the design of this Treatise which in short is to hold forth all Sciences and profitable Arts in one Book of Jehovah Aelohim and to demonstrate the Scripture-way to be the true the right the excelling the only way of perfecting the knowledge of lawful Arts and Sciences and of the Restauration and advancement of real Learning so opposed to vain false and deceitful Philosophy to such affected humane wisdom as would make prey of precious Souls and as being contrary to Scripture-verity to word-Theologie to revealed Christianity and to created Nature and so not after Christ If thou be one of a plain understanding and if thy knowledge be only of the English complexion so that thou canst skill only in thy own Mother-tongue let my beseeching of thee be prevalent with thee not to be offended at it that so many words of other Tongues are used in this Treatise especially in the former part of it I am not my self fond of it as to be so greatly pleased with it but where I am some way even necessitated to it to express my self in some Scholastick Terms Phrases and Language chiefly when I open them according to the Original significancy of Scriptural expressions for the conviction and confutation of Philosophical Errours and for the confirmation and commendation of Scripture-Truths I have put the Scriptures referred unto mostly in the Margin not without some reasons which have been privatly satisfactory to me yet withal I desire the serious considerate lookerover of these lines to examine the Words of Christ as he goes along lest otherwise he rashly censure and over hastily condemn some passages which he will mistake to be only my own when it may be upon a more through examination they will be found to be Scripture-sense and significancy and so I put thee over unto the teachings of the holy Spirit according to the Word The LORD Jesus Christ hath hiddenly laid up all the Treasures of Wisdom and of Knowledge in his Word wherein are many choice Mysteries above the reach and besides the Rules of Philosophy THe LORD Jesus Christ himself is the Wisdom of the only wise God for whereas in one place Christ saith of himself Behold I send among you Prophets another Scripture speaking of the same thing doth thus express it Therefore also the wisdom of God saith I will send among you prophets He is in the bosome of the Father the very wisdom of the Father the Declarer and Interpreter of his Fathers Will all things even those which are most hidden and secret are absolutely and perfectly known to him and whatever is necessary and useful for us to understand observe and do he hath revealed in the Scriptures of Truth which are a perfect Word every way consummate and complete so far as concerns a word absolute and intire so that it cannot in any particular be justly reprehended and blamed as defective and insufficient that the Man of God may be perfect perfectly furnished unto every good Work it is equal even in number to truths and things so that nothing is wanting in it it doth fully consist of all and every of the members and parts which are required to make through work of the work of the Ministry it is well filled up in all numbers and modes all the Treasures of Wisdom and of Knowledge being to be sought for here in Christ and from Christ in his Word and therefore the administrator under Christ about holy Things was to be an Universal Artist by his office well skilled in that great variety of profitable knowledge in the several Arts and Sciences such a man of understanding should he be He was to be an Astronomer how else could he know which was the head of the Moons the number of the Moons the new Moon the Day of the Month upon which divers of the Festivals under the Old Testament-dispensation did depend which he was to proclaim by his function he was to be much in the diligent Contemplation of the Coelestial Luminaries to raise up his Meditations to a spiritual Admiration of their wise Creator he must be a Geometrician that he might know how the portions of the Promised Land were to be distributed amongst the several Tribes what their several borders were of what distance the Suburbs were to be how to take right just due measures of the brazen Sea both for circumference and diameter how to take the height the breadth and the length of the Tabernacle and of many things belonging to it as also of the Temple and how to determine many cases about these and such like matters as they came before him he must be an Anatomist that he might according to Art orderly dissect into their several natural parts the beasts for sacrifice he must have the Art of an Apothecary that he might compound the Spices to make the Holy anointing Oyl and the composition of the perfume he was to be an able Lawyer that he might give sentence according to the Word and might not err in Judgement he must have insight in the Medicinal Art and be a skilful Physician for how else could he judge aright of the disease of Leprosie of the cases symptoms cure and method of healing he must be an Herbalist that he might chuse proper Herbs for wholesome bitterness which were to be eaten with the Paschal Lamb Solomon was a Preacher and a skilful Herbalist too he was to know and to use the Art of Cookery for there were many of the Sacrifices that required much skill in roasting in boiling in frying in baking he must be an Historian about the Genealogies of the several Tribes particularly of the Priests and Levites and the Prophets did write the lives of the several Kings and those remarkable occurrences of their times and day which the LORD would have to be transmitted to Posterity by these Historiographers he must be an Arithmetician because otherwise without exactness herein he could not make a right computation about the sale of Lands till the year of Jubilee and concerning the redemption of Lands before that year came about and by what proportions more or less were a just valuation between the buyer and the seller according as the years were many or few for accordingly he must either add to the price or subtract from it that there might be an equal division and distribution thus also about setting the due value of estimation of persons according to their age sexes and abilities of beasts of houses and of fields whether of his possession or of his buying the Art of Arithmetick is found in the Book of Numbers he was to be as a Clerk of the Market for Weights and Measures and dimensions and this not only as to the Shew-bread the Meat Offerings and the Drink Offerings and such Sacrifices in the matters of Worship but also in their common dealings between man and man in Markets and
Good to confess to Jehovah and to sing Psalm to thy Name O most high specially in the day of thy Sabbath Thou wilt make known this Name of thine to thine adversaries How long shall the Enemy blaspheme thy Name to perpetuity Remember this the Enemy reproacheth Jehovah and the foolish people blaspheme thy Name Thou wilt lift up the light of thy Faces upon thy gracious Saints so that the oppressed shall not return ashamed the poor afflicted and needy shall praise thy Name and blessed be the Name of thy Glory for ever The Reader is here advertised that he has no just cause to be offended at the expression of the Faces in the plural of Jehovah or of Aelohim for so it is in the Original and it doth set out that great Mystery of Father Son and holy Spirit and the different manifestations of each of these according as they are pleased with or displeased at such as do make their address to them The LORD Jesus Christ is Jehovah as his Father is Jehovah and as the Spirit of his Holiness is Jehovah they one Jehovah The Father of Christ is Jehovah Thus it is written in the second Psalm where he is more than once expresly so called The LORD Jesus is there said to be the Christ the Anointed and the Son of this Jehovah the Father And thus it is distinctly applyed by Peter in his Prayer to the Father by Paul in his Preaching and by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews who reciteth that Text once and again It was Jehovah the Father who assuringly said unto Christ the LORD of David Sit thou at my right hand till I put thine enemies the footstool of thy feet For the Scriptures do often speak of Christ sitting at the Right hand of his Father And the LORD Jesus himself doth apply this passage in the one hundred and tenth Psalm of David's calling him LORD unto himself So doth Peter and so also doth the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews The House of him who is named Jehovah in the sixty ninth Psalm is called by the LORD Christ himself his Fathers House As John doth write of him those who are called the taught of Jehovah in the Book of Isaiah are such as Christ doth interpret in the Writings of John to be hearers and learners of the Father That Power which the LORD Christ had to bruse the Heathen as Potters Vessels with an Iron staff he acknowledgeth to have received from his Father in the Revelation Which words are taken out of the second Psalm where he who gave Christ this Power is Jehovah The Spirit of Christ's Holiness is also Jehovah He who by David in the ninty fifth Psalm did exhort the people to hear the voice of their God and is here said to be Jehovah the great Potentate is by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews called the Holy Spirit And this self same who in this Psalm is said to have been tempted by the Israelites in the Wilderness who also brought that people out of Egypt and did lead them in the Wilderness is as hath been observed named Jehovah there as he is also in the Book of Moses And this was the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Jehovah as saith Isaiah That people in the seventy eight Psalm have it spoken concerning them that they did bitterly provoke him in the Wilderness and grieve him in the Desert which is Jehovah Which same thing being Recorded in the Book of Isaiah they are said to Rebel and to grieve the Holy Spirit That which Jehovah did say and promise in the Book of Moses that he would set his Tabernacle in the midst of his people that he would walk in the midst of them that he would be to them a God and they should be to him a people they walking in his Statutes and keeping his Commandments and doing them This is renewed and fulfilled in the New Testament as Paul doth declare in his Epistles to the Corinihians who speaking of Believers and Saints he saith They are the Temple of the Holy Spirit of that living God as God had before said in the Old Testament I will dwell in them and walk round about in them and I will be their God and they shall be to me a people He who by Zacharias in his Song is said to speak by the mouth of the holy Prophets and is called by him The LORD the God of Israel and in Samuel's second Book is named the Spirit of Jehovah the God of Israel who spake in the Prophet David the God of Israel is expresly named in the second Epistle of Peter the holy Spirit who spake the Prophesies in and by holy Men. This Spirit is the LORD as Paul writes in one of his Epistles the Spirit Jehovah the LORD Jesus Christ also he is Jehovah The holy Spirit doth witness this to us in what he saith if their be a due diligent comparing of the Old Testament with the New it will thereby evidently appear that the same who is Christ in the one is Jehovah in the other in many places of the Scriptures of Truth What the Prophet Isaiah spake Prepare the way of Jehovah is applyed by John the Baptist to the way of the LORD Christ What by the same Prophet is said to be the Glory of Jehovah is said by John in his Writings to be spoken of Christ at which time that word of Esaias was then fulfilled that he spake Jehovah who hath believed our hearing and to whom is the Arm of Jehovah revealed Which Jehovah John doth interpret of the LORD Christ and that multitude in whose hearing this was spoken did acknowledge that they had heard out of the Law that Christ abideth for ever Now the Scriptures that do speak of this which that saying of their doth relate to do say of Jehovah what is spoken by the same Prophet of Jehovah the true God that to him every knee shall bow and all tongues shall swear which swearing must be in his Name thereby to confess him when there is a lawful Call thereunto this doth Paul ascribe unto the LORD Christ That which Moses did charge against the unbelieving disobedient unperswadable Israelities in the Wilderness they tempted Jehovah by speaking against Jehovah the same doth Paul in his former Epistle to the Corinthians affirm to be a tempting of Christ Paul says Christ was that Spiritual Rock who went together with that people in the Wilderness it was Christ who was figured shadowed and typified by the Cloud the Mannah the Rock it was he who led them in and out to and fro there He was that Angel of the Father's faces a Messenger by Office sent forth to be the Saviour and the Guider of that people who is expresly by Moses called Jehovah He was Jehovah who went before them together with them The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews doth testifie that
