Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681). Order and Disorder. 1679.
Canto V
S
And all her frighted hosts stood to their arms,
Waiting whom the great Soveraign would employ
His all deserted rebels to destroy:
His disobedient Viceroy to remove.
Yet though himself had seen the forfeiture,
Which distance could not from his eyes obscure,
To teach his future Substitutes how they
He would not unexamin’d facts condemn,
Nor punish sinners without hearing them.
Therefore cites to his bar the Criminals,
And Adam first out of his covert calls,
Here Lord, the trembling sinner answer made,
Amongst the trees I in the garden heard
Thy voice, and being naked was afeard,
Nor durst I so thy purer sight abide,
Therefore my self did in this shelter hide.
Hast thou (said God) eat the forbidden tree,
Or who declar’d thy nakedness to thee?
She, answer’d Adam, whom thou didst create
To be my helper and associate,
Gave me the fatal fruit, and I did eat;
Woman what hast thou done? th’ Almighty said;
Lord, answer’d she, the serpent me betray’d,
And I did eat. Thus did they both confess
Their guilt, and vainly sought to make it less,
By such extenuations, as well weigh’d,
The sin, so circumstanc’d, more sinful made:
A course which still half softned sinners use,
Transferring blame their own faults to excuse,
They care not how, nor where, and oftentimes
Expostulating in their discontent,
Cries, ’Twas the woman That thou gavest me;
Oft-times make that the devils guilt alone,
Which was as well and equally their own.
His lies could never have prevail’d on Eve
But that she wisht them truth, and did believe
A forgery that suited her desire,
Whose haughty heart was prone enough to’ aspire.
The tempting and the urging was his ill,
But the compliance was in her own will.
And herein truly lies the difference
Of natural and gracious penitence,
The first transferreth and extenuates
It makes the value of rich mercy fall,
So doth our grateful sense of pardon rise.
Poor mankind at Gods righteous bar was cast
And set for judgement by, when at the last
Satan within the serpent had his doom,
Whose execrable malice left no room
For plea or pardon, but was sentenc’d first;
Thou (said the Lord) above all beasts accurst,
Shalt on thy belly creep, on dust shalt feed,
Between thee and the woman, and her seed
Thou in this war his heel shalt bruise, but He
Ne’re did within so short a sentence lie.
Here Mercy cures by kind and gentle wounds,
The Father here, the Gospel first reveals,
Each party here erecting their own walls,
As one advances, so the other falls.
Hell and the world fight upon desperate terms,
And this with eager malice they pursue.
Heavens unseen host the Churches guard and aid.
The words rich grace to fallen man express,
Which God will not to him himself declare,
Cureless as Satans had his misery been.
But though free grace did future help provide,
And feel the bitter curse, that he may so
Th’ almighty next did gentler sentence give.
I will, said he, greatly augment thy woes,
And thy conceptions, which with painful throes
Thou shalt bring forth, yet shall they be to thee
But a successive crop of misery.
Thy husband shall thy ruler be, whose sway
Thou shalt with passionate desires obey.
Alas! how sadly to this day we find
Th’ effect of this dire curse on womankind;
Eve sin’d in fruit forbid, and God requires
Her pennance in the fruit of her desires.
When first to men their inclinations move,
What disappointments find they in the end;
Constant uneasinesses which attend
Which makes them ease and liberty refuse,
And with strong passion their own shackles chuse:
Now though they easier under wise rule prove,
Yet golden fetters, soft lin’d yoaks still be,
Though gentler curbs, but curbs of liberty,
As well as the harsh tyrants iron yoak,
More sorely galling them whom they provoke,
Of an unmanly, fickle, froward fool.
Whate’re the husbands be, they covet fruit,
What tortures do their ripened births disclose,
How great, how various, how uneasie are
The breeding sicknesses, pangs that prepare
Whose fatal issues we as oft deplore!
What weaknesses, what languishments ensue,
Scattering dead Lillies where fresh Roses grew.
What broken rest afflicts the careful nurse,
Extending to the breasts the mothers curse;
Which ceases not when there her milk she dries,
The froward child draws new streams from her eyes.
How much more bitter anguish do we find
Labouring to raise up vertue in the mind,
Then when the members in our bowels grew,
What monsters, what unnatural vipers come
How are the tortures of their births renew’d,
Unrecompenc’d with love and gratitude:
Even the good, who would our cares requite,
Would be our crowns, joys, pillars, and delight,
Affect us yet with other griefs and fears,
Opening the sluces of our ne’re dried tears.
Repeating with worse pangs, the pangs that bore
Them into life, and though some may have more
Of sweet and gentle mixture, some of worse,
Yet every mothers cup tasts of the curse.
