ruddy Sol shall make them all to flie.

38

The roaring Lions and drad beasts of prey

Rule in the dark with pitious crueltie;

But harmlesse Man is matter of the day,

Which doth his work in pure simplicitie.

God blesse his honest usefull industrie.

But pride and covetize, ambition,

Riot, revenge, self-love, hypocrisie,

Contempt of goodnesse, forc’d opinion;

These and such like do breed the worlds confusion.

39

But sooth to say though my triumphant Muse

Seemeth to vant as in got victorie,

And with puissant stroke the head to bruize

Of her stiff so, and daze his phantasie,

Captive his reason, dead each facultie:

Yet in her self so strong a force withstands

That of her self afraid, she’ll not aby,

Nor keep the field. She’ll fall by her own hand

As Ajax once laid Ajax dead upon the strand.

40

For thus her-self by her own self’s oppos’d;

The Heavens the Earth the universall Frame

Of living Nature God so soon disclos’d

As He could do, or she receive the same.

All times delay since that must turn to blame,

And what cannot He do that can be done?

And what might let but by th’ all-powerfull Name

Or Word of God, the Worlds Creation

More suddenly were made then mans swift thought can run?

41

Wherefore that Heavenly Power or is as young

As this Worlds date; or else some needlesse space

Of time was spent, before the Earth did clung

So close unto her-self and seas embrace

Her hollow breast, and if that time surpasse

A finite number then Infinitie

Of years before this Worlds Creation passe.

So that the durance of the Deitie

We must contract or strait his full Benignitie.

42

But for the cradle of the Cretian Jove,

And guardians of his vagient Infancie

What sober man but sagely will reprove?

Or drown the noise of the fond Dactyli

By laughter loud? Dated Divinitie

Certes is but the dream of a drie brain:

God maim’d in goodnesse, inconsistencie;

Wherefore my troubled mind is now in pain

Of a new birth, which this one Canto’ll not contain.

Now Reader, thou art arrived to the Canto it self, from which I have kept thee off by too tedious Preface and Apologie, which is seldome made without consciousnesse of some fault, which I professe I find not in my self, unlesse this be it, that I am more tender of thy satisfaction then mine own credit. As for that high sullen Poem, Cupids Conflict, I must leave it to thy candour and favourable censure. The Philosophers Devotion I cast in onely, that the latter pages should not be unfurnished.

H. M.

Nihil tamen frequentius inter Autores occurrit, quám ut omnia adeò ex moduli ferè sensuum suorum æstiment, ut ea quæ insuper infinitis rerum spatiis extare possunt, sive superbè sive imprudenter rejiciant; quin & ea omnia in usum suum fabricata fuisse glorientur, perinde facientes ac si pediculi humanum caput, aut pulices sinum muliebrem propter se solos condita existimarent, eáque demum ex gradibus saltibúsve suis metirentur. The Lord Herbert in his De Causis Errorum.

De generali totius hujus mundi aspectabilis constructione ut rectè Philosophemur duo sunt imprimis observanda: Unum ut attendentes ad infinitam Dei potentiam & bonitatem nè vereamur nimis ampla & pulchra & absoluta ejus opera imaginari: sed è contra caveamus, nè si quos fortè limites nobis non certò cognitos, in ipsis supponamus, non satìs magnificè de creatoris potentia sentire videamur.

Alterum, ut etiam caveamus, nè nimis superbè de nobis ipsis sentiamus. Quod fieret non modò, si quos limites nobis nullâ cognitos ratione, nec divinà revelatione, mundo vellemus affingere, tanquam si vis nostra cogitationis, ultra id quod à Deo revera factum est ferri posset; sed etiam maximè, si res omnes propter nos solos, ab illo creatas esse fingeremus. Renatus Des-Cartes in his Princip. Philosoph. the third part.

The Argument.