on tip-toes at the threshall of the body can take a surer and further survey then being close immured that the separated soul doth understand more then being united to the body I take it to be not from a quicker apprehension but from more glorious objects Some referre this which I took unto the spoilo gotten from the Sichemites by the sons of Jacob but that seemeth very harsh For their Father Gen. 34. 30. reproved them for their perfidious dealing with them and Gen. 49. 6. he curseth them for it Now that goods treacherously gotten should be their portion is somewhat absurd It will run more smooth prophetically that I have taken for that I shall take besides the trope of the Father for the Sons And so by faith he triumphs before the victory Such a spirit there was in David who blazoned the trophees before the conquest Gilead is mine and Manassch is mine c. Psal 60. But why Joseph should have that of the Amorite taken by sword and bow more then the rest my conjecture is he doth for the preservativation of his Brethren in Egypt assigne him this surplus above his Brethren among whom he had besides his portion equally divided by lot Ezek. 47. 13. For to none of his remaining Sons did he bequeath a determinate residence That he doth confine the Sea-coast unto Zebulon Gen. 49. 13. is rather a presage of his nautick profession then a supernumerary grant above his equalls Levit. 13. 13. Then the Priest shall consider and behold if the Leprosie hath covered all his flesh he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague it is turned white he is clean FOr the clearing of this because vulgar reason would conclude the contrary I must premise a few words The Ceremonies of the Jews were either typicall having reference to Christ or Symbolicall by which as Gods Hieroglyplicks they were tutored in some morall homages Or more plainly thus They were either of Priviledges and so Evangelical or of duties Of which latter sort were Not to assimilate the mselves according to the superstitious fashions of the Sabeans or Ghaldeans their Neighbours Of the like nature was seething the kid in the milk of the dam the cutting of corners in the hair which with them were appurtenances unto fascination In several of these Laws the thing it self was no sin though there did cleave a legal uncleannesse unto it Sometime it was commanded as laying forth and burying of the dead yea the interring of corpses the Politicians Grotius make a law of nature being a preservation of the living Sometime naturall as sicknesse and issues Now and then defective as Eunuchs Note by the way God took away in an advantagous substitute in the Gospel their barrennesse by baptizing the Eunuch according to his promise Esa 56. 3. Now for the explaining of this text Why being spread over he should be clean two reasons may be given Physicall and Ceremoniall Physicall when a disease is spread all over the body as in that soon cured kind of Dropsy called Leucophlegmatia Nature will easily recover that because every part hath an innate heat to preserve it self and expell that which is noxious and so the discrimen certaminis the maine body of the enemy doth not lay upon one part except it be in a raw crisis where after a battle conquering nature doth ablegate its adversary to the vilest and remotest emunctories The Ceremoniall reason I take from the severall Laws given to the Jews forbidding mixture either of themselves with others or of things of severall kinds as of making linsey-wolsey plowing with an oxe and an asse sowing of mesling c. into which primitive institution the Rabbins have shuffled burdensome and ridiculous devices of their own whereas either of these without any tesellation or checker-work single were lawfull So this Symbolizing with the former if it were all over of one colour viz. white because void of heterogeneous mixture it was pronounced clean If the Allegory were not strained the overspread Leprosy an Embleme of our sins and the whitenesse of righteousnesse might have an aspect unto Christ Levit. 16. How could the Scape-goat be a type of Christs Resurrection as generally it is expounded since Quest it never dyed BEcause its fellow which was chosen by Answ lot did die And for that Resurrection was not competent unto beasts that one offering was sown up and patcht of two individualls whereof one died and the other escaped and being one continued act did conjunctim resemble the death and resurrection of Christ. The uncapablenesse of the Subject in one distributed this type into two and because no remission of sin without blood the latter died in the former and the former revived in the latter So the escape of one of the represented was an adumbration of the Resurrection since it was reprieved from death by the immediate oracle of God in the lot Numb 36. 