When men seem crows far off upon a tow'r,
Sense saith, they 're crows: what makes us think

SECTION TII.
them men ?
When we in agues think all sweet things sour,

THAT THE SOUL IS MORE THAN THE TEMPERATURE OF THE

HUMOURS OF THE BODY. What makes us know our tongue's false judgment then?

If she doth then the subtle sense excel,

How gross are they that drown her in the blood ? What pow'r was that, whereby Medea saw,

Or in the body's humours temper'd well;
And well approv'd, and prais'd the better course;

As if in them such high perfection stood ?
When her rebellious sense did so withdraw
Her feeble pow'rs, that she pursu'd the worse?

As if most skill in that musician were,

Which had the best, and best tund instrument? Did sense persuade Ulysses not to hear

As if the pencil neat, and colours clear,
The mermaid's songs which so his men did please,

Had pow'r to make the painter excellent?
That they were all persuaded, through the ear,
To quit the ship and leap into the seas?

| Why doth not beauty then refine the wit,

And good complexion rectify the will ? Could any pow'r of sense the Roman move,

Why doth not bealth bring wisdom still with it? To burn his own right hand with courage stout ? |

Why doth not sickness make men brutish still. Could sense make Marius sit unbound, and prove The cruel lancing of the knotty gout?

Who can in memory, or wit, or will, .

Or air, or fire, or earth, or water find? Doubtless, in man there is a nature found,

What alchymist can draw, with all his skill, • Beside the senses, and above them far;

The quintessence of these out of the mind ? “ Though most men being in sensual pleasures drown'd,

If th' elements which have nor life, nor sense, It seems their souls but in their senses are.”

I Can breed in us so great a pow'r as this,

| Why give they not themselves like excellence, If we had nought but sense, then only they

| Or other things wherein their mixture is ? Should have sound minds, which have their senses sound:

If she were but the body's quality, But wisdom grows, when senses do decay;

| Then she would be with it sick, maim'd, and blind: And folly most in quickest sense is found.

But we perceive where these privations be,

Au healthy, perfect, and sharp-sighted mind. If we had nought but sense, each living wight, Which we call brute, would be more sharp than If she the body's nature did partake, scay: we;

Her strength would with the body's strength deAs having sense's apprehensive might

But when the body's strongest sinews slake, In a more clear and excellent degree.

Then is the soul most active, quick, and gay. But they do want that quick discoursing pow'r, If she were but the body's accident, Which doth in us the erring sense correct;

And her sole being did in it subsist,
Therefore the bee did suck the painted flow'r, As white in snow, she might herself absent,

And birds, of grapes, the cunning shadow peck'd. And in the body's substance not be miss'd.
Sense outsides knows, the soul through all things | But it on her, not she on it depends;
sees:

For she the body doth sustain and cherish :
Serise, circumstance; she doth the substance view: Such secret pow'rs of life to it she lends,
Sense stes the bark; but she the life of trees :

That when they fail, then doth the body perish. Sense hears the sounds; but she the concords true.

Since then the soul works by herself alone, But why do I the soul and sense divide,

Springs not from sense, nor humours wellagreeing, When sense is but a pow'r, which she extends;

Her nature is peculiar, and her own;
Which being in divers parts diversify'd,
The divers forms of objects apprehends?

She is a substance, and a perfect being.

For sbe all natures under Heav'n doth pass, (see, Nor could we by our eyes all colours learn,

Being like those spirits, which God's bright face do Except our eyes were of all colours void; On like himself, whose image once she was,

Nor sundry tastes can any tongue discern, 'Though now, alas! she scarce his shadow be. Which is with gross and bitter humours cloy'd. For of all forms, she holds the first degree, Nor can a man of passions judge aright, 'That are to gross material bodies knit;

Except his mind be from all passions free: Yet she herself is bodyless and free;

Nor can a judge his office well acquit, And, though confin'd, is almost infinite.

If he possessid of either party be.

All bodies are with other bodies fill'd,

As then the soul a substance hath alone,
But she receives both Heav'n and Earth together: Besides the body in which she's confin'd;
Nor are their forms by rash encounter spillid, So hath she not a body of her own,

For there they stand, and neither toucheth either. But is a spirit, and immaterial mind.
Nor can her wide embracements filled be;

Since body and soul have such diversities, For they that most and greatest things embrace, Well might we muse, how first their match began; Enlarge thereby their mind's capacity,

But that we learn, that he that spread the skies, As streams enlarg'd, enlarge the channel's space.

