himself fore-seen and acknowledged whether now the only prevention and remedy in this case which is otherwise so full of just fears of real doubts of endless dissatisfaction and of perplexing difficulties be not to bring all sorts of necessary knowledges to the Pan-sophie the Alness of Wisdom in the Scriptures of Truth where none of the forementioned Scriptures have any ground to set their foot on in regard that Word-Revelations about Natures Secrets are the unerring products of infinite Wisdom and of universal fore seeingness which are always uniform and the same in their well-established order and stated ordinary course without any variation by an unchangeable Law of the All-knowing Truthful Creator and Governour and Redeemer Wise Solomon himself was much in the dark and altogether at a loss whilst he studied the Nature of many things only in the way of Pagan Philosophy he experimented it to be a vain attempt of his foolish imagination to get in that way the perfect knowledge of the Essence of Creatures and of Causes and of Effects the Created Works of the Six Days in their first Origine and continued Being it was far from him he evidently discovered when he had made some proof of that kind of study and scrutiny Many Creatures were aâ—â—a far distance from him some above him as the north-North-heavens and their Lights which mere Humane Astronomies could not sufficiently inform him in others were below him deep deep such were the hid Treasures of the Earth the Abyss the Gulph and Hell he went round these subject matters in his thoughts but could not get through them into the exact knowledge of them by all his industry and search no private studying nor open converse could fully inform his understanding what the proper Existence the true Reason and the solid Art of the Mysteries of Nature as well as of Grace were till he was entred a Disciple in Christ's School where he was better taught by the Spirit of the LORD in those two great Books of Scripture and of Nature The vain Affectation of Creature-Knowlede in the Apostate Angels and of Humane Wisdom in fallen Man has all along been endeavouring to corrupt and to pervert both the pure Word of Aelohim and his Created Works whereby they are misrepresented to the Rational-intellect in wrong shapes WE may pass some judgement upon one of the first great Sins of Apostate Angels by that Method of Temptation which the old Serpent did use in assaulting Eve and Adam by Eve which was a vain Affectation of Creature Knowledge and of self-invented Wisdom They would find out a new Philosophy suited to their own proud concepts of things setting up of self and of Creatures as the great Idol seeking out some other way of Science and of Worship than what was formed in them by Created Principles and was put into Natural Existences and both these discovered in some Word They sought out many Inventions to see if they could find a chief Good in the Creature they would make and try Experiments what might come out of them The Tempter had high conceits of his own abilities and he would have Man to excogitate other Reasons and Causes of things than were in Created Nature and in Word-Revelation Hence it is that this caution is given us Let no one deceive you with sublime discourse touching the worship of Angels pressing into that he knows not It is the design of those evil Spirits to raise up in the mind of man such high opinions of them as to extol them to be for knowledge far above the degree of a mere Creature and to raise a mans knowledge much farther than he hath any good warrant for and for the prosecuting this hellish design they would engage man in converse with them to draw man into a discipleship under them that man might go to School to these revolted Spirits as if these could and would teach man higher and better than the LORD or his Word and VVorks have done By these stratagems and illusions to beguile man into a Veneration of them for their Scientifick Excellencies And thus did these degenerate Angels and impure Spirits prevail over Mankind at the first And this is the cause of all the prohibited black Arts of Judiciary Astrology Diabolick Magick Hellish VVitchcraft and such like forbidden Sciences and Satanical depths under the gaudy Title of profound Mysteries whereby many do lose the prize that is ready and prepared at the Goal while they yield themselves to be drawn aside with such Sophistick Seductions These hellish imposters under a specious shew of colourable Religion would bring in dangerous and damnable Errors and Heresies against the pure simplicity of the Evangelical Doctrine and they imployed under them such seducers as did much corrupt and deceive many of the ignorant and credulous fetching their Doctrines not from Scripture Revelation but from Humane Reason adulterated holding forth some curious speculations taught in the Philosophick Schools namely the worshiping of Angels as middle intercessors between God and men arrogating unto themselves without any just right a power of judging and assigning the reward of Eternal Life unto none but such only as would subscribe unto their new and false doctrines defining and determining the causes of Faith and of Religion at their own will and pleasures and not according to Christ in his Word and all this under a pretext of Humility and of demission of mind which is the Romish usurpation and Anti-christian Tyranny at this day And this is a sort of Wisdom which is therefore called Demoniacal because it has the Devil for its Author By which Satan would be reputed the learned Master of Arts and the Reverend Doctor of Sciences And would have men to enter themselves as Pupils under his Tutorship in his College And therefore in that forementioned place to the Colossians cited in the Margin Paul warn'd them not to suffer any one not the Devil himself to lord it over them to abuse his power and subtilty upon them by pretending that he will give a great Prize of Honour and of Reputation to them if they would deliver themselves over to his will in instructing them For thus he fallaciously argues in his Philosophy that men should so walk in humility as not to go directly unto God or unto Christ but should first resort unto Angels for their Instruction and should make Angels such glorious Creatures to be as Mediators between God and them for the negotiating of all their Affairs which is a piece of Platonick Anti-Theology and Anti-Christianism still maintained and practised in Ethnick and Papistick Philosophy Satan would have them to climb up and to thrust themselves into sublime points of hidden Wisdom as if they were profound Mysteries of refined Speculation above the vulgar capacity which yet are but phantastick devices and groundless imaginatious in the disquisition where of he would have them to pride and to please themselves as if they had learn â— some rare
Time before the Luminaries were created which were to stated preâ—â—ite certain seasons and those Heavenly Lights do now point out all Instituted times which have foundation in Scripture and in Nature particularly the Evening and Morning of every day and the seventh-Seventh-day Sabbath every Week For â—dâ—m for mankind generally and was so appointed in this one week at the first and is still to be kept and observed by vertue of that first command The Sun and the Planets and the Stars are not the centers and foundations of all the Vortices and motions of matter and corpuscles about them For the center is supposed to be the lowest whereas these Luminaries are above and do shine over this Earth The Heavens are high above the Earth The Sun and the Moon are the two great Luminaries so called in respect of the lesser lights which are not so great either in visible appearance and whether in real quantity or not doth deserve a more thorow disquisition or in diffused light or in Influential operation and efficacious Vertue And so are of more glorious excellency than the rest The Moon is a great light really positively so the standing still of the Sun and Moon in Joshua's time was a great wonder If the Sun had naturally as the common center stood still and the Moon and the Earth had moved how had it been proper and true to say Sun and Moon stood still Or if it had been spoken popularly and falsly as some boldly and untruly affirm must it not then have been said only Sun stand thou still What absurdities would these Philosophers conceive the Scriptures or the God of Truth in the Scriptures to speak both properly and improperly really and popularly truly and falsly at the same time and in the same words The Sun is a strong one running his Race he goes in in the Evening and he goes forth in the Morning The Sun doth not make or constitute the day but he hath dominion over the day having his being and use assigned on the fourth day and therefore also was not created on the first day when the Primeve light was made The Moon has an Innate light of her own having both the Name and the Nature of a Luminary and was so created at the first A lesser Luminary doth not deny but affirm the lesser to be createdly existingly actually really a Luminary or Lightner or Lighter as well as the greater though not altogether as great synony mously and univocally such she is a Luminar not a Specular having seasons of walking in her own glorious brightness which our eyes do see Even when Eclipsed she is visible to us in her whole disk which Astronomers do suppose not to be illustrated by the Sun Have any of these Philosophers satisfactorily proved as yet that the Eclipse of the Moon is indeed caused by the supposed shadow of the Earth cast upon some part of the Moon and stepping between the Sun and the Moon For besides that such a shadow at such a great distance according to their common placits and traditioned suppositions could not darken so great a part of the Moon yea the whole of the Moon were the Moon of so great a bigness as they also affirm Darkness and shadow they say are no real things but only absence of Light and how can that obscure a lightsome body if darkness have no positivity or existence of it's own All the darkness in the night cannot hinder a Rush-candle from shining Further if such a shadow were the cause then why is not the whole opposite Hemisphere illuminated by the direct Rays of the Sun in the Night at such times when the Moon doth not so shine the Moon hath not all her Light from the Sun according as that part of the Moon in its increases and decreases which is nearest the Sun is illustrated according to it 's more or less opposite position This they assign to be the cause but if it were so then that Diameter of the Moon which doth cut the enlightned part of the Moon into two equal parts must also in a right line pass into the Diameter of the Sun Which is not so As any discerning eye may observingly conclude by ocular demonstration If the Moon as they suppose do move about fifty miles in a minute how then can some Eclipses of the Moon last so long as they do if it were caused only by the shadow of the Earth And how small a proportion is that part of the Hemisphere which the body of the Moon doth take up when it is Eclipsed at its first arising if you compare it with the Compass that it goes from her going forth to her going in The Eclipse also of the Sun they assert may be total to some in some parts of the Earth by the Moon 's being in conjunction and stepping in between the Sun and the Earth But how can this be if as they say the Sun be one hundred sixty and six times biggeâ— than the Earth and the Moon be forty and six times less then the Earth Astronomers therefore must enquire after some other cause of Eclipses let it be searched after Whether Satan who by his Fall having lost his Luminariness and being become darkness and the Prince of darkness be not at least one cause It is further a Philosophical errour to affirm the Moon to be an Earth For the Earth was made and perfected before that the Heavenly Luminaries had any created being These had their existence three days after that Neither is there dry fruit-bearing Land in the Moon for the Earth and not the Moon doth by the Creator's Ordination bring forth Grass Herbs andâ— Trees Neither are there Seas in the Moon For the Seas were created and put into their proper places here below before the Moon had a being Neither is the Moon Opacous nor the Earth Luminous The Histories of the Creation are evident confutations of these and many other human inventions The Moon doth not make or constitute night but hath Dominion over it She is a faithful witness in Heaven The Stars are burning shining bodies having their own inherent burning flame as well as the Sun and Emanant without his Collustration If Stars were of such a magnitude as Ethnick Philosophers do assert how could that Star in Christ's time point out to the Wise men that particular House in Bethlehem when Christ was new born and how could the Stars of Heaven fall down upon the Earth like as the Figg-tree casteth her green Figgs when she is shaken of a mighty Wind It is too great boldness in Earthly man to assign the magnitude altitude distance of the Heavenly Luminaries can a dusty Worm measure the Heavens above or number the Host of Heaven art thou able to mete out the Heavens with a span No meer Man can exactly tell the number of the Stars Though Astronomers have been
first Promise of his and believers should enjoy it as a Covenant Mercy when ever our eyes do behold the Light we may see there are more substances and fewer accidents as they name them than Ethnick Philosophers do own What was the first created Light according to their own descriptions Was it not an Entity of Nature Did it not truly subsist Doth not the Scripture affirm this Did it not subsist in it self VVhat substance did this Light naturally flow from or originally subsist in Did it spring from Heaven or from Earth or from VVaters Or from the gulphy space or doleful place The Expanse was not created till the seventh-Seventh-day As for the Air neither was that extended expanded or made so diaphanous or created on the one day And as for the Heavenly Luminaries they had not a Being till the fourth day If you imagine it to be inherent in the highest Heavens and transmitted thence why then is not the Light always sent forth to make it continual day What substance was the Light adventitious to in its first being created Was not the specificial Essence thereof in it self What other substance did the Light affect or perfect Was not the Light an actual Entity specifically differing from all other created Beings in the Time and Nature of it This Light is a stated solid substantial Entity always actual since its first Creation without continual sensible variations The Light has corporeal quantity of extension and corporeal Motion in coming and in going What was that pretended lucid Body in which this Light is supposed to be inherent to which to adhere and in which as in a Subject to be It is an essential and substantial Creature in its own Nature and Being which Aelohim gave unto it The Light was not gathered into the Sun not placed in the body of the Sun not affixed unto the Sun not sent into and inserted in it after its Being diffused and shed abroad not bound to any certain body the Light doth cast no shadow because it doth surround Bodies whereas the Sun doth cast shadows because its shining is in direct Beams It is a real thing and not only a notion all and every of the created Beings are truly subsisting Entities This created Light was not Christ though in another sense Christ is called Light For somewhat was created before the Light as the Heavens the Earth the Waters the empty space the doleful place and darkness whereas Christ is the beginning of the Works of Aelohim he was before all created Beings For a close of this fifth days VVork I apprehend the creating of the Beasts and VVorms to appertain to the fifth day for several weighty Reasons agreeing with the VVord All those Creature are here put together Such as have a sensitive Soul and Life So nobly formed a Creatures as Man who was to have the Royal Dominion over these sensitive Creatures and was endued with a Religious Rational Soul and Life he had the honour of a distinct day the sixth day for his Creation apart from other Creatures The cause why it is said twice that Aelohim will foreseeingly look on because good what he created on the fifth day may be this there doth appear some need of such a subdivision because there were two such divers kinds of Creatures made on that day Some in the place of the Waters the other in the place of the red Earth the goodness of both and of each of which doth the more