they were the Residences thereof yet the ignorant Vulgar gave direct Worship thereto The Earth also was worshipped and particular Mountains Vallies Rivers Islands where evil Spirits had appeared but where they had fixed Oracles they liked better to have the Worship immediate to themselves as more congruous to Human Reason and more difficult to be disswaded The Vulgar did not so soon give direct Worship to Pictures as to Statues representing these imagined Deities to the Life not only in the shape of Man but in other terrible Shapes in which the Devils did appear as hath lately been evident among the Savage People in America who have their evil Gods who appear in Bodies of terrible Aspect and oft-times severely beat them and therefore they worship them with howling and great Terror Other evil Spirits transformed themselves into Angels of Light and appeared benign and favourable both to attain their Adoration and Trust and both pretended an Omniscience and gave Responses of the most uncertain and important Events of which they had most probable Conjectures knowing the Interests and Inclinations of those Persons who had Rule in publick Affairs and on whom they had Influence and in other things giving dark or dubious Responses which might be applied to any Event The Insolence also of some powerful Men made them affect to be adored and esteemed Gods which the Heathen Roman Emperors frequently did and some of the most flagitious of them were so impudent as to be adored when alive and at distance and had Temples and Altars consecrated to them The misapplied Gratitude to the Inventers of those things that are of great and common use to Mankind or those who were admired for their Dexterity in Government or Gallantry in War gave their Ghosts the Esteem to be accounted Gods Demi-Gods or Heroes unto which evil Spirits were very concurring so to seduce The Poets with their Poetical Fictions and the Pleasantness of their Verses did powerfully work upon the Imaginations of People and thereby radicate and increase the Belief of these Absurdities yet they kept still a Distinction and Subordination to the great God whom they called Zeus as the Fountain of Life They did also attribute to their Gods the greatest Vices and Infirmities of Men as Sleeping Recreation Consultation Faction Intrigues Quarrels and not only upon their own Interest but as they partied different Nations and Persons The more judicious counted these but Fables and though few durst express their Mind of the only true God for danger of the seduced Rabble yet many of the Philosophers did There were few of these false Gods that had the Dedication of Temples but were worshipped at Rivers Mountains or other places from which Voices or some extraordinary Signs were heard or seen there at last it came to that height of Absurdity that all believed that wheresoever they would make up an Image or a Statute a Deity would take up Residence there and be their Protector and answer their Prayers Yea the ruder sort ador'd Stocks and Stones and the vilest of Creatures as Deities without the Opinion of any resident Spirit so that not only every Nation but every City and Family had their different Gods These Abominations came to that height that the World became asham'd and wearied of them and would have quit them if their Priests who had Honour and Profit by them had not co-operated with evil Spirits to support them The Romans made it an Interest of State to acknowledg the Deities of all the Nations that they subdued the better to keep them under Obedience It was not Reason but Interest that supported the Plurality of Gods The Silver-smiths of Ephesus did with Tumult and Fury cry up Diana of the Ephesians but their Leader did more ingenuously tell those of his Trade than the rest of the Multitude that by making the Shrines of Diana they had their Wealth In this Condition was the World except among the Jews where Religion was turned to a meer Formality and corrupted with Man's Inventions pretended to be Divine Traditions when Christ came to bring Life and Immortality to light which did hardlier obtain with the Jews than with the Gentiles who were become so irrational in their Worship and therefore the great Apostle of the Gentiles doth not make use of Signs and Miracles but of Reason and the Light of Nature to convince them to know the only true God For they sought Wisdom but the Jews could not be convinced without Miracles to forsake their Ceremonial Worship which they became grosly to mistake as if it had been a perpetual Institution sufficient of it self to purge away Sin So the Light of Nature concerning the only true God revived and made way for the Gospel whereby the Multiplicity of Gods is no where to be found but among the barbarous Nations who kept no Correspondence or Commerce with the rest of the World such as the wildest Tartars the Chineses Japoneses and Americans The clearing up of the true meaning of the Old Testament from the Jews fond Mistake of the Prophecies of the Messia convinced many even by the Light of Nature that God behoved to be just but if without Satisfaction to his Justice he could have pardoned one Sin he might have also pardoned all Sin and so have been without Punitive Justice therefore there was necessity that the Messiah ought to suffer for Sinners The Antiquity and the Reasonableness of the Christian Religion broke much of the Obstinacy both of the Jews and Gentiles and the Grace of God so far prevailed that a great part of the World imbraced and cleaved unto the Christian Religion upon its own account not only without but against all Worldly Interest in that they did even exceed in the desire of Martyrdom But when the Roman Emperors accepted of and established the Christian Religion whereby worldly Interests did attend it in a short time the Roman Empire which then did extend it self to the far greatest part