Deo in the two former ex Deo not de Deo IV. Another sort would have the souls to be made by the Angels ex igne spiritu neither de Deo nor ex Deo So Seleucus Hermeas and the Carpocratians who held that all the world was made by the Angels These foure opinions the Authour saith are antiquated with those who professe assent unto sacred Scripture V. The first of the other quaternion mainteined the first soul indeed to be created by God of nothing and breathed into Adam but the rest to be propagated successively with the propagation of the body yet to be immortall These also were divided in their conceipts Some thought the soul to be corporeall and corporeally generated Some thought it to be a Spirit and spiritually produced somewhat like as one candle is lighted by another Thus Apollinaris and others in the western Churches as Zanchie faith VI. Others denied the production of it per traducem affirming that new souls are created simply by God and each put into their proper bodies This Jerome saith was the generall tenet and doctrine of the Church in his time VII Augustine neither condemned those who say that it cometh per traducem nor those that say that souls are created de novo by God yet he saith he could not see how this opinion of the absolute creation of the soul could be confirmed by Scripture therefore he desired Jerome to help him in this point with his advice VIII Lastly some thought that the souls are dayly created by God But some of these again imagined that the souls are created without the body extra corpus afterwards put in others that they are created in the infusion and infused in the creation But amidst and maugre all the rest this is Zanchie's and may be our determination That rationall souls are created immediately by God of nothing after the organizing of the body or when the body is entirely organized in the body Not to meddle with the anasceuasticall or refutative part of the contrary assertions For rectum est index sui obliqui this thesis may seem more consonant to Scripture to Ecclesiastick writers to reason to Heathen Authours by all which we shall in order but very briefly try it Onely we must premise here That the time of the creation of the soul beareth an intimate respect unto the latter proposition and that we need not make a distinct proving that it is created of nothing since thus we have Zanchie for our praecedent and 2. because those who contend for a matter out of which the soul should be made by God are more exotick authours and 3. their matter is altogether inconvenient and 4. Creation in a proper sense which is an absolute and simple creation excludeth whatsoever matter and 5. because by this creation abstracting the consideration ex quo from whence it is created namely out of nothing we shall conclude against the way of production per traducem which is the principall opposite opinion So that now to the second proposition as at first we named it That God is the Authour of our souls we shall adde in our discourse a differencing of his efficiency of the body and the soul Of our body he is the Authour by our Parents of our soul absolutely by himself by creation This we endeavour to prove first by Scripture And the first place in Scripture should be Exod. xxi 22. wherein God giveth them a law concerning the striking of a woman with child But then we must reade the Scripture in the Septuagints translation and then two things are to be granted first that we have the right and true translation of the Septuagint and secondly that this translation is true which indeed great Ecclesiastick writers have followed The words in their version are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If two men strive together and strike a woman with child and the child abortively cometh forth not shaped he shall be mulcted but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if the child shall be fully shaped then thou shalt pay life for life Whereupon is inferred by this Greek version that during the time of the embryo there is no soul in it and therefore if it perish by the stroke the woman escape the punishment must be but pecuniary because no murther because of no man because the soul is not in it but if the child proveth abortive and cometh out fully shaped both must die because then the body is animated and therefore it is murther So that the soul is not propagated with the seed for then the soul should successively grow to perfection with the body and then there could be thus no abortive without murther This reading the Greek Fathers and others who generally do follow the Septuagint do follow Yet since the originall which our English translation followeth maketh not at all for our purpose we will passe over this place without any urging of it and without any observation how the Interpreters and in how many respects were here mistaken Onely by the way we may take notice that we have here the judgement of the Septuagint delivered in favour of our cause and also the judgement of the Greek Fathers and others who use their interpretation of Scripture and also the determination of Canon law grounded as one noteth upon this place according to the Septuagint That he is not a murtherer who maketh an abortive before the infusion of the soul The second authority in Scripture may be Zach. xii 1. The burthen of the word of the Lord for Israel saith the Lord which stretcheth forth the heavens and layeth the foundation of the earth and frameth the spirit of man within him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in interiori ejus as Montanus rendreth it in medio as Pagnine This place seemeth not onely to conclude the peculiar production of the soul by God but the time also especially the manner in the body nay in the heart likely which is as they say primum vivens ultimum moriens Isa lvii 16. For I will not contend for ever neither will I be alwaies wroth for the Spirit should fail before me and the souls which I have made In this sacred testimony I conceive two objections excluded That it may be understood of the souls of our first Parents this may be the first But then it is to be answered Dicit pluraliter he speaketh in generall SOULS and he speaketh as de futuro I VVILL not contend FOR EVER I VVILL not be ALVVAYES wroth Secondly It may be objected That God may be said to be the Authour of our souls and to make our souls although our parents do conduce as God is said to be the Authour of our bodies It may be answereed that God speaketh here of the making of the souls signanter in way of especiall appropriation which I have made I have made them Eccles xii 7. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return
