after Purgation to rectify and conjoyn and then advance if it could be to a plusquam perfection whereby to imitate Nature as she by president imitates the Creator what admirable thing would the Operator bring forth Wherefore the Apostle he bids you be perfect as your Heavenly Father is also perfect And what can advance to a state of Perfection but that which separates from Sin and Impurity Thus the Heavens are pure and infinitely clarified yet much more pure is he that created them which state to know is never to know Death Wherefore as by imitation some Bodies are made always to live in the Phylosophick World which the Adeptest intitles and superscribes Transmutation but the Theologist in the Super-celestial that of Regeneration And as one is the period of Principles and Elements such also is the other of Corporification leading Death into Captivity and transforming every impure Being into a Celestial Clarity and Purity and the Souls of Righteous Men into endless Glory but this Operation is performable only by the Heavenly Arcanum or Medicament of Life which Sacred Soveraign and Divine Elixir is the Christ of God the Wisdom of the Father to whom devoutly be everlasting Praises And as Christ is called the Light of the World c. Light may properly therefore be asserted the Manifestation of God and the Oracle of his Truth for if what visible Light is or appears unto the Bodily Eye the same but infinitely more glorious is the invisible Light that illuminates the Understanding in the Eye of the Mind The want of Light it 's true makes Man deplorable so is Ignorance of the Mind to be lamented And as Generation that sprang out from Corruption of those things which were esteemed the best so the Light that shines in Man when it becomes eclipst by the shades of Sin how dreadful and dismal is that Darkness As Light therefore of all things is accounted most desirable the want of it to the Mind makes the Man most miserable So of all Ignorance that Ignorance is the worst which hath reference to the most Noble and Sublimest Object and by how much the subject of Knowledge is better by so much is the deprivation of that Knowledge intollerable As any one therefore by putting out a Mans Eyes whereby to intercept him the injoyment of Light is reputed cruel so he that prevents the means of Knowledge is no less if not infinitely more by a Scriptural Authority adjudged condemnable Light therefore because exalted above all Created Beings it confirms it the Standard of Wonder and Admiration whose beauteous Beam displays it self the uncreated Being before the Creation consequently superexcelling all the rest in Dignity but the created luminous Ray of the Sun that strikes the Poles from East to West nay farther its possible could we apprehend it is sacredly held forth as the Almighties Taper whereby to illustrate the Visible World as do's the Light of his Sovereign All-glorious Son invisibly shine in the Souls of Saints to convince the World of Sin and Unbelief And tho Laban usher Leah unto Iacob's Bed by introducing her instead of his beautiful Rachel so every designing Imaginarist do's when describing only exteriour things but states nothing essentially Such I may say dwell meerly in the Face or at the best on the superficial parts of the Body never aspiring after the fulness of Beatitude which Philosophy in my Opinion looks like to a Church that 's drest up with Discipline when wanting sound Doctrine So that if when to consider the exteriour form of complicated mixts shall melt away probably we arrive at the fiery principium whose Elevations lead on to a state Immortal co-uniting us to that invisible Nature that admits not of any thing save Purity intense by the continued ardency of a Pious Devotion As in Operation it 's evident and egregiously true that the Elements themselves assume all Colours before the Beauty of those colours egrede wherefore they begin with Blackness first because the Antecessour and Parent of Putrefaction after it passes thro other middle Colours till at length it arrives at a Celestial Whiteness which then is Air from whence it ascends to a fiery Complexion in which the Power of Art and Dominion of Fire when to speak Aenigmatically is compleatly terminated and beyond which in my Opinion there 's no natural progress And God no sooner divinely said Let there be Light but immediately there was Light so that his Commands were in a moment answered for how soon did the Light spontaneously spring up and amounting aloft fill the Universe with Splendor So that now the Creation became altogether visible and every concealed Treasure that lay hid therein exposed it self unto occular view whereby to discover the Chaos commaserated and Water and Earth by previous digestion without contention or strong ebullitions began of themselves distinctly to separate and the Earth as rejected to precipitate downwards by reason of its Gravity and