Who sows in tears shall reap in joy, So that his seed be pure and good, THE TRANSLATION OF THE CXXXVIITH PSALM. WHEN as we sat all sad and desolate, By Babylon upon the river's side, Eas'd from the tasks which in our captive state Our harps we had brought with us to the field, But soon we found we fail'd of our account, Did cause afresh our wounds to bleed again; As for our harps, since sorrow struck them dumb, Alas, said we, who can once force a frame Jerusalem, where God his throne hath set, That in the compass of my thoughts can fall. Remember thou, O Lord, the cruel cry Of Edom's children, which did ring and sound, Inciting the Chaldean's cruelty, "Down with it, down with it,even unto the ground." In that good day repay it unto them, And thou, O Babylon, shalt have thy turn Yea, happy he, that takes thy children's bones, THE TRANSLATION OF THE CXLIXTH PSALM. O SING a new song to our God above, To him that made them, with their hearts on fire : Let not your voice alone his praise forth tell, But move withal, and praise him in the dance; But on your secret beds your spirits raise. O let the saints bear in their mouth his praise, Upon all nations that their zeal withstand; To bind their kings in chains of iron strong, Expect the time, for 'tis decreed in heav'n, AN ADVERTISEMENT TOUCHING AN HOLY WAR. TO THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, MY LORD, AMONGST Consolations, it is not the least to represent to a man's self like examples of calamity in others. For examples give a quicker impression than arguments; and besides, they certify us, that which the Scripture also tendereth for satisfaction; "that no new thing is happened unto us." This they do the better, by how much the examples are liker in circumstances to our own case; and more especially if they fall upon persons that are greater and worthier than ourselves. For as it savoureth of vanity, to match ourselves highly in our own conceit; so on the other side it is a good sound conclusion, that if our betters have sustained the like events, we have the less cause to be grieved. In this kind of consolation I have not been wanting to myself, though as a Christian, I have tasted, through God's great goodness, of higher remedies. Having therefore, through the variety of my reading, set before me many examples both of ancient and later times, my thoughts, I confess, have chiefly stayed upon three particulars, as the most eminent and the most resembling. All three persons that had held chief place of authority in their countries ; all three ruined, not by war, or by any other disaster, but by justice and sentence, as delinquents and criminals; all three famous writers, insomuch as the remembrance of their calamity is now as to posterity but as a little picture of night-work, remaining amongst the fair and excellent tables of their acts and works and all three, if that were any thing to the matter, fit examples to quench any man's ambition of rising again; for that they were every one of them restored with great glory, but to their farther ruin and destruction, ending in a violent death. The men were, Demosthenes, Cicero, and Seneca; persons that I durst not claim affinity with, except the similitude of our fortunes had contracted it. When I had cast mine eyes upon these examples, I was carried on farther to observe, how they did bear their fortunes, and principally, how they did employ their times, being banished, and disabled for public business to the end that I might learn by them; and that they might be as well my counsellors as my comforters. Whereupon I happened to note, how diversly their fortunes wrought upon them; especially in that point at which I did most aim, which was the employing of their times and pens. In Cicero, I saw that during his banishment, which was almost two years, he was so softened and dejected, as he wrote nothing but a few womanish epistles. |