Soul destroys As Lightning or the Sun-beams dim the Sight Or as a Thunder clap or Cannon's noise The Pow'r of Hearing doth astonish quite But high Perfection to the Soul it brings T' encounter things most excellent and high For when she views the best and greatest things They do not hurt but rather clear the Eye Besides as Homer's Gods ' gainst Armies stand Her subtil Form can through all Dangers slide Bodies are Captive Minds endure no Band And Will is free and can no Force abide But lastly Time perhaps at last hath pow'r To spend her lively Pow'rs and quench her Light But old God Saturn which doth all devour Doth cherish her and still augment her Might Heav'n waxeth old and all the Spheres above Shall one Day faint and their swift Motion stay And Time it self in time shall cease to move Only the Soul survives and lives for ay Our Bodies ev'ry Footstep that they make March towards Death until at last they dye Whether we work or play or sleep or wake Our Life doth pass and with Time's Wings doth fly But to the Soul Time doth Perfection give And adds fresh Lustre to her Beauty still And makes her in eternal Youth to live Like her which Nectar to the Gods doth fill The more she lives the more she feeds on Truth The more she feeds her Strength doth more increase And what is Strength but an Effect of Youth Which if Time nurse how can it ever cease SECT XXXII Objections against the Immortality of the Soul with their respective Answers BVT now these Epicures begin to smile And say My Doctrine is more safe than true And that I fondly do my self beguile While these receiv'd Opinions I ensue For what say they Doth not the Soul wax old How comes it then that Aged Men do dote And that their Brains grow sottish dull and cold Which were in Youth the only Spirits of note What Are not Souls within themselves corrupted How can there Idiots then by Nature be How is it that some Wits are interrupted That now they dazled are now clearly see These Questions make a subtil Argument To such as think both Sense and Reason One To whom nor Agent from the Instrument Nor Pow'r of Working from the Work is known But they that know that Wit can shew no Skill But when she Things in Sense's Glass doth view Do know if Accident this Glass do spill It nothing sees or sees the False for true For if that Region of the tender Brain Where th' inward Sense of Fantasy should sit And th' outward Senses Gath'rings should retain By Nature or by Chance become unfit Either at first uncapable it is And so few things or none at all receives Or marr'd by Accident which haps amiss And so amiss it ev'ry thing perceives Then as a cunning Prince that useth Spies If they return no News doth nothing know But if they make Advertisement of Lies The Prince's Counsels all awry do go Ev'n so the Soul to such a Body knit Whose inward Senses undisposed be And to receive the Forms of Things unfit Where nothing is brought in can nothing see This makes the Idiot which hath yet a Mind Able to know the Truth and chuse the Good If she such Figures in the Brain did find As might be found if it in temper stood But if a Phrensy do possess the Brain It so disturbs and blots the Forms of Things As Fantasy proves altogether vain And to the Wit no true Relation brings Then doth the Wit admitting all for true Build fond Conclusions on those idle Grounds Then doth it fly the Good and Ill pursue Believing all that this false Spy propounds But purge the Hamours and the Rage appease Which this Distemper in the Fansy wrought Then shall the Wit which never had Disease Discourse and judge discreetly as it ought So though the Clouds eclipse the Sun 's fair Light Yet from his Face they do not take one Beam So have our Eyes their perfect Pow'r of Sight Ev'n when they look into a troubled Stream Then these Defects in Sense's Organs be Not in the Soul or in her working Might She cannot lose her perfect Pow'r to see Though Mists and Clouds do choak her Window-Light These Imperfections then we must impute Not to the Agent but the Instrument We must not blame Apollo but his Lute If false Accords from her false Strings be sent The Soul in all hath one Intelligence Though too much Moisture in an Infant 's Brain And too much Driness in an old Man's Sense Cannot the Prints of outward things retain Then doth the Soul want Work and idle sit And this we Childishness and Dotage call Yet hath she then a quick and active Wit If she had Stuff and Tools to work withal For give her Organs fit and Objects fair Give but the aged Man the young Man's Sense Let but Medea Aeson's Youth repair And straight she shews her wonted Excellence As a good Harper stricken far in Years Into whose cunning Hands the Gout doth fall All his old Crotchets in his Brain he bears But on his Harp plays ill or not at all But if Apollo takes his Gout away That he his nimble Fingers may apply Apollo's self will envy at his Play And all the World applaud his Minstralsy Then Dotage is no Weakness of the Mind But of the Sense for if the Mind did waste In all old Men we should this Wasting find When they some certain Term of Years had pass'd But most of them ev'n to their dying Hour Retain a Mind more lively quick and strong And better use their understanding Pow'r Then when their Brains were warm and Limbs were young For though the Body wasted