BEfore the Birth of time or ere the Sun
In motion circular his course had run;
Befo [...]e the Stars were taken from the wombe
Of night, confin'd to endless orbs, and bound:
To natural influence all was a Rude
And indigested Mass, nothing indude,
With form or Soul, no organs then were tun'd
Unto the Spheres, for then no Spheres were found
Nor this dull earth, nor lighter heaven nor Sea
Had place conservative, nought did obay:
Or Art's, or natur's Law, no Element
Had it's essentiall form or Complement;
Untill the first and mighty movers Hand
Parted the jarring seedes, the Sea from Land
The purer fire from air and in a Robe
Of quantity and figure dress'd the Globe:
On which he plac't his vegetable Guests:
And Sensitives had here asign'd their feasts
To live and grow for him, who last of all
Enters the Scene at his Creators cal [...]
The mighty Elohim Consulted than
To build a stately frame, and call'd that Man:
For which endear'd Creation and Respect
This Lovely Micro-cosme was made erect,
With upright Speculation, and a Soul
Was given him past Mortallities Controle
Whose holy flames and sweet integrity
Did counterfit th' Allmighties Deity
Till his too forward will, too free to evil
Transform'd this Heaven born Child to th' Shape of Devill:
Whose easie, prompt posteritie did track
His steps so fast, that to eternall wrack:
Whole generall man had run, but that his Maker
Snatch't him from losse and was himself pertaker:
Of what himself had made, God assum'd man
And from th' imperiall Throne descending came,
Disrob'd of Glory, and his tire of Light
To save his new lost boy from the sad night,
But by the shine he could discern and tell
There was an immortalitie in Hell:
Waiting the soul whom now privation
Of good had plung'd into dimnation.
Then 'twas; from Salem, the the Land of Peace,
Came bound for Jerico and Rob'd of Grace.
Was struck to th' heart past reverend Aarons cure
The Sacrifice or the Levites power:
For, (the first covenant broak) dread Sina's Law
Bound her in thrall and barr'd up Sions way;
Till heaven to earth came down, till pitty gave
That Soveraign wine, and Sacred Oyle to save:
The wounded wreteh, who then again his head
Lifts up, and breathes to him from whom he fled:
Son of the morning Glorious Lucifer
When sinn'd had fallen, the potent Thunderer
Hurl'd him from beauties Pallace, to th [...] Abysse
Of darkness never to regain that blisse:
He lost, the Angels mis't that priviledge
Allow'd this mortall whose high Sacriledge:
So boldly acted against Infinitie
To heav'n on earth's paid by th' Deitie,
That God and man in one hypostasie
Infinite finite that the etternall might
His at tributes of love and Iustice write?
Cleer to the now redeemed sin I eye
Turning him to his best eternitie
Stupendious Mistery I what cause could move
So great a Change; ah 'twas the God of love.
Pause here Oraculous Schole-man tell and write
What kinde of love is this great Stageritie
Go burn thy books, dam thy fond Herisies,
And learn the God of natures Deity,
This ponderous pile, and all those Clements turn
Man to a better Paradise than before
His sin and folly lost, whose soul shall soar
Above the Spangled Orbe embos'd with Store
Of curling stars and cut yon Chyristalin
Transparant heaven, Through which with wings divine
Bove Primum mobile it shall aspire,
Till it ascend and reach that Sacred Quir,
VVhere martyrs Crowned stand and Angels Sing
Anthems, and Halelujahs to their King.
This though the Sager Orpheus did not know
Nor Proclus, nor the sharp Averross shew;
Shall rise a truth, when Heav'n and earth shall fall
To dissolution! th' grand Funerall.
This busy soul by some was thought to pass
By Metempsachosis into some Asse
Or other body as if beasts with men
Had equall share in death and life agen:
Obsteperous Atheists so may write, and teach
Phanatique toyes, to their desciples preach
The worlds Eternitie, mans nobler Spirit,
A breath let forth, and lost, not to inherit?
Or future good, or bade, once past and gone
No more to finde a second Station.
Prodigeous Blasphemy! had they but known
From whence the Soul descended they had shown:
Whether it moves, and windes, and fain would rise
To whence it came above the Arched Skies?
Least violently it should be hurled byneath
By th' weight of sin, etternall though in death:
Mark how the flame of day doth trot, the Ring
Of aged time and in his progress bring:
His Chariot nearer Earth, as near his end
Declining stars do nod, planets descend
To chere the Crazie fainting centers heart
That Shook with Earth-quake agues in each part:
And droping into Chaos once again
Groans for a disolution from its pain?
Yet when mans tottring body full of dayes,
Reclines his Snow-white head, and in a maze,
Pants with his strugling throwes and groaning dies
The same again Numericall shall rise;
To Claspe the eternall Soul a Misterie
Made only cleer unto Theologie:
Then fond Astronomer go bore the Stars
Ransack the Zones, and tell to fools the jarrs
Betwixt the Planets, Search the brightest flames
Of all the constellations, and their names:
Set down, from fair Orion to the Bear?
From Cassiopeia to Jov's Eagles so hear.
Erect a subtile figure, then prophesie
What fate attends thy self, what [...]iserie
Thy Countrey; tell what famin, Rapes, what wars
Are hovering there, the wise man Rules the stars?
And thou maiest break thy Epicyles for he
Laughes at thy Jacobs staffe, thy Schemes and thee
His heaven in spired soul to heaven can go
Without thy Astrolobe, his faith can show
The way and reach the end, heaven is his home,
Earth but his Inne, discharging that, hee's gone