lie upon them nor be covered over with water though they be invironed round with the fluid air 10 But he makes it partly dry Land and partly Sea Rivers and Springs whose convenience is obvious for every one to conceive 11 He adorns the ground also with grasse herbs and flowers and hath made a wise provision of seed that they bring forth for the perpetuation of such useful commodities upon the face of the earth 12 For indeed these things are very good and necessary both for man and beast 13 Therefore God prepared the matter of the Earth so as that there was a vital congruity of the parts thereof with sundry sorts of seminall forms of trees herbs and choicest kinds of flowers and so the Body of the Earth drew in sundry principles of Plantall Life from the World of Life that is at hand every where and the Passive and Active Principle thus put together made up the Third Days work and the Ternary denotes the nature thereof 14 The Ternary had allotted to it the garnishing of an Earth with trees flowers and herbs after the distinction of Land and Sea as the Quinary hath allotted to it the replenishing of an Earth with fish and fowl the Senary with man and beast But this Fourth Day comprehends the garnishing of the body of the whole world viz. That vast and immense Ethereal matter which is called the fluid Heaven with infinite numbers of sundry sorts of lights which Gods Wisdome and Power by union of fit and active principles drawn from the world of life made of this Ethereal matter whose usefulnesse is plain in nature that they are for Prognostick signes and seasons and days and years 15 As also for administring of light to all the inhabitants of the world That the Planets may receive light from their fountains of light and reflect light one to another 16 And there are two sorts of these Lights that all the inhabitants of the world must acknowledge great every where consulting with the outward sight from their proper stations And the dominion of the greater of these kinde of lights is conspicuous by day the dominion of the lesser by night the former we ordinarily call a Sun the other a Moon which Moon is truly a Planet and opake but reflecting light very plentifully to the beholders sight and yet is but a secondary or lesser kind of Planet but he made the Primary and more eminent Planets also and such an one is this Earth we live upon 17 And God placed all these sorts of lights in the thin and liquid Heaven that they might reflect their rayes one upon another and shine upon the inhabitants of the world 18 And that their beauty and resplendency might be conspicuous to the beholders of them whether by day or by night which is mainly to be understood of the Suns that supply also the place of Stars at a far distance but whose chiefe office it is to make vicissitudes of day and night And the Universal dark Aether being thus adorn'd with the goodly and glorious furniture of those several kindes of lights God approved of it as good 19 And the union of the Passive and Active principle was the Fourth days work and the number denotes the nature thereof 20 And now you have heard of a verdant Earth and a bounded Sea and Lights to shine through the air and water and to gratifie the eyes of all living creatures whereby they may see one another and be able to seek their food you may seasonably expect the mention of sundry animals proper to their elements Wherefore God by his inward Word and Power prepared the matter in the waters and near the waters with several vital congruities so that it drew in sundry souls from the world of Life which actuating the parts of the matter caus'd great plenty of fish to swim in the waters and fowls to flye above the earth in the open air 21 And after this manner he created great Whales also as well as the lesser kindes of fishes and he approved of them all as good 22 And the blessing of his inward Word or Wisdome was upon them for their multiplication for according to the preparation of the matter the Plastical Power of the souls that descend from the world of Life did faithfully and effectually work those wise contrivances of male and female they being once rightly united with the matter so that by this means the fish filled the waters in the seas and the fowls multiplyed upon the earth 23 And the union of the Passive and Active principle was the Fift days work and the Quinary denotes the nature thereof 24 And God persisted farther in the Creation of living creatures and by espousing new souls from the world of Life to the more Mediterraneous parts of the matter created land-serpents cattel and the beasts of the field 25 And when he had thus made them he approved of them for good 26 Then God reflecting upon his own Nature and viewing himself consulting with the Super-essential Goodnesse the Eternal Intellect and unextinguishable Love-flame of his Omnipotent Spirit concluded to make a far higher kinde of living creature then was as yet brought into the world He made therefore Man in his own Image after his own Likenesse For after he had prepared the matter fit for so noble a guest as an humane Soul the world of Life was forced to let go what the rightly prepared matter so justly called for And Man appeared upon the stage of the earth Lord of all living creatures For it was just that he that bears the Image of the invisible God should be Supreme Monarch of this visible world And what can be more like God then the soul of man that is so free so rational and so intellectual as it is And he is not the lesse like him now he is united to the terrestrial body his soul or spirit possessing and striking through a compendious collection of all kinde of corporeal matter and managing it with his understanding free to think of other things even as God vivificates and actuates the whole world being yet wholly free to contemplate himself Wherefore God gave Man dominion over the fowls of the air the fish of the sea and the beasts of the earth for it is reasonable the worser should be in subserviency to the better 27 Thus God created Man in his own Image he consisting of an intellectual Soul a terrestrial Body actuated thereby Wherefore mankinde became male and female as other terrestrial animals are 28 And the benediction of the Divine Wisdome for the propagation of their kinde was manifest in the contrivance of the parts that were framed for that purpose And as they grew in multitudes they lorded it over the earth and over-mastered by their power and policy the beasts of the field and fed themselves with fish and fowl and what else pleased them and made for their content for all was given to them by right of their
Creation 29 And that nothing might be wanting to their delight behold also divine Providence hath prepared for their palate all precious and pleasant herbs for sallads and made them banquets of the most delicate fruit of the fruit-bearing trees 30 But for the courser grasse and worser kinde of herbs they are intended for the worser and baser kinde of creatures Wherefore it is free for man to seek out his own and make use of it 31 And God considering every thing that he had made approved of it as very good and the union of the Passive and Active principle was the Sixt days work and the Senary denotes the nature thereof CHAP. II. 2 Gods full and absolute rest from creating any thing of anew adumbrated by the number Seven 4 Suns and Planets not only the furniture but effects of the Ethereal Matter or Heaven 6 The manner of Man and other Animals rising out of the earth by the power of God in nature 8 How it was with Adam before he descended into flesh and became a terrestrial Animal 10 That the four Cardinall virtues were in Adam in his Ethereal or Paradisiacal condition 17 Adam in Paradise forbidden to taste or relish his own will under pain of descending into the Region of Death 18 The Masculine and Feminine faculties in Adam 20 The great Pleasure and Solace of the Feminine faculties 21 The Masculine faculties laid asleep the Feminine appear and act viz. The grateful sense of the life of the Vehicle 25 That this sense and joy of the life of the Vehicle is in it self without either blame or shame 1 THUS the Heavens and the Earth were finisht and all the garnishings of them such as are Trees Flowers and Herbs Suns Moons and Stars Fishes Fowls and Beasts of the field and the chiefest of all Man himself 2 Wherfore God having thus compleated his work in the Senary comprehending the whole Creation in six orders of things he ceased from ever creating any thing more either in this outward Material world or in the world of Life But his Creative Power retiring into himself he enjoyed his own eternal Rest which is his immutable and indefatigable Nature that with ease oversees all the whole Compasse of Beings and continues Essence Life and Activity to them and the better rectifies the worse and all are guided by his Eternal Word and Spirit but no new Substance hath been ever created since the six days production of things nor shall ever be hereafter 3 For this Seventh day God hath made an Eternal Holy day or Festival of Rest to himself wherein he will only please himself to behold the exquisite Order and Motion and right Nature of things his Wisdome Justice and Mercy unavoidably insinuating themselves according to the set frame of the world into all the parts of the Creation he having Ministers of his Goodnesse and Wrath prepared every where So that himself need but to look on and see the effects of that Nemesis that is necessarily interwoven in the nature of the things themselves which he hath made This therefore is that Sabbath or Festival of Rest which God himself is said to celebrate in the Seventh day and indeed the number declares the nature thereof 4 And now to open my minde more fully and plainly unto you I must tell you that those things which before I tearm'd the Garnishings of the Heaven and of the Earth they are not only so but the Generations of them I say Plants and Animals were the generations effects and productions of the Earth the Seminal Forms and Souls of Animals insinuating themselves into the prepared matter thereof and Suns Planets or Earths were the generations or productions of the Heavens vigour and motion being imparted from the world of Life to the immense body of the Universe so that what I before called meer Garnishings are indeed the productions or generations of the Heavens and of the Earth so soon as they were made Though I do not take upon me to define the time wherein God made the Heavens and the Earth For he might do it at once by his absolute Omnipotency or he might when he had created all Substance as well material as immaterial let them act one upon the other so and in such periods of time as the nature of the production of the things themselves requir'd 5 But it was for pious purposes that I cast the Creation into that order of Six dayes and for the more firmly rooting in the hearts of the people this grand and useful Truth That the Omnipotency of God is such that he can act above and contrary to natural causes that I mention'd herbs and plants of the field before I take notice of either rain or man to exercise Gardning and Husbandry For indeed according to my former narration there had been no such kinde of rain as ordinarily nowadays waters the labours of the Husbandman 6 But yet there went up a moist vapour from the earth which being matur'd and concocted by the Spirit of the world which is very active in the heavens or air became a precious balmy liquour and fit vehicle of Life which descending down in some sort like dewy showers upon the face of the earth moistned the ground so that the warmth of the Sun gently playing upon the surface thereof prepared matter variously for sundry sorts not only of Seminal forms of Plants but Souls of Animals also 7 And Man himself rose out of the earth after this manner the dust thereof being rightly prepar'd and attemper'd by these unctuous showers and balmy droppings of Heaven For God had so contriv'd by his infinite Wisdome that matter thus or thus prepar'd should by a vital congruity attract proportional forms from the world of Life which is every where nigh at hand and does very throngly inequitate the moist and unctuous air Wherefore after this manner was the Aereal or Ethereal Adam conveyed into an earthly body having his most conspicuous residence in the head or brain And thus Adam became the Soul of a Terrestrial living Creature 8 But how it is with Adam before he descends into this lower condition of life I shall declare unto you in the Aenigmatical narration that follows which is this That the Lord God planted a Garden Eastward in Eden where he had put the Man which afterward he formed into a Terrestrial Animal For Adam was first wholly Ethereal and placed in Paradise that is in an happy and joyful condition of the Spirit for he was placed under the invigorating beams of the divine Intellect and the Sun of Righteousnesse then shone fairly upon him 9 And his Soul was as the ground which God hath blest so brought forth every pleasant Tree and every goodly Plant of her heavenly Fathers own planting for the holy Spirit of Life had inriched the soil that it brought forth all manner of pleasant and profitable fruits And the Tree of Life was in the midst of this Garden of mans soul
to him pleasing both the sight and taste of that measure of divine Life that is manifested in him But of all the Plants that grow in him there is none of so soveraign virtue as that in the midst of this Garden to wit the Tree of Life which is a Sincere Obedience to the Will of God Nor any that bears so lethiferous and poisonous fruit as the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil which is Disobedience to the Will of God as it is manifested in Man For the pleasure of the Soul consists in conforming her self faithfully to what she is perswaded in her own Conscience is the Will of God what ever others would insinuate to the contrary 10 And all the fruit-bearing Trees of Righteousnesse are watered by these four Rivers which winde along this Garden of Pleasure which indeed are the four Cardinal Virtues 11 The name of the first is Pison which is Prudence not the suggestions of fleshly craft and over-reaching subtilty but the Indications of the Spirit or divine Intellect what is fit and profitable and decorous to be done 12 Here is well tryed and certain approved Experience healthful Industry and Alacrity to honest Labour 13 And the name of the second River is Gihon which is Justice 14 And the name of the third River is Hiddekel which is Fortitude and the fourth River is Euphrates which is Temperance 15 This is the Paradise where the Lord God had placed the Man that he might further cultivate it and improve it 16 And the divine Light manifested in the Man encourag'd the Man to eat of the fruits of Paradise freely and to delight himself in all manner of holy Understanding and Righteousnesse 17 But withall he bade him have a speciall care how he relisht his own Will or Power in any thing but that he should be obedient to the manifest Will of God in things great and small or else assuredly he would lose the life he now lived and become dead to all Righteousnesse and Truth So the man had a special care and his soul wrought wholly towards heavenly and divine things and heeded nothing but these his more noble and Masculine Faculties being after a manner solely set on work but the natural Life in which notwithstanding if it were rightly guided there is no sin being almost quite forgot and dis-regarded 18 But the Wisdome of God saw that it was not good for the soul of man that the Masculine Powers thereof should thus operate alone but that all the Faculties of Life should be set a float that the whole humane Nature might be accomplisht with the divine 19 Now the powers of the soul working so wholly upwards towards divine things the several Modifications or Figurations of the Animal Life which God acting in the frame of the humane Nature represented to the Man whence he had occasion to view them and judge of them by the quick Understanding of Man was indeed easily discern'd what they were and he had a determinate apprehension of every particular Figuration of the Animall Life 20 And did censure them or pronounce of them though truly yet rigidly enough and severely but as yet was not in a capacity of taking any delight in them there was not any of them fit for his turn to please himself in 21 Wherefore divine Providence brought it so to passe for the good of the Man and that he might more vigorously and fully be enrich'd with delight that the operations of the Masculine Faculties of the Soul were for a while well slaked and consopited during which time the Faculties themselves were something lessened or weakned yet in such a due measure and proportion that considering the future advantage that was expected that was not miss'd that was taken away but all as handsome and compleat as before 22 For what was thus abated in the Masculine Faculties was compensated abundantly in exhibiting to the Man the grateful sense of the Feminine for there was no way but this to Create the Woman which is to elicite that kindly flowring joy or harmlesse delight of the Natural Life and health of the Body which once exhibited and joyned with Simplicity and Innocency of Spirit it is the greatest part of that Paradise a man is capable of upon Earth 23 And the actuating of the matter being the most proper and essential operation of a soul man presently acknowledg'd this kindly flowring joy of the Body of nearer cognation and affinity with himself then any thing else he ever had yet experience of and he loved it as his own life 24 And the Man was so mightily taken with his new Spouse which is The kindly Joy of the Life of the Body that he concluded with himself that any one may with a safe Conscience forgoe those more earnest attempts towards the knowledge of the Eternal God that created him as also the performance of those more scrupulous injunctious of his Mother the Church so far forth as they are incompetible with the Health and Ioy of the Life of his Natural Body and might in such a case rather cleave to his Spouse and become one with her provided he still lived in obedience to the indispensable Precepts of that Superiour Light and Power that begot him 25 Nor had Adam's Reason or Affection transgressed at all in this concluding nothing but what the divine Wisdome and Equity would approve as true Wherefore Adam and his wife as yet sought no corners nor covering places to shelter them from the divine Light but having done nothing amisse appeared naked in the presence of it without any shame or blushing CHAP. III. 1 Adam is tempted by inordinate Pleasure from the springing up of the Joy of the invigorated Life of his Body 2 A dialogue or dispute in the minde of Adam betwixt The inordinate Desire of Pleasure and the natural Joy of the body 6 The will of Adam is drawn away to assent to inordinate Pleasure 8 Adam having transgressed is impatient of the Presence of the divine Light 10 A long conflict of Conscience or dispute betwixt Adams earthly minde and the divine Light examining him and setting before him both his present and future condition if he persisted in rebellion 20 He adheres to the Joy of his body without reason or measure notwithstanding all the castigations and monitions of the divine Light 21 The divine Light takes leave of Adam therefore for the present with deserved scorn and reproach 22 The doom of the Eternal God concerning laps'd Man that will not suffer them to settle in wickednesse according to their own depraved wills and desires 1 BUT so it came to passe that the Life of the Body being thus invigorated in Man straightway the slyest and subtilest of all the Animal Figurations the Serpent which is the inordinate Desire of Pleasure craftily insinuated it self into the Feminine part of Adam viz. The kindely Joy of the body and thus assaulting Man whisper'd such suggestions as these unto him What a
