that it is nothing but the stilnesse and fixednesse of Melancholy that thus abuses him and in stead of the true divine Principle would take the Government to it self and in this usurped tyranny cruelly destroy all the rest of the Animal Figurations But the true divine Life would destroy nothing that is in Nature but only regulate things and order them for the more full and sincere enjoyments of man reproaching nothing but sinfulnesse and enormity entituling Sanguine and Choler to as much Virtue and Religion as either Phlegme or Melancholy For the divine Life as it is to take into it self the humane nature in general so it is not abhorrent from any of the complexions thereof But the squabbles in the world are ordinarily not about true Piety and Virtue but which of the Complexions or what Humour shall ascend the Throne and fit there in stead of Christ himself But I will not expatiate too much upon one Theme I shall rather take a short view of the whole Allegory of the Chapter In the first Day there is Earth Water and Wind over whâ—ch and through which there is nothing but disconsolate darknesse and tumultuous agitation The Winds ruffling up the Waters into mighty waves the waves washing up the mire and dirt into the water all becoming but a rude heap of confusion and desolation This is the state of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Earthly Adam as Philo calls him till God command the Light to shine out of Darknesse offering him a guide to a better condition In the second day is the Firmament created dividing the upper and the lower Waters that it may feel the strong impulses or taste the different relishes of either Thus is the will of man touch'd from above and beneath and this is the day wherein is set before him Life and Death Good and Evil and he may put out his hand and take his choice In the third day is the Earth uncovered of the Waters for the planting of fruit-bearing trees By their fruits you shall know them saith our Saviour that is by their works In the fourth day there appears a more full accession of divine Light and the Sun of Righteousnesse warms the soul with a sincere love both of God and man In the fift day that this Light of Righteousnesse and bright Eye of divine Reason may not brandish its rayes in the empty field where there is nothing either to subdue or guide and order God sends out whole sholes of Fishes in the Waters and numerous flights of Fowls in the Air besides part of the sixt days work wherein all kinde of Beasts are created In these are decyphered the sundry suggestions and cogitations of the minde sprung from these lower Elements of the humane nature viz. Earth and Water Flesh and Blood all these man beholds in the Light of the Sun of Righteousnesse discovers what they are knows what to call them can rule over them and is not wrought to be over-ruled by them This is Adam the Master-piece of Gods Creation and Lord of all the creatures framed after the Image of God Christ according to the Spirit under whose feet is subdued the whole Animal Life with its sundry Motions Forms and Shapes He will call every thing by its proper name and set every creature in its proper place The vile person shall be no longer called liberal nor the churl bountiful Wo be unto them that call evil good and good evil that call the light darknesse and the darknesse light He will not call bitter Passion holy Zeal nor plausible meretricious Courtesie Friendship nor a false soft abhorrency from punishing the ill-deserving Pity nor Cruelty Justice nor Revenge Magnanimity nor Unfaithfulnesse Policy nor Verbosity either Wisdome or Piety But I have run my self into the second Chapter before I am aware In this first Adam is said only to have dominion over all the living creatures and to feed upon the fruit of the Plants And what is Pride but a mighty Mountainous Whale Lust a Goat the Lion and Bear wilful dominion Craft a Fox and worldly toil an Oxe Over these and a thousand more is the rule of Man I mean of Adam the Image of God But his meat and drink is to do the will of his Maker this is the fruit he feeds upon Behold therefore O Man what thou art and whereunto thou art called even to bee a mighty Prince amongst the creatures of God and to bear rule in that Province he has assigned thee to discern the Motions of thine own heart and to be Lord over the suggestions of thine own natural spirit not to listen to the counsel of the flesh nor conspire with the Serpent against thy Creator But to keep thy heart free and faithful to thy God so maist thou with innocency and unblameablenesse see all the Motions of Life and bear rule with God over the whole Creation committed to thee This shall be thy Paradise and harmlesse sport on Earth till God shall transplant thee to an higher condition of happinesse in Heaven CHAP. II. The full sense of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that keeps men from entring into the true Sabbath 4 The great necessity of distinguishing the innocent motions of Nature from the suggestions of Sin 5 That the growth of a true Christian indeed doth not adaequately depend upon the lips of the Priest 7 The meaning of This is he that comes by Water and Blood 8 The meaning of Repent for the Kingdome of Heaven is at hand The seventh thousand years the great Sabbatism of the Church of God That there will be then frequent converse betwixt Men and Angels 9 The Tree of Life how fitly in the Mystical sense said to be in the midst of the Garden 17 A twofold death contracted by Adams disobedience The Masculine and Feminine Faculties in Man what they are Actuating a Body an Essential operation of the Soul and the reason of that so joyful appearance of Eve to the Humane Nature TO the fift verse there is nothing but a recapitulation of what went before in the first Chapter and therefore wants no further proof then what has already been alledged out of S Paul and Origen and other Writers Only there is mention of a Sabbath in the second verse of this Chapter of which there was no words before And this is that Sabbatisme or Rest that the Author to the Hebrews exhorts them to strive to enter into through faith and obedience For those that were faint-hearted and unbelieving and pretended that the children of Anak the off-spring of the Giants would be too hard for them they could not enter into the promised Land wherein they were to set up their rest under the conduct of Jâ—shua a Type of Jesus And the same Author in the same place makes mention of this very Sabbath that ensued the accomplishment of the Creation concluding thus There remaineth therefore a Sabbatisme or Rest to the people of God For he that has entred
it self after his kinde so that the several sorts of plants might by this means be conserv'd upon the earth And God saw that it was good 13 And the evening and the morning made up the third natural day 14 There have three days past without a Sun as well as three nights without either Moon or Stars as you your selves may happily have observ'd some number of Moonless and Starlesse nights as well as of Sunlesse days to have succeeded one another and so it might have been always had not God said Let there be Lights within the Firmament of heaven to make a difference betwixt day and night and to be peculiar garnishings of either Let them be also for signes of weather for seasons of the year and also for periods of days months and years 15 Moreover let them be as lights hung up within the hollow roof or Firmament of heaven to give light to men walking upon the pavement of the earth and it was so 16 And God made two great lights the greater one the most glorious Princely object we can see by day to be as it were the Governor and Monarch of the day the lesser the most resplendent and illustrious sight we can cast our eyes on by night to be Governesse and Queen of the night And he made though for their smalnesse they be not so considerable the Stars also 17 And he placed them all in the Firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth 18 And to shew their preheminence for external lustre above what ever else appears by either day or night and to be peculiar garnishings or ornaments to make a notable difference betwixt the light and the darknesse the superaddition of the Sun to adorn the day and to invigorate the light thereof the Moon and the Stars to garnish the night and to mitigate the dulnesse and darknesse thereof And God saw that it was good 19 And the evening and the morning was the fourth natural day 20 After this God commanded the waters to bring forth fish and fowl which they did in abundance and the fowl flew above the earth in the open Firmament of heaven 21 And God created great whales also as well as other fishes that move in the waters and God saw that it was good 22 And God blessed them saying Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let the fowl multiply on the earth 23 And the evening and the morning made up the fifth natural day 24 Then God commanded the earth to bring forth all creeping things and four footed beasts as before he commanded the waters to send forth fish and fowl and it was so 25 And when God had made the beast of the earth after his kinde and cattel and every creeping thing after his kinde he saw that it was good 26 And coming at last to his highest Master-piece Man he encouraged himself saying Go to let us now make man and I will make him after the same image and shape that I bear my self and he shall have dominion over the fish of the Sea and over the fowls of the Air and over the cattel and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth 27 So God created man in his own shape and figure with an upright stature with legs hands arms with a face and mouth to speak and command as God himself hath I say in the image of God did he thus create him But mistake me not whereas you conceive of God as masculine and more perfect yet you must not understand me as if God made mankinde so exactly after his own image that he made none but males for I tell you he made females as well as males as you shall hear more particularly hereafter 28 And having made them thus male and female he bad them make use of the distinction of sexes that he had given them and blessing them God said unto them Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with your off-spring and be lords thereof and have dominion also over the fish of the sea and over the fowls of the air as well as over beasts and cattel and every creeping thing that moves upon the earth 29 And God said Behold I give you every frugiferous herb which is upon the face of the earth such as the Straw-berry the several sorts of Corn as Rye Wheat and Rice as also the delicious fruits of Trees to you they shall be for meat 30 But for the beasts of the earth and the fowls of the air and for every living thing that creepeth upon the earth the worser kind of herbs and ordinary grasse I have assign'd for them and so it came to passe that mankinde are made lords and possessors of the choicest fruits of the earth and the beasts of the field are to be contented with baser herbage and the common grasse 31 And God viewed all the works that he had made and behold they were exceeding good and the evening and the morning was the sixt natural day CHAP. II. 3 The Original of the Jewish Sabbaths from Gods resting himself from his six days labours 5 Herbs and Plants before either Rain Gardning or Husbandry and the reason why it was so 7 Adam made of the dust of the ground and his soul breathed in at his nostrils 8 The Planting of Paradise 9 A wonderful Tree there that would continue youth and make a man immortal upon earth Another strange Tree viz. the Tree of knowledge of good and evil 11 The Rivers of Paradise Phasis Gihon Tigris Euphrates 18 The high commendation of Matrimony 19 Adam gives names to all kinde of creatures except fishes 21 Woman is made of a rib of Adam a deep sleep falling upon him his minde then also being in a trance 24 The first Institution of Marriage 1 THus the Heavens and the Earth were finisht and all the creatures wherewith they were garnisht and replenisht 2 And God having within six days perfected all his work on the seventh day he rested himself 3 And so made the seventh day an holy day a festival of rest because himself then first rested from his works Whence you plainly see the reason and original of your Sabbaths 4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth which I have so compendiously recounted to you as they were created in the days that the Lord made heaven and earth and the several garnishings of them 5 But there are some things that I would a little more fully touch upon and give you notice of to the praise of God and the manifesting of his power unto you As that the herbs and plants of the field did not come up of their own accords out of the earth before God made them but that God created them before there were any seeds of any such thing in the earth and before there was any rain or men to use gardning or husbandry for the procuring their growth So that hereafter
he was taken 24 So he drove out Adam and his wife was forced to follow him For there was no longer staying in Paradise because the place was terribly haunted with spirits and fearful apparitions appeared at the entrance thereof winged men with fiery flaming swords in their hands brandished every way so that Adam durst never adventure to go back to taste of the fruit of the Tree of Life whence it is that mankinde hath continued mortal to this very day THE PHILOSOPHICK CABBALA CHAP. I. 1 The world of Life or Forms and the Potentiality of the visible Vniverse created by the Tri-une God and referr'd to a Monad or Unite 6 The Vniversal immense matter of the visible world created out of nothing and referr'd to the number Two 7 Why it was not said of this matter that it was good 9 The ordering of an Earth or Planet for making it conveniently habitable referr'd to the number Three 14 The immense Aethereal matter or Heaven contriv'd into Suns or Planets as well Primary as Secondary viz. as well Earths as Moons and referr'd to the number Four 20 The replenishing of an Earth with Fish and Fowl referr'd to the number Five 24 The Creation of Beasts and Cattel but more chiefly of Man himself referr'd to the number Six 1 OUR designe being to set out the more conspicuous parts of the external Creation before we descend to the Genealogies and Successions of mankinde there are two notable objects present themselves to our understanding which we must first take notice of as having an universal influence upon all that follows and these I do Symbolically decypher the one by the name of Heaven and Light for I mean the same thing by both these tearms the other by the name of Earth By Heaven or Light you are to understand The whole comprehension of intellectual Spirits souls of men and beasts and the seminal forms of all things which you may call if you please The world of Life By Earth you are to understand the Potentiality or Capability of the Existence of the outward Creation This Possibility being exhibited to our mindes as the result of the Omnipotence of God without whom nothing would be and is indeed the utmost shadow and darkest projection thereof The Tri-une God therefore by his eternall Wisdome first created this Symbolical Heaven and Earth 2 And this Earth was nothing but Solitude and Emptinesse and it was a deep bottomless capacity of being what ever God thought good to make out of it that implyed no contradiction to be made And there being a possibility of creating things after sundry and manifold manners nothing was yet determined but this vast Capability of things was unsettled fluid and of it self undeterminable as water But the Spirit of God who was the Vehicle of the Eternal Wisdome and of the Super-essential Goodnesse by a swift forecast of Counsel