Transcribed by Michelle Brice
The great creator gave to Brutes the light
Of sense and natural instinct, that might
Conduct him in a sensual life; by this
They steer their course, and very rarely miss
Their instituted Rule, nor yet reject
Its guidance, or its Influence neglect:
But the Creator’s great beneficence
Gave unto Man, besides the light of sense
The nobler light of Reason Intellect,
And Consience1 to govern and direct
His life and Actions, and to keep at rights
The motions of his sensual Appetite:2
But wretched man unhappily deserts
His maker’s Institution, and perverts
The end of all his bounty, prostitutes
His reason unto Lust, and so pollutes
His noble soul, his Reason, and his wit:
And intellect, that in the throne should sit
Must lackie after Lust, and so fullfil
The base commands and pleasure of her3 will
And thus the Humane nature great Advance
Becomes its greater ruine,4 doth inhance
Its Guilt, While Judgment, Reason, Wit
Improve those very sins it doth commit.
Dear Lord, Thy mercy surely must overflow,
That pardons sins, which from thy bounty grow.
Footnotes:
1 Related to conscience is the notion of synteresis: in theology, a name for that function or department of conscience which serves as a guide for conduct; conscience as directive of one’s actions. (OED) Back to text.
2 According to Aristotle, the sensual appetite—that is, desires of the body or senses—drives humans to act in accordance with that which feels pleasurable and to avoid that which causes pain. Back to text.
3 Historically, women were thought of as being the more evil or sinful of the two sexes. In Genesis, Eve is the first to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and she is the one who convinces Adam to do so as well. Back to text.
4 This is perhaps a reference to original sin, a concept which can be found in the ninth article of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. These statements of doctrines of the Church of England were originally established in 1563. Article IX. Of Original or Birth-sin states:
Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is ingendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust of the flesh, called in the Greek, “Phronema Sarkos”, which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire, of the flesh, is not subject to the Law of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized, yet the Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin.