fatal Act of Sinning and that every Man because subject to Sin and the slavish Law of his lustful Appetite becomes captivated by the man of Sin so yields himself captive to the Prisons of Death whose outward progression is actually moved by irregular motion of the desires inward But the Heavens we see and the Celestial Incolists how they never since the Creation consented to Sin and as they were so are they still carried about with a rapid motion The reason whereof must necessarily spring from an internal cause and intrinsick principle since intelligences are so ambigious and what is this principle if not the Soul of the World or the Universal Spirit God has put into Nature whereby as a Magnet it retains the matter which labouring to re-assume its former liberty frames to her self a habitation in the Centre and branching into the several Members of the Body makes more room to act and bestir her faculties No wonder therefore that natures are compounded since nothing but the Almighty is without composition Nor is it the great or the lesser World that which transmutes nutrition into blood but the active Spirit of Life and transmutation is that which is indeed the Life of the Body Since material principles therefore are only passive and can neither alter nor purifie the parts we find them in a state to be altered and purified tho not to communicate or dispose themselves to another substance beyond their native intention Wherefore we have considered them altogether finite and therefore have concluded them also determinate Now if this be a secret you may call it so but as truth needs no voucher it s a substantial truth Wherefore to conclude this philosophick Hypothesis let us throw away if possible those two celebrated crutches of pretended modern sanctity and the solemnity of Ceremony and what results but primitive purity which since the Creation has known no deformity And God said in the Text let us now make Man in our own Image let us make him and after our likeness and let them have dominion over the Fish in the Sea the Fowl in the Air over the Cattle also and over all the Earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the Earth By this the Creation seem'd to want a Head and less than a Prince is too little to govern it Adam must therefore be a Universal Monarch and sway the Throne and the Regal Scepter And Adam must not only wear Heavens Livery but personate the King of Heaven himself Here the Divinest seems to Summons a Councel and God said in himself let us now make Man not like to any thing already made but let us make him in likeness like our self in our own similitude and likeness let us make him and enlarge his Empire by giving him dominion over all the Fish that swim in the Sea and over all the Fowl that fly in the Air over the Cattle also that move on the Earth and over every living creature that creepeth and moveth the Wisdome of God so divinely ordered This was a large and copious Commission that God intrusted a single Subject withal yet such was the good opinion the Creator had of the Creature that God intrusts Adam with the Stock of the Creation and all the Creatures and every complicated Being that was made comprehended and contained in it And Adam drew all his supplies from above since enricht with the Stock and the Treasures of Heaven nor converst he with any inferiour Subject nor any thing in any respect unsuitable to himself whereby he might indignifie or diminish his Authority In the cool of the Evening he walked with God and in the heat of the day the Aquaducts refresht him Aurora sent him Summons of approach of Day but the Night nor was darkness dreadful to him The Celestial Sun was his daily Tapour and the Catalogue of Stars his hourly Contemplation but the Son of God his perpetual Lamp. So that his outside was bettered by his inside and because richly adorned and divinely beautified he saw no darkness nor the shadow of Death whiles he stood in this innocent State of Perfection For God in the Idea beholding a shape or as I may so say a representation of himself became therewith inamour'd and extreamly loving it would cohabit with it when immediately upon the resolution the operation ensued and then was this great Image the beautiful World or rather the representative of his Maker brought forth and created And God said to himself or the holy Word increase in increasing and multiply in multitudes But to Man only because Lord of the Creation I have endowed him with mind and made him immortal So that if he die the cause of death must necessarily proceed from excess of the body and inequallity of Elements and pray tell me what death is if not a cold icy touch or a dismal darkness of the compounded moist nature adhering only to the sensible World. Let no Man wonder therefore that the light of God which illuminates the World is unlike the Beam or Ray of the Sun that by reason of its fiery and excessive brightness immediately and at once strikes the eye with blindness but rather to the contrary Heavens brighter Glory never at any time dazles the mind since the mind is the Souls ingressive eye that soars up aloft to those elevated Mansions where that light shines that enlightneth every Man already come or to come into the World and is the beauty and glory of light and our saving health that influenceth illuminates and beautifieth the Creation and every Creature and created Being But Man above all because made a Monarch and capable to receive this blessed influence proceeding from God the Majesty of Light and superexcellent brightness that diefies the Soul whiles yet in the Body it s he that 's only blest to contemplate this divine beauty and live up to the Vertue of Piety and Holiness So that Adam in a state of innocency represents as Montanus says a Mortal God and our Heavenly Redeemer an immortal Man if when to consider the blessed Incarnation And thus the things that are were made manifest in time but the things that are and not yet made manifest lie hid and conceal'd in the Divinest himself who is all things in all yet subsists without them manifest only in the mind of Man but invisible to the World and the visible eye except in the act of creating only And as the eminency of all appearing beauties are in the Essence much more pure so great and greater is the disproportion of beauty betwixt this of Earth and the Beauty of Heaven All things therefore subject to the Eye represent to us only things subject to sence or more fully to explain it visible operation whiles the Fabrick of the Body needs and requires those similar things that it cannot with conveniency live well without them But the Beauty and Majesty of invisible Beings are inspected only by intellectual Converse since the
Royalty at the Eye as having some blind Iurisdiction in the Pores For this were to measure Magical Positions by the Superficial Strictures of common Philosophy Whose Assertors too confident of the Principles of Tradition labour not to understand what others speak but to make others speak what they themselves understand For it is in Nature as appears in Religion some are still hammering and fashioning of old Elements but seek not the Eutopia that lies beyond them This Body therefore let 's consider it the Temple and the Soul that 's within it the Sanctum Sanctorum for the Majesty to dwell in Which if so this Earth must be rarified to make a pure Heaven and Heaven must be purified before the Divinest will inhabit within it Great and Iust therefore is the Original Good whose Incomprehensible Beauty and Divine Majesty neither the Heavens nor the Earth nor the Orbs nor the Ocean nor the expatiated Abyss can any ways contain him Which certainly to know is Speculum Sapientiae scraw'd out in the fair Frontespiece of the beautiful Creation as also in that Divine Manuscript of Holy Writ where the Patriarchs and the Prophets are Marginal Notes and the Holy Men of God with our pious Ancestors the lively Records and divine Remembrancers of the Sacred Oracles of the Majesty of Truth Thus far the Ark of the Covenant travelled and thus far the Talmudists transported themselves but some of the Cabalists went some degrees farther when they met with Christ and his Twelve Apostles yet could they not see the great Messiah But Gabriel the Angel salutes the Blessed Virgin with Hail Mary full of Grace blessed art thou among the Daughters of Women For the Holy of Holies shall overshadow thee with Beauty and thou shalt conceive and bear a Child and he shall be called the Son of God. John Baptist also he confirms the Miracle who when Jesus with him coming forth of the Water the Heavens themselves most gloriously opened and the Holy Ghost divinely descending like a Dove rested the Glory of the Majesty upon him and then was there a Voice heard from the Divinest This is my Son my beloved Son let the Nations hear him Now to the Jews this became a stumbling-block as to some of the Rabbies a Rock of offence but to the Gentiles that sat in the Suburbs of Darkness and the Scriptures tell us in the Shadow of Death the most glorious Mystery of the Revelation of God and the everlasting Gospel was preached unto them So that from these two eminent and most sacred Primordials the one of the Law and the other of the Gospel Religion or something like it took its native Original yet so strangely masqueraded disfigured and disguised that were not a Man well assured what it was it would be found difficult to resolve what to call it And thus the Sun Heavens major Luminary when because at once falling upon several Angles represents the Light in various forms So Christianity though a familiar Appellation yet admits it of such Variety in its progress and peregrination because when to mingle it self with all sorts of Professions that Professors themselves have been puzled how to rate it whiles the noble Berean searches the Scriptures and as the Scriptures manifestly testifie of Christ so Christ himself saith they testifie of him The great Oracle therefore and the Miracle of Faith is Christ himself and Christ is God From whence the Mystery of our Eternal Salvation the blessed Regeneration and the spiritual Birth that internally breaths in every pious Believer is Christ in us the hope of Glory the Sovereign Revealer of the Wisdom of God whose Light is the Beauty of the Majesty of Light that enlightneth every one coming into the World and is our saving and our sanctifying Light before Time had a Being God blessed for ever Thus in brief I present you with a Sacred Summary of my pious Conceptions of the Scriptures of Truth divulg'd to the World as a Treasure of Mysteries calculated for the Assiduous and only such whose Integrity and Fidelity internally shine forth as their Faces externally in a Glass respond and answer a due and exact Proportion From whence I conclude this Philosophical Axiom As are the Writings of Moses the Standard of Truth that God the Creator has by a Royal Law imposed upon Nature eternally to operate the Vniversal Spirit therefore is but One in all her Operations viz. in the Fire to influence in the Air to impregnate in the Water to germinate and in the Earth to vegetate Where note The Elements consequently the Principles were divinely preordained by the Sovereign Power of him that 's Supream who constituted Nature to conserve the Creation or solemnly I declare I understand it not Nor would I be thought either rash or unreasonable to reassume a Priviledge in what I distribute but as Words are my own whiles yet in my Mouth and every bodies else when unconfined so let them be and have a charitable Reception when to run their Risque in the Worlds great Lottery because when to fall under various Conceptions yet if so happy to meet with the Ingenious in Science meaning such as dread and honour their Creator and imitate Nature in her solitary Operations which every expert Artist and experienced will do provided his Inquisitions be after the Truth to such and such only I dedicate my Labors together with my Endeavours to Wisdoms elaborate Shrine that with vertuous Inclinations they may seek after Discoveries and the abstruse Tracts of their Friend Philanthropus RABBI MOSES IN the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth Which directs me to contemplate this World is a great Machine or an Engine-royal adapted for Motion by the Power of Him that created the Creation that not so much as an Atom can move or stir save only by a derivative Vertue from him that thro Wisdom and Providence gave a Being to the Whole who knows all the Parts and Particles of his Work. How can he then be thought ignorant of its Motion or in any thing be deficient when he that made the World knows how to influence the hidden Springs and Parts thereof he knows for what End and Duration he design'd its Motion and the time when all things shall pass away So that when the Divinest withdraws the Springs of Life viz. his supporting Providence from any Creature in the Creation or from the Elements or the whole World it self it must sink into a state of Inactivity consequently become a meer Annihilation Now That Heaven and Earth are Corelates who doubts it That they sprung spontaneously from one Principium who disputes it And that they had in themselves by Divine Ordination Ends and Beginnings most properly adapted and insinuated into them who so Impious and Atheistical to suspect it That the World had a Beginning is manifest That Eternity preceded Time is most manifest And that every End terminates in its own proper Beginnings nothing more manifest Every End therefore
ever be known by another In the next place we discourse the Element of Water imagined by some a solution of Earth or a moist coagulum of ambient Air made fluid only by an internal flux which surrounding the Earth compleats but one Globe and which aquous fluidity separates only the impurities from the more extraneous and superficial parts but cannot reach to the Core or Centre whereby to examine the internal impurities which an intence Fire naturally purgeth forth by reason of its ardent activity and not improper to say its vulcanick nature where the Waters of themselves can never reach Two Elements therefore are destinated to putrification and as the matter to be purified is visible or invisible consequently such are the Agents for purification Since the Fire therefore is an invisible Agent and that other of Water most obvious and visible the visible and invisible parts of things are therefore so mended and cleansed by subtile Operation whereby they seseparate the more inquinate impurity that stifly adheres to the immaculate nature and prestine state of Virgin purity But as the Soul within the Body is not bett'red by the Corporiety of all or any of the natural composition or impendent matter hovering about it but is rather stained poluted and infected with noxious Sapors arising thence from So you are to consider that the Vessel has its honour from the dignity of the Arcanum or glory of the Subject matter therein contained And as the Scripture instructs us that Gods surprizing Light illuminates every pious act of the Creature it obligeth us to consider that the Goodness of God is as great to forgive as by his Clemency and Bounty he is just to pardon Where note we observe God made things proportionable and in all respects suitable to himself The great World he made therefore to contain the less but the