THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 71 



And since I have your promise to hear me with 

 patience, I will take a liberty to look back upon 

 an observation that hath been made by an in- 

 genious and learned man ; who observes that God 

 hath been pleased to allow those whom he him- 

 self hath appointed, to write his holy will in holy 

 writ, yet to express his will in such metaphors as 

 their former affections or practice had inclined 

 them to. And he brings Solomon for an example, 

 who before his conversion was remarkably car- 

 nally amorous, and after, by God's appointment, 

 wrote that spiritual dialogue, or holy amorous love- 

 song, the Canticles, betwixt God and his Church ; 

 in which he says, " his beloved had eyes like the 

 fish-pools of Heshbon." 



And if this hold in reason, as I see none to the 

 contrary, then it may be probably concluded that 

 Moses who, I told you before, writ the Book of 

 Job, and the prophet Amos, who was a shepherd, 

 were both anglers ; for you shall in all the Old 

 Testament find fish-hooks, I think, but twice men- 

 tioned ; namely, by meek Moses the friend of God, 

 and by the humble prophet Amos. 



Concerning which last, namely, the prophet 

 Amos, I shall make but this observation, that 

 he that shall read the humble, lowly, plain style of 

 that prophet, and compare it with the high, 

 glorious, eloquent style of the prophet Isaiah, 

 though they be both equally true, may easily be- 

 lieve Amos to be, not only a shepherd, but a good- 

 natured plain fisherman. Which I do the rather 



