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ANNIVERSARIUM BAPTISMI (1), by                    
First Line: Welcome sweet & happy day
Last Line: Who serve truth's potent master tell a lie.
Subject(s): Baptism; Christenings


WELCOME sweet & happy Day:
O let me pay
In thy blest Light ye debt I owe
The Fount, from which my better life doth flow.

The Fount, which sprung from ye dear side
Of Him, who dyde
To leave a truer Life to mee
Then I could draw from my Nativitie.

For I was borne a Dying Thing:
The Serpents sting
Through all ye World yt went before
Reach'd my poor Heart, & poysned it all o're.

Untill ye liquid Life, which swimms
About ye brimms
Of ye Baptismall Laver did
Upon my Soule pure health & vigor shed.

Death soone was drownd, & ye great weight
Of Sin was strait
Sunk to ye bottome, onely I
Rose up, & liv'd a Life, which could not die.

It could not die, had I not been
The treacherous Mean
To murder it: Adam doth slay Us
At first, but then none but our Selves betray Us.

Pardon for this selfe-felonie
I beg of Thee
Who sheddst a rubie stream to heale
Those second Wounds, my fainting Soule doth feele.

So by thy Water & thy Blood
That double Flood
Of Mercie, may my Heart swimme home
And to ye Ocean of thy Glorie come.

Mean time upon this Dayes fair face,
By thy Sweet Grace
This Vow I fix: NO MORE WILL I
WHO SERVE TRUTH'S POTENT MASTER TELL A LIE.





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