be and weak And though the Leaden Form of Earth it bears Yet when we hear that half-dead Body speak We oft are ravish'd to the heav'nly Spheres Yet say these Men If all her Organs die Then hath the Soul no pow'r her Pow'rs to use So in a sort her Pow'rs extinct do lie When unto Act she cannot them reduce And if her Pow'rs be dead then what is she For since from ev'ry thing some Pow'rs do spring And from those Pow'rs some Acts proceeding be Then kill both Pow'r and Act and kill the thing Doubtless the Body's Death when once it dies The Instruments of Sense and Life doth kill So that she cannot use those Faculties Although their Root rest in her Substance still But as the Body living Wit and Will Can judge and chuse without the Body's Aid Though on such Objects they are working still As through the Body's Organs are convey'd So when the Body serves her turn no more And all her Senses are extinct and gone She can discourse of what she learn'd before In heav'nly Contemplations all alone So if one Man well on the Lute doth play And have good Horsemanship and Learning's Skill Though both his Lute and Horse we take away Doth he not keep his former Learning still He keeps
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 Lands And yet each thing a proper Place doth find 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 burns 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 Vertues all Again How can she sev'ral Bodies know If in her self a Body's Form she bear How can a Mirror sundry Faces show If from all Shapes and Forms it be not clear 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'ns wide-spreading Tent. As then the Soul a Substance hath alone Besides the Body in which she is confin'd So hath she not a Body of her own But is a Spirit and immaterial 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 Minerva's breed SECT 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 Cloyster doth he keep These Virgin-Spirits until 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 Beasts 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 Mens Souls to Beasts and Beasts to Men did pass These Thoughts are fond for since the Bodies born Be more in number far than those that die Thousands must be abortive and forlorn E're 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 SECT 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 Error 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 Which God forbid our Thoughts should yield unto Or makes the Body her fair Form to spill Which of it self it had not Pow'r to do Not Adam's Body but his Soul did sin And so her self unto Corruption brought But our poor Soul corrupted is within Er'e 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 But many subtile Wits have justify'd That Souls from Souls spiritually may spring Which if the Nature of the Soul be try'd Will ev'n in Nature prove as gross a thing SECT 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
sweet The Pleasure of her ravish'd Thought is such As almost here she with her Bliss doth meet But when in Heav'n she shall his Essence see This is her sov'reign Good and perfect Bliss Her Longing Wishings Hopes all finish'd be Her Joys are full her Motions rest in this There is she crown'd with Garlands of Content There doth she Manna eat and Nectar drink That Presence doth such high Delights present As never Tongue could speak nor Heart could think 3. Reason For this the better Souls do oft despise The Body's Death and do it oft desire For when on Ground the burthen'd Ballance lies The empty part is lifted up the higher But if the Body's Death the Soul should kill Then Death must needs against her Nature be And were it so all Souls would fly it still For Nature hates and shuns her Contrary For all things else which Nature makes to be Their Being to preserve are chiefly taught And though some things desire a Change to see Yet never Thing did long to turn to nought If then by Death the Soul were quenched quite She could not thus against her Nature run Since ev'ry sensless thing by Nature's Light Doth Preservation seek Destruction shun Nor could the World's best Spirits so much err If Death took all that they should all agree Before this Life their Honour to prefer For what is Praise to things that nothing be Again If by the Body's Prop she stand If on the Body's Life her Life depend As Meleagers on the fatal Brand The Body's Good she only would intend We should not find her half so brave and bold To lead it to the Wars and to the Seas To make it suffer Watchings Hunger Cold When it might feed with Plenty rest with Ease Doubtless all Souls have a surviving Thought Therefore of Death we think with quiet Mind But if we think of being turn'd to nought A trembling Horrour in our Souls we find 4. Reason And as the better Spirit when she doth bear A Scorn of Death doth shew she cannot die So when the wicked Soul Death's Face doth fear Ev'n then she proves her own Eternity For when Death's Form appears she feareth not An utter Quenching or Extinguishment She would be glad to meet with such a Lot That so she might all future Ill prevent But she doth doubt what after may befal For Nature's Law accuseth her within And saith 'T is true what is affirm'd by all That after Death there is a Pain for Sin Then