Royalty at the Eye as having some blind Iurisdiction in the Pores For this were to measure Magical Positions by the Superficial Strictures of common Philosophy Whose Assertors too confident of the Principles of Tradition labour not to understand what others speak but to make others speak what they themselves understand For it is in Nature as appears in Religion some are still hammering and fashioning of old Elements but seek not the Eutopia that lies beyond them This Body therefore let 's consider it the Temple and the Soul that 's within it the Sanctum Sanctorum for the Majesty to dwell in Which if so this Earth must be rarified to make a pure Heaven and Heaven must be purified before the Divinest will inhabit within it Great and Iust therefore is the Original Good whose Incomprehensible Beauty and Divine Majesty neither the Heavens nor the Earth nor the Orbs nor the Ocean nor the expatiated Abyss can any ways contain him Which certainly to know is Speculum Sapientiae scraw'd out in the fair Frontespiece of the beautiful Creation as also in that Divine Manuscript of Holy Writ where the Patriarchs and the Prophets are Marginal Notes and the Holy Men of God with our pious Ancestors the lively Records and divine Remembrancers of the Sacred Oracles of the Majesty of Truth Thus far the Ark of the Covenant travelled and thus far the Talmudists transported themselves but some of the Cabalists went some degrees farther when they met with Christ and his Twelve Apostles yet could they not see the great Messiah But Gabriel the Angel salutes the Blessed Virgin with Hail Mary full of Grace blessed art thou among the Daughters of Women For the Holy of Holies shall overshadow thee with Beauty and thou shalt conceive and bear a Child and he shall be called the Son of God. John Baptist also he confirms the Miracle who when Jesus with him coming forth of the Water the Heavens themselves most gloriously opened and the Holy Ghost divinely descending like a Dove rested the Glory of the Majesty upon him and then was there a Voice heard from the Divinest This is my Son my beloved Son let the Nations hear him Now to the Jews this became a stumbling-block as to some of the Rabbies a Rock of offence but to the Gentiles that sat in the Suburbs of Darkness and the Scriptures tell us in the Shadow of Death the most glorious Mystery of the Revelation of God and the everlasting Gospel was preached unto them So that from these two eminent and most sacred Primordials the one of the Law and the other of the Gospel Religion or something like it took its native Original yet so strangely masqueraded disfigured and disguised that were not a Man well assured what it was it would be found difficult to resolve what to call it And thus the Sun Heavens major Luminary when because at once falling upon several Angles represents the Light in various forms So Christianity though a familiar Appellation yet admits it of such Variety in its progress and peregrination because when to mingle it self with all sorts of Professions that Professors themselves have been puzled how to rate it whiles the noble Berean searches the Scriptures and as the Scriptures manifestly testifie of Christ so Christ himself saith they testifie of him The great Oracle therefore and the Miracle of Faith is Christ himself and Christ is God From whence the Mystery of our Eternal Salvation the blessed Regeneration and the spiritual Birth that internally breaths in every pious Believer is Christ in us the hope of Glory the Sovereign Revealer of the Wisdom of God whose Light is the Beauty of the Majesty of Light that enlightneth every one coming into the World and is our saving and our sanctifying Light before Time had a Being God blessed for ever Thus in brief I present you with a Sacred Summary of my pious Conceptions of the Scriptures of Truth divulg'd to the World as a Treasure of Mysteries calculated for the Assiduous and only such whose Integrity and Fidelity internally shine forth as their Faces externally in a Glass respond and answer a due and exact Proportion From whence I conclude this Philosophical Axiom As are the Writings of Moses the Standard of Truth that God the Creator has by a Royal Law imposed upon Nature eternally to operate the Vniversal Spirit therefore is but One in all her Operations viz. in the Fire to influence in the Air to impregnate in the Water to germinate and in the Earth to vegetate Where note The Elements consequently the Principles were divinely preordained by the Sovereign Power of him that 's Supream who constituted Nature to conserve the Creation or solemnly I declare I understand it not Nor would I be thought either rash or unreasonable to reassume a Priviledge in what I distribute but as Words are my own whiles yet in my Mouth and every bodies else when unconfined so let them be and have a charitable Reception when to run their Risque in the Worlds great Lottery because when to fall under various Conceptions yet if so happy to meet with the Ingenious in Science meaning such as dread and honour their Creator and imitate Nature in her solitary Operations which every expert Artist and experienced will do provided his Inquisitions be after the Truth to such and such only I dedicate my Labors together with my Endeavours to Wisdoms elaborate Shrine that with vertuous Inclinations they may seek after Discoveries and the abstruse Tracts of their Friend Philanthropus RABBI MOSES IN the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth Which directs me to contemplate this World is a great Machine or an Engine-royal adapted for Motion by the Power of Him that created the Creation that not so much as an Atom can move or stir save only by a derivative Vertue from him that thro Wisdom and Providence gave a Being to the Whole who knows all the Parts and Particles of his Work. How can he then be thought ignorant of its Motion or in any thing be deficient when he that made the World knows how to influence the hidden Springs and Parts thereof he knows for what End and Duration he design'd its Motion and the time when all things shall pass away So that when the Divinest withdraws the Springs of Life viz. his supporting Providence from any Creature in the Creation or from the Elements or the whole World it self it must sink into a state of Inactivity consequently become a meer Annihilation Now That Heaven and Earth are Corelates who doubts it That they sprung spontaneously from one Principium who disputes it And that they had in themselves by Divine Ordination Ends and Beginnings most properly adapted and insinuated into them who so Impious and Atheistical to suspect it That the World had a Beginning is manifest That Eternity preceded Time is most manifest And that every End terminates in its own proper Beginnings nothing more manifest Every End therefore
reveal the Glory of the Father in the Face and Fulness of Jesus Christ. And God saw the Light and behold it was good the consequence follows for God he made it and God divided the Light from the Darkness as by his Wisdom the Day from the Night Separation therefore from adust impurity makes it Sublime Immaculate and Pure So Divine out of a Moral and a Celestial out of a Terrestrial State is a transmutation by the Grace of God for if nothing that 's impure can subsist in his presence whatever comes there must be spiritually pure and such are Invisibles separated from Elements the Waters above the Firmament of a pure Nature existent with Life but the Waters beneath Elementary and Fluctuating The Universal Spirit therefore inspiring Life and Motion the whole Creation began to breath and bud forth And God after separation of the Light from the Darkness of the pure and sublime from that that 's inquinate of Heaven from Earth of the Waters from the Waters of the Translucid and Diaphanous Bodies from Corruptible Recrements and Sordid Impurities Then was there a Noble and Divine Separation because when to raise an immortal Seed out of the Principles and Rudiments of Elements And such also is the Regenerate state in Man when born of the Royal Seed from Heaven for Flesh and Blood because Transient and Elementary are inconsistent with the Eternity of God uncapable therefore to inherit the Kingdom This is that Divine and Heavenly Transmutation by which Christ Jesus the Wisdom of the Father with one regal grain transmutes our Nature and our Mortal Bodies into an Immortal State and is that Elixir of Life and Vertue that defends it for ever from torture and destruction and eternally delivers it from the periods of Death But some will object What Body is this And Paul solves the Doubt by a Scriptural Explanation telling us it s a Body increate and incorruptible consequently uncapable of any mutation and because impregnated and animated with Life is under protection divinely blessed absolved and acquitted the assaults of Death What Body then some will say must it be and he tells you It 's a Body as it pleaseth God. But this you 'll object is also insufficient To speak more plainly then it 's a Regenerate Body born from the Spirit and not from Elements but of a pure and immaculate nature that never knew nor consented to Sin Such a Birth will triumph over Death because it can never be made to die nor subject it self to the periods of Death since bound up in the Volume of the Infinite Eternity But Darkness is the Vmbra or promiscuous shadow of the beautiful and amiable Glory of Light And because separated from the Beam of Light and gathered to its self is the Representation of Death Where note we may call it the Mantle or Covering of some solid Substance or some material thing and such is the Night by Earth's Interposition retirements of Light or the Suns bright absence Corpulences also are Stellat Ecclipses because from Globical