ever be known by another In the next place we discourse the Element of Water imagined by some a solution of Earth or a moist coagulum of ambient Air made fluid only by an internal flux which surrounding the Earth compleats but one Globe and which aquous fluidity separates only the impurities from the more extraneous and superficial parts but cannot reach to the Core or Centre whereby to examine the internal impurities which an intence Fire naturally purgeth forth by reason of its ardent activity and not improper to say its vulcanick nature where the Waters of themselves can never reach Two Elements therefore are destinated to putrification and as the matter to be purified is visible or invisible consequently such are the Agents for purification Since the Fire therefore is an invisible Agent and that other of Water most obvious and visible the visible and invisible parts of things are therefore so mended and cleansed by subtile Operation whereby they seseparate the more inquinate impurity that stifly adheres to the immaculate nature and prestine state of Virgin purity But as the Soul within the Body is not bett'red by the Corporiety of all or any of the natural composition or impendent matter hovering about it but is rather stained poluted and infected with noxious Sapors arising thence from So you are to consider that the Vessel has its honour from the dignity of the Arcanum or glory of the Subject matter therein contained And as the Scripture instructs us that Gods surprizing Light illuminates every pious act of the Creature it obligeth us to consider that the Goodness of God is as great to forgive as by his Clemency and Bounty he is just to pardon Where note we observe God made things proportionable and in all respects suitable to himself The great World he made therefore to contain the less but the lesser World he made to contain himself that contains the greater And thus you have the Mystery of the Creation the Majesty of Reason the Divinity of Scripture and authority of Philosophy But the Waters brought forth every moving Creature because in them was the Spirit of Life For the Spirit of Life by Divine incubation made ingress into them filling them with a prolifick vertue and the first form'd Creature that the Waters brought forth was the great and unweildy body of Earth most recluse and solitary because inwardly concealed which till then never felt the operative foâ—ce of Fire Nor did the luminous Ray of the Sun nor the vertual influence of Stars nor the Divine order of Constellations nor the treasures of Hail and Rain of Lightning and Thunder nor the Seasons of Heat and Cold Frost and Snow besides innumerable living Creatures to whom Heavens plentiful Breast daily administred till then none of them knew the potency of Life nor the force and energy of the universal Spirit which God by Wisdome inspired into them But some will object and peradventure say how and after what manner does the Earth vegetate Shew us also the rationallity and probability whereby the Earth and the Water become living Creatures to which I readily and briefly answer the Soul of the Divine World is God himself but that of the Created the universal spirit of Nature and this Soul lives by vertue of the Divine World but acts by imagination only in the Created whereby the Earth conceives vegetates and buds up so does the Waters protrude and bring forth even to the period and perfection of its predestinated end Nor can they otherwise do because the Law of Providence and Necessity is by Divine ordination imposed upon them And that which enriches them are the sublime treasures of Elements and Principles For wanted they those active and ingressive instruments they were of all things in Nature most imperâ—ect and would be altogether void and unprofitable so become as it were a meer annihilation and not improper should I call it a Caput Mortuum For it were impossible that any Created Being if when wanting the Vital Faculty of Life could be any ways at any time in a capacity to live consequently to move vegetate and protrude But the great and the lesser World is fill'd with animation whereby it daily and hourly buds forth All which are signal and demonstrable tokens of the Spirit of Life that animates and actuates in every Creature Life therefore is that active and universal Spirit of Nature wherewith she infusseth the whole Creation impregnating every individual therewith whereby the Character of Life is no sooner stampt infus'd or imprest upon any material Subject but it inwardly lives as does the invisible World which no sooner appears to move forward into act but the model and frame of the Subject matter at once admits of exteriour Motion Life therefore as it is the Radix of every thing so it acts demonstratively in every Body The motion of the Sun we daily observe is necessarily occasioned by this active spirit of Life And such is the vital pulse in Man as also that large and greater pulse of the Ocean Earth vegetates only from this operating Spirit and the Air is replenished and fill'd full of it Every thing that is lives not without it nor can any thing subsist deficient of it O wonderful Nature the Miracle of the Creator how intelligeable art thou in all thy Operations and tho' so simple naked and demonstratively plain yet how difficult is it for the Artist to find out So that were we minded to imitate Nature in her solitary Operations and Fermentation of Elements we ought first to consider in order to what Nature in her daily progress points out unto us