solid Ponderosity so that these two Elements were only made visible but the Fire and the Air they fled our sight which by reason of Purity became also invisible whose Sublime Bodies by the Creators Will elevated themselves to influence the Earth whereby to impregnate it with Prolifick Vertue This was and is that beautiful Order wherein the Divinest so divinely placed things when the Earth as an Embrio lay hid and concealed in the Exuberant Womb of the unweildy Waters And this is that great and stupendious work of Separation which Act or Operation was fit only for God who separated the Light from the mists of Darkness which glorious Operation the Prophet Moses points at as a thing principally to be minded and considered if provided any one would imitate the Creator when in the beginning he created the Universe but the end of the Creation stands still in the Ternary of which more at large in its proper place Christ therefore is our Soveraign and our Saving Light that comprehends the Darkness yet the Darkness knows him not whose beauteous brightness illuminates the World and is that Glory and Majesty of Light that was from God that never had beginning which Incomprehensible Light shined before the beginning to illuminate the Throne of the Majesty of God and is the true Essential Word of God and the Word is God the Wisdom of the Father as is manifested to us by Moses and the Prophets But the created Luminaries as Sun Moon and Stars these are but Elementary subject therefore to corruption when God shall please to extinguish their Light by withdrawing the Beauteous Ray of himself and as the Light of the Sun is the Beauty of the Creation how much more beautiful is the Son of God the All-glorious Beauty of the Majesty of God The Created World therefore was made to discover visible Objects and things Corporeal but the Increated and most Sovereign Being to make obvious to us things Invisible the Natural to inspect both Elements and Principles but the Supernatural to
fatal Act of Sinning and that every Man because subject to Sin and the slavish Law of his lustful Appetite becomes captivated by the man of Sin so yields himself captive to the Prisons of Death whose outward progression is actually moved by irregular motion of the desires inward But the Heavens we see and the Celestial Incolists how they never since the Creation consented to Sin and as they were so are they still carried about with a rapid motion The reason whereof must necessarily spring from an internal cause and intrinsick principle since intelligences are so ambigious and what is this principle if not the Soul of the World or the Universal Spirit God has put into Nature whereby as a Magnet it retains the matter which labouring to re-assume its former liberty frames to her self a habitation in the Centre and branching into the several Members of the Body makes more room to act and bestir her faculties No wonder therefore that natures are compounded since nothing but the Almighty is without composition Nor is it the great or the lesser World that which transmutes nutrition into blood but the active Spirit of Life and transmutation is that which is indeed the Life of the Body Since material principles therefore are only passive and can neither alter nor purifie the parts we find them in a state to be altered and purified tho not to communicate or dispose themselves to another substance beyond their native intention Wherefore we have considered them altogether finite and therefore have concluded them also determinate Now if this be a secret you may call it so but as truth needs no voucher it s a substantial truth Wherefore to conclude this philosophick Hypothesis let us throw away if possible those two celebrated crutches of pretended modern sanctity and the solemnity of Ceremony and what results but primitive purity which since the Creation has known no deformity And God said in the Text let us now make Man in our own Image let us make him and after our likeness and let them have dominion over the Fish in the Sea the Fowl in the Air over the Cattle also and over all the Earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the Earth By this the Creation seem'd to want a Head and less than a Prince is too little to govern it Adam must therefore be a Universal Monarch and sway the Throne and the Regal Scepter And Adam must not only wear Heavens Livery but personate the King of Heaven himself Here the Divinest seems to Summons a Councel and God said in himself let us now make Man not like to any thing already made but let us make him in likeness like our self in our own similitude and likeness let us make him and enlarge his Empire by giving him dominion over all the Fish that swim in the Sea and over all the Fowl that fly in the Air over the Cattle also that move on the Earth and over every living creature that creepeth and moveth the Wisdome of God so divinely ordered This