not discovered the mystery to us By which things another thing is meant For these two mothers are the two Testaments the one which is Agar of mount Sinai which gendereth into bondage c. I might here relate many excellent allusions to prove this but I shall satisfie my self with one which I did read in one Doctor Everâ—t who preaching upon Ioshua 15. 16. Then Caleb said he who smiteth Kirjath-sepher and taketh it even to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife And Othniel took it c. saith that Caleb signifies a good heart Kirjath-sepher the city of the Letter Achsah the Vision Othniel God's opportunity And so the mystical sense runs a good heart saith that whoever will take in and smite as Moses did the rock the Letter of the word shall have the vision which lurks under it discovered and given to him And God's own time is the only mean for accomplishing this As also it is most remarkable that that City which was called Cirjath-sepher before it was taken in or the city of the Letter was after it was conquered called Debiâ— which signifies an oracle so that the Word or Letter is no oracle till it be once as it were taken in and overcome Since the reading of which Sermon I believe that one may profit more by an hebrew Lexicon then by a thousand English Lectures These who detract from Scripture by attributing the production of miracles to natural causes do not much disparage the power of God but though against their depraved intention cry rather up his omnipotency For certainly if these miracles were produced by secondary causes then doubtless that productive faculty was bestowed upon them by the Almighty and if he can make the creatures produce such strange effects much more is he able to effectuate them himself as it is more difficult for a great Master to form curious and admirable Characters when he leads a schollars hand then when he writes them with his own for such help may be called resisting assistance I cannot likewise but blame many of our Preachers who rather break then open holy Texts and rather make new meanings suiting with their private designes then tell the meaning of the Spirit Who would not have laugh'd to hear a Presbyterian observe from the first chapter of Genesis first verse that whilst Moses relates what God made he speaks nothing of Bishops by which it was evident said Don Quixot's Chaplain that Bishops were not of divine Institution a conceit as ridiculous as that of a Priest who hearing Maria spoken of for to signifie Seas did brag that he had found the Virgine Mary named in the old Testament Albeit I think preaching no part of divine Worship hearing being no adoration yet love I to go to Church were it but to see a multitude met together to confess that there is a God But when I go to hear I care not whom knowing that Christ elected Fisher-men to preach down infidelity when it was in the â—uff of it's pride and that Paul the most signal Trophe of our christian Faith was sent for confirmation not to Peter or Iames at Ierusalem but to Ananias one of the meanest amongst the Disciples And seing our Salvation by preaching is a miracle it is still so much the greater by how much weaker the instruments are When the Pulpit was a mount Sinai from which the Law was thundered or a mount of O lives whereon our Saviour's glorious transformation was to be seen then were Sermons to be honoured but since it is become a mount Calvar whereon our blessed Saviour suffers daily by scandalous railings Sermons are now become unfavoury for the most part I hate to see that divine place made either a Bar whereat secular quarrels are with passion pleaded or a Stage whereon revenge is by Satyres satisfied or a School-chair from which un-intelligible questions are mysteriously debated but amongst all these innovations introduced by our infant Divines I hate none more then that of giving reasons for proving the Doctrine which being Scripture it self can be proven by nothing that is more certain As for instance when the Doctrine is that God loved us freely how can this be proven more convincingly then thus my Text sayes it and that is idem pâ—r idem a most unlogical kind of probation When I then go to Church I should love to spend my time in praises and prayers which as they are the only parts of adoration so are they the natural imployments of the Church either Militant or Triumphant Yet it displeases me to hear our young Pulpitires skrich and cry like Baal's Priests as if God were no nearer them then the visible Heavens It honours much our imployment that God Almighty was the first and great Law-giver and that our blessed Saviour stiles himself our Advocat And it is an amazing wonder that we are tyed only by ten Laws whereof seven were enacted doubtless for our advantage and respect more immediatly the security of the creature then the honour of the Creator and are such restraints as men behoved to have laid upon one another and which nature layes upon us all And albeit I laugh at the jewish Cabala which sayes that the moral Law was written two thousand years before Moses in black letters at the back of a clear burning fire Yet can I not approve Tertullian's wit who endeavours to find all these ten in the prohibition made to Adam There are indeed some sins which scarce a consequence can bring within the verge of these