Mirum in modum.  
A Glimpse of God's Glory and The Souls Shape.  


Eyes must be bright, or else no eyes at all  
Can see this sight, much more than mystical.    
LONDON Printed for William Aspley. 1602.   

To the most noble, judicious, and my best beloved Lord, William Earl of Pembroke; the most honourable Sir Robert Sidney Knight, Lord Governor of Vlishing; and the right right worshipful Edward Herbert of Mountgomery Esquire, my most honoured and respected Friends.  

TO subdivide Souls indivisible,  
(Being wholly in the whole, and in each part)  
For me were more than most impossible,  
Though I were Art itself, or more than Arte.  
Yet must I make my Soul a Trinity,  
So to divide the same, between you three;  
For Understanding, Will, and Memory,  
Makes but one Soul, yet they three Virtues be.  
The Understanding being first, I give  
Unto the first; (for Order so doth crave)  
And Will (goodwill) the second shall receive.  
Then Memory the last shall ever have.  
And as I part my Soul, my Book I part  
Betwixt you three, that shares my broken heart.   
All yours wholly, and to you most humbly devoted john Davies.   

Mirum in modum A glimpse of God's Glory, and the Souls shape  

Wlt yield me words, Wits words Wisdom bewray.  
My Soul, infuse thyself in't Same's divine.  
The froth of Wit, O Wisdom scum away;  
Powder these lines with thy preserving Brine:  
Refresh their saltness, salt their freshness fine;  
That Wits sweet words, of wisdoms salt may taste,  
Which can from crude Conceit corruption stay,  
And make the same eternally to last,  
Though in Oblivion be buried ay  
The scum of Wit, the witty Skummes repast,  
Which like light scum, with those lewd Skums doth waste   

O Thou main Ocean of celestial light,  
(From whom all Lights derive their influence)  
The light of Truth infuse into my spirit,  
And clear the eyes of my Intelligence,  
That they may see my Souls circumference,  
Wherein the Mind as Centre placed is.  
Wherein thou restest Centre of true Rest,  
Compassed with glory, and uncompassed bliss,  
Which do thy Lodge with glorious light invest,  
— Then lighten thy dark Inn, O glorious Guest.   

The Soul of Man immortal and divine,  
By Nature's light beholds the light of Nature,  
Like as the Body's eyes when Sun doth shine,  
Do by the Sun behold the suns fair feature:  
So by that light she sees she is a Creature;  
Created to her fair Creator's form,  
In Wisdom, Knowledge, and such goodly graces  
Which do the Understanding right inform,  
To guide the Will aright in sundry cases,  
Whenas the Sense deluded, Reason outfaces.   

For as the Uaynes the body over-spreds,  
And to its utmost bounds themselves extend:  
So Science in the Soul from certain heads,  
In great variety her veins doth send,  
To whatsoe'er the soul may comprehend.  
This is her Birthright, with the body borne,  
Kind Nature's largesse given with hand displayed,  
Which doth the Mind illustrate and adorn:  
To, and from whom, all knowledge is conveyed,  
That tends unto the soul or body's aid.   

Which is deduced from power more supreme,  
Then in th'external Senses doth reside,  
This light proceeds from that infused beam,  
Which in the Souls supremest part doth bide,  
The Body's motions and her own to guide.  
For though th'incomprehensible hath stamped,  
His wisdom in his works to prove his Being,  
Yet all save Man, from this Light is exempt,  
By which the Souls eyes sees (past sense of Seeing)  
Celestial sweets with her sweet self agreeing▪   

For th'outward Senses Beasts with us enjoy,  
Nay they possess the same in greater power:  
But yet those Senses they cannot employ  
To Reasons use, and Understandings cure,  
But these effects do flow from Sense more sure,  
Which from an understanding Soul proceeds,  
Yet nought that Understanding doth digest,  
But first on it the outward Senses feeds:  
Both which invites the Will unto their feast,  
Those Senses being tastèrs to the rest.   

Then if the Senses be affected ill,  
Or apprehend their Objects with offence,  
They wrong the Understanding and the Will:  
With false report of their experience.  
But first they misse-informe th' Intelligence,  
It giving credit to their information,  
Misse-leads the Will (that way ward is by kind)  
Which moves the Members with all festination:  
(Being instrumental agents of the Mind)  
To do what ere the Senses pleasant find.   

But when we say the Understanding seizeth  
On nought but what the Senses first surpriseth,  
It's meant of things that pleaseth, or displeaseth,  
And to the Senses sensibly ariseth:  
Then hereupon the common Sense deviseth,  
And then transfers it to the Intellect,  
Which by her power inherent doth discourse,  
By Reason's rules from Causes to th' effect:  
And being there, runs forth with greater force,  
Till judgement (with strong hand) doth stay her course.   

here-hence it is, the Soul herself doth know,  
Her own effects she to herself discloseth,  
So to herself, herself, herself doth show,  
By powers which she within herself encloseth;  
Whereof herself, not of herself disposeth;  
But are directed by a higher Power,  
Yet hath she eyes to see, and sense to feel,  
The way unto herself (though most obscure)  
Which herself virtues to herself reveal,  
Through which she wots what works her woe or weal.   

This knowledge of the unknown part of Man,  
(Namely the known Souls unknown part)  
From Man is hid since he to sin began,  
For Ignorance of Sin is the just smart,  
Which now doth hold enthralled his unjust heart.  
But sith the Soul is such a precious thing,  
As cost the price of past-price dearest blood,  
Then can no knowledge more advantage bring,  
Then knowledge of the Soul, as first she stood,  
Or since she fell from her extremest Good.   

For she enwombes worlds of variety,  
Of Sunne-bright Beauties and celestial Sweets,  
United all in perfect sympathy,  
Whereas the Mind with diverse Pictures meets,  
Which Fancy forms, and from the Fancy fleets.  
From whence proceeds all marvelous Inventions,  
Which do produce all Arts and Sciences  
That Doubts resolve, and do dissolve Dissensions,  
Touching the universal Essenses,  
Subject t'our inward, or our outward Senses.   

Then what Soul on the Soul excogitates,  
But it is rapt with joy and wonderment,  
Sith when the Mind but her adumberates  
(In Fancies forge) it feels such ravishment,  
As yields therewith a heaven of high content:  
Then sith all Weal, or Woe, that us befall,  
Flows from the Soul, as from their special Spring,  
We should not to her Weal be neuterall,  
But study to preserve that precious thing,  
As that conserves the Soul and Bodies Being.   

Wherein three Faculties still working be,  
Animal, Vital, and the Natural,  
The Animal divided is in three,  
Motive, Sensitive, and Principal.  
The Principal hath three parts special,  
Imagination, Reason, Memory.  
The power Sensitive includes the powers  
Of the external Senses seu'rally.  
The Motive power, the Corpse to stir procures,  
As long as Vital faculty endures.   

Which Faculty is seated in the heart,  
Infusing Spirits of Life through every vain.  
The virtues Animal do play their part,  
In all the several caverns of the Brain.  
The virtues Natural the womb contain;  
Which do consist of three essential parts,  
Feeding, Growing, and Engendering;  
Which subdivided are by Nature's Arts  
Into six Faculties, with them working,  
And common to them all in every thing.   

The first and second, with the third and fourth,  
Attracts, retains, concocts, and distributes;  
The fifth, and sixth, encorp'rates and puts forth  
What is superfluous. And thus executes  
Their pow'res as one, though sextiplied in suits▪  
The food the Mouth prepareth for the Maw;  
The Maw forthwith prepares it for the Liver,  
From whence a sanguine tincture it doth draw,  
And then unto the heart doth it deliver,  
Who in the nerves and veins it soon doth sever.   

Then through those channels of the blood it flows,  
Through all the limbs, to give them nourishment,  
And by those condites to the Brain it goes,  
(Whereas the Soul doth hold her Parliament,  
To give Laws for the Body's government:)  
Where, if the food be fine and delicate,  
It turns to blood, that in the Brain doth breed  
Those Spirits fine, that do refine the pate,  
And crown the same with glory for its meed,  
For Glory Spirits refined doth succeed.   

The like is found between th'internal Senses,  
And those same Powers, and virtues Animal.  
First must a power receive the Images  
That formed are in the Senses corporal,  
Which power is called, the power Fantastical:  
This is the Souls eye (seeing all unseen)  
Which views those Senses objects being absent,  
And of th'internal Senses is the mean;  
They to the Memory the same present,  
Who safely keeps that which to her is sent.   

Thus than the Fantasy attracts we see,  
The Memory retains, and Reas'on digest:  
judgement distributes all in their degree;  
Experience then incorporates the best:  
And Wisdom by her power expels the rest.  
Now for these Senses, Powers, and Faculties,  
Have all their Organs seated in the Brain,  
Order requires that we particularise  
What caverns in the skull the same contain,  
And in what manner they do there remain.   

Which Caves or Cells distinguished are with skin,  
Or subtle Membranes, and so being divided,  
The Head is like a House, that is within  
Too many rooms, or chambers subdivided,  
Vaulted with Bone, and with Bone likewise sided;  
The skin that rafters, or else lines the roof,  
Is hard, for durance, and thick, to enwall,  
Which is the skin of Skins, a skin of proof,  
That Dura matter lo, the Latins call,  
For it enwombes the rest from dangers all.   

The use whereof, is to preserve the Brain,  
(When it doth move) from hardness of the skull;  
For discreet Nature maketh nought in vain,  
Whose tender providence, of care is full:  
With Means she doth Extremes together pull.  
It likewise serves to give a passage free;  
For all the Veins the Brains to feed and guide,  
Whereby the vital spirits may governed be,  
And likewise into parts the Brain divide,  
Before, behind, on this, and on that side.   

Besides this Membrane, there is yet another,  
More fine and subtle, woven of many veins,  
hight Piamater, or the godly Mother,  
Which in her womb doth subdivide the Brains,  
And them in several secret Cells contains,  
Wherein the Soul doth use her chiefest powers,  
Namely the Animal; and Rational.  
Therefore all brains of Beasts are less than ours,  
Ours fill their Cells and well-near skull and all.  
Which do refine the Spirits Animal.   

Those Spirits that thus the Brains repurifie,  
Procures the Bodies unconceived bliss;  
And serves as Organs to reason's faculty:  
Which in the Soul the highest virtue is,  
That her corrects, if she directs amiss.  
Four Ventricles or concaves close conjoined,  
In substance of the Brain, Dame Nature seats,  
With mutual passages which are assigned:  
For all the Spirits egress which Sense creates,  
For Nature all, to all, communicates.   

Those Cells wherein this witty work's begun,  
Are made by right more rowmsome than the rest,  
Of those to which the Spirits wrought do run:  
For there they purge their bad, and keep their best,  
For the last Uentricles, which are the least.  
Two of the foremost then like Crescents twain,  
Placed on each side the Head, are most complete.  
The third's in middle Region of the Brain,  
Where Reason rules, and holds her royal Seat,  
The Fourth's behind, where Memory is great.   

The Brayn-presse, into which the Blood is priest,  
(That gives the Brains their vital nutriment,)  
Is compassed with those concaves (with the rest,)  
By which the Soul effecteth her intent,  
As with her worke-performing Instrument.  
Likewise an Organ made most curiously.  
(Like little Wheels together close connexed)  
Is placed as portal of the Memory,  
To let the Spirits swift passage, lest perplexed,  
It might be by their throng, and shrewdly vexed.   

From the mid ventricle, unto the last,  
A pipe doth pass as Chariot of the spirits;  
There to, and fro, they come and go in haste,  
In mutual wise as Nature them incites,  
To do their duties, and perform their rites.  
In this part of the Brain the Brayn-wrights skill,  
And wisdom infinite do most appear.  
And here to Man he shows his great good will.  
For he imprints his own Character there;  
Wherein his divine Nature shineth clear.   

Which we the more perspicuously should see,  
If we could see to which internal Sense  
Each of these parts pertain, or Vessels be;  
Wherein the Soul most shows her excellence.  
But this surmounts the Minds intelligence,  
For such a mystery is embozomed,  
In Wisdoms Breast, chest of such Secrets hie,  
Which is with obscure clouds environed.  
That it's concealed from the Eagles eye,  
Much more from Man, that seeth but here by.   

Thus having slightly touched this tender part,  
(For I could not but touch it thus at least;  
Because the Soul therewith performs her Art,)  
It now remains to prosecute the rest:  
Of what my Muse touching the Mind expressed.  
Imagination, Fancy, Commonsence,  
In nature brooketh odds or union,  
Some makes them one, and some makes difference,  
But we will use them with distinction.  
With sense to shun the Sense confusion.   

The Commonsence (whose local situation,  
The Forehead holdeth) hath that name assigned:  
Because it first takes common information  
Of all the outward Senses in their kind.  
Of inward Senses this is first I find,  
Ordained to sort, and sever every thing,  
According to its nature properly,  
Which th'outward Senses to this Sense do bring,  
And then transmitteth it successively,  
To each more inward Senses faculty.   

The outward Senses then, cannot discern,  
What they do apprehend but by this Sense,  
Of which those Senses all their science learn:  
And unto which their skill have reference.  
As it refers all to th' Intelligence.  
Making a thoroughfare of the Fantasy,  
Which doth so form, reform, and it deforms,  
As pleaseth her fantastic faculty,  
Not pleased with what the common Sense informs,  
But in the Mind makes calms, or stirreth storms.   

This Power is pow'refull yet is most unstaid;  
She resteth not, though Sleep the Corpses arrest:  
She dotes, and dreams, and makes the Mind afraid,  
With visions vain, wherewith she is oppressed.  
And from things likely, things unlikely wrest:  
She is the Ape of Nature, which can do,  
By imitation what she doth indeed,  
And if she have her Patterns add thereto  
A thousand toys, which in her Bowels breed,  
Without which patterns, she cannot proceed.   

Now she chimeras, than she Beauty's frame,  
That do the Mind beheau'n with matchless bliss;  
The whole she cripples, and makes whole the lame,  
And makes and mars as she disposed is,  
Which is as life is led, well, or amiss.  
She with her wings (that can outfly the wind;)  
Through Heaven, Earth, Hell, and what they hold doth fly,  
And so imprintes them lively in the Mind,  
By force of her impressing property,  
Seeing all in all, with her quick sighted Eye.   

She (double diligence) is still in motion,  
And well, or ill, she ever is employed;  
Therefore good Spirits and bad, with like devotion  
Frequent her still: which she cannot avoid,  
Wherewith the Mind is cheered or annoy'de.  
For as celestial Spirits can object,  
To the Minds Eye divine soul-pleasing sights,  
So can infernal Sprights with like effect,  
Present the Soul with what the Soul affrights,  
So powerful in their Power are both these Sprights.   

