the North is the highest part of the created World 89 That this Earth is above the Water And that the middle part of this Earth is not the common Centre to which all heavy bodies do naturally descend 89 90 91 Q. Whether that darkness which doth distinguish and separate between the Night and the Day in a large Day be but the want or privation of Light and so mere nothing And which was first the Darkness or the Light 91 to 103 The discoveries here are that Darkness has a Created Being and doth truly subsist 91 92 That Created Light is a mere accident without but that it has an essentiated substance and has a good perfect subsistence of its own distinct from the Sun 92 134 That Darkness and Light do make a natural large Day which doth begin at the Evening Wherein are divers other useful things opened about Evening Darkness Night and Morning Light Day Weeks Months Winter Summer and Years Time Minutes and Hours 92 to 103 Concerning the Created Work of the Second Day Q. Whether all those upper Waters Such as Rain Dew Hail Snow and the like between which and the lower Waters comprehended under the name of Seas such as Springs Fountains Rivers Lakes and the like the out-spread or expanded doth separately divide do come down from above this Expanse Or are they caused in the Air by some influencing operativeness of the Heavenly Luminaries upon the moistness and watriness here below drawing up such vapours from hence as do condeuse in the cold middle Region of the Air and are there turned into those distilling drops which come down here below VVhether the Air be the proper place where the upper VVaters are generated 103 to 106 Here it is evidenced from the Word that the Rain and such other upper Waters is not generated by the Heavenly Luminaries But that it doth come down from above this blew visible Expanse 103 104 105 Concerning the Created Work of the Third Day Q. Whether the exactest fullest Herbal of Herbs Grasâ— Trees and Plants be not treasured up in the Scriptures of Truth opening this great secret of Created Nature best setting out the Doctrine and use of them both for Feeding and for Healing 106 The answer to this doth open much of the Nature Vertues Vses Kinds Places Cherishers Hurters of Herbs with much more of their usefulness for man both for Food and for Medicine It doth stir up Physicians and Cooks to study the Herbal-Art more in a Scripture-way in order to the promoting of bodily health 106 to 113 Of the Fourth Days VVork Q. Whether the Coelestial Phaenomena Of the glorious Luminaries can ever be reduced to any certain satisfactory Art or improved into an advanced restaâ—red Science by vain Philosophy Or must this be attained only by Scripture-discovery in its pursued Light and followed Directions 113 It is here made manifest that vain Philosophy can never teach this it is only learn'd in the Scriptural-School 113 114 115 That the Scriptures do condemn Judiciary Astrology as it is commonly understood and practised to be Groundless Scriptureless Natureless Superstitious Vain and Sinful 115 to 124 That the Sun is not the Centre of the World 124 125 That the Moon is really in its Created Being a great Light 125 That Eclipses of the Sun and Moon have not the proper true causes of them assigned by Philosophers 125 126 That Earth and Seas are not in the Moon Page 126 Of the Fifth Days VVork Q. Whether that part of Natural History which doth concern Fowls Fishes Beasts and Worms can ever be completed into a Natural Art in the way of Ethnick Philosophy Or must we search after it only in the Word of Truth where only it can be advanced and perfected by a due and diligent comparing of their Created Beings in their proper Natures 127 Here is demonstrated that this natural Art is not found in tâ—e way of Ethnick Philosophy and that the Word of Truth alone can advance and perfect this Natural History 127 to 135 That Art rightly discovered is but Nature truly opened 127 That the Mother-tongued-Hebrew should not be sent to Daughter-Languages to learn to speak 128 That there was not a first prae-existent Matter out of which all other Creatures were made 128 129 130 131 That Matter and Motion are not the Essences of things 130 That all and every of the Creatures were immediate distinct Works of Aelohim's Power 128 to 131 That the Creator hath assigned his Creatures to their proper Localities 131 That the World was not from Eternity but had a beginning 131 132 That Time Place and Number are not of the Nature of different things particularly as applyed to worship 131 132 That the LORD in Scripture and Nature has determined the circumstances of worship 132 133 That some Scripture History is also Prophetical and Promissory 134 135 That it is worthy of further inquiry whether Vau be conversive of the Praeterit into the Future or of the Future into the Praeterit 134 135 That Jehovah Aelohim is still putting forth continued acts of preferring and of blessing his Creatures 134 135 That the first Created Light is a Substance truly subsisting in it self and in its Created Nature 134 see also 92 That Beasts and Worms do belong to the Creatien work of the Sixth day And that the gathering in of the lower Waters into the Seas was a part of the Creators Work on the Second Day 134 135 Concerning the Created Work of the Sixth Day Q. Whether Anthropology or the Doctrine of Created Adam or the knowledge of Man or the Science of the Humane Nature be sufficiently taught in the Schools and Lectures of Ethnick Philosophers Or is it only contained in and augmentable and reâ—staurable by the Word of Truth and the holy Spirits teaching of serious inquiries this Art according to those holy Scriptures 136 The discovery here is that Anthropology or the Doctrine of Created Adam or the knowledge of Man or the Science of the Humane Nature is not sufficiently taught by Ethnick Philosophy and the Readers or Writers of it but by the Scriptures of Truth and the holy Spirits instructing in and hy the Scriptures 136 to 158 That man's make is admirable 136 137 That no mere Creature made man but he had his Being distinct from other Creatures immediately by and from Aelohim 136 137 That Man was Created with the Image and Likeness of Aelohim upon him 136 137 That the Female was Created distinct from the Male and but one Female was appointed for one Male in Marriage at the Beginning where is also discovered the sinfulness of Polygamy and of Divorce 138 to 148 That it deserves a further inquiry whether where-ever this Word Adam is found in the Original it should not be rendred Adam when translated into other Languages 148 149 Also whether the fruitful propagating of Mankind by conjugal Generation be not still a Fruit and effect of Aelohim's first Blessing upon Adam and Eve 149
all created Beings whose demonstrations are either from the Creator to the knowledge of the Creatures or from the Creatures to the knowledge of the Creator Solomon was one of the wisest of men the LORD gave it to him so to be and he spake and wrote much about Natural Things concerning the Works of the several Days particularly Scripture-Physicks he was excelling in the knowledge of Grass of Herbs of Trees of Beasts of Fowls of Fishes of Creeping Things of contemplating of the Natural Body of the Heavens of the Earth of the Seas and of the Abyss out of his Writings much might be discovered of the nature of these in his Books of the Proverbs of Ecclesiastes and of his Song of Songs incomparably beyond what can be found in all the large Libraries of Ethnick Philosophers or any other Naturalists amongst such of the Christians as have received their apprâ—hensions about these things out of those Pagan Rationalists who yet are great stâ—â—ngers unto that which is the right Reason and the true Nature of these â—â—ings and so will they also be who follow them without a Scripture-guide He that will ask what lawful necessary useful Art and Science can be named of which there is not that to be found in the Scriptures of Truth which if thrâ—â—â—â—ly understood and collected and then applyed and improved in fitting in to 〈◊〉 very Essence and Operations of created Beings would bring a very considerable addition to sound profitable knowledge and whoever would undertake to return somewhat to satisfaction by way of answer in a multitude of particular instances Theoretick and Practick such as Grammar Logick Rhetorick Mnemonick Physicks Metaphysicks Mathematicks Arithmetick Geometry Cosmography Opticks Musick Astronomy Geography Geodeticks Staticks Nauticks Architecture Schematicks Ethicks Economicks Politicks History Poesie Ecclesiasticks Scholasticks Chronologie Chirography Law Theology Christianity Medicine in all the Botanick Anatomick Pharmaceutick and Chirurgick parts of it together with all the Mechanicks which are more than I can reckon up may easily and quickly foresee even by such an enumeration as this is that such an universal comprehensive of all Liberal Sciences afterwards distinctly parcelled out into the several knowledges professed and practised would both take up too much of his time and over-bulk any one Treatise and is much beyond the skill and the strength of any one mere man One of our own has lately asserted a deficiency in the Scriptures as to these matters and doth send us elsewhere for a Supplement mentioning several Arts and Sciences as no where to be found in Scripture I shall single out two of them which are of his own chusing and naming and then try them according to the Word whether much of their Art be not to be found out in the Scripture with a little search which when compared with and experimented by the natural efficiency of their innate and educed Existencies and Workings would bring in an augment to their Science thought it be not my intendment or undertaking to draw up Systems and Schemes of the several particular knowledges but to quicken up the studious and ingenious to promote these Scientificks more by putting that together which the Scriptures do afford relating to each of them and then to work upon their discovery by practical improvement and experimental observation This Learned man declared his judgement to be that the Scripture is no perfect Rule for a Musician a Carpenter a Physician a Mathematician an Astronomer a Geographer an Arithmetician a Grammarian a Logician a Natural Philosopher c. to do their Work Because saith he it is not a particular Rule for them in Arts and Sciences the things whereof are not to be found in the Scripture at all neither doth he assert the Scriptures an imperfect Rule only for these and such like as these but also for Divines and for Worshippers as if the Scripture did not tell the Divine sufficiently and particularly divers things relating to his office and the discharge of it and as if the worshipper were not to expect there particular Laws or Rules for all the circumstances of worship Thus and to this purpose he If it be not a perfect particular Rule for these two last mentioned the