all these suited to his particular constitution This would make him observe in experience what food is hurtful and what is healthful for him This doth put an healthful soundness in saving Faith in wholesome Doctrine in a renewed mind The pardon of Sin is set out by its having an healing Virtue in it upon the pardoned The LORD Jesus Christ hath born the diseases of his people and there is a spiritual skill in laying of these upon him so as to draw healing Virtue from his humane glorified Body when quickned by the Spirit by a touch of Faith Ungoverned passions are Distempers and Diseases which the holy Spirit and Graces from him acted aright either doth prevent or remedy How many are those precious promises in which the LORD hath ingaged himself unto his dutiful Children that walk orderly in his Family and are always found doing of that which is well-pleasing unto him all which are to be pleaded with him by a Spirit of Faith with the Prayer of Faith in the Word of Faith as the Case doth call for and as the Matter doth require as otherwise sicknesses and diseases are threatned against the unperswadable How often in the Scriptures doth the cure of Diseases follow upon the remission of sins with which it is joyned Many Examples it doth afford us of this Converting Grace doth dispossess Satan who through the sufferance of God hath inflicted doth and still can inflict Diseases Hence infirmity or sickness has somewhat of his Name as a spirit of infirmity Intemperance Gluttony and Drunkenness do cause multitudes of Distempers which would not be did Grace exercised keep within due bounds of Moderate Sobriety The Spirit Soul and Body in man have a mutual influence upon each other and it is often well or ill with the one as it is well or ill with the other Physicians many times cannot heal because Jehovah is not sought unto Patients now and then do suffer much from them and do waste their substance to little or no good effect so that they are Physisicians of no value A wise Comforter is called a Physician in the Word of God there is an healing Virtue going along with his savoury seasonable suitable counsel A deliverer has the same name when Jehovah doth save his hands are said to heal his saved Ones do know and injoy the meaning of this healed ones are counselled in order to the continuance and further enjoyment of their health to avoid sin for time to come A thankful frame is preservative of health when all the glory of a cure is given unto Jehovah and when the end of a Cure is attained by a return with thankfulness and diligence to the function of our Office in our Place and in our Calling an eye of Faith towards Christ has been found to be actually healing Thus also sweet sensible satisfying Communion with God is of a nourishing Virtue and of an healing efficacy Spiritual Senses have Spiritual Objects suited and Heart Senses have Heart Objects fitted and outward Senses have outward Objects prepared The New Creature hence has its way of inward reviving and restoring The Spirit and Soul sees hears smells tasteth and the sensitive part has its congruous refreshments and all these have a tendency to Health This was Job's Food and Physick And O how sweet were these to the Psalmists pallat This Word of God has a purging curing efficacy so also has the Grace of God How healing are his comfortings to an wounded spirit and to a broken heart The Ministery of good Angels is sometimes used both in inflicting of Diseases and of Death as also in curing of Distempers It is a great sin in case of sickness to consult Dunghil-idols and not the God of Israel for cure and for health National sins do give Names to natural Diseases As the Botch of Egypt There is a Talio sometimes in some Diseases carrying along with them the resemblance of the provoking deserving cause of them the whole body sinning may be struck all over or some one particular member may be more smitten and pained when it is more in trespass Some Diseases are ineurable by any Medicinal Art until there be repenting and returning No Disease is so deadly but that Aelohim can cure it if he will prove his Skill and put forth his Power Healing would be a gift in the Churches of Christ were Churches more rightly constituted more regularly gathered and more orderly walking The perturbations and passions of the Heart are Morbifickcauses hurtful to the Body as well as to the Soul by operating causality When joy doth exceed the Heart forgets its Limits and leaps beyond its bounds and so loosneth it self that the spirits too frolickly fly out whereupon weakning fainting swooning and sickning do ensue Whereas joy moderated doth revive the heart chear the spirit quicken the body and comfort the whole man Over-sadness and undisciplin'd fear doth oppress the Heart and streighten the Spirit and imprison the Soul and weaken the whole Man so cooling natural heat and so freezing the radical moisture that the Limbs will tremble and the Heart palpitate the Appetite doth flat the Digestion is disturbed the the Distribution impeded kindly Motion is hindred distant Members are chilled and the whole man is distempered The flesh is dryed the strength is broken the Senses are weakned the Mind is darkned the Imagination is clouded and frighted the Blood is congealed and the Spirits are stupified It has many sickning affects upon the whole man Saving and sanctifying Graces and holy heavenly frames have a Specifick Remedy against distempered Passions I often find the sick Psalmist thus fetching in a timely cure A large Treatise might profitably be published upon this Subject It would be an Honour put upon the Learned in the Medicinal Knowledge if their Profession and Practice might no longer be only a conjectural Art a probable Doctrine of vain Philosophy but now at length an ascertaining Science of Scripture Verity For a further Advance and Augment of useful Science let it be inquired from the fourth Days Work Q. Whether the Celestial Phaenomena of the glorious Luminaries can ever be reduced to any certain satisfactory Art or improved into an advanced restaured Science by vain Philosophy Or must this be attained only by Scripture-Discovery in its pursued Light and followed Directions A. VAin Philosophy can never teach it it is only learn'd in the Scripture School Precious time will be prodigally wasted in fruitless Disquisitions whilst vain affecters of Humane Wisdom are our Teachers who would Dogmatize over us and impose their peremptory assertions upon the easie credulity of their hood-winck'd Disciples who have no wings to fore high enough for a confutation of their New Worlds in the Moon and in other Luminaries by a close ocular Demonstration to the contrary And thus they are hardened into a confidence of their
Soul and of Body How full of admirable VVonders is this How rare its accomplishments How vertuous its Powers both in the inner and outer Man How mysterious are the Communications of the several parts in Man to each other How secret their Operations upon each other How fearfully how marvellously was this Man made Aelohim did attribute the special making of Man immediately and expresly to himself to set out the dignity and excellency of Man and to assert the Truth Reality and Certainty of the History of Adam against those who dreamingly fancy other Origins of the VVorld Man was not from Eternity but was made in Time Man was not compounded at his first Creation of the four pre-existent Elements of VVater Earth Air and Fire as some affirm nor of Salt Sulphur and Mercury as others assert but is a distinct Creature of a quite different kind from other of his fellow Creatures particularly from Beasts So that we may not with some credulous admirers of Bruits to the disparagement of our selves and the reproach of all Humane Nature adopt Bruits into the Family of Mankind and as one doth express it claim kindred of Apes Baboons Marmosets Drils Bestial Fauns and Satyrs as if they were but one degree removed from our selves Aelohim did not consult with other Creatures about the Make of Man neither were Angels co-workers with him in this That he created Adam a Man and not a Beast was merely the Grace and Beneficence of the Creator It was not the VVork of Nature nor the influencing Operation of the Stars Man's Industry and Art contributed nothing towards the creating of the VVorld For Man had his being one of the last of all the Creatures How exactly was this man made at the first according to the Primitive Pattern Exemplar Type and Model coming very near unto it In Adam man may acknowledge that self same Archetype unto whose Effigies or Shape or Figure or Likeness or Fashion he was made This doth more denote the quality of resemblance which did follow upon the former portraicture resemblance formed shape or expressed representation How glorious how comly how uniform was that appearance of Majesty which did shine forth in Adams inner and outer Man wherein he differs from the lower Creatures and is made like unto his Maker resembling Aelohim as he manifested himself to be seen in those Visions which are recorded in the Scriptures very much like unto the LORD Jesus Christ himself chiefly in Holiness and in Righteousnes Man is called the Image of Aelohim because he is like to Aelohim and he is like Aelohim because he was efformed in creation to Aelohim's likeness as to his Nature Rectitude and State the Image of Aelohim doth carry with it the very likeness to him There are two words which as to their grammatical distinction do spring from two distinct Roots Otherwise they well agree to set out man 's excellent resemblance of his Maker as the Etymology of both the words doth shew Image is sometimes referred to Grace no less than likeness As likeness is also to Nature To reconcile all differences about this I judge that these two words do set out the exact proportionable resemblance of created Adam unto Creating Aelohim in Christ both in the inward make and outward shape in the whole Man as Christ did often appear of old in the Old Testament as a Man to aspire and confirm his peoples Faith that in the appointed time he would take to his Godhead the Nature of Man by a wonderful Incarnation born of a Virgin and be God manifest in the Flesh It is one of the most alike Images that is coming the nearest of any to the Prototype So that here is no Pleonasm or Tautology but a comprehensive significancy and a full sense expressed in two words Man in his Spirit Soul and Body in his whole suppositum the intire Man is every way like his Maker so far as Man's created Capacities were For there is somewhat in Jehovah Aelohim which is incommunicable to mere Man as particularly infiniteness and self existency unchangeableness of holy Nature which last I desire may pass under further disquisition whether unchangeableness of holy Nature be not one part of Holiness comprehended in the perfect Law of the ten Words which Adam in his Uprightness and the blessed Angels in their Purity being but mere Creatures were not capable of If so then whether this would not discover the need and use that even the Elect Angels themselves have of Christ though they do not so need him as now fallen sinning sinful man doth need him in regard that although they have an unchangeableness of State yet not of Nature For some of their fellows do fall by transgression and the standing and the safety of those of them who remain in the Primitive Integrity and Happiness is not their perfection in Grace but their relation unto Christ their Head And the same will hold true also with respect to the glorified Saints in Heaven Elect Men and Women their continued felicity will not be solely in themselves even when they pass into an unsinning State a State of complete Purity and Bliss but as they are living Members of the Mystical Body of Christ There is somewhat peculiar in this Image wherein man is like unto his creating Mediator so as other Creatures are not Though man were created in the Image according to the likeness of Aelohim in Christ yet is not mere man to be adored or to be worshipped Aelohim himself alone hath adorability properly belonging to him The Woman as well as the Man did share in this holy happy Image and likeness The Name Creature is more especially given to Adam as one of the most excelling of Creatures because of this resemblance The notificative Particle is sometimes put before a proper name As here in this part of the History of the Creation and elsewhere contrary to the common Grammar Rule composed by men Grammar should be fitted to Scripture and not Scripture suited to Grammar The different Sexes Male and Female Man and Woman were created at the first in the Humane Nature by Aelohim That after History of the Womans being taken from the side of Man and given unto him in Marriage by Christ should also be further inquired into whether it were not distinct and different both in Nature and in Time from the first Creation of the Man and of the Woman The Woman was of distinct Creation by Aelohim as well as the Man and when the Man was created for this is not by Anticipation both of them were made not out of any pre-existent matter though in Christ Jesus there be not Male and Female but they are esteemed both one in him in the matters of Justification Sanctification Acceptation and Redemption the one sharing in these benefits as well as the other The Man and the Woman were created several distinct persons We have read that he
example of Justice in this Island were more likely to terrifie the inhabitants thereof and to prevent any further guilt in principle or in practice about this foul sin than ten other arguments in such an age of monstrous bodily uncleannesses of speculative unbelief and of practical Atheism Whatever success upon the hearts of Readers this paper Testimony has or shall have is with him in whose hands the hearts of men are In this I rejoyce that the LORD hath not left me to be ashamed of Christ nor of his Words in this Adulterous and sinful Generation They are the Scripture-Rules and Precepts of our LORD Christ which we must walk by and whom we must obey if we would have him to be the Author of eternal Salvation and who will judge Whoremongers and Adulterers all whosoever they be who are profane corrupters of Holy Marriage Whether thorowout the Scriptures where ever Adam is found in the Original it should not be so rendred in the Translation into other Languages leaving it to the expounder in the help and supplies of the holy Spirit to shew when it is meant properly of the The Adam and when collectively of more This I judge greatly useful to be far inquired into and seriously to be considered of It is scarce imaginable till proof be made of this what variety of choice discoveries would shine forth from hence That all the Old Testament thorow we can find Adam but twenty times or about that small number in our English Translation Whereas it is expressed in the Original many scores of times let the vulgar Reader think and consider whether much of this useful Learning about Man's Nature and State have not been hereby hidden from him And let the Judicious and experienced in the Hebrew words and phrases say whether many controversies in Religion about Adam and his fall and his conveying of guilt and corruption to his Posterity with much more of profitable practical Doctrines and Duties Graces and Privileges would not be evidently demonstrated hereby Adam was not created at the first Androg ynous with two distinct several Faces and with a double body afterwards to be divided and pulled asunder one from another to become two Aelohim created them in the plural Male and Female severed ones sundred Personages The Male and the Female Adam were both blessed together and therefore at that time they had both of them a created distinct being Aelohim's benediction which he gave to Adam the Male and the Female is more large and ample in expressions and in things than those words of blessing which before he uttered to other Creatures they had propagation as other living creatures made on the fifth day though not so numerous as the most of them and further they were endowed and enriched with many a good perfect gift of Spirit Soul and Body beyond them We must learn and know mind and consider That the Creation in the whole and in every part thereof together with all the Honour and Glory of that Power and Wisdom and other glorious Excellencies which did so manifest themselves therin is wholly and only to be ascribed and attributed to Aelohim whose name is so often as hath been observed used in this History Adam was bound actually to believe in Aelohim and in his Word as soon as he was created For he had a Word and a Promise from Christ in this History of the Creation Adam was to believe Aelohim's sanctifying of appointed Meats created for his Food to be received of them who being believing ones and acknowledging ones of the Truth to mention no more particulars now So that Faith in the creating Messias has a Foundation in created Nature Adam had a power in created Nature to believe in Christ and his Holiness and his Righteousness were a perfection suitable and con-natural to him Thus the sum of the Decalogue was imprinted in Adam's heart Faith in Jehovan Aelohim is the substance of the first word or command which was enjoyned to all the World of Mankind in Adam and so Faith in Father Son and Holy Spirit It was always a Truth from the very first creating and forming of Man and was actually a Law and command upon Man and Mankind that without Faith it is impossible to please God whom to please as well as to believe in was a plain duty accordingly Abraham believed in God who accounted it to him for righteousness and all the Children of Abraham must be of the same Faith and Practice For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him The eleventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews in several instances doth relate that the Saints and people of God under the Old Testament-administration did actually rely upon Christ by Faith for which Faith they are there commended This original concreated Holiness and Righteousness in Adam being such a Law of Nature as whereof the ten Words are a perfect Transcript and an exact Summary it were a matter well worth a further re-search and a deeper Inquiry whether the Doctrinal-part as well as the Duty-part of true pure Religion be not to be found in the Decalogue Thorah is one of the Names of this Law often used in the Old Testament The Native signification of which word is Doctrine It is a Doctrinal Law cast before the Disciples of the LORD teaching and instructing us concerning his will towards us and about our Office towards him and our Neighbour in what we are to believe as to the credends and to do as to the Agends of Religion informing us in the Truth of the premises as well as directing us in the practice of the conclusions Faith and obedience in their large comprehensive notation do take in the whole of Religion they are all Adam as to this For Adam was under a Law under this Law The Articles of our Belief are within the bounds of the Laws of the Decalogue He that would be regular in his obedience must also be found in the Faith These are the Essential constitutive parts of an entire perfect Holiness and Righteousness The LORD Jesus Christ confirmed the Truth of his Doctrine from the Authority of his own Law and in asserting the Doctrine of the Resurrection which is one great particular instance he fetcheth the force of his Argument from the first Word saying I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob God is not the God of the Dead but of the Living To assent unto revealed Truth is as necessary a part of our Duty as to perform commanded service And if it be narrowly looked into and duly pondered it will be manifest that all the Acts of our obedience do as naturally result from some Act of Faith as all the Acts of Faith do naturally resolve into some Act of obedience as a general subjection of our whole Man to the will of
