AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TEUTONIC PHILOSOPHY. Being A Determination concerning the Original of the Soul: vi● Whether it be immediately created GOD, and infused into the Body; or transmitted from the Parent.  
By C. HOTHAM, one of the Fellows of Peterhouse.  
At the close of the Dispute held in the public Schools of the University of Cambridge, at the Commencement, March 3. 1646.  
Englished by D.F.  
LONDON: Printed by T.M. & A.C. for Nath. Brooks at the Angel in Cornhill. 1650.   

To the Author.  
SIR,  
TRanslations are things very difficult, especially where the Notion is uncouth: Yet hath this been my chief inducement to adventure upon this assay; my aim being to make the Notion familiar, by a transplanting into our Native soil. One thing I am happy in, that I have but one Judge, yourself; unto whose sense if I have arrived, I have done well, and disvalue the censure of the Critical world, as incompetent. But be the Author once dead, 'tis less dangerous to put to sea in an egge-shel, then Translate under the control and subjection of the various stormy censures of each peevish fancy, when the decisive Polestar is hid.  
In the uncasing your sense from the Latin skin, I know you will think I have torn flesh and all away. But I must therein be pardoned, because some Expressions and Elegancies in it are so peevish, that they walk dull, heavy, and without grace, when stripped of their native attire, except honoured with a costly circumscription; in making of which according to my usual botchery, I have sometimes hid from your view their most comely parts. For in truth in is very hard to write good English; and few have attained its height in this last ●rie of Books, but Mr. M●lton.  
As to the matter and Author of the Teutonick Philosophy, which you here abbreviate, though you know I always affected it and him, yet durst never sail into the Ocean of his vast Conceits with my little Scull; me thought the reading of him was like the standing upon a precipice, or by a Canon shot off, the waft of them licked up all my brains.  
I confess, your Introduction hath made me something more steady, and his Notions more familiar; and I have found some inkling of them in Scripture, so have shaken hands with less suspicion.  
But may nothing ever appear more glorious to any man, or fuller of light, than the sweet, humble, contemned life of our Saviour! It's true, the sacred Writ is not plentiful in delivering the natural frame and principles of the Soul, though the value of it is sufficiently laid open by the price paid for its redemption, and the Messenger sent to seek it: So that drop of knowledge may perhaps be reserved to make up the full sea promised these last times. In my opinion, whoever reads this Scheme of the World's creation, and birth of the Soul, may make excellent use of it, reviewing his noble descent from those eternal Essences, and shame to bemire himself in that swinelike refreshment of wallowing in cold dirty mire.  
Our noble Genealogy should mind us of our Father's house, make us weary of the tutelage under hairy Fauns and cloven-footed Satyrs, the rulers and instructers of our dissolute youth, and riper years (though clothed by Archimago in Angelic garment) whose spell I hope is near an end, & put on thoughts of escape out of this beastial slavery, into the Kingdom prepared for us.  
As for this little Determination, methinks I see the fate of it, that it will be thought a fit Preface to Ovid's Metamorphoses, than an Introduction to any thing that is serious: so rude and barbarous is the esteem of vulgar men, of any thing beyond their capacity.  
Give me leave to set forth this one Paradox: That the nearer any book or Notion approacheth the Truth, the easiler and with more applause it may be contradicted, because that in all contest the Vulgar being Judge, (by vulgar I mean the wiseones of the world) the appeal is either to Reason, or Sense, which are but the rulers and guides of the night, dim lights, set up far distant from Truth's stately mansion, to lead poor groping souls in this world's affairs. The bringing of Truth to their test, is like gold to a candlelight, in which all the impostures that can be named may be hid, maugre its discovery. No, it's a due temper of the Soul that must give light to such disquisitions; which only harboureth, acknowledgeth, judgeth, and receives that spriteful vivacious essence of Truth. When the law of God hath rubbed off all the scales of the Serpent from our eyes, then shall we see and judge. He that doth my words, (saith our Saviour) shall know whether I speak of the truth.  
Cease shining, O ye Sun and Moon, and thou Eternal Archetype of all light! Vain mortal men have with the steel and flint of a Major and Minor Proposition struck out a fire and light directive of you all: This dark lantern of a Syllogistical deduction, is made paramount to all; all else dim tapers, that are not moved in its Ecliptic.  
This seems harsh; but yet if well observed, is a Gangrene spread through all Christian religion. I will not say it, but it may be it is true, that the rigid addiction to this foundation hath nicknamed many holy truths, and men, that believe God yet to be alive & speak, and that he hath not forsaken his Sceptre, devolved all the rule of Orphan mankind to this dangerous vertible principle.  
But may that State ever prosper, whose wise hands mould a generous freedom productive of noble conceits, dressing a fit Stage for our Saviour's second coming; who, should he come as formerly in submission to man's power, would be found in the inquisition or under the lash of some dire Decree; so all-comprehensive and omniscient is every present age of all truth, dividing it from falsehood to a hair in their grave Counsels; with penalty of huc usque & non ultra.  
But to return to my Paradox: Elisha's servant having no other comfort then what humane reason afforded, bemoans his master's certain ruin by the hand of the Assyrians; The Prophet opens his eyes, he sees help enough: certainly this was no conjuring trick, nor prophetic vision, but what was real, though the servant saw it not before.  
But had now some great Philosopher and master of reason, been standing by, and a dispute instituted betwixt him and the Prophet, concerning the Host and the Chariots, the Townsemen of Dothan being Judges, had it not been easy to have made the Prophet seem a fool, and the people believe his eyes chimed? He might have asked where the Host was; and when the Prophet had designed the place, the Philosopher taking with him a competent number of the bystanders, might have gone and stood in the same place, and sung his triumphal song: Non dantur duo corpora in eodem loco, nec penetratio dimensionum; ergò deceptus es: with many such fine devices; and have tripped up the poor Prophet's credit, with acclamation of the people. And such is and will be the fate of all deep Discoveries, and high Representations, brought before that ignorant Tribunal of Sense and Vulgar reason.  
