THE Prerogative of Man: OR, THE IMMORTALITY OF HUMAN SOULS ASSERTED Against the vain Cavils of a late worthless Pamphlet, ENTITLED, Man's Mortality, etc. Whereunto is added the said Pamphlet itself.  GEN. 2. 7. Man became a living soul. Ovid. Met. 1. Os homini sublime dedit. 
OXFORD, Printed in the year, 1645.   

THE PREROGATIVE OF MAN: OR, His Souls Immortality, and high perfection defended, and explained against the rash and rude conceptions of a late Author who hath inconsiderately adventured to impugn it.  I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Matt. 22. 32. 
Printed in the year 1645.   

The Preface.  
SO great and sovereign to man hath been the benignity of indulgent nature, as that she hath not only bestowed upon his soul, above those of other creatures, the high and singular prerogative of immortality, but hath moreover imparted to him light whereby he might come unto the knowledge of it, and by that same knowledge be excited to make a diligent inquiry after the obligations that follow it, and how also in this life he may make his best advantages and preparations for the next. Neither is this same truth of immortality any new discovery, but acknowledged of old by the Heathenish and Pagan nations; of which thing we in the work ensuing, are to give in a large evidence by our producing the many testimonies of a full and frequent Senate of ancient Sages, who being destitute of revelation had nothing but nature to instruct them.  
To these I add now, and for a taste in the beginning present my Reader with only two, the one taken out of the 12 Book of Marcus Antoninus Augustus, the other out of Simplicius his Commentaries upon Epictetus, one of these witnesses, a Stoic Philosopher; the other, a Peripatetique; in performance of which omitting the Greek citations as a diligence for the most part unnecessary in an English work, behold the words of Antoninus. Hast thou (faith he) forgotten that the mind or soul of every man is a God? He means by the word God, only an entity divine and a substance of higher and nobler extraction, than other forms or souls of creatures inferior. Simplicius in his Prolegomen. determines, saying, The soul maketh use of the body as of Organs or Instruments, as also it doth of the passions irrational, and hath a substance altogether separable from them, and remaining after their corruption. The self same doctrine is delivered expressly and at large by Porphyry in his Book De Abstinentia.  
Against these powerful impulsives and clearer notions of truth the adverse party hath nothing to oppose but mere surmises or suspicions, such namely as the Author of the Book of Wisdom out of their own mouths recordeth, saying, There hath not any one been known to have returned from the Grave. Or else such as Pliny doth imagine, who grafteth the opinion of immortality not upon an innate or natural longing and appetite, as he should have done, but contrariwise upon a false ambition and greediness in man of never ceasing to be: Or again, as Lucian, who brings nothing to make good what he conceiveth, besides downright impiety dressed up and set forth with facetious scoffs and derisory jestings, wherewith nevertheless sundry ill affected spirits and feebler understandings are easier persuaded, then with solid arguments.  
The Chorus of Seneca afterwards alleged moved as it may seem with no better or stronger arguments, is driven as by a storm into dark and doubtful cogitations touching the soul's mortality, and so is another Chorus consisting of Mahometan Alfaquys in the English Tragedy of Mustapha. By such shadows also as these a late Philosopher was affrighted, and before him some of the ancients, so fare forth as to be made imagine, that granting the soul should survive the body, yet that it would not thence follow it were perpetual, but that contrariwise in tract of time it might decay and vapour itself at length to nothing, burning or wasting out it's own substance like a torch or candle; or at least have a period of duration set it, connaturally to the principles of constitution, beyond which it was not to pass, but at that term or point presently and naturally, to extinguish or return to nothing.  
But if suspicions may come to be examined, we shall find that there be other of them persuading the soul's mortality that seem more hollow and deceitful than the former are; as namely, a depraved appetite or an unbridled and untamed sensuality that solicits perpetually to be satisfied, and is desirous, without fear of future reckon in the other world, to wallow and tumble like a swine in the mire of dirty pleasures, and to conceive some shadow of security for it, that so with the old Epicureans it might merrily say.  
Ede, bibe, lude, post mortem nulla voluptas.  
Eat, and drink, and play thy fill,  
There's after death nor good nor ill.  
Doubtless these latter persuaders seem to be more ruinous and corrupt then the former, and of more dangerous consequence; And thus we see, that on either side there want not suspicions as well for concluding of montality as of immortality, if we will be guided by them. But into this high Court of judicature wherein causes so weighty and so grave as this are to be decided, suspicions and dark imaginations will not be allowed for evidence, or be able to cast the business any way.  
To these other proofs which after I allege I add this one which I have placed in the frontispeice of this treatise, namely these words of Christ, Matth. 22. partly recited by him out of Exodus: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaak, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. By force of which Text the Sadduces who denied the resurrection were convinced, and not only they but this Author also against whom we deal, for the place proves the soul's immortality, as well as the body's resurrection, Because if God be the God of Abraham after death, then must his body one day rise again, to the end that being reunited with the soul there might result an Abraham; again, if he be the God also of the living then must his soul continue living without any intermission from death; for as without a body there is no Abraham, so without a soul there is no vivens, or thing endued with life. If you object, that it is sufficient if it live then when the body is to rise, though not before; I answer, that this intermitted living neither is nor can be sufficient, because then the soul must have a revival & resuscitation, for the which we have no warrant any where, & feign it we must not; or if we do, it will want weight and be rejected. It follows then, that the soul of man after the departure of it from the body must either always live or never, and so by consequence seeing the soul must live once more it must live always, that is to say, not only at the resurrection, as this Author saith, but continually from the time of the separation to the time of the reunion, and so after everlastingly. And this is the conclusion was intended. And thus much touching the argument of the treatise following.  
Now touching the Adversary I am to let you know, that if the Readers bade not deserved much more regard than he, and besides if the matter had not required some elucidation, more than his objections did an answer, I had been wholly silent and spared all this labour I have taken.   

The Contents of the several Chapters in The Prerogative of Man.  

Chap. I. The Author's Design, and the occasion of it.  
Chap. II. His first Class of Arguments examined and refuted.  
Chap. III. Scripture no way a favourer of the soul's mortality.  
Chap. IU. His argument out of Reason viewed and examined.  
Chap. V. A refutation of certain shifting Answers given unto sundry Texts of holy Scripture.  
Chap. VI The rational soul of man ingenerable and incorruptible.  
Chap. VII. Man's being by Procreation no argument of his soul's mortality.  
Chap. VIII. A solution of the Adversaries objections, together with some others of Doctor Daniel Sennertus.  
Chap. IX. The Adversaries resurrection of Beasts exploded, together with a Conclusion of the Worke.   

