Shadows do every where for substance passe,
You'd think the sands were in an houre-glasse.
You that do live with Chirurgeons, have you seen
A spring of blood forc'd from a swelling vein?
So from a touch of Moses rod doth jump
A Cataract, the rock is made a pump:
At sight of whose o'erflowings many get
Themselves away for fear of being wet.
Have you beheld a sprightfull Lady stand
To have her frame drawn by a painters hand?
Such lively look and presence, such a dresse
King Pharoahs Daughters Image doth expresse;
Look well upon her Gown and you will swear
The needle not the pencil hath been there:
At sight of her some gallants do dispute
Whether i' th' Church 'tis lawfull to salute.
Next Jacob kneeling, where his Kids-skins such
As it may well cosen old Isaacs touch:
A Shepheard seeing how thorns went round about
Abrahams ram, would needs have helpt it out.
Behold the Dove descending to inspire
The Apostles heads with cloven tongues of fire,
And in a superficies there you'll see
The grosse dimensions of profundity:
'Tis hard to judge which is best built and higher
The arch-roofe, in the window or the Quire.
...

Here's motion painted too: Chariots so fast
Run, that they're never gone though always past.
The Angels with their Lutes are done so true,
We do not onely look but hearken too,
As if their sounds were painted: thus the wit
Of the pencil hath drawn more than there can sit.
Thus as (in Archimedes sphear) you may
In a small glasse the universe survey:
Such various shapes are too ith' Imagry
As age and sex may their own features see.
But if the window cannot shew your face
Look under feet, the Marble is your glasse,
Which too for more than Ornament is there;
The stones may learn your eyes to shed a tear:
Yet though their lively shadows delude sense
They never work upon the conscience;
They cannot make us kneel; we are not such
As think there's balsome in their kisse or touch,
That were grosse superstition we know;
There' is no more power in them than the Popes toe.
The Saints themselves for us can do no good,
Much less their pictures drawn in glass and wood,
They cannot seale, but since they signifie,
They may be worthy of a cast o' th' eye,
Although no worship: that is due alone
Not to the Carpenters but Gods own Sonne.
...

Cease then your railings and your dull complaints;
To pull down Galleries and set up Saints
Is no impiety: now we may well
Say that our Church is truely visible:
Those that before our glasse scaffolds prefer,
Would turne our Temple to a Theater.
Windows are Pulpits now; though unlearned, one
May read this Bible's new Edition.
Instead of here and there a verse adorn'd
Round with a lace of paint, fit to be scorn'd
Even by vulgar eyes, each pane presents
Whole chapters with both comment and contents,
The cloudy mysteries of the Gospel here
Transparent as the Christall do appear.
Tis not to see things darkly through a glasse,
Here you may see our Saviour face to face.
And whereas Feasts come seldome, here's descried
A constant Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide.
Let the deafe hither come; no matter though
Faiths sense be lost, we a new way can shew:
Here we can teach them to believe by the eye,
These silenc'd Ministers do edify:
The Scriptures rayes contracted in a Glasse
Like Emblems do with greater vertue passe.
Look in the book of Martyrs and you'll see
More by the Pictures than the History.
That price for things in colours oft we give
Which we'd not take to have them while they live.
Such is the power of painting that it makes
A loving sympathy twixt men and snakes.
Hence then Pauls doctrine may seem more divine;
As Amber through a Glasse doth clearer shine.
Words passe away, as soon as heard are gone;
We read in books what here we dwell upon,
Thus then there's no more fault in Imag'ry
Than there is in the Practice of piety,
Both edifie: what is in letters there
Is writ in plainer Hierogliphicks here.
Tis not a new Religion we have chose;
Tis the same body but in better clothes.
You'll say they make us gaze when we should pray
And that our thoughts do on the figures stray:
If so, you may conclude us beasts; what they
Have for their object is to us the way.
Did any e'er use prospectives to see
No farther than the Glasse: or can there be
Such lazy travellers, so given to sin,
As that they'll take their dwelling at the Inne?
A Christian's sight rests in Divinity,
Signes are but spectacles to help faiths eye,
God is the Center: dwelling on these words,
My muse a Sabbath to my brain affords.
If their nice wits more solemn proof exact,
Know this was meant a Poem not a Tract.