Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681). Order and Disorder. 1679.

Canto V

SAD Natures sights gave the Alarms,

And all her frighted hosts stood to their arms,

Waiting whom the great Soveraign would employ

His all deserted rebels to destroy:

Gen. 3.8.When God descended out of heaven above

His disobedient Viceroy to remove.

Yet though himself had seen the forfeiture,

Which distance could not from his eyes obscure,

To teach his future Substitutes how they

2 Sam. 23.3.Should judgements execute in a right way,

He would not unexamin’d facts condemn,

Nor punish sinners without hearing them.

Therefore cites to his bar the Criminals,

And Adam first out of his covert calls,

Gen. 3.9–12.Where art thou Adam? the Almighty said,

Here Lord, the trembling sinner answer made,

Amongst the trees I in the garden heard

Thy voice, and being naked was afeard,

Nor durst I so thy purer sight abide,

Therefore my self did in this shelter hide.

Hast thou (said God) eat the forbidden tree,

Or who declar’d thy nakedness to thee?

She, answer’d Adam, whom thou didst create

To be my helper and associate,

Gave me the fatal fruit, and I did eat;

ver. 13.Then Eve was also call’d from her retreat,

Woman what hast thou done? th’ Almighty said;

Lord, answer’d she, the serpent me betray’d,

And I did eat. Thus did they both confess

Their guilt, and vainly sought to make it less,

By such extenuations, as well weigh’d,

The sin, so circumstanc’d, more sinful made:

A course which still half softned sinners use,

Transferring blame their own faults to excuse,

They care not how, nor where, and oftentimes

Rom. 9.19.On God himself obliquely charge their crimes,

Expostulating in their discontent,

Ez. 18.2.As if he caus’d what he did not prevent;

Jam. 1.13,14,15.Which Adam wickedly implies, when he

Cries, ’Twas the woman That thou gavest me;

Oft-times make that the devils guilt alone,

Which was as well and equally their own.

His lies could never have prevail’d on Eve

But that she wisht them truth, and did believe

A forgery that suited her desire,

Whose haughty heart was prone enough to’ aspire.

The tempting and the urging was his ill,

But the compliance was in her own will.

And herein truly lies the difference

Of natural and gracious penitence,

The first transferreth and extenuates

Psal. 51.3,4,5.The guilt, which the other owns and aggravates.

& 32.5.While sin is but regarded slight and small,

It makes the value of rich mercy fall,

1 Joh. 1.8,9,10.But as our crimes seem greater in our eyes,

So doth our grateful sense of pardon rise.

Poor mankind at Gods righteous bar was cast

And set for judgement by, when at the last

Satan within the serpent had his doom,

Whose execrable malice left no room

For plea or pardon, but was sentenc’d first;

Thou (said the Lord) above all beasts accurst,

Shalt on thy belly creep, on dust shalt feed,

Between thee and the woman, and her seed

1 Pet. 5.8.And thine, I will put lasting enmity;

Thou in this war his heel shalt bruise, but He

Mat. 13.25.Thy head shall break. More various Mystery

Ne’re did within so short a sentence lie.

Jude 6.Here is irrevocable vengeance, here

Mal. 3.6.Love as immutable. Here doth appear

Zac. 6.13.Infinite Wisdome plotting with free grace,

1 Cor. 2.9.Even by Mans Fall, th’ advance of humane race.

Rom. 11.22.Severity here utterly confounds,

Here Mercy cures by kind and gentle wounds,

The Father here, the Gospel first reveals,

Esa. 7.14.Here fleshly veils th’ eternal son conceals.

Rom. 8.2,3,4.The law of life and spirit here takes place,

Act. 13.10.Given with the promise of assisting grace:

Mat. 3.7.Here is an Oracle fore-telling all,

Psal. 22.30.Which shall the two opposed seeds befall.

Jer. 31.22, Eph. 6.12.The great was hath its first beginning here,

Joh. 8.44.Carried along more than five thousand year,

Jude 9.With various success on either side,

Gen. 6.2,4,5.And each age with new combatants suppli’d:

Heb. 2.10.Two Soveraign Champions here we find,

Act. 5.31.Satan and Christ contending for mankind.