The Contents of the several Chapters in Man's Mortality.  
Chap. I. Of Man's Creation, Fall, Restitution, and Resurrection, how they disprove the Opinion of the Soul, imagining the better part of Manimmortall: And proveth him (quatenus homo) wholly mortal.  
Chap. II. Scriptures to prove this Mortality.  
Chap. III. Natural Reasons to prove it: with Objections Answered.  
Chap. IU. Objections from Natural Reasons Answered.  
Chap. V. Objections extorted from Scripture Answered.  
Chap. VI Of Procreation, how from thence this Mortality is proved.  
Chap. VII. Testimonies of Scripture to prove that whole man is generated, and propagated by Nature.    

The immortality of humane souls asserted against the vain Cavils of a late worthless Pamphleter, and vindicated from reproach.  

CHAP. I. The Authors 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 venom, 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 stays 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 dashed against every rock of error, be it never so low, or contemptible, and, like unto small weak flies, be caught and entangled, not always by the strongest and most artificially woven cobweb, but by the very next, though never so rude and slender. This poor and sorrowful manner of failing must needs be of all other the most hateful, not for the deadliness of it, but rather for the reproach which follows; for by it a man looseth not truth alone, but withal 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 I cannot call him, whose soul be himself thinks to be mortal, and whose learning and capacity is so small, as if indeed it were so as he imagineth it to be, a sorry Animal I say, having stepped into the crowd of Scribblers in the defence of an old rotten heresy condemned and suffocated by consent of the wise, almost at the hour of the birth, hath met with some souls so unhappy as to be persuaded by him, and to think as meanly of themselves as the wisest of all ages did of beasts; and 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 bruit beasts, and ascribing to them both a mortality alike.  
The old and despicable heresy which this obscure author now labours to resuscitate and to conjure up, was raised in Arabia about the time of Origen, and extinguished by his dispute, immediately after the birth, as Eusebius witnesseth l. 6. Hist. c. 30. and according to the division of Rufinus, 27. such as were infected with this error were termed by Saint Augustine de Haeres. c. 83. Arabici, by reason of the Province from whence the error first arose: so that such as now submit unto it may well be termed wild Arabians, which kind of people by reason of their rude condition and volatile natures, were ever as ready to be cozened, first, by this heresy, and after, by the grand Impostor Mahomet, as the Romans 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! who if he had lived in this age, and noted the pronity of men now adays, 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 error! O minds corrupt enough for the receiving and applause of any folly, of any error, 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 error Thnetopsychitae, as Damascene relateth l. de Haeres.  
Upon the consideration of those errors that have of late infected us and betrayed humane nature, I cannot think it a thing improbable, but that the infernal spirit which hath suggested them and governed the hearts of men as a predominant planet, in these Northern Provinces of Europe, is that martial 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 days, are all generally for ruin and destruction; the former acts were for destruction of Prelacy, or power Ecclesiastical; the latter for subversion of regality, or sacred rights of Princes: they began with the destruction and profanation of sacred and religious edifices, now they take the same licence for ruinating of of Cathredrall and Collegiate Churches, and like true Barbarians, what time and leisure do not yet give them leave to demolish, that they at least deface and contaminate, leaving behind them nothing but desolation; neither sufficed it to have been contumelious to their own ancestors, unless besides they should prove treacherous and false even unto their own nature, by their divesting and disrobing it of all the chiefest ornaments, which, according to the judgement of the wisest, do appertain unto it.  
For first, what is the wealth and treasure of man, but the dignity and value of his actions? of this he hath long since been plundered. His eyesight whereby his steps were to be guided, was his knowledge; but this divers have laboured to extinguish, by denying, with the old Academics and late Socinians, that there is any certainty in it, and by becoming so witty as to know nothing. His crown and life was the immortality of his better part, as therein chiefly being superior to beasts and all other living things irrational; but behold here a privy but a dangerous traitor endeavours to despoil him of it; so that in fine, if all these treacherous assailants might have their wills, he shall be wholly mortal, poor, feeble, blind and miserable, dethroned from his wont dignity, and cast down unto the lower class of Beasts. Profectò plurima homini ex homine mala, as Pliny justly complaineth, though he himself be one of the Authors of these eevills. Was it not enough that all inferior creatures do rebel against us, but we must basely and treacherously conspire against ourselves? The man that going from Jerusalem to Jericho fell amongst thiefs, had hard measure offered him, for he was despoiled and wounded by them, and left only half alive; but those thiefs amongst whom we are now fallen be fare more cruel, for they would kill us outright both in soul and body, and with less than this will not be contented. But now it is time we examine what urgent reasons, what killing arguments there were that moved this new author unto so extravagant a course of rigour against all mankind; for if these be not very urgent and invincible, we must conclude this man guilty not only of much folly but also of heinous malice and temerity against the rights and prerogatives of man.   

