DIVINE MEDITATIONS, AND ELEGIES. By JOHN HAGTHORPE Gentleman.  
LONDON Printed by Bernard Alsop. 1622.   

TO THE HIGH AND MIGHTY PRINCE, JAMES, BY the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, etc.  
john Hagthorpe in all humble duty, and zealous affection, wisheth all Health, and Prosperity in this World, and eternal Happiness in the World to come.  
PArdon mighty Prince my boldness, thus presuming into you● presence with ●o lame an Oblation. Having a suit to your Majesty (which is not for Money, but a few good words), and having no Friend in Court, I thought a Petition might miscarry, and this therefore the safer kind of begging to make 〈◊〉 speak for herself. Whereas therefore I am much impoverished through suits of Law (wherein I have been ten years holden from mine own, by the malice of a stronger Adversary) and many other bad Debtors, who by their ill dealing, compel me to transport myself and Family into Virginia, or New England; my suit is, that your Gracious Majesty would be pleased to speak a good word for me, that I may obtain the benefit of Master Suttons' charity for a little Son of mine, whom I would gladly leave behind me ●o increase an ancient (and not igno●●le) name again in your Maiesties Dominions wherein there is not a man living of that name beside myself and mine. For which your gracious clemency, I shall not fail daily to pray for your Maiesty's health and prosperity in this world and eternal happiness in the world to come.  
Your Majesty's most humble and obedient Subject john Hag'●horpe.   

TO THE READER.  
REader I present to thy view some few ●hings most obvious and most necessary ●or every man's contemplation. Namely,  
● Time, Folly, Reason, with the mutability of all things.  
2 Nature and Art, the two Parents of all things.  
3 Wealth and Poverty the too balances of all things.  
4 Sin and Virtue, the recompensers of all things.  
With the descriptions of most of them ab effectis.  
The first shows, how Folly first enter● 〈◊〉 us 〈…〉 entrance into the house of Time, delu●ing v● with a more certain assurance of things most ●n●ertaine 〈…〉 Reason approaching, brings us 〈…〉, showing the mutability, vncetain●● and change of all things.  
In the, Art and Nature seem to vie 〈…〉 Nature.  
The third objects a contentious litigation between Wealth and Poverty, with the most frequent objections used on either part, their events and accidents incident, wherein I must entreat the indicious Reader not to think me satirical (as perchance some carper will) but rather that I aim at the Ideas of the things, which I protest is truth.  
The last seems to demonstrate the misery which Virtue suffers under the burden of Sin: Wherein Sin seems to erect four Altars to herself, where she receives adoration and sacrifice from the high and mighty. What the scope of this is, the Reader may quickly see, and it is concluded with that which concludes all things; the last judgement.  
Now for this way of expression that I seem thus to present things past, present, and to come; the beginning progress, continuance and end of all things in a Dream. Let no man marvel, for this life is no better, whether you respect the shortness and uncertainty. Prosperity is a pleasant Dream, Adversity a troublesome: only the good or bad event is all. To which (gentle Reader) I leave thee, wishing thee as myself, not what thou desirest, but deservest.   

TO THE READER.  
HOnest Reader (for such I suppose thee) (or else thou wilt be gone like a Swine from a clean room at the first word,) perchance thou thinkst it strange to see so sad matter, as Meditations d●e●'t in Ve●se; not 〈…〉 Music that plays your span● is sometime fitted to a 〈…〉 That thou ●ndshere so many kinds 〈…〉 one continued matter, manuel 〈…〉 prevention for sa●●etie. It 〈…〉 Instrument or many strings, from 〈…〉 of sounds arises but one ha●mo●●● 〈◊〉 If I have like 〈◊〉 Tailor, 〈◊〉 suited good 〈…〉: for my purpose was to do 〈…〉, that gui●d their Physic, to make it g●● down the better. But the Lawyers have trans●formd me to Gall, and my Debtors to Copper. Therefore now Gentle Reader take it as thou findest it, and welcome: thou shalt find nothing here to make thee worse, but something to better thee, or 'tis thine own fault. And so farewell.  
Thine, if thou be'st thine own Friend, ●ohn Hagthorpe.   

THE CONTENTS.  

Chap. I. THE exceeding shortness of Man's life, in respect of other Creatures; and how prodigal Man is of Time, esteeming it far more bastly than any other thing: with the necessity of bestowing it well, since our eternal misery or happiness seems to depend thereon. 1  
II. Shows, that Man's Heart, the seat of the affections, is as a Tenement for term of life, demised and set over to the government of Reason, by whom it ought to be tilled and cultivate; so that in stead of hurtful Weeds, it may bring forth profitable Herbs. 4  
III. The difference between a rude neglected Mind, and one directed by Grace, and governed by Reason's discipline: instanced by example of difference of Grounds. 6  
IU. The best things, abused, most dangerous: for Understanding, which in Man's first estate made him little less than Angels; being now depraved, makes him many times more miserable than Beasts. 8  
V. The combat betwixt Reason, and the sensual appetites. 10  
VI. An amplification of the same by way of comparison to a Fort besieged, and betrayed. 15  
VII. The blindness and stupidity of Man above all other creatures which every one know, and by all means oppugn that enemy, which Nature hath assigned them: only he admits and lodges in his bosom that enemy, which alone hath most power to destroy him, Sinne. 17  
VIII. The praise of Innocence. 19  
IX. A deploration of Man's misery subject to so many tribulations and errors in this life more than other creatures. 21  
X. A further exemplification of Man's misery by comparison to Flowers, to Leaves, to Fishes. 22  
XI. Man's estate in this present world resembling a Ship, tossed upon the water, described with her Tackling; what it is, and what it ought to be Written at Sea, as a Sea-compasse for Saylors● but may serve for any Profession. 2●  
XII. The benefit of Constancy for those that must sail in these dangerous waves. 26  
XIII. A further expression of the incessant troubles and sorrows, to which men are subject i● this life, and especially those men that mean● best: with the benefit of Patience. 28  
XIIII. The description of Sorrow. 29  
XV. The number of our Sorrows which seem infinite, till they be compared with the number of our sins, whose numberless number, nothing equals but the infinite mercies of Almighty God. 32  
XVI. The great comforts in Gods excellent mercies, in which we may find rest after all our miseries. 34  
XVII. The greatness of his Bounty. 35  
XVIII. His Bounty further enlarged. 37  
XIX. His Beneficence. 38  
XX. His Magnificence not only affording Man things necessary, but heaping his benefits upon him with so great variety, that the understanding of Man cannot utter it. 40  
XXI. No place empty and unfurnished of Creatures for Man's behoof, but all full without scarcity, or scant, that man (for this fullness and bounty of external things, might return a proportionate fullness in his affections towards God. 42  
XXII. But Man returns his Maker nothing but Ingratitude. 44  
XXIII. Man's Ingratitude that perverts the very benefits themselves, to be instruments of displeasing him that gave them; still presuming, that because he sees not God, therefore God sees not him. 46  
XXIIII. God's Omniscience, from whose all-piercing eye nothing lies hidden. 47  
XXV. God's Patience, of which Man hath ever a perverse consideration, abusing this as he doth all therest to his own undoing. 49  
XXVI. The great goodness and clemency of Almighty God, that stays and expects our repentance so long, since the Scripture testifies of him, that he is a consuming fire. 51  
XXVII. That the Pagans for tempor all benefits of Heat and Light, worshipped the Sun and Fire. 53  
XXVIII. Yet the darkness of mere natural men's minds is such, that they cannot see the true light indeed. God; which gives all things their light, and is himself the light of Wisdom, and the warmth of Charity. 54  
XXIX. God's Wisdom. 56  
XXX. His Powre. 60  
XXXI. Man by his sinful condition, the Wretchedst, and the worst of all creatures. 64  
XXXII. Fair without, foul within. 66  
XXXIII. We praise substances, but pursue shadows. 69  
XXXIIII. We follow gain, not goodness. 71  
XXXV. We dote on earthly pleasures, and seek happiness in them, which notwithstanding are but shadows of those true joys that are above. 74  
XXXVI. And all earthly torments and miseries, no more but shadows of those that remain for the damned in Hell. 78  
XXXVII. A comparison betwixt the great and little world. 82  
XXXVIII. A● Elegy upon the death of the incomparable Prince Henry. 88  
XXXIX. An Elegy upon Mast. Candish. 90  
XL. Tears for Sir Tho. O.    
DIVINE MEDITATIONS.  

CHAP. I.  
The shortness of man's life in respect of other creatures, yet how prodigal man is of time, esteeming it far more basely than any other thing, notwithstanding the necessity of bestowing it well since our eternal misery or happiness depends thereon.  
Vive memor quam sis aevi brevis:  Horat. lib. 2. Sat. 6. 
Singula de nobis anni predantur euntes.  Idem. 
Labimur saevo rapienti fato.  
Ducitur semper nova pompa morti.  Seneca in Oedip. 
HOw short's man's life, compared with other lives,  
The Elephant two hundred years survives  
His time, so doth the long lived Hart,  
And nature to the Raven doth impart  
Three lives of Hearts, and Elephants, although  
The Hamadryad Nymphs thrice hers outgo▪  
The longest date that most men here attain  
Is eighty years stretched out with grief and pain,  
And yet, of this, how ●●all a 〈◊〉 we live,  
Sleep challenges 〈◊〉 to him to give:  
And youthful days of 〈…〉  
A thir● of what 〈…〉 gain  
No little s●are; and do●age all the rest.  
So of our days, our ●o●s poss●●●e the best,  
And we ourselves ● en●oy a share most small,  
Nothing, yet of that nothing prodigal.  
There are not many that do freely lend  
Their vtens●les, and raiments to their friend.  
Because they know ●ime all things wastes and wears,  
Yet do we ●end our selves for many years,  
With small ●●●eatie. One persuades, to day  
To hawk and hu●●. Tomorrow he toth' play.  
This friend to's marriage, earnestly invites,  
That to solemnize his dead parents ●tes.  
Another crew, they tempt us to partake  
In quarrels, where our whole times, at the stake.  
A thousand pull us into game, and wine.  
Thus do we lend, and give our precious time  
Time in whose use, eternal joys do dwell,  
Or woes for things most base we give and ●ell.  
How much do we bestow in fruitless vice?  
In seasts, in fashions, curiosities.  
In beastly lusts, nocturnal ●oule desires.  
How much to feed our passions flaming fires?  
How much in trim●ning up the head and face,  
In singing, dancing, gaming, and things base.  
In fruitless studies, fraught with toys and lies,  
Fabulous stori●s, impertinencies?  
Which times so spent, we cannot say that we  
Do live, but that we sleep, or dreaming be.  
How many childless men, each where appears,  
Who having spent their youth, and best of years,  
In quest of gain, and gold so much accursed,  
That also lose their latest times; and worst  
In grief of heart, in anguish, and in pain,  
In broken sleeps, in sweat and travels vain,  
Only to settle their ill gotten pelfes  
Where it might no● be lost, yet lose themselves?  
This body takes up ●ll our time, and care.  
How many spend whole years, here to prepare,  
(Even for themselves) their marble monuments,  
Which in their whole age shown no providence  
Nor forecast for the soul? Alas we see,  
Nothing but what is obvious to the eye  
Our understanding parts, in sense, are drowned,  
How many be that for gain circle round  
The whole world's frame, and come home fraught with years,  
As well as wealth, to whom no time appears  
Fruitful, themselves to compa●le and to gain?  
Who can account th' innumerable train  
Of those, that give their time, to others use?  
That go, or sit, or sleep, when others choose,  
And ea●e still at another's appetite?  
That by command do either lo the, or like?  
How many that give up their times, and lives,  
Still to be conversan: in endless strifes,  
In following, or directing the affairs,  
And suits of other men? Which never cares  
For that expense of time that brings them coin?  
They swear, accuse, defend, bribe, and purloin,  
Like Salamanders, living in the fire  
Of other men's contentions. Yet desire  
Nothing so much as time, which still they lose,  
And fondly sell, to others businesses.  
We lavish time, as if it had no end.  
No man will share his money with his friend  
But time with every one, we throw away:  
We lose each present time, and fay rest day  
For good occasions, and dispose of hours,  
Both days, and ●eeres, which often prove not ours.  
What dark clouds overshade the minds of men?  
How cross affections are assigned to them?  
When old age comes, and death to claim his due,  
How young they be to learn to dy●, how new?  
And time that was still vendible be●ore,  
They then cry out, us to be bought no more.  
We never know ti●e spends, till ti●e be gone,  
Then we would give plate, gold● possession,  
To the Physician but for some few hours.  
We wring his 〈◊〉. Such is this wit of ours.  
The time that Nature gives us is not small.  
We make it little. Spending vainly all.  
We live not to ourselves. Those only live  
That do themselves to contemplation give,  
To virtuous actions: Practise, and endeavour,  
To live well, so to die well, and live ever.  

* Nymphae Hamadryads: quorum longissima vitae est. Ausonius'    

CHAP. II.  
That man's hart the seat of the affections is as a tenant for term of life, demised and set over to the government of Reason, by which it ought to be tilled, and cultivate; so that in stead of hurtful weeds, it may bring forth profitable he arbs.  
MAn hath a garden that's not very large,  
nor very narrow, and it is his charge.  
To dress the same, to prune and look unto it,  
Lest weeds (instead of wholesome herbs) o'ergrow it.  
'tis not his own, he hath it but for life,  
And hence, God knows, proceeds his care, as strife:  
For tide he is, ●ach day, some fruits to bring,  
For this, to him that did demise the thing.  
But he (alas) can no way pay his rent,  
Tho for the same he knows he shall be s●ent.  
For though he ●oyle, and labours to his power,  
To kill ●he weed●, that soaring there eu●●y hour;  
Yet still they multiply, and still grow more,  
Out of old roots, comes new not known before  
So thick, that one of several kinds may take  
Handfuls at once, but must enquiry make  
A long long 〈◊〉 for ●ny wholesome plant;  
For in this Garden those be wondrous seant:  
No Palms or Vines grow here for ●ouers true;  
No Rosemary (an hearb● to Hymen dew;  
No heavenly thrift this Garden doth b●g●t;  
Nor honesty (by Nature) near a whit;  
Their grows not in't a dram of any Sage;  
Some Time, but much neglected till old age:  
Roses once grew therein, and Lilies toe,  
But in their rooms Hemlocks and Death's herbs now:  
Hyssop, that's given by heaven to wash us clear,  
Oft withers through despairing Willows near.  
And bitter Rew that brings our chiefest gains,  
This hardly grows with industry and pains:  
For all this ground's with such fowl weeds grown over,  
That each judicious eye may plain discover,  
The Gardiner's most manifest neglect,  
Or in the ground some natural defect.  
Both must we grant (defective all herein)  
That we by show, not substance measure them▪  
Things fair, though hurtful, so the sense beguile,  
That we them nourish, though they kill the while.  
Unto our Landlord lets therefore resign  
Our interest: Dispose it Heaven, 'tis thine;  
And He avens bright eye that once wept tears of blood,  
Shower grace down on our hearts, and make them good.   

