The soules solace in times of trouble with severall particular remedies against despaire, collected out of the Psalmes of Daivd, and some short meditations and ejaculations upon the attributes of God, the Lords Prayer, and the tenne commandments / by F. Thorne ...

Arguments moving the Author to write upon this subject.

I Can say (for my conscience witnesse beares) That I have taken notice many yeares Of these backsliding, and declining times, Wherein so many crimson colour'd crimes Have beene predominant: I also have Seen honest dealing used as a slave; Vertue suppressed, and foule vices swarme, Them most oppressed, that have done lest harme In Church and Commonweale; truth out of date, Dissembling prised at too high a rate,

Knowledge disdain'd by some earthly moles, As if that it were fatall to their soules, And discipline both morall and divine, Thought worth as much with men, as pearls with swine; Shepheards grow fearfull, wolves and foxes bold, Poore silly sheepe affrighted from the fold; And how both in the Country and at Court, Too many men have made their sins their sport; I have observed how a golden Asse Hath got preferment, when as some alasse Better for parts by manifold degrees Have gone without, for want of bribes and fees: Under the Sun an evill I have seene, But stay, under or over hath it beene? Under, thanke God, though it did seeme of late, Above the sun it selfe to elevate; It is no wonder for to see the sun Eclips'd, obscur'd by mists, for that's oft done; It is not strange to see some vapours mount Up to the skies, as if they made account To darken all the world; it is not strange To see false-blazing-starres and comets range About the lower sphears, but that those foggs, Vapours, and mists, which rise from noisome bogs, Should not alone strive to obscure the light, But to extinguish it, that so they might Have their designes; this oft hath made me wonder, And feare they would not be dispers'd asunder, Without some claps of lightning and of thunder: These and such observations with some other, Which upon force I am constrein'd to smother, Have ofttimes made me sad, and I to cheare

My drooping mind (perplext with daily feare, Of what in justice might ensue) began To call to mind the miseries of man, Gods tender mercies and exceeding love, The ever-over-flowing joyes above, To which good God us in thy mercy bring, That we for aie may Halelujahs sing.