by the walking of God soon remembred the deserts of his owne inconstancy which deprived him of eternity The pleasing aires that accompanied his Divine Majesty fraze his heart the more clouded with a thousand terrours the approaching setting of the Sun made him perceive that the darknesse of chastisement was neere at hand whereupon not being able to suffer Gods voice who hitherto was meditating a reproof and to endure the guerdon of his crime he hid himselfe and his wife under a Tree which inriched with an infinity of boughs seemed to thrust forth those armes to defend every one from the dartings of the Sun's rayes He had good reason to run to the umbrages of Trees that was not able to withstand the heat of sense How blind are the counsells of humane reason Adam perhaps pretended that if a Tree had administred to him matter of sin a Tree also would cover it But Adam hid not himselfe to fly from God but for that he could not sustaine the sight of God whilst he heard the checks of Conscience upbraiding the demerits of his disobedience ingratitude and rebellion because We cannot brook the sight of those whom we have offended and who can punish us Or it being the proper effect of sin to take away the judgement and blind the understanding he pretended to be able to hide himselfe from the sight of God Foolish Adam that beg'd security from a Tree that was the instrument of his perdition God now articulating his words though hid to the eyes of Adam said unto him Adam Adam Where art thou God said not this for that he was ignorant of the place where he was since the sight of God hath no prescription of place nor obstacle of impediment but to invite him to confesse his crime with repentance and implore his pardon with humillity It was the voice of a Pastor and Father that called back his strayed Sheep and Son God perhaps with these words would declare the infelicity of Adam whilst by the fault committed he was in such manner departed from God that he knew not where he was Or he would say Adam Where art thou whither hath thy disobedience carri'd thee Hast thou lost thy primitive felicity Who hath led thee into the Gulph of misery where is thy pristine tranquillity of heart thy security of mind and thy peace of Conscience Where are the effects of thy hopes the fruits of thy pretentions the promises of the Serpent God would say poore Adam to what a plunge art thou brought from what good from what beatitude from what grace art thou faln Thou hast lost eternall life art made subject to the miseries of death and art become a Sepulcher of errors Adam was hid under that very tree that had been the occasion of his sin Therfore God sought Adam with anxiety scarce being able to imagine that a wise man as Adam should be so imprudent as to approach so near that occasion which had brought upon him the extremity of his miseries He strove to speake with reverence to deceive himself in seeing Adam to beg shelter from that Tree which had deprived him of the Divine Grace Or else God would give us to understand that sin maks us lose the shapes of men and therfore though God saw Adam he called him with a replicated voice as if he knew him not to shew us that sin had transformed him even in the eye of God himselfe God called Adam and not the Woman Or because he had been the last sinner and his crim was nerer or not to provoke the woman to new errors lying being too natural to her sex He called not the Serpent for the same reason because being accustomed to lye he would have denyed every thing Adam answered Lord My nakednesse made me fly from thy face I could not suffer that thy Divinity should fixe its eye on these members which I could not till now cover Poore Adam greived and lamented more for his nakedness then for having offended God lost his favour Thus we have derived from Adam this weaknesse of human nature to be more afflicted with the incommodities we receive in our persons or estates then with the injuries done to his Divine Majesty or the losse of Heavens injoyments Who gave thee ingratefull Adam replyed God to understand thy nakednesse unlesse thy disobedience Thou hast woven thy owne miseries and contrived thy owne infelicities Thou wouldest not at present receive such horrour at the presence of him that honoured thee with a beeing if thou hadst not tasted of the forbidden fruit God would understand from Adam the truth of his sin as if he knew it not to teach us with what accuratenesse and with what diligence men ought to proceed in judging others crimes and condemning others errors whilst God himselfe that enters into the secret corners of the heart questions and enquires with somuch circumspection Or else he intended to make Adam to diminish his punishment by the blushes of Confession Adam perswading himselfe that silence would be an aggravating his sin whereas the case may in great part obnubilate the fault instead of imploring the mercy of God with supplications and teares grown confident in his owne merits he subjoyns Lord I have sinned without sinning My Error hath been promoted by the prayers and solicitations of others Who can resist the power of beauty The commands of her that thou gavest me for a Companion hath in such manner tyrannized over my reason and intellectualls that I have not power to dispose of my selfe That her right hand which brought me the fruit was a snare that captivated my mind and it seemed to me that lifted up it menaced its displeasure in case I should not obey I have a heart too tender in its affects He that can withstand the importunate solicitude of the fairest piece that ever came out of thy hands either knowes not how to Love or deserves not to be Beloved The sins of my inadvertency though they be very great yet they are not mine That Companion Lord which thou gavest me hath corrupted the acts of my obedience and contaminated the devoirs of my fidelity Alone I should not have known sin for bad-company is a fomentor of the greatest sins Lord turne against her thy reproofs and chastisements The woman alone hath sinned in my sinne My consent obliged to the will of Thy Divine Majesty hath not in the least part strayed from the lawes of its duty Oh bold conceits Oh rash expressions fruits of guilt which transports men into extreams No sooner hath man sinned but confident of himselfe he despiseth all and feares not his forfeiture of Heaven's favour How interest alters affection That Adam who professed himselfe so passionate a Lover of the Woman that to call her part of himselfe he believed was the least argument of his Love now makes her guilty before the justice of God of all his crimes When we speak in excuse of our owne faults we spare not so
punishments feares them to be much greater then they are A Hell to a soul that hath proved it shall be no greater nor more horrible To one that dreads it the torments and stripes represent themselves centuplicated Because saith God thou hast bent thy eare to the flatteries of thy wife touching and tasting the fruites of the forbidden Tree I will that thy labours curse the earth instead of cultivating it With the sudors of thy industry shalt thou spend thy days Thornes and thistles shall over-run thy feilds and like a bruit thou shalt be constrained to take herbes for thy sustentation Thou shalt not be able to eat without imploying thy hand or sweating thy brows These thy miseries shall determine with the ultimate period of thy life for I will for thy disobedience that thou returne to thy beginning and that earth become earth and dust dust How unexplicable is the mercy of God! Adam sinnes and transgresseth the precepts of his Divine Majesty and He in pronouncing the sentence of condemnation curseth the Earth What will not love make one doe What share had the earth in the faults of Adam With what demerit had it irritated the indignation of its Lord Unlesse perhaps it was cursed by God for that it did nor suddenly open a gulph to swallow him who had not known how to obey his Creator Or unlesse that God would have it cursed because it was always to serve the serpent for food It argues also the goodnesse of the Lord to remember Adam of the end of his miseryes whilst in minding him of his death he sets before him the period of his infelicity And although Death is the wages of sinne it proves notwithstanding profitable and necessary that so mans miserys and misfortunes become not immortall Mercifull God that blessest even when thou chastisest us Indeed death was a necessary act in the world that so the feare of losing the life should spur man on to all good actions and refraine him from all bad What would not man dare what would not man atempt to do if death should not cut the thread of his sensuality of his ambition How would he despise the death of the soul and his last damnation in the fall of the world that dying every moment should neverthelesse pride himselfe in a hope of immortallity It would not doubtlesse be the least of his rash attempts with the union of the mountaines to attempt a scalado upon Heaven Let the goodnesse of God therefore be for ever praised that to preserve the soul from perpetual damnation and to interrupt a lethargy of vices which would determine only with the termination of time hath decreed the dissolution of this masse of humane flesh and permitted that a momentary paine that is circumscribed by the brevity of a grone should deliver us from an eternall torment accompanyed with such dolours as the just anger of God is able to produce Scarce had the Soveraign Monarch pronounced the punishment for the sinne of Adam but making either by virtue of his Divine power or by meanes of the Angels certaine garments of beasts skins he therewith covered the nakednesse of Adam and Eve who stupifyed with Gods displeasure knew not so much as how with pardon to beg the mercy of his Divine Majesty This also is an argument of the wonderfull beneficence of God in that he would not permit that sinners thrust out of Paradise should for all that be wholly deprived of his providence as to the necessity of covering their bodies Because divine favours are of the nature of the Sunne which participates its heat and its light even to those that despise it God rendered the bodies of these wretches so miserable that without clothes they could not suffer the violences of the seasons nor cover that part of the body which is unworthy of the eye He would have these clothes of skins that so they might daily weare about them the emblematicall tokens of their mortality which being of slaughtered beasts should daily remember them of death and advert them that they dwelt under the intemperancy of a Heaven that would have dealt with them as with beasts And who knows but that God in vesting our first Parents with skins intended to describe what ought to be the habit of wise and just men condemning silkes and purples which denote onely effeminacy and pride Unlesse perhaps he would give us to understand how full of blindnesse are the counsells of men that have not recourse to God in their miseries since the vesture composed by Adam covered not all his nudity nor defended him from externall incommodityes and was inconvenient pricking the flesh and bringing paine and trouble Adam being clothed God began to upbraid him saying Behold Adam thy hopes obtained behold thy pretensions determined Thou art made just like Us omnipotent wise and all composed of goodnesse and holinesse Behold thou art become of a nature immortall not obliged to any needing of none and blessed in thy selfe Behold thy enjoyment of the knowledg of good and evill so much coveted by thy incredulity Get thee packing therefore out of the Paradise of delights and fixe thine aboad where thou wast formed cultivating that earth from whence thou hast derived thy beeing It was one of the wonted effects of Gods benignity to drive Adam out of Paradise because if he had continued amongst those delights without enioying them he would have received too much torment there being no greater punishment to be found then to be in the midst of felicityes and to be denyed the fruition Or he was dismissed from Paradice because What could God hope from him that had not power to shew himselfe continent no not with the very Trees More out of an effect of feare then disobedience it was that Adam stood immoveable when God by force took him from thence appointing him a station wherein he might command with the eye all the delights of Paradise that so daily beholding the losse of his happinesse his pennance should become more severe and his repentance more sincere It was goodnesse in God to thrust Adam out of Paradise for that he thereby removed the occasion of sinning anew there not being a greater incentive to a relapse into sinne then the being in the place where the sinne was before committed Those remembrances are no other then stimulations which enkindle the desire and hurry the will to new faults What Adams condition was expulsed Paradise many be easier imagined then described His eyes pregnant with teares his mouth full of sighs were the least expressions of his griefe His Wife insted of comforting him augmented his torments not so much for her haveing been the originall of his sinne as for the griefs which he received from her afflictions Poore Adam that didst not scarce one whole day enjoy the gifts of Gods favour His felicity being shorter then that of an Ephemeris About three of clock he was brought into the Garden at six a clock he sinned and in
