notwithstanding these vain reasons of theirs let us conclude That our soule is an understanding or reasonable power over the which neither death nor corruption have naturally any power although it be fitted to the body to govern it And if any man doubt hereof let him but examine himselfe for even his own doubts will prove it unto him Or if he will stand in contention still let him fall to reasoning with himselfe for by concluding his arguments to prove his soule mortall he shall give judgement himselfe that it is immortall And if I have left any thing unalleadged which might make to this purpose for why may I not seeing that even the selfesame things which I have been able to alleadge on the behalfe of mine adversaries doe drive them thereunto let us think also that he which feeleth himselfe convicted in himselfe and for whose behoof and benefit it were greatly both to believe it and to confesse it needeth no more diligent proof than hath been made already But if any man will yet of spight stand wilfully still against himselfe let him try how he can make answer to my foresaid arguments and in the mean while let us see what the said opinion of the wisest men yea and of the whole world hath been upon this matter CHAP. II. That the immortality of the Soul hath been taught by the Phylosophers of old time and believed by all people and Nations SOothly it had been a very hard case if this minde of ours which searcheth so many things in nature had not taken some leasure to search it selfe and the nature thereof and by searching attained to some poynt in that behalfe And therefore as there have at all times beene men so shall wee see also that men have at all times believed and admitted the immortality of the soule I say not some one man or some one Nation but the whole world with generall consent because all men universally and particularly have learned it in one schoole and at the mouth of one Teacher namely even their own knowledge in themselves The holy Scripture which teacheth us our salvation useth no school arguments to make us believe that there is a God and that is because we cannot step out of our selves never so little but we must needs finde him present to all our sences And it seemeth to speake unto us the lesse expressely of the immortality of our soules specially in the first books thereof because we cannot enter into our selvs be it never so little but we must needs perceive it But in as much as from the one end thereof to the other it declareth unto us the will of God in so doing it doth us to understand that it is a thing whereof it is not lawfull for us to doubt And whereas it setteth forth so precisely from age to age the great and manifold troubles and pains which good and godly men have suffered in indeavouring to follow that will it sheweth infalibly that their so doing was in another respect than for this present wretched life For who is he that would depart with any piece of his own liking in this life but in hope of better things and what were it for him to lose his life if there were not another life after this This serveth to answer in one word to such as demand expresse texts of Scripture and are loth to finde that thing in the Bible which is contained there not onely in every leaf but almost in every line For whereas God created man after the world was fully finished perfected it was as much as if he had brought him into a Theater prepared for him howbeit after another sort than all the other living things which were to doe him service As for beasts birds plants and such other things the elements brought them forth but man received his soule by inspiration from God Also the brute beasts are put in subjection to man but man is in subjection onely unto God And the conveying of that good man Henocke out of this life for his godlinesse was to none other end but to set him in another life void of all evill and full of all good But when we read the persecutions of Noe the overthwartings of Abraham the banishment and wayfarings of Jacob and the distresses of Joseph Moses and all the residew of the Fathers they be all of them demonstrations that they did certainly trust and believe that the soule is immortall that there is another life after this and that there is a judgement to come For had they been of opinion that there is none other life after this the flesh would have perswaded them to have held themselves in quiet here and they would have liked nothing better than to have followed sweetly the cōmon trade of the world Noe among his friends Abeaham among the Chaldees Moses in Pharoahs Court and so foorth So then although the Scripture seeme to conceale it yet doth it speake very loude thereof in deede considering that all the cryes of the good and godly and all the despayres of the wicked which it describeth unto us doe sound none other things unto us if we have cares to heare it And it may be that in the same respect this article of the Immortalitie of the Soule was not put into the ancient Creede of the Jews nor also peculiarly into the Creede of us Christians because we beleeve beyond reason and this is within the bounds of reason and whosoever treateth of Religion must needes presuppose God eternall and man immortall without the which two all Religion were in vayne Also when we see that Godlinesse Iustice and vertue were commended among the Heathen of all ages it is all one as if we should heare them preach in expresse words the Immortalitie of the Soule For their so doing is builded every whit upon that as upon a foundation without the which those things could not stand I will spend my goodes or my life for the maintenance of Iustice What is this Iustice but a vaine name or to what end have I so many respects if I looke for nothing out of this present world here I will sayd a man of olde time rather lose even the reputation of an honest man thau behave myselfe otherwise than honestly But why should I doe so if I looke for no good in another world seeing I have nothing but evill here Surely if there be none other thing than this life then is vertue to be used no further than profit and commeditie may growe upon it and so should it become a Chaffer and Merchandise and not vertue in deed Yet notwithstanding those are the ordinary speeches even of such as speake doutfully of the Immortalitie of the Soule Therefore they doe but denye the ground and yet grant the consequence which is all one as if a man having first bin burned should fall to disputing whether fire be hot or no But now which is better for us I will
a particular substance in every severall man as a light to lead him in the darknesse of this life for surely it was no more difficultie to the everlasting GOD to create many sundry soules that every man might have one severally alone by himselfe than to have created but onely one soule for all men together But it was far more for his glory to be known praised and exalted of many soules yea and more for our welfare to praise exalt and know him yea and to live of our selves both in this life and in the life to come then if any other universall spirit soule or minde whatsoever should have lived and understood either in us or after us Now then for this matter let us conclude both by reason and by antiquity and by the knowledge that every of us hath of himselfe That the soule and the body be things divers that the soule is a spirit and not a body That this spirit hath in man three abilities or powers whereof two be exercised by the body and the third worketh of it selfe without the body That these three abilities are in the one onely soule as in their root whereof two doe cease whensoever the body faileth them and yet notwithstanding the soule abideth whole without a batement of any of her powers as a craftsman continueth a craftsman though he want tools to work withall And finally that this soule is a substance that continueth of it selfe and is unmateriall and spirituall over the which neither death nor corruption can naturally have any power And for a conclusion of all that ever I have treated of hitherto in this book let us maintain That there is but onely one God who by his own goodnesse and wisdome is the Creator and Governour of the world of all that is therein That in the world he created Man after his own image as in respect of minde and after the image of his other creatures as in respect of life sense and moving mortall so far forth as he holdeth the likenesse of a creaturn and immortall so far forth as hee beareth the image of the Creator That is to wit in his soule That he which goeth out of himselfe to see the world doth forthwith see that there is a God for his works declare him every where That hee which will yet still doubt thereof needeth but to enter into himselfe and he shall meet him there for he shall finde there a power which he seeth not That he which believeth there is one God believeth himselfe to be immortall for such consideration could not light into a mortall nature and that he which believeth himself to be immortal believeth that there is a God for without the unutterable power of the one God the mortall and immortall could never joyne together That he which seeth the order of the world the proportion of man and the harmonie that is in either of them compounded of so many contraries cannot doubt that there is a Providence for the nature which hath furnished them therewith cannot be unfurnished therof it selfe but as it once had a care of them so can it not shake off the same care from them Thus have we three Articles which follow interchangeably one another Insomuch that he which proveth any one of them doth prove them all three notwithstanding that I have treated of every of them severally by it selfe Now let us pray the everlasting God that we may glorifie him in his works in this world and he voutsafe of his mercie to glorifie us one day in the World to come *âŽ* AMEN a Igniculi scintillantes Onuphr. de Anima b {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Homer Odys 5. c {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Gen. 2 7. Man is both Soul and body In Man are three abilities of Soule The body and the soul be not one self-same thing That the Soul is a substance Bodilesse Vnmateriall The Soul hath being of it self Plutarch in his Treatise why God deferreth the punishment of the wicked Vncorruptible What is death Clevi lib. 1. Three lives in man Objections The opinion of the Men of old time The belief of the Patriarks c. The wise Men of Egypt Hermes in his Poemander {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Hermes in his Poemander cap. 10. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Hermes in his Esculapius Aenaeas Gaz. concerning the immortality of the Soule Chaldeans The Greeks Pherecydes Assyrium vulgo nascetur Amonium Phocylides Sybill Pindar in the second song of his Olympiads Homer in the Funerals of his Iliads Pythagorâ—s Heraclitus as he is reported by Philo. Epicharmus as he is reported by Clement of Alexandria Thales Anaxagoras Diogenes and Zeno Epicurus Lucretius Socrates Plato and Xenophon Plato in his Timaeus Plato in his Timaeus and in his third Booke of a Commonweal Plato in his Phoedon in his matter of State in his Alcibiades and in the tenth Book of his Commonweal Plato in his fifth Book of Laws Aristotlâ— in his second book of living things Aristotle in the third book of the Soule Aristotle in his 10. book of Moralls Michael of Ephesus upon Aristotles Moralls {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} In his second book of the Soule In the last book of the parts of beasts In the tenth of his Supernaturalls In his first book of matters of State The opinion of the Latine Writers Cicero in his first book of his Tusculane Questions and in his book of Comfort Cicero in his second book of the nature of the Gods and in his first book of Laws In Scipio's dreame Ovid in his first book of Metamorphosis Seneca writing to Gallio and to Lucillus Seneca concerning the Lady Martiaes Son and the shortnesse of this life In his Questions and in his book of comfort Phavorinus The common opinion of all Nations Porphyrius in his 4 book of Abstinence Which with their own hands made the fire to burn their bodies in and saw alive the kindled flame that should consume their skin Gebeleizie that is to say Register or giver of ease and rest Herocles in his 10. Chap. Plutarke in his treatise of the slow punishing of the wicked The opinion of the later Philosophers Epictetus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Simplicius Plotinus Plotin. lib. 1. Aenead 4. concerning the being of the Soule lib. 2. cap. 1. lib. 3. cap. 18 19 20 21 22 23. lib. 4. cap. 11. and the seventh book throughout Plotinus in his Booke of the Sences and of Memory En. 4. lib. 3. and in his Booke of doubts concerning the Soul cap. 26 27 Alexander of Aphrodise in his Books of the Soul In his second Book of Problemes Galen in his Book of the Manners of the Soul In his Book of the doctrine of Hippocrates and Plato In his Book of Conception The universall consent In the Alcoran Azo 25. and 42. It appeareth by the stories of the East West Indies Against Averrhoes Let the Reader bear these terms their significations in Mind for all the discourse here ensuing Averrhoes upon Aristotles third Book of the Soul Aristotle in his second Book of the Soul Aristotle in his first Book of the Soul Aristotle in his tenth Book of Supernaturals Aristotle in his third book of the Soule Against Alexander of Aphrodise
it the more it still coveteth and the greater the things be the fitter is shee to receive them even when they be at the greatest It followeth therefore that the soule which after a sort is infinite cannot be a body And so much the lesse can it so be for that whereas it harboreth so many and so great things in it it selfe is lodged in so small a body Again as a thousand divers places are in the soule or minde without occupying any place so is the minde in a thousand places without changing of place and that ere whiles not by succession of time nor by turns but oftentimes altogether at one instant Bid thy Soule or Mind goe to Constantinople and forthwith to turne backe againe to Rome and straight way to be at Paris or Lyons Bid it passe thorow Amercia or to goe about Affricke and it dispatcheth all these iourneys at a trice looke whether soever thou directest it there it is and or ever thou callest it backe it is at home again Now is there a body that can be in divers places at once or that can passe without removing or that can move otherwise than in time yea and in such time as within a little under or over is proportioned both to his pace and to the lenght of the way which it hath to goe Then is it certain that our Soule is not a bodily substance which thing appeareth so much the more plainly in that being lodged in this body which is so movable it removeth not with the body Also it is a sure ground that two bodies connot mutually enter either into other nor conteine either other but the greater must alway needes conteine and the lesser must needes be conteined But by our Soules we enter not only either into others bodies but also either into others minds so as we comprehend either other by mutuall understanding and imbrace either other by mutuall loving It followeth then that this substance which is able to receive a bodilesse thing can be no body and that so much the rather for that the body which seemeth to hold it conteineth it not Nay verily this Soule of ours is so farre of from being a bodily substance and is so manifestly a Spirit that to lodge all things in it selfe it maketh them all after a sort spirituall and bereveth them of their bodies and if there were any bodylinesse in it it were unable to enter into the knowledge of a bodie So in a Glasse a thousand shapes are seene but if the cleere of the Glasse had any peculiar shape of it owne the Glasse could yeeld none of those shapes at all Also all visible things are imprinted in the eye but if the sight of the eye had any peculiar colour of it owne it would be a blemish to the sight so as it should either not see at all or else all things should seeme like to that blemish Likewise whereas the Tongue is the discerner of all tasts if it be not cleere but cumbered with humours all things are of taste like to the humour so as if it be bitter they also be bitter if it be waterish they be waterish to yea and if it be bitter it can not judge of bitternes it self That a thing may receive all shapes all colours and all tasts it behoveth the same to be cleere from all shapes from all colour and from all savour of it own And that a thing may in understanding know and conceive all bodies as our soule doth it behoveth the same to be altogether bodilesse it selfe for had it any bodilinesse at all it could not receive any body into it If we look yet more neerly into the nature of a body we shall finde that no body receiveth into it the substantiall forme of another body without losing or altering his own ne passeth from one form into another without the marring of the first as is to be seen in wood when it receiveth fire in seeds when they spring forth into bud and so in other things What is to be said then of mans soul which receiveth and conceiveth the forms and shapes of all things without corrupting his own and moreover becommeth the perfecter by the more receiving For the more it receiveth the more it understandeth and the more it understandeth the more perfect it is If it be a bodily substance from whence is it and of what mixture If it be of the foure Elements how can they give life having no life of themselves Or how can they give understanding having no sence If it be of the mixture of them how may it be said that of divers things which have no being of themselves should be made a thing that hath being Or that of divers outsides should be made one body or of divers bodies one Soul or of divers deaths one life or of divers darknesses one light Nay rather why say we not that he which beyond nature hath made the mixture of these bodies hath for the perfecting of our body breathed a Soul also into the body To be short the property of a body is to suffer and the property of our Soule is to doe And if the body be not put forth by some other thing than it self it is a very block whereas the mind that is in our Soul ceaseth not to stir up and down in it selfe though it have nothing to move it from without Therefore it is to be concluded by these reasons and by the like that our Soul is a bodilesse substance notwithstanding that it is united to our body And hereupon it followeth also that our Soule is not any materiall thing for as much as matter receiveth not any forme or shape but according to his owne quantity and but onely one forme at once whereas our Soule receiveth all formes without quantity come there never so many at once or so great Againe no matter admitteth two contrary formes at once but our Soule contrariwise comprehendeth and receiveth them together as fire and water heat and cold white and black and not only together but also the better by the matching and laying of them together To be short seeing that the more wee depart from matter the more wee understand surely nothing is more contrary to the substance of our Soule than is the nature of matter Furthermore if this reasonable soule of ours is neither a bodily nor a materiall thing nor depending upon matter in the best actions thereof then must it needs be of it self and not proceed either from body or from matter For what doth a body bring forth but a body and matter but matter and materiall but materialls And therefore it is an unmateriall substance which hath being of it selfe But let us see whether the same be corruptible and mortall on no Soothly if Plutarch be to be beleeved it is in vain to dispute thereof For he teacheth that the doctrine of Gods providence and the immortalitie of our Soules are so linked together that the
