Royalty at the Eye as having some blind Iurisdiction in the Pores For this were to measure Magical Positions by the Superficial Strictures of common Philosophy Whose Assertors too confident of the Principles of Tradition labour not to understand what others speak but to make others speak what they themselves understand For it is in Nature as appears in Religion some are still hammering and fashioning of old Elements but seek not the Eutopia that lies beyond them This Body therefore let 's consider it the Temple and the Soul that 's within it the Sanctum Sanctorum for the Majesty to dwell in Which if so this Earth must be rarified to make a pure Heaven and Heaven must be purified before the Divinest will inhabit within it Great and Iust therefore is the Original Good whose Incomprehensible Beauty and Divine Majesty neither the Heavens nor the Earth nor the Orbs nor the Ocean nor the expatiated Abyss can any ways contain him Which certainly to know is Speculum Sapientiae scraw'd out in the fair Frontespiece of the beautiful Creation as also in that Divine Manuscript of Holy Writ where the Patriarchs and the Prophets are Marginal Notes and the Holy Men of God with our pious Ancestors the lively Records and divine Remembrancers of the Sacred Oracles of the Majesty of Truth Thus far the Ark of the Covenant travelled and thus far the Talmudists transported themselves but some of the Cabalists went some degrees farther when they met with Christ and his Twelve Apostles yet could they not see the great Messiah But Gabriel the Angel salutes the Blessed Virgin with Hail Mary full of Grace blessed art thou among the Daughters of Women For the Holy of Holies shall overshadow thee with Beauty and thou shalt conceive and bear a Child and he shall be called the Son of God. John Baptist also he confirms the Miracle who when Jesus with him coming forth of the Water the Heavens themselves most gloriously opened and the Holy Ghost divinely descending like a Dove rested the Glory of the Majesty upon him and then was there a Voice heard from the Divinest This is my Son my beloved Son let the Nations hear him Now to the Jews this became a stumbling-block as to some of the Rabbies a Rock of offence but to the Gentiles that sat in the Suburbs of Darkness and the Scriptures tell us in the Shadow of Death the most glorious Mystery of the Revelation of God and the everlasting Gospel was preached unto them So that from these two eminent and most sacred Primordials the one of the Law and the other of the Gospel Religion or something like it took its native Original yet so strangely masqueraded disfigured and disguised that were not a Man well assured what it was it would be found difficult to resolve what to call it And thus the Sun Heavens major Luminary when because at once falling upon several Angles represents the Light in various forms So Christianity though a familiar Appellation yet admits it of such Variety in its progress and peregrination because when to mingle it self with all sorts of Professions that Professors themselves have been puzled how to rate it whiles the noble Berean searches the Scriptures and as the Scriptures manifestly testifie of Christ so Christ himself saith they testifie of him The great Oracle therefore and the Miracle of Faith is Christ himself and Christ is God From whence the Mystery of our Eternal Salvation the blessed Regeneration and the spiritual Birth that internally breaths in every pious Believer is Christ in us the hope of Glory the Sovereign Revealer of the Wisdom of God whose Light is the Beauty of the Majesty of Light that enlightneth every one coming into the World and is our saving and our sanctifying Light before Time had a Being God blessed for ever Thus in brief I present you with a Sacred Summary of my pious Conceptions of the Scriptures of Truth divulg'd to the World as a Treasure of Mysteries calculated for the Assiduous and only such whose Integrity and Fidelity internally shine forth as their Faces externally in a Glass respond and answer a due and exact Proportion From whence I conclude this Philosophical Axiom As are the Writings of Moses the Standard of Truth that God the Creator has by a Royal Law imposed upon Nature eternally to operate the Vniversal Spirit therefore is but One in all her Operations viz. in the Fire to influence in the Air to impregnate in the Water to germinate and in the Earth to vegetate Where note The Elements consequently the Principles were divinely preordained by the Sovereign Power of him that 's Supream who constituted Nature to conserve the Creation or solemnly I declare I understand it not Nor would I be thought either rash or unreasonable to reassume a Priviledge in what I distribute but as Words are my own whiles yet in my Mouth and every bodies else when unconfined so let them be and have a charitable Reception when to run their Risque in the Worlds great Lottery because when to fall under various Conceptions yet if so happy to meet with the Ingenious in Science meaning such as dread and honour their Creator and imitate Nature in her solitary Operations which every expert Artist and experienced will do provided his Inquisitions be after the Truth to such and such only I dedicate my Labors together with my Endeavours to Wisdoms elaborate Shrine that with vertuous Inclinations they may seek after Discoveries and the abstruse Tracts of their Friend Philanthropus RABBI MOSES IN the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth Which directs me to contemplate this World is a great Machine or an Engine-royal adapted for Motion by the Power of Him that created the Creation that not so much as an Atom can move or stir save only by a derivative Vertue from him that thro Wisdom and Providence gave a Being to the Whole who knows all the Parts and Particles of his Work. How can he then be thought ignorant of its Motion or in any thing be deficient when he that made the World knows how to influence the hidden Springs and Parts thereof he knows for what End and Duration he design'd its Motion and the time when all things shall pass away So that when the Divinest withdraws the Springs of Life viz. his supporting Providence from any Creature in the Creation or from the Elements or the whole World it self it must sink into a state of Inactivity consequently become a meer Annihilation Now That Heaven and Earth are Corelates who doubts it That they sprung spontaneously from one Principium who disputes it And that they had in themselves by Divine Ordination Ends and Beginnings most properly adapted and insinuated into them who so Impious and Atheistical to suspect it That the World had a Beginning is manifest That Eternity preceded Time is most manifest And that every End terminates in its own proper Beginnings nothing more manifest Every End therefore
ever be known by another In the next place we discourse the Element of Water imagined by some a solution of Earth or a moist coagulum of ambient Air made fluid only by an internal flux which surrounding the Earth compleats but one Globe and which aquous fluidity separates only the impurities from the more extraneous and superficial parts but cannot reach to the Core or Centre whereby to examine the internal impurities which an intence Fire naturally purgeth forth by reason of its ardent activity and not improper to say its vulcanick nature where the Waters of themselves can never reach Two Elements therefore are destinated to putrification and as the matter to be purified is visible or invisible consequently such are the Agents for purification Since the Fire therefore is an invisible Agent and that other of Water most obvious and visible the visible and invisible parts of things are therefore so mended and cleansed by subtile Operation whereby they seseparate the more inquinate impurity that stifly adheres to the immaculate nature and prestine state of Virgin purity But as the Soul within the Body is not bett'red by the Corporiety of all or any of the natural composition or impendent matter hovering about it but is rather stained poluted and infected with noxious Sapors arising thence from So you are to consider that the Vessel has its honour from the dignity of the Arcanum or glory of the Subject matter therein contained And as the Scripture instructs us that Gods surprizing Light illuminates every pious act of the Creature it obligeth us to consider that the Goodness of God is as great to forgive as by his Clemency and Bounty he is just to pardon Where note we observe God made things proportionable and in all respects suitable to himself The great World he made therefore to contain the less but the lesser World he made to contain himself that contains the greater And thus you have the Mystery of the Creation the Majesty of Reason the Divinity of Scripture and authority of Philosophy But the Waters brought forth every moving Creature because in them was the Spirit of Life For the Spirit of Life by Divine incubation made ingress into them filling them with a prolifick vertue and the first form'd Creature that the Waters brought forth was the great and unweildy body of Earth most recluse and solitary because inwardly concealed which till then never felt the operative foâ—ce of Fire Nor did the luminous Ray of the Sun nor the vertual influence of Stars nor the Divine order of Constellations nor the treasures of Hail and Rain of Lightning and Thunder nor the Seasons of Heat and Cold Frost and Snow besides innumerable living Creatures to whom Heavens plentiful Breast daily administred till then none of them knew the potency of Life nor the force and energy of the universal Spirit which God by Wisdome inspired into them But some will object and peradventure say how and after what manner does the Earth vegetate Shew us also the rationallity and probability whereby the Earth and the Water become living Creatures to which I readily and briefly answer the Soul of the Divine World is God himself but that of the Created the universal spirit of Nature and this Soul lives by vertue of the Divine World but acts by imagination only in the Created whereby the Earth conceives vegetates and buds up so does the Waters protrude and bring forth even to the period and perfection of its predestinated end Nor can they otherwise do because the Law of Providence and Necessity is by Divine ordination imposed upon them And that which enriches them are the sublime treasures of Elements and Principles For wanted they those active and ingressive instruments they were of all things in Nature most imperâ—ect and would be altogether void and unprofitable so become as it were a meer annihilation and not improper should I call it a Caput Mortuum For it were impossible that any Created Being if when wanting the Vital Faculty of Life could be any ways at any time in a capacity to live consequently to move vegetate and protrude But the great and the lesser World is fill'd with animation whereby it daily and hourly buds forth All which are signal and demonstrable tokens of the Spirit of Life that animates and actuates in every Creature Life therefore is that active and universal Spirit of Nature wherewith she infusseth the whole Creation impregnating every individual therewith whereby the Character of Life is no sooner stampt infus'd or imprest upon any material Subject but it inwardly lives as does the invisible World which no sooner appears to move forward into act but the model and frame of the Subject matter at once admits of exteriour Motion Life therefore as it is the Radix of every thing so it acts demonstratively in every Body The motion of the Sun we daily observe is necessarily occasioned by this active spirit of Life And such is the vital pulse in Man as also that large and greater pulse of the Ocean Earth vegetates only from this operating Spirit and the Air is replenished and fill'd full of it Every thing that is lives not without it nor can any thing subsist deficient of it O wonderful Nature the Miracle of the Creator how intelligeable art thou in all thy Operations and tho' so simple naked and demonstratively plain yet how difficult is it for the Artist to find out So that were we minded to imitate Nature in her solitary Operations and Fermentation of Elements we ought first to consider in order to what Nature in her daily progress points out unto us whereby to manidge and introduct us whose mediums because primarily separation and solution of parts therefore from thence begins manual Operation Let solution therefore be the first step since in separation all is found Then proceed to Filtration Evaporation Congealation Cristalization Distillation Digestion Putrefaction Ceration Albification Rubification and Fixation Then will Diana appear from under her Vail which none but the Eyes of a true Philosopher since the beginning ever yet saw But now I suspect I 'me beyond the Paraphrase of the Text when only designed to discourse the Creation so of Elements and Principles Natures own Rudiments How that Elements subsist not without previous Fermentation of their complicated comâ—xture of invisible Parts so that a compleat separation is no where found whereby to unlock and disintangle the unity of Bodies without a Philosophical Clavis to display their Principles which otherwise are limited and by Nature confined to submit to the law of coagulation Of all which I cease farther to disclose lest peradventure this secret be already too manifest when because to devulge it to the root of ingratitudes so we leave that Subject to discourse the Leviathan And God made great Whales c. Iob calls him Leviathan who after his Creation by the permission of God rolls toâ— and fro the fluctuating Ocean Whose unctuous Scales pollish the
posture stands the whole Creation in since daily to admit of Transmutation And the Herb yielded Seed and the Fruit-tree his Seed and the Roots and Fruits also after their kind which are radicated and impregnated in every individual nor are they found in another Specie And Sandivogius tells us before the separation of Elements that every individual had then in it self Vertuality but one single primordial Seed yet denies not that this primordial Seed had the Specimen Vertue of all the rest vertually and primarily radicated in it However there be some that will oppose this Doctrine and lead by a perverse Biass would gladly refute it but blessed is he that receives and believes it for it is a secret and the gift of God sealed up from ignorant and obstinate Men not only in this but in every Generation Nor can any Man I perswade my self know God in the Abstract except otherwise by the Work of God in the Creation which Commissions me also to say in the Creature as Paul says Christ in you the hope of Glory If therefore another Man's knowledge profit me nothing except he enforms me the Measures he knows he but exposes my Faith to a rambling search to find out the truth by a dubious Examine How miserable therefore and much to be lamented is that implicit Putationer whose Zeal truckles under every form of Religion and bows his Knee to every new model of Conformity Let us therefore but examine this stupendious Creation wherein God has made himself obvious to the Creature and which ought to be the Study of every Enquirer when because to read Lectures in the Stars and Elements The copious Volumns and visible Folio's of God the Creator that gave then a Being and are his Oracles that by Divine Interpretation are made visible conspicuous and intelligible to us For here we may read that Generation it self presents unto us the Marginal Notes and Genus and Species the Vowels and Consonants the Magi of old learnt us to spell by so that the Letters and Syllables of this blessed Alphabet points out unto us the Manuscript of the Universe over which great School God himself is chief Rabbi whose Students and Prosolites are Nature and Religion and their daily Lectures and solemn Declamations the Visibility and invisibility of this Voluminous Creation wherein God makes manifest himself in the Creature which teacheth us to live by the Vertual Act of Faith whereby we may hope what at present we cannot enjoy so labour to find out the hidden Mystery of Truth and the unfrequented Tracts of Wisdom and Experience which is or ought to be the study of every Man born into the World more especially to Christians For truly to know God is to know Life Eternal for he that knows him but as he is told I can hardly perswade my self he knows him at all Search well within therefore peradventure thou wilt find him and if thou look without there is he also to be found So that in every thing and in every place is his Mercy or his Justice where his Power is also and the Majesty of his Presence for nothing is nor can subsist without him Is not this enough to enamour the Creature whose dependance is wholly upon the Creator for if when to inspect Heaven by Divine speculation with confidence we may assure our selves his habitation is there and if we dive into the Center of the Earth there also is his Instrument by which Nature operates The Superficial parts also and the Soil of Earth visibly and manifestly declare his Vegetation and the celestial Incholists as Planets and Constellations do not they influence this blessed Creation So that the whole and every part thereof declare him admirable therefore to be admired till led by admiration to the Corona of Beatitude which to the Religious seems a pleasant short Stage since the Life of Man is measured but a Span. Earth therefore must to Earth and Elements to Elements and all compounded mixts submit themselves to solution which properly terminates in the periods of Death but Eternity stands for ever in the presence of God and is therefore most permanent durable and everlasting But the Earth budded forth because fill'd with Vegetation and every Tree from the Cedar to the Shrub so the Oak the Asp the Poplar and the Ash had its Seed radicated and inated in its self Plants and Herbs also in due time producted and variously multiplied to adorn the Creation and not so only to the praise of him that made them but to sustain refresh and gratifie the Creature the mighty God the Lord Iehovah his mighty Arm has wrought this Creation and who shall compensate for so Divine a Work if when to consider that we are but Earth and our earthy Ornament but the blossom of Vegetation and Vegetation it self what is it more than the antecessor or forerunner of Mortification and Mortification what is it but the prospect of putrefuction which leads on directly to the prisons of Death Every thing therefore that is naturally produced results and terminates in its native beginnings For whatever thing is Elemental or had inicience from thence falls under the same predicament and destinated to die whose ends because fliding into the periods of inactivity partake of the common destiny of all compounded mixts For such are the Elements and all Elementary Beings ever since they had a Being and Birth in the Creation But here to Philosophize when duely separated and afterwards co-united and re-conjoyned again it represents the invisibility visible to us which then resulting in an Astrum or Quintessentia is in a capacity to dignifie other Bodies and make them glorious as it self is transcedent But who has considered this great Conservator besides him that reads daily lectures in the Orbs and makes it his business to consult the Creation that makes the Host of Heaven his daily Common-place-book and he that made Heaven his hourly Contemplation which priviledges me to say he that made Man made not Man for himself but to admire his Maker till then we shall never be truely devoted nor know what God is nor what is his truth notwithstanding so often by others reminded but like to the World and pratling Parots talk to others those things we understand not our selves In this kind of Zeal I was morally Educated and suckt my Religion in with my Learning too copious Theams to be taught in one Academy when the Universe it self is too compendious for a University I grant its true that the Press made a noise but you must grant me the Pulpit made a greater till to me there seem'd a defect in both the first because I found in a great measure impractible and the latter peradventure as unexperiental This conducted me to search after the wisdome of him that alone is the Divine Miracle of wonder and my daily Speculations were animated with discovery when every Signature unfolded it self and every Classis brought forth a Clavis wherewith to
adequate primordials in her occidental Cressant she naturally displays a Lunar clarity when in her Oriental purity an incomparable brightness and tho' by reason of distance She wants a natural warmth yet in her Progress she spreads forth of splendour whereby she sends Beauty to the ends of the Ocean The Tides themselves also are a Lunar flux and such is the frail imbicility of Females For the Moon has a Monarchy within her self yet directs She by the generous Beam of her Soveraign who by Wisdome and Providence of the Supreamest Good that governs the whole and also the parts is made to nourish and refresh the Creation so that to make things plain by explaining my self peradventure may bring my Discourse into suspition were the Vulgar my Judges who I fancy by this have already doomed and brought me under the calamity of a Lunatick The residue of the Stars the Divinest also he placed them in order by particular classes and gave to every one by a grant from Heaven a peculiar vertue and different operation one to dignifie Earth into the purest Gold another to make Silver shine in the Mines a third to scatter Iron Stone underneath the Surface a fourth to discover Quickâ—silver fluid a fift lays open the Mines of Tin and a sixth the beauteous Mettalline Copper but the seventh creates the Earth into Oar which by smelting at the Mills is convertible into Lead but there are Other and various coagulations besides these seaven as allowed by Philosophers the product and progeny of Erratick Stars and such is Cat-silver Mine Oars and Minerals mixt Metals also with various complications Then their 's Talk and Realgar with Zink Bismuth and Cobolt and the regal Cements of Hal and Malk besides Markasites and Pierites with innumerable concressions of opacous Bodies enough to astonish the Reader if to name them Precious Stones also are of the same progeny and legitimate heirs of Stars and Constellations and tho' some coagulations out-lustre one another as the Cristal because having a polite and shining face so has the Crisolite a Diaphinous-body but the Saphir the Hiacinth the Smaragdine and Emerald together with the Amethist Diamond Ruby and the Carbuncle are all gloriously tinged with a Mettalline Tincture but there are other and Opacous Bodies directing to the Topax beside the Turchas and such is the Onix and admired Granat with the Cornelian needless to nominate in regard by the Mobile so generally understood All which have their Officine and Shops in the Earth where Illiastes and Archeus are Rector and Operator the one to find stuff and the other labour but Demogorgan assists both by the help of Vulcan Thus in brief I have given you a short view of Celestials and how they are adapted Parents of Terrestials Now these glorious and luminous Lamps the Stars were kindled by the Divinest to illuminate the World and God lifted them up and set them in the Firmament as Oracles and Ornaments to adorn the Universe whose signature and impressions are perpetually imprest upon Earths soft Table to influence and impregnate it with prolifick vertue For the Sun and Moon shews us Heaven and Earth in a lesser Character than most men dream of and because having a magnetick vertue and principle in themselves the first fills the World with heat and activity but the latter because immerg'd with passive qualifications influenceth fluidity and the race of Females The Sun therefore we superscribe him Masculine but the Moon every one intitles Feminine where note as these Luminaries are made to move consequently so moves the Wheels of Generation and corruption which mutually dissolves all compounded Bodies But the Moon most properly is the Organ of Transmutation as is the Sun the Parent of Generation and these two Luminaries multiply and fructifie every individual as to generation and multiplication for what compound ever was or is there to be found in whole nature that holds not in it self some proportion of the Sun and so of the Moon whereby to confirm it with life and motion so that what Offices soever are performable by these two Luminaries either for preservation of the whole or conservation of part as is the performance for one such also and after the same manner is the like office for all Since therefore such Vertue shines from Celestials what may be expected from Super-Celestials is not Christ the Wisdome the Beauty and the Glory of the Majesty whose admirable amaziâ—g and astonishing brightness shines in the Tracts to the new Ierusalem The holy men of God in former Ages read daily Lectures in this Divine Manuscript and the same Starry Folio since the beginning of the Creation has lain unfolded to this very Generation So that wanting Solomons wisdome and Iobs inspection very few or none do read in it now Surely our Rabbies have lost the Clavis Hermes its true and the Egyptians before him understood and stiled God Minos Solitaria but our great Prophet Moses Iehovah and Elohim so the Cabalists intitled him Aleph Tenebrosum from whence some conjecture the Delphians in their inscriptions direct their Orisons to the unknown God. But the Arabs their Orisons but the Arabs and the Caldeans marks him out Aleph Lucidum So that doubtingly the Key of Knowledge in some measure may be lost otherwise the Alphabet would not seem so unintelligeable unless we have made new Heavens of our own so study them only and forget the old one But the Creation of Harmony who can forget and not forget him that adorns the Universe so fill up his Lamp with Foetid Oyl whose stinking Empyruma instead of Aroma's infects the Altar and offends the Omnipotent But man by the Divinest was Created twofold Visible and invisible Corporeal and Celestial his Elementary Body or visible part of a pure fixt Earth or a deep red Clay but his Soul or Invisibility of an Essence Royal not to be found in the Texture of the great World more intellectual therefore and more supernatural from whence Montanus that great Pantheologist calls Man a small or little Incarnation in which work God was pleased to multiply himself Nor was Man the primitive Work in this blessed Creation but the great World was out of which Man was made whose Principles and Practice ought to be well examined should we resolve to take part for the whole so guess at the frame by a regular proportion And as Man was taken out of this copious World so was the Woman also taken out of Man. For God in his Eternal Idea foresaw that whereof as yet there was no material Copy The Goodness and Beauty of which invited him to Create Man like unto himself and beholding that divine and lively Image of his own inwardly to shine in the Tabernacle of Man he became therewith enamoured with divine Ardency and so loved the Creature that when Sin had defaced it he again restored it by the suffering of that Power by which Man at first was made and created But the Sun and