of Church-members of regular exercise of Church Discipline And now if we further consider Adam or Man as to his own singular individual person how many advantageous Arts and Sciences might here pass under further inquiry The whole Adam and intire compositum of Man as to spirituals doth in its comprehension call for much skill in several Mysterious Sciences as of the excelling Prerogative of man's Primitive created Holy Happy Healthful State Of man's miserable condition under his fallen sinful state Of man's restaured Felicity in the New Created Converted State Of man's unexpressible summity of Happiness in his glorified Estate And as for Adam for Man in his Naturals the body of Man takes in the Art of Cookery for nourishment the Art of Medicine for Curing the Art of Chirurgery for Healing the Art of Anatomy for Dissection the Art Cosmetick for Clothing for comliness for cleanness for due-bounded Decoration The Art of Activity for all bodily lawful Exercises The Art of patient suffering And if I would crumble this into a multitude of particulars respecting the inward and out parts of the body how many under Arts do these contain Ear-art Eyeâ—art Tongueâ—art Heart-art besides many that I could mention about the Humours the Blood the proper Offices and Functions of every part with a multitude of more Get we into the soul or into the spirit of Adam or of Man Very profitable disquisitions might here be made what the specifick Natures and Differences of these are what their several Offices Functions Facuities Motions and such like What the several Objects of them are And how that these would take in many Arts and Sciences the Intellect of Man doth lead to the Art of Scripture-Logick His will and affections to the Art of Scripture Ethicks His invention and Judgement when it steps into Elocution to the Art of Scriptureâ—Rhetorick What shall I more say If the particular Arts and Sciences do so muitiply and there be so much in the holy Scriptures about every one of these as I could had I time and a call thereunto evidently demonstrate to any Spiritual Discerner and Judicious Inquirer is it not then clear that he who has a Purse and a mind proportionable to so great an undertaking might imploy scores of the most Learned men in the World about much of the most useful work in the World And now I could pity the great princely noble wealthy ones of this World who have so much and yet do so little who are intrusted with many Talents and yet do Trade so little with them for the promoting of so choice good in the Common-wealth of Learning How many thousands and Millions of pounds are there sinfully wasted and vainly expended about sensual Arts and voluptuary Sciences to the corrupting and undoings of hundreds of Souls One whereof is of more true solid-worth than an whole World Which if it were laid out and improved for the advancement of Scripture-Learning would pass both comfortably upon account at the last Judgement-day and in the mean time forward and spread some of the rarest Excellencies and choicest Fellcities that rational Creatures and Humine Intellects are capable of on this side of the heavenly glory But though I should even break my loyns with sighing and blind my eyes with Writing yet when once will it be otherwise till the LORD himself do open the Eyes and irradiate the minds and change the hearts and incline the wills and ingage the Spirits of some of the great ones of the Earth to appear more in so righteous a Cause At the present because it is a prosecuting of that subject matter which I am upon let me present somewhat to the view of men conversant in the Art and Practice of Medicine with respect to man which may if the LORD will bless it to that end ingage them to be more in the studious research into the Scriptures for the promoting and advancing of the Medicinal-Science which Ethnick Philosophy can never perfect In the general let it be pondered upon whether those who have a name to be great advancers of Learning particularly of this part of Learning the Medicinal Art â—have ever laid this Science upon a sound bottom who affirm that Medicine not grounded upon Philosophy is a weak thing and that the knowledge of Medicine has this wanting a true and active Natural Philosophy upon which the Medicine should be built That there is a defectiveness in this Art as commonly studied professed and practised is confessed by the Discerning and Ingenious So that some further Maturation and perfecting of it is much desired But that ever either old Ethnick Philosophy in Principles or new Experimental Philosophy in practice by Christians can attain this compleating augment without fetching of it out of the Scriptures of Truth that I deny For these being Philosophizings or vain affected Humane Reasonings according to outward senses which are very fallible in two great cases especially when either Objects are at too great a distance or when Objects are very secret and hidden at least in their inward Springs and Causes and Combinations shewing themselves outwardly only by some darker symptoms and deceitful signs These I say cannot give so right a judgement in many cases There are divers diseases of the Soul and of the Spirit in man which do also influence to the diseasing of the body which mere natural Philosophy cannot discover or remedy without the Word And there are several Diseases of the body which for the new kinds the unseen causes the complexâ—combinations of them the undiscerned Seat and Root of them in some of the inward bodily parts with more that might be added are neither knowable nor curable by mere Humane Wisdom It is only a Scriptural-thread that can lead into the cause and cure of these by a quick and piercing judgement given by the holy Spirit Are there not some Diseases which the most learned Philosophers in the Medicinal Art do count and call incurable which yet may find a remedy in the Word Here is an Al-Heal where the Patient has Faith in Christ and in his Word Let this also be considered whether those Philosophizers can or will ever restaur and consummate the Medicinal Art who make the body of man to be the subject of Medicine Whereas there is a multiplicity of Maladies in the Soul of Man and deep wounds in the Spirit of Man both which by natural causality do distemper the body and how can Ethnick Philosophers or other vain affecters of Humane Wisdom reach these or understand the right Methods of apt Remedies when without the Word they neither know what the Soul of Man is nor what his Spirit is nor what the specifick difference is between the Soul and the Spirit in man nor by what Medium of contract the Spirit and Soul in man do operate upon each other and both upon the body nor which way by what applications to come at them or what specifick Remedies are adapted to them Give me
at once and in a moment but there were distinct several days of their being created which Order should not be confounded but well observed as one good help to profitable Meditation on Aelohim's Works Particularly the sixth day must not be forgoten as the day of Man's creation and as preparatory to his remembring and sanctifying of the seventh day as the weekly Sabbath-day There was a separate Creation of things on several days that man might with more stayedness of Spirit and prosperingness of Soul consider of them distinctly And now Jehovah Aelohim declares that this shall be the absolute perfecting in the whole and in every part of them of those Heavens and of this Earth and of all the congregated Military Host of them in their Order Place and Function Thus do all the Creatures both in the Heavens and in the Earth stand as an Army in Order or an Host in Battle array ready to serve their Makers their Creators who is their Commander in chief he is the LORD of Hosts and the Empire over them is his They go forth or come in at the word of their Head-Captain Jehovah Christ as he will arm and commission them for his Friends or against his Enemies In the order of my pursuit after the refining and raising of useful Arts and profitable Knowledges I am now led to that day the seventh which is the last Day in the first created Week which first Week is the just standing measure of all after Weeks in their successive courses by the established Law of the Creation on which seventh Day Aelohim the Creator himself did Sabbatize on this Day he rested to contemplate his own Works For having now framed and disposed the glorious Fabrick and the goodly Structure of the whole Universe and having put it into its beautious oeconomy and regular Government he closeth the whole of his Work with a Day Blessed above all the other foregoing Days of the Week The Great Design of this Treatise being the Advancement and Augment of useful Arts and of profitable Sciences in a Scripture-way I shall propound some serious Inquiries to ingenious studious Believers to ingenuous diligent Saints Especially to such faithful humble Ones as have through Mercy and Grace attained to larger growing measures of holy Skill in the Original Languages and of excelling eminence in Inner Religion about the improvement of Experimental Christianity Inquiries concerning Jehovah Aelohim in Father Son and Holy Spirt Q. WHat is the true proper significancy of this great and glorious Name Jehovah And whether ought it not to be used And what is there in those Prophesies and Promises that do speak of the freer acknowledgement of this Name in the later days And how may a discerning Believer improve this Name as for many other holy uses and ends so particularly to make his presence more real and sensible for continuedness to the Believer Q. What is the true import of all the other Names of God in the Scriptures particularly of Aelohim And how may those be particularly improved Q. What are some of the most clear Testimonies and convincing proofs of the Doctrine of Father Son and holy Spirit and the Old Testament which is so fully and frequently taught in the New Q. What are the visional appearances and manifestations of Jehovah Aelohim in Father Son and holy Spirit in Heaven And how may these be improved by a Believer Q. Whether may the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit be distinctly prayed unto And if so how should a Believer suitably make his application to each of them distinctly and to all of them joyntly Q. What are the several Offices of the Father as Father of the Son as Son of the holy Spirit as holy Spirit with relation to the Covenant-people of Jehovah Aelohim and whether is a Believers Union and Communion to and with the Father and the holy Spirit as well as to and with the Son and how is this and which way may it be better improved Q. VVhat is the holy Spirits indwelling in a Believer and what are the Believers Dwelling in God and how are these more improveable Concerning the LORD Jesus Christ Jehovah-man the Mediator Q. WHen was it that Christ did first pass into his Mediatoral Office and after what manner was it and of what good use is it to find out and improve this Q. How may a Believer so injoy Christ's Jehovah-presence here on Earth as withal at the same time to injoy his Man-presence above in Heaven Q. Whether may a Believer actually resort in his spirit unto Christ's humane glorified Nature in any certain definite circumscribed local Place in the highest Heavens Q. How is the humane glorified Nature of Christ a fitted Instrument when quickned by the Power and Life of the Eternal Spirit for the actual conveyance of all suitable good to Believers according as their cases and capacities are And how may Believers apply what is in Christ's Spirit Soul and Body to their own spirit soul and body for proper supplies Q. How may a Believer so walk with God in Christ here as if Christ were visibly corporally present on Earth with the Believer and how may a Believer clear up and improve a mutual in-being in-living in-dwelling and in-abiding between Christ and him Q. How is a Believers Life hid with Christ in God and how may the Believer injoy and improve this for his natural spiritual and eternal Life Q. What are all Christ's Names as Mediator in the Old Testament as well as in the New And how may this be improved Q. How was Christ the first born of every Creature or of the whole Creation and the beginning of the Creation of God Q. What is there improveable by a Believer in the order and connexion of those four things when Christ is of God made to a Believer Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption Q. Whether this be not one great truth of the present Age that Jesus Christ is the one and the only LORD and Lawgiver over and to the Spirits Souls and Bodies of his people Q. Whether are not these amongst others some of Christ's Royal Prerogatives by his Mediatoral Authority to grant and to pass acts of Grace to seal and to deliver particular Pardons to speak Peace and to give Comfort and how may this be practically improved Concerning the Word of God the Word of Christ. Q. VVHere is the true Authograph or the Divine own first Writings of the Original Scriptures and where is the exact Apographs or transcribed Copies of this And what Scriptures are there that do foretel and promise the restoring of this wholly uncorrupted And whether were not this a noble Work well becoming the greatest holiest Prince to search out this that he may write him out a complete Copy of its Law Q. In what Language was the New Testament originally spoken and written Q. How may the Original Scripture-Language be made the Universal Character all the inhabited Earth
