THE FORBIDDEN FRVIT OR A TREATISE Of the Tree of Knovvledge of Good Evill of which Adam at the first as yet all Mankind doe eate death Moreover How at this day it is forbidden to every one as well as to Adam And how this Tree that is the wisedome of the Serpent planted in Ada is that great Image and that many headed Beast mentioned in Daniel and the Apocalyps whom the whole world doth worship LASTLY Here is shewed what is the Tree of Life contrary to the wisdome righteousnesse and knowledge of all mankind With a description of the Majestie and nature of Gods Word By AUGUST ELUTHENIUS Translated out of Latine into English Printed in the yeare 1640. CHAPTER I. What is the Tree of Knovvledge of Good and Evill I Will not much contend with them that would have the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evill accoâ—ding as it is in the Scriptures to be a Naturall Tree which being planted in Paradise had that nature devinely given unto it that who should eate thereof their eyes should be opened to view themselves and they be made Gods and so know both Good and Evill perhaps God would teach Adam both inwardly and outwardly and what hee forbad or taught him inwardly in his heart that he would propose outwardly to his eyes for greater testimony but yet I desiâ—e of them that they would grant this unto me that as the thing was done outwardly so the same to have happened inwardly in the heart of Adam that there hee was tempted by the seed of the Serpent to have the guiding of his owne will and nature not to be so void of knowledge and action as to be subordinate unto God That I should so thinke two reasons or causes doe especially move mee The 1. is that the Seed of the Woman was to breake the head of the seed of the Serpent but as a naturall and living Serpent whose head was broken of that Seed we doe not reade of any but as even then the Seed of the woman was spiritually in the heart of Adam so in the same manner was the seed of the Serpent for man at the first was created good not of God but of nothing and for that cause doth he turne himselfe alwayes from God and bend downewards to his owne nothing and vanity againe which nothing I with the auncient Fathers but especially Taulerus doe judge to be sinne Satan death hell and this perhaps was that devill inhabiting in Adam as also in Lucifer The other reason is this which the scripture doth testifie of the Citie of God and the Heavenly Ierusalem that Paradise to be in us but God alone and his omnipotent Word is our Paradise the Tree of Life and the Temple wherein we inhabit walk serve pray c. as wee are on the other part the Temple of God and his Paradise In like manÌ„er the Beast which even now the whole world both great and small doe worshipp in their hearts of which the scriptures make mention in the Apocalips as also the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil is in us for the exterior world whatsoever outwardly is to be seene or is done is onely an accident and a certaine signifying figure of the true and interior nature and there is nothing true in all those things which are seen with the eye that is substantiall for it behoveth that the forme of this World perish because it is nothing else but an imaginary world and a figure of the right true eternal and by it selfe the constant world therfore it is expedient that all these things in their course be done over againe which throughout all the Bible are related outwardly and significantly to have beene done and yet to this day after their manner the Historie of the Bible Moyses and the Prophets are spiritually and truely of force but all things are brought into the truth by Christ and it it is expedient that all the prophecies which have been from the beginning of the world which God hath spoken by the mouth of his Saints be againe reiterated Therefore that Tree was nothing else then the nature will knowledge and life of Adam whereof he ought not to eat That is not to attribute any part of it to himselfe But freely and willingly submitt himselfe to God and know nothing but what God would know in him doe nothing but what God would doe in him speake nothing but what God would speake in him c. Whereby without any impediment God might exercise his Kingdome will nature and power in him that being void of will wisdome and knowledge he might have nothing of his owne or arrogate any thing to himself this God would this was pleasing to him and thus he commaunded To this opinion the German Divinity ascents Theologia Germanica 3470. cap. Which saith that this tree is nothing else but our owne will knowledge of which alone in the Earthly Paradise of the world of our hearts we are not to eate but acount it is forbidden unlesse we desire to dye or eate death from it And now when Adam was fallen and had eaten of this tree then was it planted in his heart the same was derived into all his boughts and fruit so that the same case word precept and interdict is common to all his posterity we all have eaten death vvhosoever are in Adam and this uncorrected poyson have vve received from the Serpent being evill Egges of an evill Bird Hence may every man easily perceive hovv each man is the greatest enemy to himselfe and vvhat hee ought to esteeme of himselfe his vvill and understanding vvisdome and knowledge since it is the Counsell seede wisdome knowledge and head of the Serpent which by Christ is to bee broken in our hearts it behoveth that all things which Circumcision in the old and Baptisme in the new Covenant doth signify which are hereditary and naturall from Adam should dye in us that we should labour to unlearne and put of all things as if they were death and the devill that is our will wisdome and righteousnesse c. with which as with figleaves Adam strove to cover himselfe for this is sinne and the stinge of sinne and death that is to eate of this forbidden Tree and to arrogate any thing to a mans selfe as his will nature and understanding or himselfe But alas alas who knowes this or beleeves this who abandons or is weary of his owne will understanding or knowledge when will men give a farewell to them Give a Farewll say J why every one delights himselfe in his own imaginations sweetly slumbring recreats his soule in his own wisdom knowledge workes c. the Tree is fayre to the eye and pleasant to the tast Here all mankinde as Adam himselfe doe taste death But yet no man knowes no man thinkes of this but every man judgeth it to be right and the flesh esteemeth it to be the Tree of Life That is to follow
subiect unto him Have know doe love bee nothing but what God hath knowes doth loveth is in us For by this privation and denyall will God draw us unto himselfe make us like God and teach all men wisdome in him and not out of themselves Therefore the knowledge of Christ in Men is quite contrary unto this For hee hath knowne nothing doth or wills to know nothing but onely God this is his rejoycing for this only cause doth hee learne sciences or rather doth God in him And to this with all his endeavoure and strength doth hee apply himselfe that as in Adam hee was made something even so in Christ and with Christ he may be brought to nothing againe and all his knowledge and sciences even as it were foolishnes deadly poyson he may vomit up againe esteem as nothing that he may wipe out of the tables of his heart all human arrogancie having action knowledge and science to the end that nothing may remaine there but only that which God teacheth and by his owne finger writeth Breefly a true Christian is a certaine bare naked thing who with Socrates knowes nothing but this that he knowes nothing In these blessed and unknowing fooles God will know all things if so it be man know how to empty himselfe and to cast away the basenes of his old ragges But the flâ—sâ— for this onely cause doth learne that it may be something or rather be all things know have and doe all things wheras the spiritual man learnes only for this cause that befor God he maj be made nothing to himself all other creatures whatsoever that thereby God may be all things in him know have doe love and live in him this is behoovefull to bee knowne this is the true use of all things and for this only end ought we to labour to know any thing But every fleshly minded man who belongs to the Kingdome of Satan and lyes captrivated under his power thinkes farre otherwise and defendeth quite contrary and therefore is in the sight of God foolishnes wickednes sinne and Satan From whence it is that he esteemeth their wisdome to be foolishnes their life to be death and righteousnesse sinne accounting their love no better then hatred Fourthly the naturall man hath many goods wife Children life riches knowledge wisdom will glory honour name and all things as his owne proper these he arrogates to himselfe to these he applies his minde these are pleasant profitable and deare unto him But if they be taken from him and God exact his owne then the theefe appeares neither will hee willingly send them againe he turnes himselfe and seeketh for all safegards and wayes of escape and means whereby he may retaine them still and award God the proper owner of them who now exacts them of him the whole World lyes sick in this misery and those things that are Gods are abused by men And what is common to all or rather accommodated from God he labours as much as in him lyes to make it his owne and whensoever hee is to restore it againe he doth it very unwillingly But if it be so that that which he hath stolen from God is now no longer profitable or delitefull unto him he then surrenders it of his owne accord And if it so bee God giveth it againe into his own bosome and if it be Gods will hee shall retaine it longer yet will he not retaine it if he be able to resist it by compulsion if hee have it it is with great resistance so that before God he rather wilfull casts them away then retaines them So is it that the flesh which hath all things out of God offends in all and because it apprehends al things out of God it necessarily followes that although it have all things yet hath it nothing For what can it have who wanteth God the essence of all things and in whom all things subsist Surely they can be no other then like Tantilus Sicicus Medeas Again what can he want who hath God and in him all things since that God is all in all Hence it is that often times those that seeme to have all things have truely nothing and those that have nothing may truely be said to have all things On the contrary the new Man hath nothing but only God wherein he can glory neither doth he any way claime any thing to himselfe but God As for that which God gives him he useth it for Gods sake as his guift and reward ready to render it every moment as it shall please God to exact it For he can willingly restore that which he did never claime as his own but as God did give or rather lend it unto him so that he willingly permits God at his pleasure to assume it from him Breefly he useth all things as the traveller doth his Inne or a freind money committed to his custody ready every houre to restore it back This Paul tearmes so to have any thing as not to have it or as though thou hadst it not which in the eyes of the World is accounted meere folly that is that thou arrogate nothing unto thy selfe offend in nothing willingly forsake all things and with God as a true wife with her husband have all things common Wife Children Money life and all things else he loveth in God and for God and therfore keeps them loves them hath them and takes them as lent from God ready to yeeld them to God againe whensoever he requires them all the guifts of God as Wife Children and all other things he loveth only for the givers sake the giver above all his guifts and although some things are contrary to his nature as the Crosse death exyle c. yet hee loveth all things alike and this it is to have know love and marie in the Lord But the world and worldly minded men are carried headlong unto the guifts of God as the Sow unto the Dunghill Never doe they any whitt respect the giver but the guift with the which they committ adultery challenging by right unto themselves and so long as it is either pleasant or profitable unto them so long they dearely esteeme it and willingly will not permit God to have it againe whatsoever is contrary unto them therin that they unwillingly suffer though it come by divine providence unto them for incontinently they looke about them which way they may pull their neckes out of the yoake and therfore whatsoever they undertake doe speake c. that they altogether abuse and in the abuse it is altogether unfitt for any good untill they cease to be that which they are and being translated into Christ become in him new creatures Here it will availe nothing to patch up with God for if thou stopp one hole or fill up one crevist an other will presently be made therefore it is necessary that men be borne againe and altogether forgett this Tree of Knowledge of Good Evill And breefly
Tree of Life is planted by the Tree of death in the heart of Adam From these two Seeds trees so different doe spring different Fruits so as one is poyson and death the other is Medicine Life and if any man would know that plant which is called Man he may easily know what he ought to think of his owne art knowledge wisdome and righteousnesse how that this pleaseth all men and is of great respect with them For what is current with the world but its owne coyne What but the wisdome art and righteousnesse of the Flesh seemeth holie in the sight of men onely the Holy Ghost can reprehend the world of sinne righteousnesse and judgement It is wonderfull to behould how the world doth dayly yet eate death of the forbidden Tree which tree you may call as the Germaine Theologie doth our own will and although God doe dayly cry aloud in them and moreover provideth by the witnesses whom he sendeth to teach them externally that they abstain therefrom or otherwise they shall reape death therefrom yet none beleeveth but all follow that Serpent which secretly in our heart doth speake thus Not death shal you reape by any meanes but if you know many arts you shall bee like unto God and live for ever this the whole historie of the Bible remaines in force at this day from hence ariseth a certaine art and curiositie enquiring searching out Neither will any submitt himselfe docibly and simplie unto God and obey his word But every man will be his owne yea Gods Master too and teach both himselfe and God bring him into the Schoole and there prescribe unto him with whom where what wherefore he shall doe speake permitt or omitt Hence it commeth to passe that wisdome is justified alwayes of her Children and those men skilled in a thousand arts and above measure craftie God cannot satisfie neither can he obtaine his Kingdome or gett any love or right at their hands Since they will be altogether Gods and kisse their owne hands will wisdome prudence and reason The art of the Devill which is sucked out of the Duggs of the Serpent hereupon we compose many bookes desiring to teach the whole world not knowing how to teach our selves From hence it comes that the proud Devill alas is buried deepe in Learned men whom their deadly knowledge doth so dangerously puffe up that they thinke themselves worthie all honour both from God and men and oftentimes if not in word yet indeed they make their estate as Lucifer and Adam did No man understandeth how we dayly become Lucifers and Adams but thinke that to bee the relation of a thing long since done in Adam and condemne his wicked pride and fal when neverthelesse we all sticke fast over head and eares in the same and yet deride others who in this kinde are foolish Divines preach much the word and his precepts but when they are to be kept indeed they are wanting in this yea what themselves doe sometimes teach they will not suffer others to practise but contented meerly in the bare words so making the word of God nothing but a meere