to the life of our Soule for it seeketh life by death and death by life And what can that thing meet withall in the whole world that may be able to overthrow it which can inioyne obedience to things most contrary What then Want of food How can that want food in the world which can skill to feed on the whole world Or how should that forsake food which the fuller it is so much the hungryer it is and the more it hath digested the better able it is to digest The bodily wight feedeth upon some certain things but our mind feedeth upon all things Take from it the sensible things and the things of undâ—rstanding abide with it still bereave it of earthly things and the heavenly remayne abundantly To be short abridge it of all worldly things yea and of the world it selfe and even then doth it feed at greatest ease maketh best cheere agreeable to his owue nature Also the bodily wight filleth it selfe to a certain measure and delighteth in some certain things But what can fill our mind Fill it as full as ye can with the knowledge of things and it is still eager and sharpe set to receive more The more it taketh in the more it still craveth and yet for all that it never feeleth any rawnesse or lack of digestion What shall I say more discharge our understanding from the minding of it selfe and then doth it live in him and of him in whom all things doelive Againe fill it with the knowledge of it selfe and then doth it feele it selfe most empty and sharpest set upon desire of the other Now then can that die or decay for want of food which cannot be glutted with any thing which is nourished and maintained with all things and which liveth in very deed upon him by whom all the things which we wonder at here beneath are upheld And what else is violence but a iustling of two bodies together and how can there be any such betweene a bodie a spirituall substance yea or of two spirits one against another seeing that oftentimes when they would destroy one another they uphold one another And if the Soule cannot be pushed at neither inwardly nor outwardly is there any thing in nature that can naturally hurt it No but it may perchance be weakened by the very force of his encounter as we see it doth befall to our sences For the more excellent and the more sensible the thing is in his kind which the sence receiveth so much the more also is the sence it selfe offended or grieved therewith As for example the feeling by fire the tast by harshnesse the smelling by savours the hearing by the hideousnesse of noyse whether it be of Thunderclap or of the falling of a River and the sight by looking upon the Sunne upon Fire and upon all things that have a glistering brightnesse I omit that in the most of these things it is not properly the sense it selfe but the outward instrument of sense onely that is offended or hurt But let us see if there bee the like in our reasonable soule Nay contrariwise the more of understanding and excellencie that the thing is the more doth it refresh and comfort our minde If it be darke so as wee understand it but by halves it hurteth us not but yet doth it not delight us Nay as we increase in understanding it so doth it like us the better and the higher it is the more doth it stir up the power of our understanding and as you would say reach us the hand to draw us to the attainment thereof As for them that are dim-sighted we forbid them to behold the things that are over-bright But as for them that are of rawest capacity wee offer them the things that are most understandable When the sence beginneth to perceive most sharply then it is fain to give over as if it felt the very death of it selfe Contrariwise when the minde beginneth to understand then is it most desirous to hold on still And whereof commeth that but that our senses work by bodily instruments but our mind worketh by a bodilesse substance which needeth not the help of the body And seeing that the nature the nourishment and the actions of our soule are so far differing both from the nature nourishment and actions of the body and from all that ever is done or wrought by the body can there be any thing more childish than to deem our soul to be mortall by the abating decaying of our sences or by the mortallity of our bodies Nay contrariwise it may be most soundly and substantially concluded thereupon that mans soule is of its own nature immortall seeing that all death as well violent as naturall commeth of the body and by the body Let us see further what death or corruption is It is say they a separating of the matter from his forme And forasmuch as in man the soule is considered to be the forme and the body to be as the matter the separation of the soule from the body is commonly called death Now then what death can there be of the soule sith it is unmateriall as I have said afore and a forme that abideth of it selfe For as one saith a man may take away the roundnesse or squarenesse from a table of copper because they have no abiding but in the matter but had they such a round or square form as might have an abiding without matter or stuffe wherein to be out of doubt such forme or shape should continue for ever Nay which more is how can that be the corrupter of a thing which is the perfection thereof The lesse corsinesse a man hath the more hath he of reason and understanding The lesse our minds be tyed to these bodily things the more lively and cheerefull be they At a word the full and perfect life thereof is the full and utter withdrawing thereof from the bodie and whatsoever the bodie is made of All these things are so cleere as they neede no proofe Now wee know that every thing worketh according to the proper being therof and that the same which perfecteth the operations of a thing perfecteth the being thereof also It followeth therefore that sith the separation of the body from the Soule and of the forme from the matter perfecteth the operation or working of the soule as I have sayd afore it doth also make perfect and strengthen the very being thereof and therefore cannot in any wise corrupt it And what else is dying but to be corrupted And what els is corrupting but suffering And what els is suffering but receiving And how can that which receiveth all things without suffering receive corruption by any thing Fire corrupteth or marreth our bodies and we suffer in receiving it So doth also extreme colde but if we suffered nothing by it it could not freese us Our sences likewise are marred by the excessive force of the things which they light upon And that is because
himselfe immortall Thou sayest the soule cannot be immortall and why Because sayst thou that to be so it would behove it to worke severally by it selfe from the body When thou thinkest that in thy minde consider what thy body doth at the same time Nay yet further who hath taught thee so much of the immortall nature if thou thy selfe be not immortall Or what worldly wight can say what the inworking of a reasonable wight is but the wight which in it selfe hath the use of reason Yet sayest thou still if the soule be immortall it is free from such and such passions How enterest thou so far into the Nature that is so far above thee if thou thy selfe beest mortall All the reasons which thou alleadgest against the immortality of the soule doe fight directly to the proofe of it For if thy reason mounted no higher than to the things that are mortall thou shouldest know neither mortall nor immortall Now it is not some one covetous man above all other that desireth immortality nor some one man excelling all others in wisdome that comprehendeth it but all mankind without exception It is not then some one severall skill or some one naturall property that maketh such difference between man and man as we see to be between many but rather one selfesame nature common to all men whereby they be all made to differ from other living wights which by no deed doe shew any desire to over live themselveâ— ne know how to live and therefore their lives doe vanish away with their bloud and is extinguished with their bodies If ever thou hast looked to die consider what discourse thou madest then in thy minde thou never couldest perswade thy conscience nor make thy reason to conceive that the soule should dye with the body but even in the selfesame time when it disputeth against it selfe it shifteth it selfe I wot not how from all thy conclusions and faileth to consider in what state it shall be and where it shall become when it is out of the body The Epicure that hath disputed of it all his life long when he commeth to death bequeatheth a yearly pension for the keeping of a yearly feast on the day of his birth I pray you to what purpose serve feastings for the birth of a Swine seeing he esteemeth himselfe to be no better than so Nay what else is this than a crying out of his nature against him which with one word confuteth all his vain arguments Another laboureth by all means possible to blot out in himselfe the opinion of immortallity and because he hath lived wickedly in this world he will needs beare himselfe on hand that there is no Justice in the world to come But then is the time that his own nature waketh and starteth up as it were out of the bottome of a water and at that instant painteth againe before his eyes the selfesame thing which he tooke so much pains to deface And in good sooth what a number have we seen which having been despisers of all Religion have at the hower of death been glad to vow their soules to any Saint for reliefe so cleere was then the presence of the life to come before their eyes I had lever sayd Zeno to see an Indian burne himselfe cheerfully than to heare all the Philosophers of the World discoursing of the immortality of the soule and in very deed it is a much stronger and better concluded argument Nay then let us rather say I had lever see an Atheist or an Epicure witnesse the immortallity of the soule and willingly taking an honourable farewell of nature upon a scaffold then to heare all the Doctors of the world discoursing of it in their pulpits For whatsoever the Epicures say there they speake it advisedly and as ye would say fresh and fasting whereas all that ever they have spoken all their life afore is to be accounted but as the words of Drunkards that is to wit of men besotted and falne asleepe in the delights and pleasures of this world where the wine and the excesse of meat and the vapors that fumed up of them did speake and not the men themselves What shall I say more I have told you already that in the inward man there are as ye would say three men the living the sensitive and the reasonable Let us say therefore that in the same person there are three lives continued from one to another namely the life of the Plant the life of the Beast and the life of the Man or of the Soule So long as a man is in his mothers womb he doth not onely live and grow his spirit seemeth to sleep and his sences seem to be in a slumber so as he seemeth to be nothing else then a plant Neverthelesse if ye consider his eyes his ears his tongue his sences and his movings you will easily judg that he is not made to be for ever in that prison where he neither seeth nor heareth nor hath any room to walk in but rather that he is made to come forth into an opener place where hee may have what to see and behold and wherewith to occupy all the powers which we see to be in him As soon as he is come out he beginneth to see to feel and to move and by little and little falleth to the perfect using of his limbs and findeth in this world a peculiar object for every of them as visible things for the eye sounds for his hearing bodily things for his feeling and so forth But besides al this we find there a mind which by the eys as by windows beholdeth the world and yet in all the world finding not any one thing worthy to rest wholly upon mounteth up to him that made it which minde like an Empresse lodgeth in the whole world and not alonely in this body which by the sences and oftentimes also without the sences mounteth above the sences and streyneth it self to go out of it self as a child doth to get out of his mothers wombe And therefore we ought surely to say that this Mind or Reason ought not to be ever in prison That one day it shall see cleerly and not by these dimme and cloudy spectacles That it shall come in place where it shall have the true object of understanding and that hee shall have his life free from these fetters and from all the affections of the body To be short that as man is prepared in his mothers wombe to be brought forth into the world so is he also after a sort prepared in this body and in this world to live in another world We then understand it when by nature it behoveth us to depart out of the world And what child is there which if nature did not by her cunning drive him out would of himself come out of his Covert or that cometh not out as good as forlorn and half dead or that if he had at that time knowledge and speech would not
