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15.

From being anxious, or secure,

Dead clods of sadness, or light squibs of mirth,
From thinking, that great courts immure
All, or no happiness, or that this earth

Is only for our prison framed,

Or that thou art covetous

To them whom thou lovest, or that they're maimed From reaching this world's sweet, who seek thee thus With all their might, good Lord deliver us.

16.

From needing danger, to be good,

From owing thee yesterday's tears to-day,
From trusting so much to thy blood,

That in the hope, we wound our soul away,
From bribing thee with alms, to excuse
Some sin more burdenous,

From light affecting, in religion, news,
From thinking us all soul, neglecting thus
Our mutual duties, Lord deliver us.

17.

From tempting Satan to tempt us,

By our connivance, or slack company,

From measuring ill by vicious,

Neglecting to choke sin's spawn, vanity,
From indiscreet humility,

Which might be scandalous,

And cast reproach on Christianity,

From being spies, or to spies pervious,

From thirst, or scorn of flame, deliver us.

18.

Deliver us for thy descent

Into the virgin, whose womb was a place

Of middle kind; and thou being sent

To ungracious us, staid'st at her full of grace,
And through thy poor birth, where first thou
Glorifiest poverty.

And yet soon after riches didst allow,

By accepting kings' gifts in the Epiphany;
Deliver, and make us, to both ways free.

19.

And through that bitter agony,

Which still is the agony of pious wits,
Disputing what distorted thee,

And interrupted evenness, with fits;
And through thy free confession,

Though thereby they were then

Made blind, so that thou might'st from them have gone ; Good Lord deliver us, and teach us when

We may not, and we may blind unjust men.

20.

Through thy submitting all, to blows

Thy face, thy clothes to spoil; thy fame to scorn, All ways, which rage, or justice knows,

And by which thou could'st show, that thou wast born;
And through thy gallant humbleness,

Which thou in death did'st show,
Dying before thy soul they could express;
Deliver us from death, by dying so,
To this world, ere this world do bid us go.

21.

When senses, which thy soldiers are,

We arm against thee, and they fight for sin;
When want, sent but to tame, doth war

And work despair a breach to enter in;
When plenty, God's image, and seal
Makes us idolatrous,

And love it, not him, whom it should reveal;
When we are mov'd to seem religious

Only to vent wit, Lord deliver us.

22.

In churches, when the infirmity

Of him which speaks, diminishes the Word; When magistrates do misapply

To us, as we judge, lay, or ghostly sword;

When plague, which is thine angel, reigns,

Or wars, thy champions, sway;

When heresy, thy second deluge, gains;

In th' hour of death, th' eve of last judgment day,
Deliver us from the sinister way.

23.

Hear us, O hear us, Lord; to thee

A sinner is more music, when he prays, Than spheres' or angels' praises be,

In panegyric Alleluias:

Hear us, for till thou hear us, Lord,

We know not what to say.

Thine ear t' our sighs, tears, thoughts, gives voice and word. O thou who Satan heard'st in Job's sick day,

Hear thyself now, for thou in us dost pray.

24.

That we may change to evenness
This intermitting aguish piety,
That snatching cramps of wickedness
And apoplexies of fast sin, may die;
That music of thy promises,

Not threats in thunder may

Awaken us to our just offices,

What in thy book, thou dost, or creatures say,
That we may hear, Lord hear us, when we pray.

25.

That our ears' sickness we may cure,
And rectify those labyrinths aright,

That we, by hearkening, not procure
Our praise, nor others' dispraise so invite,
That we get not a slipperiness

And senselessly decline,

From hearing bold wits jest at kings' excess,
T'admit the like of majesty divine,

That we may lock our ears, Lord open

thine.

26.

That living law, the magistrate,

Which to give us, and make us physic, doth Our vices often aggravate;

That preachers taxing sin, before her growth, That Satan, and envenom'd men

Which will, if we starve, dine,

When they do most accuse us, may see then Us to amendment hear them, thee decline, That we may open our ears, Lord lock thine.

27.

That learning, thine ambassador,

From thine allegiance we never tempt;
That beauty, paradise's flower

For physic made, from poison be exempt;
That wit, born apt, high good to do
By dwelling lazily

On nature's nothing, be not nothing too;

That our affections kill us not, nor die,

Hear us, weak echoes, O thou ear, and cry!

28.

Son of God, hear us; and since thou
By taking our blood, owe'st it us again,
Gain to thyself, or us allow;

And let not both us and thyself be slain;

O Lamb of God, which took'st our sin
Which could not stick to thee,

O let it not return to us again,
But patient and physician being free,
As sin is nothing, let it nowhere be.

II.

THE CROSS.

SINCE Christ embraced the cross itself, dare I
His image, th' image of his cross, deny?
Would I have profit by the sacrifice,
And dare the chosen altar to despise?
It bore all other sins, but is it fit

That it should bear the sin of scorning it?
Who from the picture would avert his eye,
How would he fly his pains, who there did die!
From me, no pulpit, nor misgrounded law,
Nor scandal taken, shall this cross withdraw:

It shall not, for it cannot; for the loss
Of this cross, were to me another cross.
Better were worse, for no affliction,

No cross, is so extreme, as to have none;
Who can blot out the cross, which th' instrument
Of God, dew'd on me in the sacrament?

Who can deny me power, and liberty

To stretch mine arms, and mine own cross to be?
Swim, and at every stroke, thou art thy cross;
The mast and yard make one, where seas do toss.
Look down, thou spy'st out crosses in small things;
Look up, thou see'st birds raised on crossed wings;
All the globe's frame, and spheres, is nothing else
But the meridian's crossing parallels.
Material crosses, then, good physic be,
But yet spiritual have chief dignity.
These for extracted chemic medicine serve,
And cure much better, and as well preserve;
Then are you your own physic, or need none,
When still'd or purged by tribulation.
For when that cross ungrudged unto you sticks,
Then are you to yourself a crucifix.

As perchance, carvers do not faces make :

But that away, which hid them there, do take.
Let crosses, so, take what hid Christ in thee,

And be his image, or not his, but he.
But, as oft alchymists do coiners prove,
So may a self-despising get self-love.

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