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 mankinde 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 inferiour creatures yet to make the busines more perspicuous I shall propose these three things First Though we determine that all Soules have a naturall 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 Gigantick instances are introduced to over-rule the ordinary measures and proportions of the propagation of man-kinde Secondly We affirm that if Souls be proceeds from visible agents no valid objection hinders us from determining the original solely from the Fathers seed yet with this concession that the concourse of the woman is of absolute necessity to elicite 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 then the great Beldame Tellus Mid-wit't 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 onely to the benigne strength of Gods omnipotency Thus farre in favour of Traduction is sufficient One word concerning Creation of the Soule for when what a Soule is and what Creation is is well understood The night is past and the day will appear 'T is therefore carefully to be observed that in every creature partaking of that which we properly call Intellect whether Man or Angel there are three essentiall 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 carcasse but a concrete notion of the gross spirits of sense and vegetation And by the Soule 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 controversie the word Soule comprehends a Hotch-potch of all these and all that is purely opposed to the Body is in this controversie caled Soul As for the notion of Creation that which the Schoolmen and their followers obtrude upon us viz. that 't is 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 eternall to wit God and the great deep that is to say an infinite immeasurable space in every imaginable point whereof dwelt 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 bottomlesse Immensurable partake next under God most highly of the reality of being yet is it not God himself because its divisibility and severall 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 Abysse 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 tircumscrib'd 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 onely to declaration of a negative glimpse of its unimaginable vastnesse Yet foure properties are especially assign'd to this Abysse 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 joynt 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 eternall Abysse I can with ease make a visible resemblance in the conflict of Mettals with Waters corrosive especially in the dissolution of Iron with the oyle of Vitriol or in the coagulation of the oyle of Vitriol by Iron for the worke is one and the same Here upon the instant of the infusion of the oyle the coagulative spirit of Mars and Venus begins to worke 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 oyle 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 Chrystal and fourthly followeth that darke fire without chearing light yet sensible by the adventurous hand of him that dares touch the glasse Whosoever shall curiously behold this combate may well perceive the hideous stormes of the vast Ocean depainted to the most exact possibility of so small an Epitome and smelling those rancid fumes dispersed throughout the roome such as are said in the Apocalypse to ascend from the bottomlesse pit belcht out from this whirpoole 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-limb'd a Breviate And to declare my thoughts plainly I account that part of this great Abysse from whence God shall retire himselfe within his own Center to be truly Hell
work did with the whole Quire of Angels sing a triumphant song over the spoils of repulsed Hell of which himselfe beares witnesse in the book of Job And it is probable that the Seventh day being the utter subduing of the Luciferian tyrannie rendred 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 freedome to wit That the 148. Psalm and the 104. were in the seventh day that great day of triumph and perhaps in all succeeding Sabbaths carol'd 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 who-so reads the Song of the Angels at our Saviour Christs birth and compares it with Davids Psalms he will judge them both composed for one Quire and sent down from thence to be learnt by those holy souls which shal be thought worthy to assist that Musick 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 your selves 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 Abysse and the Wisedome 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 it self frail and mortal That I may therefore touch the matter at last at which all these Notions are levelled After the region of Lucifer was again made habitable and he relegated into sublunary darknes it seemed good to the Creatour to create in his place another Hierarch who with his numerous progenie 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 Fabrick But whether in the begining his body were so grosse dark such as we now weare or rather such as we hope for in the Resurrection I am not yet satisfied with my self 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 Wisdome the life of the Soule from the Abysse 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 Gods 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 soules 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 consumation 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 Worlds 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 Abysse and by the Spirit into the magick glasse of the Wisdom and depth of the Deity and herein is our dignity above the brute beasts whose composition