to have been arguments well steeled that should be of power sufficient to force theirway through the brazen wall of death and to rear up a huge pile or fabrick of another life after corruption and rottennesse of which life they could perceive few or no signes appearing in the world Wherefore although the arguments for immortality were very weighty yet they having such a strong barre laid to crosse their way no marvell if sundry of those Ancients should be brought unto a stand and the arguments as forcible as they were benummed and though not killed yet cast into a slumber For indeed because men then knew not how to dispose of souls after their separation from the body therefore they might have license granted them to speak doubtfully not knowing what to determine or to say nothing at all either pro or contra Some few we finde did contradict as by name Epicurus and Lucretius yet notwithstanding this maine obstacle the generall sense of the world was for the immortality and much more then when the other hemisphere of life came creditably to be discovered by the Messias for at that time those old reasons for immortality awaked and recovered their naturall vigour and vivacity and no wonder because this truth of immortality and that other of a life to come are mutuall inductives one unto the other and conspire so friendly as whosoever denies either of them doth disparage and weaken the other and again they give so great aides to each other as that the notice of another life made ready way for the entertainment of immortality and contrariwise the doctrine of immortality added reputation to the doctrine of the other life Moreover The incorruptible nature of the reasonable soul The state of felicity or infelicity in a life to come That God is the high Rectour of the Universe extends his providence over all and is a just and bountifull rewarder be all of them symbolizing verities and of a strict confederacy both offensive and defensive and so can hardly be overthrown I conclude this small labour as Pythagoras and Philolaus concluded their golden verses wherein the ancient doctrine is declared plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sic ubi deposito jam corpore libera coeli Templa penetrâris Deus immortalis omni Spretus ab illuvie terrarum eris integer avi And having once laid down our dust Through spacious aiery Lawnes we must And free in those large circles move Immortall like the Gods above 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Hierocles the Commentatour limiting and qualifying the higher expression of the verse by admonishing his reader that albeit Gods we must be yet not simply and absolutely as the words do sound but onely so farre forth as it is possible for a separated soul to be FINIS POST-SCRIPT OVer and above those reasons brought by the Authour of the precedent work all which do prove an immortalitie naturally belonging to the soul there want not divers others that do the same as amongst the rest for example this one viz. Such as the physick and food of the soul is for curing of the maladies thereof and for the strengthening and cherishing of it such is the nature of the soul it self But the physick and food of the soul is wholly immateriall and intellectuall that is to say Reasons and Truths eternall and incorruptible Therefore the nature of the soul is such I prove the minor proposition by experience for when the minde is troubled and out of peace and order by reason of some losse or misfortune then all the Materia medica of Dioscorides or of Horstius will not make a cure if so the body be not diseased or out of tune no physicians skill will be able to prevail we must not seek in such cases as these to Galen or Celsus or Paracelsus or Avicenna no druggists shop no physick-garden can furnish us with remedies against the raging sorrows or bewitching pleasures of the minde Non est medicamen in hortis Tollere nodosum nescit medicina dolorem A sick body physicians can sometimes cure but a sick mind never If so the body be then in health and that the infirmity do not proceed from thence Philosophy in that case must do the deed and not Medicina Philosophy saith Hierocles in Proem ad aureos versus Pythagora is the purger of humane life and the perfection the purger it is because it delivers it from all corruption contrary to reason and from the mortall body the perfecter because by the recovery of the true naturall constitution it reduceth it to a similitude with the divine which two things being to be done by vertue and verity by one of them it takes away the distempers of perturbations and by the other induces a God-like form into it Thus he conformably to whom determineth the wise Emperour Marcus Aurelius Antoninus l. 2. de vita sua § 15. when having numbred up a world of miseries and perplexities which haunt this life he addeth saying What is it then that must conduct us through all these Philosophia Also the great Aegyptian King Osmanduas as we find it recorded by Diodorus Siculus l. 1. p. 2. raised a goodly structure which had graven on it this inscription Medicatorium Animi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a store-house for curing of the minde and this same was not an Apothecaries-shop but a Library well furnished with books wherewith to charme mens cares and cure both the vain delights and bitter anguishes of the mind whose tranquillity is not procurable by medicines or receipts but contrariwise by the good documents for example of Epictetus of Seneca or Marcus Antoninus and where all Pagan doctrines and consolations be deficient by the instructions and good counsels to be found for us in the Holy Bible in Thomas de Kempis Peraldus Petrarch de remediis utrinsque fortunae and other such like The Recipes taken from hence will work when all the materiall compounds quintessences extractions and Elixirs can do nothing as not having vertue in them nor yet subtility to penetrate Now albeit the Ethnick Moralists can do much for pacifying our disordered affections and introducing a content yet do they not come home for though they be able to persuade a generous contempt of all transitory delights and fading glories and also how to draw on a kinde of sad or disconsolate way of resolution for a constant suffering of all adversities telling us that Quidquid erit superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est and read us many such melancholy lectures yet do not they assigne us any solid reasons whereupon to build content or whereby we might receive true satisfaction but contrariwise endeavour to feed us with shadows as namely by their telling us that vertue is an ample reward unto it self and again that the miseries and affliction of this present life are not evills really though we do think them so and with such empty phantasies as these would make us give our own experience the lie Moreover they sometimes speak faintly and fearfully of the life to come and the rewards thereof by means of which alone the inequalities and the great disorders of this can be made up and reconciled with providence On this sort spake Tacitus concerning the soul of his Father in law Julius Agricola then late deceased Si quis piorum manibus locus sit si ut Sapientibus placet non cum corporibus extinguuntur magnae animae placidè quiescas If saith he to the spirits of the pious there be any place remaining if as wise men are persuaded great souls be not extinguished with their bodies mayest thou sweetly rest To strong and pressing sorrows such feeble remedies did many of the Ethnicks bring but this sovereign medicine was left for Christianity to compose and shew unto the world by the belief of which those cold sweats with which many before had been sore afflicted were prevented wholly Another naturall track whereby to trace out immortality is the universall shamefastnesse of mankinde of the own nakednesse which passion is not found to be in brute beasts and the reason of the difference between them seems to be because beasts are corruptible and are so to be but men though now they also be corruptible yet it seems they were not so to be but onely by a misadventure or mischance for mans body because composed of severall disagreeing parcells is dissolvable and may be taken in sunder by the very same way that it was put together and therefore by the own right cannot lay any just claim to a perpetuity more then other composed bodies can yet it seems that by right of the being matched with a substance intellectuall it might pretend unto it and therefore holds it a disparagement and disgrace to be reputed mortall which without such a title it could not do and seeing nakednesse betrayes it to be a piece of corruption a condition so abject and inferiour it is ashamed to be seen forasmuch as sexes be the evident marks and tokens of mortality for why are sexes but to propagate and what need of propagation but onely to provide a substitute and none provides a successour or a substitute who is not himself to be turned out and to be gone of which mean and inferiour condition as not befitting men are ashamed and in relation to this grand imperfection we finde that men labour to conceale even as much and as long as possible their amorous affections as springing out of a root of corruption Thus we see that men once in high fortunes and cast down and grown into necessity are abashed at their poor and present state whenas others that were poor and low alwayes be not so And this I conceive to be the principal reason why men doe blush at businesses of corporeall love and are ashamed of their nakednesse although hitherto I do not know any that in particular have taken notice of it Now finally how immortality is consistent with the principles of Aristotle and also how it doth follow upon them is not my intention to examine as being a long and intricate piece of work and performed by others as namely by Javellus l. de indeficientia anima and of late by Card. Augustinus Oregius in a work peculiarly intended for that purpose