a presuming too high upon our selves The woman put the pain of the transgression in doubt saying Perhaps we shal be subject to death because we faine those things always easy and of litle danger which we most desire and put the Judgements of God ever in uncertainty so much the more in that incredulity is the particular defect of the Woman The Divell animated by the lye and incredulity of the Woman began to hope for victory perswading her to violate the precept of God He indeavour'd therefore with admirable artifice to remove the fear of the punishment menaced by his Divine Majesty to allure her with the hope of that good which is the most desirable to man Wherefore he said unto her Comfort your self ô Woman your fears are vaine for death is an imaginary subject to terrify the simplicity of the more weak How can a thing die that is the immediate production of Gods hands It would be too great a disparagement to the divine workmanship to say that his labours could be subject to death Works that have took their qualities from God cannot dissolve without the dissolution of God himselfe He hath intimated death unto you as being an ordinary thing in them that command to menace their vassalls with impossible chastisements for to be served with the more blind obedience He prohibited you to tast of this fruit because he feared that ye should be equall to Him And he that hath Supreame authority can very hardly be perswaded to admit of Competitors Envy is of the quality of thunder that smites the sublimest things Her fangs exempt not Divinity it selfe God knows very well that with tasting these fruits you shall open the eyes of your understanding and obtaine the science of good and evill And what is it that renders God considerable what makes God admirable what maketh God GOD more than this knowledge These words of the Serpent were false impious absurd and incredible He made God a Lyer and Envious He would perswade that a Tree had power to communicate Sapience and that men with this should equall themselves with God and this by taking the fruit to eate The woman not adverted of this so impious and so impossible a falsity was deceived by his promises The Ambition of becoming equall with God and the desire of tasting the Apple forbidden deprived her of judgment and reason What thing more contrary to sense and possibility than to style truth falshood and clemency envy and to say that by tasting this fruite we should gaine the Sapience and similitude of God Yet in the opinion of the Woman these things past for truths because when Women treat of their interests they take shadows for substances The Woman might have said to the Serpent If thy words be not masked with deceits wherfore takest not thou of that fruite and givest that to thy selfe which thou promisest to me How came I to merit so much of thy affection that thou shouldest desire that I should first obtaine a benefit so great a prerogative so rare as to be divine Eat thou first and testify whether thy promises are true If God envying our state so great a felicity did prohibit us this Tree why did he not rather not create it or having made it extirpate it The unfortunate woman believed all for truth because she desired all to be true She did not contradict him because she reputed it a lesse crime to sin with the hazzard of acquiring divinity than by not sinning to lose the hope though impossible of obtaining it Howbeit the words of the Serpent were full of fallacie and ambiguity The not-dying might be understood of dying presently upon the transgression or of the death of the soule The opening the eyes referred to the misery confusion in which man should be after the sinne The resemblance to God might signify the Divell Lastly the knowledge of good and evill might be ment by the privation of good and the experience of evil How subtle a Sophist is the Divell The Woman had beheld the Tree before with some curiosity but after the words of the Serpent she betooke her selfe to contemplate it with ardent desire of tasting it Her eyes mis-led her soul and believing that the beauty of that plant must needs produce births equall in goodnesse contracted in that all her complacencies and affections It is probable that the debt of obedience and loyalty which liveth in those soules that have vowed their genius to rebellion might administer to the Woman these conceits Woman curb thy vaine curiosity Thou shouldest yield obedience to that God which after he had conferred upon thee thy beeing hath also given thee the dominion over all things created It s ingratitude its impiety to controvert those commands which deny thee nothing but the fruit of a Plant. All the fruits in Paradice are permitted thee but only that of the Tree of the knowledg of good and evill If therfore all the others be perfect and you know the good why will you eate of this Apple to know the evill also Seek not to know that which is not fit for thee The knowledg of evill is not knowledge but ignorance Keep thy selfe from the things prohibited that thou lose not those that be allready granted That Plant which thou beholdest with so much curiosity and with so much complacency compriseth in its fruit together with thy death the perdition of all mankind To what end doe you look upon a thing which cannot be tasted without offending God The hands commonly follow the delight of the eyes It s true thou art not forbidden the sight but the tasting of this Tree Yet neverthelesse though the beholding it be no sinne yet it is the beginning of sinne it is the occasion of Sinne. Give no credit to those promises which that they are deceitfull it sufficeth to know they are the promises of a Serpent the most sagacious of all beasts With giving thee an Apple he would rob thee of Paradise He treates thee with simplicity to take thee with Apples But inspirations avail not in a soule that suffers it selfe to be transported by promises and he cannot but sin who fixeth his eyes with immoderate delight on sinne The Woman tooke the Apple and with a disobedience so much the more inexcusable by how much the more unjust gathers it and makes it serve for food The woman had sinned with Sloth Lying and Gluttony whereupon she would Seal so many evills with the violation of the law of God because when praevarication begins in a soul there 's no end of sinning Shee called not Adam to eat of the Apple before her as was the duty of her subjection because believing divinitie to be reposed in that fruit she would not admit any to have the precedence of her In summe Self-interest destroyeth all the lawes of the will and of nature The woman having essayed the dulcity of the fruit and absolutely obliged her credulity to the lyes of the Serpent