whereby to manidge and introduct us whose mediums because primarily separation and solution of parts therefore from thence begins manual Operation Let solution therefore be the first step since in separation all is found Then proceed to Filtration Evaporation Congealation Cristalization Distillation Digestion Putrefaction Ceration Albification Rubification and Fixation Then will Diana appear from under her Vail which none but the Eyes of a true Philosopher since the beginning ever yet saw But now I suspect I 'me beyond the Paraphrase of the Text when only designed to discourse the Creation so of Elements and Principles Natures own Rudiments How that Elements subsist not without previous Fermentation of their complicated comâ—xture of invisible Parts so that a compleat separation is no where found whereby to unlock and disintangle the unity of Bodies without a Philosophical Clavis to display their Principles which otherwise are limited and by Nature confined to submit to the law of coagulation Of all which I cease farther to disclose lest peradventure this secret be already too manifest when because to devulge it to the root of ingratitudes so we leave that Subject to discourse the Leviathan And God made great Whales c. Iob calls him Leviathan who after his Creation by the permission of God rolls toâ— and fro the fluctuating Ocean Whose unctuous Scales pollish the
Sea that â—o amazâ—ment it shines like a Pot of Oyntment and whose magnitude amazes his fellow Creatures Whose Empire is the spacious and bottomless Ocean but himself a Monarch over all in the deeps whose Subjects are the several Clases of Natatiles that pay tribute to him with the loss of their Lives So that what to say of this prodigious Creature I know not nor is any Pen capable to discourse his concealments or fathom the unfathomed depths that conceal him Is not he one of the wonderful Mysteries of the ways of God Whose shining paths discover his ways and whose motion terrifies the eyes of his beholders â— Creature he is that lives void of fear and is as Iob says a King over all the Children of Pride Leviathan therefore if thought requisite to describe him I shall rally him under three several distinctions and the rather because to make him yet more obvious give me leave to rumidge the Ocean and dress up my method whereby to illustrate him in the following order First then by Tradition we entitle him Grampus when because to consider him in his prestine Minority but successively in his Peregrination he assumes to himself that dignity and magnitude that some call him Iubartas When in process of time and becoming yet more formidable some are pleased to superscribe him the Whale or Leviathan whose motion upon the slippery tracts of the Ocean represents him as it were a floating Island And whose excessive bulk and incredible bigness is enough to astonish every beholder when otherwise to consider him on the silty Owse his own weight peradventure hazards to sink him whereby he becomes a prey to the Merchant or otherwise must lie till death release him But of this admirable and eminent Subject there are some so precipitant to preconjecture Iob too copious whiles othersome of a contrary opinion have determined him too brief and altogether concise when because as to their apprehension not to enlarge enough upon him wherefore to reconcile them which is not without difficulty the ignorant and unlearned think he has said too much when by reason of their ignorance they cannot understand him but to the Wise and more Judicious he has said too little and the rather in regard they 'r desirous of knowledge for Wisdome is always known of her Children But Iob that humane Oracle of Learning and Eloquence and as learnned as any man in the study of Astronomy has given such eminent and convincing Encomiums with such solid Arguments of this admirable Creature that every description save that of his own strikes a Discord in the Readers ear whose Mute I confess my self to be and am unwilling therefore to attempt to encounter what neither my Language nor Experience can boast of otherwise than that I have seen this formidable Creature sporting himself in the vast wide Ocean yet this wont priviledge but rather precaution me with reverend submission to a sedate taciturnity and to affix no more Arguments upon this invincible Subject But rather with my Author lay my hand on my mouth and remembring the battle do so no more Since therefore to consult him without any compeer and a Monarch of such a magnitude and vast Dominions should we rumidge all the Elements for a Mate to match him none but his own is found to contain him Wherefore we represent him the Majesty of Mortals whose search we relinquish to correspond with inferiours such are the Porpus the Bottle-Nose and the Shark the Selk Boneto and the Albicore the Moura or Sea Serpent with the Conger Bass Remora Torpedo and the American Snite There is also the Turbet Scate Dolphin Grooper and Cavalla besides the Sturgeon Salmon Trout Lucit Mullet Umbar Barble Tenche c. and thousands more in Salts and Freshes Moreover there are Shell-fish as the Turtle or Tortoise Conct Lobsters Oysters Crabs Cockles Mussels Craw-fish Prawns and Shrimps but these are arm'd all over Another Brigade are Alegators Crocadiles Guianas Bevers Otters and Manitees with many other but such are Amphibious whom I care not to converse with Living Creatures therefore and such as move and have their motion by the mediums of Water are our Subject matter And that God created every invidual