perceiving by the Sences I think I have proved the contrary already neverthelesse let us examine their reasons yet further The forme or shape of every thing say they doth perish with the matter Now the soule is as you would say the forme or shape of the body therefore it corrupteth with the body This argument were rightly concluded if it were meant of the materiall forme But I have proved that the soule is unmateriall and hath a cōtinuance of ir self And indeed the more it is discharged of matter the more it retaineth his own peculiar forme Therfore the corruption of the matter toucheth not the foule at all Again if mens souls live say they after their bodies then are they infinite for the world is without beginning without ending and as we know nature can away with no infinite thing therefore they live not after their bodies Yes say I for I have proved that the world hath a beginning and that with so substantial reasons as thou art not able to disprove Therfore it followeth that the inconvenience which thou alledgest can have no place Another sayth If dead mens souls live stil why come they not to tell us so And he thinketh he hath stumbled upon a wonderfull subtle device But how doth this follow in reason There hath not come any man unto us from the Indies a long time ergo there be no Indies May not the same argument serve as well to prove that we our selves are not because we never went thither Again what intercourse is there between things that have bodies and things that have no bodies or between heaven and earth considering that there is so smal intercourse even between men which live under one selfesame Sun He that is made a Magistrate in his own Countrey doth not willingly return to the place of his banishment Likewise the Soule that is lodged in the lap of his God and come home into his native soyle forgoeth the desire of these lower things which to his sight beholding them from above and lesse then the point of a needle On the other side he that is put in close prison how desirous soever he be cannot goe out so that soule which is in the Jarle of his soveraign Lord God hath no respit or sporting time to come tell us what is done there Unto the one the beholding of the everlasting God is as a Paradice wherein he is willing to remain and unto the other his own condemnation is an imprisonment of his will But we would have God to send both the one the other unto us to make us to believe As who would say it stood him greatly on hand to have us to believe and not rather us that we should believe And in effect what else is all this but a desiring that some man might return into his mothers womb again to incourage young babes against the pinches and pains which they abide in their birth wherof they would be as shie as we be of death if they had the like knowledge of them But let us let such vanities passe and come to the ground Yee beare us on hand say they that the soul of man is but one though it have divers powers Whereof we see the sensitive and the growing powers to be corrupted and to perish therefore it should seeme that the understanding or reasonable power also should doe the like At a word this is all one as if a man should say you tell mee that this man is both a good man a good Sword-player and a good luteplayer altogether and that because his sword falls out of his hand or his hand it selfe becommeth lame therefore he cannot be a good or honest man still as you reported him to be Nay though he lose those instruments yet ceaseth he not therefore to be an honest man yea and both a Sword-player and a Lute-player too as in respect of skill Likewise when our soules have forgone these exercises yet cease they not to be the same they were afore To inlighten this point yet more of the powers of our Soule some are exercised by the instruments of the body and othersome vvithout any help or furtherance of the body at all Those vvhich are exercised by the body are the sences and the powers of the sences and the powers of the grovving vvhich may carrie the sime likenesse that is between a Luter and a Lute Breake the Luters Lute and his cunning remaineth still but his putting of it in practice faileth Give him another Lute and hee falls to playing new again Put out a mans eye and yet the ability of seeing abideth still with him though the very act of seeing be disappointed But give unto the oldest Hag that is the same eyes that he had when he was young and he shall see as well as ever he did After the same manner is it with the growing or thriving power Restore unto it a good stomack a sound liver and a perfect heart and it shall execute his functions as well as ever it did afore The power that worketh of it selfe and without the body is the power of reason or understanding which if we will we may call the mind And if thou yet still doubt thereof consider when thou mindest a thing earnestly what thy body furthereth thy minde therein thou shalt perceive that the more fixedly thou thinkest upon it the lesse thou seest the things before thee and the more thy minde wandereth the more thy body resteth as who would say that the workings of the body are the greatest hinderance and impediment that can bee to the peculiar doings of the minde And this ability of understanding may be likened to a man which though he have lost both his hand and his lute ceaseth not therefore to bee a man still and to doe the true deeds of a man that is to wit to discourse of things to minde them to use reason and such like yea and to be both a Luter and a man as he was afore notwithstanding that he cannot put his Lute-playing in exercise for want of instruments Nay which more is this understanding part groweth so much the stronger and greater as it is lesse occupied and busied about these base and corruptible things and is altogether drawn home wholy to it selfe as is to be seen in those which want their eyes whose mindes are commonly most apt to understand and most firme to remember Doe we debate of a thing in our selves Neither our body nor out sences are busied about it Doe we will the same As little doe they stir for that too To understand and to will which are the operations of the minde the soule hath no need of the body and as for working and being they accompany one another sayth Aristotle Therefore to continue still in being the soule hath not to doe with the body nor any need of the body but rather to worke well and to be well the soule ought either to be without the
body or at leastwise to be utterly unsubject to the body Yea say they but yet we see men forgoe their reason as fools and melancholie persons seeing it is forgon it may also be corrupted and if corrupted it may also die for what is death but an utter and full corruptnesse Nay thou shouldest say rather I have seen divers which having seemed to have lost their right wits have recovered them again by good diet and medicinable drinks But had they been utterly lost and forgone no physick could have restored them again and had they been utterly perished the parties themselves should have had neither sense nor life remaining Therefore of necessity the soule of them was as sound as afore But our soules we see not otherwise than by the body and by the instruments of the bodie as it were by Spectacles and our minde which beholdeth and seeth through his imaginations as it were through a cloude is after a sort troubled by the dimming of the spectacles and by the smoakienesse of the imaginations After that manner the Sun seemeth to be dimmed eclipsed that is but by the coming of the moon or of some clouds between him us for in his light there is no abatement at all Likewise our eysight conceiveth things according to the spectacles wherethough it looketh or according to the colour that over thwarteth the things which it looketh upon Take away the impediments and our eyes shall see cleere purge away the humors and our imagination shall be pure and so our understand shall see as bright as it did afore even as the Sunne shineth after the putting away of the Clowdes And it fareth not with our Soules as it doth with our bodies which after a long sicknesse retain still either a hardnesse of the Splene or a shortnesse of breath or a falling of the Rhewme upon the Lungs or a skarre of some great wound that cannot be worne out because of the breake that was made in the whole For neither in their understanding neither in their willes do our Soules feele any abatement saving that there abideth some maime or blemish in the instruments to wit as I will declare hereafter so farre forth as it pleaseth GOD for a iust punishment to put the Soule in subjection to the bodie whose sovereign it was created to have been because it hath neglected the will of the Creator to follow the lusts and likings of the bodie This appeareth in Lunaticke folkes and such others which have their witts troubled at times and by fitts For they be not vexed but at the stirring of their humours being at other times sober and well enough stayed in their witts The like is seene in them that have the falling sicknesse For their understanding seemeth to be eclipsed and as it were stricken with a Thunderclap during the time of their fitts but afterward they be as discreet as though they ailed nothing To be short the body is subject to a thousand diseases wherewith we see the understanding to be no whit altered because they touch not the instruments of the Sence and of the Imaginations which move the understanding Troubled it is in deede by those few things only which infect the Sence and the Imagination which by that meanes report the things unfaithfully whereon the mind debateth Therefore ye shall never see any bodie out of his witts or out of his right mind in whom the Phisitions may not manifestly perceive either some default of the instruments as a