clearly shine forth and is the better understood by this Spiritual Narration of doubling the Testimony There is a special Blessing given to Religious Rational Adam distinct from Bruit Animals Observe well also this further Reason here is a distinct Creature from tame Animals and wild Beasts particularly mentioned the creeping one the Reptil a word which was mentioned before in the Participle concerning the Fishes and therefore this kind of Creature must be created on the same day of the week on which the Fishes its Fellow-creepers were and so also the other mentioned here as the tame Animal and the wild Beast Thus also I judge that the gathering together of the lower Waters from other places with expecting desire into the Seas as its appointed place did belong to the Creation-work of the second day because to every one of the six days of this one week of the Creation this is expresly ascribed that Aelohim will foreseeingly look on because good whereas if this be carried on to the third day then the second day will be left without this approving Testimony from its Creator Further they are much a part of the same subject-matter spoken of in the second days Work which was that these Waters below might have a distinct place from those Waters above by an out-spread partition between them They were both of them Waters This Work about the severing of the Waters was begun upon the second day and there finished on the second day For as a wise good Worker Aelohim reserves the approbation till he had perfected that Work and put it in its proper place so discharged as it were his hands of it as to what concerned the Creation of it though as to its continued preservation it be still in his manutenancy How large and complete an History of the Fishes of Fowls of Beasts and of VVorms might there be composed and compiled for the perfecting of this Art and the polishing of the Science of Sensitive Souliness if all those VVords and Phrases were orderly put together that do treat of this subject matter in the Scriptures of Truth The Sixth Day towards the true Advance of useful Learning doth give us the hint of this profitable Inquiry Q. Whether Anthropology or the Doctrine of Created Adam or knowledge of Man or the Science of the Humane Nature be sufficiently taught in the Schools and Lectures of Ethnick Philosophers Or is it only contained in and augmentable and restaurable by the Word of Truth and the holy Spirits teaching of serious Inquirers this Art according to these Holy Scriptures Answ IT is not by Ethnick Philosophy and the Readers or VVriters of it but by the Scriptures of Truth and the holy Spirits instructing in and by these Man what is this man that the Creator has so crowned him with so signal an Honour Man how noble is his make Man is the Articulate Trumpeter of the Creators Praises the lingual Glory of the VVorld sounding forth the shining excellencies of Jehovah Aelohim in his glorious self in his good VVord and in his great VVorks How useful a Knowledge is this the true Knowledge of our selves VVhat profit would it be to me and to the Reader though we understood all other Mysteries and all other Knowledges if thou and I were ignorant of our selves How Royal Prerogatives hath the LORD dignified Man withal Unto how high a pitch hath he raised the ultim summities of the Humane Nature in all its created Perfections of Spirit of
such unfruitful Studies are so many and so tedious for they make art to be long and Life to be short whereas Word-Study and Scripture-Learning would make Art short and Life long that those who do waste their precious time in these worthless labours do find the prime of their day and the vigorousness of their age even decaying and dying away before they know aright what to know and how to live Some who have had that University honour put upon them to be called Masters of Arts yet have afterwards experienced that they had little else but the name and have look'd upon those years as the corrupted education then was to have been the void space of their life which would have been the choice season of their time if Tutors had put them in a right way of Scriptural Learning One of the skilfullest advancers of Humane Learning in one of the most laboured and best wrought Treatises upon that Subject has in the close of his Book given a short prospect of a new world of Sciences or the deficients of them fifty in number and he that shall make use of his Directory to attain these yet would though he lived to old age bring in an ignoramus for the Verdict when he comes to die Whereas all those and more so far as they are necessary and useful might have a clearer discovery and a fuller supplement in Scripture and in Nature according to Scripture were it throughly searched into for that end If Heathenish Philosophy did not strangely bewitch and awe young Scholars with a respect of the Authority and a greatning of the names of its Authors and an esteem of the multitude of its Books which do so fill the Shops and Libraries and with the difficulty of making many of its notions and distinctions and obscure terms reconciled to some degree of intelligent sense after so much dispending of Time and of Coyn its price would fall in the Printers Market and its trade go down in the Booksellers Shop How little can there be of certitude in that way where all must resolve into fallibleness of Authority and falaciousness of Testimony or into pretended evidence of forced experiments which may be variously effected whilst the intrinsick Natures and genuine causalities of created Beings and of their products are altogether hidden from such great adorers of Humane Wisdom as count themselves and would be so esteemed by others to be if not the only yet the mostly learned men in the world and who would have their dictates to be received as inerring and their traditions as incontrolable whereas their assertions do end in doubtfulnesses and their stating of questions is not definitively demonstrating but still the judgement of the pondering Reader must suspend it self and look further for satisfaction How many Essences and verities are there which Ethnick Philosophy cannot reach the clear understanding whereof it can never attain unto of its self neither are they any other way fully discovered unto us but by the Scripture revelation What meerâ— Philosopher by all his art and industry can with certitude inform my understanding what the System of the created World is how it was made and set up what the positure of the whole Creation is in what place and order every thing is which is the uppermost and what the lowermost part of it what there is above this blew visible expanse or extended Heaven or firm out-spread what kind of existencies the Heavenly Luminaries are what all the constitutive parts of men are particularly what the spirit of man is what his soul is and how these are distinct and whether separable so as that yet both may live apart from each other at the same time what the proper seats of the intellect faculties in man are where is the Wise where is the Scribe where is the Inquirer of this age who without word-light can lead me into the certain knowledge of the manner of the formation of all and every of beings what that was which put them into their first Essence what the beginning of the Creature which God created is and how many years have elapsed since that time to this present annual revolution where and when Chronologers must begin and how to carry on their Computation of time who amongst the Learned of this World can ascend into Heaven and infallibly assure me what Treasuries of Creatures there are there what the work and priviledges of the Elect Angels and of the perfectly Sanctified Spirits are there what the glorious appearances of the ever blessed Jehovah Aelohim in Father Son and Holy Spirit are there which of them can so descend into the Abyss as to bring me the truest information from thence where the great Gulph is that is between Heaven and Hell what and where the place of Hell is where are the several Chambers of darkness below and of light above For although the Gulph and Hell are open before the all-seeing Jehovah yet are they far out of sight and off from the knowledge of men on Earth by any mere humane disquisition or discovery Who of these Philosophers can by their own natural ability throughly convince me of the true Doctrine and of the real nature of invisibles which yet now they are revealed are not incredibles Can any of them return a satisfactory answer to those questions which the LORD propounded unto Job Do not they themselves judge divers things to be undiscoverable by any mere man as the essential forms and the true differences of things especially that of man What are all and every of the proper and real causes which are so productive of so many wonderful effects in the World How defectively imperfect how unsetledly conjectural are their inquiries concerning the Celestial Bodies about their Spheres their Orbs their divers Poles their first Moveable their contrary motion of Renitencie their Circles Eccentricks and Epicycles Interstellare Substances Progressions Stations Retrogradations Elevations Declinations Apogees Perigees Diurnal Motions which some do fancy of the whole Heavens and others do dream of the whole Earth with a multitude of such like Astronomical Suppositions which they would ground upon some Phaenomena cunningly devising how to defend their own invented Hypotheses against Objections and setting up such feigned Fabricks as may not be exposed to so many exceptions and contradictions as the fictitious conceits of others before them are liable unto So that they have been forward to triumph over others if their own excogitated opinions have not been confutable by the common received principles whilst themselves do not believe their own suppositions to be the true nature of the things themselves how then can they perswade others that their discoveries are real and profitable and that they might hold the World yet further on in ignorance and in darkness they daringly affirm the Scriptures not to afford light in these matters Whereas these alone can set mens understandings right about the verity of beings which cannot by
leave much of their Shelves empty though he who writes this is like to be judged and condemned for an Heretick in the Commonwealth of Learning and to have his Name and Reputation killed whilst he himself is alive and buried before he himself be dead But these must be let go for the sake and in the cause of Christ and of his Word who will have a day of Resurrection of Names as there will be at the last of bodies One of the most learned and most experienced of natural Philosophers in the present age who has been at great cost and pains to make the most watchful Observations after all his curiosity in seeking and searching has consented to the publishing of a Treatise to let the World of Vain Affecters of Humane Wisdom and of Philosophick Learning to know that after all his inquiries and researches into hidden secrets of mysterious Nature he can come at no certainty especially about the Heavenly Bodies and what doth belong to them and generally about what is at a great distance from our eye or quite out of our sight Cosmical suspicions are found in the Title and in the Pages so that his Philosophy as to the most of the eminent Works of the Creation particularly as to the Celestial Phaenomena and subterraneous hiddenesses is if not come to plain nothing yet quite passed into doubt suspicion and scepticism so that his acknowledgements are much the same in this with mine It would be the Wisdom and Honour of such generous spirited Virtuoso's now at length to come wholly over to the Scripture-way for the proficiency of Arts and for the augment of Sciences where and where only such men of deep understanding can sit down sweetly satisfied Scripture-Learning is gone forth conquering and Word-knowledges will ere long be triumphing All other Science is but falsly so called both about the Works of Creation and the Doctrines of Faith however the deluded world have given it the name yet it is devoid of the Essence it doth start a many thorny and argute Questions and it ingageth in a multitude of frivolous concertations of Sophisters and of Philosophasters such as School-Divinity or Scholastick-Theology doth abound in and is almost quite through all over run with Dialectick Nicities and Metaphorical Formalities to raise dust and to make a mist that mens eyes can see but little of their way as if all knowledge were placed in this whereas it neither doth deserve nor can make good such a name That is worth the name of Wisdom that is Wisdom to Salvation that is the commendable Learning that is sanctified Learning and that is the praise-worthy experience that is holy experience It is Scripture-Science that is the great the only deposited Treasury of all Writings that is to be kept for the confutation of all Opponents who object against the Truth The rest are but prophane Clamors about empty Vanities such as are of a different kind and nature from the Analogie of Faith frivolous concertations of Sophists Logical impertinencies Metaphysical puzlings that do not deserve the Name because they have not the Reality of useful Knowledge where they have any thing of profitable Learning as a few grains of good Corn in a great heap of Chaff there they Originally received it from the Word and from the LORD's people who held forth their knowledge according to the Word before others Thus the Chaldeans from the Hebrews so also the Egyptians the Phenicians the Grecians though they all mingle it with their several Errors Superstitions and Idolatries Never yet could the Disciples of any Unscriptural Antiscriptural of any Unchristian Antichristian Philosopher meet with such a complete Model of the Created World from any of their Masters as might give them any through satisfaction thereabout though according to their several Sects they have been great Admirers of themselves There are of them who have pretended to more skill than those who went before them in the Philosophick Way and have undertaken to be Correctors of other mens Opinions and Writings about a System of the World and yet they have not believed themselves that their own Hypotheses were true and sound as particularly the vertiginous Asserters of the Diurnal Motion of the Earth One great cause of his Eâ—â—ring who was the famous misleader of others into this gross mistake was his slighting and rejecting of the Scriptures about these matters as if it were a subject altogether alien from VVord revelation The several Earnest Contenders both for the old and new Philosophy of later years after all their new VVorlds which they have set up and trumpeted before as if all must bow before their Systematical Calf and worship their modular Moloc yet what have they done after all their studies and endeavours but proclaim openly in Print that they are both of them out of the right way the one and the other wandring out of the path of Truth and that they have taken up with such fallacious shews as are discovered by Scripture-light to be apparent falshoods And therefore the adaptest shortest and every-way best Method will be to lay aside all the rest and to take up things purely from the VVord of Christ All besides this are but the fanciful framings and imaginary VVorlds of self-pleasing Dreamers though they applaud their own cunning in excepting against the Scriptures as no fit Judges in these Cases yet I cannot commend their Conscience in such a wrongful dishonourable charge as they hereby bring in against Christ and against his VVord There are some parts of the Created VVorld which right Reason and enlightned Nature cannot but acknowledge that they must be As a place of reward for the Good and of punishment for the Bad And yet because they are not to those who are on this Earth exposed to their senses they cannot be understood what and where they are but only by VVord-revelation The great mistakes of some both Translators of and Commentators upon the VVord History of the Creation have been occasioned mostly from hence that they have followed Philosophers and their VVritings more than Christ and his Scriptures which is the great error and the blemishing spot in those expositions upon Job which many otherwise singular Annotators have completed and published For almost throughout that whole Book much thereof doth treat of Created Beings as the Heavens the Luminaries there the Rain the Dew the Snow the Hail the Wind the Earth the Water the Abyss the Gulph Hell Light Darkness the four Quarters of the World with many others and with many particulars about each of these they do much Philosophize which I now write not to revile the Name or bespatter the Memory of the departed Authors nor to undervalue the many choice Observations and profitable Collatings of Scripture every where almost to be found in several of those Treatises but to warn the Reader that when he comes to such passages about this kind of Learning which I am now upon he would
