honourable Title upon the Writings of Moses that he calleth it The Book of Moses The Book of the Law of Moses The Book of the Law of Jehovah in the hand of Moses The Churches of Aelohim in the several Ages thereof have given Moses their large Testimonial as under their Hands and Seals It is worth the noting here that that rich tormented fool recorded in that History by Luke had not in all his life time right apprehensions of the invisible World by all the helps that the Learned Philosophers and Natural Historians could afford him and that he thought Mankind were by such as those so commonly and generally corrupted and misled into errors and mistakes about the different places and entertainments in that other World for separated Spirits and departed Souls according as their States Frames and Actings their Principles Rules and Ends were whilst on Earth that scarce a mere man alive upon the whole Earth particularly where his Brethren lived and with whom they conversed could or would set their Judgements right in this weighty Concern about the locality of Heaven and of Paradise of the Gulph and of Hell for which Reason he desired of Abraham that he would send some to his Fathers House one or other who had been in those places which men on earth do not so see he himself as to himself having before received an answer that Lazarus could not come from on high to dip his finger in the water as he would have had him on in his way to have cool'd the tongue of that damned wretch in regard there was such a Gulph between then so that there was no ordinary passage from the one to the other The reply that was made to him was this They thy Brethren have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them if they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead There was enough in the Writings of these about Heaven and Paradise about the Waters and Abyss about Sheol and the Gulph about Hell and that place of Torment to inform them and do declare unto them the dreadful posture of the lower part of the Created World This Moses the man and servant of Jehovah had when he was born the Beauty of Aelohim shining upon him and although he were learned in all the Wisdom of the Egyptians yet has he left upon Record only that Scripture-Wisdom which he was taught by the Holy Spirit being with all fidelity in the Church in the Wilderness with the Angel of the Covenant Jehovah Christ sent by the Father who spoke to him in Mount Sinai where he received the Oracles to give unto the LORD's people whom he commanded a Law which is the inheritance of the Church of Jacob. To this Moses Christ manifested and made known himself eye to eye face to face mouth to mouth so proclaiming his Name and making all his Goodness to pass before him as that by a secondary Glory reflected from the LORD upon him the skin of his face 〈◊〉 shine with such an overcoming brightness as was dazling to the eyes of the Israelites and they were afraid to come nigh him Of all the Prophets arose in Israel there was none like unto Moses whom Jehovah so knew This Moses was a faithful Historian and those things which he wrote were not his own but the Truth and Laws of Jehovah by his handing them out even Enemies themselves being Judges Christ doth approve of Moses and of all that he spoke and wrote from him What Moses said was the Commandment of Aelohim what he spake unto Moses the same is spoken unto us The LORD Christ has raised up some or other in the several ages to plead the Cause of the literal sense of the Works of Creation in the Histoy thereof in the beginning of the Book of God and Wise men especially in this last Age have professed their expectation of the sound knowledge of Natural Things and of their real Essence and true Properties in this first Weeks Journal of the Created World by their several attempts to interpret it this way The literal sense of Moses's Hebrew who was an Hebrew which Hebrew is the Tongue and Language wherein the he wrote Jehovah's Laws is the ground of all Interpretations for this Language hath apert significancies and plain properties of speech which must in the first place be received when opened that the natural meaning of the Scripture may be evidently known Much of sound Scripture-knowledge doth confist in a right explaining of the Words and Speeches in those five Books beforementioned Genesis c. by conferring them with themselves in those Writings of the Prophets and Apostles which are Commentaries upon those five Books by a true and sound explication as the Letter is and giving forth thence the genuine meaning of those Words and Phrases which therefore Christ hath confirmed to every Jod and Chirek There is Originally a certain proper distinct and only one signification of the Hebrew Words which is true and genuine and which under Christ and his Father and Spirit is the best Interpreter of the Holy Scriptures upon the discerning heart of an experienced Believer which would be abundantly confirmed by an accurate Collation of other Scriptures The first words therefore of Scripture particularly and especially is this History of the Creation must be held forth in their Primitive meaning where they are first used in their proper literal sense which doth give forth light to the right understanding of them in those other Scriptures where the same Words and Phrases are afterwards used So that it is generally the common Error and usual Defect in most of our Hebrew Lexicographers that they give so many differing and sometimes contradicting significancies of one and the same Hebrew word whereas they should set down the only one proper distinct meaning of every Hebrew Root and carry the juice of that Sense into all the Branches that do spring from the Root such a meaning of it as may well agree with that word where-ever it be met with throughout the whole Scriptures Which one Direction followed and improved with holy skill and studious industry by men fitted for such a work would bring in a great augment to useful Learning The Holy Scriptures are written as they are to be read and must be so acknowledged especially these matters Historical and Narrative of the Creation without doubtfulness or doubleness of meaning They use such a manner of speaking as is not otherwise to be understood not to be taken in any other sense than in that which at the first reading doth plainly offer it self to a man of spiritual understanding And of all Scriptures I take this of the History of the Creation and the Law of the Ten Words more expresly to call for this In which two are the complete summaries and comprehensive Modules of the Truths and Duties of the
is a word that followeth after Tohu which Tohu has Bohu always joyned with it as in nature of created places so also in Scriptures This Tohu and Bohu therefore also are not matter and form The Jews and Christians have learned this wrong conceipt in the Schools of Paganish Philosophers and then afterwards they affayed whether they could defend it by their wryingâ— or this Scripture to work it into their errour As for the Scituation and Place of these they are the lowest parts of the created World Jehovah Aeâ—ohim hath stretched forth the North over Tohu this Gulphy-astoniâ—hing-emptyâ— space which is that part in the Positure of the Creation that is directly diametrically opposite unto the North-point So that the North part is the uppermost part There are some Heavens higher then other Heavens and some parts of the Heavens are higher then some other parts of the same Heavens The most High or the Highest or the eminently exalted High one over and above all is one of Christ's names He as to his glorified humane nature sits in his glorious high Throne And would you know where this is No books of Ethnick Philosophers can inform you without light from the Word For it is only of Scripture-Revelation It is at the sides of the North whither a proud Prince that was brought down to hell most opposite to the North said in his former self-exaltation that he would ascend to pluck Christ if he could out of his Chair of Majesty that he might get in to give Laws and Orders to the World It is at the North where Christ doth work From hence doth exaltation come not either from the East or West or South but from Christ sitting over the sides of the North. There is the City of this Great King How quickly may a Believers Spirit resort thither and freely converse with Christ in his humane glorified Nature Who as he is also Jehovah hath a way of gracious presence here with the spirit of a Believer How many useful ways might this be improved in experimental Christianity I have given the Hint which should quicken up others to pass further into this reâ—search more may be collected out of the Scriptures about the exaltation of the North and If need were to use such arguments unto men their mouths who oppose this might soon be stopp'd by the express concessions and affirmations of humane Authours As the Earth is founded upon the Waters as upon her Bases and is above the Waters So also is Hell under the Waters in a lower place It is opposed to the highest Heavens as the lowest place Here are the shadowed profundities below the Sea the lower Abyss and Vorago All the controversies about Sheol about the local descent into the craving place concerning which so many Treatises have so hotly contended must by this Word-discovery receive a clear full determination For in no one Scripture which I am as yet thorowly convinced by must Sheol necessarily or doth Sheol properly signifie the Grave but some lower place than that Divers sheets of Paper might be filled with this Subject from what is gatherable out of the Word which also is another very profitable discovery if pursued with diligence and received with meekness and would overturn the whole of Ethnick Philosophy about the System of the World and the positure of the Creation The middle of this Earth is not that common center of the Universal World towards which all heavy bodies would naturally descend there to sit down and enjoy their Rest The Stone or Brass or Lead at the end of the Line in the perpendicular would move downward under all the Earth beneath the Waters if it met with no obstacle According to Geometricians own principles If right Lines do stand upon right Lines making the Angles on either side equal then either of those Angles is a right Angle and the right Lines that stand erected are perpendicular Lines to those upon which they stand Such perpendicular Lines can never meet in one and the same center and point or interfect one another for there is no enclining of the Lines any more to one side then another There is no reclining or obtuseness in any of the Angles aequidistant perpendiculars prolonged and moved never so far on both parts will never meet either on the one side or on the