CHAP. III.  
The difference between a rude neglected mind, and a mind directed by grace, and governed by reason's discipline, instant by example of difference in grounds.  
THe dunghill base neglected ground, that breeds  
Nothing but stinking Hemlocks, and vile Weeds;  
Butdocks, Briers, Brakes, and contemptible things,  
Differs not more from Gardens of great Kings,  
Where Art and Nature friendly seem to vie,  
Which should each others work most beau ● ifie;  
Where cunning Artists hand ingrasts, and stock●  
The Pistachene, the Peach, or Aprikocks;  
Where shady Groves, rare Fruits, and fragrant Air,  
Soft downy Carpets, burbbling Fountains clear,  
Conspire to make a sensual happiness,  
The rude unpolished earth differs from these  
Not half so much (I say), as doth that mind,  
Which sensual lusts and appetites do bind,  
Captiving reason that should be their King;  
Differ from those where artful polishing,  
All vagrant lusts and ●oule desire have tie,  
Subdued by Grace, to Reason sanctified.  
But as earth doth not of itself produce  
Those things that are most needful for man's use,  
Which by much toil and tillage are acquired.  
So those things that by Heaven are most desired,  
And sought for in ourselves, they do not grow  
From our corrupt affections; but do flow  
From the reflection of that light Divine,  
Without which, darkness doth our souls confine;  
Without which, these our hearts most vile fruit brings,  
Even Lusts, Rebellions, Treasons, and worst things:  
For earth and man, for sin together cursed,  
Nor earth, nor man, seem what they were at first.  
Poor man seems now like jerusalem's 

(a) The Temple of jerusalem, now a 〈◊〉 Moschet.   Fane,  
The place where God was thought once to remains,  
And to inhabit, that's become a den  
Of thieves, a propugnacle for vile men,  
(Gods enemies, that lies for truth believe)  
From whence both God and all his Saints they grieve.  
So man's heart that created was to be  
A Fane, or Temple for the Deity;  
A Castle, and a Fortress is become,  
To harbour treasons and rebellion  
'Gainst God and goodness. This a Fort is made,  
From whence unclean desires and lusts invade  
The Understanding, and deprave the Will:  
So that, that knows not good, this follows ill.   

CHAP. FOUR  
The best things ab●sed most dangerous: for understanding which in Man's first estate, made him little less than Angels; being now depraeved, makes him many times more miferable than beasts.  
THe fairest and best things thus misapplied,  
Seem fo●le, and all their native beauty hide.  
Gold, that seems fair for health, or ornament,  
Seems foul when it betrays the innocent.  
Beauty that's good with chastity and grace,  
Seems vile bestowed upon th'immodest face:  
And understanding which by fa●●e transcends,  
All else wherewith Dame Nature us befriends,  
(The Sun that should irradiate the soul)  
How fair 'twas pure? But now depraved, how foul?  
The beasts that do en●oy no more than sense,  
Do seem to this, to offer less offence,  
Then we to reason: for their appeti●e  
Doth in its proper objects most delight.  
The Silk worm that for ornament is g●u●a,  
Her appetite is still the same to spin:  
The Bees alone her hony-house to frame;  
Both Hawk and Hound have each their proper Game?  
Th'Apodes do not seek to go or swim;  
Air serves alone to keep and nourish them.  
The Dolphin ner● attempts the earth to know.  
For if he touch the earth, he dieth so.  
Nor seeks the silly Mole to swim or fly,  
But in the earth alone to delve and die.  
And those same Flies in Cyprian furnace found  
(Bred in the fi●e) hate water, air and ground.  
All things, but Man, are straight in their desires;  
He only wrong, where rightness Heaven requires:  
God made him upright, with erected brow  
To look at Heaven, and not with beasts to bow  
To earth. God gave him Angels mind and face,  
But he alone seeks things terrean, and base.  
The object of our intellect is Truth,  
And therefore chiefly God. Put Man pursewth  
Nothing so much as falsehood, folly, lies,  
Instead of substance, shadows, nullities.  
The object of our will is also Good,  
And goodness self the chiefest good, that's God:  
T●o still our minds, and thus depraved will,  
Nothing so much affect as what is ill.  
God is the object of each perfect mind:  
But Hell and blackness in the most we find.  
Ou● m●nd●s, like Clocks, composed of many wheels,  
Each day new change, and alteration feels,  
Either they go too fast, or else too slow;  
●d●e they rust, in action fairly show.  
●ach day we must with tears of penitence,  
W●sh them from foul dust of concupiscence,  
And ● ligen●ly wind them up with care  
And meditation, else they fruitless are.  


(a) Cum veritas sit obiectum intellectus, idcir●o id erit maximè obiectum intellectus quod est maximè veritas, essentialiter, & originaliter nem●e Deus.  
Cur ●rgo intellectus hominis tam difficulter apprehend●t Deum, ipso Arist. teste. nam 2. Metaphis. cap. 1. inquit. intellectus hominis habet se adea quae sua natura sunt manifestissima, non secus ac occuli vespertilionum ad lumen meridianum? Respondetur sicut sol sua natura est maxime visibilis, quia per solem omnia siunt visibilia, ita quoque Deum sua natura esse maxime intelligibi●●m, quia per Deum omnis humanus intellectus illuminatur. Quod autem sol a vespertilionibus non recte videacur, id soli penitus per acdidens esse, & totum oriri à defectu in oculis vespertilionum, at que ade● quod Deus ab homine non it a clare intelligatur id non esse à natura Dei, sed à defectu, qui est in homine. Keckerman. Sest. phiss. l●. 4.   

(b) Vt Deus quoque tanquam prima veritas est maxime intelligibilis, sic ut prima bonit as est summe volibilis, ibidem: prout enim cognoscimus it a volumus.     

CHAP. V.  
The combat betwixt Reason and the sensual appetites.  
Diis proximus ille est,  
Quem Ratio, non Ira movet.  

THe cruel Bears amongst themselves agree,  
The Wolf to Wolves is not an enemy:  
But man to man is still the greatest foe;  
Nay, man himself unto himself is so,  
Whose faculties seem into parties sided,  
Irrational from ●ationall divided;  
Like camps of enemies that quarter keep  
With watchful Sentinels that seldom sleep,  
Fearing surprisal and invasion:  
For Reason in the head which hath his throne,  
Obedience of the heart as Prince requires:  
But th'he art of rebel lusts and foul desires  
Of passions and depraved affections seat  
Shakes off all duty, and d●th ill entreat  
Reason her King; invading so the mind,  
That Reason seems to yield, and to resign  
His sovereignty; oppressed with force and might  
Of those, that should obey by law and right.  
Reason in vain persuades this crew to law,  
To patience, to obedience and just awe  
Unto the King of Kings, which hath him sent  
His lawful substitute in government.  
For th're bell Passions and Desires accursed,  
All bonds of duty and obedience burst,  
Trampling the loyal subjects underfoot,  
Humility by Pride is beaten out,  
And Love by Hatred; and Co●●upiseence  
To Temperance commits no less offence,  
Despair wounds Hope; Cruelty, Mercy kills;  
Profaneness weighs down P●e●ie with ills.  
avarice locks up Bounty; ●npudence  
Whips away Modesty; Malevolence,  
Benevolence; and what is most unjust,  
White Chastity is slave to filthy Lust.  
Reuen●e cries out for murder, and for blood;  
Reason persuades, and counsels, 'tis not good:  
But Anger brusts forth to the palace flies,  
And there sets all a fire, the face and eyes,  
Envy like venombde Asps in dust which lies  
Unseen, or spied, stings reason secretly.  
Pleasure charms him with her sleepy spell,  
That so Security at ease may kill.  
Ambition bears him then with wings on high,  
Above the Mountains and the lower Sky,  
To some high precipisse, where servile Fear,  
The last, and worst, insults upon him there.  
Yet sometime Reason doth her foes conuin●c,  
Displaying th'ensign of white Innocence,  
And guarded by fair Virtues, doth in fight  
Vanquish, and put these hell black bands to flight:  
Tho much more oft their strengths so equal seem,  
That whose the victor is, not clearly seen.  
But Reason's appetite seldom prevails,  
For that of Sense, this violently hales  
Upon the wings of ●oule desires to ill,  
Most oft without the minds discourse or will;  
Because that moves without this, this not so,  
Till free from this her instrument she go.  
They chase each other; sometime these decline,  
And sometime those, then gaint another time,  
Th'enlightened mind would meditate or pray,  
But th'appetite that all for ease cries, nay.  
So when this moves for pleasure, lust, or sleep,  
Then that relucts. Thus wars they ever keeps.  
Who marvels then that houses often flame,  
Where Guests so contrary inhabit them:  
When the affections strive to tumble down  
Reason, whom Nature gave so fair a Crown,  
With purpose that all things should it obey.  
But how's this war? do contraries bear sway  
In the soul's simple essence? Can there be  
In Reason an irrationalitie?  
Or do three souls divided us possess,  
As learned Plato sometime did profess?  
Or ist our sensual appetites that still  
Pervert our minds, sin darkened, and our will,  
Which look but at time present and object  
Things proper to themselves to th'intellect,  
In stead of proper objects, and true good,  
Persuading to false objects, and false good.  
Th'affections these depraved, darken the mind:  
Desires that should be bound our souls fast bind  
In Gyves of sin, till Grace illuminate  
The mind, and free it from this captive state.   


(a) Cerebrum esse solium animae rationalis, & sedem omnium animalium facultatum. vide Galen. de placitis lib. 3.   

(b) Cor omnino est fons affectum in quo & oriuntur & de sinunt ideó sacra scriptura frequentissimè cor pro aff●ctibus sumit, & saluator noster inquit ex corde oriri cogitationes bonas vel malas, non quasi in corde sunt proxima instrumenta cogi●andi (illa ●nim sunt in cerebró) sed quia cor est ●edes & instrumentum appetitus sensualis sive affectus, & commovet animum, ad cogitationem vel ●onum, vel malum. Keckerman sestem. phi. lib. 3. ●ap. 26. Sicut humorum generatio non est posita ●n arbitrio & voluntate hominis ex omni parte it a ●uoque affectum ebullitio non erit omnino posita in ●ominis potestate, quia homo non tantum homo est, sed & animal est atque adeo instrumenta & causas proritantes affectuum perinde patitur, ut & alia animalia theorema. 6. Ibid.   

(c) Inter●um vel divina luce radiata, vel exculta disciplinis, vel usu excercitata at que in s● collect a, perindè at que facto globo de pellet hosts, Scaliger. excert. 307.   

(d) Duae sunt species appetitus intellectiws qui vocatur voluntas & sensitiws qui appellatur cupiditas. Quod autem appetitus moveat sine intellectu, patet: quia cupiditas, quae est alias species appetitus, movet sine intellectu imo plerumque repugnat intellectui. Arist. de an. l. 3. c. 11.  
Deliberandi vim appetit us sensitiws non habet, vi●cit autem interdum & movet voluntatem: quamdogue autem illa hunc, siculi sphaera, appetitus scilic●t appetitum quando incontin●ntia fit, naturaliter vero facultas superior est potior, et movetur. adeo ut tribus lationibus iam moveatur. Arist. de anima. l. 3. c. 11. tribus lat●onibus, et sicnti sphaera. i. qua volunt as & cupiditas pugnant. 2. qua volunt as victoriam acquirit. 3. qua cupidit as vincit. Iulius tamen S●aligerus in hanc sent entiam, nullo modo duci queat. haec sunt enim eiusdem verb. 1. Non tam esse aquae contrarium ignem arbitror quam tò logecòn tô alógo anima & Quocirco ut est eadem vis, qua suscipit verum & faisum: quae falsum delet superuentu veritatis, ita erit eadem facultas animae, quam non bona species moue at primum: mox vero bo na vellicet, ad non bon am expellendam, etc. exce ●t. 307. 5.  
Attamen incontinentiae exemplo (ut mihi videtur) opti●è designavit Aristoteles motuum horum contrarietatem. Adulter enim per vicum, sive iuxta aedes, amasiae suae transiens occasionê commodâ annuente, temptatione eadem vocantê, cupiditatê eadem & libidinê stimulantê, aliquando intrat, aliquando non, vincente nempe ratione aliquando, iterumque Cupidine.   

(e) Cum autem appetitus fiant inter se contrarij (quod quidem accidit, quum ratio & cupiditas contrarij appetitus sunt, ac fit in iis quae temporis sensum habent: intellectus enim propter id quod est futurum, reluctari iubet: cupiditas autem est propter id quod iam est. ●uia quod iam est, iucundum, videtur & simpliciter iucundum, et simpliciter bonum, propter ea quod non videt quod est futurum. Arist. de anima. l. 3. c. 11     

CHAP. VI  
An amplification of the same by way of comparison to a Citadel besieged and betrayed.  
THus man is like a Town fortified well  
With circling walls and high built Citadel  
●n place most eminent, where Warders stand  
Still pressed to act their Governor's command,  
●n fitting service ready to expose  
Their safeties to repel their open foes,  
And to gives blows for blows most readily  
To each professed and open enemy.  
But when deceit puts on a friendly face,  
And offers gold, or greatness, in this case,  
They rock the Conscience, and with seeming gain,  
Do self-consuming treasons entertain.  
Yet because these cannot so freely do,  
Except the Governor consent thereto:  
They run with no small tumult to ask leave,  
That instantly they may themselves bereave  
Of happiness and freedom, for some ends  
Objected by their foes, but seeming friends:  
Which if the ruler, Reason do deny,  
Th' affections straight fall into mutiny.  
Malice bursts forth (and armed with ancient grudge)  
Persuades the rest, that Reason's no fit judge  
Of this their present grievance: for while they  
Labour with wants and wounds both night and day,  
He feels not these misfortunes. Avarice  
The money and rewards she amplifies.  
Ambition speaks of dignities and place,  
That will be got by yielding in this case.  
Despair and Fear then muster all our wants,  
And still the forces of our foes advance,  
Up to a triple number. So that here  
The Captain both assail'd with Hope and Fear  
Seems doubtful, which they taking for consent,  
Force him to accomplish this their worst intent,  
Tho not to yield the place, yet to take in  
(In stead of Innocence and Goodness) Sin  
Rebellious Lusts, and Treasons base and ill,  
'Gainst God, which gave this mansion to his will,  
The Senses and the Members servants fit,  
To operate and do the precepts writ,  
In Reason's tables, though too often they  
Themselves, and this their sovereign do betray  
Both to their own and Gods foes, and are sold  
For base desire's, and thirst of cursed Gold.   

CHAP. VII.  
The blindness and slupiditie of man above all other creatures which ●uery one know, and by all means oppugn that enemy which Nature hath assigned them; only he admits and lodges in his bos● me that enemy, which alone hath most power to destroy him, namely, Sinne.  
HOw much are men than beasts more foolish still?  
We know not friends from ●oes which work our ill,  
The Owl, t'avoid the Crow, travels by night.  
The Vulture shuns the Kingly ●●les sight.  
The Egithus torments the Ass her foe,  
Because her scrubbing doth so o●t o'erthrow  
Her younglings, and the ●error of her bray,  
Frighes them so, that to the earth down dead fall they,  
The Elephants noce the sod where man's foot treads.  
The Crocodile th'lchnewmon knows and dreads.  
Th'asp shuns the Spider, and Camelion  
The Raven knows, and fears the A esalon;  
Which (though a little Bird) her time still spies  
To take the lives of her young enemies.  
The Hyen fears man's footing, and doth know  
(Tho never seen before) that he's her foe.  
Nature to beasts imparts this wit and light,  
That they discern their foes at the first sight.  
But man, than beasts more blind, and more unwise,  
Cannot distinguish friends from enemies.  
● poisonous serpent lodges in his breast.  
Few will believe that such a noisome guest  
Harbours so near. But ivy not entwines  
The Oak so fast, as this our heart strings binds;  
Where piety and virtue should have place,  
Our greatest ●oe, this serpent we embrace.  
Tho folly is not Youths more constant Page,  
Disease and dotage nearer kin to age,  
Then is destruction to the Serpent's sting.  
The Serpent that I mention here, 'tis Sin;  
An egg first by that worst of Serpents laid,  
Which more than all the Serpents hath decayed.  
The As●e and two-headed Am●hisbena;  
The Basilisk and Catablepha.  
The horned Cerastes, Alexandrian Sckincke,  
Dipsas and Drynas, causing thirst and stincke●  
The ●yper, Scorpion, and Salamader,  
The Remora, Torpedo, Scolopender,  
Tarantula that wines effects procures,  
Mirth, sadness, madness, all which music cures.  
The amorous Pederotes manlike faced,  
The Higoana, delicate in taste;  
The monstrous Boae, harmless unprovokt,  
The fearful Dragons, in self knots fast yoked,  
Their teeth and stings this flesh alone annoy:  
But these both bodies do, and souls destroy.  


(a) Aegitho prelium cum asino est proptereae quod asinus spin●tis sua ulcera scabendi causa atterat. tum igitur ob eam rem, tum etiam, quod si vocem rudentis audierit ova abigat per abortum, pulli etiam metu labantur in terran●. itaque ob eam iniuriam advolans ulcera eius ros●ro excavat. Arist. Hist. de animal, l. 9 c. 1.   

