THE SOUL IS Immortal: OR, Certain Discourses defending the immortality of the Soul; against the limbs of Satan: to wit, Saduces, anabaptists, Atheists, and such like of the hellish crew of Adversaries.  
Written by JOHN JACKSON.  
Imprinted at London by W. W. for Robert Boulton dwelling in Smithfield near Long-lane. 1611.   

TO THE CHRISTIAN READER, Grace and Peace be multiplied.  
THe Arch-enimie of mankind, Satan, that old Adversary, as he dared to give the assault upon the Author of Salvation himself; so hath he not rested from the beginning, to lay battery to the fortress of Faith, seeking by all means to beat it down, and utterly to raze the very foundations of it. And to this end, hath he not left unshaken any one article of our Christian belief, both by old and new Heretics, the wicked instruments of his infernal warringes. So maliciously is he set against us, that like a ramping and roaring Lion, he goeth about seeking whom be may devower: And where GOD hath his Church, be evermore adjoineth his Chapel, with his counterfeit, false, and feigned Religion, odious to God, and wonderful to the world. Amongst the rest, he hath not only of old, but even of late, battered the soul, yea even the life of the soul of man: yea even now doth he most stoutly batter it; by persuading some, that it is corruptible and mortal; and putting into their mouths the most venomed sword of poisoned sophistical Arguments to maintain the same, against the most certain and necessary truth of the Souls immortality. For not only the Saducees did dispute against the immortality of the Soul; yea, and they in like manner, who said in Saint Paul's time, that the Resurrection was passed already to him that believeth; and made no other resurrection, besides the resurrection of the regenerate. But also the Anabaptistes of later years, do deny the Soul to be immortal. And Paul the third of that name, Pope of Rome, when he was breathing out his Soul and ready to die, said; that now at length he should try and know three things: First, whether there were a GOD: second, whether the Souls were immortal: third, whether there were a Hell or no; whereof all his life time he was in much doubt. Yea verily even at this very day, there are now wicked Epicures, and graceless Atheists, whom the Devil to lull them faster a sleep in their sins, and enforce them to heap sin upon sin, hath so suggested them, that they are fully persuaded that there is no reward for the Good, nor punishment of the Wicked; but that Man perisheth as Beast, and the Soul to come to nothing: according to that wicked verse of Horace: Et redit in nihilum, quod fuit ante nihil. For they affirm, that the Soul of man, like as of brute Beasts, is nothing else, but Life, or the vital power, arising of the temperature and perfection of the Body; and therefore dieth, and is extinguished together with the Body. And some again say, that the Soul sleepeth, when the Body dieth that is, is without motion or sense, until the raising of the Body: which indeed is nothing else, but that the Soul is mortal; that is, a mere quality only in the Body, which when the body is dissolved, becometh nothing; because if it were an incorporeal substance, it could not be without sense and motion.  
Wherefore having myself met with some of this bad sort, and hearing of more, I thought good every way to fight in the cause of Christ jesus, with the weapon put in mine hand by my grand Captain, and with might and main, to hew at these two Monsters, and utter Enemies to the Soul. Therefore seeing that the print of the Pen may come unto the eyes of more, than the sound of the voice into the cares, I (by God's assistance) have set my talon on work, against them both, proving the contrary: First, that the Soul is not (as they say,) mortal, but immortal: Secondly, that the Soul is not a form, perfection, temperament, force, power, or agitation arising out of the temperature of the Body; but a substance incorporeal, living, understanding, dwelling in the Body, and sustaining and moving it. And this latter, is proved true by these Scriptures, Psalm. 48. His Soul shallbe blessed in life. Heb 12. God is called the Father of Spirits. And it is said of the faithful; Ye are come to the Celestial jerusalem, and to the company of innumerable Angels, and to the Spirits of just and perfect men. 1. Cor. 2.11. Noman knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man, which is in man. In these, and like places of Scripture, both the Soul of man is called a Spirit, and the properties of a living and understanding substance are attributed unto it; therefore it is a substance. And therefore to no purpose, do the adversaries of this Doctrine, oppose those places wherein the soul is taken for the life and will of man; as Mat. 6. The Soul is more worth than Meat. job. 13.14. I put my Soul in my hand. For by the fore-alleged places, it is manifest, that this is not general, but is used by figure of speech; whereby we call the effect, by the name of his cause. Now for the former, that the Soul is not mortal, but immortal; and also for a further declaration of this latter, I have translated forth of latin (for their sakes that understand not latin) a certain Treatise of the Immortality of the Soul; and thereunto have adjoined other men's judgements and reasons, for the help of the matter, & Scriptures confirming the same, and confuted the Adversary.   

