V. I CORINTHIANS VII. XXXI.
The fashion of this world passeth away.
Gone are those golden dayes, wherein
Pale Conscience started not at ugly sin;
When good old Saturnes peacefull Throne
Was unusurped by his beardlesse Sonne:
When jealous Ops nev'r fear'd th'abuse
Of her chast bed, or breach of nuptiall Truce:
When just Astraea poys'd her Scales
In mortall hearts, whose absence earth bewailes:
When froth-borne Venus, and her Brat,
With all that spurious brood young Jove begat,
In horrid shapes, were yet unknowne;
Those Halcyon dayes, that golden Age is gone:
There was no Clyent then, to wait
The leisure of his long-tayl'd Advocate;
The Talion Law was in request,
And Chaunc'ry Courts were kept in ev'ry brest:
Abused Statutes had no Tenters,
And men could deale secure, without Indentures;
There was no peeping hole, to cleare
The Wittols eye from his incarnate feare;
There were no lustfull Cinders, then,
To broyle the Carbonado'd hearts of men;
The rosie Cheeke did, then, proclaime
A shame of Guilt, but not a guilt of Shame;
There was no whining soule, to start
At Cupids twang, or curse his flaming dart;
The Boy had, then, but callow wings,
And fell Erynnis Scorpions had no stings;
The better acted world did move
Upon the fixed Poles of Truth and Love;
Love essenc'd in the hearts of men;
Then, Reason rul'd; There was no Passion, then;
Till Lust and Rage began to enter,
Love the Circumf'rence was, and Love, the Center;
Untill the wanton dayes of Jove,
The simple world was all compos'd of Love;
But Jove grew fleshly, false, unjust;
Inferiour Beauty fill'd his veynes with Lust;
And Cucqueane Junos Fury hurld
Fierce Balls of Rage into th'incestuous World:
Astraea fled; and Love return'd
From earth: Earth boyl'd with Lust; with Rage, it burn'd
And ever since the world has beene
Kept going with the scourge of Lust, and Spleene.
S. AMBEROS.
Lust is a sharpe spurre to vice, which alwayes puts the Affections into a false Gallop.
HUGO.
Lust is an immoderate wantonnesse of the flesh: a sweet poyson; a cruell
pestilence; a pernitious potion, which weakens the body of man, and effeminates
the strength of an heroick mind.
S. AUGUST.
Envy is the hatred of anothers felicity: In respect of Superiours, because
they are not equall to them; In respect of Inferiours, lest they should be equall to them;
In respect of equals, because they are equall to them: Through Envy
proceeded the fall of the world, and the death of Christ.
EPIGRAM 5.
[What? Cupid, must the world be lasht so soone?]
What? Cupid, must the world be lasht so soone?
But made at morning, and be whipt at noone?
'Tis like the Wagg that playes with Venus Doves,
The more 'tis lasht, the more perverse it proves.
