that the Soul in this her sublunary estate is wholly and in all acceptions inorganical but that for the performance of her ordinary actions there is required not onely a symmetry and proper disposition of Organs but a Crasis and temper correspondent to its operations Yet is not this mass of flesh and visible structure the instrument and proper corps of the Soul but rather of Sense and that the hand of Reason * In our study of Anatomy there is a mass of mysterious Philosophy and such as reduced the very Heathens to Divinity yet amongst all those rare discourses and curious pieces I find in the Fabrick of man I do not so much content my self as in that I find not there is no Organ or Instrument for the rational soul for in the brain which we term the seat of reason there is not any thing of moment more than I can discover in the crany of a beast and this is a sensible and no inconsiderable argument of the inorganity of the Soul at least in that sense we usually so conceive it Thus we are men and we know not how there is something in us that can be without us and will be after us though it is strange that it hath no history what it was before us nor cannot tell how it entred in us Sect. 37 Now for these walls of flesh wherein the Soul doth seem to be immured before the Resurrection it is nothing but an elemental composition and a Fabrick that must fall to ashes All flesh is grass is not onely metaphorically but litterally true for all those creatures we behold are but the herbs of the field digested into flesh in them or more remotely carnified in our selves Nay further we are what we all abhor Anthropophagi and Cannibals devourers not onely of men but of our selves and that not in an allegory but a positive truth for all this mass of flesh which we behold came in at our mouths this frame we look upon hath been upon our trenchers in brief we have devour'd our selves * I cannot believe the wisdom of Pythagoras did ever positively and in a literal sense affirm his Metempsycosis or impossible transmigration of the Souls of men into beasts of all Metamorphoses or transmigrations I believe only one that is of Lots wife for that of Nebuchodonosor proceeded not so far in all others I conceive there is no further verity than is contained in their implicite sense and morality I believe that the whole frame of a beast doth perish and is left in the tame slate after death as before it was materialled unto life that the souls of men know neither contrary nor corruption that they subsist beyond the body and out-live death by the priviledge of their proper natures and without a Miracle that the Souls of the faithful as they leave Earth take possession of Heaven that those apparitions and ghosts of departed persons are not the wandring souls of men but the unquiet walks of Devils prompting and suggesting us unto mischief blood and villany instilling and stealing into our hearts that the blessed spirits are not at rest in their graves but wander sollicitous of the affairs of the World but that those phantasms appear often and do frequent Coemeteries Charnel-houses and Churches it is because those are the dormitories of the dead where the Devil like an insolent Champion beholds with pride the spoils and Trophies of his Victory over Adam Sect. 38 This is that dismal conquest we all deplore that makes us so often cry O Adam quid fecisti I thank God I have not those strait ligaments or narrow obligations to the World as to dote on life or be convulst and tremble at the name of death Not that I am insensible of the dread and horrour thereof or by raking into the bowels of the deceased continual sight of Anatomies Skeletons or Cadaverous reliques like Vespilloes or Grave-makers I am become stupid or have forgot the apprehension of Mortality but that marshalling all the horrours and contemplating the extremities thereof I find not any thing therein able to daunt the courage of a man much less a well-resolved Christian And therefore am not angry at the errour of our first Parents or unwilling to bear a part of this common fate and like the best of them to dye that is to cease to breathe to take a farewel of the elements to be a kind of nothing for a moment to be within one instant of a spirit When I take a full view and circle of my self without this reasonable moderator and equal piece of Justice Death I do conceive my self the miserablest person extant were there not another life that I hope for all the vanities of this World should not intreat a moments breath from me could the Devil work my belief to imagine I could never dye I would not outlive that very thought I have so abject a conceit of this common way of existence this retaining to the Sun and Elements I cannot think this is to be a man or to live according to the dignity of humanity in exspectation of a better I can with patience embrace this life yet in my best meditations do often defie death I honour any man that contemns it nor can I highly love any that is afraid of it this makes me naturally love a Souldier and honour those tattered and contemptible Regiments that will dye at the command of a Sergeant For a Pagan there may be some motives to be in love with life but for a Christian to be amazed at death I see not how he can escape this Dilemma that he is too sensible of this life or hopeless of the life to come Sect. 39 Some Divines count Adam 30 years old at his Creation because they suppose him created in the perfect age and stature of man And surely we are all out of the computation of our age and every man is some months elder than he bethinks him for we live move have a being and are subject to the actions of the elements and the malice of diseases in that other World the truest Microcosm the Womb of our Mother For besides that general and common existence we are conceived to hold in our Chaos and whilst we sleep within the bosome of our causes we enjoy a being and life in three distinct worlds wherein we receive most manifest graduations In that obscure World and womb of our mother our time is short computed by the Moon yet longer then the days of many creatures that behold the Sun our selves being not yet without life sense and reason though for the manifestation of its actions it awaits the opportunity of objects and seems to live there but in its root and soul of vegetation entring afterwards upon the scene of the World we arise up and become another creature performing the reasonable actions of man and obscurely manifesting that part of Divinity in us but not in complement and perfection till we have once more cast