7. None were to marry out of their own Family TWo sorts of persons were exempted First the Levites and that upon good ground because they had no inheritance among their bretheren And secondly the Royall family was not obliged thereunto their portion being assigned them out of the Kings Exchequer I And this well considered answereth many objections and without this Latitude severall difficulties and Remora's will arise in the Old Testament casting as it were a suspicion of levity by a transgression of this precept among the most eminent of the Jews But the poor though they had passed away their inheritance were not exempted from this law because either their near kinsman might redeem it or at the year of Jubile it was restored gratis The accomplishing of the presage of the linage of the Messiah was a Cardinall cause of this edict As far as it is grounded upon equity it bindeth us analogically though not in eodem puncto Deut. 21. ult He that is hanged on a tree is accursed of God BOth former and latter Expositors run for the nativity of this back unto Paradise to the first sin which was brought forth between the knees of a tree and therefore hanging on a tree is become a malediction But that I think is too far fetcht for a Gibbet is and may be made variously of any other substance This sentence is not to be taken in a moral signification reaching any sorts of people but in a Judicial sense proper to the Jews and therefore the reasons must not be common to all the Universe of mankind but drawn from their Political constitution This capital punishment was no curse of it self no more then the lapidation precipitation sword or fire was Two probable reasons may be given First that this kind of death was without effusion of blood which strangulation even in beasts and that otherwise clean-ones was an abhorred thing among the Jews and so Ceremonially accursed Many both godly and wise Expositors hold this reason to be moral But 2dly as in some creatures their own entrails
with Scripture that Moses and thence all Magistrates are the preservers of both tables will hardly go down with me By keepers they must understand impertinency attends others interpretations overseers to look to the outward execution of the Ten commandements which if it were granted unto Moses it would prove but a lame argumentation to derive it unto Princes under the Gospel because their Church and Common-weale were the same subjects We are to pray and endeavour for the conversion of the Jews which can hardly be conceived without conversation But upon their co-habitation with us to compell them against conscience to a positive Celebration of our Lords day were Duci non trahi volunt a preposterous way to gain them to the true faith The interdiction of publick labour for the not disturbance of the rest is sufficient Neh. 13. 19. The Sabbath being a lesson of grace cannot be read by the letters of reason as was mentioned before But as the injunction of all Divine worship upon an unbeliever hath little equity in it so neither is it possible for the Supreme Power to take cognizance of the breach of every Commandement For the last precept Thou shalt not covet c. the new conceived motions and infant-affections of the desire of our Neighbour's goods are forbidden which because not apparent they are as if they were not I speak ad hominem according to that Maxim Non entis non apparentis eadem est ratio When these concupiscences break forth into actions they are to be ranked under the heads of Adultery or Theft And the Dealogue doth not admit of Tautology This concupisence if it be hidden to ones own self Rom. 7. 7. How shall it be manifest unto others Thus God securerh both tables with a lock which no key of reason can open That place Esa 65. I will create new Heavens and new Earth with the like consonant places are meant of new-moulding the State both in Church and Common-wealth under the Gospel when they shall be more remarkably distinguished But these men labour for a monstrous prothusteron that the Heavens should be ruled by the Earth the Higher governed Gen verkeerde weerld by the Lower and the greater by the lesser orbes Let every Sphere enjoy its proper Intelligence Neither can I so readily assent to those who affirme that two or three gathered together into a society rise up to an Organicall Church For that Mat. 18. speaking of such a Church presupposeth more persons For if thy brother offend thee there are two persons and after reproof will not hear thee take one or two with thee there are four perfons and those males whereas experience daily teacheth the contrary Acts 16. 