divers have laboured to extinguish by denying with the old Academicks and late Socinians that there is any certainty in it and by becoming so witty as to know nothing His regall sceptte I mean his naturall liberty by the command of which the Empire of his little world was swaied is wrested out of his hands and voiced to be wholly forfeited and not any longer to appertain unto him His crown and life was the immortality of his better part as therein chiefly being superiour to beasts and all other things irrationall but behold here also a privy but a dangerous traitour endeavours to despoil him of it so that in fine if all these treacherous assailants might have their wills he shall be wholly mortall poor feeble blind and miserable dethroned from his wonted dignity and cast down unto the lower classe of Beasts Profectò plurima homini ex homine mala as Pliny justly complaineth even though he himself be one of the Authours of those evils which come from man against himself Was it not enough that all inferiour creatures do rebell against us but we must basely and treacherously conspire against our selves The man that going from Jerusalem to Jericho fell amongst thieves had hard measure offered him for he was despoiled and wounded by them and left onely half alive but those thieves amongst whom we are now fallen be farre more cruell for they would kill us outright that is to say both in soul and body and with lesse then this will not be contented But now it is time we begin to examine what urgent reasons what killing arguments there were that moved this new Authour unto so extravagant a course of rigour against all mankind for if these be not very urgent and invincible we must conclude this man guilty not onely of much folly but also of heinous malice and temerity against the rights and prerogatives of man in defense of which we now come into the field against him CHAP. II. His first Classe of arguments examined and refuted HIs first arguments be drawn from mans creation fall restitution and resurrection the principall is this That what of Adam was immortall through Innocency was to be mortalized by transgression But whole Adam quatenus animal rationale was in Innocency immortall Ergo all and every part even whole man liable to death by sinne Upon this bungling argument or syllogisme the weight of all his cause must lean which as I perceive by the posture should have been a syllogisme if the Authour could have cast it into that form but since that might not be we will be contented to take it in grosse as it lies rather then passe it over without an answer We grant then that indeed all Adam for example by sinning became mortall and all and every part of him that is to say he was after so much of his age exspired to yield up to death and be totally corrupted or which is all one he was to have his two essentiall parts disunited and after that untill the resurrection neither he nor any of his parts thus dissevered and disunited to be Adam or a man any longer All which might be without that either the matter of his body or substance of his soul should perish or be destroyed as Thomas de Argentina expresly teacheth in 2. dist 17. ar 1. ad 1. arg And forasmuch as concerns the matter of his body it is an evident case because matter is a thing both ingenerable and incorruptible and so neither produced by his generation nor destroyed by his corruption and as by generation onely fashioned and united so again by corruption or death onely defaced and disunited or dissolved And as for the soul the other part there is no more necessity death should destroy it then there was it should destroy the matter there being no more reason for the one then for the other Wherefore Saint Paul wishing death that so he might be with Christ did not desire to be destroyed as this silly Authours doctrine would infer but to be dissolved for surely if his soul was to have been destroyed by any naturall deficiency or otherwise he could not think to be with Christ during the time of that destruction or dissolution which he wished and so his words and wishing would have been very vain seeing according to this Authour he should by his being dissolved come never the sooner to be with Christ because according to him neither alive nor dead he was to come unto Christ before the generall resurrection nay further his wish would have made against himself and his own ends because he knowing Christ a little in this life might in some small measure injoy him in it but if by death his soul be killed as well as his body he should have no knowledge at all nor comfort of Christ but be cast further off from him then he was before Now as all agree that matter throughout all mutations remaineth incorrupted so also according to the judgement of sundry knowing men and diligent inquirers into the works of nature and transmutation of naturall compounds naturall and materiall forms themselves also do not perish at their parting from their matters but onely are dissolved and dissipated lying after that separation in their scattered atomes within the bosome of nature from whence they had been before extracted by force of the seed the result of whose union was the form So that the entity of the form remains still unperished after corruption though not in the essence and formality of a form or totally and compleatly Thus teacheth the learned Authour of Religio Medici and exactly declares himself of the same mind is the famous late Physician Daniel Sennertus in his Hypomnemata though sometimes not so fully as for example when he ascribes to forms precedent the full production of the subsequent assigning a genitall power or vis prolifica in every form for multiplying of it self by which doctrine he seems to recede from his former principles of Atomes and not to stick constantly to them yea and besides to deliver a conceit which is hardly understood and which moreover seems to be improbable for who can explicate what one form doth when it multiplies another or what kind of causality it doth then exercise or by what strange influence that effect is wrought and the form made up of nothing This same doctrine of Religio Medici and that also which we deliver here touching the origination of forms was the doctrine of old Democritus expressed by him in his constitution of Atomes or minima naturalia as we find it largely expressed and illustrated by Joan. Magnenus l. de Philosophia Democriti ' Disp 2. c. 2. seqq as also by Petrus Gassendus in his voluminous work de Philosophia Epicuri tomo 1. with whom in substance agreed Leucippus as we may find by that which Laertius and others do deliver of him Not that every Atome did contain a form as Sennertus seems to think but rather
the reprehender with greater force then it can be cast upon them by him or any man Now although it be a thing not evident that the spirits seeming to appear are really the souls of such or such deceased persons yet have we no reason to think otherwise but if that they are their good or evill Angells which by divine appointment do act in their behalf and likenesse yet even by that it will appear that those souls are still alive for God himself did often appear by such deputies and manifest himself to Moyses and Abraham by the apparition of his Angels But yet it is a thing no lesse reasonable to judge that they are humane spirits that make an apparition in themselves or at the least in their deputies then to judge that they are spirits Wherefore whoso question 's whether these appearing spirits be souls or no but rather deluding Devils putting on their likenesse may as well doubt whether on the contrary side those same Devils be really Devils and not the souls of men or again whether those living men whom our eyes daily do behold be really men or rather not some delusive apparitions I would fain learn why men contrary to the doctrine of Aristotle Epicurus should distrust their senses in judging every thing to be the same it seems unlesse they see some urgent reason to the contrary Surely in behalf of such apparitions there may be just reasons given because it is not unlikely that souls which had so much dealing in the world during the time of their habitation in the body and contracted so many obligations of justice might after death have something remaining here for them to rectifie and to give notice of unto the living whom it doth concern Besides say that they who appeared were Devils and not souls yet this alone would argue immortality for to Doggs and Horses or such like who have no relation to a future life neither Devils nor souls doe appear neither were it to any purpose that they should I add that if no returnes of souls were to be admitted