What pow'r was that, whereby Medea saw,
And well approv'd, and prais'd the better course;
When her rebellious sense did so withdraw
Her feeble pow'rs, that she pursu'd the worse?

Did sense persuade Ulysses not to hear

The mermaid's songs which so his men did please,
That they were all persuaded, through the ear,
To quit the ship and leap into the seas?

Could any pow'r of sense the Roman move,
To burn his own right hand with courage stout?
Could sense make Marius sit unbound, and prove
The cruel lancing of the knotty gout?

1

Doubtless, in man there is a nature found, Beside the senses, and above them far; "Though most men being in sensual pleasures

drown'd,

It seems their souls but in their senses are."

If we had nought but sense, then only they Should have sound minds, which have their senses sound:

But wisdom grows, when senses do decay;
And folly most in quickest sense is found.

If we had nought but sense, each living wight,
Which we call brute, would be more sharp than

we;

As having sense's apprehensive might

In a more clear and excellent degree.

But they do want that quick discoursing pow'r, Which doth in us the erring sense correct; Therefore the bee did suck the painted flow'r, And birds, of grapes, the cunning shadow peck'd.

sees:

Sense outsides knows, the soul through all things
Sense, circumstance; she doth the substance view:
Sense sees the bark; but she the life of trees :*
Sense hears the sounds; but she the concords true.

But why do I the soul and sense divide,
When sense is but a pow'r, which she extends;
Which being in divers parts diversify'd,
The divers forms of objects apprehends ?

This power spreads outward, but the root doth grow
In th' inward soul, which only doth perceive;
For th' eyes and ears no more their objects know,
Than glasses know what faces they receive.

For if we chance to fix our thoughts elsewhere,
Though our eyes open be, we cannot see:
And if one pow'r did not both see and hear,
• Our sights and sounds would always double be.

Then is the soul a nature, which contains

The pow'r of sense, within a greater pow'r; Which doth employ and use the sense's pains, But sits and rules within her private bow'r.

SECTION III.

THAT THE SOUL IS MORE THAN THE TEMPERATURE OF THE HUMOURS OF THE BODY.

IF she doth then the subtle sense excel,

How gross are they that drown her in the blood?

Or in the body's humours temper'd well;
As if in them such high perfection stood ?

As if most skill in that musician were,
Which had the best, and best tun'd instrument?
As if the pencil neat, and colours clear,

Had pow'r to make the painter excellent ?

Why doth not beauty then refine the wit,
And good complexion rectify the will?
Why doth not health bring wisdom still with it?
Why doth not sickness make men brutish still.

Who can in memory, or wit, or will,

Or air, or fire, or earth, or water find?
What alchymist can draw, with all his skill,
The quintessence of these out of the mind?

If th' elements which have nor life, nor seuse,
Can breed in us so great a pow'r as this,
Why give they not themselves like excellence,
Or other things wherein their mixture is?

If she were but the body's quality,

Then she would be with it sick, maim'd, and blind: But we perceive where these privations be,

An healthy, perfect, and sharp-sighted mind.

If she the body's nature did partake,

[cay:
Her strength would with the body's strength de-
But when the body's strongest sinews slake,
Then is the soul most active, quick, and gay.

If she were but the body's accident,
And her sole being did in it subsist,
As white in snow, she might herself absent,
And in the body's substance not be miss'd.

But it on her, not she on it depends;
For she the body doth sustain and cherish:
Such secret pow'rs of life to it she leuds,
That when they fail, then doth the body perish.

Since then the soul works by herself alone,
Springs not from sense, nor humours well agreeing,
Her nature is peculiar, and her own;
She is a substance, and a perfect being.

SECTION IV.

THAT THE SOUL IS A SPIRIT.

Bur though this substance be the root of sense, Sense knows her not, which doth but bodies know: She is a spirit, and heav'nly influence,

Which from th' fountain of God's spirit doth flow.

She is a spirit, yet not like air or wind;

Nor like the spirits about the heart or brain; Nor like those spirits which alchymists do find, When they in ev'ry thing seek gold in vain.

For she all natures under Heav'n doth pass, (see,
Being like those spirits, which God's bright face do
Οι like himself, whose image once she was,
Though now, alas! she scarce his shadow be.

For of all forms, she holds the first degree,
That are to gross material bodies knit;
Yet she herself is bodyless and free;
And, though confin'd, is almost infinite.

Were she a body2, how could she remain
Within this body, which is less than she?
Or how could she the world's great shape contain,
And in our narrow breasts contained be?

All bodies are confin'd within some place,
But she all place within herself confines:
All bodies have their measure and their space;
But who can draw the soul's dimensive lines ?

No body can at once two forms admit,
Except the one the other do deface;
But in the soul ten thousand forms do sit,
And none intrudes into her neighbour's place.

