Can'st thou deny thy selfe Or can there be Ought good but Thee Or be Vacuity In Grace more then in Nature O'make make me More humble so I rise more fill'd with Thee Ah Lord Now where am I sure this is right I here is that is worth the name Delight Here her 's a Joy that swallows all my joyes In'ts shorelesse blisse and over all m'annoyes Triumphs in glorious peace the while't imployes It 's provident security and swerves On neither hand but to an haire observes Its narrow ways untill it come t'innest I' th' omnipresent Center of his brest O may I daily sill with more of Thee T 's this filling only humbles-raises me HUmilitie and grace are commensurable take the depth of the one and you have the height have all the dimentions of the other Ex pede Herculem So much Humilitie-so much Grace-so much God or rather so much God-so much Grace-so much Humility All our disposings of our selves to him being post-not predisposings so farre as I
spread downeward in the roote of my humble faith so much the more nourishment I draw and consequently thrive in bulke and stature towards the full measure of perfection in Christ Jesus We have according as we receive but we receive according to our humility-the hollow of the Palme the capacitie the capability of the hand of faith therefore we have according to it Againe Grace is the Indwelling of God in us and Humility the emptying and the unselfing us of our selves to live in him looke then as he comes in the very first forming of grace so we goe out and as wee goe out so he comes in with a daily and further transforming us into himselfe Or thus Christ is the patterne of Humility but in him dwelleth the fulnesse of the Godhead therefore Thc humblest man is the most gracious man Nay who 'twixt th' one and th' other difference can For indeed Grace is Humility-and Humility is Graceis godlinesse they having divers names in a divers respect Humilitie as we are made unlike to are outed of our selves Grace-and Godlinesse as made like to as Inned in our God The unselfdenying man therefore is the prond man-is the ungracious-the ungodly man Or thus God himselfe hath so humbled himselfe take upon him the forme of a servant to be God-with Phil. 2. ver 6 7. The Lord of Life hath shed blood hath been slaine and that on the Crosse for 〈◊〉 Acts 3.15 1 Cor. 11.27 In whom it is humility looke on the Earth to looke on the Heavens Psal 11 Grace then being but what a man hath of God it mâ— be but what he hath of humility The more truly then the more kindly the Sould humbled the more raised the more sublimed it is 〈◊〉 cause more filled with him who is Above all But of tâ— otherwhere God willing the Kingdome standing 〈◊〉 not overturned by these studie-disturbing Statestroying Over-looking Prides QVia des noixil en casse Et qui n'en a il s'en passe Hee that hath Nuts to h's teeth them puts Hee that hath none lets 'em alone 'S ne'r troubled about ' em Just such toyes are all the joyes This world can give and I can live As well without ' em It is not bread whereby I 'm fed I much may carve and yet may starve If Nature feed not But on the aire I can well fare If God shall make me all forsake So say they need not God is my portion all this spatious world â—S a little-tinie Nut that to me hurld â—'ve more adoe to get the Kernell forth Then all the world as but the shell is worth God 's in 't I know and God's without it too And I get him without with lesse adoe My Nuts are left I 'm off my childish stage Approach the Acme of m'eternall Age â—care f'r this ratling pleasure Counter-wealth These Hobby-horse Honours For this trumpery pelte â—arths puling sucklings stretch your throats I draw My Life fro'th ' Wisdome o' the Gospel-Law ARise my Harp my Heart is risen up Praise him hath fill'd hath overfill'd thy cup. â—rise my Heart my Harp is risen up â—raise him hath fill'd thy praise-o'rerunning cup. â—eart Harp arise mixe your melodious notes Whereon my soule my soule to him devotes â—ow praises vow thy selfe in praisefull blisse â—y Heart the Spirit my Harp the Organ is â—ay Harp and Heart and sweetly both agree 〈◊〉 Him my Life my life your Echo bee â—esse Heart Harp blesse with blest conspiracy â—y Life Earth Heaven your constant Echo be SIng pretty Bird and welcome in the Spring And mock my silence heark unthankfull soule How sweetly doth she chant it sing on sing My daintiest Bird how nimbly doth she rowle And poure out Roundelaies as if she wu'd Have all at once her concords understood Yet pretty wretch how well she keepes the time How gracefully she rests how entertaine Her Flats with Sharps how neatly doth she climbe Up note by note and run them downe againe VVith gentle breast breaths many a melting straine Harke harke unthankfull soule what still refraine Rouze up put in thou lacking in thy part Refuse so just a challenge Thou hast two Springs From Earth one Heaven another rise up my heart The winters past raine gone 't is time to sing The Flowers appeare heard is the Turtles voice The voice of thy Beloved Arise Rejoyce Up meditate his praises on thy Lute VVith a grave Higgaiion while like Seraphim Thou burst'st in t ' flams fails th' tongue 'to speak depuâ—â— Thine eyes They Let astonisht silence him Proclaime wondrous in doing in Sanctitie Glorious in praises fearefull I praise Thee Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Rest My rest yet restlesse I how faine wu'd speake But so o're powerd with dazling Light so prest VVith Humbling weight of Massie Glory breake M'imprisoning earth claime climbe my high degree Glory in its El'ment can't too heavy be O turne away thine eye No turne mine eye To a refulgent Sun whose steady view May feast upon unmixed Entitie 'S uncircumscribed and uncoulerd Hew Till * Ps 14.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 complectitur copiam affluentiam Fluminis Luminis cum celeritate lubentia ac pronitate Fosterus whelm'd in living floods of streaming beames I rise far far above these dunghill-steames To sing Blest God who to thy Pure in heart I' th' Sight of Thee all blessings dost impart LOrd I believe O help my unbeliefe My sins are great therefore my sins remit Are thy thoughts thy wayes mine To see the Chiefe Of sinners Chiefe of Saints a work befit Such free full grace O how my soule admires Rapt up in wonders lost in large desires How I expatiate in this Infinite I stretch I retch and yet still more 's before Still I put out my selfe so from Selfe quite Am drawne most happy losse to finde such store I 've lost my empty Barke * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 swift sailing come Inrich't with Glory to my Glorious Home Tosse World thy waves Heart harker for thy Earth Blow Divle thy blasts He he is in my Barke Shall quit me of you all Ravisht with mirth While to my Husband-Pilots Loves I harke With full assarance fleetly glide along Long longing t'sing that overlasting long Hallelujah Hallelujah But must I rest I heare A harshned touch what interchange here needs Or have I so fastidious an eare Or i' st Variety my joyings feeds But that that 's Grounded on Simplicity In Jah's the confluence of all Harmony T 'S a Princely Fabrick This. What curious rowes Of glittering windows stately Batiements How well compact proportion'd trim it showes A Master-piece of Arts imbellishments And what a bredth and length it runs as high As if it wu'd the spangled Cope outvie In lofty glory And if within you prie How neatly furnisht with rich Utensils How gorgeous deckt with broidred Tapestry What Paintings Carvings Guildings What so e're fills Th' eyes with content Yet be the Seat unsound Foundation shallow soon't salutes
night This black-Prince-ruled world but where in thine Thy Word Saints Spirit thou art pleas'd to shine My soul is dark my brightest light but dim This yet 's my joy all I have I have from Him VVith Wanes and Changes now I oft decline But in the Full shall shortly ever shine Freed from this Leasehold earth this shady night Fully possesse possessed by the Light VVhose beaming favours from his Darkelesse face Condign'd his Choice Coheires of Glorious Grace I See no light and yet so much I see As darkes all other lights I feele no love And yet so much I feele as makes me flee All other loves when other joyes can't move My heart that sad perplexities annoyes I joy this griefe and grieve all other joyes Lord art thou gone What shalt thou so be lost Thy glorious eye into this heart hath sent The spark hath took the whole an Holocaust It restlesse mounts unto its Element Fire of the Spirit it is 't will make no stay Till to the Spirit of fire't hath burnt its way Shew me the Father and it shall suffice Whom ne'r man saw and liv'd yet seen of men If death wu'd doe it 't were well for wicked eyes Nor dead nor living yet seen of men how then Dead and alive in thee and by thy Light I feed on that full satisfying sight 'T is not the predisposed Organ here That needs the Medium of a Mediator Quicks deadned eyes th'obscured Object cleares To th'lightlesse Creature the great Light Creator Here see I all I 'd have the world is want The Bed's too short the Coverings are too scant BLack thoughts as black as hell and yet more black Their paines extort their lies Not Good What lack Hast thou of all content but only this I cannot see not say Good Good He is Mad thoughts As mad as Hell and what 's more mad Then to confesse He is and yet is bad More reason 's in m'unreasonablenesse VVhen say there is no God then not confesse Him Good Him only Good O could I thinke My heart so gone in love so brought to 'th brinke Of those Celestiall Rivers thence shu'd shrink And steale me to th' infernall Lake I think VVho did so deeply of his goodnesse drink That this was in my heart my heart in Heaven Ne'r will I trust what hath me so deceiven No no nor what I say for if I doe 'T will cheat me in That Resolution too Ah Lord what wo'nt I do whom even now Thou feasted'st with the sweets of God yet how How soon my mouth was full of gaulie taste That thou shu'dst throw away the world as waste And Fire-fit refuse yet so sure combine Me in that Jesu bundle of Life with Thine Elect who'st room enough in Him for all Or might'st have kept them from their former fall Blest God! 't is therefore that I love thee so That thou these wise-hid-depths to Babes wu'dst show VVhen Fools proud wisdome scorns to stoop so low Thou nothing do'st because 't is Good 't is Good Because Thou do'st it Thy good pleasure wu'd That this be so even so be it who will Doe what They will may thank themselves for th' ill Ensu's but what Thou wu't Thy grace VVho'rt plac'd to dwell in Satans Place O love The God of glory Come Good God! in th'unclean Spirits room VVhat am I Lord And what thy whole Creation That Thou shu'dst condole VVer 't but a Man but Millions so condole As t'beare the Shame Blame Death the whole Evils of thy Sainted Rebels whom Justice judg'd meriting one doome Love Goodnesse shu'd I praise extend Unto its due I shu'd ne'r end Nor wu'd nor will but make my dayes Expire in Panegyrick laycs TEach me Thy Foolish wisdome Lord and let The blindfold world choose wiser Follies set My heart in frame to Learn-Love-Doe Thy will To feare to Think Speak Act the smallest ill Here wisdome takes beginning only Here Where feare shall teach me wisdome wisdome feare Thou art Only-Wise-Immortall God and He That 's taught of Thee but only taught is he VVhose humble feare dives in those depths too deep For haughty Ignorance Sleep fondlings sleep And hug your dreames of wit but when you wake You 'le dearely rue your obstinate mistake HOw pleasantly I weare away my dayes I' th' sence o'renewed strength My strength decaies And rises by his ruines I melt away How sweetly melt still drop proud flesh defray Your marrow to maintain these flames still burne Ble'st spirit burne me all to fire turne Thoughts will prey on my spirits life will away Then live my sprightfull thoughts on your decay Life Life of Lives 'T is only Then I Live VVhen ready stand prepar'd with Joy to give Up my Accompt and speed me to that day That gives me Life Indeed because for Aye O When shall I put off these fleshly Clothes And in my Earthy Bed take sweet repose Untill that Morning come that Holy day In holy Pleasures I shall ever Play On well tun'd Heart that Heart inamouring ditty That is the Consort of that Heavenly Citie Even so Lord Jesus Come when breakes the day Show's us Thy face the shadow 's flowne away Even so Lord Jesus Come when breakes the day Amen Amen the Bride and Spirit say I Come I Come so come that we may come Riding o' th' Cloudes unto our Fathers Home MElt in thy Fire my Earth blest Spirit blow M'into a Glasse through whose transparent pores My radiant streames of holy luster flow Into my light-enliv'ned soule now poares On those dim glimmerings thorough this darksom dust Yet more ob scured by th'False-lights of Lusts More then more strong be those thy glorious rayes To lift my heart up to thy heavenly wayes Till thou shalt spiritualize my very flesh And make my glorious body see no lesse I Cannot hold so full so full of Thee Sweet Father help the more 's the Revelation Of Truth the more th'more strong the test'mony Of love the more th'more strong is the temptation My Love burnes still and from that fire comes light Restores the day unto my darkest Night For still I say I know I 'm ignorant And very bad but Thou art Wise and Good I can't but love Thee Thy Love-Letter I can't But I must reade thus Truth is understood Receiv'd with love without delusion so By knowing I learn to Love by loving Know. A holy Life 's the clearest Commentary I finde o' th' sacred Text the Spirit 's actuall Interpretation 'T unites what seemes contrary Parts One in Two show's how 't is it doth call Griefe joyfull faithfull feare lofty humblenesse Destinguisheth of Prayer Faith show's who confesse Who makes the Word a Lanthorn to his feet God to his pathes to mak 't a Light think 's meet HOw giddy I am with viewing the Sea I 'd know Why Thou't so ebb to some to some so flow Why this man 's left the other Love doth take But woe t' him dares debate with h's Maker make O
Thy Wise-knowing depth's unsounded be Since I cannot take Thee take take Thou mee Into Thy mercies Ocean be I receiven I know 't will beare me to my Haven Heaven That shall declare Thy righteousnesse that shall Thy Judgements manifest God's Judge of All Great Wonderfull Thy Workes Just true Thy Waies Shall be the ditty of Thy worthy Praise MY Head 's lost in my Heart sure I 'm in love Forget all yea m'own thoughts while thus above And now what 's this steales slily in my head My spirits thus in my heart concentered Don't I believe My heart my life wo'nt say it And for my thoughts what need I so much weigh it Thoughts oft confound themselves I love I live The God the Life that none but Christ can give Am crucified dead buried risen ascended Begin the Life that never shall he ended MY Head doth ake and yet my Head Doth feel no pain My Head is well and yet my Head Doth still complain Well I 'le goe lay it on my Husbands knee Where stroake it with His gentle hand shall Hee His Palm's a medecine Soveraign If He but touch The Feaver leaves if He refrain Yet I 'le not grutch Ther 's somewhat in 't He 's Wise Good ake's't still well 'Ts Thy mercy Lord 't shall never ake in Hell Ne'r ake in Hell then ever in Heaven Triumph o're griefe And sha'nt this all thy Sowers unleav'n With sweet reliefe But weigh them well they 'le overpoise them quite What 's Earth to Heaven Finite to Infinite And now my Faith what do'st where art What Yeeld to Sence Or hast forgot thy Heavenly Art How to dispence Joyes suiting every sorrow I wonder too Wer't in the Martyrs flames how Then thou 'dst doe Lord give me strength and Thou shalt take the praise Lord take my strength and That shall give Me praise NOw mouldring Earth why hang'st the head Hast not a Soul why why so dead Or shal't be more enslaved by Thy pains whose pleasures conquered lie No no 't is more ingenuous bred With courage as well as wisdome sped My spirit not mine 's egregious I 'M among the Exc'llent who so high That I not Aemulate And can I'ndure to see a Publican Thus match me He can blesse i' th' warme Sun but I 'd blesse i' th' sharpest storme I 'd pray I 'd praise my paines away And lull my griefe asleep a way Of sweet successe I 'd drown my swine This touchy grunting grumbling repine In my own waving passions Swage By reg'lar passions passions rage By this my heavenly indignation Appease this earth-fum'd perturbation Attempts to Shipwrack peace in vain That still 's afloat o' th' calmed Plaine Thy breath the windes did blow away Thy Word the boistrous billows stay Thou said'st I shu'd do greater things For Faith in 'ts power all things brings thou 'dst be commanded by 't I shu'd B' as sure of what so e're is good As if thou wert at their Commands Who humbly-bold wait watch thy hands But I wu'd doe what thou hast done I 'd make dim eyes play with the Sun Dead spirits from their graves wu'd bring And make deaf eares to heare them sing This dumb-grown tongue thy wonders tel I wu'd doe all things wondrous well I 'd th'lowest dullest flatnesse raise To th' highest tones of clearest praise I 'd fighting humours reconcile But if they 'le fight I 'd feast the while I 'd tune distempers to thy praise Turn cloudy nights to Sun-shine dayes Teach fainting hands to ring applaud And parched bones to spring with laud Smooth wrinkling gripings with a smile But if they wo'nt I 'd sing the while How ere it be yet Thou art good And better ditty I ne're wu'd Hold up declining Armes hold up Poure praises from an empty Cup For Grace is no more void then Nature Where th' creature wants ther 's the Creator Where that goes out there He comes in As well as where there goes out sin When then there 's place that 's empty o' thee Then not till then I 'le empty be Thy presence then when Thou sha't cease Then not till then I 'le cease to blesse Then never sha't Thou be unblest By him wh'hath thee a constant Guest Though in the dark a while we be Yet cause I see the Dark I see The world or want All 's one to me The while in either I ha'thee M'thinkes I can't but often pray That thou wu'dst take this world away For while 't is seen it bars my sight And I finde faith the sweet'st delight But all thy counsels have their beauty And all my comfort 's in my duty For thou hast taught my faith the way Through all to passe t' m'eternall stay Thee Thee O wu'dst thou take me now Thy childe that to thine armes doth bow Its straining soule loth to be held By th' world in'ts pleasing'st usage yeelds But paines O Thou that all things made And can'st revive them when they fade Thou that the Chaos fram'dst so faire And from foure discords match't so rare A set of healthy harmony Can'st when thou please make all agree And what 's my Musick but thy pleasure And but thy selfe what is my treasure Then let it goe and goe my health So will 's my musick so my wealth Be packing packing get thee gone No more dear friend He 's all or none Be packing packing get thee gone No more deare health Hee 's all or none Be packing packing get thee gone No more deare self He 's all or none Be packing packing get thee gone No more deare Nothing He 's all or none 'T is very well then I am ill If this be ill be I so still Till thou sha't see it fit to tell M'its very well that I am well 'T is very well friend I thee misse The misse o' th' world 's a world of Blisse Leave out thou sai'st this paltry Crotchet 'T will sound but ill and shall I botch it Into the Song sound it as 't will And so say I ha'th'better skill How too it grates my curious eares My tender Bowels wracks and teares M'observant head sets m'teeth on edge Against my self essay'd t' abridge My joy my stretching it besides Thy Will where all my joy resides And when all 's done so must I play The sweet the while lost by delay Strike off the sin strike as thou please Blot out th' offence I seek not ease And yet my ease because it is Thy pleasure t'keep me still in Blisse My ease my pleasure therefore is Or strike or not I 'm still in Blisse Nay this my ease my pleasure is Strike or forbeare the hand is His. Thankes thankes Think'st th'Angels now are still The just mens perfect spirits sill Not Heaven with their chanting voice Thou' rt o' the Choire my soul rejoyce Thou maist thou must praise with the gods The God makes musique with his rods He 's one Entire Pure Perfect Happinesse No shaddo ' o' change in him thou art e're Blest