food but the Windows of Heaven were set open to refresh and gratifie their thirsty appetite And thus the Creation was unacquainted with fear whiles our Ancestor stood in a state of Innocency and had for ever so remain'd without contradiction by authority of the Text had not Sin struck out the Character of simplicity The timerous Hare fled not then for fear nor did the Cunney shelter her self in the burrough The Hind calv'd naturally without corruscations claps of thunder were then no help to disburden her Nor did the Bear lick her Cubs into shape or form for in the beginning was no deformity The Pellican in those days I perswade my self pickt not those wounds in her tender breast infeebling her self to relieve her young ones Nor did the Ostridge conceal her Eggs dreading or fearing the crush of the Elephant Nor can I hardly perswade my self in these halcion days that the Swan as now sang a lacrimy to her Funeral nor the Phenix fire her Vrn to generate her Species Aligators surely in the minority of time were not so ravenous as to prey upon Passengers Nor did the Crocadile dissemble his tears to moisten the Funerals of his fellow Creature The Plover I discover flew then with the Tassel and the Pheasant I fancy kept flight with the Falcon. Nor did the Partridge know Engin nor Noosie-thread nor dreaded nor feared he the flight of the Goshawk Nor can I think otherwise than to say in those days the Lark was any time dared with the Hobby Surely Nature in those days was divinely exercised to preserve in Unity and unite in Harmony the Creatures God had blest in this blessed Creation because then to know no other Law but that of Sympathy which is naturally of kind but so alienated now and in a sense so degenerated as if no other Law was ever established Now the Generations past and our worthy Ancestors as the vertuous in this Age will labour to abolish this unnatural antipathy if when mutually to strengthen one another in the doctrine of Christianity which ought to be the standard among the pious in profession lest peradventure we relinquish our soveraign health so draw on our heads the Curse of Disease For to fly from Sanity to seek a cure in Sickness is to run head-long into the Water to preserve our selves from drowning In the beginnings of time as it was of old no noise of oppression allarm'd the Land nor dreaded any man the sence of invasion Then it was that priviledges were as sacred as life and the whole Creation seem'd all in common Ianus I fancy liv'd not in those days when the inside was made legible and intelligible by the outside Modesty and innocency were then alamode and simplicity with piety the newest dress For Heaven was pleas'd then to dwell upon Earth but Earth must now be rarified into Heaven God then immediately converst the Creature as by Mediation Christ interceeds the Father And were it not that Christ is our Saviour and Advocate we should be left without a Plea and Sentence denounc'd beyond dispute against us But Christ is risen in whom we hope to rise and lost Adam is restor'd by the Redeemer of the World So that what Adam lost on the one hand in Paradise Christ our Mediator has redeemed on the other Thus was the Beast and the Cattle made and thus every Creature made after its kind knew no other Law than the Law of kind for instinct of kind was naturally inated and ingrafted into all as into one and if so it were impossible for the Creature to degenerate where a command as hitherto was never violated Then it was that the Divinity of the Majesty of God most splended and gloriously shin'd on the Creation for how could it be otherwise when the beauty of the Creator like a new risen Star reflected on the Creature In Edens fair Field no Brambles grew nor was sterility known in her borders The Trees then lookt big because burd'ned with Fruit and their blushing heads bowed down themselves to the courteous hand that endeavoured to reach them The Earth knew nothing but fulness and plenty since every thing was supplied with prolifick Vertue and nourish'd in it self by the primar cause Nature directs the ends of Germination No Cankers nor Caterpillars bred out of putrefaction nor were Northern blasts injurious to any thing nor was there any fatal stroke of Diseas for every thing stood in its primitive purity and Death was out-lawed and Sin an Exile or at leastwise a rerrour unknown or unthought of nor do I err when to say at that time uncreated O blessed Creation because God had blest it from the beauteous Ray and Beam of Himself Whose radient Morning could scarce raise a blush before Titan was ready to unvail his face Whose pleasures were boundless because then unlimited for excess and intemperance were strangers in her Courts And whose Garden full frought with Flowers and Aroma's flourish'd with encrease since hitherto the Serpent had not tainted the Fruit. And the Earth of it self brought forth in abundance whose Womb was the Storehouse and Factory of Treasures Gold grew in Ophir as naturally in those days as Lead is drawn up in the Peek of Derby-shire And Cattle by kind were raised and encreased as putrefactive Excrements convert into Insects But I cease not to wonder since thy Works are so wonderful and to admire thy ways because so miraculous Thus Heaven and Earth were seemingly united and the Creation bended no Knee to any Government save that of its Soveraign Lord and Maker Nor was any thing made that knew any Lord excepting the Lord of Heaven and Earth Nor had the Creator as yet made man a King or Vice-Roy of the Creatures in the Creation All the World all this while was but one Common-Weal and the Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden and nothing as hitherto that God had created had tasted the bitter effects of Death Oblessed and sacred Government upon Earth when Governed by the Royal Law of Heaven which certainly had remained in that blessed State had not Sin by consent eclips't and defac'd it almost to extinguish this beautiful Aurora But let 's tack about now and begin to examine the genuine nature and complication of Animals together with the natural composition of Man whom we find at this day complicated of Elements of all which he consists if when to consider his material parts And as Adam was abstracted from the Womb of the great World so was Woman her self an abstract from him whose Soul as an Astrum or an Essence Royal is no where to be found in the Texture of the Universe Wherefore we have considered Adam super-natural whose Creation to me seems a small incarnation as Montanus says as if God in this Work had multiplied Himself And tho' Adams Original keep not time with the Creation however we are Children of Adams Generation But the World because daily fill'd with revolution ever since the
A Philosophical TREATISE OF THE ORIGINAL AND PRODUCTION OF THINGS Writ in AMERICA in a Time of Solitudes By R. FRANCK LONDON Printed by Iohn Gain and are to be sold by S. Tidmâ—rsh at the King's Head in Corn-hill and S. Smith at the Prince's Arms in S t. Paul's Church-Yard 1687. WHereas several Literal Errors have passed the Prâ—ss The Reader is dâ—sireâ— either to Correct or put a favourable Censure upon them TO THE SEDULOUS SONS OF Science Gentlemen THIS Epistle directs you a Prospect of the Original and Production of things where if in any thing I devâ—at from the truth of Philosophy Natures Progeny and Scriptural Aâ—thority I stand at the bar of every mans censure but if otherwise as I 'm conscious I have offered no violence let me hope and expect a generous Approbation h'â—â— true the sublimest speculations I can raise are but faint uncultivated and unprâ—fitable endeavours when presenting them to the shrines of clearer judgments For as ridling of water through a serce or sieve makes no decisional separation of the recrements and impurities nor the holding up a taper at the Sun's meridian add any lustre to his luminous brightness such peradventure some will interpret these â—y Suggestions upon thâ—s admirable subjâ—ct when so slenderly to approach and attempt a survey upon such sublime and divine Discoveries and because not raising my scenes high enough they 'l doom me to encounter their uncharitable Opinions when modestly and piously I come to present thâ—m with my Notionâ— and Speculations of this imbellished Creation Hâ—aven is Gods Throne and the Earth hâ—s Foot-stool from whence I conclude that the property and quality of every individual devolves in him that gave it a being otherwise how could the benignity and bounty of the Donor so splendidly shine in the Fabrick of the Creature and because to contribute a ray of his Essence-Royal Adam was dignified Vice-roy of the Creation Let no man therefore oppose himself to the Divinest by sacriligious Oblatâ—ons and impious adorations leâ—t he prophane the Altar and make void the Offring when to send up his Orisons to an unknown God. Hermes in his Book of the Divine Pimander has pointed out unto us a prospect of Heaven So Rabbi Moses in the desarts of Arabia by divine inspiration had a vision of the Creation Nor was Job ignorant of Seraphick intelligence when to range himself sublimly above the most sedulous Mathematicians who with an angelick stile left unto us such Lectures whereby to read in the frontispiece of Hâ—aven The Jews also so did the Talmudists by Mâ—saical Ordâ—nation find the tracts to Jerusalem whiles divine Paul and the Primitive Christians by spiritual Revelation became illuminated with tâ—e Goâ—pel But Nature all this while by Hâ—avens permission went on in Operation and the Sophi as amazed stood gazing upon her till the Divinest in his Son discovered himself which struck amazement and astonishment amongst them because when to shine on them the Majesty of himself in the glorious mystery of the blessed Incarnation the sublime Divinity assuming Humanity which in parallel lines directs us to inspect this visible World so miraculously drest up the beautiful outside of a more glorious inside This invited me to contemplate and seriously consider how that every creature and created being by a fermental law radicated in Nature makes progress to the act of Germination and Vegetation Nor can the law of necessity I speak of the Creation impose any other Doctrine upon the Classes of Individuals till the