respect of Man we may so apprehend them without offence because otherwise Gods Omnipotency cannot clearly be conceived by mans capacity But as to these words made framed and formed as they are notionally dist inct from Created they may be thus considerable viz. made into a Vegetative intimated by the dust of the Earth framed into a Sensitive life intimated by the breath of Lile and formed into a rational life intimated by a Living Soul so that in this notion we may apprehend also our similitude to God by a Trinity in Unity And that these words ought to be distinctly understood appears from the words in the second Chapter verse 2. And God rested from all his works which he had creaded and made and likewise in the fourth verse These are the Generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that God made the earth and the heavens And the words framed and formed are used in other places in different senses but I conceive the word made is most proper to be used here because it is onely applyed to Creatures of the greatest Eminency and that nine times 1. To the firmament 2. To the two great lights 3. To the stars and four times in the second and third verses of this Chapter where the word is exprest by way of Enumeration of what was created and made and then it is twice more named by change of the number as in the 27th verse Let us make and in the 18th verse of the second Chapter I will make Let us make denoting either the Trinity or Angels or the composition of his Qualities assimilating God And I will make denoting his peculiar care But however here 't is said The Lord God made man which are plural appellations though the verb be singular so that Let us make and the Lord God made do answer each other as to the Trinity or what concerns the eminency of mans being made Man If David ask'd the question § 4. Lord what is man so many hundred years after he was made and answered himself that man is altogether vanity or is nothing and his days as a shadow what can we imagine man to be before he was made he was nothing as the word Creation implys and being made he was made of little more then nothing for he was made of the dust of the earth and yet still continuing in this Compact of dust he is still but vanity or nothing And so we may Collect from his four names for he is called Adam Enoch Ishe Chebor the first name Adam signifies earth or red earth that seems to have some colour of a substance and yet when we see how changeable it is into other Elements the earth it self is but a momentary something Secondly Enoch which signifies sickness or calamity we feel something of that and yet that vanisheth for pain or calamity may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning The third is Ishe which signifies crying or laughing both of which are so oft exprest in one wind as the Proverb saith they are scarce distinguishable And for the last Chebor signifying Excellency it is said that man being in honour hath no understanding but is compared to the beasts that perish So that we may well conceive these four words signifie the four Elements of which he is Compacted Adam Earth the grosser part of his body Enoch Water the redundancy of which causeth sickness and deluges of Rhumes Ishe Air from whence allso unds are procreated and Cheber Fire which is the most excellent of all the Elements and so is either common and culinary or supercelestial consisting of Love or au intellect or such properties as belong to an Angelical Nature Of the dust of the ground Man is said to be made of the dust of the ground and in the ninth verse 't is said Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree and verse 19th Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast c. Out here it is meerly out of the dust of the ground to shew that there was a difference between Man and other Creatures in their making so that by the dust of the ground is to be understood the superficial part of the earth of which man onely was made for all Creatures are said to be made out of the ground but not of the dust of the ground but Man of the dust of the ground or earth Now whither this dust was made by a peculiar omnipotent Calcination or other Rarification is not demonstrated but we may conceive it of the most attenuated part of the earth and therein the more Noble part because capable of the most activity for if we consider our commondust it flies like Atoms over the Surface of the earth oft-times being raised into as many dry Clouds as there are moist and by the co-operation of these two dry and wet those varieties of Naturals and Preternaturals which are so oft showred down upon us and seen among us as Moths and other flies Mice and other Vermine are produced And mostly they are Agile creatures whether we respect their volatile or reptile or aquatick natures which I mention to shew that if the ordinary dust produceth such agile Creatures we may collect that our Creator hath adapted to our more agaile body in relation to our Souls far more agile dust the to other Creatures For the Targum of Jerusalem adds to our honor that we are made ex palvere Sanctuarii i. e. of holy dust differing from all other dusts which should raise this Contemplation in us that as we are not like beasts or other Creatures in our Temperaments they made of the ground that is of the faeces or dregs of the Earth we of the Superficies or of some peculiar sanctify'd dust so ought the habits of our bodies to be sublime and alwaies ascending to an higher sphere and not to be alloyed and turned into various Corruptions And breathed the breath