CHAP. II. His first Class of arguments examined and refuted.  
HIs first arguments be drawn from man's creation, fall, restitution and resurrection: the principal is this,  
That what of Adam was immortal through Innocency, was to be mortalized by transgression.  
But whole Adam (quatenus animal rationale) was in Innocency immortal.  
Ergo all and every part even whole man liable to death by sin.  
Upon this bungling argument or syllogism the weight of all his cause must lean, which as I perceive by the posture it should have been a syllogism, if the Author could have cast it into that form, but since that might not be, we will be contented to take it in gross as it lies, rather than pass it over without an answer. We grant then that indeed all Adam for example, by sinning became mortal, and all and every part of him, that is to say, he was after so much of his age expired, to yield up to death and be totally corrupted; or, which is all one, he was to have his two essential parts disunited, and after that until the resurrection, neither he nor any of his parts thus dissevered & disunited to be Adam or a man any longer. All which might be without that, either the matter of his body, or substance of his soul should perish, or be destroyed. And forasmuch as concerns the matter of his body, it is an evident case because matter is a thing both ingenerable and incorruptible, and so neither produced by his generation, nor destroyed by his corruption; and as by generation only fashioned and united, so again by corruption or death, only defaced and disunited or dissolved. And as for the soul the other part, there is no more necessity death should destroy it, than there was it should destroy the matter, there being no more reason for the one then for the other. Wherefore Saint Paul wishing death that so he might be with Christ, did not desire to be destroyed, as this silly authors doctrine would infer, but to be dissolved; for surely if his soul by act of mortality was to have been destroyed, he could not think to be with Christ, during the time of that destruction, or dissolution which he wished, and so his words and wishing would have been very vain, seeing according to this Author he should by his being dissolved, come never the sooner to be with Christ; because according to this Author, neither alive, nor dead, he was to come unto him before the General resurrection; nay further, his wish would have made against himself and his own ends, because he knowing Christ a little in this life, might in some small measure enjoy him in it; but if by death his soul be killed as well as his body, he should have no knowledge at all nor comfort of Christ, but be cast farther off then he was before.  
Now, as all agree, that matter throughout all mutations, remaineth incorrupted; so also according to the judgement of sundry knowing men and diligent inquirers into the works of nature and transmutation of natural compounds, natural and material forms themselves also do not perish at their parting from their matters, but only are dissolved and dissipated, lying after that, in their scattered atoms within the bosom of nature, from whence they were before, by force of the seed, extracted, the result of whose union was the form. So that the entity of the form remains after corruption, though not in the essence and formality of a form, or totally and completely. Thus teacheth the learned author of Religio medici, and exactly declares himself; of the same mind is the famous late Physician Daniel Sennertus in his Hypomnemata, though sometimes not so fully; as for example, when he ascribes to form's precedent the full production of the subsequent; assigning a vis prolifica in every form for multiplying of itself: by which doctrine he seems to recede from his former principles of Atoms and not to stick constantly to them, yea and besides to deliver a conceit which is hardly understood, and which moreover seems to be improbable; for, who can explicate what one form does when it multiplies another, or what kind of causality it doth then exercise, or by what strange influence that effect is wrought and the form made up of nothing. This same doctrine of Religio Medici; and that also which we deliver here touching the Origination of forms was the doctrine of old Democritus expressed by him in his constitution of Atoms, or minima naturalia, not that every Atom did contain a form, as Sennertus seems to think, but rather several pieces for the composition of it; as every simple, or ingredient of Diacatholicon, for example, is not Diacatholicon, but contains something in it of which it is to be made up, and from which as from differing heterogeneal parcels, collected and united by an artificial mixtion it results; and for want of putting this difference or restraint, Sennertus his own doctrine and explication of Democritus may seem defective. This also was taught by Anaxagoras, when he affirmed all to be in all, or every thing, and to have a preexistence in the bosom of nature before such time as by the operation of seminal causes, forms be accomplished and made to appear in their own likeness upon this theatre. This is also the judgement of Athanas. Kircherius a late learned writer l. 3. the magnete, part. 3. c. 1. where he shows how rich compounds earth and water be, as Chymique industries for separation, have discovered, insomuch as in them, as he noteth, is contained a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or general magazine; the common matter being from the first creation, not lean and hungry, but faeta and praeseminata with forms partial and incompleate. This also is the inchoations of forms and the rationes seminales praeëxistent, which many learned men have often favoured, and which, being thus explained, and in which this sense of ours can suffer nothing from the objections of Gandavensis, or Durandus. This lastly, is nothing else, but in a good sense, an eduction of forms ex potentia materiae, which is Aristotle's and his Disciples Doctrine; for, it cannot be thought, that Aristotle ever intended to press, or squeeze any forms out of the dry skeleton of materia prima, which matter is a principle only receptive, and no promptuary out of which to educe a form by virtue of any natural agent whatsoever; for in such a spare entity as that what fecundity is imaginable? And so much touching the original of forms, which is one of the abstrusest and nicest points in all philosophy, and that which by vulgar authors is meanliest handled, and by the wisest is known but by conjecture.  
Thus his main argument is answered, after which all the rest will fall down headlong with any light touch, though but of a finger.  
Immediately after this he argueth out of Gen. 3. 19 where Adam is told, that for his disobedience, he must turn into that dust of which he was made; out of which he concludes, that all and every part of Adam must be converted into dust: which, if it be so, as he sayeth, than not only his earthly particles, but his airy, watery and fiery parts must to dust also, and not only his body, but his soul, if he have any, must be turned into the same matter. See what fine conclusions follow out of this mortal soul's philosophy. It sufficed then, that so much of his body, or of the whole man was to return to dust as had been made up of it. And by this alone, the commination of God is fulfiled without any more ado.  
After this he comes upon us with his false Latin, saying as followeth. Death reduceth this productio entis ex non ente ad Non-entem, returns man to what he was before he was: that is, not to be, etc. and by and by, citing impertinently two or three places of Scripture, falls to another argument drawn from the resurrection.  
As for the Latin word Non-entem whether it be right, or no, we will not examine, but apply ourselves to the consideration of the sense which is as faulty as the Latin can be: know therefore in brief, that death did not reduce Adam to non ens, but to non Adam; it did not cause him absolutely not to be, but only not to be man, or Adam any longer. And forasmuch as concerns his body, it is confessed and certain, that it was not turned by death or mortality into nothing, or non ens, but into dust which is an ens, or something; that is to say, his body was not annihilated, but corrupted; and to die, is not wholly to be destroyed, but partially only, which act is all one with dissolution. Now, if to the total mortalizing of man, it be not necessary that his body be destroyed, then can it not be needful that his soul should be so, and thus our adversaries stout argument is more than mortalized, for it comes to nothing, which man by dying does not.  
We will not deny him, but that the soul of man did die and die again, as much as it was capable of death; for first it died by the being separated from the body; secondly, by being subjected unto damnation, which, as we know, is called in scripture a second death. But as for the annihilation of it, or of the body, that is it which we deny; and so to do we have just reason. In fine, as generation is nothing but the union of the parts, and not the creation or absolute production of them; so again, Death and Corruption is nothing but the disunion, or dissolution of them, and in no wise the annihilation, according as this wise Author would persuade us.  
As for the article of the Resurrection, it proves nothing against the perpetuity of the soul; for we never read of any resurrection besides that of the body: wherefore, to aver a resurrection of souls were a grand foolery, and a doctrine never debateable or heard of amongst Christians, till this silly Author came to teach it. And so much for his first chapter.   

CHAP. III. Scripture no way a favourer of the soul's mortality?  
HIs places cited out of scripture in favour of his error are so impertinent, as that it were no small piece of folly to examine them one by one; They all of them signify that man shall die, or sometimes, that Joseph or Simeon is not, as Gen. 42. 36. all which how they are to be expounded and understood, may sufficiently appear by that which hath been said in the precedent chapter, and how again they make nothing at all against the soul's immortality.  
Touching the words of Ecclesiastes c. 3. the answer is, that they were no determinations, or resolves, but a history, or an account given of what sometimes came into his thoughts, and what obscurities and desolations of soul he had, and what lastly was one of the first difficulties that troubled him and stirred him up unto a solicitous enquiry; for certainly this one verity of the mortality of man's soul is that which is to order his designs, to regulate his actions, and to put life and vigour into them, this being a truth most fundamental. We see this one was it which moved Clemens Rom. (if he be the true Author of that which passeth under his name) to a serious inquiry and care 
Clem. l. 1. recogn.  for the finding out what he was to do, whom to consult, what to esteem most, and in fine what to fear, or hope most, and how to order all the passages of his life. This is the question that usually troubles men first of all, and till a resolution be had, suffereth their hearts not to be at quiet, every man at first suspiciously, as Solomon did, ask of himself, as Seneca gallantly expresseth, saying. 
Senec. in Trod   

Verum est? an timidos fabula decipit  
Vmbras corporibus vivere conditis?  
Cum conjux oculis imposuit manum,  
Supremusque dies Solibus obstitit,  
Et Tristes cineres urna coërcuit.  
Non prodest animam tradere funeri,  
Sed restat miseris vivere longius?  
An toti morimur? nullaque pars manet,  
Nostri cum profugo spiritus halitu  
Immistus nebulis cessit in aëra,  
Et nudum tetigit subdita fax latus?   

