No flesh can answer their alarms,

Each spear they manage hath so many points.

II.

Death, arm'd in all his horrors, leads:

Whom more I charge, the less he yields: Affections, with an hundred heads

Conspire with them, and turn on me their shields.

III.

Nor look I yet, Lord, to the east,

Nor hope for help, where I am will'd: Nor as I ought, have arm'd my breast; But rust in sloth, and naked come to field.

IV.

And therefore hath the host of stars Now left me, that before I led :

Arm'd angels took my pay in wars,

X.

All this from heaven, thy eyes explore,
Yet silent sitt'st, and suffer'st all:
Since all I well deserve, and more;
And must confess me wilful in my fall.

XI.

And hence 'tis that thou lett'st me bleed,
Makest all men shun and scorn my life:
That all my works such envy breed,
And my disgrace gives food to all men's
strife.

. XII.

But this, since Goodness oft doth cause,
And 'tis God's grace to hear his ill.
Since 'tis a chief point in his laws,

No thought, without our power, to make our will.

XIII.

here for dead.

Against this rock with rage be borne: And from their height, still let me fall, Then, stand and laugh, and me lie still and scorn.

WHILE I was fall'n, I thought to rise, And stand, presuming, on my thighs:

hail,

Whose fervent agony tore the Temple's veil,

Let sacrifices out, dark prophecies
And miracles; and let in, for all these,
*A simple piety, a naked heart,
And humble spirit, that no less impart
And prove thy Godhead to us, being as

rare,

And in all sacred power, as circular. Water and blood mix'd, were not sweat from thee

With deadlier hardness, more divinity Of supportation, than through flesh and blood,

Good doctrine is diffused, and life as good.

O open to me than (like thy spread

arms,

That East and West reach) all those mystic

charms

That hold us in thy life and discipline;
Thy merits in thy love so thrice divine;
It made thee, being our God, assume our
man;

And like our Champion Olympian,

Simplicity of piety, and good life, answerable to such doctrine in men; now as rare as miracles in other times, and require as much divinity of supportation.

From death and hell; which cannot crown our brows,

*But blood must follow: thorns mix with thy boughs

Of conquering laurel, fast nail'd to thy Cross,

Are all the glories we can here engross. Prove then to those, that in vain-glory's place,

Their happiness here they hold not by thy grace,

To those whose powers, proudly oppose thy laws,

Oppressing Virtue, giving Vice applause :
They never manage just authority,
But thee in thy dear members crucify.

Thou couldst have come in glory past
them all,

With power to force thy pleasure, and empale

Thy Church with brass and adamant, that no swine,

Nor thieves, nor hypocrites, nor tfiends divine,

* As our Saviour's brows bled with his crown of thorns.

† Such as are Divines in profession; and, in fact, devils, or wolves in sheep's clothing.

Could have broke in, or rooted, or put on Vestments of piety, when their hearts had

none:

Or rapt to ruin with pretext to save, Would *pomp, and radiance, rather not

outbrave

Thy naked truth, than clothe, or countenance it

With grace, and such sincereness as is fit: But since true piety wears her pearls within,

And outward paintings only prank up sin: Since bodies strengthen'd, souls go to the wall;

Since God we cannot serve and Belial, Therefore thou putt'st on earth's most abject plight,

Hidd'st thee in humblesse, underwent'st | despite,

Mockery, detraction, shame, blows, vilest death.

These thou thy soldiers taught'st to fight beneath,

Madest a commanding precedent of these,
Perfect, perpetual, bearing all the keys
To holiness and heaven. To these, such
laws

Thou in thy blood writ'st, that were no

more cause

T'enflame our loves and fervent faiths in thee,

Than in them, truth's divine simplicity, "Twere full enough; for therein we may well

See thy white finger furrowing blackest hell,

In turning up the errors that our sense And sensual powers, incur by negligence Of our eternal truth-exploring soul.

All Churches' powers thy writ word doth control,

And, mixt it with the fabulous Alcoran, A man might boult it out, as flour from bran;

Easily discerning it a heavenly birth,

And controversies, thick as flies at spring, Must be maintain'd about the ingenuous meaning;

When no style can express itself so clear, Nor holds so even and firm a character. Those mysteries that are not to be reach'd, Still to be strived with, make them more impeach'd.

And as the Mill fares with an ill-pick'd grist,

When any stone the stones is got betwist, Rumbling together, fill the grain with grit,

Offends the ear, sets teeth on edge with it ;

Blunts the pick'd quarry so, 'twill grind no

more,

Spoils bread, and scants the Miller's custom'd store.

So in the Church, when controversy falls, It mars her music, shakes her batter'd walls,

Grates tender consciences, and weakens faith;

The bread of life taints, and makes work for Death;

Darkens truth's light with her perplex'd Abysms,

And dust-like grinds men into sects and schisms.

And what's the cause? The word's deficiency

In volume, matter, perspicuity? Ambition, lust, and damned avarice, Pervert, and each the sacred word applies To his profane ends; all to profit given, +And pursenets lay to catch the joys of heaven.

Since truth and real worth men seldom sease,

Impostors most, and sleightest learnings please;

And, where the true Church, like the nest should be

Of chaste, and provident ‡Alcione :

earth.

Yet (as if God lack'd man's election,
And shadows were creators of the sun)
Men must authorize it: antiquities
Must be explored, to spirit, and give it
thighs,

* Pomp and outward glory rather outface truth than countenance it.

+ Christ taught all his militant soldiers to fight under the ensigns of Shame and Death.

We need no other excitation to our faith in God and good life, but the Scriptures, and use of their means prescribed.

Which is so strictly fitted to her size,
That no bird bigger than herself, or less,
Can pierce and keep it, or discern th' access:

* Τα μὲν παρεργα ὡς ἔργα : τα δέ ἔργα ὡς Tápeрya. In these controversies men make the by the main: the main the by.

Men seek heaven with using the enemies to it Money and Avarice.

Alcione's nest described in part, out of Plut., to which the Church is compared.

$ If the bird be less, the sea will get in; by which means though she may get in, she could not preserve it.