both be generated then both are mortall Answ Whole man is generated by man I grant it Therefore both soule and body are generated I distinguish That both soule and body are made parts of man by generation and a creature produced like in nature to him that generates I also grant and doe affirme that by doing of this onely the compleat act of generation or procreation is performed according to the received definition of generation before exhibited in the Chapter precedent But that both soule and body must be therefore made and have their Entities or beings given them by procreation that consequence I deny as false and absurde yea so absurde as it suffers a thousand instances to the contrary in all sorts of Animals For example a whole horse is generated both matter and forme and yet his matter did not receive any being by generation and so it falls out in other creatures If then it be not necessary that the matter receive the being by procreation though the whole Animal consisting of matter and forme be truly generated what reason can there be why to the generation of the whole Animal a new being of the forme by vertue of procreation should be necessary or why can one be necessary to generation when as we see evidently the other is not or why againe should we exact the new production of either of them by generation when without any such act the definition of generation See Argenter com in Aphor. 1. Hippocr is fulfilled and agrees both unto the generation of beasts whose matter is not generated and to the generation of man whose forme is not generated any more then his matter is By force of this solution all his imaginary absurdities which he labours to fasten upon the non procreation of the soule doe of themselves dissolve If the soule saith he be infused then Christ did not take whole humanity from the seed of the woman Answ He received from the seed of the woman as much of the humanity as was to be received thence and that which he tooke did not come unto him by procreation nor was it so to doe As for the fourteenth to the Hebrewes which he cites for his purpose our answer to it is that it is not found in our bookes neither Greeke nor Latine neither do the Editions of Raphelengius or Elzevir contain any more Chapters than thirteen If saith he we consist of soule and body and are not men without both and receive not our soules from him he meanes the Generatour as I suppose then Adam is the father of no man nor Christ the Son of man because his manhood 's constitutive part even that which should make him a man could not be by the seed of the woman and a man is as much a father of fleas and lice which receive their matter from him as of his children Answ Surely fleas and lice whence soever they receive their matter do not proceed from him in likenesse of Nature as by the definition they if they were generated by man ought to do Moreover they are not generated by man but of him neither is he the agent but the patient and so is of these vermin no generatour at all proper or improper Secondly men do receive their soules by force of generation although they be not generated and so notwithstanding this non-generation of the soule Adam might truly and univocally be the father of all men and also the soule of Christ might come by the seed of the woman although it were not made or procreated by it If the soule addes he be infused after the conception then there is growth before there is life which is impossible for the soule is made the vegetative as well as the motive sensitive or rationall part Answ I grant that before the infusion of the soule there may be vegetation and this by the sole virtue of the sperme but I deny that therefore there be in man more soules than one that is than the rationall for this same force of vegetation which is in the seed holdeth it selfe upon the part of the matter onely and doth not performe the office of a soule or forme the substance and operation thereof being no more than to fashion an organicall body and to make it fit for the reception of the soule and the union with it after whose infusion both the vitall and animal spirits do but serve as instruments to it and to accomplish the body in making it to be so perfectly organicall as the eminency of a rationall spirit above other formes doth require to have it If the soule be not generated but infused into a dead body then saith he it is lawfull to be Nigromancer for Nigromancy is nothing but putting a spirit into a dead body and so it is imitation of God and God the onely Nigromancer and all the men in the world but Nigromanticke apparitions whose spirits when they have done the worke for which they were put into the bodies desert them as other conjured Ghosts do Answ See the shallownesse of this man who can neither speak right nor reason with common sense and probability He calls Necromancy constantly Nigromancy and he supposes that a soule in a dead body makes a living man and can exercise vitall actions in it or actions of life and so according to his grosse capacity if the soule be infused God must be a Necromancer and men but Necromantique apparitions for this Ignoramus it seemes knowes no difference between a soule and body that are united and those that are not united but together onely nor between a body living by the virtue of the spirit and by virtue thereof doing