But I am out of my way: Be the Author what he will, or his success; or yours the Proposer: seeing my ignorance hath set me far out of the reach of such high things, I shall content myself with an usual effect of admiraton, silence; rather than approve, or disapprove: And wish the world would make use of that excellent rule of Saint. Austin,  tamdiu versemur in diligenti consideratione quod legitur, usque dum ad regnum charitatis interpretatio perducatur. However, may God's blessing water the desires of every heart that is zealous for good, and the advancement of God's kingdom in individuis. For fruitless are the hopes, and the labour vain of all that will build living houses of dead stones: but give the stones once life, and they will creep into a building: Sympathy and union are the convertible effects of life. Therefore let all wise men stand still at Perez-Vzzah, and consider.  
Sir, I have now in some measure satisfied the engagement laid upon me, with many others, in your unlocking the door to these Mysteries, by setting it yet wider open for all Englishmen that please to enter and satisfy their curiosity: If you accept my pains, I am re-ingaged, and must remain  
Yours obliged, Vnus ex multis.   

To the Right Worthy, the Vicechancellor, and the Honourable University of Cambridge.  
Be health and happiness.  
THat I have made bold to take up again, and revive with your honourable Patronage this small work, by this time well nigh dead and buried, exposing it to public view; we hope, will by you be esteemed neither unbeseeming your honour, nor beneath our duty.  
Your noble favour and patience, whose sweet company carried me on with pleasure through the burdens of that office you were once pleased to honour me with, and which cheered the delivery of these rugged Notions, sets me in the debt of infinite obligations; which till I can discharge, be pleased to accept this scroll of paper as a Bond.  
And truly, while I was thus meditateing thankfulness; the report, that these essays, and myself were by some adjudged both heretical, added vigour to my first resolution; seeing I must needs esteem their opinion, only a defect of memory and advertency, whom that I might fully satisfy with all well-meaning men, I have set Pen to Paper, and published them in the same dress my memory did then suggest them to my tongue.  
Now, of the matter let the learned judge: For what concerns myself, I wonder those good men did not perceive, First, That I set before them another's Philosophy, not mine own; Secondly, That myself likewise stood aloof from peremptory assent to some of those things that were delivered; Thirdly, well-knowing in what uneven way I traveled, nor sufficiently confiding in the support of mine own judgement, I begged, and I hope obtained pardon of all mine errors; which lest I should fail of in the publication, I have adjoined the Epilogue then used, which I doubt not but will be successful to both.  
And certainly if pardon belong to any, it is to the silent, solemn Sceptic, whose opinions are not brought forth as the only heires-male to all humane assent, invading the world's freedom with fire, faggot, and thunder.  
And may I be in the bed-route of those Seekers, that distrusting the known and experienced deceits of their own reason, walk unfetterred in the quest of truth, with an easy suspicious gate, not hunting those poor souls with Dog and Spear, whose dim sight hath led them into desert and unbeaten paths.  
Certainly, more soul's have crept to the throne of Wisdom; with the thin-spun clew of Right-opinion, then ere have drawn her down with the stiff cart-rope of irresragable Syllogisms.  
This supposed certain science of what is good and right, believe me, (O you noble Athenians) is the true ignis fatuus, whose small glimmering expires in palpable darkness.  
Would you sail in the Philosopher's Ocean; know that two Lands there are of exceeding danger, yet built upon and inhabited, and defended, as part of the main continent of Truth: The first is called, I believe as the Church believeth. Happy men, whom so easy labour hath set on the shore of wisdom! And happy that narrow point, that hath devoured so large a circumference! The other is called, Whatsoever the Church believes, that will not I believe. And here they think they are safe: These, if all the old Heresies were translated into the Church's Canon; they would leave them, and embrace our relinquish ' t faith, crying it up as their great Diana.  
Both these rocks I have always studiously avoided: The Decrees of the Church, that is, (if I may speak freely) the prevailing part of the present Age, were never my Hercules his pillars, that I thought it unlawful to look beyond them. I have often read and smiled, and smiled and read Mirandula, Gassendus, and other famous wits of the latter Age, delivering their choice notions diametrically opposite to the decrees of that Age, with this civil compliment, Of submission to the Church of Rome, (which it seems) disproves not a reputed Heresy, so she wait upon her in the garb of an handmaid.  
Notwithstanding, though I do not adore the unanimous consent of good and pious men; yet I receive it with much reverence, especially in a sacred matters 'tis neither my fetter, nor my scandal.  
I profess, I am not of those that think the mysteries of Religion may be rudely unraveled, or its public Professors bespattered with every Parrots tongue; for mine own particular, the studies of the divinest Philosophy have sucked me in from my childhood; and for such an one, I never esteemed it unlawful, or disapproved by any sober man, modestly to to dispute, and discuss even the highest matters, especially in a learned Auditory.  
As for these notions with which you are presented, you have them not from me as Sibilline Oracles, such as I either know or fully believe to be true, nor perhaps ever shall, till convinced with the same light that illuminated the Divine Author: however let them sit among Probables, till He come that shall come.  
I deny not but that much may be objected against them, and that not easily answered; but 'twill befit him that undertakes this task, likewise to set forth another scheme of the infinite Eternity, and delineation of the Universe, in which is no contradictory inconsonancy, and neerlier agreeing with the ancientest Philosophy and sacred Scripture.  
I speak plainly what I at this present think.  
Whatsoever the Thrice-great Hermes delivered as Oracles from his Prophetical Tripos, or Pythagoras spoke by authority, or Socrates debated, or Aristotle affirmed; yea, whatever divine Plato prophesied, or Plotinus proved; this, and all this, or a far higher and profounder Philosophy is (I think) contained in the teutonics writings. And if there be any friendly medium which can possibly reconcile those ancient differences between the Nobler Wisdom which hath fixed her Palace in Holy writ, and her stubborn handmaid, Natural Reason; this happy marriage of the Spirit and the Soul, this wonderful consent of discords in one harmony, we own in great measure to Teutonicus his skill.  
Only let not the non or misunderstanding even of the most rational Reader (if not a little sublimed above the sphere of common reason) be imputed as a fault to this elevated Philosopher, no more than 'twas to the divine Plotine, whose highest notions many even of his own School, after much study, were not able to reach.  
And with this proviso, I doubt not but the height of what I here promise, will be abundantly performed by the Author's Book of the Three Principles, which as I am informed is now at School, and will in few months be taught our language. 
a This Book was published Ann. 1648.  In the mean time may your noble favour accept my poor pains in taking off the dark style of the Author's magic language from these abstruse Notions, attiring them in a garb as suitable to the common eye, as their strange proportion would be are.  