All bodies are with other bodies fill'd,

But she receives both Heav'n and Earth together: Nor are their forms by rash encounter spill'd,

For there they stand, and neither toucheth either. Nor can her wide embracements filled be;

For they that most and greatest things embrace, Enlarge thereby their mind's capacity,

As streams enlarg'd, enlarge the channel's space.

All things receiv'd do such proportion take,

As those things have wherein they are receiv'd; So little glasses little faces make,

And narrow webs on narrow frames are weav'd.

Then what vast body must we make the mind,
Wherein are men, beasts, trees, towns, seas, and
And yet each thing a proper place doth find, [lands;
And each thing in the true proportion stands ?

Doubtless, this could not be, but that she turns
Bodies to spirits, by sublimation strange;
As fire converts to fire the things it burus;
As we our meats into our nature change.

From their gross matter she abstracts the forms,
And draws a kind of quintessence from things;

Which to her proper nature she transforms,
To bear them light on her celestial wings.

This doth she, when, from things particular,
She doth abstract the universal kinds,

Which bodyless and immaterial are,
And can be only lodg'd within our minds.

And thus, from divers accidents and acts
Which do within her observation fall,
She goddesses and pow'rs divine abstracts;
As Nature, Fortune, and the Virtues all.

Again; how can she sev'ral bodies know,
If in herself a body's form she bear?
How can a mirror sundry faces show,

If from all shapes and forms it be not clear?

That it cannot be a body.

Nor could we by our eyes all colours learn,
Except our eyes were of all colours void;
Nor sundry tastes can any tongue discern,
Which is with gross and bitter humours cloy'd.

Nor can a man of passions judge aright,
Except his mind be from all passions free:
Nor can a judge his office well acquit,
If he possess'd of either party be.

If, lastly, this quick pow'r a body were,
Were it as swift as is the wind or fire,
(Whose atoms do the one down side-ways bear,
And th' other make in pyramids aspire.)

Her nimble body yet in time must move,
And not in instants through all places slide :
But she is nigh and far, beneath, above,

In point of time, which thought cannot divide :

She 's sent as soon to China as to Spain;

And thence returns, as soon as she is sent :
She measures with one time, and with one pain,
An ell of silk, and Heav'n's wide spreading tent.

As then the soul a substance hath alone,
Besides the body in which she 's confin'd;
So hath she not a body of her own,

But is a spirit, and immateria! mind.

Since body and soul have such diversities,
Well might we muse, how first their match began;
But that we learn, that he that spread the skies,
And fix'd the Earth, first form'd the soul in man.

This true, Prometheus first made man of earth,
And shed in him a beam of heav'nly fire;
Now in their mother's wombs, before their birth,
Doth in all sons of men their souls inspire.

And as Minerva is in fables said,

From Jove, without a mother, to proceed; So our true Jove, without a mother's aid, Doth daily millions of Minervas breed.

SECTION V.

ERRONEOUS OPINIONS OF THE CREATION OF SOULS.

THEN neither from eternity before,

Nor from the time, when time's first point begun, Made he all souls, which now he keeps in store; Some in the Moon, and others in the Sun:

Nor in a secret cloister doth he keep.

These virgin-spirits, till their marriage day; Nor locks them up in chambers, where they sleep, Till they awake within these beds of clay.

Nor did he first a certain number make,
Infusing part in beast and part in men;
And, as unwilling further pains to take,
Would make no more than those he framed then.

So that the widow soul, her body dying,
Unto the next born body married was;
And so by often changing, and supplying,
Men's souls to beasts, and beasts to men did pass.

Thousands must be abortive, and forlorn

Ere others' deaths to them their souls supply:)

But as God's handmaid, Nature, doth create
Bodies in time distinct, and order due;
So God gives souls the like successive date,
Which himself makes, in bodies formed new:

Which himself makes of no material thing;
For unto angels he no pow'r hath giv'n
Either to form the shape, or stuff to bring
From air or fire, or substance of the Heav'n.

Nor herein doth he Nature's service use;

For though from bodies she can bodies bring, Yet could she never souls from souls traduce, As fire from fire, or light from light doth spring.

SECTION VI.

THAT THE SOUL IS NOT EX TRADUCE.

ALAS! that some who were great lights of old, And in their hands the lamp of God did bear! Some rev'rend fathers did this errour hold, Having their eyes dimm'd with religious fear.

OBJECTION.

For when, say they, by rule of faith we find,
That ev'ry soul unto her body knit,
Brings from the mother's womb the sin of kind,
The root of all the ill she doth commit.

How can we say that God the soul doth make,
But we must make him author of her sin ?
Then from man's soul she doth beginning take,
Since in man's soul corruption did begin.