of what was known to be habitable of the World in a great part received it more as the Law of the Empire than as the Law of Christ and were instrumental to make it look as like the Pagan Superstition as they could whereby great Corruption both in Opinion and Practice did ensue In place of the Heathenish Sacrifices the Eucharist was made the Sacrament of the Altar the Presbyters were made Priests and in place of the Heathens Demi-Gods came the Canonized Saints and not only their Ghosts in Heaven but the Relicks of their Bodies upon Earth were brought in to share with God in Adoration without any other but a verbal Distinction for both Prayers and Praises were plentifully perform'd to them and multitudes of Temples dedicated to them Albeit Peter even when present would not suffer Cornelius to kneel before him nor Paul and Barnabas those who offered to sacrifice to them convincing them with that one Reason That they were Men Nor would the glorious Angels accept of such Service as
Person Hypostasis or Subsistence of the Divine Nature It is too great Presumption for any in the State of Mortality to determine the manner of the Oneness of the Father Son and Eternal Spirit which is so clearly declared a Mystery near the close of the Canon of Scripture never unfolded after in it The Trinity hath been asserted and owned with the greatest Firmness and Forwardness in the purest State of the antient Christian Church and the least Derogation attempted against it by the Arians hath been condemned with Abhorrence by the most Eminent and Orthodox Fathers and by the Determination and Solemn Confession of Faith by the Council of Nice and it is amongst the most incontestably Catholick Doctrines of the Universal Church owned by all National Societies of Christians in the World above the course of a thousand Years Augustine and some others of the Fathers have attempted to give some Resemblances of the Trinity in Unity though he still acknowledgeth it to be a Mystery they could not fully comprehend So Augustine in his 15th Book of that Treatise he wrote upon the Trinity saith That we have a Representation of the Generation of the Son by the Father in that he is called the Word of God as all Idea's are conceived by Words of the Mind so God's Idea of himself and his Decrees is his Word essential and substantial For all that is in God is God The Son is also the Character of his Person his Image the Brightness of his Glory his Wisdom that was with him from Eternity He says also That the Procession of the Holy Ghost is his Love to Himself by his Idea of Himself with his whole Decrees and that all the Persons of the Trinity are Wise and Powerful by the same Power and Wisdom because they have but one Godhead The Generation of a Son doth not import an Imperfection or Inequality of the Nature of the Son more than of the Father much less doth the Generation of the Eternal Son imply an Inequality of the Son with the Father or a dependance of his Being from the Father as if he needed Preservation like Creatures Yea all the Persons are increated without any Cause and so Self-existent and Coeternal The Errors of Socinians are much more abominable than those of the Arians the Socinians acknowledg nothing of the Son before he was conceived in the Womb of the Virgin The Light of Nature was ever sufficient to confute the Multiplicity of Gods and to convince that there could only be one God Albeit the Multiplicity of Gods did far prevail in the World it was long before it did prevail and not until God had given Men up to their own Ways because of their Wickedness against the clear Light of Nature for they were given up to believe Lies because they did not receive the Truth which by the Light of Nature they knew in Love to live according to it The knowledg of one God was not alone among the Hebrew or Jewish Nation as the Scripture maketh evident in Job and his Friends among whom there was so much clear Knowledg of the Divine Perfections and even of a Saviour and of a Resurrection which are not deducible from any inbred Principle by the Light of Nature and therefore they could not want Revelation yet we have no ground to know any Communication between the Hebrews and them Neither were there a few Persons indued with that Light but a City and Common-wealth having Judges and Counsellors that sate at their Gates Balaam also knew and acknowledged the only true God not by Communication with the Israelites there being a vast distance and no Communication between Aram and Egypt The three Wise Men of the East that were led by a Star to come to Bethlehem when Christ was born could not possibly by Astrology have discovered the Birth of the Mediator and therefore did neither want Revelation nor a miraculous Sign Neither is there any ground to believe that they were Idolaters but that they knew and worshipped the true God and it is highly probable that they were not the only Persons of their Country that did so Yet they did not desire for ought I know to become Proselytes of the Jews Neither is there ground to doubt that Moab or Ammon the Sons of Lot or Ishmael and Abraham's other Sons by Keturah or Esau their nearest Posterity were convinced that there was but one God nor could their Posterity be soon brought to believe a Plurality of Gods So that we have no ground to doubt that the Knowledg of the one God did long and largely propagate it self in the World though through defect of History the Particulars be little known I do not hear of Idolatry before the Flood the cause of it in God's just Judgment is attributed to Mens corrupting of their Ways and the wickedness of their Works After the Flood the Notion of one God did long remain as appears by the common Name of Baal or Lord which was long almost universal and the several Nations that worshipped Baal gave him different Epithets according to their apprehension of his Attributes