but that being once gone from hence they were never to be heard of more many men would be afraid that indeed our soules were nothing but a breath or a slender exhalation which after it was once dissipated was never again to be drawn together and consequently that all the reasons brought for immortality were but sophisticall and found out to flatter us in that opinion for so indeed it fell out with Epicurean and wicked men who pleased themselves with Nō est agnitus qui sit reversus ab inferis There was never any known to have returned from the Dead which is as much as to say There were never any Ghosts or souls of men that did appear unto the living after death In the first Edition of this small Tract this argument of Apparitions brought up the rear but it pleased the Censurer of it in Oxford to dash it quite out though for what reason I do not know If it were because he counted all the narrations of apparitions to be fabulous he must give us leave to preferre before him so many faithfull witnesses who have avowed them Again although he esteemed them fabulous yet seeing all men of judgement did not so he might have left the argument to go as farre as it might and every reader to censure of it as he should see cause and not thus to impose laws upon other mens understandings and presume to put down his judgement as a rule to others But contrariwise if he scraped out this argument for fear such stories of apparitions might lead the way to some doctrines which he himself was not willing to admit this his way of proceeding I must tell him seems to me to relish more of craft then ingenuity and also to be so farre from reasonable as he who uses it may justly be compared to him who after a preposterous manner would deny the Premises therefore onely because he did not like the Conclusion or to an evil Astronomer who will not frame his Hypotheses according to his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or celestiall apparences but contrariwise correct his apparences according to his Hypotheses Wherefore our Censurer by this course of his seemed desirous to maintain what he did hold already to be true or false rather then to correct his errours and to take right information for beating out the truth We do acknowledge that the Law the Prophets and the Gospell well understood are sufficient to instruct us and again that for our ordinary intelligence and concernments we are not to expect messengers from the dead yet this will not inforce us to discredit all the testimonies of apparitions which time hath left us or to say that in all occasions they are fruitlesse for as Tostatus reasoneth although they would do no good upon the kindred of Dives which as it seems was hard-hearted yet they might upon others and again although they did not conferre to any living mans conversion and salvation yet they might rectifie some injustices and errours committed by the dead and this for the most part is the errand for which they pretend to come as Tyraeus and other writers teach us and of this Tostatus q. 89. in c. 16. Matth. and q. 54. in c. 17. recites an example happening in his own time and also teaches that at the transfiguration the soul of Moyses appeared upon mount Tabor CHAP. VIII The Catabaptists errour about the sleeping of Souls related and refuted HAving examined our Adversaries chief arguments brought by him for proving the soul's dying and mortality it remains that we take into consideration another errour one of no small affinity with this yea and in effect all one with it namely the sleeping of soules and their being in a state insensible from the first instant of their separation from their bodies untill the generall resurrection Such as maintain this errour not daring as Zanchius l. 2. de oper creat c. 8. notech openly to deny the immortality of mens souls because it seemed over plainly contradictory to the holy Scripture and to the judgements also of the gravest and wifest Philosophers and Divines do therefore deprive them of all sense knowledge or any other vitall operation and lay them to sleep untill the judgement day in which they are to be reunited to their bodies which time is to be the first of their awaking But indeed if this tenet of theirs be viewed diligently we shall finde that this pretended sleep is nothing else but a direct death and onely different in the name and the reason is because for a spirit to be destitute of all vitall and intellectuall operation is nothing else but to be dead seeing that life is nothing else in the soul besides the perpetuall motion or action of it Wherefore in consideration and acknowledgement of this incessant activity Cicero and others delivered that the souls of men were made of fire celestiall and unextinguible borrowed
very forcible which were able to enforce an opinion of life even after the ruines made upon man by death at which time no power in nature was able to make a restauration and then also when few or no messengers came to them from the dead but contrariwise man after his departure was heard of no more nor any news was sent them from the other life It is true that Epicurus stood astonisht at the sight of death and of the many disorders and disturbances in this world and therefore wickedly denyed both providence divine and also immortality which was a consequent thereof But other Philosophers were wiser and more considerate then so and would not forsake the Truths of providence and of immortality because of an encountring difficulty which they could not overcome and therefore touching the other world Aristotle held it the wisest way to be silent Plato had recourse to fictions of his own touching circulations and Palingenesiae after every of his great yeares to be accomplished Pythagoras fled for succour to his transmigrations or Metempsychoses the Stoicks to open falshoods and improbabilities telling us contrary to the expresse determinations of Aristotle and Theophrastus that men might be happy by vertue alone and that no corporeall miseries were evills In fine here Ethnick Philosophy was deficient not being able to satisfie or come home unto us nor to resolve us in our greatest doubts but these great vacancies of Philosophy were to be supplyed by Christian religion alone just as the doubts about the Antipodes were to be cleared by the discoveries of adventurous navigatours for it is Christian religion alone which doth solve this Gordian knot Et caeteri tanquam umbrae vagantur and all the rest like shadows do wander up and down It was Christ the Lamb of God who opened the books of providence which formerly had been sealed up and the contents hidden from the eyes of any mortall man Against the Antipodes and the habitation of the burning Zone great difficulties were urged yet notwithstanding them the reasons on the contrary side were so considerable as they carried many of the wisest with them as by name Polybius the historian Clemens Romanus as we may see in his Epistle to the Corinthians Virgilius B. of Saltzburg which Virgil. being miss-understood by his unskilfull auditours that made a false report of what he taught he had like to have incurred a heavy censure for it Aventin l. 3. hist The two cases viz. of the torrid zone and of immortality be not much unlike for as the Antipodes were denied by many because they were beyond the torrid zone which for the extremity of heat was esteem'd unpassable so the beatitude of man unto which immortality is addressed was held in doubt by many by reason of the frozen zone of death which lyes between our present life and that which icye climate by reason of the extremity of cold could not as it was thought be passed over by any mortall man All which difficulty was encreased by the seeming deficiency of providence over the affaires of man the consideration of which did move even the ablest and the best men as namely Job David Salomon Jeremy and amongst later men Seneca and Boetius although it prevailed not with them as it had done with Epicurus who if he had pleased might have perceived easily that the want of some order and equalities in this life did plainly argue another to come after it and againe the admirable contrivement of the world for the naturall part does evict as carefull a provision also for the morall What shall we think that the great Authour of things was a better naturall Philosopher then a morall or that he was more powerfull then he was good no greater an absurdity then this could be swallowed down by any and so Epicurus while he sought to fly a seeming inconvenience sell into a reall and for the avoyding of a lesser dissiculty fell into a greater This world is the Stage men the Actours our life the Play An action must not be judged by one Scene but by all together and chiefly by the last and before that be shewed no condemnation can passe nor Plaudue be given God then being so great an Artist in composing and also in continuall ordering of this Theatre and of the various lights that hang about it may be presumed not to have been lesse provident in the Action which is to be represented on it then he was about the Theatre it self unlesse we would admit that the Stage should be more artificiall then the Play and that the Architect was better and more skilfull then the Poet. By the actions then of God in his works of Nature he hath given us a most sufficient security for his works of Moralitie and neither Epicurus nor any other had cause sufficient to call it into question Wherefore the other lise must be the last scene and that one must bring all to order and make amends for all the defects and disturbances in the former and so consequently for the finishing of all a succeeding life and a continuated immortality must be allowed us This inference seems so cleare and evident that if no ship of nature could passe the line of death but after a tempestuous voyage and a perilous poor laboursome mortality it must be thrown over board into the deeps and there perish everlastingly then if humane understanding might presume to give a judgement the spectatours of this tragedy would not doubt to say this play was neither worth the acting nor the making yea and besides that so curious and well-built a stage was ill-bestowed upon so mean a historie If all that is of man must end in death and come unto a totall dissolution we can scarce withhold from setting upon it this censure namely That in the Architecture there wanted much symmetry or proportion because the gate was made bigger then the city and besides that mighty were the preparations but the feast was hungry and penurious It was not then the false and flattering desire in man of living ever and of surviving his short and transitory pleasures of this world which did persuade him immortality according as Pliny vainly did surmise but Nature her self it was which did rise up in us for vindicating of her own right of which the unadvised school of Epicurus did labour to dispossesse her And doubtlesse those arguments in favour of immortality could not be otherwise then very powerfull and weighty that in the midst of Ethnicisme were of ability to prevail and by their force to stemme the violent tides of so many advancing difficulties as daily did arise and also to charme the Furies which out of the dark retreats of humane ignorance and imbecillity did incessantly molest them For in very deed it was the unknown and then undiscovered hemisphere of the other life which caused many but the Epicurcans especially utterly to despaire and to conclude our little light and joyes within the
THE GRAND PREROGATIVE OF HUMANE NATURE Namely The Souls naturall or native immortality and freedome from corruption shewed by many arguments and also defended against the rash and rude conceptions of a late presumptuous Authour who hath adventured to impugne it By G. H. Gent. Now first published according to the perfect Copie and the Authours mind Math. 22.32 I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living LONDON Printed by ROGER DANIEL and are to be sold by Antony Williamson at the Queens Armes in St. Pauls Church-yard An. 1653. THE PREFACE SO great and sovereigne to Man hath been the benignity of indulgent Nature as that she hath not only bestowed upon his soul above those of other creatures the high and singular Prerogative of immortality but hath moreover imparted to him light whereby he might come unto the knowledge of it and by that same knowledge be excited to make a diligent inquiry after the obligations that follow on it and how also in this life he may make his best advantages and preparations for the next Neither is this same Truth of immortality any new discovery but acknowledge of old by the Heathenish and Pagan Nations of which thing we in the Work ensuing are to give in a large evidence by our producing the many testimonies of a full and frequent Senate of ancient Sages who being destitute of revelation had nothing but nature to instruct them in this same verity Against these powerfull impulsives and clearer notions of truth the adverse party hath nothing to oppose but mere surmises or suspicions such namely as the Authour of the Book of Wisedome out of their own mouths recordeth saying There hath not any one been known to have returned from below Or else such as Pliny doth imagine who grafteth the opinion of immortality not upon an innate or naturall longing and appetite as he should have done but contrariwise upon a false ambition and greedinesse in man of never ceasing to be Or againe as Lucian who brings nothing to make good what he conceiveth besides down-right impiety dressed up and set forth with facetious scoffes and derisory jestings wherewith neverthelesse sundry ill-affected spirits and feebler understandings are easier perswaded then with solid arguments The Chorus of Seneca afterwards alleadged moved as it may seeme with no better or stronger arguments then these is driven as by a storme into dark and doubtfull cogitations touching the souls mortality and so also is another Chorus consisting of Mahumetan Alfaquies in the English Tragedy of Mustapha By such shadowes also as these a late Philosopher was affrighted and before him some of the ancients so farre forth as to be made imagine that even granting the soul should survive the body yet that it would not thence follow it were perpetuall but that contrarywise in tract of time it might decay and vapour it self at length to nothing burning or wasting out it 's own substance like a torch or candle or at least have a period of duration set it connaturally to the principles of constitution beyond which it was not to passe but at that term or point presently and naturally to extinguish or return to nothing of which vain phantasy we are to consider more hereafter But if suspicions may come to be examined we shall find that there be other sort of them perswading the souls mortality that seeme more hollow and deceitful then the former are as namely a depraved appetite or an unbridled and untamed sensuality that sollicites perpetually to be satisfied and is desirous without feare of future reckonings in the other world to wallow for the present and tumble like a swine in the mire of dirty pleasures and to conceive some shadow of security for it that so with the old Epicureans it might merrily say Ede bibe lude post mortem nulla voluptas Eate and drink and play thy fill There 's after death nor good nor ill Doubtlesse these later perswaders seem to be more ruinous and corrupt then the former and of more dangerous consequence And thus we see that on either side there want not suspicions namely as well for concluding of mortality as of immortality if we will be guided by them But into this high Court of judicature wherein causes so weighty and so grave as this are to be decided suspicions and dark imaginations will not be allowed for evidence or be able to cast the businesse either way To these other proofs which after I alleadge I adde this one which I have placed in the frontispiece of this Treatise namely these words of Christ Matth. 22. partly recited by him out of Exodus I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaak and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead but of the living By force of which Text the Sadduces who denied there surrection were convinced and not onely they but this Authour also against whom we deale for the place proves the soul's immortality as well as the bodies resurrection Because if God be the God of Abraham after death then must his body one day rise againe to the end that being reunited with the soul there might result an Abraham again if he be the God also of the living then must his soul continue living without any intermission from death for as without a body there is no Abraham so without a soul there is no vivens or thing endued with life If you object that it is sufficient if it live then when the body is to rise though not before I answer that this intermitted living neither is nor can be sufficient because then according to this same supposition the soul must have a revivall and refuscitation for the which we have no warrant any where and feign it we must not or if we do it will want weight and be rejected It follows then that the soul of man after the departure of it from the body must either alwayes live or never and so by consequence seeing the soul must live once more it must live alwayes that is to say not onely at the resurrection as this Authour feigneth but continually from the time of the separation to the time of the reunion and so after everlastingly And this is the conclusion was intended And thus much touching the argument of the Treatise following Now touching the Adversary I am to let you know that if the Readers had not deserved much more regard then he and besides if the matter had not required some elucidation more then his objections did an answer I had been wholly silent and spared all this labour I have taken Peradventure it may seem to some that over and above an answer given to this erroneous Authour the paines bestowed in opening the cause of the soul's indeficiency and also the tracing out the severall paths which lead unto the places from whence arguments are to be raised for the proving
to restore it so is it not in the appetite of nature to have a restitution of it so that whatsoever appetite for it there is left behinde is a false and erroneous appetite and not truly naturall and of such an appetite as this we may truly say with Scotus Aquilanus and others of that side that it can be no argument to prove a satisfaction for it But since the appetite which we alleadge is none of that sort but contrariwise truly naturall this graunt taketh off nothing from the force of our argument drawn from that true appetite In fine although wheresoever there appeares a naturall impossibility for the performance of any thing we may rightly from thence inferre that the appetite to it is not naturall yet it is not necessary as Tostatus would have it that before such time as we can allow any appetite to be naturall we ought to know the object of that appetite to be possible for it sufficeth if we do not know it to be impossible because this obstacle being removed or else not put the appetite may be discerned to be naturall by other wayes viz. by the greatnesse and universality of it and againe by this same naturality of it we may discover it to be also rationall and consequently the object of it not to be impossible of which points see Valentia tom 1. As for creatures irrationall I mean brute beasts and other of that degree of life they do not aime properly at any perpetuity neither do they love or hate death or have any apprehension of it 'T is true they love not to be killed but why is this not because they shunne death but because they hate and flie paine which is a companion of death then when it comes by killing and violence but we do abhorre death under the proper likenesse and do aime directly at a formall perpetuity and that perpetuity not of any dull or senselesse being but of a vigorous life and intellectuall I say distinctly of such a life for which of us would not be as willing to be quite annihilated as to be turned into a brute or into a stone and again no lesse unwilling to be a stone then to be totally destroyed and blotted out of the book of Nature in regard that creatures which are not intellectuall do not possesse or enjoy themselves and so receive no benefit by their being made nor by their being destroyed any losse for those that had nothing given them can have nothing taken away In consideration of this it is not the book of Nature in which we desire to be registred but in the Book of such a Life perpetuity without it being not esteemed by us nor yet such a life without perpetuity Besides it is no question but that Nature by her giving life understanding to man intended it for his benefit Now a knowing or intelligent life that must have an end by a perpetuall death is no benefit at all but rather an infelicity and therefore man by dying payes a large tribute for the life was lent him and returnes to Nature more than he received from her and the interest he payes amounts in that case to more than the principall because in one death come when it will there is more acerbity included and greater bitternesse than there could be jucundity or content betwixt the largest termes of living or in the most fortunate successes that ever were so we may indeed justly and properly be said when we die to pay and to pay also with advantage our debt to Nature wherefore when man dies if he then be extinguished he should not dye in Natures debt but contrariwise Nature should remaine in his yea and owe him also a vaste summe to recompense him for being put to live upon those hard conditions of being afterwards to dye that is to be thrown down and destroyed by her that built him for what could this be else but to be lifted up on high that his fall might be the greater and more afflictive Better surely to lye still though never so low then to rise up to fall For what thing more discontenting than fuisse aliquande non esse vixisse non vivere to have been sometimes and not to be any longer to have had a life or living spirit and now not to have any but to be thrown for ever amongst the dead and to be cast down as low as lumpes of earth or heaps of stones It is commonly received as a truth that there is nothing so afflictive as once to have been happy and not to be so any longer And indeed if the case were so with man that death should devoure him wholly and put an end to all extinguishing both him and his desires together the complaint of Pliny against Natures harshnesse might seem not to have been made without just cause namely that she is illiberall to man Cujus causâ videtur cuncta alia genuisse magna saeva mercede contra tanta sua munera ut non satis sit aestimare parens melior homini an tristior noverca fuerit that is upon such hard conditions that it were not easie to determine whether she had shewed her self towards him like an indulgent mother or a cruell stepdame So he l. 7. in Proem and rightly supposing as he falsely did the soul of man to be mortall forasmuch as out of that erroneous conceit this absurdity or rather impiety must follow Turpiùs ejicitur quà m non admittitur hospes For what is the benefit of an ending life Is it not to taste of light and living that you might feel the grief of loosing it which otherwise you would not have done and to be shewed made infinitely enamoured of a felicity which you are never to enjoy but to be barred of for ever Again if man by death should be utterly destroyed what did it avail him to have lived were his eyes think we given him that with them he might have a sight of death how ill he likes him or how grimly and unpleasantly he looks shall all his education and labours taken in the world serve for nothing but at the end to marry him to rottenness and for wormes to be his sisters everlastingly A fair preferment at the close of all and a worshipfull kindred We cannot dive into the counsels of the Almighty but yet by his other mercies and perfections we may gather that he is too good too bountifull to set down so hard an order for us or to have been so sparing of his gifts What shall any man think that we all were sent into the world upon a frivolous errand that is to say to come in hither onely to goe out again and so to be as very nothings at the last end as we were at the first entrance That death should make us neither lesse nor more But merely nothing as we were before Or were we sent hither by a power superiour onely to make sport for the lookers on such
from the starres and the Poets in relation also to this did feign that Prometheus stole fire from heaven wherewith he gave life to his men of clay which he had made Now fire as we know is an element alwayes in action yea even then when it is raked up in ashes for even then it works both upon the food that maintains it and also on the adjoyning bodies Wherefore no charm no medicine soporiferous can cast the spirit of man into such a dull and deadly heavinesse as it shall not so much as have a feeling of it self nor be awaked by any other voice then that of the last trumpet which shall with a dreadful found call all to judgement and which noise shall be heard even by bodies then which there is nothing more dead or more corrupted nothing farther off from life as having the atomes of which they were composed now all disordered and scattered with the wind and therefore that soul which can be rouzed up by a voice no lower must needs be more then a sleep or laid down to rest Sleep is a thing different from Death though nearly allied unto it as Seneca doth signifie in the Prosopopeia following Et tu somne domitor laborum Pars humanae melier vitae c. Sharp sorrows tamer steep that art Of life humane the choicer part Astrea's off-spring here beneath Faint brother unto pallid Death Consanguineus Lethi Sopor saith another Sleep is Death's kinsman but how near we will not examine and yet so near we are sure as to a spirituall