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
separable from its native Principium is subject to Mortality but Death is the Destruction of all Elemental compounded Mixts All Compounds therefore are subject to Mortality which Nature endeavours with all her might to preserve if possible from the Periods of Death and whose Champions to purchase this heroick Victory Fire and Water are instituted and appointed the most proper and immediate Agents and Instruments the last to discharge by immersive Calcination all exteriour and superfluous Adustion whiles the first by Sublimation claims a Superiority because when to separate by the intense Action of Fire whatever Recrements and Impurities adhere to the Center These and no other are the lineal Tracts that Nature has trod in since the nonage of the Universe whose Seeds void of Form and confusedly mix'd in a Hoil or Chaos were dissolved in Water but rarified and sublimed by pure Argument of Fire Calcination and Sublimation therefore were purposely invented to purge and separate the Pure from the Impure as is Solution and Distillation the more terrestrial Dregs that stiffly adhere to the Parts extraneous Now whatever remains without any beginning that Subject is altogether uncapable of end But all Beginnings sprung up from Eternity as is Eternity the Ray of the Majesty Eternity therefore is the Parent of Time from whence Generation lineally descended and Generation because the Infant and the Child of Time has its Periods lock'd up in the Prisons of Death and doom'd and predestinated by the Law of Sin the Apostle tells us is Death in the abstract yet improperly the End of any thing save Elements whereby to remonstrate their true Beginnings but now to bud and to blossom forth because directing towards an eternal State which I call the new Breathings from a State of Corruption precedent to Putrefaction the immature Offspring and imperfect Birth of infirm Ancestors and Elementary Principles For the Body no sooner dismantles it self of the exteriour Form and Elementary Faetor when the indivisibility of the more purer Parts begin at once to display themselves for the Treasures of Life are most strictly lock'd up and which also begins to perspire and breath forth by the glorious Ray of God's Soveraign Power whose refulgent Beam illuminates the World and stirs up the hidden Life therein which before seem'd to sleep passively perdue in the silent Sepulcher of Divine Contemplation If therefore debasing our selves by Sin be Argument of Death and God's eternal Displeasure a Regenerate state implies the Sanctity of Renovation which is a clear Demonstration of a real Conversion Otherwise how comes it to pass that the unbelieving Wife is sanctified by the believing Husband Now if Husband and Wife are constipated one Flesh by the Conjugal Celebration and Law of Matrimony why not Heaven and Earth under the like Divine Ordinance since by a Supream Law from the Sovereign Legislator whose powerful Edicts are for ever irrevocable made and established Synonima Regalia Thus thâ— Celestial Sun in the clarified Firmament influenceth and impregnates this embellish'd Creation as do's the Supercelestial Son of the Majesty of God most illustriously shine in every Believers Soul and is the true Light that illuminates the Universe and every Man that cometh into the World. So that in this short and compendious Paragraph you may read the Divine Progeny of the whole Creation the Exaltation and Dignity of the Micro as the Macrocosm the great End why the World and Man was made the Reason also why the Divinest made Man and drest up so beautifully this stupendious Creation All which was only but to see himself and Sovereign Majesty by way of Reflection wherefore he built up a Tabernacle in Man for his Divine Residence and Man's Redemption Now Adam was made this Supream Monarch whom his Maker dignified with such eminent Qualifications as not only to see because having the faculty of Sense but to inspeculate and admire the Majesty of his Maker that hung up aloft in the Firmament of Heaven so many Luminous and Beautious Bodies impregnating every one with the Blessings of Vegetation but Moral Reason and barren Apprehension because uncapable to exalt it self to these eminent sublime and superlative Elevations of necessity sinks under them And here Moses tells you That in the beginning the Divinest created both the Heavens and the Earth Now creating or making what implies it more than manifesting Invisibles by Visibles or discovering such things as lay hid in the Chaos occultly concealed from occular view which in time appeared but not until such time as the Waters by the Fiat were separated from the Waters and then the purer matter ascended