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
I call Motion and the perpetual rotation of this admirable and imbellished Creation notwithstanding Copernicus asserts the Contrary when to tell us that the Earth of it self has a motion however I know none except that of Vegatation And now the great Creator that made the Light commands that Lights appear in the 〈◊〉 Number and divinely ranging them in the Frontispiece of Heaven it denotâ—s unto us the aforesaid Separation of that which is pure from that that 's imâ—ure Fo◠〈◊〉 Firmament at once 〈…〉 with 〈◊〉 whose Bodies were innumerable 〈◊〉 and luminous and 〈◊〉 made to shine all over the Universeâ—â—hey also illuminate and impregnate the Creation and that to admiration he hung theâ—â—â—word in his sublime Sanctuary to discrim◠〈◊〉 Day from the obscurities of 〈◊〉 and to mark out the Winter 〈◊〉 Summer Season For they 〈◊〉 made Signs and Expositors of Seasons to remonstrate days 〈◊〉 â—imes to prognosticate Thus we â—â—ad and as constantly we observe the Heavens adorned with these beautiful Bodies so that their operations we feel and sometimes their effects but their ends as hitherto are not generally understood tho frequently thâ—â—ght 〈◊〉 and descanted by putatioâ—â—rs who fancy it Sacriligious when to mediate on them or if but to enquiâ—â— into the order of the Creation supposing the Creator like themsâ—â—ves but nigardly when to conceal such an excellent and admirable 〈…〉 least peradventure every 〈◊〉 should pâ—â— into the Model so 〈…〉 Maker by the Mediums of Artâ— But Gods divinâ— Oracles surpasseth mans reason 〈◊〉 wisdome instructs us the â—â—â—â—ods of the Creation nor was 〈◊〉 ignorant of these Celestial 〈◊〉 who pointed out to us the Divin◠〈◊〉 of Stars how some of them 〈◊〉 and how some move themselves who cites to us the motion of 〈…〉 Constellations the forms and â—â—nfigurations also of the Signs of the Zodiack with the blazing Meteoâ—s and formidable Apparitions the beauty of Orion and the splendâ—ur of the Pliades the lustre of Bootes â—ubulus or Arctophylax the celerity of Mercury and the Rotation of Ursa Major incircling Ursa Minor in opposition to the Crosiers Directors to Artick and the Antartick Poles But what edifies all this to an illiterate Person any more than a Clerum at the Commencement in Cambridge ignorance I must confess is an o'rgrown Infant and the greatest Enemy and Opposer of Art which ought to be shun'd as a Monster in nature and above all things abhor'd as some mortal Contagion or thing worse could worse be supposed For ignorance and impudence they poison our Faith and of future hope would have us to suspect the enjoyment of the excellency of those divine things whereof now we know little more than part For to read in the beautiful face of the Firmament we discover the invisibillity of things made visible which manifests to us the end of the Creation So that I prophane not nor would I be thought erronious when if only to assert that the Stars made visible are Angels only explicated and the Saints shall shine as the Stars in Glory consequently that Angels are Stars complicated and as the Star Hesper is the Suns Aurora so the day Star of Regeneration is the Son of God to light us up to his glorious habitation it is true that as the Night is opposite to the Day so Sin interposeth betwixt God and the Creature we must carry the Cross to purchase the Crown and divide the Day from obscurities of the Night which without a Metaphor is the Light from Darkness Sin from Sanctity Death from Life and which indeed are sublime operations fit only for him that divinely operates The frontispiece therefore or visibility of the Firmament God noted out to us for Signs and for Seasons so for Days and for Years whereby to prophesie of those fatal Events frequently impendent ore impenitent people but the Seasons declaratively make demonstrative of heat so do they of cold as at other times of rain and â—lso of fair weather because visibly read in the face of the Stars Exhalations Corruscations and Embodied Clouds The days also numerate the date of the Creation and the Nights direct us to read Lectures in the Heavens Thus we see that we see nothing except we see and understand by the Wisdome of God the excellency and beauty of those sublime things pointed out to us in the mysteries of the Creation viz. how the Ray of Light profligates Darkness and the Glory of the Majesty mortifies Death the consideration whereof sweeteens all difficulties but the blessed fruition ravishes the Soul and makes it infinitely more pleasant and dilectable than temporal sweets