Selected quad for the lemma: evil_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
evil_n	good_a	life_n	tree_n	2,346	5	8.7759	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67686	Geologia, or, A discourse concerning the earth before the deluge wherein the form and properties ascribed to it, in a book intitlued The theory of the earth, are excepted against ... / by Erasmus Warren ...	Warren, Erasmus.	1690 (1690)	Wing W966_VARIANT; ESTC R34720	227,714	369

of Romanceing their Pens run on at a strange rate rangeing as far as quaint Phancy can carry them But as to them let thus much only be noted That whereas the Theorist applys what they write of the Golden Age to the Paradisiacal State before the Flood as if what they say were some dark and imperfect Memoires of that it might be disputed were it worth the while whether they set not that Age just after the Flood making Noah to be Saturn and the principal Characters of the Golden Age to fall in with such things as happen'd in that Period Several of no contemptible learning have been of that Opinion and Bochart for one As many as are dispos'd to read what he wrote of this nature may find it in the first and second Chapters of his Phaleg And if what Poets have delivered of the Golden Age refers to times and things of a Postdiluvian Date we have no manner of reason to regard them in the least as giving any light either into the Doctrine or State of Paradise Nor truly are Fathers those infinitely more excellent and solid Men to be too much relied on in this case neither I mean no farther than they are consonant to the Oracles of Heaven and write fairly after that inspired Copy which came down from thence For though they be free from light and Poetic Figments they are full of Allegories and high Rhetorications and too Hyperbolical erroneous some of them to be followed in all things Thus when Ephrem Syrus Moses Bar Cephas Bede Strabus Rabanus Maurus and others place Paradise near the Circle or Orb of the Moon and St. Basil makes it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a place above the whole Creation and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obscur'd with no darkness by reason of height and the Hebrew Masters in general will have it made before the World how can these things be tolerably reconciled to a Terrestrial Paradise And while some again supposing the Ocean to incircle the Earth place Paradise on the other Hemisphere and then to bring Men into this after Adam's Fall will have the Ocean to be fordable and People of that talness as to wade through it on foot who can believe Paradise had such a Situation Especially if we add that other Doctors yet of whom Bar Cephas speaks upon account of the Site of Paradise beyond the Ocean held this Continent of ours was quite unpeopled and a kind of Desart till the Flood And which still intangles things more and more they generally concluded that the four Rivers of Paradise were Tigris Euphrates Ganges and Nilus and that having their Spring-heads on the other side of the Sea by a strange penetration or trajection struck through the Earth and brake out on this side of the same To follow the Fathers here can neither be safe nor easie And better it would have been if the Theorist had not gone so far after them but instead of that had kept to his word We will never assert any thing upon the authority of the Ancients which is not first proved by Reason or warranted by Scripture And therefore while Poets pursue the Golden Age in golden Dreams and set it off in fine and extravagant strains and the Fathers expatiate in too large and lofty Encomiums of Paradise describing such rare and unaccountable Excellencies and Phaenomena's of it as it never had but in their mistaken Idea's and Allusions let us wisely attend to the Voice of GOD's SPIRIT in his unerring Word So we shall learn what is fit and necessary concerning Paradise and by keeping within the bounds of sober truth shall never be cumbered with superfluous knowledge nor be put to the trouble first of inventing humorous Notions and then of defending them 3. Now as to the Doctrine of Paradise it is fully comprized so far as we need to consider it in the following Periods of Scripture It will not be amiss to bestow a short Paraphrase on them Gen. 2. 8. And the LORD GOD planted a garden eastward in Eden and there he put the man whom he had formed 8. No sooner had GOD the LORD of all brought Man into being but in special respect and kindness to him he assigned him his Dwelling in the sweetest Country of the whole Earth In a place so ordered by the great care and wise contrivance of his Providence that it abounded with delights and for its exceeding pleasantness was as the Garden of the World situate in that Tract of Ground which is called Eden and lies Eastward from hence Ver. 9. And out of the ground made the LORD GOD to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil 9. And this Garden was most rarely furnisht For besides Floriferous and Fruit-bearing Plants the products of which respectively were grateful to the Eye and gustful to the palate and useful for nourishment there were two very extraordinary Trees One the tree of life So called because its Fruit if eaten would make a Man live very long upon Earth and that without sickness pain or decay or at least was a Symbol of Eternal Life to be injoyed by him in a better State upon condition of unsinning Obedience in this The other was the tree of knowledge of good and evil Called by that name because GOD had ordained that if Adam tasted its Fruit he should presently know what Evil was by a quick and sad sense of it and the better know what Good was by the lamentable loss of it Both these Trees grew within the Garden Ver. 10. And a River went out of Eden to water the garden and from thence it was parted and became into four heads 10. And to the end that this Garden thus flourishing and fruitful might so continue a River was made to spring up in it or to flow through it Which how far soever it might run in one single Stream and then divide into two or three at last it fell into four branches or chanels Which before they terminated or disburthen'd themselves as four several heads were known by four distinct names after they had passed the Garden in one Current Ver. 11. The name of the first is Pison that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah where is gold Ver. 11. As for the first of these Heads for its fruitfulness in Fish or the abundance of its Waters it is called Pison and by them that dwell near it Phasis or Pasitigris Which dividing it self from Tigris whereof this is the most Southern branch about Apamia runs along by the Land of Havilah and parting that Land from the Country of Susiana it directs its course towards Teredon and thereabouts empties it self into the Persian Gulph Ver. 12. And the gold of that land is good there is Bdellium and the Onyx-stone 12. Of which Land of Havilah whither Saul chased the

