The Works of John Bunyan, vol 3, John Bunyan [ebook reader color screen TXT] 📗

seems mean, my morals be Grave, as if fetch’d from a sublimer tree.

And if some better handle12 can a fly, Than some a text, why should we then deny Their making proof, or good experiment,

Of smallest things, great mischiefs to prevent?

Wise Solomon did fools to piss-ants13 send, To learn true wisdom, and their lies to mend.

Yea, God by swallows, cuckoos, and the ass,[14]

Shows they are fools who let that season pass, Which he put in their hand, that to obtain Which is both present and eternal gain.

I think the wiser sort my rhymes may slight, But what care I, the foolish will delight To read them, and the foolish God has chose, And doth by foolish things their minds compose, And settle upon that which is divine;

Great things, by little ones, are made to shine.

I could, were I so pleas’d, use higher strains: And for applause on tenters15 stretch my brains.

But what needs that? the arrow, out of sight, Does not the sleeper, nor the watchman fright; To shoot too high doth but make children gaze, ‘Tis that which hits the man doth him amaze.

And for the inconsiderableness

Of things, by which I do my mind express, May I by them bring some good thing to pass, As Samson, with the jawbone of an ass;

Or as brave Shamgar, with his ox’s goad

(Both being things not manly, nor for war in mode), I have my end, though I myself expose

To scorn; God will have glory in the close.

J.B.

A BOOK FOR BOYS AND GIRLS, &c.

DIVINE EMBLEMS, OR TEMPORAL THINGS

SPIRITUALIZED, &c.

I.

UPON THE BARREN FIG-TREE IN GOD’S VINEYARD

What, barren here! in this so good a soil?

The sight of this doth make God’s heart recoil From giving thee his blessing; barren tree, Bear fruit, or else thine end will cursed be!

Art thou not planted by the water-side?

Know’st not thy Lord by fruit is glorified?

The sentence is, Cut down the barren tree: Bear fruit, or else thine end will cursed be.

Hast thou been digg’d about and dunged too, Will neither patience nor yet dressing do?

The executioner is come, O tree,

Bear fruit, or else thine end will cursed be!

He that about thy roots takes pains to dig, Would, if on thee were found but one good fig, Preserve thee from the axe: but, barren tree, Bear fruit, or else thy end will cursed be!

The utmost end of patience is at hand,

‘Tis much if thou much longer here doth stand.

O cumber-ground, thou art a barren tree.

Bear fruit, or else thine end will cursed be!

Thy standing nor they name will help at all; When fruitful trees are spared, thou must fall.

The axe is laid unto thy roots, O tree!

Bear fruit, or else thine end will cursed be.

II.

UPON THE LARK AND THE FOWLER.

Thou simple bird, what makes thou here to play?

Look, there’s the fowler, pr’ythee come away.

Do’st not behold the net? Look there, ‘tis spread, Venture a little further, thou art dead.

Is there not room enough in all the field For thee to play in, but thou needs must yield To the deceitful glitt’ring of a glass,

Plac’d betwixt nets, to bring thy death to pass?

Bird, if thou art so much for dazzling light, Look, there’s the sun above thee; dart upright; Thy nature is to soar up to the sky,

Why wilt thou come down to the nets and die?

Take no heed to the fowler’s tempting call; This whistle, he enchanteth birds withal.

Or if thou see’st a live bird in his net, Believe she’s there, ‘cause hence she cannot get.

Look how he tempteth thee with is decoy, That he may rob thee of thy life, thy joy.

Come, pr’ythee bird, I pr’ythee come away, Why should this net thee take, when ‘scape thou may?

Hadst thou not wings, or were thy feathers pull’d, Or wast thou blind, or fast asleep wer’t lull’d, The case would somewhat alter, but for thee, Thy eyes are ope, and thou hast wings to flee.

Remember that thy song is in thy rise,

Not in thy fall; earth’s not thy paradise.

Keep up aloft, then, let thy circuits be Above, where birds from fowler’s nets are free.

Comparison.

This fowler is an emblem of the devil,

His nets and whistle, figures of all evil.

His glass an emblem is of sinful pleasure, And his decoy of who counts sin a treasure.

This simple lark’s a shadow of a saint,

Under allurings, ready now to faint.

This admonisher a true teacher is,

Whose works to show the soul the snare and bliss, And how it may this fowler’s net escape, And not commit upon itself this rape.

III.

UPON THE VINE-TREE.

What is the vine, more than another tree?

Nay most, than it, more tall, more comely be.

What workman thence will take a beam or pin, To make ought which may be delighted in?

Its excellency in its fruit doth lie:

A fruitless vine, it is not worth a fly.

Comparison.

What are professors more than other men?

Nothing at all. Nay, there’s not one in ten, Either for wealth, or wit, that may compare, In many things, with some that carnal are.

Good are they, if they mortify their sin, But without that, they are not worth a pin.

IV.

MEDITATIONS UPON AN EGG.

1.

The egg’s no chick by falling from the hen; Nor man a Christian, till he’s born again.

The egg’s at first contained in the shell; Men, afore grace, in sins and darkness dwell.

