preceding Cause and the Scripture maketh it clear in things most casual Deut. 19.5 Prov. 16.33 The best Philosophers held that all things in Heaven and Earth were ordered by the Soul of the World said Cicero When Riches and Honour are given to empty Men and Learned Virtuous and Valiant Men wear out their Lives in a dejected condition the Cause is manifest to the Wise tho' Fools ascribe it to blind Fortune For either it is Affection in Men preferring others or great Persons which endure no other Discourse but that of Flatterers So that Honest Open-hearted lovers of the Truth which cannot Form themselves to it must hang under the Wheel Shall he who tells a Ruler he is unjust a General he is a Coward or a Lady that she is ugly be made a Counsellour a Captain or a Courtier It is not sufficient to be Wise Just and Valiant under such but with the change of the Successor he must change else the base Observant will out-go him in Honour and Riches by that only quality of Humouring Mens Vices as Virtues with which every Fool is won said Menander He therefore that will live out of himself and study other Mens Humours shall never be Unfortunate but he who values Truth and Virtue except in a Virtuous Age shall never prosper by the Possession or Profession of them It is also the token of a Worldly Wise-man not to contend in vain against the nature of the Times but to give way to Fury And he which aims at the Machivel's two marks Glory and Riches must have a Steel Back to a Wooden Bow to fit both weak and strong or as Men at Sea must either Hoise or Strike Sails as Calms or Storms do require or use Sails of small extention and content himself to travel slowly so must Men which esteem Virtue for it self CHAP. II. Of Mans Estate in the Creation and of God's Rest. § 1. MAN was the last and most admirable of God's Works The greatest wonder said Plato out of Mercurius meaning of the internal Form whose Nature is an immortal Spirit Essence and in quality by God's Creation Holy and Righteous in Truth and Lord of the World This Image of God in Man Chrysostom makes chiefly to consist in Dominion so Ambrose and others but he denyeth it to Women contrary to the Text let them rule not excluding the Woman Others conceive this Image to be in Man's immortal Soul which is one and Incorporeal governing the Body being in every part of it totally as God is totally in every part of the World but the Soul 's being totally in every part more than potentially is doubted of School-men make the Resemblance especially to be in Man's Mind whose Memory Understanding and Will really differ and yet are but one Mind resembling the Trinity They also with Victorinus made a difference of the Image which they refer to the Substance of the Soul not lost and the Similitude which is in Holiness and Righteousness of quality But as Augustin defended that Man lost the Perfection of God's Image so St. Paul makes it the same with similitude 1 Cor. 15.39 Ia. 3.9 Col. 3.10 Rom. 1.23 Zanchius held this Image to be both in Body and Mind because it was referr'd to the Hypostasis or whole Man Yet he confesses it may be answered Moses used a Synecdoche But Augustine anathematiz'd him who compar'd the Deity to Man's Body In general Humane Virtue is liker God than his Figure said Cicero Neither Dominion nor the Immortal Soul indued with Memory Understanding and Will is this Image seeing that Man has these common with Devils Sybill called right Reason the Image of God that is rightly to know confess serve love and obey God § 2. Of the intellectual Mind of Man and God's Image in it This Mens or Mind is not taken for the Soul which is the Form of the Nature of Man but for the principal Power of the Soul whose Act is perpetual Contemplation of Truth and is therefore called Divine Understanding and a Contemplative Mind Cusan calls it a Power compounded of all Powers of comprehending Mercurius held it the Essence of God no other way separated from him than the Light from the Sun which Error the Manichees also held But as the Sun is not of the Essence of the Divine Light but a Body enlighten'd with a created Light so this Mind or Understanding in Man is not of the Essence of God's Understanding but the purest of the Soul's Faculties or the light of the reasonable Soul called the Soul of the Soul or Eye of the Soul by Augustine or Receptacle of Wisdom Between this Mens or understanding power and Reason between it and Anima and Animus is this difference that by the Soul we live by Reason we judge and discourse by the Mind or Animus we will and chuse but this Mind called Mens is a pure substantial Act of the Soul not depending on Matter but hath relation to that which is intelligible as its first Object Mercurus saith the Soul is the Image of the Mind which is the Image of God c. Ficinus labours to prove the Mind hath no need of Organs Zanchius says the Mind needs no Means to understand by yet confesseth that the Representations which come from the Sense to the Phantasie are the Objects of the Understanding which Resemblances are to the Mind as Colours are to the Sight Thus he makes the Phantasie an Organ to the Mind as the Eye to the Sight contrary to his first Assertion However these be determined we may resemble our selves to God in Mind in respect of that pure Faculty which is never separated from Contemplation and love of God The Mind said Bernard is not the Image of God because it understands remembers and loveth it self but because it understands remembers and loveth God who Created it So that Immortality Reason and Dominion do not make us God's shadow but the Habit of Righteousness most perfectly infused into the Soul and Mind in the Creation It is not by Nature that we are printed with the Seal of God's Image though Reason be part of the essential Constitution of our proper Species or Kind but this is from the Bounty of God's Goodness which breathing Life into Earth contrived therein the Inimitable Ability of his own Justice Piety and Righteousness So long therefore as Men walk in God's ways which is called walking with God and do fear love and serve him truly for the love of God only so long they retain this Image But it cannot be in Unjust Cruel False and Ambitious Souls c. And though Nature according to common understanding do make us capable and apt enough to receive this Image yet if God's exceeding Wisdom and liberal Mercy framed not Eyes to our Souls we could not come by it For not only the Perfection but the Image of it self to wit the supernatural Gift of Grace and Glory is wholly blotted out by Sin § 3. Adam's