of it was therefore super fluous because we all shall quickly try whether it be so or no forasmuch as our Pilgrimage in this life cannot be of any large extent either in old or young To these men I returne no other answer but this one that if the soul be immort all that then indeed we shall experience whether it be so or no but if it be not we in that case shall experience nothing for though a man broad awake does feel himself to live yet one either dead or in a dead-sleep feels nothing at all and knows not what he is But betting that passe it cannot be denied but that the knowledge of a soul 's being incorruptible must needs be in this life a great consolation to any man and especially to such as be in great adversity for by that Truth he learns he may out-live his sorrows and attein at length unto a wished rest Besides by this doctrine he hath a caveat given for his good behaviour here and that for the satisfaction of any unreasonable and inordinate desire he venture not on any thing in this life that may be a hinderance of his felicity in the next It was not the Authours intention to enter here in the following Work into any disputes that were not for every English reader's understanding but contrary to his minde he was forced to stray from that purpose ever now and then for the satisfying of sundry flying objections to which condescension he was induced the easier because such disputes could not be a prejudice to any Reader in regard that those harder pieces might be passed over by him very easily and that besides all those there was enough wherewith to entertain him whereas on the other side all such digressions could not come unwelcome to others whose understandings had been acquainted exercised with speculations of greater difficulty and so both sorts of Readers receive contentment one sort by the easy the other both by the easy and the hard The Grand Prerogative of humane Nature CHAP. I. The Authours Design and the occasion of it AS bodies that are foul and do abound with peccant humours be subject to contagion and apt to be infected by each weak venome from the danger whereof cleaner and better tempered bodies live secure so in like manner minds that be corrupted and all such understandings as have lost the stayes and principles of truth are easily entrapped by every poor and childish sophistication and having once left their anchour-hold float afterwards up and down upon the waves of humane opinations are dasht against every rock of errour be it never so low or contemptible and like unto small weak flyes are caught and entangled not alwayes by the strongest and most artificially woven cobweb but by the very next though never so rude and slender This poor and sorrowfull manner of defaillance must needs be of all other the most hatefull not so much for the deadlinesse and venome as for the reproch which follows it for by it a man loseth not truth alone but withall his reputation and esteem it being a judgement very slenderly armed that with a wooden dart can be pierced through Experience verifies what I affirm for of late a sorry Animal better then so I cannot call him whose soul he himself thinks to be mortall and whose learning and capacity is so small as if indeed it were so mean as he imagineth it to be This sorry Animal having stept into the crowd of Scriblers in the defence of an old rotten heresy condemned and suffocated by consent of the wise almost at the hour of its birth hath met with some other dull souls so unhappy as to be perswaded by him and to think as meanly of themselves as the wisest of all ages have done of beasts to the dishonour and debasing of their own kind not elevating beasts to the degree of reason as sometimes Plutarch Sextus Empiricus and some others have sought to do though vainly and peradventure more for ostentation and argumentation sake then in any earnest but contrariwise reproachfully depressing man even as low as brute beasts by ascribing to them both a mortalitie alike The old and despicable heresy which this obscure authour now labours to resuscitate and to conjure up was raised in Arabia about the time of Origen and extinguished by his dispute immediately after its birth as Eusebius witnesseth l. 6. Hist c. 30. and according to the division of Rufinus 27. such as were infected with this errour were termed by Saint Augustine de Haeres c. 83. Arabici Of these Arabici and their doctrines concerning the soul see Abraham Ecchellensis in supplem Chronici Orientalis where an account is given of them by reason of the Province from whence the errour first arose so that such as now submit unto it may well be termed wilde Arabians which kind of people by reason of their rude condition and volatile natures were ever as ready to be cosened first by this heresie and after by the grand Impostour Mahomet as the Romanes prepared to betray their own liberty then when Tiberius cried shame upon them for it saying O homines ad servitutem paratos O men prepared for servitude Tacit. l. 3. Annal. who if he had lived in this age and noted the pronity of men now adaies to embrace every groundless fancy and to forgo any ancient and well-grounded truth would have changed a word or two and said O mentes ad errorem paratas O minds prepared for errour O minds corrupt enough for the receiving and applause of any folly of any errour be it never so absurd disadvantageous unto them or derogating from the dignity of humane nature O curvae in terris animae About the time of these Arabici Tatianus in an Oration of his yet extant seems to have held with them and afterwards some later Sectaries termed by reason of this their foolish errour Thnetopsychitae as Damascene relateth l. de Haeres Lastly one called Volkelius hath in our times blindly stumbled upon this same errour teaching it expresly and also labouring to prove it l. 5. c. 25. out of which puddle it is not unlikely this Adversary of ours did draw his unwholsome waters of pestiferous doctrine and went no further for them Upon the consideration of those errours that have of late infected us and betrayed humane nature I cannot think it a thing improbable but that the infernall spirit which hath suggested them and governed the hearts of men as a predominant planet in these Northern Provinces of Europe is that martiall Devil called Apocal. 