contrary unto it namely the Heresies Errours Schisms Divisions Apostasies scandals of the present Age Q. Whether is not Christ manifestly at refining perfecting Work under this Providence in regard that he doth ingage some of his servants in the same Work according to the Word as their Generation work to be purging out whatsoever is corrupt and to be bringing in whatsoever is pure that is yet defective in principles or practice among the Churches more particularly to be perfecting those six principles spoken of in the two first Verses of the sixth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews And whether this work have not been too much hindred by some of Note and of Name in their expressing and interpreting of perfecting perfect perfection by sincere and sincerity whereas sincerity is but one Work of one of the ten Words Q. How would Christ under this Providence have Nations Cities Parishes Villages Families and Persons to be modelled as to the Rule of governing Concerning Duties and Priviledges Q. HOw may a Believer now have every duty and priviledge to grow up into the spirituality and heavenliness of the duties and priviledges of the latter-day glory Q. How may a Believer improve some special passage or other in that Prayer of Christ recorded in the seventeenth Chapter of John in order to the attaining and promoting of the ends of every duty Q. How should a duty be well filled up Q. How should Bills or Papers of Cases be wisely and edifyingly managed that are brought into our Congregations And what is there in the Old Testament of bringing suitable sacrifices to the Priest according to particular cases which may give light to this matter that it may be spiritually managed under this new dispensation of Grace Q. Whether may and must a Believer pray rejoyce and give thanks not only in all Cases in all Places amongst all Persons but also at all Times and not only this in state and in frame but in acting also And if so how is this attainable practicable and improveable So to meditate upon Jehovah's Word all the day How is this with such like expressions concerning other duties reconcilable with the finite Spirit of Man who seems unto many to be able to do but one Work at one time Or has Man a capacity of doing several things at once And if so how may this be proved and improved Whilst the Spirit may enquire the Soul may desire the Body may act and work at the same instant Q. How is the Truth in Jesus and how should a Believer so learn the Truth as it is in Jesus Q. What are the gradual differences in the matters of duties and of priviledges between the several Ages of Saints Some being little Children and others young Men some others old Fathers in Christ and in Grace Q. What is the proper season of every duty And how may we discern and improve it Q. Whether is not Scripture Prophecying in a publick Congregation still a duty And if so by whom And what are the Laws and Rules by which it is to be carried on in Preaching in Praying in Singing and in other holy Services Q. How may Tzijons Blessings and Priviledges Joys and Comforts Peace and Purity be antedated by a Believer so as actually to injoy them before they are fulfilled Q. How may a Believer improve Mystical Membership with respect To Christ as the Head To blessed Angels To the Spirits of just men perfectly sanctified To sound Believers and excelling Saints that now are and that shall hereafter be as the Fellow-members Concerning other practical experimental Christanity Q. HOw may a Believer know distinctly when it is that it is his Spirit or his Soul or his Body which doth long after Jehoâ—ah Aelohim And of what use would this knowledge be And how may a Believer speak distinctly and severally to his Spirit to his Soul to his Body And which way is this improveable Q. How may Convictions be kept alive and improved Q. How may Christ in his Life Suffering Death Resurrection and Ascension and in all his Offices as also his Word in the whole of it and in all its parts commanding prohibiting prophesying promising threatning and the rest of it how may these he used and improved For the more through mortification of corruptions in all their secret deceitful â—lie motions For the more triumphing overcoming of Temptations in all their Methods and Devices and Assaults Q. How may a Believer carry pure Religion and practical Christianity through the whole of the conversation in the particular as well as the general Calling And how may all the Acts of our particular Functions be performed as acts of Worship in obedience to a command in faith on a promise so as to expect and to have assistance acceptance and a blessing Q. What is a Night-Religion And how may that be improved in the void spaces of the Night and even in Dreams Q. What is the right method of governing the Thoughts of ruling the Tongue and of ordering the Actions Q. How may a Believer make inward spiriritual Meals upon outward and common Meats and Drinks Q. How should Christian-visits be improved Q. How should Journeys and Travels in the way be improved Q. How should time be redeemed Q. How may the Christian Religion be made easie familiar delightful and spiritually natural Q. How are slanderous reproaches persecutions banishments confiscations and other crosses to be born and improved that when we suffer for Christ it may be a suffering with Christ and as Christ suffered And how may we in all other things so walk as Christ walked and so be in this World as he was in this World Q. How may we both give full time to our worldly imployments and necessary business and yet spiritualize it too Q. How may we get cut of deep-plunging distresses of spirit Q. How are we to treat our selves and to converse with our selves night and day And whether a translating of Hebrew Verbs of the self reflexive conjugation would not promote these self reâ—lecting meditations and acts Q. What are the Rules and Laws of Writing especially in matter of controversie Q. What may be the cause or causes of so much darkness and deadness doubting and distress and of the holy Spirits with-holding and withdrawing in Professors of Religion generally in this day that when they are discovered they may be removed Q. How may we know when we have audience and acceptance in the Court of Heaven And when a receit of Mercy is in answer to Prayer Q. What is the Art of Holy Silence in its proper seasons And how may it be improved Q. How may man's working out his own Salvation and God's in working of it be reconciled and improved Q. How may spiritual objects be made as evident to spiritual senses as outward objects are to outward senses And how should these spiritual senses be exercised And how should spiritual truths and things be made real and future ones present Q. What is
proper seat of Knowledge and of Understanding is in Man whether in the Head or in the Heart They generally affirm it to be in the Head and they constitute Mercury to be the Influential Governour having determining Dominion over the Head and Brain and so over Knowledge and Understanding Whereas if it can be proved to be in the Heart as by scores of Scriptures I can argue it so to be What then do become of all their mistaken apprehensions and misplaced Judgements in this particular case O that Jehovah Christ would once remove South-saying and Witch-craft out of the Land How much is it to be lamented that the God of Nature who is Soveraign LORD over all and who doth in those Heavens and in this Earth whatsoever pleaseth him is thus dishonoured When Christ was born such an Infant was born whose Geniture or Generation is unutterable on whom the Influences of the Stars have no power or force Who himself doth govern by his power the vertue and efficacy of all the Heavenly Luminaries Then such a Star appeared as was destitute of all Elementary influences out of and off from all the pretended supposed Sphenes Because this Judiciary Astrology has such a malign bewitching influence on many in the present day and its Artists and professors and practicers have taken up this plea for it that the name of Astrologers and of Astrology is not found any where in the holy Scriptures and that therefore its Science and Art is not condemned by them let me further examine whether the thing at least set out by that Name be not found condemned there although it be no such commendation for them in that they say their Name is not found in Scripture Gnonenim and Megnonenim say they do not signifie Planetaries Whereas if the root be Gnun which both in the Scriptures and with the Rabbins doth denote opportunity or stated time then Megnonen is such a one as doth profess himself by Art to foreknow and to be able to foretel to those who do consult him what those constituted seasons and definite times are of good or of evil of joyful or of sorrowfull of prosperous or of calamitous event in every affair and business that is undertaken in ordering a man's life in taking of a Journey in contracting of a Marriage in sending of an Embassy in waging of a War and in the rest of so many and such various cases both publick and private which are wont to befal miserable mortals Now seeing the Astrologer doth boast For to this purpose they openly hang up their Tables at doors in London and privately put their Printed papers into the hands of some as they walk in the streats that he can foreknow all these things by the motion and positure of all the coelestial bodies especially of the Planets from which he doth also contend that they are chiefly effected how can any ingenious Lover of truth deny with fairness and justness but that Megnonen doth aptly set out an Astrologer and a Planetary seeing he doth so observe hours days months years and times fit and opportune for the doing of business The Israelites were not to tolerate such Hence it was that the idolatrous worshipping of the Planets came in If the Root be Gnajin an eye then Megnonen is such a jugling cozener as deceiveth and deludeth inchanteth and bewitcheth the eyes of others with his eye If it spring from Gnanan a Cloud then he is such a one as is a Soothsayer as doth divine foretel and guess conjecturally from the Clouds the Astrologers eyes are intent to these the Augurer and the Astrologer are very near of kin for the conjecturer foretelleth future events by the contemplation of the Heaven and of the Clouds and by their colour and motion Nabulo he properly is and so let him pass under Scripture-condemnation Jidegnoni say these Men is a Divine a Gnostick a wife knowing Man It is properly in the Scripture-sense and meaning a Diviner a Wizard a Sooth sayer or Prognostick or Fore-teller of future things These amongst us are called Wizards Cunning men such as pretend to be wise where they have no Word for their warrant This Prognostick Art is one kind of Divination which is expresly prohibited The usual companion of this Wizard is Ob in Hebrew that is such a one as doth prophecy and foretel things to come by a devilish spirit that is in him promising Divination by colloquies with ghosts with walking spirits of the dead with the spirits and souls of Hell and from Stars and from Planets This is the Necromantick and Astromantick Magick Art one part whereof doth consult with evil spirits below the other with those in the Air. As this Prognosticator hath a devilish spirit going before him so in some Scriptures he hath Teraphim following close after him which were certain Images according to whose inspection the Gentiles did either do their work or leave it undone Some Astrologers are wont to make these kind of Figures and Images under certain constellations thinking that those Figures and Images are capable of heavenly influxes Laban had such Teraphim who was a Chaldean by Birth Kindred and Nation and the Chaldeans were some of the most given to Astrological vanities they accommodate their Images to constellations to foretel future events and to cure Diseases Daimon in Greek that Mantick-spirit or divining foretelling spirit doth agree with this Hebrew word this also is forbidden They further contend that Casedim doth not denote Astrologers The Chaldeans had a sect that did spend their time and labour in Astrological predictions of future contingencies thorow the whole of Man and to this they referred all their study and consideration of the Astronomical Science and these were they who are reported to have been the inventers of judicial Astrology or rather Satan himself For there are who give this to be the true meaning of Casedim from Caph as like as and Shed the Devil so that they are as Devils pretending to skill in starry influence in constellation influx knowing future things in their Art by the contemplation of the geniture Genethliack divinators shewing from the hour and day of a Man's Nativity what shall befal him in his after life They deny also those periphrastical Names in Isaiah to signifie Astrologers Babylon there spoken of was the most ancient Metropolis of judiciary Astrologers and who or what are they but so many kinds of Astrologers who are set out by Chobere Hashemajim and Hachozin baccocabim and Modignim echodashim observers of the Heavens gazers on the Stars Prognosticators to the Moons making Men believe that by looking on the Stars they can foretel good or evil things to come to Persons Families Cities and Kingdoms This and other Scriptures by several names declaring against the several parts of this Black-art that none might escape The seventy two Greek Interpreters do render Chober Hashshamajim an Astrologer and so Kimchi
Original Hebrew hath its great use and may be put to a more growing and profitable improvement only special heed must be taken that they be all drawn to side with the Hebrew but not to put the Hebrew violently by force to be of their party against its own natural meaning In whatsoever Author you meet this disconsonancy to the Scriptures that would bring an alien sense to the Scriptures and doth not receive a genuine meaning from the Scriptures look upon it as one great cause of error these appositions and additaments from men are detractions and substractions from the Word Let the Learned in all their studious artificial Expatiations and liberal scientifick walks in these Fields of Nature gather and bring in as much of choice created Excellencies as they can whereby to contribute to the augment of this Art and the perfecting of this Science only let this be learn'd by reading in Scriptures Book and in Natures School For the rectifying of some common Philosophical mistakes let us by an inquiring Spirit make a deeper research into the Scriptures about this question The creeping living Creatures were not formed out of the Waters as their Pre-existent matter for they were and are distinct Creatures from the Waters of a different make and kind This doth but set out the manner of after productions in the watery places They have been some of the generally received mistakes that â—here was a common pre-existent Matter of the whole Creation That Matter and Motion are the Essences of things That the four Elements are the Original causes of things which have a mixtion of Elements in them That beaten axiom of Ethnick Philosophy that of nothing it is impossible any thing should come as if therefore there were a necessity of fore-existent matter to work upon because the ordinary course of Nature is now so doth discover in the assertors thereof their ignorance of the Scriptures For although out of absolute Nothing Nothing can be extracted converted or made to be yet that doth not necessarily infer that therefore there must be a first Matter and a Potency thereof to be the common Principle of all material things for Almighty Power can create that unto a Being which had no Being before That Ethnick Rationalist who maintained and defended this corrupt Tenet did reject all matters of Faith not only Humane but Divine also and examined all things only by his own Reason whose Writings therefore can afford no true good Commentary upon Scripture which doth not at all speak of any such pre-existent Matter The Scriptures of Truth do not assert any such prime confused Chaos out of which afterwards all Created Beings should come forth distinct neither can any man's Reason evince this to him who doth stand in awe under the Authority of God's Word was it not altogether as easie to Omnipotency and more glorious to all Wisdom at the first to create the several kinds of all Created Beings distinct and perfect than to frame and to form them afterward of matter made before hand is it not against the dictates of Natural Reason and Light that such a pretended first Matter should subsist separate by it self and there rest a while under some common and general Form yet so as withal to have in it such a multitude of specifical Forms of Natural Beings and after-created Essences of all future Bodies not distinct but in a confused lump and mingled heap all jumbled together one with another God is not the author of confusion and how can a rational Intellect understand that any one common Form could make specifically distinct Forms out of such a fancied first matter of corporal things The internal Forms of created Beings is that primitive force and original Nature which Aelohim did speak into and fasten in the several kinds of created Beings on the several days of the first Weak according to the particular Essence and specifick Being and different condition of every thing whereby they are some ways disposed and fitted strengthned and enabled to put forth their proper vertues and their special operations by the exercise of which natural powers they were orderly to move towards the right end in subserviency under and conformity to the will of their Maker which was their goodness and their perfection The Creatures could not cause themselves to be from Not-being neither was natural Generation the first Original of these Creatures but Creation or creating Causality or primitive and proper Creation Neither were their created Potentialities latent in a first Chaos produced into their Actualities on the six days but all and every of the Creatures were immediate distinct Works of Aelohim's Power He created in every one of the six days Any created Original or primary Womb out of which other Creatures were extracted or the material stuff whereof all things were framed which one Ethnick Philosopher calleth the first Matter as the Potential Principle of all Another names it Hyle a darkness somewhat invisible and without Form A third intitles it a fearful Shadow A fourth makes it a symbolical Unity A fifth doth stile it a deformed Chaos or universal troubled Mass without form or shape These and such like fancied Images of Humane Invention have no firm footing in Scripture All and every of the Works of the foregoing six days of the Week are proper Creatures each of them were new Creatures of distinct Essence or Entities There were no former Phaenomena or appearance of them Had there been any such one universal Body of Matter or Corps of the World and an universal created spirit as the soul of the World then all had been perfected in one day both the whole Body and the whole Spirit of the Universal World of Creatures and all this had been one Individuum Physically Really Naturally Not only was the first Creation in one day by the supernatural Power of Aelohim as if the after productions were by the Power of instituted Nature or application of Art But also all the Created Beings on the second third fourth fifth and sixth days which were then Essences when they were Existences and not Essences in Potentiality on the one day and Existences in Actuality on the other days as if only productions out of a former Essence If the Reader do observe any Phrases or Lines in this Treatise word for word in other Authors let him know that these Collections were made some years go when the Author made use of some Books as he could then be suffered to come at them which Books he had not then by him when he first framed this Treatise neither doth he readily know whither to go for the finding out of those citations or transcribings now that he hath most of these Books by him Sometimes he useth their own words where he apprehendeth the writers mind and expressions to be according to the Word and in several places he confutes their mistakes by the Original Text. Let the grand design be promoted of advancing of useful