much as those whom we most love Adam that refused not to be a companion in the sinne shunns to be a companion in the punishment His Divine Majesty though he saw Adams sin arrived to a supreme degree whilst to the exterior and interior consent and consuetude he addes also his excuse and apology and though the temerity of Adam retorted the crime on his Maker so that God seemed the Author of such a fault yet continuing in the exercise of his wonted Mercy he turned to the Woman and said Woman Chosen by me for a Companion and Comfort to Man why hast thou been the instrument of a sinne somuch the hainouser by how much the more unjust why hast thou deceived thy Husband Why hast thou not obeyed thy God The woman suffered not the words of His Divine Majesty to be ended but she replyes My simplicity Lord hath been deluded by the subtility of the Serpent He knew so wel how to dissemble his words that I believed he had neither wit or power to betray my credulity I could not perswade my self that there were treacheries in Paradise nor deceits in the face of a Damsell Thunder therefore O Lord thy punishments upon the Serpent as upon the author of all evill Guilt is a weight that superfluously aggravates every one Happy doth he think himself that to quit himselfe can accuse either the innocence or guilt of others God who had all this while been so full of patience and goodnesse in citing Adam in attending to his defence and in harkening to the excuse of the woman no sooner heares the Serpent to be the Author of so much evill but presently without hearing him he hastned to punish him O the wonderfull mercy of God that makes the punishment of all things precede mans punishment To Serpents that is to Divells he shewes not any mercy Hence we may argue that those who are men namely that prostitute not their reason to sense alwayes find God exceeding in new benefits The Serpents on the contrary namely those obstinate sinners which know not how to leave groveling in the dust of sinne receive their punishment before they be arraigned of their offence It admonisheth men to be men and to keep themselves men Because said God in cursing the Serpent thou hast been the Author of the breach of my precepts because rhou hast deceived Innocence because thou art opposite to the execution of my commands and desires and because thou hast been so bold as to be tampering with my image I wil make thee accursed among all the beasts of the earth Thou thy selfe shalt be a burden to thy selfe alwayes going upon thy belly Dust shall be the sustenance of thy life There shall be an antipathy between thee and the woman and enmity between her seed and thy seed The trechery of thy stingings shall be rewarded by her heel which by Crushing thy head shall take away thy Life In short the meanes of sinne become the instruments of punishment The serpent had lift up it self in tempting the woman and now God commanded him for ever after to creepe upon the earth With a thousand promises had he got the favour of the woman and now God condemnes him to a perpetuall enmity with her It s not to be doubted but that His Divine Majesty in the serpent understood also the divell but curst neverthelesse the Serpent only because he would not too much perplex the minds of Adam and the woman who as yet knew not that there was any other incorporeal spirits in the Terrestriall Paradise but only God himselfe and it s a divine Maxime not to offer new occasions to those who are apt to erre The Divell goes upon his brest and on his belly to advert us that he two wayes betrayes the state of innocence With Pride which is emblematically figured by the brest which is the seat of the heart and with Luxury which hath its residence in the belly Or it teacheth us that the irascibles being seated in the breast the concupiscibles in the belly he moveth mans affections with these to precipitate and hurry him into sinne He is condemned to eat the dust which is as much as to say those men onely who having consubstantiated themselves with terrene vices little differ from the earth or dust God to punish the Devill the more in cursing of him threatens him perpetuall enmity with the woman either because he knew her malice was implacable or to hint that he had overcome the woman with treachery and not with open warre After the maledictions of the Serpent God turnes to the Woman and saith And thou Woman for thy credulity for thy concupiscence and for having seduced others into thy sinne thy griefs and thy sorrows shall be multiplyed to thee according to the multiplicity of thy births With the bitternesse of those pangs which shall make thee desire death shalt thou give unto thy children life Thou shalt be always subject to the Man and he shall excercise over thee a perpetuall command It was with reason that three sins should receive three punishments Namely for overmuch credulity multiplicity of births for the pleasure of the palate the pangs of the belly and for the imperious and scandalous seducing the man obedience and servitude It seemes indeed a great felicity the multiplicity of children yet neverthelesse God intended by this multiplicity to curse the woman Because on many births attend many abortions many paines and many perills It is againe to contend with an impossibility that amongst many children there should not be some monstrous either in maners or else in wit or else in life the which is insupportable to the Parents Let us add that the number of children disquiets the affection and the desire of the Fathers either in their education or in their vices or in their misadventures In a word the more fruitfull the Woman is the lesse fortunate is she to be esteemed If haply with a contrary meaning we may not say that God intended by this sentence to curse the Woman obliging her to paines and to blesse her making her fruitfull to denote to us that God in the rigor of chastisments themselves is not forgetfull of the excesse of his Mercy The throws of childbirth are naturall to women but God in the state of innocency with admirable and supernaturall power would have eased her of the paine and anguish All is easy al is possible to the omnipotence of an Almighty God God came at last to pass Sentence upon Adam Perhaps the love he bore him was so ardent that he would make him the last that should prove the effects of his just anger Or he chastised him last because his sinne was greater then others that so he might receive greater terror and greater torment in beholding the punishment of the others The expectation of chastisement is haply a greater paine then the enduring of it He that is punished knowes the worst of his sufferings He that waites for