I am not alone in this liberty of dissenting from Plotinus For besides my own conceit this way for I must confess I have no demonstrative reasons against his opinion I am emboldened by the example of Ficinus who is no small admirer of the forenamed Author That which I was about to say is this The informing or actuating of a body being so Indispensable and Essential an act of the Soul the temper and condition of the body that it thus actuates cannot but be of mighty consequence unto the Soul that is conscious of the plight thereof and reaps the joy of it or sorrow by an universal touch and inward sense springing up into her cognoscence and animadversion And we may easily imagine of what moment the health and good plight of the body is to the minde that lodges there if we do but consider the condition of Plants whose bodies we cannot but conceive in a more grateful temper while they flourish and are sweet and pleasing to the eye then when they are withered by age or drought or born down to the Earth by immoderate storms of rain And so it is with the body of man where there is a Soul to take notice of its condition far better when it is in health by discretion and moderation in diet and exercise then when it is either parched up by superstitious melancholy or slocken and drowned in sensuality and intemperance For they are both abaters of the joyes of life and lessen that plenitude of happiness that man is capable of by his Mystical Eve the woman that God has given every one to delight himself with Ver. 24. So far forth as they are incompetible with the health of the body This is an undeniable truth else how could that hold good that the Apostle speaks That Godliness is profitable for all things having the promise of this world and that which is to come when as without the health of the body there is nothing at all to be enjoyed in this present world And certainly God doth not tie us to the Law of Angels or Superiour Creatures but to precepts sutable to the nature of man Obedience to the precepts of that Superiour Light For if the life of the body grow upon us so as to extinguish or hinder the sense of divine things our dependence of God and joyful hope of the life to come it is then become disorderly and is to be castigated and kept down that it pull not us down into an aversation from all Piety and sink us into an utter oblivion of God and the divine Life Ver. 25. Without any shame or blushing See what has been said upon the Philosophick Cabbala CHAP. III. A story of a dispute betwixt a Prelate and a Black-Smith concerning Adams eating of the Apple 1 What is meant by the subtilty or deceit of the Serpent That Religion wrought to its due height is a very chearful state And it is only the halting and hypocrisie of men that generally have put so soure and sad a vizard upon it 5 6 That worldly Wisdome not Philosophy is perstringed in the Mysterie of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil 10 The meaning of Adams flying after he had found himself naked 20 Adam the Earthly-minded Man according to Philo. 21 What is meant by Gods clothing Adam and Eve with hairy Coats in the Mystical sense 23 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Paradise of Luxury That History in Scripture is wrote very concisely and therefore admits of modest and judicious Supplements for clearing the sense 24 What is meant by the Cherubim and flaming Sword Plato's definition of Philosophy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A more large description of dying to Sinne and of the life of Righteousness That Christian Religion even as it referres to the external Person of Christ is upon no pretence to be annull'd till the Conflagration of the world IN this third Chapter is the said Catastrophe of the story the Fall of Adam and the Original of all that misery and calamity that hath befallen mankind since the Beginning of the World Of so horrid consequence was it that our Mother Eve could no better suppress her longing but upon the easie perswasion of the Serpent ate the forbidden Fruit as a famous Prelate in France once very tragically insisted upon the point to his attentive Auditory But it should seem a certain Smith in the Church as Bodinus relates when he had heard from this venerable Preacher that Universal Mankinde saving a small handful of Christians were irrevocably laps'd into eternal damnation by Adams eating of an Apple and he having the boldness to argue the matter with the Prelate and receiving no satisfaction from him in his managing the Literal sense of the Text and his skill it should seem went no further the Smith at last broke out into these words Tam multas rixas pro re tantilla ineptè excitari as if he should have said in plain English What a deal of doe has there here been about the eating of an Apple Which blasphemous saying as Bodinus writes had no sooner come to the ears of the Court of France but it became a Proverb amongst the Courtiers So dangerous a thing is an ignorant and indiscreet Preacher and a bold immodest Auditour Bodinus in the same place does profess it is his Judgement that the unskilful insisting of our Divines upon the literal sense of Moses has bred many hundred thousands of Atheists For which reason I hope that men that are not very ignorant and humorous but sincere lovers of God and the divine Truth will receive these my Cabbala's with more favour and acceptance especially this Moral one it being not of too big a sense to stop the mouth of any honest free inquisitive Christian But whatever it is we shall further endevour to make it good in the several passages thereof Ver. 1. Inordinate desire of pleasure It is Philo's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Serpent is a Symbole or representation of Pleasure which he compares to that creature for three reasons First because a Serpent is an Animal without feet and crawls along on the Earth upon his belly Secondly because it is said to feed upon the dust of the Earth Thirdly because it has poisonous teeth that kill those that it bites And so he assimilates pleasure to it being a base affection and bearing it self upon the belly the seat of lust and intemperance feeding on earthly things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but never nourishing her self with that heavenly food which wisdome offers to the Contemplative by her precepts and discourses It is much that Philo should take no notice of that which is so particularly set down in the Text the subtilty of the Serpent which me thinks is notorious in pleasure it looking so smoothly and innocently on 't and insinuating it self very easily into the mindes of men upon that consideration and so deceiving them when as other passions cannot so slily surprise
he was taken 24 So he drove out Adam and his wife was forced to follow him For there was no longer staying in Paradise because the place was terribly haunted with spirits and fearful apparitions appeared at the entrance thereof winged men with fiery flaming swords in their hands brandished every way so that Adam durst never adventure to go back to taste of the fruit of the Tree of Life whence it is that mankinde hath continued mortal to this very day THE PHILOSOPHICK CABBALA CHAP. I. 1 The world of Life or Forms and the Potentiality of the visible Vniverse created by the Tri-une God and referr'd to a Monad or Unite 6 The Vniversal immense matter of the visible world created out of nothing and referr'd to the number Two 7 Why it was not said of this matter that it was good 9 The ordering of an Earth or Planet for making it conveniently habitable referr'd to the number Three 14 The immense Aethereal matter or Heaven contriv'd into Suns or Planets as well Primary as Secondary viz. as well Earths as Moons and referr'd to the number Four 20 The replenishing of an Earth with Fish and Fowl referr'd to the number Five 24 The Creation of Beasts and Cattel but more chiefly of Man himself referr'd to the number Six 1 OUR designe being to set out the more conspicuous parts of the external Creation before we descend to the Genealogies and Successions of mankinde there are two notable objects present themselves to our understanding which we must first take notice of as having an universal influence upon all that follows and these I do Symbolically decypher the one by the name of Heaven and Light for I mean the same thing by both these tearms the other by the name of Earth By Heaven or Light you are to understand The whole comprehension of intellectual Spirits souls of men and beasts and the seminal forms of all things which you may call if you please The world of Life By Earth you are to understand the Potentiality or Capability of the Existence of the outward Creation This Possibility being exhibited to our mindes as the result of the Omnipotence of God without whom nothing would be and is indeed the utmost shadow and darkest projection thereof The Tri-une God therefore by his eternall Wisdome first created this Symbolical Heaven and Earth 2 And this Earth was nothing but Solitude and Emptinesse and it was a deep bottomless capacity of being what ever God thought good to make out of it that implyed no contradiction to be made And there being a possibility of creating things after sundry and manifold manners nothing was yet determined but this vast Capability of things was unsettled fluid and of it self undeterminable as water But the Spirit of God who was the Vehicle of the Eternal Wisdome and of the Super-essential Goodnesse by a swift forecast of Counsel and Discourse of Reason truly divine such as at once strikes through all things and discerns what is best to be done having hover'd a while over all the capacities of this fluid Possibilitie forthwith settled upon what was the most perfect and exact 3 Wherefore the intire Deity by an inward Word which is nothing but Wisdome and Power edg'd with actual Will with more ease then we can present any Notion or Idea to our own mindes exhibited really to their own view the whole Creation of spiritual Substances such as Angels are in their inward natures the Souls of men and other Animals and the Seminal Forms of all things so that all those as many as ever were to be of them did really and actually exist without any dependency on corporeall matter 4 And God approved of and pleased himself in all this as good but yet though in designe there was a settlement of the fluid darknesse or obscure Possibility of the outward Creation yet it remained as yet but a dark Possibility And a notorious distinction indeed there was betwixt this Actual spiritual Creation and the dimme possibility of the material or outward world 5. Insomuch that the one might very well be called Day and the other Night because the night does deface and obliterate all the distinct figures and colours of things but the day exhibits them all orderly and clearly to our sight Thus therefore was the immateriall Creature perfectly finisht being an inexhaustible Treasury of Light and Form for the garnishing and consummating the material world to afford a Morning or Active principle to every Passive one in the future parts of the corporeal Creation But in this first days work as we will call it the Morning and Evening are purely Metaphysical for the active and passive principles here are not two distinct substances the one material the other spiritual But the passive principle is matter meerly Metaphysical and indeed no real or actual entity and as hath been already said is quite divided from the light or spiritual substance not belonging to it but to the outward world whose shadowy possibility it is But be they how they will this passive and active principle are the First days work A Monad or Unite being so fit a Symbole of the immaterial nature 6 And God thought again and invigorating his thought with his Will and Power created an immense deal of reall and corporeall matter a substance which you must conceive to lie betwixt the foresaid fluid Possibility of Natural things and the Region of Seminall Forms not that these things are distinguisht Locally but according to a more intellectual Order 7 And the thought of God arm'd with his Omnipotent will took effect and this immensely diffused matter was made But he was not very forward to say it was good or to please himself much in it because he foresaw what mischief straying souls if they were not very cautious might bring to themselves by sinking themselves too deep therein Besides it was little worth till greater polishings were bestowed upon it and his Wisdome had contrived it to fitting uses being nothing as yet but a boundlesse Ocean of rude invisible Matter 8 Wherefore this Matter was actuated and agitated forthwith by some Universal Spirit yet part of the World of Life whence it became very subtile and Ethereal so that this Matter was rightly called Heaven and the Union of the Passive and Active Principle in the Creation of this Material Heaven is the second days work and the Binarie denotes the nature thereof 9 I shall also declare unto you how God orders a reall materiall Earth when once it is made to make it pleasant and delightful for both man and beast But for the very making of the Earth it is to be referred to the following day For the Stars and Planets belong to that number and as a primary Planet in respect of its reflexion of light is rightly called a Planet so in respect of its habitablenesse it is as rightly tearmed an Earth These Earths therefore God orders in such sort that they neither want water to
to wit the Essential Will of God which is the true root of Regeneration but to so high a pitch Adam as yet had not reacht unto and the fruit of this Tree in this Ethereal state of the Soul had been Immortality or Life everlasting And the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil was there also viz. His own Will 10 And there was a very pleasant River that water'd this Garden distinguishable into four streams which are the four Cardinal Virtues which are in several degrees in the Soul according to the several degrees of the purity of her Vehicle 11 And the name of the first is Pison which is Prudence and Experience in things that are comely to be done For the soul of man is never idle neither in this world nor in any state else but hath some Province to make good and is to promote his interest whose she is For what greater gratification can there be of a good soul then to be a dispenser of some portion of that Universal good that God lets out upon the world And there can be no external conversation nor society of persons be they Terrestrial Aereab or Ethereal but forthwith it implies an Use of Prudence Wherefore Prudence is an inseparable Accomplishment of the soul So that Pison is rightly deemed one of the Rivers even of that Celestial Paradise And this is that wisdome which God himself doth shew to the soul by communication of the divine Light for it is said to compasse the Land of Havilah 12. Where also idle and uselesse speculations are not regarded as is plainly declared by the pure and approved Gold Bdellium and Onyx the commodities thereof 13 And the name of the second River is Gihon which is Justice as is intimated from the fame of the Aethiopians whose Land it is said to compasse as also from the notation of the name thereof 14 And the name of the third River is Hiddekel which is Fortitude that like a rapid stream bears all down before it and stoutly resists all the powers of darknesse running forcibly against Assyria which is situated Westward of it And the fourth River is Perath which is Temperance the nourisher and cherisher of all the plants of Paradise whereas Intemperance or too much addicting the minde to the pleasure of the Vehicle or Life of the matter be it in what state soever drowns and choaks those sacret Vegetables As the earth you know was not at all fruitfull till the waters were removed into one place and the dry land appeared when as before it was drowned and slocken with overmuch moisture 15 In this Paradise thus described had the Lord God placed Man to dresse it and to keep it in such good order as he found it 16 And the divine Word or Light in man charged him saying Of every tree of Paradise thou mayest freely eat For all things here are wholesome as well as pleasant if thou hast a right care of thy self and beest obedient to my commands 17 But of the luscious and poisonous fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil that is of thine own will thou shalt not by any means eat For at what time thou eatest thereof thy soul shall contract that languor debility and unsettlednesse that in processe of time thou shalt slide into the earth and be buried in humane flesh and become an inhabitant of the Region of mortality and death 18 Hitherto I have not taken much notice in the Ethereal Adam of any other Faculties but such as carried him upwards towards virtue and the holy Intellect And indeed this is the more perfect and masculine Adam which consists in pure subtile intellectual Knowledge But we will now inform you of another Faculty of the soul of man which though it seem inferiour yet is far from being contemptible it being both good for himself and convenient for the terrestrial world For this makes him in a capacity of being the head of all the living creatures in the earth as that Faculty indeed is the mother of all mankinde 19 Those higher and more Intellectual accomplishments I must confesse made Adam very wise and of a quick perception For he knew very well the natures of the beasts of the field and fowls of the air I mean not only of the visible and terrestrial creatures but also of the fallen and unfallen Angels or good and bad Genii and was able to judge aright of them according to the principles they consisted of and the properties they had 20 And his Reason and Understanding was not mistaken but he pronounced aright in all But however he could take no such pleasure in the external Creation of God and his various works without having some Principle of life congruously joyning with and joyfully actuating the like matter themselves consisted of Wherefore God indued the soul of man with a faculty of being united with vital joy and complacency to the matter as well as of aspiring to an union with God himself whose divine Essence is too highly disproportioned to our poor substances But the divine Life is communicable in some sort to both soul and body whether it be Ethereal or of grosser consistence and those wonderful grateful pleasures that we feel are nothing but the kindely motions of the souls Vehicle from whence divine joys themselves are by a kinde of reflexion strengthned and advanced Of so great consequence is that vital principle that joyns the soul to the matter of the Universe 21 Wherefore God to gratifie Adam made him not indefatigable in his aspirings towards Intellectual things but Lassitude of Contemplation of Affectation of Immateriality he being not able to receive those things as they are but according to his poor capacity which is very small in respect of the object it is exercis'd about brought upon himself remisnesse and drowsinesse to such like exercises till by degrees he fell into a more profound sleep At what time divine Providence having laid the plot aforehand that lower vivificative principle of his soul did grow so strong and did so vigorously and with such exultant sympathy and joy actuate his Vehicle that in virtue of his integrity which he yet retain'd this became more dear to him and of greater contentment then any thing he yet had experience of 22 I say when divine Providence had so lively and warmly stirr'd up this new sense of his Vehicle in him 23 He straightway acknowledg'd that all the sense and knowledge of any thing he had hitherto was more lifelesse and evanid and seemed lesse congruous and grateful unto him and more estranged from his nature but this was so agreeable consentaneous to his soul that he looked upon it as a necessary part of himself and called it after his own name 24 And he thought thus within himself For this cause will any one leave his over-tedious aspires to unite with the Eternal Intellect and Universal Soul of the world the immensenesse of whose excellencies are too