I chuse for my devotions but * our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings that they forget the story and can only relate to our awaked souls a confused and broken tale of that that hath passed Aristotle who hath written a singular Tract of Sleep hath not methinks throughly defined it nor yet Galen though he seem to have corrected it for those Noctambuloes and night-walkers though in their sleep do yet injoy the action of their senses we must therefore say that there is something in us that is not in the jurisdiction of Morpheus and that those abstracted and ecstatick souls do walk about in their own corps as spirits with the bodies they assume wherein they seem to hear and feel though indeed the Organs are destitute of sense and their natures of those faculties that should inform them Thus it is observed that men sometimes upon the hour of their departure do speak and reason above themselves For then the soul beginning to be freed from the ligaments of the body begins to reason like her self and to discourse in a strain above mortality Sect. 12 We tearm sleep a death and yet it is waking that kills us and destroys those spirits that are the house of life 'T is indeed a part of life that best expresseth death for every man truely lives so long as he acts his nature or some way makes good the faculties of himself Themistocles therefore that slew his Soldier in his sleep was a merciful Executioner 't is a kind of punishment the mildness of no laws hath invented * I wonder the fancy of Lucan and Seneca did not discover it It is that death by which we may be literally said to dye daily a death which Adam dyed before his mortality a death whereby we live a middle and moderating point between life and death in fine so like death I dare not trust it without my prayers and an half adieu unto the World and take my farewel in a Colloquy with God The night is come like to the day Depart not thou great God away Let not my sins black as the night Eclipse the lustre of thy light Keep still in my Horizon for to me The Sun makes not the day but thee Thou whose nature cannot sleep On my temples centry keep Guard me ' gainst those watchful foes Whose eyes are open while mine close Let no dreams my head infest But such as Jacob''s temples blest While I do rest my Soul advance Make my sleep a holy trance That I may my rest being wrought Awake into some holy thought And with as active vigour run My course as doth the nimble Sun Sleep is a death O make me try By sleeping what it is to die And as gently lay my head On my grave as now my bed Howere I rest great God let me Awake again at least with thee And thus assur'd behold I lie Securely or to awake or die These are my drowsie days in vain I do now wake to sleep again O come that hour when I shall never Sleep again but wake for ever This is the Dormative I take to bedward I need no other Laudanum than this to make me sleep after which I close mine eyes in security content to take my leave of the Sun and sleep unto the resurrection Sect. 13 The method I should use in distributive Justice I often observe in commutative and keep a Geometrical proportion in both whereby becoming equable to others I become unjust to my self and supererogate in that common principle Do unto others as then wouldst he done unto thy self I was not born unto riches neither is it I think my Star to be wealthy or if it were the freedom of my mind and frankness of my disposition were able to contradict and cross my fates For to me avarice seems not so much a vice as a deplorable piece of madness * to conceive our selves Urinals or be perswaded that we are dead is not so ridiculous nor so many degrees beyond the power of Hellebore as this The opinion of Theory and positions of men are not so void of reason as their practised conclusions some have held that Snow is black that the earth moves that the Soul is air fire water but all this is Philosophy and there is no delirium if we do but speculate the folly and indisputable dotage of avarice to that subterraneous Idol and God of the Earth I do confess I am an Atheist I cannot perswade my self to honour that the World adores whatsoever vertue its prepared substance may have within my body it hath no influence nor operation without I would not entertain a base design or an action that should call me villain for the Indies and for this only do I love and honour my own soul and have methinks two arms too few to embrace my self Aristotle is too severe that will not allow us to be truely liberal without wealth and the bountiful hand of Fortune if this be true I must confess I am charitable only in my liberal intentions and bountiful well-wishes But if the example of the Mite be not only an act of wonder but an example of the noblest Charity surely poor men may also build Hospitals and the rich alone have not erected Cathedrals I have a private method which others observe not I take the opportunity of my self to do good I borrow occasion of Charity from mine own necessities and supply the wants of others when I am in most need my self for it is an honest stratagem to make advantage of our selves and so to husband the acts of vertue that where they were defective in one circumstance they may repay their want and multiply their goodness in another I have not Peru in my desires but a competence and ability to perform those good works to which he hath inclined my nature He is rich who hath enough to be charitable and it is hard to be so poor that a noble mind may not find a way to this piece of goodness He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord there is more Rhetorick in that one sentence than in a Library of Sermons and indeed if those Sentences were understood by the Reader with the same Emphasis as they are delivered by the Author we needed not those Volumes of instructions but might be honest by an Epitome Upon this motive only I cannot behold a Beggar without relieving his Necessities with my Purse or his Soul with my Prayers these scenical and accidental differences between us cannot make me forget that common and untoucht part of us both there is under these Cantoes and miserable outsides these mutilate and semi bodies a soul of the same alloy with our own whose Genealogy is Gods as well as ours and is as fair a way to Salvation as our selves Statists that labour to contrive a Common-wealth without our poverty take away the object of charity not understanding only the Common wealth of Christian but
