has made legible to us that thing by his clemency was intented intelligible The superscription of a Monarch any Man may read but none except of Councel dare examine the contents So God assignes it our duty to study the Creation since discovering things to us by invisible Mediuâ—â—s but not that we by a foreign faith pay our Orisons and our Adorations unto them No rather as Christians we must learn God in them and in knowing him admire his Operations But our Prophet Moses seems to some ambiguous when undressing the Hoil of this admirable Creation wherefore some spare not with their Proselytes prophanely to decry him and such others as himself studious in the Creation who resolving among them elves nevâ—r to labour due mâ—asures of Knowledge whereby to convince their own Incredulities makes them uncapable and altogether unserviceable when attempting to enform the Vnderstanding of others So that such Sciolists as these do but darken the lustre of the History of God in this stupendious Creation yet propound to themselves to know the Divine Mysteries of the Holy JESUS in the Miraculous Incarnation Glorious Crucifixion and Divine Ascension which to mortal astonishment is the Teâ—esm of Wisdom and Miracle of this World lockt up in the Bosom of GOD and Eternity So that should this Generation level Arguments against me it will little avail for the Standard of Truth will defend it self and the Authority of Scripture vindicate my Assertions If therefore you but priviledge me farther to proceed I assume to intitle this imbellished Creation the Almighty's Common place-Book wherein we may read hâ—s Divine Operations And siâ—ce he himself has made things visible as also legâ—ble and â—ntelligible to our capacâ—ties his sâ—cred Sanctions and Divines Oracles ought always to be our daily Contemplation I also consider that Angels as Messâ—ngers are mâ—de Ministring Spirits to administer to us the Revelation and Manifestatiâ—n of the Vision of Truth that the Sun Moon and Stars are the Orâ—inancâ—s of Heaven that Elements and Prinâ—â—plâ—s are Margâ—nal Notes and the glorious Prospect of this â—ivie 〈◊〉 that the Conâ—onants and Vowels of this Blessed Creation are the particular Indivâ—duals contained therein Otherwise how were it pâ—ssible such a pâ—rpetual Harmony should conâ—inue betwixt the great and the â—â—sser World were thâ—re not a contiguity and continuity of parâ—s whereby to câ—ntract a Correspondency betwixt them For invisible things when clothed with Matter become obvious and perceptible to every one consequently visible Every thing therefore is most certainly governed by the Divine Wisdom of Him that made it who made Nature a so by his Praeordinate Councâ—l and adapted her Substitute to operate in the Vniverse But to Adam only and his Humane Race were committed the distinct Classes and Families of the Creatures as also the Dignity of a Vniversal Monarch This none will deny yet perhaps some will say my Suggestions are invaluable and confusedly mixt so was the Chaos if to consult the Bâ—gâ—nning It may also be alledged that Im no Grammarian however from my Youth I venerated Learning yet the Scriptures I always prefer'd before Grammar but I 'll struggle no longer about Grammatical Preference since so learnedly controverted by Men in most Ages Give me leave therefore to conclude my Epistle and in the Conclusion assert and affirm that without forâ—â—l hypocrisy or a foreign Faith I am and have been since truly to know Vertue devoted to subscribe my Name Philanthropus THE PREFACE TO THE READER FOrasmuch as Wisdom and Divine Knowledg preexisting Time had its Original from God the Father of Light and immaculate Fountain of all pure Beings resplendent from the glorious Ray of himself that holds the Poâ—ze and Ballance of the Periods of Life and Death by a Soveraignty of Right to govern the World. It becomes us therefore and the rather as Christians to sollicite this admirable Corona of Wisdom since woven in the Web of the Eternity of Life and by how much it concerns us to acquire this Secretum Naturae by so much the rather ought we to hope and expect it that offer up our Orisons with the pious Adepti that expose their Charity in this modorn Age. Since many such are and I doubt not were in former Generations as in this of ours tho modestly to conceal themselves under a pleasant taciturnity Whose generous protection of Hermetick Philosophy has amuz'd and astonish'd most part of the World since to breath forth in this as in former Ages Mysterium Magnum Rabbi Moses was a Student in this blessed Science and so was his Sister the fair Mirian Medea and Experience tutilaged them both And Moses we read was morally educated in all the Skill and Knowledg of the Egyptians thank Hermes for that formerly King of Egypt and intituled by the Magi Prince of Philosophers Who also laid the Rudiments and Foundation of Science several Generations before Moses was born and yet notwithstanding the Antiquity of Hermes Moses was inspired by a divine permission to talk with God in the Holy Mount Horeb. Job also that famous and most accurate Mathematician whose Library was the Firmament and every Star an Author whereby he mentally inspected the Orbs consequently the Constellations and Machine of the Creation And who personally discoursed his Creator as did Moses but confused and astonished as appears by his Writings So Paul that devout and divine Apostle taught only of God and bred up by Gamaliel he exceeded in Rhetorical Learning and Knowledg Who also had a Glance and a Vision of Heaven as appears by those elegant and most excellent Epistles Exhortatory to the Romans when to the Corinthians most profoundly Philosophical And such were the Lives of the Holy Men of God which piously to trace what is it other than a heavenly Progress And the Soul that inhabits in this mortal Tabernacle any other than the correspondent God himself converseth which in Clarity displays such a beautious Brightness from the soveraign Beams of the Son of God that divinely shining in the inward parts influenceth the Altar and beautifies the Temple The Soul therefore could she but content her self with divine speculation of Ideas only what need she travel beyond the Map But as excellent Patterns commend their own Mines Nature because so fair and beautiful in the Type could not dispence with sluttishness in the Anagliph and who whiles more strictly she examines the Symetry Models and Forms it into various Figures whose Descent to describe promulges her Original but the frailty of matter and because hovering about her and impendent on the Elements is excluded Eternity Ignorance therefore to delude the Vnwary intitles this Release by the Sirname of Death which more properly to describe is the Magna Charta of Life that has several ways to break up House but her best if duely considered is without a Disease and who when she takes air at this Avenue or Port-hole is much without detriment or prejudice to her Tenement Nor does she only exercâ—se her
separable from its native Principium is subject to Mortality but Death is the Destruction of all Elemental compounded Mixts All Compounds therefore are subject to Mortality which Nature endeavours with all her might to preserve if possible from the Periods of Death and whose Champions to purchase this heroick Victory Fire and Water are instituted and appointed the most proper and immediate Agents and Instruments the last to discharge by immersive Calcination all exteriour and superfluous Adustion whiles the first by Sublimation claims a Superiority because when to separate by the intense Action of Fire whatever Recrements and Impurities adhere to the Center These and no other are the lineal Tracts that Nature has trod in since the nonage of the Universe whose Seeds void of Form and confusedly mix'd in a Hoil or Chaos were dissolved in Water but rarified and sublimed by pure Argument of Fire Calcination and Sublimation therefore were purposely invented to purge and separate the Pure from the Impure as is Solution and Distillation the more terrestrial Dregs that stiffly adhere to the Parts extraneous Now whatever remains without any beginning that Subject is altogether uncapable of end But all Beginnings sprung up from Eternity as is Eternity the Ray of the Majesty Eternity therefore is the Parent of Time from whence Generation lineally descended and Generation because the Infant and the Child of Time has its Periods lock'd up in the Prisons of Death and doom'd and predestinated by the Law of Sin the Apostle tells us is Death in the