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| BUT yet the good which we by sinne receaue | |
| Doth farre surmount the ill that comes from thence. | |
| If God the world of ill should quite bereaue, | |
| There were no test to try our sapience; | |
| So might want reason and intelligence: | 5 |
| But we haue both, to know the good from bad; | |
| So know we God, and our soule’s safe defence: | |
| Then since by ill we are so well bestad, | |
| We cannot greeue for ill, but must be glad. | |
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| For were there no temptation, then no fight; | 10 |
| And if no fight, no victory could be: | |
| No victory, no palmes nor vertues white; | |
| No crosse, no crowne of immortality: | |
| And thus from ill comes good abundantly: | |
| For by the conquest of it we are crown’d | 15 |
| With glory in secure felicity. | |
| So from great ills more goods to vs redound, | |
| As oft most sicknesse maketh vs most sound. | |
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| Ill, like a mole vpon the world’s faire cheeke, | |
| Doth stil set forth that fairenes much the more: | 20 |
| She were to seeke much good were ill to seeke, | |
| For good by ill increaseth strength and store, | |
| At least in our conceit, and vertuous lore. | |
| There’s nought so euill that is good for nought: | |
| God giuing vs a salue for ev’ry sore, | 25 |
| The good are humbled by their euil’st thought: | |
| So to the good al’s good that ill hath wrought. | |
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