was a large and copious Commission that God intrusted a single Subject withal yet such was the good opinion the Creator had of the Creature that God intrusts Adam with the Stock of the Creation and all the Creatures and every complicated Being that was made comprehended and contained in it And Adam drew all his supplies from above since enricht with the Stock and the Treasures of Heaven nor converst he with any inferiour Subject nor any thing in any respect unsuitable to himself whereby he might indignifie or diminish his Authority In the cool of the Evening he walked with God and in the heat of the day the Aquaducts refresht him Aurora sent him Summons of approach of Day but the Night nor was darkness dreadful to him The Celestial Sun was his daily Tapour and the Catalogue of Stars his hourly Contemplation but the Son of God his perpetual Lamp. So that his outside was bettered by his inside and because richly adorned and divinely beautified he saw no darkness nor the shadow of Death whiles he stood in this innocent State of Perfection For God in the Idea beholding a shape or as I may so say a representation of himself became therewith inamour'd and extreamly loving it would cohabit with it when immediately upon the resolution the operation ensued and then was this great Image the beautiful World or rather the representative of his Maker brought forth and created And God said to himself or the holy Word increase in increasing and multiply in multitudes But to Man only because Lord of the Creation I have endowed him with mind and made him immortal So that if he die the cause of death must necessarily proceed from excess of the body and inequallity of Elements and pray tell me what death is if not a cold icy touch or a dismal darkness of the compounded moist nature adhering only to the sensible World. Let no Man wonder therefore that the light of God which illuminates the World is unlike the Beam or Ray of the Sun that by reason of its fiery and excessive brightness immediately and at once strikes the eye with blindness but rather to the contrary Heavens brighter Glory never at any time dazles the mind since the mind is the Souls ingressive eye that soars up aloft to those elevated Mansions where that light shines that enlightneth every Man already come or to come into the World and is the beauty and glory of light and our saving health that influenceth illuminates and beautifieth the Creation and every Creature and created Being But Man above all because made a Monarch and capable to receive this blessed influence proceeding from God the Majesty of Light and superexcellent brightness that diefies the Soul whiles yet in the Body it s he that 's only blest to contemplate this divine beauty and live up to the Vertue of Piety and Holiness So that Adam in a state of innocency represents as Montanus says a Mortal God and our Heavenly Redeemer an immortal Man if when to consider the blessed Incarnation And thus the things that are were made manifest in time but the things that are and not yet made manifest lie hid and conceal'd in the Divinest himself who is all things in all yet subsists without them manifest only in the mind of Man but invisible to the World and the visible eye except in the act of creating only And as the eminency of all appearing beauties are in the Essence much more pure so great and greater is the disproportion of beauty betwixt this of Earth and the Beauty of Heaven All things therefore subject to the Eye represent to us only things subject to sence or more fully to explain it visible operation whiles the Fabrick of the Body needs and requires those similar things that it cannot with conveniency live well without them But the Beauty and Majesty of invisible Beings are inspected only by intellectual Converse since the
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
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
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
or prospect nor rested he there until the final Complement of his Divine Counsel and Determinate Purpose And then it was that Adam was made which the Divinest created no less than a Monarch and intrusted by the Creator with the Creatures in the Creation inraged Lucifer that infernal Prince to emulate the Dignity of this new Favorite who reflectiâ—g on his Ambitions that so lately dethron'd him which obliged him to forfeit his Regal Possession he therefore undermines to blow up this Favourite who tainting our Protoplast infects his Posterity And thus the bright and beautiful Morning is sometimes sullied with a louring Sky For did not the Sun 's early blazing smiles shine upon Sodom and her accurst Inhabitants that soon after ended in a fatal Tragedy what must we call this if not a dismal Eclipse nay altogether a deprivation of life save only to Lot and his preserved Family on purpose kept alive by the meanes of Miracle when all the