punishments feares them to be much greater then they are A Hell to a soul that hath proved it shall be no greater nor more horrible To one that dreads it the torments and stripes represent themselves centuplicated Because saith God thou hast bent thy eare to the flatteries of thy wife touching and tasting the fruites of the forbidden Tree I will that thy labours curse the earth instead of cultivating it With the sudors of thy industry shalt thou spend thy days Thornes and thistles shall over-run thy feilds and like a bruit thou shalt be constrained to take herbes for thy sustentation Thou shalt not be able to eat without imploying thy hand or sweating thy brows These thy miseries shall determine with the ultimate period of thy life for I will for thy disobedience that thou returne to thy beginning and that earth become earth and dust dust How unexplicable is the mercy of God! Adam sinnes and transgresseth the precepts of his Divine Majesty and He in pronouncing the sentence of condemnation curseth the Earth What will not love make one doe What share had the earth in the faults of Adam With what demerit had it irritated the indignation of its Lord Unlesse perhaps it was cursed by God for that it did nor suddenly open a gulph to swallow him who had not known how to obey his Creator Or unlesse that God would have it cursed because it was always to serve the serpent for food It argues also the goodnesse of the Lord to remember Adam of the end of his miseryes whilst in minding him of his death he sets before him the period of his infelicity And although Death is the wages of sinne it proves notwithstanding profitable and necessary that so mans miserys and misfortunes become not immortall Mercifull God that blessest even when thou chastisest us Indeed death was a necessary act in the world that so the feare of losing the life should spur man on to all good actions and refraine him from all bad What would not man dare what would not man atempt to do if death should not cut the thread of his sensuality of his ambition How would he despise the death of the soul and his last damnation in the fall of the world that dying every moment should neverthelesse pride himselfe in a hope of immortallity It would not doubtlesse be the least of his rash attempts with the union of the mountaines to attempt a scalado upon Heaven Let the goodnesse of God therefore be for ever praised that to preserve the soul from perpetual damnation and to interrupt a lethargy of vices which would determine only with the termination of time hath decreed the dissolution of this masse of humane flesh and permitted that a momentary paine that is circumscribed by the brevity of a grone should deliver us from an eternall torment accompanyed with such dolours as the just anger of God is able to produce Scarce had the Soveraign Monarch pronounced the punishment for the sinne of Adam but making either by virtue of his Divine power or by meanes of the Angels certaine garments of beasts skins he therewith covered the nakednesse of Adam and Eve who stupifyed with Gods displeasure knew not so much as how with pardon to beg the mercy of his Divine Majesty This also is an argument of the wonderfull beneficence of God in that he would not permit that sinners thrust out of Paradise should for all that be wholly deprived of his providence as to the necessity of covering their bodies Because divine favours are of the nature of the Sunne which participates its heat and its light even to those that despise it God rendered the bodies of these wretches so miserable that without clothes they could not suffer the violences of the seasons nor cover that part of the body which is unworthy of the eye He would have these clothes of skins that so they might daily weare about them the emblematicall tokens of their mortality which being of slaughtered beasts should daily remember them of death and advert them that they dwelt under the intemperancy of a Heaven that would have dealt with them as with beasts And who knows but that God in vesting our first Parents with skins intended to describe what ought to be the habit of wise and just men condemning silkes and purples which denote onely effeminacy and pride Unlesse perhaps he would give us to understand how full of blindnesse are the counsells of men that have not recourse to God in their miseries since the vesture composed by Adam covered not all his nudity nor defended him from externall incommodityes and was inconvenient pricking the flesh and bringing paine and trouble Adam being clothed God began to upbraid him saying Behold Adam thy hopes obtained behold thy pretensions determined Thou art made just like Us omnipotent wise and all composed of goodnesse and holinesse Behold thou art become of a nature immortall not obliged to any needing of none and blessed in thy selfe Behold thy enjoyment of the knowledg of good and evill so much coveted by thy incredulity Get thee packing therefore out of the Paradise of delights and fixe thine aboad where thou wast formed cultivating that earth from whence thou hast derived thy beeing It was one of the wonted effects of Gods benignity to drive Adam out of Paradise because if he had continued amongst those delights without enioying them he would have received too much torment there being no greater punishment to be found then to be in the midst of felicityes and to be denyed the fruition Or he was dismissed from Paradice because What could God hope from him that had not power to shew himselfe continent no not with the very Trees More out of an effect of feare then disobedience it was that Adam stood immoveable when God by force took him from thence appointing him a station wherein he might command with the eye all the delights of Paradise that so daily beholding the losse of his happinesse his pennance should become more severe and his repentance more sincere It was goodnesse in God to thrust Adam out of Paradise for that he thereby removed the occasion of sinning anew there not being a greater incentive to a relapse into sinne then the being in the place where the sinne was before committed Those remembrances are no other then stimulations which enkindle the desire and hurry the will to new faults What Adams condition was expulsed Paradise many be easier imagined then described His eyes pregnant with teares his mouth full of sighs were the least expressions of his griefe His Wife insted of comforting him augmented his torments not so much for her haveing been the originall of his sinne as for the griefs which he received from her afflictions Poore Adam that didst not scarce one whole day enjoy the gifts of Gods favour His felicity being shorter then that of an Ephemeris About three of clock he was brought into the Garden at six a clock he sinned and in
at thy sole disposall These shall allways receive laws from thy pleasure and motions from thy beck Nor shall their velocity nimblenesse or terriblenesse be able to render them contumacious to thee Give them names as thou pleasest that so they may the more willingly obey thee and may be the more strongly obleiged to thy commands In reward of all this that I have done for thee I demand no more but a bare acknowledgement I have given thee the Monarchy of the Earth I may well therefore reserve to my selfe the Supremacy with a small tribute as a badge of my superiority and thy obedience Therefore suffer not the allurement of thy taste to perswade thee to eate of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evill for if thou dost thou shalt feele the severity of death God first named the Fishes and afterwards all the other Animalls to teach those in Authority to have a more especial care of the irremotest Subjects as those who may be more easily opprest by their Ministers and Officers or to give them to understand that they take those into protection which like the Fishes are naked and cannot speake His divine Majesty forbade Adam the fruites of the tree of knowledge of good and evil because having the power over all things created he should not excercise the same with pride and ambition God would have Adam command with the curb of being commanded There being nothing will more moderate the Statelynesse of a Prince then his subjection to Law Or else the fruits of this tree having a virtue to make Man know the misery of Mankind God forbad Adam to taste of it both because he would have him free from all those inquietudes which did accompany the necessities of the body and because he would have him imploy all the ardor of his affections in a carefull sollicitude for the welfare of his soul God gave Adam a Prohibition to eat of the fruits of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evill although he knew he would not observe it to shew that Laws are necessary notwithstanding they may be abused And againe how could God triumph in the excesses of his mercy in the extremes of his goodnesse in the trophyes of his justice if he should not permitt man to sinne and if he should favour all universally with efficacious grace God threatned Adam with death as the punishment of his transgression because Death is the extreamest of all evills and the greatest of all terrours All other evills all other pains had so-much of bitternesse as they had affinity resemblance to death Death is the Center in which all the lines of worldly passions meete His Divine Majesty might have prescribed him Hell but he would propose a chastisement of which there was no retraction by repentance and with all because he knew that humane affections were more to be moved and amated with the certaine knowledge of a small evill then with the incertain beleife of a greater His Divine Majesty made all Birds and other Animals of the earth to come before Adam that from him who had received from God the knowledge of their Natures they should receive their Names The Lord did this to make Adam see by comparison how much he was obliged in seeing himselfe so different and so upright above all other Creatures Or because God having created Man Prince of all creatures would have him know his vassalls and the Animals reverence him as their Prince Or else he permitted that he should name the creatures according to their natures to shew him what a gift of wisdome he had bestowed upon him that so sinning he might not excuse himselfe with ignorance The animalls came by two and two with an obedience moved by the divine will to receive their names Adam sitting in an eminent place with a face so full of splendor that breathing Majesty it taught veneration he gave them names proper to their natures calling them one by one in the Hebrew tongue which was the universall language untill the confusion of tongues The Fishes came not either because they could not live out of their element or because they could no way be serviceable to man not as yet used for food or else because God would thereby give us to understand that Grandees in Progresses should not expect the attendance of their poor vassalls who cannot stirre from home to accompany their Lord or to attend him at his beck God permitted Adam should give names to all creatures but not to Himselfe to give him to understand that as all other creatures were his inferiours having taken their names from him so on the contrary he should acknowledg God for his Lord seeing he had been named by him In the mean time his Divine Majesty considered that it was not good for man to be alone for there 's little contentment in those delights we receive without other's participation Or else it was that God foreseeing that the heighth of his glory consisted in acts of Clemency and Mercy would not have man to be alone those faults seldom proving either great or frequent which have not company for spurres incentives He would therfore provide him of a fit Companion in his owne likenesse that so he might love her the more and she might be more capable of assisting him Whereupon he cast Adam into I know not whether an exstasy or a ravishing slumber It was Gods pity that he should be asleepe for he knew that in the company of woman hee should lose his sleep Or else He made him shut his eyes to shew that he would have men blind in understanding Divine operations Or else it might be that he cast Adam into a sleep as if he feared that he would contradict him whilest with the spirit of prophesy given him he might foresee the mischeifes accrewing to mankinde in the making of Eve And besides men are with much difficulty perswaded to part with any thing of what they have though therby to receive the greater profit Whereupon God would bereave him in his sleep of that which perhaps he would not have consented to have parted with of himself Whilst Adam was taken up with the dulcity of repose rejoycing in those phantasms with which he was honoured of the most abstruce secrets of secular adventures the power of God which hath no impossibility that can prescribe it bounds took with a delicacy which is to be supposed in a Divine hand a ribbe of which he formed Eve filling up the void place with flesh God was pleased to make Woman of Man to shew the union affection that ought to be in Matrimony or to admonish women to acknowledge with obedience the cause of their being God made choice of the ribb taken from the left side to advert us that the woman ought to be the heart of the man and not his head Or God tooke a ribb of Adam in the making of Woman because being about to forme a body worse haply than
by the walking of God soon remembred the deserts of his owne inconstancy which deprived him of eternity The pleasing aires that accompanied his Divine Majesty fraze his heart the more clouded with a thousand terrours the approaching setting of the Sun made him perceive that the darknesse of chastisement was neere at hand whereupon not being able to suffer Gods voice who hitherto was meditating a reproof and to endure the guerdon of his crime he hid himselfe and his wife under a Tree which inriched with an infinity of boughs seemed to thrust forth those armes to defend every one from the dartings of the Sun's rayes He had good reason to run to the umbrages of Trees that was not able to withstand the heat of sense How blind are the counsells of humane reason Adam perhaps pretended that if a Tree had administred to him matter of sin a Tree also would cover it But Adam hid not himselfe to fly from God but for that he could not sustaine the sight of God whilst he heard the checks of Conscience upbraiding the demerits of his disobedience ingratitude and rebellion because We cannot brook the sight of those whom we have offended and who can punish us Or it being the proper effect of sin to take away the judgement and blind the understanding he pretended to be able to hide himselfe from the sight of God Foolish Adam that beg'd security from a Tree that was the instrument of his perdition God now articulating his words though hid to the eyes of Adam said unto him Adam Adam Where art thou God said not this for that he was ignorant of the place where he was since the sight of God hath no prescription of place nor obstacle of impediment but to invite him to confesse his crime with repentance and implore his pardon with humillity It was the voice of a Pastor and Father that called back his strayed Sheep and Son God perhaps with these words would declare the infelicity of Adam whilst by the fault committed he was in such manner departed from God that he knew not where he was Or he would say Adam Where art thou whither hath thy disobedience carri'd thee Hast thou lost thy primitive felicity Who hath led thee into the Gulph of misery where is thy pristine tranquillity of heart thy security of mind and thy peace of Conscience Where are the effects of thy hopes the fruits of thy pretentions the promises of the Serpent God would say poore Adam to what a plunge art thou brought from what good from what beatitude from what grace art thou faln Thou hast lost eternall life art made subject to the miseries of death and art become a Sepulcher of errors Adam was hid under that very tree that had been the occasion of his sin Therfore God sought Adam with anxiety scarce being able to imagine that a wise man as Adam should be so imprudent as to approach so near that occasion which had brought upon him the extremity of his miseries He strove to speake with reverence to deceive himself in seeing Adam to beg shelter from that Tree which had deprived him of the Divine Grace Or else God would give us to understand that sin maks us lose the shapes of men and therfore though God saw Adam he called him with a replicated voice as if he knew him not to shew us that sin had transformed him even in the eye of God himselfe God called Adam and not the Woman Or because he had been the last sinner and his crim was nerer or not to provoke the woman to new errors lying being too natural to her sex He called not the Serpent for the same reason because being accustomed to lye he would have denyed every thing Adam answered Lord My nakednesse made me fly from thy face I could not suffer that thy Divinity should fixe its eye on these members which I could not till now cover Poore Adam greived and lamented more for his nakedness then for having offended God lost his favour Thus we have derived from Adam this weaknesse of human nature to be more afflicted with the incommodities we receive in our persons or estates then with the injuries done to his Divine Majesty or the losse of Heavens injoyments Who gave thee ingratefull Adam replyed God to understand thy nakednesse unlesse thy disobedience Thou hast woven thy owne miseries and contrived thy owne infelicities Thou wouldest not at present receive such horrour at the presence of him that honoured thee with a beeing if thou hadst not tasted of the forbidden fruit God would understand from Adam the truth of his sin as if he knew it not to teach us with what accuratenesse and with what diligence men ought to proceed in judging others crimes and condemning others errors whilst God himselfe that enters into the secret corners of the heart questions and enquires with somuch circumspection Or else he intended to make Adam to diminish his punishment by the blushes of Confession Adam perswading himselfe that silence would be an aggravating his sin whereas the case may in great part obnubilate the fault instead of imploring the mercy of God with supplications and teares grown confident in his owne merits he subjoyns Lord I have sinned without sinning My Error hath been promoted by the prayers and solicitations of others Who can resist the power of beauty The commands of her that thou gavest me for a Companion hath in such manner tyrannized over my reason and intellectualls that I have not power to dispose of my selfe That her right hand which brought me the fruit was a snare that captivated my mind and it seemed to me that lifted up it menaced its displeasure in case I should not obey I have a heart too tender in its affects He that can withstand the importunate solicitude of the fairest piece that ever came out of thy hands either knowes not how to Love or deserves not to be Beloved The sins of my inadvertency though they be very great yet they are not mine That Companion Lord which thou gavest me hath corrupted the acts of my obedience and contaminated the devoirs of my fidelity Alone I should not have known sin for bad-company is a fomentor of the greatest sins Lord turne against her thy reproofs and chastisements The woman alone hath sinned in my sinne My consent obliged to the will of Thy Divine Majesty hath not in the least part strayed from the lawes of its duty Oh bold conceits Oh rash expressions fruits of guilt which transports men into extreams No sooner hath man sinned but confident of himselfe he despiseth all and feares not his forfeiture of Heaven's favour How interest alters affection That Adam who professed himselfe so passionate a Lover of the Woman that to call her part of himselfe he believed was the least argument of his Love now makes her guilty before the justice of God of all his crimes When we speak in excuse of our owne faults we spare not so
earth having been contaminated by the wickednesse of thy hands shall deny thee its fruits and thou shalt become a fugitive and vagabond Cain full of confusion and of feare confessed the whole fact but to little purpose since he did it out of season He departed therefore with his wives children having received from God for a mark that none should kill him the continuall trembling of the head And with reason ought his head to be punished that had slain Abel the head of the Church God permitted that Abel should be slaine by his brother it may be to chastise their parents Fathers not meeting a greater affliction then in the death and depravity of their children Or else it was to instruct us that just men and the true servants of God are allwaies subjected to the persecutions and cruelties of ungodly men Adam having discovered in the flight of Cain the death of Abel for he that flies gives no signes of any thing but ill after an infinite of teares and sighs that well-ny deafned the aire turnes himselfe to God and inspired with passion and griefe expressed these or the like conceptions Lord hath not my sinne yet received punishment equall to its desert Do they still importune thee to pay the debt contracted by my disobedience Is it possible that my teares have not obtained from thy mercy a perfect absolution If this be true my God why enjoy I this light why receive I the respirations of this aire Earth why dost thou not intomb me in thy bowells Heaven why dost thou not slay me with thy thunders Doth divine justice want judgments Is the hand of God disarmed But if my repentance be not able to cancell the debt of my crimes if my sins admit not the excesses of thy pitty if my transgressions contend with the infinity of thy Goodnesse what part O Lord hath the innocence of my poor sonne in the defections of my heart Wherein hath that Abel offended who in his sacrifices hath had the honour of the Divine Complacency Oh miserable wretch reduced to a misfortune beneath the condition of brutish animals which in their kinds produce births that kill not one another by fratricide which with the only instinct of nature spare not only such as are related to them in consanguinity but also in their species Wicked Adam These are all effects of thy sinne Good God permit not the population of the world in my descent for from a bad root nothing can proceed but worse fruit And thou vile Cain that hast rendered thy hands accursed abusing the goodness of thy brother not being worthy thereof what wilt thou do Hated by God by Men and by thy Selfe whither wilt thou go Unfortunate father deprived in one and the same instant of two sons Constrained much more to bewaile him which remains then him which I have lest He would not here have ended his complaints if the shriekes of Eve that introduced pity even into the insensibility of stones had not necessitated him to consolate her in the midst of her teares Love making a separation of our selves from our selves Eve said he there is a necessity of accommodating the affects of our hearts to the wil of of God which in his works alwayes includes secrets impenetrable by our humanity All that which in this vale of the World hath the resemblance of evill is good with God who worketh diversly from our understanding What doth teares profit which are alwayes of small moment but for the dead vaine and unprofitable If by weeping we could retract that fatal point of Gods decree I would say Let 's dissolve our selves into teares But if this be a vaine hope and an impossible supposall Why should we with new sorrows aggravate our old miseries And in regard it is true that discovering by the death of the more just that thou wilt not O my God accept of the propagation of mankind from me I promise and sweare unto thee never to know Eve more Lord I will no longer believe the Divinity of thy essence if I infringing this promise thou dost not fulminate against me the thunder of thy wrath and make me to prove all the effects of thy displeasure Eve presently with an oath confirmed the will of Adam and daily dieting upon teares they ceased not to bewail the hurt of such a losse All greifs admit of some consolation that of the losse of children is insupportable for it will make patience it selfe out of patience He that loseth a sonne loseth more than a part of himselfe For in himselfe a man dies daily but in the life of a child he goes forward to immortality They many yeares continued their continence and their condoleing sacrificing all their affections to the passion of such a losse when behold at length a Messenger of God admonished Adam in words of this or the like purport Adam It is now time to dry up thy teares Continuall sorrowes are not pleasing to God who desires that in our misadventures we submit to his divine will Comfort thy selfe that Almighty God will in another sonne restore thee all that which thou lamentest in the losse of Abell This sonne shall in his successours revenge thee of him who hath been the cause of all thy miseries From him after some ages shall be borne God-man Feare not againe to touch thy wife for I by the will of his Divine Majesty do free thee from thy vow and absolve thee from thy oath Adam humbly thanked God for his compassion and imparted all to Eve making her gravid a little after begetting a sonne whom he called Soth saying The mercy of God hath furnished me with an Issue which shall repaire the losse of the death of Abell In the Education of this sonne what paines Adam took may be understood by the successe He merited from people the attribute of Divine having given names to the starres and invented the Hebrew-Characters With piety and goodness he ravished the affections of all and was an example to posterity and a glory to his parents In the meane time generations multiplied to that multitude as that men were forced to seperate to cultivate new grounds the first not being sufficient to maintaine them Upon this occasion Adam exercised the talents he received from God He made certaine lawes with which he taught and commanded that which was good Vices being already so increased that they had great need of reformation Adam not being able in regard of the distance of places to prescribe remedies to those evills which multiplied to infinite made use of Laws which make the Prince alwayes present though he be farre distant There is the Law of Nature and the Written Law That of Nature is a sentiment born with the Reason which enableth the Conscience to distinguish good from evill But in wicked minds corrupted by a depraved consuetude this Law is either not known or else dispised The Written Law therefore is necessary which dividing it selfe into Divine Civil constitutes
the true foundation of all humane societies The Laws of Adam were all directed to the union and conservation of the people to the correction and direction of manners to the maintainance of obedience and fidelity towards the Prince and to the acknowledgments and devotions towards God Yet Adam would not divest himselfe of the gift received from God Almighty of the universall Empire over all things created so that he reserved to himselfe the reformation alteration and interpretation of his Laws He knew very well that all garments and all meates agreed not to men of all ages The beginnings augmentations and declinations of a disease are not cured with the same remedies With the alterations of times there 's a necessity of varying the institutions Adam divided those primitive people into many Cantons or Corporations to each of which he assigned for Super-intendent one of his sons both because he would ease himselfe of so many imployments as also because he would perpetuate the sole command in his owne line It is then no marvail that this desire is innate in the minds of the Greatest since it is an evill that hath extracted its originall from the first Man of the World Though the command was parted amongst his sons he neverthelesse reserved the Supremacy of all to himselfe partly to restraine the licentiousnesse of his sons and partly that he might not seeme to dispise that gift of the universall Empire received from God which is the most desirable in the world He that renounceth Command confesseth himselfe for the most part either unable to exercise it or unworthy to retaine it In his latter days Adam understood the progresse of his sonne Cain He had news that he lived in the Orientall parts and that he had built a Citty calling it by the name of his son Enoch But he rejoiced not knowing very well that building of Cittyes could only proceed from a soul very timerous or excessively ambitious Adam considered by his owne example how dangerous it was for one to hide himselfe He knew full well that the nature of Cain was tyrannicall and enclined to extort the goods and wealth of others and bent upon the murther and destruction of people No lesse then a Citty is sufficient to secure a wicked man All these considerations disquieted the mind of Adam so that his long life was but a daily death He grieved to see that the more men increased in number the more they multiplyed in vice That justice was abandoned of those in particular who ought most to love it That goodnesse was only known for an imaginary thing That Avarice was the first of mans affections That Luxury accompanyed by the most infamous debaucheryes tryumphed in all hearts upon which occasion it is more then probable that he many times with more then ordinary sentiments supplicated his divine Majesty to take him out of this torrent of the world wherin there was nothing but Sin and Misery Adam was ready to pay the last debt to nature having now seen the seventh generation when he called to him all his sonns and daughters which were many in number and taught them what they were to do for the service of God and salvation of their soules Children saith he the time is approaching that I must pay the Earth its tribute These hoary haires tell me that I am in the Winter of my life These limbs that can no longer sustaine themselves that I must shortly fall Thus my fin hath resolved and thus That God hath decreed which commandeth that all things returne to their principles Before therfore that I depart from you I will leave you in testimony of my affection all those records that conduce to the good either of your soules or bodyes Nor think that my words are overswayed by my affections since he that speakes is a dying Father My Children above all other things remember to love one only God Trine in person and One in essence You are obleiged to this not only by your duty but by your interest He either is no man or deserves not that name who consecrates not all his affections to that God who hath given him a beeing and that daily communicates to him temporall and spirituall blessings and who allwayes appropriates punishments to vice and rewards to virtue Know that he requires sole adoration and for this very thing I foresee that he will showre down miseryes upon my posterity yea blind progeny an infinite of miseries foolish posterity that shall so far dote as to adore the things which thou thy selfe hast formed The Idolatry I say that shall come into the world shall snatch the thunderbolts out of Gods hands and violently force his mercy to the punishment of infinite generations As also lasciviousnesse dishonesty and luxurie These Children are sinns that will constrain the fire to forsake its sphere not only to chastise sinners but also to root out the memory of them Keep your selves my Sonns keep your selves from Anger which is an undomable passion that hurries the hands to imbrue themselves in the blood of innocency it selfe And these homocides how displeasing they are to God is evinced in the example of your brother Cain Though the blood of the slain be not polluted yet it contaminates the hands and consciences of the murtherer And to shew how execrable a thing murther is note That even he is culpable that kills those who implore death Corne and Cattle and other the more esteemed sorts of things you ought not to steal no nor covet for from this is ingendered that cursed serpent of Envy which hath been the cheif cause of all humane misadventures See that ye do not too much flatter the inordinate appetites of your senses with a complacenciall indulgence for they will lead you into a thousand cursed sinns The senses are for the more part fallacious guides negligent sentinels and the ruiners of the soul These teach you pride the first of all sinns and a crime so execrable that it hath polluted heaven with its filthinesse They teach you covetousnesse which is an insatiable desire that depraving faith and goodnesse openeth a door to all wickednesse They teach you Luxury which is a furious passion that perverting the reason makes man rebell against himselfe They teach you Superfluous Gluttony which is a concatenation of a thousand Vices This transports the will fomenteth love and hatred extinguisheth the memory distracteth the understanding and is the high way to all evills In short he that obeyes his senses cannot be a lover of God The senses affect only their owne delight and many times rave giving credit to themselves alone My sonnes the mercy of God which will have his Advertisement precede his Chastisements illuminating your souls commands that I denounce your miseries The vengeance of Heaven my Children shall set open the Abysse and shall drown the earth the waters shall surmount the Hills fishes shall possesse the places of birds in brief all mankind except a small number of
the good shall be the victime sacrificed to Gods anger You have no way to avoid these evils but by loving serving and obeying God Stupid people why do you not imploy your selves in those works which promise you beatitude Is it happily so great a toyle to exercise the works of temporall and spirituall Mercy Children please God please God for else you are neere to destruction Educate your Children in his feare that happily with their righteousnesse and your penitence you may be able to divert the impending judgements of Divine Justice I know that these my words will not prevail upon those minds who have devoted themselves to ambition jollity dishonesty thievery murther and dissolutenesse But the griefe I conceive for your calamities urgeth me to speak though it may prove ineffectuall I comfort my selfe neverthelesse that if you observe not all these my precepts yet one shall fulfill them for you all I see in the more hidden Arcana of God that She shall spring from the Loins of these who being a Virgin and a Mother shall break the Serpents head beare God into the world and open Heaven to the Just Adam was heard with more admiration then successe for all his sonnes except Seth were maculated with a thousand enormous vices His prophesies were derided because That is with great difficulty believed that is not desired and it is the property of Sinne to bereave men of reason and understanding To Seth who by his virtue merited all his Affections and Benedictions Adam familiarly imparted all the particularities of the past and future eveniences which with the gift of Prophesie had been communicated to him by God He foretold him the Ruine of their posterity the birth of the Virgin Mary the passion and death of God the delivery of the righteous souls from Hell and the Institution of new Lawes He advertised him to instruct his posterity laying up these memorialls in two Towers whereof one to be of a matter that could beare out the impetuosity of water the other resist the violence of fire He commanded him above all that he should never permit any of his children to marry into the family of Cain Vices are ever transmitted to posterity and it would be a great benefit to the world that wicked men were deprived of Issue Wolves-bane and Hemlock grow not on wholesome roots Serpents bring forth only Serpents Thus Adam being arrived to his Nine hundred and thirtieth year oppressed either by infirmity or old age departed this life bequeathing his soul to his Maker and his body to the Earth there to remain till the Resurrection when all the Holy Patriarks shall be freed from the prison of the Grave It is the opinion of many that he dyed on Friday the 3d of March being the day on which he was created to hint that misery comes in the very instant of our felicity He was of very great strength according to the Giant like stature he was of We may believe that he was proportionable of person and very handsome for coming out of Gods hands he could not be otherwise He was buried in Hebron in a Sepulcher of Marble and was afterwards transported to Calvary to the very place where Christ dyed It was so decreed by God that so the innocent blood of a God should wash away the guilty ashes of a Sinner Oh excesse of Love Oh stupendious Mercy And hereupon I am of opinion that a deaths head is alwayes affixed to the feet of the picture of Christs Crucifixion to shew us that it is the head of Adam Of Eves age the Scriptures make no mention perhaps because we ought not to know the death of her that deserved to dye before she was born all the miseries of mankind taking rise from her It s probable that she was oppressed by age and passion for Adams death It pleased his Divine Majesty perhaps that she should survive Adam to double her punishment in beholding the death of the dearest part of herselfe This Reader is the Life of the first Man first Father and first Saint He possessed all those benefits which were vouchsafed by nature or acquired by industry He was endowed with all Sciences was the inventer of all Arts. He preceded all mortalls in Wisdome and the perfect knowledg of all naturall things both because it depended on the cause not on the effects and because he could not lose it with the state of innocence He found in advancement downfall and in downfall glory He was then most infelicitous when he was in the height of all his felicity because he could not keep himselfe so I know not whether be greater the hurt he hath done his posterity in necessitating them to dye or the benefit in occasioning the most wonderfull Love of God to put himselfe upon it to undertake our humane nature And Reader consider in this Relation how vast difference there is between God and man Man brooks no parity nor equality in riches dominion nobility honours nor virtue God on the contrary is so full of benignity and so free from envy that he hath been pleased to forme man almost equall to himselfe And in every way that man resembled God God in every of those wayes hath been like Himselfe Consider that God hath given the dominion over all creatures to man as being indued with the light of reason to teach us that the superiour part of man wherin is the minde and reason the particular attribute of a man ought to precede over the inferiour to wit the senses and affections which we have common with beasts Consider that the greatest felicityes last not long resembling lightening which the more it abounds with light the sooner it vanisheth and leaves behind somuch a greater darknesse as Adam in the Terrestriall Paradise passed in a moment from Paradise into Exile Consider of what small avail are the favors of Nature the gifts of Wisdome the Divine admonitions and the Proximity of God himself whilst a depraved will tyrannizeth over the reason inslaves the understanding and resolves to idolize vice Consider that the greatest errors proceed from the greatest wits in that the wisest man in the world fell and that so much the more inexcusably in asmuch as it was easie not to have sinned Consider that it booteth not to confide in riches honours empire nor the love of great ones when an error of disobedience hath involved us in the extremity of misery and in the hatred of Him that hath given us a beeing according to his own similitude Consider lastly Reader how much Children and Grand children and Posterity lose in the sinne of their Progenitors and Ancestors in that all Ages pay a perpetuall penance for the transgression of Adam FINIS