of his own kinde as totally and adequately as one beast does generate another doth not speak like a Philosopher and besides doth unjustly disparage and disgrace his own lineage and violates the rights of 〈◊〉 creation CHAP. XII A solution of the Adversaries objections together with some others of Doctour Daniel Sennertus THese former notandums having been premised we need not dwell long upon answering of objections for by them the way is opened already and that which before hath been delivered will not need any more then application Object 1. Whole man is generated by man therefore all his parts both soul and body and if both be generated then both are mortall Answ Whole man is generated by man I grant it Therefore both soul and body are generated I distinguish That both soul and body are made parts of man by generation and a creature produced like in nature to him that generates I also grant and do affirm 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 soul and body must be therefore made and have their entities or beings given them by procreation that consequence I deny as false and absurd yea so absurd as it suffers a thousand instances to the contrary For example a whole horse is generated both matter and form 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 truely 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 again should we exact the new production of either of them by generation See Argenter com in Aphor. 1. Hippocr Zacutus Lusitanus tom 2. l. 3. Hist ad praxin c. 7. § sed alia when without any such act the definition of generation 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 soul doe of themselves dissolve If the soul 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 that which he took did not come unto him by procreation nor was it so to do As for the fourteenth to the Hebrews which he cites for his purpose our answer to it is That it is not found in our books neither Greek nor Latin neither do the Editions of Raphelengius or Elzevir contain any more Chapters than thirteen If saith he we consist of soul and body and are not men without both and receive not our soules from him he means 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 likeness 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 soul Adam might truly and univocally be the father of all men and also the soul of Christ might come by the seed of the woman although it were not made or procreated by it If the soul addes he be infused after the conception then there is growth before there is life which is impossible for the soul is made the vegetative as well as the motive sensitive or rationall part Answ I grant that before the infusion of the soul there may be vegetation and this by the sole virtue of the sperme but I deny that therefore there be in man more souls than one that is than the rationall for this same force of vegetation which is in the seed holdeth it self upon the part of the matter onely and doth not performe the office of a soul or forme the substance and operation thereof being no more then to fashion an organicall body and to make it fit for the reception of the soul and the union with it after whose infusion both the vitall and animall 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 soul 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 Nigromantick apparitions whose spirits when they have done the work 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 soul 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 soul be infused God must be a Necromancer and men but Necromantick apparitions for this Ignoramus it seems knowes no difference between a soul 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 Devil and acknowledgement of his power by any dependency on him whatsoever more or lesse It is granted saith he that the body considered merely sensitive cannot sin and is but an instrument or as the pen in the hand of the writer Therefore if the soul be infused then of necessity the
Hue migrant ex orbe suumque habitantia coelum Aethereos vivunt annos mundoque fruuntur Nor will we hide what ancient fame profest How milk 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 troops of unseen starres there joyn their light And with their mingled splendours shine more bright Or souls Heroick from their bodies freed And earthly parts attain their virtues meed This shining Orbe and from their lowly herse Ascending high enjoy the Universe And live Ethereall lives And again Jam 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 all the world we 're now possest And clear behold our Parent blest A part of him and from these warres Make our approches to the starres No doubt but under humane brest A sacred Deity doth rest And that our souls from heaven came And thither must return again Lo here how he doth signifie not onely the souls 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 Greek Philosopher Sallustius Emescenus in his book 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 what the soul is The soul is that which makes things living or animate differ from the livelesse or inanimate Their difference consists in motion sense phantasie and intelligence The soul devoid of reason is a life that serves apparences and the senses but the rationall using reason bears rule over the sense and phantasie Indeed a soul destitute of reason follows 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 soul irrationall if it get the better doth follow virtue if vanquisht declines to vice This of necessity must be immortall because it knows the Gods 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 self incorporeall is averse from things corporeall which bodies if they be fair and fresh it languisheth if old it begins to flourish Also every diligent soul makes use of the mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the soul is not generated by the body for how should any thing that wanteth reason generate that which hath it Thus Sallustius out of whose words we have first That the soul differs from the body 2. That the rationall from the irrationall or the sense 3. That the rationall is immortall and the reason why 4. That it is ingenerable and for what cause With this Greek Sallustius agrees the Roman who l. de bello Jugurth saieth Ingenii egregia facinora sicut anima immortalia sunt The egregious atchievements of the wit are like the soul immortall and by and by Omnia orta occidunt aucta senescunt animus incorruptus aeternus rector humani generis All things which rise do fall and being increased do wax old the minde is incorrupt and eternall c. From these Philosophers we descend to inquire after the disciples of Hippocrates being desirous to learn what their opinion was of which we are to make no small account they being the chief Mystae or Hierophantae of nature and men most knowing especially in the transmutation of bodies and not onely in the Anatomizing by dissection of such bodies as be organicall but also of others by the Art of Chymistry which teaches how to dissolve naturall compounds though not so farre as into their first elements yet into their secondary parts of composition True it is that divers of this excellent profession have been suspected of some sinister cogitations touching the immortall soul as namely that it was like that of beasts that is to say onely a thin and fading exhalation raised out of the pure substance of the bloud c. But I must do them right such of them as have been guilty of these thoughts or rather mean conceptions were not any of their Grandees no Apollines nor Aesculapii but contrariwise men of a farre meaner condition and onely of a midling size at the most such I say as by reason of their weaker understandings have lost themselves amongst the rubbish of materiall and grosser objects and there perished Whereas the diviner understandings have sped better as being able from materiall things to take a higher flight and by a curious inspection into the effects to finde out the first cause and mover and by the diviner operations of the soul to conclude the immortality thereof And of this eminent sort in our dayes Italy hath afforded us an Argenterius a Jul. Scal. Spain a Vallesius a Mercatus France a Fernelius a Laurentius Portugall a Zacutus Germany a Sennertus to say nothing of the great Aldrovandus Dodonaeus and others As then as Cicero observeth they were Minutuli little petty Philosophers who denied the souls immortality so also may we say that those Physicians who did the same were but an inferiour sort of men and half-witted in comparison of those other who did maintain it And as for Galen a most principall master in that profession he inclineth to the asserting of immortality for though sometimes he seem much perplexed not knowing what to determine then namely when he onely considered how the habilities of the minde held a constant proportion with the severall structures and temperatures of the body rising and falling with them yet at other times when he beheld the sublimer operations of the â—…de he durst not affirm them to be the effects of temperature nor of any corporeall principle and so being reduced into great straits confesses finally his own ignorance and that he knows not whence they do proceed as namely l. Quod anima sequatur temperaturam corporis again l. De usu spirat l. De causis pulsuum and l. 2. De causis symptom After all which l. 7. De Placitis Hippocratis he grows more resolute declaring plainly That the minde or originall of those operations is either some body Etherall or else a substance wholly incorporeall and finally l. de Conceptu his conclusion is delivered by him in these following words The soul saith he is a particle of that great soul of the Vniverse descending from the region celestiall is capable of science aspiring evermore by a way sorting to it self unto such a substance as hath affinity therewith and relinquishing things that are earthly soaring towards the highest partaking of divinity celestiall and often contemplating the heavenly mansion it gives an attendance to the Moderatour of the Vniverse Thus Galen as cited by Fernelius l. 2. de abditis rerum causis e. 4.