rest were made most miserable Morts Whiles therefore we live here in this Natural State we only reap supplies of Aliment from Elements but when we shall be discharged the Manicles of Sin and releast from the horrour and amazements of Death we shall then appear under a more spirituous form and where we shall see things as they really are in themselves by which we may know till then we knew nothing Nor are these Moral Beings or Natural Apprehensions any other than signitures or the deliniated Figure of that super-excellent Beauty we shall see hereafter And God by Wisdom divided the Waters from the Waters the Celestial from the Terrestrial Heaven from Earth the Invisible from Visible things and so disposed them by the Law of Providence appointing to every one Dominion and Operation in order to bring about his determinated Creation And who knows but that these elevated and invisible Waters are the Waters Moses speaks of that Bathe the Banks of the New Ierusalem and that the spangled Firmament is the Pavement of Heaven or the solid part thereof if not improper to say so nor is 't impertinent to think so when Invisibles are pointed at by Visible Objects otherwise I understand not the design in the Text which supposing I do I am unwilling to be refuted if when only to hear another Mans contradiction But that there was and still is a Division or an Interposition betwixt Superiours and Inferiours is past dispute Moses asserts it and the Text affirms it where note as a Christian it concerns me to enquire and as a Philosopher as gladly desire to be advised and informed the Nature and the Quality of these divisional Waters the Vertue and the Office of that that 's Elementary as the Dignity and Operation of that that 's invisible the first because Elementary we daily converse with and frequently apply it unto servile uses but the latter since invisible we assign that to Moses except otherwise the Divinest by Oracle from Heaven be pleased to inspireus as the Prophet was inspired Faith therefore is the evidence of things invisible as is demonstration of visible things The Waters above the Firmament we have supposed them Celestial because of Sublimity Purity and Rarification which in the great and admirable work of this stupendious Separation the Chaos no sooner felt the Examen of Heat but Water began immediately to operate and presently became convertible into Air and this I call Aetherial Rarification by reason it s not only separated from Aquasity but apparently becomes to the World invisible Why not then by the same Argument all the Fountains and Aquoducts nay the Ocean it self by the Law of Necessity evaporate into Air since minutely it operates without intermission this is obvious to every one but the Sours of the Sea you 'll object is so deep her Springs and Supplies so manifestly numerous that it 's almost impossible to exhaust her Treasures whereby to render her barren or impoverish'd to that I answer God has placed such a Magnet in the very Bowel and Center of the Waters of that attractive and magnetick Vertue that were not the Waters bounded by the Law of Limitation the Earth peradventure would soften and melt consequently become convertible into Water and for ought I know resolve at last into a moist and a soft thin Air. But God the Creator has placed such a Bar betwixt the Visible and Invisible Waters He I say it is that by Wisdom and Providence hung up a Spangled Vail or Covering betwixt them and calls it the Firmament which intersects or divides betwixt Celestials and Terrestials yet so that a sympathy and continued harmony is by the Divinest correspondent betwixt them and the Text tells us that Heaven it self forbears not to sigh if at any time the Sinner be sadned to mourn but is filled with Alacrity and Heavenly Joy even at the Conversion of one single Penitent Nay so great is the triumph among the Saints and Angels when a Sinner becomes victor over Sin and Impenitency that all our Faculties as if Divinely exirted muster up themselves in open Hostility to oppose the Invador of our everlasting Tranquility but I intend not to common place upon this Divine Subject otherwise than to elucidate the Mysteries of the Creation And where Rabbi Moses has drawn the Curtain I shall modestly by permission endeavour to withdraw it provided it be thought neither Sacriledge nor Impiety since to confider behind this Mystical Interposition the Magi have concealed the Sanctum Sanctorum nor Prophane I when to say The Beauty of Holiness So that we may read and begin to understand the Firmament by Interpretation is called Heaven which certainly is the Basis and Celestial Superstructure of this most admirable and stupendindious Creation tho to us and our Ancestors seemingly invisible wherefore let us resort to Heavens great School where Christ himself is Dictator and Pilate to conduct us and chief Rabbi to instruct us for the Divinest himself will