Con. Spare? Spare yourself; and spare big easy words,
Which prove your knowledge greater than your grace.
Eliz. Is there no middle path? No way to keep
My love for them, and God, at once unstained?
Con. If this were God’s world, Madam, and not the devil’s,
It might be done.
Eliz. God’s world, man! Why, God made it—
The faith asserts it God’s.
Con. Potentially—
As every christened rogue’s a child of God,
Or those old hags, Christ’s brides—Think of your horn-book—
The world, the flesh, and the devil—a goodly leash!
And yet God made all three. I know the fiend;
And you should know the world: be sure, be sure.
The flesh is not a stork among the cranes.
Our nature, even in Eden gross and vile,
And by miraculous grace alone upheld,
Is now itself, and foul, and damned, must die
Ere we can live; let halting worldlings, madam,
Maunder against earth’s ties, yet clutch them still.
Eliz. And yet God gave them to me—
Con. In the world;
Your babes are yours according to the flesh;
How can you hate the flesh, and love its fruit?
Eliz. The Scripture bids me love them.
Con. Truly so,
While you are forced to keep them; when God’s mercy
Doth from the flesh and world deliverance offer,
Letting you bestow them elsewhere, then your love
May cease with its own usefulness, and the spirit
Range in free battle lists; I’ll not waste reasons—
We’ll leave you, Madam, to the Spirit’s voice.
[Conrad and Gerard withdraw.]