reveal the Glory of the Father in the Face and Fulness of Jesus Christ. And God saw the Light and behold it was good the consequence follows for God he made it and God divided the Light from the Darkness as by his Wisdom the Day from the Night Separation therefore from adust impurity makes it Sublime Immaculate and Pure So Divine out of a Moral and a Celestial out of a Terrestrial State is a transmutation by the Grace of God for if nothing that 's impure can subsist in his presence whatever comes there must be spiritually pure and such are Invisibles separated from Elements the Waters above the Firmament of a pure Nature existent with Life but the Waters beneath Elementary and Fluctuating The Universal Spirit therefore inspiring Life and Motion the whole Creation began to breath and bud forth And God after separation of the Light from the Darkness of the pure and sublime from that that 's inquinate of Heaven from Earth of the Waters from the Waters of the Translucid and Diaphanous Bodies from Corruptible Recrements and Sordid Impurities Then was there a Noble and Divine Separation because when to raise an immortal Seed out of the Principles and Rudiments of Elements And such also is the Regenerate state in Man when born of the Royal Seed from Heaven for Flesh and Blood because Transient and Elementary are inconsistent with the Eternity of God uncapable therefore to inherit the Kingdom This is that Divine and Heavenly Transmutation by which Christ Jesus the Wisdom of the Father with one regal grain transmutes our Nature and our Mortal Bodies into an Immortal State and is that Elixir of Life and Vertue that defends it for ever from torture and destruction and eternally delivers it from the periods of Death But some will object What Body is this And Paul solves the Doubt by a Scriptural Explanation telling us it s a Body increate and incorruptible consequently uncapable of any mutation and because impregnated and animated with Life is under protection divinely blessed absolved and acquitted the assaults of Death What Body then some will say must it be and he tells you It 's a Body as it pleaseth God. But this you 'll object is also insufficient To speak more plainly then it 's a Regenerate Body born from the Spirit and not from Elements but of a pure and immaculate nature that never knew nor consented to Sin Such a Birth will triumph over Death because it can never be made to die nor subject it self to the periods of Death since bound up in the Volume of the Infinite Eternity But Darkness is the Vmbra or promiscuous shadow of the beautiful and amiable Glory of Light And because separated from the Beam of Light and gathered to its self is the Representation of Death Where note we may call it the Mantle or Covering of some solid Substance or some material thing and such is the Night by Earth's Interposition retirements of Light or the Suns bright absence Corpulences also are Stellat Ecclipses because from Globical Bodies intermediating for Night is only the Suns bright absence when deprived the beautiful Beam of his Light and the Day as I may so say the Infant of Light because it sprung up from Light Original The created Light therefore pray tell me what is it if not the beautiful Aurora of Eternity as is Eternity the Ray of the Majesty Thus the Light as appears shines still in Darkness and yet the Darkness comprehends it not Now what is this Darkness but the shades of Death and what is Death but a separation from Life and Life it self the amiable Infant that sprung from Eternity as Generation from Time But Darkness abhors the lustre of Light lest peradventure fearing the Light should inspire it Gold therefore like the Salamander lives eternally in Fire without detriment destruction or diminution of parts whiles imperfect Metals when examined by the test evaporate and vanish so become imperceptible which displays some impurity in their natural Composition for were they of a regal stamp and condition no force of Fire would be Argument strong enough to make in them the least separation so Darkness when made pure by the Beam of Light it then becomes a natural brightness and Mortality transchanged by the Grace of God becomes Immortal by Divine Transmutation The Day therefore sprung natively from Light as a Legitimate Heir from the Loins of his Parents nor could it do otherwise because by the Divinest destinated and determinated to such an end by the Counsel of God. And thus the Beam or Ray of the Sun as its Integer Light can be no otherwise because the proper Effect from that efficient Cause for the Celestial Sun if sedately to consider it was kindled by a virtual spark of invisible Light And this invisible Light the Son of God is the Essence Wisdom and the Beauty of the Father and is that Soveraign and Saving Light of the Divinity and Majesty of God himself As pure Religion therefore is such in it self as it pleads Precedency long before Error consequently it 's a bright and most illustrious Taper that directs to the standard of Divine Truth in whose Frontispiece Devotion displays Christianity and which truly is the most Eminent and Divine Encomium that ever was attributed to Men as Mortals and is in a Scriptural sense the new way of Conquering because through Christ we are more than Conquerours and fight in this Field without Carnal Weapons for no Gladiators arm here to Combat nor is there any Banner but the Cross of Christ and whose Enemies are Abaddon and the Hierarchy of Hell and whose Engins are Sin and the Toils of Death endeavouring therewith to obstruct our passage when attempting the triumphant Joys of Heaven But a Nominal Christian with grief I speak it which signifies no more than a formal Professor if when wanting the Vital Power of the living Act of Faith such a profession makes no Man a Christian any more than reading the Alcharon compleats a Saint nor is every Professor a true Minister of God except of God ordain'd to preach For the Gospel is free and the love of God free and it was the free Act of Christ to give himself freely for the Sins of the World. Christs Redemption therefore was a free Act of Grace to blot out Sin and usher in Repentance and all that 's required for so great a suffering is only conformity to a Holy Life and sanctified Obedience to that Living Power in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells He therefore that prays and pays not his Orisons to this great Oracle the Wisdom of the Father stands still indebted for his Life and Freedom and proclaims himself an Alien to the Court of Sion as also a Stranger to the New Ierusalem Now in opposition to Light stands this formidable Darkness a Figure of a Creature that was found folded up after the Divine Act and force of Separation not improper therefore to intitle
fatal Act of Sinning and that every Man because subject to Sin and the slavish Law of his lustful Appetite becomes captivated by the man of Sin so yields himself captive to the Prisons of Death whose outward progression is actually moved by irregular motion of the desires inward But the Heavens we see and the Celestial Incolists how they never since the Creation consented to Sin and as they were so are they still carried about with a rapid motion The reason whereof must necessarily spring from an internal cause and intrinsick principle since intelligences are so ambigious and what is this principle if not the Soul of the World or the Universal Spirit God has put into Nature whereby as a Magnet it retains the matter which labouring to re-assume its former liberty frames to her self a habitation in the Centre and branching into the several Members of the Body makes more room to act and bestir her faculties No wonder therefore that natures are compounded since nothing but the Almighty is without composition Nor is it the great or the lesser World that which transmutes nutrition into blood but the active Spirit of Life and transmutation is that which is indeed the Life of the Body Since material principles therefore are only passive and can neither alter nor purifie the parts we find them in a state to be altered and purified tho not to communicate or dispose themselves to another substance beyond their native intention Wherefore we have considered them altogether finite and therefore have concluded them also determinate Now if this be a secret you may call it so but as truth needs no voucher it s a substantial truth Wherefore to conclude this philosophick Hypothesis let us throw away if possible those two celebrated crutches of pretended modern sanctity and the solemnity of Ceremony and what results but primitive purity which since the Creation has known no deformity And God said in the Text let us now make Man in our own Image let us make him and after our likeness and let them have dominion over the Fish in the Sea the Fowl in the Air over the Cattle also and over all the Earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the Earth By this the Creation seem'd to want a Head and less than a Prince is too little to govern it Adam must therefore be a Universal Monarch and sway the Throne and the Regal Scepter And Adam must not only wear Heavens Livery but personate the King of Heaven himself Here the Divinest seems to Summons a Councel and God said in himself let us now make Man not like to any thing already made but let us make him in likeness like our self in our own similitude and likeness let us make him and enlarge his Empire by giving him dominion over all the Fish that swim in the Sea and over all the Fowl that fly in the Air over the Cattle also that move on the Earth and over every living creature that creepeth and moveth the Wisdome of God so divinely ordered This