become our Interpreter so that God in due time will certainly manage us to that Seraphick Society of Saints and Angels where we shall Daily be Divinely taught and by Jesus Christ the Son of God made so Prophetical and Evangellically Intelligeable that the Alphabet of Heaven will be the Christ-Cross-Row whiles about these Sublunar Orbs our Modern Didacticks and Learned Academicks are hourly so impinged that they sore no higher than Custom and President of Profest Arts and if without offence I may freely speak it rather of Litteral than Liberal Science Where note some Anti-Scripturist's have been lately so Prophane as to imagine God like to a Country Mechanick that builds up with Stone and finishes with Timber without any Infusion of Life and Motion as if the whole Creation was a Creature inanimate when the voluminous World which is Gods great Library is filled full of Life Activity and Motion which Life is Spirit and the cause of Multiplication and the natural Production of all created things that by Copulation are
the same likeness it naturally produceth and such as are the constitution of Elements and Principles such also are our Native and Corporial Constitutions To consider things therefore as they are in themselves we need not to borrow Spectacles from others for if when to consider the Sun universally shines notwithstanding the Blind Man he seeth it not and so of Eclipses tho some have seen them what then their natural Reason and Understanding can't reach them however Credit go's a great way in the case The Blind-man perhaps he swallows a Fly and if he do and feel it not what prejudice is there in it when a Fly in the Glass to him that hath Eyes is not only disturb'd but in some measure terrified because fearing to surfeit if not to suffocate Circumspection therefore and the Vertue of Temperance circumscribe to us the Mediums for long Life when excess of any thing overthrows the whole and would even do so to this stupendious Creation should it in any thing exceed with intemperance The Vertue therefore and the Office of Water is to cleanse to moisten to mollific and dissolve to wash also and purific the the outside And this peradventure was Iohn Baptists Ordinance when only to blot out the Character of Circumcision which indeed was then prevalent among the Iews till the Baptism of Jesus of more Energy and Vertue took place to purge out Sin by Internal Purification and which also is that Baptism of the Holy Ghost which Iohn proclain'd was the Baptism of Fire so that these two Ordinances and Divine Operations were vastly different and distinct from one another for the one only washes but the other purifies the first to brush off the outward defilements but the latter to blot out Internal Pollution Consider it therefore you Christian Professors and live not by Profession but the life of Christianity And the Divinest said Let the dry Land appear which was no sooner said but it immediately appeared Now dry Land which is the solid and fix'd part of the Creation all Interpreters agree that its literally Earth and properly is such and generally so received as is by Expositors and others concluded And this dry Earth I have also considered was that only which was left after separation of the Elements to which also was added the dignity of an Element and because ranged and superscribed in the fourth Clasis of the Macrocosm is confirm'd the most solid and most fix'd part of the whole concentring it self upon its own proper Basis and impending on nothing by a Divine Ordination but it s own equal Poize and the Will of God so that neither upwards nor downwards Extension nor Demension can any ways remove displace or unlodge it because God through Wisdom has inspired into it the Magnet of Fixation Gravity and Station which confirms it a central and fixt residence and the Waters to rowl perpetually about it The Air also to incircle and surround it and the Fire above all to surmount above it yet every of them is restricted by Providence within the Circular Globe or Firmament of Heaven But where are we now got above the Elements no probably but as far as our Eyes will carry us no mortal sees farther Our Basis I perceive then will be understood the Earth and Earth and Water compleat but one Globe so that of the whole and visible appearance here seems to remain but one moity left and the rather to confirm it it 's obvious to every one that the Firmament of Heaven intersects betwixt them for the Elements of Fire and Air disappearing they become invisible so that what remains now save only Earth and Water which are Subjects most solid and visible to us Not that I impose this Doctrine upon any Man nor do I offer it as a noval of my own since therefore of it self it is so demonstrable let it carry its evidence in the Frontispiece of Time. Earth therefore and Water are constipated Corelates as hitherto we have observed them visible Elements and