GVILERMUS HOUPPELANDUS: Of the immortality of the Soul.  
THat the ancient Philosophers flourished in Wit, and profited in Study, it is no common opinion, but unto all men a sure and certain persuasion: For by Study and Exercise, they on every side made themselves away unto those things that are by Nature, almost incomprehensible: And by their benefit, there are many things publicly left unto all posterities, which we are glad of, and do marvel at their inventions. They measured the World, subjecteth Heaven to their Rules, searched out the sundry causes of Nature; and in some sort, with their eyes contemplated the Workman of all the World. But of the state of man's Soul, and the Immortality thereof, sundry sects have in their writings, left sundry opinions.  
Some say, that Souls are Mortal, and die together with their bodies. Some do say, that they are Immortal, and always remain in a fixed stability. Heraciws affirmed, man's Soul to be a Vapour; Thales, a Moisture; Empedocles, Blood; for he taught, that the Soul is Blood infused in the Heart. Diogenes and Anaximenes, Air. The Storks, whereof Zeno and Chrysippus are the chief, do say, it is a Fire. Democritus affirmed the Soul to be made by a certain chancing course of certain light and round matter. Aristoxenus, an Harmony: Aristophanes, a due proportion of qualities. The Saducees (so called of Sadoc,) denying both Honours and Punishments; and universally both Spirit and Angel, doc impudently say, that men's Souls are Mortal, and die together with their Bodies. The Epicures also affirming the Soul to be Mortal, do place the chiefest Good, in Pleasures. For Epicurus, who, (as it pleaseth the greatest men) did moderately use Herbs and Apples, & such mean Meat, was afterward, by those that came after, being a beastly and filthy company, reproached with infamy; for his sottish unbridled Scholars, fell into voluptuousness, and counted themselves to be most happy, with the use thereof. All these, and many other more, in the reckoning up of whom, it is not profitable for us for to stay, thought man's Soul to be Mortal. Whom Pliny seemeth to favour, when he sayeth in his second Book of his Natural History that God cannot give men Eternity, nor call again the Dead. And also many Romans', (renowned both for fame and learning,) for Valerius in his second Book of the Immortality of the Soul, seemeth to mock the Frenchmen, when he saith, That old custom of the Frenchmen cometh to my remembrance, who, as it is written, do lend Money that it might be paid them again in Hell; because they were certainly persuaded, that the Souls be immortal. Fools are they to think, that they there, wear long Garments; as Pithago●as believed them to wear Cloaks. Moreover Caesar, and Cato (as Sallust witnesseth,) plainly said that men's Souls were Mortal: and many others also; of whom it is not necessary to speak particularly. Against whom it is said in the second Chapter of the Book of Wisdom, The ungodly say, (as they falsely imagine with themselves,) our life is short and tedious; and in the death of a man there is no recovery; neither was any known that returned from the Grave: For we are borne at all adventure, and we shall be hereafter as though we had never been; for the Breath is a Smoke in our Nostrils, and the Words as a Spark raised out of our Hearts: which being extinguished, the Body is turned into Ashes, and the Spirit vanisheth as the soft Air: Our life shall pass away as the trace of a Cloud, and come to nought as the Mist that is driven away with the beams of the Sun, and cast down with the heat thereof: Our name also shallbe forgotten in time, and no man shall have our works in remembrance: for our time is as a Shadow that passeth away; and after our end, there is no returning: For it is fast sealed, so that no man cometh again. Come therefore, and let us enjoy the pleasures that are present, and let us cheerfully use the creatures as in youth, etc. Then it followeth at the. 21. verse. Such things do they imagine, and go astray; for their own wickedness hath blinded them. And they do not understaud the mystery of God, neither hope for the reward of righteousness, nor can discern the honour of the Souls that are faultless. And in the third Chapter: The Souls of the righteous, are in the hand of God, & no torment shall touch them: In the sight of the unwise, they appeared to die, and their end was thought grievous; and their departing from us. destruction: but they are in peace. And though they suffer pain before men, yet is their hope full of immortality etc.  
There are also others, of every sect and nation, as well Poets as Philosophers, in wit, learning, fame, and glory, more excellent than the former, who speaking more rightly of the state of the Soul, have taught, that the Souls of men are not dissolved together with their bodies; but are immortal, or rewarded with eternity: For Hermes talking in his Dialogues with Asclepius, about the eternal Word, confesseth, that the Souls of men are immortal; and that the Evil are punished, and the Good eternally rewarded. Go to, saith he, We must now reason of the Mortal, and Immortal way or manner: The fear of death, vex and trouble many, being ignorant of the true way. And a little after; When the Soul shall departed from the Body, then shall the trial of his merit pass into the power of the great judge: and he, when he shall see it to be just, shall permit it to abide in places fit for it: But if it be unrighteous, it shall be thrown down into the great deep, and condemned to the storms & whyrlewinds of the Air, and the Water; and be snatched up betwixt the Heaven and the Earth, and be here and there tossed, haled, and turmoiled in eternal pains. But in this, is eternity hurtful unto the Soul, that by the immortal sentence, it is tied to eternal punishment. And thy Graunfather Esculapius, O Asclepius, saith he, the first finder out of Physic, to whom is consecrated a Temple upon a Mountain of Libya, about the shore of Cocodrilli, a man of a very godly life; is gone back again into Heaven.  
The Pharisees also and the Essies do say, that the judgement of God shall come, and that the Souls of men be immortal. Josephus in his second Book of the Wars of the Jews, saith this: It is a confirmed opinion amongst us, that our Bodies are corruptible, and that the matter of them, is not perpetual; but our Souls always remain immortal: And when they be loosed from their carnal bonds, as though they were delivered, or set free from a long servitude; so do they forthwith rejoice, and are carried up on high. The Pharisees also believed the same: which two sects, were best allowed of among the Jews, as the same josephus affirmeth.  
And of the Esseis being put to torments, the same Josephus sayeth: They smiling in the midst of punishings, and laughing those to scorn that eschewed torments, did constantly yield up their Souls with a certain hilarity, as though they should at length receive them again: And what is meant by that in the Sentences of the Greeks', that assure them that remain content with good things, that they shall live beyond the Ocean, where is promised unto them a full fruition of the chiefest joys? For there verily, (say they,) is the Region which is aggravated neither with Rain, Cold, Heat, nor any Maladies; but the Ocean orient and gentle blowing Zephyrus is there very pleasant. But for evil souls, they choose and appoint stormy and wintery places, which are full of wail, schriking, and howl, of pains intolerable, whose continuance is everlasting, and world with out end. According to this same intelligence, the Greeks' have feigned, that for those whom they call Heros. 1. noble and half Gods, Semidij, are sequestrated the islands of the blessed, but for the Souls of the wicked, Hell is destinated, wherein also they feign, that there is tormented certain Sysiphos, Tantalusses, Ixion's, and Licias: For the Greek say, that Her●i, noble and well deserving Souls, endued with immortality, dwell up very high in the Air; whereof Jsiodore sayeth: Heroas dicuntur a Junone traxisse nomen. Grece enim luno a herba appellatur, etc. 1. Heroas are said to have drawn their name from Juno; for in the Greek tongue, juno is called an Herb, and therefore I know not what Son of hers according to the Fable of the Greeks', was called Heros, which Fable hath a mystical signification, because the Air is deputed to Juno; where in they will have Heroas to dwell: for when the Poet Virgil described the Elisean Fields, where they think the souls of the blessed Saints do dwell, he did not only set down that those do dwell there, that have been able to come thither by their own merits; but addeth also, & saith: Those also that by deserving, have made others mindful of them; that is to say, who have so deserved, that by their deservings, they have made others mindful of them. Moreover, as concerning the Greeks', Histories do make mention of two kinds of Philosophers: One, Italike of that part which in times past was called Magna Graecia: The other, Jonicke, of that part which is now called Graecia. The Prince & chief of the Jtalke kind, was Pythagoras; of whom they say, that Philosophy first took the name; who was of such authority among the Ancients, that by a prejudicial opinion, he covered and overcame all others sentence, and was sufficient enough for the confirmation of every sentence whatsoever, if so be any thing was taught, to be that that he said. For writings do testify, that Ferecides the Sirian said, first, that the minds of men are sempiternal; who was indeed an ancient man in the time that Oeneus reigned: which opinion, his Disciple Pythageras' most greatly confirmed; who in the time that Tarquinus superbus reigned, came into that part of Italy which was called Magna Graecia; wherein the name of the Pythagoreans flourished with such authority, that a long time after, no others seemed learned,  
Of the jonicke kind, Thales Milisius was the Prince: a man very notably well learned and wise, and therefore so much the more admirable to his Scholars, because he was able by the knowledge of Astrology, to foreshow the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon. To whom succeeded Anaximander, who left his Scholar Anaximenes, the Master of Anaxagoras and Dyogenes. After Anaxagoras, succeeded Arch●laus his Scholar: After Socrates arose, who by the Oracle of Apollo, was judged the wisest of all men, and left very many followers of his Philosophy; whose study was chief conversant in the disceptation & reasoning of Moral questions. After him, followed Plato, who, as Apuleius testifieth, was first called Aristotle: but afterward, because of the largeness of his breast, he was named Plato: who was endued with such an excellency of Philosophy and fineness of Manners, that as it were, sitting in the throne of Wised●me, seemed, by a certain received authority to bear rule over all Philosophers, both those that were before him, and those that were after him. afterward arose his Disciple Aristotle; a man verily of great Wit and Eloquence, who far excelling many; succeeded Plate in the office of teaching: for this man shined unto men as the Morning star, and enlightened the world with manifold precepts, and sundry beams of Philosophy: and the mist as it were, being wiped away from the eyes, repaired the minds of men, that the truth for ever might be continued among them. After the death of Plato, there succeeded also in the School, which is called Accademia, Pseusippus his sister's Son, and Zenocrates: and for this cause, both they themselves, and also their successors, were called Academics, whom it pleased rather to follow Plato then Aristotle, who instituted the sect of the Peripatetics, because that he was accustomed to dispute walking: amongst whom was ennobled Plotinus, Porphyrius, and Apultius Afer, and also many other; of whom it is not deedfull for us now to speak in singularity.  
All those therefore, whom with others, we do see not unworthily renowned for their fame, learning, and glory, have said, that the Souls of men do obtain the state of immortality: which sentence Varro, Seneca, Salustius, Tullius, Boetius, and Macrobus, do approve. Hereof Tullius in his Prologue Super somnum Scipionis, saith; Omnibus qui patriam seru●uerunt a●xeruntque, certum in calum defruitum esse locum, ubi beati cuo sempiterno fruuntur. First, that for all those that have saved and enlarged their Country, there is a certain place appointed in Heaven, where the blessed enjoy everlasting life. Moreover, the Poets Virgil and Ovid, thought the very same: For, in the fifth Book of Metamorphosis Ovid saith:  — Morte carent animae, semperque relicta Sedenovis domibus, viwnt habitantque receptae. 
That is to say:  
From death are free the Souls of men, and are immortal all:  
Which when their rooms they do for sake and Corpse doth dead down fall:  
Then habitations new they have, received by Ioues decree,  
Wherein he will for evermore, their dwelling place shall be.  
All also, that think that Gods are made of men, or that men are translated to the fellowship of the Gods, have thought the same. Did not Mercurius Trismegistus speaking of Esculapius, Hermes, and Osiris, how they were deified and made Gods, say; The Idols that you every where worship, were first of Egyptians called, Holy living creatures, and their Souls worshipped throughout all Cities, to whom they were dedicated while they were alive? so that they are governed by their laws, and named by their names, and in a manner all Sects and Nations are Attlanticks, as Libian, Egyptians, Frenchmen, Romans', Spaniards, Persians, Chaldi●s. Did not the great King Cyrus (as Tully doth witness) say unto his Sons when he lay on his deathbed: Do not think, o my sons, that when I shall departed from you, I shall never be again or be none at all? for all the while that I have been with you, you never did see my Mind or Soul: you saw nothing but this Body that I bear: believe therefore that I am, and shallbe, although you shall not see me.  
Moreover, Galdisfa the Mahomet, and the ancient elders of the Mahomet's, according to the traditions of their Law, do believe and preach, that the dead shall rise again, and shall eat & drink delicate things, and shall have many fair Women, which they shall embrace and use at their pleasure: For Marcus declaring the conditions of the East Countries, saith, that the Tartarians do so impudently deceive themselves, that if a Young man and a Maid do die unmarried, they cause them to be espoused and that very solemnly, before they be buried; that so in the life to come, they may more freely enjoy their pleasures.  
Touching Aristotle what he thought of the immortality of the soul many had rather doubt with the subtle Doctor, then rashly to define: seeing that amongst those things that are read of him, whether they be those things that he wrote himself, or those things that others say that he spoke, his opinion can not easily be found out: for almost in all places of his doctrine, he seemeth to favour the immortality of the Soul: For in his second Book of the Soul, after the definition of the Soul, putting a difference between the parts of the Soul, he saith, that there are certain parts that are not separable from their Matters, or the things whereof they be made, or receive the name: and some are separable; as, Nauta a Nauj, The Mariner from the Ship,  rationalis anima a ratione: and therefore he concludeth, that it is separable from other things, as that which is perpetual, from that which is corruptible. And in the third Book of the Soul, putting a difference between Sensus and Intellectus, the Sense, and the Understanding, he saith: Excellens sensibile corrumpit sensum, excellens autem intelligibile non corrumpit intellectum: 1 The excellent sensible thing, corrupteth the Sense; but the excellent intelligible, corrupteth not the Understanding. Also, in the first Book, where the translation that Auarroys expoundeth, the Understanding doth seem to be a certain substance, which is made indeed, and is not corrupted. And in his Book, De Animalibus, the Philosopher inquireth, whether all Souls do come forth of their bodies? and he answering, saith: That it is not possible for corporal Souls to come forth of the bodies. It therefore remaineth (saith he) that it is the Understanding that cometh forth, and only is divine. And he in his twelfth of Metaphysuks, ca 8. saith: The moving causes as they were made before it, so do they come forth of it. And in the Book of the death of Aristotle, it is written, that he, lying on his deathbed comforting his scholars concerning the fear of death, said unto them. Et vos, ut quid turbatis et de morte timetis? quae est via et incessus animae recedentis a corpore, et ad comprehendendum gradus divinos, et coniungendum se animabus sapientibus et letis: 1. And you, why are you troubled, and are afraid of death: which is the gate & entering in of the soul departing from the body, to comprehend the heavenly ways or degrees, & to join itself to the souls that are wise and joyful. After whose death, his scholars prayed for him, saying Deus qui recolligit animas Philosophorum, recolligat animam tuam, et reponat eam in thesauris suis. 1. The God that gathereth together the Souls of the Philosophers, gather thy Soul, and lay it up in his treasures. And Libro secundo posteriorum, he reciteth Pythagoras saying, That God doth thunder and sound as one that threateneth, that those that are in Tartarus, or in Hell, may be afraid. And in the 4. Book of his Ethics, he saith: Although they sin, yet they suffer whatsoever punishment is laid upon them; because they say, that immortality is life everlasting: for the passion of life seemeth immortality. etc.  
On the contrary part, Aristotle doth sometime seem to be against the immortality of the Soul: for in his Predicaments he saith: Corrupto animali, corruptitur scientia, non autem scibile, scientia autem non est anima, ex quo videtur sequi animam interire cum corpore: 1 The living creature being corrupted, the science or knowledge is also corrupted; not the thing that may be known, for the science is not the Soul, whereof it seemeth to follow, that the Soul doth die with the Body. And in his Book De longitudine et breustate vitae, Of the length & shortness of life, he saith; The living creatures being corrupted, the science is also corrupted, and likewise the healthfulness; and therefore who of these shall reason for the Soul? for if it be not of Nature, but as science in the Soul, so also shall the Soul be in the Body. And of the same another corruption, besides the corruption wherewith the corruption is corrupted with the Body: therefore it must needs be, that it hath communion with the body. And in the third, De anima: Non reminiscimur post mortem corum qui in vita scivimus: We have no remembrance again of them after, whom we knew, while they were alive. And in the third Book of Ethics: Terribilissimum autemmors, terminus enim, etc. Death is a most terrible and fearful thing: for it is the term or end. And there seemeth thenceforth to be unto the dead, neither good nor evil. And Septimo Metaph, he determineth of the Intention, that, Omnes partes quae possunt manner seperatae a toto, sunt elementa; hoc ect, parts matcriales: All parts that may remain, being separated from the whole, are Elements; that is to say, parts Material. And Primo de Caelo, he seemeth to hold it for unpossible, against Plato, Quod aliquid sit factum perpetuum et incorruptibile, et hoc de mundo. etc. That any thing can be made perpetual and uncorruptible: And this is proved of the world by two reasons; which I omit for brevities sake. And Quinto phisico, he saith: Cuius est principtum, eius est finis: As is the beginning of a thing, so is the end of it. Out of which sayings, it seemed to Scotus, and to many others also, that Aristotle was always doubtful of the immortality of the Soul, yea even unto the day of his death. And he seemeth sometimes to come nearer the one part then the other; and sometimes to agree to that, he seemed before to condemn; accordingly as the matter whereof he entreated, was more consonant to the one part, rather than the other. Yet notwithstanding, by Scotus leave, in the foresaid sentence, he seemeth to me, not to differ from his master Plato in this matter: and herein my witness is Bessario, the Cardinal of Nicaea, in that which he wrote in the defence of Plato; and Cicero also, whose testimony amongst all men, is most of authority, saith in the first Tusculan question: Post multorum Philosopherum de animi quidditate recitatas opiniones, Aristoteles long omnibus; Platonem semper excipio, etc. After the recited opinions of many Philosophers touching questioninges of the Soul, Aristotle is far above all: but I always except Plato, a man very excellent both for wit and wisdom, and diligence, seeing he embracing, receiving, and allowing those four known kinds, thought that there was also a fifth Nature: The mind is equal for to cogitate, and to provide, to speak and to teach, and to invent somewhat, and to remember so many several things; to love, to hate, to covet, to fear: these things, and such as be like unto them, are not to be found in any one of these four kinds, and therefore he thinketh there is a fifth nature, that is without name, and so he calleth the Mind itself, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Endelcia, quasi quandam contanuatam motionem et perennem: As it were a certain continued and everlasting motion.  
And speaking also of the sentences of the philosophers, which we have put in the first place, he saith: His omnibus sententijs, nihil post mortem pertinere ad quenquam potest; By all these sentences, nothing can belong to any man after death. But of the sentence of Aristotle and Plato, he saith afterward: Reliquorum sententiae spem afferunt, posse animos cum e●corporibus excess runt in caelum quasi in domicilium suum peruenir●: The sentences of others do bring hope, that souls after they be departed forth of their bodies, do come unto heaven, as to their own proper dwelling place. Seeing then, that Aristotle supposeth that the Soul is not of the nature of the Elements, as Cicero saith; & also Saint. Augustine in the 22. Book De civitate dej, but of that fifth nature, whereof he will have heaven also to be made: It seemeth contrarily, that as it is thought that Heaven is incorruptible and eternal; so also our Souls are incorruptible and immortal; for either of them may very well be proved with the same arguments that the other is: for even as Heaven hath the nature of no Element; and neither heavy neither light, neither hath any contrary: it followeth then; that the Mind and Soul itself, like as Heaven, can neither be generated and bred, neither corrupted and brought to nought.  
Seeing then it is thus, that he thinketh an infinite multitude of things separated, a thing impossible, he might have confessed with Pythagoras and Plato, believing that the Soul doth flit forth of one body into another: for so had I rather have him to think, then to believe with wicked Auarroys, who would have but one only Soul, and that to be common to and amongst all men. And that same fellow Auarroys, although he concluded with his Master, that the Soul is immortal and eternal; yet in his second commentary upon the third Book De anima, he playeth Ambidexter, and holdeth on both sides.  
The understanding which is called Natural, as we have said, doth not happen, that sometime it understandeth, and sometimes not, unless in the respect of the form of Imaginations, existing in every Individuum, or thing that can not be divided: But in respect of the Species, kind, or sort, it always understandeth, unless human kind do fail; which is impossible. Yet notwithstanding, in this, he foully erreth, not only against faith, but also against Philosophy, in that he put all men's Souls into one Soul, making them all but one Soul, and would not that every man should have a several Soul: For he setteth down three false and erroneous things, having no likelihood of truth, but altogether strange from the mind and meaning of every one of the Philosophers. The first thing is, that the reasonable Soul, is not Actus primus hominis, etc. the first act of man, or man's substantial form, giving unto him, to be, name, and reason, whereby man is, Hoc aliquid, This something; but a substance, separated, and a thing outwardly like unto this. For he setteth down the understanding to be possible, separate; which he calleth, the pure material power in the kind of things that are intelligible. Secondly, he concludeth, that such understanding, doth not come unto man, a principio sui esse, from the beginning of his being, but then only, when he is of years of discretion; for than is it in some sort coupled unto him, and continued, so that by it, he is able to understand. Therefore when he saith in the Fifth, that it is contimed in a Boy in his childhood, and afterward in the 36. Now we have found the manner how this understanding is continued in a Child, and seek the cause in the beginning: But he setteth down the manner of the continuance, when man by imagined intentions doth concur with the agent understanding, to cause the intention in the material understanding: so that to cause understandings in act, he calleth Abstrahere, to draw away: but to receive understandings possible, he calleth, Intelligere hominis.  
Thirdly, he concludeth, that all men have but one understanding. Against these things, it is first argued on this wise. Anima est actus primus corporis organici physici, igitur anima est forma substantialis hominis: 1. The Soul is the first act of the natural organical body; therefore the Soul is the substantial form of man. The antecedent is plain: for the Philosopher in the second of the Soul, affirmeth, the Soul to be a Substance, and not an Accident. And afterward divideth the substance into matter and form, and compound; and showing that it is neither matter, nor compound; concludeth, that it is Form, or the first Act of the body. etc. Neither is it available to say, that the Philosopher setteth down a common definition of the Soul, but speaketh conditionally, saying. But if we must say that there is some common thing in every Soul; it shall verily be that first Act of a natural instrumental body. And that it is so, it is very plain: for in the third Chapter, he saith: But of the understanding, nothing is yet manifest, but it seemeth to be an other kind of Soul. And then strait after that clause, the Philosopher saith. Vniversaliter dictum est, quid sit anima: We have universally declared what the Soul is. And an other Book hath: jam diximus quid est anima universaliter. And in the Chapter following, he saith. Sicut figurae est una communis definitio, conveniens omni speciei figurae: sic et animae oportet esse unam definitionem convenientem cuiuslibet partium cius: As there is one common definition of a Figure, agreeing unto every several Figure; so also should there be one definition of the Soul, agreeing to all the parts thereof. Amongst which, he expressly nameth the Understanding: And thereunto he addeth, that such a definition is that which he hath given; to wit, that it is. Primus actus. etc.  
Neither is the second Allegation of any force; because the Philosopher when he saith: De intellectu aurem nihil adhuc manifestum est: As concerning the Understanding, there is yet nothing manifest: referreth that Word, to a doubtful premisse; to wit, whether every one of the parts of the Soul be separable, as it seemeth to the man that doth consider it. Secondly, it is evident, that the Soul is. Forma substantialis hominis: the substantial form of man. Out of the twelfth of the Meta. in the Chapter beginning, Moventes autem causae superius allegatae: where the Philosopher putteth a difference between the formal causes, and the efficient causes. Also, so it should follow, that a child, before that natural understanding were coupled unto him by the spices of imagination, should not be a man neither endued with reason, and should in specie differ from an other man, and also from himself the elder he waxeth.  
Neither is the solution of Averroes any thing available, that man is taken dupliciter, in a double manner: one way, for the essence, by itself only, compounded of the body, as it were the matter and the soul together, as it were of the specifying form thereof; which is sometime called of the Doctors, Ratio particularis, the particular Reason: Sometime of the Philosopher, Intellectus.  
After an other manner; Man is taken for a certain Substance compounded of Man, Primo modo, after the first manner; and the Soul intellective, or the natural Understanding: and so man is, per se unum, one by himself. After the first manner, a Child is not Homo, Man; of the same kind with himself when he is old, nor with other men. After the second manner, he is not Man, neither endued with reason, Nisi potentia, but in power. Contrarily it should follow, that a Child should not be endued with Reason; neither Men inwardly reasonable: which is absurd. Also, Man understandeth not, seipso primo, not by himself first: therefore by his substantial form. The Antecedent is well known, by experience: the Consequent is plain, because the proper operation agreeing to any thing compounded, cannot be competent unto itself per mate●●am, by matter: therefore by the former, is the Soul the substantial form of man. This is confirmed, because then by no operation of an Animal brute creature, it could be convinced, that the sensitive Soul should be the form thereof, giving unto it esse, to be; but the Adversary might say, that it giveth it operari et non esse, to work, and not to be Add hereunto, that it is an express determination of the Church, in Clemen. Extra de summatri: et fide Catholica. Against the second, that the proper bodies, and all things shall return again unto the same. But such a continuation is not intelligible, but feigned, vain, and unprofitable: Because that by such continuance, man neither after the first manner, nor yet after the second, could understand. Otherwise the painted Wall, or the thing wrought on the Wall, & offered to the sight, should see; because the colour that is on the Wall doth cause the vision, and the sight receiveth it.  
Against the third: It should follow, that contraries should be together in the same thing; for it is plain, that in the understanding of one man, is Assent and Insent: and in the understanding of another, in the respect of the same, is Dissent & Intent. And of that thing whereof one man hath Science, another hath only Opinion, and an other Ignorance. Also according to this, we should hardly understand nothing, but that whereof the Fantasy should cause Intention: But this is false; as experience doth prove, by the acts aswell of the Understanding, as of the Will; and by many others. For the notice or knowledge Intuitive, is known by beholding or intuitiveely, & is cause of the Notice reflexed.  
But of the immortal state of the soul after death, the foresaid Philosophers are severed among themselves; for some set down, that the souls when they do departed forth of the bodies, do straightway enter into the bodies of Beasts, correspondent unto their Merits: As for example; the Souls of Princes, into Lions; of Soldiers, into Boars; of others, into Swine; of some, into Wolves; of others, into Birds and Apes, etc. Neither in these, doth the pain and dejection cease, until they had put on forms agreeable to those of the wild outrageous Beasts: Whereof it came to pass, (as Ambrose saith, in his Book do bono mortis,) that some said, that the chiefest good, or summum bonum, of the great Philosophers, doth consist in this, that their Souls, after their death, do enter into Apes or Birds. Others there have been, that said and affirmed, that they do change their sex or kind, and do turn unto the infirmity of Woman's nature. Others will, that they go into strange humane bodies: as that fabulous History of the Greeks' doth witness: for it showeth, that Menelaus, after that Euphorbus was overcome, laid up his Buckler in the Temple of juno; which Panthoydes took away: whereof they said, that the Soul of Euphorbus was entered into Panthoydes, and that he was Euphorbus himself; whereof ovid. maketh mention in his fifth Book of Metamorphosis.  
Ipse egó nam memini Troiani tempore belli,  
Panthoides Euphorbus eram cui pectore  
Hesit in adverso gravis hasta minoris Atridae.  
That is to say:  
For I myself remember well, in time of Trojan War,  
Panthoides Euphorbus was myself, and deep and far  
A mighty spear did pierce my breast which dead did down me throw:  
Atreus mighty younger son, did strike this deadly blow.  
And to speak nothing of the rest of the Philosophers, Plato had the best judgement, what becometh of Men, if notwithstanding (saith he,) they lead their lives righteously and holily, then so soon as the Souls are delivered from their bodies, they are received into the bosom of the Gods themselves: But they being unmindful of supernal things, do refuse them as things connexed, and do again begin to be willing to enter into their bodies again. For speaking of which out of Plato his doctrine, Virgil is very greatly commended: Therefore he thought, that the Souls of mortal men, were always able to abide in their bodies; but through the necessity of death, must needs be dissolved: And that they are not able neither to endure perpetually without their bodies; but thought, that by interchangeable courses, the living became dead, and the dead become living indefinitely and for evermore. But in this, do Wisemen differ from others; that straightway after death, they are carried unto the Stars; & that every one resteth very long in that Star that is agreeable or meet for him: and at length, forgetful of his old miseries, and overcomed with desire of having his body, returneth again to the labours and sorrows of mortal men. Therefore by a most hard condition doth Plato make the Souls of men, yea even of the wisest, to be happy and blessed. Unto whom are not such bodies distributed, as with which they may live always and immortally; neither without them can endure in eternal purity, but do sometime, though not immediately, yet at the length, desire to return unto the bodies: And so indefinitely do by course, return again into divers bodies, until the great year, in the which they shall have again their own bodies, and all things shall come again unto their first estate. And those that have led a foolish life, he thought, should come unto bodies due to their deserts, whether of Men or of Beasts: and so long to live miserably in them, until they be scoured from their filthiness, and their errors moderated, be redacted unto the rule of reason and temperance; and so at length, deserve to come unto the honour of their first estate. But Porphirius doth not only remove from men's Souls the bodies of Beasts, but also will have the Souls of Wisemen so to be delivered from the bonds of the body, that fleeing utterly from every body, are kept blessed with the Father for evermore.  
It is a foolish thing to speak of that life which cannot be most blessed, unless there may be a most sure certainty of the felicity of it: and for the blessed Souls to desire the blot of corruptible Bodies, and to return back again unto them; as though there needed a great Purgation, and an iniquination and defiling to be required.  
Truly the sentence of Porphirius is to be preferred before theirs, that will evermore have a changing of blessedness & misery: Yet notwithstanding, he will have the souls of wicked men, to go into other humane bodies, that they might be purged in them: And then when they be purged, without any returning to their old miseries, he placeth them in eternal felicity: For it shamed Porphirius to say, that the Souls of men are posted back again into bestial bodies.  
If Plato and Porphirius had agreed between themselves, I believe that they also should have seen that it is a consequent, that Souls do return to their Bodies, and should receive such things, as whereby they might live blessedly and immortally: Because according to Plato, the holy Souls also, shall return to humane bodies: According to Porphirius, they shall return to the evils of this world. Porphirius therefore may say with Plato, they shall return unto bodies: and Plato with Porphirius, they shall not return to evil ones. Therefore that the Souls may be blessed, every body must not be eschewed; but a body proper and incorruptible, must be received; wherein they may more conveniently rejoice, then wail and lament in any that is corruptible: So shall there be in them no direful wretchedness and calamity; which Virgil concludeth out of Plato, when he saith:  Rursus et incipiant in corpore velle reverti. 
That is to say:  
And lo they now begin, to have a willing mind,  
For to return so corpse again.  
So, I say, they shall not have a desire to return to other bodies, seeing they shall have bodies eternally with them, into the which they shall covet to return. It is therefore a more honest thing to believe that which the Saints and holy Angels have showed, which the Prophets have spoken by the instinct of the holy Ghost, which the Messengers of Christ our saviour have preached, which the blessed Apostles have taught and written; to wit; That there shall be a Resurrection of our mortal Bodies: or, that men's Souls shall once return unto their own proper Bodies, and those immortals There now remaineth for us, so farfoorth as the Lord shall vouchsafe to help us, godlily and humbly, according to our small Talon, to show, or to persuade the Immortality of man's Soul, or the reasonable Soul, whereby we have sense, move, and understand. And this will we do so much the more humbly, as we do suppose it the harder to be done: for there is scarcely any truth more obscure, & out of humane strength, or the principles of natural Philosophy more difficile to be persuaded; which certainly ought to be counted a work hard and wonderful. Seeing that it is the greatest thing that may be for the mind itself, to see and know the mind itself: For as the corporal eye doth easily see other things, but can not see itself; so our Mind doth not so easily, contemplate, or look upon itself, as it doth other things: For verily this force (as Cicero saith in the first Tusculan question) hath that Precept of Apollo, in qu● movet se quisque noscat: 1. Wherein every one moveth, let him know himself. For I do not believe, that he gave that Precept, to the end to have us to know our members, or stature, figure, or shape, but that we should behold the purity and dignity of our mind. To know this therefore, cannot be any otherwise, but divine and straight. This Precept given of the GOD, could not belong to any sharp and cruel mind. Every one therefore, that is not content with the persuasions, and probable and demonstrative reasons, in this obscure, difficile and hard matter, which exceedeth, passeth, or goeth beyond all man's wit; he (I say) is worthy to be despised, and to be left unto himself in the vain inquisition of such like reasons: For the hard things of our Faith, ought rather to be considered by the Oracles of the Fathers, then discussed by the understanding. For often times humane sense, while it seeketh the reasons of certain things, & can not find it, doth drown itself in the gulf of Desperation: And when it seeketh to find out by reason, the force of the Immortality of the Soul, it falleth (for the most part) into the bottomless pit of Desperation. Therefore least through rashness and temerity, we should deserve to be rebuked about the foresaid doubt, we will (God willing) assay to reason and dispute in three Conclusions, according to the sentence and judgement of the ancient Fathers.  

