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
unlock the Meanders of Nature Diana in this Vision seem'd almost unvailed and every thing naked in its native simplicity This represents somewhat an Admical state but unsatisfied in mind as to these discoveries I was led to contemplate the Mysteries of the Incarnation how the Divinity when cloathed with Humanity took not only our Nature but our Infirmities upon him and was a bright and shining Light illuminating the World and every thing therein and is that Light which saveth the World that shines in darkness yet the darkness knows it not a Light of that Beauty that illustrates Eternity and regenerates us Plants in the Paradice of God to legitimize us Heirs of the New Ierusalem which if duely considered here 's a prospect of Life when at a distance stands hovering the issues of Death So that Good and Evil seem to stand in a Poiz ' till Earth be found lite by the counterpoiz of Heaven and here it was also I see my self naked waiting for a change for God is all This leads me on to a farther consisideration if when to contemplate what 's more visible than Earth and Earth and Water to compleat but one Globe whilst the Air is drest up with the blessings of Vegetation whereby to inrich and impregnate the Earth As may be seen in the very front and surface of the Soil since dekt and adorn'd with such beautiful Greens as Ornaments of Superiours illustrating inferiours So that the Earth was spread with prolifick Vertue and production from thence immediately ensued by discovering the prodigious plenty of Grass a word large enough to express it universal had not some laboured tho' to little purpose because when to shroud it under the denomination of Herbage Grass therefore admits of a large extension when because to comprehend both Animals and Vegetables and is peradventure the Original word notwithstanding the various interpretation of Expositors because directing it self to the level Paul speaks of as two intersecting Angles direct to the Centre of one and the same single gnomen So that we need not to cavil about the word Grass where the property of the thing is so well understood Herbage therefore is Grass and Paul tells us Flesh is Grass and Grass by interpretation is the most universal Vegetable Trees and Plants also are of the same Linage save only from a larger size of more maturated Grass Stones and concressions also what must we call them if not coagulated and petrefied Grass So that Grass in one respect is every thing that Earth vegetates tho modified after various Formations and Figures differently drest up by the hand of Nature And because haveing respect to time and place by supplement of Air and moist soveraign Vapours causeth it to grow and spreading It self on the Superficies of Earth spires out into Grass Which when otherwise concealed in subterranean Cavities grows up into Metals and the race of Minerals As for Example have not all Trees their Roots in the Earth when their loaden Boughs hang burdned with Fruit. And are not all Metalline Roots radicated in the Air when the Centre of the Earth is burdened with their Fruits what 's more intelligible Now there is but one universal Spirit in Nature from whence things Originally have all their supplies and the three Clauses also of Animals Vegetables and Minerals are they not so many Marks Sigels and Characters which the Creator has imprinted and stampt upon them whereby the Creature might read and know them But Man above all because Lord of the Creation is made most intelligible whereby to understand them wherefore he calls them by Names for distinction when as the rest of the Creatures know them only by instinct And this vegetating Spirit has its Seed in its self and the Air is plentifully replenished with it which Seeds scatter'd and spread about the Vniverse furnisheth the Creatures in all parts of the Creation The Americans can tell you that Trees grew naturally where the Native Indians never had a being and were it not for Europes agriculture and industry her florid Fields and flourishing Pastures would soon feel the fatal stroke of disorder so become Forrests and barren Desarts fit only for beastial and salvage inhabitants For God never made nor sent any thing into the World that was either indigent defective or imperfect every Creature nay the Plants themselves were furnished with prolifick and seminal qualifications sterility was a thing utterly unknown till disobedience disinherited our royal Protoplast which had for ever so remained to the periods of time had not the Cross obliterated the Curse Our Ancestours oft laboured to strike out the Eyesore which the succeeding Generations have thought no impediment because to study new Modes of Sinning whereby to improve impiety by consent which has rarely ceased to follow every Generation as naturally in my opinion as Rust attends Copper fretting and corroding the natural Body till time and other comodes blot out its Character so permits the compound to slide into Atomes and yield it self Captive to the Prisons of Death waiting from the Artist a Resurrection But such Bodies as these we call imperfect because of a Leprosie impendent on them when as indeed there are other dignified Bodies that fear not to die