13. besides the Church yet how small the embryo of a particular Congregation may be is hard to depose definitively As in all sensitive bodies these three faculties are required to attract to nourish and to expell the same may be said of every Congregationall body It must have power within it self to admit and receive in to nourish and foster those received and to expell or decline that which is noxious But the grand Quere will be Whence this Power is derived Doubt They of the See of Rome lay claim of inheritance to it by succession from Christ and Exam. his Apostles and so exclude as Hereticks all those that usurpe the title of a true Church or Ministry without succession or ordination from them Others even of our brethren in the Reformed Churches do deny this to belong to a Church without some succession or dependency on other Churches Of whom I dedesire the solution of these two Questions Whether a company of godly people being by Quest 1. shipwrack cast into the a barbarous or empty Iland where they are like to live out their dayes may not joyn into a spiritual body and so raise up unto themselves the exercises of all Ordinances revealed in Gods word If any one think that by stating the godly Sol. out of the Church it is a begging of the question he must have recourse unto the former distinction that they are indeed dispersed parts of the Vniversall Church but not organized by union unto Ecclesiasticall duties A multitude but no people Paul when he assayed to joyn himself unto the Church of Jerusalem Acts 9. 26. was as a private man no actuall member of any determinate Church but as an Apostle vertually of all confined to no particular place rather a Father then a Nurse to most of the Churches of the Gentiles Lest any should deny this Demand these things are tendred to their consideration Whatsoever is Spiritually a living body is Spiritually 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfecting it self An Axiom grounded upon Reason Aristotle applyeth it to the Soul of Man But all Believers are Spiritually living Bodies and have an inward principle to build up themselves and others in their holy faith So 1 Thes 5. they are commanded to edifie one another and 1 Pet. 2. the Faithful are called living stones Now presuppose that a company of living stones it is lawful to dispute upon a false Hypothesis meet and joyn together who will doubt but they may and ought to rear up from themselves a perfect Edifice Ephes 2. 21. From this ground arise all Politick Corporations Common-Weals and Kingdoms since a man for his well-being hath need of several things and one alone is not laid in with all kind of Handicraft or Art for a mutual good there is a coalescency So in the Church every one is nor an eye or hand some must act the ear others the foot Semblable is that of Solomon Eccles 4. Wo to him that is alone for if he fall who shall raise him up Again I ask In time of Reformation from Quest 2. Idolatry or profaneness to an Orthodox Holiness Whether there be not the same necessity which there was in the case stated before How shall they be reduced where there is Exam. no Church will be the question The Examples of the Disciples that were sent out by Couples will teach that These Hewers of Stone and Timber did by converting many fit and square them for a Spiritual Edifice If it be answered affirmatively then they may unite together into a Church without succession or dependency on other Churches If not either they must procure some Superltious or profane Minister to receive-in Members to ordain Officers in a true Church which is absurd or else they must stay till they meet with another true Church or Ministry which besides the difficulty favoureth of a Prelatical Jurisdiction of one Church over another of which something in the subsequent Chapter where the difference of Authority and benefit of one Church towards another is more copiously examined Some that meekly yet earnestly contend against this way object two main Arguments The first is It is unlawful to withdraw or separate from a true Church The second is concerning readd Prayer A word to
of mine own Being in the Canicular dayes with some friends about Noon-tide in a high Chamber at Catwick up Zee near to the Arx-Britannica founded as some say by Julius Caesar we espyed a young man going to bathe himself in the main and falling into a hole which a ship newly lanched by the in-coming Flood had made being unexpert in swimming was drowned Two or three hours after we also run down into Sea and found this imprudent man floating the Nucha with the hair of his Neck was all we could discern we brought him to shore but without either hope or trial of recovery That this suddain Fluctuation doth not befall all men is certain But upon this Testimony the truth whereof I hope is beyond the reach of suspition a more sedulous encouragement may be taken for the enquiring of the causes which are somewhat abstruse In Man there be divers parts to be examined in relation to gravity of Water There are Bones Flesh Brain Liver and other Entrails heavier some of which the Water if fully impregnated with Salt shall contend with for Victory in weight There are the Lungs and Fat lighter besides many concavities where upon Anatomy we can see nothing but the empty Cells of the newly removed Spirits Now the body of man as in its several parts it differeth in gravity so doth also one body in its totum from another that in some there need but a small moment to make them equilibrous with the Water Some ridiculously ascribe it to the breaking of the Gall which as in reality so in reason is false The bilious vesicle remaineth intire and full Choller though it