therefore err because they know not the Traditions of Elders and the Customs of Fore-fathers or because they are not skilled in the Doctrines of the Rabbies and in the Writings and Sayings of the Fathers or because they do not submit to the Authorities of Magistral Guides and of Humane Imposers or because they do not receive unwritten verities and seek for extra-Scriptural Supplements or because they do not subscribe the Councils of Synods the Articles and Canons of Churches or because they do not conform to rational establishments and comply with the commandments of men or because they do not read over the Books of the Ancients and turn the leaves of Modern Treatises upon particular subjects or because they are not of the same judgement with the Learned and of the like practice with the godly men so reputed of these times or because they are not well versed in Church History and deeply seen in the Monuments of Antiquity or because they have not been bred up to be Masters of Arts and Doctors of Sciences in Philosophical Studies and in University Schools but because they know neither the Scriptures which do reveal the Truth nor the Power of God which doth exert the Truth in created Natures through which his Wisdom and other of his Excellencies and Perfections are so visible whose Word is ingraven on his Works and whose Works are written in his Word therefore it is that they do err greatly err divers of these may be more largely demonstrated in some after-parts of this Treatise In k these Scriptures of Truth Arts have an uniformness and harmony and Sciences have a consent and concord all is here delivered in apt expressions suited to the nature of things adapting them to their proper ends and good purposes here is a lively representation of verities and of realities the right knowledge of which doth carry into the very beingness of created Essences drawing forth their hidden Virtues into active operativeness What through the artificial cunning of sophistical deceivers and the ignorant simplicity of the credulous vulgar the best Learning is much undervalued and its fastest Friends are almost wholly forgotten he that makes man his Idol and is easie of belief when man speaketh will so long be neither master of Reason nor an exerciser of Faith neither will he be well settled in judgement nor quieted in spirit whilst he thus goes away from experimental Truth in God's Word to such doubtful matters in mens writings The wholy Scriptures are a growing Treasury of fruitful knowledge and would still be bringing forth somewhat more whereas he that takes all upon trust from humane Authors and Philosophical Tractates will captive his own judgement and fetter his own understanding and leave his own soul unfruitful and unprofited who might have found the Scriptures to have disclosed before him the properties and powers of created Beings in order to some great usefulness in the life of man In a Scripture-way the serious researcher may safely and surely walk and unerringly if he follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit according to this straight rule travel into the Mysteries of Grace and the Secrets of Nature if we follow any others in another path they are superficial not profound either in their inquiries or discoveries Practical Christianity and experimental Religion is the highest Science and the noblest Art and the most honourable Profession which gives light to all inferiour knowledges and would admit into the Royalest Society and draw nearest in resemblance and conformity to the glorified Fellowship in the Heavenly College above where their knowledge is perfected in visional intuitive light Here is the prime Truth the original Verity as to the manifestativeness of it in legible visible ingravings which would carry progressively into other Learning contained therein all here is reducible to practice and use to life and conversation here existences and realilties are contemplated and proved not mere Ideas and conceits speculated as elsewhere The ultimate and best end of Learning is to furnish a renewed Understanding and to advance sanctified Reason and to raise discerning Grace for the promoting of the Honour of the LORD and the holiness and happiness of Souls This is its last and highest pitch the perfection of its discovery which its nature can reach to heat on Earth no way but that which is Scriptural can direct aright unto the speediest attainment of sound and well accomplished Learning although those who are the self-conceited Gnosticks of the times are under a great temptation of being some of the subtillest Opponents of this Christian Position Come hither therefore thou Inquisitor of Truth thou mayst find it in the Word thou needest not turn over the many voluminous Books and historical Records of men to desire what the Knowledges and the Arts are or who were the first Authors and Inventers of them 'T is not all their Writings that can make thee wise to Salvation as the Scriptures can How filled with doubtful uncertainties are the Ancient Records of Humane Writers how many corrupt mixtures are there in them how stuffed with gross flatteries or with personal reflections are modern reports how corresponding to private interests how wrested and wryed to passion and to party What a superfoetation is there of new Treatises yearly coming forth either to censure the errours or to fill up the defect of other Authors or to pretend to some rare discovery or new invention or to boast of an exacter method though still at best imperfection is their nature and there is an yet further and a more onward It is no imbasing or distaining unto the holy Scriptures to fetch and to derive all useful Learning from these sacred Fountains rather doth this make much the more for their honour and commendation that there is such a fulness of Arts and perfection of Sciences in this one Book The bringing and wresting of Scripture to mens Arts and Rules to wrie and to force it into a compliance with them and not examining of all Arts and Rules by the Scripture to measure and to judge of them by this has introduced much errour and shut out much Truth to the sullying of Religion the corrupting of Reason the poysoning of the Mind and the polluting of the Life Here in this word Studies would be carried on in Faith and in obedience which would greaten the expectation of assistance and of acceptance of income and a blessing in all indagations after the mind of Christ when Scriptural illuminations do shiningly cast their beams on a spiritual discerner they do secretly but withal strongly influence and operate by a transforming efficacy unto a more glorious resemblance of the Heavenly Image of an holy Christ and of his holy Word This way the understanding of a Believer doth pass into more spiritualizedness and doth more freely converse with its inner Teacher under these intellectual rays Students in Scripturalism would get further into the choicer Mysteries of experimental Christianity even whilst
In him that is in this Christ who is opposed to vain affecters of humane wisdom and humane traditionists dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead Bodily the one dwelleth in the other which do shew them to be distinguished yet joyned by a personal Union of both Natures in one Christ there is no need of any additaments here to supply any defect or imperfection to adjoyn them unto Christ and unto his Word-Doctrine the perfect Deity with all its glorious Attributes of Wisdom Power and other Excellencies inhabits in this Teacher what need therefore is there to seek other documentals or helps can Philosophy instruct us as Wisdom it self can inform us here the Plenitude of Deity resides as in a fixed and proper seat not a portion of the Godhead as the gentile idolaters were falsly perswaded of their false Gods nor only some eximious gifts and graces of the Spirit as in Angels Prophets and their holy ones but the true and perfect God with his infinite unmatchableness He himself indwells in this Humane Nature after a peculiar way and manner and barely by his Universal Presence and assistencie as he is in and with all things and places to conserve and to sustain them neither only by a special efficacie of the Spirit as he is in the Saints Sanctifying of Believers and enriching them with distinguishing charisms with gracious endowments but by a new mode of existing though the nature of him who thus exists remain the same it is by subsistential Union personally so as that the inhabiting or assuming God becomes one with the inhabited or assumed Humane Nature this Christ as concerning the flesh came from the Father being also over all God blessed for ever Gnimmanu-ael God-with-us this branch of David is Jehovah too If it be ask'd Whether the raising up of the dead Body of a man to life and to the sameness of subsistency again be an incredible thing Pagan Philosophers have determined this contrary to the Truth by asserting that from a privation to an habit there is no returning no regress is to be granted in such a case whereas the holy Scriptures do better teach us that the resurrection of the dead is a facible thing a believeable matter and that it is unreasonable to judge it incredible cannot an Almighty God do this cannot he restore being who gave being Cannot that Head Christ who raised himself from the dead raise up his Members also Ethnick Logick is no fit judge of many Scriptural predictions its Rules of ratiocination cannot measure these Mysteries such as God is Man The word was made flesh God with his blood redeemed the Church these and such like high Truths and Things which are necessary for us to believe for our Eternal Salvation were hid from the Wise Ones of that age for those Disparates here do come and agree together affirmatively God Eternal the Creator of all things and he who existed before all time was born in time He who is impassible did suffer The immortal one did die A man sits at the right hand of God God who is All-fulness is emptied The Omnipotent needeth the help of a Nursing-mother The All-knowledge All-wise one increased in Knowlede and in Wisdom The Every-where-present one was included in his Mothers Womb He that filled Heaven and Earth had not where to lay his head He that is transcending the most general of all kinds and of genus's is made a corporal individual the lowest of all substances He who made others rich was himself poor The Righteous one did justly bear both the fault and punishment of the unjust Here the LORD is made a servant and the servant is a LORD here the Mother is the Daughter of her own Son and the Son is Father of his own Father Here is the All-sufficient supplyer is himself ready Here contrary to the Ethnick Physical Science what was finite is made capable of what is infinite and what was infinite is circumscribed within narrow limits Here a Virgin conceives without Man Here the body is born in one place and is taken to him who is in many places in all places at once Here the Common Arithmetick must seek out new Rules for two are one and one is two in Christ three are one and one is three in Father Son and holy Spirit being the Almighty Jehovah What a loss is Pagan Philosophy at in all these Mysteries and in a multitude of more that might be added Men do never come on so far as to the capital beginning of all true knowledge of all sound Understanding of all useful Wisdom of all essential Science till they get the knowledge and the fear of Jehovah Aelohim who has revealed himself in his Word and manifested himself in his Works agreeably to Scripture-discoveries this is a gift from Christ It is word-understanding that is the true good understanding and our Tongues should answer to the Scripture-saying otherwise if we resort to merely humane Sophies we shall at the last by woful experience find after all our busie Inquiries and incessant Studies and attentive heedfulness that there are many weighty particulars in the works both of Creation and of Providence that are beyond the power of mans industry and above the reach of mans wisdom Who is as this wise man he was one of the wisest men even Solomon that did ask the question It is a question expressive of the Truth there is none that compared to him doth weigh equally in the Sanctuary-balance with him wouldest thou know who is he it is he and no other but he that knows the interpretation of a word who can so give sorth the true sense of the word in its original significancy as thereby to set out the right Nature of Things in their proper beings There is in the Word of Christ full comprehensiveness as of all other useful Learning so particularly of the knowledge of Natural Things of which it doth treat and speak purposely and professedly HOw great a part of the holy Scriptures must be transcribed who would write out all that is in them which doth treat of this subject matter Here is the History of the Creation originally and fully discovered which is not so made known in any or in all the Books of Humane Authors who though speaking to this particular point yet are no further sound than as they speak and write according unto this and wherein they ar sound they have borrowed and fetched from this here they lighted their Candle and from hence they have digged their treasure It is the special design and the main purpose of some particular passages in the holy Scriptures expresly and plainly to open the true state of Natural Things as the Book of Job in a great part of it many of the Psalms most of Ecclesiastes besides much of this nature which is frequently scattered through this Book of books How filled is this with Aelohim's essential Operations in
all Translations into Mother-Tongues without any the least trajection or transposition of Words or of Points Variation Addition or Supplement or Substraction leaving the propriety of their meaning and Government to the Interpreter and Expounder of them the Commentator and Dilater upon them the Paraphraser and Applyer of them as the holy Spirit from the Father in the Name of the Son shall give him skill and utterance by a due regard had to the Context and by a faithful collating of other suitable Scriptures in an Harmonious Concent Q. Whether there be any thing in the Original Text either from the difference of the Stile or from the significancy of the Accents or from any other Grammacal consideration which doth either naturally in its self or by institution of the Holy Inspirator give us a more just accompt and genuine distinction of the several parts of Scripture than that which at this day is in common use amongst us by the Titles and order of the Books by Chapters and by Verses and what it is Q. Whether all humanely invented Enallages all changes whatsoever of one part of Speech into another of Persons of Genders of Numbers of Cases of Letters of Words of Names of Vowels of Accents of Syntax of Moods or of what else that doth belong unto the Original Languages as also wrong-fancied-Anomalies should not be altogether laid aside in such a Grammar especially when passing into a Translation Q. Whether all humanely pretended Paragoges Redundancies Expletives Pleonasms Insignificancies Deficiencies of any Letters Syllables or Words should not be quite rejected by discerning Grammarians in such a Grammar as obscurings and wrongings of the Original Languages Q. What is the true Orginal Emphaticalness of the Original Punctations and Accentations And how do these or any other part of the Original Languages direct in the right sound the just pronunciation of words and in the orderly distinction of a Sentence into its certain Members and Clauses by its due pointings Where the LORD has furnished any others in their greater store with more discoveries of this useful Nature could I live to see this way of Scripture-knowledges more countenanced and promoted by them it would give joy in my heart however it be whatever the issue and the success of these intimations be I exalt His Name who is the All glorious Jehovah the Ael of Sciences that he hath in this so graciously helped me so far to serve my Generation according to his will before I fell on sleep If the Reader be under such apprehensions that this Book of mine might well have been spared because it is my principle to bring all unto Christ's one Book of Scripture I expect so much ingenuity from him as to acknowledge that there must be some way and medium found out and held forth for the communicating and commending of the excellency of Christ's Book which is a Book One and All were it throughly understood rightly applyed and well improved and I knew no other means of like spreadingness with this that is before thee which I was in any present capacity of making known unto the World Wise Solomon condemns the folly and the fruitlessness the vanity and the vexation of Ethnick Books and of Philosophick Studies where Supernatural Directions were not to be had though men professing the true Religion did much betake themselves thereunto and did in many particular subjects write out of and according unto them What a multitude of Books are there that Humane Authors do make though their writings do not give that full satisfaction which the most do wrong look for there how often do new Treatises flutter abroad the last usually undertaking either to confute other mens arguings or to correct their mistakes or to reprove their miscarriages or to instruct them or to add to them or further to confirm them or with some such like design and then quickly after out comes another passing his judgement upon that which went but a little before and what do men by this but publish the imperfection of all their own Writings and the same sentence will be passed upon this Book of mine though my Treatise has this advantage beyond others that its design and drift is to plead for and to praise that Eminent Book of God which is the only perfect Book If the more spiritually discerning among the perusers of this Treatise do discover corrupt Mixtures humane Frailties ignorant Mistakes and unadvised Errors therein they are to remember and to consider that the Author is also a man of like affections and weaknesses as they there is no difference but what rich Grace and free Love doth make which therefore doth call for their compassionating pities earnest prayers and friendly helpings laying aside all proud insultings revengful tramplings and personal reflectings Courteous Reader let the Scriptures be more studied where is a complete declaration of the mind and will of the All wise Aelohim and which can fully satisfie thee in thy weighty inquiries It is an endless labour and a wearisome task both to make and to read other Books The end of the whole Word of God and of all hearing of it is that we might fear Aelohim and keep all his Commandments for this is all Adam about this Book should we lay out the strength of our thoughts the redeemings of our time and the bent of our Studies these holy Scriptures are not so large a Volumn but that it may be read over in some few Weeks or Months and the oftner it is read over by a spiritual discerner diligent observer wise improver and believing practiser still the more doth it open of its Treasure of Knowledge here is a Library made up of one Book so intire in it self as that it is able to make thee wise unto Salvation O bestow thy pains principally here here chiefly imploy thy Studies be not weary in turning these frequently over saving Knowledge and true Happiness is no were else fully revealed To move thee hereunto remember and consider that thy actions all of them open and secret good or ill must stand or fall according to this Book as they are conformable to it or not and all this as our eternal State either of bliss or of misery thine who readest this and mine who write this There is much of Spiritual use to be made by Believers of the improved knowledge of Natural things for the discerning and injoying of fellowship with the Creator and Redeemer IT is neither beneath the grave Majesty and Royal Anthority of the Word of the LORD nor besiders its real intent and designed purport to converse with Believers about created Beings those great works which do so much speak the glorious Excellencies of their admired Maker The orderly recording of the Works of Creation in the beginning of the Book of God severally and distinctly on each of the foregoing six days of the first week of the created World and of the Sabbath-rest upon the seventh the last
Will and desire what thou wilt This doth by far excel any thing of Art every thing of Science else has no coequation with this This was the wise choice that Solomon made for which he who is Wisdom it self hath commended him There is no occasion of complaint here as in vain Philosophy that Art is long and Life is short For the more skilful thou dost grow in this holy Art the more will it be a lengthening to thy days and if thou do not waste time it will tell thee thou dost not want time Here the walk is all-pleasantnesses and the way is prosperous Peace No such hardship and difficulty as in intricate involved Philosophy in the Study of which confounding Vanity and stupifying of Obstruseness some have thrown their Books against the wall because they could not overcome its Notions in their Intellect In Scripture-Wisdom here the Tree Everlasting Lives and this Tree of saving Knowledges do grow together and growing Believers can nourishingly feed on both their Fruits together Those who apprehend it and hold it up and reach it out to others are made happy by it This is a participation of the Wisdom of God This Wisdom is seen in Jehovah's founding of the Earth and this Understanding is manifested in his establishing of the Heavens this Knowledge looked forth in the broken Abysses in the dividing of the Waters and in the Skies distilling Dew Yet vain mens affected wisdom can make nothing of their Studies about these nor ever will whilst they slight the Scripture discovery concerning these and other Works of the Creation but the eyes of Believers should not go off from the Word and Works of God Those who are thus well-minded shall have Jah to communicate his secrets and his counsels to them Here is good Doctrine good in its self good to those who do receive it from which receiving it hath its Name Our Heart should be upholders bearers up of these Oracles of Christ We should possessingly acquire this Wisdom and Understanding not forgetting not declining from the words of his mouth This Wisdom is the Leading-head-Commander of Knowledge This we are to begin with It is not as vain Philosophy is a withered fruitless Speculation but a sapid savoury Knowledge It is the best Inheritance O come to it as such all ye who are true Friends of real useful Learning It puts a Glory upon the Possessor of it and doth highly exalt him enobling the embracers of it These sayings we must take in not the Dictates or Placits of Men or of Devils In this way of Wisdom should young ones be instructed they should tread in these sound paths of Rightness going over the Scriptures again and gain How many young Students read over divers Philosophical Tractates before they read over the holy Scriptures once at least with an eye togather the best Arts and Sciences thence Other Books of Knowledges are no further useful than as they some way or other more or less do comment aright on the Scriptures or on Created Beings agreeably to the Scriptures In Humane Philosophical Writings the Student is often brought to perplexing straights and to offensive stumblings not so here in this word and way of Wisdom Here we should have and hold real profitable Notions of Truths and of Things it is our lives whereas vain speculations of carnal reason should be let go lest they prove deadly to the pertinâ—cious maintainer of them The further on that a Believer doth walk in this Scripture-path the more growing is his light to discern and to difference things by whilst Philosophical wanderers that go out of the word-way do and will whilst there walk in darkness but let our eyes be upon this Book of Books Keep we its revealed Knowledge in the midst of our Heart It will be liveliness and healing to us To this should we be attentive and upon this be intent It has acute wittinesses and subtile cogitations so shall our lips conserve Science For all kind of holy sagaciousness and discretion is in this Scripture-Wisdom and Intelligency From these words should not we recede and they should be our Doctors and Teachers that instruct us in this This Word is a Law and a Light whereas Philosophies are darknesses This Word should we bind over our heart always and tie it annect it over our throats that as soon as speeches are uttered by us out may come some Scripture Eloquies of Mysterious Art and Holy Science Waking and walking we should converse with it and it with us It will keep us when we are asleep and it will lead along in proficiency when we are in our particular Callings It would inlighten our mind and direct our way at the very door of it when we first step into it We should see Understanding shine forth upon us and into us These Words of Christ should be kept by us and hid with us as the black the little man of our eyes We should bind them over our Fingers to work by them and to wise us in and about our work as well as write them on the Table of our Heart to live under the Law of them and to love them and meditate upon them We should say to Wisdom my Sister thou and call Understanding a Kinswoman so near and so dear so intimate and familiar ought it to be to us and with us and our eyes should see by this all sensible experimental knowledges should be brought to this This Word it greatly useful for an Active as well as for a Contemplative Life Here is work for Fingers as well as thinkingness for Hearts A Believer doth wed this Wisdom This kind of Understanding and of Knowledge should be well known unto us as a Wife a Sister a Friend a very amicous Relation and of free Converse our conjoyned Counseller of the same blood with us and of close affinity to us All the sons of Adam may learn here Magistrate Minister and People Leaders and Led What is spoken here are Eximious Matters and Rectitudes that which is Truth all Just no depraved or oblique thing all preparedly right to the Intellect to those who finding Knowledge Whereas Humane Philosophies are obscure and crooked dark and wrie false and difficult In Word-knowledge there is that true Riches which is beyond Gold and Silver Wisdom is above Margarites All a mans wouldlings his wishings have no equation in her Whereas the Philosophical Arts of Elementary Learning are beggarly Rudiments So are the first Principles of Cosmical Men of Vain Affecters of Worldly Humane Wisdom poor and weak Vanities In Christ's Word is the Invention of Science and of subtil Arts. He that would deeply consult about Essences should come hither which Humane Philosophies can never so indigate With this Unstanding there is strength whereas Humane Wisdom doth weaken the Powers of a man's Spirit and Soul and
who made them from the beginning made them that is the first married Couple Adam who was the Adam the common Head and Representative of all Mankind which proper name to make him more known has a demonstrative notificative Particle before it I say he made them Adam and Eve one Male and one Female Every Adam or Aish is to have his proper Wife and every Aishah is to have her proper Husband In all the New Testament through Wise in the singular number is mentioned about fourscore and four times and always referred to one Husband in the singular number A fair occasion being here ministred unto me I shall plead the cause of holy Marriage which is the lawful conjunction of man and woman into one flesh against the practisers and defenders of Polygamy and of Divorces Digamy is the having of two Wives or of two Husbands at one and the same time Polygamy is the having of more Wives or of more Husbands than one at once that both these are unlawful I shall prove from the Scripture out of the Book of Moses out of the Book of the Prophets out of Christ's recorded sayings and out of the writings of the Apostles The Scripture Record has very early given us an account of the first Institution of holy Marriage which doth by divers weighty Arguments closely condemn Polygamy For Jehovah Aelohim did bring and joyn together but one Adam and one Eve into and in this honourable Estate of Marriage so the LORD Christ himself doth interpret this he who made them from the beginning made them one Male and one Female What was of old said they that is this Adam and this Eve shall be in one flesh has an explication added unto it by Christ they two shall be into one flesh they are no more two but one flesh that expression in Genesis they both or they two were naked Christ doth refer to the foregoing sentence and they two into one flesh and that it might have the greater emphasis or express signification of his earnest intention whereby a tacit significancy is couched and more is signified than one bare word seems to hold forth he hath added an Article those two and then doth infer therefore they are no more two but one flesh That then which doth follow what God hath joyned together do refer to this the what is those two one man and one woman but more of that in its place One great end in Aelohim's instituting of this Matrimonial Ordinance was that man might have such an united help as might be a subsidiary aid ready at hand like as before him a singular help of the singular number such an help as might coalesce into one with him such a one as might be always upon all necessary useful-occasions before him present ready at hand a compeer a second self even and like every way fitted to all good conjugal purposes for the Procreation of Seed of Issue of Off-spring one is from one from those who are loving partners and companions in one flesh For the Education of Children man needeth such an help and who is so fit as the one Wife who is the Mother one with the Husband who is the Father in conjugal union which hath going along with it many powerful Arguments of Love and for the lessning of sorrows and for the doubling of joys and for the communication of counsels no conjunction of Mankind in Nature primigenious can so adaptedly and successfully promote this as that which is Matrimonial between two for here is the closest and nearest union and conjunction the sweetest and dearest communion and fellowship This Eve was such an help as was like Adam himself and before him the Hebrew sometimes have such compositions where the conjunction is understood for the relative of the third person put in the last place is referrable to both the words in the composition belonging to the one and to the other also Eve was such an united help as was exactly conformed to Adam's Nature one who by her constant love care and diligence by her familiarity by her bed and boardâ— conversation might be always serviceable such a well suited Auxiliary as that Adam's heart might sweetly acquiesce and safely confide in such an equal yoke-fellow one that would do him good and not evil all the days of her life a yoke is but for two and those equal ones especially when they two are in one if Eve do prove a draw back an hinderer a tempter she breaks the primitive Law of Matrimonial order Adam should have bewared of forbidden fruit when presented to him by the hand of beauteous Eve By this Matrimonial conjunction the Woman was a companion and assistant as was not to be divided from the Man they were as one flesh glewed together infixedly cleaving it doth denote a glutinous juncture between two and two only must this be of the same nature and kind of the same heart and mind the same will and affections differing only in Sex not two Eves to one Adam nor two Adams to one Eve only one Woman was adjoyned to one Man and only one Man glewed to one Wife in one flesh by an In of adhesion and of accession the whole speech here is of two and of two only not of more Adam was to adhere to his Wife not his Wives neither in propriety of word and of phrase can two Women be fitly and lawfully adjoyned in the same Matrimonial yoke at the same time to one and the same Man how can one Man and more Wives than one be one flesh For the flesh of one Woman is not the flesh of another Woman at the same time how then can the Man be divided between several Wives This straitest union cannot be between more than two the Husband cannot give and exhibit himself equally alike intirely to all if at once he have more Wives than one before the Matrimonial Covenant and declared Espousals the Man and the Woman were two and not one but now that they are lawfully Husband and Wife they are in the sense and interpretation of Scripture-Law counted and called one's own Flesh thus hath Aelohim himself conjoyned them in marriage one true Eve and no more Women to one Adam A Wife in the singular number not Wives in the plural is a special favour of and from Jehovah it is the nearest conjunction Man and Wife may not depart one from another by marriage the Woman doth become his Wife his and no other Man's and he is her Husband hers and no other Womans All other Women whatsoever are in this respect called Strangers to him and so should they all be treated withal by him as strangers no other but only his own and only Wife must have his conjugal familiarity and fellowship such restraints are implyed in the old Testament expressed in the New by the discretively exclusive particle only One Man must adhere to
over Q. Whether would not an exact literal version of the holy Scripture word for word as they are in their order into the several Mother-tongues without any the least adding to or substracting from it open much of many useful Truths and necessary Duties and of experimental Christianity as well as many other ways be very profitable for the promoting of peace and purity in the Churches of Christ Q. Whether is it not a Duty for the people especially such of them as have more opportunities and advantages for this to be able to read and to understand the Word in its Original-tongue And whether it would not be of singular use to have the young capable Children in all places to be taught this Q. How may such an Hebrew Lexicon be so composed for words and for phrases as to make Scripture knowledge to be much more easier and familiar to out common people in which they may find out all sorts of little Bibles well fitted to all particular cases where they may quickly see over what the whole scripture doth speak to any subject matter carrying Truth through all the Word Q. In what order of time in exact Chronology are the several Books of Scripture and the several passages in every such Book And how may such Geographical Tables of all the places of the inhabited Earth mentioned in the Scriptures be so suited as that time and place and inhabitants may be made obvious to every plain understanding Q. What is the New Testament spiritual signified part of all and every of the shadowy Figures Ceremonial signs and Typical patterns through the Old Testament Q. What is the Urim and Thummim And whether is there any Prophesie or Promise of either restoring of that or of setting up any thing else in the room of that How may we have such an Oracle revived as to have a certain visible audibles sensible answer from the LORD in weighty cases Q. Whether it be not one evidence of the fulness and perfection of the Word of Truth that even there where its speeches seem to be somewhat broken and abrupt it carries with it a secret supplement in experience directed to all practical cases concerned therein which nothing else of man's word can fill up And whether would it not be very profitable and acceptable to put together some of the more eminent remarkable Scriptures for the better evidencing of the Truth and usefulness of this discovery Q. How may a Believer get and keep life and power in the Word continued upon his heart Q. What Scripture grounds are here upon which to bottom Faith and Prayer that if there were a spirit of believing the LORD would still give miraculous access from Heaven whereby to give sensible demonstrations of the Truth and Goodness of his Word And how may the Doctrine and Practice of Miracles be revived Q. What is the method whereby to evidence the oneness and sameness the well agreeing consentingness and uniform harmoniousness of the Christian Religion throughout the whole Scripture for Truth for Laws and for Priviledges For Doctrines for Duties and for Graces Q. How may the plainest Scripture-Truths be raised to a greater height of spiritual advancement Q. Whether now that Scripture-knowledge is so abounding any one be so competently well gifted for and called to the Ministerial Office who doth not understand the Scriptures in their Original Language And how may hopeful growing young men be so bred up in the Scripture Arts and Sciences as thereby to be fitted for the Ministerial Office And what Scripture grounds are there to expect a more able faithful successful Ministery than is yet at this day Q. VVhether it be not one great Truth of this age that the holy Scriptures are the one and the only Rule to judge by in all cases And whether there be any other boundary to be set to mens pretended liberty of conscience Q. VVhat is there of the Doctrine-part as well as of the Duty-part contained in the Law of the ten VVords Q. In what Method and Order may the Holy Scriptures be best read to most spiritual profit Concerning present Providences and Works of Jehovah Aelohim Q. WHat may the Reasons and Ends be why the LORD in the present day doth seem so much to with hold his Spirit and the gifts and graces of that Spirit now that the longings and petitionings of his Churches and people are so much heightned and drawn out with expectations of his larger pourings out of his Spirit and Blessing upon his new Covenant people Q. What is more especially that Work which the LORD hath been and is still carrying on upon the Wheels of his providence in this Age Q. What is there of Prophetical Scripture fulfilled in the present day which doth make way for the further accomplishment of what Propheties are yet behind And what are those after Prophesies And in what order of Time are all these Prophesies Q. Whether though there have been some partial fulfillings of the Revelation in all Ages of the Church since John's time yet will not the whole of that Book of the Revelation be gone over in the latter days visibly and sensibly fulfilled what John had in Vision and by Voice And whether are there any beginnings of this in our Day and Time At least whether Christ's Calls and Counsels from his Father by his Spirit in that Word of the three first Chapters of that Book be not more especially and particularly to those gathered separate Churches who have someways withdrawn from the corruptions of the Romish Way more thorowly to Reform and to Refine and to be at perfecting Work As that which must lead the way to the bringing about of all the rest which doth follow after Q. What and how doth the LORD Christ in the way of his present Providential Acting reveal of the pattern and platform of his new spiritual House of the latter day-glory and of the Laws and Orders of that House And how is he now with his golden measuring reed and rod and line in his hand to try whether particular Churches and Disciples of his do square well and exactly to his Word-rule And how would he have such societies to be rightly constituted gathered admitted disciplin'd and orderly walking in all things that such Churches may be able to evidence to all the World that they are the true owned and approved Churches of Christ Q. How is Christ at work under this Providence to bring every Institution and Ordinance of his unto its Scripture purity and perfection that they may be felt and enjoyed more in the lively efficacy and saving power of them Q. How is Christ at work in this day to frame his Churches and people to be more of one heart and mind and lip and way in the Truths and things of God and to set them righter in the way of Sisterly association of such purer Churches And how may a Believer see full home to this thorow so much as is quite
and rejected by this Generation the springing Race in after-times will rejoyce when they shall reap and gather in use and injoy the good fruit of these honest labours Wordly advancement and a flattered name is the consulted project and the fore-casted contrivement of a low debased mind unbecoming that princely spirit in a Believer which has nobler designs and higher aims If this tractate be not exact yet the subject matter is excelling the Scripture-cause of word-learning is such that he who objecteth against it doth quarrel with the Author of it who wil have a time to make such to know whose word shall stand whether this of him or that of them when it will be manifest in the hearts of such that this design is not the product of a discontented mind or of humoursome censoriosness or of a grave affection or of a splenetick windiness Vulgar Prizers are no just valuers for Scripture-Truth though all be sold for it is never bought too dear and though all the World could be had for it yet would be sold too cheap it is well worth thy dealing for whatever it cost thee Scripture-Learning has an operative influence to correct and rectifie to change and renew to reform and refine hearts and lives to affect the Soul with a due sense of its own noble excellencies and widened capacities that it may be holy and happy wise and prudent for ever to make the conscience feel the weight of present Duty and of future felicity with the kindliest tyes and strongest obligations O how excellent are the Virtues how efficacious the Powers that do flow from hence The Patrons of this Book are Christ and his Word Truth and Good Reason and Religion Scripture and Nature Spreading untruths have gotten a name of Antiquity and Reputation and popular Opinion has kept up their credit and still it doth them reverence but they are all falling before the Scriptures of Truth for rather than fail the Christian verities and the rare knowledges contained in them shall be yet further confirmed by such Miracles as are beyond the Powers of Nature and the Arts of Man The seeming impossibility of all profitable Learning in one Book will in time be removed out of the way and off from the thoughts by a sound belief of the infinite wisdom of the Author of it The true uniform voice of holy Scripture and of created Nature is with me and for me though the common votes of the mistaking world cry me down although such ill habits have been acquired through the power and energie and effascination of Philosophy as no ability or skill of man can remove yet Almightiness and All-wisdom can work Students off from it If I publish my own imperfections and proclaim my own ignorances and bewray my own follies yet let not the Reader forget that I am a pleader for the most righteous cause in the judgement of the best Law the evidence is clear for it and the sentence of approbation is already pronounced that the holy Scriptures of Truth are the best the perfect Platform of all useful Scientificks Christ is the Head-Captain of created Hosts and he will triumphingly Conquer his Truth is strong and it shall prevailingly overcome Scripture-knowledge especially in the savingness of its Science and in the Sanctifyingness of its Art doth speak enough for it self within the breast of every spiritual discerner as having an incomparable excellency in it above and beyond all other Skills and Wisdoms in the World I need not urge many arguments to convince those Readers of this great useful Truth who have felt the living power of it upon their renewed hearts for when it came there it brought in its own self evidence and left a sensible demonstration and wrote a sealed Testimonial under its own hand there I have though this also much in my aim to praise it more unto such and to press them to make some higher advance in this best Learning as being a nearer approach unto intuitive perfection in visional Glory and that which raiseth the spiritual Reason and the inlightned Faith of the Saints here below in this Intellectual World into a resemblance of Angelical Wisdom yet I say I have somewhat further in my present design which is to win upon those who are under impetuous temptations and violent assaults to be Atheists and Infidels both speculative and practical by a prevailing insinuating of this astertion if the LORD will say so too that word-Science and Scripture-Art is the Science of Sciences and the Art of Arts every way most and best corresponding to the capacities suited to the cases fitted to the necessities and promoting the felicities of rational Beings so that this discovery has its great usefulness to all even the most knowing and the most holy as for others who may be far gon in this spiritual distemper of scorning of and of scoffing at the asserted sufficiencie and fulness of the Scriptures that which they so much slight and so storm against must be the means of their cure unless they be such as will neither hear their disease nor endure a remedy but are obstinate to all healing prescriptions I take the causes of Atheism amongst many others to be as an afraidness of the convincingness and of the condemningness of the holy Precepts and righteous Judgements declared in the Scriptures and an unbelief of its glorious rewards so also this in particular ignorance of the excellency of Scripture-knowledge and although those who do fall below Religion will also sink beneath Reason too yet I am not altogether without hope but that when Jehovah Aelohim shall make his Word-light to shine forth more in its beautious glory it will allure the eyes and draw the heart inform the judgements and incline the wills of men of intellect to see and to acknowledge to adore and to admire that only wise God who has put so much into so little and has given us a pocket-Book of such absolute fulness The Antichristian party by their paper plots would blow up all belief of the sufficiency and perfection of the Scriptures as hoping that if they can once prevail with a people to be of no Religion they will then be of their Religion and the Anti-scripturarians have but too many followers in this day who if they be so bold as to assert this imperfection of the Word in the necessary matters of Salvation no marvel if they deny its conprehensiveness as to the other knowable things Arise Jehovah plead thou thine own plea and magnifie thou above All thy Name thy Word all the Kings of the Earth shall confess Thee Jehovah when they hear the words of thy mouth and they shall sing in the ways of Jehovah for great is the Glory of Jehovah In Thee Aelohim thy Saints will praise thy Word and a second and a third time they will praise thy Word this they know that thou and thy word for them Thus have I given thee Reader some accompt of
Good to confess to Jehovah and to sing Psalm to thy Name O most high specially in the day of thy Sabbath Thou wilt make known this Name of thine to thine adversaries How long shall the Enemy blaspheme thy Name to perpetuity Remember this the Enemy reproacheth Jehovah and the foolish people blaspheme thy Name Thou wilt lift up the light of thy Faces upon thy gracious Saints so that the oppressed shall not return ashamed the poor afflicted and needy shall praise thy Name and blessed be the Name of thy Glory for ever The Reader is here advertised that he has no just cause to be offended at the expression of the Faces in the plural of Jehovah or of Aelohim for so it is in the Original and it doth set out that great Mystery of Father Son and holy Spirit and the different manifestations of each of these according as they are pleased with or displeased at such as do make their address to them The LORD Jesus Christ is Jehovah as his Father is Jehovah and as the Spirit of his Holiness is Jehovah they one Jehovah The Father of Christ is Jehovah Thus it is written in the second Psalm where he is more than once expresly so called The LORD Jesus is there said to be the Christ the Anointed and the Son of this Jehovah the Father And thus it is distinctly applyed by Peter in his Prayer to the Father by Paul in his Preaching and by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews who reciteth that Text once and again It was Jehovah the Father who assuringly said unto Christ the LORD of David Sit thou at my right hand till I put thine enemies the footstool of thy feet For the Scriptures do often speak of Christ sitting at the Right hand of his Father And the LORD Jesus himself doth apply this passage in the one hundred and tenth Psalm of David's calling him LORD unto himself So doth Peter and so also doth the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews The House of him who is named Jehovah in the sixty ninth Psalm is called by the LORD Christ himself his Fathers House As John doth write of him those who are called the taught of Jehovah in the Book of Isaiah are such as Christ doth interpret in the Writings of John to be hearers and learners of the Father That Power which the LORD Christ had to bruse the Heathen as Potters Vessels with an Iron staff he acknowledgeth to have received from his Father in the Revelation Which words are taken out of the second Psalm where he who gave Christ this Power is Jehovah The Spirit of Christ's Holiness is also Jehovah He who by David in the ninty fifth Psalm did exhort the people to hear the voice of their God and is here said to be Jehovah the great Potentate is by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews called the Holy Spirit And this self same who in this Psalm is said to have been tempted by the Israelites in the Wilderness who also brought that people out of Egypt and did lead them in the Wilderness is as hath been observed named Jehovah there as he is also in the Book of Moses And this was the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Jehovah as saith Isaiah That people in the seventy eight Psalm have it spoken concerning them that they did bitterly provoke him in the Wilderness and grieve him in the Desert which is Jehovah Which same thing being Recorded in the Book of Isaiah they are said to Rebel and to grieve the Holy Spirit That which Jehovah did say and promise in the Book of Moses that he would set his Tabernacle in the midst of his people that he would walk in the midst of them that he would be to them a God and they should be to him a people they walking in his Statutes and keeping his Commandments and doing them This is renewed and fulfilled in the New Testament as Paul doth declare in his Epistles to the Corinihians who speaking of Believers and Saints he saith They are the Temple of the Holy Spirit of that living God as God had before said in the Old Testament I will dwell in them and walk round about in them and I will be their God and they shall be to me a people He who by Zacharias in his Song is said to speak by the mouth of the holy Prophets and is called by him The LORD the God of Israel and in Samuel's second Book is named the Spirit of Jehovah the God of Israel who spake in the Prophet David the God of Israel is expresly named in the second Epistle of Peter the holy Spirit who spake the Prophesies in and by holy Men. This Spirit is the LORD as Paul writes in one of his Epistles the Spirit Jehovah the LORD Jesus Christ also he is Jehovah The holy Spirit doth witness this to us in what he saith if their be a due diligent comparing of the Old Testament with the New it will thereby evidently appear that the same who is Christ in the one is Jehovah in the other in many places of the Scriptures of Truth What the Prophet Isaiah spake Prepare the way of Jehovah is applyed by John the Baptist to the way of the LORD Christ What by the same Prophet is said to be the Glory of Jehovah is said by John in his Writings to be spoken of Christ at which time that word of Esaias was then fulfilled that he spake Jehovah who hath believed our hearing and to whom is the Arm of Jehovah revealed Which Jehovah John doth interpret of the LORD Christ and that multitude in whose hearing this was spoken did acknowledge that they had heard out of the Law that Christ abideth for ever Now the Scriptures that do speak of this which that saying of their doth relate to do say of Jehovah what is spoken by the same Prophet of Jehovah the true God that to him every knee shall bow and all tongues shall swear which swearing must be in his Name thereby to confess him when there is a lawful Call thereunto this doth Paul ascribe unto the LORD Christ That which Moses did charge against the unbelieving disobedient unperswadable Israelities in the Wilderness they tempted Jehovah by speaking against Jehovah the same doth Paul in his former Epistle to the Corinthians affirm to be a tempting of Christ Paul says Christ was that Spiritual Rock who went together with that people in the Wilderness it was Christ who was figured shadowed and typified by the Cloud the Mannah the Rock it was he who led them in and out to and fro there He was that Angel of the Father's faces a Messenger by Office sent forth to be the Saviour and the Guider of that people who is expresly by Moses called Jehovah He was Jehovah who went before them together with them The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews doth testifie that
of whom Micab foretold that he should come out of Judah for to be a Ruler and whose goings forth are of old from the days of Eternity which in the Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ is spoken of this Gâ—immanu el God with us Thus the Prophet Zachariah describes him at the least in the Type He shall sit and bear sway upon his Throne and he shall be Priest upon his Throne This was the voice of the Angel to Mary concerning Christ The LORD God shall give unto him the throne he shall be King for ever and of his Kingdom there shall be no end This is to be known for certain that God hath made him for a LORD him hath God by his Right Hand exalted for a Prince and Saviour Thus did Peter openly confess him before men This Jehovah Christ hath reigned he is reigning and will reign How high is that Majesty with which he is clothed He hath girded himself with strength Stable is his Throne from then from the Time that he has been from before any created Time as we now measure it he from Eternity He by the Authority of his Mediatoral Office has Royal Prerogatives to pass Acts of Grace to grant Pardons to particular returning sinners to speak the Peace of this into the conscience to give the joy and comfort of this into the heart Christ had a Glory with his Father before this World was and a love from his Father before the Foundation of this World as the LORD Christ himself doth acknowledge in his holy heavenly Prayer to his Father as John has recorded it He is high above all the people let the earth be glad let the many isles rejoyce Come let us shout joyfully to this Jehovah let us shout triumphantly to the rock of our Salvation For Jehovah a great God and a great King above all gods He is the King of Righteousness and the Prince of Peace All kings shall bow down unto him and all nations shall serve him Christ is the only LORD him only must we serve So doth Christ interpret Moses and so did the Prophet Samuel teach Let us hear the LORD Jesus himself speaking thus in the Book of his Generation One is your leader even Christ One is your Father which is in heaven One is your Master even Christ Paul doth write in the Epistle to the same purpose we have One LORD Jesus Christ And again There is one LORD And in another place He is the blessed and only mighty LORD the King of kings and LORD of lords He is the Head of the Church His Office is so appropriate unto him as that his Priesthood cannot pass unto any other but remaineth in himself for ever There is no other Name given us under Heaven whereby we may be saved Thus calls him The only LORD God and our Lord Jesus Christ speaking of that peculiar propriety that the called ones who are sanctified have in him He trode the Press alone and there was none of the Nations with him Thus did Isaiah hold forth Christ's Kingly Power and his Princely Government in redeeming and saving of his Elect and in subduing and destroying of his Enemies as saith the same Prophet in another passage of his Book The Father hath given him the Nations for his Inheritance and the ends of the Earth for his Possession His Dominion shall be from Sea to Sea His Scepter is a Righteous Scepter he hath loved Righteousness and hated iniquity He shall judge the people with Righteousness and the poor meek ones with judgement and equity He is the Rulling One by his Power from ever Jehovah hath firmly prepared his Throne in the Heavens and his Kingdom ruleth ouer all His Kingdom is a Kingdom of all Eternities and his Dominion in every Generation and Generation Behold the Arm of this LORD Jehovah shall Rule His Enemies shall be made his Foot-stool and in the mean time he shall Rule though in the midst of them How great and wonderful are thy Works LORD thou Almighty God Just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints Who should not fear thee LORD and Glorifie thy Name For thou art alone Holy For all Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy Judgements are made manifest All Nations shall can thee blessed Blessed be Jehovah God the God of Israel who dost marvellous things thy self alone And blessed be the Name of thy Glory for ever And let all the Earth be filled with thy Glory Amen and Amen! This Christ is the Lawgiver Thus was it spoken by Isaias the Prophet a Jehovah is our Judge Jehovah is our Law-giver or Statute-maker Thus was it prophesied by Jacob concerning Christ at the least in Type that the Scepter should not depart from Judah and the Law-giver from between his Feet until Shiloh come The Saviour the Safe-maker the Author of Prosperity of Tranquillity and unto him the obedience or the gathering of peoples Christ was to spring from Judah as an after birth which as is implyed should be of the Flesh of a Woman according to which Prophesie and promise Jehudah is said to be the Law-giver in the sixtieth and in one hundred and eighth Psalms He it was who formed Decrees and who made Laws He was at the least figured by that Law-giver who was with the Princes and Nobles of the People when with their Staves they digged and delved the Well at Beer and of the same did Moses speak concerning the Tribe of Gad when he declared the Blessing and the Portion the Provision and the Protection to be from this Law-giver Christ himself calleth the Law his Law in the seventy eight Psalm wherein he himself speaketh unto his people for so the holy Spirit doth expound it in the Book of Christ's Generation when he opened the parable of the Sower and of the Seed One of the Laws of loving one another in bearing one anothers burdens is in express words said to be the Law of Christ by Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians It was Jehovah Christ who spake and gave the Law of the Ten Words at Mount Sinai when God's Chariot the twice ten thousand thousands of Angels were there This Lord was with them He it was the same who ascended on high who led captive a Captivity who had taken gifts in Adam among or unto men For of this LORD Jesus Christ doth Paul teach us to understand this place in his Epistle of the Ephesians where speaking of this One LORD he saith when he ascended into the height he took Captivity captive and gave gifts unto men Now this he ascended what is it but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the Earth he that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the Heavens that he might fill all things This was that Angel of the LORD who appeared to Moses in the Wilderness of the Mount Sinai in a flame of
the heaven and the earth the sea and all that is in them and rested the seventh day and hallowed it Thus injoyning both by his own Example and Command the perpetual Observation of that particular Seventh-day in order of Time in its successive course in every weekly revolution as the appointed day for holy Rest That day and that only and no other day of the Week Thou LORD art worthy to receive the Glory and the Honour and the Power For thou hast created all things and through thy Will they are and were created O that those who dwell on the Earth and every Nation and Kindred and Language and People would fear him and give Glory to him for the hour of his Judgement is coming And that they would worship him that made the Heaven and the Earth and the Sea and the Fountains of Waters The Father Son and holy Spirit they are the Creators They the Aelohim who spake Creatures into their Existence and Being of which adored Almighties an account is given in that Historicall Narration which doth contain a Diary or Journal of the first seven days The Father Aelohim It is spoken of him in the forty fifth Psalm Aelohim the Aelohim of Christ anointed his Son by his Spirit which Son also is Aelohim expresly so called in the same Psalm Thy throne O Aelohim ever and perpetual the scepter of thy kingdom is righteonsness The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews sheweth that this was spoken unto the Son of God by his Father And the holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Aelohim and the Spirit Jehovah by Isaiab In the second Book of Samuel this Spirit of Jehovah or this Spirit of Jehovah as Paul elsewhere is also called The Aelohim of Israel It is Aelohim who dwells in his people as in a Temple So saith Moses which Paul applyeth to the holy Spirit These three are the Creating one Thus Solomon the Preacher chargeth young men to remember their Creators in the days of their youth Where Aeloh my Makers those who making me that giveth the Psalms in the night So would Elibu have had Job to say The same hath Eliphaz in the same Book Should a man be more righteous than Aelohim Should a man be purer than his Makers Hence is Tzijon incouraged in the later days not to fear For saith Jehovah by his Prophet Isaiah to her Thy Makers is thy Husbands Thus doth the Psalmist call for an Hallelu-jab or praise ye Jab Sing ye to Jehovah a new Song his praise in the Church of gracious Saints let Israel rejoyce in his Makers in those who making him Let the Sons of Tzijon be glad in their King the whole Creation should joyn in this song of praise for this Reason which is common to the whole World of them for he commanded and they were Created I now propound it to serious examination according to the Word whether much of this glorious Mystery be not included in the first Words of the holy Scriptures Bereashith baraa Aelohim and in that word Jehovah mentioned a little after the short History of the Creation as the Creator and Maker which is to be left to further disquisition For I am inciting and encouraging of Religious Students and of Christian Disciples to deeper researches into the best Learning This Word has in it the signification of an Head so that this is not barely In the Beginning but it doth set out that first capital Beginning of all things In and By Christ the constituted Head of all Inquire whether it should therefore be rendred in the Head-captain or in the Head-captainship or in-by the Captain or the Chieftain or Head-commander or in him who is the Head-Captain or in the appointed Head or Captain the Preposition is properly In. And when it doth point out the immediate principal cause it is in by Let the diligent Inquirer about this collate some other Scriptures that doth relate unto this matter It was in-by Christ that the Father made these hidden ages For this is spoken of the Son of God whose Godhead is strongly proved by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the beginning of it by divers â—itations out of the Old Testament brought into the New It was in by Wisdom that Jehovah did Found the Earth and prepared the Heavens and made All his Great Works All things were created by Jesus Christ which is a great honour put upon our LORD The Father created all things If you ask by whom It was by Jesus Christ All things were made by him Christ was the Head-Captain of all the Host of the Heavens and of the Earth and he is the chief Head of his Body the Church Both these are affirmed of Christ with an eye to this In and By In by him who is the Image of the Invisible God the first-born of every creature were all things created which are in Heaven and which are upon Earth which are Visible and which are Invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions Governments or powers All things were created by him and to him and he is before all things and all things consist together by him and he is the head of the body There is one LORD Jesus Christ by whom are all things He is expresly called Reashith the appointed head of Jehovah's ways before his works from then speaking evidently of the creation As the words themselves in that place of the Proverbs do plainly declare He was anointed to this principate and is again and again called Roash the head Roashith is the name of one of the Types of Christ the First fruits are so called in the Old Testament And so is he in the New the First-fruits of them who sleeping It is not without great reasons and weighty considerations that this first written word should set out Christ as the Head Captain or constituted head or appointed Captain For all skillful Lexicographers agree that the original-propriety and root significancy of this word hath that of an head in it in its true first meaning to which the Scriptures do agree and divers Scriptures do speak of Troops of Bands of Hosts of Companies of Souldiers under an Head-Captain to this Honour and Office was Christ assigned and appointed by his Father which also this word doth remarkably set out If it be a composition of Roash an Head or Captain or Head-Captain and Shith to put or to place in martial order or in Battle-array For thus we may find the word used The LORD Christ doth put his Hosts or Armies into Rank and File in their Order with art and care Proper names are often compounded in the Hebrew wherein that Tongue doth delight though it doth not so easily admit of composition in appellatives The context favoureth the Interpretation with other Scriptures collated For in this History of the Creation we may read of the Hosts of this