the heaven and the earth the sea and all that is in them and rested the seventh day and hallowed it Thus injoyning both by his own Example and Command the perpetual Observation of that particular Seventh-day in order of Time in its successive course in every weekly revolution as the appointed day for holy Rest That day and that only and no other day of the Week Thou LORD art worthy to receive the Glory and the Honour and the Power For thou hast created all things and through thy Will they are and were created O that those who dwell on the Earth and every Nation and Kindred and Language and People would fear him and give Glory to him for the hour of his Judgement is coming And that they would worship him that made the Heaven and the Earth and the Sea and the Fountains of Waters The Father Son and holy Spirit they are the Creators They the Aelohim who spake Creatures into their Existence and Being of which adored Almighties an account is given in that Historicall Narration which doth contain a Diary or Journal of the first seven days The Father Aelohim It is spoken of him in the forty fifth Psalm Aelohim the Aelohim of Christ anointed his Son by his Spirit which Son also is Aelohim expresly so called in the same Psalm Thy throne O Aelohim ever and perpetual the scepter of thy kingdom is righteonsness The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews sheweth that this was spoken unto the Son of God by his Father And the holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Aelohim and the Spirit Jehovah by Isaiab In the second Book of Samuel this Spirit of Jehovah or this Spirit of Jehovah as Paul elsewhere is also called The Aelohim of Israel It is Aelohim who dwells in his people as in a Temple So saith Moses which Paul applyeth to the holy Spirit These three are the Creating one Thus Solomon the Preacher chargeth young men to remember their Creators in the days of their youth Where Aeloh my Makers those who making me that giveth the Psalms in the night So would Elibu have had Job to say The same hath Eliphaz in the same Book Should a man be more righteous than Aelohim Should a man be purer than his Makers Hence is Tzijon incouraged in the later days not to fear For saith Jehovah by his Prophet Isaiah to her Thy Makers is thy Husbands Thus doth the Psalmist call for an Hallelu-jab or praise ye Jab Sing ye to Jehovah a new Song his praise in the Church of gracious Saints let Israel rejoyce in his Makers in those who making him Let the Sons of Tzijon be glad in their King the whole Creation should joyn in this song of praise for this Reason which is common to the whole World of them for he commanded and they were Created I now propound it to serious examination according to the Word whether much of this glorious Mystery be not included in the first Words of the holy Scriptures Bereashith baraa Aelohim and in that word Jehovah mentioned a little after the short History of the Creation as the Creator and Maker which is to be left to further disquisition For I am inciting and encouraging of Religious Students and of Christian Disciples to deeper researches into the best Learning This Word has in it the signification of an Head so that this is not barely In the Beginning but it doth set out that first capital Beginning of all things In and By Christ the constituted Head of all Inquire whether it should therefore be rendred in the Head-captain or in the Head-captainship or in-by the Captain or the Chieftain or Head-commander or in him who is the Head-Captain or in the appointed Head or Captain the Preposition is properly In. And when it doth point out the immediate principal cause it is in by Let the diligent Inquirer about this collate some other Scriptures that doth relate unto this matter It was in-by Christ that the Father made these hidden ages For this is spoken of the Son of God whose Godhead is strongly proved by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the beginning of it by divers â—itations out of the Old Testament brought into the New It was in by Wisdom that Jehovah did Found the Earth and prepared the Heavens and made All his Great Works All things were created by Jesus Christ which is a great honour put upon our LORD The Father created all things If you ask by whom It was by Jesus Christ All things were made by him Christ was the Head-Captain of all the Host of the Heavens and of the Earth and he is the chief Head of his Body the Church Both these are affirmed of Christ with an eye to this In and By In by him who is the Image of the Invisible God the first-born of every creature were all things created which are in Heaven and which are upon Earth which are Visible and which are Invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions Governments or powers All things were created by him and to him and he is before all things and all things consist together by him and he is the head of the body There is one LORD Jesus Christ by whom are all things He is expresly called Reashith the appointed head of Jehovah's ways before his works from then speaking evidently of the creation As the words themselves in that place of the Proverbs do plainly declare He was anointed to this principate and is again and again called Roash the head Roashith is the name of one of the Types of Christ the First fruits are