or intellectuall substance they are both one and one of them as destructive of life in it as the other because though they in themselves be things distinct yet sleep is as deadly to the soul as death it self is to the body and can agree as little with it because though sense can rest from action yet reason cannot in regard there is a greater and a more eminent kinde of vivacity in the one then in the other If the Authours of this phantasie would be understood let them declare first what kinde of Entity they take a spirit to be secondly seeing a spirit hath no body to rest nor senses to shut up nor vitall or animall spirits to repair what this sleep of a spirit is I mean how they will define it If they cannot do this then are they bunglers and speak they know not what and therefore not regardable If they say it is a cessation from action and from possibility immediate of action then hath a spirit no life left in it more then a stone or a dead body and so in this case to sleep and to dy signify the same thing though in terms that are different Yet say that they indeed could tell us what kind of thing this sleep should be that same is not enough unlesse besides they do prove it strongly for such extravagancies as this is are not to be admitted without convincing arguments to make them good Let us hear then what their arguments be and let us consider also of what weight CHAP. IX Volkelius his Arguments for this Errour examined and refuted VOlkelius a known man and a most principall Socinian is the stoutest Champion in this attempt therefore let us hear him what he saith Holy men saith he after their change of this present life with death are said in the Scripture not to be any longer Psal 39.14.37.10 Jerem. 21.15 Matth. 2.18 Thren 5.6 and being dead do neither live actually nor understand c. And though the spirits of men return to him that gave them as shall be demonstrated elsewhere yet that those same spirits be persons which do any thing or be sensible or do now enjoy pleasures everlasting is a thing so farre off from being taught us by the holy Scripture as on the contrary side it is easily shewed to be repugnant to them and that also by reasons very evident For Paul affirmeth that if the resurrection of the dead were not to be hoped for a vain thing it were to think of piety or for the Truth 's sake to undergo so manifold calamities and that of all men the Christians would be the most miserable Which assertion of his could not be true of the souls of men without the resurrection were setled in such pleasures and authority as that they did not onely enjoy a good eternall but were also in a state to give assistance unto others because that same felicity of theirs would be so great as scarcely no accession might be made unto it by the resurrection Thus reasoneth Volkelius My answer to the first part is by denying it to be said in Scripture simply and absolutely that souls departed or men departed have no Being at all but onely that they have no being upon the earth in regard that by dying they cease not only to be men any longer of this world but even to be men as before death they had been and this must needs be the true meaning of the places quoted by the Adversary in the Margin and not that other which he pretendeth because it is a thing most evident both in reason and in holy Scripture also that the parts of which men are composed be not annihilated by death without any remnant of Being left them but that they cease onely to be united or to be men in respect of which deficiency alone it might be truely affirmed of men as it is in Scripture that after death they are not in being To the second part I say that although the soul after separation from the body be not a person humane or an entity compleat yet still hath it a stable subsistence and leaveth not to be a substance intellectuall or a spirit Wherefore it doth not follow that because the soul is not a person or a compleat entity after separation that therefore it can have no action but must either sleep or dy The soul be it separated or united is a spirit a spirit is intellective an intellective substance can neither dy nor wholly cease from action as before hath been proved and therefore is not capable either of sleep or slumber or in any danger of being benummed and much lesse of death To the third I answer that the Apostle speaketh there not of Christian souls being miserable but of Christian mens being so and therefore let the souls be never so happy after death yet if there should be no resurrection the men could be never otherwise then miserable yea farre more miserable then any other men because in this life they should be afflicted in a higher degree then others and in the next they should not be at all You will say What matter is it if the men be miserable in this world and never happy in any world so the souls in the next world be made happy In opposition to this I say Yes it is a matter and a very great matter also if we will weigh things rightly for to be miserable in
the whole and afterward to be happy onely by the halfes is a great and capitall inconvenience Let the soul be where it will and as happy as can be yet if the body do not rise again but ly trampled under foot be triumphed over by death everlastingly the condition of man as man would be very miserable that of a Christian more then of an ordinary man Besides as the soul findes pain and contentment by the body in this life so ought it afterwards or else it would want somewhat of the former perfection To the fourth part I answer that notwithstanding the soul be happy before the resurrection yet great will the advantage be that both the soul and also the whole man shall get at that great day For then at that time man recovers himself is put into a new possession of what he lost by death now what I beseech you can be dearer and more welcome unto man then he himself is neither can his victory over death be compleated till then neither again is his crown of glory finished before that recovery be made Besides this the soul also gains not a little portion of felicity by this recovery for so think many grave Doctours both ancient and modern but what is the certainty or the particulars that is a mystery which we know not yet some may guesse that as at the resurrection there is an accession of one essentiall half of man added to the soul which is the other half essentiall so also there is one half greater or lesse of felicity that doth then accrew and is not one half of felicity a notable accession and a great advantage It may well be for ought Volkelius knowes to the contrary that the soul during the state of separation shall have allotted to it by the verdict of the first Judgement which is a judgement of souls such a portion onely or proportion of felicity as belongs unto it under the title of being a forme assistent in which capacity it might act divers things by it self without assistance or cooperation of the body but at the resurrection the same soul shall have by a verdict of the second Judgement which is a judgement of men another portion of felicity allotted to it so much namely as might correspond unto the soul as it is a forme informing and makes up together with the body organicall one compleat agent which compleat agent is the Authour and Actour of the greater part of all the actions of this life See Estius in a. sent dist 45. § 7. ad 4. So that the former portion of felicity hath a correspondence to the soul alone the later portion both to soul and body not as they are severall but as united and knit up into one All this whether it be true or no I know not but yet thus much I know that it may be true for ought that Volkelius hath said and therefore is it sufficient to break the force of his argument and wholly to evacuate it till he have proved the contrary My conclusion is that as in death there is a sorrowfull departing and the farewell between soul and body is a very sad one so in like sort at the resurrection when they meet never after to be divorced there needs must be a joyfull interview between them and those second nuptials be a most solemne festivall a day of light and exultation in which the mutual congratulations will be unexpressible And therefore let Volkelius imagine what he pleases the soul by the last day and by the resurrection will be a mighty gainer and receive new joyes new treasures of felicity To the alledged place of the Apostle to the Corinthians I answer that it makes nothing at all for Volkelius his purpose because it is not said there that without the resurrection there is no felicity but onely that our faith was void unlesse Christ had risen and if our faith were void