Art a matter of talke and disputation had rather be called knowers and fearers of God then lovers of him that not in vaine is the proverbe which is verified by experience teaching and confirming the same The greater Scoller the worser Christian The Gramarian is carefull that he erre not in his speaking but little regardeth the errour of his life In like manner the Poets had rather bee lame in their lives then halting in their Verses Philosophers would know all things but not themselves The Historian describeth all peoples but neglecteth himselfe The Orator is more sollicitous that he speake not rudely then that he beleeve not or live wickedly The Logitian will sooner forsake the truth then leave his opinion and conclusion They that have any thing to doe with Geometrie doe sooner measure the Earth then their wayes The Musician taketh more care that his Song bee not dissonant then that his cariage bee consonant Astrologers travell over the whole Heavens and foretell things to come but see not the ditch under their feete The Cosmographer relates of all Mountaines Valleyes Woods and Rivers but that makes him not one haire better in the sight of God The Phisician healeth sick mens bodies but neglecteth the healing of his owne soule Lawers are alone expert in the precepts of men but negligently violate the Lawes of God so as the proverb from hence hath risen Neither doth the Phisician live nor the Civillian dye well because Phisitians of all men are most intemperate and Civillians the worst Christians and for that cause as Baldus being an expounder of the Law himselfe doth say the most part of them are taken away by sudden death Other Arts-men J will not here mention but referre you to Cornelius Agrippa chap. 100. So the Devill doth compasse us about with the rope of folly insomuch that sometime with one question sometime with another art we be so amazed in the meane time wee neglect the onely science of God in which all things consist even as the Adulteresse Medea when her husband Jason pursued her cutt her Children in peeces dispersed their members in the way that Iason might bee busied in the gathering of them up while shee escaped out of the Countrie Alas shall death sinne and the Devill thus please us shall wee alwayes thus seeke God in hell with the Devill Light with darkenesse The living among the dead One thing is necessary and this no man will desire many things are unprofitable and unhealthfull yea deadly yet these are greedily desired off and devoured by all men In the word of God alone and no other thing are all things placed neither therefore will it profitt thee to have all things to know will speake surpasse in measure dispute off number paint adorn judge teach al things c. To know all things is nothing else then to know the arts of the Devill eaten by his counsell of the forbidden tree Onely to know the word and will of God and to live according unto it to be fruitfull in good workes is the true art and eternall Life eaten of the tree of Life in vaine it is to know all things yea rather it is bitter death as hath beene sufficiently spoken off before Since therefore all the arts witt and righteousnesse of men springeth from the tree of knowledge of good evill or rather from the Devill and therefore is the fall and death of Adam it necessarily followeth that the more any man is learned therein and experienced the higher he hath ascended the worse and more perverse he is as hee who hath made the greatest proficiencie in the wisdome and knowledge of the Devill And againe the more foolish a man is in this art and in the wisdome of the flesh and the Serpent and the more bee hath unlearned forgotten and emptied himselfe
where and wherefore he will Julian th' Apostate ignorant of this secret against whom Civill writes was greatly offended at this that God would have man to know neither good nor evil or rather that he would have Man to have teach be and will nothing at al c. He I say was offended at this But if the matter be brought unto the light of truth we shall finde that all this happened because of us even as a Father forbids and detaines a Sword from his Son knowing that if he had it he would hurt himselfe upon it or otherwise abuse it In the same manner God denyed unto Adam and also unto us that Tree of Knowledge for our profit and good Neither did hee envy us therein but only did it to prevent the future evill into which he foresaw we should fall For he knew that assoone as Adam like God should know Good and Evill hee would challenge the same to himselfe desire to be his owne God otherwise God had not cared though Adam had eaten of that tree for satiety For assoone as Adam had eaten of it there followed thereupon selfelove and arrogating all things to himselfe praise and all other vices So God in all his commandements hath respect not so much to himselfe as to us and our salvation which not he but we enjoy as Iob himselfe doth manifestly confesse that God is neither hurt by our sinns nor profited by our righteousnesse but still remaineth an eternall perfect and impassible God to whom nothing can be added or any thing detracted though we try yet can we not make a Heaven neither put the Sunne out of them nor dry up a Fountaine but all these things remaine in the same estate and condition wherein God hath placed them He that assumes to throw a stone against Heaven it will fall upon his owne head Therefore we can make God neither richer nor poorer greater nor lesser no he is no way advantaged by us though we all adhere unto him only he hath a care on us to helpe us we never deserve to be what we are therefore we ought to attribute the cause of all our good to him only and give him the glory he hath an open hand more ready to give then we are to receive rich to all those that call upon him Neither doth he desire any thing at our hands but only this that we quietly receive of him that which he is willingly pleased to give for he that with quietnes doth not receive can have no hâ—pe that he shall receive all our witt we ought only to imploy to this end to the denying of our selves This should make us nothing children Fooles and prostrate low at the feete of God And to the effecting of this denying of our selves all our knowledge ought to be directed but that knowledge only which proceeds from God can effect it it can make a man nothing a Child a Foole and casts him downe at the feete of God But that knowledge that puffs up a Man making him great and wise in his owne conceit such being the wisdom of the World comes not from God but is rather the Serpents Seed forbidden fruit Now every one that eateth of the forbidden Tree for no other cause eateth hee thereof but only that he may obtaine a great name honour titles and glory that he may have preheminence to bee counted the light of the World And by this meanes he eateth death in stead of life This the holy Scriptures testify unto us for whereas we ought to know and learne nothing every man learnes to know and be wise in all things Now here some man might enquire why therefore did God create the Tree if he foreknew that both Adam and wee would eate death thereof and not rather hinder our sinne I answer that God at the first made us of earth and assuredly did know that we would not constantly abide in the estate of our creation and yet he suffred Adam to take his course make tryall of misery that forced through sorrow death he might hast to God again for so it was to be that God would create him againe out of sorrow and make him againe a new not as before of nothing but with grace of himselfe this God foresaw from all eternity and therefore suffred his fal and gave way that man should first tast of the bitternes of death before that he would give him the sweetenesse of eternall life by which he might know the better what he hath in God and what that life is compared with death which before he tasted Besides it was meete that God suffered the freedome of sinne rather then restrained it as well for many other causes as more speciall for this that otherwise it had beene coaction and force and not libertie and also the goodnesse of God his mercie having no other obiect could never have been manifested in his Creature Therfore it behoved that things should come thus to passe by the providence of God and yeeld without necessity or any fault in God Read Brentius lib. 4. Ambros. in Rom. 9. CHAP. VI Of the 2 kinds of knovvledge and Will and how the one allwayes resists the other THere is nothing under the Sunne but it may be said to be twofould that is Just and wicked Good and Evill Now just and also that which is evill and wicked may in like manner be said to the twofould the one according to the judgment of God and the other according to the estimation and opinion of men And now seeing God is a spirit and Men flesh contrary to the spirit it followes that all their judgements wills knowledges and actions be contrary and repugnant one to the other Whence it is what man calleth good right sweete light life knowledge wisdome justice c. God esteemes that to be evill wicked bitter darknes death foolishnes and sinne according as the Scriptures testify of God and of the World Therefore there is nothing in the world but it may be called good or evil according as the judgement of men are disposed to whom it is proposed What God is unto the world the same is the Devill unto God and so on the contrary So that nothing can be called Evill but all things are in their order right and good and evill and wicked according as the Touchstone is by which they are examined If I say that the Word of God is false foolishnes and Heresie the same is true in the judgement and opinion of the world and thus all things are twofould either good or evill good is twofould as also evill the one truely good or evill in the sight of God the other apparantly good or evill in the sight of Men or their opinion so that there is a two-fould fasting praying willing c. to witt one that is really good in the sight of God so as is God himselfe the author and teacher of all goodnesse the other in the sight
God and these two Trees are as God and Satan so contrary one to another that the one brings Life unto us and the other death Therefore he that eates of the one its impossible he should eate of the other because they are divided by a flying Cherub and a flaming sword which I interpret sinne and disobedience which sometimes in the Scriptures is called a partition wall For hee that eates of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evill that is hee that is possessed with a Diabolicall wisdome of the Flesh he cannot eate the Tree of Life that is he is departed from divine knowledge and wisdome that proceeds from God For these two wisdomes are incompitable they cannot bee in one and the selfe-same heart being as contrary one to the other as heaven to hell He that eateth of the Tree of Life and is pertaker of divine knowledge hee cannot dye neither sinne For this Fruit eates the eater of it and changeth him into its owne nature into Life as the Scriptures doe testify of those that doe eate the flesh of Christ For it is one and the same thing to eate Christ to live in his word to eate of the Tree of Life to beleeve in God c. as it is also the same thing to be in Adam to live in Adam to eate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good Evill to obey the word of Satan and be God Therfore those that eate of this deadly Tree and adhere to the word and wisdome of the Serpent and are borne of Satan these cannot doe any thing that is pleasing unto God As on the contrary the other doth not any thing that is displeasing unto him Therefore he that would be the one must bidd adew to the other He must putt off the wisdome of the Serpent and vomitt up the Fruit of the Forbidden Tree who would eate of the Tree of Life Adam must dye in us and the witt of the Flesh must be unlearned of us if we would have Iesus Christ to live in us and obtaine the direction of the holy spirit For the death of the one is the life of the other the infirmity of the one is the strength of the other No man can serve two Masters neither is it possible to unite Adam God the Devill together CHAP. XII The praise of the Word of God on which alone man ought to build rest reside and it onely know if he will remain unshaken in adversity have his Faith manifest and approved and finde quietnesse to his Soule INdeed there be many arts profitable to the body which God the belly hath created and yet doth dayly finde out which truely bring much profit to the kitchin and onely serve worship obey their God the belly most zealously as it is expedient they should But as the cōmon proverbe is that which is profitable to the body doth often hurt the soule and that which is the bellies and flesh as life foode and plentie is often times the death of the soule and a meere poyson unto it because the spirit is contrary to the flesh Hence it comes to passe that table or belly arts because they be the Fruit off-spring and witt of the flesh are altogether vaine famine and death unto the soule And on the contrary that onely art the end whereof was not for God bellies advantage which the whole world doth so much sleight and litle regard that onely true wisdome and Theologie to witt God and the knowledge of his Word in him together with the knowledge of him divinely infused into our soules is the sole art onely necessary to mans salvation Therfore the true heavenly divine art the true tree of Life of which whosoever eateth hath everlasting life Furthermore I say this art is the Foode Wine Milke excellencie defence and all whether the profitt pleasure or advancement of Soules All other arts being vaine doubtfull and the poyson of the Soule hurtfull and deadly to the Spirit of Man if hee leane upon them rest in them glory in them or build his happinesse upon their sandy foundation In a word they are the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good evill of which whosoever eates as J have amply proved hee shall dye the death Therefore I desire that wee would not be to righteous nor wise in our owne eyes As Solomon Eccles. 8. as also Proverbs 3. doth faithfully instruct us that we should esteeme nothing to be our wisdome righteousnesse or any other vertue in us but onely to know God in and with himselfe and love praise worshipp feare honour and understand him as wee ought Which thing must necessarily proceede from God himselfe beeing the worke of his eternall and in it selfe everlasting and immutable word which without spokesman from him proceeds out of his mouth that hee speakes in our hearts teacheth himselfe in our soules imprinting and engraving his Image in us thereby enlightning so our understanding that to speake in a word he so teach love know understand pray unto heare guide governe and worshipp himselfe in us All other things whatsoever are to dull and all the vertue of things are to base that they should be able to teach us God and give us everlasting felicity or that God by them should give it unto us God will be himselfe teach himselfe give and convay himselfe into our hearts Neither will hee suffer his honour to bee given to any Creature that by it wee should be saved or sanctified but hee that heareth and learneth it of the Father commeth unto him He will himselfe be the Master of spirits and so a spirit shall be taught of a spirit And all those that are divinely instructed of the all-knowing and understanding God shall be said truely to be learned and wise The flesh hath teachers who belonging to the ould covenant have commerce with the flesh The new covenant because it is spirit and Life and in like manner hath a spirituall and new birth of God to be instructed hath also a spiritual word and Master to instruct it which is the word and spirit of Life Therefore if any man would know himselfe submitt himselfe quietly to the direction and permitt himselfe to bee spoken too sought and found in him He surely should be elevated to a wonderfull Light if any man I say doth follow the instruction and Doctrine of the Father in himselfe he verily should finde God in God and with God But the world busied and accupied in the Creatures passeth away in a confusion and not considering the hidden and secret treasure that is closed in his heart Neither seekes for this precious Pearle but covered all over with the earth of the Creatures remaineth in darknesse with the multitude of his arts and sciences weary ignorant and void of all true arts and sciences yet doth he in the meane space learne art after art further and further searcheth into the my fierie of knowledge And to use the words of Saint Paul is
