NOw we are to discourse of mortality & immortality: for hope and fear of death torments many, which are ignorant of the true reason: for death is caused by dissolution of the body, tyred out with labour and the harmony being ended whereby the members of the body are fitted into one composition for lively uses, for the body dieth when the vitall parts of man faile. This is therefore death; a dissolution of the body, and an utter decay of the bodily senses, about which to take thought for, is to no purpose; p. 87 but there is an other thing necessary, which either ignorance, or mans incredulity seteth leight by.
Asclep. What is that, O Trismegistus, that they are either Ignorant of, or believe not to be?
Trism. Hear therefore, O Asclepius, when there shall be a separation of the soul from the body, then the Judgement, and examination of his deserts shall passe over unto the great God; and he when he shall see that it is just and righteous shall suffer it to abide in a fit Mansion but if he shall see it to be spotted and defiled with sin and iniquity he will cast it down, and deliver it to Stormes, Whirle-Winds, fire, Lightening, and Tempest; and it shall be snatched up betwixt Heaven and Earth, with worldly tempests, p. 88 and with continuall torments, be driven into divers places, that in this respect the eternity of them is prejudicious because by an immortall sentence, the Soul is condemned to everlasting judgment; left therefore we be infolded with these miseries, know that we must fear tremble, and beware; for the unbelievers are after their faults and pleasure in sin compelled to believe not by words, but by examples, not by threatenings but by the very suffering of punishment.
Asclep. Are not then, O Trismegistus, the faults of men punished only by mans Law.
Trism. Forsooth, O Asclepius, first all earthly things which are mortall, then those things also which live by corporal reason and which swarve from living after that Law of reason, p. 89 all these according to their deserts and faults are liable to punishment, but after death so much the sorer punishment as their faults have been concealed & unpunished in this life, for God foreknowing all things renders a like punishment to evey one according to the measure and quality of the fault.
Asclep. Who are worthy of the greatest punishment, O Trismegistus.
Trism. Those who being condemned by the Laws of men come to a violent death, which seem not to yeeld unto the debt of nature, but to suffer punishment for their deserts: Contrarywise, God is a sheild and defence unto a righteous man, who loveth piety and religion; for he defendeth such from all manner of dangers and p. 90 evils, for the Father and Lord of all things, who alone is all, showes himself willingly to all, not where he is in place, nor what in quality, nor how great in quantity, but illuminating man with the alone understandof the mind, who when the darknesse of mind is removed; and the brightnesse of truth perceived, participates himself by the full sense of divine knowledge, by whose love he is freed from that naturall part which is mortall, and conceiveth hope of future immortality. This therefore shall be the difference betwixt good and evil men, for every one by piety religion divine worship and reverence of God, shineth and becometh bright as the eye-sight, when he hath throughly seen the truth of reason, and the confidence of hope and excelleth so far other p. 91 men, as the Sun excelleth other Starrs in his Light: for the Sun it self not so much in greatnesse of diety, as in divinity and sanctity illuminateth the other Starrs. For I suppose this, O Asclepius, to be the Second God governing all other things, & illustrating all worldly things whether they be creatures with life or without life, for if the creature the world hath, is & shall alwaies be Living, nothing in the world is mortal. For there is no place of mortality, for every living part which is in the world, as in one and the same continuall living creature, wherefore it ought to be full of life and eternity, if it must always live. The Sun therefore as the world is eternall, and so is the governour of life and livelinesse, and the continual dispenser of them. He is therefore the God of the p. 92 living and of those things which have life in the world, the continuall governour, and eternall dispensator of life it self, for he hath once dispensed by an eternall Law; and giveth life to every Living thing. In this manner which I will speake of, for in that quicknesse of eternity, the world is moved, and in that living eternity, is the place of the world, for which hereafter it shall neither stand nor be destroyed, the world being intrenched, and as it were wrapped in with the eternity of life. It is therefore the dispenser or giver of life to all things which are in it, and the place of all things which are governed under the Sun, the commotion of which world consisteth of a twofold effect. For it self is outwardly enlivened from eternity, and it quickens p. 93 and inlivens those things which are within it, differing in proportions, and appointed, and prefixed times, all things are known and ordered by the effects of the Sun, and by the course, and influence of the Starrs, all temporall things are established by reason and divine Law, the Earthly seasons are known by the quality of the Aire, as either in the variety of heat, or cold, the Heavenly seasons by the return of the Starrs to the same places, and by the temporall change of tides, and the world is the receptacle of time, by whose course and motion it is refreshed, but time is kept by order. Order and time make an innovation of all things which are in the world by course.
The Commentary.
This Tenth Chapter, speaketh of death and the examination of the Soul, when the body shall die, that they shall be most punished after death, whose life justly is taken away by mens Lawes, for the greatnesse of their offences, that God is a defence to the righteous; of the divinity of the Sun, and the world, for he puts the World to be the first sensible God, the Sun to be the Second, that the world shall never take rest, nor be destroyed. But we give not the incommunicable name of God, neither to the Sun, nor to the world, and believe that the world shall one day be dissolved. These things therefore being understood (as the bare words of Hermes shew,) they set out the error of the Gentiles, yet p. 95 we do grant by participation to these a divinity, as to excellent works of God.
This the tenth part.