And you the renowned Youth of both the Schools, the darlings of your times, whose learning, modesty, and piety, miraculously unproportioned to your Age, will be an ensample to future generations; it was for your cause chief, that for one night or two, I bade sweet sleep and ease adieu (both at other times very acceptable) that under the protection of the silent Moon, I might lead you into the inmost recesses of the more sacred Philosophy: To you my dearest fellow-students (your high merit challenging no less) is this Enchiridion principally dedicated.  
Had I found your minds and manners disingenuous, and uncivil, I had sufficient provision of Entelechia's and Haecceities proportionable to such rustic dispositions; but the sweet unspotted humane Genius which I have experienced to be in you, made me, as for my choicest Friends, broach this my best vessel of Divine Nectar; which  
Enjoy, and Farewell.   

The Questions then propounded by the several Disputants, were these.  
The Soul brings no Species with it into the Body.  
The World's Creation may be known by the light of Nature.  
The Will disobeying an erroneous Understanding, sins.  
The last Question was by one of the PROCTORS than Respondent, thus freely stated.  
The two Opinions; the first affirming the Souls traduction from the Parent; the later, That 'tis created by GOD out of nothing; are either of them probable.  
The MODERATOR, having given the Disputants their Quietus est, determined as followeth.   

To his most entire and highly esteemed Friend: The Author's answer, concerning the obscurity of the Teutonick Phliosophy.  
MYy candid More! surcease thy sou●● affright:  
Shades here are none, but that Majestic light  
Veil of high mysteries, Heaven's canopy,  
Which Gods pure Visage hides from mortal e●●●  
Thus Sol enthroned on high, with threatening flames,  
The Heaven-outfacing man's presumption tam●●  
But God's bright Image in his works we view:  
And Phoebus' face the crystal waters show;  
And this my watery Mirror shall convey  
To weaker eyes the great teutonics ray.  
But to thy distant Vortex, richly decked  
With beams of thine own radiant Intellect,  
Our Phoebus disappears, and fame will say,  
he's some yet unseen Star i'th' Milky way.   

ERRATA.  
Preface. page 2. for honoured, read humoured. ●●stle pag. 5. read disapproves. pag. 7. deal this 〈◊〉.  
In the Determination, Pag. 12. read, and that it jointly signifieth the 〈◊〉. pag. 40. read calls. pag. 67. read fragrant. ●oft, hand.   

To his worthily honoured and dear friend Master Charles Hotham, upon the obscureness of the Teutonick Philosophy described by him.  
IKen no Teutonick, good Charles! Then vent  
Thyself, and thine own Ingeny depeint.  
Writ Hothamick, & thine own sense explain;  
So shall thy learned page with force detain  
My ravished mind. For what-so Piety,  
Deep-brooding Silence, Alternations sly  
Of changing thoughts: What-so inspired Love,  
That with his golden wings doth gently move,  
Thy heartblood fanning to an heavenly flame:  
What any, or all these together claim,  
Will be the due of those adorned Lines  
Wherein thine own Souls image clearly shines.  
But now through unknown paths and darksome places  
Thou leadest us, with wrinched feet, and limping paces:  
In mids of those broke-winding, Cold invades  
My stonisht mind, and Horror in the shades.  
Yet while I look upon thy Candour bright,  
To sudden day strait turns this hideous night  
While I thy Morals and well-meaning Will  
Consider, in this night I fear no ill:  
Yea more, well weighing thy far-searching wit then suspect some good lies hid in it.  
H. More.   

NO Knowledge in the world hath more attendant difficulties, then that of our selus; Those sly spiritual Essences being too subtle for the Senses anatomy. Hence is it, that both Philosophers and Divines, in their dark contests, have as yet filled the world only with doubts concerning the Original of the humane and immortal Soul, and its conjunction with the mortal Body.  
The variety of dissenting opinions (to speak in a Physical sense) comes little short of infinitude▪ Nor is there scarce that considerable part of Nature's large circumference to be ramed, which hath not been thought a worthy material, by some tume-sick brain, to be carved out into a Soul.  
But I will not trouble you with a Relation of the many several guesses of doting Antiquity; some of which, to our present Age, will seem to be dreams and fancies risen from the gross vapours of overfed bodies.  
The more select are these five, which I shall set down in order.  
The first is attributed to the ancient Physician Galen, (with whom I believe the Sadduces agree) who (it seems aiming to bring soul as well as body within the dominion of his Profession) affirms that the soul, as of men, so of bruit beasts, is a mere due temper or active spirit arising from the commixture of Elements and Humours, and mortal, with their dissolution.  
The second is, of certain ancient Arabians, and of our modern Cardane; which is, That all Particular souls are but the emanation of the Universal soul of the world; or rather, that there are no particular souls at all, but that the Universal Spirit necessarily enacts all matter duly prepared for life; which it can no more subtract from it, than the Sun can bridle its beams, or divert its light from rendering a perspicuous body translucid.  
These two opinions are maintained either by Epicures, or as the Apostle calls them, men without God in the world; the folly of which, not only our Religion, but the joint-consent of the wiser Heathens hath rejected.  
The third is that of the Platonics, who affirm the Earth on which we now live, not to be our native soil; and the Bodies which we wear, to be fetters of our slavery, ensigns and badges of our transgression, to which our souls are confined for offences committed of old against their Creator: That being all of them created by God in an equal and immaculate estate, of rare perfection, the fountain & firmament of which being coaduntion with the will of God, they fell to their own will, and by that means were cast out from the presence of God, and confined to this world; in which, if under the dire Schoolmistresse of miseries, inconstancies, mischances, mortalities, they learned to reseek that Eternal , they are by the mercy of God reassumed into their own Country, being unchained from the galley of the Body.  
This opinion is maintained by Hermes, Plato, jamblichus, Plotinus, and by the whole School of the mystical Philosophy, and as I guess, believed by most of the ancient and late Jews, and in our Christian Schools by the famous Origen.  
Notwithstanding, some of that way do in this differ from the generality, That they suppose all the legion of souls were not partakers in the transgression, but are some in every Age sent down into undefiled bodies by divine dispensation, as guardians, instructers, and promoters of the captived souls into their ancient inheritance and lost freedom. But that those souls whom the hard apprenticeship and servitude under things mortal, finite, empty, dark, could not stir to a desire and preparation to things eternal, immense, and infinite; those are either winnowed over again in humane bodies, or descend into irrationality, and are clothed with bodies suitable to their grovelling minds, and after fall down into plants, till at last they vanish into their first nothing.  
