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
Law of Reason and unless we return to his commands as well a rational subjection as a natural we submit as Irrational Creatures but not as Men and though possibly we cannot do otherwise then what is decreed yet to will to desire to endeavour the doing what we are commanded to do or prohibited from doing cannot but prove an acceptable sacrifice Cap. 2. Verse 17. For in the day thou catest thereof § 23. I cannot but admire that the God of Union should ordain Disunions seeming Sympathies and Antipathies Evening and Morning Day and Night Light and Darkness Life and Death Good and Evil But when I consider that the Morning could not be known but by the terminating it with the Even or the Day but by terminating it with Night or the Light but by terminating it with Darkness or Life but by terminating it by Death or Good but by terminating it with Evil I find that these terminations were agreeable to our knowledge for the several appellations of Light had been infinite and thereby not fitted for a manifestation to us and we must in their knowledge have been made coequal with God in glory and eternity if they had not been thus manifested But these appellations of Darkness were the Foils to set off the splendor of the Creation and Evil was no other then as the evening to the morn or as night to the day or as darkness to the light nor was death any other then the smooth transition to immortality without fear pain or trouble or onely a sudden rapture or exstacy in the ineffable change from terrestrial contentments to supercelestial beatitudes But from the breach of this command ariseth the evil of evils death of death evening night and darkness It is wonderful that Adam should so much erre in the first trial which God made upon his obedience and it is as wonderful that God did command Adam to forbear that which was the best piece of Mankind the Knowledge of good and the termination of it which was all the evil which then could be called evil But Man was forbidden it doubtless that he might not conceit within himself that he had attained Knowledge from the virtue or nature of that Plant but from the immediate gift and instruction of God for certainly God did inform him of the whole system of the Creation by what we may collect by the foregoing and following verses which was a sufficient Knowledge so that the Knowledge he had by this Tree was onely a Knowledge of Intoxication and Knowledge of the termination of Life and a confused Knowledge of Distinction between good and evil which Knowledges were forbidden his Knowledge before being a complete Knowledge consisting of a perpetual blessedness for his Knowledge thereof was onely this that goodness did now terminate by his disobedience and that life should have a period or termination which was a death for by this Knowledge he got a Critical Knowledge as we find by Eves Dispute that Disobedience was the extreme of Obedience Death the extreme of Life whereas whilest he was under Gods teaching and instruction he knew nothing but a quiet obedience and an innocent life free from thoughts of disorder or fear of what should happen but now he knew the termination of that life and that sentence In the day thou catest thereof thou shalt surely die Thou shalt surely die § 24. If it be true what some Divines affirm that Adam continued but six hours in Paradice three before the eating the Fruit and three after I should wonder how Adam should be made sensible of death seeing before his eating he was in a perfect and immortal condition for a Blind man cannot understand a Colour nor he that had never seen the separation of Soul and Body know the effects of it but certainly God did either shew him the Horary Plant or other Creatures of the like nature that hath its birth flourish and close in an hour and is never seen after or else taught him the way of Sacrificing Beasts and by their expiration to know his own in case he disobeyed this command or else the nature of the Death was represented unto him not as an immediate separation of the Soul and Body for we find he lived many hundred years after but his death feretold here was a certainty of a future dying Cap. 2. Verse 18. And the Lord God § 25. God is seven times repeated in the first Chapter and the eighth time in the 26th verse but in the second Chapter verse 7. where the Narrative of Mans Creation is more fully described it is exprest that not God alone but the Lord God said And so here concerning Woman the words Lord God are also used to testifie that in the Creation and Making of both of them God did assume another Title to himself then the single word God God seeming to be a name relating to all his Creatures but Lord more peculiarly to Man and Woman as before is hinted concerning Man onely Said § 26. This word said is repeated seven times in the first Chapter viz. verse 3 6 9 11 14 20 and 24. Now where it is thus expressed that God said Let there be we must apprehend rather as an act then a discourse or deliberation for though we discuss before we act proceeding from the imperfection of our Knowledge and want of power to act things being known to us onely in the abstract and when we do know them we are uncertain of our Abilities to put them in action yet God knows all things in the concrete and his perfect Wisdom and Power requires no discourse or deliberation so that it must be understood in the seven other places that God said and did at one and the same instant but in the eighth and ninth places the word said is not to be understood as a fiat onely but as a word of deliberation rather then action which is inferred from the words Lord God and Let us and I will for in all the entrances of the other parts of Creation it is said onely Let there be but in the 7th and 18th verses being the eighth and ninth time the Lord God said Let us make and I will make It is not good for man to be alone § 27. Man is a noble and sociable creature a secluse and monastick temper neither becomes him nor was safe in the primitive and most eminent time of Adam much less in ours for it oft produceth such prodigious Copulations or contranatural Restrictions as Nature is as much injur'd in the one as in the other therefore to be avoided as being not good for Adam nor his Posterity And of all Societies surely that is most complacent that consists of sutable Tempers Yet some of the Fathers hold that Man is never alone when he is alone Angels or Spirits that attend his most private meditations are such contenting Companions that though he converseth with no other body yet his Mind hath
