own eyes nor misbelieve their dictates no more nor so much as we may those of our outward senses Wherefore to men recovered into a due command of their reason and well-skill'd in the contemplation and experience of the nature of things to propound to them such kinde of Mosaical Philosophy as the boldnesse and superstition of some has adventured to do for want of a right Literal Cabbala to guide them is as much as in them lies to hazard the making not only of Moses but of Religion it self contemptible and ridiculous Whence it is apparent enough I think to what good purpose it is thus carefully to distinguish betwixt the Literal and Philosophick Cabbala and so plainly and fully to set out the sense of either apart by themselves that there may hereafter be no confusion or mistake For beside that the discovering of these weighty Truths and high but irrefutable Paradoxes in Moses his Text does assert Religion and vindicate her from that vile imputation of ignorance in Philosophy and the knowledge of things so does it also justifie those more noble results of free Reason and Philosophy from that vulgar suspicion of Impiety and Irreligion THE LITERAL CABBALA CHAP. I. 2 The Earth at first a deep miry abysse covered over with waters over which was a fierce wind and through all darknesse 3 Day made at first without a Sun 6 The Earth a floor the Heavens a transparent Canopy or strong Tent over it to keep off the upper waters or blew conspicuous Sea from drowning the world 8 Why this Tent or Canopy was not said to be good 9 The lower waters commanded into one place 11 Herbs flowers and fruits of Trees before either Sun or seasons of the year to ripen them 14 The Sun created and added to the day as a peculiar ornament thereof as the Moon and Stars to the night 20 The Creation of fish and fowl 24 The Creation of beasts creeping things 27 Man created in the very shape and figure of God but yet so that there were made females as well as males 28 How man came to be Lord over the rest of living creatures 30 How it came to passe that man feeds on the better sort of the fruits of the Earth and the beasts on the worse 1 WEE are to recount to you in this Book the Generations and Genealogies of the Patriarchs from Adam to Noah from Noah to Abraham from Abraham to Joseph and to continue the History to our own times But it will not be amisse first to inform you concerning the Creation of the world and the original and beginning of things How God made Heaven and Earth and all the garnishings of them before he made Man 2 But the Earth at first was but a rude and desolate heap devoid of herbs flowers and trees and all living creatures being nothing but a deep miry abysse covered all over with waters and there was a very fierce and strong wind that blew upon the waters and what made it still more horrid and comfortless there was as yet no light but all was inveloped with thick darknesse and bore the face of a pitchy black and wet tempestuous night 3 But God let not his work lie long in this sad condition but commanded Light to appear and the morning brake out upon the face of the abyss and wheel'd about from East to West being clearest in the middle of its course about noon and then abating of its brightnesse towards the West at last quite dis-appear'd after such sort as you may often observe the day-light to break forth in the East and ripen to greater clearnesse but at last to leave the skie in the West no Sun appearing all the while 4. And God saw the Light for it is a thing very visible that it was good and so separated the darknesse from the light that they could not both of them be upon the face of the earth together but had their vicissitudes and took their turns one after another 5 And he called the return of the light Day and the return of darkness he called Night and the evening and the morning made up the first natural day 6. Now after God had made this Basis or floor of this greater edifice of the world the Earth he sets upon the higher parts of the fabrick He commands therefore that there should be a hollow expansion firm and transparent which by its strength should bear up against the waters which are above and keep them from falling upon the earth in excess 7. And so it became a partition betwixt the upper the lower waters so that by virtue of this hollow Firmament man might live safe from the violence of such destructive inundations as one sheltred in a well-pitch'd tent from storm of rain For the danger of these waters is apparent to the eye this ceruleous or blew-coloured Sea that over-spreads the diaphanous Firmament being easily discern'd through the body thereof and there are very frequent and copious showers of rain descend from above when as there is no water espyed ascending up thither wherefore it must all come from that upper Sea if we do but appeal to our outward sense 8 Now therefore this diaphanous Canopy or firmly stretched Tent over the whole pavement of the earth though I cannot say properly that God saw it was good it being indeed of a nature invisible yet the use of it shows it to be exceeding good and necessary And God called the whole capacity of this hollow Firmament Heaven And the evening and the morning made up the second natural day 9 And now so sure a Defence being made against the inundation of the upper waters that they might not fall upon the earth God betook himself the next day to order the lower waters that as yet were spread over the whole face thereof at his command therefore the waters fled into one place and the dry land did appear 10 And God called the dry land Earth and the gathering together of the waters he called Sea and I may now properly say that God saw that it was good for the Sea and the Land are things visible enough and fit objects of our sight 11 And forthwith before he made either Sun Moon or Stars did God command the earth to bring forth grasse herbs and flowers in their full beauty and fruit-trees yeilding delicious fruit though there had as yet been no vicissitude of Spring Summer or Autumn nor any approach of the Sun to ripen and concoct the fruit of those trees Whence you may easily discern the foolishnesse of the idolatrous Nations that dote so much on second causes as that they forget the first ascribing that to the Sun and Moon that was caus'd at first by the immediate command of God 12 For at his command it was before there was either Sun or Moon in the Firmament that the earth brought forth grasse and herb yeilding seed after his kind and the tree yeilding fruit whose seed was in
it self after his kinde so that the several sorts of plants might by this means be conserv'd upon the earth And God saw that it was good 13 And the evening and the morning made up the third natural day 14 There have three days past without a Sun as well as three nights without either Moon or Stars as you your selves may happily have observ'd some number of Moonless and Starlesse nights as well as of Sunlesse days to have succeeded one another and so it might have been always had not God said Let there be Lights within the Firmament of heaven to make a difference betwixt day and night and to be peculiar garnishings of either Let them be also for signes of weather for seasons of the year and also for periods of days months and years 15 Moreover let them be as lights hung up within the hollow roof or Firmament of heaven to give light to men walking upon the pavement of the earth and it was so 16 And God made two great lights the greater one the most glorious Princely object we can see by day to be as it were the Governor and Monarch of the day the lesser the most resplendent and illustrious sight we can cast our eyes on by night to be Governesse and Queen of the night And he made though for their smalnesse they be not so considerable the Stars also 17 And he placed them all in the Firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth 18 And to shew their preheminence for external lustre above what ever else appears by either day or night and to be peculiar garnishings or ornaments to make a notable difference betwixt the light and the darknesse the superaddition of the Sun to adorn the day and to invigorate the light thereof the Moon and the Stars to garnish the night and to mitigate the dulnesse and darknesse thereof And God saw that it was good 19 And the evening and the morning was the fourth natural day 20 After this God commanded the waters to bring forth fish and fowl which they did in abundance and the fowl flew above the earth in the open Firmament of heaven 21 And God created great whales also as well as other fishes that move in the waters and God saw that it was good 22 And God blessed them saying Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let the fowl multiply on the earth 23 And the evening and the morning made up the fifth natural day 24 Then God commanded the earth to bring forth all creeping things and four footed beasts as before he commanded