then would all promises of comfort and felicity be void also and so by consequence neither our souls nor our bodies should attain to happinesse Out of which defect it would also follow that Christians of all other men should be the most miserable because they in this life should have more afflictions fewer comforts then other men in the next life have none at all nor any thing wherewith to recompense them for their labours abstinences and sufferings here But say that the souls might be compleatly happy although there should be no resurrection yet neverthelesse even in this case the condition of a Christian would be more sad and more unhappy then that of other men so farre forth as concerns his body at the least which is one half of man and one essentiall part and also is that of which the Apostle doth in this place principally entreat and so the Adversaries argument can conclude no way You may further object that in sundry places of holy Scripture dying men are said to sleep for example with their fathers and this manner of speaking is very frequent But the answer is manifest because this word sleep is meant of the body onely which being dead lies in the sepulchre quietly as in a bed and is at the great day to be called up again as one that wakened out of a sleep a very dead one Besides this word sleep when meant of the soul is onely a symbolicall expression My Conclusion is with S. Hierome ad Pammach Incorporalem aternam animam in modum glirium immobilem torpentemque sentire non possumus We cannot be perswaded that the incorporeall and everlasting soul is like to a Dormouse immoveable and benummed or to Swallowes that sleep all winter So thought this ancient Doctour and for our own part we can be as soon perswaded that the soul may dream as that it should sleep and if we will believe Albertus magnus in 4. dist 44. ar 41. to hold that separated souls should dream were a thing ridiculous and therefore no lesse to think that they can sleep or slumber Again as Carolus Bovillus noteth it is a thing contrary to nature reason and Philosophy to put any substance destitute of connaturall operation wherefore either grant the operation or else take away the substance and so let the souls of men either be active and awake or else let them not be at all for to say they are and yet are not operative is a grosse non sequitur and not to be admitted by men of reason Wherefore if we grant the soul to be a substance intellectuall then to go consequently to this we must also grant it to be immortall and again if both intellectuall and immortall that then also it can never cease from the exercise of connaturall operations and so lastly can never be a sleep I end this chapter with the magistrall doctrine of the learned B. Tostatus l. de statu Animae Concl. pr. 1. of Avila The souls saith he if they remain immortall after death
circles of humane mortality just as the ignorant vulgar did conceive that the Sun when it goes down to us did lye concealed and bathed it self in Tethis salt waves untill the following morn began to call upon it Can I say these reasons of persuasion be counted weak that were able from age to age to carry on the doctrine of immortality against the violent streams of death and dissolution which seemed to be diseases irrecoverable and by them a man brought into a state that is desperate and never to be altered and therefore it was an usual saying Mors ultima linea rerum Death is the utmost line of things beyond which there is no going and as it were the pillars of Hercules with the Nil ultra graven on them Neither were those same reasons able after corruption and ashes to reare up a single frame of life for perpetuity onely in the soul of man but also to attempt it for the body yea and to come very neare the absolute proving of it and the evicting of a Resurrection as a thing due unto the principles of nature and as a sequele also of the attribute of Justice divine in consideration of which two reasons it appeares that albeit the Resurrection cannot be naturall yet it is a very neare borderer upon nature and that we may so speak not distant from it three fingers breadths the intervall or distance between them being no more then the want of a naturall agent that might be able to reunite the soul and body after separation Whereupon I conclude that the Resurrection of the body is none of the hardest articles of our faith but contrariwise such a one as may be persuaded easily In confirmation of this truth I cannot passe over in silence a memorable conference between Almaricus king of Jerusalem and William B. of Tyrus recorded by Tyrius himself libro 19. capite 3. de bello sacre The question propounded to by the king was this viz. Whether setting aside the doctrine of our Saviour and of the Saints that followed him the Resurrection could be proved by any evident and convincing arguments To which being moved with the newnesse of the word I answered That the doctrine of our Saviour and Redeemer was sufficient who in many places of the Gospel doth teach us most manifestly that the Resurrection is to be and that he is to come as Judge to judge both the living and the dead the world by fire as also that he will give unto the elect a kingdome prepared for them from the constitution of the world to the wicked fire everlasting prepared for the Devil and his angels Besides the pious assertion of the Apostles and Fathers of the old Testament may be sufficient To which he made answer All this I firmly hold but yet do desire a reason wherewith I might prove it to one who should deny this and did not receive the doctrine of Christ namely that the Resurrection is to come and after death another life To whom my answer was Take upon you then said I the person of one so affected and let us try whether or no we can finde out any thing Content said he Then I You do confesse that God is just Then he I hold nothing to be more true Then I replied Is it justice to return to the just good things for their good deeds and to the wicked evil things for their wickednesse Then he It is very right Then I But in our present life this is not done because in this world good men finde nothing but afflictions and adversities but the wicked enjoy a continued prosperity as dayly examples do teach us Then he It is a certainty Then I proceeded Therefore this is to be done in another life because God cannot be otherwise then a just rewarder therefore there is to be another life and a resurrection of this body of ours in which we deserved good or evil and therefore ought to receive a reward accordingly Then he This pleases me exceedingly and by it all my doubting is taken off Thus farre are the words of the grave and faithfull historian Guil. Tyrius Besides this the soul being a forme of a body organicall is not in a full perfect state nor in a full contentment without the body as Argentina in 4. d. 49. Tostat c. 4. Deut. q. 7. c. 25. Matth. q. 63. Aquin. in supplem q. 75. ad 4. 1 2. q. 4. a. 5. 4. con Gentes c. 79. Ferrarien ibid. Albertus l. 7. Comp. c. 16. do evict for indeed all formes informing do receive perfection from the matter informed by them as well as communicate perfection to it and again in things created every totall entity is more perfect then a part as S. Bonaventure clearly sheweth in 4. d. 43. q. 1. CHAP. XI Mans being by Procreation no argument of his Soul's mortality THat mans soul must have the being by generation because the man himself hath his being by it is no good consequence and the reason why some have been deceived in judging it a good one or that of due his soul ought to be generated as well as the souls of Beasts hath been partly a false apprehension what the true nature and essence of generation was partly also what was the perfection essence of man As for the first misprision it was that generation was not only to make the composituÌ„ or whole to be but also the parts by the conferring unto them not onely the being parts but also the simple Being or the being â—â—â—ties that is to say not onely the formality of them but even the naturality which conceit of theirs is a false conception and against all reason and principles of Philosophy for by them we are clearly taught that it is Man which is procreated or made by generation and not his soul his body is made or framed by it and not the matter of which it is composed For it is a received maxime and most true touching the power of naturall causes at least though no farther Quòd ex nihilo nihil fit Of nothing there is nothing to be made out of which it follows that before generation both matter and formes of all corporeall things must have before-hand a being in rerum natura at least an incompleat one and cannot possibly have it from generation Wherefore by the work of generation they are not made or receive any new absolute entity but onely are collected ordered and at last substantially linked and united one with another which union is not by a sole approximation contiguity or juxta-position that I may so speak of one of them with another as it falls out in artificiall compounds where colours for example though they be not pictures yet being thus or thus chosen formed and united make up such or such a picture but it is by a continuity or an inward and substantiall knot which is in our power better to conceive then explicate and yet not to