highly rais'd for us to continue long in their embracements and will cleave to the joyous and chearful life of his Vehicle and account this living Vehicle and his Soul one Person 25 Thus Adam with his new-wedded Joy stood naked before God but was not as yet at all ashamed by reason of his Innocency and Simplicity for Adam neither in his reason nor affection as yet had transgressed in any thing CHAP. III. 1 Satan tempts Adam taking advantage upon the Invigoration of the life of his Vehicle 2 The Dialogue betwixt Adam and Satan 6 The Masculine faculties in Adam swayed by the Feminine assent to sin against God 7 Adam excuses the use of that wilde Liberty he gave himself discerning the Plastick Power somewhat awakened in him 8 A dispute betwixt Adam and the divine Light arraigning him at the Tribunal of his own Conscience 14 Satan strucken down into the lower Regions of the Air. 15 A Prophecy of the Incarnation of the Soul of the Messias and of his Triumph over the head and highest Powers of the rebellious Angels 16 A decree of God to sowre and disturb all the pleasures and contentments of the Terrestrial Life 20 Adam again excuses his fall from the usefulnesse of his Presence and Government upon Earth 21 Adam is fully incorporated into Flesh and appears in the true shape of a Terrestrial Animal 24 That Immortality is incompetible to the Earthly Adam nor can his Soul reach it till she return into her Ethereal Vehicle 1 NOw the life of the Vehicle being so highly invigorated in Adam by the remission of exercise in his more subtile and immaterial faculties he was fit with all alacrity and chearfulnesse to pursue any game set before him and wanted nothing but fair external opportunity to call him out into action Which one of the evil Genii or faln Angels observing which had no small skill in doing mischief having in all likelihood practised the same villany upon some of his own Orders and was the very Ring leader of rebellion against God and the divine Light For he was more perversely subtile then all the rest of the evil Genii or beasts of the field which God had madâ— Angels but their beastiality they contractâ—â— by their own rebellion For every thing 〈◊〉 hath sense and understanding and wants the divine Life in it in the judgement of all wise and good men is truly a Beast This old Serpent therefore the subtilest of all the beasts of the field cunningly assaulted Adam with such conference as would surely please his Feminine part which was now so invigorated with life that the best news to her would be the tidings of a Commission to do any thing Wherefore the Serpent said to the feminized Adam Why are you so demure and what makes you so bound up in spirit Is it so indeed that God has confined you taken away your Liberty and forbidden you all things that you may take pleasure in 2 And Adam answered him saying No we are not forbidden any thing that the divine Life in us approves as good and pleasant 3 We are only forbidden to feed on our own Will and to seek pleasures apart and without out the approbation of the will of God For if our own will get head in us we shall assuredly descend into the Region of Mortality and be cast into a state of Death 4 But the Serpent said unto Adam Tush this is but a Panick fear in you Adam you shall not so surely die as you conceit 5 The only matter is this God indeed â—â—ves to keep his creatures in awe and to hold them in from ranging too farre and reaching too high but he knows very well that if you take but your liberty with us and satiate your selves freely with your own will your eyes will be wonderfully opened and you will meet with a world of variety of experiments in things so that you will grow abundantly wise and like Gods know all things whatsoever whether good or evil 6 Now the Feminine part in Adam was so tickled with this Doctrine of the old Deceiver that the Concupiscible began to be so immoderate as to resolve to do any thing that may promote pleasure and experience in things snatcht away with it Adams Will and Reason by his heedlesnesse and inadvertency So that Adam was wholly set upon doing things at randome according as the various toyings and titillations of the lascivient Life of the Vehicle suggested to him no longer consulting with the voice of God or taking any farther aim by the Inlet of the divine Light 7 And when he had tired himself with a rabble of toyes and unfruitful or unsatisfactory devices rising from the multifarious workings of the Particles of his Vehicle at last the eyes of his faculties were opened and they perceived how naked they were he having as yet neither the covering of the Heavenly Nature nor the Terrestrial Body Only they sewed fig-leaves together and made some pretences of excuse from the vigour of the Plantal Life that now in a thinner maner might manifest it self in Adam and predispose him for a more perfect exercise of his Plastick Power when the prepared matter of the Earth shall drink him in 8 In the mean time the voice of God or the divine Wisdome spake to them in the cool of the day when the hurry of this mad Carreer had well slaked But Adam now with his wife was grown so out of order and so much estranged from the Life of God that they hid themselves at the sensible approach thereof as wilde beasts run away into the Wood at the sight of a man 9 But the divine Light in the Conscience of Adam pursued him and upbraided unto him the case he was in 10 And Adam acknowledged within himself how naked he was having no power nor ornaments nor abilities of his own and yet that he had left his obedience and dependence upon God Wherefore he was ashamed and hid himself at the approach of the divine Light manifesting it self unto him to the reprehension and rebuke of him 11 And the divine Light charg'd all this misery and confusion that had thus overtaken him upon the eating of the forbidden fruit the luscious Dictates of his own Will 12 But Adam again excus'd himself within himself that it was the vigour and impetuosity of that Life in the Vehicle which God himself implanted in it whereby he miscarried The woman that God had given him 13 And the divine Light spake in Adam concerning the woman What work hath she made here But the woman in Adam excused her self for she was beguiled by that grand Deceiver the Serpent In this confusion of mind was Adam by forsaking the divine Light and letting his own will get head against it For it so changed the nature of his Vehicle that whereas he might have continued in an Angelical and Ethereal condition and his feminine part been brought into perfect obedience to the divine Light and
of the Field you shall understand more fully in the following Chapter In the mean time you may take notice that the Platonists indeed Plato himself in his Phaedrus makes the Soul of Man before it falls into this Terrestrial Region a winged Creature And that such phrases as these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the like are proper expressions of that School And Plato does very plainly define what he means by these wings of the soul and there is the same reason of all other spirits whatsoever after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the nature of the wing of the soul is such as to be able to carry upward that which otherwise would slugge downwards and to bear it aloft and place it there where we may have more sensible communion with God and his holy Angels For so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the plural number is most sutably translated in such passages as these and most congruously to the thing it self and the truth of Christianity And it may well seem the lesse strange that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should signifie Angels in the Greek Philosophers especially such as have been acquainted with Moses when as with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies so too viz. Angels as well as God Wherefore to conclude the losse of that Principle that keeps us in this divine condition is the losing of our wings which fallen Angels have done and therefore they may be very well assimilated to Terrestrial Beasts Ver. 20. A faculty of being united c. This vital aptitude in the soul of being united with corporeal Matter being so essential to her and proper the invigorating the exercise of that faculty cannot but be very grateful and acceptable to her and a very considerable share of her happinesse Else what means the Resurrection of the dead or Bodies in the other world which yet is an Article of the Christian Faith Ver. 22. This new sense of his Vehicle There be three Principles in Man according to the Platonists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The first is Intellect Spirit or divine Light the second the Soul her self which is Adam the Man Animus cujusque is est quisque the Soul of every man that is the Man the third is the image of the Soul which is her vital Energie upon the Body wherewith she does enliven it and if that life be in good tune and due vigour it is a very grateful sense to the soul whether in this Body or in a more thin Vehicle This Ficinus makes our Eve This is the Feminine Faculty in the Soul of Man which awakes then easiliest into act when the Soul to Intellectuals falls asleep Ver. 24. Over-tedious aspires 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a solemn monition of Aristotle somewhere in his Ethicks And it is a great point of wisdome indeed and mainly necessary to know the true laws and bounds of humane happinesse that the heat of melancholy drive not men up beyond what is competible to humane nature and the reach of all the faculties thereof Nor the too savoury relish of the pleasures of the flesh or Animal Life keep them down many thousand degrees below what they are capable of But the man that truly fears God will be delivered from them both What I have spoken is directed more properly to the soul in the flesh but may Analogically be understood of a soul in any Vehicle for they are peccable in them all Ver. 25. Stood naked before God Adam was as truly clothed in Corporeity now as ever after for the Aether is as true a body as the Earth But the meaning is Adam had a sense of the divine Presence very feelingly assured in his own minde that his whole Beeing lay naked and bare before God and that nothing could be hid from his sight which pierced also to the very thoughts and inward frame of his spirit But yet though Adam stood thus naked before him notwithstanding he found no want of any covering to hide himself from that presentifick sense of him nor indeed felt himself as naked in that notion of nakednesse For that sense of nakednesse and want of further covering and sheltring from the divine Presence arose from his disobedience and rebellion against the commands of God which as yet he had not faln into Not at all ashamed Shame is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fear of just reprehension as Gellius out of the Philosophers defines it But Adam having not acted any thing yet at randome after the swing of his own will he had done nothing that the divine Light would reprehend him for He had not yet become obnoxious to any sentence from his own condemning Conscience for he kept himself hitherto within the bounds of that divine Law written in his soul and had attempted nothing against the Will of God So that there being no sin there could not as yet be any shame in Adam CHAP. III. 1 The Serpent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Pherecydes Syrus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 names of Spirits haunting Fields and desolate places The right Notation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 13 That Satan upon his tempting Adam was cast down lower towards the Earth with all his Accomplices 15 Plato's Prophecie of Christ The reasonablenesse of divine Providence in exalting Christ above the highest Angels 20 That Adams descension into his Terrestrial Body was a kind of death 22 How incongruous it is to the divine Goodnesse Sarcastically to insult over frait Man fallen into Tragical misery 24 That it is a great mercy of God that we are not immortal upon Earth That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are all one A Summary representation of the strength of the whole Philosophick Cabbala Pythagoras deemed the son of Apollo That he was acquainted with the Cabbala of Moses That he did miracles as also Abaris Empedocles and Epimenides being instructed by him Plato also deemed the son of Apollo Socrates his dream concerning him That he was learned in the Mosaical Cabbala The miraculous power of Plotinus his Soul Cartesius compared with Bezaliel and Aholiab and whether he was inspired or no. The Cabbalists Apology THE first verse This old Serpent therefore In Pherecydes Syrus Pythagoras his Master there is mention of one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Princeps mali as Grotius cites him on this place which is a further argument of Pythagoras his being acquainted with this Mosaical Philosophy And that according to the Philosophick Cabbala it was an evil spirit not a natural Serpent that supplanted Adam and brought such mischief upon mankind The Beasts of the Field But now that these evil spirits should be reckoned as beasts of the field besides what reason is given in the Cabbala it self we may adde further that the haunt of these unclean spirits is in solitudes and waste fields and desolate places as is evident in the Prophet Esay his description of the
admit of these for the speakings of God then any audible articulate voice pronounced by him in humane shape unlesse it were by Christ himself for otherwise in all likelihood it is but a message by some Angel Ver. 14. The Prince of the rebellious Angels For the mighty shall be mightily tormented and the nature of the thing also implies it because disgrace adversity and being trampled on is far more painful and vexatious to those that have been in great place then to those of a more inferiour rank From whence naturally this Chieftain of the Devils as Mr. Mede calls him will be struck more deeply with the curse then any of the rest of his Accomplices In the higher parts of the Air c. This is very consonant to the opinion of the ancient Fathers whether you understand it of Satan himself or of the whole kingdome of those rebellious spirits And it is no more absurd that for a time the bad went amongst the good in the Aethereal Region then it is now that there are good spirits amongst the bad in this lower Air. But after that villany Satan committed upon Adam he was commanded down lower and the fear of the Lord of Hosts so changed his Vehicle and slaked his fire that he sunk towards the Earth and at last was fain to lick the dust of the ground see Mr. Mede in his Discourse upon 2 Pet. 2. 4. Ver. 15. Messias should take a Body That the Soul of the Messias and all souls else did pre-exist is the opinion of the Jewes and that admitted there is no difficulty in the Cabbala Plato whether from this passage alone or whether it was that he was instructed out of other places also of the holy Writ if what Ficinus writes is true seems to have had some knowledge and presage of the coming of Christ in that being asked how long men should attend to his writings he answered till some more holy and divine Person appear in the world whom all should follow Notoriously here upon Earth As it came to passe in his casting out Devils and silencing Oracles or making them cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ bruises the head of Satan by destroying his kingdome and soveraignty and by being so highly exalted above all Powers whatsoever And it is a very great and precious mysterie That dear Compassion of our fellow-creatures and faithful and fast Obedience to the will of God which were so eminently and transcendently in Christ should be lifted above all Power and Knowledge whatsoever in those higher Orders of Angels For none of them that were as they should be would take offence at it but be glad of it But those that were proud or valued Power and Knowledge before Goodnesse and Obedience it was but a just affront to them and a fit rebuke of their Pride But now how does Satan bruise the heel of Christ Thus He falls upon the rear the lowest part of those that professe Christianity Hypocrites and ignorant souls such as he often makes witches of but the Church Triumphant is secure and the sincere part of the Church Militant So Mr. Mede upon the place Ver. 16. The Concomitance of Pain and Sorrow And it is the common complaint of all Mortals that they that speed the best have the experience of a vicissitude of sorrow as well as joy And the very frame of our bodies as well as the accidents of Fortune are such that to indulge to pleasure is but to lay the seed of sorrow or sadnesse by Diseases Satiety or Melancholy Besides many spinosities and cutting passages that often happen unawares in the conversation of those from whom we expect the greatest solace and contents To say nothing of the assaults of a mans own minde and pricking of Conscience which ordinarily disturb those that follow after the pleasures of the body Lucretius though an Atheist will fully witnesse to the truth of all this in his fourth book De rerum Naturâ where you may read upon this subject at large Ver. 18. Thorns and Thistles Moses instances in one kinde of life Husbandry but there is the same reason in all Nil sine magno Vita laebore dedit mortalibus Life nothing gratis unto men doth give But with great labour and sad toil we live Ver 20. Euripides the friend of Socrates and a favourer of the Pythagorean Philosophy writes somewhere in his Tragedies as I have already told you to this sense Who knows says he whether to live be to die and whether again to die be not to live Which question is very agreeable to this present Cabbala for Adam is here as it were dying to that better world and condition of life he was in and like as one here upon Earth on his death-bed prophecâ—es many times and professes what he presages concerning his own state to come that he shall be with God that he shall be in Heaven amongst the holy Angels and the Saints departed and the like So Adam here utters his Apologetical Prophecie that this change of his and departure from this present state though it may prove ill enough for himself yet it has its use and convenience and that it is better for the Vniverse for he shall live upon Earth and be a Ruler there amongst the Terrestrial creatures and help to order and govern that part of the world The Life of his Vehicle Eve For Eve signifies Life that life which the soul derives to what Vehicle or Body soever she actuates and possesses Ver. 21. Skin of Beasts This Origen understands of Adams being incorporated and clothed with humane flesh and skin Ridiculum enim est dicere saith he quòd Deus fuerit Adami coriarius pellium sutor And no man will much wonder at the confidence of this Pious and Learned Father if he do but consider that the pre-existency of souls before they come into the body is generally held by all the Learned of the Jews and so in all likelihood was a part of this Philosophick Cabbala And how fitly things fall in together and agree with the very Text of Moses let any man judge Ver. 22. But play and sport This I conceive a far better Decorum then to make God sarcastically to jeer at Adam and triumph over him in so great and universal a mischief as some make it and destitute of any concomitant convenience Especially there being a Principle in Adam that was so easily deceivable which surely has something of the nature of an excuse in it But to jeer at a man that through his own weakness the over-reaching subtilty of his adversary has fallen into some dreadful and tragical evil and misery is a thing so far from becoming God that it utterly misbeseems any good man Ver. 24. He made sure he should not be immortal For it is our advantage as Rupertus upon the place hath observed out of Plotinus Misericordiae Dei fuisse quòd hominem ficerit mortalem nè perpetuis cruciaretur hujus