of which there is frequent mention in the Scripture So the Moabites God was Baal without addition the Sidonians also called their God Baal so did the Canaanites Some Nations called their God Baal Berith that is cursing Baal others Baal Gad Baal Hamon Baal Meon Baal Peor Baal Hanan Baal Hazor Baal Hermon Baal Perazin Baal Zebub the God of Ekron Places also were denominated from Baal as Baal Perazin Baal Shalisha Baal Zebub Baal Zephon and Bell of the Babylonians is but a different Dialect of Baal but that which was the Name of one God with different Epithets did easily come to be apprehended as so many Gods yet the several Nations did not worship many Gods but their own So after the Captivity of the ten Tribes those that were planted in their places being plagued conceived it was by the Anger of the God of that Place and therefore sent for the Jewish Priests to appease him The Greeks were the first that worshipped many Gods and after them the Romans for then the Souls of Men eminent upon Earth were supposed to be cooptated among the Gods in different Orders and as the Nations and Places had Interest in them they had Confidence in them and became forgetful of the true God After arose Images and the relative Honour and Worship attributed to them not only to the Images and Pictures of these Deified Men but also to those Bodies wherein the Gods were supposed to delight and to reside It is not imaginable that so many Men of Discretion and Spirit could with direct Worship adore inanimate Creatures or the meanest Brutes or Plants but that they thought they were delightful to and resided in by Deities and so the Sun the Moon Planets came to be worshipped even by those who did not believe that they had Life or Understanding or were Bodies informed by a Deity but that
Strength and Courage little Provocation to Luxury so that in the fertile and warm Countries where there is much of Plenty and Luxury much of Idleness and Thoughtfulness more nimble Spirits yet hardly hath their Wit been able to hold Ballance with the Strength and Courage of the other In Countries which can scarcely sustain their Inhabitants Necessity makes Invention Diligence and Improvement What strange height of Glory and Riches have the Venetians come to who had nothing at first but a few barren bare Rocks where the overflowing of barbarous Nations forced them to settle their Habitation What Riches and Strength have the Hollanders arisen to who at first had but Spots of Ground in the midst of vast Marishes Neither affords it any Exception that the most of the Terraqueous Globe is Sea seeing there is much more Land than is like ever to be fully improved and inhabited by Mankind Revelation having discovered the Residence of Mankind to be but short upon Earth 5. The Wisdom of God appears eminently in the Sea for the Intercouse Commerce and Converse of Mankind especially after the discovery of the Direction of the Loadstone whereby Mankind is now become like one great Society and thereby both the Requisites of Nature and Art are communicated through the whole World which could not effectually be attained by Rivers for we see how many Impositions and Impediments are made in the Passages of these and even in the narrow Channels of the Sea which cannot be in the vast Ocean 6. The stupendous Wisdom of God is seen in the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea which hath given a great Check to and Abasement of the Pride of Man who for so many thousand of Years have never arrived at any satisfying Discovery of the Causes thereof In this also that the proudest Monarchs could never pretend the Dominion of the Sea nor of any of that vast Multitude of Creatures therein because it is capable of no Bounds and so the least Fish in it can belong to no Man and therefore of God alone it can be said that he hath his Dominion in the Sea 7. In this Day 's Work is that glorious Garment of the Earth which at first Creation was all clothed with Herbs Grass and Trees of innumerable variety of Kinds in which the Wisdom of God shineth forth sensibly 1. In the Grass which is universally upon the whole Earth and hath that singular in it that it groweth continually All other Herbs and Plants have their fixed times of rising growing decaying and falling and there is no other Herb that springeth up of the same Root but if the Herb be cut off neither it nor the Root can be made further to grow In which the wise Design of the Creator is that the pleasant Verdure of the Earth may ever continue in all Seasons of the Year and that it may be the Food of the Beasts of the Earth great and small though in the divers Seasons Grass be in the divers Degrees of Perfection hence Grass is not comprehended under the general Term of Herbs which yield Seed after their several Kinds to wit sensible Seeds framed by the Herbs in which Seeds there are innumerable impalpable Seeds of the same kind which arise from the Earth enterr'd as by the Roots in the Earth and are collected into these sensible Seeds on the Top of the Plants which is evident because in one of the most minute sensible Seeds a great many Herbs will arise which must have their different Seeds so minute that no Sense can reach but tho Grass hath also such sensible Seeds it is seldom permitted to come to the Seed but doth ever grow by the Root 2. The Herbs are not universal over the whole Earth nor every-where under the same Climate and Degree but are wisely ordered to the several Places of the Earth where they may be most useful for the peculiar Uses of Men and Beasts of that Place and therefore many of them will not thrive and continue in other Places tho there be no difference between the Sun and Soil of both some of which will not continue in Verdure others will not come to the maturity of a Flower and most will not come to have perfect Seed or Fruit or if the minute Seeds that were in