doubtless would be most beneficial to our tempers especially if we consider the virtue of herbs either in their flowers brauches or roots not onely sanative but more safely nutrimental to our health then any other food Cap. 3. Ver. 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread untill thou return unto the ground § 41. As Tears proceed from the motions of Joy and Sorrow and seem to be extracted from the most internal parts and so distilled from the eye the most delicate part of Man so Sweat by labour or pain is the extraction of the outward parts into a liquid matter passing through the Pores to ease it self by discharging that oily and watery substance Now some parts are more apt then others to vent it and such in Physick are called the Sudatory parts as the Armholes c. because being naturally kept more warm the Pores are more passable Now the Brow or Face being more bony then those yet do as quickly send forth that humour as the other parts and the rather because the Spirits run towards the Brain and that Pan hath many Sutures about it through which that humour is more quickly vented And there is some relation to the word Sudor Sweat and Suturae Sutors for through those the Brain doth more easily purge itself by Sweats and they more commonly upon the Brow near which the Sutures are then any other part Thou shalt eat bread § 42. It is not probable that Bread as we now take it was known in Paradise therefore the word Cibum is more used by Translators then Panem that is whatever food he should eat for the future he was to labour and take pains for it and that must necessarily produce sweat to the brow or face Untill thou return to the ground § 43. for of dust thou wert made and to dust thou shalt return again Concerning these read my Discourse of Immortality The Targum adds And from dust thou shalt rise again that thou mayest give a reason for all things thou hast done in the day of the great judgment Cap. 3. Ver. 20. And Adam called his wife Eve or Eva because she was the mother filiorum of all the sons of men living § 44. If we will give credit to the History of other Nations there were other people then in being and many years before but the Children of Adam and Eve say they were the select people from which God did derive that Church which hath spread over the greatest part of the world first by them then the Patriarchs then the Jews then Christians and the Turks and Jacobines assume an Interest and do as hardly admit us as we them to the undeniable Progeny of those two Ancestors But all agree that at one time or other we came from the earth both by Father and Mother and by experience we agree thither we shall return again and most agree to a Resurrection of rewards or punishments for our virtues or offences Cap. 3. Ver. 21. And to Adam and his wife the Lord God made coats of skins and clothed them § 45. Our English cannot render the words better then coats and clothed though we cannot suppose that there were either coats or clothes in the infancy of the world unless we will make it an argument for the Prae-Adamites but according to the Arabic they were clad with the Hides of Beasts But the Targuim of Vz saith God took off the Serpents skin which tempted them and put it on them and it was but just that the Tempter should be so served and 't is wished those garments have not infused such a continued subtilty into their successive Generations that the most part of the world consists of Subtilty and Cheats even to this day and their former garment of Onyx or Virtue is now scarce known to us but by its name Cap. 3. Ver. 22. And the Lord God said § 46. Behold the man is become like one of us to know good and evil and now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and live for ever The tree of good and evil and the tree of life have been discoursed of in the precedent Sections that which may be added concerning the tree of life is that it should have such virtue as to make Adam by his eating thereof live for ever It is much that Eternity should so puzzle the world whenas we see here that it had been gained merely by the sense of tasting or eating for certainly even the best things we know or can attain to come first to our Senses then to our Reason and Intellect yea even the greatest Notions of Faith have their original from some Sense because by being sensible of things which Sense illustrates to us we believe greater that are not so sensible And Eternity it self is apprehended by us with the contemplation of a Beatifical Vision which we see comparatively by those glorious creatures of light c. which with variety of contentments we daily behold and so by the gradations of whatever we see touch taste hear or smell the Contemplative man may mount them to such a pious degree that every sense will as it were injoy a present eternity which doth not altogether consist in an undetermined continuance but in a continuance which infolds all imaginary contentments which can be gradually supposed by the most elevated senses And though Adam was debarred from eating of this tree yet our Divines say that we now eat it Sacramentally without a Manducation there can be no Sacramental Faith So that Sense is the first act which leads us to an ineffable higher sense communicated to us by that tree of life of which we so eat and this gives us so perfect a sense of eternity that this thin shadow of Mortality cannot keep even the present fruition from our senses and those senses wrap us in their present enjoyment For we see in common Experiments that Salts and things of such agile natures pass with ease through several Mediums so may our Seases if they will imploy their activities otherwise then to carnal uses Which Adam not doing Cap. 3. Verse 23. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth to till the ground § 47. from whence he was taken It appears by the seventh verse that Adam was made of the dust of the ground not within the circuit of the Garden or Paradise and in the 15. ver that he was put into Paradise and there to dress and keep pleasurable what God had made pleasant to him but here in this three and twentieth he is put out of the garden to till that ground from whence he was taken and there by tilling to adde Art to Nature to change his pleasure into labour and his ease into industry He who was the first man had but a small enjoyment of felicity and we who are his successors feel the momentariness of our contentments here they pass away like a flash of
with Josephus I do not find that mans dominion did extend to the eating of Flesh till after Noah went out of the Ark and then it was permitted but certainly if we could return to our Primitive diet that life we should live by that food would be more full of health and vigour But I will say no more to this Point lest I offend the Chemical Doctors onely that man and beast did participate of one food Mans with a pleasurabe industry for so it was doubtless before the fall where 't is said God put man into the garden to dress it and to keep it but beasts with ease only without industry And therein man had the advantage for what food man produced by his industry satisfyed his knowledge equal to his appetite certainly the knowledge of the nature of productions and then the use of them to please all the senfes with their nutriture medicine was a gift as magnificent as reason is beyond insenfibility PARS SECUNDA The Text of the second Part. Cap. 1. ANd to every beast of the earth Verse 30. to every fowl of the air and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life I have given every green herb for meat and it was so Cap. 3. Verse 1. Now the serpent was more subtile then any beast of the field which the Lord God had made and he said unto the woman Yea hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden 2 And the woman said to the Serpent We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said Ye shall not eat of it neither shall ye touch it lest ye dye 4 And the Serpent said unto the woman Yea shall not surely dye 5 For God doth know that in the day you eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as God knowing good and evil 6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also to her husband with her and he did eat 7 And the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sowed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons 8 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool or wind of the day and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden 9 And the Lord God called to Adam said unto him Where art thou 10 And he said I heard thy voyce in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself 11 And he said Who told thee that thou wast naked hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat 12 And the Man said The woman thou gavest to be with me she gave me of the tree and I did eat 13 And the Lord said unto the Woman What is this that thou hast done and the Woman said The Serpent beguiled me and I did eat 14 And the Lord said unto Serpent Because thou hast done this thou art cursed above all the cattel and above every beast of the field upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all the daies of thy life 15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel 16 And to the woman he said I will greatly multiply thy sorrows and thy conception in sorrow shalt thou bring forth Children and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee 16 And unto Adam he said Because thou hast harkned to the voice of thy wife and hast eaten of the tree of the which I commanded thee saying thou shalt not eat of it Cursed is the ground for thy sake in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the daie of thy life 18 Thornes also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee and thou shalt eat the herbs of the field 19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou taken for dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return 20 And Adam called his wifes name Eve because she was the mother of all living 21 Unto Adam also and his wife aid the Lord God make coats of skins and cloathed them 22 And the Lord God said Behold the man is become like one of us to know good and evil and now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and live for ever 23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken 24 So he drove out the man and he placed at the East end of the garden of Eden Cherubims a flaming sword which turnd every way to keep the way of the tree of life Cap. 4. Ver. 1. And Adam knew his wife and she conceived and bare Cain and she said I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bore his brother Abel and Abel was a keeper of Sheep and Cain a tiller of the ground Cap. 5. Ver. 3 4 5. 3. And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years and knew his wife again and begat a son in his likeness after his Image and called his name Seth for she said God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew 4. And the daies of Adam after he begat Seth were eight hundred years and he begat sons and daughters 5 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty yeares and he dyed Cap. 1. Ver. 30. And to every Beast of the Earth § 1. and to every Fowl of the air and to every thing that creepeth upon the Earth wherein there is life I have given every Green Herb for meat Beasts Man being created as is supposed much about one time their food also was appointed the same there is only this differance that we find not any food assigned to them until Man was first served and then to shew the difference of their Appetites it is said to Man Behold I have given you every herb c. But to Beasts Fowls and creepers every green herb to shew that Beasts were led to their Food by Sence but Man by his Intellect If the vertue of the Plant do not satisfy his knowledge of it the Colour is not to intice the Eye is not to be judge of his Appetite though allowed to Beasts This Green is the first Colour that is mentioned in Scripture and this properly the first place and indeed no colour is so pleasing to nature and so stupifies the understanding it being impossible to