parallel in humane Authors I confess there are in Scripture Stories that do exceed the Fables of Poets and to a captious Reader found like Garagantua or Bevis Search all the Legends of times past and the fabulous comnceits or these present and 't will be hard to find one that deserves to carry the Buckler unto Sampson yet is all this of an easie possibility if we conceive a divine concourse or an influence from the little Finger of the Almighty It is impossible that either in the discourse of man or in the infallible Voice of God to the weakness of our apprehensions there should not appear irregularities contradictions and antinomies my self could shew a Catalogue of doubts never yet imagined nor questioned as I know which are not resolved at the first hearing not fantastick Queries or Objections of Air for I cannot hear of Atoms in Divinity I can read the History of the Pigeon that was sent out of the Ark and returned no more yet not question how she found out her Mate that was left behind That Lazarus was raised from the dead yet not demand where in the interim his Soul awaited or raise a Law-case whether his Heir might lawfully detain his inheritance bequeathed unto him by his death and he though restored to life have no Plea or Title unto his former possessions Whether Eve was framed out of the left side of Adam I dispute not because I stand not yet assured which is the right side of a man or whether there be any such distinction in Nature that she Was edified out of the Rib of Adam I believe yet raise no question who shall arise with that Rib at the Resurrection Whether Adam was an Hermaphrodite as the Rabbins contend upon the Letter of the Text because it is contrary to reason there should be an Hermaphrodite before there was a Woman or a composition of two Natures before there was a second composed Likewise * whether the World was created in Autumn Summer or the Spring because it was created in them all for whatsoever Sign the Sun possesseth those four Seasons are actually existent It is the Nature of this Luminary to distinguish the several Seasons of the year all which it makes at one time in the whole Earth and successively in any part thereof There are a bundle of curiosities not only in Philosophy but in Divinity proposed and discussed by men of most supposed abilities which indeed are not worthy our vacant hours much less our serious Studies Pieces only fit to be placed in Pantagruel's Library or bound up with Tartaretus de modo Cacandi Sect. 22 These are niceties that become not those that peruse so serious a Mystery There are others more generally questioned and called to the Bar yet methinks of an easie and possible truth 'T is ridiculous to put off or down the general Flood of Noah in that particular inundation of Deucalion that there was a Deluge once seems not to me so great a Miracle as that there is not one always ‖ How all the kinds of Creatures not only in their own bulks but with a competency of food and sustenance might be preserved in one Ark and within the extent of three hundred Cubits to a reason that rightly examines it will appear very feasible There is another secret not contained in the Scripture which is more hard to comprehend * and put the honest Father to the refuge of a Miracle and that is not only how the distinct pieces of the World and divided Islands should be first planted by men but inhabited by Tigers Panthers and Bears How America abounded with Beasts of prey and noxious Animals yet contained not in it that necessary Creature a Horse is very strange By what passage those not only Birds but dangerous and unwelcome Beasts came over How there be Creatures there which are not found in this Triple Continent all which must needs be strange unto us that hold but one Ark and that the Creatures began their progress from the Mountains of Ararat They who to salve this would make the Deluge particular proceed upon a principle that I can no way grant not only upon the negative of holy Scriptures but of mine own Reason whereby I can make it probable that the World was as well peopled in the time of Noah as in ours * and fifteen hundred years to people the World as full a time for them as four thousand years since have been to us There are other assertions and common Tenents drawn from Scripture and generally believed as Scripture whereunto notwithstanding I would never betray the liberty of my Reason 'T is a Paradox to me ‖ that Methusalem was the longest liv'd of all the Children of Adam and no man will be able to prove it when from the process of the Text I can manifest it may be otherwise * That Judas perished by hanging himself there is no certainty in Scripture though in one place it seems to affirm it and by a doubtful word hath given occasion to translate it yet in another place in a more punctual description it makes it improbable and seems to overthrow it That our Fathers after the Flood erected the Tower of Babel to preserve thâ—mselves against a second Deluge is generally opinioned and believed yet is there another intention of theirs expressed in Scripture Besides it is improbable from the circumstance of the place that is a plain in the Land of Shinar These are no points of Faith and therefore may admit a free dispute There are yet others and those familiarly conclude from the Text wherein under favour I see no consequence the Church of Rome confidently proves the opinion of Tutelary Angels from that Answer when Peter knockt at the Door 'T is not he but his Angel that is might some say his Messenger or some body from him for so the Original signifies and is as likely to be the doubtful Families meaning This exposition I once suggested to a young Divine that answered upon this point to which I remember the Franciscan Opponent replyed no more but That it was a new and no authentick interpretation Sect. 23 These are but the conclusions and fallible discourses of man upon the Word of God for such I do believe the holy Scriptures yet were it of man I could not chuse but say it was the singularest and superlative piece that hath been extant since the Creation were I a Pagan I should not refrain the Lecture of it * and cannot but commend the judgment of Ptolomy that thought not his Library compleat without it ‖ The Alcoran of the Turks I speak without prejudice is an ill composed Piece containing in it vain and ridiculous Errors in Philosophy impossibilities fictions and vanities beyond laughter maintained by evident and open Sophisms the Policy of Ignorance deposition of Universities and banishment of Learning that hath gotten Foot by Arms and violence This without a blow hath disseminated it self through the whole Earth It