to the Sixt days progresse 26 What the Image of God is plainly set down out of S. Paul and Plato The divine Principle in us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of Plotinus 28 The distinction of the Heavenly and Earthly Man out of Philo. 31 The Imposture of still and fixed Melancholy and that it is not the true divine Rest and precious Sabbath of the Soul A compendious rehearsal of the whole Allegory of the Six days Creation WEE are now come to the Moral Cabbala which I do not call Moral in that low sense the generality of men understand Morality For the processe and growth as likewise the failing and decay of the divine Life is very intelligibly set forth in this present Cabbala But I call it Moral in counter-distinction to Philosophical or Physical as Philo also uses this tearm Moral in divine matters As when he speaks of Gods breathing into Adam the breath of Life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God breathes into Adams face Physically and Morally Physically by placing there the Senses viz. in the head Morally by inspiring his Intellect with divine knowledge which is the highest Faculty of the Soul as the Head is the chief part of the Body Wherefore by Morality I understand here divine Morality such as is ingendred in the Soul by the operations of the holy Spirit that inward living Principle of all godliness and honesty I shall be the more brief in the Defence of this Cabbala it being of it self so plain and sensible to any that has the experience of the life I describe but to them that have it not nothing will make it plain or any thing at all probable Ver. 1. A Microcosme or little World Nothing is more ordinary or trivial then to compare Man to the Universe and make him a little compendious World of himself Wherefore it was not hard to premise that which may be so easily understood And the Apostle supposes it when he applies the Creation of Light here in this Chapter to the illumination of the Soul as you shall hear hereafter Ver. 2. But that which is animal or natural operates first According to that of the Apostle That which is Spiritual is not first but that which is Animal or Natural afterward that which is Spiritual The first Man is of the Earth earthy the second Man is the Lord from Heaven But what this earthy condition is is very lively set out by Moses in this first days work For here we have Earth Water and Wind or one tumultuous dark Chaos and confusion of dirt and water blown on heaps and waves and unquiet night-storm an unruly black tempest And it is observable that it is not here said of this deformed Globe Let there be Earth Let there be Water Let there be Wind but all this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The subject matter a thing ' made already viz. The rude Soul of Man in this disorder that is described sad Melancholy like the drown'd Earth lies at the bottome whence Care and Grief and Discontent torturous Suspicion and horrid Fear are washed up by the unquiet watry Desire or irregular suggestions of the Concupiscible wherein most eminently is seated base Lust and Sensuality and above these is boisterous Wrath and storming Revengefulnesse fool-hardy Confidence and indefatigable Contention about vain objects In short whatever Passion and Distemper is in fallen Man it may be referred to these Elements But God leaves not his creature in this evil condition but that all this disorder may be discovered and so quelled in us and avoided by us he saith Let there be Light as you read in the following verse Ver. 3. The day-light appears To this alludes S. Paul when he says God who commanded the light to shine out of darknesse shine in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ Where the Apostle seems to me to have struck through the whole Six days of this Spiritual Creation at once The highest manifestation of that Light created in the first day being the face of Jesus Christ the Heavenly Adam fully compleated in the sixt day Wherefore when it is said Let there be Light that Light is understood that enlightens every man that comes into the world which is the divine Intellect as it is communicable to humane souls And the first day is the first appearance thereof as yet weaker and too much disjoin'd from our affections but at last it amounts to the true and plain Image and Character of the Lord from Heaven Christ according to the Spirit Ver. 4. And God hath framed the Nature of Man so that he cannot but say c. God working in second causes there is nothing more ordinary then to ascribe that to him that is done by men even then when the actions seem lesse competible to the Nature of God Wherefore it cannot seem harsh if in this Moral Cabbala we admit that man does that by the power of God working in the soul that the Text says God does as the approving of the Light as good and the distinguishing betwixt Light and Darknesse and the like which things in the mystical sense are competible both to God and Man And we speaking in a Moral or Mystical sense of God acting in us the nature of the thing requires that what he is said to do there we should be understood also to do the same through his assistance For the soul of man is not meerly passive as a piece of wood or stone but is forthwith made active by being acted upon and therefore if God in us rules we rule with him if he contend against sin in us we also contend together with him against the same if he see in us what is good or evil we ipso facto see by him In his light we see light and so in the rest Wherefore the supposition is very easie in this Moral Cablala to take the liberty where either the sense or more compendious expression requires it to attribute that to man though not to man alone which God alone does when we recur to the Literal meaning of the Text. And this is but consonant to the Apostle I live and yet not I. For if the life of God or Christ was in him surely he did live or else what did that life there Only he did not proudly attribute that life to himself as his own but acknowledged it to be from God Ver. 5. As betwixt the Natural Day and Night It is very frequent with the Apostles to set out by Day and Night the Spiritual and Natural condition of man As in such phrases as these The night is far spent the day is at hand Walk as children of the Light And elsewhere Let us who are of the day and in the same place You are all the sons of light and sons of the day We are not of the night nor of darknesse But this is too
and height of the Wisdom and goodness of God as somewhere the Apostle himself phrasâ—th it But then again in the second place this three and four comprehend also the conjunction of the Corporeal and Incorporeal nature Three being the first Superficies and Four the first Body and in the Seventh thousand years I do verily conceive that there will be so great union betwixt God and Man that they shall not only partake of his Spirit but that the Inhabitants of the Aethereal Region will openly converse with these of the Terrestrial and such frequent conversation and ordinary visits of our cordial friends of that other world will take away all the toil of life and the fear of death amongst men they being very chearful and pleasant here in the body and being well assured they shall be better when they are out of it For Heaven and Earth shall then shake hands together or become as one house and to die shall be accounted but to ascend into an higher room And though this dispensation for the present be but very sparingly set a foot yet I suppose there may some few have a glimpse of it concerning whom accomplish'd Posterity may happily utter something answerable to that of our Saviours concerning Abraham who tasted of Christianity before Christ himself was come in the Flesh Abraham saw my day and rejoyced at it And without all question that plenitude of happiness that has been reserved for future times the presage and presensation of it has in all ages been a very great Joy and Triumph to all holy men and Prophets The Morning Light of the Sun of Righteousnesse This is very sutable to the Text Paradise being said to be placed Eastward in Eden and our Saviour Christ to be the bright Morning Starre and the Light that lightens every one that comes into the world though too many are disobedient to the dictates of this Light that so early visits them in their mindes and consciences but they that follow it it is their peace and happiness in the conclusion Ver. 9. Which is a sincere obedience to the Will of God The Tree of Life is very rightly said to be in the midst of the Garden that is in the midst of the soul of man and this is the will or desire of man which is the most inward of all the faculties of his soul and is as it were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or vital Center of the rest from whence they stream or grow That therefore is the Tree of Life if it be touch'd truly with the divine Life and a man be heartily obedient to the will of God For the whole Image of divine Perfection will grow from hence and receives nourishment strength and continuance from it But if this will and desire be broke off from God and become actuated by the creature or be a self-will and a spirit of disobedience it breeds most deadly fruit which kills the divine Life in us and puts man into a necessity of dying to that disorder and corruption he has thus contracted What ever others would insinuate to the contrary For there is nothing so safe if a man be heartily sincere as not to be led by the nose by others For we see the sad event of it in Eves listening to the outward suggestions of the Serpent Ver. 10. The four Cardinal Virtues It is the Exposition of Philo. Till verse 17. there is no need of adding any thing more then what has already been said in the Defence of the Philsophick Cabbala Ver. 17. Dead to all Righteousnesse and Truth The mortality that Adam contracted by his disobedience in the Mortal or Mystical sense is twofold The one a death to righteousness and it is the sense of Philo upon the place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The death of the soul is the extinction of Virtue in her and the resuscitation of Vice and he adds that this must be the death here meant it being a real punishment indeed to forfeit the life of Virtue The other mortality is a necessity of dying to unrighteousness if he ever would be happy Both those notions of Death are more frequent in S. Pauls Epistles then that I need to give any instance His more noble and Masculine Faculties What the Masculine part in man is Philo plainly declares in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In us saith he the Man is the Intellect the Woman the Sense of the Body Whence you will easily understand that the Masculine Faculties are those that are more Spiritual and Intellectual Ver. 18. That the whole Humane Nature may be accomplished with the Divine Which is agreeable to that pious ejaculation of the Apostle 1 Thess 5. And the God of Peace sanctifie you wholly or throughly and I pray God your whole Spirit Soul and Body may be kept blamelesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the presence or abode of Jesus Christ the divine Life or heavenly Adam in you This is the most easie and natural sense of that place of Scripture as it will appear to any man whose minde is as much set on holiness as hard Theories And it is very agreeable to the Mystical sense of the second Psalm where the Kingdome of Christ reaches to the utmost ends of the Earth that is as far as Soul and Life can animate so that our very flesh and body is brought under the Scepter of Christs Kingdome Ver. 19. The Figurations of the Animal Life That the motions of the Minde as they are suggested from the Animal Life of the Body are set forth by Fishes Beasts and Birds I have already made good from the authority of Origen Ver. 20. In a capacity of taking delight in them For melancholy had so depraved the complexion of his body that there was no grateful sense of any thing that belong'd to nature and the life of the Vehicle Ver. 22. The greatest part of that Paradise a man is capable of upon Earth This is a Truth of Sense and Experience and is no more to be proved by Reason then that White is White or Black is Black Ver. 23. Essential operation of the Soul The very nature of the Soul as it is a Soul is an aptitude of informing or actuating a Body but that it should be always an organized Body it is but Aristotles saying of it he does not prove it But for mine own part I am very prone to think that the Soul is never destitute of some Vehicle or other though Plotinus be of another minde and conceives that the Soul at the height is joined with God and nothing else nakedly lodged in his arms And I am the more bold to dissent from him in this exaltation of the Soul I being so secure in my own conceit of that other suspected extravagancy of his in the debasement of them that at last they become so drowsie and sensless that they grow up out of the ground in that dull function of life the efformation of Trees and Plants And
earth by the power of God in nature 8 How it was with Adam before he descended into flesh and became a Terrestrial Animal 10 That the four Cardinal virtues were in Adam in his Ethereal or Paradisiacal condition 17 Adam in Paradise forbidden to taste or relish his own will under pain of descending into the Region of Death 18 The Masculine and Feminine faculties in Adam 20 The great Pleasure and Solace of the Feminine faculties 21 The Masculine faculties laid asleep the Feminine appear and act viz. The grateful sense of the life of the Vehicle 25 That this sense and joy of the life of the Vehicle is in it self without either blame or shame pag. 33 CHAP. III. 1 Satan tempts Adam taking advantage upon the Invigoration of the life of his Vehicle 2 The Dialogue betwixt Adam and Satan 6 The Masculine faculties in Adam swayed by the Feminine assent to sin against God 7 Adam excuses the use of that wilde Liberty he gave himself discerning the Plastick Power somewhat awakened in him 8 A dispute betwixt Adam and the divine Light arraigning him at the Tribunal of his own Conscience 14 Satan strucken down into the lower Regions of the Air. 15 A Prophecy of the Incarnation of the Soul of the Messias and of his Triumph over the head and highest Powers of the rebellious Angels 16 A decree of God to sowre and disturb all the pleasures and contentments of the Terrestrial Life 20 Adam again excuses his fall from the usefulnesse of his Presence and Government upon Earth 21 Adam is fully incorporated into Flesh and appears in the true shape of a Terrestrial Animal 24 That Immortality is incompetible to the Earthly Adam nor can his Soul reach it till she return into her Ethereal Vehicle 44 THE MORAL CABBALA CHAP. I. 1 Man a Microcosme or Little World in whom there are two Principles Spirit and Flesh 2 The Earthly or Fleshly Nature appears first 4 The Light of Conscience unlistned to 6 The Spirit of Savory and Affectionate discernment betwixt good and evil 10 The inordinate desires of the flesh driven aside and limited 11 Hereupon the plants of Righteousnesse bear fruit and flourish 16 The hearty and sincere Love of God and a mans neighbor is as the Sun in the Soul of man Notionality and Opinions the weak and faint Light of the dispersed Stars 18 Those that walk in sincere Love walk in the Day They that are guided by Notionality travel in the Night 22 The Natural Concupiscible brings forth by the command of God and is corrected by devotion 24 The Irascible also brings forth 26 Christ the Image of God is created being a perfect Ruler over all the motions of the Irascible and Concupiscible 29 The food of the divine Life 30 The food of the Animal Life 31 The divine Wisdome approves of whatsoever is simply natural as good 52 CHAP. II. 3 The true Sabbatisme of the Sons of God 5 A Description of men taught by God 7 The mysterie of that Adam that comes by Water and the Spirit 9 Obedience the Tree of Life Disobedience the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil 10 The Rivers of Paradise the four Cardinal Virtues in the Soul of man 17 The Life of Righteousnesse lost by Disobedience 19 The meer Contemplative and Spiritual Man sees the motions of the Animal Life and rigidly enough censures them 21 That it is incompetible to Man perpetually to dwell in Spiritual Contemplations 22 That upon the slaking of those the kindly Joy of the Life of the Body springs out which is our Eve 23 That this kindly Joy of the Body is more grateful to Man in Innocency then any thing else whatsoever 25 Nor is man mistaken in his judgement thereof 63 CHAP. III. 1 Adam is tempted by inordinate Pleasure from the springing up of the Joy of the Invigorated Life of his Body 2 A dialogue or dispute in the mind of Adam betwixt The inordinate Desire of Pleasure and the natural Joy of the Body 6 The will of Adam is drawn away to assent to inordinate Pleasure 8 Adam having transgressed is impatient of the Presence of the divine Light 10 A long conflict of Conscience or dispute betwixt Adams earthly minde and the divine Light examining him and setting before him both his present and future condition if he persisted in rebellion 20 He adheres to the Joy of his body without reason or measure notwithstanding all the castigations and monitions of the divine Light 21 The divine Light takes leave of Adam therefore for the present with deserved scorn and reproach 22 The doom of the Eternal God concerning laps'd Man that will not suffer them to settle in wickednesse according to their own depraved wills and desires The CONTENTS of THE DEFENCE OF THE THREEFOLD CABBALA In the Introduction to the DEFENCE Diodorus his mistake concerning Moses and other Law-givers that have professed themselves to have received their Laws from either God or some good Angel Reasons why Moses began his History with the Creation of the world The Sun and Moon the same with the Aegyptians Osiris and Isis and how they came to be worshipped for Gods The Apotheosis of mortal men such as Bacchus and Ceres how it first came into the world That the letter of the Scripture speaks ordinarily in Philosophical things according to the sense and imagination of the Vulgar That there is a Philosophical sense that lies hid in the letter of the three first Chapters of Genesis That there is a Moral or Mystical sense not only in these three Chapters but in several other places of the Scripture 93 The CONTENTS of THE DEFENCE OF THE LITERAL CABBALA CHAP. I. 1 The genuine sense of In the beginning The difference of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neglected by the Seventy who translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 The ground of their mistake discovered who conceive Moses to intimate that the Matter is uncreated That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is no more then ventus magnus 4 That the first darknesse was not properly Night 6 Why the Seventy translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Firmamentum and that it is in allusion to a firmly pitched Tent. 11 That the sensible effects of the Sun invited the Heathen to Idolatry and that their Oracles taught them to call him by the name of Jao 14 That the Prophet Jeremy divides the day from the Sun speaking according to the vulgar capacity 15 The reason why the Stars appear on this side the upper caeruleous Sea 27 The Opinion of the Anthropomorphites and of what great consequence it is for the Vulgar to imagine God in the shape of a Man Aristophanes his story in Plato of Men and Womens growing together at first as if they made both but one Animal 111 CHAP. II. 7 The notation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answerable to the breathing of Adams soul into his nosthrils 8 The exact situation of Paradise That Gihon is part