For if God make her first he makes her ill, [unto ;)
(Which God forbid our thoughts should yield
Or makes the body her fair form to spill,
Which, of itself, it had not pow'r to do.

Not Adam's body, but his soul did sin,
And so herself unto corruption brought;
But our poor soul corrupted is within,

Ere she had sinn'd, either in act or thought:

And yet we see in her such pow'rs divine,
As we could gladly think, from God she came :
Fain would we make him author of the wine,
If for the dregs we could some other blame.

ANSWER.

Thus these good men with holy zeal were blind,
When on the other part the truth did shine;
Whereof we do clear demonstrations find,
By light of nature, and by light divine.

None are so gross as to contend for this,
That souls from bodies may traduced be;
Between whose natures no proportion is,
When root and branch in nature still agree.

That souls from souls spiritually may spring; Which (if the nature of the soul be try'd) Will e'en in nature prove as gross a thing.

SECTION VII.

REASONS DRAWN FROM NATURE.

For all things made, are either made of nought,
Or made of stuff that ready made doth stand:
Of nought no creature ever formed ought,
For that is proper to th' Almighty's hand.

If then the soul another soul do make,
Because her pow'r is kept within a bound,
She must some former stuff or matter take;
But in the soul there is no matter found.

Then if her heav'nly form do not agree
With any matter which the world contains,
Then she of nothing must created be;
And to create, to God alone pertains.

Again, if souls do other souls beget,

'T is by themselves, or by the body's pow'rs If by themselves, what doth their working let, But they might souls engender ev'ry hour?

If by the body, how can wit and will
Join with the body only in this act,
Since when they do their other works fulfil,
They from the body do themselves abstract.

Again, if souls of souls begotten were,

Into each other they should change and moves And change and motion still corruption bear; How shall we then the soul immortal prove ?

If, lastly, souls do generation use,

Then should they spread incorruptible seed: What then becomes of that which they do lose, When th' act of generation do not speed?

And though the soul could cast spiritual seed,
Yet would she not, because she never dies;
For mortal things desire their like to breed,
That so they may their kind immortalize.

Therefore the angels sons of God are nam'd,
And marry not, nor are in marriage giv'n:
Their spirits and ours are of one substance fram'd,
And have one father, e'en the Lord of Heaven;

Who would at first, that in each other thing
The earth and water living souls should breed,
But that man's soul, whom he would make their king,
Should from himself immediately proceed.

And when he took the woman from man's side,
Doubtless himself inspir'd her soul alone:
For 't is not said, he did man's soul divide,
But took flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone.

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,
Which saw by Nature's light her heav'nly kind;
Naming her kin to God, and God's bright ray,
A citizen of Heav'n, to Earth confin'd.

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

Whom my young Muse so boldly termed blind! And crave more heav'nly light, that cloud to clear; Which makes them think, God doth not make the mind.

Was it then fit that such a weak event
(Weakness itself, the sin and fall of man)
His counsel's execution should prevent,
Decreed and fix'd before the world began?

Or that one penal law by Adam broke,

Should make God break his own eternal law; The settled order of the world revoke,

And change all forms of things which he foresaw ?

Could Eve's weak hand, extended to the tree,
In sunder rent that adamantine chain,
Whose golden links, effects and causes be;

And which to God's own chair doth fix'd remain?

O could we see how cause from cause doth spring!
How mutually they link'd and folded are!
And hear how oft one disagreeing string

The harmony doth rather make than mar!

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.

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 but one instant make.

He looks on Adam as a root or well;
And on his heirs as branches, and as streams =
He sees all men as one man, though they dwell
In sundry cities, and in sundry realms.

And as the root and branch are but one tree,
And well and stream do but one river make;
So, if the root and well corrupted be,

The stream and branch the same corruption take

So, when the root and fountain of mankind

Did draw corruption, and God's curse, by sin;
This was a charge, that all his heirs did bind,
And all his offspring grew corrupt therein.

And as when th' hand doth strike, the man offends,
(For part from whole, law severs not in this)
So Adam's sin to the whole kind extends;
For all their natures are but part of his.

Therefore this sin of kind, not personal,
But real and hereditary was;
The guilt thereof, and punishment to all,
By course of nature and of law doth pass.

For as that easy law was giv'n to all,
To ancestor and heir, to first and last;
So was the first transgression general;
And all did pluck the fruit, and all did taste.

Of this we find some footsteps in our law,
Which doth her root from God and Nature take;
Ten thousand men she doth together draw,
And of them all one corporation make:

Yet these, and their successors, are but one;
And if they gain or lose their liberties,
They harm or profit not themselves alone,
But such as in succeeding times shall rise.

And so the ancestor, and all his heirs,
Though they in number pass the stars of Heav'n,
Are still but one; his forfeitures are theirs,
And unto them are his advancements giv'n:

His civil acts do bind and bar them all;
And as from Adam all corruption take,
So, if the father's crime be capital,

In all the blood, law doth corruption make.

