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IV.

PSALM XXV. 18.

Look upon my affliction and my pain, and forgive all

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my sins.

OTH work and strokes ? both lash and labour to, What more could Edom or proud Ashur do ? Stripes after stripes; and blows succeeding blows! Lord, has thy scourge no mercy, and my woes No end my pains no ease? no intermission? Is this the state, is this the sad condition Of those that trust thee; will thy goodness please T' allow no other favors ? none but these? Will not the rhet'ric of my torments move? Are these the symptoms, these the signs of love? Is't not enough, enough that I fulfil The toilsome task of thy laborious will ? May not this labor expiate and purge My sin, without th' addition of a scourge ? Look on my cloudy brow, how fast it rains Sad show'rs of sweat, the fruits of fruitless pains: Behold these ridges, see what purple furrows Thy plough has made: O think upon those sorrows That once were thine; O wilt thou not be woo'd To mercy by the charms of sweat and blood ? Canst thou forget that drowsy mount wherein Thy dull disciples slept? was not my sin There punish'd in thy soul? Did not this brow Then sweat in thine? were not those drops enow? Remember Golgotha, where that spring-tide O'erflow'd thy sov'reign, sacramental side :

There

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There was no sin, there was no guilt in thee,

[me.

That caus'd those pains; thou sweat'st, thou bled'st for
Was there not blood enough, when one small drop
Had pow'r to ransom thousand worlds, and stop
The mouth of justice? Lord, I bled before
In thy deep wounds; can justice challenge more?
Or dost thou vainly labor to hedge in

Thy losses from my sides? my blood is thin,
And thy free bounty scorns such easy thrift,
No, no, thy blood came not as loan, but gift.
But must I ever grind ? and must I earn
Nothing but stripes? O wilt thou disaltern*
The rest thou gav'st' hast thou perus'd the curse
Thou laid'st on Adam's fall, and made it worse?
Canst thou repent of mercy? Heav'n thought good
Lost man should feed in sweat; not work in blood:
Why dost thou wound th' already wounded breast?
Ah me! my life is but a pain at best :

I am but dying dust: my day's a span;
What pleasure tak'st thou in the blood of man?
Spare, spare thy scourge, and be not so austere :
Send fewer strokes, or lend more strength to bear.

* Disaltern; i. e. set aside the alternate changes of stripes and rest,

common to man.

S. BERN

S. BERN. Hom. lxxxi. in Cant.

Miserable man! Who shall deliver me from the reproach of this shameful bondage? I am a miserable man but a free man; free, because a man; miserable, because a servant in regard of my bondage, miserable; in regard of my will, inexcuseable for my will, that was free, beslaved itself to sin, by assenting to sin; for he that committeth sin, is the servant to sin.

EPIG. 4.

Tax not thy God: thine own defaults did urge
This twofold punishment; the mill, the scourge.
Thy sin's the author of thy self-tormenting:
Thou grind'st for sinning; scourg'd for not repenting.

Jog

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