fift days progresse 24 Nor does God only cause the Waters to bring forth but the dry Land also several living creatures after their kinde and makes the Irascible fruitful as well as the Concupiscible 25 For God saw that they were both good and that they were a fit subject for the heavenly Man to exercise his Rule and Dominion over 26 For God multiplies strength as well as occasions to employ it upon And the divine Life that hath been under the several degrees of the advancement thereof so variously represented in the five fore-going progresses God at last works up to the height and being compleat in all things styles it by the name of his own Image the divine Life arrived to this pitch being the right Image of him indeed Thus it is therefore that at last God in our nature fully manifests the true and perfect Man whereby we our selves become good and perfect who does not only see and affect what is good but has full power to effect it in all things For he has full dominion over the fish of the sea can rule and guide the fowls of the air and with ease command the beasts of the field and what ever moveth upon the earth 27 Thus God creates Man in his own Image making him as powerful a Commander in his little World over all the thoughts and motions of the Concupiscible and Irascible as himself is over the Natural frame of the Universe or greater World And this Image is Male and Female consisting of a clear and free Understanding and divine Affection which are now arrived to that height that no lower Life is able to rebel against them and to bring them under 28 For God blesses them and makes them fruitful and multiplies their noble off-spring in so great and wonderful a measure that they replenish the cultivated nature of man with such an abundance of real Truth and Equity that there is no living Figure Imagination or Motion of the Irascible or Concupiscible no extravagant or ignorant irregularity in religious meditations and devotions but they are presently moderated and rectified For the whole Territories of the Humane Nature is every where so well peopled with the several beautiful shapes or Idea's of Truth and Goodnesse the glorious off-spring of the heavenly Adam Christ that no Animal figure can offer to move or wagge amisse but it meets with a proper Corrector and Re-composer of its motions 29 And the divine Life in man being thus perfected he is therewith instructed by God what is his food as divine and what is the food of the Animal Life in him viz. the most virtuous most truly pious and divine Actions he has given to the heavenly Adam to feed upon fulfilling the Will of God in all things which is more pleasant then the choicest sallads or most delicate fruit the taste can relish 30 Nor is the Animal Life quite to be starved and pin'd but regulated and kept in subjection and therefore they are to have their worser sort of herbs to feed on that is Natural Actions consentaneous to the Principle from whence they flow that that Principle may also enjoy it self in the liberty of prosecuting what its nature prompts it unto And thus the sundry Modifications of the Irascible and Concupiscible as also the various Figurations of Religious Melancholy and Natural Devotions which are the Fishes Beasts and Fowls in the Animal Nature of Man are permitted to feed and refresh themselves in those lower kindes of Operations they incline us to provided all be approved and rightly regulated by the heavenly Adam 31 For the Divine Wisdome in Man sees and approves all things which God hath created in us to be very good in their kinde And thus Ignorance and Inquiry was the Sixt days progresse CHAP. II. 3 The true Sabbatisme of the Sons of God 5 A Description of men taught by God 7 The mysterie of that Adam that comes by Water and the Spirit 9 Obedience the Tree of Life Disobedience the Tree of the Knowledg of good evil 10 The Rivers of Paradise the four Cardinal Virtues in the Soul of man 17 The Life of Righteousnesse lost by Disobedience 19 The meer Contemplative and Spiritual Man sees the motions of the Animal Life and rigidly enough censures them 21 That it is incompetible to Man perpetually to dwell in Spiritual Contemplations 22 That upon the slaking of those the kindly Joy of the Life of the Body springs out which is our Eve 23 That this kindly Joy of the body is more grateful to Man in Innocency then any thing else whatsoever 25 Nor is man mistaken in his judgement thereof 1 THUS the Heavenly and Earthly Nature in Man were finisht and fully replenisht with all the garnishings belonging to them 2 So the Divine Wisdome in the Humane Nature celebrated her Sabbath having now wrought through the toil of all the six days travel 3 And the Divine Wisdome looked upon this Seventh day as blessed and sacred a day of Righteousnesse Rest and Joy in the holy Ghost 4 These were the Generations or Pullulations of the Heavenly and Earthly Nature of the Divine and Animal Life in Man when God created them 5 I mean those fruitful Plants and pleasant and useful Herbs which he himself planted For I have describ'd unto you the condition of a Man taught of God and instructed and cherisht up by his inward Light where there is no external Doctrine to distil as the rain nor outward Gardener to intermeddle in Gods Husbandry 6 Only there is a Fountain of Water which