its owne pleasure and opinion of Good which is false To know much to finde out much to learne many sciences and finally to become a God Neither doe any consider that this was Adams estate and morsell that bitter morsel of death How doe we speake and talke of Adams misery and yet not marke that the same is fresh in us We can talke of his eating and wonderfully detest it when notwithstanding we doe the same that he did O man who art thou that thus preparest a staffe for thine owne shoulders and pronouncest a Sentence against thy selfe while thou condemnest thy Father Adam and yet considerest not that thou thy selfe art ensnared in his Nett Here propound and consider what our will is our knowledg is our wisdom is c. in which wee so insolently boast our selves yea and by which we imagine and suppose that we can come unto God when notwithstanding it is nothing nothing else but death it selfe and the bitter Fruit of the forbidden Tree Is there any amongst all men who understand this Who can away with this To deny put off fearefull to rest in their owne will wisdome knowledge c. No doe not most chuse and extoll them as true gold and Eternall Life when notwithstanding they are nothing but Eternall death CHAP. II. Why the Tree of knovvledge of good and Evill is mortall forbidden THIS may be easily answered by that which hath beene before related God as right it is would be in us both Lord and Master and in the same will worke doe love omitt thinke c. therfore should we be free from al these things of this kind so that we should know or doe nothing but what God himselfe would know and doe in us Which reason even against its will doth confesse to be equity to him that concludes and proves it by trueth for what is more equall then that the Potter have so full a Dominion over his pots that none of them challenge any the least authority to themselves since they were not their owne makers the same is our condition God alone is called the God of understanding knowledge wisdome c. wherefore hee alone will know all things in us and by consequence nothing but himselfe if therefore any man will taste of the Forbidden Fruit and so know himselfe be made a God be of himselfe stand upon his owne bottome and so be his owne God it is necessary that together with Lucifer he fall into the hell of death and like the Dragon be cast downe from Heaven because the Fruit of that Forbidden Tree is death Wherefore God would know onely himselfe in us and for that cause would have one to know no other science esteeming this only necessary to life and will teach the same to us it so be we will obediently attend him That is know onely God praise him pray to and heare him which things I say he himselfe would worke in the obedient For this cause the Wise Man saith Wisdom 5. Lord to know thee and understand thee is all righteousnesse In which hee justifies many and by consequence much more his owne Let not the Wise Man boast himself in his wisdom nor the strong Man in his strength but in this let every man boast that he knowes me Isay 53. Ier. 9. Which thing God by the mouth of his owne Christ Ioh. 17. calleth Eternall Life For from this knowledge roote and Tree of Life proceeds all whatsoever can be called good or is truely good This is the onely and true Key of David which so openeth that no man shutteth c. CHAP. III. Of the abuse of all things hovv all things are unclean to the unclean flesh yea those things which in themselves are cleane and wherfore that curious flesh desireth to know much and on the contrary how men ought to know nothing but God and for God and use all things in God THAT lost nature of man who in the Scripture is called the Flesh is an instrument so impotent to al things so vile obscure that it knows neither to have speak or doe any thing but abuseth and defileth it by touching because he converts all things which are from God in whom truely they are to himself as his proper owne although hee ought never to be his owne No not in that which is his owne but therein to bee subiect to God Neither ought he to challenge to himselfe that wisdome and knowledge that is in him but to have all things â—â—se in his God as if he himselfe had them â—â—â—t But this he doth not but arrogates â—â—mselfe to himselfe and will needs be â—â—ve and know himselfe and this is the fall â—nd degeneration of Adam and his posteriâ—â— in and with all things with them Againe the true and onely use with and â—n all things is thus God would that Adam â—hould know nothing but what hee would â—now in him should be nothing but what â—e would be in him should doe nothing but what he would doe in him should have nothing but what hee would have in him This would not Adam but all those things â—e arrogated to himselfe as his owne or â—ather he himself would be all these things This is the fall of Adam and the abuse of all â—hings in all things by all mankinde to the â—nd of the World The abuse is I say to arrogate any thing to mans selfe as his owne not to possesse the same freely as though he had them not but to steale and use them from God in and â—o himselfe As for Example if having Money Wife Children knowledge life â—t selfe yea my selfe I challenge these to my â—elfe as my owne But since God exacts them if followes the I would therfore detaine them and as muâ—â— as in me is not yeeld them unto God bâ— knitt my mind unto them that I may keep defend and never losse or forsake them when notwithstanding they are Gods anâ— not mine this is the Fall of Adam and bâ— theift being the abuse of al things inbred iâ— the flesh untill man be translated into â— new kinde of estate or condition wherefore it is behoovefull that we be borne a newâ— doe vomitt up the Fruit of the Tree oâ— Knowledge of Good and Evill And alâ— these things which wee having stolen from God as theeves doe challenge to our selves and so forgetting them restore them againâ— to God this truely is the resurrection and conversion of Adam and by this meanes alone shall the Fall of Adam be repaired amended Therefore the true and onely use of all things knowne alone to the regenerate and new man is this That I be altogether free from all things and alone subiect to God and being void of name will and knowledge c remaine nothing in my selfe noâ— vindicate deliver or claime any thing to my selfe because whatsoever I have am know doe c. all are of God no more then the Cow doth for her milke the Tree for it fruit
the Bird for its long but wholy referring all things to God and have know doe â—ove and be nothing but in him Thus the redeemed free and perfect Christians have know doe c. all things they possesse wife children life knowledge wisdome substance c. yea and themselves altogether freely in the Lord neither doe they attribute any thing to themselves even as if they were nothing had nothing knew nothing for they know that God it is who is hath knowes and doth all those things which they are know or doe so the Christian hath his wife in the Lord that is doth not challenge her to himselfe as his owne but freely designeth her to God whose she is and from whom she is lent unto him whom he is willing to restore whensoever it shal please God to requir her as he never challengeth her to himselfe as his owne even so he ever enjoyes her in God and in and for God loves her This Paul David calls it to sing rejoyce marie have in the Lord that is to reduce all things unto God in him know love have bee doe all things neither detract any thing from God as my proper owne and right And whosoever have not thus their knowledge Wife Children and themselves in the Lord they offend in this because they love them it being a carnall Love out of God And so farre are all things unclean to the unclean that even his prayers are sin unto him yea his praises of God Fasts Orations Supplications God despiseth according to the Prophet And although hee be bountifull to the poore yet he doth it in vaine Breefly what he doth he doth it in vaine it is not pleasing but displeasing unto God Whether hee love or hate his Wife Children and Neighbours whether hee chyde or pray all things are uncleane unto him Wife Children Feilds Lands Money povertie riches fame infamy life deathknowledge learning yea God himselfe And lastly he is unfitt for any thing that is good By himselfe he is evill sinfull and nothing And what shew of goodnesse soever is in him it is stained by an hypocriticall eye and affection Therefore it s no matter what he hath knoweth or doth hee is a Vessell of no price an evill Tree unprofitable for any good worke since both his mind and conscience is depraved Therfore before al things it is necessary that with Nicodemus they be born again that al things with them may bee â—n new unto them the flesh must be changed into the spirit so cease to be flesh For it is so impure and every way desirous of its owne gaine and so infected and depraved with the poyson of sinne that it draweth all things to it selfe seeketh it selfe in all things and arrogateth that to it selfe as its owne which it knoweth loveth or doth and hath all things under a false pretence out of a love to it selfe Neither doth it love any thing but what is pleasant and profitable for it selfe But a Christian loveth an unprofitable sicke and loathsome Wife for God and hath her not for his pleasure or profit only but for Gods will pleasure The naturall and fleshly man doth nothing but out of a love to himselfe and whatsoever he doth he hath an eye and reflecteth upon himselfe and in what he sees he can finde to delite himselfe in he is willing to meddle with that Hence it is that the house of sorrow poverty banishment troubles sicknesses and reprehensions and whatsoever hee sees harsh unto him he hates no lesse then the Devill doth the crosse of Christ Jesus But whatsoever is excellent great pleasant bewtifull c. to this he cleaves as fast as the clay to the wheele Whereby he may enjoy what he saw and desired in them Breefly he doth nothing but out of a love to himselfe and in what he doth hee challengeth the chiefe part to himselfe I say that in all his actions both with God and Man he respects nothing but his owne profitt and pleasure which if he be deprived off he looseth his cheerfulnesse and alacrity of spirit and becoms sorowfull desists to worke any further what therefore can be done by such a man as this but what is uncleane But the regenerate man being borne of God doth quite contrary in all his actions he is desirous of the common profitt being altogether so affected and disposed as God his Father He doth nothing but most freely subiected unto God suffieth him to doe and care for all things in him so that it followes that in this man is the meere nature work of God and he or rather God in him repaires to the humble poore sicke and to those that are in the house of sorrow to help and comfort them by whatsoever God hath either given him or doth work in him as his substance milke and consolation and in all those things he lookes upon no other thing but only God who rather in him only lookes upon himselfe Neither is it the Man but God in the Man who communicateth to other necessities loves prayes heares worshipps honours wills and possesseth Thirdly Adam would know and therfore labours for much knowledge and so Eates of the forbidden Fruit that he may live and become a great one even God and for this only end the whole World now a dayes applies it selfe to all studies because it desires not to dye in obscuritie and oblivion but to live and florish not in the lower degrees of estimation but in the chiefest seate of reputation and honour and with all to know all things that possible it can that so it may be made famous and thereby be glorified and delighted therein wherefore every day he works more and more to encrease his knowledge by which he may be more and more emminent greater and more like unto God that if it were possible to know more then God that with Lucifer be might be equall with him But that this ambition was the fall of Lucifer no man will consider but every man in those prosecutions disputations and studies for knowledg seeketh for life when indeed there is in them nothing but bitter death which both in Lucifer as also in Adam most manifestly doth appeare Truely it is a wonder that of this forbidden Tree of Death every man should be so much desirous to eate Gods will is that we know nothing but what he will know write and teach in us and that being void of all knowledge prudence wisdome in our selves wee become fooles wee remaine under him as fooles and babes but we busie our selves about the obtaining of many thousands of Sciences and treasure them up unto our selves as if in them our life consisted that like to God wee are ignorant of nothing and all flesh desireth rather to be like unto God then to Christ But on the contrary Gods will it is that before this bee we as Christ was be deprived of every thing that is our own and be wholy
