Satan’s Paws & Jaws: Doom

Michael Wigglesworth (1631—1705)

“All this,” quoth he, “may granted be,
and your case little better’d,
Who still remain under a chain
and many irons fetter’d.
You that the dead have quickened,
and rescu’d from the grave.
Yourselves were dead, yet ne’er needéd
a Christ your souls to save.

LXXI.

“You that could preach, and others teach
what way to life doth lead,
Why were you slack to find that track
and in that way to tread?
How could you bear to see or hear
of others freed at last
From Satan’s paws, whilst in his jaws
yourselves were held more fast?

LXXII.

“Who though you knew Repentance true,
and Faith is my great Name,
The only mean to quit you clean,
from punishment and blame,
Yet took no pain true Faith to gain,
such as might not deceive,
Nor would repent with true intent,
your evil deeds to leave.

LXXIII.

“His Master’s will how to fulfil
the servant that well knew,
Yet left undone his duty known,
more plagues to him are due.
You against light perverted right;
wherefore it shall be now
For Sidon and for Sodom’s Land
more easy than for you.“

Hypocrites: Our Cursed Race

Michael Wigglesworth (1631—1705)

LXV.

They multiply and magnify
Men’s gross Iniquities;
They draw down wrath (as Scripture saith)
out of God’s treasuries.
Thus all their ways Christ open lays
to Men and Angels’ view,
And as they were makes them appear
in their own proper hue.

LXVI.

Thus he doth find of all Mankind,
that stand at his left hand,
No mother’s son but hath misdone,
and broken God’s command.
All have transgress’d, even the best,
and merited God’s wrath,
Unto their own perditi-on
and everlasting scath.

LXVII.

Earth’s dwellers all, both great and small,
have wrought iniquity,
And suffer must (for it is just)
Eternal misery.
Amongst the many there come not any,
before the Judge’s face.
That able are themselves to clear,
of all this cursed Race.

Hypocrites plead for themselves.

LXVIII.

Nevertheless, they all express.
(Christ granting liberty,)
What for their way they have to say,
how they have liv’d, and why.
They all draw near and seek to clear
themselves by making pleas;
There Hypocrites, false-hearted wights,
do make such pleas as these:

LXIX.

“Lord, in thy Name, and by the same,
we Devils dispossess’d;
We rais’d the dead and minist’red
Succor to the distressed.
Our painful teaching and pow’rful preaching
by thine own wondrous might,
Did throughly win to God from sin
many a wretched wight.“