what is spoken of the Almighty Jehovah in the one hundred and second Psalm that he aforetime had founded the Earth and that the Heavens were the Work of his hands this same is applyed unto Christ as done by him The same Author of that Epistle doth apply unto Christ as his voice which should be obeyed the which in the ninety fifth Psalm is the voice of Jehovah the God of his people That which in the Relation made known to John the LORD Christ doth say is meant of himself that he is the beginning and the end the first and the last the same doth Jehovah speak of himself in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah It is one of Christ's Names in the Book of Jeremiahe Jehovah our Righteousness according unto which doth Paul speak in his former Epistle to the Corinthians that Christ is of God made Righteousness unto those who are his and in his later Epistle to him he saith that they are made the Righteousness of God in Christ This Jehovah is one Jehovah So saith Moses Hear O Israel Jehovah our God Jehovah one The same said Christ in his Gospel Hear O Israel the LORD our God the LORD is one which the Scribe unto whom the LORD Jesus Christ spake that did acknowledge Master thou hast well said in Truth that there is one only God and there is none other but he the which is said by Christ to be an understanding answer Thus speak Jehovah Christ the Almighty the Rock of his people in the Book of Moses See now that I I he and no God with me For who Aelohim besides Jehovah and who a Rock except one God Thus David in the eighteenth Psalm which Rock was Christ as Paul expounds The same speaketh the Prophet Isaiah Thus saith Jehovah the King of Israel and his Redeemer which is also a further proof of the Jehovahship of Christ this Being in the Prophets applyed to the Redeemer the which Redeemer is one of Christ's Names both in the Old and in the New Testament thus saith Jehovah of Hosts I am the first and I am the last and besides me there is not God And again in the same Prophet I Jehovah and none more besides me no God To this well agreeth the Testimony of Paul we know that there is none other God but one To us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we for him and one LORD Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him which in another place the same Apostle doth again witness there is one LORD one God A clear revealing and a distinct opening of this great Mystery doth John set before us in his first Epistle there are three that bear Record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Spirit and these three One are There is none Holy like Jehovah for there is none besides him And there is no Rock like our God so Hanna confessed in her Prayer Thus David when a word was brought to him from Jehovah by Nathan the Prophet about the building of an House to Jehovah by Solomon Thou art great Jehovah God for there is none like thee and there is no God than thou alone And again in that Song of his Deliverances Who is God besides Jehovah and who is a rock except our God Agreeingly with this was that passage in Solomon's Prayer at the Dedication of Jehovah's House Jehovah the God none else This was Naaman's confession when he was cleansed of his Leprosie and spake of Jehovah Israels God I know there is no other God in all the earth Thus Hizkiah in his Prayer to the Faces of Jehovah O Jehovah thou thy self thou alone the God thou Jehovah God alone Nehemiah has the like breathing in his Prayer Thou that Jehovah alone God is one saith Paul in his Epistles to the Galatians Isaiah bringeth in Jehovah himself thus speaking I he he Jehovah before me was no God formed neither shall be after me And again Is there a God besides me I know none And again thus saith Jehovah thy Redeemer I Jehovah alone Again Am not I he the Jehovah and there is no God more besides me and a just God and a Saviour there is none but I. The like in Hoseah I Jehovah thy God from out of Egypt therefore shouldest thou know no God but me alone for there is no Saviour besides me How good is that true Word which Zeehariah hath foretold Jehovah shall be King over the whole Earth in that day Jehovah shall be one and his Name one Who will give us to see that we know and acknowledge this and may cause it to return into our heart that Jehovah he God in the heauens above and the earth beueath and none else O give we to Jehovah the Glory of his Name O that our our hearts were united to fear this Name Jehovah hath said that he will exalt him that doth acknowledge his Name My Soul bless thou Jehovah and all my inward parts this Name of his Holiness The Name of Jehovah is a Tower of Strength the Righteous shall run into it and be set in an high place of safety Great is Jehovah and he will do Great Things for his Great Name sake This Jehovah Christ was appointed by his Father and Anointed by his Spirit to be the one Mediator the only LORD and Lawgiver This now cometh next to be considered he is the Mediator he is the One Mediator he is the LORD he is the only LORD he is the Lawgiver he is the only Lawgiver To all and to every of this he was appointed by his Father and Anointed by his Spirit He is the Mediator A Mediator as Paul doth describe him in his Epistle to the Galatians is a middle one between others one that puts himself betâ—â—een to come between two parties for a Mediator is not of one but he has 〈◊〉 unto two persons or parties that do by the means or Ministery of this middle one treat about somewhat wherein they are both concerned either by way of mutual Messages to know one anothers minds or to be kept in Union and in Love or to be reconciled where the parties are at variance and should be set at one The two parties here under present consideration are Godâ— and Man as Paul writes in his first Epistle to Timothy where he doth affirm this Mediator to be the Man Christ Jesus The Man who was God Man God manifested in the Flesh as he says in the same Epistle That Man who was Gnimmaunâ— elâ— God with us the Almighty or the Potentate or powerful one with us as speaks the Prophet Isaiah He was God who purchased his Church by his own Blood as Paul declared to the Elders of the Church of Ephesus For such a Mediator became us as had the Natures of both those parties in one whole Christ between whom he came
the heaven and the earth the sea and all that is in them and rested the seventh day and hallowed it Thus injoyning both by his own Example and Command the perpetual Observation of that particular Seventh-day in order of Time in its successive course in every weekly revolution as the appointed day for holy Rest That day and that only and no other day of the Week Thou LORD art worthy to receive the Glory and the Honour and the Power For thou hast created all things and through thy Will they are and were created O that those who dwell on the Earth and every Nation and Kindred and Language and People would fear him and give Glory to him for the hour of his Judgement is coming And that they would worship him that made the Heaven and the Earth and the Sea and the Fountains of Waters The Father Son and holy Spirit they are the Creators They the Aelohim who spake Creatures into their Existence and Being of which adored Almighties an account is given in that Historicall Narration which doth contain a Diary or Journal of the first seven days The Father Aelohim It is spoken of him in the forty fifth Psalm Aelohim the Aelohim of Christ anointed his Son by his Spirit which Son also is Aelohim expresly so called in the same Psalm Thy throne O Aelohim ever and perpetual the scepter of thy kingdom is righteonsness The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews sheweth that this was spoken unto the Son of God by his Father And the holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Aelohim and the Spirit Jehovah by Isaiab In the second Book of Samuel this Spirit of Jehovah or this Spirit of Jehovah as Paul elsewhere is also called The Aelohim of Israel It is Aelohim who dwells in his people as in a Temple So saith Moses which Paul applyeth to the holy Spirit These three are the Creating one Thus Solomon the Preacher chargeth young men to remember their Creators in the days of their youth Where Aeloh my Makers those who making me that giveth the Psalms in the night So would Elibu have had Job to say The same hath Eliphaz in the same Book Should a man be more righteous than Aelohim Should a man be purer than his Makers Hence is Tzijon incouraged in the later days not to fear For saith Jehovah by his Prophet Isaiah to her Thy Makers is thy Husbands Thus doth the Psalmist call for an Hallelu-jab or praise ye Jab Sing ye to Jehovah a new Song his praise in the Church of gracious Saints let Israel rejoyce in his Makers in those who making him Let the Sons of Tzijon be glad in their King the whole Creation should joyn in this song of praise for this Reason which is common to the whole World of them for he commanded and they were Created I now propound it to serious examination according to the Word whether much of this glorious Mystery be not included in the first Words of the holy Scriptures Bereashith baraa Aelohim and in that word Jehovah mentioned a little after the short History of the Creation as the Creator and Maker which is to be left to further disquisition For I am inciting and encouraging of Religious Students and of Christian Disciples to deeper researches into the best Learning This Word has in it the signification of an Head so that this is not barely In the Beginning but it doth set out that first capital Beginning of all things In and By Christ the constituted Head of all Inquire whether it should therefore be rendred in the Head-captain or in the Head-captainship or in-by the Captain or the Chieftain or Head-commander or in him who is the Head-Captain or in the appointed Head or Captain the Preposition is properly In. And when it doth point out the immediate principal cause it is in by Let the diligent Inquirer about this collate some other Scriptures that doth relate unto this matter It was in-by Christ that the Father made these hidden ages For this is spoken of the Son of God whose Godhead is strongly proved by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the beginning of it by divers â—itations out of the Old Testament brought into the New It was in by Wisdom that Jehovah did Found the Earth and prepared the Heavens and made All his Great Works All things were created by Jesus Christ which is a great honour put upon our LORD The Father created all things If you ask by whom It was by Jesus Christ All things were made by him Christ was the Head-Captain of all the Host of the Heavens and of the Earth and he is the chief Head of his Body the Church Both these are affirmed of Christ with an eye to this In and By In by him who is the Image of the Invisible God the first-born of every creature were all things created which are in Heaven and which are upon Earth which are Visible and which are Invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions Governments or powers All things were created by him and to him and he is before all things and all things consist together by him and he is the head of the body There is one LORD Jesus Christ by whom are all things He is expresly called Reashith the appointed head of Jehovah's ways before his works from then speaking evidently of the creation As the words themselves in that place of the Proverbs do plainly declare He was anointed to this principate and is again and again called Roash the head Roashith is the name of one of the Types of Christ the First fruits are so called in the Old Testament And so is he in the New the First-fruits of them who sleeping It is not without great reasons and weighty considerations that this first written word should set out Christ as the Head Captain or constituted head or appointed Captain For all skillful Lexicographers agree that the original-propriety and root significancy of this word hath that of an head in it in its true first meaning to which the Scriptures do agree and divers Scriptures do speak of Troops of Bands of Hosts of Companies of Souldiers under an Head-Captain to this Honour and Office was Christ assigned and appointed by his Father which also this word doth remarkably set out If it be a composition of Roash an Head or Captain or Head-Captain and Shith to put or to place in martial order or in Battle-array For thus we may find the word used The LORD Christ doth put his Hosts or Armies into Rank and File in their Order with art and care Proper names are often compounded in the Hebrew wherein that Tongue doth delight though it doth not so easily admit of composition in appellatives The context favoureth the Interpretation with other Scriptures collated For in this History of the Creation we may read of the Hosts of this
which has any sound sooting either in Holy Scripture or in created Nature And yet how long and how far have these mis-countings prevailed Not only amongst Ethnick Philosophers but also amongst professing Christians and do so still unto this day There is a measure of our days and Jehovah is he who must make us for to know what it is There are divers phrases in Scripture note-worthy here As one day and days one a long one of days a day of constituted or of instituted Time a day-morrow or After To fill up the number of ones days Six days of the working days of this Earth yet the day great the day to be hot the day to descend greatly until the inclining or declining of the day until the firm preparing of the day to fill up a seventh of days to number days the strength of the day an Evening of a day the seasonable time of a day in a day the looking forth of this day days turning away or turning the faces or declining towards their end The blowing or breathing forth of that day at break or dawning of it a day of the East the days of Harvest The Spirit or wind or breathing of the day The remitting of a day to or towards the Evening The days of Heavens The days of years Days over or upon an year Also yesterday A day in a day From day unto night From the light until or unto the halfing or dimidiating of the day or the middle division of it into parts These with several other such like would have their use for the determining of divers practical cases That Wo should awaken conscience which is threatned against those who putting darkness to light and light to darkness as those do who make one half of a day from Midnight to Noon half dark and half light at Aequinox and the other half of the day from Noon to the next Midnight that light and that dark Contrary to the established order in the Law of the Creation This is the daily measure of time For we read of Time in the Scriptures Opportune time The Opportune time of the gift of the Evening the Opportune time of the going in of the Sun called the Opportune time of the Evening from the Morning and unto the Opportune time of the set season for instituted worship observe this The Sun knoweth his going in The constituted time of the days The constituted or instituted times of Jehovah a day of convention This daily time is made up of hours as hours are of minutes a minute or minute-time or moment we meet with in the Word one minute a moment in a day one a moment a minute quickly gone into a moment like as a moment like unto much even as a moment As a little of moment a moment little or a finall minute moments minutes of time An indivisible point of time a minute or moment is a very short space of time a moment one every moment That word which signifies a moment is derived from a root which is to cut off on to break asunder because it is one of the least particles and minute parts of time broken off as it were the most minute-fragment of time These minutes and moments do fill up an hour such a number of them And this kind of knowledge an ingenious enquirer doth know now to make some good improvement of is divers cases relating unto these parts of Time O how sweet and satisfactory would it be to understand even these little minute things in a Scripture-way For here we may meet with an hour an hour one That same hour The Chaldee word for an hour comes from an Hebrew root which doth signifie he looked he beheld