of life § 6. God at first breathed upon the face of the waters this was the first universal Vegetative and Sensitive life and motion which he infused into the Mass of Creation of which Man was also partaker But this breath which God breathed into man was of a higher nature not onely giving life and motion for Man had that by universal breath but by this man became a living Soul And as our bloud within us for all things have a bloud or spirit of the nature of bloud is said to be the Vehicle or Conveyor of the Vegetative or Sensitive life so the Air without us in which is the universal breath may be said to be the Vehicle of that life into us and the spirit or life is the vehicle of our rational life or of that divine Soul which flows into us for God works all things by fit Instruments so that our Soul is conveyed to us by this spirit or breath of life the spirit of life passes by
may by art be made to represent the form of it self whilst it had an entire being This may be seen from the distillation of Plants that is the Extract of them As for example Make of Rosemary such a Liquor as we call the sulphur by some the essence or spirit of it and put it into a Viol or glass closed up as Chemists do after a little setling it shall by a certain kind of vapour or mist represent to the eyes the very shape of Rosemary And this may be more easily illustrated by another Experiment About the spring time when the bark begins to run take a young Ash and saw it off about a foot from the ground then make a Concave hole in it and cover it and the sappy juice or bloud of it will rise up and fill the hole then Lave out so much water as rises in it and put it into a glass and stop the glass as Chemists do by closing the Metal of the glass and every spring you shall discern in the glass as it were an Ash tree Now I cannot tell whether the Mist mentioned in Genesis was the Essence with which God then indued all Vegetables making them conspicuable to Man which before was not And by this we may judg of the rational and vegetative soul this had perfection of information from this Mist which watered the Earth The other from the breath of the Almighty And whether by this breath is meant a misty and waterish humour if with reverence we may so conceive of the divine breath or according to my former opinion is uncertain But if either then the Operations of the one may well advance the belief of the other And if this Experiment should hold in mans body as in Vegetables how easie is it to conceive the manner of mans resurrection when by God Chemistry the Essence of each man in an instant represents to God or to Man being made capable of such a sight the true Effigies and proportion of his body And in this notion why may not I make use of that Metaphorical Speech of David Put my tears into thy bottle O Lord which tears were the tears of Compunction and sorrow for sin proceeding from a Contrite heart and a devout brain not from the Redundancy of a salt humour so that I may call such tears the very Liquor of life Now whether such Cordial tears if they were put into a glass would represent Man David that understood the secrets of God knew best And the experiment were not unworthy the Tryal by a Penitent Christian to weep till he saw himself in his own tears But because there is seldom in man that true distillation or extract of tears which there ought to be the experiment may be fallible But that which may more easily be tried is to take a Starling and cover it with two wooden hollow dishes and it will weep it self to death and that Liquor were a fit subject for the Experiment of sensitive souls till we can meet with a more certain one for the rational But to go a little further with some notions or fancies concerning our Resurrection If by a Cabalistical Geometry it could be found out how many humane bodies the Earth could afford out of its bulk of which mens bodies were at first are still and shall be as it were remade allowing to each humane body such a proportion of its mould or dust as will make it suitable to the most perfect pattern for the best Divines hold we shall rise with perfect bodies and of such perfect dimensions as I have writ in a former Chapter in this book I believe the general resurrection might then be known If also by an Historical Accompt it might be given in how many such parts of the Earth have been already informed by souls and how much still remains to be informed But because Art may be fallible in so great a work of Phancy we must submit to Faith by which I believe that when the whole Earth shall be disposed into bodies that which we call the General Resurrection will follow And that when Heaven and Earth shall pass away the bodies of the wicked shall remain in the place of the Earth which shall be their Hell and the bodies of the just in the place of the Coelestial Orbs which shall be their Heaven This kind of Resurrection or resumption of our Earth doth not cross the Scriptures but confirm them which sayes the Earth shall be no more and that it shall be Consumed by fire for by this resumption or transformation the Earth shall as it were be turned into nothing because its parts shall become another thing And there is a necessity that fire should do this for we see how metals will admit several mixtures with other metals but let fire come once to dissolve them and they will all run with violence each to his proper kind Now seeing this I can easily believe that each body though divided into Millions of parts in the general Conflagration will run nimbly through all mediums to that soul