Classic Poem

Sauiour on the Crosse.

Haile great Redeemer, man, and God, all haile,
Whose feruent agonie, tore the temples vaile,
Let sacrifices out, darke Prophesies
And miracles: and let in, for all these,
A simple pietie, a naked heart,
And humble spirit, that no lesse impart,
And proue thy Godhead to vs, being as rare,
And in all sacred powre, as circulare.
Water and blood mixt, were not swet from thee
With deadlier hardnesse: more diuinitie
Of supportation, then through flesh and blood,
Good doctrine is diffusde, and life as good.
O open to me then, (like thy spread armes
That East & West reach) all those misticke charmes
That hold vs in thy life and discipline:
Thy merits in thy loue so thrice diuine;
It made thee, being our God, assume our man;
And like our Champion Olympian,
Come to the field gainst Sathan, and our sinne:
Wrastle with torments, and the garland winne
From death & hell; which cannot crown our browes
But blood must follow: thornes mixe with thy bowes
Of conquering Lawrell, fast naild to thy Crosse,
Are all the glories we can here engrosse.
Proue then to those, that in vaine glories place
Their happinesse here: they hold not by thy grace,
To those whose powres, proudly oppose thy lawes,
Oppressing Vertue, giuing Vice applause:
They neuer manage iust authoritie,
But thee in thy deare members crucifie.
Thou couldst haue come in glorie past them all,
With powre to force thy pleasure, and empale
Thy Church with brasse, & Adamant, that no swine,
Nor theeues, nor hypocrites, nor fiends diuine
Could haue broke in, or rooted, or put on
Vestments of Pietie, when their hearts had none:
Or rapt to ruine with pretext, to saue:
Would pompe, and radiance, rather not out braue
Thy naked truth, then cloath, or countnance it
With grace, and such sincerenesse as is fit:
But since true pietie weares her pearles within,
And outward paintings onely pranke vp sinne:
Since bodies strengthned, soules go to the wall;
Since God we cannot serue and Beliall;
Therefore thou putst on, earths most abiect plight,
Hid'st thee in humblesse, vnderwentst despight,
Mockerie, detraction, shame, blowes, vilest death.
These, thou, thy souldiers taughtst to fight beneath:
Mad'st a commanding President of these,
Perfect, perpetuall: bearing all the keyes
To holinesse, and heauen. To these, such lawes
Thou in thy blood writst: that were no more cause
T'enflame our loues, and feruent faiths in thee,
Then in them, truths diuine simplicitie,
Twere full enough; for therein we may well
See thy white finger furrowing blackest hell,
In turning vp the errors that our sence
And sensuall powres, incurre by negligence
Of our eternall truth-exploring soule.
All Churches powres, thy writ word doth controule;
And mixt it with the fabulous Alchoran,
A man might boult it out, as floure from branne;
Easily discerning it, a heauenly birth,
Brake it but now out, and but crept on earth.
Yet (as if God lackt mans election,
And shadowes were creators of the Sunne)
Men must authorise it: antiquities
Must be explor'd, to spirit, and giue it thies,
And controuersies, thicke as flies at Spring,
Must be maintain'd about th'ingenuous meaning;
When no stile can expresse it selfe so cleare,
Nor holds so euen, and firme a character.
Those mysteries that are not to be reacht,
Still to be striu'd with, make them more impeacht:
And as the Mill fares with an ill pickt grist,
When any stone, the stones is got betwist,
Rumbling together, fill the graine with grit;
Offends the eare, sets teeth an edge with it:
Blunts the pict quarrie so, twill grinde no more,
Spoyles bread, and scants the Millars custom'd store.
So in the Church, when controuersie fals,
It marres her musicke, shakes her batterd wals,
Grates tender consciences, and weakens faith;
The bread of life taints, & makes worke for Death;
Darkens truths light, with her perplext Abysmes,
And dustlike grinds men into sects and schismes.
And what's the cause? the words deficiencie?
In volume, matter, perspecuitie?
Ambition, lust, and damned auarice,
Peruert, and each the sacred word applies
To his prophane ends; all to profite giuen,
And pursnets lay to catch the ioyes of heauen.
Since truth, and reall worth, men seldome sease,
Impostors most, and sleightest learnings please.