e're Blesse 2 KINGS 4. ONce was I dead Authority then brought Applyed thy Word but nought till Thou cam'st wrought And now I languish i' this fainting fit The meanes begun my life best strengthens it Come lay then eyes to eyes mouth hands that I May see sing doe more wonders till I die To see to sing to doe thy Will above As here to have it seen sung done I love VVHen I lov'd death and ran away from life My wanton Circuits for some fresher sin Mercy pursued o'retooke and with its strife Inclin'd my will to know God Good againe Good God! and now I feare to step awry Thy hand 's as neare as thy ne'r slumbering eye I stumble but not fall fall off not fall That shoots me the more forward upward this Obliquely I ascend why why at all Dear'st God O love O feare the Lord that is So wondrous good O feare th'least temporall misse Of such a friend secures Eternall blisse Ne're leave me such company such for ever Infinite simplicity of joyes I sever My self a moment for a momentary Shadow of blisse These thoughts first must I vary Eternity is little enough t' imploy In him and shall I bate a moments joy Avant false loves I 'le lose you All for Ever E're I will misse a minute of this pleasure To lie infolded in my Saviours armes To feast upon his kisses while he warmes He melts my soule into his melting armes Presumptuous Rivals still your Syren charmes My soul is at her heighths and cannot stoop To lend an eare to your inchanting Cup. No no I 've Nectar I have Flagons here One drop's enough ten thousand Worlds to reare As far above themselves as now they are Below Him who is only worth compare Feed Sensualist on dreames of aiery Thrones Of golden Mountaines and of pleasure Own 's No parallel but give me leave to tell The ' hadst been in Heaven thou d'st say thou art in Hell VVho ere was thus imbedded in Thy breast Deare Lord and could finde other where his rest His Rest that moves in such an endlesse sweet VVhere all the Spirits of the Godhead meet VVith my diffused soul entwines it self In fresh rencounters with'ts imbettering Self I 'M in a straite prest hard on either hand I both wayes hast and yet am at a stand I here is Christ but there is more of Christ Here in my mouth and heart but there is nigh'st VVhat i st but love can keep me from the sight The perfect sight of my select delight But love's obedient if thou 't bid me goe And travell on this Pilgrimage below Doe suffer seaven and seaven yeares so to show How grounded's my affection that 't is no Fond fancy that the giddy world deceives I goe I run I flie yet give me leave To beare thy Picture next my heart to looke Upon th'adored Beauties of thy Book That they may be the covering of mine eyes So to preoccupy them from these lies O glories Can I hold Can I refraine But still thou sai'st and therefore I Remain Love 's not its own lives in'ts Belov'd thinkes good Not what the Subject but the Object wu'd COntent to live but covetous to die Glad here to doe more good but more to flie Above these sad temptations to doe ill Yet covetous again of life to fill Heaven with more saved soules and yet againe Death not t'occasion more Hell filling sin Thus while I waver in this blessed doubt This blest propensity thus helps me out Lord while thou wu't I 'd live and when thou wu't I 'd die my humble soul learn'd at the foot Of my deare Jesu no true rule 's t' be had To judge of right and wrong of good and bad But by thy Will and Nill Thus living die I still And dying live thus m'will he gives In both because I die and live Beset with Heaven on every hand Prepar'd for Heaven thy Command HIgh and happy is that pitch of Christianity that can so well reconcile the greatest of enemies Life and Death as that they both friendly take up their lodgings in the same Breast and see themselves entertained with the same respect at the same time without the least grudging or repining at each other The heart not vexed with any partiall peremptory desires of either But they quietly residing in it and officiously waiting on it with a dexterous serviceablenesse to discharge either of their duties according to the good pleasure of God signified to the God-well-pleased soule Then is a Christian like Himselfe when he hath that power over himselfe as to walke with his life in his hand as ready at the least sound of the word given either to lay it down or put it up againe in his heart When he weares it loose about him like an outer garment ready to slip on and off as occasion serves This is the onely man that is fit to Live who is fit to Die and fit to Die who is fit to Live He that knowes how to Live hereafter is well prepared how to Live here and hee is not prepared to depart hence that knowes not how to Live hereafter He that knowes no difference betwixt earth and heaven but more and lesse of God as he can not but be continually making more after heaven because after more of God so can he not but be as willing to stay on the earth while it is more agreeable to the will of God which is Himself the Heaven of a Christian Blessed blessed soule thus sented in his God! To whom the sound of the feete of death are delightfull and the drawing out of his dayes is pleasant When the withering'st age detaines not too long in life nor the flourishing'st youth hastens too soone to death As he that crowned with all the pomps and pleasures that the fragrant'st the fertilest Garden of the world can afford see 's nothing in the whole but meere vanity meere nothingnesse lesse than nothing And on the other hand cast forth into the driest and barrend'st Wildernesse the vast and howling Desart still digges up Fountaines of everliving and never exhausted waters and makes his Bacha his Baracha his vale of teares a mountaine of praises as * Psal 84. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drinking Him for his Spring who is the Lord of Life and Glory SEest how this string untoucht doth quickly stir At th'sound of that they not who 're not so far Where are the soundings of thy Bowels Lord Our Bowels sound and shall not thine accord They touch Thee not but thine eyes-apple they touch And wu't not stir when their presumption 's such And though we cannot move our neighbours heart Yet in our griefe wu't not thou beare thy part Thou art our Father Oh let there never be Even in Inanimates more Simpathy Forget her Childe a mother may yet not Thou thine for if they are thy selfe 's forgot Draw out our Soules and make us follow thee For where thou art there only there are
we ENough Lord July 1640. Mercy enough take my life from me I better than my Fathers No s'bad I 'd die Were I left only Yet were I still with Thee But I 'm so fickle s'inconstant one while I Conquer Philistims break through all but then My strength is gone and I 'm like other men 〈…〉 renew'd and now had I 〈…〉 I 'd so imploy 〈…〉 â—ation Go their 〈…〉 Exalts it self above the highest Throne And sweeps down Stars whose lustre hath outshone Their artificiall Fires and made their Light Appeare th'ditch-plunging Vapours of the Night Lull'd were wee fast asleep while they Us shave But in thy Name wee 'le valiantly behave Our selves wee 've strength an t'spare wee 'le be more be Than Conquerours yea shortly on Them see Wh'have long depriv'd us of our sight and made Us grinde the grist keeps up the Romish Trade And now wee'z make them sport but such as makes Them and their Conclave feele their Downfall shakes Down down it goes this Lordly Machination On their own Lordlesse hearts this reputation Have all His Saints let not the vision be Prolonged Lord. When when shall I once see These Cockatrices Egges These Spiders webbs Crush't and swept down This Flood even now it ebbs While't more Rebellion then the Ocean sounds That curbs its proud Waves by its Makers bounds Is'nt th'Myst'ry of Iniqu'tie's Measure found Orerunning th'brim strik 't strik 't and throw 't to th' ground O when 's That 's Shortly Thou't under our feete contrite All desperate haters of Thy holy Might SWell on proud Toad and with thy swelling burst Spit venome still I 've m'Antidote How say'st I can't indur't Nor He thee thou accur'st That blest the meek I wonder how thou pray'st Thy Will be done What Wu't th' prerogative 'S His Glory To none other will He give A Touch a Pin a Word a Look make such a brable But brought on Bed thy self-will never eas'd Gi'th'Child its will give the Fool its bable And who more pleasant The devill 's well when Hee 's pleas'd But whose of God is pleas'd when He 's not well His Will 's his Pleasure and his own 's his Hell NO feare not Thou for Thou dost Jesus seek Meek righteous soul to make thee righteous meek Feare nothing nothing else but Him who can Yet cannot ' cause he will not hurt a Man A man of God whose single watchfull eye Heart minde strength might joy time doth all imploy In all Commands with all their due extents And sweetly still the humble soule relents And drooping dropping dropping in his breast will cry Ah wretch't unprofitable servant I O blest and profitable servant Thou Rewarded with th'All powerfull God and how How canst thou feare wh'hast Him who all things made Feare not He bids then feare to be afraid Feare not the Lion but the way watch pray He 'd keep th'in his who keeps His in their way THat feare and love is good and great That Goodnesse feares and Greatnesse loves Good for a slave may feare a threat And every rascall money moves Great the greatest feare from * Miserimum est fuisse foelicem Sin-and misery is as it is to Holinesse-and Happinesse Had not they first been we had never known these It is the full and feeling apprehension of their irrecoverable losse that makes Hell Hell to the wicked And the feare of their indiscoverable obscuring that makes feare feare to the godly In this so far exceeding that of the ungodly that the feare of the one ariseth from the losse of God of the other from the losse of themselves an infinitely sweet and gratious God a poore petty contemptible worm The soule of the one widened in the great vast apprehensions of the incomprehensible simplicity of God of the other shrunk up shrivelled in the strait narrow bounds of its own welfare That being a feare of Love the workings whereof are stronger than Death this of hatred that shall be kept under the power of Eternall Death That being that which draws the soul insinitely after him bindes it indissolvably to him makes it dwell everlastingly in him who is Love all Love and in whom is no hatred at all This that which contracts it into it self in a straight and scanty compasse carries it off makes it flie and keep at a distance from him who is Heaven while they are flying from Hell There being nothing that laies a stronger ingagement on the soule than Love and therefore nothing that doth more intend and increase the affections conducible to its preservation Which did an Arminian feele he would never exclaime against free Grace and absolute Predestination as a doctrine of sinfull liberty but rather as I may call it against forc't Grace and dependant Predestination The feares cares worries of the slave and mercenary beginning and ending in himselfe he not labouring out of a single eye but as seeing the whip and lash over his head the messe of Pottage at his hand while the adopted Son that lives at his Fathers Court and is ascertained of the Inheritance can as well qua talis as such whose heart is so enlarged and carryed forth in the sence of divine joyes and loves indure any the least aberration from its Fathers good pleasure as he that hearing him bespeake him with such like kinde compellations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my deare my precious Son the childe of my kisses my pleasant embracings for whose trouble my bowels are troubled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on whom in tender mercy I will have tendes everlastingly tender mercie c. can chuse but be affected with the most quick and ready concord of bowels the most passionately stirring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most Son-like givings givings up of soule and consequently acted with a more than manlike feare care working to be ever ever pleasing such a Father such a God to whom he findes it so good to draw to be so neare Losse doth rise Heroicque spirits catch not flies HOw full of sweetnesse is my foule While in this boundlesse Ocean 't roules 'T selfe in concurring floods of Blisse Where meets in One what ever is O How I dread thy mercies How Imbrace thy judgements on whose brow Sits lovely Soveraignety Inthron'd in an Identity Of awfull smiles whose holy beames Influence Seas of gratefull streames Through all thy wayes whose every path A sweetly fresh occurrent hath To bath my blissefull soul sings still Jehovah is in all and till He cease to be he never will To doe Great Good nor I to fill My reverentiall heart with praises Whose welcome feare my spirit raises To such an heighth of self-contempt that all This and the world below below me fall Poore despicable spectacles to 'th soule that feares Nothing but what it Loves nor loves but what it feares Hence pedling world with all thy paltry pack Trusse up away be gone Nor have I lack What Faire foule skins full empty bags Fresh rotting
bayes are these thy brags They have no Grandeur to amuse My free-borne spirits scorne to choose What so inadequate will prove Unto the Heavenly vastnesse of my Love Nor when I see thee crosse my way Arm'd in thy terrors to essay Me with fell browes and felling blowes Canst make me stoope to thy dispose there 's no such amiablenesse appeares T' attract the sweetnesse of my feares So canst not play the Cheater nor The Thiefe I thus provided for Nor have I time nor strength t' attend Thy gaudy trifles nor to lend An eare unto thy trifling threats Whilst such a fearefull-Love compleats It selfe by growing more One in One My busied thoughts o're-whelm'd alone In my exceeding Great Reward My Buckler and my shielding Guard Whos 's Sunne-amasing bright aspects Majestique Grace Inf'nt protects Omnipotent Benignities Eternall favours my soule n're sees But wonder-struck it panting lies For life to live before those eyes Whose every glance conveies such sparkes As all created beauties darkes And wholly makes my loving feare Injoy th'inliv'ning dyings there Breaking through every object to Th'great Love with whom I have to doe That fires out mixtures while he warmes Pure hearts in 's purifying armes Trampling on worlds with all their force And fraud that strive to stop my course There lie thou sprawling feare and there Disheartned love so proudly'd dare T' usurp the name belongs to One Doth both as you yourselves oppone Let vulgar men have vulgar mindes Let false feare kill while fond love blindes Let vulgar men have vulgar mindes Move crosse and stumbling lie behinde Unenterfairing even pac't Affections smoothl'each other hast And me on them as the same feet O' th' same Heaven-journying soul to meet The same desire one blessed God Who ne'r made passions be at ods BUt Sin and Satan fear'st not them No no nor them they can't condemne Me that must be the Higher powre Whose feare their feare doth over-powre Why shu'd I so disgrace my Birth A piece of Heaven-inspired Earth Shall I degenerate from my Birth And to base feares resign my Mirth No 't is not them I feare but Him Whose love will never lose a limbe I conflict with a conquer'd foe Wh'hath only strength enough to show The stronger over ruling hand Subjecting All things to'ts command I 'le wary cautions active be And so my feare from feare shall free Give me no feare but that which meets In hearty joyes and honved sweets A well compos'd Ingredient To make the more compleat content A pure a cleane a cleansing sound Strong strengthning healthy feare whose ground Is Love is Faith a hopefull feare A feare of great delight 's my feare Sweet feare How oft I 'd name thee ere I 'd let thee goe who art so neare So deare unto my heart Sweet feare That mak'st such Musick in mine eare That feast'st me with such royall cheare Such heavenly fare the while I heare Thee say the King my Father 's here The King my Husband 's come to beare Me company to solace me W'th all manner o' pleasants hid for me Unworthy me to sup and dine To banquet with me with the wine The generous wine repleats my soule With raised spirits above th'controule Of men and divles while humbly waite On th' gratious Councels that impart So glad a course of watchfull worke T' avoid the sad temptations lurke About m'in every corner and Hath promis't me hee 'l ever stand Close by me wi'h's ne'r slumbring eye Ne'r shortned Arm that