the waters to send forth fish and fowl and it was so 25 And when God had made the beast of the earth after his kinde and cattel and every creeping thing after his kinde he saw that it was good 26 And coming at last to his highest Master-piece Man he encouraged himself saying Go to let us now make man and I will make him after the same image and shape that I bear my self and he shall have dominion over the fish of the Sea and over the fowls of the Air and over the cattel and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth 27 So God created man in his own shape and figure with an upright stature with legs hands arms with a face and mouth to speak and command as God himself hath I say in the image of God did he thus create him But mistake me not whereas you conceive of God as masculine and more perfect yet you must not understand me as if God made mankinde so exactly after his own image that he made none but males for I tell you he made females as well as males as you shall hear more particularly hereafter 28 And having made them thus male and female he bad them make use of the distinction of sexes that he had given them and blessing them God said unto them Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with your off-spring and be lords thereof and have dominion also over the fish of the sea and over the fowls of the air as well as over beasts and cattel and every creeping thing that moves upon the earth 29 And God said Behold I give you every frugiferous herb which is upon the face of the earth such as the Straw-berry the several sorts of Corn as Rye Wheat and Rice as also the delicious fruits of Trees to you they shall be for meat 30 But for the beasts of the earth and the fowls of the air and for every living thing that creepeth upon the earth the worser kind of herbs and ordinary grasse I have assign'd for them and so it came to passe that mankinde are made lords and possessors of the choicest fruits of the earth and the beasts of the field are to be contented with baser herbage and the common grasse 31 And God viewed all the works that he had made and behold they were exceeding good and the evening and the morning was the sixt natural day CHAP. II. 3 The Original of the Jewish Sabbaths from Gods resting himself from his six days labours 5 Herbs and Plants before either Rain Gardning or Husbandry and the reason why it was so 7 Adam made of the dust of the ground and his soul breathed in at his nostrils 8 The Planting of Paradise 9 A wonderful Tree there that would continue youth and make a man immortal upon earth Another strange Tree viz. the Tree of knowledge of good and evil 11 The Rivers of Paradise Phasis Gihon Tigris Euphrates 18 The high commendation of Matrimony 19 Adam gives names to all kinde of creatures except fishes 21 Woman is made of a rib of Adam a deep sleep falling upon him his minde then also being in a trance 24 The first Institution of Marriage 1 THus the Heavens and the Earth were finisht and all the creatures wherewith they were garnisht and replenisht 2 And God having within six days perfected all his work on the seventh day he rested himself 3 And so made the seventh day an holy day a festival of rest because himself then first rested from his works Whence you plainly see the reason and original of your Sabbaths 4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth which I have so compendiously recounted to you as they were created in the days that the Lord made heaven and earth and the several garnishings of them 5 But there are some things that I would a little more fully touch upon and give you notice of to the praise of God and the manifesting of his power unto you As that the herbs and plants of the field did not come up of their own accords out of the earth before God made them but that God created them before there were any seeds of any such thing in the earth and before there was any rain or men to use gardning or husbandry for the procuring their growth So that hereafter
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
Aegyptum in manum dominorum duri And Exod. 22. 10. Et accipiet domini ejus for dominus The Text therefore necessarily requiring no such sense and the mysterie being so abstruse it is rightly left out in this Literal Cabbala Vers 2. In the first verse there was a summary Proposal of the whole Creation in those two main parts of it Heaven and Earth Now he begins the particular prosecution of each days work But it is not needful for him here again to inculcate the making of the Earth For it is the last word he spake in his general Proposal and therefore it had been harsh or needless to have repeated it presently again And that 's the reason why before the making of the Earth there is not prefixed And the Lord said Let there be an Earth Which I conceive has imposed upon the ignorance and inconsiderateness of some so as to make them believe that this confused muddy heap which is called the Earth was an Eternal First Matter independent of God and never created by him Which if a man appeal to his own Faculties is impossible as I shall again intimate when I come to the Philosophick Cabbala The sense therefore is That the Earth was made first which was covered with water and on the water was the wind and in all this a thick darkness And God was in this dark windy and wet Night So that this Globe of Earth and Water and Wind was but one dark Tempest and Sea-storm a Night of confusion and tumultuous Agitation For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not in the Letter any thing more then Ventus ingens A great and mighty wind As the Cedars of God and Mountains of God are tall Cedars great Mountains and so in Analogy the Wind of God a great Wind. Vers 3. But in the midst of this tempestuous darkness God intending to fall to his work doth as it were light his Lamp or set up himself a Candle in this dark Shop And what ever hitherto hath been mentioned are words that strike the Fancy and Sense strongly and are of easie perception to the rude people whom every dark and stormy Night may well reminde of the sad face of things till God commanded the comfortable Day to spring forth the sole Author of Light that so pleases the eyes and chears the spirits of Man And that Day-light is a thing independent of the Sun as well as the Night of the Stars is a conceit wondrous sutable to the imaginations of the Vulgar as I have my self found out by conversing with them They are also prone to think unlesse there be a sensible wind stirring that there is nothing betwixt the Earth and the Clouds but that it is a meer vacuity Wherefore I have not translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Air as Maimonides somewhere does but a mighty wind For that the rude people are sensible of and making the first deformed face of things so dismal and tempestuous it will cause them to remember the first morning light with more thankfulness and devotion Vers 4. For it is a thing very visible See what is said upon the eighth verse Vers 5. By Evening and Morning is meant the Artificial Day and the Artificial Night by a Synecdoche as Castellio in his Notes tells us Therefore this Artificial Day and Night put together make one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Natural Day And the Evening is put before the Morning Night before Day because Darkness is before Light But that Primitive darkness was not properly Night For Night is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle describes it one great Shaddow cast from the Earth which implies Light of one side thereof And therefore Night properly so called could not be before Light But the illiterate people trouble themselves with no such curiosities nor easily conceive any such difference betwixt that determinate Conical shaddow of the Earth which is Night and that infinite primitive Darkness that had no bounds before there was any Light And therefore that same Darkness prefixed to an Artificial Day makes up one Natural Day to them Which Hesiod also swallows down without chewing whether following his own fancy or this Text of Moses I know not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is But of the Night both Day and Skie were born Vers 6. This Basis or Floor That the Earth seems like a round Floor plain and running out so every way as to join with the bottome of the Heavens I have in my Introduction hinted to you already and that it is look'd upon as such in the phrase of Scripture accommodating it self to our outward senses and vulgar conceit Upon this Floor stands the hollow Firmament as a Tent pitched upon the ground which is the very expression of the Prophet Esay describing the Power of God That stretcheth out the Heavens like a Curtain and spreadeth them out as a Tent to dwell in And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is usually rendred Firmament signifies diduction expansion or spreading out But how the Seventy come to interpret