(b) Plin. & Arist.   

(c) Haec tria refert Arist. inter serpentum genera. Hist. an. l. 2. c. 14.   

(d) Ex morsu Tarantulae aliqui sopore occupantur, sed non pauciores perpetuis vigillijs distrahuntur. Alij flent: alij risu diffunduntur quidam currunt. non nulli inertes sedent. Sunt qui sudent, qui vomant, qui insaniant, etc. Scal. excert. 185.   

(e) Octonum pedum sunt serpentes in mallabar, aspectu horribiles innoxij tamen nisi irritentur. Puerorum amore capiuntur quocirca pederotes eos libuit appellare. pueros enim diuturno content oque aspectu, sine maleficio contuentur. Dum iacent Anguillina eorum facies est. ubi surrexerunt, ita dilat ant illam, ut ad humanam effigiem propius accedat. Scal. excer. 183.   

(f) Higoana longus est pedes amplius ternos. pro delicatissimo cibo venalis est in mercatibus. ibidem.     

CHAP. VIII.  
The praise of Innocence.  
Blessed Innocence, how fair a thing art thou?  
Thou needst not fear the Mauritanian bow:  
A brazen wall thou art, that dost defend  
From dangers all, thy Owner and thy Fr. en●.  
For when by chance the impious shooter hits;  
Thy wounds redounds to thee, as benefits.  
In poverty and want the worldling faints:  
But these with hope and patience thee acquaints.  
In Storms at sea, in Earthquakes and in Thunder,  
Then quakes the guilty man, and cleaves in ●under.  
But Innocence no change at all doth feel  
At sight of tyrants, tempests, fires, or steel.  
Blessed Innocence, than Lilies far more white,  
The vernal Roses are not half so sweet;  
More clear, and fair, than all those beauty's go●,  
On Crystal fronts, of Thames, of Scy●e, and Po●.  
The Silks of T●urus, cloth of Tyrus die,  
Are ornaments of no such dignity,  
The Cypress, Ceader, and the Ebon locks,  
The stateliest Towers with Chyan marble tops,  
Reach not so near to heaven. The flowery green  
So flourishing and fresh, doth never seem.  
The Mines of Peru and of Ophir, be  
Unto their owners not so rich as thee,  
Which then the bright Carbuncles of Cambai●,  
And stones, dost far more brighter beams display.  
The seats of Kings, and most resplendent throne,  
With beams more bright than thine, they never shone.  
Oh holy Innocence, which good men love;  
The Manna of the Saints, and souls above!  
How poor are all these things to show thy praise?  
Yet still we tell thee for the worst of these.   

CHAP. IX.  
A deploration of man's misery, subject to so many tribulations and errors in this life, more than other creatures.  
OH than what tongue can speak, what wit descry  
The wretched state of man's sad misery!  
Begot in sin, and formed in groans and tears;  
Brought forth with pain, bred up with cares & fears▪  
Polished in youth, ofttimes with fruitless Art,  
In riper age to give each better part,  
To feed of pride and lust, the fatal fires,  
We pine our souls, to feast our foul desires.  
We kill our friends, to fe●de and clothe our foes,  
And at their lure we stoop to greatest woes.  
Blind in ourselves, deprived of heavenly light,  
We praise the day, but yet pursue the night,  
We health commend, yet dear dis●●ses buy.  
We honour wealth, yet run for poverty.  
We wish for ease, ye● seek our own 〈◊〉,  
We cover Kingdoms, yet forgo the best  
For trash and toys: then Indian's more unwise,  
That sell pure Gold for basest merchandise▪  
Oh happy you in liberty created,  
That to disease and death were never ●ated!  
Man only may lament, that lives exiled  
From Heaven his country, and is forced to buil●  
These brittle mansions in this barren clay,  
Where mists and dampy vapours every day,  
Cause us our path directed homeward miss,!  
And oft to fall from ●ome high precipise.  
Down to the centre; oft in foul mires fall,  
And there like swine st●ll wallow; Often call  
In vain for mortal help. The wisest err,  
Being still misled b● this ●ild wanderer:  
And most, when most of all o● Heaven they tell,  
And think they touch the Gates, then knock at Hell.  
O● God how blest were man 〈◊〉 be were w●e?  
But as he is, how full of miseries?  
You scaly creatures in the 〈◊〉, deep,  
Which know not what it is to ●igh or weep:  
You flying armies in the air that hover;  
Yo●, you are blest that men's griefs ne'er discover.  
You Herds are happy, that one hills do ●eed,  
Free from the woes that humane hearts do breed.  
You smiling Flowers, in colours freshly seen;  
You lowly Valleys, clothed in lovely green;  
You fruitful Olives, se● in comely ranks,  
You long lived Cedars, on Grot ●●●es banks,  
Your state is blest; you flourish, fade and die,  
And know not any future misery.   

CHAP. X.  
A further exemplification of man's misery by comparison to flowers, to leaves, to fields, to fishes.  

THe race of men is like the leaves of trees,  
The greatest part whereof in ditches fall,  
Or straw the dirty earth, tossed by the breeze  
Of wanton winds that spor● themselves withal:  
Few do they lay aloft on towers of state,  
Much fewer thence do not precipitate.   

The race of men are like the Flowers, that be  
By Nature given their mother Earth t'adorn●  
As well with beauty, as variety  
Of their endowments. Some have comely form:  
But little virtue. Noble some, not fair;  
Some great, but weak; some small, whose force most rare.   

Oft-times misplast. The cordial Violet  
And fragrant Rose in ditch or highway side:  
And Henbane, and Cicuta rank, unset,  
In fairest Gardens, are not seldom spied.  
But most in this do we resemble Flowers,  
We spring, we flourish, whither in few hours.   

The race of men are like the scaly train,  
Of nimble Fish, in silver jourdans' stream,  
That while they follow prey, or sportful game,  
(Ignorant of the danger nearest them)  
Fall with the sliding waves, that swiftly fli●  
Into the Mare Mortuum, and die.   

The world's a stream, most pleasing to our e●es,  
But from our sights much faster, swifter gliding,  
Then jourdan to the Mar● Mortuum flies,  
The Fish are men, that in the same are biding,  
Who while in Pleasure's streams they bathe & dwell,  
Are carried down therewith, and slide to Hell.   

Now for the Leaves and Flowers, they may accuse  
The Winds, that most their beauties doth deface.  
The Fish, of apprehension most obtuse,  
May challenge Nature for their wretched case.  
But man, that little less than Angels knows,  
Can blame none but himself for all his woes.    

CHAP. XI.  
Man's estate in this present world, resembling a ship tossed upon the waters, described with her tackling, what it now is, and what it ought to b●; written at Sea, as a Sea-compass● f●r Saylors, but may serve for any profession.  

THis flesh is but the bark ●nto the soul,  
Whose Harbour's Heaven, and the ●arth her Sea;  
Her lading's sin, which when the weather's foul,  
Still shoores and hazards ruin instantly:  
Tho it misdoubting neither threatening skies,  
Nor wants, nor hapless Pilot onward 〈◊〉.   

Tho all wrong s●ted Sails and M●s●s all wrong,  
Her Shrouds are Vanity, her rigging, Pride;  
Her M●s●s, Youth, Strength; ●he Sail that b●a●e her on,  
Custom and Ignorance. She knows not tie  
But th'●bs & Floods of Fortune which 〈◊〉 prove her,  
Love, Hate, Fear, Hope, these be the winds that move her.   

Her Holds ill manned, there Ease and barren Sleep,  
Security and Unbelief lie snorting:  
Scor●e, Stubbornness, Revenge the Hatches keep,  
And Au●ries her ●●earesman still stands porting.  
Desire the Master, Sensual appetite  
Her Compass, from the right way wander equity.   

Her Ordnance are Oaths; Pikes Policies  
Cables and Anchors, Fortunes various measures.  
While thus accommodated, swift she flies,  
About the world to seek the Ports of Pleasure  
And Game. ●ho missing these she ofter hit  
Destruction and Dispatres sad Rocks, and split.   

Therefore this way to ruin leading just,  
Needs must this tire and ●ackle altered be.  
Repentance therefore be her lading must;  
Then must Humiliate and Modesty  
Be Shrouds and Tackle for her. Patience  
Must be her Masts; and snow-white Innocence's.   

Wisdom and Knowledge ought the Sails to be:  
The Tides t'observe, are th'ebbs and floods of Grace;  
Her W●nds are Thank fullness and Piety:  
Love, Charity, which drive to heaven apace.  
Her men are Vigilancy, Wariness,  
Diligence, Constancy, Contentedness.   

Her Stearesman must be Providence herein;  
Gods Sp●rit her Master, Compass Holy Writ;  
Her Ordnance they must be Sighs for ●in:  
Pikes, Prayers; Bullets, Tears: thus must she fight.  
The ●ables whereupon she may depend,  
Are Faith a●d Hope in Christ h●r only friend.   

Obedience is her Port and place of stay;  
And Honesty and Virtue, there's her freight;  
Where if she lad, bright bethlem's Star both day  
And night, shall guide ●er course from dangers strait;  
Unto the Port of ●oy, to live with him  
In his Celestial jerusalem.    

CHAP. XII.  
The benefit of Constancy for those that must sail through these dangerous Seas:  

NOw you that in this world's wide sea do sail,  
Still trusting that fair wind, and happy tide,  
Calm weather, and smooth sea shall never fail,  
But friend you still: you reckon mainly wide.  
The waves of this our constant seeming Ocean  
Are most unconstant, rolled with restless motion.   

One while a swelling surge bears us on high,  
As if to Heaven-ward it would make our way:  
And, that past by, another instantly  
Seems in the lowest centre us to lay.  
Still are we tossed, and fear: but nothing arms  
Us, saving constancy, from these their harms.   

For though the storms increase, and weather thick;  
Tho seas and winds seem rebels to their Lord;  
Yet Constancy will to her tackling stick,  
When desperate men amazed leap overboard;  
And (fearing one) do into two deaths run:  
But Constancy will keep her cargazon.   

Some minds are but with earthly objects fed:  
But perfect souls do fly a higher pitch:  
In deepest waves they bear aloft their head,  
(While many a worldling drowns in every ditch;)  
Thomas pressed by wants, and envy's waves, ofttimes  
Half swallowed: yet are such minds rich as Mines.   

For these live ever, those exhausted be,  
Or lost by death: but these all times survive,  
While carrion wits, which only at dung fly;  
When Fortune frowns, even Lotos like they di●e  
In the cold frozen streams of sad despair,  
And till she shine again they buried are.   

But Constancy with no false fears can welt:  
No sad Despair can lodge within her mind;  
Nor is she like those leaden souls that melt,  
When to the fires of trial they're assigned:  
For she reflects all sorrows, and to death  
At last gives thanks for taking of her breath.   

(a) The Lotos of Euphrates is one of the Solisequij, in the morning when the Sun rises she puts up her head above the water, as it were to look upon the face of her Lover, and to congratulate his return, and still more and more advancing her head till the Sun come to the Meridian, and then as he begins to decline, it declines, and at his setting puts her head under water, and so descending still lower and lower till midnight, at which time the Watermen can hardly find it with their longest poles and crooks. Pliny.    

CHAP. XIII.  
A further expression of the incessant troubles and sorrows to which men are subject in this life, and especially those men that mean best; with the benefit of Patience.  

But should we now on fate, or ourselves plain,  
Since every thing hath limit save man's woe?  
Time doth the winter, spring, day, night contein●  
In bounds. Storms blow not still. Seas sometime flow  
As well as ebb. But unto some men fall,  
Save Winter's Darkness, Ebbs, Storms nought at all.   

Time gives the busy Bee a time to rest:  
The Halcyon having built her house lies Inn.  
The wary Ant in winter keeps her nest.  
The silly Silkworm doth not eue● pin.  
The easeful Horse knows night, and painful Ox,  
Is then but seldom forc●● to bear the yokes.   

Th'Obdorians die but once a year with frost▪  
The Ceremissi have not ever night.  
The sunne-burnt Negroes do not always roast  
In Phoebus' Kitchen: nor the Hungars fight.  
The Tiuitiuas and th'Egyptians Bear,  
Their Vtensyles to trees but once a year.   

Amongst the scaly creatures is but one  
That never rests, the Dolphin music's lover.  
Of beasts except the slaves poor Ass, there's none,  
Only of birds Moluccacs plumy rover:  
And of men, those that best themselves maintain  
For God and virtue, these no peace here gain.   

The numbers of their tribulations far exceed  
The numbers of the busy swarms that dwell  
In the Sarmatian Woods, or spawns that breed  
In Neptune's mansions, or the Ocean's shells:  
The number of their sorrows doth surmount  
Th'atlantic sands, or thoughts most swift account.   

These men resemble Forts beleaguered straight,  
Without with fresh assaults, and batteries pressed;  
Within by traitors, whom the foes fair bait,  
Tempt still to yield, to gain a seeming rest  
From Sorrow's rage, which those men only harms  
That fight, but have not Patience for their arms.    

CHAP. XIIII.  
Description of Sorrow.  

FOr Sorrow like a tyrant fierce and keen,  
Destroys all that this heavenly patience miss:  
For every day she sifts them with fresh teen,  
And ploughs them up with her new miseries,  
And wears them, as the wheel the yielding clay,  
Except they pave with patience every day.   

Me thinks I gladly would to Sorrow frame  
A face, and give it such a shape and form,  
As once it had, that to my fancy came  
In darksome night, when sleep was from me torn  
By boiling cares, that banished from my breast  
Repose, and left my minds sick thoughts distressed.   

Me thought she was a woman lank and bare,  
But yet composed of bones, and sinews strong;  
Her hands and feet like Harpies, armed they were;  
Two sable wings upon her shoulders hung:  
Her breast was glass, half clear, and half obscure:  
That showed her heart, this forms false and impure.   

A Chaplet boar she on her head forlorn  
Of Oak grown ivy, and of Cypress bough,  
Woven with the shaper twigs of the Blackthorn,  
To stay her dangling tresses, white as snow:  
The Mantle that she wore was wrought of Skins  
Of Sallamanders, and of Reremy●e wings.   

Her eyes like toth' Hyena's eyes appears:  
Her voice to Screech owls, and to Mandrakes-like;  
And of Torpedoes skin, a whip she bears  
In hand; wherewith what folk so ere she strike,  
Turn either Gold or Iron. Th'other hand  
A Deadly Mace of Iron doth command.   

Some of a hill in Iseland, Hecla tell,  
Hell's mouth for strange fires, & lost souls plaints famed)  
Their in a cave of Scyros' stone's her Cell  
When she's at home. Her Porter Loss is named.  
Her page Desertion is. Disease her seed,  
Clamour Torpour. Blood her drink. Heart's her feed.   

I am dolour in more●● venit meus: utque caducis  
Percussu crebro, saxa cavantur aquis,  
Sie ego continuo fortunae vulneror ictu,  
Vix qu● habet in nobis iam nova plaga locum.  
Ne● magis assidu● vomer tenuatur ab usu:   

Nec magis est curuis Appia trita rotis,  
Pectora quam mea sunt serie calcata  
Malorum.— Ouid.   

Now Sorrow to a habit's turned in me:  
For as the stones by often drops are cleft,  
So by th'incessant strokes of Fortune I  
Am wounded, and no place in me is left  
For newer wounds. The Ploughshares not more worn▪  
With daily v●e, nor th'Appian way more torn  
With wheels, than my breast with this tract of ills.   


(a) Sorrow adorns herself with those things that signify destruction, mixed with thorny cares that ever keep her waking.   

(b) And, like the Sallamanders that extinguish fire, with the coldness of her melancholy disposition seems to put out the fires of love and merriment.   

(c) Shuns the light as the Bat, and as it were clothes herself in darkness.   

(d) Making those she looks on with her eyes, heavy and lumpish.   

(e) Her discourse and conference being just, as seasonable and pleasing, as the Screech-howles to any, but those that have with her community of occasions.   

