a Stone if the Circle were in the Descendent But if in the Ascendent then its Progress was from more gross Subjects to more Spiritual ones for God is able of Stones to raise up Children unto Abraham They thought that in Nature there was no such thing as Quies the very hardest Stone in time mouldring into Dust only by a circular Motion from Rarefaction to Condensation and from Condensation to Rarefaction again as the Poet in these follwing Verses describes it Resolutaque Tellus In liquidas rarescit aquas tenuatur in auras Aëraque Humor habet dempto quoque pondere rursùs In superos aēr tenuissimus emicat ignes Indè retrò redeunt idemque retexitur ordo Ignis enim densum spissatus in aëra transit Hinc in aquas Tellus glomeratâ cogitur undâ The course which Nature takes in Governing the World is by one Contrary prevailing over another Thus the Moisture in the Air prevails over the Driness of the Fire the Coldness of the Water over the Heat of the Air the Driness of the Earth over the Moisture of the Water and so the Moisture of the Water over the Driness of the Earth the Heat of the Air over the Coldness of the Water and the Driness of the Fire over the Moisture of the Air And thus the various Alterations are made and produced out of one Extream into another Alternativè XXII The most ingenious of this Sect as if they had met with some blind Hint of the Evil Angels cast out of Heaven supposed two Creations The first to have been Spiritual and that the Fall of those Evil Angels occasion'd our Corporeal Creation that so there might be Bodies of divers Tempers and duration in whom those wicked Spirits their Souls should be for expiating their Guilt included and according to their Merits rendred sensible of more or less Pain and Grief whereof in their Spiritual Condition not cloath'd with Flesh and Blood they were uncapable as they conceived For as the Body hath no Sense without a Soul so they believ'd the Soul could have no Sense without a Body And this they grounded upon Erroneous Observations as ex gr If say they you take out your Eye-balls you have as much Soul in you as you had before but cannot see for want of those Organs and the Soul will be devested of all its other Powers in operating as well as in that of seeing when it wants its Eye-balls Which Errour proceeded from their not understanding of how much a Diviner Nature and Power the Soul is than the Body XXIII Now by Men of this vain Opinion our Sublunary Orb was esteem'd the only Hell they thinking this World more proper and better proportion'd to the Offences and Capacities of the wicked Soul in our passionate and momentary Condition than the Tradition of everlasting Torments for acting those Vices which their Nature prompted them to or as a learned Gentleman of our own Nation expresses it for not being sound when we are created sick An Excuse so unlikely to procure our Pardon with God that it should prove uneffectual with one of us if a Man that had robbed and wounded us should tell us He was prompted thereunto by his Nature or Inclinations I do not find by their Writings that they believ'd evil actions so much to proceed from the Devil as their own corrupt Natures Format enim Natura priùs nos intùs c. And therefore many of them thought that the only evil Spirits which hurried men to ruine were their own passions Love Fear Anger Ambition Revenge Lust c. which passions are generally the causes of mens destruction both in lives and fortunes That Passion is an enemy to the knowledge of the Truth both in discourse and writing we our selves experience God came not in the Earthquake nor Whirlwind but in the still Voice and we shall never hear Reason deliver'd in Passion But that which chiefly induc'd the Heathens to impute all their Vices to their own corrupt Natures was this because they could hardly believe that God would suffer a declared Enemy so far to prevail against him as when he would have all men saved the Devil should so far over-rule as through his instigation a thousand men should be damn'd for one that is saved which would happen if all vicious persons were denied Salvation But this objection of theirs will be rendred vain if we consider the Devil as God's Executioner having no power but from above XXIV As for the aforementioned Doctrine of Transmigration it abounds much at this day in China and both the Indies especially the East where the great swarms of Mankind live besides vast numbers in America and Africa As for the Mahometans who are no small part of Mankind although they have a Religion so craftily fitted to vulgar capacities as 't is thought to be the most politick and likely to spread and last that ever was invented Yet even among them they have a Sect or Heresie exceeding numerous call'd by the Arabians Altenasack which signifies those that hold Transmigration of Souls and the whole Mahometan Superstition although it gives not the Soul a new Body in this life allows departed Souls new Bodies fresh lusty in the life to come without which it could not enjoy their sensual Paradise which the Alchoran promises them But it still censures those of the Altenasack for Hereticks chiefly because they can't believe the everlasting and merciless Hell esteeming it a thing that would rob God of his Attribute of Mercy which they hold were not infinite as all his Attributes must be if in no measure it extended to the most wicked and wretched Creatures Not considering how short soever a mans life is it matters not for he hath an offer made him either of eternal happiness or misery and he might chuse either which he pleases Nor is Eternal misery more disproportionable to a vicious life than Eternal happiness to a vertuous so that he plays but upon the square either way Now amongst those Heathens there were a third sort of men whose fancy as they themselves thought was of very obvious experience but seem'd to be stifled and suppressed as neither suiting to the wishes of men nor conducive to the governing of them And these are those which conceiv'd a man to be neither Soul nor Body but only the Result of their Conjunction which vanishing he was for ever unconcern'd and lost Because that which in its best estate was esteem'd but a shadow upon Earth they ignorantly supposed must on the parting of the Body whose shadow it was be for ever lost Yea and as I shew'd before out of Lucretius they held that if the same Body could return upon Earth again and be reunited to it that might constitute a new man but of no concern to the former no more than my shadow which I shall have next year will be to my this years shadow although I have the same body next year as I
