So fast in us doth this corruption grow, That now wee dare aske why wee should be so. Would God (disputes the curious Rebell) make A law, and would not have it kept? Or can His creatures will, crosse his? Of every man 105 For one, will God (and be just) vengeance take? Who sinn'd? t'was not forbidden to the snake Nor her, who was not then made; nor is't writ That Adam cropt, or knew the apple; yet The worme and she, and he, and wee endure for it. 110 XII. But snatch mee heavenly Spirit from this vaine Reckoning their vanities, lesse is their gaine Then hazard still, to meditate on ill, Though with good minde; their reasons, like those toyes Of glassie bubbles, which the gamesome boyes 115 Stretch to so nice a thinnes through a quill That they themselves breake, doe themselves spill: Arguing is heretiques game, and Exercise As wrastlers, perfects them; Not liberties Of speech, but silence; hands, not tongues, end heresies. 120 XIII. Just in that instant when the serpents gripe, Broke the slight veines, and tender conduit-pipe, Through which this soule from the trees root did draw Life, and growth to this apple, fled away This loose soule, old, one and another day. 125 As lightning, which one scarce dares say, he saw, 'Tis so soone gone, (and better proofe the law Of sense, then faith requires) swiftly she flew To a darke and foggie Plot; Her, her fates threw There through th'earths pores, and in a Plant hous'd her anew. 130 XIV. The plant thus abled, to it selfe did force A place, where no place was; by natures course As aire from water, water fleets away From thicker bodies, by this root thronged so His spungie confines gave him place to grow: 135 Just as in our streets, when the people stay To see the Prince, and have so fill'd the way That weesels scarce could passe, when she comes nere They throng and cleave up, and a passage cleare, As if, for that time, their round bodies flatned were. 140 XV. His right arme he thrust out towards the East, West-ward his left; th'ends did themselves digest Into ten lesser strings, these fingers were: And as a slumberer stretching on his bed, This way he this, and that way scattered 145 His other legge, which feet with toes upbeare. Grew on his middle parts, the first day, haire, To show, that in loves businesse hee should still A dealer bee, and be us'd well, or ill: His apples kindle, his leaves, force of conception kill. 150 XVI.