|
And seeks to find out what, by pins and loops, By calves and sheep, by heifers, and by rams, By birds and herbs, and by the blood of lambs, God speaketh to him; and happy is he That finds the light and grace that in them be.
But not too forward, therefore, to conclude That I want solidness—that I am rude; All things solid in show, not solid be; All things in parable despise not we, Lest things most hurtful lightly we receive, And things that good are, of our souls bereave.
My dark and cloudy words they do but hold The truth, as cabinets inclose the gold.
The prophets used much by metaphors To set forth truth: yea, who so considers Christ, his apostles too, shall plainly see, That truths to this day in such mantles be.
Am I afraid to say, that holy writ, Which for its style and phrase puts down all wit, Is everywhere so full of all these things, Dark figures, allegories. Yet there springs From that same book, that lustre, and those rays Of light, that turn our darkest nights to days.
Come, let my carper to his life now look, And find there darker lines than in my book He findeth any; yea, and let him know, That in his best things there are worse lines too.
May we but stand before impartial men, To his poor one I durst adventure ten, That they will take my meaning in these lines Far better than his lies in silver shrines.
Come, truth, although in swaddling-clothes, I find Informs the judgment, rectifies the mind; Pleases the understanding, makes the will Submit, the memory too it doth fill With what doth our imagination please; Likewise it tends our troubles to appease.
Sound words, I know, Timothy is to use, And old wives’ fables he is to refuse; But yet grave Paul him nowhere doth forbid The use of parables, in which lay hid 7 John Bunyan Pilgrim's Progress
|
