A Travailer, when he must undertake To seek his passage, o’re some _Frozen Lake_, With _leisure_, and with _care_, he will assay The glassy smoothnesse of that _Icie-way_, Lest he may _slip_, by walking over-fast; Or, breake the crackling _Pavement_, by his hast: And, so (for want of better taking heed) Incurre the mischiefes of _Vnwary-speed_. We are all _Travellers_; and, all of us Have many passages, as dangerous, As _Frozen-lakes_; and, _Slippery-wayes_, we tread, In which our Lives may soone be forfeited, (With all our hopes of _Life-eternall_, too) Unlesse, we well consider what we doe. There is no private _Way_, or publicke _Path_, But rubs, or holes, or slipp’rinesse it hath, Whereby, wee shall with _Mischiefes_ meet; unlesse, Wee walke it, with a _stedfast-warinesse_. The steps to _Honour_, are on _Pinacles_ Compos’d of melting Snow, and Isicles; And, they who tread not nicely on their tops, Shall on a suddaine slip from all their _hopes_. Yea, ev’n that way, which is both sure and holy, And, leades the Minde from Vanities and Folly, Is with so many other _Path-wayes_ crost, As, that, by Rashnesse, it may soone be lost; Vnlesse, we well deliberate, upon Those _Tracts_, in which our _Ancestours_ have gone: And, they who with more _haste_, then _heed_, will runne, May lose the way, in which they well begunne. _Our =Pelican=, by bleeding, thus, Fulfill’d the =Law=, and cured =Vs=._ [Illustration: PRO LEGE ET PRO GREGE. ILLVSTR. XX. _Book. 3_]