Bodies intermediating for Night is only the Suns bright absence when deprived the beautiful Beam of his Light and the Day as I may so say the Infant of Light because it sprung up from Light Original The created Light therefore pray tell me what is it if not the beautiful Aurora of Eternity as is Eternity the Ray of the Majesty Thus the Light as appears shines still in Darkness and yet the Darkness comprehends it not Now what is this Darkness but the shades of Death and what is Death but a separation from Life and Life it self the amiable Infant that sprung from Eternity as Generation from Time But Darkness abhors the lustre of Light lest peradventure fearing the Light should inspire it Gold therefore like the Salamander lives eternally in Fire without detriment destruction or diminution of parts whiles imperfect Metals when examined by the test evaporate and vanish so become imperceptible which displays some impurity in their natural Composition for were they of a regal stamp and condition no force of Fire would be Argument strong enough to make in them the least separation so Darkness when made pure by the Beam of Light it then becomes a natural brightness and Mortality transchanged by the Grace of God becomes Immortal by Divine Transmutation The Day therefore sprung natively from Light as a Legitimate Heir from the Loins of his Parents nor could it do otherwise because by the Divinest destinated and determinated to such an end by the Counsel of God. And thus the Beam or Ray of the Sun as its Integer Light can be no otherwise because the proper Effect from that efficient Cause for the Celestial Sun if sedately to consider it was kindled by a virtual spark of invisible Light And this invisible Light the Son of God is the Essence Wisdom and the Beauty of the Father and is that Soveraign and Saving Light of the Divinity and Majesty of God himself As pure Religion therefore is such in it self as it pleads Precedency long before Error consequently it 's a bright and most illustrious Taper that directs to the standard of Divine Truth in whose Frontispiece Devotion displays Christianity and which truly is the most Eminent and Divine Encomium that ever was attributed to Men as Mortals and is in a Scriptural sense the new way of Conquering because through Christ we are more than Conquerours and fight in this Field without Carnal Weapons for no Gladiators arm here to Combat nor is there any Banner but the Cross of Christ and whose Enemies are Abaddon and the Hierarchy of Hell and whose Engins are Sin and the Toils of Death endeavouring therewith to obstruct our passage when attempting the triumphant Joys of Heaven But a Nominal Christian with grief I speak it which signifies no more than a formal Professor if when wanting the Vital Power of the living Act of Faith such a profession makes no Man a Christian any more than reading the Alcharon compleats a Saint nor is every Professor a true Minister of God except of God ordain'd to preach For the Gospel is free and the love of God free and it was the free Act of Christ to give himself freely for the Sins of the World. Christs Redemption therefore was a free Act of Grace to blot out Sin and usher in Repentance and all that 's required for so great a suffering is only conformity to a Holy Life and sanctified Obedience to that Living Power in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells He therefore that prays and pays not his Orisons to this great Oracle the Wisdom of the Father stands still indebted for his Life and Freedom and proclaims himself an Alien to the Court of Sion as also a Stranger to the New Ierusalem Now in opposition to Light stands this formidable Darkness a Figure of a Creature that was found folded up after the Divine Act and force of Separation not improper therefore to intitle
engendred or otherwise by Putrefaction have received a new State through Fermentation all which Productions are manifest Arguments of Life and Spirit as also of Vegetation The Texture therefore of this great World clearly discovers and demonstrates its animation where the Visibility of Earth manifestly represents the Impure Gross and Natural Basis and the Elemental Waters because circulating about it assimilates also the Venal Blood actuating and fermenting in every Body where the vital Pulse also operates as is seen in the admirable Flux and Reflux of the Ocean and the Air of necessity the Vehickle for Spirits wherein this vast Creature meaning the Creation breath's invisibly tho peradventure not altogether nor in any part insensibly and the Interstellar Skies and Aetherial Waters the Vital Parts whiles the Sun Moon and Stars are the animating Spirits and supersensual Fires that warm the Creation But this kind of Philosophy will puzle the Putationer as the Primitive Truth of the Apostles confounded the Romans So Moses's Philosophy in the Rudiments of the Creation will be as little understood as the Tracts of Hermes the Tâ—â—mudist's Cabalist's Caldeans Egyptians aud Arabians if when to consider the possibility of Nature which is impossible without supernatural discoveries and should we otherwise conclude than by Divine Authority we lick up the Froth of every sottish Generation so usher to posterity that Atheistical Opinion calculated by Imaginarist's that the Creator slept whiles the Chaos of it self without Divine direction fell into this beautiful Order as we now behold it which if but to think so is a Sin of Impiety and an Error so enormous never enough to be lamented But all such Inquietudes we remit them to their destiny since to carry such and so many Furies in their own Bosoms whereby to hurry and torment themselves whose unwholsome Principles because nautious to themselves would stamp their impression on those that suck them in so that one would think such Souls mingled with Clay and because in the limit and circumstance of Time are iâ— some measure confin'd to Earth's sublunar mixts and by the World so severely intangled that like Birds in Limetwigs the more they flutter the faster they find themselves intangled in such a state I perswade my self there 's no Divine Speculation nor Visional Faith whereby to see the invisible state of things as they stand nakedly simply and purely in themselves of which these Visible Objects are but Natural Representatives This perswasion directs to me an unregenerate state because when not to partake of a Supernatural Birth the Soul therefore that 's immerged with Sin Darkness conducts it to a dismal destiny deeply shadowed under the decays of Elements and impossible without a Miracle to make a flight above the World since by innate inherency its partaker of the World. But the Stars if when to consider them the Almighty's Library where every Star is the Volumn of a World and every World a sumptuous Globe divinely held in the Hand of its Maker for such they were and such they are not that these sublime and eminent Elevations were only made for Mortals confusedly to gaze at no I 'me perswaded rather to excite and stir up admiration whereby to elevate and quicken our Devotion above our selves when to behold such Majesty fixt in the Creation for are not these Luminous and Illustrious Bodies which we behold hung up in that great Vortrice of Heaven Celestial Lamps to illuminate the Universe and not only to illuminate but animate and vegetate so in conclusion influence and impregnate the Creation 'T is true that Heaven is a Paradise for Souls and a Divine Reception for the Divinity it self but not that I prophane to term it a Habitation when alluding that Heaven contains the Divinest since Heaven is every where where ever God is whose Holy Presence institutes it Immutable Immeasurable and Eternal like himself whose Nature transmutes it into his own likeness and puts it into such a Divine Capacity that for ever its uncapable of the periods of Death Heaven therefore is the Divine Habitation of God and the Light of Heaven the Divinity of God the blessed Society there Saints and Angels and there it is that the Prophets and Prophetesses with Apostles and Evangelists daily Prophesie for there every Day is a daily Sabboth and Elohim betwixt the Cherubs is the Lord Iehovah But the Evening and the Morning were the second Day so that twenty four Hours nor more nor less do but compleat a Natural Day when as the whole Tract of Time in its Natural Progress appears to me but one Day Super-natural of which our Ancestors as also our selves from Sacred Authority had these Divine Speculations so that if to consider that two Days natural could operate such a change in the great Creation we may rationally conclude and as modestly determine the residue an Argument to evince the Generations For could I but seriously point out to the Creature the Blessed Creators mystical Operation which is altogether impossible I might then peradventure prove an Instrument to some whereby to moderate and disintangle Passion pursuant only after perishing Objects and for ought I know blot out the Prejudice and Animosity of others meaning such as seditiously sow Discention among the Brethren endeavouring thereby to reap the fruits of their own conjectural Imaginations which to do but undoes one another by violating the Sacred Laws of God as that also of Nature and of true Religion since the Scriptures by a Divine Authority require that every one examine himself and seriously and sedately study a Reformation Then were the Waters beneath the Heaven by Divine Appointment gathered together and those Invisible Waters above the Heavens rallied themselves and separated apart which admirable and wonderful Act or Operation occasioned a trepidation all over the Chaos for till then the Waters intermingled with the Waters and the Elements as Inmates spread themselves among them till God in his Wisdom stirred up the Magnet and then the Waters immediately attracted so by Collision broke the Bond of Unity for when so great a change happned in the whole of necessity every individual separated apart In which admirable progress every one had its station yet was it by appointment and the Providence of God so that the more sublime the matter was by so much the higher it ranged it self removing more remotely from its own Faecula when on the contrary to admiration the more Gravity it had by so much the closer it adhered to its Recrement and in this Operation the Fire claim'd the Precedency but next the Fire the Air pleaded Succession so that these two Elements become as it were invisible and which also by reason of a Spirituallity administred only to the Vital parts But Water and Earth when to consider their Corporiety their Gravity their Unity and more Consubstantial Parts and because also Synonimous with the Creature it cloathed and fed it with Prolifick Vertue for whatever any thing is of it self of