he had been informed of the same from his Mother and Wife Also Zamolxis whom Laertius and Herodotus call Pythagoras his Disciple though Suidas and others oppose it deliver'd those Laws to the Scythians which he pretended to have receiv'd in a certain Cave where he had been conversing with the Gods Nor did Epimenides get himself less reputation by his pretence of having slept fifty years And last of all Mahomet having in the same manner retir'd himself into the Mountains of Arabia did there by the assistance of Sergius and two Iews compose that fabulous Law which he after divulg'd unto the World as coming from the Angel Gabriel with whom he pretended himself very familiar And thus we see with what Arts each Law-giver endeavoured to establish their Laws among men thinking thereby to purchase that immortal Fame which their Ambitions so much desir'd For as one of the Ancients well observ'd Amari coli diligi majus imperio est But oh the Impiety of these Heathens who father'd all their Follies upon their Gods not considering that whosoever speaketh in the name of the Gods intituleth them to whatsoever he publisheth and consequently if his Doctrine be false as that of theirs must needs be by reason of the absurdities found therein intituleth the Deities to false Doctrines III. The next thing I shall insist upon is their impious Opinions concerning the Deity which deserve the same reproof that a late ingenious and noble Writer gave a rigid Predestinarian affirming that God delighted in the death of Mankind Speak worse of the Devil if you can For there was hardly any thing so mean or base as was not by some of them rever'd for a Deity nor any Vice so great but some of their Gods were guilty of it Wherefore Origen speaking of the Aegyptians says thus to Celsus When you approach their Sacred places ye shall meet with stately Groves Chappels and Temples with magnificent Gates also with variety of mysterious Ceremonies but when once you are entred and got within their Temples ye shall behold nothing but a Cat or an Ape a Crocodile Goat or Dog whereto they pay the most solemn veneration But of this I shall treat more at large in my discourse concerning Sacrifices and therefore now will return to that subiect which the Title of my Book promises to treat of IV. In the first place to discover the foundation of their Opinion concerning the Soul it was this Iovis omnia plena and of the World Mens agitat molem They held God to be all in all to be Infinite and therefore but One thinking that if there could be found any real thing though but an Atom which were no part of God or any place wherein God were not then they could not esteem him to be Infinite and every-where present but thence excluded and consequently limited upon which account they denied a Vacuum Hence also they did not conceive the World as some now do to be a great Body by it self set apart from the Infinite God but to be signified under that name whose Being was in part visible and expos'd to our senses and partly invisible as in its Spirituality not perceptible by our gross corporeal Organs otherwise then in its outward effects and productions and that therefore no more of the invisible things of God was known unto them then what seem'd of clear inference from the visible that in plain meaning the Spiritual part of the World was not by them discovered further then was evidenc'd by its acting on the Corporeal part whereof though in the common form of speaking when they said God they meant only the Spirit of God and when they said World they meant grosly the material Globe Yet the more knowing sort of Heathens did by the World mean all corporeal Beings both above and below not allowing plurallty of Worlds but only one infinite Body govern'd by the Divine Spirit acting all in all Spiritus intus alit So as when they mention'd Gods in the plural number they meant only divers faculties which their Soul of the World viz. God had infus'd into several Creatures peculiar to them Hence they call'd every particular a Microcosm or Little World in some sort the Progeny or imperfect Copy of the Universe as consisting of Body and Spirit some more perfect as Man and all animated Creatures others less as Plants Minerals and Stones according as their several mixt bodily Temperaments were prepared to receive a more or less pure degree of the Anima Mundi not allowing more Souls then one although men gave them divers names according to the various kinds of Creatures so animated And this some held too Spiritual to be any more defiled by any diseas'd nasty or wicked Body wherein it dwelt then the Sun-beams by shiniug into a Dungeon or Pest-house V. Now this Doctrine of the Soul seem'd but ill to provide for Justice either in this life or another however they allow'd it Immortality in general but undertook not for its disposal in any peculiar way only that it lives here as long as it hath vigour enough in it self to draw and digest to its own support fit and sufficient Nutriment out of the great World But when its Organs are either enfeebled or by some accident