produce an incalescency in the Spirits and by it an agility in the members yet doth it afford no levity to the body I doubt not though I never tryed it but icteritions bodies which they give out to proceed from the Gall being suffocated will sink The supine resting on Water without motion onely by retention of Air within the Spungie Lungs doth digitate a reason A culinary Experiment hath in some part given me satisfaction the boyling of Lights in a Pot it is worth our observation to see what a weight it will bear up So if there can be conceived as I know nothing to the contrary an allien heat which the Lungs may acquire either while all the warmth at the point of death doth retreat to the Heart or its heat the refrigerating motion of the Lungs ceasing is derived into their cavernous Vessels and so rarifie the contained Air the reason may without difficulty be conjectured Finally besides that the Sea by all probabilities is salter and so more apt to bear up any body at the flowing then at the ebbe because every Ebbe the River-Waters do more freely intermixe themselves with the saltness of the Sea and the middle Ocean because of its gravity moveth slowest I speak in relation to this individual instance some mens bodies sometimes of the year are proner to a suddainer put refaction which being a new fermentation is accompanied with a further dilating expanse and so advanceth their Fluctuation CHAP. IX Of Remedies IN the disquisition of Therapeuticks I would look first into the home-born shop of Nature the sedulous culture whereof would abridge the number of exotick simples most of which are either adulterared by the avarice of the Merchant or come to our hands corrupted by the long and torrid space of the Voyage In Prophylacticks we see where the pinchingest cold is there the wise Creator hath stored up abundance of Furre and Fuel either Wood Turf or Coal Where an Endemicall Disease doth tyrannize look there for an adequate Alexiterium as the Guajacum where the Venereous scourge had its Commencement The Irish Slat giveth succour to their particular Flux So we shall find Scorbutical Plants to luxuriate where the Scurvie is predominant The Sedum Minus in Sweden The Chamerubus in Norway The Cochlearia in Germany and England and will not abide the French Air which is immune from it either by Seed or Plant as the Physick Professours there did credibly relate unto me Nature is the best Druggist She seemeth also to observe Seasons and Times For when Feavers and Plurisies are most rife which is about the Summer-Solstice then are Papaver Rheas Lettice Purslain with other proper Herbs in their fullest vigour yea as some make it out every Moneth produceth Mersennus its seasonable Fruit respondent to the various disposition of the Body The like might by industry be elaborated in Domestick Purgative and Sudorifick Medicines the use of the former with Phleboromy some Renegadoes of Philosophy which I read a regret have given a Bill of defiance unto and endeavoured with weak Engines to demolish substituting instead of them nothing but their own frothy Fame a thing of as eminent a consequence as absurdity Art is a Servant or Ape of Nature especially in internal Diseases Chirurgery indeed standeth more in want of the help of Man Bones broken or dislocated being left to the sole hand of Nature will never be rightly restored and where it seeth Nature to cure by such means there Art must imitate it Thus in little ones where natural counsel doth work a Cure by vomiting there a circumspect Physitian may upon due consideration supply the place and be Lievtenant to its Leader Neither doth the Purging Medicine corrupt good Humours as they pretend most of the Purges being bitter and so Preservatives against Putrefaction This appeareth in the Embalming of Dead Bodies which preserveth them entire unto many Generations Behold the Dogs and Rats exhibiting unto themselves a dose of Spear-grass for their evacuation either by Vomit or Siege which they never learned from the corruption of Pagan Universities which as a Bone to knaw on thefe Mis-academicks do upon every occasion cast unto us which grass I note by the way doth it rather by its external form with its pricking irritating the Stomack then by any inward offensive quality The same effect not being common to them that have their dentes molares and use rumination Daily experience doth teach besides that warm Water which in so short a time cannot be conceived to corrupt doth as an emetick vehicle often educe superfluous and putrid humours salt or acide Phlegme yellow or black Choller c. with a great alleviation of the Patient As well they may imagine that a Glister of Milk doth in so quick a space breed those Worms which are allured to it and excluded with it Moreover we see in most acute Diseases that by spontaneous Bleeding and that several ways either in Man or Woman sometime also in Children there is by the sole help of Nature a critical Solution Several of Hippocrates Aphorisms which alone are left in credit with these men do astipulate the same But because in Living Bodies we cannot so well demonstrate the industry of Nature within while by its Natural Heat it separateth digesteth and by its unsearchable paths doth banish to
