Who fhuts his hand, hath loft his gold:
Who opens it, hath it twice told.

Who goes to bed, and doth not pray,
Maketh two nights to every day.

Who by afperfions throw a stone
At the head of others, hit their own.

Who looks on ground with humble eyes,
Finds himself there, and seeks to rise.

When the hair is sweet through pride or luft, The powder doth forget the duft.

Take one from ten, and what remains?
Ten ftill, if Sermons go for gains.

In fhallow waters heaven doth show:
But who drinks on, to hell may go.

M

73. Affliction.

Y God, I read this day,

That planted Paradife was not so firm
As was and is thy floating Ark; whose stay
And anchor thou art only, to confirm

And strengthen it in every age,

When waves do rife, and tempests rage.

At first we lived in pleasure;

Thine own delights thou didst to us impart :
When we grew wanton, thou didft use displeasure
To make us thine: yet that we might not part,
As we at firft did board with thee,
Now thou wouldst taste our misery.

There is but joy and grief;

If either will convert us, we are thine:
Some Angels used the first; if our relief
Take up the second, then thy double line
And feveral baits in either kind

Furnish thy table to thy mind.

Affliction then is ours;

We are the trees, whom shaking fastens more, While bluftering winds deftroy the wanton bowers And ruffle all their curious knots and store.

My God, fo temper joy and woe,

That thy bright beams may tame thy bow.

74. Mortification.

OW foon doth man decay!

When clothes are taken from a cheft of sweets
To fwaddle infants, whofe young breath
Scarce knows the way;

Those clouts are little winding-sheets,

Which do confign and send them unto death.

When boys go first to bed,

They step into their voluntary graves;

Sleep binds them faft; only their breath
Makes them not dead.

Succeffive nights, like rolling waves, Convey them quickly, who are bound for death.

When youth is frank and free,

And calls for mufic, while his veins do fwell,
All day exchanging mirth and breath
In company;

That mufic fummons to the knell,
Which shall befriend him at the house of death.

When man grows staid and wise,

Getting a house and home, where he may move
Within the circle of his breath,
Schooling his eyes;

That dumb inclosure maketh love
Unto the coffin, that attends his death.

When age grows low and weak,

Marking his grave, and thawing every year,
Till all do melt, and drown his breath
When he would speak;

A chair or litter fhows the bier

Which shall convey him to the house of death. Man, ere he is aware,

Hath put together a folemnity,

And dreft his hearfe, while he has breath
As yet to spare.

Yet, Lord, instruct us so to die

That all these dyings may be life in death.

75. Decay.

WEET were the days, when thou didst lodge with Lot,

Struggle with Jacob, fit with Gideon,

Advise with Abraham, when thy power could not Encounter Mofes' ftrong complaints and moan : Thy words were then, Let me alone.

One might have fought and found thee presently At fome fair oak, or bush, or cave, or well:

Is

my God this way? No, they would reply ; He is to Sinai gone, as we heard tell:

Lift, ye may hear great Aaron's bell.

But now thou dost thyself immure and close
In fome one corner of a feeble heart:
Where yet both Sin and Satan, thy old foes,
Do pinch and straiten thee, and use much art
To gain thy thirds and little part.

I fee the world grows old, when as the heat
Of thy great love once spread, as in an urn
Doth closet up itself, and still retreat,

Cold fin ftill forcing it, till it return

And calling Juftice, all things burn.

76. Mifery.

ORD, let the Angels praise thy name. Man is a foolish thing, a foolish thing; Folly and Sin play all his game.

His house still burns; and yet he still doth fing, Man is but grass,

He knows it, fill the glass.

How canft thou brook his foolishness?
Why, he'll not lofe a cup of drink for thee:
Bid him but temper his excess;

Not he he knows, where he can better be,
As he will fwear,

Than to ferve thee in fear.

What strange pollutions doth he wed, And make his own? as if none knew, but he. No man fhall beat into his head

That thou within his curtains drawn canst see : They are of cloth,

Where never yet came moth.

The best of men, turn but thy hand

For one poor minute, stumble at a pin : They would not have their actions scann'd, any forrow tell them that they fin,

Nor

Though it be small,

And measure not their fall.