affect the sence And God the Creator made two great Lights the Sun and the Moon whose different progress directs unto us a different appointment the Sun as abovesaid to rule the Day but the Moon by reflection to govern the Night So that the Sun by Divine ordination and the Providence of God superceeds the Moon but the Moon by a peculiar virtue influenceth the Ocean and adorns the Universe The Majesty of the Sun is admired by the Persians so is that of the Moon adored by the Indians Now the Suns warm body moderates the Earth and would peradventure in some measure callifie it did not the moist Air generously intermediate And the Moon perhaps would frigidate the Ocean did not the Suns soveraign warm Beams mildly and sweetly by influence nourish it What illuminates the Orbs and what inspires the Ocean if not Sun and Moon by the Providence of God that vegetates and impregnates the Creatures in Creation So that if when to consider the Majesty of the Sun that incessantly moves without intermission in the Central Orbs and every Angle of the Universe whose defused Ray spreads upwards and downwards and every way to influence with heat and motion and because enricht and adorned with such eminent qualifications as the majesty of Light and the excellency of Beauty it might probably invite Sandivogius the Philosopher to superscribe him the Vehicâ—lum or Tabernacle for God which Hypothesis is refuted by Basil Valentine and contradicted by Scriptural Authority For I will build my Tabernacle and dwell among men and the Saints they shall shine as the Stars in Glory But the Sun beyond dispute is the most glorious Creature that God has Created in this stupendious Creation because of its purity and superlative Clarity since totally separated from all its dregs whose inside and outside we made Synonimous formd out of pure Principles of Life and Heat whose rapid motion gives action to the Orbs and cloaths all the Stars with his Lustre and Splendour making them shew beauteous by the lustre of his brightness and because by the Divinest deckt and adorn'd with Glory he lives without compeer nor has he any Corival where note he 's a Monarch and the Parent of Vegetation And such is the Moon tho a faint flattering Ray if when compared with the Sun yet she illustrates unto us from the same Original and because adapted from
food but the Windows of Heaven were set open to refresh and gratifie their thirsty appetite And thus the Creation was unacquainted with fear whiles our Ancestor stood in a state of Innocency and had for ever so remain'd without contradiction by authority of the Text had not Sin struck out the Character of simplicity The timerous Hare fled not then for fear nor did the Cunney shelter her self in the burrough The Hind calv'd naturally without corruscations claps of thunder were then no help to disburden her Nor did the Bear lick her Cubs into shape or form for in the beginning was no deformity The Pellican in those days I perswade my self pickt not those wounds in her tender breast infeebling her self to relieve her young ones Nor did the Ostridge conceal her Eggs dreading or fearing the crush of the Elephant Nor can I hardly perswade my self in these halcion days that the Swan as now sang a lacrimy to her Funeral nor the Phenix fire her Vrn to generate her Species Aligators surely in the minority of time were not so ravenous as to prey upon Passengers Nor did the Crocadile dissemble his tears to moisten the Funerals of his fellow Creature The Plover I discover flew then with the Tassel and the Pheasant I fancy kept flight with the Falcon. Nor did the Partridge know Engin nor Noosie-thread nor dreaded nor feared he the flight of the Goshawk Nor can I think otherwise than to say in those days the Lark was any time dared with the Hobby Surely Nature in those days was divinely exercised to preserve in Unity and unite in Harmony the Creatures God had blest in this blessed Creation because then to know no other Law but that of Sympathy which is naturally of kind but so alienated now and in a sense so degenerated as if no other Law was ever established Now the Generations past and our worthy Ancestors as the vertuous in this Age will labour to abolish this unnatural antipathy if when mutually to strengthen one another in the doctrine of Christianity which ought to be the standard among the pious in profession lest peradventure we relinquish our soveraign health so draw on our heads the Curse of Disease For to fly from Sanity to seek a cure in Sickness is to run head-long into the Water to preserve our selves from drowning In the