AUTOMACHIA, OR The SELF-CONFLICT of a Christian.   

TO THE MOST NOBLE, virtuous, and learned Lady, the Lady MARY NEVIL, One of the Daughters of the right Honourable the Earl of DORCET, Lord High. Treasurer of England.  

Add but an A, to Romanize your Name,  
ANOTHER PALLAS is your Anagram:   
(videlicet)  

MARIA NEVILA.  
ALIA MINERVA.   

Madam, your love to learning and the learned,  
(In such an Age, so full of Art's neglect)  
Right worthily to your rare Self hath earned  
The love of learning and the learned sect;   

Whereby, your Name already is eterned  
In Memory's fair TEMPLE hie erect:  
And there, devoutly at your VERTV's Shrine,  
I humbly Offer this poor MITE of mine.   

Too small a Present to so great a GRACE,  
And too unworthy of your Worthiness:  
Save that the Matter so exceeds the Mass,  
That oft (perhaps) a Greater may be less:   

For, you may see, within this little Glass,  
The LITTLE-WORLD's Great-Little-Mindednesse.  
Man's strife with Man: our Flesh & Spirit in Duel:  
Couragious-Cowards, too Self-kindely-cruel.   

Vouchsafe t' accept then this small New-yeres-Gift,  
With th' humble Vows of a disastered Muse,  
That lavishly hath sown her seeds of Thrift  
So high and dry that yet no Fruit ensues;   

Else need she not have made so hard a Shift,  
Nor this Small Gift so greatly to excuse:  
But, sith (as yet) she cannot what she would,  
Madam, accept her Zeal, and what she could.   
Most devoted 
 to your Honourable Virtues, 
 J. S.   

AUTOMACHIA, OR The SELF-CONFLICT of a Christian.  

Virtue I love, I lean to Vice: I blame  
This wicked World, yet I embrace the same.   

I climb to Heaven, I cleave to Earth: I both  
Too-love myself, and yet myself I loathe:  
Peaceless, I Peace pursue: In Civil War,  
With, and against myself, I join, I jar:  
I burn, I frieze: I fall down, I stand fast:  
Well-ill I far: I glory, though disgraced:   

I die alive: I triumph put to flight:  
I feed on Cares: In Tears I take delight:  
My siave (base-brave) I serve: I roam at large  
In Liberty, yet lie in Gaolers charge:  
I strike, and stroke myself: I kindly keen  
Work mine own woe, rub my gall, rouz my spleen:   

Oft in my sleep, to see rare dreams, I dream;  
Waking, mine eye doth scarce discern a beam:  
My mind's strange Megrim whirling to and fro,  
Now thrusts me hither, thither then doth throw:  
In divers Factions I myself divide;  
And all I try, and fly to every side:   

What I but now desired, I now disdain:  
What late I weighed not, now I wish again:  
Today, tomorrow; This, that; Now, anon:  
All, nothing crave I (ever never-one).  
Dull Combatant, unready for the field,  
Too-tardie take I after wounds my shield:   

Still hurried headlong to unlawful things,  
Down-dragging Vice me downward easily dings:  
But sacred Virtue climbs so hard and high,  
That hardly can I her steep steps descry.  
Both Right and Wrong with me indifferent are:  
My Lust is Law: what I desire, I dare:   

(Is there so foul a Fault, so fond a Fact,  
Which Follie ask, Fury dares not act?).  
But Art-lesse-hart-lesse in Religion's cause  
(To do her Lessons, and defend her Laws)  
The all-proofe armour of my GOD I lose,  
Fly from my Charge, and yield it to his foes.   

Guilty of sin, sin's punishment I shun,  
But not the guilt, before th' offence be done:  
For, how could shunning of a sin, ensue  
To be occasion of another new?  
Oft and again at the same stone I trip  
(As if I learned by falling, not to slip).   

Alive I perish and myself undo,  
Mine eyes (self-wise) witting and willing too.  
Sick, to myself I run for my relief,  
So, sicker of my Physic than my grief:  
For, while I seek my swelting Thirst to suage,  
Another Thirst more ragingly doth rage:   

While, burnt to death, to cool me I desire,  
With flames my flames, with sulphur quench I fire:  
While that I strive my waving Waves to stop,  
More wavingly, they wave above my top:  
Thus am I cured, this is my common ease,  
My medicine still worse than my worst disease.   

My sores with sores, my wounds with wounds I heal,  
While, to myself my Self I still conceal.  
O what lewd Leagues! what Truces make I still  
With Sin, and Satan, and my wanton Will!  
What slight Occasions do I take to sin!  
What sillic Trains am I entrapped in!   