upwards because disintangled from its impure Fecula which Celestial Clarified and Pure Crystalline Body is by the Scriptures interpreted the Firmament And Hermes tells you in his Smaragdine Table That the likeness of that which is placed above is also beneath coinhabiting below to work the Myracle of one single thing There must therefore of necessity be some assimilation in Earth Soveraignly qualified with the same existence of Celestials otherwise pray tell me where 's the harmony betwixt them And why should God select the little World called Man for his Divine and Glorious Reception rejecting as I may so say the more copious or great one as the more commaculate and impure habitation had not he divinely dignified the less by Soveraign Wisdom for his Royal Entertainment There is therefore not only the likeness of Superiours but the same Vertue Beauty and Excellency also in Inferiours Christ in you the hope of Glory This is that Magnet of Vertue and Swavity whose illustrious Ray attracts the Soul to those transcendent Mansions of Beatitude and Immortallity For the Kings Daughter is all glorious within because made glorious by the King of Heaven where note by way of Digression when to admit of a faint comparison the Anima or Sulphur of Sols beauteous inside when duely examined by a sedulous Adept a Celestial Corporiety displays it self whose glorious appearance gratifies the solicitous with Wisdom's Oracle and the Treasures of Art by every one acquirable and by most admired But the Hoil or Chaos presents unto us a subject matter as yet indigested when macerated mingled or jumbled together and such we are to consider it in the Act of Fermentation when nothing but darkness had its Region in the Deep nor did any thing appear upon the Face of the Waters until Darkness by the Divinest was utterly separated by the glorious Beam of the Majesty of Light for till then the Stars roll'd not in their Orbs nor did the Fluctuating Ocean move its Vital Pulse till actuated by the Law of its Soveraign Maker which daily remonstrates the Flux of the Ocean Nor till then did the Earth nor the Barren Mountains know any thing of the Law of Life and Vegetation Nor was there any Prolifick Vertue or propagating Quality hitherto as yet incorporated into them when at once the Fountains of the great Deeps broke up out of whose
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
it Darkness since separabel from the beauteous Beam of Light and such is Sin and such also is Death since by Adam's Transgression who consenting to Sin violated Gods Divine and Regal Command so wounded himself with his own Sting Death and Sin therefore Van Helmont calls Accidents or some impious malignity that lurk'd about the matter whereby to lessen Light and abscond or ecclipse its beautiful Lustre which when removed by the Divine Grace of God the Body then seems to appear Celestial Nor can it be otherwise since if when to consider there 's no difference nor distinction betwixt Heaven and Earth save Clarity of the one and Impurity of the other and this is a State we daily discourse of nay we hourly wish for 't and long to enjoy it yet so great is our Zeal to these ambiguous uncertainties that we dare not trust our selves to entertain it And because so adhering to the World and its allurements kind answering kind whose Luscious Breast seems sweet and pleasant and whose surprizing Charms luxuriously satiating we gulp down Avarice and drink down Oppression so like Diana with the Ephesians cry Gain is sweet thus tainting our selves become infectious to others for a stinking Breath tho loathsome to the Company yet is it to it self a natural perfume so Sin and Impiety in its habitual dress tho ugly seems amiable and tho faetid smells fragrant and knows no impediment Thus Paul by Faith fought with Beasts at Ephesus and Philanthropus with Monsters in the Desarts of America 'T is true and as true as the Sun 's the great Luminary whose luminous Body illustrates the Creation yet is not the Sun that Soveraign Light that adorned the Throne before the Creation when the Divinest said Let there be Light and immediately the Light of it self sprung up which Light by his Wisdom he called Day and dignified it also with the Title of Good nor could it be otherwise than good in the Abstract since the Divinest had called it Good and because proceeding from the Fountain of Good its Original can be no less than God. Now the Day had its Original as has the Sun its Aurora and the Sun tho the Major Luminary of the Universe whose refulgent Ray illustrates the Creation by Rapidity Circulating and Patrolling about it yet is it by Wisdom and the Guidance of God another Aurora of the increated Light which never ceaseth invisibly to shine