never can arise mutually one to another Cancer which coopeth in our Summer Tropick is a cold Creature and Capricorn the describer 2. of the Winter Tropick hot The conjecture taken from Planets is more uncertain for their Light the Sun excepted being borrowed daily changeth Horns which the Ancients never understood I doubt much whether all those Celestial Lights were made for the use of man since many are of late discovered which without an adventitious telescope the quickest sight on Earth could never have perceived So that if any effect of removing Epidemical Diseases by Telesmes be produced I should rather ascribe it unto the Prince of the Air it being the fittest medium to propagate and so to cure all Topical Missances who will servilly obey such demands that he might perpetually captivate the Soul in a false perswasion of his Omnipotency We are not ignorant of his devices 2 Cor. 2. 11. It is an old Stratagem and An Enemies kindness is a dear Bargain FINIS A STONE TO THE ALTAR OR Some short Disquisitions ON A few difficult Places OF SCRIPTURE By JOHN ROBINSON M. D. LONDON Printed by J. Streater for Francis Titan 1658. The INDEX GEn. 2. 24. Pag. 65 Gen. 8. 10 12. Pag. 67 Gen 48. 22. Pag. 68 Levit. 13. 13. Pag. 69 Levit. 16. Pag. 71 Numb 36. 7. Pag. 72 Deut. 21. ult Pag. 73 Deut. 25. 3. Pag. 75 2 Sam. 6. 3 4. Pag. 79 2 King 2. 20. Pag. 80 Job 3. 3. Pag. 81 Psal 25. 11. Pag. 82 Prov. 24. 16. Pag. 83 Esa 50. 8. Pag. 84 Esa 63. 1. Pag. 86 Esa 66. 7. Ibid. Jer. 31. 22. Pag. 87 Dan. 12. 3. Pag. 88 Math. 3. 14. Pag. 89 Math. 8. 6. Pag. 90 Math. 9. 22. Pag. 91 Math. 27. 37. Pag. 92 Math. 27. 44. Pag. 93 Joh. 20. 17. Pag. 94 1 Cor. 11. 7. Pag. 95 1 Tim. 1. 13. Pag. 97 Heb. 12. 24. Pag. 98 1 Pet. 3. 19. Pag. 100 Revel 12. 11. Pag. 102 TO THE Understanding Christian SEeing God hath left Man no better Rule for the guidance of his Belief and Obedience then his Holy Writ and in the same hath on purpose inserted some knotty places for to make Man more frequent in examination and exercise of his Industry for which cause the Jews had their Oracles delivered unto them without Vowels for it is not a bare word but sense which he intends we should take notice of and every Christian within his sphere ought to promote his truth with modest reverence unto former mens labours I thought it not disadvantageous to the Well wishers of Sion to offer unto them these small Meditations of mine especially having found very few of them and those short in our worthy Predecessours Expositions Neither in the building of the Temple were the laudable endeavors of Inferiours that brought Stone or Morter to be discouraged since it was not given to every one to be a Master-Builder a Bezaliel an Aholiab So neither do I fear any disgust at least from the best sort of men because I have in small measure endeavoured to reach the native sense of these ensuing places wherein I follow no bare Authority of Man the large numerosity whereof together with the uncertainty after pursuit of many tedious Harangues leaveth their Reader in an unsatisfied Resolution the spots of their maintained errours obnubilating the lustre of their asserted truths but rather by the scope of the Text and consonant places I seek to evince the meaning of the words By which if man may have any light and the Father of light have glory it will be a copious return to him that wisheth you all happiness J. R. A STONE TO THE ALTAR Gen. 2. 24. They shall be one Flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 INto one Flesh is the Original Some think that this should have an Aspect to their Production because Eve in the Ribbe was an Off-set of Adam But to be Flesh of our Flesh and Bone of our Bone is also common to our Progeny though the manner of the latter by propagation and the former by division be different yet doth it not impede an Homogeneousness in the derivation of the matter Others take one flesh for one species or kind as if it had been said You shall not mix mans Flesh with the Flesh of Beasts But how that can be as a ground of Marriage I cannot see Many expound that one flesh Ye two shall so joyn that one flesh i. e. your Off-spring may proceed from you having reference to their Posterity which neither doth fit all Marriages for those that are past hope of children should thereby be debarred Then neither in regard of the cause not kind nor effect The words were not Adams but the Spirits by Moses as appeareth by the citation of them by our Saviour Math. 9. 