Because Men in their actions do intend the hour as it passeth away The Teller or Nuntiatrix of Time An ascending Horologue which doth point out the degrees by which the Sun before Noon hath ascended and after Noon doth descend The ascensions of that Sun the goings up the goings in of it The measures of daily Time might in this Scripture-way much heighten there understandings O who will give that we may be Redeemers of Time The Doctrine of weeks is proved from primitive pure created nature in seven days as the Creator made them There were seven distinct days severally created in order of time and no more which being ended another week begins An whole full complete week doth consist of seven days not of six or fewer days not of eight or more days because Aelohim made all in these several distinct days He made no less and he added no more Hence those Scripture phrases of three weeks of days or three sevens of days a feast of weeks or of sevens of days a feast of weeks or of sevens of those weeks or sevens In your weeks or sevens A week or a sevenny A seven-night a seven-morn or Septiman two sevennies or weeks weeks or sevennies a week one the cut off half of the week to fill up a week this to number a seven of sevennies weeks seven and weeks sixty and two weeks seventy To compleat or fill up three weeks of days For Jehovah to keep to us weeks of Statutes of Harvest according to the Hebrew they are weeks of Ordinances relating to the feast of seven weeks or seven Sabbaths A sevenny of years and a seven sevenny of years The beginning day of the week is called one day because till a second day came there was only that one day and the last day of the week is called the seventh day because there is no further day in that week There is a great Remark and a special honour put upon this number of seven in the Scriptures as the number of perfection a complete number The seventh day pointing out the weekly Sabbath The seventh Moon was a peculiar dignified Moon the seventh year was a specially separated Sabbatical year The seven-times seventh year was a singularly honoured year for Jubilee Moons or Months took in these days and weeks Hence we read of a Moon or Month of days two days or a Month or days The Moony-Innovation of days One to the Month or one day a Month that fifth The Son of a Moon or of a Month From the sufficiency or fulness of the Innovated Moon in his Moon Behold an Innovated Moon the morrow The number of our Moons or Months is with Jehovah Aelohim three Innovated Moons or Months He or It shall touch that Moon or Month that seventh When will he pass over this Innovated Moon This an Ascension of an Innovated Moon or his Moon or Month to the Moons of the year The night-part of the day is a part of the Innovated Moon There are twelve Moons or Months these do make up a complete full year The first Moon the head of Moons There is a Moon in the year which has more of a full head for divers Evenings together then
Art because they conclude none can convince them from the received Astronomical suppositions that it is otherwise than they affirm and as they would fairly to the eye represent it in their Artificial Systems and fancied Schemes which are but witty devices of Humane Inventions not the real Natures of Created Being Should I ask for such a Scripture-proof as might directly answer to the truth of these Coelestial Bodies in their proper Nature of their Hypotheses whereby they would salve their cunningly framed Schematical Figures and Appearances It may be I must take a Jear for my information and a Jest for my satisfaction The Extrinsick Faces of those Heavenly Bodies a vulgar eye may behold but what their Created Substance is what their orderly Motion what their peculiar Scituation what their operative Influx what their periodical Revolutions and much more of this Nature in the true causes and real effects of them the most skilful of Ethnick Astronomers are but mere conjecturers about them and can never give us any certainty of knowledge in these matters so that the reputation of their skill is only maintained and upheld by the ignorance and unsearchingness of common understandings of vulgar Judgements who have neither leisure nor studiousness enough to discern the deceitful fictitiousness of such Philosophical Fabricks which have no evincing evidence in them That knowledge which these self flatterers do boast they have attained comes in mostly by the sense of seeing which how fallible must it be if the distance were so great between them and those Coelestial Lights as they boldly assert It appears by Job's reasoning about those matters that he had great knowledge of Natural Things and could speak much about the System of the Universe and the Positure of the World But when Jehovah came to argue with him about those Heavenly Creatures he now humbly acknowledgeth that he was without the knowledge of them by any mere humane disquisition which could never throughly find them out in their proper Existences and Operations no other way could the exact knowledge of this be gotten but by the LORD the Spirit and the Word he rehearsed that which he did not understand wonders above him which he knew not above him not only in place by great distance but also beyond hls natural powers of rationall Intellect to understand clearly or to comprehend fully he is now made willing to be instructed by Jehovah and his Word How quickly doth his Philosophical Astronomy vanish which he himself readily exploded when the LORD ask'd him some few Questions Canst thou bind the pleasantnesses of Cinah or loosen the strings of Cesit Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his time and lead Gnaish over her sons Dost thou know the Ordinances of Heaven or canst thou appoint his Government upon the Earth He points out and nameth some of the Coelestial Luminaries and Starry Lights to Job and quickly silenceth him who now lays his hand upon his mouth and will not answer such uncertainty and mistaking was there in his Optick Art where so vast a space intervened between his own eye and those Heavenly Objects whose Matter Motion and Influx he was so much now at a loss about though Jehovah Aelohim hath made use of this confutation of Job to instruct and to wise us in those Mysterious Secrets of Created Nature in the Coelestial Bodies Ptolemy and Copernicus had quite different Schemes and accordingly they frame quite different Theories and Suppositions and yet both of them have undertaken from the ordinary view and open face of the Heavenly bodies to satisfie their Scholars concerning the same Phaenomena and the same calculations upon quite different Astronomical principles and the Disciples of both these may find out enough whereby to confute the errours and to demonstrate the falsness of their several Hypotheses but can never convince others or perswade themselves upon any solid grounds that they are in the right Let the seigned Schemes and imaginary positures of vain Philosophers therefore be laid aside which are but their own fancied placits finely framed to their pleasing models and let us for the raising and advancing of this useful Science search after true subsistencies of concreated Nature in Scripture verity Which of these Philosophers can fatisfactorily inform us what kind of bodies the coelestial Luminaries are whether they be created Angels or not voluntary movers fice Agents or not Let the vertuous and generous and ingenious inquire As also whether the Angels were created on the fourth day Which of them can tell me whether the primitive light do differ from the shining of those Luminaries or not But instead of propounding more such questions to them I shall treat of some great particulars about these Heavenly bodies According to the Scriptures Contrary to vain deceitful foolish Philosophy The substance of the coelestial Luminaries or Lightners were not made on the first day of the created World as if the first scattered light were gathered together into these lightsome bodies on the Fourth day But the Sun Moon and Stars are different creatures of several Formation on a distinct day As the History doth expresly mention in the letter of it These Luminaries are in their created Nature separating dividers between the Light and the Darkness and so are distinct beings from the Light as well as from the Darkness neither are they of an Elementarily-aethereal Classis but have a separate distinct existence from the Heavens from the expanded They are not like studs fixed in solid Spheres externally moved by Intelligences or Angels They are not Deities as the Heathenish Worshippers by their gross Idolatry would make them They are not fluid Orbs circularly perpetually moving but they sometimes come out and at other times they go in according to their Creator's appointment for designed ends They do not move round about an Earthly Center nor about an Axis of the World I have shewn before that the middle of this Earth is not the common center of this visible World They are not of Magnetical Verticity which must be only Polar and if this were would reduce them to their Polar rest which then also would contradict a pretended perpetual motion They are not carried about by the imaginary Rapture of a first mover as if they had a second moveable of Renitency contrary to the Rapture of the supposed first moveable Magicians Judiciary Astrologers and Genethliacks who do undertake by inspection of Stars to foretell future things the Fate of men imposing a necessity upon Mens Wills and declaring events and telling fortunes as they Ethnickly call it have no firm footing in holy Scripture or created Nature It is a great wrong done unto these creatures and unto their Creator when such conjecturers pretend to prophesie by the Stars and especially by Comets the Fates and Fortunes in their Paganish Language of men even their very imaginations affections and inclinations and which is yet more the counsels and intentions of the
Knowledges and personal reflexions be laid aside The Creatures were of several kinds and being Heterogeneous one from another they must consequently all of them be also Heterogeneous from the pretended pure primary Matter For this Matter being supposed by the Asserters of it to be one Homogeneous Substance in it self can never produce so many Heterogeneous Substances If the very Matter of Creatures were one and the same substantial principle in all Creatures and not different how could it produce contrary Entities and Activities and exercise contrary Operations The Word of Truth doth expresly confirm that the things which we see were not made of such things as do appear And we have need and use of special Faith to believe and to improve this aright As that the Heavens and the Earth were not this first general confused matter out of which after Creatures were made the Expanse was not made of the more refined part of this the Herbs Plants and Trees were not made out of the Earthy Matter the Luminaries were not made of the former Light Fishes Fowls Beasts Worms were not made of the Waters or Earth the first Adams Male and Female were not made of former Earth These were after Generations and Productions in the ordinary way yet of the same kind and it is a new Prooem beginning a new Narration Aelohim did not need as men do Stuff or matter to work upon not Tools or other Instruments neither used he the aid or help of any assistant It is by Faith that we come to have right apprehensions of this it is not wrought and attained by the strength of our natural reason but it doth shine in upon the mind from that credibility which is in and from that credence which is given to the Word of God and from the holy Spirits perswading of the heart that this word is the Truth Thus were all manner of Creatures fully and perfectly finished without any want defect or imperfection in them so far as concerned that state and condition the Creator made them in The Author or Efficient was Jehovah Aelohim the means of creating them was by the word of his Power whereby he manifested his Mind and Will Though all these were created and made yet not out of any thing that did or could appear there was no pre-existent matter whereof they were made The Essences and formalities of all Vegetative and Sensitive Natures are not only matter and motion Aelohim gave primitive Natures and different Beings to his several Creatures Universal Nature is both an empty name and an atheistical conceit If only matter were created in the first instance of Time as is pretended and pleaded how could this Matter diversifie it self in the Beginning into Heaven and Earth For local Motion being from one place to another which are several distant Terms must necessarily be in several instants of Time if several Local Motions were the Formalities or formal beginnings of all Spirits and spiritual Qualities then they should not be before nor after nor any longer than that Local Motion doth continue For the Formality of any thing is the very Specifick Being thereof and nothing can be without the Specifical Being of its self otherwise it should not be what it is or be what it is not It was the Spirit of Aelohim and not the first Matter that moved more especially upon the waters Created Beings may and actually do exist without any actual Local Motion and therefore they must necessarily really be different from it The Beginning of all things was not Water as one Ethnick Philosopher mis judged neither was infinite Air the first cause or original of every existence as another affirmed neither was this pretended Catholick Air God as a third esteemed neither did all things take their beginning from Fire and Light as a fourth would have it nor as another says that there is one Universal Fire in and over all things in this World neither is the beginning of all things the substance of the Fire by the Air converted into Water as was the opinion of one neither are there such Radical Principles of all things whereof two are Agents and two Patients as he asserts the Elements which was the imagination of another Creating AElohim was before any created Beings He alone was the Creator All things were made essentially solely immediately by him there was no help of secondary causes They had their Original and Being from him and they have still their dependence upon him and therefore is AElohim in this short yet complete History of the Creation expresly named above thirty times in the seven days of this one Week No mere Creature has Power of Creating It is the sole Prerogative of Jehovah AEtohim If created Beings and their substantial Spirits and all their spiritual Activities and Operations were only various Motions of the Matter or only Matter moving variously then Local Motion one way or other or any way whatsoever should be not only an instrumental causality or effect of these Bodies and their Qualities but also the very Essence and Formality as hath been said or formal cause of them Whereas all created Beings are formal every one of them such as they were severally created in their different kinds and as they are naturally distinguished from other Creatures in themselves in their own proper Being The Creatures may and several of them do exist and they are such as they are created without any actual Motion being more for rest As the blew expanse and the Earth Tâ—hu and Bohu were not Matter and Form The Jews and the Christians have learn'd this wrong conceit in the Schools of Ethnick Philosophers and then afterwards laboured to defend it by this place of Scripture I have on the work of the one day shewn the meaning of those words and things The four Elements as some name them called the simple Bodies were not fetch'd one contrary out of another as out of former Matter as neither Light out of Darkness nor the Firmament out of Emptiness nor dry Earth out of Waters Neither were the compound Bodies out of the same Elements nor for the most part of all four unequally mingled together Not every one principally out of the same Element which they garnish or inhabit As not Herbs and Trees out of the Earth Not the Sun Moon and Stars wholly or specially out of the Expanse Not Fishes out of the Waters not Birds out of the Air not Beasts out of the Earth all and every of the created Beings are of distinct Natures and of several kinds We must put a difference between the first Creation and the after propagation Those four great Bodies Aether Air Earth and Water are still locally and essentially separate one from another and do exist Pure They each of them have their proper Bodies of Matter their peculiar subsistences pure and unmix'd in the beginning of the Creation The several Creatures were created an Whole