(f) Those that are but afflicted with the loss ●f temporary things, as health, friends, fortunes, ●r all these, with holy job, they seem but to be a little benumbed only with the chastisement of her whip.   

(g) But those which loose God's grace, favour and mercy, with judas, those she seems to kill, and utterly to destroy with her Mace of Iron.   

(h) Placed at Hel-mouth, because she leads either to despair (who k●●pes at 〈◊〉 entrance of hell) or ●lse to Repentance by whom we pass, 〈◊〉 by the Gates of hell to heaven.   

(ay) Feigned to live in a Tombstone, or Sarch●phage, because the house where sorrow d●th inh●●bit, is to this flesh no better than a perpetual consumption, and a grave. The stones called Sarchophagiare found in a Country of Asia, in a place called Sciros. Pliny.     

CHAP. XV.  
The member of our sorrows which seem infinite, till they be compared with the number of our sin●es, whose numberless number nothing exceeds but the infinite mercies of Almighty God.  

I Wish I could man's sorrows sum, and ●enne,  
Bandied like balls, 'twixt faults and punishments,  
Whose punishments so close succeed his sin,  
As shadows do the substance, that forwent  
Beauty, strength, wealth and wit, the gifts of heaven  
To be lost at these hazards, oft are given.   

The miseries and sorrows, cares and fears,  
That here assault him every day and hour,  
In number like the Russian swarms appear;  
In nature like the tigers that devour;  
Or Nubian Lions, feeding on his heart,  
Disfiguring the face and eu●ry part.   

The poisons wherewith they infest our minds,  
Tormenting more than all the baneful weeds  
That do enrage or stupefy. The kinds  
Of Serpents, Dipsas, Drynas' less pain breeds:  
Mans own hart to himself so much doth yield,  
Of sins and sorrows the most fertile field.   

The number of which sorrows doth surmount  
(Excepting sins) all other terren things.  
The grass, the leaves, the sand, in sin's account:  
The scaly train, and creatures that have wings,  
Fall short, compared with this. Of numbers none  
Exceeds the number of our sins, but one.   

God's mercies, which as Heaven's bright tapers are,  
Or silver dews of Hermons fertile hill,  
More fair than Ormu● Pearl or Diamonds far;  
More sweet than all the Balsams that distil  
Out of the Plants the Memphyan Gardens hold;  
Richer than Chyna's Mines, or Congian Gold.   

God's mercies are as many as our words  
And thoughts: for every word and thought is sin.  
Thence since each sin, eternal death affords,  
And by his mercies these so oft forgiven;  
Who can God's mercies infinite express,  
For boundless woes, who gives eternal bless?    

CHAP. XVI.  
The great comfort in Gods excellent mercies, in which we may find rest after all our miseries.  

GOds mercies are the deluge of his love:  
For as his justice once did overfloe,  
And sad destruction to the world did prove.  
So doth the deluge of his mercy now  
Flow freely over all men, and to all  
That for the same with constant faith do call.   

Not mighty Volga with her seventy mouths,  
Not Greekish Danow, on whose sides there stands  
Those regal Towns; not Nyger that by droughts  
Is twice devoured of Africa's thirsting sands:  
Zayr, Nile, and Magn●ce, all vni●ed, are  
Not with this River's vastness to compare.   

Not clear Maragnon with her silver waves,  
Not R●wleane, nor Plate, which from the Mine  
Within Perwian Mountains intrals laves  
Rich Gravel (fearing sore the Ocean Queen,  
As empty handed vassals to appear:)  
These be not half so rich, nor half so clear.   

The Bramme●es, and the Heathen Indians, who  
In Ganges seek their sins to wash, and elense,  
The virtues of this River do not know,  
Nor they that do themselves in Indus rinse.  
But we in this alone perfection find,  
Health, Beauty, Wealth, & Bounty all combined.   

The Prophets and the holy Patriarches  
Washed in this ●●urdane, and therein found health:  
So did the Saints and Churches great Naverches:  
And ●o do we, who me●●● with no less wealth:  
All drink, or may, for this is never dry,  
Because the Fountain is Eternity.   

Some of two Phrygian Fountains ●e●l strange things,  
Cleon and Gelon; th'one exciting tears,  
The other gladness. But two stranger Springs  
More opposite in human flesh appears;  
Sin that both tears and death itself procures,  
And Mer●y in Christ's blood, which life assures.   


(a) The Indians have a superstitious conceit of Ganges, and think themselves much sanctified by washing therein, and give great gifts to the poor, when they come on pilgrimage thereto. Hier. Xab. and they do the like to the River Indus.   

(b) Plin. lib. 30. cap. 2.     

CHAP. XVII.  
The greatness of his Bounty.  

But hence appears another River now  
Great as the former, which doth also spring  
From the same Fount, and doth as largely flow  
Through all this All, bedewing every thing.  
God's loving bounty which doth all things cherish,  
Which all things made, and all things still doth nourish▪   

Which to express an hundred tongues need I,  
Archimedes his engines all are vain:  
Strabo the hundred part could never see  
Of this great River, which seems such a Main,  
That Latitudes and Altitudes prevail  
Nothing; to measured all dimensions fail▪   

The Macedonian Prince I call to mind,  
That thought not what he gave, but what was meet,  
And diverse Caesars that unto their friends,  
To part with Kingdoms have reputed light  
But humane bounties all too short they be;  
They give their friends, Heaven gives his enemy.   

For God though he foresee, and well foreknow,  
That man his vassal will turn enemy,  
And a rebellious refractory foe,  
Ingrateful fraught with deep impiety:  
Yet for him frames this fabric great and high,  
Full stored with blessings, crowned with royalty.   

Oh boundless praise of true magnificence,  
That doth not seek his foes to overcome  
By force, but to reclaim them, and convince  
By bounties, and by benefits alone:  
And to that end doth every day us prove,  
With streams of gifts, to win us to his love.   

With many a present doth he hourly woe us,  
From every danger chary to defend:  
Much like a wounded lover seems he to us;  
Tho wretched we neglect our dearest friend,  
Which doth at no peculiar profit aim.  
What's lost we lose: if ought be gained, we gain.   

(a) Pliny and Solinus report, that one Strab● from a promontory of Sicily could see and count the ships setting forth of Carthage, distant eighty miles. So Linus, lib. 7. cap. 5. Plin. lib. 7. cap. 20.    

CHAP. XVIII.  
The same bounty further enlarged.  

OH that my Muse could on her nimblest wings,  
Mount you alo●t beyond the foggy air,  
Past the reflection of all terrene things,  
And sublimate your souls to things more fair;  
That touching these terrestrial beauties, we  
Might rather, hear, think why, than what they be.   

First, what a spacious and majestic Hall,  
Full of officious se●uan●s for your use,  
Hath Heaven ordained to entertain you all?  
Wherein if any want, 'tis but th'abuse  
Of foul excess, whose surfeits wastes the store,  
That might supply the needies wants twice or●.   

With what a downy Carpet hath he spread  
The flowery earth, to entertain your feet;  
Where every plant and flower that shows his head,  
Brings with it profit, wonder and delight?  
How many a pretty fly with spotted wing,  
Upon there slender stalks their Canzons sing?   

How many fruitful Champains feeding flocks?  
How many beauteous Forests clad in green  
Where watery Nymphs with soft embraces locks;  
Such shady Groves, as for true Love may seem  
Fit Chapels (to the winged singers lays,  
And burbling streams) to chant true Beauty's praise.   

Yet more he lodges in earth's secret veins,  
Ten thousand things of far more valued prize▪  
And th' Sea for pleasure, and for use contains  
The choicest beauties, richest sinells▪ and dies.  
Thus hath our Maker for touch, taste and smell,  
For Eye and Ear, purveyed completely well.   

But man himself alone must fe●d the mind,  
And contemplation only cooks the dish.  
What is it then? Hath Heaven all these assigned  
For our use, to that end we should be his?  
Then must we give him one poor little part,  
(The only thing he craue●) A thankful heart.    

CHAP. XIX.  
His Beneficence.  

IF from a friend some trifle we receive  
Some bracelet, gloves, or some such common thing▪  
We think ourselves ingrateful, if we leave  
These vnrequi●ed; and can we less bring  
To him, which gives us all that we possess,  
Then the poor hearts true love, and thankfulness?   

How can his royal bounties be expressed?  
The things ordained for ornament and use;  
The various fare prepared to feast his guests;  
Where each one for his appetite may choose.  
Oh who can count the various kinds of creatures,  
Their wondrous shapes their colours & their features!   

Ten thousand flocks that o'er our heads still hovers,  
Which daily seem to bid us kill and eat:  
Ten thousand fruits, which time to us discovers;  
Ten thousand plants, and roots, and seeds for meat:  
The skulls, Oh Lord, of all the Lakes, ● Fountains,  
The Hoards are thine upon ten thousand mountains.   

Ten thousand creatures for delight assigned,  
Ten thousand stones that precious virtues hold,  
Ten thousand flowers to recreate the mind,  
Ten thousand healthful Drugs more worth than Gold;  
Ten thousand more than I can sum or count:  
Thy blessings Lord, all tongues and wits surmount.   

And every blessing is so double blest,  
That they not only food for us contain,  
But bounreous Nature locks within the least  
Of these, some help for our disease and pain.  
One thing sometimes hath such variety,  
That many precious virtue's hidden lie.   

For all which, God requires but thankfulness;  
Tho thankless we too often not agnize  
The author of these benefits of his,  
Bu● either Chance, or Nature's gifts them prise:  
For those that with these blessings mo●t abou●▪  
Ar● commonly the most ingrateful found.    

CHAP. XX.  
His Magnificence not only affording things necessary, but heaping his benefits upon us with so great variety, that the understanding of man cannot utter it.  

ME thinks it were enough if God did give  
But bread and water to his enemies,  
And some one kind of food▪ to make us live  
Temperate, and secured from Luxuries;  
And not to frame so many thousand kinds  
Of bread, of viands, and of tempting wines?   

Cuba her jucca vaunts, Peru her Mayze:  
Pegue and rich Cambaya theirs of Rice.  
Congo her bread of Luco's grain doth praise,  
And Palmtree fruit. Guynce no less doth prise  
Her bread of roots, Inama termed by them:  
But Heaven fair Europe crownes with the best grain.   

Italy vaunts Falerne, and Setyne wine;  
Germany Rhennish, Claret France, Spain Sack;  
Candyse and Cyprus their's of Muskadine,  
Greece hath her Chyan, India Palm and Rack.  
Dry Ferrall her Heavens-dew-distilling tree:  
Turkey her Cossa; Corn made Wines have we.   

Me thinks our Maker had great bounty shown,  
If he our nakedness such clothes had given  
As our first Parents had (from Eden thrown:)  
But he hath made the little flies to spin,  
And many a beast to yield their hair & wool,  
And trees, and plants, from whence more soft we cull.   

Me thinks for beggars too it had been fair,  
One only kind to have of Wood and Stone,  
To build defensives for the Winter air:  
But who can count the kinds of any one?  
Oak, Cedar, Cypress, Teyxo, Ebony,  
A thousand sorts of Marble, Porphery.   

Me thinks again one beast were well for ease:  
But dry Arabia (that doth water want)  
Hath the moist Camel. Danzieks frozen Seas,  
The sprightful ●lland. The huge Elephant▪  
Our Maker unto fruitful ●nde assigns:  
The little docketed Ass to barren Climes.   


(a) This Luco is a little small grain, round like musterd-seed, which makes bread not inferior to our Wheat. His●. congo.   

(b) Ferrall, one of the Canary Lands, hath no water in it, but that which drops from the leaves of one only tree: for over the top of this tree there hovers continually a moist cloud, by God's appointment, from whence the tree receives this abundant moisture for the benefit of men and beasts. Linschott.   

(c) This wood called Teyxo, is a stranger in these parts, growing only in the Island Ter●cara, a tree of marvelous largeness, and the wood exceeding hard, red within and waved, with an admirable beauty. This is not cut but for the King of Spain himself.     

CHAP. XXI.  
No Place empty, and unfurnished of Creatures for Man's behoof, but all full without scarcity, or scant, to this end, that man for this fullness and bounty of external things, might return a proportionate fullness in his affections towards God, which bestows all this upon him.  

FOr Gods most complete bounty not content  
With such a single liberality,  
Therefore this great variety hath lent;  
As much abhorring poor vacuity  
And indigence, in all his works divine,  
Which all with complete bounteous fullness shine,   

The Rivers and the Seas be full of fish;  
The earth is full of trees, of grass, of plant●,  
And full of creatures framed to feed on this;  
The air is full of her inhabitants,  
All things on earth do of this fullness share;  
No empty place: all filled with vi●all air.   

But man may sooner lose himself in quest,  
And survey of these blessings manifold,  
Much sooner, then discover in the least,  
The s●uerall gifts and virtues that they hold▪  
For in the least so many worths we find,  
As much surmount man's weak sin darkened mind.   

How many several gifts hath the Maguayze?  
How many hath Maldivars' fruitful tree▪  
Which are as foils to beauty, and praile  
Our plenty's infinite variety?  
One tree doth them with all abundance store,  
And sweet content, and all ours can no more.   

Yet here with us some one thing seem to stand  
In stead of thousands: As the Sheep and Cow.  
This brings the Ox, that tills and fat's the land,  
That warmly clothes us. This our feet doth shoe,  
And with their flesh and milk the most are fed,  
But milk's the poor man's Physic, meat, drink, bread.   

And why's this fullness? for this end alone,  
That Man for fullness of things natural,  
Should return fullness in affection;  
Fullness of Love and Grace spiritual:  
For if in these there be vacuity,  
True Motion, Essence, Light, Life none can be.   
Vacuum omnino improbatur r●bus, naturalibus quia tollit motum, essentiam, visionem, vitam vacuum & rationibus in parto motus (quarto phissi●orum) evertitur ab Ari●●. Respuitur à Seal. ex. 5. quia essentiam tollit. Forman enim non habet, nec materiam nec accidens, & quia se daretur vacuum, non ens, esset pars entis. Lumen, & visionem per vaccuum sublatum esse doc●t. Arist. de anima 2. quia lumen per corpora solum diaphana transfertur, non per vaccuum, ita ut per inane nihil omnino videretur.  
Denique vitam tollit quia in vacuo non erit pabulum animalibus. non restaurat io spirituum ut in aere. Fernel. Sic etiam aliquod simile videtur in spiritualibus si enim ulla sit vacuitas in affectibus, non est vera motus, essentia, visio, vita.   

CHAP. XXII.  
But Man returns his Maker nothing but ingratitude.  

NOw all tongues being dumb, and lame, t'express  
The smallest part of this his bounties stream;  
What have we to return but thankfulness,  
That in ourselves, so naked are and mean?  
We have no light, but what thou Lord dost give;  
The Air is thine by which we breath and live.   

●ans thankfulness should next in sight appear,  
A full stream to this bounty parallel,  
But not the smallest torrent runs there here,  
Therefore of his ingratitude I tell.  
A stream that with the largest may compare,  
That in our Nature's troubled Fountains are.   

Who would believe a beggar base, and poor,  
Advanced by much indulgence of a King,  
Even from the dunghill, or the lowest door,  
To be a creature noble flourishing,  
Could for such benefits become ingrate,  
And traitor where he owes his life and state?   

●ut man in his affections is like wind,  
And sooner varied to contrary parts;  
●nkind, and most ingrateful; fickle friend,  
Not constant enemy. Their wavering hearts  
Possessed with foul desires, and fond respects,  
Still making war against their intellects.   

Oh thou who didst in deepest darkness know us,  
And didst of nothing this our essence frame!  
God, that from nothing gave a being to us,  
A being fit the fairest to attain:  
Not fixed like Plants, nor brutish led by sense,  
But ruled by Reasons right intelligence.   

●he perfect image of thyself who made us,  
And with free power, and principality,  
●uer this little world at first arrayed us,  
So long as we by Reason ruled would be,  
Why to rebellion should thy blessings move us,  
And to be still ingrate to those that love us?   

(a) Namely, that of Being, the most common trance into this workhouse of Nature.    

CHAP. XXIII.  
Man's Ingratitude perverts the very benefits themselves, to be instruments of displeasing him that gave them, still presuming, that because he sees not good, therefore God sees not him.  

