But sith our life so fast away doth slide,
As doth a hungry eagle through the wind,
Or as a ship transported with the tide;
Which in their passage leaue no print behind;
Of which swift little time so much we spend,
While some few things we through the sense doe straine;
That our short race of life is at an end,
Ere we the principles of skill attaine.
Or God (which to vaine ends hath nothing done)
In vaine this appetite and power hath giuen;
Or else our knowledge, which is here begun,
Hereafter must bee perfected in heauen.
God neuer gaue a power to one whole kind,
But most part of that kind did vse the same;
Most eies haue perfect sight, though some be blind;
Most legs can nimbly run, though some be lame:
But in this life no soule the truth can know
So perfectly, as it hath power to doe;
If then perfection be not found below,
An higher place must make her mount thereto.
Reason II.
Drawn from the Motion of the Soule.
Againe how can shee but immortall bee?
When with the motions of both Will and Wit,
She still aspireth to eternitie,
And neuer rests, till she attaine to it?
Water in conduit pipes, can rise no higher
Then the wel-head, from whence it first doth spring:
Then sith to eternall God shee doth aspire,
Shee cannot be but an eternall thing.
"All mouing things to other things doe moue,
"Of the same kind, which shews their nature such;
So earth falls downe and fire doth mount aboue,
Till both their proper elements doe touch.