lesser World he made to contain himself that contains the greater And thus you have the Mystery of the Creation the Majesty of Reason the Divinity of Scripture and authority of Philosophy But the Waters brought forth every moving Creature because in them was the Spirit of Life For the Spirit of Life by Divine incubation made ingress into them filling them with a prolifick vertue and the first form'd Creature that the Waters brought forth was the great and unweildy body of Earth most recluse and solitary because inwardly concealed which till then never felt the operative foâ—ce of Fire Nor did the luminous Ray of the Sun nor the vertual influence of Stars nor the Divine order of Constellations nor the treasures of Hail and Rain of Lightning and Thunder nor the Seasons of Heat and Cold Frost and Snow besides innumerable living Creatures to whom Heavens plentiful Breast daily administred till then none of them knew the potency of Life nor the force and energy of the universal Spirit which God by Wisdome inspired into them But some will object and peradventure say how and after what manner does the Earth vegetate Shew us also the rationallity and probability whereby the Earth and the Water become living Creatures to which I readily and briefly answer the Soul of the Divine World is God himself but that of the Created the universal spirit of Nature and this Soul lives by vertue of the Divine World but acts by imagination only in the Created whereby the Earth conceives vegetates and buds up so does the Waters protrude and bring forth even to the period and perfection of its predestinated end Nor can they otherwise do because the Law of Providence and Necessity is by Divine ordination imposed upon them And that which enriches them are the sublime treasures of Elements and Principles For wanted they those active and ingressive instruments they were of all things in Nature most imperâ—ect and would be altogether void and unprofitable so become as it were a meer annihilation and not improper should I call it a Caput Mortuum For it were impossible that any Created Being if when wanting the Vital Faculty of Life could be any ways at any time in a capacity to live consequently to move vegetate and protrude But the great and the lesser World is fill'd with animation whereby it daily and hourly buds forth All which are signal and demonstrable tokens of the Spirit of Life that animates and actuates in every Creature Life therefore is that active and universal Spirit of Nature wherewith she infusseth the whole Creation impregnating every individual therewith whereby the Character of Life is no sooner stampt infus'd or imprest upon any material Subject but it inwardly lives as does the invisible World which no sooner appears to move forward into act but the model and frame of the Subject matter at once admits of exteriour Motion Life therefore as it is the Radix of every thing so it acts demonstratively in every Body The motion of the Sun we daily observe is necessarily occasioned by this active spirit of Life And such is the vital pulse in Man as also that large and greater pulse of the Ocean Earth vegetates only from this operating Spirit and the Air is replenished and fill'd full of it Every thing that is lives not without it nor can any thing subsist deficient of it O wonderful Nature the Miracle of the Creator how intelligeable art thou in all thy Operations and tho' so simple naked and demonstratively plain yet how difficult is it for the Artist to find out So that were we minded to imitate Nature in her solitary Operations and Fermentation of Elements we ought first to consider in order to what Nature in her daily progress points out unto us whereby to manidge and introduct us whose mediums because primarily separation and solution of parts therefore from thence begins manual Operation Let solution therefore be the first step since in separation all is found Then proceed to Filtration Evaporation Congealation Cristalization Distillation Digestion Putrefaction Ceration Albification Rubification and Fixation Then will Diana appear from under her Vail which none but the Eyes of a true Philosopher since the beginning ever yet saw But now I suspect I 'me beyond the Paraphrase of the Text when only designed to discourse the Creation so of Elements and Principles Natures own Rudiments How that Elements subsist not without previous Fermentation of their complicated comâ—xture of invisible Parts so that a compleat separation is no where found whereby to unlock and disintangle the unity of Bodies without a Philosophical Clavis to display their Principles which otherwise are limited and by Nature confined to submit to the law of coagulation Of all which I cease farther to disclose lest peradventure this secret be already too manifest when because to devulge it to the root of ingratitudes so we leave that Subject to discourse the Leviathan And God made great Whales c. Iob calls him Leviathan who after his Creation by the permission of God rolls toâ— and fro the fluctuating Ocean Whose unctuous Scales pollish the
