Selected quad for the lemma: opinion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
opinion_n	according_a	day_n	year_n	745	5	5.4209	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54603	Volatiles from the history of Adam and Eve containing many unquestioned truths and allowable notions of several natures / by Sir John Pettus ...	Pettus, John, Sir, 1613-1690.	1674 (1674)	Wing P1912; ESTC R7891	75,829	198

is not mentioned and he had Liberty to eat of the tree of life but not of the tree of Knowledge So that the Serpent had sufficient Advantage by the Mistake of the command Whereupon Cap. 2. Verse 4. The Serpent said § 7. Ye shall not surely dye You shall not dye either for eating the Fruit which was not mentioned or for touching the tree which is not Commanded or for eating of the Tree in the midst of the garden which was the Tree of life and not forbidden And when the Serpent had thus possest her that she should not dye for eating or touching of that which was not forbidden he returns to the truth of punishment yet depending upon the former asseveration and saith ye shall not surely dye For the Serpent had got so much advantage by the discourse with Eve and understanding the Nature of her death not to be a seperation of the Soul and Body but a deprivatian of Gods Love did tell her to this effect so good a God would not inflict so rigorous a punishment upon her for she should not dye but Live and live now with farr more satisfaction For her eyes which were only as Senses shall then represent all thing in their perfect Knowledge of them For ye shall be like Gods knowing good and evil But in this discourse hitherto both the Devil and Eve left out one expression in that command namely In the day thou eatest they were both willing it seems to omit the point of time And well may Procrastination continue as a punishment upon our humane Nature she thought God would not be so punctual to a day or it may be she did not understand what a day was or it may be she had too various opinions of it and not Considered as intended in Puncto temporis either 12. or 24. hours or a year according to the Natural motion of the Sut But it may be she conceivd the day to be a Thousand years which are but as a day with God So that the day she should die should be a thousand years after the Eating or a time undeterminable Some of these Conceptions might make them omit the day for it is certain he neither sinned the last day of his life nor dyed the first day of his death So that we may understand it to be a death Contracted but not instantly inflicted and in stead of Morte Morieris we may read Mortalis eris Thou shalt dye the death that is thou shalt be Mortal or have a daily disposition in thee to death Cap. 3. Verse 5. For God doth know § 8. that in the day you eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened and you shall be like God's knowing good and Evil. Now the Devil boldly mentions the day when by his subtile intangling discourses he had gotten the day of the Woman But poor soul it prov'd her night Their Eyes which till now were open to see all sorts of Felicity are now dimmed with the shades of ensuing Mortality so that though they have Eyes yet they can see nothing but the effects of their Ambition For that knowledge of goodness which they had in perfection by continuing in obedience to Gods Commands is now turned by their disobedience to an imperfect knowledge which is the greatest Evil attending human Nature For by this imperfection we scarce know what good is to be followed or what evil to be shunned Regions Climes Tempers Accidents and even Laws of Nations giving Latitudes or Circumscriptions enough to puzzle the devoutest souls and doubtless this is no similitude of a Divine knowledge or to know as God who I presume knows Evil no otherwise then by suffering our Knowledge to be puzzled in attaining the unspeakable Mystery of goodness And therefore the Targum of Jerusalem being tender I suppose in ascribing the knowledge of Evil to God instead of you shall be like Gods knowing Good and Evil say you shall be like the great Angels who are indued with Wisdome to determin good and evil And if the Planets and Spheres have their operations from the Angels then the astrologians have the advantage of knowing good and evil by Collection however it is an equal infelicity not to know the distinction of good evil as not to be able to improve the one or prevent the other And the Chaldee Paraphrase says Ye shall be like Princes as if Princes were to be the Judges of Good and Evil For good or bad things which some call indifferent are made good or bad according to the Nature and obligation of their Command Cap. 3. Ver. 6. And when the Woman saw that the Tree was good for food § 9. and that it was Pleasant to the Eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise Here we see the foundation of disobedience We first argue from necessity It is good for Food and without Food we cannot susteine Nature and who hath more reason to be Careful of that then our selves And why did God exhibit us the view of Food yea and good food if we may not be our own Carvers Then we argue from Pleasure does God say we Create in us organs of sight and those attended with such Agents that we are pleased and displeased according to our objects seeing content gives life to every fruition why should we not injoy what is most pleasurable and at once please our taste and sight And then steps in Ambition and says We shall not only please our senses but our Intellectuals We shall be wise as God Angels or Princes that is as any of our superiours And thus by these insinuations we give our selves Latitude to our own destructions and this is the ground of ruine to Families as well as to States The Servant would evade the Masters Commands the Wife the Husbands the Subject the Princes Judging the Commands to be of small consequence and so the breach easily forgiven or advantagious to our selves and therefore naturally dispensibe But doubtless the less the command be the more we are obliged to perform because the performance seems more in our Power and the more advantagious it is to our private Capacities the greater affront we give to the publick by our disobedience and ingrossing that which should be either common or restrained by so being perswaded and resolved to disobey She took of the Fruit thereof § 10. and did eat This Fruit which Eve did eat is commonly taken for an Apple but I cannot tell for what reason unless that Malum is Latine for an Apple as also for Evil. And then the next doubt is for none knew the original of Latine whether Eve did speak Latine in Paradise But the small reason that I have heard for the Apple is because if one Cut an Apple cross the Core that is beteen the stalk and the top the Beds of the Seeds are just ten in number representing the ten Commandments all which Eve did at once break by eating the Apple and

