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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44580	An introduction to the Teutonick philosophie being a determination concerning the original of the soul, viz. whether it be immediately created God and infus'd into the body, or transmitted from the parent / by C. Hotham ... at the close of the dispute held in the publique schooles of the University of Cambridge at the Commencement, March 3, 1646 ; Englished by D.F.; Ad philosophiam teutonicam manuductio. English	Hotham, Charles, 1615-1672.; Hotham, Durant, 1617?-1691.	1650 (1650)	Wing H2896; ESTC R11445	21,441	96

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TEVTONICK PHILOSOPHIE Being A Determination concerning the Original of the Soul vi● Whether it be immediately created GOD and infus'd into the Body or transmitted from the Parent By C. HOTHAM one of the Fellows of Peter-House At the close of the Dispute held in the publique Schooles 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 Corn-hill 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 soile One thing I am happy in that I have but one Judge your self 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 't is less dangerous to put to sea in an egge-shel then Translate under the controll and subjection of the various stormy censures of each peevish fancy when the decisive Pole-star is hid In the uncasing your sense from the Latine skin I know you will think I have torne 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 stript 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 alwayes affected it and him yet durst never saile 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 lickt up all my brains I confesse your Introduction hath made me something more steddy and his Notions more familiar and I have found some inkling of them in Scripture so have shaken hands with lesse suspition But may nothing ever appear more glorious to any man or fuller of light then the sweet humble contemned life of our Saviour It s true the sacred Writ is not plentifull in delivering the naturall frame and principles of the Soul though the value of it is sufficiently laid open by the price payed for its redemption and the Messenger sent to seeke it So that drop of knowledge may perhaps be reserved to make up the full sea promised these last times In my opinion whoever reades this Scheme of the Worlds creation and birth of the Soul may make excellent use of it reviewing his noble descent from those eternall Essences and shame to bemire himselfe in that swine-like refreshment of wallowing in cold dirty mire Our noble Genealogy should minde us of our Fathers house make us weary of the tutelage under hairy Faunes and cloven-footed Satyres the rulers and instructers of our dissolute youth and riper yeares though clothed by Archimago in Angelick garment whose spell I hope is neer an end put on thoughts of escape out of this beastial slavery into the Kingdome prepared for us As for this little Determination methinks I see the fate of it that it will be thought a fitter Preface to Ovid's Metamorphoses then 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 Paradoxe 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 Truths stately mansion to lead poor groping souls in this worlds affairs The bringing of Truth to their test is like gold to a candle-light in which all the impostures that can be named may be hid maugre its discovery No it 's a due temper of the Soule 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 rub'd 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 steele and flint of a Major and Minor Proposition struck out a fire and light directive of you all This dark lanthorn of a Syllogistical deduction is made paramount to all all else dim tapers that are not mov'd in its Ecliptick 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 nicknam'd many holy truths and men that believe God yet to be alive speak and that he hath not forsaken his Scepter devolved all the rule of Orphan mankinde to this dangerous vertible principle But may that State ever prosper whose wise hands mould a generous freedome productive of noble conceits dressing a fit Stage for our Saviours second coming who should he come as formerly in submission to mans 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 falshood to a haire in their grave Councels 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 masters certain ruine by the hand of the Assyrians The Prophet opens his eyes he sees help enough certainly this was no conjuring trick nor prophetick vision but what was reall 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 easie to have made the Prophet seem a foole and the people believe his eyes chim'd He might have askt where the Host was and when the Prophet had design'd the place the Philosopher taking with him a competent number of the by-standers 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 tript up the poor Prophets 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 successe or yours the Proposer seeing my ignorance hath set me far out of the reach of such high things I shall content my self with an usuall effect of admiraton silence rather then approve or disapprove And wish the world would make use of that excellent rule of Saint Austin Vt tamdiu versemur in diligenti consideratione quod legitur usque dum ad regnum charitatis interpretatio perducatur However may Gods blessing water the desires of every heart that is zealous for good and the advancement of Gods kingdome in individuis For fruitlesse 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 English-men that please to enter and satisfie their curiosity If you accept my paines I am re-ingaged and must remain Yours obliged Vnus ex multis To the Right Worthy the Vice-Chancellour and the Honourable University of Cambridge Be health and happinesse 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 publique view we hope will by you be esteemed neither unbeseeming your honour nor beneath our duty Your noble favor and patience whose sweet company carried me on with pleasure through the burdens of that office you were once pleased to honor me with and which cheared the delivery of these rugged Notions sets me in the debt of infinite obligations which till I can discharge be pleas'd to accept this scroll of paper as a Bond. And truly while I was thus meditateing thankfulnesse the report that these essayes and my self were by some adjudged both hereticall added vigour to my first resolution seeing I must needs esteem their opinion onely a defect of memory and advertency whom that I might fully satisfie with all well-meaning men I have set Pen to Paper and published them in the same dresse my memory did then suggest them to my tongue Now of the matter let the learned judge For what concernes my selfe I wonder those good men did not perceive First That I set before them anothers Philosophy not mine owne Secondly That my selfe likewise stood aloofe from peremptory assent to some of those things that were delivered Thirdly well-knowing in what uneven way I travelled nor sufficiently confiding in the support of mine owne judgement I begged and I hope obtained pardon of all mine errours which lest I should faile of in the publication I have adjoyned the Epilogue then used which I doubt not but will be successefull to both And certainly if pardon belong to any it is to the silent solemn Sceptick whose opinions are not brought forth as the onely heires-male to all humane assent invading the worlds 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 owne reason walk unfetterr'd in the quest of truth with an easie suspitious gate not hunting those poore soules with Dogge and Speare whose dimme sight hath led them into desert and unbeaten paths Certainly more soules have crept to the throne of Wisdome with the thin-spun clew of Right-opinion then ere have drawne her downe with the stiffe cart-rope of irresragable Syllogismes This supposed certain science of what is good and right believe me O you noble Athenians is the true ignis fatuus whose smal glimmering expires in palpable darknesse Would you saile in the Philosophers Ocean know that two Ilands 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 easie labour hath set on the shore of wisdome 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 Churches Canon they would leave them and embrace our relinquish ' t faith crying it up as their great Diana Both these rocks I have alwayes 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 unlawfull to look beyond them I have often read and smil'd 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 complement Of submission to the Church of Rome which it seems disproves not a reputed Heresie so she wait upon her in the garb of an handmaid Notwithstanding though I doe not adore the unanimous consent of good and pious men yet I receive it with much reverence especially in a sacred matters 't is neither my fetter nor my scandal I professe I am not of those that think the mysteries of Religion may be rudely unraveled or its publique Professors bespatter'd with every Parrots tongue for mine own particular the studies of the divinest Philosophy have suckt me in from my childe-hood and for such an one I never esteem'd it unlawfull or disapproved by any sober man modestly to to dispute and discusse 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 't will befit him that undertakes this taske likewise to set forth another scheme of the infinite Eternity and delineation of the Vniverse in which is no contradictory inconsonancy and neerlier agreeing with the ancientest Philosophy and sacred Scripture I speake plainly what I at this present thinke Whatsoever the Thrice-great Hermes deliver'd as Oracles from his Propheticall Tripos or Pythagoras spake 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 Teutonicks writings And if there be any friendly medium which can possibly reconcile those ancient

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