mishapen and misportioned head or els an overabounding of some melancholike humour that troubled and marred his bodie afore it troubled or impaired his mind And like as the wisest men being deceived by false Spies do make wrong deliberations howbeit yet grounded upon good reason which thing they could not doe unlesse they were wise in deede So the reason that is in our mind maketh false discourses and gathereth wrong conclusions upon the false reports of the imagination which it could not doe if it were either diminished or impaired or done away way Whereunto accordeth this ancient saying That there be certain follyes which none but wise men can commit and certain Errours which none but learned men can fall into because that in some cases discretion and wisedom are requisite in the partie that is to be deceived even to the intent he may be deceived and learning is required in a man that he may conceive and hold a wrong opinion As for example to beguiled by a doubledealing Spy or by the surprising of a cosening letter belongeth to none but to a wise man For a grosheaded foole never breaketh his brain about such matters as might bring him to the making of false conclusions by mistaking likelyhoods in stead of truth Likewise to fall into Heresie by misconceiving some high and deepe point befalleth not to an ignorant person for he is not of capacitie neither doth his understanding mount so high To be short Whosoever sayth that mans Soul perisheth with the body because it is troubled by the distemperature or misproportionatenesse of the body may as well uphold that the Child in the mothers wombe dyeth with his mother because he moveth with her and is partaker with her of her harms and throws by reason of the streit conjunction that is between them howbeit that many children have lived safe and sound notwithstanding that their mothers have dyed yea and some have come into the World even by the death of their mothers And whereas some say that because our mind conceiveth not any thing here but by helpe of Imagination therefore when the Imagination is gone with the instruments whereunto it is tyed the Soule cannot work alone by it selfe nor consequently be alone by it selfe surely it is alone as if they should say that because the Child being in his mothers wombe taketh nourishment of her bloud by his navill therefore he cannot live when he is come out her womb if his navillstrings be cut off Nay contrariwise then is the time that the mouth the tongue and the other parts of the Childe doe their dutie which served erst to no purpose saving that they were prepared for the time to come After the same manner also doe wee cherish our mind by Imagination in this second life which in the third life being as ye would say scaped out of prison shall begin to utter his operations by himselfe and that so much the more certainly for that it shall not be subject to false reports nor to the sences eyther inward or outward but to the very things themselvs which it shall have seen and learned To be short it shall live but not in prison it shall see but not through spectacles it shall understand but not by reports it shall list but not by way of lusting the infirmity which the body casteth upon it as now shal then be away the force which it bringeth now to the body shall then be more fresh and lively than afore Now then
here gather together their owne speeches one after another Hermes declareth in his Poemander how at the voyce of the everlasting the Elements yeelded forth all reasonlesse living wights as it had bin out of their bosomes But when he commeth to man he sayth He made him like unto himselfe he linked himselfe to him as to his Sonne for he was beautifull and made after his owne Image and gave him all his works to use at his pleasure Againe he exhorteth him to forsake his bodie notwithstanding that he wonder greatly at the cunning workmanship thereof as the very cause of his death and to manure his soul which is capable of immortality and to consider the originall root from whence it sprang which is not earthly but heavenly and to withdraw himselfe even from his sences and from their trayterous allurements to gather himselfe wholy into that minde of his which hee hath from God and by the which he following Gods word may become as God Discharge thy selfe sayth he of this body which thou bearest about thee for it is but a cloke of ignorance a foundation of infection a place of corruption a living death a sensible carryon a portable grave a household thief It flattereth thee because it hateth thee and it hateth thee because it envieth thee As long as that liveth it bereaveth thee of life thou hast not a greater enemie than that Now to what purpose were it for him to forsake this light this dwelling place this life if he were not sure of a better in another world as he himselfe sayth more largely afterward On the other side what is the soule The soule sayth he is the garment of the minde and the garment of the soule is a certain spirit whereby it is united to the body And this minde is the thing which we call properly the man that is to say a heavenly wight which is not to be compared with beasts but rather with the Gods of heaven if he be not yet more than they The heavenly cannot come down to the earth without leaving the heaven but man measureth the heaven without removing from the earth The earthly man then is as a mortall God and the heavenly God is as an immortal man To be short his conclusion is That man is double mortall as touching his body and immortall as touching his soule which soule is the substantiall man and the very man created immediately of God sayth he as the light is bred immediately of the Sunne And Chalcidius sayth that at his death he spake these words I goe home again into mine own countrey where my better forefathers and kinsfolke be Of Zoroastres who is yet of more antiquity than Hermes we have nothing but fragments Neverthelesse many report this argument to be one of his That mens souls are immortall and that one day there shall be a generall rising again of their bodies and the answers of the wise men of Chaldye who are the heirs of his Doctrine doe answer sufficiently for him There is one that exhorteth men to return with speed to their heavenly father who hath sent them from above a soule endowed with much understanding and another that exhorteth them to seeke paradice as the peculiar dwelling place of the soule A third sayth that the soule of man hath God as it were shut up in it and that it hath not any mortality therein For sayth he the soule is as it were drunken with God and sheweth forth his wonders in the harmonie of this mortall body And again another sayth It is a cleere fire proceeding from the power of the heavenly father an uncorruptible substance and the maintainer of life containing almost all the whole world with the full plenty thereof in his besom But one of them proceedeth yet further affirming that he which seteth his minde upon godlinesse shall save his body fraile though it be And by those words he acknowledgeth the very glorifying of the body Now all these sayings are reported by the Platonists and namely by Psellus and they refuse not to be acknowne that Pythagoras and Plato learned them of the Chaldees insomuch that some think that the foresaid Hermes and Zoroastres and the residue afore-mentioned are the same of whom Plato speaketh in his second Epistle and in his eleventh Book of Laws when he sayth that the ancient and holy Oracles are to be believed which affirme mens Souls to be Immortall and that in another life they must come before a Judge that will require an account of all their doings The effect whereof commeth to this That the Soule of man proceedeth immediatly from God that is to say that the father of the body is one and the Father of the Soul is another That the Soul is not a bodily substance but a Spirit and a Light That at the departure thereof from hence it is to go into a Paradise and therefore ought to make haste unto death And that it is so far from mortality that it maketh even the body Immortall What can we say more at this day even in the time of light wherein we be Pherecydes the Syrian the first that was known among the Greeks to have written prose taught the fame And that which Virgill sayth in his second Eglog concerning the Drug or Spice of Assyria and the growing thereof every whereis interpreted of some men to be ment of the Immortalitie of the Soule the doctrine whereof Pherecydes brought from thence into Greece namely that it should be understood everywhere throughout the whole world Also Phocylides who was at the same time speaketh thereof in these words {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} That is to say The Soul of man immortall is and never weares away With any age or length of time but liveth fresh for aye And again {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The Remnants which remayn of men unburied in the grave Become as Gods and in the Heavens a life most blessed have For though their bodies turn to dust as daily we do see Their Souls live still for evermore from all corruption free And in another place he says again {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} We hope that we shall come agayn Out of the earth to light more playn And if ye aske him the cause of all this he will answer you in another verse thus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Because the Soul Gods Instrument and Image also is Which saying he seemeth to have taken out of this verse of Sibilâ— {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} In very reason Man should be The Image and the shape of me Of the same opinion also are Orpheus Theognis Homer Hesiodus Pindar and all the Poets of old time which may answer both for themselves and their owne Countries and for the residue of their ages Likewise Pythagoras a disciple of
