on tip-toes at the threshall of the body can take a surer and further survey then being close immured that the separated soul doth understand more then being united to the body I take it to be not from a quicker apprehension but from more glorious objects Some referre this which I took unto the spoilo gotten from the Sichemites by the sons of Jacob but that seemeth very harsh For their Father Gen. 34. 30. reproved them for their perfidious dealing with them and Gen. 49. 6. he curseth them for it Now that goods treacherously gotten should be their portion is somewhat absurd It will run more smooth prophetically that I have taken for that I shall take besides the trope of the Father for the Sons And so by faith he triumphs before the victory Such a spirit there was in David who blazoned the trophees before the conquest Gilead is mine and Manassch is mine c. Psal 60. But why Joseph should have that of the Amorite taken by sword and bow more then the rest my conjecture is he doth for the preservativation of his Brethren in Egypt assigne him this surplus above his Brethren among whom he had besides his portion equally divided by lot Ezek. 47. 13. For to none of his remaining Sons did he bequeath a determinate residence That he doth confine the Sea-coast unto Zebulon Gen. 49. 13. is rather a presage of his nautick profession then a supernumerary grant above his equalls Levit. 13. 13. Then the Priest shall consider and behold if the Leprosie hath covered all his flesh he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague it is turned white he is clean FOr the clearing of this because vulgar reason would conclude the contrary I must premise a few words The Ceremonies of the Jews were either typicall having reference to Christ or Symbolicall by which as Gods Hieroglyplicks they were tutored in some morall homages Or more plainly thus They were either of Priviledges and so Evangelical or of duties Of which latter sort were Not to assimilate the mselves according to the superstitious fashions of the Sabeans or Ghaldeans their Neighbours Of the like nature was seething the kid in the milk of the dam the cutting of corners in the hair which with them were appurtenances unto fascination In several of these Laws the thing it self was no sin though there did cleave a legal uncleannesse unto it Sometime it was commanded as laying forth and burying of the dead yea the interring of corpses the Politicians Grotius make a law of nature being a preservation of the living Sometime naturall as sicknesse and issues Now and then defective as Eunuchs Note by the way God took away in an advantagous substitute in the Gospel their barrennesse by baptizing the Eunuch according to his promise Esa 56. 3. Now for the explaining of this text Why being spread over he should be clean two reasons may be given Physicall and Ceremoniall Physicall when a disease is spread all over the body as in that soon cured kind of Dropsy called Leucophlegmatia Nature will easily recover that because every part hath an innate heat to preserve it self and expell that which is noxious and so the discrimen certaminis the maine body of the enemy doth not lay upon one part except it be in a raw crisis where after a battle conquering nature doth ablegate its adversary to the vilest and remotest emunctories The Ceremoniall reason I take from the severall Laws given to the Jews forbidding mixture either of themselves with others or of things of severall kinds as of making linsey-wolsey plowing with an oxe and an asse sowing of mesling c. into which primitive institution the Rabbins have shuffled burdensome and ridiculous devices of their own whereas either of these without any tesellation or checker-work single were lawfull So this Symbolizing with the former if it were all over of one colour viz. white because void of heterogeneous mixture it was pronounced clean If the Allegory were not strained the overspread Leprosy an Embleme of our sins and the whitenesse of righteousnesse might have an aspect unto Christ Levit. 16. How could the Scape-goat be a type of Christs Resurrection as generally it is expounded since Quest it never dyed BEcause its fellow which was chosen by Answ lot did die And for that Resurrection was not competent unto beasts that one offering was sown up and patcht of two individualls whereof one died and the other escaped and being one continued act did conjunctim resemble the death and resurrection of Christ. The uncapablenesse of the Subject in one distributed this type into two and because no remission of sin without blood the latter died in the former and the former revived in the latter So the escape of one of the represented was an adumbration of the Resurrection since it was reprieved from death by the immediate oracle of God in the lot Numb 36. 