River Reason teaching us That Wisdom or Knowledge goes before Religion for God is first to be known and then to be Worshipped Wisdom said Plato is the Knowledge of the absolute Good Faith is not extorted by Violence but perswaded by Reason and Example said Isidore To inquire farther into God's Essence Power and Skill is to grow mad with Reason What is beyond the reach of true Reason is no shame to be ignorant of neither is our Faith weakened by our being Ignorant how God Created the World which Reason perswades he did I cannot stand to excuse divers Passages in the following History the whole being exceeding weak especially the Division of the Books I being directed to inlarge the Building after the Foundation was laid Generally as to the Order I took Counsel from the Argument After Babel's Fall the Assyrians are first of whose Actions we find but little Recorded and more in Fame than Faith Other Kings Actions are also related by Digressions with some other things belonging to those Ages These Digressions the whole Course of our Lives which is but Digression may excuse Yet I am not wholly ignorant of the Law of History The Persian Empire was by Order next to be attended and the Nations which had reference thereto then followed the Grecians and the Romans Other Nations which resisted their Beginnings are not neglected The weak Phrase shews the Parent In Hebrew words I made use of learned Friends and Expositors though in Eleven Years I might have learn'd any Language at leisure Many will say a Story of my own time would have pleased better But I say He which in a Modern Story shall follow Truth too near the Heels it may chance to strike out his Teeth and no Mistress hath led her Followers into greater Miseries He which follows her too far off loseth her and himself He which keeps at a middle distance I know not which to call it Temper or Baseness I never labour'd for Mens Opinions when I might have made the best use of them and now my Days are too few Ambitiously or Cowardly to flatter between the Bed and the Grave even when Dâ—ath has me on his Shoulders If it be said I Tax the Living in the Persons of the Dead I cannot help it tho' Innocent If any finding themselves spotted like the Tygers of old times shall find fault with me for Painting them over a-new they shall therein Accuse themselves justly and me falsely For I Protest before the Majesty of GOD I have no Malice against any Man under the Sun I know it is impossible to please all seeing few or none are so pleased with themselves by reason of their subjection to private Passions but that they seem divers Persons in one and the same Day Seneca said it and so do I One is to me instead of All Yea as it hath deplorably fallen out as an Ancient Philosopher said One is enough None is enough For it was for the service of that inestimable Prince Henry the successive Hope and one of the greatest of the Christian World that I undertook this Work And it pleased him to peruse part thereof and to pardon what was amiss It is now left to the World without a Master from which all that is presented to it receiveth both Blows and Thanks For we approve and reprehend the same things And this is the End of every Judgment when the Controversie is committed to many The Charitable will judge charitably And against the Malicious my present Adversity hath disarm'd me I am on the Ground already and therefore have not far too fall And for rising again as in the Natural Privation there is no recession to Habit so is it seldom seen in the Politick Privation I do therefore forbear to stile my Readers Gentle Courteous and Friendly so to beg their good Opinions Or promise a Second and Third Volume which I intended if the First receive a good Acceptance For that which is already done may be thought enough and too much And let us claw the Reader with never so many Courteous Phrases yet we shall ever be thought Fools that Write Foolishly THE CONTENTS OF THE Chapters Paragraphs and Sections OF THE First Book of the History of the WORLD CHAP. I. Of the First Ages from the Creation to Abraham § 1. OF the Creation and Preservation of the World Page 1. 2. The Worlds Creation acknowledged by Antient Philosophers 2 3. Of the meaning of In the Beginning 3 4. Of Heaven and Earth ibid. 5. What Moses meant by the word Earth ibid. 6. God moved on the Waters How to be understood ibid. 7. The Creation of the Light 4 8. The Firmament between the Waters ibid. 9. A Summary of the Creation 5 10. Nature is an Operating Power infus'd by God ibid. 11. Of Fate or Destiny ibid. 12. Of Prescience 6 13. Of Providence ibid. 14. Of Predestination 7 15. Of Fortune as it may seem against Reason and Providence ibid. CHAP. II. Of Man's Estate in the Creation and of God's Rest. 8 § 1. Man the last and most admirable of God's Works 9 2. Of the Intellectual Mind of Man and God's Image in it ibid 3. Of the frailty of our Bodies and the Care due to our immortal Souls 11 4. Of the Spirit of Life breathed by God into Man 12 5. Man a little World his Mortality Disobedience God rested on the Seventh Day 13 CHAP III. Of Paradise and the various Opinions about it 14 § 1. That it was the First Habitation of Man ibid. 2. By some held to be Allegorical ibid. 3. Moses's Description of Paradise ibid. 4. 