Divine and the Worshipper for what Artists and Scientiaries is it a perfect particular Rule For these affirmations do charge the Scripture with being an imperfect Rule as to particular Laws and Rules not only as to Natural Things but also as to Spiritual it should be considered by such who are of this perswasion whether they do not hereby lift up Church-History and Humane Authority in the matters of Faith to the debasing and denying of Scriputre-perfection and also corrupt modes and forms of Worship such as are of Humane Invention Institution and Imposition exclusive of other ways of Worship where these are not asserted and consented to both which the whole Scripture doth condemn At this present it being suited to the subject I have in hand about the advancement of useful Arts and Sciences by making a more through disquisition after them in the Word of Truth I shall cull out two of these Artists who my self am of neither of their Arts nor do I pretend to have Scientificies in them which may so far prove and praise this design the more that one whose Calling and Function whose Office and Profession is not to be either Musician or Carpenter yet in the supply of the holy Spirit by a little short study of the Scriptures in the midst of a multitude of other employments can discover so much in Christ's Word about Musick and Carpentry wherem I am to shew that these are found in the Scripture both as to name and thing and that there is a Rule in the Scripture for these things and that God hath made the Scripture to be a Rule for them and that in the Scripture there are not only general Rules but also particular Rules of those Arts and Sciences which done I shall propound some inquiries about Geography and Grammar Some of the other Arts that are mentioned I may have occasion to treat somewhat of upon the particular Works of the particular Days of the first Week of the created World As for Musick the skilful therein will bear with me if I do not in some of my expressions so fully harmonize with their Terms of Art as they have learned and received them I expect they should approve and forward the design which would raise their Ear-taking and their Heart-affecting-knowledge in this to more Sweetness and Savouriness more Exactness and Spiritualness more Naturalness and Scripturalness as relating to instituted Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs which are heavenly parts of Spiritual Worship more especially with respect to the voice not at all to countenance the common abuse of this Art when it is suited to carnal lustful hearts in amorous wanton ditties or to other profane corrupt ends whatsoever which has been in woful sinful experience a ruining
Catholick admittance no man can give an account but with respect to some impressions on the minds of men from the Constitution and Law of our Natures with the Tradition of a Sabbatical Rest instituted from the Foundation of the World A Week is spoken of as a known account of Days in Time Thus they acknowledge As also that those of the Philosophers who resolved their Observations into things Natural or Physical do esteem the Septenary Number Sacred A Septenary Revolution of Days unto which they found a respect in all their Notions and Speculations about the Pleiades and Triones in Heaven Lunar changes sounds of Instruments variations in the age of Man critical Days in bodily Distempers and transactions of Affairs private and publick I so far make use of this as to shew that if such Authors would but improve their own convictions and concessions they might be spirited and sublimated into an asserting of something of Honour inseparable from the Natural Being of the Seventh-day The order of which Day is not to be disturbed Another of them acknowledgeth that there have been some difference and variation in the account of Years and Months with people yet never was the Week counted to be more or less than seven Days with any people In all Ages among all Nations the Seventh-day has been venerable and sacred I might put more of such Testimonies together were there need But it is the Authority of holy Scripture and of created Nature that sways with me It is observable in prophetical Scripture by Daniel that the Weeks are there said to be cut off as the words do properly signifie The Verb of the singular Number being put to a word of the plural Number doth evidently shew that every one of the Weeks from the first to the last shall be precisely and absolutely complete It was a precise cutting off The first Week of the created World was the fittest time for the giving forth of the Law of the Seventh-day-Sabbath because the ground of the Institution of this weekly Sabbath was Aelohims manifesting by his Words and Works that in that same Week he perfected both the working Days and the resting Day he rested upon the self same Seventh-day when the memory of his great and glorious Works was so new and fresh So agreeable is this to created Nature in the Exercise of right Reason especially when enlightned by Scripture-Revelation within the compass of one and the â— same Week reckoning still forward according to Created Order it is impossible to find out any proper Seventh-day but only the last Day of the Week This boundary of the Week being unremoveable and commanded to be kept Holy And this Doctrine of the Weeks is every where preserved in the several Languages which have words for a Week Because it is that discovery which is of use and is not every where to be met withal by a common Reader and it having some tendency towards the clearing up of some subject matters in this Treatise and towards the perfection of a Reformation which is also much of my design let not the ingenuous Reader think it too long a diversion if I here detect somewhat of the idolatry and superstition which is still to this day continued in this Nation and in other Countries by publick and private retaining and using of the Heathenish names of Days as Sanday Monday c. as also of Months such as January February c. so that he that shall speak in the present Age according to Scripture though in his own and their Mother Tongue yet is scarcely understood by the most and what is shameful and lamentable by multitudes of a professing Ministery and people Whereas hath not Jehovah Aelohim strictly charged his people that in all that which he hath said unto them they shall be wary and the name of other gods they shall not mention it shall not be heard out of their Mouth O take we heed unto our selves that we do not transgress in this matter Hath he not foretold that he will take away the Names of Baalim out of the mouths of his Servants that he will cut off the names of the Idols out of the Land Did not God's Israel of Old when and whilst their hearts were right with him practice accordingly changing of the old idolatrous places and putting new names upon them Did not zealous Joshuah take order about his our LORD Jesus Christ after whom his Disciples must walk would not take up the names of after-Idol gods upon his lips Examine we now somewhat of the Original and occasion of the Pagan names of Days and of Months As for Days the beginning Day of the Week they call Sunday The Germans when they were Pagans Verstegan saith consecrated the first Day of the Week to the Sun as Prince of Planets whose Image they placed on a Pillar in the Temple fashioned like a man half naked his face as it were bright red with gleams of Fire and holding with his Arms bowing Archwise a burning wheel before his breast the Wheel being to signifie the course which he runneth round about the World and the fiery gleams and brightness the light and heat wherewith he warmeth and comforteth the things that live and grow The Sun was the chief God of the Persians That Adoration and religious Worship which some gave to the Sun is forbidden in the Scripture condemned in the Egyptians in other Nations and in the Jews themselves the LORDs people who herein imitated the Heathen worshipping with their faces turned towards the East The Heathens worshipped the Planets as Gods and some will tell us how the Seven Planets do give denomination to the seven Days of the Week and what Planet reigneth every hour in every Day unto each of the seven Planets they dedicated a Day and called it by the name of that Planet which had the first hour of that Day the Appellation from the Planets seems much ancienter than that invention from the hours which I shall after a few lines write of so that these names of the Days of the Week were not by the Pagans first imposed from the Planetary hours but rather the superstition of this appellation of the Days was derived into the Hours The names of the seven Planets are these Sol Venus Mercury Luna Jupiter Marsâ— which seven Planets these men would have to govern twenty four hours in a Natural Day the first Planet hath the first Hour the second hath the second and so unto the seventh Again the first Planet hath the eighth Hour the second the ninth so unto the fourteenth afterwards the first Planet hath the fifteenth Hour the second the sixteenth and so forth to one and twentieth then yet again the first Planet hath the two and twentieth Hour the second the twenty third the third Planet the twenty fourth Hour and so the whole Natural Day of twenty four Hours is finished and ended the fourth Planet that followeth shall