The first Conclusion.  
ALthough the Immortality of the reasonable Soul cannot be proved, neither demonstrated by effectual and evident reason; yet by probable reasons it may apparently be persuaded both to the faithful and to the unsaythfull. The first part is plain; for Augustine in 3. de Trin. speaking of the life Mortal and Immortal, saith: Hac utrum caveat humana natura, nec parva est quistic; humanis quip argumentationibus ●anc muenue con●utes, vix pauci magno praediti ingent●, vacautes octo, doctrinisque subtilissimis crudite, ad indagandum solu●s animae im●ort●let●tem pervenire potuerunt. That is to say: Neither is it a small question, whether humane nature doth want this or no: for because that they that go about to find out this by humane argumentations, scarcely a few endued with good wits, having sufficient leisure, and learned in most subtle doctrines, could attain to the searching out of the Immortality of the Soul only. By reason thus: We cannot naturally know the reasonable Soul in itself, neither intuitively nor abstractively, by a perfect and distinct knowledge: therefore we can not evidently and by effectual reason, conclude the Immortality thereof, which naturally and necessarily do follow it. The Antecedent is clear, of the intuitive: of the Abstractive it is plain; because such a knowledge naturally gotten, doth presuppose the intuitive knowledge touching the same thing. Secondly thus; every thing demonstrated of the subject, is first and more according to knowledge, spoken or predicated of that thing by which it is demonstrated, then of the subject wherein it is demonstrated & showed for to be. But it is not naturally, neither evidently known unto us, that Immortality is first and more according to knowledge, spoken of any other thing then of the reasonable Soul: Or that proposition wherein Immortality is spoken of another, is not to us former or more known than this proposition; The Soul is Immortal. The Mayor is plain, because the demonstration is of things former more known, and the causes of the conclusion. It is confirmed, because this Conclusion, Anima rationalis est disciplinabilis: The reasonable Soul is disciplinable: Although it be evident and known by experience, yet it is not demonstrable: therefore neither this Conclusion; This Soul is Immortal, because it is neither evident nor known by experience, is demonstrable. The Antecedent is plain; because that Proposition is immediate, than the which there is not another that is former, and principal to conclude this, Homo est disciplinabilis, Man is disciplinable: For I do not believe, that the Cause can be given why the Soul is Disciplinable or Immortal; but that of it own nature it is such.  
For the persuading of the second part of the Conclusion, we have excerpt three reasons out of Cicero his first Tusculan Question, and out of Cato the elder. The first, he draweth from (as it were) a natural and inbred opinion of all men; but especially of old ancients. The second Argument he draweth from the hope and expectation of prudent and good Men. The third, he fetcheth from the nigh similitude and likeness of our Minds unto GOD: Afterward we will induce other familiar Reasons. The first Reason that must testify this truth, is Antiquity: which the further it was gone from the birth, and difference of progeny, the better peradventure it did behold those things that were true: Therefore (saith he) it is sure, that old men have a sense and feeling in death; and that man is not so blotted out by the departure out of this life, that he should utterly perish. And this to be so, may be understood by the Ceremonies used at the Sepulchres, Graves, and Burial of the dead; where is used such Rites towards them, as if they were still endued with most excellent Wits. Neither would they have worshipped with so great regard, nor used so devout Religion, unless it had cleaned to their minds, that Death could not destroy all things: but is as it were the Guide, Captain, & Leader of worthy Men and Women, that do go from hence into Heaven; and change this frail, brittle, miserable, and wretched life, for a life permanent, everlasting, blessed, and joyful. From which opinion it is sprung, that many (whose names it is not now needful to reckon up or rehearse) are, for their good life and virtuous behaviour, while they lived here in this world amongst men, counted after their death, amongst the number of the Gods. This same may hereof be understood, that all men have a care, that these things should be after their death; to wit, Propagation of Name, Procreation of Children, Adoption of Sons, and fulfilling of Testaments; with many other things. It is a most great Argument amongst the Philosophers, Why we ought to believe that there is Gods; although there be no Nation so savage and outrageous, whose mind is not endued with opinion of Gods. If any one would have this Reason reduced, and brought unto that straight form of Logic wherein it shall have less force, they shall summarily have it thus: All men, and especially those old ones, who as they seem to have excelled us in stature of body, so also in excellency of wit; because they found out all good Arts, (which was an hard thing to do) judged by nature, or were naturally inclined to judge, that the Souls of men be Immortal: Therefore the Souls of men are Immortal. The Antecedent plainly appeareth to be true, of the diligence that all men use about their Sepulchres or Graves, about the propogation of their name, fame, and glory; about the generation of Children, adoption of Sons, & of many other things, which men would not do, unless they were naturally inclined to judge, that after they be departed out of this life, there belongeth something unto them, whereunto they have a natural appetite.  
The second Reason is, because that Plato (whose authority is of such force with Cicero, that he counteth him worthy to be believed in what he saith, although he show no reason why,) writing unto Dionysius in that Epistle that beginneth, Audivi ex Archidomo, doth persuade, saying; Natura fieri viaemus, ut ignavissimus quisque nihil curet, quae sit de eo futura opinin. Sapientes auten● et boni viri cuncta faciunt, quo futura secula bene dese existimant: 1. We see that it cometh to pass by nature, that every slothful sluggard, taketh no care what opinion shall hereafter he had of him: But wise and good men, do all things whereby the ages to come, may think well of them. Whereby, I do conjecture, that his meaning is, that they that be dead, have some sense, feeling, or knowledge of our matters, or the things that we do. This Reason, Cato the elder following, doth thus reason in Cicero his Book De Senectute. Nemo unquam mihi Scipio, persuadebit aut patrem tuum, etc. There shall never any man persuade me; Scipio, that either your Father Paulus, or your two grandfathers Paulus and Affricanus; or that Affricanus Father, or his Uncle, or many other excellent men; whom now it is not needful to reckon up, did endeavour so great things, which might belong to memory of their posterity, unless they did see very well in their minds, that the posterity should pertain unto them: Or do you think (that I may glory somewhat of myself, as it is the manner of old men to do,) that I would have taken upon me so great labours both night and day, at home and in war, if I were persuaded that my glory should end with my life: Had it not been a great deal better for me to have spent my time in ease and quietness, without any labour and contention: This speech Cicero handling more largely in the first Tusculan question, saith. Quae natura in hominum genere melior, quam eorum, qui se natos ad homines iwandos, tutandos, conseruandos arbitrantur, etiam usque ad mortem fortiter sustinendam. Quis autem sapiens sine spe immortalitatis se offerret ad mortem? Quid enim imprudentius, quam sine usto premio, se et vita et virtute propria privare? Cum aut servitutis aut egestatis labores, etc. 1. What Nature in Mankind can be better, than theirs, that think themselves to be borne unto this end, to the intent that they may help, defend, and preserve men, yea even unto the abiding of the bitter brunts of direful death. But what wiseman will offer himself unto death, without the hope of immortality: for what part can a man play more unwisely, then without any reward, to deprive himself of life, and his own proper virtue: when be might, with the rest of the Citizens, patiently abide the labours either of servitude, or of poverty: Who will affirm, that Glory doth profit the dead, if they have no sense or feeling of it: What good can this glory do to those famous worthy men, so diligently & notably cammended & described of Poets, if so be they do know nothing of it? Whether is it our parts then, to condemn all those worthy men of foolishness, who have valiantly sustained death for their Country; or to believe that they looked for the immortality of their souls? whose minds, sentence, and judgement, to find fault withal, or to reprehend, seemeth to come the nearest unto temerity or roshnesse. This Reason diffusedly handled, may be brought to form, under a double manner. First, wise and good men, do judge and hope, that their Souls shall be immortal: therefore it is so. The Antecedent is very plain: for otherwise they would not have so endangered themselves, nor willingly died, that their valiantness might be left to them memory of posterity, unless they judged that the posterity did belong to them. The Consequent is plain; because the divinations and opinions of good men are seen, as well as of the wicked. The second, If the Soul were not immortal, no man (in his right mind) would offer himself to death for his Country, or the Commonweal; nor yet sustain death for his Friends. The Consequence doth not seem false: For the Philosopher saith in the ninth Book of Ethics, That every one ought to suffer for his friends; yea & to die for them also, it need so required. The same he saith in the 3. Book of Ethics. The Consequence is plain; because none (that is in his right wits) ought by good reason to deprive himself of the chiefest good, or without hope to get some good thing either in this present life, or in that which is to come. But if the Soul be mortal, than it doth by death, deprive itself of the chiefest good, yea of all good things, without any hope of reward. It may be thus confirmed: Death doth not profit of itself, or by itself, to the conservation of the Commonweal, but is indeed against it: Therefore, if the Soul be mortal, and is not to be rewarded in time to come; then no wise man ought to stand to the truth in the right of his Country, even unto death. The Antecedent is plain, Simile est de uno cive, et multis: What is the duty of one Citizen, is also the duty of many. But it is a foolishness to say; that all Citizens ought to die for the conservation of the Weal public, seeing that the Public weal is the life of the Citizens: For what profited them the pertinacy of the Saguntines unto the safety of the Commonweal? If the Saguntines would have chosen the safety of their Commonweal, they should either have forsaken their Faith, or else never have made such Oath: But if they must needs keep their Faith, then must they needs lose their Commonweal; as it came to pass. Secondly, the Consequence is plain. No man of sound reason, aught to sustain a great evil, unless it be to eschew a greater evil; or for the obtaining of a greater good, than that good is, whereof by such evil he is deprived; because that of two evils, the less always is to be choose. But if the Soul be mortal, and after death have no being; then no such good can be given, or be imagined.  
Neither doth it avail, that Scotus saith, alleging the Philosopher in the ninth of the Ethics, that he that dieth for his Country, giveth to himself great good, by exercising that great act of virtue. Et ho bono privaret se, omnino vic●ose viveret: He should deprive himself of that good thing (saith Scotus,) and should live viciously, or in reproach and defame. If the Soul be mortal, there can not then be unto the dead, either good or evil, or sense: For what can either praise, or fame, or glory, profit the dead, if the dead know not of them? for after their death, they cannot give unto themselves for the said work, either reward, joy, or rejoicing; for these are the affections of the mind.  
Neither again is that true, or by any means to be received as true, or for any colour of truth, which the same Sootus saith, that, Potest dari commune bonum, propter quod debet se exponere morti: et totum bonum exponere destructioni simpliciter, etiamsinesciat animam immortalem: There may be given a common good, for whose sake every one ought to offer himself to death: and what good soever he hath, to endanger it to destruction simply, although he can not tell whether the Soul be Immortal or no. Because it is not certain whether the common good be always rather to be chosen, than the particular and proper good. Yea, this is universally true at no time, but then when the particular good is included in the common good: But where the common good includeth the particular good, who is there of sound judgement, and in his right mind, that loveth the particular and proper good, more than the common. For the Philosopher saith in the 8. Eth. Amabile quidem bonum ovique, etc. Every one loveth his own good: therefore by good reason, every one loveth his own, better than an other man's. And 9 Eth. Amabilia ad alterum mensurantur, ex his quae sunt adseipsum▪ Lovely things are measured unto another, by those things which a man loveth himself.  
The third Reason (because I study to be short:) The Soul of man, according to the most excellent operations, is like unto God: And therefore of some it is believed, to have a divine nature. But of men of our Religion, it is called, The image of God: Therefore it is to be esteemed like unto him in immortality. The Antecedent is plain, and very well known a confessed truth amongst all. The Consequence is proved out of Plato, alleged by Eusebius Praeparationis evangelicae, lib. 11. cap. 14. where are recited these words of Porphirius, handling this Reason. Firmam cortamque rationemeam Plato putavit, quae a similitudine ●●iquorum vim accepit. Nam si Deo immortali similis est anima, quomodo etiam ipsae sicut exemplar suum immortalis non erit? Plato thinketh that to be a firm and sure Reason, which taketh force from the similitude of some things: for if the Soul be like to God that is Immortal; how shall not then itself be Immortal, like as the exemplar: I pass over the rest. Which Reason (as the same Eusebius saith) is drawn out of Moses, who first taught that the Soul is Immortal, because it is the Image of God: yea, he affirmeth, that assuredly it is the Image of God. Whom the Wiseman following in the 2. Chapter of the Book of Wisdom, doth most briefly touch the same Reason, saying. Deus creavit hominem inestimabilem, ad imaginem similitudinis suae fecit illum: 1. God created Man inestimable, or without corruption; and made him after the Image of his own likeness. This Reason also Sallust toucheth in the beginning of his Book of Catiline's Conspiracy, where he affirmeth, Animum nobis cum dijs communem, et virtutem claram, et aeternam: That we have a mind common with the Gods, and a clear virtue, and eternal. Which Sentence, in the beginning of the War of jugurtha, he useth again. Ingenij egregia facinora sicuti et anima, immortalia sunt; id est, The worthy works of the Wit, like as the Soul, are Immortal. Which also may thus be persuaded. These Acts to will, to understand, to remember, to love, to hate, wherein the Souls have conveniency with God and Angels; may both be, and be exercised without the body: therefore it is not repugnant to the Soul, both to be, & to live without the body. The Antecedent is well known; and the Consequent is plain: because the Accidentis not more abstract than the Substance, from which it is said to flow. Seeing then we do prove in ourselves, that the Soul existing in the body, doth know many things, which can not fall under our sense; and that without the mediation or using the means of the body: (for we prove or find by experience, that it knoweth the relations following Nature, and insensible relations of reason: we find by experience, that it assenteth to the complexions without possibility of contradicting, or erring, & many other things:) seeing therefore (I say) that these Acts have no conveniency, neither can agree to other forms and things corruptible, it is most like and agreeable to reason, that these Acts are sufficient to prove, that the Soul is immortal. Moreover, the Immortality of the Soul, is proved by certain reasons of the School Doctors. First: In whom there is power and virtue always, Proficere, to profits: in the same also, there is power and virtue always to be. Seeing that the subsistence of the Accident cannot be naturally without the Essence of the subject. But in the Soul there is always power and virtue, proficere, to profits: therefore there is in the Soul, power and virtue always to be. The Minor is evident, by the saying of a certain Wise man, who saith. Cum consummauirit homo, tunc incipit: 1. When man shall make his ending, then is his beginning. And in an other place. Multitudinem ingressus saepientiae quis intellexit? Who hath ever known the multitude of wisdoms entries: Which speech seemeth to have this sense, that by the prosecting and increasing of Wisdom, the entrance in unto her is multiplied; because he seemeth more and more to enter in unto her, that more and more profecteth in her. This Exposition is helped by the speech of the Prophet that saith to his Soul: Post me ingredi non cessabis: Thou shalt not cease to enter in after me. The Answer of Plato doth also further it: For he being asked, when a man can have profited so much in Philosophy, that there can remain nothing for him to know more; or when he can have learned so much, that there can be nothing left for him to learn? He answered. Hoc solum scio, quod nescio: 1. This only I know, that I know not. As if he should have said, Solum cognosco ignorantiam meam: 1. I know only mine ignorance. This I thus confirm. The perfections and dispositions that the reasonable Soul can acquire or get, are not limited: therefore the life of the reasonable Soul, or the existence thereof, is not limited; and so by consequence, it must needs be Immortal. The Antecedent is plain; because the Soul cannot know so many things, but it may know more. The Consequence is plain; because it is unpossible for the virtue and power of every subject, to be of those dispositions and perfections from the which the subject is naturally prohibited: For this mortal life cannot suffice naturally for the getting or participating of infinite perfections, seeing that every one of them requireth time.  
A second Reason is this: If the Soul should be corrupted, and so mortal, it should be either through the action of the contrary; or else through the corruption of the subject. But it is not corrupted by means of the action of the contrary; because it hath no contrary. Neither can it be corrupted, by reason of the corruption of the subject: because nothing is corrupted in that, wherein it consisteth by it own perfection: For these are contrary mutations; to wit, of Corruption, and Perfection. But the Perfection of the Soul, consisteth in a certain abstraction from the Body: for the Body waxing old in men, living moderately and temperately, the Soul is perfected, according to the science and knowledge thereof, and according to the virtues thereof. According to the science and knowledge; because in ancient old men, is Wisdom; and in much time, is Prudence. According to the Virtues; because such men, are temperate, neither give place to wicked Concupiscence, nor have any great difficulty in act. But young men, have wicked Concupiscences, and are delighted therein: neither can they refrain them, without great difficulty. This Argument is confirmed by a double Reason. The first is this: That when the Body is weakened, or some Organ thereof hath received some hurt, the Soul is more fortified thereby, and made more stronger and virtuous in the other senses and powers, as though it were unto them a more inward supply of those things that seem to be taken away by the defect of the members: Therefore, when the Body dieth, the Soul doth not die. The Antecedent is known to be true, by experience: for a blind man is more sharp & quick in hearing and in understanding, and in other senses, than he that is well sighted. Whereof Guilermus Parisiensis saith; That a certain Blind man was so cunning, and had so much profited in experience, that he could infallibly tell only by the touching, handling, feeling, or croping, any piece of Money of his own Country coin, though there were never so many and sundry sorts of them. And a certain blind Boy in the fourteenth year of his age, learned all liberal Arts, knew and understood all the sacred Scriptures, and taught them, and wrote most largely and amply upon them; as is mentioned in the Tripartue History.  
The second Confirmation is thus. As is the whole Body to the whole Soul, so are the parts of the Body, to the parts of the Soul. But when one part, or some Organ of the Body is corrupted, there is no part of the Soul corrupted, nor hurt, nor suffereth in itself; but remaineth sound and perfect: Therefore when the Body dieth, the Soul doth not die. The Antecedent is plain by the Philosopher: Si senex haberet oculum nevenis, videret utigque ut juvenis, etc. If an old man should have the eye of a young man, he should see as a young man: therefore when part of the Body is hurt, the Soul is not hurt in itself, although it be deprived of the act. For when our Saviour Christ restored sight unto the blind, he gave not, nor conferred unto the Soul any strength or activity; but only repaired the hurt, or indisposition of the Organ. Also the reasonable Soul, by how much more it understandeth and knoweth things intelligible, by so much more perfect is it made, and more disposed to understand. But the Souls of all mortal men, by how much more they feel and exercise their operations, by so much more are they weakened, & made unfit for the exercising of their operations. Experience doth teach both these, to be true: and so doth the Philosopher also, where he saith. Excellens sensibile currumpit sonsum; excellens autem intelligibile non corrumpit intellectum: 1. The excellent sensible thing corrupteth the sense: but the excellent intelligible thing doth not corrupt the understanding. Therefore there is another kind of the Soul, from that which is corruptible; and so by consequence, it must needs be Immortal.  
Morcover, the forms or Souls, which all men judge, or do think to be corruptible, & to be of themselves wholly corrupted, and the corruption of the whole to be as is the corruption of the part, are corrupted as the part is corrupted: because they are extended, having part without part; and are greater in a great body, and lesser in a less body. This Scotus doth very notably deduct in the fourth Book; That in Nutrition, is required a new form; and in the Diminution there floweth not only the matter, but also the thing compounded of the matter and the form: Therefore the Nutrition or Nourishing, is called a certain Generation. And it is very manifest, that in Nutrition, there are more parts of the matter in the whole, then was before; or else the new part of the matter is in the whole without form: which is not to be granted neither under the whole form, because so it is extended, having part without part; or else under a new form, and so we have our purpose: or else under part of the form that was before; and then even that, leaveth off to perfect part of the matter, which before it perfected: and so one and the same part of the material form, shall slit from one part of the matter unto to an other part, which is inconvenient: or that part of the form, being the same it was before, doth in like manner perfect part of the matter that it did before; and this part of the matter, now new: And so it shall together perfect two perfectable things; either whereof, is fully matchable to it serfe. But the reasonable Soul, is not extended or stretched out; neither greater in a greater body, & lesser in a lesser Body: but it is whole in the whole Body, and wholly or altogether indivisible in every part: therefore it is an other kind from the corruptible forms, and mortal Souls.  
It is a thing well known, that all men do desire blessedness; and that it is the end of good men. It is also known by reason, that blessedness cannot be otherwise, then sempiternal: Therefore it is well known, that Man is ordained to some everlasting perfection; which proveth, that the Soul is Immortal The Minor doth Saint Augustine prove, 13. de Trin: ap 8. Si beata vita bearum d●●erat, etc. If so be the blessed sife do forsake the blessed man, he being thereunto either willing, or not willing, or neither of them: If not willing, how is it a blessed life; which is so in the Will, as it cannot be in the Power: If willing, how could that life be blessed, which he that had it, would not have it verily and indeed: But if neither, Then such a life, cannot in any wise be blessed, in such a case, when he that it maketh blessed, is a stranger from the love thereof. This may in this wise be confirmed. Man's Soul is made to be partaker of blessedness, to receive it and enjoy it. For this is certain, truly proved by the clamour of every Appetite natural: Therefore the Soul is made to receive either eternal and perpetual blessedness, or else temporal. If the first, than the Soul is Immortal, and at the length shall be perpetually blessed. Now the second cannot be; because like as sorrow cometh of those things which happen unto us against our wills: even so doth it of those things that depart from us against our wills. But blessedness, if we should be unwilling unto it, should perish, and become no blessedness at all: for how can we be blessed against our wills? And so blessedness perishing, our Souls, by a consequent, should have in themselves a fear and grief, and be always sorrowful: whereby it should follow, that they should be miserable.  
Also, in every well ordered civil government, there are appointed rewards, to provoke men to the doing of good; and punishments, to sound the retreat from vices. But in the whole government of Mankind, good and virtuous men are not sufficiently rewarded; nor evil and naughty men sufficiently punished: yea, they cannot sufficiently be rewarded, nor punished; the one, by reason of Gods Promise; the other, because of his justice. Therefore there is another life, in the which shall be given to every one according as his works shall be. For no man could say, that the virtuous be rewarded with the pleasures which Epicures enjoy, and wherewith all they are delighted. Neither can it be said, that the goods of Fortune (as they call them) can sufficiently reward the virtuous; seeing that for the most part, we see the evil men flow in riches, delights, prosperity, and all pleasures that their hearts can desire. On the contrary part, the Virtuous do often want these pleasures and delights, and are excruciated with many sundry sharp showers of Adversity. What then shall be given unto the just man, that hath abstained from delights, even unto the day of his death, and sustaineth sorrows, poverty, adversity, and tribulations?  
Moreover, the work of Virtue is better, incomparably then the goods of Fortune. And as Aristotle witnesseth, Honour and Fame, and chiefly of those things which are outward goods: hence he saith, Maxim graviter quisque fert suo honore privatus? (as we use to say in our English,) Who is so woe begun, as first a man, and then none? But Honour is not a meet or worthy reward for Virtue: as the same Aristotle saith in the seventh Book of Ethics. Virtuti perfectae non utique dignus honour: Honour is no worthy reward for perfect Virtue. Neither is it available to say, That the Virtuous are sufficiently rewarded with essential goodness, that inseparably followeth a good Act. And that the Evil are punished with the pain that inseparably accompanieth an evil Act: which the Doctors call, Paenam derelictam, Punishment left off; and not Punishment inflicted. Of which Augustine saith, in his Book of Confessions: Thou hast commanded Lord, and so it is, that every sinner is a punishment to himself. Of the which good, (as some say) the Philosopher speaketh in the 9 Book of Ethics, saying: That every one that dieth for his Friend, doth purchase to himself the greatest good that may be. Moreover, a less delectation, for the most part, doth follow a greater operation; and peradventure none at all; as of the operations of Fortitude: Whereof it is that the Philosopher saith, in the third Book of Ethics, That in all Virtues, a man can not be occupied with delight. Neither is it of force to say, that man's felicity doth consist in Sciences speculative, or in the operations of Wisdom, and in the knowledge of most high causes: And so by a consequent, by such like operations of Wisdom, a man should sufficiently be rewarded in this life: As the Philosopher and Auerrhois do seem to say. For the Commentator upon the first Book of Physics, saith: That it is proper to a man concerning his last perfecttion to be perfect according to the Sciences speculative. And this Disposition is unto him his utmost felicity: And that heavenly life consisteth in this Science; because that for Felicity, a man ought to be good and perfect. But perfection, according to the Sciences speculative, doth not make a man absolutely neither good, nor the best: for many in such things, may be perfect, which are unhonest and vicious. A man unhonest and full of vices, may be very skilful and perfect in speculative Sciences: for the disposition to felicity, is made better by virtues Moral, Heroical, and Divine. Whereof the Philosopher saith in the 2. Book of Ethics, That it is a very mere beast lines to say, that we can be better, then by virtues Heroical & Divine. Even as Homer feigned, that Priamus said of Hector; That because he was so very good, he seemed not to be the son of a mortal man, but of a God. Wherefore if it be so, as they say; that Gods be made of men, because of the notable excellency of their Virtues; then such like habit shall be opposite to beastliness. And in the 10. Book of Ethics, the Philosopher doth teach; That a man must so frame his works and his life, that all be directed to this end, to wit, to get Felicity. Upon which, Auerrhois saith; If God have a care of Men, as it is believed, and as it is meet he should; he rejoiceth of the better, and is delighted in those that do well; and it is meet and a worthy thing, that he do well unto, and reward those that love him more than others, or all things in the world, and honour them, and visit them often, even as it is the disposition of one friend with another: therefore must we do our endeavour to become good. This is thus confirmed. First, That then those men that give themselves to Speculation, or do practise and exercise themselves in Speculative sciences, howsoever they lived mortally and desormedly, Virtuous should not be reputed blessed and happy, nor rewarded for their Merits. Secondly, If so be that God have a care of Men, it is meet and most agreeable to reason, that his delight concerning men, should be of that thing, which is the best in them, and which is most known unto him, and most nigh and agreeable unto him; that is to say, which is most like unto God; which is, to live virtuously, according to the understanding: And also, that he do well unto, and reward those that do love him: And bestow benefits on those, that for his sake do cast away, contemn, and neglect worldly wealth, and delightful pleasures, and patiently sustain and suffer Adversity, and willingly abide all Miseries, even unto the day of their death. But he cannot sufficiently reward them in this life: therefore the Soul is Immortal. The Minor is plain; Because man is even unto death, vexed with Miseries, Poverty, and Adversities. The Mayor is manifest, by the Philosopher, in the tenth Book of Ethics, saying; Seciendum intellectum autem operans, et hunc curans, etc. He that worketh according to the understanding, and careth for it, doth seem to be the best of all disposed, and to love God most: for if the Gods have a certain care of humane things, as they seem to have; it shall then be most agreeable to reason, that the Gods themselves do rejoice and delight in that thing which is the best and the nighest of kin unto them. etc. Also it is thus confirmed: Because, if the Soul should be Mortal, and there should be no life after this; then infinite evils should remain unpunished, and good deeds should not be rewarded: Which doth seem derogatory to the equity of justice, and to the comeliness and fairness of humane civil government. For what pain, punishment, and misery, doth here happen unto those evil men, who being given to delights and pleasures, do continually even unto their death, heap evils upon evils? Who (I say) shall punish and take vengeance of those Kings and Princes; by whose decrees, commandment, power, and authority, Commonweals are tossed & turmoiled, shaken and spoiled, by so many plagues, torments, vexations, violences, injuries, and adversities? Who shall in this life be sufficiently able to punish those most grievous sins, that are done in secret, evil minds, & inward affections? What punishment then, I pray you, and misery, shall there be of these evils? Which if it be called the Privation of blessedness, then shall all be equally punished: which seemeth to be derogatory to the equity of justice. Therefore it seemeth most agreeable to reason, that there is a life of man's Soul after this; wherein every one shall receive worthily as he hath done in this life, whether it be good or evil.  
Moreover, if man's Soul should not live after this life, in vain then, and to no purpose should we serve God here; seeing that in this life, the worship of God and Religion, is cruelly persecuted, tormented, afflicted, and cruciated: and then is there after this life, no reward for it. In this point, it were better for the Soul, and more profitable by much, altogether to deny God; and wholly to give itself to every vanity & pleasure, then to live holily and justly, with so many miseries, and to worship the Creator with due honouring and devotion. Whereof the Apostle, in the first Epistle to the Corinth's the fifteenth chapter saith: If in this life only, we hope in Christ, then are we of all men most miserable. For if God hath no regard of his Servants and Worshippers, where is his Power? seeing that neither in this life, (for this thing) he cannot be worse; neither in an other, better: seeing that after this, there is not another. But if he do not care, nor have any regard, Where is his Wisdom & his Goodness? Wherefore he should seem to be ignorant, not to know, or not to love his lovers and worshippers; if there be not another life after this: whereof the one destroyeth his Wisdom, the other his Goodness.  
Out of these things above declared, is very easily enough disproved the rash and erroneous opinion of Auerrhois, putting humane felicity, to consist in the every way and Actual conjunction or copulation with the Understanding: And that Understanding, he would have to be but one of all men, that all men have but one understanding; as we have afore said. For he said, That man is then happy and sufficiently rewarded, when that Understanding shall be every way coupled unto him. Which he affirmed to be done, when a man shall actually have all understandings speculative. But this is unpossible; because that then there should be together in act, infinitely infinite things in the Understanding.  
Moreover, we find by experience in ourselves, that the Attention to one thing, doth draw back again the perfect Attention, about another thing. Seeing therefore the Understanding is of a finite virtue, it shall never be able to be coupled perfectly and actually to all speculations. Who (I pray you) is found at all times, to be all one; the same in one thing, he was in another, skilful alike in all things? Who so skilful, that he can not be deceived in any thing? Who is so perfect, that he is perfectly quieted in all things, and fully satisfied? Was not Aristotle deceived in many things, and found ignorant in many things; as about the Eternity of the World, and the Perpetuity of generation and corruption? and in very many other things also, he foully erred.   

