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or tincture; I must confefs my greener ftudies have been polluted with two or three; not any begotten in the later centuries, but old and obfolete; fuch as could never have been revived, but by fuch extravagant and irregular heads as mine; *for indeed herefies perifh not with their authors, but like the river. Arethufa, though they lose their currents in one place, they rise up again in another: one general council is not able to extirpate one single herefy; it may be cancelled for the prefent, but revolution of time, and the like afpects from Heaven, will restore it, when it will flourish till it be condemned again; for as though there were à Metempsychofts, and the foul of one man paffed into another, opinions do find, after certain revolutions, men and minds like those that first begat them. To fee ourfelves again we need not look for * Plato's

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Malthus vol. 2 p. 273

Plato's year; every man is not only himself; there have been many hot hum Diogenes's, and as many Timons, self man tho' but few of that name; men are ly lived over again, the world is now as it was in ages paft, there was none then, but there hath been fome one fince that parallels him, and is as it were his revived felf.

SECT. VII.

*Now the firft of mine was that of the Arabians, that the fouls of men perished with their bodies, but fhould yet be raised again at the laft day; not that I did abfolutely conceive a mortality of the foul; but if that were, which faith, not philofophy, hath yet throughly difproved, and that both entered the grave together; yet I held the fame conceit thereof that we all do of the bo

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A revolution of certain thoufand years, when all things fhould return unto their former eftate, and he be teaching again i his fchool as when he delivered this opinion.

Page dy, that it should rife again. Surely Passage from Humit is but the merits of our unworthy Dialogues the laft alarm: a ferious reflex natures, if we fleep in darkness un

Job XIV. 13-14

upon my own unworthinefs did make me backward from challenging this prerogative of my foul; fo I might enjoy my Saviour at the laft, I could with patience be nothing almost unto eternity. The second was that of Origen, that God would not perfift in his vengeance for ever, but after a definite time of his wrath he would release the damned fouls from torture; which error I fell into, upon a ferious contemplation of the great attribute of God's mercy; and did a little cherish it in myself, because I found icious therein no malice, and a ready fluence weight to fway me from the other lendenextream of difpair, whereunto melan

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choly and contemplative natures are too easily difpofed. A third there is, which I did never positively maintain

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or practise, but have often wished it had been confonant to truth, and not Sar offenfive to my religion, and that is Johnso the prayer for the dead; whereunto prayer for his I was inclined from fome charitable inducements, whereby I could scarce restrain my prayers for a friend at the ringing of a bell, or behold his corps without an oraifon for his foul; it was a good way methought to be remembred by pofterity, and far more noble than an history. These opinions I never maintained with pertinacity, or endeavoured to inveigle any man's belief unto mine, nor fo much as ever revealed or difputed them with my dearest friends; by which means I neither propagated them in others, nor confirmed them in myself, but fuffering them to flame upon their own fubftance, without addition of new fuel, they went out infenfibly of themselves; therefore thefe opinions, though condemned by lawful councils,

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were not herefies in me, but bare errors, and fingle lapfes of my understanding, without a joint depravity of my will: thofe have not only depraved understandings, but difeafed affections, who cannot enjoy a fingularity without a herefy, or be the author of an opinion, without they be that of a fect alfo; this was the villainy of the firft fchifm of Lucifer, who was not content to err alone, but drew into his faction many legions of spirits; and upon this experience he tempted only Eve, as well understanding the communicable nature of fin, and that to deceive but one, was tacitly and upon confequence to delude

them both.

SECT. VIII.

That herefies fhould arife we have the prophecy of Chrift; but that old ones fhould be abolished we hold no prediction. That there must be herefies,

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