participates onely 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 croud themselvs up into so mean and contemptible a vehicle and not presse into freedome 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 coop'd in so pervious a cask as the Body is and know that that full-grown bulk is as unproportionable to her greatnes as this contemptible Epitome And let this be a further answer That the Spirit which out-stretched the branches of the mustard-tree that our Saviour speaks of in which the fowls of the aire made their nests sate 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 then the body such as it appears afterwards in all its dimensions but that therein are three roots of substances lodged which in processe of time bud forth together with the Body into a thâ—e fold life where if any dark impervious matter hinder their joint progresse 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 Soules when the terme 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 stil 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 judgment to prove it that both our bodies and soules 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 timbred 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
differences between the Nobler Wisdom which hath fixt her Palace in Holy writ and her stubborn hand-maid Naturall Reason this happy marriage of the Spirit and the Soul this wonderfull concent of discords in one harmony we owe in great measure to Teutonicus his skill Onely let not the non or misunderstanding even of the most rationall Reader if not a little sublim'd above the sphere of common reason be imputed as a fault to this elevated Philosopher no more then 't was to the divine Plotine whose highest notions many even of his owne 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 Authors Book of the Three Principles which as I am informed is now at Schoole and will in few moneths 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 Authors magick language from these abstruse Notions attiring them in a garbe as sutable 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 chiefly 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 lesse 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 rustick dispositions but the sweet unspotted humane Genius which I have experienced to be in you made me as for my choisest Friends broach this my best vessel of Divine Nectar which Enjoy and Farewell The Questions then propounded by the severall Disputants were these The Soule brings no Species with it into the Body The Worlds Creation may be known by the light of Nature The Will disobeying an erroneous Vnderstanding sins The last Question was by one of the PROCTORS then Respondent thus freely stated The two Opinions the first affirming the Soules traduction from the Parent the later That 't is 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 â—steem'd Friend The Authors answer concerning the obscurity of the Teutonick Phliosophy MYy candid More surcease thy souâ—â— affright Shades here are none but that Majestic light Vaile of high mysteries Heavens canopy Which Gods pure Visage hides from mortal eâ—â—â— Thus Sol enthron'd on high with threatniâ—â— flames The Heaven-outfacing man's presumption tamâ—â— But Gods bright Image in his works we view And Phoebus face the chrystall waters shew And this my watry Mirror shall convay To weaker eyes the great Teutonicks ray But to thy distant Vortex richly deckt With beams of thine own radiant Intellect Our Phoebus disappears and fame will say Hee 's some yet unseen Star i' th' Milky way ERRATA Preface page 2. for honoured read humour'd â—â—stle pag. 5. read disapproves pag. 7. dele this 〈◊〉 In the Determination Pag. 12. read and that it jointly signifieth the 〈◊〉 pag. 40. read cals pag. 67. read fragrant â—oft hand To his worthily honoured and deare friend Master Charles Hotham upon the obscurenesse of the Teutonick Philosophy described by him IKen no Teutonick good Charles Then vent Thy self and thine own Ingenie depeint Write Hothamick thine own sense explain So shall thy learned page with force detaine My ravish'd 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 heart-blood fanning to an heavenly flame What any or all these together claime Will be the due of those adorned Lines Wherein thine own Soules image cleerly shines But now through unknown paths and darksome places Thou lead'st us with wrinch'd feet and limping paces In mids of those broke-windings Cold invades My stonisht mind and Horrour in the shades Yet while I look upon thy Candour bright To sudden day straight turns this hideous night While I thy Morals and well-meaning Will Consider in this night I feare no ill Yea more well weighing thy far-searching wit then suspect some good lies hid in it H. More NO Knowlege in the world hath more attendant difficulties then that of our selvs Those slie spirituall Essences being too subtile for the Senses anatomy Hence is it that both Philosophers and Divines in their dark contests have as yet fill'd the world onely with doubts concerning the Original of the humane and immortal Soule 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 Natures large circumference to be ramed which hath not been thought a worthy material by some tume-sick brain to be carved out into a Soule 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 grosse vapours of over-fed 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 wel as body within the dominion of his Profession affirms that the soul as of men so of bruit beasts is a meer 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 soules are but the emanation of the Universal soule of the world or rather that there are no particular soules at all but that the Universal Spirit necessarily enacts all matter duly prepared for life which it can no more substract from it then the Sun can bridle its beames or divert its light from rendring 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 onely our Religion but the joint-consent of the wiser Heathens hath rejected The third is that of the Platonicks who affirm the Earth on which we now live not to be our native soile and the Bodies which we weare to be fetters of our slavery ensignes and badges of our transgression to which our soules are confin'd for offences committed of old against their Creatour That being all of them created by God in an equal and immaculate estate of rare perfection the fountain