Body This Word would instruct Kings how to Reign and Counsellors how to Decree Justice How to Statute it out to Subjects and Inferiours In this Princes have and should exercise their Principate all the Nobles and Judges of the Earth according to Christ and his Word O how much should we love this and morning it to find it out It will carry us to walk in the path of Justice You that for some years have been early at your Philosophical Studies be now at length wise and come betimes to the Scripture Lecture that Christ by his holy Spirit from his Father in his Word would declare unto you If ever you would be wise do not mispend your time and coyn and strength in Houses of Folly there are of you who know too much where they are But repair to Wisdoms School late and early night and day be at these Study-doors Such shall draw forth from Jehovah what his Will is This right way of sound Wisdom was delivered and revealed from the foundation of the World at the first Creation as the certain the unerring Rule of the Mind and Will of God Christ in his Word and Works do make known himself to be the rare Artificer all-skilful-worker and all profitable Science and useful Arts must be learn'd from him as their great Exemplar and teaching Author The Manliest Virtuoso's are here spoken to and called upon hither should they hasten to learn as well as the ignorant Plebeians and the easily perswaded Inspients Here are noble Sciences and liberal Arts for the most free princely Spirits Christ in his Word no sooner opens his lips but some right Truth and real Thing quickly is spoken forth There is nothing distorted or perverted here It is all obvious directly before us not intricate or infolded Here a young Timothy may get Wisdom and in a little time grow up to great Understanding Here is the House of Wisdom and of Prudence This is the Doctress and Dictatress This cureth the teachable Student of Pride Elation Arrogancy of which Philosophers are still sick Here is the perfect possession of Science and of Sapience Here Knowledge is sound and saving virtuous and substantial Christ delighteth to teach the sons of Adams this and should not we be made willing to learn where word-knowledge is taught at that Door should we enter that we may elicite hidden Mysteries This Christ who is Wisdoms doth set himself out as a Master and Teacher of useful Arts and Sciences to Adam and his sons quickly after the Creation inviting them as Disciples into his School His College is completely built and he begins his Instructings of them with satisfaction and intercession in this discharge of his Mediatory Office by offering of Sacrifice and by Praying and when he has instilled his useful Precepts he then entertaineth his learning-ones with Spiritual Repast O who will give that there were more incorporated Societies here subject to and ruled by the Statutes of Christ's House That our hopeful youths may no longer be sworn to Philosophical Laws Words and Statutes Here Christ utters his Oracles from that exalted Pew or Pulpits the highest Heavens How honourable would our Cities be were there holy Convocations and Spiritual runnings and meetings to Christ's Preaching and Interpretings here He calls with significant Voice in express words Come O come away come hither and no longer waste your time by a fruitless attendance on Philosophical Lectures Come in and submit to Christ's Discipline His teaching of you will prosper the better for his chastising of you Here is a Knowledge that is a wising and nourishing to a sanctified Soul whilst vain Philosophies are but Fatuities and Emptinesses Scoffers here will not be proficients the attempt will be successless and the labour lost to instruct such no art nor industry of man can inform them till Christ change and convert and new make them For they despise that Word-wisdom which commended to them and set before them and Napkin up or imprison those few Notions of it which they have taken in Whereas give occasion to a wise man and his wisdom will be increased as soon as it is presented he takes it in The fear of Jehovah is the way to it This is the Knowledge of Holy both Angels and Men and Things which would be every way so much for our own advantage After all this discovery will young Students be still beguiled and corrupted by the foolish woman who is so contrary to Christ and his Word and to the Wisdom which is in him and in it which knows nothing aright carnalizing every thing all its opinion of things being streperous by keeping up its disputing noise and wrangling clamours â—tumultuous fallacious and drawing aside from the Truth into Error It doth not understand any thing savingly nor discern it spiritually It has not soundness of apprehension though it self-flatteringly imagineth that it has the knowledge of many things and is well skill'd in many Arts and Invents What doth it know aright Can you name it or tell what it is Yet would this foolish woman be in the Throne and Pew too imitating and emulating of Wisdoms before spoken of and strive to out do and go beyond She will come with Pompous Ostentation her Bell and Bedel and with External Apparat to insinuate her self into mens minds by deceptive Oblectaments and sensual allurements It would sit in the Doctors chair and exercise Regal Authority Thus affecting to be like unto Wisdom it becomes more ridiculous by its apishness Sometimes she will use some of the same words that Wisdom doth but in another sense wrying them in their own Dialect as if Christ's wised ones were foolish ones in her accompt and she could teach them better she delights in fallacious Artifices till she mislead her blind followers into the gulphy-empty-space and the doleful sighful place and would leave them there hopeless and helpless like the hellish Teacher of the Black-Arts unless the LORD do in time before they tumble in thither step forth to their recovery out of these snares by turning them from the Error of their way to the Truth He who has willingness skill and opportunity to carry this meditation through this Book of Proverbs may gather up and put together a great deal more of this profitable matter I must hasten now to some further Inquiries for the progressive advance of useful Learning Of the One which when another Day was Created was the First Day of the Created World and of some of its Works Q. Whether this Earth at its First Creation were without Form and void So that Thou and Bohu be truly and rightly predicated of Aeretz Or whether Tohu and Bohu be not dictinct Creatures from the Earth locally distant or two Created Places the one setting out the Gulphy-empty-space the doleful place of Hell THe clearing up of this that the Gulph and Hell are certain distinct places of
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
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
the North is the highest part of the created World 89 That this Earth is above the Water And that the middle part of this Earth is not the common Centre to which all heavy bodies do naturally descend 89 90 91 Q. Whether that darkness which doth distinguish and separate between the Night and the Day in a large Day be but the want or privation of Light and so mere nothing And which was first the Darkness or the Light 91 to 103 The discoveries here are that Darkness has a Created Being and doth truly subsist 91 92 That Created Light is a mere accident without but that it has an essentiated substance and has a good perfect subsistence of its own distinct from the Sun 92 134 That Darkness and Light do make a natural large Day which doth begin at the Evening Wherein are divers other useful things opened about Evening Darkness Night and Morning Light Day Weeks Months Winter Summer and Years Time Minutes and Hours 92 to 103 Concerning the Created Work of the Second Day Q. Whether all those upper Waters Such as Rain Dew Hail Snow and the like between which and the lower Waters comprehended under the name of Seas such as Springs Fountains Rivers Lakes and the like the out-spread or expanded doth separately divide do come down from above this Expanse Or are they caused in the Air by some influencing operativeness of the Heavenly Luminaries upon the moistness and watriness here below drawing up such vapours from hence as do condeuse in the cold middle Region of the Air and are there turned into those distilling drops which come down here below VVhether the Air be the proper place where the upper VVaters are generated 103 to 106 Here it is evidenced from the Word that the Rain and such other upper Waters is not generated by the Heavenly Luminaries But that it doth come down from above this blew visible Expanse 103 104 105 Concerning the Created Work of the Third Day Q. Whether the exactest fullest Herbal of Herbs Grasâ— Trees and Plants be not treasured up in the Scriptures of Truth opening this great secret of Created Nature best setting out the Doctrine and use of them both for Feeding and for Healing 106 The answer to this doth open much of the Nature Vertues Vses Kinds Places Cherishers Hurters of Herbs with much more of their usefulness for man both for Food and for Medicine It doth stir up Physicians and Cooks to study the Herbal-Art more in a Scripture-way in order to the promoting of bodily health 106 to 113 Of the Fourth Days VVork Q. Whether the Coelestial Phaenomena Of the glorious Luminaries can ever be reduced to any certain satisfactory Art or improved into an advanced restaâ—red Science by vain Philosophy Or must this be attained only by Scripture-discovery in its pursued Light and followed Directions 113 It is here made manifest that vain Philosophy can never teach this it is only learn'd in the Scriptural-School 113 114 115 That the Scriptures do condemn Judiciary Astrology as it is commonly understood and practised to be Groundless Scriptureless Natureless Superstitious Vain and Sinful 115 to 124 That the Sun is not the Centre of the World 124 125 That the Moon is really in its Created Being a great Light 125 That Eclipses of the Sun and Moon have not the proper true causes of them assigned by Philosophers 125 126 That Earth and Seas are not in the Moon Page 126 Of the Fifth Days VVork Q. Whether that part of Natural History which doth concern Fowls Fishes Beasts and Worms can ever be completed into a Natural Art in the way of Ethnick Philosophy Or must we search after it only in the Word of Truth where only it can be advanced and perfected by a due and diligent comparing of their Created Beings in their proper Natures 127 Here is demonstrated that this natural Art is not found in tâ—e way of Ethnick Philosophy and that the Word of Truth alone can advance and perfect this Natural History 127 to 135 That Art rightly discovered is but Nature truly opened 127 That the Mother-tongued-Hebrew should not be sent to Daughter-Languages to learn to speak 128 That there was not a first prae-existent Matter out of which all other Creatures were made 128 129 130 131 That Matter and Motion are not the Essences of things 130 That all and every of the Creatures were immediate distinct Works of Aelohim's Power 128 to 131 That the Creator hath assigned his Creatures to their proper Localities 131 That the World was not from Eternity but had a beginning 131 132 That Time Place and Number are not of the Nature of different things particularly as applyed to worship 131 132 That the LORD in Scripture and Nature has determined the circumstances of worship 132 133 That some Scripture History is also Prophetical and Promissory 134 135 That it is worthy of further inquiry whether Vau be conversive of the Praeterit into the Future or of the Future into the Praeterit 134 135 That Jehovah Aelohim is still putting forth continued acts of preferring and of blessing his Creatures 134 135 That the first Created Light is a Substance truly subsisting in it self and in its Created Nature 134 see also 92 That Beasts and Worms do belong to the Creatien work of the Sixth day And that the gathering in of the lower Waters into the Seas was a part of the Creators Work on the Second Day 134 135 Concerning the Created Work of the Sixth Day Q. Whether Anthropology or the Doctrine of Created Adam or the knowledge of Man or the Science of the Humane Nature be sufficiently taught in the Schools and Lectures of Ethnick Philosophers Or is it only contained in and augmentable and reâ—staurable by the Word of Truth and the holy Spirits teaching of serious inquiries this Art according to those holy Scriptures 136 The discovery here is that Anthropology or the Doctrine of Created Adam or the knowledge of Man or the Science of the Humane Nature is not sufficiently taught by Ethnick Philosophy and the Readers or Writers of it but by the Scriptures of Truth and the holy Spirits instructing in and hy the Scriptures 136 to 158 That man's make is admirable 136 137 That no mere Creature made man but he had his Being distinct from other Creatures immediately by and from Aelohim 136 137 That Man was Created with the Image and Likeness of Aelohim upon him 136 137 That the Female was Created distinct from the Male and but one Female was appointed for one Male in Marriage at the Beginning where is also discovered the sinfulness of Polygamy and of Divorce 138 to 148 That it deserves a further inquiry whether where-ever this Word Adam is found in the Original it should not be rendred Adam when translated into other Languages 148 149 Also whether the fruitful propagating of Mankind by conjugal Generation be not still a Fruit and effect of Aelohim's first Blessing upon Adam and Eve 149