What idle cloaks for'crimes! What nets to hide  
Notorious sins, already long descried!  
I writ in Ice, Windes witness, signed with Showers,  
I will redeem my foul Life's former hours,  
And soon the swinge of Custom (whirlwind like)  
Rapting my passion (ever Fashion sick)   

Transports me to the contrary: alone,  
Faint Guard of Goodness; Arm-les Champion.  
My moral Taste doth nothing sweeter find,  
Than what is bitter to th'immortal mind.  
Aegypt's fat Flesh-pots I am longing-for,  
Th'eternal Manna I do even abhor.   

World's Monarch Mammon (Dropsy mystical)  
Crowned round-faced Goddess, coined Belial,  
Midas Desire, the Miser's only Trust,  
The sacred hunger of Pactolian dust,  
Gold, Gold bewitches me, & frets accursed  
My greedy throat with more than Dipsian Thirst.   

My mind's a Gulf, whose gaping nought can stuff:  
My heart a hell that never hath enough:  
The more I have, I crave, and less content:  
In store most poor, in plenty indigent:  
For, of these Cates how much-soe'r I cram,  
It doth not stop my mouth, but stretch the same.   

Sweet usury's incestuous Interest,  
For Dallers, dolours hoardeth in my chest:  
The World's-slaue Profit, & the Minds-slut Pleasure  
(Insatiate both, both boundless, both past measure,  
This, Cleopatra; That, Sardanapale)  
For huge Annoys, bring Toys but short & small.   

O Miracle! begot by Heaven of Earth  
(Of Mind divine, of Body brute by birth)  
O what a Monster am I to depaint!  
Half-friend, half-fiend; half-savage, half-a-saint.  
Higher than my Fire doth my gross Earth aspire:  
My raging Flesh my restless Force doth tyre:   

And, drunk with world's Must, & deep sunk in sleep,  
My Spirit (the Spy that wary watch should keep)  
Betrays alas (woe that I trust it so)  
My soul's dear kingdom to her deadly foe.  
Through Care's Charybdis, and rough Gulfs of Grief,  
Star-lar-boord run I, sailing all my life   

On merrie-sorrie Seas: my Wind, my Will;  
My Ship, my Flesh; my Sense, my Pilot still.  
As in a most seditious Commonweal,  
Within my breast I feel my best rebel:  
Against their Prince my furious People rise:  
Their aweless Prince dares his own Law despise.   

Mine Eue's an Outlaw, and my struggling Twins  
jacob and Esau never can be friends;  
Such deadly feud, such discord, such despite  
(Ever between Brethren) such continual fight.  
What's done in me, another doth, not I;  
Yet, both (alas) my Guest and Enemy:   

My mind unkind (suborned by my foe)  
Indeed, within me, but not with me tho;  
near, yet far off: in fleshly lees besoiled,  
And with the World's contagious filth defiled.  
I am too narrow for mine own Desires:  
Myself denies me what myself requires:   

I fear and hope: careless, in Cares I languish:  
Hungry, too full: dry-drinking, sugred-anguish:  
Weary of life, merry in death: I suck  
Wine from the Pumice, Honey from the Rock.  
On thorns my grapes: on garlic grows my rose:  
Fron crumbs my sums: from flint my fountain flows.   

In showers of tears mine hours of fears I mourn,  
My looks to brooks, my beams to streams I turn:  
Yet in this Torrent of my Torment rise  
I sink annoys, and drink the joys of life.  
Dim Light, brim Night, Beams waving cloudy-cleer:  
Unstable State, void Hope, vain Help, far-neer:   

False-true Persuasion, Lawless Lawfulness:  
Confused method; milde-wilde, Warlike Peace:  
Disordered Order, Mournful merriments:  
Dark-day, wrong-way; dull, double-diligence:  
Infamous Fame, known Error, skilless Skill:  
Mad Mind, rude Reason, an unwilling Will:   

A healthy plague, a wealthy want, poor treasure:  
A pleasing Torment, a tormenting Pleasure:  
An odious Love, an ugly Beauty; base  
Reproachful Honour, a disgraceful Grace:  
A fruitless Fruit, a dry dis-flowred Flower:  
A feeble Force, a conquered Conqueror:   

A sickly Health, dead Life, and restless Rest:  
These are the Comforts of my Soul distressed.  
O how I like! dislike! desire! disdain!  
Repel! repeal! loath! and delight again!  
O what! whom! whether! (neither flesh nor fish)  
How weary of, the same again I wish!   

