before such time as by the operation of seminall causes formes be accomplished and made to appeare in their owne likenesse upon this theater This is also the judgement of Athanas Kircherius a late learned writer l. 3. de magnete part 3. c. 1. where he shewes how rich compounds earth and water be as Chymique industries for seperation have discovered insomuch as in them as he noteth is conteined a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or generall magazine the common matter being from the first creation not leane and hungry but faeta and praeseminata with formes partiall and incompleate This also is the inchoations of formes and the rationes seminales praeëxistent which many learned men have often favoured and which being thus explained and in which this sence of ours can suffer nothing from the objections of Gandavensis or Durandus This lastly is nothing else but in a good sence an eduction of formes ex potentia materiae which is Aristotles and his Disciples Doctrine for it cannot be thought that Aristotle ever intended to presse or squeeze any formes out of the dry skeleton of materia prima which matter is a principle onely receptive and no promptuary out of which to educe a forme by virtue of any naturall agent whatsoever for in such a spare entity as that what fecundity is imaginable And so much touching the originall of formes which is one of the abstrusest and nicest points in all philosophy and that which by vulgar authors is meanliest handled and by the wisest is knowne but by conjecture Thus his maine argument is answered after which all the rest will fall downe headlong with any light touch though but of a finger Immediately after this he argueth out of Gen. 3. 19. where Adam is told that for his disobedience he must turne into that dust of which he was made out of which he concludes that all and every part of Adam must be converted into dust which if it be so as he sayeth then not only his earthly particles but his aiery watry and fiery partes must to dust also and not only his body but his soule if he have any must be turned into the same matter See what fine conclusions follow out of this mortall soules philosophy It sufficed then that so much of his body or of the whole man was to returne to dust as had beene made up of it And by this alone the commination of God is fullfilled without any more adoe After this he comes upon us with his false Latin saying as followeth Death reduceth this productio entis ex non ente ad Non-entem returnes man to what he was before he was that is not to be c. and by and by citing impertinently two or three places of Scripture falls to another argument drawen from the resurrection As for the Latine word Non-entem whether it be right or no we will not examine but apply our selves to the consideration of the sense which is as faulty as the Latine can be know therefore in breife that death did not reduce Adam to non ens but to non Adam it did not cause him absolutely not to be but onely not to be man or Adam any longer And forasmuch as concernes his body it is confest and certaine that it was not turned by death or mortality into nothing or non ens but into dust which is an ens or something that is to say his body was not annihilated but corrupted and to dye is not wholly to be destroyed but partially only which act is all one with dissolution Now if to the totall mortalizing of man it be not necessary that his body be destroyed then can it not be needfull that his soule should be so and thus our adversaries stout argument is more then mortalized for it comes to nothing which man by dying does not We will not deny him but that the soule of man did die and die againe as much as it was capable of death for first it dyed by the being seperated from the body secondly by being subjected unto damnation which as we know is called in scripture a second death But as for the annihilation of it or of the body that is it which we deny and so to doe we have just reason In fine as generation is nothing but the union of the parts and not the creation or absolute production of them so againe Death and Corruption is nothing but the disunion or dissolution of them and in no wise the annihilation according as this wise Author would perswade us As for the article of the Resurrection it proves nothing against the perpetuity of the soule for we never read of any resurrection besides that of the body wherefore to averre a resurrection of soules were a grand foolery and a doctrine never debateable or heard of amongst Christians till this silly Author came to teach it And so much for his first chapter CHAP. III. Scripture no way a favourer of the soules mortality HIs places cited out of scripture in favour of his errour are so impertinent as that it were no small peice of folly to examine them one by one They all of them signifie that man shall dye or sometimes that Joseph or Simeon is not as Gen. 42. 36. all which how they are to be expounded and understood may sufficiently appeare by that which hath beene said in the precedent chapter and how againe they make nothing at all against the soules immortality Touching the words of Ecclesiastes c. 3. the answer is that they were no determinations or resolves but a history or an account given of what sometimes came into his thoughts and what obscurities and desolations of soule he had and what lastly was one of the first difficulties that troubled him and stirred him up unto a sollicitous enquiry for certainely this one verity of the mortality of mans soule is that which is to order his designes to regulate his actions and to put life and vigour into them this being a truth most fundamentall We see this one was it which moved Clemens Rom. if he be the true Author of that which passeth under his name to a serious inquiry and care Clem. l. 1. recogn for the finding out what he was to do whom to consult what to esteeme most and in fine what to feare or hope most and how to order all the passages of his life This is the question that usually troubles men first of all and till a resolution be had suffereth their hearts not to be at quiet every man at first suspiciously as Solomon did asking of himselfe as Seneca gallantly expresseth saying Senec. in Troade Verum est an timidos fabula decipit Vmbras corporibus vivere conditis Cum conjux oculis imposuit manum Supremusque dies Solibus obstitit Et Tristes cineres urna coërcuit Non prodest animam tradere funeri Sed restat miseris vivere longius An toti morimur nullaque pars manet Nostri cum profugo spiritus