it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Firmamentum Fuller in his Miscellanies gives a very ingenious reason and such as makes very much to our purpose Nam coelum seu 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he quandoquidem Tentoxio saepissimè in sacris literis assimilatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicitur quatenus expanditur Sic enim expandi solent Tentâ—ria quum alligatis ad paxillos in terram depactos funibus distenduntur atque hoc etiam pacto firmantur Itaque 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immensum quoddam ut ita dicam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ideóque 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non ineptè appelletur The sense of which in brief is nothing but this That the Seventy translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Firmamentum because the Heavens are spread out like a well-fastned and firmly pitched Ten. And I add also that they are so stiffely stretched that they will strongly bear against the weight of the upper waters so that they are not able to break them down and therewith to drown the world Which conceit as it is easie and agreeable with the fancy of the people so it is so far from doing them any hurt that it will make them more sensible of the divine Power and Providence who thus by main force keeps off a Sea of water that hangs over their heads which they discern through the transparent Firmament for it looks blew as other Seas do and would rush at once upon them and drown them did not the Power of God and the strength of the Firmament hold it off Vers 7. See what hath been already said upon the sixt verse I will only here add That the nearness of these upper waters makes them still the more formidable and so are greater spurs to devotion For as they are brought so near as to touch the Earth at the bottome so outward sense still being Judge they are to be within a small distance
Matter Castellio translates it Liquidum and this universal Matter is most what fluid still all over the world but at first it was fluid universally Betwixt the aforesaid fluid Possibility c. But here it may be you 'll enquire how this Corporeal Matter shall be conceived to be betwixt the waters above and these underneath For what can be the waters above Maimonides requires no such continued Analogy in the hidden sense of Scripture as you may see in his Preface to his Moreh Nevochim But I need not fly to that general refuge For me thinks that the Seminal Forms that descend through the Matter and so reach the Possibility of the parts of the outward Creation and make them spring up into act are not unlike the drops of rain that descend through the Heaven or Air and make the Earth fruitful Besides the Seminal Forms of things lie round as I may so speak and contracted at first but spread when they bring any part of the Possibility of the outward Creation into act as drops of rain spread when they are fallen to the ground So that the Analogy is palpable enough though it may seem too elaborate and curious We may adde to all this concerning the Naides or Water Nymphs that the Ancients understood by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All manner of Souls that descend into the Matter and Generation Wherefore the watry Powers as Porphyrius also calls these Nymphs it is not at all harsh to conceive that they may be here indigitated by the name of the Vpper waters See Porphyrius in his De Antro Nympharum Ver. 7. What mischief straying Souls The frequent complaints that that noble Spirit in Pythagoreans and Platonists makes against the incumbrances and disadvantages of the Body makes this Cabbala very probable And it is something like our Divines fancying Hell to be created this day Ver. 8. Actuated and agitated This is consonant to Plato's School who makes the Matter unmovable of it self which is most reasonable For if it were of its own nature movable nothing for a moment would hold together but dissolve it self into infinitely little Particles whence it is manifest that there must be something besides the Matter either to binde it or to move it So that the Creation of Immaterial Beeings is in that respect also necessary Rightly called Heaven I mean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this agitation of the Matter brought it to Des Cartes his second Principle which is the true Aether or rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it is liquid as water and yet has in it the fierce Principle of Fire which is the first Element and most subtile of all The thing is at first sight understood by Cartesians who will easily admit of that Notation of the Rabbines in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fire and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Water For so R. Bechai The Heavens sayes he were created from the beginning and are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fire and Water which no Philosophy makes good so well as the Cartesian For the round particles like water though they be not of the same Figure flake the fierceness of the first Principle which is the purest Fire And yet this Fire in some measure alway lies within the Triangular Intervals of the round Particles as that Philosophy declares at large And the Binary How fitly again doth the number agree with the nature of the work of this day which is the Creation of Corporeal Matter And the Pythagoreans call the number Two 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matter Simplicius upon Aristotles Physicks speaking of the Pythagoreans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They might well sayes he call One Form as defining and terminating to certain shape and property whatever it takes holds of And Two they might well call Matter it being undeterminate and the cause of Bigness and Divisibility And they have very copiously heaped upon the number Two such appellations as are most proper to Corporeal Matter As 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnfigured Vndeterminated Vnlimited For such is Matter of it self till Form take hold of it It is called also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the fluidity of the Matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it affords substance to the Heavens and Starres 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Contention Fate and Death for these are the consequencies of the Souls being joined with corporeal Matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Motion Generation and Division which are Properties plainly appertaining to Bodies They call this number also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Subject that endures and undergoes all the changes and alterations the active Forms put upon it Wherefore it is plain that the Pythagoreans understood Corporeal Matter by the number Two which no man can deny but that it is a very fit Symbole of Division that eminent Property of Matter But we might cast in a further reason of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being created the second day for the Celestial Matter does consist of two plainly distinguishable parts to wit the first Element and the second or the Materia subtilissima and the round Particles as I have already intimated out of Des Cartes his Philosophy Ver. 9. It is referred to the following day You are to understand that these Six numbers or days do not signifié any order of time but the nature of the things that were said to be made in them But for any thing in Moses his Philosophick Cabbala all might be made at once or in such periods of time as is most sutable to the nature of the things themselves What is said upon this ninth verse will be better understood and with more full satisfaction when we come to the fourth days work Ver. 13. And the Ternary denotes In this third day was the waters commanded into one place the Earth adorned with all manner of Plants Paradise and all the pleasure and plenty of it created wherein the Serpent beguiled Eve and so forth What can therefore be more likely then that the Pythagoreans use their numbers as certain remembrancers of the particular passages of this History of the Creation when as they call the number Three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Triton and Lord of the Sea which is in reference to Gods commanding the water into one place and making thereof a Sea They call also the Ternary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The former intimates the plenty of Paradise the latter relates to the Serpent there But now besides this we shall find the Ternary very significant of the nature of this days work For first the Earth consists of the third Element in the Cartesian Philosophy for the truth of that Philosophy will force it self in whether I will or no and then again there are three grand parts of