no man who as a Poet speaketh hath any thing within him that leaps under his left breast but that if he be well perswaded of his souls immortality and so by a plain sequel thereupon sees that he hath a longer part to act after his Exit from off this earthly Theatre then he hath here he will never live unmindfull of that second state and therefore will be sure to stop his eares against the Sirens bewitching songs and not drink of the inchanting cups of Circe whose fordid pleasures are feigned to have turned Vlysses his unwary companions into swine nor lastly Esau-like for a small pittance of temporall contentments or for a few voluptuous hours consumed in vice or vanity neglect the safety of his immortall spirit and sell his birth-right of Eternity I will seal and signe this whole dispute with the determination and censure of the book of Wisdome which book whether it be received into the Canon or no yet is it confessedly very ancient and therefore by consent of all may claim a just precedence of authority before any Heathen Philosopher whatsoever the words are these Justorum animae in manu Deisunt non tanget illas tormentum mortis visi sunt oculis insipientium mori illi autem sunt in pace The souls of the just be in the hands of God and the torment of death shall not touch them to the eyes of the foolish they seemed to dy but they remain in peace Chap. 3. Behold here in the judgment of this venerable Authour what kind of people they are who hold the souls mortality namely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as be destitute of true judgement and understanding This is not my censure neither is this character of my making for who am I that I should presume so far but it is the judgment of the ancient Authour of the book of Wisdome whose yeares and credit may deserve regard even amongst those spirits that be most confident of their own conceptions and be the greatest admirers and idolaters of themselves In fine this ancient Sage brands all deniers of our souls immortality with the self-same note of ignominy that David the kingly prophet did mark that wretched mortall who closely in his heart had said There is no God Psa 13. Yet there is this odds between them two and worthy to be observed for though both of them be impious and absurd yet one of them had some shame in him and said it onely in his heart but this Adversary of ours goes further and had the face to publish his impiety in Print or at least the heart to do it so as he himself might ly concealed his name unknown Which covert way of his though it appear not altogether so bold and bad as if he had put his name unto his work yet was it an act too bold for any Christian man or true Philosopher to exercise or to be an Authour of in Print for alas after so many great Divines and deep Philosophers whose uniforme suffrages we have for the dignity of man that is to say for the soul 's immortal nature and incorruptibility how could the cogitations unto the contrary of this poor worm be a matter any way considerable with men of understanding and ability A Peripatetick Disquisition touching the Rationall Soul's Immortality whether it be Natuturall to it or no. THis intellectuall substance the Soul which is our Intelligencer for all things abroad being shut up here in an obscure prison of a corruptible body doth not without great difficulty know it self and learn out what kinde of entity it is corporeall or spirituall corruptible or free from corruption Hence arose so many varieties of opinions and even amongst those who asserted immortality so many degrees thereof Dicaearchus a Peripatetick Philosopher of Sicily was of opinion that men had no souls at all but notwithstanding this the soul being ashamed to be so grossely ignorant as to deny it self this man was left alone and had no followers Epicurus Lucretius and Pliny granted man a soul but denied the immortality of it condemning it to a death perpetuall which impious assertion hath been refuted by all the best Philosophers of Plato's Pythagora's Zeno's and Aristotle's School also excepting Alexander and some very few of no note Amongst those that admitted a perpetuity to the soul some did it with an intermission as namely the Hereticks called Arabici who as Georgius Syncellus in his Chronicle now newly published Parisii◠1652. ex typographia Regia anno Christi 237 testifieth did impiously hold the soul in the hour of death to perish with the body and again both of them to be revived at the resurrection concerning which point a famous Synod was assembled The same errour is largely shewed of them by Abraham Ecchellensis in his Historiae Orientalis supplemento where he describeth the customes and doctrines of the Arabians Now it is manifest that during the interim between death and the resurrection the soul is in being is alive and also awake by those reasons that do prove the immortality simplicity and immateriality of it as also by apparitions of them of which the Christian Histories are full and it is justified by Eustratius a Priest of S. Sophia in his Tract remembred by Photius in his Bibliothecae wherein he affirms that souls do appear really and not good or evil Angels in their places and lastly the same is confirmed even by Ethnick Histories as for example by that which Phlegon Trallianus in his Book de mirabilibus longaevis relates first of Polycrates after of Philinion by the appearing of Apollonius Tyanaeus after his death to his scholars assuring them of the souls incorruptibility about which they had been doubtfull and disputing if we may believe Philostratus who writ his life by the apparition of a Ghost to Athenodorus recorded by Pliny in his Epistles and last of all by Plutarch out of whom Georgius Monachus Syncellus relateth this notable following History Chronogr anno Christi 37. Caligulae 3. Caius Caligula saith he also slew Julius Canus the Stoick Philosopher of whom the Greeks relate a fiction beyond all credit namely that he being led to dy is reported to have foretold to one Antiochus a Seleucian who followed him with a minde undisturbed that the night following he would be with him and deal about a question worth the discussing and moreover that Rectus another of his fellowes should be slain by Caius within three dayes all which the event proved to be true he being slain within that space Antiochus relating what he had seen by night and that he had beheld Canus who had disputed with him concerning the immortality of the soul and the passage of it after death unto a purer light Thus Syncellus which relation I see no reason why he should hold to be a fiction Averroës as we use to call him grants a soul that is spirituall and immortall yet grants but one and that one to
to have been arguments well steeled that should be of power sufficient to force theirway through the brazen wall of death and to rear up a huge pile or fabrick of another life after corruption and rottennesse of which life they could perceive few or no signes appearing in the world Wherefore although the arguments for immortality were very weighty yet they having such a strong barre laid to crosse their way no marvell if sundry of those Ancients should be brought unto a stand and the arguments as forcible as they were benummed and though not killed yet cast into a slumber For indeed because men then knew not how to dispose of souls after their separation from the body therefore they might have license granted them to speak doubtfully not knowing what to determine or to say nothing at all either pro or contra Some few we finde did contradict as by name Epicurus and Lucretius yet notwithstanding this maine obstacle the generall sense of the world was for the immortality and much more then when the other hemisphere of life came creditably to be discovered by the Messias for at that time those old reasons for immortality awaked and recovered their naturall vigour and vivacity and no wonder because this truth of immortality and that other of a life to come are mutuall inductives one unto the other and