Which Power fantastic is of so great force,  
As what she powerfully doth apprehend  
Within the Body she imprints perforce;  
For to the Body, she doth force extend.  
A proof whereof in women kind is kend,  
When they in Coitu fix their Fancy fast  
On him they fancy; if they then conceive,  
It will be like their Fancies object faced:  
If then a wife doth but in thought deceive,  
The husband in that face may it perceive.   

This power is so prevalent in the Mind,  
As if some pass a Bridge, or some such thing,  
They lightly fall, because their Fancies find  
Danger beneath, which to the brain doth bring  
A giddiness, which causeth stumbling.  
Thus than the Fancy oft the fact produceth,  
That she with recollected virtue minds,  
And by the shade the substance oft traduceth;  
So violent each Sense her virtue binds,  
And 'noys, or joys the Mind, in diverse kinds.   

Holla my Muse; here rest a breathing while,  
Sith thou art now arrived at Reason's seat;  
To whom, as to thy Sovereign reconcile  
Thy straying thoughts, and humbly her entreat,  
With her just measure all thy lines to meat,  
Lest that like many Rhymers of our time  
Thoublotst much Paper, without mean or measure,  
In Verse, whose reason runneth alto Rhyme:  
Yet of the Laurel wreath they make a seizure,  
And doth Minerva so, a shrewd displeasure.   

HAd my Soul power, the Souls power to express.  
And with strong reasons, Reason's strength bewray,  
Men would admire her virtue, and confess,  
By Nature's right, she should their nature sway.  
Monsters alone resists her mightiness,  
But Men (though powerful) her power will obey,  
For she as Sovereign sitteth in the Soul,  
All perverse passions therein to control.   

She by the power of her discreet discourse,  
In th'operations of the Fantasy,  
Can judge of good, and bad, and by her force,  
Swiftly surmount each Senses faculty;  
And whatsoever interrupts her course,  
She it removes with great facility,  
For Nature's bosom nothing doth embowre,  
That is not subject to his searching power   

In which respect she hath her Throne assigned,  
Between th'extreme parts of the parted Brain,  
(The place where Nature, Virtue hath confined)  
There doth she sit, and o'er the Senses reign,  
And by her might doth signlorize the Mind,  
Whose wild and wayward moods she doth restrain,  
Their spite of Passion, she doth keep her place,  
Though Passion in her spite, her oft disgrace.   

For should she she transplaced to Fantasy,  
Or with Imagination be confounded,  
A world of mists would cloud her Sunne-bright eye,  
Wherewith she should be evermore surrounded;  
So that she should not Truth from falsehood spy,  
But with strong Fancies should her power be bounded,  
And like a Queen deposed from her throne,  
She should not able be to use her own.   

So fares it with her when th' Affections force,  
(Like a swift stream that carries all away)  
Doth carry her (by current of their course)  
far from herself, as wanting strength to stay;  
Until the whole man waxing worse and worse,  
Be brought to utter ruin and decay:  
But if that she be strong them to withstand,  
She dooms aright, and doth aright command.   

Then rules Sans check, then dooms without appeal,  
No second sentence can hers contradict,  
She rules alone the whole Minds common weal,  
By wholesome Hests, and Laws, and judgements strict,  
Which to the Memory she doth reveal,  
Else it Oblivion would interdict,  
Wherein, as in a book of decretals,  
She writeth her decrees in Capitals.   

For which respect the seat of Memory,  
Confineth hard upon her Continent,  
That so she may soon empte the Fantasy,  
Of what doth pass through her arbiterment;  
For else, what boots her Good and Bad to try,  
If to the Memory it were not sent?  
For that is it, that is sole receptacle,  
Of human Wisdom, Nature's miracle.   

Therefore, her part and portion of the brain,  
Is much less humid, and more firmly sixth,  
Because it so the better may retain,  
Th'impression by the Senses there infixed,  
And for its Fount of marrow in the rain,  
Whereof the strongest sinews are commixed,  
For both which reasons Nature had respect,  
To bind the Brain behind to that effect.   

And yet too hard the Brain may there be bound,  
For so 'twill hardly open to conceive,  
And being over-moyst, it will confound  
All the impressions which the Senses give.  
Well tempered therefore needs must be the ground,  
That truly yields the seed it doth receive;  
Yet the moist brain conceives more readily,  
But the dry brain retains more steadily.   

The judgement which the outward Senses give,  
Is e'en as if we saw the shade of things,  
And what we from the Fantasy receive,  
Is as it were their lively picturing.  
The Intellect (which seldom doth deceive)  
Doth show the substance of those shadowings:  
But that which reason presenteth to the Mind,  
Is their effects and virtues in their kind.   

Th'external Senses serves the common Sense,  
The common Sense informs the Fantasy,  
The Fantasy, the Minds Intelligence;  
Th' Intelligence doth Knowledge certify,  
Which (when it hath past judgements conference)  
Committeth all unto the Memory:  
Then Memory doth mirror-like reflect  
To them again, what they to her object.   

Thus Reason in the Soul is as her eye,  
Wherewith she seeth the well linked chain of Causes,  
And useth every Senses faculty,  
To find what is included in their clauses,  
Yet cannot lift her lowly look so high,  
Without re'nforcing of her sight by pauses:  
For since dark Sin eclipsed her native light,  
She seeth but by degrees, and not outright.   

But as she is, she plainly can discern,  
The Sence-transcending heavens plurality,  
And in the book of Nature she doth learn,  
What's taught in this worlds University.  
She keeps the Compass, and doth stir the Stern,  
That guides to Wisdoms singularity:  
All whose collections when the Soul surveys,  
She sees herself divined a thousand ways.   

Thus Reasons reach is high and most profound,  
Whose deep discourse is twofold, which depends,  
On Speculation, and on Practice sound;  
The first hath Truth, the last hath Good for ends;  
For Speculation rests when Truth is found.  
But Practice, when that Good it apprehends,  
It stays not there, but to the Will proceeds,  
And with that Good the Will it freely feeds.   

Yet lest the Soul beholding her fair form,  
Above herself, should of herself aspire:  
He gives us proof, he can her parts deform,  
That formed her parts, if pride provoke his ire,  
Then lets he Fiends the Fantasy enorm,  
With strong delusions and with passions dire:  
here-hence it is that some suppose they are  
Stone dead, some, all- Nose, some, more brittle ware.   

Some having this part perfect, are defected  
In the power rational, the (Souls sentinel)  
That is, with doting dullness so infected,  
As what they say, or do, they wot not well;  
Yet is their Memory right well affected,  
And all their other Faculties excel:  
So Sickness some men's Memory unframes,  
That they forget their country, friends, and names.   

Some others, not in part, but wholly lose  
The use of all the Senses of their soul,  
(Because they did their faculties abuse)  
Those being frantic, Reason with Rage control,  
And worse than beasts they live, and cannot choose  
The Good from Bad, ne yet the Fair from Fowl:  
But like infernal Furies fare they than,  
Injurious to themselves, to God, and man..   

Thus may these Powers perish all, or part,  
When that almighty power his grace withdraws,  
Then let high Spirits retain a lowly heart,  
That may obedient be to Reason's Laws,  
For ill success proceeds from worse desert,  
And good effects proceeds from no ill cause:  
If thy Minds eyes see more than such eyes can,  
Thank God therefore, yet think thyself a man.   

For if thy thoughts fly higher than that pitch,  
And Luciferian pride thy Mind inflate,  
Thou mayst with him fall headlong in the ditch,  
And run into God's unrevoked hate:  
Then will the Fiend so much thy Mind bewitch,  
That thou shalt be possessed in endless date:  
With his strong Legions. Then let Reason rain  
Thy headstrong Will, and thy high thoughts restrain.   

Now having seen how each internal Sense  
Contained is in caverns of the Brain:  
And how their works have mutual reference,  
That so they may their common good maintain,  
Let us with Eagles eyes without offence  
Transview the obscure things that do remain:  
For Man's aye-searching Spirit with toil's oppressed:  
Till it have found that Good that gives it rest.   

Yet this breeds bate twixt reason and Fantasy:  
For Fantasy being near the outward Senses:  
Allures the Soul to love things bodily;  
But Reason mounts to higher Excellences,  
And moves the spirit her nimble wings to try,  
In pursuit of divine Intelligences,  
Who in the jaws of Fantasy doth set  
A Snaffle, to o'errule her wild curvet.   

And all this vigour to the Spirit is given,  
To fly with restless wings of Contemplation,  
Unto that power which in the highest Heaven  
Makes his no powre-impeaching Habitation:  
Of which power, if this power be quite bereau'n,  
Her dignity incurreth degradation.  
For as nought is more rare in Man then sprite,  
So nought but rarest things should it delight.   

For it beseems not that high Majestic,  
To Man (his creature) lower to descend  
Then Man by force of his Minds Ingeny  
Is able to him easily to ascend.  
That makes him not appear to Man's weak eye,  
Because his Reason can him apprehend.  
If Reason then (by use) be clear and bright,  
She may see him (unseen) by her own light.   

For by our Reason and Intelligence,  
We know him, from which knowledge, Love doth slow;  
For we may love, that we see not by Sense,  
But cannot love, the thing we do not know;  
Our Souls we love, and love the place from whence  
Our Souls first came, though Sense them cannot show.  
So that high power, though our Sense cannot show him,  
Yet may we love, because our Reasons know him.   

For, can it be Man's Soul should be endowed,  
With Understanding, Reason, Will and Wit,  
(To whose high power, the highest power hath bowed  
His goodness, to be conversant with it)  
But that the Soul is therewithal allowed,  
On sempiternal Thrones with him to sit,  
If so, what can be worth the Souls discourse,  
But that same Mind, that gave the Soul such force?   

Let Beasts, whose souls are merely Sensitive,  
Whose Being ceaseth with their Bodies being:  
Let those with Tooth and Nail strive here to live,  
Because they die for ever with their dying:  
To them no other Souls did Nature give,  
But such as to this life was most agreeing;  
But sith men's souls of God Characters be,  
With nothing but with God, they should agree.   

Which Souls without their corporal Instruments,  
By virtue of their intellective powers,  
Within themselves can act some good intents,  
(Though not express them to this sense of ours)  
Who are sometimes rapt up with ravishments,  
As parted from the Body certain hours,  
Wherein they exercise their virtue so,  
That more than erst they knew, they do, and know.   

Wherein the Understanding and the Will,  
(Wherewith the Soul are sumptuously set forth)  
Are most employed; whose functions are to fill,  
The Souls with Treasures of the rarest worth,  
Which th' Intellect to Will presenteth still,  
And to the love thereof the will allur'th,  
For Will will nothing entertain in love,  
But what the Understanding doth approve.   

And what it doth approve (as erst was said)  
It sends to Memories safe custody:  
So than the powers that most the Soul do aid,  
Is Understanding, Will, and Memory,  
Which if by Error they be not betrayed,  
They will the Souls affects so fortify,  
That she in spite of all the powers below,  
Shall give her foes a glorious overthrow.   

Yet as the Sun to us imparts his light,  
Now more, now less, as it is clear, or clouded,  
So fares it with our Understandings sight,  
That's dark as hell, if it with Sin be shrouded:  
Or if that Earthly things enclose it quite,  
Wherewith the Soul may be so over-crowded,  
That she may faint and finally may fall  
To utter darkness, her foe Capital.   

Besides, the Sodies state and constitution,  
May much avail, or disadvantage it;  
Then Riot is no good Physician,  
To heal, or keep in health, man's feeble Wit,  
For excess tends to Dissolution,  
And Dissolution doth in Darkness sit,  
Then wouldst thou have a clear Intelligence?  
Fear God, fare well, but feed without offence.   

For though the Soul the Body should o'errule,  
By law of Nature, and in Reasons right,  
Yet oft we see the Body rule the Soul,  
When meats excess augments the Bodies might:  
The Flesh exalted, will the Spirit control,  
And make the Body's manners brutish quite:  
But if thy Flesh be ill composed by kind,  
Mend it with wholesome meat, and moderate mind.   

For what a monstrous vice is this in Man,  
To quench his Spirit with wine and belly-cheer,  
When Beasts will take no more than well they can,  
Although (by force) they should abye it dear:  
For never Man a Beast by rigour wan  
To eat, or drink, more than he well could bear.  
Then if thou wouldst not have a Beast excel thee,  
Take thou no more than Nature doth compel thee.   

O that these Healths that makes so many sick,  
Were buried in the lake of Leaches quick!  
For since our English (ah) were Flusbenized,  
Against good manners, and good men they kick,  
As Beasts they were, and wondrous ill advised:  
Band be these Bacchus feasts which oft they make,  
" Which makes Reason sleep, and Riot keeps awake.   

Can Meat and Drink which pleaseth but the Taste,  
(A Sense from th' Understanding most remote)  
Which pleasure for so small a while doth last,  
As passing but (two inches of the throat)  
Make men their same's and Souls away to cast,  
GOD shield that famous Men so much should dote.  
Let never Men of Mind their Minds defile,  
With such a vice more vile, than Vice most vile.   

O what a hell of Mind good Minds endures,  
When they in mind behold such Men of Mind,  
Whose Souls are decked with intellective power,  
Employ the same (repugnant to their kind,)  
To find out loathsome leakage which procures  
Them wits to lose, where they such Leakage find!  
Can any grief be greater than to see,  
A man that men commands, a beast to be?   

Converting martial sports that were in use,  
To winie unaccustomed Combats; O  
That valiant men should dare men to carouse,  
And count them cowards that will not do so!  
For now it is become a great abuse,  
Healths to refuse, If legs can stand or go:  
But out upon such Combatts and such game,  
Whereas the victor's glory is their shame.   

The Spirit of Man whose temper is divine,  
And made to mount unto the highest height,  
Should not, to such Soule-smillings base decline,  
But with her nimble wings should take her flight,  
Where she might drunk be made with Angel's wine,  
To make her slumber in divine delight.  
But if his Spirit ascend, when wine descends,  
The Spirit of Wine, and not his Spirit ascends.   

Then how prodigious is it when the Mind,  
(That should be conversant with heavenly Sweets)  
To swash of Swine, should (Sow-like) be inclined,  
That swallows up, what ere their ravin meets?  
And in strong drink devouring pleasure find  
Till they lie durt-devoured in the Streets.  
But let great men whose spirits are most divine,  
This most base beastliness, to Beasts assign.   

