THE BLESSEDNESS OF SERVING GOD.

OF monarchs he to Him is great alone
Who to himself becomes a little one.

The only greatness which poore man can have
Is to be here his Great Redeemer's slave.
That king that doth not heav'n's just King obey,
A traitor is himself to majesty.

The simple shepherd who with chaste desires
And cheerful innocence to heav'n aspires;
The honest, painful labourer, who sweats
From morn to night, to get the bread he eats;
If he serves heaven, is indeed more great
Than kings, with all their pride and purple state.
Thrice brave those monarchs who had dar'd to fly
From all the alluring charms of majesty.

Thrice blest are those who fled from being great,
From courts, to suffer cottage's retreat:

Heaven kindly doth their humble thoughts defeat,
For greatness while they strive to shun, they meet.
They are made great, and far more glorious kings
By being just, than by all earthly things.
Ah! how we win in losing for our God,
While heav'n is gained for a poore sorry clod
Of earth: when for a short grief here endur'd
We are of everlasting joyes assur'd.

Since for our pleasure we refuse our sense,
We shall have millions for our recompence.
Poore abus❜d men, unlucky flocke that stray
Without the shepherd, void of the right way;
Unthinking souls that perish with delight,
Which all the threats of heav'n cannot affright.

For sure those pains which doth on sin attend,
Pain which begins, but never must have end;
The immaterial fire that burneth still,

But to their great misfortune cannot kill;
The devil's dungeons, and all sorts of paine,
Which human fortitude cannot sustaine,
Might, one would think, men's brutish courage
shake,

And in our soules a noble fear awake.

JOHN NORDEN.

CUSTOME.

FOR custome is not simply dangerous,
Best actions may by custome waxe farre worse;
Yet custome is not simply dangerous,
Though in the worser part suspitious.
Of slender sparke ariseth mighty flame,
But not vnless fit matter feed the same;
So where as Custome sets its foote to rise
In ill, subdue her, lest she tyrannize.
While she is young she may be managed,
But growing olde she will be strong in head;
But ever weakest is she found to bee,

When she should worke the mindes of men to mee.
And when she frames her will to aide my foe,
She's prest; the hag needs not constraine her goe;
Yet not of her selfe-inclination,

But as men's minds haue preparation.

For though she seeme a princesse by her law,
She is not absolute, but under awe;

She doth command the mindes she can surprise,
(The seeming so), but not the truly wise:
By nature men are proanest to doe ill,
Without an outward prompter of the will;
And where she finds the will prepared so,
She feeds affection as fond fansies goe;
She offers still occasion of her aide,
Stil building more upon the plot she laide.
Thus custome alters, or begins anew,
A nature which at first her self withdrew ;

Both good and ill she can transforme and make,
As is the heart apt good or ill to take.

She's agent both for that foule hag and me,-
Regards not much whose instrument she bee;
But that my foe hath her attendance most,
She brings me only those that hag hath lost,—
Decrepite, feeble, aged, impotent,

The wrong'd, oppressed, lowly, indigent,

They that, by her despite and pleasing charmes, Have found her whichcraft, and doe feel their harmes,

Not yet by nature, but b' instinct of grace,
That only light bewraies her vgly face.

Flie her, her pleasures and false instruments,
And set thy heart right on my rudiments:
I am delite, my wayes and workes delite,
My pleasures please not carnall appetite.
Heroicke acts, that make men honorable,
Are only sweet and most inestimable ;
The rest are false, found mere scurrilitie,
By which some loose both fame and dignitie;
But such as have me patronesse and guide
Shall never fall, howso they seeme to slide :
They shall withstand, and get the victorie
Ouer that hagge and hellish companie ;
Whose conquest farre exceedes the manli'st hand
That swaies a sword, none stronger can withstand.

THOMAS TVKE.

TO THE MEN OF ROME, AS WELL
LAIQUES AS CLERIQUES.

PRIEST make their Maker Christ, yee must not doubt;

They eat, drink, box him vp, and beare about:
Substance of things they turne; nor is this all,
For both the signes must hold him severall:

Hee's whole' ith' bread, whole ith' cuppe;
Theye eat him whole, whole they suppe;
Whole ith' cake, and whole ith' cuppe.
This with you all doeth goe for veritie;
To hold contrary is meer heresie:
This is pure catholique, pure divine.

And thus feast ye; he with his Christ, thou with thine :

Without bread and wine, indeed,
For this is your Roman creed;
Whom ye make, on him ye feed.

The bread and wine themselves away are gone,
Shewes of them tarry still, but substance none :
They make their God, and they eat him vp;
They swallow down his flesh, and blood vp sup.
They'll taste no flesh on frydayes (that's not good);
But of their new-mad God, and of his blood.
And as the whale did Jonas, so they eat
Him up alive, body and soule, as meat.

1 Vnder the shewes, as they talke, of bread and wine.