may by art be made to represent the form of it self whilst it had an entire being This may be seen from the distillation of Plants that is the Extract of them As for example Make of Rosemary such a Liquor as we call the sulphur by some the essence or spirit of it and put it into a Viol or glass closed up as Chemists do after a little setling it shall by a certain kind of vapour or mist represent to the eyes the very shape of Rosemary And this may be more easily illustrated by another Experiment About the spring time when the bark begins to run take a young Ash and saw it off about a foot from the ground then make a Concave hole in it and cover it and the sappy juice or bloud of it will rise up and fill the hole then Lave out so much water as rises in it and put it into a glass and stop the glass as Chemists do by closing the Metal of the glass and every spring you shall discern in the glass as it were an Ash tree Now I cannot tell whether the Mist mentioned in Genesis was the Essence with which God then indued all Vegetables making them conspicuable to Man which before was not And by this we may judg of the rational and vegetative soul this had perfection of information from this Mist which watered the Earth The other from the breath of the Almighty And whether by this breath is meant a misty and waterish humour if with reverence we may so conceive of the divine breath or according to my former opinion is uncertain But if either then the Operations of the one may well advance the belief of the other And if this Experiment should hold in mans body as in Vegetables how easie is it to conceive the manner of mans resurrection when by God Chemistry the Essence of each man in an instant represents to God or to Man being made capable of such a sight the true Effigies and proportion of his body And in this notion why may not I make use of that Metaphorical Speech of David Put my tears into thy bottle O Lord which tears were the tears of Compunction and sorrow for sin proceeding from a Contrite heart and a devout brain not from the Redundancy of a salt humour so that I may call such tears the very Liquor of life Now whether such Cordial tears if they were put into a glass would represent Man David that understood the secrets of God knew best And the experiment were not unworthy the Tryal by a Penitent Christian to weep till he saw himself in his own tears But because there is seldom in man that true distillation or extract of tears which there ought to be the experiment may be fallible But that which may more easily be tried is to take a Starling and cover it with two wooden hollow dishes and it will weep it self to death and that Liquor were a fit subject for the Experiment of sensitive souls till we can meet with a more certain one for the rational But to go a little further with some notions or fancies concerning our Resurrection If by a Cabalistical Geometry it could be found out how many humane bodies the Earth could afford out of its bulk of which mens bodies were at first are still and shall be as it were remade allowing to each humane body such a proportion of its mould or dust as will make it suitable to the most perfect pattern for the best Divines hold we shall rise with perfect bodies and of such perfect dimensions as I have writ in a former Chapter in this book I believe the general resurrection might then be known If also by an Historical Accompt it might be given in how many such parts of the Earth have been already informed by souls and how much still remains to be informed But because Art may be fallible in so great a work of Phancy we must submit to Faith by which I believe that when the whole Earth shall be disposed into bodies that which we call the General Resurrection will follow And that when Heaven and Earth shall pass away the bodies of the wicked shall remain in the place of the Earth which shall be their Hell and the bodies of the just in the place of the Coelestial Orbs which shall be their Heaven This kind of Resurrection or resumption of our Earth doth not cross the Scriptures but confirm them which sayes the Earth shall be no more and that it shall be Consumed by fire for by this resumption or transformation the Earth shall as it were be turned into nothing because its parts shall become another thing And there is a necessity that fire should do this for we see how metals will admit several mixtures with other metals but let fire come once to dissolve them and they will all run with violence each to his proper kind Now seeing this I can easily believe that each body though divided into Millions of parts in the general Conflagration will run nimbly through all mediums to that soul which once in one bulk they own'd and which I still believe with a diffusive virtue constantly hovers over it in its dissections And in this dissolution or mutation to confine my speculations to what our Divinity imparts the godly being of a more refined metal shall run one way and the ungodly as David says shall be put away like dross Now that our Terrestrial bodies shall not be consumed or annihilated by this fire I have seen experimented in Iron Kilns where the Iron stone is dissolved there you shall very often find large pieces of Charcole fall down with the Liquid Iron into the Furnace This Charcole is made of the Withy-tree which grows frequently in Worcestershire where I first observed it and from thence when the Iron is let forth it will swim out with it but floting on the top of the Iron and those pieces of Charcole the fire hath no power over or doth not consume But that which gives a more delicate relish to the soul is another trivial Experiment that if a Combustible matter be joyned to that which is not so Combustible the less Combustible will preserve the Combustible from destruction As for example Take a piece of Thred and tie it close about a piece of Iron and the flame of a Candle will never burn it so out bodies though combustible being then joyned to our souls of a spiritual and uncombustible matter will be preserved from destruction and power of the Fire And though these Conclusions by Fire be pertinent to the manner of our resurrection in so many variations yet because the reunion of our parts is the knottiest piece of our belief I shall assist mine with two Observations concerning the Magnetick and concatenating virtue of most Creatures either entire or in parts by which may be seen their inclination to union As in the greedy society of men to men and sometimes fat men to lean