which once in one bulk they own'd and which I still believe with a diffusive virtue constantly hovers over it in its dissections And in this dissolution or mutation to confine my speculations to what our Divinity imparts the godly being of a more refined metal shall run one way and the ungodly as David says shall be put away like dross Now that our Terrestrial bodies shall not be consumed or annihilated by this fire I have seen experimented in Iron Kilns where the Iron stone is dissolved there you shall very often find large pieces of Charcole fall down with the Liquid Iron into the Furnace This Charcole is made of the Withy-tree which grows frequently in Worcestershire where I first observed it and from thence when the Iron is let forth it will swim out with it but floting on the top of the Iron and those pieces of Charcole the fire hath no power over or doth not consume But that which gives a more delicate relish to the soul is another trivial Experiment that if a Combustible matter be joyned to that which is not so Combustible the less Combustible will preserve the Combustible from destruction As for example Take a piece of Thred and tie it close about a piece of Iron and the flame of a Candle will never burn it so out bodies though combustible being then joyned to our souls of a spiritual and uncombustible matter will be preserved from destruction and power of the Fire And though these Conclusions by Fire be pertinent to the manner of our resurrection in so many variations yet because the reunion of our parts is the knottiest piece of our belief I shall assist mine with two Observations concerning the Magnetick and concatenating virtue of most Creatures either entire or in parts by which may be seen their inclination to union As in the greedy society of men to men and sometimes fat men to lean
air the air by bloud and other parts adapted for such receprions so traversing the whole body by Circulation returns again to the place from whence it came for we see when the bloud and air which are more evident to us meet with any obstructions either by nature or accident the Soul thereby is deprived of all its faculties Into his Nostrils § 7. The Egptians were wont to signifie a wise and prudent mind by the figure of a Nose and of strength to his wisdom by the extension of the Nostrils for here it is that the breath of life first enters and consequently wisdom and strength The Anatomists call them Nares because the Spirits of the air do Nare or Swim continually in them nor is the mouth or pores fitted for such receptions The three properties of Inspiration Expiration and Respiration being peculiar onely to the Nostrils for if the Nostrils be not clear the mouth will be foul the breath stinking and the pores unapt for sudation for the Nostrils having through its little hairs suckt in the air free from commixtures it passeth from thence to certain spungy bones and from thence into Mammillary processes or things like the teats of Udders and so immediately to the Brain where the commonsense sits as Judge and resolves to pleasure the body with what is fit for the senses or by certain perforations does again distil into the mouth or throws them out by efflations as obnoxious Now it is certain as Anatomists find that there are two Nervous inductions which go from the nostrils to the very middle of the brain whereby the Life and Soul first enters by the help of the air into the Nostrils and thence to the brain and from thence by the breath of life is virtually transfused into all parts of the body but the Nostrils must have the honor of the first ingress of life and of the first infused Creation or Created infusion of the Soul And Man became a Living Soul § 8. The Arabick renders it a Rational Soul which properly distinguisheth it from the Soul of other Creatures But the word Living is sufficient for all Creatures have a share in the breath of life but Man onely is said to be a Living Soul or a Soul which is alwaies Living It lives here under a notion of Mortality in respect of the body but lives here in respect of it self under a certain notion of Immortality dying as to the body but always living to its self The bloud returns it through the brain and nostrils to the spirit of life that universal spirit of life to the peculiar spirit of humanity to be disposed into individual Glorifications Cap. 2. Ver. 8. And the Lord God planted a Garden Eastward in Eden § 9. The garden here is not meerly to be understood in our usual phrase a place of Flowers or Orchard for Plants but a place which contains all sorts of plants and Flowers from the Hysop to the Cedar from the least to the greatest as the Seminary and Nursery for all future Plantations and this place was Eastward which the Sun saluted in the morning to set us an example of our duty to all orderly motions A place where no Edifices were to hide our lazy or surfeited bodies a place where was no bed to repose on but the lap of our Mother Earth no Valences or Curtains but the shade of trees no covering to innocent nakedness but their leaves no mixtures to heighten our tasts all pure simples no Pensils to deceive or flatter our eyes all true natural and a perfect representation of what a Country life should be And this is as the word signifies the true Garden of Eden in which happy solitude or safe pleasure see what Adam enjoyed He had every tree that was pleasant to the sight or good for the taste but principally a tree for Life a tree for knowledge There was also flowing and enriching Rivers Besides there was gold and precious stones enough to