Psychodia platonica, or, A platonicall song of the soul consisting of foure severall poems ... : hereto is added a paraphrasticall interpretation of the answer of Apollo consulted by Amelius, about Plotinus soul departed this life
More, Henry, 1614-1687.
THE ARGUMENT OF PSYCHATHANASIA. Book 2: Cant. 3.
The souls incorporeitie
From powers rationall
We prove; Discern true pietie
From bitternesse and gall.
1
LIke Carpenter entred into a wood
To cut down timber for some edifice
Of stately structure, whiles he casts abroad
His curious eye, he much perplexed •…s
(There stand in view so many goodly trees)
Where to make choice to enter his rugg'd saw:
My Muse is plung'd in like perplexities,
So many arguments themselves do show,
That where to pitch my wavering raind doth yet scarce know.
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One taller then the rest my circling eye
Hath hit upon, which if't be sound at heart
Will prove a goodly piece to raise on high
The heavenly structure of that deemed part
Of man, his soul, and by unerring art
Set his foundation 'bove the bodies frame
On its own wheels, that it may thence depart
Intire, unhurt. So doth the Scythian swain
Drive his light moving house on the waste verdant plain.
3
I'll sing of pietie, that now I mean
That Trismegist thus wisely doth define,
Knowledge of God. That's pietie I ween,
The highest of virtues, a bright beam divine
Which to the purer soul doth sweetly shine.
But what's this beam? and how doth it enlight?
What doth it teach? It teacheth to decline
Self-love, and frampard wayes the hypocrite
Doth trample in, accloy'd with dirt and dismall night.
4
Not rage, nor mischief, nor love of a sect,
Nor eating irefulnesse, harsh crueltie
Contracting Gods good will, nor conscience checkt
Or chok'd continually with impietie,
Fauster'd and fed with hid hypocrisie;
Nor tyranny against perplexed minds,
Nor forc'd conceit, nor man-idolatrie,
All which the eye of searching reason blinds,
And the souls heavenly flame in dungeon darknesse binds.
5
Can warres and jarres and fierce contention,
Swoln hatred, and consuming envy spring
From pietie? No. 'Tis opinion
That makes the riven heavens with trumpets ring,
And thundring engine murd'rous balls out-sling,
And send mens groning ghosts to lower shade
Of horrid hell. This the wide world doth bring
To devastation, makes mankind to fade:
Such direfull things doth false religion perswade.
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But true religion sprong from God above
Is like its fountain full of charity,
Embracing all things with a tender love,
Full of good will and meek expectancy,
Full of true justice and sure verity,
In heart and voice; free, large, even in finite,
Not wedg'd in straight particularity,
But grasping all in its vast, active spright,
Bright lamp of God! that men would joy in thy pure light!
7
Can souls that be thus universalis'd,
Begot into the life of God e're die?
(His light is like the sunne that doth arise
Upon the just and unjust) can they sly
Into a nothing? and hath God an eye
To see himself thus wasted and decay
In his true members? can mortality
Seize upon that that doth it self display
Above the laws of matter, or the bodies sway?
8
For both the bodie and the bodies spright
Doth things unto particulars confine,
Teaching them partiall friendship and fell spight.
But those pure souls full of the life divine
Look upon all things with mild friendly cyne
Ready to do them good. Thus is their will
Sweetly spread out, and ever doth incline
The bent of the first Goodnesse to fulfill.
Ay me! that dreary death such lovely life should spill!
9
Besides this largenesse in the will of man
And winged freenesse, now let's think upon
His understanding, and how it doth scan
Gods being, unto whom religion
Is consecrate. Imagination
That takes its rise from sense so high ascent
Can never reach, yet intellection
Or higher gets, or at least hath some sent
Of God, vaticinates, or is parturi•…nt.
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For ask it whether God be this or that,
A body infinite, or some mighty spright,
Yet not almighty, it condemnes such chat;
Whether all present, or in some place pight,
Whether part here part there, or every whit
In every point, it likes that latter well:
So that its plain that some kind of insight
Of Gods own being in the soul doth dwell,
Though what God is we cannot yet so plainly tell.
11
As when a name lodg'd in the memory,
But yet through time almost obliterate,
Confusely hovers near the phantasie:
The man that's thus affected bids relate
A catologue of names. It is not that,
Saith he, nor that; that's something like to it,
That nothing like, that's lik'st of all I wot,
This last you nam'd it's not like that a whit;
O that's the very name, now we have rightly hit.
12
Thus if't be lawfull least things to compare
With greatest, so our selves affected be
Concerning Gods high essence: for we are
Not ignorant quite of this mystery,
Nor clearly apprehend the Deity,
But in mid state, I call't parturient,
And should bring forth that live Divinity
Within our selves, if once God would consent
To shew his specious form and nature eminent:
13
For here it lies like colours in the night
Unseen and unregarded, but the sunne
Displayes the beauty and the gladsome plight
Of the adorned earth, while he doth runne
His upper stage. But this high prize is wonne
By curbing sense and the self-seeking life
(True Christian mortification)
Thus God will his own self in us revive,
If we to mortifie our straightned selves do strive.
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But can ought bodily Gods form receive?
Or have it in its self potentially?
Or can ought sprung of this base body heve
It self so high as to the Deitie
To clamber? strive to reach infinitie?
Can ought born of this carcase be so free
As to grasp all things in large sympathie?
Can lives corporeall quite loosened be
From their own selves, casheering their centreitie?