But surely this opinion, notwithstanding its glorious deduction, and that it hath spirit and light in it beseeming those Heroic wits that brought it forth; yet to us Christians that have freed our understandings by a voluntary captivity to Sacred Writ, which delivereth to us man's first creation, his fall, and the contagion on his whole progeny; Add also the body's resurrection, its union again with the soul, and everlasting punishment in hellfire for the wicked: These, I say, being considered to be in an exact opposition, we will without further examination bury it with honour, as the best and noblest Essay natural man hath attained unto.  
The fourth is maintained by the greatest part of the Divines in Christendom, and is, That the soul of man, immediately upon the completing of all the parts of the body, at least those of absolute use, is created of nothing, and in the instant of creation infused into the body.  
The fifth, seems to be the opinion of the learned Respondent, yet without any impetuous disapprobation of the former; with whom many famons Wits of this Age do concur, nor doth it want some approbation from reputed Antiquity. And thus they deliver it: That the humane soul of the Infant hath its original from the Parent's seed.  
Now which of these be trucst, no demonstrable Reason hath yet decided. At this present time with the favour of the Noble Auditors, we shall cast anchor upon neither, but in a free discussion sound each its bottom.  
The grounds they build upon are taken either from the sacred Scriptures, or principles of Philosophy: the latter I shall omit, as having clearly been discussed by the acuteness and judgement of the late Disputants; and for the authorities taken from Sacred writ, I shall weigh them in the balance of these two small Conclusions.  
First, that nothing is either so peremptorily or plainly delivered in Sacred writ, in determination of either opinion, that it excludes the question from all further debate, or renders the favourers of either opinion Heretical or unbelieving.  
Secondly, that all the places of Scripture ingenuously compared together, give more strong evidence and authority to the maintainers of the Souls derivation from the loins of the Parent, then to those that affirm that God is immediately assistant to the production of every Individual.  
These two conclusions I shall jointly prosecute.  
Object. 1.] That than which meets us in the first place, viz. That in the beginning of the World's creation, we find the Earth and Water made the first Mother and Nurse of all inferior living souls, by the commanding word of the Almighty; but God himself declared the Father of man's soul, in giving him life by the divine efflux of his breath.  
Ans. 1.] This, if urged for the first fountain of man's soul, hath some weight in it; but no deductive evidence to exempt the humane offspring from self-multiplication or seed in itself, with which God endued all kinds of life besides; nay, rather it is from the Epilogue of the Creation otherwise evident, [Increase and multiply] under which command Adam and his Consort were expressly included; and in the process of the story, it is declared, Adam did fulfil that command, and begot a Son in his own Image; and afterwards seventy Souls are said to have issued out of jacob's loins.  
But I am not ignorant, that the word Soul in Scripture, is of very ambiguous interpretation; nor is always significant of that superior part, of which the question is stated: but is sometimes used for flesh and body, as in the 21. of Leviticus, [He shall not come at a dead soul,] (so runs the Original expression) yet most generally it denoteth the Soul and its affections, or the entire person made up of the soul and body jointly: but that in this place it only signifieth the Soul, I am hence convinced.  
In the comparison and prelation of Christ's Priesthood before the Levitical, the Apostles proofs are thus; that Levi in Abraham's loins paid tithes to Melchisedeck. If here the soul of Levi be not jointly meant, the argument destroys itself: for the body likewise of Christ was in Abraham's loins, and paid tithes to Melchisedeck, whereby the pre-eminence would cease; and as for conviction from the argument, the two Priesthoods remain still in equal honour.  
But I return whence I strayed. God in the beginning, is supposed by an immediate presence to have applied himself not only to the framing of man's soul, but the kneading of his body too: but since that time, it is confessed, he hath delivered the work of the body to mediate instruments. How invalid therefore is that argument of God's immediate assistance to the framing of the original piece, to evince so close an assisting to the production of all successive souls?  
The Earth likewise in the beginning brought forth every Beast and Plant; the Water, Fish, and Fowl: but now both Earth and water have ceased teeming, and the whole Creation moves into infinite particulars, by the inexhaustible force of multiplication infused into the Earth's and Water's first fry, by God Almighty. Be it therefore far from us, to think that the manner and circumstances of the first Creation should be the perpetual mode of all future production of souls; affixing sterility, that curse of God's creatures, to the divine offspring; and not rather think that the divine issue of God's mouth was as full of radiant life, and as throughly furnished with possibilities of propagation into thousands of thousands in its own kind, as that child of the drossy Earth, the Brutal spirit, is fruitful in his kind:  
But they say, that by many places of Scripture it is evident that God yet attendeth the noble work of creation of Souls; as in that place, [The Souls would fail before me, that I have made:] and that other; [Who formeth the spirit of man in him] with that of Eliphaz, [The breath of the Almighty enlivened me.]  
To these the maintainers of Traduction answer with much ease and satisfaction; That all these places argue no other than the fatherly care and providence of God's intent over man, as our Saviour expresses it, more than Sparrows: his more careful presidence over the nativities and production of men than beasts; and this not over their soul only, for which those places are urged, but over their bodies also; as in the 33. Psalms, (if the infusiats will grant us but an equal latitude with them of interpreting) [framing severally one by one the hearts of them,] the like of which expression is not through out concerning the Soul: and that of Job, [Thou hast poured me out like Milk, and curdled me like Cheese. Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews] Now if the mention of God's immediate workmanship of each particular body, hath no force of argument to affirm that they have no relation of a plenary Sonship to the natural visible Parent; neither do all those other of the Soul.  
Ob. 3. & 4.] But there remain Scriptures of more and greater force, in which God is set forth as the author and maker of the Soul, in a peculiar and distinct manner from the body, where he is called [the Father of spirits] and in Ecclesiastes, where the body is said to [return to the Earth from whence it came, and the spirit to God that gave it.]  
