Of order namde Melchisedeck,
Whom peace and right doth ioyntly decke As God's elect.
5 The Lord, as shield, kepth right thy hand To make thy raigne inuincible: He shall subdue by sea and land All power aduerse most forcible : He shall great kyngs and Cæsars wound; In day of wrath, all them confound By fearefull sound.
6 He iudgment true shall exercise, As iudge among the Gentile sect; All places he shall full surprise, Wyth bodies dead, on earth proiect. Abrode he shall in sunder smyte The heds of realmes that him will spyte, Or scorne hys myght.
7 Though here exilde, he strayth as bond, And shall in way but water drynke Of homely brooke as comth to hand, Pursued to death, and wysht to sinke: Yet he for thys humilitie
Shall lift hys head in dignitie
O Lord, the eternall Sonne of the Father, which wast begotten before the world was made, and art the first of all creatures, we lowly beseche thee that where, by the session of the ryhte hande of thy Father, thou subduest thy enemies, so make vs to subdue all the dominion of sinne rising against vs, to be made meete to serue thee in all godliness: who liuest and raignest one God wyth the Father, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
AN HYMNE OF HEAVENLY LOVE, LOVE, lift me up upon thy golden wings From this base world unto thy heaven's hight, Where I may see those admirable things Which there thou workest by thy soveraine might, Farre above feeble reach of earthly sight, That I thereof an heavenly hymne may sing Unto the God of Love, high heaven's King.
Many lewd layes (ah! woe is me the more!) In praise of that mad fit which fooles call Love, I have in th' heate of youth made heretofore, That in light wits did loose affection move: But all these follies now I do reprove, And turned have the tenor of my string, The heavenly prayses of true Love to sing. And ye, that wont with greedy vaine desire To reade my fault, and, wondring at my flame, To warme yourselves at my wide sparckling fire, Sith now that heat is quenched, quench my blame, And in her ashes shrowd my dying shame; For who my passed follies now pursewes, Beginnes his owne, and my old fault renewes. BEFORE THIS WORLD'S GREAT FRAME, in which al things
Are now contained, found any being-place, Ere flitting Time could wag his eyas wings About that mightie bound which doth embrace The rolling spheres, and parts their houres by space,
That High Eternall Powre, which now doth move In all these things, mov'd in its selfe by love. It lov'd it selfe, because it selfe was faire ; (For fair is lov'd;) and of it self begot Like to it selfe his eldest Sonne and Heire, Eternall, pure, and voide of sinfull blot, The firstling of His ioy, in whom no iot Of love's dislike or pride was to be found, Whom He therefore with equall honour crown'd. With Him he raign'd, before all time prescribed, In endlesse glorie and immortall might,
Together with that Third from them derived, Most wise, most holy, most almightie Spright! Whose kingdome's throne no thoughts of earthly wight
Can comprehend, much lesse my trembling verse With equall words can hope it to reherse. Yet, O most blessed Spright! pure lampe of light, Eternall spring of grace and wisedom trew, Vouchsafe to shed into my barren spright Some little drop of thy celestiall dew, That may my rymes with sweet infuse embrew, And give me words equall unto my thought, To tell the marveiles by thy mercie wrought. Yet being pregnant still with powrefull grace, And full of fruitfull Love, that loves to get Things like himselfe, and to enlarge his race, His second brood, though not of powre so great, Yet full of beautie, next He did beget An infinite increase of angels bright, All glistring glorious in their Maker's light. To them the heaven's illimitable hight (Not this round heaven, which we from hence be- hold,
Adorn'd with thousand lamps of burning light, And with ten thousand gemmes of shyning gold,) He gave as their inheritance to hold,
That they might serve Him in eternall blis, And be partakers of these ioyes of His.
There they in their trinall triplicities About Him wait, and on His will depend, Either with nimble wings to cut the skies, When He them on His messages doth send, Or on His owne dread presence to attend, Where they behold the glorie of His light, And caroll hymnes of love both day and night.
Both day and night is unto them all one; For He His beames doth unto them extend, That darknesse there appeareth never none; Ne hath their day, ne hath their blisse, an end, But there their termelesse time in pleasure spend: Ne ever should their happinesse decay, Had not they dar'd their Lord to disobay.
But pride, impatient of long resting peace, Did puffe them up with greedy bold ambition, That they gan cast their state how to increase Above the fortune of their first condition, And sit in God's own seat without commission : The brightest angel, even the child of Light, Drew millions more against their God to fight.
Th' Almighty, seeing their so bold assay, Kindled the flame of His consuming yre, And with His onely breath them blew away From heaven's hight, to which they did aspyre, To deepest hell and lake of damned fyre; Where they in darknesse and dread horror dwell, Hating the happie light from which they fell.
So that next off-spring of the Maker's love, Next to Himselfe in glorious degree, Degendering to hate, fell from above
Through pride, (for pride and love may ill agree,) And now of sinne to all ensample bee: How then can sinnful flesh it selfe assure, Sith purest angels fell to be impure? But that Eternall Fount of love and grace, Still flowing forth His goodnesse unto all, Now seeing left a waste and emptie place In His wyde pallace, through those angels' fall, Cast to supply the same, and to enstall A new unknowen colony therein,
Whose root from earth's base groundworke should begin.
Therefore of clay, base, vile, and next to nought, Yet form'd by wondrous skill, and by His might According to an heavenly patterne wrought, Which He had fashioned in his wise foresight, He man did make, and breath'd a living spright Into his face, most beautifull and fayre, Endewd with wisedome's riches, heavenly, rare. Such He him made, that he resemble might Himselfe, as mortall thing immortall could; Him to be lord of every living wight He made by love out of his owne like mould, In whom He might His mightie selfe behould: For Love doth love the thing belov'd to see, That like it selfe in lovely shape may bee.
But man, forgetfull of his Maker's grace No lesse than Angels, whom he did ensew, Fell from the hope of promist heavenly place Into the mouth of Death, to sinners dew, And all his offspring into thraldome threw,
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