so called in the Old Testament And so is he in the New the First-fruits of them who sleeping It is not without great reasons and weighty considerations that this first written word should set out Christ as the Head Captain or constituted head or appointed Captain For all skillful Lexicographers agree that the original-propriety and root significancy of this word hath that of an head in it in its true first meaning to which the Scriptures do agree and divers Scriptures do speak of Troops of Bands of Hosts of Companies of Souldiers under an Head-Captain to this Honour and Office was Christ assigned and appointed by his Father which also this word doth remarkably set out If it be a composition of Roash an Head or Captain or Head-Captain and Shith to put or to place in martial order or in Battle-array For thus we may find the word used The LORD Christ doth put his Hosts or Armies into Rank and File in their Order with art and care Proper names are often compounded in the Hebrew wherein that Tongue doth delight though it doth not so easily admit of composition in appellatives The context favoureth the Interpretation with other Scriptures collated For in this History of the Creation we may read of the Hosts of this
solicitude and of deadly slavery To consult the Devils Oracles in doubtful cases is Apostacy from and denying of the true God and to resort for divining unto one that hath a Familiar is a seeking to and a worshipping of the Devil So is Sorcery and Necromancy where the Devil is sought unto in the form of some dead man the Devil appeared in the likeness of Samuel it was not the true Samuel but mere illusion of Satan for God had refused to answer Saul by Prophets such as Samuel was Saul is said to have died for his Transgression principally in that he sought and asked counsel of a familiar spirit Sooth-saying by the flying and noise of Birds is also condemned usually the care of persons in this case is to avoid the seeing or the hearing of such kind of ominous signs which would signifie nothing as to good or evil in themselves in this matter were it not for the consent of the observer they have no force efficacy or operativeness at all this way were it not for the superstitious conceits of the mind when it is diligently bended and intentively turned to them whereby divers things do befal divers men according to the diversity of their thoughts and imaginations Of the like Nature is divination by looking into the entrails of Beasts so did the King of Babel who consulted with Idols and looked into the Liver so is star-gazing charms mumbling of words for such an end casting of Figures for this purpose and the like There should not be any found among us that useth witchcraft or is a regarder of times or a marker of the flying of Fowls or a Sorcerer or a Charmer or that consulteth with Spirits or a Sooth-sayer or that asketh counsel of the dead To a seeking unto these the holy Spirit doth oppose a Prophet as the only lawful Minister of God to know his Will by To ascribe such a special foreknowledge or foretellingness indicated by the positure of Stars which might rule over the consciences and wills of voluntary Agents is contrary to that Soveraign Authority which the LORD doth exercise over the wills of men bowing and bending moving and directing them which way he pleaseth and therefore such a power is not to be arrogated by any mere Creatures Angels themselves whether good or bad have not such an innate Light in them as of themselves to know future particular contingents before hand neither can the intellect of man so foreknow Astrologers therefore not having their pretended prescience and prognosticating skill either by Divine Revelation or by Natural Causalities they have it by diabolical suggestion That knowledge of determinate future things which any really have by Divine Revelation is Prophesie and not Divination Such prying curiosity as has neither Scripture or Nature to bottom upon is experienced and bewrayed to be the common disease of the vain itching mind of fallen unquiet man from hence has sprung this troublesome question about Judiciary Astrologers who would bind men to fatal Stars as if the body of man were composed and fashioned according to the twelve Signs of Heaven as if the Moon had dominion in man's body under the twelve Zodiacal Constellations placing Aries in the Head and Face Taurus in the Neck and Throat Gemini in the Arms and Shoulders and from thence running through the other Signs into the other parts of the body even to the very soles of the Feet which they ascribe to Pisces Did the Authority of Christ and of his Word take more sensible hold of mens hearts they would tremble more and not dare to adventure upon those prohibited evils which the LORD hath so dreadfully threatned with such sore judgements that the soul which turneth it self unto Diviners and Prognosticators shall be cut off from the midst of his people Man or Woman when there is in them a familiar Spirit or that is a Wizard they shall be surely put to death they shall stone them with stones their bloods shall be upon them their death shall be upon their own head their own sin is the just cause of it and the Statute Law of England doth make many of those practices to be Felony which yet are commonly used in this Nation In the day when the