Pherecides held opinion that the Soule is a bodylesse and immortall substance put into this body as into a Prison for sinning And whereas the fleeting of soules out of one body into another is fathered upon him although the opinion be not directly against the immortality of the soul yet doe many men thinke that he hath wrong done unto him And his Disciple Timaeus of Locres reporteth otherwise of him For what punishment were it to a voluptuous man to have his Soule put into a beast that he might become the more voluptuous without remorse of sinne Soothly it is all one as if in punishment of murther or theft yee would make the murtherer to cut the throats of his own father and mother or the thiefe to commit treachery against God Howsoever the case stand he teacheth in his verses that man is of heavenly race and that as Jamblichus reporteth he is set in this world to behold God And his Disciple Arckitas sayth that God breatheth reason and understanding into him Likewise Philolaus affirmeth that the Divines and Prophets of old time bear record that the soule was coupled with the body for her sins and buried in the same as in a grave Of Epicharmus we have this saying If thou beest a good man in thy heart death can doe thee no harme for thy soule shall live happily in heaven c. Also of Heraclides we have this saying We live the death of them that is to say of the blessed his meaning is that we be not buried with our bodies and we dye their life that is to say we be still after this bodie of ours is dead Of the like opinion are Thales Anaxagoras and Diogenes concerning this point yea and so is Zeno too howbeit that he thought the soule to be begotten of man wherein he was contrary to himselfe To be short scarcely were there any to be found among the men of old time save onely Democritus and Epicurus that held the contrary way whom the Poet Lucre imitated afterward in his Verses Yet notwithstanding when Epicurus should dye he commanded an Anniversary or Yeerminde to be kept in remembrance of him by his Disciples so greatly delighted he in a vain shadow of immortality having shaken off the very thing itselfe And Lucrece as it is written of him made his book being mad at such times as the fits of his madnesse were off him surely more mad when hee thought himselfe wisest than when the fits of his phrensie were strongest upon him Whosoever readeth the goodly discourses of Socrates upon his drinking of poyson as they be reported by Plato and Xenophon himselfe cannot doubt of his opinion in this case For he not onely believed it himself but also perswaded many men to it with lively reasons yea and by his own death much more then by all his life And so yee see we be come unto Plato and Aristotle with consent of all the wise men of old time ungainsaid of any saving of a two or three malapart wretches whom the ungraciousnesse of our dayes would esteem but as drunken sots and disards Certesse Plato who might peradventure have heard speake of the Books of Moses doth in his Timaeus bring in God giving commandement to the under-gods whom he created that they should make man both of mortall and of immortall substances Wherein it may be that he alluded to this saying in Genesis Let us make man after our own image and likenesse In which case the Jews say that GOD directed his speech to his Angels but our Divines say he spake to himselfe But anon after both in the same book and in many other places Plato as it were commming to himselfe again teacheth that GOD created Man by himselfe yea and even his Liver and his Brain and all his Sences that is to say the Soule of him not onely endued with reason and understanding but also with sence and ability of growing and increasing and also the instruments whereby the same doe worke Moreover he maketh such a manifest difference betweene the Soule and the Body as that he matcheth them not together as matter and forme as Aristotle doth but as a Pilot and a Ship a Common-weale and a Magistrate an Image and him that beareth it upon him What greater thing can there be than to be like God Now sayth Plato in his Phoedon The Soul of Man is very like the Godhead Immortall Reasonable Uniforme Undissoluble and evermore of one sort which are conditions sayth he in his matters of State that cannot agree but to things most divine And therefore at his departing out of the World hee willed his Soul to return home too her kinred and to her first originall that is to wit as he himself sayth there to the wise and Immortall Godhead the Fountain of all goodnes as called home from banishment into her own native Country Hee termeth it ordinarily {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that is to say of Kyn unto God and consequently {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that is to say Everlasting and of one self-same name with the immortall ones a Heavenly Plant and not a Earthly rooted in Heaven not in Earth begotten from above and not heer beneath and finally such as cannot dye heer for as much as it liveth still in another place To be short seeing sayth he that it comprehendeth the things that are Divine and Immortall that is to wit the Godhead and the things that are unchangeable and uncorruptible as truth is it cannot be accounted to be of any other nature than they The same opinion doth Plutarch also attribute unto him which appeareth almost in every leafe of his Writings As touching the ancienter sort of Platonists they agree all with one accord in the Immortality of the Soul saving that some of them derive it from God and some from the Soule of the World some make but the Reason or Mind onely to be Immortall and some the whole Soule which disagreement may well be salved if we say that the Soul all whole together is Immortall in power or ability though the execution and performance of the actions which are to be done by the body be forgone with the instruments or members of the body The disagreement concerning this point among such as a man may vouchsafe to call by the name of Phylosophers seemeth to have begun at Aristotle howbeit that his Disciples count it a commendation to him that he hath given occasion to doubt of his opinion in that behalfe For it is certain that his new found Doctrine of the eternity or everlastingnesse of the world hath distroubled his brain in many other things as commonly it falleth out that one error breedeth many other Because nature sayth he could not make every man particularly to continue for ever by himselfe therefore shee continueth him in the kinde by matching male and female together This is spoken either
one is as an appendant to the other And in very deed to what purpose were the World created if there were no body to behold it Or to what end behold wee the Creator in the world but to serve him And why should we serve him upon no hope And to what purpose hath he indewed us with these rare gifts of his which for the most part doe but put us to pain and trouble in this life if we perish like the brute Beast or the Hearbes which know him not Howbeit for the better satisfying of the silly Soules which go on still like witlesse Beastes without taking so much leysure in all their life as once to enter into themselves let us indevour here by lively reasons to paint out unto them againe their true shape which they labour to deface with so much filthinesse The Soule of man as I have sayd afore is not a body neyther doth it increase or decrease with the body but contrary wise the more the body decayeth the more doth the understanding increase and the neerer that the body draweth unto death the more freely doth the mind understand and the more that the body abateth in flesh the more workfull is the mind And why then should we think that the thing which becommeth the stronger by the weaknesse of the body and which is advanced by the decay of the body should returne to dust with the body A mans Sences fayle because his eyes fayle and his eyes fayle because the Spirits of them fayle but the blind mans understanding increaseth because his eyes are not buside and the olde mans reason becommeth the more perfect by the losse of his sight Therefore why say we not that the body fayleth the Soul and not the Soule the body and that the Glasses are out of the Spectacles but the eysight is still good Why should we deeme the Soule to be forgone with the Sences If the eye be the thing that seeth and the care the thing that heareth why doe we not see things double and heare sounds double seeing we have two eyes and two ears It is the soule then that seeth and heareth and these which wee take to be our sences are but the instruments of our sences And if when our eyes be shut or picked out we then behold a thousand things in our minde yea and that our understanding is then most quick-sighted when the quickest of our eysight is as good as quenched or starke dead how is it possible that the reasonable soule should be tyed and bound to the sences What a reason is it to say that the soule dyeth with the sences seeing that the true sences doe then grow and increase when the instruments of sense doe die And what a thing were it to say that beast is dead because he hath lost his eyes when we our selves see that it liveth after it hath forgone the eyes Also I have proved that the soule is neither the body nor an appertenance of the body Sith it is so why measure we that thing by the body which measureth all bodies or make that to die with the body whereby the bodies that die yea many hundred years agoe doe after a certain manner live still Or what can hurt that thing whom nothing hurteth or hindereth in the body Though a man lose an arme yet doth his soule abide whole still Let him forgoe the one halfe of his body yet is his soule as sound as afore for it is whole in it selfe and whole in every part of it selfe united in it selfe and in the own substance and by the force and power thereof it sheadeth it selfe into all parts of the body Though the body rot away by piecemeal yet abideth the Soule all one and undiminished Let the bloud dreyn out the moving wax weake the sences faile and the strength perish and yet abideth the minde neverthelesse sound and lively even to the end Her house must be pierced through on all sides ere shee be discouraged her walls must be battered down ere she fall to fleeting and she never forsaketh her lodging till no room be left her to lodge in True it is that the brute beasts forgoe both life action with their bloud But as for our soule if we consider the matter well it is then gathered home into it selfe and when our sences are quenched then doth it most of all labour to surmount it selfe working as goodly actions at the time that the body is at a point to fail it yea and often times far goodlier also than ever it did during the whole life time thereof As for example it taketh order for it selfe for our household for the Common-weale and for a whole Kingdome and that with more uprightnesse godlinesse wisdome and moderation than ever it did afore yea and perchance in a body so far spent so bare so consumed so withered without and so putrified within that whosoever looks upon him sees nothing but earth and yet to heare him speake would ravish a man up to heaven yea and above heaven Now when a man sees so lively a soule in so weake and wretched a body may he not say as is said of the hatching of chickens that the shell is broken but there commeth forth a chicken Also let us see what is the ordinary cause that things