Is it a truth? or that our fears  
Have buzzed a fable in our ears?  
That man's hover spirits do live  
And their interred corpse survive.  
When grieved consorts hands do close  
Their eyes, and their last days oppose  
Our bright Hyperions beamy light,  
And drowns the slender shades in night  
Then when our bones to ashes burn,  
To be confined within an urn.  
Be not the funerals our fate  
But there must be a longer date  
For wretched man? Or doth he die  
Entirely, and entombed lie?  
Or may he not forthwith consume  
And vanish all in slender fume  
Then when his wand'ring spirit flies  
And mingles with the aiëry skies.  
And when the dismal funeral 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 soul's 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 return 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 man's total corruption and mortality.   

CHAP. 4. His argument out of reason viewed and examined.  
WHat the several fancies were of heathen Philosophers touching the nature and definition of the soul is not much regardable, sundry of them being so monstrous and absurd. But it is a thing very considerable, that amongst so many straggling and wild conceits all, or most of all at least of the noblest and the best Philosophers have taught the immortality of the soul itself. 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 again in his Hortensius, as witnesseth Saint Augustine l. 14. de Trinitate. Antiquis Philosophis hisque maximis ●●ngèque clarissimis placuit quod aeternos animos divinosque habeamus. We are persuaded by the consent of all nations that souls remain, but must learn of reason of what quality they are, and in what places they remain. This assertion of Cicero, for consent of nations and Philosophers in this truth, hath been showed to the eye by the great diligence and learning of Augustinus Steuchus, commonly called Eugubinus, in the 9 book of his excellent 
●ugubinus l 9 ●e Peren. Philosoph.  work 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 Peripatetics, who is judged by the greatest searchers into his doctrine to have directly taught the immortality, although he hath not declared himself in that point, as in many others, nor as others have done, peradventure concealing himself 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 poetical, as his master Plato had done. The same Philosophers also are diligently alleged 
●less. c. 15. the ●erit. Christ. Rel.  by Monsieur Plessy, in his book de veritate Relig. Christianae, which is every where extant. Besides, the same doctrine of immortality hath been constantly taught by the learned Aben Sina, or Avicen in the last book of his Metaphysics, and also in his Almabad, in which treatise he maintaineth constantly the immortality of the soul, but earnestly impugneth the bodies resurrection, and withal 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 people's rudeness, whereby they were not sensible of any doctrine teaching a felicity that was spiritual. Another Arabic author who goes under the name of Aristotle is of the same mind with Avicen: seeing, saith he, it is manifest out of the books of 
Author secret. sap. secundum AEgyptios. p. 1, & 12.  the ancient, and already proved that the soul or mind, is not a body, nor doth perish, but remain etc. 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 affirms as much of the souls of Beasts. Afterwards c. 4. he addeth, saying. If our foreelders had been doubtful of the soul's 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 soul 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 soul 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 endeavouring 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 hid what ancient fame professed,  
How milk that gushed 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 stars there join their light  
And with their mingled splendours shine more bright.  
Or souls Heroïck from their bodies freed  
And earthly parts, attain their virtues meed  
This shining Orb, and from their lowly hearse  
Ascending high, enjoy the universe,  
And live Aethereal 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 the whole world weare now possessed,  
And clear behold our Parent blest,  
A part of him, and from these wars  
Make our approaches to the stars.  
No doubt but under humane breast  
A sacred Deity doth rest;  
And that our souls from heaven came  
And thither must return again.   
Lo here how he doth signify, not only the souls of men be divine and immortal, but besides, that they had not their original from the earth, or from any earthly agent, with whom consenteth a Greek Philosopher salustius Emescenus in his book de Diis & mundo lately published and vindicated from the moths by Leo Allatius; This Philosopher c. 8. teacheth on this sort. First saith he, let us know 
salustius Emasenc. 8.  what the soul is. The soul is that which makes things living or animated, differ from the liveless, or inanimate. Their difference consists in motion, sense, fantasy, and intelligence. The soul devoid of reason is a life that serves apparences and the senses, but the rational, using reason, bears rule over the sense and Fantasy. Indeed, a soul destitute of reason follows the affections of the body, for it desires and is angry without reason; but a rational, according to the rule of reason, contemns the body, and entering into combat with the soul irrational, if it get the better doth follow virtue, if vanquished declines to vice. This of necessity must be immortal because it knows the Goddess, and no mortal thing can know that which is immortal; besides, it contemns humane things, as if they were belonging to some other person, and being itself incorporeal, is a verse from things corporeal, which bodies, if they be fair and fresh, it languisheth, if old, it gins 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? Thus salustius, out of whose words we have, first, that the soul differs from the body. 2. That the rational from the irrational, or the sense; 3. That the rational is immortal and the reason why. 4. That it is ingenerable and for what cause. With this greek salustius agrees the Roman, who l. de bello, Jugurth saying, Ingeniiegregia facinora, sicut anima immortalia sunt. The egregious atcheiuments of the wit are like the soul immortal, 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 do wax old, the mind is incorrupt and eternal etc.  
Our next authority is that of Apollonius Tyanaeus that famous Pythagorean Philosopher 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 soul is immortal 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 down and intermingles with the gentle air. Thus he, to whom consenteth most expressly Hierocles in his commentary upon the golden verses of Pythagoras in sundry places, telling us that the soul is not only incorruptible, but also made immediately, not by procreation but the hand of God. See him of the Greek and Latin edition of Paris pag. 101. 103, 132.  
I will add to these the words of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, commonly called Aurelius, l. 4. n. 13. according to Merick Casa●bon's division, If souls, saith he, remain how from all eternity 