engendred or otherwise by Putrefaction have received a new State through Fermentation all which Productions are manifest Arguments of Life and Spirit as also of Vegetation The Texture therefore of this great World clearly discovers and demonstrates its animation where the Visibility of Earth manifestly represents the Impure Gross and Natural Basis and the Elemental Waters because circulating about it assimilates also the Venal Blood actuating and fermenting in every Body where the vital Pulse also operates as is seen in the admirable Flux and Reflux of the Ocean and the Air of necessity the Vehickle for Spirits wherein this vast Creature meaning the Creation breath's invisibly tho peradventure not altogether nor in any part insensibly and the Interstellar Skies and Aetherial Waters the Vital Parts whiles the Sun Moon and Stars are the animating Spirits and supersensual Fires that warm the Creation But this kind of Philosophy will puzle the Putationer as the Primitive Truth of the Apostles confounded the Romans So Moses's Philosophy in the Rudiments of the Creation will be as little understood as the Tracts of Hermes the Tâ—â—mudist's Cabalist's Caldeans Egyptians aud Arabians if when to consider the possibility of Nature which is impossible without supernatural discoveries and should we otherwise conclude than by Divine Authority we lick up the Froth of every sottish Generation so usher to posterity that Atheistical Opinion calculated by Imaginarist's that the Creator slept whiles the Chaos of it self without Divine direction fell into this beautiful Order as we now behold it which if but to think so is a Sin of Impiety and an Error so enormous never enough to be lamented But all such Inquietudes we remit them to their destiny since to carry such and so many Furies in their own Bosoms whereby to hurry and torment themselves whose unwholsome Principles because nautious to themselves would stamp their impression on those that suck them in so that one would think such Souls mingled with Clay and because in the limit and circumstance of Time are iâ— some measure confin'd to Earth's sublunar mixts and by the World so severely intangled that like Birds in Limetwigs the more they flutter the faster they find themselves intangled in such a state I perswade my self there 's no Divine Speculation nor Visional Faith whereby to see the invisible state of things as they stand nakedly simply and purely in themselves of which these Visible Objects are but Natural Representatives This perswasion directs to me an unregenerate state because when not to partake of a Supernatural Birth the Soul therefore that 's immerged with Sin Darkness conducts it to a dismal destiny deeply shadowed under the decays of Elements and impossible without a Miracle to make a flight above the World since by innate inherency its partaker of the World. But the Stars if when to consider them the Almighty's Library where every Star is the Volumn of a World and every World a sumptuous Globe divinely held in the Hand of its Maker for such they were and such they are not that these sublime and eminent Elevations were only made for Mortals confusedly to gaze at no I 'me perswaded rather to excite and stir up admiration whereby to elevate and quicken our Devotion above our selves when to behold such Majesty fixt in the Creation for are not these Luminous and Illustrious Bodies which we behold hung up in that great Vortrice of Heaven Celestial Lamps to illuminate the Universe and not only to illuminate but animate and vegetate so in conclusion influence and impregnate the Creation 'T is true that Heaven is a Paradise for Souls and a Divine Reception for the Divinity it self but not that I prophane to term it a Habitation when alluding that Heaven contains the Divinest since Heaven is every where where ever God is whose Holy Presence institutes it Immutable Immeasurable and Eternal like himself whose Nature transmutes it into his own likeness and puts it into such a Divine Capacity that for ever its uncapable of the periods of Death Heaven therefore is the Divine Habitation of God and the Light of Heaven the Divinity of God the blessed Society there Saints and Angels and there it is that the Prophets and Prophetesses with Apostles and Evangelists daily Prophesie for there every Day is a daily Sabboth and Elohim betwixt the Cherubs is the Lord Iehovah But the Evening and the Morning were the second Day so that twenty four Hours nor more nor less do but compleat a Natural Day when as the whole Tract of Time in its Natural Progress appears to me but one Day Super-natural of which our Ancestors as also our selves from Sacred Authority had these Divine Speculations so that if to consider that two Days natural could operate such a change in the great Creation we may rationally conclude and as modestly determine the residue an Argument to evince the Generations For could I but seriously point out to the Creature the Blessed Creators mystical Operation which is altogether impossible I might then peradventure prove an Instrument to some whereby to moderate and disintangle Passion pursuant only after perishing Objects and for ought I know blot