disorder'd that it can no longer prey on the great World then that preys upon it and at death receives back its Body and Spirit into it self by which alternative Emanation of the Universe into particulars and their Restitution into the Universe without any annihilation the World say they enjoys a perpetual rejuvenescency They did by daily experience see composita dissolvi and in their dissolution nothing perisht but that which was made up of the conjunction of those parts As when by death the Body and Soul were parted the Man they thought was gone but the Spirit remain'd in its Original and the Body in its Earth from whence it came and they when wrought again by Nature separately into new mixtures entred into a new state of Being which they supposed no way concern'd or related unto the former as we may see by the lines of the Poet Et si jam nostro sent it de corpore postquam Distracta est animi natura animaeque potestas Nil tamen hoc ad nos coitu qui conjugioque Corporis atque animae consistimus uniter apti Nec si materiam nostram conlegerit aetas Post obitum rursumque redegerit ut sit a nunc est Atque iterum nobis fuerint data lumina vitae Pertineat quicquam tamen ad nos id quoque factum Interrupta semel cum sit retinentia nostri Et nunc nihil ad nos de nobis attinet ante Qui fuimus c. But only thought themselves assured and held for an eternal verity that there never was nor could be in Nature any Annihilation however gross people when things disappear'd consider'd not that they were dissolved into their first Principles but
who living in a Republick and so perhaps having his Philosophy infected with their kind of Government gives the Soul of all things a kind of reciprocal preferment and recidivation by rarefaction and condensation of its corporeal nature For he observing the dissolution of gross Bodies to be wrought by fermentation intrinsick which looses and ratisies them as also that they are compacted by condensation whereby the Soul becomes wrought again into another gross Body and that the spiritual doth ever act and govern the corporeal He I say from these Operations conceiv'd a kind of alternative reign in Nature saying after his obscure manner Lux Iovi Tenebrae Plutoni Lux Plutoni Tenebrae Iovi which much agrees with the LondonVirtuosi in Sir Hugh Platt's time who writes that they held no Original difference of things but thick and thin not discerning that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divinum aliquid or Spiritual Nature which Hippocrates observ'd to be in all things VIII Many old Philosophers of great eminency especially the Platonists in their airy discourses of Humane Souls first in savour of their own plac'd them in an higher form then those of ordinary persons and other Animals pretending that by frequent Philosophical meditation they so far refined themselves as that after death they remain'd in a kind of Astral or as term'd by later times Angelical condition As if bare thinking could cause any real effect in a subject with whom all its thoughts vanish But those of the Vulgar especially if vicious they also acknowledged to be immortal however to remain more or less grieving for the loss of that beatifical fruition according as they had led on Earth a life more or less vicious Which Opinion meer Nature and unenlightned Reason being Judge can't acquit it self of many errors First they did not explain themselves how they could be capable of a confin'd locality nor where nor in what subjects those Souls should remain when they left their Bodies Moreover all their operations here seeming to be Organical they wondred how men could be supposed to see when their Eyes are gone or to grieve rejoyce or think when the Brain the medium of thinking is turn'd to dirt Further they grosly asserted that those departed Souls could have no knowledge of particulars for that they are not discernable but by our bodily senses which represent them unto us but they pretended their knowledge to be only of Universals whereas there are no such things really in Nature they being only meer aggregate terms devised by our selves for conveniency of discourse to save the labour of enumerating particulars As when we say Mankind is mortal that in effect signifies no more but that Iohn such-a-one Thomas Robert Peter c. one by one each particular man living is mortal but for as much as we cannot nominate all those particulars we are constrain'd to include them in one term Mankind whereas if every particular Man Woman and Child were dead there would be no such thing as Mankind left no not so much as notionally in imagination because there would not then remain one man alive to conceive such a notion IX Others of later times not taking the truly wise advice of St. Paul to beware of vain Philosophy have adventur'd to uphold the knowledge of Humane Souls after death not by Faith and the Scriptures whose sacred Authority were the most proper support of that belief but out of the presumption of their own sufficiency by the meer light of Natural Reason and because this appears not easily intelligible they endeavour to illustrate it by terms to Nature as unintelligible telling us of the separate Souls intuitive knowledge and that without help of the imaginative part which is acknowledg'd to perish with the Brain its seat and Organ But Divinity is too sublime a thing to be tryed by the Test of our imperfect Reason for that were to try God by Man and in these matters may it justly be call'd Folly before God 'T is usually observ'd that those who vent Doctrines which they are not able to evince muffle them in obscure terms as one may call a kind of Canting like Aristotle's Entelecheia which no body understood but himself Thus this term of Intuitive Knowledge without the help of senses or imagination is utterly unconceivable to us who in knowing make use of both