to constitute and establish an universal conclusion by these steps and degrees may we ascend into sound knowledge and with more speed ease and satisfaction learn the best part of profitable Arts and Sciences This doth set out the true real Nature of created Beings as they are in the things themselves whereas mere humane attemps this way have no certainty of demonstration nor infallibity of evidence no further convincingness than as they agree with this there is answeringness in this to the Nature of Existences which are printed in this Word and sealed in the Creation here the laws of words are one with the laws of things here the conducture of the word doth lead the way and the architecture of the Creation doth follow after whatsoever doth contradict the grounds of God-inspired Scripture and the reasons of created Nature must be rejected by us here Scripture revealeth Nature and Nature declareth Scripture the LORD's Mouth in his Word doth not gainsay his hand in his Works there are such inner secrets in created Beings as are separate from outward Senses and exempt from experimental discovery and withdrawn from mere humane inquisition which works of Nature are best contemplated in the word of Grace so sweetly doth this insinuate into and incorporate with those How is the Intellect of man likely to be receptive of useful Truths till it be first purified by Scripture-knowledge all the impresses of Wisdom of Truth and of Goodness that are in created things they are but the transcribed Characters of the Word and the visible representations of those shining perfections that are in the All-glorious Author of this Word who doth direct their Nature and govern their operations to bring about his own holy just ends for the good and benefit of particular Beings and of the whole Universe Scripture descriptions are most significative of created Natures and best expressive of their real Virtues let therefore these Philosophical Imperialists no longer exercise Lordship over the Faith of Christians however they have thus far usurped dominion over the Reason of Pagans let not our Understandings be commanded by their Laws of Arts nor ruled by their Decrees of Sciences who would have all Intellects to bow before them whilst they sit in the Throne and King it over mens Souls It is the Scripture Revelation that doth best preserve the due order of Christ's Supreme Soveraignty and of its own pre-eminent authority and of our regular subjection under both him and it by its winning commendations of Truths and of Realities in the demonstrativeness of their evidence and in the choiceness of their excellencies operations of Nature and efficiencies of Arts co-operating with Nature and drawing forth its working powers are as so many instances and interpretations of such Scripture as do speak of them Wisdom is justified of her Sons though the common cry of the mis-judging World be against her Knowledges in this Word have their universal conprehensiveness and if mens Studies in them were fitted to their particular inclinations and framed to their constitution-desires more able instruments better furnished for publick employments both in State and in Church both for Peace and for VVar would then be found the skilfullest Scripturians would prove the wisest Artists and the prudentest Counsellors VVere Lecturers in all Countries encouraged and appointed in fit places to read in the Mother Tongue on such Scripture-subjects it would make popular Judgements and common Auditors great proficients in Arts and progressors in Sciences which spreadingness of knowledge of Christians should not make it contemptible whereas now the Philosophers would keep Learning in a few hands amongst Scholars in the Universities and Readers of Colleges and Professors in the Schools who would be monopolizing of Original Languages and of Scientifick Skills and be driving on of their rich Trade of over-reaching sophistry I judge it to be an Affirmation according to Truth and an undertaking according to Reality that a plain Believer of discerning capacity may be righter taught many useful things about the History of the Creation in natural Beings in their proper Causations productive Workings and genuine Effects in one year than several years and yet more times seven in the common way of Philosophical Studies will or can attain unto In this Scripture path Believers may expect the teachings of the Holy Spirit and inlightnings from the Father of illuminations much of the written Word would then receive more evident and full interpretations when Christ's Works are made a paraphrase upon his Words Here particular Sciences are true fruitful and complete not as in Philosophical VVritings in false barren and empty If little Children were commonly taught the Original Language and if there were in the Mother-Tongues of the several Nations such an exact Scripture Lexicon composed as might shew the true meaning of all the Original VVords Roots and Branches and of all the Original Phrases relating to the several Arts and Sciences and if the whole of these VVords and Phrases were orderly and distinctly with their cited Scriptures put into a common place of these special knowledges in various professions and if the most accomplished the best gifted the most excellingly graced the most diligently and faithfully industrious and the most practically and skilfully experienced for every particular Art and Science did make it much of the work of their day and business of their life to studie the Scriptures for that peculiar end and special purpose putting not only general Rules but particular Directions all methodically together it would be a complete Summary and an exact Directory in that Art and Science Shall my growing waiting hopes be only of the next Generation that they may listen to this counsel who will give that I may reap some good fruit of my labours in the present age if the LORD by his secret inworking with wonderful efficacy will renew and irradiate mens minds if he will bend and bow their wills change and awe their hearts then self-conceit pride and prejudice will quickly vanish away and a teachable Frame will so imbrace and improve this advice as that the ingenuous and studious will not be so injurious to themselves or unkind towards Christ as to kick Him and His VVord out of their Schools for it will be made manifest in a little time that created Beings in their natural efficiencies have such an hidden way of secret operation as is beyond the most significant expressions of any Philosophical VVorders and therefore only the words of God can fully so accommodate them to inlightned Understandings as withal to make them properly declarative of real workings All true both definitions and descriptions of things by words must be rectified by Scripture Language VVhatever be the issue I have through Mercy and Grace obtained from the LORD done this part of my Generation work and in this I do rejoyce and give glory to Him VVhere doth the whole Scripture that speaks of this matter send us to any other way of getting
therefore err because they know not the Traditions of Elders and the Customs of Fore-fathers or because they are not skilled in the Doctrines of the Rabbies and in the Writings and Sayings of the Fathers or because they do not submit to the Authorities of Magistral Guides and of Humane Imposers or because they do not receive unwritten verities and seek for extra-Scriptural Supplements or because they do not subscribe the Councils of Synods the Articles and Canons of Churches or because they do not conform to rational establishments and comply with the commandments of men or because they do not read over the Books of the Ancients and turn the leaves of Modern Treatises upon particular subjects or because they are not of the same judgement with the Learned and of the like practice with the godly men so reputed of these times or because they are not well versed in Church History and deeply seen in the Monuments of Antiquity or because they have not been bred up to be Masters of Arts and Doctors of Sciences in Philosophical Studies and in University Schools but because they know neither the Scriptures which do reveal the Truth nor the Power of God which doth exert the Truth in created Natures through which his Wisdom and other of his Excellencies and Perfections are so visible whose Word is ingraven on his Works and whose Works are written in his Word therefore it is that they do err greatly err divers of these may be more largely demonstrated in some after-parts of this Treatise In k these Scriptures of Truth Arts have an uniformness and harmony and Sciences have a consent and concord all is here delivered in apt expressions suited to the nature of things adapting them to their proper ends and good purposes here is a lively representation of verities and of realities the right knowledge of which doth carry into the very beingness of created Essences drawing forth their hidden Virtues into active operativeness What through the artificial cunning of sophistical deceivers and the ignorant simplicity of the credulous vulgar the best Learning is much undervalued and its fastest Friends are almost wholly forgotten he that makes man his Idol and is easie of belief when man speaketh will so long be neither master of Reason nor an exerciser of Faith neither will he be well settled in judgement nor quieted in spirit whilst he thus goes away from experimental Truth in God's Word to such doubtful matters in mens writings The wholy Scriptures are a growing Treasury of fruitful knowledge and would still be bringing forth somewhat more whereas he that takes all upon trust from humane Authors and Philosophical Tractates will captive his own judgement and fetter his own understanding and leave his own soul unfruitful and unprofited who might have found the Scriptures to have disclosed before him the properties and powers of created Beings in order to some great usefulness in the life of man In a Scripture-way the serious researcher may safely and surely walk and unerringly if he follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit according to this straight rule travel into the Mysteries of Grace and the Secrets of Nature if we follow any others in another path they are superficial not profound either in their inquiries or discoveries Practical Christianity and experimental Religion is the highest Science and the noblest Art and the most honourable Profession which gives light to all inferiour knowledges and would admit into the Royalest Society and draw nearest in resemblance and conformity to the glorified Fellowship in the Heavenly College above where their knowledge is perfected in visional intuitive light Here is the prime Truth the original Verity as to the manifestativeness of it in legible visible ingravings which would carry progressively into other Learning contained therein all here is reducible to practice and use to life and conversation here existences and realilties are contemplated and proved not mere Ideas and conceits speculated as elsewhere The ultimate and best end of Learning is to furnish a renewed Understanding and to advance sanctified Reason and to raise discerning Grace for the promoting of the Honour of the LORD and the holiness and happiness of Souls This is its last and highest pitch the perfection of its discovery which its nature can reach to heat on Earth no way but that which is Scriptural can direct aright unto the speediest attainment of sound and well accomplished Learning although those who are the self-conceited Gnosticks of the times are under a great temptation of being some of the subtillest Opponents of this Christian Position Come hither therefore thou Inquisitor of Truth thou mayst find it in the Word thou needest not turn over the many voluminous Books and historical Records of men to desire what the Knowledges and the Arts are or who were the first Authors and Inventers of them 'T is not all their Writings that can make thee wise to Salvation as the Scriptures can How filled with doubtful uncertainties are the Ancient Records of Humane Writers how many corrupt mixtures are there in them how stuffed with gross flatteries or with personal reflections are modern reports how corresponding to private interests how wrested and wryed to passion and to party What a superfoetation is there of new Treatises yearly coming forth either to censure the errours or to fill up the defect of other Authors or to pretend to some rare discovery or new invention or to boast of an exacter method though still at best imperfection is their nature and there is an yet further and a more onward It is no imbasing or distaining unto the holy Scriptures to fetch and to derive all useful Learning from these sacred Fountains rather doth this make much the more for their honour and commendation that there is such a fulness of Arts and perfection of Sciences in this one Book The bringing and wresting of Scripture to mens Arts and Rules to wrie and to force it into a compliance with them and not examining of all Arts and Rules by the Scripture to measure and to judge of them by this has introduced much errour and shut out much Truth to the sullying of Religion the corrupting of Reason the poysoning of the Mind and the polluting of the Life Here in this word Studies would be carried on in Faith and in obedience which would greaten the expectation of assistance and of acceptance of income and a blessing in all indagations after the mind of Christ when Scriptural illuminations do shiningly cast their beams on a spiritual discerner they do secretly but withal strongly influence and operate by a transforming efficacy unto a more glorious resemblance of the Heavenly Image of an holy Christ and of his holy Word This way the understanding of a Believer doth pass into more spiritualizedness and doth more freely converse with its inner Teacher under these intellectual rays Students in Scripturalism would get further into the choicer Mysteries of experimental Christianity even whilst