in by the windowes that is by the sight of the eyes And this moved the Schoolemen to define sinne to be nothing that is no Creature of God Neither that death which it produced both which came into the world by the malice of Satan for the same cause sinne brought man back againe into his first nothing wherefore the Devill and Adam are run out of the sight of God He not acknowledging them for his owne neither having any commerce or societie with them So long as they doe not acknowledge their vanity therfore since man by sin is made nothing before God and yet will not acknowledge himselfe to be nothing but even then esteeme himselfe to be something it is necessary that so long he be expelled out of the presence of God till he be made nothing in his owne heart then doth God love his hand and creates him againe of nothing For God knows not how to create any thing of somthing but of nothing for that is his nature He that yet is not nothing hee cannot hope that he shall be something wherfore behave thy selfe to Godward quietly like a livelesse trunke as thou didst in thy creation Suffer God to doe Fast Feast and Rest and doe thou nothing at all least it happen that thou be taken with a desire of the forbidden tree or any other thing or esteeme thy selfe to be something according as the Law commands yet doth it not cease to curse and condemne us untill it hath brought us unto that spirituall Sabbath that so forsaken in our selves we doe no more worke to our new birth then wee did to our firsâ— creation but only suffer So that our actions are only to doe nothing and bee like a stone or trunke For this desire to be somthing is alwayes that which brings to nothing CHAPTER V. Wherfore the Tree of the Knovvledge of good evill was created then forbidden to Adam and now to us since God knew that both he we should eat death from the same and what is that tree Wherefore was Adam and Eve forbidden this Tree seeing to know Evilâ— is not Evill but to doe Evill If Adam had not knowne good in himselfe God had beene alone good in him and he had not arrogated any thing to himselfe but had beene as free from pride therein as a bird is in her song a horse in his strength a Cow in her milke and a Tree in its fruit but assoone as he knew good and considered it what it was as a bewtifull woman doth her bewtie he arrogated it to himselfe and therein became a theefe unto God This God foreknew and therefore was unwilling that Adam should know good that so he might walke in his innocencie and be ignorant both of Good and Evill For this cause God said unto him thou shalt not eate of it as if he had said beware least thou thy selfe desire to know what is Good or Evill but suffer me to be all things and be thou quiet in all things that that good which I am and desire to worke alone I may worke it in thee to my owne praise in thee according as I doe it in the rest of the Creatures And thus hee was forbidden to know Evill for God knew that assoone as Adam had smelt what Evill was it being of its owne nature like to him nothing would be pleasing to him and so it would come to passe that he would desire and affect the same Besides this another evill hath rises from hence that that evill which man according to his nature delighted to doe he denyeth that he hath done it Thus pulling his owne necke out of the yoake he accuseth the Serpent that it was done by it Againe the good which God doth in him and which is not his owne he falsly contendeth that he hath done it himselfe being deceived with a presumptious opinion of his owne power and strength this being the perverse estate and condition into which Adam did fall willingly therfore after that Adam was fallen into this perverse wisdome by eating of the forbidden Fruit and his own arrogancie he was so depraved that whatsoever hee thinkes speakes or doth is displeasing unto God and we all in him have eaten death and fallen into the same estate and condition but after we are raised from death and redeemed from it againe by means of Christ there is the same reason that the Tree of knowledge of Good Evill should be also forbidden us least afterward wee fall into the same estate againe wherefore the next way of comming unto God is this that now Adam with all his Children abstaine from this tree that is deny it vomitt up the Forbidden Fruit and repent himselfe of his wit as if it were foolishnes But when we eate of the Forbidden Fruit or Tree God forgives us but upon this condition that for ever afterward we fast and alwayes repent our selves of our first eating This tree is planted in every one of our hearts is nothing else but our own witt reason flesh knowledge and will to which as long as we adhere and are not made foolish in our selves and as little Children we can have no pardon from God wherefore we must either abstaine from this wisdome and become little Children againe or else want God and that prohibition of God eate not of the tree if thou doe thou shalt dye is the same with that saying of Christ except ye renounce your selves and hate your owne life ye cannot enter into the Kingdome of God For what was spoken unto Adam the same also was said unto us neither is our estate to be amended any other wayes then that of Adams the hearts of all are like to a vessel which smels of that matter and meate which Adam did first power into it Therefore as Adam declined from God and inclined towards himselfe and made himselfe as it were a wise deaster and admired himselfe like a little God the same is also fresh in every carnall heart Now therfor we must labour as it were to goe backward and that inbred witt of Adams is to be rejected esteemed of us no otherwise then foolishnes Here many things are to be unlearned and this we are to learne know that all our conceit opinion of wit is foolishnes and that which seperates us from God and hinders us so that we cannot attaine the true wisdome indeed and we must labour to be freed from the bondage of our selves And to this worke we should all apply our selves to wit quietly to rest our selves not in knowledge but in God known and so affect knowledge only as an Index which only shews and paints out God unto us and is of God That is the Fruit of the Tree of Life and not of the Tree of Knowledge of Good Evil to wit that we permit God to be know love have all things in us so that he speake worke know and love in us nothing but himselfe when
of the World good but in truth evill and wicked for what seems holy in the opinion of Men is prophane in the sight of God So there is a twofould knowledge and witt the one divine of the Tree of Life the other humane of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evill Humane wisdome is a Fruit of the Forbidden Tree and the roote thereof is the Seede of the Serpent and so is mortall These are all the arts which Naturall Men have found out if no without God yet surely not in God Breefly all witt and arts which God himselfe doth not plant in the hearts of Men by the power of his spirit and Word but acquired and gotten outwardly by the industry and helpe of men are death it selfe or rather a deaster if man doe any manner of way trust or hope in them for they doe make man no more acceptable to God or any way more righteous before him then doe his meate drinke or cloathes for all these things are out of man and a certaine superstition and worshipping of a false God if thou restest thy selfe in them thou mayst seem to thy selfe to be nearer unto God because thou knowes and understands many things being more wise and accute then some simple good man who cares only to know God But in very truth thou art no better then a foole who art ignorant of these For by how much thou art wiser then others hereby by so much thou art worse For since it is so that all the knowledge of this World and all the righteousnesse of the flesh is Devilish according as Sainct James giveth this and other more opprobrious names unto it It followes that by how much a man offends and growes higher and increaseth in this witt by so much is hee the worse and more Devilish so that a good and simple man who cares and desires to know nothing but God if he be compared with him in respect of him hee may seeme to be a Saint or God and one of those is worth a thousand of others as holy Scriptures doe testify one rightous man is more worth then a thousand wicked men The other wisdome which in the eyes of the world is foolishnes is that denying wisdome the fruit of the Tree of Life which whosoever hath he shall never die This springeth up in man out of the seed of the Woman and is given and taught of God alone being in its owne nature ful of love working divine solace and is called in the holy Scriptures the Knowledge of God because it knoweth nor acknowledgeth nothing but God This teacheth and professeth only God in the hearts of his servants it arrogateth nothing to it self but as it meerly knoweth God So it renders all it receives to him againe This renewes man justifies him enlives him and makes him like unto God but it is to be found in no mans heart but only in his who hath given a farewell to all Earthly pleasures arts will and witt because that since it is so that these two knowledges are so contrary one to another as fire is to water it cannot be that they should live together in one heart but the one will expell the other as the day the night and the night the day wherfore all fleshly knowledge will and witt must be quite unlearned and we must become little Children and Fooles againe according as the holy Scriptures testify unto us if we would have the true knowledge wisdome of God to dwell in our hearts For God requires a free and empty soule which he would fill with his knowledge and goodnesse and imbrace as a pure unspotted spouse possessed with no other love but his He would be the only Father of the Family and cannot endure Satan in his Kingdome to be neare unto him who is altogether light and void of all darknesse Now this wisdome being humane and a Fruit of the forbidden Tree so is it fleshly puffing up the possessor of it so as it makes him provide selfe-loving desirous of his owne profitt bould and wicked In a word it makes a man a Lucifer and so contrary and abominable to God that he cannot or will not flow into his soule And indeed nothing so much hurts man as his owne knowledge witt and righteousnes c. which makes the word of the everliving God to appeare foolishnes and God himselfe to seeme Satan unto him Therefore as it hath already beene said of witt and knowledge the same may be said of the will of God and man The one cannot endure the other No more then the spirit can endure the flâ—sh life death fire water Therefore the wisdome of God aymes at the utter destruction of Adams life nature will and wisdome labouring to plucke us from the duggs of humane wit by which we are nourished We must therefore learne to forgett and unlearne whatsoever Adam knew or doth know wils loves c. and all things must be made a new in Christ this is the wisdome of God Now let us see how farre we are from this if a man have but onely a thought to learne his way presently he thinkes it is well with him and without any repentance he doth sweetly delite himselfe in his owne knowledge art and will and all men will be good Christians and if God will will compose whole bookes and volumes of Christ which they neither doe nor have knowne and by this meanes they doe so wearily imploy and vex their minds through Satans motion with so many questions arts and idle disputations that scarcely can they have so much time as to thinke of the knowledge of God Whereas the true knowledge of God is not learned by prying into running over reading or hearing a company of doubtfull questions as the 1. Chapt. of the German Theologie Taulerus in many places elegantly doth teach but by patient and obedient remaining hearkening and attending to that which God doth work in us For he that would be divinely wise and learne the knowledge of God its needfull that hee heare and learn the same from God himselfe he having detained it to himselfe so that it can by no meanes be taught of man For as humane arts and sciences proceede from men and is their worke so divine science is from God and is the worke of his onely word For as Iohn Stapitius saith in a little booke of the love of God that those things that cannot be knowne but by sence and experience neither can they be taught by or learned from others As for Example No man can teach another to see heare tast and touch in like manner and much lesse can any man teach another to beleeve love hope repent so that divine truth and Theologie may rather be said to be experience then Arts no man can learne of himself the knowledge of God love of God Faith and such like because the naturall man cannot perceive things divine nay the Letter of the Scriptures is not able to doe
images of God not according to his Word as he doth teach figure and forme it to us but according to our own opinion and selfe conceit Againe what other thing is sinne then our owne will witt and counsell sowne unto us with the Seeds of the Serpent Consider the institutions practice and Life of all Mankind when and how you will you shall finde it nothing else then humane wisdome here every man would be his owne God guide governe teach move revenge defend excuse and enrich himselfe and every man sets his owne braine will and reason in the place of his God so that sinne the fall of Adam is nothing else but the humane affectation of the art reason knowledge of the flesh and therfore deservedly is tearmed foolishnesse and enmity deadly and Devilish All men ought with Christ to become nothing and with a continuall decrease depression of soule become asses fools children but now it is quite contrary every man labours that he may be wise great illustrious and mightie so many arts and sciences are learned of men that they may be great famous and excellent in the eyes of the world and may obtaine titles of honour names of respect Hence it is that yong men are inflamed with a desire of glory labour not only to be famous in Schooles but to be admired in the pulpitt also and for that end they seeke out learned Tutors who may make them expert quick and acute in all kind of Literall deceits and exercises of arts By which it is as cleare as the Sunne that the whole world is contrary and enmity to God Here every man kissing his owne hand and adoring his owne witt esteeming it to be his light his God Even it that was the only sinne of Adam and it from whence other sinnes came have their originall as Job confesseth Job 33. 31. For to admire worship himselfe and to be led by his own will In a word to stand on his own bottom to desire to be something of himselfe without God is that one mortall sinne which is the fountaine of al other for the lusts of the flesh and the witt thereof is very dead And man like a Logg is no better then dead but while he doth nothing knowes desires nothing but keeping a holy Sabbath or rest dyes wholy unto himselfe and being void of will or witt resignes himselfe over unto God and permits him to know and doe in him what when and how he will And now the whole world lyes overwhelmed with this sinne in so much that it doth no other but adore the worke of its owne hand that is its owne invention counsels comments and wisdome To this purpose all things are directed intented and wrested yea the very Scriptures themselves the word of God that it may be agreable to our corrupt reason and not hinder the course of our carnall and fleshly witt and knowledge but all these things must bee unlearned and cast away if we will see God And therefore the Scriptures urge so often times that wee should become Fooles little Children and purge ourselves with the Fruit of the Tree of Life that we may vomit up that poysonfull witt and knowledge of the Forbidden Fruit CHAPTER IX That the Tree of the knovvledge of Good and Evill planted in the heart of Adam is the Seed word and spirit of the Serpent and that great Dâ—â—aster Antichrist sinne death the Devill that Beast which is mentioned in Daniell and the Apocalips which is the greatest and commonest Idolatry 1. What is that Beast of which Daniell writeth which speaketh against the highest and slayeth the Saints of God 2. What is that Serpent who deceived Adam Eva 3. What is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evill 4. What is that impudent King and Antichrist of whom Daniell and Paul speaketh 1 Thes. 2 5. What is that many headed Monster mentioned in the Apocalyps whom the whole World doth worship 6. What is sinne What death What the Devill I answer it is every mans owne carnall wit and reason righteousnesse and the like For which cause Paul calleth it death enmity foolishnesse unto God and Saint Iames calls it earthly humane and devilish because these three are one For whatsoever is humane is worldly Devilish and whatsoever is Devilish is Earthly For the Devill and Man Adam and the Serpent are sworne Brethren yea both one For the Serpent hath so shed his wisdome and fained righteousnesse into the heart of Adam that the Seed of the Serpent and his word are incorporated and made man so that now the same thing may be said of both And even as those that are borne of God and in whom the Word of God is incorporated are called God or one spirit with God So all men borne of flesh and blood before they be regenerate planted into Christ may be called Devils and so whatsoever is Earthly may be said to be Devilish and whatsoever is Devilish may be said to be Earthly Againe what is the Fall of Adam but only the wisdome of the Serpent and Fruit of the forbidden Tree What is that old Dragon who ascends out of hel and with his tayle drawes a great part of the Starres of Heaven after him But onely the wisdome of the Flesh which doth extoll it selfe against God and desires to become a God unto it selfe What are the thoughts of the Flesh What is sinne what pride But the wisdome and Fruit of the Forbidden Tree What are the Decrees of Men The workes of reason against God Mens inventions knowledge and bookes But onely the are of the Devill Eaten of the Tree What is all the worship of Images and all false Religions as of Jewes Turkes infidels and all false Christians What are all Sacraments Assemblies and Ceremonies But an apple of this Forbidden Tree which bearing a shew to be of the Tree of Life offers unto Men pleasant Fruit to his eye that is reason which whosoever eates he shall finde to be deadly No man can fully expresse that idolatry with which all the corners of the world and hearts of men are stuffed up and who is it that doth not adore himselfe and sayes to his hand wisdome and reason his art and his knowledge thou art my God in thee I trust in thee J hope Indeed men say not this with their mouth but surely in their lives workes and hearts they plainly testifie as much Hence all men deny that there is a God and testify the same by their works For if they thinke there is a God wherfore doe they not resigne vengeance unto him Wherefore are they so doubtfully distracted Wherefore doe they forge such wicked deceits to deceive one another Wherefore doe they so warre upon one another whether with right or injustice it matters not and contend together for mine and thine Why doe they lye cogg and flatter one another Wherefore doe they labour night and