because uncapable of Death whose peluced anima like Stars in the Firmament make glad the Adepti and solicitous in Art. In the next place I purpose to speak something of Light and since Light by the Text is the Oracle of God it was by his Wisdome apparently made manifest when undressing the Hoil of this beauteous Creation which Light also leapt out of the bosome of Eternity into the Vision and perspective of Time and because expatiating it self in the Chaos was the Cause of this admirable Separation of the Waters when by Divine Ordination they divided themselves and then it was that dry Land appeared Nor could it be otherwise because then the purer parts immediately began to feel the force of Separation so let the recrements subside to the bottome because of their feculent and impure Centre and thus by the Fiat were all impurities Separated from that which of it self was altogether pure and this Act of Separation we attribute to God who substituted Nature daily to operate For should there happen but the least Cessation the whole Compound would annihilate so become invisible But every Separation of separable Things creates the Unity and perpetuates the Harmony since the Life of one Element is dependent on another nor lives the one without the breathings of the other The Waters perpepetually moistening the Earth whiles the Earth inspires and ferments the Water but the soft sweetnings and breathings of Air impregnates both as do the Stars in their station and Celestial Rotation actually influence and penetrate the whole From whence we morrally and rationally conclude that Earth made dissoluble converts into Water and Water by heat is raâ—ified into Air. Air consequently by circulation is convertible into Fire and this
ever be known by another In the next place we discourse the Element of Water imagined by some a solution of Earth or a moist coagulum of ambient Air made fluid only by an internal flux which surrounding the Earth compleats but one Globe and which aquous fluidity separates only the impurities from the more extraneous and superficial parts but cannot reach to the Core or Centre whereby to examine the internal impurities which an intence Fire naturally purgeth forth by reason of its ardent activity and not improper to say its vulcanick nature where the Waters of themselves can never reach Two Elements therefore are destinated to putrification and as the matter to be purified is visible or invisible consequently such are the Agents for purification Since the Fire therefore is an invisible Agent and that other of Water most obvious and visible the visible and invisible parts of things are therefore so mended and cleansed by subtile Operation whereby they seseparate the more inquinate impurity that stifly adheres to the immaculate nature and prestine state of Virgin purity But as the Soul within the Body is not bett'red by the Corporiety of all or any of the natural composition or impendent matter hovering about it but is rather stained poluted and infected with noxious Sapors arising thence from So you are to consider that the Vessel has its honour from the dignity of the Arcanum or glory of the Subject matter therein contained And as the Scripture instructs us that Gods surprizing Light illuminates every pious act of the Creature it obligeth us to consider that the Goodness of God is as great to forgive as by his Clemency and Bounty he is just to pardon Where note we observe God made things proportionable and in all respects suitable to himself The great World he made therefore to contain the less but the lesser World he made to contain himself that contains the greater And thus you have the Mystery of the Creation the Majesty of Reason the Divinity of Scripture and authority of Philosophy But the Waters brought forth every moving Creature because in them was the Spirit of Life For the Spirit of Life by Divine incubation made ingress into them filling them with a prolifick vertue and the first form'd Creature that the Waters brought forth was the great and unweildy body of Earth most recluse and solitary because inwardly concealed which till then never felt the operative foâ—ce of Fire Nor did the luminous Ray of the Sun nor the vertual influence of Stars nor the Divine order of Constellations nor the treasures of Hail and Rain of Lightning and Thunder nor the Seasons of Heat and Cold Frost and Snow besides innumerable living Creatures to whom Heavens plentiful Breast daily administred till then none of them knew the potency of Life nor the force and energy of the universal Spirit which God by Wisdome inspired into them But some will object and peradventure say how and after what manner does the Earth vegetate Shew us also the rationallity and probability whereby the Earth and the Water become living Creatures to which I readily and briefly answer the Soul of the Divine World is God himself but that of the Created the universal spirit of Nature and this Soul lives by vertue of the Divine World but acts by imagination only in the Created whereby the Earth conceives vegetates and buds up so does the Waters protrude and bring forth even to the period and perfection of its predestinated end Nor can they otherwise do because the Law of Providence and Necessity is by Divine ordination imposed upon them And that which enriches them are the sublime treasures of Elements and Principles For wanted they those active and ingressive instruments they were of all things in Nature most imperâ—ect and would be altogether void and unprofitable so become as it were a meer annihilation and not improper should I call it a Caput Mortuum For it were impossible that any Created Being if when wanting the Vital Faculty of Life could be any ways at any time in a capacity to live consequently to move vegetate and protrude But the great and the lesser World is fill'd with animation whereby it daily and hourly buds forth All which are signal and demonstrable tokens of the Spirit of Life that animates and actuates in every Creature Life therefore is that active and universal Spirit of Nature wherewith she infusseth the whole Creation impregnating every individual therewith whereby the Character of Life is no sooner stampt infus'd or imprest upon any material Subject but it inwardly lives as does the invisible World which no sooner appears to move forward into act but the model and frame of the Subject matter at once admits of exteriour Motion Life therefore as it is the Radix of every thing so it acts demonstratively in every Body The motion of the Sun we daily observe is necessarily occasioned by this active spirit of Life And such is the vital pulse in Man as also that large and greater pulse of the Ocean Earth vegetates only from this operating Spirit and the Air is replenished and fill'd full of it Every thing that is lives not without it nor can any thing subsist deficient of it O wonderful Nature the Miracle of the Creator how intelligeable art thou in all thy Operations and tho' so simple naked and demonstratively plain yet how difficult is it for the Artist to find out So that were we minded to imitate Nature in her solitary Operations and Fermentation of Elements we ought first to consider in order to what Nature in her daily progress points out unto us whereby to manidge and introduct us whose mediums because primarily separation and solution of parts therefore from thence begins manual Operation Let solution therefore be the first step since in separation all is found Then proceed to Filtration Evaporation Congealation Cristalization Distillation Digestion Putrefaction Ceration Albification Rubification and Fixation Then will Diana appear from under her Vail which none but the Eyes of a true Philosopher since the beginning ever yet saw But now I suspect I 'me beyond the Paraphrase of the Text when only designed to discourse the Creation so of Elements and Principles Natures own Rudiments How that Elements subsist not without previous Fermentation of their complicated comâ—xture of invisible Parts so that a compleat separation is no where found whereby to unlock and disintangle the unity of Bodies without a Philosophical Clavis to display their Principles which otherwise are limited and by Nature confined to submit to the law of coagulation Of all which I cease farther to disclose lest peradventure this secret be already too manifest when because to devulge it to the root of ingratitudes so we leave that Subject to discourse the Leviathan And God made great Whales c. Iob calls him Leviathan who after his Creation by the permission of God rolls toâ— and fro the fluctuating Ocean Whose unctuous Scales pollish the
after Purgation to rectify and conjoyn and then advance if it could be to a plusquam perfection whereby to imitate Nature as she by president imitates the Creator what admirable thing would the Operator bring forth Wherefore the Apostle he bids you be perfect as your Heavenly Father is also perfect And what can advance to a state of Perfection but that which separates from Sin and Impurity Thus the Heavens are pure and infinitely clarified yet much more pure is he that created them which state to know is never to know Death Wherefore as by imitation some Bodies are made always to live in the Phylosophick World which the Adeptest intitles and superscribes Transmutation but the Theologist in the Super-celestial that of Regeneration And as one is the period of Principles and Elements such also is the other of Corporification leading Death into Captivity and transforming every impure Being into a Celestial Clarity and Purity and the Souls of Righteous Men into endless Glory but this Operation is performable only by the Heavenly Arcanum or Medicament of Life which Sacred Soveraign and Divine Elixir is the Christ of God the Wisdom of the Father to whom devoutly be everlasting Praises And as Christ is called the Light of the World c. Light may properly therefore be asserted the Manifestation of God and the Oracle of his Truth for if what visible Light is or appears unto the Bodily Eye the same but infinitely more glorious is the invisible Light that illuminates the Understanding in the Eye of the Mind The want of Light it 's true makes Man deplorable so is Ignorance of the Mind to be lamented And as Generation that sprang out from Corruption of those things which were esteemed the best so the Light that shines in Man when it becomes eclipst by the shades of Sin how dreadful and dismal is that Darkness As Light therefore of all things