IN vain, in vain on our morality  
Towards men we stand; and falsely do we vaunt  
Our constancy, and our integrity,  
Thankfulness, honesty: for the main want  
Of these things towards God doth plainly prou●  
That men have not true friendship, nor true love.   

Who friends us? Is not God our greatest friend?  
Who loves us? Is not Gods love infinite,  
That for our sakes his Son to death did send?  
We dote on fading Beauty, and praise Light;  
Glory rap●s us, Riches all affect:  
Yet true Light, Beauty, Glory, Wealth neglect.   

The lover strives to make the loved one  
And same thing with itself, if it may be:  
So perfect Love, our God that looks upon  
Our wretched stare with gracious clemency.  
F●rst clothes our fle●h with gifts of various kinds,  
Hoping that we with Love should cloth our minds,   

Perfect Light, gives light and being to us:  
Perfect Beauty gives us comely form:  
Glory doth with dignity endow us;  
And wealth with plenty doth our wants adorn.  
Perfect Love gives love, and all to win  
Our loves: yet hence (too o●t) our hates begin▪   

We hate the light that doth our faults bewray.  
For Beauty every day our souls we sell:  
Glory doth thousands to the grave betray;  
But Riches sends her millions down to Hell:  
And we for each cross that in these we have,  
Hate that Love, which to win our love them ga●e▪   

Yet loves he more: and whereas we are poor  
And naked in our souls, or much worse clad;  
He daily follows us, t'impart his store,  
Tho still we shun him (of our rags more glad,)  
And like our Grandsire Adam, think to be  
Hidden from his eye, that doth all things see▪    

CHAP. XXIIII.  
God's Omniscience, from whose all-piercing eye nothing is hidden.  

●TH'vntainted Sun doth Guanoes dung behold,  
As well as Perues pleasant fertile land▪  
And low prized Marle, as well as splendent Gold,  
Which fair Maragnon with her friendly hand,  
Doth borrow from the rich guiana's shore,  
To woo her Brittaaeine lovers over to her:   

The Sun to every secret corner pries.  
And sees as well the nasty nooks, and sinks,  
And loathsome values, where murder often lies  
Concealed, till it pollutes the air with stinks;  
As well as Marble Temples, that are blest  
With all the pride of Art and Nature's best.   

Then shall not God's soul piercing beams discover,  
Much more the secret turpitude of things,  
For which his vengeance o'er our heads doth hover?  
Yes, yes: He sees what subjects do, and Kings;  
He sees the scenes of lust, and philtrous spells,  
And deeds of darkness seen by no eyes else.   

He sees the tyrant Kings that do oppress  
His truth's defendors, and with lies betray  
The lives of his two faithful Witnesses,  
Exposing their dead corpses as a pray  
Unto their enemies, and doth decree  
When they by these arraigned, and judged shall be.   

He sees the treacherous Councillors of States,  
That for base gain their Countries do betray.  
He sees the false bribe-taking judge, and hates  
The Priests that (whilst their sheep statue) feast and play,  
He sees the partial jurors, & their leaders;  
The lying evidence, and cousin pleaders.   

He sees the greedy Dives dig his pits,  
Wherein his needy neighbour t'ouerthro▪  
He sees the Broker wove his parchment nets.  
He sees the thief and murderer what they do.  
He sees the Swine and Crockadile, the Whore  
Watching for prey in th'evening at her door,   


(a) There are certain Sea-fowle in Peru that cover the Mountains many Spears deepness with their dung that they make, which dung the Inhabitants call Guanoe, and use it as the most excellent Manor to fa●ten their Valleys. joseph. Acos●a. Hist. Ind. lib. 4. cap. 37.   

(b) And their corpses shall lie in the streets of the great City, which spiritually is called Sodom, and Egypt. Revel. cap. 11. 8. Which Napier interprets of the old and and new Testaments Gods faithful Witnesses, which in the time of Antichrist shall be thus ●ilepended, not only in Rome (the spiritual Babylon,) but in the whole body of their Empire, or City politic.     

CHAP. XXV.  
God's Patience, of which Man hath ever a perverse consideration, abusing this as he doth all the rest, to his own destruction.  

But because God with patience sees all this,  
And suffers us run on in our own way,  
Until some time that predetermind is,  
The wretched and unwise in heart, they say  
There is no God; or else he sees not us▪  
Because our ●innes scape still unpunished thus:   

But know fond man Heaven differs much from thee  
In the consideration and esteem  
Of the main things. Of Place, of Quantity,  
Of Time, of Motion, mortals oft misdeem,  
And oftest err; because by sense we count,  
Which still is ●ame in objects that surmount.   

Sense tells us, that the Sun's diameter  
Is but a span: but Reason rectified,  
Shows it transcends earth's quantity so far,  
That scarce proportion 'twixt them doth reside.  
Sense thinks an arrow swifter when the Sun,  
Tho this a thousand mile each minute run.   

And the like errors there in Time appears,  
Because God's judgements do not light upon  
The sensual man perchance for some few years:  
He laughs at judgement, and believes there's none;  
He thinks an age so long: but sound men see  
All times are nothing to eternity.   

Audacious men! How dare we then provoke  
Our judge, that holds us in strong a jail?  
By- Sampsons' strength might Sampsons' bonds be broke.  
False ●ason with Medeah might prevail,  
But here alas a triple wall us curbs,  
Of Flesh, of Fire, and th'Adamantine Orbs.   

Then whether can we fly? a thousand eyes  
Attend us. If to the world● utmost bound;  
There o'er our heads, we find Gods watchful spies;  
In Hell his executioners are found,  
All flight is vain, save to himself alone:  
For he that breaks jail, to the dungeons thrown.    

CHAP. XXVI.  
The infinite clemency of Almighty God, who stays and expects our repentance so long, since the Scripture testifies of him, that he is a consuming fire.  

But why (because God's Patience doth defer  
Our punishment, expecting our amends)  
Why should we hence grow bolder still to err,  
But rather much more fearful of offence?  
The wretch reprieved provokes not's judge, but rath●●.  
Strives to be regular, to win more favour:   

Yet we each day, each day and minute, we  
Incessantly provoke the judge Divine:  
Because our blindfold nature doth not see  
The beams of justice, that in him do shine;  
And flames that flow from his incensed ire,  
Who is indeed a swift consuming Fire.   

The Scraphins from fire receive this name,  
Because inflame with love divine they are▪  
To Moses thus appeared he in the flame:  
Mount Si●ay smoked when he in fire was there.  
Now God being fire, and we being in him,  
How good is he that burns not when we sin?   

There is a fire that doth forbear to burn  
Things that thereto by nature subject be:  
And fire that from the dry thin wood doth turn,  
Yet melts the steel contained in't instantly.  
The like's in God, who spares the yielding things,  
And unto ruin all resistants brings.   

And as fire wastes the Stubble▪ Hay and Wood,  
But purifies Gold, Silver, precious Stones;  
So doth the fire of God's love in the good  
Consume lusts, and unlawful passions,  
Which are as stubble; but doth purify  
Bright shining Zeal, Devotion, Charity.   

And th'Iron-hearted Sinners that do seem  
Black, cold, and stiff before they feel this fire;  
The fire of God's love makes them turn in time,  
Light, hot, and pliable to his desire:  
Or else his fires of justice lightning like,  
Consumes them in the time ordained to strike.   


(a) Our Lord (saith Saint Paul) is a consuming fire, Heb. 12.   

(b) Elias inflamed also with this divine love, ascended to heaven in a Chariot of fire. 2. Kine. 2. 9   

(c) Miraculous fires. such as that of Sidrach, Misach and Abdenego, and others of holy Martyrs that have not burnt for the time.   

(d) Cetterum mira fulminis, si intueri velis, opera sunt, nec quicquam dubij relinquentia, quin divina insit illis & subtilis potentia. Loculis integris, ac illaesis conflatur argentum. Manente vagina, gladius liquescit, & inviolato ligno, circa pila ferrum omne distillat. stat, fracto dolio, vinum, etc. Seneca natural. quest. cap. 31.   

(e) The properties of Iron.     

CHAP. XXVII.  
The Pagans for the benefits of Heat and light ' worshipped the Sun and Fire.  

THe manner of the Pagans was t'adore  
Chiefly those things did hurt or benefit.  
The Memphians worship th'author of their store,  
Great Nilus, cause their fields were fattened by't,  
Sidonians to the gainful Sheep did bow,  
As th' Indians do to beasts and devil, now.   

But the wise Persians they did worship fire,  
For the great benefits of heat and light:  
And all the Nations jointly did conspire  
To worship Titan, vanquisher of night;  
Who, when he doth his splendent beams display,  
Soon chases dreadful darksome night away.   

Th'unwieldy Germans this, the nimble Daeians,  
The prudent Chaldeans this, & rude Barbarians;  
The noble Grecians this, and barbarous Thrasians●  
The rich Egyptians, and the poor Tartarians;  
All worship light: to this erected Phanes,  
And swift Steads brought to swifter Titans flames;   

For heavenly light distinguishes each thing:  
The sound from sick, the foolish from the sage:  
But night knows not the servant from the King,  
Not Gold from Lead, nor youth from crooked age;  
The Sun, burnt Moor scorched on the Libyan sand,  
From those most fair on Thames or 〈◊〉 strand,   

Night is the nurse of fear●, to fraud the furtherer,  
A time for shadow es▪ and for beasts of prey;  
A bawd to lust, a cloak unto the murderer:  
No friend to Innocence, which loves the day,  
And rises up to labour in the morn,  
When beasts of prey back to their dens return.   

Who marvels now that Pagans Idolise  
The Fire and Sun, for gifts of heat and light?  
But who●l not wonder, that our dimmer eyes  
See not a Light ten thousand fold more bright?  
A Light that to the Sun his light assigns;  
And more, illumines our sinne-darkned minds?   

(a) Ex dys Solem veneranter cui equos immolant, hic autem est neos sacrificandi, ut deorum pernicissimo e● quadrupedibus omnibus pernicissimum mactent. Herodot. Clyo.    

CHAP. XXVIII.  
Yet the darkness of mere natural men's minds is such, that they cannot see the true Light. God which gives the Sun and Fire their Light. and is himself the light of Wisdom, and the warmth of Charity.  

THis body's darkness is no little grief,  
But darkness of the mind doth far excel:  
And that Light that brings this sad night's relief,  
And shows the way from Sorrow, Death and Hell;  
Why leads not blindfold Nature unto him,  
That with one beam lets so much comfort in?   

Alas we're blind, and cannot this Sun see:  
For though the Sun do ne'er so clearly shine,  
If th'instruments of ●ight defective be,  
In darkness deep we languish still, and pine:  
So wanting th'eye of Faith to see this Light,  
We blame the Sun, and call the noonday, night.   

And herein is that darkness more accursed  
Of th'understanding, than the senses far:  
For (this defective) we're content to trust  
A friend to guide us, lest our steps should err:  
But that most wretched calls the darkness day,  
And (thewed the light) in darkness strives to stay.   

And why's this? cause we trust the sense alone,  
And this light through the senses never passed,  
The Eyes no objects have, but bodies known:  
To speak of light unseen, to th'sence is waste:  
But unbelieving man that dost agnize,  
Only things obvious to thy sense and eyes.   

When hast thou seen the Air at any time,  
The chief sustaining means by which we live?  
Or thine own soul, whose beauties clearer shine  
(More splendent beams) then fading earth can give?  
For each thing is more noble in degree,  
As'ts freer from materiality.   

Water therefore's above th'condensed dust,  
Air above that, than th'element of fire:  
Then th'orbs tralucent incorporeal most  
Of bodies, Lastly, th'Angels that aspire  
Nearest that incorporeal Sun above,  
That gives the light of wisdom warmth of love,   

(a) Most incorporeal of bodies; because of tralucent so many hundred thousand miles, though of Adamantine haranesse. Coeli enim qualitates sunt 4. 1. Subtilitas, sive puritas: 2. Indissipabilitas. seu soliditas: 3. Immutabilitas: 4. Rotunditas.    

CHAP. XXIX.  
God's Wisdom.  
YOu Nations than that stars and fire invoke,  
To this light let your hallowed Incense smoke.  
All Lights are darkness else; no other light  
Can guide your steps from errors dismal night.  
Come then: but when to see this light you come.  
You must do like those that behold the Sun.  
Look on some third thing that reflects the skies,  
Because two vehement objects spoil the eyes.  
The Pashas in the Turkish presence bow  
Their heads, and bend their eyes to th'earth down lo,  
Fearing to gaze too freely on their Prince.  
Then shall we dare more than the Scraphins?  
They to behold this Light in highest place,  
Do interpose their wings before his face,  
Not able so great glories to behold.  
Then shall we wretched mortals (far more bold)  
Gaze full upon those beams that make us blind?  
No, let us for this weak eye of the mind,  
Find some reflecting mirror (as we do  
For th'senses) that t'our intellect may show  
(As in a glass) the shadow of this light;  
For this itself is in itself too bright,  
For creatures to behold of so low state,  
We have a glass, a glass of things create,  
Wherein this wisdom doth so clearly shine,  
That every eye may see this light di●●ne,  
Therefore in this glass of the creat●res, we  
The glory of our Maker best may see;  
Who infinite, unbounded, unconteynd,  
Himself in limits, yet hath all things framed  
By number, weight and measure: for both Heaven,  
Earth, Sea, Sun, Moon, the Stars, the Planets seven:  
The Elements, Men, Beasts and Plants we find,  
In these terms and dimensions all confined.  
The Heavens in revolution jump with time,  
No accident doth ere their course decline  
From their first order. Such proportion  
Of magnitude assigned to every one,  
And distance, that if ought herein were changed  
From order, the whole frame were quite estranged  
From goodness, and pernicious to men.  
But this is not ordained alone to them:  
The little Bees and Ants therewith are blest.  
Such true proportion both in man and beast,  
Of weight and measure, in each member placed,  
And every part with such true number graced,  
That if therein the least transgression be,  
It brands the creature with deformity:  
God gives to man one head▪ two hands, two feet;  
If any where this orders changed, we meet  
A Monster. If the Nose, or Mouth, or Ear  
Be framed too large; they make the whole appear  
Uncomely. What an uniformity  
In Flowers and Fruits, in Seeds and Leaves we see?  
Framed with such evennes (that ofttimes our sight  
Cannot distinguish) all with number, weight  
And measure. And what can the wisdom show  
Of our great Maker, more than this, to know  
The number, weight and measure of each part?  
Shall not he know the motions of the heart?  
He knows the number of our steps and hairs;  
Shall not he know our secretest affairs,  
And close affections? He the drops of rain,  
And of the Sands that on the shores remain,  
The number knows. And tell me; shall not he  
The number of our words and actions see?  
Yes: For his Wisdom yet far more appears,  
In that he at one instant sees, and hears  
The actions, thoughts, and words of every man.  
Man's lame imperfect knowledge hardly can  
By many acts discoursing too and fro;  
Scarcely attain (not fully come) unto  
The knowledge of some one thing. But this King  
By one act, sees himself, and every thing  
That Heaven and Earth contains. But now we come  
To th'weigh● and measure of perfection.  
This Earth (for which men strive so much) we deem  
Compared with Gold and gems of small esteem,  
But these, compared with things that life can save,  
far slighter, and much lower value have,  
The beasts, that have the benefit of sense,  
Offenceless creatures have pre-eminence:  
But men endued with reason's faculty,  
Obtain a splendour far more clear and high:  
Yet these, compared with those clear minds above,  
Whom no soul appetites of senses move,  
Are poor and low. How great diversity  
Of weight and measure is in dignity?  
In men's estates, and callings here on earth?  
Some wise, some weak, some mean, and low by birth;  
Others noble; some indigent and poor,  
Others swelling with abundant store.  
But in the most, man's weak opinion errs:  
For though the state of poverty appears  
Irksome, and heavy unto earthly minds,  
The holy soul therein advantage finds:  
For wealth's a snare that doth our souls betray;  
But vows a tutor, whips us to the way,  
That leads unto eternal happiness:  
So that these present discommodities,  
Return in time an ample recompense:  
When the fair guilded sweets of oppulence,  
Repay their weight in bitterness and gall.  
Oh how inscrutable are his works all?  
Who can declare the secret sympathies?  
The hidden causes of antiphathies.  
Who can express the wondrous properties  
Of Plants and Beasts, their hidden qualities?  
How many excellencies each were dwells,  
Within the fabric of these earthen cells?  
For of the fairer faculties of mind  
(The mind's reflected knowledge dark and blind,  
With such imperfectness itself doth view)  
We justly doubt, if what we know, be true.  
Tho most we find our imbecility,  
In contemplation of that Majesty;  
Which like a Fa●lkon through the high clouds towers,  
Where we come tardy with these wings of ours.  