9.11 Abaddon or Apollyon that is to say a Destroyer for as much as the designs of all such as have disturbed our peace of late dayes are generally for ruine and destruction For first what is the wealth and treasure of man but the dignity and value of his actions of this he hath long since been plundered His eyesight whereby his steps were to be guided was his knowledge but this
Augustus c. do all note this contrariety of desires in man but none do note the same to be in beasts for even Plutarch in his Gryllus doth observe the contrary Thus we see what opposition reason finds in man from sense but reason cannot be contrary unto it self nor doth it struggle and strive with its own powers and dictamens and therefore it is a different power from sense And so much in answer to this chapter omitting the particular examination of his other inferences of absurdities as he calls them against the doctrine of immortality because either they are answered beforehand in that which hath been said already or else are such wretched fluffe as they can afford no matter for any sensible answer or serious undertaking CHAP. V. Arefutation of certain shifting Answers given unto sundry Texts of holy Scripture THe first place 2 Cor. 5.6.8 where Saint Paul declareth that while we are present or at home 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the body we are absent from our Lord but he desireth rather to be absent from the body and to be present with our Lord. Out of this it may be inferred not that immediately after death we all shall be present with God and attain to glory as this Authour idlely objecteth but that during the time of our absence from the body we may be present with Christ and enjoy God whether this be immediately after death or no about which point we do not now contend His answer is that the Apostle speaks not of the interim betwixt Death and the last Judgement but of the state of the Resurrection This Glosse of his corrupts the Text for the state of the Resurrection is not the state of separation or separated souls but the Apostle speaks plainly and expresly of absence or peregrination from the body which is the state of separation during which state he might as he saith be present with Christ I do not deny but that in the precedent and subsequent Texts he may speak also of the Resurrection but it does not therefore follow that he speaks of that state onely and as for his words they clearly bear witnesse to the contrary therefore after death and before any re-union with the body the soul remaineth And by this clear sense his second shift is taken away whereby he seeks to elude a like place of the same Apostle Phil. 1.23 24. Gen. 35.18 It is said of a woman that her soul was departing therefore there was such a thing as a soul that continued after death He answers that the meaning was she died Be it so yet the words do not import that onely but besides that this dying of hers was by the departing of her soul from her body and not by the perishing or destruction of the soul departing For example when we say The enemy is departed from such or such a place we do not mean he is slain but onely gone and do intimate that he is still alive She could not die saith he if her soul were living This is both false and also absurd for it was not the living of her soul which made her live but the being of it living within her body and the informing of it with the same as then this presence and union of a living soul made her live so on the contrary side the taking away of this presence and dissolving this union must make her die to which effect the living of her soul afterward or the dying of it was a businesse impertinent for whether it after lived or died it being once separated she was dead and remained no woman any longer for the soul of a man or woman is not a man or woman though indeed the Platonicks together with Cicero Macrobius and Hierocles not knowing any thing of the Resurrection and of glorified bodies yet being sure that man was to remain and be rewarded after death they knew not how to defend this truth without their holding an errour viz. that the soul onely was the man and the body but as a prison of it but Aristotle he was wiser than to think so for he defined man not Anima rationalis but Animal rationale and this Doctrine is truly Christian and Philosophicall taught expresly by Marcus Varro apud Augustinum lib. 19. de Civit. dei cap. 3. His choice of the three opinions is saith S. Augustine of Varro that man is neither soul alone nor body alone but body and soul together and therefore that the supream good of man which is to make him happy consists in the goods of both that is to say of soul and body and by Saint Athanasius in his Creed Anima rationalis caro unus est homo Aquinas 1. p.q. 75. c. 4. A reasonable soul and flesh is one man and by Saint Methodius Bishop of Olympus in Lycia and afterwards of Tyrus in excerptis apud Photium Cod. 224. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A man according to nature is most truely said to be neither a soul without a body nor yet a body without a soul but a compound of them both joyned together in one form and beauty Thus he with whom consenteth the Prince of Roman Historians Crispus Salustius l. de Bello Jugurth Nam uti genus hominum compositum ex corpore et anima est c. For as the race of man is compounded of body and soul c. All these according with Aristotle who would not feign false principles for the avoiding of true difficulties which he could not solve though now they dissolve of themselves the Article of the Resurrection and of glorified bodies having been revealed to us which before was Mysterium à seculis absconditum A mystery hidden from the beginning of the world But after all this light some mens eyes it seems were dazzeled with it and by name John Wicliffes who as we may see in Waldensis tom 1. l. 1. ar 2. c. 33. 34. adhered still to the false opinion of Plato concerning the souls being the whole man and also stood stifly in the defense thereof his reasons for it are examined and effectually impugned by the same Waldensis in the places cited Dicaearchus an ancient Peripatetick ranne into another extreme holding that man was nothing else but body and that he had no soul at all neither mortall nor immortall which grosse errour of his needed no confutation but was hissed out of the schools as an open and manifest falshood Besides if it had not been manifestly false yet needed it no other confutation then those arguments by which the immortality thereof is proved to be a truth because according to the received old Maxime Rectum est index sui et obliqui The rest of the Authours evasions of this nature are forestalled and prevented by this that hath been answered already and so without any more ado about them may be dismissed Fear not them saith Christ who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul Therefore when the body is killed
very forcible which were able to enforce an opinion of life even after the ruines made upon man by death at which time no power in nature was able to make a restauration and then also when few or no messengers came to them from the dead but contrariwise man after his departure was heard of no more nor any news was sent them from the other life It is true that Epicurus stood astonisht at the sight of death and of the many disorders and disturbances in this world and therefore wickedly denyed both providence divine and also immortality which was a consequent thereof But other Philosophers were wiser and more considerate then so and would not forsake the Truths of providence and of immortality because of an encountring difficulty which they could not overcome and therefore touching the other world Aristotle held it the wisest way to be silent Plato had recourse to fictions of his own touching circulations and Palingenesiae after every of his great yeares to be accomplished Pythagoras fled for succour to his transmigrations or Metempsychoses the Stoicks to open falshoods and improbabilities telling us contrary to the expresse determinations of Aristotle and Theophrastus that men might be happy by vertue alone and that no corporeall miseries were evills In fine here Ethnick Philosophy was deficient not being able to satisfie or come home unto us nor to resolve us in our greatest doubts but these great vacancies of Philosophy were to be supplyed by Christian religion alone just as the doubts about the Antipodes were to be cleared by the discoveries of adventurous navigatours for it is Christian religion alone which doth solve this Gordian knot Et caeteri tanquam umbrae vagantur and all the rest like shadows do wander up and down It was Christ the Lamb of God who opened the books of providence which formerly had been sealed up and the contents hidden from the eyes of any mortall man Against the Antipodes and the habitation of the burning Zone great difficulties were urged yet notwithstanding them the reasons on the contrary side were so considerable as they carried many of the wisest with them as by name Polybius the historian Clemens Romanus as we may see in his Epistle to the Corinthians Virgilius B. of Saltzburg which Virgil. being miss-understood by his unskilfull auditours that made a false report of what he taught he had like to have incurred a heavy censure for it Aventin l. 3. hist The two cases viz. of the torrid zone and of immortality be not much unlike for as the Antipodes were denied by many because they were beyond the torrid zone which for the extremity of heat was esteem'd unpassable so the beatitude of man unto which immortality is addressed was held in doubt by many by reason of the frozen zone of death which lyes between our present life and that which icye climate by reason of the extremity of cold could not as it was thought be passed over by any mortall man All which difficulty was encreased by the seeming deficiency of providence over the affaires of man the consideration of which did move even the ablest