obvious to insist upon And thus Ignorance and Inquiry The soul of man is never quiet but in perpetual search till she has found out her own happinesse which is the heavenly Adam Christ the Image of God into which Image and likenesse when we are throughly awakened we are fully satisfied therewith till then we are in Ignorance and Confusion as the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does fitly signifie This Ignorance Confusion and Dissatisfaction puts us upon seeking according to that measure of the Morning light that hath already visited us And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to seek to consider and inquire This is the Generation of those that seek thy face O Jacob that is the face of Jesus Christ the result of the Sixt days work as I have intimated before Ver. 6. Of savoury and affectionate discernment Wherefore he will not assent to Solomons whore who says Stoln water is sweet but will rather use the words of the Samaritane woman to Christ when he had told her of those waters of the Spirit though she did not so perfectly reach his meaning Sir give me this water that I thirst not neither come hither to draw For who would seek to satisfie himself with the toilsome pleasures of the world when he may quench his desires with the delicious draughts of that true and yet easie-flowing Nectar of the Spirit of God Ver. 10. To compare to the Earth Origen compares this condition to the Earth for fruitfulnesse but I thought it not impertinent to take notice of the steadinesse of the Earth also But the condition of the ungodly is like the raging waves of the Sea or as the Prophet speaks The wicked are as the troubled Sea that cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt Esay 57. Ver. 11. He is a fruitful field This Interpretation is Origens as I intimated before Ver. 14. According to the difference of these lights What this difference is you will understand out of the sixteenth and eighteenth verses Ver. 18. To this one single but vigorous and effectual Light For indeed a true and sincere sense of this one comprehends all For all the Law is fulfilled in one word to wit in this Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and thy neighbour as thy self and to do so to others as we our selves would be done to Wherefore for men to make nothing of this Royal Law of Christ and yet to pretend to be more accurate Indagators into matters of Religion and more affectionate Lovers of Piety then ordinary is either to be abominably hypocritical or grossely ignorant in the most precious and necessary parts of Christianity and they walk by Star-light and Moon-light not under the clear and warm enlivening raies of the Sunne of Righteousnesse It is an excellent saying of Plato's in an Epistle of his to Dionysius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Truth lies in a little room and assuredly that which is best and most precious does when as the folly of every man notwithstanding so mis-guides him that his toil and study is but to adorn himself after the mode of the most ridiculous fellow in all the Graecian Army Thersites of whom the Poet gives this testimony that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he had a rabble of disordered Notions and fruitlesse Observations but that neither he nor any body else could make either head or foot of them nor himself became either more wise or more honest by having them That Precept of the Pythagoreans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Simplifie your self Reduce your self to One How wise how holy how true is it What a sure foundation is it of life liberty and easie sagacity in things belonging to Virtue Religion and Justice I think no man is born naturally so stupid but that if he will keep close to this single Light of divine Love in due time nay in a short time he will be no more to seek what is to be done in the carriage of his life to God or man then an unblemished eye will be at a losse to distinguish colours But if he forsake this One Light he will necessarily be benighted and his minde distracted with a multitude of needlesse and uncomfortable scrupulosities and faint and ineffectual Notions and every body will be ready to take him up for a night-wanderer and to chastise him for being out of his way and after it may be as friendly offer himself a guide to another path that will prove as little to the purpose unlesse he bring him into this Via Regia or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Saint James calls it This Royal Law of the sincere love of God and a mans neighbour Ver. 20. That is that the Concupiscible in man That the waters are an Emblem of this Concupiscible Venus her being born of the Sea does intimate which were not so much to the purpose did not Natural Philosophy and Experience certifie that Concupiscence is lodg'd in moisture Whence is that of Heraclitus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Porphyrius his De antro Nympharum i. e. Anima sicca sapientissima And without all question the inordinate use of the Concupiscible does mightily befor the soul and makes her very uncapable of divine Sense and Knowledge And yet to endevour after an utter insensibility of the pleasures of the body is as groundlesse and unwarrantable But concerning this I shall speak more fully on the 22. and 31. verses of this Chapter Ver. 21. Winged Ejaculations Whether mental or vocal they are not unfitly resembled to Fowls according to that of Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if vocal words have wings the inward desires of the soul may well be said to have wings also they being the words of the minde as the other are of the mouth and fly further for the most part and get sooner to Heaven then the other Note also that Origen likewise makes a difference here betwixt the Fish and the Fowl and makes the Fowl to be good cogitations the Fish evil But I account them rather both indifferent and to be regulated not extirpated by the Mystical Adam Christ the Image of God in Man And these strong Heats and Ejaculations are the effects of Melancholy wherein the divine Principle in man when it actuates it works very fiercely and sharply and is a great waster of the delightful moisture of the Concupiscible and weakens much the pleasures of the body to the great advantage of the minde if it be done with discretion and due moderation otherways if this passion be over-much indulged to it may lead to Hecticks Phrenzies and Distractions The contrivance of the Text mentioning only such Fowls as frequent the waters naturally points to this sense we have given it but if our imagination strike out further to other winged creatures as the Fowls of the Mountains and sundry sorts of Birds they may also have their proper meanings and are a part
that in processe of time not onely Ecclesiastical but Civil power it self will be involved in those ruines and Christ alone will be exalted in that day For before he deliver up the Kingdome to his Father he is to put down all Rule and all Authority and Power For he must reign till he have put all his enemies under his feet The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death which as I have already signified unto you though he be now the King of Terrours will in that great Festival and Sabbatisme by reason of so sensible and palpable union betwixt the Heavenly and Earthly nature be but a pleasant passage into an higher room or to use that more mysterious expression of the Rabbins concerning Moses in whose writings this Sabbatisme is adumbrated God will draw up a mans soul to himself by an Amorous kisse For such was the death of that holy man Moses who is said to have died in Moab 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the kisses and embracements of God This shall be the condition of the Church of Christ for many hundred years Till the Wheel of Providence driving on further and the Stage of things drawing on to their last Period men shall not onely be freed from the fear and pain of death but there shall be no capacity of dying at all For then shall the day of the Lord come wherein the Heavens shall passe away with a noise and the Elements melt with fervent heat and the Earth with all the things in it shall be burnt up Thus Christ having done vengeance upon the obstinately wicked and disobedient and fully triumphed over all his enemies he will give up his Kingdome to his Father whose Vicegerent hitherto he hath been in the affairs of both Men and Angels But till then whosoever by pretending to be more Spiritual and Mystical then other men would smother those essential Principles of the Christian Religion that have reference to the external Person of Christ let him phrase it as well as he will or speak as magnificently of himself as he can we are never to let go the plain and warrantable Faith of the Word for ungrounded fancies and fine sayings Wherefore let every man seek God apart and search out the Truth in the holy Scripture preparing himself for a right understanding thereof by stedfastly and sincerely practising such