abstract yet improperly the End of any thing save Elements whereby to remonstrate their true Beginnings but now to bud and to blossom forth because directing towards an eternal State which I call the new Breathings from a State of Corruption precedent to Putrefaction the immature Offspring and imperfect Birth of infirm Ancestors and Elementary Principles For the Body no sooner dismantles it self of the exteriour Form and Elementary Faetor when the indivisibility of the more purer Parts begin at once to display themselves for the Treasures of Life are most strictly lock'd up and which also begins to perspire and breath forth by the glorious Ray of God's Soveraign Power whose refulgent Beam illuminates the World and stirs up the hidden Life therein which before seem'd to sleep passively perdue in the silent Sepulcher of Divine Contemplation If therefore debasing our selves by Sin be Argument of Death and God's eternal Displeasure a Regenerate state implies the Sanctity of Renovation which is a clear Demonstration of a real Conversion Otherwise how comes it to pass that the unbelieving Wife is sanctified by the believing Husband Now if Husband and Wife are constipated one Flesh by the Conjugal Celebration and Law of Matrimony why not Heaven and Earth under the like Divine Ordinance since by a Supream Law from the Sovereign Legislator whose powerful Edicts are for ever irrevocable made and established Synonima Regalia Thus thâ— Celestial Sun in the clarified Firmament influenceth and impregnates this embellish'd Creation as do's the Supercelestial Son of the Majesty of God most illustriously shine in every Believers Soul and is the true Light that illuminates the Universe and every Man that cometh into the World. So that in this short and compendious Paragraph you may read the Divine Progeny of the whole Creation the Exaltation and Dignity of the Micro as the Macrocosm the great End why the World and Man was made the Reason also why the Divinest made Man and drest up so beautifully this stupendious Creation All which was only but to see himself and Sovereign Majesty by way of Reflection wherefore he built up a Tabernacle in Man for his Divine Residence and Man's Redemption Now Adam was made this Supream Monarch whom his Maker dignified with such eminent Qualifications as not only to see because having the faculty of Sense but to inspeculate and admire the Majesty of his Maker that hung up aloft in the Firmament of Heaven so many Luminous and Beautious Bodies impregnating every one with the Blessings of Vegetation but Moral Reason and barren Apprehension because uncapable to exalt it self to these eminent sublime and superlative Elevations of necessity sinks under them And here Moses tells you That in the beginning the Divinest created both the Heavens and the Earth Now creating or making what implies it more than manifesting Invisibles by Visibles or discovering such things as lay hid in the Chaos occultly concealed from occular view which in time appeared but not until such time as the Waters by the Fiat were separated from the Waters and then the purer matter ascended upwards because disintangled from its impure Fecula which Celestial Clarified and Pure Crystalline Body is by the Scriptures interpreted the Firmament And Hermes tells you in his Smaragdine Table That the likeness of that which is placed above is also beneath coinhabiting below to work the Myracle of one single thing There must therefore of necessity be some assimilation in Earth Soveraignly qualified with the same existence of Celestials otherwise pray tell me where 's the harmony betwixt them And why should God select the little World called Man for his Divine and Glorious Reception rejecting as I may so say the more copious or great one as the more commaculate and impure habitation had not he divinely dignified the less by Soveraign Wisdom for his Royal Entertainment There is therefore not only the likeness of Superiours but the same Vertue Beauty and Excellency also in Inferiours Christ in you the hope of Glory This is that Magnet of Vertue and Swavity whose illustrious Ray attracts the Soul to those transcendent Mansions of Beatitude and Immortallity For the Kings Daughter is all glorious within because made glorious by the King of Heaven where note by way of Digression when to admit of a faint comparison the Anima or Sulphur of Sols beauteous inside when duely examined by a sedulous Adept a Celestial Corporiety displays it self whose glorious appearance gratifies the solicitous with Wisdom's Oracle and the Treasures of Art by every one acquirable and by most admired But the Hoil or Chaos presents unto us a subject matter as yet indigested when macerated mingled or jumbled together and such we are to consider it in the Act of Fermentation when nothing but darkness had its Region in the Deep nor did any thing appear upon the Face of the Waters until Darkness by the Divinest was utterly separated by the glorious Beam of the Majesty of Light for till then the Stars roll'd not in their Orbs nor did the Fluctuating Ocean move its Vital Pulse till actuated by the Law of its Soveraign Maker which daily remonstrates the Flux of the Ocean Nor till then did the Earth nor the Barren Mountains know any thing of the Law of Life and Vegetation Nor was there any Prolifick Vertue or propagating Quality hitherto as yet incorporated into them when at once the Fountains of the great Deeps broke up out of whose
this was a token of Love to the Creation when God daily renewed his blessings upon the Creature For the blessing upon Adam was by divine appointment transferred to succession upon Adam's Generation which afterwards in time perverted through corruption by a passive neglect in Adams Posterity Now as every good thing is the Gift of God and since whatever God gives is certainly good the Fruit of Paradice could be no otherwise than good because the Gift of God that gave it and the Fish in the Sea and the Fowl in the Air which God gave unto Adam were supreamly good So that every thing in the Creation and created being had the tincture and sweetness proceeding from God who through Wisdome ordain'd it and by Providence maintains it the consequence therefore must needs be good Yet above all the blessings that ever God gave us was in giving unto us himself in his Son the glorious Mystery and Revelation of God which Gift of God was greater than the World and was the Gift of him that gave himself for the World. To all the Creatures in the Creation God bid them be fruitful and in multiplying multiply and replenish the Earth But in Adam peculiarly as in a Divine Garden-Plot God sowed there the Seed of Everlasting Life from whence by cultivation and the Goodness of God he might expect to reap an ever-living Crop for the Seed was the Seed of Eternal Life and not the effects of Sin and Dead Works No Brambles grew up in this heavenly Vintage whereof God himself was the Vine-roon This is the new and the holy Ierusalem wherein Paul may Plant and Apollo Water yet if the Sons of Adam be barren Sciens how can they produce this soveraign Fruit without the heavenly Dews of the Son of God. Adam may multiply and replenish the Earth yet if wanting the blessing of God his Benefactor what profits it To be good therefore is to be like unto God and likeness in every thing creats love since every thing naturally loves its like and this love in Man is the abstract of God in as much as God is Love original Whatever goodness therefore shines in Man is really a derivative from God himself So that should we trace the dimensions of Adam with the extent of his Monarchy how large his Commission runs over the Earth and the Ocean it would be endless for his limitation was boundless the Fowl of Heaven knew no Lord but Adam and the Fish in the Sea no Soveraign but himself and every created thing that had breath and moved and every moving thing that breathed and was created had no Supream nor Superintendent but Adam For Adam as a Star shin'd then upon Earth and made great by him that 's all goodness and greatness was blest in his Posterity and glorious Nativity or heavenly Birth since two Divine Natures shin'd splendidly in him For God had implanted both himself and his Son to make Adam beautiful as himself is glorious the nature of the one was to live and never die but the nature of the other was to die to live This seems a Paradox I 'll therefore explain it That Power that lives and never dies is the Divinity of the Majesty of God when the Almighty before the Creation divinely calculated