satisfie a contented mind not Avarice And above all he had opportunity there to express a harmless industry it seems one of the pleasures of Paradise And there he put the Man whom he had formed § 10. Not the man whom he had Created out of nothing and by meer Creation could do nothing but being formed or a Soul infused into that lump of Creation he was thereby impowered to act and that he might have some materials to work upon he was there put or placed And certainly not onely Adam but every man hath his native Paradise every part of the World hath its varieties and may afford us satisfaction for the body and the mind And it is either the original Itch in us or want of true Education or Instruction or curious ambition or an uncontented mind or a continued punishment upon us mortals that no place no station where we are can hold us nor no Paradise or pleasure retain us from further inquiries It is not said he put the Man there whom he had created or made or framed but the Man that he had formed to shew that the Mind or Soul of Man wheresoever placed with the body might make any place contenting if it transgressed not its Rules and Boundaries Cap. 2. Ver. 9. And out of the ground § 11. Man as I shewed in the seventh verse is said to be made not onely of the ground but of the dust of the ground and here every tree is said to be made out of the ground but not of the dust so that Man hath a Constitution by himself and yet as made of the ground he partakes of all plants for homo est Arbor inversa i. e. man is a tree invers'd and is called homo because he is ex humo or ex humida parte terrae i. e. out of the humid part of the earth He hath his dust and moisture i. e. he is agile and apt for motion yet fixt in his materials whereas plants are not so they are fixed in the ground and have no motion but of Vegetation except what is said of the Mandrake and the feeding Lamb Perkinson p. 118. yet they also die if the fibras that oblige them to the earth be cut asunder And Man hath very little advantage when we consider that in all his postures sitting lying or standing still he is fixed to the earth or to some materials made of the earth swimiming in the water leaping in the air being but forced motions and of no continuance And this is called our Vegetative life although in a plant there is also a sensitive life 〈◊〉 as is seen in the sensible and other known plants of that nature Now as man is made of the dust of the ground plants are more proper out of the ground and they have two advantages over Man first in their heighth above ground 300 foot and more high and next by perforation in the ground some conceiving that the sap root of an Oak
will run 9 foot perpendicular downward which is as I conjectured is in solid earth the uttermost Orb of the Liquid Element But Man by his ingenuity mounts the heighest and mines the deepest rooted plants Now the other part of the earth further from the superficies is more compact and solid affording Quarries Mines and Precious Stones but yet all varieties of colours tasts odours Instruments of Harmony and indeed all things which please the senses are produced out of this superficies of the humid part of the earth being in the middle between air and Minerals which have their colours and vertues onely by attraction then consolidation The Lord made to grow § 12. That is they had their energy of growth from his humid part for we must distinguish between Creation and Generation the one being an existency out of no pâ—â— efficient matter the other the motion or operation of that existency according to the several natures of several kinds adapted for various Operations always moving in the universal Soul being the spring of the World which makes the wheels to move in order if we consider the whole but if we consider the parts 't is more difficult to apprehend the Connexion of all things as it were in one but we can look on it no otherwise then as a Watch the spring giving motion to every wheel where the nimbler motion of the balance is as considerable as the Majestick gradation of the great wheel both serving to one end Thus the little Mite of the Cheese hath its proportioned use as the great Crocodile produced out of the slime of Nile the little Wren as the Ostridgae or the great bird Ibis the harmless Lamb as the Elephant or the great beast that devours Countries the Pigmy as the Giant the Hysop as the Cedar the pleasant Southern air as the the great Diapason of Saturn accounting the motion of this lower air to move harmoniously with the other seven Orbs. So that in the whole Creation this growing is no other then the motion of the universal spirit diversifyed by various Organs for several uses to one common end Every Tree § 13. We must apprehend this garden called Paradise to be greater then Geographers do allow it or else we must as Sir Walter Rawleigh doth with the beasts that went into the Ark confine them to their original kinds and then less ground may be affigned or otherwise the whole Earth is but sufficient to contain the several Species for if we admit of such exuberant Plants as some Authors mention few trees might fill such a Garden for the Jewish Targuns tells us that the tree of life therein was 500 years journey high the bredth they mention not * Cujus altitudo erat Iteneris quingentorum annorum Targ. Hier. but proportions therein must be also admitted And others †Sir W. Rawleigh speak of an Indian Figtree which extends it self in some Countries twenty or thirty miles nor need we much doubt of the latter in respect it is possible by art of several