at thy sole disposall These shall allways receive laws from thy pleasure and motions from thy beck Nor shall their velocity nimblenesse or terriblenesse be able to render them contumacious to thee Give them names as thou pleasest that so they may the more willingly obey thee and may be the more strongly obleiged to thy commands In reward of all this that I have done for thee I demand no more but a bare acknowledgement I have given thee the Monarchy of the Earth I may well therefore reserve to my selfe the Supremacy with a small tribute as a badge of my superiority and thy obedience Therefore suffer not the allurement of thy taste to perswade thee to eate of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evill for if thou dost thou shalt feele the severity of death God first named the Fishes and afterwards all the other Animalls to teach those in Authority to have a more especial care of the irremotest Subjects as those who may be more easily opprest by their Ministers and Officers or to give them to understand that they take those into protection which like the Fishes are naked and cannot speake His divine Majesty forbade Adam the fruites of the tree of knowledge of good and evil because having the power over all things created he should not excercise the same with pride and ambition God would have Adam command with the curb of being commanded There being nothing will more moderate the Statelynesse of a Prince then his subjection to Law Or else the fruits of this tree having a virtue to make Man know the misery of Mankind God forbad Adam to taste of it both because he would have him free from all those inquietudes which did accompany the necessities of the body and because he would have him imploy all the ardor of his affections in a carefull sollicitude for the welfare of his soul God gave Adam a Prohibition to eat of the fruits of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evill although he knew he would not observe it to shew that Laws are necessary notwithstanding they may be abused And againe how could God triumph in the excesses of his mercy in the extremes of his goodnesse in the trophyes of his justice if he should not permitt man to sinne and if he should favour all universally with efficacious grace God threatned Adam with death as the punishment of his transgression because Death is the extreamest of all evills and the greatest of all terrours All other evills all other pains had so-much of bitternesse as they had affinity resemblance to death Death is the Center in which all the lines of worldly passions meete His Divine Majesty might have prescribed him Hell but he would propose a chastisement of which there was no retraction by repentance and with all because he knew that humane affections were more to be moved and amated with the certaine knowledge of a small evill then with the incertain beleife of a greater His Divine Majesty made all Birds and other Animals of the earth to come before Adam that from him who had received from God the knowledge of their Natures they should receive their Names The Lord did this to make Adam see by comparison how much he was obliged in seeing himselfe so different and so upright above all other Creatures Or because God having created Man Prince of all creatures would have him know his vassalls and the Animals reverence him as their Prince Or else he permitted that he should name the creatures according to their natures to shew him what a gift of wisdome he had bestowed upon him that so sinning he might not excuse himselfe with ignorance The animalls came by two and two with an obedience moved by the divine will to receive their names Adam sitting in an eminent place with a face so full of splendor that breathing Majesty it taught veneration he gave them names proper to their natures calling them one by one in the Hebrew tongue which was the universall language untill the confusion of tongues The Fishes came not either because they could not live out of their element or because they could no way be serviceable to man not as yet used for food or else because God would thereby give us to understand that Grandees in Progresses should not expect the attendance of their poor vassalls who cannot stirre from home to accompany their Lord or to attend him at his beck God permitted Adam should give names to all creatures but not to Himselfe to give him to understand that as all other creatures were his inferiours having taken their names from him so on the contrary he should acknowledg God for his Lord seeing he had been named by him In the mean time his Divine Majesty considered that it was not good for man to be alone for there 's little contentment in those delights we receive without other's participation Or else it was that God foreseeing that the heighth of his glory consisted in acts of Clemency and Mercy would not have man to be alone those faults seldom proving either great or frequent which have not company for spurres incentives He would therfore provide him of a fit Companion in his owne likenesse that so he might love her the more and she might be more capable of assisting him Whereupon he cast Adam into I know not whether an exstasy or a ravishing slumber It was Gods pity that he should be asleepe for he knew that in the company of woman hee should lose his sleep Or else He made him shut his eyes to shew that he would have men blind in understanding Divine operations Or else it might be that he cast Adam into a sleep as if he feared that he would contradict him whilest with the spirit of prophesy given him he might foresee the mischeifes accrewing to mankinde in the making of Eve And besides men are with much difficulty perswaded to part with any thing of what they have though therby to receive the greater profit Whereupon God would bereave him in his sleep of that which perhaps he would not have consented to have parted with of himself Whilst Adam was taken up with the dulcity of repose rejoycing in those phantasms with which he was honoured of the most abstruce secrets of secular adventures the power of God which hath no impossibility that can prescribe it bounds took with a delicacy which is to be supposed in a Divine hand a ribbe of which he formed Eve filling up the void place with flesh God was pleased to make Woman of Man to shew the union affection that ought to be in Matrimony or to admonish women to acknowledge with obedience the cause of their being God made choice of the ribb taken from the left side to advert us that the woman ought to be the heart of the man and not his head Or God tooke a ribb of Adam in the making of Woman because being about to forme a body worse haply than
