To describe them in particular, to produce their arguments and reasons, would require a just volume, I refer them therefore that expect a more ample satisfaction, to those subtle and elaborate treatises, devout and famous tracts of our learned divines (schoolmen amongst the rest, and casuists) that have abundance of reasons to prove there is a God, the immortality of the soul, &c., out of the strength of wit and philosophy bring irrefragable arguments to such as are ingenuous and well disposed; at the least, answer all cavils and objections to confute their folly and madness, and to reduce them, si fieri posset, ad sanam mentem, to a better mind, though to small purpose many times. Amongst others consult with Julius Caesar Lagalla, professor of philosophy in Rome, who hath written a large volume of late to confute atheists: of the immortality of the soul, Hierom. Montanus de immortalitate Animae: Lelius Vincentius of the same subject: Thomas Giaminus, and Franciscus Collius de Paganorum animabus post mortem, a famous doctor of the Ambrosian College in Milan. Bishop Fotherby in his Atheomastix, Doctor Dove, Doctor Jackson, Abernethy, Corderoy, have written well of this subject in our mother tongue: in Latin, Colerus, Zanchius, Palearius, Illyricus, [6682]Philippus, Faber Faventinus, &c. But instar omnium, the most copious confuter of atheists is Marinus Mercennus in his Commentaries on Genesis: [6683]with Campanella's Atheismus Triumphatus. He sets down at large the causes of this brutish passion, (seventeen in number I take it) answers all their arguments and sophisms, which he reduceth to twenty-six heads, proving withal his own assertion; “There is a God, such a God, the true and sole God,” by thirty-five reasons. His Colophon is how to resist and repress atheism, and to that purpose he adds four especial means or ways, which who so will may profitably peruse.
SUBSECT. II.—Despair. Despairs, Equivocations, Definitions, Parties and Parts affected.
There be many kinds of desperation, whereof some be holy, some unholy, as [6684]one distinguisheth; that unholy he defines out of Tully to be Aegritudinem animi sine ulla rerum expectatione meliore, a sickness of the soul without any hope or expectation of amendment; which commonly succeeds fear; for whilst evil is expected, we fear: but when it is certain, we despair. According to Thomas 2. 2ae. distinct. 40. art. 4. it is Recessus a re desiderata, propter impossibilitatem existimatam, a restraint from the thing desired, for some impossibility supposed. Because they cannot obtain what they would, they become desperate, and many times either yield to the passion by death itself, or else attempt impossibilities, not to be performed by men. In some cases, this desperate humour is not much to be discommended, as in wars it is a cause many times of extraordinary valour; as Joseph, lib. 1. de bello Jud. cap. 14. L. Danaeus in Aphoris. polit. pag. 226. and many politicians hold. It makes them improve their worth beyond itself, and of a forlorn impotent company become conquerors in a moment. Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem, “the only hope for the conquered is despair.” In such courses when they see no remedy, but that they must either kill or be killed, they take courage, and oftentimes, praeter spem, beyond all hope vindicate themselves. Fifteen thousand Locrenses fought against a hundred thousand Crotonienses, and seeing now no way but one, they must all die, [6685]thought they would not depart unrevenged, and thereupon desperately giving an assault, conquered their enemies. Nec alia causa victoriae, (saith Justin mine author) quam quod desperaverant. William the Conqueror, when he first landed in England, sent back his ships, that his soldiers might have no hope of retiring back. [6686]Bodine excuseth his countrymen's overthrow at that famous battle at Agincourt, in Henry the Fifth his time, (cui simile, saith Froissard, tota historia producere non possit, which no history can parallel almost, wherein one handful of Englishmen overthrew a royal army of Frenchmen) with this refuge of despair, pauci desperati, a few desperate fellows being compassed in by their enemies, past all hope of life, fought like so many devils; and gives a caution, that no soldiers hereafter set upon desperate persons, which [6687]after Frontinus and Vigetius, Guicciardini likewise admonisheth, Hypomnes. part. 2. pag. 25. not to stop an enemy that is going his way. Many such kinds there are of desperation, when men are past hope of obtaining any suit, or in despair of better fortune; Desperatio facit monachum, as the saying is, and desperation causeth death itself; how many thousands in such distress have made away themselves, and many others? For he that cares not for his own, is master of another man's life. A Tuscan soothsayer, as [6688]Paterculus tells the story, perceiving himself and Fulvius Flaccus his dear friend, now both carried to prison by Opimius, and in despair of pardon, seeing the young man weep, quin tu potius hoc inquit facis, do as I do; and with that knocked out his brains against the door-cheek, as he was entering into prison, protinusque illiso capite in capite in carceris januam effuso cerebro expiravit, and so desperate