selves to prove our own selves that we may know our own selves whether Jesus Christ be in us unless we be unexperienced unapproved ones Man has such created faculties and Abilities whereby he can turn inwardly upon himself he can reflect upon himself The last of the Hebrew conjugations is self-reflexive which should have been more and better observed by Translators in their rendring of the Original significancy into other Languages Man can commune with himself as he walks with himself so he can talk also with himself he can treat with himself and entertain himself You may find Man in some Scriptures bespeaking himself evpostulating and reasoning the case with himself conferring with his constitutive parts particularly and distinctly often with his own Soul and about his own heart both in colloquies with himself and in his speech to God Which is one ground and reason both in Scripture and in Nature of the warrantableness of using the plural number of you and ye when we speak to a singular person or individual subsistence only to one there being more constitutive intelligent parts in Man than only one as his Spirit and his Soul particularly and therefore are not so justly reproveable if we do not always Thou it and Thee it to a single Man For sometimes others do speak distinctly to some particular constitutive part of us as to the Soul in special Reader if thou be serious and considerable dost thou not see cause why thy Face should be all in a blush and thy Spirit be covered with shame who hast lived so long with thy self who hast gone up and down and hast sat and lodged so often with thy self and yet all this while hast so little acquaintance with thy self For the promoting of Soul-humbling and of self-emptying in thee which is a singular Art O know thy self aright study thy self much observe thy self narrowly try thy self diligently examine thy self impartially judge thy self righteously report the whole state of thy self to thy self truly and faithfully make thy appeal to an Heart-searching God sincerely according to what thou dost â—ind brought in by way of evidence and of sentence upon the whole of the Matter whether it be for or against thy self There is great reason and need why thou shouldest know thy self examine and prove thy self in order unto the discovering and evidencing of this whether Jesus Christ be in thee or not For without this either Christ is in thee or not If he be not in thee and yet thou think thy Spiritual State safe then thou wilt deceive thy self and put a fallacy upon thy self thou wilt be in danger of living and dying under Soul-undoing mistakes thou wilt then some ways be the further off from getting Christ to be in thee thou wilt be most to seek of a Christ when thou shalt have most use and need of him Thou art like to be little owned and imployed by Christ And thy disappointment will be the more overwhelming at the last when it may be too late to remedy it and it will be too late if thou pass from hence into the other World in a Christless condition and for the present whilst thou art such as not to have Christ in thee then reigning sin is in thee then ruling domineering Satan is in thee then thou art not as yet in Christ then as yet thou art without Spiritualâ—saving-good exposed to all kind of evil dreadful wrath is over thee and then whilst severed from him thou canst not do any one thing spiritually acceptable If Christ be in thee yet without this self-knowing self-examining self-proving thou wilt not have so clear an evidence of this thou wilt not have so sweet a comfort and so sound an enjoyment of it Thou wilt not make so growing an improvement of it in Duties under Crosses by Priviledges Thou art not so likely in a dying day to discern whither thou wilt be going whether to be with Christ or to be driven from Christ Whereas with this selfâ—knowledge if hitherto thou have not Christ savingly in thee yet thou wilt be in the hopefuller way to make out after him and to get him into thee and if he be found in thee thou wilt then the more to thy fulfilling satisfaction injoy both him in thee and thy self in him Then will Christ more manifest himself to be by thee with thee and for thee All suitable good will be thine a full Christ and a full Covenant of Grace will be thy Portion The hope of Glory will then be in thee Christ and thou shall be ever together O the happy Progresses of that Believer between whom and Christ there is actual Mutual in-being in-dwelling in-abiding This Adam Art or Man Science is very spreading and fruitful very useful and profitable and it is to be considered either as man is made a sociable Creature and so fitted for congregated Fellwoship or as man was created a several Individunm and so is of a distinct segregating and accordingly the various knowledges of Adam of Man do widen and distribute and distinguish themselves Into so many sorts is this partition of Sciences that a long life might to advantages dwell upon them and make such Collections from out of the Word about them which if oderly disposed and freely communicated would be one rich Treasure in the Common-wealth of Learning If Adam or Man be considered as in society related unto other men in a way of Humane Fellowship so here might pass under disquisition and examination divers Arts and Sciences For if we look upon Adam as he that was in times after his first Creation an Husband a Patient a Master a Converser a Negotiator a King a Prophet a Priest a Church-Officer and Member so here might be brought in the Marriage-Art to know how to discharge the Duties and injoy the Priviledges of a conjugal relation the paternal Art what the carriage of Parents and of Children should be towards each other the Magistral Art what the Offices of Masters and of Servants are towards one another the whole oeconomick Art the conversation Art to have practical understanding and prudential skill in treating and in conversing with others the Art of trading in the World with and amongst men so as to negotiate all our Affairs with Humane discretion The Art of Government or the Science of Empire to discern how to Rule over inferiours according to the Word The Art of teaching or the Prophets Science to be able in Office for the instructing of others The Administrators Art to be well versed in the carrying on of all the parts of Instituted Worship after a spiritual manner so as to find acceptation of the LORD The Art of right constituting of a Church according to the Scripture-pattern in all the holy Laws and comly Orders thereof Of having all necessary Church Officers gifted graced called according to the Word-rule of wise faithful discharging of all Church-Relation of all the Duties of Gospel-Fellowship of orderly admission
according to those Scriptures Let the principle be admitted and pursued and then much more would be discovered As for the conservation of health the Learned in the Medicinal Art should search the Scriptures about the use of some and about the forbearing of other creatures for Food about the kinds of bodily exercises about the choice of Aromaticks of Spices of Olys of Wines and many more about the Regiment of passions and of affections with more directions that might be given Such as the actings of suitable graces the enjoying of proper comforts the improving of Holy Fellowship with Jehovah in Father Son and Holy Spirit and more might be added if advice from so mean a one be received in the Colledge of Physitians There is a further part of the Medicinal Art which doth respect the prolongation of days and the lengthning along of Life of which there is much in the Scriptures both by way of direction and of promise He that will industriously seek out where and how often in the Word that expression of length of days or prolongation of days or long of days and such like phrases that do set out this is used and will wisely observe to whom and in what way this is covenanted may find much to this purpose and end Then how should we be under Christ beholden unto such wise and faithful Physicians as would direct their patients for a cure to word prescriptions where we might pursue and follow their counsels in obedience and saith expecting Aelohim's blessing thereunto and therefore for the augment and advancement of this kind of Learning let it be yet farther inquired by men skilful in the Original and acquainted with the Giver of his Word how that knowledge may be perfected by a Scripture-discovery which doth respect the body of Man For hereby many other useful Arts would receive a great increase as the Art of Medicine for the prolongâ—ng of the days of man and for continuing on of his life in the conserving of his health and in the preventing or curing of Diseases the Art of Chirurgery the Art of the Apothecary and Compounder the Art of Opticks and Perspectives the Art of Sounds the Art of Gust the art of Odors the art of Tangibles to mention no more which a discerning eye may look somewhat deep into at the very naming of them Let a more narrow research also be made into the Soul of man Its Essence and Nature Its Substance and Operations Its Offices and Products How great its specifick difference from the Soul of Beasts Let the Spirit of Man be more studied in the Word of Truth What its proper Existence is what its specifick Difference what its Faculties what the Objects of those Faculties wherein differenced from the Soul whether separable from the Soul for some time yet so as the Body still lives what its work is what are the peculiat seats in Man for all the Faculties of the Soul and Spirit How many those Faculties are what their Original what their connaturalness what all the inward parts of Man are what their league of amity and friendly commerce is one with another and all together with the whole compositum and a multitude of other rare parts of this great Knowledge I wait if the LORD give me to live to see this glorious design to be received promoted and improved by others If so I expect that he will give men an heart willing to contribute what this way may be judged useful by such abler undertakers who would severally labour in a distinct handling of some particular Art and Science O how rare is the skill how choice the Priviledge so to improve this part of Experimental Christianity as even here to pass more into growing beginnings of that blessed State of the heavenly Glory by a more holy and healthful transforming likeness to the Humane Nature of Christ in Spirit in Soul and in Body In every one of these to feel a suitable conformity in Holiness unto Christ as our great Exempar It is a great thing to believe aright that the Humane Nature of Christ is then and not till then actually profiting when quickened by the Spirit making Christ's Words to be Spirit and Life How great an Honour hâ—th he put upon Man and how highly hath he advanced the Nature of Man who has laid hold on the Seed of Abraham and taken that to his Godhead He is one in Nature as to his Humanity with Believers he has had experience of all the Cases of Believers sin only excepted There is that in him that is suited to all the parts of Believers in his Spirit in his Soul in his Body in his Nature in his Life for their Regeneration Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification Redemption Acceptation Strength Joy Comfort and every other Good and his Humane Nature is a fitted Instrument of conveyance of this spiritual suitable good to Believers when so quickned by the Spirit There was a proper a peculiar Testimony given by the Creator to the Work of the sixth day a special owning and commendation of that excelling Master-piece Adam Therefore there is a significant word added to Good here whereby is set out the singular Good of this Part of the Creation If this particular approbation were given to all the Works of the Creation in common to all the six days put together then the formation of Man will want its distinguishing Honour and its signal Remark This special note of singular observation here doth affirm and confirm it as spoken of that which is well known and evidently manifest As in all the Creatures both singly and apart collected and put together there was an excellency of Perfection in them according to the capacity of their Natures and for the usefulness of their ends so more particularly and especially in man There is an emphatick Note of Demonstration prefix'd to this Sixth day pointing out the Work of that Sixth day to be somewhat more remarkable and that the adored Almighties had perfected all his Works which he propounded and purposed to create in the foregoing six days of this one Week of the created World It doth shew a thing known and signally illustrious and commendable and that that day only was the sixth day in the weekly Revolution and no other day of the Week And that the weekly Sabbath must be reckoned in order of created Time the immediately next succeeding day after that sixth which weekly Sabbath day was when created the seventh the last day of the week that and no other day of the same week which note of demonstration is remarkable in other Scriptures to point out the certian weekly Sabbath-day in all the following Weeks of the World in the successive courses of Weeks even the seventh which is the last for there is but only one seventh day in one Week progressively going on in the due order and according to the established Law of the Creation All the Creatures were not made