whilst she found in some measure made good his promise in securing her from death she gathered one of those Apples and ranne with much hast in quest of Adam The love she bore him made her impatient to communicate to him so many benefits Scarce did she see him but she makeing her laughter and looks accompany her language said unto him Sir see here an argument of the love I bear you They know not how to love that know not how to give and gratify And by how much the greater are the gratuities by so much the greater is the affection I bring thee in this Apple the Divinity that God denyed us because the Great desire no equals in their Grandure This is the fruit of the forbidden tree which for sweetnesse dulcity ravisheth the applause of perfection from all the others The punishment that was prescribed us in tasting it is not to be feared for I have eaten and am alive Adam interrupted her and vesting his countenance with somwhat of severitie said Deare Companion Content your selfe with having your selfe alone transgrest the commands of God's law Desire not company in evill Lead not others into your precipices I am your companion I am your Lover but will know how to be your Enemy if you will not take your laws from my will What can we promise our selves from her that knows not so much as how to obey her God What may we not question in the vanity of your affections whilst you rebell from the obedience of him that hath created you I love you as much as your beauty merits and asmuch as a human heart can and knows how to do but I ought not to like nor adulate your errours He that punisheth not faults approveth them and they deserve greater chastisment who assent to the sinnes of others than they which sinne The only answer the woman gave to these reprehensions was sighs and teares the wonted artifices with which women betray the honour liberty and safety of men Casting therfore her armes about the neck of Adam she so besieged his constancy with her glances caresses and kisses that after some small resistance he yeilded himselfe overcome What cannot women do in an amorous soule What fortitude will not she conquer what constancy will not she subdue what Will will not she pervert what impossibility will not she effect He that loving is able to resist the violences of a Woman is either a God or hath the power of a God Adam knew very well that the eating of the Apple was a particular offence against God but either seeing that the woman was not dead and therfore that the punishment assigned by God for the disobedience was made for terror or perswading himselfe the divine justice was lesse severe in a matter of so small importance or else imagining to excuse and justifie his error by shewing that he had don it to gratify the companion that he had received from his Divine Majesty he took the Apple and began to tast it O wonderfull A woman did that which the Divell wanted courage to attempt Scarce had a small part of this fruit received Sepulcher in the throat when remorse the invisible companion of the greatest crimes with the sting of Conscience assailed the soule of Adam He perceiv'd suddenly together with his wife that they were naked whereas before covered with innocency they knew not the necessity of clothes Their eyes were opened not because they were blind before but because before they regarded not that nudity whilst lust had not ability to suscitate sensuall affects without the consent of Man Nor had yet the flesh to reprove their disobedience discovered its inclinarion property They poore wretches hitherto onely perceived themselves to be naked in that devoid of grace they observed their members to rebell against their wills Or else now they open their eyes since they know that which through their great desire of sinning they could not see They saw the trechery of the Divell the malignity of sinne and the vicinity of punishment When Man sins he is alwaies blind Now he sees that the sin consummate he remaines full of blushing remorse and confusion Now he seeth that conscience armed with zeale reprehends and condemnes him Nuditie before the fall wrought the same effect in Adam and his Wife that the discovery of the face and hands doth in us They were like to children who before they arrive to the use of reason care not to cover themselves When they come to the knowledge of good and evill and they injoy the fruition of free-will they blush at nakednesse That which befalls children in regard of age happened to them in regard of originall righteousnesse The woman perceived not herselfe after the sin to be naked but only after the fall of Adam either because the woman in satiating her disordinate appetite forgot her owne shame or to give us to understand that his Divine Majesty punisheth with greatest rigour not him that sins but him that makes others sin God would have it that our first parents were naked in Paradise because their clothing suited neither with nature nor art Not with nature because it agreed onely with Brutes as skinnes fethers and wool to resist the rigours of Winter or the ardors of Summer and man now partaker of every good commanded not obeyed the seasons Those vertues which might be produced by art brought along with them imployment and trouble and it was no reason that he that received felicity from God should think on labours and toyling Or God would have them naked to cloth them with the splendors of his grace to make them like the Angels which are so covered with light that they leave to the eye nothing but confusion and astonishment Sin stole this blesing out of the hands of God Adam agitated by the feare of Gods indignation thinking perhaps to cover his sin clothed his obscene parts with Figg-leaves Oh effects of sinne that depraves the reason and obfuscates the understanding Scarce had Adam sinned but he became ignorant desiring to cover that which cannot be hid And who knowes but that seeing himselfe naked he would out of excesse of envy dispoil the Trees also He used Fig leaves either because the Fig tree being of the nature of Laurell to preserve from thunder he thought perhaps to escape the stroak of divine vengeance Or else the root of the Fig-tree having a power to cleave marble he flattered himselfe with a conceit of being able to break the hardnesse of Gods wrath His Divine Majesty in the mean while walked into Paradise receiving those Zephyries that grow strong in the declension of the day to show that mans sinne disquieted him and that to asswage the heat of his just indignation he went fanning the gales now that they became greater and were more temperate Or to teach us that when God will punish sinne he doth not runne but walke and delights that all things should hinder him Adam