Eph. 2.2.Two Empires here, two opposite Cities rise,

Joh. 15.18,19.Dividing all in two Societies.

Lu. 12.32.The little Church and the worlds larger State

Ps. 105.12–15.Pursuing it with ceaseless spite and hate.

Each party here erecting their own walls,

As one advances, so the other falls.

Esa. 9.6,7.Hope in the Promise the weak Church confirms,

Hell and the world fight upon desperate terms,

Rev. 12.12.By this most certain Oracle they know,

Joh. 16.30.Their war must end in final overthrow.

Joh. 16.20.Some little present mischief they may do,

And this with eager malice they pursue.

Mat. 10.34.The Angels whom Gods justice did divide,

Psal. 2.1.Engage their mighty powers on either side,

Rev. 12.7,9.Hells gloomy Princes the worlds rulers made,

Heavens unseen host the Churches guard and aid.

Dan. 10.13,21.Till the frail womans conquering son shall tread

Psa. 104.4.Beneath his feet the serpents broken head;

Rom. 16.20.Though God the speech to mans false foe address,

The words rich grace to fallen man express,

Which God will not to him himself declare,

Psa. 50.15.Till he implore it by submissive prayer;

Es. 41.9.Sufficient ’tis to know a latitude

Psa. 130.4.For hope, which doth no penitent exclude.

Luk. 1.74.Had deaths sad sentence past on man, before

Gal. 3.8,16.The promise of that seed which should restore

1 Cor. 15.54,57.His fallen state, destroying death and sin,

Cureless as Satans had his misery been.

But though free grace did future help provide,

1 Cor. 3.15.Yet must he present loss and woe abide;

And feel the bitter curse, that he may so

Gal. 3.13.The sweet release of saving mercy know.

Gen. 3.16, &c.Prepar’d with late indulged hope, on Eve

Th’ almighty next did gentler sentence give.

I will, said he, greatly augment thy woes,

And thy conceptions, which with painful throes

Thou shalt bring forth, yet shall they be to thee

But a successive crop of misery.

Thy husband shall thy ruler be, whose sway

Thou shalt with passionate desires obey.

Alas! how sadly to this day we find

Th’ effect of this dire curse on womankind;

Eve sin’d in fruit forbid, and God requires

Her pennance in the fruit of her desires.

When first to men their inclinations move,

Gen. 39.7.How are they tortur’d with distracting love!

What disappointments find they in the end;

Constant uneasinesses which attend

1 Cor. 7.34,39,40.The best condition of the wedded state,

1 Pet. 3.5.Giving all wives sense of the cures weight,

Which makes them ease and liberty refuse,

And with strong passion their own shackles chuse:

Now though they easier under wise rule prove,

Gen. 29.20.And every burthen is made light by love,

Yet golden fetters, soft lin’d yoaks still be,

Though gentler curbs, but curbs of liberty,

As well as the harsh tyrants iron yoak,

More sorely galling them whom they provoke,

1 Sam. 25.25.To loath their bondage, and despise the rule

Of an unmanly, fickle, froward fool.

Whate’re the husbands be, they covet fruit,

Gen. 30.1. & 35.18.And their own wishes to their sorrows contribute.

Mat. 24.19.How painfully the fruit within them grows,

What tortures do their ripened births disclose,

How great, how various, how uneasie are

The breeding sicknesses, pangs that prepare

Joh. 16.21.The violent openings of lifes narrow door,

Whose fatal issues we as oft deplore!

What weaknesses, what languishments ensue,

Scattering dead Lillies where fresh Roses grew.

What broken rest afflicts the careful nurse,

Extending to the breasts the mothers curse;

Which ceases not when there her milk she dries,

The froward child draws new streams from her eyes.

How much more bitter anguish do we find

Labouring to raise up vertue in the mind,

Then when the members in our bowels grew,

Prov. 10.1.What sad abortions, what cross births ensue?

What monsters, what unnatural vipers come

Pro. 15.20.Eating their passage through their parents womb;

How are the tortures of their births renew’d,

Unrecompenc’d with love and gratitude:

Even the good, who would our cares requite,

Would be our crowns, joys, pillars, and delight,

Affect us yet with other griefs and fears,

Opening the sluces of our ne’re dried tears.