made it to live and gave it motion is the strength of my Assertion And that the Waters were the cause of their Life and Motion is the Argument of the Text but that God gave Life and Motion to the Waters that gave Life and Motion to the Creatures therein is my positive and final Conclusion Life then as naturally attends the Creation as the Ray of Light follows the Sun. Nor can any Life issue but what flows from Light as Light it self flows from the Divine Fiat which immaculate Light sprung up from Eternity as Eternity it self shines from the Majesty But since the determinate and original end of Water was not generally understood its nature and office but imperfectly considered its wonderful Vertue and Operation intelligeable only to such whom Wisdome and Nature have duly Educated in God's great School where nothing is taught without wonder and astonishment so that all I can offer relating to this admirable Subject is little more than to say nothing since if I speak any thing I say too much and silence peradventure would better become me rather than so publickly declame and devulge to the World these my Notions and it may be by some thought barren apprehensions that like a Chase in Arra's figurates only the design but wants real power of Life to prompt forward into Motion Which implies such Phaenonima's discover nothing where the genuine truth of any thing admits of a doubt and who will be so presumptous to determine possitives by his own own hesitant and imperfect Conclusions But the Sea as one great and copious Body is acted only by the spirit of Life that in the beginning inspired the Creation and all the Rivers and Rivulets that fluctuate in Islands consequently all those that spread themselves on the Continent what are they but such and so many Meanders running up and down in every Angle representing the Arms Boughs and Branches of this prodigious and Miraculous Creation whose Trunck or Bole is the Ocean it self whose Radix or Root in the Nonage of Time lay conceal'd among the admirable Mysteries of the Creator So that after what manner the Fountains and the Rivers with the Springs and Rivulets became incipid whiles the Ocean it self is impregnated with Salt is another Mystery till serioussy to consider the Quellem or Sand and the multiform variety of Soils in the Earth as also to examine the Bottles of Heaven the burdned and impregnated Clouds that fall and daily distil to replenish the Earth with Aerial Spirits and Prolifick Vertue These also were once one Saline substance when in the great Mass or Volumn of the Ocean whose Texture was alienated in the act of Separation because rarified and purified by Mediums of Air which more properly admits of
engendred or otherwise by Putrefaction have received a new State through Fermentation all which Productions are manifest Arguments of Life and Spirit as also of Vegetation The Texture therefore of this great World clearly discovers and demonstrates its animation where the Visibility of Earth manifestly represents the Impure Gross and Natural Basis and the Elemental Waters because circulating about it assimilates also the Venal Blood actuating and fermenting in every Body where the vital Pulse also operates as is seen in the admirable Flux and Reflux of the Ocean and the Air of necessity the Vehickle for Spirits wherein this vast Creature meaning the Creation breath's invisibly tho peradventure not altogether nor in any part insensibly and the Interstellar Skies and Aetherial Waters the Vital Parts whiles the Sun Moon and Stars are the animating Spirits and supersensual Fires that warm the Creation But this kind of Philosophy will puzle the Putationer as the Primitive Truth of the Apostles confounded the Romans So Moses's Philosophy in the Rudiments of the Creation will be as little understood as the Tracts of Hermes the Tâ—â—mudist's Cabalist's Caldeans Egyptians aud Arabians if when to consider the possibility of Nature which is impossible without supernatural discoveries and should we otherwise conclude than by Divine Authority we lick up the Froth of every sottish Generation so usher to posterity that Atheistical Opinion calculated by Imaginarist's that the Creator slept whiles the Chaos of it self without Divine direction fell into this beautiful Order as we now behold it which if but to think so is a Sin of Impiety and an Error so enormous never enough to be lamented But all such Inquietudes we remit them to their destiny since to carry such and so many Furies in their own Bosoms whereby to hurry and torment themselves whose unwholsome Principles because nautious to themselves would stamp their impression on those that suck them in so that one would think such Souls mingled with Clay and because in the limit and circumstance of Time are iâ— some measure confin'd to Earth's sublunar mixts and by the World so severely intangled that like Birds in Limetwigs the more they flutter the faster they find themselves intangled in such a state I perswade my self there 's no Divine Speculation nor Visional Faith whereby to see the invisible state of things as they stand nakedly simply and purely in themselves of which these Visible Objects are but Natural Representatives This perswasion directs to me an unregenerate state because when not to partake of a Supernatural Birth the Soul therefore that 's immerged with Sin Darkness conducts it to a dismal destiny deeply shadowed under the decays of Elements and impossible without a Miracle to make a flight above the World since by innate inherency