and Discourse of Reason truly divine such as at once strikes through all things and discerns what is best to be done having hover'd a while over all the capacities of this fluid Possibilitie forthwith settled upon what was the most perfect and exact 3 Wherefore the intire Deity by an inward Word which is nothing but Wisdome and Power edg'd with actual Will with more ease then we can present any Notion or Idea to our own mindes exhibited really to their own view the whole Creation of spiritual Substances such as Angels are in their inward natures the Souls of men and other Animals and the Seminal Forms of all things so that all those as many as ever were to be of them did really and actually exist without any dependency on corporeall matter 4 And God approved of and pleased himself in all this as good but yet though in designe there was a settlement of the fluid darknesse or obscure Possibility of the outward Creation yet it remained as yet but a dark Possibility And a notorious distinction indeed there was betwixt this Actual spiritual Creation and the dimme possibility of the material or outward world 5. Insomuch that the one might very well be called Day and the other Night because the night does deface and obliterate all the distinct figures and colours of things but the day exhibits them all orderly and clearly to our sight Thus therefore was the immateriall Creature perfectly finisht being an inexhaustible Treasury of Light and Form for the garnishing and consummating the material world to afford a Morning or Active principle to every Passive one in the future parts of the corporeal Creation But in this first days work as we will call it the Morning and Evening are purely Metaphysical for the active and passive principles here are not two distinct substances the one material the other spiritual But the passive principle is matter meerly Metaphysical and indeed no real or actual entity and as hath been already said is quite divided from the light or spiritual substance not belonging to it but to the outward world whose shadowy possibility it is But be they how they will this passive and active principle are the First days work A Monad or Unite being so fit a Symbole of the immaterial nature 6 And God thought again and invigorating his thought with his Will and Power created an immense deal of reall and corporeall matter a substance which you must conceive to lie betwixt the foresaid fluid Possibility of Natural things and the Region of Seminall Forms not that these things are distinguisht Locally but according to a more intellectual Order 7 And the thought of God arm'd with his Omnipotent will took effect and this immensely diffused matter was made But he was not very forward to say it was good or to please himself much in it because he foresaw what mischief straying souls if they were not very cautious might bring to themselves by sinking themselves too deep therein Besides it was little worth till greater polishings were bestowed upon it and his Wisdome had contrived it to fitting uses being nothing as yet but a boundlesse Ocean of rude invisible Matter 8 Wherefore this Matter was actuated and agitated forthwith by some Universal Spirit yet part of the World of Life whence it became very subtile and Ethereal so that this Matter was rightly called Heaven and the Union of the Passive and Active Principle in the Creation of this Material Heaven is the second days work and the Binarie denotes the nature thereof 9 I shall also declare unto you how God orders a reall materiall Earth when once it is made to make it pleasant and delightful for both man and beast But for the very making of the Earth it is to be referred to the following day For the Stars and Planets belong to that number and as a primary Planet in respect of its reflexion of light is rightly called a Planet so in respect of its habitablenesse it is as rightly tearmed an Earth These Earths therefore God orders in such sort that they neither want water to
lie upon them nor be covered over with water though they be invironed round with the fluid air 10 But he makes it partly dry Land and partly Sea Rivers and Springs whose convenience is obvious for every one to conceive 11 He adorns the ground also with grasse herbs and flowers and hath made a wise provision of seed that they bring forth for the perpetuation of such useful commodities upon the face of the earth 12 For indeed these things are very good and necessary both for man and beast 13 Therefore God prepared the matter of the Earth so as that there was a vital congruity of the parts thereof with sundry sorts of seminall forms of trees herbs and choicest kinds of flowers and so the Body of the Earth drew in sundry principles of Plantall Life from the World of Life that is at hand every where and the Passive and Active Principle thus put together made up the Third Days work and the Ternary denotes the nature thereof 14 The Ternary had allotted to it the garnishing of an Earth with trees flowers and herbs after the distinction of Land and Sea as the Quinary hath allotted to it the replenishing of an Earth with fish and fowl the Senary with man and beast But this Fourth Day comprehends the garnishing of the body of the whole world viz. That vast and immense Ethereal matter which is called the fluid Heaven with infinite numbers of sundry sorts of lights which Gods Wisdome and Power by union of fit and active principles drawn from the world of life made of this Ethereal matter whose usefulnesse is plain in nature that they are for Prognostick signes and seasons and days and years 15 As also for administring of light to all the inhabitants of the world That the Planets may receive light from their fountains of light and reflect light one to another 16 And there are two sorts of these Lights that all the inhabitants of the world must acknowledge great every where consulting with the outward sight from their proper stations And the dominion of the greater of these kinde of lights is conspicuous by day the dominion of the lesser by night the former we ordinarily call a Sun the other a Moon which Moon is truly a Planet and opake but reflecting light very plentifully to the beholders sight and yet is but a secondary or lesser kind of Planet but he made the Primary and more eminent Planets also and such an one is this Earth we live upon 17 And God placed all these sorts of lights in the thin and liquid Heaven that they might reflect their rayes one upon another and shine upon the inhabitants of the world 18 And that their beauty and resplendency might be conspicuous to the beholders of them whether by day or by night which is mainly to be understood of the Suns that supply also the place of Stars at a far distance but whose chiefe office it is to make vicissitudes of day and night And the Universal dark Aether being thus adorn'd with the goodly and glorious furniture of those several kindes of lights God approved of it as good 19 And the union of the Passive and Active principle was the Fourth days work and the number denotes the nature thereof 20 And now you have heard of a verdant Earth and a bounded Sea and Lights to shine through the air and water and to gratifie the eyes of all living creatures whereby they may see one another and be able to seek their food you may seasonably expect the mention of sundry animals proper to their elements Wherefore God by his inward Word and Power prepared the matter in the waters and near the waters with several vital congruities so that it drew in sundry souls from the world of Life which actuating the parts of the matter caus'd great plenty of fish to swim in the waters and fowls to flye above the earth in the open air 21 And after this manner he created great Whales also as well as the lesser kindes of fishes and he approved of them all as good 22 And the blessing of his inward Word or Wisdome was upon them for their multiplication for according to the preparation of the matter the Plastical Power of the souls that descend from the world of Life did faithfully and effectually work those wise contrivances of male and female they being once rightly united with the matter so that by this means the fish filled the waters in the seas and the fowls multiplyed upon the earth 23 And the union of the Passive and Active principle was the Fift days work and the Quinary denotes the nature thereof 24 And God persisted farther in the Creation of living creatures and by espousing new souls from the world of Life to the more Mediterraneous parts of the matter created land-serpents cattel and the beasts of the field 25 And when he had thus made them he approved of them for good 26 Then God reflecting upon his own Nature and viewing himself consulting with the Super-essential Goodnesse the Eternal Intellect and unextinguishable Love-flame of his Omnipotent Spirit concluded to make a far higher kinde of living creature then was as yet brought into the world He made therefore Man in his own Image after his own Likenesse For after he had prepared the matter fit for so noble a guest as an humane Soul the world of Life was forced to let go what the rightly prepared matter so justly called for And Man appeared upon the stage of the earth Lord of all living creatures For it was just that he that bears the Image of the invisible God should be Supreme Monarch of this visible world And what can be more like God then the soul of man that is so free so rational and so intellectual as it is And he is not the lesse like him now he is united to the terrestrial body his soul or spirit possessing and striking through a compendious collection of all kinde of corporeal matter and managing it with his understanding free to think of other things even as God vivificates and actuates the whole world being yet wholly free to contemplate himself Wherefore God gave Man dominion over the fowls of the air the fish of the sea and the beasts of the earth for it is reasonable the worser should be in subserviency to the better 27 Thus God created Man in his own Image he consisting of an intellectual Soul a terrestrial Body actuated thereby Wherefore mankinde became male and female as other terrestrial animals are 28 And the benediction of the Divine Wisdome for the propagation of their kinde was manifest in the contrivance of the parts that were framed for that purpose And as they grew in multitudes they lorded it over the earth and over-mastered by their power and policy the beasts of the field and fed themselves with fish and fowl and what else pleased them and made for their content for all was given to them by right of their
Aegyptum in manum dominorum duri And Exod. 22. 10. Et accipiet domini ejus for dominus The Text therefore necessarily requiring no such sense and the mysterie being so abstruse it is rightly left out in this Literal Cabbala Vers 2. In the first verse there was a summary Proposal of the whole Creation in those two main parts of it Heaven and Earth Now he begins the particular prosecution of each days work But it is not needful for him here again to inculcate the making of the Earth For it is the last word he spake in his general Proposal and therefore it had been harsh or needless to have repeated it presently again And that 's the reason why before the making of the Earth there is not prefixed And the Lord said Let there be an Earth Which I conceive has imposed upon the ignorance and inconsiderateness of some so as to make them believe that this confused muddy heap which is called the Earth was an Eternal First Matter independent of God and never created by him Which if a man appeal to his own Faculties is impossible as I shall again intimate when I come to the Philosophick Cabbala The sense therefore is That the Earth was made first which was covered with water and on the water was the wind and in all this a thick darkness And God was in this dark windy and wet Night So that this Globe of Earth and Water and Wind was but one dark Tempest and Sea-storm a Night of confusion and tumultuous Agitation For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not in the Letter any thing more then Ventus ingens A great and mighty wind As the Cedars of God and Mountains of God are tall Cedars great Mountains and so in Analogy the Wind of God a great Wind. Vers 3. But in the midst of this tempestuous darkness God intending to fall to his work doth as it were light his Lamp or set up himself a Candle in this dark Shop And what ever hitherto hath been mentioned are words that strike the Fancy and Sense strongly and are of easie perception to the rude people whom every dark and stormy Night may well reminde of the sad face of things till God commanded the comfortable Day to spring forth the sole Author of Light that so pleases the eyes and chears the spirits of Man And that Day-light is a thing independent of the Sun as well as the Night of the Stars is a conceit wondrous sutable to the imaginations of the Vulgar as I have my self found out by conversing with them They are also prone to think unlesse there be a sensible wind stirring that there is nothing betwixt the Earth and the Clouds but that it is a meer vacuity Wherefore I have not translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Air as Maimonides somewhere does but a mighty wind For that the rude people are sensible of and making the first deformed face of things so dismal and tempestuous it will cause them to remember the first morning light with more thankfulness and devotion Vers 4. For it is a thing very visible See what is said upon the eighth verse Vers 5. By Evening and Morning is meant the Artificial Day and the Artificial Night by a Synecdoche as Castellio in his Notes tells us Therefore this Artificial Day and Night put together make one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Natural Day And the Evening is put before the Morning Night before Day because Darkness is before Light But that Primitive darkness was not properly Night For Night is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle describes it one great Shaddow cast from the Earth which implies Light of one side thereof And therefore Night properly so called could not be before Light But the illiterate people trouble themselves with no such curiosities nor easily conceive any such difference betwixt that determinate Conical shaddow of the Earth which is Night and that infinite primitive Darkness that had no bounds before there was any Light And therefore that same Darkness prefixed to an Artificial Day makes up one Natural Day to them Which Hesiod also swallows down without chewing whether following his own fancy or this Text of Moses I know not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is But of the Night both Day and Skie were born Vers 6. This Basis or Floor That the Earth seems like a round Floor plain and running out so every way as to join with the bottome of the Heavens I have in my Introduction hinted to you already and that it is look'd upon as such in the phrase of Scripture accommodating it self to our outward senses and vulgar conceit Upon this Floor stands the hollow Firmament as a Tent pitched upon the ground which is the very expression of the Prophet Esay describing the Power of God That stretcheth out the Heavens like a Curtain and spreadeth them out as a Tent to dwell in And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is usually rendred Firmament signifies diduction expansion or spreading out But how the Seventy come to interpret it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Firmamentum Fuller in his Miscellanies gives a very ingenious reason and such as makes very much to our purpose Nam coelum seu 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he quandoquidem Tentoxio saepissimè in sacris literis assimilatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicitur quatenus expanditur Sic enim expandi solent Tentâ—ria quum alligatis ad paxillos in terram depactos funibus distenduntur atque hoc etiam pacto firmantur Itaque 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immensum quoddam ut ita dicam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ideóque 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non ineptè appelletur The sense of which in brief is nothing but this That the Seventy translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Firmamentum because the Heavens are spread out like a well-fastned and firmly pitched Ten. And I add also that they are so stiffely stretched that they will strongly bear against the weight of the upper waters so that they are not able to break them down and therewith to drown the world Which conceit as it is easie and agreeable with the fancy of the people so it is so far from doing them any hurt that it will make them more sensible of the divine Power and Providence who thus by main force keeps off a Sea of water that hangs over their heads which they discern through the transparent Firmament for it looks blew as other Seas do and would rush at once upon them and drown them did not the Power of God and the strength of the Firmament hold it off Vers 7. See what hath been already said upon the sixt verse I will only here add That the nearness of these upper waters makes them still the more formidable and so are greater spurs to devotion For as they are brought so near as to touch the Earth at the bottome so outward sense still being Judge they are to be within a small distance