Marc. Antonin. l. 4. the vitasu●. n. 13.  could the air hold them, or how the earth retain their bodies? As here the bodies after they have lain a while within the earth are changed, and being dissipated, leave space for other carcases; so souls carried up into the air, after they have been there sometime, whither kindled, or liquefied, are conjoined to the common 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is unto the original mind, or great soul of the world. Thus he as if he had said with Solomon the spirit returns to God that made it, for the great soul of the universe, or the original mind 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 souls 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 Death's uncertain hour  
Which of this body only hath a power,  
Yet shall my better part transcend the sky,  
And my immortal name shall never die.   
The same doctrine is constantly taught by Pythagoras as appears by his doctrine of Metempsychosis and also both Jamblichus & Porphyry in their several histories of his life do witness of him, as also Diogenes Laërtius.  
I conclude this Jury with the judgement of Macrobius, who c. 14. 
Macrob. in some. scipio. c. 14.  in somnium Scipionis after he had recited sundry and differing fancies of several Philosophers touching the nature of the soul, concludes, as followeth. Obtinuit tamen, non minus de incorporalitate ejus, quàm de immortalitate sententia. Nevertheless, the opinion touching the incorporeity of the soul, as well as touching the immortality of it hath been prevalent. Against all these, therefore it imports little that Dicaearchus Messenius a Peripatetique Philosopher & Scholar to Aristotle, or as Aristoxenus should, as Cicero relateth in the first of his Tusculans and in his second of his Academiques, hold and defend it to be mortal, or that both he, and as Cicero reporteth out of him, another more ancient Philosopher, by name Pherecrates, one of the lineage of Deucalion, did think there was no soul 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 Doctrine. 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 absurd which some one Philosopher, or other hath not maintained. Sextus Empericus was of the same mind also as he l. adv. Mathematicos acknowledgeth.  
But now by the way, I note how sublimely most of these heathen wise men did Philosophise, when as they conclude the souls original to be from heaven, and how much above the low pitch of certain depressed spirits of this age, who after their continual poring into objects material, and raking in the mud of corruptible things, will needs draw out of that dirt the nobler substances of our souls and natures intellectual by assigning for them no more perfect principle then generation, of which number this sorry author against whom we now deal, is one, yea and one also of the grossest that ever meddled about this business, as by his demeanour in it doth appear. Hierocles in express terms determines saying, It seems saith he, that God himself produced the several souls of every particular man and left the souls of Beasts to be produced by the hand of nature, according to the judgements of Plato and of Timaeus the Pythagorean; so he come. in carm. aurea Pythagoreae pag. 133. of the Greek and Latin edition of Paris Anni 1583.  
I know well, that amongst these ancients the word Anima, or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is aequivocal, because sometimes it is taken only for an exhalation of purer blood, sometimes again for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, men's, or Animus, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which words the ruling, the spiritual, and intellective, and lastly the immortal part of man is signified; and not any material or fading exhalation, which here by the way I note for the avoiding of exceptions and mistake.  
Let us come now unto our Author who would gladly father upon Aristotle, Nemesius, and Ambrose Paraeus, that the soul is all the external and internal faculties of man jointly considered. Which charge is strange, seeing it is well known that Aristotle defines the soul after no such way, but saith it is Actus corporis Organici, and a substance by which we live, have sense, and do understand; and if a substance than can it not receive intention, and remission, as every young Logician hath learned. But let us hear further.  
All the faculties of man are mortal, as well those peculiar to man, as those other which are common to him with beasts, and if all those with his corpulent matter completing man be proved mortal, than the invention of the soul upon that ground vanisheth, which thus I prove.  
All elementary compositions or temperatures are mortal. But man's faculties, a minore ad majus, are temperatures. Ergo mortal.  
The minor is denied, namely that all man's faculties be temperatures; for, to instance, neither the understanding nor the will be temperatures, and yet are principal faculties of man.  
He proves the minor. That which is subject to intention and remission is a temperature.  
But such are all man's faculties, yea those of reason, consideration, science etc. All that distinguisheth man from beast are augmented by learning, education etc. lessened by negligence, idleness, and quite nullified by madness. Ergo.  
Of this gallant argument there be but two propositions false, that is to say, both the major and the minor of it, and then what kind a conclusion it hath, we may easily judge. For first, it is false that every thing is a temperature, universally speaking, which is subject to intention and remission, but such things only as be subject unto them per se and by their own nature, and not by accident only, and this appears in the very business now in agitation between us; for a greater clerk than this man is will hardly ever prove that the augment, or diminution, which is, found in the acts of knowledge, do arise from any internal alteration in the intellective faculty, and not contrary wise from the difference, advantage, and alteration in the organ, or the species and forms intentional: for this reason a man may understand better than a child, not because his faculty intellective is better than a child's, namely for betterness in the organ; also a learned man better than an illiterate, and a diligent than a negligent, because those may have acquired more species, or forms intentional, or else have kept them better than these other that be illiterate and negligent, and not for any intention, or remission in the faculty▪ This I say may be reason of the difference and is likely so to be, and not any variation in the do usually fetch them, which how more or less 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 itself 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. didst. 19 This doctrine of faith is to be held undoubtedly, and it is the common conception of the mind, 
●ureols in 2 ●ent. Dist. 19  and a verity evident of itself, though to give a reason for it it is not so easy. So Aureolus, with whom consenteth Cicero when as he said, as hath been before alleged 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 natural reason doth teach us this verity. It followeth then, that by Cicero's judgement whatsoever the arguments be, the doctrine itself is not only true but also certain and evident; which thing may very well be, for there be many truths which are not proved easily or evidently, yea peradventure are not to be proved at all, but be things most evident and indemonstrable; nature and the understanding acknowledging and embracing them as legitimate, without any further argument than her own light; and again, many things be knownely false which nature rejecteth as spurious and false, although she be not able to demonstrate that they involve any repugnancy or contradiction; so that in divers verities we are to rely lastly upon Tertullian's Testimonium animae.   