things are compleated in it its age is accomplished and the last and general fever may as naturally destroy it before six thousand as me before forty there is therefore some other hand that twines the thread of life than that of Nature we are not onely ignorant in Antipathies and occult qualities our ends are as obscure as our beginnings the line of our days is drawn by night and the various effects therein by a pensil that is invisible wherein though we confess our ignorance I am sure we do not err if we say it is the hand of God Sect. 44 I am much taken with two verses of Lucan since I have been able not onely as we do at School to construe but understand Victurosque Dei celant ut vivere durent Felix esse mori We 're all deluded vainly searching ways To make us happy by the length of days For cunningly to make's protract his breath The Gods conceal the happiness of Death There be many excellent strains in that Poet wherewith his Stoical Genius hath liberally supplied him and truely there are singular pieces in the Philosophy of Zeno and doctrine of the Stoicks which I perceive delivered in a Pulpit pass for current Divinity yet herein are they in extreams that can allow a man to be his own Assassine and so highly* extol the end and suicide of Cato this is indeed not to fear death but yet to be afraid of life It is a brave act of valour to contemn death but where life is more terrible than deathd it is then the truest valour to dare to live and herein Religion hath taught us a noble example For all the valiant acts of Curtius Scevola or Codrus do not parallel or match that one of Job and sure there is no torture to the rack of a disease nor any Ponyards in death it self like those in the way or prologue to it * Emori nolo sed me esse mortuum nihil curo I would not dye but care not to be dead Were I of Caesar's Religion I should be of his desires and wish rather to go off at one blow then to be sawed in pieces by the grating torture of a disease Men that look no farther than their outsides think health an appurtenance unto life and quarrel with their constitutions for being sick but I that have examined the parts of man and know upon what tender filaments that Fabrick hangs do wonder that we are not always so and considering the thousand doors that lead to death do thank my God that we can die but once 'T is not onely the mischief of diseases and villany of poysons that make an end of us we vainly accuse the fury of Guns and the new inventions of death it is in the power of every hand to destroy us and we are beholding unto every one we meet he doth not kill us There is therefore but one comfort left that though it be in the power of the weakest arm to take away life it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death God would not exempt himself from that the misery of immortality in the flesh he undertook not that was immortal Certainly there is no happiness within this circle of flesh nor is it in the Opticks of these eyes to behold felicity the first day of our Jubilee is Death the Devil hath therefore failed of his desires we are happier with death than we should have been without it there is no misery but in himself where there is no end of misery and so indeed in his own sense the Stoick is in the right He forgets that he can dye who complains of misery we are in the power of no calamity while death is in our own Sect. 45 Now besides the literal and positive kind of death there are others whereof Divines makes mention and those I think not meerly Metaphorical as mortification dying unto sin and the World therefore I say every man hath a double Horoscope one of his humanity his birth another of his Christianity his baptism and from this do I compute or calculate my Nativity not reckoning those Horae combustae and odd days or esteeming my self any thing before I was my Saviours and inrolled in the Register of Christ Whosoever enjoys not this life I count him but an apparition though he wear about him the sensible affections of flesh In these moral acceptions the way to be immortal is to dye daily nor can I think I have the true Theory of death when I contemplate a skull or behold a Skeleton with those vulgar imaginations it casts upon us I have therefore inlarged that common Memento mori into a more Christian memorandum Memento quatuor Novissima those four inevitable points of us all Death Judgement Heaven and Hell Neither did the contemplations of the Heathens rest in their graves without further thought of Rhadamanth or some judicial proceeding after death though in another way and upon suggestion of their natural reasons I cannot but marvail from what Sibyl or Oracle they stole the Prophesie of the worlds destruction by fire or whence Lucan learned to say Communis mundo superest rogus ossibus astra Mist urus There yet remains to th' World one common Fire Wherein our bones with stars shall make one Pyre I believe the World grows near its end yet is neither old nor decayed nor shall ever perish upon the ruines of its own Principles As the work of Creation was above nature so its adversary annihilation without which the World hath not its end but its mutation Now what force should be able to consume it thus far without the breath of God which is the truest consuming flame my Philosophy cannot inform me Some believe there went not a minute to the Worlds creation nor shall there go to its destruction those six days so punctually described make not to them one moment but rather seem to manifest the method and Idea of the great work of the intellect of God than the manner how he proceeded in its operation I cannot dream that there should be at the last day any such Judicial proceeding or calling to the Bar as indeed the Scripture seems to imply and the literal Commentators do conceive for unspeakable mysteries in the Scriptures are often delivered in a vulgar and illustrative way and being written unto man are delivered not as they truely are but as they may be understood wherein notwithstanding the different interpretations according to different capacities may stand firm with our devotion nor be any way prejudicial to each single edification Sect. 46 Now to determine the day and year of this inevitable time is not onely convincible and statute-madness but also manifest impiety * How shall we interpret Elias 6000 years or imagine the secret communicated to a Rabbi which God hath denyed unto his Angels It had been an excellent Quaere to have posed the Devil of Delphos and must needs have forced him to some strange amphibology it hath