is Repentance from dead works and bubbles up in the earthly Adam so as universally to wash all the ground 7 And thus the nature of Man being prepar'd for further Accomplishments God shapes him into his own Image which is Righteousnesse and true Holinesse and breathes into him the Spirit of Life And this is that Adam which is born of Water and the Spirit 8 Hitherto I have shewed unto you how mankinde is raised up from one degree of Spiritual Light and Righteousnesse unto another till we come at last to that full Command and Perfection in the divine Life that a man may be said in some sort thus to have attain'd to the Kingdome of Heaven or found a Paradise upon Earth The Narration that follows shall instruct you and forewarn you of those evil courses whereby man loses that measure of Paradisiacal happinesse God estates him in even while he is in this world I say therefore that the Lord God planted a Garden Eastward in Eden and there he put the Man whom he had made that is Man living under the Intellectual rayes of the Spirit and being guided by the morning Light of the Sun of Righteousnesse is led into a very pleasant and sweet Contentment of minde and the testimony of a good Conscience is his great delight 9 And that the sundry Germinations and Springings up of the works of Righteousnesse in him is a delectable Paradise
notes that the Madianites and others near the Persian Gulph are called Aethiopians and therefore he concludes first at large that Paradise was seated about Mosopotamia and Armenia from these reasons following First because these Regions are called Eastern in Scripture which as I have said is to be understood always in reference to Judea according to the rule of Expositors And the Lord is said to have planted this Garden of Paradise Eastward Secondly because Man being cast out of Paradise these Regions were inhabited first both before the Floud for Cain is said to inhabite Eden Gen. 4. 16. and also after the Floud as being nearer Paradise and more fertile Gen. 8. 4. also 11. 2. Thirdly Paradise was in Eden but Eden was near Haran Ezek. 27. 23. Haran and Caunuch and Eden but Haran was about Mesopotamia being a City of Parthia where Crassus was slain Authors call it Charra Fourthly Paradise is where Euphrates and Tigris are And these are in Mesopotamia and Armenia They denominate Mesopotamia it lying betwixt them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The land 'twixt Tigris and Euphrates streame All this Mesopotamia they name Fiftly because these Regions are most fruitful and pleasant And that Adam was made not far from thence is not improbable from the excellency of that place as well for the goodliness of the men that it breeds as the fertility of the soil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is So excellent is that Soil for Herbage green For flowry Meads and such fair godly Men As if the off-spring of the Gods th' had been As the same Geographer writes Sixtly and lastly there is yet a further probability alledged that Paradise was about Mesopotamia that Countrey being not far distant from Judea For it is the tradition of the Fathers that Adam when he was ejected out of Paradise having travelled over some parts of the world that he came at last to Judea and there died and was buried in a Mount which his posterity because the head of the first Man was laid there called Mount Calvary where Christ was crucified for the expiation of the sin of Adam the first transgressor If the story be not true it is pity but it should be it hath so venerable assertors as Cyprian Athanasius Basil Origen and others of the Fathers as Cornelius affirms But now for the more exact situation of Paradise the same Author ventures to place it at the very meeting of Tigris and Euphrates where the City of Apamia now stands in Ptolemees Maps eighty degrees Longitude and some thirty four degrees and thirty scruples Latitude Thus have we according to the Letter found Paradise which Adam lost but if we finde no better one in the Philosophick and Moral Cabbala we shall but have our labour for our travel Ver. 9. That stood planted in the midst of the Garden For in this verse the Tree of Life is planted in the midst of the Garden and in the third Chapter the third verse the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil is placed there also For the Lord God bad so ordained Expositors seem not to suspect any hurt in the Tree it self but that the fruit thereof was naturally good only God interdicted it to try the goodness of Adam So that this law that prohibited Adam the eating of the fruit was meerly Thetical or Positive not Indispensable and Natural Ver. 10. From thence it was parted This is the cause that Paradise is conceived to have been situated where Apamia stands as I have above intimated Ver. 11. Phasis See verse 8. Chaulateans The affinity of Name is apparent betwixt Havilah and Chaulateans whom Strabo places in Arabia near Mesopotamia Ver. 13. Arabian Aethiopia See verse 8. Ver. 17. See verse 9. Ver. 18. High commendations of Matrimony Moses plainly recommends to the Jews the use of Matrimony does after a manner encourage them to that condition which he does like a right Law-giver and Father of the people For in the multitude of people is the Kings honour but in the want of people is the destruction