There is nothing that more betrays the Souls infinity than Thought as when in one minute a man can think of the Northern and Southern parts of the World and in one moment run over many thousand Leagues both of Sea and Land but the chief Argument this point of their Philosophy relyes upon is a reflex knowledge which we have in perceiving our selves to know and this they will have to be done without help from the imaginative Representation wherefore they say the Soul may know although that part be lost But if we confidently mark this inward perception of our knowledge it may perhaps be nothing but the inward experience which our imaginative faculty gives us of what we know and doth no more evince any separable faculty of the Soul as Lucretius observes than the reflex and intrinsick perception of smart which a man's Foot gives him in a Fit of the Gout X. Now the Ancients thinking the Spirit of the World to be universally diffus'd through all things not only Animals but such as we call Inanimates consider'd it so as that the various actings thereof might not be unfitly compar'd to the Musick of a pair of Organs where all the wind comes from the Bellows which being distributed into several Pipes makes Musick so long as it remains in them but so soon as it is passed through the Pipes the wind of each Pipe mixes with that of the others again and then the Musick ceases Thus they foolishly conceived to be infused into all Creatures each of their Spirits from that of the World and so to act according to the various temperaments of those several Bodies which they possess as long as they remain therein but immediately when they pass through them they mingle again promiscuously with one another into the Spirit of the World from which they were sent and thus their former ways of acting ceased Others there were that look'd upon the Soul to be to the Body as we see Gunpowder is to the Gun if I may fitly illustrate an Ancient opinion by a Modern comparison and that a Body without a Soul is but a piece of Ordnance uncharg'd useless to the operation Nature assign'd it Therefore when men run mad through over much wit knowledge or learning they may not improperly be said to be over-charg'd as on the contrary the reason why men vasto corpore are generally more heavy dull and half witted may proceed from their being under-charged As we see the same quantity of Powder which gives a Report in a Pistol gives little or none in a Cannon the disproportion of the Gun diversifying the effects XI Some of the
suppos'd them turn'd into Nothing whereas if Nature did admit of any Annihilation the World says Ocellus Lucanus had long ago vanish'd Aristotle Xenophon Cicero Averroes and others make the World eternal and void of all corruption for not being able to comprehend whether the Egg or the Bird were first generated since no Bird could be without an Egg nor Egg without a Bird therefore they conceiv'd that the World and the beginning of every begotten thing together with the end thereof must be by perpetual revolution sempiternal So that this not admitting of any Annihilation caus'd their opinion of the Worlds Eternity And the Stoicks who believ'd a final Conflagration did not believe any Annihilation any more then of a Faggot when it was burnt but that there should be a new Heaven and a new Earth or rather that the Almighty Wisdom would produce some new Fabrick unconceivable by us who are not able to conceive any thing whereof we have no experience Genitum nihil emoritur Sed transpositum ultro citroque Formam priorem alterat For say they as Nature cannot create by making something out of nothing so neither can it annihilate by turning something into nothing From whence says Dr. Hackwell it follows by consequence that as there is no access so can there be no diminution in the Universe no more then in the Alphabet by the insinite combination and transposition of Letters or in the Wax by the alteration of the Seal stamped upon it Ocellus Lucanus upon this subject writes That if any should conceive the World to have been made he would not be able to find into what it is corrupted and dissolved since that out of which it was made was before the Universe as that into which it shall be corrupted will be after the Universe As for those things which are contain'd in the World they have communion with the World but the World hath communion with nothing else besides it self for all other things have not such a nature as is sufficient of it self but stand in need of communion with other things as living Creatures need respiration the Eye light and the other Senses their several objects Plants need the juice of the Earth for their growth Nay the Sun Moon Planets and fixed Stars require a certain portion of the Universe only the Universe stands in need of no other thing but it self Now as Fire which is able to give heat to other things is of it self hot so that which is the cause of safety and perfection to other things must of it self be safe and perfect Again if the Universe be dissolved it must be dissolv'd into something or nothing not into something for the Universe would not then be totally corrupted for something must be the whole Universe or a part of it nor will it be annihilated sor says Ocellus it is impossible that something should be made of nothing or reduced into nothing Dr. Hackwell hath well observ'd that no Prophets ever foretold the end of the World would ensue till many years after their own deaths being sure not to be proved Lyars according to the Epigram Cur mundi sinem propiorem non facis ut non Ante obitum mendax arguerere sapis For they who prophesie the Worlds destruction are upon sure grounds viz. that till it comes to pass it may be expected Iosephus speaking of the Greeks and other Nations affirms that every State and Kingdom have reported him that was the first