Poemata sacra :: :: University of Virginia Library

Poemata sacra

Latinae & Anglicae scripta [by John Saltmarsh]

Saltmarsh, John

[epigraph]

POEMS UPON SOME OF the holy raptures of DAVID.

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Chap. V. Gods Picture not in the bodie of man.

Think not the structure of a man that part
Which God did fashion with a meaner art:
For to the soul he did assemble all
The Senate of Divinitie, did call
A meeting of his Inf'nite self. Who can
Fancie that this same earthy part of man
Was like a God? God hath his eares, his eyes;
His back parts Moses saw them and descries.
Is there a soul yet so concrete with sense,
So stupid with a bodies influence?
To think these so, man onely doth expresse
Thus, 'cause he knows no spirits nakednesse,
Sees not their operation; so he gives
To them a conjunct state in which he lives.
When one the picture of an Angel brings,
A naked youth fann'd with two golden wings,
I know these plumes are emblemes of his speed,
Whose motion's instantanie: yet we need
Expresse it thus by wings, because we know
Most motions to the volatile are slow.

Farre be from God a corporall essence: he
Is too incircumscriptible to be
Figur'd: no other Archetype we finde
But that eternall figure of his minde.