Prison-Pietie or, Meditations Divine and Moral. Digested into Poetical Heads, On Mixt and Various Subjects. Whereunto is added A Panegyrick to The Right Reverend, and most Nobly descended, Henry, Lord Bishop of London. By Samuel Speed, Prisoner in Ludgate, London |
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The New Birth. |
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The New Birth.
A Multitude of Creatures do agreeTo give their Documents to wretched man,
As Emblems and Examples, whereby he
May learn to write himself a Christian.
The Eagle casts her bill, the Ass his hair,
The Peacoak sheds his plumes, the Snake his skin;
And shall not Man, a Creature far more fair,
Renew himself by shaking off his sin?
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To the new man belongs felicity.
He that would clear himself from worldly slain,
To sin must die, to life be born again.
Die to the flesh, and if you would inherit
Eternal life, be born then of the Spirit.
This is the Birth a Christian should prefer;
For being born of God, he cannot err.
Lord, let thy Grace my idle thoughts subdue,
That I may change the Old man for the New.
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