LORD will honour himself by reviving of his Judicial Laws and by raising up of such as Josiah was a None-such for reformation in this kind to put those Laws in due execution when these evils are espied out one such Example in such an age of speculative and practical Atheism and Infidelity may be a more forcible argument with some than ten Scriptural reasons now are The certain knowledge of future particular contingents is that by which the true God is differenced distinguished from Idols The LORD doth nippingly touch and sharply check the vanity of this Art and the cheatingness of its Arrists and the ignorance and credulity of those who do yield themselves to be deluded thereby He doth sttaitly charge and sorely threaten such confident boasters of their Astrological skill In the Apostles time when the Doctrine of the Gospel did more obtain and prevail these black Arts were condemned and the Books that treated of them were burnt Those kind of evil practitioners are described by a Syriack word and so is the word in Chaldee and Samaritan too which doth designate and denote not only such Magicians as are plainly and evidently given to diabolical arts but also to such arts of Inchantment of Jugling deceiving by slight conveyance deluding the eye-sight with Legerdemain such curious illusory Arts which though to the ignorant and vulgar may seem to be otherwise yet really are wicked Artifices such are the feigned devices of Planetaries and Casters of Nativities and the Constitutions of some of the Christian Emperours have ordered that such Books of such Astrologers should be burned A large Volume might be quickly written on this subject matter but if the Word of the LORD be not submitted unto Who am I that I should think to silence these Adversaries by the force of my reasoning with them I therefore leave it with the LORD to plead his own cause in his own way in his own time If I have Instanced in some evil Arts which the Reader may apprehend do not so properly belong to Judiciary Astrology let him consider that this black Art doth spread it self wide and far and besides when I was upon this I was willing to bring in my Testimony against all that evil which sought for some protection from Judiciary Astrology and had some ways a Relation to it I now proceed to the Scripture discovery The Darkness Evening and Night were divided more generally before as to Time Place and Nature from the Light Morning and Day in their created Beings and successive courses and now they were further specially distinguished and pointed out by the Heavenly Luminaries Time was not first measured by the Sun for there was
ten or twenty an hundred or a thousand Wives for where will you set the bounds of restraint if once you allow more than one at once there could not be an equal distribution neither would there be enough to suffice for every man who cannot contain to have one and so the remedy by Marriage would not reach to all men which yet doth belong to all as the disease of of proneness to Fornication is general to all and the like inconvenience and mischief would unavoidably follow if one woman might have ten twenty an hundred or a thousand Husbands Whereas the LORD in the way of his providence doth bring forth and breed up near about an equal number of men and of women of Males and of Females in all Nations of the inhabited Earth Where there is but one Wife allowed by the LORD to one man yet even in that case there are seasons when he would have the man forbear to know his Wise by Seed of Copulation as when her monthly sickness is upon her or when the Wife is known to be with Child thereby to evidence and to manifest purity of mind and chastity of body and mortification of inordinate lusts or when for a time they consentingly so agree for higher and holier ends that they may be the better at leisure for fasting and prayer How can this be where so many Wives call upon the Husband at once and so all the year long wandring lusts in their unbounded desire are belluine and bruitish impetuous and unsatisfied how could burning be cured and how could this afford a sufficient help against temptation to uncleanness It is only one Wife at once that is the proper the legitimate Wife no other woman at that time is so and it is only one man at once that is the proper the legitimate Husband no other man at that time is so The man hath not the authority or right of his own body but the Wife and how can this interest and propriety be preserved where many women do at one and the same time challenge such a pretended Right for but one can have it at once when the man doth give his body to another Wife or to more Wives the first who is the only lawful Wife has that benevolence which is a due debt owing only to her given and derived to another or to more and so she is wronged and suffereth loss she is injuriously defrauded of her Right which her Husband doth detain or take way from her and doth dispose of it to one or more besides who have no lawful claim to it When men are so much believers and so far Christians as to tremble at the word of Jehovah Aelohim and to feel their hearts to stand in awe of it and to find their judgements and wills throughly to submit to his Authority who gave it they will then acknowledge a forceabless in these Scripture-argumentations against those two