'T is no vain Curiosity to enquire after it 15 5. Paradise not totally defac'd by the Flood ibid. 6 7 8. Paradise not the whole Earth Various opinions about it 16 9 10. Paradise was in Eden 17 11 12. Two Objections touching the Dvision of the Rivers and Eden's Fertility answerd 19 13 14. Pison and Gehon two Rivers of Paradise 20 21 15. Paradise most Pleasant and Fruitful being in 35 Degrees 21 CHAP. IV. Of the two chief Trees in Paradise 22 § 1. The Tree of Life a material Tree ibid. 2 3. Becanus's Opinion that it was the Indian Fig-Tree 23 4. Of the Name of the Tree of Knowledge and Adam's Sin 24. CHAP. V. Memorable things between Adam and Noah 25 § 1 2. Cain Murders his Brother Dwells in the Land of Nod. ibid. 3. Moses very brief in the Story of Cain 26 4 5. The various and Long Lives of the Patriarchs ib. 6. The Patriarchs deliver their Knowledge by Tradition Enoch wrote before the Flood 27. 7 8. Of the Men of War and Gyants before the Flood 28. CHAP. VI. The Original of Idolatry and Reliques of Antiquity in Fables 29 § 1 2 3 Ancient Truths in Old Corruptions as in the Family of Noah and the Old Aegyptians ib. 4 5 6. Jupiter was Cain Vulcan Tubal-Cain c. Of the several sorts of Jupiters 30 7. The Opinions of the wise
Body was made of Adamah red fat Earth of which God produced not an Image but a Body of Flesh Blood and Bones in the Form it now has And though Nature and Experience assure our Mortality and that our Bodies are but Anviles of Pains and Diseases and our Minds but Hives of innumerable Cares Sorrows and Passions and that our greatest Glories are but painted Posts for Envy to cast her Darts at yet our unhappy Condition and darkness of Understanding is such that we only esteem this Slave of Death and only at idle Hours remember the immortal imprison'd Soul the everlasting Subject of Reward or Punishment This we never think on while one Vanity is left us We plead for Titles till our Breath fails us Dig for Riches 'till Strength be spent and exercise Malice while we are able to Revenge And then when time has depriv'd us both of Youth Pleasure and Health and Nature her self hates the House of her old Age we remember with Iob we must go whence we shall not return and that our Bed is made ready for us in the Dark Then we look too late into the bottom of our Conscience and behold the fearful Image of past Actions with this terrible Inscription God will bring every work to Iudgment Let us therefore not flatter our selves wilfully to offend God in hope easily to make our peace at the last which is a Rebellious Presumption and Deriding the dreadful God that can ruin us eternally § 4. To this corruptible Body God gave a Soul spiritual and incorruptible which shall again return to him as the body to the Earth The Soul's Immortality is manifest comparing the manner of the Creation of other things with it Gen. 1.20 24. with v. 26. cap. 2.7 Man thus Compounded became a Model of the Universe having a Rational Soul with ability fit for the Government of the World an Intellectual Soul common with Angels and Sensitive with Beasts thus he became a little World in the Great in whom all Natures were bound up together our Flesh is heavy like Earth our Bones hard as Stones our Veins as the Rivers Breath as the Air Natural Heat like the warmth inclosed in the Earth which the Sun stirreth up in procreation Radical moisture which feeds that Natural Heat is as the fatness in the Earth our Hairs as Grass our Generative Power is as Nature which produceth our Determinations like wandring Clouds our Eyes like the Lights in Heaven our Youth like the Spring our setled Age like the Summer declining like Autumn and old Age like Winter our Thoughts are the motions of Angels our pure Vnderstanding like the Intellectual Natures always present with God and the habitual Holiness and Righteousness of our Immortal Soul was the Image of God as a shadow may be like the substance Man's Four Complexions like the Four Elements and his Seven Ages like the Seven Planets Our Infancy is like the Moon in which it seemeth only to grow as Planets in our next Age we are instructed as under Mercury always near the Sun Our Youth is wanton and given to pleasures as Venus our Fourth Age Strong Vigorous and Flourishing is like the Sun Our Fifth Age like Mars striving for Honour our Sixth like Iupiter Wise and stayed our Seventh like Saturn slow and heavy when by irrecoverable loss we see that of all our vain Passions and Affections the Sorrow only remains and our Attendants are various Infirmities and Diseases of which many are the remainders of former Follies and Excesses and if Riches yet continue with us the more our Plenty is the more greedily is our End wish'd for we being now of no other use but to detain our Riches from our Successors and being made unsociable to others we become a burthen to our selves Now and never before we think upon our Eternal Habitation to which place we pass with many sighs groans and doleful thoughts and in the end by Death we finish the sorrowful Business of a wretched Life toward which we have been always travelling sleeping and waking and by what crooked Paths soever we have walked yet it led us the straight way to the gate of Death Neither can beloved Companions or rather our Gods Riches or Honour stay us one hour from entring that all-devouring Dungeon of Death which is not yet satisfy'd with all those past Generations but still cries all Flesh is grass 'till it have consumed all Thus the Tyde of Man's Life once declining makes a perpetual Ebb never to return hither