Baleus Prolocutor. If profit may grow, most Christian audience,
By knowledge of things which are but transitory,
And here for a time, of much more congruence,
Advantage might spring, by the search of causes heavenly,
As those matters are that the gospel specify.
Without whose knowledge no man to the truth can fall,
Nor ever attain to the life perpetual,
For he that knoweth not the living God eternal
The Father, the Son and also the Holy Ghost,
And what Christ suffered for redemption of us all,
What he commanded, and taught in every coast,
And what he forbode, that man must needs be lost,
And clean secluded, from the faithful chosen sort,
In the Heavens above, to his most high discomfort.
You therefore, good friends, I lovingly exhort,
To weigh such matters as will be uttered here,
Of whom ye may look to have no trifling sport
In fantasies feigned, nor such-like gaudy gear,
But the things that shall your inward stomach cheer.
To rejoice in God for your justification,
And alone in Christ to hope for your salvation.
Yea first ye shall have the eternal generation
Of Christ, like as John in his first chapter write,
And consequently of man the first creation
The abuse and fall, through his first oversight,
And the rise-again through God's high grace and might;
By promises first which shall be declared all:
Then by his own Son, the worker principal.
After that, Adam bewaileth here his fall;
God will shew mercy to every generation,
And to his kingdom of his great goodness call
His elected spouse, or faithful congregation,
As shall appear by open protestation,
Which from Christ's birth shall to his death conclude:
They come, that thereof will shew the certitude.
ACT I
ADAM THE FIRST MAN
Pater Cœlestis. In the beginning before the heavens were create,
In me and of me was my Son sempiternal
With the Holy Ghost, in one degree or estate
Of the high Godhead, to me the Father coequal
And this my Son was with me one God essential
Without separation at any time from me.
True God he is of equal dignity.
Since the beginning my Son hath ever been
Joined with his father in one essential being.
All things were create by him in each degree,
In heaven and earth and have their diverse working:
Without his power, was never made any thing
That was wrought; but through his ordinance
Each have his strength, and whole continuance.
In him is the life and the just recoverance
For Adam and his, which nought but death deserved.
And this life to men is an high perseverance
Or a light of faith, whereby they shall be saved.
And this light shall shine among the people darkened
With unfaithfulness. Yet shall they not with him take
But of wilful heart his liberal grace forsake.
Which will compel me against man for to make
In my displeasure, and send plagues of correction
Most grievous and sharp, his wanton lusts to slake,
By water and fire, by sickness and infection
Of pestilent sores, molesting his complexion;
By troublous war, by dearth and painful scarceness,
And after this life by an extreme heaviness.
I will first begin with Adam for his lewdness
Which for an apple neglected my commandment.
He shall continue in labour for his rashness,
His only sweat shall provide his food and raiment:
Yea, yet must he have a greater punishment,
Most terrible death shall bring him to his end
To teach him how he his Lord God shall offend.
[Here Adam falls headlong upon the earth and after rolling over four times, at last gets up.
Adam. Merciful Father, thy pitiful grace extend
To me, careful wretch, which have me sore abused
Thy precept breaking, O Lord, I mean to amend,
If now thy great goodness would have me excused,
Most heavenly Maker, let me not be refused,
Nor cast from thy sight for one poor sinful crime;
Alas! I am frail, my whole kind is but slime.
Pater Cœlestis. I wot it is so, yet art thou no less faulty
Than thou hadst been made of matter much more worthy.
I gave thee reason and wit to understand
The good from the evil, and not to take on hand
Of a brainless mind, the thing which I forbade thee.
Adam. Such heavy fortune hath chiefly chanced me
For that I was left to mine own liberty.
Pater Cœlestis. Then thou are blameless, and the fault thou layest to me?
Adam. Nay, all I ascribe to my own imbecility.
No fault in thee Lord but in my infirmity,
And want of respect in such gifts as thou gavest me.