at once and in a moment but there were distinct several days of their being created which Order should not be confounded but well observed as one good help to profitable Meditation on Aelohim's Works Particularly the sixth day must not be forgoten as the day of Man's creation and as preparatory to his remembring and sanctifying of the seventh day as the weekly sabbath-Sabbath-day There was a separate Creation of things on several days that man might with more stayedness of Spirit and prosperingness of Soul consider of them distinctly And now Jehovah Aelohim declares that this shall be the absolute perfecting in the whole and in every part of them of those Heavens and of this Earth and of all the congregated Military Host of them in their Order Place and Function Thus do all the Creatures both in the Heavens and in the Earth stand as an Army in Order or an Host in Battle array ready to serve their Makers their Creators who is their Commander in chief he is the LORD of Hosts and the Empire over them is his They go forth or come in at the word of their Head-Captain Jehovah Christ as he will arm and commission them for his Friends or against his Enemies In the order of my pursuit after the refining and raising of useful Arts and profitable Knowledges I am now led to that day the seventh which is the last Day in the first created Week which first Week is the just standing measure of all after Weeks in their successive courses by the established Law of the Creation on which seventh Day Aelohim the Creator himself did Sabbatize on this Day he rested to contemplate his own Works For having now framed and disposed the glorious Fabrick and the goodly Structure of the whole Universe and having put it into its beautious oeconomy and regular Government he closeth the whole of his Work with a Day Blessed above all the other foregoing Days of the Week The Great Design of this Treatise being the Advancement and Augment of useful Arts and of profitable Sciences in a Scripture-way I shall propound some serious Inquiries to ingenious studious Believers to ingenuous diligent Saints Especially to such faithful humble Ones as have through Mercy and Grace attained to larger growing measures of holy Skill in the Original Languages and of excelling eminence in Inner Religion about the improvement of Experimental Christianity Inquiries concerning Jehovah Aelohim in Father Son and Holy Spirt Q. WHat is the true proper significancy of this great and glorious Name Jehovah And whether ought it not to be used And what is there in those Prophesies and Promises that do speak of the freer acknowledgement of this Name in the later days And how may a discerning Believer improve this Name as for many other holy uses and ends so particularly to make his presence more real and sensible for continuedness to the Believer Q. What is the true import of all the other Names of God in the Scriptures particularly of Aelohim And how may those be particularly improved Q. What are some of the most clear Testimonies and convincing proofs of the Doctrine of Father Son and holy Spirit and the Old Testament which is so fully and frequently taught in the New Q. What are the visional appearances and manifestations of Jehovah Aelohim in Father Son and holy Spirit in Heaven And how may these be improved by a Believer Q. Whether may the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit be distinctly prayed unto And if so how should a Believer suitably make his application to each of them distinctly and to all of them joyntly Q. What are the several Offices of the Father as Father of the Son as Son of the holy Spirit as holy Spirit with relation to the Covenant-people of Jehovah Aelohim and whether is a Believers Union and Communion to and with the Father and the holy Spirit as well as to and with the Son and how is this and which way may it be better improved Q. VVhat is the holy Spirits indwelling in a Believer and what are the Believers Dwelling in God and how are these more improveable Concerning the LORD Jesus Christ Jehovah-man the Mediator Q. WHen was it that Christ did first pass into his Mediatoral Office and after what manner was it and of what good use is it to find out and improve this Q. How may a Believer so injoy Christ's Jehovah-presence here on Earth as withal at the same time to injoy his Man-presence above in Heaven Q. Whether may a Believer actually resort in his spirit unto Christ's humane glorified Nature in any certain definite circumscribed local Place in the highest Heavens Q. How is the humane glorified Nature of Christ a fitted Instrument when quickned by the Power and Life of the Eternal Spirit for the actual conveyance of all suitable good to Believers according as their cases and capacities are And how may Believers apply what is in Christ's Spirit Soul and Body to their own spirit soul and body for proper supplies Q. How may a Believer so walk with God in Christ here as if Christ were visibly corporally present on Earth with the Believer and how may a Believer clear up and improve a mutual in-being in-living in-dwelling and in-abiding between Christ and him Q. How is a Believers Life hid with Christ in God and how may the Believer injoy and improve this for his natural spiritual and eternal Life Q. What are all Christ's Names as Mediator in the Old Testament as well as in the New And how may this be improved Q. How was Christ the first born of every Creature or of the whole Creation and the beginning of the Creation of God Q. What is there improveable by a Believer in the order and connexion of those four things when Christ is of God made to a Believer Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption Q. Whether this be not one great truth of the present Age that Jesus Christ is the one and the only LORD and Lawgiver over and to the Spirits Souls and Bodies of his people Q. Whether are not these amongst others some of Christ's Royal Prerogatives by his Mediatoral Authority to grant and to pass acts of Grace to seal and to deliver particular Pardons to speak Peace and to give Comfort and how may this be practically improved Concerning the Word of God the Word of Christ. Q. VVHere is the true Authograph or the Divine own first Writings of the Original Scriptures and where is the exact Apographs or transcribed Copies of this And what Scriptures are there that do foretel and promise the restoring of this wholly uncorrupted And whether were not this a noble Work well becoming the greatest holiest Prince to search out this that he may write him out a complete Copy of its Law Q. In what Language was the New Testament originally spoken and written Q. How may the Original Scripture-Language be made the Universal Character all the inhabited Earth
in Shops he was to be skilled in the Military-art for the charge was given to Aaron the high Priest as well as unto Moses the Superiour Magistrate to number with careful inspection according to the Hosts of the several Tribes of Israel to muster the Army and to give orders for their Incamping and Marching according to their Ranks and Bodies who were to be in the Van and who in the Reer and so for the disposal of the Battel and the manner of fighting and the giving of the exhortation to encourage the Soldiers he was to be a spiritual Nightingal for modulation an expert Musician both for Voice and for Instruments a Singer a Trumpeter a Corneter an Harper a Violist a Lutenist an Organist a Cymbalist a Psalterist he was to approve himself an Artist in Architecture to see workmanships appointed to be framed exactly according to the platform'd Ideas and work-patterns of the Tabernacle and Temple were there need more might be added How learned an Artist in conference and in arguing should a Minister of Christ be by Scripture-arguments to stop the mouths of Philosophical gainsayers sometimes deceptory affectation of Humane Wisdom doth bewray it self in opponents by being carried beyond due limits when it would be judging of such cases and things according to the ordinary course of Nature and the power of a finite Agent which are to be determined and resolved by such Principles of Theologie and of Christianity as are far above and beyond those as if the question be Whether this World were from Eternity or Whether created in time Empty and fallacious Philosophy will affirm That this World was not created in time but that it was from Eternity deceiving and being deceived by this colour and shew of carnal Reason that out of nothing can nothing be made thus it doth mis-judge because the contrary affirmation is besides the common Agency and the usual efficacy of Natural Causes but the holy Scriptures do otherwise declare rightly informing us that all these things were spoken and made into a Being which had no existence before by the Omnipotency of Jehovah the Being of beings that All-glorious Self-being only by his own powerful Word So as the things we see were not made of things that do appear Faith acted aright doth take in this discovery By the word of Jehovah or in him who is the Word Jehovah the LORD Jesus Christ the heavens were made and by the breath of his mouth or in the Spirit of him who is the Fathers mouth to his people all the host of them he commanded and they were created Aelohim saith There shall be light and there was is and will be light who was it that did help the Spirit of Jehovah or the Spirit Jehovah or as a man of his Counsel gave him knowledge silly weak Creatures cannot work without some stuff and materials they must have their tools and other instruments to further what they are about to do and to form but the Almighty One doth not need any such foregoing matter or assisting help it is not impossible that that should be which before was not though the Believer only can rightly understand this here Humane Reason must stoop and Carnal Imagination must submit to Word wisdom and to Scripture-learning which has this mysterious secret treasured up in it the meanest proficient in Christ's School has more discerning in this than the learnedest Teachers and wisest Professors in such corrupt Philosophy If the question be Whether three Persons can be one in Essence who yet are each of them distinct Subsistences in themselves and Whether one in being can be three distinct several persons humane wisdom and the vain affecters of it will return this answer That a person is a living-understanding-nature subsisting by it self a prime or singular individual subsistence which is neither said of any subject neither is in any subject and therefore some of these Philosophets have affirmed that there are multitudes of Gods Whereas the Scriptures of Truth will inform us concerning this great Mystery that there is but one God for there can be but one only Being infinite eternal unchangeable perfection it self one only to exist of himself and by himself who gives existence unto all other things these undoubted Oracles of holy Scriptures will tell us that Jehovah the adored Almightiness of his people in Father Son and holy Spirit is one Jehovah he says of himself See now that I am be and there is no God with me Who saith the Psalmist is God besides Jehovah as long as it can be said as yet ever as yet so long Jehovah and he alone and no other but himself is such We know that there is no other God but one for albeit there be that are called Gods both in Heaven and upon Earth as there be in the vain wrong conceits of men who do seign such Idol gods and as some Creatures in some cases have somewhat of this honorary Title ascribed to them so far as by their Office and Call they do or shall represent the true God There is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we for him and one LORD Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him but in all in every one this knowledge is not it is specially revealed in the Word to and in such Believers and it is one of the greatest mysterious Truths of the Christian Doctrine There is one LORD one Faith one God and Father of all He that sets up many Gods doth withal set up many Faiths for every God would be calling for peculiar Faith to be given to him and every one would be severally believing in his several God In this most simple Essence and single Being there are three truly subsisting whereof every one is another from the other There are that do witness in heaven and they are three the Father the Word and the holy Spirit and these three are one If it be queried Whether one and the same person can be two distinct Natures of different kinds and Whether two such Natures can be in one Person Empty cheating Philosophy will wrongfully state this question and mis-resolve it thus That those things which are of disparate kinds cannot be predicated of one another nor united in the same suppositum whereas true pure Religion in the written Word doth give us to know that two distinct Natures as the Deity or Godhead and the Humanity or Mankind may be both of them united into one Christ In this wonderful one were both these inseparably knit together and yet they each one remain distinct from the other having several Natures Properties and Operations both making up one LORD Jesus Christ This word was made flesh this God hath been manifested in the flesh to the Godhead Christ took the seed of Abraham for so was he born according to the flesh as to his Humane Nature
all created Beings whose demonstrations are either from the Creator to the knowledge of the Creatures or from the Creatures to the knowledge of the Creator Solomon was one of the wisest of men the LORD gave it to him so to be and he spake and wrote much about Natural Things concerning the Works of the several Days particularly Scripture-Physicks he was excelling in the knowledge of Grass of Herbs of Trees of Beasts of Fowls of Fishes of Creeping Things of contemplating of the Natural Body of the Heavens of the Earth of the Seas and of the Abyss out of his Writings much might be discovered of the nature of these in his Books of the Proverbs of Ecclesiastes and of his Song of Songs incomparably beyond what can be found in all the large Libraries of Ethnick Philosophers or any other Naturalists amongst such of the Christians as have received their apprâ—hensions about these things out of those Pagan Rationalists who yet are great stâ—â—ngers unto that which is the right Reason and the true Nature of these â—â—ings and so will they also be who follow them without a Scripture-guide He that will ask what lawful necessary useful Art and Science can be named of which there is not that to be found in the Scriptures of Truth which if thrâ—â—â—â—ly understood and collected and then applyed and improved in fitting in to 〈◊〉 very Essence and Operations of created Beings would bring a very considerable addition to sound profitable knowledge and whoever would undertake to return somewhat to satisfaction by way of answer in a multitude of particular instances Theoretick and Practick such as Grammar Logick Rhetorick Mnemonick Physicks Metaphysicks Mathematicks Arithmetick Geometry Cosmography Opticks Musick Astronomy Geography Geodeticks Staticks Nauticks Architecture Schematicks Ethicks Economicks Politicks History Poesie Ecclesiasticks Scholasticks Chronologie Chirography Law Theology Christianity Medicine in all the Botanick Anatomick Pharmaceutick and Chirurgick parts of it together with all the Mechanicks which are more than I can reckon up may easily and quickly foresee even by such an enumeration as this is that such an universal comprehensive of all Liberal Sciences afterwards distinctly parcelled out into the several knowledges professed and practised would both take up too much of his time and over-bulk any one Treatise and is much beyond the skill and the strength of any one mere man One of our own has lately asserted a deficiency in the Scriptures as to these matters and doth send us elsewhere for a Supplement mentioning several Arts and Sciences as no where to be found in Scripture I shall single out two of them which are of his own chusing and naming and then try them according to the Word whether much of their Art be not to be found out in the Scripture with a little search which when compared with and experimented by the natural efficiency of their innate and educed Existencies and Workings would bring in an augment to their Science thought it be not my intendment or undertaking to draw up Systems and Schemes of the several particular knowledges but to quicken up the studious and ingenious to promote these Scientificks more by putting that together which the Scriptures do afford relating to each of them and then to work upon their