to us which Adam well understood before God said in express terms Adam where art thou And doubtless the invisible expostulations between them were to this effect How now Adam Thou whom I created from nothing thou whom after Creation I made superintendent of all Creatures and for whose sake I made them all to be a pleasure to thee thou who wert to Prune Dress those delicacies which I had Planted in the Garden Thou who hadst the freedome of Art to imitate and imbellish what I had fixt in the nature of each Plant Thou who hadst the Knowledge of all Creatures and a more particular neerness to the Creator must thou so seclude thy self that I must say Where art thou Art thou performing thy duty art thou injoying what I allow thee or doing what I Commanded thee And to this effect did the voice of God speak to Adam who answered Cap. 3. Verse 10. And Adam said § 19. I heard thy voice in the Garden c. It is not enough to heare Gods reproving voice but Divines say that to repentance there belongs Confession Contrition and satisfaction He confest his fear but not his fault nor was there any Contrition but for his Nakedness not his Crime and for satisfaction it was impossible for he having disobey'd in eating what was forbidden he could not satisfie by uneating what he had eat Vomit is not a discharge of drunkenness but an additional Crime Charitable Actions do not satisfie for extortion but rather adds a greater Crime by getting and dosposing of that which ought not justly to be at his disposition So that he heard Gods voice and shewed his Terror but no Confession de discovered his guilt but no Contrition he gives Excuses but no satisfaction to a God who had been so kind so liberal so indulgent to him And I was affeard The proper English word expressing Fear is affeard not affraid for affraid comes from Fray or Fraction of that Unity which ought to be with men but affeard is from auferre or a supposition that something shall be taken from us And the Latin word for Fear is timor that is a present apprehension te mori that the object of fear will produce death to the event for though we do not discoursively as here dilate upon the Circumstances yet whatever happens to a man by loss or cross yet the result is immediately in the breast of man timor or te mori that such an accident will occasion death And I find it in the Syriac of which I have writ in my Preface to the Proverbs where 't is said The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom 't is translated Timor Mortis The fear of death is the beginning of wisdom And this was the beginning of Adams Wisdom in his imperfections for whilst he was in Perfection he neither feared nor was ashamed of his Actions or that Death would ensue And Doubtles the nearer our Actions are done to such uprightness the nearer wee are to his primitive perfection But sin or disobedience either to God or Man causeth both shame and fear Now the reason of his fear is given Because I was naked § 20. He was deprived says the Chaldee De veste Onychina of his garment of vertue which was restrained to obedience in not eating the Fruit or forbearing to do what was forbidden in not dressing the Garden or pursuing just honest and beneficial imployments to himself and others and thereby not doing what was Commanded and being sensible that he had divested himself of his garment Perfection and that he had no defence for his disobedience he tryed what the Shades of the evening and the trees would do And I hid my self § 21. The Text saith not in what manner he hid himself but it is much that neither the Tincture of his former perfection nor the fear of God which is the beginning of Wisdom which certainly he knew as well as Solomon And we may see by this Text that he had the fear of the Lord yet it did not teach him Davids lesson If said he I ascend up to Heaven thou art there if into the deep thou art there also c. For then he could not have been so ignorant of Gods omnipresence as to think that a few trees or bushes or caves or the night could hide him For my part I think his hiding an additional sin equal to the eating the Fruit first by distrust of Gods kindness who might have pardoned him if he had not fled from the offence for this in our Laws Consummates the Crime and next as great a distrust that God could or would not cloath him in his nakedness And it continues still an Error in his posterity who in Want or Poverty or in our offences betake our selves to subterfuges which aggravates the crime even with God and Man Cap. 3. Ver. 11. And God said Who told thee that thou wast naked § 22. Hast thou eat of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat This word Who might be an argument for the Prae-Adamite as if there were some other man to converse with had not God explained himself in the sequel of the question Hast thou eaten of the tree c. To shew that even dumb Creatures may convince us of our errors and the virtues which are in them correct us of our vices Things which are of a sanative nature tell us our charitable duty to others things of a destructive nature tell us we are to avoid the doing of what is prejudicial to others And it seems this tree had a double nature it had a virtue to tell him the goodness he had lost by his disobedience and an evil quality to teach him excuses And 't is no wonder this tree should have this double quality when we see the Bee suck out of every herb Honey full of good and medicinal virtues and supplies her sting with a matter poisonous hurtful and evil And the truth is not this Tree onely but all individual Creatures have their good and evil in them The good of the Tree was in the present pleasure to the eye and taste the evil was in some poisonous quality which not onely infected him and Eve with all their infirmities but by a traductive quality hath made us desire and do those things we should not Nor need we wonder at this continuing quality when we see the Gums of Trees continue a Balsom for an hundred years And the Italians hold that the longer some Poisons are kept they are the more efficacious And both of them have not onely power over the Body but the very Mind which is very near of kin to the Soul So that the virtues of some things make men good by rectifying their tempers the vicious quality of the same intoxicate and make men mad or worse Nay the virtues of the same individual Creature restores to life the vicious part a present death But that which is more