they here see Liberal Arts in their proper axioms made usefully Mechanical in their elicited operations If every one be to be credited in his own Art they must then learn this Art in the Scriptures and then also should Christ be believed in his Word who is the only Wise One a Teacher by Office from the Fathers Donation and by the Holy Spirits Unction This gives a great advantage to plain Believers for although they know not well how to evade Philosophical Juglings or to confute Sophistical Fallacies and cunning cheats of over-reaching Argumentation and insnaring syllogizing yet through this help and its secret suggestings they have so much perception as to discern things to be otherwise than colours and shews of carnal reasonings do make them seem to be so that when they have not their answers ready yet they will not suffer their Judgements to be misinformed by such impudent bafflings and if these vain affecters of Humane Wisdom be once taken off from their froward way of wrangling disputations to reason the case familiarly by Questions and Answers such as are proper and pertinent to the matter under debate and by a collating of the whole Scripture that doth speak of such a particular subject inquired about that sort of men would bewray themselves to be some of the most ignorant and sottish especially in the choicest Science of experienced Religion and in the best art of practical Christianity This way of arguing is the way of the Word which any diligent Reader of it particularly in that part of it by the four Evangelists may often observe hence disputing is set out by a word that doth signifie mutual inquiring by way of questioning in a friendly conference to search out the Truth by interrogations and responses examining of things by a disquiring reasoning about them in a familiar Colloquie and in an amicable manner where it is managed according to Rule hereby the understanding is weakned to attend and the mind is quickned to consider of the Arguments in disputation concerning that which is queried about hene also in Scripture we sometimes do find an answer at the beginning of a Speech of Debate which is as if somewhat were returned of satisfactory resolution to a secret question that did tacitely go before It would contribute much towards the increase of Learing if those practical Rules that are in the Word were well understood observed and improved for the right managing of an Holy Dispute and of a Spiritual reasoning about weighty Controversies in a Scripture way so as might tend to edification whereas in the Philosophick Modes argumentative exercitations are usually perverse brawlings interfering conflictations whereby Disputants do gaul one another and wear one another out corrupting the understandings of one another and depriving each other of the truth the right Scriptural dialectick logical Art of debating a question is to reason from out of the Scriptures to bring forth the Word of the LORD comparing of one word with another and putting of those words together that do speak of the same thing and then to discern how the whole Scripture doth say one and the same throughout about one and the same matter This were truly generous and would breed up a better and more noble race of arguers Let this be admitted and then put the most souly acute learned unregenerate Philosopher into the same room together with a serious believing discerning humble Saint and if the question be How may a Believer have access to the Father through Christ in one Spirit Or how may we have fellowship with Father Son and Holy Spirit in a distinct way as the Father as the Son and as the holy Spirit Or how should Grace be acted or what is the proper Grace to be acted in a particular case Or how doth one Grace operate upon another Or how should a duty be well filled up Or what is the true way of walking with God Or by what means and methods should such or such a corruption be mortified Or what is the Holy Skill of repelling and resisting a temptation and of overcoming of the World Or what is a Believers orderly applying of Christ to be Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption Or what kind of frames should a Believer be always in Or how should Religion run into the whole of our Life in our particular as well as in our general Calling with many more such like as might be propounded and let some well-grown Fathers in Knowledge and in Grace over-hear and moderate between these two judging not according to the appearance but judging righteous Judgement giving their opinion and sentence according to the Scriptures upon a due searching of them Oh what empty mistaken insignificant unsavoury talk what prophane and vain babling would they conclude the Philosophers discourse to be and himself to be an ignorant unexperienced trifling pratler whilst the spiritual holy man has a name of honour proclaimed in their inner Court of spiritual Judicature they acknowledge him to be a knowing a discerning a skilful a God-taught one and they admire the gift and the graces of the Spirit in him the Believer so far as his attainment and acquaintances are has clear smooth equal representations of Truths and of things as they are in themselves directly reflected from the Word upon his inlightned Understanding and faithfully and sincerely taken in by him as his filling measures are whereas the Philosophizing contradicter has divers superstitious Conceits wrong Notions mis-shapen Opinions erroneous Apprehensions and deceitful Impostures about these matters In Scripture there is a perfect Analogie between Words and Truths and between Truths and Things so that as the Scripture is the written Revealer of Natural Beings and Powers so are Natural Beings and Powers the wrought Interpreters of Scripture The end of words is rightly to express the sense of the Mind and meaning of the Speaker matters and business to which our Religion is suited and fitted do require a significance in sayings Though man lost the Tree of Life by an inordinate lusting after the prohibited Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and of evil yet one good means to be restored to the Tree of Life again is by returning to taste the nourishing Fruit of the commanded Tree of Scripture-Knowledge and to grow thereby Scripture-Truths carrying their own evidence along with them do prove themselves as soon as a Spiritual discerner receives them because word Sciences are consonant to Primitive Light in Man and to concreated Nature in particular Beings Holy Scriptures unto renewed Natures do make suitable impressions of saving knowledges these discoveries unto serious inquiries and to considering spirits will in Jebovah's time upon a due pondering more manifest themselves to be solemn and grand matters and will yet more approve themselves in the pursuit and issue to be efficacious for operation and fruitful for use and will best season the minds of young Students whilst
in Shops he was to be skilled in the Military-art for the charge was given to Aaron the high Priest as well as unto Moses the Superiour Magistrate to number with careful inspection according to the Hosts of the several Tribes of Israel to muster the Army and to give orders for their Incamping and Marching according to their Ranks and Bodies who were to be in the Van and who in the Reer and so for the disposal of the Battel and the manner of fighting and the giving of the exhortation to encourage the Soldiers he was to be a spiritual Nightingal for modulation an expert Musician both for Voice and for Instruments a Singer a Trumpeter a Corneter an Harper a Violist a Lutenist an Organist a Cymbalist a Psalterist he was to approve himself an Artist in Architecture to see workmanships appointed to be framed exactly according to the platform'd Ideas and work-patterns of the Tabernacle and Temple were there need more might be added How learned an Artist in conference and in arguing should a Minister of Christ be by Scripture-arguments to stop the mouths of Philosophical gainsayers sometimes deceptory affectation of Humane Wisdom doth bewray it self in opponents by being carried beyond due limits when it would be judging of such cases and things according to the ordinary course of Nature and the power of a finite Agent which are to be determined and resolved by such Principles of Theologie and of Christianity as are far above and beyond those as if the question be Whether this World were from Eternity or Whether created in time Empty and fallacious Philosophy will affirm That this World was not created in time but that it was from Eternity deceiving and being deceived by this colour and shew of carnal Reason that out of nothing can nothing be made thus it doth mis-judge because the contrary affirmation is besides the common Agency and the usual efficacy of Natural Causes but the holy Scriptures do otherwise declare rightly informing us that all these things were spoken and made into a Being which had no existence before by the Omnipotency of Jehovah the Being of beings that All-glorious Self-being only by his own powerful Word So as the things we see were not made of things that do appear Faith acted aright doth take in this discovery By the word of Jehovah or in him who is the Word Jehovah the LORD Jesus Christ the heavens were made and by the breath of his mouth or in the Spirit of him who is the Fathers mouth to his people all the host of them he commanded and they were created Aelohim saith There shall be light and there was is and will be light who was it that did help the Spirit of Jehovah or the Spirit Jehovah or as a man of his Counsel gave him knowledge silly weak Creatures cannot work without some stuff and materials they must have their tools and other instruments to further what they are about to do and to form but the Almighty One doth not need any such foregoing matter or assisting help it is not impossible that that should be which before was not though the Believer only can rightly understand this here Humane Reason must stoop and Carnal Imagination must submit to Word wisdom and to Scripture-learning which has this mysterious secret treasured up in it the meanest proficient in Christ's School has more discerning in this than the learnedest Teachers and wisest Professors in such corrupt Philosophy If the question be Whether three Persons can be one in Essence who yet are each of them distinct Subsistences in themselves and Whether one in being can be three distinct several persons humane wisdom and the vain affecters of it will return this answer That a person is a living-understanding-nature subsisting by it self a prime or singular individual subsistence which is neither said of any subject neither is in any subject and therefore some of these Philosophets have affirmed that there are multitudes of Gods Whereas the Scriptures of Truth will inform us concerning this great Mystery that there is but one God for there can be but one only Being infinite eternal unchangeable perfection it self one only to exist of himself and by himself who gives existence unto all other things these undoubted Oracles of holy Scriptures will tell us that Jehovah the adored Almightiness of his people in Father Son and holy Spirit is one Jehovah he says of himself See now that I am be and there is no God with me Who saith the Psalmist is God besides Jehovah as long as it can be said as yet ever as yet so long Jehovah and he alone and no other but himself is such We know that there is no other God but one for albeit there be that are called Gods both in Heaven and upon Earth as there be in the vain wrong conceits of men who do seign such Idol gods and as some Creatures in some cases have somewhat of this honorary Title ascribed to them so far as by their Office and Call they do or shall represent the true God There is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we for him and one LORD Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him but in all in every one this knowledge is not it is specially revealed in the Word to and in such Believers and it is one of the greatest mysterious Truths of the Christian Doctrine There is one LORD one Faith one God and Father of all He that sets up many Gods doth withal set up many Faiths for every God would be calling for peculiar Faith to be given to him and every one would be severally believing in his several God In this most simple Essence and single Being there are three truly subsisting whereof every one is another from the other There are that do witness in heaven and they are three the Father the Word and the holy Spirit and these three are one If it be queried Whether one and the same person can be two distinct Natures of different kinds and Whether two such Natures can be in one Person Empty cheating Philosophy will wrongfully state this question and mis-resolve it thus That those things which are of disparate kinds cannot be predicated of one another nor united in the same suppositum whereas true pure Religion in the written Word doth give us to know that two distinct Natures as the Deity or Godhead and the Humanity or Mankind may be both of them united into one Christ In this wonderful one were both these inseparably knit together and yet they each one remain distinct from the other having several Natures Properties and Operations both making up one LORD Jesus Christ This word was made flesh this God hath been manifested in the flesh to the Godhead Christ took the seed of Abraham for so was he born according to the flesh as to his Humane Nature