For if the Head replenished be with Wit,  
No room remains for Wine there to reside.  
For if the Wine thrusts in, it out thrusts it.  
Much Wine and Wit together cannot bide.  
And when the heart where the Affections sit,  
With wine's inflamed th' Affects soon shrink aside;  
And like enraged Furies do confound,  
Both Grace and Nature, Wit, and judgement sound.   

For when the Brains are full of winie fumes,  
The Soul with Egypt's darkness is enclosed.  
And what the Brain receives the heart assumes,  
For as the one, the other is disposed.  
The Powers of both Wine utterly consumes,  
If Wine against their Powers be opposed.  
So the Souls Faculties and her Affects,  
Are brought to nought by Wines (too bad) effects.   

For if the Soul at best, (and best advizd)  
Be prompt Opinion still to chop and change;  
What will she do when she with Wine's baptizd?  
How will she wander then? where will she range?  
Where? nay, where not? she being so disguised,  
If from herself, herself she may estrange;  
Then every way she'll run, save that is right,  
Because her eye of judgement wanteth sight.   

For reason (th'effect of the Intelligence)  
Winde-driu'n from the Stern that rules the Mind,  
What shall direct the faculties of Sense  
In their right course, but bold affections blind,  
Which headlong runs into all foul offence,  
As they are moved by their corrupt kind?  
For every Sensual man in sensual sort,  
Of Sensuality makes but a sport.   

Then reason must rule, or Sense will run awry,  
(Unruly Sense, by kind, is so o'rethwart,)  
Yet Reason hath a twofold property,  
And in her practice useth double Art:  
For now by Consequence she Truth doth try:  
Then here and there for Truth her trials start:  
And starting so, she balks Truth's evidence,  
Then right she dooms not, but by Consequence.   

Sharp Wits, will pierce hard Propositions straight;  
Quick Wits, by sharp conjecture Truth attains;  
Great Wits, at once conclude it in Conceit;  
Slow, and yet sure wits, find it out with pains:  
And all those wits on Wisdom still do wait,  
To serve her in the Sconce that bounds the brains.  
Whose power she still employs t'augment her might,  
And dooms of their endeavours most upright.   

For she within the Soul is Queen of Queens,  
As God unto the Soul is King of Kings:  
Th'internal Senses are Queens, yet but means  
Wherewith her business to effect she brings.  
On whom (as on her Minions) still she leaner,  
With greater ease to do uneasy things.  
But for herself, she is in Nature's due,  
Souls Mind, Minds Soul, and Gods sole Image true.   

Or rather, God's Souls sole Character right,  
In whose breast it had, have, and shall have ever,  
True restless rest, whose word true Wisdom hight,  
(That past beginnings lived, and dieth never)  
Did on our flesh (which died in painful plight)  
That none might from our Souls that Wisdom sever:  
For wein that, and that in us doth bide,  
By unchanged interchange on either side.   

The Body in the Elements is closed;  
The Blood within the Body is confined;  
The Spirits within the Blood: the soul's dispozed  
Within the Spirits, which Soul includes the Mind.  
The Understanding in the mind's repozed,  
And God in th' Understanding rest doth find:  
So this world's made for Man, Man for the Soul,  
Soul for the Mind, the Mind for God her Goal.   

How be't it is too true she was betrayed,  
When Sin persuaded her, she should be e'en  
With Wisdom infinite, and so assay'de,  
To match that Power that all her power had given,  
Then, for she was ingrate, and so vnstay'd,  
She was bereft much virtue (though forgiven:)  
That now she seeth Truth but through a vail,  
So in discerning Truth, she oft doth fail.   

For as the Soul, so is her faculties,  
The Spring being choked the stream cannot be strong,  
They see not well, that have but sand-blind eyes,  
Nor is that firm, that frailty hath among.  
So human Wisdom, be it ne'er so wise,  
Oft goeth right, but ofter runneth wrong;  
Whose restless travels are but Truth to meet,  
And yet (though oft at hand) she cannot see t.   

For how can human Wisdom choose but err,  
When all her science comes from th'outward Senses?  
Which oft miss apprehend, and miss refer,  
And so betrays our best intelligences.  
Then judgement needs must fail that doth confer;  
False Antecedents with false References:  
For what those Senses constantly affirm,  
The judgement doth as constantly confirm.   

But yet in cases of our constant faith,  
We Faith believe, and give our Sense the lie,  
Nay, whatsoe'er our human reason saith,  
If it our faith gainsay, we it deny:  
On highest heights Faith her foundation laith,  
Which never can be seen of mortal eye;  
For if Faith say, a Maid may be a Mother,  
Though Sense gainsay it, we believe the other   

If Faith affirm, that God a man may be,  
(A mortal man, and live, and die with pain)  
We it believe, though how, we cannot see,  
For here strong Faith doth headstrong reason restrain  
And with the truth compels her to agree,  
Lest she should overrun herself in vain:  
So, if Faith say one's three, and three is one,  
Though Sense say nay, we Faith believe alone.   

faiths Senses are so firm, they cannot fail,  
For they derive their science from God's Son,  
Through whom, in what she seeks, she doth prevail,  
And by the light thereof, aright doth run:  
Faith hath no Fancies fell her thoughts to quail,  
Nor by delusions is to waver won:  
For being guided by so true a light,  
Her judgement and discourse must needs be right.   

No marvel then though men with Faith endowed,  
Become so firm, that no plague, power, or skill,  
Can shake them once: for they are wholly vowed  
To him, whose Rod and Staff do stay them stil.  
In few, by no means can she be subdued:  
But stands as unremoved as Zion hill.  
Then Faiths foundations must of force be sure,  
That can all kind of force so well endure.   

Yet judgements function is of great effect,  
Which sorts Particulars from Generals,  
Then Generals from Generals elect,  
And so from Special, parteth special,  
Then all confers, and (as she can) select  
The good from bad, and Spirits from Corporals.  
This by her power she able is to do,  
Especially, if God gives aim thereto.   

But when discourse sets out, Fancy must rest;  
she's like a whelp that plays with every toy,  
Nor must the Will the Memory molest,  
Because it doth the Intellect annoy,  
Which quietly must Sense reports digest,  
And all her power it must thereon employ:  
But if commotions of the Mind impugn,  
She cannot work; and all must needs go wrong.   

For as in well composed Commonweals,  
The Members in their place, their works apply;  
And with reciprocal affection feales  
Each others want, and it with speed supply:  
So in well-mannaged minds the Senses deals,  
Which hinders not each others faculty.  
But for the public good of Souls and Mind,  
Each Power applies the work to it assigned.   

And Memory is true, if she be trusted;  
If otherwise, she's more than most unsure;  
she'll keep Minds riches else till they be rusted,  
(Yet riches of the Mind are passing pure)  
But if the Mind with rust of Care be crusted,  
Then Memory in force cannot endure:  
For cares are moths and cankers of the Mind:  
That Memory consumes, therein confined.   

So while reason worketh, judgement rest doth take:  
But when that work is wrought, the same she ways  
And marks with Lynx's Eyes what reason did make:  
If well, or ill, or neutral, she bewrays.  
And if she find her eyes not well awake,  
With watchful eyes again she it surveys;  
And ceaseth not till she be fixed fast,  
In that which of the truth hath greatest taste.   

And when she doubts she is herself deceived,  
It grows from Ill that is so like to Good;  
That for that good its commonly received:  
Yet is the Friar not made by the Hood;  
But likelihoods of Truth by Sense conceived,  
May drown her (without heed) in Errors flood.  
Else hardly would she slide, but firmly stand.  
If Falsehood, like Truth, bore her not from land.   

For as true Good, agreeth with the Will,  
So Truth hath with the Mind true sympathy,  
And as the Will hath no such foe as Ill,  
So Error is the Minds most enemy.  
If judgement then approve of Reason's skill,  
She joins herself thereto insep'rably.  
And so of judgements reason and reason's judgement  
Makes then but one, by force of one consent.   

Fow'r things there are that makes our knowledge strong,  
Experience known, to know each Principle;  
Natural judgement, (having health among)  
And revelation from th' Invisible  
That's just and right, and cannot utter wrong:  
These makes us know all comprehensible.  
The first three tendeth to Philosophy,  
The last belongeth to Divinity.   

These are the Elements whereof is formed,  
Our total knowledge, human, or divine;  
And had the first Man not been sinne-deformed,  
More bright than Sol, it in the Soul should shine,  
For to that influence 't'had been conformed,  
That make the Minds eyes pure and chistaline;  
For than God's glorious Son all only wise,  
Had lent the Spirit Sunne-bright allseeing eyes.   

Now twixt the Soul and Spirit, great odds there is,  
(Though vulgarly they taken are for one,)  
For by the Soul is meant those faculties,  
That do consorta human Soul alone.  
The Spirit doth not (as they do) oft amiss,  
For it to grace and virtue still is prone.  
The Soul to Sin consents, but not the Spirit,  
For that with Sin and Flesh, still maintains fight.   

Whereto (in sort,) agrees what 〈◊〉 fain,  
How jove did reason ensconse within the 〈◊〉.  
And for th' Affections did the Corpses ordain:  
Which Reas'ns regiment doth disannul,  
Taking two Tyrants fell with them to reign,  
Which oft the whole man to their part do pull.  
That's Ire, which in the heart hath residences  
And in the Belly reigns Concupiscence.   

Which Passion of itself, is of such power  
(Unless th'almighty power prevent the same,)  
As, Nolens volens will the Soul deflower,  
And make the flesh Gomorrah-like to flame,  
Though God and Nature at that sight doelow'r,  
And Hell wide-gaping laughs to see the same.  
Nay though it should forthwith destroy the Soul,  
Yet Flesh being frail, will make fair Flesh thus fowl.   

But from this Passion to repass from whence,  
We passed Oblique, and so outright proceed;  
For having past the faculties of Sense,  
It rests that now we weigh what doth succeed.  
But stay a while my Muse, thou must from hence,  
Mount higher than thou canst; then hast thou need.  
To rest in contemplation of thy flight,  
Sith Contemplation next ensues by right,   

WHen from the outward Senses is conveyed,  
All their relations in the common Sense,  
And so to Fantasy (as erst was said)  
And then to Reason, or Intelligence,  
From whence (being sent to judgements confe-  
It lastly comes to Contemplation's sight, rinse,)  
Which is the view of Truths true consequence,  
For reason and judgement finds out what is right,  
Which Contemplation views with rare delight.   

For to the Spirit nought more pleasing is,  
Then naked Truth, she is so passing fair,  
For when they meet, they do with comfort kiss,  
And nought but Error can that joy impair,  
here-hence it is, that though we do despair,  
Of some whose manners are most monstrous,  
Yet they, by Nature's instinct, Truth desire;  
For knowledge to their Spirits is precious,  
And deem all dull-heads most inglorious.   

Nay though the Spirit cannot come near the truth,  
It pleaseth her t'approach the nearest she may,  
Which like an eager Beagle it pursueth,  
Whose pains are passing pleasure all the way:  
Then as the Mind is more divinely gay;  
So will it most, most divine Truth affect:  
But being base, it will the same bewray,  
By most pursuing things of least effect,  
Which Spirits of divine temper do neglect.   

The Contemplation than doth ruminate  
On Truth, and none but Truth; for only it  
Unto her dainty taste is delicate,  
And nothing doth the same so fully fit,  
As this Soule-feeding single, simple bit,  
Then Contemplation must be most divine,  
That can with Truth divine a human wit,  
And Zeal from Error doth aright refine,  
And to the purest faith the same combine.   

She (divine Power) consociates powers divine,  
Gliding through Heaven, on her celestial wings,  
And to the angels Hymns her ears incline,  
And all the Host of Heaun together brings  
At once, to view those bright-eye-blinding things:  
Yet stays not here, but doth herself intrude,  
Into the presence of the King of Kings,  
To see th'▪ Obiective sole Beatitude,  
That of the Cherubins cannot be viewed.   

And hou'ring here she stays, and strains her fight,  
To see the same (as of itself it's seen)  
But taper-pointed Beams of extreme light  
Darts through her eyes, and make them sightless clean,  
Yet inly sees a certain Light unseen,  
That so doth ravish all her powers of Sense,  
As in the Heaven of Heavens it makes her ween,  
She sensibly hath real residence,  
o'erwhelmed with Glory and Magnificence.   

But if the Body in disposed be,  
And due proportion of the Humours want,  
(If Wisdom do not well the same foresee)  
She here may pass the bounds of Grace (I grant)  
And so wax frantic, vain, and ignorant,  
Or else presumptuously too curious,  
For power inscrutable she must not fcant,  
To her powers reach, for that were impious,  
And most impard'nably presumptuous.   

For as our corporal Eyes cannot behold  
The Sun, whose substance is but corporal:  
So the Souls Eye (being fixed to mortal mould)  
Cannot behold the Deity immortal:  
But if our Eye were supernatural,  
And fixed unto the Sun, then might it see  
The Sun itself, and with the Sun see all:  
So shall the Souls Eye see that Deity,  
When after death, it fixed to it shall be.   

Yet Contemplation may by force of love,  
Whilst yet the Soul is to the Body tide,  
(Wing▪ d with Desire) ascend herself above,  
And with her God eternally abide,  
So near, as if she touched his glorious side:  
For as one drawing nigh material fire,  
Doth feel the heat, before the flame be tried,  
So who draws nigh to God by loves desire,  
Shall, to, and with, that heavenly Flame aspire.   

This is that holy, kind, and sugared Kiss,  
That God in love vouchsafes the loving Soul,  
To which this loving Lord espoused is,  
When (as her Lord) he, by his grace, doth rule,  
Which doth extinguish all affections foul;  
This Kiss must needs be short as Lightnings leam,  
Or else it would the Body so control,  
Through Souls excess of joy (in such extreme)  
That it would leave her in a dateless dream.   

Those Souls that are by Contemplation fixed  
So fast to God, that theyare removed by none,  
Are like the Seraphins to God confixt,  
Who are exempt from outward charge alone,  
And still (like burning lamps) surround his Throne,  
For as fine Gold being molten in the fire,  
Doth seem, as if the fire and it were one,  
So is the loving Soul through loves desire,  
With God in Contemplation made entire.   

Here Contemplation may so long reside,  
(For here she makes the Soul drunk with delight)  
As if the Body, Soulless did abide,  
And all the Senses were deprived of might,  
While from herself, the Soul thus takes her flight,  
To such excess of mind some men are brought,  
That they do see by revelation right,  
How they should live, and believe as they ought,  
With many marvels else surmounting thought.   