Is it then just with us, to disinherit

Th' unborn nephews, for the father's fault; And to advance again, for one man's merit, A thousand heirs that have deserved nought?

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

If he, for Adam's sin, his sons deprive
Of all those native virtues, and those pow'rs,
Which he to him and to his race did give ?

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 sin ?

If then a man on light conditions gain

A great estate, to him and his, for ever; If wilfully he forfeit it again,

Who doth bemoan his heir or blame the giver?

So, though God make the soul good, rich, and fair,
Yet when her form is to the body knit,
Which makes the man, which man is Adam's heir,
Justly forthwith he takes his grace from it:
And then the soul, being first from nothing brought,
When God's grace fails her, doth to nothing
fall;

And this declining proneness unto nought,
Is e'en that sin that we are born withal.

Yet not alone the first good qualities,
Which in the first soul were, deprived are;
But in their place the contrary do rise,
And real spots of sin her beauty mar.

Nor is it strange, that Adam's ill desert

Should be transferr'd unto his guilty race, When Christ his grace and justice doth impart To men unjust, and such as have no grace.

Lastly, the soul were better so to be
• Born slave to sin, than not to be at all;
Since (if she do believe) one sets her free,

That makes her mount the higher for her fall.

Yet this the curious wits will not content;
They yet will know (since God foresaw this ill)
Why his high providence did not prevent
The declination of the first man's will.

If by his word he had the current stay'd
Of Adam's will, which was by nature free,
It had been one, as if his word had said,
I will henceforth that man no man shall be.

For what is man without a moving mind,
Which hath a judging wit, and choosing will?
Now, if God's pow'r should her election bind,
Her motions then would cease and stand all still.

And why did God in man this soul infuse,

But that he should his Maker know and love? Now, if love be compell'd, and cannot choose, How can it grateful or thank-worthy prove ?

Love must free-hearted be, and voluntary;
And not enchanted, or by fate constrain'd:
Nor like that love, which did Ulysses carry
To Circe's isle, with mighty charms enchain'd.

Besides, were we unchangeable in will,

And of a wit that nothing could misdeem; Equal to God, whose wisdom shineth still, And never errs we might ourselves esteem.

So that if man would be unvariable,

He must be God, or like a rock or tree;
For e'en the perfect angels were not stable,
But had a fall more desperate than we.

Then let us praise that pow'r, which makes us be
Men as we are, and rest contented so;
And, knowing man's fall was curiosity,
Admire God's counsels, which we cannot know.

And let us know that God the maker is

Of all the souls, in all the men that be;

Yet their corruption is no fault of his,

But the first man's that broke God's first decree.

SECTION IX.

WHY THE SOUL IS UNITED TO THE BODY.

THIS substance, and this spirit of God's own making,
Is in the body plac'd, and planted here,
"That both of God, and of the world partaking,
Of all that is, man might the image bear."

God first made angels bodiless, pure minds;
Then other things, which mindless bodies be;
Last, he made man, th' horizon 'twixt both kinds,
In whom we do the world's abridgment see.

Besides, this world below did need one wight,
Which might thereof distinguish ev'ry part;
Make use thereof, and take therein delight;
And order things with industry and art:

Which also God might in his works admire,
And here beneath yield him both pray'r and praise;
As there, above, the holy angels choir

Doth spread his glory forth with spiritual lays.

Lastly, the brute, unreasonable wights,
Did want a visible king, o'er them to reign:
And God himself thus to the world unites,
That so the world might endless bliss obtain.

But how shall we this union well express ?
Naught ties the soul, her subtlety is such;
She moves the body, which she doth possess ;
Yet no part toucheth, but by virtue's touch.

Then dwells she not therein, as in a tent;
Nor as a pilot in his ship doth sit;
Nor as the spider in his web is pent;
Nor as the wax retains the print in it;

Nor as a vessel water doth contain;

Nor as one liquor in another shed;"
Nor as the heat doth in the fire remain;
Nor as a voice throughout the air is spread:

But as the fair and cheerful morning light
Doth here and there her silver-beams impart,
And in an instant doth herself unite

To the transparent air, in all and ev'ry part:

Still resting whole, when blows the air divide;
Abiding pure, when th' air is most corrupted;
Throughout the air, her beams dispersing wide;
And when the air is toss'd, not interrupted:

So doth the piercing soul the body fill,
Being all in all, and all in part diffus'd;
Indivisible, incorruptible still;

Nor forc'd, encounter'd, troubled, or confus'd.

And as the Sun above the light doth bring,
Though we behold it in the air below;
So from the eternal light the soul doth spring,
Though in the body she her pow'rs do show.