their Bodies when transplanted come to a sensible Seed they will not reciprocate and continue 3. On this Day were the Trees created which do comprehend the Shrubs and the bulbous Plants which are propagated not by the Seed but by the Root sensibly divided in divers Slips whence the Blade tho cut off doth grow again are rather to be referred to the Trees to which that is common than to the Herbs This also is peculiar to Trees that they have a different Fruit from their Seed which Fruit serveth both to preserve and to be the first Food of their Seeds and also have a several use for Animals for their Food or Physick but other Trees have no Fruit beside their Seed which is not so tender whence is the division of Trees into Fruit-trees and Barren-trees 4. The wonderful Wisdom of God appeareth in that innumerable variety not only of the same Kind but of different kinds of Seeds Herbs and Trees their Roots Flowers and Fruits all which have an innumerable variety of the Uses to Man and Beasts for Food and Physick and yield Pleasure to Man by their Shape Proportions Colours Smells and Tastes 5. The unsearchable Wisdom of God is seen in the inward Frame of the Plants and Seeds by which their Aliment doth enter and pass to all their Parts whereby they grow and new Parts sprout out as Branches Leaves Flowers Fruit in a most orderly Course which must be by regular Passages and Conduits like the Veins of Animals some of these Passages are perceivable by the Eye or by Microscopes but some of them are so exile that no Sense by the assistance of any Instrument yet found can reach the least sensible Seed yea even the insensible cannot grow till its Aliment be thrust into these Passages and having no animal Motion as the Passages of Animals have the Aliment cannot proceed through these Passages but as it is protruded by extrinsick Force How wonderful then must that contrivance be which is so orderly sending out first Sprouts then Leaves then Flowers then Fruits And the Passages must be so various and curious that they will only admit the proper Parts of their Aliment and by recent Experiments it is found that in these Passages there are Valvulae like to those in the Veins of Animals which give way to the Parts of the Aliment but after it is entered lest it recede are closed and suffer it not to repass That part of the Aliment which makes the Flower must be more fine and subtile than that which makes the Leaves and the Sprouts and Passages thereof must require a greater Heat to expand them that the several Parts of the Aliment may pass which
therefore succeed in their several Seasons The Industry of Man hath not been able to discover whether the Leaves Flowers and Fruits of Plants be Parts of the Plants on which they grow or whether they be different Plants having their own Seeds which can only pass by the peculiar Passages of the several Plants and grow from their own Seeds seeing after they are compleat they fall off without Violence and it is hard to apprehend how the grosser Passages of the principal Plants can by straining the Aliment through them figure it in so admirable a Variety whence such rare Colours and Proportions do arise however it be there must be the Contrivance of so much Wisdom as hath given and shall give all the Generations of Mankind a pleasant Exercise to discover more and more yet leaving ever more undiscovered This might and ought to check the Pride of Man in his Knowledg and make him admire and adore the Wisdom of God in this so low a Step of his Works of Nature 6. It is said Let the Earth bring forth Grass c. as if it were a Command to the stupid and unsensible Earth to work all these wonderful Things far exceeding its own Perfection tho all the Efficacy of the Sun of the Stars and of Fire were adjoined which has puzled the most piercing Witts how these things could come to pass and many have been forced to attribute all to the omnipotent Power of God alone wherein they derogate highly from the Wisdom of his Contrivance and are contrary to Revelation Why should he say to the Earth Bring forth Grass Herbs and Trees if nothing of the Earth had a casuality in them How could it be said that on the seventh Day God ended that which he had made and he rested from all his Works if there be no Efficacy in Creatures but only that he creates not new Matter It might as well be said the first Minute when he created the Chaos that he had rested from all his Works as that he rested on the seventh Day if that were the meaning But I am perswaded that on this third Day God created the Seeds of all Plants with all their Parts and Passages and disseminated them near the Surface of the whole Earth as they might be most useful for his Ends and that they do alwise necessarily grow when and where their proper Aliment entereth in their Passages and proceedeth by them 7. The wonderful Wisdom and Goodness of God appears not only in the Pleasure but in the Profit of all these Plants as the several Kinds of them are the Food of the different Species of Animals for which the several Animals have their Instincts by which they have Pleasure in them Appetite to them and Aversion to others and yet more as they are the Physick of Animals by their several Parts solid or fluid chiefly by their Juices and Spirits The Brutes have their Instincts to know their Physick which are not given to Man that he might not be idle but improve Sense Reason and Experience to know what parts or preparations of Plants served to prevent or cure all the Diseases that his Irregularity hath brought upon himself or even upon the Beasts which Virtues were discovered to Adam whereby he was enabled to give Names to Beasts fitted to express their peculiar and prime Perfections which hath been communicated by Tradition and increased by Experience without such Tradition there can hardly be any rational Account given of the Medicinal