And when the heavy load her faint heart tires,
Now last of all, as Adam last had been
Drawn into the prevaricating sin,
(Said God) to thy enticing wife, The field
Producing briars and fruitless thorns to thee,
Accursed for thy sake and sins shall be.
Thy careful brows in constant toyls shall sweat,
Thus thou thy bread shalt all thy whole life eat,
Till thou return into the earths vast womb;
Whence, taken first, thou didst a man become;
In all these Sentences we strangely find
Gods admirable love to lost mankind;
Who though he never will his word recal,
Or let his threats life shafts at randome fall,
Yet can his Wisdome order curses so
Thus death the door of lasting life became,
Dissolving nature, to rebuild her frame,
All the attempts Hells cursed Empire make.
Thus God reveng’d mans quarrel on his foe,
To whom th’ Almighty would no mercy show,
All augmentations of his cursedness.
By whom we shall be out of bondage led.
And made the penalties of our offence,
Precepts and rules of new obedience,
Under sweet promises, that ease their weight.
The flatteries of our first grand enemy;
The next command is, mothers should maintain
Posterity, not frighted with the pain,
Which tho’ it make us mourn under the sense
Of the first mothers disobedience,
Yet hath a promise that thereby she shall
In the next place, that yoak with love is lin’d,
And promises t’ encline our averse will,
Whose satisfaction takes away the ill
Of every toyl, and every suffering
That can from unenforc’d submission spring;
The last command, God with mans curse did give,
Was that men should in honest callings live,
Eating their own bread, fruit of their own sweat;
And this command a promise doth implie,
One mercy more his sentence did include,
Should not beyond deaths fixed bound extend,
And to their first material dust revert,
Is but to shut us pris’ners in the grave,
Bruising the flesh, that heel whereon we tread,
Our scatter’d atoms shall again condense,
Captivity shall then a captive be,
We can but make a wild uncertain guess,
As we are now affected in distress,
And while we groan under the hated yoak,
Put off the Judges frown and reassum’d
Before their necessary woes they felt,
And their deliverance was in types reveal’d,
Even their bodies God himself did arm
Nor in their forfeit Paradise must stay.
Whence man the folly of his pride might see,
The earthy man like one of us is grown,
To whom, as God, both good and ill is known,
Now left he also eat of th’ other tree
Whose fruit gives life, and an Immortal be,
Let us by just and timely banishment
His further sinful arrogance prevent.
Then did he them out of the garden chace,
And set a Cherubim to guard the place;
Who wav’d a flaming Sword before the door,
Through which the wretches must return no more:
With such thick flashes of prodigious fire
As made the mountains shake and men retire:
Forbidding them all forward hope, that they
Could enter into life that dreadful way.
Whate’re it was, whate’re it signifies,
It kept our parents out of Paradise,
Who now returning to their place of birth
Of universal loveliness and peace.
And now the calm in every part did cease;
Love, tho’ immutable, its smiles did shrowd
And while he seem’d withdrawn, whose grace upheld
The Universe. The air became impure,
And frequent dreadful conflicts did endure
With every other angry element;
The whirling fires its tender body rent.
From earth and seas gross vapours did arise,
Turn’d to prodigious Meteors in the skies;
And in their battels did the floods engage.
The Sun confounded was with natures shame,
And the pale Moon shrunk in her sickly flame;
In Heaven, begun the universal wars,
While their malicious influence from above,
On earth did various perturbations move,
Droughts, inundations, blastings, kill’d the plants;
Worse influence wrought on th’ inhabitants,
Inspiring lust, rage, ravenous appetite,
The little insects in great clouds did rise,
And in Battalia’s spread, obscur’d the skies;
Armies of birds encountred in the air,
With hideous cries deciding battles there;
The birds of prey to gorge their appetite,
Seiz’d harmless fowl in their unwary flight.
When the dim evening had shut in the day,
Troops of wild beasts, all marching out for prey,
Oft-times by other troops assailed were,
Who snatcht out of their jaws the new slain food,
And made them purchase it again with blood.
Thus sin the whole creation did divide
Into th’ oppressing and the suffering side;
Those still employing craft and violence
To’ ensnare and murther simple innocence,
True emblems were of Satans craft and power
In and by whom he did his mischiefs do,
While persecuting cruelty and rage
Them in his cursed party did engage.
Love, meekness, patience, gentleness, combin’d
The tamer brood with those of their own kind.
Wherefore God chose them for his sacrifice,
When he the proud and mighty did despise,
They mans restored peace at last shall share:
Brought universal woe and discord in,
But in their breasts rais’d up a civil war,
Reason and sense maintain’d continual fight,
Urging th’ aversion and the appetite,
Which led two different troops of passions out,
Confounding all, in their tumultuous rout.