(a) God is light, and there is no darkness in him. john 1. 1.    

CHAP: XXX.  
His Power.  
HIs Power again as hard a task I find  
(For infinite can never be confined  
To place, or number) work too hard and high,  
To show his power that rules both earth and sky;  
To whom the Saints and Angels all obey;  
To whom the Lamps that rule both night & day:  
For he their Maker, and their Mover is.  
Nor do they run their proper course, but his.  
Who sometime doth subject their glorious light,  
Unto the prayers of the faithful wight;  
And makes the Sun stand still o'er Gabaon,  
And Moon against the Veil of Ayalon,  
At his voice both the Winds and Seas do turn  
From course and nature. Fire forbears to burn,  
The Tigers and the Lions that devour  
All things, at th'beck of this transcendent power  
Turn tame and gentle. The great King of Deeps  
That every thing to's hungry Shambles sweeps;  
When this Pour list, must their his Prophet save.  
The cruel Tyrant that delights to have  
His bloody will, when God in power commands,  
Puts up his sword, and lends his helping hands.  
The wretched Powers infernal, whose cursed will  
Swifter than lightning move to do man ill,  
Are yet prevented by the swifter speed  
Of this Powre, who is ready still at need,  
To help the faithful. But this Pour most clear,  
And infinitely powerful doth appear  
In the production of his creatures all.  
For what's of greater wonder, than the small  
And slender seeds that mighty things produce?  
No man (whose understanding's most obtuse)  
Can choose but wonder, how the bowl and high  
Tower topping branches of the Oak, should lie  
Within the little Acorns seed contained,  
Those engines wherewith Neptune's force is tamed.  
Is't not as strange that watery substance, thin  
And flewent, should be matter to begin  
The timber-buildings of the mighty Whale,  
The monstrous Rhoyder, and the poisenous ●ahal?  
Or that the offices of life in Bees  
And Ants, is as accomplished as in these?  
These have their stomach, liver, heart and gall,  
Their instruments of sense and motion, all  
The parts of generation as complete,  
As have those massy buildings huge and great:  
Whose mighty beams and transom few behold  
Without amazement. If it should be told  
To some that knew it not, would they not smile  
To think, the bullet-scorning Crokodile,  
Whose iron sides do engines force repel,  
Should bring those anuils from the tender shell  
Of a small egg? This Pour no less we see  
In contemplating that variety  
Of several forms in earth, in sea, and air,  
Of which the cunningest Artists not declare  
The smaller part of what unknown they leave.  
How various are the several shapes they have?  
How various is their food and preservation?  
Their ways of breed and generation?  
Quantities, qualities, their voices sounds,  
Their benefits that unto man redounds?  
This is a Sea which Reason clogged with sense  
Cannot swim over: but this power immense  
Is fairest written in the Heavens above.  
With what incessant swiftness do they move?  
Yet measured and observing still that time,  
Which first they did before they ere had seen  
Man's guiltiness; and (if God pleased) might be  
Continued so to all eternity.  
B●t in how short a moment is the clear  
Sun's light transfused throughout the Hemisphere?  
To this the lightning's flow; and the swift wind  
And th'airy wings to fancies pours assized.  
Nothing's more strange conter●d in Na●u●●s store:  
No● that the Deity resembles more.  
How highly in this Creature are we blest,  
The Sun, that life preserves in man and beast?  
Who by attenuation doth forth call  
The blue Mists from their Mother Thetis Hall,  
To th'airs cold region, who (compressed by th'sky,  
And their laps filled with young fertility)  
Return thence, and bring fruit forth on the ground,  
Before they see their Mother, the profound:  
But angry boiling Goddess of the deeps,  
Whose rage not long at home her Daughters keeps  
E'er Pilgrims new they turn, to cleanse their stains,  
Within the concaves of Earth's secret veins;  
And, for this good, washing her dusty face,  
Leave many a stowrie Meadow as they trace  
The winding Valleys, to return again  
Unto their Mother's lap, from whence they came:  
But Heaven's tralucent clearness, in so wide  
Extended bodies, arguing beside  
Their Adamantine hardness, since no loss  
Of substance doth their speedy motions cross,  
Nor dissipation. This doth well declare  
His power, by whom they framed and governed are,  
But what speaks more his power then this? he framed  
Both Heaven and Earth, and all things there contained  
Of nothing; all without precedent stuff  
To build on: for his own word was enough▪  
The cunning Painter many years will stick  
Upon some one rare piece, and errors prick,  
Expunge and race, before the work be done,  
A thousand times, to give perfection  
Only to shadows. But th'Creator made  
●heir substances of nothing, and arraide  
Them all with true perfection with a word;  
His only Word their essence did afford.  
God did command the Heavens and Earth to be,  
And they were made. With like facility  
The Angels, ●unne and Moon that guides the night;  
Plants, Beasts and Men, this Word prodeust to light.  
And as one Word did all this All crea●e;  
So must one Word, all this All dissipate.  
Tho man, thus dissipated (in despite  
Of Death, and Hell, and of corruptions might▪  
In spite of Time and Tyrants that dissever  
Our members) must united be together:  
From thence before the mighty judge to go,  
That gives the dooms of endless joys, or woe.  


(a) The Rhoyder is a Fish in the Island Seas one hundred and thirty else long (much larger than the largest kind of Whales) their flesh good to eat and medicinable. The Nahall is forty else long, and deadly poison: yet he hath a horn in his forehead, which is sold sometime in stead of the sea. Unicorns.   

(b) Crocodile flwiatilis ova 60. quam plurimum parit, vivit que diu, maximumque animal minima hac origins evadit. owm enim non maius quam anseris, & foetus inde exclusus proportione est: attamen crescit ad quindecem cubita. Arist, Hist. de a●●. lib. 5. cap. 33.     

CHAP. XXXI.  
Man by reason of his sinful condition, the wretchedst and the worst of all creatures.  
OH God how small a thing  
Is man compared to thee?  
The Heavens all covering,  
To thine immensity  
Do but a centre seem.  
And earth where we remain,  
A centre we esteem,  
Compared with heaven's wide frame;  
But man compared with this,  
Doth seem a thing more scant,  
(Where magnitude none is,  
There must dimensions want.  
Thus man with earth compared,  
As nothing doth appear;  
And Earth with Heaven declared,  
As if it nothing were.  
But th' Heavens Oh God to thee,  
Are lest of all in sight:  
For less than nothing be,  
Finites to Infinite,  
Nothing of nothing's now:  
How b●ld are we that dare,  
Such minds Gigantive show,  
With Heaven to bandy war?  
The Lions are more stout,  
The Elephants more strong;  
The armed Rhynoceret  
Much more secure from wrong.  
The Crocodiles for war,  
And Tortoise fitter be:  
The Congian Zibraes are,  
And Dante's more swift than we▪  
The Whales are larger sized,  
Th' Apodes less desire,  
The Unicorns more prized,  
Pi●austa safe from fire.  
The Oaks live longer far,  
The Cedars be more tall;  
The Lilies whiter are,  
The Roses sweeter all.  
Man is the weakest still,  
The wretchedst, and the worst;  
Hath least means to do ill,  
Yet then the rest more cursed:  
For they to Nature's Law  
Are subject and confined▪  
But nothing keeps in awe,  
His bad unstable mind.  
The Tyger's not so keen,  
So bloody no● the Boar;  
The Asp so full of tee●,  
So fell the Mantichore;  
So lustful not the Goat,  
So slothful not the Bear.  
So proud the Horse doth not,  
Nor Iu●oes fowl appear.  
The Dragon for revenge,  
For envy he the Dog;  
And Fox for craft transcends,  
For beastliness the Hog.  
A Tunny to devour,  
A Hawk to seek his prey;  
A Whirlpool in to pour,  
A Cayman to betray.  
How vile a thing is this,  
That all things which are ill,  
In Plants, in Beasts, or Fish,  
We amply do excel;  
But indigent in all,  
That we in beasts commend;  
We only, more than all,  
Our Maker still offend?  


(a) The Zibraes are by some Autho●s counted very swift.   

(b) Da●t eiusmodi fert●resse ●●leritate ut cu●su fears emnes antevertat Equos suos empturi vel vendituri Lant farae ●ernicitate p●obant Arabes. S●al. exer. 206. pars. 5.   

(c) This Whirlpool (otherwise called a Phiseter) and by some taken to be the Whale, draws inso much water, that when he spouts the same forth again, he is therewith able to overset and drown ships, pli. l. 9 e. 4.   

d) A Cayman is the same that a Crocodile.     

CHAP. XXXII.  
Fair without, foul within.  
OH God how blessed were we,  
If (as our limbs are white)  
There might like candour be,  
In mind complete and right)  
But therein are we cross,  
Black, ugly, crooked still,  
Turning our gain to loss,  
Through fond depraved will.  
The polished ivory,  
●rought from thee Tapro●ane,  
Or Call●cut from thee,  
Congoe, or Mauritane,  
With Pearl of rich Perue,  
Fair O●muz, Cameron,  
May not compare their hue,  
Nor whiteness with Sylon.  
The pure white Syndon ●punne,  
By Britta●ne Virgins here,  
O● by the Belgic Nun,  
To Lilies brown appear.  
And ●ymster thy pure Fleece,  
Dreft by thy rustic Swains,  
(Tho rich as that of G●e●ce)  
No lustre it retains,  
Compared with Atlas Snowes,  
Or dover's Chal●●i● Hill,  
Which to repugnant shows,  
To Amphyth●y●es will.  
But Man that is as fair  
In outside, as the best,  
With what shall I compare  
His darksome sable breast?  
For though he love the light,  
And beauty do admire,  
And most in things delight,  
Which Nature doth attire  
In this celestial hue,  
Whereof himself doth vaunt,  
(Despising both the Crow,  
And coal-black Cormorant)  
Yet he to whiteness still  
Doth offer most offence,  
To whiteness that excels,  
To snow-white Innocence.  
And though upright he go,  
And grovelling all the rest;  
Yet he in mind doth shoe,  
More crooked than the beast,  
The Cedar he commends,  
So goodly, tall and straight:  
And Pine that never bends,  
But be ears his top upright;  
But ne'er observeth how  
Himself by Nature framed  
Upright and straight to go  
(As one to Heavenwards aimed,)  
In mind doth still decline,  
To Earth still downwards be●t,  
More than the Dog, o● Swine,  
Whom Nature's laws content;  
Things proper them suffice  
For appetite and need.  
But man with Heaven this Flesh,  
His Soul with earth would feed,  
Improperties delight  
Him best, in his desires;  
For like is fed with like,  
But he unlike requires.   

CHAP. XXXIII.  
We praise substances, but pursue shadows.  
HOw wretched, and how vain  
A●e Mortals, that refuse  
True substances to gain,  
And shadows only choose?  
Pygmalion like we do  
On pictured beauty dote.  
Like Rhodian Youths we woo  
The shadows, that are not,  
And substances despise,  
Tho fitter to be loved.  
The things beneath the skies,  
By Mortals most approved;  
For which our souls we sell,  
Are Beauty, Wealth, and Fame▪  
For these we visit Hell,  
And Pluto's fiery reign.  
For these we hourly part  
With Ease, with Health and Friends;  
For these we make a mart  
Of Lives and Innocence.  
And what is Beauty now  
That thus the mind can fire▪  
That makes us languish so,  
And pine with fond desire?  
An accidental thing,  
A type and shadow bare,  
Of that Almighty King,  
Whose beauties substance are  
On Men not only placed:  
For many thousand be,  
Both Beasts and Plants high graced  
Therewith in their degree.  
And what is Wealth for which  
We ●oyle, and hazard still?  
It makes us not more rich  
Nor happy. Heaven's high will  
Hath not these things confined  
To Measure, nor to weight▪  
But placed them in the mind.  
Content makes all things straight,  
Even In the greatest want.  
But base Desire, oppressed  
With heaps of wealth, feels scant,  
Is poor, and cannot rest.  
Much poorer thing is Fame,  
Peru●ian Air less light;  
'tis but a heavenly name,  
In earthly rags bedight;  
And base Plebeian breath,  
Which oft on wings doth raise  
The lumps of worth'elle earth,  
But spots fair virtues praise  
With black and ugly feet.  
Now which of these is best?  
Imperfect all in sight  
And shadows all expressed?  
Glory, Wealth, Beauty, lent  
To men, bare shadows be,  
In Earth but accidents,  
In Heaven essentially▪  
Earth's glory doth appear  
Of Heaven, a type most bate;  
And Wealth that we have here,  
With that must not compare.  
Beauty terrestrial,  
In beasts or men combined,  
In Earth's rich Mineral,  
Or what's to earth assigned.  
The beauteous Planets seven,  
The glorious Sun and Moon;  
The Azure studded Heaven,  
Night's still companion:  
All these one picture frame  
Of beauty, that's immense:  
Beauty which man may name,  
But not conceive by sense;  
Though our depraved mind,  
Still fading things pursue,  
Which we but shadows find,  
Yet loose the substance true.   

CHAP. XXXIIII.  
We follow gain, not goodness.  
WHo can enough complain  
On humane diligence?  
This Zeal of ours for gain,  
It breeds my great offence.  
Too short's the longest day,  
Too long the shortest night▪  
Desires brook not delay,  
But croft, no peace admit▪  
The Rain, the Frost, and Snow,  
And Tempests of the Air;  
These never make us bow,  
If gain be our affair.  
For profit we do sail  
Amongst the fleeting Ice;  
T'encounter with the Whales  
And Bear▪ we are not nice▪  
And in these places strange,  
We seek the morsses shoal;  
Both Lands and Seas we range,  
near to the frozen Pole;  
Then to the burning Line,  
And Africa's Deserts dry,  
Where many thousands pine,  
And perish wilfully;  
Where by the Sun and Wind,  
They Mummey do become.  
Yet we, with this in mind,  
To th'same misfortunes ●un.  
How small a thing doth man  
In magnitude appear,  
Compared with Seas and Land▪  
As if he nothing were?  
But all this earthly ball,  
Both Earth and Seas vast frame,  
To man's desires more small  
Do seem, than he to them.  
If profit may redound,  
No dangers doth he doubt.  
How oft he circle's round,  
This massy frame about?  
The Currents, Sands and Rocks,  
The Typhons and Ternades,  
The falling Spouts he mocks,  
And Monsters that invades:  
The flying Fires that seem  
By th'Winds attrition bred:  
The Waves which some would deem,  
The Graves where hope lies dead:  
The Tempests, and the Storms,  
Death and Diseases, all  
Triumphantly he scorns,  
If profit may befall.  
For this he travels both  
By day, and darksome night,  
No labour doth he loath,  
Or Office think unmeet,  
For this he Marts frequents,  
And place where plead be,  
(Which wise men are content  
To have: but seldom see.)  
Amongst the fools he gapes,  
And hunts about for pelf:  
But knows not that he takes  
Pains to condemn himself.  
If to God's house he go  
But once or twice a week,  
And spend an hour or two,  
How oft he falls asleep?  
How long he thinks the time?  
His soul is at his Farm,  
His Ship, his Shop, the Wine,  
Or on his neighbour's harm▪  
How great alacrity,  
And cheerfulness of mind  
In worldly things show we?  
In these how dull and blind?  
One hour to holy works.  
And meditation lent,  
More troubles and more irks,  
Then years in ill misspent.  
Therefore this travel great,  
For things terrene and base;  
This labour, and this sweat  
Must one day come in place;  
Where justice in her scale,  
These times and works shall lay,  
To see which will prevail,  
The darkness, or the day.  
Oh let us then be wise,  
And covet riches true:  
These only fill your eyes,  
But nothing profit you.   