inlayings to make a Vine or any other exuberant Plant to extend as far But we may suppose here was the Seminary of all beneficial plants from whence the rest of the world had their Seeds Cions or Transplantations by winds or birds or exhalations to convey their seeds into other Regions and after by nature art and industry diversifyed into Plants preternatural to their originals That is pleasant to the sight § 14. or good for food The Eye is the noblest part of man being the Index of the Soul and food is not onely a subject or sustentation of our whole but especially our Ocular part The Eye is the first discoverer of want or supersluity of sustenance the eye is the first Judge of what is offensive or inoffensive to our appetite for if the eye dislike we refuse if approves we eat though it proves our poyson for the stomach oft surfets by the pleasure of the eye when the appetite takes its dimension from what the eye fees and not what the little bag of the stomach contains for nature is content with a little if that little be good And since nature hath confined her self to certain receptacles for food it were against its rules to fill those with the unlimited appetites of the eye unless we make our stomach to imitate our eyes which are meerly satisfied with outward objects yet something must be to support their spirits And therefore the eye may be pleased with what it sees the stomach satisfied not with what the eye sees or pleasant to the sight but with that which is good for food or sustentation The Tree of of Life in the midst of the Garden § 15. I do not apprehend this tree to be planted in the midst of the garden as the Center to a Circumference but rather as vertue is said to be in the midst or to consist in the mean or mediocrity or temperance To shew that if Adam could have been so temperate as not to aspire to life till it were revealed to him what kind of life he should enjoy or what Knowledge he should know he had been happy for we shall find by the subsequent that God imparted life and knowledge to him by degrees Or possibly in the midst may be taken for the chief namely that among all the trees of the garden the tree of life was the chief the garden being an Emblem of our bodies our Heart being as is thought the seat of life in the midst of our body But it may well be said also in the midst because a tree of that stupendious height as to be 500 years journey to the top as before mentioned must needs be seen in all parts of the garden the proper and true distance undiscernable to the eye And the tree of knowledge of good and evil § 16. This was not placed in the midst as the tree of life but as it were concealed till God thought fit to impart the knowledge of its vertues or forbid the use of it as he did And though Adam did eat of it yet it produced no such Science as was satisfactory for by eating he knew good and evil so confusedly that he and we know not how to distinguish them many things being good or bad according to doubting Inteations or Commands But I conceive as the vertue of one tree was to enliven a Man to a sound Constitution the other was a fruit of a marvellous luxurious nature and provoked Adam to the evil of Concupiscence and Carnal desires and actions and so by eating knew both good and evil that is good whilst they knew not Carnality evil in the knowing Carnalty and Man hath the reward of his Libidinous disobedience his body being so full of Diseases and Infirmities that the means of propagation seems to beget more Diseases then Children Cap. 2. Ver. 10. And a River went out of Eden to water the garden § 17. and from
the taste and of a promising virtue What Woman could well resist those Temptations Now Adam had no more to tempt him as appears by the Text then an implicit Love and Kindness to his Wife for she gave it him without any perswasive induction that we read of and he did eat Now God did justly begin the punishment with the first offender the Serpent and gave sentence on him for tempting before he did it on those that were tempted one being a premeditate wilful and affronting act against his possitive Commands the other occasional Thou art Curst § 28. Cursing is an intentional Revenge and Revenge is mine saith God But because 't is sweet and pleasant to the tast and indeed hath a relish of Ambition we Mortals who have only power to intend and not a positive power to act revenge do Lavish our spirits into execrations which is an affront to the Deity as high as can be given and it is oft seen that by them they heap Coales of fire on their own heads for when there is such a Concretion of Evil spirits as attend Curses summon'd together they must fix somwhere and saith Solomon A curse causeless shall not take effect where it was intended And then it must necessarily fall upon him that did intend it which is but sutable to Divine Justice and therefore in things provoking our passions we must follow Gods Example herein who first examined the fact by these Interrogatives Where Who What and those acknowledged he gave his Curse and not before we are not to be guided by provocations but deliberations and the Targum says God call'd these three viz. Adam Eve and the Serpent into Judgment before he gave his sentence and we see that a Curse is a thing of that transendent Nature even Man and Beast and the Earth it self have felt th' effects of it And though David a Man after Gods heart did abound with them as we may read in his Psalms and imprecated God for their performance and many of them granted yet upon perusal of the History of his life we shall find