wound a thousand and at one blow assassine the honour of a Nation It is as compleat a piece of madness to miscal and rave against the times or think to recal men to reason by a fit of passion Democritus that thought to laugh the times into goodness seems to me as deeply Hypochondriack as Heraclitus that bewailed them It moves not my spleen to behold the multitude in their proper humours that is in their fits of folly and madness as well understanding that wisdom is not prophan'd unto the World and 't is the priviledge of a few to be Vertuous They that endeavour to abolish Vice destroy also Virtue for contraries though they destroy one another are yet in life of one another Thus Virtue abolish vice is an Idea again the community of sin doth not disparage goodness for when Vice gains upon the major part Virtue in whom it remains becomes more excellent and being lost in some multiplies its goodness in others which remain untouched and persist intire in the general inundation I can therefore behold Vice without a Satyr content only with an admonition or instructive reprehension for Noble Natures and such as are capable of goodness are railed into vice that might as easily be admonished into virtue and we should be all so far the Orators of goodness as to protract her from the power of Vice and maintain the cause of injured truth No man can justly censure or condemn another because indeed no man truly knows another This I perceive in my self for I am in the dark to all the world and my nearest friends behold me but in a cloud those that know me but superficially think less of me than I do of my self those of my neer acquaintance think more God who truly knows me knows that I am nothing for he only beholds me and all the world who looks not on us through a derived ray or a trajection of a sensible species but beholds the substance without the helps of accidents and the forms of things as we their operations Further no man can judge another because no man knows himself for we censure others but as they disagree from that humour which we fancy laudible in our selves and commend others but for that wherein they seem to quadrate and consent with us So that in conclusion all is but that we all condem Self-love 'T is the general complaint of these times and perhaps of those past that charity grows cold which I perceive most verified in those which most do manifest the fires and flames of zeal for it is a virtue that best agrees with coldest natures and such as are complexioned for humility But how shall we expect Charity towards others when we are uncharitable to our selves Charity begins at home is the voice of the World yet is every man his greatest enemy and as it were his own Executioner Non occides is the Commandment of God yet scarce observed by any man for I perceive every man is his own Atropos and lends a hand to cut the thred of his own days Cain was not therefore the first Murtherer but Adam who brought in death whereof he beheld the practice and example in his own son Abel and saw that verified in the experience of another which faith could not perswade him in the Theory of himself Sect. 5 There is I think no man that apprehends his own miseries less than my self and no man that so neerly apprehends anothers I could lose an arm without a tear and with few groans methinks be quartered into pieces yet can I weep most seriously at a Play and receive with true passion the counterfeit grief of those known and professed Impostures It is a barbarous part of inhumanity to add unto any afflicted parties misery or indeavour to multiply in any man a passion whose single nature is already above his patience this was the greatest affliction of Job and those oblique expostulations of his Friends a deeper injury than the down-right blows of the Devil It is not the tears of our own eyes only but of our friends also that do exhaust the current of our sorrows which falling into many streams runs more peaceably and is contented with a narrower channel It is an act within the power of charity to translate a passion out of one brest into another and to divide a sorrow almost out of it self for an affliction like a dimension may be so divided as if not indivisible at least to become insensible Now with my friend I desire not to share or participate but to engross his sorrows that by making them mine own I may more easily discuss them for in mine own reason and within my self I can command that which I cannot intreat without my self and within the circle of another I have often thought those noble pairs and examples of friendship not so truly Histories of what had been as fictions of what should be but I now perceive nothing in them but possibilities nor any thing in the Heroick examples of Damon and Pythias Achilles and Patroclus which methinks upon some grounds I could not perform within the narrow compass of my self That a man should lay down his life for his Friend seems strange to vulgar affections and such as confine themselves within that Worldly principle Charity begins at home For my own part I could never remember the relations that I held unto my self nor the respect that I owe unto my own nature in the cause of God my Country and my Friends Next to these three I do embrace my self I confess I do not observe that order that the Schools ordain our affections to love our Parents Wives Children and then our Friends for excepting the injunctions of Religior I do not find in my self such a necessary and indissoluble Sympathy to all those of my blood I hope I do not break the fifth Commandment if I conceive I may love my friend before the nearest of my blood even those to whom I owe the principles of life I never yet cast a true affection on a woman but I have loved my friend as I do virtue my soul my God From hence me thinks I do conceive how God loves man what happiness there is in the love of God Omitting all other there are three most mystical unions two natures in one person three persons in one nature one soul in two bodies For though indeed they be really divided yet are they so united as they seem but one and make rather a duality than two distinct souls Sect. 6 There are wonders in true affection it is a body of Enigma 's mysteries and riddles wherein two so become one as they both become two I love my friend before my self and yet methinks I do not love him enough some few months hence my multiplied affection will make me believe I have not loved him at all when I am from him I am dead till I be with him when I am with him I am not satisfied but