can espie That can prevent thought he so good Evill's at th'great'st distance but he wu'd Have them approach assault to try How much of that great God may lie In such a little piece of flesh What mighty powre he can expresse B' a broken contrite heart what high What unconceiv'd delights defie The highest-aspiring griefe and scorn T' be over-reached overborn By'ts cruell Talons but still soare Their Heaven-securing flights as more Advanced b' its pursuits while still Resolve t' be uppermost will-nill All th' ravenous griefes and Harpy feares Though th'hugest terriblest flock appeares Sweet feare still sweet And have I met Thy name again Though counterfeit That wu'd betray me while I let The feigned sound have entrance yet As error proved makes the truth More lovely so its falshood doth Thy faithfull friendship while I finde They 're purposely of him design'd These hid as well as open foes That may th' sagacity disclose That with the courage lies inclos'd In this my faithfull feare repos'd In that All-powerfull breast Sweet feare Wise Valiant feare still may I feare Yet never feare to lose thee feare Thy misse but not thy losse may heare May see as well as know thou art A constant lodger in my heart While still thou art in exercise Of some sage puissant enterprize Still watchest prayest workest wait'st Still fight'st still beat'st thy way through straights Sweet feare how oft I 'd name thee er'e I 'd let thee goe who art so neare So deare unto my soul sweet feare That mak'st such Musick in mine eare Well make it still within my heart VVe'r still together though we part Il faut avoir Courage iusques apres la mort THe shrill mouth'd Trumpet and the ratling Drum The clattering armour and the quivering Speare Swords glittering Canons roaring these become The Spirit that 's steel'd with Faith not bar'd with feare The smell of sulphure and the sight of blood The sence of wounds of death the heart yet good Thus muster up thy forces day by day Thus fight before thou fight'st this is the way To carry it sure put on thy Panoplie Arm'd Capapea thy proudest foe defie What need'st thou Christian feare maintain the field God is thy Shield Tower Captain never yeeld Or fear'st thou more the fiery darts of men Then divles these quench't shall those affright thee and when Thou shu'dst be bold because thou art afraid In weaknesse God his power is perfect made HAst seen the Hunter hurry down like thunder Headlong descents beare up the steepest Crag Leap hedge and ditch cut gates and bars asunder Break through the thickets plunder through the Quags Scowre o're the Hillocks flie it o're the Plaines Out-face the windes laugh at the storming raines Forget his hunger envy not the Bryars His clothes his flesh wi'h's Steed undaunted prance Through lonely Heaths perplexed Woods never tyres But on still on he rides and if he chance To get a fall leaps nimbly up again And makes the ground to feel's more swift disdain Thus fired with courage nought but feare refraines Thus sports in 's perils pleasures in his paines Up Heaven-bred heart up This 't is doth demerit The exercise of thine Heroique spirit Shall that brave breast recoile what what temptation Dismaies the man whose danger 's recreation How his resisted soule will reinforce It selfe and take new valour to its course Through all he breakes downe all he beares o're all He flies his saith is further'd by his fall For what his
nimble eye could not prevent His noble heart turnes to incouragement And counts small undertakings too too small For that Great minde that nothing great can call But God On on brave hearts What what temptation Dismaies the man whose danger 's recreation Not feares the hard'st injeopardingst and yet feares The light'st secur'st Imployment since he heares More Alsufficiencie in th' Aeternall's Word For th' difficult'st exploits and findes't confer'd On 's Heaven-raised soule then'n Himselfe sees To th' least good thought vast insufficiencies Thus by this feeblenesse made more apprehensive O' th' gratious supervenient strength'i's defensive Offensive succours He finds so sweet a greet In 's R'covering Heart where strength and weakenesse meet God and himselfe Here'd faine b'unchamber'd by 'th ' Free quickning Aire growne stronger ' d conflict with The ruder windes and yet his strength increast Stirres up the heartned Champion to request The King his Master to designe him to Some singular service which he passing through With perill-edging puissance might prove The Sovereigne vigor of his Soveregne's love Arm'd w'th ' All-powrefull Arme that rends in pieces The hugest hosts of foes as th' slender Fleeces O' th' slightest rottenest Woole What what temptation Dismaies the man whose Danger 's Recreation â—â—st not thy exercise I' st not to trie Thy strength that Thou mayest know 't and magnifie â—â—is Giver I' st not use legges and have them use travell And use shall teach thee nimbly trippe the gravill * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epict. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And how thou' rt here mista'n 't is not th' affliction Whereby thou suffer'st but thine owne affection No man can hurt thee unlesse thou wilt what may An Heathen teach thee magnanimitie O pray Pray for more faithfull courage let men see Ethicks are yet to learne o'Theology What fear'st but sinne lookes 't after what but grace Since there 's so much in these then these imbrace Count them thy Pleasure Glory and thy Gaines For what gets more of Christ's well worth thy paines From the eater meate cruell sweet darke light ill good A Ridle in heaven's fully understood Here were our hearts s ' Inheaven'd in Holinesse As there they 'll be even here they 'd see no lesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 SImplicitie-Immutabilitie Art thou O'Lord and am I as thou art One Spirit with Thee this contrarietie Whence is it then whence this inconstant heart Wer 't but that to thy sacred Image I 'M renew'd I 'd looke for more Analogie One spirit yet many loves yet many changes O be there now no mixtures no estranges O here 's my woe incorrespondency My deeds unlike themselves and all to Thee O trie refine rack supernaturalize Extract subtile sublime spiritualize O spirit spirit what shall I doe for spirit This body o' Sin this rotten Carkasse bury it How ' nweldy ' t is how over-grown with flesh How faintly it workes More spirits to refresh I can't indure these lame sick presents t' give Or make me lively or not let me live O cou'd I keep my Orb and constant shine I 'd draw up worlds with influence divine And mount their spirits but so dim low coole They 'le feare 't is but some Meteor to befoole Them not so wise to deem the different doome Between a setting Sun and falling Fume Much light 't is shewes the Sun much fruit the Roote The Roote the Sun Thou art then may my fruit My Light be much that men may wonder much What 's th'lightfull Roote whose fruitfull Light is such I am thine Image don't men judge of Thee By me Ah Lord let me no longer bee Or be more like Thee What no more holy yet More perfect yet Nay my heart intreats Thee let Me branded be for a damn'd hypocrite Or my-thy Light let it increase its might The soul Thou sai'st that 's clean-and sound promoves In strength the righteous man his Light improves Unto the perfect day but better I For ever perish then Thou once shu'dst lie They 'r foolish men and if I once doe ill From P'rticulars to Generals argue will From Man to God but how ever I be Yet Thou art good when wu't Thou come to me O that I could but wish to wish to bee For ever in Hell then be a jot from Thee This th' only Hell then may I there ne'r be O cou'd I keep my earth-freed wish to be For ever in Heaven then be a jot from Thee Thee Thee But ' die for feare for love of Thee Great Good what not but I sin shame Glory Grace Grace nay Then I le live Thy Name With loudest praises I le promulgate Then My heart my life shall say Amen Amen ORub me rub me He is passed by Pass't by my breath my life my I. O what but My hanging hands and feeble knees agree To joyne their suit for speedy remedy My yearning lookes and rowling bowels make A sad relation of Thy sad forsake My yearning lookes and rowling bowels make A glad petition for Thy glading sake For Thy forsake I faint I sinke I die But for Thy sake I live I rise I flie And over all I hie I post I speed I cannot stay For Faith is nimble in its way I post I speed I cannot stay For love and love know no delay I post I speed I cannot stay For Faith and Love are all my stay I post I speed I cannot stay For Love in Sence must end my way HEalth Wealth Name Liberty The World at will enough Take thy ease and minde thee The World what 's that to me Not elbow-roome enough To turn and winde mee Not peeping hole to see My Love not breath enough For m' Lungs to winde me Great great deficiencie Not lightsome roome enough To loose n'er finde me Wu'd not I die did not I eye Thee far before my self Wu'd not I pray my selfe away From all this paltry pelfe Wu'd I demurre when gone so far In love to thy Great Selfe Wu'd I descend and not there spend M' into Thy Endlesse Selfe No sure I de goe I de never hold my head And keepe my flushed spirits from their flight To roule their chantings i' the Darkelesse Light And sing inlargement from the living dead But that I heare me thinkes a voyce behind Sing Evangelick Anthems through thy life Thy Heavenly concords woo'the I ambe a wife Wives and more winne the spirit of their minde Corrivalls here increase their mutuall flame by 'th ' mutuall praysings of th' all pleasing Name O make me then thy Instrument So holding to thy hearts content So true unto the Touch each string Each straine so suite each Note so bring A grace unto the rest that they May fall in love that heare thee play May heare thee play that they may fall In love that raises above all To dwell with dwell in him that is Because the God of love of blisse VVHere wut thou goe this morning wandring soule With whom wut sport or where wut make
Majesty Still 's heard in 's voice the Lion and the Lambe His heart still wrapt with heavenly mealody 'T is God that justifies who 's he shall damne Blest man Thus all in 's voice in 's lookes in 's heart Graces sets off compleats his better part Not that he 's wanting in humanity But that 't hath gone to Schoole to D'vinity VVhere it hath learn'd when persecutions be Exceedingly to leap for joy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not that he Loves Men so little but loves God so much Not that his griefe 's small but his joy not such Great love great joy how gratious and how wise Is our Lord God to let us s'int ' temptings fall So to commend his love his power make's prise Christ and His Christians triumph over all Thus live the just by Faith thus let me live Come Antichrists come divles I le praises give I feare not Rome nor Spain but the Armadoes The Powder plots within these n'otherwise But for to watch and fight for all h's bravadoes I know my foe 's but for my exercise Kill me he can't and if he soarely wound Sweeter 's my Gilead Balme and I more sound I le keep my ranke wherein my Lord of Hosts Hath plac'd me so I le be his Voluntary I' th' day of his Beauties Armies these unholy ghosts These Gods of flies Diables nothing care I. Waite on the Lord keep 's way thou sha't prevaile See th' wicked cut off yea the Beast his Taile Yet 't angers me to see this trompery When men must fain to goe to 'th dancing schoole To complement with heaven Did'st ever see An honour made by a Mistresse Courting foole Or heare 'em call for sides so of the rest Know one know both so 's dancing i' request The case is alter'd since I learn'd to dance And strangly too we 're growne lesse spiritfull And yet we 're taught by th'brisker spirits of France My honest English measures are too dull French Currants Spanish Pavins now they call For th' second part to th'same tune nor her's all Well be it so much money lost I le never Learne t' dance at this age specially of those Who such a one lead as I can't see how ever A man can keep his feet upright but goes Still'n danger of his neck They may for me who 'd rather Aegypt then Jerusalem see The family is a little Church they say And so 't shu'd seem here to 's but complement Religion knowes no bonds but forme Men pray twice 't may be reade indifferent well content Thus t' heare of God continually pray Who doth to heare Him see Him all the day O wher 's the man whose life hath copyed out Pauls Charity but hence the teares the feares The scourge must over-flow to fetch about Bring in our stragling hearts no mar'll there appeares Unholighosts to frighten us together Make 's know whose children we are t 's high time if ever What shall I say hast not Thou said enough To make us love thee Lord love one another I can't say more but pray make smooth things ruffe Low high straite crooked that fitted each to other We may so close be joyn'd that wee 'le first breake In flitters though part in twain be sound though weak Wher 's he hath done this more then this yet he Cries out undone He only 't is commends That Perfect Holinesse he only see That Mercie 's Rare Only he the world transcends Workes us though nought were done believes as all Is nothing in himselfe his Christ his All. O wher 's the man whose daily eager cry Is Come Lord Jesu quickly come alas Shall we be strangers will How long shall I Stand looking through the Lattice on a glasse Ne'r see thee face to face O come O VVhen Hast my beloved hast Amen Amen How long shall I thus up unto the chin I' th' Rivers of thy Right-hand pleasures stand And yet but get a sip that doth begin The thirst that doth far deeper draughts demand VVhen drink my fill when eat o' th' Tree of Life That is prepared for the Lamb his VVife Still shall I stay still when this mixon quit But th' ought'st thy generation serve though crooked Perverse Lord make me wise me fit For this thy service Since I 've undertook it My dearest surety for me undertake Forsake me not who all for thee forsake Teach me my due recesses from the throng Of streightning worldlings how to live among VVhile separate from them how to shew them heaven My self beyond the reach of their deceiving That like some Angell hovering in the aire My spirit may be the while my bodie 's here Relating th' passages of all my travels Through th' sweet Ourania crown'd with pleasant marvels That I might win their home bred hearts to try The Climates of so rare Discovery FLy up wilde Fire into the loftie Aire Burst into Starres and with thy twinckling faire Allure admiring eves make them beleeve Thou't turne the night to day ere thou wu't greeve And with thy Crackling noyse make such a thunder Thou't fright the fates themselves into a wonder E're they shall touch thee yet proud powder know Pure spirits are up when sulphury dust's below And when thy flashie lightning blazing snuffe Foole-cozening fire rob'd of its earthie stuffe Shall die in noisome stench my sunne shall shine And shew the difference of a joy divine And though the mightie rushing windes of prayer Dispell not straight th' unkinder clouds yet are They not the matter of my joy and there fore not the end yea shu'd those glimpes cease Eft soones I have yet what a blessed peace Soft rest from that still gratious influence Of warmth and life I feele my Sunne dispense Into my humbled soule Nay were these gone Gone to my sence and I desert like one Both in the darke and cold yet I le not grudge And what a sweete is meekned hope nor budge To fetch false fire and make my selfe a sparke VVhose bed of ashes is all alwayes darke Fond griefe-borne man b' aspiring pride will fall To worse and make his darke most darke of all But still I keepe my hold not loase my hand For all the comforts round about me stand To tise my gripe but I more catch my hold Where that glad safety I finde that 's uncontroul'd Of all the world and hug that joy within That by a strangers eye was never seen Nor hard remov'd that true strong sollid Faith More sweet then all the sences feasted hath Cu'd'st take a man with most delicious Cates His Palate feed and with the daintiest baites Of beauty his eyes his nostrils with the sents Of fragrant Eden Eares wi'th ' instruments O' th'rarest consorts his wantonizing flesh Wi'th ' softest dalliance yet this caitife wretch 'S but in a dreame and so too wu'd he thinke If wise who when he wakes is at the brinke Of fatall plunges But my joy is of Another kinde A generous joy and loth To borrow o' th'