discovery by practical improvement and experimental observation This Learned man declared his judgement to be that the Scripture is no perfect Rule for a Musician a Carpenter a Physician a Mathematician an Astronomer a Geographer an Arithmetician a Grammarian a Logician a Natural Philosopher c. to do their Work Because saith he it is not a particular Rule for them in Arts and Sciences the things whereof are not to be found in the Scripture at all neither doth he assert the Scriptures an imperfect Rule only for these and such like as these but also for Divines and for Worshippers as if the Scripture did not tell the Divine sufficiently and particularly divers things relating to his office and the discharge of it and as if the worshipper were not to expect there particular Laws or Rules for all the circumstances of worship Thus and to this purpose he If it be not a perfect particular Rule for these two last mentioned the Divine and the Worshipper for what Artists and Scientiaries is it a perfect particular Rule For these affirmations do charge the Scripture with being an imperfect Rule as to particular Laws and Rules not only as to Natural Things but also as to Spiritual it should be considered by such who are of this perswasion whether they do not hereby lift up Church-History and Humane Authority in the matters of Faith to the debasing and denying of Scriputre-perfection and also corrupt modes and forms of Worship such as are of Humane Invention Institution and Imposition exclusive of other ways of Worship where these are not asserted and consented to both which the whole Scripture doth condemn At this present it being suited to the subject I have in hand about the advancement of useful Arts and Sciences by making a more through disquisition after them in the Word of Truth I shall cull out two of these Artists who my self am of neither of their Arts nor do I pretend to have Scientificies in them which may so far prove and praise this design the more that one whose Calling and Function whose Office and Profession is not to be either Musician or Carpenter yet in the supply of the holy Spirit by a little short study of the Scriptures in the midst of a multitude of other employments can discover so much in Christ's Word about Musick and Carpentry wherem I am to shew that these are found in the Scripture both as to name and thing and that there is a Rule in the Scripture for these things and that God hath made the Scripture to be a Rule for them and that in the Scripture there are not only general Rules but also particular Rules of those Arts and Sciences which done I shall propound some inquiries about Geography and Grammar Some of the other Arts that are mentioned I may have occasion to treat somewhat of upon the particular Works of the particular Days of the first Week of the created World As for Musick the skilful therein will bear with me if I do not in some of my expressions so fully harmonize with their Terms of Art as they have learned and received them I expect they should approve and forward the design which would raise their Ear-taking and their Heart-affecting-knowledge in this to more Sweetness and Savouriness more Exactness and Spiritualness more Naturalness and Scripturalness as relating to instituted Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs which are heavenly parts of Spiritual Worship more especially with respect to the voice not at all to countenance the common abuse of this Art when it is suited to carnal lustful hearts in amorous wanton ditties or to other profane corrupt ends whatsoever which has been in woful sinful experience a ruining
forth the more in growing measures of glorious Holiness O what a day will that be when the New Heavens and the New Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness shall be created for Christ's followers to see and to enjoy him in when the chosen among mankind shall be fully perfect in Vision and in Knowledge in Grace and in Glory in Holiness and in Happiness By this discovery I would remove that occasion of stumbling which some do lay as a stone of offence before them to stop and to hinder themselves in this further grand inquiry about the proficiency of Learning as if this would degenerate Christians into Pagans and Believers into Naturalists and send them from Christ to Creatures to the debasing of the true pure Religion whereas it would call off men from ignorant Paganism to a knowing Christianity and advance all profitable Learning into a spiritualized usefulness and work up the Scholars in Christ's School to a more refined heavenly raisedness both in Principle and in practice The Holy Scriptures in speaking of the Works of Creation and of Natural Things do speak of them as they really are and not as they seemingly only appear according to exactness of Truth as the Nature and Essence of them are and not according to the wrong conceits and ignorant mistakes of vulgar Minds and common Opinionists IEhovah Aelohim has put the Essence and the real Nature of created Beings into the aptest and most expressive words in their full and proper significancy and Adam gave the fittest names to the Beasts of the Field and to all the Fowls of the Air according to their quality and condition which was an evident discovery of his great Wisdom and what is a Word but such a Note whereby every thing is distinctly known both in it self and also wherein it doth differ from other things The Holy Scriptures do often from the Works of Creation and from Natural Things prove what they do affirm unto the outward senses confirming the Faith and incouraging the hope of Saints in Christ and in his Word and in his Covenant of Grace in this Word by these senses and confuting their incredulity and distrust from hence now what confirmation of the one or confutation of the other could this be if those means of probation were not real and sensible and self-evidencing in those Brings themselves which every man that has the right Exercise of his Reason and the due use of his Senses must acknowledge to be so as is said the Faith of the LORD's Covenant people grows confident concerning revealed Truths in what they do not see by those things which they do see and discern with their Senses Many a choice discovery about several of the Works of Creation have been revealed to some Spiritual Discerners in their private Studies under an imprisoned state by the holy Spirit from Christ's true Word before they ever made search after them by the use of their outer Senses into the nature of those Created Beings before they had any ocular Demonstration of them or made any visible Observations upon them which afterwards by comparing of these Creatures with those Scriptures they have found in experience exactly to agree so as no mere Humane Author no Pagan Philosopher either has discovered or can discern Of what Nature soever those things are which God hath revealed in his Word unto reasonable Creatures the same are they bound to believe them to be as he has there made them known unto such For they are thereby become a part of the complete Object of Faith so that we are not only to believe the Declarations of the Doctrines of the Christian Religion in those great Mysteries of Three in One of God manifested in the Flesh with such like and also the Prophesies to come in after-ages with a great deal more concerning Duties Graces Priviledges c. but also that grand History of matters of Fact past and gone such as the written Journal of Created Beings in the beginning of the Bible and all the after-discourses of Natural Things as they are contained in the Scriptures of Truth Created Nature is the copyed Transcript of Holy Scriptures What a bold daring attempt then is it for vain man to be such an Interpreter of the words of his Creator concerning the great Works which he has done and the Beings which he has formed as not to admit of the plain sense of those Scripture-words and expressions the original Letter and the proper significancy whereof he will not deny or contradict For there is great verity in and real answerableness between these words and those things The literal sense of the Word of Christ where it speaks positively of the Works of Creation of Natural things is not to be gone off from if an Allegorical or Mysterial sense be any where as to this pleaded for it must be proved that there is an evident necessity thereof in the same place either by the words and meaning of themselves or by the Context or else by comparing of it with other Scriptures where it can be evidenced by such expressions significations contexts or collations that any passages in or relating to the History of the Creation are symbolical signifying some other Mystery yet even there if that were admitted first of all must the sense of the Letter simply and the truth of the History in the plain meaning of the Narrative-Record be firmly established Translators should keep close to the proper meaning of the Original words otherwise they do expound the sense as they apprehend in Syntax and are not regular Etymologists to explain the significancy and to maintain the property of every word Scripture-words are to be turned into other Languages not as men suppose they mean in trope but as they naturally signifie in Truth The usefulness of a literal version in order to the advancement of Learning is very well worthy to be treated of in its place The Scriptures are not accomdated to vulgar received Errours or mere imaginary conceits or vain false appearances but they speak of things as the things themselves really are Is not the LORD Christ Truth it self how tremblingly afraid then should sorry man be of making him a lyar by speaking one thing and meaning a quite contrary There is no transmutation in him nor obumbration of turning no variation nor casting of shadows by his turning it is Blasphemy to charge him as a Teacher of Error He has given this testimony by his own Words to his own Works when he had taken a diligent survey of them that what he had made was every part and the whole of it when set in its beauteous frame Good so as he had expressed it to be Can infinite Wisdom and truthfulness mistake in his expressions would he who is so abundant in Goodness and in Truth tell his people otherwise than the real History is Christ's Words do all along speak of these matters affirmingly assertingly they speak of his Works
fire out of the midst of a Bramble-bush which Angel of Jehovah was Jehovah God the same who spake the living Words at Sinai which he writ by the Finger of God and delivered them unto Moses to give unto the people as Stephen doth apply it in that defence which he made for himself against the Council The same Angel of Jehovah's Presence spoken of in Isaiah which Angel was Christ sent to be a Mediator between God and Man of whom Moses wrote long before who was Jehovah who led the Israelites by day in a cloudy Pillar and in the night by a fiery Pillar to light them in the way wherein they should walk who came down upon Mount Sinai and spake with them from Heaven and gave them Righteous Judgements and Laws of Truth good Statutes and Commandments and who made known unto them his holy Sabbath and he commanded them Precepts and Statutes and a Law by the hand of his Servant Moses as Nehemiah had declared This also is held forth by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews who shews that it was the Voice of Christ which moved the Earth when he gave the Law at Sinai he who came down from Heaven as Christ himself speaks of himself in what John writes of him relating to some passages in the Wilderness He who is the LORD from Heaven He who is the Hammedabber in Daniel the speaking one which Speaker the Hebrews were exhorted to take heed they did not reject That which the Author of that Epistle doth refer unto in the Prophet Haggai about moving not only the Earth but also Heaven is further note-worthy in what goes immediately before and doth bring it in yet now be strong thou Zerubbabel saith Jehovah thus doth the Father incourage to the building again of the Temple and be strong thou Jehoshuah Son of Josadak high Priest and be strong all the people in the Land saith Jehovah and work for I am with you saith Jehovah of Hosts with my Word this is one of Christ names in whom I made a Covenant with you when you came out of Egypt and my Spirit that abideth among you For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts once again a little it shall be and I shall cause the Heavens and the Earth and the Sea and dry Land to shake The Father made a Covenant with that people in Christ the Angel of the Covenant Christ was there when they covenanted with him in the Wilderness and his holy Spirit was there It was for his words sake for his Christs sake that this favour was shewn him as also other Scriptures compared do manifest Moses wrote of Christ who had Testimony from the Law Moses and the Law did bear witness of Christ and brought in Articles of charge which accused those Jews that did refuse the Messias when Christ was transfigured Moses appeared together with Christ in Glory CHrist is the only Law-giver the Apostle James doth manifest this fully saying There is one Law-giver who is able to save and to destroy he is the only One. To speak according to the Scripture his Law is a Kingly Law This is one of the chief blessings and one of the chief priviledges of his Covenant people This Jehovah is their Statute-maker as saith the Prophet Isaiah This Jehovah is their King he their Saviour he will deliver and preserve them He is made unto all those who obey him the efficient cause of eternal Salvation It is he who prescribes Laws and who constitutes the Rule of Life The Greatest and the Highest of earthly Princes is a Subject to this King of kings and LORD of Lords When this Supreme Governour had proclaimed his ten Words or Commandments he gave them unto Moses who was King in Joshurun that he might bring them to the people and might see the Judicial Laws duly executed when any were fount to be transgressors of the ten Words The Magistrate is to take care that both the Tables of this Law be well kept The King who was set over the people of Jehovah Christ was the write for himself the Copy of this Law in a Book and it was to be with him and he was to read therein all the days of his life that he might learn to fear Jehovah his God to keep all the Words of this Law and these Statutes to do them that his heart be not lifted above his brethren and that he turn not aside from the Commandment to the right hand or to the left to the end he may prolong his days in his Kingdom he and his Sons This was the charge which Jehovah Aelohim gave to Joshuah the Commander and Leader of his people The Book of this Law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou mayst observe to do all that is written in it for then shalt thou make thy way prosperous and then shalt thou deal understandingly Have not I commanded it thee be strong and couragious Moses as holy as he was as highly favoured as he was and as wise a Governour as he was yet had nothing left to his prudential determining but as he was told and shewn in the Mountain so must he declare what those Laws and Judgements were which to observe He must keep exactly to the prescribed Pattern And it is recorded to his commendation that he did so causing all things to be done as Jehovah commanded him Thus King David received Commandments by the Spirit by the hand of Jehovah in a written Word and to this Rule must King Solomon keep And so should the Superiour Powers to all Generations We are not to attend to advert or to give our minds to such commandments of men as do turn away Truth or as do turn away from the Truth Thus wrote Paul to Titus O what Laws Statutes and Judgements are so holy just and good as those which Jehovah Christ hath given would it not be the wisdom and the understanding of Nations to walk according to these How daring is the attempt for any man or men to think to change these Laws why do the Heathens tumultuously rage and the peoples meditate vanity The Kings of the Earth set themselves and the Princes do plot together against Jehovah and against his Christ Let us break the bands of the Father and of the Son and cast their cords from us This is the rebellious Language of such a would cast off all sign of subjection O who will give that Kings were prudent that the Judges of the Earth were nurtured To serve this Jehovah with fear and to be glad with trembling To kiss the Son lest he be angry and they perish in the way when his anger shall burn suddenly O the happy straight progress of all that hope for safety in him To all and to every of this that has been forementioned Christ was appointed by his Father and anointed by his Spirit The Father