the inner part of experimental Christianity And how may a Believer be led into it and abide there Q. Whether is there not something in the cases of an experienced Believer which doth more or less directly answer to all the cases all the World over And if so how may this be improved Q. How may a Believer rightly distinguish and wisely difference between the motions of the holy Spirit the impulse of his own spirit and the suggestions of the evil spirit Q. What is the right method of mutual Espousing and Covenanting between Christ and the Believer Q. What is the holy Art and the Skill of Believers through submission to and contentful acquiescence in the Soveraign Will of our LORD when the Believer is much oppressed by a body of Death and by indwelling sin and is held somewhat short under greatly inlarged desires and very importunate endeavours after abounding measures of excelling Graces and after eminent serviceableness and after the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God Q. Whether that Wisdom Righteousness and Sanctification which the LORD Jesus Christ is made of God unto Believers be not specially specifick and of a distinct kind from that which was concreated with and in the first Adam and from what is but the common work of the Spirit of Grace now And how may this be improved Concerning saving-Grace and the sound evidences thereof Q. HOw may it be yet further cleared and proved that saving and sanctifying Grace in believing Christians doth specifically differ from the common vertues of the civilized Heathen And how is this to be improved Q. What is the spiritual Science of putting of saving Graces upon contributing of mutual help to each other And how doth this call for all diligence to be brought over unto it And what is the distinct Office and the proper Work of every such grace in a Believer What is the manner of their Influence upon each other What their Order Goverment and Discipline Q. How should Graces wisely and suitably act towards Christ and towards the Word of Christ Q. Whether is it not enough for the clear sound evidencing of an holy State of saving and of sanctifying Grace that we love nothing in preference in predominancy before Christ or in equality with Christ unless also we love not any Creature at all inordinately though inferiourly as to any the least competition with Christ So that there must be a loving of the LORD with our whole Mind our whole Soul our whole Heart our whole Strength and so too that he may not only have all our Love our Loves but we must also hate whatsoever else it be that would take off or hinder our through Discipleship to Christ Q. Whether to chuse God alone for our God above all and to chuse Christ for our only LORD and Saviour which are very great and largely comprehensive Truths Duties and Acts have all other evidences of Grace resolved only into them seeing that they both are properly but a part of one even the first of the ten Words Q. Whether is there any other general comprehensive sound satisfying evidence of Grace but only an universal holy growing conformity in Knowledge and Obedience in all things for more continuedness to an whole Christ and to the whole VVord of Christ Q. VVhen is Grace in its exaltation and triumph And how should a Believer get it up to this high pitch and there keep it use it and advance it Q. How may and ought a Believer still to grow up into Grace here as the glorified Saints are above who are perfected into Grace And will there be every Grace in Heaven someways acted and exercised And what is that obedience which will be to every one of the ten Words in Heaven Concerning Heaven and its Glory Q. HOw may a Believer on Earth converse in his Spirit in Heaven with the glorious inhabitants there as if he were actually there Q. How may a Believer be in a continued readiness and preparedness for Death and for Judgement and for the coming of Christ And how is he as to his Spirit and Soul to be directed in his passage into the other World after that these do depart from out of the Body Q. How hath a Believer eternal Life now in this life actually in possession And how may he and ought he to improve this Q. How may a Believer through Grace and Mercy so work up his spirit soul and body here into that transformation unto more of an holy healthful likeness of the Spirit and Soul of glorified Ones and as the Body will be at the last Resurrection and as the Spirit Soul and Body of Christ is Q. How may the purer Churches of Christ on Earth walk in that order here as the glorious Church in Heaven doth Q. How may a Sabbath be so kept on Earth as the Sabbatism is in Heaven Concerning such Scripture-Principles which if admitted and improved might have a direct tendency towards the healing and uniting of the broken and divided Churches and People of God Q. VVHether LORD Jesus Christ be not one and the same and the only Head of Peace and of Purity Q. Whether the holy Scriptures of Truth be not one and the same and the only Rule of Peace and of Purity Q. Whether the Christian Religion for sum and for substance be not one and the same both under the Old and New Testament administrations of Grace the Difference only in the manner of dispensing being duly observed Q. Whether should not the whole Scripture be brought as profitable for Doctrine for convincing Reproof for Correction for Instruction Q. Whether the Law of the Ten Words be not a standing unalterable Rule of Faith Worship and Life commanding all good forbidding all evil under the several dispensations of Grace Q. Whether the Analogy of Faith under the New Testament must not have somewhat proportionably answering to it out of the Old And must not all and every of the Types under the old pass into the Anti-types in the New Q. Whether perfecting work be to be asserted promoted and practised especially as to those six Principles Heb. 6. 1 2 and particularly as to the perfecting of Baptism in grown Believers Q. Whether the purer Churches of the later days should conform to the Prophetical Pattern shewn to Ezekiel and to Christs Directory in his Epistles sent to the seven Churches of Asia revealed to John as that which will make way for the fulfilling of other Prophesies and Promises Q. Whether Christ always had now have and still will have a Church and People somewhere or other in this World on Earth Q. Whether there be not different ages degrees forms sizes in the same state of saving Knowledge sanctifying Grace and holy Experience And whether therefore those who are in this holy State must not be received though they be not as yet come up to the height of others Q. Whether it be enough barely to be a true Church Or should we not work
Also whether Faith in the Creating Mashiach have not foundation in Created Nature 149 150 And whether clean Beasts and Cattel were not appointed and prepared as food for Adam at the beginning as well as Herbs and Fruits Page 150 151 That Prayer should â—egin and praise should end our Meals 151 That Adam Male and Female were the proper peculiar work of the Sixth Day 151 That Man should be much in self-examination 151 152 That it doth call for further and deeper inquiry yet what the distinct special Essences operations offices products and specifical differences of the Body Soul and Spirit in Man are with much more about this Subject-matter 152 to 158 That the knowledge of our selves as to our Humane Nature in our Natural Spirial and Eternal Estate is useful and necessary 152 to 158 That Man Science is a very spreading and fruitful and profitable Science 152 to 155 That the Medicional Art sought after in Ethnick Philosophy is but conjectural and very deficient 155 to 158 That the Medicinal Art cannot be promoted and perfected but only in Scripture way of which there are divers demonstrative evidence both as to diseases of the Body of the Soul of the Spirit and as to the conservation of Health and prolongation of Life 155 to 158 That there is an Emphatick Note of Demonstration prefixed to the Sixth Day to point out the immediately-next-succeding Day the Seventh which is the last Day of the Week as their weekly Sabbath-day 158 159 Inquiries for the promoting and improving of experimental Christianity are propounded unto the Ingeniosi and Virtuosi in Religion 160 to 171 The Ingenuous Reader is earnestly desired to correct the Errours in printing especially those that do much disturb the sense and quite alter the meaning Errours in the Margin are thus to be corrected FOr Mat. 11. 10. Page 9. Line 1. Read Mat. 11. 19. for Habak 3. p. 11. l. 4. r. Habak 2. f. 3 Tim 3. 15. p. 13. l. 1. r. 2 Tim. 3. 15. f. Jude 25. p. 13. l. 2. r. Jude v. 25. f. John 3. 3. p. 13. l. 3. r. John 3. 2. f. Acts 18. 20. p. 14. l. 24. r. Acts 18. 28. f. Luke 11. 19. p. 19. l. 3. r. Luke 11. 49. f. Tim. 3. 16 17. p. 19. l. 6. r. 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. f. Joel 2. 14. p. 19. l. 15. r. Joel 1. 14. f. Psal 18. 3. p. 19. l. 19. r. Psal 81. 3. f. 26. 21. p. 20. l. 18. r. 26. 22. f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 20. l. 36. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 21. l. 6. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. Jerem. 44. 18. p. 21. l. 6 7. r. Isai 44. 6 8. f. Jerem. 22. 5 6. p. 22. l. 4. r. Jerem. 23. 5 6. f. Esai 24. 14 36. p. 25. l. 5. r. Esai 24. 14 16. f. Gen. 4. 4 21. p. 27. l. 4 5. r. Gen. 4. 21 f. Shusham-eduth p. 27. l. 29. r. Shusan-eduth f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 27. l. 38. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 27. l. 55. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 28. l. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. 20. p. 28. l. 16. r. 28. f. permeiat p. 28. l. 29. r. permeat f. thiore p. 28. l. 31. r. altiore f. 13 18. p. 29. l. 9 10. r. 13 14 18. f. 12 13. p. 29. l. 18. r. 12. f. 1 Chron. 20. 19. p. 29. l. 55. r. 2 Chron. 20. 19. f. to Psal p. 30. l. 2. r. to Psal 134. f. to quiver p. 31. l. 5 6. r. to quaver f. Ezra 3. 11. p. 31. l. 58. r. Ezra 3. 10 11. f. The 1 6 Psalm p. 31. l. 62. r. The 136 Psalm f. Zakef cotoâ— p. 32. l. 12. r. Zakef katoâ— f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 32. l. 33. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. Chron. 16. 33. p. 32. l. 53. r. 1 Chron. 16. 33. f. Ps 128. 4. p. 32. l. 77. r. Ps 218. 14. f. Job 10. p. 32. l. 77. r. Job 35. 10. f. Acts 13. 35. p. 33. l. 34. r. Acts 13. 33 35. f. 23. 35. p. 33. l. 37. r. 13. 35. f. compare p. 34 l. 37. r. compared f. 3. 13 14. p. 34. l. 57. r. 3. Luke 2. 13 14. f. 249. p. 34. l. 63. r. 149. f. Acts 14. 14. p. 35. l. 16. r. Acts 14. 14 15. f. Ps 119. p. 35. l. 18. r. Ps 119. 54. f. Title 17. p. 35. l. 48. r. 55. Title v. 17. f. Luke 1. p. 37. l. 1. r. Luk. 2. f. Jer. 32. 19. p. 38. l. 33. r. Jer. 31. 39. f. Jer. 31. 28. p. 39. l. 3. r. Jer. 31. 38 39. f. Ps 19 5. p. 39. l. 4. r. Ps 19. 4. f. 2. Kin. 21. 14. p. 39. l. 5. r. 2 Kin. 21. 13. f. Esa 10. 14. p. 39. l. 32. r. Esa 10. 15. f. 26. 18. p. 39. l. 41. r. 27. 17. f. Isa 22 25 24 25. p. 39. l. 49. r. Isa 22. 23 24 25. f. Ps 22. 17. p. 39. l. 51. r. Psal 22. 16. f. Eccles 12. 13. p. 39. l. 53. r. Eccles 12. 11. f. 20. p. 40. l. 2. r. 19. f. Jer. 27. 19 22. p. 40. l. 31 32. r. Jerem. 27. 19. f. Job 36. 6. p. 40. l. 33. r. Job 38. 6. f. 2 King 16. 8. p. 41. l. 39. r 2 King 16. 10. Exod. 25. 9 40. 1 Chron. 28. 11 12 18 19. Ezek. 43. 10. Heb. 8. 5. f. Gen. 1. 30. p. 42. l. 7. r. Gen. 10. 30. f. Mat. 22. 11 c. p. 47. l. 12. r. Mat. 22. 1 c. f. Ps 49. 5. p. 47. l. 24. r. Ps 49. 4. f. Ps 79. 3. p. 47. l. 34. r. Ps 89. 36 37. f. 2 Pet. 2. 8 11 13. p. 48. l. 3 4. r. 2 Pet. 3. 7 11 13 14. f. Ps 19 4. p. 50. l. 12. r. Ps 19. 9. f. Esai 15. 20. p. 52. l. 4. r. Esai 5. 20. f. Ps 106. p. 59. l. 2 3. r. Psal 106. 35. f. Jerem. 10. 23. p. 59. l. 3. r. Jerem. 10. 2 3. f. Mat. 12. 26. p. 62. l. 4. r. Mar. 12. 26. f. Exod. 2. chapters p. 63. l. 2 3. r. Exod 2 3. chapters f. Dan. 5. 17 8. p. 64. l. 8. r. Dan. 5. 7 8. f. 1. 10 11 15. p. 66. l. 5. r. 1 10 11 13 15. f. 85 17. p. 66. l. 8. r. 15 17. f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 67. l. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. Jihejah p. 68. l. 10. r. Jihejeh f. 19. 30. p 6â— l. 21. r. 39. 30. f. Ps 95. 6 7 9. p. 69. l. 17. r. Ps 95. 6 7 8 9. f. Isai 43. 23. p. 70. l. 14. Esai 45. 23. f. Exod. 23. 29. 23. p. 70. l. 25 Exod. 23. 20 25 f. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 73. l. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f. 9. 6. p. 75. l. 7. r. 9. 2 6. Ps 96. 10 13. John 17. 5. 24. f. John 5. 4.
inventions and against themselves for those merely humane excogitates in the Judicatory Courts of their own Intellect and Conscience and have thereby openly renounced and quitted their former usurped Authority by which they too long and too much imposed upon the over-credulity of blinded minds But what shall such a traditionary receiving of corrupt notions never have an end put unto it shall the opinionative conceits and the conjectural ratiocinations of deceived deceiving men be still handed down from one to another Such Methods of Arts and Systems of Sciences and forms of Learning and Schemes of Knowledges as are besides and against the word of Aelobim are either not according to Truth and so they teach that falshood which would be unlearn'd or do not direct to usefulness and so they cause loss by mis-spent time which is not so soon redeemed Their Science is but falsly so called it doth not answer to its name it doth belie its own usurped title by their professourships such would give themselves out to be some of the most knowing of men and diligent seekers after the Truth yet they they miss the mark they pretend to aim at they rove and err like unskilful shooters they go aside from sound Doctrine and from a right belief of that which is the Truth though they would loudly cry boastingly clamour a profoundness of Learning by puzling wordings and painted sayings where neither is the Matter useful nor the inquiry worth while nor the Controversie weighty nor speculation improveable to any spiritual gain so that it neither well informs nor nourishingly feeds the serious Student it is an artificial desire of mens own brains having no foundation in the Word of God and tending to profaneness making a great noise but leaving an emptiness after the manner of Sophisters Let not the ingenious Reader be offended if I open the significancy of some Scripture words and phrases to take him off from giving an idolizing reverence unto such humane fallible Authors as would insinuate a crediting of their cheating Arts and draw on a belief of their deceitful Sciences by a cogging device and cunning trick in a ready dexterity of wicked wittiness handling every subject matter they do discourse or treat of with crafty conveyances and circumventing windings up and down in and out turning every way by over-reaching methods and hidden wiles to seduce unwary travellers into errour and to insnaâ—e them into some misapprehension to divert their minds from truthing it in love Whoever do pursue them will find them at the last to be erring in Theory failing in practice fruitless in experience after much expence of difficult labour and of chargeable travel The wild little fancy of vain foolish man would be setting up a new imaginary world of Artals and of Scientificks which are his own formed Ideas and speculated conceits and modelled opinionativeness and then would not only make an Idol of self to fall down before its own mis-shapen Image and to fail in love with its own empty shadow but would also set it up before others that they may worship it too which has been for so many ages of the world the grand design and the too far prevailing attempt of Enthusiastick Phantasms of Humane Magistralities of self-weaved Ratiocinations of forced Extractions of indulged Sensations and of unsetling Scepticisms which six have laid some of the most claim to the highest advance of Humane Learning though their Arts and Sciences have been hitherto so far from being really in their nature or use liberal that they have been some of the most tyrannous enslavers of mens judgements and imprisoning fetters of their understanding How many thousands have by their wandring after such misguiders left and lost their way in the dark where their Souls have been filled with troublesome doubts and with tormenting fears exposing them to violent temptations of Atheism and Unbelief and what wonder that it is thus with the Scholar when some of the learnedest of the Masters themselves have resolved upon this as the conclusion of all their knowledge that All things are matter of doubtful questionings and are intricated with knotty difficulties and do pass into amazing uncertainties and resolve into cosmical suspicions And this not only is the deliberate Judgement of particular Virtuoso's in our day but has been the publick determination of an whole University if there be truth in those Historical Records that do report them to us even with those has it thus been so who made proficiencie in Arts and progress in Sciences to be the subject of their profession the matter of their inquiry and the design of their studiousness How manifold the inconveniences how mischievous the effects of this have been if the Readers Spirit would not be exasperated thereby might be soon inlarged upon for the Writer would not provoke or inrage mens passions but would come in words of truth and of soundness to hold forth a Scripture Light before such as are of a temperate and sober understanding and of a serious considering spirit The hurt that has been done to my own soul and the scars that are visibly upon me by my ill-chosen-studies and misemployed hours heretofore though in a way of some diligence do stir up some compassions in me towards others to indeavour the preventing or curing of the like spreading distemper in their understandings the infectiousness of which disease in mens intellects has been hitherto little suspected and its dangerousness less felt And therefore if in faithful plainness I do oppose paganish or Ethnick Philosophy let it be once more remembred that where-ever this expression is found or such other words relating to the same matter in this Treatise I mean thereby that vainly affected humane wisdom which was invented by Pagans by Heathens or by Satan who taught it unto such by such as had not the sound saving knowledge of Jehovah Aelohim or of His word but did write besides it and contradictorily to it and so far as this kind of Philosophy is still retained and defended by any Christians For this is that which has so anticipated mens minds with such corrupt principles as are complying with prophane practices with such mis-shapen notions as are suited to carnal reason with such wrong opinions as do plead for depraved Customs with such flattering perswasions as are humouring to sensual affections it doth so infect and sicken their intellect so weaken and make it Consumptive that who can cure it if the LORD Christ himself be not actually the one and the only All-skilful Physician and if Scripture-Learning be not seasonably well applyed as the one and the only universal remedy of this of the mind whilst some do write and others do read so many expositions upon paganish Philosophy and do so little study the Scriptures of Truth the Press may bring forth many curiously arted Books but there will be in the intellectual World a famme of Progressive Literature The frequent Divertisements by
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
their spirits are tender Truly-logical-Art is that which is really word-Art not a Disputative Knowledge or Syllogistical form of mens inventing generous Spirits those that are indeed such will conform their Reason to Faith and their Faith to Spirit-inspired Revelation This word-Declaration and written-discovery is perfect in its self and perfective in those who grow in it here the noble excellencies of rational Souls may be advanced to somewhat of their highest dignity in their utmost capacities here are the full Originals and the over-flowing Springs of useful Knowledge here the believing Trader with his spiritual Talents may increase his stock of sanctified Learning somewhat near in its approaching step to one of the Royal Priviledges of the Heavenly Glory which is unmixed clearness and perfect cooâ—mmateness of all profitable Sciences Philosophical Notions are idle stories and when they pass into vain janglings they are frothy talk and unâ—dâ—â—ying chat they fill the fancy with dreaming speculations and make the mind sick and weak whereas the Scriptures do afford such a kind of Learning as is sound and healthful in its own innate constitution and in its causal efficiencies here the intentive Reader is still held in a continued dependency on a spiritual Teacher of those necessary Lessons which are never well learn'd but in Christ's School and where he may get great skill with little cost in a short while This would make skilful Practitioners in ordinary Affairs and in the common Matters and Actions of Life which Philosophers do miscount to be beneath souly rationalists Students in Christianity when throughly seasoned with the in-working-knowledge of Holy Precepts and of practical Truths are more awed into an observance of what is taught in Scriptures Pew they are instructed in Duties and informed in Manners whilst they inquire into Arts and pursue Sciences Where the savingness of knowledge is suck'd in betimes all growing discoveries if they work kindly are improved towards the firm securing of a never-ending-felicity Faith and Fear and Love and other Graces as they widen the Understanding and compose the Mind and fix the Heart still to be taking of more so they also refine the Spirit and reform the Life The Eyes of the wisest men in the World can never see themselves truly represented so as that the direct beams may have a right incidence but in the Glass of God's Word and he is not as yet in a preparedness to take in other Learning who has not hitherto attained to the true knowledge of himself A growing Artfulness in Scripture-Science will commend it self where it is in any though the commender of this unto such court not their applause but seek their profit though I be forgotten who write this yet Christ and his Word will still have a living name in such for all Treasures of Learning there being here full instruction for all necessary Employments and complete Subsidaries for all practical Conversation Let not the judicious ingenuous Reader expect from me a System of Sciences or Platform of Arts with their proper Rules and Methods To handle these throughly in an exact tractate is too great and long a task for my little parts and short day it were an undertaking worthy of some Christian King to imploy the learnedest and holiest of mankind about that either love or promotion could procure or kindness or reward ingage or helps and materials incourage though in some few instances I may a little lead others the way with a Scripture Light in my hand I owed a great duty to the intellectual World of precious Souls and I had no other way to make such a publick payment of it the good of Communion must out balance any private concern of my own he that would consult his own reputation and quiet amongst men in this age would have concealed his apprehensions in such a day when many are so self-seeking and so angrily confident by strengthned preconceptions and fortified prejudices and radicated resolves against any discoveries that might convince and shake them What is done is subjected to Scripture-examination by spiritual discerners When received Opinions have got the Peoples Applause and Leaders Authority and Men's interest in this World he had need bring some clearness of demonstration who would have others to leave their former ways to which they have been so used that they may come into a Scripture-path It would be next to incredible in a mans self to perswade belief in others who are so far gone in prejudice and prepossession were there not a Prophesie and Promise that in the later days they who err in spirit shall know understanding and the murmurers shall learn instruction for the deaf shall hear the words of this Book of the Scriptures of Truth and the Eyes of the Blind shall see passing out of the obscurity and darkness when they will blush to consider how Truth had scarce any door to enter in at what by innate ignorances and attracted wilfulnesses and indulgent weaknesses I arrogate nothing to my self of being a first Inventer of Arts but do refer wholly unto that word which would illustrate and brighten adorn and amplifie Sciences The LORD may therefore have laid me low and left me despicable in the eyes of the reputed Learned that Christ and his Word 〈◊〉 be set the higher Careless neglects have given countenance to such 〈◊〉 errours as now by long prescription would pass into a common uncâ—â—â—ollable Law of Arts and of Sciences like the idle tales and fabulous stories and fictitious narrations which old wives filled our heads withal when we were little Chrildren and a traditionary credulity would still keep alive the memory of them till old age and so would transmit the frame of them to posterity Had I not Jehovah and his Word on my side there were little expectation of any considerable success in ingaging this Scholastick War where so many opposers are all up in arms against me and are so confident of Victory were it not for this the controversie would stare me in the face with so many frighting difficulties that my time about this that little of it which I can be master of to redeem it from the unavoidable intercurrences of other necessary work would scam to be mis-spent and my industry mis-employed and the powers and strength of my mind wasted I had else soon been dis-spirited whilst the chief scope of so many men's aims studies and indeavours is either to defend or execute other mens mistakes or to justifie and commend their own however if hereby the reputation of the Scriptures may revive after my death and if the just esteem and the good opinion of God's Word may be built up though on the ruines of my credit for the present I bless that Jehovah who has used me to trust him with hereafters wherein one of the greatest trials of our spirit and frame is and if this only means of improving so fertil a ground of knowledges be dislik'd
In him that is in this Christ who is opposed to vain affecters of humane wisdom and humane traditionists dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead Bodily the one dwelleth in the other which do shew them to be distinguished yet joyned by a personal Union of both Natures in one Christ there is no need of any additaments here to supply any defect or imperfection to adjoyn them unto Christ and unto his Word-Doctrine the perfect Deity with all its glorious Attributes of Wisdom Power and other Excellencies inhabits in this Teacher what need therefore is there to seek other documentals or helps can Philosophy instruct us as Wisdom it self can inform us here the Plenitude of Deity resides as in a fixed and proper seat not a portion of the Godhead as the gentile idolaters were falsly perswaded of their false Gods nor only some eximious gifts and graces of the Spirit as in Angels Prophets and their holy ones but the true and perfect God with his infinite unmatchableness He himself indwells in this Humane Nature after a peculiar way and manner and barely by his Universal Presence and assistencie as he is in and with all things and places to conserve and to sustain them neither only by a special efficacie of the Spirit as he is in the Saints Sanctifying of Believers and enriching them with distinguishing charisms with gracious endowments but by a new mode of existing though the nature of him who thus exists remain the same it is by subsistential Union personally so as that the inhabiting or assuming God becomes one with the inhabited or assumed Humane Nature this Christ as concerning the flesh came from the Father being also over all God blessed for ever Gnimmanu-ael God-with-us this branch of David is Jehovah too If it be ask'd Whether the raising up of the dead Body of a man to life and to the sameness of subsistency again be an incredible thing Pagan Philosophers have determined this contrary to the Truth by asserting that from a privation to an habit there is no returning no regress is to be granted in such a case whereas the holy Scriptures do better teach us that the resurrection of the dead is a facible thing a believeable matter and that it is unreasonable to judge it incredible cannot an Almighty God do this cannot he restore being who gave being Cannot that Head Christ who raised himself from the dead raise up his Members also Ethnick Logick is no fit judge of many Scriptural predictions its Rules of ratiocination cannot measure these Mysteries such as God is Man The word was made flesh God with his blood redeemed the Church these and such like high Truths and Things which are necessary for us to believe for our Eternal Salvation were hid from the Wise Ones of that age for those Disparates here do come and agree together affirmatively God Eternal the Creator of all things and he who existed before all time was born in time He who is impassible did suffer The immortal one did die A man sits at the right hand of God God who is All-fulness is emptied The Omnipotent needeth the help of a Nursing-mother The All-knowledge All-wise one increased in Knowlede and in Wisdom The Every-where-present one was included in his Mothers Womb He that filled Heaven and Earth had not where to lay his head He that is transcending the most general of all kinds and of genus's is made a corporal individual the lowest of all substances He who made others rich was himself poor The Righteous one did justly bear both the fault and punishment of the unjust Here the LORD is made a servant and the servant is a LORD here the Mother is the Daughter of her own Son and the Son is Father of his own Father Here is the All-sufficient supplyer is himself ready Here contrary to the Ethnick Physical Science what was finite is made capable of what is infinite and what was infinite is circumscribed within narrow limits Here a Virgin conceives without Man Here the body is born in one place and is taken to him who is in many places in all places at once Here the Common Arithmetick must seek out new Rules for two are one and one is two in Christ three are one and one is three in Father Son and holy Spirit being the Almighty Jehovah What a loss is Pagan Philosophy at in all these Mysteries and in a multitude of more that might be added Men do never come on so far as to the capital beginning of all true knowledge of all sound Understanding of all useful Wisdom of all essential Science till they get the knowledge and the fear of Jehovah Aelohim who has revealed himself in his Word and manifested himself in his Works agreeably to Scripture-discoveries this is a gift from Christ It is word-understanding that is the true good understanding and our Tongues should answer to the Scripture-saying otherwise if we resort to merely humane Sophies we shall at the last by woful experience find after all our busie Inquiries and incessant Studies and attentive heedfulness that there are many weighty particulars in the works both of Creation and of Providence that are beyond the power of mans industry and above the reach of mans wisdom Who is as this wise man he was one of the wisest men even Solomon that did ask the question It is a question expressive of the Truth there is none that compared to him doth weigh equally in the Sanctuary-balance with him wouldest thou know who is he it is he and no other but he that knows the interpretation of a word who can so give sorth the true sense of the word in its original significancy as thereby to set out the right Nature of Things in their proper beings There is in the Word of Christ full comprehensiveness as of all other useful Learning so particularly of the knowledge of Natural Things of which it doth treat and speak purposely and professedly HOw great a part of the holy Scriptures must be transcribed who would write out all that is in them which doth treat of this subject matter Here is the History of the Creation originally and fully discovered which is not so made known in any or in all the Books of Humane Authors who though speaking to this particular point yet are no further sound than as they speak and write according unto this and wherein they ar sound they have borrowed and fetched from this here they lighted their Candle and from hence they have digged their treasure It is the special design and the main purpose of some particular passages in the holy Scriptures expresly and plainly to open the true state of Natural Things as the Book of Job in a great part of it many of the Psalms most of Ecclesiastes besides much of this nature which is frequently scattered through this Book of books How filled is this with Aelohim's essential Operations in
honourable Title upon the Writings of Moses that he calleth it The Book of Moses The Book of the Law of Moses The Book of the Law of Jehovah in the hand of Moses The Churches of Aelohim in the several Ages thereof have given Moses their large Testimonial as under their Hands and Seals It is worth the noting here that that rich tormented fool recorded in that History by Luke had not in all his life time right apprehensions of the invisible World by all the helps that the Learned Philosophers and Natural Historians could afford him and that he thought Mankind were by such as those so commonly and generally corrupted and misled into errors and mistakes about the different places and entertainments in that other World for separated Spirits and departed Souls according as their States Frames and Actings their Principles Rules and Ends were whilst on Earth that scarce a mere man alive upon the whole Earth particularly where his Brethren lived and with whom they conversed could or would set their Judgements right in this weighty Concern about the locality of Heaven and of Paradise of the Gulph and of Hell for which Reason he desired of Abraham that he would send some to his Fathers House one or other who had been in those places which men on earth do not so see he himself as to himself having before received an answer that Lazarus could not come from on high to dip his finger in the water as he would have had him on in his way to have cool'd the tongue of that damned wretch in regard there was such a Gulph between then so that there was no ordinary passage from the one to the other The reply that was made to him was this They thy Brethren have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them if they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead There was enough in the Writings of these about Heaven and Paradise about the Waters and Abyss about Sheol and the Gulph about Hell and that place of Torment to inform them and do declare unto them the dreadful posture of the lower part of the Created World This Moses the man and servant of Jehovah had when he was born the Beauty of Aelohim shining upon him and although he were learned in all the Wisdom of the Egyptians yet has he left upon Record only that Scripture-Wisdom which he was taught by the Holy Spirit being with all fidelity in the Church in the Wilderness with the Angel of the Covenant Jehovah Christ sent by the Father who spoke to him in Mount Sinai where he received the Oracles to give unto the LORD's people whom he commanded a Law which is the inheritance of the Church of Jacob. To this Moses Christ manifested and made known himself eye to eye face to face mouth to mouth so proclaiming his Name and making all his Goodness to pass before him as that by a secondary Glory reflected from the LORD upon him the skin of his face 〈◊〉 shine with such an overcoming brightness as was dazling to the eyes of the Israelites and they were afraid to come nigh him Of all the Prophets arose in Israel there was none like unto Moses whom Jehovah so knew This Moses was a faithful Historian and those things which he wrote were not his own but the Truth and Laws of Jehovah by his handing them out even Enemies themselves being Judges Christ doth approve of Moses and of all that he spoke and wrote from him What Moses said was the Commandment of Aelohim what he spake unto Moses the same is spoken unto us The LORD Christ has raised up some or other in the several ages to plead the Cause of the literal sense of the Works of Creation in the Histoy thereof in the beginning of the Book of God and Wise men especially in this last Age have professed their expectation of the sound knowledge of Natural Things and of their real Essence and true Properties in this first Weeks Journal of the Created World by their several attempts to interpret it this way The literal sense of Moses's Hebrew who was an Hebrew which Hebrew is the Tongue and Language wherein the he wrote Jehovah's Laws is the ground of all Interpretations for this Language hath apert significancies and plain properties of speech which must in the first place be received when opened that the natural meaning of the Scripture may be evidently known Much of sound Scripture-knowledge doth confist in a right explaining of the Words and Speeches in those five Books beforementioned Genesis c. by conferring them with themselves in those Writings of the Prophets and Apostles which are Commentaries upon those five Books by a true and sound explication as the Letter is and giving forth thence the genuine meaning of those Words and Phrases which therefore Christ hath confirmed to every Jod and Chirek There is Originally a certain proper distinct and only one signification of the Hebrew Words which is true and genuine and which under Christ and his Father and Spirit is the best Interpreter of the Holy Scriptures upon the discerning heart of an experienced Believer which would be abundantly confirmed by an accurate Collation of other Scriptures The first words therefore of Scripture particularly and especially is this History of the Creation must be held forth in their Primitive meaning where they are first used in their proper literal sense which doth give forth light to the right understanding of them in those other Scriptures where the same Words and Phrases are afterwards used So that it is generally the common Error and usual Defect in most of our Hebrew Lexicographers that they give so many differing and sometimes contradicting significancies of one and the same Hebrew word whereas they should set down the only one proper distinct meaning of every Hebrew Root and carry the juice of that Sense into all the Branches that do spring from the Root such a meaning of it as may well agree with that word where-ever it be met with throughout the whole Scriptures Which one Direction followed and improved with holy skill and studious industry by men fitted for such a work would bring in a great augment to useful Learning The Holy Scriptures are written as they are to be read and must be so acknowledged especially these matters Historical and Narrative of the Creation without doubtfulness or doubleness of meaning They use such a manner of speaking as is not otherwise to be understood not to be taken in any other sense than in that which at the first reading doth plainly offer it self to a man of spiritual understanding And of all Scriptures I take this of the History of the Creation and the Law of the Ten Words more expresly to call for this In which two are the complete summaries and comprehensive Modules of the Truths and Duties of the