and his Leaf fallen shall never spring again § 6. Our Parents having one Prohibition for trial of Obedience would need extend their freedom of Will to that and so brought all Mankind into endless Misery § 7. God on the Seventh Day ceased to Create more Kinds having perfected those he intended and endued with Generative Power such as should continue by Generation CHAP. III. Of Paradise and many Opinions about it § 1. PAradise the first Habitation of Adam Eastward in Eden about which Mens Opinions are as various as the Persons that Disputed it and many imbibe gross Errors led by the Authority of great Men wherein many Fathers were far wide as it is the Fate of all Men to err neither has any Man knowledge of all things § 2. Many held Paradise in Moses Allegorical only as Origen Philo and Ambrose lean'd to that Opinion so did Strabus Rabanus Beda Commestor Chrysamensis and Luther thought it not extant though it was formerly Vadianus Noviomagus held it the whole Earth Tertul. Bonaventure and Durand place it under the Equinoctial Postellus under the N. Pole § 3. Paradise by Moses's description was a Place on Earth in Eden a Country Eastward so called for the Pleasantness thereof as in America a Country is called Florida Here the vulgar Translation is mistaken in interpreting it a Paradise of Pleasure from the beginning This situation of Paradise in the East occasion'd the praying and setting Churches to the East contrary to the standing of Solomon's Temple and the Priest turning to the West yet God is every where neither is any Mystery in the word Eastward but the place stood so from Canaan Moses's whole description proves it an Earthly place and Ezechiel witnesseth Eden was a Country near Charan So Adam's actions and end of placing in it prove no less against those vain Allegories of Scripture stories confuted by Iews as Epiphanius Yet I exclude not an Allegorical sense of some stories besides â—he Literal as Augustine and Suidas held Paradise had both Homer's Alcinous Garden and Elizian Fields were Poetical Fictions stoln out of the Divine Treasury and profaned by them § 4. It is no Curiosity to enquire after the Place seeing nothing is in Scripture but for instruction and if the truth of the story be necessary the place set out for the proof of it is not to be neglected and Mens fancies therein overthrow the Story For what is more ridiculous than to seek Adam's Paradise
to lose the richest Country he had Oh by what Plots by what Oaths treacherous Practices Oppressions Imprisonments Tortures Poysonings and under what Reasons of State and Polity have these Kings pulled the Vengeance of God upon themselves upon Theirs and upon prudent Ministers and at last have brought these things to pass for their Enemies Advantage and found an effect so directly contrary to all their own Counsels and Cruelties that the one could never have hoped for it and the other never have succeeded had no such Opposition been made God hath said it and performed it ever I will destroy the Wisdom of the Wise. But to what end do we lay before the Eyes of the Living the Fate and Fortunes of the Dead seeing the World is the same it hath been and the Children will obey their Parents It is in the present that all the Wits of the World are exercised and to enjoy the Times we have we hold all things lawful and either hope to hold them forever or hope there is nothing after them to be hoped for For as we are content to forget our own Experience and counterfeit Ignorance of our Knowledge in things that concern our selves or perswade our selves that God hath given us Letters Patents to persue all our irreligious Affections with a Non obstante So we neither look behind us what has been nor before us what shall be It is true the â—uantity we have is of the Body we are by it joined to the Earth we are compounded of the Earth and inhabit the Earth The Heavens are high afar off and unexplorable We have a sense of corporeal things but of eternal Grace only by Revelation No wonder then that our Thoughts are so Earthly and a less wonder that the Words of worthless Men cannot cleanse us seeing their Instructions and Doctrine whose Vnderstanding the Holy Ghost vouchsafed to inhabit have not performed it For the Prophet Isaiah cryed out long ago Lord who hath believed our Reports And doubtless as he complained of his time so are they less believed every day though Religion be still Mens Mouths we profess to know but by works deny him which argueth an universal Dissimulation For Happiness consisteth in a Divine Life not in knowledge of Divine Things wherein Devils excel us Contentions about Religion have bred lamentable effects and the Discourse thereof hath near upon driven the Practice out of the World He which obtaineth Knowledge only by Mens Disputations of Religion would judge that Heaven were chiefly to be desired but look upon many Disputers Lives and nothing is found in the Soul but Hypocrisie We are all in effect become Comedians in Religion we act in Voice and Gesture Divine Virtues but in course of Life we renonnce the part we play and Charity Justice and Truth have their Being but in Terms as the Philosophers Materia prima That Wisdom which teacheth us the Knowledge of God hath great Esteem enough in that we give it our good Word but the Wisdom which is altogether exercised in gathering Riches by which we purchase Honour in the World These are the Marks we Shoot at the Care whereof is our own in this Life and the Peril our own in the future Though in our greatest Abundance we have but one Man's Portion as the Man of the greatest Wisdom and Ability hath told us As for those which devour the rest and follow us in fair Weather they again forsake us in the first Storm of our Misfortune and fly away before Sea and Wind leaving us to the Malice