conspire so friendly as whosoever denies either of them doth disparage and weaken the other and again they give so great aides to each other as that the notice of another life made ready way for the entertainment of immortality and contrariwise the doctrine of immortality added reputation to the doctrine of the other life Moreover The incorruptible nature of the reasonable soul The state of felicity or infelicity in a life to come That God is the high Rectour of the Universe extends his providence over all and is a just and bountifull rewarder be all of them symbolizing verities and of a strict confederacy both offensive and defensive and so can hardly be overthrown I conclude this small labour as Pythagoras and Philolaus concluded their golden verses wherein the ancient doctrine is declared plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sic ubi deposito jam corpore libera coeli Templa penetrâris Deus immortalis omni Spretus ab illuvie terrarum eris integer avi And having once laid down our dust Through spacious aiery Lawnes we must And free in those large circles move Immortall like the Gods above 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Hierocles the Commentatour limiting and qualifying the higher expression of the verse by admonishing his reader that albeit Gods we must be yet not simply and absolutely as the words do sound but onely so farre forth as it is possible for a separated soul to be FINIS POST-SCRIPT OVer and above those reasons brought by the Authour of the precedent work all which do prove an immortalitie naturally belonging to the soul there want not divers others that do the same as amongst the rest for example this one viz. Such as the physick and food of the soul is for curing of the maladies thereof and for the strengthening and cherishing of it such is the nature of the soul it self But the physick and food of the soul is wholly immateriall and intellectuall that is to say Reasons and Truths eternall and incorruptible Therefore the nature of the soul is such I prove the minor proposition by experience for when the minde is troubled and out of peace and order by reason of some losse or misfortune then all the Materia medica of Dioscorides or of Horstius will not make a cure if so the body be not diseased or out of tune no physicians skill will be able to prevail we must not seek in such cases as these to Galen or Celsus or Paracelsus or Avicenna no druggists shop no physick-garden can furnish us with remedies against the raging sorrows or bewitching pleasures of the minde Non est medicamen in hortis Tollere nodosum nescit medicina dolorem A sick body physicians can sometimes cure but a sick mind never If so the body be then in health and that the infirmity do not proceed from thence Philosophy in that case must do the deed and not Medicina Philosophy saith Hierocles in Proem ad aureos versus Pythagora is the purger of humane life and the perfection the purger it is because it delivers it from all corruption contrary to reason and from the mortall body the perfecter because by the recovery of the true naturall constitution it reduceth it to a similitude with the divine which two things being to be done by vertue and verity by one of them it takes away the distempers of perturbations and by the other induces a God-like form into it Thus he conformably to whom determineth the wise Emperour Marcus Aurelius Antoninus l. 2. de vita sua § 15. when having numbred up a world of miseries and perplexities which haunt this life he addeth saying What is it then that must conduct us through all these Philosophia Also the great Aegyptian King Osmanduas as we find it recorded by Diodorus Siculus l. 1. p. 2. raised a goodly structure which had graven on it this inscription Medicatorium Animi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a store-house for curing of the minde and this same was not an Apothecaries-shop but a Library well furnished with books wherewith to charme mens cares and cure both the vain delights and bitter anguishes of the mind whose tranquillity is not procurable by medicines or receipts but contrariwise by the good documents for example of Epictetus of Seneca or Marcus Antoninus and where all Pagan doctrines and consolations be deficient by the instructions and good counsels to be found for us in the Holy Bible in Thomas de Kempis Peraldus Petrarch de remediis utrinsque fortunae and other such like The Recipes taken from hence will work when all the materiall compounds quintessences extractions and Elixirs can do nothing as not having vertue in them nor yet subtility to penetrate Now albeit the Ethnick Moralists can do much for pacifying our disordered affections and introducing a content yet do they not come home for though they be able to persuade a generous contempt of all transitory delights and fading glories and also how to draw on a kinde of sad or disconsolate way of resolution for a constant suffering of all adversities telling us that Quidquid erit superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est and read us many such melancholy lectures yet do not they assigne us any solid reasons whereupon to build content or whereby we might receive true satisfaction but contrariwise endeavour to feed us with shadows as namely by their telling us that vertue is an ample reward unto it self and again that the miseries and affliction of this present life are not evills really though we do think them so and with such empty phantasies as these would make us give our own experience the lie Moreover they sometimes speak faintly and fearfully of the life to come and the rewards thereof by means of which alone the inequalities and the great disorders of this can be made up and reconciled with providence On this sort spake Tacitus concerning the soul of his Father in law Julius Agricola then late deceased Si quis piorum manibus locus sit si ut Sapientibus placet non cum corporibus extinguuntur magnae animae placidè quiescas If saith he to the spirits of the pious there be any place remaining if as wise men are persuaded great souls be not extinguished with their bodies mayest thou sweetly rest To strong and pressing sorrows such feeble remedies did many of the Ethnicks bring but this sovereign medicine was left for Christianity to compose and shew unto the world by the belief of which those cold sweats with which many before had been sore afflicted were prevented wholly Another naturall track whereby to trace out immortality is the universall shamefastnesse of mankinde of the own nakednesse which passion is not found to be in brute beasts and the reason of the difference between them seems to be because beasts are corruptible and are so to be but men though now they also be corruptible yet it seems they were not so to be but onely by a misadventure or mischance for mans body because composed of severall disagreeing parcells is dissolvable and may be taken in sunder by the very same way that it was put together and therefore by the own right cannot lay any just claim to a perpetuity more then other composed bodies can yet it seems that by right of the being matched with a substance intellectuall it might pretend unto it and therefore holds it a disparagement and disgrace to be reputed mortall which without such a title it could not do and seeing nakednesse betrayes it to be a piece of corruption a condition so abject and inferiour it is ashamed to be seen forasmuch as sexes be the evident marks and tokens of mortality for why are sexes but to propagate and what need of propagation but onely to provide a substitute and none provides a successour or a substitute who is not himself to be turned out and to be gone of which mean and inferiour condition as not befitting men are ashamed and in relation to this grand imperfection we finde that men labour to conceale even as much and as long as possible their amorous affections as springing out of a root of corruption Thus we see that men once in high fortunes and cast down and grown into necessity are abashed at their poor and present state whenas others that were poor and low alwayes be not so And this I conceive to be the principal reason why men doe blush at businesses of corporeall love and are ashamed of their nakednesse although hitherto I do not know any that in particular have taken notice of it Now finally how immortality is consistent with the principles of Aristotle and also how it doth follow upon them is not my intention to examine as being a long and intricate piece of work and performed by others as namely by Javellus l. de indeficientia anima and of late by Card. Augustinus Oregius in a work peculiarly intended for that purpose