This ghostly wine in Contemplation drunk,  
Hath made, ere now, some Souls so drunk with joy.  
As some good Bodies in the same have sunk,  
As if they were struck dead with some annoy.  
And othersome, it hath constrained to toy,  
To sing, to leap, to laugh, and some to rue  
(Who then to weep they do themselves employ)  
Some nothing say, but, jesus, jesus, jesus:  
And othersome, some words they never knew.   

The cause of all these motions (as should seem)  
From the Souls bliss and ioyes-aboundance came,  
Which to the Body shares that joy extreme,  
And it not able to contain the same,  
Doth vent it out with jestures used in game.  
As when new wine into a cask is cast,  
It upwards boils, and many motions frame.  
And wanting vent, it will the vessel braced;  
So fares the Body which these Dainties taste.   

But here me thinks I hear some Atheist say,  
All these are but mere natural effects,  
For th' object of our Love, our Souls betray  
To every Passion which itself reflects:  
And so the Pagan his false God respects  
As Love thereto, these things in him doth work:  
But never Heathens heart had these Affects;  
For never in a Pagan, jew, or Turk,  
Can such Soule-pleasing jubilations lurk.   

For as in Tempests, Smoke away doth fly,  
Which yet augments the fire, and spreads the flame,  
So in Afflictions storms these dogs will die,  
And can no prayer with devotion frame.  
But Christians then, can best perform the same,  
Who though with Troubles storms they still are tossed;  
Yet of their endless griefs they make their game,  
And in their most affliction, glory most  
When such affliction grieves a Pagans ghost.   

Know then (whose knowledge is but Ignorance,  
Whose Wit (though ne'er so nimble) is but lame).  
That all is subject to the governance  
Of that I Am, that no Tongue well can name.  
For there is nothing subject unto Chance,  
But as he will, so will all Fortune's frame,  
Who is the prop of divine Providence,  
Which thou seest not, for want of Grace and Sense.   

Thou Diu'l incarnate, Monster like a Man,  
Perfidious Atheist, graceless Libertine,  
Which Nature then produced when she began  
To wrong herself, and from herself decline.  
Yea then when Reason far herself ore-ran,  
And to the brutish part did whole incline:  
What brow of Brass can bear thy earned blame,  
Whose Conscience feared wants sense of sin, and shame?   

For lo the Soul (by force of Contemplation)  
Engulphed lies in joyful ecstasy.  
Where she doth languish in a lovesick passion,  
Swallowed with sweets in such extremity,  
That she's e'en stifled with felicity.  
But O (wretch that I am) when, when, O when  
Shall my dry soul her thirst here satisfy?  
But I a sink of sin and Soil of Men,  
Am too too fowl this Fount a loof to ken.   

Here need the Soul to stand upon her guard,  
And keep the Tempter at the Spirits swordpoint,  
Else pride will puff her, sith so well she fared:  
Which swelling will run down from joint to joint,  
That she will burst, if Grace her not anoint.  
This found he true, that found this true repast,  
In the third Heaven as God did fore-appoint,  
Yet must he Buffets with such Banquets taste  
Lest he should be puffed up, and so disgraced.   

For our Souls foe extracts Ill out of Good,  
As our Souls friend doth draw Good out of Ill,  
The foe can foil (if he be not withstood)  
With Pride our Piety, and our goodwill.  
But our best friend, though we offend him still,  
From these offences draws humility:  
Which makes us crouch, and kneel, and pray, until  
He doth commiserate our misery;  
This doth our friend, unlike our enemy.   

The Soul cannot her soundness more bewray,  
Then when she doth Temptations strong resist,  
For like as when our Pulses strongly play,  
We know we need not then a Galenist.  
So when the Soul doth paint, strive, and persist,  
In struggling with Temptations, than we know,  
That Soul with perfect health is truly blessed:  
For she by demonstration it doth sho,  
And blest are all those Souls that striveth so.   

But in the Minds excess and trance of Spirit,  
(When Revelations rusheth on the Soul)  
It her behoves to have much ghostly might,  
The spirit of Pride with courage to control,  
Lest with the Prince of Pride her fall be foul;  
For he being mounted near heavens Majesty,  
Sought with the same the UNIVERS to rule,  
So fell he from his glorious dignity,  
So may a Soul inflate with Sanctity.   

But if the Soul through the Almighty's power,  
(Anteperistezing her powers with grace)  
Break through those muddy walls which her immure,  
And would compel her fowl affects t'embrace,  
She then (sans pride) might look God in the face.  
Which to express, ah who can it express?  
Not God as Man, can show God's glories grace,  
Much less can Moses: Paul, and john much less,  
Then what can I do Sink of Sottishness?   

Moses saw but his back: Paul not so much,  
john but his shade, being shadowed with his wings,  
Such as the Eyes, their objects still are such:  
Then mortal Eyes can see but mortal things,  
No king can live and see that King of kings.  
No power can give that privilege to Man,  
But only Death and Grace to God him brings,  
That Heaven and Earth doth measure with his span,  
Then to describe his greatness, ah, who can!   

Dare I, vile froth of Frailty, Folly's scum,  
Presume t'exploit impossibilities?  
In my base barren wit dare I inwombe  
The magnitude of all Immensities?  
And prove so great improbabilities?  
vail, vail thy thoughts, th' imaginations vail,  
Unto the depth of all profundities:  
And ere thou enter'st this Sea, strike the Sail,  
Or thou wilt be overwhelmed without fail.   

But be it granted we may safely swim,  
near to this boundless Ocean's shorelesse-shore,  
Yet if Presumption bear us from the Brim,  
Then are we lost, and can come out no more.  
Nay, if too much thereon we chance to poor,  
Albeed we are within a ken of Land,  
'Twill turn our brains, and make our Eyes so sore,  
That we our Senses hardly shall command,  
With upright judgement uprightly to stand.   

To form the Godhead (in our Fancies forge)  
With all the Beauties, Heaven and Earth contains,  
We must be fain again it to reforge,  
For in his sight those Beauties are but stains.  
In vain therefore it is to beat our brains,  
To frame that Form, that framed all Forms that are,  
And yet himself a formless Form remains,  
That in Formosity is past compare,  
His glory is so great, his grace so rare!   

Objects of Sense are printed in the Mind,  
By that which from those Objects, Sense attracts;  
But that which Sense still seeks, yet cannot find,  
The Mind from thence no Images abstracts:  
Then if the Mind, GOD'S form of Sense exacts,  
Sense must inform it with form sensible,  
Which from God's creatures beauty it extracts,  
Which cannot be incomprehensible,  
As God's form is, that's most insensible.   

He that but touched his Ark at point to fall,  
He struck stone-dead, then needs must the offence,  
To look therein be more than Capital,  
Because himself had there true residence:  
Then truly we may well collect from hence,  
No creature should be so presumptuous,  
To search for God's true form, with erring sense,  
Which at the best is most ambiguous;  
Then so to do is deadly dangerous.   

The Seraphins being Angels most supreme,  
Exists but as a mean twixt God and Men,  
(Yet near the lower than the high Extreme)  
Then if those Spirits no mortal eve can ken,  
For glittering glory with the which they bren,  
How shall such eyes behold jehovahs' face,  
Sith Seraphins themselves are blinded, when  
They do but glance upon his glories grace?  
They must confounded be, they are so base.   

Men being most unable to find out  
The substance of the Godhead by their sense,  
Have with the highest Titles gone about,  
To explicate that Super- excellence:  
But that which argues most pre-eminence,  
Of all high Titles, they the GOOD him call,  
But that name fits not his beneficence,  
For Good is good, of Goodness, but he's all  
Goodness itself supersubstantial.   

Nay, Goodness cannot possibly extend  
T'express his goodness, that we Goodness call,  
For Goodness on some substance doth depend,  
Butin that Godhead can be nought at all,  
That is not more than super- substantial:  
Then can no name his nameless Name express,  
But what (in Sense precise) unnames them all,  
For who so knows it most, doth know it less,  
As they that knoweth most of all confess.   

He is unmoved, unchanged, pure, bodiless,  
Most simple, subtle endless, infinite,  
All wise, all good, all great, beginninglesse,  
All these are names by which we do recite,  
Not what he is, but what he is not, right  
he's uncontained, yet in himself confined,  
Whose mightiness is bounded in his might,  
Which so extends that he himself can find,  
Without himself, no Being in no kind.   

An actual understanding infinite.  
Philosophy can reach no higher style,  
Which in respect of him is but finite.  
Divinity itself, cannot compile,  
His name in words, for words are too too vile:  
I am (quoth he) what art Lord?) that I am.  
Lo here's the highest state (alas the while)  
That Words can reach, though he devised the same,  
That with words cannot tell his nameless name.   

Yet as a worm that only hath a will,  
To try her force in that she cannot do,  
So I (though void of grace, and want of skill)  
Bring with me more than much good will hereto,  
And still to it myself, myself doth woe,  
Yet am I terrified when well I way,  
How some great Doctors did their wits undo,  
When they this mystery sought to bewray,  
Then will I, ere I enter, humbly pray.   

O great and dreadful Si●e of Gods and Men!  
O alwise Word, that no word can express!  
O Unction Spiritual that bright dost burn!  
O threefold, yet all one Almightiness!  
Inspire my wit, (comprised in mortal press)  
With that pure Influence thy Throne attending;  
That notwithstanding my unworthiness,  
I may, in part, unfold (without offending)  
That which doth far surmount all comprehending.   

Mount Muse, but rise with reverence and fear;  
With Icarus soar not too near the Sun,  
Lest that thereby thy waxen wings do mere,  
And in this Sea thou fall, and be o'errun,  
Where thou shalt lose thyself, and be undone:  
Couer'thy face with thy celestial wings,  
As Cherubins now do, and still have done;  
Yet through thy plumes, glance at this Thing of Things,  
Being the cause entire of all Beings.   

For he is Good, without all Quality,  
Then, O how good is he, that knows the same!  
And he is great, beyond all Quantity,  
Then, O'how great is he that can him name!  
Eternal, without time, from whom Time came,  
Being present every where, yet without place,  
For every place he framed, and keeps in frame:  
Beholding all, yet none beholds his face,  
He giving all, none giving to him grace.   

But where art thou? What shall I call thy name?  
O GREAT, O GOOD, a good great name I want,  
Thou art so great, that I no name can frame  
To fit thy greatness, but it is too scant,  
Thy goodness is as great, good Great I grant:  
But where art thou? among thy Angels? No;  
Where then? with thy Church ever triumphant▪  
There, and where not thou art, but yet not so  
As thou art with, and in, thyself, I know.   

For twixt the Heaven, where Saints and Angels rest,  
And that same Heaven of Heavens, where thou resid'st,  
Is greater distance then from East to West:  
Yet on the Cherubins thou often rid'st,  
And every where in Essens thou abid'st;  
But where thy Glories beams do glitter most,  
With distance infinite, thou it divid'st:  
From all the Orders of the heavenly Host  
Where to thyself thy self alone thou sho'st.   

In quintessence of Glories quintessence,  
Which was, and is, most unapprochable,  
The Throne is placed of thy magnificence▪  
Whereon thou sittst in light unthinkeable,  
Then not by Tongue, or Pen, expressable,  
For e'en as when the Sun his beams display.  
(Because our Eyes to see the same's unable)  
We through a scarf behold them as we may,  
e'en so must Man, behold God's Glories ray.   

Such as go down into the Sea profound  
Of deep Philosophy, do meet thee there,  
Of Men profane thou art there often found,  
For in thy Works thy steps do plain appear:  
Nay in thy works is stamped thine Image clear;  
And yet no work of thine resembles thee  
So right (though Men and Angels drawn near)  
But that the difference infinite must be,  
Sith thou art infinite in each degree.   

The Deites that in the Stars do dwell,  
Thy Deity their several Mansions made,  
And all that Sacred Senate found full well,  
That it o'er them supreme dominion had,  
Who found it permanent, when these did fade;  
By Nature's light, they saw a light extreme  
Glance from his grace that did their glory shade,  
And saw his Image true as in a dream  
Together with the new jerusalem.   

This goodly Great, or greatly Good is he,  
(So good, so great, as none so great, or good)  
That was, that is, and evermore shallbe,  
(In each respect) without all likelihood;  
Including in his threefold-single Godhood,  
Notions, Properties, Relations,  
In whom they still, as in their Subject stood:  
Then all Divines divide the Notions  
Into five branches or partitions.   

Namely, into Innascibility,  
Fatherhood, breathing or Spiration,  
Son-hood, Procession; these five naturally  
Dependeth still by Logical relation,  
Upon the mystery of the Trinity:  
All which conjoined makes but one Unity;  
The two first solely to the Sire pertains;  
The third to Sire and Son indifferently;  
The fourth the Son, within himself retains  
And to the holy-spirit the fifth remains.   

Which Notions are Relations in some sense,  
For Father, Son, doth ever presuppose:  
And Son a Father by like consequence;  
The holy Spirit proceeding from both those,  
Implieth them, from, and with whom he goes,  
The Notion of Innascibility,  
Is no Relation, sith it doth suppose  
No other person in the Trinity  
But is a Notion noting Unity.   

The two first is the Fathers in respect,  
He only doth beget, and doth unite,  
Spiration Father and the Son effect;  
From it the Holy-Ghost's excluded quite.  
They breath, and what is breathed is that Spirit,  
But Filiation solely to the Son  
Doth appertain, sith only Son he hight:  
For as one Father, so one Son alone  
The Trinity affords, and brooks but one   

session with the holy Spirit accords,  
(And only with that Spirit it doth agree)  
As with the other two, three other words  
Agreed, and did with him quite disagree:  
So this alone applied to him must be,  
For if they breathed him forth (as erst was said)  
None can be said then to proceed but he,  
Sith from the other two he is conveyed,  
Yet in the other two, he still is stayed.   

Now in another Sense we may transmute  
These Notions into Properties. To wit,  
When they do one, and not another suit,  
As father doth the Father only fit,  
The Son, the Son, and to the holy Spirit,  
Procession is peculiar. And again,  
Innascibility we must admit  
The Father. But Spiration th'other twain;  
Then name of Property 'twill not sustain.   

So in the Trinity five Notions are,  
Four Properties, and four Relations,  
Wherein besides are other Secrets rare,  
Founded upon unsearchable foundations.  
The Sires beginning is th'eternal Sons,  
(Though he be said to be the sons beginning)  
Yet no beginning had these holy ones,  
But from beyond Beginnings both have been  
Nor can their never end, ever li●.   