The second Conclusion.  
Faith secluded and set apart, in the light of natural Reason, it is more agreeable to Reason, and more probable to affirm, that the reasonable Soul is Immortal, then to say, that it is Mortal: Or that the opinion of those Philosophers that avouch, that the Soul is Immortal, is more reasonable, and more probable: yea, Faith being secluded and set aside, than the opposite or contrary thereof. First, it is very manifest, according to the Philosopher, that that is probable, which doth seem to the most, even chiefly to the wisest. But very many of the Philosophers, & those whom we see to be preferred above all others, of every sect and nation, in fame, glory, & wisdom, have verily thought, the Soul to be Immortal. And but a few, and those of the meanest of the Philosophers, of no fame and reputation, have said, That it is Mortal; as hath been showed before: therefore the Soul is Immortal.  
Hereof the Philosopher saith, in the ninth Book of Ethics, that, Opinionibus sapientum oportet acquiescere, habent enim fidem quandam: 1. We ought for to rest and stay ourselves in the Opinions of Wisemen: for they have a certain Faith. Whereof he also saith: That the opinions of Wisemen do sound together, etc. Also that Opinion is more reasonable and probable, whereunto there are more effectual persuasions, or more dialectical reasons. But for this Opinion, That the Soul is Immortal, there are more effectual persuasions, and more Topical reasons, then for the contrary opinion: Yea for that part, the reasons are most slender: neither have they scarcely any shadow of probability; for all the reasons wherewith they go about to impugn the Immortality of the Soul, are founded in error, or on a false ground; as are these whereunto all (for the most part) do lean. If the Soul should be Immortal, it should follow, that all the Souls should be perpetually idle and deprived of their proper act. But this Reason is grounded on two things: whereof both are false and erroneous. The first is, that the Body being corrupted, cannot be repaired and brought again to the same form and manner that it was before. The second is, That the Soul cannot understand but in the Body, & by the means of the Body: of which things at this present, it is not needful to speak. Also, Reasons dialectical, how effectual or forcible soever they shall be; or multiplied out of the nature of them, or from the Empire or Godly affection of the Will, cannot cause but an opinion or assent, with a fear of the opposite. From the same feat, are Reasons bred with the empire of the Will, & the godly Affection thereof, to cause a greater assent in the kind of opinion: yea verily, sometimes faith, or a firm Assent without fear of the opposite; whereof the Philosopher saith, in the seventh Book of Ethics, that, Aligui ita firmiter harent his de quibus habent opinionem, sicut alij his quibus habent scientiam: 1. Some do so firmly cleave to the things whereof they have opinion, as others do to those things whereof they have full knowledge or skill. And this proceeds of the empire and godly Affection of the Will: Whereof the Text thus lieth: Some that do hold Opinions, do not doubt, but esteem or think that they do surely know that whereof they hold opinion, and do nothing less believe those that are of opinion, than others those that know. But every one well disposed, is inclined, Ad esse, et non ad non esse. To be, and not to not be; to the affirmative, not negative; and is affected to always to be, if it be possible: therefore others being like, every one well disposed is borne to have a greater Assent, yea a firmer and a surer, that the Soul is Immortal, then of the opposite thereof.  
Therefore it is more agreeable to reason, and more probable in the light of natural reason to suppose, or to think, that the Soul is Immortal, than the opposite thereof. Whereof our Cicero thought it more saf & secure, to err with those Philosophers that hold that the Soul is Immortal, then with those mean and base accounted on Philosophers, that do affirm and hold of opinion, that the Soul is Mortal.  
If the Soul be Mortal, than they that hold it to be Immortal, do not thereby get any detriment, loss, hindrance, or evil: neither can they be blamed in an other life, nor noted of ignorance. If it be Immortal, than they that hold it to be Mortal, are worthy in an other life, to be reprehended & laughed to scorn. Therefore it is more agreeable to reason in the light of natural reason, to say, that the Soul is Immortal, then to say, that it is Mortal. For so saith Cicero: Quod si in hoc erro quod animos hominum credebun immortales esse, lebenter erro. Nec mihi hunc errorem quo delector dum vivo extorqueri volo. Sin mortuus ut quidam minuti Philosophi censent, nihil s●ntiam. Non vereor ne hunc errorem meum Philosophi mortui irrideant: If so be I do err in this, that I believed the Souls to be Immortal, I do willingly err: Neither while I live, will I be wrested away from this error wherein I am delighted: But when I am dead, as certain mean Philosophers do think, I shall feel nothing; I do not fear, lest the dead Philosophers should scorn this my error.  
Therefore the foresaid Philosophers, of whom we have spoken above, not overcome by evident reasons and demonstrations, but fully settled and grounded in the foresaid persuasions, and all other reasons probable; which for brevities sake I omit, have concluded; That the Soul is Immortal. For the Philosophers in following Natural reason, have written and taught those things, which they have not proved evidently, neither by demonstrative reason: but perswasively and dilectically. They also supposed, thought, and concluded, many things without any great proof, by mingling and conforming themselves to the opinions of the common people, and the sentences of the Philosophers that were before them. Whereof the Philosopher saith, Secundo de caelo, cap. Of two hard Questions (saith he,) it is to be tried, which thing we should say, is the worthy thing. Reputing Promptitude to be imputed a point of shamefastness, rather than of boldness. If any do stand on Philosophies part, and doth love few sufficiencies of that thing whereof we have very great doubtings, whence few sufficiencies & persuasions usually have sufficed Philosophers, where they were not able to attain to greater things; neither did they contradict the principles of Philosophy, or the opinions of their predecessors; wherein Philosophers on all sides rested, because of their probable probations, and sometime for the assertions of their formors; because of necessary reason.  
And in the same Chapter, De alijs astris, dicunt Aegiptij et Babilonicjs, etc. Of other Stars, do speak the Egyptians and Babylonians, from whom we have many things that we do believe of every our of those Stars: But in the sciences of Astrology and Astronomy, have flourished the sons of Seth, No, Abraham, Solomon, and the holy Fathers; which have taught Philosophers, of secrets Celestial and Divine: unto the which they could not have attained by humane strength and natural reason. But josephus in the first Book of the Antiquities of the jews, saith: That Seth, when he came to that age, that could discern good things, gave himself to the study of Virtue; and when he was become an excellent man, he left his Sons to be followers of himself; they all being the Sons of a good Father, tarried in the same Land, living most happily without any vexation; and first found out the discipline and learning of things Celestial, and the trimness of them. And lest they should slide away from men, and utterly perish, seeing they had learned of Adam, that there should be one extermination of all things by Fire, and an other by the power and force of Water; they made two Pillars, one of Brass, and an other of Stone, and wrote therein what they had found out of Celestial things, that they might leave unto men, the knowledge of Celestial secrets.  
And in the Secrets of Secrets, it is said; That the glorious GOD, hath ordained the mean and remedy to temper Humours, and preserve Health; and how to get many other things. And hath revealed it to Prophets and Holy men, and others, whom he fore-chose and illustrated with the spirit of his Wisdom. Of these, the men that followed, had the beginning and original of Philosophy; Egyptians, Greeks', Latins: from whom the latter have drawn and written the principles of Arts and Sciences. And (saith he to Alexander,) it is meet and worthy, that he know noble Physic, which is said to be a glory inestimable, and is called, The Treasure of Philosophers. I truly have never truly or perfectly enough learned it: neither do I know who it was that invented it. Some affirm, that Adam was the inventor thereof. Some say that it was Esculapius, and Hermogenes the Physician Hirsos and Domasti●●, and Mati●dos hebrews, and Dioris, and Carus, glorious Philosophers. Many say, that Henooh by a vision knew this secret: whom many will have to be that great Hermogenes whom the Greeks' do praise, and to him commend all Science secret & celestial. Wherefore in the Prologue of the Books of Hermes Mercurius Triplex Trismegistus, it is thus said: We read in old Histories of Divines, that there were Three Philosophers: whereof the first was Henoch, who is also called Hermes, and Mercury. The second, No; who was called Hermes: for he (as Albumuzar witnesseth) was a great Prophet, and first builded & peopled Babylon after the Flood, and instructed them in knowledge and learning. His son Sem also taught the Babylonians or Chaldeans, and delivered unto them the science of the Stars. The third, was called Hermes Mercurius Triplex, because he was a King, a Philosopher, & a Prophet: he flourished after the Flood, & with great equity governed the Kingdom of Egypt, and clearly brightened Astronomy. And in the Book of the Death of Aristotle, it is said; that, After No, was Abraham borne, who being wiser than all, did thoroughly come to the great degree of Philosophy: for he knew that Sol and Luna had a first mover, and therefore he followed not the way of his Father, neither of his Kindred, that worshipped Idols: But (as Josephus witnesseth in his Book of the Antiquities of the jews,) he prevailed to change & innovate that opinion, which then all had of God: for he first presumed to pronounce God, one God to be the only Creator of all things: for he, according to the Histories of the Chaldeans, taught the Egyptians Arithmetic, and also Astronomy. These, and many other secrets, were planted in Egypt, which are known to have come to the Greeks'.  
By the doctrines therefore of these Fathers, illuminated from Heaven, the Philosophers that came after, being informed, as it were strengthened by the Oracles of Prophets, have conscribed many glorious Sciences, which they could not attain unto by the force of man's wit. Did not Plato go into Egypt to learn Astrology? And there (as it is thought of all for the most part) he learned what great things soever were there had and taught. And chiefly these things which are known to be agreeing to our Faith. Not that Hieremias, as some suppose, saw or read the Translation of the seventy: For Plato was borne almost an hundred years, from the time that Jeremy prophesied: Who seeing that he lived fourscore years and one; from the year of his death, to the translation of the seventy Interpreaters, are found threescore years: Wherefore jeremy could neither see nor read the Translation of the holy Scriptures, seeing he was dead so long before they were translated into the Greek tongue. But because he was a man of a very sharp wit, as the Egyptians are, he so did learn the foresaid holy Scriptures by an Interpreater; as those things in Timaeo, which he there wrote of the truth of our Religion, do witness. Out of Egypt, they say, that Plato came into Italy, and there learned all the doctrine of Pythagoras. But of the Immortality of men's Souls, he did not only perceive and know the same that Pythagoras did, but also brought and added thereunto reasons, which they afore him (in a manner) did not. Whose Book of the Immortality of the Soul; a work most elegant, Cato the later (before he flew himself) did twice read over, as Plutarch reporteth: which when he had read, he so departed this life, that he rejoiced that he was borne to the end to die; so great surely was the force and power of this Book, to persuade the Immortality of men's minds, that Therebrotus a certain man of Ambrochia, when no adversity would befall him to end his life, he got him up upon a very high Wall, and cast himself into the Sea, after that he had read the foresaid Book of Plato; of whom Saint Augustine in his first Book, De civitate Dej, and the 22. chapter, writeth thus. Therebrotus libro Platonis ubi de immortalitate animae disputavit se praecipitem dedit e muro, ut sic ab ista vita migraret ad eandem quam credidit mehorem. 1. Therebrotus, when he had read over the Book of Plato, where he hath disputed of the Immortality of the Soul, cast himself down headlong from a Wall, that so he might flit away from this life, unto that same which he believed to be better.   

The third Conclusion.  
BY undoubted Faith and Belief, it is to be holden, that the Soul of every man is Immortal: And first, it is manifest by the words of our Saviour Christ himself, in the Gospel.  
Mat. 10. vers. 28.  
28. Fear ye not them which kill the Body, but are not able to kill the Soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both Body and Soul in Hell.  
Mat. ca 18. v. 9  
9 It is better for thee to enter into Life halt, then having two feet, to be cast into Hell.  
Mar. 9.43.44.  
43. Wherefore, if thy Hand cause thee to offend, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into Life maimed, then having two Hands, to go into Hell, into Fire that never shallbe quenched.  
44. Where the Worm dieth not, and the Fire never goeth out. etc.  
Mat. 25.  
31. When the Son of man cometh in his glory, and all the holy Angels with him: then shall he sit upon the Throne of his glory.  
32. And before him shallbe gathered all Nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as the Shepherd separateth the Sheep from the Goats.  
33. And he shall set the Sheep on his right hand, and the Goats on his left.  
34. Then shall the King say to them on his right hand: Come ye blessed children of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.  
41. Then shall he say to them on his left hand: Depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting Fire, which is prepared for the Devil and his Angels.  
john 10.  
My Sheep hear my voice, & I give unto them eternal life.  
¶ Of these Places, I do conclude, that the Soul is Immortal: because it liveth eternally, or is punished everlastingly.  
In the Book of Wisdom, cap. 3.  

1. The Souls of the Righteous, are in the hand of God: and no torment shall touch them.  
2 In the sight of the Unwise, they appear to die: and their end was thought grievous.  
3. And their departing from us, Destruction; but they are in peace.  
4. And though they suffer pain before men: yet is their hope full of Immortality.  
5. They are punished in few things, yet in many things shall they be rewarded: for God proveth them, and findeth them meet for him.  
6. He trieth them as Gould in the furnace, and receiveth them as a perfect fruit offering.  
7. And in the time of their vision, they shall shine, and run through as the sparkles among the stubble.  
8. They shall judge the nations, and have Dominion over the people, and their Lord shall reign for ever.   
Ecclesiastos. 12.  
Because man shall go to the house of his eternity. Also in the last judgement, every man that is predestinate to salvation, shall rise again to life everlasting, with the same Bodies they had here, according to that saying of Job.  
Job. 19  
25. I am sure that my Redeemer liveth, and that I shall rise again out of the earth at the last day.  
26. And though after my skin, Worms destroy this Body: yet shall I see God in my flesh.  
27. Whom I myself shall see; yea, myself shall behold, and none other for me.  
So that hereby it is very manifest and plain, that all the Souls of men, shall every one of them take again their own proper Bodies being become Immortal, or brought unto the state of Immortality of the good and blessed.  
1. Thessal. 4.  
14. If we believe that jesus is dead, and is risen: even so them that sleep in jesus, will God bring with him.  
16. For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the Archangel, and with the Troumpe of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.  
17. Then shall we which live, and remain, be caught up with them also, in the Clouds, to meet the Lord in the Air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.  
Rom. 6.  
5. If we be dead with Christ to the similitude of his death, even so shall we be to the similitude of his resurrection.  
8. If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we also shall live with him.  
9 Knowing that Christ, being raised from the death, dieth no more; death hath no more power over him.  
¶ Of all good and bad, is plain in the Epistle to the Corinthians. 1. Cor. 15.  
51. We shall not all sleep; but we shallbe all changed.  
52. In moment of time, by the last Trumpet: for the Trumpet shall blow, and the dead shall be raised up incorruptible, and we shall be changed.  
53. For this corruptible, must put on incorruption: and this mortal, must put on immortality.   

The Conclusion.  
OF these Authorities and Reasons, there may in the mind of every faithful man, that undoubtedly believeth the holy Scriptures, be bred a sufficient Faith of the Immortality of the Soul, sufficient (I say) to salvation: yea, it doth not seem possible, that those that are instructed in the foresaid Scriptures, should doubt of the Immortality of the Soul: For it doth not seem natuturally to be possible, that some one evidently Assent, that the Antecedent cannot be true, without the Consequent; and undoubtedly Assent to the Antecedent, but the must undoubtedly Assent to the Consequent, which he doth evidently know to be concluded and deducted out of the Antecedent. But the Reason's Topical, or Persuasions Probable, which we have before set down, to persuade the second part of the first Conclusion; although (as it is said) it be not of their nature, to breed nothing else but an Opinion or Assent with fear of the Opposite; (for Opinion is the acception of one part of the Contradiction, with fear of the other:) yet not withstanding, out of the empire of the Will, they may breed a firm and sure Assent, of the Immortality of the Soul, above Opinion, and beneath Science; by reason of the same evidence, and not adherency.  
From hence may such persuasions or reasons be able manifoldly and sundry ways, to profit and avail the faith of the faithful, for they help our Faith; for by them, in the unfaithful, is begun the Faith of the Immortality of the Soul. By them, is the same Faith preserved and strengthened against the Wicked, and Heretics: By the same, is it sustained and defended: thereby, are the simple (at the length) thoroughly moved and provoked to true Faith. Wherefore Peter commandeth, To be ready prepared to render to every one that asketh, a reason of the Faith that is in us. But the faithful man, having such like reasons and persuasions, doth not lean to the first truth and conclusion of Faith, or that the Soul is Immortal principally for those same reasons, but rather doth assent to them, and useth them, which do consent to the first truth, that it is well: as the Lord saith by the Samaritans that worshipped in the Mount: By whom are figured and signified the true believers; who seeing JESUS by Faith, are called Samaritans. This is to humane reason; Now we do not believe because of thy saying, but because we ourselves have seen and heard.  
Of these things, it most plainly and most evidently appeareth, how great thanks are to be given unto the most high GOD, and Father of Mercies, and to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath most certainly assured, and fully persuaded his Faithful ones, in these things, where unto the most Witty, & the best Learned men that ever were in all the World, could not, by the light of Natural reason, prevail sufficiently to attain: to wit, of the Last end of the reasonable Creature, of the Resurrection of the Dead, of the Immortality of the reasonable Soul, and of the perpetual Eternitic of the same. And this, hath that Almighty Lord & most merciful Father, so done in such sort; that now it is not lawful for us, neither is there any need, to doubt in these things, or to flow out, or run any where else to seek for props or stays of our Faith in these matters. Neither is it needful from hence forward, & after this time of so great Grace revealed to seek, or put to new reasons or probable persuasions: because we are most firmly holden, without fear of the opposite: or without any Ambiguity, to believe that the Good & just do gloriously live eternally with Christ. And that the Evil are tormented perpetually with the Devil & his Angels: according to that in the fifth of john. And they that have done evil, shall come forth unto the resurrection of judgement: and they that have done good, to the resurrection of Life; Which God shall give to them, which never change their Faith from him. Which God grant unto us, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.  
FINIS.    

Of the Immortality of the Soul, out of Palingenius in Capricorn.  
BEcause thou shalt believe, I will declare to thee,  
By reason good, the state of Soul, Immortal for to be.  
For if that God in better things, doth Cunning still express,  
As Wisdom tells, and as the good, and virtuous must confess:  
Then doubtless must we judge he gave, the Souls no time to die,  
Since better far it is for them to live continually.  
Then with the flesh to be extinct, and feel a full decay:  
Which thus I prove. If death do take from us the Soul away,  
If that we have no other life, but in this body here:  
Then God may be accounpted ill, and shall unjust appear.  
For thousands every day we see, that flourish prosperously,  
In riches, Substance and Renounce, in Reigns and Empires hie.  
Yet idle Lubbers, nought, unlearnd, that sin at liberty,  
And run the race of all their life in great prosperity.  
On th'other side we may behold, the just oppressed to be:  
With spiteful chance, a wretched life and piteous poverty:  
Thus either God unrighteous is, that doth this thing permit:  
Or after death, hath every man, as he deserveth fit:  
Or else he doth disdain the deeds, of mortal men to know,  
Besides, what gracious mind in God, what goodness doth he show?  
If this be all that he doth give, a life so short and vain,  
That swiftly runneth to an end, and doth no time remain:  
The half whereof is spent in sleep, the rest in grief and toil?  
And dangers great as fast doth fleet, as Rivers swift in soil.  
Therefore go to, ō wretched men, build gorgeous Churches hie,  
And let with costly Offerings great, your Altars pestered lie.  
Set up your joy full branch of Bays, your sacred doors about:  
With pomp of proud Procession pass, let Hymns be rattled out.  
Spend Frankincense, and let the nose of God be stretched wide;  
With pleasant smoke do this, and add more honour much beside.  
That he preserve your goodly life, wherein doth you torment,  
Sometime great cold, and sometime heat, now plague, now famishment.  
Now bloody war, now sickness great or Chance to sorrow at:  
Sometime the busy Fly, sometime the stinging Gnat,  
The Chynch and Flea; rejoice I say, that here you lead your life,  
With thousand painful labours great, in travail, toil, and strife.  
And after, in a little space, in pain you drop away:  
And lumpish lie in loath some Vault, to Worms a grateful prey.  
O worthy life, O goodly gift: Man in this world is bred,  
Among the brutish Beasts and fools, and knaves, his life is led,  
Where Storms, and flaky Snows, & Ice, and Dirt, and Dust, and Night.  
And harmful air, and clouds, & mists, and winds, with hellish fight,  
And grief and wailing reigns: where death beside, doth work his feat.  
Is this our goodly Country here? Is this our happy seat,  
For which we own such service here, unto the Gods above:  
For which it seemeth meet with vows the heavenly Saints to moon?  
And if none other life we have, than this of body vain:  
So frail and full of filthiness, when Death hath Carcase slain.  
I see not why such Praises should, of God resound in Air:  
For why we should such honour give, to him in Temples fair;  
That hath us wretches framed here, in this so wretched soil:  
That shall for evermore decay, after so great a toil.  
Wherefore lest God should seem unjust and full of cruelness,  
Shall well deserving counted be, we must of force confess,  
That Death doth not destroy the Soul, but that it always is,  
None otherwise then Spirit in Air, or Saints in heavens bliss:  
Both void of body, sleep, and meat. And more, we must confess,  
That after death, they live in pains, or else in blessedness:  
But let this reason thee suffice, for if thou do it show  
Unto the wicked kind, they laugh; no light the blind doth know.  
But thou, believe for evermore, and know assuredly.  
(For ground of saving health it is) that Souls do never die.  
Exempted from the Sister's power, and fatal Destiny.  

Palingenius in Libra.  
We need not doubt, but Soul proceeds and doth from love descend,  
And never dies: whom he permits, the World to comprehend.  
What if so be, the Atomies, which some Wise men do feign,  
The Soul is rather thought to be, than body to maintain.  
All Bodies be of quantity, and may divided be:  
But Soul is indivisible, and of no gross degree.  
And as a Centre doth she seem, where many Lines do meet:  
Which Senses all to her convey, as Floods to Seas, do fleet.  
Wherefore I marvel much at such, as think a like decay:  
And judge the Soul no more to be, when Body fades away.  
For if so be it might be proved, yet should it not be said;  
Nor Published to the common sort, nor every way displayed.  
For many wicked men, and ill there are, which if they thought,  
Their Souls as nothing shall remain, when corpse to grave is brought:  
Nor that it feels, or suffers aught, when it goeth hence away,  
And that no punishment remains, for pranks that here they play:  
A thousand mischiefs would they do, (take fear from them among)  
And fall to every vilonie, confounding right with wrong.  
Besides, a number now that think in blessed state to be,  
When death hath them destroyed, & hope the face of God to see:  
And evermore with him to joy, and therefore virtuously  
Do seek to pass their present life, with godly modestly.  
If they shall see that after death, do no rewards remain:  
Amazed all, their virtuous works, shall cease and perish plain.  
So many stately Temples trimmeth, so many Altars hie,  
With Gold and Marble garnished, and decked sumptuously.  
Beside Religion, Godly zeal, Honour and worshipping  
Of God, shall come to nought, if after death remain nothing,  
That men may hope for, if the Soul as Wind doth pass away.  
Of wild and frantic common sort, Religion must be stay,  
And fear of smart: for mischievous, and full of fraud their brain,  
Is always seen, nor of themselves, they well do mean, or plain.  
The common sort do Virtue loath, and evermore her hate.  
Religion is the comeliness, and glory of our state.  
Which makes the Gods to favour us, which we win Heaven by.  
No wise nor good man therefore dare, attempt her openly,  
To teach that Soul shall come to nought and so corrupt the minds,  
Of rude unskilful common sort, that waver like the winds.  
Now must we teach by reason good, that Souls shall never die;  
But free from sting, or dart of death, do live eternally.  
Which every Christian man doth hold, and Greshop eater jew,  
(Who our foreskins abhors) believes: which God that all things knew,  
Would not have made, if he had thought they had been needless, sure:  
And Nations all beside, do think that Souls shall aye endure.  
For first the thing resembling most, the mightiest Lord of all:  
Of longer lasting life we count, and perfecter must call.  
For that which doth not long endure, but shortly doth decay,  
That it should be unperfecter, who is that will say nay?  
And therefore do celestial things, a greater while endure:  
Because they are more perfecter, and more Divine and pure.  
But things that nearer are the earth, and farthest off from skies,  
Unperfect since they are; do fade, and soon ever dies.  
Shall then our Soul, sith life in it and knowledge doth appear,  
Most like unto the state Divine, be closed and shut up here  
With Body for to end? Nor shall it here have longer place,  
Than fading flesh? Or shall it live no more, nor larger space?  
Besides, that Souls cannot decay, this Reason witness shall:  
Because it is of single state, and void of matter all.  
Add this, that when the Body fades, the force of Mind doth grow  
As weak and aged Fathers old do more good Counsel know,  
Then youthful bloods of younger years and often he lacks wit  
That doth excel in strength and force, for rare doth God permit  
Both strength and wit to any one. Wherefore, if force brought low,  
By space and course of many years, the Mind doth stronger grow.  
Of Body doth it not depend, but of itself consist  
Another thing: and after Grave doth live, and death resist.  
Doth not beside when foot doth ache, the Mind judge thereof plain?  
It is no doubt. But how can grief, to tower of Mind attain?  
Doth it ascend from lowest parts as Smoke doth upward fly?  
No: for many parts, not foot alone, (if so) should ache thereby.  
Nor of the foot, but of the part that nearest is to Mind  
The ache should grieve. This shows that Soul is not of Bodies kind;  
And is so free from death, since it in distance needs no mean,  
Add this, when we would call to mind the thing forgotten clean;  
Or else devise some worthy fetch, from Mind, the Senses all,  
It then behoves to gather up, whereby doth often fall,  
That many better for to muse, do shut up close their eyes:  
Or else forsaking company, some secret place devise.  
Or when the night with darksome cloud the earth doth over spread;  
And creatures all with heavy sleep, do take their rest in bed:  
They still do watch, and silent all upon their beds do rest;  
And light put out, in darkness whet their Mind with Body priest.  
For Senses do the Mind disturb, Affections it destroys,  
Amazing it with Dullness great, and Blindness it annoys:  
None otherwise then Clouds do hide, the Sun that clearly shines;  
If therefore, when it doth remain within his own confines,  
And flying far from Senses all, and cares that Body brings:  
It wiser be, then shall it know, and understand all things,  
In better sort, when it is free, and from the flesh doth fly;  
More perfect of itself it is, and lives continually.  
Again, sith Man as Mean consists, the Saints and Beasts betwixt:  
Some part with each, he common holds with Beast his Body mixed.  
And with the Saints his Mind agrees; one of these parts doth die:  
Of th'other, death can have no power, but lives continually.  
Death therefore takes not all away: for why? his deadly darts,  
Do never harm the Soul a whit, when it from Body parts.  
And more than this, I have to say, if nothing do remain  
Of us, when Carcase lies in Tomb, God shall be called plain  
Unjust, and one that favour shows to such as naughty live.  
For such, for term of all their life, no Sorrows do them grieve:  
No riches lack, nor Pleasures great, but happily rejoice;  
Exalted with Promotions hie, and with the Commons voice.  
On th'other side, the Virtuous men, a thousand Griefs molest,  
now sore diseased, now plagued with need In fine, always oppressed.  
Therefore the Soul lives after grave, and feels deserved pains:  
And if it have done justly here, a Crown of Glory gains.  
By these, and many other ways, I could declare, no doubt,  
That Soul of man doth never die, and Body lives without.  
But this's enough time bids me end. Not ignorant am I;  
That some, the soul (although unapt) do term an Harmony.  
And as of sundry voices moved, proceeds a melody:  
Of sundry Compounds Medicine made, which heal with sovereignty.  
So of the joined Elements, by certain mean and way,  
Created of the Heavens eke the Soul to be, some say;  
A part whereof in Body dwells, and part abroad doth lie:  
As sight doth spring of outward light, and virtue of the eye.  
But this opinion is not true; for if it should be so,  
The Soul with flesh should never strive nor once against it go.  
But evermore in one agree. As every power doth show,  
That wont are of mixed things, By spirit Divine to grow.  
As in the kind of Herbs appears, and in the precious Stone.  
Some think the Soul doth not remain, when flesh from it is gone:  
Because the heavy sluggish sleep, the nearest thing that may,  
Resembles Death, and seems to take, both Sense and Mind away.  
Or for because they see the Mind, with sickness diversly  
So vexed, and harmed, that it cannot the place it hath supply.  
And with the Body to increase, with which it eke decays:  
As well appears in Children young, and men of elder days.  
Fond is the child, the man discreet, the old man doteth still:  
For weak unwieldy withered age, doth Mind and Body spill.  
And more say they, if that the Soul, of substance be Divine:  
And severed from these fleshly limbs, may lead a life more fine.  
Then why should it in wretched flesh, so seek itself to place;  
by whose defect so many ills, and mischiefs it deface?  
But fond she is therefore, if that she do this willingly:  
And if perforce she be compelled in Carcase cave to lie,  
Who doth constrain? doth God himself? then her he nought esteems.  
Nay, what in Prison vile he puts, to hate he rather seems.  
More, of itself (except it learn) sith it doth nothing know,  
And oftentimes forgetfulness the Mind doth overthrow:  
Therefore they judge it nothing is, when Body here doth die:  
For learn it cannot, senses dead, which it knows all things by.  
Some other say, that Soul there is in all the World but one;  
Which giveth life to every thing, as Sun, but one alone  
There is, that makes all eyes to see, Eternal think they this:  
Though Body die, or eyes put out, the Sun eternal is.  
These trifles fond, it is not hard, with Reason to disprove:  
But here I longer am, I fear, than it doth me behove.  
There shall not want, that such demands shall answer once at full:  
And all the doubts therein assoil, and knots asunder pull.  
O man of sharp and pregnant wit, thy praise shall live with mine.  
Our labours (doubt not) shall commend the men of later time.  
Thy famous works attempt, and seeds of Heaven on Earth go sow:  
This one thing will I more put to, that every man may know,  
The Soul Immortal for to be, and sprung of Heavenly grace;  
If Senses and Affections all he will restrain a space.  
If that despising worldly joys, and earthly thought resigned,  
With daily labour he attempt, to God to lift his mind.  
Then perfect Wisdom shall he have, and things to come foretell,  
A wake, or else in heavy sleep, perceive the same as well.  
In this sort did the Prophet's old, the things to come declare.  
The sober mind therefore doth come more near to heavenly fare,  
The farther from the flesh it flies, and from the earthly care.  
But like to Beasts the greatest sort doth live, as sense doth will:  
And think none other good to be, but flesh to have his fill.  
Hereof it comes that many think, the Soul with Body dies:  
Because they see not things Diui●e, with weak and fleshly eyes.  
But of the Soul, this shall suffice.   

Palengenius in Pisces.  
ANd when escaped from mortal chain the Soul hath passage strait,  
Conveying with herself these three, that always on her wait:  
The Mind, the Sense, & Moving force unto the heavens high;  
Shall joyful go, and there remain, in bliss perpetually.    

Matheus Dresserus, libro de Anima.  
A Confirmation of the Immortality of the Soul.  
THe Sentence of the Souls immortality is twofold. 

1. Philosophical.  
2. theological.    
What is the opinion of Philosophers touching the Immortality of the Soul?  
Some affirm, that the Soul doth die with the Body. Others do hold, that after the separation of the Body, it remaineth alive, and immortal.  

The Argument of Panaetius.  
What soever is bred, or hath a certain beginning.  
The same also dieth, or hath a cetraine ending:  
But the Soul is bred, or hath a certain beginning,  
Therefore the Soul dieth, or hath a certain ending.   
The Answer.  
The Mayor is to be distinguished: for some things are bred, or have their beginning of the Elements, and do die again. But others have a Celestial and Divine original; as the Soul, which doth not die. Things that are borne, bred, or have beginning, are of two sorts. Some are Elementary, some Celestial. The Elementary do die or perish: But the Celestial, do not die or perish. But on the contrary part, Cicero, Plato, and Xenophon, have judged, the Soul to be Immortal, and they prove it thus. 1. Because the original and nature thereof is Divine; or, as the Pythagoreans said, the Soul is drawn from the universal Heavenly mind. Cicero in 1 Tuscul.  
That which is Divine, that doth not die:  
The Soul is Divine, Ergo,  
The Soul doth not die.  
2 Because unto the Soul there is nothing mixed, nothing concrete. i. the Mind and Soul is not compounded of the Elements: therefore it can not die with the things that are compounded of the Elements.  
Whatsoever is compounded, the same is conflated or compounded of the Elements.  
But the Soul is not compound of the Elements:  
Therefore the Soul doth not die.  
3 Because the works or effects of the Mind are Divine and Celestial, as to perceive and know things past, and to come: therefore the Mind itself also, is Celestial and Incorruptible.  
As is the effect, so is the cause:  
But the effects of the Soul are Divine:  
Therefore the Soul is also Divine.  
4 Because the order of Divine justice doth require, that rewards be given to Just, and punishments to the Unjust. But in this life, there often chance no rewards to the Just, nor punishments to the Wicked: therefore after this life, there remaineth another life, wherein it shall go well with the Godly, and ill with the wicked.  
5 Plato in Exiocho saith; Discessus ex hac vita est mutatio mali in bonum; that is to say: The departing out of this life, is a changing of evil into good. Therefore after death, the Soul also liveth, and somewhere remaineth alive; that it may enjoy that so great a good.  

Of the Place of the Soul after the separation from the Body.  
Socrates' thought, that the Soul when it departeth from the Body, doth return to Heaven, from whence it is sprinkled & strewed into man's Body. But Philosophy doth plainly deny, and is utterly ignorant, that the Soul shall be joined together to the Body at the universal raising again of the dead.  
Cicero also, although he did excellently dispute many things of the Souls Divinity; yet he confesseth, that he is in very great doubt and staggering, even as the Ship is tossed in the mids of the raging Seas.  
And Atticus saith, That he, while he readeth Plato's Phaedo, doth truly Assent; that is to say, Approve the Opinion of the Immortality of the Soul: But when he had laid the Book away, and began to cogitate with himself; then that Assent slided away.  
Socrates, when he was going to his death, saith in Plato: It is time for me now, to go away from hence, that I may die, and you live: but whether is better, God knoweth; I think truly no man knoweth.  
There was a Philosopher of great Authority, who being called to end his life, was very sore vexed in mind; doubting of the flitting or departure, in what state his soul should be after death: And when he found no other Haven, he sent for two Philosophers, and bade them dispute of the condition of the Soul after the departure forth of the Body, saying: Lo, I must flit hence away, & forsake this mortal life: wherefore tell ye me, what shall become of me; whether my Soul shall live, when this Body is extinct, or no? for unless this can be proved unto me, and I therein persuaded, with what mind can I departed out of this life? Hear the Philosophers began sharply to contend about the Nature of the Soul: and the one reasoned it to be Mortal, and the other Immortal. And when they had a long time disputed, neither part prevailing: Go to, saith the sick man, all sorrowful, I shall now prove, whether of you doth think more rightly.  
But theology doth discreetly affirm, both that the Soul is Immortal, and also that it shall at length, return into the tabernacle of the Body: & doth name the very place also, wherein the Soul shall remain & be kept, until the last judgement.   

That the Soul doth not die, is thus proved by the holy Scriptures.  
1 BEcause it is a Spirit; which cannot die. Gen. 2. Math. 10. Do not fear those that can kill the Body, but cannot kill the Soul. Gen. 2. He breathed into him the breath of life.  
2 Because; God is the God of the living. God is the God of. Abraham.  
Therefore Abraham liveth, although his body be dead. Mat. 22.  
3 From Examples. Moses and Elias talked with Christ in Mount Thabor. Luk. 9 although Moses was dead a thousand and five hundred years before: Ergo, they live.  
4 From the testimony of Christ. jon. 11. He that believeth in me, he shall not die for ever. Therefore the Soul is not extinguished, but liveth always.  
5 There is also a firm Argument from the Cause unto the Effect, or from the nature of Relatives.  
Christ is risen, and liveth.  
Christ is our Author and Head.  
Therefore we also shall rise again: And the Soul at length, coupled with the Body shall live for ever.  
For what is of force in Christ, the same must needs also avail in his members. 1. Cor. 15.  
Now that the Body being renewed, shall of us be reccived again in the resurrection of the dead, the testimony of Job in the 19, chap. teacheth plainly. I know that my Redeemer liveth; and that I shall rise again out of the Earth in the last day and shall see God in my flesh.  
The Place or Seat into the which the Soul doth flit, being loosed from the fetters of the Body, and resteth in the same, is called, Paradise. Luk. 23. The bosom of Abraham, Luk. 16. The hand of God Sap. 3. Scheol. 1. Hell Gen. 43.   

The Immortality of the Soul proved by manifest places of the holy Scriptures.  
1. Numbers 23.10.  
I Pray God I may die the death of the Righteous; and let my last end be like his.  
2. Psal 84.1, 2, 4, 10.  
1. O how amiable are thy Tabernacles, o Lord of Hosts?  
2. My Soul longeth, yea and fainteth for the Courts of the Lord: for my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.  
4. Blessed are they that dwell in thy House: they will ever praise thee. Selah.  
10. One day in thy Courts is better, than a thousand other where. I had rather be a Doorkeeper in the house of my God, then to dwell in the Tabernacles of Wickedness.  
3. Ejay. 51.6.11.  
6. Lift up your eyes to the Heavens, and look upon the Earth beneath: for the Heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the Earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall perish in like manner: but my salvation shallbe for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.  
11 The redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with joy unto Zion, and everlasting joy shallbe upon their head; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and mourning shallbe away.  
4. Esaj. 32.18.  
My people shall dwell in peace, and in sure dwellings, & in safe resting places: in assurance for ever.  
5. Esaj. 49.10.  
They shall not be hungry, neither shall they be thirsty; neither shall the heat smite them nor the Sun: for he that hath compassion on them, shall lead them; even to the springs of waters shall he drive them.  
6. Esaj. 65.17.18.  
17 Lo, I will create new Heavens and a new Earth; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.  
18 But be you glad and rejoice for ever in the things that I shall create.  
7. Dan. 12 1.2.3.  
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great Prince, which standeth for the children of thy people, and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since the time that there began to be a Nation, until the same time. And at that time, thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the Book.  
2 And many of them, that sleep in the dust of the Earth, shall awake; some to everlasting life, and some to shame and perpetual contempt.  
3 And they that be wise, shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament: and they that turn many to righteousness, shall shine as the Stars, for ever & ever.  
8. 2. Esaras. 2.35.36.37.  
Be ready to the reward of the Kingdom: for the everlasting light shall shine upon you for evermore.  
36 Flee the shadow of this world: receive the joy of your glory; I testify my Saviour openly.  
37 Receive the gift that is given you, and be glad: giving thanks unto him that hath called you to the Heavenly kingdom.  
9 Sap. 3.  
The Souls of the righteous, are in the hand of God; and the pain of death shall not touch them.  
In the sight of the unwise, they appear to die, etc. Yet is their hope full of Immortality. etc.  
10. Sap. 5.  
The Faithful are counted among the Children of God, and their portion is among the Saints. The Righteous shall live for evermore: their reward also is with the Lord, and their remembrance with the highest. Therefore shall they receive a glorious Kingdom, & a beautiful Crown of the Lords hand.  
11. Tob. 3.  
O Lord, deal with me according to thy will, and command my spirit to be received in peace.  
12. Ecclesiastes. 7.  
The day of death is better than the day of birth. For precious in the sight of the Lord, is the death of this Saints, saith the Psalmist in the 116. Psalm.  
13. Mat. 13.43.  
Then shall the Just men shine as the Sun, in the Kingdom of their father.  
14. Mat. 19.29.  
They shall inherit everlasting life.  
15. Mat. 25.34.  
Come ye blessed Children of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.  
16. Mat. 22.29.30.31.32.  
29 Ye are deceived, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.  
30 For in the Resurrection, they neither marry Wives, nor Wives are bestowed in marriage; but are as the Angels of God in Heaven.  
31 And concerning the Resurrection of the dead, have ye not read what is spoken unto you of God, saying:  
32 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.  
17. The same is recorded in the 12. of Mark, vers. 24, 25, 26, 27.  
By all which places, it is a plain consequent, that the Soul is Immortal.  
18. Luk. 16.22.  
Lazarus is said to be carried into Abraham's Bosom. Now what abraham's Bosom is, let venerable Beda witness against the Papists, that so much boast of him: who in his Homily on the Gospel for the first Sunday after Trinity, writeth thus. Sinus Abraham requies heatorum pauperum, quorum est regnum coelorum, quo post hanc vitam recipiuntur: That is; Abraham's Bosom, is the rest of the blessed poor; whose is the kingdom of heaven, whither after this life, they are received. So by the judgement of Beda (agreeing with the truth,) abraham's Bosom, is the Kingdom of Heaven, with Lazarus was carried. Out of the same place also it is apparent concerning the Souls of the Wicked: For the Rich Glutton is said on the contrary, to be carried down into Hell. Therefore the Souls live after the Body.  
19 Luk. 23.43.  
Christ hanging on the Cross, said unto the Thief; This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. Now that Paradise is Heaven, is proved by Saint Paul in the 2. Cor. 12. 1, 2, 3, 4. where he saith, He was taken up into the third Heaven: which he calleth Paradise. But the Thief could not be with Christ in Paradise in the Body; because that was dead & buried. Therefore his Soul was with Christ's in Paradise: and so consequently the Soul liveth, and is Immortal.  
20. Luk. 23.46.  
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.  
21. John. 16.  
Your joy shall no man take from you.  
22. John. 5.24.  
He that heareth my word, and believeth in him that sent me, hath everlasting life, & shall not come into condemnation, but hath passed from death to life.  
23. Joe. 6.54.  
Whosoever eateth my flesh and drinketh my Blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.  
24. Joh. 11.26.  
Who soever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.  
25. 1. Cor. 2.  
The eye hath not seen, neither ear hath heard, neither can it enter into man's heart, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.  
26. 2. Cor. 5.8.  
8 We love rather to remove out of the Body, & to dwell with the Lord: Wherefore the Souls sleep not, as some Anabaptistes will have them; but enjoy Immortal life, & celestial glory with God.  
27. Phil. 1.23.  
I desire to be loosed, and to be with Christ. He speaketh of the rest and joy, which he should enjoy with Christ. But they who feel nothing, what can their joy or happiness be? Wherefore they also are refuted in this point, that say, That men's Souls sleep, and so withal, deny the Immortality of the Soul.  
28. 1. Thes. 4.  
So shall we ever be with the Lord.  
29. Revel. 2.  
To him that overcometh, will I give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.  
Be faithful unto the death, and I shall give thee the Crown of life.  
reve. 3.  
Him that overcometh, will I make a Pillar in the Temple of God; and he shall go no more out.  
To him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with me in my seat.  
31. Reu. 4.  
The 24. Elders that sat on the Seats, were clothed in White raiment, and had on their heads Crowns of Gold.  
32. Reu. 7.15, 16, 17.  
15 They are in the presence of the Throne of God, and serve him day and night in his Temple; and he that sitteth on the Throne, will dwell among them.  
16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the Sun light on them, neither any heat.  
17 For the Lame, which is in the midst of the Throne, shall govern them, and shall lead them unto the lively Fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.  
1. Cor. 15.19.  
If in this life only we hope in Christ, then are we most miserable of all men.  
If Christians in this life only, do hope in Christ: 1. If they hope of Christ for the blessedness of this life only, and not of one to come, then are they most miserable of all men. But Christians are not most miserable of all men: Ergo, they do not look or hope of Christ for the blessedness of this life only, but also of the life to come: and by a consequent they shall rise from the dead, that they may be partakers of that blessedness in an other life.  
These testimonies of Scriptures, do teach and confirm most evidently, that not only in the Body before death, and after the resurrection of the Body; but also in the whole space and time coming between, the Souls are, live, feel, understand, out of the Body; though the manner of their operations be to us unknown. Wherefore also this gift of Immortality, hath some similitude with God; who alone, is the only fountain of life, hath Immortality: as saith Paul 1, Tim. 6.16.  
The Adversaries of this Truth, the dear dearelings of the Devil, fight with weapons of their grand Captain Satan; even as he in tempting our Saviour Christ, wrested the Scriptures to his purpose: even so they perverting the true sense, allege sundry places of the Scriptures to disprove the Immortality of the Soul, and to approve their own wicked assertion, that the Soul is Mortal. Of which hellish Champions, and their vain and wicked, not reasons, but words, I with a reproof, will bring a double disproof, and so thereby give our side a stronger approof, by enterpreating their false alleged places, according to the right sense and meaning.  
1. Gen. 2.  
In the day that thou eatest of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, thou shalt die the death. Lo, (say they) the death of Body and Soul both.  
Answer, interpreating the place.  
The Lord in this Scripture, doth not threaten to Man, the destruction or extinguishing of his Soul, but eternal Death; that is, the horrible feeling and terror of God's wrath and judgement, and to live forsaken and cast off from God, subject to all miseries & torments: unto the which eternal death the separation and parting asunder of the Soul and Body by temporal death, is an adjunct; which at that time, through God's mercy was deferred, that, that mankind might be saved: For so was Adam dead, while he yet lived in Paradise, even so soon as ever he had eaten the forbidden Fruit: So in eternal death live all the damned and reprobate; whose Fire shall not be put out, and their Worm shall never die. So in the second to the Ephesians are they said, To be dead through sin, that live in sin without repentance. And Ephes. 5. He who from sin is reclaimed to God, is willed to rise from the dead. And Rom. 7.5. Paul saith, That through the knowledge of sin and the wrath of God, he was dead.  
2. Eccles. 3.19.  
19 The condition of the Children of men, and the condition of Beasts, are even as one condition to them. As the one dieth, so dieth the other: for they have all one breath; and there is no excellency of Man above the Beast: for all is Vanity.  
20 All go to one place, and all was dust, & shall return to the dust. Therefore the Soul is not Immortal.  
Answer interpreating.  
Hear they are deceived by a fallation, taking that to be spoken simply, which is but, secundum quid, i. in some fort, or, in some respect. For the Preacher doth not simply say, That Men die as Beasts, and so do utterly perish: for this sense cantradicteth other Scriptures. But in two respects, the death of Men, and the death of Beasts, are like. 1. Because Men must needs once die and departed out of this life; because Men are not here to continue for ever, nor have here a settled place. 2. Men die as Beasts; that is, In the sense and judgement of the Wicked, they seem to perish.  
3. Psal. 78.39.  
He remembered that they were but flesh: yea, a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again. Ergo, Mortal.  
Answer.  
By these, and such like speeches, is described and be wailed the frailty of all humane affairs, that with God do perish and come to nothing. For as in this place, they are likened to a Wind that soon vanisheth away: so in Psal. 103. they are compared to Dust, Earth, and Flowers of the field. So job. 14. Man cometh up as a Flower, and is cut down. Isa. 40.6. All flesh is grass.  
4. Psal. 88.5.  
I am counted as slain lying in the Grave; whom thou remember'st no more.  
Answer.  
In these words, the Psalmist doth not mean, that either he himself, or the dead, are exempted from God's providence. But he complaineth that he is forsaken of God, even as it seemeth to men, that God careth not for the dead. And therefore he speaketh not according to the sense of Faith, but of his own opinion, weakness, and misery, who judgeth those things to be forsakèn and neglected of God, whose delivery for a while he doth defer.  
But what Faith in the mean season doth suggest and tell the Godly, even when they strive and wrestle with temptation? he showeth in the two. Psal. and vers 2. The just shall be had in an everlasting remembrance.  
5. Psal. 146.4.  
His Spirit departeth, and returneth to his earth; and then all his thoughts perish. Ergo. etc.  
Answer.  
He doth not here say, That the Spirit or Soul of men doth not die, or vanish, or is bereaved of sense: But, that it departeth; to wit, from the Body, wherein it dwelleth: and that not the Spirit, but the Body, returneth to earth, which was made of earth. And where he saith, That all his thoughts perish: he meaneth not, that the Soul is after this life, bereaved of Reason, judgement, and Sense of God's mercy, or wrath; but that man's Purposes and Counsels are made frustrate, which in his life he had settled himself to bring to pass: In which sense it is said in Psal. 112.10. The desire of the Wicked shall perish.  
6. Psal. 88 10.  
Wilt thou show a miracle to the dead? Or, shall the dead rise, and praise thee? Whereunto we add all such places as take away worshipping of God from the dead, which must needs prove the Soul not Immortal.  
Answer.  
In such speeches, Death and Hell, or the Grave, have two significations. They who are spiritually dead, whether before or after the death of the Body; that is, they that are deprived of God's grace, and forsaken and rejected of God, and are in Hell, that is, in the place and torments of the Damned; or else in this life, despairing and destitute of comfort, shall not praise God at all, neither in this life, nor in the life to come. But they who are dead not spiritually, but corporally only, although they shall not praise God while their Bodies are in Hell, that is, in the Grave, (for which this word Hell, is often used in the Scriptures;) yet in Soul they shall not cease to acknowledge and praise God, until, when they have received their Bodies again, they shall magnify him both in Soul and Body, in the Celestial eternity.  
But in the mean time, sith God will be acknowledged and magnified of men in this life also, therefore both the whole Church, and every one of the faithful, not only pray that they may not fall into that forsaking, and that sense of God's wrath, wherewith the Wicked are oppressed, but also desire, that they may be preserved and defended in this mortal life, until the end thereof appointed by God, be expired: for the Saints do not simply stand in fear of the bodily Death and Grave; but that they may not be forsaken of God, neither fall into desperation or destruction, or their enemies insult against God, when they are overthrown. This with daily and ardent prayers and petitions, they beg and crave continually.  
7. Psal. 146. 2.  
I will praise the Lord during my life: as long as I have any being, I will sing unto my God. Hear he restraineth praises to this life only.  
Answer.  
This place, maketh nothing to the purpose: For he doth not limit praises to this life; but this he only saith, that he will spend all the time of this mortal life in God's praises: which notwithstanding in many other places he extendeth to continual eternity; as Psal. 34. I will praise the Lord continually. But often times this particle, Until, or, As long, signifieth a continuance of the time going before some event, without any excluding of the time following: as 1. Cor. 15.25. He must reign, Until he hath put all his enemies under his feet, I think they will not say, that when Christ's enemies are put under his feet, that then he shall reign no longer.  
8. Job. 10.20.  
Let him cease and leave off from me, that I may take a little comfort before I go, and shall not return: Ergo, the Soul is Mortal; there is no Resurrection.  
Answer.  
In these words, he denieth that he shall return into this Mortal life, and converse amongst men in this World: But he denieth not that he in the mean season, hath his being, and doth live, until again he see God in the flesh; even the same job, who then was afflicted: as himself saith. chap. 19.26.  
9 job. 3.11.  
Why died I not when I came out of the Womb? so should I have lain quiet, and been at rest.  
Answer.  
job in these words, doth not deny, that the Souls after death do live, feel, and understand: but only he saith; the Miseries of this present life are not felt.  
Instance.  
job would not wish for a bad change: but if there be evils felt in the life to come, he wished for a bad change: Ergo. etc.  
Answer.  
job wished not for the death of the wicked, but of the godly.  
Instance.  
But Job maketh Kings and Princes also, which gather Gold unto them. vers. 14.15. small and great, good and bad. vers. 16, 17, 18, 19 partakers of this rest.  
Answer.  
It plainly appeareth out of the whole process and discourse of Jobs words, that he doth not teach what is the state of men after this life; but only desireth to be rid out of his present misery. And therefore through humane infirmity and impatience, he compareth the sense and feeling of his present miseries with the death and state of the Dead, whatsoever it be. As they who are grievously tormented with present Distresses and Calamities, prefer any thing whatsoever, before that which they suffer. So also he saith in the 7. chap. speaking as one despairing of delivery in this life: Remember that my life is but a wind, and that mine eye shall not return to see pleasure. For so he expoundeth himself, when he addeth, vers. 10. He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more. So likewise in the 17. chap. My breath is corrupt, my days are corrupt, & the Grave is ready for me. They are words of one despairing of life & salvation, God being wroth and angry.  
10. Job. 34.14.15.  
14 If he set his heart upon man, and gather unto himself his spirit and his breath. 15. All flesh shall perish together, and man shall return unto dust.  
Answer.  
Job doth not here say, that the Soul doth either sleep, or perish: but that by the departure of the Soul from the Body, the Body dieth and is dissolved: yet not that the Body doth utterly perish; for so it should repugn other plain places that warrant the Resurrection.  
11. Job. 14.12.  
Man sleepeth, and riseth not; for he shall not wake again, nor be raised from his sleep, till the Heaven be no more.  
12. Act. 7.60.  
And when he had thus spoken, he fell asleep.  
13. 1. Cor. 15.51.  
We shall not all sleep, but we shallbe all changed.  
14. 1. Thes. 4.13.  
I would not have you ignorant concerning them which are asleep. In these places, the dead are said to sleep: Ergo, The Soul sleepeth.  
Answer.  
In these and such like places, is used a figure of speech called, Synecdoche, translating that which is proper unto the Body, to the whole man. For that this belongeth to the Body, which is to be recalled from death to life, as it were to awake from sleep; many places of Scripture declare: As job. 7. Behold now I sleep in the dust. For not the Soul, but the Body only sleepeth in the dust or Grave.  
15. Mat. 24.46.  
Blessed is that Servant, whom his Master, when he cometh, shall find so doing.  
16. Mat. 25.34.  
Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom.  
17. Mark. 13.13.  
13 And ye shallbe hated of all men for my name's sake. But whosoever shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.  
27 And he shall then send his Angles, and gather to gather his elect, from the four Winds.  
18. Dan. 12.1.2.  
1 And at that time, my people shallbe delivered, every one that shallbe found written in the Book.  
2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth, shall awake, some to everlasting life, etc.  
These places do plainly show, that Blessedness, and the Kingdom promised to the godly, shall then first fall unto them at the last day: Ergo, Souls go not presently to heaven after death of the Body.  
Answer.  
Those places do not show that: But they show, that at the last day, when the Bodies shallbe raised up again, the Souls that already are in Heaven, shall by being joined to the bodies again, have their felicity and glory consummated, and made absolute. For so we pray; Thy Kingdom come: when yet now, God also reigneth in us.  
19 1. Cor. 15.19.  
If in this life only we have Hope, we are of all men most miserable. Of this place, they reason thus.  
He that is blessed and happy before the Resurrection, is not without the Resurrection most miserable.  
But we without the Resurrection, should be of all men most miserable; Ergo, we are not before the Resurrection, blessed and happy.  
Answer.  
To the Mayor we answer: That he is not miserable without the Resurrection, who can not only before it, but without it also, be blessed: But we are in such wise blessed before it, that notwithstanding without it following and ensuing, we can not enjoy that former blessedness: because, that God with so inseparable a knot hath joined together the beginning, & proceeding, and finishing or perfection of the elects blessedness; that none can have the beginning, who must not come to the end and consummation thereof. Wherefore we must rise again, or we must want also the Celestial blessedness before the Resurrection. Rom. 8.11. If the spirit of him that raised up jesus from the dead, dwell in you; he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal Bodies.  
20. Heb. 11.39.  
These all through Faith are dead, and received not the Promise. Therefore they received not their Country.  
Answer.  
Although when they died, they had not found their Country; yet would it not follow of these words, that they are not at all, or have no sense after death: for he that is not, or hath no sense, seeketh not his Country. Secondly, it is not there spoken of the life after death, which is led in the Celestial country, spoken of in 2. Cor. 5. from vers. 1. unto 10. but of this life; in which the faithful walking their pilgrimage, sought for the Celestial country, not finding their Country on Earth.  
21. If presently after death, the godly were blessed; then injury was done unto them, who were called again into this mortal life.  
Answer.  
It was not iniurions to them, seeing God is debtor to no man. God did raise them up for the manifesting of his glory. Now what can happen better, or more acceptable unto the Godly, then to serve for the manifesting of his glory, either by life or by death? Therefore there was no injury done unto them. Phil. 1. As always, so now, Christ shall be magnified in my Body, whether it be by life or by death. etc.  
22. The Soul hath neither sense nor action, but by bodily instruments; and therefore being naked of those instruments, it is also destitute of sense, motion, and operation.  
Answeré.  
Although we grant the Antecedent that the Souls action and sense is by the instruments of the Body, while it is in the Body before this natural or corporal death; yet notwithstanding that it is not so with the Soul after death, when it is freed from the Body, both learned Philosophers do confess, and the word of God testifieth. 1. Cor. 13.9. We know in part, and we prophecy in part: but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shallbe abolished.  
¶ Thus (I hope) are sufficiently disprooned those wicked Adversaries of this known and necessary Truth, The Soul is Immortal. And the Scriptures falsely by them alleged, rightly and fully interpreted according to their true sense. By which reproof of the Adversary, and disproof of their cause, the truth is more approved, and stronglier confirmed: For contraries by their contraries, are ever made more manifest. God give the Truth a speedy victory in the hearts of his people, that Errors may be beaten down, Satan confounded, and all our Enemies vanquished; that we may triumph with our Captain that Lion of the Tribe of luda, our Lord Jesus Christ.    

Athenagoras an Athenian and a Christian Philosopher, flourished in the time of Marcus Aurelius, Antoninus, and Commodus, Emperors of Rome, within two hundred years after Christ: and in his Book of the Resurrection, he reasoveth thus.  
Reason's touching things belonging to Mankind, are some drawn from Natural order, some from the order of God's Providence; such as are the reasons concerning the Resurrection of the Dead. If then we can prove, that God is able to know this, and to will it, we shall then even in a manner, prove the thing itself.  
God before he made Man, knew the whole World, and all the parts thereof; and how to order, mix, and compound the Elements one with another, in the workmanship of every several man. In like manner, when he dissolveth his work, he understandeth whither, and unto what estate every part and parcel thereof shall come, at the last. He therefore knoweth from whence they are in like manner to be taken again, and by what means they are to be brought again into the same form they were before, and how to compound the same man again. God his cunning & might is the same that was. And even as he was also able to make that which he knew from the beginning; so that which he yet knoweth, is he in like manner able to make new again. God, seeing that he is Wisdom itself, did therefore make nothing in vain. He did not in vain make Man partaker of Wisdom: therefore to some certain end: But not unto this end, that things either above, or beneath us, should use Man to their own behoof: for those things stand no need of this use, but rather were created themselves for our use. God therefore made Man for himself, and for the contemplation of God's Goodness and Wisdom in his whole workmanship. God indeed made Man to the end he might live; but yet not to be utterly extinct like unto Beasts: for unto this living creature, that heareth within itself, the similitude of God it author, by the Understanding and Reason, hath God given Everlasting life. For verily bruit Beasts were not created for themselves, but for the use of others: which when it ceaseth, the preservation or restitution of them is not any more necessary. But Men were not so created, that they should serve for the use of others; but that their life might so be continued, that they considering the Might and Wisdom of their Author, and keeping his Laws, might enjoy Everlasting life, together with those with whom they lead their lives from the beginning. For God verily gave unto Man a nature that consisteth of a Soul immortal; and such a Body, as might unite itself to such a Soul contemplating Heavenly things, and imitating God, by the keeping of his heavenly Laws. This Act therefore concerneth Eternity. This end constitute in the inmost Act, declareth that Man shallbe everlasting: to wit, in his nature, which conduceth unto such like Act, by the coupling together of the Soul and of the Body. Which, if at any time it be dissolved, is to be restored by the Resurrection, hoped for of us, not through a vain Hope, but through Faith, a most certain sure commander; to wit, through God's determinate purpose, creating such like nature of man to such like everlasting end and office. God hath not appointed to any other use, but hath ordained him according to the inward act of his nature, to imitate God by the contemplation and observation of Heavenly things. Which end assuredly, seeing it is the inmost in his nature, and diracted to everlastingness, doth declare, that Man shallbe everlasting: Man I say, not the Soul only; but the whole, compounded of Soul and Body: For God, to constitute this, brought together the Soul and Body, as parts. The procreation of man's composition, is the nature and common life of the man compounded, gathered of the actions and passions as well of Body as Soul: The end therefore of the compound, is common; that is to say, the imitating of God, and the enjoying of him by the same. God's justice also must draw unto judgement both Soul & Body, to bear the reward or punishment, according to the action & passion, and common life. And the end can not be common and one, & justly exhibited, unless it should belong unto one commonthing, and that to be men, who commonly had wrought it: And to this, is necessary the Resurrection of the dead.  
God hath given to man, the judgement of Understanding and reason, that he may know those things that may be understood concerning God; to wit, his Goodness, Wisdom, and Righteousness. Seeing then, that these are sempiternal; it followeth, that man also is borne to things sempiternal, and shall be sempiternal: Man I say, compounded; for unto him is given the use of judgement, the office of Virtues, and imitation of Heavenly things. And unless he should remain compound, suchlike use & office, should not always continue. And it cannot be, that Man can be everlasting, if he rise not again from death. And unless Man should be everlasting, rashly and in vain should the Soul of the Body be joined to so many wants and innumerable passions. In vain should the Body be withdrawn by Reason, from following delights & pleasures: vain & rash should be the painful use of Virtues, and the Religious observation of justice and Laws. Those Creatures, that have their perseverance everlasting, do differ therein, according to the diversity of their Natures: Angels have it immovably; the Heavenly bodies moveably, but continually: But Men, moveably & interrupt. The Soul truly hath a continual perseverance; the Body a life left for a time: but so hath not a bruit Beast. For according to the Nature of the Body, we daily waiting, do fear a dissolution: but according to the Nature of the Soul, use of Virtues, and knowledge of the Creator, we look for the Resurrection of the Body. Moreover, we do no less, for all this, call the life of the Body, Sempiternal; for that, for a time, it lieth dead, through the separation of the Soul. As also, we call every man's life, until his death, one and continual; although it seem by the course of times as it were, cut off; & through the changing of ages, to be in like manner changed.  

That the Resurrection, is of God's Providence and justice.  
GOD, by the same Wisdom that he made and maketh all things, doth also daily and hourly provide for every thing: And by that justice that he placed several degrees in the World, by the same, doth he give everywhere to every thing, the things belonging to it. This providence provideth for man, compounded of Soul and Body, nourishment & succession: And in like manner for Man compounded, he provideth judgement, justly to dispense the common reward or punishment, for the actions or passions common to Soul and Body. But suchlike judgement is less fulfilled in this present life, where the Wicked for the most part, are prosperous, and the Godly and Righteous, almost always in adversity. Neither in the other life, can this judgement be fulfilled, distributing justly things that are common, unless there may follow the Resurrection of the Bodies. The Body (verily) as it hath been the fellow of the Soul in all actions and passions, as well of Virtues as of Vices; and companion in Holiness and Martyrdom: so ought it also to have like lot in Pain or Reward; therefore the fame Body must arise again. For unless there remained rewards of the life to come, God's Providence and justice might be had in doubt; yea, and Man should be more miserable than bruit Beasts, who for Religion & justice sake, depriveth himself of bodily delights, & hazardeth himself in innumerable dangers: yea, Virtue herself, Religion, and Laws, should be dotings and detriments. Unless the Bodies rife again, God's justice hath no place in the Soul and body. Not in the Body: because it should be unjust for the Soul to have reward of those labours wherein the Body suffered a great part, and cannot itself have part in that reward. Not in the Soul: because it should be unjust for the Soul alone to suffer punishment for so many grievous sins, which of itself it had not committed, if the Body had not been joined unto it: for thorough the means of the Body, even of necessity, Pleasure and Passion, it abideth many sharp showers or perturbations, and sinneth very often. Vices are not of the Soul only; but are in the whole Man, drawn from the wants of the Body, and provoking of the same. In like manner are Virtues in the Whole man; for if the Soul had never come into the Body, it should not have needed Fortitude, Continency, Sufferance, Counsel in matters of affairs, and the like justice. Virtues than are infused: from hence truly in the Soul, but from thence in the Body, because that all men do confess, that Virtues (at the leastwise those that are Moral) are certain enurings of our Soul and Body. Then it is not just for the Soul alone, to have either, the punishment of Vices, or reward of Virtues. The Laws given from Heaven, are not given to the Soul only, but to Man also: For there was no need to affray the Soul from Adultery, Man slaughter, Theft, and such like things, which belong only to the Body & bodily use. The whole man then, that is tied to the Laws, must justly either receive reward for keeping of the Laws, or else punishment for omitting his duty. Seeing that all things every one, have their proper ends, according to the diversity of their Natures, it must needs be, that this Nature endued with Reason, should also obtain her proper end. But this end is not lack of pain; for that is also common to other Bodies without life: Neither again, is it a sensual delight; for that is common to bruit Beasts: but it is rather somewhat agreeable to the proper and chief nature, virtue, and action thereof; that is to say, reasonable and intellectual; a precept wherein continually to rest, and in which estate, Virtue herself may enjoy her rewards: Such like end, in this present life, we can never attain; therefore in the life to come. But seeing there is an end of humane life and actions, and that this life and actions, are common to the whole man; it must needs follow, that that end must needs belong to the whole man. By the which consequence, we may surely know that there shallbe a Resurrection: especially because that our Heavenly workman hath made all things for himself: therefore hath he given unto us, from the beginning, Reason and Understanding, able to regard Heavenly things, that we might contemplate him, or behold him in his works. From whence is concluded, that the contemplation of God, is the firm and absolute end of man..  
These things have we briefly spoken of the Resurrection, not purposing hereby eloquently to set forth all things that may hereof be spoken: but even a few, such as are most fit for the time, which the hearers may very easily learn.  
FINIS.    

A Book of Xenocrates, a Philosopher of Plato his sect, concerning Death.  
The speakers are, Socrates, Clinias, and Axiochus.  
WHen I went unto Cynosarges, and was now come to Ilissum, I heard ones voice calling me by names; And turning myself, I saw Clinias, the son of Axiochus, running toward the Well Calliroe; and together with him, Damon the Musician, and Carmides the son of Glaucus, of whom that same excellent cunning Musician, was my very dear and especial friend: Therefore I thought good to go back again and meet them, that we might more leisurely and easily go together: But Clinias weeping, said. O Socrates, the present time requireth, that we should show forth that Wisdom which you have always spoken of to us: for my Father is vexed with a sudden and intolerable Disease; and seemeth to be even at death's door, and to take it very unpatiently: although in times past, he was wont to mock those that feared death, as though they were afraid at the countenance of an imagined Spirit: Come (I pray you) and blame him, as you were wont, that he may easily bear necessity: Go therefore with us, and together with others, do a godly work.  So. 
You have made me very desirous, O Clinias! to do what I can, to fulfil your request, especially seeing the work is holy, which you crave to be done; let us therefore make haste: for if the matter be so, it is time to make haste.  Cli. 
So soon as he shall see you, O Socrates, he shall begin to recover: for it hath often happened, that he in some sort repent.  So. 
Then we went unto him by the Walls, thorough the Peritoman Fields; for he dwelled night the Gates towards the Amazons Pillar: And we found him sound of limb, and strong of body; but weak in mind, and greatly standing need of comfort, and often times staying to take breath, and fetching sighs and groans, with many tears, and clapping of his hands. Which when I saw; What now, Axiochus (said I) Where is now that your old & boasted Constancy? Where are the perpetual praises of Virtues? Where is your wonderful magnitude and boldness of Mind? For even as an ill or sluggish Wrestler may in the wrestling School appear courageous till he come to try all; so have you fainted and yielded in this conflict. Why, consider you not the order and course of Nature, seeing you are so worthy a man, and so well learned: and if no other thing, yet that you are an Athenian? Remember you not that vulgar and old worn Sentence, wherein it is said, That this life is a certain Pilgrimage; & that we ought to behave ourselves rightly, & with an equal mind, as wanderers in a strange Country, and so come to that thing which is due and necessary; not with a weak and feeble, but with a joyful and merry mind. But this tender softness, is more meet for Infancy, then for riper age.  Axi. 
These things, O Socrates, seem rightly spoken: But I know not how thorough imminent dangers, these same most comfortable words of patiented abiding, do slily vanish away, and are neglected: yea, there ariseth a certain repugnant extreme fear, which compasseth my mind on every side. Oh alas, I shallbe deprived of this light, & of these good things; I shall lie in darkness: Having lost my taste and sight, I shall rot in the earth, and be turned to Worms and Dust.  So. 
Thou (o Axiochus) dost join Sense with privation of Sense, without the diligent examination of Reason, and art contrary to thyself both in sayings and doings. Neither do you mark that you do both together complain of the loss of your Senses, and do sorrow for rottenness and loss of good things; as though you being about to pass over into another life, should rather flit into the privation of every Sense: Privation, I say, and that such a one, as went before the time that you were borne. For as in the Commonweal of Draco and Calisthenes, no evil hath touched you; for you were one that was not compassed with evil: so after death, nothing shall overthwart you; for you shall not be he, that may be environed with evil. Drive away therefore from you, all such like triflings, and consider thus much, that that being dissolved which was compounded, and the Soul going unto her own place, this Body that remaineth, being earthly, and without reason, can by no means be Man: for we are a Soul, an Immortal living thing shut up in a Mortal habitacle, which Nature made us as a shadow wherein to abide evil. Whereunto those things that are sweet, are Adulterous, filthy, nought, vain, fading, and mixed, with many and sundry miseries, griefs, troubles, & vexations. But those things that are grievous unto it, are of their own nature good, whole, sound, and void of sweetness: Unto it do happen hot Tumours and Swell, superfluity of Humours, decay of Senses, and corruption of the Bowels: Wherewith the Soul must needs be very much grieved and pained, being diffused and spread abroad through all the pores and passages, to bind and tie all things together. Whereby it cometh to pass, that it now desireth the life Celestial, and nighest to it of nature, and thirsteth thereafter, and after the Choir supernal. For the losing or departing out of this life, is a passage from an evil thing, unto a good.  Axtoc. 
Seeing (Socrates) that you do judge this life to be evil, why do you tarry or abide in it; especially seeing you do most of all meditate on these things, and are ateacher of others, and dost excel all the rest in mind & Godly virtues?  Soc. 
Axiochus, you are no sufficient witness for me, but do think & esteem as do the people of Athens. But I would very gladly, and wish in my heart, to have the knowledge of these common things, and not to know things superfluous and vain. Those works which we spoke of, are the declamations of Prodicus the Wiseman, some bought for six pence, some two groats, and some four; for verily he teacheth nothing of free cost; and hath always in his mouth that saying of Epicharmus, Manus manum lavat; dans aliquid aliquid accipe: i. The one hand washeth the other: give some thing, and take some thing: Meaning, that one Good turn asketh another. On the former days, when in the house of Callias the son of Hippomous, he declaymed, he brought in so many things against life, that it wanted but a little, but I even then, ended my life: and from that time forward (o Axiochus) my Mind doth die continually.  Axt. 
What then are those things that he there said? I will rehearse them all, so far forth as my memory will serve me: and thus he said.  
What part of life is not full of evils? Doth not the Infant yet scarcely borne, forthwith wail and weep; and beginneth it life with sorrow; neither is there any grief wanting, but crieth and weary either for Parents, or want of necessaries, or for cold, or for heat, or for hurts? He cannot yet in words tell what he aileth: he weary, and crieth with voice; only voice hath he without words, as a sign of grief which he endureth. Now when he hath fulfilled the seventh year of his age, he is troubled and turmoylad with very many labours; for then come up Schoolmasters and Teachers, Alphabetaries and grammarians, with such others, and do bear rule over him none otherwise then a Tyrant. Then when he is somewhat more grown, Censores of Arithmetic, Distributors of Geometry, and innumerable Masters besides these, do bear rule over him. And when he is become a stripling, then doth Fear cirumvent him: the University, Prenticeship, Sceptres, and the immoderate flowing and rage of evils do dispossess him of the pleasures wherein his heart delighteth. All the time and course of his youth, he is kept in, & holden under by the Censorers of Manners, and abideth the sentence of most severe and uncorrupted judges. And when he is freed or loosed from their sentence, than Care, Consultations, & advisements, come creeping upon him while he reasoneth & discourseth within himself, what path and course of life is best for him to follow: so that by the comparison of the labours and troubles that are to come, those that are past, do seem both light, and only to be feared of Infants: For then arise expeditions of War, and Wounds, and often Skirmishes, Conflicts, and Battles. At the length, old wrinkled crooking Age creepeth upon him; upon the which, there altogether floweth every foul, filthy, and uncurable evil of Nature; as a Banker looketh for advantage, Nature requireth her Pledges, of this man, Sight; of that man, Hearing; of an other, them both: which if any do restore, then doth he dissolve, wax weak, lame, maimed, and impotent. Many live even to the utmost bounds of Old age; but then they are in mind, twice Children, fond, & decrepit: Wherefore, God in providing for Man's matters, doth in a short time, call again unto himself, those whom he loveth. Therefore Agamedes and Triphonius, when they went unto the Temple of the God Apollo, and had prayed for that thing which is the best of all other, they strait way fell so fast asleep, that they never wakened after. The same also happened unto the Priests of luno in the City Argos, when their Mother had prayed for some good gift to be given to her Sons.  
It should be prolixious and tedious to rehearse the sentences of Poets, who in divine & heavenly Poesies, do deplore the Calamities of humane life. I will rehearse one notable and famous Poet, that speaketh to this purpose, in these words. The Gods have decreed, that miserable mortal men should live in perpetual sorrow: Neither is there any thing upon the earth, more miserable, then man. Therefore (they say) that Amphirarus was chosen of jupiter and Apollo, with a wonderful great affect; and yet notwithstanding he attained not to the age of an Old man. And what dost thou think of him, who biddeth him that is new borne, to bewail the misery of his own life? But I will now leave off, lest I should seem to stray and wander wider and farther, than my purpose was. Who is there (I pray you) that doth not greatly complain of that Study, Art, Science, Trade, and Course of life, which himself hath chosen? Handicraftsmen, Hirelings, and such, let us view and consider them a little, that sit up labouring and toiling night by night, and do scarcely get things necessary for their living. Moreover, day and night do they, their wives and children, live full of complaints, and fill all the house with weeping & tears. What shall I say of Mariners, how many dangers are they hourly in? Rightly (in sooth) did Bias count Mariners in the number neither of those that are dead, nor of those that are alive: For they being earthly men, are in a doubtful-wise partakers of either estate. But Husbandry is sweet: let it be so; but hath it not always found occasion of Sorrow? For in truth, the Husbandman sometime accuseth, findeth fault with, and bewaileth Drought, sometime showers and Rain, sometime Heat, exustions and parching burning Sun, sometimes extremity of Cold, and such unseasonable weather: sometime Worms, Caterpillars, Grasshoppers, and such like devowrers. What; Is not the Commonwealth in safety and quiet? Truly it is honourable: But with how many evils and sorrows is it turmoiled? Truly it hath a certain moving, soft pleasant swelling, deceivable and troublous joy, even like to swelling and boiling Choler: but a loss sorrowful and worse than a thousand deaths. For who can be happy, when there is no remedy, but he must needs live at the people's beck? And he is mocked and hissed at, as though he were a Play or a Fable of the people, berated, flouted, fined miserable and wretched.  Soc. 
Where (o civil Axiochus) died Melchindes? Where Thomistocles? Where Ephialtes? Where all the other Captains? These things verily I never thirsted after. Neither doth it seem to be an honourable thing, to execute the Magistrates duty amongst the mad multitude. But those waitelayers that about Theramenes and Calixenus did the day after, bring under the judges or Rulers, condemned the men undiscreetly to death, whom you Axiouchus together with Triptolamus did repugn in three thousand speeches unto the people.  Axioc. 
You say true, o Socrates; And therefore from that same time, even until this day, I have ever eschewed the Tribunalshippe. Neither doth any thing seem more difficile and hard, than the government of the Commonweal. This is very plain and well known to them, who themselves have to do in civil matters. But you do so speak of these things, as one that a far off, did see them out of a Glass, or from the top of a Rock, or the prospect of a fair Tower. But myself do right well know them, seeing I was myself conversant in the matter. For verily the common sort (O Socratus my friend,) is ingrateful, full of mocks and scorns, vain, soon angried, cruel, envious, rude, heaped full of troubles and trifles: and whosoever doth familiarly acquaint himself with them, & converse amongst them, doth at the length, become far more miserable than they be themselves.  Socr. 
Seeing then (O Axiochus) you do judge, that this Discipline is above all other, most to be eschewed; What do you think of others? Are not they also to be fled from? I have furthermore more heard Prodicus, when once he said, that Death doth not belong neither to the dead, nor to those that are alive.  Axi. 
Which way (O Socrates,) or in what manner?  Socr. 
Because Death is not about the living: and the dead are not or have no being: Wherefore, neither is Death about you Axiochus; because you are not yet dead: neither if you depart this life, shall Death be about you; because you shall not be. Therefore grief should be vain, if Axiochus do bewail that, which is not about Axiochus, neither shallbe hereafter: For you do in like manner, as if you were afraid of Scylla and Centaurus, when as these Monsters are neither now about you, neither shall be at any time hereafter. For that which is horrible and to be feared, happeneth to those which are: But to those which are not, nothing is to be feared.  Axi. 
You gather these things, out of that light & vain babbling, which is now common all abroad amongst the vulgar sort: For from amongst them, cometh this copy of vain words, composed for young men's sakes. But I, who am deprived of the good things of this life, do still mourn; although you have before in your Discourse brought very strong reasons: For my sorrowing head, doth not understand the fineness of your words, neither discern the colours of your speech. Although it hear the pomp and shining of speech, yet it neglecteth, and is far away from the truth: neither can it abide those rehearsed captious Sophisms; it only attendeth on those things which can knock upon, and pierce the Mind and Soul.  So. 
Without reason (Axiochus,) do you join together the sense of evil things, and the privation of good things: And this lieth closely hidden, that he indeed is dead who is deprived of good things, the passion of evil things afflicteth the contraries. But he that is not, can neither mark or regard the orbity or privation. By what means therefore where there is wanting the notice of the things afflicting, can there be affliction? For unless in the beginning you should put a certain senses by justice, you should be afray de of Death. But now you pervert and fore turmoil yourself, fearing lest you should lose your Soul. But you do condemn your Soul to amission, that it shallbe lost, and not had again; you fear least Sense should be taken from you; and dost think that Sense existing, cannot be comprehended of that Sense, whereas there are many, and those notable Sermons of the Immortality of the Soul. For neither had Mortal nature risen to so great excellency, that it should contemn the violence of outrageous Beasts, sail and pass over the Sea, build Cities, prescribe order to Commonweals, look up into Heaven, measure the circuit of the Stars, mark the progress of the Sun and Moon, and their risings and settings, defects moreover, and swift restitutions Meridian, and double conversions; the seven Stars, & Winter in like manner, and Summer; the flaws of Wind, and the force of Rain and Stormy weather, the tempostions whurring Whorlewinde, and flashing of the Lightning; and to conclude, how the passions of the world should so wonderfully stand in eternity, unless there were in the Mind, some Divine spirit, by which it should get the intelligence of so great things. Wherefore, o my dear Axiochus, you do not flit unto Death, but unto Immortality itself. Neither shall good things be taken away from: but you shall enjoy the sound possession of good things. Neither shall you and more receive and enjoy Pleasure mixed with a mortal Body: but shall quite be set free, and utterly void of every sorrow: Thither (I say) you shall go free from this Prison; where you shall have all things quiet, and removed from sorrowful Old age: Where the exultation and rejoicing of the inhabiters, is an holy joy, and their life hath no conversing with evils; but is quiet, and nourished with Peace; viewing the nature of things, and contemplating the hidden secrets of Philosophy; not verily unto the grace of the multitude, or Theatre; but to the object of perspicuous truth.  Axio. 
Your Oration hath drawn my Mind, and moved me to affect the contrary to that it did before. I am now quite changed: for I now do not fear Death, but do wish it. But as it is the manner of Rethoricians, I also abounding, will express some thing. For now (o Socrates,) I am carried from hence up on high, and do run thorough the Divine circuit and heavenly Throne. And being delivered out of this Weakness, I am renewed so, that I am become altogether new, nothing that I was before.  Soc. 
I will also show and declare unto you (if it please you,) what Gobrias the Magian did teach me. For (said he) at that time when as Xerxes passed into Greece with an Army, his Grandfather (Gobrias by name,) was sent into Delos, to keep the Isle; were in, there were extant two Gods; where he said: That of certain Brazen Tables, which Opis and Hecaergos brought out of the North parts, that he learned, that in the solution of the Body, the Soul doth flit into a hidden place under the Earth, wherein is the Kingdom of Juno, not a straighter haul of jupiter; because the Earth must hold the middle of the World; & that must be the spherical heaven, whose one Hemisphere, the Gods and Saints do enjoy: The other, the Inferiors, partly brethren of the heavenly Saints, partly the children of the Brethren: But the places without, are the Provinces of Pluto; which are bound and environed with Walls, Rails, Bars, and Chains of Iron. First doth the River Acheron part these places insunder; and then the River Cocytus doth separate them: which when silly Souls have passed over, they must needs be brought before the upright judges, Minos and Radamanthus; to wit, into that Region which is called, Veritatis Campus 〈◊〉. The Field of Truth: Where they sit in judgement, examining the life of every one that cometh unto them. Hear no man can bolster or defend himself with lies. Whosoever then hath been led here in this life by the good Spirit, do pass over into the place of the Godly; where the Spring lasteth ever, and aboundeth with Fruits of every kind, and floweth with Springs of most clear and shining Waters, and Meadows moreover very pleasant, and bedecked with fair flourishing Flowers of sundry colours, and sweet smelling savours: Neither is there wanting the fellowship of Philosophers, nor Theatre of Poets. There are the company of Singing-men and Choristers: There is Music, singings, and sweet Concentes, Pleasant Banquets, and Holy and often Meetings, inviolable joy of Drinkers, and sweet living together. There is no excess of Heat or cold; but the nature of the Air is wholesome, tempered with light beams of the Sun. Here are the Seats of purged Souls, where they celebrate the Divine mysteries. What then hindereth, but that there may be given unto you, first honour and reward, seeing you derive your original from God? Contrarily, those that have defiled their lives with wickedness, are of the Hollish furies, suddenly snatched through Hell into Chaos and Herebus, the deepest Pit of all: where lieth the Province of the Wicked, and the vain labours of the Daughters of Danaeus; who in vain do labour to fill the Tun with water, out of whose sides filled full of holes, the water runneth so fast, as they put it in; where is the thirst of Tantulus, the bowels of Titius, the perpetual rolling Stone of Sisyphus: Whereas raging wild Beasts, biting Worms, and stinging Serpentrs do inseparably fold about the Bodies: Where inextinguible Firebrands that can never be put out, do burn up their flesh: Where wicked men are punished with all kind of torments, and are for evermore vexed with perpetual pain. These things, I heard of Gobrias. But you, O Axiochus, shall judge of these things: for I being constrained by reason, do plainly and firmly know this only, that every Soul remaineth Immortal; and that that which goeth pure from these places, do live without sorrowfulness. Wherefore, O Axiochus, whether you go upward or downward, it can none otherwise be, but you must needs be blessed, if so be you do live holily and godlily.  Axi. 
I am ashamed, o my dear friend Socrates, and it abasheth me to speak any further. The fear of Death is so far from me now, that I now do most earnestly desire to die. Your former speech, as though it were a Celestial and Heavenly Oracle, hath so persuaded me. Now therefore, I do despise this life, seeing that I am about to go into a better, & more desired place: Wherefore these things that are thus spoken, I will quietly mark, ponder, and meditate by myself. And you, o Socrates, I pray you come again unto me at afternoon.  Soc. 
I will do as you say: But I will now return again unto Cynosarges, to walk there fore my recreation, from whence I was brought hither unto you.  
Hear endeth Xenocrates Book concerning Death.  
Maecenas good, I crave of thee, my Patron for to be;  
'Gainst carping Zoilus cankered corpse, and censures bad of me.  
FINIS.   

Imprinted at London by W. White, for R. Bolton and W. White. 1611.