Founder of them to be the first of the World each Nation reckoning their Antiquity but from some great change which happen'd among them And thus we are to understand the Original of the Greek History from Inachus the Argive not that he was the Original thereof as some make him but because a most memorable alteration did then happen some were so ignorant as to make that construction thereof For my own part I who believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God do in this point as in all others resign up my poor Judgment to that sacred Oracle but if I did not Iosephus his Arguments would prove altogether uneffectual unto me For after he hath in his discourse against Appion spent many lines in magnifying his Countreymen the Iews that they were the first Inhabitants of the Earth He at the last does in a manner confess that he dares not nevertheless compare the Monuments of the Iews with those of the Aegyptians Chaldees and Phoenicians who dwell in such Countroys as were not so subject to the corruption of the Air and have carefully preserv'd the Records of their Countrey Which is as if he had said that for as much as no other Nations but the Aegyptians Chaldees and Phoenicians have cortain Records of their Originals therefore I will not with them contend for Antiquity but only with such as have no Records to shew Also in the same Treatise Iosephus makes use of Manethon when it is for his advantage and to justifie the Iews Antiquity but in othermatters that are to his disadvantage he rejects his Authority But to return to the Heathen Opinion of the Soul VI. The most plausible Arguments they had to justifie their wicked Opinion of the Soul's mortality or unrewarded condition proceeded from their contemplation of Man whose Body when he dies they plainly saw was by putresaction mingled with the Body of the World from whence it was And by the same reason they were so credulous as to believe his Soul mingled with the Soul of the World from whence that was Their Priests also agreeing herewith though in another form of words taught that in death the Soul went to God who gave it and the Body to the Earth of which it was composed therefore as when the Sun-beams shine into a dark room and enlighten it you may easily exclude it from shining into the room but can never intercept or cut those beams off from their original the Sun the like relation they conceiv'd the Soul of Man had to the Soul of the World whereto it ever hath an inseparable conjunction the same also they held to be in all other Creatures according to their several degrees of animation from one and the same general Spirit and that by reason of its spirituality such passage could be no more hindred then the Walls of a Castle can hinder you from thinking what is within VII Ebencora an Arabian Philosopher observing that Nature makes no sudden transition from one extreme to another and ever by some preparative degrees fitting them to be invested into one another so he willing to advance the Soul into a more coelestial condition pretends that when it leaves the gross carnal Body it first mixes with some more subtil Body perhaps the Air and so by being more and more refined receives a gradual capacity of a coelestial condition not considering that the Spirit when it is in any thing is much more spiritual then Air. But Hippocrates went further then this
Ancient Philosophers having a vain ambition of getting eternal Fame by raising some particular Sect of Philosophy which might generally take amongst men set up for one of these ways either to please the Voluptuous who care for nothing but delighting their senses without any further regard or by pretending to Futurity and Eternity to make a more glorious noise and thereby thought to prevail more powerfully and universally as over-awing the timorous and alluring the ambitious in which way they adapted eternal terrours to evil doers and everlasting glory to the virtuous This they not improbably hoped would make their Sect to be admitted and cherish'd by Princes as commodious to Government Also this latter sort to compass their end were necessitated to wrest their Doctrines of the Soul so far from meer illuminate Nature as one of the Ancients said They deliver'd things more like Dreams or Old Wives Tales than Truths and at length Posterity following their Ancestors like Carriers Horses in a track without seeking out any new or better way they receiv'd such frenzies from one another and improved them with such dotages of their own as surpass'd all Poetick Fictions and instead of taking with the Vulgar grew ridiculous For in truth they needed as much and as weak credulity as ever any vulgar Superstition did but were not so craftily fitted to draw vulgar capacities to honesty or terrifie them from vice as other Superstitions were Their news of separate Souls in coelestial Joys or infernal Agonies Enumerus the Atheist says most impiously were as hard to prove as the Elysian Fields Acheron or Styx or Pluto with his Infernal Guard All this would do little or no good upon the prophane Rabble for they would say within themselves if this be all we will not for such Metaphysicks forbear any manner of pleasure or profit how base soever On the other side should you hear Mahomet assuring the people that if they would lead a pious religious and obedient life in this World they should hereafter live for ever in most pleasant Gardens with variety of delicious Fruits beautiful Women and high affections with abilities renew'd eternally but if they led an irreligious life and were disobedient unto his Doctrine they should hereafter be deliver'd up to horrid Devils who would for ever torment them in a Lake of material Fire and Brimstone this Doctrine when once by education and the solemnity of publick Authority implanted and upheld in the minds of men proves far more prevalent with them than the sublime notions of Plato how well grounded soever and as to an exact proof before natural reason clear and not prepossess'd perhaps Plato would not have much the odds of Mahomet Nihil est infelicius homine cui sua figmenta dominantur XII Many good Moral men and some of the Fathers as Tertullian Lactantius c. held the Soul to be ex Traduce from Father to Son and that for these reasons First if every man hath a new Soul infus'd into him at his birth by God and not lineally descended to him from Adam to Eve how then can they be guilty of or suffer for Original sin 2. What means that place Exod. 1. 