in its balbutient age Instruct the Father or what more can ingage Me to content then 't is my Fathers pleasure In whose contentment 's lain up all my treasure Of joy and blisse But th'want o'th'laying th'foundation Well and well building on 't makes all th'mutation So oft befall us else might we steady stand Upright unshaken mov'd on neither hand God is my Diapason rise or fall Above all thorough all the ground of all And so he is to All his workes but they Can heare no concords that will disobey But wee that put our selves into his hand Obedient instr'ments of his just command Who with his crosse-division running art Gives such mysterious pleasure to the heart Of 's understanding ones a stranger can't Conceive whose judgement 's too too rude too scant To compasse such an odde variety Into a sweeter-sounding unity Nor sees th'decorum now with smarter strokes Of 'ts valour excitating tones provokes Our rouzed spirits unto Martiall feates To quiet combates with the enemies threats Now w'th soft retreatings recollects them by it 'S remisser touches to a watchfull quiet Strike hard or gently stroke this know we still We 're th' better musick of his gracefull skill Prosperity's a Triall too and he that uses 'T not in that notion exceedingly abuses Himselfe and it and never sooner looses His every-way ensnared soul then when he chooses It not as pleasing God but him refuses Adversity not because his minde induces Him t'think it 's not thought good of God but hee Wu'd ever prosperous never afflicted be And wu'd'st thou so know every state 's a triall And all prosperity lies in self-deniall While thou surrounded with the confluence Of all the earths indearements that presents Thee with its goodliest heart-alluring'st offers Tak'st them as not ta'ne of them daily proffer'st A glad resignment having learn'd the art To have thy Food-indeed ev'r hungring heart More fil'd with Heaven then thy hands with Earth Count'st Myriades of Worlds a starving dearth Till Him thou seest in All gets Him through All Above all livest with Him 's in through 'bove all O such a man this man of Millions he 'S well bottom'd beares so well so high degree Be rooted grounded stablisht in the Faith So maist thou reare that superstructure hath A winde-and-storme-out-facing firmitude Whos 's Capstone shu'd be constant gratitude Whose corner stone is Christ whom while we see How can we unchearefull how unthankfull be In every thing give thankes ' cause every thing Brings good to us ' cause glory to him brings This is the will of God Sweet will The will Of God concerning me What me What still More sweetnesse What am I that I should be To be the subject of such Majesty That thou shud'st once bestow a thought on me But such a such a thought concerning me In Christ In Him even now translate into The Kingdome of thy dearest Son might view My Crosse triumph't o're by a patient and Long suffering joy while strengthned strengthned stand With might all might according to his power His glorious power doth all things over-power O' th' joy the joy the over-flowing joy Tides on the Heaven-ward soule wherein the Law Of comforts God's a hidden spring delights The inward man whose chiefe whose sole delight 's To be the subject of Gods will a joy Whose boundlesse inundations can destroy And beare before it like a wispe of Straw The hugest oppositions sad'st annoy That Earth and Hell can raise a joy redoubles T 's augmented forces by'ts increasing troubles The while he makes the more retir'd repaires Unto h's entowring Name views th' Legions there Attend him how heavens souldiers flock about Him with their profer'd service and his doubts Fly far away the while hee 's more intent To th' secrets of his heart more represent Him purity integrity simplicity Sincerity truth th' face of God vvhereby H's's inlargedly spirited with joyfull love 'T dares wrastle a fall with death and longs to prove The mastery and like some mighty Gyant fil'd With generous Wines speeds sprightly to the field Of high exploits that th' world and he might see Th'o'repowring arme of Al-sufficiency What wonders 't acts in feeble flesh a joy That can the most blood-sucking sorrow cloy With superabundant sweetnesses a joy Sings nothing sweeter then it's wisht envoy Unto the world a joy whose skill is showne ' N extracting marrow from the dryest bone A joy of that extended pure delight ' I's impossible the heart b' in such a plight Shut up in selfish ridgid austere constriction No't can be hard while such a blest affection Dissolves it all in pitty drawes powres it out In streames of meek compassions run about On every side with heedy tendernesse To see what wayes of succouring redresse 'T may finde while still it makes this gentlenesse prove More flaming oyle to its Seraphicke Love Thus thus annoint with this Celestiall joy Diffuses weighty spirits and imployes M' in such a sadnesse t' which all th' rest is madnesse A grave confulting serious sober sadnesse Consist's with is the Basis of true gladnesse 'T which all other's is but a merry madnesse A joy 's no light slight frothy vapouring bubble That disappeares at th'softliest-blasting trouble But a perspicuous solidity Transplendent firmnesse agile stability Thus kindly may the influented Art Of that bright morning Star that rules this heart Temper thee to it selfe and warm thy soule VVith spirits may raise th' above the worlds controule 'T is not thy Musicke Stories Company Thy forc'd ungenuin mirth can remedie Thy wound no i'ts but a palliated cure 'T will fester more and thou wilt lesse indure T 's returning smart but leave this Mountebanke trick And search toth ' coare better once be throughly sicke Then never truly well Out with this odde This peevish humour that oppugnes thy God His sacred will for then and not till then Thou't say to all his workes a glad Amen 'T is onely this our inconformitie 'S the cause of all our sinne and miserie And wu'dst thou not conforme did'st firmely beleeve Him all good thou all bad but hence we grieve Fond soules the griefes must be griev'd over again Cause our weake faith this maxime can't maintaine How can we be in our repining mood But in our heart we say he is not good No no it 's not it 's not so easie a thing To b'leeve him good for whether wud 't not bring Us duely truly creedited keepe then to this Say God is good for that is all our blisse Our blisse is all in Christ by whom alone The selfe denying soule God good hath knowne Worke waite pray praise This part 's thine God's the rest 'T is daring sacriledge to be unblest Gods glorie 's rob'd ere thine owne good but pray Thy Will be done let thankefull patience pray Blest man how ever There 's nothing comes amisse Toth ' man harh ta'ne the will of God for his Is now no more himselfe is ruled by Another soule his sole
felicitie What 's Heaven if not a seeing face to face Sung heart to heart were here that full seene grace Sung to a perfect harmony of wills We might on Earth of Heaven take our fills Bless't God hath given us such an Heavenly Brother To tune us all to Thee and each to other O what a consort 's here but ah where finde I two or three strick Unisons in minde Yet were they thirds fifts eights yet unitie Runs sweetely through with a sweet Symphonie There 's one blest One i' th' mid'st who where he is In turning all to One turnes all to blisse One reconcil'd One Smpathy agree How full's my soule with heavenly melodie What 's sinne shame griefe what whatsoever's bad But discord from the good the God we had What else th' all-sinning sinne this Tree I will A sign of Soveraigntie I will not Hell Hell but what th' all-saving grace come doe Come suffer m'will thy will I come I doe Heaven Heaven How harsh'n answ'r t' a sweet injuction How sweet an answer to so harsh a function Thus fin-and-sorrow follow self-will'd pride And grace-and-peace the self that is denide To will thy will 's the sole humilitie Wherein thou dwel'st and that 's in Heaven to be How sweet a Heaven 's the heart still say it wu'd It is my God do he what seemes him good Here 's a belov'd sweet singing Israel Whose heart 's full set to God's consent's as well In all notes as in one and if he strike A jarre jarres with himselfe till strikes alike And that 's a jarre that playes a pleasant moane I'th'eares of Heaven and therefore in his owne VVhat to give Grace and Glory but to give According to thy sacred will to live VVhat i st to be in Hell To be at ods Men with themselves friends neighbours devils God's Cursing the cause of this their sad discent From th' just inflicter of their punishment Gnashing their teeth for envy at the thought Of that Salvation Reconcilement brought Thou only blest in being only One Make us to be One spirit with thine owne And so with one another ere may I be VVith them thee feare they feare to disagree VVhat was our blessers dying blessing His prayer VVe might be One as He and 's Father are O were I were I able to unfold The riches that one sillable doth hold There 's only One thing that is necessary Met we all there how cu'd we thus contrary One body one spirit one hope one faith one Lord Baptim God Father so many Ones afford Their help to keep all One and yet how few VVhose boysterous spirits will not bussle throw Soft peaces bounds so lewse loose unity For none but humble-candid-wise agree But proud-contentious-fooles will ne'r agree Nor vvith themselves nor others nor with Thee Their friendship 's but dissembled enmity Unto th'r owne soules Thee all since not agree In Christ they 're not at peace wi'th ' very stones O' th' field the whole Creation groanes Under this universall enmity It feeles by man his parting friends with Thee Now this Commune Vinculum is broke All flies in pieces and we doe but cloke Our differences if not seem to be Each for himselfe and then what friends we be How now afraid of injury from each other Shrink up our selves into our selves and smother At least our mutuall hatred and not discover The depths of malice that our hearts doe cover Stor'd up against th'all-good all-powrefull God while self-wills and fond desires wu'd pull The Crowne from off his head so ' gainst our selves Who love they hate who hate they love themselves But whether are we brought by this sad breach Or what was 't brought it but our selfish reach Or what can binde it up but only Hee In whom alone we reconciled bee That bundle o'life b'whom His are gathered in To One to never part their hearts again Deare Saviour Cu'd we pattern lowly Thee How willing to our Farhers will wee 'd be Blest Love that spy'st so rare a policy Th'Athistick Florentine cu'd ne'r descry Stand soule this ground while Heaven can provide Himselfe of joy thy joy must needs abide Let him have all have all though I get none My joy 's my Gods content and not my owne Thou canst not Lord displease me ' nlesse thou wu't Displease thy selfe for I will what thou wu't Take take thee all deare Lord though I get none My joy 's my Gods content and so my owne So will the wilfull'st but passive instruments they But of thy grace we actively obey My care 's to please my husband so my self He that so loves so foolish fond an else Wu'd undoe all againe to put in selfe Though taught so well in him t' injoy it selfe Th' issue I nor know nor care t 's my blisse His pleasure 's mine and my displeasure's his He beares our burthen we injoy his yoake He weares our Thornes that hath our Thrones bespoke O cu'd we ever keep us at this pitch What an untroubled life wee 'd leade how rich In all contents nor wu'd there need descents To lower arguments that can't dispence Us sollid true substantiall comfort till We 're rais'd to sing it is our God his will The great'st content is none whose grounds not this Th' great'st discontent's swallow'd up in this vast blisse That beares the soule in an unstopped streame Of mightie force to 'th pleasure o' th' Suprearme The strength of all obedience is this It is his will and not it is my blisse The man that 's not alive can he be strong 'T is Love's the life of God beares all along With speed with ease the Councell ta'ne word given No parley 's with the flesh On on 's straite driven With conquering flames and if his blood shall rise Hee 'le lose his blood e're hee 'le his God despise What chalenge wo'nt he take what frowns what blows What death 's on deaths who such a Guerdon knowes Awaites his certaine victory such a Beautie As cheares him to and cleares him through his dutie VVhos 's thence infused vigour feares nothing more Then want of dangert ' make the world adore Those Heart'ning Splendors that in every Ray Th' all conquering strength o' th' Deity convey VVith what Luxuriances the turgent soule 'S borne up beyond the world and hells controule O how it longs it longs to be imploi'd I' th greatest worke the greater love 's injoy'd How't runnes at halfe a word how 't markes the lippes And heares before they speake away it trip VVith speedy dilligence and cannot stay Though th' thrungin'st pressing'st diff'culties beats it way Snaps off the strongest cords like rotten threads Dissects the massiest barres in shivering shreds And drives before it all the joyned force O' th' mighti'st obstacles oppugne its course And if it feele the least repulse returnes VVith thrice-redoubl'd couragious onsets burnes VVith spirit-incensing indignation to Be stop't in ought that for his Christ hee 'd doe The man 's in love
the fond desires of the creature to pitchupon it as his happiness Neither is there any thing I know that doth more raise more innoble the soul then this open heartednesse this freenesse of spirit nothing that makes it more like God himselfe whom it hath in whom it lives beaming forth the Sunne of its favours and beneficialnesse to all that come within the compasse of his Horison and as he hath conveniency choses the emptiest vessell to communicate his fulnesse to both of graces and common gifts still like his God that professeth himsefe to delight most in the company of the humblest to be in a speciall manner the God of the needy the fatherlesse the widdow the stranger so hee seekes the most indigent object to draw out his soule unto and delights in delighting the comfortlesse as he that findes it more blessed more glorious because more like to more full of God to give then to receive As he that is still calling his faith to account to see what it layes out in action How stirring how operative it is how it workes by love whether it love not it selfe more then God whether it be not more for receiving then doing As knowing it a most strongly denying expostulation an evident brand of an unbeliever and that by him who best knew how to give every thing its proper mark How can ye believe which receive honour and consequently pleasure profit c. one of another and not seek for that which commeth from God only Now what greater honour can there be to a man then to have his workes beare witnesse that the Father hath sent him to be inabled to doe to give any thing to God as he is who does gives to any in his name what greater pleasure profit then to be the servant of God imployed in his businesse to live in his sight to walk before him to be at his finding But those miserable niggardly pinching soules that are unacquainted with these inlargings these fully satisfying apprehensions no marvell they are still raking scraping and scrabling on the Dunghill for rotten rags Certainly the soule that hath ever had any quick lively intimate thorough resentments of the Divine Loves shed abroad in its heart that hath ever feelingly found that God hath not a faithfull industrious servant who hath not him an indulgent Father a dearely affecting Husband an inestimable Portion cannot be base cannot but live at an high rate as he that knowes the raising thoughts of so high dignity cannot but spend freely communicate liberally munificently as not ignorant of those Mines those treasures inexhaustibly infinite that are ever ready for his supply Cannot but be mercifull and lending while he still guides his affaires with discretion and hath an eye too to that discretion lest it should befoole him in degenerating into basenesse and slily winde him about into himselfe while he is studying how to outgoe himselfe in keeping the precise and narrow path prescribed him Or rather an eye to it lest it be false and counterfeit it being impossible for Truth but to be ever like it selfe This is he that cannot effeminate enervate himself in delicacies and pleasures while he knowes none but in God and they flowing into his soule like a spring of life and vigour that beare him forth in a voluble diffusive indefatigable course of activity in well doing while they still bathe him in inconceivable refreshings unimaginable delights This is not a man that is but the name and shaddow of one while like a brute beast he is carried on to eating drinking sleeping or any naturall desire and pleasure out of a meere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impetus and propulsion of Concupiscence from somewhat to be received from them to himselfe But the very doing of these obedientially as duties as ordinances for somewhat to be done by them in a way of a further self-emptying and transacting himselfe into God is that which makes this very thing the service of God when the most glorious performances the most publike beneficialnesse the most pain-taking actions activity in things materially good is but serving themselves and the devill So that that mans pleasure is Gods service because he makes Gods service his pleasure and this mans paines-taking in the best duties is a serving the devill because it is the pleasing himselfe the godly man acting not because it is pleasing to him but it is pleasing to him because it is action the other contrary the godly not that he may get to himselfe but that he may get to God and so indeed to himselfe counting Gods glory his greatest good And therefore imployes himselfe in that which is most singular and especially serviceable to God and Gods and not in that which is most profitable to himselfe he had rather spend thousands of pounds of yeares of any thing in the service of God then the least penny the least minute the least any thing in the service or to say righter the slavery of himselfe as he that counteth his pleasures his works and duties and his works duties his pleasures the doing of the will of God his meat and drink and his meat and drink the doing of the will of God And this were an excellent way to make us humble in excellencies temperate in delights diligent in action and for avoiding those three consociating and Nation-destroying sins Pride Idlenesse and fulnesse of Bread So may we make an especiall use of that common by-word questioning and examining our desires when they call us to or put us upon any thing What to doc And thus Christian I greet thee with that ancient salutation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Doe well and farewell And indeed our owne when wee ask one another how wee doe and wishing one another may doe well imports no lesse but that to do well is to be well Neither is the description of bodily health disagreeable to that of the soul it being such a frame and constitution of it whereby it is fit and ready for the discharge of its severall duties in their right-due maner So that they describe it not so much by its enjoying it self in a sweet and fresh temperature resulting from the well symmetrizing of humors and confermation of parts as by its right ready toward lines to requisite actions So the soul then healthy not so much in regard of the joy comfort that it finds in God as of the vigor by it the active disposition the operativenesse towards him Though indeed that cannot be without nay without being the author of this nor this without some measure at lest of that The sincere soul making its worke its wages its dutie its delight Grace being now growne as I may say a second nature it being connaturall to him and therefore as nay more pleasing in its actions than those of our first could be the one being but Gods ordinary common the other his especiall choise extraordinary dispensation of himself Grace being the spirit of
