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Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss : This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.

GRACE.

My stock lies dead, and no increase
Doth my dull husbandry improve :
O let thy graces without cease

Drop from above.

If still the sun should hide his face,
Thy house would but a dungeon prove;
Thy works, night's captives: O let grace
Drop from above.

The dew doth ev'ry morning fall:
And shall the dew outstrip thy Dove?
The dew, for which grass cannot call,
Drop from above?

Death is still working like a mole,
And digs my grave at each remove:
Let grace work too, and on my soul
Drop from above.

Sin is still hammering my heart,
Unto a hardness void of love:

Let suppling grace to cross his art,
Drop from above.

O come! for thou dost know the way:
Or if to me thou wilt not move,

Remove me where I need not say,

'Drop from above.'

CHURCH MUSIC.

SWEETEST of sweets, I thank you; when displeasure

Did through my body wound my mind, You took me thence, and in your house of pleasure A dainty lodging me assign'd.

Now I in you without a body move,
Rising and falling with your wings:
We both together sweetly live and love,
Yet say sometimes, God help poor kings!'

Comfort, I'll die; for if you post from me,
Sure I shall do so, and much more:

But if I travel in your company,

You know the way to Heaven's door.

THE WINDOWS.

LORD, how can man preach thy eternal Word?
He is a brittle crazy glass:

Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford,
This glorious and transcendent place,
To be a window, through thy grace.

But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story,
Making thy life to shine within
The holy preachers; then the light and glory
More rev'rend grows, and more doth win,-
Which else shows wat'rish, bleak, and thin.

Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one
When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and awe: but speech alone
Doth vanish like a flaring thing,
And in the ear, not conscience, ring.

CONSTANCY.

WHO is the honest man ?-
He that doth still, and strongly, good pursue,
To God, his neighbour, and himself most true:
Whom neither force nor fawning can
Unpin, or wrench from giving all their due :

Whose honesty is not

So loose or easy, that a ruffling wind
Can blow away, or glitt'ring look it blind:
Who rides his sure and even trot,

While the world now rides by, now lags behind :

Who, when great trials come,

Nor seeks, nor shuns them; but doth calmly stay,
Till he the thing and the example weigh:

All being brought into a sum,
What place or person calls for, he doth pay :

Whom none can work, or woo,

To use in any thing a trick or slight;
For above all things he abhors deceit ;

His words and works, and fashion too,
All of a piece, and all are clear and straight:

Who never melts or thaws

At close temptations: when the day is done,
His goodness sets not, but in dark can run :
The sun to others writeth laws,

And is their virtue-Virtue is his sun:

Who, when he is to treat

With sick folks, women, those whom passions sway, Allows for that, and keeps his constant way: Whom others' faults do not defeat;

But though men fail him, yet his part doth play:

Whom nothing can procure,

When the wide world runs bias, from his will
To writhe his limbs, and share, not mend the ill.—
This is the mark-man, safe and sure,
Who still is right, and prays to be so still.

AFFLICTION.

My heart did heave, and there came forth, 'O God!'
By that I knew that thou wast in the grief,
To guide and govern it to my relief,
Making a sceptre of the rod :

Hadst thou not had thy part,

Sure the unruly sigh had broke my heart.

But since thy breath gave me both life and shape,
Thou know'st my tallies; and when there's assign'd
So much breath to a sigh, what's then behind?
Or if some years with it escape,

The sigh then only is

A gale to bring me sooner to my bliss.

Thy life on earth was grief, and thou art still
Constant unto it, making it to be

A point of honour, now to grieve in me,
And in thy members suffer ill.

They who lament one cross,
Thou dying daily, praise thee to thy loss.

SUNDAY.

O DAY most calm, most bright,
The fruit of this, the next world's bud,
The indorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a Friend, and with his blood;
The couch of time, care's balm and bay:-
The week were dark, but for thy light;
Thy torch doth show the way.

The other days and thou

Make up one man; whose face thou art,
Knocking at heav'n with thy brow:
The workydays are the back-part;
The burden of the week lies there,
Making the whole to stoop and bow,
Till thy release appear.

Man had straight forward gone
To endless death: but thou dost pull
And turn us round, to look on one,
Whom, if we were not very dull,
We could not choose but look on still;
Since there is no place so alone,

The which he doth not fill.

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