the same thing by both For besides that those actuall conspicuous Lights are in Heaven viz. the Sun and Stars Heaven or the Aetherial Matter has in it all over the Principles of Light which are the round Particles and that very fine and subtile Matter that lies in the intervals of the round Particles He that is but a little acquainted with the French Philosophy understands the business plainly And in the expounding of Moses I think I may lay down this for a safe Principle that there is no considerable truth in Nature or Divinity that Moses was ignorant of and so if it be found agreeable to his Text I may very well attribute it to him At least the Divine Wisdom wherewith Moses was inspired prevents all the inventions of Men. But now that I understand this Heaven and Earth in the first verse as things distinct from Heaven and Earth afterwards mentioned the very Text of Moses favours it emphatically calling this Heaven and Earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when as the Heaven and Earth in the second and third days Creation he calls but plain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I may adde also the authority of Philo who expounds not this Heaven and Earth of the visible and tangible Heaven and Earth which are mentioned in the second and third day but of an Heaven and Earth quite different from them As also the suffrage of S. Augustine who understands likewise by Heaven and Light one and the same thing to wit the Angels and by Earth the first Matter which is something like the sense of this present Cabbala only for his Physical Matter we set down a Metaphysical one that other belonging most properly to the second day and for Angels we have the World of Life which comprehends not Angels only but all substantial Forms and Spirits whatever And that Heaven or Light should be Symboles of the World of Life or Form it is no wonder For you may finde a sufficient reason in the Cabbala it self at the fift verse of this present Chapter and Plotinus assimilates Form to Light 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Form is Light And lastly in the second verse of this same Chapter there be plain reasons also laid down why the meer Possibility of the outward Creation is called the Earth according to the description of the Earth in the second verse of the first Chapter of Moses his Text unto which you may further adde that as the Earth is looked upon as the Basis of the world so the Possibility of the outward Creation is in some sense the Basis thereof The Tri-une Godhead The Hebrew words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do handsomely intimate a plurality and singularity the Noun being in the Plural the Verb in the Singular Number Whence I conceive there may be very well here included the Mysterie of the Trinity and Vnity of the Godhead or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Vatablus himself though he shuffles with his Grammatical Notions here yet he does apertly acknowledge three Persons in one God at the twenty sixt verse of this Chapter And that this was the Philosophick Cabbala of Moses and the Learned and Pious of the Jews it is no small argument because the Notion of the Trinity is so much insisted upon by the Platonists and Pythagoreans whom all acknowledge and I think I shall make it more plain then ever to have got their Philosophy from Moses By his Eternal Wisdome Ambrose Basil and Origen interpret In Principio to be as much as In Filio and Colossians the first there the Apostle speaking of the Son of God he saith that he is the First-born of every creature and that by him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth And that he is before all things and by him all things consist This is the Wisdome of God or the Idea according to which he framed all things And therefore must be before all things the Beginning of the creatures of God And very answerable to this of the Apostle are those two attributes Philo gives to the same subject calling him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The First-born Word of God or the First-born Form of God and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Beginning He calls him also simply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Word Form Reason or Wisdome And one of the Chaldee Paraphrasts also interprets In Principio In Sapientia And this agrees exceedingly well with that of Solomon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lord possessed me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Principium viae suae that is operum suorum as Vatablus expounds it and the Text makes it good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oriens operum suorum ab antiquo The Sun-rise of his works of old For there is no necessity of making of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adverbs they are Substantives And here Wisdome is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Principle and Morning of the Works of God not by way of diminution but as supposing the East and the Morning to be the womb of light from whence springs all Light and Form and Form is Light as I told you before out of Plotinus And this Notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sutes well with that passage in Trismegist where Hermes speaks thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must signifie the divine Intellect the bright Morning Star the Wisdome of God To which Wisdome called in the eight of the Proverbs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Beginning and Morning of his Works is ascribed the Creation of the world by Solomon as you may there see at large I will only adde that what the Hebrew Text here in Genesis calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Chaldee calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is all one with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Essential Wisdome of God not an habit or property but a substance that is Wisdome For true wisdome is substance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is the same that Plotinus speaks Whence he is called in the Apocalyps 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is but a Periphrasis of Jehovah Essence or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contains the future present and time past in it in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Zanchius observes This is the second Hypostasis in the holy Trinity the Logos which was in the beginning of the world with God All things were made by him and without him was nothing made that was made John 1. First created this I cannot impute it to any reason at all but to the slownesse of Fancie and heavy unweildinesse of Melancholy or the load of Bloud and Flesh that makes men imagine that Creation is incompetible
this third Element necessary to make an Earth habitable the dry Land the Sea whence are Springs and Rivers and the Air and lastly there are in Vegetables which is the main work of this day three eminent properties according to Aristotle viz. Nutrition Accretion Generation and also if you consider their duration there be these three Cardinal points of it Ortus Acme Interitus You may cast in also that Minerals which belong to this day as well as Plants that both Plants and they and in general all Terrestrial Bodies have the three Chymical Principles in them Sal Sulphur and Mercury Ver. 16. Such as is the Earth we live upon As the Matter of the Universe came out in the second day so the contriving of this Matter into Sunnes and Planets is contained in this fourth day the Earth her self not excepted though according to the Letter she is made in the first day and as she is the Nurse of Plants said to be uncovered in the third yet as she is a receptacle of Light and shines with borrowed raies like the Moon and other Plants she may well be referred to this fourth days Creation Nor will this at all seem bold or harsh if we consider that the most learned have already agreed that all the whole Creation was made at once As for example The most rational of all the Jewish Doctors R. Moses Aegyptius Philo Judeus Procopius Gazeus Cardinal Cajetan◠S. Augustine and the Schools of Hillel and Samai as Manasseh Ben Israel writes So that that leisurely order of days is thus quite taken away and all the scruples that may rise from that Hypothesis Wherefore I say the Earth as one of the primary Planets was created this fourth day And I translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Primary Planets Primary because of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Emphatical and Planets because the very notation of their name implies their nature for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is plainly from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vstio or burning and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extinction Nouns made from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to unexceptionable Analogy And the Earth as also the rest of the Planets their nature is such as if they had once been burning and shining Suns but their light and heat being extinguished they afterwards became opake Planets This conclusion seems here plainly to be contained in Moses but is at large demonstrated in Des Cartes his Philosophy Nor is this Notation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 enervated by alledging that the word is ordinarily used to signifie the fixed Stars as well as the Planets For I do not deny but that in a vulgar Notion it may be competible to them also For the fixed Stars according to the imagination of the rude people may be said to be lighted up and extinguished so often as they appear and disappear for they measure all by obvious sense and fancie and may well look upon them as so many Candles set up by divine Providence in the Night but by Day frugally put out for wasting And I remember Theodoret in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has so glibly swallowed down the Notion that he uses it as a special argument of Providence that they can burn thus with their heads downwards and not presently sweal out and be extinguished as our ordinary Candles are Wherefore the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may very well be attributed to all the Stars as well Fixed as Planets but to the Fixed only upon vulgar seeming grounds to the Planets upon true and natural And we may be sure that that is that which Moses would aim at and lay stresse upon in his Philosophick Cabbala Wherefore in brief 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Emphatical in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contains a double Emphasis intimating those true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Planets and then the most eminent amongst those truly so tearmed Nor is it at all strange that so abstruse conclusion of Philosophy should be lodged in this Mosaical Text. For as I have elsewhere intimated Moses has been aforehand with Cartesius The ancient Patriarchs having had wit and by reason of their long lives leisure enough to invent as curious and subtile Theorems in Philosophy as ever any of their posterity could hit upon besides what they might have had by tradition from Adam And if we finde the Earth a Planet it must be acknowledged forthwith that it runs about the Sun which is pure Pythagorisme again and a shrewd presumption that he was taught that mysterie by this Mosaical Cabbala But that the Earth is a Planet besides the Notation we have already insisted upon the necessity of being created in this fourth day amongst the other Planets is a further Argument For there is no mention of its Creation in any day else according to this Philosophick Cabbala Ver. 17. Inhabitants of the world The Hebrew is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And I have made bold to interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not of this one Individual Earth but of the whole Species and therefore I render it the World at large As 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the twenty seventh of this Chapter is not an Individual Man but Mankinde in general And so ver 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are interpreted after the same manner rendring them the greater sort of Lights and the lesser sort of Lights So that no Grammatical violence is done to the Text of Moses all this time Ver. 19. And the number denotes This fourth days Creation is the contrivance of Matter into Suns and Planets or into Suns Moons and Earths For the Aethereal Vortices were then set a going and the Corporeal world had got into an useful order and shape And the ordering and framing of the Corporeal world may very well be said to be transacted in the number Four Four being the first body in numbers an Aequilateral Pyramid which Figure also is a right Symbole of Light the raies entring the eye in a Pyramidal form And Lights now are set up in all the vast Region of the Aethereal Matter which is Heaven The Pythagoreans also call this number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Body and the World intimating the Creation of the Corporeal world therein And further signifying in what excellent proportion and harmony the world was made they call this number Four 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Harmony Vrania and the Stirrer up of divine Fury and Extasie Insinuating that all things are so sweetly and fittingly ordered in the world that the several motions thereof are as a comely Dance or ravishing Musick and are able to carry away a contemplative Soul into Rapture and Extasie upon a clear view and attentive