of the Sun upon their several Horizons The next Point is West Gen. 12.8 which is opposite to every East or Rising of the Sun to that Horizon where it appears And Verse the 9th the South is mention'd which is the middle Point when the Sun is at its heighth between its appearance or Ascension and disappearance or Descension upon any Horizon Then in the 13th Chapter verse 14. the North which is the opposite Point to the South is mentioned and placed before the other three as the most principal and certain Point viz. Northward Southward Eastward Westward that is toward the North South East West For I question whether Moses then knew the exact Points as now we do by the use of the Loadstone which now are also taught us from the natural inclination of all things to that North point by Plants other Stones Birds Fishes Waters c. though possibly they might know the Load Star or North Star yet I do not find that the Use of the Compass was known till about Christs Time as I collect from the 27th of the Acts verse 12. where the Southwest and Northwest are mentioned by which time they had got two Points more of the thirty two which Compass now is the Seamans Alphabet However we have sufficient hints from this Text to traverse the world for the better manifestation of our Creators glory by the insight and benefit of his various and wonderful Operations and Products in the Elements Cap. 2. Verse 15. And the Lord God took the man § 21. and put him into the garden to dress it and to keep it God knew that Idleness corrupts the best natures and therefore Man was imployed in that humble vocation Vt coleret legem observaret mandata ejus Targ. Hier. for though God did at first create the kinds of all Plants yet doubtless man had and yet hath an honest Allowance to procreate a Diversity of Species by Transplantations Ingrastings Inoculatings and other various Cultivations which were Incestuous in other Creatures but as I conceive allowed from the words here to dress and keep it Nature is of her self rude in Exuberancies so that if Art do not polite it even the Winds Frosts Birds and Beasts do supply their Prunings And 't is not onely thus in Plants but other Creatures the Eagle with her art breaks off her overgrown Beak and renews her age and Man himself would scarce be discerned from Beast if Art and Care did not preserve his Excrescencies from defacing him Nature is dull and idle Art is the Soul of Nature and Sedulity the Spirit or Mind that unites them It is Motion that keeps all things Celestial and Sublunary in order should that cease 't is thought the upper World would be in a flame and our lower World a rude Chaos That which we call Quiet is onely the result of a Lazy Mind true Quiet is onely our Contentment in all orderly and allowable motions to the improving and preserving Nature in her best form whither considered as to Individuals or Generals Cap. 2. Verse 16 17. And the Lord God commanded the man saying Of every tree c. thou mayest eat § 22. but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat Besides the Law of Nature whereby God had fixed to every Creature its order as the Sun to rule the Day and the Moon the Night and Man next under God to have the Dominion of all Terrestrial Creatures God did think fit to exhibit to Man a Law of Trial or rather a Command of Reason for what needed God to command whenas there was nothing could have power but from him to disobey yet that Man might not think all things so tied to the order of Nature without variation as that his Posterity which were not to have such immediate conversation with God might easily judge by the rule of Trial or Reason what was expedient for such a Creature to perform to a Creator And therefore did God command this Law of Trial or Reason for it was but reason that God should be obeyed even in seeming Trivials seeing Nature it self which he hath constituted invites us to the same 'T is true sin came not till the Law Now the Law is but the Memorials of Nature which are that every thing should be kept in order Servants obey Masters Wives Husbands Children Parents Subjects their Superior Magistrates accoeding to several orders and for want of which Rebellions in States Commotions in Families do arise God did know Man would disobey and God permitted him to disobey that by Adams example all his Posterity might see the effect of Disobedience to the Law of Reason for it was most rational and just that Man should obey whatever God imposed especially seeing God had given him such a latitude and so small a limitation And though we may think this Law of Reason too strictly imposed upon us yet upon due inquiry we had no other way left us in our Creation to express our gratitude but by this Law of Trial or Reason for though we know not exactly what God hath impowered us to do or not do what to act or what to forbear yet now by the rules of Reason we may judge what things are not fit to be done and as much as in us lieth retire our Wills Desires or Acts from them As for example Adam might thus have discoursed I may eat of all Fruits except one or two I have sufficient by this freedom to please my tast and sight why should I be so ambitious by eating of the Tree of Life to live another life whereas that wherein I live enjoys so many varieties Why should I be so curious to know more by eating of the Tree of Knowledge whenas already I know so much as God thinks fit to impart and I find that he is still instructing me And thus may every man judge by the Law of Reason whether he disobeys God or no. The first examination is from the rules of Nature in the point of Obedience and therefore 't is said that Obedieuce is better then sacrifice for those Rules which we have of Morality or Christianity are but the Product of the Rules of Nature formed into rational Doctrines I do not here include the Rules of Faith and yet these are Rules of Trial and Reason for what can be a safer Trial then to believe because he commands and then in reason how safe is it to believe that which may be hazardous to our Souls if we do not believe And even here do we follow the Dictates of Nature rather in obeying what is said to be his command then in disobeying in those things wherein we have not his command but especially in such things wherein both in Nature and Reason we find Natural Rational and Christian Injunctions So that Gods command how mean soever the command may seem was but to shew that besides the Law of Nature he did exhibit unto us a
