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 Friendly Advice. |
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The Friendly Advice.
The Roman Senators, as we may read,Thirsted that Julius Cæsar might be dead:
Wherefore they then conspir'd to seek his end.
Artemidorus, who was Cæsar's friend,
Gives him a Paper wherein lay his lot,
His life to save by finding out the Plot;
But Cæsar being busie with applauds,
With salutations, and the peoples lauds,
Pockets the Paper, as if it had been
Petition-like at leisure to be seen;
So onward walks, not dreaming of that train,
And going to the Senate-house was slain.
The World, the Flesh, and Devil, do beset
Poor man, contriving divers ways to get
Him in their gin. God's Ministers accord
To bring a Letter, namely God's own Word,
Wherein their plot is publickly reveal'd,
The wounded man hath offers to be heal'd;
Nay, God himself in clemencie doth crie,
Oh house of Israel, why will ye die?
But most men generally busie are
About the worlds concerns, though things of air;
They cannot mind their friends advice; to write,
Is to present them with a Paper-kite.
Thus men run headlong to expend their breath,
Forgetting they before were doom'd for death.
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