115. COMPLAINING.

Do not beguile my heart,
Because thou art

My power and wisdome.

Put me not to shame,

Because I am

Thy clay that weeps, thy dust that calls.

Thou art the Lord of glorie;

The deed and storie

Are both thy due: but I a silly flie,

That live or die,

According as the weather falls.

Art thou all justice, Lord?

More attributes?

Shows not thy word

Am I all throat or eye
To weep or crie?

Have I no parts but those of grief?

Let not thy wrathfull power
Afflict my houre,

My inch of life or let thy gracious power
Contract my houre,

That I may climbe and finde relief.

116. THE DISCHARGE.

BUSIE enquiring heart, what wouldst thou know?
Why dost thou prie,

And turn, and leer, and with a licorous eye
Look high and low ;

And in thy lookings stretch and grow?

Hast thou not made thy counts, and summ'd up

Give

Did not thy heart

up the whole, and with the whole depart?
Let what will fall:

That which is past who can recall?

Thy life is God's, thy time to come is gone,
And is his right.

He is thy night at noon: he is at night
Thy noon alone.

The crop is his, for he hath sown.

And well it was for thee, when this befell,
That God did make

Thy businesse his, and in thy life partake:
For thou canst tell,

If it be his once, all is well.

Onely the present is thy part and fee.
And happy thou,

If, though thou didst not beat thy future brow,
Thou couldst well see

What present things requir'd of thee.

all?

They ask enough; why shouldst thou further go?
Raise not the mudde

Of future depths, but drink the cleare and good.
Dig not for wo

In times to come; for it will grow.

Man and the present fit: if he provid,
He breaks the square.

This houre is mine: if for the next I care,
I grow too wide,

And do encroach upon death's side:

For death each houre environs and surrounds

He that would know

And care for future chances, cannot go
Unto those grounds,

But thro' a Church-yard which them bounds.

Things present shrink and die: but they that spend
Their thoughts and sense

On future grief, do not remove it thence,
But it extend,

And draw the bottome out an end.

God chains the dog till night: wilt loose the chain,
And wake thy sorrow?

Wilt thou forestall it, and now grieve to morrow,
And then again

Grieve over freshly all thy pain?

Either grief will not come or if it must,
Do not forecast:

And while it cometh, it is almost past.
Away distrust:

My God hath promis'd; he is just.

117. PRAISE.

KING of glorie, King of peace,
I will love thee:

And that love may never cease,
I will move thee.

Thou hast granted my request,

Thou hast heard me :

Thou didst note my working breast,
Thou hast spar'd me.

Wherefore with my utmost art
I will sing thee,

And the cream of all my heart
I will bring thee.

Though my sinnes against me cried,
Thou didst cleare me;

And alone when they replied,

Thou didst heare me.

Sev'n whole dayes, not one in seven,
I will praise thee.

In my heart, though not in heaven,
I can raise thee.

Thou grew'st soft and moist with tears,
Thou relentedst.

And when Justice call'd for fears,

Thou dissentedst.

Small it is, in this poore sort

To enroll thee:

Ev'n eternitie is too short

To extoll thee.

118. AN OFFERING.

COME, bring thy gift. If blessings were as slow
As men's returns, what would become of fools?
What hast thou there? a heart? but is it pure?
Search well and see, for hearts have many holes.
Yet one pure heart is nothing to bestow :
In Christ two natures met to be thy cure.

O that within us hearts had propagation,
Since many gifts do challenge many hearts!
Yet one, if good, may title to a number;
And single things grow fruitfull by deserts.
In publick judgments one may be a nation.
And fence a plague, while others sleep and slumber.

But all I fear is lest thy heart displease,

As neither good, nor one: so oft divisions
Thy lusts have made, and not thy lusts alone;
Thy passions also have their set partitions.
These parcell out thy heart: recover these,
And thou mayst offer many gifts in one.

There is a balsome, or indeed a bloud,

[close

Dropping from heav'n, which doth both cleanse and

All sorts of wounds; of such strange force it is.
Seek out this All-heal, and seek no repose,

Until thou finde, and use it to thy good :
Then bring thy gift; and let thy hymne be this;

SINCE my sadnesse

Into gladnesse,

Lord thou dost convert,

O accept

What thou hast kept,

As thy due desert.

Had I many,

Had I any,

(For this heart is none)

All were thine

And none of mine,

Surely thine alone.