perish Fire doth either goe out for want of nourishment or is quenched by his contrary which is water Water is resolved into aire by fire which is his contrary The cause why the Plant dyeth is extremitie of cold or drought or unseasonable cutting or violent plucking up Also the living wight dyeth through contrarietie of humours or for want of food or by feeding upon some thing that is against the nature of it or by outward violence Of all these causes which can we choose to have any power against our Soule I say against the Soule of man which notwithstanding that it be united to matter and to a bodie is it selfe a substance unbodily unmateriall and only conceivable in understanding The contrarietie of things Nay what can be contrarie to that which lodgeth the contraries alike equally in himselfe which understandeth the one of them by the other which coucheth them all under one skill and to be short in whom the contrarieties themselves abandon their contrarieties so as they doe not any more pursue but insue one another Fire is hote and water cold Our bodies mislike these contraries and are grieved by them but our mind linketh them together without eithet burning or cooling it selfe and it setteth the one of them against the other to know them the better The things which destroy one another through the whole world do mainteine one another in our minds Againe nothing is more contrary to peace then warre is and yet mans mind can skill to make or mainteine peace in preparing for warre and to lay earnestly for warre in seeking or inioying of peace Even death it selfe which dispatcheth our life cannot bee contrary
they receive and perceive the thing that grieveth them and for that the manner of their behaving of themselves towards their objects is subiect to suffering But as for the reasonable Soule which receiveth all things after one manner that is to wit by way of understanding where through it alway worketh is never wrought into how is it possible for it to corrupt or marre it selfe For what is the thing whereat our Soule suffereth ought in the substance thereof I meane whereby the substance of our Soule is any whit impaired or hurt by minding or conceiving the same in understanding As little doth the fire hurt it as the aire and the aire as the fire As little hurt receiveth it by the frozen ice of Norwey as by the scorching sands of Affricke As little also doth vice annoy it as vertue For vice and vertue are so farre of from incombering the substance of the soule that our mind doth never conceive or understand them better than by setting them together one against another That thing therefore which doth no whit appaire it selfe but taketh the ground of perfecting it selfe by all things cannot be marred or hurt by any thing Again what is death The uttermost point of moving and the uttermost bound of this life For even in living we dye and in dying we live and there is not that step which we set downe in this life which doth not continually step forward unto death after the manner of a Diallor a Clock which mounting up by certain degrees forgoeth his moving in moving from Minute to Minute Take away moving from a body and it doth no more live Now let us see if the soul also be carryed with the same moving If it be caryed with the same moving then doth it undoubtedly move therewithall Nay contrariwise whether the mind rest or whether it be buzyed about the proper operations thereof it is not perceived either by any panting of hart or by any beating of pulses or by any breathing of Lungs It is then as a Ship that carieth us away with it whether we walke or sit still the sticking fast whereof or the tying thereof to a poste hindereth not our going up and downe in it still Againe if the soule be subiect to the sfin corruption of the body then is it subiect to the alterations thereof also and if it be subject to the alterations it is subject to time also For alterations or changes are spices or rather consequents of moving and movings are not made but in time Now man in respect of the body hath certain full poynts or stops at the which he receiveth manifest changes and thereafter groweth or decayeth But commonly where the decay of the body beginneth there beginneth the chief strength of the mind Howbeit that in some men not only their chinnes are covered with down but also their beards become gray whose minds for want of exercise shew no signe at all either of ripenesse or growing Moreover time as in respect of the body cannot be called againe but in respect of the mind it is alwayes present Yea and time perfecteth accomplisheth and increaseth our mind and after a sort reneweth and fresheth it from day to day whereas contrariwise it forweareth washeth away and quight consumeth both it selfe and the body with the life thereof It followeth then that the reasonable Soule is not subject to time nor consequently to any of the changes and corruption that accompanie time Nay we may say thus much more That nothing in the whole world is nourished with things better than it selfe neither doth any of them contain greater things than it selfe But the things that are corruptible do live of corruptible things and cannot live without corrupting them as for example beasts live by herbs men by beasts and so forth And therefore things which live by uncorruptible things and can so receive and digest them as to turne them into the nourishment of their nature and yet not corrupt them are uncorruptible themselves to Now the Soule of man I meane the reasonable soule or mind conceiveth reason and truth and is fed and strengthened with them And reason and truth are things unchangeable not subject to time place or alteration but steady unchaungeable and everlasting For that twice two be fower and that there is the same reason in the proportion of eight unto six that is of fower unto three or that in a Triangle the three inner angles are equall with the too right angles and such like are truths which neither years nor thousands of years can change as true at this day as they were when Euclide first spake them And so forth of other things It followeth then that the Soule comprehending reason and truth which are things free from corruption cannot in any wise be subject to corruption Again Who is he of all men that desireth not to be immort all And how could any man desire it if he understood not what it is Or how could he be able to understand it unlesse it were possible for him to attain unto it Surely none of us coveteth to be beginninglesse for none of us is so neither can any of us be so And as we cannot so be so also can we not comprehend what it is For who is he that it not at his wits end but onely to thinke upon eternitie without beginning On the contrary part there is not so base a minde which coveteth not to live for ever insomuch that whereas we looke not for it by nature we seeke to obtain it by skill and pollicie some by books some by Images and some by other devices and even the grossest sort can well imagine in themselves what immortality is and are able both to conceive it and to believe it Whence comes this but that our soules being created cannot conceive an everlastingnesse without beginning and yet neverthelesse that forasmuch as they be created immortall they doe well conceive an immortality or everlastingnesse without end And whereto serves this universall desire if it be not naturall or how is it naturall if it be in vain and not onely in vain but also to bring us to hell and to torment Let us wade yet deeper Who can dispute or once so much as doubt whether the soule be immortall or no but he that is capable of Immortality And who can understand what difference is betwixt mortall and Immortall but he that is Immortall Man is able to discerne the difference between that which is reason and that which is not and thereupon we terme him reasonable Whosoever would hold opinion that a man is not reasonable should need none other disproof than his own disputing thereof for he would go about to prove it by reason Man can skill to discerne the mortall natures from the immortall and therefore we may well say he is immortall For he that should dispute to the contrary shall be driven to bring such reasons as shall of themselves make him to prove
grosely or doubtfully But whereas he sayth that if the minde have any inworking of it own without any help of the Sences or of the body it may also continue of it selfe concluding thereupon that then it may also be separated from the body as an immortall thing from a thing that is transitory and mortall It followeth consequently also that the soule may have continuance of it selfe as whereof he uttereth these words namely That the soule commeth from without and not of the seed of man as the body doth and that the Soule is the onely part in us that is Divine Now to bee Divine and to be Humane to be of seed and to be from without that is to say from GOD are things flat contrary whereof the one sort is subject to corruption and the other not In the tenth book of his Moralls he acknowledgeth two sorts of life in man the one as in respect that he is composed of body and soule the other as in respect of minde onely the one occupied in the powers which are called humane and bodily which is also accompanied with a felicity in this life and the other occupied in the vertues of the minde which is accompanied also with a felicity in another life This which consisteth in contemplation is better than the other and the felicity thereto belonging is peculiarly described by him in his books of Heaven above Time as which consisteth in the franke and free working of the minde and in beholding the soverain God And in good sooth fulwell doth Michael of Ephesus upon this saying of his conclude that the soule is immortall and so must all his moralls also needs doe considering that to live well whether it be to a mans selfe or towards other men were else a vain thing and to no purpose but to vex our mindes in this life In his books of the soule hee not onely separateth the body from the soule but also putteth a difference betwixt the soule it selfe and the mind termining the soule the inworking of the body and of the bodily instruments and the minde that reasonable substance which is in us whereof the doings have no fellowship with the doings of the body and whereof the soule is as Plato sayth but the garment This minde sayth he may be severed from the body it is not in any wise mingled with it it is of such substance as cannot be hurt or wrought upon it hath being and continnance actually and of it selfe and even when it is separated from the body then is it immortall and everlasting To be short it hath not