Luk. 2.48,35.Death, danger, sickness, losses, all the ill

Mat. 2.18.That on the children falls, the mothers feel,

Repeating with worse pangs, the pangs that bore

Them into life, and though some may have more

Of sweet and gentle mixture, some of worse,

Yet every mothers cup tasts of the curse.

And when the heavy load her faint heart tires,

Gen. 27.46.Makes her too oft repent her fond desires.

Now last of all, as Adam last had been

Drawn into the prevaricating sin,

Gen. 3.17.His sentence came: Because that thou didst yield,

(Said God) to thy enticing wife, The field

Producing briars and fruitless thorns to thee,

Accursed for thy sake and sins shall be.

Thy careful brows in constant toyls shall sweat,

Thus thou thy bread shalt all thy whole life eat,

Till thou return into the earths vast womb;

Whence, taken first, thou didst a man become;

Ps. 103.14.For dust thou art, and dust again shalt be

& 104.29.When lifes declining spark goes out in thee.

In all these Sentences we strangely find

Gods admirable love to lost mankind;

Who though he never will his word recal,

Or let his threats life shafts at randome fall,

Yet can his Wisdome order curses so

2 Cor. 4.6.That blessings may out of their bowels flow.

Thus death the door of lasting life became,

Dissolving nature, to rebuild her frame,

2 Tim. 1.10.On such a sure foundation, as shall break

All the attempts Hells cursed Empire make.

Thus God reveng’d mans quarrel on his foe,

To whom th’ Almighty would no mercy show,

Lu. 18.7,8.Making his reign, his respite, and success,

All augmentations of his cursedness.

Zac. 9.10–12.Thus gave he us a powerful Chief and Head,

By whom we shall be out of bondage led.

And made the penalties of our offence,

Precepts and rules of new obedience,

Mat. 11.29,30.Fitted in all things to our fallen State,

Under sweet promises, that ease their weight.

1 Joh. 5.3.Our first injunction is to hate and flie

The flatteries of our first grand enemy;

Prov. 1.10, &c.To have no friendship with his cursed race,

Eph. 5.11.The int’rest of the opposite seed t’ embrace,

1 Tim. 6.12.Where though we toyl in fights, tho’ bruis’d we be,

Jude 3.Yet shall our combate end in victory:

Rev. 2.10.Eternal glory, healing our slight wound,

Mic. 7.16,17.When all our labours are with triumph crown’d.

The next command is, mothers should maintain

Posterity, not frighted with the pain,

Which tho’ it make us mourn under the sense

Of the first mothers disobedience,

Yet hath a promise that thereby she shall

1 Tim. 2.15.Recover all the hurt of her first fall,

Es. 9.6.When, in mysterious manner, from her womb

Heb. 2.12,13.Her father, brother, husband, son shall come.

Eph. 5.25, &c.Subjection to the husband’s rule enjoyn’d,

In the next place, that yoak with love is lin’d,

Luk. 1.35.Love too a precept made, where God requires

1 Pet. 3.1,2.We should perform our duties with desires;

And promises t’ encline our averse will,

Whose satisfaction takes away the ill

Of every toyl, and every suffering

That can from unenforc’d submission spring;

The last command, God with mans curse did give,

Was that men should in honest callings live,

Eating their own bread, fruit of their own sweat;

1 Thes. 4.11,12.Nor feed like drones on that which others get:

And this command a promise doth implie,

2 Thes. 3.12.That bread should recompence our industry.

One mercy more his sentence did include,

Rev. 14.13.That mortal toyls, faintings and lassitude,

Should not beyond deaths fixed bound extend,

Mat. 10.28.But there in everlasting quiet end;

Job 3.17,18,19.When men out of the troubled air depart,

And to their first material dust revert,

Eccl. 3.20.The utmost power that death or woe can have

Is but to shut us pris’ners in the grave,

Bruising the flesh, that heel whereon we tread,

1 Thes. 4.14.But we shall trample on the serpents head.

Our scatter’d atoms shall again condense,

Es. 26.19.And be again inspir’d with living sense;

Captivity shall then a captive be,

Job 19.26,27.Death shall be swallow’d up in victory,

1 Cor. 15.20–22, 26,And God shall man to Paradise restore,

54,55, 57.Where the soul tempter shall seduce no more

Act. 2.24.How far our parents, whose sad eyes were fixt

Psa. 68.18.On woe and terror, saw the mercy mixt,

We can but make a wild uncertain guess,

As we are now affected in distress,

Esa. 43.2, &c.Who less regard the mitigation still

1 Pet. 4.12,13.Than the slight smart of our afflicting ill;

And while we groan under the hated yoak,

Jer. 30.11, &c.Our gratitude for its soft lining choak.