died. But these are equivocal, improper. “When I speak of despair,” saith [6689]Zanchie, “I speak not of every kind, but of that alone which concerns God. It is opposite to hope, and a most pernicious sin, wherewith the devil seeks to entrap men.” Musculus makes four kinds of desperation, of God, ourselves, our neighbour, or anything to be done; but this division of his may be reduced easily to the former: all kinds are opposite to hope, that sweet moderator of passions, as Simonides calls it; I do not mean that vain hope which fantastical fellows feign to themselves, which according to Aristotle is insomnium vigilantium, a waking dream; but this divine hope which proceeds from confidence, and is an anchor to a floating soul; spes alit agricolas, even in our temporal affairs, hope revives us, but in spiritual it farther animateth; and were it not for hope, “we of all others were the most miserable,” as Paul saith, in this life; were it not for hope, the heart would break; “for though they be punished in the sight of men,” (Wisdom iii. 4.) yet is “their hope full of immortality:” yet doth it not so rear, as despair doth deject; this violent and sour passion of despair, is of all perturbations most grievous, as [6690]Patritius holds. Some divide it into final and temporal; [6691]final is incurable, which befalleth reprobates; temporal is a rejection of hope and comfort for a time, which may befall the best of God's children, and it commonly proceeds [6692]“from weakness of faith,” as in David when he was oppressed he cried out, “O Lord, thou hast forsaken me,” but this for a time. This ebbs and flows with hope and fear; it is a grievous sin howsoever: although some kind of despair be not amiss, when, saith Zanchius, we despair of our own means, and rely wholly upon God: but that species is not here meant. This pernicious kind of desperation is the subject of our discourse, homicida animae, the murderer of the soul, as Austin terms it, a fearful passion, wherein the party oppressed thinks he can get no ease but by death, and is fully resolved to offer violence unto himself; so sensible of his burthen, and impatient of his cross, that he hopes by death alone to be freed of his calamity (though it prove otherwise), and chooseth with Job vi. 8. 9. xvii. 5. “Rather to be strangled and die, than to be in his bonds.” [6693]The part affected is the whole soul, and all the faculties of it; there is a privation of joy, hope, trust, confidence, of present and future good, and in their place succeed fear, sorrow, &c. as in the symptoms shall be shown. The heart is grieved, the conscience wounded, the mind eclipsed with black fumes arising from those perpetual terrors.
SUBSECT. III.—Causes of Despair, the Devil, Melancholy, Meditation, Distrust, Weakness of Faith, Rigid Ministers, Misunderstanding Scriptures, Guilty Consciences, &c.
The principal agent and procurer of this mischief is the devil; those whom God forsakes, the devil by his permission lays hold on. Sometimes he persecutes them with that worm of conscience, as he did Judas, [6694]Saul, and others. The poets call it Nemesis, but it is indeed God's just judgment, sero sed serio, he strikes home at last, and setteth upon them “as a thief in the night,” 1 Thes. ii. [6695]This temporary passion made David cry out, “Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thine heavy displeasure; for thine arrows have light upon me, &c. there is nothing sound in my flesh, because of thine anger.” Again, I roar for the very grief of my heart: and Psalm xxii. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, and art so far from my health, and the words of my crying? I am like to water poured out, my bones are out of joint, mine heart is like wax, that is molten in the midst of my bowels.” So Psalm lxxxviii. 15 and 16 vers. and Psalm cii. “I am in misery at the point of death, from my youth I suffer thy terrors, doubting for my life; thine indignations have gone over me, and thy fear hath cut me off.” Job doth often complain in this kind; and those God doth not assist, the devil is ready to try and torment, “still seeking whom he may devour.” If he find them merry, saith Gregory, “he tempts them forthwith to some dissolute act; if pensive and sad, to a desperate end.” Aut suadendo blanditur, aut minando terret, sometimes by fair means, sometimes again by foul, as he perceives men severally inclined. His ordinary engine by which he produceth this effect, is the melancholy humour itself, which is balneum diaboli, the devil's bath; and as in Saul, those evil spirits get in [6696]as it were, and take possession of us. Black choler is a shoeing-horn, a bait to allure them, insomuch that many writers make melancholy an ordinary cause, and a symptom of despair, for that such men are most apt, by reason of their ill-disposed temper, to distrust, fear, grief, mistake, and amplify whatsoever they preposterously conceive, or falsely apprehend. Conscientia scrupulosa nascitur ex vitio naturali, complexione melancholica (saith Navarrus cap. 27. num. 282. tom. 2. cas. conscien.) The body works upon the mind, by obfuscating the spirits and corrupted instruments, which [6697]Perkins illustrates by simile of an artificer, that hath a bad tool, his skill is good, ability