The Author to his wife: a rule for praying

MY deare, that in your closet for deuotion,
To kindle in your brest some godly motion,
You contemplate, and oft your eyes doe fixe
On some Saints picture, or the Crucifixe;
Tis not amisse, be it of stone or mettle,
It serueth in thy mind good thoughts to settle;
Such images may serue thee as a booke,
Whereon thou maist with godly reuerence looke,
And thereby thy remembrance to acquaint,
With life or death, or vertue of the Saint.
Yet doe I not allow thou kneele before it,
Nor would I in no wise you should adore it.
For as such things well vs'd, are cleane and holy,
So superstition soone may make it folly.
All images are scorn'd and quite dis-honoured,
If the Prototype be not solely honoured.
I keepe thy picture in a golden shrine,
And I esteeme it well, because 'tis thine;
But let me vse thy picture ne're so kindly,
'Twere little worth, if I vs'd thee vnkindly.
Sith then, my deare, our heauenly Lord aboue
Vouchsafeth vnto ours to like his loue:
So let vs vse his picture, that therein,
Against himselfe we doe commit no sinne;
Nor let vs scorne such pictures, nor deride them,
Like fooles, whose zeale mistaught, cānot abide them.
But pray, our hearts, by faith's eyes be made able
To see, what mortall eyes see on a Table.
A man would thinke, one did deserue a mocke,
Should say, Oh heauenly Father, to a stocke;
Such a one were a stocke, I straight should gather,
That would confesse a stocke to be her Father.