final Exit and the periods of Time. This great World 't is true represents unto us a large and copious volumn of Intelligences sprung up in the beginning from the divine Fiat And because the Divinest divinâ—ly 〈…〉 with such admirable varieties as the Orbs and Elements those beauteous shining luminous bodies for such are the Stars stuck round to adorn it it denotes unto us every Câ—eature God has made as Animals and â—nanâ—mates to replenish the Earth was made to explain the excellency of himsâ—lf that so divinely drâ—st up this stupendious Creation Thus Moses our Prophetick Oracle in the first Chapter of Geneâ—â—â— makes obvious unto us the Creation in general when in this Philosophical Treatise if sedulously examined you 'l find it parceâ—â—'d out into many Particulars yet not so as to prophane or diminish Holy Writ whereby to expose it to sale or sacriledge but rather to elucidate and illustrate to every Man the more glorious mysteries and Seraphick Discoveries of the sacred Scriptures pointed out unto us by the Patriarchs and the Prophets and imprest on us by a Divine impression to legitimize us heirs of the glorious Eternity by the mysâ—â—cal Vnion betwixt Christ and his Church and the admirable Effects of his invincible Love when to lay down his Life for an Vnregenerate Generation To contemplate therefore this imbellished Creation is to study the tracts and the high way to heaven and led on by such eminent and convincing Authority as Moses the Patriarchs the Prophets and Apostles confirms it beyond dispute our Christian Duty devoutly to implore and seriously admire the Creators bounty and goodness in creating his infinite and superlative Wisdom in preserving but above all his works his unparalell'd love to inspire Life and Vertue into the humane Race of degenerate Mankind because when to restore him to a more Regal â—'state than Adam our Protoplast enjoyed in Paradice From whence I conclude all visible Beings that are made obvious and perceptible to us were designed also by the Maker intelligeable however the envious and malicious misinterpret and would every way if possible mascarade the Truth thinking thereby to make things less discoverable than they really and trully are in themselves For were it as some Sciolists fictitiously imagine what benefit could any man expect from his Studies more than the Knowledge of Insects and Animals when omitting the superiour Dignity of Celestials Such with their Admirers only gaze upon them as the ignorant and the arrogant too frequently do that amuze themselves only with foreign curiosities Nor do I strain my charity when to assert such Men think the Ornaments of the Creation an unprofitable Study who by their Arguments endeavour an Arrest of judgment since reputing them dull and insipid contemplations endeavouring thereby to disswade the more ingenious simply to consider them as impoverish'd Effects But God that made them and still maintains them because willing that Man above all created Beings should read daily Lectures in their glorious frontispiece inspired him to contemplate their internal purity which indubitably points some of them signaâ—â—y out as Guides and Land-marks to light us up to his more sublime and superlative Habitation To consider things therefore as they are in themselvâ—s what matters it if any Man oppose my Assâ—rtions and call them it may be Imaginary Presumptions if whâ—n because to dive into the mysteries of the Creation Surely such Men have not well considered that what God in his wisdom
separable from its native Principium is subject to Mortality but Death is the Destruction of all Elemental compounded Mixts All Compounds therefore are subject to Mortality which Nature endeavours with all her might to preserve if possible from the Periods of Death and whose Champions to purchase this heroick Victory Fire and Water are instituted and appointed the most proper and immediate Agents and Instruments the last to discharge by immersive Calcination all exteriour and superfluous Adustion whiles the first by Sublimation claims a Superiority because when to separate by the intense Action of Fire whatever Recrements and Impurities adhere to the Center These and no other are the lineal Tracts that Nature has trod in since the nonage of the Universe whose Seeds void of Form and confusedly mix'd in a Hoil or Chaos were dissolved in Water but rarified and sublimed by pure Argument of Fire Calcination and Sublimation therefore were purposely invented to purge and separate the Pure from the Impure as is Solution and Distillation the more terrestrial Dregs that stiffly adhere to the Parts extraneous Now whatever remains without any beginning that Subject is altogether uncapable of end But all Beginnings sprung up from Eternity as is Eternity the Ray of the Majesty Eternity therefore is the Parent of Time from whence Generation lineally descended and Generation because the Infant and the Child of Time has its Periods lock'd up in the Prisons of Death and doom'd and predestinated by the Law of Sin the Apostle tells us is Death in the abstract yet improperly the End of any thing save Elements whereby to remonstrate their true Beginnings but now to bud and to blossom forth because directing towards an eternal State which I call the new Breathings from a State of Corruption precedent to Putrefaction the immature Offspring and imperfect Birth of infirm Ancestors and Elementary Principles For the Body no sooner dismantles it self of the exteriour Form and Elementary Faetor when the indivisibility of the more purer Parts begin at once to display themselves for the Treasures of Life are most strictly lock'd up and which also begins to perspire and breath forth by the glorious Ray of God's Soveraign Power whose refulgent Beam illuminates the World and stirs up the hidden Life therein which before seem'd to sleep passively perdue in the silent Sepulcher of Divine Contemplation If therefore debasing our selves by Sin be Argument of Death and God's eternal Displeasure a Regenerate state implies the Sanctity of Renovation which is a clear Demonstration of a real Conversion Otherwise how comes it to pass that the unbelieving Wife is sanctified by the believing Husband Now if Husband and Wife are constipated one Flesh by the Conjugal Celebration and Law of Matrimony why not Heaven and Earth under the like Divine Ordinance since by a Supream Law from the Sovereign Legislator whose powerful Edicts are for ever irrevocable made and established Synonima Regalia Thus thâ— Celestial Sun in the clarified Firmament influenceth and impregnates this embellish'd Creation as do's the Supercelestial Son of the Majesty of God most illustriously shine in every Believers Soul and is the true Light that illuminates the Universe and every Man that cometh into the World. So that in this short and compendious Paragraph you may read the Divine Progeny of the whole Creation the Exaltation and Dignity of the Micro as the Macrocosm the great End why the World and Man was made the Reason also why the Divinest made Man and drest up so beautifully this stupendious Creation All which was only but to see himself and Sovereign Majesty by way of Reflection wherefore he built up a Tabernacle in Man for his Divine Residence and Man's Redemption Now Adam was made this Supream Monarch whom his Maker dignified with such eminent Qualifications as not only to see because having the faculty of Sense but to inspeculate and admire the Majesty of his Maker that hung up aloft in the Firmament of Heaven so many Luminous and Beautious Bodies impregnating every one with the Blessings of Vegetation but Moral Reason and barren Apprehension because uncapable to exalt it self to these eminent sublime and superlative Elevations of necessity sinks under them And here Moses tells you That in the beginning the Divinest created both the Heavens and the Earth Now creating or making what implies it more than manifesting Invisibles by Visibles or discovering such things as lay hid in the Chaos occultly concealed from occular view which in time appeared but not until such time as the Waters by the Fiat were separated from the Waters and then the purer matter ascended upwards because disintangled from its impure Fecula which Celestial Clarified and Pure Crystalline Body is by the Scriptures interpreted the Firmament And Hermes tells you in his Smaragdine Table That the likeness of that which is placed above is also beneath coinhabiting below to work the Myracle of one single thing There must therefore of necessity be some assimilation in Earth Soveraignly qualified with the same existence of Celestials otherwise pray tell me where 's the harmony betwixt them And why should God select the little World called Man for his Divine and Glorious Reception rejecting as I may so say the more copious or great one as the more commaculate and impure habitation had not he divinely dignified the less by Soveraign Wisdom for his Royal Entertainment There is therefore not only the likeness of Superiours but the same Vertue Beauty and Excellency also in Inferiours Christ in you the hope of Glory This is that Magnet of Vertue and Swavity whose illustrious Ray attracts the Soul to those transcendent Mansions of Beatitude and Immortallity For the Kings Daughter is all glorious within because made glorious by the King of Heaven where note by way of Digression when to admit of a faint comparison the Anima or Sulphur of Sols beauteous inside when duely examined by a sedulous Adept a Celestial Corporiety displays it self whose glorious appearance gratifies the solicitous with Wisdom's Oracle and the Treasures of Art by every one acquirable and by most admired But the Hoil or Chaos presents unto us a subject matter as yet indigested when macerated mingled or jumbled together and such we are to consider it in the Act of Fermentation when nothing but darkness had its Region in the Deep nor did any thing appear upon the Face of the Waters until Darkness by the Divinest was utterly separated by the glorious Beam of the Majesty of Light for till then the Stars roll'd not in their Orbs nor did the Fluctuating Ocean move its Vital Pulse till actuated by the Law of its Soveraign Maker which daily remonstrates the Flux of the Ocean Nor till then did the Earth nor the Barren Mountains know any thing of the Law of Life and Vegetation Nor was there any Prolifick Vertue or propagating Quality hitherto as yet incorporated into them when at once the Fountains of the great Deeps broke up out of whose