5. where 't is said All the souls that came from the loins of Iacob were seventy souls Also another place Gen. 46. 26 27. to the same purpose 3. If the Soul be not ex Traduce then Man the most perfect of all Creatures were worse than a Beast who begets both matter and form 4. Every like doth not then beget his like an error in Philosophy it self 5. All that have Seed in themselves do not propagate their kind 6. Gods Command viz. Gen. 1. the Creatures to increase and multiply would be useless and of none effect 7. God would infuse a Soul to be punish'd here and hereafter for anothers sin viz. Adams 8. God seems to concur to the act of Fornication or Adultery in that he furnishes their unlawful Issue with a Soul and if a Man lye with a Beast and beget a Monster half a Man and half a Beast God will be thought to infuse a Soul into that unnatural conception and it is a Quaere what will become of that Soul hereafter 9. If the Soul be infused nothing is begotten for the Body can't generate per sâ—… any more than one House can of it self beget another both the Body and the House being of themselves but dirt Generation is not without the Soul Lastly Man begets not whole Man for he consists of Body and Soul joyntly These absurdities they inferred from that opinion of Gods infusing the Soul immediately into every man at his first Creation This opinion of the Souls being ex Traduce like the Body from the Parents is illustrated by the simile of lighting one Candle by another and that according to Holy Writ God first lighted Adam from whom Posterity receiv'd their light without diminishing one another thereby any more than one Torch is diminish'd by lighting another In a Candle if you observe it closely you may plainly perceive how the flame as it melts and draws in the Tallow into little bubbles turns them into flame which shines for a while till its uppermost part having spent its oyly moisture vanishes into Smoak and Air the flame still renewing not in identity but by successive renovation In resemblance whereof some thought the Soul out of the bodily Nutriment to make the Chyle and turning that into Bloud out of that to make the animal Spirits and of them thâ—… diseursive Soul which in an humane temperature seem'd refin'd to a greater purity than in the grosser constitutions of other Animals likewise in them more than in Plants to a greater or lesser perfection or duration according to their different Temperaments more or less prepar'd to receive it and they that held this Opinion laid down for an infallible maxim that Quicquid recipitur recipitur admodum recipientis and from hence say they it comes to pass that some men are more ingenious others more stupid But generally they held that men were more clearly rational whilst other Animals are stupid and dull yet all from one and the same original Spirit varying only according to its different fuel Just as Lamps some shine brighter and some more dim according as their Oyl or Wiâ—…k is better or worse From hence say they it proceeds that we often see as much difference between Men and Men as there is between Men and Beasts only as stupidity is most prevalent in Brutes so is frenzy in Men. Nor did the Heathens perceive any considerable difference betwixt us and other Creatures than what is occasion'd by speech and use of Letters whereof they being ignorant could only think of objects noises and what they felt heard or saw but could hold no mental discourses as Men did who had the use of Letters Let us hear what Mountaign says on this subject That defect which hindreth communication between them and us why may it
dum mori post mortem timent interim mori non timent ita illis pavor fallax spes solatio redivivo blanditur Whereby it appears that in things which Nature hath not made our Reason capable of foreseeing as is the Souls future estate there strong belief is not alway a sign of Truth For in some cases who so bold as blind Bayard There never was any Sect so sottish and false but may boast of its Martyrs Let this be understood of corrupt unenlightned Nature that we may not confound Christianity with Paganism Many good men have died to justifie what Vaninus died madly to oppose so contrary are mens perswasions Some of the Aegyptians died fighting for the Deity of Garlick others for the Deity of Onions so that a mistaken Martyrdom rather betrays the easiness of the Party than the truth of his Cause For to believe otherwise were to do too great an honour to those Atheists or Hereticks who have suffer'd for their Irreligion under the Laws of Christianity The Apostles suffer'd for the truth of what they saw with their own eyes whereas many of the Heathens did but like Knights of the Post affirm the verity of things they knew not only had receiv'd by a Traditional hear-say from others whose vain Opinion of their great knowledge fill'd them with pride as being the only men which knew the secrets of Heaven like Aesop's Conjurer they pretended to know all things which were done in Heaven and Earth but was ignorant that his own House was on fire at home XVI The two primitive Essentials which constitute all compounded things were by the Ancient Greeks term'd Psyche and Hyle that is Spiritus and Materia