is not mentioned and he had Liberty to eat of the tree of life but not of the tree of Knowledge So that the Serpent had sufficient Advantage by the Mistake of the command Whereupon Cap. 2. Verse 4. The Serpent said § 7. Ye shall not surely dye You shall not dye either for eating the Fruit which was not mentioned or for touching the tree which is not Commanded or for eating of the Tree in the midst of the garden which was the Tree of life and not forbidden And when the Serpent had thus possest her that she should not dye for eating or touching of that which was not forbidden he returns to the truth of punishment yet depending upon the former asseveration and saith ye shall not surely dye For the Serpent had got so much advantage by the discourse with Eve and understanding the Nature of her death not to be a seperation of the Soul and Body but a deprivatian of Gods Love did tell her to this effect so good a God would not inflict so rigorous a punishment upon her for she should not dye but Live and live now with farr more satisfaction For her eyes which were only as Senses shall then represent all thing in their perfect Knowledge of them For ye shall be like Gods knowing good and evil But in this discourse hitherto both the Devil and Eve left out one expression in that command namely In the day thou eatest they were both willing it seems to omit the point of time And well may Procrastination continue as a punishment upon our humane Nature she thought God would not be so punctual to a day or it may be she did not understand what a day was or it may be she had too various opinions of it and not Considered as intended in Puncto temporis either 12. or 24. hours or a year according to the Natural motion of the Sut But it may be she conceivd the day to be a Thousand years which are but as a day with God So that the day she should die should be a thousand years after the Eating or a time undeterminable Some of these Conceptions might make them omit the day for it is certain he neither sinned the last day of his life nor dyed the first day of his death So that we may understand it to be a death Contracted but not instantly inflicted and in stead of Morte Morieris we may read Mortalis eris Thou shalt dye the death that is thou shalt be Mortal or have a daily disposition in thee to death Cap. 3. Verse 5. For God doth know § 8. that in the day you eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened and you shall be like God's knowing good and Evil. Now the Devil boldly mentions the day when by his subtile intangling discourses he had gotten the day of the Woman But poor soul it prov'd her night Their Eyes which till now were open to see all sorts of Felicity are now dimmed with the shades of ensuing Mortality so that though they have Eyes yet they can see nothing but the effects of their Ambition For that knowledge of goodness which they had in perfection by continuing in obedience to Gods Commands is now turned by their disobedience to an imperfect knowledge which is the greatest Evil attending human Nature For by this imperfection we scarce know what good is to be followed or what evil to be shunned Regions Climes Tempers Accidents and even Laws of Nations giving Latitudes or Circumscriptions enough to puzzle the devoutest souls and doubtless this is no similitude of a Divine knowledge or to know as God who I presume knows Evil no otherwise then by suffering our Knowledge to be puzzled in attaining the unspeakable Mystery of goodness And therefore the Targum of Jerusalem being tender I suppose in ascribing the knowledge of Evil to God instead of you shall be like Gods knowing Good and Evil say you shall be like the great Angels who are indued with Wisdome to determin good and evil And if the Planets and Spheres have their operations from the Angels then the astrologians have the advantage of knowing good and evil by Collection however it is an equal infelicity not to know the distinction of good evil as not to be able to improve the one or prevent the other And the Chaldee Paraphrase says Ye shall be like Princes as if Princes were to be the Judges of Good and Evil For good or bad things which some call indifferent are made good or bad according to the Nature and obligation of their Command Cap. 3. Ver. 6. And when the Woman saw that the Tree was good for food § 9. and that it was Pleasant to the Eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise Here we see the foundation of disobedience We first argue from necessity It is good for Food and without Food we cannot susteine Nature and who hath more reason to be Careful of that then our selves And why did God exhibit us the view of Food yea and good food if we may not be our own Carvers Then we argue from Pleasure does God say we Create in us organs of sight and those attended with such Agents that we are pleased and displeased according to our objects seeing content gives life to every fruition why should we not injoy what is most pleasurable and at once please our taste and sight And then steps in Ambition and says We shall not only please our senses but our Intellectuals We shall be wise as God Angels or Princes that is as any of our superiours And thus by these insinuations we give our selves Latitude to our own destructions and this is the ground of ruine to Families as well as to States The Servant would evade the Masters Commands the Wife the Husbands the Subject the Princes Judging the Commands to be of small consequence and so the breach easily forgiven or advantagious to our selves and therefore naturally dispensibe But doubtless the less the command be the more we are obliged to perform because the performance seems more in our Power and the more advantagious it is to our private Capacities the greater affront we give to the publick by our disobedience and ingrossing that which should be either common or restrained by so being perswaded and resolved to disobey She took of the Fruit thereof § 10. and did eat This Fruit which Eve did eat is commonly taken for an Apple but I cannot tell for what reason unless that Malum is Latine for an Apple as also for Evil. And then the next doubt is for none knew the original of Latine whether Eve did speak Latine in Paradise But the small reason that I have heard for the Apple is because if one Cut an Apple cross the Core that is beteen the stalk and the top the Beds of the Seeds are just ten in number representing the ten Commandments all which Eve did at once break by eating the Apple and