engendred or otherwise by Putrefaction have received a new State through Fermentation all which Productions are manifest Arguments of Life and Spirit as also of Vegetation The Texture therefore of this great World clearly discovers and demonstrates its animation where the Visibility of Earth manifestly represents the Impure Gross and Natural Basis and the Elemental Waters because circulating about it assimilates also the Venal Blood actuating and fermenting in every Body where the vital Pulse also operates as is seen in the admirable Flux and Reflux of the Ocean and the Air of necessity the Vehickle for Spirits wherein this vast Creature meaning the Creation breath's invisibly tho peradventure not altogether nor in any part insensibly and the Interstellar Skies and Aetherial Waters the Vital Parts whiles the Sun Moon and Stars are the animating Spirits and supersensual Fires that warm the Creation But this kind of Philosophy will puzle the Putationer as the Primitive Truth of the Apostles confounded the Romans So Moses's Philosophy in the Rudiments of the Creation will be as little understood as the Tracts of Hermes the Tâ—â—mudist's Cabalist's Caldeans Egyptians aud Arabians if when to consider the possibility of Nature which is impossible without supernatural discoveries and should we otherwise conclude than by Divine Authority we lick up the Froth of every sottish Generation so usher to posterity that Atheistical Opinion calculated by Imaginarist's that the Creator slept whiles the Chaos of it self without Divine direction fell into this beautiful Order as we now behold it which if but to think so is a Sin of Impiety and an Error so enormous never enough to be lamented But all such Inquietudes we remit them to their destiny since to carry such and so many Furies in their own Bosoms whereby to hurry and torment themselves whose unwholsome Principles because nautious to themselves would stamp their impression on those that suck them in so that one would think such Souls mingled with Clay and because in the limit and circumstance of Time are iâ— some measure confin'd to Earth's sublunar mixts and by the World so severely intangled that like Birds in Limetwigs the more they flutter the faster they find themselves intangled in such a state I perswade my self there 's no Divine Speculation nor Visional Faith whereby to see the invisible state of things as they stand nakedly simply and purely in themselves of which these Visible Objects are but Natural Representatives This perswasion directs to me an unregenerate state because when not to partake of a Supernatural Birth the Soul therefore that 's immerged with Sin Darkness conducts it to a dismal destiny deeply shadowed under the decays of Elements and impossible without a Miracle to make a flight above the World since by innate inherency its partaker of the World. But the Stars if when to consider them the Almighty's Library where every Star is the Volumn of a World and every World a sumptuous Globe divinely held in the Hand of its Maker for such they were and such they are not that these sublime and eminent Elevations were only made for Mortals confusedly to gaze at no I 'me perswaded rather to excite and stir up admiration whereby to elevate and quicken our Devotion above our selves when to behold such Majesty fixt in the Creation for are not these Luminous and Illustrious Bodies which we behold hung up in that great Vortrice of Heaven Celestial Lamps to illuminate the Universe and not only to illuminate but animate and vegetate so in conclusion influence and impregnate the Creation 'T is true that Heaven is a Paradise for Souls and a Divine Reception for the Divinity it self but not that I prophane to term it a Habitation when alluding that Heaven contains the Divinest since Heaven is every where where ever God is whose Holy Presence institutes it Immutable Immeasurable and Eternal like himself whose Nature transmutes it into his own likeness and puts it into such a Divine Capacity that for ever its uncapable of the periods of Death Heaven therefore is the Divine Habitation of God and the Light of Heaven the Divinity of God the blessed Society there Saints and Angels and there it is that the Prophets and Prophetesses with Apostles and Evangelists daily Prophesie for there every Day is a daily Sabboth and Elohim betwixt the Cherubs is the Lord Iehovah But the Evening and the Morning were the second Day so that twenty four Hours nor more nor less do but compleat a Natural Day when as the whole Tract of Time in its Natural Progress appears to me but one Day Super-natural of which our Ancestors as also our selves from Sacred Authority had these Divine Speculations so that if to consider that two Days natural could operate such a change in the great Creation we may rationally conclude and as modestly determine the residue an Argument to evince the Generations For could I but seriously point out to the Creature the Blessed Creators mystical Operation which is altogether impossible I might then peradventure prove an Instrument to some whereby to moderate and disintangle Passion pursuant only after perishing Objects and for ought I know blot out the Prejudice and Animosity of others meaning such as seditiously sow Discention among the Brethren endeavouring thereby to reap the fruits of their own conjectural Imaginations which to do but undoes one another by violating the Sacred Laws of God as that also of Nature and of true Religion since the Scriptures by a Divine Authority require that every one examine himself and seriously and sedately study a Reformation Then were the Waters beneath the Heaven by Divine Appointment gathered together and those Invisible Waters above the Heavens rallied themselves and separated apart which admirable and wonderful Act or Operation occasioned a trepidation all over the Chaos for till then the Waters intermingled with the Waters and the Elements as Inmates spread themselves among them till God in his Wisdom stirred up the Magnet and then the Waters immediately attracted so by Collision broke the Bond of Unity for when so great a change happned in the whole of necessity every individual separated apart In which admirable progress every one had its station yet was it by appointment and the Providence of God so that the more sublime the matter was by so much the higher it ranged it self removing more remotely from its own Faecula when on the contrary to admiration the more Gravity it had by so much the closer it adhered to its Recrement and in this Operation the Fire claim'd the Precedency but next the Fire the Air pleaded Succession so that these two Elements become as it were invisible and which also by reason of a Spirituallity administred only to the Vital parts But Water and Earth when to consider their Corporiety their Gravity their Unity and more Consubstantial Parts and because also Synonimous with the Creature it cloathed and fed it with Prolifick Vertue for whatever any thing is of it self of