vitall actions and another which is onely moved and inhabited by a spirit without any union with it or participation of life But supposing all were one yet were it not lawfull to be a Necromancer because nothing at all be it never so good is to be done by superstitious actions or by making any recourse unto the Devill and acknowledgement of his power by any dependency of him whatsoever more or lesse It is granted saith he that the body considered meerly sensitive cannot sin and is but an instrument or as the pen in the hand of the writer Therefore if the soule be infused then of necessity the immortall thing and not our mortall flesh is the authour of all sin and so God's immediate hand the cause of all sin That the body is onely an instrument of the soule is false for it is a See Solo of this in 4. d. 43. q. 1. a. 2. Rat. 3. living co-agent with it and a partaker both in the good and evill actions and so is both rewardable and punishable with it whether in the mean time it be created or generated for this variation makes no difference in this matter of merit or demerit neither doth the creation of the soule make God the authour of sin more than the generation of it that is to say
halitu Immistus nebulis cessit in aëra Et nudum tetigit subdita fax latus Is it a truth or that our feares Have buzz'd a fable in our eares That mans hovering spirits doe live And their interred corps survive When greived consorts hands do close Their eyes and their last dayes oppose Our bright Hyperions beamy light And drownes the slender shades in night Then when our bones to ashes burne To be confin'd within an urne Be not the funeralls our fate But there must be a longer date For wretched man Or doth he dye Intirely and entombed lye Or may he not forthwith consume And vanish all in slender fume Then when his wandring spirit flyes And mingles with the aiëry skies And when the dismall funerall torch His side insensible doth scorch After this sort do anxious and afflicted spirits often times argue and dispute within themselves laying before their eyes all the doubts and difficulties immaginable before they descend to the making of any conclusion at all or to the determining of any settled doctrine Thus and no otherwise did Solomon when first revolving in his thoughts the matter of the soules condition and touching upon the various suspicious of men concerning it with no small sense and anguish of mind at length c. 12. drawing to a conclusion determines saying let the Eccle 12. dust returne unto the earth from whence it came and the spirit unto God who gave it And this text alone is sufficient to confound the Adversary and to confute whatsoever he hath endeavoured to draw out of scripture for mans totall corruption and mortality CHAP. 4. His argument out of reason viewed and examined WHat the severall fancies were of heathen Philosophers touching the nature and definition of the soule is not much regardable sundry of them being so monstrous and absurd But it is a thing very considerable that amongst so many stragling and wilde conceits all or most of all at least of the noblest and the best Philosophers have taught the immortality of the soule it selfe Howsoever in other businesses concerning it they might sometimes disagree Permanere animos arbitramur saith Cecero consensu nationum omnium qua in Cicero Tuscul l. 1. sede maneant qualesque sint ratione discendum est * and againe in his Hortensius as witnesseth Saint Augustine l. 14. de Trinitate Antiquis Philosophis hisque maximis â—â—ngèque clarissimis placuit quod aeternos animos divinosque habeamus We are perswaded by the consent of all nations that soules remaine but must learne of reason of what quality they are and in what places they remaine This assertion of Cicero for consent of nations and Philosophers in this truth hath beene shewed to the eye by the great diligence and learning of Augustinus Steuchus commonly called Eugubinus in the 9 booke of his excellent â—ugubinus l 9. â—e Peren. Philosoph worke de perenni Philosophia in which he voucheth to this purpose the authorities of Pherecides Syrus who as Cicero witnesseth was the first that delivered this verity in writing also of Trismegistus and the Chaldean monuments of Plato likewise Pythagoras Aratus Philo Cicero Plotinus Jamblichus Hierocles and sundry others as also of Aristotle the Prince of the Peripatetiques who is judged by the greatest searchers into his doctrine to have directly taught the immortality although he hath not declared himselfe in that point as in many others nor as others have done peradventure concealing himselfe on set purpose because he for want of light from divine revelation was not able to tell what to do with them after death nor was he willing to make up his matter with fictions poeticall as his master Plato had done The same Philosophers also are diligently alleadged â—less c. 15. de â—erit Christ Rel. by Monsieur Plessy in his booke de veritate Relig. Christianae which is every where extant Besides the same doctrine of immortality hath beene constantly taught by the learned Aben Sina or Avicen in the last booke of his Metaphysiques and also in his Almabad in which treatise he maintaineth constantly the immortality of the soule but earnestly impugneth the bodies resurrect ion and withall which is most false and improbable