of our Destinies Among a Thousand Examples take that of Mr. Dannet Charles V. at Vlushing in his return to Spain conferring with Seldius his Brother Ferdinand's Embassador till the dead of Night when they sh â—â—â— part called some of his Servants and when none answered being either gone or asleep himself took the Candle to light down Seldius notwithstanding his importunity to the contrary But at the stairs foot he desir'd him to remember when he was dead That whom he had known in his time environ'd with mighty Armies he hath seen forsaken of his own Domesticks But you will say Men more regard the Honour done to great Men than the former It is true indeed provided that an inward Love from their Iustice and Piety accompanying the outward Worship given to their Places and Power without which the applause of the Multitude is as the Out cry of a Herd of Animals who without knowledge of any true Cause please themselves with the Noise they make Impious Men in Prosperity have ever been applauded and the most Virtuous if unprosperous have ever been despised and Virtue and Fortune are rarely distinguish'd For as Fortune's Man rides the Horse so Fortune her self rides the Man who when he is descended on foot the Man is taken from his Beast and Fortune from the Man a base Groom beats the one and bitter Contempt spurns at the other with equal liberty The Second thing which Men more respect is raising of Posterity If these Men conceive that Souls departed take any Comfort therein they are Wise in a foollish thing as Lactantius speaketh De sal sap li. 3. c. 28. For when our Mortal Spirits are departed and dispos'd of by God they are pleased no more in in Posterity than Stones are proud which sleep in the Walls of a King's Palace neither have they more Sorrow in their Poverty than there is Shame in the Prop of a Beggar 's Cottage The Dead tho' Holy know nothing no not of their own Children For the Souls departed are not Conversant with the Affairs of the Living said Augustin de Cura pro Mort. Iob also of whom we cannot doubt tells us we shall neither understand of our Childrens Honour or low Degree Man walketh in a Shadow disquieting himself in vain he heapeth up Riches and cannot tell who shall gather them The living saith Eccles. know they shall die but the Dead know nothing at all for who shall shew to Man what shall be after him under the Sun And when he consider'd all his Labours and could not tell whether a Fool or a Wise Man should enjoy the Fruit thereof himself hated his own Labours What can other Men hope to know after Death When Isaiah confesseth Abraham himself is gnorant of us Death's dark Night shall cover us till he return that hath Triumph'd over it when we shall again receive Organs glorified and Immortal the Seats of Evangelical Affections and the Souls of the Blessed shall be exercised in so great Admiration as that they can admit no mixture of less Ioy nor any return of Mortal Affections towards Friends Children c. Whether we shall retain any particular Knowledge of them or in any sort distinguish them no Man can assure us and the Wisest Men doubt But on the contrary if a Divine Life retain any of those Faculties which the Soul exercised in a Mortal Body we shall not then so divide the Ioys of
Heaven as to cast any part thereof on the memory of their Felicities which remain in the World Whose Estates be they greater than ever the World gave we shall from the difference then known to us even detest the Consideration thereof And whatsoever shall remain of all that 's past the same will consist in the Charity which we exercised when living and in the Piety Iustice and firm Faith for which it pleased the infinite Mercy of God to accept of us and receive us Shall we then value Honour and Riches at nothing and neglect them as unnecessary and vain certainly no. For that infinite Wisdom of God which hath distinguished his Angels the Light and Beauty of Heavenly Bodies differenced Beasts and Birds Created the Eagle and the Fly the Cedar and the Shrub given the fairest tinture to the Ruby and quickest Light to the Diamond hath also Ordained Kings Dukes Magistrates and Judges amongst his People And as Honour is left to Posterity as an Enfign of the Vettue and Vnderstanding of their Ancestors so being Titles with proportionable Estates fall under the miserable Succours of other Mens Pity I account it Foolishness to condemn such Care Provided that Worldly Goods be well gotten and that we raise not our Building out of other Mens Ruins which God accurseth by Jeremiah and Isaiah and True Wisdom forbids Prov. 1.10 to 18 19. And if we could afford our selves so much Leisure as to consider That he who has most in the World hath in respect of the World nothing and he who has the longest time to live in it hath no Proportion at all therein comparing it with the Time past when we were not or with the Time to come in which we shall abide for ever I say if our Portion in the World and our Time in the World be thus considered they differ little from nothing It is not out of any Excellency of Vnderstanding that we so much prize the one which hath in Effect no being and so much neglect the other which hath no ending Coveting the Mortal Things of the World as if our Souls were there Immortal and neglect the things Immortal as if our selves after the World were but Mortal Let every Man value his own Wisdom as he pleases the Rich Man think all Fools that cannot equal his Abundance The Revengeful esteen them negligent which have not trampled upoâ— their Opposites The Politician think them Block heads that cannot merchandize their Faith Yet when we come within Sight of the Port oâ— Death to which all Winds drive us and when by letting fall the fatal Anchor which can never be weighed again the Navigation of this Life takes