the Nativity of Life for God said in himself let us now make man like unto our self in our similitude let us make him which likeness or similitude was uncapable of death consequently of diminution or division of parts because the similitude of God himself for God breathed into Adam the breath of Life and he became a living soul who therefore so vain precipitant and idle as to imagine the Breath of God can extinguish Time shall wear out and Gerations walk off and Death it self become an Exile and all things terminate and drop into decay but the Breath of God which is that illuminating light that enlightens the World and the Soul of Man when that glorious light shall co-unite with darkness which is altogether improbable and utterly impossible then shall that hidden life God breathed into Adam be capable of death and not before So that two Lives liv'd at once in our Ancestor a created Life and a Life regenerate a created Life as from a heavenly Birth which sprung Originally from the Womb of Eternity and because made like to the likeness of his Maker it gave him Victory to triumph over Sin putting into his custody the secrets of Life and placing in his hands the Keys of Death So that he knew nothing but absolute freedome and unprohibited the use of the whole Creation one Tree only by the Divinest excepted in which God had placed a peculiar property fit only for himself in wisdome to know God therefore imposed his commands upon Adam not to taste thereof lest peradventure he die The other Life was that of Regeneration which is Christ incarnate God in the Creature this Life liv'd invisibly before the Creation and is that hidden Life in Christ manifest by the Apostle Christ in you the hope of Glory Which remains a mystery to this very day as in former Ages a secret to our Ancestors which Life is the Power of God to Salvation and was in the beginning with God himself and it was God and was made Flesh and by the Will of God dwelt among men This is that Word that spake in the beginning and moved in the Patriarchs our Ancestors to speak that liv'd immaculately in the blessed Virgin that was made Flesh and dwelt among men that bore our infirmities and was Crucified at Ierusalem that in spight of Death took captivity captive and in despite of Hell captivated Death and which also is that Eternal Word that now is ever was and for ever shall be to convince the World of Sin Impenitency Incredulity and Ingratitude which Monster of a Sin is worse than Witchcraft and tho' a Witch be superscrib'd a Rebel in Physicks yet reversing the Point a Rebel is a Witch in Politicks The one because acting against the Law of Nature but the other because striving against Order and Government But God gave unto Adam a Charter Royal that was sign'd and seal'd with those glorious Characters of Sun Moon and Stars and all the Host of Heaven to witness to it This was that great and superlative Grant that God gave unto Adam when he placed him in Paradice and wherewith to refresh him he gave him every Herb and of every Tree that was burd'ned with Fruit whereof he might eat and live before him These Royal Priviledges God gave unto Adam and Heavens Benefactor confirm'd them unto him Now Adam may freely eat and live or he may eat and assuredly die for Life and Death stand as it were in a poiz and because to our Protoplast seemingly mingled they seemingly presented one single Existence as if Property and Quality were intirely one 't is true one Mantle overshadowed both till God out of compassion made more visible discoveries
reveal the Glory of the Father in the Face and Fulness of Jesus Christ. And God saw the Light and behold it was good the consequence follows for God he made it and God divided the Light from the Darkness as by his Wisdom the Day from the Night Separation therefore from adust impurity makes it Sublime Immaculate and Pure So Divine out of a Moral and a Celestial out of a Terrestrial State is a transmutation by the Grace of God for if nothing that 's impure can subsist in his presence whatever comes there must be spiritually pure and such are Invisibles separated from Elements the Waters above the Firmament of a pure Nature existent with Life but the Waters beneath Elementary and Fluctuating The Universal Spirit therefore inspiring Life and Motion the whole Creation began to breath and bud forth And God after separation of the Light from the Darkness of the pure and sublime from that that 's inquinate of Heaven from Earth of the Waters from the Waters of the Translucid and Diaphanous Bodies from Corruptible Recrements and Sordid Impurities Then was there a Noble and Divine Separation because when to raise an immortal Seed out of the Principles and Rudiments of Elements And such also is the Regenerate state in Man when born of the Royal Seed from Heaven for Flesh and Blood because Transient and Elementary are inconsistent with the Eternity of God uncapable therefore to inherit the Kingdom This is that Divine and Heavenly Transmutation by which Christ Jesus the Wisdom of the Father with one regal grain transmutes our Nature and our Mortal Bodies into an Immortal State and is that Elixir of Life and Vertue that defends it for ever from torture and destruction and eternally delivers it from the periods of Death But some will object What Body is this And Paul solves the Doubt by a Scriptural Explanation telling us it s a Body increate and incorruptible consequently uncapable of any mutation and because impregnated and animated with Life is under protection divinely blessed absolved and acquitted the assaults of Death What Body then some will say must it be and he tells you It 's a Body as it pleaseth God. But this you 'll object is also insufficient To speak more plainly then it 's a Regenerate Body born from the Spirit and not from Elements but of a pure and immaculate nature that never knew nor consented to Sin Such a Birth will triumph over Death because it can never be made to die nor subject it self to the periods of Death since bound up in the Volume of the Infinite Eternity But Darkness is the Vmbra or promiscuous shadow of the beautiful and amiable Glory of Light And because separated from the Beam of Light and gathered to its self is the Representation of Death Where note we may call it the Mantle or Covering of some solid Substance or some material thing and such is the Night by Earth's Interposition retirements of Light or the Suns bright absence Corpulences also are Stellat Ecclipses because from Globical Bodies intermediating for Night is only the Suns bright absence when deprived the beautiful Beam of his Light and the Day as I may so say the Infant of Light because it sprung up from Light Original The created Light therefore pray tell me what is it if not the beautiful Aurora of Eternity as is Eternity the Ray of the Majesty Thus the Light as appears shines still in Darkness and yet the Darkness comprehends it not Now what is this Darkness but the shades of Death and what is Death but a separation from Life and Life it self the amiable Infant that sprung from Eternity as Generation from Time But Darkness abhors the lustre of Light lest peradventure fearing the Light should inspire it Gold therefore like the Salamander lives eternally in Fire without detriment destruction or diminution of parts whiles imperfect Metals when examined by the test evaporate and vanish so become imperceptible which displays some impurity in their natural Composition for were they of a regal stamp and condition no force of Fire would be Argument strong enough to make in them the least separation so Darkness when made pure by the Beam of Light it then becomes a natural brightness and Mortality transchanged by the Grace of God becomes Immortal by Divine Transmutation The Day therefore sprung natively from Light as a Legitimate Heir from the Loins of his Parents nor could it do otherwise because by the Divinest destinated and determinated to such an end by the Counsel of God. And thus the Beam or Ray of the Sun as its Integer Light can be no otherwise because the proper Effect from that efficient Cause for the Celestial Sun if sedately to consider it was kindled by a virtual spark of invisible Light And this invisible Light the Son of God is the Essence Wisdom and the Beauty of the Father and is that Soveraign and Saving Light of the Divinity and Majesty of God himself As pure Religion therefore is such in it self as it pleads Precedency long before Error consequently it 's a bright and most illustrious Taper that directs to the standard