any thing like unto the body For it is not any of all those things which have being afore it understand them And therefore which of all bodily things can it be And in another place he sayth thus As concerning the minde and the contemplative power it is not yet sufficiently apparant what it is Neverthelesse it seemeth to be another kinde of soule and it is that onely which can be separated from the corruptible as the which is Ayeverlasting To bee short when as hee putteth this question whether a Naturall Philosopher is to dispute of all manner of Soules or but onely of that Soule which is immortall it followeth that hee granteth that there is such a one And again when as hee maketh this argument Looke what God is everlastingly that are we in possibility according to our measure but hee is everlastingly separated from bodily things therefore the time will come that we shall be so too Hee taketh it that there is an image of God in us yea even of the Divine nature which hath continuance of it selfe Very well and rightly therefore doth Simplicius gather thereof the immortality of the soule For it dependeth upon this separation and upon continuance of being of it selfe Besides this he sayth also that hunting of beasts is granted to man by the law of nature because that thereby man challengeth nothing but that which naturally is his own But what right I pray you if there be no more in himselfe than in them And what is there more in him than in them if they have a soule equall unto his Hereunto make all his commendations of godlinesse of Religion of blessednesse and of contemplation For to what end serve all these which doe but cumber us here below Therefore surely it is to be concluded that as he spake doubtfully in some one place so he both termed and also taught to speake better in many other places as appeareth by his Disciple Theophrastus who speaketh yet more evidently thereof than he The Latines as I have sayd before fell to Philosophie somewhat later then the Greeks And as touching their common opinion the exercises of superstition that were among them the manner of speeches which we marke in their Histories their contempt of death and their hope of another life can give ne sufficient warrant thereof Cicero speaketh unto us in these words The originall of our soules and mindes cannot be found in this low earth for there is not any mixture in them or any compounding that may seeme to be bred or made of the earth Neither is there any moisture any windinesse or any fiery matter in them For no such thing could have in it the power of memory understanding and conceit to beare in minde things past to foresee things to come and to consider things present which are matters altogether divine And his conclusion is that therefore they bee derived from the minde of God that is to say not bred or begotten of man but created of God not bodily but unbodily whereupon it followeth that the soule cannot be corrupted by these transitory things The same Cicero in another place sayth that between God and man there is a kinred of reason as there is between man and man a kinred of bloud That the fellowship between man and man commeth of the mortall body but the fellowship between God and man commeth of God himselfe who created the soule in us By reason whereof sayth he we may say we have alyance with the heavenly sort as folke that are discended of the same race and root whereof that wee may ever more bee mindfull we must looke up to heaven as to the place of our birth whether we must one day returne And therefore yet once again he concludeth thus of himselfe Thinke not sayth he that thou thy selfe art mortall it is but thy body that is so For thou art not that which this outward shape pretendeth to be the minde of man is the man indeede and not this lump which may be pointed at with ones finger Assure thy selfe therefore that thou art a God For needs must that be a God which liveth perceiveth remembreth foreseeth and finally raineth in thy body as the great God the maker of all things doth in the universall world For as the eternall God ruleth and moveth this transitory world so doth
to be seene yet more in that which we read concerning the hearers of Hegesias the Cyrenian who dyed willingly after they had heard him discourse of the state of mens soules after this life and likewise concerning Cleombrotus the Ambraciot who slew himselfe when hee had read a certain treatise of the immortalitie of the soule For had it not been a doctrine most evident to mans wit they would never have bin caried so farre by it as to the hurting of their bodies And if among so many people there be perchance some fewe wretched caytifes that have borne themselves on hand the contrarie which thing neverthelesse they could never yet fully perswade themselves to be out of all doubt or question surely we may beleeve that they had very much adoe and were utterly besotted like Drunkards afore they could come to that poynt so as we may well say of them as Hierocle the Pythagorist sayd namely That the wicked would not have their souls to be immortall to the intent they might not bee punished for their faults But yet that they prevent the sentence of their Judge by condemning themselves unto death afore hand But if they will neither heare God nor the whole world nor themselves let them at leastwise hearken to the Devill as well as they doe in other things who as saith Plutark made this answer to Corax of Naxus and others in these verses It were a great wickednesse for thee to say The Soule to be mortall or for to decay And unto Polytes he answered thus As long as the Soule to the body is tyde Though loth yet all sorowes it needes must abyde But when fro the body Death doth it remove To heaven by and by then it flyes up above And there ever youthfull in blisse it doth rest As God by his wisedome hath set for the best Not that any saying of the Devills owne is to be alledged in witnesse of the truth further foorth than to shew that hee speakes it by compulsion of Gods mightie power as wicked men divers times doe when they be upon the Racke Now we be come to the time or nere to the time that the heavenly doctrine of Jesus Christ was spred over the whole world unto which time I have proved the continuall succession of that doctrine which could not but be unseparably ioyned with the succession of men But from this time forth it came so to light among all Nations all persons that Saint Austin after a short tryumphing over ungodlinesse cryeth out in divers places saying Who is now so very a foole or so wicked as to doubt still of the immortalitie of the Soule Epictetus a Stoikphilosopher who was had in very great reputation among all the men of his time is full of goodly sayings to the same purpose May we not be ashamed sayth he to leade an unhonest life and to suffer our selves to be vanquished by adversitie we be alyed unto God we came from thence and we have leave to returne thether from whence we came One while as in respect of the soule he termeth man the ofspring of GOD or as it were a branch of the Godhead and another while he calleth him a divine Impe or a spark of God by all which words howbeit that they be somewhat unproper for what words can a man finde to fit that matter he sheweth the uncorruptiblenesse of the substance of mans soule And whereas the Philosopher Simplicius hath so diligently commented upon his bookes it doth sufficiently answer for his opinion in that case without expressing his words here Plotinus the excellentest of all the Platonists hath made nine treatises expressely concerning the nature of the soule besides the things which he hath written dispersedly heere and there in other places His chiefe conclusions are these That mens soule proceede not of their bodies nor of the seede of the Parent but come from above and are as ye would say grafted into our bodies by the hand of God That the soule is partly tyed to the body and to the instruments thereof and partly franke free workfull and continuing of it selfe and yet notwithstanding that it is neither a body nor the harmonie of the body but if we consider the life and operation which it giveth to the body it is after a sort the perfection or rather the perfector of the body if we have an eye to the understanding whereby it guydeth the movings and doings of the body it is as a Governour of the body That the further it is withdrawne from the Sences the better it discourseth of things insomuch that when it is utterly separated from them it understandeth things without discoursing reasoning or debating yea even in a moment because this debating is but a certain lightening or brightnesse of the minde which now taketh advisement in matter whereof it doubteth it doubteth wheresoever the body yeeldeth any impedements unto it but it shall neither doubt nor seek advisement any more when it is once out of the body but shall conceive the truth without wavering That the soule in the body is not properly there as in a place or as in a ground because it is not contained or comprehended therein and may also be separated from it but rather if a man had eyes to see it withall he should see that the bodie is in the soule as an accessary is in a principall or as a thing contained in a container or a sheding or liquid thing in a thing that is not liquid because the Soule imbraceth the body and quickneth it and moveth it equally and alike in all parts That every abilitie thereof is in every part of the bodie as much in one part as in another as a whole soule in every part notwithstanding that every severall abilitie thereof seeme to be severally in some particular member or part because the instruments thereof are there as the sensitive abilitie seemeth to rest in the head the irefull in the heart and the quickning in the liver because the sinews heart-strings and veins come from those parts Whereas the reasonable power is not in any part saving so far forth as it worketh and hath his operation there neither hath it any need of place or instrument for the executing of it selfe And to be short that the soule is a life by it selfe a life all in one unpaitable which causeth to grow and groweth not it selfe which goeth through the bodie and yet is not contained of the body which uniteth the sences and is not divided by the Sences and therefore that it is a bodilesse substance which cannot be touched neither from within nor from without having no need of the body either outwardly or inwardly and consequently is immortall divine yea and almost a very God Which things he proveth by many reasons which were too long to be rehearsed here Yea. he proceedeth so far as to say that they which are passed into another