heinous crimes and scandalous sins of Polygamy and of Divorce where God hath coupled an Husband and a Wife they must so remain joyned till the same God do disâ—joyn them by death That Doctrine which our LORD Jesus Christ did preach is expresly against Divorces however a contrary practice had much and long obtained which did put the Disciples upon asking of Christ of the same matter it was so great and so weighty a cause Whatever Moses said by way of permission about giving a Writing of Divorcement and so to put away a Wife yet this was no original Saying or Precept from our LORD Christ spake otherwise As in another instance in this Nation about Usury the same Laws of men that do tolerate the vice of Usury suffering a certain sum of gain yearly for the loan of a hundred pound yet doth withal condemn it as a thing unlawful The woman is of the man and must still be subject unto him as her head what man can dispense rightfully with the subordination and subjection of the body to the head and under it or sever the head from the body to make them depart from one another till death do part them When therefore Reader thou meerest any where with any Laws in the Scriptures that do relate to divorces and puttings away of a Wife look upon them as Permissions by Moses not as Precepts from Jehovah understand me not from Jehovah as they are Divorces but only a Law by consequenr upon a supposition If they were resolved to put away a Wife then this or that was to follow upon it if the case of the blind-minded and hard-hearted Husbands were such that they would be and were divorced from their Wives when such a fould matter came to pass then the LORD appointed that if another man had married the divorced woman or if that later man were dead that then she was not to return to her former Husband because she had defiled her self by and with another man the first great cause whereof was from her first Husband who thrust her out upon this temptation the first Divorce was unjust and the second Marriage was unlawful the first Husband being still alive and sin was thereby brought upon the Land which was punishable for this guilt for not only were the guilty persons themselves the man and the women liable and obnoxious to judgement for this crime but all the inhabitants also who knew it and suffered it if they did not in their places appear against it This shameful consequent was on purpose to deter them from the other sinful Antecedent And therefore that expression in Deuteronomy before cited in the Margin should not be rendred imperatively let him write her a Bill of Divorcement and give it in her hand and send her out of his house as if Jehovah Aelohim gave his Direction and Command that this man was in Duty or by any lawful rightful allowance to deal thus with her in this case But it expresseth what the man had done and would do the three first verses of that twenty fourth Chapter do declare the hard hearted mans purpose and practice it is the fourth Verse that doth open the mind of our LORD that if the man was resolvedly set upon such a sinful course that then it was not lawful for him to take her again which doth plainly shew Jehovah's utter dislike of that illegal Divorcement they were irregular miscarriages the LORD gave no countenance to such licentious practices We do not read of any express law and direct command of Aelohim for the jealously-suspitious unhumane Husband so to deal with his Wife Aelohim in this case doth hate that word put her away the man cannot lawfully break that Covenant which the LORD was called in to witness that he made with the woman when he took her first in Marriage nothing can justly loose the Matrimonial Bond but death or a case of adultery which was a capital crime and to be punished with death by the Judges One such
liberty to be a little more particular and distinct yet with respect to the Body the Soul and the Spirit which are the three essential constitutive parts of Man How can the Medicinal Art in the Old or New Philosophical way be so satisfactory to any deep piercing serious Inquirer whilst in that way it is a mere conjectural deceiveable Art How many of their Recipes are there which when taken inwardly they understand not how they work upon the inward parts by what kind of causality and efficiency How it doth take hold of one part and not of another How it doth seize upon this humour and not upon that How any of the inwards parts do co-operate with the Medicine What the Faculties and Functions of the several inward parts are to promote the efficacy of the Recipe How many various commixt concurring unobserved accident as they call them may quite change and alter the operation and the effects of the Ingredients With much more that might be instanced in How great variety is there in a little space of time in â—he humours and temperament of one and the same body occastoned oâ— a sudden by some distempered passions or ungoverned affections or mis-sâ—apen apprehensions or transporting phrensies or deep imaginations which the most skilful and observing Physitian can neither prevent nor remedy And although som of the more wise and faithful of them do in their Methods and Rules about this Art treat of the effects of the inner Man of the unexpected changes suddenly befalling the mind as having an alterative affectiveness