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
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
sound knowledge This design that I am now promoting doth not interdict School education nor forbid Scientifick Exercises but it doth set both Teacher and Learner in a right way VVhither can we go to fetch a perfect Supplement for deficiencie in Arts but from the VVord no where else is there an unerring rectification of the crooked variations of Sciences but here VVere Students once well perswaded that this Scripture-method and way of attaining knowledges were passable and plain and the walk there experienced to be safe and easie how could it then be any other than pleasant travelling which doth so directly lead to so great a profit where all is best suited not only to the future eternal happiness of Believers but also to the present wising of the VVorld gratifying at once both the speculative Inquirer and the mechanick Artificer where both an augmentation of many useful particularities and a melioration of the whole of gainful Learning would be met with Expected occasions are flying away from me now as many of them have already taken wing and are gone and therefore ere a stop be put to my breathing here below I would by a Scripture-hand conduct a little that the more wise and skilful may come on and lead others further forward I should gladly have sat down as a teachable Disciple at the feet of some well-grown Instructer and would delightfully do so still if others better furnished and more accomplished and who have more opportunities and advantages would more throughly inform both themselves and others in the true state of this scientifical project Here may be at once both the true increase of useful Learning and the real promoting of an Holy Life This sound Scripture-knowledge is the only cure of arted Phantasms and the proper means of being awakened out of scientifick Dreams Here the regenerate intellect of the New Creature gets quick acquaintance with the true reasons of things and his inlightned mind is familiar in its converse with real existencies here are set before his view clear Aspects from invisible Objects and his inner man can commune with unseen talkers which do give him ready access into the better Country of the other VVorld The Scriptures are composed not only for contemplative felicity but also for practical business being exactly suited to all weightiness of affairs and to all the powers of an operative life The orderly working and the real usefulness of created Beings is to be directed unto her all the Philosophers in the world with all their Books have noâ— that profitable Learning in them which the four and thirty first Verses of the Bible have treasured up in them Here the meditating inquirer may get the knowledge of those distinct works of the Creator in their six proper days foregoing which works are the visible Signets and the lively Impressions of the comely Excellencies of the glorious Maker till the believing Soul cometh and passeth into its rest and to sweet satisfaction sensibly enjoyeth its holy Sabbath in Him on the seventh which is the last the closing day of the week this being much of my present purport and design drift and scope in this Treatise from the several days of the first week of the Created VVorld and the established unchangeable Laws thereof to propound some profitable inquiries from each days productions such as may have a direct tendency to the real advancement of useful Learning and then opening somewhat of my own apprehensions from the collating of other Scriptures concerning the matters queried such of them as are profitably handled for several others will be little if any thing more than barely propounded and so left to further disquisition In this undertaking there is no just cause for any to be either an humorous Envyer or a quarrelsome Contender or a troublesome Backbiter or a treacherous Enemy or a false Friend let him but love Christ and believe the VVord and approve the Enterprise and promote the Design and better the Plot I have much of my desire so far where any will meliorate it he shall have my Prayers and Testimony for him In this age of such diffused rovings of mind and of such wandring expatiations of imaginations my walking Soul has then the more quiet resting place when it gets and keeps within Scripture-doors and there freely converseth with Christ In this word each Artist may find out his Mystery and get skill with a little cost by plainly reading the imprinted Characters of the useful nature of his lawful Profession Here real Learning wears the Honour of its Crown and true wisdom is beautified with the dignity of its advancement in the several Sciences here the King may be skilled in the Art of Empire and the Magistrate may be wised in the Science of Government here the Counseller may know how to advise and the Warriour may be taught how to fight here the Astronomer may best understand the Heavens and the Luminaries there here the Geometrician may learn how to measure and the Arithmetician how to number the Physician how to cure the Surgeon how to heal the Anatomist how to dissect the Apothecary how to compound the Sea-man how to sail the Architect how to build the Musician how to modulate the Logician how to argue the Geographer how to situate the Chronologer how to compute the Rhetorician how to perswade the Historian how to Record the Carpenter how to rule the Joyner how to frame the Advocate how to plead the Minister how to preach the Cosmographer how to systeme the Husbandman how to manure These and other Artists in other honest Trades would find their God instructing and teaching them concerning the rightest way and the fittest manner to manage and to carry on their several Functions with success through his blessing upon their labours all their affairs would then be ordered with more discretion and prudence even the Hedger the Mason and the Carpenter would experience Scripture-wisdom to have an excellency of rectification in it to direct them how to do their work aright What shall I say more consider well what those Arts and Sciences are which are lawful useful and necessary and then let inquiry be made whether their Conduct and Augment may not be found in the Word incomparably beyond what any or all Philosophick Books of mere Humane Wisdom can skill in here is the Spring and Fountain of all true good Learning Scripture-knowledge has the clearest light and gives the most certain information affording the most pure and satisfying delights This doth hold the refined Intellect and the discerning Mind close unto it and doth fill it with high holy heavenly pleasures still feeding a spiritual appetite as it is taken in and yet exciting it with new desires of injoyiug more there being yet a further discovery of abounding knowledge in these later days Here is a separation of Truth from Errour here the true real causes of Errour are assigned and manifested It is not said that men do
In him that is in this Christ who is opposed to vain affecters of humane wisdom and humane traditionists dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead Bodily the one dwelleth in the other which do shew them to be distinguished yet joyned by a personal Union of both Natures in one Christ there is no need of any additaments here to supply any defect or imperfection to adjoyn them unto Christ and unto his Word-Doctrine the perfect Deity with all its glorious Attributes of Wisdom Power and other Excellencies inhabits in this Teacher what need therefore is there to seek other documentals or helps can Philosophy instruct us as Wisdom it self can inform us here the Plenitude of Deity resides as in a fixed and proper seat not a portion of the Godhead as the gentile idolaters were falsly perswaded of their false Gods nor only some eximious gifts and graces of the Spirit as in Angels Prophets and their holy ones but the true and perfect God with his infinite unmatchableness He himself indwells in this Humane Nature after a peculiar way and manner and barely by his Universal Presence and assistencie as he is in and with all things and places to conserve and to sustain them neither only by a special efficacie of the Spirit as he is in the Saints Sanctifying of Believers and enriching them with distinguishing charisms with gracious endowments but by a new mode of existing though the nature of him who thus exists remain the same it is by subsistential Union personally so as that the inhabiting or assuming God becomes one with the inhabited or assumed Humane Nature this Christ as concerning the flesh came from the Father being also over all God blessed for ever Gnimmanu-ael God-with-us this branch of David is Jehovah too If it be ask'd Whether the raising up of the dead Body of a man to life and to the sameness of subsistency again be an incredible thing Pagan Philosophers have determined this contrary to the Truth by asserting that from a privation to an habit there is no returning no regress is to be granted in such a case whereas the holy Scriptures do better teach us that the resurrection of the dead is a facible thing a believeable matter and that it is unreasonable to judge it incredible cannot an Almighty God do this cannot he restore being who gave being Cannot that Head Christ who raised himself from the dead raise up his Members also Ethnick Logick is no fit judge of many Scriptural predictions its Rules of ratiocination cannot measure these Mysteries such as God is Man The word was made flesh God with his blood redeemed the Church these and such like high Truths and Things which are necessary for us to believe for our Eternal Salvation were hid from the Wise Ones of that age for those Disparates here do come and agree together affirmatively God Eternal the Creator of all things and he who existed before all time was born in time He who is impassible did suffer The immortal one did die A man sits at the right hand of God God who is All-fulness is emptied The Omnipotent needeth the help of a Nursing-mother The All-knowledge All-wise one increased in Knowlede and in Wisdom The Every-where-present one was included in his Mothers Womb He that filled Heaven and Earth had not where to lay his head He that is transcending the most general of all kinds and of genus's is made a corporal individual the lowest of all substances He who made others rich was himself poor The Righteous one did justly bear both the fault and punishment of the unjust Here the LORD is made a servant and the servant is a LORD here the Mother is the Daughter of her own Son and the Son is Father of his own Father Here is the All-sufficient supplyer is himself ready Here contrary to the Ethnick Physical Science what was finite is made capable of what is infinite and what was infinite is circumscribed within narrow limits Here a Virgin conceives without Man Here the body is born in one place and is taken to him who is in many places in all places at once Here the Common Arithmetick must seek out new Rules for two are one and one is two in Christ three are one and one is three in Father Son and holy Spirit being the Almighty Jehovah What a loss is Pagan Philosophy at in all these Mysteries and in a multitude of more that might be added Men do never come on so far as to the capital beginning of all true knowledge of all sound Understanding of all useful Wisdom of all essential Science till they get the knowledge and the fear of Jehovah Aelohim who has revealed himself in his Word and manifested himself in his Works agreeably to Scripture-discoveries this is a gift from Christ It is word-understanding that is the true good understanding and our Tongues should answer to the Scripture-saying otherwise if we resort to merely humane Sophies we shall at the last by woful experience find after all our busie Inquiries and incessant Studies and attentive heedfulness that there are many weighty particulars in the works both of Creation and of Providence that are beyond the power of mans industry and above the reach of mans wisdom Who is as this wise man he was one of the wisest men even Solomon that did ask the question It is a question expressive of the Truth there is none that compared to him doth weigh equally in the Sanctuary-balance with him wouldest thou know who is he it is he and no other but he that knows the interpretation of a word who can so give sorth the true sense of the word in its original significancy as thereby to set out the right Nature of Things in their proper beings There is in the Word of Christ full comprehensiveness as of all other useful Learning so particularly of the knowledge of Natural Things of which it doth treat and speak purposely and professedly HOw great a part of the holy Scriptures must be transcribed who would write out all that is in them which doth treat of this subject matter Here is the History of the Creation originally and fully discovered which is not so made known in any or in all the Books of Humane Authors who though speaking to this particular point yet are no further sound than as they speak and write according unto this and wherein they ar sound they have borrowed and fetched from this here they lighted their Candle and from hence they have digged their treasure It is the special design and the main purpose of some particular passages in the holy Scriptures expresly and plainly to open the true state of Natural Things as the Book of Job in a great part of it many of the Psalms most of Ecclesiastes besides much of this nature which is frequently scattered through this Book of books How filled is this with Aelohim's essential Operations in
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
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
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
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
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
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