_John the Baptist._ High honour, worship, and glory be unto thee, My God eternal, and patron of all purity. Repent good people, for sins that now are past, The kingdom of heaven is at hand very nigh. The promised light to you approacheth fast, Have faith, and apply now to receive him boldly. I am not the light, but to bear testimony Of him am sent, that all men may believe, That his blood he will for their redemption give. He is such a light as all men doth illumine, That ever were here, or shall be after this. All the world he made by his mighty power divine, And yet that rude world will not know what he is. His own he entering, is not regarded of his. They that receive him, are God's true children plain, In spir't regenerate, and all grace shall attain. Many do reckon, that I John Baptist am he, Deceived are they, and that will appear in space. Though he come after, yet he was long afore me. We are weak vessels, he is the well of grace, Of his great goodness all that we have we purchase. By him are we like to have a better increase Than ever we had by the laws of Moses. For Moses' hard law we had not else but darkness, Figure and shadow, all was not else but night, Punishment for sin, much rigour, pain, and roughness, An high charge is there, where all is turned to light, Grace and remission anon will shine full bright. Never man lived that ever saw God afore, Which now in our kind man's ruin will restore. Help me to give thanks to that Lord evermore, Which am unto Christ a crier in the desert, To prepare the paths and high ways him before For his delight is on the poor, simple heart. That innocent lamb from such will never depart, As will faithfully receive him with good mind. Let our voice then sound in some sweet musical kind. [_Then in a resounding voice he begins an antiphon, "O clavis David," which the chorus follows with instruments, as before._ O perfect key of David, and high sceptre of the kindred of Jacob, which openest and no man sperith,[628] thou speakest and no man openeth; come and deliver thy servant mankind, bound in prison, sitting in the darkness of sin and bitter damnation. EPILOGUE