Mic. 7.18,19.But God having th’ amazed sinners doom’d,

Put off the Judges frown and reassum’d

Es. 49.15.A tender fathers kind and melting face

Jer. 31.20.Opening his gracious arms for new embrace,

Psal. 50.5.Taught them to expiate their heinous guilt

1 Pet. 1.19.By spotless sacrifice and pure blood spilt,

Heb. 11.4.Which done in faith did their faint hearts sustain,

Dan. 9.26,27.Till the intended lamb of God was slain,

Joh. 1.29.Whose death, whose merit, and whose innocence,

Ps. 40.6,7.The forfeit paid and blotted out th’ offence.

1 Joh. 2.2.The skins of the slain beasts, God vestures made,

Rev. 1.5. & 5.9,10.Wherein the naked sinners were array’d,

Rom. 5.10,19.Not without mystery, which typifi’d

Col. 2,14.That righteousness that doth our foul shame hide.

Ps. 32.1,2.As when a rotting patient must endure

Rev. 19.8.Painful excisions to effect his cure,

Rom. 3.22. & 13,14.His spirits we with cordials fortifie,

Gal. 3.27.Left, unsupported, he should faint and die:

Zac. 3.4,5.So with our prayers the Almighty dealt,

Before their necessary woes they felt,

Deut. 33.27.Their feeble souls rich promises upheld,

And their deliverance was in types reveal’d,

Even their bodies God himself did arm

Mat. 6.30.With clothes that kept them from the weathers harm,

Psa. 89.32–34.But after all, they must be driven away,

Nor in their forfeit Paradise must stay.

Gen. 3.22.Then, said the Lord, with holy ironie,

Whence man the folly of his pride might see,

The earthy man like one of us is grown,

To whom, as God, both good and ill is known,

Now left he also eat of th’ other tree

Whose fruit gives life, and an Immortal be,

Let us by just and timely banishment

His further sinful arrogance prevent.

Then did he them out of the garden chace,

And set a Cherubim to guard the place;

Who wav’d a flaming Sword before the door,

Through which the wretches must return no more:

Heb. 1.7,May we not liken to this Sword of flame

12,18–21.The threatning law which from Mount Sinai came,

With such thick flashes of prodigious fire

As made the mountains shake and men retire:

Forbidding them all forward hope, that they

Could enter into life that dreadful way.

Whate’re it was, whate’re it signifies,

It kept our parents out of Paradise,

Who now returning to their place of birth

1 Pet. 2.11.Found themselves strangers in their native earth.

Heb. 11.13.Their fatal breach of Gods most strict command

Psa. 39.12.Had there dissolv’d all concord, the sweet band

Of universal loveliness and peace.

And now the calm in every part did cease;

Love, tho’ immutable, its smiles did shrowd

Rev. 3.19.Under the dark veil of an angry cloud.

And while he seem’d withdrawn, whose grace upheld

Psal. 75.3.The order of all things, confusion fill’d

The Universe. The air became impure,

And frequent dreadful conflicts did endure

With every other angry element;

The whirling fires its tender body rent.

From earth and seas gross vapours did arise,

Turn’d to prodigious Meteors in the skies;

Psal. 107.25–27.The blustring winds let loose their furious rage,

And in their battels did the floods engage.

The Sun confounded was with natures shame,

And the pale Moon shrunk in her sickly flame;

Jud. 5.20.The rude congressions of the angry Stars

In Heaven, begun the universal wars,

While their malicious influence from above,

On earth did various perturbations move,

Droughts, inundations, blastings, kill’d the plants;

Worse influence wrought on th’ inhabitants,

Inspiring lust, rage, ravenous appetite,

Psa. 78.45–48.Which made the creatures in all regions fight.