The egg, when laid, by warmth is made a chicken, And Christ, by grace, those dead in sin doth quicken.

The egg, when first a chick, the shell’s its prison; So’s flesh to the soul, who yet with Christ is risen.

The shell doth crack, the chick doth chirp and peep, The flesh decays, as men do pray and weep.

The shell doth break, the chick’s at liberty, The flesh falls off, the soul mounts up on high But both do not enjoy the self-same plight; The soul is safe, the chick now fears the kite.

2.

But chicks from rotten eggs do not proceed, Nor is a hypocrite a saint indeed.

The rotten egg, though underneath the hen, If crack’d, stinks, and is loathsome unto men.

Nor doth her warmth make what is rotten sound; What’s rotten, rotten will at last be found.

The hypocrite, sin has him in possession, He is a rotten egg under profession.

3.

Some eggs bring cockatrices; and some men Seem hatch’d and brooded in the viper’s den.

Some eggs bring wild-fowls; and some men there be As wild as are the wildest fowls that flee.

Some eggs bring spiders, and some men appear More venom’d than the worst of spiders are.[16]

Some eggs bring piss-ants, and some seem to me As much for trifles as the piss-ants be.

Thus divers eggs do produce divers shapes, As like some men as monkeys are like apes.

But this is but an egg, were it a chick, Here had been legs, and wings, and bones to pick.

V.

OF FOWLS FLYING IN THE AIR.

Methinks I see a sight most excellent,

All sorts of birds fly in the firmament: Some great, some small, all of a divers kind, Mine eye affecting, pleasant to my mind.

Look how they tumble in the wholesome air, Above the world of worldlings, and their care.

And as they divers are in bulk and hue,

So are they in their way of flying too.

So many birds, so many various things

Tumbling i’ the element upon their wings.

Comparison.

These birds are emblems of those men that shall Ere long possess the heavens, their all in all.

They are each of a diverse shape and kind, To teach we of all nations there shall find.

They are some great, some little, as we see, To show some great, some small, in glory be.[17]

Their flying diversely, as we behold,

Do show saints’ joys will there be manifold; Some glide, some mount, some flutter, and some do, In a mix’d way of flying, glory too.

And all to show each saint, to his content, Shall roll and tumble in that firmament.

VI.

UPON THE LORD’S PRAYER.

Our Father which in heaven art,

Thy name be always hallowed;

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done;

Thy heavenly path be followed

By us on earth as ‘tis with thee,

We humbly pray;

And let our bread us given be,

From day to day.

Forgive our debts as we forgive

Those that to us indebted are:

Into temptation lead us not,[18]

But save us from the wicked snare.

The kingdom’s thine, the power too,

We thee adore;

The glory also shall be thine

For evermore.

VII.

MEDITATIONS UPON PEEP OF DAY.

I oft, though it be peep of day, don’t know Whether ‘tis night, whether ‘tis day or no.

I fancy that I see a little light,

But cannot yet distinguish day from night; I hope, I doubt, but steady yet I be not, I am not at a point, the sun I see not.

Thus ‘tis with such who grace but now19 possest, They know not yet if they be cursed or blest.

VIII.

UPON THE FLINT IN THE WATER.

This flint, time out of mind, has there abode, Where crystal streams make their continual road.

Yet it abides a flint as much as ‘twere

Before it touched the water, or came there Its hard obdurateness is not abated,

‘Tis not at all by water penetrated.

Though water hath a soft’ning virtue in’t, This stone it can’t dissolve, for ‘tis a flint.

Yea, though it in the water doth remain, It doth its fiery nature still retain.

If you oppose it with its opposite,

At you, yea, in your face, its fire ‘twill spit.

Comparison.

This flint an emblem is of those that lie, Like stones, under the Word, until they die.

Its crystal streams have not their nature changed, They are not, from their lusts, by grace estranged.

IX.

UPON THE FISH IN THE WATER.

1.

The water is the fish’s element;

Take her from thence, none can her death prevent; And some have said, who have transgressors been, As good not be, as to be kept from sin.

2.

The water is the fish’s element:

Leave her but there, and she is well content.

So’s he, who in the path of life doth plod, Take all, says he, let me but have my God.

3.

The water is the fish’s element,

Her sportings there to her are excellent; So is God’s service unto holy men,

They are not in their element till then.

X.

UPON THE SWALLOW.

This pretty bird, O! how she flies and sings,[20]

But could she do so if she had not wings?

Her wings bespeak my faith, her songs my peace; When I believe and sing my doubtings cease.

XI.

UPON THE BEE.

The bee goes out, and honey home doth bring, And some who seek that honey find a sting.

Now would’st thou have the honey, and be free From stinging, in the first place kill the bee.

Comparison.

This bee an emblem truly is of sin,

Whose sweet, unto a many, death hath been.

Now would’st have sweet from sin and yet not die, Do thou it, in the first place, mortify.

XII.

UPON A LOWERING MORNING.

Well, with the day I see the clouds appear, And mix the light with darkness everywhere; This threatening is, to travellers that go Long journeys, slabby rain they’ll have, or snow.

Else, while I gaze, the sun doth with his beams Belace the clouds, as