divine wisdome but that steady comprehension of the Ideas of all things with their mutual respects one to another congruities and incongruities dependences and independences which respects do necessarily arise from the natures of the Ideas themselves both which the divine Intellect looks through at once discerning thus the order and coherence of all things And what is this but Ratio stabilis a kinde of steady and immovable reason discovering the connexion of all things at once But that in us is Ratio mobilis or reason in evolution we being able to apprehend things onely in a successive manner one after another But so many as we can comprehend at a time while we plainly perceive and carefully view their Ideas we know how well they fit or how much they disagree one with another and so prove or disprove one thing by another which is really a participation of that divine reason in God and is a true and faithful principle in man when it is perfected and polished by the holy Spirit But before very earthly and obscure especially in spiritual things But now seeing the Logos or steady comprehensive wisdom of God in which all Ideas and their respects are contained is but universal stable reason how can there be any pretence of being so highly inspired as to be blown above reason it self unlesse men will fancie themselves wiser then God or their understandings above the natures and reasons of things themselves Wherefore to frame a brief answer to your second demand I say this threefold Cabbala you enquire after is the dictate of the free reason of my minde heedfully considering the written Text of Moses and carefully canvasing the Expositions of such Interpreters as are ordinarily to be had upon him And I know nothing to the contrary but that I have been so successeful as to have light upon the old true Cabbala indeed Of which in the third place I will set down some general probabilities referring you for the rest to the Defence of the Cabbala's themselves and the Introduction thereunto And first that the Literal Cabbala is true it is no contemptible argument in that it is carried on so evenly and consistently one part with another every thing also being represented so accommodately to the capacity of the people and so advantageously for the keeping of their mindes in the fear of God and obedience to his law as shall be particularly shown in the Defence of that Cabbala So that according to the sense of this Literal Cabbala Moses is discovered to be a man of the highest Political accomplishments and true and warrantable prudence that may be Nor is he to fall short in Philosophy And therefore the Philosophical Cabbala contains the noblest Truths as well Theological as Natural that the minde of man can entertain her self with Insomuch that Moses seems to have been aforehand and prevented the subtilest and abstrusest inventions of the choicest Philosophers that ever appeared after him to this very day And further presumption of the truth of this Philosophical Cabbala is that the grand mysteries therein contained are most-what the same that those two eximious Philosophers Pythagoras and Plato brought out of Egypt and the parts of Asia into Europe And it is generally acknowledged by Christians that they both had their Philosophy from Moses And Numenius the Platonist speaks out plainly concerning his Master What is Plato but Moses Atticus And for Pythagoras it is a thing incredible that he and his followers should make such a deal of doe with the mystery of Numbers had he not been favoured with a sight of Moses his Creation of the world in six days and had the Philosophick Cabbala thereof communicated to him which mainly consists in Numbers as I shall in the Defence of this Cabbala more particularly declare And the Pythagoreans oath swearing by him that taught them the mystery of the Tetractys or the number Four what a ridiculous thing had it been if it had been in reference meerly to dry Numbers But it is exceeding probable that under that mystery of Four Pythagoras was first himself taught the meaning of the fourth days work in the Creation and after delivered it to his disciples In which Cabbala of the fourth day Pythagoras was instructed amongst other things that the Earth was a Planet and moved about the Sun and it is notoriously well known that this was ever the opinion of the Pythagoreans and so in all likelihood a part of the Philosophick Cabbala of Moses Which you will more fully understand in my Defence thereof In brief all those conclusions that are comprised in the Philosophick Cabbala they being such as may best become that sublime and comprehensive understanding of Moses and being also so plainly answerable to the Phaenomena of Nature and Attributes of God as wel as continuedly agreeable without any force or distortion to the Historical Text this I conceive is no small probability that this Cabbala is true For what can be the properties of the true Philosophick Cabbala of Moses if these be not which I have named Now for the Moral Cabbala it bears its own evidence with it all the way representing Moses as well experienced in all Godlinesse and Honesty as he was skilful in Politicks and Philosophy And the edifying usefulnesse of this Mystical or Moral Cabbala to answer to your last demand was no small invitation amongst the rest to publish this present Exposition For Moral and Spiritual Truth that so neerly concerns us being so strangely and unexpectedly and yet so fitly and appositely represented in this History of Moses it will in all likelihood make the more forcible impresse upon the minde and more powerfully carry away our affections toward what is good and warrantable pre-instructing us with delight concerning the true way to Virtue and Godlinesse Nor are the Philosophick nor Literal Cabbala's destitute of their honest uses For in the former to the amazement of the meer Naturalist who commonly conceits that pious men and Patrons of Religion have no ornaments of minde but scrupulosities about virtue and melancholy fancies concerning a Deity Moses is found to have been Master of the most sublime and generous speculations that are in all Natural Philosophy besides that he places the soul of man many degrees out of the reach of fate and mortality And by the latter there is a very charitable provision made for them that are so prone to expect rigid precepts of Philosophy in Moses his outward Text. For this Literal Cabbala will steer them off from that toil of endevouring to make the bare letter speak consonantly to the true frame of nature Which while they attempt with more zeal then knowledge they both disgrace themselves and wrong Moses For there are unalterable and indeleble Idea's and Notions in the minde of man into which when we are awakened and apply to the known course and order of nature we can no more forsake the use of them then we can the use of our
own eyes nor misbelieve their dictates no more nor so much as we may those of our outward senses Wherefore to men recovered into a due command of their reason and well-skill'd in the contemplation and experience of the nature of things to propound to them such kinde of Mosaical Philosophy as the boldnesse and superstition of some has adventured to do for want of a right Literal Cabbala to guide them is as much as in them lies to hazard the making not only of Moses but of Religion it self contemptible and ridiculous Whence it is apparent enough I think to what good purpose it is thus carefully to distinguish betwixt the Literal and Philosophick Cabbala and so plainly and fully to set out the sense of either apart by themselves that there may hereafter be no confusion or mistake For beside that the discovering of these weighty Truths and high but irrefutable Paradoxes in Moses his Text does assert Religion and vindicate her from that vile imputation of ignorance in Philosophy and the knowledge of things so does it also justifie those more noble results of free Reason and Philosophy from that vulgar suspicion of Impiety and Irreligion THE LITERAL CABBALA CHAP. I. 2 The Earth at first a deep miry abysse covered over with waters over which was a fierce wind and through all darknesse 3 Day made at first without a Sun 6 The Earth a floor the Heavens a transparent Canopy or strong Tent over it to keep off the upper waters or blew conspicuous Sea from drowning the world 8 Why this Tent or Canopy was not said to be good 9 The lower waters commanded into one place 11 Herbs flowers and fruits of Trees before either Sun or seasons of the year to ripen them 14 The Sun created and added to the day as a peculiar ornament thereof as the Moon and Stars to the night 20 The Creation of fish and fowl 24 The Creation of beasts creeping things 27 Man created in the very shape and figure of God but yet so that there were made females as well as males 28 How man came to be Lord over the rest of living creatures 30 How it came to passe that man feeds on the better sort of the fruits of the Earth and the beasts on the worse 1 WEE are to recount to you in this Book the Generations and Genealogies of the Patriarchs from Adam to Noah from Noah to Abraham from Abraham to Joseph and to continue the History to our own times But it will not be amisse first to inform you concerning the Creation of the world and the original and beginning of things How God made Heaven and Earth and all the garnishings of them before he made Man 2 But the Earth at first was but a rude and desolate heap devoid of herbs flowers and trees and all living creatures being nothing but a deep miry abysse covered all over with waters and there was a very fierce and strong wind that blew upon the waters and what made it still more horrid and comfortless there was as yet no light but all was inveloped with thick darknesse and bore the face of a pitchy black and wet tempestuous night 3 But God let not his work lie long in this sad condition but commanded Light to appear and the morning brake out upon the face of the abyss and wheel'd about from East to West being clearest in the middle of its course about noon and then abating of its brightnesse towards the West at last quite dis-appear'd after such sort as you may often observe the day-light to break forth in the East and ripen to greater clearnesse but at last to leave the skie in the West no Sun appearing all the while 4. And God saw the Light for it is a thing very visible that it was good and so separated the darknesse from the light that they could not both of them be upon the face of the earth together but had their vicissitudes and took their turns one after another 5 And he called the return of the light Day and the return of darkness he called Night and the evening and the morning made up the first natural day 6. Now after God had made this Basis or floor of this greater edifice of the world the Earth he sets upon the higher parts of the fabrick He commands therefore that there should be a hollow expansion firm and transparent which by its strength should bear up against the waters which are above and keep them from falling upon the earth in excess 7. And so it became a partition betwixt the upper the lower waters so that by virtue of this hollow Firmament man might live safe from the violence of such destructive inundations as one sheltred in a well-pitch'd tent from storm of rain For the danger of these waters is apparent to the eye this ceruleous or blew-coloured Sea that over-spreads the diaphanous Firmament being easily discern'd through the body thereof and there are very frequent and copious showers of rain descend from above when as there is no water espyed ascending up thither wherefore it must all come from that upper Sea if we do but appeal to our outward sense 8 Now therefore this diaphanous Canopy or firmly stretched Tent over the whole pavement of the earth though I cannot say properly that God saw it was good it being indeed of a nature invisible yet the use of it shows it to be exceeding good and necessary And God called the whole capacity of this hollow Firmament Heaven And the evening and the morning made up the second natural day 9 And now so sure a Defence being made against the inundation of the upper waters that they might not fall upon the earth God betook himself the next day to order the lower waters that as yet were spread over the whole face thereof at his command therefore the waters fled into one place and the dry land did appear 10 And God called the dry land Earth and the gathering together of the waters he called Sea and I may now properly say that God saw that it was good for the Sea and the Land are things visible enough and fit objects of our sight 11 And forthwith before he made either Sun Moon or Stars did God command the earth to bring forth grasse herbs and flowers in their full beauty and fruit-trees yeilding delicious fruit though there had as yet been no vicissitude of Spring Summer or Autumn nor any approach of the Sun to ripen and concoct the fruit of those trees Whence you may easily discern the foolishnesse of the idolatrous Nations that dote so much on second causes as that they forget the first ascribing that to the Sun and Moon that was caus'd at first by the immediate command of God 12 For at his command it was before there was either Sun or Moon in the Firmament that the earth brought forth grasse and herb yeilding seed after his kind and the tree yeilding fruit whose seed was in
you may have the more firm faith in God for the blessings and fruits of the earth when the ordinary course of nature shall threaten dearth and scarcity for want of rain and seasonable showers 6 For there had been no showers when God caused the plants and herbs of the field to spring up out of the earth onely as I told you at the first of all there was a mighty torrent of water that rose every where above the earth and cover'd the universal face of the ground which yet God afterward by his almighty power commanded so into certain bounds that the residue of the earth was meer dry land 7 And that you farther may understand how the power of God is exalted above the course of natural causes God taking of the the dust of his dry ground wrought it with his hands into such a temper that it was matter fit to make the body of a Man which when he first had fram'd was as yet but like a senslesse statue till coming near unto it with his mouth he breath'd into the nostrils thereof the breath of life as you may observe to this day that men breath through their nostrils though their mouths be clos'd And thus man became a living creature and his name was called Adam because he was made of the earth 8 But I should have told you first more at large how the Lord God planted a Garden Eastward of Judea in the Countrey of Eden about Mesopotamia where afterwards he put the man Adam whom he after this wise had form'd 9 And the description of this Garden is this Out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every Tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food But amongst these several sorts of Trees there were two of singular notice that stood planted in the midst of the Garden the one of which had fruit of that wonderful virtue as to continue youth and strength and to make a man immortal upon earth wherefore it was call'd the Tree of Life There was also another Tree planted there of whose fruit if a man ate it had this strange effect that it would make a man know the difference betwixt good and evil for the Lord God had so ordain'd that if Adam touched the forbidden fruit thereof he should by his disobedience feel the sense of evil as well as good wherefore by way of Anticipation it was called the Tree of knowledge of good and evil 10 And there was a River went out of Eden to water the Garden and from thence it was parted and became into four heads 11 The name of the first was Phasis or Phasi-Tigris which compasses the whole Land of the Chaulateans where there is Gold 12 And the Gold of that Land is excellent there is also found Bdellium and the Onyx-stone 13 And the name of the second River is Gihon the same is it that compasseth the whole Land of the Arabian-Aethiopia 14 And the name of the third River is Tigris that is that which goeth towards the East of Assyria and the fourth River is Euphrates 15 And the Lord God took the man Adam by the hand and led him into the Garden of Eden and laid commands upon him to dresse it and look to it and to keep things handsome and in order