5. To shew that it is the nearest Union except that of Soul and Body which maketh but one person in all the World They two making properly not a Plural but a Dual to speak accurately As one maketh no paucity so no two can amount to a Plurality 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 glued together very significantly the Greeks expound it †This is the true Sarcocolla It might seem strange that God's Command should make a Civil Tye surpass all Natural Obligation but that I love to acquiesce in Ipse dixit Two things though I adde 1. That whether Parental Relation be Natural or Civil is questionable 2. There may nay there ought to be a separation from a Father's house Psal 45. never from a Nuptiall bed The one for distribution of humane society Gen. 8. 10 12. And Noah stayed yet other seven dayes and again he sent forth the dove v. 12. and he stayed yet other seven dayes c. THis man wearied of his prison though he had the whole world in a lively Map before him did often look out for fair weather rather desiring to set his subjects into their Liberty than to hear their groanes arising from abridgment of their due freedome and pristine enlargement But some enquiring the reason of the Seventh day to omit all Pythagorean and Kabbalistical Chimera's whose studies are to magnifie abstracted especially the seventh number would inferre from hence that Noah kept the Sabbath the truth whereof seeing it was instituted in Paradise I can readily embrace but not the reason I think he did it in an Astronomicall respect he by long-lived experience knowing that the Moon every seventh day changing its quadra was if not predominant at least concomitant unto the aestuation of the Sea The good old man measuring perhaps too straightly this cataclysm within the zone and girdle of nature it being likely the first miracle with leave of severer brows that he had seen Gen. 48. 22. I give thee a portion above thy brethren which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and bow To wave the natural reason given by some why the soul should prophesy towards its departure because its standing as
the super scription of the Crosse of Christ and yet not one of them litterally agreeing with another Some make a strange paraphrase upon it My thoughts are that the Holy Ghost setteth down nothing a la vole at random but there is a reason of every iota in that incorruptible System And he foreseeing that the Antichristian brood would idolize that title I. N. R. I. hath on purpose varied the expression in the Elements holding all to the same sense that so there might be no ground left for the canonization of that devised tetragram The same prevention did God of old use with the Jews in the secret burying of the body of Moses which if that people prone to idolatry had discovered would have turned his tomb into superstition The like I conceive of the birth day of our Saviour All the records we have is In the dayes of Herod Whereas other acts of inferior concernment have the year of the reign of the King the month and day registred unto posterity This me-thinketh might in sober-minded men take off the edge of that eager pursuit in the celebration of the Nativity of our Redeemer Though the Grandees in Mathematicks would have the conjunction of the eightht and ninth sphere to have been that day A. M. 3967 in ♈ yet that this account doth differ one two three four or more years and upward many grave Authors have probably concluded Better is a modest sitting down under a dutifull ignorance than the extolling of an uncertain errour Mat. 27. 44. The Theeves also that were crucified with Him cast the same things in his teeth IT is certain by the harmony of the Evangelists that one of these Sufferers was a convert and having faith in Christ did rebuke his fellow It is obvious for the Holy Ghost to put a plurall for a singular or the whole for a part and vice versà In this there is something more The denomination is from the most eminent For this was a notorious valliane His unbelief did overtop the remorse of the believer not in worth but in degree Practically it denoteth the contagion of sin that a guiltlesse person in company should be branded with the infamy of the malefactor See Josh 7. 11. Mat. 26. 8. Here it is a happiness to keep aloof Joh. 20. 17. Iesus saith unto her Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father THese words do not import a naturall or moral absurdity of the touching of Christ Not naturall For by his tangible quality he proveth himself to be no spirit Luke 24. 39. and layeth it in against suspicion of imposture or delusion Nor morall For he biddeth his disciples handle and see him both in a verse one sense being as lawfull as the other vers 27. He biddeth Thomas reach his finger and his hand and touching him thrust it into his side But knowing the strength of Maries faith he would have her live higher then sense On the other side he did condescend to meet with the weaknesse of Thomas's belief and make his outward feeling subservient to the strengthning of his inward faith As leight meat in a robust stomack or stronger viands in a feeble body both are subject to corruption So doth our wise and indulgent Houshoulder bring forth suitable dishes of dispensations according to every ones spirituall disgestion The hardest knot remaineth yet undissolved viz. the coherence of the words Why