The little insects in great clouds did rise,

And in Battalia’s spread, obscur’d the skies;

Armies of birds encountred in the air,

With hideous cries deciding battles there;

The birds of prey to gorge their appetite,

Seiz’d harmless fowl in their unwary flight.

When the dim evening had shut in the day,

Troops of wild beasts, all marching out for prey,

Psal. 104.20–22.To the restless flocks would go, and there

Oft-times by other troops assailed were,

Who snatcht out of their jaws the new slain food,

And made them purchase it again with blood.

Thus sin the whole creation did divide

Into th’ oppressing and the suffering side;

Those still employing craft and violence

To’ ensnare and murther simple innocence,

True emblems were of Satans craft and power

1 Pet. 5.8.In daily ambuscado to devour.

Rev. 12.8,12.Nor only emblems were, but organs too,

In and by whom he did his mischiefs do,

While persecuting cruelty and rage

Them in his cursed party did engage.

Love, meekness, patience, gentleness, combin’d

The tamer brood with those of their own kind.

Wherefore God chose them for his sacrifice,

When he the proud and mighty did despise,

Rom. 8.20,21.And his most certain Oracles declare,

They mans restored peace at last shall share:

Es. 11.7.But to our parents, then, sad was the change

& 65.25.Which them from peace and safety did estrange,

Brought universal woe and discord in,

Es. 57.20,21.The never failing consequents of sin;

Eph. 2,12–14.Nor only made all things without them jar,

But in their breasts rais’d up a civil war,

Reason and sense maintain’d continual fight,

Urging th’ aversion and the appetite,

Which led two different troops of passions out,

Confounding all, in their tumultuous rout.

The less world with the great proportion held:

As winds the caverns, sighs the bosomes fill’d;

So flowing tears did beauties fair fields drown,

As inndations kept within no bound.

Fear earth-quakes made, lust in the fancy whirl’d,

Turn’d into flame, and bursting fir’d the world:

Spite, hate, revenge, ambition, avarice

Made innocence a prey to monstrous vice.

The cold and hot diseases represent

The perturbations of the element.

Thus woe and danger had beset them round,

Distrest without, within no comfort found.

Even as a Monarchs Favourite in disgrace

Suffers contempt both from the high and base,

And the most abject most insult o’re them,

Whom the offended Soveraigns condemn;

So after man th’ Almighty disobey’d,

Each little fly durst his late King invade,

Aswell as the woods monsters, wolves and bears,

And all things else that exercise his fears.

Methinks I hear sad Eve in some dark Vale

Her woful state, with such sad plaints, bewail:

Ah! why doth death its latest stroke delay,

If we must leave the light, why do we stay

By slow degrees more painfully to die,

And languish in a long calamity?

Have we not lost by one false cheating sin

All peace without, all sweet repose within?

Is there a pleasure yet that life can show,

Doth not each moment multiplie our woe:

And while we live thus in perpetual dread,

Our hope and comfort long before us dead?

Job 3.Why should we not our angry maker pray

Jonah 4.3.At once to take our wretched lives away?

Hath not our sin all natures pure leagues rent

And arm’d against us every element?

Have not our subjects their allegiance broke,

Doth not each worm scorn our unworthy yoak?

Are we not half with griping hunger pin’d,

Before we bread amongst the brambles find?

All pale diseases in our members reign,

Anguish and grief no less our sick souls pain,

Whereever I my eyes, or thoughts convert,

Each object adds new tortures to my heart.

If I look up, I dread heavens threatning frown,

Thorns prick my eyes, when shame hath cast them down,

Dangers I see, looking on either hand,

Before me all in fighting posture stand.

If I cast back my sorrow-drowned eyes,

I see our ne’re to be recover’d Paradise,

The flaming Sword which doth us thence exclude,

By sad remorse and ugly guilt pursued.

If I on thee a private glance reflect,

Confusion doth my shameful eyes deject,

Seeing the man I love by me betray’d,

By me, who for his mutual help was made,

Who to preserve thy life ought to have died,

And I have kill’d thee by my foolish pride;

Defil’d thy glory, and pull’d down thy throne.

O that I had but sin’d, and died alone!