day to gett and heape up riches Wherfore are they so forgetfull of the word of God and so little esteeme his precepts and commandements But that they thinke God cares not for them or that he cannot or will not revenge them therefore it is necessary that they helpe and revenge themselves or that they thinke that while to long to wait and expect the helpe of God before that he take vengeance and punishment they themselves shall be overthrowen And because they thinke that nothing but povertie comes upon them if they have any commerce and communion with the truth of God therefore it is necessary that they helpe themselves and labour for their living by lying cogging deceiving and usury and the like this makes a man rich and honourable As for the word of God that is but a late helpe and deficient in adversitie it stands us in hand therefore to adore our selves speake bigge swelling words elevate our selves as much as we can VVho but my selfe is God saith the world in the course of her Life CHAPTER X. An ansvver to certaine obiections that we ought to be wise and not fooles and how we ought to be wise and how foolish But you wil say that the learned shall shine as the Starres or Sunne in Heaven and in a thousand places wee are commanded to apply our hearts unto wisdome as in the Proverbs and Eccles. wise men are commended To which I answer that it is rightly spoken if it be rightly understood to wit of the tree divine heavenly knowledge which God himselfe doth worke teach in those that are poore in spirit I say it is understood of the wisdome of the tree of life and not of the deadly and foolish wisdome of the Flesh which is the knowledge of good and evill and the Scriptures will have us to acknowledge our folly and to be made fooles in our owne judgement and indeed we are so but we would not be accounted so and forget all things wherby we may become truely wise and receive the influence of divine knowledge into our soules For we are all foolish wicked and we will not see and perceive it nor beleeve it and therfore God would have us by confessing our folly in true simplicity to give a farewell unto it by submitting our selves over unto God be made truely wise and learned by him Hereupon it is that Solomon calls them fooles whom Paul calls wise prudent Solomon calls them what they are indeed in the sight of God but Paul calls them what they seeme to be in their own eyes and in the sight of men We must unlearne and therein strive to be fooles in that wherin we learne and strive to be wise in But as it is given us of God so it can be learned from none but God and as the love of God shed abroad in our hearts begets a mutuall love of him againe Even so Gods knowing of us begets in us a knowledge of him as Paul witnesseth to the Gal after that ye knew God or rather are knowne of him As also to the Phill. I desire to know as I am knowne And also 1. Ioh. 3. He first loved us Also in another place if any man love God he is borne of God Out of all these places I gather that God is never knowne loved sought or found of us untill we be knowne loved sought and found of God as Christ saith to the Pharises the Kingdome of God is in you and Paul to the Athenians Hee is not farr off from every one of us for in him we live move have our being But this is most miserable and lamentable that those who professe themselves to know God know him not as they ought as Paul testifies of the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him And againe if any man seeme to know any thing he knoweth nothing as he ought VVe should know this that by nature we know nothing but are altogether blind dead and foolish in spirituall things and this knowledge should make us nothing foolish and Children in our owne eyes But wee desire to know and seeme wise whereby it comes to passe that we know not how or for what end we ought to learne knowledge for wisdome is not given unto us for this purpose that thereby being puffed with pride we extoll our selves and become something in the eyes of the world but on the contrary to make us nothing This is the knowledge of God that makes us Fooles and Children to our selves and the world it doth not puffe us up making us seeme wise in our own opinion Noe for that is the knowledge of the Serpent both most devilish and deadly Thus you see that the whole world knowes not what how and for what end they should desire to know but alwayes strives against God in their knowledge and know not of what things they ought to be ignorant off but cheifly are desirous to know those things they ought to be ignorant off and so by their owne art and knowledge make themselves Fooles Breefly that which they doe know and doe desire to know that they should learne to unknow and what they resist to know that they should learn to know otherwise God will never acknowledge them for his owne because God hath determined never to acknowledge crowne or reward any thing in us but his owns guifts and workes that is never to love or accept any thing in us but himselfe For he alone is the Light Life the way and the truth so that whosoever is not in him or he in them they alwayes wander in the pathes of errour and shadow of death Now every man knows what it is to walk in darknes The walls of Ierusalem were not to be opened before the Sunne did rise even so should no man intend to goe forth before the Sonne of righteousnesse arose in his heart since all things depends upon him and bee should be our Teacher and Example by whose instruction we should learne and by whose Example wee should walke as the Scriptures testify It is an easie thing to say that the world is in darknesse and uncapable of the spirit of truth but no man will either acknowledge or beleeve himselfe to be the world or that the whole world to God is all Fleshe as the Sonnes of Adam all were naturall men with the universall righteousnesse reason and wisdome therein but by the world men thinke to be understood the Turkes Gentles Heathens and I know not what people of the farthest parts of the world attributing so much to arts tongues Scriptures which they almost preferre above the spirit and if a man doe reade and have a Bible they thinke it enough and that by which they may easily obtaine the Holy Ghost not considering that either the Holy Ghost must bee their guide and enlighten them in the knowledge of the word or otherwise it is but a dead Letter
and is so farre from bringing Life with it that it mortifies kills the Reader as Paul implies where he sayth the spirit quickens and not the Letter The Iewes in auncient times and so men in these dayes doe boast themselves of the word of God are strongly perswaded that out of it they are able to gather Life to their soules but they are farre deceived Wherefore Christ sayes In whom thinke ye to have Life As for the Scriptures his testimony of them is this that they are them which testify of him Therefore all arts and knowledges are no wayes the cause of Life but the knowledge of Life to know him in and with God wicked nature hath alwayes a perverse end proposed to it selfe and therefore it desires to know all things not for God but for its owne sake therefore all things are to the flesh as it is its self vaine and perverse if the learning of so many arts had beene necessary to salvation God had created and taught them in the beginning Neither would bee have suffered that men should so long have wanted that without which they were not able to attaine to Life but because they were formed out by men and still are found out by them though no man be any whitt the more unhappie if so be he never know any thing of them Yea hee were more happie if he could unlearne them though with greater difficulty then he learned them you may by the Tree conjecture what the Fruit is what humane arts and sciences are to witt the Fruit of the forbidden Tree How then can they conduce any thing unto Life being the only precepts in ventions of men Therefore very well in praise of that word of God doth Cornelius Agrippa call all arts and actions of men meere ignorant fables and foolishnes in his Booke de vanitate Scientiarum The beginning and end whereof wee have putt in this Booke that wee may not seeme alone with Ernestinus to contemne arts and praise folly Wherefore if thou leane unto arts please and boast thy selfe in them having any hope or accounting thy selfe any thing better for them they will prove death unto thee for they doe no more conduce to thy happines then garments time place or such like circumstances But as they are the inventions of the flesh so doe they produce no other thing in thee then the workes and Fruits of the flesh to witt selfe-love pride of spirit contempt disdaine security such like And this is verified by experience for no men are more perverse craftie covetous then these wordly wise and learned men bee being men drowned in their owne selfe-love esteemed of themselves worthy to be beloved and reverenced of all full of rash judgement lovers of all pleasures and so full of all vices that the whole world gives creditt to no men lesse speakes worse of no men more being full of taunting reproaching proverbs against them such as these the better learned the worser mannered the better Scoller the worser Christian No man scapes scotfree out of the clawes of a preist He that wil have an honest house must keepe it free from Preists Apes Doves A monk dare doe as much as he dare thinke These such like proverbs are common in every mans mouth which arise from this that they are so swollen with the poyson of the fruit of the forbidden tree so puft up with the false opinion of their owne wisdome and righteousnesse that no rich man is more insolent by reason of his riches then these perverse wise men are by reason of their arts knowledge So that it is as easie to remove Cyrus out of his Kingdome as one of these wise men out of his opinion and tenent And truely it cannot be but by how much a man is more wise in the art of the forbidden tree by so much hee is more miserable as Christ witnesseth in the gospell that the multitude of their arts and knowledge is an impediment why they come not into the Kingdome of God and publicans and harlots enter in before them Therfore these men are to perish with their arts to depart empty and so farr is any of them from leaving his art wisdome knowledge righteousnesse that he esteemeth these to be the good and riches of the soule which neither theevs can steale nor moathes corrupt when in very deed they are nothing but the inventions of Satan fruits of the forbidden tree and the death of the soule For the life of the soule is the true knowledge of God which himselfe doth work teach in us to wit the fruit of the Tree of life whose fruit is that it makes a man gentle loving humble lowly meeke c. By this let a man examine himselfe with what witt and righteouseesse hee is endued For if day by day he be lesse in his own eyes and in the judgement of the world if he seeme still more foolish in himselfe and a Child in his owne thoughts his knowledge is divine the Seede of the VVoman a Fruit of the Tree of Life but if hee finde contrary effects in himselfe then is all his wisdome Devilish the Seede of the Serpent and Fruit of the Forbidden Tree and so the death of the soule CHAP. XI Of the Tree of Life vvhat it is why Adam was excluded from it and not permitted to eate thereof I also grant thus much that this Tree was visible in Paradise and had this divine vertue bestowed upon it that whosoever eate thereof should live for ever But whereas Adam before had eaten of the Forbidden Tree and had incurred death therefore he should not eate of this Tree of Life least otherwise he should have lived for ever and in a word God should have beene false in his word which was that he should dye the death but God who is Life it selfe would not for ever be angrie with his Creature but was unwilling that man should for ever live in that misery into which he had cast himselfe and therefore drove him out of Paradise and afterwards shewed him the way by which he should returne into Paradise againe and eating of this Tree live for ever and then gaurded the Tree of Life with a Cherub and a flamming sword least man in his exile should have presumed to have come to this Tree and have eaten thereof The will and counsell of God was that it was better that man should dye in the flesh and so putt of this miserable life and change it for a better then live in it for ever Therefore God who cannot nor will not hate us delt every way most mercifull with us if so bee we would truely consider of it Now doe J think that the same also happened in the true Paradise of Adās heart the Tree of the Knowledge of Good Evill is the Seed Knowledge and wisdome of the Serpent And the tree of Life is the Seed of the Woman and the wisdome of