I will, I nill; I nill, I will: my Mind  
Persuading This, my Lust to That inclined:  
My lose Affection (Proteus-like) appears  
In every form: at once it frowns and fleeres,  
Mine ill-good Will is vain and variable:  
My (Hydra) Flesh buds Heads innumerable:   

My mind's a Maze, a Labyrinth my Reason:  
Mine Eye (false Spy) the door to Fancy's treason.  
My rebel Sense (Self-soothing) still affects  
What it should fly; what it should ply, neglects.  
My flitting Hope with Passion-stormes is tossed  
But now to Heaven, anon to Hell almost.   

Concording Discord kills me, and again  
Discording Concord doth my life maintain.  
Myself at once I both displease and please:  
Without myself my Self I feign would seize:  
For, my toomuch of Me, me much annoys;  
And my my self's Plenty my poor Self destroys.   

Who seeks me in Me in me shall not find  
Me as myself: Hermaphrodite, in mind  
I am at once Male, Female, Neuter: yet  
What e'er I am, I am not Mine (I weet):  
I am not with myself (as I conceive)  
Wretch that I am; myself my Self deceive:   

Unto myself, myself my Self betray:  
I from myself banish myself away:  
Myself agree not with myself a jot:  
Know not myself; I have myself forgot:  
Against myself my Self move jars unjust:  
I trust myself, and I myself distrust:   

Myself I follow, and myself I fly:  
Besides myself, and in myself am I:  
Myself am not myself, another Same:  
Unlike myself, and like myself I am:  
Selfe-fond, Selfe-furious: and thus, wayward Elf,  
I can not live with nor without myself.    

A comfortable Exhortation to the Christian, in his Self-Conflict.  

WHy, silly Man, sick of exceeding Grief,  
What boots it thee, uncertain of thy life,   

Of thy Disease to make so much ado:  
Thou coward Soldier, and untoward too?  
Away with Fear: and, Death of Death and Hell,  
Meet arms with arms, & darts with darts repel:  
So the first Onset in this doubtful Fray,  
Shall towards Heaven make thee an easy way:   

And open wide those Gates (so hardly won)  
Where snowie-winged Victory doth won.  
Thou must be valiant, and with dauntless breast,  
Rush through the thickest, run upon the best  
Of th'adverse Host; and on their flight & foil,  
Build noble Trophies of triumphant spoil.   

For, this world's Prince, dark Limbo's Potentate  
Drists' Earth's destruction; and with deadly hate  
(Still strife-full) labours, and by all means seeks  
To trouble all, and Heaven with Hell to mix.  
Great War within there is, great War without,  
With Flesh & Blood, and with the World about.   

On this side, smiling Hope with smoothest brow  
False-promiseth long Peace and Plenty too:  
On that side, sallow Fear with fainting breath  
Checks those proud thoughts, with threats of war & death;  
And, weary of itself, itself distrusts,  
Itself destroys, and to Confusion thrusts.   

And ignorant of itself's good (till trial)  
In jealous rage it even betrays the loyal.  
Here cloud-browed Sorrow, whirl-wind-like it hies,  
Th'amated Mind to toss and tyrannize.  
There, dimpled joy nimbly enringeth round  
Her gaudy Troops that stand upon no ground;   

Whose brittle gloss and glory, lasts and shines,  
As stubble-fier, and dust before the winds.  
What should I speak of all the snarefull Wiles,  
And cunning colours of mysterious Guiles,  
Wherewith death's Founder & our life's dread Foe  
Improvident Mankind doth overthrow?   

Yet, be courageous, yield not unto Evil:  
Resist beginnings, and defy the Devil.  
And for defence amid these fierce Alarms,  
Quick buckle-on these aye-victorious Arms.  
First, gird thy loins with Truth: thy bosom dress  
With the sure Breastplate of pure Righteousness:   

Put on thy head the Helmet of Salvation:  
Upon thy feet Shoes of the Preparation  
Of the Glad-Newes of Peace: upon thine arm  
The Shield of Faith (shot-free from every harm)  
Hel's fiery darts repel thou with the same,  
And through its splendour quench their flame with flame.   

Take in thy hand the bright two-edged Sword  
Of God's soule-parting, marrow-piercing Word.  
Thus compleat-armed from God's own Arsenal,  
And never ceasing on his Name to call,  
Thou questionless shalt quickly overcome  
The World, the Flesh, Sin, Death, & Hell, in sum.   

And so (through CHRIST thy Captain & thy King)  
Of Sin, thyself, and Satan triumphing,  
Thou shalt (in fine) the happy crown obtain,  
And in th'eternal promised Kingdom reign.   
FINIS.   

LONDON, Printed by MELCH. BRADWOOD for EDWARD BLOUNT. 1607.