they were naked We must not think that Adam and Eves eyes were shut in their Perfection and opened by their transgression for before they saw each other in their full Accomplishments of Nature and had no cause to blush or be ashamed But being now sensible of their Disobedience and not knowing how to blame one another her for tempting and he for yielding they now not onely blush and are ashamed of their Disobedience but like the Beast that by hiding his head thinks his body undiscerned so they by making themselves Garments thought that their fault should not be discovered And it still continues in the Nature of Man to find out shifts clokes and umbrages for his offences And they sowed fig-leaves together § 14. and made themselves aprons It is probable Adam made choice of these fig-leaves rather then any other both for the breadth substance and excellent qualities of repelling all Tumours but whether of them they made Aprons Coats or Girdles or Breeches Tranflators differ But the Targum of Jerusalem saith Nudati erant a veste Onychina in qua creati erant that is They were disrobed of their Garment which in the time of their Perfection was made of the Onyx stone For there are stones in Italy of which they make most curious threds and those spun into Cloth resembling our finest flexen Linen and the like might be made of this Now this Onyx stone hath a peculiar quality as Authors write to strengthen the Spirits and heighten Venery And whether their offence was Venereous adumbraged under the name of forbidden Fruit may be Considered on And great Reason had God to be Angry if they injoyed that forbidden Fruit till God as it were had fully considered whether it had been more advantageous to Man to arise from the ground like the Mandrake or the Sensitive Lamb or like Barnacles from trees or shells or that there should have been Incubents and Succubents to dispose of their Nocturnal ejaculations or decostations without pain to Male or Female like that of Adam and Eve he only in the loss of a rib she in being one Cap. 3. Verse 8. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the Garden § 15. This voice and walking is not to be Considered in an humane sense but every inclination to good or declination of what is evil is a voice from God to incite or prohibit And every Motion which tends to an act of goodness or deviation from evil is within the Compass of Gods perambulation He walks in this world as his Garden where we injoy all pleasing objects to the Eyes and other senses and by our senses we improve our Knowledge both in Moral and Divine Concerns his Voyce still attends and his Motion gently perswades us And yet miserable Men as we are we see and approve of the best things but pursue the Worst And it seems a strange Condemnation to be punisht for our inquisition and tryal of all things whenas by sacred Writ we are advised so to do and that those things which are good for us to injoy yet are made destruction to us by as it were a secret Inhibition So that our Tryal of all Things consisteth even of Nothing but Circumspections lest in the most seeming Innocent Actions we should offend For our Eating Drinking Sleeping and inquiries into Lawful Knowledge have in them almost undeservedly both a Necessity and Offence And therefore the Apostle might justly tell us that we are to work out out Salvation with Fear and Trembling And it is remarkable that as God is said to be walking in a Garden where Adam Committed his offence So Christ himself as Religion teaches us was walking in a Garden and as Man he was Crucified for that sin in a Garden And he that will observe the Divine Motion of punishment shall find both in Sacred and Profane Histories Examples enough to teach that God is as it were punctual in his punishments both as to Time Place and Circumstance even to the third and fourth Generation of them who hate him which Third and Fourth I take to be a septenary time And as Adam Eve consists of seaven Letters so their ensuing punishment was upon the seaven Ages of mankind whether Considered Individually to Man or Generally to the seaven Ages of the World Walking in the cool of the day § 16. God is said to be the Lord of hosts to shew his courage and a God of anger and yet a God of patience though provoked every day And even now when Adam had offended and his offence known yet he shewed not his anger but walked without any seeming passion in the cool of the day And it is of great use in Morality when we know our temper to be inclined to wrath or that we have just provocations thereunto that we endeavour to allay them by some outward or inward temperament by walking that is by a private discussing of the matter or by arguments of Forbearance to mould our thoughts from anger or revenge And in a garden that is by Diversions and in the cool of the day that is by mollifying or refrigerating of that heat unto which the Sun of Passion would otherwise incite us And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden § 17. I wonder that Adam and Eve who had so lately eat of the tree of Knowledge should so soon lose their Knowledge to think that Gods Omnipresence could be sheltered by the shade of trees And we are more foolish in following their steps thus when we have done amiss we run as it were from Gods presence and instead of imploring his forgiveness or assistance we study which way to umbrage our faults and mix our selves with the society of others as if either the innocence of others should be a plea for our selves or the diversions which Company affords should obliterate the sense of our transgressions Cap. 3. Ver. 9. And the Lord God called to Adam § 18. and said to him Where art thou It is said that King Mithridates understood seventy two Languages yet he had thousands more to learn for every individual Creature hath a language and that language though diversified by Organs is universally the same for if several men of several Nations stand near a Tree which by the force of the Hewers is ready to fall the universal language is Take heed And though men differ in Letters and Articulations yet we differ not in the sense which the Tree kindly speaks to us and the Standers by are Interpreters And thus upon all occasions the voice of God by his several Organs calls upon us and his voice is labial dental and guttural even as ours for if he speak from his lips that is things pleasing to us or from his teeth that is things displeasing to us or from his throat that is things indifferent yet still in all he affords an intelligible voice