15
These all ill suit with corporeitie:
But do we not amisse with stroke so strong
All to dispatch at once? needed we flie
So high at first? we might have chose among
The many arguments that close do throng
And tender their own selves this cause to prove,
Some of a meaner rank, and then along
Fairly and softly by degrees to move.
My Muse kens no such pomp, she must with freedome rove
16
And now as chance her guides, compendiously
The heads of many proofs she will repeat,
Which she lists not pursue so curiously,
But leaves the reader his own brains •…o beat,
To find their fuller strength. As the souls meat,
Of which she feeds, if that she feed at all;
She is immortall if she need not eat;
But if her food prove to be spiritall,
Then can we deem herself to be corporeall?
17
The souls most proper food is veritie
Got and digest by Contemplation.
Hence strength, enlargement, and activitie
She finds, as doth this bulk by infusion
Of grosser meats and drinks (concoction
Well perfected) the body is strong by these;
The soul by reasons right perswasion:
But that truth's spiritall we may with ease
Find out: For truth the soul from bodies doth release.
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Next argument let be abstraction,
When as the soul with notion precise
Keeps off the corporall condition,
And a nak'd simple essence doth devise
Against the law of Corporeities,
It doth devest them both of time and place,
And of all individualities,
And matter doth of all her forms uncase.
Corporeall wight such subtile virtue never has.
19
Now shall the indivisibilitie
Of the souls virtues make an argument.
For certainly there's no such qualitie
Resideth in a body that's extent:
For, tell me, is that qualitie strait pent
Within a point of that corporeall?
Or is it with some spreaden part distent?
If in a point, then longs it not at all
To th'body: in spread part? then 'tis extentionall.
20
But that some virtue's not extentionall
May thus be proved. Is there no science
Of numbers? Yes. But what is principall
And root of all: have we intelligence
Of Unities? Or else what's sprong from thence
We could not know: what doth the soul then frame
Within her self? Is that Idea extense?
Or indivisible? If not: we'll blame
The soul of falshood, and continuall lying shame.
21
Again, if we suppose our intellect
Corporeall, then must we all things know
By a swift touch: what? do we then detect
The truth of bignesse, when one point doth go
Of our quick mind? (It need not be o'reslow
For infinite parts be found in quantitie)
Or doth it use its latitude? If so
Remember that some things unspreaden be,
How shall it find them out? Or if't use both we'll see.
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That both be unsufficient I prove.
A point cannot discern loos•… unity
Freed from all site. That latitude must move
On all the body that it doth descry.
So must it be upstretch'd unto the skie
And rubbe against the starres, surround the sunne
And her own parts to every part apply,
Then swiftly fridge about the pallid moon:
Thus both their quantities the mind hath strangely wonne.
23
Adde unto these, that the soul would take pains
For its destruction while it doth aspire
To reach at things (that were her wofull gains)
That be not corporall, but seated higher
Above the bodyes sphere. Thus should she tire
Her self to 'stroy her self. Again, the mind
Receives contrary forms. The feverish fire
Makes her cool brooks and shadowing groves to find
Within her thoughts, thus hot and cold in one she binds.
24
Nor is she chang'd by the susception
Of any forms: For thus her self contraire
Would be unto her self. But Union
She then possesseth, when heat and cold are
Together met: They meet withouten jarre,
Within our souls. Such forms they be not true
You'll say. But of their truth lest you despair,
Each form in purer minds more perfect hew
Obtains, then those in matter we do daily view.
25
For there, they're mixt, soild and contaminate,
But truth doth clear, unweave, and simplifie,
Search, sever, pierce, open, and disgregate
All ascititious cloggings; then doth eye
The naked essence and its property.
Or you must grant the soul cannot define
Ought right in things; or you must not deny
These forms be true that in her self d•… shine:
These be her rule of truth, these her unerring line.
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Bodies have no such properties. Again,
See in one cluster many arguments
Compris'd: She multitudes can close constrain
Into one nature. Things that be fluent,
As flitting time, by her be straight retent
Unto one point; she joyns future and past,
And makes them steddy stand as if present:
Things distant she can into one place cast:
Calls kinds immortall, though their singulars do waste.
27
Upon her self she strangely operates,
And from her self and by her self returns
Into her self; thus the soul circulates.
Do bodies so? Her axle-tree it burns
With heat of motion. This low world she spurns,
Raiseth her self to catch infinity.
Unspeakable great numbers how she turns
Within her mind, like evening mist the eye
Discerns, whose muddy atomes 'fore the wind do fly.
28
Stretcheth out time at both ends without end,
Makes place still higher swell, often creates
What God nere made, nor doth at all intend
To make, free phantasms, laughs at future fates,
Foresees her own condition, she relates
Th' all comprehension of eternity,
Complains she's thirsty still in all estates,
That all she sees or has no'te satisfie
Her hungry self, nor fill her vast capacity.
29
But I'll break off; My Muse her self forgot,
Her own great strength and her foes feeblenesse,
That she her name by her own pains may blot,
While she so many strokes heaps in excesse,
That fond grosse phansie quite for to suppresse
Of the souls corporal'ty. For men may think
Her adversaries strength doth thus her presse
To multitude of reasons, makes her swink
With weary toil, and sweat out thus much forced ink:
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Or that she loves with trampling insultations
To domineere in easie victory.
But let not men dare cast such accusations
Against the blamelesse. For no mastery,
Nor fruitlesse pomp, nor any verity
Of that opinion that she here destroyes
Made her so large. No, 'tis her jealousie
'Gainst witching falshood that weak souls annoyes,
And oft doth choke those chearing ho•…es of lasting joyes.