The Sire and sons beginning being one,  
Breath forth their blessed Spirit, a third one being,  
Which by a general creation,  
Beginning gave to all (in one agreeing)  
And from eternity the same foreseeing.  
The greatest Monarch, and the least Insect,  
With earthly things; aquatical, or fleeing,  
Whose several shapes, and what they should effect,  
Had ever being in their Intellect.   

et how they should there actually exist,  
And by what means they should have entrance there,  
(Sith there eternally they did subsist)  
Is hard for Man to know, who doth appear  
A Chaos of defect, and folly mere.  
They entered not by means into his mind,  
As from Ideas which without him were,  
Without whom nothing is in any kind,  
Then in himself, he all that all doth find.   

Yet are they not of such necessity,  
As without them he could no way exist,  
For they on him, not he on them rely,  
Then how eternally can they consist,  
Sith he alone doth only so subsist?  
They are not of his Nature, but his will,  
His Intellect inciting to insist.  
In knowledge of what that will should fulfil,  
So in that knowledge they existed still.   

For as to God it is most natural,  
To know himself, in whom he all doth feet  
e'en so to him, it is essential,  
To know the kinds of all things as they be,  
Or else he should not know his own degree.  
Yet his essential knowledge doth not stretch  
Unto particulars, as Me, and Thee;  
For he may well exist without that reach,  
And which his knowledge no way can impeach.   

But all his Science of distinguished things,  
Flows from the freedom of his sacred will,  
Drawn from those Notions which his nature brings,  
And are essential to his nature still.  
Who made (to show his universal skill)  
What is created in particular,  
As 'twere a proof of that he can fulfil,  
When he is pleased, to make, or mend, or mar,  
Then in that skill all things distinguished are.   

The things that were, or are, or are to come,  
Makes, in his mind, no change, though changed they be,  
Objects our minds affect, our minds o'ercome▪  
But his intelligence is ever free,  
Active, not Passive, sith all Act is he.  
For, as by Sense he makes us Arts to learn,  
And abstract- Forms by other means to see:  
So he, by means, can several things discern,  
Though it no way his nature doth concern.   

Who being infinite, nought is in him  
That's less than so, but so he could not be,  
If his allseeing Eyes should be so dim,  
That now he sees, what erst he could not see:  
Then sees he all from all eternity.  
The whole, the parts, the roots, and what they bear,  
The thoughts, words, deeds of men; and then must he  
In Understanding infinite appear.   

Who is not changed by Place, for he fills all,  
Nor yet by Time, for he is without time,  
He is not changed in Form nor never shall,  
Because he always is an Act in prime,  
Nor changed by Chance, sith he above doth clime,  
For he all moves, and yet is moved of none:  
He opes the Sluice through which we flow like slime,  
Which if he shuts, we cease, and quite are gone,  
But he is aye one, and the same alone.   

Place is conceived as a thing created,  
Or as that which includeth some thing placed,  
In this last sense God is in no place seated;  
Yet in the other sense no where displaced:  
So he's no where, and each where, first and last,  
In no place barred, but fills and bounds each place,  
For being indissoluble and fast,  
he's whole in all, and in part, and in each case,  
And without mixture doth all interlase.   

For as the Objects which our Minds conceive,  
Mixed not themselves together with the Mind,  
Albeeed they do the Mind in't them receive,  
Without being mixed or closed in any kind,  
e'en so God all conceives, and yet doth wind  
Himself in't all▪ but is conceived of none,  
Like as the Sun (within himself confined)  
Infuseth Light to all, yet he alone,  
Is not contained, or mixed with any one.   

God which is one, yet one of three compact,  
Essential, nor Personalls understood,  
For to create is an essential act,  
Not personal (which cannot be withstood;)  
But when by Lord, we mean the same Godhood:  
We take it Personal, not Essential.  
For it's referred unto the Fatherhood,  
That did beget the Son, God coeternal,  
And to beget, is an act personal.   

Now none (I hope) can be so ignorant,  
T'imagine any such begetting here  
As creatures use, for that were discrepant  
To Reason; for we said They ever were,  
Which temporal begetting cannot bear:  
Begetting then doth Cause and Order show,  
Sith to beget, the Getter did not steer,  
But from him without motion, that did flow,  
That was himself, and to himself did go.   

Then but respectively the Sire and Son,  
And not essentially distinguished be,  
As Sole his beams begets, yet so begun,  
That they are full as old and bright as he,  
And from them both the Light proceeds we see:  
Which is as old and bright as Sun or Beams,  
And nothing differs but respectively?  
For first the Sun begat his radiant Leams,  
Then both yields Light, and all in like extremes.   

But more distinctly to distinguish them,  
And to express their Nature's unity,  
(If it be not impiety extreme,  
To liken them to things so transitory:)  
Then may we imagine from eternity,  
A Taper burns, which doth a second light.  
Those two do light a third, and joined nigh,  
They show all one, and all alike are bright,  
Which do illustrate this dark Secret right.   

Which merely is all Essence and excludes  
All (whatsoe'er) that is not of the same;  
So though his Essence all his works includes,  
And in his Essence all those works did frame,  
Yet near his Essence his works never came:  
For no Effect is wholly like his Cause,  
If so it be, than what a sin, and shame  
It's for Men, that like Men, this Essence draws,  
As knowing nought above themselves like Daws.   

Were Angels Limners to delineate,  
That All (but that) excelling Majesty,  
(Sitting in chair of State, surmounting State)  
They must, with wings displayed, defend their Eye,  
From being confounded with his radiancy,  
Then how shall Man (an outcast Eglet) view,  
That Glory, or paint his ubiquity,  
That Art itself, nor Knowledge never knew?  
And Beauty is too base to blaze their hue.   

Put Vacuums foe, the clear corpse of the Air,  
Ten times refined therein, and give them Spirit  
'Twill file, not fill, the least part of that Chair.  
Nay, all the Host of Heaven in one unite,  
(Yea, add to that what all tongues can recite)  
And set it in that Seat, 'twill scarce appear;  
But seem as it were turned to nothing quite,  
For nothing can at once be every where,  
But him alone that no where hath a Peer.   

Borrow from Heaven and Earth and what they hold,  
The perfectest parts of Beauty's excellence,  
Cast these perfections in the perfectest mould.  
To make his like, 'twill be but Impotence,  
Compared to Glory, and Omnipotence.  
Who can precribe a form t'a formless Form?  
(Yet in that Form all Forms have residence:)  
But to make all in one doth him deform,  
Then but this ONE, who can this All perform?   

he's Infinite, put this to whatsoe'er,  
It makes it God, sole cause of things finite,  
Sith infinite can nothing caused bear,  
For to be caused, is to be definite,  
Chief essence must it be, that's Infinite,  
And One alone, two Infinites exclude,  
Which One must needs be incorporeal quite,  
Because a Corpse a place must needs include,  
Wherein this Infinite cannot be mu'de.   

Then to be Infinite, is to be free  
From matter; and from matter to be quit  
Is void of Passion, and of Change to be:  
For Change hath Passion resident in it,  
And to them both is Motion firmly knit.  
Which Motion tends to Rest, which Rest remains,  
Where Rest remaining resteth Infinite;  
That is in him, without whom nothing is  
Subject to Rest, or Motion, Bale, or Bliss.   

Though he (his Actions to diversify)  
Takes on him parts, and passions of a Man,  
(Stooping thereby to our capacity)  
Yet none of both's in him that all things can,  
Without them both: then both are as a Fan,  
To keep our Reasons eye from that defect,  
Which cannot apprehend where that began,  
Which as the Cause, our joy or grief effect;  
All which he doth t'inform our Intellect.   

Those Attributes are borrowed from our Kind,  
To lend our Reason light, that Light to see:  
But those essentially to him assigned,  
Of his own nature and existence be,  
Namely Ubiquity, Simplicity,  
Eternity, and sole Omnipotence,  
Consorted all with perfect Unity;  
Yet are these Attributes, not his essence,  
For they are diverse, that▪ s but one Immense.   

Which Essence is the Fount from whence doth flow,  
Each fore-rehearsed Essential property,  
But to that Essence they do not reflow,  
To mix the same with their variety;  
For that stands not with his simplicity.  
What then? can aught be first, or last, in it?  
In Order yea; in Time I it deny,  
For Order sets the Will behind the Wit,  
And yet in Time they both together sit.   

In Order then his understanding's set,  
Before each one essential property,  
Which is his form, wherein he doth beget,  
His co●ternall Son, his Wisdoms eye.  
Wherewith upon himself he still doth pry,  
Producing so a third one infinite,  
Yet infintenesse is not their Essence, why?  
Because that must exist, ere it exite,  
That which confineth all, that is finite.   

In Time they are all one, for One is he,  
In Order he's an Essence ere he's wise;  
So he's sole wise, ere infinite can be:  
Which stands with Reason's rules in sense precise.  
And whoso sees it, must have Reasons eyes,  
Yet is not his true Essence privative,  
(As that which still bereaves without supplies,)  
But really, and truly Positive,  
From whom all Positives' themselves derive.   

Then Wisdom, Knowledge, and Intelligence.  
(As in their Subject,) are in him alone;  
With, and without, a proper difference:  
By which, as one, or diverse, they are known.  
That's as they are consid'red, all, or one;  
And all, or any one, are in him so,  
As they exist by power of their own,  
And in existence all together go,  
Though in their functions parted other fro.   

Now from his Understanding flows his Will,  
Essentially traduced from the same;  
(Which is the act ofth ' Understanding still:)  
Whence flows his Actions free (as Will) from blame.  
As from the Well (his Will) from whence they came.  
Whose Office is true Good to covet aye,  
Which is his Glory whereat it doth ame,  
Which of all goods, most goodly is, and gay.  
Being the Object of his Will alway.   

Which Will is stable, and omnipotent,  
Nothing can alter it, or it constrain;  
How then (being changeless) seems he to repent:  
That one he willed, as though he willed in vain?  
And Prayers seems, and seems not, it to strain.  
We must distinguish here, between his will  
Known, and unknown, and then the case is plain.  
That known hath changed, the unknown standeth still,  
Yet prayers pure, both those good wills fulfil,  
Which being good, from it can come no ill.   

Here is the Gulf that swallows all amiss,  
This is the Hell, that hatcheth every evil;  
Our shallow, yet too deep insight in this:  
Makes God our foe; sins cause, and so a Devil.  
O damned presumptuous ignorance uncivil!  
Sin, Flesh, and Blood, stay, stay, O stay; here stay,  
This point dispute not, for ye can but cavil;  
God saves by means, the means used, he doth say,  
He sure will save; who doubts, are cast away.   

For to conceive that so himself he binds  
To any such absurd Necessity,  
That though he would, he cannot change our minds,  
Nor grant our suits, though made in charity,  
Were fond, and full of damned impiety:  
Yea opposite to both his Will and Word,  
Which still are good, without variety;  
But neither can they be, if they afford  
No grace to them, that with them do accord.   

Now if that Curiosities Cats eyes,  
Would fain be prying (further than is fit)  
To see how this clear doctrine can arise  
From light so dark (which Light in dark doth sit)  
Still let them ptie, till they fall out with it.  
For God being constant if unconstant Man  
Would find him other, he may lose his wit  
In search thereof: for God such Searchers ban,  
Because they would do more than Himself can.   

Who being immaterial, cannot change,  
(For that's immutable that's matterlesse)  
No accident is to his knowledge strange:  
No object can his fixed will impress:  
Angels consists of Matter more or less,  
Which may be changed, and Passion to endure:  
So Men and Angels may thereby transgress;  
But God in Essence is so passing pure,  
That all he wills and works is passing sure.   

Now from his Will flames forth his ardent Love,  
Which is as 'twere the substance of his Form,  
Which without motion, still his will doth move,  
To do what e'er his will would fain perform.  
loves office is to love, Spirits to conform.  
loves object is those Spirits sanctity:  
For Love, the like will to the like transform,  
Sith where there is a perfect sympathy,  
Love likes to make a perfect unity.   

If God be Love, how then can true Love hate?  
For he loves Good, and hates Ill perfectly;  
Yet Hate doth seem his goodness to abate,  
And yet it is but the antipathy▪  
Of his pure nature with impurity.  
Which Grands his Goodness, and augment; his fame;  
For if he should not hate iniquity,  
Which doth his Image true confound and shame,  
He should not love himself, much less the same.   

Love cannot hate, no more than Fire can freeze,  
God cannot hate, no more than Good be Ill:  
But when his justice unjust Souls surprise,  
he's said to hate them, sith he them doth spill;  
Which as he's Mercy, is against his will:  
But as he's Just, he doth it willingly.  
This Will and Nill his goodness do fulfil,  
And both agree in perfect unity,  
T'advance the glory of his Majesty.   

He cannot hate, nor is he moved to wrath,  
As Men do hate, and are to anger moved.  
No Passion in the Godhead being hath,  
But those he likes that are of him beloved;  
And those he loathes that are of him reproved,  
By an eternal motion of his will:  
Moving to that which is by him approved,  
And ay removing from all show of ill;  
So in this Love and Hate, he's constant still.   

Which Hate is no less Great, than He is Good,  
That's infinite, for nought in him is less:  
Wert in him, as in us, a passive mood,  
He were not God, for God is Passivelesse;  
He is an Active Spirit, motionless.  
Seeing all at once, Past, Present, and to Come,  
Without succession, seeing all success;  
Then sith at once, he seeth all and some,  
No chance with Passion can his Spirit o'ercome.   

Who in their causes, and essential forms,  
Knows all that was, or is, or e'er shall be.  
Then no Intelligence his Mind informs  
Of that he knows not; sith he doth foresee,  
e'en all that All, beyond eternity.  
For he beyond beginnings did exist.  
Existing so, he saw in each degree,  
What should begin, and end, or still consist.  
Which in Prescience infinite he wist.   

Could he begin, Beginnings that began?  
If so he could, what is beginninglesse?  
Or Time, or Nothing. That's untrue, for than,  
If there were Time, it was not motionless;  
For Time is made by Motion, all confess.  
But where there nothing is, no Motion is,  
For Nothing hath no motion, and much less  
Can Nothing make of nothing, Something. This  
Something sometime, of nothing made▪ all his.   

God ever was, and never was not God,  
Not made by Nothing, nothing could him make.  
Could nothing make, and not make? this is odd;  
And so is he, that could creation take  
Of Nothing; for all was, whenas he speak.  
Nothing was made, that was not made by it.  
Then nothing was that could it undertake,  
To make its Maker, what had power or wit,  
Not him that can do all, that he thinks fit.   