from virtue is no sufficient recompense nor reduceth things unto equality nor lastly commends or justifies the providence of God Thirdly this contentment received in the soul from virtue cannot keep the virtuous from being miserable because this solace is received onely in the minde or soul notwithstanding which content he may be in poverty captivity sicknesse in Perillus his Bull or upon the rack in which cases as the body suffering for a good cause receives contentment from the soul so in like sort the sorrows be reciprocall for the soul is made partaker of the miseries of the body and is afflicted by means of it so that in fine here is no full and clear contentment but a mixture of joy and sorrow and consequently here is no desired reward or felicity neither of soul nor body and much lesse of the whole man who consists essentially of both and is totally to be rewarded and not the one half of him alone whether soul or body Num saith Anastasius Sinaïta quaest 73. quando oportebat certare corpus plus sudoris expressit quando autem est tempus coronarum sola coronatur anima Shall the body endure the greatest trouble in the conflict and the soul alone receive the crown or comfort this were no justice or equity Certainly a man in this state would stand in need of patience which virtue I think was never necessary for the happy man but for the afflicted nor for the enjoying of felicity but the enduring of misery In summe it were a fury to think that while these two parts of man body and soul are linked together that one half of him can be happy while the other is miserable or that the reward of the soul alone is the reward of the whole man and able to give him satisfaction But that contrariwise as the soul of man is but one half of him though indeed much the better half so likewise the felicity of the soul alone is but one half of mans felicity and so again the affliction of his body one half of his infelicity though by much the lesser See of this point Abulensis in c. 4. Deut. q. 7. Thomas de Argentina in 4 dist 49. art 4. Vincentius Beluacensis l. de Consolat ad Regem Ludov. c. 11. also our countrey-man Jo. Bacon the famous Carmelite in 4. dist 50. q. ult and principally Marsilius in 4. d. ult The Stoicks invented for man this harsh and miserable felicity for supplying the defect of their doctrine touching providence and humane felicity which they could not patch up otherwise then with such rotten stuff as this which will not hold the examination nor indeed can be without the Christian doctrine of the resurrection So that albeit reason alone without revelation cannot prove the resurrection to be because this effect exceeds the virtue of naturall causes there being allowed in nature no regress à privatione ad habitū yet reason proves that article to be very convenient credible for an accomplishment of all without which there is no way remaining either for the justifying of providence or the rewarding beautifying of man or lastly for the giving any life and encouragement to virtue Now if a reward over and above the inward contentment of the minde be due to virtue and this reward is to be of the whole man and also to be paid him after this life then must this reward be such as will fully satisfie and content him for satisfied he is to be and also satisfied by that which is a reward consequent to his actions wherefore his contentment must be eternall for nothing else can please him as elsewhere we have endeavoured to evict and as I suppose every mans own heart will tell him without book wherefore the soul which is to enjoy this must also be eternall or which in our sense is all one immortall Pontius the Scotist struggles against this argument also for the defence of his Master Scotus but the zeal of defending truth and of delivering healthfull doctrine I value above that other of defending the sayings of any one particular Master whatsoever if he be but a man as Scotus was no more Eighthly the doctrine of the soul's immortality is the foundation of virtue without which she must needs fall unto the ground this is clearly shewed by Lessius and long before him by the Platonick and Heathen Philosopher Hierocles Unlesse saith he something should subsist in us after death fit to be adorned with verity and virtue which subsistent thing without doubt is no other than the reasonable soul we should have no pure desire of honesty or virtue For the suspicion of an abolishment would choak the desites of these and divert us to corporeall pleasures of what sort soever or whensoever they might be gotten by us And according to that doctrine how could it seem the part of a prudent or moderate man not to be so indulgent to his body as to grant it all things seeing the soul in that case was preserved for the bodies sake and of it self had no existence but accrued unto man from the conformation of his body Or why under the name of virtue should we molest our body if the soul so perish with it as virtue her self can have no subsistence left for whose sake we endure death Thus farre Hierocles and that very cordially and truly If then the doctrine of the soul's immortality be the foundation of virtue doubtlesse it is a truth assured because virtue and a rationall manner of conversation taken in the generality cannot be founded upon any falsehood or uncertainty as Ludovicus Vives hath notably declared I might add here the arguments of Scaliger Exercit. 308. n. 20. of Aureolus Renatus des Cartes and divers others but these alone well explicated and considered are sufficient These are the chief seats of arguments from whence Authours do usually fetch them which how much more or lesse valid or perspicuous they may seem yet have they been held for good by the wisest Philosophers both Heathen and Christian and to be concluding But howsoever that be the verity it self hath been counted certain and evident insomuch as Aureolus himself although he found difficulty in sundry of the arguments yet did he not doubt to say speaking of the soul's immortality in 2 Sent. dist 19. This doctrine of faith is to be held undoubtedly and it is the common conception of the minde and a verity evident of it self though to give a reason for it it is not so casie So Aureolus with whom consenteth Cicero when as he said as hath been before alleadged out of him that it is the consent of all nations Now saith he if the consent of all be the voice and verdict of Nature then are we to think the same Besides how could so many Heathen Philosophers have acknowledged unanimously this doctrine of immortality otherwise then by the light of nature and common reason out of which it is plain that naturall reason doth