other All right Angles are equal to one another Such perpendiculars are always equal distant the one from the other Could such perpendicular Lines meet at a point if they were prolonged they will necessarily intersect and the Angles on both sides would not be equal These perpendicular Lines are Rectangled parallels they are equal perpendiculars constituted between the same parallels they are Equiâ—ngled were there Parallelogram-lines drawn all the quadrilateral Figures would have opposite Parallels from one and the same point can be drawn but one perpendicular Line to divide a terminated right-lined Diameter equally dividing the Circle into two equal parts if that perpendicular Line be drawn from the Circumference to the Center and from one and the same Point and Center there can be but one perpendicular Line drawn to that part of the Circumference where a right Line doth touch the Circle and where that Perpendicular doth cut that right Line into two equal right Angles at the point of touching All other Lines drawn from the same point have not correspondent proportional parallel equidistant parts neither will they make right equal Angles in that point where they do touch or intersâ—ct that right Line The opposite sides are not parallel neither can they pass into a right-angled-equilateral quadrilateral Figure into such a Square which hath the four sides equal and the Angles right-lined Of all the right Lines drawn from one and the same Point on a right Line that Line which is Perpendicular is the least constituted on one and the same Base so that there is but one Perpendicular from or to this one and the same Point standing erect upon a right Line According to Statick Law there can be no Angular point of two several Lines concurring in it without an unequal divergence or divaricating of the two lines from it proportionably as it is nearer or further distant from the point Improve we this to overturn humane Philosophy Let there be an Erect Wall square of a right-angled equilateral quadrilateral Figure and let plumb-lines be let fall from the two sides of it they will naturally move downward to and if way were made into the Earth perpendicularly and these perpendiculars would be equidistant and would be always if prolonged equidistant and never meet at a Center and Point which is quite contrary to the Tenet of such Philosophers seeing there cannot be a Motion of two heavy Bodies from the circumference in two parallel lines towards one Center and Point For still the nearer they come to this supposed Center the nearer they must be to one another
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-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
the Man Christ Jesus And thus it was in the Figure and Type of Christ's Mediatory Office the true lawful high Priest was ever but only one in a course of succession who went into the Holy of Holies once a year not without blood which he offered for himself and for the misdeeds or ignorances of the people to make Atonement for them to cleanse them from all their sins before Jehovah whereby was signified that Christ that Faithful Great chief High Priest being once entred into Heaven by his own Blood hath found a Ransoming or obtained an Eternal Redemption For such an high Priest became us Holy Innocent Undefiled separate from sinners and becoming higher than the Heavens to whom it was not needful every day as to the High Priest to offer up Sacrifices first for his own sins afterwards for the fins of the people For that he did once when he offered up himself We have such an High Priest who is set at the Right Hand of the Throne of the Majesty in the Heavens He that is Malchitzedech the King of Righteousness is this Priest the Eternity of his Priesthood is established for ever by his Father by an Oath which Priesthood cannot pass over from one to another either by succession or by descent as that of the High Priests did of Old but it doth and will abide everlastingly in himself This Jesus Christ that Righteousâ— One is the Advocate of his people or their Spokesman who appears on their behalf before the Face of God ' and to make intercession for them Oâ— the blessedness of those who have this Mediator to be a Redeemer of them an Interceder for them He gave himself for them a Ransom for them that he might redeem them He reconciles them in the Body of his Flesh through his Death making peace by the Blood of his Cross He by the everlasting Spirit offered himself unblameable unto God! His Blood purgeth their conscience from dead works to serve the Living Godâ— For by one Oblation he hath Consecrated for ever those that are sanctified The chastisement of their Peace did lie upon him He is the Price of their Redemption He is their Surety He was faithful in all the House of God He sits at the Right Hand of the Majesty in the heavenly highest place far above all Principality and Power and Might and Dominion and every name that is named not in this world only but also in that which is to come all things being made subject under his feet Who shall condemn them Christ is able perfectly even unto the full end to save them by him only they come unto God! he always liveth to intercede for them He prayes not for the World but for those whome the Father has given him and who believe on him that they all may be One as the Father in Christ and Christ in the Father that they also may be one with the Father and with the Son that the World might believe that the Father sent Christ How earnest was Christ in his Prayer to his Father that he would Sanctifie these by his Truth that he would keep them in his Name from the Evil one that they might have his joy fulfilled in them It is Christ's desire that where he is there they also may be that they may behold his Glory which the Father hath given him and that the Love wherewith the Father hath loved Christ may be upon them Christ doth know that the Father heareth him always How ready are such as have Fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ praysingly to say as that multitude of the heavenly Host in their Song Glory to God in the highest heavens on earth peace good will towards men This Christ is the LORD Unto all Authoritative Power is given in Heaven and in Earth And O how much is there that doth depend on this That LORDship which is here intended and meant is Christ's Kingly Dominion his Royal Government into the Office whereof he is called it being one of his Glorious Names King of kings and LORD of Lords For so it is written in the Revelation that was made known unto John No man can say the LORD Jesus if not in the holy Spirit It is a gift in the holy Spirit even to acknowledge this believingly to apply it and obeyingly in all things to be subject to it Thus we read in the Prophet Isaiah A child shall be born unto us and a Son given to us upon whose shoulder the dominion shall lye and his name shall be called Wonderful Counseller The mighty strong God The Father of hidden ages The prince of peace Of the increase of his dominion and peace shall be no end upon the throne and in his kingdom to stablish it and to strengthen it with judgment and with justice from henceforth for ever The zeal of Jehovah of hosts shall do this This is applyed to him who is God-Man and can belong to no other Ezekiel saw this in that glorious Vision wherein was presented before him a Throne of Royal Majesty upon which was a likeness as the form of Man and this was the form of the likeness of the Glory of Jehovah This was the representation of him who is Jehovah-Man of Jesus Christ the ever Blessed LORD of Glory whose the ruling of the whole World is All the Creatures must stoop of him He is she Head-Captain of all the Hosts of Heaven and of Earth for so did the Scriptures bring him in To this doth that Revelation answer which was made known to John Who saw one like unto the Son of man He that calleth himself the first and the last and did appear as an absolute complete Governour wise for Counsel and strong for Power Like unto this was that which Daniel saw in the night-visions For behold there came one like the Son of man in the clouds of heaven after that he came to the ancient of days and they caused him to come near before and to him was given dominion and honour and the kingdom that all people nations and toâ—gues should honour him his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not perish or be taken away and his kingdom shall not be destroyed This was the shining forth of Christ's Princely Honour of his Kingly Administration who was God-Man And by this was manifested the great Mystery of the Work of Redemption which doth further demonstrate the Mediatorship of Christ Who came from his Father in Heaven to Men on Earth and having finished his message here he ascended from men on Earth to his Father in Heaven there to present himself before him on the behalf of those whom the Father gave unto him This is he of whom the Prophet Jeremiah spake that he shall reign and prosper one of the stock of David as Man and yet withal he who should be called Jehovah-zidkenu Jehovah our Righteousness So that he is Jehovah-Man The same
of whom Micab foretold that he should come out of Judah for to be a Ruler and whose goings forth are of old from the days of Eternity which in the Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ is spoken of this Gâ—immanu el God with us Thus the Prophet Zachariah describes him at the least in the Type He shall sit and bear sway upon his Throne and he shall be Priest upon his Throne This was the voice of the Angel to Mary concerning Christ The LORD God shall give unto him the throne he shall be King for ever and of his Kingdom there shall be no end This is to be known for certain that God hath made him for a LORD him hath God by his Right Hand exalted for a Prince and Saviour Thus did Peter openly confess him before men This Jehovah Christ hath reigned he is reigning and will reign How high is that Majesty with which he is clothed He hath girded himself with strength Stable is his Throne from then from the Time that he has been from before any created Time as we now measure it he from Eternity He by the Authority of his Mediatoral Office has Royal Prerogatives to pass Acts of Grace to grant Pardons to particular returning sinners to speak the Peace of this into the conscience to give the joy and comfort of this into the heart Christ had a Glory with his Father before this World was and a love from his Father before the Foundation of this World as the LORD Christ himself doth acknowledge in his holy heavenly Prayer to his Father as John has recorded it He is high above all the people let the earth be glad let the many isles rejoyce Come let us shout joyfully to this Jehovah let us shout triumphantly to the rock of our Salvation For