out the Prejudice and Animosity of others meaning such as seditiously sow Discention among the Brethren endeavouring thereby to reap the fruits of their own conjectural Imaginations which to do but undoes one another by violating the Sacred Laws of God as that also of Nature and of true Religion since the Scriptures by a Divine Authority require that every one examine himself and seriously and sedately study a Reformation Then were the Waters beneath the Heaven by Divine Appointment gathered together and those Invisible Waters above the Heavens rallied themselves and separated apart which admirable and wonderful Act or Operation occasioned a trepidation all over the Chaos for till then the Waters intermingled with the Waters and the Elements as Inmates spread themselves among them till God in his Wisdom stirred up the Magnet and then the Waters immediately attracted so by Collision broke the Bond of Unity for when so great a change happned in the whole of necessity every individual separated apart In which admirable progress every one had its station yet was it by appointment and the Providence of God so that the more sublime the matter was by so much the higher it ranged it self removing more remotely from its own Faecula when on the contrary to admiration the more Gravity it had by so much the closer it adhered to its Recrement and in this Operation the Fire claim'd the Precedency but next the Fire the Air pleaded Succession so that these two Elements become as it were invisible and which also by reason of a Spirituallity administred only to the Vital parts But Water and Earth when to consider their Corporiety their Gravity their Unity and more Consubstantial Parts and because also Synonimous with the Creature it cloathed and fed it with Prolifick Vertue for whatever any thing is of it self of
adequate primordials in her occidental Cressant she naturally displays a Lunar clarity when in her Oriental purity an incomparable brightness and tho' by reason of distance She wants a natural warmth yet in her Progress she spreads forth of splendour whereby she sends Beauty to the ends of the Ocean The Tides themselves also are a Lunar flux and such is the frail imbicility of Females For the Moon has a Monarchy within her self yet directs She by the generous Beam of her Soveraign who by Wisdome and Providence of the Supreamest Good that governs the whole and also the parts is made to nourish and refresh the Creation so that to make things plain by explaining my self peradventure may bring my Discourse into suspition were the Vulgar my Judges who I fancy by this have already doomed and brought me under the calamity of a Lunatick The residue of the Stars the Divinest also he placed them in order by particular classes and gave to every one by a grant from Heaven a peculiar vertue and different operation one to dignifie Earth into the purest Gold another to make Silver shine in the Mines a third to scatter Iron Stone underneath the Surface a fourth to discover Quickâ—silver fluid a fift lays open the Mines of Tin and a sixth the beauteous Mettalline Copper but the seventh creates the Earth into Oar which by smelting at the Mills is convertible into Lead but there are Other and various coagulations besides these seaven as allowed by Philosophers the product and progeny of Erratick Stars and such is Cat-silver Mine Oars and Minerals mixt Metals also with various complications Then their 's Talk and Realgar with Zink Bismuth and Cobolt and the regal Cements of Hal and Malk besides Markasites and Pierites with innumerable concressions of opacous Bodies enough to astonish the Reader if to name them Precious Stones also are of the same progeny and legitimate heirs of Stars and Constellations and tho' some coagulations out-lustre one another as the Cristal because having a polite and shining face so has the Crisolite a Diaphinous-body but the Saphir the Hiacinth the Smaragdine and Emerald together with the Amethist Diamond Ruby and the Carbuncle are all gloriously tinged with a Mettalline Tincture but there are other and Opacous Bodies directing to the Topax beside the Turchas and such is the Onix and admired Granat with the Cornelian needless to nominate in regard by the Mobile so generally understood All which have their Officine and Shops in the Earth where Illiastes and Archeus are Rector and Operator the one to find stuff and the other labour but Demogorgan assists both by the help of Vulcan Thus in brief I have given you a short view of Celestials and how they are adapted Parents of Terrestials Now these glorious and luminous Lamps the Stars were kindled by the Divinest to illuminate the World and God lifted them up and set them in the Firmament as Oracles and Ornaments to adorn the Universe whose signature and impressions are perpetually imprest upon Earths soft Table to influence and impregnate it with prolifick vertue For the Sun and Moon shews us Heaven and Earth in a lesser Character than most men dream of and because having a magnetick vertue and principle in themselves the first fills the World with heat and activity but the latter because