of Divine Truth in whose Frontispiece Devotion displays Christianity and which truly is the most Eminent and Divine Encomium that ever was attributed to Men as Mortals and is in a Scriptural sense the new way of Conquering because through Christ we are more than Conquerours and fight in this Field without Carnal Weapons for no Gladiators arm here to Combat nor is there any Banner but the Cross of Christ and whose Enemies are Abaddon and the Hierarchy of Hell and whose Engins are Sin and the Toils of Death endeavouring therewith to obstruct our passage when attempting the triumphant Joys of Heaven But a Nominal Christian with grief I speak it which signifies no more than a formal Professor if when wanting the Vital Power of the living Act of Faith such a profession makes no Man a Christian any more than reading the Alcharon compleats a Saint nor is every Professor a true Minister of God except of God ordain'd to preach For the Gospel is free and the love of God free and it was the free Act of Christ to give himself freely for the Sins of the World. Christs Redemption therefore was a free Act of Grace to blot out Sin and usher in Repentance and all that 's required for so great a suffering is only conformity to a Holy Life and sanctified Obedience to that Living Power in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells He therefore that prays and pays not his Orisons to this great Oracle the Wisdom of the Father stands still indebted for his Life and Freedom and proclaims himself an Alien to the Court of Sion as also a Stranger to the New Ierusalem Now in opposition to Light stands this formidable Darkness a Figure of a Creature that was found folded up after the Divine Act and force of Separation not improper therefore to intitle
it Darkness since separabel from the beauteous Beam of Light and such is Sin and such also is Death since by Adam's Transgression who consenting to Sin violated Gods Divine and Regal Command so wounded himself with his own Sting Death and Sin therefore Van Helmont calls Accidents or some impious malignity that lurk'd about the matter whereby to lessen Light and abscond or ecclipse its beautiful Lustre which when removed by the Divine Grace of God the Body then seems to appear Celestial Nor can it be otherwise since if when to consider there 's no difference nor distinction betwixt Heaven and Earth save Clarity of the one and Impurity of the other and this is a State we daily discourse of nay we hourly wish for 't and long to enjoy it yet so great is our Zeal to these ambiguous uncertainties that we dare not trust our selves to entertain it And because so adhering to the World and its allurements kind answering kind whose Luscious Breast seems sweet and pleasant and whose surprizing Charms luxuriously satiating we gulp down Avarice and drink down Oppression so like Diana with the Ephesians cry Gain is sweet thus tainting our selves become infectious to others for a stinking Breath tho loathsome to the Company yet is it to it self a natural perfume so Sin and Impiety in its habitual dress tho ugly seems amiable and tho faetid smells fragrant and knows no impediment Thus Paul by Faith fought with Beasts at Ephesus and Philanthropus with Monsters in the Desarts of America 'T is true and as true as the Sun 's the great Luminary whose luminous Body illustrates the Creation yet is not the Sun that Soveraign Light that adorned the Throne before the Creation when the Divinest said Let there be Light and immediately the Light of it self sprung up which Light by his Wisdom he called Day and dignified it also with the Title of Good nor could it be otherwise than good in the Abstract since the Divinest had called it Good and because proceeding from the Fountain of Good its Original can be no less than God. Now the Day had its Original as has the Sun its Aurora and the Sun tho the Major Luminary of the Universe whose refulgent Ray illustrates the Creation by Rapidity Circulating and Patrolling about it yet is it by Wisdom and the Guidance of God another Aurora of the increated Light which never ceaseth invisibly to shine when the Sun withdraws from our occular view as imaginarily supposed towards the Western Fountains whiles this pure Light never ceaseth to shine in the Heart of Man and the Throne of the Majesty tho to the World and ignorant it appear invisible and because too sublime for the weak Vision of Sight whereby a dimness seems to overshadow it as gazing too much at the natural Sun in some measure astonisheth the Purlue of Sight so the Soveraignty of the Glory of the Son of God whose excessive brightness seems to cause a blindness when as indeed it 's the Purity and Soveraignty of Light we are therefore to reduce it under this consideration that nothing that 's impure can behold what 's pure nor Carnality partake of what is Spirituous There is therefore this difference betwixt Natural and Supernatural as also betwixt Celestial and Terrestrial things that all Spirituous Bodies can pass the Purgatory of Fire without any detriment or diminution of parts when as Corporeals if but to touch the Flames are at once in a Moment destroy'd and consumed Purification of Bodies must therefore necessarily precede whereby to dignifie and make them Celestial Natural things therefore are in one distinct state but Spiritual things are found in another and by how much our Nature is made more spirituous by so much are we nearer to the Nature of God. And as the Sun shines naturally more bright and distinctly more pure than our Culinary Fires how infinitely brighter and much more pure is the Majesty of that Light that invisibly shines from the Son of God But our new Philosophers or Erra Paters are much of the Cast with Figure-flingers that presume to step into the Prerogative of Prophets and antedate events in Configurations which is a Consequence I perswade my self of as much Reason and for ought I know to as great Satisfaction as to see the Auxiliaries draw out and exercise and the Spectators to read their designs by their postures But I proceed to discourse the Firmament of Heaven the Fluctuating Ocean also and the Waters in the Creation which presents to our consideration matter of Admiration consequently a suitable Subject for every Philosopher if sedately to contemplate their admirable separation when God divided the Waters from the Waters and the Firmament of Heaven stood stationary between them which denotes those rarified and invisible Waters Moses points at above us are an Act of Faith because of Invisibility whilst these below us are demonstrable to us which Argument as formerly confirms our Philosophy that the likeness of that which is remotely above is also beneath co-inhabiting below to work the Miracle of one single thing so that the same Act of Power and Providence that made them separable made them also invisible as by the Law of demonstration these are made visible to us But what are these Waters these invisible Waters that surmounting the Aether and because above us perpetually fly our sight what are they and what were they in the Fiat of the Creation more than the pure and spirituous part separated from impurity and all aquosity whiles the pinguous moist faecula and indigested Vapours stifly adhere to the visible form which by reason of inconcocted crudities and indigestions when celebrated to warmth lie fermenting in themselves and are the daily cause of Natural Production animating and exerting the Earth to Vegetation These Invisible Waters therefore above the Firmament must of necessity be a Rarefaction of Air and the Firmament because intermediating betwixt them remonstrates it Celestial and a clarified Earth For if to consult the Creation and created Beings we are to consider them in a two fold Capacity the Visibility of the one and the Invisibility of the other Elementary Bodies and Bodies Celestial where note sublunar things are influenced by Celestials as are Celestials governed by super Celestials As the Sun in his progress because ruling the Day is by Divine appointment the Parent of Vegetation So has the Moon her Nocturnal Government whereby she also operates the Ocean influencing Fluidity and the Female Sex Nor are the Stars and Constellations deficient or destitute whereby not to effect and influence Inferiors so that a perpetual motion is continually maintained and a constant rotation perpetually continued otherwise the Compound would admit of decay and a defect in any one part of the Creation would inevitably draw on an inconveniency upon the whole Thus the great Frame and Fabrick of the Creation was ranged into a most excellent and beautiful order which the Creator foresaw in the Idea