Jehovah a great God and a great King above all gods He is the King of Righteousness and the Prince of Peace All kings shall bow down unto him and all nations shall serve him Christ is the only LORD him only must we serve So doth Christ interpret Moses and so did the Prophet Samuel teach Let us hear the LORD Jesus himself speaking thus in the Book of his Generation One is your leader even Christ One is your Father which is in heaven One is your Master even Christ Paul doth write in the Epistle to the same purpose we have One LORD Jesus Christ And again There is one LORD And in another place He is the blessed and only mighty LORD the King of kings and LORD of lords He is the Head of the Church His Office is so appropriate unto him as that his Priesthood cannot pass unto any other but remaineth in himself for ever There is no other Name given us under Heaven whereby we may be saved Thus calls him The only LORD God and our Lord Jesus Christ speaking of that peculiar propriety that the called ones who are sanctified have in him He trode the Press alone and there was none of the Nations with him Thus did Isaiah hold forth Christ's Kingly Power and his Princely Government in redeeming and saving of his Elect and in subduing and destroying of his Enemies as saith the same Prophet in another passage of his Book The Father hath given him the Nations for his Inheritance and the ends of the Earth for his Possession His Dominion shall be from Sea to Sea His Scepter is a Righteous Scepter he hath loved Righteousness and hated iniquity He shall judge the people with Righteousness and the poor meek ones with judgement and equity He is the Rulling One by his Power from ever Jehovah hath firmly prepared his Throne in the Heavens and his Kingdom ruleth ouer all His Kingdom is a Kingdom of all Eternities and his Dominion in every Generation and Generation Behold the Arm of this LORD Jehovah shall Rule His Enemies shall be made his Foot-stool and in the mean time he shall Rule though in the midst of them How great and wonderful are thy Works LORD thou Almighty God Just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints Who should not fear thee LORD and Glorifie thy Name For thou art alone Holy For all Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy Judgements are made manifest All Nations shall can thee blessed Blessed be Jehovah God the God of Israel who dost marvellous things thy self alone And blessed be the Name of thy Glory for ever And let all the Earth be filled with thy Glory Amen and Amen! This Christ is the Lawgiver Thus was it spoken by Isaias the Prophet a Jehovah is our Judge Jehovah is our Law-giver or Statute-maker Thus was it prophesied by Jacob concerning Christ at the least in Type that the Scepter should not depart from Judah and the Law-giver from between his Feet until Shiloh come The Saviour the Safe-maker the Author of Prosperity of Tranquillity and unto him the obedience or the gathering of peoples Christ was to spring from Judah as an after birth which as is implyed should be of the Flesh of a Woman according to which Prophesie and promise Jehudah is said to be the Law-giver in the sixtieth and in one hundred and eighth Psalms He it was who formed Decrees and who made Laws He was at the least figured by that Law-giver who was with the Princes and Nobles of the People when with their Staves they digged and delved the Well at Beer and of the same did Moses speak concerning the Tribe of Gad when he declared the Blessing and the Portion the Provision and the Protection to be from this Law-giver Christ himself calleth the Law his Law in the seventy eight Psalm wherein he himself speaketh unto his people for so the holy Spirit doth expound it in the Book of Christ's Generation when he opened the parable of the Sower and of the Seed One of the Laws of loving one another in bearing one anothers burdens is in express words said to be the Law of Christ by Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians It was Jehovah Christ who spake and gave the Law of the Ten Words at Mount Sinai when God's Chariot the twice ten thousand thousands of Angels were there This Lord was with them He it was the same who ascended on high who led captive a Captivity who had taken gifts in Adam among or unto men For of this LORD Jesus Christ doth Paul teach us to understand this place in his Epistle of the Ephesians where speaking of this One LORD he saith when he ascended into the height he took Captivity captive and gave gifts unto men Now this he ascended what is it but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the Earth he that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the Heavens that he might fill all things This was that Angel of the LORD who appeared to Moses in the Wilderness of the Mount Sinai in a flame of
do these therefore greatly err because they know not the Scriptures nor the power of God A. There is no ground in Scripture nor in Nature to affirm three Regions of the Air lower middle and higher as vain Philosophers do in their Physicks as if then immediately above that were the Region of Fire next under the Orb of the Moon Such a partition of the Air into three several Regions I find not either in the original Text or in created beings As also neither is there such an enumeration in the word or works of Christ as ten coelestial Spheres or Heavens The Sun Mars Jupiter Saturn the Starry Heaven the Christalin Heaven the first Mover It is an humane Figment this The Scriptures do inform us of a third which is the highest Heaven and in this discovery must we acquiesce Jehovah Aelohim has builded his stories and hath planted his lofts in the Waters But those Waters are such as are above all these visible Heavens above this blew Expanse over our Heads which our eyes do sometimes behold and the place of these upper Waters is over the North part of the Heavens This visible expanded is Diacritical or Distinctive between the upper and lower Waters This extent or well compacted firm out-spread was made much for this end dividingly to separate between these two Waters so as that they might not be joyned together in one It was and is an intermediate orderly disposed distinction between them between somewhat that was above and somewhat that was below which therefore also is not the very highest and utmost boundary of the created World as divers of the Ethnick Sophists asserted who would have it their Super-AEther or Coelum Daemoniacum where they did place the chiefest of their Idols which were the Planets and Stars thereof because they seemed to them to be the highest and greatest and most glorious of all visible created beings Whereas it is but a middle partition From above this doth the Rain come The higher Heaven doth give it down it doth descend from hence A Call must be given to the Heaven above to give down Rain to Aelohim there He sometimes makes the higher Heaven as Iron and Brass He shuâ—s the Heaven when he doth hold back the Rain It is he that doth open or shut the Cataracts of Heaven There are Aelohim's upper Chambers There are the inner retiring Rooms His lofts are planchered in those upper Waters There are the Waters bound There is Aelohim's Tabernacle extended These Waters are some of his Treasures which he openeth when he gives down rain There are the Treasures of Snow and of Hail Man on earth cannot reach them with his eye There is a Gate of the Heavens there are bottles of Heaven above this expanded is the Throne of Aelohim Hence is the Water distilled It is from the ordination and command of Aelohim that this is So that all the watry clouds and bottles do come down first from above the Azure Expanse So that Rain is water distilled from the Waters above the extended What I have here written about Rain is also applicable to Snow Hail Dew and such like under the general comprehensive name of Waters It is Jehovah Aelohim who is the causer of the Rain None can cause it but himself not the vanities of the Heathens none of the Ethnic Idols not Sun or Moon or Stars neither can the Heavens of themselves give showers Who but he can cause it It is an immediate gift from him Why has not Egypt rain ordinarily if there were such natural causes of it as men pretend Rain comes down from the Heaven but it doth not return thither It is spoken of the higher not of the lower Heaven If the Sun did draw it up again then it would return thither again Which Jehovah himself doth expresly deny It so cometh as the word cometh originally out of his mouth who speaks from out of Heaven It is the Rain of Heaven The Heavens drop it down when it doth water the earth It is a visit from Jehovah Aelohim and how sweet would that meditation be were it spiritually improved Did we so receive it as a token of his special love when it is sent in mercy to us and not in a way of Judgement The new creature might be much aedified by the old creation Rain-water is not River-water neither is it Sea-water It has differing properties different causalities and different effects It comes not originally from these here below but from the River of God above It comes from his Throne and what a raised contemplation is that to an experienced Believer that has free converse with Christ in the Spirit It comes in his errand with a message from him It is he that sends it Jehovah Christ will come down as Rain that is from out of Heaven The Chambers of these Waters are above whence showers cannot be given down till the LORD open the Heavens The Flood-gates of Heaven are opened when Rain comes down though sometimes these are opened more as they were in Noah's days and as they are when they are longer and greater showrings in a vindictive or chastising way Although ordinarily it do distil in drops which is a wise careful good providence to quench the thirst of every herb and grass yet some Seamen who do take long Voyages do speak that there are seasons when they meet with spouts of water which do much endanger great Ships The small and the great Rain are both of them Jehovah's strength He puts forth his Almighty power in this creature His own arm is here made bare This is one of those marvellous things he doth which we cannot so fully comprehend If any carping Reader be secretly framing an exception or objection against this discovery from one or two mis-understood Scriptures in our English Translation he should consider that there is a sweet harmony and good agreement in the whole Scripture thou must so interpret one Scripture as that it may not clash with the rest what doth seem obscure in one or two places must receive light from the many others which are clear upon a deep research into this matter I find a pleasant concord And therefore this question has been propounded not to minister occasion to any quarelsome objector or angry contender or wrangling opposer For men of such Spirits and Frames are not promoters of useful Sciences nor advancers of profitable learning but to put such as are of humble inquiring Spirits upon further searchings after the mind of Christ about these sort of knowledges The Rain hath no created natural Father Aelohim and he alone is the Father of it These water-courses are from above from on high The waters are poured from the same place that the holy Spirit is that is from the Throne above For thus these waters do set out the gifts and graces of that good