defends that Mahomet in his law never taught it but only parabolically and for fashion sake complying with the peoples rudenesse whereby they were not sensible of any doctrine teaching a felicity that was spirituall Another Arabique author who goes under the name of Aristotle is of the same minde with Avicen seeing saith he it is manifest out of the bookes of Author secret sap secundum AEgyptios p. 1 12. the ancient and already proved that the soule or minde is not a body nor doth perish but remaine c. Thus he l. 1. de divin sap secundum Aegyptios c. 2. consonantly to other Philosophers though afterwards in the very next chapter most absurdly he affirmes as much of the soules of Beasts Afterwards c. 4. he addeth saying If our foreelders had beene doubtfull of the soules immortality they had never for the confirmation thereof by natures dictamen made a law against which no man is but he who is entangled in vice And a little after The soule therefore passing out of this life and gotten into the other world doth not at all perish Lastly l. 12 a c. 10. ad 17. he by many arguments assayeth to prove that the soule is void of corporeity Thus he of whose credit and excellency see the judicious censure of Doctor Guiliel Dunal in Synopsi doctrinae Peripateticae cap. ultimo Next unto this Author I produce Manilius yet not as a light Poet but as a sage Philosopher he flourished in the time of Cesa Julius This same same Author l. 1. Astronomicωn speaking of the Galaxia and indeavouring to give a reason of it writeth on the manner following Nec mihi celanda est famae vulgata vetustas Mollior ex niveo lactis fluxisse liquorem Pectore reginae divum caelumque colore Infecisse suo quapropter lacteus orbis Dicitur nomen causa descendit ab ista An Major densâ stellarum turba Coronâ Contexit flammas crasso lumine candet Et fulgore nitet collato clarior orbis An fortes animae dignataque nomina coelo Corporibus resoluta suis terraque remissa Huc migrant ex orbe suumque habitantia coelum Aethereos vivunt annos mundoque fruuntur Nor will we hide what ancient fame profest How milke that gusht from Juno's snowy breast In heaven that splendent path and circle drew From whence the name as erst the colour grew Or troopes of unseene starres there joyne their light And with their mingled splendours shine more bright Or soules Heroïck from their bodies freed And earthly partes attaine their virtues meed This shining Orbe and from their lowly herse Ascending high enjoy the universe And live Aethereall lives And againe Iam capto potimur mundo nostrumque parentem Pars sua conspicimus genitique accedimus
astris Nec dubium est habitare Deum sub pectore nostro In coelumque redire animas coeloque venire Of the whole world we' are now possest And cleare behold our Parent blest A part of him and from these warres Make our approaches to the starres No doubt but under humane brest A sacred Deity doth rest And that our soules from heaven came And thither must returne againe Lo here how he doth signifie not onely the soules of men be divine and immortall but besides that they had not their originall from the earth or from any earthly agent with whom consenteth a Greeke Philosopher Sallustius Emescenus in his booke de Diis mundo lately published and vindicated from the moathes by Leo Allatius This Philosopher c. 8. teacheth on this sort First saith he let us know Sallustius Emasenc 8. what the soule is The soule is that which makes things living or animated differ from the livelesse or inanimate Their difference consists in motion sense phantasie and intelligence The soule devoyd of reason is a life that serves apparences and the senses but the rationall using reason beares rule over the sense and Phantasie Indeed a soule destitute of reason followes the affections of the body for it desires and is angry without reason but a rationall according to the rule of reason contemnes the body and entring into combate with the soule irrationall if it get the better doth follow virtue if vanquisht declines to vice This of necessity must be immortall because it knowes the Goddesse and no mortall thing can know that which is immortall besides it contemnes humane things as if they were belonging to some other person and being it selfe incorporeall is a verse from things corporeall which bodies if they be faire and fresh it languisheth if old it begins to flourish Also every diligent soule makes use of the mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the soule is not generated by the body for how should any thing that wanteth reason generate that which hath Thus Sallustius out of whose words we have first that the soule differs from the body 2. That the rationall from the irrationall or the sence 3. That the rationall is immortall and the reason why 4. That it is ingenerable and for what cause With this greeke Sallustius agrees the Roman who l. de bello Jugurth saying Ingeniiegregia facinora sicut anima immortalia sunt The egregious atcheivments of the wit are like the soule immortall and by and by Omnia orta occidunt aucta senescunt animus incorruptus aeternus rector humani generis All things which rife do fall and being ever eased doe wax old the minde is incorrupt and eternall c. Our next authority is that of Apollonius Tyanaeus that famous Pythagorean Phylosopher whose life Philostratus Lemnius hath writ at Apollonius apud Philostrat l. 8. de vita ejus large and amongst other accidents relates of him how after his decease he appeared to a young man a student in philosophy resolving him as followeth The soule is immortall and no humane thing but proceedeth from the providence divine This therefore after the body is corrupted as a swift courser released from his bonds and delivered from a troublesone servitude removeth up and downe and intermingles with the gentle aire Thus he to whom consenteth most expressely Hierocles in his commentary upon the golden verses of Pythagoras in sundry places telling us that the soule is not only incorruptible but also made immediately not by procreation but the hand of God See him of the Greeke and Latine edition of Paris pag. 101. 