THE GOODNESS OF GOD TOWARDS ALL MANKIND MANIFOLD WAYES.
In Creating all things for our use, and us for his glory.
O GLORIOUS God! how much is man
For ever bound to praise thy Name,
No mortall wight can rightly scan,
As well thy workes expresse the same.
If man look up with fixed eyes,
How wonderfully doth appeare
Thy workmanship in azure skyes,
With all thy creatures planted there;
The sunne and moone above the rest,
To guide and rule each day and night,
With glistering starrs all ready prest,
To pleasure us by shining bright;
The clouds that hang above our heads,
As times and seasons do require,
Their fruitfull showers abroad do spread,
To satisfy our hartes' desire.
If man cast down his eyes below,
To view God's creatures here on earth,
How do they all his love foreshew,
Still to preserve man's vitall breath';
The foules that flye in firmament,
And all kind fishes in the sea,
To take and use for his content,
With beastes on th' earth to rule away2;
And for man's meat did God provide
All fruitfull trees (save only one),
With
every herb that beareth seed,
For man all times to feed upon3.
A pleasant place, cal'd Parradice,
God planted mankind first therein,
To have all times what hart could wish,
So long as he avoided sinne*;
And that man might live in this state,
And never die (unlesse he would),
The tree of life, thereon to eate,
God planted in the sacred mould 5:
How truely then might mankind say,
How much are we, Lord, bound to thee,
For all thy favours every way,
Inlarged so aboundantly!
Much more if thou lift up thy mind,
To meditate God's love to thee,
A thousand fold thou shalt it finde
Exceeding others in degree:
For, in creating all things else,
God only said, Let it be so;
And so they were (as Scripture tells),
His mighty power, by word to shoe';
But in creating man, God said,
Let us make man; whereby we see
His perfect person to be made
Even by the blessed Trinity:
Which proveth man did farre excell
All former workes, it is most plaine;
As that which followes (marke it well),
In our own image, doth containe'.
For by God's image, in this place,
Is meant these special qualities3,
(His knowledge, truth, and holinesse,)
All which in man were pure likewise':
For knowledge, Adam first did name
All living creatures in their kind;
His life also was without blume,
And all the graces of his minde*:
So that in these was no dissent
'Twixt God and man, (for gifts most cleare,) Save (all in God were permanent,)
But man might change, as did appeare3.
Behold God's love to man yet more,
In placing him the supreame lord Of all his creatures made before,
To guide and governe by his wordeR.
And that which most did shew God's love,
There was but one excepted tree,
Which he forbad that man should proue,
On pain of death eternally".
What could God more have done for man,
Or how much is man to him bound,
No earthly wight can rightly scan;
Then be not slacke his praise to sound3.
1 Gen. i. 26, 27. + Eph. iv. 24.
2 Gen. ii. 20. 5 Gen. iii. 6 Gen. i.
TO THE TRUE DEVOTED READER.
ALL curious quaint abiliments exil'd,
In humblest habite now my verse compil'd;
Like a poor pilgrime, all alone I stand,
Taking my iorney to the Holy Land,
And fain would have, since thus transported hither,
All sorts, all sects, associate me thither;
But all (alas! woe worth) doe me disdaine,
And on my palmer's weeds with scorn com-
plaine,
Upbraiding me, that I, in time of yore,
Triumphant vertue's vestures viuely wore.
What though those lines a prisoner's pace now walk,
Which whilom did in courtly measure stalke?
To open view now they expose their faults,
Though like a weakeling that on crowches haultes;
The fading flower those youthfull times,
Now reft of power, bewailes her ruthfull crimes,
And ruminating on a sea of sinne,
Bewraies without what her betraies within;
Then with my poems playnness wract dispence,
Devour'd in zeal, is oft distract in sence.
Let not the rashnes of demolisht time
Explode my harshnes and unpolisht rime,
Nor shun me now, though I, like lowly Job,
This leprous corps of sinne with rags enrobe;
But sit by me, read me, and turn me ore,
And with thine vnguents gently salue my soare.
Within this port weel'e anchor safe from rockes,
From swelling billowes, raging gusts, and shocks,
Till Thetis, Halcion, Neptune's force doth hayle,
Then shall our gallion spread a loftier saile,
And from outragious stormes and tempests stand
For safe arivall in the Holy Land.
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