Commandments As for instance Drunkenness Yet these are such as are so destructive to our nature that there needs no Law be made against them So that the Priest hit wittily to whom that sin being confess'd enjoyned as an Pennance their being drunk a second time which makes me conclude that if Drunkenness were to be ranged under any of these Laws it would fal most naturally under that Thou shalt not kill Albeit the fourth Commandment seems to respect only the honour of God and that the creature seems to be no wayes bettered by it Yet our more serious observation will discover that all be-labouring creatures as it were expect an ease the seventh day more then any other Whether it be that nature is by custom framed to that expectation I cannot tell But we see that God choic'd that number to be the year of jubile amongst his own people and that it is the period of all the several consistencies in our life infancie pubertie c. And for this reason Physicians observe that the child born in the seventh moneth is stronger then that which is born in the eight because in the seventh it is come to a knot by passing whereof in the eight it is in a state of imperfection But what the mystery of this holy Climaterick is I refer till we come to that Sabbath of rest whereat we ordinarly arrive after seven times nine years hath snowed upon us We may think that
no longer innocent and so he did not eat the aple till after his fall What wiser are these Divines who debate whither Adams falling-sickness and sin had become heriditarie if our predecessors had come out of his loins before he sin'd then these who combated for the largest share of the King of Spains gold if it had been to be devided In the Almighties procedure against poor Adam for this crime His infinite mercy appears to admiration and God foreseeing that man might sharpen the ax of justice too much upon the whet-stone of private revenge seems to have in this process formed to him an exact model of inquisition For He arraigns and cites Adam Adam where art thou He shews him his dittay Hast thou eat of the fruit whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat He allows him exculpation Who told thee and in order thereto did examine the woman upon whom Adam did transfer the guilt And albeit nothing could escape His omnisciency and that He did see Adam eat the aple yet to teach Judges that they should walk according to what is proven and not according to what they are themselves conscious to He did not condemn him till first he should have a confession from his own mouth And thus Gen. 18. 21. the Lord sayes Because the cry of Sodom is great I will go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it c. And in the last place albeit the fatal decree did bear in that day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die yet were his dayes prolonged a hundred and thirty years after the sin was committed It is too curious a disquisition to enquire how God can be said to be mercifull mercy being the mitigation of justice of which His pure nature cannot be capable seing whatever He wills is just And so He cannot be thought in any thing which He wills to recede from justice and so can no more properly be said to be mercifull then one Act can be both the Law and the mitigation of the Law But I will press no point of this nature knowing that humble modesty is the best Theology The vatican of paganism cannot for the male-ness of it's stile match that matchless Book of Genesis whereof each sentence seems a quarry of rich meditations and each word a spell sufficient to conjure the devil of Delphos Might not that excellent expression Let us make man after our image convince any of the being of a Trinity who deny plurality of Gods It is wonderfull that the Saturn-humour'd Jew can in this Passage mis-take his own Saviour and it is strange that he should not from the triangular architecture of his own heart conclude the Trinity of the God-head whose temple it was appointed to be Albeit I be an admirer of this nurse of Cabalism yet I approve not the conceit of these doting Rabbies who teach that God from His own mouth dited both the words and mater of the Pentateuch whereas He furnish'd only to the other Prophets the mater and subject unphrased for not only did God promise that He should put His words in their mouths but likewayes they preface thus their own prophesies In the dayes of such a King the Word of the Lord came to such a Prophet saying c. Neither is this conceit consistent with that high esteem which they even in this intend for their patron Moses seing it allows him less trust from his divine Master then the other Pen-men of Scripture had reposed in them That brain hath too little pia mater that is too curious to know why God who evidences so great a desire to save poor man and is so powerfull as that his salvation needed never have run the hazard if His infinit wisdom had so decree'd did yet suffer him to fall For if we enter once the lists of that debate our reason is too weak to bear the burden of so great a difficulty And albeit it may be answered that God might have restrained man but that restraint did not stand with the freedom of mans will which God had bestowed upon him yet this answer stops not the mouth of the difficulty For certainly if one should detain a mad man from running over a precipice he could not be thereby said to have wronged his liberty and seing man is by many Divines allowed a freedom of will albeit he must of necessity do what is evil and that his freedom is salv'd by a liberty to choose only one of moe evils it would appear strange why his liberty might not have consisted well enough with a moral impossibility of sinning and might not have been abundantly conserved in his freedom to choose one of moe goods yet these reasonings are the calling God to an account and so impious For if God had first created man surrounded with our present infirmities could we have complained Why then should we now complain seing we are but faln to a better estate then we deserved seing we stumbled not for want of light but because we extinguish'd our own light and seing our Saviours dying for us may yet re-instate us in a happier estate then that from which we are now faln Albeit the glass of my years hath not yet turn'd five and twenty yet the curiosity I have to know the different limbo's of departed souls and to view the card of the region of death would give me abundance of courage to encounter this king of terrors though I were a pagan But when I consider what joyes are prepared for them who fear the Almighty and what craziness attends such as sleep in Methuselams cradle I pity them who make long-life one of the oftest repeated petitions of their Pater noster and yet these sure are the more advanc'd in folly who desire to have their names enshrin'd after death in the airy monument of fame Whereas it is one of the promises made to the Elect that they shall rest from their labours and their works shall follow them Most mens mouths are so foul that it is a punishment to be much in them for my own part I desire the same good offices from my good name that I do from my cloaths which is to skreen me from the violence of exteriour accidents As these Criminals might be judg'd distracted who being condemned to die would spend their short reprival in disputing about the situation and fabrick of their gibbets So may I justly think these literati mad who spend the short time allotted them for repentance in debating about the seat of hell and the torments of tortur'd spirits To satisfie my curiositie I was once resolv'd with the Platonick to take the promise of some dying friend that he should return and satisfie me in all my private doubts concerning hell and heaven yet I was justly afraid that he might have return'd me the same answer which Abraham return'd to Dives have they not Moses and the Prophets if they hear
by that excellent passage Prov. 20. 27 where it is said that the understanding of man is the candle of the Lord. Our soul is God's Image and none can draw that Image but Himself we are the stamp of His divine nature and so can only be formed by Himself who is the glorious Seal From this divine principle that man's soul is made after God's Image I am almost induced to believe that prophesie is no miraculous gift bestowed upon the soul at extraordinary occasions only but is a natural though the highest perfection of our humane nature For if it be natural for the stamp to have impress'd upon it all the traits that dwell upon the face of the Seal then it must be natural to the soul which is God's impressa to have a faculty of foreseeing since that is one of God's excellencies Albeit I confess that that Stamp is here infinitly be-dimm'd and worn off as also we know by experience that men upon death bed when the soul begins being detached by sickness from the bodies slavery to act like it self do foresee and foretell many remote and improbable events and for the same reason do I think predictions by dreams not to be extraordinary revelations but rather the products natural of a rational soul. And if sagacious men can be so sharp-sighted in this state of glimmering as to foresee many events which fall out why may we not say that man if he were rehabilitat in the former state of pure nature might without any extraordinary assistance foresee and prophesie For there is not such a distance betwixt that foresight and prophesie as is betwixt the two states of innocency and corruption according to the received notion which men have settled to themselves of that primitive state of innocency From the same principle may it likewayes be deduced that natural reason cannot but be an excellent mean for knowing as far as is possiible the glorious nature of God Almighty He hath doubtless lighted this candle that we might by it see Himself and how can we better know the Seal then by looking upon it's impression And if Religion and it's mysteries cannot be comprehended by reason I confess it is a pretty jest to hear such frequent reasonings amongst Church-men in matters of Religion And albeit faith and reason be look'd upon as Iacob and Esau whereof the younger only hath the blessings and are by Divines placed at the two opposit points of the Diameter yet upon an unbyassed inquiry it will appear that faith is but sublimated reason calcin'd by that divine chymical fire of Baptisme and that the soul of man hath lurking in it all these vertues and faculties which we call Theological such as faith hope and repentance for else David would not have prayed Enlighten Lord my eyes that I may see the wonders of thy Law but