an explanation directing to a raâ—efaction and transposition of Elements whiles we direct our intention to the Progress of multiplication by Divine grant and praeordinate Council And now the Heavens shine a blessing upon the Creation as also upon all Elementary Constitutions for God himself looked down upon the Ocean not only to bless it but all her Inhabitants Thus were they blest and all that was in them were also blest when God bid them fructifie grow up and encrease Now how can they otherwise than propagate and multiply since his Divine Word has already commanded it We therefore conclude the Creation blest and the Creatures in the Creation because being blest become a blessing to every partaker For the Bounty of the Creator can know no limit tho' the Creation it self is bounded with limitation He therefore that made it had power to confine it but being himself eternally unmade neither Art nor Power nor can any thing confine him Where 's Peters objection now to raise a scruple because when to eat what 's common or unclean since what God has cleansed is undoubtedly clean but this was a Trope or Type of Religion whereby to denote God no respecter of persons nor relates it to any thing if I Calculate right than variety and distinction of judgements and opinion For probably Peter thought none but the Iews were worthy the dignity and honour of Christianity when God thought otherwise because having chosen the Gentiles as a people approved more worthy than the Iews who not only betrayed the Lord of Life but barbarously and inhumanly they murdered their Messiah Be fruitful says the Word encrease and multiply here 's a Commission large and great enough Sealed and Signed under Heavens great Charter So that now the Rivers the Lakes and the Rivulets nay the Ocean it self is fill'd with variety And every Classis strives to exile sterility and obliterate if possible the fate of barrenness Can any Element in the Creation excepting the Ocean proclaim such multitudes as there are of Fish which surpasseth the Art of Arithmetick to number them For who has not seen that the Belly of one Female was enough of it self to accommodate a River and has not also considered that if every individual had the Ray of Life shine in it and common Providence attend it for its natural preservation to admiration so great would be the encrease that the Waters themselves would even suffocate But as there is a magnetick quality and a sympathetick harmony in the Creation so is there a natural antipathy in the Ocean as there is the like in other Elements The Falcon in the Air the Shark in the Ocean and the Angler to bait with a Fish when design'd to catch a Fish but such we call Troling so some sets Fellons to â—rapan Thieves It s usual for the great ones to prey upon the little ones as the Grampus upon the Surai the Shark upon the Boneto the Sturgeon upon the Shad the Porpus upon the Salmon the Pike upon the Dace and the Pearch upon the Minue c. This I call Antipathy but Simpathy if I mistake not is the mutual Concordance and Harmony among the Creatures I have read in Helmont of a prodigious Pike that lived as he says to an amazing bigness and not then to have died a natural death when if to consider the whole progress of Life what tribute would such a Smelter supposing this to be such bring to the Waters But lest I fall into a Piscatorian Error which vanity since my youth I can hardly withstand let me therefore commend you to my Contemplative Angler where at large you may read the Historical part of Angling For in the high Sea there 's no soundings what Art then must be used to catch Fish And so profound is this Subject that I plough but the Surface whiles others more Mathematical measure out the Circumference and dive into Natures more hidden Mysteries by a secret and pious profound Speculation the Eye of Faith and Reason introducting But we shall put ashore now to tread on Terra Firma And God said let the Earth bring forth the living Creature after his kind Cattle and creeping things and the Beast of the Earth after his kind Then the Earth brought forth in great abundance since by the Divine grant of Wisdome and Providence it had now in it self the three distinct Clases of Vegetables and Minerals besides innumerable and various forms of Insects and Animals surpassing the Art of Numeration Every Cave now was fill'd with Concressions and the Surface of the Soil was covered with Herbage The Florid Meadows also were perform'd with Odorates and the flourishing Fields were scattered with Corn. The Banks also that bounded the murmuring Streams were strewed with Arbories The Mountains with Mines the Valleys with Herds the Plains with Flocks and the Pastures with Cattle but the moist and more boggy Swamps in Vallies were crouded and covered with Amphibious Creatures besides innumerable Fowl of all sorts and kinds hovering in the Air under the Canopy of Heaven Fish also they floated in the brinish Streams whiles some others contented themselves with freshes so that every place and every thing was fill'd with plenty whereby to enrich this stupendious Creation Nor was any part of Earth as well as the Ocean exempt or denied those primary blessings from her great Benefactor that had blessed every thing who not only made her but such provision for her that to the periods of time she can know no want Who commissioned Nature also by an eternal decree as a Supream Governess not only to govern but also to labour the Elements accommodation The Lion and the Lioness roar'd then in the Desart and the Ass with the Mule bray'd in the Common but the Hart with the Hind bellowed in the Forrest and the Leopard with the Panther besides the Wolf and the Tigre were heard to howl in the barren Wilderness But the Grey or Badger he yelpt in the Earth whiles the subtle Fox in his obscure Den lay Barking conceal'd in cavities under ground The Horse he neighed in the open Field and the Cattle lay lowing in the Florid Meadows But the Sheep and the Lambs true patterns of Innocency poor Animals they lay bleating in every Pasture Chantecleer in those times he rose with the day and the early Lark took Wing with the Morning who admiring the beauty of the rising Sun mounts the fair Welkin to partake of his splendour whiles the Black-Bird and Thrush with the Winters intelligencer little Robin-red-breast mannage the Consort till almost evening and then pritty Philomel or the Summer Oracle closes up day with sweet Epithalamiums Thus the Creation in a perpetual harmony melted the Air with melodious Consorts of unterrified Quires of innocent Birds that as well as they could exprest their gratitude for the bounty and generosity of their great Benefactor who gave them a being and the blessings of accommodation the Earth to nourish and gave them
Angles of God are made ministring Spirits and the Spirit of God the Divine Comforter that leads us spiritually into the Vision of Glory And Adam was the favourite God only converst with in whom the Divinity divinely shin'd when our Protoplast stood in a State of Innocency then it was that no impure thing could approach unto him because then in the favour and presence of the Majesty our Progenitor in Paradise was admitted to stand For Adam was constituted with a Divine Soul like to the likeness of him that infus'd it which was the likeness of God himself whose glorious Aspect shin'd then on the Creature otherwise the Creatures had never contributed so great humility and veneration to Adam when flocking about him as some sacred thing whereby to honour and give them protection so that to what place Adam was pleased to direct his Life-guard of the Creatures continually went with him But Adam too remiss in this great concern becomes negligent and careless to examine his affair notwithstanding Emulation follows at the heels of Prosperity for can favourites be without the peoples frowns tho' under the umbrage of their Princes smiles No surely the Hierarchy of relapsed Angels had an ambitious Emulation against his present State that if not counterploted by the Wisdome of his Maker they 'l conspire his ruine and perpetual overthrow For revenge against the Will of God carries a kind of sweetness with it solamen miseris and thus sorrows seem to extenuate sorrow when others as our selves are in a suffering state It is true that Adam was adorned with more inward Lustre than the outward beauty of the whole Creation For in his Temple the bodily Fabrick the Holy of Holies inhabited therein For it is the residence of the Divinest himself in whom alone dwells the Beauty of Holiness Let us stand in this station we shall see our Salvation for he that made us knows how to deliver us Then shall we find a holy Guide to direct us the Tracts to the Paradice of God. The Soul therefore whiles yet in the Body represents a Candle conceal'd in a Lanthorn or a glance of Fire in a manner stifled when because wanting the benefit of Air. Who in extremity strugles with her Elemental Chains yet spans the World with a single thought and enjoys that inwardly she 's dismist of outwardly that in a moment flies to the uttermost parts of the Earth and what ever is absent she at once makes present and dead things by imagination she restores to life nothing can conceal or hide any thing from her who in an instant surmounts the Stars Thus Adam by his Maker was made a Monarch and one of the Creators holy Senators who read Lectures in the Heavens the Almighties Common-place-book and conducted the Creatures created in the Creation to whom God gave Voice and the ornament of Speech but above all the glorious intellect of Mind which Angellical State our Protoplast stood in so long as he stood in opposition to Sin which gift was ungiven to the rest of the Creation yet none of them denied the benefit of Sence lapt up only in this thin Tiffeny Web of Mortality for Sin is but a bulk of emptiness and impiety that like a Pageant does nothing it self but hinders others from doing good seducing by the lust and pleasures of the Body whiles the Soul is meerly starv'd with penury Innocency was then the best guard of our Ancestor when he stood in the presence of his God in simplicity for the more pure that any thing is the more sublime is that thing also Wherefore we consider Adam in an Angelical State when cloathed with Piety and adorned with Purity then he stood his ground like a Heavenly Champion for God had made his Earth Celestial This answers something to the Doctrine of Hermes that God inhabits in the Mind of Man the Mind in the Soul and the Soul in the Body and that he is all things in All both Act and Power for he is God. From the matter therefore the subtilest part is Air of the Air the Soul of the Soul Mind of