Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH COLONIAL LITERATURE
with Gospel promises,
And perished, being still dead
in sins and trespasse [. . .].
LXXXVII
How oft did I hypocrisie
and hearts deceits unmask
Before your sight, giving you ligh [. . .]
to know a Christians task?
But you held fast unto the last
your own conceits so vain:
No warning could prevail, you would
your own deceits re [. . .] ain.
LXXXVIII
As for your care to get a share
in bliss, the fear of Hell,
And of a part in endless smart,
did thereunto compel.
Your holiness and ways redress,
such as it was, did spring
From no true love to things above,
but from some other thing.
LXXXIX
You pray’d and wept, you Fast-days kept,
but did you this to me?
No, but for [. . .] n you sought to win
the greater liberte [. . .].
For all your vaunts, you had vile haunt’s;
for which your consciences
Did you alarm, whose voice to charm
you us’d these practises.
XC
Your penitence, your diligence
to read, to pray, to hear,
Were but to drown the clam’rous sound
of conscience in your ea [. . .]
If light you lov’d, vain-glory mov’d
your selves therewith to store,
Th [. . .] t seeming wise, men might you prize,
and honour you the more.
Page | 205