Skill which hath been so much propagated in the World tho the Causes thereof be very little known so that they could not be known by general Principles and none were ever so industrious as by hap-hazard to apply to every Disease all things applicable to find out what would work which might not warrantably be practised upon Man lest thereby more might be killed than cured Botanists have ranked Plants as they are congenerous by their agreeing in Shape Colour Taste and Smell and of late they have observed Marks in them as different Signatures more exactly to show their physical Operations all which comes far short of the Virtues of Plants which are already discovered much more of all the Virtues which are in them Upon the fourth Day of the Creation God created the Sun the Moon and the Stars the Sun to rule the Day and the Moon to rule the Night for Signs and Seasons and for Days and Years which do not only give light through the whole visible World but do also much enlighten the Minds of rational Creatures with the Knowledg of the Wisdom and Glory of the great Creator 1. In the Sun which is nothing else but a vast Globe of Fire which was first dispersed in the one Hemisphere of Heaven whereby Light and Darkness Day and Night were divided by equal Durations for the first three Days the Sun having been created but the fourth Day yet it was an Act of Creation by the sole Power of God and not a Production by a natural Cause there was also then formed a Globe of AEther rolling continually about the Sun to keep it perpetually in a globular Figure shunning that irregular Shape which necessarily follows the interfering of the Particles of Fire Recent Observations of Astronomers have demonstrated that the Sun is rolled about its own Center in the same time that the Moon is moved about the Earth which they observe from the Motion of some more regular Spots in the Sun The Sun is the far most glorious Creature in this visible World as the Agitation of Fire gives Light by the continual Vibration of its Parts so this glorious Globe of Fire which no natural Cause can ever dissipate suppress or extinguish by the interfering of its Particles outward it thrusts upon and darts out the Rays of the AEther by streight Lines so far as ever these can reach till the Rays be stopped reverberated and reflected back into it self again by the Earth the Moon or other dark Planets which have no Light of their own but do reflect the Sun-Beams a great Part whereof fall upon the Earth and illuminate it The Sun illuminates more than one Hemisphere of the Earth because it is a far greater Body than the Earth The Sun hath its Motion about the Earth in a Year from West to East under twelve Constellations commonly known which are called the twelve Signs of the Zodiack still moving obliquely whereby it crosseth the diurnal Motion from South-West to North-East in one half of its Course and from North-East to South-West in the other whereby the whole Earth hath equal length of Light and Darkness every Year when the Days are reckoned together those Parts of the Earth that are equally distant from the North and South Poles have their Days and Nights always equal and those Parts of the Earth that are near both Poles have but one Day and one Night in the Year each being an half Year in length The remanent Parts have their
Days and Nights unequal except in the two Equinoctial Days and Nights all which is performed by two uniform circular Motions of the AEther the one by the Zodiack and the other by the Equator The Sun doth so far exceed in Light all the other Stars as to the illumination of the Earth that when it shines bright their shining tho it ceases not is yet unperceivable The Sun is not only the chief Luminary and Fountain of Light but likewise of Heat which increaseth and decreaseth not only every Day as the Sun comes nearer to or goes farthest from the Meridian or Southermost Places of the Earth but also as it proceedeth toward the North and the South and so the Heat is always equal about the middle of the Earth but elsewhere unequal whereby it makes the different Seasons of the Spring when all Plants do sprout and become green of the Summer when the Flowers appear and the Fruits begin of the Harvest when the Fruits come to Maturity and of Winter when the Fruits Leaves and Herbs fall whereby in the Wisdom and Prudence of God there is a Ballance of Enjoyment through the whole Earth the variety of the Seasons where the Days are unequal compensing the Pleasure where the Days are equal because what is ordinary and doth not change is little noticed We would be little sensible of the glorious Light of the Day if we had not the Vicissitude of the Darkness of the Night and albeit the Places near both Poles be far short of the Enjoyment of the rest yet most part there is Sea and not Land There is also great conveniency of the Night for Man in the State of Mortality whereby the Curtains of Heaven are drawn that he may sleep The Earth also doth require a perpetual Vicissitude of the rising and falling of the Vapours by which the Dews and Rains do water the Earth Another Sun opposite to this would have made a perpetual Day but with great Detriment to the Earth The Wisdom of God is also seen in the Instincts of the ravenous Creatures whereby they have no Inclination to go abroad in the Day-time but in the Night thereby Men and the tame and harmless Creatures are free of their Trouble for which the Psalmist praiseth the Wisdom and Goodness of God Thou makest Darkness and it is Night wherein all the Beasts of the Forest do creep forth the Sun ariseth they gather themselves together and lay them down in their Dens Man goeth forth to his Work and to his Labour until the evening O Lord how manifold are thy Works in Wisdom dom hast thou made them all The Glory of the Sun is also well expressed by the Psalmist which is as a Bridegroom