and the best men as namely Job David Salomon Jeremy and amongst later men Seneca and Boetius although it prevailed not with them as it had done with Epicurus who if he had pleased might have perceived easily that the want of some order and equalities in this life did plainly argue another to come after it and againe the admirable contrivement of the world for the naturall part does evict as carefull a provision also for the morall What shall we think that the great Authour of things was a better naturall Philosopher then a morall or that he was more powerfull then he was good no greater an absurdity then this could be swallowed down by any and so Epicurus while he sought to fly a seeming inconvenience sell into a reall and for the avoyding of a lesser dissiculty fell into a greater This world is the Stage men the Actours our life the Play An action must not be judged by one Scene but by all together and chiefly by the last and before that be shewed no condemnation can passe nor Plaudue be given God then being so great an Artist in composing and also in continuall ordering of this Theatre and of the various lights that hang about it may be presumed not to have been lesse provident in the Action which is to be represented on it then he was about the Theatre it self unlesse we would admit that the Stage should be more artificiall then the Play and that the Architect was better and more skilfull then the Poet. By the actions then of God in his works of Nature he hath given us a most sufficient security for his works of Moralitie and neither Epicurus nor any other had cause sufficient to call it into question Wherefore the other lise must be the last scene and that one must bring all to order and make amends for all the defects and disturbances in the former and so consequently for the finishing of all a succeeding life and a continuated immortality must be allowed us This inference seems so cleare and evident that if no ship of nature could passe the line of death but after a tempestuous voyage and a perilous poor laboursome mortality it must be thrown over board into the deeps and there perish everlastingly then if humane understanding might presume to give a judgement the spectatours of this tragedy would not doubt to say this play was neither worth the acting nor the making yea and besides that so curious and well-built a stage was ill-bestowed upon so mean a historie If all that is of man must end in death and come unto a totall dissolution we can scarce withhold from setting upon it this censure namely That in the Architecture there wanted much symmetry or proportion because the gate was made bigger then the city and besides that mighty were the preparations but the feast was hungry and penurious It was not then the false and flattering desire in man of living ever and of surviving his short and transitory pleasures of this world which did persuade him immortality according as Pliny vainly did surmise but Nature her self it was which did rise up in us for vindicating of her own right of which the unadvised school of Epicurus did labour to dispossesse her And doubtlesse those arguments in favour of immortality could not be otherwise then very powerfull and weighty that in the midst of Ethnicisme were of ability to prevail and by their force to stemme the violent tides of so many advancing difficulties as daily did arise and also to charme the Furies which out of the dark retreats of humane ignorance and imbecillity did incessantly molest them For in very deed it was the unknown and then undiscovered hemisphere of the other life which caused many but the Epicurcans especially utterly to despaire and to conclude our little light and joyes within the
to be immortall naturally if they prove any thing at all as most wise Philosophers do conceive they do I prove the same out of holy Scripture against the assertion of Leviathan It is confest the Scripture saith the soul of man is immortall doth live after death not adding any where that this same immortality is out of grace of favour therefore in effect it sayes every where when it speaks of that point that it is immortall naturally The Antecedent is certain by the survey of those severall places cited by Valentia the Conimbricenses Nic. Baius The consequence I prove to be a good one therefore because words are ever to be understood in their usuall and proper signification except some adjoyning words or circumstances of the speaker do imply the contrary But in the Scripture wheresoever it teaches the immortality of the soul there is no such word or circumstance Ergo they are to be understood of such an incorruptibility as is naturall because that onely is the usuall meaning of such words as signifie an immortality as the term man uttered without limitation simply is to be understood for a reall and naturall man and not for a painted one or metaphoricall To this I adde that the verity of the soul 's immortall nature is not attested singly and simply but besides as a certainty and a verity not to be called into question even abstracting from those Philosophicall arguments commonly brought to prove it be demonstrative or no certainly their form at least is demonstrative because drawn ab effectis Thus much is in substance asserted by