End Then it is I say that our own Cogitations those sad and severe ones formerly thrown off by Health and Felicity return again and pay us to the uttermost for all the pleasing Passages of our Lives past Then it is we cry for God's Mercy when we can no longer exercise Cruelty then this terrible Sentence God will not be mocked strikâ—th through our Souls For if the righteous shall scarcely be saved and that God spared not the Angels where shall those appear who having served their Appetites all their Lives presum'd that the severe Commands of the dreadful God were given in Sport and that the last faint Breath is forced to sound Lord have Mercy without any kinâ— of Satisfaction to Men or Amendment Oh how many saith a Reverend Father descend to Eternal Torments and Sorrows with this Hope It is indeed a Comfort to our Friends to have it said we died well for all desire to die the Death of the Righteous as Balaam did But what shall we call indeed a Mocking of God if that those Men mock him not that think it enough for God to ask him Mercy at Leisure with the last Remains of a Malicious Breath This well-dying Prayer amounts to as much as this We beseech thee O God that all the Falshoods Forswearing and Treacheries of our Lives past may be well pleasing to thee that thou wilt for our Sakes that have had no Leisure to do any thing for thine change thy Nature though impossible and forget to be a just God that thou wilt love Injuries and Oppressions call Ambition Wisdom and Charity Foolishness For I shall prejudice my Son which I am resolved not to do if I make Restitution and confess my self to have been unjust which I am too proud to do if I deliver the Oppressed These wise Worldlings have either found or made them a Leaden God like that which Lewis the Eleventh wore in his Cap and used to kiss it and ask it Pardon when he had caused any to be murdered promising it should be the last as when by the Practice of a Cardinal and falsified Sacrament he caused the Earl of Armagnack to be stabbed at Prayers Of this Composition are all devout Lovers of the World that they fear all that is worthless and frivolous they fear the Plots and Practices yea the very Whisperings of their Opposites they fear the Opinions of Men which beat but upon Shadows They flatter and forsake the prosperous or unprosperous Friends or Kings Yea they dive under Water like Ducks at every Peble Stone thrown at them by a powerful Hand On the contrary they shew an obstinate and Gigantick Valour against the terrible Iudgments of the All-powerful God yea they shew themselves Gods against God and Slaves towards Men whose Bodies and Consciences are alike rotten Now for the rest if we examine the Difference between the Rich and Mighty whom we call Fortunate and the Poor and Oppressed whom we account Wretched we shall find the Vnhappiness of the one and the Misery of the other so tyed by God to the very Instant and so subject to enterchange witness the sudden Downfall of the greatest and the speedy Rise of the meanest that the one hath nothing certain whereof to boast nor the other to lament For no Man is so assured of Honour Riches Health or Life but may be deprived of either or all the very next hour for what an Evening will bring with it is uncertain and none can tell what shall be to morrow saith St. James To Day he is set up to Morrow he shall not be found for he is turned into Dust and his Purpose perisheth And though the Air of Adversity be very obscure yet therein we better discern God than in the shining Light of Worldly Glory through whose Clearness no Vanity whatsoever can escape our Sight And though Adversity seem ridiculous to the Happy and Fortunate who delight themselves at others Misfortunes though it seem grievous to those which were in it Yet this is true that of all that 's past to the very Instant what remains is equal to either For though we have lived many Years and in them have rejoyced according to Solomon or have we sorrowed as long yet looking back we find both Ioy and Sorrow sailed out of Sight and Death
which hath held us in Chase from the Womb hath put an end to both Let him therefore whom Fortune hath served and Time befriended take an Accompt of his Memory the only Keeper of Pleasures past and truly examine what it hath reserved of Beauty Youth or past Delights or of his dearest Affections or whatsoever Contentment the amorous Spring time gave his Thoughts and he shall find that all the Art which his Elder Years had can draw no other Vapour out of these Dissolutions than heavy secret and sad Sighs He shall find nothing remaining but those Sorrows which grow up after our fast Springing Youth overtook it when it was at a Stand and overtopping it utterly when it began to wither Looking back therefore from the Instant of our present Being And the poor diseased Captive hath as little Sense of all former Miseries and Pains as the Man so blessed in common Opinion hath of fore-past Pleasures and Delights For whatsoever is cast behind us is just nothing and what is to come depends upon deceitful Hope Only I must except those few black Swans who having had the Grace to value worldly Vanities at no more than their worth do by retaining the comfortable Memory of a well-acted Life behold Death without Dread the Grave without Fear and imbrace both as necessary Guides to Endless Glory For my self this is my Comfort and all that I can offer to others That the Sorrows of this Life either respect God when we complain to him against our selves for our Offences and confess Thou Lord art just in all that hath befallen us Or respect the World when we complain to our selves against God as doing us wrong either in not giving what we desire or taking away what we enjoyed Forgetting that humble and just Acknowledgment of Job