Is lust within, polluting, corrupting, and withering the heart, his warning is,
Beware of lust; it doth pollute the soul Whom God in baptism washed with his own blood, It blots the lesson written in thy soul; The holy words cannot be understood. How dare those eyes upon a Bible look, Much less toward God, “whose lust is all their book.”
Profanity he rebukes in lines like these:
Take not his name who made thy mouth, in vain. It gets thee nothing, and has no excuse. Lust and wine plead a pleasure, avarice gain; But the cheap swearer, through his open sluice, Lets his soul run for naught.
Remembering in whose sight “lying lips are an abomination,” and the sacredness of whose sanctuary is polluted by falsehood, he breaks forth with indignant tone,
Lie not, but let thy heart be true to God, Thy mouth to it, thy actions to them both. Cowards tell lies, and those that fear the rod. The stormy working soul spits lies and froth; Dare to be true—nothing can need a lie; A fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.
Extravagance, which is the grateful mother of debt, penury, and want; which has desolated as many homes, withered as many hearts, and destroyed as many lives as the sword, he thus rebukes:
Never exceed thy income, youth may make Even with the year; but age, if it will hit, Shoots a bow short, and lessens still his stake As the day lessens, and his life with it. Thy children, kindred, friends upon thee call, Before thy journey, fairly past with all.
The dangers that wait on suretyship, and the madness of yielding to its pressing importunities, are thus set forth:
Yet be not surety, if thou be a father; Love is a personal debt. I cannot give My children’s right, nor ought he take it, rather Both friends should die, than hinder them to live. Fathers first enter bonds to nature’s ends, And are her sureties, ere they are friends.
The spirit in which we should enter the hallowed courts of the sanctuary, is set forth thus:
When once thy foot enters the church, believe God is more there than thou, for thou art there Only by his permission. Then beware, And make thyself all reverence and fear. Kneeling ne’er spoiled silk stockings; quit thy state, All equal are within the church’s gate.