Then had my torture and my woe been less,

I yet had flourisht in thy happiness.

If these words Adams melting soul did move,

He might reply with kind rebuking love.

Cease, cease, O foolish woman, to dispute,

Psa. 115.3.Gods soveraign will and Power are absolute.

Rom. 9.20–23.If he will have us soon, or slow to die,

Frail worms must yield, but must not question why.

When his great hand appears, we must conclude

Ps. 119.68.All that he doth is wise, and just, and good;

Rom. 3.4.Though our poor, sin-benighted souls, are blind,

Psal. 51.4.Nor can the mysteries of his wisdome find,

Gen. 18.25.Yet in our present case we must confess

His justice and our own unrighteousness.

He warn’d us of this fatal consequence,

Rom. 6. ult.That death must wait on disobedience;

Yet we despis’d his threat, and broke his law,

So did destruction on our own heads draw;

Now under his afflicting hand we lie,

Reaping the fruit of our iniquity.

Which, had not he prevented, when we fell,

Gen. 6.3.At once had plung’d us in the lowest hell;

1 Pet. 3.20.But by his mercy yet we have reprieve,

Joh. 11.25.Any yet are shew’d how we in death may live,

If we improve our short indulged space

To understand, prize, and accept his grace.

Did all of us at once like brutes expire,

And cease to be, we might quick death desire:

But since our chief and immaterial part,

Not fram’d of dust, doth not to dust revert:

Its death not an annihilation is,

Mat. 25.41,46.But to be cut off from its supream bliss:

Luk. 16.21,22.Whatever here to mortals can befal,

Compar’d to future miseries is small,

The saddest, sharpest, and the longest have

Mat. 10.28.Their final consummations in the grave,

These have their intermissions and allays,

Though black and gloomy ones, these nights have days,

Psa. 130.1.The worst calamities we here endure

Admit a possibility of cure;

Psal. 107.Our miseries here are varied in their kind,

And in that change the wretched some ease find.

Esa. 29.8.Sleep here our pained senses stupifies,

And cheating dreams in our sick fancies rise,

But in our future sufferings ’tis not so,

There is no end, no intermitted woe,

Lu. 16.26.No more return from the accursed place,

No hope, no possibility of grace,

No sleepy intervals, no pleasant dreams,

No mitigations of those sad extreams,

Rom. 2.8,9.No gentle mixtures, no soft changes there,

Jude 13.Perpetual tortures, heightned with despair,

Mat. 13.50.Eternal horror, and eternal night,

Lu. 16.24.Eternal burnings, with no glance of light,

Mat. 8.12.Eternal pain. O ’tis a thought too great,

& 22.13.Too terrible, for any to repeat,

Rev. 19.20.Who have not scap’d the dread. Let’s not to shun

Hos. 13.9.Heavens scorching rays, into hells furnace run:

Rom. 3.16.But having slain our selves, let’s flie to him

Psa. 103.4.Who only can our selves from death redeem,

To undo what’s done is not within our power,

No more than to call back the last fled hour.

To think we can our fallen state restore,

Or without hope, our ruine to deplore,

Are equal aggravating crimes; the first

Eph. 2.4,6–10.Repeats that sin for which we were accurst,

While we with foolish arrogating pride,

Rom. 3.27.More in our selves than in our God confide;

The last is both ungrateful and unjust,

That doth is goodness, or his power distrust.

Which wheresoe’re we look, without, within,

Above, beneath, in every place is seen.

Psal. 36,5,6.Doth Heaven frown? Above the sullen shrouds

God sits, and sees through all the blackest clouds

Esa. 44.22.Sin casts about us, like the misty night,

Which hide his pleasing glances from our sight,

Lam. 3.44,Nor only sees, but darts on us his beams

31,32,25.Ministring comfort in our worst extreams.

Job 37.11–13.When lightnings flie, dire storm and thunder roars,

He guides the shafts, the serene calm restores.

Esa. 40.1,2.When shadows occupie days vacant room,

& 57.18,19.He makes new glory spring from nights dark womb.

When the black Prince of air lets loose the winds,

Joh. 14.18.The furious warriours he in prison binds.

If burning stars do conflagrations threat,

Esa. 25.4.He gives cool breezes to allay the heat.