rather Lord bestow new eyes upon me Neither could the opening of Lidea's heart have been sufficient for her conversion if these pre-existing qualities had not been treasur'd up there formerly So that it would appear that these holy flames lurk under the ashes of corruption untill God by the breath of His Spirit and that wind which bloweth where it listeth sweep them off And that God having once made man perfect in the first Creation doth not in His regeneration super-add any new faculty for else the soul had not at first been perfect but only removes all obstructing impediments I am alwayes ashamed when I hear reason call'd the step-mother of faith and proclaimed rebel against God Almighty and such declared traitors as dare harbour it or appear in it's defence These are such fools as they who break their Prospects because they bring not home to their sight the remotest objects and are as injust as Iacob had been if he had divorc'd from Leah because she was tender-eyed whereas we should not put out the eyes of our understanding but should beg from God the eye-salve of His Spirit for their illumination Nor should we dash the Prospect of our reason against the rockie walls of dispair but should rather wash it's glasses with the tears of unfeigned repentance Ever since faith and reason have been by Divines set by the ears the brutish multitude conclude these who are most reasonable to be least religious and the greatest spirits to be least spiritual a conceit most inconsistent with that divine parable wherein these who received the many talents improved them to the best advantage whilst he who had but one laid it up in a napkin And it is most improbable that God would choose low shrubs and not tall Cedars for the building of His glorious Temple And it is remarkable that God in the old Law refused to accept the first born of an asse in sacrifice but not of any other creature And some who were content to be call'd Atheists providing they were thought Wits did take advantage in this of the Rables ignorance and authorized by their devilish invention what was at first but a mistake and this unridles to us that mystery why the greatest Wits are most frequently the greatest Atheists When I consider how the Angels who have no bodies sinn'd before man and that brutes who are all body sin not at all but follow the pure dictates of nature I am induced to believe that the body is rather injustly bamed for being then that really it is the occasion of sin and probably the witty soul hath in this cunningly laid over upon it's fellow that where with it self is only to be charged What influence can flesh or blood have upon that which is immaterial no more sure then the case hath upon the Watch or the heavens upon it's burgessing Angels And see we not that when the soul hath bid the body adieu it remains a carcasse fit nor able for nothing I believe that the body being a clog to it mâ—y slow it's pursute after spiritual obiects and that it may occasion indirectly some sins of omission For we see palpably that eating and drinking dulls our devotions but I can never understand how such dumb Orators as flesh and blood can perswade the soul to commit the least sin And thus albeit our Saviour sayes that flesh and blood did not teach Peter to give him his true Epithets neither indeed could it Yet our Saviour imputes not any actual sin to these pithless causes And seing our first sin hath occasioned all our after sinning certainly that which occasioned our first sin was the main source of sinning and this was doubtless the soul for our first sin being an immoderat desire of knowledge was the effect and product of our spirit because it was a spiritual sin whereas if it had been gluttony lust or such like which seems corporeal the body had been more to have been blamed for it And in this contest I am of opinion that the soul wins the cause because it is the best Orator What was the occasion of the first ill
was furnished with all humane knowledge For his perfection consisted in his adoring of and depending upon God wherein we see these are exactest whose judgements are least pestered with terrestrial knowledge and least diverted with unnecessar speculations And thus it appears that these Sciences after which his posterity pants were not intended as noble appanages of the rational soul but are rather toyish babies busk't up by fal'n man whereby he diverts himself from reflecting too narrowly upon his native frailty And thus Scripture tells us that God made man perfect but that He sought out to Himself many inventions where perfection and invention seem to be stated as enemies and it is palpable that these Sciences which are by us lawrel'd and rewarded are such as were inconsistent with that state of innocency such as Law Theology and Physick And as for the rest it is absur'd to think that Adams happiness did consist in the knowledge of these things which we our selves account either impertinent or superfluous But that which convinces me most of this is that we forfeited nothing by Adam's fall which Christ's death restores not to us wherefore seing Christ by his own or his Apostles promises hath not assured us of any sub-lunary or school knowledge nor hath our experience taught us that Sciences are entailed upon the Saints I almost believe that Adam neither