upon the outer Man either to speed on or to hold back the cure Yet how can their Counsel and Prescriptions be proper and pertinent here for the governing of the passions and for the ordering of the affections of their Patients without resorting to Scripture directions in particular Scriptures to enforce obedience to call forth Faith and to encourage prayers which the common exhortations from meer Philosophical Ethnicks cannot so do How many inward cases of Spiritual maladies are there which none of the common Medicinal Prescriptions can remove and remedy This kind of Patients the practicers of Physick do either send to the Minister for spiritual Cordials and healing Counsels or else sometimes they dismisâ— them to the Bedlam when it is outragious Phrensie or wolâ—ish Melancholy or diabolical possession and for a veil of their ignorance and a cover of their shame they conclude many Diseases to be obstinate against all remedies Whereas if the Scriptures were searched into about this much more would there be discovered of a Directory And if all else should fail the LORD would often effect cures even to wonderment were Faith acted aright upon a suitable Word There was a sick Maid given over by a Learned Practitioner in the Medicinal Art as gasping and dying and when a Pastor being present had drawn the Physician aside into the next Room the Physician told him that she had two or three mortal Diseases so far gone upon her that either of them would be her Death And yet when the Minister had cleared the Chamber of other by-standers himself and some few others in Church Fellowship with him acted according to that prescription and promise in James and the LORD immediately raised her up and a short time after she was seen walking in the streets healthful and well All the praise belongs to Jehovah Aelohim There is a Scriptural Art of Cure when the Shops of Apothecaries do afford no help There are many latent operations of Nature which meer Ethnick Philosophy cannot find out and there are divers unseen Inflicters of Diseases sometimes by good Angels other times by evil Spirits which must receive a Word cure if ever they be rightly cured The Holy Scriptures do expresly mention several particular Diseases as running Sores flowing Issues Boyls Feavers Consumptions Inflammations extreme Burnings Botch Emerods Scab Itch Leprosie the falling of the Thigh or Womb and divers others And they speak of Diseases in particular members of the Body as in the Feet in the Legs in the Knees in the Bowels in the Kidneys or Reins in the Loins in the Sinews in the Bones in the Liver in the Gall From the sole of the Foot unto the Head no soundness Wounds Bruises putrefying Sores And when the judicious and industrious of the Medicinal Art will make Scripture collections about this they might find out many particular Rules there which do direct unto proper specifick remedies If I should cull out this one particular inward part of Man's body the heart how many diseases and distempers is it subject unto the which no Philosophick Art can cure such as the Passion or the Palpitation of the Heart the Wounding of the Heart the Breaking of the Heart the Piercing of it the Faintings the Desolatings the Wastings and Minishings the Throbbings and Beatings about of the Heart so that it is even forsaking of a Person leaping awry and leaving its place and going out the Languidness of the Heart the Frettingness of the Heart the Troubles the Terrours the Tremblings the Despondings of the Heart Its Dissolvings and Flowings away as water its sinking and falling It s being moved as the Trees of the Wood are moved with the Wind Its melting as Wax and softning through fear its making a noise like Pipes its dyingness or perishing its Astonishment or Stupor its Smiting or Striking of him or of her in whom it is Its Madness its sorrowful Overwhelmings its Leavenings and Imbitterings and Swellings Its Groanings with a rumbling roaring Noise its excessive Heats as an Oven and as a burning Fire within it It s being covered over with Grief It s being blasted as withered Grass It s Wandering It s staggering its fluttering too and fro Its pains in its Walls its being beset straitned and besieged its unquietness as the raging restless Sea its boiling and working as Waters that become thick and miry when they are much stirred and troubled Its heaviness it s stooping as under an oppressing burden Its astonishments and amazements its being struck as with an Hammer It s being changed like as the heart of a Beast Its overgrownness and oppressedness with Fat Its Anguish Its Despair Its Out-cryes Its Plagues Its Stonyness Let me give one particular instance of an Heart-malady which is one of the most lamentable cases in all the book of the Lamentations It is such a complex distemper of heart as has these dreadful things in it grief and sorrow such grief and sorrow as doth cover the heart all over A cincture and compreâ—â—ion of Heart with deadly trouble and pain such a covering grief and sorrow of Heart as is totally overwhelming and quite discouraging It makes them even quite to give over all hope It is such an overwhelming grief and discouraging sorrow of Heart as has Obduration and obstinacy going along with it It further sets out the Hearts giving over of it self to its own overwhelming grief