the difference betwixt them is easily reconcileable when to consider the Gravity of the one and Fluidity of the other yet both impregnated with Vital Faculties and to each is super added a Prolifick Vertue and because daily influenced by Stars and Planets are by the Divinest inspired with Life and Vegetation But Earth is the Nurse and Supply of Elements as is Water the Sister and the Mother of Earth and because both filled with Vertual Production they fail not to send forth their daily encrease whose Prolifick Breasts minutely sprung up naturally replenished to supply the Universe But I must caution my self what I say now least peradventure there are some will decry any Hypothesis and what if they do I matter not much since to leave behind me Proselites enough after my Death to assert and maintain That the World had a beginning this is undeniable That Time sprung from Eternity this is also indisputable That Generation succeeded Time this is beyond all dispute unquestionable And that Generation terminates in Death is altogether infallible That the Elements and Principles were lodg'd in the great Mass of the Chaos is true That Fire because of its Dignity superceeded the rest is most true And that Air because of its purity climb'd up after the Fire is certainly as true leaving the Waters rolling too and fro fluctuating incircling and inspiring the Earth and the Earth as Central to all the rest by Wisdom and Providence was concentrate on its Basis. Now tell me if you please what false Doctrine's here and I 'll tell you that our Modern Philosophers will allow it Orthodox as the precedent Generations and Philosophers before them so govern'd themselves as to assert and vindicate it So that as I design no Captivity by my Discourse nor intend I any Conquest or Triumph over others only the exercise of every Man's Reason compelling no Man to the dictates of my conclusions Give me leave therefore such to advise as converse with Scripture or correspond with Reason and the possibility of Nature such I mean as profligate those Fictious Notions of Heathens and Infidels and Atheistical Antiseripturists whose suggestions are only of an imaginary Being of that Superlative Being whose real Essence is existent in himself pre-existing Time and is the God of Nature God blessed for ever And the Earth brought forth Grass Here 's Natural Production and this Natural Product spreading it self abroad in a very short progress run into multiplication and because the Creator destinated it to the Creatures use it became Nutritious and Salubrious to them consequently agreeable and convertible to their Nature But the Apostle tells us That all Flesh is Grass and as the Grass fadeth and withereth away so Flesh and Blood our daily Morts prognosticate them also in a state of Corruption and in process of time to admit of Solution Every thing therefore that is in a capacity of being dissolved that thing most certainly becomes invisible and such a
I call Motion and the perpetual rotation of this admirable and imbellished Creation notwithstanding Copernicus asserts the Contrary when to tell us that the Earth of it self has a motion however I know none except that of Vegatation And now the great Creator that made the Light commands that Lights appear in the 〈◊〉 Number and divinely ranging them in the Frontispiece of Heaven it denotâ—s unto us the aforesaid Separation of that which is pure from that that 's imâ—ure Fo◠〈◊〉 Firmament at once 〈…〉 with 〈◊〉 whose Bodies were innumerable 〈◊〉 and luminous and 〈◊〉 made to shine all over the Universeâ—â—hey also illuminate and impregnate the Creation and that to admiration he hung theâ—â—â—word in his sublime Sanctuary to discrim◠〈◊〉 Day from the obscurities of 〈◊〉 and to mark out the Winter 〈◊〉 Summer Season For they 〈◊〉 made Signs and Expositors of Seasons to remonstrate days 〈◊〉 â—imes to prognosticate Thus we â—â—ad and as constantly we observe the Heavens adorned with these beautiful Bodies so that their operations we feel and sometimes their effects but their ends as hitherto are not generally understood tho frequently thâ—â—ght 〈◊〉 and descanted by putatioâ—â—rs who fancy it Sacriligious when to mediate on them or if but to enquiâ—â— into the order of the Creation supposing the Creator like themsâ—â—ves but nigardly when to conceal such an excellent and admirable 〈…〉 least peradventure every 〈◊〉 should pâ—â— into the Model so 〈…〉 Maker by the Mediums of Artâ— But Gods divinâ— Oracles surpasseth mans reason 〈◊〉 wisdome instructs us the â—â—â—â—ods of the Creation nor was 〈◊〉 ignorant of these Celestial 〈◊〉 who pointed out to us the Divin◠〈◊〉 of Stars how some of them 〈◊〉 and how some move themselves who cites to us the motion of 〈…〉 Constellations the forms and â—â—nfigurations also of the Signs of the Zodiack with the blazing Meteoâ—s and formidable Apparitions the beauty of Orion and the splendâ—ur of the Pliades the