Boetius Possidonius Diogenes Babylonius and Zeno Sidonius who were Stoiques and yet did not think the World should be destroyed by fire nor yet by any other means Sect. 46 Pag. 99 How shall we interpret Elias 6000 years c. Lanctant is very positive that the World should last but 6000 years but his reason for it is somewhat strange thus it is Quoniam sex diebus cuncta Dei opera perfecta sunt per secula sex i. e. annorum sex millia manere in hoc statu mundum necesse est De Divino praemio cap. 14. Sect. 47 Pag. 101 Ipsa sui pretium virtus sibi is but a cold principle It is a Stoical principle Quaeris enim aliquid supra summum interrogas quid petam extra virtutem ipsam Nihil enim habet melius pretium sui est Senec. de vit beat c. 9. That honest artifice of Seneca What that artifice was is to be seen in Senec. l. 1. Ep. Ep. 11. Aliquis vir bonus nobis eligendus est semper ante oculos habendus ut sic tanquam illo spectante vivamus omnia tanquam illo vidente faciamus Et Paulo post Elige itaque Catonem si hic videtur tibi nimis rigidus elige remissioris animi virum Loelium c. which though as the Author saith it be an honest Artifice yet cannot I but commend the party and prefer the direction of him who ever he were who in the Margin of my Seneca over against those words wrote these Quin Deo potius qui semper omnibus omnia agentibus non tanquam sed reipsa adest videt ac etiam ut Testis vindex punitor est malè agentis I have tryed if I could reach that great Resolution of his that is of Seneca to be honest without a thought of Heaven or Hell Seneca brags he could do this in these words Si sâ—irem deos peccata ignoscituros homines ignoraturos adhuc propter vilitatem peccati peccare erubescerem Credat Judaeus appella non ego And Atheists have been the onely Philosophers That is if nothing remain after this life St. Aug. was of this opinion Disputabam Epicurum accepturum fuisse palmam in animo meo nisi ego credidissem post mortem restare animae vitam c. Aug. l. 6. conf cap. 16. Sect. 48 Pag. 104 God by a powerful voice shall command them back into their proper shapes So Minutius Caeterum quis tam stultus est aut brutus ut audeat repugnare hominem à Deo ut primum potuit fingi ita posse denuo reformari nihil esse post obitum ante ortum nihil fuisse sicut de nihilo nasci licuit ita de nihilo licere reparari Porro difficilius est id quod sit incipere quod quam id quod fuerit iterare Tu perire Deo credis si quid nostris oculis hebetibus subtrahitur Corpus omne sive arescit in pulverem sive in humorem solvitur vel in cinerem comprimitur vel in nidorem tenuatur subducitur nobis sed Deo elementorum in custodi inseruntur in Octav. Vide Grot. de veritate Relig Christian ubi lib. 2. solvit objectionem quod dissoluta corpora restitui nequeunt Sect. 50 Pag. 109 Or conceive a flame that can either prey upon or purifie the substance of a soul Upon this ground Psellus lib. 1. de energia Daemonum c. 7. holds That Angels have bodies though he grants them to be as pure or more pure than Air is otherwise he could not apprehend how they should be tormented in Hell and it may be upon this ground it was that the Author fell into the error of the Arabians mentioned by him Sect. 7. Sect. 51 Pag. 112 There are as many Hells as Anax agoras conceited Worlds I assure my self that this is false printed and that instead of Anaxagoras it should be Anaxarchus for Anaxagoras is reckon'd amongst those Philosophers that maintain'd a Unity of the World but Anaxarchus according to the opinion of Epicurus held there were infinite Worlds This is he that caus'd Alexander to weep by telling him there were infinite Worlds whereby Alexander it seems was brought out of opinion of his Geography who before that time thought there remained nothing or not much beyond his Conquests Sect. 54 Pag. 11 It is hard to place those Souls in Hell Lactantius is alike charitably disposed towards those Non sum equidem tam iniquus ut eos putem divinare debuisse ut veritatem per seipsos invenirent quod fieri ego non posse confiteor sed hoc ab eis exigo quod ratione ipsa praestare potuerunt Lactant. de orig error c. 3. which is the very same with Sir Digbie's expression in his Observations on this place I make no doubt at all saith he but if any follow'd in the whole tenour of their lives the dictaments of right reason but that their journey was secure to Heaven Sect. 55 Pag. 118 Aristotle transgress'd the Rule of his own Ethicks And so they did all as Lactantius hath observed at large Aristotle is said to have been guilty of great vanity in his Clothes of Incontinency of Unfaithfulness to his Master Alexander c. But 't is to wonder in him if our great Seneca be also guilty whom truely notwithstanding St. Jerome would have him inserted into the Catalogue of Saints yet I think he as little deserv'd it as many of the Heathens who did not say so well as he did for I do not think any of them lived worse to trace him a little In the time of the Emperour Claudius we find he was banish'd for suspicion of incontinency with Julia the daughter of Germanicus If it be said that this proceeded meerly from the spight of Messalina and that Lipsius did not complement with him in that kind Apostrophe Non expetit in te haec culpa O Romani nominis sapientiae magnae Sol. Not. in Tacit. why then did she not cause him to be put to death as well as she did the other who was her Husband's Niece This for certain whatever his life were he had paginam lascivam as may appear by what he hath written de Speculorum usu l. 1. Nat. Qu. cap. 16. Which admitting it may in a Poet yet how it should be excus'd in a Philosopher I know not To look upon him in his exile we find that then he wrote his Epistle De Consolat to Polybius Claudius his creature as honest a man as Pallas or Narcissus and therein he extols him and the Emperour to the Skies in which he did grosly prevaricate and lost much of his reputation by seeking a discharge of his Exile by so sordid a means Upon Claudius his marriage with Agrippina he was recall'd from Banishment by her means and made Praetor then he forgets the Emperour having no need of him labours all he can to depress him and the hopeful Britannicus and procured his Pupil Nero
