O! what is Man (great Maker of mankind!)
That Thou to him so great respect dost beare!
That Thou adornst him with so bright a mind,
Mak'st him a king, and euen an angel's peere!
O! what a liuely life, what heauenly power,
What spreading vertue, what a sparkling fire!
How great, how plentifull, how rich a dower
Dost Thou within this dying flesh inspire!
Thou leau'st Thy print in other works of Thine,
But Thy whole image Thou in Man hast writ;
There cannot be a creature more diuine,
Except (like Thee) it should be infinit.
But it exceeds man's thought, to thinke how hie
God hath raisd Man, since God a man became;
The angels doe admire this Misterie,
And are astonisht when they view the same.
THAT THE SOULE IS IMMORTAL, AND CANNOT DIE.
Nor hath He giuen these blessings for a day,
Nor made them on the bodie's life depend;
The Soule though made in time, suruives for aye,
And though it hath beginning, sees no end.
Her onely end, is neuer-ending blisse;
Which is, th' eternall face of God to see;
Who Last of Ends, and First of Causes, is:
And to doe this, she must eternall bee.
How senselesse then, and dead a soule hath hee,
Which thinks his soule doth with his body die!
Or thinkes not so, but so would haue it bee,
That he might sinne with more securitie.
For though these light and vicious persons say,
Our Soule is but a smoake, or ayrie blast;
Which, during life, doth in our nostrils play,
And when we die, doth turne to wind at last:
Although they say, 'Come let us eat and drinke';
Our life is but a sparke, which quickly dies;
Though thus they say, they know not what to think,
But in their minds ten thousand doubts arise.
Therefore no heretikes desire to spread
Their light opinions, like these Epicures:
For so the staggering thoughts are comfortèd,
And other men's assent their doubt assures.
Yet though these men against their conscience striue,
There are some sparkles in their flintie breasts
Which cannot be extinct, but still reuiue;
That though they would, they cannot quite bee beasts;
But who so makes a mirror of his mind,
And doth with patience view himselfe therein,
His Soule's eternitie shall clearely find,
Though th' other beauties be defac't with sin.
REASON I.
DRAWNE FROM THE DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE.
First in Man's mind we find an appetite
To learne and know the truth of euery thing;
Which is co-naturall, and borne with it,
And from the essence of the soule doth spring.
With this desire, shee hath a natiue might
To find out euery truth, if she had time;
Th' innumerable effects to sort aright,
And by degrees, from cause to cause to clime.
But sith 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 leaue no print behind;
Of which swift little time so much we spend,
While some few things we through the sense doe straine;
That our short race of life is at an end,
Ere we the principles of skill attaine.
Or God (which to vaine ends hath nothing done)
In vaine this appetite and power hath giuen;
Or else our knowledge, which is here begun,
Hereafter must bee perfected in heauen.
God neuer gaue a power to one whole kind,
But most part of that kind did vse the same;
Most eies haue perfect sight, though some be blind;
Most legs can nimbly run, though some be lame:
But in this life no soule the truth can know
So perfectly, as it hath power to doe;
If then perfection be not found below,
An higher place must make her mount thereto.