posture stands the whole Creation in since daily to admit of Transmutation And the Herb yielded Seed and the Fruit-tree his Seed and the Roots and Fruits also after their kind which are radicated and impregnated in every individual nor are they found in another Specie And Sandivogius tells us before the separation of Elements that every individual had then in it self Vertuality but one single primordial Seed yet denies not that this primordial Seed had the Specimen Vertue of all the rest vertually and primarily radicated in it However there be some that will oppose this Doctrine and lead by a perverse Biass would gladly refute it but blessed is he that receives and believes it for it is a secret and the gift of God sealed up from ignorant and obstinate Men not only in this but in every Generation Nor can any Man I perswade my self know God in the Abstract except otherwise by the Work of God in the Creation which Commissions me also to say in the Creature as Paul says Christ in you the hope of Glory If therefore another Man's knowledge profit me nothing except he enforms me the Measures he knows he but exposes my Faith to a rambling search to find out the truth by a dubious Examine How miserable therefore and much to be lamented is that implicit Putationer whose Zeal truckles under every form of Religion and bows his Knee to every new model of Conformity Let us therefore but examine this stupendious Creation wherein God has made himself obvious to the Creature and which ought to be the Study of every Enquirer when because to read Lectures in the Stars and Elements The copious Volumns and visible Folio's of God the Creator that gave then a Being and are his Oracles that by Divine Interpretation are made visible conspicuous and intelligible to us For here we may read that Generation it self presents unto us the Marginal Notes and Genus and Species the Vowels and Consonants the Magi of old learnt us to spell by so that the Letters and Syllables of this blessed Alphabet points out unto us the Manuscript of the Universe over which great School God himself is chief Rabbi whose Students and Prosolites are Nature and Religion and their daily Lectures and solemn Declamations the Visibility and invisibility of this Voluminous Creation wherein God makes manifest himself in the Creature which teacheth us to live by the Vertual Act of Faith whereby we may hope what at present we cannot enjoy so labour to find out the hidden Mystery of Truth and the unfrequented Tracts of Wisdom and Experience which is or ought to be the study of every Man born into the World more especially to Christians For truly to know God is to know Life Eternal for he that knows him but as he is told I can hardly perswade my self he knows him at all Search well within therefore peradventure thou wilt find him and if thou look without there is he also to be found So that in every thing and in every place is his Mercy or his Justice where his Power is also and the Majesty of his Presence for nothing is nor can subsist without him Is not this enough to enamour the Creature whose dependance is wholly upon the Creator for if when to inspect Heaven by Divine speculation with confidence we may assure our selves his habitation is there and if we dive into the Center of the Earth there also is his Instrument by which Nature operates The Superficial parts also and the Soil of Earth visibly and manifestly declare his Vegetation and the celestial Incholists as Planets and Constellations do not they influence this blessed Creation So that the whole and every part thereof declare him admirable therefore to be admired till led by admiration to the Corona of Beatitude which to the Religious seems a pleasant short Stage since the Life of Man is measured but a Span. Earth therefore must to Earth and Elements to Elements and all compounded mixts submit themselves to solution which properly terminates in the periods of Death but Eternity stands for ever in the presence of God and is therefore most permanent durable and everlasting But the Earth budded forth because fill'd with Vegetation and every Tree from the Cedar to the Shrub so the Oak the Asp the Poplar and the Ash had its Seed radicated and inated in its self Plants and Herbs also in due time producted and variously multiplied to adorn the Creation and not so only to the praise of him that made them but to sustain refresh and gratifie the Creature the mighty God the Lord Iehovah his mighty Arm has wrought this Creation and who shall compensate for so Divine a Work if when to consider that we are but Earth and our earthy Ornament but the blossom of Vegetation and Vegetation it self what is it more than the antecessor or forerunner of Mortification and Mortification what is it but the prospect of putrefuction which leads on directly to the prisons of Death Every thing therefore that is naturally produced results and terminates in its native beginnings For whatever thing is Elemental or had inicience from thence falls under the same predicament and destinated to die whose ends because fliding into the periods of inactivity partake of the common destiny of all compounded mixts For such are the Elements and all Elementary Beings ever since they had a Being and Birth in the Creation But here to Philosophize when duely separated and afterwards co-united and re-conjoyned again it represents the invisibility visible to us which then resulting in an Astrum or Quintessentia is in a capacity to dignifie other Bodies and make them glorious as it self is transcedent But who has considered this great Conservator besides him that reads daily lectures in the Orbs and makes it his business to consult the Creation that makes the Host of Heaven his daily Common-place-book and he that made Heaven his hourly Contemplation which priviledges me to say he that made Man made not Man for himself but to admire his Maker till then we shall never be truely devoted nor know what God is nor what is his truth notwithstanding so often by others reminded but like to the World and pratling Parots talk to others those things we understand not our selves In this kind of Zeal I was morally Educated and suckt my Religion in with my Learning too copious Theams to be taught in one Academy when the Universe it self is too compendious for a University I grant its true that the Press made a noise but you must grant me the Pulpit made a greater till to me there seem'd a defect in both the first because I found in a great measure impractible and the latter peradventure as unexperiental This conducted me to search after the wisdome of him that alone is the Divine Miracle of wonder and my daily Speculations were animated with discovery when every Signature unfolded it self and every Classis brought forth a Clavis wherewith to
unlock the Meanders of Nature Diana in this Vision seem'd almost unvailed and every thing naked in its native simplicity This represents somewhat an Admical state but unsatisfied in mind as to these discoveries I was led to contemplate the Mysteries of the Incarnation how the Divinity when cloathed with Humanity took not only our Nature but our Infirmities upon him and was a bright and shining Light illuminating the World and every thing therein and is that Light which saveth the World that shines in darkness yet the darkness knows it not a Light of that Beauty that illustrates Eternity and regenerates us Plants in the Paradice of God to legitimize us Heirs of the New Ierusalem which if duely considered here 's a prospect of Life when at a distance stands hovering the issues of Death So that Good and Evil seem to stand in a Poiz ' till Earth be found lite by the counterpoiz of Heaven and here it was also I see my self naked waiting for a change for God is all This leads me on to a farther consisideration if when to contemplate what 's more visible than Earth and Earth and Water to compleat but one Globe whilst the Air is drest up with the blessings of Vegetation whereby to inrich and impregnate the Earth As may be seen in the very front and surface of the Soil since dekt and adorn'd with such beautiful Greens as Ornaments of Superiours illustrating inferiours So that the Earth was spread with prolifick Vertue and production from thence immediately ensued by discovering the prodigious plenty of Grass a word large enough to express it universal had not some laboured tho' to little purpose because when