things as are plainly and uncontrovertedly contained therein and expect illumination according to the best communication thereof that is answerably to our own faculties otherwise if we bid all Reason and History and Humane helps and Acquisitions quite adiew the world will never be rid of Religious Lunacies and Fancies FINIS AN ACCOUNT of what is contained in the Prefaces and Chapters of this Book In the Preface to the Reader What is meant by the tearm Cabbala and how warrantably the literal Exposition of the Text may be so called That dispensable speculations are best propounded in a Sceptical manner A clear description of the nature and digniety of Reason and what the divine Logos is The general probabilities of the truth of this present Cabbala The designe of the Author in publishing of it THE LITERAL CABBALA CHAP. I. 2 The Earth at first a deep miry abysse covered over with waters over which was a fierce wind and through all darknesse 3 Day made at first without a Sun 6 The Earth a floor the Heavens a transparent Canopy or strong Tent over it to keep off the upper waters or blew conspicuous Sea from drowning the world 8 Why this Tent or Canopy was not said to be good 9 The lower waters commanded into one place 11 Herbs flowers and fruits of Trees before either Sun or seasons of the year to ripen them 14 The Sun created to and added the day as a peculiar ornament thereof as the Moon and Stars to the night 20 The Creation of Fish and Fowl 24 The Creation of beasts and creeping things 27 Man created in the very shape and figure of God but yet so that there were made females as well as males 28 How man came to be Lord over the rest of living creatures 30 How it came to pass that man feeds on the better sort of the fruits of the Earth and the beasts on the worse p. 1 CHAP. II. 3 The Original of the Jewish Sabbaths from Gods resting himself from his six days labours 5 Herbs and Plants before either Rain Gardning or Husbandry and the reason why it was so 7 Adam made of the dust of the ground and his soul breathed in at his nosthrils 8 The Planting of Paradise 9 A wonderful Tree there that would continue youth and make a man immortal upon earth Another strange Tree viz. the Tree of knowledge of good and evil 11 The Rivers of Paradise Phasis Gihon Tigris Euphrates 18 The high commendation of Matrimony 19 Adam gives names to all kinde of creatures except fishes 21 Woman is made of a rib of Adam a deep sleep falling upon him his minde then also being in a trance 24 The first Institution of Marriage 9 CHAP. III. 1 A subtile Serpent in Paradise indued with both reason and the power of speech deceives the woman 2 The Dialogue betwixt the woman and the Serpent 7 How the shame of nakednesse came into the world 8 God walks in the Garden and calls to Adam 10 The Dialogue betwixt Adam and God 14 The reasons why Serpents want feet and creep upon the ground 15 The reason of the antipathy betwixt Men and Serpents 16 As also of womens pangs in childe-bearing and of their being bound in subjection to their husbands 18 Also of the barrennesse of the earth and of mans toil and drudgery 21 God teacheth Adam and Eve the use of leathern clothing 24 Paradise haunted with apparitions Adam frighted from daring to taste of the Tree of Life whence his posterity became mortal to this very day 15 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 22 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
you may have the more firm faith in God for the blessings and fruits of the earth when the ordinary course of nature shall threaten dearth and scarcity for want of rain and seasonable showers 6 For there had been no showers when God caused the plants and herbs of the field to spring up out of the earth onely as I told you at the first of all there was a mighty torrent of water that rose every where above the earth and cover'd the universal face of the ground which yet God afterward by his almighty power commanded so into certain bounds that the residue of the earth was meer dry land 7 And that you farther may understand how the power of God is exalted above the course of natural causes God taking of the the dust of his dry ground wrought it with his hands into such a temper that it was matter fit to make the body of a Man which when he first had fram'd was as yet but like a senslesse statue till coming near unto it with his mouth he breath'd into the nostrils thereof the breath of life as you may observe to this day that men breath through their nostrils though their mouths be clos'd And thus man became a living creature and his name was called Adam because he was made of the earth 8 But I should have told you first more at large how the Lord God planted a Garden Eastward of Judea in the Countrey of Eden about Mesopotamia where afterwards he put the man Adam whom he after this wise had form'd 9 And the description of this Garden is this Out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every Tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food But amongst these several sorts of Trees there were two of singular notice that stood planted in the midst of the Garden the one of which had fruit of that wonderful virtue as to continue youth and strength and to make a man immortal upon earth wherefore it was call'd the Tree of Life There was also another Tree planted there of whose fruit if a man ate it had this strange effect that it would make a man know the difference betwixt good and evil for the Lord God had so ordain'd that if Adam touched the forbidden fruit thereof he should by his disobedience feel the sense of evil as well as good wherefore by way of Anticipation it was called the Tree of knowledge of good and evil 10 And there was a River went out of Eden to water the Garden and from thence it was parted and became into four heads 11 The name of the first was Phasis or Phasi-Tigris which compasses the whole Land of the Chaulateans where there is Gold 12 And the Gold of that Land is excellent there is also found Bdellium and the Onyx-stone 13 And the name of the second River is Gihon the same is it that compasseth the whole Land of the Arabian-Aethiopia 14 And the name of the third River is Tigris that is that which goeth towards the East of Assyria and the fourth River is Euphrates 15 And the Lord God took the man Adam by the hand and led him into the Garden of Eden and laid commands upon him to dresse it and look to it and to keep things handsome and in order in it and that it should not be any wise spoil'd or misus'd by incursions or careless ramblings of the heedlesse beasts 16 And the Lord God recommended unto Adam all the Trees of the Garden for very wholesome and delightful food bidding him freely eat thereof 17 Only he excepted the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which he strictly charg'd him to forbear for if he ever tasted thereof he should assuredly die 18 But to the high commendation of Matrimony be it spoken though God had placed Adam in so delightful a Paradise yet his happinesse was but maimed and imperfect till he had the society of a woman For the Lord God said It is not good that man should be alone I will make him an help meet for him 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had form'd every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and these brought he unto Adam to see what he would call them and whatsoever Adam called every living creature that was the name thereof 20 And Adam gave names to all cattel and to the fowls of the air and to every beast of the field but he could not so kindly take acquaintance with any of these or so fully enjoy their society but there was still some considerable matter wanting to make up Adams full felicity and there was a meet help to be found out for him 21 Wherefore the Lord God caus'd a deep sleep to fall upon Adam lo as he slept upon the ground he fell into a dream how God had put his hand into his side and pulled out one of his ribs closing up the flesh in stead thereof 22 And how the rib which the Lord God had taken from him was made into a woman and how God when he had thus made her took her by the hand and brought her unto him And he had no sooner awakened but he found his dream to be true for God stood by him with the woman in his hand which he had brought 23 Wherefore Adam being pre-advertised by the vision was presently able to pronounce This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh What are the rest of the creatures to this And he bestowed upon her also a fitting name calling her Woman because she was taken out of Man 24 And the Lord God said Thou hast spoken well Adam And for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they two shall be one flesh so strict and sacred a tie is the band of wedlock 25 And they were both naked Adam and his wife and were not ashamed but how the shame of being seen naked came into the world I shall declare unto you hereafter CHAP. III. 1 A subtile Serpent in Paradise indued with both reason and the power of speech deceives the woman 2 The Dialogue betwixt the woman and the Serpent 7 How the shame of nakednesse came into the world 8 God walks in the Garden and calls to Adam 10 The Dialogue betwixt Adam and God 14 The reasons why Serpents want feet and creep upon the ground 15 The reason of the antipathy betwixt Men and Serpents 16 As also of womens pangs in child-bearing and of their being bound in subjection to their husbands 18 Also of the barrennesse of the earth and of mans toil and drudgery 21 God teacheth Adam and Eve the use of leathern clothing 24 Paradise haunted with apparitions Adam frighted from daring to taste of the Tree of Life whence his posterity became mortal to this very day 1 AND truly it cannot but be very obvious for you to consider often with your selves not onely how this shame of
