O could we see, how cause from cause doth spring! How mutually they linkt and folded are! And heare how oft one disagreeing string The harmony doth rather make then marre? And view at once, how _death_ by _sinne_ is brought, And how from _death_, a better _life_ doth rise, How this God's _iustice_, and His _mercy_ tought: We this decree would praise, as right and wise. But we that measure times by first and last, The sight of things successiuely, doe take; When God on all at once His view doth cast, And of all times doth but one _instant_ make. All in _Himselfe_ as in a _glasse_ Hee sees, For _from Him, by Him, through Him, all things bee_: His sight is not discoursiue, by degrees, But seeing the whole, each single part doth see.[114] [Footnote 113: Homer, Iliad, VIII. 19: and _cf._ Tennyson ('Morte d' Arthur,' p. 200: edition 1848.) 'For so the whole round world is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.' G.] [Footnote 114: It is noticeable that the supreme Divine and Thinker of America--Jonathan Edwards--accepts this symbol of the 'Tree,' and works it out marvellously in his great treatise on 'Original Sin.' G.] He lookes on _Adam_, as a _root_, or _well_, And on his heires, as _branches_, and as _streames_; He sees _all_ men as _one_ Man, though they dwell In sundry cities, and in sundry realmes: And as the _roote_ and _branch_ are but one _tree_, And _well_ and _streame_ doe but one _riuer_ make; So, if the _root_ and _well_ corrupted bee, The _streame_ and _branch_ the same corruption take: So, when the root and fountaine of Mankind Did draw corruption, and God's curse, by sin; This was a charge that all his heires did bind, And all his offspring grew corrupt therein. And as when the hand doth strike, the Man offends, (For _part from whole, Law seuers not in this_) So _Adam's_ sinne to the whole kind extends; For all their natures are but part of his. Therefore this _sinne of kind_, not personall, But reall and hereditary was; The guilt whereof, and punishment to all, By course of Nature, and of Law doth passe. For as that easie Law was giuen to all, To ancestor and heire, to first and last; So was the first transgression generall, And all did plucke the fruit and all did tast. Of this we find some foot-steps 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 gaine or lose their liberties; They harme, or profit not themselues alone, But such as in succeeding times shall rise.