hail,

Whose fervent agony tore the Temple's veil,

Let sacrifices out, dark prophecies
And miracles; and let in, for all these,
*A simple piety, a naked heart,
And humble spirit, that no less impart
And prove thy Godhead to us, being as

From death and hell; which cannot crown our brows,

*But blood must follow: thorns mix with thy boughs

Of conquering laurel, fast nail'd to thy Cross,

Are all the glories we can here engross. Prove then to those, that in vain-glory's place,

Their happiness here they hold not by thy grace,

To those whose powers, proudly oppose thy laws,

Oppressing Virtue, giving Vice applause :
They never manage just authority,
But thee in thy dear members crucify.

Thou couldst have come in glory past them all,

With power to force thy pleasure, and empale

Thy Church with brass and adamant, that no swine,

Nor thieves, nor hypocrites, nor tfiends divine,

* As our Saviour's brows bled with his crown of thorns.

Such as are Divines in profession; and, in fact, devils, or wolves in sheep's clothing.

Could have broke in, or rooted, or put on Vestments of piety, when their hearts had

none:

Or rapt to ruin with pretext to save, Would *pomp, and radiance, rather not

outbrave

Thy naked truth, than clothe, or countenance it

With grace, and such sincereness as is fit: But since true piety wears her pearls within,

And outward paintings only prank up sin: Since bodies strengthen'd, souls go to the wall;

Since God we cannot serve and Belial, Therefore thou putt'st on earth's most abject plight,

Hidd'st thee in humblesse, underwent'st despite,

Mockery, detraction, shame, blows, vilest death.

These thou thy tsoldiers taught'st to fight beneath,

Madest a commanding precedent of these,
Perfect, perpetual, bearing all the keys
To holiness and heaven. To these, such
laws

Thou in thy blood writ'st, that were no

Easily discerning it a heavenly birth,

And *controversies, thick as flies at spring, Must be maintain'd about the ingenuous meaning;

When no style can express itself so clear, Nor holds so even and firm a character. Those mysteries that are not to be reach'd, Still to be strived with, make them more impeach'd.

And as the Mill fares with an ill-pick'd grist,

When any stone the stones is got betwist, Rumbling together, fill the grain with grit,

Offends the ear, sets teeth on edge with it ;

Blunts the pick'd quarry so, 'twill grind no

more,

Spoils bread, and scants the Miller's custom'd store.

So in the Church, when controversy falls, It mars her music, shakes her batter'd walls,

Grates tender consciences, and weakens faith;

The bread of life taints, and makes work for Death;

Darkens truth's light with her perplex'd Abysms,

And dust-like grinds men into sects and schisms.

And what's the cause? The word's

deficiency

In volume, matter, perspicuity? Ambition, lust, and damned avarice, Pervert, and each the sacred word applies To his profane ends; all to profit given, †And pursenets lay to catch the joys of heaven.

Since truth and real worth men seldom sease,

Impostors most, and sleightest learnings please;

And, where the true Church, like the nest should be

Of chaste, and provident ‡Alcione :

earth.

Yet (as if God lack'd man's election,
And shadows were creators of the sun)
Men must authorize it: antiquities
Must be explored, to spirit, and give it
thighs,

*Pomp and outward glory rather outface truth than countenance it.

† Christ taught all his militant soldiers to fight under the ensigns of Shame and Death.

We need no other excitation to our faith in God and good life, but the Scriptures, and use of their means prescribed.

Which is so strictly fitted to her size,
§That no bird bigger than herself, or less,
Can pierce and keep it, or discern th' access:

* Τα μὲν παρεργα ὡς ἔργα: τα δέ ἔργα ὡς Tápeрya. In these controversies men make the by the main the main the by.

† Men seek heaven with using the enemies to it Money and Avarice.

Alcione's nest described in part, out of Plut., to which the Church is compared.

§ If the bird be less, the sea will get in; by which means though she may get in, she could not preserve it.

made,

Can ever overflow, or once invade. *Now ways so many to her Altars are, So easy, so profane, and popular : That torrents charged with weeds, and sin-drown'd beasts,

Break in, load, crack them: sensual joys and feasts

Corrupt their pure fumes; and the slenderest flash

Of lust or profit, makes a standing plash Of sin about them, which men will not pass.

Look, Lord, upon them, build them walls of brass,

To keep profane feet off: do not thou
In wounds and anguish ever overflow,
And suffer such in ease and sensuality,
Dare to reject thy rules of humble life:
The mind's true peace, and turn their zeals
to strife,

For objects earthly and corporeal.

A trick of humblesse now they practise all,
Confess their no deserts, abilities none;
Profess all frailties, and amend not one :
As if a privilege they meant to claim
In sinning by acknowledging the maim
Sin gave in Adam: nor the surplusage
Of thy redemption, seem to put in gage
For his transgression; that thy virtuous
pains,

Dear Lord, have eat out all their former stains;

That thy most mighty innocence had power

To cleanse their guilts: that the unvalued dower

Thou madest the Church thy spouse, in piety,

And (to endure pains impious) constancy, Will and alacrity (if they invoke)

To bear the sweet load, and the easy yoke Of thy injunctions, in diffusing these (In thy perfection) through her faculties; In every fibre, suffering to her use, And perfecting the form thou didst infuse tIn man's creation: made him clear as then

Of all the frailties since defiling men.

And as a runner at th' Olympian games, With all the luggage he can lay on, frames

* Altars of the Church for her holiest places understood.