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
Christian Religion and of the Nature and Uses of Created Beings I charge not darkness and obscurity doubtfulness or doubleness upon other Scriptures But these two parts I have now more particularly in my eye and all the rest of the whole Word of God is more or less one way or other a Commentary and Annotations an Interpretation and Explication of these which have a common and familiar understanding such as those who have the due exercise of their right Reason and of spiritual Senses may as soon as they hear conceive what it meaneth The Scripture-History of Created Beings hath its Intrinsecal-self truthfulness in it self and its Extrinsâ—â—â—l-self evidence unto others which is best manifest by the holy Spirits clear shining upon the naked simplicity of the Original Text in a savingly inlightned-heart The Wisdom of Adam was and the Wisdom of Adam's sons would be that which made his would still make their faces to shine to know well the interpretation of a Word the Exposition the Phrase of a Word the Solution the Declaration the Explication of it The Original Text of Holy Writ in its literal significancy must under the Holy Spirit who indited it and under Christ and his Father he speaking it from the Father be the judging Rule of approving or condemning of mens Explications of it and Paraphrases upon it and Illustrations concerning it and of their several Systems and Models of the Created World answerable to those Explications Paraphrases and Illustrations as they are found either agreeing with or disagreeing from that Created Beings must be so conceived expressed and modelled as to be an exact counterpart in all things measured exactly to this Scripture-History of them Scriptural Words and Names by which the several Created Beings are rightly called in Jehovah's Word are the most perfect and proper Definitions of any particular thing in its most specifical difference from any other Creature The only true Essence and specifical Being and particular entity of any Creature is the only true specifical and particular difference of that Creature and doth give a perfect Definition and when the Word is opened a proper description of it Though it were the speaking of the same thing as the same thing identically Thus if it be asked what is the Earth The answer were pertinent and full to say it is Aeretz in its real Being in the same sense that the Scripture doth call it so and for which it hath given it that Name The like may be affirmed of other Creatures for every Created Being had a distinct make and a different Existence When we would describe a Creature by some its properties as to say The Earth is dry Jabeshah this relates to another Matter the best Definitions and the most significant of Essences are those peculiar Words and proper Names which are given to particular Created Beings in the Scriptures of Truth Till we are more brought off from Philosophical darknings and obscurings of things into Scripture Light and into its way of knowing the true Nature of Created Beings there will still be captiousness and contentioâ—sness about such puzling Terms of Humane Inventing as would hold mens understandings in continued ignorance Every converted Being is best convertible into it self and is rightest known by its own Identicalness Where Creatures do differ their Names do differ also It would much forward the sound knowledge of the real Truths in those Matters if extra-Scriptural Philosophical Terms were altogether laid aside and the Expressions were such as we find in the Word of Christ For the words of mens coyning are mistaken Terms of Humane Art and do mislead into Error and will still keep up endless contendings Whereas the Words and Names by which Scriptures do call things do make us to apprehend Created Beings rightly in our Minds according as the things themselves are in their own Nature This Journal this Diary of the first Week of the Created World is a plain Narrative containing a clear History of the matter of Fact which things done are identically declared and described by the most apt significant expressions It is a most faithful punctual Record So that it is no other no less than to give Aelohim the adored Almighties the lye to his faces to deny either the plain Truth of the Fact or the proper significancies of the expressions The God of Infallible Veracity doth not in any part of this Narration intend any thing by any expression either of falsity concerning things or of deception to persons Private Opinionists can never evade or elude the unerring Authority of the Exact Expressiveness of the Original Language in this Scripture He that would be satisfied concerning the foundation of credibility about the Creation must resort to the plain and simple sense of this Text according to teh Subject-matter thereof and the Context of this and the Collation of other Scriptures They very explication of Scriture Terms doth present the Truth of Created Beings in their own naked simplicity carrying by the Aspect and Eradiation thereof a clear evidence of the Nature of the things themselves This History is the Scripture Naturals and the Christian Physicks Even young Children that are of quick apprehensions are capable of taking in of this kind of Learning with great delight so far at least as it is demonstrate to their senses and as for the rest their senses may be directed towards the several places of the invisible World As to point out to them the several Works of the Creation on the several distinct days and with the finger to shew them which is the Expanse What are the Heavenly Luminaries the Fowls of the Air the Earth the Waters the Seas the Light the Darkness the Beasts the Fishes the Worms Man and so of the rest And what is the positure of the Creation Those Hebrews therefore are under a great mistake and do hinder much of the knowledge of Jehovah Aelohim in this Word and Works in forbidding any to read four parts of Scripture till they are thirty years of age the age of the Sacerdotal Ministry The beginning of Genesis is one of those places where the Creation of the World is described Whereas the eye of young ones would tell them the Creators Works are a visible legible Commentary upon his Word The second place is the Song of Songs Whereas this also doth set out spiritual things by sensible similitudes and doth describe much of Created Beings in an affectionate way between the dearest Lovers Christ and his Churches Christ and the Believers Fellow-believers and Sister Churches with each other And this Scripture is therefore adapted to the understanding of young ones who may the better be taught what to believe by what they see and their own eyes and other senses may instruct their Souls and their Understandings and Affections may be mutua Helps and Guides to each other The third place is the beginning of Ezekiels Prophecy where the Majesty of the LORD is described the beauty of
himself hath declared this in the second Psalm That he has anointed his King upon Zion the Mountain of his Holiness doth and will tell the Decree Jehovah said to me Thou my Son I this day begat thee Ask of me I will give the heathens thine inheritance and the ends of the earth thy firm hereditary possession Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron as the vessel of a potter thou shalt scatter them in pieces Of this Jesus doth Peter understand this Psalm and from hence doth the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews prove Christ's Call to his Office of Priesthood This Christ was the first anointed with the Spirit and with the Oyl of Gladness above his Fellows in the forty and fifth Psalm This Name Mashiach or Messias as applyed to this Son of God was well known in Israel as appears by Andrews acknowledging him to be so to his Brother Simon and by the Testimony of the Woman of Samaria who confessed this Name And hence it is that those Disciples of his who believe on his Name have this Honour from him to be called Christans both in the Old and New Testament He charged other men not to touch his Christians his Christs his Anointed Ones in the one hundred and fifth Psalm those who were thus consecrated to him and set apart to high and honourable Offices and Imployments under him by the Anointing of his Spirit which they had from him that is holy as writes John in his first Epistle Which Name was revived and received at Antioch where the Name was renewed in the Apostles times and they were again called Christians For there are the Fellows of Christ being taken into Consortship and Partnership with him in the Anointing whereby they are also made Kings and Priests as John speaks in the Revelation There oyly pourings out of the Spirits were in a fulness upon Christ not in lesser measures Jehovah possessed me saith Christ in the Book of Proverbs in the beginning of his way before his Works before them before the World was I Anointed before the beginning before the first things of the Earth when yet there was no deeps was I brought forth when there was non Fountains heavy with Water when yet Mountains were not fastned before the Hills was I brought forth yet he had not made the Earth nor Streets no not the beginning nor dust of the inhabited World When he fitted the Heavens there was I when he appointed the Circuit upon the Faces of the deep when he fortified the Clouds above when he strengthened the Fountains of the deep when he laid his Decree upon the Sea that the Waters should not pass the commandment of his mouth when he appointed the Foundation of the Earth Thus speaks the Father by the Prophet Isaiah concerning his Son Behold my Servant whom I uphold mine Elect my Soul delighteth I have given my Spirit upon him he shall bring forth Judgement upon the Nations The LORD Christ was warrantably lawfully called to this Office God the father sealed him thereunto As Christ speaks of himself in what John doth write of him and elsewhere in his Prophet Isaiah The Spirit of the LORD Jehovah is upon me therefore Jehovah hath Anointed me to preach No man taketh this Honour to himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron So also Christ did not take this Honour to himself to become an high Priest but he that spake unto him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee gave it him As also in another place he saith Thou art a Priest for ever upon my word O Malchi-tzedek Hence it is that Christ is called by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews the Apostle and high Priest of our profession and by Malachi The Angel of the Covenant So that Christ had a Testimony from his Father for his being appointed unto this Office not often after he had taken Flesh of the Virgin Mary when a Voice came from Heaven saying This is my well beloved Son in whom I am well pleased and when the holy Spirit descended as a Dove out of Heaven and abode remaining on him but long before under the Old Testament Dispensation And before that also even before the World was he the anointed This LORD Jesus Christ was Administrator under both Testament Dispensations of Grace He chief in Office and all others that were lawfully called and rightfully sent forth were such as did minister and serve under and for him He was the LORD God of the holy Prophets as John calls him in the Revelation and as the Father sent him so did this Christ send his Apostles It was this Christ who so often appeared to Moses as has been shewn Christ was Faithful to his Father who constituted him in Office and who was Heir of his own House In which House he imployed Moses to be his Servant who was also faithful to and under Christ It was the Spirit of Christ who did witness in the Prophets of Old as Peter mentioned in his first Epistle He was the chief one in Sion as Isaiah calleth him who did declare the things that were to come to pass and this is the same Son of God in whom the Father hath spoken to us in the last days Him hath God made LORD and Christ and to him was given Dominion Glory and a Kingdom that all People Nations and Tongues should serve him The Father hath given unto him dignity to execute Judgement he hath given all Judgement to the Son All must obey and stoop at the command of this ever Blessed LORD of Glory who has proclaimed this of himself that all Authoritative Power is given him in Heaven and upon the Earth God hath committed all into his hands He shall reign till he hath put all Enemies under his feet This is he that is appointed of God the Judge both of the Living and of the Dead In this was the Love of God manifested towards those whom he chose in Christ and gave to Christ that he hath sent his only begotten Son into the World that they should live by him so loved he the World that he thus gave Christ that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life O how much hath he commended his Love to such He was first in the Love him hath God set up for a Prepitiatory-covering an expiatory reconciliation Thou LORD art worthy to receive the Glory and the Honour and the Power for thou hast created all things and through thy will they are and were created This Jehovah Christ was the Creator of all things as the Father is Creator and as the holy Spirit is Creator They the Creators Jehovah was the Creator of all things This Aelohim was he who gave his Creatures their Being as Moses hath delivered to us the History thereof To this do others bear witness in the Scriptures Praised be Johovah Aelohim that made the
