Am I madd, O noble Festus,
When zeale and godly knowledge
Have put me in hope
To deal with the Pope,
As well as the best in the Colledge?
Boldly I preach, hate a crosse, hate a surplice,
Miters, copes, and rotchets:
Come heare mee pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.
In the house of pure Emanuel
I had my education;
Where my friends surmise
I dazeled mine eyes
With the Light of Revelation.
Boldly I preach, &c.
They bound mee like a bedlam,
They lash’t my foure poore quarters;
Whilst this I endure,
Faith makes mee sure
To be one of Foxes martyrs.
Boldly I preach, &c.
These injuryes I suffer
Through Anti-Christs perswasions:
Take off this chaine,
Neither Rome nor Spaine
Can resist my strong invasions.
Boldly I preach, &c.
Of the Beasts ten hornes (God blesse us!)
I have knock’t off three already:
If they let mee alone,
I’ll leave him none;
But they say I am too heady.
Boldly I preach, &c.
When I sack’d the Seaven-hill’d Citty
I mett the great redd Dragon:
I kept him aloofe
With the armour of proofe,
Though here I have never a rag on.
Boldly I preach, &c.
With a fiery sword and targett
There fought I with this monster:
But the sonnes of pride
My zeale deride,
And all my deedes misconster.
Boldly I preach, &c.
I unhorst the whore of Babel
With a launce of inspirations:
I made her stinke,
And spill her drinck
In the cupp of abominations.
Boldly I preach, &c.
I have seene two in a vision,
With a flying booke betweene them:
I have bin in dispaire
Five times a yeare,
And cur’d by reading Greenham[122].
Boldly I preach, &c.
I observ’d in Perkins Tables[123]
The black lines of damnation:
Those crooked veines
Soe struck in my braines,
That I fear’d my reprobation.
Boldly I preach, &c.
In the holy tongue of Chanaan
I plac’d my chiefest pleasure:
Till I prickt my foote
With an Hebrew roote,
That I bledd beyond all measure.
Boldly I preach, &c.
I appear’d before the arch-bishopp,
And all the high commission:
I gave him noe grace,
But told him to his face
That he favour’d superstition.
Boldly I preach, hate a crosse, hate a surplice,
Miters, copes, and rotchets:
Come heare mee pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.