to shroud it under the denomination of Herbage Grass therefore admits of a large extension when because to comprehend both Animals and Vegetables and is peradventure the Original word notwithstanding the various interpretation of Expositors because directing it self to the level Paul speaks of as two intersecting Angles direct to the Centre of one and the same single gnomen So that we need not to cavil about the word Grass where the property of the thing is so well understood Herbage therefore is Grass and Paul tells us Flesh is Grass and Grass by interpretation is the most universal Vegetable Trees and Plants also are of the same Linage save only from a larger size of more maturated Grass Stones and concressions also what must we call them if not coagulated and petrefied Grass So that Grass in one respect is every thing that Earth vegetates tho modified after various Formations and Figures differently drest up by the hand of Nature And because haveing respect to time and place by supplement of Air and moist soveraign Vapours causeth it to grow and spreading It self on the Superficies of Earth spires out into Grass Which when otherwise concealed in subterranean Cavities grows up into Metals and the race of Minerals As for Example have not all Trees their Roots in the Earth when their loaden Boughs hang burdned with Fruit. And are not all Metalline Roots radicated in the Air when the Centre of the Earth is burdened with their Fruits what 's more intelligible Now there is but one universal Spirit in Nature from whence things Originally have all their supplies and the three Clauses also of Animals Vegetables and Minerals are they not so many Marks Sigels and Characters which the Creator has imprinted and stampt upon them whereby the Creature might read and know them But Man above all because Lord of the Creation is made most intelligible whereby to understand them wherefore he calls them by Names for distinction when as the rest of the Creatures know them only by instinct And this vegetating Spirit has its Seed in its self and the Air is plentifully replenished with it which Seeds scatter'd and spread about the Vniverse furnisheth the Creatures in all parts of the Creation The Americans can tell you that Trees grew naturally where the Native Indians never had a being and were it not for Europes agriculture and industry her florid Fields and flourishing Pastures would soon feel the fatal stroke of disorder so become Forrests and barren Desarts fit only for beastial and salvage inhabitants For God never made nor sent any thing into the World that was either indigent defective or imperfect every Creature nay the Plants themselves were furnished with prolifick and seminal qualifications sterility was a thing utterly unknown till disobedience disinherited our royal Protoplast which had for ever so remained to the periods of time had not the Cross obliterated the Curse Our Ancestours oft laboured to strike out the Eyesore which the succeeding Generations have thought no impediment because to study new Modes of Sinning whereby to improve impiety by consent which has rarely ceased to follow every Generation as naturally in my opinion as Rust attends Copper fretting and corroding the natural Body till time and other comodes blot out its Character so permits the compound to slide into Atomes and yield it self Captive to the Prisons of Death waiting from the Artist a Resurrection But such Bodies as these we call imperfect because of a Leprosie impendent on them when as indeed there are other dignified Bodies that fear not to die because uncapable of Death whose peluced anima like Stars in the Firmament make glad the Adepti and solicitous in Art. In the next place I purpose to speak something of Light and since Light by the Text is the Oracle of God it was by his Wisdome apparently made manifest when undressing the Hoil of this beauteous Creation which Light also leapt out of the bosome of Eternity into the Vision and perspective of Time and because expatiating it self in the Chaos was the Cause of this admirable Separation of the Waters when by Divine Ordination they divided themselves and then it was that dry Land appeared Nor could it be otherwise because then the purer parts immediately began to feel the force of Separation so let the recrements subside to the bottome because of their feculent and impure Centre and thus by the Fiat were all impurities Separated from that which of it self was altogether pure and this Act of Separation we attribute to God who substituted Nature daily to operate For should there happen but the least Cessation the whole Compound would annihilate so become invisible But every Separation of separable Things creates the Unity and perpetuates the Harmony since the Life of one Element is dependent on another nor lives the one without the breathings of the other The Waters perpepetually moistening the Earth whiles the Earth inspires and ferments the Water but the soft sweetnings and breathings of Air impregnates both as do the Stars in their station and Celestial Rotation actually influence and penetrate the whole From whence we morrally and rationally conclude that Earth made dissoluble converts into Water and Water by heat is raâ—ified into Air. Air consequently by circulation is convertible into Fire and this
food but the Windows of Heaven were set open to refresh and gratifie their thirsty appetite And thus the Creation was unacquainted with fear whiles our Ancestor stood in a state of Innocency and had for ever so remain'd without contradiction by authority of the Text had not Sin struck out the Character of simplicity The timerous Hare fled not then for fear nor did the Cunney shelter her self in the burrough The Hind calv'd naturally without corruscations claps of thunder were then no help to disburden her Nor did the Bear lick her Cubs into shape or form for in the beginning was no deformity The Pellican in those days I perswade my self pickt not those wounds in her tender breast infeebling her self to relieve her young ones Nor did the Ostridge conceal her Eggs dreading or fearing the crush of the Elephant Nor can I hardly perswade my self in these halcion days that the Swan as now sang a lacrimy to her Funeral nor the Phenix fire her Vrn to generate her Species Aligators surely in the minority of time were not so ravenous as to prey upon Passengers Nor did the Crocadile dissemble his tears to moisten the Funerals of his fellow Creature The Plover I discover flew then with the Tassel and the Pheasant I fancy kept flight with the Falcon. Nor did the Partridge know Engin nor Noosie-thread nor dreaded nor feared he the flight of the Goshawk Nor can I think otherwise than to say in those days the Lark was any time dared with the Hobby Surely Nature in those days was divinely exercised to preserve in Unity and unite in Harmony the Creatures God had blest in this blessed Creation because then to know no other Law but that of Sympathy which is naturally of kind but so alienated now and in a sense so degenerated as if no other Law was ever established Now the Generations past and our worthy Ancestors as the vertuous in this Age will labour to abolish this unnatural antipathy if when mutually to strengthen one another in the doctrine of Christianity which ought to be the standard among the pious in profession lest peradventure we relinquish our soveraign health so draw on our heads the Curse of Disease For to fly from Sanity to seek a cure in Sickness is to run head-long into the Water to preserve our selves from drowning In the beginnings of time as it was of old no noise of oppression allarm'd the Land nor dreaded any man the sence of invasion Then it was that priviledges were as sacred as life and the whole Creation seem'd all in common Ianus I fancy liv'd not in those days when the inside was made legible and intelligible by the outside Modesty and innocency were then alamode and simplicity with piety the newest dress For Heaven was pleas'd then to dwell upon Earth but Earth must now be rarified into Heaven God then immediately converst the Creature as by Mediation Christ interceeds the Father And were it not that Christ is our Saviour and Advocate we should be left without a Plea and Sentence denounc'd beyond dispute against us But Christ is risen in whom we hope to rise and lost Adam is restor'd by the Redeemer of the World So that what Adam lost on the one hand in Paradise Christ our Mediator has redeemed on the other Thus was the Beast and the Cattle made and thus every