The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken And out of doubt he is either a Fool or ungrateful to God or both that doth not acknowledge that how mean soever his Estate be it is far greater than God owes him Or how sharp soever his Afflâ—ctions be the same are yet fâ—r less than those that are due to him If an Heathen called Adversities the Tributes of living a wise Christian ought to know them and bear them as the Tributes of offending For seeing God who is Author of all our Tragedies hath written out and appointed what every Man must play using no Partiality to the mightiest Princes Why should other Men who are but as the least Worms complain of Wrongs Did not the Lord set Darius to play the part of the greatest Emperor and the part of the most miserable Beggar that begged Water of an Enemy to quench the Drought of Death Bajazet the Grand Seignior of the Turks in the Morning the same Day became the Footstool of Tamberlane both which parts Valerian the Emperor had played being taken by Sapores Bellisarius had performed the part of a most Victorious Captain and after became a Blind Beggar with a Thousand like Examples Certainly there is no other Accompt to be made of this ridiculous World than to resolve That the change of Fortune on this great Theatre is but as the change of Garments on the lesser For when every Man weareth but his own Skin the Players are all alike If any Man out of Weakness judge otherwise for it is a Point of great Wit to call the Mind from the Senses it is by reason of that unhappy Fancy of ours which forgeth in Men's Brains all the Miseries to which he is subject the Corporal excepted therein it is that Misfortune and Adversity effect what they do For seeing Death is the end of the Play and takes from all whatsoever Fortune or Force takes from any one It were foolish Madness in the Shipwrack of Worldly Things where all sinks but the Sorrow for the Loss of them to sink under Fortune which according to Seneca is of all other the most miserable Destiny Now to the Picture of Time which we call History let my good Intent excuse my drawing it in so large a Table The Examples of Divine Providence every where to be found the first Divine Histories being nothing else but a Continuation of such Examples have perswaded me to fetch my Beginning from all Beginnings the Creation For these two glorious Actions of the Almighty are so linked together that the one necessarily implieth the other Creation inferring Providence and Providence presuming Creation though many seeming wise have gone about to separate them Epicurus denies both yet allows a Beginning The Aristotelians grant Providence but deny all Beginning whose verbal Doctrine grounded upon a rotten Ground was not able to stand against the Doctrine of Faith touching the Creation in time Heb. 1. though natural Reason might have inform'd him better And though Aristotle failed herein and taught little other than Terms in the rest yet many do absolutely subject themselves to him as not to indure any other search of Truth The Law of their Philosophical Principles doth not so bind but that where Natural Reason is in Force against them it ought to stand in all Questions of Nature and Finite Power as a Fundamental Law of Human Knowledge For every Human Proposition hath equal Authority if Reason make no difference But where Reason is not admitted and Inventions of Ancestors approved without Iudgment Men suffer themselves to be led after the manner of Beasts This Sloath and Dulness has made Ignorance a powerful Tyrant and has set true Philosophy Phisick and Divinity on the Pillory and written over the First Contra Principia negantem over the Second Virtus specifica and the Third Ecclesia Romana But I will never believe that all natural Knowledge was shut up in Aristotle's Brain or that the Heathen only invaded Nature and found out her Strength We know that Time and not Reason Experience and not Art both taught the Causes of such Effects as that Sowerness doth Coâ—gulate Milk but ask the Reason why and how it does it and Vulgar Philosophy cannot satisfie you nor in many Things of the like Nature as why Grass is green rather than red Man hardly discerns the Things on Earth his Time is but short to learn and begins no sooner to learn than to dye Whose Memory has but a borrowed Knowledge understanding nothing truly and is ignorant of the Essence of his own Soul which Aristotle could never define but by effects which all Men know as well as he Man I say who is an Idiot in the next cause of his own Life and actions thereof will notwithstanding examin the Art of God in Creating the World and will disable him from making a World without Matter â—nd rather ascribe it to Atoms in the Air or to Fate Fortune Nature or to two Powers of which one was Author of Matter the other of Form And lastly for want of a Work-man Aristottle brought in that New Doctrin of the Worlds Eternity contrary to these Ancients Hermes Zoroaster Musaeus Orpheus