the same likeness it naturally produceth and such as are the constitution of Elements and Principles such also are our Native and Corporial Constitutions To consider things therefore as they are in themselves we need not to borrow Spectacles from others for if when to consider the Sun universally shines notwithstanding the Blind Man he seeth it not and so of Eclipses tho some have seen them what then their natural Reason and Understanding can't reach them however Credit go's a great way in the case The Blind-man perhaps he swallows a Fly and if he do and feel it not what prejudice is there in it when a Fly in the Glass to him that hath Eyes is not only disturb'd but in some measure terrified because fearing to surfeit if not to suffocate Circumspection therefore and the Vertue of Temperance circumscribe to us the Mediums for long Life when excess of any thing overthrows the whole and would even do so to this stupendious Creation should it in any thing exceed with intemperance The Vertue therefore and the Office of Water is to cleanse to moisten to mollific and dissolve to wash also and purific the the outside And this peradventure was Iohn Baptists Ordinance when only to blot out the Character of Circumcision which indeed was then prevalent among the Iews till the Baptism of Jesus of more Energy and Vertue took place to purge out Sin by Internal Purification and which also is that Baptism of the Holy Ghost which Iohn proclain'd was the Baptism of Fire so that these two Ordinances and Divine Operations were vastly different and distinct from one another for the one only washes but the other purifies the first to brush off the outward defilements but the latter to blot out Internal Pollution Consider it therefore you Christian Professors and live not by Profession but the life of Christianity And the Divinest said Let the dry Land appear which was no sooner said but it immediately appeared Now dry Land which is the solid and fix'd part of the Creation all Interpreters agree that its literally Earth and properly is such and generally so received as is by Expositors and others concluded And this dry Earth I have also considered was that only which was left after separation of the Elements to which also was added the dignity of an Element and because ranged and superscribed in the fourth Clasis of the Macrocosm is confirm'd the most solid and most fix'd part of the whole concentring it self upon its own proper Basis and impending on nothing by a Divine Ordination but it s own equal Poize and the Will of God so that neither upwards nor downwards Extension nor Demension can any ways remove displace or unlodge it because God through Wisdom has inspired into it the Magnet of Fixation Gravity and Station which confirms it a central and fixt residence and the Waters to rowl perpetually about it The Air also to incircle and surround it and the Fire above all to surmount above it yet every of them is restricted by Providence within the Circular Globe or Firmament of Heaven But where are we now got above the Elements no probably but as far as our Eyes will carry us no mortal sees farther Our Basis I perceive then will be understood the Earth and Earth and Water compleat but one Globe so that of the whole and visible appearance here seems to remain but one moity left and the rather to confirm it it 's obvious to every one that the Firmament of Heaven intersects betwixt them for the Elements of Fire and Air disappearing they become invisible so that what remains now save only Earth and Water which are Subjects most solid and visible to us Not that I impose this Doctrine upon any Man nor do I offer it as a noval of my own since therefore of it self it is so demonstrable let it carry its evidence in the Frontispiece of Time. Earth therefore and Water are constipated Corelates as hitherto we have observed them visible Elements and the difference betwixt them is easily reconcileable when to consider the Gravity of the one and Fluidity of the other yet both impregnated with Vital Faculties and to each is super added a Prolifick Vertue and because daily influenced by Stars and Planets are by the Divinest inspired with Life and Vegetation But Earth is the Nurse and Supply of Elements as is Water the Sister and the Mother of Earth and because both filled with Vertual Production they fail not to send forth their daily encrease whose Prolifick Breasts minutely sprung up naturally replenished to supply the Universe But I must caution my self what I say now least peradventure there are some will decry any Hypothesis and what if they do I matter not much since to leave behind me Proselites enough after my Death to assert and maintain That the World had a beginning this is undeniable That Time sprung from Eternity this is also indisputable That Generation succeeded Time this is beyond all dispute unquestionable And that Generation terminates in Death is altogether infallible That the Elements and Principles were lodg'd in the great Mass of the Chaos is true That Fire because of its Dignity superceeded the rest is most true And that Air because of its purity climb'd up after the Fire is certainly as true leaving the Waters rolling too and fro fluctuating incircling and inspiring the Earth and the Earth as Central to all the rest by Wisdom and Providence was concentrate on its Basis. Now tell me if you please what false Doctrine's here and I 'll tell you that our Modern Philosophers will allow it Orthodox as the precedent Generations and Philosophers before them so govern'd themselves as to assert and vindicate it So that as I design no Captivity by my Discourse nor intend I any Conquest or Triumph over others only the exercise of every Man's Reason compelling no Man to the dictates of my conclusions Give me leave therefore such to advise as converse with Scripture or correspond with Reason and the possibility of Nature such I mean as profligate those Fictious Notions of Heathens and Infidels and Atheistical Antiseripturists whose suggestions are only of an imaginary Being of that Superlative Being whose real Essence is existent in himself pre-existing Time and is the God of Nature God blessed for ever And the Earth brought forth Grass Here 's Natural Production and this Natural Product spreading it self abroad in a very short progress run into multiplication and because the Creator destinated it to the Creatures use it became Nutritious and Salubrious to them consequently agreeable and convertible to their Nature But the Apostle tells us That all Flesh is Grass and as the Grass fadeth and withereth away so Flesh and Blood our daily Morts prognosticate them also in a state of Corruption and in process of time to admit of Solution Every thing therefore that is in a capacity of being dissolved that thing most certainly becomes invisible and such a
the Moon were made to operate and man in a sence was made to imitate whose Masterpice is Invention and whose Study should be that to repair which Nature because interrupted left somewhat imperfect but not that Nature cannot perfect her Operations rather we are to consider all scientifical Artists but dull Operators and Imitaters of Nature who works by her own Copy slighting all Artifice and artificial Presidents since such seem useless and altogether improper to her that of her self can perfect the whole Health craves no method for Phisick nor Diet 't is Disease only that claims the priviledge of Medicine then why so preposterous to seek sickness in health and daily enquire the state of new Worlds when the old one by Providence is still so good and upheld by his Power can never die The wise Creator has put therein such a renovating faculty that of it self by attraction and repercussion it receives what 's suitable and agreeable to its nature rejecting whatever is unagreeable to its resentments as a thing that 's loathed by a disdainful appetite let every student therefore study the knowledge of that which God in his Wisdome has already made since Man with all his Art can make nothing like it And now since the Stars are commissioned to Rule Saturn as Superiour and Lord of the Universe assumes the precedency and who because of his ancient and paternal Dignity claims a prerogative above all the Planets exalting himself in the supreamest Orb whose Wife by allusion of Poetical Fixion was surnamed Ops the Daughter of Caelas of whom is begot the fair Androginas as also the beautiful and the Florid Vesta to whom the Votaries and the Vestal Nimphs in the days of Numa Pompilius offered up their Orisons Of Metals therefore Saturn is Lead of Minerals Antimony but of Stones the Granate Next unto Saturn's Superiour Orb benevolent Iupiter assumes the Throne who sways the Scepter in a peaceable