And, where the true Church, like the nest should be
Of chast, and prouident Alcione:
(To which is onely one straight orifice,
Which is so strictly fitted to her sise,
That no bird bigger then her selfe, or lesse,
Can pierce and keepe it, or discerne th'accesse:
Nor which the sea it selfe, on which tis made,
Can euer ouerflow, or once inuade;)
Now wayes so many to her Altars are,
So easie, so prophane, and populare:
That torrents charg'd with weeds, and sin-drownd beasts,
Breake in, lode, cracke them: sensuall ioyes and feasts
Corrupt their pure fumes: and the slendrest flash
Of lust, or profite, makes a standing plash
Of sinne about them, which men will not passe.
Looke (Lord) vpon them, build them wals of brasse,
To keepe prophane feete off: do not thou
In wounds and anguish euer ouerflow,
And suffer such in ease, and sensualitie,
Dare to reiect thy rules of humble life:
The minds true peace, & turne their zeales to strife,
For obiects earthly, and corporeall.
A tricke of humblesse now they practise all,
Confesse their no deserts, habilities none:
Professe all frailties, and amend not one:
As if a priuiledge they meant to claime
In sinning by acknowledging the maime
Sinne gaue in Adam: Nor the surplussage
Of thy redemption, seeme to put in gage
For his transgression: that thy vertuous paines
(Deare Lord) haue eat out all their former staines;
That thy most mightie innocence had powre
To cleanse their guilts: that the vnualued dowre
Thou mad'st the Church thy spouse, in pietie,
And (to endure paines impious) constancie,
Will and alacritie (if they inuoke)
To beare the sweete lode, and the easie yoke
Of thy iniunctions, in diffusing these
(In thy perfection) through her faculties:
In euery fiuer, suffering to her vse,
And perfecting the forme thou didst infuse
In mans creation: made him cleare as then
Of all the frailties, since defiling men.
And as a runner at th'Olympian games,
With all the luggage he can lay on, frames
His whole powres to ye race, bags, pockets, greaues
Stuft full of sand he weares, which when he leaues,
And doth his other weightie weeds vncouer,
With which halfe smotherd, he is wrapt all ouer:
Then seemes he light, and fresh as morning aire;
Guirds him with silkes, swaddles with roulers faire
His lightsome body: and away he scoures
So swift, and light, he scarce treads down the flowrs:
So to our game proposde, of endlesse ioy
(Before thy deare death) when we did employ,
Our tainted powres; we felt them clogd and chain'd
With sinne and bondage, which did rust, and raign'd
In our most mortall bodies: but when thou
Strip'dst vs of these bands, and from foote to brow
Guirt, rold, and trimd vs vp in thy deserts:
Free were our feete, and hands; and spritely hearts
Leapt in our bosoms; and (ascribing still
All to thy merits: both our powre and will
To euery thought of goodnesse, wrought by thee;
That diuine scarlet, in which thou didst die
Our cleansd consistence; lasting still in powre
T'enable acts in vs, as the next howre
To thy most sauing, glorious sufferance)
We may make all our manly powres aduance
Vp to thy Image; and these formes of earth,
Beauties and mockeries, matcht in beastly birth:
We may despise, with still aspiring spirits
To thy high graces, in thy still fresh merits:
Not touching at this base and spongie mould,
For any springs of lust, or mines of gold.
For else (milde Sauiour, pardon me to speake)
How did thy foote, the Serpents forhead breake?
How hath the Nectar of thy vertuous blood,
The sinke of Adams forfeit ouerflow'd?
How doth it set vs free, if we still stand
(For all thy sufferings) bound both foote and hand
Vassals to Sathan? Didst thou onely die,
Thine owne diuine deserts to glorifie,
And shew thou couldst do this? O were not those
Giuen to our vse in powre? If we shall lose
By damn'd relapse, grace to enact that powre:
And basely giue vp our redemptions towre,
Before we trie our strengths, built all on thine,
And with a humblesse, false, and Asinine,
Flattering our senses, lay vpon our soules
The burthens of their conquests, and like Moules
Grouell in earth still, being aduanc't to heauen:
(Cowes that we are) in heards how are we driuen
To Sathans shambles? Wherein stand we for
Thy heauenly image, Hels great Conqueror?
Didst thou not offer, to restore our fall
Thy sacrifice, full, once, and one for all?
If we be still downe, how then can we rise
Againe with thee, and seeke crownes in the skies?
But we excuse this; saying, We are but men,
And must erre, must fall: what thou didst sustaine
To free our beastly frailties, neuer can
With all thy grace, by any powre in man
Make good thy Rise to vs: O blasphemie
In hypocriticall humilitie!