heavens and the earth said Huram Thou Jehovah alone said Nehemiah thou hast made the Heavens the Heaven of Heavens the Earth and all that is therein the Seas and all that is therein and thou makest them all alive and the Host of the Heavens worshippeth thee Jehovah God of Hosts who like thee mighty Jah thine the Heavens thine also the Earth the World and the plenty thereof Thou hast founded them And again Confess ye to Jehovah to him that made the Heavens with prudencie to him that spread out the Earth above the Waters Thus saith Jehovah himself who taught his people by his Prophet Jeremiah what to say The gods that have not made the Heavens and the Earth shall perish from the Earth and from under this Heaven Who but Jehovah God hath made the Earth by his Power Who but he hath prepared the World by his Wisdom and hath stretched the Heavens out by his Understanding Thus Zachariah brings in Jehovah speaking He who spreadeth forth the Heavens and foundeth the Earth and formeth the Spirit of Man in the inmost of him Thus in the Gospel of Jesus Christ God is said to create the Creature Thus did Paul reason with the men at Lystra The living God hath made the Heaven and the Earth and the Sea and all that which is in the same The like did he at Athens God who made the World and all that therein is he is LORD of Heaven and Earth And elsewhere Of God and by him and to him are all things to him Glory for ever Amen The Father was the Creator of all things So Isaiah brings him in speaking Thus saith God Jehovah he that created the Heavens and spread them abroad he that stretched forth the Earth and that which issueth out of it he that giveth breath unto the people upon it and spirit to them that walk upon it I the LORD have called thee in Righteousness speaking of his Son Christ This did Peter acknowledge in his prayer LORD thou art the God who hast made the Heaven and the Earth and the Sea and all things which are in the same Who by the Moâ—th of thy servant David hast said Why do the Heathen rage and the people have thought vain things The Kings of the Earth are risen up and the Rulers are gathered together against the LORD and against his Christ for in truth they were gathered together against thy holy Child Jesus This doth Paul witness to in his former Epistle to the Corinthians We have but one God the Father of whom are all things and we for him The holy Spirit also is Creator How many are thy Works O Jehovah So sings the Psalmist all of them hast thou done in Wisdom the Earth is full of thy Riches Thou wilt send forth thy Spirit they shall be created And thou wilt renew the Faces of the Earth And in another Psalm By the Word of Jehovah the Heavens were made and all the Host of Heaven by the Spirit of his mouth The Spirit of Aelohim was the Maker and Cherisher of them Thus doth Job set it out he through his Spirit adorned the Heavens And Elibu elsewhere applys it in his own case The Spirit of God hath made me and the breath of the Almighty hath quickened me THe LORD Jesus Christ he also was Creator of all things It was in and by this Head Captain that the Heavens and the Earth were accomplished and all their Host This did Hezekiah acknowledge when he prayed to him that sat between the Cherubins Thou thy self thou alone art the God of all the Kingdoms of the Earth thou hast made Heaven and Earth He that is the first and he also who is the last Which the LORD Christ doth apply unto himself in the Revelation He speaks of himself in the Prophet Isaia Mine hand hath founded the Earth and my right hand hath measured the Heavens with the Palm And again The Heaven is my Throne and the Earth is the Footstool of my feet mine hand hath made all these things It is the Voice of the Redeemer in the same Prophet I Jehovah do all things spreading out the Heaven I alone and who stretching out the Earth by it self God by his Son made the Angels Thou LORD in the beginning hast founded the Earth and the Heavens are the Works of thy hand To this Christ the Son in the Epistle to the Hebrews is that passage in the one hundred and second Psalm rightly applyed it was by the Word of God that the World was prepared In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God all things were made by the same and without the same no not one thing was made that was made The World was made by him Thus doth John bring in his Testimony for him Whereunto that of Paul doth well agree God created all things by Jesus Christ and elsewhere he saith We have one LORD Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him That to the Colossians is full to this purpose where the Apostle having described the Redeemer the LORD Jesus Christ by his inward relation to his Father he being the Image of the invisible God he then sets him out by his outward Relation to the Creature he is the first born of every Creature begotten before all Creation or before any thing was created This he doth convincingly prove and clearly illustrate by evident demonstration the Reason is strong which he draws from Christ's being the efficient cause of the Creatures being the continued preserver of them and his Glory being the great end of their Being For in him by or through him were all things Created which are in Heaven and which are upon Earth which are visible and which are invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Governments or Powers all things were created by him and to him and he is before all things and all things do consist together by him He is the Aleph and the Thou the Alpha and Omega the Beginning and the End who was and who is and who is to come Before Abraham was made I am said Christ of himself It was his Prayer Glorifie me O Father with the Glory which I had before the world was with thee It was this Christ who Created the first seven days and established their order to continue in their successive courses to the Worlds end It was he who when he had perfected his Work that he had made in the six foregoing days of the first Created Week rested in the seventh day It was he who blessed the Seventh day It was he who sanctified the Seventh-day because in it he had rested from all his Work Thus it was from the beginning unchangeably so to remain and go on to the end This he expresly revives in his after proclaiming of this Law of the Sabbath that it might be remembred Six days Jehovah made
the heaven and the earth the sea and all that is in them and rested the seventh day and hallowed it Thus injoyning both by his own Example and Command the perpetual Observation of that particular Seventh-day in order of Time in its successive course in every weekly revolution as the appointed day for holy Rest That day and that only and no other day of the Week Thou LORD art worthy to receive the Glory and the Honour and the Power For thou hast created all things and through thy Will they are and were created O that those who dwell on the Earth and every Nation and Kindred and Language and People would fear him and give Glory to him for the hour of his Judgement is coming And that they would worship him that made the Heaven and the Earth and the Sea and the Fountains of Waters The Father Son and holy Spirit they are the Creators They the Aelohim who spake Creatures into their Existence and Being of which adored Almighties an account is given in that Historicall Narration which doth contain a Diary or Journal of the first seven days The Father Aelohim It is spoken of him in the forty fifth Psalm Aelohim the Aelohim of Christ anointed his Son by his Spirit which Son also is Aelohim expresly so called in the same Psalm Thy throne O Aelohim ever and perpetual the scepter of thy kingdom is righteonsness The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews sheweth that this was spoken unto the Son of God by his Father And the holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Aelohim and the Spirit Jehovah by Isaiab In the second Book of Samuel this Spirit of Jehovah or this Spirit of Jehovah as Paul elsewhere is also called The Aelohim of Israel It is Aelohim who dwells in his people as in a Temple So saith Moses which Paul applyeth to the holy Spirit These three are the Creating one Thus Solomon the Preacher chargeth young men to remember their Creators in the days of their youth Where Aeloh my Makers those who making me that giveth the Psalms in the night So would Elibu have had Job to say The same hath Eliphaz in the same Book Should a man be more righteous than Aelohim Should a man be purer than his Makers Hence is Tzijon incouraged in the later days not to fear For saith Jehovah by his Prophet Isaiah to her Thy Makers is thy Husbands Thus doth the Psalmist call for an Hallelu-jab or praise ye Jab Sing ye to Jehovah a new Song his praise in the Church of gracious Saints let Israel rejoyce in his Makers in those who making him Let the Sons of Tzijon be glad in their King the whole Creation should joyn in this song of praise for this Reason which is common to the whole World of them for he commanded and they were Created I now propound it to serious examination according to the Word whether much of this glorious Mystery be not included in the first Words of the holy Scriptures Bereashith baraa Aelohim and in that word Jehovah mentioned a little after the short History of the Creation as the Creator and Maker which is to be left to further disquisition For I am inciting and encouraging of Religious Students and of Christian Disciples to deeper researches into the best Learning This Word has in it the signification of an Head so that this is not barely In the Beginning but it doth set out that first capital Beginning of all things In and By Christ the constituted Head of all Inquire whether it should therefore be rendred in the Head-captain or in the Head-captainship or in-by the Captain or the Chieftain or Head-commander or in him who is the Head-Captain or in the appointed Head or Captain the Preposition is properly In. And when it doth point out the immediate principal cause it is in by Let the diligent Inquirer about this collate some other Scriptures that doth relate unto this matter It was in-by Christ that the Father made these hidden ages For this is spoken of the Son of God whose Godhead is strongly proved by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the beginning of it by divers â—itations out of the Old Testament brought into the New It was in by Wisdom that Jehovah did Found the Earth and prepared the Heavens and made All his Great Works All things were created by Jesus Christ which is a great honour put upon our LORD The Father created all things If you ask by whom It was by Jesus Christ All things were made by him Christ was the Head-Captain of all the Host of the Heavens and of the Earth and he is the chief Head of his Body the Church Both these are affirmed of Christ with an eye to this In and By In by him who is the Image of the Invisible God the first-born of every creature were all things created which are in Heaven and which are upon Earth which are Visible and which are Invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions Governments or powers All things were created by him and to him and he is before all things and all things consist together by him and he is the head of the body There is one LORD Jesus Christ by whom are all things He is expresly called Reashith the appointed head of Jehovah's ways before his works from then speaking evidently of the creation As the words themselves in that place of the Proverbs do plainly declare He was anointed to this principate and is again and again called Roash the head Roashith is the name of one of the Types of Christ the First fruits are so called in the Old Testament And so is he in the New the First-fruits of them who sleeping It is not without great reasons and weighty considerations that this first written word should set out Christ as the Head Captain or constituted head or appointed Captain For all skillful Lexicographers agree that the original-propriety and root significancy of this word hath that of an head in it in its true first meaning to which the Scriptures do agree and divers Scriptures do speak of Troops of Bands of Hosts of Companies of Souldiers under an Head-Captain to this Honour and Office was Christ assigned and appointed by his Father which also this word doth remarkably set out If it be a composition of Roash an Head or Captain or Head-Captain and Shith to put or to place in martial order or in Battle-array For thus we may find the word used The LORD Christ doth put his Hosts or Armies into Rank and File in their Order with art and care Proper names are often compounded in the Hebrew wherein that Tongue doth delight though it doth not so easily admit of composition in appellatives The context favoureth the Interpretation with other Scriptures collated For in this History of the Creation we may read of the Hosts of this
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
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
