_Certainly that man were greedy of life, who should desire to live when all the World were at an end_;] This Mr. _Merryweather_ hath rendred thus; _Cupidum esse vitæ oportet, qui universo jam expirante mundo vivere cuperet_; and well enough: but it is not amiss to remember, that we have this saying in _Seneca_ the _Tragœdian_, who gives it us thus, _Vitæ est avidus quisquis non vult mundo secum pereunte mori_. _There are many things delivered Rhetorically_.] The Author herein imitates the ingenuity of St. _Austin_, who in his _Retract._ corrects himself for having delivered some things more like a young Rhetorician than a sound Divine; but though St. _Aug._ doth deservedly acknowledge it a fault in himself, in that he voluntarily published such things, yet cannot it be so in this Author, in that he intended no publication of it, as he professeth in this Epistle, and in that other to Sir _Kenelm Digby_. THE FIRST PART _Sect. 1. Pag. 1._ _The general scandal of my Profession_.] Physitians (of the number whereof it appears by several passages in this Book the Author is one) do commonly hear ill in this behalf. It is a common speech (but only amongst the unlearn'd sort) _Ubi tres Medici, duo Athei_. The reasons why those of that Profession (I declare my self that I am none, but _Causarum Actor Mediocris_, to use _Horace_ his Phrase) may be thought to deserve that censure, the Author rendreth _Sect_. 19. _The natural course of my studies._] The vulgar lay not the imputation of Atheism only upon Physitians, but upon Philosophers in general, who for that they give themselves to understand the operations of _Nature_, they calumniate them, as though they rested in the second causes without any respect to the first. Hereupon it was, that in the tenth Age Pope _Silvester_ the second pass'd for a Magician, because he understood Geometry and natural Philosophy. _Baron. Annal._ 990. And _Apuleius_ long before him laboured of the same suspicion, upon no better ground; he was accus'd, and made a learned Apology for himself, and in that hath laid down what the ground is of such accusations, in these words: _Hæc fermè communi quodam errore imperitorum Philosophis objectantur, ut partem eorum qui corporum causas meras et simplices rimantur, irreligiosos putant, eosque aiunt Deos abnuere, ut Anaxagoram, et Lucippum, et Democritum, et Epicurum, cœterosq; rerum naturæ Patronos._ Apul. in Apolog. And it is possible that those that look upon the second Causes scattered, may rest in them and go no further, as my Lord _Bacon_ in one of his _Essayes_ observeth; but our Author tells us there is a true Philosophy, from which no man becomes an Atheist, _Sect._ 46.