Creature made after its kind knew no other Law than the Law of kind for instinct of kind was naturally inated and ingrafted into all as into one and if so it were impossible for the Creature to degenerate where a command as hitherto was never violated Then it was that the Divinity of the Majesty of God most splended and gloriously shin'd on the Creation for how could it be otherwise when the beauty of the Creator like a new risen Star reflected on the Creature In Edens fair Field no Brambles grew nor was sterility known in her borders The Trees then lookt big because burd'ned with Fruit and their blushing heads bowed down themselves to the courteous hand that endeavoured to reach them The Earth knew nothing but fulness and plenty since every thing was supplied with prolifick Vertue and nourish'd in it self by the primar cause Nature directs the ends of Germination No Cankers nor Caterpillars bred out of putrefaction nor were Northern blasts injurious to any thing nor was there any fatal stroke of Diseas for every thing stood in its primitive purity and Death was out-lawed and Sin an Exile or at leastwise a rerrour unknown or unthought of nor do I err when to say at that time uncreated O blessed Creation because God had blest it from the beauteous Ray and Beam of Himself Whose radient Morning could scarce raise a blush before Titan was ready to unvail his face Whose pleasures were boundless because then unlimited for excess and intemperance were strangers in her Courts And whose Garden full frought with Flowers and Aroma's flourish'd with encrease since hitherto the Serpent had not tainted the Fruit. And the Earth of it self brought forth in abundance whose Womb was the Storehouse and Factory of Treasures Gold grew in Ophir as naturally in those days as Lead is drawn up in the Peek of Derby-shire And Cattle by kind were raised and encreased as putrefactive Excrements convert into Insects But I cease not to wonder since thy Works are so wonderful and to admire thy ways because so miraculous Thus Heaven and Earth were seemingly united and the Creation bended no Knee to any Government save that of its Soveraign Lord and Maker Nor was any thing made that knew any Lord excepting the Lord of Heaven and Earth Nor had the Creator as yet made man a King or Vice-Roy of the Creatures in the Creation All the World all this while was but one Common-Weal and the Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden and nothing as hitherto that God had created had tasted the bitter effects of Death Oblessed and sacred Government upon Earth when Governed by the Royal Law of Heaven which certainly had remained in that blessed State had not Sin by consent eclips't and defac'd it almost to extinguish this beautiful Aurora But let 's tack about now and begin to examine the genuine nature and complication of Animals together with the natural composition of Man whom we find at this day complicated of Elements of all which he consists if when to consider his material parts And as Adam was abstracted from the Womb of the great World so was Woman her self an abstract from him whose Soul as an Astrum or an Essence Royal is no where to be found in the Texture of the Universe Wherefore we have considered Adam super-natural whose Creation to me seems a small incarnation as Montanus says as if God in this Work had multiplied Himself And tho' Adams Original keep not time with the Creation however we are Children of Adams Generation But the World because daily fill'd with revolution ever since the
Angles of God are made ministring Spirits and the Spirit of God the Divine Comforter that leads us spiritually into the Vision of Glory And Adam was the favourite God only converst with in whom the Divinity divinely shin'd when our Protoplast stood in a State of Innocency then it was that no impure thing could approach unto him because then in the favour and presence of the Majesty our Progenitor in Paradise was admitted to stand For Adam was constituted with a Divine Soul like to the likeness of him that infus'd it which was the likeness of God himself whose glorious Aspect shin'd then on the Creature otherwise the Creatures had never contributed so great humility and veneration to Adam when flocking about him as some sacred thing whereby to honour and give them protection so that to what place Adam was pleased to direct his Life-guard of the Creatures continually went with him But Adam too remiss in this great concern becomes negligent and careless to examine his affair notwithstanding Emulation follows at the heels of Prosperity for can favourites be without the peoples frowns tho' under the umbrage of their Princes smiles No surely the Hierarchy of relapsed Angels had an ambitious Emulation against his present State that if not counterploted by the Wisdome of his Maker they 'l conspire his ruine and perpetual overthrow For revenge against the Will of God carries a kind of sweetness with it solamen miseris and thus sorrows seem to extenuate sorrow when others as our selves are in a suffering state It is true that Adam was adorned with more inward Lustre than the outward beauty of the whole Creation For in his Temple the bodily Fabrick the Holy of Holies inhabited therein For it is the residence of the Divinest himself in whom alone dwells the Beauty of Holiness Let us stand in this station we shall see our Salvation for he that made us knows how to deliver us Then shall we find a holy Guide to direct us the Tracts to the Paradice of God. The Soul therefore whiles yet in the Body represents a Candle conceal'd in a Lanthorn or a glance of Fire in a manner stifled when because wanting the benefit of Air. Who in extremity strugles with her Elemental Chains yet spans the World with a single thought and enjoys that inwardly she 's dismist of outwardly that in a moment flies to the uttermost parts of the Earth and what ever is absent she at once makes present and dead things by imagination she restores to life nothing can conceal or hide any thing from her who in an instant surmounts the Stars Thus Adam by his Maker was made a Monarch and one of the Creators holy Senators who read Lectures in the Heavens the Almighties Common-place-book and conducted the Creatures created in the Creation to whom God gave Voice and the ornament of Speech but above all the glorious intellect of Mind which Angellical State our Protoplast stood in so long as he stood in opposition to Sin which gift was ungiven to the rest of the Creation yet none of them denied the benefit of Sence lapt up only in this thin Tiffeny Web of Mortality for Sin is but a bulk of emptiness and impiety that like a Pageant does nothing it self but hinders others from doing good seducing by the lust and pleasures of the Body whiles the Soul is meerly starv'd with penury Innocency was then the best guard of our Ancestor when he stood in the presence of his God in simplicity for the more pure that any thing is the more sublime is that thing also Wherefore we consider Adam in an Angelical State when cloathed with Piety and adorned with Purity then he stood his ground like a Heavenly Champion for God had made his Earth Celestial This answers something to the Doctrine of Hermes that God inhabits in the Mind of Man the Mind in the Soul and the Soul in the Body and that he is all things in All both Act and Power for he is God. From the matter therefore the subtilest part is Air of the Air the Soul of the Soul Mind of the Mind God. And the Soul of Eternity is God himself but the Soul of the World is Eternity and Heaven as he saith is the Soul of the Earth So that nothing nor part is deficient of Soul nor is the Soul deficient of God. Thus in innocency and simplicity oâ— Protoplast stood in this Divine posture without sensual guards when his Maker selected him a representative at the great Assembly of the blessed Creation where all the Creatures were convocated together Then it was that Adam like a Magestrate and a Legislator for such then he was gave forth his Edicts unto all the Creatures his natural Subjects The Golden Rule was kept then amongst them when every one did justice by kind and not that the dread of punishment compell'd them For the Ray of Justice was so generally distributed that it naturally shined in every individual The Earth in those days was unburdned with Tillage nor do we read it was wounded with Culture the Creatures in the Creation liv'd purely by instinct not making their Bodies Sepulchres to bury dead Carcasses in There was no Temple in those days to prophane but now we