Page:The Pilgrim's Progress, the Holy War, Grace Abounding Chunk1.djvu/14

10 Come, Truth, although in swaddling-clouts 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 did forbid

The use of parables; in which lay hid

That gold, those pearls, and precious stones, that were

Worth digging for, and that with greatest care.

Let me add one word more: O man of God,

Art thou offended? Dost thou wish I had

Put forth my matter in another dress?

Or that I had in things been more express?

To those that are my betters, as is fit,

Three things let me propound, then I submit:—

1. I find not that I am denied the use

Of this my method, so I no abuse

Put on the words, things, readers, or be rude

In handling figure or similitude

In application; but all that I may

Seek the advance of truth, this or that way.

Denied, did I say? Nay, I have leave

(Examples too, and that from them that have

God better pleased, by their words or ways,

Than any man that breatheth now-a-days)

Thus to express my mind, thus to declare

Things unto thee that excellentest are.

2. I find that men (as high as trees) will write

Dialogue-wise; yet no man doth them slight