Classic Poem

God doubtless makes her, and doth make her good.
And graffs her in the body, there to spring;
Which, though it be corrupted, flesh and blood
Can no way to the Soul corruption bring:

And yet this Soul (made good by God at first,
And not corrupted by the body's ill)
Even in the womb is sinful, and accurst,
Ere she can judge by wit or choose by will.

Yet is not God the Author of her sin,
Though Author of her being and being there,
And, if we dare to judge our judge herein,
He can condemn us and Himself can clear.

First, God from infinite eternity
Decreed what hath been, is, or shall be done;
And was resolv'd that every man should be.
And in his turn his race of life should run:

And so did purpose all the souls to make
That ever have been made or ever shall,
And that their being they should only take
In human bodies, or not be at all.

Was it then fit that such a weak event
(Weakness itself, the sin and fall of Man)
His counsel's execution should prevent,
Decreed and fixt before the World began?

Or that one penal law by Adam broke
Should make God break His own eternal Law,
The settled order of the World revoke,
And change all forms of things which He foresaw?

Could Eve's weak hand, extended to the tree,
In sunder rend that adamantine chain
Whose golden links effects and causes be,
And which to God's own chair doth fixt remain?

Oh could we see, how cause from cause doth spring.
How mutually they linkt and folded are,
And hear how oft one disagreeing string
The harmony doth rather make than mar,

And view at once how death by sin is brought,
And how from death a better life doth rise,
How this God's justice and His mercy taught,
We this decree would praise, as right and wise.

But we that measure times by first and last
The sight of things successively do take,
When God on all at once His view doth cast,
And of all times doth but one instant make.

All in Himself as in a glass He sees,
For from Him, by Him, through Him, all things be:
His sight is not discursive, by degrees,
But, seeing the whole, each single part doth see.

He looks on Adam as a root or well,
And on his heirs as branches and as streams;
He sees all men as one Man, though they dwell
In sundry cities and in sundry realms.

And as the root and branch are but one tree,
And well and stream do but one river make,
So, if the root and well corrupted be,
The stream and branch the same corruption take.

So, when the root and fountain of mankind
Did draw corruption, and God's curse, by sin,
This was a charge that all his heirs did bind,
And all his offspring grew corrupt therein.

And as when the hand doth strike, the Man offends
—For part from whole Law severs not, in this—
So Adam's sin to the whole kind extends,
For all their natures are but part of his.

Therefore this sin of kind, not personal,
But reall and hereditary was,
The guilt whereof, and punishment, to all
By course of Nature and of Law doth pass.

For as that easy Law was given to all,
To ancestor and heir, to first and last,
So was the first transgression general,
And all did pluck the fruit and all did taste.

Of this we find some footsteps in our Law,
Which doth her root from God and Nature take;
Ten thousand men she doth together draw,
And of them all one corporation make:

Yet these and their successors are but one,
And if they gain or lose their liberties
They harm or profit, not themselves alone,
But such as in succeeding times shall rise.

And so the ancestor and all his heirs,
Though they in number pass the stars of heaven,
Are still but one; his forfeitures are theirs,
And unto them are his advancements given.

His civil acts do bind and bar them all,
And as from Adam all corruption take,
So, if the father's crime be capital
In all the blood Law doth corruption make.

Is it then just with us, to disinherit
The unborn nephews for the father's fault?
And to advance again for one man's merit,
A thousand heirs that have deserved naught?

And is not God's decree as just as ours,
If He, for Adam's sin, his sons deprive
Of all those native virtues and those powers
Which He to him and to his race did give?

For what is this contagious sin of kind
But a privation of that grace within,
And of that great rich dowry of the mind
Which all had had but for the first man's sin?

If then a man on light conditions gain
A great estate, to him and his for ever,
If wilfully be forfeit it again
Who doth bemoan his heir or blame the giver?

So, though God make the Soul good, rich, and fair,
Yet when her form is to the body knit
Which makes the Man, which man is Adam's heir
Justly forthwith He takes His grace from it:

And then the Soul, being first from nothing brought,
When God's grace fails her doth to nothing fall;
And this declining proneness unto naught,
Is even that sin that we are born withal.

Yet not alone the first good qualities,
Which in the first soul were, deprived are:
But in their place the contrary do rise,
And reall spots of sin her beauty mar.

Nor is it strange that Adam's ill desart
Should be transferred unto his guilty Race,
When Christ His grace and justice doth impart
To men unjust and such as have no grace.

Lastly, the Soul were better so to be
Born slave to sin than not to be at all,
Since (if she do believe) One sets her free,
That makes her mount the higher for her fall.

Yet this the curious wits will not content;
They yet will know: sith God foresaw this ill,
Why His high Providence did not prevent
The declination of the first man's will.

If by His Word He had the current stay'd
Of Adam's will, which was by nature free,
It had been one as if His Word had said:
‘I will henceforth that Man no man shall be.’

For what is Man without a moving mind
Which hath a judging wit and choosing will?
Now, if God's power should her election bind,
Her motions then would cease and stand all still.

And why did God in man this soul infuse
But that he should his Maker know and love?
Now, if love be compell'd and cannot choose,
How can it grateful or thankworthy prove?

Love must free-hearted be and voluntary,
And not enchanted, or by Fate constrain'd;
Not like that love which did Ulysses carry
To Circe's isle, with mighty charms enchain'd.

Besides, were we unchangeable in will,
And of a wit that nothing could misdeem,
Equal to God, whose wisdom shineth still,
And never errs, we might ourselves esteem.

So that if Man would be unvariable,
He must be God, or like a rock of tree;
For even the perfect Angels were not stable,
But had a fall, more desperate than we.

Then let us praise that Power which makes us be
Men as we are, and rest contented so;
And knowing Man's fall was curiosity,
Admire God's counsels, which we cannot know.

And let us know that God the Maker is
Of all the souls in all the men that be:
Yet their corruption is no fault of His,
But the first man's that broke God's first decree.