Fair warnings to a careless world in the pious letter written by the Right Honourable James Earl of Marleburgh, a little before his death, to the Right Honourable Sir Hugh Pollard, comptroller of his Maties houshold. With the last words of CXL and upwards, of the most learned and honourable persons of England, and other parts of the world.

PLATO,

ILle sublimis apex Philosophorum, & columen Arn. cal∣led for his friends about him, and told them the whole world was out of the way, in that they under∣stood not, nor regarded the eternal Minde, i. e. God; assuring them, those men died most comfortably, that had lived most conformably to Right Reason, sought and adored the first Cause: and his speech failing him, he cryed, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉· by which we understand he said, God, God: having a little before answered his friend Aelius, that enquired of him concerning God, and the immortality of the soul, thus: In omnium ani∣mis deorum notionem impressisset ipsa natura; That Na∣ture it self had stamped an Idea of God upon the mindes of men. Cum enim non instituto aliquo, aut more aut lege sit opinio constituta, manet at{que} ad unum omnium firma consensio; intelligi necesse est Deos esse, quoniam in∣sitas eorum, vel potius innatas cognitiones habemus; de quo autem omnium natura consensit, id verum esse necesse est: Since the belief of a Deity arose from Custom, nor was neither enacted by Law, yet is unanimously as∣sented to by all mankind; it necessarily follows, that there must be a Deity, because the Idea of it is so na∣tural to us.

If it were thus acknowledged in the Philosophical age of Greece, when men bent their wits to unsettle the belief of such things as tended to Religion; how much more might it be esteemed a general Principle of humane Nature in those elder times, when not so much as one dissenter appeared, that we read of, a∣mong the more ancient Nations?

Now when these common Deities were so much derided by intelligent men, and yet the order of the world seemed to tell them there was really a God, though those were none; those who had Philosophi∣cal wits, such as Democritus and Epicurus, set them∣selves to work, to see if they could solve the Phoeno∣mena of Nature without a Deity, and therefore as∣serted the origine of the Universe to be onely by a fortuitous concourse of infinite little particles: but herein they befooled themselves and their giddy fol∣lowers, who were glad to be rid of those anxieties of minde which the thoughts of a Deity and an immor∣tal soul did cause within them. And though Lucreti∣us in a bravado tells us of his Master, that when mens mindes were sunk under the burden of Religion,

Humana ante oculos foede cum vita jaceret, In terris oppressa gravi sub Religione: Primum Graius homo mortalis tollere contra Est oculos ausus, primus{que} obsistere c••n••ra.

That Epicurus was the first true Gyant who durst encounter the Gods, and, if we believe him, over∣threw them in open field.

Quare Religio pedibus subjecta vicissim Obteritur, nos exaequat victoria Coelo.

Yet Cotta in Tully reports the issue of this battel quite otherwise: for although the greatest Triumph in this Victory, had been onely to become like the beasts that perish; yet if we believe Cotta, Epicurus was so far from gaining any of his beloved ease and pleasure by his sentiments, that never was School-boy more afraid of a Rod, nor did any enemy more dread the Conquerour, then Epicurus did the thought of a God and death. Nec quenquem vidi qui magis ea quae timenda, esse negaret, timeret, mortem, dico & Deos. So hard it is for an Epicurean, even after he hath pro∣stituted his conscience, to silence it: for (whatever there be in the air) there is an Elastical power in Conscience, that will bear it self up, notwithstanding the weight is laid upon it.