coming out of his Chamber rejoiceth as a strong Man to run a Race his going out is from the End of the Heaven and his Circuit unto the Ends of it and there is nothing hid from the Heat thereof The Wisdom of God is also seen in the usefulness of the Moon which was appointed to rule over the Night and to give a faint Light for those that might have necessity to travel in the Night but God having ordained the Night for Man to rest in he has not given the Light of the Moon to be so constant as the Light of Sun and therefore it doth not derogate from his Wisdom and Goodness that he did not make more Moons by which there might always have been Light in the Night and besides the brightest Glory and Majesty of God is in this visible World the starry Heaven which in number and variety of the Stars exceed the comprehension of Men and Angels they are the Lamps and Flame-beaus making some resemblance of the Magnificence of the Palace of the King of Glory and yet they are no more than the Ornaments of his Outter-Court or the enamelling of the Pavement of his Inner-Court the third Heaven or the Heaven of Heavens When God doth most favourably condescend to Abraham he bids him look unto the starry Sky and asks if he could number them and doth the like with Job when he was first to humble him for his boldness and then to exalt him for his faithfulness The starry Heaven is never so glorious as when neither Sun nor Moon doth appear therefore it was fit that the Light of the Moon should have Intervals Little is known of the Influence of the Stars tho many Astrologers make unsolid and unwarrantable Conclusions on pretence of their Experience It is true God said to Job Knowest thou the Ordinance of Heaven canst thou set the Dominions thereof in the Earth canst thou bind the Influences of Pleiades or loose the Bonds of Orion Which imports a great Influence of the Stars upon the Earth but the Astrologers infer most from the Planets and their Aspects which are opake and unactive Bodies doubtless the Sun and Moon have great Influence on the Earth not only by their Light and Heat but that correspondence betwixt the Tides of the Sea and the Course of the Moon giveth strong ground to infer that the Moon hath much Influence thereon I cannot certainly know whether the sweet Influence of the Pleiades doth import any more than that when the Sun is under the Pleiades or seven Stars the Spring is in its Prime when all things revive and it is called the Time of Life or whether the Bonds of Orion being near to the North Pole implieth more than the Rigour of Cold and Frost when the Sun is nearest them and farthest Northward God in his Wisdom hath said little of the dark Planets Saturn Jupiter and Mars Venus and Mercury but hath left them to Man's Exercise and Industry who hath found by their Eclipses that they have no Light of their own but do only reflect the Light of the Sun as doth the Moon and tho of old they were thought to be wandring Stars yet now their regular and certain Courses are found and known and more little Planets moving about Saturn and Jupiter since the Invention of Telescopes whereby their Courses are also known and calculated and the Usefulness thereof for finding out the Longitude is known which is of so great Use for Navigation and it is very probable that more will yet be found The Comets or blazing Stars are yet looked upon as prodigious or irregular yet it is not without Hope that their regular Course may be also found The Eclipses of the Sun and Moon gave great Astonishment and Terror at first to all and still to the less knowing Nations but they give still Matter of Admiration and incite us to consider the wonderful Works of God Their Recourses are now certainly known and calculated for many Years to come for the Predictions of these that have past have always held since the Course of the Planets have been exactly known from whence the Eclipses do necessarily follow The Eclipses have also great Use for the Calculation of Time for in divers Nations and at divers
Principle to Mankind to prefer the common Interest of the whole to that of any part On the fifth Day God perfected the Creation of inanimate Creatures by an orderly Procedure according to the degrees of their Perfections 1. The Chaos which before it had Figure or Motion was the most imperfect Substance 2. Adding Perfections to that part of the Chaos he made Fire to give Light and Heat by its Motion 3. Giving an uniform circular Motion to those Particles of the Chaos that made up the Spheres of AEther by whose Revolution the Vicissitudes of Day and Night began 4. Adding Cohesion of Parts of the Chaos about the Earth whence arose the Figures of the Particles of Water which at first covered the whole Face of the Earth being then exactly round 5. Separating the Earth and the Water by making the Mountains and Vallies the Earth having been also made of the Chaos by Cohesion of its Parts whereby a far more variable Figure of its Particles arose in which were comprehended Metals Minerals Stones saline and sulphurous Bodies the Seeds of Plants and the Terrestrial Fire 6. The Plants are formed whether they sprung of these Seeds by the immediate creative Power of God or whether beside the Seeds the Plants were formed fit to receive them it is uncertain it might appear rather that they sprung of the Seeds because it is said Let the Earth bring forth c. yet that may be understood of the subsequent Growth of Plants And last the Stars were created being the most perfect and glorious of all inanimate Creatures Then followed the Creation of living Creatures in the same order proceeding from the least perfect Kinds to the more perfect until the last Termination in the Creation of Man The other living Creatures are stated in three Orders the Fish in the Waters the Fowl to fly in the Air and the Beasts on the Earth all which have their variable