THE Prerogative of Man OR THE IMMORTALITY OF HVMANE SOVLES ASSERTED Against the vain Cavils of a late worthlesse Pamphlet ENTITVLED Mans Mortality c. VVhereunto is added the said Pamphlet it selfe GEN. 2. 7. Man became a living soule Ovid. Met. 1. Os homini sublime dedit OXFORD Printed in the yeare 1645. THE PREROGATIVE OF MAN OR His Soules Immortality and high perfection defended and explained against the rash and rude conceptions of a late Authour who hath inconsiderately adventured to impugne it 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 Matt. 22. 32. Printed in the yeare 1645. The Preface SO great and soveraigne to man hath been the benignity of indulgent nature as that she hath not onely bestowed upon his soule 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 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 acknowledged of old by the Heathenish and Pagan nations of which thing we in the worke 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 To these I adde now and for a tast in the beginning present my Reader with onely two the one taken out of the 12 Booke of Marcus Antoninus Augustus the other out of Simplicius his Commentaries upon Epictetus one of these witnesses a Stoicke Philosopher the other a Peripatetique in performance of which omitting the Greeke citations as a diligence for the most part unnecessary in an English worke behold the words of Antoninus Hast thou faith he forgotten that the minde or soule of every man is a God He meanes by the word God onely an entity divine and a substance of higher and nobler extraction then other formes or soules of creatures inferiour Simplicius in his Prolegomen determines saying The soule maketh use of the body as of Organs or Instruments as also it doth of the passions irrationall and hath a substance altogether separable from them and remaining after their corruption The selfe same doctrine is delivered expressely and at large by Porphyry in his Booke De Abstinentia Against these powerfull impulsives and clearer notions of truth the adverse party hath nothing to oppose but meere surmises or suspicions such namely as the Author of the Booke of Wisedome out of their owne mouthes recordeth saying There hath not any one beene knowne to have returned from the Grave 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 is driven as by a storme into darke and doubtfull cogitations touching the soules mortality and so 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 granting the soule 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 selfe at length to nothing burning or wasting out it 's owne 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 terme or point presently and naturally to extinguish or returne to nothing But if suspicions may come to be examined we shall finde that there be other of them perswading the soules mortality that seeme more hollow and deceiptfull 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 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 drinke and play thy fill There 's after death nor good nor ill Doubtlesse these latter perswaders seeme 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 as well for concluding of montality 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 darke imaginations will not be allowed for evidence or be able to cast the businesse any way To these other proofes which after I alleadge I adde this one which I have placed in the frontispeice 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 the resurrection were convinced and not onely they but this Author also against whom we deale for the place proves the soules 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 soule there might result an Abraham againe if he be the God also of the living then must his soule continue living without any intermission from death for as without a body there is no Abraham so without a soule 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 the soule must have a revivall resuscitation for the which we have no warrant any where feign it we must not or if we do it will want weight and be rejected It followes then that the soule of man after the departure of it from the body must either alwaies live or never and so by consequence seeing the soule