his not yet being ascended could be a reason of his interdiction of her touching him My conjecture is because at heavens door faith leaveth us or rather is swallowed up by the real fruition of that beatitude which we in this life did but hope for He bid her delay the highest degree of perfection till they should meet in heaven It was enough here that she by her worshipping and Rabboni-ing of him did own his Resurrection Though to live by faith doth argue more fortitude yet to live by sense is more certain and more happy The former most fit for a Souldier Militant the latter proper to a triumphant Victor Whereas it is said Faith is of things nor seen sight is not synecdochically taken for any sense It was a strong evidence of her faith to believe not feeling And thus expounded it may be unto her particular a sufficient reason of her interdiction But from hence to derive a standing rule that Our Saviour's raised body was either Physically or morally intangible sheweth a defect of naturall Logick 1 Cor. 11. 7. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head THe senseof this place to us is contrary to the Letter which seemeth harsh to them who being slaves to syllables do not consider the scope and place where this was written For the intention of Paul was to preferre the man above the woman the subjection of woman being signified by their covering and that naturall v. 15 by naturall must be meant the custome of the place not an internall cause for that is also common to a man I question not but most males would Absolon-like if sciffers were abandoned vye with many women for length of hair as it was a token of superiority to be uncovered which custome pleaseth severall Nations unto this day In the Eastern Countries a servant is not permitted to enter bare-headed into the presence of his Master And the French Potestants do upon the same ground justifie their preaching having their heads covered So some of Hipocrates Aphorisms though with them unfallible oracles transplanted into our nations by losing their lustre contract a suspectednesse and without subscribing to a Protagorean Sceptism That which is true in one place may be false in another 1 Tim. 1. 8. I was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief FRom hence most Divines conclude Paul to have been an unbeliever before Christ appeared unto him yet this may be questioned For he was zealous for the Jewish Religion not yet fully buried brought up at the feet of Gamaliel and according to the rule of charity as we are if judgment will permit bound to construe all things in the most favourable sense he did trust in the seed of the woman Shiloh the Messiah the individuum vagum though through ignorance he wot it not to be the Son of Mary Else I know not how to construe 2 Tim. 1. 3. And Acts 23. 1. I thank God whom I serve from my forefathers with a good conscience I doubt not but the Eunuch Acts 8. before Jesus was preached unto him by Philip was a believer Apollo no lesse Acts 18. Conversion after conversion you find in as eminent an Apostle Luk. 22. 32. Mat. 18. 3. I know that the habits of all graces are infused together yet the emanation of them by degrees in Scripture-idiom is a new conversion or conversion renewed as well in the extense as in the intense Finally for in-measure they were his own aggravating depressing words to extoll
as the learned Author doth rationally deliver § 12. of this Chapter And if their poison cease I should scarce trust their antipoison yet the plague after many years sleep in linnen or wollen will awaken and rage by the testimony of our predecessours backt with our own experience Chap. 27. The yellownesse of the stomack and gutts in the chicken doth not necessarily argue its nourishment on the yolke though I believe the thing yet not the reason For the same colour is apparent in all new-born babes except with some Omnia ex ovo which in a Metaphorical and florid sense may be admitted with a Rhetoricall strain but in a Physicall demonstration in strict termes is hard to be understood BOOK IIII. CH. 1. That sitting is not proper to Man only the several kinds of Apes by their untaught Mimicks and Dogs by teaching will draw it into question If sitting upon the ground or flat may come under that denomination Man can do no more than these beasts and will make a cute Angles between Back Thigh and Leg bone though inverted as do irrational animals And beasts will upon seats make as right Angles two lines to an Angle as doth man Ch. 5. The uncertainty of generating males by a ligature of the left testicle may more solidly be refuted because in congress the males right is the females left which left side is not thought the proper place for masculine conception so that this conceit falleth by its own weight Neither was this arrow full drawn home to the head Some probability there might be in those creatures which ingender by infilition There are three kinds of Being Real Rational and Modal the latter is neither of the former but more then Rational yet lesse