Soul and Body Both these they held as consider'd in their single Natures to be from all Eternity and to continue to Eternity which together united in one Infinite they held to be God whom they believ'd to be Maker of the World Not by operation from without as a Cook makes a Pye of several materials which he hath gather'd together and being no part of him can after it is made subsist without him but by inoperation rather resembling the Soul in a living Creature which by its intrinsick plastick vertue forms the Animal with all its faculties and parts both internal and external not being able to subsist without that Spirit which did first animate and inform it however perform'd with no less trouble and concern to the Anima Mundi than the hairs of our head are to us and to this inoperation of the Divine Nature Virgil alludes saying Principio Coelum ac Terras camposque liquentes Lucentemque globum Luna Titaniaque astra Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem magno se corpore miscet This I say was an opinion generally receiv'd among the Heathens only the wiser sort so reputed asserted that God made all things of nothing but Himself whom they acknowledge to be Infinite and therefore could not imagine that there were any other real things besides him supposing that if there were then God must have been but one eminent thing among many others which to speak or think might be esteem'd as great and sottish a blasphemy in Philosophy as Religion and to this purpose Lucan speaks Iupiter est quodcunque vides c. Also Ovid Praesentemque refert quaelibet herba Deum But the absurdity of this Opinion is already by several ingenious Pens made known unto the World As 1. If every thing be God or a portion of God some parts of the Deity must perceive what others do not 2. Several parts of the Deity as Stones Metals c. must be void of understanding 3. Idolatry were no crime but only an amicable officiousness in one part of the Deity toward another To which purpose Athenagoras writes saying If God and Matter be the same thing under various appellations then were it no less than Impiety in us to deny Divine honour to Stones Trees or Metals Lastly there would be no such thing as Virtue or Vice Pain or Pleasure unless you will make God to commit the one and suffer the other XVII Now they who held this vain Opinion term'd every Creature especially Man who is esteem'd the most excellent of all others a Microcosm or little World as composed of Psyche and Hyle Also Moses hath been thought to intimate as much in saying That in the beginning of the Creation the Spirit moved upon the Waters for so the Rabbins and Cabbalists expound him They say it was the Ruah Elohim viz. the Spirit of God which moved upon the Waters Hippocrates seems likewise to agree with this Doctrine asserting the beginning of Sublunary things to proceed from Fire and Water But Moses who was skill'd in all the Aegyptian Learning alludes perhaps to their Hieroglyphicks wherein the figure of an unit signified God as a Cypher stood for a Non-entity i. e. for Nothing the character of Ten did signifie the World and in the old Hebrew Characters as in our modern Figures of a different shape the figure of an unit placed before a Cypher signified Ten by which was meant the World as I said and hereby they express'd that God made the World of Nothing And perhaps in further conformity herewith he is said to make Man more excellent than other Creatures after his own Image that is not in outward Effigies or Features of face and limbs but as the Universe composed of Spirit and Body And so they held the World to be consisting of a Being partly corporeal and visible and partly spiritual and invisible the visible or material part by reason of its more or less gross and solid corporeity is of it self more or less unfit for motion but properly capable to receive the impulses of the more active spiritual part And thus in the little World of Man as long as his Spirit remains in him it quickens his gross Body carrying it up and down from the remotest parts of the Earth contriving many projects and working great things however in a moment after that Spirit is gone the Body is left a dull putrid piece of Earth and all his Thoughts perish XVIII But here give me leave to Montaignize and so far to digress from my subject as to acquaint you with a great dispute which happen'd among the Ancients concerning Motion for although as I lately told you there were some who thought the material part of the World unfit for motion yet there were others of a contrary sentiment and from hence arose the dispute concerning the motion of the Earth Aristotle Ptolomy and Tycho Brahe hâ—…ld that it was immovable especially the two former because they saw the Sun rise in one place and set in another as also their Houses stand in the same place to day as they did yesterday they thought it an infallible truth that the Sun danced about the Earth whilst that stood still to receive its Salutation In opposition to