fift days progresse 24 Nor does God only cause the Waters to bring forth but the dry Land also several living creatures after their kinde and makes the Irascible fruitful as well as the Concupiscible 25 For God saw that they were both good and that they were a fit subject for the heavenly Man to exercise his Rule and Dominion over 26 For God multiplies strength as well as occasions to employ it upon And the divine Life that hath been under the several degrees of the advancement thereof so variously represented in the five fore-going progresses God at last works up to the height and being compleat in all things styles it by the name of his own Image the divine Life arrived to this pitch being the right Image of him indeed Thus it is therefore that at last God in our nature fully manifests the true and perfect Man whereby we our selves become good and perfect who does not only see and affect what is good but has full power to effect it in all things For he has full dominion over the fish of the sea can rule and guide the fowls of the air and with ease command the beasts of the field and what ever moveth upon the earth 27 Thus God creates Man in his own Image making him as powerful a Commander in his little World over all the thoughts and motions of the Concupiscible and Irascible as himself is over the Natural frame of the Universe or greater World And this Image is Male and Female consisting of a clear and free Understanding and divine Affection which are now arrived to that height that no lower Life is able to rebel against them and to bring them under 28 For God blesses them and makes them fruitful and multiplies their noble off-spring in so great and wonderful a measure that they replenish the cultivated nature of man with such an abundance of real Truth and Equity that there is no living Figure Imagination or Motion of the Irascible or Concupiscible no extravagant or ignorant irregularity in religious meditations and devotions but they are presently moderated and rectified For the whole Territories of the Humane Nature is every where so well peopled with the several beautiful shapes or Idea's of Truth and Goodnesse the glorious off-spring of the heavenly Adam Christ that no Animal figure can offer to move or wagge amisse but it meets with a proper Corrector and Re-composer of its motions 29 And the divine Life in man being thus perfected he is therewith instructed by God what is his food as divine and what is the food of the Animal Life in him viz. the most virtuous most truly pious and divine Actions he has given to the heavenly Adam to feed upon fulfilling the Will of God in all things which is more pleasant then the choicest sallads or most delicate fruit the taste can relish 30 Nor is the Animal Life quite to be starved and pin'd but regulated and kept in subjection and therefore they are to have their worser sort of herbs to feed on that is Natural Actions consentaneous to the Principle from whence they flow that that Principle may also enjoy it self in the liberty of prosecuting what its nature prompts it unto And thus the sundry Modifications of the Irascible and Concupiscible as also the various Figurations of Religious Melancholy and Natural Devotions which are the Fishes Beasts and Fowls in the Animal Nature of Man are permitted to feed and refresh themselves in those lower kindes of Operations they incline us to provided all be approved and rightly regulated by the heavenly Adam 31 For the Divine Wisdome in Man sees and approves all things which God hath created in us to be very good in their kinde And thus Ignorance and Inquiry was the Sixt days progresse CHAP. II. 3 The true Sabbatisme of the Sons of God 5 A Description of men taught by God 7 The mysterie of that Adam that comes by Water and the Spirit 9 Obedience the Tree of Life Disobedience the Tree of the Knowledg of good evil 10 The Rivers of Paradise the four Cardinal Virtues in the Soul of man 17 The Life of Righteousnesse lost by Disobedience 19 The meer Contemplative and Spiritual Man sees the motions of the Animal Life and rigidly enough censures them 21 That it is incompetible to Man perpetually to dwell in Spiritual Contemplations 22 That upon the slaking of those the kindly Joy of the Life of the Body springs out which is our Eve 23 That this kindly Joy of the body is more grateful to Man in Innocency then any thing else whatsoever 25 Nor is man mistaken in his judgement thereof 1 THUS the Heavenly and Earthly Nature in Man were finisht and fully replenisht with all the garnishings belonging to them 2 So the Divine Wisdome in the Humane Nature celebrated her Sabbath having now wrought through the toil of all the six days travel 3 And the Divine Wisdome looked upon this Seventh day as blessed and sacred a day of Righteousnesse Rest and Joy in the holy Ghost 4 These were the Generations or Pullulations of the Heavenly and Earthly Nature of the Divine and Animal Life in Man when God created them 5 I mean those fruitful Plants and pleasant and useful Herbs which he himself planted For I have describ'd unto you the condition of a Man taught of God and instructed and cherisht up by his inward Light where there is no external Doctrine to distil as the rain nor outward Gardener to intermeddle in Gods Husbandry 6 Only there is a Fountain of Water which is Repentance from dead works and bubbles up in the earthly Adam so as universally to wash all the ground 7 And thus the nature of Man being prepar'd for further Accomplishments God shapes him into his own Image which is Righteousnesse and true Holinesse and breathes into him the Spirit of Life And this is that Adam which is born of Water and the Spirit 8 Hitherto I have shewed unto you how mankinde is raised up from one degree of Spiritual Light and Righteousnesse unto another till we come at last to that full Command and Perfection in the divine Life that a man may be said in some sort thus to have attain'd to the Kingdome of Heaven or found a Paradise upon Earth The Narration that follows shall instruct you and forewarn you of those evil courses whereby man loses that measure of Paradisiacal happinesse God estates him in even while he is in this world I say therefore that the Lord God planted a Garden Eastward in Eden and there he put the Man whom he had made that is Man living under the Intellectual rayes of the Spirit and being guided by the morning Light of the Sun of Righteousnesse is led into a very pleasant and sweet Contentment of minde and the testimony of a good Conscience is his great delight 9 And that the sundry Germinations and Springings up of the works of Righteousnesse in him is a delectable Paradise
rigid and severe thing is this businesse of Religion and the Law of God as they call it that deprives a man of all manner of Pleasure and cuts him short of all the contentments of Life 2 But the Womanish part in Adam to wit The natural and kindly Joy of the body could witnesse against this and answered We may delight our selves with the operations of all the Faculties both of soul and body which God and Nature hath bestow'd upon us 3. Only we are to take heed of Disobedience and of promiscuously following our own will but we are ever to consult with the Will of God and the divine Light manifested in our Understandings and so doe all things orderly and measurably For if we transgresse against this we shall die the death and lose the Life of Virtue and Righteousness which now is awake in us 4 But the Serpent which is the inordinate desire of Pleasure befooled Adam through the frailty of his Womanish Faculties and made him believe he should not die but with safety might serve the free dictates of Pleasure or his own Will and the Will of God that Flesh and Spirit might both rule in him and be no such prejudice the one to the other 5 But that his skill and experience in things will be more enlarg'd and so come nearer to divine Perfection indeed and imitate that fulnesse of Wisdome which is in God who knows all things whatsoever whether good or evil 6 This crafty suggestion so insinuated it self into Adams Feminine Faculties that his fleshly Concupiscence began to be so strong that it carried the assent of his Will away with it and the whole Man became a lawlesse and unruly Creature For it seem'd a very pleasant thing at first sight to put in execution what ever our own Lusts suggest unto us without controll and very desirable to try all Conclusions to gain experience and knowledge of things But this brought in nothing but the wisdome of the flesh and made Adam earthly minded 7 But he had not rambled very far in these dissolute courses but his eyes were opened and he saw the difference how naked now he was and bare of all strength and power to divine and holy things and began to meditate with himself some slight pretences for his notorious folly and disobedience 8 For the Voice of the divine Light had come unto him in the cool of the day when the fury and heat of his inordinate passions was something slaked But Adam could not endure the presence of it but hid himself from it meditating what he should answer by way of Apology or Excuse 9 But the divine Light persisted and came up closer to him and upbraided unto him that he was grown so wilde and estranged from her self demanding of him in what condition he was and wherefore he fled 10 Then Adam ingenuously confessed that he found himself in such a pitiful poor naked condition that he was ashamed to appear in the Presence of the divine Light and that was the reason he hid himself from it because it would so manifestly upbraid to him his Nakednesse and Deformity 11 And the divine Light farther examined him how he fell into this sensible beggerly nakednesse he was in charging the sad event upon his Disobedience that he had fed upon and taken a surfeit of the fruit of his own Will 12 But Adam excused his rational faculties and said They did but follow the natural Dictate of the Joy of the Body the Woman that God himself bestowed upon him for an help and delight 13 But the divine Light again blamed Adam that he kept his Feminine faculties in no better order nor subjection that they should so boldly and overcomingly dictate to him such things as are not fit To which he had nothing to say but that the subtile Serpent the inordinate Desire of Pleasure had beguiled both his faculties as well Masculine as Feminine his Will and Affection was quite carried away therewith 14 Then the divine Light began to chastise the Serpent in the hearing of Adam pronouncing of it that it was more accursed then all the Animal Figurations beside and that it crept basely upon the belly tempting to Riot and Venery and relishing nothing but earth and dirt This will always be the guise of it so long as it lives in a man 15 But might I once descend so far into the Man as to take possession of his Feminine faculties I would set the Natural Joy of the Body at defiance with the Serpent and though the subtilty of the Serpent may a little wound and disorder the Woman for a while yet her warrantable and free operations she being actuated by divine vigour should afterward quite destroy and extinguish the Seed of the Serpent to wit the Operations of the inordinate desire of Pleasure 16 And she added farther in the hearing of Adam concerning the Woman as she thus stood dis-joyn'd from the heavenly Life and was not obedient to right Reason that by a divine Nemesis she should conceive with sorrow and bring forth Vanity And that her husband the Earthly minded Adam should tyrannize over her and weary her out and foil her So that the kindly Joy of the Health and Life of the Body should be much depraved or made faint and languid by the unbridled humours and impetuous Luxury and Intemperance of the Earthly minded Adam 17 And to Adam he said who had become so Earthly minded by listening to the Voice of his deceived Woman and so acting disobediently to the Will of God That his Flesh or Earth was accursed for his sake with labour and toil should he reap the fruits thereof all the while he continued in this Earthly mindednesse 18 Cares also and Anxieties shall it bring forth unto him and his thoughts shall be as base as those of the beasts in the field he shall ruminate of nothing but what is Earthly and Sensual 19 With sweat and anguish should he labour to satisfie his hunger and insatiablenesse till he returned to the Principle out of which he was taken for the Earthly mindednesse came from this animated Earth the Body and is to shrinke up againe into its owne Principle and to perish 20 After all these Castigations and Premonitions of the divine Light Adam was not sufficiently awakened to the sense of what was good but his minde was straightway taken up againe with the delights of the flesh and dearly embracing the Joy of his body for all she was grown so inordinate called her My Life professing she was the noursing Mother and chiefe comfort of all men living and none could subsist without her 21 Then the divine Wisdome put hairy coates made of the skins of wilde beasts upon Adam and his Wife and deservedly reproached them saying Now get you gone for a couple of brutes And Adam would have very gladly escaped so if he might and set up his rest for ever in the beastiall Nature 22 But the Eternall God
of heaven whose Providence reaches to all things and whose Mercy is over all his workes looking upon Adam perceived in what a pitifull ridiculous case he was who seeking to be like unto God for knowledge and freedome made himselfe no better then a Beast and could willingly have lived for ever in that baser kinde of nature Wherefore the Eternall Lord God in compassion to Adam designed the contrary and deriding his boldnesse and curiosity that made him transgresse Behold sayes he Adam is become like one of us knowing Good and Evill and can of himselfe enlarge his pleasure and create new Paradises of his owne which forsooth must have also their Tree of Life or Immortality and Adam would for ever live in this foolish state he hath plac'd himselfe in 23 But the Eternall Lord God would not suffer Adam to take up his rest in the Beastial delight which he had chosen but drove him out of this false Paradise which he would have made to himself and set him to cultivate his fleshly members out of which his Earthly mindednesse was taken 24 I say he forcibly drove out Adam from this Paradise of Luxury nor could he settle perpetually in the brutish Life because the Cherubim with the flaming sword that turned every way beat him off that is the Manly Faculties of Reason and Conscience met him ever and anon in his brutish purposes and convinced him so of his folly that he could not set up his rest for ever in this bestial condition THE DEFENCE Of the Threefold CABBALA Philo Jud. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is That the whole Law of Moses is like to a living Creature whose Body is the literal sense but the Soul the more inward and hidden meaning covered under the sense of the Letter R. MOSES AEGYPT Non omnia secundum literam intelligenda accipienda esse quae dicuntur in Opere Bereschith seu Creationis sicut vulgus hominum existimat Sensum enim illorum literales vel gignunt pravas opiniones de natura Dei Opt. Max. vel certè fundamenta legis evertunt HeresÃnque aliquam introducunt LONDON Printed by JAMES FLESHER 1653. THE PREFACE to the READER READER THE Cabbala's thou hast read being in all likelihood so strange and unexpected especially the Philosophical that the Defence it self which should cure and cese thy amazement may not occasion in any passage thereof any further scruple or offence I thought fit a while to interrupt thee that whatever I conjecture may lesse satisfie may afore-hand be strengthned by this short Preface And for my own part I cannot presage what may be in any shew of Reason alledged by any man unlesse it be The unusual mysterie of Numbers The using of the authority of the Heathen in Explication of Scripture The adding also of Miracles done by them for the further confirming their authority and lastly the strangeness of the Philosophical Conclusions themselves Now for the Mysterie of Numbers that this ancient Philosophy of Moses should be wrapped up in it will not seem improbable if we consider that the Cabbala of the Creation was conserved in the hands of Abraham and his family who was famous for Mathematicks of which Arithmetick is a necessary part first amongst the Chaldeans and that after he taught the Aegyptians the same arts as Historians write Besides Prophetical and Aenigmatical writings that it is usual with them to hide their secrets as under the allusions of Names and Etymologies so also under the adumbrations of Numbers it is so notoriously known and that in the very Scriptures themselves that it needs no proof I will instance but in that one eminent example of the number of the Beast 666. As for citing the Heathen Writers so frequently you are to consider that they are the wisest and the most virtuous of them and either such as the Fathers say had their Philosophy from Moses and the Prophets as Pythagoras and Plato or else the Disciples or Friends of these Philosophers And therefore I thought it very proper to use their Testimony in a thing that they seem'd to be so fit witnesses of for the main as having receiv'd the Cabbala from the ancient Prophets Though I will not deny but they have mingled their own fooleries with it either out of the wantonnesse of their Fancy or mistake of Judgement Such as are the Transmigration of Humane Souls into Brutes An utter abstinence from Flesh Too severe reproaches against the Pleasures of the Body Vilification of Marriage and the like which is no more Argument against the main drift of the Cabbala then unwarrantable superstitious Opinions and Practises of some deceived Churches are against the solid grounds of Christianity Again I do not alledge Philosophers alone but as occasion requires Fathers and which I conceive as valid in this case the Jewish Rabbins who in things where prejudice need not blinde them I should think as fit as any to confirm a Cabbalistical sense especially if there be a general consent of them and that they do not write their private fancy but the minde of their whole Church Now if any shall take offence at Pythagoras his Scholars swearing as is conceived by their Master that taught them the mystery of the Tetractys as you shall understand more at large in the Explication of the fourth days work I must profess that I my self am not a little offended with it But that high reverence they bore to Pythagoras as it is a sign of Vanity and some kind of Superstition in them so is it also no lesse an Argument of a stupendious measure of knowledge and sanctity in Pythagoras himself that he should extort from them so great honour and that his Memory should be so sacred to them Which profound knowledge and sanctity he having got by conversing with the Jewish Prophets it ultimately tends to the renown of that Church and consequently to the Christian which inherits those holy Oracles which were first peculiar to the Jews But what the followers of Pythagoras transgressed in is no more to be imputed to him then the Superstitions exhibited to the Virgin Mary can be laid to her charge Besides it may be a question whether in that Pythagorick Oath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. they did not swear by God the first Author of the Cabbala and that mysterious Explication of the Tetrctys that is indeed of all knowledge Divine and Natural who first gave it to Adam and then revived or confirmed it again to Moses Or if it must be understood of Pythagoras why may it not be look'd upon as a civill Oath or Asseveration such as Joseph's swearing by the life of Pharaoh and Noblemen by their Honours neither of which notwithstanding for my own part I can allow or assure my self that they are meerly Civill but touch upon Religion or rather Idolatrous Superstition As for the Miracles Pythagoras did though I do not believe all that are recorded of him are true yet those that I have