to be adopted and design'd Successor and the Emperour 's own Son to be disinherited and against the Emperour whom he so much praised when he had need of him after his death he writes a scurrillous Libel In Nero's Court how ungratefully doth he behave himself towards Agrippina who although she were a wicked woman yet she deserv'd well of him and of her Son too who yet never was at rest till he had taken away her life and upon suspicion cast in against her by this man Afterwards not to mention that he made great haste to grow rich which should not be the business of a Philosopher towards Nero himself how well did it become his Philosophy to play the Traitor against him and to become a complice in the Conspiracy of Piso And then as good a Tragedian as he was me thinks he doth in extremo actu deficere when he must needs perswade Paulina that excellent Lady his wife to die with him what should move him to desire it it could in his opinion be no advantage to her for he believ'd nothing of the immortality of the Soul I am not satisfied with the reason of Tacitus Ne sibi unicê dilectam ad injurias relinqueret because he discredits it himself in almost the next words where he saith Nero bore her no ill will at all and would not suffer her to die it must surely be then because he thought he had not liv'd long enough being not above 114 years old so much he was and had not the fortitude to die unless he might receive some confirmation in it by her example Now let any man Judg what a precious Legacy it is that he bequeaths by his nuncupative Will to his friends in Tacitus Conversus ad amicos saith he quando meritis eorum referre gratiam prohiberetur quod unum jam tamen pulcherrimum habebat imaginem vitae suae relinquere testatur It cannot be denyed of him that he hath said very well but yet it must as well be affirmed that his Practice hath run counter to his Theory to use the Author's phrase The Scepticks that affirmed they knew nothing The ancient Philosophers are divided into three sorts Dogmatici Academici Sceptici the first were those that delivered their opinions positively the second left a liberty of disputing pro contra the third declared that there was no knowledg of any thing no not of this very proposition that there is no knowledge according to that Nihil sciri siquis putat id quoque nescit An sciri possit quod se nil scire fatetur The Duke of Venice that weds himself to the Sea by a Ring of Gold c. The Duke and Senate yearly on Ascension day use to go in their best attire to the Haven at Lio and there by throwing a Ring into the water do take the Sea as their spouse Vid. Hist Ital. by Will. Thomas Cambro brit Busbequius reports that there is a custom among the Turks which they took from the Greek Priests not much unlike unto this Cum Graecorum Sacer dotibus mos sit certo veris tempore aquas consecrando mare clausum veluti reserare ante quod tempus non facile se committunt fluctibus ab ea ceremonia nec Turcae absunt Busb Ep. 3. legat Tursic But the Philosopher that threw his money into the Sea to avoid Avarice c. This was Apollonius Thyaneus who threw a great quantity of Gold into the Sea with these words Pessundo divitias ne pessundare ab illis Polycrates the Tyrant of Samos cast the best Jewel he had into the Sea that thereby he might learn to compose himself against the vicissitude of Fortune There go so many circumstances to piece up one good action To make an action to be good all the causes that concur must be good but one bad amongst many good ones is enough to make it vitious according to the rule Bonum ex causa integra malum ex partiali Sect. 56 Pag. 121 The vulgarity of those Judgments that wrap the Church of God in Strabo's Cloak and restrain it unto Europe 'T is Strabonis Tunica in the Translation but Chlamydi would do better which is the proper expression of the word that Strabo useth it is not Europe but the known part of the World that Strabo resembleth to a Cloak and that is it the Author here alludeth to but we have no reason to think that the resemblance of Strabo is very proper Vid. Sir Hen. Savil in not ad Tac. in vita Agricolae Sect. 57 Pag. 123 Those who upon a rigid application of the Law sentence Solomon unto damnation c. St. Aug. upon Psal 126. and in many other places holds that Solomon is damned Of the same opinion is Lyra in 2 Reg. c. 7. Bellarm. 1. Tom. lib. 1. Controv. c. 5. THE SECOND PART Sect. 2 Pag. 127 I Wonder not at the French for their Frogs Snails and Toad-stools Toad-stools are not peculiar to the French they were a great delicacy among the Romans as appears every where in Martial It was conceived the Emperour Claudius received his death by Poyson which he took in a Mushroom Suet. and Tac. Sect. 1 Pag. 130 How among so many millions of faces there should be none alike It is reported there have been some so much alike that they could not be distinguished as King Antiochus and one Antemon a Plebeian of Syria were so much alike that Laodice the King's Widow by pretending this man was the King dissembled the death of the King so long till according to her own mind a Successor was chosen Cn. Pompeius and one Vibius the Orator C. Plancus and Rubrius the Stage-player Cassius Severus the Orator and one Mirmello M. Messala Censorius and one Menogenes were so much alike that unless it were by their habit they could not be distinguished but this you must take upon the faith of Pliny lib. 7. c. 12. and Solinus cap. 6. who as this Author tells elsewhere are Authors not very infallible Sect. 3 Pag. 138 What a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and hot skirmish is between S. and T. in Lucian In his Dialogue judicium vocalium where there is a large Oration made to the Vowels being Judges by Sigma against Tau complaining that Tau has bereaved him of many words which should begin with Sigma Their Tongues are sharper than Actius his Razor Actius Navius was chief Augur who as the Story saith admonishing Tarqu. Priscus that he should not undertake any action of moment without first consulting the Augur the King shewing that he had little faith in his skill demanded of him whether by the rules of his skill what he had conceived in his mind might be done to whom when Actius had answered it might be done he bid him take a Whetstone which he had in his hand and cut it in two with a Razor which accordingly the Augur did Livy And therefore we must conceive it was very sharp Here the