the contrarie should be fall in us Therefore they are much deceived who thinke that nothing is the word of God but what altogether differeth from our minds and therefore compell themselves only to beleeve those things which in their inward man they can perceive feel comprehend to be far wanting in them and contrary to them Indeed the word of God invadeth our hearts with an exceeding force because it is spirit our hearts are flesh but where the beleeving heart addicts it selfe to the worship of God the word is soone incorporated in us and our heart made one with it is converted into spirit so as now the truth it feeleth yea and what more it witnesseth that to be true which the spirit doth speake unto it and is so bound that it necessarily must assent unto it Neither doth it so compell or force it selfe to beleeve but it is so compelled that it cannot but beleeve and would a thousand times make a losse of its body rather then beleeve otherwise So again the mind cannot be beleeved and as long as the minde doth not assent it is a sure argument that as yet is hath not comprehended nor as yet is the word incorporated in thee nor the Sonne of God borne For he who comprehendeth the word as he is comprehended feeleth the same yea testifieth knoweth that the same is true Wherefore compare or examine all learning with the testimony of the spirit For if thou art a beleever God dwelleth in thee and thou art sealed with his word and Spirit but if thou dost not beleeve this examinatiō nothing belongeth unto thee For it is spoken to the beleeving Thessalonians try the Spirits If in a wicked man the spirit were to be compared with his heart and with the letters he could never rightly judge how he doth understand them because hee taketh that to be the word of God whatsoever pleaseth his wicked and perverse heart and eyes On the contrary it is commanded to the Saints that they try and prove all Spirits and Doctrines by the word of God which divinely taught they have approved in their soules not to the wicked who are unfitt to every good work and whose judgement God doth not approve off But if they say they are to be brought to the touch-stone of the word the holy Scriptures J willingly grant the same so that you understand that of the minde of the Scriptures which is the onely word of God which also onely those who are of God doe understand but if the Doctrine and Spirit be compared with the Letter of the Scriptures it will be compared diversly every one according to his owne understanding in which they are deceived neither is this the true trial as more cleare then Light wee may see it Since all desire the Letter to be this judge and thinke them of themselves to be the same Therfore that which hath not the examination I speake off which I but now spake off is as easily confuted as it is admitted as Gregory sayth Here are casheered all the arts explanations orations and comments of men which are boughes and fruits of the forbidden Tree in the Paradise of this World from which as yet all men doe eate death and yet neverthelesse with Adam and Eva thinke themselves to eate life and hope to be Gods Therefore all mens arts are no other then a plant of the Devill who thinketh by this meanes to change men into Gods from hence promiseth life immortality when neverthelesse death is before their eyes so soone as they have eaten of this fruit Now that Sentence standeth firme Every plant that my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be cutt downe Therefore all those Arts must againe in their original be brought to nothing That J confesse is the only Scope of the holy scripturs which is the word of God knowne of them who are of God But that the literall and grammaticall sence is this I doe not think which wicked men doe understand and also follow and yet by Christ are denyed to understand the Scriptures but as they expound themselves in the Godly out of the Doctrine of the Holy Ghost And this meaning cannot be comprehended in open Commentaries and rules but the Holy Ghost will have this book mistery reserved to himself neither wil he have it imprinted but will shew teach open to all according to the measure of every mans faith as much as is necessarie neither will he have it so committed that one may teach another and so incroch upon the priviledge of God but will teach it himselfe that all and every one of us may be divinely taught and may glory that wee have learned the Word of God from God and not from men with pleasant docility yet so as men ought and every one may one to another give that testimony which hee hath learned from God So it commeth to passe that with Christ and his Apostles we are witnesses of the Word not Ministers of the Spirit For who hath commaunded the Wind but onely the Master of the Winde To this belongs that which Job Jeremie and Esayas say that we shall all be taught of God so as it shall not be necessary for us to be taught of any other but that so its true as the holie vnction shall teach us And whereas God is onely true and all men are lyars it cannot be but it must be a lye and errour whatsoever commeth not from God and that cannot come from God which all wicked know and understand Since they are not of God but are seperated from him by the partition wall of sinne Now what commeth not from God is sinne and not good and what shineth not from his Light is altogether darknesse although it seeme to be Light and wisdome as Esay upbraideth the Caldean Philosophers their owne witt hath deceived them and they were wearied with the multitude of their owne inventions c. God speaketh this against all arts except the art of God formed in us by his word which exhibits unto us nothing to be meditated upon and vewed in the Light but onely God to know and understand God because that word is verily God without any distinction of nature there as God cannot be defined described or divided but if we speake properly God is all in all things and yet nothing of all these things which can be felt conceived or comprehended by sence reason or understanding spoken written or heard so is the Word of God infinite infallible incomprehensible eternall by it selfe existing and farre exceeding all the writings and words of men because it as God cannot properly be written read or spoken Since it is God and was before writing or man was and shal be when man is deceased writing are ceased Therefore all things are subiect unto vanity For which cause the nature of all things are called vaine and vast by reason of the accident of vanity although in it selfe it be good onely the
word of God which in it selfe is perpetuall and semperternall can neither be written in Letters nor expressed in word endureth for ever Hence it comes to passe that whatsoever is spoken or written of it as that which is not of God himselfe remaines but as a shadow a figure and testimony thereof and is not properly God and his word Now no man can speake or utter this word therefore it is necessary that it speake it selfe in an obedient and willing heart and for this cause it is required of every man that hee submitt himselfe under the potent hand of God void of his owne will free and cleare from his owne heart and subordinate to the will of God that God or his word may speake teach seeke love finde acknowledge beseech hear praise honour feare and adore it selfe This alone is the art of God which he himselfe doth teach in us without this all other arts are nothing For besides this to know all things is to be ignorant of all things All arts without this art is vanity which yet is better conceived in heart then it can be uttered in word yea it cannot be expressed or declared in worde therefore no man can teach the same to an other but it is to be taught and manifested by God to the teaching of which whosoever are sent they are not Doctors or Masters but onely witnesses of that word which by the vertue of God is before in our hearts Therefore it hath many names which oftentimes are used one for an other so that as sometimes the Father sometime the Sonne and sometimes the Holy Ghost is called the Fountaine of Life or Truth So the word of God is sometimes called the Seed of God sometimes his soule sometimes his soonn sometime his arme sometimes his hand sometime his right hand sometime his Law sometime his will sometime his image sometime his inspiration And hither may be referred all the names which the Scriptures give to the Father Sonne and Holie Ghost and the word of God which are all one and referred unto one serve to the signification of the same thing And this Word which in the New Covenant is called Christ is the essence of all things which are and all things are created by it and also are preserved nourished and sustained by it and in it So that all things have their beeing rather in the Word then in themselves And if God should withdraw this word to himselfe as was the estate of them before the beginning of the world while yet the world was not made of him so should all things necessarily in the same moment be turned to nothing againe Therefore doth God even to this day preach this word unto us and yet it is ineffable as Taulerus saith though in him all things have their essence and being in from God Wherefore to committ and consecrate a mans selfe to this living word of God is the onely life eternall and that true one art and part of Mary which cannot be taken from her all other arts are vaine and must perish with the inventors and professors only to know God obey his word which the Scriptures calls to eate Christ to beleeve in him to putt on the new man to adhere unto God to be born a new to live to the spirit to heare and receive the word of God to be baptized to be ingrafted into Christ to receive Christ and many other tearmes is not onely of it selfe immortal but preserveth all from death who are indued with the same No man can consume this bread but it preserves him the eater thereof from eternall death and hunger unto eternall life This treasure can no theefe take away no rust or moath corrupt In a word this eternall word is to a Christian all things in adversitie a Sword Weapon against all dangers meate to him that starves cloathing to the cold for want of divine grace and a sure sanctuary to every fugitive But he that knoweth all things and is ignorant of this knoweth nothing even as hee who knoweth and hath all things and wanteth God possesseth nothing and if it could be that any man could know all arts which all men at any time have knowne and understood if he were a Pandora or a Hippias knowing all things yet were he not therefore any whitt better in the sight of God yea J dare say he should be so much the worse by how much he had glutted himselfe of the tree of knowledge eaten death for the more poyson is received the speedier will the destruction be And even as this was the fall death of Adā viz. to become a god to arrogate to be something in himselfe to know J will not say to be ignorant of nothing That fal cannot be forgiven or repaired unlesse thou vomitt up all that Diabolicall art and curious knowledge and besides eate of the Tree of Life which shall worke in thee an utter forgetfulnesse of all those arts and make thee a Childe a Foole and reduce thee to innocencie under God that at length thou mayst know that which God would know in thee so he himselfe should teach and suggest in thee by his word according as it is said otherwise all things are unprofitable yea though a man know all things they are not onely unprofitable but also a hinderance to this art of God He that is ignorant of this in vaine hath he learned knowne all things else besides In the word of God alone which proceedeth out of the mouth of god is seated the rule of all things the Scope Doctrine art life and truth teaching what is to be done what not to be done what to bee spoken what not to be spoken whether to enter from whence to depart and come out All other arts they be variable whatsoever they be to time fortune vanitie death and oblivion and not onely these arts but also the Letters bookes formes masters tongues which we use doe perish and others after them which succeed in their places so that nothing is cōstant of long continuance in the earth but all things according to their visible nature are frayle mutable and momentary How often are the tongues themselves changed how often the formes being removed doe new succeed in their place as I have said before Orthography is not ever like it selfe and the same with all people in all times yea the true pronounciation of the Latin tongue as Cornelius Agrippa in his booke called De vanitate scientiarum formerly alleadged by us is perished and no where extant Moreover the auncient Letters of the Hebrews are gone so that there is no memorie left thereof but onely those which Esdras in their place invented Adde moreover that the tongue is made verie lame by the Caldeans which also hath been incident to perish of other tongues So that no man there is who can finde out their auncient forme and dialects Besides this new words doe allwayes creepe in the
againe nothing so great that can receive or circumscribe God As nothing is so little but God is lesse and nothing so great but God is greater beyond without below above all Creatures So also is his divine word As the free almightie eternall immutable omniscient incomprehensible invisible and unconceivable God is the beeing of all things So as as all things consist rather in him then in and by themselves as Taulerus and the Germain Theologie in a 1000 places doe avouch and is none of these things which can be seene or comprehended by sence or expressed by word So his divine word is free in all and beyond all bound unto nothing neither tyed to the prison or letters or cover of the Letter concluded included and so tyed unto it that otherwise it is no where even as the following Position and Sentence of a Learned man divinely instructed doe show As the word is covered and hidden by the Letter so it is opened and revealed by the spirit Hence it commeth to passe that the Letters be as a closed or sealed Booke so as the dark Letter except it be opened doth slay but the Spirit doth quicken and the Letters are as a certaine Image void of Life and Spirit that is a printed and dead expression of the Spirit therefore they want Life except the soule of the spirit be present and doe erre Therefore the Letters cannot be the word of God Since the word is farre otherwise an other thing then the letters For it is a spirit truth life but the letters are cōtrary flesh the letter death yea the letters if they want the Light of the word are an offence if they want the soule of the spirit are a stumbling block Therfore the Letters are an otherwise thing then the word that is they are not the Sword of the Spirit but a sheath For as the womb of the virgin conceived the word so the Letters For the word is clothed both with flesh with the Letters that Seede of Abrahem layeth hould of the Scriptures or Letters for they are both one and againe is apprehended by them but the spirit is not apprehended in the flesh or Letter of the Scriptures The cause thereof is this the flesh or Letter cannot containe conceive or comprehend the Majestie of the word yet even as it was so in the flesh that the Majestie thereof did not appeare so it is in the Letter that true neither to all or to any one that reads is it obvious and apparent This is witnessed by all Learned men in the meere Letter since the world began who neither could know finde or comprehend Christ in the flesh nor the word in the Letter which they should have done if Christ in the flesh or under the miserie of the flesh had beene known unto all not hidden but manifested and the Letter had beene not the covering mysterie but the true living and enlightning word of God it selfe As therefore the flesh was not the word but the cover thereof and a certaine great mysterie So the Letters are not the word properly but the shell the barke and cover thereof The word was made fleshly assumption not mixture and so the same word is made Letters yet not so as the same can be said of the Letters as of the word but as in a certaine Seale Therfore so farre are the Letters from being the word of God that they onely be the figure and barke thereof For the word is not that which is spoken by the Letter but that which is expounded by the Holy Ghost and understood onely of the Faithfull Therefore the Letters doe paint out shadow out and after a certaine manner set forth unto us the word and expresse something but are not the word although they be spoken and expressed For the word did not assume the flesh that it is not out of the flesh So it did not so fall into the Letter that it is not out of the Letter For there was the word when there was no Letters and the same will remaine after the Letters are perished Therefore as the word was never included and circumscribed in the flesh neither is it in the Letters For so it was in the bodie as it never yet left heaven and in the same manner it is so in the Letter as yet it is every where Therefore the word is in the Letter altogether but not all Hereupon we see that the letters have been exercised with a continuall encrease and addition Therefore the Letters are the Image of the word and not the word it selfe And if they be they are altogether a written and a dead not a living word For there is a twofould word one that quickneth viz. the Spirit another the Letter which is said to kill and slay The living word is that which inwardly teacheth and maketh us to fructifie the dead word is that which in the Flesh and Letter is proposed unto us The living word is a true Light which enlightneth all men and therefore a regenerating spirit because it reneweth all things In a word it is the power and might of God which giveth unto us that knowledge sence soule and Life which is from God A certaine brightnesse of the face of God which enlightneth us from above imprints in us the unction of the Holy Ghost by which it teacheth and instructeth us in all things But the dead word are the Letters that sealed booke and dead Letter sence and will which is the word of the flesh not of the Spirit of God The true and living word is that which God begetteth in us and the spirit of God effecteth in us But the dead and Litterall word is that which the Letters show unto us and men propound Therefore he doth not alwayes want the word who hath not the Letters For he may have the interior who wants the exterior word to witt the Law of God written in our hearts Hence it comes to passe that no man hath absolute neede to be taught of an other or to admonish his brother concerning the knowledge of God For al these shall know from the least to the greatest and are all the Disciples of Christ divinely taught This writing is not printed with inke and paper but written with the finger of God in the tables of our hearts This is the Doctrine of the truth and the inspiration of the Spirit to wit the propheticall breathing the inspiration of the Spirit and the true art of God Moreover hee may have the living word of God who wants the dead of the Letter and the thing it selfe who wants the signe that is the Life of the word though he wants the dead Letter For two things are cheifly to be considered in the word The first is the disposition and nature of the word which is a certaine Light intended for the enlightning of men The other is the action of it that is the spirit which giveth action and operation to