correspondent, by reason of ill tools his work must needs be lame and imperfect. But melancholy and despair, though often, do not always concur; there is much difference: melancholy fears without a cause, this upon great occasion; melancholy is caused by fear and grief, but this torment procures them and all extremity of bitterness; much melancholy is without affliction of conscience, as [6698]Bright and Perkins illustrate by four reasons; and yet melancholy alone may be sometimes a sufficient cause of this terror of conscience. [6699]Felix Plater so found it in his observations, e melancholicis alii damnatos se putant, Deo curae, non sunt, nec praedestinati, &c. “They think they are not predestinate, God hath forsaken them;” and yet otherwise very zealous and religious; and 'tis common to be seen, “melancholy for fear of God's judgment and hell-fire, drives men to desperation; fear and sorrow, if they be immoderate, end often with it.” Intolerable pain and anguish, long sickness, captivity, misery, loss of goods, loss of friends, and those lesser griefs, do sometimes effect it, or such dismal accidents. Si non statim relevantur, [6700]Mercennus, dubitant an sit Deus, if they be not eased forthwith, they doubt whether there be any God, they rave, curse, “and are desperately mad because good men are oppressed, wicked men flourish, they have not as they think to their desert,” and through impatience of calamities are so misaffected. Democritus put out his eyes, ne malorum civium prosperos videret successus, because he could not abide to see wicked men prosper, and was therefore ready to make away himself, as [6701]Agellius writes of him. Felix Plater hath a memorable example in this kind, of a painter's wife in Basil, that was melancholy for her son's death, and for melancholy became desperate; she thought God would not pardon her sins, [6702]“and for four months still raved, that she was in hell-fire, already damned.” When the humour is stirred up, every small object aggravates and incenseth it, as the parties are addicted. [6703]The same author hath an example of a merchant man, that for the loss of a little wheat, which he had over long kept, was troubled in conscience, for that he had not sold it sooner, or given it to the poor, yet a good scholar and a great divine; no persuasion would serve to the contrary, but that for this fact he was damned: in other matters Very judicious and discreet. Solitariness, much fasting, divine meditation, and contemplations of God's judgments, most part accompany this melancholy, and are main causes, as [6704]Navarrus holds; to converse with such kinds of persons so troubled, is sufficient occasion of trouble to some men. Nonnulli ob longas inedias, studia et meditationes coelestes, de rebus sacris et religione semper agitant, &c. Many, (saith P. Forestus) through long fasting, serious meditations of heavenly things, fall into such fits; and as Lemnius adds, lib. 4. cap. 21, [6705]“If they be solitary given, superstitious, precise, or very devout: seldom shall you find a merchant, a soldier, an innkeeper, a bawd, a host, a usurer, so troubled in mind, they have cheverel consciences that will stretch, they are seldom moved in this kind or molested: young men and middle age are more wild and less apprehensive; but old folks, most part, such as are timorous and religiously given.” Pet. Forestus observat. lib. 10. cap. 12. de morbis cerebri, hath a fearful example of a minister, that through precise fasting in Lent, and overmuch meditation, contracted this mischief, and in the end became desperate, thought he saw devils in his chamber, and that he could not be saved; he smelled nothing, as he said, but fire and brimstone, was already in hell, and would ask them, still, if they did not [6706]smell as much. I told him he was melancholy, but he laughed me to scorn, and replied that he saw devils, talked with them in good earnest, Would spit in my face, and ask me if 1 did not smell brimstone, but at last he was by him cured. Such another story I find in Plater observat. lib. 1. A poor fellow had done some foul offence, and for fourteen days would eat no meat, in the end became desperate, the divines about him could not ease him, [6707]but so he died. Continual meditation of God's judgments troubles many, Multi ob timorem futuri judicii, saith Guatinerius cap. 5. tract. 15. et suspicionem desperabundi sunt. David himself complains that God's judgments terrified his soul, Psalm cxix. part. 16. vers. 8. “My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments.” Quoties diem illum cogito (saith [6708]Hierome) toto corpore contremisco, I tremble as often as I think of it. The terrible meditation of hell-fire and eternal punishment much torments a sinful silly soul. What's a thousand years to eternity? Ubi moeror, ubi fletus, ubi dolor sempiternus. Mors sine morte, finis sine fine; a finger burnt by chance we may not endure, the pain is so grievous, we may not abide an hour, a night is intolerable; and what shall this unspeakable fire then be that burns for ever, innumerable infinite millions of years, in omne aevum in aeternum. O eternity!
[6709]Aeternitas est illa vox,
Vox illa fulminatrix,
Tonitruis minacior,
Fragoribusque coeli,
Aeternitas est illa vox,