immerg'd with passive qualifications influenceth fluidity and the race of Females The Sun therefore we superscribe him Masculine but the Moon every one intitles Feminine where note as these Luminaries are made to move consequently so moves the Wheels of Generation and corruption which mutually dissolves all compounded Bodies But the Moon most properly is the Organ of Transmutation as is the Sun the Parent of Generation and these two Luminaries multiply and fructifie every individual as to generation and multiplication for what compound ever was or is there to be found in whole nature that holds not in it self some proportion of the Sun and so of the Moon whereby to confirm it with life and motion so that what Offices soever are performable by these two Luminaries either for preservation of the whole or conservation of part as is the performance for one such also and after the same manner is the like office for all Since therefore such Vertue shines from Celestials what may be expected from Super-Celestials is not Christ the Wisdome the Beauty and the Glory of the Majesty whose admirable amaziâ—g and astonishing brightness shines in the Tracts to the new Ierusalem The holy men of God in former Ages read daily Lectures in this Divine Manuscript and the same Starry Folio since the beginning of the Creation has lain unfolded to this very Generation So that wanting Solomons wisdome and Iobs inspection very few or none do read in it now Surely our Rabbies have lost the Clavis Hermes its true and the Egyptians before him understood and stiled God Minos Solitaria but our great Prophet Moses Iehovah and Elohim so the Cabalists intitled him Aleph Tenebrosum from whence some conjecture the Delphians in their inscriptions direct their Orisons to the unknown God. But the Arabs their Orisons but the Arabs and the Caldeans marks him out Aleph Lucidum So that doubtingly the Key of Knowledge in some measure may be lost otherwise the Alphabet would not seem so unintelligeable unless we have made new Heavens of our own so study them only and forget the old one But the Creation of Harmony who can forget and not forget him that adorns the Universe so fill up his Lamp with Foetid Oyl whose stinking Empyruma instead of Aroma's infects the Altar and offends the Omnipotent But man by the Divinest was Created twofold Visible and invisible Corporeal and Celestial his Elementary Body or visible part of a pure fixt Earth or a deep red Clay but his Soul or Invisibility of an Essence Royal not to be found in the Texture of the great World more intellectual therefore and more supernatural from whence Montanus that great Pantheologist calls Man a small or little Incarnation in which work God was pleased to multiply himself Nor was Man the primitive Work in this blessed Creation but the great World was out of which Man was made whose Principles and Practice ought to be well examined should we resolve to take part for the whole so guess at the frame by a regular proportion And as Man was taken out of this copious World so was the Woman also taken out of Man. For God in his Eternal Idea foresaw that whereof as yet there was no material Copy The Goodness and Beauty of which invited him to Create Man like unto himself and beholding that divine and lively Image of his own inwardly to shine in the Tabernacle of Man he became therewith enamoured with divine Ardency and so loved the Creature that when Sin had defaced it he again restored it by the suffering of that Power by which Man at first was made and created But the Sun and
Angles of God are made ministring Spirits and the Spirit of God the Divine Comforter that leads us spiritually into the Vision of Glory And Adam was the favourite God only converst with in whom the Divinity divinely shin'd when our Protoplast stood in a State of Innocency then it was that no impure thing could approach unto him because then in the favour and presence of the Majesty our Progenitor in Paradise was admitted to stand For Adam was constituted with a Divine Soul like to the likeness of him that infus'd it which was the likeness of God himself whose glorious Aspect shin'd then on the Creature otherwise the Creatures had never contributed so great humility and veneration to Adam when flocking about him as some sacred thing whereby to honour and give them protection so that to what place Adam was pleased to direct his Life-guard of the Creatures continually went with him But Adam too remiss in this great concern becomes negligent and careless to examine his affair notwithstanding Emulation follows at the heels of Prosperity for can favourites be without the peoples frowns tho' under the umbrage of their Princes smiles No surely the Hierarchy of relapsed Angels had an ambitious Emulation against his present State that if not counterploted by the Wisdome of his Maker they 'l conspire his ruine and perpetual overthrow For revenge against the Will of God carries a kind of sweetness with it solamen miseris and thus sorrows seem to extenuate sorrow when others as our selves are in a suffering state It is true that Adam was adorned with more inward Lustre