be common unto all mankind This phantasie of his is generally exploded as absurd and convinced for such by Albertus Magnus in his Summe and S. Thomas in his other Summe contra Gent. as also by divers others and therefore needs not to be considered anew The generall Tenet of all classicall Philosophers and the better sort of Christians is that the soul is spirituall immortall and incorruptible and that there be as many individualls thereof as there be men yea and besides that this incorruptibility thereof is not of meer grace and bestowed on it after the creation but contrariwise of nature and involved within the principles of constitution Sennertus in his Paralip holds it to be a perfection added to the nature merely out of favour and in favour of his opinion cites Damascen l. 2. c. 3. but cites the greek text lamely and Stapulensis is mistaken wholly in his translation for Damascen doth not say there as they impose upon him that Angels be incorruptible not by nature but by grace but rather the quite contrary namely That they by grace or favour have a nature that is immortall for so the Greek Text hath it By which words he teacheth us that they have their nature not by right or of themselves but by grace as all other creatures have and their immortality from nature as all other creatures have not according to which account Angels are immortall by nature that is to say by a favour antecedent to their naturall being and not subsequent unto it For the better clearing of which verity let us consider what is properly meant or signified by this terme incorruptible or immortall I note then that of this terme there are three different acceptions one proper but not ordinary a second both proper and ordinary a third neither proper nor ordinary Immortality in the first sense is supereminent that is to say such a one as hath so firm principles of constitution as be superiour to any agency and therefore whatsoever is thus immortall can neither be dissolved nor annihilated And this kinde of superexcellent immortality is proper unto God alone and no created entity can lay any claim unto it and therefore 1 Tim. 6. he is called Solus immortalis c. and of this we are not in this place to entreat In the second sense an entity is called immortall when as the principles though they be not proof against the power that can annihilate yet are not subject to dissolution or corruption therefore being once produced are to remain ever there being no reason why the cause that preserves them should at any time withdraw his sovereign influence nor any second can do them harm and so they are safe on both sides whatsoever Arriaga imagineth to the contrary Immortality taken in this sense is properly so and this is the usuall signification of the word and again in this sense it is to be understood except some other terme or some circumstance do shew the contrary The third last acception is when it is ascribed to such things which although according to the naturall principles they ly exposed to destruction either by annihilation or corruption yet are continued by the favour of some externall preservatour This improper kind of immortality our bodies should have enjoyed before the fall of Adam and shall after the resurrection and it is rather a contingent perpetuity than any naturall immunity from mortality and corruption so that a body in that state is still corruptible though not corrumpendum This difference of acception of the terme being noted I observe that our businesse here is not to inquire in the first or third sense about the souls incorruptibility but in the second onely as namely whether it be incorruptible according to the exigence and virtue of the naturall principles of constitution without recourse to externall courtesie or favour The question being stated on this sort it appeares thereby that we are not to dispute point-black the souls immortality but presupposing it to be immortall some way or other whether that same immortality be an endowment that is naturall Pomponatius and Sennertus will not grant it to be naturall and now lately one Mr. Hobbes in a prodigious volume of his called by him as prodigiously Leviathan is of opinion that no other immortality of the soul can be proved out of Scripture if any at all can besides that one of the lowest classe which is of grace and favour merely For eviction of the contrary both out of reason and Scripture I note first that the soul of man is an entity or substance intellectuall and secondly that every such entity is capable of a true felicity and is unquiet untill it do attain thereunto and thirdly that every such sublimer entity is made in a manner for it self that is to say as Adam Godham judgeth 1. Sent. q. 2. some way or other to enjoy its own being and to be settled in a full possession of it self reserving alwayes the subordination to the supremest entity and a continuall dependence thereupon This appears plainly because the whole species of man that is to say all mankinde doth earnestly desire felicity the fruition of a good so great as may give it a full content satisfaction after a subordinate way for the pleasing and rejoicing of it self In this limited sense the doctrine of Eudoxus Gnidius and of Epicurus subscribed lately and explained by Gassendus seems to draw very near the truth namely that mans felicity did consist in some high and refined pleasure not corporeal but such as is intellectuall and pure from which opinion Aristotle and Albertus in their Ethicks seem not to