such unfruitful Studies are so many and so tedious for they make art to be long and Life to be short whereas Word-Study and Scripture-Learning would make Art short and Life long that those who do waste their precious time in these worthless labours do find the prime of their day and the vigorousness of their age even decaying and dying away before they know aright what to know and how to live Some who have had that University honour put upon them to be called Masters of Arts yet have afterwards experienced that they had little else but the name and have look'd upon those years as the corrupted education then was to have been the void space of their life which would have been the choice season of their time if Tutors had put them in a right way of Scriptural Learning One of the skilfullest advancers of Humane Learning in one of the most laboured and best wrought Treatises upon that Subject has in the close of his Book given a short prospect of a new world of Sciences or the deficients of them fifty in number and he that shall make use of his Directory to attain these yet would though he lived to old age bring in an ignoramus for the Verdict when he comes to die Whereas all those and more so far as they are necessary and useful might have a clearer discovery and a fuller supplement in Scripture and in Nature according to Scripture were it throughly searched into for that end If Heathenish Philosophy did not strangely bewitch and awe young Scholars with a respect of the Authority and a greatning of the names of its Authors and an esteem of the multitude of its Books which do so fill the Shops and Libraries and with the difficulty of making many of its notions and distinctions and obscure terms reconciled to some degree of intelligent sense after so much dispending of Time and of Coyn its price would fall in the Printers Market and its trade go down in the Booksellers Shop How little can there be of certitude in that way where all must resolve into fallibleness of Authority and falaciousness of Testimony or into pretended evidence of forced experiments which may be variously effected whilst the intrinsick Natures and genuine causalities of created Beings and of their products are altogether hidden from such great adorers of Humane Wisdom as count themselves and would be so esteemed by others to be if not the only yet the mostly learned men in the world and who would have their dictates to be received as inerring and their traditions as incontrolable whereas their assertions do end in doubtfulnesses and their stating of questions is not definitively demonstrating but still the judgement of the pondering Reader must suspend it self and look further for satisfaction How many Essences and verities are there which Ethnick Philosophy cannot reach the clear understanding whereof it can never attain unto of its self neither are they any other way fully discovered unto us but by the Scripture revelation What meerâ— Philosopher by all his art and industry can with certitude inform my understanding what the System of the created World is how it was made and set up what the positure of the whole Creation is in what place and order every thing is which is the uppermost and what the lowermost part of it what there is above this blew visible expanse or extended Heaven or firm out-spread what kind of existencies the Heavenly Luminaries are what all the constitutive parts of men are particularly what the spirit of man is what his soul is and how these are distinct and whether separable so as that yet both may live apart from each other at the same time what the proper seats of the intellect faculties in man are where is the Wise where is the Scribe where is the Inquirer of this age who without word-light can lead me into the certain knowledge of the manner of the formation of all and every of beings what that was which put them into their first Essence what the beginning of the Creature which God created is and how many years have elapsed since that time to this present annual revolution where and when Chronologers must begin and how to carry on their Computation of time who amongst the Learned of this World can ascend into Heaven and infallibly assure me what Treasuries of Creatures there are there what the work and priviledges of the Elect Angels and of the perfectly Sanctified Spirits are there what the glorious appearances of the ever blessed Jehovah Aelohim in Father Son and Holy Spirit are there which of them can so descend into the Abyss as to bring me the truest information from thence where the great Gulph is that is between Heaven and Hell what and where the place of Hell is where are the several Chambers of darkness below and of light above For although the Gulph and Hell are open before the all-seeing Jehovah yet are they far out of sight and off from the knowledge of men on Earth by any mere humane disquisition or discovery Who of these Philosophers can by their own natural ability throughly convince me of the true Doctrine and of the real nature of invisibles which yet now they are revealed are not incredibles Can any of them return a satisfactory answer to those questions which the LORD propounded unto Job Do not they themselves judge divers things to be undiscoverable by any mere man as the essential forms and the true differences of things especially that of man What are all and every of the proper and real causes which are so productive of so many wonderful effects in the World How defectively imperfect how unsetledly conjectural are their inquiries concerning the Celestial Bodies about their Spheres their Orbs their divers Poles their first Moveable their contrary motion of Renitencie their Circles Eccentricks and Epicycles Interstellare Substances Progressions Stations Retrogradations Elevations Declinations Apogees Perigees Diurnal Motions which some do fancy of the whole Heavens and others do dream of the whole Earth with a multitude of such like Astronomical Suppositions which they would ground upon some Phaenomena cunningly devising how to defend their own invented Hypotheses against Objections and setting up such feigned Fabricks as may not be exposed to so many exceptions and contradictions as the fictitious conceits of others before them are liable unto So that they have been forward to triumph over others if their own excogitated opinions have not been confutable by the common received principles whilst themselves do not believe their own suppositions to be the true nature of the things themselves how then can they perswade others that their discoveries are real and profitable and that they might hold the World yet further on in ignorance and in darkness they daringly affirm the Scriptures not to afford light in these matters Whereas these alone can set mens understandings right about the verity of beings which cannot by
sound knowledge This design that I am now promoting doth not interdict School education nor forbid Scientifick Exercises but it doth set both Teacher and Learner in a right way VVhither can we go to fetch a perfect Supplement for deficiencie in Arts but from the VVord no where else is there an unerring rectification of the crooked variations of Sciences but here VVere Students once well perswaded that this Scripture-method and way of attaining knowledges were passable and plain and the walk there experienced to be safe and easie how could it then be any other than pleasant travelling which doth so directly lead to so great a profit where all is best suited not only to the future eternal happiness of Believers but also to the present wising of the VVorld gratifying at once both the speculative Inquirer and the mechanick Artificer where both an augmentation of many useful particularities and a melioration of the whole of gainful Learning would be met with Expected occasions are flying away from me now as many of them have already taken wing and are gone and therefore ere a stop be put to my breathing here below I would by a Scripture-hand conduct a little that the more wise and skilful may come on and lead others further forward I should gladly have sat down as a teachable Disciple at the feet of some well-grown Instructer and would delightfully do so still if others better furnished and more accomplished and who have more opportunities and advantages would more throughly inform both themselves and others in the true state of this scientifical project Here may be at once both the true increase of useful Learning and the real promoting of an Holy Life This sound Scripture-knowledge is the only cure of arted Phantasms and the proper means of being awakened out of scientifick Dreams Here the regenerate intellect of the New Creature gets quick acquaintance with the true reasons of things and his inlightned mind is familiar in its converse with real existencies here are set before his view clear Aspects from invisible Objects and his inner man can commune with unseen talkers which do give him ready access into the better Country of the other VVorld The Scriptures are composed not only for contemplative felicity but also for practical business being exactly suited to all weightiness of affairs and to all the powers of an operative life The orderly working and the real usefulness of created Beings is to be directed unto her all the Philosophers in the world with all their Books have noâ— that profitable Learning in them which the four and thirty first Verses of the Bible have treasured up in them Here the meditating inquirer may get the knowledge of those distinct works of the Creator in their six proper days foregoing which works are the visible Signets and the lively Impressions of the comely Excellencies of the glorious Maker till the believing Soul cometh and passeth into its rest and to sweet satisfaction sensibly enjoyeth its holy Sabbath in Him on the seventh which is the last the closing day of the week this being much of my present purport and design drift and scope in this Treatise from the several days of the first week of the Created VVorld and the established unchangeable Laws thereof to propound some profitable inquiries from each days productions such as may have a direct tendency to the real advancement of useful Learning and then opening somewhat of my own apprehensions from the collating of other Scriptures concerning the matters queried such of them as are profitably handled for several others will be little if any thing more than barely propounded and so left to further disquisition In this undertaking there is no just cause for any to be either an humorous Envyer or a quarrelsome Contender or a troublesome Backbiter or a treacherous Enemy or a false Friend let him but love Christ and believe the VVord and approve the Enterprise and promote the Design and better the Plot I have much of my desire so far where any will meliorate it he shall have my Prayers and Testimony for him In this age of such diffused rovings of mind and of such wandring expatiations of imaginations my walking Soul has then the more quiet resting place when it gets and keeps within Scripture-doors and there freely converseth with Christ In this word each Artist may find out his Mystery and get skill with a little cost by plainly reading the imprinted Characters of the useful nature of his lawful Profession Here real Learning wears the Honour of its Crown and true wisdom is beautified with the dignity of its advancement in the several Sciences here the King may be skilled in the Art of Empire and the Magistrate may be wised in the Science of Government here the Counseller may know how to advise and the Warriour may be taught how to fight here the Astronomer may best understand the Heavens and the Luminaries there here the Geometrician may learn how to measure and the Arithmetician how to number the Physician how to cure the Surgeon how to heal the Anatomist how to dissect the Apothecary how to compound the Sea-man how to sail the Architect how to build the Musician how to modulate the Logician how to argue the Geographer how to situate the Chronologer how to compute the Rhetorician how to perswade the Historian how to Record the Carpenter how to rule the Joyner how to frame the Advocate how to plead the Minister how to preach the Cosmographer how to systeme the Husbandman how to manure These and other Artists in other honest Trades would find their God instructing and teaching them concerning the rightest way and the fittest manner to manage and to carry on their several Functions with success through his blessing upon their labours all their affairs would then be ordered with more discretion and prudence even the Hedger the Mason and the Carpenter would experience Scripture-wisdom to have an excellency of rectification in it to direct them how to do their work aright What shall I say more consider well what those Arts and Sciences are which are lawful useful and necessary and then let inquiry be made whether their Conduct and Augment may not be found in the Word incomparably beyond what any or all Philosophick Books of mere Humane Wisdom can skill in here is the Spring and Fountain of all true good Learning Scripture-knowledge has the clearest light and gives the most certain information affording the most pure and satisfying delights This doth hold the refined Intellect and the discerning Mind close unto it and doth fill it with high holy heavenly pleasures still feeding a spiritual appetite as it is taken in and yet exciting it with new desires of injoyiug more there being yet a further discovery of abounding knowledge in these later days Here is a separation of Truth from Errour here the true real causes of Errour are assigned and manifested It is not said that men do