possest these before nor yet lost them by his fall Neither think I St. Paul the more imperfect that he desired to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified So that the difference betwixt Adam and his successors stood more in the straightness of his affections then in the depth of his knowledge For albeit it be believed that the names whereby he baptised the creature were full histories of their natures written in short hand yet this is but a conjecture authorized by no holy Text. It is a more civil error in the jewish Talmudists to think that all the creatures were brought to Adam to let him see that there were none amongst them fit to be his companion nor none so beautifull as Eve then it is in their Cabalists to observe that the hebrew word signifying man doth by a transposition of letters signifie likewayes benediction and the word signifying woman makes up malediction If we should take a character of Adam's knowledge from the Scriptures we shall find more imprudence charged upon him then upon any of his successors For albeit the silly woman was not deceived without the help of subtilty yet Adam sinned upon a bare suggestion and thereafter was so simple as to hide himself when God called him to an account as if a thicket of trees could have sconced him from his all-seeing Maker and when he was accused was so simple as to think his wives commands sufficient to exoner him and so absurd as to make God Himself sharer with him in his guilt the woman whom thou gavest me c. There is more charm in acquireing new knowledge then in reflecting upon what we have already gain'd as if the species of known objects did corrupt by being treasur'd up in our brains And this induces me to believe that our scantness of native knowledge is rather a happiness then a punishment the Citizens of London or Paris are not so tickled by the sight of these stately Cities as strangers who were not born within their walls and I may say to such as by spelling the Starres desire to read the fortunes of others as our Saviour said to Peter when he was desirous to know the horoscope of the beloved Apostle What is that to thee What can it advantage us to know the correspondence kept amongst the Planets and to understand the whole anatomy of natures skeleton in gazing upon whose parts we are oft times as ridiculous as children who love to leaf over taliduce Pictures for in both variety is all the usury that can be expected as the return of our time and pains and if we pry inly into this small maâ—s of our present knowledge we shall find that our knowledge is one of the fertilest fountains of our misery For do not such as know that they are sick groan more heavily then a countrey Clown who apprehends nothing till extremity creat in him some sense And doubtless the reason why children and idiots endure more and drunken men escape mo dangers then others is because albeit they cannot provide such apt remedies yet they are less acquainted with what they feel then we are Are not these who understand that they are affronted more vex'd then such as are ignorant of these misfortunes and these who foresee the changes and revolutions which are to befall either their friends or their countries are thereby more sadly diseased then he who sees no further then his nose Our Saviour wept when He did foresee that one stone of Ierusalem should not be left upon another and when Hazael askt Elisha why he wept he told him it was because he did foresee what mischief Hazael was to do in Israel Let us not then complain of the loss of Adam's knowledge but of his innocency we know enough to save us and what is more then that is superfluous Adam cannot be thought to have been the first sinner for Eve sinned before him So that albeit it seem a paradox yet it is most probable that albeit Adam had for ever abstained from eating the forbidden fruit his posterity had been still as miserable as now they are seing the guilt of either of the Parents had been sufficient to tash the innocency of the children For as the Scripture tells us who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean And David in that Text which of all others speaks most expressly of original sin layes the guilt upon her and confesseth only that his mother had conceived him in sin As Adam was not the first sinner So the eating of the aple may be justly thought not to be the first sin Eve having before his eating the aple repeated most falsely the Command For whereas God did assure them that in that day they did eat the fruit they should surely die Eve relates it thus Ye shall not eat the fruit least ye die representing only that as contingent which was most certain and whereas God had only said ye shall not eat of the fruit of the tree Eve sayes God said ye shall not touch it which it may be furnish'd the serpent this argument to cheat her ye see God hath deceived you for the fruit may be touched without danger why may it not then be eaten without hazard and it is probable that he hath failed in the one as well as in the other But to abstract from this it cannot be said that the eating of the forbidden fruit was the first sin for before Adam did eat thereof he behoved both to believe the Serpent and mis-believe his Maker and thus mis-belief was the first sin For after he had credited the Serpents report he was