Sect. 21.--I confess I have perused them all, and can
discover nothing that may startle a discreet belief; yet
are their heads carried off with the wind and breath of
such motives. I remember a doctor in physick, of
Italy, who could not perfectly believe the immortality
of the soul, because Galen seemed to make a doubt
thereof. With another I was familiarly acquainted, in
France, a divine, and a man of singular parts, that on
the same point was so plunged and gravelled with three
lines of Seneca,* that all our antidotes, drawn from
* "Post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil, mors individua
est noxia corpori, nec patiens animae. . . . Toti morimur
nullaque pars manet nostri."
both Scripture and philosophy, could not expel the
poison of his error. There are a set of heads that can
credit the relations of mariners, yet question the testi-
monies of Saint Paul: and peremptorily maintain the
traditions of AElian or Pliny; yet, in histories of Scrip-
ture, raise queries and objections: believing no more
than they can parallel in human authors.
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