Soul how much more uncapable were they to judge of the Souls future estate Erasmus concerning the Immortality of the Soul saith Hoc mihi persuasit non humana Ratio sed Fides However I think there may be much more said for the Immortality of the Soul than can be urged against it There is not any opinion in the World hath been more generally receiv'd in the hearts of men than this of the Souls future estate and how should it have been so long rooted in our minds were there nothing of truth in it Nature which makes nothing in vain hath implanted in Man a desire of Immortality which desire is vain if he be not capable of it Nothing is corrupted but by its contrary and therefore that which hath no contrary as the Soul must be free from corruption The Harmony of the World which permits not things to pass from one extreme to another without some mean requires that as there are pure Spirits and Intelligences which are immortal and Substances corporeal and mortal so there is a middle nature between these two Man call'd by the Platonists on this account the Horizon of the Universe because he serves for a link and medium to unite the Hemisphere of the Intellectual Nature with the inferiour Hemisphere of the Corporeal Nature Also since the Soul can know all sorts of Bodies it must be consequently exempt from all corporeal Entity As the Tongue to judge aright of sapours must it self have none the same may be said of the eye to discern well of colours To say that the Soul is mortal because it acts only by the help of its Organs were to draw a conclusion from an uncertainty it being never yet prov'd that the Soul cann't act of it self without its Organs The Law of all Nations is the Law of Nature and the belief of the Souls Immortality is a dictate of it But the opposers are as rare as Earth quakes which if there were no other Reasons would be a miserable Argument to prove the motion of the Earth Remorse of Conscience and Gods Justice not punishing all sins in this life presupposes another Pomponatius under pretence of defending the Souls Immortality hath sought against it and professing himself a Peripatetickâ—… hath in this particular embraced the sentiment of Epicurus saying that although the Soul of man should be mortal yet Vertue would sufficiently recompence it self thereby designing to render the belief of the Immortality of the Soul unnecessary But supposing this to be true of Vertue yet would it not be equally true of Vice that they which addict themselves thereunto are sufficiently punished by doing so Nor was there ever yet such a Law-giver heard of that established a constitution to punish a man for Robbery by forcing him to commit Adultery Cyrus on his death bed declared to his two Sons that he could never believe that the Soul all the while it is contain'd in this mortal Body should live and afterwards die and be senseless but rather after death the Soul is most wise An excellent speech and worthy of himself If in the behalf of this Article my Arguments prove not so effectual as at first I design'd them my excuse may be the same as Plato made for himself upon the like occasion viz. 't is sufficient if any speak but probably in so difficult a subject XXIX There is an ancient Maxim in Philosophy viz. Nihil est in Intellectu quod non prius fuit in Sensa All our knowledge arises out of the Experience which our Senses give us and therefore a man born throughly deaf can have no apprehension of Musick But the Soul is of a spiritual nature and so in it self utterly imperceptible by our senses the Soul it self alone can reflect on its own acts and conceptions 'T is indeed very unsafe any farther than it can be made appear we are guided by the clue of Divine Revelation to guess and discourse over-boldly concerning the nature of the Soul or peremptorily to determine of its future condition Wherein among all the Ancients Pliny hath been esteemed the most cautious who to direct our Prognostication therein calls us back to observe the time past and from thence to conjecture what will become of us hereafter According to that of the Tragâ—…dian Quaeâ—…is quo jâ—…ceas post obitum loco Quo non naâ—…a jâ—…cent As if the wheel went rather round than forward As Seneca the Philosopher who blindly surmis'd the Doctrine of future â—…oys to be magis optantium quam docâ—…m and by the same reason the Tâ—…rours of the Infernal Lake to be magis 〈◊〉 quam probantium But every man's Conscience tells him another tale surdo verbere caedit objecting the terrour of a Judgment to come XXX Yet for as much as in all Ages there were sound some Monsters of Men who having no sense of Divine Goodness or Natural Juâ—…tice would confound all Humane Society as not having in themselves any restraint either from Nature or Religion For such the Heathen Law-givers did wisely provide a Pluto a Whip and a Gallows of all which the Gallows prov'd most effectual on those that were debauched beyond all fear of punishment hereafter so they could but escape in this life And even among us where the Light of the Gospel shines so bright and where there is such excellent Preaching a man that frequents the Sessions-house will soon find how great a share of our preservation we owe to the Publick Executioner XXXI The Heathen Philosophers as I shew'd you were much divided in their Opinions concerning the Souls future estate some held it mortal others immortal Of those that held the mortality of the Soul the Epicureans were the chief Sect who notwithstanding their impious Doctrines yet some of their lives were vertuous Cardan had so great a value for their Moral actions that he appear'd in Justification of them It appears says he by the Writings of Cicero and Diogenes Laertius that the Epicureans did more religiously observe Laws Piety and Fidelity among men than either the Stoicks or Platonists and I suppose the cause thereof was that as Galen tells us a man is either good or evil by custom but none confideth in those that do not profess sanctity of life Wherefore they were compelled to use greater Fidelity thereby the better to justifie their prosession from which reason it likewise proceeds that at this day few do equallize the fidelity of Usurers notwithstanding they are most base in the rest of their life Also among the Iews whilst the Phariseâ—…s that confess'd the Resurrection and the Immortality of the Soul frequently persecuted Christ the Sadduces who denyed the Resurrection Angels and Spirits meddled not with him above once or twice and that very gently too Thus if you compare the Lâ—…ves of Pliny and Seneca I do not mean their Writings you shall find Pliny with his mortality of the Soul did as far exceed Seneca in honesty of manners as Sâ—…a