7. None were to marry out of their own Family TWo sorts of persons were exempted First the Levites and that upon good ground because they had no inheritance among their bretheren And secondly the Royall family was not obliged thereunto their portion being assigned them out of the Kings Exchequer I And this well considered answereth many objections and without this Latitude severall difficulties and Remora's will arise in the Old Testament casting as it were a suspicion of levity by a transgression of this precept among the most eminent of the Jews But the poor though they had passed away their inheritance were not exempted from this law because either their near kinsman might redeem it or at the year of Jubile it was restored gratis The accomplishing of the presage of the linage of the Messiah was a Cardinall cause of this edict As far as it is grounded upon equity it bindeth us analogically though not in eodem puncto Deut. 21. ult He that is hanged on a tree is accursed of God BOth former and latter Expositors run for the nativity of this back unto Paradise to the first sin which was brought forth between the knees of a tree and therefore hanging on a tree is become a malediction But that I think is too far fetcht for a Gibbet is and may be made variously of any other substance This sentence is not to be taken in a moral signification reaching any sorts of people but in a Judicial sense proper to the Jews and therefore the reasons must not be common to all the Universe of mankind but drawn from their Political constitution This capital punishment was no curse of it self no more then the lapidation precipitation sword or fire was Two probable reasons may be given First that this kind of death was without effusion of blood which strangulation even in beasts and that otherwise clean-ones was an abhorred thing among the Jews and so Ceremonially accursed Many both godly and wise Expositors hold this reason to be moral But 2dly as in some creatures their own entrails
were Adam and Eve the greatest sinners in the world If the world be taken for the whole Universe it comprehendeth the Angels which sinned from inward principles and that irrecoverably Neither of which is quadrating with the fall of man But take the world stricter for Mankind certainly they escaped the experience of the fruit of sin which is its aggravation nor were warned by the examples of others Neither sinned they against Evangelical mercie nor that pardonless sin the remission whereof we may not deprecate Their sin indeed was by contagion the greatest extensivè as being the source of all not in their persons intensivè Ch. 2. That Satan knew the Deity of Christ at his temptation I would rather incline to believe he having seen the compleating of all the prophecies not being ignorant at his conception of the congratulation of his Mother at the birth of the hymn of Angels and the testimony of shepherds and at his baptism seeing the Dove and hearing the witness both of heaven and earth God and John Add unto these their number and nimbleness of communication he himself is afterward brought in to give a subtile or extorted testimony of his Deity Luke 4. 41. Either when the weaker was overcome by the stronger or that with more ease he might delude when he should be called forsooth a Christian Neither is it safe to extenuate his sin or to be his Advocate in pleading his ignorance Ib. I think it a sin in Devils to despair the like I hold of reprobates I mean of the same Oeconomy If you object they have no commandement or overture to hope I answer they had a commandement The former to trust Gods mercy in the confirmation of their estate The other have had if not Evangelical faith at least the Law of Nature which because ill imployed God justly denyeth them hope of grace Rom. 1. 21. Besides as their abilities are uncapable so is their will averse the continuation whereof doth justly eternize their exile Neither can I condemn their opinion who make the linked chain of their continued crimes the reason of the perpetuation of the wrath of their Judge For if after the day of Judgment the Mediatorship of Christ shall cease as the Schools teach and the perputuation of bliss is Angel-like by a congruity of holyness then by analogy the duration of punishment doth answer their everlasting unbelief Nor must we think that obdurate souls in that fire are melted into remorse or softned into repentance Ch. 3. Error is defined a firm assent unto falsity The understanding often suspendeth its judgment concerning the truth of an assertion And so the Author himself with most wiser men doth acquiesce frequently in a sceptical likelihood and probability Sometime there is an inclination rather unto this side than the other which is an Opinion In all these there may be one or more falsities A determination is not alwaies requisite to the compleating of an errour Besides there is one falshood in notion another in the speech this is an incongruity to the heart that to the thing All lies are Errours yet some without the suffrage of the mind Finally Oblivion it self is a lie for either it is of things past or to come the forgetting either Ab oblivione eximuntur impossibilia illicita impertinentia of them is a denying either of what hath been or should be and yet without any firm consent Ib. That nothing is truly known but by its causes though Aristotle's seemeth too general an enuntiation In transnatural things the Trinity Election Resurrection c. We must trust to bare authority without searching causes Properly I belive no more then I know See Job 19. 25. Yea in Physical Ne credas quod nescias things cannot comprehend the formal causes why fire burneth the Load-stone or Carabe attracteth It is well we know them à posteriore To reduce the difference of individuals to a manifest cause were a fruitless labour See chap. 10. of this his Book To speak truly as sense is dazled at the excess of objects or puzled at the exiguity of particular moats so the understanding cannot attain to the highest cause because of It's transcendency Nor the lowest atomes of individuality because of its renuity To be contented with the ignorance of some things is a part of modest wisdom Scaliger Ib. It is too uncharitable a thought that the ear-rings of the Egyptians were stoln For by Gods Express they were borrowed in which sole reason most acquiesce But to flee to an exorbitant precept when firm and solid arguments may be drawn from a standing rule is a mark of a weak and shallow judgment Upon demand they were ready to restore them again But when they were pursued for their lives what should they have done with them In a distinct order to return every one their own they had no possibility to throw them down promiscuously would not have been satisfactory to the particular borrowing Moreover in equity there was as much due unto them in arrearage for their sapernumerary brick in the Chancery of Alexander the Great Since this Pharaoh would not stand to the pact made with Joseph for his Fathers family Withour making God accessary to it I see not how it can be registred among the great benefits bestowed upon them Psa 105. 37. He brought them forth with silver and gold foretold Gen. 15. 14. which without angariation or a press cannot but have reference to these medals And to list their felonious riches within the Catalogue of God's mercies in my ears soundeth harsh Ch. 4. Pythagoras's bean may elegantly prohibit Venery Since in it at the several ends there are the manifest signatures of the Genitals in both Sexes Our Masters teach us that all leguminaes or pulse as also bulbous roots do by their flatulency blow up this spark of Venus Neither do I hereby abandon its use in Political suffrages Nor was Pythagoras's Genius altogether a stranger to these abstruse Characters Ch. 6. If there be some whole Nations indisposed unto learning it dependeth either upon a Celestial or Terestial Cause Not Celestial for every thousand years the Longitude changeth its situation above five degrees which in this case is of some moment so that the Land which in the Creation lay under the middle of Aries is now ruled by the influence to phrase it with them of Taurus But what will the Astrologers say to see so continued a malignity of Aspects that none should have ☿ or ♃ Ascendent in their Nativity Never a Promissor or Significator strong or sure enough for to cause a benevolent inclination If terrestrial it is either external or internal not the former as air water diet c. for often Nature alwaies Art can correct those by which Moors and Boggs are turned into fragrant Meadows If internal either the unaptness is of the Souls part or of the Bodies Not the souls for all mens Souls are alwaies alike though their emaning
converted by the word translated which besides the various readings of the Originals is not wholly intrinsecally undoubtedly and meerly true I shall point at a few reasons 1. God in writing his holy Will would not give us bare husks of words but by them the solid kernel of his intended minde Neh. 8. 8. doth teach that what by right reason can be concluded from authority of Scripture is Scripture though no text we being endued with reason as well as the Beroeaus who for examining the truth in its self authentick were honoured with the Title of Nobility 2. The Holy Ghost frequently varieth the Text in quoting the Septuagint only keeping to the meaning of the Spirit 3. If private meetings be satisfactory then are all admonitions censures c. frustrated Mat. 24. 26. 4. Every first day of the week when ye are met together lay aside for the poor The objection which the Antisynusians make that this precept was but transient to last but for a while Christ meeteth withall Iohn 12. 8. That the poor therefore Deacons will be perpetuated 5. We may not withdraw from publick assemblies Heb. 10. 25. 6. Faith cometh by hearing By Hearing is meant any way of attaining knowledge and so is Reading Object If by hearing here be understood reading Answ I marvel what construction they will make of the subsequent words they must be sent and how this sending is competent unto books I cannot understand Reading I grant is an informing and perfecting of the understanding but that the will and affections the main wheels in faith are thereby as well as by a lively voice drawn into consent I utterly deny And because the clock of our love by the weight of our terrestrialls runneth down from God continually we need every day by the cords of our affections a new winding up of former truths Against these premised things there is a Object great and general Objection That the externall form of words in preaching praying the dayes and places instituted for fasting and thanksgiving with other circumstances are not distinctly set down in holy Scripture but may in a prudentiall way according to the exigence of occasions or persons be changed In the Worship of God two things are to Answ be considered The Substance and the necessary intervening Adjuncts That the word of God must be preached the Sacraments administred in time of danger Gods help must be implored after deliverances praises must be returned is an institution of God and so a law unalterable The intermixed adjuncts crowding into all our actions are naturall and no part of Gods worship The manner of expression the time is no more then the place nor the publick either time or place more than a private whiles I am with God in my closet-approaches or Family-duties they being such Circumstances without which nothing can be done A naturall necessity of adjuncts will follow without the spurre of a command nor need any curb of restraint If there be any holiness in them it is for the works sake and so but Relative The difference is worth observing when the work is done for the dayes sake or the day is used for the works sake If the Circumstance be determined by God it becommeth ☜ a necessary part of his worship which no man can extort out of his hand it being a Prerogative Royall belonging only to him to make any time place or person holy Besides because these circumstances are fortuitous they do overturn and interrupt the Celebration of anniversary-dayes many times to our long-prefixed humiliation a suddain victory will run counter and unexpected calamities will quench the feudejoy of a long-fore-set gratulation But these accidents being various we must from a general rule draw forth the particulars All God's dispensations are books of his appointment which we may and must read though in them there be many hard lessons But to erect and keep any thing for a holy use upon the authority of our own complacency is to build too near the banks of Superstition Neither do I mean by holinesse a sanctified use as many cavil for so is meat and drink but separated unto an holy end The Sabbath is excepted which give leave to a small digression being first instituted in relation to Christ Psal 118. 22 23 24. was an ordinance of grace and not of nature nor competent to Adam in innocency and is Geo. Walker of the Sabbath holy for it self sake though no body in the world should keep it Let it be no hinderance to the truth of these words that but little mention was made of it before the Law written in stones either in Marah or Alush No more there is of other long-lived Laws as that a man should marry his Brothers widdow or that whoredome should be punished with death and the like which easily might be proved to be in force before I speak of a civil Law under which rank these fore-mentioned do march not of the moral Law engraven in the heart of all mankinde They object further Many things are adiaphorous Object and indifferent the choice whereof is within the command of our will By what is said may be concluded that in Answ Gods worship there is nothing indifferent In natural things most actions do contemn the voice of our command To speak with the Schools I adde more presly Though in actu signato there may be yet that there is no indifferency in actu exercito I remember to have read with full satisfaction But to close more near Besides the Vniversall Church dispersed here on earth God hath appointed some particular Congregations to joyn into bodies for their mutuall edification which challenge right to all the ordinances left by Christ and his Apostles as is the receiving in building up casting out which actions not being competent to the Universall do justly descend to the Ministeriall Universalibus non competunt personalia or Oeconomicall Churches whose duty it is to see their inheritance not to lay waste The Antisynagogians do object that there Object is no crime in the Church which the Christian Magistrate is not to take notice of This title I understand in division not in a Answ conjunction Nor a Christian Physician or Mathemematician to prescribe pious rules of Health or Angels Morality not faith is requisite in a Prince Caesar was as essentiall and integrall an Emperour as was Joshua But what if he fall into scandalous errors or practises by what meanes shall he be moved or removed not as a Magistrate but as a commensall and fellow-commoner with the faithfull what if he neglect his duty shall all run to wrack Were there not in the Apostles and latter times Churches for their piety and purity as famous as ever But power being granted abilities for discerning heresies accomplishments for publick and private duties are neither allotted nor required in a civil power quà talis That sentence which goeth cheek by jowle
of mine own Being in the Canicular dayes with some friends about Noon-tide in a high Chamber at Catwick up Zee near to the Arx-Britannica founded as some say by Julius Caesar we espyed a young man going to bathe himself in the main and falling into a hole which a ship newly lanched by the in-coming Flood had made being unexpert in swimming was drowned Two or three hours after we also run down into Sea and found this imprudent man floating the Nucha with the hair of his Neck was all we could discern we brought him to shore but without either hope or trial of recovery That this suddain Fluctuation doth not befall all men is certain But upon this Testimony the truth whereof I hope is beyond the reach of suspition a more sedulous encouragement may be taken for the enquiring of the causes which are somewhat abstruse In Man there be divers parts to be examined in relation to gravity of Water There are Bones Flesh Brain Liver and other Entrails heavier some of which the Water if fully impregnated with Salt shall contend with for Victory in weight There are the Lungs and Fat lighter besides many concavities where upon Anatomy we can see nothing but the empty Cells of the newly removed Spirits Now the body of man as in its several parts it differeth in gravity so doth also one body in its totum from another that in some there need but a small moment to make them equilibrous with the Water Some ridiculously ascribe it to the breaking of the Gall which as in reality so in reason is false The bilious vesicle remaineth intire and full Choller though it produce an incalescency in the Spirits and by it an agility in the members yet doth it afford no levity to the body I doubt not though I never tryed it but icteritions bodies which they give out to proceed from the Gall being suffocated will sink The supine resting on Water without motion onely by retention of Air within the Spungie Lungs doth digitate a reason A culinary Experiment hath in some part given me satisfaction the boyling of Lights in a Pot it is worth our observation to see what a weight it will bear up So if there can be conceived as I know nothing to the contrary an allien heat which the Lungs may acquire either while all the warmth at the point of death doth retreat to the Heart or its heat the refrigerating motion of the Lungs ceasing is derived into their cavernous Vessels and so rarifie the contained Air the reason may without difficulty be conjectured Finally besides that the Sea by all probabilities is salter and so more apt to bear up any body at the flowing then at the ebbe because every Ebbe the River-Waters do more freely intermixe themselves with the saltness of the Sea and the middle Ocean because of its gravity moveth slowest I speak in relation to this individual instance some mens bodies sometimes of the year are proner to a suddainer put refaction which being a new fermentation is accompanied with a further dilating expanse and so advanceth their Fluctuation CHAP. IX Of Remedies IN the disquisition of Therapeuticks I would look first into the home-born shop of Nature the sedulous culture whereof would abridge the number of exotick simples most of which are either adulterared by the avarice of the Merchant or come to our hands corrupted by the long and torrid space of the Voyage In Prophylacticks we see where the pinchingest cold is there the wise Creator hath stored up abundance of Furre and Fuel either Wood Turf or Coal Where an Endemicall Disease doth tyrannize look there for an adequate Alexiterium as the Guajacum where the Venereous scourge had its Commencement The Irish Slat giveth succour to their particular Flux So we shall find Scorbutical Plants to luxuriate where the Scurvie is predominant The Sedum Minus in Sweden The Chamerubus in Norway The Cochlearia in Germany and England and will not abide the French Air which is immune from it either by Seed or Plant as the Physick Professours there did credibly relate unto me Nature is the best Druggist She seemeth also to observe Seasons and Times For when Feavers and Plurisies are most rife which is about the Summer-Solstice then are Papaver Rheas Lettice Purslain with other proper Herbs in their fullest vigour yea as some make it out every Moneth produceth Mersennus its seasonable Fruit respondent to the various disposition of the Body The like might by industry be elaborated in Domestick Purgative and Sudorifick Medicines the use of the former with Phleboromy some Renegadoes of Philosophy which I read a regret have given a Bill of defiance unto and endeavoured with weak Engines to demolish substituting instead of them nothing but their own frothy Fame a thing of as eminent a consequence as absurdity Art is a Servant or Ape of Nature especially in internal Diseases Chirurgery indeed standeth more in want of the help of Man Bones broken or dislocated being left to the sole hand of Nature will never be rightly restored and where it seeth Nature to cure by such means there Art must imitate it Thus in little ones where natural counsel doth work a Cure by vomiting there a circumspect Physitian may upon due consideration supply the place and be Lievtenant to its Leader Neither doth the Purging Medicine corrupt good Humours as they pretend most of the Purges being bitter and so Preservatives against Putrefaction This appeareth in the Embalming of Dead Bodies which preserveth them entire unto many Generations Behold the Dogs and Rats exhibiting unto themselves a dose of Spear-grass for their evacuation either by Vomit or Siege which they never learned from the corruption of Pagan Universities which as a Bone to knaw on thefe Mis-academicks do upon every occasion cast unto us which grass I note by the way doth it rather by its external form with its pricking irritating the Stomack then by any inward offensive quality The same effect not being common to them that have their dentes molares and use rumination Daily experience doth teach besides that warm Water which in so short a time cannot be conceived to corrupt doth as an emetick vehicle often educe superfluous and putrid humours salt or acide Phlegme yellow or black Choller c. with a great alleviation of the Patient As well they may imagine that a Glister of Milk doth in so quick a space breed those Worms which are allured to it and excluded with it Moreover we see in most acute Diseases that by spontaneous Bleeding and that several ways either in Man or Woman sometime also in Children there is by the sole help of Nature a critical Solution Several of Hippocrates Aphorisms which alone are left in credit with these men do astipulate the same But because in Living Bodies we cannot so well demonstrate the industry of Nature within while by its Natural Heat it separateth digesteth and by its unsearchable paths doth banish to
never can arise mutually one to another Cancer which coopeth in our Summer Tropick is a cold Creature and Capricorn the describer 2. of the Winter Tropick hot The conjecture taken from Planets is more uncertain for their Light the Sun excepted being borrowed daily changeth Horns which the Ancients never understood I doubt much whether all those Celestial Lights were made for the use of man since many are of late discovered which without an adventitious telescope the quickest sight on Earth could never have perceived So that if any effect of removing Epidemical Diseases by Telesmes be produced I should rather ascribe it unto the Prince of the Air it being the fittest medium to propagate and so to cure all Topical Missances who will servilly obey such demands that he might perpetually captivate the Soul in a false perswasion of his Omnipotency We are not ignorant of his devices 2 Cor. 2. 11. It is an old Stratagem and An Enemies kindness is a dear Bargain FINIS A STONE TO THE ALTAR OR Some short Disquisitions ON A few difficult Places OF SCRIPTURE By JOHN ROBINSON M. D. LONDON Printed by J. Streater for Francis Titan 1658. The INDEX GEn. 2. 24. Pag. 65 Gen. 8. 10 12. Pag. 67 Gen 48. 22. Pag. 68 Levit. 13. 13. Pag. 69 Levit. 16. Pag. 71 Numb 36. 7. Pag. 72 Deut. 21. ult Pag. 73 Deut. 25. 3. Pag. 75 2 Sam. 6. 3 4. Pag. 79 2 King 2. 20. Pag. 80 Job 3. 3. Pag. 81 Psal 25. 11. Pag. 82 Prov. 24. 16. Pag. 83 Esa 50. 8. Pag. 84 Esa 63. 1. Pag. 86 Esa 66. 7. Ibid. Jer. 31. 22. Pag. 87 Dan. 12. 3. Pag. 88 Math. 3. 14. Pag. 89 Math. 8. 6. Pag. 90 Math. 9. 22. Pag. 91 Math. 27. 37. Pag. 92 Math. 27. 44. Pag. 93 Joh. 20. 17. Pag. 94 1 Cor. 11. 7. Pag. 95 1 Tim. 1. 13. Pag. 97 Heb. 12. 24. Pag. 98 1 Pet. 3. 19. Pag. 100 Revel 12. 11. Pag. 102 TO THE Understanding Christian SEeing God hath left Man no better Rule for the guidance of his Belief and Obedience then his Holy Writ and in the same hath on purpose inserted some knotty places for to make Man more frequent in examination and exercise of his Industry for which cause the Jews had their Oracles delivered unto them without Vowels for it is not a bare word but sense which he intends we should take notice of and every Christian within his sphere ought to promote his truth with modest reverence unto former mens labours I thought it not disadvantageous to the Well wishers of Sion to offer unto them these small Meditations of mine especially having found very few of them and those short in our worthy Predecessours Expositions Neither in the building of the Temple were the laudable endeavors of Inferiours that brought Stone or Morter to be discouraged since it was not given to every one to be a Master-Builder a Bezaliel an Aholiab So neither do I fear any disgust at least from the best sort of men because I have in small measure endeavoured to reach the native sense of these ensuing places wherein I follow no bare Authority of Man the large numerosity whereof together with the uncertainty after pursuit of many tedious Harangues leaveth their Reader in an unsatisfied Resolution the spots of their maintained errours obnubilating the lustre of their asserted truths but rather by the scope of the Text and consonant places I seek to evince the meaning of the words By which if man may have any light and the Father of light have glory it will be a copious return to him that wisheth you all happiness J. R. A STONE TO THE ALTAR Gen. 2. 24. They shall be one Flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 INto one Flesh is the Original Some think that this should have an Aspect to their Production because Eve in the Ribbe was an Off-set of Adam But to be Flesh of our Flesh and Bone of our Bone is also common to our Progeny though the manner of the latter by propagation and the former by division be different yet doth it not impede an Homogeneousness in the derivation of the matter Others take one flesh for one species or kind as if it had been said You shall not mix mans Flesh with the Flesh of Beasts But how that can be as a ground of Marriage I cannot see Many expound that one flesh Ye two shall so joyn that one flesh i. e. your Off-spring may proceed from you having reference to their Posterity which neither doth fit all Marriages for those that are past hope of children should thereby be debarred Then neither in regard of the cause not kind nor effect The words were not Adams but the Spirits by Moses as appeareth by the citation of them by our Saviour Math. 9. 5. To shew that it is the nearest Union except that of Soul and Body which maketh but one person in all the World They two making properly not a Plural but a Dual to speak accurately As one maketh no paucity so no two can amount to a Plurality 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 glued together very significantly the Greeks expound it †This is the true Sarcocolla It might seem strange that God's Command should make a Civil Tye surpass all Natural Obligation but that I love to acquiesce in Ipse dixit Two things though I adde 1. That whether Parental Relation be Natural or Civil is questionable 2. There may nay there ought to be a separation from a Father's house Psal 45. never from a Nuptiall bed The one for distribution of humane society Gen. 8. 10 12. And Noah stayed yet other seven dayes and again he sent forth the dove v. 12. and he stayed yet other seven dayes c. THis man wearied of his prison though he had the whole world in a lively Map before him did often look out for fair weather rather desiring to set his subjects into their Liberty than to hear their groanes arising from abridgment of their due freedome and pristine enlargement But some enquiring the reason of the Seventh day to omit all Pythagorean and Kabbalistical Chimera's whose studies are to magnifie abstracted especially the seventh number would inferre from hence that Noah kept the Sabbath the truth whereof seeing it was instituted in Paradise I can readily embrace but not the reason I think he did it in an Astronomicall respect he by long-lived experience knowing that the Moon every seventh day changing its quadra was if not predominant at least concomitant unto the aestuation of the Sea The good old man measuring perhaps too straightly this cataclysm within the zone and girdle of nature it being likely the first miracle with leave of severer brows that he had seen Gen. 48. 22. I give thee a portion above thy brethren which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and bow To wave the natural reason given by some why the soul should prophesy towards its departure because its standing as