Dominion and himself as his Government is also peaceable a Monarch that 's surrounded with Senators and Statesmen made happy in his choice when celebrated to Iuno had not his Royal Consort been wounded with jealousie Now this fair Goddess as the Poets have conceived sprung from the loins of Saturn and Ops whose Metallick progeny was only Tin and of Minerals Zink but of Stones the Iacinth Now Trinus Magnus or Valorous Mars he mounts the Chariot who by Poetical Fixion is the Son of Iuno This great Martialist and Champion of the Gods ascends his triumphant Throne next unto Iupiter and Rules by the Sword whose Law as is asserted is the force of Arms however the Poets have prescribed him no Wife but inamoured with Venus some suppose her his Paramour rich in no Child but Iron and Vitriol save only the Soveraign and Medicianal Heliatrope whose Markasite is Bismuth and whose Minera is the Magnet Most illustriously adorned Sol himself advanceth whose dazling Ray â—ills all the World with Lustre but his Consort is known by the name of Lune whose fair beauty some say equalizeth his brightness yet no Child he had but Gold and the Carbuncle excepting the Ruby and Lapis Luzuli with some Minerals and Markasites tinged with his Lustre otherwise of themselves they could never shine But Venus succeeds and because the Queen of Heaven She 's reputed the Speculation of all the Philosophers Who was thought as by Fiction the fair Daughter of Caelus but her Mother the Ancients have prescribed the Ocean if so this fair Goddess she sprung from the Sea and was the supposed Wife of Vulcan Master of the Cyclops she had no Child indeed excepting Copper yet is she rich to excess in Vitriol wherein lies her Treasure whose nativity of Stones is the beautiful Emerald but her Markasite is Cobolt Mercury next to Venus he ranges himself and among the Planets is stiled Intelligencer a universal lover of Metals and Minerals principally all those of a regal condition we read of no Wife that ever he had because an Hemaphrodite and compleat in both Sexes whose progeny is Quick-silver and the sparkling Diamond Next to Mercury the Empress of the Orbs Lune's Silver Horns they polish the Sky But we have told you already whose Wife she is tho' some among the Philosophers superscribe her Masculine whose native Child is the burnisht Silver and the beautiful Saphir but her Artificial as hinted by Basil Valentine is the first born Daughter of all the Philosophers But the Stars I have considered ought not to be thus discourst nor ought we to discipher them after this manner nor was it indeed my primitive intention however since so bluntly to blab it out let it serve only therefore to commode the ingenious and direct the Sons of Science into the Tracts of Philosophy making the Elements Natures Common-place-book in whose legible Index if well examined you may there find all that ever she did or for the future intends to do And in this thin tiffeny she wraps up her Principles before she embark them into coagulation and which also retains the Species of things and is the immediate receptacle of Spirits after solution of their natural Bodies from whence and through which the good ones pass to a Superiour Limbus or Emperoeal Heaven where all pure Essences have their eternal Residence And thus we have determined by a Philosophical Liberty to liken Nature to a beautiful Lady shaded sometimes under a Cyprus Vail metaphorically interpreted a thick Mettallick Mantle or rather a complication of Elements and Principles which when it shall please the Divinest to unvail and draw it off from before the Creation we shall not only see Nature really naked but the very beauty of things themselves whereof these we now behold are but representatives when on the contrary should ignorance invade us how an outward dimness and an inward darkness would presently ensue from which we pray Libera nos Domine But all complicated Bodies are Elemental and Spiritual which by medium of Celestials become magnettically united and is the true and the only cause of Production and also Vegetation Natures Fundamentals and the Philosophers Speculation And the Evening and the Morning were the fourth Day but every day since the beginning of Time is Gods Day only and properly his and so will remain the whole progress of Time and will be so when Time is no more But the Divine harmony of things in the Creation were manifest in Time in which all ends and beginnings have their natural period The beginning therefore was in creating and creating was an act of making things manifest The periods also or results of which are manifestly discovered by solution of parts Thus the World and all therein had a beginning in Time when the Divinest undrest the Hoil or Chaos and then invisible things were made visible to us which by Reason of an Elementary composition are in time lockt up in the periods of death This is all the Philosophy hitherto I have known or it may be shall
Asp shak'd his Palsie Head. The Vine in those days embraced the Olive and the Eglantine intangled himself with the Rose Thus every thing whilst naturally inamoured with its like the Woodbine or Hony Succle tied knots about the Hedges The Bee return'd home with loaden Thighs and the Flocks of Sheep laid down their Fleece The Oestridge deplum'd his feathery Crest and the Stork retaliated kindness with gratitude The Horse in those days spurn'd not at this Rider nor did the Lion know the Tyranny of Invasion Alegators in the beginning were not devourers noâ— were there known any Birds of Prey The Vulture and the Tigre liv'd not then upon Vermine for Morts were altogether unknown nor was any thing infectious that might nautiate the Elements every thing God had made stood in the beauty of Harmony and whatever was made and by wisdome created that thing beyond dispute was most certainly good Adam was invited to this great Solemnity which was then of it self but one single Family nor had he any compeer nor was there any to controul him except the Divinest that great Oracle of Heaven that breath'd Life into him And every Act that Adam made was registred by the Creatures in this blessed Creation and most sacredly and inviolably kept in Paradice till Sin and Impiety spoil'd his Principallity And then it was this great Parliament broke up and the Members discontented began to withdraw so by degrees refused his Protection And Adam considering himself neglected and uncapable any longer to maintain his Prerogative folicits new favourites but they forsook him or rahter Adam forsook himself but did not know it for Sin had so strangely disfigured and disguised him that none of his Subjects could remember to know him or think or believe him their natural Prince suspecting him rather some forreign Invader previously insinuated to divest them of Community and supplant them of those supernatant Priviledges granted them in the beginning from their Soveraign Donor So that the Creatures at once desert him and not him only but his Government also which look'd but little now when formerly so great that all the Creatures in the Creation paid servillity unto him Thus Adam amaz'd to find himself forsaken makes a League with the Elements to reinforce his Authority but they when examin'd could not cement the breach nor in whole nor in part re-establish enthrone and eternize his grandure because having ends and periods of their own he therefore complies to walk the shades of Death and Deaths frigid Zone and cold Icy touch no sooner approaches but invades the Elements so lets the compound crumble into dust which is the ultimate period of all Elementary mixts that ever was that at present is or ever shall be in the progress of time Thus the Heaven and the Earth were finished and all the Host of them and on the seventh day God ended his Work the Work which he had made and rested on the seventh day from all his Work which he had made and blessed and sanctified it So that now the great Work of the great Creator was by the word Fiat determined and finished when the beauteous Earth most sumptuously adorned with Celestial Ornaments like the Queen of Honour came splendidly forth with Virgin purity to celebrate her Espousals whose Bride-maids were Nature and the Celestial Incholists but the Spectators and Relations were the various sorts of Animals together with the multiform generation of individuals that with general applause and unanimous consent gave an approbation suitable to the present occasion Here might be seen all the Beasts in the Forrest hand in hand as it were coupled together if not improper to say so and ranging themselves into an excellent order came forth to illustrate this great Solemnity And here also all the Fish that swam in the Ocean embodied themselves as if they were but one Fin and with the Fowl of the Air so exactly moved and with such a reserv'dness so equal was their order as if all of them had but one single Wing to accilerate and celeritate their admirable motion In this excellent posture all the Creation stood when attending the approach of this admirable Union At length the Sun appears her amiable beloved who came cloathed with Lustre and excessive Beauty and all the Host of Heaven his illustrious Convoy Whose Harmony was the Spheres and every thing that had Life exirted it self to move by measure as if all the Creation by gradual motion with a reserv'd gravity mov'd the Orbs at once Thus the Creation was compleatly finished and Heaven and Earth became Husband and Wife and God himself Divinely blessing them bid them go forth encrease and multiply And on the Seventh Day when God had ended his Work He constituted a Sabbaoth or a day of Rest exempt from Labour and other Servilities but upon the Elements were no such imposition nor were they under any breach of Command