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
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
in to mediate especially since the disobedience of Man has set God and Man at variance When Paul had once understood and found the benefit having felt the necessity and enjoyed the Good and Blessing of this Mediation and had the Word and the Ministery of Reconciliation committed to him he took much holy delight in opening of this great Mystery in his Epistles to the Churches discovering how God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself not imputing their sins unto them Paul and such others as were called into that Office were Ambassadors for Christ as if God did beseech sinners by them and they prayed in Christ's Name that such would be reconciled to God For him who knew no sin hath he made sin for his people that they might become the Righteousness of God in him It pleased God to reconcile through Christ all things unto himself both the Things upon the Earth and the Things in Heaven This was much the end of Christ's coming upon the Fathers sending of him to preach Peace unto us He is our Peace and his Gospel is the Gospel of Peace Christ was Man that as Man had offended so Christ by becoming Flesh by taking the Manhood to his Godhead might pacifie God in Man in the Nature of Man and that Christ might be such a One as did suffer together with us in our infirmities and was tempted in all things like unto us yet without sin As the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews doth declare And Christ was God in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily as Paul speaks that there might be virtue and merit enough in him fully both to satisfie and please his Father and that he might be a fit Interceder for his people to his Father and that now Believers might in Christ see and enjoy the Father Christ being the Image of the Invisible God the brightness and resplendence of Glory and the Ingraven Form or Impression of his Person or subsistence so that he who seeth the Son seeth the Father also This shines in the face of Jesus Christ who as Mediator was also known to acknowledged by Believers under the Old Testament Dispensation whose Jehovahship has been already proved from thence whereby his Godhead is evidenced and as for his Humanity it was revealed to them That the seed of the woman should break the head of the serpent and that of the fruit of Davids body should Christ be raised up concerning the flesh as Peter in his Sermon hath expounded that prophesie in the one hundred thirty and second Psalm and Christ did several times appear under the Old Testament Administration as a man whereby he did visibly foreshew that Great Mystery of his being God manifested in the Flesh in time Thus particularly doth the Word speak that when Jacob was left alone a man wrestled with him till the morning whom Jacob did call the Mighty God whence Jacob named that place where this wrestling was Peniel that is to say the place where he saw the Faces of the Almighty One even of him who is Jehovah For thus the Prophet Hosea doth speak that Jehovah saith At Bethel God found him meaning this Jacob whom he met and to whom he appeared and there he spake with us he who has Jehovah for his Name of remembrance which also is another proof of Christ's being Jehovah It was made known unto them that Christ was both God and Man in one Hence in Isaiah Christ hath the name of Gnimmanu-el God with us which 〈◊〉 more eminently and evidently fulfilled when he was born of the Virgin 〈◊〉 as is declared in the Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the LORD by that Prophet saying Behold the Virgin shall he with child and shall bring forth a Son and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel which is being interpreted God with us And the Prophet Zeehariah doth call Christ such a Man as was withal a Fellow-companion with the Father There were several Types of this of old Such a one was Moses when he stood between Jehosnuah and his people to shew unto them the Word of Jehovah Such was Aaron and his Sons the high Priests who were anointed to this Office to appear before the LORD for his people to offer Sacrifice for them to pray unto Jehovah for them and to bless them from Jehovah Thus did the people humbly supplicate to the Judge of all by a Mediator for Grace They of them that were believing appealed unto the Father for right presenting themselves and referring their Cause to his Righteous Judgement in a way of interpellation intreating his favour and praying against condemnation in regard that all his just demands were fully answered in the Virtue and Merit of his Son in whom his Soul was well pleased who was represented by the High Priest that did bear the Names of the people upon his Heart when he went in into the holy place for a Memorial before Jehovah continually and who did bear the iniquity of their holy Things for favourable acceptation of them to the Faces of Jehovah which was a significant Figure of the Mediation of Christ who by the Author of the Epistle of the Hebrews is called The high Priest of our profession and the high Priest of good things to come in which respect he is the Mediator of a better Testament as he is commended in that Epistle The Figures and Types which did shadow out his Mediatorship under the Old Testament dispensation having received under the New their full accomplishment and perfection in him It was Christ's Person and Office and Place that Jehovah the high Priest in the Prophesie of Zechariah did represent when he stood before Jehovah It was Christ whom Malachi doth call the Angel or the deputed commissioned Messenger of the Covenant he in whom all the promises of God even to Believers under the Old Testament were yea and Amen What was promised unto Abraham that in him in his seed all Families of the Earth should be blessed the same doth Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians apply to Christ as accomplished in him who was that promised Seed Hence Christ is called the Surety of this better Testament or Covenant he who by giving the hand did promise to the Father on the behalf of those whom the Father gave unto him for whom he did undertake and who did work their peace by making of a Covenant between God and them for who else could have set his hand to go through with so great a Work Who is he that can promise in his heart to draw near unto me saith Jehovah in the Prophet Jeremiah None else was throughly fitted and fully furnished for this but only Jehovah Christ Christ is the One Mediator Of this the Apostle Paul speaketh in express words There is one Mediator between God and men
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
himself hath declared this in the second Psalm That he has anointed his King upon Zion the Mountain of his Holiness doth and will tell the Decree Jehovah said to me Thou my Son I this day begat thee Ask of me I will give the heathens thine inheritance and the ends of the earth thy firm hereditary possession Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron as the vessel of a potter thou shalt scatter them in pieces Of this Jesus doth Peter understand this Psalm and from hence doth the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews prove Christ's Call to his Office of Priesthood This Christ was the first anointed with the Spirit and with the Oyl of Gladness above his Fellows in the forty and fifth Psalm This Name Mashiach or Messias as applyed to this Son of God was well known in Israel as appears by Andrews acknowledging him to be so to his Brother Simon and by the Testimony of the Woman of Samaria who confessed this Name And hence it is that those Disciples of his who believe on his Name have this Honour from him to be called Christans both in the Old and New Testament He charged other men not to touch his Christians his Christs his Anointed Ones in the one hundred and fifth Psalm those who were thus consecrated to him and set apart to high and honourable Offices and Imployments under him by the Anointing of his Spirit which they had from him that is holy as writes John in his first Epistle Which Name was revived and received at Antioch where the Name was renewed in the Apostles times and they were again called Christians For there are the Fellows of Christ being taken into Consortship and Partnership with him in the Anointing whereby they are also made Kings and Priests as John speaks in the Revelation There oyly pourings out of the Spirits were in a fulness upon Christ not in lesser measures Jehovah possessed me saith Christ in the Book of Proverbs in the beginning of his way before his Works before them before the World was I Anointed before the beginning before the first things of the Earth when yet there was no deeps was I brought forth when there was non Fountains heavy with Water when yet Mountains were not fastned before the Hills was I brought forth yet he had not made the Earth nor Streets no not the beginning nor dust of the inhabited World When he fitted the Heavens there was I when he appointed the Circuit upon the Faces of the deep when he fortified the Clouds above when he strengthened the Fountains of the deep when he laid his Decree upon the Sea that the Waters should not pass the commandment of his mouth when he appointed the Foundation of the Earth Thus speaks the Father by the Prophet Isaiah concerning his Son Behold my Servant whom I uphold mine Elect my Soul delighteth I have given my Spirit upon him he shall bring forth Judgement upon the Nations The LORD Christ was warrantably lawfully called to this Office God the father sealed him thereunto As Christ speaks of himself in what John doth write of him and elsewhere in his Prophet Isaiah The Spirit of the LORD Jehovah is upon me therefore Jehovah hath Anointed me to preach No man taketh this Honour to himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron So also Christ did not take this Honour to himself to become an high Priest but he that spake unto him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee gave it him As also in another place he saith Thou art a Priest for ever upon my word O Malchi-tzedek Hence it is that Christ is called by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews the Apostle and high Priest of our profession and by Malachi The Angel of the Covenant So that Christ had a Testimony from his Father for his being appointed unto this Office not often after he had taken Flesh of the Virgin Mary when a Voice came from Heaven saying This is my well beloved Son in whom I am well pleased and when the holy Spirit descended as a Dove out of Heaven and abode remaining on him but long before under the Old Testament Dispensation And before that also even before the World was he the anointed This LORD Jesus Christ was Administrator under both Testament Dispensations of Grace He chief in Office and all others that were lawfully called and rightfully sent forth were such as did minister and serve under and for him He was the LORD God of the holy Prophets as John calls him in the Revelation and as the Father sent him so did this Christ send his Apostles It was this Christ who so often appeared to Moses as has been shewn Christ was Faithful to his Father who constituted him in Office and who was Heir of his own House In which House he imployed Moses to be his Servant who was also faithful to and under Christ It was the Spirit of Christ who did witness in the Prophets of Old as Peter mentioned in his first Epistle He was the chief one in Sion as Isaiah calleth him who did declare the things that were to come to pass and this is the same Son of God in whom the Father hath spoken to us in the last days Him hath God made LORD and Christ and to him was given Dominion Glory and a Kingdom that all People Nations and Tongues should serve him The Father hath given unto him dignity to execute Judgement he hath given all Judgement to the Son All must obey and stoop at the command of this ever Blessed LORD of Glory who has proclaimed this of himself that all Authoritative Power is given him in Heaven and upon the Earth God hath committed all into his hands He shall reign till he hath put all Enemies under his feet This is he that is appointed of God the Judge both of the Living and of the Dead In this was the Love of God manifested towards those whom he chose in Christ and gave to Christ that he hath sent his only begotten Son into the World that they should live by him so loved he the World that he thus gave Christ that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life O how much hath he commended his Love to such He was first in the Love him hath God set up for a Prepitiatory-covering an expiatory reconciliation 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 This Jehovah Christ was the Creator of all things as the Father is Creator and as the holy Spirit is Creator They the Creators Jehovah was the Creator of all things This Aelohim was he who gave his Creatures their Being as Moses hath delivered to us the History thereof To this do others bear witness in the Scriptures Praised be Johovah Aelohim that made the
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-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
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
Will and desire what thou wilt This doth by far excel any thing of Art every thing of Science else has no coequation with this This was the wise choice that Solomon made for which he who is Wisdom it self hath commended him There is no occasion of complaint here as in vain Philosophy that Art is long and Life is short For the more skilful thou dost grow in this holy Art the more will it be a lengthening to thy days and if thou do not waste time it will tell thee thou dost not want time Here the walk is all-pleasantnesses and the way is prosperous Peace No such hardship and difficulty as in intricate involved Philosophy in the Study of which confounding Vanity and stupifying of Obstruseness some have thrown their Books against the wall because they could not overcome its Notions in their Intellect In Scripture-Wisdom here the Tree Everlasting Lives and this Tree of saving Knowledges do grow together and growing Believers can nourishingly feed on both their Fruits together Those who apprehend it and hold it up and reach it out to others are made happy by it This is a participation of the Wisdom of God This Wisdom is seen in Jehovah's founding of the Earth and this Understanding is manifested in his establishing of the Heavens this Knowledge looked forth in the broken Abysses in the dividing of the Waters and in the Skies distilling Dew Yet vain mens affected wisdom can make nothing of their Studies about these nor ever will whilst they slight the Scripture discovery concerning these and other Works of the Creation but the eyes of Believers should not go off from the Word and Works of God Those who are thus well-minded shall have Jah to communicate his secrets and his counsels to them Here is good Doctrine good in its self good to those who do receive it from which receiving it hath its Name Our Heart should be upholders bearers up of these Oracles of Christ We should possessingly acquire this Wisdom and Understanding not forgetting not declining from the words of his mouth This Wisdom is the Leading-head-Commander of Knowledge This we are to begin with It is not as vain Philosophy is a withered fruitless Speculation but a sapid savoury Knowledge It is the best Inheritance O come to it as such all ye who are true Friends of real useful Learning It puts a Glory upon the Possessor of it and doth highly exalt him enobling the embracers of it These sayings we must take in not the Dictates or Placits of Men or of Devils In this way of Wisdom should young ones be instructed they should tread in these sound paths of Rightness going over the Scriptures again and gain How many young Students read over divers Philosophical Tractates before they read over the holy Scriptures once at least with an eye togather the best Arts and Sciences thence Other Books of Knowledges are no further useful than as they some way or other more or less do comment aright on the Scriptures or on Created Beings agreeably to the Scriptures In Humane Philosophical Writings the Student is often brought to perplexing straights and to offensive stumblings not so here in this word and way of Wisdom Here we should have and hold real profitable Notions of Truths and of Things it is our lives whereas vain speculations of carnal reason should be let go lest they prove deadly to the pertinâ—cious maintainer of them The further on that a Believer doth walk in this Scripture-path the more growing is his light to discern and to difference things by whilst Philosophical wanderers that go out of the word-way do and will whilst there walk in darkness but let our eyes be upon this Book of Books Keep we its revealed Knowledge in the midst of our Heart It will be liveliness and healing to us To this should we be attentive and upon this be intent It has acute wittinesses and subtile cogitations so shall our lips conserve Science For all kind of holy sagaciousness and discretion is in this Scripture-Wisdom and Intelligency From these words should not we recede and they should be our Doctors and Teachers that instruct us in this This Word is a Law and a Light whereas Philosophies are darknesses This Word should we bind over our heart always and tie it annect it over our throats that as soon as speeches are uttered by us out may come some Scripture Eloquies of Mysterious Art and Holy Science Waking and walking we should converse with it and it with us It will keep us when we are asleep and it will lead along in proficiency when we are in our particular Callings It would inlighten our mind and direct our way at the very door of it when we first step into it We should see Understanding shine forth upon us and into us These Words of Christ should be kept by us and hid with us as the black the little man of our eyes We should bind them over our Fingers to work by them and to wise us in and about our work as well as write them on the Table of our Heart to live under the Law of them and to love them and meditate upon them We should say to Wisdom my Sister thou and call Understanding a Kinswoman so near and so dear so intimate and familiar ought it to be to us and with us and our eyes should see by this all sensible experimental knowledges should be brought to this This Word it greatly useful for an Active as well as for a Contemplative Life Here is work for Fingers as well as thinkingness for Hearts A Believer doth wed this Wisdom This kind of Understanding and of Knowledge should be well known unto us as a Wife a Sister a Friend a very amicous Relation and of free Converse our conjoyned Counseller of the same blood with us and of close affinity to us All the sons of Adam may learn here Magistrate Minister and People Leaders and Led What is spoken here are Eximious Matters and Rectitudes that which is Truth all Just no depraved or oblique thing all preparedly right to the Intellect to those who finding Knowledge Whereas Humane Philosophies are obscure and crooked dark and wrie false and difficult In Word-knowledge there is that true Riches which is beyond Gold and Silver Wisdom is above Margarites All a mans wouldlings his wishings have no equation in her Whereas the Philosophical Arts of Elementary Learning are beggarly Rudiments So are the first Principles of Cosmical Men of Vain Affecters of Worldly Humane Wisdom poor and weak Vanities In Christ's Word is the Invention of Science and of subtil Arts. He that would deeply consult about Essences should come hither which Humane Philosophies can never so indigate With this Unstanding there is strength whereas Humane Wisdom doth weaken the Powers of a man's Spirit and Soul and