manner under an Armour of Proof that he is almost invulnerable he can scarce miscarry he hath not so much as an inclination to work contrarily the Alluring Baits of this World tempt him not he disliketh he hateth even his necessarry Commerce with them whilst he liveth On the other side the Hireling that steereth his course by his Reward and Punishment doth well I confess but he doth it with Reluctance he carrieth the Ark God's Image his Soul safely home it is true but he loweth pitifully after his Calves that he leaveth behind him among the Philistines In a word he is vertuous but if he might safely he would do vicious things And hence be the ground in Nature if so I might say of our Purgatory Methinks two such minds may not unfitly be compared to two Maids whereof one hath a little sprinkling of the Green sickness and hath more mind to Ashes Chalk or Leather than meats of solid and good nourishment but forbeareth them knowing the languishing condition of Health it will bring her to But the other having a ruddy vigorous and perfect Constitution and enjoying a compleat entire Encrasie delights in no food but of good nouriture and loaths the other Delights Her Health is discovered in her looks and she is secure from any danger of that Malady whereas the other for all her good Diet beareth in her Complexion some sickly Testimony of her depraved Appetite and if she be not very wary she is in danger of a relapse It falleth fit in this place to examine our Authors apprehension of the end of such honest Worthies and Philosophers as he calleth them that died before Christ his Incarnation Whether any of them could be saved or no Truly my Lord I make no doubt at all but if any followed in the whole Tenor of their lives the Dictamens of right Reason but that their journey was secure to Heaven Out of the former Discourse appeareth what temper of mind is necessary to get thither And that Reason would dictate such a temper to a perfectly judicious man though but in the state of Nature as the best and most rational for him I make no doubt at all But it is most true they are exceeding few if any in whom Reason worketh clearly and is not overswayed by Passion and terrene Affections they are few that can discern what is reasonable to be done in every Circumstance Pauci quos aequus amavit Jupiter aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus Diis geniti potuere And fewer that knowing what is best can win of themselves to do accordingly Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor being most mens cases so that after all that can be expected at the hands of Nature and Reason in their best Habit since the lapse of them we may conclude it would have been a most difficult thing for any man and a most impossible one for mankind to attain unto Beatitude if Christ had not come to teach and by his example to shew us the way And this was the Reason of his Incarnation teaching Life and Death For being God we could not doubt his Veracity when he tolds us news of the other world having all things in his Power and yet enjoying none of the Delights of this Life no man should stick at foregoing them since his Example sheweth all men that such a course is best whereas few are capable of the Reason of it And for his last Act dying in such an afflicted manner he taught us how the securest way to step immediately into Perfect Happiness is to be crucified to all the desires Delights and Contentments of this World But to come back to our Physician Truly my Lord I must needs pay him as a due the acknowledging his pious Discourses to be Excellent and Pathetical ones containing worthy Motives to incite one to Vertue and to deter one from Vice thereby to gain Heaven and to avoid Hell Assuredly he is owner of a solid Head and of a strong generous Heart Where he employeth his thoughts upon such things as resort to no higher or more abstruse Principles than such as occur in ordinary Conversation with the World or in the common Tract of Study and Learning I know no man would say better But when he meeteth with such difficulties as his next concerning the Resurrection of the Body wherein after deep Meditation upon the most abstracted Principles and Speculations of the Metaphysicks one hath much ado to solve the appearing Contradictions in Nature There I do not at all wonder he should tread a little awry and go astray in the dark for I conceive his course of life hath not permitted him to allow much time unto the unwinding of such entangled and abstracted Subtleties But if it had I believe his Natural parts are such as he might have kept the Chair from most men I know For even where he roveth widest it is with so much wit and sharpness as putteth me in mind of a great mans Censure upon Scaliger's Cyclometrica a matter he was not well versed in That he had rather err so ingeniously as he did than hit upon Truth in that heavy manner as the Jesuit his Antagonist stuffeth his Books Most assuredly his wit and smartness in this Discourse is of the finest Standard and his insight into severer Learning will appear as piercing unto such as use not strictly the Touchstone and the Test to examine every piece of the glittering Coyn he payeth his Reader with But to come to the Resurrection Methinks it is but a gross Conception to think that every Atome of the present individual Matter of a Body every grain of Ashes of a burned Cadaver scattered by the Wind throughout the World and after numerous Variations changed peradventure into the Body of another man should at the sounding of the last Trumpet be raked together again from all the corners of the Earth and be made up anew into the same Body it was before of the first Man Yet if we will be Christians and rely upon God's Promises we must believe that we shall rise again with the same Body that walked about did eat drink and live here on Earth and that we shall see our Saviour and Redeemer with the same the very same eyes wherewith we now look upon the fading Glories of this comtemptible World How shall these seeming Contrarieties be reconciled If the latter be true why should not the former be admitted To explicate this Riddle the better give me leave to ask your Lordship if your Lordship if you now see the Cannons the Ensigns the Arms and other Martial Preparations at Oxford with the same Eyes wherewith many years agone you looked upon Porphyrie's and Aristotle's Leases there I doubt not but you will answer me Assuredly with the very same Is that Noble and Graceful Person of yours that begetteth both Delight and Reverence in every one that looketh upon it Is that Body of yours that now is grown to such comely and