Time's but a Moment's flux, and measured,  
By distance of two Instants (this we prove)  
Which then commenced (it self considered)  
When fist the Orbs of Heaven began to move.  
That's but six thousand years, not much above.  
But what's so many years, as may be cast,  
In thrice as many Ages, to remove  
Eternity, from being fixed fast;  
And God therein, from being First and Last.   

He is eternal, what is so, is he.  
So is no creature, for it once was made,  
Then ere it could be made, it could not be:  
But the Creator ever being had,  
To pull out from Not-beeing● who can wade?  
(Being a Depth so infinite profound)  
But he that was, and is, and cannot fade?  
This Being infinite, this Depth must sound,  
To list up all to Being, there being drowned.   

Eternity and Time are opposite,  
For Time no more can bond Eternity,  
Then Finite can invirone Infinite,  
Both of both which have such repugnancy.  
As near can stand with God's true Unity:  
Eternity is then produced from hence,  
By joining of his sole infinity,  
With his essential intelligence,  
And all the Attributes proceeds from thence.   

If then Eternity doth bound this One,  
(Or rather he bounds all Eternity)  
How could he Be? or being all alone,  
How could he work? (that work uncessantly)  
(For he's all Act, that acts continually)  
Having no subject whereupon to work,  
And being without his Creatures utterly,  
It seems he must in Desolation lurk,  
Which must of force an active nature irk.   

Or how could he extend his goodness, when  
None could receive it? (if none Being were,  
What honour could he have, there being then  
No one to honour him, or him to fear?  
Or what (in love) if he his children dear,  
Had made t'exist from all eternity,  
As to eternity theyare made t'appear?  
What inconvenience could ensue thereby?  
Yes very great, and mark the reason why.   

He is an Essence free, not bound to aught,  
Who can and doth exist in boundless bliss,  
Although besides himself, that there were nought:  
For he of greatest glory cannot miss,  
Sith that eternally all gloris his:  
But should the Creatures eternal be,  
His glory would be much eclipsed by this,  
For were th'eternal too, aswell as he,  
They would be gods as great in each degree.   

Then nought he needs to give him laud, or love,  
Or subject for his work, though nought there were,  
For ere nought was, he did not work or move,  
Yet idle was not, for his Spirit did steer  
In contemplation of his Essence clear:  
So himself, to himself, was Well of weal,  
And in himself, did Glory itself appear;  
Which to himself, himself did aye reveal,  
So pleased himself, with what himself did feel.   

Suppose no man but one were on the Earth,  
And none but Vermin vile did him attend,  
What honour could they yield? What joy or mirth  
Could they afford, that rather do offend?  
Such, and no more do men their Maker lend,  
Who were made changeable by changeless will,  
So changed they are, and to the worse they tend,  
Who in respect of him continue still,  
Worse than vile Uermine, though they were more ill.   

Who for his goodness is the God of grace,  
And for his glory is the Lord of Light,  
Whose glorious greatness filleth every place,  
(For no place is exempted from his Spirit)  
And by it all that is, compasst quite,  
As the least Point, is by the Heavens clire,  
And nothing is so solid, as hath might,  
To keep him out, as it can air or Fire,  
But he is all in all, and part entire.   

he's not in Temples made with mortal hands,  
Nor those which his immortal hands have made,  
Nor in himself as Man, for Flesh's bands,  
Can hardly hold the least glimpse of his Shade,  
Much less his Substance, which e'er biding had,  
No more in one, then in an other place:  
And though with Flesh it seemeth to be clad,  
Yet dwells he in it but by power and grace,  
And so he dwells in all he doth embrace.   

He dwells in Heaven of Heavens by his Glory,  
(For there that matchless Glory glitters most)  
He is in Hell, and each place transitory,  
By presence of his Spirit, (the holy Ghost.)  
He dwells in Christ, but how, O Christ thou know'st,  
For as the Soul and Body makes one Man,  
So God and Man, one Christ do make thou show'st,  
Yet the coherence neither may or can,  
The difference abrogate, since Christ began.   

Whose natures from confusion are as free,  
As from distraction they are clearly quit,  
Which though connexed, confounded may not be,  
Much less distracted; both in one being knit,  
But how conjoined, surmounts the reach of Wit:  
For in Christ's body, bodily doth dwell,  
The fullness of the Godhead; most unfit, 
Coloss. 3.   
To be contained in Heaven, Earth, or Hell,  
His greatness, doth their greatness so excel.   

Then Contemplation stay; here make a pause,  
Stir not too fast, about uncompasst things,  
Though thou canst compass Heaven and Earth, because  
Thou art the Image of this King of Kings,  
Yet this flight is too far, for thy clipped wings,  
The Trinity, in Unitie's a wonder,  
Surmounting wonders; which amazement brings;  
Yet less (if more may be) that God is under  
Frail flesh, and so contained, God cannot sunder.   

Which twofold natures, oft cooperates,  
And evermore assotiates each other,  
But never mutually participates  
Each others properties, as mixed together;  
For what one hath, the self same hath not either,  
But in their kinds are diverse, yet but one,  
That's one of two, or two in one much rather,  
Which mystery to God is only known,  
But not as he is Man the same is shown.   

To whom yet ne'ertheless all power is given,  
In whom as in its proper place it bides,  
By which he ruleth in Earth, Hell, and Heaven,  
And were there some thing else, the same beside,  
Which power being infinite, with it he guides,  
Each finite thing unto its proper end,  
In which omnipotence, such force resides,  
As were he willing he the Heavens could bend,  
Below base Hell, and make it Heaven transcend.   

Which peerless power, though nothing can oppugn,  
Yet doth itself, itself still so restrain,  
As that itself, cannot itself impugn,  
For what it binds; it cannot lose again,  
At self same time; for then that power were vain,  
As being repugnant to itself, and so,  
No order should that rulelesse power contain,  
And then itself, itself would overthrow,  
And with itself, all things to wrack should go.   

He cannot make Man free, and bond at once,  
Nor give him Will, and wrest it how he will,  
He cannot hold in hate his Holy ones,  
Nor in his love (much less) embrace the ill.  
He cannot change himself, being changeless still,  
Such things he cannot do; not through defect,  
Of power what not? (if please him) to fulfil,  
But of his power this is a strong effect,  
That can do all, but that it should reject.   

Who being evermore a complete Acts,  
In highest degree of divine excellence,  
He need not chase Perfection by the tract,  
For in himself, Itself hath residence:  
Then motion hath he none by consequence,  
For that must firmly stand, wherein all moves,  
Who is both Centre and Circumference  
Of Motions motion; for it him behoves,  
To give all rest which he moves or removes.   

He cannot move but to himself alone,  
Because alone, at once he's every where,  
And all that is, is only in this ONE,  
Then unto what? or whither should he steer?  
Sith all's in him, that shallbe, is, or were.  
For moved he, Motion should not tend to Rest,  
But Motion, should to Motion, tend for ere;  
So Time in bootless turns should be at best,  
When it should draw most near, to most unrest.   

He is that ONE in whom each one doth move,  
He moves each one, that all in him should rest,  
For whatsoe'er from him doth most remove,  
It finds and feels thereby the most unrest:  
Yet from himself, nothing himself can wrest.  
Who being One, though one in trinity,  
Consisting of himself he hath addressed,  
From himself all this Alls diversity,  
To move to rest in his true unity.   

As in a Choir of well tuned voiced Men,  
When the first man hath given the first accent,  
There doth ensue a noise melodious then  
Of all the voices, joined in one consent:  
So God by power, super-omnivalent,  
Giving first motion, to the highest Sphere,  
(Being first Mover) then incontinent,  
All lower Bodies orderly did steer,  
As by their present motion doth appear.   

Look on the World, and what it doth comprise,  
And Sense shall see, all moving unto one,  
The Elements, and tenfold orbed Skies,  
(In motion diverse tend to one alone,  
And make one World, through their conjunction:  
The Sea ingirts the Earth; Th' Air boundeth both,  
Being compassed with the Fiery region,  
The Cope of Heaven, doth seem them all to cloth,  
Who arm in arm unto an Union goth.   

The Sea through veins and Arteries of the Earth,  
Creeps through her Corpses, to fix her droughty dust:  
That done, it springs aloft, as 'twere in mirth,  
For that it hath performed what needs it must,  
And then returns with windings most unjust,  
Just to itself; which undivided is,  
So many members makes one Body just,  
And many joys completes one perfect bliss,  
Which bliss is only Ones, and none but his.   

From one self Earth, all earthly things proceed,  
To which self Earth, those earthly things retires,  
One silly drop of slime mankind doth breed,  
In which one kind are manifold desires,  
Which ne'ertheless one Good alone requires,  
All numbers do consist of many Ones,  
And every one to only One aspires,  
Which One those several unities atones,  
So ONE above all ones, himself enthrones.   

All parts of Man with mutual respect,  
Discharge their functions to preserve the whole,  
The like in commonweals the parts effect,  
The like the faculties do in the Soul,  
And but one truth is taught in every School:  
The parts of speech, tends but to perfect speech,  
The end whereof is Error to control,  
And show one truth, which only one doth teach,  
That by one truth, rules all within his reach.   

Where Unity is lost, Confusion's sound;  
Where Unity is found, there's nothing lost.  
The noblest creatures, need the vil'st on ground,  
The vilest are served by the honoured most.  
And which is more, the very heavenly host  
Doth serve the basest creatures void of sense,  
Yet over▪ rules them, in each Clime and Coast.  
So one to other, have such reference,  
As they in Union have their residence.   

Arithmetic from Unity proceeds,  
e'en as from Punctum flows Geometry.  
Music the symphony of sounds succeeds.  
And Architecture Uniformity.  
Perspective at one point, looks diversly.  
Physic doth aim at health, and that's no more  
But Humours well-consorted unity.  
The Law looks at one Right, whose only lore,  
Is to conjoin, that Wrong unjoined before.   

Good government brings many Families  
Under obedience to one Magistrate:  
And many Servants, Daughters, Sons, Allies,  
Under a household petty Potentate:  
And many Passions, in one Mind at bate,  
It reconciles, to Reasons only rule:  
And many peace-infringers in a State,  
The Rod of Discipline doth overrule,  
And makes them One, that maketh all misrule.   

Which union of so many Unities,  
And which diversities in Union,  
Implies there is but▪ ONE, all only wise,  
Who through his Wisdom, made them every one.  
To whom all laudes divine, belongs alone.  
Plurality of Gods who then defends,  
Must be the author of Confusion,  
For many Gods he makes, for many ends,  
Which to Distraction and Confusion tends.   

Can all things, Thick and Thin, Heavy and Light,  
hot, Cold, Moist, Dry, Great, Small, or Quick, or Dead,  
That do appear, or not appear to sight,  
Be held in one, without some One, their Head?  
Shall these in one, to us alone be lead,  
And we misled, to many Gods from one?  
Who in these Capitals, may plain be read  
To be the God of Gods, yea God alone?  
If so we should, our wits were not our own.   

But with what words can I their blame bewray,  
That maugre all that ever can be said,  
To prove this God; will all that All gainsay,  
And flat affirm, and speak as wellapaide,  
There is no God. Whose words (if they be weighed)  
Do make them worse than Fiends, for they confess  
There is a God, of whom they are afraid.  
O Fiends of Fiends, I cannot call you less,  
But more, much more, sith ye much more transgress.   

Omitting many reasons which they bring,  
(Reasons? O no, but devilish blasphemies)  
To prove no God, nor any such like thing  
They say, That Man is ill, no man denies;  
If then God made him, he made Ill likewise.  
If he made Ill, then cannot he be good.  
And if not good, not God in any wise,  
For God's the Fount, and Goodness is the flood,  
Thus urge they this unlikely likelihood.   

Know Diu'lls incarnate Antideities,  
To make and mar are two repugnant things,  
To make, implies Natures, or Substances.  
Both which are good; and from God's goodness springs.  
Ill's none of both, for unto both it clings,  
No otherwise then Rust to Silver cleaves.  
Which is the accident Privation brings  
That Good of goodness casually bereaves,  
And so the Good the Ill (unmade) receives.   

Which of itself, consists not, nor consists  
In aught that nought is; but in Good alone:  
It's no Effect, but Defect, which resists  
The good of Goodness by corruption,  
It is not made therefore by any one,  
For were it made, by Sin it must be made:  
And Sin is nothing but privation,  
Which in its nature doth to nothing fade,  
So, Evil of itself, is still unmade.   

For Ill being but a mere defect of Good,  
It follows then, it's but a mere Defect,  
Which is no more, but a mere Nihilhood;  
For Want can be no more, in no respect,  
And not to Be, is nothing in effect.  
Then Nothing being but a Negative,  
(How ere it goodness, may (perhaps) infect)  
Produceth Nothing, being the Privative,  
Which Nought makes good, this my affirmative.   

Wherefore in that things Be, of God they be,  
And that they fail, they fail, sith Nought they were:  
For All of nothing, Good created he,  
Which All to nothing of themselves do wear,  
Then Good they are, in that they truly are,  
And Ill they be, sith Being they have none,  
Good on his part, that made them so appear,  
And Ill because they all to nothing rone,  
Then he is good, of whom they Are alone.   

Ye Soule-confounding, selfe-confounding Souls,  
Can ye not see, because ye will not see,  
How all the Orbs of Heaven in order rolls,  
Which cannot move; unless they moved be:  
By some first mover, sith unmoved is he?  
For nothing moves, but it another moves,  
So Motion from degree unto degree,  
Doth mount to that, that moves it and approves,  
The same for God, as it the same behoves.   

What moves ye then, ye Monsters in men's shapes,  
To move such questions which assoil ye can;  
By that self motion? For such wilful 'scapes  
Moves from the Fend, to him, to move frail man.  
Your conscience tells ye so (which looketh wan,  
With bleeding still, yourselves still wounding it)  
If Devils Be, Godis, assure ye then,  
And I presume, your devilish searching wit,  
Finds out God by the devil, though most unfit.   

What's under Heaven, but God above doth preach?  
Save Hell itself, which in you ye retain,  
And yet the very Hell, a Heaven doth teach,  
Which is not void, for than it were in vain.  
But he there dwells, that doth the same sustain.  
Thou great wise man, why lettest thy brains to beat,  
On things unworthy of thy beaten brain?  
For all thou think'st on, is, how to defeat,  
Thyself of God, and himself of a Seat.   

What human heart of temper is so hard,  
That yields not to th'impression of God's form?  
From whence can his Ubiquity be barred,  
That what he will, doth every where perform?  
Then can the heart of Man, a forceless worm,  
Keep out that God that nothing can withstand?  
No, no, perforce he must himself inform,  
There is a God by whose almighty hand  
All things were made; and all things doth command.   