his Soveraigne's Vice-Roy Rationall Faith faithfull reason A God-taught soule in all Consults with credits him No tell him o' th' Fathers He hath but one and that 's in heaven and he who gathers From him instructions as a guided guide Hee 'l use h'm if needs but first w'il hath ' father well tri'd By his not his by th' Father though he be as old As superannuated Pauls as bold As peremptorle as he that raskal'd Calvin As Holy as his Holinesse no reverend Calvin I 'de rather be a freemans slave be thine Then be a slave to slaves they 'le draw mee fine Directions whose selves are but th' Amanuenses Of their imperious lusts They 'le make offences Of working on a play day and none of playing Upon an holy day whose sweet'st mouth'd sayings Sic volo sic jubeo stat pro ratione voluntas Import to a discreete subaudi as What devillisher a Tyrant then a slave Hee le ride to th' devill and all the world wu'd have To beare him company but stay Sainctes Peres Or go if you will y'l ne'r meet with Sainct Pierre's Keyes nor St. Pauls Cathedrall there how e're Yee may with their attendants But whether wut be are M' incensed muse Reclaime no further forth Why flyest thou after Rookes they are not worth Thy looking on thy slightnig'st passing'st thought How came I then thus unawares transport I love thee Truth and thence it is I hate Truth hating falfehood with a perfect hare I can as well conteine my roused Spirits As bound the Ocean when thou bid'st it ferrie its Orerunning waves beyond its bounding banks What heaven-taught soule can brook these hell-learn'd pranks Sum Liber natus educatus and I can't indure be under Romes command The truth hath made me free and I am free Indeed and shall I againe in bondage be No hang 'em all an hundred thousand Jesuits And Jesuitized Buy-shops these pirckly Jebusites And Thorny Canaanites too long the'ave beene The outers of our eyes while ran us in The persecuted sides and thou great God That mak'st my flesh to tremble what period Will madnesse put to its untamed pride That dares to pierce th' omnipotent his side His eye his heart and is thy glory not As deare to thee as life what seeke they but That dreadfull glory Thy prerogative Their will must be our reason and we must live At their selfe-wir'd devotions according to Their monstrous wisedome not subordinate to Th' Creators word Behold the men are God Are b'come like one of them these od ' Cause-God uneavened soules the ' le not derive Their pollicies from him and won't he drive These Rebels out from their fooles Paradice They shan't survive our hopes and ever tice Fond soules with Coapes and Popes with Chringes Crosses * In the immediate solemne publike Worship before a promiscuous people whose Art and Heartleave them far below the subserviencie of such meanes Pipes Poppets Surplus and the Service tosses The Psalmes like Tennis balls the while they yawle Like Primmer Chits at their lessons and terribly bawle With such a mad confusion as if all Zeale lay i' th' tongue and th' eare nor need we r'call The spirits to the heart in a staid still posture To sing with grace within Still shall they foster VVinde-sucking soules with superstitious milke The while they ruffle it in their braving silke And like the childe that prides it in its new Gay sleeves how burnish swell at every view VVho dares come nigh 'em now unlesse he w'ud Be brow-beaten to the channell unlesse he stood H's due distance cap in hand And Sirra you Looke that you preach me thus and thus you 'le rue 'T else and he may believ 't by h's torvid lookes On th' Grave learn'd pious Minister whose bookes He is not worthy t' beare so sturdy and stout 'S advanced villany so pestilent devout Ther 's not a Puritan but hee 'le roote him out How strong Robustious lusty frollicke spracke Th' zeale kindled with a cup of bribing Sacke Now downe goes th' wicked houses all about The sacred Temple and that malapert Parochiall childe that dares s' unmannerly perk I'ts lolling head upon its Mothers side I'ts reverend aged Mother I can't abide Th'indecencie and disorder strike 't to th' ground That not a stone upon a stone be found VVhen forreigne and domestique Catholiques Come by and see this Massie Aedifice S' entire compleate a Masse of holy stones 'T will make 'em all turne Protestants at once But what when heare it in when see within As pretty Babes as Babie e're hath seene They 'd shake the cap from any wondring clowne And summons all the children of the towne Dim-sighted Gransiers and ye moap-ey'd dames Here 's curious spectacles to cleere your aymes Poore Soules How ridiculous your folly but yee How lamentable And cu'd I shew you the Soft pitty turnes my bowels and make you see Th'wild fury turnes your braines how glad you 'd be Your soules were rid o' th' servitude of men Your hearts were humble self-denying then They'd be th'free-schooles o' th' highest Majesty Where he wu'd sit and wu'd your Master be The humblest praying'st meditating'st soules Are those with whom he most communion holds There 's no man I call master only One Me th'truth in Him-the-only-Truth hath showne In this Light see I light light am I in this And where I a' n't more intimately into His I le get and be till I in every part Shall meet himselfe from th'interoccurring dark Deliver'd and make my sence-beshadowed faith Pellucid sence i' th' meane heare what he saith Hath promis'd hee 'le never leave his Saints untaught But into All Truth they shu'd by his Spirit be brought And when I learne of any it shall bee O' th' humblest men for most of God they see 'Ts the sight of God makes th' only kindly breach On th' heart the head doth only truly teach But when in Heaven I most of God shall see And therefore there most knowing-humble bee But since this humble knowledge is such an Heaven I le have a care how here I am deceiven Here be as truly knowing as I can So truly humble so an Heavenly man ANd art thou silenc't too sweet Lute 1640. Thou dost nor preach nor yet dispute No contraversie but consent 'S the language of my Instrument Yet what rude rufling Priest appeares To plucke Appollo by the eares Ar't thence so mute as out of heart to sing Till th' freed Evangelists fresh ditties bring Be then suspended on the willowes While th' Babilonians tauntings fill us My cunning hand forget thy skill And thou my dancing tongue be still Ther 's yet refreshing times may shew These briske suspenders Then while they howle their penitentiall Psalm My pittying thankes congratulate the Calme Then sing Why why not now or how With Him doth differ Then and Now With him my onely joy who while He is my clowded brow shall smile Serene Aspects through th' grimmest night
Of food of friends Whose modest sharp-set eye Each corner of this feasting face doth prie And every Gospel-verset in his reach As some Grace-whelming dish doth ope and teach His neighbours eyes the shape and mouth the sweet Happy happy soules that at this banquet meet T 's a doubtfull feast indeed not only ' cause We 've all that Heaven and Earth can give but ' cause VVhen we remember whence we came poore wretches Rak'd up from dunghills drawn from under hedges Blinde lame sick naked wandring here and there Th'beaten road to death and now see where we are Translate from death to life from that dark sad Disconsolate State or which is worse those mad And desperately deluding joyes to such Incircleing reallity of blisse as much Glory as our capacity can beare Angels attend us God himselfe our cheare Our Cloathing-Light we are not able t'beare 'T but doubt we 're in a dreame and fondly feare VVe've nothing ' cause so much but th'night's far spent Th'last watch th'last houre 's nigh th'day w'll prevent's Gird up your loynes trim up your Lamps along Hast tune your hearts to th'Epithalanian song Now now we see the day no more through night Our earthy houses now so swept so cleane There 's not a dust a speck a moate to dark a beame VVhile solemnize th'Espousals of the darklesse Light VVHen wu't thou come deare Lord and shew the face Shall blemish all these splendors O the fire Burnes in this breast for an allay of Grace Of Grace that feeds not damps such blest desire Some drops of love still to increase the flame And make it beare me thither whence it came VVas'e n't a reflection from the righteous Sun VVas glanced in my heart Or was it one From that light-likened Angell Then undone I am unlesse quite out the fire be blowne By th' holy Spirit But can the devill come So drest He hath a cloven foot say some Sure this he hath he cannot humble be But he can counterfeit But hee 's so bad Hee le not seeme good for nothing now what shu d'make thee Masque thy selfe in humility who had N'advantage hence Sure 't was the native hew I 'm in a Labyrinth but where 's the clew Lord if it be of thee then let it stand If not downe downe let it for ever fall T is thee I seeke in it dost thou command Mine Isaak here t is and my selfe and all O how I joy I 've such a sacrifice Whereby my God my Love unto him tries Sure many choiser splendors have I seene Yet few so choise was it my sensuall eye I sought to please fit objects they had beene But a new eye new glories did espie Through that bright Christall a farre brighter jewell That yet into this fire cast's in fewell How how I 'm wrack't love hate desire averse Sorry rejoyce feare hope angry well pleas'd Carefull not care cannot rehearse Hope t'ought not be feare 't ought there am I eas'd Diseased here well I 'le stint the strife Nere loose my Love that lost for me his Life Lord how I love thee that thou did'st not leave Me in the creatures hand alone 't is thee Thee 't is alone to whom I wish to cleave My other wish serves this if thou do'st see It cement fit to make me closer cling To thee to me deare Lord that cement bring I dare not fetch it least that I should bring For morter slime I 'le set me downe and blesse Thy name first to thy willing of the thing Then to thy time meanes manner I 'le adresse Me my way rowle on thee delight in thee Thou't doe's I my-thy hearts desire shall see How full I am what shall I doe for vent I muse th' fire 's tin'd when will the word 's burst out They doe so crowde throng presse stop they are so pent Come loaden with such matter that I doubt I must be faine to let them all alone And in ward speake what in word can't be showne Thy mercies Lord I speake it with my heart Flow in so fast I am not able t'beare The memory of them how much lesse convert My thoughts to words yet will I have a care Both I and others both in my word and deed The thankfull memory of Thy Loves may read BLest blest be thee m' inligtning sunne For now I see I 'm but a shade Blest blest I feele my life begun For now I feele my soule Thou' rt made I am not Lord but I wu'd bee I 'de not be I but I 'de be thee Not be my owne be at thy call Wu'd nothing be wu'd ha' thee all I 'd be but feet and thou shud'st walke I 'd be but tongue and thou shu'dst talke I 'd be but eye I 'd be but eare And thou shu'dst see and thou shu'dst heare What see I heare I in this field Thou thee through me do'st heare and see VVhere goe I With whom is this talk held 'T is thou through me speak'st com'st to thee Trees birds home selfe These What 's all th' world to mee Thy Spirit through them all conveighs me Thee So I All th' world is but thy instrument In which thou sit'st a playing thy-my content Most blessed God that brought'st my minde in frame Not left'st me a set-off-discord to thy name O rub me rub me I begin to fall My What love Convulsions pull and hall M'adheringly-pursuing soule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I 'M left behinde O for wings for strength to flie One drop One little No Cordiall left Hee No Balsome t' keep my heart uncleft E'ne gone I was but that a lightsome thought Whose season-bearing seed was deeply wrought I' th' secrets of my heart sprang up and brought Me an Idea o' th' Inlivening Tree Who stretcht it selfe beyond the farth'st degree O' th' spatious Heavens tendring me'ts healing leaves And ay-preserving fruit when my heart perceives I'ts feare-shrunck selfe with hopefull joyes inlarg'd Whereon m'officious spirits are discharg'd Unto their severall functions while the peace Past understanding thence doth re-increase My watchfull guard in heedy confidence To hold my peace in holding Peace's Prince HAppie's the man that knowes the cause of thing 's Unhappy then 's the man whom God not brings Acquainted with himselfe only happy hee Hath him his friend in whom he all doth see HOw good it is to waite on Thee Deare Good How good it is To bee Possest with that that I desire That 's not the thing that I require But to desire with what possest thou 'dst have me be that 's my request The world hath not the thing I would Till I can heare Thee say I should But still in aequilibrio stand Expecting thy scale-turning hand Not any thing till nothing will So false are th'weights of good and ill But thine are true Blest Truth O tell My heart what 's ill and what is well Till then I 'll leane th' contrary way Wish not to have 't ' cause wish I may So happily
may I meet with Thee For we are contrarietie The godliest heart inhabiting The sweetest soule is this a thing For its peculiar interest Or is n't of 't in Christ possest Or what to Doe what glory wu'dst Have more return'd thee by it shud'st Thou give 't then if thou shud'st detaine't What service more Or can thy Saints Find more content then when they doe Th' best service bring th' great'st glory to Thy Name Or could it want it did It make for that wu't thou forbid What soever's for thine honor or What soever's not it not abhorre Or is it not t' wax wanton ' gainst Him that it with his loves acquaints Or shall it use it as a Tipe Of that All-signified Antitipe Or is'nt there rome enough in thee To loose it in capacitie Enough for all 'ts affections were They farre more overflowing were All th'r stragling streames one channell nay mought All th' worlds be one be poured out To thee how small a drop they 'd be And can it spare a thought from thee Or wher 's else that magnetique force Can draw its hard-adhering course On after it Or where may 't meete VVith such a sympathizing sweet To bartre soule for soule to change Till each unto it selfe were strange Nor wu'd acknowledge it nor owne It further then 't was two in one Or can it find simplicitie Else where else where infinitie Or wu't thou shew thy manifold skill In passing through so nartow a quill VVith fuller incomes what 's thy will That setst this step ' gainst that while still Thou' rt going on the readiest rode Vnto th' same end of sure abode My good-thy glory What 's thy will This way or that way That 's my will It is not good to be alone VVe're one anothers not our owne 'T is very good to be alone To him that is with All-in-One But so was he to whom 't was said Then say Lord what thou wu't I 'm said My vote my vote shall counterpoise Thy casting voyce shall make the choyce T is onely good that I would have T is onely God then I would crave And yet thou sai'st whose search hath found 'T a good choice raritie hath found One onely thing there needs to be VVith or without all goods with Thee And yet how can I without 'em be Since I 'm in Thee in whom all goods be How good it is to waite on Thee Deare God! how good it is to be Drawne after thee the while thou hould'st The favour forth withdraw'st thee towl'st The soule from 't selfe to follow thee VVith whom it is so good to be And w'th what rich interest he repaies Our praying praysing waiting dayes A gratious John sage Samuel Blest Isaac Immanuel How choyce how sweet the mermies are When given in that were so farre How welcome th' presence o' the food To which the stomacke long hath stood How welcome th' absence o' the food That 's so supply'd with such a good The mercy of mercies when sent forth I' th' fullest time 's o' th' fullest worth What pleasant Musicke heares the man That keepe time with 's Creator can That 's nor before nor is behind But jumpe together mind and mind How good it is to waite on thee Deare God How good might th' world once see My joy in things unseene ' tw'ud still The endlesse motion of their will In fond desires ' twud stint their care And set their soules on edge for th' fare Wherewith my starvingst wants grow fat With thriving vigorousnesse but that 'S their misery they 'le not beleeve That we joy most when most we grieve O how I pleasure in his no When I wu'd give the world't were so I surely this conversion is My will converted into his O love th' Lord all m' soule all m' heart All m' might my strength then can I part With ought to ought but Him whose call 'S for all and 's worthy of more then all Thou sha't not have this thing what thing Can please me then There 's nought can bring M'equivalent content but that All prevalent sweet that sweetened that All m' joyes in it as it I see In Thee So not in it but Thee I then can want the world and it But Thee I can't O do'nt retreat Thou ' nd then it s here For what is it But a meete helpe in by to get More Thee so it thou 't be Wh'art all to me So mak'st m' be All f'r Thee ANd shall thy servant finde refreshment here The garden smiles while pretty Philomel Stills the sweet Ayre Yet nought I see feele heare But filth but stench but screeching cries of Hell Unlesse thy spirit 's my Aire i' th' garden be And my Beloved sing his Loves to me My dearest God! my mouth wu't not thou fill 'T is opened wide this is my onely breath With this though dead I be yet live I still Without this while I live I live in death Oh how it 's kindly heatings doe resolve The chilling feares my sadder heart involve O how it 's gentle coolings doe allay My sulpsury passions how it 's cleansing gales My drowsiest dullest dumps doe cleare away Thus o're my earth flegme choller blood prevailes Dull flegme sad earth mad choller turn'd to blood That 's active chearefull sober thy spirit how good Blowe with thy southerne and thy northerne blasts Blow on my garden they will purge my flowers Well nourish them them fragrant make and cast Such gratefull odors through our amorous bowers Hee 'l quickly come and eate his pleasant fruit And at one Banquet we must have the Lute Then will he sing and gently touch my heart The many-stringed instrument I keepe Tun'd to his spirits recorder t'beare it's part And answer grace for grace thus softly creepe These warbled melodies through every veine Rapt up with raptures that I can't containe But needs must beg a kisse a stroke a glaunce A sent from those sweet lipps that glorious eye Hand gentle pretious oyntment needs must dance With all my might and if my flesh envie Me this blest pleasure and not throughout the night Let me prolong these joyes yet I 'le delight My bed shall be his bosome his left hand My pillow and his right my covering My Curtaines Angels round about me stand My Canopie shall be my God his wing But how dare I thus speake how dare how dare I not It is presumption to dispaire I did beleeve therefore I spake And now I sleepe my heart shall wake Heare him in visions of the night But when he speakes he speakes delight And were it lawfull t'speake but what I know I 'd onely in that monosyllable show The soberer world a shadowed glimpse of that Unknowne that unconceived pleasure that Sublime d'light th' God overshadowed soule inherits That knowes the sweets result from mixed spirits VVHy wu't reveale thy selfe to me and not To th' world difference such difference put Where there is none Even so my father cause T pleas'd