was a large and copious Commission that God intrusted a single Subject withal yet such was the good opinion the Creator had of the Creature that God intrusts Adam with the Stock of the Creation and all the Creatures and every complicated Being that was made comprehended and contained in it And Adam drew all his supplies from above since enricht with the Stock and the Treasures of Heaven nor converst he with any inferiour Subject nor any thing in any respect unsuitable to himself whereby he might indignifie or diminish his Authority In the cool of the Evening he walked with God and in the heat of the day the Aquaducts refresht him Aurora sent him Summons of approach of Day but the Night nor was darkness dreadful to him The Celestial Sun was his daily Tapour and the Catalogue of Stars his hourly Contemplation but the Son of God his perpetual Lamp. So that his outside was bettered by his inside and because richly adorned and divinely beautified he saw no darkness nor the shadow of Death whiles he stood in this innocent State of Perfection For God in the Idea beholding a shape or as I may so say a representation of himself became therewith inamour'd and extreamly loving it would cohabit with it when immediately upon the resolution the operation ensued and then was this great Image the beautiful World or rather the representative of his Maker brought forth and created And God said to himself or the holy Word increase in increasing and multiply in multitudes But to Man only because Lord of the Creation I have endowed him with mind and made him immortal So that if he die the cause of death must necessarily proceed from excess of the body and inequallity of Elements and pray tell me what death is if not a cold icy touch or a dismal darkness of the compounded moist nature adhering only to the sensible World. Let no Man wonder therefore that the light of God which illuminates the World is unlike the Beam or Ray of the Sun that by reason of its fiery and excessive brightness immediately and at once strikes the eye with blindness but rather to the contrary Heavens brighter Glory never at any time dazles the mind since the mind is the Souls ingressive eye that soars up aloft to those elevated Mansions where that light shines that enlightneth every Man already come or to come into the World and is the beauty and glory of light and our saving health that influenceth illuminates and beautifieth the Creation and every Creature and created Being But Man above all because made a Monarch and capable to receive this blessed influence proceeding from God the Majesty of Light and superexcellent brightness that diefies the Soul whiles yet in the Body it s he that 's only blest to contemplate this divine beauty and live up to the Vertue of Piety and Holiness So that Adam in a state of innocency represents as Montanus says a Mortal God and our Heavenly Redeemer an immortal Man if when to consider the blessed Incarnation And thus the things that are were made manifest in time but the things that are and not yet made manifest lie hid and conceal'd in the Divinest himself who is all things in all yet subsists without them manifest only in the mind of Man but invisible to the World and the visible eye except in the act of creating only And as the eminency of all appearing beauties are in the Essence much more pure so great and greater is the disproportion of beauty betwixt this of Earth and the Beauty of Heaven All things therefore subject to the Eye represent to us only things subject to sence or more fully to explain it visible operation whiles the Fabrick of the Body needs and requires those similar things that it cannot with conveniency live well without them But the Beauty and Majesty of invisible Beings are inspected only by intellectual Converse since the
unlock the Meanders of Nature Diana in this Vision seem'd almost unvailed and every thing naked in its native simplicity This represents somewhat an Admical state but unsatisfied in mind as to these discoveries I was led to contemplate the Mysteries of the Incarnation how the Divinity when cloathed with Humanity took not only our Nature but our Infirmities upon him and was a bright and shining Light illuminating the World and every thing therein and is that Light which saveth the World that shines in darkness yet the darkness knows it not a Light of that Beauty that illustrates Eternity and regenerates us Plants in the Paradice of God to legitimize us Heirs of the New Ierusalem which if duely considered here 's a prospect of Life when at a distance stands hovering the issues of Death So that Good and Evil seem to stand in a Poiz ' till Earth be found lite by the counterpoiz of Heaven and here it was also I see my self naked waiting for a change for God is all This leads me on to a farther consisideration if when to contemplate what 's more visible than Earth and Earth and Water to compleat but one Globe whilst the Air is drest up with the blessings of Vegetation whereby to inrich and impregnate the Earth As may be seen in the very front and surface of the Soil since dekt and adorn'd with such beautiful Greens as Ornaments of Superiours illustrating inferiours So that the Earth was spread with prolifick Vertue and production from thence immediately ensued by discovering the prodigious plenty of Grass a word large enough to express it universal had not some laboured tho' to little purpose because when to shroud it under the denomination of Herbage Grass therefore admits of a large extension when because to comprehend both Animals and Vegetables and is peradventure the Original word notwithstanding the various interpretation of Expositors because directing it self to the level Paul speaks of as two intersecting Angles direct to the Centre of one and the same single gnomen So that we need not to cavil about the word Grass where the property of the thing is so well understood Herbage therefore is Grass and Paul tells us Flesh is Grass and Grass by interpretation is the most universal Vegetable Trees and Plants also are of the same Linage save only from a larger size of more maturated Grass Stones and concressions also what must we call them if not coagulated and petrefied Grass So that Grass in one respect is every thing that Earth vegetates tho modified after various Formations and Figures differently drest up by the hand of Nature And because haveing respect to time and place by supplement of Air and moist soveraign Vapours causeth it to grow and spreading It self on the Superficies of Earth spires out into Grass Which when otherwise concealed in subterranean Cavities grows up into Metals and the race of Minerals As for Example have not all Trees their Roots in the Earth when their loaden Boughs hang burdned with Fruit. And are not all Metalline Roots radicated in the Air when the Centre of the Earth is burdened with their Fruits what 's more intelligible Now there is but one universal Spirit in Nature from whence things Originally have all their supplies and the three Clauses also of Animals Vegetables and Minerals are they not so many Marks Sigels and Characters which the Creator has imprinted and stampt upon them whereby the Creature might read and know them But Man above all because Lord of the Creation is made most intelligible whereby to understand them wherefore he calls them by Names for distinction when as the rest of the Creatures know them only by instinct And this vegetating Spirit has its Seed in its self and the Air is plentifully replenished with it which Seeds scatter'd and spread about the Vniverse furnisheth the Creatures in all parts of the Creation The Americans can tell you that Trees grew naturally where the Native Indians never had a being and were it not for Europes agriculture and industry her florid Fields and flourishing Pastures would soon feel the fatal stroke of disorder so become Forrests and barren Desarts fit only for beastial and salvage inhabitants For God never made nor sent any thing into the World that was either indigent defective or imperfect every Creature nay the Plants themselves were furnished with prolifick and seminal qualifications sterility was a thing utterly unknown till disobedience disinherited our royal Protoplast which had for ever so remained to the periods of time had not the Cross obliterated the Curse Our Ancestours oft laboured to strike out the Eyesore which the succeeding Generations have thought no impediment because to study new Modes of Sinning whereby to improve impiety by consent which has rarely ceased to follow every Generation as naturally in my opinion as Rust attends Copper fretting and corroding the natural Body till time and other comodes blot out its Character so permits the compound to slide into Atomes and yield it self Captive to the Prisons of Death waiting from the Artist a Resurrection But such Bodies as these we call imperfect because of a Leprosie impendent on them when as indeed there are other dignified Bodies that fear not to die because uncapable of Death whose peluced anima like Stars in the Firmament make glad the Adepti and solicitous in Art. In the next place I purpose to speak something of Light and since Light by the Text is the Oracle of God it was by his Wisdome apparently made manifest when undressing the Hoil of this beauteous Creation which Light also leapt out of the bosome of Eternity into the Vision and perspective of Time and because expatiating it self in the Chaos was the Cause of this admirable Separation of the Waters when by Divine Ordination they divided themselves and then it was that dry Land appeared Nor could it be otherwise because then the purer parts immediately began to feel the force of Separation so let the recrements subside to the bottome because of their feculent and impure Centre and thus by the Fiat were all impurities Separated from that which of it self was altogether pure and this Act of Separation we attribute to God who substituted Nature daily to operate For should there happen but the least Cessation the whole Compound would annihilate so become invisible But every Separation of separable Things creates the Unity and perpetuates the Harmony since the Life of one Element is dependent on another nor lives the one without the breathings of the other The Waters perpepetually moistening the Earth whiles the Earth inspires and ferments the Water but the soft sweetnings and breathings of Air impregnates both as do the Stars in their station and Celestial Rotation actually influence and penetrate the whole From whence we morrally and rationally conclude that Earth made dissoluble converts into Water and Water by heat is raâ—ified into Air. Air consequently by circulation is convertible into Fire and this
