Of this, we find some footsteps in our Law, Which doth her root from GOD and Nature take. Ten thousand men she doth together draw, And of them all, one Corporation make! Yet these and their successors are but One; And if they gain or lose their liberties; They harm or profit not themselves alone, But such, as in succeeding time, shall rise! And so the ancestor and all his heirs, (Though they in number pass the stars of heaven) Are still but One! His forfeitures are theirs! And unto them, are his advancements given! His civil acts to bind and bar them all! And as from ADAM, all corruption take; So if the father's crime be capital; In all the blood, Law doth _corruption_ make! Is it, then, just with us, to disinherit The unborn nephews, for the father's fault? And to advance again, for one man's merit, A thousand heirs that have deserved nought? And is not GOD's decree as just as ours, If He, for ADAM'S sins, his sons deprive Of all those native virtues, and those powers; Which He to him, and to his race did give? For what is this contagious Sin of Kind, But a privation of that grace within, And of that great rich dowry of the mind; Which all had had, but for the first man's sin? If then a man, on light conditions, gain A great estate, to him and his, for ever; If wilfully, he forfeit it again: Who doth bemoan his heir? or blame the giver? So, though GOD make the Soul good, rich, and fair; Yet when her form is to the Body knit, Which makes the Man: which Man is ADAM'S heir; Justly, forthwith, he takes his grace from it. And then the Soul, being first from nothing brought, When GOD's grace fails her, doth to nothing fall; And this _declining Proneness unto nought_, Is even that Sin, that we are born withal. Yet not, alone, the first good qualities, Which in the first Soul were, deprivèd are; But in their place the contrary do rise, And real spots of sin, her beauty mar. Nor is it strange that ADAM'S ill desert, Should be transferred unto his guilty race; When CHRIST, His grace and justice doth impart To men unjust! and such as have no grace! Lastly, the Soul were better so to be Born slave to sin, than not to Be at all! Since, if She do believe, One sets her free, That makes her mount the higher, from her fall. Yet this, the curious Wits will not content! They yet will know (since GOD foresaw this Ill) Why His high providence did not prevent The declination of the first Man's will.