and lean to fat either to supply the defect or deduct the superfluity of either beasts to beasts Fowls Fishes Trees Herbs and Stones to their kind or in the dismembring or dividing of most of these how sensibly the parts divided seem to covet and fly to a Rejunction as may be experienced in our dismembred parts but more fully in Snakes Eels Worms whose divided parts will run to each other The Experiment is more eminent in two pieces of raw Beef cut from one Beast put into a pot of water wherein adding a competent proportion of Comfrey let them boyl a while and they will close together but if the flesh be from two beasts the Comfrey will not cement them But the Demonstration is more noble in Metals of which take several pieces of Gold Brass Silver Iron Tin make them into the shape of Pins two of each sort and lay them gently upon water in a Bason and if it be carefully done they will not sink then you shall perceive that as they float they will naturally hunt about to find each its proper kind As Brass to Brass Tin to Tin c. and drawing near to their own will seem to embrace with a certain joyful violence The second observation is of water Take of that which runs through several Minerals and distil it and when the liquid part is evaporated the fixt matter that remains will lie in distinct parts according to the number of Minerals which the water hath passed through Thus our bodies like several Liquors of different weight though jumbled together will of themselves return to their due place and position and though they be promiscuously tossed and used for the present by the several contrary and oblique course of the sphears and other interposures yet the first mover once ceasing and giving stop to the rest all nature will return to a quiet harmony and every Genius to embrace its own individuals Or else I conceive that the Composition of Man in his secundary productions since his Creation being meerly compacted of variated or corrupted Elements which makes some incline to Philosophy others to Rusticity some of the disposition of Birds others of Beasts Having thus past through the whole nature of other Creatures as Trees Flies Worms Birds Beasts Earth Water Air and Fire c. All substances from whence innumerable species are derived shall at the last Conflagration or general Resurrection be dissolved into humanity to make each man more or less intelligible according to the natures of those individuals of which he hath had an ingrossment or participation Epilogue THese several Philosophical Notions support my Faith in the belief of Divine Matters If there be any man of so stedfast a faith who cares not for the use of Reason Sense or Phancy in the conceiving of these and other Mysteries I commend and admire him he may in time remove Mountains for my part God hath made me a Rational Creature and in Divine matters what cannot be comprehended by my Reason I shall implore his grace to give me faith to believe the possibility of them In the mean time I shall be humble in my Enquiry after them and if I may borrow something from Nature and from Phancy from Sence or Reason to instruct me in such Mysteries I shall not neglect them But I shall study by not knowing them to keep my Devotion For the Etymology of Phansee is no mere than I would fain see rather than to lose it by too curious a speculation My Knowledge in Nature my Phansie Sense and Reason shall be all subject to Faith not doubting but Faith will afford them all such a supernatural Light as shall be profitable to their dull constitutions The knowledge of Nature is fallible Sense Phansie and Reason may be deceived but true Faith cannot Therefore they shall always follow my Faith In which pursuit if they meet with any stop I will give them leave to stay awhile but not too long lest they lose her way her guide and her object FINIS The INDEX A. ADam pag. 149. Affections 139. Angels 154 157. Apparel 150. Appetite 138 141. Art 82. B. BAse 15. Beasts 96 130. Birds 96. Breath 13. C. CArnality 35. Cattel see Beasts Circumspection 131. Coition 156. Colours 96. Contentment 27. Creation 1 2 17 28 30. Cupidity 137. Cursing 129 133 142. D. DArkness see Light Day 49 98 see Years Death 51 98 173. Desire 137 138. Disobedience see Obedience Devil 93. Dominion 84. Dust 21 29. E. EArth 144. Eye 33. Education 158. Evil see good F. FAith 171 187. Fear 118. Felicity 153. Food 144 146 148. Fruit see Trees and Plants 102. G. GArden 26. Garments 111 God 28 52 53 112 117. Gold see Minerals 19 20 40. Good 100. H. HErbs 95 96 146. Hermaphrodite 79. Husband 140. I. INdustry 43. 152. Image 77. K. KNowledge 58. L. LAW 45. Life see Soul and Trees 54 158 172 176. Light 49. Love 108. M. MAn 9 10 20 21 29 76 79. Marriage 70 72. Messias 134. Midst 34. Minerals 34 185. Months see Years Multiplying 82. N. NAkedness 75. Names 58. Navigation 41. Necessity 138. Noses and Nostrils 24. Nothing 57. Numbers 8 14 15 16 18 19 20 36 38 52 53. O. OBedience 45 57 97 98 100 102 109 123 136 140. P. PAradise see Garden Passion 114. Patience 168. People 169. Plants see Trees 29 32 34 144. R. REason 151 187. Religion 161. Resurrection 176. Rib see Bones 16 63 65 68. Rivers 36 40. S. SAcrifice 87. Serpent 93 94 124. Sin 124 128 129 see Vertue and Vice Sleep 62. Sorrow 143. Soul 18 25 133 176. Speech 126 127. Spirit 26 31. Stones 38 40. Sweat 147. T. TEars 143. Temptation 95 96. Time see Years Trees 34 35 40 45 48. 52. 116 151. see Plants Tryals 112. V. VErtue and Vice 121. Voice 140 112. Voluptuousness 137. W. Wife 107. See Marriage and Man and Obedience Woman 55 56 57 65 69 70 80 128 135 137. See Man Y. YEars 170. FINIS