University of Virginia Library

HIEROGLIPH I.

Behold I was shaped in Iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. PSALMS 51. 5.

Man is mans A B C: There is none that can
Reade God aright, unless he first spell Man;
Man is the Stayres, whereby his knowledge climes
To his Creator; though it oftentimes
Stumbles for want of light, and sometimes tripps
For want of carefull heed; and sometimes slips
Through unadvised hast; and when at length
His weary steps have reach'd the top, his strength
Oft fayles to stand; his giddy braines turne round,
And Phaeton like, falls headlong to the ground:
These stayres are often darke, and full of danger
To him whom want of practice makes a stranger
To this blind way: The Lamp of nature lends
But a false Light; and lights to her owne ends:
These be the wayes to Heav'n; These paths require
A Light that springs from that diviner fire
Whose humane soule-enlightning sunbeames dart
Through the bright Crannies of th'immortall part.
And here, thou great Originall of Light,
Whose error-chaceing Beames do unbenight
The very soule of Darkness, and untwist
The Clouds of Ignorance; do thou assist
My feeble Quill; Reflect thy sacred Rayes
Upon these lines, that they may light the wayes
That lead to thee; So guide my heart, my hand,
That I may doe, what others understand:
Let my heart practice what my hand shall write;
Till then, I am a Tapour wanting light.
This golden Precept, Know thy selfe, came downe
From heav'ns high Court; It was an Art unknowne
To flesh and blood. The men of Nature tooke
Great Journies in it; Their dim eyes did looke
But through a Mist; Like Pilgrims they did spend
Their idle steps, but knew no Journies end:
The way to Know thyselfe, is first to cast
Thy fraile beginning, Progresse, and thy Last:
This is the Summe of Man: But now returne
And view this Tapour standing in this Urne:
Behold her Substance, sordid and impure,
Useless and vaine, and (wanting light) obscure:
Tis but a Span at longest, nor can last
Beyond that Span; ordain'd, and made to waste:
Ev'n such was Man (before his soule gave light
To his vile substance) a meere Child of night;
Ere he had life, estated in his Vrne,
And markt for death; by nature, borne to burne:
Thus liveless, lightless, worthless first began
That glorious, that presumptuous thing, call'd Man.

St. AUGUST.

Consider O man what thou wert before thy Birth, and what thou art from thy birth to thy death, and what thou shalt be after death: Thou wert made of an impure substance, cloathed and nourished in thy Mother's blood.

EPIGRAM 1.

[Forbeare fond Tapour: What thou seek'st, is Fire]

Forbeare fond Tapour: What thou seek'st, is Fire:
Thy owne distruction's lodg'd in thy desire:
Thy wants are farre more safe than their supply:
He that begins to live, begins to die.