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
time becomes a Spirit of savoury and affectionate discernment betwixt the evil and the good betwixt the pure waters that flow from the holy Spirit and the muddy and tumultuous suggestions of the Flesh 7 And thus is Man enabled in a living manner to distinguish betwixt the earthly and heavenly life 8 For the heavenly Principle is now made to him a Spirit of savoury discernment and being taught by God after this manner he will not fail to pronounce that this Principle whereby he has so quick and lively a sense of what is good and evil is heavenly indeed And thus Ignorance and Enquiry is made the second days progresse 9 Now the sweetnesse of the upper waters being so well relisht by man he has a great nauseating against the lower feculent waters of the unbounded desires of the flesh So that God adding power to his will the inordinate desires of the flesh are driven within set limits and he has a command over himself to become more stayed and steady 10 And this steadinesse and command he gets over himself he is taught by the divine Principle in him to compare to the Earth or dry land for safenesse and stability but the desires of the flesh he looks upon as a dangerous and turbulent Sea Wherefore the bounding of them thus and arriving to a state of command over a mans self and freedome from such colluctations and collisions as are found in the working Seas the divine Nature in him could not but approve as good 11 For so it comes to passe by the will of God and according to the nature of things that this state of sobriety in man he being in so good a measure rid of the boisterousnesse of evil Concupiscence gives him leisure so to cultivate his minde with principles of Virtue and Honesty that he is as a fruitful field whom the Lord hath blessed 12 Sending forth out of himself sundry sorts of fruit-bearing trees herbs and flowers that is various kindes of good works to the praise of God and the help of his neighbour and God and his own Conscience witnesse to him that this is good 13 And thus Ignorance and Inquiry is made the third days progresse 14 Now when God has proceeded so far in the Spiritual Creation as to raise the heavenly Principle in man to that power and efficacy that it takes hold on his affections and brings forth laudable works of Righteousnesse he thereupon adds a very eminent accession of Light and Strength setting before his eyes sundry sorts of Luminaries in the heavenly or intellectual Nature whereby he may be able more notoriously to distinguish betwixt the Day and the Night that is betwixt the condition of a truly illuminated soul and one that is as yet much benighted in ignorance and estranged from the true knowledge of God For according to the difference of these Lights it is signified to a man in what condition himself or others are in whether it be indeed Day or Night with them Summer or Winter Spring time or Harvest or what period or progresse they have made in the divine Life 15 And though there be so great a difference betwixt these Lights yet the meanest are better then meer darknesse and serve in some measure or other to give light to the Earthly man 16 But among these many Lights which God makes to appear to man there are two more eminent by far then the rest The greater of which two has his dominion by day and is a faithful guide to those which walk in the day that is that work the works of righteousnesse And this greater Light is but one but does being added mightily invigorate the former day-light man walked by and it is a more full appearance of the Sun of Righteousnesse which is an hearty and sincere Love of God and a mans neighbour The lesser of these two great Lights has dominion by night and is a rule to those whose inward mindes are held as yet too strongly in the works of darknesse and it is a Principle weak and variable as the Moon and is called Inconstancy of Life and Knowledge There are alsoan abundance of other little Lights thickly dispersed over the whole Understanding of man as the Stars in the Firmament which you may call Notionality or Multiplicity of ineffectual Opinions 17 But the worst of all these are better then down-right Sensuality and Brutishnesse and therefore God may well be said to set them up in the heavenly part of man his Understanding to give what light they are able to his earthly parts his corrupt and inordinate Affections 18 And as the Sun of Righteousnesse that is the hearty and sincere Love of God and a mans neighbour by his single light and warmth with chearfulnesse and safety guides them that are in the day so that more uneven and changeable Principle and the numerous Light of Notionality may conduct them as well as they are able that are benighted in darknesse And what is most of all considerable a man by the wide difference of these latter Lights from that of the Day may discern when himself or another is benighted in the state of unrighteousnesse For multifarious Notionality and Inconstancy of life and knowledge are certain signs that a man is in the night But the sticking to this one single but vigorous and effectual Light of the hearty and sincere Love of God and a mans neighbour is a signe that a man walks in the day And he that is arrived to this condition plainly discerns in the Light of God that all this is very good 19 And thus Ignorance and Inquiry is made the fourth days progresse 20 And now so noble so warm and so vigorous a Principle or Light as the Sun of Righteousnesse being set up in the heavenly part of the Soul of man the unskilful may unwarily expect that the next news will be that even the Seas themselves are dried up with the heat thereof that is that the Concupiscible in man is quite destroyed But God doth appoint far otherwise for the waters bring forth abundance of Fish as well as Fowl innumerable 21 Thoughts therefore of natural delights do swim to and fro in the Concupiscible of man and the fervent love he bears to God causes not a many faint ineffectual notions but an abundance of holy affectionate meditations and winged Ejaculations that fly up heaven-ward which returning back again and falling upon the numerous fry of natural Concupiscence help to lessen their numbers as those fowls that frequent the waters devour the fish thereof And God and good men do see nothing but good in all this 22 Wherefore God multiplies the thoughts of natural delight in the lower Concupiscible as well as he does those heavenly thoughts and holy meditations that the entire Humanity might be filled with all the degrees of good it is capable of and that the divine Life might have something to order and overcome 23 And thus Ignorance and Inquiry made the
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
and that of his own brother For taking advantage of his present necessity he forced him to sell his birth-right for a mâ—sse of pottage What a notorious piece of fraud is that of Rebecca that while industrious Esau is ranging the Woods and Mountains to fulfill his fathers command and please his aged appetite she should substitute Jacob with his both counterfeit hands and Venison to carry away the blessing intended by the good old man for his officious elder son Esau Jacobs rods of Poplar an ill example to servants to defraud their masters and Rachels stealing Labans Tâ—â—raphim and concealing them with a falshood how warrantable an act it was let her own husband give sentence With whomsoever thou findest thy Gods let him not live Gen. 31. 32. I might be infinite in this point I will only add one example of Womans perfidious cruelty as it will seem at first sight and so conclude Sisera Captain of Jabins host being worsted by Israel fled on his feet to the Tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite who was in league and confederacy with Jabin This Jael was in shew so courteous as to meet Sisera and invite him into her Tent saying Turn in my Lord turn in to me Fear not And when he had turned in unto her into the Tent she covered him with a mantle And he said unto her Give me I pray thee a little water to drink And she opened a bottle of Milk and gave him drink and covered him In short he trusted her with his life and gave himself to her protection and she suddenly so soon as he fell asleep drove a nail with an hammer into his temples and betrayed his Corps to the will of his enemies An act certainly that the Spirit of God would not have approved much lesse applauded so much but in reference to the Mysterie that lies under it My three Rules for the interpreting of Scripture I have I hope by this time sufficiently established by way of a more general preparation to the Defence of my threefold Cabbala I shall now apply my self to a more particular clearing and confirming the several passages therein 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 darkness 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 THE first Rule that I laid down in my Introduction to the Defence of my Threefold Cabbala I need not here again repeat but desire the Reader only to carry it in minde and it will warrant the easie and familiar sense that I shall settle upon Moses his Text in the Literal meaning thereof Unto which if I adde also reasons from the pious prudence of this holy Law-giver shewing how every passage makes for greater faith in God and more affectionate obedience to his Law there will be nothing wanting I think though I shall sometimes cast in some notable advantages also from Critical Learning that may gain belief to the truth of the Interpretation Vers 1. In this first verse I put no other sense of In the beginning then that it denotes to us the order of the History Which is also the opinion of Maimonides who deriving 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying the head rightly observes the Analogy that as the head is the forepart of a living creature so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies that which is placed first in any thing else And that thus the Creation of the world is the head or forepart of the History that Moses intends to set down Wherefore Moses having in his minde as is plain from the Title of this book Genesis as well as the matter therein contained to write an History and Genealogy from the beginning of the world to his own time it is very easie and obvious to conceive that in reference to what he should after add he said In the beginning As if the whole frame of his thoughts lay thus First of all God made the Heavens and the Earth with all that they contain the Sun Moon and Stars the Day and Night the Plants and living creatures that were in the Air Water and on the Earth and after all these he made Adam and Adam begot Cain and Abel and so on in the full continuance of the History and Genealogies And this sense I conceive is more easie and natural then that of Austin Ambrose and Besil who will have In the Beginning to signifie In the Beginning of Time or In the Beginning of the world And yet I thought it not amiss to name also these that the Reader may take his choice God made Heaven and Earth Maimonides and Manasseh Ben Israel observe these three words used in Scripture when Creation of the world is attributed to God viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the production of things out of nothing which is the Schools Notion of Creation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the making up a thing perfect and compleat according to its own kinde and properties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intimates the dominion and right possession that God has of all things thus created or made But though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the mind of the Learned Jews signifies Creation properly so called yet the Seventy observe no such Criticisme but translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is no more then made And vulgar men are not at leisure to distinguish so subtilly Wherefore this latter sense I receive as the vulgar Literal sense the other as Philosophical And where I use the word Creation in this Literal Cabbala I understand but that common and general Notion of Making a thing be it with what circumstances it will Neither do I translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the plural number the Trinity Because as Vatablus observes out of the Hebrew Doctors that when the inferiour speaks of his superiour he speaks of him in the Plural Number So Esay 19. 4. Tradam
vitae aerumnis That it is the mercy of God that he made man mortal that he might not always be tormented with the miseries and sorrows of this present life Passing through his fiery Vehicle The following words explain the meaning of the Cabbala it is according to the sense of that Plato amongst the Poets as Severus called him Virgil in the sixt Book of his Aeneids Donec longa diês perfecto temporis orbe Concretam exemit labem purúmque reliquit Aethereum sensum atque aurai simplicis ignem To this sense Till that long day at last be come about That wasted has all filth and foul desire And leaves the Soul Aethereal throughout Bathing her Senses in pure liquid Fire Which we shall yet back very fittingly with the two last Golden Verses as they are called of the Pythagoreans who adde immortality to this Aethereal condition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rid of this body if the Aether free You reach henceforth immortal you shall bee The Greek has it you shall be an Immortal God which Hierocles interprets you shall imitate the Deity in this in becoming immortal And Plutarch in his Defect of Oracles drives on this Apotheosis according to the order of the Elements Earth refined to Water Water to Air Air to Fire So man to become of a Terrestrial Animal one of the Heroes of an Heros a Daemon or good Genius of a Genius a God which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to partake of Divinity which is no more then to become one of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Immortal Angels who are instar flammae as Maimonides writes they are according to their Vehicles a versatile fire turning themselves Proteus-like into any shape They are the very words of the forenamed Rabbi upon the place And Philo Judaeus pag. 234. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For there is saith he in the Air a most holy company of unbodied Souls and presently he adjoins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and these Souls the holy Writ uses to call Angels And in another place pag. 398. he speaking of the more pure Souls calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. The Officers of the Generalissimo of the World that are as the Eyes and Ears of the great King seeing and hearing all things and then he addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These other Philosophers call the Genii but the Scripture Angels And in another place he says That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that a Soul Genius and Angel are three words that signifie both one and the same thing As Xenocrates also made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all one adding that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 happy that had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a virtuous Soul Wherefore not to weary my Reader nor my self with overmuch Philogy we conclude that the meaning of Moses in this last verse is this That Adam is here condemned to a mortal flitting and impermanent state till he reach his Aethereal or pure fiery Vehicle and become as our Saviour Christ speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one of the Angels This I say is the condition of mankinde according to the Philosophick Cabbala of Moses Let us now take a general view of this whole Cabbala and more summarily consider the strength thereof which we may refer to these two heads viz. the nature of the Truths herein contained and the dignity of those persons that have owned them in foregoing Ages And as for the Truths themselves first they are such as may well become so holy and worthy a person as Moses if he would Philosophize they being very precious and choice Truths and very highly removed above the conceit of the vulgar and so the more likely to have been delivered to him or to Adam first by God for a special mysterie Secondly they are such that the more they are examined the more irrefutable they will be found no Hypothesis that was ever yet propounded to men so exquisitely well agreeing with the Phaenomena of Nature the Attributes of God the Passages of Providence and the rational Faculties of our own minds Thirdly there is a continued sutablenesse and applicability to the Text of Moses all along without any force or violence done to Grammar or Criticisme Fourthly and lastly there is a great usefulnesse if not necessity at least of some of them they being such substantial Props of Religion and so great encouragements to a sedulous purification of our mindes and study of true piety Now for the dignity of the persons such as were Pythagoras Plato and Plotinus it will be argued from the constant fame of that high degree of virtue and righteousnesse and devout love of the Deity that is every where acknowledged in them besides whatsoever miraculous has happened to them or been performed by them And as for Pythagoras if you consult his life in Iamblichus he was held in so great admiration by those in his time that he was thought by some to be the son of Apollo whom he begot of Parthenis his known mother and of this opinion was Epimenides Eudoxus and Xenocrates which conceit Iamblichus does soberly and earnestly reject but afterwards acknowledges that his looks and speeches did so wonderfully carry away the minds of all that conversed with him that they could not withhold from affirming that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the off-spring of God Which is not to be taken in our strict Theological sense but according to the mode of the ancient Greeks who looked upon men heroically and eminently good and virtuous to be divine souls and of a celestial extract And Aristotle takes notice particularly of the Lacedemonians that they tearmed such as were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divine men According to which sense he interprets that verse in Homer concerning Hector 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But to return to him of whom we were speaking before This eminency of his acknowledged amongst the Heathen will seem more credible if we but consider the advantage of his conversation with the wisest men then upon Earth to wit the Jewish Priests and Prophets who had their knowledge from God as Pythagoras had from them From whence I conceive that of Iamblichus to be true which he writes concerning Pythagoras his Philosophy That it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it is a Philosophy that at first was delivered by God or his holy Angels But that Pythagoras was acquainted with the Mosaical or Jewish Philosophy there is ample testimony of it in Writers as of Aristobulus an Aegyptian Jew in Clemens Alexandrinus and Josephus against Appion S. Ambrose addes that he was a Jew himself Clemens calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Hebrew Philosopher I might cast hither the suffrages of Justine Johannes Philoponus Theodoret Hermippus in Origen against Celsus Porphyrius and Clemens again who writes
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
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
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
of the Clouds at the top And that these upper waters are no higher then so it is manifest from other passages in Scripture that place the habitation of God but amongst the Clouds who yet is called the most High Psalm 104. 3. Deut. 33. 26. Nahum 1. 3. Psalm â—8 4. But of this I have treated so fully elsewhere that I hold it needless to add any thing more Ver. 8. I cannot say properly that God saw it was good In the whole story of the three first Chapters it is evident that God is represented in the person of a Man speaking with a mouth and seeing with eyes Hence it is that the Firmament being of it self invisible that Moses omits the saying that God saw it was good For the nature of the eye is onely to see things visible Some say God made Hell the second day and that that is the reason it was not recorded that he saw it was good But if he did not approve of it as good why did he make it However that can be none of the Literal sense and so impertinent to this present Cabbala Ver. 10. And I may now properly say c. See what hath been said already upon verse the eight Ver. 11. Whence you may easily discern c. This Observation is Philo the Jew 's which you may read at large in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it was very fit for Moses who in his Law which he received from God does so much insist upon temporal blessings and eating of the good things of the Land as a reward of their obedience to lay down such principles as should beget a firm belief of the absolute power of God over Nature That he could give them rain and fruitful seasons and a plentiful year when he pleased when as he could cause the Earth to bring forth without rain or any thing else to further her births as he did at the first Creation The Meditation whereof might well cause such an holy resolution as that in the Prophet Habakkuk Although the fig-tree shall not blossome neither fruit be in the Vines the labour of the Olive fail and the fields yeeld no meat yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation But that prudent and pious caution of Moses against Idolatry how requisite it was is plain if we consider that the power of the Sun is so manifest and his operation so sensible upon the Earth for the production of things below especially of Plants that he hath generally drawn aside the rude and simple Heathen to idolize him for a God And their nimble Oracles have snatched away the sacred Name of the God of Israel the true God to bestow upon him calling him Jao which is Jehovah as is plain from that Clarian Oracle in Macrobius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which I have translated thus in my Poems That Heavenly Power which Jao hight The highest of all the Gods thou maist declare In Spring nam'd Zeus in Summer Helios bright In Autumne called Jao Aides in brumal night These names do plainly denotate the Sunne In Spring call'd Zeus from life or kindly heat In Winter ' cause the day 's so quickly done He Aides hight he is not long in sight In Summer ' cause he strongly doth us smite With his hot darts then Helios we him name From Eloim or Eloah so hight In Autumn Jao Jehovan is the same So is the word deprav'd by an uncertain fame This Oracle Cornelius Labeo interprets of Bacchus which is the same with the Sun who is the God of the Vintage and is here described according to the four Quarters of the year And so Virgil Heathen-like attributes to the Sun and Moon under the name of Bacchus and Ceres that great blessing of Corn and Grain Vestro si numine Tellus Chaoniam pingui glandem mutavit aristâ If by your providence the Earth has born For course Chaonian Acorns full-ear'd Corn. But of this I have said so much in my Introduction that I need add nothing more Ver. 12. See ver 11. Ver. 14. See ver 3. I have there shown how easily the fancie of the rude people admit of days without a Sun To whose capacities the Prophet Jeremy accommodating his speech Her Sun sayes he is gone down while it was yet day How can it be day when the Sun is down unless the day be Independent of the Sun according to the fancie of the rude and illiterate Which is wonderfully consonant to the outward letter of Moses that speaks not of the Sun as the cause of the Day but as a badge of distinction from the Night though he does admit that it does increase the light thereof Ver. 15. In the hollow Roof c. Though the caeruleous upper Sea seems so neer us as I have already signified yet the Lights of Heaven seem something on this side it as white will stand off drawn upon a darker colour as you may see in the describing solid Figures on a blew slate they will more easily rise to your eye then black upon white so that the people may very well consulting with their sight Imagine the Firmament to be betwixt the Lights of Heaven and the upper Waters or that blew Sea they look upon not on this side nor properly betwixt the Lights or Stars Ver. 16. Two great Lights c. This is in counter-distinction to the Stars which indeed seem much less to our sight then the Sun or Moon when as notwithstanding many Stars according to Astronomers computation are bigger then the Sun all far bigger then the Moon So that it is plain the Scripture speaks sometimes according to the appearance of things to our sight not according to their absolute affections and properties And he that will not here yeeld this for a truth is I think justly to be suspected of more Ignorance then Religion and of more Superstition then Reason For their smalnesse c. The Stars indeed seem very small to our sight and therefore Moses seems to cast them in but by the by complying therein with the ignorance of the unlearned But Astronomers who have made it their business to understand their magnitudes they that make the most frugal computation concerning the bigger Stars pronounce them no less then sixty eight times bigger then the Earth others much more Ver. 18. To be peculiar garnishings See verse 14. Ver. 20. Fish and Fowl I suppose the mention of the Fowl is made here with the Fish by reason that the greatest and more eminent sorts of that kinde of creature most of all frequent the waters as Swannes Geese Ducks Herons and the like Ver. 20. In his own shape It was the opinion of the Anthropomorphites that God had all the parts of a Man and that we are in this sense made according to his Image Which though it be an opinion in it self if not rightly understood vain and ridiculous yet theirs