dissent and Aureolus is of the same mind with them In relation to this same contenting of our selves Aristotle describes humane felicity in generall terms without including God in any other terms then those of the sublimest entitie And though in reality it be God that is our Summum bonum and is that goodnesse onely which can make us happy and moreover that we stand bound to love him above our selves to observe and please him yea even although we were to reap no benefit thereby yet neverthelesse such a transcendent relation we have unto felicity and content under that very title as that abstracting from whether there were a God or no we should as earnestly defire to be happy and to enjoy our selves as we now do and again as we desire to please God in all we do and suffer and are so also we do desire felicity for the pleasing of our selves yea even independently upon any other consideration and so although we were principally made for God yet secondatily and subordinately we were made for our selves and therefore for our selves because we were made intellectuall I argue then from hence as followeth Every entity framed for the enjoying of it self and so for it self is to be perpetuall according to the exigence of nature But such is the reasonable soul and every nature
seems to be an Entity not capable of being produced by generation Secondly from the nature of the things out of which it is to be educed Thirdly by the inhability of those actions which are exercised in generation for the production of any spirituall substance or intellective faculty although the soul in it self were a thing producible and that the elements might afford sufficient materialls for the composing of it For the first I argue thus No entity which is simple and unmixt can be produced by generation but such is the intellective part of man therefore that part is not to be produced by generation and if ingenerable then is it incorruptible also That it is simple and unmixt needs no probation because it is a thing wholly improbable that an intellective power or substance should be a temperature or mixture as our Adversary conceived it to be for though a temperature and mixture may remotely or a farre off concerne understanding in as much as they belong unto the Organs yet is not an intellective Entity therefore a compound or a bodily temperature as by and by we are futher to declare That no simple Entity is producible by generation is evident because the effect or terminus of that action is the composition or compound which thing it performeth not by producing the Entity of the parts but by making a substantiall union between them and by the making those severall entities to be parts which although they were before yet were they not parts of that compounded body which by this newer generation did accrue Besides this is the cleare and expresse doctrine of Aristotle in sundry places of his works For the second head of probation I affirme that no lumpish matter or earthly concretion can yield materialls for the building up of an understanding or minde Chymists by their curious arts of dissolving bodies have found out salts sulphures oyles spirits quintessences elixirs they again can draw tinctures and magisteries and out of metalls a vitriol which shall contain in it the essence of them and have the virtue of transmutation of other metalls into their own nature but yet never any knew how to extract out of them any one dramme of understanding or to fill the least phiall with it nor could they ever finde metall or oar which contained wit and understanding in it Arnoldus de villa nova as Mariana recounteth in his Spanish story of Spain attempted by mixtures and furnaces to make a man but his art failed him and he was confounded all his ingredients could not afford him an intellective spirit wherewith he might be animated and informed You will say Sense cannot be extracted any more than reason True but sense arising from things divisible may come by a resultancy from things united as being materiall which our reason being immateriall cannot especially in the principall acts thereof which be wholly inorganicall as by name the acts of judgement be touching objects immateriall and à fortiori all such of them as transcend the spheare of Nature Cicero toucheth chiefely upon this point and his argumentation seemeth to be very solid and irresistible if pressed to the uttermost The third head of argumentation is from the improportion and imbecillity of the actions of humane generation For first the actions of vegetation and sense are of an inferiour nature and so unable to produce any thing higher and perfecter then themselves and for this cause each entity is to be produced by actions that be of its own classe and order namely per actiones congeneres cognatas therefore the soul if it were to be generated could not be so otherwise than by actions of understanding or of the intellective but it is certain that generation is not performed by acts of wit or understanding but contrariwise by acts of vegetation and sense which actions be of an inferiour degree and a man generates with his body and not with his minde so that the generation of man is no more any act elicite of reason than his eating or walking is which actions be no acts of the understanding though prescribed and directed by it Now though the act of the divine understanding be subsistent yet the acts of created understandings be only accidents for such and no better is the verbum mentis in all created understandings humane or Angelicall and therefore humane understandings beget no understandings nor any children like themselves It followeth then that the soul neither generates a soul nor again is generated by any and for this cause must be incorruptible and by the principles of nature immortall By this it appeareth that the non-generation or traduction of the soul is a verity so evident that by it the immortality may be proved and it stands not in need to be it self proved by immortality Besides all this it is plain that every substance incorporall being voyd of composition