when the Sun withdraws from our occular view as imaginarily supposed towards the Western Fountains whiles this pure Light never ceaseth to shine in the Heart of Man and the Throne of the Majesty tho to the World and ignorant it appear invisible and because too sublime for the weak Vision of Sight whereby a dimness seems to overshadow it as gazing too much at the natural Sun in some measure astonisheth the Purlue of Sight so the Soveraignty of the Glory of the Son of God whose excessive brightness seems to cause a blindness when as indeed it 's the Purity and Soveraignty of Light we are therefore to reduce it under this consideration that nothing that 's impure can behold what 's pure nor Carnality partake of what is Spirituous There is therefore this difference betwixt Natural and Supernatural as also betwixt Celestial and Terrestrial things that all Spirituous Bodies can pass the Purgatory of Fire without any detriment or diminution of parts when as Corporeals if but to touch the Flames are at once in a Moment destroy'd and consumed Purification of Bodies must therefore necessarily precede whereby to dignifie and make them Celestial Natural things therefore are in one distinct state but Spiritual things are found in another and by how much our Nature is made more spirituous by so much are we nearer to the Nature of God. And as the Sun shines naturally more bright and distinctly more pure than our Culinary Fires how infinitely brighter and much more pure is the Majesty of that Light that invisibly shines from the Son of God But our new Philosophers or Erra Paters are much of the Cast with Figure-flingers that presume to step into the Prerogative of Prophets and antedate events in Configurations which is a Consequence I perswade my self of as much Reason and for ought I know to as great Satisfaction as to see the Auxiliaries draw out and exercise and the Spectators to read their designs by their postures But I proceed to discourse the Firmament of Heaven the Fluctuating Ocean also and the Waters in the Creation which presents to our consideration matter of Admiration consequently a suitable Subject for every Philosopher if sedately to contemplate their admirable separation when God divided the Waters from the Waters and the Firmament of Heaven stood stationary between them which denotes those rarified and invisible Waters Moses points at above us are an Act of Faith because of Invisibility whilst these below us are demonstrable to us which Argument as formerly confirms our Philosophy that the likeness of that which is remotely above is also beneath co-inhabiting below to work the Miracle of one single thing so that the same Act of Power and Providence that made them separable made them also invisible as by the Law of demonstration these are made visible to us But what are these Waters these invisible Waters that surmounting the Aether and because above us perpetually fly our sight what are they and what were they in the Fiat of the Creation more than the pure and spirituous part separated from impurity and all aquosity whiles the pinguous moist faecula and indigested Vapours stifly adhere to the visible form which by reason of inconcocted crudities and indigestions when celebrated to warmth lie fermenting in themselves and are the daily cause of Natural Production animating and exerting the Earth to Vegetation These Invisible Waters therefore above the Firmament must of necessity be a Rarefaction of Air and the Firmament because intermediating betwixt them remonstrates it Celestial and a clarified Earth For if to consult the Creation and created Beings we are to consider them in a two fold Capacity the Visibility of the one and the Invisibility of the other Elementary Bodies and Bodies Celestial where note sublunar things are influenced by Celestials as are Celestials governed by super Celestials As the Sun in his progress because ruling the Day is by Divine appointment the Parent of Vegetation So has the Moon her Nocturnal Government whereby she also operates the Ocean influencing Fluidity and the Female Sex Nor are the Stars and Constellations deficient or destitute whereby not to effect and influence Inferiors so that a perpetual motion is continually maintained and a constant rotation perpetually continued otherwise the Compound would admit of decay and a defect in any one part of the Creation would inevitably draw on an inconveniency upon the whole Thus the great Frame and Fabrick of the Creation was ranged into a most excellent and beautiful order which the Creator foresaw in the Idea
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
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
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