Ans. ad 3.] For the first Scripture, if no Gospel had been, nor our Saviour's dispute with Nicodemus recorded by Holy writ, wherein that deep point of Regeneration is opened, and the relation of our soul's sonship to God, that Scripture had had some difficulty in it: but our second birth is there clearly intended, in which sense God is frequenlty called our Father, we his Sons, a new creature, born not of flesh and blood, or by man's carnal affection, but by the will of God: and me thinks, that from these very Scriptures we may elicit no contemptible deduction in favour of the Souls process from the visible Parent; arguing, That the subject of generation and regeneration being the same, it is true Logic, if we say, Because regenerate, therefore first generated.  
The other place of Ecclesiastes I confess is something more stringent, and all the knots not easily loosed by the Propounders of it: For if the soul be there understood, the souls of wicked men shall go thither whence all Scripture hath debarred them. But it will be said (without violence to Scripture) that all souls return to God, seated in his several thrones of judgement and mercy; to God's love, or wrath; yet both to God.  
Ans. ad 4.] What the return of the soul to God is, with the manner of it, I shall at this present make no curious disquisition: But as to the purpose why this place is urged, I propose this more genuine interpretation. [The spirit shall return to him that gave it] (that is) to the first Author of that divine particle of breath inspired to our first Father. And that this place relates to the first original of man's soul, and not all succeeding, that place in Zachary makes it very evident, where the efformation of the humane spirit is joined with the coagulation of the earth, and expansion of the heavens. [Thus saith the Lord which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.]  
And in this very sense we are frequently called in Holy Writ dust and ashes; and yet from Adam until this time, flesh hath begot flesh.  
Therefore the application must necessarily be, either to the ultimate term of resolution, or first matter of our body's existence.  
There remains one place of Scripture, which is the sword and spear of those that defend the continued creation of souls: and it is in the 21. of Exod. v. 22. the Septuagint render the place thus: [If a man smite a woman, and the fruit come from her unfashioned, the smiter shall only undergo such a mulct as the woman's husband shall set down: but if it come from her form, soul shall be required for soul.  
Hence (say they) it is evident, that the soul comes not into the body, till it have form and fashion befitting such a guest, and therefore not transmitted from the Parent, but first created, and then infused.  
But certainly that argument bears neither weapon of offence nor defence: For be the soul either God's immediate offspring, or issue of an inferior agent; maintain but no actual existence before the completion of at least the vital parts, the crime of murder ariseth equally from both opinions.  
Some, to fill up the number, are pleased further to argue, Gods being yet busied in the creation of souls; from those words of Christ related by St. John; [My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.] But to this I must needs answer, That these men, certainly, (except they take for granted, that God sat idle till he roused himself up to the creation of the world) intent only by this reasoning to make the Reader sport: yet if any will morosely exact another answer, take this further reply, extremely well proportioned to the rudeness of the Argument.  
God doth as yet operate by his cooperating concourse with the creatures, according to their several natures.  
Thus far have Authorities of Holy Writ been examined: one Argument remains thought unexplicable, drawn jointly from Philosophy and Divinity, by the Patrons of the Souls infusion: And this it is.  
Obj. 6.] If the soul be a natural proceed, then either from the paternal or maternal seed, or both jointly. The mothers solely all reject: If only the fathers, it had been as good man had been alone: If both, then is the soul a compound, divisible, mortal: besides, if either both, or the paternal solely, from whence shall Christ's soul be derived, who had no mortal father; And then by what rules of the Traduciaries Philosophy shall we call Christ true man?  
But let us retort this argument, and so we shall soon find that it hath more noise than force: change but the term of Body for Soul, and I shall point the argument, as sharp for our own purpose.  
The body of man is either of paternal or maternal seed, or of both: none entitles the Mother solely; if only the Father, or or both, whence was Christ's body, who had no humane Father; or, how is he truly man? So the infusiasts must either leave this argument, or let the Body also partake in their high privilege of immediate creation.  
But as to those things which concern the Person of Christ, the Scripture poseth mankind with an explanation of his generation: His Birth, Life and Death, being a successive miracle, A God born, a man not begotten, a Virgin-Mother, the God of Life himself suffering death. These are horrid spectres to humane reason, and silences that god of mankind, amongst the rest of the Heathen Oracles.  
All which considered, though they are a sufficient confutation of the last recited argument, and exempt his birth from the Laws of inferior creatures: yet to make the business more perspicuous, I shall propose these three things.  
First, Though we determine that all Souls have a natural production; yet we may, without any inconsistence, exempt the first and second Adam: nor let any man wonder, that we here slip the cover from Prince Arthur's Shield; since Gigantic instances are introduced, to overrule the ordinary measures and proportions of the propagation of mankind.  
Secondly, We affirm, that if Souls be proceeds from visible agents, no valid objection hinders us from determining the original solely from the Father's seed; yet with this concession, that the concourse of the woman is of absolute necessity to elicit from man the vital ferment, and to substantiate it into visible existence; which otherwise would participate of the lot of the three miscarrying handfuls of seed, mentioned by our Saviour, that brought no fruit to perfection: Adding further, That the mother is not much more assistant to the production of living Souls, than the great Beldame Tellus (Mid-wited by the Horns of Aries) is to her numerous progeny of Vegetatives.  
Thirdly, For those Bug-bears of Divisibility and Mortality, that would haunt the poor Soul, if the father and mother were joint Parents of it; that causeth to sound reason no matter of fear, so long as we free them from the power of any natural agent to reduce that possibility into act, submitting it only to the benign strength of God's omnipotency.  
Thus fare in favour of Traduction is sufficient: One word concerning Creation of the Soul: for, when, what a Soul is, and what Creation is, is well understood, The night is past, and the day will appear.  
'Tis therefore carefully to be observed, that in every creature partaking of that which we properly call Intellect, whether Man or Angel, there are three essential parts; Spirit, Soul and Body; the distinction of which might evidently be made appear, by reason and sacred Philosophy, if we were not pin-folded within set limits of time.  
By the Spirit, here, I understand not that common tye of the Body and the Soul; but the supreme region of man, or that divine principle, by the mediation of which we have fellowship with God: nor by the Body, that unprofitable carcase, but a concrete notion of the gross spirits of sense and vegetation. And by the Soul, (if we we may speak as things are) I understand that middle Essence, placed betwixt that heavenly, and that brutal spirit: but in this present controversy, the word Soul comprehends a  of all these; and all that is purely opposed to the Body, is in this controversy called Soul.  
As for the notion of Creation, that which the Schoolmen and their followers obtrude upon us, [viz. that 'tis a framing of something out of nothing] wants both truth and reason to support it; for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the original tongue and holy writ, from whence the word Creation was first taken up, hath no such signification; but perpetually eternal; to wit, God, and the great deep; that is to say, an infinite immeasurable space, in every imaginable point whereof dwelled the whole Deity.  
Secondly, This Deep, or more truly called space-infinite, in all dimensions, is not purely nothing; seeing two points divers from each other, might in it be assigned, in which God was able to create so many worlds; and a line extended from the one to the other would a be measure of the distance of one from the other: and although this space be not quantity particularly determinate; yet seeing that of two lines drawn in it, that is to be said the longer, that takes up more parts of this Deep: from hence it may challenge all the denominations of quantity and dimension.  
Thirdly, Although that this bottomless Immensurable partake (next under God) most highly of the reality of being, yet is it not God himself, because its divisibility and several other properties are diametrically opposite to the many attributes of the perfect Divine life and essence; And therefore in an apt signification it may be termed the Body of the Deity, or more fitly, the eternal habitation of the Godhead.  
Fourthly, To this Deep or Abyss may be attributed all what the Philosophers ascribe to their Materia Prima, to wit, that it is neither quid, quantum, nor quale; to wit, none of these in a definite essence or tircumscribed figure or shape, but interminately all. The meaning of which is, That the narrow speech and expressions of mankind, with which they measure out and circumscribe their finite essences, applied to this Infinite, are too narrow, nay contradictory in the enunciation of it, and extend only to declaration of a negative glimpse of its unimaginable vastness. Yet four properties are especially assigned to this Abyss.  


1. Desire and inclination to corporeity, or a force contracting, crudling and constringing.  
2. Contrary to this, a force impetuously resisting coagulation.  
3. From the joint strife of these, ariseth a spirit of anguish, gnawing the bowels of the first matter.  
4. A great burning or pitchy dark fire.    
Of all these properties of the eternal Abyss, I can with ease make a visible resemblance, in the conflict of Metals, with Waters corrosive, especially in the dissolution of Iron with the oil of Vitriol, or in the coagulation of the oil of Vitriol by Iron; for the work is one and the same.  
Here, upon the instant of the infusion of the oil, the coagulative spirit of Mars and Venus, gins to work to a sweet embracement of each other, and marriage into one body; but almost in the very same moment, ariseth another furious force impatient of this union and incorporation, ejecting both water and oil with sudden violence over the brim of the highest Cucurbit; and from this conflict of the constrictive power with the contrary spirit, a third force ariseth, which grates those hard filings of Iron into a soft and tender Crystal; and fourthly, followeth that dark fire without cheering light, yet sensible by the adventurous hand of him that dares touch the glass.  
Whosoever shall curiously behold this combat, may well perceive the hideous storms of the vast Ocean, depainted to the most exact possibility of so small an Epitome, and smelling those rancid fumes dispersed throughout the room (such as are said in the Apocalypse to ascend from the bottomless pit) belched out from this whirlpool, I believe he shall need no further illustration of the Poets Tartarus, or the Christians Hell; having with some difficulty escaped stifling, with overlooking this so well-limbed a Breviate. And to declare my thoughts plainly, I account that part of this great Abyss from whence God shall retire himself within his own Centre, to be truly Hell; but do not believe, that before the fall of Lucifer it did break forth into its hellish actuality, but was so becalmed by the benign effluence of the allpresent Deity, that it greatly furthered the manifestation of the eternal Godhead.  
Fifthly; Out of the friendly wrestling of the beams flowing from the Centre of the Deity, and the properties of the eternal Immense or Abyss, there ariseth (let the Reader understand that our expressions designative of a time, must be understood from all eternity) a majestatick light filling all this infinite space; A slight resemblance of which we may perceive in our fire; which when it hath digested the darkness of its nourishment, triumphs in a radiant flame, having wrought through the clung prison of dark matter.  
This light, or at least its vital and cheering rays breathing a sweet gale through the circuit of the infinite Abyss, the holy Scripture, especially the Apocryphal book of Solomon called by the name of Wisdom.  
Sixthly; Hence it may truly be affirmed, that there was from all eternity, is, and shall be a divine World, whose omnipresent Centre is the Eternal Unity, whose body and soul is the Abyss, and its spirit is the divine Wisdom itself, born of God the everlasting Father, and of its mother the Abyss; by which name I understand not any of the Divine Attributes, but a certain Essence on all parts eternal, living, intelligent, inferior only in dignity to the eternal Unity, from whence this divine world hath all its ornament and variety, and in which as in a glass God hath from all eternity had a lively and most delightful prospect of his own lovely visage, and incomprehensible beauty.  
And now I desire the Auditors would attend whither all these notions carry them. We have hitherto explained the first two Principles only: by the first, I understand the eternal Abyss; by the second, the Wisdom, such as we have clearly described.  
From these two principles it pleased the highest Creator, after infinite revolutions of Eternity, to create another world, to wit, the Angelical, distinguished into three Regions, like a nest of spheres, whose inhabitants were Angels, severed into three Hierarchies. The middle, and fullest of Light which is now our World, was the habitation of Lucifer and his Angels; whose Souls and Bodies, as likewise of all other Angels, were from the Abyss; their Spirit, from the fruitful womb of the Eternal Wisdom.  
This Lucifer, beautifullest of all the rest, and who resembled (after whose Image, its like, he was made) the Son of God, with his Legions: contemning the Milk of God's divine Breast, which was ordained to be the food and support of his spirit; by an enormous appetite looked downward, for the sustenance of his life, to the menstruous efflux of the Nurse and Mother of his two inferior Principles, whereby his mind and will was choked, and his Angelic wings limned in unproportionable mire. By this means, the Spirit of Wisdom, whose sweet rays before had tempered the bitter corrosions of the four properties of the Matrix, being stifled and extinct, the sore-recited properties of the Abyss budded forth and flourished in their natural vigour, by whose dark and filthy fumes those proud Spirits being intoxicated, fell then, and still fall, (being in a bottomless) into this following irrecoverable condition.  
First, A desire to appropriate the beauty of all the other Hierarchies; yea, of the whole Deity to themselves. This arieth from the contractive and coagulative power of the Abyss.  
Secondly, To aspire beyond the limits of the whole Creation; and to erect themselves a Throne in the Highest, whereby they might subject God and all their fellow-creatures to a footstool of their feet.  