its partaker of the World. But the Stars if when to consider them the Almighty's Library where every Star is the Volumn of a World and every World a sumptuous Globe divinely held in the Hand of its Maker for such they were and such they are not that these sublime and eminent Elevations were only made for Mortals confusedly to gaze at no I 'me perswaded rather to excite and stir up admiration whereby to elevate and quicken our Devotion above our selves when to behold such Majesty fixt in the Creation for are not these Luminous and Illustrious Bodies which we behold hung up in that great Vortrice of Heaven Celestial Lamps to illuminate the Universe and not only to illuminate but animate and vegetate so in conclusion influence and impregnate the Creation 'T is true that Heaven is a Paradise for Souls and a Divine Reception for the Divinity it self but not that I prophane to term it a Habitation when alluding that Heaven contains the Divinest since Heaven is every where where ever God is whose Holy Presence institutes it Immutable Immeasurable and Eternal like himself whose Nature transmutes it into his own likeness and puts it into such a Divine Capacity that for ever its uncapable of the periods of Death Heaven therefore is the Divine Habitation of God and the Light of Heaven the Divinity of God the blessed Society there Saints and Angels and there it is that the Prophets and Prophetesses with Apostles and Evangelists daily Prophesie for there every Day is a daily Sabboth and Elohim betwixt the Cherubs is the Lord Iehovah But the Evening and the Morning were the second Day so that twenty four Hours nor more nor less do but compleat a Natural Day when as the whole Tract of Time in its Natural Progress appears to me but one Day Super-natural of which our Ancestors as also our selves from Sacred Authority had these Divine Speculations so that if to consider that two Days natural could operate such a change in the great Creation we may rationally conclude and as modestly determine the residue an Argument to evince the Generations For could I but seriously point out to the Creature the Blessed Creators mystical Operation which is altogether impossible I might then peradventure prove an Instrument to some whereby to moderate and disintangle Passion pursuant only after perishing Objects and for ought I know blot out the Prejudice and Animosity of others meaning such as seditiously sow Discention among the Brethren endeavouring thereby to reap the fruits of their own conjectural Imaginations which to do but undoes one another by violating the Sacred Laws of God as that also of Nature and of true Religion since the Scriptures by a Divine Authority require that every one examine himself and seriously and sedately study a Reformation Then were the Waters beneath the Heaven by Divine Appointment gathered together and those Invisible Waters above the Heavens rallied themselves and separated apart which admirable and wonderful Act or Operation occasioned a trepidation all over the Chaos for till then the Waters intermingled with the Waters and the Elements as Inmates spread themselves among them till God in his Wisdom stirred up the Magnet and then the Waters immediately attracted so by Collision broke the Bond of Unity for when so great a change happned in the whole of necessity every individual separated apart In which admirable progress every one had its station yet was it by appointment and the Providence of God so that the more sublime the matter was by so much the higher it ranged it self removing more remotely from its own Faecula when on the contrary to admiration the more Gravity it had by so much the closer it adhered to its Recrement and in this Operation the Fire claim'd the Precedency but next the Fire the Air pleaded Succession so that these two Elements become as it were invisible and which also by reason of a Spirituallity administred only to the Vital parts But Water and Earth when to consider their Corporiety their Gravity their Unity and more Consubstantial Parts and because also Synonimous with the Creature it cloathed and fed it with Prolifick Vertue for whatever any thing is of it self of
or prospect nor rested he there until the final Complement of his Divine Counsel and Determinate Purpose And then it was that Adam was made which the Divinest created no less than a Monarch and intrusted by the Creator with the Creatures in the Creation inraged Lucifer that infernal Prince to emulate the Dignity of this new Favorite who reflectiâ—g on his Ambitions that so lately dethron'd him which obliged him to forfeit his Regal Possession he therefore undermines to blow up this Favourite who tainting our Protoplast infects his Posterity And thus the bright and beautiful Morning is sometimes sullied with a louring Sky For did not the Sun 's early blazing smiles shine upon Sodom and her accurst Inhabitants that soon after ended in a fatal Tragedy what must we call this if not a dismal Eclipse nay altogether a deprivation of life save only to Lot and his preserved Family on purpose kept alive by the meanes of Miracle when all the rest were made most miserable Morts Whiles therefore we live here in this Natural State we only reap supplies of Aliment from Elements but when we shall be discharged the Manicles of Sin and releast from the horrour and amazements of Death we shall then appear under a more spirituous form and where we shall see things as they really are in themselves by which we may know till then we knew nothing Nor are these