ESAU. Me ye may command to what ye will have me to do:
And so may ye do also Ragan my man.
ISAAC. I see none; but praise we the Lord the best we can,
Call forth all our household, that with one accord
We may all with one voice sing unto the Lord.
[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. It is meet for us,
With Paul the apostle, to confess, and say thus:
O, the deepness of the riches of God's wisdom!
How unsearchable are his ways to man's reason?
Our part therefore is first to believe God's word,
Not doubting but that he will his elected save:
Then to put full trust in the goodness of the Lord,
That we be of the number, which shall mercy have:
Thirdly, so to live, as we may his promise crave.
Thus if we do, we shall Abraham's children be,
And come with Jacob to endless felicity.
[All the rest of the actors answer, Amen.
Then followeth the prayer.