as he was truly in himself the most high God so he should be acknowledged of the people to be so For certainly there is nothing that doth so win away nay ravish or carry captive the mindes of poor mankinde as Bounty and Munificence All men loving themselves most affectionately and most of all the meanest and basest spirits whose souls are so far from being a little rais'd and releas'd from themselves that they do impotently and impetuously cleave and cling to their dear carkases Hence have they out of the strong relish and favour of the pleasures and conveniencies thereof made no scruple of honouring them for gods who have by their industry or by good luck produced any thing that might conduce for the improvement of the happinesse and comfort of the body From hence it is that the Sun and Moon have been accounted for the two prime Deities by Idolatrous Antiquity viz. from that sensible good they conferred upon hungry mankinde The one watering as it were the Earth by her humid influence the other ripening the fruit of the ground by his warm rayes and opening dayly all the hid treasures of the visible world by his glorious approach pleasing the sight with the variety of Natures objects chearing the whole body by his comfortable heat To these as to the most conspicuous Benefactors to mankinde was the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 given 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they observed that these conceived Deities were in perpetual motion These two are the Aegyptians Osiris and Isis and five more are added to them as very sensible Benefactors but subordinate to these two and Dependents of them And in plain speech they are these Fire Spirit Humidity Siccity and Air but in their divine Titles Vulcan Jupiter Oceanus Ceres and Minerva These are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Diodorus speaks But after these mortal men were canonized for immortal Deities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for their prudence and benefaction as you may see at large in Diodorus Siculus I will name but two for instance Bacchus and Ceres the one the Inventor of Corn the other of Wine and Beer So that all may be resolved into that brutish Aphorisme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which could please or pleasure degenerate mankinde in the Body they having lost the Image of God in their Souls and become meer brutes after a manner that must be their God Wherefore it was necessary for Moses having to deal with such Terrestrial Spirits Sons of Sense and Corporeity to propose to them Jehovah as Maker of this Sensible and Corporeal world that whatever sweet they suck out of the varieties thereof they may attribute to him as the first Fountain and Author without whom neither they nor any thing else had been that thereby they might be stirred up to praise his Name and accomplish his Will revealed by his servant Moses unto them And this was true and sound Prudence aiming at nothing but the glory of God and the good of the poor ignorant people And from the same Head springs the manner of his delivering of the Creation that is accommodately to the apprehension of the meanest not speaking of things according to their very Essence and real Nature but according to their appearances to us Not starting of high and intricate Questions and concluding them by subtile Arguments but familiarly and condescendingly setting out the Creation according to the most easie and obvious conceits they themselves had of those things they saw in the world omitting even those grosser things that lay hid in the bowels of the Earth as Metals and Minerals and the like as well as those things that fall not at all under Sense as those immaterial Substances Angels or Intelligences Thus fitly has the Wisdome and Goodnesse of God accommodated the outward Cortex of the Scripture to the most narrow and slow apprehension of the Vulgar Nor doth it therefore follow that the Narration must not be true because it is according to the appearance of things to Sense and obvious Fancie for there is also a Truth of Appearance according to which Scripture most what speaks in Philosophical matters And this Position is the main key as I conceive and I hope shall hereafter plainly prove whereby Moses his Bereshith may according to the outward and literal sense be understood without any difficulty or clashing one part against another And my task at this time will be very easie for it is but transcribing what I have already elsewhere occasionally published and recovering of it into its proper place First therefore I say that it is a thing confessed by the Learned Hebrews who make it a Rule for the understanding of many places of Scripture Loquitur lex juxta linguam humanam That the Law speaks according to the language of the sons of men And secondly which will come more home to the purpose I shall instance in some places that of necessity are to be thus understood Gen. 19. 23. The Sun was risen upon the Earth when Lot entred into Zoar which implies that it was before under the Earth which is true onely according to sense and vulgar phancy Deuteronom 30. v. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies that the Earth is bounded at certain places as if there were truly an Hercules Pillar or Non plus ultra As it is manifest to them that understand but the natural signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For those words plainly import the Earth bounded by the blew Heavens and the Heavens bounded by the Horizon of the Earth they touching one another mutually which is true only to sense and in appearance as any man that is not a meer Idiot will confesse Ecclesiastic 27. v. 12. The discourse of a godly man is always with wisdome but a fool changeth as the Moon That is to be understood according to Sense and Appearance For if a fool changeth no more then the Moon doth really he is a wise and excellently accomplished man Semper idem though to the sight of the Vulgar different For at least an Hemisphere of the Moon is always enlightned and even then most when she least appears unto us Hitherto may be referred also that 2 Chron. 4. 2. Also he made a molten Sea ten cubits from brim to brim round in compasse and five cubits the height thereof and a line of thirty cubits did compasse it round about A thing plainly impossible that the Diameter should be ten cubits and the Circumference but thirty But it pleaseth the Spirit of God here to speak according to the common use and opinion of men and not according to the subtilty of Archimedes his demonstration Again Psalm 19. In them hath he set a Tabernacle for the Sunne which as a Bridegroom cometh out of his chamber and rejoyceth as a strong man to run his race This as Mr. John Calvin observes is spoken according to the rude apprehension of the Vulgar whom David should
therefore his condition is then very fitly set out by the number Seven All numbers within the Decad are cast into three ranks as Philo observes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Some beget but are not begotten others are begotten but do not beget the last both beget and are begotten The number Seven is only excepted that is neither begotten nor begets any number which is a perfect Embleme of God celebrating this Sabbath For he now creates nothing of anew as himself is uncreatable So that the creating and infusing of souls as occasion should offer is quite contrary to this Mosaical Cabbala But the Cabbala is very consonant to it self which declares that all souls were created at once in the first day and will in these following Chapters declare also the manner of their falling into the body Ver. 4. Productions of the Heavens The Original hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here the Suns and Planets are plainly said to be generated by the Heavens or Aethereal Matter which is again wonderfully consonant to the Cartesian Philosophy but after what manner Planets and Stars are thus generated you may see there at large It cannot but be acknowledged that there was a faddome-lesse depth of Wisdome in Moses whose skill in Philosophy thus plainly prevents the subtilest and most capacious reaches of all the wits of the world that ever wrote after him Take upon me to define That no set time is understood by the six days Creation hath been witnessed already out of approved Authors and the present Cabbala plainly confirms it shewing that the mysterie of numbers is meant not the order or succession of days Ver. 6. Like dewy showers of Rain Vatablus plainly interprets the place of Rain But I conceive it better interpreted of something Analogical to the common Rain that now descends upon the Earth which is lesse oily a great deal and not so full of vitall vigour and principles of life Ver. 7. And Man himself rose out of the Earth That God should shape earth with his own hands like a Statuary into the figure of a Man and then blow breath into the nostrils of it and so make it become alive is not likely to be the Philosophick Cabbala it being more palpably accommodated to vulgar concern But mention of Rain immediately before the making of Man may very well insinuate such preparations of the ground to have some causal concourse for his production And if it be at all credible that other living creatures rose out of the Earth in this manner it is as likely that man did so likewise for the same words are used concerning them both for the Text of Moses ver 19. sayes That out of the ground God formed every Beast of the Field and every Fowl of the Air as it sayes in the seventh verse that he formed Man of the dust of the ground Whence Euripides the Tragedian one that Socrates lov'd and respected much for his great knowledge and virtue and would of his own accord be a spectator of his Tragedies when as they could scarce force him to see other Playes as Aelian writes this Euripides I say pronouncing of the first generation of men and the rest of living creatures affirmed that they were born all after the same manner and that they rose out of the Earth And that Euripides was tinctured with the same doctrines that were in Pythagoras and Plato's School both the friendship betwixt him and Socrates as also the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Moral and Philosophick sentences in his Tragedies are no inconsiderable arguments And as I have already intimated the best Philosophick Cabbala of Moses that is I suspect to be in their Philosophy I mean of Plato and Pythagoras Ver. 8. Where he had put the Man For there is no Praeterpluperfect Tense in the Hebrew and therefore as Vatablus observes if the sense require the Praeterperfect Tense stands for it Wholly Aethereal For that 's the pure Heavenly and undefiled Vehicle of the soul according to Platonisme Beams of the divine Intellect I have already more at large shewed how the Son of God or the divine Intellect is set out by the similitude of the Sun-rising or East which I may again here further confirm out of Philo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that the placing of Paradise under the Sun-rise signifies the condition of a Soul irrigated by the rayes of the divine Intellect which she is most capable of in her Aethereal Vehicle But that the souls of men were from the beginning of the world is the general opinion of the Learned Jewes as well as of the Pythagoreans and Platonists and therefore a very warrantable Hypothesis in the Philosophick Cabbala Ver. 9. The Essential Will of God By the Essential Will of God is understood the Will of God becoming Life and Essence to the Soul of Man whereby is signified a more thorough union betwixt the divine and humane nature such as is in them that are firmly regenerated and radicated in what is good Philo makes the Tree of Life to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Piety or Religion but the best Religion and Piety is to be of one will with God see John 1. 12. Ver. 10. The Four Cardinal Virtues It is Philo's Exposition upon the place and then the River it self to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That general goodnesse distinguishable into these four heads of virtue Ver. 11. Is Pison From 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to spread and diffuse it self to multiply and abound This is Wisdome or Prudence called Pison partly because it diffuses it self into all our actions and regulates the exercise of the other Three virtues and partly because Wisdome and Truth fills and encreases and spreads out every day more then other For Truth is very fruitful and there are ever new occasions that adde experience of things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 According to our English Proverb The older the wiser In the Land of Havilah From 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deus indicavit God hath shown it Ver. 12. Pure Gold c. An easie Embleme of tried Experience the mother of true Wisdome and Prudence And the virtue of Bdellium is not unproper for diseases that arise from Phlegmatick lazinesse and the very name and nature of the Onyx stone also points out the signification of it though there be no necessity as I have told you already out of Maimonides to give an account in this manner of every particular passage in an Allegory or Parable Wherefore if any man think me too curious they may omit these expositions and let them go for nought Ver. 13. River is Gihon According to the History or Letter we have made Pison Phasis and Gihon a branch of Euphrates But the ancient Fathers Epiphanius Augustine Ambrose Hieronymus Theodoret Damascen and several others make Pison Ganges and Gihon Nilus And they have
no contemptible arguments for it For first Jerem. 2. 18. Sihor is a River of Aegypt which is not questioned to be any other then Nilus and its Etymon seems to bewray the truth of it from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denigrari from the muddy blacknesse of the River And Nilus is notorious for this quality and therefore has its denomination thence in the Greek quasi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 acording to which is that of Dionysius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is For there 's no River can compare with Nile For casting mud and fattening the soile But now to recite the very words of the Prophet What hast thou to do with the way of Egypt to drink the waters of Sihor the Latine has it ut bibas aquam turbidam This is Nilu◠But the Seventy translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To drink the water of Gihon which is the name of this very River of Paradise And the Abyssines also even to this day call Nilus by the name of Guion Adde unto this that Gihon runs in Aethiopia so does Nilus and is Siris as it runs through Aethiopia which is from Sihor it is likely and then the Greek termination makes it Sioris after by contraction Siris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The Aethiopian him Siris calls Syene Nilus when by her he crawls As the same Author writes in his Geographical Poems And that Pison is Ganges has also its probabilities Ganges being in India a Countrey famous for Gold and precious Stones Besides the notation of the name agrees with the nature of the River Pison being from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 multiplicare And there is no lesse a number then Ten and those great Rivers that exonerate themselves into Ganges as there must be a conflux of multifarious experience to fill up and compleat that virtue of Wisdome or Prudence So that we shall see that the four Rivers of Paradise have got such names as are most advantageous and favourable to the mysterious sense of the story Wherefore regardlesse here of all Geographical scrupulosities we will say that Gihon is Nilus or Siris the River of the Aethiopians that is of the Just and the virtue is here determinately set off from the subject wherein it doth reside For by the fame of the Justice and Innocency of the Aethiopians we are assured which of the Cardinal Virtues is meant by Gihon And the ancient fame of their honesty and uprightnesse was such that Homer has made it their Epithet calling them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The blamelesse Aethiopians adding further that Jupiter used to banquet with them he being so much taken with the integrity of their conversation And Dionysius calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The divine or Deiforme Aethiopians and they were so styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by reason of their Justice as Eustathius comments upon the place Herodotus also speaking of them says they are very goodly men and much civilized and of a very long life which is the reward of Righteousnesse So that by the place where Gihon runs it is plainly signified to us what Cardinal Virtue is to be understood thereby Notation of the name thereof The name Gihon as you have seen fairly incites us to acknowledge it a River of Aethiopia The notation thereof does very sutably agree with the nature of Justice for it is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 erumpere And Justice is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bonum alienum as the Philosopher notes not confined within a mans self but breaks out rather upon others bestowing upon every one what is their due Ver. 14. Is Hiddekell The word is compounded says Vatablus from two words that signifie velox rapidum and this virtue like a swift and rapid stream bears down all before it as you have it in the Cabbala And stoutly resists Philo uses here the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to resist which he takes occasion from the Seventies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he interprets against the Assyrians The Hebrew has it Eastward of Assyria and therefore Assyria is situated Westward of it Now the West is that quarter of the world where the Sun bidding us adieu leaves us to darkness whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the West wind in Eustathius has its name from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wind that blows from the dark Quarter Assyria therefore is that false state of seeming happiness and power of wickednesse which is called the kingdome of darknesse And this is the most noble object of Fortitude to destroy the power of this kingdome within our selves Perath From 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fructificavit Ver. 17. In processe of time c. This is according to the minde of the Pythagoreans and Origen And that Pythagoras had the favour of having the Mosaical Cabbala communicated to him by some knowing Priest of the Jewes or some holy man or other I think I have continuedly in the former Chapter made it exceeding probable The Region of mortality and death Nothing is more frequent with the Platonists then the calling of the body a Sepulchre and this life we live here upon Earth either sleep or death Which expressions are so sutable with this Cabbala and the Cabbala with the Text of Moses that mentions the death and sleep of Adam that it is a shrewd presumption that these Phrases and Notions came first from thence And Philo acknowledges that Heraclitus that mysterious and abstruse Philosopher whom Porphyrius also has cited to the same purpose in his De antro Nympharum has even hit upon the very meaning that Moses intends in this death of Adam in that famous saying of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We live their death to wit of the souls out of the body but we are dead to their life And Euripides that friend of Socrates and fellow-traveller of Plato's in his Tragedies speaks much to the same purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who knows whether to live be not to die and to die to live So that the Philosophick sense concerning Adams death must be this that he shall be dead to the Aethereal life he lived before while he is restrained to the Terrestrial and that when as he might have lived for ever in the Aethereal Life he shall in a shorter time assuredly die to the Terrestrial That the sons of men cannot escape either the certainty or speed of death Ver. 18. Both good for himself c. For the words of the Text doe not confine it to Adams conveniency alone but speaks at large without any restraint in this present verse Wherefore there being a double convenience it was more explicite to mention both in the Cabbala Ver. 19. Fallen and unfallen Angels The fallen Angels are here assimilated to the Beasts of the Field the unfallen to the Fowls of the Air. How fitly the fallen Spirits are reckoned amongst the Beasts