CHAP. XXXV.  
We dote on earthly pleasures, and in them vainly pursue Happiness, which indeed are not so much as shadows of the true joys and Happiness above.  
Pleasure, how great a Witch  
Art thou to humane minds▪  
The potent and the rich,  
In servile c●●aines tho● binds▪  
Not Epicurus Bowers,  
North'charmed cups of C●rce●,  
Al●y●ous Founts and Flowers,  
Nor Antiochian Daphnay;  
Not Tawris flowery Groves,  
Nor ancient Bayas plenty,  
Amara whom Heaven loves,  
Nor blessed Arcadian Tempe,  
Which whilom were believed  
Thy Parents (Pleasure) where  
Thy strength thou first achieved,  
And where thou fosterdst were.  
These do not now confine  
Thy Service, nor thy Psalter;  
Augmented much with time,  
The whole world is thine Altar;  
Where fond ingrateful men,  
Give up their hearts and minds  
To transitory things,  
Which Heaven to us assigns:  
But not intending we  
Should these for Gods adore,  
Working idolatry  
With creatures base and poor.  
But with intent, that these  
Characters of his love,  
Our minds to thankfulness  
And Love, should frame and move▪  
For this the Plants and Roots,  
And Seeds to earth assigned;  
The Fish, the Fowl, the Fruits,  
And Beasts of various kind,  
Are sent in place, and time,  
That best his needs may fit;  
And every sort of Wine  
To warm, and cheer the wi●:  
The Simples for health sent,  
The Silk, the Wool and Skin,  
The jemms for ornament.  
Are all t'allure, and wi●ne,  
Man's heart to love and fear  
That Lord, which these conferr●.  
But he then savage Bear,  
Or Tiger saluager;  
Once of the gift possessed,  
The Giver quite forgets.  
His soul in these seeks rest,  
His heart on them he sets,  
Seeking true happiness,  
And good in earth alone;  
Believing not true bliss,  
To be in things unknown.  
Thus our desires impure,  
Pervert the blessings kind,  
Wherewith Heaven seeks t'allure  
Our heart and thankful mind,  
To sorrows and to grieues,  
To curses and to snares.  
But why do men believe  
This gulf and Sea of cares,  
To be a place of bless?  
And therein so delight,  
As if Heaven did possess  
Nothing so fair and sweet?  
If travelling we spy,  
Some silly earthen Cell;  
We argue instantly,  
That beggars therein dwell.  
But seeing buildings fair,  
Some Castle, or rich thing;  
We straight conjecture there,  
Remains some Lord or King.  
Why do we not the same,  
When we poor Earth behold;  
And Heavens bright Azure frame,  
With lights so manifold?  
Do beggars Cells abound  
With so great wealth and store?  
And shall the Kings be found  
More indigent and poor?  
No doubt the Heavens contain  
More worthy things and high,  
Then doth on earth remain,  
Tho hid from mortal eye.  
Tho by affirmatives,  
We can but scarcely show,  
What we by negatives,  
And opposites best know;  
In nature and in sight  
Is Earth to Heaven opposed;  
In Earth dwells endless Night,  
And Ignorance enclosed;  
Excessive Heat and cold,  
Labour and Weariness,  
And Torments manifold:  
But Heaven hath none of these▪  
In Earth Strife and debate,  
Eternal Sorrows dwell;  
Fraud, Rapine, Lust and Hate,  
Diseases, Death and Hell.  
But heaven's the place of joy,  
Where God himself unuailes;  
Where Sin, where Sad annoy.  
Where Death no more prevails,  
Therefore you holy Souls,  
Seek happiness above:  
None seek it here but fools,  
Whose joys do sorrows prove.   

CHAP. XXXVI.  
And all this World's Torments and Miseries, no more but shadows of those that remain for the damned Souls in Hell.  
WHere blessings infinite,  
And mercies cannot move,  
There pain, an object fit,  
And torments we do prove,  
To rouse the souls closed eyes  
From sad and dismal slumber  
Of false securities,  
That most our souls encumber;  
But as this worldly bliss,  
And glory to earth given,  
Is but a type, and less  
Of that which is in Heaven's  
So all the torments dire  
That Tyrants here devose,  
To feed the flaming fire,  
Of their sad cruelties,  
No more than shadows be  
Of that tormenting pain,  
That for impiety  
Th'infernal Lakes contain.  
Name all th' inventions old,  
Devisde by hapless wits;  
Those torments manifold,  
Where death and horror sits  
Enthroned in burning flames,  
With Chains, with Cords and Steel,  
With bloody servile trains,  
With Gibbets, Rack and Wheel.  
The cursed scythian hate,  
That sowed up living men  
In Beasts exentorate,  
And there did nourish them,  
Till putrefaction might  
Engender creatures new,  
And death produce to light,  
Herself devouring crew,  
The living men to kill,  
(Tho killing they bestowed  
A Tomb on him they killed,  
More than the Tyrants would.)  
The fearful brazen Bulls  
Of Phalleri expose.  
The poor unhappy Sculls,  
Made Goblets by their foe●:  
Observe the Pirameds,  
(Not those by Nile's fat side)  
But piles of slaughtered heads,  
Framed so by Turquish pride.  
See all the dreadful things,  
Brasilia and her feasts.  
The Bowkans fraught with limbs  
Of men, to feed men beasts.  
Yet all these torments here,  
Which tongue cannot reveal,  
As shadows do appear,  
To that the damned feel.  
Below there is a pit,  
Within the Centre closed,  
Wherein to torments fit,  
The damned are exposed▪  
Where Horror like a Queen,  
Sits throned in burning steel;  
And Torture with whips keen,  
Close tending at her heel:  
Ten thousand ugly Hags,  
Ten thousand fiery Drakes,  
Are there with burning Drags;  
Ten thousand hissing Snakes.  
Ten thousand Damps and Smells▪  
Eternal darksome Night.  
Ten thousand thundering Yells  
Of Furies that do fight:  
Ten thousand Blasphemies  
'Gainst Heaven do there rebound.  
Ten thousand Curses, Cries,  
And Oaths make all resound.  
Ten thousand pale Fires run  
Through black Cocytus' waves:  
In burning Phlegeton  
As many Furies raves:  
Ten thousand greedy Wolves,  
Ten thousand grisly Bears;  
Ten thousand gaping Gulfs  
Breed here ten thousand Fears.  
Ten thousand Harpies then,  
And Vultures there do stay,  
To tire on wretched men,  
That erst on men did pray.  
Excess, here lean and poor,  
Upon her own flesh feeds;  
And Wrath hath wounds great store,  
Ten thousand thousand bleeds.  
There Pride is neatly put  
In new and strange attire,  
In Red and Crimson cut,  
Laced through with guards of fire:  
But for the greedy Sires,  
That means nor measure hold  
In their unjust desires,  
Are cups of molten Gold.  
For itching Lust remains,  
Not lest respect and grace;  
The Friends with burning flames  
Them every hour embrace,  
Ambition hath no doubt  
A fitting plague assigned;  
A rack to lengthen out  
The body to the mind.  
For Envy is a dressed  
The wreathes of hissing Snakes,  
From whence into her breast  
New poisons still she takes.  
Then in the Soul resides  
Fury, Despair, and Rage  
At God, which them divides  
From him, an endless age.  
Thus both alive and dead,  
Scorched both with Frosts and Flames;  
One while in burning bed,  
And straight in jere streams;  
Stench never kills them here,  
Night never shuts their eyes;  
Noyce never deafs there ●are,  
By wants or wounds none dies●  
The senses all remain,  
And every faculty,  
To work their greater pain,  
Their selfe torments be.  
Therefore fear God, and dread  
Not men, that can impose  
Nothing upon thee dead.  
eat Hells eternal woes.   

CHAP. XXXVII.  
The comparison of the great and little Worlds.  Et creavit Deus hominem, ad imaginem, & similitudinem suam, ad imaginem Dei creavit illum. Genes. 1. 
HOw much unlike this great World seems to be  
Unto this little World in quantity?  
And yet in quality how near they come?  
Within the compass of comparison.  
The Heavens and Earth this greater World we name;  
Of Heaven and Earth's composed, this less Worlds frame▪  
The Sun illuminates the Heavens all,  
And gives earth life. So in these bodies small,  
The soul performs as much. The Sun transmits'  
His influence, his light and benefits,  
Through the tralucent bodies interposed,  
And triple Air, in Regions three disposed.  
Even so the sentient Soul likewise sustains  
Both moves and governs, as with certain reins,  
On th'airy wings of threefold Spirits sent,  
Each faculty of this her instrument.  
And as the Sun from two half Hemispheres,  
Illumines Earth (which otherwise appears  
But a sad mansion:) So the soul affords  
The like, through her half seen, half hidden Orbs.  
The Sun by rarifaction doth evoke  
Th'attenuated Waters, vaprous Smoke  
To th'airs cold Region, and, condensed there,  
Melts them, to feed the Earth, and cool the air.  
The like again doth Natures lesser Sun;  
(The Soul I mean) when through concoction,  
Motion, or other cause the vapours fly  
Upwards; if through the head transpired they be,  
They have their uses in Dame Nature's Hall:  
But if dissolved, like showers in Harvest fall,  
And many a time the worst disease beget.  
Thus squares the sentient faculty with it.  
But the supreme irradiance of the mind,  
far liker to the World's high Soul we find,  
Both incorporeal essences, and high,  
Unbounded by Time, Place, or Quantity.  
And as the World's high Soul, containing all,  
Is not contained. The like thing doth befall  
To this of ours. As that hath supreme power  
In all: so by Creation's right hath ours  
o'er this her petty Kingdom. And as that  
Doth this great World two ways illuminate,  
By corporal and incorporeal means:  
So seems the soul to pour forth twofold beame●▪  
Beams that do this dead earth vivificate,  
Beams that do this dark sense illuminate,  
Beams that forth from that light and essence flow.  
That in itself both light and essence holds.  
And as God is by his infinite  
Of essence every thing: So men's souls be  
After a sort, by apprehending all  
Material things, and immaterial.  
And as that hath perfect knowledge and will▪  
So had this, though now spoilt by Satan's ill.  
But much they differ in existency.  
God of himself subsists. But by him, we,  
By whom our souls were first of nothing made:  
The perfect patterns of th'●de ●s laid  
Up in the secret closerts of his mind.  
Now for the Earth, although therein we find  
Betwixt things oval, and things angular,  
But little semblance, Yet some things there are,  
Which (in a measure) parallels may seem.  
We have both frozen Poles, and burning Line.  
The head and feet, that furthest off remain  
The frozen Poles, I may imagine them.  
The parts precordiall, Line and Centre be;  
Where native hair consumes humidity.  
Within the earth is many a burning fire;  
And in ourselves Diseases, and Desire  
No small flames breed When Water, Fire, or Air,  
Would from Earth's womb unto their homes repair,  
But are deteynd, what Favours they engender?  
And in ourselves the same effects they render,  
As divers know. An oily humour feeds  
Our Native heat: Trees have the like, and Seeds.  
Our flesh is but a humour, that's concreat,  
Earth's superficies is no more: the sweat  
And fatness of the clouds. Nature alone  
Imparts not fat and marrow to our bone.  
Earth hath her fat, which sulphur we do call;  
Which feeds her Bones, her Mines and Mineral.  
Nature to us alone, hair hath not lent.  
The Woods and Groves are Earth's like ornament.  
Dame Nature not alone our wants supplies  
With fruitful Veins, and panting Arteries.  
The crystal streams, and River's ●alt tide was●t,  
In stead of these, ar● reasonantly placed.  
The two great Seas, the (l) Terrene▪ and the Ocean,  
That moving still, this seeming void of motion,  
Nature's Magazines of humidity,  
Be as in us the heart, and Liner be.  
H●w like are these? yet how unlike again?  
All fair, did not man's sin their beauty's stain.  


(a) Nonne capitis situs in quo intellectus rationis & sapientiaeofficina, supremam illam invisibilis mundi partem, quae summi illius numinis & intelligentiarum sedes creditur, reffert? nonne mens, Des ●lla portio, corporis domina, tribus potentijs, s●u facultatibus (eandem tamen cum anima rational● essentiam perticipantibus) Dei ousian am●riston in personis interim trinam, adumbrat & tacite quasi ingerit? Nonne interiorum sensuum triga, tres illas hierar●hias, in quas religiosa antiquitas intelligentiarum numerum innumerum est partita: exteriores autem sensus eas intelligentias, quaerationem Angelorum induunt, ut sunt (Apostolo citante) virtutes, principatus, thro●, Archangeli & Angeli, tanquam stipatores, De● omnipotentis thronum circumstantes, iussa illius capessentes, salutemque humani generis quovis modo promoventes, representant, & innuunt? Galen. 1. de temp, ad finem, & Galen. 1. de usu partium, cap. 2. 3. Ex Knoblochio. Institu. Anato.   

(b) Animall, Vitall, Naturall.   

(c) Demonstratum est extra coelum necesse c●rpus, nec etiam, esse posse▪ patet ergo neque locum extra coelum esse neque vacuum neque tempus. Arist. de coelo. lib. 1. cap. 9   

(d) Quid igitur continet animam si sua natura est partibilis? Profecto non corpus, nam potius econtrario videtur animam continere corpus▪ unde eâ egressâ evanessit & putrescit. Arist. de an. l. 1. cap. 9   

(e) Per solem nempe instrumentum materiale luminis, & per spiritum invisibiliter irrhadiant em omnes piorum & fidelium mentes.   

(f) Quid enim aliud ipse Deus quam lux est sed tamen illa neque visa nec affatu facilis, Scaliger. Excert. 297. 3. & excer. 365. 6.   

(g) Vt ergo Deo quam similimus homo reddatur necesse est cum quoque omnia fieri. Cumque omnia fieri non possit per infinitudinem essentiae, ut Deus est omnia, ideo opportebat fieri per imaginem rerum omnium in ment hominis impressam & diiudicatam. Keckerman s●st. Phys. l. 4. cap. 4. & hominem intelligendo omnia, omnia fieri. Arist. de an. 3.   

(h) Vniversus mundus ex sua tota materia constat: materia namque ipsius naturale est at que sensibile corpus. Arist. l. 1. c. de Coelo.   

* Preter quatuor primaros hum●res in sanguine, & venis contentos tres alios humores ostendunt medici inter quos oleoginosum hunc ponunt humorem, sedem nativi caloris et vehiculum vitae. Fernelius de spiritu & innato calido. cap. 6. namsulphur quicunque metallorum naturas perserutantur, terrae adipem vel oleum appellant. Ibid. cap. 3.   

(ay) This is true of the inner Mediterrane Sea, which neither ebbs nor flows, but not so of the upper Terrane, called the Gulf of Venice, which doth ebb and flow. Acosta. Hist. Indies lib. 3. cap. 14.   

(k) Stellarum errantium forsan ducatû in microcosmo desideras? En Lunam Cerebrum, Mercurium Lingua, & fancies. Venerem genitalia, Solem cor, jovem epar, Martem vesica fellis, Saturnum Lien tibi perpulchre referunt. Quin imo, si modo fas vela pandere, navimque altius in simplicia, & mixta corpora, in quae mundum Parapatetici partiuntur, immittere, & ea quoque in microcosmo adumbrata ●uadantenus esse, haud facile quis negatum iverit: cum spiritus humani corporis coelum, quintam illam essentiam quatuor vero humores, bilis ignem: sanguis aerem: pituita aquam: & terram atrabilis exprimant. Knobloche, institut▪ Anatom.     