his End Hence I so God-commending men commend And shud I knit a series of the long'st The sad'st complaints combined with the strong'st Pressingst agr'vations that might wring them close And hard on th' soule yet praysing love breaks loose Through all and makes me sing agen and agen Blest be the Lord for evermore Amen Then shud'st with-draw thee and I grow feeble weake Yet let my heart have strength enough to speake Thy praises O give me strength enough To blesse my strength and I have strength enough Shud my thanksgiving-force decline decay Unto the low'st still may I see and say Thou hast a Seed a Generation they ' L be ever speaking of thy praise I 'le lay My heart unto their mouth and while they play Their heaven-learned descantings I 'le play The plain-song of a broken contrite heart I' th' eares of Heaven plaies the pleasant'st part Th' still soft sweet Musicke inward-sounding drone W'thout which the lowd'st high'st nimblest tongu'd is none Is worse then none a groundlesse frantick din A selfe-exalting God-assaulting sinne Provokes his mocked patience while the zeale 'S not pitch't by humilitie 't doth but squeak and squeale But thine cannot be overwound for they While at the highest with the lowest play Rise humbled soule and praise him in the high'st To which thou art advanced in thy Christ O praise praise praise let me not praises give But give my selfe to praises praising live Die sinke ore-whelm'd swallow'd up lost found Upon the shore of ever-praysing ground O how my soule 's aflote and smoothly glides Unto the harbour where my blisse abides And what a calme serenitie befriends The plimmed sayles thy spirit swiftly sends Fleeting along with speedy nimblenesse To th' pleasant Haven of their happinesse O praise praise him for he is worthy praise That was before and is beyond all dayes Praise him wh ' in heaven and earth doth what he will And whatsoe'r he will not doe is ill O praise praise him for he is worthy praise Cou'd th' mightie Fabrick o' th' creation raise From nothing with a word and governe it Consisting of a kind of infinite Varietie of individualls in such measure Weight number as that in all hee 'd take his pleasure In such a wide a vaste disparitie Of motions a perfect contrarietie So full so sweet so choise a consort plaid All honour glory power to him that made All for his pleasure And was I made to be Thy pleasure mightie God what cou'dst thou see To please thy selfe besides thy selfe in me O scrue me up to that celestiall tone VVhereby thy highest-raised Saints are knowne To blesse thee for thy selfe though bath'd in blood How e're I be to sing yet thou art good Yet thou art good how e're I be or doe Doe I or no thy workes thy praises shew Still thou art good art good shu'd all the world But like a tinie-tennis ball be twirld Toss'd topsie turvey whirled up and downe Untill 't were worne to mammocks still the crowne 'S as fast upon thy head as ever still renowne As due to thee as ever all th' creatures still Make musicke even the wicked'st though ' gainst their will Sunn Moone Stars Heavens Floods Earth Fire Snow Harle Winde Praise him for praise is to fulfill his mind Deepes Dragons Mountains Dales Beast Birds Trees Hills Praise him for praise is to fulfill his wills Men Angels all his Hosts one breath conspire To praise for praise doth all he doth require My gentle Lute with thy soft touches praise Praise him my sollemne-sounding vyoll praise My spirit-exciting dance my nimble song Praise B't stay my longer-exercised tongue M' out-run my heart but most in running long Run run then heart and overtake my tongue Run run apace redeeme thy thankelesse yeares And bathe their memory in thy blessing teares Run run apace for thou hast more to say Then all the tongues of men and Angels may Run run apace eternitie is at hand VVhen stinting time no more shall praise withstand Time nay my selfe for what-so e're I doe I may make that sing thankfull praises too My meate my drinke my talke my worke my sleepe May all in this Commune Concord keepe An uniforme well-order'd conversation Close to the rule that leades unto salvation I here is praise indeede in Deede to praise And make my life to sing away my dayes So match my living that my praysings mayn't Be Pearles on Swine but Jewells on a Saint So match my living that my praysings may Be starres on Azure and turne night to day And light the world to those supreme ascents VVhere dwells the Eternall Substance of contens Here shall I safely ever sit and sing My soule rejoyceth In my Saviour King O what a twitch this In doth give my spirit And screws it up farre farre beyond my spirit My soule 's In God In God my Saviour My soule is safe and feares not the behaviour Of this nor th' other world My soule 's at ease In God my Saviour my soule doth please It selfe In him my pleasures meet in one My joy is full my joy is overflowne And knowes no bounds while thus my diving soule Inviron'd with infinitie doth rowle Me all In all and I am in my God As In my Element while they are odde And Hetrogeneous that are in not of Leave breath have being in him and yet are off Stand at th' farth'st distance deadliest defiance Are breathlesse livelesse have no welbeing ' cause no alliance O who w'd not love thee feare thee praise thee Lord Whose just-wise-holy wayes such marv'ls afford Who can but loose himselfe in blest blessing wonder I' th' All-container So nigh so farre asunder As creatures in but not as not renew'd Degenerate peccant humors that are spew'd From 's mouth Are rather On then In but we Are heart in heart unto eternitie Not as the water in the vessell but As water turn'd to th' wine wherein 't is put So are we one in one right blessed turne That gives such strength life spirits while Thou't runne As unallay'd to thousand generations Made happie in this iminutable mutation Change change apace my soule power out thy selfe The best is last when thou art all himselfe Though not all of himselfe whose infinite sweet In every point of timelesse time And boundlesse bounds doth meet Himselfe made Thine â—remble and this shaking makes me catch â—ly hold more fast in h's faster foulds doth catch â—e what am I thou shudst vouchsafe to heare â—y prayses mine but for to give an eare Oh! that 's to give thine heart thine hand thine all VVho hast no part more or lesse principall Who hast no part at all but wholly art â—h ' possession o' th' selfe-dispossed heart â—ine cud'st n't have made a child of any stone To bed thy bosome but must I be one 〈◊〉 stonier I rebel'd against thy grace And spat my venom in thy sacred face VVhat saw'st in me to have me in thy thoughts Of life the worlds foundation
's but a drop A dust to Him that makes the mountaines hop And skip like Lambekins with his Earthquak hand But thou 't goe faire and soft though he command Thee flie for so doth love He who graspes the winds I' th' hollow of his hand the swelling Ocean binds Up with a word here just here stay thy waves But lawlesse man how proudly he behaves Himselfe he stinted he a strickt precise Foole no for he that is is onely wise Call'st him thy Master while thou canst expect To have thy servant shew thee more respect Thou't bid him come and goe and stay and so He must bid's God thou answerest Him thou 't goe Thou't come thou 't stay when where he will provided His will fall in with thine but if divided Th' art not so silly a Puritan to displease Thy selfe for him but He must serve thy ease Or if thou part'st with 't 't is but with lesse for more T' avoid what 's endlesse tak'st what 's quickly o're So still thy selfe 's thy end thy God O what 'S the worme a doing that assaults its God! Whose every word is pure All linck't together And woe t' him dares the least he all doth sever Every word of God is pure and woe t' him dare Make them their jeere that make it all their care The pure-in-heart see Him-their Puritie Th' impure their place who them-Him vilifie O what 's the worme a doing how every bone 'S an Aspen leafe to see it climbe the Throne VVhose footestoole's all the kingdomes of the world By whom such station-quitting spirits were hurl'd To that unbottom'd pit prepared is For all such enviers Whose vexation's this They ne're shall see what they are vext to see Men truly Holy only Happy be Poore childish fooles wu'd have they know not what Heaven they wu'd have but Heaven they wu'd not Cry out braule fight with all that wo'nt confesse It theirs yet when they see 't love nothing lesse Through th' morrall-vertue-swept yard through the porch Bedect with formall duties may approach To th' very doore but they 're too good to knock To waite and if th' least glimpse slip through the locke These light-abhorring Owles winke wish their losse If heaven be puritie they 'd rather their drosse E're-scorching ne're-consuming flames inherit Then passe the fire o' th' purifying spirit Indeed what wud'st thou there Heaven'd be but thy Hell What wud'st thou see who here dost shut thine eye Against the God-revealing light and ope Thy mouth or 's this thy purifying hope Accursed curre that barkest at the Moone That but reflects how wu't against the Sunne Or what wud'st heare a crew of simple Saints With just such puritanicke Angells chants They 'le never ha' done n're linne their singing Psalmes Unto their God for their victorious palmes None 's still or thinke'st while thou wind'st up thy dull Thy jarring heart thou 't make to waite so full A set of fore-well-tuned instruments Jumps all in one compleater of concents Contents God while blesse that dreadfull-joyfull name That brought their blessed mindes in heavenly frame I tell thee man Thou art a Pagan or a Puritan Thou may'st a Jesus but did'st Jesus know These Hell-devis'd revilings dar'st thou throw Upon nay thou wud'st be his Image did Thy faith once see him whom thy God hath hid From blinded eyes while with an ayrie name He lulls thee dead asleepe to wake in flame But Christ is life and so he is to all Whom he shall with h's talitha cumi call A virtuall power-exhibiting command Reares thee a virgin on new resolves to stand To walke the way of his Commandement To keepe thee true loyall chaste pure innocent From selfe-world-devill pollutions all for Him And so thou wud'st did'st thou beleeve in Him Some fancied I doll of thy wanton braine That will thee in thy minnion-lusts maintaine Will winke at smaller faults no great adoe Will make shud'st harbour some few grosser too Will let thee vaunt it in thy pride and gad About thy eye's and flesh's lust be glad O' th' dregs of spirit-exhausted loves the leavings O' th' marrow-sucking world the sad bequeathings O' th' banckrupt-soule now hurried out of doores To pay the debts of ' â—s ne'r-acquittable scores I here 's thy Jesus presumptuous-desperate wretch Dar'st from that soveraigne name such venom fetch To kill thy soule but for that spotlesse Lambe Who so his owne to metamorphize came To teach them by a secret sympathy To follow what by occult qualitie He makes them know his from a stranger's voice To make them runne unto the brest so choice And with their bleating rethoricke bespeake Th' simple milke that makes them strong of weake To teach them keepe his undefiled steps Not dare to tread awry for each-hand deaths At 's first smallest stillest whistle straite to come To stand before their Coate-bereavers dumbe To watch the Wolves come cloathed in their skinne The light-like Angell selfe-deceiving sinne To graze no pasture but His wholesome word To fetch no salve but what his side afford's To become silly that he might make them wise T' abase themselves he might them highly prize Not live t' themselves but Him an'th'common good And when he calls to meekely shed their blood I here 's my Christ of whom thou art afraid To have too much lest so thou shudst be made To be too wise pure just too farre from hell For feare of Heaven fear'st to doe too well Nor car'st indeed for this nor that Earth earth Is thy deare home of sinne-rejoycing mirth But if must needs away thou' rt more content To be where Angels sing then divels torment And yet wert there thou 'dst be tormented with Their singing Lo whither brought by thy beliefe Cud'st thus believe didst thou believe him just And faithfull in his sayings away thou 'dst thrust Thy heavenly joy-prevaricating lust There is a faith that doth not love to trust Nor Christ to trust that faith who sees the heart Him never saw with all for him l'not part Canst thou pursue thy honour pleasure gaine And not believe all this beliefe 's in vaine thou d'st hate loathe friends selfe All did'st ever know But what it meant to have a God to wooe thou d'st doe suffer come runne flie did'st ever prove The powerfull sweet of all-commanding love thou d'st live die by for love did'st ever spie The feasting beauties of that lively eye Poore soule for ever past my pittie if on Thou hold'st thy course I know you not be gone Thou wicked worker thou never livd'st above For what acquaintance Thou my love my dove My undefiled loving dove what thou Sit billing moaning with me flyed'st thou To th' purest houses of my spirits resort Thou m' friend my Spouse wee walke and talke wee sport Our selves in hidden loves Thou carefull how To keepe me as thy life And absent how To take the speediest wayes to finde me Thou In a sweet trembling at a sillable Thou Unlade thy bosome secrets in
what they are like to finde he can make Musick of all things As well of the most harsh hidious terrours as the softest and sweetest sounding melodie can as well play with the most froward and wrastling so the word Psal 18. as the most pure-and peaceable disposition As being he who knowes how to be in perills often in wearinesse in painefulnesse in watchings often in hunger and thirst in fastings often in cold and nakednes besides his continuall sympathizing with the Churches knowes how to run through good report bad report how to abound and how to want and how in all to be content a most blessed concord in the spirituall eare the spirituall heart That can take joyfully the spoyling of his goods receive any word any precept of God as pure-holy-good-and-just and set about the actively passive obedience of it in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost Happy afflictions that helpe to such an holy joy O! where but I forbeare And if he griefe it is at the want of this cheerefull and thankefull deportment of himselfe And this is a higth that wee are carryed up to in the New Adam beyond the reach of the Old even in his innocencie Hee being altogether free from these evills and therefore nothing acquaint with these evill-conquering comforts The Almightie wisedome to the more eminently advanceing of his glorious Grace having thus wonderfully by our fall raised us up to an higher to a permanenter to an ever-highly-permanent Station Strike up then your allarum when you will you shall never carry him by force but shall but rowse up more spirits to man him repell you As hee is of a harsh rugged rough-hewne proud-cruell that is not alleviated with a sweet milde smooth temprature so is it an effeminated flaccid torpid dispirited enervated soule that is not quickned not inlivened with courage That alone being hydropicall this feaverish That too dull for action this is too quicke for councell for patience for endurance But both happily met together in one in a wise understanding actuating spirit like the naturall heate kindly fomented by the radicall moisture and duly agitated by the influent and insite spirits keepe the soule in a happy and healthy constitution because in an apt and proxime power for the well performance of its severall functions Hence may be it those Grecian Captaines were so well seene in Musicke as in feates of Armes and Philosophie as that brave-spirited Epimanondas c. it being a usuall custome after their feasts to have a Lute presented them to play on And certainly he is a man of a choice and compleate temperature that is well made up of a Scholler Souldier and Musitian A head full of discreet and sage knowledge a heart full of couragious and meeke love a hand full of indefatigable and difficultie-overcomming action Such a head such a heart such a hand That make such a Man And yet what are all these and were there a thousand more such suches but meere counterfeit spiritlesse and dead resemblances of that true and living way to compleatenesse of heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because to him the true and living God the Creator the compleator of the heart There being nothing good nothing of worth but what is in God in whom as in Christ we are in these and all graces Compleat In that meeke and immaculate Lambe that dreadfull and terrible Lion of Judah that brazen Serpent in whom are hid all the treasures of wisedome and knowledge Thus made conformeable unto that All-sweet All-wise All-mightie Being the Maker the Perfection of all things By whom we are made perfect through our likenesse to him our living in him And here onely here is the rise of that true magnanimitie that consists in the uncontroulable power of a sweet and humble wisedome God And now since I have so insencibly slipt thus far into the nature of this grace we know not how soon the Lord may settle our distractions of State and Church and so prevent us with his mercies and fit us by them who will never be fitted for them and it being the Carracter of an ingenious child to feare favours and not to be affrighted with frownes I will a little draw it forth into that part of it which may be most sutable to those times It being the nature of it upon the knowledge of God to know nothing else great no more goods then evills And yet either so weake is our knowledge or so seldome our acting it which makes it for so farre no knowledge to us that in those Halcyon dayes have wee most neede of the highest resolves and Princeliest circumspection not to have our spirits debased in the knowledge of things after the flesh But now to have a speciall care of exercising that mysterious that inheavening art of making all things become new knowing affecting doing all things under new notions from new principles by new rules to new ends so using the World as not using it medling with it as in transitu by the way as a viaticum a baite when needs but what needs c. See Page 27. 'T is then 's the danger when the danger 's past Th' inward foe fights wilier when the outward's cast Tacticks unheard of covert stratagems Sly in his Methods suddenly he hems Us in with tempting troops while w' thought h 'had been Distant by many miles we 're rounded in A Maze of fatall friends straite rout our thoughts To a desbausch't confounded yeelding brought Stand sentinell soule unlesse thou standst Perdu Loosest thy life thou 't not the losse escue Capua Hannibali Cannae Fuit A rich and pleasant Asia is more dangerous then a barren and hungry America lue and tepid bathes then harsh storming windes these confirming those consuming the hardiest spirits not guarded with discretion Neither indeed is it a thing so worthy a Christian to seeke for an abiding Citie when this inferior is like to be fired about his eares To make friends of the unrighteous Mammon when it is ready to be snatcht from us to estrange our selves from these things when they turne their backe upon us But when the world shail comes with its Cornucopia of riches pleasures glory c. and would poure all upon our heads and God on the other hand readie to poure downe more aboundantly of that anointing that teacheth us all things that qualifieth us with more Kingly Propheticall Priestly endowments and fills us with joy and gladnesse above our fellewes now not to leave the substance for the shade the Pearle for the Barly-corne is somewhat like him that lives by faith and hath made a true discovery of that onely excellent object Now when the world comes fleering in all her whorish attire with the most cunning and sophisticall insinuations and our spirits are in the height of their jollitie ready to throw themselves into her imbraces when the outward and inward temptations thus powerfully met in their united strength now to