as legibly construed by this Divine Injunction Read Rabbi Moses in Sacred Writ and you 'l find it extends to Man and Beast only if when to consider the Minority of Time with the Earths inhabitants that knew no Servility but Agriculture and Grazing Wherefore to look back on the Nativity of Affairs you 'l meet Cain and Abel intrencht in this toil when as the residue of the Creation knew no Limitation but stood intirely as hitherto unconcern'd as if all days were but one day or the Almigty's great Holy-Day wherein every Creature nay all the Creation with humility rejoyced and with elevated Praises exprest their thankfulness to the great Creator It was then by Proclamation and a Royal Command from Heaven that Man and Beast only should Rest from Labour For did not the Sun continue his course and all the Stars move in their proper station Did not the Orbs the Elements and the Heavens turn round with a Rapid Motion then as now and were they not then as they now are in a perpetual and circular Rotation Did the Tides seem to stop their natural Flux or the sullen Waves lay down their brinish Heads Had the Fountains no issue did the Winds cease to hover in the ambient Air and grow remiss in transporting embodied Clouds Did the Pulse of the great World neglect to beat Sea-Monsters to roar Hurecanes to invade Earth Hail and Rain Thunder and Lightning did they associate together and proclame a Sabbaoth or a Universal Cessation None of these things we read of hapned since the Creation and what 's the reason God in his Wisdom governs the Creation but unreasonable Man was to Pilot the Creature We therefore consider that this most sacred Ordinance relates more peculiarly to Man and Beast and that the residue of the Creatures in this stupendious Creation stand intirely exempted and acquitted from it And God blessed the Seventh Day as a Day of Sanctity who through Wisdome and Providence divinely hallowed it which to consider is a manifest Proof to confirm the excellency of a Sabbaoth unto us For God by Ordination appointed six days for Labour but the Seventh he set apart for Man and Beast to Rest in The Mind and the Body therefore seem under different exercises by which I conclude ought to have different entertainments the last if we consider solicites temporals but the first if well observed she contemplates Eternals Where note the one relates to our present State but the other if I mistake not to our future Felicity wherever therefore the treasure is the desire of the Soul will also be there But Heaven contents it self with a small allowance is one day in Seven such a great exaction What a slender Service is required of us Mortals for so great kindness from so good a God how shall or dare we detract from our selves whereby to violate the Commands of Him that so sweetly by his Wisdome puts a Divine force upon us and because unwilling to do our selves good the Divinest is pleased to do good unto us It 's true at the best we are but formal Penitents that slash our own sides to raise a pity in others so wounding our selves make the Spectators cry O where 's the Vision of Piety and the Mediums of Charity when to run and embrace a veneal Polution as if so sweet and luscious were the sence of Sin that we 'l choose to die rather than live without it so sacrifice our selves to the fury of Flames fancying thereby we burn the World when as indeed we but scorch our selves in the fiery Trial of a self-will Devotion And God rested from his Work of finishing the Creation which he made and adorn'd for the good of the Creature which points out to us the Alpha and Omega the beginnings of Time and the end of the Creature For when to say the Creator rested it implies that Nature began then to Opeperate after the Divinest had put bounds and periods to every Creature and created Being To the Stars and Constellations so to Elements and Principles the Sea exceeds not her natural Course nor does her swelling Flux prevail Nor the luminous Sun tho' incircling the Heaven with a rapid Motion what does he more than illustrate vegetate and illuminate the Universe and the Stars which by Wisdome he made to shine what do they but inspire and influence the Earth And did not he also impregnate the Air with the conceal'd treasures of Rain and Hail whereby the Earth as the Air is fill'd with Life consequently the Ocean as the Earth with Vegetation What can I say more Nor indeed offer less where-ever therefore God is said to be of necessity Heaven must also be there And the Apostle tells us God is All in All and the fulness of all dwells abundantly in him to whom for ever be everlasting Praises Amen FINIS
has made legible to us that thing by his clemency was intented intelligible The superscription of a Monarch any Man may read but none except of Councel dare examine the contents So God assignes it our duty to study the Creation since discovering things to us by invisible Mediuâ—â—s but not that we by a foreign faith pay our Orisons and our Adorations unto them No rather as Christians we must learn God in them and in knowing him admire his Operations But our Prophet Moses seems to some ambiguous when undressing the Hoil of this admirable Creation wherefore some spare not with their Proselytes prophanely to decry him and such others as himself studious in the Creation who resolving among them elves nevâ—r to labour due mâ—asures of Knowledge whereby to convince their own Incredulities makes them uncapable and altogether unserviceable when attempting to enform the Vnderstanding of others So that such Sciolists as these do but darken the lustre of the History of God in this stupendious Creation yet propound to themselves to know the Divine Mysteries of the Holy JESUS in the Miraculous Incarnation Glorious Crucifixion and Divine Ascension which to mortal astonishment is the Teâ—esm of Wisdom and Miracle of this World lockt up in the Bosom of GOD and Eternity So that should this Generation level Arguments against me it will little avail for the Standard of Truth will defend it self and the Authority of Scripture vindicate my Assertions If therefore you but priviledge me farther to proceed I assume to intitle this imbellished Creation the Almighty's Common place-Book wherein we may read hâ—s Divine Operations And siâ—ce he himself has made things visible as also legâ—ble and â—ntelligible to our capacâ—ties his sâ—cred Sanctions and Divines Oracles ought always to be our daily Contemplation I also consider that Angels as Messâ—ngers are mâ—de Ministring Spirits to administer to us the Revelation and Manifestatiâ—n of the Vision of Truth that the Sun Moon and Stars are the Orâ—inancâ—s of Heaven that Elements and Prinâ—â—plâ—s are Margâ—nal Notes and the glorious Prospect of this â—ivie 〈◊〉 that the Conâ—onants and Vowels of this Blessed Creation are the particular Indivâ—duals contained therein Otherwise how were it pâ—ssible such a pâ—rpetual Harmony should conâ—inue betwixt the great and the â—â—sser World were thâ—re not a contiguity and continuity of parâ—s whereby to câ—ntract a Correspondency betwixt them For invisible things when clothed with Matter become obvious and perceptible to every one consequently visible Every thing therefore is most certainly governed by the Divine Wisdom of Him that made it who made Nature a so by his Praeordinate Councâ—l and adapted her Substitute to operate in the Vniverse But to Adam only and his Humane Race were committed the distinct Classes and Families of the Creatures as also the Dignity of a Vniversal Monarch This none will deny yet perhaps some will say my Suggestions are invaluable and confusedly mixt so was the Chaos if to consult the Bâ—gâ—nning It may also be alledged that Im no Grammarian however from my Youth I venerated Learning yet the Scriptures I always prefer'd before Grammar but I 'll struggle no longer about Grammatical Preference since so learnedly controverted by Men in most Ages Give me leave therefore to conclude my Epistle and in the Conclusion assert and affirm that without forâ—â—l hypocrisy or a foreign Faith I am and have been since truly to know Vertue devoted to subscribe my Name Philanthropus THE PREFACE TO THE READER FOrasmuch as Wisdom and Divine Knowledg preexisting Time had its Original from God the Father of Light and immaculate Fountain of all pure Beings resplendent from the glorious Ray of himself that holds the Poâ—ze and Ballance of the Periods of Life and Death by a Soveraignty of Right to govern the World. It becomes us therefore and the rather as Christians to sollicite this admirable Corona of Wisdom since woven in the Web of the Eternity of Life and by how much it concerns us to acquire this Secretum Naturae by so much the rather ought we to hope and expect it that offer up our Orisons with the pious Adepti that expose their Charity in this modorn Age. Since many such are and I doubt not were in former Generations as in this of ours tho modestly to conceal themselves under a pleasant taciturnity Whose generous protection of Hermetick Philosophy has amuz'd and astonish'd most part of the World since to breath forth in this as in former Ages Mysterium Magnum Rabbi Moses was a Student in this blessed Science and so was his Sister the fair Mirian Medea and Experience tutilaged them both And Moses we read was morally educated in all the Skill and Knowledg of the Egyptians thank Hermes for that formerly King of Egypt and intituled by the Magi Prince of Philosophers Who also laid the Rudiments and Foundation of Science several Generations before Moses was born and yet notwithstanding the Antiquity of Hermes Moses was inspired by a divine permission to talk with God in the Holy Mount Horeb. Job also that famous and most accurate Mathematician whose Library was the Firmament and every Star