Psal. 78.16,17.When cold doth in its rigid season reign,

Psal. 30.5.He melts the snows, and thaws the air again;

Luk. 8.24,25.Restoring the vicissitude of things,

Esa. 27.8.He still new good from every evil brings.

Esa. 4.6. Cant. 2.11,12. Gen. 8.22. Psal. 147.17,18. Esa. 45.6–8.

Psal. 75.3.He holds together the worlds shaken frame,

Jam. 1.17.Ordaining every change, is still the same.

Psal. 102,26,27.If he permit the elements to fight,

The rage of storms, the blackness of the night;

Mal. 3.6.’Tis that his power, love and wisdome may

Esa. 54.11.More glory have, restoring calm and day;

Jer. 31.35,36.That we may more the pleasant blessings prize,

Laid in the ballance with their contraries.

2 Cor. 4.17.Though dangers then, like gaping monsters stand

Esa. 54.6–10.Ready to swallow us on either hand;

Let us despise them, firm in this faith still,

Psal. 46.1,2.If God will save, they can nor hurt nor kill;

If by his just permission we are slain,

Esa. 8.9,10,His power can heal and quicken us again.

12–14.If briers and thorns, which from our sins arise

Esa. 51.11, &c.Looking on earth, pierce through our guilty eyes,

Gen. 50.20.Let’s yet give thanks they have not choak’d the seed

Which should with better fruit our sad lives feed.

2 Sam. 17.14.If discord set the inward world on fire,

Esther 5.14.With hast let’s to the living spring retire,

& 6.13.There quench, and quiet the disturbed soul,

& 7.10.There on Loves sweet refreshing green banks rowl,

Ezek. 37.1, &c.Where ecstasied with joy, we shall not feel

The Serpents little nibblings at our heel.

Esa. 19.22.If we look back on Paradise, late lost,

Jer. 30.17.Joys vanisht like swift dreams, thaw’d like a frost,

Act. 14.17.Converting pleasant walks to dirt and mire,

Would we such frail delights again desire,

Joh. 7.37,38.Which at their best, however excellent,

Psal. 23.1,2. 6.7.Had this defect, they were not permanent?

Col. 3.1,2. Psal. 107.35,36,34,33. 1 Cor. 7.31. Eccles. 1.2. 2 Cor. 4.18.

Psal. 49.4,15.If sin, remorse, and guilt give us the chace,

Let us lie close in mercies sweet embrace,

Rev. 3.18,20.Which when it us asham’d, and naked found

In the soft arms of melting pity bound;

Psa. 32.1,2.Eternal glorious triumphs did prepare,

Arm’d us with clothes against the wounding air,

1 Joh. 2.25.By expiating sacrifices taught,

How new life shall by death to light be brought.

If we before us look, although we see

All things in present fighting posture be:

Yet in the promise we a prospect have

1 Cor. 15.54,55,26.Of victory swallowing up the empty grave;

Hos. 13.14.Our foes all vanquisht, death it self lies dead,

Rom. 16.20.And we shall trample on the monsters head.

Entring into a new and perfect joy,

Mat. 25.21.Which neither sin nor sorrow can destroy:

Rev. 20.4.A lasting and refin’d felicity,

Mal. 3.2,3.For which even we our selves refin’d must be.

Col. 1.12.Then shall we laugh at our now childish woes,

Joh. 16.21,22.And hug the birth that issues from these throes.

Let not my share of grief afflict thy mind,

But let me comfort in thy courage find;

’Twas not thy malice, but thy ignorance

That lately my destruction did advance;

Nor can I my own self excuse; ’twas I

Undid my self by my facility.

Let’s not in vain each other now upbraid,

But rather strive to’ afford each other aid:

And our most gracious Lord with due thanks bless,

Who hath not left us single in distress.

When fear chills thee, my hope shall make thee warm,

When I grow faint, thou shalt my courage arm;

When both our spirits at a low ebb are,

We both will joyn in mutual fervent prayer

To him whose gracious succour never fails,

When sin and death poor feeble man assails,

He that our final triumph hath decreed,

And promis’d thee salvation in thy seed.

Ah! can I this in Adams person say,

While fruitless tears melt my poor life away?

