Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/121

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 * 'Think not yourselves to austerities confined,

Or those strict rules which other orders bind; To Capuchins, Carthusians, Cordeliers Leave penance, meagre abstinence, and prayers; [n lousy rags let begging friars lie, Content on straw or boards to mortify; Let them with sackcloth discipline their skins, Ajid scourge them for their madness and their sins; Let pining anchorets in grottos starve, Who from the liberties of nature swerve, Who make 't their chief religion not to eat, iLud place 't in nastiness, and want of meat. Live you in luxury and pampered ease, As if whole nature were your cateress; Soft be your beds, as those which monarchs' whores Lie on, or gouts of bedrid emperors; Your wardrobes stored with choice of suits more dear Than cardinals on high processions wear; With dainties load your boards, whose every dish May tempt cloyed gluttons, or Vitellius' wish, Each fit a longing queen; let richest wines With mirth your heads inflame, with lust your veins, Such as the friends of dying popes would give For cordials to prolong their gasping life.
 * ’Ne'er let the Nazarene, whose badge and name

You wear, upbraid you with a conscious shame; Leave him his slighted homilies and rules, To stuff the squabbles of the wrangling schools; Disdain, that He, and the poor angling tribe, Should laws and government to you prescribe; Let none of those good fools your patterns make, Instead of them, the mighty Judas take: Renowned Iscariot! fit alone to be The example of our great society, Whose darling guilt despised the common road, And scorned to stop at sin beneath a god.