beginnings of time as it was of old no noise of oppression allarm'd the Land nor dreaded any man the sence of invasion Then it was that priviledges were as sacred as life and the whole Creation seem'd all in common Ianus I fancy liv'd not in those days when the inside was made legible and intelligible by the outside Modesty and innocency were then alamode and simplicity with piety the newest dress For Heaven was pleas'd then to dwell upon Earth but Earth must now be rarified into Heaven God then immediately converst the Creature as by Mediation Christ interceeds the Father And were it not that Christ is our Saviour and Advocate we should be left without a Plea and Sentence denounc'd beyond dispute against us But Christ is risen in whom we hope to rise and lost Adam is restor'd by the Redeemer of the World So that what Adam lost on the one hand in Paradise Christ our Mediator has redeemed on the other Thus was the Beast and the Cattle made and thus every Creature made after its kind knew no other Law than the Law of kind for instinct of kind was naturally inated and ingrafted into all as into one and if so it were impossible for the Creature to degenerate where a command as hitherto was never violated Then it was that the Divinity of the Majesty of God most splended and gloriously shin'd on the Creation for how could it be otherwise when the beauty of the Creator like a new risen Star reflected on the Creature In Edens fair Field no Brambles grew nor was sterility known in her borders The Trees then lookt big because burd'ned with Fruit and their blushing heads bowed down themselves to the courteous hand that endeavoured to reach them The Earth knew nothing but fulness and plenty since every thing was supplied with prolifick Vertue and nourish'd in it self by the primar cause Nature directs the ends of Germination No Cankers nor Caterpillars bred out of putrefaction nor were Northern blasts injurious to any thing nor was there any fatal stroke of Diseas for every thing stood in its primitive purity and Death was out-lawed and Sin an Exile or at leastwise a rerrour unknown or unthought of nor do I err when to say at that time uncreated O blessed Creation because God had blest it from the beauteous Ray and Beam of Himself Whose radient Morning could scarce raise a blush before Titan was ready to unvail his face Whose pleasures were boundless because then unlimited for excess and intemperance were strangers in her Courts And whose Garden full frought with Flowers and Aroma's flourish'd with encrease since hitherto the Serpent had not tainted the Fruit. And the Earth of it self brought forth in abundance whose Womb was the Storehouse and Factory of Treasures Gold grew in Ophir as naturally in those days as Lead is drawn up in the Peek of Derby-shire And Cattle by kind were raised and encreased as putrefactive Excrements convert into Insects But I cease not to wonder since thy Works are so wonderful and to admire thy ways because so miraculous Thus Heaven and Earth were seemingly united and the Creation bended no Knee to any Government save that of its Soveraign Lord and Maker Nor was any thing made that knew any Lord excepting the Lord of Heaven and Earth Nor had the Creator as yet made man a King or Vice-Roy of the Creatures in the Creation All the World all this while was but one Common-Weal and the Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden and nothing as hitherto that God had created had tasted the bitter effects of Death Oblessed and sacred Government upon Earth when Governed by the Royal Law of Heaven which certainly had remained in that blessed State had not Sin by consent eclips't and defac'd it almost to extinguish this beautiful Aurora But let 's tack about now and begin to examine the genuine nature and complication of Animals together with the natural composition of Man whom we find at this day complicated of Elements of all which he consists if when to consider his material parts And as Adam was abstracted from the Womb of the great World so was Woman her self an abstract from him whose Soul as an Astrum or an Essence Royal is no where to be found in the Texture of the Universe Wherefore we have considered Adam super-natural whose Creation to me seems a small incarnation as Montanus says as if God in this Work had multiplied Himself And tho' Adams Original keep not time with the Creation however we are Children of Adams Generation But the World because daily fill'd with revolution ever since the
it Darkness since separabel from the beauteous Beam of Light and such is Sin and such also is Death since by Adam's Transgression who consenting to Sin violated Gods Divine and Regal Command so wounded himself with his own Sting Death and Sin therefore Van Helmont calls Accidents or some impious malignity that lurk'd about the matter whereby to lessen Light and abscond or ecclipse its beautiful Lustre which when removed by the Divine Grace of God the Body then seems to appear Celestial Nor can it be otherwise since if when to consider there 's no difference nor distinction betwixt Heaven and Earth save Clarity of the one and Impurity of the other and this is a State we daily discourse of nay we hourly wish for 't and long to enjoy it yet so great is our Zeal to these ambiguous uncertainties that we dare not trust our selves to entertain it And because so adhering to the World and its allurements kind answering kind whose Luscious Breast seems sweet and pleasant and whose surprizing Charms luxuriously satiating we gulp down Avarice and drink down Oppression so like Diana with the Ephesians cry Gain is sweet thus tainting our selves become infectious to others for a stinking Breath tho loathsome to the Company yet is it to it self a natural perfume so Sin and Impiety in its habitual dress tho ugly seems amiable and tho faetid smells fragrant and knows no impediment Thus Paul by Faith fought with Beasts at Ephesus and Philanthropus with Monsters in the Desarts of America 'T is true and as true as the Sun 's the great Luminary whose luminous Body illustrates the Creation yet is not the Sun that Soveraign Light that adorned the Throne before the Creation when the Divinest said Let there be Light and immediately the Light of it self sprung up which Light by his Wisdom he called Day and dignified it also with the Title of Good nor could it be otherwise than good in the Abstract since the Divinest had called it Good and because proceeding from the Fountain of Good its Original can be no less than God. Now the Day had its Original as has the Sun its Aurora and the Sun tho the Major Luminary of the Universe whose refulgent Ray illustrates the Creation by Rapidity Circulating and Patrolling about it yet is it by Wisdom and the Guidance of God another Aurora of the increated Light which never ceaseth invisibly to shine when the Sun withdraws from our occular view as imaginarily supposed towards the Western Fountains whiles this pure Light never ceaseth to shine in the Heart of Man and the Throne of the Majesty tho to the World and ignorant it appear invisible and because too sublime for the weak Vision of Sight whereby a dimness seems to overshadow it as gazing too much at the natural Sun in some measure astonisheth the Purlue of Sight so the Soveraignty of the Glory of the Son of God whose excessive brightness seems to cause a blindness when as indeed it 's the Purity and Soveraignty of Light we are therefore to reduce it under this consideration that nothing that 's impure can behold what 's pure nor Carnality partake of what is Spirituous There is therefore this difference betwixt Natural and Supernatural as also betwixt Celestial and Terrestrial things that all Spirituous Bodies can pass the Purgatory of Fire without any detriment or diminution of parts when as Corporeals if but to touch the Flames are at once in a Moment destroy'd and consumed Purification of Bodies must therefore necessarily precede whereby to dignifie and make them Celestial Natural things therefore are in one distinct state but Spiritual things are found in another and by how much our Nature is made more spirituous by so much are we nearer to the Nature of God. And as the Sun shines naturally more bright and distinctly more pure than our Culinary Fires how infinitely brighter and much more pure is the Majesty of that Light that invisibly shines from the Son of God But our new Philosophers or Erra Paters are much of the Cast with Figure-flingers that presume to step into the Prerogative of Prophets and antedate events in Configurations which is a Consequence I perswade my self of as much Reason and for ought I know to as great Satisfaction as to see the Auxiliaries draw out and exercise and the Spectators to read their designs by their postures But I proceed to discourse the Firmament of Heaven the Fluctuating Ocean also and the Waters in the Creation which presents to our consideration matter of Admiration consequently a suitable Subject for every Philosopher if sedately to contemplate their admirable separation when God divided the Waters from the Waters and the Firmament of Heaven stood stationary between them which denotes those