XXXVIII.  
An Elegy upon the Death of the most Illustrious Prince HENRY.  
I Do not grieve when some unwholesome air  
Mildews rich fields▪ nor when the clusters fair  
Of Claret, ●ot through too abundant shovers:  
I grieve not when some gay vasavory Flowers  
Are nipped and withered by ta'vntimely Frost.  
Only herein my patience suffers most,  
When the sweet Harvest and expected gain  
Of Virtue's Vintage, ere full ripe is slain.  
When Time the Wheat with cruel sith cuts down,  
But leaves such vulgar weeds as we unmowne,  
Darnell and Vetches: When these immortal lights  
Extinguished be, should guide our dimmer sights.  
Then, than I weep, and wish the marry clouds  
Would furnish me with rears, to weep whole floods.  
Then wish I BOREAS (whose killing breath  
is ne'er perfumed with sweets of Indian Earth)  
To lend me sighs. I wish the culver's groans,  
The Pelican's shrill shrieks to express my moans.  
I wish my sel●e those 〈◊〉 wings,  
To search the glorious Courts of th'eastern Kings;  
And a strong Partent sea●'d from powerful JOVE,  
Freely to take all that my thoughts approve.  
First, would I then in Indian Forests ●lit  
The weeping Plant (with ivory Knife) to get  
Such precious liquor uncorrupted clear,  
As might embalm hertweck ●enrie here.  
Then would I next to Tauris Gardens pierce  
For rarest flowers, to strew upon his Hearse!  
Th' Indies should yield us Diamonds, China Gold;  
Pe●●e the Silver that her lap doth hold;  
Sylon and Ormus, all their Pearl should send,  
The Congian Slaves from secret Caves should rend  
The Chyan Marble, white Cassidonie,  
Greene Lacedaemon, and red porphery,  
The pure white Marble got in Palestine,  
And rare Numidian spotted Serpentine.  
Tuskane should yield me then some Architect,  
Whose artful wit should first these Stones dissect  
With Sand and toothless Saw▪ and then engrave  
What stories there you memorised would have.  
Which work let mine imagination frame  
So large, that the whole Earth might seem to th'same  
A fitting Basis, whence a lofue Spire,  
Through the triple ai●e Regions, and much higher,  
Should penetrate: so should the whole Earth be  
His tomb, and the faire● 〈◊〉 his Canopy.  
This Piramed, a Pharos, fer●ing right  
For to direct the storme-lost wand'ring Wight  
To safety: for since Fate did's life design,  
A pattern unto this Cimmerian time  
To imitate; though ATROPOS accursed,  
His Clew but new begun, in sunder burst;  
Yet that small piece in tables SMARAGDINE,  
I would preserve for light therein to shine  
From these our Labyrinthian ways uneven,  
To guide us just that way he went to Heaven.   

XXXIX.  
Mortals lament; for Nature now and Fate  
Seem at great odds, and both with mutual hate  
To cross each other: Else why is it still,  
If ought be fair, or good by Nature's will,  
Fate cuts it off? Your Peach with much ado  
Escapes the Frost; yet lives the bitter Slow  
In spite of Winter. Wheat and other Grain,  
These oft are blasted, Weeds are seldom slain.  
A thousand mischiefs and diseases tend  
The towering Falkon, soon to work her end;  
When Puttocks last, and Crows live many a year.  
Th' Arabian Cour●er, prized so high and dear,  
He's melted in one day, perhaps, and dies;  
But th' wretched Ass survives all miseries,  
Strokes, endless toil and fascine. And we s●e  
The like in men: If Nat●●●●ounteous be  
Once in an Age, and striu●● to make one blest  
With her rich favours, him before the rest  
Fate soon aims at. Let me instance take,  
That Royal hope, whom Nature strove to make  
The very model of Perfection:  
How soon Fate cut him off? And now is gone  
(O word scarce to be named with fewer tears)  
CANDISHE, the Noble, Virtuous; though in years  
Younger than ADONIS, yet like NESTOR wise;  
Though green in blooming youth, ripe in advice;  
Whom Nature as a Cabinet did frame.  
Therein to stow all things that Mortals name  
Rich, fair, or good, which Death by Fates decree  
●●th broken up, and now quite robbed we be  
Of treasure had enriched this barren time,  
And reduced plenty. Fate these works of thi●●  
Are much too deep, for dim eyes to discern:  
For though some ignorant perchance would term  
This Civil war; yet far be such offence  
From us, to think the divine providence  
Which leads these second causes, ever may  
Be self divided. But this right we say,  
That as these mortal Gods on earth do use,  
All things or rich or fair, themselves to choose;  
Thinking th' inferior sort unworthy such;  
So seem the Heavens herein to do as much:  
If Mines of Marle, or Coal, or such like stuff  
Be found, the Sovereign's think it good enough  
For the mean people: But if Gold, or Plate,  
That's for themselves. Wherein they imitate  
The Heavens; so that indeed there seems to be  
In their designs a kind of sympathy:  
Both choose unto themselves what good they deem;  
Tho men mistaken, ofttimes most esteem  
That which most harms them. But the Heavens, which know  
The natures all of things they frame below  
With cunning hand, in this fair Garden gather  
Each beauteous flower, leaving the weeds to wither  
By time, and courses fit for them ordained,  
Since these likewise for hidden ends were framed.  
john Hagthorppe.   

XL.  
Tears for Sir THO. O.  

YOu culvers of the Wood lend me your groans:  
You Mandrakes shrike●, and mournful Pelicans▪  
You midnight Birds, lend me your dismal tones;  
And all that wrongful villainy complains.  
Oh lend me, lend me all the dying strains  
You Snow-white Swans, which on Meander swim,  
Do at your deaths in funeral Dirgessing.   

You Elephants caught in the Peguan Toil;  
You Nubian Lions, that the naked Moor,  
Or wild Arabian (for your ancient spoil)  
Compels in vain his mercy to implore.  
Thou raging Tiger, and fierce Mantichore,  
Lend me your powers combined, that I with cries  
May rend the Marble Mountains, and the Skies.   

Lend, you me sighs, you Typhons of Ter●ear;  
Let ●eares like Atlas ●rozen Hail distil:  
Oh lend me words you sevenfold echoes clear,  
Your plaints tormented Ghosts in hecla's Hill;  
That so my sighs, tears, plaints, may blast and kill  
All smiling flowers, and trees adorned with green,  
And (like myself) make Earth a mourner seem.   

Oh let me, let me sprinkle the free Air  
With these my boundless woes! But I am dumb.  
Imprisoned souls herein seem happier;  
My Reason hath to me denied a tongue.  
For as too vehement objects overcome  
The senses; so the understanding's lame,  
To utter things that do transcend the same.   

Hence therefore let me fly with Swallows wings  
To Tessets barren Deserts, where no Wight,  
No savage beast frequents, or creeping things;  
Or to Condorian Caves, where six months night  
May make me hate th' unwelcome entering light,  
And fly back to my Cave again, to find  
A constant darkness, suiting mine own mind.   

There will I build mine everlasting Cell,  
Oblivion and myself will live together.  
If in an Age some ask, who there doth dwell?  
Myself will through the wall or door deliver  
Some feigned Names, and send them thence else-whither▪  
That cruel men which for their dearest friends  
Thus dig the graves, may not my peace offend.   

Here Silence and myself will hug each other:  
And if we walk, on soft Moss will we tread.  
Here Contemplation shall be my sworn Brother,  
And Sorrow, where we friends this theme will read;  
That though tears do not profit those are dead;  
Yet if for true friends, tears be ere well spent,  
'tis when false friends betray friends innocent.   


(a) Such was that of Cizicum, and that of the Gallery at Olympia, which from thence had●● appellation. Heptaphonon. Plin. lib. 36. cap. 15.   

(b) Tesset is a little Town in afric in 〈◊〉 Desert, distant from the nearest habitation thre● hundred miles. Leo.     


A short elegiac Verse, written upon the unfortunate Deaths of the thrice worthy Gentlemen, the Sheffeilds', drowned in Humber.  
OH where am I! I thought I erst had died,  
I was so frozen up, and stupefied  
With Arctic darkness, and Condorian cold,  
Which these late months, life's faculties did hold  
Imprisoned, in the centre of my heart.  
Sure slain I was, I felt so little smart,  
At the i'll news of Humber's fatal deed,  
My tongue to move, mine eyes forgot to bleed.  
(For water cannot expiate what water did)  
When Virtues Children lie unburied▪  
Shall I be then less sensible, less kind,  
Then Mecchaes Pilgrims, which themselves do blind▪  
And rather do for custom sacrifice.  
At marble shrines, then pious love, their eyes?  
No, I will weep, and weep, and weep again,  
Till in my conduits, humours none remain,  
To give my Fountains liquid supplement.  
And when those pipes and hollow caves are spent,  
Mine Air in them condensed likewise shall be,  
And transmigrate to moisture presently,  
From whence I may derive a fresh supplie,  
Even whilst I live to weep, and weeping die  
For them, whose worths and fatal chance excel  
The power of Time, in both to parallel.   

A Funeral Canzonet upon the untimely death of an Honourable Lady under the name of Stella.  

Stream tears, and in your watery language lee  
My passion speak the sorrows of my mind,  
Since words want weight, and tongues in vain are see  
To utter woes, that have not bounds assigned;  
Since Stella's dead, so noble, fair and kind,  
That no tongue truly can her loss express,  
Then mine be mute, speak eyes my heaviness.   

But Stella's dead, and I in vain do strive  
To limit water, or confine the air.  
My words will perish that I would reprieve,  
And grief hath dried the springs, whence tears repair.  
So hard to form, I find our passions are,  
That what my Reason most incites me to,  
I blindfold seek, but quite contrary go.   

For Winter's Frosts, or Summer's Heat have dried  
My tears, and put this tempest in my tongue,  
When reason rather of the two had tried,  
Tears to have tendered, than this Dirge to have sung▪  
For Stella's death, so Noble, Fair and Young,  
On my soul's anvil, such cross passions break,  
That my tongue weeps, whilst these mine eye● should speak.   

TIme, I ever must complain  
Of thy craft and cruel cunning▪  
Seeming fixed here to remain,  
When thy feet are ever running;  
And thy plumes  
Still resumes  
Courses new, repose most shunning▪   

Like calm winds thou passest by us;  
Lined with feathers are thy feet:  
Thy dowry wings with silence fly us,  
Like the shadows of the night:  
Or the stream;  
That no beam  
Of sharpest eye discerns to fleet.   

Therefore Mortals all deluded  
By thy grave and wrinkled face,  
In their judgements have concluded,  
That thy slow and snail-like pace,  
Still doth bend  
To no end,  
But to an eternal race.   

Budding Youths vain blooming wit,  
Thinks the Spring shall ever last,  
And the gaudy flowers that sit  
On Flora's brow, shall never tast●  
Winters scorn,  
Nor forlorn.  
Bend their heads with chilling blast,   

Riper age expects to have  
Harvests of his proper toil:  
Times to give, and to receive  
Seeds and Fruits from fertile soil▪  
But at length,  
Doth his strength  
Youth and Beauty all recoil.   

Cold December hope retains,  
That the Spring each thing reviving,  
Shall throughout his aged Veins  
Pour fresh Youth, past joys reprieving:  
But thy scythe  
Ends his strife,  
And to Lethe sends him driving.    

To Earth.  

EArth, thou art a barren Field  
Of delight and true contenting;  
All the pleasures thou dost yield,  
Give but cause of sad lamenting:  
Where Desires  
Are the fires,  
Still our souls tormenting.   

Riches, Honour, Dignity,  
Are the high way to misfortune:  
Greatness is a lethargy,  
That to death can soon transport one.  
To be fair,  
Causeth care,  
Gifts cha●te thoughts importune.   

To be witty, quick of tongue,  
Sorrow to themselves returneth.  
To be Healthful, Young and Strong,  
Feeds the flames, where passion burneth:  
Yet do Men  
Covet them,  
More than what adorneth.   

To have Friends, and Lover's kind,  
That us round environ:  
Wife and Children, though we find  
These be robes that best attire one,  
Yet their loss,  
Is a cross,  
Melting hearts of Iron.   

To be perfect here, and wise,  
Is to know our indiscretions;  
And our goodness chiefly lies,  
In observing our transgressions:  
For we dwell,  
As in Hell,  
Thrall to bad impressions.   

Then alas why long we so,  
With loved Sorrow still to languish;  
I● there ought on earth but woe,  
Ay renewing cares and anguish;  
Where new fears,  
Still appears,  
Darts at us to brandish?    

To Death.  

THen D●ath why shouldst thou dreaded be  
And shunned, as some great misery?  
That cur'st ou● woes and strife;  
Only because we're ill resolved,  
And in dark errors clouds involved,  
Think Death the end of life:  
Which most untrue,  
Each place we view,  
Gives testimonies rife.   

The Flowers that we behold each year,  
In chequered Meads their heads to rear,  
New rising from their Tomb.  
The Eglantines and Honie-Daisies,  
And all those pretty smiling faces,  
That still in age grow young:  
Even these do cry,  
That though men die,  
Yet life from death may come.   

The towering Cedars, tall and strong,  
On Taurus and mount Libanon,  
In time they all decay.  
Yet from their old and wasted roo●es,  
At length again grow up young Shoots,  
That are as fresh and gay.  
Then why should we  
Thus fear to die,  
Whose death brings life for aye?   

The seed that in the Earth we throw,  
Doth putrify before it grow,  
Corrupting in his Urn:  
But at the Spring it flourisheth,  
Whom Ph●ebus ●nly cherisheth  
With life at his return.  
Doth Time's Sun this?  
Then sure it is,  
Time's Lord can more perform.    

To Time.  

STay wrinkled Time, and slack thy winged haste,  
Which from our Zenith doth so fast decline  
In Western waves, Lethe thyself to ●aste.  
Stay, and at length regard this plaint of mine:  
Thy one day's course is many thousand years,  
And I in vain pursue thee all my time.   

Whilst thy declining haste more swift appeare●,  
And thine own weight precipitates thee to;  
My feeble legs their burden hardly bears,  
Whilst I pursue to catch thy harry brow:  
But thou like fr●ward Age still writhest away,  
And to my good endeavours wilt not bow.   

Yet know, I come not now to beg delay  
For any debt of mine, or borrowed sum;  
Nor to reprieve my life for some short day:  
Old Time, it is for none of these I come,  
But even to vent my griefs, that thou (to me  
To pinching) art so prodigal to some.   

The Usurer a hundred years can see,  
To cram his chests with theft and poor men's spoil.  
The Bawd stored with all sorts of villainy,  
And sins, that Hell and blackness self would soil;  
lives till her body be an Hospital  
Of strange Diseases, mischiefs perfect foil.   

The P. and the P. that are most,  
Fed by the people's sins, and also feed:  
Those mischiefs whereby many a man is lost,  
Which be, old Time, thy worst disease indeed.  
These do not want: to do amiss wants none;  
But Time to him that would do well's denied.   

Thou giv'st the greedy Worldling time to run,  
In quest of profit, to the frozen Climes;  
Then to the burning Line, and thirsting Sun;  
To Ganges, the molluca's, Phillippines:  
Tho (more than men) he Nature cousin will,  
That heat and cold for bounds to him assigns.   

Thou lendest the Drunkard time his Cups to spill:  
thouart to the Sluggard too indulgent kind;  
Thou giv'st the Murderer time to kill;  
The Thief and Lustful man their prey to find;  
But those that to employ thee well are bend,  
Too little, or just none have they assigned.   

Ten years the guilty Laws have from me pulled;  
My Wants and Cares as much; Sickness the rest;  
My best hours, but from Wants and Cares are could.  
Oh Time! must he have lest that spends thee best?  
Oh Time! give me a Time myself t'applie  
To Virtue and to Knowledge, or to die,     
FINIS.  

Errata.  
Page 30. line 13. read, (d) Hyena's. l. 14. r. (e) Screech Owls: l. 15. r. (f) Torpedoes. l. 17. r. (g) Th'other. l. 20 r. (h) Hells l. 21. (ay) Scyros. p. 40. l. 20. r. Candie: p. 43. l. 20. ●. Vacuum sex rationibus in parte mo●us. l. 24. r. 〈◊〉 daretur. p. 46. l. 4. r. sees no● God. p. 87. l. 6. r. (ay) Name sulphur. l. 9 r. (k) This is. l. 13. put out (k).