CHAP. VII. Man's being by Procreation no argument of his soul's mortality.  
THat man's soul must have the being by generation, because the man himself hath his being by it, is no good consequence; and the reason why some have been deceived in judging it to be a good one or that of due his soul ought to be generated as well as the souls of Beasts, hath been partly a false apprehension what the true nature and essence of generation was, and partly also what was the perfection and essence of man.  
As for the first misprision, it was that generation was not only to make the compositum or whole to be, but also the parts, by the conferring unto them not only the being parts but also the simple being, or the being Entities, that is to say, not only the formality of them, but even the naturality; which conceit of theirs is a false conception & against all reason and principles of Philosophy. Which clearly teacheth us that it is man which is procreated or made by generation, and not his soul, his body is made or framed by it, and not the matter of which it is composed. For it is a received maxim and most true, touching the power of natural causes, and no farther. Quòd ex nihilo nihil fit; Of nothing there is nothing to be made: out of which it follows, that before generation both matter and forms of all corporeal things must have before hand a being in rerum natura, at least an incompleate one, and cannot possibly have it from generation; wherefore by the work of generation they are not made, or receive any new absolute entity, but only are collected, ordered, and at last substantially linked and united one with another, which union is not by a sole approximation, contiguity, or juxta position, that I may so speak of one of them with another, as it falls out in artificial compounds, where colours for example, though they be not pictures, yet being thus or thus chosen, form and united, make up such or such a picture; but it is by a continuity or an inward and substantial knot which is in our power better to conceive then explicate, and yet not to conceive fully neither, for these principles of generation are natures arcana, her darkest and most secret mysteries, which like the springs of Nilus she hath hidden from our eyes, as if our seeing of them were a profanation, and to let us know that she is our mother, and we but ignorant children and such who must not be made much acquainted with our original.  
Again, if the parts also must be generated, I ask whether these parts be simple or compound entities? If simple, they cannot be generated, but must have their being by creation; if compound, then if they must be generated, the parts also of which those parts are made must in like sort be generated; and so either in infinitum, or else at least, till we come to some parts which are simple and ingenerable; by which discourse it follows that no parts at all, neither corporeal nor spiritual, neither in man nor beasts, do receive their being by generation.  
Touching the second misprision or original of error and mistaking, note, that although it belong to the perfection of an Animal to generate another like itself, yet is it a perfection only to Animals and Vegetables, and to them also not simply but only quatenus corruptibilia, so fare forth as they are corruptible, generation being instituted only for reparation of decays, and to reëdify the ruins of corruption; so that wheresoever there be more ruins, in that place more reedification is needful. In creatures therefore irrational where there is a corruption more large then in the rational, a fuller manner of generation is necessary, because there is a greater decay in the form in the one then in the other, forasmuch as the forms of irrational creatures be by corruption disformalized and dissipated into their atoms, which dissipation if the forms were spiritual needed not; and again, if indivisible were a thing impossible. Therefore generation is to perform more in one then in the other, and yet sufficiently in both, according to their several exigences. Seeing then generation is nothing but productio viventis a vivente in similitudinem naturae; a production of one living thing by another in a similitude of nature; according to the definition thereof, whatsoever agent shall do this that same is truly and univocally said to generate, how much more or less soever it do besides this. A man therefore producing another man by the only composing and uniting his two essential parts, body and soul, maketh that to be a man which before was none, and doth truly generate a man, although he no more produce his soul, than he does the matter of which his body is form and made; for there can be no more necessity for the production of the one then of the other. And this one instance of matter will evidently destroy our adversaries argument taken from procreation.  
Neither is it, as Argenterius well declareth, any imperfection in man not to generate so fully as other Animals do, but rather a great perfection in him; for as it is a perfection in beasts to generate totally as much as generation can do, because they are toally corruptible as much as in nature it is possible, and as in Angels it were an imperfection to generate, because they by their nature are totally incorruptible; so in man it is a perfection to generate as Angels do not do, and also not to generate so totally and fully as brute beasts do generate, because he is as the Philosophers rightly and aptly term him, Horizon mundi & nexus naturae utriusque; as it were, the Horizon of the world and that which knits corporeal and spiritual natures together by his participating with them both, and not fully agreeing with either: not being so corruptible as beasts, nor so incorruptible as Angels or pure Intelligences. By which it follows, that his manner of generation is in something to agree with the non generation of Angels; and again, something with the total generation of creatures irrational, that same generation of his being truly and univocally a generation, because he is univocally and truly an Animal, and yet not totally so, because in his immortal soul, he resembles the incorruptibility of Angels or Intelligences. For Modus generandi sequitur modum essendi: & ideo quod partim est immortal & partim non, partim etiam gener are debet & partim non. That which is not wholly mortal doth not wholly generate, and therefore neither man nor beast doth generate wholly, yet a beast more wholly than a man.  
Constat aeternâ positumque lege est,  
 constet genitum nihil.  
Eternal laws do so ordain  
That nothing gotten shall remain.  
Wherefore if some of him after corruption do remain, there can be no necessity that all of him should be made by generation; nay seeing something more of him, namely the form after corruption, doth remain incorrupted then there doth of Beasts, for of beasts the matter only remains, something less of him is to be produced by generation then there is of them, though all of neither. Whosoever therefore shall affirm that a creature intelligent like man should generate another of his own kind as totally and adequatly 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 his creation.   

