Or do they in a dream Sleep out their season? Or borne down by lust's stream, The silly lambs to-day Perhaps to-morrow; In a more brutish sort, As near to sorrow; Be sadly ended, And the web they have spun, Can ne'er be mended. And what is that to come? The present stays not. They sin forsake not. Man walks in a vain show, While they might taste and know In Christ's sweet meadows. Life's better slept away, Malignant world, adieu! Where no foul vice is new, Only to Satan true, God still offended; Though taught and warned by God, And his chastising rod, Keeps still the way that's broad, Never amended. Baptismal vows some make, They dig for hell beneath, To overtake it. Hell is not had for naught, He'll not abate it. Grace is refused that's free, Mad sinners hate it. Vile man is so perverse, It's too rough work for verse And show his folly: He'll die at any rates, He God and conscience hates, Yet sin he consecrates, And calls it holy : The grace he'll not endure, His head comes first at birth, His feet grow highest ; To kick at all above, He loves this world of strife, Hates that would mend it; Love's death that's called life, Fears what would end it. All that is good he'd crush, A pricking thorny bush, Such Christ was crowned with: Their worship's like to this, The reed, the Judas kiss, Such the religion is, That these abound with; They mock Christ with the knee Whene'er they bow it; As if God did not see The heart, and know it. Of good they choose the least, The joyful, heavenly feast, Which Christ would give them; Heaven hath scarce one cold wish, They live unto the flesh, Like swine they feed on wash, Satan doth drive them. Like weeds they grow in mire, Is this the world men choose, Shall I not guilty be If hence God would me free, And I'd not leave it? My soul, from Sodom fly, Lest wrath there find thee: Thy refuge-rest is nigh, Look not behind thee. There's none of this ado, My friends are gone before, It trusts Christ and his merits, The dead he raises : Join it with blessed spirits, Who sing thy praises. |