This desire began from the second Property, which violently resists Coagulation or Confinement, and whose motions are always from the Centre to the Circumference; for they scorned to be pin-folded within the created Spheres, but would make themselves in all points equal to the immense and infinite Creator.  
Thirdly, When this violent rising received a check by the limits wherein God had set all created Being; there arose from the aforenamed Properties, a spirit of anguish and envy, gnawing itself.  
Fourthly, and lastly, broke forth that smouldering heat of dark fire; whose proud force filled all their Region with flames and smoke, and sulphurous tempest.  
And here you may see the first original of sin, and Hell-fire; especially those four Bases, or corner-stones upon which 'tis founded; Covetousness, Pride, Envy, and Wrath; For from these apostate Souls the spirit had retired to its mansion. God had withdrawn drawn himself to his own Centre; the Wisdoms sweet light becalmed the raging Deep, or properties of the Abyss, no more: and what now remains, but that these unhappy branches fallen from that communion with the Divine stock, continue in their own sphere, the eternal fuel of the fire themselves have kindled.  
And now at last, not without much toil under the difficulty of expressing these unheard of Notions, we are arrived at a known Land, described ofold by the Poets, to wit, the Chaos; the ancientest term from whence they deduce all their story: really, no figment, but a true adumbration of the topsie-turvie Regiment of Rebellious Lucifer in this mundane space, before this new Creation. And we may well suppose, th●t by the strength of this venom, (the  force of which we feel in ourselves) the other Hierarchies had soon been infected, had not Gods seasonable right arm checked this magic vapour.  
For the Eternal Father, unwilling that so large a space, destined above the rest for a seat of glory, should eternally be bereft of his good influence; and himself frustrate of his bountiful purpose to communicate happiness to so many creatures on this stage, applied himself by his powerful word to appease these tumults, (that is) created this sensible World out of that disordered heap.  
And first of all, He digested those particles or atoms of crass matter (congealed by the constringing force of the Abyss) into one body, or (if we may speak with the Copernicans) into several opake spheres, separating them from the fluid matter: and this is called in Scripture, the Creation of Heaven & Earth. Then proceeding, he gathered the darkness which was dispersed through the whole Luciferian region, together with its Author, into a narrow compass, framing thereof a stiff dungeon for a receptacle of their all-comprehending Pride. And this in Scripture is called the Creation of Light, and the work of the first day. And this was the first victory over Lucifer.  
It would take up too much time to recite all the degrees of conquest: but it is most clear by the series of divine story, that the holy Spirit of God desisted not from his conflict with this Chaos, before it had perfected an absolute victory, and overcome all the inflamed dark matter, captivating it to some peculiar use subservient to the necessities or ornament of this world, the temple and habitation of mankind.  
And it is worthy our observation, that God, after the perfection of every day's work, did with the whole Choir of Angels sing a triumphant song over the spoils of repulsed Hell; of which himself bears witness in the book of Job. And it is probable that the Seventh day being the utter subduing of the Luciferian tyranny, rendered that day a day of songs and jubilation to all created beings. And although what I am about to say, will be received with derision; yet I shall utter my thoughts with freedom, to wit, That the 148. Psalms, and the 104. were in the seventh day, that great day of triumph, (and perhaps in all succeeding Sabbaths) caroled out by the Angels, and afterwards dictated to the holy Prophets, that Gods will might be done on earth, as it is in heaven. But if the naming of Israel, and other expressions of the like nature in these Psalms, should be to any man an occasion of the disrelish of this opinion; Let that man know, that there was an Israel in Heaven, before Jacob was borne; and a Tabernacle, from whence Moses-his was copied out: And whoso reads the Song of the Angels at our Saviour Christ's birth, and compares it with David's Psalms, he will judge them both composed for one Choir, and sent down from thence to be learned by those holy souls which shall be thought worthy to assist that Music.  
But this is but a Notion en passant: I return to the matter in hand You had before a delineation of the two first Principles: and now out of what hath been last delivered, you may frame to yourselves a definition of the third Principle.  
For under that name I comprehend the Spirit, and Body, yea the whole Compages of this our late created sensible world. And now as I conceive, it sufficiently appeareth, that Creation was not out of nothing; and you likewise understand what I mean by the Three Principles; the first and second of which, namely the Abyss, and the Wisdom, are on all parts eternal, and all things proceeding from them are finally eternal and immortal; but what proceeds or is created out of the third Principle, is as itself, frail and mortal  
That I may therefore touch the matter at last, at which all these Notions are leveled.  
After the region of Lucifer was again made habitable, and he relegated into sublunary darkness; it seemed good to the Creator to create in his place another Hierarch, who with his numerous progeny might people this Region, the dominion and possession whereof, the former by his transgression had forfeited. And that was Adam; who though in reference to the predominant part of his composition, he he called Earth of Earth, yet it is very probable that every one of the Elements yielded of its finest parts, to the composure of so goodly a Fabric.  
But whether in the beginning, his body were so gross & dark, such as we now wear, or rather such as we hope for in the Resurrection, I am not yet satisfied with myself.  
But concerning these mysteries, with the sleep of Adam, and formation of Eve, they concern not the matter in hand.  
Into this body of Adam, perfect in all parts, God breathed the breath of life; by which breath, if we ingenuously compare Scriptures, we must necessarily understand the threefold life issuing from the three forementioned Principles; to wit, The life of the Spirit, from the Wisdom; the life of the Soul, from the Abyss; the life of the Body, from the Mundane spirit: by the mediation of all which, he is enabled to communicate with all the three Worlds. And although the life of the Spirit did (according to God's just commination) fall asleep in Adam; yea so deep asleep, that (he being in truth dead as to that spirit, and it as to him) it is in Scripture called death; yet did it not utterly perish, but is together with the body and souls conveyed from our first parents into their posterity; asleep still, except it be revived and re-enlivened in that great mysterious work of the Regeneration, after the consummation of which we are able by its ministry to search the hidden things of the Deity. For as being carried in the chariot of the World's spirit with the five attendant Senses, we view all its frame, and know its motions: so by our Soul we have a prospect into the eternal Abyss; and by the Spirit, into the magic glass of the Wisdom and depth of the Deity: and herein is our dignity above the brute beasts, whose composition participates only of the last principle; we, besides that, of the first and second.  