Catholick admittance no man can give an account but with respect to some impressions on the minds of men from the Constitution and Law of our Natures with the Tradition of a Sabbatical Rest instituted from the Foundation of the World A Week is spoken of as a known account of Days in Time Thus they acknowledge As also that those of the Philosophers who resolved their Observations into things Natural or Physical do esteem the Septenary Number Sacred A Septenary Revolution of Days unto which they found a respect in all their Notions and Speculations about the Pleiades and Triones in Heaven Lunar changes sounds of Instruments variations in the age of Man critical Days in bodily Distempers and transactions of Affairs private and publick I so far make use of this as to shew that if such Authors would but improve their own convictions and concessions they might be spirited and sublimated into an asserting of something of Honour inseparable from the Natural Being of the Seventh-day The order of which Day is not to be disturbed Another of them acknowledgeth that there have been some difference and variation in the account of Years and Months with people yet never was the Week counted to be more or less than seven Days with any people In all Ages among all Nations the Seventh-day has been venerable and sacred I might put more of such Testimonies together were there need But it is the Authority of holy Scripture and of created Nature that sways with me It is observable in prophetical Scripture by Daniel that the Weeks are there said to be cut off as the words do properly signifie The Verb of the singular Number being put to a word of the plural Number doth evidently shew that every one of the Weeks from the first to the last shall be precisely and absolutely complete It was a precise cutting off The first Week of the created World was the fittest time for the giving forth of the Law of the Seventh-day-Sabbath because the ground of the Institution of this weekly Sabbath was Aelohims manifesting by his Words and Works that in that same Week he perfected both the working Days and the resting Day he rested upon the self same Seventh-day when the memory of his great and glorious Works was so new and fresh So agreeable is this to created Nature in the Exercise of right Reason especially when enlightned by Scripture-Revelation within the compass of one and the â— same Week reckoning still forward according to Created Order it is impossible to find out any proper Seventh-day but only the last Day of the Week This boundary of the Week being unremoveable and commanded to be kept Holy And this Doctrine of the Weeks is every where preserved in the several Languages which have words for a Week Because it is that discovery which is of use and is not every where to be met withal by a common Reader and it having some tendency towards the clearing up of some subject matters in this Treatise and towards the perfection of a Reformation which is also much of my design let not the ingenuous Reader think it too long a diversion if I here detect somewhat of the idolatry and superstition which is still to this day continued in this Nation and in other Countries by publick and private retaining and using of the Heathenish names of Days as Sanday Monday c. as also of Months such as January February c. so that he that shall speak in the present Age according to Scripture though in his own and their Mother Tongue yet is scarcely understood by the most and what is shameful and lamentable by multitudes of a professing Ministery and people Whereas hath not Jehovah Aelohim strictly charged his people that in all that which he hath said unto them they shall be wary and the name of other gods they shall not mention it shall not be heard out of their Mouth O take we heed unto our selves that we do not transgress in this matter Hath he not foretold that he will take away the Names of Baalim out of the mouths of his Servants that he will cut off the names of the Idols out of the Land Did not God's Israel of Old when and whilst their hearts were right with him practice accordingly changing of the old idolatrous places and putting new names upon them Did not zealous Joshuah take order about his our LORD Jesus Christ after whom his Disciples must walk would not take up the names of after-Idol gods upon his lips Examine we now somewhat of the Original and occasion of the Pagan names of Days and of Months As for Days the beginning Day of the Week they call Sunday The Germans when they were Pagans Verstegan saith consecrated the first Day of the Week to the Sun as Prince of Planets whose Image they placed on a Pillar in the Temple fashioned like a man half naked his face as it were bright red with gleams of Fire and holding with his Arms bowing Archwise a burning wheel before his breast the Wheel being to signifie the course which he runneth round about the World and the fiery gleams and brightness the light and heat wherewith he warmeth and comforteth the things that live and grow The Sun was the chief God of the Persians That Adoration and religious Worship which some gave to the Sun is forbidden in the Scripture condemned in the Egyptians in other Nations and in the Jews themselves the LORDs people who herein imitated the Heathen worshipping with their faces turned towards the East The Heathens worshipped the Planets as Gods and some will tell us how the Seven Planets do give denomination to the seven Days of the Week and what Planet reigneth every hour in every Day unto each of the seven Planets they dedicated a Day and called it by the name of that Planet which had the first hour of that Day the Appellation from the Planets seems much ancienter than that invention from the hours which I shall after a few lines write of so that these names of the Days of the Week were not by the Pagans first imposed from the Planetary hours but rather the superstition of this appellation of the Days was derived into the Hours The names of the seven Planets are these Sol Venus Mercury Luna Jupiter Marsâ— which seven Planets these men would have to govern twenty four hours in a Natural Day the first Planet hath the first Hour the second hath the second and so unto the seventh Again the first Planet hath the eighth Hour the second the ninth so unto the fourteenth afterwards the first Planet hath the fifteenth Hour the second the sixteenth and so forth to one and twentieth then yet again the first Planet hath the two and twentieth Hour the second the twenty third the third Planet the twenty fourth Hour and so the whole Natural Day of twenty four Hours is finished and ended the fourth Planet that followeth shall
over confident this way as if they could give a particular punctual account of all and of every one of them One of them reckons one thousand two hundred forty and one visible to us Another of late has added one hundred thirty six Stars more which make up one thousand three hundred seventy and seven A third has observed some few more Johovah Aelohim Adonai has the peculiar honour of numbring and of naming the Stars which to Man is impossible Abraham was esteemed no mean Astronomer yet he could not number them There is not one day of the week for the Sun a second for the Moon a third for Mercury a fourth for Mars a fifth for Jupiter a sixth for Venus a seventh for Saturn as the Ethnick Philosophers do un-scripturally anti-scripturally name them and assign them their several days in the week For Sun Moon and Stars were all created on the Fourth day of the one Week of the created World There was not a several distinct Planet made on each several day of the Week Neither is the fourth day of the week unlucky or unfortunate as they call it It is not a curse as if Infants were more taken with the squincy on that day than on any other day of the week whence the superstitious custom of fasting upon that day And now O my Soul what was Adam and what is the Son of Adam that Jehovah Aelohim has created such a spangled Tent for Man to have it so spread over his Head If the out side pavement that leads the way to the new City and to the Holy of Holies be so shining O then how glorious is Christ's Father's House within and the many Mansions there If the purer Churches in the latter-latter-day Glory will be fair as the Moon and clear as the Sun how beauteous then will the Church of the first-born be in Heaven If Pastors shall shine as Stars and the new created people luster forth as the Firmament if what is yet more all and every of the Righteous shall shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of Christ's Father O what a perfect day will it be when all these Suns shall shine together and what is yet more than all this when the Lamb shall be the Light of the new City and all those other lights almost dis-appear at the presence of the out-shining over-coming brightness of the LORD Jesus Christ himself there O blessed be Jehovah who giveth unto any in this Light to see to walk in and to enjoy any of this Light whilst they are here O for that day when the day-Star may more arise in the hearts of Saints as the Fore-runner of the arising of the Sun of Righteousness with healing in his wings The Fifth Days Work doth afford us this Inquiry Q. Whether that part of Natural History which doth concern Fowls Fishes Beasts and Worms can ever be completed into a Natural Art in the way of Ethnick Philosophy or must we search after it only in the Word of Truth where alone it can be advanced and perfected by a due and diligent comparing of their Created beings in their proper Natures Answ THis Natural History and Natural Art above these living Creatures can never attain to any considerable growing Augment much less to a through full discovery in the way of Ethnick Philosophy The restoring and finishing of this is no where else to be found but only in the Holy Scriptures by a due and diligent comparing of their created beings in their proper Natures An art when it is discovered aright is but Nature opened This art must be natural made up of Existencies and of Realities according to the truth of things in the Being of these Creatures That which is proper Art is not a Supplementary addition of somewhat to Nature which was not Nature before by the Law of the first Creation For that were to make a created man to be a creating Artificer of what was never made before which we all explode But it is a revealing and a drawing forth of that secret which did lye hid in Nature The art of man may call out the wonderful productions of many great effects but still these are wrought in the orderly course by Natural Causalities and by Created Efficiencies The rarest Artist can but co-operate with Natures Powers which doth their own work only man puts them together or severs them asunder according as he would have some products by Motions to be However yet the mysteries and wonders of Art must first be sought where they may be found in the mysteries and wonders of Scripture declaring those mysteries and wonders to be in Nature Practice of Arts is a disclosing of secrets of Nature in creation of Causes Art doth sometimes give a provocation to Nature whereby she doth bewray her self ere she is aware and doth expose her self to view in the light in some of her agenâ—ies which kept close in the dark before and therefore Nature and Art in Scripture Language do set this out That word which doth signifie Art exercising it self industriously about any thing or substance comes from a word which doth import a delegated Officer one imployed in such a Function as is put upon him by creating Aelohim and that Function must always be sought for in the Word as revealed there and another word which doth denote one excelling in Art nourishing of it and being nourished by it doth spring from a word which doth include Faith and Truth And where can those firmly bottom but upon the Word of Truth and the Word of Faith And the same Word which doth signifie Essence Existence created Being by which I understand Nature in this Discourse doth also import Virtue Law Doctrine They are the only true Vertuosi in Learning who receive Doctrine about all Entities from Aelohim's Law in his Word This doth teach substantial knowledge and doth give essential Science and doth skill in the Art of Realities There are several Writers who have undertaken to give us an accouut of these Creatures in their Elaborate Histories of them one of the largest and learnedest upon Animals has this great errour running through much of his Book that though he refers much of this discovery to the Scripture yet he would have Original Hebrew which is the Mother Tongue to go to School and to learn to speak of Daughter-Languages such as the Samaritan the Syriack and the other Oriental Tongues As if the proper significancy of her words could not be rightly understood but by their Sense and Etymologies and Phrasiologies whereby he carries the Reader off from the Word of God which yet he doth undertake to translate interpret and apply unto the Authorities and Histories of Philosophizing men and the Opinions and Customs of Nations that from these and not so much from that we might fetch our knowledge of these Creatures A cognation of other Languages to and a collating of them with the
and Entire several Substance and Quality Matter and Form as they call them all and every of them on the several days of their being created at least this is very well worthy of a more through inquiry and deeper disquisition than hitherto hath been made I return now to the particular created Beings on the fifth day Fishes do breath in and out though Ethnick Philosophy do contradict For Fishes are some of the Reptils which have a living Soul a vital Spirit breathing to and fro The swimming of Fishes is one kind of creeping and sliding So an Eel swims in the Water as a Snake doth creep on the Land And though other Fishes in swimming do shoot forth more directly and do not altogether make such crooked in and out lines yet they only slide in a streighter manner having bodies of a direct and oblong Figure fitted for that purpose being born up and partly carried by an Equidans fulciment of transpassable Waters through which they move by a Breathing Vital Potenty The flying Fowl was not made of the pre-existent Matter of Waters as some learned Christians some whom they call the Fathers and others did misapprehend but were a distinct Creature both from Waters and Reptils from Fishes from what else doth live in the Waters This is a new production in a certain and different place The precedent Hebrew Accent did absolve the former Paragraph from which this is distinguished both grammatically in sense and distinction and also physically in being and in place The one word is as proper to Birds as the other is to Reptils They were neither of the same make with Fishes neither were Fishes created of Water nor Fowls of Earth but immediately of the adored Almighties severally put into their proper natural places the Fishes into swimming in the Sea the Fowls into the Air over the Earth flying there Some flying Fowls do more delight in watery places others of them are more for Earth as the place of their choice some others are Terraqueous being well pleased both with Earth and Water as a place either of them proper and fit enough for them So that this doth but set out their places not the first Matter of their being and how it would be in their after production distinguished into Land-fowls Sea-fowls and Sea land-fowls Amphibious Ones such as do live and generate in both The Creator doth assign his Creatures their proper localities and places of abode as before he had put the Luminaries in the Heavens and Expanse so here the Fishes to the Waters the Fowls to the Air and so afterwards other Creatures to the Earth The appointed places of Habitation of Motion and of Working are proper and natural and the Bodies of created Beings have a suitable conformity fitting them for their several abode The Creator first finished the Theatre or Habitacle of the World and then Creates the Inhabitants thereof and puts them into their several dwellings and mansions Time and Place were some of the first things created they are therefore to be accounted great things being the foundation of many after-institutions The Creature had a beginning when it was created Time then began This World was not from all Eternity for it had a beginning in Time One part of the Created World was after another part of it by temporary succession of nights and of days in a most