a Created Nature doth contribute much for the discovery of the Positure of the World which is the higher and which the lower part of the Universe in its System orderly disposed as also for the conviction of Infidelity and the confutation of Atheism It being a great and gross Error in the scoffing Anti-Scripturists who daringly affirm that the Gulph and Hell have no certain Existence in the Nature of Beings nor definiteness of locality in the Creation of Places but that they are mere Bug bears to terrifie Fools and Scare-crows to fright Children withal my work therefore here will be to examine whether the Earth at its first Creation were formless and vord so that Tohu and Bohu as commonly interpreted be truly and rightly predicated of Aeretz or not Whether Tohu and Bohu be or be not distinct Creatures from the Earth locally distinct or two created places the one setting out the Gulphy-empty-space the other the doleful place of Hell Then to assert and prove from Scripture and Nature that there are really such places And in what parts of the created World those places are whereby the positures of the Creation will be manifested in what order they are placed one above or below another which is one of the secrets of Nature hidden from vain Philosophers but revealed in holy Scriptures Towards the bringing in of somewhat of a very useful discovery that this Earth was not created deformed not an empty unâ—â—apen or mis-shapen lump confused or without fashion not such an amazing and shameful thing as one who has a name amongst the Learnedest of Criticks and who doth undertake to correct others in their rendring of these words doth amiss call it not such a formless Chaos as it is Heatheneshly standered to be let it be well considered whether they do not great wrong to this Work of Aetohim who do express the significancy of these words to be that which is contrary to fight Order to good-Digestion to methodâ—â— Framing and to comâ—y Modesty as somewhat to be ashamed of and then do 〈◊〉 this to the Earth Seeing that this Earth as also the empty Gulph and the doleful place have a great fitness and a comly order and a beautious decency in the Creators Ordination for the ends of his own Glory for the advancing of rich distinguishing Grace towards the Elect and for the sinners confusion and amongst many other transgressors Idolaters and corrupt worshippers living and dying such Especially if in Ages of such growing light as doth convincingly discover the forbiddenness of all humane Inventions Institutions and Impositions in the matters of Worship exclusive of what is of Christ's prescribing and appointing in his word These are some of those sinners who by name are declared to be in the road way upon the brink to be tumbled down the Gulphy-confounded-space There is not any the least mark of reproach cast or put upon any other of Aelohim's Works and therefore not upon the first created Earth For all and every of his Works have all that kind of perfection which doth belong to that created Work It being made in that excellency of State for goodness which every creature was framed in according as the nature of that creature was capable fit and able to receive for its assigned usefulness in its place So that it was for so far intire consummate absolute in all Numbers and modes and was no way to be reprehended faulted or blamed having the Creator's own Letters Testimonial for its due commendation and praise under his Hand and Seal All was pure unblemished no defect in it as such Therefore did Righteous Adam rejoyce in meditating on these works on the Seventh-day Sabbath By a collation of other Scriptures it will appear that this Verb Was may properly and distinctly belong to Tohu and to Bohu as also to Vechosheâ— As for the significancy of the words in the Original let all the Scriptures be considered that do make mention of them whether Tohu be not the empty gulphy astonishing desolate space and Bohu the doleful place the serious meditating whereon makes to sigh and to groan These words are Substantives and not Adjectives or Participles and do properly stand by themselves So that to praedicate these abstracts of the Earth as if it were amazingness shamefulness deformedness formlesness emptyness or shapelesness and voidness wastness or vanity seemeth to reproach Creating Aelohim who did all in wonderful Wisdom and having approved of every Work of his he rejoyced therein As for the Structure of Speech the Verb belongs in common to Tohu to Bohu and to Vechoshâ—â— appertaining to all the members of this speech being put to one it is to be accommodated to all as if it were expresly added to every one Aeretz was created Tohu was Bohu was each of them was in being truly subsisting though the verb be but once written yet being once spoken it hath a conveniency with the other members by a common right There is great evidence and natural comeliness that is in this kind of Scripture-speaking It cannot be rightfully affirmed of this Earth in the abstract as many do that the Earth was emptiness or an empty thing at its first creation For this appears to be expresly denyed by Jehovah Aelohim in another Scripture because thus he said when he shews himself forth as the Creator of those Heavens and the Former of this Earth that having made the Earth he firmly prepared or established her and that he did create her Not Tohu or Not-emptiness he created her to be dwelt in or satâ—in or to be inhabited or to Sabbatize in Thus doth he expresly deny what men do affirm Tohu only is the Gulphy empty uninhabited place of the created World It being only the Gulphy passage to Hell Several parts of the creation being distinctly spoken unto in that Prophecy by Isaiah as the Text and Context will evidence All other spaces and places are filled up and inhabited but only this Tohu which is empty In the higher Heavens there are the glorious Inhabitants of that better Countrey There are the upper Waters and many other Treasures In the Expanse are Sun Moon and Stars those bright shining Luminaries In the Air are Fowls on the Earth are Men and Women Beasts Cattle Worms in the Waters are Fishes in Hell are Devils and Damned only Tohu is void So that there is a Viâ—â—um in Nature contrary to Paganish Philosophy as Tohu doth properly note That which is contrary to such a Line as is drawn to distinguish to put in order in building upon some Foundation which Tohu doth want So Bohu is that which is contrary to a Foundation and Building or Extruction contrary to a perpendicular by which the Building is directed There is no Foundation or Extruction in Hell for it is bottomless at least so far as that the damned know no bottom of it Tohu not being praedicated of Aeretz neither is Bohu which
which affirmation is quite contrary to Sense Reason and Scripture as may be seen with the eye in the forementioned parallel Motion of the two Plumb-lines Thus the Seamen have their Perpendiculars which do move right down and do make perpendicular lines equidistant from each other every where in the Waters that are under this one Earth if it be well examined by the same natural Motion of Plumb lines equidistantly downwards it will be found that all Plants do naturally grow out of the Earth perpendicularly and so the Earth doth nourish them and thus all grounds do bear only according to the plain or level thereof and not according to any convex or concave Superficies A Garden though the Ground be rising and indented yet may be paled round with as few equilateral Pales as if it were plain and level because all the Pales do stand perpendicularly one of the most quick-sighted into and of the most experienced about Natural History has declared that as for the moving of Dense Bodies to a point or place which was the opinion of the Ancients it is a meer vanity I have not found though I have searched withcare and industry in this Inquiry any one word or phrase in the Old and New Testament which doth properly signifie a common Center of this visible World whereas there is express mention made of a Perpendicular of a Plumb-line That one place of the Sea into which the Waters were gathered at the first Creation is a distinct different place from this pretended Center in the middle of the Earth which the vain affecters of Humane Wisdom would have the congenial parts of the Chaos immediately to apply themselves unto gathering round in about it as if this frame consisted by an equilibration of parts to the Center of Gravity There is not such an Elementary and Subcortical Earth as is below any the lowest Fundus of the Waters as if this were the Foundation and Basis of the World and the centrical Orb of it for the deep Waters the Gulphy space Sheol and the doleful place are below the Earth they are subterraneous as being under the whole body of the Earth and not only under the upper Superficies of the Earth and therefore these are called the out places O who will give that the Atheist and the Infidel would lay this more to Heart The holy Scriptures do set out these lower places with terrour to fright the Sons and Daughter of Adam from those by-paths of sin that would lead thither There are the Profundities of Sheol the evil Angels were thrust down there there is the black dark passage into the deep corrupting Pit to the sides whereof sinners are cast down This is the hid horrible place the going down there is in sorrow into a place tormentful a certain definit place remotest from Heaven a place of greatest sorrow and of deepest misery into which the damned do descend some are saved from out of Sheol others are cast down and left there How doleful a place is Hell Wo wo no oh is the Language there under the weight of unpardoned guilt under the sense of tormenting wrath Those that will not turn from sin unto Christ here shall be turned into Hell there A place of terrible confused darkness of outer darkness a foul and hideous prison the Gehenna of Fire is there Should I paraphrase upon the several scores of Scriptures that do express this how many pages would it take up This is the place of deadly shadow of weeping of gnashing of teeth of chaining of gnawing worms of burning wrath the wicked are thrust down and driven in there What will those who forget God never believe this till they feel it O how rich is that Grace how free is that Love which doth deliver a chosen number from this wrath to come which doth take them up into the Heavenly places the better Country the Holy Place the Holy of Holies the Eternal Tabernacles whither Christ is Ascended to prepare Mansions for his Disciples that he and they may be together ever together There is the place of the manifested Residence of Aelohim's Glory Q. Whether that Darkness which doth distinguish and separate between the Night and the Day in a large Day be but the want or privation of Light and so mere nothing And which was first the Darkness or the Light And what is the Scripture-Doctrine according to Created Nature and Order concerning Days Weeks Months Winter Summer and Years THe affecters of Humane Wisdom do thus wrongfully determine as if it were only the absence of Light or the shadow of the Earth coming between us and the Sun when the opacous or thick body of the Earth doth interpose between us and the Sun darkness followeth Whereas the Scriptures of Truth will inform us that darkness is a Creature darkness was it hath been that is it truly hath subsisted it doth and will subsist For so is the Nature of that Word to Be is to Exist to have Essence A creating Word was used with respect to darkness The Creaton made Light spake it out of Darkness It is called to the Night which is a real name and is a real thing It sets out real things It has a place a local seat The Darkness was over the Faces of the troublesome deep for this proposition doth note a term or place of Motion or Rest in the most opposite place to â—ight Light is in Heaven as in its proper place in which God doth dwell whereas these darknesses are in the lowest places in the Abyss in that nethermost Pit in the Gulphs Darkness was three Days before there was a Sun in the Expanse to go in go down or set the Sun being created on the fourth Day and therefore it was not caused by the Suns absence Darkness was one of Egypts plagues which had not been so much had it only been a want and no infliction it was Darkness felt which was a sensible thing The Air was thick of it the hand had sense of it It was palpable darkness of obscurity much obscure black and thick It sets out a spiritual Plague which is a real Judgement It is a thing sent and made It is a thing sometimes turned into its contrary It has an efficient Cause Jehovah Aelohim gave it a Being He puts it he makes it he puts a Term or Bound unto it He brings it into the Air as often as he will It has its Properties as sudden arising or diffusion or spreading abroad it has obscurity it doth produce real effect It is divided into several kinds thick black It is that which is unfit for Communion with its opposite Light It is a thing destroyable It is one of the miseries in Hell The Creator did divide between the Darkness and the Light as the Expanse did divide between the Waters and Waters The Heavenly Lights were made thus