to the judgement of the wisest doe appertaine unto it For first what is the wealth and treasure of man but the dignity and value of his actions of this he hath long since beene plundered His eyesight whereby his steps were to be guided was his knowledge but this divers have laboured to extinguish by denying with the old Academickes and late Socinians that there is any certainty in it and by becoming so witty as to know nothing His crowne and life was the immortality of his better part as therein cheifely being superiour to beasts and all other living things irrationall but behold here a privy but a dangerous traitor endeavours to despoile him of it so that in fine if all these treacherous assailants might have their wills he shall be wholly mortall poore feeble blinde and miserable dethroned from his wonted dignity and cast downe unto the lower classe of Beasts Profectò plurima homini ex homine mala as Pliny justly complaineth though he himselfe be one of the Authors of these eevills Was it not enough that all inferiour creatures doe rebell against us but we must basely and treacherously conspire against our selves The man that going from Jerusalem to Jericho fell amongst theeves had hard measure offered him for he was despoiled and wounded by them and left onely halfe alive but those theeves amongst whom we are now fallen be farre more cruell for they would kill us outright both in soule and body and with lesse then this will not be contented But now it is time we examine what urgent reasons what killing arguments there were that moved this new author unto so extravagant a course of rigour against all mankinde 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 CHAP. II. His first Classe of arguments examined and refuted HIs first arguments be drawen 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 leane which as I perceive by the posture it should have been a syllogisme if the Author could have cast it into that forme 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 expired to yeild 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 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 soule should perish or be destroyed And forasmuch as concernes 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 againe by corruption or death onely defaced and disunited or dissolved And as for the soule 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 inferre but to be dissolved for surely if his soule by act of mortality was to have beene destroyed he could not thinke to be with Christ during the time of that destruction or dissolution which he wished and so his words and wishing would have beene very vaine seeing according to this Author he should by his being dissolved come never the sooner to be with Christ because according to this Author neither alive nor dead he was to come unto him before the Generall resurrection nay further his wish would have made against himselfe and his owne ends because he knowing Christ a little in this life might in some small measure injoy him in it but if by death his soule be killed as well as his body he should have no knowledge at all nor comfort of Christ but be cast farther off 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 workes of nature and transmutation of naturall compounds naturall and materiall formes themselves also doe not perish at their parting from their matters but onely are dissolved and dissipated lying after that in their scattered atomes within the bosome of nature from whence they were before by force of the seed extracted the result of whose union was the forme So that the entity of the forme remaines after corruption though not in the essence and formality of a forme or totally and compleatly Thus teacheth the learned author of Religio medici and exactly declares himselfe of the same minde is the famous late Physitian Daniel Sennertus in his Hypomnemata though sometimes not so fully as for example when he ascribes to formes precedent the full production of the subsequent assigning a vis prolifica in every forme for multiplying of it selfe by which doctrine he seemes to recede from his former principles of Atomes and not to sticke constantly to them yea and besides to deliver a conceit which is hardly understood and which moreover seemes to be improbable for who can explicate what one forme does when it multiplies another or what kinde of causality it doth then exercise or by what strange influence that effect is wrought and the forme made up of nothing This same doctrine of Religio Medici and that also which we deliver here touching the Origination of formes was the doctrine of old Democritus expressed by him in his constitution of Atomes or minima naturalia not that every Atome did conteine a forme as Sennertus seemes to thinke but rather severall peeces for the composition of it as every simple or ingredient of Diacatholicon for example is not Diacatholicon but conteines something in it of which it is to be made up and from which as from differing heterogeneall parcells collected and united by an artificiall mixtion it results and for want of putting this difference or restraint Sennertus his owne doctrine and explication of Democritus may seeme defective This also was taught by Anaxagoras when he affirmed all to be in all or every thing and to have a preexistence in the bosome of nature
with raking so long in such a heap of dirt and therefore at this instant I leave him to bethinke himselfe about making a timely recantation Now turning with delight unto my Reader to solace and refresh my selfe after all this travaile I desire him to look into Hierocles Commentary upon the Golden Verses ascribed to Pythagoras in Hierocles in Carm. Pyth. which he seemeth to have discovered the originall of this pernicious errour touching the soules mortality What availes it faith he with perjuries and murders and other wicked wayes to gather wealth and to seem rich unto the world and to want those good things which are conducible unto the minde But besides to be stupid and insensible of them and thereby to augment the evill or if they have any remorse of conscience for their offences to be tormented in their soules and affraid of the punishments of Hell comforting themselves with this alone that there is no way of escaping them and from hence are ready to cure one evill with another and by a perswasion that the soule is mortall to sooth up themselves in wickednesse judging they are not worthy to have