CHAP. VIII. A solution of the Adversaries objections, together with some others of Doctor Daniel Sennertus.  
THese former notandums having been premised, we need not dwell long upon answering of objection, for by them the way is opened already, and that which before hath been delivered will not need any more than 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 mortal.  
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 only the complete 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 in all sorts of Animals. 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 form be truly generated, what reason can there be why to the generation of the whole Animal, a new being of the form, by virtue 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, when without any such act the definition of generation 
See Argenter. come. 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 form is not generated, any more than his matter is? By force of this solution all his imaginary absurdities which he labours to fasten upon the non procreation of the soul, do of themselves dissolve.  
If the soul, saith he, be infused, than 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 took did not come unto him by procreation, nor was it so to do. As for the fourteenth to the Hebrews which he citys 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 souls from him, (he means the Generatour as I suppose) than 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, aught to do. Moreover, they are not generated by man, but of him, neither is he the agent but the patiented, and so is of these vermin no generatour at all proper, or improper. Secondly, men do receive their souls 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 (adds he) be infused after the conception, than there is growth before there is life, which is impossible, for the soul is made, the vegetative as well as the motive, sensitive, or rational part.  
Answ. I grant, that before the infusion of the soul there may be vegetation, and this by the sole virtue of the sperm; but I deny that therefore there be in man more souls than one, that is, than the rational: for this same force of vegetation which is in the seed holdeth itself upon the part of the matter only, and doth not perform the office of a soul, or form, the substance and operation thereof, being no more than to fashion an organical body and to make it fit for the reception of the soul and the union with it, after whose infusion both the vital and animal spirits do but serve as instruments to it, and to accomplish the body in making it, to be so perfectly organical as the eminency of a rational spirit, above other forms, doth require to have it.  
If the soul be not generated but infused into a dead body, then, saith he, it is lawful to be Necromancer; for Necromancy is nothing but putting a spirit into a dead body, and so it is imitation of God, and God the only Necromancer, and all the men in the world but Necromantic 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 shallowness of this man who can neither speak right, nor reason with common sense and probability. He calls Necromancy constantly Necromancy, and he supposes that a soul in a dead body makes a living man, and can exercise vital actions in it, or actions of life, and so, according to his gross capacity, if the soul be infused God must be a Necromancer and men but Necromantique apparitions; for this Ignoramus, it seems, knows no difference between a soul and body that are united and those that are not united, but together only, nor between a body living by the virtue of the spirit, and by virtue thereof doing vital actions, and another which is only moved and inhabited by a spirit, without any union with it or participation of life. But, supposing all were one, yet were it not lawful 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 of him whatsoever, more or less.  
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 immortal thing and not our mortal flesh is the author of all sin, and so God's immediate hand the cause of all sin.  
That the body is only an instrument of the soul, 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 evil 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 soul make God the author of sin, more than the generation of it, that is to say, not at all, for still the soul and body are authors of their own actions, and the deformity ariseth from their misdemeanour, and not from God's creation or concurrence.  
Doctor 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 animated with the rational soul: which Doctrine of his, by his leave, infers mortality: for whatsoever is generated, is corruptible, and is to go out, according to the ordinary Laws of Nature, at the same gate of according to the ordinary Laws of Nature, at the same gate of corruption at which it entered in. Neither is it true, or likely, or lastly, any way philosophical, to say as he doth Hypomn. 4. c. 10. that nothing created is immortal by the principle of Nature, but only 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 several 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 perpetual out of the nature of their being, as spiritual substances and bodies that are simple and unmixed, other some, out of their own Natures, corruptible, as those that are mixed and made up of Elements, which as by some natural 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 natural; wherefore to seek an immortality only from a decree extrinsecall, without any foundation in their natural beings, seems neither to be philosophical, 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 immortal as an Angel, one by Nature, according to Sennertus, having no pre-eminence over the other the free determination of God for their perpetual conservation being equally applicable to either of them.  
Conformably to this position of his he will needs have the sperm always animated with a reasonable soul; but then consider how many 
Sennertus Hypomn. 4. ca 10. & lib. de consens. Chymic▪ cum Arist. & Galeno c. 9  more souls are cast away without any bodies organical 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 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 lump of clay, but when he had a face and a body that was organical, and not before. Again, why does the soul depart from the body, but only because it leaves to be organical? why then, or with what probability can we imagine the soul is in the inorganical sperm? certainly, with none at all.  
The wind 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, unless it should be animated with the soul; his reason is, because the soul only is to build an house fit for itself to inhabit. But this reason of his is not urgent; nay more, it is not likely; for eggs and young birds do not build their own nests, but the old ones for them; so that it must, by this account, be the father's office to erect this new building and not the child's. But, how, says he, can the father do this? easily and well, by sending his sperm as his deputy and officer, 
Argent. come in 1, Aphor. Hipp.  to perform that duty, 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 only 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 fit 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 Oak: and for the effecting of this work the seed participates tmch of the nature of the tree or plant, and hath ordinarily much of ●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 form excited and assisted by the breeding, cherishing, and connatural warmth of the maternal 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 egg, 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 tells us, that by the blessing granted to all Creatures by the Creator of them in these words, Increase and multiply, force was given to every soul to multiply another: we confess 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 material forms they do by a resultancy, and immaterial 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 feigns unto himself, by which he will have one humane soul to beget another, and on the instant to become with child of it, no body knows how; neither by what particular operation, nor from what Mine it should be digged. For this manner of speaking makes show rather of some empty Magic, than of sound Philosophy, and seems 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 himself impugns it.  
If the Parents (objecteth Sennertus) do not give the soul which is the form of man, they do not generate the man; but for certain, they do generate the man, therefore they give the soul also; unless they communicate the soul, like should not generate his like. So he Hypomn. 4. cap. 11. In brief, I answer, that the Parents do give and communicate both Form and Matter, but that work they may well do without the making or the producing either of them. It is certain they give the Matter, and it is as certain they do not produce it, wherefore the same may be said of the Form without prejudice to the essence of generation, or which is all one, of one like or simile producing of another. And that there is true generation, without producing either part, appeareth plainly; for Death which is the opposite to generation, and destroys what the other made, will show us what generation is; but Deach is only a dissolution of parts united, and not a destruction of them; it is destructive, not of the matter or form, but of the man: for do but divide a man's soul and body and he is destroyed, and remains not a man any longer, but loseth what he had got by generation, that is to say, by generation he got to be a man, and by dying he loses it. In fine, as Argenterius rightly answereth, Generation is not of the parts, but of the compositum.  
He adds, if the sperm, from the first instant, be not animated, and 
See him in 1. Aphor. Hip.  the generatour die in the interim before the animation, it might be said, that a dead man did generate. I deny the consequence, because that Parent while he was living did that act, by virtue of which all the rest (as their turns came) did follow, and that one and first act was generation, and not the subsequent. As for example, he is said to make a fire who first puts the fire to the fuel and kindles it, though all do not burn of a great while after, because all the rest did follow in virtue of the first act.  
Thus we see that the arguments of Sennertus were not so urgent and weighty as to be able to hinder a wise Christian Philosopher, as he was, from relinquishing this tenet of his, and from piously subscribing his Pareamus, by which act he left behind him an example worthy of great praise, and of all true students to be imitated. I have added to the Author's Objections, whom I undertook to impugn, these out of Sennertus who is a Writer of great worth and substance, to the end that by occasion of his difficulties, the matter in hand might be explicated with more satisfaction, and for mine own satisfaction also, who was weary with fight with a shadow.   