the Evening was expulsed In a word Humane felicities are no other then moments They for the most part find their Coffin in their Cradle and their death in their birth Whilst he was departing the Sunne retired to shroud himselfe in the Ocean as if externall darknesse should have seconded the spirituall of sinne An Angell increased the griefe and terrour of his sadnesse which armed with fire and sword kept the entrance into Paradice in that he saw himselfe wholly excluded from all hope who flattering his sorrow might be able to promise a returne to his lost delight In placing an Angell with fire and armes in his hands his Divine Majesty intended to impede the entrance of Men and Divells into Paradise And to teach us that to enter into Paradise we must passe through the fire and sword of penitence with the consent of the Angell which is Christ Or else represented to us an Hieroglyphick of Hel the sword signifying the paine of guilt and fire the paine of sense Adam not omitting his sighes and complaints gave the woman the name of Eve which signifies Life because she was to be the mother of all Living Or oppressed with his owne sorrow he would allude to the voice of infants which they make when they cry Shee being the cause of teares and through her all mankind having occasion of weeping Or else would call her Life because seeing nothing but emblemes of death he hoped to comfort himselfe with this name Or it may be haply that he did as men now a dayes who having death before their eyes speak of nothing but life He could not neverthelesse so abstaine through griefe but that the sense mis-led him with its allurements As often as he was incircled in the embraces of Eve who manifested her selfe an interessed companion in his misfortunes he received no small content And it 's probable that she some times served herselfe of such like sentiments as these It 's not necessary Adam because thou must repent that therefore thou must dispaire Let us not undervalue the mercy of that God who with so gentle a hand hath so favourably punished our enormous crimes by shewing more of cowardise then contrition in our tears Let not him sin that hath not courage to undergo chastisement And its true that the soule dissolved into teares though it should evaporate by the eyes would not be able to remove the misery of our losse and it is withall an effect of a great prudence to conforme ones selfe to those things which have no other remedy then sufferance Let 's indeavour to recover what we have lost by the procuring of children Sleight comforts in our infelicity but yet necessary because God hath commanded them Let 's sin no more in disobedience Replicated sinnes as they admit not of excuse so they provoke Mercy it selfe to anger Let us endeavour the procreation of mankind for so we shall conforme to the will of God If Death triumph over this masse of flesh we shal survive in dispight of him in our Children Nephews and the memory of our Progeny I intend not by all this that we should leave off our teares The sorrow for my sinne shall dye with my heart which I believe shall be the last part of me alive I speake it that we may not incense with a new transgression that God in offending whom I know not which is greater the danger or the impiety Adam with a smile begot by the stimulations of sensuallity thus replyed I need no longer now to feare your company my Eve since you become to mee an incentive to good To perswade me that I bemoan not the miseries into which sinne hath brought me is to desire me to assume the quality of flocks and stones I have lost too much ever to feare weeping It s an effect of stupidity and not of prudence not to accompany great losses with great greifes It is yet true that there is a necessity to cheare up the sense to propagate Nature and obey God Thus saying with glances and kisses haveing throwne his armes about his wive's necke they gave themselves wholly up to delight which peradventure for the time begot in them an oblivion of all the accidents past There is not any thing more estrangeth the soule from afflictions than the complacencies of sense In that act a man not only communicates himselfe transformes himselfe but goes out of if not besides himselfe Greifs give way torments vanish discontents are forgotten in those amorous games which admit of no other companions then laughter sport and audacity Till this instant Adam had been kept a Virgin to intimate unto us that Matrimony fills the earth but Virginity Paradise Scarce had Eve satisfied the instinct of nature and appeased in part the allurements of sense when with the signes of pregnancy she was assaulted by repentance the indivisible companion of fleshly delights Here I will not mention the extreams of her passions in loathing and longing for every thing in the burden of her belly in her vigils and in the acerbity of those pangs the more grievious by how much the more strange because the most that I can speak would be the least part of what they were Much lesse will I speak of the sufferance of Adam because it is known that to have a wife and a wife pregnant is a species of martyrdome In the end with all those payns that accompany the gravidnesse of women the time of delivery drew neere Adam playing at one time the parts of the Mid-wife Nurse and Husband Eve brought forth two births Caâ—n was the name of the male and Calamana that of the female Adam full of joy and with eyes big with teares betook himselfe to praise and returne thanks to his Divine Majesty Lord said he thy goodnesse be praised who not altered a jot by the injuries of my sinne hast condescended that I continue a man Mercifull God glorious God immense God since thou ceasest not to do good to those that offend thee I acknowledge that I merited grown odious to the aire earth and all creatures and lost amongst the clouds of oblivion to be made my owne sepulcher as not being able to imagine a viler place Thou on the contrary giving me a power of using all the elements vouchsafest me to be the father of mankind and permittest me to live ever famous to the memory of all Ages Lord I will not go about to commemorate all thy favours for they are infinite I beseech thee only to continue unto me the assistance of thy grace that so I may not fall into those sins which have made me to deserve death Eve afterwards bore Abel and Delbora whereby she increased the joy of Adam Children are doubtlesse the delight of their Parents the fathers seeing their lives renewed in their children whom they look upon as their other selves grown young Poore Adam had neverthelesse little cause of rejoycing whilst he saw borne more subjects of humane misery