The less world with the great proportion held:
As winds the caverns, sighs the bosomes fill’d;
So flowing tears did beauties fair fields drown,
As inndations kept within no bound.
Fear earth-quakes made, lust in the fancy whirl’d,
Turn’d into flame, and bursting fir’d the world:
Spite, hate, revenge, ambition, avarice
Made innocence a prey to monstrous vice.
The cold and hot diseases represent
The perturbations of the element.
Thus woe and danger had beset them round,
Distrest without, within no comfort found.
Even as a Monarchs Favourite in disgrace
Suffers contempt both from the high and base,
And the most abject most insult o’re them,
Whom the offended Soveraigns condemn;
So after man th’ Almighty disobey’d,
Each little fly durst his late King invade,
Aswell as the woods monsters, wolves and bears,
And all things else that exercise his fears.
Methinks I hear sad Eve in some dark Vale
Her woful state, with such sad plaints, bewail:
Ah! why doth death its latest stroke delay,
If we must leave the light, why do we stay
By slow degrees more painfully to die,
And languish in a long calamity?
Have we not lost by one false cheating sin
All peace without, all sweet repose within?
Is there a pleasure yet that life can show,
Doth not each moment multiplie our woe:
And while we live thus in perpetual dread,
Our hope and comfort long before us dead?
Hath not our sin all natures pure leagues rent
And arm’d against us every element?
Have not our subjects their allegiance broke,
Doth not each worm scorn our unworthy yoak?
Are we not half with griping hunger pin’d,
Before we bread amongst the brambles find?
All pale diseases in our members reign,
Anguish and grief no less our sick souls pain,
Whereever I my eyes, or thoughts convert,
Each object adds new tortures to my heart.
If I look up, I dread heavens threatning frown,
Thorns prick my eyes, when shame hath cast them down,
Dangers I see, looking on either hand,
Before me all in fighting posture stand.
If I cast back my sorrow-drowned eyes,
I see our ne’re to be recover’d Paradise,
The flaming Sword which doth us thence exclude,
By sad remorse and ugly guilt pursued.
If I on thee a private glance reflect,
Confusion doth my shameful eyes deject,
Seeing the man I love by me betray’d,
By me, who for his mutual help was made,
Who to preserve thy life ought to have died,
And I have kill’d thee by my foolish pride;
Defil’d thy glory, and pull’d down thy throne.
O that I had but sin’d, and died alone!
Then had my torture and my woe been less,
I yet had flourisht in thy happiness.
If these words Adams melting soul did move,
He might reply with kind rebuking love.
Cease, cease, O foolish woman, to dispute,
Frail worms must yield, but must not question why.
When his great hand appears, we must conclude
His justice and our own unrighteousness.
He warn’d us of this fatal consequence,
Yet we despis’d his threat, and broke his law,
So did destruction on our own heads draw;
Now under his afflicting hand we lie,
Reaping the fruit of our iniquity.
Which, had not he prevented, when we fell,
If we improve our short indulged space
To understand, prize, and accept his grace.
Did all of us at once like brutes expire,
And cease to be, we might quick death desire:
But since our chief and immaterial part,
Not fram’d of dust, doth not to dust revert:
Its death not an annihilation is,
Compar’d to future miseries is small,
The saddest, sharpest, and the longest have
These have their intermissions and allays,
Though black and gloomy ones, these nights have days,
Admit a possibility of cure;
And in that change the wretched some ease find.
And cheating dreams in our sick fancies rise,
But in our future sufferings ’tis not so,
There is no end, no intermitted woe,
No hope, no possibility of grace,
No sleepy intervals, no pleasant dreams,
No mitigations of those sad extreams,
To undo what’s done is not within our power,
No more than to call back the last fled hour.
To think we can our fallen state restore,
Or without hope, our ruine to deplore,
Are equal aggravating crimes; the first
While we with foolish arrogating pride,
The last is both ungrateful and unjust,
That doth is goodness, or his power distrust.
Which wheresoe’re we look, without, within,
Above, beneath, in every place is seen.
God sits, and sees through all the blackest clouds
Which hide his pleasing glances from our sight,
He guides the shafts, the serene calm restores.
When the black Prince of air lets loose the winds,
If burning stars do conflagrations threat,
The rage of storms, the blackness of the night;
Laid in the ballance with their contraries.
Let us despise them, firm in this faith still,
If by his just permission we are slain,
Which should with better fruit our sad lives feed.
The Serpents little nibblings at our heel.
