may pervert a loose or prejudicate belief.

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. I confess
there are, in Scripture, stories that do exceed the fables
of poets, and, to a captious reader, sound like Gara-
gantua or Bevis. Search all the legends of times past,
and the fabulous conceits of these present, and 'twill be
hard to find one that deserves to carry the buckler unto
Samson; yet is all this of an easy possibility, if we con-