Amalekites 1 Sam. 15. 7. it is memorable that there is Gold in it and that Gold of an excellent sort It has also the Tree or Gumm or Pearl called Bdellium and the Onyx-stone Ver. 13. And the name of the second river is Gihon the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Aethiopia 13. The second River or Branch from its falling off or turning another way is denominated Gihon The very same that passing by Adiabene the most Northern Province of Assyria compasseth the Land of Chush or the Country of the As●atic Aethiopians that is it glides along by it Ver. 14. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria and the fourth is Euphrates 14. The third Arm or River from the sharpness of its Waters or the swiftness of its Current is called Tigris whose course lies to the East of Assyria And as for Euphrates the fourth Head or Stream it is so well known that it need but be named Ver. 15. And the LORD GOD took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it 15. And GOD directed Adam into the Garden of Eden and placed him there appointing him as a piece of his recreation to cultivate and order it Ver. 16. And the LORD GOD commanded the man saying Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat 16. And as to the choice Fruits growing upon the several Trees in the Garden GOD grudged him none of them but gave him free leave and full power to take when and where and as much as he pleased even of the best of them Ver. 17. But of the tree of knowledg of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die 17. Only he charged him very strictly that he should not eat of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge assuring him that if he did it would cost him dear for he should certainly lose his Life thereby This is the Doctrine of Paradise so far as at present we are concerned to look into it What occurs in the Divine Story besides is rather of Personal and Moral than of Local Consideration It relates to Adam himself rather than to the Paradisiacal place of his residence Only what we find in the Close of the Third Chapter must be taken in which runs as followeth Ver. 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 eat and live for ever 22. And now my Angels that Man has eaten of the forbidden Fruit ye see how wise he is grown thereby He has throughly tried the truth of that Promise the Serpent made him and lo how goodlily he has improved himself in GOD-like knowledge which he aimed at and thirsted after Since he has been thus egregiously foolish 't is a thousand to one if we let him alone but he 'll fall into another piece of unreasonable and undoing folly And if he can but get to the Tree of Life and taste the Fruit of that will presently conclude that his Life on Earth shall last for ever and so neglect Repentance and Preparation for a better Ver. 23. Therefore the LORD GOD sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken 23. To prevent this therefore GOD immediately turned him out of the Garden into that place whereabouts he was created And whereas in his Paradisiacal condition he might have subsisted deliciously of what Nature yielded of it self Now he was to live in a more painful manner spending his strength in Tilling the Ground that so it might afford wholsome sustenance for his Body which was formed out of it Ver. 24. So he drove out the man and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life 24. And being driven out of this pleasant Garden to the intent he might never re-enter it more GOD by the ministery of Spirits fired the Earth whereabouts his way of return lay into it Which burning continually as it does this day in many places and as it did in Babylon of old was as effectual a means to keep Adam out as if Providence had set a number of Cherubim to guard the passage leading thither by brandishing flaming Swords 4. Now what is there in all this so difficult or abstruse as not to be intelligible The Doctrine of Paradise indeed has been ill handled as well as some others and has received great injury from such as intended it nothing but kindness Even eminent Writers by exalting it too high and inlargeing it too much have unhappily obscured it and brought a wild Confusion into it Preposterously striving to imbellish and improve it they have mightily eclipsed and disparaged it Just as a true natural Beauty is spoiled by the addition of Artificial and a lovely Visage made worse by painting But view it in its sacred Pourtraicture as Scripture has drawn or represented it and so we shall have a fair Description a graphical or exact Delineation of it So it will appear in its genuine Colours and just Proportions in its proper Features and due Complexion and without all manner of disgraceful Blemishes or monstrous Disfigurements For First Here is nothing that turns the whole Story into Mystery or Allegory That makes Paradise it self to be the Soul Adam the Mind Eve the Senses the Serpent Pleasures the four Rivers four Cardinal Virtues c. Which is the way that Origen Philo and St. Ambrose go Nor Secondly Is there any thing that intimates the Garden of Paradise was the whole Earth That the four Rivers mentioned in the Description of it had the Ocean for their Fountain And that two of them viz. Pison and Gihon were Ganges and Nil●s the one running through India and the other through Egypt according to the Manichees Becanus and Noviomagus Nor yet Thirdly Does it mount Paradise up above the tops of the Hills or assign it its Situation near the Moon in an Earth different from ours where Bar Cephas Bede and Rabanus set it These we must confess are things hard to be understood and never to be made out They contain in them unexplicable intricacies and draw after them innumerable absurdities Such as quite overthrow the truth of Moses's Narrative and so the Veracity of GOD himself But therefore as we see they are no parts of the Doctrine of Paradise That 's entire without them as Scripture delivers it which makes them neither Essentials nor Appendages of it They are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Doctrines of Men according to the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fine and noisy words according to Epiphanius And they that first spake them being Persons of Fame their Reputation gave