Of all the ills to mortals incident,

None more pernicious is than discontent,

That brat of unbelief, and stubborn pride,

And sensual lust, with no joy satisfied,

That doth ingratitude and murmur nurse,

And is a sin which carries its own curse;

This is the only smart of every ill;

But can we without it sad tortures feel?

Yes; if our souls above our sense remain,

And take not in th’ afflicted bodies pain,

When they descend and mix with the disease,

Then doth the anguish live, reign, and encrease

Which when the soul is not in it, grows faint,

And wastes its strength, not nourisht with complaint,

Submissive, humble, happy, sweet content

A thousand deaths by one death doth prevent;

When our rebellious wills subdued thereby

Gal. 2.20.Into th’ eternal will and wisdome, die;

Nor is that will harsh or irrational,

Mat. 11.But sweet in that which we most bitter call,

Who err in judging what is ill or good,

Only by studying that will, understood.

What we admire in a low Paradise,

If they our souls from heavenly thoughts entice,

Here terminating our most strong desire,

Which should to perfect permanence aspire,

From being good to us they are so far,

That they our fetters, yoaks and poysons are,

The obstacles of our felicity,

The ruine of our souls most firm healths be,

Quenching that life-maintaining appetite,

Which makes substantial fruit our sound delight.

The evils, so miscall’d, that we endure

Are wholsome medicines tending to our cure,

Only disease to these aversion breeds,

The healthy soul on them with due thanks feeds.

If for a Prince, a Mistress, or a Friend,

Many do joy their bloods and lives to spend,

Luk. 9.23,24.Wealth, honour, ease, dangers and wounds despise,

Should we not more to Gods will sacrifice?

And by free gift prevent that else sure loss?

Whate’re our will is, we must bear the cross,

Which freely taken up, the weight is less,

And hurts not, carried on with chearfulness;

Besides, what we can lose, are gliding streams,

Psal. 90.5,6,9.Light airy shadows, unsubstantial dreams,

& 49.10–13.Wherein we no propriety could have

But that which our own cheating fancy gave;

Lu. 12.20.The right of them was due to God alone,

And when with thanks we render him his own,

Either he gives us back our offerings,

Job 1.21.Or our submission pays with better things:

& 42.10–12.Were ills as real as our fancies make,

They soon must us, or we must them forsake;

We cannot miss ease and vicissitude,

Till our last rest our labours shall conclude.

Natural tears there are, which in due bound

Do not the soul with sinful sorrow drown,

2 Cor. 7.10.Repentant tears too are no fretting brine,

But loves soft meltings, which the soul refine,

Like gentle showers, that usher in the spring,

These make the soul more fair and flourishing.

No murmuring winds of passions here prevail,

But the life-breathing Spirits sweet fresh gale,

Which by those fruitful drops all graces feeds,

And draws rich extracts from the soaked seeds,

But worldly sorrow, like rough winters storms,

All graces kills, all loveliness deforms,

Augments the evils of our present state,

And doth eternal woes anticipate.

Vain is that grief which can no ill redress,

But adds affliction to uneasiness;

Unnerving the souls powers, then, when they shou’d

Most exercise their constant fortitude.

With these most certain truths let’s wind up all,

Whatever doth to mortal men befall

Not casual is, like shafts at randome shot,

But Providence distributes every lot,

In which th’ obedient and the meak rejoyce,

Above their own preferring Gods wise choice:

Nor is his providence less good than wise,

Tho’ our gross sense pierce not its mysteries.

As there’s but one most true substantial good,

And God himself is that Beatitude:

So can we suffer but one real ill,

Divorce from him by our repugnant will,

Which when to just submission it returns,

The reunited soul no longer mourns,

His serene rays dry up its former tears,

Dispel the tempest of its carnal fears,

Which dread what either never may arrive,

Or not as seen in their false perspective;

For in the crystal mirror of Gods grace

All things appear with a new lovely face.

When that doth Heavens more glorious palace show

We cease to’ admire a Paradise below,

Rejoyce in that which lately was our loss,

And see a Crown made up of every Cross.

Psa. 116.7.Return, return, my soul to thy true rest,

As young benighted birds unto their nest,

There hide thy self under the wings of love

Till the bright morning all thy clouds remove.