the word For the word hath not onely a knowledge but also a certaine action it is not onely a Light and splendor in us given from above but also Life The interior word containeth both of these which sometimes is called the Kingdome of God sometimes the Spirit sometimes Christ dwelling in us For it is not onely a Light way and guide but also Spirit truth and Life that is which not onely teacheth man that he may understand but also moves him that hee workes But the exterior word is farre from this priviledge and hath farr a different nature For it is nothing else but a certaine forme figure of the interior J will not say a shadow Therefore the interior words as it is the onely lively so it is the onely true word as being the truth and life But on the contrary the exterior is nothing but a killing Letter and a deceitfull figure of the word Hence it ariseth the Letter as Christ becomes a certaine snare to wicked men a stone of offence darkenesse not Light death and not Life Therefore it is necessarie that beside the exterior word the interior be sought after and knowne Since the exterior deceiveth a man with its shape is death and darknesse unlesse the Light Life of the spirit bee together present with it Moreover the exterior suffereth a man to be sluggously and idle except the power of the interiour bee present with it Therefore the interiour word may be without the exterior as the exteriour without the interior Therfore it doth not necessarily follow that a man hath the word of God because he pretends and hath the letter as on the other side it followeth not that he who wāteth the exterior word or letter wāteth also the interior true and heavenly word which is God himselfe For he doth not alwayes want the word who hath not the Letter For the Letters doth onely give a testimony of the word so farre are they from being the word it selfe yea they are scarce the Image of the living word Much lesse are they it which neither can be written nor expressed by words both which is incident to the Letters Therefore the Letters are farre from being the word of God yea all the word though sometimes they bee called the word of God as the image and picture of a man is called sometimes by his name even as God is sometimes called man the word flesh not that God is man or the word or spirit is made flesh by imitation appellattion and permixion So as what is said of one may be verified of the other or so as God cease to be God and to be truely changed into man as that water in Cana Galilee was changed into wine Or so as the word is so flesh as not now it is not the spirit or the word but flesh in no wise The word is not so in the Letter that they be one and the selfe same thing or so as the word should have changed it selfe into the Letter and yet well and rightly the Letters are called the Word of God so as God is called Man and the Word flesh although to speake properly neither is the word of God chāged into Letters nor God into Man nor the word into flesh Therefore both these may be true the Letters are the word of God and the Letters are not the word of God Now although the Letters are sometimes in some respect the word of God yet truely are they not the sole nor altogether nor all the Word of God yea if we speak properly they are not the word of God which either can be spoken or written and that the Letters are not the sole word of God may be made knowne by this That many things besides the Scriptures are revealed inspired unto many and many things are spoken and written by them which are not contained openly in the letters yea which somtimes are contrarie to the dead Letters The Prophets Moyses Christ and his Appostles whose words seeme to be contrary to the Prophets what they have written of the Temple the Sacrifice Circumcision and of the vision of God Moreover the true word of God hath beene from all eternitie yea even before any scripture was as I have said before it will be hereafter whē the scriptures are perished Therefore the word is improperly in the Letter and flesh and therefore it is improperly called flesh or the Letter For my word saith Christ is Spirit and Life Therefore the word cannot be that word which is flesh or dead letter wherfore though the word truely and indeed is onely in spirit as in which it onely liveth yet it is also in the flesh but yet weake if there it bee alone without the Spirit and Life It is also in the Letter but altogether dead unlesse the Spirit doe quicken it as the soule doth the bodie and it is in both and yet not truely and if truely yet not all and onely and lively Now although the word is in the Spirit lively and true yet after a more peculiar excellent manner it is in the flesh then in the Letter although the Spirit be present with the Letter and lend a hand it teacheth nothing but when the spirit dwelleth with the flesh it not onely teacheth but also maketh alive and bursteth out into workes So the letter of the Law brings men to no perfection although it be the word of God as also the Scriptures spoken by the mouth of God and written by his finger For the word of the Law did teach the knowledge of the precept but did not give man a will and strength to fulfill the same but the word which is made flesh giveth life to beleevers Hence it commeth to passe that the flesh inspired with the word and spirit of God wills and doth keepe the Commandement of God Therefore the word in the flesh doth onely give an Example of life when on the contrarie it leaveth in the letter all things idle and sleepie But in the Spirit it truely stirrs up the heart and affections towards the Law for the Spirit is the life and soule of the word and therefore the word it selfe but the flesh is a certaine imitation of the word the letters a certaine printed picture and Copie of the word Wherefore the written word is not the true word but a certaine image thereof yea the Scriptures pronounced in words are not the true word of God but onely a testimony thereof For the Scriptures had beginning in time by occasion but the word was from all eternitie Adde to which the Scriptures doe lead men into errour except the interpreter viz. the Spirit be present And they are a sealed booke and a perplexed Laborinth unlesse the Spirit be present as the Treede of Thesius to guide us and as the Key of David to open unto us Hence it comes to passe that many men seeing see not and hearing heare not and as who know the Scriptures
and yet neither know nor understand Therefore we confesse that the letters are a certaine image and figure of the word yet they are not truely the very word because they are but onely an image figure thereof This is the reason wherefore we admitt no other word but what is answerable to this Image or Example of the Scriptures and to the true and spirituall sence Therefore the Scriptures are as the Index or golden Scales of the word so they be understood not according to the dead letter but according to the minde of Christ and will of the Spirit Therefore we reject not what is agreable to the true meaning of the Scriptures so we doe not deny what is not contrary unto them For whosoever is not against us is of us Therefore we deny not the exterior word written or spoken so doe we confirme the interior or living so it is wee grant the maistery and unction of the Spirit and doe not deny the guift of Prophecye and interpretation of the Scriptures For the word hath something to come and something obscure difficult to the flesh That which is to come the Spirit taketh it of the word and declareth it unto us that which is obscure hard to be understood it dayly teacheth unto us and leadeth us into all truth Therefore under the name of the word of God the Letters are not onely understood but all prophecies visions dreames unctions inward speakings Doctrins of the Spirit revelations if they be frō God also whatsoever holie men by the instinct of the spirit have either spoken or done Therefore no man must adhere peremptorily to the onely letter where the Holy Ghost is there is libertie and the free word is bound to none Moreover the Holy Ghost suffereth no rule or limit to be prefixed to it in its owne therefore to nothing it is tyed but to it selfe that is be not contrarie and disagreeing to it selfe as therefore many things come and are spoken frō God al which nay not the thousand part are writtē in the scripturs So many things at this day happen are spoken by God which are not written And yet neverthelesse they are the word of God and wrought by him Add to which that many things there are not written nor expressed in words which wee yet receive for the word of God and onely by hand as it were have received them from our Forefathers of which kinde are the abrogation of the precepts of the first counsell renewed after by the Holy Ghost to the Church So as the Church was freed from the same Of which things wee notwithstanding have no written or expresse word Christ himselfe taught all in word and writt nothing and commanded his Apostles to preach not to write And the Church is begotten rather by word then by writing Moreover the Doctors preachers of the new Covenant were called and indeed are the Ministers of the Spirit not of the Letter By all these it is manifest that the free and swift Spirit is not tyed unto letters nor the Doctrine of the Spirit can bee included into the Jayle prison and corner of the Scriptures Therefore although there bee many bookes of the Law something sometimes may change to come in handling of which there is no expresse Canon or Law to be found but it is to be excogitated and ruled by reason So oftentimes such a rare thing happeneth the letters doe universall forsake a man that they cannot teach comfort guide or appease him but a man must necessarily repaire unto God and consult with the peculiar word of the Spirit by prayer to comfort and strengthen his weakned conscience For it is not sufficient to have the common call and word except a man have speciall proper and inward call which yet is not contrary unto the common And although the word of God is altogether one and undivided yet how much thereof a man hath received by faith so much of it is his and this is his word His issue the Word of God is as God himselfe must be made every ones by faith No otherwise then whereas the Light of the Sunne is common yet as much as every one is enlightned thereby so much is the Sunne his and no more So as much as every one hath of God and his word so farre is he his God and so farre hath he God and his word which are common to all peculiar to himselfe Therfore the letters are farre weaker then to satisfie a troubled conscience in the offences thereof and to make quiet againe the lively word of God must doe this and this honour hath God reserved onely to himselfe neither will he permitt it to the letters or any Creatures whatsoever Moreover the Holy Ghost will not be bound or captivated in those that are his nor be subject to the masterie of any one nor suffer that it should be taught by any writing or mouth of man but will it selfe be the light the Doctor master captaine and in a word all in all things Moreover he who useth the Scriptures for a testimony of that worke spirit so hee doe it according to the minde of Christ not interpreting them according to the interpretation of the Scribes and Puarisees doth onely use the Scriptures aright according to the will of God according as he ought all others are meere abuses and the worship of images as the whole world busies it selfe in the Scriptures and esteeme them to be their Apollo as if the Holy Ghost God were no longer to be consulted with concerning any affaires but onely the letters In a word here they enquire and have all things here with the Pharisees they think to have life neither will they grow by an others mans harme nor will they see how blinde impious ignorant and dead they ever have beene in all ages in divine things and in the word of God who have beene the most Learned and could all the Bible at their fingers ends having for all that neede to heare and learne the truth from Christ So darke and deadly are the Letters which they make their Idols Paul calleth the Letters death but they life but indeed they are eternall darknesse death aenigma allegorie and a sealed booke Unlesse thou have the living word of God unto the Light and in them relie upon the Holy Ghost For thy teacher inspirer interpreter guide and master and yet many of them dare make the booke to be open when as yet they cannot agree in the exposition of it And from thence doe as many Sects and Heresies arise as Readers and Heads doe attempt to reade it But know thou and have it as a thing most true that they are cleane onely to the cleane Spirituall to the Spirituall the Word of God to them who are of God and Religiously studie them by the direction and guidance of the Holy Ghost whom they carie alwayes with them and put as a Light into this otherwise darke Lanthorne so as by the the doctrine of the Spirit direction of it they bring more light unto them then they receive therfrom what they receive therefrom is nothing else or no other but a certaine Testimonie of the Spirit of them and all Doctrine The Bereans used the Scriptures as Christ would have them to bee used Acts 17. Search the Scriptures saith he in which yee thinke yee have Eternall life Ioh. 5. But he thinkes otherwise For it followes they are they which testifie of me that I am the Life and Word which speaketh unto you John 8. As therefore we graunt that the Scriptures are the rule of the word judge of spirituall things So in no wise will we remove out of the Church the word of God and unction of the Spirit For even as wee defend the Majestie and authoritie of the word of God against the dead Letter so will we maintaine the masterie of the Spirit against the executioner of the Letter And so doe we grant the fulfilling of the swift and short word as in the onely precept of loue all is contayned both the Law and Prophets be comprehended therein we ingenuously confesse Wherefore as wee doe not take away the word of the Law but confirm it So we doe think that something is yet dayly to be opened in the Church by the unction of the Doctors thereof the signe and earnest not of that which is necessary to salvation but to the guift of Prophecying and the hidden interpretation of the Scriptures Since Christ never forsaketh his Spouse but is alwayes present with her unto the end Math. 28. and being ever in the midst of her doth guide direct her 2 Cor. 9. This is the reason wherfore we doe not force or include the Majestie of the word of God within the narrow prison of the Letters FINIS Luke 10. Deut. 11.