an Author whereby he mentally inspected the Orbs consequently the Constellations and Machine of the Creation And who personally discoursed his Creator as did Moses but confused and astonished as appears by his Writings So Paul that devout and divine Apostle taught only of God and bred up by Gamaliel he exceeded in Rhetorical Learning and Knowledg Who also had a Glance and a Vision of Heaven as appears by those elegant and most excellent Epistles Exhortatory to the Romans when to the Corinthians most profoundly Philosophical And such were the Lives of the Holy Men of God which piously to trace what is it other than a heavenly Progress And the Soul that inhabits in this mortal Tabernacle any other than the correspondent God himself converseth which in Clarity displays such a beautious Brightness from the soveraign Beams of the Son of God that divinely shining in the inward parts influenceth the Altar and beautifies the Temple The Soul therefore could she but content her self with divine speculation of Ideas only what need she travel beyond the Map But as excellent Patterns commend their own Mines Nature because so fair and beautiful in the Type could not dispence with sluttishness in the Anagliph and who whiles more strictly she examines the Symetry Models and Forms it into various Figures whose Descent to describe promulges her Original but the frailty of matter and because hovering about her and impendent on the Elements is excluded Eternity Ignorance therefore to delude the Vnwary intitles this Release by the Sirname of Death which more properly to describe is the Magna Charta of Life that has several ways to break up House but her best if duely considered is without a Disease and who when she takes air at this Avenue or Port-hole is much without detriment or prejudice to her Tenement Nor does she only exercâ—se her
separable from its native Principium is subject to Mortality but Death is the Destruction of all Elemental compounded Mixts All Compounds therefore are subject to Mortality which Nature endeavours with all her might to preserve if possible from the Periods of Death and whose Champions to purchase this heroick Victory Fire and Water are instituted and appointed the most proper and immediate Agents and Instruments the last to discharge by immersive Calcination all exteriour and superfluous Adustion whiles the first by Sublimation claims a Superiority because when to separate by the intense Action of Fire whatever Recrements and Impurities adhere to the Center These and no other are the lineal Tracts that Nature has trod in since the nonage of the Universe whose Seeds void of Form and confusedly mix'd in a Hoil or Chaos were dissolved in Water but rarified and sublimed by pure Argument of Fire Calcination and Sublimation therefore were purposely invented to purge and separate the Pure from the Impure as is Solution and Distillation the more terrestrial Dregs that stiffly adhere to the Parts extraneous Now whatever remains without any beginning that Subject is altogether uncapable of end But all Beginnings sprung up from Eternity as is Eternity the Ray of the Majesty Eternity therefore is the Parent of Time from whence Generation lineally descended and Generation because the Infant and the Child of Time has its Periods lock'd up in the Prisons of Death and doom'd and predestinated by the Law of Sin the Apostle tells us is Death in the abstract yet improperly the End of any thing save Elements whereby to remonstrate their true Beginnings but now to bud and to blossom forth because directing towards an eternal State which I call the new Breathings from a State of Corruption precedent to Putrefaction the immature Offspring and imperfect Birth of infirm Ancestors and Elementary Principles For the Body no sooner dismantles it self of the exteriour Form and Elementary Faetor when the indivisibility of the more purer Parts begin at once to display themselves for the Treasures of Life are most strictly lock'd up and which also begins to perspire and breath forth by the glorious Ray of God's Soveraign Power whose refulgent Beam illuminates the World and stirs up the hidden Life therein which before seem'd to sleep passively perdue in the silent Sepulcher of Divine Contemplation If therefore debasing our selves by Sin be Argument of Death and God's eternal Displeasure a Regenerate state implies the Sanctity of Renovation which is a clear Demonstration of a real Conversion Otherwise how comes it to pass that the unbelieving Wife is sanctified by the believing Husband Now if Husband and Wife are constipated one Flesh by the Conjugal Celebration and Law of Matrimony why not Heaven and Earth under the like Divine Ordinance since by a Supream Law from the Sovereign Legislator whose powerful Edicts are for ever irrevocable made and established Synonima Regalia Thus thâ— Celestial Sun in the clarified Firmament influenceth and impregnates this embellish'd Creation as do's the Supercelestial Son of the Majesty of God most illustriously shine in every Believers Soul and is the true Light that illuminates the Universe and every Man that cometh into the World. So that in this short and compendious Paragraph you may read the Divine Progeny of the whole Creation the Exaltation and Dignity of the Micro as the Macrocosm the great End why the World and Man was made the Reason also why the Divinest made Man and drest up so beautifully this stupendious Creation All which was only but to see himself and Sovereign Majesty by way of Reflection wherefore he built up a Tabernacle in Man for his Divine Residence and Man's Redemption Now Adam was made this Supream Monarch whom his Maker dignified with such eminent Qualifications as not only to see because having the faculty of Sense but to inspeculate and admire the Majesty of his Maker that hung up aloft in the Firmament of Heaven so many Luminous and Beautious Bodies impregnating every one with the Blessings of Vegetation but Moral Reason and barren Apprehension because uncapable to exalt it self to these eminent sublime and superlative Elevations of necessity sinks under them And here Moses tells you That in the beginning the Divinest created both the Heavens and the Earth Now creating or making what implies it more than manifesting Invisibles by Visibles or discovering such things as lay hid in the Chaos occultly concealed from occular view which in time appeared but not until such time as the Waters by the Fiat were separated from the Waters and then the purer matter ascended upwards because disintangled from its impure Fecula which Celestial Clarified and Pure Crystalline Body is by the Scriptures interpreted the Firmament And Hermes tells you in his Smaragdine Table That the likeness of that which is placed above is also beneath coinhabiting below to work the Myracle of one single thing There must therefore of necessity be some assimilation in Earth Soveraignly qualified with the same existence of Celestials otherwise pray tell me where 's the harmony betwixt them And why should God select the little World called Man for his Divine and Glorious Reception rejecting as I may so say the more copious or great one as the more commaculate and impure habitation had not he divinely dignified the less by Soveraign Wisdom for his Royal Entertainment There is therefore not only the likeness of Superiours but the same Vertue Beauty and Excellency also in Inferiours Christ in you the hope of Glory This is that Magnet of Vertue and Swavity whose illustrious Ray attracts the Soul to those transcendent Mansions of Beatitude and Immortallity For the Kings Daughter is all glorious within because made glorious by the King of Heaven where note by way of Digression when to admit of a faint comparison the Anima or Sulphur of Sols beauteous inside when duely examined by a sedulous Adept a Celestial Corporiety displays it self whose glorious appearance gratifies the solicitous with Wisdom's Oracle and the Treasures of Art by every one acquirable and by most admired But the Hoil or Chaos presents unto us a subject matter as yet indigested when macerated mingled or jumbled together and such we are to consider it in the Act of Fermentation when nothing but darkness had its Region in the Deep nor did any thing appear upon the Face of the Waters until Darkness by the Divinest was utterly separated by the glorious Beam of the Majesty of Light for till then the Stars roll'd not in their Orbs nor did the Fluctuating Ocean move its Vital Pulse till actuated by the Law of its Soveraign Maker which daily remonstrates the Flux of the Ocean Nor till then did the Earth nor the Barren Mountains know any thing of the Law of Life and Vegetation Nor was there any Prolifick Vertue or propagating Quality hitherto as yet incorporated into them when at once the Fountains of the great Deeps broke up out of whose
