1.

My soul hath coveted to desire thy judgments. Psalm cxix.
ROM. VII. 23.

I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin.

O HOW my will is hurried to and fro,

And how my unresolv'd resolves do vary! I know not where to fix, sometimes I go

This way, then that, and then the quite contrary:

I like, dislike; lament for what I could not; I do, undo; yet still do what I should not, And, at the selfsame instant, will the thing I would

not.

Thus are my weatherbeaten thoughts opprest
With th' earthbred winds of my prodigious will;
Thus am I hourly tost from east to west
Upon the rolling streams of good and ill:

Thus am I driv'n upon the slipp❜ry suds
From real ills to false apparent goods:
My life's a troubled sea, compos'd of ebbs and
floods.

The curious penman, having trimm'd his page With the dead language of his dabbled quill, Lets fall a heedless drop, then in a rage Cashiers the fruits of his unlucky skill;

E'en so my pregnant soul in th' infant bud Of her best thoughts show'rs down a coalblack flood

Of unadvised ills, and cancels all her good.

Sometimes a sudden flash of sacred heat

Warms my chill soul, and sets my thoughts in frame;

But soon that fire is shoulder'd from her seat
By lustful Cupid's much inferior flame.

I feel two flames, and yet no flame entire; Thus are the mungrel thoughts of mixt desire Consum❜d between that heav'nly and this earthly

Sometimes my trash-disdaining thoughts outpass
The common period of terrene conceit;
O then methinks I scorn the thing I was,
Whilst I stand ravish'd at my new estate:

But when the Icarian wings of my desire Feel but the warmth of their own native fire, O then they melt and plunge within their wonted mire.

I know the nature of my wav'ring mind;
I know the frailty of my fleshly will:
My passion's eagle-ey'd; my judgment blind;
I know what's good, and yet make choice of ill.
When the ostrich wings of my desires shall be
So dull, they cannot mount the least degree,
Yet grant my sole desire, but of desiring thee.

S. BERN. Med. ix.

My heart is a vain heart, a vagabond and instable heart; while it is led by its own judgment, and wanting divine counsel, cannot subsist in itself; and whilst it divers ways seeketh rest, findeth none, but remaineth miserable through labour, and void of peace: it agreeth not with itself, it dissenteth from itself; it altereth resolutions, changeth the judgment, frameth new thoughts, pulleth down the old, and buildeth them up again: it willeth and willeth not; and never remaineth in the same state.

S. AUGUST. de Verb. Apost.

When it would, it cannot; because when it might, it would not: therefore by an evil will man lost his good power.

EPIG. 1.

My soul, how are thy thoughts disturb'd, confin'd,
Enlarg❜d betwixt thy members and thy mind!
Fix here or there; the doubt-depending cause
Can ne'er expect one verdict 'twixt two laws.

O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes! THUS I, the object of the world's disdain,

With pilgrim face surround the weary earth; I only relish what the world counts vain; Her mirth's my grief; her sullen grief, my mirth; Her light my darkness; and her truth my error. Her freedom is my gaol; and her delight my terror.