then Real Such is this relative site The want of which accurate distinction bringeth one into a maze of confusion Ch. 6. That fat bodies do soonest float there is an errour à non causâ ad causam The true reason is that they have lesse proportionable weight depressing them then lean bodies If the whole body were fat it would never sinke Not that fat is under water more prone unto fermentation which is the cause alledged We besprinkle our almonds in beating with Rose-water to preserve them from restiness To speak properly Oyly or fat bodies scarce grow rotten but rancid Neither doth fat so readily symbolize with air as the Schools teach Let oyl grease or tallow be boyled unto vapours and I will believe super-infused it will preserve liquours fresh excluding all allien air By the same reason it defendeth iron from rust and locketh up faithfully whatsoever it is intrusted withall To say it will soon conceive a flame is no satisfactory argument for the same happeneth unto chalk-coal which yieldeth no smoak the product of kindled fatness Besides when the acme of fermentation is over except there be at the very height of it a fixation from some external cause the subject will fall into a more compacted gravity Ch. 7. There may be a mistake in a blown bladder about the weight of it if either the bladder be moist and then with extension it dryeth or if it be blown up with the breath of man which containeth some water Further Gold foliated and feathers expansed will not weigh so much nor fall so swiftly as the same will being contracted Smoak rarified doth ascend but being condensated into soot its nature is to descend The common road of conception and production of rain is an ancient and sufficient testimony Ch. 10. If the Small-pox have their Original from some quality in the Menstruum imprinted upon the child in time of gestation It must needs follow that this disease is endemical to the whole world because of the universality of its cause The truth whereof is worthy examination and unto mine as far as travellers report is to be credited the assertion is seconded That others undergo them never others often is according to the disposition of the receiver Ch. 12. The measuring of the motion of bodies doth teach us their duration No duration then to the center either of earth or heavens because destitute of motion If it be replyed the motion need not to be in the thing but either in the Sun or Earth neither is that absolutely true For a motion of either up-upon its own axis if the body be homogeneous which is questioned concerning the Sun will be no rule of measure A loco-motion will be requisite How far shall Saturn out-dure the Moon A step higher There may be a time of duration without motion as were the three first days before the Creation of Sun or Stars There was a flux of time in the dayes of Joshua when the Sun stood still This Philosophers call interval time Ch. 13. If since the world began Syrius arose in ♉ and before its end may have its ascent in ♠by that compute the world's glass should run yet 12000 years And where are then the last times wherein the Apostles lived Sed meliora spero BOOK V. CH. 4. Might not these words have been spared In Paradise there was no creature hurtful Since there was none the Devil excepted all the world over It might with better reason have been questioned Whether there were any Medical Plants I think to say any Therapeutick Medicines were existent before a disease be in nature is frustraneous But that they had then a Prophylactick vertue to prevent all seminaries of maladies may easily be understood The Botanicks comprehend corn trees and fruit within the tome of their Herbals Rosins might be a preservation against rain and darkness As other Physical Plants so Rubarb might serve for food to some creature Many things stand for symmetry and complement of the Universe But to speak with the Schools there were remedies in Innocency radically and potentially but not actually and formally So was repentance and commiseration in sinless Adam Ib. There was a natural ability in Eve after impregnation with a boy without imperfecting the Creation as she had killed the soul so to destroy the body of Adam without the abolishment of a Species But this would I confess have ushered in many moral absurdities Ch. 5. That Adam should be created without a Navel because he was not nourished that way I see no necessary consequence For it is of all sides granted that to the same part of the body do appertain several offices Now if for the Navel be taken the out-side only it serveth to the Umbo of the belly for a Center in way of ornament or for an emunctory Nature many times curing Dropsies that way Of like use are Paps to men If for the Navel be understood the Vasa umbilicalia the inward Ligaments Adam could not spare them they serving to hold up the Liver and Blather the excision of them bringeth sudden death which kind of punishment is according to the Historians in use with the Egyptians A Skar is a defect in the skin But the outward