a vain daring boldness for a worm-man to assert that the Seventh-day is not the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God and thou mayst do work therein when this great Lawgiving King of kings and LORD of Lords doth so expresly affirm and command the Seventh-day is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God thou shalt not do any work When men will use more faithfulness and diligence to be better skilled in the literal significancy of the Original Language they will see cause to admire the Wisdom of Aelohim who has so self-evidencingly put things into words especially in these two parts of Scripture the History of the Creation and the Law of the ten words The vain affectation of Humane Wisdom which doth thrust upon the credulity of so many a Doctrine of probabilities concerning the works of Creation and Natural Things from Anti-Christian and unscriptural Philosophy but is not according to Christ and to his Word is such a deceitful way of false reasoning as makes a prey of Souls and is carefully to be avoided and is but falsly named Science THose who take the Holy Spirit to be their Leader and Conducter and the Holy Scriptures to be their Rule and their way may upon due search discover this The smooth-tongued Orators the deceitful Sophisters the vain Philosophers of this World they their Sayings and Writings are not a firm ground for a believing Disciple of Christ to bottom his Faith upon for as much as they are but slightly superficial and scarce likely's the ground-work of their Learning being but Humane Fiction and self-conceited imagination such a Doctrine of Probabilities as we are cautioned against That Philosophy and Wisdom which is derived from the Invention and Tradition of fallible men and is according to the Elements of this World and not according to Christ is a spurious wisdom not to be owned by the followers of Christ what a many of the Questions and Disputations in Ethnick Philosophy is there about Elements which the Scripture doth speak expresly at and against That Wisdom which is a worldly humanely-invented wisdom is judged by the Scriptures of Truth to be a terrene wisdom suited to the earthly designs of covetous worldlings to be animal fitted to the voluptuous Arts of sensual Souls and to be devilish framed to the proud Models of ambitious Climbers This corrupt wisdom is mischievous in the bad Fruits and the evil effects thereof how prone to quarrelsome litigiousness how contradictingly opposing of the Truth how impudently immodest how headstrongly inswasible how devoid of good Fruit how full of emulating disputes of fallacious brables of over-reaching controvertings observe in experience and see and say whether it doth not puff men up making them sick about Questions about strifes of words about verbal distinctions when every word almost in a debate is wrested and wryed to a multiplicity of meanings and a variety of senses about which they would endlesly cavil and craftily equivocate from whence have started up so many Sects in Philosophy and thereby in Theology too teaching another Doctrine and they who teach this do not come up to the wholesome words of our LORD Jesus Christ and to the Doctrine which is according to right Worship from such are Christ's Disciples to withdraw their unscripturally-curious concertations and their empty unprofitable disputations do shew a corrupt mind and do bewray a devoidness of Truth Heathenish Philosophy would turn men aside from Christ who is the true full essential Wisdom and from his instituted Worship unto carnal reasonings and a corrupt service Paul's manner of arguing in these Cases was from the true sound knowledge of Created Beings and of Natural Things Thus he convinced the Athenian Philosophers who generally counted Word-learning to be but verbal-babling and a proclaiming of new Demons or Devils and he expresly declareth against Greekish-Ethnick-Philosophers The Epicurean and Stoick Philosophers were some of the most violent opposers of and subtil adversaries against the Christian Doctrine and what shall rising Graduates in Christian Academies as they grow new and further proficients in Learning be still sworn unto the words of these Pagan Magistralists What can we expect from mere Animal or Physical men but a worldly Wisdom and humane Learning that which is foolishness whilst themselves are foolish the foolishness as these men do miscount it of God is wiser it is their animality and want of spirituality that doth put them upon mis-judging of this to be foolishness The Grecanical wise men are much in searching after that wisdom which doth chiefly consist in speculation or contemplation the wisdom of the incredulous Jews is more conversant about visible signs and ocular demonstrations for without such sensible confirmations as these they will not believe though multitudes of them in the days of Christ and of his Apostles did still continue infidels in the very face of miraculous attests Both these Wisdoms are distinguished and divided from that Wisdom which is of God whose Foundations is Jesus Christ and his Word the Disciples of Christ especially those of them who are in the office of the Ministery are to keep the depositum of sound Scripture-doctrine they are actually to be averse from profane clamours about empty vanities which do affix unto words such a sense as is wholly alien from their true proper significancy and which by sophistical School-distinctions do keep wrangling about Phrases to pervert their plain right meaning and do wrest some Scriptures they understand not wrongfully accommodating them to maintain some Error or to defend some Vice There have been such as have boasted much of their profound knowledge this way who have both themselves erred from the scope concerning the Faith and have misled others also It is a false assertion to affirm this or that is true in Philosophy though in Scripture it be found otherwise For if Scripture-truth do contradict it then that which is so contradicted is not a truth but an error however Philosophy miscal it true introduced by the Father of lies Where any Philosopher did assert any thing about the Creation according to the Truth there they had it either from the Word or by their outward Observation and experience from Senses agreable to the Word some of them either had the knowledge of God's Word and did read the first Books of Scripture or at least had some traditionary Records of them and did read them If that be indeed so which some whom I have met with have affirmed that those Books at least some of them which those Believers and Converts did burn in that part of the History of the Arts of the Apostles were the Books of Ethnick Philosophy such as the Heathens Logick Dialectick Grammar Rhetorick c. so that the like execution were to be done still against the same Treatises that to this day do persist in their Treasons against the Crown of Christ and the Dignity of his Word the Libraries and Shops in Philosophick Universities would
leave much of their Shelves empty though he who writes this is like to be judged and condemned for an Heretick in the Commonwealth of Learning and to have his Name and Reputation killed whilst he himself is alive and buried before he himself be dead But these must be let go for the sake and in the cause of Christ and of his Word who will have a day of Resurrection of Names as there will be at the last of bodies One of the most learned and most experienced of natural Philosophers in the present age who has been at great cost and pains to make the most watchful Observations after all his curiosity in seeking and searching has consented to the publishing of a Treatise to let the World of Vain Affecters of Humane Wisdom and of Philosophick Learning to know that after all his inquiries and researches into hidden secrets of mysterious Nature he can come at no certainty especially about the Heavenly Bodies and what doth belong to them and generally about what is at a great distance from our eye or quite out of our sight Cosmical suspicions are found in the Title and in the Pages so that his Philosophy as to the most of the eminent Works of the Creation particularly as to the Celestial Phaenomena and subterraneous hiddenesses is if not come to plain nothing yet quite passed into doubt suspicion and scepticism so that his acknowledgements are much the same in this with mine It would be the Wisdom and Honour of such generous spirited Virtuoso's now at length to come wholly over to the Scripture-way for the proficiency of Arts and for the augment of Sciences where and where only such men of deep understanding can sit down sweetly satisfied Scripture-Learning is gone forth conquering and Word-knowledges will ere long be triumphing All other Science is but falsly so called both about the Works of Creation and the Doctrines of Faith however the deluded world have given it the name yet it is devoid of the Essence it doth start a many thorny and argute Questions and it ingageth in a multitude of frivolous concertations of Sophisters and of Philosophasters such as School-Divinity or Scholastick-Theology doth abound in and is almost quite through all over run with Dialectick Nicities and Metaphorical Formalities to raise dust and to make a mist that mens eyes can see but little of their way as if all knowledge were placed in this whereas it neither doth deserve nor can make good such a name That is worth the name of Wisdom that is Wisdom to Salvation that is the commendable Learning that is sanctified Learning and that is the praise-worthy experience that is holy experience It is Scripture-Science that is the great the only deposited Treasury of all Writings that is to be kept for the confutation of all Opponents who object against the Truth The rest are but prophane Clamors about