is accounted most desirable the want of it to the Mind makes the Man most miserable So of all Ignorance that Ignorance is the worst which hath reference to the most Noble and Sublimest Object and by how much the subject of Knowledge is better by so much is the deprivation of that Knowledge intollerable As any one therefore by putting out a Mans Eyes whereby to intercept him the injoyment of Light is reputed cruel so he that prevents the means of Knowledge is no less if not infinitely more by a Scriptural Authority adjudged condemnable Light therefore because exalted above all Created Beings it confirms it the Standard of Wonder and Admiration whose beauteous Beam displays it self the uncreated Being before the Creation consequently superexcelling all the rest in Dignity but the created luminous Ray of the Sun that strikes the Poles from East to West nay farther its possible could we apprehend it is sacredly held forth as the Almighties Taper whereby to illustrate the Visible World as do's the Light of his Sovereign All-glorious Son invisibly shine in the Souls of Saints to convince the World of Sin and Unbelief And tho Laban usher Leah unto Iacob's Bed by introducing her instead of his beautiful Rachel so every designing Imaginarist do's when describing only exteriour things but states nothing essentially Such I may say dwell meerly in the Face or at the best on the superficial parts of the Body never aspiring after the fulness of Beatitude which Philosophy in my Opinion looks like to a Church that 's drest up with Discipline when wanting sound Doctrine So that if when to consider the exteriour form of complicated mixts shall melt away probably we arrive at the fiery principium whose Elevations lead on to a state Immortal co-uniting us to that invisible Nature that admits not of any thing save Purity intense by the continued ardency of a Pious Devotion As in Operation it 's evident and egregiously true that the Elements themselves assume all Colours before the Beauty of those colours egrede wherefore they begin with Blackness first because the Antecessour and Parent of Putrefaction after it passes thro other middle Colours till at length it arrives at a Celestial Whiteness which then is Air from whence it ascends to a fiery Complexion in which the Power of Art and Dominion of Fire when to speak Aenigmatically is compleatly terminated and beyond which in my Opinion there 's no natural progress And God no sooner divinely said Let there be Light but immediately there was Light so that his Commands were in a moment answered for how soon did the Light spontaneously spring up and amounting aloft fill the Universe with Splendor So that now the Creation became altogether visible and every concealed Treasure that lay hid therein exposed it self unto occular view whereby to discover the Chaos commaserated and Water and Earth by previous digestion without contention or strong ebullitions began of themselves distinctly to separate and the Earth as rejected to precipitate downwards by reason of its Gravity and solid Ponderosity so that these two Elements were only made visible but the Fire and the Air they fled our sight which by reason of Purity became also invisible whose Sublime Bodies by the Creators Will elevated themselves to influence the Earth whereby to impregnate it with Prolifick Vertue This was and is that beautiful Order wherein the Divinest so divinely placed things when the Earth as an Embrio lay hid and concealed in the Exuberant Womb of the unweildy Waters And this is that great and stupendious work of Separation which Act or Operation was fit only for God who separated the Light from the mists of Darkness which glorious Operation the Prophet Moses points at as a thing principally to be minded and considered if provided any one would imitate the Creator when in the beginning he created the Universe but the end of the Creation stands still in the Ternary of which more at large in its proper place Christ therefore is our Soveraign and our Saving Light that comprehends the Darkness yet the Darkness knows him not whose beauteous brightness illuminates the World and is that Glory and Majesty of Light that was from God that never had beginning which Incomprehensible Light shined before the beginning to illuminate the Throne of the Majesty of God and is the true Essential Word of God and the Word is God the Wisdom of the Father as is manifested to us by Moses and the Prophets But the created Luminaries as Sun Moon and Stars these are but Elementary subject therefore to corruption when God shall please to extinguish their Light by withdrawing the Beauteous Ray of himself and as the Light of the Sun is the Beauty of the Creation how much more beautiful is the Son of God the All-glorious Beauty of the Majesty of God The Created World therefore was made to discover visible Objects and things Corporeal but the Increated and most Sovereign Being to make obvious to us things Invisible the Natural to inspect both Elements and Principles but the Supernatural to
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
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
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
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