Spirit When a gracious heart is exercised aright about this object of the upper Waters it may be raised to the Heavenliest frame and may mind the best things When the word doth assert the locality of the upper waters to be above the Heavens by those Heavens and Waters are not meant the Air and the Clouds For there is Air above these Clouds Did we more and better consider the place whence the Rain doth come and the efficient cause of it who it is that doth make it and send it we should find the matter profitable for our serious thoughts to be working upon The coming down of Rain from above this visible Expanse to us would be a call an help and means to fetch us up thither whence this did descend hither and fall down towards us So that it is not by the position of Luminaries that this Rain is drawn up They are the LORD 's hidden Treasuries which have this blessing issuing forth from them when they are sent in a gracious Covenant way then are they a blessing Those Treasuries are above this Expanse in some inner place and hidden Repository Such as cannot be come at by Men Neither does their eye here reach and see them there Whereas all is open between us and the Expanse and the eye can reach as far as the extended Firmament It is the Almighty who shakes out a Rain of liberalities He sheds and sprinkles it abroad as with the waving of the hand He divideth the spouts for it He doth appoint it its bounds that it shall not cover the Earth He hath these Waters in his hand they obey him He that is delighted with this kind of study may quickly be directed how to fill up a large Tractat upon this Subject-matter of the upper Waters out of the Scriptures concerning Rain the Rainbow Dew Hail Snow and what else that is watry which cometh down from above and how much is there of hidden secrets in these created beings in their natural essences causalities and productions which are practically useful One distinct work of the third Day with its peculiar blessing was that of Herbs The Inquiry therefore here shall be this Q. Whether the exact est fullest Herbal of Herbs Grass Trees and Plants be not treasured up in the Scriptures of Truth opening this great Secret of Created Nature best setting out the doctrine and use of them both for Feeding and for Healing Answ It is FRom the Herbal fruitfulness of this Earth may be drawn many a sweet Argument of Jehovahs praise Aelohim is the prime efficient Cause producing of Herbs They were not until he spake them into a Being he made them by his Word by his own immediate Power without second and ordinary Causes The Sun Moon and Stars were not created till the next Day after and therefore no influence of the Heavenly Luminaries could be the parent of their first Production To assert created Authors of Herbs is an Heathenish Fable The green Herbs had their Virtues in perfection at their first Creation and were not Astrologically distributed according to that pretended Dominion which some do over credulously fancy that the Heavenly Luminaries do exercise over them whereby much of the Ethnick Idolatry and superstition has slily crept in and is still infinuating of it self into the minds of many After the first Creation-Herbs the LORD did put a Virtue into second and ordinary Causes under him to forward those choice Virtues which he put into Herbs which Herbs do still retain This Earth from the blessing of God is said to bring forth Herb accommodate to them by whom it is dressed The Sun by its light and heat doth communicate some vital warmth in the Virtue whereof the Seed of Herbs is cherished and prepared for Generation till the Herb be thence brought forth The Moon also has its usefulness this way by its cooling moistening to protrude thrust forth or eject them The Waters Rainy and dewy have also some refreshing nourishing efficacy this way These fellow Creatures are pleasant and healthful unto Herbs so that sometimes the Dew is put for the Herb which with the Dew from Heaven is moistened and cherished and made to vegetate and grow The want whereof doth leave the Earth to be barren But the Earth when thus well watered is friendly to the Herb by its native heat cherishing the Seed until the Herb be born and brought forth and when it is brought forth the Earth by its moisture doth nourish and nurse chear and conserve it The labour of man by Culture and and dressing has also a special serviceableness for this end The place in which the Herbs do come forth and grow is the superfice of this Earth and of the Field and hence it is that an Herb is called an Herb of the Earth the Herb of the Field of the Fieids the Herb of the Mountains Were all the Scriptures in the Margin with divers others that might help to bring in an answer to this inquiry well studied in the large significancy of the Original Words and Phrases relating to the knowledge of Herbs O how much light would it bring in for the advance and augment of the Alimental and Medicinal Arts Herbs are the Fruit and the Revenue of the Earth It is called our Revenue or Fruit speaking of those who are in Covenant with Jehovah Aelohim But how little of this is as yet injoyed in a Scripture way because this wonderful secret in created Nature is so little digged after in the Word-Mine which alone doth fully discover it Whilst it makes for the gainful purpose of some to hold vulgar capacities in ignorance that themselves might be admired and resorted to whereas were we well skilled in that Scriptural Herbal which the LORD Christ hath given us the poorest only for a little pains in gathering by a discrete choice and meet application might have that wholesome food and that recovering Medicine which the richer sort with all their large fees and discharged long Bills are never likely to attain unto Those Scriptures would teach us much of the Natural Virtue and efficacy of Herbs some whereof are of a Marshy kind such as do grow in miry wet and softned places The Herbage doth spring up and sprout that is near the Waters a well moystened soyâ— doth make it green and flourishing He that hath made all other things for himself had also glorious ends in his eye in his third Days Work For the LORD did create and bring forth the Herb for his own Honour and for the service use and good of man It is serviceable to man for many purposes for the Oven or Furnace to heat it wherein to make corn ready It is helpful for mens eye-sight by the greenness of it which is refreshing and strengthening to the Eye and cheering to his Spirit by its virid freshness How useful is the green Grass to
LORD himself with respect to particular persons and contingencies as if by their influences these Luminaries did so govern the bodily humours as by them to govern the mind and spirits of rational voluntary creatures their prognostications of future contingent things at so great a distance are generally false and always groundless We are expresly forewarned against this heathen artifice Such Planetarians or Contemplators of the planets were not to be tolerated amongst the people of Aelohim Yet were the Israelites themselves given to this contrary to his Interdict herein imitating the Ethnicks who had their Planetarians and did hearken to them seeking to them believing of them trusting to them and obeying of them as their great pretended infallible Oracle Such were the Canaanites How unsound is their Doctrine of Genethliacal positures of the Heavens and the coelestial Luminaries to precise points and to minute differences of place and of time As also of the distributions of the Houses and Horoscopes How Scriptureless and Natureless are these As if mens Fatalities were influenced thus by the hour of their Nativity or Birth or else of their conception And as if the hour of what shall befal men were determined by the hour when the question was asked of them Where doth the Word warrant any such Science of Nativities Elections and Questions and fatal necessities Where doth it speak of such predictions by any natural causality or created efficiency from the Locations of Planets and Stars their Conjunctions Oppositions and other Constellations and commixtures of Rays Where doth it counsel us to take a benevolent Scituation or Aspect of Stars in a Seal or Signet-Ring of Metals or Gem capable of such impressions to arrest the felicity of that hour which otherwise for that punctuality of time would swiftly pass away and soon fix it notwithstanding its volatilousness Whence have these Men their power to call Time back again that was flown away To revive an hour that was dead and gone Where doth the Word teach us how to set these Astrological Figures O what Superstition and Imposture is there here doth it not belong to Jehovah Aelohim only to know and reveal these Future things Was it not one of the presages of the Jews Captivity when they were replenished with the South-saying-Art like the Philistines In Nabonassar's Reign above two thousand four hundred years ago or soon after they write that they divided the Heavens into twelve spaces called Signs unto which the Judiciary Astrologers did ascribe certain vertues or powers over the several parts of Man's body and over the several Countries and Nations of the World especially by reason of the qualities they supposed to be in the fixed Stars which then did take up those spaces Their Rules are still observed though the Stars are removed into the succeeding spaces The fixed Stars they say do pass through an whole Sign in two thousand one hundred and eighteen years from the Creation then in about five thousand six hundred years they have changed their places