But if any man wonder that three such noble and spiritual Essences should crowd themselves up into so mean and contemptible a vehicle, and not press into freedom; let that man likewise consider and begin first to wonder, that such a spiritual and vivacious essence as the Soul is by all supposed to be, should be cooped in so pervious a cask as the Body is; and know, that that fullgrown bulk is as unproportionable to her greatness, as this contemptible Epitome. And let this be a further answer: That the Spirit which outstretched the branches of the mustard-tree that our Saviour speaks of, in which the fowls of the air made their nests, sat with as much elbow-room in that smallest of seeds from whence that greatest sprung.  
Further more they affirm, that this threefold life is not yet actually and visibly existent, no more than the body, such as it appears afterwards in all its dimensions; but that therein are three roots of substances lodged, which in process of time bud forth together with the Body into a th●e fold life: where if any dark impervious matter hinder their joint progress, each retires to its mother-Ocean from whence it issued.  
These things premised, and well weighed, it will not be difficult to determine either of the Creation or Traduction of Souls; when the term and manner of both, well understood, differ in no real concernment. For seeing we have proved that Creation neither is, nor ever was from nothing; I understand not why we may not affirm, that both Body and Soul were and are created by God, but of matter derived from the Parents: But the Soul, not of that visible and sensible, which the obtuse beams of our Senses can penetrate, but such as disappears from all material anatomy. Yet if any man shall think that these opinions in this are still at odds, in that an immediate creation and infusion of the soul is maintained by the one; The other builds it by the same hand, but mediately and of secondary materials:  
This difference too will be easily reconciled: for we affirm (and doubt not to an unbiass'd judgement to prove it) that both our bodies and souls do yet as immediately proceed from God as that of our first father Adam. A great illustration of the matter in hand, is that vision of Ezekiel, of the dry bones timbered into bodies, and inspired with life. It is in the 37. Chapter of Ezekiel, from the first to the eleventh verse.  

1. The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley, which was fill of bones.  
2. And caused me to pass by them ro●nd about, end behold there were very many in the open valley, and lo they were very dry.  
3. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God thou knowest.  
4. Again he said unto me, Prophecy upon these dry bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones hear the word of the Lord.  
5. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, behold I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live.  
6. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and pull breath in you, and ye shall live, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.  
7. So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together bone to his bone.  
8. And when I beheld, lo the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above, but there was no breath in them.  
9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds, o breath, and breath upon these slain that they may live.  
10. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood upon their feet an exceeding great Army.   
In this Vision is shadowed forth (though the primary scope was a thing different from both) not only the Resurrection, but the Creation also; though I conceive that the life of the Third Principle only activated these bones, which (the Vision ended) returned to its fountain: and as God out of them did create living men, and breathed into them the breath of life by the ministration of the wind, and not his own mouth; so in the relation of the first forming of Adam, the Scripture puts God's actions in the garment and posture of humane, descending to our mean capacities, expressing Gods actions like ours: Not that it is to be imagined he stood over like a man tempering his clay, or kneading a piece of dough; into which being shaped into a humane figure, he should in a posture ridiculous for us to fancy, breathe life into his nostrils; but 'tis rather probable, that as man by the mediation of the Microcosmick spirit inhabiting the seed cast into the womb generates his like; so (God in like manner ordaining it) the Earth impregnated by the spirit of this world lodged in the vehicle of the Elements and influences of the Stars, brought forth a quintessence, which, nourished in the womb of some dark cave, grew in few hours to the perfect dimensions of a body: then, a spirit or wind blown from the lungs of the threefold World, animated its completed members, whereby at last the man broke through the dark entrails of the Earth, as a chicken its shell, or an infant the womb of its mother.  
And I doubt not at all, but that if some young Scripling, unbiass'd by any form or principle, had been an eyewitness of Adam's birth, he would have deemed him a mere son of the Earth, as not being able to reach that invisible Principle, that moves the gross matter, and is the original of life.  
Since then, to affirm Adam to be created by God and inspired by him, and withal to be framed out of the dust and animated by the wind, are no repugnancies; and what seems to us, or is recorded to be done by the mediation of visible Agents, is but Gods inward power disguised in a cloud:  
We conclude, That the soul's Traduction from the Parents, and its Creation by God; are not only either of them probable, but both true.  
Notwithstanding. If we will speak in the dialect of Angels (which the Scripture often useth) we affirm they are created of GOD: If with the tongues of men, They are an offspring of their Father's loins.  
ANd now at last (most worthy VICE CHANCELLOR, with the rest of this grave Assembly, and hopeful Youth) having sailed over this sturdy sea of Disputation, touching by the way at several shores of the Intellectual world, and discovering many unknown Regions of the Soul; our ship is at last entered its wished haven, torn and weatherbeaten, yet safemoored upon the Jetty of your favour.  
And if as yet your benumbed thighs are not cramped in your uneaseful seat; If sleep, the harbinger of the approaching evening, have not set his leaden paw upon your eyelids: We must be thankful to your vivid patience, that hath with so much spirit attended our droning words.  
These heavenly Dainties that have been by your Servants in this days Exercise presented unto you, according to our mean poverty, in a Wooden Dish; be pleased to pardon, and gild with your divine acceptance.  
One thing only remains to be further desired: That these pregnant Youngmen (who have to day adorned this Philosophic Scene with the flagrant flowers of their Wits) together with those graver men, who have done far above the reach of my praise, may have their deserved applause and thanks distributed by your hands; Myself, in the sense of my failings, kneeling under the same for my pardon; that if any error which may have overslipt my h●●dlesse tongue, have displeased you, you may be appeased by this submission.  
So shall the gentle gale of your clemency transmit a new Soul into my overwearied and fainting Spirits.  
This shall be my second birthday; and the native characters of your favour, no stupifying streams of oblivion shall be able to blot out,  
And lastly, 'twill appear more clear than by nature's noon-day-light, That all this Day's performance hath received its life and acceptation, not from the poverty of our merit, but from the royal Mine of your Candour.  
These things if (which I doubt not) I shall be so happy as to obtain, than I who was the first that bid you welcome to this place, shall with the same cheirfulnesse bid this Honourable Assembly the last Farewell.  
FINIS.   

Imprimatur,  
Novemb. 20. 1649. J. Downame.