the Mind God. And the Soul of Eternity is God himself but the Soul of the World is Eternity and Heaven as he saith is the Soul of the Earth So that nothing nor part is deficient of Soul nor is the Soul deficient of God. Thus in innocency and simplicity oâ— Protoplast stood in this Divine posture without sensual guards when his Maker selected him a representative at the great Assembly of the blessed Creation where all the Creatures were convocated together Then it was that Adam like a Magestrate and a Legislator for such then he was gave forth his Edicts unto all the Creatures his natural Subjects The Golden Rule was kept then amongst them when every one did justice by kind and not that the dread of punishment compell'd them For the Ray of Justice was so generally distributed that it naturally shined in every individual The Earth in those days was unburdned with Tillage nor do we read it was wounded with Culture the Creatures in the Creation liv'd purely by instinct not making their Bodies Sepulchres to bury dead Carcasses in There was no Temple in those days to prophane but now we have Temples nor want we Prophaners Wherefore let 's consider the glorious Work of the Creation that by the hand of God was no sooner made but by the will of Man was endeavoured to be unmade Creation is not therefore Generation nor have we considered Generation is Life but by way of allusion it may be called sence Nor is Change Death though commonly so asserted but rather a forgetfulness or obliteration of Elements Generation therefore is improperly called a Creation but rather a production of things only to sence in time made manifest nor is Change Death but an occultation or hiding of that that in it self seemed once to live Here methinks I see both Sexes in our Ancestor shine through the lustre and beauty of Adam for Male and Female God created them so that both Sexes liv'd under one Species and Adam in appearance was then Hermaphrodite because having both Natures and Similitudes in himself And whatever Adam listed should then be done was accomplished before the desire could grow into act in so great subjection was every thing to him that obedience was held more Sacred than Sacrifice All the Beasts in the Field came to him for Names so did the Fish and the Fowl of Heaven and whatever he called them that was their Name God gave him Wisdome and he wisely improv'd it till the Tempter by a temptation leudly deprav'd him so that whiles he steer'd both Sexes in one bottome his success in every thing was more than miraculous but to Pilot the Helm of two distinct Vessels and both at once in a storm under Sail surpasses the skill and methods of Navigation And God blessed them with blessings in bidding them be fruitful which blessing was doubled by multiplication
this was a token of Love to the Creation when God daily renewed his blessings upon the Creature For the blessing upon Adam was by divine appointment transferred to succession upon Adam's Generation which afterwards in time perverted through corruption by a passive neglect in Adams Posterity Now as every good thing is the Gift of God and since whatever God gives is certainly good the Fruit of Paradice could be no otherwise than good because the Gift of God that gave it and the Fish in the Sea and the Fowl in the Air which God gave unto Adam were supreamly good So that every thing in the Creation and created being had the tincture and sweetness proceeding from God who through Wisdome ordain'd it and by Providence maintains it the consequence therefore must needs be good Yet above all the blessings that ever God gave us was in giving unto us himself in his Son the glorious Mystery and Revelation of God which Gift of God was greater than the World and was the Gift of him that gave himself for the World. To all the Creatures in the Creation God bid them be fruitful and in multiplying multiply and replenish the Earth But in Adam peculiarly as in a Divine Garden-Plot God sowed there the Seed of Everlasting Life from whence by cultivation and the Goodness of God he might expect to reap an ever-living Crop for the Seed was the Seed of Eternal Life and not the effects of Sin and Dead Works No Brambles grew up in this heavenly Vintage whereof God himself was the Vine-roon This is the new and the holy Ierusalem wherein Paul may Plant and Apollo Water yet if the Sons of Adam be barren Sciens how can they produce this soveraign Fruit without the heavenly Dews of the Son of God. Adam may multiply and replenish the Earth yet if wanting the blessing of God his Benefactor what profits it To be good therefore is to be like unto God and likeness in every thing creats love since every thing naturally loves its like and this love in Man is the abstract of God in as much as God is Love original Whatever goodness therefore shines in Man is really a derivative from God himself So that should we trace the dimensions of Adam with the extent of his Monarchy how large his Commission runs over the Earth and the Ocean it would be endless for his limitation was boundless the Fowl of Heaven knew no Lord but Adam and the Fish in the Sea no Soveraign but himself and every created thing that had breath and moved and every moving thing that breathed and was created had no Supream nor Superintendent but Adam For Adam as a Star shin'd then upon Earth and made great by him that 's all goodness and greatness was blest in his Posterity and glorious Nativity or heavenly Birth since two Divine Natures shin'd splendidly in him For God had implanted both himself and his Son to make Adam beautiful as himself is glorious the nature of the one was to live and never die but the nature of the other was to die to live This seems a Paradox I 'll therefore explain it That Power that lives and never dies is the Divinity of the Majesty of God when the Almighty before the Creation divinely calculated the Nativity of Life for God said in himself let us now make man like unto our self in our similitude let us make him which likeness or similitude was uncapable of death consequently of diminution or division of parts because the similitude of God himself for God breathed into Adam the breath of Life and he became a living soul who therefore so vain precipitant and idle as to imagine the Breath of God can extinguish Time shall wear out and Gerations walk off and Death it self become an Exile and all things terminate and drop into decay but the Breath of God which is that illuminating light that enlightens the World and the Soul of Man when that glorious light shall co-unite with darkness which is altogether improbable and utterly impossible then shall that hidden life God breathed into Adam be capable of death and not before So that two Lives liv'd at once in our Ancestor a created Life and a Life regenerate a created Life as from a heavenly Birth which sprung Originally from the Womb of Eternity and because made like to the likeness of his Maker it gave him Victory to triumph over Sin putting into his custody the secrets of Life and placing in his hands the Keys of Death So that he knew nothing but absolute freedome and unprohibited the use of the whole Creation one Tree only by the Divinest excepted in which God had placed a peculiar property fit only for himself in wisdome to know God therefore imposed his commands upon Adam not to taste thereof lest peradventure he die The other Life was that of Regeneration which is Christ incarnate God in the Creature this Life liv'd invisibly before the Creation and is that hidden Life in Christ manifest by the Apostle Christ in you the hope of Glory Which remains a mystery to this very day as in former Ages a secret to our Ancestors which Life is the Power of God to Salvation and was in the beginning with God himself and it was God and was made Flesh and by the Will of God dwelt among men This is that Word that spake in the beginning and moved in the Patriarchs our Ancestors to speak that liv'd immaculately in the blessed Virgin that was made Flesh and dwelt among men that bore our infirmities and was Crucified at Ierusalem that in spight of Death took captivity captive and in despite of Hell captivated Death and which also is that Eternal Word that now is ever was and for ever shall be to convince the World of Sin Impenitency Incredulity and Ingratitude which Monster of a Sin is worse than Witchcraft and tho' a Witch be superscrib'd a Rebel in Physicks yet reversing the Point a Rebel is a Witch in Politicks The one because acting against the Law of Nature but the other because striving against Order and Government But God gave unto Adam a Charter Royal that was sign'd and seal'd with those glorious Characters of Sun Moon and Stars and all the Host of Heaven to witness to it This was that great and superlative Grant that God gave unto Adam when he placed him in Paradice and wherewith to refresh him he gave him every Herb and of every Tree that was burd'ned with Fruit whereof he might eat and live before him These Royal Priviledges God gave unto Adam and Heavens Benefactor confirm'd them unto him Now Adam may freely eat and live or he may eat and assuredly die for Life and Death stand as it were in a poiz and because to our Protoplast seemingly mingled they seemingly presented one single Existence as if Property and Quality were intirely one 't is true one Mantle overshadowed both till God out of compassion made more visible discoveries