she who hath been hood wink'd from he Birth Doth first her self within Death's Mirrour see And when her Body doth return to Earth She first takes care how she alone shall be Who ever sees these irreligious Men With Burthen of a Sickness weak and faint But hears them talking of Religion then And vowing of their Souls to ev'ry Saint When was there ever cursed Atheist brought Unto the Gibbet but he did adore That blessed Pow'r which he had set at nought Scorn'd and blasphemed all his Life before These light vain Persons still are drunk and mad With Surfeitings and Pleasures of their Youth But at their Death they are fresh sober sad Then they discern and then they speak the truth If then all Souls both good and bad do teach With gen'ral Voice That Souls can never die 'T is not Man's flatt'ring Gloss but Nature's Speech Which like GOD's Oracles can never lye 5. Reason Hence springs that universal strong Desire Which all Men have of Immortality Not some few Spirits unto this Thought aspire But all Men's Minds in this united be Then this Desire of Nature is not vain She covets not Impossibilities Fond Thoughts may fall into some idle Brain But one Assent of all is ever wise From hence that gen'ral Care and Study springs That Launching and Progression of the Mind Which all Men have so much of future things That they no Joy do in the present find From this Desire that main Desire proceeds Which all Men have surviving Fame to gain By Tombs by Books by memorable Deeds For she that this desires doth still remain Hence lastly springs Care of Posterities For Things their Kind would everlasting make Hence is it that old Men do plant young Trees The Fruit whereof another Age shall take If we these Rules unto our selves apply And view them by Reflection of the Mind All these true Notes of Immortality In our Heart's Tables we shall written find 6. Reason And though some impious Wits do Questions move And doubt if Souls immortal be or no That Doubt their Immortality doth prove Because they seem immortal things to know For he who Reasons on both Parts doth bring Doth some things mortal some immortal call Now if himself were but a mortal thing He could not judge immortal things at all For when we judge our Minds we Mirrors make And as those Glasses which material be Forms of material things do only take For Thoughts or Minds in them we cannot see So when we God and Angels do conceive And think of Truth which is eternal too Then do our Minds immortal Forms receive Which if they mortal were they could not do And as if Beasts conceiv'd what Reason were And that Conception should distinctly show They should the Name of Reasonable bear For without Reason none could Reason know So when the Soul mounts with so high a Wing As of Eternal Things she Doubts can move She Proofs of her Eternity doth bring Ev'n when she strives the contrary to prove For ev'n the Thought of Immortality Being an Act done without the Body's Aid Shews that her self alone could move and be Although the Body in the Grave were laid SECT XXXI That the Soul cannot be destroy'd AND if her self she can so lively move And never need a Foreign Help to take Then must her Motion everlasting prove Because her self she never can forsake But though Corruption cannot touch the Mind By any Cause that from it self may spring Some outward Cause Fate hath perhaps design'd Which to the Soul may utter Quenching bring Perhaps her Cause may cease and she may die God is her Cause his Word her Maker was Which shall stand fix'd for all Eternity When Heav'n and Earth shall like a Shadow pass Perhaps some thing repugnant to her Kind By strong Antipathy the Soul may kill But what can be Contrary to the Mind Which holds all Contraries in Concord still She lodgeth Heat and Cold and Moist and Dry And Life and Death and Peace and War together Ten thousand fighting things in her do lie Yet neither troubleth or disturbeth either Perhaps for want of Food the Soul may pine But that were strange since all things bad and good Since all God's Creatures Mortal and Divine Since God himself is her eternal Food Bodies are fed with things of mortal kind And so are subject to Mortality But Truth which is eternal feeds the Mind The Tree of Life which will not let her die Yet Violence perhaps the
it doubtless and can use it too And doth both th' other Skills in Pow'r retain And can of both the proper Actions do If with his Lute or Horse he meet again So though the Instruments by which we live And view the World the Body's Death do kill Yet with the Body they shall all revive And all their wonted Offices fulfil But how till then shall she her self employ Her Spies are dead which brought home News before What she hath got and keeps she may enjoy But she hath Means to understand no more Then what do those poor Souls which nothing get Or what do those which get and cannot keep Like Buckets bottomless which all out-let Those Souls for want of Exercise must sleep See how Man's Soul against it self doth strive Why should we not have other Means to know As Children while within the Womb they live Feed by the Navil Here they feed not so These Children if they had some use of Sense And should by chance their Mother's talking hear That in short time they shall come forth from thence Would fear their Birth more than our