Jupiter his brethren and his kindred were not Deities This proposition is supposed not to be proved Secondly That some of the more ignorant sort of the Gentiles might take them to be Gods not knowing their originall and mistaking their Prophets when they spake of them as also because their understandings were not fitted by contēplation to extract out of the species of the creatures a conceit of the nature of a pure Divine essence For neither is this so great a stupidity as that of the vulgar and baser sort of the Papists who terminate their worship in the images themselves by Parisiensis his own confession cap. 23. De legibus Sicut multi simplices homines hodie sunt qui inter imagines sanctorū ipsos sanctos in suis or ationibus non distinguunt They have not the trick when they pray before an image of a Saint in every act of their worship to frame an elevation of their minds from the representation unto the Saint Very likely then it is that the worst of the Gentiles might think those false Gods very Gods and also might as the Papists before place their worship in the images of their Gods because the devil now and then did speak his oracles through them But thirdly Though the fillier of the Heathen might think them to be the onely Gods yet the more learned and intelligent of them did not firmly believe their absolute Divinities Tertullian therefore in his Apologetick speaketh plainly to the Heathen and appealeth unto their consciences Appellamus provocamus à vobis ad conscientiam vestram illa nos judicet illa nos damnet si poter it negare omnes illos Deos vestros homines fuisse And this may appear out of their practice to wards them which was so grosse that the same Father telleth them Nescio plúsne de vobis dii vestri quà m de Christianis querantur I know not whether your Gods have more reason to complain of you or of Christians Witnesse their fowl uncleannesses in their temples even by their Priests witnesse their personating their Gods by that tetrum genus pantomimorum and their whipping of their Diana on the stage And he telleth them also how coursely they used their domestick Gods Domesticos Deos domesticâ potestate tractatis oppignerando venditando demutando aliquando in trullam de Minerva And Varro he saith brought into publick view no lesse then thirty Jupiters without heads Diogenes as the same Father but rather Diagoras being in an inne and having nothing to seeth his supper with took Hercules his image and made a fire with it with this insultation Now Hercules to thy thirteenth labour seeth me my pottage And S. Augustine De civit Dei ii 12. besides many other places taxeth them that they forbad the Poets to speak any ill of any citizen of Rome under a great penaltie but let them speak what they would of the Gods as if they had majorem curam Romae unius quà m totius coeli I might also tell you what handling they had in Homer Venus wounded and comforted by a Goddesse by telling her it was their fortune 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We suffer in heaven many things from men on earth Mars was imprisoned 13. moneths Juno wounded by Hercules Pluto hurt with a dart Surely blind Homer jeered them Socrates in contempt of their Deities sware by an Oke and a Goat as Tertullian again And one God would suffice him for which he died as an Heathen martyr Excellent is that of Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato maketh a difference betwixt his serious epistles and not serious by this signe His serious ones he beginneth with one God the other with Gods And Tertullian saith Multi Dii habuerunt Caesare miratum and we do not use to be angry with our superiours as Aristotle saith in his Rhetoricks And that the better and learneder of the Heathens could not heartily believe that they were very Gods may be collected out of the lives of the Gods their conversation such as did not become men much lesse Gods Nay Tertullian speaking to them of the behaviour of their gods asketh them Quot tamen potiores viros Although they were somewhat good how many better men have ye left below as Aristides and Socrates And Augustine saith merrily Neque enim erant suo Pontifice meliores The Gods were no better then their Priests And Cyrill of Hierusalem flouteth Jupiter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as before If Jupiter be an adulterer for shame let him not be called a God What reverent esteem could those have of their God in the night who worshipped the Sunne and in the day who worshipped the Moon They were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Atheists in the night which worshipped the Sunne and Atheists in the day which worshipped the Moon as Cyrill wittily But as the same Authour upon this subject breaketh out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so I We rake a dunghill in this discourse of dunghil-gods We will therefore roll up this proposition in a better which is the principall one for the exposition of the text That the learneder sort of the Gentiles some more clearly some more indistinctly according to the measure of common illumination from God and light of their own reason did ultimately aim at a true Divinity even amongst their false ones Here might I inlarge my self by treating of the cognoscibility of God by humane understanding without any supernaturall doctrine which Lombard handleth in the third Distinction of his first book and which the Schoolmen dispute of and I might speak of the wayes how we may come to the knowledge of God and I might tell you that a rationall facultie without an infinite second depravation and some thicker mist of Satan doth not nay cannot frame to it self a conceit of an absolute Deitie of such a nature as is either inferiour to it self or not transcendently above it here also might I again enter upon that large theme How farre the Heathens have gone in their expressions of God But to confirm this conclusion I will onely produce one or two testimonies out of the Fathers and one out of sacred Scripture and so passe this naturall Divinity Arnobius in his first book adversùs Gentes bringeth in the Gentiles endeavouring to clear themselves of a supposed imputation and slander that they acknowledged not the true God and they speak as if they were angry that Christians should think so of them Sed frustrà nos falso calumnioso incessitis crimine tanquam eamus inficias esse Deum majorem cùm à nobis Jupiter nominetur Optimus habeatur Maximus And the same Ecclesiastick writer telleth them that they mingled the true God with the false Dissimilia copulare atque in unam speciem cogere inductâ confusione conamini And to confirm this opinion of the Father we may make use of a place in Macrobius in the first book of his Saturnalia where he undertaketh to reduce all
