Selected quad for the lemma: tradition_n
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A70514
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A theological systeme upon the presupposition, that men were before Adam the first part.; Systerna theologicum ex praeadamitarum hypothesi. English
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La Peyrère, Isaac de, 1594-1676.
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1655
(1655)
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Wing L427; ESTC R7377
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191,723
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375
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upon all things created but gave it particularly to men Neither hath he yet given that Spirit to all men by vertue of which they may know God as he is by the essicacies of which all men may be holy as God is holy by whose power lastly all men may gain eternal life which is Divine immortality Yea God has onely imparted that Spirit to elected men whom he has advanced from the degree and rank of men to the highest rank and degree above all men whom he had adorned with his Divine Gifts with his Knowledge and Holiness and taken them into his fellowship as Gods so that most truely and fitly we may say of this that God who is the Lord of all things yet is the God of very few and only of the Elect. Election is in all things created Things that have a living soul are more elect than those which have not Then of things animated sensitives As also in stones and metals one stone in better than another one metal better than another There is also elected earth and reprobate earth The choiceness is in choicer flowers both for colour and smell The Cedar is more choice than the shurb the true than the wild vine and the pleasant fruits of Trees are sweeter than the wilde ones Among Creatures Lions excel in strength Harts in swiftness Lambs in mildness Amongst Birds Nightingals excel for singing the Eagle for flight As likewise of the flesh of beasts and birds some make choicer dishes than others What shall I say of men Some are more commendable for the gallantry of their integrity some higher spirited than others fairer more noble more fortunate in honour and riches others more excellent in the study of Vertue in cleerness of wit and knowledge of things There is likewise an election in life and permanency of things Some things quickly grow and quickly fade The Crow lives nine times the just age of a Man The Hart lives four times the life of the Crow The Rook lives thrice the life of the Hart. The Phenix lives nine times the Rook's life And if we believe the most ancient Traditions before Hesiod's times The Hamadryades lives ten times longer than the Phoenix To these adde if you please the life or duration of Heaven and Earth and that eviternal Marriage by which the Heaven descends into the lap of the Earth and by which the Earth fructifies with continual Buds towards Heaven and the order of the Stars surrounding the Heaven from aeternity as also the unwearied motions of the Sun and Moon by which they are inceslantly mov'd and by which eviternity it self is accounted But the Divine Election is not in all these created things I say that Election by which God did elect to himself all men which is not of kin or blood with the first Creation which surpasses all kinde of things created and is infinitely above them and which is the Election of Regeneration that is of the second Creation not of the first Certainly if there be any thing in the first Creation either exquisite precious or choice delicate strong high or fair or noble or fortunate or abstruse in wisdom or long in continuance of permanency and life That is in the second Creation much more exquisite beyond exquisitness far more precious beyond preciousness far more choice beyond choiceness far more delicate beyond dalicateness far more strong beyond strength far more fair beyond fairness far more noble beyond nobility far more fortunate beyond fortune far more wise beyond wisdom far more permanent beyond permanency But of this we must hear Baruch Chap. 3. of his Book Where are sayes he the Princes of the Nations that have Dominion over the Beasts of the Earth who treasure up silver and gold wherein men trust they are rooted out the sons of Agar have sought for wisdom which is of the Earth idle speakers and seekers out of understanding They were those which from the beginning were called Giants men of great stature great warriours Those the Lord hath not chosen He sayes The Election of God was not towards Kings and Princes of Nations not towards learned Men and excellent in humane wisdom not towards the Rich and Noble not towards the strong and the Renowned those famous Thunderbolts of War because they fulfilled that Law of Nature and their first Creation by which all men are born and created to die and attained not to that Eternal Life which consisted in the power of Divine Election and the vertue of the second Creation God is said to chuse and to take to himself those whom he intends to frame a-new and to new create them to whom he made manifest and discovered himself whom he has gifted with his sanctity whom he has made partakers of his immortality and Life Eternal and whom from Men he advanced to be Gods Moreover God is said to reject those and to cast them out whom he is pleased to create but not to regenerate into whose hearts he has not shined whom he suffers to live defiled with the pollution and wickedness of their flesh whom being subject to the power of Death he has not redeemd from Death and whom he suffers not to savour any thing above man Not to elect signifies to reject and cast out which is common in sacred Authors Samuel comming into the house of Jesse that he might anoint one of them whom he knew not King over Israel as soon as he saw Eliab Jesse's first-born in whose countenance was a royal majestie straight he believ'd that he had been chosen by God But God admonishes Samuel Look not upon the countenance of Eliab for I have rejected him Sam. 1. Chap. 16. I have rejected him is in that place directly I have not chosen him This will more clearly appear by the Gospel of St. Matthew Chap. 24. concerning the judgement of the Elected and Reprobate which shall be in the day of the Lord Then sayes the Evangelist one shall be taken another left shall be left in that place is cleerly the same which is cast off and rejected Thus prayed Solomon 1 Kings 8. Let our God be with us not leaving us nor casting us off but enclining our hearts towards him where observe first to leave and reject with the most wise Prince are the same Mark secondly That God enclines the heart of man which again when he does not encline he is said to harden as also to hate when he does not love As that is to be understood I have loved Jacob and hated Esau Lastly that is a remarkable place in the Prophet Jeremy where he brings in God threatning destruction to the Jews I will sayes the Lord turn my back and not my face to them in the day of their destruction There to turn his back to the Jews is to fight against them to leave forsake and fly from the Jews is to overthrow cast them down and destroy them Men therefore rejected and reprobate are properly such who are left by God