103 132. I will adde to these the words of the Emperour Marcus Antoninus commonly called Aurelius l. 4. n. 13. according to Merick Casaâ—bon's division If soules saith he remaine how from all aeternity Marc. Antonin l. 4. de vitasuâ— n. 13. could the aire hold them or how the earth retaine their bodies As here the bodies after they have lyen a while within the earth are changed and being dissipated leave space for other carkasses so soules carried up into the aire after they have beene there sometime whither kindled or liquefied are conjoined to the common 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is unto the originall mind or great soule of the world Thus he as if he had said with Solomon the spirit returnes to God that made it for the great soule of the universe or the originall minde of all is nothing else Horace consenteth saying Melior pars nostri vitabit lebitinam and Tacitus in vit Jul. Agric. Siquis piorum manib locus sive sapientib placet non cum corpore extinguuntur magnae animae placide quiescas If to the spirits of the pious there be any place remaining if great soules be not together with their bodies extinguished mayest thou rest in peace To these Ovid subscribeth Metamor l. ult Cum volet ille dies quae nil nisi corporis hujus Jus habet incerti spatium mihi finiat avi Parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis Astra ferar nomenque erit indelebile nostrum Come when it will my Deaths uncertaine hower Which of this body only hath a power Yet shall my better part transcend the sky And my immortall name shall never die The same doctrine is constantly taught by Pythagoras as appeares by his doctrine of Metempsycosis and also both Jamblichus Porphyry in their severall histories of his life do witnesse of him as also Diogenes Laërtius I conclude this Jury with the judgement of Macrobius who c. 14. Macrob. in som scipio c. 14. in somnium Scipionis after he had recited sundry and differing fancies of severall Philosophers touching the nature of the soule concludes as followeth Obtinuit tamen non minus de incorporalitate ejus quà m de immortalitate sententia Neverthelesse the opinion touching the incorporeity of the soule as well as touching the immortality of it hath beene prevalent Against all these therefore it importes little that Dicaearchus Messenius a Peripatetique Philosopher Scholler to Aristotle or as Aristoxenus should as Cicero relateth in the first of his Tusculanes and in his second of his Academiques hold and defend it to be mortall or that both he and as Cicero reporteth out of him another more ancient Philosopher by name Pherecrates one of the linage of Deucalion did thinke there was no soule at all neither in man nor beast and forasmuch as concerneth the same Dicaearchus Sextus Emp. l. 2. Hypotyp c. 5. Fr. Picus l. 1. de Doctrin vanit Gentium c. 14. we read in Sextus Empericus and Tertullian as also in Joh. Fr. Picus of Mirandula he was of the same opinion for there is nothing so absurde which some one Philosopher or other hath not maintained Sextus Empericus was of the same minde also as he l. adv Mathematicos acknowledgeth But now by the way I note how sublimely most of these heathen wise men did Philosophize when as they conclude the soules
not at all for still the soule and body are authours of their own actions and the deformity ariseth from their misdemeanour and not from God's creation or concurrence Doctour Sennertus although he admit not of any mortality in the soule yet he holds it probable that it comes by procreation and that from the first instance of conception the seed is animated with the rationall soule which Doctrine of his by his leave inferres mortality for whatsoever is generated is corruptible and is to go out according to the ordinary Lawes of Nature at the same gate of according to the ordinary Lawes of Nature at the same gate of corruption at which it entred in Neither is it true or likely or lastly any way philosophicall to say as he doth Hypomn. 