rarified and invisible Waters Moses points at above us are an Act of Faith because of Invisibility whilst these below us are demonstrable to us which Argument as formerly confirms our Philosophy that the likeness of that which is remotely above is also beneath co-inhabiting below to work the Miracle of one single thing so that the same Act of Power and Providence that made them separable made them also invisible as by the Law of demonstration these are made visible to us But what are these Waters these invisible Waters that surmounting the Aether and because above us perpetually fly our sight what are they and what were they in the Fiat of the Creation more than the pure and spirituous part separated from impurity and all aquosity whiles the pinguous moist faecula and indigested Vapours stifly adhere to the visible form which by reason of inconcocted crudities and indigestions when celebrated to warmth lie fermenting in themselves and are the daily cause of Natural Production animating and exerting the Earth to Vegetation These Invisible Waters therefore above the Firmament must of necessity be a Rarefaction of Air and the Firmament because intermediating betwixt them remonstrates it Celestial and a clarified Earth For if to consult the Creation and created Beings we are to consider them in a two fold Capacity the Visibility of the one and the Invisibility of the other Elementary Bodies and Bodies Celestial where note sublunar things are influenced by Celestials as are Celestials governed by super Celestials As the Sun in his progress because ruling the Day is by Divine appointment the Parent of Vegetation So has the Moon her Nocturnal Government whereby she also operates the Ocean influencing Fluidity and the Female Sex Nor are the Stars and Constellations deficient or destitute whereby not to effect and influence Inferiors so that a perpetual motion is continually maintained and a constant rotation perpetually continued otherwise the Compound would admit of decay and a defect in any one part of the Creation would inevitably draw on an inconveniency upon the whole Thus the great Frame and Fabrick of the Creation was ranged into a most excellent and beautiful order which the Creator foresaw in the Idea
or prospect nor rested he there until the final Complement of his Divine Counsel and Determinate Purpose And then it was that Adam was made which the Divinest created no less than a Monarch and intrusted by the Creator with the Creatures in the Creation inraged Lucifer that infernal Prince to emulate the Dignity of this new Favorite who reflectiâ—g on his Ambitions that so lately dethron'd him which obliged him to forfeit his Regal Possession he therefore undermines to blow up this Favourite who tainting our Protoplast infects his Posterity And thus the bright and beautiful Morning is sometimes sullied with a louring Sky For did not the Sun 's early blazing smiles shine upon Sodom and her accurst Inhabitants that soon after ended in a fatal Tragedy what must we call this if not a dismal Eclipse nay altogether a deprivation of life save only to Lot and his preserved Family on purpose kept alive by the meanes of Miracle when all the rest were made most miserable Morts Whiles therefore we live here in this Natural State we only reap supplies of Aliment from Elements but when we shall be discharged the Manicles of Sin and releast from the horrour and amazements of Death we shall then appear under a more spirituous form and where we shall see things as they really are in themselves by which we may know till then we knew nothing Nor are these Moral Beings or Natural Apprehensions any other than signitures or the deliniated Figure of that super-excellent Beauty we shall see hereafter And God by Wisdom divided the Waters from the Waters the Celestial from the Terrestrial Heaven from Earth the Invisible from Visible things and so disposed them by the Law of Providence appointing to every one Dominion and Operation in order to bring about his determinated Creation And who knows but that these elevated and invisible Waters are the Waters Moses speaks of that Bathe the Banks of the New Ierusalem and that the spangled Firmament is the Pavement of Heaven or the solid part thereof if not improper to say so nor is 't impertinent to think so when Invisibles are pointed at by Visible Objects otherwise I understand not the design in the Text which supposing I do I am unwilling to be refuted if when only to hear another Mans contradiction But that there was and still is a Division or an Interposition betwixt Superiours and Inferiours