lies drown'd as it were in a Sea of loves and sweetnesses in a blessed astonishment and stupefaction it is elevated in the highest advancement of life and spirits in the Lord of life and glory that descended and ascended to draw up with him all that adheres to him O were the soule wound up to this pitch and watched at it and wound up againe if never so little slipt downe how might we live O still still let us be in this blessed vision of God with more continued intentivenesse contracting thence or rather dilating those Coexistant inherent essentiall which we call attributed species Then others beholding the stedfastnesse of our faith could not but there see more of that radiant image in its deputed Majestie the ball of the sensuall eye not more naturally expressing the Idea of the directly opposite and neighbouring visage then this of the spirituall of faith doth that of God And certainly no sence doth furnish us with more and more cleare conceptions of God then the sight being for its ready commence with the soule for its extention and intention the properest most conducible and advantagious of all being the most spatious farthest reaching pure simple active and therefore most apprehensive and next to that the hearing being the lesse grosse and earthly of all the rest But to keepe to that As the Sunne conveyeth heate and activitie inseperably with and proportionably to its light so is the truth loved and done so farre and onely so farre as it is seene The actions are spurious and illigitimate that are not conceived in the heart and begotten by the eye it will be our wisedome then so truly to informe the latter at we desire the well and right forming and performing of the other Let us looke on him then by no other Organ then faith thorough no other medium then Christ at no other distance then the mearest approaches even to such an unitie that wee see our selves in him and him in us When with the wicked wee put God farre from us and see the world draw nigh us then seemes he little and this great but when we draw neere to him what a pointile what an atome what a nothing it seemes nay it is And as the medium is ever the fame so is the Organ then best when most refined abstracted metaphysicall subtilized sublimed and sence-rarified cause then most proportionable and sutable to the simplicitie and puritie of the object it intends and therefore consequently to the extensivenesse and infinitie of it God being simply infinite and infinitely simple And therefore as wisedome consists in the clearenesse and quicknesse so in the inlargednesse of the understanding but since that knowledge that light in every thing wee draw from him is the onely true wisedome wee are then wisest when our understandings are most clarified by him most acted on him And surely this clarifying of our faith is according to the intimatenesse of our humbly bold accesse unto him the nature of this Sunne being to give light to the blind and that more or lesse according as we are more off or apply our selves nearer to Him And surely while we thus see God in the holiest of holies all the kingdomes of the earth in their freshest and heart-stealingest lovelinesse and that set forth in the most rich and glorious accoutrements will lie at our feete as a dead and rotten carkasle so farre shall we be from committing folly with it so farre that though then too our spirits be at the liveliest as they cannot but be yet because wee nay therefore because we be as crucified as dead to it as it is to us Such power hath this sight to fill the heart with love this love to hold the soule close to God from any thing that would part it from him and to carry it forth in all readinesse of obedience with him When contrarily while we are looking on the world without God we are but looking on so many lying vanities that dead the heart to reall and full contentments withholding it from God and setting the hand on worke in the wayes of sinne which still estrange the soule from Him and keep Him at a distance from the soule that more deading the heart that c. so the soule running on in a round of wickednesse if God not gratiously breake in and hinder its course Which when he doth his presence makes grace to grow by the interchangeable officiousnesse of all its undivided parts The sight of God inflaming the affections they inciting to actions these againe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stirring up the fire in more fervent flames they giving in greater light that discovering more beautie that kindling more fire that animating to more action this againe c. so truely infinitely infinitely infinitely sweet is the comfort of the God-conversing soule The soule that hath received the truth in the love thereof and he that loves mee keepes my Commandements he that doth my will shall know my will he that hath my Commandements as his possession riches c. and keepes them as his greatest joy comfort life he it is that loves me and to him will I manifest my selfe Now this manifestation againe fills the heart with more operative and effectuall love this againe c. Thus Faith worketh by love the fulfilling of the Law the end of the Commandement out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith unfained the sinceritie whereof must needs be according to the sight it hath of God according to the lovelinesse worth chooseablenesse that it seeth in him Faith then I take to be by what of light in this night of blindnesse and darkenesse I can see such a light as shining on the intentively beholding soule through the face of Christ hath that influence and attractive power with it to draw it up and make it cleave and adhaere with all its might and strength to God to lift up the heart to and make it goe along with him in all his wayes While like the Helitrophion it turnes and winds shuts and opens with the motion of the Sunne of righteousnesse And this light thus influenced thus working how ever clouded and obscured to a Christians selfe to be wisedome unto salvation that effectuall knowledge of God his Christ comming into and received of the soule that is life eternall already taken hold of and ere long fully prossessed or thus Faith is a promise-lighted seeking light Burnes with pure fervent love whose active might In every radiant precept shining bright Reflects its glory to the Father-Light Thus these three-one obedience-faith-and love Unite my soule to those Thee-One Above John 11.5.7 A seeking Isaiah 11.10 with Romans 15.13 Satisfying John 5.44 with John 14.1 Faith John 1.4.19 a sincere Phil. 1.10 Matth. 6.22 Eph. 6.24 Fervent Cant. 8.6.7 love John 14.15 an universall Psal 119.6 Jam. 2.10 Ephe. 4.23 Matth. 5.10 Constant Cor. 1.15.58 Obedience So that grace is faith understanding faith affecting faith acting
hither that holy holy holy I am a man c. Hither that behaviour of the foure and twenty Elders that on the contemplation of the excellencies of God threw downe their crownes their excellencies at his feete as being nothing but what they had of Him in Him for Him But life would faile mee in referring zeale and constancie c. and all other graces hither in what dependancie relation they stood to one another Sinne being like so much muck and dung on the fire of zeale the more unmixt the more intent c. The feare of the Lord being a cleant feare and abiding for ever make me sound in thy statutes and steadfast in thy Covenant The inheritance undefiled that fadeth not away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how that the purer the thing is the more free from corruption heterogeneousnesse the more stable firme durable it is so the body so the soule But now we know this puritie this sinceritie is by this discovery therefore this constancy this zeale c. And hither that the things that are seene are temporall but the things that are not seene are eternall The things that are not seene being rare pure holy simple c. and therefore free from corruption and therefore from alteration from decay But into what a blessed maze and gladly involving labarinth hast thou wound thy selfe O my soule And sha't thou be so unhappy ever to finde the way out againe Is it not good for us ever to wander here in these paths of pleasure and walkes of delight Can there be any thing that can steale away the heart so surrounded with such glories such loves But art thou not to thy selfe but to thy God and doth he call thee to workes of an inferiour nature Still worke and wonder worke and love worke and blesse still keepe thy ground thy God who is the God of the vallies as well as of the mountaines And still while thou art walking with him thorough a diverse path loose thy selfe in him who shall shortly with all them that in truth have knowne his name be ever lost in the blessed contemplation of the wonderfull contrivances of the eternall wisedome When there shall be no more eating and drinking no more sleeping and rest no more spending of spirits no more avocations from the immediate and uninterrupted continually active contemplation in that full vision of the onely blessed God and in him of all his wonderfull works When there shall be no successivenesse of plenary intuition and perfect action but still the heart that knowes-loves-obeyes him continually overpowred with the blessed vision and over-flowing in loves and sweetnesses shall be incessantly running over in heart ravishing praisings and intranced in perpetuall extasies Who is it that even now is able to conceive the heaven that is in his owne heart what then when we there see and love-and-sing-and-sing-and-love-and see eternally when we shall not onely have the spirit in us but be in be wholy in the spirit Perfused baptized overwhelmed with it Not onely see and have light joy love spirit but be In nay be spirit light joy love And now O Lord what are wee that it should be thus with us O thou life of life and being of beings thou incomprehensible God! What is it to thee that wee know thee that we love thee what pleasure hast thou in our righteousnesse or what profit it is to thee that we make our wayes perfect surely O Lord thou hast thou hast none who art so infinitely above all happie and holy none but what thou acceptest as such in him in whom thou onely art in whom we onely are well pleased In whom thou wilt welcome us with a Well done good and faithfull servant when thou shalt finde us so doing who have done nothing What are our understandingst thoughts of thee but as so many mishapen confused conceits What our appositest speeches but as so much jabbering and gibberish What our accuratest performances but as so many trifling toyes All childish childish all What are they further then they are exercises of then they are testimonies of our love the end the summe of all the Commandements Yet what too are our strongest our heart-possessingest loves but as so many fond and fleeting passions And yet thou looking on us and we on thee thorough the face of thy Christ that perspective of mutuall lustre and glory from in and for whom are all our thoughts words affections actions and ought that ought is art pleased to accept them as the thoughts as the language as the love as the life of Angells Whom thou hast made ministring spirits to thy chosen thy faithfull that wee with them and they with us preferring each other in honour might all joyntly promote the honour of our onely-honour-worthy God O the freenesse of thy grace the unfathomednesse of thy wisedome the incomprehensiblenesse of thy glory O where is the learning that hath learnt thee that would not willingly debase it selfe throw downe it selfe as the footstoole before thy Throne and the Throne of thy Christ as being nothing but what it is in raysing up the soule to a dutie-learning to an humble walking with thee that would not willingly as it were unlearne all and learne it over againe in thy Christ where are those fond and selfe-conceited Opiniasters that would not lay downe all at his feete at least meekely and selfe-suspectingly mannage their Scripture-unevidenced tenets O did we know in what a blacke cloud of ignorance wee were all involved in what a night of palpable darkenesse an epithite not unknowne to a Christian heart that cannot but be feelingly sensible of it Had our memories oftener recourse to that Originall pride that confounded the language of our minds as well as that of our tongues or thought that multiplicitie and incertainty of opinions may since purposely be permitted by the divine wisedome and gratious justice to lay us low in our owne eyes to make us out of love with our selves c. how could we then be so proud and not so so contentious Why may not all that hold the same head have the same heart why may not there be dissention without contention But every one seeke their owne and none of Christ Which true foundation or foundation of truth laine in the heart if any shall as who doth not among our gold and silver unwittingly build straw and stubble why should not we labour to purge one anothers drosse with a tender love and carefull salvation as I may say of one anothers respects content peace whom the God of love and peace hath promised to save eternally Or had we observed that it is with Christians as with the tenent and mortesse in building the condyles and concavities in the bones of the body he is that eminent at one end as it were may be defective at the other that is excellent in this may be wanting in that that so wee may fall in with joyne closer to one another in one the
perfect in weakenesse concording discord And if it be the glory of God to bring light out of darkenesse good out of evill how can we but rejoyce that by being subjects of the one we come to bethe instruments of the other 2 Cor. 12. 1 Cor. 2.5 And if good be the object of the concupiscible facultie why shu'd we make our affections the object of our irascible The Lord strengthen us with joy in the inner man and then goe it how it will with the outer So may we gladly keepe the word of his patience in the saddest and patience-assaultingst times so shall hee keepe us from or at least in and therefore from the houre of temptation that shall come upon all the world to try them Now is it a time for the patience of the Saints for them that keepe the Commandements of God and the faith of Jesus Now is it a time for those that have held fast this inviolable knot in the bond of love to hold up their heads in rejoycing as then knowing the greater redemption drawes nigh when the greater calamitie approaches Thus what ever of these things we may know already feelingly in the heart if not notionally perspicuously in the head let us not faile to put one another alwayes in remembrance Alwayes striving together in our Prayers and that with no small conflict of heart that we may be comforted being knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mistery of God and the Father and of Christ Had we more godly and brotherly love wee should have more comfort and that would hunger after more knowledge and that fill with more assurance and that furnish with more grace and all acknowledge the mistery of the puritie of the wisedome of the love of the Godhead So much spirit so much faith so much faith so much Christ so much Christ so much love so much love so much knowledge so much knowledge so much fulnesse of God Eph. 3.16 c. Come then what may come befall what may befall to the flesh The Lord be with the Lord will be with will be our Spirits Ruat Mundus Restat Deus PLay on about the Candle wanton flie Play sindge thy wings consume thy soule and die Make jests of Scripture-jeere the God of heaven Laugh at the Light-mock them who hath receiven It in their hearts-and shine it in their lives Invent unheard of opprobries contrive New fashion'd obloquies scum hell for scurrulous wit Or dive th'lowest depths of the unfathom'd pit 'T will furnish thee with just sufficient store To make thy selfe a foole and nothing more Enough and but enough to over-reach And cheate thy selfe th' infernall cheater'l teach Else shud'st be wiser then thy master shud Thy wit have wit enough to make thee good On madnesse belch thy deadly Antipathie To heaven in thy horrid blasphemy Cast up thy workes and reare thy mounts on high Heape fetch on fetch to overtop the skie Shield thee with distinctions say it is not him Thou shoot'st at but his word Saint Image Limbe Not God but God in them While merrily along To the correcting stocks the foole holds on His heedlesse way tickled with the high desert Of h's flattering wit into his endlesse smart PUritan the invention of Hell the Character of a Christian the language of prophanenesse the blasphemy of God the evomition of a heart desperately wicked a glorious defamation an undermining of an open thrust at the very heart life and power of Religon an evident preferring of Pharisaicall formes and Laodecean neutralitie a Match-divillian device to kindle sire in Church and State a slie practise of the old Serpents old maxime Divide and Raigne a word that is as it is made enterteined And what indeed is this Puritan but a Protestant drawing naturall conclusions from his owne praemises beleeving and living according to his owne profession at the highest pitch of his owne principles Nor know I indeed how one differs otherwise from the other then a Papist from an Arminian A perfect birth from an Embrio a Bird from an Egge Time and due heate Cateris non obstantibus will give them both their full maturity And as I have had it from good hands confessed by a Papists that Protestanisme not kept down wu'd naturally grow up to Puritanisme And surely that which doth not is but a dry and dead stumpe without branches or at farthest leaves without fruite Is that tree which cumbers the ground is that ground which is nigh unto cursing to the executed sentence of its amendment-unaverted judgement Let then this or whatsoever other synonymous Nickname any divill-brooded braine hath latelier hatched be sent forth drest in the gavest feathers of proud and selfe-conceited and therefore desperately foolish wit yet shall they prove but finer colour'd excrements but ensignes of their vanitie and therefore not seasonably prevented of their eternall vexation of spirit But what then those more blacke and darke aspersions of impudently-forheaded calumniators with the very thoughts where of I abhorre to defile my memory Whose empty whose witlesse wit is so taking with because so easily apprehensible by so aptly sutable to corrupt nature While the substantiall wisedome of heaven is only justified by her children Who have learnt of her how ever these scoffers deceive themselves God whom in his word Saints c. they mock will not be mocked Jude 15. Act. 4.9 Matth. 