† Ubi abundavit delictum, superabundavit gratia. Rom. v., ver. 20.

A simile to life, expressing man's estate before our Saviour's descension. VOL. II.

pockets, greaves,

Stuff'd full of sand he wears, which when

he leaves,

over:

Then seems he light, and fresh as morning air;

Girds him with silks, swaddles with rollers fair

His lightsome body: and away he scours So swift and light, he scarce treads down the flowers:

So to our game proposed, of endless joy (Before thy dear death) when we did employ

Our tainted powers, we felt them clogg'd and chain'd

With sin and bondage, which did rust, and reign'd

In our most mortal bodies; but when thou Stripp'dst us of these bands, and from foot to brow

Girt, roll'd, and trimm'd us up in thy deserts:

Free were our feet and hands, and sprightly hearts

Leapt in our bosoms; and (ascribing still All to thy merits; both our power and will To every thought of goodness wrought by thee;

That divine scarlet, in which thou didst dye Our cleansed consistence; lasting still in power

T'enable acts in us, as the next hour
To thy most saving, glorious sufferance)
We may make all our manly powers ad-

Vassals to Sathan? Didst thou only die, Thine own divine deserts to glorify,

And show thou couldst do this? O were not those

Given to our use in power? If we shall lose

By damn'd relapse, grace to enact that power;

And basely give up our redemption's tower,

Before we try our strengths, built all on thine,

†And with a humblesse false and asinine, Flattering our senses, lay upon our souls The burthens of their conquests, and like moles

Grovel in earth still, being advanced to heaven:

(Cows that we are) in herds how are we driven

To Sathan's shambles! Wherein stand we for

Thy heavenly image, Hell's great Conqueror?

Didst thou not offer, to restore our fall Thy sacrifice, full, once, and one for all? If we be still down, how then can we rise

Again with thee, and seek crowns in the skies?

But we excuse this, saying, "We are but

Thy sacred image, out of which, one calls

Our human souls, mortal celestials; When casting off a good life's godlike grace,

We fall from God; and then make good our place

When we return to him; and so are said To live: when life like his true form we lead,

And die (as much as an immortal creature); +Not that we utterly can cease to be, But that we fall from life's best quality.

But we are toss'd out of our human Throne

By pied and Protean opinion; We vouch thee only, for pretext and fashion,

And are not inward with thy death and passion.

We slavishly renounce the royalty With which thou crown'st us in thy victory;

Spend all our manhood in the fiend's defence,

And drown thy right in beastly negligence.

God never is deceived so, to respect His shade in Angels' beauties, to neglect His own most clear and rapting loveli

Since souls of their use ignorant are still,
With this vile body's use, men never fill.
And, as the Sun's light, in streams ne'er
so fair,

Is but a shadow to his light in air,
His splendour that in air we so admire
Is but a shadow to his beams in fire:
In fire his brightness, but a shadow is
To radiance fired, in that pure breast of
his;

So as the subject on which thy grace shines,

Is thick, or clear; to earth or heaven

inclines;

So that truth's light shows; so thy passion takes;

With which, who inward is, and thy breast makes

Bulwark to his breast, against all the darts

The foe still shoots more, more his late blow smarts,

And sea-like raves most, where 'tis most withstood.

He tastes the strength and virtue of thy blood :

He knows that when flesh is most soothed, and graced,

Admired and magnified, adored, and placed
In height of all the blood's idolatry,
And fed with all the spirits of Luxury,
One thought of joy,* in any soul that
knows

Her own true strength, and thereon doth repose;

Bringing her body's organs to attend Chiefly her powers to her eternal end; Makes all things outward, and the sweetest sin

That ravisheth the beastly flesh within;
All but a fiend, prank'd in an Angel's
plume:

A shade, a fraud, before the wind a fume.
Hail, then, divine Redeemer, still all hail,
All glory, gratitude, and all avail,
Be given thy all-deserving agony;
Whose vinegar thou nectar makest in me,

* The mind's joy far above the body's, to those few whom God hath inspired with the soul's true use.

Whose goodness freely all my ill turns good:

Since thou being crush'd, and strain'd through flesh and blood:

Each nerve and artery* needs must taste of thee.

What odour burn'd in airs that noisome be, Leaves not his scent there? O then how much more

Must thou, whose sweetness swet eternal odour,

Stick where it breathed: and for whom thy sweet breath,

Thou freely gavest up, to revive his death? Let those that shrink then as their conscience loads,

That fight in Sathan's right, and faint in God's,

Still count them slaves to Sathan. I am

none:

Thy fight hath freed me, thine thou makest mine own.

to then (my sweetest and my only life) Confirm this comfort, purchased with thy grief,

And my despised soul of the world, love thou:

No thought to any other joy I vow.
Order these last steps of my abject state,
Straight on the mark a man should level at;
And grant that while I strive to form in me,
Thy sacred image, no adversity
May make me draw one limb, or line amiss:
Let no vile fashion wrest my faculties
From what becomes that Image. Quiet so
My body's powers, that neither weal nor woe,
May stir one thought up, 'gainst thy freëst
will.

Grant that in me, my mind's waves may be still:

The world for no extreme may use her voice;

Nor Fortune treading reeds, make any noise.

Amen. Complain not whatsoever need invades, But heaviest fortunes bear as lightest shades.

[* Artery "artire" in orig.-ED.] † Invocatio.