TEMPORAL THINGS SPIRITUALIZED.
TO STIR UP TO WATCH AGAINST SIN
THE pages here will shew, if thou wilt look.
Who are the proper subjects of this book,
They're Boys and Girls, of all sorts and degrees,
From those of age to children on the knees.
Thus comprehensive am I in my notions,
They tempt me to it by their childish motions.
We now have boys with beards, and girls that be
Huge as old women, wanting gravity.
Then do not blame me, since I thus describe 'em t
Flatter I may not, lest thereby I bribe 'em
To have a better judgment of themselves,
Than wise men have of babies on the shelves.
Their antic tricks, fantastic modes and way,
Shew they like very boys and girls do play
With all the frantic fooleries of the age,
And that in open view, as on a stage;
Our bearded men do act like beardless boys,
Our women please themselves with childish toys,
Our ministers, long time by word and pen Dealt with them, counting them not boys but men: They shot their thunders at them, and their toys, But hit them not, ause they were girls and boys.
The better charged, the wider still they shot.
Or else so high, these dwarfs they touched not,
Instead of men, they found them girls and boys,
To nought addicted but to childish toy ›.
Wherefore, dear Reader, that I save them may,
I now with them the very unt'rel play.
And since at gravity they make a tush,
My very beard I cast behind a bush.
And, like a fool, stand fingering of their toys,
And all to shew they are but girls and boys.
Nor do I blush, although, I think, some may
Call me a child, because I with them play:
I aim to shew them how each fingle-fangle
On which they dote, does but their souls entangle,
As with a web, a trap, a gin, a spare:
And will destroy them have they not a care.
l'aul seem'd to play the fool, that he might gain
Those that were fools in deed, if not in grain ;
He did it by such things, to let them see
Their emptiness, their sin, and vanity:
A noble act, and full of honesty!
Nor he, nor I would like them be in vice,
But by their play-things, I would then entice,
That they might raise their thoughts for childish toys,
To heaven, for that's prepared for girls and boys.
Nor would I so confine myself to these,
As to shun graver things, but seek to please
Those more composed with better things than toys;
Though I would thus be catching girls and boys.
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