Page 63
[verse 11] Be thou therefore to anger slow, it fooles doth best befit,
[verse 12] Muse not why tunes are chang'd, it doth import but want of wit.
11.
Be not thou of an hasty spirit to be angry, for anger resteth in the bosome of fooles.
Then be not thou with worlds peruerse euent
Disquieted, or moued vnto yre,
No though with malice men against thee bent,
With iust offence might kindle cholers fyre:
It is a passion that aboundant is
In fooles, and not reformes the thing amis.
If thou with reason be (as be thou may)
Offended with the euils that abound,
Thou mayst reproue them sure (I say not nay)
And hate the place whereas such sinnes are found,
For fooles they are, and dog-like bite the stone,
That blame offence, yet doer let alone.
12.
Say not thou, why is it that the former daies were bet∣ter then these? for thou dost not enquire wisely of this thing.
But yet (withall) beware thou do not blame
Thy God, in gouernment of present age,
By calling him t'account, why not the same
Most hatefull vices, which with vs do rage,
Did not in former times so much excell,
And we with them compare in doing well.
For it were folly, and offensiue much
To God and man, and signe of hatefull pride,
In weale or woe we may at nothing grutch,
For through our sinnes those scourges vs betide:
And God that sends the ill, can it amend,
Vpon his will our liking must depend.