Death we fear They would cry out If we this place shall leave Then shall we break our tender Navil-strings How shall we then our Nourishment receive Since our sweet Food no other Conduit brings And if a Man should to these Babes reply That into this fair World they shall be brought Where they shall view the Earth the Sea the Sky The glorious Sun and all that God hath wrought That there ten thousand Dainties they shall meet Which by their Mouths they shall with pleasure take Which shall be cordial too as well as sweet And of their little Limbs tall Bodies make This World they 'd think a Fable ev'n as we Do think the Story of the Golden Age Or as some sensual Spirits ' mongst us be Which hold the World to come a feigned Stage Yet shall these Infants after find all true Tho' then thereof they nothing could conceive As soon as they are born the World they view And with their Mouths the Nurses Milk receive So when the Soul is born for Death is nought But the Soul's Birth and so we should it call Ten thousand things she sees beyond her Thought And in an unknown manner knows them all Then doth she see by Spectacles no more She hears not by report of double Spies Her self in Instants doth all things explore For each thing 's present and before her lies But still this Crew with Questions me pursues If Souls deceas'd say they still living be Why do they not return to bring us News Of that strange World where they such Wonders see Fond Men If we believe that Men do live Under the Zenith of both frozen Poles Though none come thence Advertisement to give Why bear we not the like Faith of our Souls The Soul hath here on Earth no more to do Than we have Bus'ness in our Mother's Womb What Child doth covet to return thereto Although all Children first from thence do come But as Noah's Pigeon which return'd no more Did shew she footing found for all the Flood So when good Souls departed through Death's Door Come not again it shews their Dwelling good And doubtless such a Soul as up doth mount And doth appear before her Maker's Face Holds this vile World in such a base Account As she looks down and scorns this wretched Place But such as are detruded down to Hell Either for Shame they still themselves retire Or ty'd in Chains they in close Prison dwell And cannot come although they much desire Well well say these vain Spirits thought vain it is To think our Souls to Heav'n or Hell do go Politick Men have thought it not amiss To spread this Lye to make Men virtuous so Do you then think this Moral Virtue good I think you do ev'n for your private Gain For Commonwealths by Virtue ever stood And common Good the private doth contain If then this Virtue you do love so well Have you no Means her Practice to maintain But you this Lye must to the People tell That good Souls live in Joy and Ill in Pain Must Virtue be preserved by a Lye Virtue and Truth do ever best agree By this it seems to be a Verity Since the Effects so good and virtuous be For as the Devil the Father is of Lies So Vice and Mischief do his Lies ensue Then this good Doctrine did not he devise But made this Lye which saith it is not true For how can that be false which ev'ry Tongue Of ev'ry mortal Man affirms for true Which Truth hath in all Ages been so strong As Load-Stone-like all Hearts it ever drew For not the Christian or the Jew alone The Persian or the Turk acknowledge this This Mystery to the wild Indian known And to the Canibal and Tartar is This rich Assyrian Drug grows ev'ry where As common in the North as in the East This Doctrine doth not enter by the Ear But of it self is native in the Breast None that acknowledge God or Providence Their Souls Eternity did ever doubt For all Religion takes Root from hence Which no poor naked Nation lives without For since the World for Man created was For only Man the Use thereof doth know If Man do perish like a wither'd Grass How doth God's Wisdom order things below And if that Wisdom still wise Ends propound Why made he Man of other Creatures King When if he perish here there is not found In all the World so poor and vile a thing If Death do quench us quite we have great wrong Since for our service all things else were wrought That Daws and Trees and Rocks should last so long When we must in an instant pass to nought But bless'd be that Great Pow'r that hath us bless'd With longer Life than Heav'n or Earth can have Which hath infus'd into our mortal Breast Immortal Pow'rs not subject to the Grave For though the Soul do seem her Grave to bear And in this World is almost buri'd quick We have no Cause the Body's Death to fear For when the Shell is broke out comes a Chick SECT XXXIII Three Kinds of Life answerable to the three Powers of the Soul FOR as the Soul 's Essential Pow'rs are three The quick'ning Pow'r the Pow'r of Sense and Reason Three kinds of Life to her designed be Which perfect these three Pow'rs in their due Season The first Life in the Mother's Womb is spent Where she her Nursing Pow'r doth only use Where when she finds defect of Nourishment Sh'expels her Body and this World she views This we call Birth but if the Child could speak He Death would call it and of Nature plain That she would thrust him out naked and weak And in his Passage pinch him with such Pain Yet out he comes and in this World is plac'd Where all his Senses in Perfection be Where he finds Flowers to smell and Fruits to taste And Sounds