physicall hath no passive principles of corruption in it and therefore is not susceptible of any physicall generation or corruption nor is resolvable into parts and this argument is urged by Scaliger excercit 307. n. 20. Again the soul hath no contrariety of qualities within it nor is there any thing abroad which is contrary thereunto I know well that many things may cease to be and yet not by corruption as for example sundry sorts of accidents and the souls of Beasts but yet these are consequents of corruption for therefore the soule for example of a Beast perishes because the organicall body which it inhabited was destroyed or corrupted and again therefore an accident ceased to be because by a corruptive action of a contrary agent it was thrust out of doors and had nothing left it whereupon to rest no basis to sustein it any longer And by this the argument of Petrus Molinaeus l. 9. Phys c. 12. is answered by which he laboured to infringe the ancient doctrine namely That every immateriall substance and incorporeall was incorruptible and immortall and that consequently the soul of man being such a substance could not be corrupted or otherwise naturally cease to be of which point see Merat tom 1. tract de Ang. disp 9. sect 2. and Bagotius tom 2. Instit l. 1. disp 4. c. 8. To tell us here as some new masters do that a spirit may be compounded of a certain spiritual matter and of a form thereunto correspondent and that therefore every spirituall substance may not be simple but contrariwise resolvable into parts essentiall according as corporeall substances be is to tell dreames and fancies of the night instead of probabilities and therefore desiring them to dream again and to enjoy their own imaginations I leave them to their rest But howsoever this new device of theirs might have some truth in Angels which are compleat substances and abstracted from corporeall materiality yet in the soul of man it could not because the soul it self is a form a substance incompleat and therefore a prodigious thing it must needs
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 soul is false See Soto of this in 4. d. 43. q. 1. a. 2. Rat. 3. for it is a living co-agent with it and a partaker both in the good and evil actions and 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 soul make God the authour of sin more than the generation of it that is to say not at all for still the soul 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 soul yet he holds it probable that it comes by procreation and that from the first instance of conception the seed is ammated with the rationall soul which Doctrine of his by his leave inferrs mortality for whatsoever is generated is corruptible and is to go out 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 Hypom 4. c. 10. as also in his Paralipomena c. 7. n. 3. ad Hypomn. 5. 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 Fruits even out of the several natures of their composition which God hath appointed for them and not our of the free will of God immediately without any farther 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 Souls 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 seems neither to be Philosophicall nor true wherefore the immortality of Souls and Angels is not to be reared upon this weak foundation according to which a Fly may be as much immortall as an Angel one by nature according to Sennertus having no preeminence 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 Sennertus Hypomn. 4. ca. 10. lib. de consens Chymic cum Arist Galeno c. 9. he will needs have the sperme alwayes animated with a reasonable soul but then consider how many more souls are cast away without any bodies organicall and humane then are actuated and preserved by bodies I ask what must become of these innumerable souls must they perish or have bodies made them at the Resurrection 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 Again why does the soul depart from the body but onely because it leaves to be organicall why then or with what probability can we imagine the soul is in the inorganicall sperme certainly with none at all The winde that did drive Sennertus upon this inhospitall shore 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 soul his reason is because the soul only is to build an house fit for it self 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 parents 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 to performe that duty Argent com in 1. Aphoris Hippocr as Argenterius also teacheth which entity hath derived to it from the generatour so much natural strength and cunning as to make a sufficient architect for the effecting of this work and all this may be done with the onely form of seed without any animation of it with a soul Thus it is likely that the Acorn for example without any more form than of an Acorn collects sit particles out of the elements and materials about it and by a virtue derived from the tree on which it grew forms out and fashions the body of an Oake and for the effecting of this work the seed participates much of the nature of the tree or plant and hath ordinarily much of the same virtue Wherefore in this abstruse question or quaere 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 seed's own form 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 seems to be where the semen of the Cock being cherished and stirred up by the ambient and incumbent warmth of the Hen is that which changes the egge and forms 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 Cock the soul or essence of a Cock 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 soul to multiply another we confesse it to be true yet this not to be done by creating of the younger by the elder souls or by the giving of them new entities but rather by doing some other act out of which these forms should connaturally follow as materiall forms 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 and 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 himself
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