be quit contrary to what he is or hath beene He is flesh born of flesh unto death and therefore it is behovefull that he be made spirit borne of spirit unto life Which before he bee all things are uncleane unto him as he is himselfe although all things in themselves are very good yet are they perverse evill unto him as all things seem blew to him that lookes upon them through a blew perspective all things degenerats into the nature of the possessor and therefore all things by Adam are made vanity although by themselves as ever they have beene they are good For all foode is savory according to the pallet temperature that receivs it even so is every thing according as he that possesseth and hath it is cleane to the cleane uncleane to the uncleane it cannot be otherwise but that all things be unjustly done loved prayed for knowne and retained which an unjust man doth love pray for know and retaine as the very words themselvs declare For how can it be that a wicked man can doe any thing justly a foolish man speak any thing wisely an unclean man doe any thing purely a lying man speak any thing truely Fiftly the naturall man as before hath been said is Flesh borne of the flesh altogether of an uncleane nature perverse adulterous the servant of Satan sprong of the Seede of the Serpent seduced and turned away by his word and the tree of knowledge so infected with poyson that betwixt Lucifer and Adam there is no difference for as al true Christians are of Christ the sonnes of God gods God himselfe so are all the Sonnes of the Devill the Devill being of the same kinred ofspring appertaining to the same Kingdome and covenant as Princes and Subiects to the same being al in the same estate of condemnation neither is there any remedy to preveÌ„t this jayle but that a man put of the old man so as he be no longer man but a new offspring creature born of God Hence we may easily gather what is the naturall prudence justice knowledge of man to witt foolishnes sin and enmity unto God because that all flesh is an enimy unto God freinds unto Satan and altogether of the same witt nature wil birth as it were his flesh blood In so much as he is nothing but an enimy unto God can perceive nothing that is divine would be nothing but with out God or rather his own God Attributing all that is good to himselfe as Adam and Lucifer did the Father of the flesh these are the Fruits of the forbidden Tree But the Christian is borne of God is a spirit and life altogether of divine nature and nothing else but the Jmage of God or if you wil a visible and corporal God who being made one with God is of the same nature rich in love desirous of the common profitt attributing nothing to himselfe like to God free strong void of proprietie ambition and anger Breefly or in a word whatsoever can be said or may be said of God may in its kinde be said of the true Christian since now it is not he that lives but Christ lives in him Not now he is any thing but God is all things in him that is whatsoever he speakes teacheth hath wills c. and although they unwillingly carry the old man about them yet never doe they live unto him but alwayes contrary earnestly endevouring themselves against him untill they have quit put him out Therefore to conclude this chapter the true use of all things is knowne only to the sincere Christians and the abuse to the naturall man Not yet justified living in himselfe who can neither use speake teach doe love know have or not have any thing truely But with all hath a defiled both conscience minde Hence it is that he is altogether unfitt for any good work like a black Collier and in all his actions like a stage player foolish blinde dumb deafe abscene and wicked In a word whatsoever evill man hath or title can be invented it 's proper unto him untill he returne from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evill unto the Tree of Life and eating thereof and he be delivered from the Kingdome of Darknesse into the Kingdome of Light Otherwise the flesh doth alwayes retaine its proper nature and hath in all things a false and ungodly cause and end for which it doth every thing that it doth In a word he altogether aimes at himselfe yea under a pretence of God although he thinke himselfe to know love and desire God only for God without any respect had to himselfe No man hath yet truely learned to know himselfe the flesh being so cunning and craftie to excuse it selfe no man knowes whether or no hee sinnes in all his workes so unsearchable is the craftines of the heart yea no man truely understands that in all his works as in his loving doing speaking knowing praying giving willing having possessing c. he mortally sinnes untill he be redeemed and pulled out of the dregs of Adam translated into Christ he become a new Creature Of which things reade Paul Bochâ—us de consolalatione Philosophiae the third Booke and the tenth Proofe How we must live unto God and so be made blessed in him CHAP. IV. Hovv Man being of God could sinne and what it was that moved him to sinne ADAM was not taken out of God or made of a Spirit but of nothing of the Earth if he had been taken out of God he could never have fallen by sinne as those that are borne of God cannot sinne Jo. 3. but God created him of nothing and then left him to himselfe and his owne arbitrament whether he could returne to his owne nothing againe or according to the order of his kinde be drawen unto God Sinne in Man and in the Devill is nothing else but that they doe avert themselves from the condition of their creation and that which they are unto their vanity and nothing againe the essence of Man and Satan is very good put this is their nature acquired in their fall that they strive to be not that which they are to wit nothing but that which â—hey are not so doe turn themselv froÌ„ As if it so were that that nothing of theirs were something in it selfe This is sinne this is that devill in all our hearts which stirreth up all sinne in us For as soone as Adam by the instinct of the Serpent fell away from God and returned unto his nothing again he was indeed made nothing which thing SataÌ„ who before had fallen into his nothing did spinne and weave into the heart of Adam by the externall obiect of the tree and he made the Fruit of the Tree so pleasant to behould that no sooner they beheld it but they were inflamed with a desire to eate of that Fruit For which cause it is written Ier. 9. that death enters
old word beeing growen out of use And againe the old words are received the new being thrust out so farre forth that nothing is durable or constant in this life And if any man would observe he shall finde that our mother Tongue in England is dayly changed that at this day they speake otherwise then they did a few yeares since yea and such a curiositie nicenesses there is in the word and tongues that what men have a while made use off suddenly they cast away as disdaining the same Every man endevouring to bring out some new and rare thing that he seeme not to imitate the words of any other insomuch that the cheife inventour of words doe now obtaine the chief praise and estimation of Art And by this meanes all things are confounded in the earth and what now is new is presently growen old and anone become new againe and the hearts of men the Kingdomes peoples and Languages of the World like to the course of the yeare In times past France spoke the Dutch language as Beatus Rhenamis writing of the Germaine affaires most elegantly proves but now it hath gathered a proper speech to it selfe out of Italie Germaine Spaine but most specially from Italie which thing of the tongue was caused perhaps by their warre because divers people being mixed together they made and used a mixed kind of Speech Hence it came to passe that as yet they retaine some of the Germain words as Suppen Sacken kushen which they almost according to the Nether Germains pronounce after the bastard Germaine Souper Sacen Cuysten This I speake that we may see that nothing is constant or new in the earth and that is true which Terence writt Nothing is spoke now which was not spoke before So nothing is done which was not done before So that Cornelius Agrippa thinkes the invention of Gunpowder and â—uns was no new invention of which opinion in the Historian Volatiramis and this may be gathered out of the sixt of Virgils Eneads where thus he writes of Salmon I Salmon saw with paine torment late Who would loues flame thunder imitate For caried by foure steeds with torch in hand Through Elis Cittie all Grecian Land Did ride in triumph and command that all Shâ—uld give him honour and a dietie call O mad man he who with his Chariots noyce Would imitate the mightie thunders voyce And Solomon shewes the same all along in the 3. chapt. of Eccles. as also to the first that what hath beene that shall bee what hath beene done the same shall be done neither is there any thing new under the Sunne There is something which is as if it were new yet was that in auncient times which hath beene before us There is no memory of former ages neither shall there be of those that are to come amongst who are to be and a little after things past and things to come are all forgotten and the wise together with the fool doe dye In which words what other thing would the preacher show then that all arts are subiect to oblivion and death Neither can they alwayes remaine in the soule but together with the body departs or perisheth by death For nothing I say can adhere unto the Image of God I meane the Soule which is like unto God and consist in death and fire but what is onely God and his word this is the onely endure able creature and the meate of Eternall Life Not that opinion and Art of Philosophers but the true good of the minde and Soule which can happen to no other thing but the word although I doe not denye but that word appeared to some of the Gentils and taught them because God is no respector of Persons but as a common Light of soules as the Sunne is the Light of the whole world neither is the hand of God shortned nor his eye envyous that he should not looke upon the whole VVorld With the same love eye and grace since we are all alike the same workmanshipp of God all of the same love estimation and authoritie with him Hence thou mayst collect that all arts invented by men are death and fruits of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evill For assoone as Adam had eaten of that Tree the same day he dyed in the eyes of God as the historie declares although afterwards according to the flesh hee lived many yeares as from heavenly matters the same day was his eyes shutt up and he eat death although in his owne judgement his eyes were opened and he seemed to himselfe to be a living God knowing Good and Evill Then began he to exercise his art his cunning to expound dispute and seeke out a malitious sutle and captious meaning in all things and also to deale deceitfully with God and in all things to hide himselfe to cover himselfe with Figge leaves to kisse his owne hand in a word to worship himselfe by inventing many arts amongst his posterity And out of this Roote spring up all the precepts of men their expositions their arts and so excellent a foundation have they as both the inventour and the authour of them was the Devill and the first Scoller that learned them did eate death therefrom And this Science and Art is utterly to be abhorred being no other then a Diabolicall perswasion conceived in Adam formed and hid in the Seede of the Serpent And yet all the World as Adam did thinkes that Life is placed in it neither doth it receive any instruction from Adam neither indeed understand the historie of Adams fall or his rising againe and that whole matter at this day doth live yet accounting it but a Historie long since acted done and afterwards dare say the word of God endureth for ever Therefore wee must needs confesse that nothing is past which in its kinde is not yet extant Whole Moyses is urged upon Christians neither is one jott of the word of God lost which shall not be fulfilled in every moment in spirit truth Therefore the fall of Adam happeneth dayly dayly doth Adam in his posterity eate of the forbidden fruit And therfore his Sonnes in Adam as in the roote are damned dead Now this our fall as Adams is amended and repaired if we spirt out and vomitt up this knowledge of good and Evill as poyson and become as Adam was before his fall Children Fooles and innocent Turttles that wee may eate of the Tree of Life and suffer the Seed of the woman to be ingrafted in us This is not the Seede the art witt and counsell of the Serpent but the Seede word will the minde of God the Tree of Life which whosoever eateth and suffreth himselfe to be fedd therewith is indowed with Eternall Life Now in us there is a Medicine with poyson For as by sinne the Tree of knowledge of good and Evill was planted into the heart of Adam so by his conversion rising againe and Seede of the Woman the