exuberant and miraculous Womb not only those innumerable and inexhaustible Treasures as the Principles and Elements but also whatever besides them was made visible was by Wisdom drawn forth out of this immense Deep And to whatever had Sense by Life and Motion Nature by Ordination gave it a beginning but Light and Life she had not power to give for that sprung spontaneously from the Divine Fiat which great work with the great Creator took up but seven days tho seven times seven is adjudged too little nay had I said Months are supposed little enough if when attempting to compleat a Philosophick Operation So that now the Darkness because disappearing the glorious and beautiful Ray of Light suddenly and at once invades all the Universe for after Separation by Divine Ordination every individual as to Vertue and Purity in its innate Quality arose up from obscurity And because relinquishing its Earthy fecula elevated it self according to Dignity correspondent also with the Purity of Matter The Sun therefore with the Moon and the Stars exalted themselves and surmounting the Aether were supreamly ranged in a Divine Order The Elements also they separated themselves into four Divisions or distinct Classes whereby to illustrate this imbellish'd Creation and the Principles because lock'd up in every individual whereby to make permanent by the Law of Perfection began to ferment which the Vulgar understand not for should they be separated purified and reconjoyned a new Creation would inevitably ensue in the Microcosm or the little World as by Divine Appointment it never ceases daily to influence and operate in the Macrocosm From whence all Celestials appear immortal most fiery luminous subtile and bright and by the Divinest made distant and remote were separated from all impure and immund dregs and because excavated into Rotundity they elevated themselves and flew up at once for which cause also Nature of her self desires a round form for things Eternal as being most perfect permanent and indeficient On the contrary it follows that Terrestial things are subject to corruption mutation and death because contrarieties are joyned in their elementary Composition and wherewith the dreggs and impurities of matter were mixed as at first with what was impure otherwise the produce that had proceeded from them would have been beyond dispute Subjects immortal Nor could there ever have been any Generation for without contrariety of qualities in Elements there had never been alteration nor mutation of form and all would have had but one Face without distinction remaining equally in purity and subtilty And tho cloathed with its own Ornament of Beauty and Swavity yet wanting matter whereon to impress formation would become deficient indigent and destitute of Creation It was necessary therefore to mix subtilty of substance with the gross and impure faecula of matter for where nothing but Clarity and Purity remains there of necessity can be no Action and where no Action is there can be no Patient seeing what is pure wants act of Power over that also which is as pure and this End and Operation is Natures Work of Separation for preservation of its Essence and Vital Encrease For if the Earth and her Fruits were as pure as the Heavens all Animals would live as long as Celestial Incholasts But Nature by the Divinest has ordained a Law that whatever partakes of Matter or Corporiety should dwell about that which is also Corporial and that which is most corruptible and inquinate about that which is also likest unto it but the Earth as subordinate is the most precipitant of Bodies consequently most gross and of all things most corruptible nothing therefore can proceed or be deducible from it but what is naturally most agreeable unto it wherefore its Corruption Sordities and Impurities must also be rarified by progress of Separation When therefore it s more pure Substance is extracted and exalted by a true and Magnetick Philosophical Medium Nature of necessity begins there all her Actions and in separation all is found And the Spirit of God moving upon the Face of the Waters was by Incubation or supream Act of Power by the determinate Wisdom and Counsel of God the immediate and proper cause of Separation for here you may read that the Spirit of God divinely moved upon the Face of the Waters And here also you may consider and deliberately understand that the Spirit of God inspired them with Vegetation otherwise of themselves how could they bring forth For the Chaos had a Passive but no Active Spirit in it till God by Wisdom roused up the Ferch or the hidden Life therein concealed and illuminating or kindling the Commassated Matter by the Ray and Majesty of his Divine Spirit that separated the pure from that that 's impure which could be no otherwise since no impure thing can enter nor center where the whole is pure And thus the Angel Gabriel salutes the Blessed Virgin with Hail Mary full of Grace God is with thee the glory of Females Now this Virgin was a Native and true Israelite and had not hitherto known her Husband which Virgin conceives by the Holy Ghost and was a Miraculous and a Spiritual Birth so that we may consider there 's nothing impossible with God the Creator that made the World when in love to incarnate himself to redeem it And Moses he tells you That when God had breathed into Adam our Protoplast the breath of Life he then became a living Soul not that Adam was destitute of a Natural Soul but of a Divine and Spiritual Life which also implies a supernatural state in which excellent state our Protoplast stood when God had transformed his Earth into Heaven and in which pure state he for ever had stood had he stood in simplicity and the Will of his Maker for what we sow that shall we reap and nothing is quickned except it die Mortification therefore precedes Regeneration we must all die to Sin to live to Righteousness But the Spirit of God moved upon the Waters which Act of Power was no sooner performed but the Waters of themselves incessantly brought forth and every created thing that God had made by a Divine and Soveraign Act of Power began to Operate Vegetate and Fructuate who surrounded the Constellations with a Crystalline Firmament and cloathing the Principles which stood naked before him with a Body suitable to their necessity gave Laws and Ordinances to Nature as Substitute immediately to let loose the Universal Spirit whereby to vegetate encrease and multiply to form also to animate and impregnate Bodies but Nature of her self because bounded with periods admits Death inevitably to invade all Compounds for were it otherwise there needed no Separation and Nature preadventure would become sloathful and idle Consequently the Fabrick of the whole Creation would again redact and result in a Chaos Separation therefore is of absolute necessity whereby to distinguish the pure from the impure the fair and immaculate from the most pollute and unclean which
after Purgation to rectify and conjoyn and then advance if it could be to a plusquam perfection whereby to imitate Nature as she by president imitates the Creator what admirable thing would the Operator bring forth Wherefore the Apostle he bids you be perfect as your Heavenly Father is also perfect And what can advance to a state of Perfection but that which separates from Sin and Impurity Thus the Heavens are pure and infinitely clarified yet much more pure is he that created them which state to know is never to know Death Wherefore as by imitation some Bodies are made always to live in the Phylosophick World which the Adeptest intitles and superscribes Transmutation but the Theologist in the Super-celestial that of Regeneration And as one is the period of Principles and Elements such also is the other of Corporification leading Death into Captivity and transforming every impure Being into a Celestial Clarity and Purity and the Souls of Righteous Men into endless Glory but this Operation is performable only by the Heavenly Arcanum or Medicament of Life which Sacred Soveraign and Divine Elixir is the Christ of God the Wisdom of the Father to whom devoutly be everlasting Praises And as Christ is called the Light of the World c. Light may properly therefore be asserted the Manifestation of God and the Oracle of his Truth for if what visible Light is or appears unto the Bodily Eye the same but infinitely more glorious is the invisible Light that illuminates the Understanding in the Eye of the Mind The want of Light it 's true makes Man deplorable so is Ignorance of the Mind to be lamented And as Generation that sprang out from Corruption of those things which were esteemed the best so the Light that shines in Man when it becomes eclipst by the shades of Sin how dreadful and dismal is that Darkness As Light therefore of all things is accounted most desirable the want of it to the Mind makes the Man most miserable So of all Ignorance that Ignorance is the worst which hath reference to the most Noble and Sublimest Object and by how much the subject of Knowledge is better by so much is the deprivation of that Knowledge intollerable As any one therefore by putting out a Mans Eyes whereby to intercept him the injoyment of Light is reputed cruel so he that prevents the means of Knowledge is no less if not infinitely more by a Scriptural Authority adjudged condemnable Light therefore because exalted above all Created Beings it confirms it the Standard of Wonder and Admiration whose beauteous Beam displays it self the uncreated Being before the Creation consequently superexcelling all the rest in Dignity but the created luminous Ray of the Sun that strikes the Poles from East to West nay farther its possible could we apprehend it is sacredly held forth as the Almighties Taper whereby to illustrate the Visible World as do's the Light of his Sovereign All-glorious Son invisibly shine in the Souls of Saints to convince the World of Sin and Unbelief And tho Laban usher Leah unto Iacob's Bed by introducing her instead of his beautiful Rachel so every designing Imaginarist do's when describing only exteriour things but states nothing essentially Such I may say dwell meerly in the Face or at the best on the superficial parts of the Body never aspiring after the fulness of Beatitude which Philosophy in my Opinion looks like to a Church that 's drest up with Discipline when wanting sound Doctrine So that if when to consider the exteriour form of complicated mixts shall melt away probably we arrive at the fiery principium whose Elevations lead on to a state Immortal co-uniting us to that invisible Nature that admits not of any thing save Purity intense by the continued ardency of a Pious Devotion As in Operation it 's evident and egregiously true that the Elements themselves assume all Colours before the Beauty of those colours egrede wherefore they begin with Blackness first because the Antecessour and Parent of Putrefaction after it passes thro other middle Colours till at length it arrives at a Celestial Whiteness which then is Air from whence it ascends to a fiery Complexion in which the Power of Art and Dominion of Fire when to speak Aenigmatically is compleatly terminated and beyond which in my Opinion there 's no natural progress And God no sooner divinely said Let there be Light but immediately there was Light so that his Commands were in a moment answered for how soon did the Light spontaneously spring up and amounting aloft fill the Universe with Splendor So that now the Creation became altogether visible and every concealed Treasure that lay hid therein exposed it self unto occular view whereby to discover the Chaos commaserated and Water and Earth by previous digestion without contention or strong ebullitions began of themselves distinctly to separate and the Earth as rejected to precipitate downwards by reason of its Gravity and solid Ponderosity so that these two Elements were only made visible but the Fire and the Air they fled our sight which by reason of Purity became also invisible whose Sublime Bodies by the Creators Will elevated themselves to influence the Earth whereby to impregnate it with Prolifick Vertue This was and is that beautiful Order wherein the Divinest so divinely placed things when the Earth as an Embrio lay hid and concealed in the Exuberant Womb of the unweildy Waters And this is that great and stupendious work of Separation which Act or Operation was fit only for God who separated the Light from the mists of Darkness which glorious Operation the Prophet Moses points at as a thing principally to be minded and considered if provided any one would imitate the Creator when in the beginning he created the Universe but the end of the Creation stands still in the Ternary of which more at large in its proper place Christ therefore is our Soveraign and our Saving Light that comprehends the Darkness yet the Darkness knows him not whose beauteous brightness illuminates the World and is that Glory and Majesty of Light that was from God that never had beginning which Incomprehensible Light shined before the beginning to illuminate the Throne of the Majesty of God and is the true Essential Word of God and the Word is God the Wisdom of the Father as is manifested to us by Moses and the Prophets But the created Luminaries as Sun Moon and Stars these are but Elementary subject therefore to corruption when God shall please to extinguish their Light by withdrawing the Beauteous Ray of himself and as the Light of the Sun is the Beauty of the Creation how much more beautiful is the Son of God the All-glorious Beauty of the Majesty of God The Created World therefore was made to discover visible Objects and things Corporeal but the Increated and most Sovereign Being to make obvious to us things Invisible the Natural to inspect both Elements and Principles but the Supernatural to
the same likeness it naturally produceth and such as are the constitution of Elements and Principles such also are our Native and Corporial Constitutions To consider things therefore as they are in themselves we need not to borrow Spectacles from others for if when to consider the Sun universally shines notwithstanding the Blind Man he seeth it not and so of Eclipses tho some have seen them what then their natural Reason and Understanding can't reach them however Credit go's a great way in the case The Blind-man perhaps he swallows a Fly and if he do and feel it not what prejudice is there in it when a Fly in the Glass to him that hath Eyes is not only disturb'd but in some measure terrified because fearing to surfeit if not to suffocate Circumspection therefore and the Vertue of Temperance circumscribe to us the Mediums for long Life when excess of any thing overthrows the whole and would even do so to this stupendious Creation should it in any thing exceed with intemperance The Vertue therefore and the Office of Water is to cleanse to moisten to mollific and dissolve to wash also and purific the the outside And this peradventure was Iohn Baptists Ordinance when only to blot out the Character of Circumcision which indeed was then prevalent among the Iews till the Baptism of Jesus of more Energy and Vertue took place to purge out Sin by Internal Purification and which also is that Baptism of the Holy Ghost which Iohn proclain'd was the Baptism of Fire so that these two Ordinances and Divine Operations were vastly different and distinct from one another for the one only washes but the other purifies the first to brush off the outward defilements but the latter to blot out Internal Pollution Consider it therefore you Christian Professors and live not by Profession but the life of Christianity And the Divinest said Let the dry Land appear which was no sooner said but it immediately appeared Now dry Land which is the solid and fix'd part of the Creation all Interpreters agree that its literally Earth and properly is such and generally so received as is by Expositors and others concluded And this dry Earth I have also considered was that only which was left after separation of the Elements to which also was added the dignity of an Element and because ranged and superscribed in the fourth Clasis of the Macrocosm is confirm'd the most solid and most fix'd part of the whole concentring it self upon its own proper Basis and impending on nothing by a Divine Ordination but it s own equal Poize and the Will of God so that neither upwards nor downwards Extension nor Demension can any ways remove displace or unlodge it because God through Wisdom has inspired into it the Magnet of Fixation Gravity and Station which confirms it a central and fixt residence and the Waters to rowl perpetually about it The Air also to incircle and surround it and the Fire above all to surmount above it yet every of them is restricted by Providence within the Circular Globe or Firmament of Heaven But where are we now got above the Elements no probably but as far as our Eyes will carry us no mortal sees farther Our Basis I perceive then will be understood the Earth and Earth and Water compleat but one Globe so that of the whole and visible appearance here seems to remain but one moity left and the rather to confirm it it 's obvious to every one that the Firmament of Heaven intersects betwixt them for the Elements of Fire and Air disappearing they become invisible so that what remains now save only Earth and Water which are Subjects most solid and visible to us Not that I impose this Doctrine upon any Man nor do I offer it as a noval of my own since therefore of it self it is so demonstrable let it carry its evidence in the Frontispiece of Time. Earth therefore and Water are constipated Corelates as hitherto we have observed them visible Elements and the difference betwixt them is easily reconcileable when to consider the Gravity of the one and Fluidity of the other yet both impregnated with Vital Faculties and to each is super added a Prolifick Vertue and because daily influenced by Stars and Planets are by the Divinest inspired with Life and Vegetation But Earth is the Nurse and Supply of Elements as is Water the Sister and the Mother of Earth and because both filled with Vertual Production they fail not to send forth their daily encrease whose Prolifick Breasts minutely sprung up naturally replenished to supply the Universe But I must caution my self what I say now least peradventure there are some will decry any Hypothesis and what if they do I matter not much since to leave behind me Proselites enough after my Death to assert and maintain That the World had a beginning this is undeniable That Time sprung from Eternity this is also indisputable That Generation succeeded Time this is beyond all dispute unquestionable And that Generation terminates in Death is altogether infallible That the Elements and Principles were lodg'd in the great Mass of the Chaos is true That Fire because of its Dignity superceeded the rest is most true And that Air because of its purity climb'd up after the Fire is certainly as true leaving the Waters rolling too and fro fluctuating incircling and inspiring the Earth and the Earth as Central to all the rest by Wisdom and Providence was concentrate on its Basis. Now tell me if you please what false Doctrine's here and I 'll tell you that our Modern Philosophers will allow it Orthodox as the precedent Generations and Philosophers before them so govern'd themselves as to assert and vindicate it So that as I design no Captivity by my Discourse nor intend I any Conquest or Triumph over others only the exercise of every Man's Reason compelling no Man to the dictates of my conclusions Give me leave therefore such to advise as converse with Scripture or correspond with Reason and the possibility of Nature such I mean as profligate those Fictious Notions of Heathens and Infidels and Atheistical Antiseripturists whose suggestions are only of an imaginary Being of that Superlative Being whose real Essence is existent in himself pre-existing Time and is the God of Nature God blessed for ever And the Earth brought forth Grass Here 's Natural Production and this Natural Product spreading it self abroad in a very short progress run into multiplication and because the Creator destinated it to the Creatures use it became Nutritious and Salubrious to them consequently agreeable and convertible to their Nature But the Apostle tells us That all Flesh is Grass and as the Grass fadeth and withereth away so Flesh and Blood our daily Morts prognosticate them also in a state of Corruption and in process of time to admit of Solution Every thing therefore that is in a capacity of being dissolved that thing most certainly becomes invisible and such a
food but the Windows of Heaven were set open to refresh and gratifie their thirsty appetite And thus the Creation was unacquainted with fear whiles our Ancestor stood in a state of Innocency and had for ever so remain'd without contradiction by authority of the Text had not Sin struck out the Character of simplicity The timerous Hare fled not then for fear nor did the Cunney shelter her self in the burrough The Hind calv'd naturally without corruscations claps of thunder were then no help to disburden her Nor did the Bear lick her Cubs into shape or form for in the beginning was no deformity The Pellican in those days I perswade my self pickt not those wounds in her tender breast infeebling her self to relieve her young ones Nor did the Ostridge conceal her Eggs dreading or fearing the crush of the Elephant Nor can I hardly perswade my self in these halcion days that the Swan as now sang a lacrimy to her Funeral nor the Phenix fire her Vrn to generate her Species Aligators surely in the minority of time were not so ravenous as to prey upon Passengers Nor did the Crocadile dissemble his tears to moisten the Funerals of his fellow Creature The Plover I discover flew then with the Tassel and the Pheasant I fancy kept flight with the Falcon. Nor did the Partridge know Engin nor Noosie-thread nor dreaded nor feared he the flight of the Goshawk Nor can I think otherwise than to say in those days the Lark was any time dared with the Hobby Surely Nature in those days was divinely exercised to preserve in Unity and unite in Harmony the Creatures God had blest in this blessed Creation because then to know no other Law but that of Sympathy which is naturally of kind but so alienated now and in a sense so degenerated as if no other Law was ever established Now the Generations past and our worthy Ancestors as the vertuous in this Age will labour to abolish this unnatural antipathy if when mutually to strengthen one another in the doctrine of Christianity which ought to be the standard among the pious in profession lest peradventure we relinquish our soveraign health so draw on our heads the Curse of Disease For to fly from Sanity to seek a cure in Sickness is to run head-long into the Water to preserve our selves from drowning In the beginnings of time as it was of old no noise of oppression allarm'd the Land nor dreaded any man the sence of invasion Then it was that priviledges were as sacred as life and the whole Creation seem'd all in common Ianus I fancy liv'd not in those days when the inside was made legible and intelligible by the outside Modesty and innocency were then alamode and simplicity with piety the newest dress For Heaven was pleas'd then to dwell upon Earth but Earth must now be rarified into Heaven God then immediately converst the Creature as by Mediation Christ interceeds the Father And were it not that Christ is our Saviour and Advocate we should be left without a Plea and Sentence denounc'd beyond dispute against us But Christ is risen in whom we hope to rise and lost Adam is restor'd by the Redeemer of the World So that what Adam lost on the one hand in Paradise Christ our Mediator has redeemed on the other Thus was the Beast and the Cattle made and thus every Creature made after its kind knew no other Law than the Law of kind for instinct of kind was naturally inated and ingrafted into all as into one and if so it were impossible for the Creature to degenerate where a command as hitherto was never violated Then it was that the Divinity of the Majesty of God most splended and gloriously shin'd on the Creation for how could it be otherwise when the beauty of the Creator like a new risen Star reflected on the Creature In Edens fair Field no Brambles grew nor was sterility known in her borders The Trees then lookt big because burd'ned with Fruit and their blushing heads bowed down themselves to the courteous hand that endeavoured to reach them The Earth knew nothing but fulness and plenty since every thing was supplied with prolifick Vertue and nourish'd in it self by the primar cause Nature directs the ends of Germination No Cankers nor Caterpillars bred out of putrefaction nor were Northern blasts injurious to any thing nor was there any fatal stroke of Diseas for every thing stood in its primitive purity and Death was out-lawed and Sin an Exile or at leastwise a rerrour unknown or unthought of nor do I err when to say at that time uncreated O blessed Creation because God had blest it from the beauteous Ray and Beam of Himself Whose radient Morning could scarce raise a blush before Titan was ready to unvail his face Whose pleasures were boundless because then unlimited for excess and intemperance were strangers in her Courts And whose Garden full frought with Flowers and Aroma's flourish'd with encrease since hitherto the Serpent had not tainted the Fruit. And the Earth of it self brought forth in abundance whose Womb was the Storehouse and Factory of Treasures Gold grew in Ophir as naturally in those days as Lead is drawn up in the Peek of Derby-shire And Cattle by kind were raised and encreased as putrefactive Excrements convert into Insects But I cease not to wonder since thy Works are so wonderful and to admire thy ways because so miraculous Thus Heaven and Earth were seemingly united and the Creation bended no Knee to any Government save that of its Soveraign Lord and Maker Nor was any thing made that knew any Lord excepting the Lord of Heaven and Earth Nor had the Creator as yet made man a King or Vice-Roy of the Creatures in the Creation All the World all this while was but one Common-Weal and the Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden and nothing as hitherto that God had created had tasted the bitter effects of Death Oblessed and sacred Government upon Earth when Governed by the Royal Law of Heaven which certainly had remained in that blessed State had not Sin by consent eclips't and defac'd it almost to extinguish this beautiful Aurora But let 's tack about now and begin to examine the genuine nature and complication of Animals together with the natural composition of Man whom we find at this day complicated of Elements of all which he consists if when to consider his material parts And as Adam was abstracted from the Womb of the great World so was Woman her self an abstract from him whose Soul as an Astrum or an Essence Royal is no where to be found in the Texture of the Universe Wherefore we have considered Adam super-natural whose Creation to me seems a small incarnation as Montanus says as if God in this Work had multiplied Himself And tho' Adams Original keep not time with the Creation however we are Children of Adams Generation But the World because daily fill'd with revolution ever since the
Angles of God are made ministring Spirits and the Spirit of God the Divine Comforter that leads us spiritually into the Vision of Glory And Adam was the favourite God only converst with in whom the Divinity divinely shin'd when our Protoplast stood in a State of Innocency then it was that no impure thing could approach unto him because then in the favour and presence of the Majesty our Progenitor in Paradise was admitted to stand For Adam was constituted with a Divine Soul like to the likeness of him that infus'd it which was the likeness of God himself whose glorious Aspect shin'd then on the Creature otherwise the Creatures had never contributed so great humility and veneration to Adam when flocking about him as some sacred thing whereby to honour and give them protection so that to what place Adam was pleased to direct his Life-guard of the Creatures continually went with him But Adam too remiss in this great concern becomes negligent and careless to examine his affair notwithstanding Emulation follows at the heels of Prosperity for can favourites be without the peoples frowns tho' under the umbrage of their Princes smiles No surely the Hierarchy of relapsed Angels had an ambitious Emulation against his present State that if not counterploted by the Wisdome of his Maker they 'l conspire his ruine and perpetual overthrow For revenge against the Will of God carries a kind of sweetness with it solamen miseris and thus sorrows seem to extenuate sorrow when others as our selves are in a suffering state It is true that Adam was adorned with more inward Lustre than the outward beauty of the whole Creation For in his Temple the bodily Fabrick the Holy of Holies inhabited therein For it is the residence of the Divinest himself in whom alone dwells the Beauty of Holiness Let us stand in this station we shall see our Salvation for he that made us knows how to deliver us Then shall we find a holy Guide to direct us the Tracts to the Paradice of God. The Soul therefore whiles yet in the Body represents a Candle conceal'd in a Lanthorn or a glance of Fire in a manner stifled when because wanting the benefit of Air. Who in extremity strugles with her Elemental Chains yet spans the World with a single thought and enjoys that inwardly she 's dismist of outwardly that in a moment flies to the uttermost parts of the Earth and what ever is absent she at once makes present and dead things by imagination she restores to life nothing can conceal or hide any thing from her who in an instant surmounts the Stars Thus Adam by his Maker was made a Monarch and one of the Creators holy Senators who read Lectures in the Heavens the Almighties Common-place-book and conducted the Creatures created in the Creation to whom God gave Voice and the ornament of Speech but above all the glorious intellect of Mind which Angellical State our Protoplast stood in so long as he stood in opposition to Sin which gift was ungiven to the rest of the Creation yet none of them denied the benefit of Sence lapt up only in this thin Tiffeny Web of Mortality for Sin is but a bulk of emptiness and impiety that like a Pageant does nothing it self but hinders others from doing good seducing by the lust and pleasures of the Body whiles the Soul is meerly starv'd with penury Innocency was then the best guard of our Ancestor when he stood in the presence of his God in simplicity for the more pure that any thing is the more sublime is that thing also Wherefore we consider Adam in an Angelical State when cloathed with Piety and adorned with Purity then he stood his ground like a Heavenly Champion for God had made his Earth Celestial This answers something to the Doctrine of Hermes that God inhabits in the Mind of Man the Mind in the Soul and the Soul in the Body and that he is all things in All both Act and Power for he is God. From the matter therefore the subtilest part is Air of the Air the Soul of the Soul Mind of the Mind God. And the Soul of Eternity is God himself but the Soul of the World is Eternity and Heaven as he saith is the Soul of the Earth So that nothing nor part is deficient of Soul nor is the Soul deficient of God. Thus in innocency and simplicity oâ— Protoplast stood in this Divine posture without sensual guards when his Maker selected him a representative at the great Assembly of the blessed Creation where all the Creatures were convocated together Then it was that Adam like a Magestrate and a Legislator for such then he was gave forth his Edicts unto all the Creatures his natural Subjects The Golden Rule was kept then amongst them when every one did justice by kind and not that the dread of punishment compell'd them For the Ray of Justice was so generally distributed that it naturally shined in every individual The Earth in those days was unburdned with Tillage nor do we read it was wounded with Culture the Creatures in the Creation liv'd purely by instinct not making their Bodies Sepulchres to bury dead Carcasses in There was no Temple in those days to prophane but now we have Temples nor want we Prophaners Wherefore let 's consider the glorious Work of the Creation that by the hand of God was no sooner made but by the will of Man was endeavoured to be unmade Creation is not therefore Generation nor have we considered Generation is Life but by way of allusion it may be called sence Nor is Change Death though commonly so asserted but rather a forgetfulness or obliteration of Elements Generation therefore is improperly called a Creation but rather a production of things only to sence in time made manifest nor is Change Death but an occultation or hiding of that that in it self seemed once to live Here methinks I see both Sexes in our Ancestor shine through the lustre and beauty of Adam for Male and Female God created them so that both Sexes liv'd under one Species and Adam in appearance was then Hermaphrodite because having both Natures and Similitudes in himself And whatever Adam listed should then be done was accomplished before the desire could grow into act in so great subjection was every thing to him that obedience was held more Sacred than Sacrifice All the Beasts in the Field came to him for Names so did the Fish and the Fowl of Heaven and whatever he called them that was their Name God gave him Wisdome and he wisely improv'd it till the Tempter by a temptation leudly deprav'd him so that whiles he steer'd both Sexes in one bottome his success in every thing was more than miraculous but to Pilot the Helm of two distinct Vessels and both at once in a storm under Sail surpasses the skill and methods of Navigation And God blessed them with blessings in bidding them be fruitful which blessing was doubled by multiplication
this was a token of Love to the Creation when God daily renewed his blessings upon the Creature For the blessing upon Adam was by divine appointment transferred to succession upon Adam's Generation which afterwards in time perverted through corruption by a passive neglect in Adams Posterity Now as every good thing is the Gift of God and since whatever God gives is certainly good the Fruit of Paradice could be no otherwise than good because the Gift of God that gave it and the Fish in the Sea and the Fowl in the Air which God gave unto Adam were supreamly good So that every thing in the Creation and created being had the tincture and sweetness proceeding from God who through Wisdome ordain'd it and by Providence maintains it the consequence therefore must needs be good Yet above all the blessings that ever God gave us was in giving unto us himself in his Son the glorious Mystery and Revelation of God which Gift of God was greater than the World and was the Gift of him that gave himself for the World. To all the Creatures in the Creation God bid them be fruitful and in multiplying multiply and replenish the Earth But in Adam peculiarly as in a Divine Garden-Plot God sowed there the Seed of Everlasting Life from whence by cultivation and the Goodness of God he might expect to reap an ever-living Crop for the Seed was the Seed of Eternal Life and not the effects of Sin and Dead Works No Brambles grew up in this heavenly Vintage whereof God himself was the Vine-roon This is the new and the holy Ierusalem wherein Paul may Plant and Apollo Water yet if the Sons of Adam be barren Sciens how can they produce this soveraign Fruit without the heavenly Dews of the Son of God. Adam may multiply and replenish the Earth yet if wanting the blessing of God his Benefactor what profits it To be good therefore is to be like unto God and likeness in every thing creats love since every thing naturally loves its like and this love in Man is the abstract of God in as much as God is Love original Whatever goodness therefore shines in Man is really a derivative from God himself So that should we trace the dimensions of Adam with the extent of his Monarchy how large his Commission runs over the Earth and the Ocean it would be endless for his limitation was boundless the Fowl of Heaven knew no Lord but Adam and the Fish in the Sea no Soveraign but himself and every created thing that had breath and moved and every moving thing that breathed and was created had no Supream nor Superintendent but Adam For Adam as a Star shin'd then upon Earth and made great by him that 's all goodness and greatness was blest in his Posterity and glorious Nativity or heavenly Birth since two Divine Natures shin'd splendidly in him For God had implanted both himself and his Son to make Adam beautiful as himself is glorious the nature of the one was to live and never die but the nature of the other was to die to live This seems a Paradox I 'll therefore explain it That Power that lives and never dies is the Divinity of the Majesty of God when the Almighty before the Creation divinely calculated the Nativity of Life for God said in himself let us now make man like unto our self in our similitude let us make him which likeness or similitude was uncapable of death consequently of diminution or division of parts because the similitude of God himself for God breathed into Adam the breath of Life and he became a living soul who therefore so vain precipitant and idle as to imagine the Breath of God can extinguish Time shall wear out and Gerations walk off and Death it self become an Exile and all things terminate and drop into decay but the Breath of God which is that illuminating light that enlightens the World and the Soul of Man when that glorious light shall co-unite with darkness which is altogether improbable and utterly impossible then shall that hidden life God breathed into Adam be capable of death and not before So that two Lives liv'd at once in our Ancestor a created Life and a Life regenerate a created Life as from a heavenly Birth which sprung Originally from the Womb of Eternity and because made like to the likeness of his Maker it gave him Victory to triumph over Sin putting into his custody the secrets of Life and placing in his hands the Keys of Death So that he knew nothing but absolute freedome and unprohibited the use of the whole Creation one Tree only by the Divinest excepted in which God had placed a peculiar property fit only for himself in wisdome to know God therefore imposed his commands upon Adam not to taste thereof lest peradventure he die The other Life was that of Regeneration which is Christ incarnate God in the Creature this Life liv'd invisibly before the Creation and is that hidden Life in Christ manifest by the Apostle Christ in you the hope of Glory Which remains a mystery to this very day as in former Ages a secret to our Ancestors which Life is the Power of God to Salvation and was in the beginning with God himself and it was God and was made Flesh and by the Will of God dwelt among men This is that Word that spake in the beginning and moved in the Patriarchs our Ancestors to speak that liv'd immaculately in the blessed Virgin that was made Flesh and dwelt among men that bore our infirmities and was Crucified at Ierusalem that in spight of Death took captivity captive and in despite of Hell captivated Death and which also is that Eternal Word that now is ever was and for ever shall be to convince the World of Sin Impenitency Incredulity and Ingratitude which Monster of a Sin is worse than Witchcraft and tho' a Witch be superscrib'd a Rebel in Physicks yet reversing the Point a Rebel is a Witch in Politicks The one because acting against the Law of Nature but the other because striving against Order and Government But God gave unto Adam a Charter Royal that was sign'd and seal'd with those glorious Characters of Sun Moon and Stars and all the Host of Heaven to witness to it This was that great and superlative Grant that God gave unto Adam when he placed him in Paradice and wherewith to refresh him he gave him every Herb and of every Tree that was burd'ned with Fruit whereof he might eat and live before him These Royal Priviledges God gave unto Adam and Heavens Benefactor confirm'd them unto him Now Adam may freely eat and live or he may eat and assuredly die for Life and Death stand as it were in a poiz and because to our Protoplast seemingly mingled they seemingly presented one single Existence as if Property and Quality were intirely one 't is true one Mantle overshadowed both till God out of compassion made more visible discoveries
And as light shin'd forth by reason of purity unmasking or unveiling the scenes of darkness that lay hudled up in the hoil of obscurity light as a thing strangely surprized seem'd suddenly to startle because then not to know such a horrid deformity as this we call darkness was in the beginning co-inhabitant with it or conceal'd beneath it for the light of it self was most pure and immaculate in as much as it never entred into unity nor into any association with obscurity or darkness But darkness represents the solitary shadow of some Elementary thing or something substantial wherefore we shall want some solid substance whereby to form our darkness out of and what is more solid than the fixity of Earth or more copious than the bulk of the great Creation when as yet in the Hoil or confused Chaos it lay intermingled and blended together Light must necessarily therefore appear a most glorious Creature which by Divine Act operated in the Separation For God no sooner said Let there be Light and obedient to the Command it immediatly sprung up which by reason of its purity and sublime clarity exalted it self and fill'd all the Universe so made visible discovery of things that lay conceal'd in the commassated mixture or Mass of Elements And this miraculous Work was accomplisht for Man that he might admire the excellency of his Maker and raise his speculations to such a divine pitch that by visibles he might conclude since such ornaments of beauty and swavity hung about them that greater excellencies and diviner curiosities of necessity must adorn the more invisible part by reason what 's circumferated and made visible to us is only the shadow of that more glorious invisibility visible only to Seraphins and Cherubims Arch-Angels and Angels together with the Saints and the Sons of God. Farther yet to comfirm these Royal Priviledges Adams prerogative seems infinitely enlarged for all the Beasts on the Earth with the Fowl of the Air and the Fish in the Sea were given him for Food by a Royal Grant from Heaven to eat of but not to riot so dishonour his Creator and every Vegetable besides the Race of Animals were not only allotted him but given for nutrition So that in effect the whole Creation consequently every individual production by Commission from the Divinest was given him for sustentation And so great a favourite was Adam in Paradise and such great kindness had his Creator for him that he made him Lord over all the Creation and every thing that was was made serviceable to him nay in such veneration he stood with the Creatures that all the Creation doubled their obedience Here I fancy the innocent Lamb because then not knowing the terrours of death proffered his Throat to the Shrines of the Altar and the fatted Calf was so far from fear that he dreaded not the formidable stroke of Separation the Kids with the Flock sported then with the Wolf and ran about the Bear sometimes for diversion Thus the Creatures made sport and pastime with danger as if Death and Destruction were sanctuary to them so naturally was Innocency implanted in Eden or the Suburbs of Heaven that nothing knew its enemy because no enemy to know Unity and Harmony were inseparable Companions and every individual knew no Argument but Love whose Law was alike forcible to others as the Law of Harmony was united in it self The Mallard in those days soar'd with the Falcon and the timerous Hare lay down with the Hound The Leopard and the Tigre sported with the Herds and the Herren with the Shad swam without dread of the Porpus the Dove and the Lark took flight with the Tassel nor was any thing of Emulation known then in the Creation Innocency shin'd naturally in every thing and its excellency in the beginning knew no limitation for nothing could sorrow nor any thing grieve in as much as there was no real cause of suffering Nor could any thing languish nor be sensible of smart because as hitherto pain was uncreated Fear was a thing altogether unexperimented and Death and the Grave such eminent strangers as never to be apprehended What a pure State the Creation then stood in worthy our contemplation and the admiration of all Men. But Adam too niggardly he consults the Elements and Elements because having periods of their own by praedestinated Ordination are lockt up in death Adam therefore mixing simplicity with impurity which of it self stood in the limit of disobedience cojoyned himself with finite adherences so drew down upon himself the shortness of Life and on the succeeding Generations the issues of Death which in time diminished so by degrees extinguished the beauteous and luminous Ray of Life that shined gloriously within him and was sanctuary without him and would ever have gloriously shined in his Posterity had not â—e remisly by one single consent complyed with his Consort so vainly to extinguish it Now when God had made a survey of the Creation the Workmanship of his hands and divinely blessed it he placed therein the likeness of himself the single identity of his Divine Goodness which could not go forth because the everlasting Arms of the Majesty of God so sacredly limited and so sweetly confined it that in this Divine and Cristalline Coagulum the Majesty of Heaven beheld himself who viewing the several Classes of the Creatures which by Wisdome he divinely had foreseen in the Idea it so greatly renewed the ardency of his Love which continued and augmented the blessing upon them for Love has that singularity to shine in it self and in its operation always to renovate Thus God so loved the World he had made that he gave us Himself in giving us his Son that whosoever believed and persevered in him should never die but have Life everlasting Thus God made the World to protrude and vegetate and because it should conceive and daily bring forth he placed an appetite and an immortal Soul therein and fill'd it as Hermes says with Divine imagination so that the Sun and Celestials fell in Love with the Harmony and because it was beautiful they married with it and this great Solemnity was Celebrated at first when God laid his Ordinance of Multiplication upon it Which Divine Institution has been punctually observed and kept inviolable ever since the beginning and will undoubtedly so long remain and so long continue till Generation and Time shall be no more And now the Deeps began to break up when the Rivers and Rivulets with murmuring Streams silently invaded the florid Plains The Mountains and the Hills also look'd big with Flocks whiles the Valleys and Savannas with the fragrant Meadows were abundantly crowded with Herds of Cattle All the Birds in the Air now turn'd Serenades and every Flower and flourishing Blossom perfum'd the Air with delicious Aroma's The lofty Cedar then lifted up his head and the Martial Oak and the Ash stood by him so did the Poplar and the spreading Elme but the trembling
Asp shak'd his Palsie Head. The Vine in those days embraced the Olive and the Eglantine intangled himself with the Rose Thus every thing whilst naturally inamoured with its like the Woodbine or Hony Succle tied knots about the Hedges The Bee return'd home with loaden Thighs and the Flocks of Sheep laid down their Fleece The Oestridge deplum'd his feathery Crest and the Stork retaliated kindness with gratitude The Horse in those days spurn'd not at this Rider nor did the Lion know the Tyranny of Invasion Alegators in the beginning were not devourers noâ— were there known any Birds of Prey The Vulture and the Tigre liv'd not then upon Vermine for Morts were altogether unknown nor was any thing infectious that might nautiate the Elements every thing God had made stood in the beauty of Harmony and whatever was made and by wisdome created that thing beyond dispute was most certainly good Adam was invited to this great Solemnity which was then of it self but one single Family nor had he any compeer nor was there any to controul him except the Divinest that great Oracle of Heaven that breath'd Life into him And every Act that Adam made was registred by the Creatures in this blessed Creation and most sacredly and inviolably kept in Paradice till Sin and Impiety spoil'd his Principallity And then it was this great Parliament broke up and the Members discontented began to withdraw so by degrees refused his Protection And Adam considering himself neglected and uncapable any longer to maintain his Prerogative folicits new favourites but they forsook him or rahter Adam forsook himself but did not know it for Sin had so strangely disfigured and disguised him that none of his Subjects could remember to know him or think or believe him their natural Prince suspecting him rather some forreign Invader previously insinuated to divest them of Community and supplant them of those supernatant Priviledges granted them in the beginning from their Soveraign Donor So that the Creatures at once desert him and not him only but his Government also which look'd but little now when formerly so great that all the Creatures in the Creation paid servillity unto him Thus Adam amaz'd to find himself forsaken makes a League with the Elements to reinforce his Authority but they when examin'd could not cement the breach nor in whole nor in part re-establish enthrone and eternize his grandure because having ends and periods of their own he therefore complies to walk the shades of Death and Deaths frigid Zone and cold Icy touch no sooner approaches but invades the Elements so lets the compound crumble into dust which is the ultimate period of all Elementary mixts that ever was that at present is or ever shall be in the progress of time Thus the Heaven and the Earth were finished and all the Host of them and on the seventh day God ended his Work the Work which he had made and rested on the seventh day from all his Work which he had made and blessed and sanctified it So that now the great Work of the great Creator was by the word Fiat determined and finished when the beauteous Earth most sumptuously adorned with Celestial Ornaments like the Queen of Honour came splendidly forth with Virgin purity to celebrate her Espousals whose Bride-maids were Nature and the Celestial Incholists but the Spectators and Relations were the various sorts of Animals together with the multiform generation of individuals that with general applause and unanimous consent gave an approbation suitable to the present occasion Here might be seen all the Beasts in the Forrest hand in hand as it were coupled together if not improper to say so and ranging themselves into an excellent order came forth to illustrate this great Solemnity And here also all the Fish that swam in the Ocean embodied themselves as if they were but one Fin and with the Fowl of the Air so exactly moved and with such a reserv'dness so equal was their order as if all of them had but one single Wing to accilerate and celeritate their admirable motion In this excellent posture all the Creation stood when attending the approach of this admirable Union At length the Sun appears her amiable beloved who came cloathed with Lustre and excessive Beauty and all the Host of Heaven his illustrious Convoy Whose Harmony was the Spheres and every thing that had Life exirted it self to move by measure as if all the Creation by gradual motion with a reserv'd gravity mov'd the Orbs at once Thus the Creation was compleatly finished and Heaven and Earth became Husband and Wife and God himself Divinely blessing them bid them go forth encrease and multiply And on the Seventh Day when God had ended his Work He constituted a Sabbaoth or a day of Rest exempt from Labour and other Servilities but upon the Elements were no such imposition nor were they under any breach of Command as legibly construed by this Divine Injunction Read Rabbi Moses in Sacred Writ and you 'l find it extends to Man and Beast only if when to consider the Minority of Time with the Earths inhabitants that knew no Servility but Agriculture and Grazing Wherefore to look back on the Nativity of Affairs you 'l meet Cain and Abel intrencht in this toil when as the residue of the Creation knew no Limitation but stood intirely as hitherto unconcern'd as if all days were but one day or the Almigty's great Holy-Day wherein every Creature nay all the Creation with humility rejoyced and with elevated Praises exprest their thankfulness to the great Creator It was then by Proclamation and a Royal Command from Heaven that Man and Beast only should Rest from Labour For did not the Sun continue his course and all the Stars move in their proper station Did not the Orbs the Elements and the Heavens turn round with a Rapid Motion then as now and were they not then as they now are in a perpetual and circular Rotation Did the Tides seem to stop their natural Flux or the sullen Waves lay down their brinish Heads Had the Fountains no issue did the Winds cease to hover in the ambient Air and grow remiss in transporting embodied Clouds Did the Pulse of the great World neglect to beat Sea-Monsters to roar Hurecanes to invade Earth Hail and Rain Thunder and Lightning did they associate together and proclame a Sabbaoth or a Universal Cessation None of these things we read of hapned since the Creation and what 's the reason God in his Wisdom governs the Creation but unreasonable Man was to Pilot the Creature We therefore consider that this most sacred Ordinance relates more peculiarly to Man and Beast and that the residue of the Creatures in this stupendious Creation stand intirely exempted and acquitted from it And God blessed the Seventh Day as a Day of Sanctity who through Wisdome and Providence divinely hallowed it which to consider is a manifest Proof to confirm the excellency of a Sabbaoth unto us For God by Ordination appointed six days for Labour but the Seventh he set apart for Man and Beast to Rest in The Mind and the Body therefore seem under different exercises by which I conclude ought to have different entertainments the last if we consider solicites temporals but the first if well observed she contemplates Eternals Where note the one relates to our present State but the other if I mistake not to our future Felicity wherever therefore the treasure is the desire of the Soul will also be there But Heaven contents it self with a small allowance is one day in Seven such a great exaction What a slender Service is required of us Mortals for so great kindness from so good a God how shall or dare we detract from our selves whereby to violate the Commands of Him that so sweetly by his Wisdome puts a Divine force upon us and because unwilling to do our selves good the Divinest is pleased to do good unto us It 's true at the best we are but formal Penitents that slash our own sides to raise a pity in others so wounding our selves make the Spectators cry O where 's the Vision of Piety and the Mediums of Charity when to run and embrace a veneal Polution as if so sweet and luscious were the sence of Sin that we 'l choose to die rather than live without it so sacrifice our selves to the fury of Flames fancying thereby we burn the World when as indeed we but scorch our selves in the fiery Trial of a self-will Devotion And God rested from his Work of finishing the Creation which he made and adorn'd for the good of the Creature which points out to us the Alpha and Omega the beginnings of Time and the end of the Creature For when to say the Creator rested it implies that Nature began then to Opeperate after the Divinest had put bounds and periods to every Creature and created Being To the Stars and Constellations so to Elements and Principles the Sea exceeds not her natural Course nor does her swelling Flux prevail Nor the luminous Sun tho' incircling the Heaven with a rapid Motion what does he more than illustrate vegetate and illuminate the Universe and the Stars which by Wisdome he made to shine what do they but inspire and influence the Earth And did not he also impregnate the Air with the conceal'd treasures of Rain and Hail whereby the Earth as the Air is fill'd with Life consequently the Ocean as the Earth with Vegetation What can I say more Nor indeed offer less where-ever therefore God is said to be of necessity Heaven must also be there And the Apostle tells us God is All in All and the fulness of all dwells abundantly in him to whom for ever be everlasting Praises Amen FINIS