Motions which some imagine to be without Perception or Sense and that they be only passive in their Motions from the Impression of outward Objects for which I see no solid Reason for they having Senses so like unto Men if all their Motions were by Impressions on their Senses it could not be doubted but such Motions would be also in Men seeing their Senses are operative without their Will or any intrinsick active Power which is contrary to the common Sense and Experience of all Mankind However it be there is great Evidence of the wonderful Contrivance of the Wisdom of God in brute Creatures especially in the peculiar Instincts of the several Species which do all act necessarily upon their proper Objects without Hesitation or Deliberation They have their Pleasures and Griefs their Appetites and Aversions in which they cannot divert from one Object to another nor can they compare Objects Means or Ends and yet by the wonderful Wisdom of God they do most things necessary for their Preservation their Promotion and Propagation by meer Instincts more exactly than Men can in the same things that are common to both Besides the wonderful and various Structure of their Bodies there are Depths concerning them that the most knowing Men have never been able to reach as what their Souls are how they are produced how their Bodies are framed by Generation wherein certainly there is a difference from the Generation of Men. God doth not command the Earth to bring forth Man as he doth to bring forth the brute Creatures therefore it seems their Seeds were created in the Beginning as well as the Seeds of the Plants Some late Experiments by Microscopes have shown an infinite number of Animalcula in the Sperme of the Brutes but their Souls are not endued with that Perfection to have any Perception but by the Impression of Objects so their Bodies being marred their Souls can never more have any Animal Operation as the separate Souls of Men have The first and lowest Degree of Animals is of Fish which live in the Water whereof there are innumerable kinds and degrees of Perfection from the Oister that hath no other Motion but the opening its Shell to receive its Aliment to the Whale This also is strange in Fishes that Concourse of the Seeds of Male and Female do but in few of them appear nor have they that Pairing which the Fowls and other Brutes have when left to their natural Course nor any Knowledg of or Affection to their Birth The more perfect Fish are furnished with Instruments for their Progress especially with Fins The next Degree in Perfection of Brutes are the Fowls who are adorned with their beautiful Feathers and instructed with their Wings by which they fly Their several Kinds have their distinct Voices by which they express their Affections the variety of which and of their Shapes and Colours and their Instincts by which they know their Food and Physick and what is hurtful to them and the melodious Songs of many of them do all manifest the wonderful Wisdom of their Creator The Water is impowered and commanded to bring forth both Fish and Fowl which doth import that their Seeds are lubrick and not firm as that of Plants and therefore are dispersed in that soluble Element On the sixth Day were created the Terrestrial Beasts for God said Let the Earth bring forth the living Creatures after his kind which are three beside the various Species of every Kind to wit Cattel creeping Things on the Earth and the Beasts these seem to be the wild and ravenous Beasts that live not in Herds or Flocks which are the Cattel but both walk with Legs and so are different from the creeping Things as Worms and Serpents I shall not need to speak any thing of the Variety of these and of the Wisdom of God shining in them seeing they differ not much from what has been said of the Fish and the Fowls but that they come nearer to the Perfection of Man than they God hath given eminent Instances of his Wisdom in the Perfections of the Horse and the Leviathan whose Scales do clearly distinguish it from the Whale so that it is a Terrestrial Animal and in the Unicorn All the Creation tho it be very wonderful holds a small Proportion with the Wisdom of God in the creating and governing of Man which is incomprehensible Some part of it will appear in the Dominion of God which I shall leave to the next Meditation and only remark upon the whole Creation that wonderful Beauty of all its Parts their Correspondence and mutual Usefulness and the Termination of all their Perfections on Mankind MEDITAT XVIII Upon the Dominion of God and his Dispensations thereupon towards his Rational Creatures especially by the Covenant of Works and Covenant of Grace I Have as distinctly and orderly as I could cleared and quieted my Thoughts concerning the Divine Perfections Natural and Moral severally I come now to consider them jointly in the glorious and gracious Dominion of God over the World in
by God and unalterable by Man but in other things their Pactions are effectual as in other Cases So also in Civil Government the Form of Government the Persons governing the Extensions of their Power more than what is requsite for Order and Determination of Controversies are by the express and tacit Pactions of the Parties except what God did immediately determine in the Government of Israel God did also institute a distinct Government for his own Worship and separated it from the Paternal and Civil Authority both among the Jews in the Levitical Priesthood which was propagated by imitation to most other Nations and among Christians a Church became a distinct Society from a State and hath its proper Ecclesiastick Government tho both Societies may concur in the same Persons The Civil Government is for the outward State of their Society and the Means of their Government is outward by extrinsick Rewards and forcible Punishments The Ecclesiastick Government