[Footnote 102: Clean, pure. G.] THAT THE SOULE IS A SPIRIT. But though this substance be the root of _Sense_, _Sense_ knowes her not, which doth but _bodies_ know; _Shee is a spirit_, and heauenly influence, Which from the fountaine of God's Spirit doth flow. Shee is a Spirit, yet not like _ayre_, or _winde_, Nor like the _spirits_ about the _heart_ or _braine_; Nor like those spirits which alchymists do find, When they in euery thing seeke gold in _vaine_. For shee all _natures_ vnder heauen doth passe; Being like those spirits, which God's bright face do see; Or like _Himselfe_, Whose _image_ once she was, Though now (alas!) she scarce His _shadow_ bee. Yet of the _formes_, she holds the first degree, That are to grosse materiall bodies knit; Yet shee her selfe is _bodilesse_ and free; And though confin'd, is almost infinite. THAT IT CANNOT BE A BODY. Were she a _body_ how could she remaine Within this body, which is lesse then she? Or how could she the world's great shape contain, And in our narrow brests containèd bee? All _bodies_ are confin'd within some place, But _she_ all place within her selfe confines; All _bodies_ haue their measure, and their space, But who can draw the _Soule's_ dimensiue lines? No _body_ can at once two formes admit, Except the one the other doe deface; But in the _soule_ ten thousand formes do sit, And none intrudes into her neighbour's place. All _bodies_ are with other bodies fild, But she receiues both heauen and earth together; Nor are their formes by rash incounter spild, For there they stand, and neither toucheth either. Nor can her wide imbracements fillèd bee; For they that most, and greatest things embrace, Inlarge thereby their minds' capacitie, As streames inlarg'd, inlarge the channel's space.[103] _All things receiu'd, doe such proportion take, As those things haue, wherein they are receiu'd_: So little glasses little faces make, And narrow webs on narrow frames be weau'd; Then what vast body must we make the _mind_ Wherin are men, beasts, trees, towns, seas, and lands; And yet each thing a proper place doth find, And each thing in the true proportion stands? Doubtlesse this could not bee, but that she turnes Bodies to spirits, by _sublimation_ strange; As fire conuerts to fire the things it burnes As we our meats into our nature change. From their grosse _matter_ she abstracts the _formes_, And drawes a kind of _quintessence_ from things; Which to her proper nature she transformes, To bear them light on her celestiall wings: