not follow that as fiery or as fenfitive, but only as intellective, it were a fubordinate univerfal Cause of compleat humane Generations, and that Sol & Homo generant hominem; ( save only quoad Corpus, which is but fecundum quid.) But that God is the Universal Caufe is unquestionable, whether there be any fubordinate or not.

16. And here it is no wonder if the doubts arise which were in the cafes of the forementioned Generations. Whether God as the univerfal caufe produce new-metaphyfical matter for new forms? Whether millions of Souls fince generated, have not more fuch metaphyfical matter, than the foul of Adam and Eve alone? How Souls may be faid to have more or lefs fuch matter or fubftance? Whether he educe all Souls è virtute & fœcunditate primarum, by giving them a power without any divifion or diminution of themfelves, to bring forth others by multiplication? and so cause his Creature to participate of his own facundity, or power of caufing Entities, &c. But fuch difficulties as thefe, which arife not from uncertainties in Theology, but are the meer confequents of the imperfection of humane Intellects, and the remoteness, depth, and unrevealedness of these myfterious works of God, fhould turn no man from the holding of other plain revealed truths. As that man generateth man ; that God is the chief specifying Caufe by his firft making of man, and giving him the power and bleffing of propagation, which he fill maintaineth,and with which he doth concurre: That Man is the fecond specifying Caufe in the exercise of that power of Generation which God gave him. That God is the chief univerfal Caufe; and to the production of an Intellectual nature as fuch, doth unfpeakably more than man. That the mother as cherishing the femen utriufq; Parentis, is the maternal univerfal Caufe, &c. We know not fully how it is that one Light caufeth a thoufand, without divifion or diminution of it felf: and what it is that is caufed de novo. It is cafie to say, that it is but the motion of one part of the atomes or materia fubtilis moving another, which was all pre-exiftent: But few men that can fee through a smoke or duft of atomes, will believe, that the Sun and other fiery bodies, which fhew themselves fo wonderfully to us by Motion, Light and Heat, have no peculiar Nature, Power or

Virtues

Virtues to cause all this, but meer magnitude, and figure: And that thofe Corpufcles which have fo many hundred degrees of magnitude, and figures, fhould not fall into as many hundred fuch Bodies as we call Elements, rather than into two or four.

Suppofe (which we may ad verum exquirendum) that there were no more Fire in the Univerfe than one Candle :, It having the fame nature as now it hath, that Candle would turn Cities and all combustible matter into Fire. But of the Generation of man quoad animam, I referre the Reader to Sennertus his Hypomnemata (to omit all others.)

If

And now I would know what there is in Generation

ducæ funt ut cætera

that should be against the Immortality of the Soul? will you Nemefius de Anima fay, it is because the Soul hath a Beginning? I have anfwe(which goeth under red before, that so have all Creatures: Is it because it proveth the name of Greg. the Soul material? 1. If it did, I have fhewed that you your Nyffen.) while he felves hold a perpetuity of matter : 2. But it doth not fo. endeavoureib to prove you fay, that Incorporeal Spirits generate not: I anfwer, Souls,doth bus peremThat is but a naked, unproved affertion. If you fay, that ptorily conclude [Si Angels do not: I answer, that 1. that is not because they are animæ ex ortu fiunc unable or unapt if God thought it fitteft for them: nor 2. can mutuo, ratione proany man prove de facto whether they do or not. Chrift videntiæ fiunt, & cafaith, They marry not: but he faith not, whether they at all- que ex propagatione propagate their species or not: I know the negative is taken generis oriuntur: fi for certain; and I fay not that it is not true, but that it is funt ex nihilo, Creatio hæc eft, neq; venot certain nor at all known, and therefore an fit fuppofition to argue from, against the Immortality of the Soul. ab omnibus operibus And I must confefs, that for my part, as I have oft read, fuis: Non ergo nunc Forma fe multiplicant, and that the Fire can more multiply animæ fiunt: But there or encrease it self than Earth, and as I know that the more no appearance of a noble any Nature is, the more like it is to God, and there- just proof in any thing that he faith, against fore more potent, more active, more fccund and productive; either of the Opinions fo I fhould farr rather think that the Angelical Nature can which he opposeth. propagate it felf than the Humane, if God had not told me the later, and faid nothing pro or contra of the former. And, therefore make no doubt, but if it do not, (which no man knoweth) it is not because things material are more able, but for other reafons unknown to us. Whether because

Bbbb 3

God

rum eft, cellavit Deus

is

God will have this lower World, to be the Nidus vel Matrix Calorum, and the Seminary of Heaven, and all multiplication to be here, or what it is, we know not.