is about the inward State of those of their Society in so far as Man's Knowledg can reach to promote Holiness and internal and eternal Happiness and about their outward Acts only as they signify their inward Condition and their Rewards and Punishments are only by application of the Divine Ordinances in exciting Joy or Grief Fear or Hope as is conducible for the inward State but without temporal Rewards and forcible Punishments But there is yet a more inward and secret Dominion of God exercised by the Conscience which is his Deputy by which he distributes the most powerful and important Rewards and Punishments not only in this Life but chiefly after Death The most eminent and important Dispensations of God's Dominion is by the Covenants he made with Men which therefore require a particular Consideration especially the general Covenants relating to all Mankind It was a high Honour put upon Men that God was pleased to enter into mutual Ingagements with them by way of Covenant whereby God promised some Favours to them besides those which arose from their Creation which Favours they could not warrantably believe nor expect by his Justice Bounty Mercy or even by his Faithfulness but only by his Promise in these Covenants And on the other part there was not ground to expect them even from the Promises unless there were a voluntary Engagement on Man's part by entring into these Covenants God's Dispensations might have been without any Covenant either by commanding Men to do that which he proposed to them to do whereby the not Performance became a Transgression of his Command and Sin or he might have made Promises conditional without requiring Mens Engagements I see very many Covenants between God and Man in Scripture but the purely Celestial and Eternal Covenants are only two the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace The Covenant of Grace is the chief Concern of Mankind and it runs through the whole Current of Scripture It was published to our first Parents immediately after their Fall and tho the Record of it in Scripture at first be no more but that the Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Head of the Serpent I doubt not but it was more fully manifested to and understood by the first Parents It was more fully manifested to Abraham to whom it was said That in thy Seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed It was continued in the Church in the Revelation and Expectation of the Messiah who was to deliver his People from their Sins and was represented by the Sacrifices instituted by God from the beginning and by the Sacraments and Ceremonies instituted thereafter tho the Jews in their latter times were wholly perverted believing their Messiah to be a Temporal Monarch to raise their Nation to great Glory wherein Christ the Messiah himself did fully confute them from the Old Testament and brought Life and Immortality to light in a clear Discovery of the Covenant of Grace as it remains recorded in the Gospel The Covenant of Works being broken and become void there is but little of it expressed in Scripture in which that Name of the Covenant is no where mentioned and tho it may seem a needless Curiosity to enquire into the Terms of it I conceive it is not unprofitable but very useful to manifest the Glory and Goodness of God in all his Dispensations with Mankind and for the understanding the Covenant of Grace that came in its place which will appear by that excellent Parallel of the Apostle Paul betwixt the first and second Adam It hath been the common Opinion of Christians that there was a Covenant between God and Adam upon solid Grounds It is certainly a great Condescension and Kindness in God to enter into Covenant with Creatures but seeing it is certain that he hath so often admitted sinful Creatures to covenant with him there is no ground to doubt that he enter'd into Covenant with innocent Adam which is yet more clear from the Parallel of the first and second Adam whereby both are acknowledged to represent and undertake for the whole or a great part of the Race of Mankind that through Adam's Failure Sin entered in the World and that Christ had obtained a better Covenant It is therefore inferred that there was a prior Covenant As to the Terms of the first Covenant it is clear that God promised Adam Immortality seeing the Penalty expressed by Moses for the Breach in eating the forbidden Fruit is Death not only Temporal by the Separation of the Soul and Body and the Corruption of the Body but Eternal by the Separation from the Favour of God therefore Life and Immortality is implied which tho it was possible to have been preserved in Adam and his Posterity by the continuance of Adam and his Posterity upon Earth living an Animal Life but this Earth could not have sufficed for all the Posterity of Adam if none had died or been removed yea Immortality could not have been continued in that State wherein the Body was perpetually wearing with its Food and Exercise if there had not been extraordinary Means to have preserved or restored it Therefore I do not conceive that Immortality was competent to innocent Man by his Nature and was taken from him as his Punishment against his Nature but that it was only promised to be given as a part of that Covenant the loss of which was a great Penalty It is true the Soul was naturally immortal and could not cease to exist but by taking away that which was given in its Nature but it will not follow that Man the Complex of Soul and Body was so immortal The Parallel doth also give ground to infer that it was a part of God's Promise in the first Covenant that Adam and his Posterity should be exalted from an Animal Life on Earth to an Angelical Life in Heaven which is evidently a part of the Covenant of Grace and is frequently expressed by Restitution and Redemption importing that it belonged to Mankind before but