What ist that hanged the Earth within the Air?  
Yet hanged it so, that it is fixed fast?  
What made the Gulf, where waters all repair▪  
Whose foaming fury makes the Earth aghast,  
Lest it in rage, the same should overcast.  
Yet is it barred, with flat frail sandy bounds,  
What power could make such weak bars so to braced  
The banded Billows which on them rebounds,  
But Power, whose praise both Land and Sea resounds?   

Who peopled that wide watery World with store,  
Of scaly creatures, which there wandering are?  
Resembling all that live on Earth and more,  
More supereminent, and much more rare,  
The Whale (amongst the rest) doth make this clear,  
Which being the amplest Masterpiece of Nature,  
With thundering voice, doth amplely declare,  
There's some high Hand, that gave him his huge stature,  
And Nature did direct, to frame his feature.   

For every thing that Nature doth produce,  
(As by experience is most evident)  
She doth direct unto some end and use,  
Than what directeth that her regiment,  
But some one Thing much more preheminent?  
For she is finite in her Acts and power,  
But so is not that power omnipotent,  
That Nature subordained, chief Governor,  
Offading Creatures while they do endure.   

For that all worldly things do end we see,  
It doth infer the World beginning had,  
Then if this World began; how could it Be,  
Without a cause Efficient had it made,  
To say it made itself, when 'twas unmade,  
Doth Nature, reason and common Sense impugn,  
To say a part the whole made, were more mad,  
Can part e'er to the whole it doth belong,  
Create the whole? this wholly is more wrong.   

Weigh all the World in Balance of the Mind,  
And all the world will make thee God to way,  
Look in thy little World, and thou shalt find,  
That great, great great, three great in one alway,  
Which GREAT in thy least parts doth wholly stay,  
His rare existence to thee to reveal,  
That being felt (as 'twere) thou shouldst bewray,  
Unto his praise what thou dost see and feel,  
And not in sullen silence it conceal.   

There dost thou find, the World epitomized,  
A corpse for motion meet, of diverse kinds,  
A divine Soul wherewith its all sufficed,  
Which unremoved, the Body turns and winds:  
And powers to every part, with power assigns,  
Thy corpse a copy of this copious Mass,  
Thy Soul his Image that no Image finds  
Like him but it, that able is to pass,  
Through Heaven and Earth, yet stay still where it was.   

For as we hold there's but one God alone,  
But yet three persons in the Deity:  
So the soul's parted (though in substance one)  
Int Understanding, Will, and Memory,  
These Powers or Persons makes one Trinity,  
Yet but one Substance indivisible,  
Which perfect Trinity in Unity,  
(Both being Spiritual and invisible)  
Do make the Soul, her God so right resemble.   

And like as one true God in persons three,  
Doth rightly rule this great World's Monarchy,  
So in Man's little World these Uirtues be,  
But one Soul ruling it continually,  
Yet in this lesser World, as well we try,  
Be sundry sorts of people; some there are  
That be as heads, Some Rulers not so high,  
Some common Citizens; and some less rare,  
Those Ruralls be, that still are out of square.   

The Heads are those above recited three,  
The under Rulers Thoughts, and Fancies are,  
The Citizens the outward Senses be,  
The Ruralls be the Bodies rare,  
(Which often make the Soul most poor and bare)  
For when these Riffe-raffes in commotion rise,  
And all will have their will, or nought will spare,  
The Soul (poor Soul) they then in rage surprise,  
And rob her of her wealth, and blind her of her eyes.   

Then set jehovah thunder from on high,  
And in the Soul advance his glorious voice,  
The Understanding, Will and Memory  
Then cannot hear it for the other noise:  
As when a king speaks to his captains choice,  
Though near so near, if th' Army make a shout,  
They hear him not, though his speech high he hoist;  
So God may speak, but were as good be mute,  
For he's not heard, when Passions do dispute.   

But when those traitorous Tyrants are suppressed,  
Then like as Moses did ascend the Hill,  
And left the Izralites below in rest;  
To commune with his God and know his will,  
So the Souls Senses may the like fulfil.  
Who then may Contemplation's Mountain scale,  
To talk with God, the Passions being still,  
And left below in Meekness humble vale,  
Where they are cooled with many temprate gale.   

Lo thus the Soul hath the similitude  
Of God, and of the World; of God, because  
He with his Attributes hath her endued;  
And of the world, sith that so near she draws,  
To be, and not to be, contained by laws.  
Of God in point of government she's like,  
And of the World, sith she doth seldom pause:  
Against her government (though just) to like,  
For which herself, herself doth oft mislike.   

But what a needless pain is it to prove,  
The Sun (that lighteth each Eye) to be light?  
When none endued with Sense, a doubt will move,  
Of that which doubtless is so passing bright:  
That e'en the blind perceives it without sight.  
Then much more needless is this proof of mine,  
Sith Wrong itself, must needs know God aright;  
And Powers of Darkness sees this power divine,  
Much more must Men whose Eyes are crystalline.   

What shall I say? look thou with all thine Eyes  
Seen or unseen, on things unseen, or seen;  
Either above, or underneath the Skies:  
What canst thou see, in which God is unseen?  
Sith he's much more than all in all, I mean  
He all, and much more, able is to fill  
Without an adjunct, or a second mean,  
e'en by the only motion of his will,  
Which can do all, and yet can do no ill.   

What makes the hugest, and the strongest things  
Obedient to the things most small and weak?  
Will strong things be the weakers underlings  
Ofselfe accord; sith all things freedom seek,  
Without some mightier will, their will to break?  
The smallest Ant, whose strength is but Defect,  
Hath more pre-eminence, and virtue eke,  
Then the earths total Globe, in each respect,  
Then power in weakness shown, works this effect.   

And naturally Contraries spill each other,  
Then how can Nature (these devils God) compound,  
The disagreeing Elements together:  
But that she must those Elements confound?  
In Nature no such force was ever found.  
Then must some Power supernatural,  
Give to each Element his uttmost bound,  
That though they serve in Nature; yet they shall  
In one agree, through One uniting All.   

The Sun doth warm the cold womb of the Earth,  
The Moon and Stars, her reasons doth assign,  
The Air, and Water bringeth forth her birth,  
Which serveth Beasts, and Beasts serve Men in fine:  
If from Eternity these things thus were,  
How could they to themselves an end design?  
Seeing the end for which things form are,  
Before the things themselves, must needs appear.   

And in ourselves we find and feel a Mind,  
That can at once a thousand Worlds contain,  
Which needs must be of a celestial kind:  
Then can we think no Mind doth else remain,  
When to our Minds that Mind appeareth plain.  
For we can nothing mind, or good, or bad,  
But it directs our Minds, with might and main  
Unto a Mind that ne'er beginning had,  
By whom in our beginning ours were made.   

If not from thence, from whence was our beginning?  
Did we begin ourselves, that once began?  
For that must needs begin, that needs hath ending:  
And run we up Man's race, from Man to Man,  
A first we find from whom all others ran.  
For could we make ourselves, why make we not  
Such as ourselves are, where we list, and when?  
Why hath a wise man, to his Son a Sot?  
But that he cannot make his Son, God wot.   

Man cannot make a Moth, much less a man..  
For as no hand but his, that Man did make  
Could make an Angel; so no other can  
Make the least hair, or make it white, or black.  
If not a hair, nor colour if it lack,  
Can Man create, how make himself can he?  
No, no, he cannot that Task undertake,  
For through his ignorance he needs must see,  
His blessed Being that made him to Be.   

Because we see him not: (not as he is)  
But by effects which from him do proceed.  
Shall we deny his being, or his bliss,  
And so subvert the forefront of our Creed?  
Then raze we reason and Conscience by that deed.  
Were we endungeoned from our birth, yet we  
Would ween there were a Sun, whose beams are shed,  
Through chinks on us, though him we could not see;  
Then shall we question, if a God there be?   

And shall we question make if God there be,  
When through Sun, Moon, and Stars, and all below them,  
He darts his Glories beams for us to see,  
And yet shall we not see them, though he show them?  
But wink (wink hard) because we will not know them?  
For should we think nought is, which we see not,  
We should not think we had eyes, though we owe them.  
For though with them we see, yet well we wot,  
We see them not themselves, though free from blot.   

Much less they see the Soul, by which they see,  
Yet reason persuadeth Sense, there is a Soul,  
From whom the Senses powers derived be,  
Yet shall our Sense, our Reason so control,  
To make it to maintain this error foul,  
That God is not, without whom nothing Is.  
For all that Is, is but as 'twere a Scroll,  
Wherein in letters plain, that none can miss,  
God is enrolled, above all Deities.   

But some there are, (ah woe that such there are,)  
That do confess, (perforce they do confess,)  
There is a GOD; yet hold he hath no care,  
Of worldly things; but reigns in blessedness,  
And of the World makes Fortune governess.  
These Devils are more dampened then the rest,  
Sith they confessing God, make more transgress,  
For if a Providence be not confessed,  
Who will not live to live as he thinks best.   

These fools confessing God do God deny,  
Whom to confess, without his Atributes,  
Doth to that fond confession give the lie,  
Because itself, against itself disputes;  
And to their shame, itself, itself confutes,  
For ask a Savage, if a God he holds,  
Why so he weens? he strait his reasons suits,  
From Order drawn which he in all beholds,  
Which he beeleeves, some ordering Power upholds.   

By nought so much as by his providence,  
Is God discerned; which all must needs discern,  
That hath a human Soul, and common sense;  
For common sense, the outward'st sense intern,  
At the first sight that principle doth learn:  
For if through the effects we see their cause,  
Then may we plainly see, whose Nature's Stern,  
By that Decorum we see in her laws,  
Namely this power, that Land and Ocean awes.   

Who if he careless were of worldly things,  
It is for want of power, or want of will;  
If want of power, his power in bounds it brings:  
If want of will, his goodness it doth spill,  
For of his works to have no care is ill.  
But if thou God confess, confess thou dost,  
That he is good, and most almighty still,  
Ifso he be, than needs confess thou must,  
That he is provident, or most unjust.   

For Providence being but a wise convey,  
Of things created to some certain end;  
And that no human soul her powers employ,  
Ought to effect, but doth the same intent;  
Then shall we say, he to whom all doth tend  
When he made all, meant not they should do so,  
As if against his will to him they bend,  
So spill his wills and spoil his wisdom to?  
If not, then must we say, God all must do.   

For as his will had power, the World to make,  
So had his wisdom might to sway the same,  
For Wisdom infinite cannot mistake;  
But as it deemeth, so will all things frame,  
And in less power, never looseth ame:  
For as he made the whole, the parts he made,  
And if the whole he cares for, sure I am  
The parts he cares for, (though they seem to fade)  
Which sense and common reason doth persuade.   

Nature (we well perceive) makes nought in vain  
And thou mak'st nought, but to some end or use.  
Thou ween'st thou merits, praise for that thy pain,  
(As sure thou dost) and think'st thou dost misse-use,  
In making useless things, thy wits and Muse,  
darest GOD bereave, of what returns thee praise?  
And give him that in thee thou deemest abuse.  
O Men! O Manners! O most damned Days!  
What Tongue or Pen can paint your just dispraise▪   

Alphons, the tenth that Spain did signiorize,  
(The main objection 'gainst all Providence) 
Because such a Monster should ever breath.   
Said, (O that such a Slave from Kings should rise!)  
Had he been with God, when things did commence,  
They should have better been, in their essence,  
This Fool, the Only wise would needs direct,  
But for his pain, Pain was his recompense,  
Who for he would surmount God in effect,  
This Lucifer to earths Hell was diject.   

Pherecides the damned Assyrian,  
For scorning God, and Providence out right,  
Lice him consumed, for on him so they ran,  
That he for shame abandoned all men's sight,  
And desolately died in wretched plight.  
So Lucian that from the Faith did slide,  
(In Traian's time) became an Atheist quite,  
And did both God and Providence deride,  
For which in pieces torn by dogs, he died.   

Upon the Statue of Senacherib,  
Engraven was, Learn by me God to fear,  
Who for this monster, at heavens God did gibe,  
Was slain b' Adramelech, and Sharezer,  
The wicked Sons, of this more wicked Sire.  
And so th'apostata, damned julian,  
Of plagues for such contempts can witness bear,  
Whose blood whilst from his heart, amain it ran,  
Cried, thou hast overcome, O Galilean!   

justinian, whom Pelagius ill did school,  
For holding but that only heresy,  
Was quite of Sense bereft, and made a fool,  
And in one day was well, ill, and did die;  
So ended in a day, his life, and folly.  
But should I scite, the judgements (as I might)  
That have been poured on such impiety,  
It would be tedious, and with horror dight,  
The hardiest hearer it would sore affright.   

Pirrhon, Plutarch Son, would not believe,  
What his Eyes, Ears, Nose, Tongue, and hands did know,  
His Senses he imagined might deceive,  
And therefore did conclude, they still did so:  
So God, and Providence deniers do;  
Who though their Senses outward and intern,  
The being of them both do plainly sho,  
Yet they will not believe what they discern,  
Though ne'er so near it do their Souls concern.   

But bring we their best reasons to the Scoles  
Of judgement; and well weigh the same therein,  
If there were Providence, say these wise fools,  
Why should not useless things which made have been  
To cumber Man, cease, or to ruin run?  
Whereto serves Rocks, and Seas, and Dales, and Hills;  
Deserts, wild Beasts? by such, what do we win▪  
Which burdens but the Earth with harmful Ills,  
That Men annoy, and oft destroy and kills.   

Why are the virtuous plagued, the vicious pleased?  
And twixt all creatures, why is here such strife?  
Yea, why hath Sin upon all mankind seized?  
And why do such lead here a dying life  
Where goodness is most rare, and evil rife?  
Can Providence remain where these consist?  
Aswell may concord rest twixt Man, and Wife,  
That still are tongue to tongue, and fist to fist,  
As Providence appear, where these exist.   

With Reasons, leaving no place for reply,  
These questions oft have been replied unto:  
Then in a word, thou canst not this deny,  
But in an Artists work thou canst not do,  
Are things made to some end, thou dost not know.  
Yet blamest thou not the workman but thy Wit;  
Then, wilt thou not to God like favour sho.  
But censure things he makes, as most unfit,  
When thou want'st reason, but to aim at it?   

For he is reason itself, we Rashness are,  
Which ne'ertheless had Reason for our guide,  
Which Guide played least in sight, ere we were ware,  
And almost quite forsook us for our pride,  
That now in us, it's scarce seen to abide.  
But should we see with Reasons open Eyes,  
The secrets which in Wisdoms breast reside,  
We should be Gods; at least should be as wise,  
For we with God should all that Is, comprise.   