is past dispute Moses asserts it and the Text affirms it where note as a Christian it concerns me to enquire and as a Philosopher as gladly desire to be advised and informed the Nature and the Quality of these divisional Waters the Vertue and the Office of that that 's Elementary as the Dignity and Operation of that that 's invisible the first because Elementary we daily converse with and frequently apply it unto servile uses but the latter since invisible we assign that to Moses except otherwise the Divinest by Oracle from Heaven be pleased to inspireus as the Prophet was inspired Faith therefore is the evidence of things invisible as is demonstration of visible things The Waters above the Firmament we have supposed them Celestial because of Sublimity Purity and Rarification which in the great and admirable work of this stupendious Separation the Chaos no sooner felt the Examen of Heat but Water began immediately to operate and presently became convertible into Air and this I call Aetherial Rarification by reason it s not only separated from Aquasity but apparently becomes to the World invisible Why not then by the same Argument all the Fountains and Aquoducts nay the Ocean it self by the Law of Necessity evaporate into Air since minutely it operates without intermission this is obvious to every one but the Sours of the Sea you 'll object is so deep her Springs and Supplies so manifestly numerous that it 's almost impossible to exhaust her Treasures whereby to render her barren or impoverish'd to that I answer God has placed such a Magnet in the very Bowel and Center of the Waters of that attractive and magnetick Vertue that were not the Waters bounded by the Law of Limitation the Earth peradventure would soften and melt consequently become convertible into Water and for ought I know resolve at last into a moist and a soft thin Air. But God the Creator has placed such a Bar betwixt the Visible and Invisible Waters He I say it is that by Wisdom and Providence hung up a Spangled Vail or Covering betwixt them and calls it the Firmament which intersects or divides betwixt Celestials and Terrestials yet so that a sympathy and continued harmony is by the Divinest correspondent betwixt them and the Text tells us that Heaven it self forbears not to sigh if at any time the Sinner be sadned to mourn but is filled with Alacrity and Heavenly Joy even at the Conversion of one single Penitent Nay so great is the triumph among the Saints and Angels when a Sinner becomes victor over Sin and Impenitency that all our Faculties as if Divinely exirted muster up themselves in open Hostility to oppose the Invador of our everlasting Tranquility but I intend not to common place upon this Divine Subject otherwise than to elucidate the Mysteries of the Creation And where Rabbi Moses has drawn the Curtain I shall modestly by permission endeavour to withdraw it provided it be thought neither Sacriledge nor Impiety since to confider behind this Mystical Interposition the Magi have concealed the Sanctum Sanctorum nor Prophane I when to say The Beauty of Holiness So that we may read and begin to understand the Firmament by Interpretation is called Heaven which certainly is the Basis and Celestial Superstructure of this most admirable and stupendindious Creation tho to us and our Ancestors seemingly invisible wherefore let us resort to Heavens great School where Christ himself is Dictator and Pilate to conduct us and chief Rabbi to instruct us for the Divinest himself will become our Interpreter so that God in due time will certainly manage us to that Seraphick Society of Saints and Angels where we shall Daily be Divinely taught and by Jesus Christ the Son of God made so Prophetical and Evangellically Intelligeable that the Alphabet of Heaven will be the Christ-Cross-Row whiles about these Sublunar Orbs our Modern Didacticks and Learned Academicks are hourly so impinged that they sore no higher than Custom and President of Profest Arts and if without offence I may freely speak it rather of Litteral than Liberal Science Where note some Anti-Scripturist's have been lately so Prophane as to imagine God like to a Country Mechanick that builds up with Stone and finishes with Timber without any Infusion of Life and Motion as if the whole Creation was a Creature inanimate when the voluminous World which is Gods great Library is filled full of Life Activity and Motion which Life is Spirit and the cause of Multiplication and the natural Production of all created things that by Copulation are
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