Parentator. Memoirs of remarkables in the life and the death of the ever-memorable Dr.…

ARTICLE III. First Appearances.

When the Year Arrived, wherein he should have Proceeded Bachelor of Arts, there was for I know not what Reasons of State, an Order Procured, That the Class whereto he belonged, & some others also, should be detained a good part of a Year longer at the College, than of right they should have been. This gave so great a Dissatisfaction, that no fewer than Seventeen of the Scholars withdrew from the College without any Degree at all; Some of whom nevertheless proved afterwards very Considerable in the Service of the Churches. However the Father of this Young Man (though greatly Troubled, as diverse others of the Overseers were, at this Hardship on the Students,) would not have him take his Name out of the College-Register, which had been done by others. And when he afterwards Travelled with a Testimonial, which Expressed the Year of his Admission, and not of his Graduation, and elsewhere Claimed the Next-Degree, he found some Reward of his Patience. In the Year 1656. he took his First Degree; At which time the President, who was deep in the Dark Principles with which the Stagyrite has for so many Ages Tyrannized over Humane Understanding, upon a Dislike of the Ramoean Strains in which our Young Disputant was carrying on his ⟨p. 15⟩Thesis, would have out him Short; but Mr. Mitchel Publicly Interposed, Pergat, Quoeso, nam-doctissime disputat. But in the Year, 1657. he took a Greater; For on his Birth-Day, he Preached his First Sermon, at a Village belonging to Dorchester. And on the next Lords-Day he Preached in his Fathers Pulpit at Dorchester: When the whole Auditory were greatly Affected with the Light and Flame, in which the Rare Youth Appeared unto them: Especially was his Father so, who could scarce Pronounce the Blessing, for the Tears which from the Blessing he had himself now so Sensibly Received, he was thrown into.