As we are men, we death and hell controule,
Since thou createdst man a liuing soule:
As euerie houre we sinne, we do like beasts:
Heedlesse, and wilfull, murthering in our breasts
Thy saued image, out of which, one cals
Our humane soules, mortall celestialls:
When casting off a good lifes godlike grace,
We fall from God; and then make good our place
When we returne to him: and so are said
To liue: when life like his true forme we leade,
And die (as much as can immortall creature:)
Not that we vtterly can ceasse to be,
But that we fall from life's best qualitie.
But we are tost out of our humane Throne
By pied and Protean opinion;
We vouch thee onely, for pretext and fashion,
And are not inward with thy death and passion.
We slauishly renounce thy royaltie
With which thou crownst vs in thy victorie:
Spend all our manhood in the fiends defence,
And drowne thy right, in beastly negligence.
God neuer is deceiu'd so, to respect,
His shade in Angels beauties, to neglect
His owne most cleare and rapting louelinesse:
Nor Angels dote so on the species
And grace giuen to our soule (which is their shade)
That therefore they will let their owne formes fade.
And yet our soule (which most deserues our woe,
And that from which our whole mishap doth flow)
So softn'd is, and rapt (as with a storme)
With flatteries of our base corporeall forme,
(Which is her shadow) that she quite forsakes
Her proper noblesse, and for nothing takes
The beauties that for her loue, thou putst on;
In torments rarefied farre past the Sunne.
Hence came the cruell fate that Orpheus
Sings of Narcissus: who being amorous
Of his shade in the water (which denotes
Beautie in bodies, that like water flotes)
Despisd himselfe, his soule, and so let fade
His substance for a neuer-purchast shade.
Since soules of their vse, ignorant are still,
With this vile bodies vse, men neuer fill.
And, as the Suns light, in streames ne're so faire
Is but a shadow, to his light in aire,
His splendor that in aire we so admire,
Is but a shadow to his beames in fire:
In fire his brightnesse, but a shadow is
To radiance fir'd, in that pure brest of his:
So as the subiect on which thy grace shines,
Is thicke, or cleare; to earth or heauen inclines;
So that truths light showes; so thy passion takes;
With which, who inward is, and thy breast makes
Bulwarke to his breast, against all the darts
The foe stil shoots more, more his late blow smarts,
And sea-like raues most, where tis most withstood.
He tasts the strength and vertue of thy blood:
He knows that when flesh is most sooth'd, & grac't,
Admir'd and magnified, ador'd, and plac't
In height of all the blouds Idolatry,
And fed with all the spirits of Luxury,
One thought of ioy, in any soule that knowes
Her owne true strength, and thereon doth repose;
Bringing her bodies organs to attend
Chiefly her powres, to her eternall end;
Makes all things outward; and the sweetest sin,
That rauisheth the beastly flesh within;
All but a fiend, prankt in an Angels plume:
A shade, a fraud, before the wind a fume.
Hayle then diuine Redeemer, still all haile,
All glorie, gratitude, and all auaile,
Be giuen thy all-deseruing agonie;
Whose vineger thou Nectar mak'st in me,
Whose goodnesse freely all my ill turnes good:
Since thou being crusht, & straind throgh flesh & blood:
Each nerue and artire needs must tast of thee.
What odour burn'd in ayres that noisome be,
Leaues not his sent there? O then how much more
Must thou, whose sweetnesse swet eternall odour,
Stick where it breath'd, & for whom thy sweet breath,
Thou freely gau'st vp, to reuiue his death?
Let those that shrink then as their conscience lodes,
That fight in Sathans right, and faint in Gods,
Still count them slaues to Sathan. I am none:
Thy fight hath freed me, thine thou mak'st mine owne.

O then (my sweetest and my onely life)
Confirme this comfort, purchast with thy griefe,
And my despisde soule of the world, loue thou:
No thought to any other ioy I vow.
Order these last steps of my abiect state,
Straite on the marke a man should leuell at:
And grant that while I striue to forme in me,
Thy sacred image, no aduersitie
May make me draw one limme, or line amisse:
Let no vile fashion wrest my faculties
From what becomes that Image. Quiet so
My bodies powres, that neither weale nor wo,
May stirre one thought vp, gainst thy freest will.
Grant, that in me, my mindes waues may be still:
The world for no extreme may vse her voice;
Nor Fortune treading reeds, make any noise.
Amen.

Complaine not whatsoeuer Need inuades,
But heauiest fortunes beare as lightest shades.
An╬Àxon ka╬╣ Ap╬Àxou .