We erre in nought with danger more extreame, Nor in ought labour with more hard assay; Yet nought we know with more hart's ioy than them :

But in their search, if once we lose our way, We may be lost and vtterly decay:

Its deadly dangerous then for them to looke
Through waies more sullen then the foe of day,
Without Faith's lanthorne, Truth's most blessed
booke,

Which none ere left, but straight the way forsooke.
For Justice' Sonne was sent by Grace his sire
The gospell to promulgate from his brest,
His councels to disclose, our doubts to chere:
Then if we go to seeke this Beeing blest
Without these helpes, we strayeng neuer rest.

GRIEFE FOR SINNE IS A IOYFULL SORROW.

BUT yet the good which we by sinne receaue
Doth farre surmount the ill that comes from thence.
If God the world of ill should quite bereaue,
There were no test to try our sapience;
So might want reason and intelligence:
But we haue both, to know the good from bad;
So know we God, and our soule's safe defence:
Then since by ill we are so well bestad,
We cannot greeue for ill, but must be glad.
For were there no temptation, then no fight;
And if no fight, no victory could be:
No victory, no palmes nor vertues white;
No crosse, no crowne of immortality:
And thus from ill comes good abundantly:

GRIEF FOR SIN IS A JOYFUL SORROW. 249

For by the conquest of it we are crown'd
With glory in secure felicity.

So from great ills more goods to vs redound,
As oft most sicknesse maketh vs most sound.

Ill, like a mole vpon the world's faire cheeke, Doth stil set forth that fairenes much the more: She were to seeke much good were ill to seeke, For good by ill increaseth strength and store, At least in our conceit, and vertuous lore. There's nought so euill that is good for nought: God giuing vs a salue for ev'ry sore,

The good are humbled by their euil'st thought: So to the good al's good that ill hath wrought.

BLESSED BE THE MERCIFULL: FOR THEY SHALL OBTAINE MERCY.

(Matt. v. 7.)

WHAT Wit hath man to leaue that wealth behind,
Which he might carry hence when hence he goes?
What almes he giues aliue, he, dead, doth find;
But what he leaues behind him, he doth lose.
To giue away then is to beare away;

They most do hold who haue the openest hands:
To hold too hard makes much the lesse to stay;
Though stay there may more then the hand com-
mands.

The beggar's belly is the batful'st ground
That we can sow in; for it multiplies

Our faith and hope, and makes our loue abound,
And what else grace and nature deerely prize:
So thus may kings be richer in their graue
Then on their thrones, though all the world
they haue.

STANZAS

From "Christ's Crosse, containing Christ Crucified, described in speaking picture."

(The author, having described the agony of our Lord, thus proceeds to address Nature.)

O NATURE, carefull mother of vs all,

How canst thou liue to see thy God thus die? To heare his paines, thus, thus for pittie call, And yet to find no grace in pittie's eie!

Thy frame, deere Nature, should be quite dissolu'd,

Or thy whole powers into teares resolu❜d. His anguish hauing this in silence said, See now how he sore labours for the last: The last deneere of sinne's debt being defraid, It now remains that Death the reckning cast: But heauy Death, because the summe is great, Takes yet some longer time to doe the feat. But now, my soule, here let vs make a station, To view perspicuously this sad aspect: And through the Jacob's staffe of Christ his passion Let's spie with our right eie his paines' effect: That in the lab'rinth of his languishment

We may, though lost therein, find solagement. The mind, still crost with heart-tormenting crosses, Here finds a crosse to keepe such crosses out: Here may the loser find more than his losses, If Faith beleeue what here Faith cannot doubt: For all his wounds with voice vociferant Crie out they can more than supply each want. This holy crosse is the true Tutament, Protecting all ensheltered by the same;

And though Disaster's face be truculent,
Yet will this engine set it fair in frame:
This is the feeble soule's nere-failing crouch,
And grieued bodies hard but wholesom❜st couch.
Looke on this crosse, when thou art stung with

care;

It cures forthwith like Moises' metl'd snake: What can afflict thee when thy passions are Pattern'd by his, that paines perfections make? Wilt be so God-vnlike, to see thy God

Embrace the whip, and thou abhorre the rod ? See, see, the more than all soule-slaying paines, Which more than all for thee and all he prou'd: What man, except a God he be, sustaines Such hels of paine for man with mind unmou'd? What part, as erst was said, of all his parts, But tortur'd is with smarts, exceeding smarts? His vaines and nerues, that channelize his blood, By violent conuulsions all confracted; His bones and ioynts, from whence they whilome stood,

With rackings quite disloked and distracted:

His head, hands, feet, yea, all from top to toe, Make but the imperfect corpse of perfect woe. O that mine head were head of seau'nfold Nyle, That from the same might flowe great floods of teares,

Therein to bathe his bloodlesse body, while
His blood effuz'd, in sight confuz'd appeares !
Then should my teares egelidate his gore,
That from his blood founts for me flow'd
before.

O burning loue! O large and lasting loue!
What angel's tongue thy limits can describe?

¦ That dost extend thyself all loue aboue,
For which all praise loue ought to thee ascribe:
Sith skarce the tongue of God's humanitie
Can well describe this boundlesse charitie.
Why do I liue? alas, why do I liue?
Why is not my heart loue-sicke to the death?
But shall I liue my louing Lord to grieue?
O no! O rather let me lose my breath:

Then take me to thee, Loue; O let me die, Onely but for thy loue, and sinne to flie. Stay me with flagons; with fruit comfort me; Now I am sicke, heart-sicke of sweetest loue: Then let me liue, sweet Loue, alone in thee, For loue desires in that Belou'd to moue:

I liue and moue in thee, but yet, O yet,
I liue to mone; that is, to make thee fret.

O let the summe of all be all, and some,
Comprised in thy heau'n-surmounting praise:
Thou wast, and art, and shalt be aye to come,
The subiect of thy subiects' thankfull laies;
Who with aduanced voice doe carroll forth
The praise of thine inestimable worth.

And sith thy soule for me is so conflicted,
My soule to thee in griefes shall be affected:
And, for thy flesh through loue is so afflicted,
My flesh for thy high loue shall be deiected:
Soule, flesh, and spirit, for thy spirit, flesh, and
soule,

Shall longing pine in flesh-repining dole.
Mine onely schoole shall be mount Caluerie;
The pulpit but the crosse; and teacher none,
But the mere crucifixe to mortifie;

No letters but thy blessed wounds alone: