Law of Reason and unless we return to his commands as well a rational subjection as a natural we submit as Irrational Creatures but not as Men and though possibly we cannot do otherwise then what is decreed yet to will to desire to endeavour the doing what we are commanded to do or prohibited from doing cannot but prove an acceptable sacrifice Cap. 2. Verse 17. For in the day thou catest thereof § 23. I cannot but admire that the God of Union should ordain Disunions seeming Sympathies and Antipathies Evening and Morning Day and Night Light and Darkness Life and Death Good and Evil But when I consider that the Morning could not be known but by the terminating it with the Even or the Day but by terminating it with Night or the Light but by terminating it with Darkness or Life but by terminating it by Death or Good but by terminating it with Evil I find that these terminations were agreeable to our knowledge for the several appellations of Light had been infinite and thereby not fitted for a manifestation to us and we must in their knowledge have been made coequal with God in glory and eternity if they had not been thus manifested But these appellations of Darkness were the Foils to set off the splendor of the Creation and Evil was no other then as the evening to the morn or as night to the day or as darkness to the light nor was death any other then the smooth transition to immortality without fear pain or trouble or onely a sudden rapture or exstacy in the ineffable change from terrestrial contentments to supercelestial beatitudes But from the breach of this command ariseth the evil of evils death of death evening night and darkness It is wonderful that Adam should so much erre in the first trial which God made upon his obedience and it is as wonderful that God did command Adam to forbear that which was the best piece of Mankind the Knowledge of good and the termination of it which was all the evil which then could be called evil But Man was forbidden it doubtless that he might not conceit within himself that he had attained Knowledge from the virtue or nature of that Plant but from the immediate gift and instruction of God for certainly God did inform him of the whole system of the Creation by what we may collect by the foregoing and following verses which was a sufficient Knowledge so that the Knowledge he had by this Tree was onely a Knowledge of Intoxication and Knowledge of the termination of Life and a confused Knowledge of Distinction between good and evil which Knowledges were forbidden his Knowledge before being a complete Knowledge consisting of a perpetual blessedness for his Knowledge thereof was onely this that goodness did now terminate by his disobedience and that life should have a period or termination which was a death for by this Knowledge he got a Critical Knowledge as we find by Eves Dispute that Disobedience was the extreme of Obedience Death the extreme of Life whereas whilest he was under Gods teaching and instruction he knew nothing but a quiet obedience and an innocent life free from thoughts of disorder or fear of what should happen but now he knew the termination of that life and that sentence In the day thou catest thereof thou shalt surely die Thou shalt surely die § 24. If it be true what some Divines affirm that Adam continued but six hours in Paradice three before the eating the Fruit and three after I should wonder how Adam should be made sensible of death seeing before his eating he was in a perfect and immortal condition for a Blind man cannot understand a Colour nor he that had never seen the separation of Soul and Body know the effects of it but certainly God did either shew him the Horary Plant or other Creatures of the like nature that hath its birth flourish and close in an hour and is never seen after or else taught him the way of Sacrificing Beasts and by their expiration to know his own in case he disobeyed this command or else the nature of the Death was represented unto him not as an immediate separation of the Soul and Body for we find he lived many hundred years after but his death feretold here was a certainty of a future dying Cap. 2. Verse 18. And the Lord God § 25. God is seven times repeated in the first Chapter and the eighth time in the 26th verse but in the second Chapter verse 7. where the Narrative of Mans Creation is more fully described it is exprest that not God alone but the Lord God said And so here concerning Woman the words Lord God are also used to testifie that in the Creation and Making of both of them God did assume another Title to himself then the single word God God seeming to be a name relating to all his Creatures but Lord more peculiarly to Man and Woman as before is hinted concerning Man onely Said § 26. This word said is repeated seven times in the first Chapter viz. verse 3 6 9 11 14 20 and 24. Now where it is thus expressed that God said Let there be we must apprehend rather as an act then a discourse or deliberation for though we discuss before we act proceeding from the imperfection of our Knowledge and want of power to act things being known to us onely in the abstract and when we do know them we are uncertain of our Abilities to put them in action yet God knows all things in the concrete and his perfect Wisdom and Power requires no discourse or deliberation so that it must be understood in the seven other places that God said and did at one and the same instant but in the eighth and ninth places the word said is not to be understood as a fiat onely but as a word of deliberation rather then action which is inferred from the words Lord God and Let us and I will for in all the entrances of the other parts of Creation it is said onely Let there be but in the 7th and 18th verses being the eighth and ninth time the Lord God said Let us make and I will make It is not good for man to be alone § 27. Man is a noble and sociable creature a secluse and monastick temper neither becomes him nor was safe in the primitive and most eminent time of Adam much less in ours for it oft produceth such prodigious Copulations or contranatural Restrictions as Nature is as much injur'd in the one as in the other therefore to be avoided as being not good for Adam nor his Posterity And of all Societies surely that is most complacent that consists of sutable Tempers Yet some of the Fathers hold that Man is never alone when he is alone Angels or Spirits that attend his most private meditations are such contenting Companions that though he converseth with no other body yet his Mind hath
shalt study to bite them in their heels but to them it shall be a medicine to thee because they applied the medicine to the heels in the days of the King Messias This Text is of an ambiguous nature but because Jews and Christians make it the first Prophetick Text concerning a Messias and having written something of the Diversity of Religions I shall refer this to some other place to be discoursed of more at large And though my Notions herein may differ from other Writers yet without prejudice I hope to Christian Religion Cap. 3. Ver. 16. And to the woman he said § 32. I will greatly multiply thy sorrows in thy conception and in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children The Targum reads it I will multiply thy affliction and pains by the bloud of thy virginity and conceptiou which shews that as the Virgin Mary without fraction of any Membranes which causeth that virginate effusion of bloud and consequently pain and also without pain in conception or eduction brought forth a child so should every woman 't is suppos'd have enjoyed the like benefit had not this curse come upon them I confess 't is scarce conceivable how fractions or extensions of parts could be without pain but we see how Oyls and other Arts prove Emunctions and Lenitives And we need not doubt of the Almighties power and kindness in imparting unto them such knowledge whereby they should have enjoyed a progeny with pleasure both in Admission Ejection Conception and Emission without that Philosophical doom not onely upon Man but other creatures that all creatures after Coition are sad which I will not dispute whether it is because the pleasure is so short or some intermixture of pain concurrent or expectant so that there is an immediate and inexpressible sense of the departure of some Animal Spirits from them which are to supply another body as it were robbing them of their Native properties But for her complying with the Serpent and thereby disobeying God and Man she is justly doomed to those pains which certainly are no way compensated with those pleasures which Tirisius tells us of for those pleasures which are are rather Inductives and insnare into pains and tortures then any real pleasures for we may observe that those who enjoy the most are loaded with Diseases and Distempers either in Youth or Age able to restrain the most Libidinous from enjoying their Phansies more then Realities And thy desire shall be to thy husband § 33. Our Translation in the word Desire follows the Hebrew and Desires are in Latin Desideriae derived from Sydera the Stars in which formerly and now in this Age we place such an efficacy as to think they have a power over or vertue to guide our actions and such a desire ought every woman to have towards her husband Other Translators call Desire Cupiditas from Cupid which is Cuipio that is that our desires should be to such as to whom we may attribute a Piety or Goodness and upon the like account the wife ought to have her desires towards her husband Others render the Latin for Desire Amor that is a morte that she is to believe he is of power to preserve her even from dying by his vigilant care over her and therefore she ought to have her desires towards him even for her own preservation Others read Desire Conversio tua c. that she is to turn and move according as her husband thinks fit to govern for going two ways can never be succesful and is opposite to a Conjugated Love Others read Necessitus tua that is Necessasesse that is there is so perfect a necessity in obedience that it must be performed by the wife lest she cease to be or at least to enjoy any contentment to her self or husband The Targum reads it Appetitus tua a petione that is whatever she desires of her husband must be in a submissive and petitionary way Now though our Version saith onely Thy desire shall be to thy husband it doth not exclude his to her even in the same senses as before recited for doubtless as the question is undecided whether we see by Extramission or Intromission so it is in the desires between Man and Woman whether the object of him attracts her desires or the object of her attracts his or whether it be an unexpressible uniting of visuals in a moment by visuals I mean the form and figure of what is seen as well as that which sees And it is hard to find out this Attraction by other demonstration then this or the like Experiment Take a piece of Iron untouch'd by a Loadstone and such an other piece of Iron as hath been touched of an equal weight with that which is untouch'd lay these upon two pieces of Cork of equal weight and flote them upon the edges of a vessel of water then fix a thred from side to side of the vessel at an equal distance from the two Irons mounted on their Corks opposite to each other and the Irons with their Corks will by an equal pace swim towards the thread or centre to meet each other and then both will joyn with an amicable embrace as if neither would yield to an Attraction but by a stately easie and equal motion so mutually move to an union at their centre And though 't is said her desire shall be to her husband yet he is not to hide or retract his mutual and reciprocal love and desires but to let them meet in one centre and conjugated affection And he shall rule over thee § 34. Regulabi◠in our Translation that is he shall be as a King to guide thy publick affairs dominabitur says another that is he shall be a Director also in thy domestick concerns Both which we translate He shall rule over thee that is be a rule or guide to thy actions Or as Stars are supposed to guide inferior bodies by their influence so by his piety and exemplary life to direct and guide her to an upright conversation and in all hazards of life and death to cherish or prevent them And were this disposition in husbands and that imitation in wives the curse would be a blessing but the curse is still in refractoriness of obedience And women are still subject to repeat what the Serpent taught viz. that they may eat that is that they may tast of forbidden fruit and take irregular courses thinking to gain experimental knowledge and that they shall not die or be accused thereby for disobedience Cap. 3. Ver. 17. And to Adam he said § 35. Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife and hast eaten of the tree the which I commanded thee saying Thou shalt not eat of it It is the voice that gives the chief distinction to the several kinds of living creatures and the species of those kinds are also distinguished by it so that there is scarce any individual of any kind which hath not some
Exorbitancies which grew up with the exuberancy of the world Besides we see even in our times to what great Ages Men and Women have arived even to two and three hundred years though Climes constitutions vitiations by food and other inordinacies do distemper that harmony of nature by which our forefathers did subsist Now nine hundred and thirty years want but seventy of a thousand and a thousand are but as a span the span is but what it can grasp and why should we labour to grasp that which whether we hold or not is equal at present but disadvantagious not only in the riddance of Anxieties but also procrastinating those happy Expectations which even Common Reason guides us to believe For though there is no mention made in our Translations how Adam was disposed of after he died yet the Targum of Jerusalem says Mortuus est collectus fuit e medio Mundi And it is sufficient he was taken out of the midst of the troubles and anxieties of the world And there can be no doubt but that he who was imprisoned here nine hundred and thirty years for his offence and had worn the badges of mortality in the skins of dead Beasts for his cloathing and digg'd his grave so oft in cultivating the Earth as a reward for his frugality and industry after his death enjoyed such quiet felicities as I hope will be given to all such as shall live and die here in a clear submission to our Creators Will. And he died § 55. We read of three sorts of death the Violent which befel Abel the Natural Adam and the Transmutative Enoch yet these distinctions relate only to the manner for death is the same to all and as the Poet saith there are a thousand ways to it If it be forced 't is still a death or transmuted which is a kind of insensible force it is still a death or according to the extent of Nature when she or the soul being weary of the confusions of this life retires and hides it self from performing any further offices to the body it is still a death And though Adam is said to live nine hundred and thirty years which is three hundred thirty nine thousand six hundred thirty six days in which I compute the Bissextile days and if those days be accounted by hours and those hours by minutes yet it may truly be said that so many minutes as he lived so many minutes he died for the Casualities which occasion death are as many as those which attend our lives and therefore he which lives longer than another passeth by only so many more Casualties his life is not the longer though prolonged because death hath still an Interest in every prolongation and is so clearly concerned that 't is not to be judged who is living or who dying At our Birth we break the Prisons of Death and lie at the mercy of Midwives or other Keepers for our Evasions in our Infancy Nurses and Tutors in our Youth our Extravagancies in our riper years our discretion and indiscretion madness and sobriety are equal attendants in Age diseases and infirmities are ready to usher us to the Grave a more severe Prison and yet with little difference for the grave of the womb gives life to us and the other by our death gives life to multitudes of vermine they by Corruption enrich the Earth the Earth by that fertility affords us food that food supports life And so there is a Circulation of Generation and Corruption and those possibilities being in either 't is hard to judge which is living which dying And it is not only thus in Terrestrials but even in Celestials The day dies the night produceth another that dies again And so in those glorious Creatures in the heavens there is also a visible Rotation of living and dying and our life and death is but as night and day And it seems an incivility towards God or rather an affront to his disposure to desire a long life as if we would afford no room to our successors or permit God to be seen by any but our selves in his unexpreffible variations And therefore the most consonant way to our Immortality is to live in a continued mortification For so we shall live by dying and die by living Of Life Death Resurrection and Immortality As also of the Chemistry of Nature operating in our souls and bodies by which they are forced to rejoyn 1 Cor. 15.22 FOr as in Adam all die so in Christ the second Adam all shall be made alive or have resurrection from the dead The joynt operation of mans soul and body is called Life the Cessations of those joynt motions Death The operations and constant exchanges which Nature admits of are perplexities for nothing in life is pleasure but the enjoyment of an equal and contented mind knowing our selves totally or in our particles to be every minute hurled about with the vicissitude of Constitutions the Cessation or at least our want of knowledg what is done in the grave seeming to be our quiet But how far or how long it continues 't is hard to judge seeing our corrupted parts are hourly traversing into various Productions of which we consist and into which we return again But by reason of this Cessation or seeming separation not only of soul and body but of the parts of the body into millions of forms we to support our belief in the union of our parts seek after the progresses and inclinations of other Creatures to theirs notwithstanding their several Contingent obstructions and therefore I think fit to set down several observables And in the first place that Experiment of reviving a Plant out of its ashes is a noble piece of Chemistry Dr. Browns Religio Medici and serves well to this purpose And though such a revived Plant may want some of its Accidents yet the very revivification of it if it gains not a full satisfaction to Immortality yet it affords us a fair testimony of the possibilty of our Resurrection for then all the Accidental defects of nature shall be volatile but the virtues and perfections of nature fixed Indeed if we could find out by art a revivification of Vegetables in all their accidents we should make Immortality too common it is enough if a man can make any experimental inducement to his faith and give an imitation to future perfection The whole Art of Chemistry what is it as I conceive but to dissolve the nature of a Creature and to recollect it again if not into its superfluous accidents yet into a noble Evidence of its virtues And this is done not so much by the force of Arts as by the secret instinct and greediness of its own disposition to unite its scattered nature And that which is worthy of obfervation for our use in this Art is Let the gross body of any Creature be dissolved or dissected into many parts that remaining part which is visible to us after its dissolution
is not mentioned and he had Liberty to eat of the tree of life but not of the tree of Knowledge So that the Serpent had sufficient Advantage by the Mistake of the command Whereupon Cap. 2. Verse 4. The Serpent said § 7. Ye shall not surely dye You shall not dye either for eating the Fruit which was not mentioned or for touching the tree which is not Commanded or for eating of the Tree in the midst of the garden which was the Tree of life and not forbidden And when the Serpent had thus possest her that she should not dye for eating or touching of that which was not forbidden he returns to the truth of punishment yet depending upon the former asseveration and saith ye shall not surely dye For the Serpent had got so much advantage by the discourse with Eve and understanding the Nature of her death not to be a seperation of the Soul and Body but a deprivatian of Gods Love did tell her to this effect so good a God would not inflict so rigorous a punishment upon her for she should not dye but Live and live now with farr more satisfaction For her eyes which were only as Senses shall then represent all thing in their perfect Knowledge of them For ye shall be like Gods knowing good and evil But in this discourse hitherto both the Devil and Eve left out one expression in that command namely In the day thou eatest they were both willing it seems to omit the point of time And well may Procrastination continue as a punishment upon our humane Nature she thought God would not be so punctual to a day or it may be she did not understand what a day was or it may be she had too various opinions of it and not Considered as intended in Puncto temporis either 12. or 24. hours or a year according to the Natural motion of the Sut But it may be she conceivd the day to be a Thousand years which are but as a day with God So that the day she should die should be a thousand years after the Eating or a time undeterminable Some of these Conceptions might make them omit the day for it is certain he neither sinned the last day of his life nor dyed the first day of his death So that we may understand it to be a death Contracted but not instantly inflicted and in stead of Morte Morieris we may read Mortalis eris Thou shalt dye the death that is thou shalt be Mortal or have a daily disposition in thee to death Cap. 3. Verse 5. For God doth know § 8. that in the day you eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened and you shall be like God's knowing good and Evil. Now the Devil boldly mentions the day when by his subtile intangling discourses he had gotten the day of the Woman But poor soul it prov'd her night Their Eyes which till now were open to see all sorts of Felicity are now dimmed with the shades of ensuing Mortality so that though they have Eyes yet they can see nothing but the effects of their Ambition For that knowledge of goodness which they had in perfection by continuing in obedience to Gods Commands is now turned by their disobedience to an imperfect knowledge which is the greatest Evil attending human Nature For by this imperfection we scarce know what good is to be followed or what evil to be shunned Regions Climes Tempers Accidents and even Laws of Nations giving Latitudes or Circumscriptions enough to puzzle the devoutest souls and doubtless this is no similitude of a Divine knowledge or to know as God who I presume knows Evil no otherwise then by suffering our Knowledge to be puzzled in attaining the unspeakable Mystery of goodness And therefore the Targum of Jerusalem being tender I suppose in ascribing the knowledge of Evil to God instead of you shall be like Gods knowing Good and Evil say you shall be like the great Angels who are indued with Wisdome to determin good and evil And if the Planets and Spheres have their operations from the Angels then the astrologians have the advantage of knowing good and evil by Collection however it is an equal infelicity not to know the distinction of good evil as not to be able to improve the one or prevent the other And the Chaldee Paraphrase says Ye shall be like Princes as if Princes were to be the Judges of Good and Evil For good or bad things which some call indifferent are made good or bad according to the Nature and obligation of their Command Cap. 3. Ver. 6. And when the Woman saw that the Tree was good for food § 9. and that it was Pleasant to the Eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise Here we see the foundation of disobedience We first argue from necessity It is good for Food and without Food we cannot susteine Nature and who hath more reason to be Careful of that then our selves And why did God exhibit us the view of Food yea and good food if we may not be our own Carvers Then we argue from Pleasure does God say we Create in us organs of sight and those attended with such Agents that we are pleased and displeased according to our objects seeing content gives life to every fruition why should we not injoy what is most pleasurable and at once please our taste and sight And then steps in Ambition and says We shall not only please our senses but our Intellectuals We shall be wise as God Angels or Princes that is as any of our superiours And thus by these insinuations we give our selves Latitude to our own destructions and this is the ground of ruine to Families as well as to States The Servant would evade the Masters Commands the Wife the Husbands the Subject the Princes Judging the Commands to be of small consequence and so the breach easily forgiven or advantagious to our selves and therefore naturally dispensibe But doubtless the less the command be the more we are obliged to perform because the performance seems more in our Power and the more advantagious it is to our private Capacities the greater affront we give to the publick by our disobedience and ingrossing that which should be either common or restrained by so being perswaded and resolved to disobey She took of the Fruit thereof § 10. and did eat This Fruit which Eve did eat is commonly taken for an Apple but I cannot tell for what reason unless that Malum is Latine for an Apple as also for Evil. And then the next doubt is for none knew the original of Latine whether Eve did speak Latine in Paradise But the small reason that I have heard for the Apple is because if one Cut an Apple cross the Core that is beteen the stalk and the top the Beds of the Seeds are just ten in number representing the ten Commandments all which Eve did at once break by eating the Apple and