empty Vanities such as are of a different kind and nature from the Analogie of Faith frivolous concertations of Sophists Logical impertinencies Metaphysical puzlings that do not deserve the Name because they have not the Reality of useful Knowledge where they have any thing of profitable Learning as a few grains of good Corn in a great heap of Chaff there they Originally received it from the Word and from the LORD's people who held forth their knowledge according to the Word before others Thus the Chaldeans from the Hebrews so also the Egyptians the Phenicians the Grecians though they all mingle it with their several Errors Superstitions and Idolatries Never yet could the Disciples of any Unscriptural Antiscriptural of any Unchristian Antichristian Philosopher meet with such a complete Model of the Created World from any of their Masters as might give them any through satisfaction thereabout though according to their several Sects they have been great Admirers of themselves There are of them who have pretended to more skill than those who went before them in the Philosophick Way and have undertaken to be Correctors of other mens Opinions and Writings about a System of the World and yet they have not believed themselves that their own Hypotheses were true and sound as particularly the vertiginous Asserters of the Diurnal Motion of the Earth One great cause of his Eâ—â—ring who was the famous misleader of others into this gross mistake was his slighting and rejecting of the Scriptures about these matters as if it were a subject altogether alien from VVord revelation The several Earnest Contenders both for the old and new Philosophy of later years after all their new VVorlds which they have set up and trumpeted before as if all must bow before their Systematical Calf and worship their modular Moloc yet what have they done after all their studies and endeavours but proclaim openly in Print that they are both of them out of the right way the one and the other wandring out of the path of Truth and that they have taken up with such fallacious shews as are discovered by Scripture-light to be apparent falshoods And therefore the adaptest shortest and every-way best Method will be to lay aside all the rest and to take up things purely from the VVord of Christ All besides this are but the fanciful framings and imaginary VVorlds of self-pleasing Dreamers though they applaud their own cunning in excepting against the Scriptures as no fit Judges in these Cases yet I cannot commend their Conscience in such a wrongful dishonourable charge as they hereby bring in against Christ and against his VVord There are some parts of the Created VVorld which right Reason and enlightned Nature cannot but acknowledge that they must be As a place of reward for the Good and of punishment for the Bad And yet because they are not to those who are on this Earth exposed to their senses they cannot be understood what and where they are but only by VVord-revelation The great mistakes of some both Translators of and Commentators upon the VVord History of the Creation have been occasioned mostly from hence that they have followed Philosophers and their VVritings more than Christ and his Scriptures which is the great error and the blemishing spot in those expositions upon Job which many otherwise singular Annotators have completed and published For almost throughout that whole Book much thereof doth treat of Created Beings as the Heavens the Luminaries there the Rain the Dew the Snow the Hail the Wind the Earth the Water the Abyss the Gulph Hell Light Darkness the four Quarters of the World with many others and with many particulars about each of these they do much Philosophize which I now write not to revile the Name or bespatter the Memory of the departed Authors nor to undervalue the many choice Observations and profitable Collatings of Scripture every where almost to be found in several of those Treatises but to warn the Reader that when he comes to such passages about this kind of Learning which I am now upon he would
to them that trust in him when those who have either added to or taken from his words shall be reproved and be found to have been lying ones And I do hope there will be a pure every way uncorrupt Autograph or Apograph of the Scriptures of Truth Neither am I without some Words of the LORD upon which to bottom Faith Expectation and Prayer concerning this matter a great and a glorious Work highly and fully worth the most serious and diligent search after by Christian Princes by Learned Men and by Eminent Believers Spiritual Discerners should know how to take and to improve this hint which I had rather they themselves would industriously pursue than at present put me upon any further opening of my thoughts with the grounds of those my apprehensions in such an Age of quarrelsome jangling of endless contentiousness and of lips of folly In the mean time till there be this glorious appearing of Christ and of his Book according to Prophetical Revelations I bless his Name for himself and for his Word and for any gracious Work of his Word upon my heart having felt a day of his Power there whereby he has made me willing to stand in some holy awe of him and of his Word and to dispense it in some growing measures as I have received it in uprightness as of God in the presence of God so speaking it in Christ If any will so sell this Word of God as to falâ—â—e it by corrupting it any ways by dealing deceitfully with it by playing the Hucksters with it adulterating and sophisticating of it by mingling of Philosophick Errors and Humane Inventions and Unwritten Traditions with it Thus to make the market of their own private gain upon some ignorant deluded soul by their crafty handling and covetous dispensing of it by false glosses and counterfeit garnishes giving forth wrong senses and making undue applications of it raising false Doctrines and inferring ill uses from thence let such consider in the fear of Jehovah how they will answer it at that last Great Day when they shall be judged to their Eternal Estate by that Word which they have so much wrested and wronged O how great cause have they to inlarge in Jehovah's praises who having in their younger years taken in much of the Philosophick taint were afterwards by his Spirit and Grace cured of its gross mistakes and dangerous errors that a Moses escaped from out of Egyptian Astrology Sorcery and such other superstitious diabolical Arts That a Daniel Hananiah Mishael and Azariah got so well off from Chaldaick Books so full of vain Arts and of Idolatrous Sciences that Aelohim gave them Knowledge and Understanding to discern Truth from Falshood whereby to convince and to confute Ethnick Errors and Paganish Tenets and that they were so kept from prohibitell Magick and such black Arts That the new converted Christians were preserved and antidored by the Principles and Laws of their true pure Religion from and against the poysonous disputes of Epicureans Stoicks Libertines Gnosticks and such other Philosophers That a Paul so 〈◊〉 up in several corrupt 〈◊〉 was afterwards so savingly inlightned so sound in Scripture Learning so skilful so useful so successful a Preacher O what special matter of great thankfulness was there here Vain man would be wise above and besides and against what is written although Wo be threatried against those who are wise in then own eyes The wisdom of such shall perish There is a knowledge that is vain which a wise a man should not utter The worldly wise ones of Philosophers do irride the Christian Religion and of Polititians do hate it O the blessedness the happy goings on with a straight foot of them who are made Wise to Salvation It has been in all Ages of the Church the device and the attempts of Saran and of his Disciples to abuse men by paralogisms by such false reasonings as by a shew and colour of Truth do circumvent the unskilful and unexperienced in the Word of Righteousness And their assaults have been mainly made against the Churches and People of God under specious shews of Reason and of Religion to introduce somewhat that is quite contrary to the Nature Purity and Simplicity of the Christian undefiled Doctrine Hence have they endeavoured to thrust in the worshiping of Angels and of Saints departed by invocating of them by dedicating of Temples and of Altars to them by making vows to them with many other uninstituted Observations of humanely-invented Ceremonies and divers Philosophical trifles which are no authorized warranty nor legitimate argumentation from the Word of God nor from sound Reason judiciously informed thereby Oh how daring bold is humane curiosity that will adventure to be wise beyond due bounds of sober knowledge when men will presume to be Doctors not understanding what they speak nor of what they affirm The Schoolmen with the Papists and others who have trod in the steps of those Scholastick Doctors have generally greatly erred herein by obtruding upon others many Forgeries and falshoods for Articles of Christian Faith which were taught themselves only by the dark discoursings of their own blind minds such as are their Scientia media their free-will their inherent Righteousness their meritorious Works their creature-idolizings with such like dogmatical decrees and received opinions of proud men which they fetched out of the Metaphysicks of Philosophers and out of the Ethicks of Pagans from whose corrupt Principles they would deduce the great Truths and the saving Mystesteries of the Christian Religion bottoming their unsound conclusions upon their own sandy opinions thus subjecting Theology to Philosophy and Christianity to Sophistry Those Books which are commonly called Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy or the Book of Moses and of his Writings there have the approving Testimony of those true faithful Prophets that did follow after him as also of the LORD Jesus Christ himself and of his Apostles and the History of the Creation and of the Works thereof in the Beginning of the Bible is true in the literal sense and was intended and recorded so to be understood and all those Philosophical Allegorical and Mystical Senses which any do give thereof that are contrary unto this are to be avoided and rejected THis is the first revealed and written Word the most Ancient Book by which all Humane Treatises where they err must be corrected I exclude not any other part of Holy Scriptures but do own all through as a perfect Summary of all useful Learning and do bring them in for the confirmation of Truths only the Reader is to remember and consider that one great part of my present Design is to propound some such particular inquiries concerning the Works of Creation in the several Days of the first Week of the World and to give such a Scripture Judgement upon some special Cases as may restaur and advance true profitable Knowledges and Arts. Christ in his Word hath put his