many of them to take no effect on those he desired and some of them Retorted on himself and family God knows his own disposures best and that many times the success of our Curses would be the greatest Curse to our selves for he will execute them his own way So that we shew our duty and piety towards him in forbearing and our greatest folly in pronouncing them Above all Cattel § 29. and all beasts of the field By Cattel is meant tame Beasts and by Beasts of the field wild beasts as I have shewn elswhere Now in the first part of the third Chap. the Serpent is said to be the subtilest of the wild beasts and consequently more subtile then the tame for their want of fears and their having by a domestick Attendance almost all things necessary provided for them they have need of that subtilty or craft which is requisite for the wilder However the Curse seems first to descend on the tame beasts which in our Translation is rendered instead of Cattel Cursed be thou above thy fellows to shew that the tame were his fellows for therein was part of the Serpents subtilty to be too subtil for the tame by his dissimulation of his tameness and more subtile then the wild by Contriving more inventions I must confess I am posed at the Almighties severity herein unless it were because they were such fools to associate with a Beast of such a subtile and trecherous nature and it ought to be a Caveat to all innocents to be circumspect in their intermixture with such dangerous Companions yet this daily happens both in Families and States which can carse be prevented but by a sedulous care of our selves and actions and well weighing the nature and inclinations of others seeing it is our Fate to be intermixed with such we mush abstract the wisdom of the Serpent from his subtilty and be as wise as he and retain that innocency wherein we are Constituted whether it be like the Dove or Lamb or such other Creatures whose gentle natures ought to be our examples On thy Belly shalt thou go § 30. and Dust shalt thou eat all the dayes of thy Life The Targum of Jerusalem adds Thy feet shall be cut off and thou shalt cast thy skin every seaven years and there shall be deâ—ly poyson in thy Mouth Here the Targum explains this Curse by reading that his feet should be cut off and that he should cast his skin and his mouth be full of poyson which intimates that he had feet and that his skin or beauty was permanent and that his breath was sweet and pleasing before the curse Now it was not the want of feet that made the curse for many creatures have the like want as Snakes and Insects yet are accompted perfect in their kind Nor the eating dust for most do so for what creature in some proportion doth not daily eat it For though 't is said the Camelion lives by Aire yet it is the Atomes or dust in the aire that nourisheth it Nor casting the skin for most creatures do so every seaventh year and Physicians hold that the skins of serpents and Snakes so exuviated are very Medicinal nor having poyson in their mouth for most Creatures in some proportion afford the like both Man and Beast but the changing of that due frame proportion and constitution to another which is worse and that was and still is the curse that hangs on us For if our Eyes be made perspicuous our Eares Musical our Touch delicate our Tast distinctive our smell preservative our Limbs streight and our Minde pure and serene in bodies harmoniously Composed yet if we dim our Eyes deafen our Eares vitiate our touch taste or smell obfuscate our mindes by the ill contracts or habits of our bodies These are the curses upon the use of forbidden fruits that is the use and habit of Evil Actions for to use our sound and perfect constitutions otherwise then God by Reason prompts us to is a decurtation of our feet and an exuviation of our Constituted beauty which sills us with such venomous qualities that even our very Breaths are infections to those who are more virtuous Cap. 3. Verse 15. And I will put Enmity between thee and the Woman § 31. and between thy seed and her seed and it shall bruise his Head and thou shalt bruise his Heel The Targum of Onkelous reads the latter part of this verse thus Ipse Recordabitur He shall remember thee and what thou didst to him from the beginning and thou shalt observe him in the end The Targum of Jonathan renders that part thus Et erit And it shall come to pass when there shall be Sons of the Woman which obey the precepts of the Law they shall use their endeavour to strike thee at thy head but when they shall forsake the precepts of the Law thou
audible found or voice different from each individual of the same kind and though each kind agree in the intention of their voice appropriate to each kind so that they understand each other as the Horse his kind the Sheep his yet Man who is the rational Judge doth perfectly apprehend even in his imperfect station that the individuals of each kind have different voices even the Nightingales differ though not in their Notes yet in their Keys some higher some lower But in all creatures which have Musical voices Man undertakes the Umpirage and in respect of his own race there is no creature to whom he attributes so much pleasure as to the voice of a Woman and the more if he hath some additional Affection for her person for 't is known that their very speech hath captivated some men not for the Rhetorick of what she speaks but the mere Phantasm of her voice And if we do this whilest we are under this state of Imperfection who almost could blame Adam whilest he had the perfection of Judgment and she the