Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

And these three pow'rs three sorts of men do make;
For some, like plants, their veins do only fill;
And some, like beasts, their senses' pleasure take;
And some, like angels, do contemplate still.
Therefore the fables turn'd some men to flow'rs,
And others did with brutish forms invest;
And did of others make celestial pow'rs,

Like angels, which still travel, yet still rest.

Yet these three pow'rs are not three souls, but one; As one and two are both contain'd in three; Three being one number by itself alone,

1 A shadow of the blessed Trinity.

Oh! what is man, great Maker of mankind! That thou to him so great respect dost bear! That thou adorn'st him with so bright a mind, Mak'st him a king, and e'en an angel's peer!

Oh! what a lively life, what heav'nly pow'r, What spreading virtue, what a sparkling fire, How great, how plentiful, how rich a dow'r

Dost thou within this dying flesh inspire!

Thou leav'st thy print in other works of thine;
But thy whole image thou in man hast writ:
There cannot be a creature more divine,
Except (like thee) it should be infinite!

But it exceeds man's thought, to think how high God hath rais'd man, since God a man became : The angels do admire this mystery,

And are astonish'd when they view the same.

Nor hath he giv'n these blessings for a day,

Nor made them on the body's life depend: The soul, though made in time, survives for ay; And though it hath beginning, sees no end.

SECTION XXX.

THAT THE SOUL IS IMMORTAL, PROVED BY SEVERAL
REASONS.

HER only end is never-ending bliss,
Which is, the eternal face of God to sec;
Who, last of ends, and first of causes is
And, to do this, she must eternal be.

How senseless then and dead a soul hath he, Which thinks his soul doth with his body die: Or thinks not so, but so would have it be,

That he might sin with more security?

For though these light and vicious persons say,
Our soul is but a smoke, or airy blast,
Which, during life, doth in our nostrils play,
And when we die doth turn to wind at last :

Although they say, "Come let us eat and drink; Our life is but a spark, which quickly dies:" Though thus they say, they know not what to think; But in their minds ten thousand doubts arise. Therefore no heretics desire to spread

Their light opinions, like these epicures; For so their stagg'ring thoughts are comforted, And other men's assent their doubt assures.

Yet though these men against their conscience strive, There are some sparkles in their flinty breasts, Which cannot be extinct, but still revive;

That though they would, they cannot quite be beasts.

But whoso makes a mirror of his mind,

And doth with patience view himself therein, His soul's eternity shall clearly find, Though th' other beauties be defac'd with sin.

REASON I.

Drawn from the desire of knowledge.

FIRST, in man's mind we find an appetite

To learn and know the truth of ev'ry thing, Which is co-natural, and born with it,

And from the essence of the soul doth spring.

With this desire, she hath a native might

To find out ev'ry truth, if she had time; Th' innumerable effects to sort aright, And by degrees, from cause to cause to climb.

But since our life so fast away doth slide,

As doth a hungry eagle through the wind; Or as a ship transported with the tide, Which in their passage leave no print behind.

Of which swift little time so much we spend,
While some few things we through the sense do
strain,

That our short race of life is at an end,
Ere we the principles of skill attain.

Or God (who to vain ends hath nothing done) In vain this appetite and pow'r hath giv'n; Or else our knowledge, which is here begun, Hereafter must be perfected in Heav'n.

God never gave a pow'r to one whole kind,

But most part of that kind did use the same: Most eyes have perfect sight, though some be blind; Most legs can nimbly run, though some be lame.

But in this life, no soul the truth can know
So perfectly, as it hath pow'r to do:

If then perfection be not found below,

An higher place ufust make her mount thereto.

REASON II.

Drawn from the motion of the soul.'

AGAIN, how can she but immortal be,
When, with the motions of both will and wit,
She still aspireth to eternity,

And never rests, till she attain to it?

Water in conduit-pipes can rise no higher

Than the well-head, from whence it first doth Then since to eternal God she doth aspire, [spring: She cannot be but an eternal thing.

All moving things to other things do move,

Of the same kind which shows their nature such:" So earth falls down, and fire doth mount above, Till both their proper elements do touch.

And as the moisture, which the thirsty earth Sucks from the sea, to fill her empty veins, From out her womb at last doth take a birth, And runs a lymph along the grassy plains:

Long doth she stay, as loath to leave the land, From whose soft side she first did issue make: She tastes all places, turns to ev'ry hand,

Her flow'ry banks unwilling to forsake:

Yet Nature so her streams doth lead and carry, As that her course doth make no final stay, Till she herself unto the ocean marry,

Within whose watry bosom first she lay.

E'en so the soul, which in this earthly mould The spirit of God doth secretly infuse, Because at first she doth the earth behold, And only this material world she views:

At first her mother-earth she holdeth dear,

And doth embrace the world, and worldly things; She flies close by the ground, and hovers here,

And mounts not up with her celestial wings:

Yet under Heav'n she cannot light on aught

That with her heav'nly nature doth agree: She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought, She cannot in this world contented be.

For who did ever yet, in honour, wealth,

Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find? Who ever ceas'd to wish, when he had health? Or, having wisdom, was not vex'd in mind?

Then as a bee which among weeds doth fall,

Which seem sweet flow'rs, with lustre fresh and She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all; [gay; But, pleas'd with none, doth rise, and soar away:

So, when the soul finds here no true content,

And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take, She doth return from whence she first was sent, And flies to him that first her wings did make. Wit, seeking truth, from cause to cause ascends,

And never rests till it the first attain: Will, seeking good, finds many middle ends; But never stays till it the last do gain.

Now God the truth and first of causes is;

God is the last good end, which lasteth still;
Being alpha and omega nam'd for this;
Alpha to wit, omega to the will. ́

Since then her heav'nly kind she doth display,
In that to God she doth directly move;
And on no mortal thing can make her stay,
She cannot be from hence, but from above.

4 The soul compared to a river.

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Heav'n waxeth old, and all the spheres above Shall one day faint, and their swift motion stay; And time itself, 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 die:
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 in

crease :

And what is strength, but an effect of youth, Which if time nurse, how can it ever cease?

SECTION XXXII.

OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, WITH THEIR RESPECTIVE ANSWERS.

BUT now these Epicures begin to smile,
And say, my doctrine is more safe than true;
And that I fondly do myself beguile,

While these receiv'd opinions I ensue.

OBJECTION I.

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 their idiots then by nature be?
How is it that some wits are interrupted,
That now they dazzled are, now clearly see?

ANSWER.

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 show 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 amniss: And so amiss it ev'ry thing perceives.

Then, as a cunning prince that useth spies,
If they return no news, doth nothing know;
Ent if they make advertisement of lies,
The prince's counsels all awry do go:
VOL V.

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 choose 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 humours, and the rage appease, Which this distemper in the fancy 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.

[blocks in formation]
« НазадПродовжити »