over Q. Whether would not an exact literal version of the holy Scripture word for word as they are in their order into the several Mother-tongues without any the least adding to or substracting from it open much of many useful Truths and necessary Duties and of experimental Christianity as well as many other ways be very profitable for the promoting of peace and purity in the Churches of Christ Q. Whether is it not a Duty for the people especially such of them as have more opportunities and advantages for this to be able to read and to understand the Word in its Original-tongue And whether it would not be of singular use to have the young capable Children in all places to be taught this Q. How may such an Hebrew Lexicon be so composed for words and for phrases as to make Scripture knowledge to be much more easier and familiar to out common people in which they may find out all sorts of little Bibles well fitted to all particular cases where they may quickly see over what the whole scripture doth speak to any subject matter carrying Truth through all the Word Q. In what order of time in exact Chronology are the several Books of Scripture and the several passages in every such Book And how may such Geographical Tables of all the places of the inhabited Earth mentioned in the Scriptures be so suited as that time and place and inhabitants may be made obvious to every plain understanding Q. What is the New Testament spiritual signified part of all and every of the shadowy Figures Ceremonial signs and Typical patterns through the Old Testament Q. What is the Urim and Thummim And whether is there any Prophesie or Promise of either restoring of that or of setting up any thing else in the room of that How may we have such an Oracle revived as to have a certain visible audibles sensible answer from the LORD in weighty cases Q. Whether it be not one evidence of the fulness and perfection of the Word of Truth that even there where its speeches seem to be somewhat broken and abrupt it carries with it a secret supplement in experience directed to all practical cases concerned therein which nothing else of man's word can fill up And whether would it not be very profitable and acceptable to put together some of the more eminent remarkable Scriptures for the better evidencing of the Truth and usefulness of this discovery Q. How may a Believer get and keep life and power in the Word continued upon his heart Q. What Scripture grounds are here upon which to bottom Faith and Prayer that if there were a spirit of believing the LORD would still give miraculous access from Heaven whereby to give sensible demonstrations of the Truth and Goodness of his Word And how may the Doctrine and Practice of Miracles be revived Q. What is the method whereby to evidence the oneness and sameness the well agreeing consentingness and uniform harmoniousness of the Christian Religion throughout the whole Scripture for Truth for Laws and for Priviledges For Doctrines for Duties and for Graces Q. How may the plainest Scripture-Truths be raised to a greater height of spiritual advancement Q. Whether now that Scripture-knowledge is so abounding any one be so competently well gifted for and called to the Ministerial Office who doth not understand the Scriptures in their Original Language And how may hopeful growing young men be so bred up in the Scripture Arts and Sciences as thereby to be fitted for the Ministerial Office And what Scripture grounds are there to expect a more able faithful successful Ministery than is yet at this day Q. VVhether it be not one great Truth of this age that the holy Scriptures are the one and the only Rule to judge by in all cases And whether there be any other boundary to be set to mens pretended liberty of conscience Q. VVhat is there of the Doctrine-part as well as of the Duty-part contained in the Law of the ten VVords Q. In what Method and Order may the Holy Scriptures be best read to most spiritual profit Concerning present Providences and Works of Jehovah Aelohim Q. WHat may the Reasons and Ends be why the LORD in the present day doth seem so much to with hold his Spirit and the gifts and graces of that Spirit now that the longings and petitionings of his Churches and people are so much heightned and drawn out with expectations of his larger pourings out of his Spirit and Blessing upon his new Covenant people Q. What is more especially that Work which the LORD hath been and is still carrying on upon the Wheels of his providence in this Age Q. What is there of Prophetical Scripture fulfilled in the present day which doth make way for the further accomplishment of what Propheties are yet behind And what are those after Prophesies And in what order of Time are all these Prophesies Q. Whether though there have been some partial fulfillings of the Revelation in all Ages of the Church since John's time yet will not the whole of that Book of the Revelation be gone over in the latter days visibly and sensibly fulfilled what John had in Vision and by Voice And whether are there any beginnings of this in our Day and Time At least whether Christ's Calls and Counsels from his Father by his Spirit in that Word of the three first Chapters of that Book be not more especially and particularly to those gathered separate Churches who have someways withdrawn from the corruptions of the Romish Way more thorowly to Reform and to Refine and to be at perfecting Work As that which must lead the way to the bringing about of all the rest which doth follow after Q. What and how doth the LORD Christ in the way of his present Providential Acting reveal of the pattern and platform of his new spiritual House of the latter day-glory and of the Laws and Orders of that House And how is he now with his golden measuring reed and rod and line in his hand to try whether particular Churches and Disciples of his do square well and exactly to his Word-rule And how would he have such societies to be rightly constituted gathered admitted disciplin'd and orderly walking in all things that such Churches may be able to evidence to all the World that they are the true owned and approved Churches of Christ Q. How is Christ at work under this Providence to bring every Institution and Ordinance of his unto its Scripture purity and perfection that they may be felt and enjoyed more in the lively efficacy and saving power of them Q. How is Christ at work in this day to frame his Churches and people to be more of one heart and mind and lip and way in the Truths and things of God and to set them righter in the way of Sisterly association of such purer Churches And how may a Believer see full home to this thorow so much as is quite
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
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΠΑΓΓÎΩΣΊΑ ΠΑÎΤΕΧÎΊΑ ΠΑÎΣΟΦΊΑ All in One. ALL USEFUL SCIENCES AND PROFITABLE ARTS In one BOOK of Iehovah Aelohim COPIED out and COMMENTED upon IN Created Beings Comprehended and discovered In the FULNESS and PERFECTION OF SCRâ—PTURE-KNOWLEDGES The FIRST PART By Francis Bampfield A lover and admirer of Christ and of His Word and Works Colossians 2. 3 4 8. In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge And this I say lest any man should beguile you with inticing words Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit and after the traditions of men after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ Printed in the Year 1677. THE SUMMARY CONTENTS OF THE First Part OF THIS TREATISE THe Design of this Treatise Page 1 to pag. 18 Where the Emptiness Insufficiency and vain affectation of Humane Wisdom and Philosophick Science is discovered 1 to 8 And the shining Emanations of the Fulness and Perfections of Scripture-knowledges are held forth 8 to 18 The LORD Jesus Christ hath hiddenly laid up all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge in his Word Wherein are many choice Mysteries above the reach and besides the Rules of Philosophy 19 to 23 Here is shown how a complete Minister of Christ should be somewhat of an universal Artist 19 20 And how that there are many truths in the Word necessary to be believed which are contrary to the Principles of Philosophy 20 21 22 There is in the Word of Christ a full comprehensiveness at of all other useful Learning and so particularly of the knowledge of Natural things of which it doth treat and speak purposely and professedly Page 23 to pag. 45 Wherein is declared that there are not only general but also the particular Rules in the Scripture for the musical Science 24 to 37 And for the Fabril Art 37 to 41 As two instances out of many called forth to be a specimen of this Truth With some further directions also about Geograpâ—y and Geographers Grammarians 42 43 44 There is much of spiritual use to be made of the improved knowledge of Natural Things For the discerning and injoying of fellowship with the Creator and Redeemer 45 to 49 Here is shewn how some of the most learned Philosopâ—ers have learn'd many Arts and Sciences of irrational Creatures 46 47 And how many errors in Philosopâ—y have corrupted much of Theology and of Christianity 47 48 The holy Scriptures in speaking of the Works of the Creation and of Natural Things do speak of them as they really are and not as they seemingly only appear according to exactness of Truth as the Nature and Essence of them are and not according to the wrong conceits and ignorant mistakes of vulgar minds and common opinionists Pag. 49 to p. 52 Where also this is cleared that Scripture-words are best expressive of created Works 49 to 52 The vain affectation of Humane Wisdom which doth thrust upon the credulity of so many a Doctrine of Probabilities concerning the Works of Creation and Natural Things from Antichristian and unscriptural Philosphy but is not according to Christ and to his Word is such a deceitful way of false reasoning as makes a prey of Souls and is carefully to be avoided Philosophical Science is but falsely so named 52 to 57 The Vain-affectation of Creature knowledge in the Apostateâ—Angels and of flumane Wisdâ—m in fallen man has all along been endeavouring to corrupt and to pervert both the pure Word of Aelohim and his Created Works whereby they are misrepresented to the Rational Intellect in wrong shapes 57 to 62 Those Books which are commonly called Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy or the Books of Moses and his Writings there have the approving testimony of those true faithful Prophets that did follow after him as also of the LORD Jesus Christ himself and of his Apostles And the History of the Creation and of the Works thereof in the beginning of the Bible is true in the literal sense and was intended and recorded so to be understood And all those Philosophical Allegorical and Mystical senses which any do give thereof that are contrary unto this are to be avoided and rejected 62 to 66 An Inquiry about the Creator of the Works of Creation on the severalâ—Days of the first Week of the World 66 Q. Whether was the LORD Jesus Christ Jehovah as his Father is Jehovah and as the Spirit of his Holiness is Jehovah Whether he were appointed by his Father and anointed by his Spirit to be one Mediator the only LORD and Lawgiver And whether he were the Creator of all things as the Father is Creator and as the holy Spirit is Creator they the Creators And whether is not this included in the first Words of the holy Scriptures Bereashith baraa Aelohim and in that word Jehovah who presently in the very next verse after the short History of the Creation is said to be the Creator and Maker Page 66 Here is held forth the use of the name Jehovah 67 68 69 That the Father of Christ is Jehovah 69 That the Spirit of Christ's Holiness is Jehovah 69 70 That the LORD Jesus Christ is Jehovah 70 That this Jehovah is one Jehovah 70 71 That Christ is the Mediator 71 72 73 That Christ is the One Mediator 73 74 That Christ is the LORD 74 75 That Christ is the Only LORD 75 That Christ is the Lawgiver 75 76 77 That Christ is the Only Lawgiver 77 That Christ was appointed by his Father and Anointed by his Spirit to these Offices 77 78 79 That Jehovah Aelohim was the Creator 79 That the Father was the Creator 79 That the holy Spirit was the Creator 80 That the LORD Jesus Christ was Creator 80 81 That the Father Son and Holy Spirit were the Creators these three the Creating One 81 That much of these Mysteries concerning Christ are included in the first words of the holy Scriptures Bereashith barraa Aelohim and in that word Jehovah mentioned a little after the short History of the Creation as the Creator and Maker 81 82 83 That there is an excellency in Scripture-knowledge which is proved by opening of some passages in the nine first Chapters of the Proverbs of Solomon relating unto this 83 to 87 Of the one which when another Day was Created was the First Day of the Created World Page 87 Q. Whether this Earth at its first Creation were without form and void So that Tohu and Bohu he truly and rightly praedicated of Aeretz Or whether Tohu and Bohu be not distinct Creatures from the Earth locally distant or two created Places the one setting out the gulphy empty space and the other the doleful place of Hell Page 87 Here is shewn that this Earth was not Created a formless empty misâ—shâ—â—pen Lump 87 88 That Tohu and Bohu or the gulphy empty Space and the doleful place of Hell are distinct Creatures from the Earth created places locally distinct from it 88 89 That
