To iudge her selfe she must her selfe transcend,
As greater circles comprehend the lesse;
But she wants power, her owne powers to extend,
As fettered men can not their strength expresse.
But Thou bright Morning Star, Thou rising Sunne,
Which in these later times hast brought to light
Those mysteries, that since the world begun,
Lay hid in darknesse, and eternall night:
Thou (like the sunne) dost with indifferent ray,
Into the palace and the cottage shine,
And shew'st the soule both to the clerke and lay[89],
By the cleare lampe of Thy Oracle diuine.
This Lampe through all the regions of my braine,
Where my soule sits, doth spread such beames of grace,
As now, me thinks, I do distinguish plain,
Each subtill line of her immortall face.
What the soule is.
The soule a substance, and a spirit is,
Which God Himselfe doth in the body make;
Which makes the Man: for euery man from this,
The nature of a Man, and name doth take.
And though this[1] spirit be to the body knit,
As an apt meane her powers to exercise;
Which are life, motion, sense, and will, and wit,
Yet she suruiues, although the body dies.
That the soule is a thing subsisting by it selfe without the body.
She is a substance, and a reall thing,
Which hath it selfe an actuall working might;
Which neither from the Senses' power doth spring,
Nor from the bodie's humors, tempred right.
She is a vine, which doth no propping need,
To make her spread her selfe or spring vpright;
She is a starre, whose beames doe not proceed
From any sunne, but from a natiue light.