it Darkness since separabel from the beauteous Beam of Light and such is Sin and such also is Death since by Adam's Transgression who consenting to Sin violated Gods Divine and Regal Command so wounded himself with his own Sting Death and Sin therefore Van Helmont calls Accidents or some impious malignity that lurk'd about the matter whereby to lessen Light and abscond or ecclipse its beautiful Lustre which when removed by the Divine Grace of God the Body then seems to appear Celestial Nor can it be otherwise since if when to consider there 's no difference nor distinction betwixt Heaven and Earth save Clarity of the one and Impurity of the other and this is a State we daily discourse of nay we hourly wish for 't and long to enjoy it yet so great is our Zeal to these ambiguous uncertainties that we dare not trust our selves to entertain it And because so adhering to the World and its allurements kind answering kind whose Luscious Breast seems sweet and pleasant and whose surprizing Charms luxuriously satiating we gulp down Avarice and drink down Oppression so like Diana with the Ephesians cry Gain is sweet thus tainting our selves become infectious to others for a stinking Breath tho loathsome to the Company yet is it to it self a natural perfume so Sin and Impiety in its habitual dress tho ugly seems amiable and tho faetid smells fragrant and knows no impediment Thus Paul by Faith fought with Beasts at Ephesus and Philanthropus with Monsters in the Desarts of America 'T is true and as true as the Sun 's the great Luminary whose luminous Body illustrates the Creation yet is not the Sun that Soveraign Light that adorned the Throne before the Creation when the Divinest said Let there be Light and immediately the Light of it self sprung up which Light by his Wisdom he called Day and dignified it also with the Title of Good nor could it be otherwise than good in the Abstract since the Divinest had called it Good and because proceeding from the Fountain of Good its Original can be no less than God. Now the Day had its Original as has the Sun its Aurora and the Sun tho the Major Luminary of the Universe whose refulgent Ray illustrates the Creation by Rapidity Circulating and Patrolling about it yet is it by Wisdom and the Guidance of God another Aurora of the increated Light which never ceaseth invisibly to shine when the Sun withdraws from our occular view as imaginarily supposed towards the Western Fountains whiles this pure Light never ceaseth to shine in the Heart of Man and the Throne of the Majesty tho to the World and ignorant it appear invisible and because too sublime for the weak Vision of Sight whereby a dimness seems to overshadow it as gazing too much at the natural Sun in some measure astonisheth the Purlue of Sight so the Soveraignty of the Glory of the Son of God whose excessive brightness seems to cause a blindness when as indeed it 's the Purity and Soveraignty of Light we are therefore to reduce it under this consideration that nothing that 's impure can behold what 's pure nor Carnality partake of what is Spirituous There is therefore this difference betwixt Natural and Supernatural as also betwixt Celestial and Terrestrial things that all Spirituous Bodies can pass the Purgatory of Fire without any detriment or diminution of parts when as Corporeals if but to touch the Flames are at once in a Moment destroy'd and consumed Purification of Bodies must therefore necessarily precede whereby to dignifie and make them Celestial Natural things therefore are in one distinct state but Spiritual things are found in another and by how much our Nature is made more spirituous by so much are we nearer to the Nature of God. And as the Sun shines naturally more bright and distinctly more pure than our Culinary Fires how infinitely brighter and much more pure is the Majesty of that Light that invisibly shines from the Son of God But our new Philosophers or Erra Paters are much of the Cast with Figure-flingers that presume to step into the Prerogative of Prophets and antedate events in Configurations which is a Consequence I perswade my self of as much Reason and for ought I know to as great Satisfaction as to see the Auxiliaries draw out and exercise and the Spectators to read their designs by their postures But I proceed to discourse the Firmament of Heaven the Fluctuating Ocean also and the Waters in the Creation which presents to our consideration matter of Admiration consequently a suitable Subject for every Philosopher if sedately to contemplate their admirable separation when God divided the Waters from the Waters and the Firmament of Heaven stood stationary between them which denotes those rarified and invisible Waters Moses points at above us are an Act of Faith because of Invisibility whilst these below us are demonstrable to us which Argument as formerly confirms our Philosophy that the likeness of that which is remotely above is also beneath co-inhabiting below to work the Miracle of one single thing so that the same Act of Power and Providence that made them separable made them also invisible as by the Law of demonstration these are made visible to us But what are these Waters these invisible Waters that surmounting the Aether and because above us perpetually fly our sight what are they and what were they in the Fiat of the Creation more than the pure and spirituous part separated from impurity and all aquosity whiles the pinguous moist faecula and indigested Vapours stifly adhere to the visible form which by reason of inconcocted crudities and indigestions when celebrated to warmth lie fermenting in themselves and are the daily cause of Natural Production animating and exerting the Earth to Vegetation These Invisible Waters therefore above the Firmament must of necessity be a Rarefaction of Air and the Firmament because intermediating betwixt them remonstrates it Celestial and a clarified Earth For if to consult the Creation and created Beings we are to consider them in a two fold Capacity the Visibility of the one and the Invisibility of the other Elementary Bodies and Bodies Celestial where note sublunar things are influenced by Celestials as are Celestials governed by super Celestials As the Sun in his progress because ruling the Day is by Divine appointment the Parent of Vegetation So has the Moon her Nocturnal Government whereby she also operates the Ocean influencing Fluidity and the Female Sex Nor are the Stars and Constellations deficient or destitute whereby not to effect and influence Inferiors so that a perpetual motion is continually maintained and a constant rotation perpetually continued otherwise the Compound would admit of decay and a defect in any one part of the Creation would inevitably draw on an inconveniency upon the whole Thus the great Frame and Fabrick of the Creation was ranged into a most excellent and beautiful order which the Creator foresaw in the Idea
posture stands the whole Creation in since daily to admit of Transmutation And the Herb yielded Seed and the Fruit-tree his Seed and the Roots and Fruits also after their kind which are radicated and impregnated in every individual nor are they found in another Specie And Sandivogius tells us before the separation of Elements that every individual had then in it self Vertuality but one single primordial Seed yet denies not that this primordial Seed had the Specimen Vertue of all the rest vertually and primarily radicated in it However there be some that will oppose this Doctrine and lead by a perverse Biass would gladly refute it but blessed is he that receives and believes it for it is a secret and the gift of God sealed up from ignorant and obstinate Men not only in this but in every Generation Nor can any Man I perswade my self know God in the Abstract except otherwise by the Work of God in the Creation which Commissions me also to say in the Creature as Paul says Christ in you the hope of Glory If therefore another Man's knowledge profit me nothing except he enforms me the Measures he knows he but exposes my Faith to a rambling search to find out the truth by a dubious Examine How miserable therefore and much to be lamented is that implicit Putationer whose Zeal truckles under every form of Religion and bows his Knee to every new model of Conformity Let us therefore but examine this stupendious Creation wherein God has made himself obvious to the Creature and which ought to be the Study of every Enquirer when because to read Lectures in the Stars and Elements The copious Volumns and visible Folio's of God the Creator that gave then a Being and are his Oracles that by Divine Interpretation are made visible conspicuous and intelligible to us For here we may read that Generation it self presents unto us the Marginal Notes and Genus and Species the Vowels and Consonants the Magi of old learnt us to spell by so that the Letters and Syllables of this blessed Alphabet points out unto us the Manuscript of the Universe over which great School God himself is chief Rabbi whose Students and Prosolites are Nature and Religion and their daily Lectures and solemn Declamations the Visibility and invisibility of this Voluminous Creation wherein God makes manifest himself in the Creature which teacheth us to live by the Vertual Act of Faith whereby we may hope what at present we cannot enjoy so labour to find out the hidden Mystery of Truth and the unfrequented Tracts of Wisdom and Experience which is or ought to be the study of every Man born into the World more especially to Christians For truly to know God is to know Life Eternal for he that knows him but as he is told I can hardly perswade my self he knows him at all Search well within therefore peradventure thou wilt find him and if thou look without there is he also to be found So that in every thing and in every place is his Mercy or his Justice where his Power is also and the Majesty of his Presence for nothing is nor can subsist without him Is not this enough to enamour the Creature whose dependance is wholly upon the Creator for if when to inspect Heaven by Divine speculation with confidence we may assure our selves his habitation is there and if we dive into the Center of the Earth there also is his Instrument by which Nature operates The Superficial parts also and the Soil of Earth visibly and manifestly declare his Vegetation and the celestial Incholists as Planets and Constellations do not they influence this blessed Creation So that the whole and every part thereof declare him admirable therefore to be admired till led by admiration to the Corona of Beatitude which to the Religious seems a pleasant short Stage since the Life of Man is measured but a Span. Earth therefore must