of the Prince as Solomon speaks Prov. 14. Besides there was no small policy in religiously commending that to them that most would be carried fast enough too on their own accords For those Laws are best liked that sute with the pleasure of the people and they will have a better conceit of the Law-giver for it Ver. 19. These brought he unto Adam viz. The Beasts and Fowls but there is no mention of the Fishes they being not fitted to journey in the same Element It had been over harsh and affected to have either brought the Fishes from the Sea or to have carried Adam to the Shore to appoint names to all the Fishes flocking thither to him But after he might have opportunity to give them names as they came occasionally to his view Ver. 20. See verse 18 Ver. 21. Fell into a dream For the Seventy have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God cast Adam into an extasie and in that extasie he might very well see what God did all the while he slept Ver. 23. See verse 21. 24. Ver. 24. So strict and sacred a Tye c. That 's the scope of the story To beget a very fast and indissoluble affection betwixt man and wife that they should look upon one another as one and the same person And in this has Moses wisely provided for the happiness of his people in instilling such a Principle into them as is the root of all Oeconomical order delight and contentment while the husband looks upon his wife as on himself in the Feminine gender and she on her husband as on her self in the Masculine For Grammarians can discern no other difference then so betwixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vir and Virissa But R. Abraham Ben Ezra has found a mysterie in these names more then Grammatical For in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes he is the contracted name of Jehovah contained viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So long therefore as the married couple live in Gods fear and mutual love God is with them as well as in their names But if they cast God off by disobedience and make not good what they owe one to the other then is their condition what their names denotate to them the name of God being taken out viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The fire of discord and contention here and the eternal fire of Hell hereafter This is the conceit of that pious and witty Rabbi Ver. 25. And were not ashamed Matrimony and the knowledge of women being so effectually recommended unto the Jewes in the fore-going story the wisdome of Moses did foresee that it would be obvious for the people to think with themselves how so good
time becomes a Spirit of savoury and affectionate discernment betwixt the evil and the good betwixt the pure waters that flow from the holy Spirit and the muddy and tumultuous suggestions of the Flesh 7 And thus is Man enabled in a living manner to distinguish betwixt the earthly and heavenly life 8 For the heavenly Principle is now made to him a Spirit of savoury discernment and being taught by God after this manner he will not fail to pronounce that this Principle whereby he has so quick and lively a sense of what is good and evil is heavenly indeed And thus Ignorance and Enquiry is made the second days progresse 9 Now the sweetnesse of the upper waters being so well relisht by man he has a great nauseating against the lower feculent waters of the unbounded desires of the flesh So that God adding power to his will the inordinate desires of the flesh are driven within set limits and he has a command over himself to become more stayed and steady 10 And this steadinesse and command he gets over himself he is taught by the divine Principle in him to compare to the Earth or dry land for safenesse and stability but the desires of the flesh he looks upon as a dangerous and turbulent Sea Wherefore the bounding of them thus and arriving to a state of command over a mans self and freedome from such colluctations and collisions as are found in the working Seas the divine Nature in him could not but approve as good 11 For so it comes to passe by the will of God and according to the nature of things that this state of sobriety in man he being in so good a measure rid of the boisterousnesse of evil Concupiscence gives him leisure so to cultivate his minde with principles of Virtue and Honesty that he is as a fruitful field whom the Lord hath blessed 12 Sending forth out of himself sundry sorts of fruit-bearing trees herbs and flowers that is various kindes of good works to the praise of God and the help of his neighbour and God and his own Conscience witnesse to him that this is good 13 And thus Ignorance and Inquiry is made the third days progresse 14 Now when God has proceeded so far in the Spiritual Creation as to raise the heavenly Principle in man to that power and efficacy that it takes hold on his affections and brings forth laudable works of Righteousnesse he thereupon adds a very eminent accession of Light and Strength setting before his eyes sundry sorts of Luminaries in the heavenly or intellectual Nature whereby he may be able more notoriously to distinguish betwixt the Day and the Night that is betwixt the condition of a truly illuminated soul and one that is as yet much benighted in ignorance and estranged from the true knowledge of God For according to the difference of these Lights it is signified to a man in what condition himself or others are in whether it be indeed Day or Night with them Summer or Winter Spring time or Harvest or what period or progresse they have made in the divine Life 15 And though there be so great a difference betwixt these Lights yet the meanest are better then meer darknesse and serve in some measure or other to give light to the Earthly man 16 But among these many Lights which God makes to appear to man there are two more eminent by far then the rest The greater of which two has his dominion by day and is a faithful guide to those which walk in the day that is that work the works of righteousnesse And this greater Light is but one but does being added mightily invigorate the former day-light man walked by and it is a more full appearance of the Sun of Righteousnesse which is an hearty and sincere Love of God and a mans neighbour The lesser of these two great Lights has dominion by night and is a rule to those whose inward mindes are held as yet too strongly in the works of darknesse and it is a Principle weak and variable as the Moon and is called Inconstancy of Life and Knowledge There are alsoan abundance of other little Lights thickly dispersed over the whole Understanding of man as the Stars in the Firmament which you may call Notionality or Multiplicity of ineffectual Opinions 17 But the worst of all these are better then down-right Sensuality and Brutishnesse and therefore God may well be said to set them up in the heavenly part of man his Understanding to give what light they are able to his earthly parts his corrupt and inordinate Affections 18 And as the Sun of Righteousnesse that is the hearty and sincere Love of God and a mans neighbour by his single light and warmth with chearfulnesse and safety guides them that are in the day so that more uneven and changeable Principle and the numerous Light of Notionality may conduct them as well as they are able that are benighted in darknesse And what is most of all considerable a man by the wide difference of these latter Lights from that of the Day may discern when himself or another is benighted in the state of unrighteousnesse For multifarious Notionality and Inconstancy of life and knowledge are certain signs that a man is in the night But the sticking to this one single but vigorous and effectual Light of the hearty and sincere Love of God and a mans neighbour is a signe that a man walks in the day And he that is arrived to this condition plainly discerns in the Light of God that all this is very good 19 And thus Ignorance and Inquiry is made the fourth days progresse 20 And now so noble so warm and so vigorous a Principle or Light as the Sun of Righteousnesse being set up in the heavenly part of the Soul of man the unskilful may unwarily expect that the next news will be that even the Seas themselves are dried up with the heat thereof that is that the Concupiscible in man is quite destroyed But God doth appoint far otherwise for the waters bring forth abundance of Fish as well as Fowl innumerable 21 Thoughts therefore of natural delights do swim to and fro in the Concupiscible of man and the fervent love he bears to God causes not a many faint ineffectual notions but an abundance of holy affectionate meditations and winged Ejaculations that fly up heaven-ward which returning back again and falling upon the numerous fry of natural Concupiscence help to lessen their numbers as those fowls that frequent the waters devour the fish thereof And God and good men do see nothing but good in all this 22 Wherefore God multiplies the thoughts of natural delight in the lower Concupiscible as well as he does those heavenly thoughts and holy meditations that the entire Humanity might be filled with all the degrees of good it is capable of and that the divine Life might have something to order and overcome 23 And thus Ignorance and Inquiry made the
and commendable a thing should have so much shame and diffidency hovering about it For there is a general bashfulness in men and women in these matters and they ever desire to transact these affairs in secret out of the sight of others Wherefore Moses to satisfie their curiosity continues his History further and gives the reason of this shame in the following Chapter CHAP. III. 1 How much it saves the credit of our first Parents that the Serpent was found the prime Author of the Transgression That according to S. Basil all the living creatures of Paradise could speak undeniable reasons that the Serpent could according to the Literal Cabbala 9 The opinion of the Anthropomorphites true according to the Literal Cabbala 14 That the Serpent went upright before the fall was the opinion of S. Basil 16 A story of the easie delivery of a certain poor woman of Liguria 19 That the general calamities that lie upon mankinde came by the transgression of a positive Law how well accommodate it is to the scope of Moses 23 That Paradise was not the whole Earth 24 The Apparitions in Paradise called by Theodoret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 IN this third Chapter there are causes laid down of some of the most notable and most concerning accidents in Nature As of the hard travail and toil upon the sons of men to get themselves a livelihood Of the Antipathy betwixt Men and Serpents Of the incumbrance of the ground with troublesome weeds Of the shame of Venery Of the pangs of childe-bearing and of Death it self Of all these Moses his wisdome held fit to give an account accommodately to the capacity of the people For these fall into that grand Question in Philosophy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence sprung up Evil which has exercised the wits of all Ages to this very day And every fool is able to make the Question but few men so wise as to be either able to give or fit to receive a sufficient answer to it according to the depth of the matter it self But it was very necessary for Moses to hold on in his History and to communicate to them those plain and intelligible Causes of the Evils that ever lay before their eyes he having so fully asserted God the Creator of Heaven and Earth and Contriver of all things that we see Adding also that the Laws that he propounded to them were delivered to him from God and that all prosperity and happiness would accompany them if they observed the same That they should eat the good things of the Land and live a long and healthful age Now it was easie for the people though they were but rude and newly taken from making Bricks for Pharaoh in Aegypt to think thus with themselves If God made all things how is it that they are no better then they are Why do our wives bring forth their children with pain Why are we obnoxious to be stung with Serpents Why may not God give us an endlesse life as well as a long life and the like To which Moses in general answers to the great advantage of the people and for the faster binding them to the Laws he delivered them from God That it was disobedience to his will that brought all this mischief into the world which is most certainly true But by what particular circumstances it is set out you may here read in this third Chapter Ver. 1. The Serpent also It had been too harsh and boistrous and too grossely redounding to the dishonour of our first Parents Adam and Eve if they had immediately done violence to so express a command of God and shown themselves professed rebels against him And their posterity would have been scarce able to have remembred them without cursings and bitterness for being so bold and apert Authors of so much misery to them But so it came to pass that it was not of themselves but by the subtilty of the Serpent that they were deceived into disobedience being overshort by his false suggestions So that their mistake may be looked upon with pardon and pity and our selves are fairly admonished to take heed that we forfeit not the rest But the power of Speech I cannot be so large in my belief as S. Basil who affirms That all living creatures in Paradise could speak and understand one another But according to the Literal Cabbala I think it is manifest that the Serpent could and that it was not the Devil in the Serpent as some Interpreters would have it For why should the Serpent be cursed for the Devils sake And beside the whole business is attributed to the cunning and subtilty of the Serpent as doing it by the power of his own nature Therefore this were to confound two Cabbala's into one to talk thus of the Serpent and the Devil at once Not eat of any of the Trees So Chrysostome Rupertus and S. Augustine as if the cunning Serpent had made use of that damnable Maxime Calumniare fortiter aliquid adhaerebit So at first he layes his charge high against God as if he would debarre them of necessary food and starve them that at last he might gain so much at least that he did unnecessarily abridge them of what made mightily for their pleasure and perfection Ver. 4. See verse 1. Ver. 7. And the eyes of them both were opened Some gather from hence that Adam and Eve were blinde till they tasted of the forbidden fruit Which is so foolish a glosse that none but a blinde man could ever have stumbled upon it For the greatest pleasure of Paradise had been lost if they had wanted their sight Therefore as grosse as it is that can be no part of any Literal Cabbala it having nothing at all of probability in it It is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ver. 9. God's walking in the Garden his calling after Adam his pronouncing the doom upon him his wife and the Serpent and sundry passages before do again and again inculcate the opinion of the Anthropomorphites that God has an humane shape which I have already acknowledged to be the meaning of the Literal Cabbala Ver. 13. Here the first Original of Mischief is resolved into the Serpent whereby Adam and Eves credits are something saved and the root of misery to mankinde is plainly discovered Ver. 14. Creep upon thy belly It is plain according to the Letter that the Serpent went upright which is the opinion also of S. Basil else his doom signifies nothing if he crept upon his belly before Ver. 15. Perpetual Antipathy See verse 1. Ver. 16. Her sorrows and pangs in childe-bearing See verse 1. But these pains are much increased to women by their luxury and rotten delicateness that weakens Nature and enfeebles the Spirits so that they can endure nothing when as those that are used to hardship and labor scape better There is a notorious instance of it in a woman of Liguria who as Diodorus Siculus writes being hard at work in the field