All things receiu'd, doe such proportion take,

As those things haue, wherein they are receiu'd:
So little glasses little faces make,

And narrow webs on narrow frames be weau'd;

Then what vast body must we make the mind
Wherin 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?

Doubtlesse this could not bee, but that she turnes
Bodies to spirits, by sublimation strange ;
As fire conuerts to fire the things it burnes
As we our meats into our nature change.

From their grosse matter she abstracts the formes,
And drawes a kind of quintessence from things;
Which to her proper nature she transformes,
To bear them light on her celestiall wings :

This doth she, when, from things particular,
She doth abstract the universall kinds;
Which bodilesse and immateriall are,
And can be lodg'd but onely in our minds?

And thus from diuers accidents and acts,

Which doe within her obseruation fall,

She goddesses, and powers diuine, abstracts :
As Nature, Fortune, and the Vertues all.

Againe, how can she seuerall bodies know,
If in her selfe a bodie's forme she beare?
How can a mirror sundry faces show,

If from all shapes and formes it be not cleare?

Nor could we by our eyes all colours learne,
Except our eyes were of all colours voide;
Nor sundry tastes can any tongue discerne,
Which is with grosse and bitter humors cloide.

Nor may a man of passions iudge aright,

Except his minde bee from all passions free;
Nor can a Judge his office well acquite,

If he possest of either partie bee.

If lastly, this quicke power a body were,

Were it as swift as is the winde or fire;

(Whose atomies doe th' one down side-waies beare, And make the other in pyramids aspire :)

Her nimble body yet in time must moue,
And not in instants through all places slide;

But she is nigh, and farre, beneath, aboue,
In point of time, which thought cannot deuide:

She is sent as soone to China as to Spaine,

And thence returnes, as soone as shee is sent; She measures with one time, and with one paine, An ell of silke, and heauen's wide spreading tent.

As then the Soule a substance hath alone,
Besides the Body in which she is confin'd;
So hath she not a body of her owne,

But is a spirit, and immateriall minde.

THAT THE SOULE IS CREATED IMMEDIATELY BY GOD.

Since body and soule haue such diuersities,

Well might we muse, how first their match began; But that we learne, that He that spread the skies, And fixt the Earth, first form'd the soule in man.

This true Prometheus first made Man of earth,
And shed in him a beame of heauenly fire;
Now in their mother's wombs before their birth,
Doth in all sonnes of men their soules inspire.

And as Minerua is in fables said,

From Joue, without a mother to proceed;

So our true Toue, without a mother's ay'd,

Doth daily millions of Mineruas breed.

ERRONIOUS OPINIONS OF THE CREATION OF SOULES.

THEN neither from eternitie before,

Nor from the time when Time's first point begun ; Made He all soules: which now He keepes in store, Some in the moone, and others in the sunne :

Nor in a secret cloyster doth Hee keepe

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

Nor did He first a certaine number make,
Infusing part in beasts, and part in men,
And, as vnwilling further paines to take,
Would make no more then those He framed then.

So that the widow Soule her body dying,
Vnto the next-borne body married was;

And so by often changing and supplying,

Mens' soules to beasts, and beasts to men did passe.

(These thoughts are fond; for since the bodies borne Be more in number farre then those that dye;

Thousands must be abortiue, and forlorne,
Ere others' deaths to them their soules supply.)

But as God's handmaid, Nature, doth create
Bodies in time distinct, and order due;8
So God giues soules the like successiue date,
Which Himselfe makes, in bodies formèd new:

Which Him selfe makes, of no materiall thing;
For vnto angels He no power hath giuen,
Either to forme the shape, or stuffe to bring
From ayre or fire, or substance of the heauen.

Nor He in this doth Nature's seruice vse ;

For though from bodies, she can bodies bring,
Yet could she neuer soules from Soules traduce,
As fire from fire, or light from light doth spring.

OBJECTION THAT THE SOULE IS EXTRADUCE.

LAS! that some, that were great lights of old,

AL

And in their hands the lampe of God did beare ;9

Some reuerend Fathers did this error hold,

Hauing their eyes dim'd with religious feare !

8 Misprinted in 1608 and 1622 edition 'other:' correctly, as above, in 1599 edition. G.

" Holy Scriptures. G.