accomplishment of what could make her a perfect voice so far to indulge his harmonious mind as to hearken to it So that certainly God was not angry with him for this but is was for his hearkening to her voice of temptation to such a voice as did not only please the appetite of Adams ear for that was dispensible but such a voice as provoked him to an inordinate act in doing what he was forbidden for our delights and contentments ought to be guided not by what is simply pleasurable and contenting to our selves but what is just and sutable to Gods commands Cursed be the ground for thy sake § 36. We had need to take care of our actions whenas we sey by the Text and daily see how many Innocents suffer by our misactions The Targum saith that the ground was cursed because it did not warn Adam of this transgression And it may be the Lord Bacon had his Phansie from the Targum that the Earth was a great animal and that the breath thereof was the Sea which caused the Ebbing and Flowing If so then as it had knowledge within it self of all Gods commands so it ought to have admonished Adam and not doing it occasioned this curse In sorrow or tears § 37. Tears and Sorrows are synonimous for we do not express our sorrows so effectually as by tears for grones and sighs are but evaporations of our troubled spirits but tears are a more condensed and contracted evidence of our sorrows as if recollected and distilled from all the suffering parts of Man And therefore David prays that God would imbottle his tears of which I have spoke more in the Chapter of Immortality And though we ost shed tears for joy yet they give such a compressure to all parts that they seem to be derived rather from the cistern of sorrow then joy because there usually follows such an immediate discomposure both to the body and mind of those who shed them Shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life § 38. The Chyle that feeds us in the womb the Milk when we are born the varieties of food in our Youth and Age is but a nimble transmutation of the Earth so little that the greatest part in few hours naturally turns to earth again and that which stays longer our Bloud Flesh and Bones is still but earth in various forms and colours even every minute subject to accidental alteratioas into its original mass this is our Curse But what food we should have had void of such transmutations or corruptions nor Schools nor Human Reason can inform us onely our Faith believes that when the days of life are ended that our corruption shall put on incorruption and our mortality immortality in which state we shall be above the use and decay of Elements because that Beautifical Vision which we expect will make us perfect without any other supplement but it self which consists not in fulness of any matter but unexpressible Illuminations Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee § 39. We may observe that Gods curses upon those Innocents have some mixture of blessings for the Earth is made part of our Human bodies and Thorns and Thistles have their sanative vertues on us as well as prickles to hurt us Spina signifies as well the Backbone wherein our strength and health consists as those prickles which offend us And Joseph of Arimathea's Staff was transform'd into a Thorn rather then any other Shrub as a Signal of his Profession And Tribulus a Thistle may as well be called Triâ—bulla a threefold Ornament intimating the Trinity which should be more discovered to us as Tribulations or Trouble And these Tribuli or Thistles have their virtues too as well as their offences and it is remarkable that one of the kinds of these Thistles is called Christs Thistle by the Herballists upon supposition that the Crown wherewith Christ was in part crucified was made of the pricky substance of that Thistle So that as the Earth was cursed in bringing them forth yet they had some kind of honour to be made use of upon so signal an occasion And Thorns are of that great use in this part of the world as that whereas before things seemed to have a Community now by Inclosures and Fences made of them each man enjoys his own propriety with more secureness And the Thistles give a testimony of the rich ' ness of the ground where they grow and by Transplantation turn to an effectual nourishment as Artichokes c. Thorus and Thistles do not exclude more pleasant Plants for amongst Gods curses there are blessings and his mercies flourish with his justice Cap. 3. Ver. 18. And thou shalt eat the herb of the field § 40. Soon after Man was created in the 29th verse of the first Chapter saith God to Adam I have given you every herb and it shall be to you for meat there the Injunction was upon the Herb that it should be for the food of man but here 't is said Thou shalt eat the herb of the field and here the Injunction was upon Adam to eat He was at some liberty before to eat but now his food is restrained and therefore some do question whether we do not multiply Adams transgression by our continued eating of other creatures which were not then allowed to us for if we consider the numerous living creatures whose bloud is shed to fill our Appetites we have nothing almost to plead for the doing so but Custom or some necessity to lessen the number of those creatures lest they should grow so numerous as to destroy those herbs of the field that should feed us or their Carcases by death be more offensive then the Ordure which we extracted from them So that by this extravagancy of food we seem to continue our curse in that we cannot frame and comply our Appetites to that which