CHAP. IX. The Adversaries resurrection of Beasts exploded, together with a Conclusion of the Worke.  
IT is usually said, that one folly brings on another, and ordinarily one worse than itself, and so it falls out with this wretched man against whom we deal at this present, who after his gross error of man's total mortality, falls into one which is much grosser, yea, so absurd, as it is to be numbered amongst the most ridiculous that ever were maintained even by Mahomet the father of absurdities, and who was better at that work, than any man that went before him. But at the length what may this error be? I will give it in his own words, and it is this:  
All other Creatures (saith he) shall be raised and delivered from Death at the Resurrection, my reasons and ground for it, be these. First, that otherwise the curse in Adam would extend further than the blessing in Christ, contrary to the Scriptures, For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, 1 Cor. 15. 22. Thus he, abusing Scripture, as we see, for the upholding of this his prodigious folly. Surely, the man when he resolved upon these things was given over into reprobate sense, and permitted (for his greater confusion) in sight both of God and the world to fall into such an Abyssus of absurdity as that no man might take harm, or be seduced by him but such only who had a mind to be deceived.  
It seems then by this bestial Doctrine, that at the Resurrection all the Gnats and Fleas that ever were shall be revived, all the Toads and Frogs and poisonous Serpents and other vermin. Certainly, those who are to live amongst all these are likely to have gallant time of it. His places of Scripture which he profanes in alleging to prove this need no expositor nor answer to them, for I think no reader is so simple as cannot do it by himself. Doubtless both according to the common principles of Christianity, and also those particulars of this Author, Christ is the cause of our Resurrection, and none are to rise but those only for whom he died, and therefore since he died not for beasts, they are not to have any Resurrection.  
As for the Assertion, it is grosser and more inexcusable in this Author, than it was in Mahomet, because this Mahomet made a Paradise and felicity agreeing most of all to beasts and men of bestial dispositions, for as it is well known out of the Alfurcan or Koran, and as Theophanes an ancient and faithful Historian relateth. His Paradise 
Theophan. apud Porphyr. c. 17. & Jacob. de Vitriaco l. Hist. Orient. c. 6.  was a place of corporal eating and drinking, of wantonness with women, where there was a River flowing with wine and honey and milk, together with an incomparable deholding of women, not not these we have now, but of others. Also long lasting pleasures of obscenity, and other such things full of luxury and folly. So writeth Theophanes. But this man who will seem a Christian might have learned out of the Gospel a felicity of an higher strain, one purely refined from all dregs of baseness and carnality, and that the blessed shall neither marry nor be married, but live like the Angels in Heaven, not enjoying the felicity of a swine, but a celestial. Wherefore leaving Mahomet and other beasts with him to enjoy such a felicity as they deserve and feign unto themselves; I pass unto our Author's last folly, which is his calling it a Riddle, that the soul immortal is all of it in all, and again, all in every part, wondering how this should be, and holding it a mere fiction and thing impossible: but I for my part do not wonder, that a man of so gross a wit and narrow a capacity, as he in this book hath showed himself, should not understand this Doctrine or saying, especially if he will judge of the nature of indivisible presences by those that are divisible, as it seems he does. Yet I have cause to wonder why so stupid and so sorry a fellow as this is, should dare to hold it to be a Riddle or impossible, only because he with his small wit is not able to understand it; as if forsooth, nothing were possible to Nature or to God the Author of Nature, saving that alone which he understands how it can be done. I am now quite weary of this man, and sick with raking so long in such a heap of dirt, and therefore at this instant I leave him to bethink himself about making a timely recantation.  
Now, turning with delight unto my Reader, to solace and refresh myself after all this travail, I desire him to look into Hierocles Commentary upon the Golden Verses ascribed to Pythagoras, in 
Hierocles in Carm. Pyth.  which he seemeth to have discovered the original of this pernicious error, touching the soul's mortality. What avails it, faith he, with perjuries and murders and other wicked ways to gather wealth and to seem rich unto the world, and to want those good things which are conducible unto the mind? But besides, to be stupid and insensible of them, and thereby to augment the evil, or if they have any remorse of conscience for their offences, to be tormented in their souls, and afraid of the punishments of Hell, comforting themselves with this alone, that there is no way of escaping them, and from hence are ready to cure one evil with another, and by a persuasion that the soul is mortal, to soothe up themselves in wickedness, judging they are not worthy to have any thing of theirs remaining after death, that so they might avoid those punishments, which by judgement should be inflicted on them; for a wicked man is loath to think his soul to be immortal, for fear of the revenges that are to follow his misdeeds. Wherefore preventing the Judge who is below, he pronounceth the sentence of death against himself, as holding it fit that such a wicked soul should have no longer a being nor subsistence. Behold here the fountain head of this error opened and purged by Hierocles.  
In fine, from whatsoever puddle this error sprung, let us remember what Socrates (being to die) delivered touching the various condition of souls after this life. He said, as Cicero relateth, there were two different paths or voyages of souls at their departure 
Cic. l. 1. Tuscul.  from the bodies, for all such as with humane vices had contaminated themselves, and were delivered wholly up to lust, with which as with domestic vices being blinded, they had by lewd actions defiled themselves, or had attempted against the Commonwealth any crime, or fraud inexpiable, that these had a wand'ring way assigned for them, sequestered from the assemblies of the Gods; but such again as had preserved themselves entire and chaste, contracting little or no contagion from the body, having always retired and withdrawn themselves from it, and had in humane bodies imitated the conversation of the Gods, these found opened for them an easy way of return to them from whom they proceeded at the first.  
This is the Doctrine both of Cicero and of Socrates, what then remains to do but to hearken attentively to the wise Counsel of the Prince of Philosophers Aristotle, and to suffer it to have a powerful influence into all the passages of our life? His words l. 10. Ethic. c. 9 according to the division of Andronicus Rhodius be as follow. If then, saith he, our understanding, in respect of man, be a thing divine, so 
Arist. l. 10. Ethic. c. 9  that life which is lead according unto the understanding, if compared with life humane, is divine also; neither, as some persuade, is it lawful for a man to relish and follow only that which is humane, and being mortal, those things only which are mortal, but as much as in him lieth, he ought to vindicate himself from all mortality, and to take special care that he live according to that part which is most excellent within him. Now that which is best within us is our mind, which though it be small in bulk and weight, yet in power and excellency doth surpass the rest. And with this wise counsel of the Philosopher I conclude this whole Question, which though the day of every man's departure will decide and give a final resolution to it, yet in the mean season, are not disputes of this nature fruitless or superfluous, because if they be well performed, they are like burning torches, which in the dark gallery of this life teach us how to direct our steps, and before that black day come, to help us for the making our preparations beforehand, that so with better hopes of safety we may meet our deadly enemies in the gate. Without all doubting for the repressing of brutish, bestial and unworthy affections; and again for our encouragement to noble and generous designments, the best preparatives against Death, there is no consideration so powerful and efficacious as that one of the high perfection of man's soul, and the immortal nature and condition of it, for, as Cicero observeth l. 1. de legib. Qui se ipsum nôrit primùm aliquid sentiet se habere divinum, ingeniumque in se suum sicut symulachrum aliquod dedicatum 
Cicero l. 1. de legib.  putabit, tantoque munere Deorum semper aliquid dignum faciet & sentiet. He that doth know himself will forthwith find within him something that is divine, and will hold his understanding as a statue dedicated, and be always thinking or doing something answerable to so great munificence of the Gods. That is to say, he will be mindful, that as in upright shape of body and the perfection of his spirit, he excelleth beasts and all creatures irrational, so he will endeavour to do in the condition of his living, by disdaining to stoop to any thing which is base, or to defile the house in which his soul inhabits with any unworthy or ignoble actions.  
I will seal and sign this whole dispute with the determination and censure of the book of Wisdom, which book whether it be received into the Canon, or no, yet is it confessedly very ancient, and therefore by consent of all may claim a just precedence of authority before any Heathen Philosopher whatsoever, the words are these, Justorum animae in manu Dei sunt, & non tanget illos tormentum mortis, visi sunt oculis insipientium mori, illi autem sunt in pace. The souls of 
Sap. 3.  the just be in the hands of God, and the torment of Death shall not touch them. To the eyes of the foolish they seemed to die, but they remain in peace. Behold here in the judgement of this venerable Author, what kind of people they are who hold the soul's mortality, namely, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, such as be destitute of true judgement and understanding. This is not my censure, neither is this character of my making; for who am I that should presume so fare? but it is the judgement of the ancient Author of the Book of Wisdom, whose years and credit may deserve regard, even amongst those spirits that be most confident of their own conceptions, and be the greatest admirers and idolaters of themselves. In fine, this ancient Sage brands all deniers of our soul's immortality with the self same note of ignominy, that David the kingly Prophet did mark that wretched mortal who 
Psalm. 13.  closely and in his heart had said, There is no God. Yet there is this odds between them two, and worthy to be observed, for though both of them be impious and absurd, yet one of them had some shame in him and said it only in his heart. But this Adversary of ours goes further, and had the face to publish his impiety in Print, or at least the heart so to do it, as he himself might lie concealed, and his name unknown; which covert way of his though it appear not altogether so bold and bad, as if he had put his name unto his work, yet was it an act too bold for any Christian man or true Philosopher to exercise, or to be an Author of in Print; for alas, after so many great Divines and deep Philosophers, whose uniform suffrages we have for the dignity of man, that is to say, for the souls immortal nature and incorruptibility, how could the cogitations unto the contrary of this poor worm be a matter any way considerable with men of understanding and ability?   
FINIS.