¶ OF THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD,

AND DEBILITY OF MAN

What these four principal devils do ngnify.

1. O Gon! thou glorious God, what God is like to thee? What life, what strength, is like to thine, as all the world may see?

The heaven, the earth, the seas, and all thy works therein,

Do shew (to whom thou wouldst to know) what thou hast ever been.

2. But all the thoughts of man, are bent to wretched evil, Man doth commit idolatry, bewitched of the devil. What evil is left undone, where man may have his will;

3.

Man ever was a hypocrite, and ever will be still.

What daily watch is made, the soul of man to flea,
By Lucifer, by Belzebub, Mammon, and Asmode (b)?
In devilish pride, in wrath, in coveting too much,
In fleshly lust, the time is spent the life of man is
such.

VARIATIONS,
(b) Asmodea.

In this sacred effusion, the only passage which claims particular remark, is the third stanza, where the

four principal devils, and their characteristic attributes, are specified.

4. The joy that man hath here (a), is as a spark of fire, His acts be like the smouldering smoke, himself like (a) dirt and mire:

His strength even as a reed, his age much like the flower,

His breath or life is but a puff, uncertain every hour.

5. But for the Holy Ghost, and for his gifts of grace, The death of Christ, thy mercy great, man were in wofull case.

O grant us, therefore, Lord, t'amend what is amiss, And when from hence we do depart, to rest with thee in bliss!

Eleemosyna prodest homini in vita,
in morte, et post mortem.

OUT OF ST. AUGUSTINE'.

Of alms deeds. FOR only love of God, more Christian-like to live,
And for a zeal to help the poor, thine almes daily give.
Let gift no glory look, nor evil possess thy mind,

And for a truth, these profits three, through almes shalt
thou find.

1. First, here the Holy Ghost shall daily through his grace,

Provoke thee to repentant life, God's mercy to embrace.

2. Of goods and friends (by death) when thou thy leave must take,

Thine almes deeds shall clasp thy soul, and never it forsake.

3. When God shall after death, call soon for thine ac

count,

Thine almes then through faith in Christ, shall all things else surmount.

'The translations from St. Augustine are neatly executed, if we consider the age. The Fathers were once read, and commented on: they

are now little more than known by name; yet an appeal to their authority is often necessary, and their evidence will seldom be disputed.

But yet for any deed, put thou no trust therein,

But put thy trust in God (through Christ) to pardon thee thy sin.

For else, as cackling hen with noise bewrays her nest, Even so go thou, and blaze thy deeds, and lose thou all the rest.

MALUS HOMO.

OUT OF ST. AUGUSTINE («).

Of naughty man I read, two sundry things are meant,
Th'one is man, th'other naught, which ought him to repent.
The man we ought to love, because of much therein,
The evil in him, we ought to hate, because it is a sin.

So doth thy daily sins the heavenly Lord offend,

But when thou dost repent the same, his wrath is at an end.

VARIATION.

(a)" Malus homo," not quoted as from St. Augustine.

I DE Two Sorts of Men, the one good and the other bad.

OUT OF ST. AUGUSTINE (a).

SINCE first the world began, there was and shall be still,
Of human kind, two sundry sorts, th'one good, and th'other

ill;

Which till the judgment day, shall here together dwell, But then the good shall up to heaven, the bad shall down to hell.

VARIATION.

(a)" Of two Sorts of Men," not quoted as from St. Augustine.