lustre of Bootes â—ubulus or Arctophylax the celerity of Mercury and the Rotation of Ursa Major incircling Ursa Minor in opposition to the Crosiers Directors to Artick and the Antartick Poles But what edifies all this to an illiterate Person any more than a Clerum at the Commencement in Cambridge ignorance I must confess is an o'rgrown Infant and the greatest Enemy and Opposer of Art which ought to be shun'd as a Monster in nature and above all things abhor'd as some mortal Contagion or thing worse could worse be supposed For ignorance and impudence they poison our Faith and of future hope would have us to suspect the enjoyment of the excellency of those divine things whereof now we know little more than part For to read in the beautiful face of the Firmament we discover the invisibillity of things made visible which manifests to us the end of the Creation So that I prophane not nor would I be thought erronious when if only to assert that the Stars made visible are Angels only explicated and the Saints shall shine as the Stars in Glory consequently that Angels are Stars complicated and as the Star Hesper is the Suns Aurora so the day Star of Regeneration is the Son of God to light us up to his glorious habitation it is true that as the Night is opposite to the Day so Sin interposeth betwixt God and the Creature we must carry the Cross to purchase the Crown and divide the Day from obscurities of the Night which without a Metaphor is the Light from Darkness Sin from Sanctity Death from Life and which indeed are sublime operations fit only for him that divinely operates The frontispiece therefore or visibility of the Firmament God noted out to us for Signs and for Seasons so for Days and for Years whereby to prophesie of those fatal Events frequently impendent ore impenitent people but the Seasons declaratively make demonstrative of heat so do they of cold as at other times of rain and â—lso of fair weather because visibly read in the face of the Stars Exhalations Corruscations and Embodied Clouds The days also numerate the date of the Creation and the Nights direct us to read Lectures in the Heavens Thus we see that we see nothing except we see and understand by the Wisdome of God the excellency and beauty of those sublime things pointed out to us in the mysteries of the Creation viz. how the Ray of Light profligates Darkness and the Glory of the Majesty mortifies Death the consideration whereof sweeteens all difficulties but the blessed fruition ravishes the Soul and makes it infinitely more pleasant and dilectable than temporal sweets affect the sence And God the Creator made two great Lights the Sun and the Moon whose different progress directs unto us a different appointment the Sun as abovesaid to rule the Day but the Moon by reflection to govern the Night So that the Sun by Divine ordination and the Providence of God superceeds the Moon but the Moon by a peculiar virtue influenceth the Ocean and adorns the Universe The Majesty of the Sun is admired by the Persians so is that of the Moon adored by the Indians Now the Suns warm body moderates the Earth and would peradventure in some measure callifie it did not the moist Air generously intermediate And the Moon perhaps would frigidate the Ocean did not the Suns soveraign warm Beams mildly and sweetly by influence nourish it What illuminates the Orbs and what inspires the Ocean if not Sun and Moon by the Providence of God that vegetates and impregnates the Creatures in Creation So that if when to consider the Majesty of the Sun that incessantly moves without intermission in the Central Orbs and every Angle of the Universe whose defused Ray spreads upwards and downwards and every way to influence with heat and motion and because enricht and adorned with such eminent qualifications as the majesty of Light and the excellency of Beauty it might probably invite Sandivogius the Philosopher to superscribe him the Vehicâ—lum or Tabernacle for God which Hypothesis is refuted by Basil Valentine and contradicted by Scriptural Authority For I will build my Tabernacle and dwell among men and the Saints they shall shine as the Stars in Glory But the Sun beyond dispute is the most glorious Creature that God has Created in this stupendious Creation because of its purity and superlative Clarity since totally separated from all its dregs whose inside and outside we made Synonimous formd out of pure Principles of Life and Heat whose rapid motion gives action to the Orbs and cloaths all the Stars with his Lustre and Splendour making them shew beauteous by the lustre of his brightness and because by the Divinest deckt and adorn'd with Glory he lives without compeer nor has he any Corival where note he 's a Monarch and the Parent of Vegetation And such is the Moon tho a faint flattering Ray if when compared with the Sun yet she illustrates unto us from the same Original and because adapted from