Precepts by Thomas Randolph

California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists · Oakland, Cal. · Mar 4, 1875

Precepts.

By Thomas Randolph

BY THOMAS RANDOLPH, 1630.

First worship God; he that forgets to pray, Bids not himself good morrow nor good day. Let thy first labor be to purge thy sin, And serve Him first whence all things did begin, Honor thy parents to prolong thine end; With them, though for a truth, do not contend, Whoever makes his father's heart to bleed, Shall have a child that shall avenge the deed.

Think that is just; 'tis not enough to do, Unless thy very thoughts are upright, too. Defend the truth; for that who will not die A coward is, and gives himself the lie. Take well whate'er shall chance, though bad it be, Take it for good, and 'twill be good to thee. First think; and if thy thoughts approve thy will, Then speak, and after that thou speakest, fulfill.

So live with men as if God's curious eye Did everywhere into thine actions pry, For never yet was sin so void of sense, So fully faced with brazen impudence, As that it durst before men's eyes commit Their brutal lusts, lest they should witness it. How dare they then offend when God shall see, That must alone both judge and jury be?

Would'st thou live long? the only means are these, 'Bove Galen's diet or Hippocrates, Strive to live well; tread in the upright ways, And rather count thine actions than thy days, Then thou hast lived enough amongst us here; For every day well spent I count a year. Live well, and then, how soon soe'r thou die, Thou art of age to claim eternity; But he that outlives Nestor, and appears T' have passed the date of gray Methuselah's years, If he his life to sloth and sin doth give, I say he only was—he did not live.