in it and that it should not be any wise spoil'd or misus'd by incursions or careless ramblings of the heedlesse beasts 16 And the Lord God recommended unto Adam all the Trees of the Garden for very wholesome and delightful food bidding him freely eat thereof 17 Only he excepted the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which he strictly charg'd him to forbear for if he ever tasted thereof he should assuredly die 18 But to the high commendation of Matrimony be it spoken though God had placed Adam in so delightful a Paradise yet his happinesse was but maimed and imperfect till he had the society of a woman For the Lord God said It is not good that man should be alone I will make him an help meet for him 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had form'd every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and these brought he unto Adam to see what he would call them and whatsoever Adam called every living creature that was the name thereof 20 And Adam gave names to all cattel and to the fowls of the air and to every beast of the field but he could not so kindly take acquaintance with any of these or so fully enjoy their society but there was still some considerable matter wanting to make up Adams full felicity and there was a meet help to be found out for him 21 Wherefore the Lord God caus'd a deep sleep to fall upon Adam lo as he slept upon the ground he fell into a dream how God had put his hand into his side and pulled out one of his ribs closing up the flesh in stead thereof 22 And how the rib which the Lord God had taken from him was made into a woman and how God when he had thus made her took her by the hand and brought her unto him And he had no sooner awakened but he found his dream to be true for God stood by him with the woman in his hand which he had brought 23 Wherefore Adam being pre-advertised by the vision was presently able to pronounce This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh What are the rest of the creatures to this And he bestowed upon her also a fitting name calling her Woman because she was taken out of Man 24 And the Lord God said Thou hast spoken well Adam And for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they two shall be one flesh so strict and sacred a tie is the band of wedlock 25 And they were both naked Adam and his wife and were not ashamed but how the shame of being seen naked came into the world I shall declare unto you hereafter CHAP. III. 1 A subtile Serpent in Paradise indued with both reason and the power of speech deceives the woman 2 The Dialogue betwixt the woman and the Serpent 7 How the shame of nakednesse came into the world 8 God walks in the Garden and calls to Adam 10 The Dialogue betwixt Adam and God 14 The reasons why Serpents want feet and creep upon the ground 15 The reason of the antipathy betwixt Men and Serpents 16 As also of womens pangs in child-bearing and of their being bound in subjection to their husbands 18 Also of the barrennesse of the earth and of mans toil and drudgery 21 God teacheth Adam and Eve the use of leathern clothing 24 Paradise haunted with apparitions Adam frighted from daring to taste of the Tree of Life whence his posterity became mortal to this very day 1 AND truly it cannot but be very obvious for you to consider often with your selves not onely how this shame of
nakedness came into the world but the toil and drudgery of Tillage and Husbandry the grievous pangs of Childe-bearing and lastly what is most terrible of all Death it self Of all which as of some other things also I shall give you such plain and intelligible reasons that your own hearts could not wish more plain and more intelligible To what an happy condition Adam was created you have already heard How he was placed by God in a Garden of delight where all his senses were gratified with the most pleasing objects imaginable his eyes with the beautie of trees and flowers and various delightsome forms of living creatures his ears with the sweet musical accents of the canorous birds his smell with the fragrant odours of Aromatick herbs his taste with variety of delicious fruit and his touch with the soft breathings of the air in the flowry alleys of this ever-springing Paradise Adde unto all this that pleasure of pleasures the delectable conversation of his beautiful Bride the enjoyments of whose love neither created care to himself nor pangs of childe-bearing to her for all the functions of life were performed with ease and delight and there had been no need for man to sweat for the provision of his family for in this Garden of Eden there was a perpetual Spring and the vigour of the soil prevented mans industry and youth and jollity had never left the bodies of Adam and his posterity because old age and death were perpetually to be kept off by that soveraign virtue of the Tree of Life And I know as you heartily could wish this state might have ever continued to Adam and his seed so you eagerly expect to hear the reason why he was depriv'd of it and in short it is this His disobedience to a commandement which God had given him the circumstances whereof I shall declare unto you as followeth Amongst those several living creatures which were in Paradise there was the Serpent also whom you know to this very day to be full of subtilty therefore you will lesse wonder if when he was in his perfection he had not onely the use of Reason but the power of Speech It was therefore this Serpent that was the first occasion of all this mischief to Adam and his posterity for he cunningly came unto the woman and said unto her Is it so indeed that God has commanded you that you shall not eat of any of the trees of the Garden 2 And the woman answered unto the Serpent You are mistaken God hath not forbid us to eat of all the fruit of the trees of the Garden 3 But indeed of the fruit of the Tree in the midst of the Garden God hath strictly charged us Ye shall not eat of it neither shall ye touch it lest ye die 4 But the Serpent said unto the woman Tush I warrant you this is only but to terrifie you and abridge you of that liberty and happinesse you are capable of you shall not so certainly die 5 But God knows the virtue of that tree full well that so soon as you eat thereof your eyes shall be opened and you shall become as Gods knowing good and evil 6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eye and a tree to be desired to make one wise she took of the fruit and did eat and gave also to her husband with her and he did eat 7 And the eyes of them both were opened and they knew they were naked and were ashamed and therefore they sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons to cover their parts of shame 8 And the Lord God came into the Garden toward the cool of the evening and walking in the Garden call'd for Adam But Adam had no sooner heard his voice but he and his wife ran away into the thickest of the trees of the Garden to hide themselves from his presence 9 But the Lord God called unto Adam the second time and said unto him Adam where art thou 10 Then Adam was forc't to make answer and said I heard thy voice in the Garden and I was afraid because I was naked and so I hid my self 11 Then God said unto him Who hath made thee so wise that thou shouldst know that thou art naked or wantest any covering Hast thou eaten of the forbidden fruit 12 And Adam excus'd himself saying The woman whom thou recommendedst to me for a meet help she gave me of the fruit and I did eat 13 And the Lord God said unto the woman What is this that thou hast done And the woman excus'd her self saying The Serpent beguiled me and I did eat 14 Then the Lord God gave sentence upon all three and to the Serpent he said Because thou hast done this thou art cursed above all cattel and above every beast of the field and whereas hitherto thou hast been able to bear thy body aloft and go upright thou shalt henceforth creep upon thy belly like a worm and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life 15 And there shall be a perpetual antipathy betwixt not only the woman and thee but betwixt her seed and thy seed For universal mankind shall abhorre thee and hate all the cursed generations that come of thee They indeed shall busily lie in wait to sting mens feet which their skill in herbs however shall be able to cure but they shall knock all Serpents on the head and kill them without pity or remorse deservedly using thy seed as their deadly enemy 16 And the doom of the woman was Her sorrow and pangs in childe-bearing and her subjection to her husband Which law of subjection is generally observed in the Nations of the world unto this very day 17 And the doom of Adam was The toil of Husbandry upon barren ground 18 For the earth was cursed for his sake which is the reason that it brings forth thorns and thistles and other weeds that Husbandmen could wish would not cumber the ground upon which they bestow their toilsome labor 19 Thus in the sweat of his face was Adam to eat his bread till he return to the dust out of which he was taken 20 And Adam called his wife Eve because she was the mother of all men that ever were born into the world and lived upon the face of the earth 21 And the generations of men were clothed at first with the skins of wilde beasts the use of which God taught Adam and Eve in Paradise 22 And when they were thus accoutred for their journey and armed for greater hardship God turns them both out and the Lord God said concerning Adam deriding him for his disobedience Behold Adam is become as one of us to know good and evil Let us look to him now lest he put his hand to the Tree of Life and so make himself immortal 23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence
Creation 29 And that nothing might be wanting to their delight behold also divine Providence hath prepared for their palate all precious and pleasant herbs for sallads and made them banquets of the most delicate fruit of the fruit-bearing trees 30 But for the courser grasse and worser kinde of herbs they are intended for the worser and baser kinde of creatures Wherefore it is free for man to seek out his own and make use of it 31 And God considering every thing that he had made approved of it as very good and the union of the Passive and Active principle was the Sixt days work and the Senary denotes the nature thereof CHAP. II. 2 Gods full and absolute rest from creating any thing of anew adumbrated by the number Seven 4 Suns and Planets not only the furniture but effects of the Ethereal Matter or Heaven 6 The manner of Man and other Animals rising out of the earth by the power of God in nature 8 How it was with Adam before he descended into flesh and became a terrestrial Animal 10 That the four Cardinall virtues were in Adam in his Ethereal or Paradisiacal condition 17 Adam in Paradise forbidden to taste or relish his own will under pain of descending into the Region of Death 18 The Masculine and Feminine faculties in Adam 20 The great Pleasure and Solace of the Feminine faculties 21 The Masculine faculties laid asleep the Feminine appear and act viz. The grateful sense of the life of the Vehicle 25 That this sense and joy of the life of the Vehicle is in it self without either blame or shame 1 THUS the Heavens and the Earth were finisht and all the garnishings of them such as are Trees Flowers and Herbs Suns Moons and Stars Fishes Fowls and Beasts of the field and the chiefest of all Man himself 2 Wherfore God having thus compleated his work in the Senary comprehending the whole Creation in six orders of things he ceased from ever creating any thing more either in this outward Material world or in the world of Life But his Creative Power retiring into himself he enjoyed his own eternal Rest which is his immutable and indefatigable Nature that with ease oversees all the whole Compasse of Beings and continues Essence Life and Activity to them and the better rectifies the worse and all are guided by his Eternal Word and Spirit but no new Substance hath been ever created since the six days production of things nor shall ever be hereafter 3 For this Seventh day God hath made an Eternal Holy day or Festival of Rest to himself wherein he will only please himself to behold the exquisite Order and Motion and right Nature of things his Wisdome Justice and Mercy unavoidably insinuating themselves according to the set frame of the world into all the parts of the Creation he having Ministers of his Goodnesse and Wrath prepared every where So that himself need but to look on and see the effects of that Nemesis that is necessarily interwoven in the nature of the things themselves which he hath made This therefore is that Sabbath or Festival of Rest which God himself is said to celebrate in the Seventh day and indeed the number declares the nature thereof 4 And now to open my minde more fully and plainly unto you I must tell you that those things which before I tearm'd the Garnishings of the Heaven and of the Earth they are not only so but the Generations of them I say Plants and Animals were the generations effects and productions of the Earth the Seminal Forms and Souls of Animals insinuating themselves into the prepared matter thereof and Suns Planets or Earths were the generations or productions of the Heavens vigour and motion being imparted from the world of Life to the immense body of the Universe so that what I before called meer Garnishings are indeed the productions or generations of the Heavens and of the Earth so soon as they were made Though I do not take upon me to define the time wherein God made the Heavens and the Earth For he might do it at once by his absolute Omnipotency or he might when he had created all Substance as well material as immaterial let them act one upon the other so and in such periods of time as the nature of the production of the things themselves requir'd 5 But it was for pious purposes that I cast the Creation into that order of Six dayes and for the more firmly rooting in the hearts of the people this grand and useful Truth That the Omnipotency of God is such that he can act above and contrary to natural causes that I mention'd herbs and plants of the field before I take notice of either rain or man to exercise Gardning and Husbandry For indeed according to my former narration there had been no such kinde of rain as ordinarily nowadays waters the labours of the Husbandman 6 But yet there went up a moist vapour from the earth which being matur'd and concocted by the Spirit of the world which is very active in the heavens or air became a precious balmy liquour and fit vehicle of Life which descending down in some sort like dewy showers upon the face of the earth moistned the ground so that the warmth of the Sun gently playing upon the surface thereof prepared matter variously for sundry sorts not only of Seminal forms of Plants but Souls of Animals also 7 And Man himself rose out of the earth after this manner the dust thereof being rightly prepar'd and attemper'd by these unctuous showers and balmy droppings of Heaven For God had so contriv'd by his infinite Wisdome that matter thus or thus prepar'd should by a vital congruity attract proportional forms from the world of Life which is every where nigh at hand and does very throngly inequitate the moist and unctuous air Wherefore after this manner was the Aereal or Ethereal Adam conveyed into an earthly body having his most conspicuous residence in the head or brain And thus Adam became the Soul of a Terrestrial living Creature 8 But how it is with Adam before he descends into this lower condition of life I shall declare unto you in the Aenigmatical narration that follows which is this That the Lord God planted a Garden Eastward in Eden where he had put the Man which afterward he formed into a Terrestrial Animal For Adam was first wholly Ethereal and placed in Paradise that is in an happy and joyful condition of the Spirit for he was placed under the invigorating beams of the divine Intellect and the Sun of Righteousnesse then shone fairly upon him 9 And his Soul was as the ground which God hath blest so brought forth every pleasant Tree and every goodly Plant of her heavenly Fathers own planting for the holy Spirit of Life had inriched the soil that it brought forth all manner of pleasant and profitable fruits And the Tree of Life was in the midst of this Garden of mans soul