to hear and sundry forms to see When he hath pass'd some Time upon the Stage His Reason then a little seems to wake Which though she spring when Sense doth fade with Age Yet can she here no perfect Practice make Then doth aspiring Soul the Body leave Which we call Death but were it known to all What Life our Souls do by this Death receive Men would it Birth or Goal-Deliv'ry call In this third Life Reason will be so bright As that her Spark will like the Sun-Beams shine And shall of God enjoy the real Sight Being still increas'd by Influence divine SECT XXXIV The Conclusion O Ignorant poor Man what dost thou bear Lock'd up within the Casket of thy Breast What Jewels and what Riches hast thou there What heav'nly Treasure in so weak a Chest Look in thy Soul and thou shalt Beauties find Like those which drown'd Narcissus in the Flood Honour and Pleasure both are in thy Mind And all that in the World is counted Good Think of her Worth and think that God did mean This worthy Mind should worthy things embrace Blot not her Beauties with thy Thoughts unclean Nor her dishonour with thy Passion base Kill not her Quickn'ng Pow'r with Surfeitings Mar not her Sense with Sensuality Cast not her serious Wit on idle things Make not her Free Will Slave to Vanity And when thou think'st of her Eternity Think not that Death against her Nature is Think it a Birth And when thou go'st to die Sing like a Swan as if thou went'st to Bliss And if thou like a Child didst fear before Being in the dark where thou didst nothing see Now I have brought thee Torch-Light fear no more Now when thou dy'st thou canst not hood wink'd And thou my Soul which turn'st with curious Eye To view the Beams of thine own Form divine Know that thou canst know nothing perfectly While thou art clouded with this Flesh of mine Take heed of Over-weening and compare Thy Peacock's Feet with thy gay Peacock's Train Study the best and highest Things that are But of thy self an humble Thought retain Cast down thy self and only strive to raise The Glory of thy Maker's sacred Name Use all thy Pow'rs that blessed Pow'r to praise Which gives thee Pow'r to be and use the same FINIS BOOKS Printed for and are to be Sold by W. 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A Defence of the Dean of St. Paul's Apology for writing against the Socinians Quarto A Defence of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity Quarto The Distinction between Real and Nominal Trinitarians examined Quarto The Knowledg of Medals or Instructions for those who apply themselves to the Study of Medals both Ancient and Modern from the French Dr. Pelling's Discourse concerning the Existence of God Octavo Mr. Wilson's Discourse of Religion shewing its Truth and Reality or the Suitableness of Religion to Humane Nature Octavo Discourse of the Resurrection shewing the Import and Certainty of it Octavo Dr. Prideaux's Life of Mahomet with a Letter to the Deists Octavo A Letter to a Member of Parliament occasioned by a Letter to a Convocation-Man concerning the Rights Powers and Priviledges of that Body Together with an Enquiry into the Ecclesiastical Power of the University of Oxford particularly to decree and declare Heresy occasioned by that Letter Quarto Mr. Tate's Elegy on his Grace John late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Folio Mausolaeum A Funeral Poem on our late Gracious Sovereign Queen Mary of Blessed Memory Folio Ovid's Metamorphosis Translated by Several Hands Vol. 1. Containing the first Five Books Octavo
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 Bodies Pow'r 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 move 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' Acts 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 ev'n 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 heavenly 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 SECT VIII Reasons from Divinity GOd doubtless makes her and doth make her good And grafts her in the Body there to spring Which though it be corrupted Flesh and Blood Can no way to the Soul Corruption bring Yet is not God the Author of her Ill Though Author of her Being and being there And if we dare to judge our Maker's Will He can condemn us and himself can clear First God from infinite Eternity Decreed what hath been is or shall be done And was resolv'd that ev'ry Man should be And in his turn his Race of Life should run And so did purpose all the Souls to make That ever have been made or ever shall And that their Being they should only take In Humane Bodies or not be at all Was it then fit that such a weak Event Weakness it self 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 rend 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 marr 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 All in Himself as in a Glass he sees For from him by him thrô him all things be His Sight is not discoursive by degrees But seeing the whole each single part doth see 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 Off-spring 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 easie 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 Foot-steps 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