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
Will and desire what thou wilt This doth by far excel any thing of Art every thing of Science else has no coequation with this This was the wise choice that Solomon made for which he who is Wisdom it self hath commended him There is no occasion of complaint here as in vain Philosophy that Art is long and Life is short For the more skilful thou dost grow in this holy Art the more will it be a lengthening to thy days and if thou do not waste time it will tell thee thou dost not want time Here the walk is all-pleasantnesses and the way is prosperous Peace No such hardship and difficulty as in intricate involved Philosophy in the Study of which confounding Vanity and stupifying of Obstruseness some have thrown their Books against the wall because they could not overcome its Notions in their Intellect In Scripture-Wisdom here the Tree Everlasting Lives and this Tree of saving Knowledges do grow together and growing Believers can nourishingly feed on both their Fruits together Those who apprehend it and hold it up and reach it out to others are made happy by it This is a participation of the Wisdom of God This Wisdom is seen in Jehovah's founding of the Earth and this Understanding is manifested in his establishing of the Heavens this Knowledge looked forth in the broken Abysses in the dividing of the Waters and in the Skies distilling Dew Yet vain mens affected wisdom can make nothing of their Studies about these nor ever will whilst they slight the Scripture discovery concerning these and other Works of the Creation but the eyes of Believers should not go off from the Word and Works of God Those who are thus well-minded shall have Jah to communicate his secrets and his counsels to them Here is good Doctrine good in its self good to those who do receive it from which receiving it hath its Name Our Heart should be upholders bearers up of these Oracles of Christ We should possessingly acquire this Wisdom and Understanding not forgetting not declining from the words of his mouth This Wisdom is the Leading-head-Commander of Knowledge This we are to begin with It is not as vain Philosophy is a withered fruitless Speculation but a sapid savoury Knowledge It is the best Inheritance O come to it as such all ye who are true Friends of real useful Learning It puts a Glory upon the Possessor of it and doth highly exalt him enobling the embracers of it These sayings we must take in not the Dictates or Placits of Men or of Devils In this way of Wisdom should young ones be instructed they should tread in these sound paths of Rightness going over the Scriptures again and gain How many young Students read over divers Philosophical Tractates before they read over the holy Scriptures once at least with an eye togather the best Arts and Sciences thence Other Books of Knowledges are no further useful than as they some way or other more or less do comment aright on the Scriptures or on Created Beings agreeably to the Scriptures In Humane Philosophical Writings the Student is often brought to perplexing straights and to offensive stumblings not so here in this word and way of Wisdom Here we should have and hold real profitable Notions of Truths and of Things it is our lives whereas vain speculations of carnal reason should be let go lest they prove deadly to the pertinâ—cious maintainer of them The further on that a Believer doth walk in this Scripture-path the more growing is his light to discern and to difference things by whilst Philosophical wanderers that go out of the word-way do and will whilst there walk in darkness but let our eyes be upon this Book of Books Keep we its revealed Knowledge in the midst of our Heart It will be liveliness and healing to us To this should we be attentive and upon this be intent It has acute wittinesses and subtile cogitations so shall our lips conserve Science For all kind of holy sagaciousness and discretion is in this Scripture-Wisdom and Intelligency From these words should not we recede and they should be our Doctors and Teachers that instruct us in this This Word is a Law and a Light whereas Philosophies are darknesses This Word should we bind over our heart always and tie it annect it over our throats that as soon as speeches are uttered by us out may come some Scripture Eloquies of Mysterious Art and Holy Science Waking and walking we should converse with it and it with us It will keep us when we are asleep and it will lead along in proficiency when we are in our particular Callings It would inlighten our mind and direct our way at the very door of it when we first step into it We should see Understanding shine forth upon us and into us These Words of Christ should be kept by us and hid with us as the black the little man of our eyes We should bind them over our Fingers to work by them and to wise us in and about our work as well as write them on the Table of our Heart to live under the Law of them and to love them and meditate upon them We should say to Wisdom my Sister thou and call Understanding a Kinswoman so near and so dear so intimate and familiar ought it to be to us and with us and our eyes should see by this all sensible experimental knowledges should be brought to this This Word it greatly useful for an Active as well as for a Contemplative Life Here is work for Fingers as well as thinkingness for Hearts A Believer doth wed this Wisdom This kind of Understanding and of Knowledge should be well known unto us as a Wife a Sister a Friend a very amicous Relation and of free Converse our conjoyned Counseller of the same blood with us and of close affinity to us All the sons of Adam may learn here Magistrate Minister and People Leaders and Led What is spoken here are Eximious Matters and Rectitudes that which is Truth all Just no depraved or oblique thing all preparedly right to the Intellect to those who finding Knowledge Whereas Humane Philosophies are obscure and crooked dark and wrie false and difficult In Word-knowledge there is that true Riches which is beyond Gold and Silver Wisdom is above Margarites All a mans wouldlings his wishings have no equation in her Whereas the Philosophical Arts of Elementary Learning are beggarly Rudiments So are the first Principles of Cosmical Men of Vain Affecters of Worldly Humane Wisdom poor and weak Vanities In Christ's Word is the Invention of Science and of subtil Arts. He that would deeply consult about Essences should come hither which Humane Philosophies can never so indigate With this Unstanding there is strength whereas Humane Wisdom doth weaken the Powers of a man's Spirit and Soul and
Janus in Welch High Dutch French Porteguez Spanish Italian Latin so also in English January Prince Janus they say had two Faces which saw things past and to come or because superstitious Antiquity did consecrate to him the beginnings of things February the rest Month is named in English in French in Italian in Spanish in Portuguez in Latin either from Frebruum Februa which were Sacrifices or Ceremonies for purging of Souls for in this Month they sacrificed to Spirits or to departed Souls and they did celebrate the Anniversaries or yearly Rites in remembrance of the Dead which Sacrifices and Ceremonies were done to infernal gods for them which be dead such as the Dirges amongst the Papists the Soul Masses or Masses for the Dead Or from purged Juno whose holy Day as they called them had solemn Sacrifices and Plays dedicated to Pan their god who kept as they thoght the Wolves from devouring the Sheep on which day also women were purged by the Priests of Pan who on the Seventh day of their Sacrifices ran up and down the City naked and strook the Hands and Bellies of Women that were with child with a goats Skin hereby to signifie both fruitfulness and easie delivery or of Februus the god of purging by sacrifice to whom Numa dedicated this month or this Februus was Pluto the God of Hell and of Riches to whom they sacrificed in this month which Month the Romans consecrated to the Infernal gods The month of March is so called in British or Welsh in high and low Dutch in French Spanish Portugueze Italian Latin and English from Mars to whom this month was dedicated it being believed that he was the Father of Romulus the Author of the Roman Nation The Planet Mars was held to be the God of battel The month April has its name in British or Welsh in high and low Dutch in French Spanish Portugueze Italian Latin and English from a Greek word which doth set out Venus the Goddess of Love as sprung from the foam and froth of the Sea This month was dedicated to her The month of May borroweth it's denomination in low Dutch in high Dutch in Welsh in Italian in Spanish in Portugueze in French in Latin in English from Maia the Mother of Mercury in this Month they sacrificed to Maia and to Mercury those did so who were Merchants The month of June is so called in French Portugueze Italian Spanish Latin and English from Juno an Heathenish goddess the daughter of Saturn and Ops the Sister and Wife of Jupiter or of Junius Brutus the Author of Romes liberty and made Consul in this month The month of Julia hath its name in French in Italian in Portugueze in Spanish in Latin in English from Julius Caesar because he was born in that month The month of August has its denomination in British in French in Spanish in Portugueze in Italian in Latin in English from Augustus Caesar and for his Honour The Rest of the Months are reckoned by their Number from March inclusively September the Seventh Month from March October the eighth Month November the ninth Month December the tenth Month. Having thus given the Reader some account of the Ethnick names of Days and of Months How can I but bewail that carnal complyance which the most of Christians are guilty of with Heathenish corruptions in this as in many things Why is there such a backwardness especially in those who call themselves of the Reformed Religion to bring names and things to Scripture Language and expressions O how much would it make both for the Peace and Purity of Churches and people of Christ to bring all in this as well as in other Cases and Matters to that Word-will of our God by which we must be all judged in that last great Day The true proper names of the Days of the Week according to Scripture are One or the First when another Day of the same Week is in being the Second the Third the Fourth the Fifth the Sixth the Seventh The several Moons or Months in the Year according to Scripture are thus named The Head-Moon or one or First Moon The Second The Third The Fourth The Fifth The Sixth The Seventh The Eighth The Ninth The Tenth The Eleventh The Twelfth Some of those Months have also some other names in some Scriptures but these are they which are of constant use O who will give that the Time were to come when Christ and his Saints shall be there together where there will be a pure River of the Water of Life clear as Crystal proceeding out of the Throne of God and of the Lamb in the midst of the Street whereof and of either side of which River the Tree of Life will be which will have twelve manner of Fruits and yield her Fruit every Month the Leaves of which Tree will be for the healing of the Nations Pass we now unto an enquiry 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 firm Out-spread or Expanded doth separatingly 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 wateriness here below drawing up such vapours from hence as do condense in the cold middle Region of the Air and are there turned into those distilling Drops which come down here below Whether the Air be the proper place where the upper Waters are generated HUmane Sophists will resolve this Question thus Rain is the moisture of the Earth and of the Seas of Watery places drawn up by the heat of the Sun into the middle Region of the Air which being thus condensed into Clouds is afterwards at the will of God dissolved and dropt down again in showers for his glory in making the Earth fruitful for good to the good for the instruction of all men and for relief to other creatures As to that part which is the generating cause Natural Philosophers do call the Sun the Father of the Rain and a late Christian Philosopher doth own it as not improperly so called in his Exposition on Joh. The Water of the Sea and the moisture of the Earth say they being attenuated by the heat of the beams of the Sun do become vapours which being so rarefied and resolved into an aiery substance are by the same heat of the Sun drawn up into a cold middle loft of the Air where being again thickned into Water they melt down into Rain Thus they describe the manner of the Formation and Generation of Rain And it is a common heathenish expression amongst many who name the name of Christ we shall have Rain when the Moon changeth or when the Wind turneth Thus