and spaces twice and one half at least which therefore must quite alter their Rules Astrologers do scarce look beyond the Zodiack for their Aspects Whereas the Stars which they miscal fixed may have as operative configurations with the Planets as the Planets one with another Astrologers do differ much about the dividing of these Houses Those Stars Which according to Ptolemy who wrote as they reckon above one thousand five hundred years ago are in one house and are said to signifie thus after Regiomontanus who is now most followed are in another house for the same time and place and so do signifie otherwise As for the Geuethliacal part what sound reason can there be assigned why the Influences of the Stars should make more impression upon the child in the moment of his Nativity than they did at any time before in the Womb At the first conception matter is fluid and apter to receive impression then when the child is shaped and the temper more confirmed There was an old Astrologer who framed a Table to discover to a minute of Time when the conception first began But what man can certainly know that There have been thousands of people of both Sexes of all Ages born in sundry places and under sundry configurations of the Stars who have perished and dyed in the same hour and moment by the same common calamity as shipwrack War Pestilence Earth-quake fall of Buildings Some who seem most successful in setting of Figures for the discovery of things that are lost or for prognosticating of Life or Death are such as scarce know any Planet but the Sun and the Moon The practitioners in this Black-Art do usually call for Men's Faith to be given up to them which is a devilish Artifice and a secret acknowledging of and compacting with Satan calling and taking off such as seek unto them from Christ and from his Word Astrologers in Scripture are called Consociators Conjoyners of the Heavens Either such as are in association and fellowship with evil spirits in these Contemplations and Speculations of the Stars or else making of Constellations a pretended combination of Stars undertaking to discern and judge of future events to be Prophets of the Stars fore-seeing after contingencies fore-telling by the Moons and Kalends monthly prognosticators Almanack-presenters I have compared some of them who in the same year and month do differ in the time of their Full and New Moons neither can they themselves satisfactorily answer whether the same Planet have one effect when in one house of a Figure and another specifick effect when in another house And so of the fixed Stars and Signs in the Zodiack Whether in the same house or Figure the Sun by himself hath one effect the Moon another Saturn another And so of the fixed Stars and Signs of the Zodiack whether the same point of Heaven if it be the place of the Sun in any Genesis retain a solar force and influence in respect of that Nature as long as he liveth So Saturn's place a Saturnine vertue c. Whether the same point of Heaven which to one Native is the place of the Sun to another may be the place of Saturn Jupiter Mars Venus Mercury or the Moon Whether no Planet have the same effect in divers signs of the Zodiack at least not both Elementally and Influentially Whether the hour of the Nativity do not oftentimes through many natural occurrencies eithes accelerate or defer and how then if so can that govern the fate and fortune as they call it of the whole life And how the hour of the Question should be co-fatal with the thing it self which is sought What demonstrative evidences can any man give me from the Word and Works of God to resolve and to quiet the mind of a Believer about these Inquiries And many more that might be propounded How can these Men with all their Humane Wisdom by their un-scriptural Art inform me where the
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-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
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
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
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-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
the inner part of experimental Christianity And how may a Believer be led into it and abide there Q. Whether is there not something in the cases of an experienced Believer which doth more or less directly answer to all the cases all the World over And if so how may this be improved Q. How may a Believer rightly distinguish and wisely difference between the motions of the holy Spirit the impulse of his own spirit and the suggestions of the evil spirit Q. What is the right method of mutual Espousing and Covenanting between Christ and the Believer Q. What is the holy Art and the Skill of Believers through submission to and contentful acquiescence in the Soveraign Will of our LORD when the Believer is much oppressed by a body of Death and by indwelling sin and is held somewhat short under greatly inlarged desires and very importunate endeavours after abounding measures of excelling Graces and after eminent serviceableness and after the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God Q. Whether that Wisdom Righteousness and Sanctification which the LORD Jesus Christ is made of God unto Believers be not specially specifick and of a distinct kind from that which was concreated with and in the first Adam and from what is but the common work of the Spirit of Grace now And how may this be improved Concerning saving-Grace and the sound evidences thereof Q. HOw may it be yet further cleared and proved that saving and sanctifying Grace in believing Christians doth specifically differ from the common vertues of the civilized Heathen And how is this to be improved Q. What is the spiritual Science of putting of saving Graces upon contributing of mutual help to each other And how doth this call for all diligence to be brought over unto it And what is the distinct Office and the proper Work of every such grace in a Believer What is the manner of their Influence upon each other What their Order Goverment and Discipline Q. How should Graces wisely and suitably act towards Christ and towards the Word of Christ Q. Whether is it not enough for the clear sound evidencing of an holy State of saving and of sanctifying Grace that we love nothing in preference in predominancy before Christ or in equality with Christ unless also we love not any Creature at all inordinately though inferiourly as to any the least competition with Christ So that there must be a loving of the LORD with our whole Mind our whole Soul our whole Heart our whole Strength and so too that he may not only have all our Love our Loves but we must also hate whatsoever else it be that would take off or hinder our through Discipleship to Christ Q. Whether to chuse God alone for our God above all and to chuse Christ for our only LORD and Saviour which are very great and largely comprehensive Truths Duties and Acts have all other evidences of Grace resolved only into them seeing that they both are properly but a part of one even the first of the ten Words Q. Whether is there any other general comprehensive sound satisfying evidence of Grace but only an universal holy growing conformity in Knowledge and Obedience in all things for more continuedness to an whole Christ and to the whole VVord of Christ Q. VVhen is Grace in its exaltation and triumph And how should a Believer get it up to this high pitch and there keep it use it and advance it Q. How may and ought a Believer still to grow up into Grace here as the glorified Saints are above who are perfected into Grace And will there be every Grace in Heaven someways acted and exercised And what is that obedience which will be to every one of the ten Words in Heaven Concerning Heaven and its Glory Q. HOw may a Believer on Earth converse in his Spirit in Heaven with the glorious inhabitants there as if he were actually there Q. How may a Believer be in a continued readiness and preparedness for Death and for Judgement and for the coming of Christ And how is he as to his Spirit and Soul to be directed in his passage into the other World after that these do depart from out of the Body Q. How hath a Believer eternal Life now in this life actually in possession And how may he and ought he to improve this Q. How may a Believer through Grace and Mercy so work up his spirit soul and body here into that transformation unto more of an holy healthful likeness of the Spirit and Soul of glorified Ones and as the Body will be at the last Resurrection and as the Spirit Soul and Body of Christ is Q. How may the purer Churches of Christ on Earth walk in that order here as the glorious Church in Heaven doth Q. How may a Sabbath be so kept on Earth as the Sabbatism is in Heaven Concerning such Scripture-Principles which if admitted and improved might have a direct tendency towards the healing and uniting of the broken and divided Churches and People of God Q. VVHether LORD Jesus Christ be not one and the same and the only Head of Peace and of Purity Q. Whether the holy Scriptures of Truth be not one and the same and the only Rule of Peace and of Purity Q. Whether the Christian Religion for sum and for substance be not one and the same both under the Old and New Testament administrations of Grace the Difference only in the manner of dispensing being duly observed Q. Whether should not the whole Scripture be brought as profitable for Doctrine for convincing Reproof for Correction for Instruction Q. Whether the Law of the Ten Words be not a standing unalterable Rule of Faith Worship and Life commanding all good forbidding all evil under the several dispensations of Grace Q. Whether the Analogy of Faith under the New Testament must not have somewhat proportionably answering to it out of the Old And must not all and every of the Types under the old pass into the Anti-types in the New Q. Whether perfecting work be to be asserted promoted and practised especially as to those six Principles Heb. 6. 1 2 and particularly as to the perfecting of Baptism in grown Believers Q. Whether the purer Churches of the later days should conform to the Prophetical Pattern shewn to Ezekiel and to Christs Directory in his Epistles sent to the seven Churches of Asia revealed to John as that which will make way for the fulfilling of other Prophesies and Promises Q. Whether Christ always had now have and still will have a Church and People somewhere or other in this World on Earth Q. Whether there be not different ages degrees forms sizes in the same state of saving Knowledge sanctifying Grace and holy Experience And whether therefore those who are in this holy State must not be received though they be not as yet come up to the height of others Q. Whether it be enough barely to be a true Church Or should we not work