But if it be on the other fide concluded, that the whole fubftance of a Soul doth proceed directly and immediately from God, it doth make no great alteration in this cafe, or any of the coincident cafes about humane propagation: if you confider, 1. That it is impoffible that there fhould be any fubftance which is not totally from God, either immcdiately, or mediately: And that what is faid to be mediately from Him, hath in it as much of his Caufation as if there were no medium: For God is not a partial Caufe, but a total in fuo genere; and he is as neer to the effect as if there were no fecond Caufe. 2. That the Somatifts themselves fay, that in the Generation of Plants and Animals (which they fuppofe to be totally Corporeal) there is not the leaft degree of fubftance produced de novo, and therefore there is none, but what was totally of God, and the Parents do but cause inftrumentally the uniting of matter præ-exiftent. Therefore if in the Generating of Man, the Parents do but inftrumentally cause the uniting of fubftance which is totally from God, though not præ-exiftent, it little differenceth the Cafe as to the confequents. 3. Efpecially confidering that what God doth, he doth by an establifht Law of Nature: As in his making of the World he made the Sun a Caufa Univerfalis conftantly to fend forth the emanation of Light, Heat, and moving force upon paffive matter, and thereby to produce effects diverfifyed by the preparations and reception of that matter; as to foften Wax, to harden Clay, to make a Dunghill ftink, and a Rose smell fweet, to produce a poyfonous and a wholfom Plant, a Nightingale and a Toad, &c. and this without any dishonour to the Sun: So if God the Father of Spirits, the Central efficient of Souls, have made it the original Law of Nature, that he will accordingly afford his communicative Influx, and that in Humane Generations, fuch and fuch Preparations of matter, shall be as Receptive of his emanations for fuch and fuch Forms, or fpiritual fubftances, and that he will be herein but an Univerfal Caufe of Souls as Souls, and not of Souls as clean or unclean;

and

and that this fhall depend upon the preparation of the Recipient (whether it be the Body, or a fenfitive foregoing Principle) (till keeping at his pleasure,as a Voluntary Agent, the fufpenfion or dispose of the effect), this would make no great alteration, neither as to the point of original fin, nor any other weighty confequent.

ΟΛ

OBJECTION XIII.

Mne quod oritur interit: That which is not eternal as to puft duration, is not eternal as to future duration: But the Soul is not eternal as to paft duration: Ergo.

Anf. I confefs this argument will prove that the Soul is not mortal ex neceffitate fuæ nature, without dependance on a Voluntary preferver. And therefore Cicero after molt other Philofophers, who ufeth the Major for a contrary Conclufion, miftook in this, that he thought the Soul was as natural an Emanation from God as the beams or light is from the Sun and therefore that it was naturally eternall both à parte ante & à parte poft: which ride Arnobius and other. Ancients argue as much against the Platonists Immortality of the Soul, as against the Epicureans Mortality, fo that (as I faid before) one would think that they were heretical in this point that doth not make them well. But it is only this natural Eternity which they confute: And when the Philofophers fay, that Omne quod oritur interit, they can mean, or at leaft prove no more but this, that it is not Everlasting ex neceffitate nature. But yet 1. It may be in its nature fitted to be perpetual. 2. And by the will of the Creator made perpetual. Every Creature did oriri de novo: and yet every one doth not interire.

OBJECT.

OBJECTION XIV.

Would you fee Phyfi- A Mong all your Arguments for the Souls Immortality, there

cal Arguments for the Souls Incorporeity and

a multitude that have

arguments I pretermit,

Vid. & Savonarol,

are none ones.

Anfw. Morality is grown fo contemptible a thing, with Immortality? Among fome debauched perfons, that a very argument is invali done it, I de fire you to dated by them or contemned, if they can but call it Moral. read Plotinus, Én. 4. But what is Morality but the modality of Naturals? And the 1. 7. of the Immort. fame argument may be Natural and Moral. Indeed we call of the Son!; whofe that a Caufa Moralis oft-times which doth not neceffitate the because I would not be effect: And yet fometimes even moral Caufes do infalilly Tedious in tranfcribing and certainly produce the eff.ct. But caufation and arguthat which is already mentation are different things, and fo is an effect and a Lofo well written (abate- gical confequence. Will you call the confequents of Gods ing their peculiar Conown Wisdom, Juftice, Veracity, Goodness, &c. uncertain as ceits.) coming from a Morall Caufe? The Soul is an Intellectual free agent, and adapted to Moral operations; And this is its excellency and perfection, and no disparagement to it at all. And if you will better read them over, you will finde that my Arguments are both Phyfical and Moral: For I argue from the Acts or operations of the Soul to its Powers and Nature; And from its Acis and Nature to its ends, with many fuch like, which are as truly Phyfical media, as if I argued from the nature of Fire and Earth, that one if not hindered will afcend, and the other defcend. And other men have given you other Arguments in their Phyficks and Metaphyficks.

1. I. c. ult.

OBJECT I O N XV.

You feem to confess that you cannot prove the endless duration of the Soul by any Argument from Nature alone, But only that it shall live another Life which you call a Life of Re

tribution.

Anfw. I told you, that a great probability of it, I thus prove: God hath made the Soul of a Nature not corruptible,

but