to Earth and Elements to Elements and all compounded mixts submit themselves to solution which properly terminates in the periods of Death but Eternity stands for ever in the presence of God and is therefore most permanent durable and everlasting But the Earth budded forth because fill'd with Vegetation and every Tree from the Cedar to the Shrub so the Oak the Asp the Poplar and the Ash had its Seed radicated and inated in its self Plants and Herbs also in due time producted and variously multiplied to adorn the Creation and not so only to the praise of him that made them but to sustain refresh and gratifie the Creature the mighty God the Lord Iehovah his mighty Arm has wrought this Creation and who shall compensate for so Divine a Work if when to consider that we are but Earth and our earthy Ornament but the blossom of Vegetation and Vegetation it self what is it more than the antecessor or forerunner of Mortification and Mortification what is it but the prospect of putrefuction which leads on directly to the prisons of Death Every thing therefore that is naturally produced results and terminates in its native beginnings For whatever thing is Elemental or had inicience from thence falls under the same predicament and destinated to die whose ends because fliding into the periods of inactivity partake of the common destiny of all compounded mixts For such are the Elements and all Elementary Beings ever since they had a Being and Birth in the Creation But here to Philosophize when duely separated and afterwards co-united and re-conjoyned again it represents the invisibility visible to us which then resulting in an Astrum or Quintessentia is in a capacity to dignifie other Bodies and make them glorious as it self is transcedent But who has considered this great Conservator besides him that reads daily lectures in the Orbs and makes it his business to consult the Creation that makes the Host of Heaven his daily Common-place-book and he that made Heaven his hourly Contemplation which priviledges me to say he that made Man made not Man for himself but to admire his Maker till then we shall never be truely devoted nor know what God is nor what is his truth notwithstanding so often by others reminded but like to the World and pratling Parots talk to others those things we understand not our selves In this kind of Zeal I was morally Educated and suckt my Religion in with my Learning too copious Theams to be taught in one Academy when the Universe it self is too compendious for a University I grant its true that the Press made a noise but you must grant me the Pulpit made a greater till to me there seem'd a defect in both the first because I found in a great measure impractible and the latter peradventure as unexperiental This conducted me to search after the wisdome of him that alone is the Divine Miracle of wonder and my daily Speculations were animated with discovery when every Signature unfolded it self and every Classis brought forth a Clavis wherewith to
an explanation directing to a raâ—efaction and transposition of Elements whiles we direct our intention to the Progress of multiplication by Divine grant and praeordinate Council And now the Heavens shine a blessing upon the Creation as also upon all Elementary Constitutions for God himself looked down upon the Ocean not only to bless it but all her Inhabitants Thus were they blest and all that was in them were also blest when God bid them fructifie grow up and encrease Now how can they otherwise than propagate and multiply since his Divine Word has already commanded it We therefore conclude the Creation blest and the Creatures in the Creation because being blest become a blessing to every partaker For the Bounty of the Creator can know no limit tho' the Creation it self is bounded with limitation He therefore that made it had power to confine it but being himself eternally unmade neither Art nor Power nor can any thing confine him Where 's Peters objection now to raise a scruple because when to eat what 's common or unclean since what God has cleansed is undoubtedly clean but this was a Trope or Type of Religion whereby to denote God no respecter of persons nor relates it to any thing if I Calculate right than variety and distinction of judgements and opinion For probably Peter thought none but the Iews were worthy the dignity and honour of Christianity when God thought otherwise because having chosen the Gentiles as a people approved more worthy than the Iews who not only betrayed the Lord of Life but barbarously and inhumanly they murdered their Messiah Be fruitful says the Word encrease and multiply here 's a Commission large and great enough Sealed and Signed under Heavens great Charter So that now the Rivers the Lakes and the Rivulets nay the Ocean it self is fill'd with variety And every Classis strives to exile sterility and obliterate if possible the fate of barrenness Can any Element in the Creation excepting the Ocean proclaim such multitudes as there are of Fish which surpasseth the Art of Arithmetick to number them For who has not seen that the Belly of one Female was enough of it self to accommodate a River and has not also considered that if every individual had the Ray of Life shine in it and common Providence attend it for its natural preservation to admiration so great would be the encrease that the Waters themselves would even suffocate But as there is a magnetick quality and a sympathetick harmony in the Creation so is there a natural antipathy in the Ocean as there is the like in other Elements The Falcon in the Air the Shark in the Ocean and the Angler to bait with a Fish when design'd to catch a Fish but such we call Troling so some sets Fellons to â—rapan Thieves It s usual for the great ones to prey upon the little ones as the Grampus upon the Surai the Shark upon the Boneto the Sturgeon upon the Shad the Porpus upon the Salmon the Pike upon the Dace and the Pearch upon the Minue c. This I call Antipathy but Simpathy if I mistake not is the mutual Concordance and Harmony among the Creatures I have read in Helmont of a prodigious Pike that lived as he says to an amazing bigness and not then to have died a natural death when if to consider the whole progress of Life what tribute would such a Smelter supposing this to be such bring to the Waters But lest I fall into a Piscatorian Error which vanity since my youth I can hardly withstand let me therefore commend you to my Contemplative Angler where at large you may read the Historical part of Angling For in the high Sea there 's no soundings what Art then must be used to catch Fish And so profound is this Subject that I plough but the Surface whiles others more Mathematical measure out the Circumference and dive into Natures more hidden Mysteries by a secret and pious profound Speculation the Eye of Faith and Reason introducting But we shall put ashore now to tread on Terra Firma And God said let the Earth bring forth the living Creature after his kind Cattle and creeping things and the Beast of the Earth after his kind Then the Earth brought forth in great abundance since by the Divine grant of Wisdome and Providence it had now in it self the three distinct Clases of Vegetables and Minerals besides innumerable and various forms of Insects and Animals surpassing the Art of Numeration Every Cave now was fill'd with Concressions and the Surface of the Soil was covered with Herbage The Florid Meadows also were perform'd with Odorates and the flourishing Fields were scattered with Corn. The Banks also that bounded the murmuring Streams were strewed with Arbories The Mountains with Mines the Valleys with Herds the Plains with Flocks and the Pastures with Cattle but the moist and more boggy Swamps in Vallies were crouded and covered with Amphibious Creatures besides innumerable Fowl of all sorts and kinds hovering in the Air under the Canopy of Heaven Fish also they floated in the brinish Streams whiles some others contented themselves with freshes so that every place and every thing was fill'd with plenty whereby to enrich this stupendious Creation Nor was any part of Earth as well as the Ocean exempt or denied those primary blessings from her great Benefactor that had blessed every thing who not only made her but such provision for her that to the periods of time she can know no want Who commissioned Nature also by an eternal decree as a Supream Governess not only to govern but also to labour the Elements accommodation The Lion and the Lioness roar'd then in the Desart and the Ass with the Mule bray'd in the Common but the Hart with the Hind bellowed in the Forrest and the Leopard with the Panther besides the Wolf and the Tigre were heard to howl in the barren Wilderness But the Grey or Badger he yelpt in the Earth whiles the subtle Fox in his obscure Den lay Barking conceal'd in cavities under ground The Horse he neighed in the open Field and the Cattle lay lowing in the Florid Meadows But the Sheep and the Lambs true patterns of Innocency poor Animals they lay bleating in every Pasture Chantecleer in those times he rose with the day and the early Lark took Wing with the Morning who admiring the beauty of the rising Sun mounts the fair Welkin to partake of his splendour whiles the Black-Bird and Thrush with the Winters intelligencer little Robin-red-breast mannage the Consort till almost evening and then pritty Philomel or the Summer Oracle closes up day with sweet Epithalamiums Thus the Creation in a perpetual harmony melted the Air with melodious Consorts of unterrified Quires of innocent Birds that as well as they could exprest their gratitude for the bounty and generosity of their great Benefactor who gave them a being and the blessings of accommodation the Earth to nourish and gave them