by any contrary examples to those Laws we must inquire for our pattern and rule not what either this or that Saint hath done but what the LORD hath revealed and enjoyned in this word and hath either commanded or forbidden Christ calls us to the first Institution in Paradise not to what the Patriarchs did who by being conversant with the Pagans were in divers matters corrupted with their errours and vices whereby they also corrupted this holy Ordinance of lawful marriage in particular by their illegal copulations in several instances besides what there might be further in that of extraordinary either Typical or other dispensation under the administration of Grace neither doth Christ refer the determination of this case to the toleration granted in Moses's time because of the hardness of the heart of the Israelites Malachi being one of the last Prophets under the Old Testament administration let it now be considered what Testimony he doth bring in towards the true stating of this case as to the matter of right He doth put together several Arguments all which do witness against Polygamy or Divorce Jehovah Aelohim in the first Institution of holy marriage did make one he brought and joyned together but one Adam and one Eve into and in this honourable state of conjugal conjunction when yet all other spirits were his also when there was an abundance of the spirit in him the Prophet doth refer to the Primitive Creation of man and woman and to the Original Ordaining of lawful Matrimony between two one man and one woman when yet there was no want of Spirit in the Creator which he could have breathed into many but he afformed but one Eve into a Wife for Adam Hence comes the excelling Seed a Seed of Aelohim other Seed is not issue generation or off-spring worthy of so glorious a Maker when it is begotten and brought forth of promiscuous and of wandring lust by nefarious copulation so that by instinct of Nature such so born of Polygamy or of divorce have a mark of contempt put upon them the LORD seeks an holy Seed a Seed of Aelohim a Seed of Acceptation with him a Seed whom he will bless which in those other ways would not neither could be so expected for this cause therefore made he one not ten or twenty or an hundred or a thousand for one man at once no more but one Adam and one Eve were to be Matrimonized into one flesh thus was the primitive Law of lawful coupling had Jehovah's will been such he could have brought more women to one Adam yet one Eve must be the Mother of all living of all mankind descending from her Loyns he could have inspired more women Power was not wanting but his holy righteous Will and Pleasure was not to have many Wives joyned at one and the same time to one and the same man Further Jehovah is a witness of the Matrimonial Promise made in his presence with invocation of his Name Lawful Matrimony rightfully contracted is the Covenant of Aelohim he is Surety on both sides undertaker for both recording the contract and testifying against the violation of it ranking Ploygamists amongst the Adulterers he is ready to bring in evidence against and to execute judgements upon Marriage-breakers Covenant-violaters of the conjugal Promise such are treacherous and unfaithful who do divorce and put away one and take another or who take one to another and do multiply Wives Jehovah's Name was interposed in the first Marriage the very companionship and confederateship of the first Wife doth confirm this Truth The weightiness of the forementioned Reason the Holiness of the intent the greatness of the end why but one woman for one man doth inforce this even that he might seek a Seed of Aelohim such a Seed would he find an holy Posterity born in lawful Wedlock in chaste conjunction according to his Ordination and Institution all other Seed is illegitimate Seed perverting of the Order and Ordinance of holy Marriage and therefore he doth brand such Seed with disgrace Observe further what a solemn strict charge the LORD here doth give unto his people bidding them to take good heed unto their Spirit in this Matter once and a second time to look well to it as they would answer it at that last day of Judgement It is as much as your Souls and your Salvation is worth now that you are brought under the conviction of your guilt though the word be in the Passive Voice be thou kept yet the force and use of it hath somewhat in it reciprocal and reflex It will be a vanity here in any to pretend a law for Divorce for the putting away of a lawful Wife For AElohim doth hate such putting away the very word and phrase of it relating to the present matter is odious to him and the words of that permission by Moses which are a consequent disgrace following upon a foregoing Transgression do imply and intimate it and Christ doth plead against it It is violence and injuriousness done to the Wife and to the Marriage-covenant and unto Jehovah's Law do not think to cloak and to cover it with such palliation by Moses's sufferance of it in your hard hearted Forefathers it is an heinous crime the place doth speak of the matter of Fact what was done not of the matter of Right what ought to be done For Pollution is said to follow upon it Jehovah doth threaten not to accept of the persons or services of such Polygamists and Divorcers The Bond of Mattimony is perpetual and indissolvable till death sancited and established by the infallible authority of the unchangeable Jehovah The Wife is the one half part of the man and he cannot lawfully have any more half parts at one and the same time it is against both Scripture and Nature The Prophet Malachi doth prosecute his argumentation from the nearness of Christ's coming in the flesh in that day though Aelohim have hitherto tolerated your evil manners yet now the nearer you are come to the New Testament glorious ministration of Grace it behoves you to conform the more to the commands of the LORD Jesus Christ and so it doth under the present providence much concern the people of this age to abstain from the like provocations now that Christ is about to appear the second time without sin unto Salvation Otherwise the LORD will avenge himself on those who do abuse his long-suffering God doth not therefore approve though he did a while forbear the execution of vengeance upon every Polygamist and Divorcer their murmuring contradicting words did even tire and weary Jehovah Let the Reader now collate and compare the New Testament and observe the well concordant harmony and agreeing oneness of this with the old Those right words of Christ are very forcible Whosoever putteth away his wife except it be for fornication in which case it was to be death and marrieth
liberty to be a little more particular and distinct yet with respect to the Body the Soul and the Spirit which are the three essential constitutive parts of Man How can the Medicinal Art in the Old or New Philosophical way be so satisfactory to any deep piercing serious Inquirer whilst in that way it is a mere conjectural deceiveable Art How many of their Recipes are there which when taken inwardly they understand not how they work upon the inward parts by what kind of causality and efficiency How it doth take hold of one part and not of another How it doth seize upon this humour and not upon that How any of the inwards parts do co-operate with the Medicine What the Faculties and Functions of the several inward parts are to promote the efficacy of the Recipe How many various commixt concurring unobserved accident as they call them may quite change and alter the operation and the effects of the Ingredients With much more that might be instanced in How great variety is there in a little space of time in â—he humours and temperament of one and the same body occastoned oâ— a sudden by some distempered passions or ungoverned affections or mis-sâ—apen apprehensions or transporting phrensies or deep imaginations which the most skilful and observing Physitian can neither prevent nor remedy And although som of the more wise and faithful of them do in their Methods and Rules about this Art treat of the effects of the inner Man of the unexpected changes suddenly befalling the mind as having an alterative affectiveness upon the outer Man either to speed on or to hold back the cure Yet how can their Counsel and Prescriptions be proper and pertinent here for the governing of the passions and for the ordering of the affections of their Patients without resorting to Scripture directions in particular Scriptures to enforce obedience to call forth Faith and to encourage prayers which the common exhortations from meer Philosophical Ethnicks cannot so do How many inward cases of Spiritual maladies are there which none of the common Medicinal Prescriptions can remove and remedy This kind of Patients the practicers of Physick do either send to the Minister for spiritual Cordials and healing Counsels or else sometimes they dismisâ— them to the Bedlam when it is outragious Phrensie or wolâ—ish Melancholy or diabolical possession and for a veil of their ignorance and a cover of their shame they conclude many Diseases to be obstinate against all remedies Whereas if the Scriptures were searched into about this much more would there be discovered of a Directory And if all else should fail the LORD would often effect cures even to wonderment were Faith acted aright upon a suitable Word There was a sick Maid given over by a Learned Practitioner in the Medicinal Art as gasping and dying and when a Pastor being present had drawn the Physician aside into the next Room the Physician told him that she had two or three mortal Diseases so far gone upon her that either of them would be her Death And yet when the Minister had cleared the Chamber of other by-standers himself and some few others in Church Fellowship with him acted according to that prescription and promise in James and the LORD immediately raised her up and a short time after she was seen walking in the streets healthful and well All the praise belongs to Jehovah Aelohim There is a Scriptural Art of Cure when the Shops of Apothecaries do afford no help There are many latent operations of Nature which meer Ethnick Philosophy cannot find out and there are divers unseen Inflicters of Diseases sometimes by good Angels other times by evil Spirits which must receive a Word cure if ever they be rightly cured The Holy Scriptures do expresly mention several particular Diseases as running Sores flowing Issues Boyls Feavers Consumptions Inflammations extreme Burnings Botch Emerods Scab Itch Leprosie the falling of the Thigh or Womb and divers others And they speak of Diseases in particular members of the Body as in the Feet in the Legs in the Knees in the Bowels in the Kidneys or Reins in the Loins in the Sinews in the Bones in the Liver in the Gall From the sole of the Foot unto the Head no soundness Wounds Bruises putrefying Sores And when the judicious and industrious of the Medicinal Art will make Scripture collections about this they might find out many particular Rules there which do direct unto proper specifick remedies If I should cull out this one particular inward part of Man's body the heart how many diseases and distempers is it subject unto the which no Philosophick Art can cure such as the Passion or the Palpitation of the Heart the Wounding of the Heart the Breaking of the Heart the Piercing of it the Faintings the Desolatings the Wastings and Minishings the Throbbings and Beatings about of the Heart so that it is even forsaking of a Person leaping awry and leaving its place and going out the Languidness of the Heart the Frettingness of the Heart the Troubles the Terrours the Tremblings the Despondings of the Heart Its Dissolvings and Flowings away as water its sinking and falling It s being moved as the Trees of the Wood are moved with the Wind Its melting as Wax and softning through fear its making a noise like Pipes its dyingness or perishing its Astonishment or Stupor its Smiting or Striking of him or of her in whom it is Its Madness its sorrowful Overwhelmings its Leavenings and Imbitterings and Swellings Its Groanings with a rumbling roaring Noise its excessive Heats as an Oven and as a burning Fire within it It s being covered over with Grief It s being blasted as withered Grass It s Wandering It s staggering its fluttering too and fro Its pains in its Walls its being beset straitned and besieged its unquietness as the raging restless Sea its boiling and working as Waters that become thick and miry when they are much stirred and troubled Its heaviness it s stooping as under an oppressing burden Its astonishments and amazements its being struck as with an Hammer It s being changed like as the heart of a Beast Its overgrownness and oppressedness with Fat Its Anguish Its Despair Its Out-cryes Its Plagues Its Stonyness Let me give one particular instance of an Heart-malady which is one of the most lamentable cases in all the book of the Lamentations It is such a complex distemper of heart as has these dreadful things in it grief and sorrow such grief and sorrow as doth cover the heart all over A cincture and compreâ—â—ion of Heart with deadly trouble and pain such a covering grief and sorrow of Heart as is totally overwhelming and quite discouraging It makes them even quite to give over all hope It is such an overwhelming grief and discouraging sorrow of Heart as has Obduration and obstinacy going along with it It further sets out the Hearts giving over of it self to its own overwhelming grief
first Promise of his and believers should enjoy it as a Covenant Mercy when ever our eyes do behold the Light we may see there are more substances and fewer accidents as they name them than Ethnick Philosophers do own What was the first created Light according to their own descriptions Was it not an Entity of Nature Did it not truly subsist Doth not the Scripture affirm this Did it not subsist in it self VVhat substance did this Light naturally flow from or originally subsist in Did it spring from Heaven or from Earth or from VVaters Or from the gulphy space or doleful place The Expanse was not created till the Seventh-day As for the Air neither was that extended expanded or made so diaphanous or created on the one day And as for the Heavenly Luminaries they had not a Being till the fourth day If you imagine it to be inherent in the highest Heavens and transmitted thence why then is not the Light always sent forth to make it continual day What substance was the Light adventitious to in its first being created Was not the specificial Essence thereof in it self What other substance did the Light affect or perfect Was not the Light an actual Entity specifically differing from all other created Beings in the Time and Nature of it This Light is a stated solid substantial Entity always actual since its first Creation without continual sensible variations The Light has corporeal quantity of extension and corporeal Motion in coming and in going What was that pretended lucid Body in which this Light is supposed to be inherent to which to adhere and in which as in a Subject to be It is an essential and substantial Creature in its own Nature and Being which Aelohim gave unto it The Light was not gathered into the Sun not placed in the body of the Sun not affixed unto the Sun not sent into and inserted in it after its Being diffused and shed abroad not bound to any certain body the Light doth cast no shadow because it doth surround Bodies whereas the Sun doth cast shadows because its shining is in direct Beams It is a real thing and not only a notion all and every of the created Beings are truly subsisting Entities This created Light was not Christ though in another sense Christ is called Light For somewhat was created before the Light as the Heavens the Earth the Waters the empty space the doleful place and darkness whereas Christ is the beginning of the Works of Aelohim he was before all created Beings For a close of this fifth days VVork I apprehend the creating of the Beasts and VVorms to appertain to the fifth day for several weighty Reasons agreeing with the VVord All those Creature are here put together Such as have a sensitive Soul and Life So nobly formed a Creatures as Man who was to have the Royal Dominion over these sensitive Creatures and was endued with a Religious Rational Soul and Life he had the honour of a distinct day the sixth day for his Creation apart from other Creatures The cause why it is said twice that Aelohim will foreseeingly look on because good what he created on the fifth day may be this there doth appear some need of such a subdivision because there were two such divers kinds of Creatures made on that day Some in the place of the Waters the other in the place of the red Earth the goodness of both and of each of which doth the more clearly shine forth and is the better understood by this Spiritual Narration of doubling the Testimony There is a special Blessing given to Religious Rational Adam distinct from Bruit Animals Observe well also this further Reason here is a distinct Creature from tame Animals and wild Beasts particularly mentioned the creeping one the Reptil a word which was mentioned before in the Participle concerning the Fishes and therefore this kind of Creature must be created on the same day of the week on which the Fishes its Fellow-creepers were and so also the other mentioned here as the tame Animal and the wild Beast Thus also I judge that the gathering together of the lower Waters from other places with expecting desire into the Seas as its appointed place did belong to the Creation-work of the second day because to every one of the six days of this one week of the Creation this is expresly ascribed that Aelohim will foreseeingly look on because good whereas if this be carried on to the third day then the second day will be left without this approving Testimony from its Creator Further they are much a part of the same subject-matter spoken of in the second days Work which was that these Waters below might have a distinct place from those Waters above by an out-spread partition between them They were both of them Waters This Work about the severing of the Waters was begun upon the second day and there finished on the second day For as a wise good Worker Aelohim reserves the approbation till he had perfected that Work and put it in its proper place so discharged as it were his hands of it as to what concerned the Creation of it though as to its continued preservation it be still in his manutenancy How large and complete an History of the Fishes of Fowls of Beasts and of VVorms might there be composed and compiled for the perfecting of this Art and the polishing of the Science of Sensitive Souliness if all those VVords and Phrases were orderly put together that do treat of this subject matter in the Scriptures of Truth The Sixth Day towards the true Advance of useful Learning doth give us the hint of this profitable Inquiry Q. Whether Anthropology or the Doctrine of Created Adam or 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 restaurable by the Word of Truth and the holy Spirits teaching of serious Inquirers this Art according to these Holy Scriptures Answ IT is not by Ethnick Philosophy and the Readers or VVriters of it but by the Scriptures of Truth and the holy Spirits instructing in and by these Man what is this man that the Creator has so crowned him with so signal an Honour Man how noble is his make Man is the Articulate Trumpeter of the Creators Praises the lingual Glory of the VVorld sounding forth the shining excellencies of Jehovah Aelohim in his glorious self in his good VVord and in his great VVorks How useful a Knowledge is this the true Knowledge of our selves VVhat profit would it be to me and to the Reader though we understood all other Mysteries and all other Knowledges if thou and I were ignorant of our selves How Royal Prerogatives hath the LORD dignified Man withal Unto how high a pitch hath he raised the ultim summities of the Humane Nature in all its created Perfections of Spirit of