direct line by established Order and immutable Law The first beginning of Time was not the moment or measure of the first Heavenly Motion They are mistakes the supposal of the first moveable Heaven or compassing Sphere that doth wheel about all the other pretended Spheres and that this first Mover was first created which have no foundation in Scripture but are the feigned inventions of men high in their own eyes and fond of their own conceits The first moment of the first created Evening was the beginning of Time as to the created World when the Darkness was first made to begin Time is not the measure of duration according to a pretended Motion of the Heavenly Luminous Bodies for three several days were past before the Creation of these Time Place and Number are of the Nature of indifferent things that may be or may not be but are necessarily things in their several circumstances These were concreated and did actually exist with other created beings in the beginning and without which no created Entity whatsoever can actually exist There was in the one day of the World successive Duration every Creature that was made on that day was durable temporary made and existed in time There was consistent extension one part beyond another there where another part was not All the created Beings of that day exist in some places They were where they were made and no where else at that same time and several Creatures were in several places then and afterwards There was then discrete numbring for every created Being whatsoever it be must always be numerable The several distinct days also in which the Creatures were made are distinct in Numeration Thus for Family or Church-worship once every day is not enough but twice a day is necessary Aelohim having instituted the Evening and Morning Seasons and not lest this to our liberty or appointment There is an aptitude in Nature for these fitting the time to the Work Thus for more publick Church-assemblies once in a Month or Quarter or Year is not enough it must be weekly on the seventh-day-Sabbath for so is the Doctrine of Weeks in the first Creation Those who are ingaged in the Controversie about Non-conformity unto national Plantations or establishments in the matters of publick Worship such as is of Humane Invention Institution and Imposition especially when exclusive of all other Worship that is according to the Word-Warrant and Scripture-Institution have greatly wronged and hurt their own cause by their concessions and assertions that the Civil Magistrate has the Power in the Nation to appoint humanely-invented Modes of Worship what forms to use The number in Worship how often it shall be what holy days as they call them and how many of them in an year the time of worship when his will and pleasure is and the place of worship where he will assign As if these were Adiaphorous matters left wholly to our Governours prudential consideration and determination which all subjects must comply with and conform to that there may be as they say Order Unity and Peace in the Church by a national uniformity in these things For under a colour of this all the Christian Religion almost is degenerated into indifferents and those who are most and best Christians most spiritual and heavenly in worship according to the Laws and Institutions of Christ's house and who have their conversation most adorning and becoming the Gospel are most hated and opposed this being the ground of persecution in all ages but more towards the latter days as the servants of and witnesses
contrary unto it namely the Heresies Errours Schisms Divisions Apostasies scandals of the present Age Q. Whether is not Christ manifestly at refining perfecting Work under this Providence in regard that he doth ingage some of his servants in the same Work according to the Word as their Generation work to be purging out whatsoever is corrupt and to be bringing in whatsoever is pure that is yet defective in principles or practice among the Churches more particularly to be perfecting those six principles spoken of in the two first Verses of the sixth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews And whether this work have not been too much hindred by some of Note and of Name in their expressing and interpreting of perfecting perfect perfection by sincere and sincerity whereas sincerity is but one Work of one of the ten Words Q. How would Christ under this Providence have Nations Cities Parishes Villages Families and Persons to be modelled as to the Rule of governing Concerning Duties and Priviledges Q. HOw may a Believer now have every duty and priviledge to grow up into the spirituality and heavenliness of the duties and priviledges of the latter-day glory Q. How may a Believer improve some special passage or other in that Prayer of Christ recorded in the seventeenth Chapter of John in order to the attaining and promoting of the ends of every duty Q. How should a duty be well filled up Q. How should Bills or Papers of Cases be wisely and edifyingly managed that are brought into our Congregations And what is there in the Old Testament of bringing suitable sacrifices to the Priest according to particular cases which may give light to this matter that it may be spiritually managed under this new dispensation of Grace Q. Whether may and must a Believer pray rejoyce and give thanks not only in all Cases in all Places amongst all Persons but also at all Times and not only this in state and in frame but in acting also And if so how is this attainable practicable and improveable So to meditate upon Jehovah's Word all the day How is this with such like expressions concerning other duties reconcilable with the finite Spirit of Man who seems unto many to be able to do but one Work at one time Or has Man a capacity of doing several things at once And if so how may this be proved and improved Whilst the Spirit may enquire the Soul may desire the Body may act and work at the same instant Q. How is the Truth in Jesus and how should a Believer so learn the Truth as it is in Jesus Q. What are the gradual differences in the matters of duties and of priviledges between the several Ages of Saints Some being little Children and others young Men some others old Fathers in Christ and in Grace Q. What is the proper season of every duty And how may we discern and improve it Q. Whether is not Scripture Prophecying in a publick Congregation still a duty And if so by whom And what are the Laws and Rules by which it is to be carried on in Preaching in Praying in Singing and in other holy Services Q. How may Tzijons Blessings and Priviledges Joys and Comforts Peace and Purity be antedated by a Believer so as actually to injoy them before they are fulfilled Q. How may a Believer improve Mystical Membership with respect To Christ as the Head To blessed Angels To the Spirits of just men perfectly sanctified To sound Believers and excelling Saints that now are and that shall hereafter be as the Fellow-members Concerning other practical experimental Christanity Q. HOw may a Believer know distinctly when it is that it is his Spirit or his Soul or his Body which doth long after Jehoâ—ah Aelohim And of what use would this knowledge be And how may a Believer speak distinctly and severally to his Spirit to his Soul to his Body And which way is this improveable Q. How may Convictions be kept alive and improved Q. How may Christ in his Life Suffering Death Resurrection and Ascension and in all his Offices as also his Word in the whole of it and in all its parts commanding prohibiting prophesying promising threatning and the rest of it how may these he used and improved For the more through mortification of corruptions in all their secret deceitful â—lie motions For the more triumphing overcoming of Temptations in all their Methods and Devices and Assaults Q. How may a Believer carry pure Religion and practical Christianity through the whole of the conversation in the particular as well as the general Calling And how may all the Acts of our particular Functions be performed as acts of Worship in obedience to a command in faith on a promise so as to expect and to have assistance acceptance and a blessing Q. What is a Night-Religion And how may that be improved in the void spaces of the Night and even in Dreams Q. What is the right method of governing the Thoughts of ruling the Tongue and of ordering the Actions Q. How may a Believer make inward spiriritual Meals upon outward and common Meats and Drinks Q. How should Christian-visits be improved Q. How should Journeys and Travels in the way be improved Q. How should time be redeemed Q. How may the Christian Religion be made easie familiar delightful and spiritually natural Q. How are slanderous reproaches persecutions banishments confiscations and other crosses to be born and improved that when we suffer for Christ it may be a suffering with Christ and as Christ suffered And how may we in all other things so walk as Christ walked and so be in this World as he was in this World Q. How may we both give full time to our worldly imployments and necessary business and yet spiritualize it too Q. How may we get cut of deep-plunging distresses of spirit Q. How are we to treat our selves and to converse with our selves night and day And whether a translating of Hebrew Verbs of the self reflexive conjugation would not promote these self reâ—lecting meditations and acts Q. What are the Rules and Laws of Writing especially in matter of controversie Q. What may be the cause or causes of so much darkness and deadness doubting and distress and of the holy Spirits with-holding and withdrawing in Professors of Religion generally in this day that when they are discovered they may be removed Q. How may we know when we have audience and acceptance in the Court of Heaven And when a receit of Mercy is in answer to Prayer Q. What is the Art of Holy Silence in its proper seasons And how may it be improved Q. How may man's working out his own Salvation and God's in working of it be reconciled and improved Q. How may spiritual objects be made as evident to spiritual senses as outward objects are to outward senses And how should these spiritual senses be exercised And how should spiritual truths and things be made real and future ones present Q. What is
heavens and the earth said Huram Thou Jehovah alone said Nehemiah thou hast made the Heavens the Heaven of Heavens the Earth and all that is therein the Seas and all that is therein and thou makest them all alive and the Host of the Heavens worshippeth thee Jehovah God of Hosts who like thee mighty Jah thine the Heavens thine also the Earth the World and the plenty thereof Thou hast founded them And again Confess ye to Jehovah to him that made the Heavens with prudencie to him that spread out the Earth above the Waters Thus saith Jehovah himself who taught his people by his Prophet Jeremiah what to say The gods that have not made the Heavens and the Earth shall perish from the Earth and from under this Heaven Who but Jehovah God hath made the Earth by his Power Who but he hath prepared the World by his Wisdom and hath stretched the Heavens out by his Understanding Thus Zachariah brings in Jehovah speaking He who spreadeth forth the Heavens and foundeth the Earth and formeth the Spirit of Man in the inmost of him Thus in the Gospel of Jesus Christ God is said to create the Creature Thus did Paul reason with the men at Lystra The living God hath made the Heaven and the Earth and the Sea and all that which is in the same The like did he at Athens God who made the World and all that therein is he is LORD of Heaven and Earth And elsewhere Of God and by him and to him are all things to him Glory for ever Amen The Father was the Creator of all things So Isaiah brings him in speaking Thus saith God Jehovah he that created the Heavens and spread them abroad he that stretched forth the Earth and that which issueth out of it he that giveth breath unto the people upon it and spirit to them that walk upon it I the LORD have called thee in Righteousness speaking of his Son Christ This did Peter acknowledge in his prayer LORD thou art the God who hast made the Heaven and the Earth and the Sea and all things which are in the same Who by the Moâ—th of thy servant David hast said Why do the Heathen rage and the people have thought vain things The Kings of the Earth are risen up and the Rulers are gathered together against the LORD and against his Christ for in truth they were gathered together against thy holy Child Jesus This doth Paul witness to in his former Epistle to the Corinthians We have but one God the Father of whom are all things and we for him The holy Spirit also is Creator How many are thy Works O Jehovah So sings the Psalmist all of them hast thou done in Wisdom the Earth is full of thy Riches Thou wilt send forth thy Spirit they shall be created And thou wilt renew the Faces of the Earth And in another Psalm By the Word of Jehovah the Heavens were made and all the Host of Heaven by the Spirit of his mouth The Spirit of Aelohim was the Maker and Cherisher of them Thus doth Job set it out he through his Spirit adorned the Heavens And Elibu elsewhere applys it in his own case The Spirit of God hath made me and the breath of the Almighty hath quickened me THe LORD Jesus Christ he also was Creator of all things It was in and by this Head Captain that the Heavens and the Earth were accomplished and all their Host This did Hezekiah acknowledge when he prayed to him that sat between the Cherubins Thou thy self thou alone art the God of all the Kingdoms of the Earth thou hast made Heaven and Earth He that is the first and he also who is the last Which the LORD Christ doth apply unto himself in the Revelation He speaks of himself in the Prophet Isaia Mine hand hath founded the Earth and my right hand hath measured the Heavens with the Palm And again The Heaven is my Throne and the Earth is the Footstool of my feet mine hand hath made all these things It is the Voice of the Redeemer in the same Prophet I Jehovah do all things spreading out the Heaven I alone and who stretching out the Earth by it self God by his Son made the Angels Thou LORD in the beginning hast founded the Earth and the Heavens are the Works of thy hand To this Christ the Son in the Epistle to the Hebrews is that passage in the one hundred and second Psalm rightly applyed it was by the Word of God that the World was prepared In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God all things were made by the same and without the same no not one thing was made that was made The World was made by him Thus doth John bring in his Testimony for him Whereunto that of Paul doth well agree God created all things by Jesus Christ and elsewhere he saith We have one LORD Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him That to the Colossians is full to this purpose where the Apostle having described the Redeemer the LORD Jesus Christ by his inward relation to his Father he being the Image of the invisible God he then sets him out by his outward Relation to the Creature he is the first born of every Creature begotten before all Creation or before any thing was created This he doth convincingly prove and clearly illustrate by evident demonstration the Reason is strong which he draws from Christ's being the efficient cause of the Creatures being the continued preserver of them and his Glory being the great end of their Being For in him by or through him were all things Created which are in Heaven and which are upon Earth which are visible and which are invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Governments or Powers all things were created by him and to him and he is before all things and all things do consist together by him He is the Aleph and the Thou the Alpha and Omega the Beginning and the End who was and who is and who is to come Before Abraham was made I am said Christ of himself It was his Prayer Glorifie me O Father with the Glory which I had before the world was with thee It was this Christ who Created the first seven days and established their order to continue in their successive courses to the Worlds end It was he who when he had perfected his Work that he had made in the six foregoing days of the first Created Week rested in the seventh day It was he who blessed the Seventh day It was he who sanctified the seventh-Seventh-day because in it he had rested from all his Work Thus it was from the beginning unchangeably so to remain and go on to the end This he expresly revives in his after proclaiming of this Law of the Sabbath that it might be remembred Six days Jehovah made