But sith fools follies must be answered,  
Lest they do ween them wiser than they be,  
In few, too few of their objections bred,  
In their best brains, (that with the worst agree)  
we'll shape (as being bound) them answer free,  
Had it not been, (sayst thou lewd Libertine)  
Meeter that Man should ne'er Corruption see,  
Then to the same (made as he is) incline,  
And so impeach the Providence divine?   

Why dost not rather ask, why Man is Man?  
And not an Angel, rather than a clod?  
Man's Mind immortal is, and reason can,  
And were he all unchanged, he were a God.  
God steadfast stands, but his works needs must nod,  
Man's not created, here still to remain,  
But to his Maker he is made to plod  
Through thick and thin, and cannot rest attain,  
Till in his God alone, he it obtain.   

How can there be (sayst thou) such providence,  
Sith God made Man, to serve him as his end?  
Then how could Man prevent God's purpose since,  
And fall from that his Maker did intend,  
Without his God should thereto condescend?  
Or if not so, then 'tis a consequent,  
What did eusue, God could not comprehend,  
Or if he could, he could it not prevent,  
And so not God; if God, not provident.   

Nor Grace, nor power, nor Wisdom did he want,  
This to prevent, but he it did permit,  
(Not that his providence therein was scant,)  
But to make man more cling to him by it,  
What providence can better God befit,  
Then Ill to turn unto a greater Good?  
For had we still been stayed, we had not flit,  
Then would we ween, that of ourselves we stood,  
And think ourselves Gods peers in constant mood.   

For what procured Man's fall, but peerless pride?  
Which was, that he would needs be without peer,  
And as a God, without his GOD abide;  
So God to make himself, sole GOD appear,  
Made man to see he could not stand or steer  
Without his God, that seeing he could not stand,  
But by his aid, he should to him draw ncere,  
Invoking humbly, his all-helping hand,  
And bind himself, to him in loving band.   

For we with ghostly pride are oft inflate,  
And being so, God suffers to fall,  
With Wit and Will, for which ourselves we hate,  
And ay are vexed at the very Gall,  
That we to sin should so ourselves enthrall,  
So Sin itself, serves for a Sentinel,  
To keep us from it, sith no sorrow small,  
It threatens to her Slaves, then O how well,  
Ought we to speak of God, and his counsel▪   

Of whom our Motions, and our Actions are,  
But their disorder from ourselves▪ proceed,  
Yet he of our well-doing hath a care,  
Though of ourselves we do not well indeed,  
But yet he makes our ill oft well to speed,  
He whom his heart approved, did prove this true,  
Who through adulterous, and a worse misse-deed,  
Himself, and eke his God, he better knew,  
And did himself forsake, and God ensue.   

As he permitted Man for justice sake,  
To fall, to make his justice so appear,  
So suffers he Man's will, his to forsake,  
That his power should be seen to draw them near,  
And make of both free-wills, one will entire,  
For were there but (twixt God and Man) one will,  
Then Gods great power not so perspicuous were,  
Which makes Man's wayward will his own fulfil,  
Without constraint, through power and peerless skill.   

But yet thou sayst, why stayed he not Man's will?  
How should he then have made his will been free?  
Better unfree (sayst thou) then be so ill,  
But 'tis not ill at liberty to be.  
If it brings bondage, better be unfree  
(sayst thou again.) But then Man were not Man,  
And he would grudge at lack of liberty,  
So God did for the best, say what thou can,  
Although Man's liberty to looseness ran.   

But wouldst thou God bereave of liberty?  
That is self Freedom, and his hands so bind,  
That he should not (through strait extremity)  
Do with his own, according to his mind?  
Then all God's power by thee should be assigned,  
And so thou God wouldst be, and Man him make,  
For other reason, Reason cannot find,  
If thou his liberty wilt from him take,  
But he should be thy subject for thy sake.   

But yet thou sayst, how stands it with his grace,  
To let his Creatures quite to ruin run?  
Can Providence in him have any place,  
That so will end the works he hath begun?  
Yet, what he doth is for his Glory done,  
(Damned Hell hound, that against thy God dost howl)  
For by what's lost, to him is Glory won,  
Sith glorious 'tis to damn thy sinful Soul,  
That will thy God in all his works control.   

For he is glorified (none can deny)  
By justice and by Mercy both alike.  
But here I hear thee ask the reason, why  
He doth not spare those whom his justice strike,  
Whom if he would, he should no way mislike?  
For what prevails 'gainst his prevailing will?  
Not All, though all at once against it kick.  
Then if he would, All should the same fulfil:  
And sith he will not, it is worse than iii.   

To such rash Whies! (that under run his Rod,)  
He thus replies (by him through whom he spoke)  
O Man, what art thou that shouldst question God?  
May not the Potter what it please him make  
Of his own Clay? And what if all he broke  
When it is made? doth he unlawful act?  
Thou canst not say he doth, and not mistake.  
But here thou wilt infer upon this Fact,  
That God perforce Man's will must needs co-act.   

God by his power and Will, all Powers hath made,  
And all wills hath disposed to each effect:  
That his power sways all Powers, Sense doth persuade,  
But that his will, all free- Wills should direct  
Without constraint, our reason doth reject.  
If God those Wills should guide without their sway.  
His power could not have gained so great respect,  
As when all Wills his Will do disobey;  
Yet to his will, all wills themselves betray.   

Two wicked ones, whom he would plague with death,  
(With sudden death) fly to the field to fight  
(By malice moved) there reave they others breath.  
And in their malice they perform aright  
His righteous will, by rigour most unright.  
Nero must die his hands in Christians blood,  
To make them Martyrs, moved thereto by spite;  
So God would have it for his Churches good,  
And for the Tyrant's plague that her withstood.   

To cast away a man's own handy works,  
Although the works be his, and stuff and all,  
Doth argue no great wisdom in him lurks,  
And lesser goodness; for its prodigal.  
If this in mortal Man be criminal,  
What ist in him, whose All is infinite?  
Is't not in him crime more than capital,  
To mar what erst he made with rare delight?  
Herein, sayst thou, thou canst not God acquit.   

No can? cursed dog, ' that barks and bites at once,  
God can himself acquit, though I could not,  
And thee requite with vengeance for the nonce,  
For that his beauty thou so fain wouldst blot.  
But to his goodness it can be no spot,  
Nor to his wisdom blemish can it be  
To mar, sith he thereby hath glory got,  
As well as make, sith both in their degree,  
With his prerogative do well agree.   

Say he brought that to nought, he made of nought,  
Sith it proved nought, though he it good had made,  
Must he to Sinners Bar for this be brought,  
And there arraigned, condemned, and doomed as bad,  
Because such Changelings he created had?  
To make Man God, he could not bring to pass,  
For God is coeternal and unmade;  
Then must he needs make Man such as he was,  
Or not have made Mankind in any case.   

For were a Nature reasonable unchanged,  
And subject to no accident of Time,  
Above an Angel 'twere, for they have changed,  
Therefore it needs must be the Nature prime,  
To which Man being created, cannot climb.  
But yet thou sayst Adam in Paradise,  
Could not so slide (though he were made of slime.)  
But Providence it needs must prejudice,  
Which should have stayed him still in his justice.   

Then must it have bereft him of free-will,  
(Whereat he would have still repining grieved,)  
And kept from him the knowledge of all Ill,  
(Which knowledge of all good, hath him deprived,)  
Yet God, at first, from him that knowledge hived.  
But Man would needs be God, and so know all,  
And knowing all, he knew himself was gyved.  
(That first was free) so did himself enthrall.  
And so himself, did cause himself to fall.   

O but (sayst thou) had God so pleased been,  
T'have kept him from the thought of that amiss,  
And so have stayed him, that he could not sin,  
He still in Paradise had lived in bliss.  
But yield to God (damned wretch) as reason is,  
That due that to a mortal king belongs,  
By whose prerogative, and power of his,  
He may, above his laws do seeming wrongs,  
We may not question with repining tongues.   

If God should render reason for this Fact,  
It should be such as we could not conceive;  
For being reason itself, he cannot act  
Unreasonable deeds, which should bereave  
Him of his nature which he cannot leave.  
Yet reason itself, when it doth mount as high  
As it can reach, and there a proof doth give  
What it can do, we cannot that descry,  
Unless we Reason were, eternally.   

This height is past Man's reach which is but low,  
This Depth cannot be gauged but by the Highst,  
This Secrets such, as who the same doth know,  
Must needs be God, or at the least be Christ.  
Then cursed art thou, that in it further pri'st  
Then is convenient for a creature made;  
In his Creator's service to insist,  
And not too far into this whirlpool wade,  
Where thou mayst lose thyself in Errors shade.   

And which of both (thinkst thou) would Reason choose?  
To be made capable of endless bliss,  
With possibility the same to lose,  
And win a Hell, where all is quite amiss;  
Or not to Be at all, both those to miss:  
Sure, Reaz'n the first would choose, because the last  
Is lowest hell, where highest horror is;  
For in Not-beeings bottom, being fast,  
Aught would to worse than nought, unworen waist.   

But to have Being, and such being to,  
As next to Gods and Angels is the best;  
And so to Be; what not? would Nothing do,  
If it had power to do, right Reason's hest.  
Then Man bless God, for this thy Being blest;  
That though thou be accloye with world's annoy,  
And stand'st in danger worse to be distressed,  
If thou do not thy Being well employ;  
But live to die: and thou shalt live in joy.   

If Hell we get it is with greater toil,  
Then we endure to gain heavens happiness;  
Our Souls and Bodies we do more turmoil,  
In worldly-solace (Sink of Wretchedness)  
Then (Crossed by Christ) we do in all distress.  
For sins Ambrosia is compact of Gall,  
But moan for Sin is Manna angels Mess,  
And they that Hell endure for Heaven, they shall  
Feel Heaven in Hell, and Hell no Hell at all.   

For worldly pleasure doth but kill the Soul,  
As worldly sorrow doth the Body spill.  
Sorrow for sin doth make both sound and whole,  
Because such sorrow's mixed with solace still;  
Which is substantial good with seeming iii.  
This takes away th'objection used by thee,  
(Thou godless Man) against thy Gods good will,  
Which faith he hath no care how ill we be,  
Or if he had, from Ills would set us free.   

Wherein thou dost the Good and Ill confound,  
For to a good man can no ill befall,  
Though hells of harms did ever him surround;  
And to a bad man, no good can, or shall  
Fall to his share, though he possessed all.  
For Goods the Ill abuse unto their woe,  
Wherewith they execute no mischiefesmall.  
As worldly ills do make the good forego,  
All that is ill indeed, or ill in shoe.   

For as a Body crazed converts good food  
Into the humour ill predominant,  
Whenas the sound converts to perfect blood,  
Those meats that are to health most discrepant;  
So do the Bad with Wealth, the Good with Want.  
With thy Minds eyes behold those Caesars passed  
That were fell Tyrants, and thou needs must grant,  
That for they were of their own shades aghast,  
That which they held, held them to horror fast.   

What if an aching head were crowned with gold,  
What could that do, more than to pain it more?  
It were too heavy, hard, and too too cold,  
To give it case, or make it as before,  
Which golds restorative cannot restore.  
How stops the purple rob, the purple blood?  
Of him whose heart, a traitorous hand did gore;  
If in such cases, such can do no good,  
Then who will Tyrants tax in envious mood   

With gold or Ir'n, what skills it to be gyved,  
Sith both our freedom reaves indifferently?  
What matters it, to be of life deprived  
With Axe or Hemp? sith all is but to die; 
The Noble comes sooner by violent death than the obscure.   
Save that the Axe doth it more speedily.  
Advance a Beggar on a burning Throne,  
And at his foot let Princes prostrate lie,  
What pleasure takes he in Kings so o'erthrown?  
But such as kingly Tyrants feel alone.   

A greater sign of death cannot appear,  
(If sage Hipocrates we credit may)  
Then when we see the Sick to gripe the gear,  
That lies upon them, or with it to play,  
They are past help (God help them) than we say.  
So they which still are fingering worldly things,  
And greedily gripes all that's in their way,  
Whether they Subjects be, or frolic Kings,  
Are at deaths grizzly gate, and Swanlike sings.   

Many thou seest with justice Sword in hand,  
Upon it fall, or it falls from their fist,  
Because they could not well the same command,  
And so themselves might mischief ere they wist.  
God spills and spares by like means whom he list.  
So want saves some that wealth would cast away,  
Physicians meats restrain that health resist,  
And we for our health sake do them obey,  
" Because of sufferance comes ease we say.   

Grieve not to see a Beggar made a King,  
Nor yet a King a Beggar made by chance,  
The first doth stand in awe of every thing,  
The last fears nothing subject to mischance,  
Because he lives as death should him advance.  
No Kingdom to Content, no Crown t'a Cross,  
No peace to that continual variance,  
We have with our Affections, and no loss,  
To that of Heaven for a world of dross.   

Store is no sore (some say) nor is ease ill,  
So thought not Cirus who the Sardines fill'd,  
With all that mought voluptuous thoughts fulfil,  
Which for a plague to them he so fulfilled,  
And that they might so curelessely be spilled.  
The sober Soul, and temp rate Body sees,  
How mortal it is to be overfilled  
But th' eyes of swollen Excess still oversees,  
That which with God and Nature best agrees.   

Many meets Death at Feasts that in the field,  
Could not come ne ere him, though for him they sought,  
A Splint at Triumph hath some Kaisers killed,  
That many a bloody battle erst had fought,  
Thus Kings to death, triumphantly are brought,  
Because they will triumph ere victory,  
The end makes all, and in the end we ought  
To triumph only: if we live and die,  
Below the Cross, that us shall crown on high.   

But yet (sayst thou) what Providence can see▪  
The guiltless made a bloody sacrifice,  
To expiate the rage of Villanee,  
That nothing else will quiet or suffice,  
What skills it how the virtuous liver dies,  
Sith by a bloody death in likelihood,  
It pleaseth God their Souls so to surprise,  
And on the brow of Time write with their blood,  
Their virtues for succeeding Ages good?   

Thus makes he Evil, Good, in spite of Evil,  
For all that Is, doth to his Glory tend.  
Whereto he guides the doings of the Devil?  
Though Diu'ls do it not, unto that end.  
Then sith God's Providence so clear is kend,  
As that s●●se Blindness needs must see the same,  
Let Gods ●●●les wisely thereon still depend,  
Whiles these wise men, like fools past Grace and Shame,  
(Denying it) loose Body, Soul, and Name.   
FINIS.