This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. Searching, reading, printing, or downloading EEBO-TCP texts is reserved for the authorized users of these project partner institutions. Permission must be granted for subsequent distribution, in print or electronically, of this text, in whole or in part. Please contact project staff at eebotcp-info@umich.edu for further information or permissions.
TO conclude, O eternall God, vnto whom all things are open, and which know∣est vs before we were, and remembrest vs before we sought thee: shew vnto vs, if it be thy good pleasure in this our extremitie, wherein it see∣meth thou hast no care nor thought of vs, yet that thou hast not forgotten vs. Looke vppon vs with thine eyes of mercie, that thou mayest consider of the miserie and shame which we nowe suffer.
2 For, (alas) what a lamentable
thing is it to see a barbarous Nation rush in vppon our possessions, and fu∣riously enter vppon our sweete and pleasant houses: to see (I say) a stran∣ger in this lande of promise, out of which, thou in olde time, drauest out the people, that in it thou mightest plant our forefathers.
3 But what speake I heere, of our fore-fathers, we are nowe Orphelins: without Father: and our Mothers, through these horrible slaughters, are become widowes.
4 We haue no water, but that wee must pay for, and as for our wood it is solde vnto vs.
5 Our necks are laden with an hea∣uie bundle of afflictions, and wee can haue no rest in all our paines.
6 If we will haue any meate, wee must bee faine to bowe vnto the Bar∣barians, Aegyptians, and Assyrians, and beseeche them vppon our knees for it.
7 This miserie (alas) continueth from the father to the sonne: but as for our fathers, they are dead and gone, and haue borne their punishment for their sins: and we still suffer the same punishmentes.
8 We haue in this sorrowfull and violent transporting, to do both with masters & seruants: whereby we haue very well experimented, that there is not a more rude & vnmerciful villain, than a begger or beggers bratte, that commeth once to be a commaunder: euen as we now are mastred, & chea∣red vp by the Assyrians stonie hearted Lackies: so that we are dealt with all out of all reason.
9 We cannot goe any way to seeke for victualles: yea although we trauell the most vnknowen and wilde waies, but that wee trauell in perill of our liues.
10 Whereupon hunger hath made vs so taunie, & donne coloured, as that a man would say, we were altogether skorched, as it were in an ouen, or in a skorching winde.
11 But the thing that is more intol∣lerable than death it selfe, there is nei∣ther wife nor mayde in all the coun∣trie, whom the Barbarians haue not enforced and defiled.
12 For they had so little regard, as that they tooke maruelous great plea∣sure in hanging vp the Princes and men of greatest note of all Iudah: not
sparing or reuerencing olde gray hea∣red men.
13 And as for the young men, they emploied their flourishing age, as they employed their Asses and milhorses to drawe in the mill, or else to the carry∣ing of such great burdens of woode as pressed them to the grounde.
14 In so much as they had no care to see the reuerende old Fathers sitte in the gates of the Cities, or in their seates of Iustice: neither yet to heare the pleasaunt songes and sweete har∣monie of any iolly and lustie young Damsell.
15 Alas wee haue forgotten what mirth meaneth, & it is so long since we had a breathing time, as that in stede of melodie, there is nothing to bee heard among vs, but sighing and wee∣ping.
16 For, the crowne of honour, and whatsoeuer notable thing else that we had, is fallen to the grounde, and cru∣shed in pieces. O cursed sinnes which haue caused so many miseries.
17 Which maketh our heartes lan∣guish, and dimme our sorrowfull eyes, with powring out of abundaunce of teares.
18 When as we see this noble moūt Syon, with the little holie hill neere adioyning to bee an habitation for Foxes.
19 But thou O most high and migh∣tie God, whose throne is stablished a∣boue the heauens, and whose king∣dome is euerlasting.
20 What auaileth it to haue gotten vnto thee, by thy mightie and terrible arme, and with so many woonderfull exploytes, this people, & so long time conducted, dressed, and addressed, and of thy meere fauour and grace allying them vnto thee, and making vnto thē so gracious and beneficiall promisses: if thou wilt nowe let them lie still in their miseries, and leaue them for e∣uer.
21 Now therefore, thou great shep∣heard of Israell, bring once againe the captiued people into their auncient manors: restablish thou thy Church, and gather together thy flocke, and poore seruantes, and through thy fa∣uour and grace, renue thou our estate: as the rose in the spring time renueth and refresheth the face of the earth.
22 Declare and shewe (O heauenly father) vnto the whole worlde, that
thou mindest not to contemne those that are thine, and reiect them for e∣uer, although for a while, thou corre∣ctest and chastisest them. Let the effect shew thee to be a God, yea, and that a gentle and mercifull God, and not a man that will alwaies keepe extreame choler and anger in his heart.