Would we such frail delights again desire,
Let us lie close in mercies sweet embrace,
In the soft arms of melting pity bound;
Arm’d us with clothes against the wounding air,
How new life shall by death to light be brought.
If we before us look, although we see
All things in present fighting posture be:
Yet in the promise we a prospect have
Entring into a new and perfect joy,
Let not my share of grief afflict thy mind,
But let me comfort in thy courage find;
’Twas not thy malice, but thy ignorance
That lately my destruction did advance;
Nor can I my own self excuse; ’twas I
Undid my self by my facility.
Let’s not in vain each other now upbraid,
But rather strive to’ afford each other aid:
And our most gracious Lord with due thanks bless,
Who hath not left us single in distress.
When fear chills thee, my hope shall make thee warm,
When I grow faint, thou shalt my courage arm;
When both our spirits at a low ebb are,
We both will joyn in mutual fervent prayer
To him whose gracious succour never fails,
When sin and death poor feeble man assails,
He that our final triumph hath decreed,
And promis’d thee salvation in thy seed.
Ah! can I this in Adams person say,
While fruitless tears melt my poor life away?
Of all the ills to mortals incident,
None more pernicious is than discontent,
That brat of unbelief, and stubborn pride,
And sensual lust, with no joy satisfied,
That doth ingratitude and murmur nurse,
And is a sin which carries its own curse;
This is the only smart of every ill;
But can we without it sad tortures feel?
Yes; if our souls above our sense remain,
And take not in th’ afflicted bodies pain,
When they descend and mix with the disease,
Then doth the anguish live, reign, and encrease
Which when the soul is not in it, grows faint,
And wastes its strength, not nourisht with complaint,
Submissive, humble, happy, sweet content
A thousand deaths by one death doth prevent;
When our rebellious wills subdued thereby
Nor is that will harsh or irrational,
Who err in judging what is ill or good,
Only by studying that will, understood.
What we admire in a low Paradise,
If they our souls from heavenly thoughts entice,
Here terminating our most strong desire,
Which should to perfect permanence aspire,
From being good to us they are so far,
That they our fetters, yoaks and poysons are,
The obstacles of our felicity,
The ruine of our souls most firm healths be,
Quenching that life-maintaining appetite,
Which makes substantial fruit our sound delight.
The evils, so miscall’d, that we endure
Are wholsome medicines tending to our cure,
Only disease to these aversion breeds,
The healthy soul on them with due thanks feeds.
If for a Prince, a Mistress, or a Friend,
Many do joy their bloods and lives to spend,
Should we not more to Gods will sacrifice?
And by free gift prevent that else sure loss?
Whate’re our will is, we must bear the cross,
Which freely taken up, the weight is less,
And hurts not, carried on with chearfulness;
Besides, what we can lose, are gliding streams,
But that which our own cheating fancy gave;
And when with thanks we render him his own,
Either he gives us back our offerings,
They soon must us, or we must them forsake;
We cannot miss ease and vicissitude,
Till our last rest our labours shall conclude.
Natural tears there are, which in due bound
Do not the soul with sinful sorrow drown,
But loves soft meltings, which the soul refine,
Like gentle showers, that usher in the spring,
These make the soul more fair and flourishing.
No murmuring winds of passions here prevail,
But the life-breathing Spirits sweet fresh gale,
Which by those fruitful drops all graces feeds,
And draws rich extracts from the soaked seeds,
But worldly sorrow, like rough winters storms,
All graces kills, all loveliness deforms,
Augments the evils of our present state,
And doth eternal woes anticipate.
Vain is that grief which can no ill redress,
But adds affliction to uneasiness;
Unnerving the souls powers, then, when they shou’d
Most exercise their constant fortitude.
With these most certain truths let’s wind up all,
Whatever doth to mortal men befall
Not casual is, like shafts at randome shot,
But Providence distributes every lot,
In which th’ obedient and the meak rejoyce,
Above their own preferring Gods wise choice:
Nor is his providence less good than wise,
Tho’ our gross sense pierce not its mysteries.
As there’s but one most true substantial good,
And God himself is that Beatitude:
So can we suffer but one real ill,
Divorce from him by our repugnant will,
Which when to just submission it returns,
The reunited soul no longer mourns,
His serene rays dry up its former tears,
Dispel the tempest of its carnal fears,
Which dread what either never may arrive,
Or not as seen in their false perspective;
For in the crystal mirror of Gods grace
All things appear with a new lovely face.
When that doth Heavens more glorious palace show
We cease to’ admire a Paradise below,
Rejoyce in that which lately was our loss,
And see a Crown made up of every Cross.
As young benighted birds unto their nest,
There hide thy self under the wings of love
Till the bright morning all thy clouds remove.