[_Ragan calleth all to sing_.
_This song must be sung after the prayer.
O Lord, the God of our father Abraham,
How deep and unsearchable are thy judgments!
Thy almightiful hand did create and frame
Both heaven and earth, and all the elements.
Man of the earth thou hast formed and create;
Some do thee worship, and some stray awry,
Whom pleaseth thee, thou dost choose or reprobate,
And no flesh can ask thee wherefore or why?
Of thine own will thou didst Abraham elect,
Promising him seed as stars of the sky,
And them as thy chosen people to protect,
That they might thy mercies praise and magnify.
Perform thou, O Lord, thine eternal decree
To me and my seed, the sons of Abraham;
And whom thou hast chosen thine own people to be,
Guide and defend to the glory of thy name_.
FINIS.
[_Then entereth the Poet, and the rest stand
still till he have done_.
THE POET. When Adam, for breaking God's commandment,
Had sentence of death, and all his posterity:
Yet the Lord our God, who is omnipotent,
Had in his own self by his eternal decree
Appointed to restore man, and to make him free.
He purposed to save mankind by his mercy,
Whom he once had created unto his glory.
Yet not all flesh did he then predestinate,
But only the adopted children of promise:
For he foreknew that many would degenerate,
And wilfully give cause to be put from that bliss,
So on God's behalf no manner default there is;
But where he chooseth, he showeth his great mercy:
And where he refuseth, he doth none injury,
But thus far surmounteth man's intellection,[290]
To attain or conceive, and (much more) to discuss:
All must be referred to God's election
And to his sacred judgment.
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