the Man Christ Jesus And thus it was in the Figure and Type of Christ's Mediatory Office the true lawful high Priest was ever but only one in a course of succession who went into the Holy of Holies once a year not without blood which he offered for himself and for the misdeeds or ignorances of the people to make Atonement for them to cleanse them from all their sins before Jehovah whereby was signified that Christ that Faithful Great chief High Priest being once entred into Heaven by his own Blood hath found a Ransoming or obtained an Eternal Redemption For such an high Priest became us Holy Innocent Undefiled separate from sinners and becoming higher than the Heavens to whom it was not needful every day as to the High Priest to offer up Sacrifices first for his own sins afterwards for the fins of the people For that he did once when he offered up himself We have such an High Priest who is set at the Right Hand of the Throne of the Majesty in the Heavens He that is Malchitzedech the King of Righteousness is this Priest the Eternity of his Priesthood is established for ever by his Father by an Oath which Priesthood cannot pass over from one to another either by succession or by descent as that of the High Priests did of Old but it doth and will abide everlastingly in himself This Jesus Christ that Righteousâ— One is the Advocate of his people or their Spokesman who appears on their behalf before the Face of God ' and to make intercession for them Oâ— the blessedness of those who have this Mediator to be a Redeemer of them an Interceder for them He gave himself for them a Ransom for them that he might redeem them He reconciles them in the Body of his Flesh through his Death making peace by the Blood of his Cross He by the everlasting Spirit offered himself unblameable unto God! His Blood purgeth their conscience from dead works to serve the Living Godâ— For by one Oblation he hath Consecrated for ever those that are sanctified The chastisement of their Peace did lie upon him He is the Price of their Redemption He is their Surety He was faithful in all the House of God He sits at the Right Hand of the Majesty in the heavenly highest place far above all Principality and Power and Might and Dominion and every name that is named not in this world only but also in that which is to come all things being made subject under his feet Who shall condemn them Christ is able perfectly even unto the full end to save them by him only they come unto God! he always liveth to intercede for them He prayes not for the World but for those whome the Father has given him and who believe on him that they all may be One as the Father in Christ and Christ in the Father that they also may be one with the Father and with the Son that the World might believe that the Father sent Christ How earnest was Christ in his Prayer to his Father that he would Sanctifie these by his Truth that he would keep them in his Name from the Evil one that they might have his joy fulfilled in them It is Christ's desire that where he is there they also may be that they may behold his Glory which the Father hath given him and that the Love wherewith the Father hath loved Christ may be upon them Christ doth know that the Father heareth him always How ready are such as have Fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ praysingly to say as that multitude of the heavenly Host in their Song Glory to God in the highest heavens on earth peace good will towards men This Christ is the LORD Unto all Authoritative Power is given in Heaven and in Earth And O how much is there that doth depend on this That LORDship which is here intended and meant is Christ's Kingly Dominion his Royal Government into the Office whereof he is called it being one of his Glorious Names King of kings and LORD of Lords For so it is written in the Revelation that was made known unto John No man can say the LORD Jesus if not in the holy Spirit It is a gift in the holy Spirit even to acknowledge this believingly to apply it and obeyingly in all things to be subject to it Thus we read in the Prophet Isaiah A child shall be born unto us and a Son given to us upon whose shoulder the dominion shall lye and his name shall be called Wonderful Counseller The mighty strong God The Father of hidden ages The prince of peace Of the increase of his dominion and peace shall be no end upon the throne and in his kingdom to stablish it and to strengthen it with judgment and with justice from henceforth for ever The zeal of Jehovah of hosts shall do this This is applyed to him who is God-Man and can belong to no other Ezekiel saw this in that glorious Vision wherein was presented before him a Throne of Royal Majesty upon which was a likeness as the form of Man and this was the form of the likeness of the Glory of Jehovah This was the representation of him who is Jehovah-Man of Jesus Christ the ever Blessed LORD of Glory whose the ruling of the whole World is All the Creatures must stoop of him He is she Head-Captain of all the Hosts of Heaven and of Earth for so did the Scriptures bring him in To this doth that Revelation answer which was made known to John Who saw one like unto the Son of man He that calleth himself the first and the last and did appear as an absolute complete Governour wise for Counsel and strong for Power Like unto this was that which Daniel saw in the night-visions For behold there came one like the Son of man in the clouds of heaven after that he came to the ancient of days and they caused him to come near before and to him was given dominion and honour and the kingdom that all people nations and toâ—gues should honour him his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not perish or be taken away and his kingdom shall not be destroyed This was the shining forth of Christ's Princely Honour of his Kingly Administration who was God-Man And by this was manifested the great Mystery of the Work of Redemption which doth further demonstrate the Mediatorship of Christ Who came from his Father in Heaven to Men on Earth and having finished his message here he ascended from men on Earth to his Father in Heaven there to present himself before him on the behalf of those whom the Father gave unto him This is he of whom the Prophet Jeremiah spake that he shall reign and prosper one of the stock of David as Man and yet withal he who should be called Jehovah-zidkenu Jehovah our Righteousness So that he is Jehovah-Man The same
the heaven and the earth the sea and all that is in them and rested the seventh day and hallowed it Thus injoyning both by his own Example and Command the perpetual Observation of that particular Seventh-day in order of Time in its successive course in every weekly revolution as the appointed day for holy Rest That day and that only and no other day of the Week Thou LORD art worthy to receive the Glory and the Honour and the Power For thou hast created all things and through thy Will they are and were created O that those who dwell on the Earth and every Nation and Kindred and Language and People would fear him and give Glory to him for the hour of his Judgement is coming And that they would worship him that made the Heaven and the Earth and the Sea and the Fountains of Waters The Father Son and holy Spirit they are the Creators They the Aelohim who spake Creatures into their Existence and Being of which adored Almighties an account is given in that Historicall Narration which doth contain a Diary or Journal of the first seven days The Father Aelohim It is spoken of him in the forty fifth Psalm Aelohim the Aelohim of Christ anointed his Son by his Spirit which Son also is Aelohim expresly so called in the same Psalm Thy throne O Aelohim ever and perpetual the scepter of thy kingdom is righteonsness The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews sheweth that this was spoken unto the Son of God by his Father And the holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Aelohim and the Spirit Jehovah by Isaiab In the second Book of Samuel this Spirit of Jehovah or this Spirit of Jehovah as Paul elsewhere is also called The Aelohim of Israel It is Aelohim who dwells in his people as in a Temple So saith Moses which Paul applyeth to the holy Spirit These three are the Creating one Thus Solomon the Preacher chargeth young men to remember their Creators in the days of their youth Where Aeloh my Makers those who making me that giveth the Psalms in the night So would Elibu have had Job to say The same hath Eliphaz in the same Book Should a man be more righteous than Aelohim Should a man be purer than his Makers Hence is Tzijon incouraged in the later days not to fear For saith Jehovah by his Prophet Isaiah to her Thy Makers is thy Husbands Thus doth the Psalmist call for an Hallelu-jab or praise ye Jab Sing ye to Jehovah a new Song his praise in the Church of gracious Saints let Israel rejoyce in his Makers in those who making him Let the Sons of Tzijon be glad in their King the whole Creation should joyn in this song of praise for this Reason which is common to the whole World of them for he commanded and they were Created I now propound it to serious examination according to the Word whether much of this glorious Mystery be not included in the first Words of the holy Scriptures Bereashith baraa Aelohim and in that word Jehovah mentioned a little after the short History of the Creation as the Creator and Maker which is to be left to further disquisition For I am inciting and encouraging of Religious Students and of Christian Disciples to deeper researches into the best Learning This Word has in it the signification of an Head so that this is not barely In the Beginning but it doth set out that first capital Beginning of all things In and By Christ the constituted Head of all Inquire whether it should therefore be rendred in the Head-captain or in the Head-captainship or in-by the Captain or the Chieftain or Head-commander or in him who is the Head-Captain or in the appointed Head or Captain the Preposition is properly In. And when it doth point out the immediate principal cause it is in by Let the diligent Inquirer about this collate some other Scriptures that doth relate unto this matter It was in-by Christ that the Father made these hidden ages For this is spoken of the Son of God whose Godhead is strongly proved by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the beginning of it by divers â—itations out of the Old Testament brought into the New It was in by Wisdom that Jehovah did Found the Earth and prepared the Heavens and made All his Great Works All things were created by Jesus Christ which is a great honour put upon our LORD The Father created all things If you ask by whom It was by Jesus Christ All things were made by him Christ was the Head-Captain of all the Host of the Heavens and of the Earth and he is the chief Head of his Body the Church Both these are affirmed of Christ with an eye to this In and By In by him who is the Image