and that of his own brother For taking advantage of his present necessity he forced him to sell his birth-right for a mâ—sse of pottage What a notorious piece of fraud is that of Rebecca that while industrious Esau is ranging the Woods and Mountains to fulfill his fathers command and please his aged appetite she should substitute Jacob with his both counterfeit hands and Venison to carry away the blessing intended by the good old man for his officious elder son Esau Jacobs rods of Poplar an ill example to servants to defraud their masters and Rachels stealing Labans Tâ—â—raphim and concealing them with a falshood how warrantable an act it was let her own husband give sentence With whomsoever thou findest thy Gods let him not live Gen. 31. 32. I might be infinite in this point I will only add one example of Womans perfidious cruelty as it will seem at first sight and so conclude Sisera Captain of Jabins host being worsted by Israel fled on his feet to the Tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite who was in league and confederacy with Jabin This Jael was in shew so courteous as to meet Sisera and invite him into her Tent saying Turn in my Lord turn in to me Fear not And when he had turned in unto her into the Tent she covered him with a mantle And he said unto her Give me I pray thee a little water to drink And she opened a bottle of Milk and gave him drink and covered him In short he trusted her with his life and gave himself to her protection and she suddenly so soon as he fell asleep drove a nail with an hammer into his temples and betrayed his Corps to the will of his enemies An act certainly that the Spirit of God would not have approved much lesse applauded so much but in reference to the Mysterie that lies under it My three Rules for the interpreting of Scripture I have I hope by this time sufficiently established by way of a more general preparation to the Defence of my threefold Cabbala I shall now apply my self to a more particular clearing and confirming the several passages therein THE DEFENCE OF THE LITERAL CABBALA CHAP. I. 1 The genuine sense of In the beginning The difference of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neglected by the Seventy who translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 The ground of their mistake discovered who conceive Moses to intimate that the Matter is uncreated That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is no more then ventus magnus 4 That the first darkness was not properly Night 6 Why the Seventy translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Firmamentum and that it is in allusion to a firmly pitched Tent. 11 That the sensible effects of the Sun invited the Heathen to Idolatry and that their Oracles taught them to call him by the name of Jao 14 That the Prophet Jeremy divides the day from the Sun speaking according to the vulgar capacity 15 The reason why the Stars appear on this side the upper caeruleous Sea 27 The Opinion of the Anthropomorphites and of what great consequence it is for the Vulgar to imagine God in the shape of a Man Aristophanes his story in Plato of Men and Womens growing together at first as if they made both but one Animal THE first Rule that I laid down in my Introduction to the Defence of my Threefold Cabbala I need not here again repeat but desire the Reader only to carry it in minde and it will warrant the easie and familiar sense that I shall settle upon Moses his Text in the Literal meaning thereof Unto which if I adde also reasons from the pious prudence of this holy Law-giver shewing how every passage makes for greater faith in God and more affectionate obedience to his Law there will be nothing wanting I think though I shall sometimes cast in some notable advantages also from Critical Learning that may gain belief to the truth of the Interpretation Vers 1. In this first verse I put no other sense of In the beginning then that it denotes to us the order of the History Which is also the opinion of Maimonides who deriving 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying the head rightly observes the Analogy that as the head is the forepart of a living creature so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies that which is placed first in any thing else And that thus the Creation of the world is the head or forepart of the History that Moses intends to set down Wherefore Moses having in his minde as is plain from the Title of this book Genesis as well as the matter therein contained to write an History and Genealogy from the beginning of the world to his own time it is very easie and obvious to conceive that in reference to what he should after add he said In the beginning As if the whole frame of his thoughts lay thus First of all God made the Heavens and the Earth with all that they contain the Sun Moon and Stars the Day and Night the Plants and living creatures that were in the Air Water and on the Earth and after all these he made Adam and Adam begot Cain and Abel and so on in the full continuance of the History and Genealogies And this sense I conceive is more easie and natural then that of Austin Ambrose and Besil who will have In the Beginning to signifie In the Beginning of Time or In the Beginning of the world And yet I thought it not amiss to name also these that the Reader may take his choice God made Heaven and Earth Maimonides and Manasseh Ben Israel observe these three words used in Scripture when Creation of the world is attributed to God viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the production of things out of nothing which is the Schools Notion of Creation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the making up a thing perfect and compleat according to its own kinde and properties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intimates the dominion and right possession that God has of all things thus created or made But though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the mind of the Learned Jews signifies Creation properly so called yet the Seventy observe no such Criticisme but translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is no more then made And vulgar men are not at leisure to distinguish so subtilly Wherefore this latter sense I receive as the vulgar Literal sense the other as Philosophical And where I use the word Creation in this Literal Cabbala I understand but that common and general Notion of Making a thing be it with what circumstances it will Neither do I translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the plural number the Trinity Because as Vatablus observes out of the Hebrew Doctors that when the inferiour speaks of his superiour he speaks of him in the Plural Number So Esay 19. 4. Tradam
Matter Castellio translates it Liquidum and this universal Matter is most what fluid still all over the world but at first it was fluid universally Betwixt the aforesaid fluid Possibility c. But here it may be you 'll enquire how this Corporeal Matter shall be conceived to be betwixt the waters above and these underneath For what can be the waters above Maimonides requires no such continued Analogy in the hidden sense of Scripture as you may see in his Preface to his Moreh Nevochim But I need not fly to that general refuge For me thinks that the Seminal Forms that descend through the Matter and so reach the Possibility of the parts of the outward Creation and make them spring up into act are not unlike the drops of rain that descend through the Heaven or Air and make the Earth fruitful Besides the Seminal Forms of things lie round as I may so speak and contracted at first but spread when they bring any part of the Possibility of the outward Creation into act as drops of rain spread when they are fallen to the ground So that the Analogy is palpable enough though it may seem too elaborate and curious We may adde to all this concerning the Naides or Water Nymphs that the Ancients understood by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All manner of Souls that descend into the Matter and Generation Wherefore the watry Powers as Porphyrius also calls these Nymphs it is not at all harsh to conceive that they may be here indigitated by the name of the Vpper waters See Porphyrius in his De Antro Nympharum Ver. 7. What mischief straying Souls The frequent complaints that that noble Spirit in Pythagoreans and Platonists makes against the incumbrances and disadvantages of the Body makes this Cabbala very probable And it is something like our Divines fancying Hell to be created this day Ver. 8. Actuated and agitated This is consonant to Plato's School who makes the Matter unmovable of it self which is most reasonable For if it were of its own nature movable nothing for a moment would hold together but dissolve it self into infinitely little Particles whence it is manifest that there must be something besides the Matter either to binde it or to move it So that the Creation of Immaterial Beeings is in that respect also necessary Rightly called Heaven I mean 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this agitation of the Matter brought it to Des Cartes his second Principle which is the true Aether or rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it is liquid as water and yet has in it the fierce Principle of Fire which is the first Element and most subtile of all The thing is at first sight understood by Cartesians who will easily admit of that Notation of the Rabbines in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fire and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Water For so R. Bechai The Heavens sayes he were created from the beginning and are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fire and Water which no Philosophy makes good so well as the Cartesian For the round particles like water though they be not of the same Figure flake the fierceness of the first Principle which is the purest Fire And yet this Fire in some measure alway lies within the Triangular Intervals of the round Particles as that Philosophy declares at large And the Binary How fitly again doth the number agree with the nature of the work of this day which is the Creation of Corporeal Matter And the Pythagoreans call the number Two 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matter Simplicius upon Aristotles Physicks speaking of the Pythagoreans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They might well sayes he call One Form as defining and terminating to certain shape and property whatever it takes holds of And Two they might well call Matter it being undeterminate and the cause of Bigness and Divisibility And they have very copiously heaped upon the number Two such appellations as are most proper to Corporeal Matter As 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vnfigured Vndeterminated Vnlimited For such is Matter of it self till Form take hold of it It is called also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the fluidity of the Matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it affords substance to the Heavens and Starres 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Contention Fate and Death for these are the consequencies of the Souls being joined with corporeal Matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Motion Generation and Division which are Properties plainly appertaining to Bodies They call this number also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Subject that endures and undergoes all the changes and alterations the active Forms put upon it Wherefore it is plain that the Pythagoreans understood Corporeal Matter by the number Two which no man can deny but that it is a very fit Symbole of Division that eminent Property of Matter But we might cast in a further reason of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being created the second day for the Celestial Matter does consist of two plainly distinguishable parts to wit the first Element and the second or the Materia subtilissima and the round Particles as I have already intimated out of Des Cartes his Philosophy Ver. 9. It is referred to the following day You are to understand that these Six numbers or days do not signifié any order of time but the nature of the things that were said to be made in them But for any thing in Moses his Philosophick Cabbala all might be made at once or in such periods of time as is most sutable to the nature of the things themselves What is said upon this ninth verse will be better understood and with more full satisfaction when we come to the fourth days work Ver. 13. And the Ternary denotes In this third day was the waters commanded into one place the Earth adorned with all manner of Plants Paradise and all the pleasure and plenty of it created wherein the Serpent beguiled Eve and so forth What can therefore be more likely then that the Pythagoreans use their numbers as certain remembrancers of the particular passages of this History of the Creation when as they call the number Three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Triton and Lord of the Sea which is in reference to Gods commanding the water into one place and making thereof a Sea They call also the Ternary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The former intimates the plenty of Paradise the latter relates to the Serpent there But now besides this we shall find the Ternary very significant of the nature of this days work For first the Earth consists of the third Element in the Cartesian Philosophy for the truth of that Philosophy will force it self in whether I will or no and then again there are three grand parts of