any thing of theirs remaining after death that so they might avoid those punishments which by judgement should be inflicted on them for a wicked man is loath to thinke his soule to be immortall for feare of the revenges that are to follow his misdeeds Wherefore preventing the Judge who is below he pronounceth the sentence of death against himselfe as holding it fit that such a wicked soule should have no longer a being nor subsistence Behold here the fountain head of this errour opened and purged by Hierocles In fine from whatsoever puddle this errour sprung let us remember what Socrates being to die delivered touching the various condition of soules after this life He said as Cicero relateth there were two different pathes or voyages of soules at their departure Cic. l. 1. Tuscul from the bodies for all such as with humane vices had contaminated themselves and were delivered wholly up to lust with which as with domesticke vices being blinded they had by lewd actions defiled themselves or had attempted against the Common-wealth any crime or fraud inexpiable that these had a wandring way assigned for them sequestred from the assemblies of the Gods but such againe as had preserved themselves entire and chaste contracting little or no contagion from the body having alwayes retired and withdrawn themselves from it and had in humane bodies imitated the conversation of the Gods these found opened for them an easie way of returne to them from whom they proceeded at the first This is the Doctrine both of Cicero and of Socrates what then remaines to do but to hearken attentively to the wise Counsell of the Prince of Philosophers Aristotle and to suffer it to have a powerfull influence into all the passages of our life His words l. 10. Ethic. c. 9. according to the division of Andronicus Rhodius be as follow If then saith he our understanding in respect of man be a thing divine so Arist l. 10. Ethic. c. 9. that life which is lead according unto the understanding if compared with life humane is divine also neither as some perswade is it lawfull for a man to relish and follow onely that which is humane and being mortall those things onely which are mortall but as much as in him lieth he ought to vindicate himselfe from all mortality and to take speciall care that he live according to that part which is most excellent within him Now that which is best within us is our minde which though it be small in bulke and weight yet in power and excellency doth surpasse the rest And with this wise counsell of the Philosopher I conclude this whole Question which though the day of every mans departure will decide and give a finall resolution to it yet in the mean season are not disputes of this nature fruitlesse or superfluous because if they be well performed they are like burning torches which in the darke gallery of this life teach us how to direct our steppes and before that blacke day come to helpe us for the making our preparations before-hand that so with better hopes of safety we may meet our deadly enemies in the gate Without all doubting for the repressing of brutish bestiall and unworthy affections and again for our encouragement to noble and generous designements the best preparatives against Death there is no consideration so powerfull and efficacious as that one of the high perfection of mans soule and the immortall nature and condition of it for as Cicero observeth l. 1. de legib Qui se ipsum nôrit primùm aliquid sentiet se habere divinum ingeniumque in se suum sicut symulachrum aliquod dedicatum Cicero l. 1. de legib putabit tantoque munere Deorum semper aliquid dignum faciet sentiet He that doth know himselfe will forthwith finde within him something that is divine and will hold his understanding as a statue dedicated and be alwayes thinking or doing something answerable to so great munificence of the Gods That is to say he will be mindfull that as in upright shape of body and the perfection of his spirit he excelleth beasts and all creatures irrationall so he will endeavour to do in the condition of his living by disdaining to stoop to any thing which is base or to defile the house in which his soule inhabits with any unworthy or ignoble actions I will seale and signe this whole dispute with the determination and censure of the book of Wisedome which book whether it be received into the Canon or no yet is it confessedly very ancient and therefore by consent of all may claime a just precedence of authority before any Heathen Philosopher whatsoever the words are these Justorum animae in manu Dei sunt non tanget illos tormentum mortis visi sunt oculis insipientium mori illi autem sunt in pace The soules of Sap. 3. 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 die but they remain in peace Behold here in the judgement of this venerable Authour what kinde of people they are who hold the soules 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 should presume so farre but it is the judgement of the ancient Authour of the Book of Wisedome 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 soules immortality with the selfe same note of ignominy that David the kingly Prophet did marke that wretched mortall who Psalm 13. closely and in his heart had said There is no God Yet there is this ods 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 so to do it as he himselfe might lie concealed and his name unknowne which covert way of his though it appeare not altogether so bold and bad as if he had put his name unto his worke 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 soules immortall nature and incorruptibility how could the cogitations unto the contrary of this poore worme be a matter any way considerable with men of understanding and ability FINIS