that it is nothing but the stilnesse and fixednesse of Melancholy that thus abuses him and in stead of the true divine Principle would take the Government to it self and in this usurped tyranny cruelly destroy all the rest of the Animal Figurations But the true divine Life would destroy nothing that is in Nature but only regulate things and order them for the more full and sincere enjoyments of man reproaching nothing but sinfulnesse and enormity entituling Sanguine and Choler to as much Virtue and Religion as either Phlegme or Melancholy For the divine Life as it is to take into it self the humane nature in general so it is not abhorrent from any of the complexions thereof But the squabbles in the world are ordinarily not about true Piety and Virtue but which of the Complexions or what Humour shall ascend the Throne and fit there in stead of Christ himself But I will not expatiate too much upon one Theme I shall rather take a short view of the whole Allegory of the Chapter In the first Day there is Earth Water and Wind over whâ—ch and through which there is nothing but disconsolate darknesse and tumultuous agitation The Winds ruffling up the Waters into mighty waves the waves washing up the mire and dirt into the water all becoming but a rude heap of confusion and desolation This is the state of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Earthly Adam as Philo calls him till God command the Light to shine out of Darknesse offering him a guide to a better condition In the second day is the Firmament created dividing the upper and the lower Waters that it may feel the strong impulses or taste the different relishes of either Thus is the will of man touch'd from above and beneath and this is the day wherein is set before him Life and Death Good and Evil and he may put out his hand and take his choice In the third day is the Earth uncovered of the Waters for the planting of fruit-bearing trees By their fruits you shall know them saith our Saviour that is by their works In the fourth day there appears a more full accession of divine Light and the Sun of Righteousnesse warms the soul with a sincere love both of God and man In the fift day that this Light of Righteousnesse and bright Eye of divine Reason may not brandish its rayes in the empty field where there is nothing either to subdue or guide and order God sends out whole sholes of Fishes in the Waters and numerous flights of Fowls in the Air besides part of the sixt days work wherein all kinde of Beasts are created In these are decyphered the sundry suggestions and cogitations of the minde sprung from these lower Elements of the humane nature viz. Earth and Water Flesh and Blood all these man beholds in the Light of the Sun of Righteousnesse discovers what they are knows what to call them can rule over them and is not wrought to be over-ruled by them This is Adam the Master-piece of Gods Creation and Lord of all the creatures framed after the Image of God Christ according to the Spirit under whose feet is subdued the whole Animal Life with its sundry Motions Forms and Shapes He will call every thing by its proper name and set every creature in its proper place The vile person shall be no longer called liberal nor the churl bountiful Wo be unto them that call evil good and good evil that call the light darknesse and the darknesse light He will not call bitter Passion holy Zeal nor plausible meretricious Courtesie Friendship nor a false soft abhorrency from punishing the ill-deserving Pity nor Cruelty Justice nor Revenge Magnanimity nor Unfaithfulnesse Policy nor Verbosity either Wisdome or Piety But I have run my self into the second Chapter before I am aware In this first Adam is said only to have dominion over all the living creatures and to feed upon the fruit of the Plants And what is Pride but a mighty Mountainous Whale Lust a Goat the Lion and Bear wilful dominion Craft a Fox and worldly toil an Oxe Over these and a thousand more is the rule of Man I mean of Adam the Image of God But his meat and drink is to do the will of his Maker this is the fruit he feeds upon Behold therefore O Man what thou art and whereunto thou art called even to bee a mighty Prince amongst the creatures of God and to bear rule in that Province he has assigned thee to discern the Motions of thine own heart and to be Lord over the suggestions of thine own natural spirit not to listen to the counsel of the flesh nor conspire with the Serpent against thy Creator But to keep thy heart free and faithful to thy God so maist thou with innocency and unblameablenesse see all the Motions of Life and bear rule with God over the whole Creation committed to thee This shall be thy Paradise and harmlesse sport on Earth till God shall transplant thee to an higher condition of happinesse in Heaven CHAP. II. The full sense of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that keeps men from entring into the true Sabbath 4 The great necessity of distinguishing the innocent motions of Nature from the suggestions of Sin 5 That the growth of a true Christian indeed doth not adaequately depend upon the lips of the Priest 7 The meaning of This is he that comes by Water and Blood 8 The meaning of Repent for the Kingdome of Heaven is at hand The seventh thousand years the great Sabbatism of the Church of God That there will be then frequent converse betwixt Men and Angels 9 The Tree of Life how fitly in the Mystical sense said to be in the midst of the Garden 17 A twofold death contracted by Adams disobedience The Masculine and Feminine Faculties in Man what they are Actuating a Body an Essential operation of the Soul and the reason of that so joyful appearance of Eve to the Humane Nature TO the fift verse there is nothing but a recapitulation of what went before in the first Chapter and therefore wants no further proof then what has already been alledged out of S Paul and Origen and other Writers Only there is mention of a Sabbath in the second verse of this Chapter of which there was no words before And this is that Sabbatisme or Rest that the Author to the Hebrews exhorts them to strive to enter into through faith and obedience For those that were faint-hearted and unbelieving and pretended that the children of Anak the off-spring of the Giants would be too hard for them they could not enter into the promised Land wherein they were to set up their rest under the conduct of Jâ—shua a Type of Jesus And the same Author in the same place makes mention of this very Sabbath that ensued the accomplishment of the Creation concluding thus There remaineth therefore a Sabbatisme or Rest to the people of God For he that has entred
into his Rest he also has ceased from his own works as God did from his Let us labour therefore to enter into that Rest lest any man fall after that example of disobedience and unbelief For the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may well include both Senses viz Disobedience or the not doing the Will of God according to that measure of Power and Knowledge he has already given us and Vnbelief that the divine Life and Spirit in us is not able to subdue the whole Creation of the little World under us that is all the Animal Motions and Figurations be they Lions Bears Goats Whales be they what they will be as well as to cast out the children of Anak before the Israelites as it is in that other Type of Christ and of his Kingdome in the Souls of Men. Ver. 4. The Generations of the Animal Life when God created them For these are as truly the works of God as the divine Life it self though they are nothing comparable unto it Nay indeed they are but an heap of confusion without it Wherefore the great accomplishment is to have these in due order and subjection unto the Spirit or Heavenly Life in us which is Christ and that you may have a more particular apprehension of these generations of the Animal Life I shall give you a Catalogue of some of them though confusedly so as they come first to my memory Such therefore are Anger Zeal Indignation Sorrow Derision Mirth Gravity Open-heartednesse Reservednesse Stoutnesse Flexibility Boldness Fearfulness Mildeness Tartness Candour Suspicion Peremptoriness Despondency Triumph or Gloriation All the Propensions to the exercise of Strength or activity of Body as Running Leaping Swimming Wrestling Justing Coursing or the like Besides all the Courtly Preambles necessary Concomitants and delightful Consequences of Marriage which spring up from the Love of Women and the Pleasure of Children To say nothing of those enjoyments that arise from correspondent affections and meer natural friendship betwixt man and man or fuller companies of acquaintance their Friendly Feastings Sportings Musick and Dancings All these and many more that I am not at leisure to reckon up be but the genuine pullulations of the Animal Life and in themselves they have neither good nor hurt in them Nay indeed to speak more truly and impartially they are good according to the Approbation of him that made them but they become bad only to them that are bad and act either without measure or for unwarrantable ends or with undue circumstances otherwise they are very good in their kind they being regulated and moderated by the divine Principle in us And I think it is of great moment for men to take notice of this truth for these three reasons First because the bounds of sin and of the innocent Motions of Nature being not plainly and apertly set out and defined men counting the several Animal Figurations and natural Motions for sins they heap to themselves such a task to wit the quite extirpating that which it were neither good nor it may be possible utterly to extirpate that they seem in truth hereby to insinuate that it is impossible to enter into that Rest or Sabbath of the people of God Wherefore promiscuously sheltring themselves under this confused cloud of sins and infirmities where they aggravate all so as if every thing were in the same measure sinful if they be but zealous and punctual in some they account it passing well and an high testimony of their sanctimony And their hypocrisie will be sure to pitch upon that which is least of all to the purpose that is a man will spend his zeal in the behalf of some natural temper he himself is of and against the opposite complexion But for the indispensable dictates of the divine Light he will be sure to neglect them as being more hard to perform though of more concernment both for himself and the common good But if it were more plainly defined what is Sin and what is not Sin a man might with more heart and courage fight against his enemy he appearing not so numerous and formidable and he would have the lesse opportunity for perverse excuses and hypocritical tergiversations The second reason is That men may not think better of themselves then they are for their abhorrency from those things that have no hurt in them nor think worser of others then they deserve when they do but such things as are approvable by God and the divine Light And this is of very great moment for the maintaining of Christian Love and Union amongst men The third and last is That they may observe the madness and hypocrisie of the world whose religious contestations or secret censures are commonly but the conflict and antipathy of the opposite Figurations of the Animal Life who like the wilde beasts without a Master to keep good quarter amongst them are very eagerly set to devour one another But by this shall every man know whether it be Complexion or Religion that reigns in him if he love God with all his heart and all his soul and his neighbour as himself And can give a sufficient reason for all his actions and opinions from that Aeternal Light the Love of God shed abroad in his heart if not it is but a faction of the Animal Life sed up and fostered by either natural Temper or Custome and he is far from being arrived to the Kingdome of Christ and entring into that true Rest of the people of God Ver. 5. Where there is no external doctrine Pulpits and Preachings and external Ordinances there is no such noise of them amongst the holy Patriarchs whose lives Moses describes and therefore I conceive this sense I have here given the Text more genuine and warrantable But besides Moses unvailed being Christianity it self the manner of the growth of the true Christian is here prefigured That he is rather taught of God then of Men he having the Spirit of Life in him and needs no man to teach him For he has the Unction in himself which will teach him all things necessary to Life and Godliness Ver. 6. Which is repentance from dead works In this verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Philosophick Cabbala signified a Vapour but here I translate it a Fountain of Water which I am warranted to do by the Seventy who render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that Water is an Embleme of Repentance it is so obvious that I need say nothing of it John's baptizing with Water to Repentance is frequently repeated in the Gospels Ver. 7. And breathes into him the Spirit of Life In allusion to this passage of Moses in all likelihood is that of the Psalmist Thy hands have made me and fashioned me O give me understanding and I shall live as if like Adam he were but a statue of Earth till God breathed into him the Spirit of Life and Holiness Of the Water and of the Spirit The Water and the Spirit are the
us they bidding more open warre to the quiet and happiness of mans life as that judicious Poet Spencer has well observed in his Legend of Sir Guyon or Temperance Cant. 6. A harder lesson to learn continence In joyous pleasure then in grievous pain For sweetness doth allure the weaker sense So strongly that uneathes it can refrain From that which feeble Nature covets fain But grief and wrath that be our enemies And foes of life she better can restrain Yet Virtue vaunts in both her Victories And Guyon in them all shews goodly Masteries What a rigid and severe thing c. This is the conceit of such as are either utter strangers to Religion or have not yet arrived to that comfortable result of it that may be expected For God takes no delight in the perpetual rack of those souls he came to redeem but came to redeem us from that pain and torture which the love of our selves and our untamed lusts and pride of spirit makes us obnoxious to which men being loth to part with and not having the heart to let them be struck to the very quick and pulled up by the roots the work not accomplished according to the full minde and purpose of God there are still the seeds of perpetual anxiety sadness and inevitable pain For to be dead is easement but to be still dying is pain and it is most ordinarily but the due punishment of halting and hypocrisie And mens spirits being long sowred thus and made sad their profession and behaviour is such that they fright all inexperienced young men from any tolerable compliance in matters of Religion thinking that when they are once engaged there they are condemned ad Fodinas for ever and that they can never emerge out of this work and drudgery in those dark Caverns till they die there like the poor Americans inslaved and over-wrought by the merciless Spaniard But verily if we have but the patience to be laid low enough the same hand that depressed us will exalt us above all hope and expectation For if we be sufficiently baptized into the Death of Christ we shall assuredly be made partakers of his Resurrection to Life and that glorious liberty of the Sons of God according as it is written If the Son make you free then are you free indeed free from Sin and secure from the power of any Temptation But if Mortification has not had its perfect work too mature a return of the sweetness of the Animal Life may prove like the Countreymans cherishing the Snake by the fire side which he had as he thought taken up dead in the Snow it will move and hisse and bite and sting The strong presages of the manifold corporeal delights and satisfactions of the flesh may grow so big and boisterous in the minde that the soul may deem her self too straitly girt up and begin to listen to such whispers of the Serpent as this What a rigid and severe thing is this business of Religion c. and account her self if she be not free to every thing that she is as good as free to nothing Ver. 2 3. But the womanish part in Adam 'T is but one and the same soul in man entertaining a dialogue with her self that is set out by these three parts The Serpent Adam and the Woman And here the soul recollecting her self cannot but confess that Religion denies her no honest nor fitting pleasure that is not hazardous to her greater happiness and bethinks her self in what peril she is of losing the divine Life and due sense of God if she venture thus promiscuously to follow her own will and not measure all her actions and purposes by the divine Light that for the present is at hand to direct her Ver. 4. But the Serpent c. The sense of this verse is that the eager desire of pleasure had wrought it self so far into the sweetness of the Animal Life that it clouded the mans judgement and made him fondly hope that the being so freely alive to his own will was no prejudice to the will of the Spirit and the life of God which was in him when as yet notwithstanding the Apostle expresly writes What fellowship is there betwixt righteousness unrighteousness What communion betwixt light and darkness What agreement betwixt Christ and Belial And he elsewhere tells us That Christ gave himself for his Church that he might so throughly purge it and sanctifie it that it should have neither spot nor wrinkle but that it should be holy and unblameable a true Virgin Bride clothed with his divine Life and Glory And those men that are so willing to halt betwixt two the Flesh and the Spirit and have house-room enough to entertain them both as if there could be any friendship and communion betwixt them let them seriously consider whether this opinion be not the same that deceived Adam was of and let them suspect the same sad event and acknowledge it to arise from the self-same Principle the inordinate desire of pleasing their own wills without the allowance of the divine Light and consulting with the will of God Ver. 5. Skill and Experience in things And some men make it no sin but warrantable knowledge to know the world and account others fools that are ignorant of that wicked mysterie For man would be no Slave or Idiot but know his own liberty and gain experience as he pretends by the making use of it But that the accurate exercise of Reason in the knowledge of Gods marvellous works in Nature or those innocent delightful conclusions in Geometry and Arithmetick and the like that these parts of knowledge should be perstringed by Moses in this History it seems to me not to have the least probability in it for there are so very few in the world whose mindes are carried any thing seriously to such objects that it had not been worth the taking notice of And then again it is plain that the miscarriage is from the affectation of such kinde of knowledge as the Woman the flowring life of the body occasioned Adam to transgresse in Wherefore it is the fulfilling of the various desires of the flesh not an high aspire after Intellectual Contemplations for they respect the Masculine Faculties not the Feminine that made way to the transgression Wherefore I say the wisdome that the Serpent here promised was not Natural Philosophy or Mathematicks or any of those innocuous and noble accomplishments of the understanding of man but it was the knowledge of the world and the wisdome of the flesh For the life of the body is full of desires and presages of satisfaction in the obtaining of this or the other external thing whether it be in Honour Riches or Pleasure and if they shake off the divine Guide within them they will have it by hook or by crook And this worldly wisdome is so plausible in the world and so sweetly relished by the meer natural man that it were temptation enough for