And fix'd the Earth, first form'd the soul in man. All things receiv'd do such proportion take, As those things have wherein they are receiv'd;

This true, Prometheus first made man of earth, So little glasses little faces make,

And shed in him a beam of heav'nly fire;

Now in their mother's wombs, before their birth, And narrow webs on narrow frames are weav'd.

| Dotb in all sons of men their souls inspire. Then what rast body must we make the mind, Wherein are men, beasts, trees, towus, seas, and an

od | And as Minerva is in fables said, And yet each thing a proper place doth find, [lands;

From Jove, without a mother, to proceed; And each thing in the true proportion stands ?

hälsa So our true Jove, without a mother's aid,

Doth daily millions of Minervas breed. Doubtless, this could not be, but that she turns

Bodies to spirits, by sublimation strange; As fire couverts to fire the things it burus; As we our meats into our nature change.

SECTION V. From their gross matter she abstracts the forms,

ERRONEOUS OPINIONS OF THE CREATION OF SOULS. And draws a kind of quintessence from things; Which to her proper nature she transforms, | Then neither from eternity before, To bear thein light on her celestial wings.

Nor from the time, when time's first point begun,

Made he all souls, which now he keeps in store ; This doth she, when, from things particular,

Some in the Moon, and others in the Sun: She dotb abstract the universal kinds, Which bolyless and immaterial are,

Nor in a secret cloister doth he keep Aud can be only lodg'd within our minds.

These virgin-spirits, till their marriage day; And thus, from divers accidents and acts

Nor locks them up in chambers, where they sleep, Which do within her observation fall,

Till they awake within these beds of clay.
She goddesses and pow'rs divine abstracts;
As Nature, Fortune, and the Virtues all.

Nor did he first a certain number make,

Infusing part in beast and part in men; Again; how can she sev'ral bodies know,

And, as unwilling further pains to take, If in herself a body's form she bear?

Would make no more than those he framed then. How can a mirror sundry faces show, If from all shapes and forins it be not clear? So that the widow soul, her body dying, ..

Unto the next bora body married was;

And so by often changing, and supplying, 2 That it cannot be a body.

| Men's souls to beasts, and beasts to men did pass. (These thoughts are fond; for since the bodies born | But many subtle wits have justify'd, Be more in number far, than those that die,

That son is from souls spiritually may spring; Thousands must be abortive, and forlorn

| Which (if the nature of the soul be try'd) Ere others' deaths to them their souls supply :) Will e'eu in nature prove as gross a thing.

Then if her heav'nly form do not agree

With any matter which the world contains,
SECTION VI.

Then she of nothing must created be; .

And to create, to God alone pertains.
THAT THE SOUL IS NOT EX TRADUCE.

Again, if souls do other souls beget,
Alas! that some who were great lights of old, "T is by themselves, or by the body's pow'r:

And in their hands the lamp of God did bear! If by themselves, what doth their working let, Some rer'rend fathers did this errour hold,

But they might souls engender ev'ry hour? Having their eyes dimm'd with religious fear.

If by the body, how can wit and will

Join with the body only in this act,
OBJECTION.

Since when they do their other works fulfil,
For when, say they, by rule of faith we find,

They from the body do themselves abstract. That ev'ry soul unto her body knit, Brings from the mother's womb the sin of kind, Again, if souls of sonls begotten were, The root of all the ill she doth commit.

Into each other they should change and move:

And change and motion still corruption bear; How can we say that God the soal doth make, How shall we then the soul immortal prove?

But we must make him anthor of her sin ?
Then from man's soul she doth beginning take, If, lastly, souls do generation use,
Since in man's soul corruption did begin.

Then should they spread incorruptible seed :

What tben becomes of that which they do lose, For if God make her first he makes her ill, (unto;) When th' art of generation do not speed ?

(Which God forbid our thoughts should yield | Or makrs the body her fair form to spill,

And though the soul could cast spiritual seed, Which, of itself, it had not pow'r to do.

Yet would she not, because she never dies;

For mortal things desire their like to breed,
Not Adam's body, but his soul did sin,

That so they may their kind immortalize.
And so herself unto corruption brought;
But our poor soul corrupted is within,

Therefore the angels sons of God are nam'd,
Ere sbe had sinn’d, either in act or thought : And marry pot, nor are in marriage giv'n:

Their spirits and ours are of one substance fram'd, And yet we see in her such pow'rs divine,

And have one father, e'en the Lord of Heaven; As we could gladly think, from God she came : Pain would we make him author of the wine, Who would at first, that in each other thing If for the dregs we could some other blame. The earth and water living souls should breed,

But that man's soul, whom he would make their king,

Should from himself immediately proceed.
ANSWER.
Thus these good men with holy zeal were blind, And when he took the woman from man's side,

When on the other part the truth did shine; Doubtless himself inspir'd her soul alone:
Whereof we do clear demonstrations find,

For 't is not said, he did man's soul divide,
By light of nature, and by light divine.

Bat took flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone.

None are so gross as to contend for this,

That souls from bodies may traduced be;
Between whose natures do proportion is,
When root and branch in nature still agree.

