earth by the power of God in nature 8 How it was with Adam before he descended into flesh and became a Terrestrial Animal 10 That the four Cardinal virtues were in Adam in his Ethereal or Paradisiacal condition 17 Adam in Paradise forbidden to taste or relish his own will under pain of descending into the Region of Death 18 The Masculine and Feminine faculties in Adam 20 The great Pleasure and Solace of the Feminine faculties 21 The Masculine faculties laid asleep the Feminine appear and act viz. The grateful sense of the life of the Vehicle 25 That this sense and joy of the life of the Vehicle is in it self without either blame or shame pag. 33 CHAP. III. 1 Satan tempts Adam taking advantage upon the Invigoration of the life of his Vehicle 2 The Dialogue betwixt Adam and Satan 6 The Masculine faculties in Adam swayed by the Feminine assent to sin against God 7 Adam excuses the use of that wilde Liberty he gave himself discerning the Plastick Power somewhat awakened in him 8 A dispute betwixt Adam and the divine Light arraigning him at the Tribunal of his own Conscience 14 Satan strucken down into the lower Regions of the Air. 15 A Prophecy of the Incarnation of the Soul of the Messias and of his Triumph over the head and highest Powers of the rebellious Angels 16 A decree of God to sowre and disturb all the pleasures and contentments of the Terrestrial Life 20 Adam again excuses his fall from the usefulnesse of his Presence and Government upon Earth 21 Adam is fully incorporated into Flesh and appears in the true shape of a Terrestrial Animal 24 That Immortality is incompetible to the Earthly Adam nor can his Soul reach it till she return into her Ethereal Vehicle 44 THE MORAL CABBALA CHAP. I. 1 Man a Microcosme or Little World in whom there are two Principles Spirit and Flesh 2 The Earthly or Fleshly Nature appears first 4 The Light of Conscience unlistned to 6 The Spirit of Savory and Affectionate discernment betwixt good and evil 10 The inordinate desires of the flesh driven aside and limited 11 Hereupon the plants of Righteousnesse bear fruit and flourish 16 The hearty and sincere Love of God and a mans neighbor is as the Sun in the Soul of man Notionality and Opinions the weak and faint Light of the dispersed Stars 18 Those that walk in sincere Love walk in the Day They that are guided by Notionality travel in the Night 22 The Natural Concupiscible brings forth by the command of God and is corrected by devotion 24 The Irascible also brings forth 26 Christ the Image of God is created being a perfect Ruler over all the motions of the Irascible and Concupiscible 29 The food of the divine Life 30 The food of the Animal Life 31 The divine Wisdome approves of whatsoever is simply natural as good 52 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 Knowledge of good and 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 63 CHAP. III. 1 Adam is tempted by inordinate Pleasure from the springing up of the Joy of the Invigorated Life of his Body 2 A dialogue or dispute in the mind of Adam betwixt The inordinate Desire of Pleasure and the natural Joy of the Body 6 The will of Adam is drawn away to assent to inordinate Pleasure 8 Adam having transgressed is impatient of the Presence of the divine Light 10 A long conflict of Conscience or dispute betwixt Adams earthly minde and the divine Light examining him and setting before him both his present and future condition if he persisted in rebellion 20 He adheres to the Joy of his body without reason or measure notwithstanding all the castigations and monitions of the divine Light 21 The divine Light takes leave of Adam therefore for the present with deserved scorn and reproach 22 The doom of the Eternal God concerning laps'd Man that will not suffer them to settle in wickednesse according to their own depraved wills and desires The CONTENTS of THE DEFENCE OF THE THREEFOLD CABBALA In the Introduction to the DEFENCE Diodorus his mistake concerning Moses and other Law-givers that have professed themselves to have received their Laws from either God or some good Angel Reasons why Moses began his History with the Creation of the world The Sun and Moon the same with the Aegyptians Osiris and Isis and how they came to be worshipped for Gods The Apotheosis of mortal men such as Bacchus and Ceres how it first came into the world That the letter of the Scripture speaks ordinarily in Philosophical things according to the sense and imagination of the Vulgar That there is a Philosophical sense that lies hid in the letter of the three first Chapters of Genesis That there is a Moral or Mystical sense not only in these three Chapters but in several other places of the Scripture 93 The CONTENTS of THE DEFENCE OF THE LITERAL CABBALA CHAP. I. 1 The genuine sense of In the beginning The difference of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neglected by the Seventy who translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 The ground of their mistake discovered who conceive Moses to intimate that the Matter is uncreated That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is no more then ventus magnus 4 That the first darknesse was not properly Night 6 Why the Seventy translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Firmamentum and that it is in allusion to a firmly pitched Tent. 11 That the sensible effects of the Sun invited the Heathen to Idolatry and that their Oracles taught them to call him by the name of Jao 14 That the Prophet Jeremy divides the day from the Sun speaking according to the vulgar capacity 15 The reason why the Stars appear on this side the upper caeruleous Sea 27 The Opinion of the Anthropomorphites and of what great consequence it is for the Vulgar to imagine God in the shape of a Man Aristophanes his story in Plato of Men and Womens growing together at first as if they made both but one Animal 111 CHAP. II. 7 The notation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answerable to the breathing of Adams soul into his nosthrils 8 The exact situation of Paradise That Gihon is part
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
to him pleasing both the sight and taste of that measure of divine Life that is manifested in him But of all the Plants that grow in him there is none of so soveraign virtue as that in the midst of this Garden to wit the Tree of Life which is a Sincere Obedience to the Will of God Nor any that bears so lethiferous and poisonous fruit as the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil which is Disobedience to the Will of God as it is manifested in Man For the pleasure of the Soul consists in conforming her self faithfully to what she is perswaded in her own Conscience is the Will of God what ever others would insinuate to the contrary 10 And all the fruit-bearing Trees of Righteousnesse are watered by these four Rivers which winde along this Garden of Pleasure which indeed are the four Cardinal Virtues 11 The name of the first is Pison which is Prudence not the suggestions of fleshly craft and over-reaching subtilty but the Indications of the Spirit or divine Intellect what is fit and profitable and decorous to be done 12 Here is well tryed and certain approved Experience healthful Industry and Alacrity to honest Labour 13 And the name of the second River is Gihon which is Justice 14 And the name of the third River is Hiddekel which is Fortitude and the fourth River is Euphrates which is Temperance 15 This is the Paradise where the Lord God had placed the Man that he might further cultivate it and improve it 16 And the divine Light manifested in the Man encourag'd the Man to eat of the fruits of Paradise freely and to delight himself in all manner of holy Understanding and Righteousnesse 17 But withall he bade him have a speciall care how he relisht his own Will or Power in any thing but that he should be obedient to the manifest Will of God in things great and small or else assuredly he would lose the life he now lived and become dead to all Righteousnesse and Truth So the man had a special care and his soul wrought wholly towards heavenly and divine things and heeded nothing but these his more noble and Masculine Faculties being after a manner solely set on work but the natural Life in which notwithstanding if it were rightly guided there is no sin being almost quite forgot and dis-regarded 18 But the Wisdome of God saw that it was not good for the soul of man that the Masculine Powers thereof should thus operate alone but that all the Faculties of Life should be set a float that the whole humane Nature might be accomplisht with the divine 19 Now the powers of the soul working so wholly upwards towards divine things the several Modifications or Figurations of the Animal Life which God acting in the frame of the humane Nature represented to the Man whence he had occasion to view them and judge of them by the quick Understanding of Man was indeed easily discern'd what they were and he had a determinate apprehension of every particular Figuration of the Animall Life 20 And did censure them or pronounce of them though truly yet rigidly enough and severely but as yet was not in a capacity of taking any delight in them there was not any of them fit for his turn to please himself in 21 Wherefore divine Providence brought it so to passe for the good of the Man and that he might more vigorously and fully be enrich'd with delight that the operations of the Masculine Faculties of the Soul were for a while well slaked and consopited during which time the Faculties themselves were something lessened or weakned yet in such a due measure and proportion that considering the future advantage that was expected that was not miss'd that was taken away but all as handsome and compleat as before 22 For what was thus abated in the Masculine Faculties was compensated abundantly in exhibiting to the Man the grateful sense of the Feminine for there was no way but this to Create the Woman which is to elicite that kindly flowring joy or harmlesse delight of the Natural Life and health of the Body which once exhibited and joyned with Simplicity and Innocency of Spirit it is the greatest part of that Paradise a man is capable of upon Earth 23 And the actuating of the matter being the most proper and essential operation of a soul man presently acknowledg'd this kindly flowring joy of the Body of nearer cognation and affinity with himself then any thing else he ever had yet experience of and he loved it as his own life 24 And the Man was so mightily taken with his new Spouse which is The kindly Joy of the Life of the Body that he concluded with himself that any one may with a safe Conscience forgoe those more earnest attempts towards the knowledge of the Eternal God that created him as also the performance of those more scrupulous injunctious of his Mother the Church so far forth as they are incompetible with the Health and Ioy of the Life of his Natural Body and might in such a case rather cleave to his Spouse and become one with her provided he still lived in obedience to the indispensable Precepts of that Superiour Light and Power that begot him 25 Nor had Adam's Reason or Affection transgressed at all in this concluding nothing but what the divine Wisdome and Equity would approve as true Wherefore Adam and his wife as yet sought no corners nor covering places to shelter them from the divine Light but having done nothing amisse appeared naked in the presence of it without any shame or blushing CHAP. III. 1 Adam is tempted by inordinate Pleasure from the springing up of the Joy of the invigorated Life of his Body 2 A dialogue or dispute in the minde of Adam betwixt The inordinate Desire of Pleasure and the natural Joy of the body 6 The will of Adam is drawn away to assent to inordinate Pleasure 8 Adam having transgressed is impatient of the Presence of the divine Light 10 A long conflict of Conscience or dispute betwixt Adams earthly minde and the divine Light examining him and setting before him both his present and future condition if he persisted in rebellion 20 He adheres to the Joy of his body without reason or measure notwithstanding all the castigations and monitions of the divine Light 21 The divine Light takes leave of Adam therefore for the present with deserved scorn and reproach 22 The doom of the Eternal God concerning laps'd Man that will not suffer them to settle in wickednesse according to their own depraved wills and desires 1 BUT so it came to passe that the Life of the Body being thus invigorated in Man straightway the slyest and subtilest of all the Animal Figurations the Serpent which is the inordinate Desire of Pleasure craftily insinuated it self into the Feminine part of Adam viz. The kindely Joy of the body and thus assaulting Man whisper'd such suggestions as these unto him What a
admit of these for the speakings of God then any audible articulate voice pronounced by him in humane shape unlesse it were by Christ himself for otherwise in all likelihood it is but a message by some Angel Ver. 14. The Prince of the rebellious Angels For the mighty shall be mightily tormented and the nature of the thing also implies it because disgrace adversity and being trampled on is far more painful and vexatious to those that have been in great place then to those of a more inferiour rank From whence naturally this Chieftain of the Devils as Mr. Mede calls him will be struck more deeply with the curse then any of the rest of his Accomplices In the higher parts of the Air c. This is very consonant to the opinion of the ancient Fathers whether you understand it of Satan himself or of the whole kingdome of those rebellious spirits And it is no more absurd that for a time the bad went amongst the good in the Aethereal Region then it is now that there are good spirits amongst the bad in this lower Air. But after that villany Satan committed upon Adam he was commanded down lower and the fear of the Lord of Hosts so changed his Vehicle and slaked his fire that he sunk towards the Earth and at last was fain to lick the dust of the ground see Mr. Mede in his Discourse upon 2 Pet. 2. 4. Ver. 15. Messias should take a Body That the Soul of the Messias and all souls else did pre-exist is the opinion of the Jewes and that admitted there is no difficulty in the Cabbala Plato whether from this passage alone or whether it was that he was instructed out of other places also of the holy Writ if what Ficinus writes is true seems to have had some knowledge and presage of the coming of Christ in that being asked how long men should attend to his writings he answered till some more holy and divine Person appear in the world whom all should follow Notoriously here upon Earth As it came to passe in his casting out Devils and silencing Oracles or making them cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ bruises the head of Satan by destroying his kingdome and soveraignty and by being so highly exalted above all Powers whatsoever And it is a very great and precious mysterie That dear Compassion of our fellow-creatures and faithful and fast Obedience to the will of God which were so eminently and transcendently in Christ should be lifted above all Power and Knowledge whatsoever in those higher Orders of Angels For none of them that were as they should be would take offence at it but be glad of it But those that were proud or valued Power and Knowledge before Goodnesse and Obedience it was but a just affront to them and a fit rebuke of their Pride But now how does Satan bruise the heel of Christ Thus He falls upon the rear the lowest part of those that professe Christianity Hypocrites and ignorant souls such as he often makes witches of but the Church Triumphant is secure and the sincere part of the Church Militant So Mr. Mede upon the place Ver. 16. The Concomitance of Pain and Sorrow And it is the common complaint of all Mortals that they that speed the best have the experience of a vicissitude of sorrow as well as joy And the very frame of our bodies as well as the accidents of Fortune are such that to indulge to pleasure is but to lay the seed of sorrow or sadnesse by Diseases Satiety or Melancholy Besides many spinosities and cutting passages that often happen unawares in the conversation of those from whom we expect the greatest solace and contents To say nothing of the assaults of a mans own minde and pricking of Conscience which ordinarily disturb those that follow after the pleasures of the body Lucretius though an Atheist will fully witnesse to the truth of all this in his fourth book De rerum Naturâ where you may read upon this subject at large Ver. 18. Thorns and Thistles Moses instances in one kinde of life Husbandry but there is the same reason in all Nil sine magno Vita laebore dedit mortalibus Life nothing gratis unto men doth give But with great labour and sad toil we live Ver 20. Euripides the friend of Socrates and a favourer of the Pythagorean Philosophy writes somewhere in his Tragedies as I have already told you to this sense Who knows says he whether to live be to die and whether again to die be not to live Which question is very agreeable to this present Cabbala for Adam is here as it were dying to that better world and condition of life he was in and like as one here upon Earth on his death-bed prophecâ—es many times and professes what he presages concerning his own state to come that he shall be with God that he shall be in Heaven amongst the holy Angels and the Saints departed and the like So Adam here utters his Apologetical Prophecie that this change of his and departure from this present state though it may prove ill enough for himself yet it has its use and convenience and that it is better for the Vniverse for he shall live upon Earth and be a Ruler there amongst the Terrestrial creatures and help to order and govern that part of the world The Life of his Vehicle Eve For Eve signifies Life that life which the soul derives to what Vehicle or Body soever she actuates and possesses Ver. 21. Skin of Beasts This Origen understands of Adams being incorporated and clothed with humane flesh and skin Ridiculum enim est dicere saith he quòd Deus fuerit Adami coriarius pellium sutor And no man will much wonder at the confidence of this Pious and Learned Father if he do but consider that the pre-existency of souls before they come into the body is generally held by all the Learned of the Jews and so in all likelihood was a part of this Philosophick Cabbala And how fitly things fall in together and agree with the very Text of Moses let any man judge Ver. 22. But play and sport This I conceive a far better Decorum then to make God sarcastically to jeer at Adam and triumph over him in so great and universal a mischief as some make it and destitute of any concomitant convenience Especially there being a Principle in Adam that was so easily deceivable which surely has something of the nature of an excuse in it But to jeer at a man that through his own weakness the over-reaching subtilty of his adversary has fallen into some dreadful and tragical evil and misery is a thing so far from becoming God that it utterly misbeseems any good man Ver. 24. He made sure he should not be immortal For it is our advantage as Rupertus upon the place hath observed out of Plotinus Misericordiae Dei fuisse quòd hominem ficerit mortalem nè perpetuis cruciaretur hujus
and sincerity and if the divine Light had wrought it self into a more full and universal possession of all his faculties the regulated joyes of the body which had been the off-spring of the woman had so far exceeded the tumultuous pleasures of inordinate desires that they would like the Sun-beams playing upon a fire extinguish the heat thereof as is already said in this fifteenth verse Ver. 16. So that the kindly Joy of the health of the body shall be much depraved The divine Light in the Conscience of Adam might very well say all this he having had already a good taste of it in all likelihood having found himself after inordinate satiating his furious desires of pleasure in a dull languid nauseating condition though new recruits spurred him up to new follies For the Moral Cabbala does not suppose it was one single mistaken act that brought Adam to this confusion of minde but disobedience at large and leading a life unguided by the Light and Law of God Earthly minded Adam Philo calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the earthly minde pag. 332. Ver. 17 18 19. Adams Conscience was so awakened by the divine Light and Reason and Experience so instructed him for the present that he could easily read his own doom if he persisted in these courses of disobedience that he should be prick'd and vex'd in his wilde rangings after inordinate pleasure all the while the Earthly mind was his light guide But after all this conviction what way Adam would settle in did not God visit him with an higher pitch of superadvenient grace that would conveigh Faith Power and Affection unto him you see in the verse immediately following Ver. 20. Adam was not sufficiently For meer conviction of Light disjoin'd from Faith Power and Affection may indeed disturb the minde and confound it but is not able of it self to compose it and settle it to good in men that have contracted a custome of evil Called her My life So soon as this reproof and castigation of the divine Light manifested in Adams Conscience was over he forthwith falls into the same sense of things and pursues the same resolutions that he had in designe before and very feelingly concludes with himself that be that as true as it will that his Conscience dictated unto him yet nothing can be more true then this That the Joy of his body was a necessary solace of life and therefore he would set up his happiness in the improvement thereof And so adhering in his affection to it counted it his very life and that there was no living at all without it They are almost the words of Philo speaking of the sense of the body in which was this corporeal Joy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. which corporeal sense the earthly minde in man properly therefore called Adam when he saw efformed though it was really the death of the man yet he called it his life This is Philo's Exposition of this present verse Ver. 21. Put hairy Coats The Philosophick Cabbala and the Text have a marvellous fit and easie congruency in this place And this Moral sense will not seem hard if you consider such phrases as these in Scripture But as for his enemies let them be clothed with shame and elsewhere Let them be clothed with rebuke and dishonour besides other places to that purpose And to clothe men according to their conditions and quality what is more ordinary or more fit and natural As those that are fools they ordinarily clothe them in a fools coat And so Adams will and affection being carried so resolvedly to the brutish life it is not incongruous to conceive that the divine Light judging them very Brutes the reproach she gives them is set out in this passage of clothing them with the skins of beasts The meaning therefore of this verse is that the divine Light in the Conscience of Adam had another bout with him and that Adam was convinced that he should grow a kinde of a Brute by the courses he meant to follow And indeed he was content so to be as a man may well conceive the pleasure of sin having so weakned all the powers of that higher life in him that there was little or nothing especially for the present able to carry him at all upwards towards Heaven and holiness And of a truth vile Epicurisme and Sensuality will make the soul of man so degenerate and blinde that he will not only be content to slide into brutish immorality but please himself in this very opinion that he is a real Brute already an Ape Satyre or Baboon and that the best of men are no better saving that civilizing of them and industrious education has made them appear in a more refined shape and long inculcate Precepts have been mistaken for connate Principles of Honesty and Natural Knowledge otherwise there be no indispensable grounds of Religion and Virtue but what has hapned to be taken up by over-ruling Custome Which things I dare say are as easily confutable as any conclusion in Mathematicks is demonstrable But as many as are thus sottish let them enjoy their own wildeness and ignorance it is sufficient for a good man that he is conscious unto himself that he is more nobly descended better bred and born and more skilfully taught by the purged faculties of his own minde Ver. 22. Design'd the contrary The mercy of the Almighty is such to poor man that his weak and dark spirit cannot be always so resolvedly wicked as he is contented to be wherefore it is a fond surmise of desperate men that do all the violence they can to the remainders of that Light and Principle of Religion and honesty left in them hoping thereby to come to rest and tranquillity of minde by laying dead or quite obliterating all the rules of godliness morality out of their souls For it is not in their power so to do nor have they any reason to promise themselves they are hereby secure from the pangs of Conscience For some passages of Providence or other may so awaken them that they shall be forced to acknowledg their errour and rebellion with unexpressible bitterness and confusion of spirit And the longer they have run wrong the more tedious journey they have to return back Wherefore it is more safe to close with that life betime that when it is attained to neither deserves nor is obnoxious to any change or death I mean when we have arrived to the due measure of it For this is the natural accomplishment of the soul all else but rust and dirt that lies upon it Ver. 23. Out of this Paradise of Luxury The English Translation takes no notice of any more Paradises then one calling it always the Garden of Eden But the Seventy more favourable to our Moral Cabbala that which they call a Garden in Eden at first they after name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may signifie the Garden of Luxury But whether there be any