have Temples nor want we Prophaners Wherefore let 's consider the glorious Work of the Creation that by the hand of God was no sooner made but by the will of Man was endeavoured to be unmade Creation is not therefore Generation nor have we considered Generation is Life but by way of allusion it may be called sence Nor is Change Death though commonly so asserted but rather a forgetfulness or obliteration of Elements Generation therefore is improperly called a Creation but rather a production of things only to sence in time made manifest nor is Change Death but an occultation or hiding of that that in it self seemed once to live Here methinks I see both Sexes in our Ancestor shine through the lustre and beauty of Adam for Male and Female God created them so that both Sexes liv'd under one Species and Adam in appearance was then Hermaphrodite because having both Natures and Similitudes in himself And whatever Adam listed should then be done was accomplished before the desire could grow into act in so great subjection was every thing to him that obedience was held more Sacred than Sacrifice All the Beasts in the Field came to him for Names so did the Fish and the Fowl of Heaven and whatever he called them that was their Name God gave him Wisdome and he wisely improv'd it till the Tempter by a temptation leudly deprav'd him so that whiles he steer'd both Sexes in one bottome his success in every thing was more than miraculous but to Pilot the Helm of two distinct Vessels and both at once in a storm under Sail surpasses the skill and methods of Navigation And God blessed them with blessings in bidding them be fruitful which blessing was doubled by multiplication
And as light shin'd forth by reason of purity unmasking or unveiling the scenes of darkness that lay hudled up in the hoil of obscurity light as a thing strangely surprized seem'd suddenly to startle because then not to know such a horrid deformity as this we call darkness was in the beginning co-inhabitant with it or conceal'd beneath it for the light of it self was most pure and immaculate in as much as it never entred into unity nor into any association with obscurity or darkness But darkness represents the solitary shadow of some Elementary thing or something substantial wherefore we shall want some solid substance whereby to form our darkness out of and what is more solid than the fixity of Earth or more copious than the bulk of the great Creation when as yet in the Hoil or confused Chaos it lay intermingled and blended together Light must necessarily therefore appear a most glorious Creature which by Divine Act operated in the Separation For God no sooner said Let there be Light and obedient to the Command it immediatly sprung up which by reason of its purity and sublime clarity exalted it self and fill'd all the Universe so made visible discovery of things that lay conceal'd in the commassated mixture or Mass of Elements And this miraculous Work was accomplisht for Man that he might admire the excellency of his Maker and raise his speculations to such a divine pitch that by visibles he might conclude since such ornaments of beauty and swavity hung about them that greater excellencies and diviner curiosities of necessity must adorn the more invisible part by reason what 's circumferated and made visible to us is only the shadow of that more glorious invisibility visible only to Seraphins and Cherubims Arch-Angels and Angels together with the Saints and the Sons of God. Farther yet to comfirm these Royal Priviledges Adams prerogative seems infinitely enlarged for all the Beasts on the Earth with the Fowl of the Air and the Fish in the Sea were given him for Food by a Royal Grant from Heaven to eat of but not to riot so dishonour his Creator and every Vegetable besides the Race of Animals were not only allotted him but given for nutrition So that in effect the whole Creation consequently every individual production by Commission from the Divinest was given him for sustentation And so great a favourite was Adam in Paradise and such great kindness had his Creator for him that he made him Lord over all the Creation and every thing that was was made serviceable to him nay in such veneration he stood with the Creatures that all the Creation doubled their obedience Here I fancy the innocent Lamb because then not knowing the terrours of death proffered his Throat to the Shrines of the Altar and the fatted Calf was so far from fear that he dreaded not the formidable stroke of Separation the Kids with the Flock sported then with the Wolf and ran about the Bear sometimes for diversion Thus the Creatures made sport and pastime with danger as if Death and Destruction were sanctuary to them so naturally was Innocency implanted in Eden or the Suburbs of Heaven that nothing knew its enemy because no enemy to know Unity and Harmony were inseparable Companions and every individual knew no Argument but Love whose Law was alike forcible to others as the Law of Harmony was united in it self The Mallard in those days soar'd with the Falcon and the timerous Hare lay down with the Hound The Leopard and the Tigre sported with the Herds and the Herren with the Shad swam without dread of the Porpus the Dove and the Lark took flight with the Tassel nor was any thing of Emulation known then in the Creation Innocency shin'd naturally in every thing and its excellency in the beginning knew no limitation for nothing could sorrow nor any thing grieve in as much as there was no real cause of suffering Nor could any thing languish nor be sensible of smart because as hitherto pain was uncreated Fear was a thing altogether unexperimented and Death and the Grave such eminent strangers as never to be apprehended What a pure State the Creation then stood in worthy our contemplation and the admiration of all Men. But Adam too niggardly he consults the Elements and Elements because having periods of their own by praedestinated Ordination are lockt up in death Adam therefore mixing simplicity with impurity which of it self stood in the limit of disobedience cojoyned himself with finite adherences so drew down upon himself the shortness of Life and on the succeeding Generations the issues of Death which in time diminished so by degrees extinguished the beauteous and luminous Ray of Life that shined gloriously within him and was sanctuary without him and would ever have gloriously shined in his Posterity had not â—e remisly by one single consent complyed with his Consort so vainly to extinguish it Now when God had made a survey of the Creation the Workmanship of his hands and divinely blessed it he placed therein the likeness of himself the single identity of his Divine Goodness which could not go forth because the everlasting Arms of the Majesty of God so sacredly limited and so sweetly confined it that in this Divine and Cristalline Coagulum the Majesty of Heaven beheld himself who viewing the several Classes of the Creatures which by Wisdome he divinely had foreseen in the Idea it so greatly renewed the ardency of his Love which continued and augmented the blessing upon them for Love has that singularity to shine in it self and in its operation always to renovate Thus God so loved the World he had made that he gave us Himself in giving us his Son that whosoever believed and persevered in him should never die but have Life everlasting Thus God made the World to protrude and vegetate and because it should conceive and daily bring forth he placed an appetite and an immortal Soul therein and fill'd it as Hermes says with Divine imagination so that the Sun and Celestials fell in Love with the Harmony and because it was beautiful they married with it and this great Solemnity was Celebrated at first when God laid his Ordinance of Multiplication upon it Which Divine Institution has been punctually observed and kept inviolable ever since the beginning and will undoubtedly so long remain and so long continue till Generation and Time shall be no more And now the Deeps began to break up when the Rivers and Rivulets with murmuring Streams silently invaded the florid Plains The Mountains and the Hills also look'd big with Flocks whiles the Valleys and Savannas with the fragrant Meadows were abundantly crowded with Herds of Cattle All the Birds in the Air now turn'd Serenades and every Flower and flourishing Blossom perfum'd the Air with delicious Aroma's The lofty Cedar then lifted up his head and the Martial Oak and the Ash stood by him so did the Poplar and the spreading Elme but the trembling