Scripture it is evident that God yet attendeth the noble work of creation of Soules as in that place The Soules would faile 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 then the fatherly care and providence of Gods intent over man as our Saviour expresses it more then Sparrows his more carefull presidence over the nativities and production of men then beasts and this not over their soul only for which those places are urged but over their bodies also as in the 33. Psalm if the infusiats will grant us but an equall 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 Soule and that of Job Thou hast powred me out like Milke and crudled me like Cheese Thou hast cloathed me with skin and flesh and hast fenced me with bones and sinewes Now if the mention of Gods immediate workmanship of each particular body hath no force of argument to affirm that they have no relation of a plenary Son-ship to the naturall visible Parent neither doe all those other of the Soule Ob. 3. 4. But there remain Scripturâ—s of more and greater force in which God is set forth as the authour and maker of the Soule 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 Saviours dispute with Nicodemus recorded by Holy writ wherein that deep point of Regeneration is opened and the relation of our soul's son-ship 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 mans carnall affection but by the will of God and me thinks that from these very Scriptures wee may elicite no contemptible deduction in favour of the Souls processe from the visible Parent arguing That the subject of generation and regeneration being the same it is true Logick if we say Because regenerate therefore first generated The other place of Ecclesiastes I confess is somthing more stringent and all the knots not easily loosed by the Propounders of it For if the soul be there understood the soules of wicked men shall go thither whence all Scripture hath debarr'd them But it will be said without violence to Scripture that all souls return to God seated in his several thrones of judgment and mercy to Gods 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 mans soule 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 untill this time flesh hath begot flesh Therefore the application must necessarily be either to the ultimate terme of resolution or first matter of our bodies existence There remains one place of Scripture which is the sword and speare 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 onely undergoe such a mulct as the womans husband shall set down but if it come from her formed soule shall be required for soule Hence say they it is evident that the soul comes not into the body till it have forme 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 soule either Gods immediate off-spring or issue of an inferiour 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 soules 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 sate idle till he roused himself up to the creation of the world intend 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 rudenesse of the Argument God doth as yet operate by his cooperating concourse with the creatures according to their severall natures Thus far haue Authorities of Holy Writ been examined one Argument remains thought unexplicable drawn jointly from Philosophy and Divinity by the Patrons of the Soules infusion And this it is Obj. 6. If the soul be a naturall 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 soule a compound divisible mortal besides if either both or the paternal solely from whence shall Christs 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 finde that it hath more noise then force change but the term of Body for Soule 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 onely the Father or or both whence was Christs 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 priviledge of immediate creation But as to those things which concern the Person of Christ the Scripture poseth mankinde with an explanation of his generation His Birth Life and Death being a successive miracle A God born a
firmament of which being coaduntion with the will of God they fell to their own will and by that meanes were cast out from the presence of God and confin'd to this world in which if under the dire School-mistresse of miseries inconstancies mischances mortalities they learned to reseek that Eternal Immoveable they are by the mercy of God reassumed into their own Country being unchained from the gally of the Body This opinion is maintained by Hermes Plato Iamblichus Plotinus and by the whole School of the mystical Philosophy and as I guesse believed by most of the ancient and late Jewes 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 soules into their ancient inheritance and lost freedome But that those soules whom the hard apprentiship and servitude under things mortal finite empty dark could not stirre 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 groveling 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 