Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, et al, | Page 9

of which at pre- sent, I hope
I shall not injure truth to say, I have no taint or tincture. I must confess
my greener studies have been polluted with two or three; not any
begotten in the latter centuries, but old and obsolete, such as could
never have been revived but by such extravagant and irregular heads as
mine. For, indeed, heresies perish not with their authors; but, like the
river Arethusa,<8> though they lose their currents in one place, they
rise up again in another. One general council is not able to extirpate one
single heresy: it may be cancelled for the present; but revolution of
time, and the like aspects from heaven, will restore it, when it will
flourish till it be condemned again. For, as though there were metemp-
psychosis, and the soul of one man passed into another, opinions do
find, after certain revolutions, men and minds like those that first begat
them. To see our- selves again, we need not look for Plato's year:*
every man is not only himself; there have been many Diogenes, and as
many Timons, though but few of that name; men are lived over again;
the world is now as it was in ages past; there was none then, but there
hath been some one since, that parallels him, and is, as it were, his

revived self.
Sect. 7.--Now, the first of mine was that of the Arabians;<9>
that the souls of men perished with their
* A revolution of certain thousand years, when all things should return
unto their former estate, and he be teaching again in his school, as when
he delivered this opinion. bodies, but should yet be raised again at the
last day: not that I did absolutely conceive a mortality of the soul, but,
if that were (which faith, not philosophy, hath yet thoroughly
disproved), and that both entered the grave together, yet I held the same
conceit thereof that we all do of the body, that it rise again. Surely it is
but the merits of our unworthy natures, if we sleep in darkness until the
last alarm. A serious reflex upon my own unworthiness did make me
backward from challenging this prerogative of my soul: so that I might
enjoy my Saviour at the last, I could with patience be nothing almost
unto eternity. The second was that of Origen; that God would not
persist in his vengeance for ever, but, after a definite time of his wrath,
would release the damned souls from torture; which error I fell into
upon a serious contemplation of the great attribute of God, his mercy;
and did a little cherish it in myself, because I found therein no malice,
and a ready weight to sway me from the other extreme of despair,
whereunto melancholy and contemplative natures are too easily
disposed. A third there is, which I did never positively maintain or
practise, but have often wished it had been consonant to truth, and not
offensive to my religion; and that is, the prayer for the dead; whereunto
I was inclined from some charitable inducements, whereby I could
scarce contain my prayers for a friend at the ringing of a bell, or behold
his corpse without an orison for his soul. 'Twas a good way, methought,
to be remembered by posterity, and far more noble than a history.
These opinions I never maintained with pertinacity, or endeavoured to
inveigle any man's belief unto mine, nor so much as ever revealed, or
disputed them with my dearest friends; by which means I neither
propagated them in others nor confirmed them in myself: but, suffering
them to flame upon their own substance, without addition of new fuel,
they went out insensibly of themselves; therefore these opinions,
though condemned by lawful councils, were not heresies in me, but
bare errors, and single lapses of my understanding, without a joint
depravity of my will. Those have not only depraved under- standings,

but diseased affections, which cannot enjoy a singularity without a
heresy, or be the author of an opinion without they be of a sect also.
This was the villany of the first schism of Lucifer; who was not content
to err alone, but drew into his faction many legions; and upon this
experience he tempted only Eve, well understanding the communicable
nature of sin, and that to deceive but one was tacitly and upon
consequence to delude them both.
Sect. 8.--That heresies should arise, we have the prophecy of
Christ; but, that old ones should be abolished, we hold no prediction.
That there must be heresies, is true, not only in our church, but also in
any other: even in the doctrines heretical there will be superheresies;
and Arians, not only divided from the church, but also among
themselves: for