Animadversion of the Order and Oeconomy of the Universe And Philo who does much Pythagorize in his Exposition of Moses observes That this number Four contains the most perfect proportions in Musical Symphonies viz. Diatessaron Diapente Diapason and Disdiapason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For the proportion of Diatessaron is as Four to Three of Diapente as Three to Two of Diapason as Two to One or Four to Two of Disdiapason as Four to One. We might cast in also the consideration of that divine Nemesis which God has placed in the frame and nature of the Universal Creation as he is a Distributer to every one according to his works From whence himself is also called Nemesis by Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because he every where distributes what is due to every one This is in ordinary language Justice and both Philo and Plotinus out of the Pythagoreans affirms that the number Four is a Symbole of Justice All which makes towards what I drive at that the whole Creation is concerned in this number Four which is called the Fourth day And for further eviction we may yet adde that as all numbers are contained in Four virtually by all numbers is meant Ten for when we come to Ten we go back again so the root and foundation of all the Corporeal Creation is laid in this fourth days work wherein Suns Earths and Moons are made and the ever whirling Vortices For as Philo observes Pythagorean-like Ten which they call also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the World Heaven and All-perfectnesse is made by the scattering of the parts of Four thus 1 2 3 4. Put these together now and they are Ten. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Vniverse And this was such a secret amongst Pythagoras his disciples that it was a solemn oath with them to swear by him that delivered to them the mysterie of the Tetractys Tetrad or number Four 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By him that did to us disclose The Tetrads mysterie Where Natures Fount that ever flowes And hidden root doth lie Thus they swore by Pythagoras as is conceived who taught them this mysterious tradition And had it not been a right worshipful mysterie think you indeed and worthy of the solemnity of Religion and of an Oath to understand that 1 2 3 4. make Ten. And that Ten is All which rude mankinde told first upon their fingers and Arithmeticians discover it by calling them Digits at this very day There is no likelihood that so wise a man as Pythagoras was should lay any stress upon such trifles or that his Scholars should be such fools as to be taken with them But it is well known that the Pythagoreans held the Motion of the Earth about the Sun which is plainly implied according to the Philosophick Cabbala of this Fourth days work So much of his secrets got out to common knowledge and fame But it is very highly probable that he had the whole Philosophick Cabbala of the Creation opened to him by some knowing Priest or Philosopher as we now call them in the Oriental parts that under this mysterie of numbers set out to him the choicest and most precious conclusions in Natural Philosophy interpreting as I conceive the Text of Moses in some such way as I have light upon and making all those generous and ample conclusions good by Demonstration and Reason And so Pythagoras being well furnished with the knowledge of things was willing to impart them to those whose piety and capacity was fit to receive them Not laying aside that outward form of numbers which they were first conveied to himself in But such Arithmetical nugacities as are ordinarily recorded for his in dry numbers to have been the riches of the Wisdome of so famous a Philosopher is a thing beyond all credit or probability Wherefore I conceive that the choicest and most precious treasures of knowledge being laid open in the Cabbala of the Fourth day from thence it was that so much Solemnity and Religion was put upon that number which he called his Tetractys which seems to have been of two kindes the one the single number Four the other Thirty six made of the four first Masculine numbers and the four first Feminine viz. of 1 3 5 7. and of 2 4 6 8. wherein you see that the former and more simple Tetractys is still included and made use of for Four here takes place again in the Assignment of the Masculine and Feminine Numbers Whence I further conceive that under the number of this more complex Tetrad which contains also the other in it he taught his disciples the mysterie of the whole Creation opening to them the nature of all things as well Spiritual as Corporeal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a certain Author writes For an even Number carries along with it divisibility and passibility But an odde Number indivisibility impassibility and activity wherefore that is called Feminine this Masculine Wherefore the putting together of the four first Masculine Numbers to the four first Feminine is the joining of the active and passive Principles together matching the parts of the Matter with congruous Forms from the World of life So that I conceive the Tetractys was a a Symbole of the whole Systeme of Pythagoras his Philosophy which we may very justly suspect to be the same with the Mosaical Cabbala And the root of this Tetractys is Six which again hits upon Moses and remindes us of the Six days work of the Creation Ver. 20. Fish and Fowl are made in the same day And here Moses does plainly play the Philosopher in joining them together for there is more affinity betwixt them then is easily discerned by the heedlesse vulgar for besides that Fowls frequent the waters very much many kindes of them I mean these Elements themselves of Air and Water for their thinnesse and liquidity are very like one another Besides the sinnes of fishes and the wings of birds the feathers of one and the scales of the other are very Analogical They are both also destitute of Vreters Dugges and Milk and are Oviparous Further their motions are mainly alike the fishes as it were flying in the water and the fowls swimming in the Air according to that of the Poet concerning Daedalus when he had made himself wings Insuetum per iter gelidas enavit ad Arctos Cast in this also that as some fowls dive and swim under water so some fishes fly above the water in the air for a considerable space till their finnes begin to be something stiffe and dry Ver. 23. And the Quinary denotes Philo does not here omit that obvious consideration of the Five senses in Animals But it is a strange coincidence if it was not intended that living creatures should be said to be made in the Fift and Sixt day those Numbers according to the Pythagorical mysterie being so fitly significant of the nature of them For Five is
therefore his condition is then very fitly set out by the number Seven All numbers within the Decad are cast into three ranks as Philo observes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Some beget but are not begotten others are begotten but do not beget the last both beget and are begotten The number Seven is only excepted that is neither begotten nor begets any number which is a perfect Embleme of God celebrating this Sabbath For he now creates nothing of anew as himself is uncreatable So that the creating and infusing of souls as occasion should offer is quite contrary to this Mosaical Cabbala But the Cabbala is very consonant to it self which declares that all souls were created at once in the first day and will in these following Chapters declare also the manner of their falling into the body Ver. 4. Productions of the Heavens The Original hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here the Suns and Planets are plainly said to be generated by the Heavens or Aethereal Matter which is again wonderfully consonant to the Cartesian Philosophy but after what manner Planets and Stars are thus generated you may see there at large It cannot but be acknowledged that there was a faddome-lesse depth of Wisdome in Moses whose skill in Philosophy thus plainly prevents the subtilest and most capacious reaches of all the wits of the world that ever wrote after him Take upon me to define That no set time is understood by the six days Creation hath been witnessed already out of approved Authors and the present Cabbala plainly confirms it shewing that the mysterie of numbers is meant not the order or succession of days Ver. 6. Like dewy showers of Rain Vatablus plainly interprets the place of Rain But I conceive it better interpreted of something Analogical to the common Rain that now descends upon the Earth which is lesse oily a great deal and not so full of vitall vigour and principles of life Ver. 7. And Man himself rose out of the Earth That God should shape earth with his own hands like a Statuary into the figure of a Man and then blow breath into the nostrils of it and so make it become alive is not likely to be the Philosophick Cabbala it being more palpably accommodated to vulgar concern But mention of Rain immediately before the making of Man may very well insinuate such preparations of the ground to have some causal concourse for his production And if it be at all credible that other living creatures rose out of the Earth in this manner it is as likely that man did so likewise for the same words are used concerning them both for the Text of Moses ver 19. sayes That out of the ground God formed every Beast of the Field and every Fowl of the Air as it sayes in the seventh verse that he formed Man of the dust of the ground Whence Euripides the Tragedian one that Socrates lov'd and respected much for his great knowledge and virtue and would of his own accord be a spectator of his Tragedies when as they could scarce force him to see other Playes as Aelian writes this Euripides I say pronouncing of the first generation of men and the rest of living creatures affirmed that they were born all after the same manner and that they rose out of the Earth And that Euripides was tinctured with the same doctrines that were in Pythagoras and Plato's School both the friendship betwixt him and Socrates as also the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Moral and Philosophick sentences in his Tragedies are no inconsiderable arguments And as I have already intimated the best Philosophick Cabbala of Moses that is I suspect to be in their Philosophy I mean of Plato and Pythagoras Ver. 8. Where he had put the Man For there is no Praeterpluperfect Tense in the Hebrew and therefore as Vatablus observes if the sense require the Praeterperfect Tense stands for it Wholly Aethereal For that 's the pure Heavenly and undefiled Vehicle of the soul according to Platonisme Beams of the divine Intellect I have already more at large shewed how the Son of God or the divine Intellect is set out by the similitude of the Sun-rising or East which I may again here further confirm out of Philo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that the placing of Paradise under the Sun-rise signifies the condition of a Soul irrigated by the rayes of the divine Intellect which she is most capable of in her Aethereal Vehicle But that the souls of men were from the beginning of the world is the general opinion of the Learned Jewes as well as of the Pythagoreans and Platonists and therefore a very warrantable Hypothesis in the Philosophick Cabbala Ver. 9. The Essential Will of God By the Essential Will of God is understood the Will of God becoming Life and Essence to the Soul of Man whereby is signified a more thorough union betwixt the divine and humane nature such as is in them that are firmly regenerated and radicated in what is good Philo makes the Tree of Life to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Piety or Religion but the best Religion and Piety is to be of one will with God see John 1. 12. Ver. 10. The Four Cardinal Virtues It is Philo's Exposition upon the place and then the River it self to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That general goodnesse distinguishable into these four heads of virtue Ver. 11. Is Pison From 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to spread and diffuse it self to multiply and abound This is Wisdome or Prudence called Pison partly because it diffuses it self into all our actions and regulates the exercise of the other Three virtues and partly because Wisdome and Truth fills and encreases and spreads out every day more then other For Truth is very fruitful and there are ever new occasions that adde experience of things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 According to our English Proverb The older the wiser In the Land of Havilah From 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deus indicavit God hath shown it Ver. 12. Pure Gold c. An easie Embleme of tried Experience the mother of true Wisdome and Prudence And the virtue of Bdellium is not unproper for diseases that arise from Phlegmatick lazinesse and the very name and nature of the Onyx stone also points out the signification of it though there be no necessity as I have told you already out of Maimonides to give an account in this manner of every particular passage in an Allegory or Parable Wherefore if any man think me too curious they may omit these expositions and let them go for nought Ver. 13. River is Gihon According to the History or Letter we have made Pison Phasis and Gihon a branch of Euphrates But the ancient Fathers Epiphanius Augustine Ambrose Hieronymus Theodoret Damascen and several others make Pison Ganges and Gihon Nilus And they have
to the Sixt days progresse 26 What the Image of God is plainly set down out of S. Paul and Plato The divine Principle in us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of Plotinus 28 The distinction of the Heavenly and Earthly Man out of Philo. 31 The Imposture of still and fixed Melancholy and that it is not the true divine Rest and precious Sabbath of the Soul A compendious rehearsal of the whole Allegory of the Six days Creation WEE are now come to the Moral Cabbala which I do not call Moral in that low sense the generality of men understand Morality For the processe and growth as likewise the failing and decay of the divine Life is very intelligibly set forth in this present Cabbala But I call it Moral in counter-distinction to Philosophical or Physical as Philo also uses this tearm Moral in divine matters As when he speaks of Gods breathing into Adam the breath of Life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God breathes into Adams face Physically and Morally Physically by placing there the Senses viz. in the head Morally by inspiring his Intellect with divine knowledge which is the highest Faculty of the Soul as the Head is the chief part of the Body Wherefore by Morality I understand here divine Morality such as is ingendred in the Soul by the operations of the holy Spirit that inward living Principle of all godliness and honesty I shall be the more brief in the Defence of this Cabbala it being of it self so plain and sensible to any that has the experience of the life I describe but to them that have it not nothing will make it plain or any thing at all probable Ver. 1. A Microcosme or little World Nothing is more ordinary or trivial then to compare Man to the Universe and make him a little compendious World of himself Wherefore it was not hard to premise that which may be so easily understood And the Apostle supposes it when he applies the Creation of Light here in this Chapter to the illumination of the Soul as you shall hear hereafter Ver. 2. But that which is animal or natural operates first According to that of the Apostle That which is Spiritual is not first but that which is Animal or Natural afterward that which is Spiritual The first Man is of the Earth earthy the second Man is the Lord from Heaven But what this earthy condition is is very lively set out by Moses in this first days work For here we have Earth Water and Wind or one tumultuous dark Chaos and confusion of dirt and water blown on heaps and waves and unquiet night-storm an unruly black tempest And it is observable that it is not here said of this deformed Globe Let there be Earth Let there be Water Let there be Wind but all this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The subject matter a thing ' made already viz. The rude Soul of Man in this disorder that is described sad Melancholy like the drown'd Earth lies at the bottome whence Care and Grief and Discontent torturous Suspicion and horrid Fear are washed up by the unquiet watry Desire or irregular suggestions of the Concupiscible wherein most eminently is seated base Lust and Sensuality and above these is boisterous Wrath and storming Revengefulnesse fool-hardy Confidence and indefatigable Contention about vain objects In short whatever Passion and Distemper is in fallen Man it may be referred to these Elements But God leaves not his creature in this evil condition but that all this disorder may be discovered and so quelled in us and avoided by us he saith Let there be Light as you read in the following verse Ver. 3. The day-light appears To this alludes S. Paul when he says God who commanded the light to shine out of darknesse shine in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ Where the Apostle seems to me to have struck through the whole Six days of this Spiritual Creation at once The highest manifestation of that Light created in the first day