25.42 c. Try all things hold fast that which is good REject the Branne reteine the flower All things abide their sifting houre Perfection onely in Heaven is 'T is knowledge here to know we misse But they who studdy not to advance Are ignorant of their ignorance But we that follow on to know In floods of lights and loves shall flow Baptiz'd in glory till wee see Th' unseene in all his Puritie But what O what then shall we be Who so much of him here can see Chant in a fire of humble zeale Soule-loosing hymns of restlesse weale Ravish't and ravish't while we rest Hugg'd in his aye-fomenting brest Surrounded in a Maze of blisse Distracted with felicities While firmely resident in one In whom All knowables are knowne The things that neither eye eare heart Can see heare thinke the milliont'h part Who see nor love simplicitie Inf'nit Invisibilitie O what what then who this now know Yet know not ought as w' ought to know T Is calme within and so I sang before 'T is calme without so sing what sang before My head-my heart-my hand shall sing My God my Prophet Priest and King These three below with those above Shall make six parts unite in love And so I sang in the extreamest storme And what else can I'n the serenest calme O Teach thy servant to be humble for the humble thou wilt teach Let him see thee and he dies and he lives for ever Send forth thy Light and thy Truth and let them lead him in thy presence Cause thy face to shine upon him and it will teach him they statutes Thy loving kindnesse is better then life O let it never depart from him O Comfort him with thy Aples and refesh him with thy Cordialls For his soule is sicke is sicke with love O thou Discerner of hearts Why are thy Chariot wheeles so slow How long shall he looke out of the window How how long shall those beauties be masked and the God of glory vailed When shall this night of ignorance turne day and these thicke clouds be dispersed Why hast thou showne thee and but shown thee O fully abidingly Thou hast wounded his heart with thy glories and it bleedeth inwardly It sinkes it falls it dies for want of more wounding 'T is sweetly imbittered with thy inconceavable thy insupportable Loves What bounds can hold it what thing detaine it what expressions describe it How long shall it languish in thy strength and expire in thy breathings O never never shall these gratious visitations forsake it THus all my life 's a course of seeking Thee Who liv'd who lost Thy life in seeking me Such is my faith such shall my finding be Whose love hath found the way to waite on Thee With righteous works which can't extended be To Thee but thou wu't meete so doing me So running from my selfe to be Ingulph't in ever-blessed Thee So twining streames in sweete confusion Till know my Love without allusion Clos'd in a Close without Conclusion I have gasped after thy Salvation O Lord Even so come Lord Jesus come quickly
but gull His seeming sweet straite turnes to gall And vomits straite his stollen all His Done joy 's cooled by and by With reall ills in Fieri But stay all this is but to seek my selfe While I am studying how to loose it I Must flie a braver pitch far far more high Above the thoughts of all this selfish pelfe ACtion is the life of a Christian it is death to him not to be stirring He cannot rest in himself though nay becausefill'd with the greatest contents He receiveth to doe but the wicked doth to receive His pleasures his joys his delights are displeasures are troubles to him if they doe not run forth themselves into God Hence the soule at his stillest and retiredest recesses is still putting out its heart and breathing forth it selfe in praises studying and contriving wayes of activenesse for the glory of its God and hence the poore soule though indeed only rich when it lyes at an under in truth the very heighth of Christianity cries out O it cannot doe it cannot doe Blessed soule that art estranged to thy self that hast forgotten thy selfe and all thy good deeds as things not worth the looking after and hast got so forward in the wayes of holinesse to be still more pressing onward to the marke in a more speedy and active course by how much the nearer thou commest to it Thou that knowest what it is to cry out enough Lord mercy enough vvhat are those sweet pangs and blessed conflicts of soule under a divers notion the while thou over-powred with apprehension of that Unspeakable Gift in whom is given thee all things richly to enjoy now labouring under some present distemper and being thereby led back to the remembrance of its roote and originall art so overcome with the sight of thine owne altogether unworthinesse of the least mercy thou dost even sinke and fall under such weighty and over-bearing thoughts with a sweet-humble-resignment of thy selfe as now no more thy selfe and so with an holy kinde of carelesnesse as concerning thy selfe art become willing to suffer to doe to be any thing for thy God and in that respect the while thou tacitely and most effectually deprecatst these petitionst for the removall of these distempers disturbances indispositions c. as of themselves impediments to the more active duty and the more manifest expression of the divine glory though indeed these sweet impressions are not a little tending to it The sinceritie the humilitie the love the zeale that is more intentively active within breaking forth with so much the more strength and vigour And what can the most eminent lively stirring and active Christian doe of himselfe since the strongest is as weake as the weakest without God and the weakest as strong as the strongest with him who accepteth the sincere heartie studious indeavoring will for the deed and will thus accept of thy mite that thus throwes away thy self as it were that throwes in heart and all although in the meanest and weakest performance as desiring no mercies to thy selfe but to returne them as tributary streames to their first spring even this shall he accept before all the Rivers of Oyle all the bodies that may be given to be burnt by a selfe seeking Pharisee that is still returning and winding about to himselfe like those waters of Ponds Meers and Lakes that run into themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal 58. that are not acted by an inward principle to a selfe-withdrawing selfe-outing end but are meerely agitated by winds by externall motions and still move within the compasse of themselves and therefore dry away and perish with the hypocrite And this doing is no doing or if any is aliud agere is male agere that thus beginnes and ends in it selfe But what dost thou O man of whom God requires onely that thou shouldest doe justice and walke humbly with thy God And what is it to doe justice but to give every man his right and for every man to give thee O Lord thine all he doth he hath he is all his pleasures all his possessions all his abilities of which all since he can give thee nothing what cause hath he to walke humbly with his God And what infinitely sweet humble action and active humilitie is that that brings us to walke to converse to have fellowship with such an infinitely sweete God the author the finisher of our ever infinitely sweete humilitie O who would not now humbly act in all and aske his mirth what Doth it and account his laughter madnesse runnes a round of selfe conceited pleasure and is not like a line that takes its beginning and ending in thee that conveyes not the soule along to thee onely Who would not Ecco to the command of Come doe my will with a readie and speedy I come I come to doe thy will If there be any truth even in naturall love is it not when it not receives for it selfe but doth for its beloved even to the undergoing the greatest paine the losing of the dearest life can nature live by doe die for love and shall not grace make nature subservient to Thee in all these and what ever there may be more then these where can the man finde himselfe that knowes thee that loves Thee as he should as hee would here is the man that sees so much of Heaven that nothing but the love of God can make him meddle with a thought of the earth while the God-unacquainted soule sees so much of earth that nothing but the love of himselfe can make him to meddle with a thought of heaven all the glories of the Kingdomes of the world may well passe away as shaddowes vanities nothings before the soule that in his Christ sees his God when the least tempting Apple may loose him that is not secured in this blest premunition And to that happie condition is the soule brought and that is it which brings the soule to that happy condition that lookes after the world and Heaven for God when the other after God for the world and Heaven so while hee makes himselfe his God makes himselfe a devill while the other in making himselfe Gods makes God himselfe while he drawes in onely that hee might poure out God poures in unto them while he is drawing forth while he takes his graces themselves drinkes and fills his belly with those living waters to this prime and principall end that the overflowing thereof may make glad the city of God and carry both himselfe and it to be swallowed up of that infinite ocean of loves and sweetnesses A Christian is at least should be so rich with content so superabounding with such an exuberancy of the milke and hony of Canaan that like the distended udders of high fed Kine it even lookes to be drawne forth and longs for some to be taken into the partnership of its joyes and graces so far should he be out of any impotencie and incontinencie of spirit to be carried out to
Christ working on us in us and through us beginning continuing and ending all in it selfe happy Soule that knowes what is the study of selfe-deniall never can wee finde any where more of sweetnesse because no where more of God O could we make this our Hoc age our businesse our one thing whether wud it leade us where wud it loose us even to the following of God fully to be full of him and still to follow him to emptie and fill fill and emptie in a most sweet and blessed exercise of soule till we lay downe in everlasting rest and peace wholly emptied of our old and dying wholly filled with our new everliving selves O the unserchablenesse the unconceiveablenesse of the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord O the depth of its humility the heighth of its zeal the latitude and length of its obedience what thing what time can bound it O what is it can so free can so enlarge so sublime the heart as the giving it up to the hands of its God to be guided by him at his pleasure Can the soule contain it selfe within it selfe that hath these thoughts O when shall we know what it is that singlenesse of heart that being but one soule but one heart When shall we be like so many closing pieces of tender waxe before the fervent heat of the Sun When shall we be dissolved when runne into one another and all into one holy Lumpe Even so Lord Jesus come quickly 1 Cor. 10.24 Phil. 2.4 5. c. 21. Sic nos non nobis So we not for our selves have fame So we not for our selves have gaine Nobis nâ— nati sumâ— So we not for our selves have pleasure So we not for our selves have * Omnia mea temp amicorum temporibâ— absumend putavi Câ— Perdididâ— em quunâ— nemini be nefecisset Titus Impâ—rator leasure So have nor mind's nor bodie 's health To keep t' our selves our selves is stealth So nothing for our selves we have But have for Him that all things gave So all things for our selves we have Since He who all Himselfe us gave GOes th' Boate uneaven Leane the other way So with more safetie and with lesse delay In joying grieve and in thy grieving joy So neither change shall worke thee such annoy 'Ts the man that makes his fortune Ever 's he Prosperous thar learnes loves wills adversitie Then learne this lesson and 't is worth the while Let sorrow be the shaddow of thy smile Be not so joviall frolicke so profuse Least plung'd up swimme thou canst not through disuse That mirth is madnesse where's no ponderousnesse For reason's weightie and imports no lesse Then God the moving cause who once in thought The faithfull soule in fearefull joy is brought Great God! I sinke w'th that All-contayning name Good God! my burthen and my Heaven 's the same What heart-betraying world wu'dst have me joy I le turne my joy to my God-joying grace And that will quickly give true griefe its place While both together sit with sweet accord And make my heart the musicke of my Lord. Or think'st to quell me with thy fell Annoâ— I le turne my griefe to my God-grieving sinne And that will quickly turne to joy agin Nay they are one for they agree in one Blest Father sorrow smiles while joy doth moane Both fall about his necke and kisse brave sight To see Griefe weepe for joy the day through night Thrice happy man this happy temper keeps As th' golden Sunne through th' Silver droppings peeps Upon the flowring earth or softly playes O' th' gliding streames with'ts gently glittering Rayes As th' modest smilings o' the native Heat Nor Chronick nor acute diseases threat Thus wud'st thy sence-refined faith imploy thou d'st th' one from th' other reciprocally draw And in the Trinessence of both compose The temper wu'd heaven in earth God-man disclose Thus griefe should loose its name and nature be Swallowed up of Glorying Humilitie Humble I shall be in Heaven O! ' th' weight o' th' Love O' th' Love presses my soule to solid joyes My spungy soule so often shrunk and swel'd Glorious I am on earth O! th' heighth o' th' Love O' th' Love raises my soule t'an humble poyse A temper ad pon dus might exactnesse dwell On this side th' Empyraean so be I still Tempered to Justice till on Sions Hill The Spirit-pondering-God shall find me weight Made me meete to live at such a glorious height LOok not so much at the present as the future having eye in adversitie to prosperity and prosperitie to adversitie learne to estrange neither from your thoughts that you may welcome either they are guests that looke for successive entertainement be not so free to one as that the other take you unprovided they are enemies to each other and yet an indifferent respect may make them both friends to you be acquainted yea familiar with both but indeare your selfe to neither deny neither of them admission to your head so shall you both the possession of your heart keepe correspondency with both and you are safe but give your selfe to either and it will leade you you know not whither you are betrayed you are lost you shall be set upon now by the one now by the other and become a slave to both you shall then learne that it is better to observe ten then serve two be not led so much by sight of what is as foresight what may be not so much by sence as by reason and not so much by reason as faith for that is beast-like and lookes but downeright this man-like and lookes forward but this last Christian-like and looks upward Labour then to know no such things as adversitie and prosperitie but as the will or not the will of God in your having or not having these outward things and learne this excellent Art of composing a meane out of two extreames Take somewhat of the sweet to qualifie the soure and of the soure to qualifie the sweet yet let it savour most of the most benigne to which the other is but subservient It is the soure griefe and fulsome joy that distempers but it is the joyfull griefe and grieving joy that is the sweete the onely gracefull temper I deny not but changes of State may move you but they must not remove you they may somewhat alter the affection but must nothing alter your station suppose you sing the more cheerefully in the Sun shine and weepe the more freely in the storme yet must you mourne in this singing and rejoyce in this weeping this Aequanimity unwaveringnesse standing even upright posture of soule is that which may be demonstrated the best in that the excellency of every thing is according to its likenesse or rather partaking of that onely excellency and therefore as of his simplicitie and infinitie in the inlargednesse and puritie of heart so its immutabilitie in the steadfastnesse and immoveablenesse of our mind these being as necessarily concomitant