_Emori nolo, sed me esse mortuum, nihil curo._ _Were I of_ Cæsar's _Religion_.] I doubt not, but here is a fault of the Press, and that instead of _Cæsar_ it should be _Cicero_. I meet not with any such saying imputed to _Cæsar_, nor any thing like it, but that he preferr'd a sudden death (in which he had his option) to any other; but I meet with such a saying in _Cicero_ quoted out of _Epicharmus_ [_Emori nolo, sed me esse mortuum nihili æstimo._] Where _Cicero_ sustaineth the part of the _Epicure_ that there is no hurt in being dead, since there remaineth nothing after it. _Cic. 1. Thusc. qu. non procul ab initio_. _Sect. 45. Pag. 64._ Or whence _Lucan_ learn'd to say, _Communis mundo superest rogus_, etc.] Why, _Lucan_ was a Stoique, and 'twas an opinion among them almost generally, that the world should perish by fire; therefore without doubt from them he learned it. _Cælum quoque cum omnibus quæ in cælo continentur, ita ut cœpisset desinere, fontium dulci aqua marisve nutriri, in vim ignis abiturum. Stoicis constans opinio est, quod consumpto humore mundus hic omnis ignescat._ _Minutius in Octav._ But _Minutius_ should have excepted _Boetius_, _Possidonius_, _Diogenes Babylonius_, and _Zeno Sidonius_, who were _Stoiques_, and yet did not think the world should be destroyed by fire, nor yet by any other means. _Sect. 46. Pag. 65._ _How shall we interpret _Elias 6000_ years_, etc.?] _Lactant._ is very positive that the world should last but 6000 years; but his reason for it is somewhat strange; thus it is, _Quoniam sex diebus cuncta Dei opera perfecta sunt, per secula sex_, i.e. _annorum sex millia manere in hoc statu mundum necesse est_. _De Divino præmio_, cap. 14. _Sect. 47. Pag. 67._ _Ipsa sui pretium virtus sibi, is but a cold principle._] It is a Stoical principle. _Quæris enim aliquid supra summum, interrogas quid petam extra virtutem ipsam. Nihil enim habet melius. Pretium sui est._ Senec. _de vit. beat._ c. 19. _That honest artifice of_ Seneca.] What that article was, is to be seen in _Senec. l. 1. ep. 11_. _Aliquis vir bonus nobis eligendus est, et semper ante oculos babendus, ut sic tanquam illo spectante vivamus, et omnia tanquam illo vidente faciamus._ Et paulo post; _Elige itaq; Catonem; si hic videtur tibi nimis rigidus, elige remissioris animi virum Lælium_, etc. which though, as the Author saith, it be an honest Artifice, yet cannot I but commend the party, and prefer the direction of him (whoever he were) who in the Margin of my _Seneca_, over against those words, wrote these: _Quin Deo potius qui semper omnibus omnia agentibus non tanquam sed reipsa adest, et videt; ac etiam ut Testis, vindex et punitor est male agentis_.