being the face of Jesus Christ the Heavenly Adam fully compleated in the sixt day Wherefore when it is said Let there be Light that Light is understood that enlightens every man that comes into the world which is the divine Intellect as it is communicable to humane souls And the first day is the first appearance thereof as yet weaker and too much disjoin'd from our affections but at last it amounts to the true and plain Image and Character of the Lord from Heaven Christ according to the Spirit Ver. 4. And God hath framed the Nature of Man so that he cannot but say c. God working in second causes there is nothing more ordinary then to ascribe that to him that is done by men even then when the actions seem lesse competible to the Nature of God Wherefore it cannot seem harsh if in this Moral Cabbala we admit that man does that by the power of God working in the soul that the Text says God does as the approving of the Light as good and the distinguishing betwixt Light and Darknesse and the like which things in the mystical sense are competible both to God and Man And we speaking in a Moral or Mystical sense of God acting in us the nature of the thing requires that what he is said to do there we should be understood also to do the same through his assistance For the soul of man is not meerly passive as a piece of wood or stone but is forthwith made active by being acted upon and therefore if God in us rules we rule with him if he contend against sin in us we also contend together with him against the same if he see in us what is good or evil we ipso facto see by him In his light we see light and so in the rest Wherefore the supposition is very easie in this Moral Cablala to take the liberty where either the sense or more compendious expression requires it to attribute that to man though not to man alone which God alone does when we recur to the Literal meaning of the Text. And this is but consonant to the Apostle I live and yet not I. For if the life of God or Christ was in him surely he did live or else what did that life there Only he did not proudly attribute that life to himself as his own but acknowledged it to be from God Ver. 5. As betwixt the Natural Day and Night It is very frequent with the Apostles to set out by Day and Night the Spiritual and Natural condition of man As in such phrases as these The night is far spent the day is at hand Walk as children of the Light And elsewhere Let us who are of the day and in the same place You are all the sons of light and sons of the day We are not of the night nor of darknesse But this is too
two extremes the first and the last that makes up the Creation of the Spiritual Adam or Christ compleated in us and includes the middle which is Blood First therefore is Repentance from what we delighted in before Then the killing of that evil and corrupt life in us which is resisting to blood as the Apostle speaks And the 1 Epistle of John ch 5. v. 4. What ever is born of God overcomes the world Who is he that overcomes the world but he that believes that Jesus Christ the divine Light and Life in us is the Son of God and therefore indued with power from on high to overcome all sin and wickednesse in us This is he that comes by Water and Blood by repentance and perseverance till the death of the body of sin not by repentance only and dislike of our former life but by the mortification also of it Then the Spirit of Truth is awakened in us and will bear witnesse of whatever is right and true And according to this manner of testimony is it to be understood especially That no man can say that Jesus Christ is the Son of God but by the Spirit of God as the Apostle elsewhere affirms This is the heavenly Adam which is true Light and Glory to all them that have attain'd to the resurrection of the dead and into whom God hath breathed the breath of Life without which we have no right knowledge nor sense of God at all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They are thâ— words of Philo upon the place For how should the soul of man says he know God if he did not inspire her and take hold of her by his power Ver. 8. To the Kingdome of Heaven And the end of the doctrine of John which was Repentance was for this purpose that men might arrive to that comfortable condition here described and therefore it was a motive for them to repent For though sorrow endure for a night yet joy will come in the morning For the new Jerusalem is to be built and God is to pitch his Tabernacle amongst men and to rule by his Spirit here upon Earth which if I would venture upon an Historical Cabbala of Moses I should presage would happen in the seventh thousand years according to the Chronology of Scripture when the world shall be so spiritualized that the work of Salvation shall be finished and the great Sabbath and Festival shall be then celebrated in the height A thousand years are but as one day saith the Apostle Peter And therefore the seventh thousand years may well be the seventh day Wherefore in the end of the sixth thousand years the Kingdomes of the Earth will be the second Adams the Lord Christs as Adam in the Sixt day was created the Lord of the world and all the creatures therein and this conquest of his will bring in the Seventh day of rest and peace and joy upon the face of the whole Earth Which presage will seem more credible when I shall have unfolded unto you out of Philo Judaeus the mysterie of the number Seven but before I fall upon that let me a little prepare your belief by shewing the truth of the same thing in another Figure Adam Seth Enos Cainan Mahalaleel Jared they died not enjoying the richness of Gods goodness in their bodies But Enoch who was the seventh from Adam he was taken up alive into Heaven and seems to enjoy that great blisse in the body The world then in the Seventh Chiliad will be assumed up into God snatch'd up by his Spirit inacted by his Power The Jerusalem that comes down from Heaven will then in a most glorious and eminent manner flourish upon Earth God will as I said pitch his Tabernacle amongst men And for God to be in us and with us is as much as for us to be lifted up into God But to come now to the mysterie of the Septenary or number Seven it is of two kindes the one is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Septenary within the Decade is meerly seven unites The other is a Seventh Number beginning at an Vnite and holding on in a continued Geometrical Proportion till you have gone through Seven Proportional Terms For the Seventh Term there is this Septenary of the second kinde whose nature Philo fully expresses in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To this sense For always beginning from an Vnite and holding on in double or triple or what Proportion you will the seventh Number of this rank is both Square and Cube comprehending both kindes as well the Corporeal as Incorporeal Substancâ—e the Incorporeal according to the Superficies which the Squares exhibite but the Corporeal according to the solid dimensions which are set out by the Cubes As for example 64. or 729. these are Numbers that arise after this manner each of them are a Seventh from an Unite the one arising from double Proportion the other from triple and if the Proportion were Quadruple Quintuple or any else there is the same reason some other Seventh Number would arise which would prove of the same nature with these they would prove both Cubes and Squares that is Corporeal and Incorporeal For such is sixty four either made by multiplying eight into eight and so it is a Square or else by multiplying four Cubically For four times four times four is again sixty four but then it is a Cube And so seven hundred twenty nine is made either by Squaring of twenty seven or Cubically multiplying of Nine for either way will seven hundred twenty nine be made and so is both Cube and Square Corporeal and Incorporeal Whereby is intimated that the world shall not be reduced in the Seventh day to a meer Spiritual consistency to an Incorporeal condition but that there shall be a co-habitation of the Spirit with Flesh in a Mystical or Moral sense and that God will pitch his Tent amongst us Then shall be settled everlasting righteousnesse and rooted in the Earth so long as mankind shall inhabite upon the face thereof And this truth of the Reign of Righteousness in this Seventh thousand years is still more clearly set out to us in the Septenary within Ten. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo calls it the naked number Seven For the parts it consists of are 3 and 4 which put together make 7. And these parts be the sides of the first Orthogonion in Numbers the very sides that include the right angle thereof And the Orthogonion what a foundation it is of Trigonometry and of measuring the altitudes latitudes and longitudes of things every body knows that knows any thing at all in Mathematicks And this prefigures the uprightness of that holy Generation who will stand and walk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Inclining neither this way nor that way but they will approve themselves of an upright and sincere heart And by this Spirit of Righteousness will these Saints be enabled to finde out the depth and breadth
that in processe of time not onely Ecclesiastical but Civil power it self will be involved in those ruines and Christ alone will be exalted in that day For before he deliver up the Kingdome to his Father he is to put down all Rule and all Authority and Power For he must reign till he have put all his enemies under his feet The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death which as I have already signified unto you though he be now the King of Terrours will in that great Festival and Sabbatisme by reason of so sensible and palpable union betwixt the Heavenly and Earthly nature be but a pleasant passage into an higher room or to use that more mysterious expression of the Rabbins concerning Moses in whose writings this Sabbatisme is adumbrated God will draw up a mans soul to himself by an Amorous kisse For such was the death of that holy man Moses who is said to have died in Moab 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the kisses and embracements of God This shall be the condition of the Church of Christ for many hundred years Till the Wheel of Providence driving on further and the Stage of things drawing on to their last Period men shall not onely be freed from the fear and pain of death but there shall be no capacity of dying at all For then shall the day of the Lord come wherein the Heavens shall passe away with a noise and the Elements melt with fervent heat and the Earth with all the things in it shall be burnt up Thus Christ having done vengeance upon the obstinately wicked and disobedient and fully triumphed over all his enemies he will give up his Kingdome to his Father whose Vicegerent hitherto he hath been in the affairs of both Men and Angels But till then whosoever by pretending to be more Spiritual and Mystical then other men would smother those essential Principles of the Christian Religion that have reference to the external Person of Christ let him phrase it as well as he will or speak as magnificently of himself as he can we are never to let go the plain and warrantable Faith of the Word for ungrounded fancies and fine sayings Wherefore let every man seek God apart and search out the Truth in the holy Scripture preparing himself for a right understanding thereof by stedfastly and sincerely practising such things as are plainly and uncontrovertedly contained therein and expect illumination according to the best communication thereof that is answerably to our own faculties otherwise if we bid all Reason and History and Humane helps and Acquisitions quite adiew the world will never be rid of Religious Lunacies and Fancies FINIS AN ACCOUNT of what is contained in the Prefaces and Chapters of this Book In the Preface to the Reader What is meant by the tearm Cabbala and how warrantably the literal Exposition of the Text may be so called That dispensable speculations are best propounded in a Sceptical manner A clear description of the nature and digniety of Reason and what the divine Logos is The general probabilities of the truth of this present Cabbala The designe of the Author in publishing of it THE LITERAL CABBALA CHAP. I. 2 The Earth at first a deep miry abysse covered over with waters over which was a fierce wind and through all darknesse 3 Day made at first without a Sun 6 The Earth a floor the Heavens a transparent Canopy or strong Tent over it to keep off the upper waters or blew conspicuous Sea from drowning the world 8 Why this Tent or Canopy was not said to be good 9 The lower waters commanded into one place 11 Herbs flowers and fruits of Trees before either Sun or seasons of the year to ripen them 14 The Sun created to and added the day as a peculiar ornament thereof as the Moon and Stars to the night 20 The Creation of Fish and Fowl 24 The Creation of beasts and creeping things 27 Man created in the very shape and figure of God but yet so that there were made females as well as males 28 How man came to be Lord over the rest of living creatures 30 How it came to pass that man feeds on the better sort of the fruits of the Earth and the beasts on the worse p. 1 CHAP. II. 3 The Original of the Jewish Sabbaths from Gods resting himself from his six days labours 5 Herbs and Plants before either Rain Gardning or Husbandry and the reason why it was so 7 Adam made of the dust of the ground and his soul breathed in at his nosthrils 8 The Planting of Paradise 9 A wonderful Tree there that would continue youth and make a man immortal upon earth Another strange Tree viz. the Tree of knowledge of good and evil 11 The Rivers of Paradise Phasis Gihon Tigris Euphrates 18 The high commendation of Matrimony 19 Adam gives names to all kinde of creatures except fishes 21 Woman is made of a rib of Adam a deep sleep falling upon him his minde then also being in a trance 24 The first Institution of Marriage 9 CHAP. III. 1 A subtile Serpent in Paradise indued with both reason and the power of speech deceives the woman 2 The Dialogue betwixt the woman and the Serpent 7 How the shame of nakednesse came into the world 8 God walks in the Garden and calls to Adam 10 The Dialogue betwixt Adam and God 14 The reasons why Serpents want feet and creep upon the ground 15 The reason of the antipathy betwixt Men and Serpents 16 As also of womens pangs in childe-bearing and of their being bound in subjection to their husbands 18 Also of the barrennesse of the earth and of mans toil and drudgery 21 God teacheth Adam and Eve the use of leathern clothing 24 Paradise haunted with apparitions Adam frighted from daring to taste of the Tree of Life whence his posterity became mortal to this very day 15 THE PHILOSOPHICK CABBALA CHAP. I. 1 The world of Life or Forms and the Potentiality of the visible Vniverse created by the Tri-une God and referr'd to a Monad or Unite 6 The Vniversal immense matter of the visible world created out of nothing and referr'd to the number Two 7 Why it was not said of this matter that it was good 9 The ordering of an Earth or Planet for making it conveniently habitable referr'd to the number Three 14 The immense Aethereal Matter or Heaven contriv'd into Suns or Planets as well Primary as Secondary viz. as well Earths as Moons and referr'd to the number Four 20 The replenishing of an Earth with Fish and Fowl referr'd to the number Five 24 The Creation of Beasts and Cattel but more chiefly of Man himself referr'd to the number Six 22 CHAP. II. 2 Gods full and absolute rest from creating any thing of anew adumbrated by the number Seven 4 Suns and Planets not only the furniture but effects of the Ethereal Matter or Heaven 6 The manner of Man and other Animals rising out of the