from Night but with reference to the Sun's Creation in which this dispersed Light was united v. 14. 'till when there was no Motion to be measur'd by Time So that the Day named v. 5. was but such a space as after by the Sun's motion made a natural Day As then the Earth and the Waters were the Matter of the Air Firmament upper and lower Waters and of the Creatures therein so may the Light be called the Material Substance of the Sun and other Lights of Heaven How beit neither the Sun nor other Heavenly Bodies are that Light but the Sun is enlightned by it most of all other and by it the Moon and so the next Region which the Greeks call Aether the supposed Element of Fire is affected and by it all Bodies living in this our Air. And though the nature of Light be not yet understood yet I suppose the Light Created the First Day was the substance of the Sun though it had not formal Perfection Beauty Circle and bounded Magnitude 'till the Fourth Day when dispersed Light was united and fixed to a certain place after which it had Life and Motion and from that time separated Day from Night So that what is said of the Day before was by Anticipation for 'till the Creatures were produced God's Wisdom found no Cause why Light should move or give heat or operation § 8. Firmament between the Waters is the extended distance between the Sea and Waters in the Earth and those in the Clouds ingendred in the superiour Air This Firmament in which the Birds flye is also called Heaven in Scripture Gen. 49.25 Psal. 104.18 Mat. 8.26 The Crystalline Heaven Basil calls Childish § 9. God having Created the Matter of all things and distinguished every general Nature and given their proper Form as Levity to what should ascend and Gravity to what should descend and set each in his place in the three first Days in the three last he beautified and furnish'd them with their proper kinds as the Sun Moon and Stars in the higher Firmament of Heaven Fowls in the Air Fishes in the Waters Beasts on the Earth giving generative power for continuation of their Kinds to such as in the Individuals should be subject to decay or needed increase § 10. Nature is an operating Power infused by God into every Creature not any self-ability to be the Original of any thing of it self no more than the Helm can guide the Ship without an Hand or an Hand without Judgment All Agents work by virtue of the first Act and as the Eye seeth Ear heareth c. yet it is the Soul which giveth Power Life and Motions to these Organs So it is God which worketh by Angels Men Nature Stars or infus'd Properties as by his Instruments all second Causes being but Conduits to convey and disperse what they have received from the Fountain of the Universal It is God's infinite Power and Omnipotence that giveth Power to the Sun and all second Causes and to Nature her self to perform their Offices which operative Power from God being once stopp'd Nature is without Virtue Things flourish by God said Orpheus I endeavour not to destroy those various Virtues given by God to his Creatures for all his Works in their Virtues praise him but how he works in or by them no Man could ever conceive as Lactantius confounding the Wisdom of Philosophers denyed that all their study had found it for could the precise Knowledge of any thing be had then of necessity all other things might be known § 11. Destiny might safely be admitted but for the inevitable necessity even over Mens Minds and Wills held by Stoicks Chaldeans Pharisees Priscilianists c. Hermes and Apuleius conceived well That Fate is an obedience of second Causes to the First Plotinus calls it a disposing from the Acts of the Celestial Orbs working unchangeably in inferiour Bodies which is true in things not ordered by a rational Mind Fate is that which God hath spoken concerning us say the Stoicks Seneca Ptolomy And no doubt Stars are of a greater use than to give an obscure Light neither are the Seasons of Winter and Summer so certain in Heat and Cold by the motions of Sun and Moon which are so certain but the working of the Stars with them God hath given Virtues to Springs Planâ—â— Stones c. yea to Excrements of base Creatures Why then should we rob the Beautiful Stars of working power being so many in Number and so eminent in Beauty and Magnitude The Treasure of His Wisdom who is so Infinite could not be short in giving them their peculiar Virtues and Operations as he gave to Herbs Plants c. which adorn the Earth As therefore these Ornaments of the Earth have their Virtue to feed and cure so no doubt those Heavenly Ornaments want not their further use wherein to serve his Divine Providence as his just Will shall please to determine But in this question of Fate let us neither bind God to his Creatures nor rob them of the Office he hath given them If second Causes restrain God or God by them inforce Man's Mind or Will then wicked Men might lay the fault on God § 12. Prescience or Fore-knowledge if we may speak of God after the manner of Men goeth before his Providence for God infallibly foreknew all things before they had any Being to be cared for yet was it not the Cause of things following nor did it impose a Necessity § 13. Providence is an intellectual Knowledg Foreseeing Caring for and Ordering all things Beholding things past present and to come and is the Cause of their so being and such we call Provident who considering things Past and comparing them with the Present can thereby with Judgment provide for the Future § 14. Predestination we distinguish from Prescience and Providence these belong to all Creatures from the highest Angel to the basest Worm but this only concerns Mens Salvation in the common use of Divines or Perdition according to some Augustine sets it out by two Cities one predestinated eternally to reign with God the other to everlasting Torments Calvin Beza Buchanus and the like are of the same Opinion Why it pleased God to create some Vessâ—ls to honour some to dishonour though the Reason may be hid unjust it cannot be § 15. Fortune the God of Fools so much Reverenced and as much Reviled falleth before Fate and Providence and was little known before Homer and Hesiod who taught the Birth of those humane Gods have not a Word of this new Goddess which at length grew so potent that she ordered all things from Kings and Kingdoms to the Beggar and his Cottage She made the Wise miserable and prospered Fools and Man's life was but her Pastime This Image of Power was made by Ignorants who ascribed that to Fortune of which they saw no manifest Cause Yet Plato taught That nothing ever came to pass under the Sun of which there was not a just