Heroick 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 mans first creation his fall and the contagion on his whole progenie Adde also the bodies resurrection its union again with the soule and everlasting punishment in hell-fire 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 Christendome and is That the soule of man immediately upon the compleating of all the parts of the body at least those of absolute use is created of nothing and in the instant of creation infus'd 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 concurre 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 Parents 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 bottome The grounds they build upon are taken either from the sacred Scriptures or principles of Philosophy the latter I shall omit as having cleerly been discuss'd by the acutenesse and judgment 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 Soules derivation from the loines of the Parent then to those that affirm that God is immediately assistant to the production of every Individuall These two conclusions I shall joyntly prosecute Object 1. That then which meets us in the first place viz. That in the beginning of the Worlds creation we finde the Earth and Water made the first Mother and Nurse of all inferiour living soules by the commanding word of the Almighty but God himself declared the Father of mans soule in giving him life by the divine efflux of his breath Ans 1. This if urged for the first fountain of mans soule hath some weight in it but no deductive evidence to exempt the humane off-spring from self-multiplication or seed in it self with which God endued all kindes 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 expressely included and in the processe of the story it is declared Adam did fulfill that command and begot a Son in his own Image and afterwards seventie Soules are said to have issued out of Jacobs loins But I am not ignorant that the word Soule in Scripture is of very ambiguous interpretation nor is alwayes significant of that superiour 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 soule so runs the Original expression yet most generally it denoteth the Soule and its affections or the intire person made up of the soule and body jointly but that in this place it only signifieth the Soule I am hence convinced In the comparison and prelation of Christs Priesthood before the Levitical the Apostles proofs are thus that Levi in Abraham's loins paid tithes to Melchisedeck If here the soule of Levi be not jointly meant the argument destroyes it self for the body likewise of Christ was in Abraham's loins and paid tithes to Melchisedeck whereby the preheminence would cease and as for conviction from the argument the two Priesthoods remain still in equall honour But I return whence I straied God in the beginning is supposed by an immediate presence to have applyed himself not onely to the framing of mans soule but the kneading of his body too but since that time it is confessed he hath delivered the worke of the body to mediate instruments How invalid therefore is that argument of Gods immediate assistance to the framing of the original piece to evince so close an assisting to the production of al 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 Waters first fry by God Almighty Be it therefore far from us to think that the manner and circumstâ—nces of the first Creation should be the perpetuall mode of all future production of soules affixing sterility that curse of Gods creatures to the divine off-spring and not rather think that the divine issue of Gods mouth was as full of radiant life and as throughly furnisht with possibilities of propagation into thousands of thousands in its own kinde as that childe of the drossie Earth the Brutall spirit is fruitfull in his kinde But they say that by many places of
but do not believe that before the fall of Lucifer it did break forth into its hellish actuality but was so becalm'd by the benigne effluence of the all-present Deity that it greatly further'd the manifestation of the eternal Godhead Fifthly Out of the friendly wrestling of the beams flowing from the Center of the Deity and the properties of the eternal Immense or Abysse 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 darknesse 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 chearing rayes breathing a sweet gale through the circuit of the infinite Abysse the holy Scripture especially the Apocryphal book of Solomon called by the name of Wisdome Sixthly Hence it may truly be affirmed that there was from all eternity is and shall be a divine World whose omnipresent Center is the Eternall Unity whose body and soule is the Abysse and its spirit is the divine Wisdome it self born of God the everlasting Father and of its mother the Abysse 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 glasse 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 eternall Abysse by the second the Wisdome 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 Abysse their Spirit from the fruitfull womb of the Eternal Wisdome 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 Gods 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 inferiour Principles whereby his minde and will was choaked and his Angelick wings lim'd in unproportionable mire By this means the Spirit of Wisdome whose sweet rayes before had temper'd the bitter corrosions of the foure properties of the Matrix being stifled and extinct the sore-recited properties of the Abysse budded forth and flourished in their naturall vigour by whose dark and filthy fumes those proud Spirits being intoxicated fell then and still fall being in a bottomlesse 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 Abysse 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 footstoole of their feet This desire began from the second Property which violently resists Coagulation or Confinement and whose motions are alwaies from the Center to the Circumference for they scorned to be pin-folded within the created Spheres but would make themselves in all points equall 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 aforenam'd Properties a spirit of anguish and envy gnawing it self Fourthly and lastly broke forth that smoldering heat of darke fire whose proud force filled all their Region with flames and smoak and sulphurous tempest And here you may see the first originall of sinne and Hell-fire especially those foure Bases or corner-stones upon which 't is founded Covetousnes Pride Envy and Wrath For from these apostate Souls the spirit had retired to its mansion God had withdrawn drawn himself to his own Center the Wisdomes sweet light becalm'd the raging Deep or properties of the Abysse 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 fewel of the fire themselves have kindled And now at last not without much toile under the difficulty of expressing these unheard of Notions we are arriv'd at a known Land describ'd ofold by the Poets to wit the Chaos the ancientest terme 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 thâ—t by the strength of this venome the fel force of which we feel in our selves the other Hierarchies had soon been infected had not Gods seasonable right arme check't this magick 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 bountifull purpose to communicate happinesse to so many creatures on this stage applied himself by his powerfull 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 Abysse into one body or if we may speak with the Copernicans into severall opake spheres separating them from the fluid matter and this is called in Scripture the Creation of Heaven Earth Then proceeding he gathered the darknesse which was disperst through the whole Luciferian region together with its Author into a narrow compasse framing thereof a stiffe 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 cleare 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 enflamed 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 dayes
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 passe by them roâ—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 Prophecie upon these dry bones and say unto them O ye dry bones heare 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 sinewes upon you and will bring up flesh upon you and cover you with skin and pul breath in you and ye shall live and ye shall know that I am the Lord. 7. So I prophecied as I was commanded and as I prophecied there was a noise and behold a shaking and the bones came together bone to his bone 8. And when I beheld lo the sinewes 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 Prophesie unto the wind prophesie son of man and say to the wind Thus saith the Lord God come from the four winds ô breath and breath upon these slain that they may live 10. So I prophe ied 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 onely 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 Gods 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 't is 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 houres to the perfect dimensions of a body then a spirit or wind blown from the lungs of the threefold World animated its compleated members whereby at last the man broke through the dark entrails of the Earth as a chicken its shel or an infant the wombe of its mother And I doubt not at all but that if some young Scripling unbiass'd by any forme or principle had been an eye-witnesse of Adam's birth he would have deem'd him a meer son of the Earth as not being able to reach that invisible Principle that moves the grosse matter and is the original of life Since then to affirm Adam to be created by God and inspired by him and withall 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 Soule 's Traduction from the Parents and its Creation by God are not onely 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 off-spring of their Fathers loines 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 Soule our ship is at last entred its wished haven torne and weather-beaten yet safemoor'd upon the Jetty of your favour And if as yet your benummed thighs are not crampt in your uneaseful seat If sleep the harbinger of the approaching evening have not set his leaden paw upon your eye-lids 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 dayes Exercise presented unto you according to our mean poverty in a Woodden Dish be pleased to pardon and guild with your divine acceptance One thing only remains to be further desired That these pregnant Young-men who have to day adorned this Philosophick 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 My self in the sense of my failings kneeling under the same for my pardon that if any error which may have overslipt my hâ—â—dlesse tongue have displeased you you may be appeased by this submission So shall the gentle gale of your clemencie transmit a new Soule into my overwearied and fainting Spirits This shall be my second birth-day and the native characters of your favour no stupifying streames of oblivion shall be able to blot out And lastly 't will appear more clear then by natures noon-day-light That all this Dayes performance hath received its life and acceptation not from the poverty of our merit but from the royal Mine of your Candor These things if which I doubt not I shall be so happy as to obtain then 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