of the Invisible God the first-born of every creature were all things created which are in Heaven and which are upon Earth which are Visible and which are Invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions Governments or powers All things were created by him and to him and he is before all things and all things consist together by him and he is the head of the body There is one LORD Jesus Christ by whom are all things He is expresly called Reashith the appointed head of Jehovah's ways before his works from then speaking evidently of the creation As the words themselves in that place of the Proverbs do plainly declare He was anointed to this principate and is again and again called Roash the head Roashith is the name of one of the Types of Christ the First fruits are so called in the Old Testament And so is he in the New the First-fruits of them who sleeping It is not without great reasons and weighty considerations that this first written word should set out Christ as the Head Captain or constituted head or appointed Captain For all skillful Lexicographers agree that the original-propriety and root significancy of this word hath that of an head in it in its true first meaning to which the Scriptures do agree and divers Scriptures do speak of Troops of Bands of Hosts of Companies of Souldiers under an Head-Captain to this Honour and Office was Christ assigned and appointed by his Father which also this word doth remarkably set out If it be a composition of Roash an Head or Captain or Head-Captain and Shith to put or to place in martial order or in Battle-array For thus we may find the word used The LORD Christ doth put his Hosts or Armies into Rank and File in their Order with art and care Proper names are often compounded in the Hebrew wherein that Tongue doth delight though it doth not so easily admit of composition in appellatives The context favoureth the Interpretation with other Scriptures collated For in this History of the Creation we may read of the Hosts of this
a Created Nature doth contribute much for the discovery of the Positure of the World which is the higher and which the lower part of the Universe in its System orderly disposed as also for the conviction of Infidelity and the confutation of Atheism It being a great and gross Error in the scoffing Anti-Scripturists who daringly affirm that the Gulph and Hell have no certain Existence in the Nature of Beings nor definiteness of locality in the Creation of Places but that they are mere Bug bears to terrifie Fools and Scare-crows to fright Children withal my work therefore here will be to examine whether the Earth at its first Creation were formless and vord so that Tohu and Bohu as commonly interpreted be truly and rightly predicated of Aeretz or not Whether Tohu and Bohu be or be not distinct Creatures from the Earth locally distinct or two created places the one setting out the Gulphy-empty-space the other the doleful place of Hell Then to assert and prove from Scripture and Nature that there are really such places And in what parts of the created World those places are whereby the positures of the Creation will be manifested in what order they are placed one above or below another which is one of the secrets of Nature hidden from vain Philosophers but revealed in holy Scriptures Towards the bringing in of somewhat of a very useful discovery that this Earth was not created deformed not an empty unâ—â—apen or mis-shapen lump confused or without fashion not such an amazing and shameful thing as one who has a name amongst the Learnedest of Criticks and who doth undertake to correct others in their rendring of these words doth amiss call it not such a formless Chaos as it is Heatheneshly standered to be let it be well considered whether they do not great wrong to this Work of Aetohim who do express the significancy of these words to be that which is contrary to fight Order to good-Digestion to methodâ—â— Framing and to comâ—y Modesty as somewhat to be ashamed of and then do 〈◊〉 this to the Earth Seeing that this Earth as also the empty Gulph and the doleful place have a great fitness and a comly order and a beautious decency in the Creators Ordination for the ends of his own Glory for the advancing of rich distinguishing Grace towards the Elect and for the sinners confusion and amongst many other transgressors Idolaters and corrupt worshippers living and dying such Especially if in Ages of such growing light as doth convincingly discover the forbiddenness of all humane Inventions Institutions and Impositions in the matters of Worship exclusive of what is of Christ's prescribing and appointing in his word These are some of those sinners who by name are declared to be in the road way upon the brink to be tumbled down the Gulphy-confounded-space There is not any the least mark of reproach cast or put upon any other of Aelohim's Works and therefore not upon the first created Earth For all and every of his Works have all that kind of perfection which doth belong to that created Work It being made in that excellency of State for goodness which every creature was framed in according as the nature of that creature was capable fit and able to receive for its assigned usefulness in its place So that it was for so far intire consummate absolute in all Numbers and modes and was no way to be reprehended faulted or blamed having the Creator's own Letters Testimonial for its due commendation and praise under his Hand and Seal All was pure unblemished no defect in it as such Therefore did Righteous Adam rejoyce in meditating on these works on the Seventh-day Sabbath By a collation of other Scriptures it will appear that this Verb Was may properly and distinctly belong to Tohu and to Bohu as also to Vechosheâ— As for the significancy of the words in the Original let all the Scriptures be considered that do make mention of them whether Tohu be not the empty gulphy astonishing desolate space and Bohu the doleful place the serious meditating whereon makes to sigh and to groan These words are Substantives and not Adjectives or Participles and do properly stand by themselves So that to praedicate these abstracts of the Earth as if it were amazingness shamefulness deformedness formlesness emptyness or shapelesness and voidness wastness or vanity seemeth to reproach Creating Aelohim who did all in wonderful Wisdom and having approved of every Work of his he rejoyced therein As for the Structure of Speech the Verb belongs in common to Tohu to Bohu and to Vechoshâ—â— appertaining to all the members of this speech being put to one it is to be accommodated to all as if it were expresly added to every one Aeretz was created Tohu was Bohu was each of them was in being truly subsisting though the verb be but once written yet being once spoken it hath a conveniency with the other members by a common right There is great evidence and natural comeliness that is in this kind of Scripture-speaking It cannot be rightfully affirmed of this Earth in the abstract as many do that the Earth was emptiness or an empty thing at its first creation For this appears to be expresly denyed by Jehovah Aelohim in another Scripture because thus he said when he shews himself forth as the Creator of those Heavens and the Former of this Earth that having made the Earth he firmly prepared or established her and that he did create her Not Tohu or Not-emptiness he created her to be dwelt in or satâ—in or to be inhabited or to Sabbatize in Thus doth he expresly deny what men do affirm Tohu only is the Gulphy empty uninhabited place of the created World It being only the Gulphy passage to Hell Several parts of the creation being distinctly spoken unto in that Prophecy by Isaiah as the Text and Context will evidence All other spaces and places are filled up and inhabited but only this Tohu which is empty In the higher Heavens there are the glorious Inhabitants of that better Countrey There are the upper Waters and many other Treasures In the Expanse are Sun Moon and Stars those bright shining Luminaries In the Air are Fowls on the Earth are Men and Women Beasts Cattle Worms in the Waters are Fishes in Hell are Devils and Damned only Tohu is void So that there is a Viâ—â—um in Nature contrary to Paganish Philosophy as Tohu doth properly note That which is contrary to such a Line as is drawn to distinguish to put in order in building upon some Foundation which Tohu doth want So Bohu is that which is contrary to a Foundation and Building or Extruction contrary to a perpendicular by which the Building is directed There is no Foundation or Extruction in Hell for it is bottomless at least so far as that the damned know no bottom of it Tohu not being praedicated of Aeretz neither is Bohu which
Delights of Aelohim an high Honour put upon this low Creature There is a Plant to renown or celebrity Some Plants are not planted of Christ's Heavenly Father which with the Plantation it self shall be rooted up There is a time a fit Season of Planting and there is a time of plucking up what is planted Plants do prosper much near the Rivers of Waters Every one of these little hints have useful Directions given unto those who would make a complete knowledge of the Herbal Science It is Aelohim who doth plant them even when they are set by the Art of Man or without the industry of Man and it is he who doth bless them Though Earthly-mindedness must be watched against yet earthly Plants mâ—st be carefully look'd after It is Aelohim who did plant the Ear and it is he who planted the Heavens He is the great Planter There are many Scriptures that do speak of this wonderful Secret in Nature even when they have a further meaning in them to set out other things by these plain similitudes from such common Creatures It being one great part of the Mystery of Christs Wisdom in his Word to instruct people in divers profitable knowledges at once Some are planted in a pleasant place Those that are planted by the Waters do prosper most some other Plants are in a dry thirsty ground There are some whom God doth plant and establish and there are others whom he will pluck up by the roots There is a co-planting a growing up of two into one Tree Here comes the Art of Ingrafting and of Inoculating It is planting that doth lay the first foundation There is a Faith that can plant in the Sea Aelohim maketh the Hay to germinate he causeth the Mountains to bring it forth It doth grow near the Waters near Fountains or Torrents on the Mountains Some on House tops The very place of their springing doth give some light to Science of Herbs Here is growing matter of further discovery to be made by those who are discerning Inquirer into Natures Virtues and Operations and faithful observers of experiences productions and successes It would be a great undertaking and a glorious performance to perfect this Work The use of Hay is to be Aliment to bruit Animals to Horses to Oxen which feed sometimes on the Herb