fire out of the midst of a Bramble-bush which Angel of Jehovah was Jehovah God the same who spake the living Words at Sinai which he writ by the Finger of God and delivered them unto Moses to give unto the people as Stephen doth apply it in that defence which he made for himself against the Council The same Angel of Jehovah's Presence spoken of in Isaiah which Angel was Christ sent to be a Mediator between God and Man of whom Moses wrote long before who was Jehovah who led the Israelites by day in a cloudy Pillar and in the night by a fiery Pillar to light them in the way wherein they should walk who came down upon Mount Sinai and spake with them from Heaven and gave them Righteous Judgements and Laws of Truth good Statutes and Commandments and who made known unto them his holy Sabbath and he commanded them Precepts and Statutes and a Law by the hand of his Servant Moses as Nehemiah had declared This also is held forth by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews who shews that it was the Voice of Christ which moved the Earth when he gave the Law at Sinai he who came down from Heaven as Christ himself speaks of himself in what John writes of him relating to some passages in the Wilderness He who is the LORD from Heaven He who is the Hammedabber in Daniel the speaking one which Speaker the Hebrews were exhorted to take heed they did not reject That which the Author of that Epistle doth refer unto in the Prophet Haggai about moving not only the Earth but also Heaven is further note-worthy in what goes immediately before and doth bring it in yet now be strong thou Zerubbabel saith Jehovah thus doth the Father incourage to the building again of the Temple and be strong thou Jehoshuah Son of Josadak high Priest and be strong all the people in the Land saith Jehovah and work for I am with you saith Jehovah of Hosts with my Word this is one of Christ names in whom I made a Covenant with you when you came out of Egypt and my Spirit that abideth among you For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts once again a little it shall be and I shall cause the Heavens and the Earth and the Sea and dry Land to shake The Father made a Covenant with that people in Christ the Angel of the Covenant Christ was there when they covenanted with him in the Wilderness and his holy Spirit was there It was for his words sake for his Christs sake that this favour was shewn him as also other Scriptures compared do manifest Moses wrote of Christ who had Testimony from the Law Moses and the Law did bear witness of Christ and brought in Articles of charge which accused those Jews that did refuse the Messias when Christ was transfigured Moses appeared together with Christ in Glory CHrist is the only Law-giver the Apostle James doth manifest this fully saying There is one Law-giver who is able to save and to destroy he is the only One. To speak according to the Scripture his Law is a Kingly Law This is one of the chief blessings and one of the chief priviledges of his Covenant people This Jehovah is their Statute-maker as saith the Prophet Isaiah This Jehovah is their King he their Saviour he will deliver and preserve them He is made unto all those who obey him the efficient cause of eternal Salvation It is he who prescribes Laws and who constitutes the Rule of Life The Greatest and the Highest of earthly Princes is a Subject to this King of kings and LORD of Lords When this Supreme Governour had proclaimed his ten Words or Commandments he gave them unto Moses who was King in Joshurun that he might bring them to the people and might see the Judicial Laws duly executed when any were fount to be transgressors of the ten Words The Magistrate is to take care that both the Tables of this Law be well kept The King who was set over the people of Jehovah Christ was the write for himself the Copy of this Law in a Book and it was to be with him and he was to read therein all the days of his life that he might learn to fear Jehovah his God to keep all the Words of this Law and these Statutes to do them that his heart be not lifted above his brethren and that he turn not aside from the Commandment to the right hand or to the left to the end he may prolong his days in his Kingdom he and his Sons This was the charge which Jehovah Aelohim gave to Joshuah the Commander and Leader of his people The Book of this Law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou mayst observe to do all that is written in it for then shalt thou make thy way prosperous and then shalt thou deal understandingly Have not I commanded it thee be strong and couragious Moses as holy as he was as highly favoured as he was and as wise a Governour as he was yet had nothing left to his prudential determining but as he was told and shewn in the Mountain so must he declare what those Laws and Judgements were which to observe He must keep exactly to the prescribed Pattern And it is recorded to his commendation that he did so causing all things to be done as Jehovah commanded him Thus King David received Commandments by the Spirit by the hand of Jehovah in a written Word and to this Rule must King Solomon keep And so should the Superiour Powers to all Generations We are not to attend to advert or to give our minds to such commandments of men as do turn away Truth or as do turn away from the Truth Thus wrote Paul to Titus O what Laws Statutes and Judgements are so holy just and good as those which Jehovah Christ hath given would it not be the wisdom and the understanding of Nations to walk according to these How daring is the attempt for any man or men to think to change these Laws why do the Heathens tumultuously rage and the peoples meditate vanity The Kings of the Earth set themselves and the Princes do plot together against Jehovah and against his Christ Let us break the bands of the Father and of the Son and cast their cords from us This is the rebellious Language of such a would cast off all sign of subjection O who will give that Kings were prudent that the Judges of the Earth were nurtured To serve this Jehovah with fear and to be glad with trembling To kiss the Son lest he be angry and they perish in the way when his anger shall burn suddenly O the happy straight progress of all that hope for safety in him To all and to every of this that has been forementioned Christ was appointed by his Father and anointed by his Spirit The Father
in the beginning or in the end of proper names By naming of Jehovah is noted the mode of his Essentiality and Agenty It is their sin who do not call upon this Name for it is expresly to be named It is therefore an Error in the vulgar versions of Greek Latin and English when they render this proper Name appellatively which hath no plural Number no demonstrative Note prefix'd is not read in the constructed State so as to change its last Letter neither doth it admit of any affixes at the end This particular Name of his shall be glorious This Word has been put into the name of a place and of an Altar So that such a place and such an Altar could not be rightly named without using that form and manner of pronunciation as its Consonants and Vowels are Though proud Pharaoh for a while would not know not acknowledge this Name Jehovah yet Aelohim by his Plagues upon Pharaoh did at last make his mouth pronounce it Pharaoh said to Moses and Aaron concerning them and the Israelites Jehovah shall be with you This is that Hebrew Word which is made up of all the Vowels also of Accents and iâ— doth confist only of such Vowels and Acconts There are in it A E J O V it has H to begin a syllable and H to and a syllable It is evident that the Ethnick's Jove and Jao got its sound from their hearing of this word Jehovah to be pronounced by the Hebrews they retained some of the Hebraick Origination in the very sound of it O how incomprehensibly Glorious is this infâ—â—ite unchangeable Essence who was from all Eternity is and will be to all Eternity without any mutation Who really doth declare and exhibit himself to be indeed such a one as he manifesteth and promiseth himself to be in his Word Jehovah himself was the Author of this Name of his and it is not attributed to any Creature It has in it all the parts of Duration past present and to come Jehoshuah read all the words of the Law the Blessings and the Cursings according to all that is written in the Book of the Law there was not a Word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua read not before all the Congregation of Israel with the Women the little Ones and the Strangers that were conversant among them If all and not a word unread then Jehovah was read for this Word was there It was foretold that even the Priests would be despisers of this Name but withal it is prophesied That it shall be great from the going forth of the Sun to the going in thereof and they shall in a more especial manner be remembred by him who wisely think upon his Name One of Solomon's Names of his cognames brought to his Father David by Nathan from an Oracle was Jedidjah beloved of Jah for Jehovah doved him and therefore he sent his Prophet Nathan so to call his Name because of Jehovah that somewhat of Jehovah's Name might pass over into Solomon's Name for Jah is the contracted word of Jehovah which name Jah is annexed to a multitude of names in the holy Scriptures whereby the ignorance and unbelief of the superstitious heart-veiled Jews is justly reproved who will not acknowledge this syllable this word Jah to be the contracted of Jehovah lest they should be made withal to confess that the Word the Name Jehovah should by found of voice be distinctly and expresly in all its Consonants and Vowels pronounced with due reverence How much is there of this Word and Name that doth 〈◊〉 into Scriptures Sometimes it doth set out the glorious excellency of the Eternal Being other times the virtue and favour of this Eternal Being The acknowledgement celebrating and praising of this Being The profession and worship of this Being of beings and much more This Name is invocated often in the Word and is sometimes put for the Command Will or Authority of this Great LORD How many times is this Expression used thus saith Jehovah in the beginning in the middle and in the end of a Sentence The Margin of this Page cannot contain all the Citations of these in every of the places of Scripture This Name and Word was to be on the High Priest's Forehead that all the people might see it and read it there how else could they understand the Mystery of it And the like is prophesied of elsewhere with an eye to this Name of his he will do much for his people in the later days and it is covenanted that in the purer Church then the knowledge of the Glory of this Name shall so aboundingly cover the Earth as the Waters cover the place of the Seas He doth take notice of it and is displeased at it when this Name of his is seoffed at As Jehovah is the proper Name so also the Memorial of him who is a â—ost lingle pure perfect infinite unchangeable self-being existing and subsisting in and of and by himself who was who is and who will be one and the same and not made another From whom all and every of Creatures in their first making did receive their Essence their Existence and by and in whom they 〈◊〉 kept in their Being who will really and indeed declare and shew forth himself 〈◊〉 such a one the very same True One as he hath revealed himself to be in his Word putting a real Essencâ— an actual Existence into all and every of his Command Promisings Threatnings and Pâ—â—pheses of whatsoever it is 〈…〉 spoken in their time A 〈◊〉 Name which he reserves only to himself had which is communicated 〈…〉 other Name which in the 〈…〉 of it is 〈◊〉 the fittest to work those night apprehensions and that 〈◊〉 knowledge of him in those who are acquainted with him which such 〈◊〉 Word is 〈◊〉 form in them Thou thy 〈◊〉 Jehovah Thou art Thy Name what 〈◊〉 Name hath in Thou 〈◊〉 â—hy Name 〈◊〉 His people shall more know in the later days from the 〈◊〉 of them unto the greateâ—â— of them that 〈◊〉 this He 〈◊〉 The Earth shall be full of the 〈◊〉 acknowledgement of the Glory of him who is this Name How glorious how fearful is this Name O how great in might How holy How wondrous excellent in all the Earth O how good how near how extolled how much hath he done How much doth he and will he do for this Name of his as this is so should his praise be They who knowing it will trust of him The desire of the Soul of Saints is to it and to the remembrance of him They love it they call upon it and do confess to him They praise it for it is high advanced this Name of his his alone This they fear In this they will lift up their Palms In this shall they shout and be glad all the day This they remembred in the night and have observed his Law this they see
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
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΠΑΓΓÎΩΣΊΑ ΠΑÎΤΕΧÎΊΑ ΠΑÎΣΟΦΊΑ All in One. ALL USEFUL SCIENCES AND PROFITABLE ARTS In one BOOK of Iehovah Aelohim COPIED out and COMMENTED upon IN Created Beings Comprehended and discovered In the FULNESS and PERFECTION OF SCRâ—PTURE-KNOWLEDGES The FIRST PART By Francis Bampfield A lover and admirer of Christ and of His Word and Works Colossians 2. 3 4 8. In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge And this I say lest any man should beguile you with inticing words Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit and after the traditions of men after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ Printed in the Year 1677. THE SUMMARY CONTENTS OF THE First Part OF THIS TREATISE THe Design of this Treatise Page 1 to pag. 18 Where the Emptiness Insufficiency and vain affectation of Humane Wisdom and Philosophick Science is discovered 1 to 8 And the shining Emanations of the Fulness and Perfections of Scripture-knowledges are held forth 8 to 18 The LORD Jesus Christ hath hiddenly laid up all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge in his Word Wherein are many choice Mysteries above the reach and besides the Rules of Philosophy 19 to 23 Here is shown how a complete Minister of Christ should be somewhat of an universal Artist 19 20 And how that there are many truths in the Word necessary to be believed which are contrary to the Principles of Philosophy 20 21 22 There is in the Word of Christ a full comprehensiveness at of all other useful Learning and so particularly of the knowledge of Natural things of which it doth treat and speak purposely and professedly Page 23 to pag. 45 Wherein is declared that there are not only general but also the particular Rules in the Scripture for the musical Science 24 to 37 And for the Fabril Art 37 to 41 As two instances out of many called forth to be a specimen of this Truth With some further directions also about Geograpâ—y and Geographers Grammarians 42 43 44 There is much of spiritual use to be made of the improved knowledge of Natural Things For the discerning and injoying of fellowship with the Creator and Redeemer 45 to 49 Here is shewn how some of the most learned Philosopâ—ers have learn'd many Arts and Sciences of irrational Creatures 46 47 And how many errors in Philosopâ—y have corrupted much of Theology and of Christianity 47 48 The holy Scriptures in speaking of the Works of the Creation and of Natural Things do speak of them as they really are and not as they seemingly only appear according to exactness of Truth as the Nature and Essence of them are and not according to the wrong conceits and ignorant mistakes of vulgar minds and common opinionists Pag. 49 to p. 52 Where also this is cleared that Scripture-words are best expressive of created Works 49 to 52 The vain affectation of Humane Wisdom which doth thrust upon the credulity of so many a Doctrine of Probabilities concerning the Works of Creation and Natural Things from Antichristian and unscriptural Philosphy but is not according to Christ and to his Word is such a deceitful way of false reasoning as makes a prey of Souls and is carefully to be avoided Philosophical Science is but falsely so named 52 to 57 The Vain-affectation of Creature knowledge in the Apostateâ—Angels and of flumane Wisdâ—m in fallen man has all along been endeavouring to corrupt and to pervert both the pure Word of Aelohim and his Created Works whereby they are misrepresented to the Rational Intellect in wrong shapes 57 to 62 Those Books which are commonly called Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy or the Books of Moses and his Writings there have the approving testimony of those true faithful Prophets that did follow after him as also of the LORD Jesus Christ himself and of his Apostles And the History of the Creation and of the Works thereof in the beginning of the Bible is true in the literal sense and was intended and recorded so to be understood And all those Philosophical Allegorical and Mystical senses which any do give thereof that are contrary unto this are to be avoided and rejected 62 to 66 An Inquiry about the Creator of the Works of Creation on the severalâ—Days of the first Week of the World 66 Q. Whether was the LORD Jesus Christ Jehovah as his Father is Jehovah and as the Spirit of his Holiness is Jehovah Whether he were appointed by his Father and anointed by his Spirit to be one Mediator the only LORD and Lawgiver And whether he were the Creator of all things as the Father is Creator and as the holy Spirit is Creator they the Creators And whether is not this included in the first Words of the holy Scriptures Bereashith baraa Aelohim and in that word Jehovah who presently in the very next verse after the short History of the Creation is said to be the Creator and Maker Page 66 Here is held forth the use of the name Jehovah 67 68 69 That the Father of Christ is Jehovah 69 That the Spirit of Christ's Holiness is Jehovah 69 70 That the LORD Jesus Christ is Jehovah 70 That this Jehovah is one Jehovah 70 71 That Christ is the Mediator 71 72 73 That Christ is the One Mediator 73 74 That Christ is the LORD 74 75 That Christ is the Only LORD 75 That Christ is the Lawgiver 75 76 77 That Christ is the Only Lawgiver 77 That Christ was appointed by his Father and Anointed by his Spirit to these Offices 77 78 79 That Jehovah Aelohim was the Creator 79 That the Father was the Creator 79 That the holy Spirit was the Creator 80 That the LORD Jesus Christ was Creator 80 81 That the Father Son and Holy Spirit were the Creators these three the Creating One 81 That much of these Mysteries concerning Christ are included in the first words of the holy Scriptures Bereashith barraa Aelohim and in that word Jehovah mentioned a little after the short History of the Creation as the Creator and Maker 81 82 83 That there is an excellency in Scripture-knowledge which is proved by opening of some passages in the nine first Chapters of the Proverbs of Solomon relating unto this 83 to 87 Of the one which when another Day was Created was the First Day of the Created World Page 87 Q. Whether this Earth at its first Creation were without form and void So that Tohu and Bohu he truly and rightly praedicated of Aeretz Or whether Tohu and Bohu be not distinct Creatures from the Earth locally distant or two created Places the one setting out the gulphy empty space and the other the doleful place of Hell Page 87 Here is shewn that this Earth was not Created a formless empty misâ—shâ—â—pen Lump 87 88 That Tohu and Bohu or the gulphy empty Space and the doleful place of Hell are distinct Creatures from the Earth created places locally distinct from it 88 89 That
all a mans diligence any other way be solidly known Wise men amongst themselves do now begin to wonder that they suffered themselves to be so abused by those Dictators in Sciences they complain that there are secrets in Nature hiddennesses in Truths implications in Causes that there is much darkness upon their Mind blindness upon their Intellect weakness in their Understanding that their Knowledge is but Folly their Powers are impotent their abilities insufficient and their researches shallow thus they fall into suspicion and grow into dislike of themselves concluding an utter impossibility in Humane Arts seeing there are so many unknown subtilties in Nature which do escape their senses and so many mistakings by senses which do not come under their cognisance They acknowledge at last that to consummate the Arts and to perfect the Sciences inquired after is above their strength and beyond their hopes and they professingly declared that they will affirm nothing subtilty is their Science and fallacy is their Faculty How many questions might be asked of the most Learned of them concerning the most plain and familiar things such as are most obvious and exposed to the outer senses about Seeing Hearing Smelling Tasting Feeling which would puzzle them and amaze their Understanding were all the witty Ingenioso's and generous Virtuoso's of the World colledged and incoporated into one Philosophick Society all their extra-Scriptural disquisitions would never reach or hit what they say they aim at because they use not improve not the adapted mediums to come at it It would have been more wisdom in such bold undertakers to be Instancers of Learning if they had either laid aside their attempt or pointed to a directer course and to a righter way for by an ill unadvised managing of the inquiry the inner Rooms of Learning are still locked up and her Treasures are not disclosed If the Reader marvel why one of so little Philosophical Learning and of so much worldly despisedness will adventure in such a day to be so open a redarguer of the whole Philosophick World let him know that the Scripture-cause will conqueringly plead it self and its advocate has sufficient security that the Glory will be his who is the Author of so full a word Let the Writer and his Treatise decrease into a nothing as to this and let Jehovah and his word increase into an All whilst the Traditionary Learning of these men which is but the credulous receiving of a false report and their sensitive learning which is often the wrong information of equivocating witnesses and their experimental Learning which is usually the hasty observation of indagators and of casual inventers these shall blush and vanish be gone and ashamed to shew their faces which so long have been set out to sale under the gaudy Titles of Natural History restored Sciences and instaured Philosophy but leaving the buyer sick of his bargain and crying out That he has all this while been over-reached and defrauded imposed upon and insulted over by those who themselves at length do judge this to be a case plainly desperate as not knowing how to extract the real truth of things or which way so to separate all mistakes that they may at last be brought to somewhat which is wholly free from errour and so natural Beings may open themselves and disclose their inside in their primordial Virtues and concealed excellencies The whole of the doctrine of the unseen World is altogether undiscoverable by any lawful means but only the word Revelation and therefore it is that Paul doth condemn that Philosophy as a vain deception which would obtrude upon its Disciples a belief of those things it hath not seen making its own excogitates to be Oracles when it s own phantastick opinions are built upon no other foundation than the feigned Placents of humane imagination It would take away the Prize that belongs to the profiting Disciples in Christ's School and give it unto those that run in the by-race of paganish Studies thus arrogating unto its self an usurped power of judging and of defining who are the most learned and skilful it doth thrust it self into a pretended knowledge of such secret hidden things whereof it is altogether ignorant as if it were its own proper possession my task is to direct the Spiritual man unto that perfect Word where he may get deep into the profoundest Mysteries of Religion and of Reason of Grace and of Nature where a clear-eyed-Faith may satisfie it self with self-evidencing verities I am no investigator of new fictitious humane knowledges but would ingage others to be educers of old sound Scripture-Learning which has been so long veiled with Philosophical darkness and neglected by Sophistical prejudice Shall we any longer walk on in the circular tract of feigned Arts and of corrupted Sciences by Humane Authors who write one after and of another according to the-bad Copy set before them saying over and over the same falsified things putting only a new name to an old Stuff whilst they make little or no progress because they do not follow on in a straight line of edifying knowledge How far are they from having already said all that can be said though one of them has grosly flattered himself by applying of that expression to his own Writings Truth and Goodness have mutual influence upon and friendly fellowship with each other and how then can Humane Arts and Philosophical Sciences approve themselves good unto the Will till they prove themselves true to the Understanding of rational Creatures let no man seduce himself we are at least we should be so far true and kind unto our selves as not to deceive our selves What shall we deal with our selves as a false Thief doth deal with a silly Traveller offering himself readily to be a guide to direct him a better and righter way to his journies end till he mislead him into some dark and dismal place that there he may rob and spoil him of his Treasure such are wrong guides in the way of our Study It any man thinketh that he is wise in this world let him become a fool that he may be wise for the wisdom of this World is foolishness with God the LORD knoweth the reasonings of the wise that they are vain therefore let no man glory in men No Tutor is like unto that Spirit who is the LORD informing humble Disciples of the Book of his Word and of his Works Useful Arts and profitable Sciences have their legitimation in his Word and their naturalization in his Works Here the mind of man is at once both inlightned and sanctified informed and satisfied whereas Academick Scepticisms do make their apprehensions to be but appearances and their propositions to be but probabilities till he that is of an inquiring spirit sees he has fed but upon empty notions and so is discouraged into a desponding fullenness and doth yield to over-coming difficulties Whilst our own unsteddy unskilful hands will be drawing out Lines of Arts
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
an Edifice the Doors Ports Gates of an House are often treated of in Scripture and are applyed to many other things affording matter of profitable Meditation the Thresholds are here spoken of so are the Posts what shall I more say concerning the Carpentes Compass and the use of it concerning his Platforms with more that might be added upon this subject-matter if it were worth mine and the Readers while to heap up together all the proper materials relating unto this manual Art which those who would be curious therein and are more at leisure to search deeper and further into this inquiry in a Scripture-way may with study and diligence more furnish themselves withal in order to the Artificial Symmetrical joyning of Timber-pieces together into an exact Frame so that a raised heavenly mind would admire to see so much of this Fabril-Art so scattered up and down in the Word for it doth much commend the excellingness of Scripture-knowledge that in so great a part of it it doth teach divers things and several Truths at once O that I could prevail so far with the generous Minds and with the ingenuous Spirits of this age as that they would first of all after the prayer of Faith put up unto the LORD for being taught of him study the Scriptures upon the particular subject-matters which their inquiries are exercised about in any lawful Arts and Sciences and let Scripture-knowledge lead them as far as it will go if it were so that all were not there yet do not reject what is there and then improve it by drawing forth from thence what Jehovah hath put of it into Nature Seeing we are upon the advancement of useful Learning and somewhat is now to be written about the Augment and Restauration of the Geographick Chorographick and Topographick Science and Art I haue these few Queries to propound to the Studious in this kind of Learning Queries WHether it would not much promote Scripture-knowledge which is the best knowledge to have such Maps drawn of the Earth of Countries of Places of Distances and such like as do exactly agree with the Scriptures with those particular Scriptures that do relate thereunto and to have those Maps more common amongst the people to give them further insight and truer information in such passages of the World somewhat of this has been done already but we incourage perfecting work Q. Whether all the Books of Ethnick Philosophick Geography should not be corrected and reformed by Scripture-Geography in its description of the Earth of Countries of Cities and of other places which doth give us as the most ancient so also the only infallible and perfect Narration how the several parts of the Earth were inhabited and properly by the Sons of Noah and their Posterity Q. Whether the true Origination of the right Names of the several inhabited Nations were not derived from the proper Names of those of Noah's Posterity who were the first Possessors and Founders of Cities in those places and gave Names to those Countries and whether the Hebrew signification of those proper Names both of Persons and of Places would not bring more light to the true description of those Countries and of their situation than as yet any humane Geographies have discerned by Q. Whether the Original Names by which the several parts and Countries of the inhabited Earth are called in the Scriptures should not be revived and restored and used in the several Mother-Tongues and this not only in the Translation of the holy Scriptures into other Languages but also in all other Treatises that shall speak of those Countries Q. Whether seeing Noah's Ark did rest upon the Mountains of Ararat in the Eastern part of the dry Land where he and his Family did settle themselves for a while and from whence afterwards they and their Generations did spread themselves Whether Shem who removed Eastward being said to go East East did not possess and people America where divers Names of places are still retained much according to the Scripture-Hebrew and if so whether then the late Globes and Maps be drawn according to the Original Truth which do place America in such a quarter and coast of the Earth that yet received her first inhabitants from the East-borders of Asia as they now call it and which do leave such a vast Ocean of so many Leagues between Sinear and Anjan between the North-East parts of Asia and the North-West side of America as they commonly describe them and whether these be not continent at most but dis-joyned by some great River or narrow Channel of the Ocean As for Grammar-Learning relating to the Original Language in the Scriptures I have at present these considerations to propound unto the Ingenious and Ingenuous the Studious and the learned Linguists by way of further inquiry Queries WHether the design of this Treatise being the perfecting of the knowledge of all useful Arts and Sciences and the Restauration and advancement of Learning in a Scripture-way as the true the right the excelling the only way thereof whether therefore it were not a necessary and profitable work to compose a Grammar of the Original Language or Languages wholly according to Scripture and the Rules found there and no longer to make Scripture speak according to Philosophick Grammars and their Rules invented by men which Rules are often contradicted by particular Scripture-instances seeing that these Arts and Sciences are to be fetched out of the Original Language and not from Humane Authorities that so in these later days we may have a proper remedy against the confusion of Tongues Q. Whether in such a Scripture-Grammar great wisdom and diligence should not be used that the Orthoepick and Orthographick part of it be so accommodated to the Original Languages as that the Scripture-Tongues may be more purely spoken more correctedly written more speedily learned more exactly measured more sweetly sounded more rightly accented and more profitably improved Q. Whether the Etymological part of such a Grammar should not be so fitted to the real origination and the natural significancy of Scripture-words as that there may be a well-agreeing Analogy of all those words from the Root to the Branches throughout in one and the same common notion of meaning and with each other all the Scriptures through and with the persons or things which they do represent that words may be but the notes of true Essences and the interpretations of created Natures and that a complete Lexicon be framed to this purpose setting out the significant meaning and the proper intendment of the original Words themselves to be derived and deduced from created Existences having an innate Reason thereof in them and whether all other Languages are not Hebrew Dialects having cognation with this Original Tongue Q. Whether the Syntactical constructive part in the regimen of Original words when put together in Sentences should not be kept close unto in the very same order of the Words and Phrases 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
doth delight himself in teaching of his people the useful knowledge of the Works of Creation in his written Word for every Creature should lead us to him and leave us with him and by his holy Spirit in the Scripture he doth often set out Spiritual Truths and things by Created Beings and Natural Powers teaching by Similitudes and Parables by which under some apt resemblances by things incurring into the outward senses and such as were familiarly and well known amongst men somewhat of an higher nature and meaning was propounded figured and represented Christ's teaching was much after this manner of Parables Thus were the hidden Mysteries of Christ's Spiritual Kingdom made the more easily intelligible to plain understandings and the greatest Truths became familiar to mean capacities of profiting Disciples who were taught two Lessons at once O how much do the Wisdom and the Goodness and other glorious Excellencies of Jehovah Aelohim shine forth in his Works â— He garnished the Heavens and replenished the Earth and stored the Seas with all manner of variety and good things fit for the use of Man and then he created Man bringing him into a well-furnished habitation where man found all ready prepared to his hand whatsoever was requisite both for necessity and for delight that by all this the LORD might draw up the heart of man to himself and keep it fixed in Communion there whither every creature called it up whilst Adam and Eve stood firm in integrity The Christian Religion should pass into our particular Callings so that even in these we should abide with God when we are employed about common matters and earthly things How often hath the LORD confirmed his Covenant of Grace to his people by such natural Existences fetching instances and giving probations of the reality and truth thereof for the confutation of Atheism and of Infidelity from the Heavens above and from the Earth beneath and from all the Host of both from Sun from Moon from Stars from the successive courses of Night and Day from Winter and from Summer from Heat and from Cold from the Height above and from the Deep below from things present and from things to come that which way soever man cast his eye on either of those two Books of Scripture and of Nature of word and of works in this great School the Disciples of Christ might still be learning of somewhat profitable What was that method and means and way which Jehovah Aelohim did take for the convincing and humbling of Job but by an holy reasoning and friendly expostulating with him about the Works of Creation and it had an answerable suitable good effect upon him The true knowledge of Natural things is laid down in the perfect word by the All-wise God as one great foundation of Theology and of Christianity and by these visible Witnesses will the righteous Judge of all leave the condemned world without excuse at that last great day Errours in Philosophical Learning are greatly dangerous unto Professors of Christian Religion the corruptions in that have caused so many Heresies and continued so many Controversies so that if we could search after the Foundations and Principles from whence most mistakes about Religion have their Spring and Origin we may find them laid in Humane wisdom by its vain Affecters such as the pretended power of Nature and freedom of will in fallen man as to Spirituals and Eternal the asserted Dictates and Placits of the Understanding as the ultimate undenyable resolvers in all Cases with a great number of such like Some whole Societies of corrupt Professors are but Philosophick Sects received and called by another name as those that make the instincts of their own Souls the impulses of their own Spirits and the motions and imaginations of their own hearts to be their only Rule by which they measure their judgement concerning good and evil and the fixed constancy of their belief or the wavering doubtfulness of their perswasions to be the measure of duty or of sin whence sprang this but from that sort of Philosophers who placed their happiness in silencing of all disputes of the mind and in smothering of all scruples of Conscience affirming Good not to have any inherent chuseable Being in it self and Evil not to have any such constant fixed Malignity in its own Nature but all their actions they thought to be condemnable when they did somewhat which they had any inward relunctancy against and aversness from and to be commendable when they were clearly resolved and fully determined in their minds and wills to do this or that But no more at present of this It is Scripture-Learning only which through the teachings of the holy Spirit can instruct us in the right use and holy improvement of the knowledge of Natural Things so that the growing Believer is Holy and Spiritual even in his trading with those Talents and whilst he is exercised about these his Scripture-wisdom doth commend it self in its own excellency and in its preferableness above and beyond all meer Humane Understanding for the many good and choice fruits and effects thereof being first pure in it self and in its efficaciousness or chaste then pacifick or peaceable modest obsequent or well swasible full of Mercy and of good Fruits not contentious or void of wrangling disception and not hypocritical or void of simulation Whereas some have made the observation that these who are so deeply conversant in the secrets of Nature do generally degenerate into Atheists not acknowledging an Aelohim as the first Causer but ascribing all beings and productions to natural causalities this where it is found to be so is to be understood only of the Ethnick Philosophy which doth take those who are Students in it off and doth carry them away from Christ and from his Word not of that Scripture-wisdom which doth so directly lead Disciples to Christ and to his Word for this saving sound knowledge doth produce a quite contrary effect even to make them most Saints and most Believers passing them wholly out of self and off from Creatures to resolve all into and to refer all unto the Being of beings the Cause of causes the Eternal first Essence the chiefest choicest Good the truest best Happiness the main ultimate End Jehovah Aelohim blessed for ever When men of Faith and of Experience do wisely observe the whole frame of this created World and all the parts thereof to run their course with continued chearfulness and without wearisome tiredness to discharge those Offices which their Creators Will hath assigned and enjoyned them unto This consideration doth stir up in them high and honourable thoughts of the Maker and Disposer of all these things and the serious Meditation that the Creation shall be renewed and refined and restored to its integrity and perfection of Estate and appear yet once again in its pure cleanness and in its purged â—xcellency is a Call unto the Saints to shine
a vain daring boldness for a worm-man to assert that the Seventh-day is not the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God and thou mayst do work therein when this great Lawgiving King of kings and LORD of Lords doth so expresly affirm and command the Seventh-day is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God thou shalt not do any work When men will use more faithfulness and diligence to be better skilled in the literal significancy of the Original Language they will see cause to admire the Wisdom of Aelohim who has so self-evidencingly put things into words especially in these two parts of Scripture the History of the Creation and the Law of the ten words The vain affectation of Humane Wisdom which doth thrust upon the credulity of so many a Doctrine of probabilities concerning the works of Creation and Natural Things from Anti-Christian and unscriptural Philosophy but is not according to Christ and to his Word is such a deceitful way of false reasoning as makes a prey of Souls and is carefully to be avoided and is but falsly named Science THose who take the Holy Spirit to be their Leader and Conducter and the Holy Scriptures to be their Rule and their way may upon due search discover this The smooth-tongued Orators the deceitful Sophisters the vain Philosophers of this World they their Sayings and Writings are not a firm ground for a believing Disciple of Christ to bottom his Faith upon for as much as they are but slightly superficial and scarce likely's the ground-work of their Learning being but Humane Fiction and self-conceited imagination such a Doctrine of Probabilities as we are cautioned against That Philosophy and Wisdom which is derived from the Invention and Tradition of fallible men and is according to the Elements of this World and not according to Christ is a spurious wisdom not to be owned by the followers of Christ what a many of the Questions and Disputations in Ethnick Philosophy is there about Elements which the Scripture doth speak expresly at and against That Wisdom which is a worldly humanely-invented wisdom is judged by the Scriptures of Truth to be a terrene wisdom suited to the earthly designs of covetous worldlings to be animal fitted to the voluptuous Arts of sensual Souls and to be devilish framed to the proud Models of ambitious Climbers This corrupt wisdom is mischievous in the bad Fruits and the evil effects thereof how prone to quarrelsome litigiousness how contradictingly opposing of the Truth how impudently immodest how headstrongly inswasible how devoid of good Fruit how full of emulating disputes of fallacious brables of over-reaching controvertings observe in experience and see and say whether it doth not puff men up making them sick about Questions about strifes of words about verbal distinctions when every word almost in a debate is wrested and wryed to a multiplicity of meanings and a variety of senses about which they would endlesly cavil and craftily equivocate from whence have started up so many Sects in Philosophy and thereby in Theology too teaching another Doctrine and they who teach this do not come up to the wholesome words of our LORD Jesus Christ and to the Doctrine which is according to right Worship from such are Christ's Disciples to withdraw their unscripturally-curious concertations and their empty unprofitable disputations do shew a corrupt mind and do bewray a devoidness of Truth Heathenish Philosophy would turn men aside from Christ who is the true full essential Wisdom and from his instituted Worship unto carnal reasonings and a corrupt service Paul's manner of arguing in these Cases was from the true sound knowledge of Created Beings and of Natural Things Thus he convinced the Athenian Philosophers who generally counted Word-learning to be but verbal-babling and a proclaiming of new Demons or Devils and he expresly declareth against Greekish-Ethnick-Philosophers The Epicurean and Stoick Philosophers were some of the most violent opposers of and subtil adversaries against the Christian Doctrine and what shall rising Graduates in Christian Academies as they grow new and further proficients in Learning be still sworn unto the words of these Pagan Magistralists What can we expect from mere Animal or Physical men but a worldly Wisdom and humane Learning that which is foolishness whilst themselves are foolish the foolishness as these men do miscount it of God is wiser it is their animality and want of spirituality that doth put them upon mis-judging of this to be foolishness The Grecanical wise men are much in searching after that wisdom which doth chiefly consist in speculation or contemplation the wisdom of the incredulous Jews is more conversant about visible signs and ocular demonstrations for without such sensible confirmations as these they will not believe though multitudes of them in the days of Christ and of his Apostles did still continue infidels in the very face of miraculous attests Both these Wisdoms are distinguished and divided from that Wisdom which is of God whose Foundations is Jesus Christ and his Word the Disciples of Christ especially those of them who are in the office of the Ministery are to keep the depositum of sound Scripture-doctrine they are actually to be averse from profane clamours about empty vanities which do affix unto words such a sense as is wholly alien from their true proper significancy and which by sophistical School-distinctions do keep wrangling about Phrases to pervert their plain right meaning and do wrest some Scriptures they understand not wrongfully accommodating them to maintain some Error or to defend some Vice There have been such as have boasted much of their profound knowledge this way who have both themselves erred from the scope concerning the Faith and have misled others also It is a false assertion to affirm this or that is true in Philosophy though in Scripture it be found otherwise For if Scripture-truth do contradict it then that which is so contradicted is not a truth but an error however Philosophy miscal it true introduced by the Father of lies Where any Philosopher did assert any thing about the Creation according to the Truth there they had it either from the Word or by their outward Observation and experience from Senses agreable to the Word some of them either had the knowledge of God's Word and did read the first Books of Scripture or at least had some traditionary Records of them and did read them If that be indeed so which some whom I have met with have affirmed that those Books at least some of them which those Believers and Converts did burn in that part of the History of the Arts of the Apostles were the Books of Ethnick Philosophy such as the Heathens Logick Dialectick Grammar Rhetorick c. so that the like execution were to be done still against the same Treatises that to this day do persist in their Treasons against the Crown of Christ and the Dignity of his Word the Libraries and Shops in Philosophick Universities would
himself fore-seen and acknowledged whether now the only prevention and remedy in this case which is otherwise so full of just fears of real doubts of endless dissatisfaction and of perplexing difficulties be not to bring all sorts of necessary knowledges to the Pan-sophie the Alness of Wisdom in the Scriptures of Truth where none of the forementioned Scriptures have any ground to set their foot on in regard that Word-Revelations about Natures Secrets are the unerring products of infinite Wisdom and of universal fore seeingness which are always uniform and the same in their well-established order and stated ordinary course without any variation by an unchangeable Law of the All-knowing Truthful Creator and Governour and Redeemer Wise Solomon himself was much in the dark and altogether at a loss whilst he studied the Nature of many things only in the way of Pagan Philosophy he experimented it to be a vain attempt of his foolish imagination to get in that way the perfect knowledge of the Essence of Creatures and of Causes and of Effects the Created Works of the Six Days in their first Origine and continued Being it was far from him he evidently discovered when he had made some proof of that kind of study and scrutiny Many Creatures were aâ—â—a far distance from him some above him as the North-heavens and their Lights which mere Humane Astronomies could not sufficiently inform him in others were below him deep deep such were the hid Treasures of the Earth the Abyss the Gulph and Hell he went round these subject matters in his thoughts but could not get through them into the exact knowledge of them by all his industry and search no private studying nor open converse could fully inform his understanding what the proper Existence the true Reason and the solid Art of the Mysteries of Nature as well as of Grace were till he was entred a Disciple in Christ's School where he was better taught by the Spirit of the LORD in those two great Books of Scripture and of Nature The vain Affectation of Creature-Knowlede in the Apostate Angels and of Humane Wisdom in fallen Man has all along been endeavouring to corrupt and to pervert both the pure Word of Aelohim and his Created Works whereby they are misrepresented to the Rational-intellect in wrong shapes WE may pass some judgement upon one of the first great Sins of Apostate Angels by that Method of Temptation which the old Serpent did use in assaulting Eve and Adam by Eve which was a vain Affectation of Creature Knowledge and of self-invented Wisdom They would find out a new Philosophy suited to their own proud concepts of things setting up of self and of Creatures as the great Idol seeking out some other way of Science and of Worship than what was formed in them by Created Principles and was put into Natural Existences and both these discovered in some Word They sought out many Inventions to see if they could find a chief Good in the Creature they would make and try Experiments what might come out of them The Tempter had high conceits of his own abilities and he would have Man to excogitate other Reasons and Causes of things than were in Created Nature and in Word-Revelation Hence it is that this caution is given us Let no one deceive you with sublime discourse touching the worship of Angels pressing into that he knows not It is the design of those evil Spirits to raise up in the mind of man such high opinions of them as to extol them to be for knowledge far above the degree of a mere Creature and to raise a mans knowledge much farther than he hath any good warrant for and for the prosecuting this hellish design they would engage man in converse with them to draw man into a discipleship under them that man might go to School to these revolted Spirits as if these could and would teach man higher and better than the LORD or his Word and VVorks have done By these stratagems and illusions to beguile man into a Veneration of them for their Scientifick Excellencies And thus did these degenerate Angels and impure Spirits prevail over Mankind at the first And this is the cause of all the prohibited black Arts of Judiciary Astrology Diabolick Magick Hellish VVitchcraft and such like forbidden Sciences and Satanical depths under the gaudy Title of profound Mysteries whereby many do lose the prize that is ready and prepared at the Goal while they yield themselves to be drawn aside with such Sophistick Seductions These hellish imposters under a specious shew of colourable Religion would bring in dangerous and damnable Errors and Heresies against the pure simplicity of the Evangelical Doctrine and they imployed under them such seducers as did much corrupt and deceive many of the ignorant and credulous fetching their Doctrines not from Scripture Revelation but from Humane Reason adulterated holding forth some curious speculations taught in the Philosophick Schools namely the worshiping of Angels as middle intercessors between God and men arrogating unto themselves without any just right a power of judging and assigning the reward of Eternal Life unto none but such only as would subscribe unto their new and false doctrines defining and determining the causes of Faith and of Religion at their own will and pleasures and not according to Christ in his Word and all this under a pretext of Humility and of demission of mind which is the Romish usurpation and Anti-christian Tyranny at this day And this is a sort of Wisdom which is therefore called Demoniacal because it has the Devil for its Author By which Satan would be reputed the learned Master of Arts and the Reverend Doctor of Sciences And would have men to enter themselves as Pupils under his Tutorship in his College And therefore in that forementioned place to the Colossians cited in the Margin Paul warn'd them not to suffer any one not the Devil himself to lord it over them to abuse his power and subtilty upon them by pretending that he will give a great Prize of Honour and of Reputation to them if they would deliver themselves over to his will in instructing them For thus he fallaciously argues in his Philosophy that men should so walk in humility as not to go directly unto God or unto Christ but should first resort unto Angels for their Instruction and should make Angels such glorious Creatures to be as Mediators between God and them for the negotiating of all their Affairs which is a piece of Platonick Anti-Theology and Anti-Christianism still maintained and practised in Ethnick and Papistick Philosophy Satan would have them to climb up and to thrust themselves into sublime points of hidden Wisdom as if they were profound Mysteries of refined Speculation above the vulgar capacity which yet are but phantastick devices and groundless imaginatious in the disquisition where of he would have them to pride and to please themselves as if they had learn â— some rare
to them that trust in him when those who have either added to or taken from his words shall be reproved and be found to have been lying ones And I do hope there will be a pure every way uncorrupt Autograph or Apograph of the Scriptures of Truth Neither am I without some Words of the LORD upon which to bottom Faith Expectation and Prayer concerning this matter a great and a glorious Work highly and fully worth the most serious and diligent search after by Christian Princes by Learned Men and by Eminent Believers Spiritual Discerners should know how to take and to improve this hint which I had rather they themselves would industriously pursue than at present put me upon any further opening of my thoughts with the grounds of those my apprehensions in such an Age of quarrelsome jangling of endless contentiousness and of lips of folly In the mean time till there be this glorious appearing of Christ and of his Book according to Prophetical Revelations I bless his Name for himself and for his Word and for any gracious Work of his Word upon my heart having felt a day of his Power there whereby he has made me willing to stand in some holy awe of him and of his Word and to dispense it in some growing measures as I have received it in uprightness as of God in the presence of God so speaking it in Christ If any will so sell this Word of God as to falâ—â—e it by corrupting it any ways by dealing deceitfully with it by playing the Hucksters with it adulterating and sophisticating of it by mingling of Philosophick Errors and Humane Inventions and Unwritten Traditions with it Thus to make the market of their own private gain upon some ignorant deluded soul by their crafty handling and covetous dispensing of it by false glosses and counterfeit garnishes giving forth wrong senses and making undue applications of it raising false Doctrines and inferring ill uses from thence let such consider in the fear of Jehovah how they will answer it at that last Great Day when they shall be judged to their Eternal Estate by that Word which they have so much wrested and wronged O how great cause have they to inlarge in Jehovah's praises who having in their younger years taken in much of the Philosophick taint were afterwards by his Spirit and Grace cured of its gross mistakes and dangerous errors that a Moses escaped from out of Egyptian Astrology Sorcery and such other superstitious diabolical Arts That a Daniel Hananiah Mishael and Azariah got so well off from Chaldaick Books so full of vain Arts and of Idolatrous Sciences that Aelohim gave them Knowledge and Understanding to discern Truth from Falshood whereby to convince and to confute Ethnick Errors and Paganish Tenets and that they were so kept from prohibitell Magick and such black Arts That the new converted Christians were preserved and antidored by the Principles and Laws of their true pure Religion from and against the poysonous disputes of Epicureans Stoicks Libertines Gnosticks and such other Philosophers That a Paul so 〈◊〉 up in several corrupt 〈◊〉 was afterwards so savingly inlightned so sound in Scripture Learning so skilful so useful so successful a Preacher O what special matter of great thankfulness was there here Vain man would be wise above and besides and against what is written although Wo be threatried against those who are wise in then own eyes The wisdom of such shall perish There is a knowledge that is vain which a wise a man should not utter The worldly wise ones of Philosophers do irride the Christian Religion and of Polititians do hate it O the blessedness the happy goings on with a straight foot of them who are made Wise to Salvation It has been in all Ages of the Church the device and the attempts of Saran and of his Disciples to abuse men by paralogisms by such false reasonings as by a shew and colour of Truth do circumvent the unskilful and unexperienced in the Word of Righteousness And their assaults have been mainly made against the Churches and People of God under specious shews of Reason and of Religion to introduce somewhat that is quite contrary to the Nature Purity and Simplicity of the Christian undefiled Doctrine Hence have they endeavoured to thrust in the worshiping of Angels and of Saints departed by invocating of them by dedicating of Temples and of Altars to them by making vows to them with many other uninstituted Observations of humanely-invented Ceremonies and divers Philosophical trifles which are no authorized warranty nor legitimate argumentation from the Word of God nor from sound Reason judiciously informed thereby Oh how daring bold is humane curiosity that will adventure to be wise beyond due bounds of sober knowledge when men will presume to be Doctors not understanding what they speak nor of what they affirm The Schoolmen with the Papists and others who have trod in the steps of those Scholastick Doctors have generally greatly erred herein by obtruding upon others many Forgeries and falshoods for Articles of Christian Faith which were taught themselves only by the dark discoursings of their own blind minds such as are their Scientia media their free-will their inherent Righteousness their meritorious Works their creature-idolizings with such like dogmatical decrees and received opinions of proud men which they fetched out of the Metaphysicks of Philosophers and out of the Ethicks of Pagans from whose corrupt Principles they would deduce the great Truths and the saving Mystesteries of the Christian Religion bottoming their unsound conclusions upon their own sandy opinions thus subjecting Theology to Philosophy and Christianity to Sophistry Those Books which are commonly called Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy or the Book of Moses and of his Writings there have the approving Testimony of those true faithful Prophets that did follow after him as also of the LORD Jesus Christ himself and of his Apostles and the History of the Creation and of the Works thereof in the Beginning of the Bible is true in the literal sense and was intended and recorded so to be understood and all those Philosophical Allegorical and Mystical Senses which any do give thereof that are contrary unto this are to be avoided and rejected THis is the first revealed and written Word the most Ancient Book by which all Humane Treatises where they err must be corrected I exclude not any other part of Holy Scriptures but do own all through as a perfect Summary of all useful Learning and do bring them in for the confirmation of Truths only the Reader is to remember and consider that one great part of my present Design is to propound some such particular inquiries concerning the Works of Creation in the several Days of the first Week of the World and to give such a Scripture Judgement upon some special Cases as may restaur and advance true profitable Knowledges and Arts. Christ in his Word hath put his
honourable Title upon the Writings of Moses that he calleth it The Book of Moses The Book of the Law of Moses The Book of the Law of Jehovah in the hand of Moses The Churches of Aelohim in the several Ages thereof have given Moses their large Testimonial as under their Hands and Seals It is worth the noting here that that rich tormented fool recorded in that History by Luke had not in all his life time right apprehensions of the invisible World by all the helps that the Learned Philosophers and Natural Historians could afford him and that he thought Mankind were by such as those so commonly and generally corrupted and misled into errors and mistakes about the different places and entertainments in that other World for separated Spirits and departed Souls according as their States Frames and Actings their Principles Rules and Ends were whilst on Earth that scarce a mere man alive upon the whole Earth particularly where his Brethren lived and with whom they conversed could or would set their Judgements right in this weighty Concern about the locality of Heaven and of Paradise of the Gulph and of Hell for which Reason he desired of Abraham that he would send some to his Fathers House one or other who had been in those places which men on earth do not so see he himself as to himself having before received an answer that Lazarus could not come from on high to dip his finger in the water as he would have had him on in his way to have cool'd the tongue of that damned wretch in regard there was such a Gulph between then so that there was no ordinary passage from the one to the other The reply that was made to him was this They thy Brethren have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them if they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead There was enough in the Writings of these about Heaven and Paradise about the Waters and Abyss about Sheol and the Gulph about Hell and that place of Torment to inform them and do declare unto them the dreadful posture of the lower part of the Created World This Moses the man and servant of Jehovah had when he was born the Beauty of Aelohim shining upon him and although he were learned in all the Wisdom of the Egyptians yet has he left upon Record only that Scripture-Wisdom which he was taught by the Holy Spirit being with all fidelity in the Church in the Wilderness with the Angel of the Covenant Jehovah Christ sent by the Father who spoke to him in Mount Sinai where he received the Oracles to give unto the LORD's people whom he commanded a Law which is the inheritance of the Church of Jacob. To this Moses Christ manifested and made known himself eye to eye face to face mouth to mouth so proclaiming his Name and making all his Goodness to pass before him as that by a secondary Glory reflected from the LORD upon him the skin of his face 〈◊〉 shine with such an overcoming brightness as was dazling to the eyes of the Israelites and they were afraid to come nigh him Of all the Prophets arose in Israel there was none like unto Moses whom Jehovah so knew This Moses was a faithful Historian and those things which he wrote were not his own but the Truth and Laws of Jehovah by his handing them out even Enemies themselves being Judges Christ doth approve of Moses and of all that he spoke and wrote from him What Moses said was the Commandment of Aelohim what he spake unto Moses the same is spoken unto us The LORD Christ has raised up some or other in the several ages to plead the Cause of the literal sense of the Works of Creation in the Histoy thereof in the beginning of the Book of God and Wise men especially in this last Age have professed their expectation of the sound knowledge of Natural Things and of their real Essence and true Properties in this first Weeks Journal of the Created World by their several attempts to interpret it this way The literal sense of Moses's Hebrew who was an Hebrew which Hebrew is the Tongue and Language wherein the he wrote Jehovah's Laws is the ground of all Interpretations for this Language hath apert significancies and plain properties of speech which must in the first place be received when opened that the natural meaning of the Scripture may be evidently known Much of sound Scripture-knowledge doth confist in a right explaining of the Words and Speeches in those five Books beforementioned Genesis c. by conferring them with themselves in those Writings of the Prophets and Apostles which are Commentaries upon those five Books by a true and sound explication as the Letter is and giving forth thence the genuine meaning of those Words and Phrases which therefore Christ hath confirmed to every Jod and Chirek There is Originally a certain proper distinct and only one signification of the Hebrew Words which is true and genuine and which under Christ and his Father and Spirit is the best Interpreter of the Holy Scriptures upon the discerning heart of an experienced Believer which would be abundantly confirmed by an accurate Collation of other Scriptures The first words therefore of Scripture particularly and especially is this History of the Creation must be held forth in their Primitive meaning where they are first used in their proper literal sense which doth give forth light to the right understanding of them in those other Scriptures where the same Words and Phrases are afterwards used So that it is generally the common Error and usual Defect in most of our Hebrew Lexicographers that they give so many differing and sometimes contradicting significancies of one and the same Hebrew word whereas they should set down the only one proper distinct meaning of every Hebrew Root and carry the juice of that Sense into all the Branches that do spring from the Root such a meaning of it as may well agree with that word where-ever it be met with throughout the whole Scriptures Which one Direction followed and improved with holy skill and studious industry by men fitted for such a work would bring in a great augment to useful Learning The Holy Scriptures are written as they are to be read and must be so acknowledged especially these matters Historical and Narrative of the Creation without doubtfulness or doubleness of meaning They use such a manner of speaking as is not otherwise to be understood not to be taken in any other sense than in that which at the first reading doth plainly offer it self to a man of spiritual understanding And of all Scriptures I take this of the History of the Creation and the Law of the Ten Words more expresly to call for this In which two are the complete summaries and comprehensive Modules of the Truths and Duties of the
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
what is spoken of the Almighty Jehovah in the one hundred and second Psalm that he aforetime had founded the Earth and that the Heavens were the Work of his hands this same is applyed unto Christ as done by him The same Author of that Epistle doth apply unto Christ as his voice which should be obeyed the which in the ninety fifth Psalm is the voice of Jehovah the God of his people That which in the Relation made known to John the LORD Christ doth say is meant of himself that he is the beginning and the end the first and the last the same doth Jehovah speak of himself in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah It is one of Christ's Names in the Book of Jeremiahe Jehovah our Righteousness according unto which doth Paul speak in his former Epistle to the Corinthians that Christ is of God made Righteousness unto those who are his and in his later Epistle to him he saith that they are made the Righteousness of God in Christ This Jehovah is one Jehovah So saith Moses Hear O Israel Jehovah our God Jehovah one The same said Christ in his Gospel Hear O Israel the LORD our God the LORD is one which the Scribe unto whom the LORD Jesus Christ spake that did acknowledge Master thou hast well said in Truth that there is one only God and there is none other but he the which is said by Christ to be an understanding answer Thus speak Jehovah Christ the Almighty the Rock of his people in the Book of Moses See now that I I he and no God with me For who Aelohim besides Jehovah and who a Rock except one God Thus David in the eighteenth Psalm which Rock was Christ as Paul expounds The same speaketh the Prophet Isaiah Thus saith Jehovah the King of Israel and his Redeemer which is also a further proof of the Jehovahship of Christ this Being in the Prophets applyed to the Redeemer the which Redeemer is one of Christ's Names both in the Old and in the New Testament thus saith Jehovah of Hosts I am the first and I am the last and besides me there is not God And again in the same Prophet I Jehovah and none more besides me no God To this well agreeth the Testimony of Paul we know that there is none other God but one To us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we for him and one LORD Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him which in another place the same Apostle doth again witness there is one LORD one God A clear revealing and a distinct opening of this great Mystery doth John set before us in his first Epistle there are three that bear Record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Spirit and these three One are There is none Holy like Jehovah for there is none besides him And there is no Rock like our God so Hanna confessed in her Prayer Thus David when a word was brought to him from Jehovah by Nathan the Prophet about the building of an House to Jehovah by Solomon Thou art great Jehovah God for there is none like thee and there is no God than thou alone And again in that Song of his Deliverances Who is God besides Jehovah and who is a rock except our God Agreeingly with this was that passage in Solomon's Prayer at the Dedication of Jehovah's House Jehovah the God none else This was Naaman's confession when he was cleansed of his Leprosie and spake of Jehovah Israels God I know there is no other God in all the earth Thus Hizkiah in his Prayer to the Faces of Jehovah O Jehovah thou thy self thou alone the God thou Jehovah God alone Nehemiah has the like breathing in his Prayer Thou that Jehovah alone God is one saith Paul in his Epistles to the Galatians Isaiah bringeth in Jehovah himself thus speaking I he he Jehovah before me was no God formed neither shall be after me And again Is there a God besides me I know none And again thus saith Jehovah thy Redeemer I Jehovah alone Again Am not I he the Jehovah and there is no God more besides me and a just God and a Saviour there is none but I. The like in Hoseah I Jehovah thy God from out of Egypt therefore shouldest thou know no God but me alone for there is no Saviour besides me How good is that true Word which Zeehariah hath foretold Jehovah shall be King over the whole Earth in that day Jehovah shall be one and his Name one Who will give us to see that we know and acknowledge this and may cause it to return into our heart that Jehovah he God in the heauens above and the earth beueath and none else O give we to Jehovah the Glory of his Name O that our our hearts were united to fear this Name Jehovah hath said that he will exalt him that doth acknowledge his Name My Soul bless thou Jehovah and all my inward parts this Name of his Holiness The Name of Jehovah is a Tower of Strength the Righteous shall run into it and be set in an high place of safety Great is Jehovah and he will do Great Things for his Great Name sake This Jehovah Christ was appointed by his Father and Anointed by his Spirit to be the one Mediator the only LORD and Lawgiver This now cometh next to be considered he is the Mediator he is the One Mediator he is the LORD he is the only LORD he is the Lawgiver he is the only Lawgiver To all and to every of this he was appointed by his Father and Anointed by his Spirit He is the Mediator A Mediator as Paul doth describe him in his Epistle to the Galatians is a middle one between others one that puts himself betâ—â—een to come between two parties for a Mediator is not of one but he has 〈◊〉 unto two persons or parties that do by the means or Ministery of this middle one treat about somewhat wherein they are both concerned either by way of mutual Messages to know one anothers minds or to be kept in Union and in Love or to be reconciled where the parties are at variance and should be set at one The two parties here under present consideration are Godâ— and Man as Paul writes in his first Epistle to Timothy where he doth affirm this Mediator to be the Man Christ Jesus The Man who was God Man God manifested in the Flesh as he says in the same Epistle That Man who was Gnimmaunâ— elâ— God with us the Almighty or the Potentate or powerful one with us as speaks the Prophet Isaiah He was God who purchased his Church by his own Blood as Paul declared to the Elders of the Church of Ephesus For such a Mediator became us as had the Natures of both those parties in one whole Christ between whom he came
Captain General or Head-Captain how quickly can he arm his creatures against any that presumptuously dare to rebel against him and his holy Wills and Laws All the creatures are this Host The Angels the Stars particularly are some of Christian Hosts The Scriptures do acknowledge him to be the Head-Captain and Leader though he be chiefly and in a more peculiar and especial manner This with respect to his own Covenant-people This Prince of Jehovah's Hosts was he who was the valiant Warriour with his under-officer Joshuâ— in that great martial expedition against the enemies of his Church and people This is the Prince of Princes who can easily break the strongest opposers The Head is the anointed part And thus was Christ anointed to this high and honourable Office of being Head-Captain or King and Commander in chief How often in Scripture is Christ called Jehovah of Hosts The Head is crowned So was Christ's head as the victorious triumphing conquerour over all his Enemies The 〈◊〉 useth a word which doth somewhat open this mystery It being used in military affairs for the contracting or putting to gether of scattered Soildiers into one Troop under one Head-Captain As in Arithmetic many several Numbers are gathered or put together into and under one heâ—d-sum And as in Rhetorick all the particulars of a discourse or Oration are repeated and gathered under one general head If Itb at the end of Reaâ—â—b be the Chaldet and Syriack 〈…〉 being turned into the Hebrew Thou frotht Jesh he is then the word signifies in him who is the Head-Captain Let the ingenious and studious 〈◊〉 further into this mystery How great a promoter of Learning as well as of Religion this would be all found Believers of Christian Doctrine will soon admit For there is no knowledge comparable to this of the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and of him crucified Though Paul abounded in other sorts of Learning yet it was a case determinedly judged aright by him that all their knowledge was as no knowledge at all without this and in competition with this this being the ground-work of all I shall to this end cull some useful passages out of the nine first Chapters of the Proverbs of Solomon relating to this matter In which one Book so small a part of the Scriptures there is more of sound learning in profitable Arts and Sciences than in all the Pagan Philosophical Books that are Extant O how much then is there in the whole Scriptures Here you may find a Directory and Rules for Theology for Physicks Logicks Rhetoricks Medicine Politicks Ethicks Oeconomicks what not that is useful Learning How many several significant words are there whereby to set out the excellency and preheminence of Scripture-knowledge and of the Science of useful Arts in a Scripture-way Such as sapience or savoury wisdom Science Understanding Intellect Erudition Knowledge Prudence Skill Subtilness and the like with many choice commendations of it both in words and phrases as that this doth deliver Authoritative sayings that it teacheth Rectitudes gives apt Counsels speaks essences according as the truth of things is with much more Here the Wise will find and addition of Doctrine the more he doth learn still the more he may Thus making continued proficiency Here are the best principles of Sciences This doth best deliver the beginnings and progress of Arts The true holy Fear and the Right Worship of the adored Almighties is the Head the Crown-Top the Captain-ship of knowledge the summity of Wisdom This is the chief Science and it hath the principality of Arts. The first in time the honourablest in Dignity and this is the leadingâ— sentence Axiom or Apophthegm that carries the Inquirer into profitable Learning of any kind This puts a gracious ornament a golden chain upon and about other knowledges Christ is Wisdoms all Wisdoms in one the Pluralnâ—ss of the Number is an Indication of his comprehensiveness and full-treasuredness of all true good Wisdom He is the chief Wisdom the Wisdom of Wisdoms the Wisdom of God He is made of God wisdom to Believers This is one of the prime of all Good that he is made to such All treasures of Wisdom and of knowledge are in him and in his Word He is the Authour of all sound Wisdom And that is a Man's Wisdom to learn Christ's words to learn the Truth as it is in Jesus to have the mind of Christ and to have such conceptions and apprehensions of Truths and of things as are in the mind of Christ We should make our ear to attend to these eloquent speeches these pleasant oracles of Wisdom These must be hid as a treasure in our inmost recesses Our Hearts shall be enclined to this intelligibleness of understanding We should cry giving our voice to it to call in this Heavenly Instructer to teach us it And we should call it to us to be familiarly conversant with it We should with diligent Intenseness seek it as Silver and enquiringly search after it as for hid Treasures The knowledge of the fear of Jehovah and the finding of this knowledge is the great Promise This Wisdom is a gift from him knowledge and understanding comes from his mouth from Christ and his Word His Blessing must be upon Man's endeavour It â—s he that lays up to right ones Essence Essential knowledge sound and true real knowledge of things substantial understanding Philosophical notions are but a shew and shaddow All the humane invented unscriptural Arts and Sciences are but colours and appearances This Word-knowledge doth influence upon practice Who was ever thoroughly converted and made Holy by Ethnick Philosophizings In the Scriptures are rightnesses or straitnesses conform to the Rule of the Law of Christ and it hath a preserving efficacy upon the heart that receives it How pleasantly delightful is this knowledge and Wisdom when once it enters into the heart Otherwise if 〈◊〉 be only without in the Book it has not such a pleasingly holy operation and sweet sanctifying effect That is the praise worthy knowledge that gives one to find Grace and good understanding in the eyes of Jehovah and of Adam such as Adam was in his Primitive Uprightness and first Integrity of concreated Knowledge If we know Jehovah in all our ways he will direct our paths As for others who lean to their own understanding and who are wise in their own eyes their confidence is vain Adam had happy goings on with a straight foot whilst he found and held and acted this Wisdom and drew forth this Intelligence And the wisest among the sons of Adam should still be making out after this precious Treasure and then fetch from thence to make it their own and other mens How good is its Traffick and Income How good is the Fruit that is to be gathered from this Tree of saving Knowledge
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
is a word that followeth after Tohu which Tohu has Bohu always joyned with it as in nature of created places so also in Scriptures This Tohu and Bohu therefore also are not matter and form The Jews and Christians have learned this wrong conceipt in the Schools of Paganish Philosophers and then afterwards they affayed whether they could defend it by their wryingâ— or this Scripture to work it into their errour As for the Scituation and Place of these they are the lowest parts of the created World Jehovah Aeâ—ohim hath stretched forth the North over Tohu this Gulphy-astoniâ—hing-emptyâ— space which is that part in the Positure of the Creation that is directly diametrically opposite unto the North-point So that the North part is the uppermost part There are some Heavens higher then other Heavens and some parts of the Heavens are higher then some other parts of the same Heavens The most High or the Highest or the eminently exalted High one over and above all is one of Christ's names He as to his glorified humane nature sits in his glorious high Throne And would you know where this is No books of Ethnick Philosophers can inform you without light from the Word For it is only of Scripture-Revelation It is at the sides of the North whither a proud Prince that was brought down to hell most opposite to the North said in his former self-exaltation that he would ascend to pluck Christ if he could out of his Chair of Majesty that he might get in to give Laws and Orders to the World It is at the North where Christ doth work From hence doth exaltation come not either from the East or West or South but from Christ sitting over the sides of the North. There is the City of this Great King How quickly may a Believers Spirit resort thither and freely converse with Christ in his humane glorified Nature Who as he is also Jehovah hath a way of gracious presence here with the spirit of a Believer How many useful ways might this be improved in experimental Christianity I have given the Hint which should quicken up others to pass further into this reâ—search more may be collected out of the Scriptures about the exaltation of the North and If need were to use such arguments unto men their mouths who oppose this might soon be stopp'd by the express concessions and affirmations of humane Authours As the Earth is founded upon the Waters as upon her Bases and is above the Waters So also is Hell under the Waters in a lower place It is opposed to the highest Heavens as the lowest place Here are the shadowed profundities below the Sea the lower Abyss and Vorago All the controversies about Sheol about the local descent into the craving place concerning which so many Treatises have so hotly contended must by this Word-discovery receive a clear full determination For in no one Scripture which I am as yet thorowly convinced by must Sheol necessarily or doth Sheol properly signifie the Grave but some lower place than that Divers sheets of Paper might be filled with this Subject from what is gatherable out of the Word which also is another very profitable discovery if pursued with diligence and received with meekness and would overturn the whole of Ethnick Philosophy about the System of the World and the positure of the Creation The middle of this Earth is not that common center of the Universal World towards which all heavy bodies would naturally descend there to sit down and enjoy their Rest The Stone or Brass or Lead at the end of the Line in the perpendicular would move downward under all the Earth beneath the Waters if it met with no obstacle According to Geometricians own principles If right Lines do stand upon right Lines making the Angles on either side equal then either of those Angles is a right Angle and the right Lines that stand erected are perpendicular Lines to those upon which they stand Such perpendicular Lines can never meet in one and the same center and point or interfect one another for there is no enclining of the Lines any more to one side then another There is no reclining or obtuseness in any of the Angles aequidistant perpendiculars prolonged and moved never so far on both parts will never meet either on the one side or on the other All right Angles are equal to one another Such perpendiculars are always equal distant the one from the other Could such perpendicular Lines meet at a point if they were prolonged they will necessarily intersect and the Angles on both sides would not be equal These perpendicular Lines are Rectangled parallels they are equal perpendiculars constituted between the same parallels they are Equiâ—ngled were there Parallelogram-lines drawn all the quadrilateral Figures would have opposite Parallels from one and the same point can be drawn but one perpendicular Line to divide a terminated right-lined Diameter equally dividing the Circle into two equal parts if that perpendicular Line be drawn from the Circumference to the Center and from one and the same Point and Center there can be but one perpendicular Line drawn to that part of the Circumference where a right Line doth touch the Circle and where that Perpendicular doth cut that right Line into two equal right Angles at the point of touching All other Lines drawn from the same point have not correspondent proportional parallel equidistant parts neither will they make right equal Angles in that point where they do touch or intersâ—ct that right Line The opposite sides are not parallel neither can they pass into a right-angled-equilateral quadrilateral Figure into such a Square which hath the four sides equal and the Angles right-lined Of all the right Lines drawn from one and the same Point on a right Line that Line which is Perpendicular is the least constituted on one and the same Base so that there is but one Perpendicular from or to this one and the same Point standing erect upon a right Line According to Statick Law there can be no Angular point of two several Lines concurring in it without an unequal divergence or divaricating of the two lines from it proportionably as it is nearer or further distant from the point Improve we this to overturn humane Philosophy Let there be an Erect Wall square of a right-angled equilateral quadrilateral Figure and let plumb-lines be let fall from the two sides of it they will naturally move downward to and if way were made into the Earth perpendicularly and these perpendiculars would be equidistant and would be always if prolonged equidistant and never meet at a Center and Point which is quite contrary to the Tenet of such Philosophers seeing there cannot be a Motion of two heavy Bodies from the circumference in two parallel lines towards one Center and Point For still the nearer they come to this supposed Center the nearer they must be to one another
other Creatures whereby they also are serviceable to man When it is dryed it becomes Hay this also is Food to Beasts and Cattel Herbs were given unto men to feed upon the green Herbs which was bestowed for this end both before and after the Fall of Adam Man had the Herbs of Paradise before and the Herbs of the Field Thus it was also after the Flood Nebuchadnezzar was sent a grasing for a remedy and it might not be altogether unworthy of a learned Physicians inquiry whether if there were a discrete choice of Specifick-Herbs for the cure of that Distemper it would not prove one of the most proper Medicinal Foods for such as are overgrown with bestial Melancholy or deprived of Humane Rationality as to the use and exercise of it for the present The Wise-Kitchen-Herbalist is one of the most successful Doctors and Practisers of Physick It is a sore Judgement when the LORD for sins doth send either such Hail as spoileth the Herb or the Locusts Palmer worm or other hurtful Creatures to consume the Herb. Or when the Herb doth wither or doth fail this is a sign of the barrenness of such an Earth As in a time of great drought it useth to do Thus also when the Earth doth not bring forth tender Herb when the Mildew which hath the name in Hebrew of paleness is a plague upon the Corn and other tender Plants and Herbs through too much moistness as blasting is with driness whereby the natural greenness is gone before it be ripe and the colour is faded when that which was given to be food for Man Beast and Cattel is corrupted It is a great benefit from Jehovah when there are Herbs in the Mountains when the Pasture fields and the Habitacles of the Desert are stored with Herbs this is a singular favour of God towards his people it is a blessing when there is a budding Grass in the Fields pleasant Pastures and Leas where green and tender Herbs do spring When this Earth doth bring forth Herb commodious for the Tiller of the Field and so when God doth give the Herb. The Leaves of some Trees are for healing or for stamping or beating as we use to stamp or beat Leaves or Herbs small to use them in Medicinal Drinks or Plaisters Herbs are also given unto the bruit Beasts for Aliment and Food for Physick and Medicine before the Fall and also useet the Fall The Herb is the Aliment of the Elephant and of Beasts and of Cattel of the Ass of the Ox of the Heifer or Cow Green Bows of Trees have their use also for this And hereby these living Creatures do become the more serviceable to man Herbs have a concreated Virtue to flourish much and to be green Hence greenness is attributed to them which greenness for the cause of sin doth sometimes fail Hence to flourish as the Herb of the Field to be tender as the tender Herb to germinate as the Herb. The tender Herb has a splender after Rain it has a comely floridness and a lovely decor The Herb quickly withereth and soon dryeth especially the Herb that is struck or smitten with the scorching of the Sun then its Flower Falls and its beauty perisheth The Moorish Fenny Herb the Reed or Sea-grass groweth not without Water and is soon withered in dry places God takes care of the Herb though to day it be and to morrow it be cast into the Oven There are different divided sorts of Herbs both in respect of the efficient cause For some are swon and come from Culture and others are unsown voluntary and growing without the use of such Art naturally spinging up without any skill of man laid out about them The sown Herbs are expressed by such as are seeding of Seed the other is the Fruit-tree yielding Fruit whose seed is in it both are budding grass And also in respect of their Native place For there are Herbs of the Field Herbs of the Mountains Herbs of the Moors or Fens Also in respect of growth and of age Some Herbs are younger and tenderer others are more grown and ripe the distilling shower doth make them fruitful also in respect of their quality for some Herbs are bitter with which the Paschal Lamb was to be eaten Others are satish Herbs There are Pot-herbs all kinds of such Some whereof are of the Fields gathered for Food others are of the Gardens Gardens do afford Fruit for Food The Kings themselves did use Garden herbs and Orchard fruits The Gardeners Work is to Till and to Dress Gardens for such Herbs Tythe of them was to be paid as proper healthful Food for Labourers in the Work of the LORD There is both Food and Medicine in them too Some of them are proper for those who are weak Daniel chose this kind of Dyet and preferred it before lushious dainties of the Royal Table and it put him into the more healthful state Some are greater than others as that of the Mustard Seed is one of the least What is weak is compared to the green Herb which doth quickly perish The place of Grass is the Earth the Mountains not dry but moist places It greatly flourisheth for a time the Spring is usually the Season of its greatest flourishing when it more buds forth in its beauteous verduxe though withal it quickly fails There is green Grass and there is Grass that is withered and they have both of them their several usefulness for several purposes The LORD has ways of smiting of the Grass in which case much of its Virtue is lost It was Aelohim who created the Planets He alone gives them power to encrease He adorned the Garden of Eden with them Such a Garden is one of the pleasantest places for earthly delights for a studious searcher into these secrets of Nature here below It was Solomon's Wisdom that he excelled in this Science He treated of Plants from the Cedar to the Hysop or Rosemary rather and most mens concluding upon the loss of that Book doth feed a gross mistake as if now this Art were not to be searched after in the Word of Truth Whereas there is more of this in Solomon's Writings came to our hands than passeth under through exact Observation but in taking in the rest of the Scriptures concerning this there might be found an admirable fulness on this subject matter The budding Plant doth put forth its boughs The most pleasant of Plants do not profit without the blessing of Elohim Olive-plants are always green and they are of a growing Nature The LORD Jesus himself is compared to a tender Plant and so is his Church and People It is healthful as well as delightful dwelling to be among Plants and Hedges There are some Plants that are green Plants of the Valley There are some Plants which are called
solicitude and of deadly slavery To consult the Devils Oracles in doubtful cases is Apostacy from and denying of the true God and to resort for divining unto one that hath a Familiar is a seeking to and a worshipping of the Devil So is Sorcery and Necromancy where the Devil is sought unto in the form of some dead man the Devil appeared in the likeness of Samuel it was not the true Samuel but mere illusion of Satan for God had refused to answer Saul by Prophets such as Samuel was Saul is said to have died for his Transgression principally in that he sought and asked counsel of a familiar spirit Sooth-saying by the flying and noise of Birds is also condemned usually the care of persons in this case is to avoid the seeing or the hearing of such kind of ominous signs which would signifie nothing as to good or evil in themselves in this matter were it not for the consent of the observer they have no force efficacy or operativeness at all this way were it not for the superstitious conceits of the mind when it is diligently bended and intentively turned to them whereby divers things do befal divers men according to the diversity of their thoughts and imaginations Of the like Nature is divination by looking into the entrails of Beasts so did the King of Babel who consulted with Idols and looked into the Liver so is star-gazing charms mumbling of words for such an end casting of Figures for this purpose and the like There should not be any found among us that useth witchcraft or is a regarder of times or a marker of the flying of Fowls or a Sorcerer or a Charmer or that consulteth with Spirits or a Sooth-sayer or that asketh counsel of the dead To a seeking unto these the holy Spirit doth oppose a Prophet as the only lawful Minister of God to know his Will by To ascribe such a special foreknowledge or foretellingness indicated by the positure of Stars which might rule over the consciences and wills of voluntary Agents is contrary to that Soveraign Authority which the LORD doth exercise over the wills of men bowing and bending moving and directing them which way he pleaseth and therefore such a power is not to be arrogated by any mere Creatures Angels themselves whether good or bad have not such an innate Light in them as of themselves to know future particular contingents before hand neither can the intellect of man so foreknow Astrologers therefore not having their pretended prescience and prognosticating skill either by Divine Revelation or by Natural Causalities they have it by diabolical suggestion That knowledge of determinate future things which any really have by Divine Revelation is Prophesie and not Divination Such prying curiosity as has neither Scripture or Nature to bottom upon is experienced and bewrayed to be the common disease of the vain itching mind of fallen unquiet man from hence has sprung this troublesome question about Judiciary Astrologers who would bind men to fatal Stars as if the body of man were composed and fashioned according to the twelve Signs of Heaven as if the Moon had dominion in man's body under the twelve Zodiacal Constellations placing Aries in the Head and Face Taurus in the Neck and Throat Gemini in the Arms and Shoulders and from thence running through the other Signs into the other parts of the body even to the very soles of the Feet which they ascribe to Pisces Did the Authority of Christ and of his Word take more sensible hold of mens hearts they would tremble more and not dare to adventure upon those prohibited evils which the LORD hath so dreadfully threatned with such sore judgements that the soul which turneth it self unto Diviners and Prognosticators shall be cut off from the midst of his people Man or Woman when there is in them a familiar Spirit or that is a Wizard they shall be surely put to death they shall stone them with stones their bloods shall be upon them their death shall be upon their own head their own sin is the just cause of it and the Statute Law of England doth make many of those practices to be Felony which yet are commonly used in this Nation In the day when the LORD will honour himself by reviving of his Judicial Laws and by raising up of such as Josiah was a None-such for reformation in this kind to put those Laws in due execution when these evils are espied out one such Example in such an age of speculative and practical Atheism and Infidelity may be a more forcible argument with some than ten Scriptural reasons now are The certain knowledge of future particular contingents is that by which the true God is differenced distinguished from Idols The LORD doth nippingly touch and sharply check the vanity of this Art and the cheatingness of its Arrists and the ignorance and credulity of those who do yield themselves to be deluded thereby He doth sttaitly charge and sorely threaten such confident boasters of their Astrological skill In the Apostles time when the Doctrine of the Gospel did more obtain and prevail these black Arts were condemned and the Books that treated of them were burnt Those kind of evil practitioners are described by a Syriack word and so is the word in Chaldee and Samaritan too which doth designate and denote not only such Magicians as are plainly and evidently given to diabolical arts but also to such arts of Inchantment of Jugling deceiving by slight conveyance deluding the eye-sight with Legerdemain such curious illusory Arts which though to the ignorant and vulgar may seem to be otherwise yet really are wicked Artifices such are the feigned devices of Planetaries and Casters of Nativities and the Constitutions of some of the Christian Emperours have ordered that such Books of such Astrologers should be burned A large Volume might be quickly written on this subject matter but if the Word of the LORD be not submitted unto Who am I that I should think to silence these Adversaries by the force of my reasoning with them I therefore leave it with the LORD to plead his own cause in his own way in his own time If I have Instanced in some evil Arts which the Reader may apprehend do not so properly belong to Judiciary Astrology let him consider that this black Art doth spread it self wide and far and besides when I was upon this I was willing to bring in my Testimony against all that evil which sought for some protection from Judiciary Astrology and had some ways a Relation to it I now proceed to the Scripture discovery The Darkness Evening and Night were divided more generally before as to Time Place and Nature from the Light Morning and Day in their created Beings and successive courses and now they were further specially distinguished and pointed out by the Heavenly Luminaries Time was not first measured by the Sun for there was
Original Hebrew hath its great use and may be put to a more growing and profitable improvement only special heed must be taken that they be all drawn to side with the Hebrew but not to put the Hebrew violently by force to be of their party against its own natural meaning In whatsoever Author you meet this disconsonancy to the Scriptures that would bring an alien sense to the Scriptures and doth not receive a genuine meaning from the Scriptures look upon it as one great cause of error these appositions and additaments from men are detractions and substractions from the Word Let the Learned in all their studious artificial Expatiations and liberal scientifick walks in these Fields of Nature gather and bring in as much of choice created Excellencies as they can whereby to contribute to the augment of this Art and the perfecting of this Science only let this be learn'd by reading in Scriptures Book and in Natures School For the rectifying of some common Philosophical mistakes let us by an inquiring Spirit make a deeper research into the Scriptures about this question The creeping living Creatures were not formed out of the Waters as their Pre-existent matter for they were and are distinct Creatures from the Waters of a different make and kind This doth but set out the manner of after productions in the watery places They have been some of the generally received mistakes that â—here was a common pre-existent Matter of the whole Creation That Matter and Motion are the Essences of things That the four Elements are the Original causes of things which have a mixtion of Elements in them That beaten axiom of Ethnick Philosophy that of nothing it is impossible any thing should come as if therefore there were a necessity of fore-existent matter to work upon because the ordinary course of Nature is now so doth discover in the assertors thereof their ignorance of the Scriptures For although out of absolute Nothing Nothing can be extracted converted or made to be yet that doth not necessarily infer that therefore there must be a first Matter and a Potency thereof to be the common Principle of all material things for Almighty Power can create that unto a Being which had no Being before That Ethnick Rationalist who maintained and defended this corrupt Tenet did reject all matters of Faith not only Humane but Divine also and examined all things only by his own Reason whose Writings therefore can afford no true good Commentary upon Scripture which doth not at all speak of any such pre-existent Matter The Scriptures of Truth do not assert any such prime confused Chaos out of which afterwards all Created Beings should come forth distinct neither can any man's Reason evince this to him who doth stand in awe under the Authority of God's Word was it not altogether as easie to Omnipotency and more glorious to all Wisdom at the first to create the several kinds of all Created Beings distinct and perfect than to frame and to form them afterward of matter made before hand is it not against the dictates of Natural Reason and Light that such a pretended first Matter should subsist separate by it self and there rest a while under some common and general Form yet so as withal to have in it such a multitude of specifical Forms of Natural Beings and after-created Essences of all future Bodies not distinct but in a confused lump and mingled heap all jumbled together one with another God is not the author of confusion and how can a rational Intellect understand that any one common Form could make specifically distinct Forms out of such a fancied first matter of corporal things The internal Forms of created Beings is that primitive force and original Nature which Aelohim did speak into and fasten in the several kinds of created Beings on the several days of the first Weak according to the particular Essence and specifick Being and different condition of every thing whereby they are some ways disposed and fitted strengthned and enabled to put forth their proper vertues and their special operations by the exercise of which natural powers they were orderly to move towards the right end in subserviency under and conformity to the will of their Maker which was their goodness and their perfection The Creatures could not cause themselves to be from Not-being neither was natural Generation the first Original of these Creatures but Creation or creating Causality or primitive and proper Creation Neither were their created Potentialities latent in a first Chaos produced into their Actualities on the six days but all and every of the Creatures were immediate distinct Works of Aelohim's Power He created in every one of the six days Any created Original or primary Womb out of which other Creatures were extracted or the material stuff whereof all things were framed which one Ethnick Philosopher calleth the first Matter as the Potential Principle of all Another names it Hyle a darkness somewhat invisible and without Form A third intitles it a fearful Shadow A fourth makes it a symbolical Unity A fifth doth stile it a deformed Chaos or universal troubled Mass without form or shape These and such like fancied Images of Humane Invention have no firm footing in Scripture All and every of the Works of the foregoing six days of the Week are proper Creatures each of them were new Creatures of distinct Essence or Entities There were no former Phaenomena or appearance of them Had there been any such one universal Body of Matter or Corps of the World and an universal created spirit as the soul of the World then all had been perfected in one day both the whole Body and the whole Spirit of the Universal World of Creatures and all this had been one Individuum Physically Really Naturally Not only was the first Creation in one day by the supernatural Power of Aelohim as if the after productions were by the Power of instituted Nature or application of Art But also all the Created Beings on the second third fourth fifth and sixth days which were then Essences when they were Existences and not Essences in Potentiality on the one day and Existences in Actuality on the other days as if only productions out of a former Essence If the Reader do observe any Phrases or Lines in this Treatise word for word in other Authors let him know that these Collections were made some years go when the Author made use of some Books as he could then be suffered to come at them which Books he had not then by him when he first framed this Treatise neither doth he readily know whither to go for the finding out of those citations or transcribings now that he hath most of these Books by him Sometimes he useth their own words where he apprehendeth the writers mind and expressions to be according to the Word and in several places he confutes their mistakes by the Original Text. Let the grand design be promoted of advancing of useful
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