Lastly, God being made man for man's own sake,

And being like man in all, except in sin,
His body from the virgin's womb did take;
| But all agree, God form'd his soul within.

Then is the soul from God; so Pagans say, | He looks on Adam as a root or well;

Which saw by Nature's light her heav'nly kind; | And on his heirs as branches, and as streams: Naming her kin to God, and God's bright ray, He sees all men as one man, though they dweli A citizen of Heav'n, to Earth confin'd.

In sundry cities, and in sundry realms. Ef

But now I feel, they pluck me by the ear,

And as the root and branch are but one tree, Whom my young Muse so boldly termed blind!! And well and stream do but one river make; And crave more heav'nly light, that cloud to clear; So, if the root and well corrupted be, Which makes them think, God doth not make The stream and branch the same corruption take. the mind.

So, when the root and fountain of mankind

Did draw corruption, and God's curse, by sin;

This was a charge, that all bis heirs did bind,
SECTION VIII.

And all his offspring grew corrupt therein.
REASONS FROM DIVINITY.

And as when th' hand doth strike, the man offends,

(For part from whole, law severs not in this) And grafts her in the body, there to spring; So Adam's sin to the whole kind extends ; Which, though it be corrupted flesh and blood, For all their natures are but part of his. Cau no way to the soul corruption bring:

Therefore this sin of kind, not personal,
Yet is not God the author of her ill,

But real and hereditary was;
Though author of her being, and being there : The guilt thereof, and punishment to all,
And if we dare to judge our Maker's will,

By course of nature and of law doth pass.
He can condemn us, and himself can clear.
First, God from infinite eternity

For as that easy law was giv'n to all,

To ancestor and heir, to first and last;
Decreed, what hath been, is, or shall be done;

So was the first transgression general;
And was resolv'd that ev'ry man should be,
And in his turn his race of life should run :

And all did pluck the fruit, and all did taste.

O could we see how causc from cause doth spring! | Is it then just with us, to disinherit
How mutually they link'd and folded are !

Th' unborn nephews, for the father's fault; And hear how oft one disagreeing string

And to advance again, for one man's merit, The harmony doth rather make than mar! A thousand heirs that have deserved nought?

And view at once, how death by sin is brought; · And how from death, a better life doth rise ! How this God's justice, and his mercy taught!

We this decree would praise, as right and wise.

And is not God's decree as just as ours,

If he, for Adam's sin, his sons deprive 1 Of all those native virtues, and those pow'rs,

Which he to him and to his race did give?

But we that measure times by first and last,

The sight of things successively do take, When God on all at once his view doth cast,

And of all times doth bụt one instant make

For what is this contagious sin of kind,

But a privation of that grace within,
And of that great rich dowry of the mind,

Which all had had, but for the first man's sip?

All in himself, as in a glass, he sees;

If then a man on light conditions gain
For from him, by him, through him, all things be; | A great estate, to him and his, for ever ;
His sight is not discoursive, by degrees;

If wilfully he forfeit it again,
But seeing th' whole, cach single part doth see. Who doth bemoan his heir or blame the giver?

So, though God make the soul good, rich, and fair, 1
Yet when ber form is to the body knit,

SECTION IX.
Which makes the man, which man is Adam's heir,
Justig forthwith he takes his grace from it:

WHY THE SOUL IS UNITED TO THE BODY. I And then the soul, being first from nothing brought, | This substance, and this spirit of God's own making. When God's grace fails her, doth to nothing

Is in the body plac'd, and planted here, fall;

| " That both of God, and of the world partaking, And this declining proneness unto nought,

Of all that is, man might the image bear.” Is een that sin that we are born withal.

God first made angels bodiless, pure minds; Yet pot alone the first good qualities,

Then other things, which mindless bodies be; Which in the first soul were, deprived are ;

Last, he made man, th' horizon 'twixt both kinds, But in their place the contrary do rise,

In whom we do the world's abridgment see. And real spots of sio her beauty mar.

Besides, this world below did need one wight, Nor is it strange, that Adam's ill desert

Which might thereof distinguish ev'ry part; Should be transferr'd unto bis guilty race,

Make use thereof, and take therein delight; When Christ his grace and justice doth impart

And order things with industry and art: To men unjust, and such as have no grace.

Which also God might in his works admire, Lastly, the soul were better so to be

And here beneath yield him both pray'r and praise; Born slave to sin, than not to be at all;

As there, above, the holy angels choir Since (if she do believe) one sets her free,

Doth spread his glory forth with spiritual lays. That makes her mount the higher for her fall.

Lastly, the brute, unreasonable wights, Yet this the curious wits will not content;

Did want a visible king, o'er them to reign : They yet will know (since God foresaw this ill) | And God himself thus to the world unites, Why his high providence did not prevent

That so the world might endless bliss obtain. The declination of the first man's will.