sometimes on Straw and for want of these they perish The Herdsmen should be wised in this what is proper food when where and in what measures How little skill is there herein Hay is a small light thing It is that which doth quickly wither and is soon cut down There is a season for its Mowing There is a second growth after the first cutting down There is a time for the gathering of Herbs and a way of drying them for use I was entring upon the Doctrine of Trees and of their Fruit as described in the Word But it is so large that a distinct Treatise might profitably be published to the World from the Scripture about it I point out the Word-way for others to travel further on in whose profession doth lead them more on in this path Only let me add somewhat more about Herbs The Scriptures do mention a time of gathering Herbs especially the Herbs of the Mountains when the Herb is revealed and the Grass-plant appeareth they are fittest food for man those of them that were appointed for food When they first spring forth and are well and full sprung up to be fit for that end And it should be inquired whether then also they are not in their prime for medicinal use when the Herbs thrust forth in their verdure strength fulness and choiceness of Juyce I pretend not to any deep insight into this part of the Medicinal Art but do put upon the inquisition whether that part of the Spring time when Sheep use to be shorn which is mentioned in the Verse immediately following that which you have in the Margin-above Then when men use to sell off their Goats when Bread is put into Goats Milk and is eaten the young Kids of the Goats being weaned when there are blastings by Lightnings or by East wind whether this be a good time to gather Herbs The green Herb has its name from a Root that signifies to spit It is a kind of spittle of the Earth its radical moisture shewing it self upon it It comprehends all green moist Herbs for Food Smell or Medicine A Word comes from the same Boot which doth signifie mildew or paleness a disease of Corn and of Men. This may be improved by a skilful Physician Many Herbs are not eaten but whilst they are green and moist then are they proper and good for Food When Herbs wax palâ— wan and withered much of their Virtue is lost as to some purposes their greenness and moistness being gone There is a word in Chaldet from the same 〈◊〉 which doth-signifie paleness arising from sudden fear or terror as doth make the face pale and livid the blood going off from that part and leaving a yellow colour behind Thus herbs are sometimes yellow either through overmuch moisture and so losing their verdure do degenerate into paleness and cannot so ripen or when they are struck with over drought or with rust From the same Root there is a word in Arabick and it is used by some Hebrew Rabbins which doth signifie the yellow Jaundies and the Dropsie when the Gall doth diffuse it self into the body Of what use and vertue such pale yellowed parched herbs may be for the curing of these Distempers I leave Physicians further to enquire These green herbs are good Food every day though they be thinning-leaner dyet especially in a Journey when this is more proper There is another word in that Verse which is victual for the way a Viaticum the Food of wayfairing-men of Travellers This with Love that holy affection would much sweeten such a meal and is one cure of distempered affections and of some bodily diseases which over-much eating of fat beeves doth cause Some leafs are for healthfulness and curing for bruises and fores Proper leafs and herbs stamped and beaten are of specifick vertue in Physick drinks and Chyrurgical Plaisters I could speak somewhat of my own experience in this but let the Learned search it further out by studying the Scriptures Here may we find many particular Herbs mentioned with their special use The Paschal Lamb was to be eaten with bitter Herbs such as wild Lettice Cichory and the like Here may you read of the Bramble or Bryer Here we may be instructed how to correct the wild gourd by Meal Brushes or Shrubs among the rest Lavender Spike is judged by a skilful Herbalist to be here spoken of The Natural abstersiveness and the efficacious cleansingness of that Fullers herb which taketh away spots in Cloth Borith
over Q. Whether would not an exact literal version of the holy Scripture word for word as they are in their order into the several Mother-tongues without any the least adding to or substracting from it open much of many useful Truths and necessary Duties and of experimental Christianity as well as many other ways be very profitable for the promoting of peace and purity in the Churches of Christ Q. Whether is it not a Duty for the people especially such of them as have more opportunities and advantages for this to be able to read and to understand the Word in its Original-tongue And whether it would not be of singular use to have the young capable Children in all places to be taught this Q. How may such an Hebrew Lexicon be so composed for words and for phrases as to make Scripture knowledge to be much more easier and familiar to out common people in which they may find out all sorts of little Bibles well fitted to all particular cases where they may quickly see over what the whole scripture doth speak to any subject matter carrying Truth through all the Word Q. In what order of time in exact Chronology are the several Books of Scripture and the several passages in every such Book And how may such Geographical Tables of all the places of the inhabited Earth mentioned in the Scriptures be so suited as that time and place and inhabitants may be made obvious to every plain understanding Q. What is the New Testament spiritual signified part of all and every of the shadowy Figures Ceremonial signs and Typical patterns through the Old Testament Q. What is the Urim and Thummim And whether is there any Prophesie or Promise of either restoring of that or of setting up any thing else in the room of that How may we have such an Oracle revived as to have a certain visible audibles sensible answer from the LORD in weighty cases Q. Whether it be not one evidence of the fulness and perfection of the Word of Truth that even there where its speeches seem to be somewhat broken and abrupt it carries with it a secret supplement in experience directed to all practical cases concerned therein which nothing else of man's word can fill up And whether would it not be very profitable and acceptable to put together some of the more eminent remarkable Scriptures for the better evidencing of the Truth and usefulness of this discovery Q. How may a Believer get and keep life and power in the Word continued upon his heart Q. What Scripture grounds are here upon which to bottom Faith and Prayer that if there were a spirit of believing the LORD would still give miraculous access from Heaven whereby to give sensible demonstrations of the Truth and Goodness of his Word And how may the Doctrine and Practice of Miracles be revived Q. What is the method whereby to evidence the oneness and sameness the well agreeing consentingness and uniform harmoniousness of the Christian Religion throughout the whole Scripture for Truth for Laws and for Priviledges For Doctrines for Duties and for Graces Q. How may the plainest Scripture-Truths be raised to a greater height of spiritual advancement Q. Whether now that Scripture-knowledge is so abounding any one be so competently well gifted for and called to the Ministerial Office who doth not understand the Scriptures in their Original Language And how may hopeful growing young men be so bred up in the Scripture Arts and Sciences as thereby to be fitted for the Ministerial Office And what Scripture grounds are there to expect a more able faithful successful Ministery than is yet at this day Q. VVhether it be not one great Truth of this age that the holy Scriptures are the one and the only Rule to judge by in all cases And whether there be any other boundary to be set to mens pretended liberty of conscience Q. VVhat is there of the Doctrine-part as well as of the Duty-part contained in the Law of the ten VVords Q. In what Method and Order may the Holy Scriptures be best read to most spiritual profit Concerning present Providences and Works of Jehovah Aelohim Q. WHat may the Reasons and Ends be why the LORD in the present day doth seem so much to with hold his Spirit and the gifts and graces of that Spirit now that the longings and petitionings of his Churches and people are so much heightned and drawn out with expectations of his larger pourings out of his Spirit and Blessing upon his new Covenant people Q. What is more especially that Work which the LORD hath been and is still carrying on upon the Wheels of his providence in this Age Q. What is there of Prophetical Scripture fulfilled in the present day which doth make way for the further accomplishment of what Propheties are yet behind And what are those after Prophesies And in what order of Time are all these Prophesies Q. Whether though there have been some partial fulfillings of the Revelation in all Ages of the Church since John's time yet will not the whole of that Book of the Revelation be gone over in the latter days visibly and sensibly fulfilled what John had in Vision and by Voice And whether are there any beginnings of this in our Day and Time At least whether Christ's Calls and Counsels from his Father by his Spirit in that Word of the three first Chapters of that Book be not more especially and particularly to those gathered separate Churches who have someways withdrawn from the corruptions of the Romish Way more thorowly to Reform and to Refine and to be at perfecting Work As that which must lead the way to the bringing about of all the rest which doth follow after Q. What and how doth the LORD Christ in the way of his present Providential Acting reveal of the pattern and platform of his new spiritual House of the latter day-glory and of the Laws and Orders of that House And how is he now with his golden measuring reed and rod and line in his hand to try whether particular Churches and Disciples of his do square well and exactly to his Word-rule And how would he have such societies to be rightly constituted gathered admitted disciplin'd and orderly walking in all things that such Churches may be able to evidence to all the World that they are the true owned and approved Churches of Christ Q. How is Christ at work under this Providence to bring every Institution and Ordinance of his unto its Scripture purity and perfection that they may be felt and enjoyed more in the lively efficacy and saving power of them Q. How is Christ at work in this day to frame his Churches and people to be more of one heart and mind and lip and way in the Truths and things of God and to set them righter in the way of Sisterly association of such purer Churches And how may a Believer see full home to this thorow so much as is quite