Aureolus 2. dist 19. That the soul saith he is immortall is a doctrine of saith to be held most firmely and is also the common conception of our understanding and a verity that is evident although it be not so easy to finde out a reason for it divers of those which are brought be not concluding Thus pronounceth he concerning the certainty of this doctrine even in case the arguments for it should not be thought convincing And that it may be so stands with great reason because we are very sure of many naturall verities for which neverthelesse we are not able to render any such reason as is compelling or demonstrative for we do not learn all we know by the force of formall arguments or syllogismes but rather by virtual proofs and a secret intelligence settled by nature betwixt our mindes and truth Yet this I do not say as if I did not judge the reasons for immortality to be efficacious but only to prevent evasions and in particular that one of Pontius who in the place before cited ventures to affirme that the immortality of the soul is not known for a certainty by the force of naturall reason therefore because he holds that the arguments brought in favour of it do not convince which assertion of his is not onely a disparagement of so noble and fundamentall a truth but besides seems very false and gives no small offense because admitting the arguments for it were as notconvincing as he himself pretends yet neverthelesse the truth it self may be very certain even by naturall reason as Aureolus a very great Master before hath signified and if it had not been so how could all nations have conspired about it And that they have done so we may finde both by the perusall of the Ethnick writers as also by the collections of Eugubinus l. 9. de Perenni Philosophia Menasse Ben Israel l. de Resurrectione c. 8. Moreover as infirme as Pontius judges the Arguments to be yet was not he able to give them any good Solutions although he endeavoured to do it and besides did not put them home as may be perceived by any indifferent survey The reasons however disparaged will be able to justify themselves and the easier because such as do undervalue and impugne them are driven into such streits as they are enforced to call in question sundry fundamental Truths which are acknowledged generally for certain and evident as for example That there is one Rectour of mankinde who according to justice will reward and punish secondly That the generall conceptions of humane understanding are true thirdly That the universal appetite of humane nature is rational and also possible to be satisfied These and such like although they doe not deny them to be true yet they will not grant them to be evident Against such dangerous rocks as these are they driven who will not yield that the reasons brought to prove the immortality be concluding from which inconvenience the other side of classical Doctours are very safe and free As for Holkot in Say cap. 2. lect 14. although he does not magnify those reasons which are usually urged for this immortality affirming of them that they do not presse more then those other doe which are commonly produced against the possible eternity of the world yet he himself confesses them to be good though not demonstrative adding three arguments of his own and also acknowledging that this same immortalitie is a doctrine delivered by the chiefest of the Philosophets maintained by the Catholick writers and proved for a truth by miracles innumerable Now admitting these arguments to be no lesse efficacious then those other against the eternity this cannot prejudice them much because many men of great learning and judgement are of opinion that these against the eternity be not onely good but also demonstrations Moreover allowing these for immortality be not in rigour demonstrations yet all particulars being cast up we shall finde that men generally do give a constant assent to sundry naturall verities upon lesse evidence then these Concerning Pomponatius we are to understand that he was troubled in conscience for what he formerly had written in prejudice of immortality and therefore like a good Christian did not onely relinquish that errour of his but besides made sute by a letter to Javellus a person of eminent learning that he would be pleased to give the world which he had abused a satisfaction for him which at his request was done accordingly as appeares by the said Javellus his learned work now exant De indeficientia animae in which tract remaines inserted a copie of the letter which Pomponatius wrote unto him for that end For the compleating of this businesse in hand I note that the Philosophers who lived before Christ had much greater difficulty for their embracing this capitall Truth of immortality then those other who flourished after by reason that they were destitute of all other light then what blind Gentilisme had left them and therefore might not easily perceive but that as it was ordinarily voiced Mors ultima linea rerum which saying was erected like the pillars of Hercules with this solemn inscription engraven upon them Nil ultra as if beyond those there was no region habitable and besides it was hard to believe as Pliny speaketh l. 7. c. 55. Iterari vitam à morte insomuch as they ought