4. c. 10. that nothing created is immortall by the principle of Nature but onely by the free will or gift of God because as it is amongst bodies some are very durable as Marble and Cedar some by and by corrupted as flowers and fruits even out of the severall natures of their composition which God hath appointed for them and not out of the free will of God immediately without any further relation so in like sort some substances are perpetuall out of the nature of their being as spirituall substances and bodies that are simple and unmixt other some out of their own Natures corruptible as those that are mixt and made up of Elements which as by some naturall agents they were knit up together so by the operation of other some they are dissolvable Soules then if generated are compounds and if so may be uncompounded by the agency and operation of causes naturall wherefore to seek an immortality onely from a decree extrinsecall without any foundation in their naturall beings seemes neither to be philosophicall nor true wherefore the immortality of Soules and Angels is not to be reared upon this weak foundation according to which a Flye may be as much immortall as an Angel one by Nature according to Sennertus having no preheminence over the other the free determination of God for their perpetuall conservation being equally applicable to either of them Conformably to this position of his he will needs have the sperme alwaies animated with a reasonable soule but then consider how many Sennertus Hypomn 4. ca. 10. lib. de consens Chymic cum Arist Galeno c. 9. more soules are cast away without any bodies organicall and humane then are actuated and preserved by bodies I aske what must become of these innumerable soules must they perish or have bodies made them at the Resurreection neither of these two can be admitted without great temerity and absurdities Besides this we know God did not inspire Adam with a living spirit while he was a lumpe of clay but when he had a face and a body that was organicall and not before Againe why does the soule depart from the body but onely because it leaves to be organicall why then or with what probability can we imagine the soule is in the inorganicall sperme certainly with none at all The winde that did drive Sennertus upon this inhospitall shoare was the necessity of assigning a vis formatrix or a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say an able architect or former of humane body which though most acknowledge to be the seed yet Sennertus sees not how this can be unlesse it should be animated with the soule his reason is because the soule onely is to build an house fit for it selfe to inhabit But this reason of his is not urgent nay more it is not likely for egges and young birds do not build their own nests but the old ones for them so that it must by this account be the fathers office to erect this new building and not the childes But how sayes he can the father do this easily and well by sending his sperme as his deputy and officer Argent com in 1 Aphor. Hipp. to performe that duty as Argenterius also teacheth which entity hath derived to it from the generatour so much naturall strength and cunning as to make a sufficient architect for the effecting of this work and all this may be done with the only forme of seed without any animation of it with a soule Thus it is likely that the Acorne for example without any more forme than of an Acorne collects fit particles out of the elements and materials about it and by a virtue derived from the tree on which it grew formes out and fashions the body of an Oake and for the effecting of this worke the seed participates tmch of the nature of the tree or plant and hath ordinarily much of â—he same virtue wherefore in this abstruse question or quere that we may say something which is likely and hath for the truth thereof probable examples and instances in Nature we do conceive that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or forming virtue is the seeds own forme excited and assisted by the breeding cherishing and connaturall warmth of the maternall body which doth environ it as in the procreation of birds it seemes to be where the semen of the Cocke being cherished and stirred up by the ambient and incumbent warmth of the Hen is that which changes the egge and formes it into the shape of the bird from whence it came Neither is it probable that in so small a coagulum or seed which came from the Cocke the soule or essence of a Cocke is resident Now whereas he tels us that by the blessing granted to all Creatures by the Creatour of them in these words Increase and multiply force was given to every soule to multiply another we confesse it to be true yet this not to be done by creating of the younger by the elder soules or by the giving of them new entities but rather by doing some other act out of which these formes should connaturally follow as materiall formes they do by a resultancy and immateriall by creation from a higher cause which creation is to follow and is due by a regular ordination exigence of Nature and so they may truly be said to be given and communicated though not made by the force of generation And this is the true vis prolifica and not that other which Sennertus feignes unto himselfe by which he will have one humane soule to beget another and on the instant to become with childe of it no bodie knowes how neither by what particular operation nor from what Mine it should be digged For this manner of speaking makes shew rather of some empty Magicke than of sound Philosophy and seemes altogether as hard and impossible as the eduction of them out of the potentiality of the materia prima when understood in that sense in which he himselfe impugnes it If the Parents objecteth Sennertus do not give the soule which is the forme of man they do not generate the man but for certaine they do generate the man therefore