They know, and pray, that we may know
In every Christian

Hourly tempestuous persecutions grow;
Temptations martyr us alive; a man

Is to himself a Diocletian.

12. THE VIRGINS.

The cold white snowy nunnery,

Which, as thy mother, their high abbess, sent
Their bodies back again to thee,

As thou hadst lent them, clean and innocent,
Though they have not obtained of thee,
That, or thy church, or I,

Should keep, as they, our first integrity,
Divorce thou sin in us, or bid it die,
And call chaste widowhead virginity.

13. THE DOCTORS.

Thy sacred academe above

Of doctors, whose pains have unclasped, and taught Both books of life to us (for love

To know thy Scriptures, tells us, we are wrote
In thy other book) pray for us there

That what they have misdone

Or missaid, we to that may not adhere;

Their zeal may be our sin: Lord, let us run

Mean ways, and call them stars, but not the sun.

14.

And whilst this universal quire,

That church in triumph, this in warfare here,
Warmed with one all-partaking fire

Of love, that none be lost, which cost thee dear,
Prays ceaselessly, and thou hearken too

(Since to be gracious

Our task is treble, to pray, bear, and do)

Hear this prayer, Lord, O Lord deliver us

From trusting in those prayers, though pour'd out thus.

15.

From being anxious, or secure,

Dead clods of sadness, or light squibs of mirth, From thinking, that great courts immure

All, or no happiness, or that this earth

Is only for our prison framed,

Or that thou art covetous

To them whom thou lovest, or that they're maimed From reaching this world's sweet, who seek thee thus With all their might, good Lord deliver us.

16.

From needing danger, to be good,

From owing thee yesterday's tears to-day,
From trusting so much to thy blood,

That in the hope, we wound our soul away,
From bribing thee with alms, to excuse
Some sin more burdenous,

From light affecting, in religion, news,
From thinking us all soul, neglecting thus
Our mutual duties, Lord deliver us.

17.

From tempting Satan to tempt us,

By our connivance, or slack company,

From measuring ill by vicious,

Neglecting to choke sin's spawn, vanity,
From indiscreet humility,

Which might be scandalous,

And cast reproach on Christianity,

From being spies, or to spies pervious,

From thirst, or scorn of flame, deliver us.

18.

Deliver us for thy descent

Into the virgin, whose womb was a place

Of middle kind; and thou being sent

To ungracious us, staid'st at her full of grace,
And through thy poor birth, where first thou
Glorifiest poverty.

And yet soon after riches didst allow,

By accepting kings' gifts in the Epiphany;
Deliver, and make us, to both ways free.

19.

And through that bitter agony,
Which still is the agony of pious wits,
Disputing what distorted thee,

And interrupted evenness, with fits;
And through thy free confession,

Though thereby they were then

Made blind, so that thou might'st from them have gone ; Good Lord deliver us, and teach us when

We may not, and we may blind unjust men.

20.

Through thy submitting all, to blows

Thy face, thy clothes to spoil; thy fame to scorn,

All ways, which rage, or justice knows,

And by which thou could'st show, that thou wast born; And through thy gallant humbleness,

Which thou in death did'st show,

Dying before thy soul they could express ;
Deliver us from death, by dying so,

To this world, ere this world do bid us go.

21.

When senses, which thy soldiers arë,

We arm against thee, and they fight for sin;
When want, sent but to tame, doth war
And work despair a breach to enter in;
When plenty, God's image, and seal
Makes us idolatrous,

And love it, not him, whom it should reveal;
When we are mov'd to seem religious

Only to vent wit, Lord deliver us.

22.

In churches, when the infirmity

Of him which speaks, diminishes the Word; When magistrates do misapply

To us, as we judge, lay, or ghostly sword;

When plague, which is thine angel, reigns,
Or wars, thy champions, sway;

When heresy, thy second deluge, gains;

In th' hour of death, th' eve of last judgment day,
Deliver us from the sinister way.

23.

Hear us, O hear us, Lord; to thee

A sinner is more music, when he prays, Than spheres' or angels' praises be,

In panegyric Alleluias:

Hear us, for till thou hear us, Lord,

We know not what to say.

Thine ear t' our sighs, tears, thoughts, gives voice and word.
O thou who Satan heard'st in Job's sick day,
Hear thyself now, for thou in us dost pray.

24.

That we may change to evenness
This intermitting aguish piety,
That snatching cramps of wickedness
And apoplexies of fast sin, may die;
That music of thy promises,

Not threats in thunder may

Awaken us to our just offices,

What in thy book, thou dost, or creatures say,
That we may hear, Lord hear us, when we pray.

25.

That our ears' sickness we may cure,
And rectify those labyrinths aright,
That we, by hearkening, not procure
Our praise, nor others' dispraise so invite,
That we get not a slipperiness

And senselessly decline,

From hearing bold wits jest at kings' excess,
T'admit the like of majesty divine,

That we may lock our ears, Lord open thine.

26.

That living law, the magistrate,

Which to give us, and make us physic, doth Our vices often aggravate;

That preachers taxing sin, before her growth, That Satan, and envenom'd men

Which will, if we starve, dine,

When they do most accuse us, may see then Us to amendment hear them, thee decline, That we may open our ears, Lord lock thine.

27.

That learning, thine ambassador,

From thine allegiance we never tempt;
That beauty, paradise's flower

For physic made, from poison be exempt;
That wit, born apt, high good to do
By dwelling lazily

On nature's nothing, be not nothing too;
That our affections kill us not, nor die,

Hear us, weak echoes, O thou ear, and cry!

28.

Son of God, hear us; and since thou
By taking our blood, owe'st it us again,
Gain to thyself, or us allow;

And let not both us and thyself be slain ;

O Lamb of God, which took'st our sin
Which could not stick to thee,

O let it not return to us again,
But patient and physician being free,
As sin is nothing, let it nowhere be.