the whole Sea betwixt a grain of sand and all the sand in the shore For a drop of water and the whole Sea are things omogeneal as also a grain of Sand and the whole shore as also these are here compared according to their habitude of number and measure by which they have relation one to another But there can be no proportion betwixt a thousand years which is a body of years and a Homogeneous body These are likewise compared together according to the habitude of number and measure which have relation one to another but there can be no proportion betwixt the eternity of God and a thousand years because they are of different kinds A thousand years and that pure eternity are of several kinds because that eternity consists not of years nor is compounded of ages or times and they cannot be compared according to their habitudes and measures for they have none common to both The things which I mentioned before of the beginnings of things and of the creation of the world from eternity out of Diodorus agree very well wiâ—h these testimonies of holy Scripture That the ancient Physiologists and Historians did believe that the world was eternal as also affirm'd that men were from eternity which Diodorus peaking of the Chaldeans expounds thus That they believed that the world was eternal having no certain determinate beginning for they did not deny the beginning of the world but thought it unknown and uncertain according to that of Ecclesiasticus There is no remembrance of former things That eternity was uncertain and undeterminate Wherefore in the Bible eternity is often undeterminate As it is read Genesis 6. My spirit shall not contend with man always Eternity in that place is long after undeterminâ—d which appears by what follows And his days shall be a hundred and twenty years For God determined here the age of man a hundred and twenty years which before was far longer and undetermined so it is to be understood of that servant whose ear his Master pierced with an Awl Deut. 5. He shall seâ—ve thee for ever that is undeterminately and so long as he liâ—es I passe by a great many places of this same sorâ— Let it therefore be taken for good that the creation of the world which is said from eternity by the authority of both Testaments could by no means be undersâ—ood since Adam was made according to the definition of both ages Whether you call eternity which is reckoned from many ages and times Or whether you understand it indefinitely or undeterminatly For it is known that the time betwixt â—s and Adam is within account For the times from Adam are of a known period without the account of ages Besides there is a great deal of difference betwixt those things that preceeded the beginning of all things and those things which were before 〈◊〉 Adam Of these there is neither mention nor knowledge Of the other there is certain knowledge and memory CHAP. XIII Of the ages of creatures describâ—d by Hesiod and Ausonius Why the Histories of the first men were not known Out of Plato By the change of the Epoche The Aboriginal Nations of the world are not known I Often have wondred at the ages of creatures which Hesiod relates That the just age of a man is Ninety six The age of a Crow eight hundred and sixty four The age of a Hart three thousand three hundred and fifty six The Rooks ten thousand three hundred and sixty eight The Phoenixes ninety three thousand three hundred and twelve The Nymphs live Nine hundred thirty three thousand a hundred and twenty For he put those very ages into a Verse from a tradition far more antient as we may conjecture than Hesiod There Hesiod was antienter than Ausonius who since that time a long while did translate them in Latine Verses But Plinie thinks that but a Fable which he writes concerning the Phoenix and the Nymphs Well grant they bee fabulous notwitstanding it appears by this that Hesiod receiv'd them of a fabulous and most ancient tradition I say from that tradition which had set down the ages of Crows Harts and Rooks of which the Antients doubted not and which they could not affirm the certainty of without many and frequent experiments Neither had Hesiod a most learned and elegant old Poet vouchsaf'd to have describ'd such idle stories in such excellent Verses nor Ausonius after him a sweet and acute Poet translated them if both of them had thought that the beginning of things was to be reckon'd from Adam from whom to Hâ—siod there was not as yet passed the age of an Hart. Those Poets set down such ages such bounds to the lives of Beasts but thought that God the Judge of eternity knew all other ages namely that of the world heaven and stars Of eternity I say which in that place Ausonius sets down as a secret and known to God alone The knowledge of those eternal ages which were from the beginning was hid from men according to that decree by which he has hindred men to know all things and through which he thought it fit in his wisdom that they should be ignorant of the dispensations of time According to that of the Lord when he was ascending to heaven It is not for you to know the times which the father has put in his own power Acts. ch 1. The Egyptians according to Plato ascrib'd the cause of this ignorance to the several destructions of men of which the greatest were by fire and water the lesser by many other several ways They said in some long tract of time there were some changes and differences of things in motion both in heaven earth in some long tract of time Whence higher Countries either were consum'd with too much fire or the lower drown'd by too large effusion of showrs But the Egyptians were free from fire and floud Nile saving them from fire And such was the temper of their climate that no showr from above had ever water'd them or ever should Nor were they water'd at any time with any other water than which either flow'd over from Nilus or sprung out of the bowels of the earth And for that cause being not much subject to fire nor overwhelm'd with water some men were always preserv'd with them sometimes more sometimes lesse but never a general desolation For which reasons they reserâ—'d alone the most antient Records And that both their own actions and the actions of other Nations which were memorable were diligently set down and written in the Records kept in their Temples That the Greeks and other Nations either by Plagues sent down from heaven or being desâ—royed either by water or fire in certain space of time had lost both letters and knowledge and enter'd as it were again into their childhood beginning at their Alphabet nor knew what had been at home or abroad but through a cloud and by hear-say Therefore they believe that the head of all