than the outward beauty of the whole Creation For in his Temple the bodily Fabrick the Holy of Holies inhabited therein For it is the residence of the Divinest himself in whom alone dwells the Beauty of Holiness Let us stand in this station we shall see our Salvation for he that made us knows how to deliver us Then shall we find a holy Guide to direct us the Tracts to the Paradice of God. The Soul therefore whiles yet in the Body represents a Candle conceal'd in a Lanthorn or a glance of Fire in a manner stifled when because wanting the benefit of Air. Who in extremity strugles with her Elemental Chains yet spans the World with a single thought and enjoys that inwardly she 's dismist of outwardly that in a moment flies to the uttermost parts of the Earth and what ever is absent she at once makes present and dead things by imagination she restores to life nothing can conceal or hide any thing from her who in an instant surmounts the Stars Thus Adam by his Maker was made a Monarch and one of the Creators holy Senators who read Lectures in the Heavens the Almighties Common-place-book and conducted the Creatures created in the Creation to whom God gave Voice and the ornament of Speech but above all the glorious intellect of Mind which Angellical State our Protoplast stood in so long as he stood in opposition to Sin which gift was ungiven to the rest of the Creation yet none of them denied the benefit of Sence lapt up only in this thin Tiffeny Web of Mortality for Sin is but a bulk of emptiness and impiety that like a Pageant does nothing it self but hinders others from doing good seducing by the lust and pleasures of the Body whiles the Soul is meerly starv'd with penury Innocency was then the best guard of our Ancestor when he stood in the presence of his God in simplicity for the more pure that any thing is the more sublime is that thing also Wherefore we consider Adam in an Angelical State when cloathed with Piety and adorned with Purity then he stood his ground like a Heavenly Champion for God had made his Earth Celestial This answers something to the Doctrine of Hermes that God inhabits in the Mind of Man the Mind in the Soul and the Soul in the Body and that he is all things in All both Act and Power for he is God. From the matter therefore the subtilest part is Air of the Air the Soul of the Soul Mind of the Mind God. And the Soul of Eternity is God himself but the Soul of the World is Eternity and Heaven as he saith is the Soul of the Earth So that nothing nor part is deficient of Soul nor is the Soul deficient of God. Thus in innocency and simplicity oâ— Protoplast stood in this Divine posture without sensual guards when his Maker selected him a representative at the great Assembly of the blessed Creation where all the Creatures were convocated together Then it was that Adam like a Magestrate and a Legislator for such then he was gave forth his Edicts unto all the Creatures his natural Subjects The Golden Rule was kept then amongst them when every one did justice by kind and not that the dread of punishment compell'd them For the Ray of Justice was so generally distributed that it naturally shined in every individual The Earth in those days was unburdned with Tillage nor do we read it was wounded with Culture the Creatures in the Creation liv'd purely by instinct not making their Bodies Sepulchres to bury dead Carcasses in There was no Temple in those days to prophane but now we have Temples nor want we Prophaners Wherefore let 's consider the glorious Work of the Creation that by the hand of God was no sooner made but by the will of Man was endeavoured to be unmade Creation is not therefore Generation nor have we considered Generation is Life but by way of allusion it may be called sence Nor is Change Death though commonly so asserted but rather a forgetfulness or obliteration of Elements Generation therefore is improperly called a Creation but rather a production of things only to sence in time made manifest nor is Change Death but an occultation or hiding of that that in it self seemed once to live Here methinks I see both Sexes in our Ancestor shine through the lustre and beauty of Adam for Male and Female God created them so that both Sexes liv'd under one Species and Adam in appearance was then Hermaphrodite because having both Natures and Similitudes in himself And whatever Adam listed should then be done was accomplished before the desire could grow into act in so great subjection was every thing to him that obedience was held more Sacred than Sacrifice All the Beasts in the Field came to him for Names so did the Fish and the Fowl of Heaven and whatever he called them that was their Name God gave him Wisdome and he wisely improv'd it till the Tempter by a temptation leudly deprav'd him so that whiles he steer'd both Sexes in one bottome his success in every thing was more than miraculous but to Pilot the Helm of two distinct Vessels and both at once in a storm under Sail surpasses the skill and methods of Navigation And God blessed them with blessings in bidding them be fruitful which blessing was doubled by multiplication