words import more then we can say The Prophet may well go on Marvellous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right well It knoweth onely that they are marvellous and so above knowledge My bones are not hid from thee though I be made secretly and fashioned beneath in the earth Thine eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect and in thy book were all my members written which day by day were fashioned while as yet there were none of them To this place happily S. Augustine alludeth in his Confessions speaking of his parents Patricius and Monica per quorum carnem introduxisti me in hanc vitam quemadmodum nescio how I know not The wombe is Gods doore which he openeth to give men induction into the world Think we that a little petty matter of seed by the created virtue of a created faculty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they call it could or should without a supernaturall direction and superefficiencie elaborate and frame and square and polish in the obscure wombe in no long time such a structure of flesh so fashionable so serviceable so strong and trimme so ordered and connexed that an Heathen hereupon called God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the best Artist and another called mans body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fair variegated piece of a wise builder Job excellently in this matter chap. x. 8. where speaking to God he saith Thy hands have made me and fashioned me together round about yet thou dost destroy me Remember I beseech thee that thou hast made me like the clay and wilt thou bring me into the dust again Hast thou not poured me out as milk and crudled me as cheese Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh and hast fensed me with bones and sinews Nature that particular power which God hath put in every creature to do actions convenient to its species is it self Gods servant in the working as his creature in the being and although it could by the solitary virtue of its own form without a Divine concurrence work an effect yet that effect also should be Gods it self and the form of it being Gods How much more shall God be the Authour of that which he worketh by it As of the grain committed to the ground S. Paul saith God giveth it a body so it may be said of this humane seed God giveth it a body The Father who knoweth the child better then the child the Father and the Mother that knoweth the child better then the Father and therefore the Father loveth the child better then the child the Father and the Mother loveth the child better then the Father as he speaketh in his Ethicks know not yet how the child is wrought and made in the wombe They know the effect they know not the manner of the effecting Eccles xi 5. the secresie of Gods way in making all things is expressed by the privatenesse and obscuritie how the bones do grow in the wombe of her that is with child This is one of the wayes whereby he describeth there symbolically the abstrusenesse of Gods works As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit nor how the bones do grow in the wombe of her that is with child even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all Certainly the matter of generation is not much unlike that matter out of which all things were created at first which matter Moses Gen. i. calleth the heaven and the earth not formally so but because there was out of it to be produced not by a physicall but omnipotent virtuality the particulars of heaven and earth And the same power that could and goodnesse that would and wisdome that knew how to fashion out of such a disguised matter so brave a world doth and must if ever it be done raise out of the semblable subject the most exact and excellent structure of the body of the modell of the universe The Egyptian Doctour Trismegist shall conclude the truth of this point 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnderstand O Sonne the framing of man in the wombe search out accurately the art of the building learn who made this fair and divine shape of man as he goeth on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who turned the eyes who bored the nostrils and eares who extended and tied the sinews who derived the veins who set and firmed the bones who invested the flesh with skin who divided and branched the fingers who hath inlarged our steps who hath digged our pores who hath stretched out the spleen who hath made the heart like a pyramid who hath drawn out the liver 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who hath made the lungs like a pipe who made the capacious belly who made the honourable parts of the body so visible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who made all these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what mother what father who but the invisible God who made all things with his will Thus we see that God is the Authour of us and we are his offspring in respect of our bodie Now from this discourse of Gods being the Authour also though mediately of our bodies we may raise some inference to the good of our soul but in a word or two A little Philosophie from heaven for our practice and we passe to the second point Lord didst thou make our bodies and yet do we use them as if we had made them our selves or sinne or Satan or as if they had been made by thee for them How many organs hast thou framed for the multiplicity of our operations and yet how few how little do we use those few if we use any for thy service Let us not dishonour this temple of the holy Ghost by uncleannesse by fornication by adultery or any such turpitude Other sinnes as S. Paul 1. Cor. vi 18. are without the body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 objectivé they passe no speciall actuall pollution upon the body but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body It was for this that Democritus pulled out his eyes lest he should lust upon sight as Tertullian in his Apologetick not that he might the better addict himself to contemplate in Philosophy And Pythagoras his precept 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was a precept against uncleannesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying somewhat else besides beans wherein he himself delighted as Gellius saith by the testimony of Aristoxenus in his fourth book and 11 chapter Again the body is an accurate structure admire the Artist the Builder And what wilt thou admire what part what member wilt thou commend the breast all thy Rhetorick is not enough for the belly Wilt thou commend the belly thou hast not praises enough for the Head What the Eare O glorious Eye I should admire the Arteries that come from the Heart but the Nerves draw me back which come from the Brain I should praise the Nerves but I am astonished at the Veins which flow from the Liver What shall I