Moral Beings or Natural Apprehensions any other than signitures or the deliniated Figure of that super-excellent Beauty we shall see hereafter And God by Wisdom divided the Waters from the Waters the Celestial from the Terrestrial Heaven from Earth the Invisible from Visible things and so disposed them by the Law of Providence appointing to every one Dominion and Operation in order to bring about his determinated Creation And who knows but that these elevated and invisible Waters are the Waters Moses speaks of that Bathe the Banks of the New Ierusalem and that the spangled Firmament is the Pavement of Heaven or the solid part thereof if not improper to say so nor is 't impertinent to think so when Invisibles are pointed at by Visible Objects otherwise I understand not the design in the Text which supposing I do I am unwilling to be refuted if when only to hear another Mans contradiction But that there was and still is a Division or an Interposition betwixt Superiours and Inferiours is past dispute Moses asserts it and the Text affirms it where note as a Christian it concerns me to enquire and as a Philosopher as gladly desire to be advised and informed the Nature and the Quality of these divisional Waters the Vertue and the Office of that that 's Elementary as the Dignity and Operation of that that 's invisible the first because Elementary we daily converse with and frequently apply it unto servile uses but the latter since invisible we assign that to Moses except otherwise the Divinest by Oracle from Heaven be pleased to inspireus as the Prophet was inspired Faith therefore is the evidence of things invisible as is demonstration of visible things The Waters above the Firmament we have supposed them Celestial because of Sublimity Purity and Rarification which in the great and admirable work of this stupendious Separation the Chaos no sooner felt the Examen of Heat but Water began immediately to operate and presently became convertible into Air and this I call Aetherial Rarification by reason it s not only separated from Aquasity but apparently becomes to the World invisible Why not then by the same Argument all the Fountains and Aquoducts nay the Ocean it self by the Law of Necessity evaporate into Air since minutely it operates without intermission this is obvious to every one but the Sours of the Sea you 'll object is so deep her Springs and Supplies so manifestly numerous that it 's almost impossible to exhaust her Treasures whereby to render her barren or impoverish'd to that I answer God has placed such a Magnet in the very Bowel and Center of the Waters of that attractive and magnetick Vertue that were not the Waters bounded by the Law of Limitation the Earth peradventure would soften and melt consequently become convertible into Water and for ought I know resolve at last into a moist and a soft thin Air. But God the Creator has placed such a Bar betwixt the Visible and Invisible Waters He I say it is that by Wisdom and Providence hung up a Spangled Vail or Covering betwixt them and calls it the Firmament which intersects or divides betwixt Celestials and Terrestials yet so that a sympathy and continued harmony is by the Divinest correspondent betwixt them and the Text tells us that Heaven it self forbears not to sigh if at any time the Sinner be sadned to mourn but is filled with Alacrity and Heavenly Joy even at the Conversion of one single Penitent Nay so great is the triumph among the Saints and Angels when a Sinner becomes victor over Sin and Impenitency that all our Faculties as if Divinely exirted muster up themselves in open Hostility to oppose the Invador of our everlasting Tranquility but I intend not to common place upon this Divine Subject otherwise than to elucidate the Mysteries of the Creation And where Rabbi Moses has drawn the Curtain I shall modestly by permission endeavour to withdraw it provided it be thought neither Sacriledge nor Impiety since to confider behind this Mystical Interposition the Magi have concealed the Sanctum Sanctorum nor Prophane I when to say The Beauty of Holiness So that we may read and begin to understand the Firmament by Interpretation is called Heaven which certainly is the Basis and Celestial Superstructure of this most admirable and stupendindious Creation tho to us and our Ancestors seemingly invisible wherefore let us resort to Heavens great School where Christ himself is Dictator and Pilate to conduct us and chief Rabbi to instruct us for the Divinest himself will become our Interpreter so that God in due time will certainly manage us to that Seraphick Society of Saints and Angels where we shall Daily be Divinely taught and by Jesus Christ the Son of God made so Prophetical and Evangellically Intelligeable that the Alphabet of Heaven will be the Christ-Cross-Row whiles about these Sublunar Orbs our Modern Didacticks and Learned Academicks are hourly so impinged that they sore no higher than Custom and President of Profest Arts and if without offence I may freely speak it rather of Litteral than Liberal Science Where note some Anti-Scripturist's have been lately so Prophane as to imagine God like to a Country Mechanick that builds up with Stone and finishes with Timber without any Infusion of Life and Motion as if the whole Creation was a Creature inanimate when the voluminous World which is Gods great Library is filled full of Life Activity and Motion which Life is Spirit and the cause of Multiplication and the natural Production of all created things that by Copulation are