sadness bitterness and intolerable thraldome For the Corporeal life and sense will so deeply have sunk into the soul that it will be beyond all measure hard and painfull to dis-intangle her But as many as have passed the Death have arrived to that Life that abides for ever and ever And this Life is pure and immaculate Love and this Love is God as he is communicable unto man and is the sole Life and Essence of Virtue truly so called or rather as all colours are but the reflexion of the Rayes of the Sun so all Virtue is but this One variously coloured and figured from the diversity of Objects and Circumstances But when she playes with ease within her own pure and undisturbed Light she is most lovely and amiable and if she step out into zeal Satyrical rebuke and contestation it is a condescent and debasement for the present but the design is a more enlarged exaltation of her own nature and the getting more universal foot-hold in other persons by dislodging her deformed enemy For the divine Love is the love of the divine Beauty and that Beauty is the divine Life which would gladly insinuate it self and become one with that particular Principle of Natural life the Soul of man And whatever man she has taken hold upon and won him to her self she does so actuate and guide as that whatever he has she gets the use of and improves it to her own interest that is the advancement of her self But she observing that her progress and speed is not so fast as she could wish that is that mankind is not made so fully and so generally happy by her as she could desire and as they are capable of she raises in a man his Anger Indignation against those things that are obstacles and impediments in her way beating down by solid Reason such things as pretend to Reason and such things as are neither the genuine off-spring of the humane faculties nor the effects of her own union with them discountenancing them and deriding them as Monsters and Mongrel things they being no accomplishment of the humane nature nor any gift of the divine She observing also that mankind is very giddily busie to improve their natural faculties without her and promise themselves very rare effects of their art and industry which if they could bring to passe would be in the end but a scourge and plague to them and make them more desperately bold sensual Atheistical and wicked for no fire but that of Gods Spirit in a man can clear up the true knowledge of himself unto us she therefore taketh courage though she see her self slighted or unknown and deservedly magnifies her self above all the effects of Art and humane industry and boldly tells the world what petty and poor things they are if compared unto her Nor doth she at all stick to pour out her scorn and derision unto the full upon those garish effects of fanatical Fancy where Melancholy dictates strange and uncouth dreams out of a dark hole like the whispers of the Heathen Oracles For it is not only an injury to her self that such Antick Phantasmes are preferred before the pure simplicity of her own beauty but a great mischief to her darling the Soul of man that he should forsake those faculties she has a minde to sanctifie and take into her self and should give himself up to meer inconsiderate imaginations and casual impresses chusing them for his guide because they are strongest not truest and he will not so much as examine them Such like as these and several other occasions there are that oftentimes figure the divine Life in good men and sharpen it into an high degree of zeal and anger But whom in wrath she then wounds she pities as being an affectionate Lover of universal mankind though an unreconcileable disliker of their vices I HAVE now gone through my Threefold Cabbala which I hope all sincere and judicious Christians will entertain with unprejudic'd candour and kinde acceptance For as I have lively set out the mysteries of the holy and precious life of a Christian even in the Mosaical Letter so I have carefully and on purpose cleared and asserted the grand essential Principles of Christianity it self as it is a particular Religion avoiding that rock of scandal that some who are taken for no small Lights in the Christian world have cast before men who attenuate all so into Allegories that they leave the very Fundamentals of Religion suspected especially themselves not vouchsafing to take notice that there is any such thing as the Person of Christ now existent much lesse that he is a Mediatour with God for us or that he was a sacrifice for sin when he hung at Jerusalem upon the Crosse or that there shall be again any appearance of him in the Heavens as it was promised by the two Angels to his Apostles that saw him ascend or that there is any life to come after the dissolution of the natural body though our Saviour Christ says expresly that after the Resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the Angels of God But to be so spiritual as to interpret this of a mysterious resurrection of a man in this life is in effect to be so truly carnal as to insinuate there is no such thing at all as the Life to come and to adde to Sadducisme Epicurisme also or worse that is a religious liberty of silling one anothers houses with brats of the adulterous bed under pretence that they are now risen to that state that they may without blame commit that which in other mortals is down-right adultery Such unlawful sporting with the Letter as this is to me no sign of a spiritual man but of one at least indiscreet and light minded more grosse in my conceit then Hymeneus and Philetas who yet affirmed that the resurrection was past and so allegorized away the faith of the people For mine own part I cannot admire any mans fancies but only his Reason Modesty Discretion and Miracles the main thing being presupposed which yet is the birth-right of the meanest Christian to be truly and sincerely Pious But if his imagination grow rampant and he aspire to appear some strange thing in the world such as was never yet heard of that man seems to me thereby plainly to bewray his own Carnality and Ignorance For there is no better Truths then what are plainly set down in the Scripture already and the best the plainest of all So that if any one will step out to be so venerable an Instructer of the world that no man may appear to have said any thing like unto him either in his own age or foregoing generations verily I am so blunt a Fool as to make bold to pronounce that I suspect the party not a little season'd with spiritual Pride and Melancholy For God be thanked the Gospel is so plain a Rule of Life and Belief to the sincere and obedient soul
of Euphrates Pison Phasis or Phasi-tigris That the Madianites are called Aethiopians That Paradise was seated about Mesopotamia argued by six Reasons That it was more particularly seated where now Apamia stands in Ptolemee's Maps 18 The Prudence of Moses in the commendation of Matrimony 19 Why Adam is not recorded to have given names to the Fishes 24 Abraham Ben Ezra's conceit of the names of Adam and Eve as they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 25 Moses his wise Anthypophora concerning the natural shame of nakednesse 124 CHAP. III. 1 How much it saves the credit of our first Parents that the Serpent was found the prime Author of the Transgression That according to S. Basil all the living creatures of Paradise could speak undeniable reasons that the Serpent could according to the Literal Cabbala 9 The opinion of the Anthropomorphites true according to the Literal Cabbala 14 That the Serpent went upright before the fall was the opinion of S. Basil 16 A story of the easie delivery of a certain poor woman of Liguria 19 That the general calamities that lie upon mankinde came by the transgression of a positive Law how well accommodate it is to the scope of Moses 23 That Paradise was not the whole Earth 24 The Apparitions in Paradise called by Theodoret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 130 THE DEFENCE OF THE PHILOSOPHICK CABBALA CHAP. I. 1 Why Heaven and Light are both made Symbols of the same thing viz. The World of Life That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intimate a Trinity That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a title of the Eternal Wisdome the Son of God who is called also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well in Philo as the New Testament That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the holy Ghost 2 The fit agreement of Plato's Triad with the Trinity of the present Cabbala 5 The Pythagorick names or nature of a Monad or Unite applyed to the first days work 6 What are the upper waters and that Souls that descend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the Naides or water Nymphes in Porphyrius 8 That Matter of it self is unmoveable R. Bechai his notation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very happily explained out of Des Cartes his Philosophy That Vniversal Matter is the second days Creation fully made good by the names and property of the number Two 13 The nature of the third days work set off by the number Three 16 That the most learned do agree that the Creation was perfected at once The notation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strangely agreeing with the most notorious conclusions of the Cartesian Philosophy 19 That the Corporeal world was universally erected into Form and Motion on the fourth day is most notably confirmed by the titles and propertie of the number Four The true meanning of the Pythagorick oath wherein they swore by him that taught them the mysterie of the Tetractys That the Tetractys was a Symbole of the whole Philosophick Cabbala that lay couched under the Text of Moses 20 Why Fish and Fowl created in the same day 23 Why living creatures were said to be made in the Fift and Sixt days 31 And why the whole Creation was comprehended within the number Six 135 136 CHAP. II. 3 The number Seven a fit Symbole of the Sabbath or Rest of God 7 Of Adams rising out of the ground as other creatures did 11 That Pison is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and denotes Prudence The mystical meaning of Havilah 13 That Gihon is the same that Nilus Sihor or Siris and that Pison is Ganges The Justice of the Aethiopians That Gihon is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and denotes that virtue 14 As Hiddekel Fortitude 17 That those expressions of the Souls sleep and death in the Body so frequent amongst the Platonists were borrowed from the Mosaical Cabbala 19 Fallen Angels assimilated to the beasts of the field The meaning of those Platonical phrases 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the like That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Platonisme is the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Moses that signifies Angels as well as God 22 That there are three principles in Man according to Plato's School 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that this last is Eve CHAP. III. 1 The Serpent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Pherecydes Syrus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 names of Spirits haunting Fields and and desolate places The right Notation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 13 That Satan upon his tempting Adam was cast down lower towards the Earth with all his Accomplices 15 Plato's Prophecie of Christ The reasonablenesse of divine Providence in exalting Christ above the highest Angels 20 That Adams descension into his Terrestrial Body was a kind of death 22 How incongruous it is to the divine Goodnesse Sarcastically to insult over frail Man fallen into Tragical misery 24 That it is a great mercy of God that we are not immortal upon Earth That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are all one A Summary representation of the strength of the whole Philosophick Cabbala Pythagoras deemed the son of Apollo That he was acquainted with the Cabbala of Moses That he did miracles As also Abaris Empedocles and Epimenides being instructed by him Plato also deemed the son of Apollo Socrates his dream concerning him That he was learned in the Mosaical Cabbala The miraculous power of Plotinus his Soul Cartesius compared with Bezaliel and Aholiab and whether he was inspired or no. The Cabbalists Apology 172 THE DEFENCE OF THE MORAL CABBALA CHAP. I. What is meant by Moral explained out of Philo. 3 That the Light in the first day improv'd to the height is Adam in the sixt Christ according to the Spirit 4 In what sense we our selves may be said to do what God does in us 5 Why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are rendred Ignorance and Inquiry 18 Plato's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Pythagoreans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 applyed to the Fourth days progresse 22 That Virtue is not an extirpation but regulation of the Passions according to the minde of the Pythagoreans 24 Plotinus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 applyed to the Sixt days progresse 26 What the Image of God is plainly set down out of S. Paul and Plato The divine Principle in us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of Plotinus 28 The distinction of the Heavenly and Earthly Man out of Philo. 31 The Imposture of still and fixed Melancholy and that it is not the true divine Rest and precious Sabbath of the Soul A compendious rehearsal of the whole Allegory of the Six days Creation p. 194 CHAP. II. The full sense of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that keeps men from entring into the true Sabbath 4 The great necessity of distinguishing the innocent motions of Nature from the suggestions of Sin 5 That the growth of a true Christian indeed doth not adaequately depend upon the lips of the Priest 7 The meaning of This is he that comes by Water and Blood 8 The meaning of Repent for the Kingdome of Heaven is at hand The seventh thousand years the great Sabbatism of the Church of God That there will be then frequent converse betwixt Men and Angels 9 The Tree of Life how fitly in the Mystical sense said to be in the midst of the Garden 17 A twofold death contracted by Adams disobedience The Masculine and Feminine Faculties in Man what they are Actuating a Body an Essential operation of the Soul and the reason of that so joyful appearance of Eve to the Humane Nature 209 210 CHAP. III. A story of a dispute betwixt a Prelate and a Black-Smith concerning Adams eating of the Apple 1 What is meant by the subtilty or deceit of the Serpent That Religion wrought to its due height is a very chearful state And it is only the halting and hypocrisie of men that generally have put so soure and sad a vizard upon it 5 6 That worldly Wisdome not Philosophy is perstringed in the Mysterie of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil 10 The meaning of Adams flying after he had found himself naked 20 Adam the Earthly-minded Man according to Philo. 21 What is meant by Gods clothing Adam and Eve with hairy Coats in the Mystical sense 23 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Paradise of Luxury That History in Scripture is wrote very concisely and therefore admits of modest and judicious Supplements for clearing the sense 24 What is meant by the Cherubim and flaming Sword Plato's definition of Philosophy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A more large description of dying to Sinne and of the life of righteousness That Christian Religion even as it referres to the external Person of Christ is upon no pretence to be annull'd till the Conflagration of the world 224 ERRATA PAg. 39. lin 24. read sacred p. 79 l. 19. r. Sensus p. 87. l. 14. r. wilde p. 126. l. 26. r. goodly p. 204. l. 35. r. run p. 230. l. 34. r. generous FINIS
that no man can adde any thing to it But then for comparison of persons what dotage is it for any man because he can read the common Alphabet of Honesty and a Pious life in the History of the Old and New Testament finely allegorizing as is conceiv'd those external Transactions to a mysterious application of what concerns the inward man to either place himself or for others to place him in the same level with Jesus Christ the Son of God the Saviour of men and Prince of the highest Angelical Orders who rose out of the grave by the Omnipotent hand of his Father and was seen to ascend into Heaven by his Apostles that gazed upon him as he passed through the Clouds and whom all true Christians expect visibly to appear there again and re-visit the world according to the promise Now it seems to me a very unreasonable and rash thing if not impious and blasphemous to acknowledge any man whatsoever comparable to so sacred a Person as our Saviour Christ every way approved himself and was approved by a voice from Heaven saying This is my beloved Son hear him If any man therefore having none of these testimonies from above nor being able to do any thing more then other men shall be so unmannerly as to place himself in the same order and rank with Christ the Son of God because he has got some fine fancies and phrases and special and peculiar interpretations of Scripture which he will have immediately suggested from the Spirit I cannot forbear again to pronounce that this man is overtaken with an high degree of either pride or madness and if he can perswade any others to look upon him as so sacred a Prophet that it must be in them at least Inadvertency or Ignorance Nay I think I shall not say amisse if I attribute their mistake to a kinde of Pride also For Pride affects nothing more then Singularity and therefore undervaluing the plain simplicity of ordinary Christianity such as at first sight is held forth in the Gospel of Christ they think it no small privilege to have a Prophet of their own especially they getting this advantage thereby that they can very presently as they fancy censure and discern the truth or falshood of all that venture to speak out of the Rode of their own Sect as if every body were bound to conne their lessons according to their Book And it is a fine thing to become so accurately wise at so cheap a rate and discover who is Spiritual or who is the Carnal or meer Moral man This is indeed the folly of all Sects and there is no way better that I know to be freed from such inveiglements then by earnestly endevouring after that which they all pretend to and to become truly more holy and sincere then other men for the throughly purified man is certainly delivered from all these follies These things I could not forbear to speak in zeal to the honour of my Saviour and the good and safety of his Church For if men once get a trick to call the world Christian where the death of Christ on the Crosse at Jerusalem is not acknowledged a sacrifice for sin nor himself now in his humane Person a Mediatour with God the Father and the Head of his Church Militant and Triumphant nor that there is any Eternal Life nor Resurrection but that in the Moral or Mystical sense assuredly this will prove the most dangerous way imaginable quite to take away that in time which is most properly called Christian Religion out of the world and to leave meerly the name thereof behinde But a Religion so manifestly established by God in a most miraculous manner and being so perfect that the wit of man cannot imagine any thing more compleat and better fitted for winning souls to God It can be nothing but giddiness or light-mindedness to think that this Religion can be ever superannuated in the world but that it shall last till Christs Corporeal appearance in the Clouds For there is no reason at all that the holy Ghost should be thought to come in the flesh of some particular man no more then God the Father did under the Law For what can he tell us more or better then Christ already has told us or what himself may tell us without any personal shape And there is no Prophecie of any such thing but onely of that which is better that Christ will procure for all those that are his faithful and obedient followers the Spirit of Truth and Righteousnesse and indue them with the divine Life and that it shall so at length come to pass that Justice Peace and Equity shall more universally and fully flourish in the world then ever yet they have done And that faith in God and of the Life to come shall be more vigorously sealed upon the hearts of men and that there shall be a neerer union and conjunction betwixt the humane and divine nature in us then ever and more frequent and sensible commerce betwixt the Inhabitants of the Aethereal and Terrestrial Region according as I have already declared concerning the Seventh day in this Defence of the Moral Cabbala But in the mean time though that full Sabbatisme be so far off yet I doubt not but there have been and are very sweet and joyful praelibations of it in sundry persons which quickens their hopes and desires of the compleatment thereof and divine Providence is not idle all things working towards this last Catastraphe and the heads of Sects themselves though I never saw any yet that my light and judgement could pronounce infallible and perfect as I think there never will be any till Christ himself come again who will appear in no Sectarian way for himself hath given us an intimation that if any one say Loe here is Christ or there is Christ believe it not yet such is the grosse ignorance or hypocrisie of ordinary carnal Churches as they call them that some heads of Sects I say have spoken very true and weighty things against them very lively setting them out depainting them in their own colors insomuch that they will be able not only to turn from them the affections of all plain hearted men that are fast friends to the eternal Righteousness of God and prefer that before the most specious devices of arbitrarious Superstition but also to raise their anger and indignation against them But it does not presently follow that because a man can truly discover the gross faults falsities that are in another that therefore he is utterly blameless himself and not at all imposed upon by his natural complexion nor speaks any thing that is false nor omits any thing that is both true and necessary But be these Sects what they will be the grand Churches themselves are so naked and obnoxious that unlesse they cast away from them their hypocrisie pride and covetousnesse they will in all likelihood raise such storms in all Christendome