earth having been contaminated by the wickednesse of thy hands shall deny thee its fruits and thou shalt become a fugitive and vagabond Cain full of confusion and of feare confessed the whole fact but to little purpose since he did it out of season He departed therefore with his wives children having received from God for a mark that none should kill him the continuall trembling of the head And with reason ought his head to be punished that had slain Abel the head of the Church God permitted that Abel should be slaine by his brother it may be to chastise their parents Fathers not meeting a greater affliction then in the death and depravity of their children Or else it was to instruct us that just men and the true servants of God are allwaies subjected to the persecutions and cruelties of ungodly men Adam having discovered in the flight of Cain the death of Abel for he that flies gives no signes of any thing but ill after an infinite of teares and sighs that well-ny deafned the aire turnes himselfe to God and inspired with passion and griefe expressed these or the like conceptions Lord hath not my sinne yet received punishment equall to its desert Do they still importune thee to pay the debt contracted by my disobedience Is it possible that my teares have not obtained from thy mercy a perfect absolution If this be true my God why enjoy I this light why receive I the respirations of this aire Earth why dost thou not intomb me in thy bowells Heaven why dost thou not slay me with thy thunders Doth divine justice want judgments Is the hand of God disarmed But if my repentance be not able to cancell the debt of my crimes if my sins admit not the excesses of thy pitty if my transgressions contend with the infinity of thy Goodnesse what part O Lord hath the innocence of my poor sonne in the defections of my heart Wherein hath that Abel offended who in his sacrifices hath had the honour of the Divine Complacency Oh miserable wretch reduced to a misfortune beneath the condition of brutish animals which in their kinds produce births that kill not one another by fratricide which with the only instinct of nature spare not only such as are related to them in consanguinity but also in their species Wicked Adam These are all effects of thy sinne Good God permit not the population of the world in my descent for from a bad root nothing can proceed but worse fruit And thou vile Cain that hast rendered thy hands accursed abusing the goodness of thy brother not being worthy thereof what wilt thou do Hated by God by Men and by thy Selfe whither wilt thou go Unfortunate father deprived in one and the same instant of two sons Constrained much more to bewaile him which remains then him which I have lest He would not here have ended his complaints if the shriekes of Eve that introduced pity even into the insensibility of stones had not necessitated him to consolate her in the midst of her teares Love making a separation of our selves from our selves Eve said he there is a necessity of accommodating the affects of our hearts to the wil of of God which in his works alwayes includes secrets impenetrable by our humanity All that which in this vale of the World hath the resemblance of evill is good with God who worketh diversly from our understanding What doth teares profit which are alwayes of small moment but for the dead vaine and unprofitable If by weeping we could retract that fatal point of Gods decree I would say Let 's dissolve our selves into teares But if this be a vaine hope and an impossible supposall Why should we with new sorrows aggravate our old miseries And in regard it is true that discovering by the death of the more just that thou wilt not O my God accept of the propagation of mankind from me I promise and sweare unto thee never to know Eve more Lord I will no longer believe the Divinity of thy essence if I infringing this promise thou dost not fulminate against me the thunder of thy wrath and make me to prove all the effects of thy displeasure Eve presently with an oath confirmed the will of Adam and daily dieting upon teares they ceased not to bewail the hurt of such a losse All greifs admit of some consolation that of the losse of children is insupportable for it will make patience it selfe out of patience He that loseth a sonne loseth more than a part of himselfe For in himselfe a man dies daily but in the life of a child he goes forward to immortality They many yeares continued their continence and their condoleing sacrificing all their affections to the passion of such a losse when behold at length a Messenger of God admonished Adam in words of this or the like purport Adam It is now time to dry up thy teares Continuall sorrowes are not pleasing to God who desires that in our misadventures we submit to his divine will Comfort thy selfe that Almighty God will in another sonne restore thee all that which thou lamentest in the losse of Abell This sonne shall in his successours revenge thee of him who hath been the cause of all thy miseries From him after some ages shall be borne God-man Feare not againe to touch thy wife for I by the will of his Divine Majesty do free thee from thy vow and absolve thee from thy oath Adam humbly thanked God for his compassion and imparted all to Eve making her gravid a little after begetting a sonne whom he called Soth saying The mercy of God hath furnished me with an Issue which shall repaire the losse of the death of Abell In the Education of this sonne what paines Adam took may be understood by the successe He merited from people the attribute of Divine having given names to the starres and invented the Hebrew-Characters With piety and goodness he ravished the affections of all and was an example to posterity and a glory to his parents In the meane time generations multiplied to that multitude as that men were forced to seperate to cultivate new grounds the first not being sufficient to maintaine them Upon this occasion Adam exercised the talents he received from God He made certaine lawes with which he taught and commanded that which was good Vices being already so increased that they had great need of reformation Adam not being able in regard of the distance of places to prescribe remedies to those evills which multiplied to infinite made use of Laws which make the Prince alwayes present though he be farre distant There is the Law of Nature and the Written Law That of Nature is a sentiment born with the Reason which enableth the Conscience to distinguish good from evill But in wicked minds corrupted by a depraved consuetude this Law is either not known or else dispised The Written Law therefore is necessary which dividing it selfe into Divine Civil constitutes