I love Jeremy Taylors sermons! Bold, shocking and colorful illustrations of sin and its deception and allurements.
Taylor is considered the "Shakespeare of the divines," this is one example.
I put the original at the bottom.
"Learn to despise the world;
or, better yet, learn to truly understand it.
It is a deception all the way through.
Its head is a rainbow,
its face is flattery;
its words are charms, and all its stories are false.
Its body is a shadow,
and its hands knit spiders' webs.
It is an image and a noise,
with a hyena's lip and a serpent's tail with a scorpion’s sting.
It was given to serve the needs of our nature,
but instead it craves strange appetites
and nourishes thirsts and fevers.
It brings care and worry,
corrupts our nature,
and rewards all our labors with shame and death.
Our nature is a disease,
and the world nourishes it;
but if you refuse to feed on such unwholesome fare,
your nature returns to its original purity
and becomes receptive to the grace of God."
Here is the original unabridged --
"Learn to despise the world; or, which is better compendium in the duty, learn but truly to understand it; for it is a cousenage all the way;
the head of it is a rainbow, and the face of it is flattery;
it words are charms, and all its stories are false;
its body is a shadow, and its hands do knit spiders webs;
it is an image and a noise,
with a Hyena’s lip and a Serpents tail with the sting of a scorpion;
it was given to serve the needs of our nature, and instead of doing it,
it craves strange appetites, and nourishes thirsts and fevers;
it brings care and debauches our nature,
and brings shame and death as the reward for all our cares.
Our nature is a disease, and the world does nourish it;
but if you decline to feed upon such unwholesome diet,
your nature reverts to its first purities,
and to the entertainment of the grace of God."