and to p. 132. l. 57. r. and not to f. to aspire p. 137. l. a 3. r. to assure f. do fall p. 137. l. 40. r. did fall f. in the p. 137 l. 41. r. in their f. who was the p. 138. l. 11. r. who was the The f. of beautyous p. 139. l. 11. r. of a beautyous f. was a p. 139. l. 12. r. was such a. f. one true Eve p. 139. l. 31. r. one onely Eve f. take false an p. 139. l. 50. r. take an f. these p. 140. l. 38. r. those f. by p. 140. l. 44. r. is by f. same though p. 141. l. 40. r. same man though f. these breach p. 142. l. 24. r. the breaches f. the p. 142. lo. 5. r. that f. material p. 144. l. 47. r. matrimonial f. his marriage offices p. 145. l. 16. r. his peoples marriage offices f. by the way p. 145. l. 38. r. by the law f. out freely a p. 146. l. z. r. out 2. f. as is p. 146. l. 3. r. as they call it which is f. appointed not p. 150. l. 51. r. not appointed f. need p. 150. l. 52. r. used f. would not have p. 150. l. 58. r. would have f. considerable p. 152. l. 2. r. considerate f. fulfilling p. 152. l. 36. r. filling f. Fellâ—oship p. 152. l. 45. r. Fellowship f. a Patient p. 152. l. 55. r. a Parent f. of p. 153. l. 9. r. with f. out p. 153. l. 28. r. outward f. contract p. 154. l. 43. r. contract f. effects p. 155. l. 6. r. Affects f. effects p. 156. l. 49. r. Affects f. curses p. 157. l. 15. r. cures f. natural natural reasons p. 157. l. 22. r. natural reason f. thereunto p. 158. l. 8. r thereupon f. exempar p. 158 l. 39 40. r. exemplar f. and the old p. 160. l. 22. r. in the old f. are p. 160. l. 35. r. is f. Authograph p. 16â— l. 3. r. Autograph f. is p. 162. l. 4. r are f. Scripture p. 162. l. 14. r. Scriptures f. easier p. 162. l. 26. r. easie f. audibles p. 163. l. 6. r. audible f. with it a secret p. 163. l. 9. r. with it in the Text and Context a secret f. here p. 163. l. 16. r. there f. access p. 163. l. 18. r. attests f. into p. 168. l. 42. r. in f. a Sabbath p. 169. l. 18. r. a Seventh-day-Sabbath f. whether LORD p. 169. l. 24. r. whether the LORD f. late days p. 170. l. 23. r. later days f. al the p. 171. l 8. r. al sense the. THE DESIGN OF THIS TREATISE IEhovah Christ is Wisdom all Wisdom in One Wisdom it self the Wisdom of all Wisdom his Father is the free giver he himself the rich Purchaser his Holy Spirit the infusing Teacher of all useful Wisdom unto his Covenant people All the treasures of Wisdom and of Knowledge are hidden in him and in his Word which the wise in heart should seek and search after that they may understand and find it and it may enter into their heart and be pleasant unto their soul The Scriptures of Truth are a perfect Library of all saving Knowledge and profitable Science copied out and commented upon in created Nature else the Title of this Treatise would be too high and great a design for so low and mean an undertaker but Truth is the Victory Christ is the Truth and as he is such is his Word the Truth too and he is going forth conquering and to conquer he doth and he will prosper riding upon this Word of Truth whilst Philosophy which is the vain affectation of humane wisdom under which description and notion I do declare against it throughout this Tractat this is falling and shall fall low and utterly fail and quite vanish before him and before that Word of his growing Believers will have such Spiritual discerning as no longer to be despoiled or to be carried away as captives for a prey by it the seducing Artifices of it shall be discovered and avoided for they are not according to Christ the seeming wisdom of its swelling words is but the excrescent part of a swelling ulcer though it carry a garnished shew of excellency of Speech it is but humane wisdom the enticing wisdom of men the wisdom of the corrupt age though much admired by the great ones of the times what is this to the Wisdom of God to that Wisdom which the Holy Spirit teacheth The restauration of Arts and the advancement of Sciences has been the studious research and the unwearied endeavour of some both Ancient and Modern Writers men of name for Learning but whilst they dig for it in some grounds of their own and under notions from within themselves and so would proceed Masters of Arts and commence Doctors of Sciences by the natural Abilities and acquired Endowments of their own Intellect and Reason improving of it self only either from it self or from humane Authors or from new invented experiments the most souly of them after all their laborious productions have not yet attained nor ever will or can by that Method attain the true good end because they have not as yet prosecuted the right and the proper means of it Philosophers come in their own name and the most of Students have received them though they bring but a Doctrine of probabilities a colour and shadow of conjectural reasoning such as would perswadingly mislead souls by deceitful disputings and falacious concludings and subdolous circumventings imposing of mistakes upon the ignorant and undiscerning thrusting of errours upon them by captious arguings and shiftingly evading the evident force of the most convincing demonstrations by misapplyed distinctions which do endlesly ingage contentious Wits in a scholastick warring and vain jangling the Press still keeps fighting by sending forth one Book of controverted matter against another yet are there no Trophies of any considerable proficiency and progress all this while either by victoriousness over Error or by triumphingness of Truth whereas there would soon be a more amicable league a more pacifick confederacy amongst the sound and sober of men of depth of Learning and of inquiringness of Spirit if all their Books were either apt significant Commentaries upon the holy Scriptures or due right interpretations of created Beings according to those Scriptures That Light which the unscriptural antiscriptural writings of Philosophizing men have afforded us has been to manifest this unto us what erring wandring by-ways we would turn aside from not what even straight paths we should walk in much of that knowledge which such have themselves attained unto and which they would have others to be wrong led into by following of them is this that there is no certainty of knowledge nor satisfactoriness of understanding throughly compassable by any or all mere humane disquisitions and discoveries so that many of the most eminent of them are self-condemned and have pronounced the sentence against their own
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
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
all created Beings whose demonstrations are either from the Creator to the knowledge of the Creatures or from the Creatures to the knowledge of the Creator Solomon was one of the wisest of men the LORD gave it to him so to be and he spake and wrote much about Natural Things concerning the Works of the several Days particularly Scripture-Physicks he was excelling in the knowledge of Grass of Herbs of Trees of Beasts of Fowls of Fishes of Creeping Things of contemplating of the Natural Body of the Heavens of the Earth of the Seas and of the Abyss out of his Writings much might be discovered of the nature of these in his Books of the Proverbs of Ecclesiastes and of his Song of Songs incomparably beyond what can be found in all the large Libraries of Ethnick Philosophers or any other Naturalists amongst such of the Christians as have received their apprâ—hensions about these things out of those Pagan Rationalists who yet are great stâ—â—ngers unto that which is the right Reason and the true Nature of these â—â—ings and so will they also be who follow them without a Scripture-guide He that will ask what lawful necessary useful Art and Science can be named of which there is not that to be found in the Scriptures of Truth which if thrâ—â—â—â—ly understood and collected and then applyed and improved in fitting in to 〈◊〉 very Essence and Operations of created Beings would bring a very considerable addition to sound profitable knowledge and whoever would undertake to return somewhat to satisfaction by way of answer in a multitude of particular instances Theoretick and Practick such as Grammar Logick Rhetorick Mnemonick Physicks Metaphysicks Mathematicks Arithmetick Geometry Cosmography Opticks Musick Astronomy Geography Geodeticks Staticks Nauticks Architecture Schematicks Ethicks Economicks Politicks History Poesie Ecclesiasticks Scholasticks Chronologie Chirography Law Theology Christianity Medicine in all the Botanick Anatomick Pharmaceutick and Chirurgick parts of it together with all the Mechanicks which are more than I can reckon up may easily and quickly foresee even by such an enumeration as this is that such an universal comprehensive of all Liberal Sciences afterwards distinctly parcelled out into the several knowledges professed and practised would both take up too much of his time and over-bulk any one Treatise and is much beyond the skill and the strength of any one mere man One of our own has lately asserted a deficiency in the Scriptures as to these matters and doth send us elsewhere for a Supplement mentioning several Arts and Sciences as no where to be found in Scripture I shall single out two of them which are of his own chusing and naming and then try them according to the Word whether much of their Art be not to be found out in the Scripture with a little search which when compared with and experimented by the natural efficiency of their innate and educed Existencies and Workings would bring in an augment to their Science thought it be not my intendment or undertaking to draw up Systems and Schemes of the several particular knowledges but to quicken up the studious and ingenious to promote these Scientificks more by putting that together which the Scriptures do afford relating to each of them and then to work upon their discovery by practical improvement and experimental observation This Learned man declared his judgement to be that the Scripture is no perfect Rule for a Musician a Carpenter a Physician a Mathematician an Astronomer a Geographer an Arithmetician a Grammarian a Logician a Natural Philosopher c. to do their Work Because saith he it is not a particular Rule for them in Arts and Sciences the things whereof are not to be found in the Scripture at all neither doth he assert the Scriptures an imperfect Rule only for these and such like as these but also for Divines and for Worshippers as if the Scripture did not tell the Divine sufficiently and particularly divers things relating to his office and the discharge of it and as if the worshipper were not to expect there particular Laws or Rules for all the circumstances of worship Thus and to this purpose he If it be not a perfect particular Rule for these two last mentioned the Divine and the Worshipper for what Artists and Scientiaries is it a perfect particular Rule For these affirmations do charge the Scripture with being an imperfect Rule as to particular Laws and Rules not only as to Natural Things but also as to Spiritual it should be considered by such who are of this perswasion whether they do not hereby lift up Church-History and Humane Authority in the matters of Faith to the debasing and denying of Scriputre-perfection and also corrupt modes and forms of Worship such as are of Humane Invention Institution and Imposition exclusive of other ways of Worship where these are not asserted and consented to both which the whole Scripture doth condemn At this present it being suited to the subject I have in hand about the advancement of useful Arts and Sciences by making a more through disquisition after them in the Word of Truth I shall cull out two of these Artists who my self am of neither of their Arts nor do I pretend to have Scientificies in them which may so far prove and praise this design the more that one whose Calling and Function whose Office and Profession is not to be either Musician or Carpenter yet in the supply of the holy Spirit by a little short study of the Scriptures in the midst of a multitude of other employments can discover so much in Christ's Word about Musick and Carpentry wherem I am to shew that these are found in the Scripture both as to name and thing and that there is a Rule in the Scripture for these things and that God hath made the Scripture to be a Rule for them and that in the Scripture there are not only general Rules but also particular Rules of those Arts and Sciences which done I shall propound some inquiries about Geography and Grammar Some of the other Arts that are mentioned I may have occasion to treat somewhat of upon the particular Works of the particular Days of the first Week of the created World As for Musick the skilful therein will bear with me if I do not in some of my expressions so fully harmonize with their Terms of Art as they have learned and received them I expect they should approve and forward the design which would raise their Ear-taking and their Heart-affecting-knowledge in this to more Sweetness and Savouriness more Exactness and Spiritualness more Naturalness and Scripturalness as relating to instituted Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs which are heavenly parts of Spiritual Worship more especially with respect to the voice not at all to countenance the common abuse of this Art when it is suited to carnal lustful hearts in amorous wanton ditties or to other profane corrupt ends whatsoever which has been in woful sinful experience a ruining
well set on by the Teachers in Assemblies who are to endeavour to fix their good Counsels in the memory of the Hearers and to hold the people close to their office and duty a wise faithful Magistrate fitted for the due administration of Justice in a Kingdom or Commonwealth is compared unto such a well-fixed Nail in its right place confirmed in his seat of Dignity the peace and other happiness of a Nation much depending upon his good Government and the Subjects being held and born up in their Duty by his Authority The Reader may here observe how the LORD doth in his Word spiritualize these earthly things and imployments whereby he would teach them to be holy and heavenly in their particular Functions that they may abide in their Callings with God and may know in experience how to have the Christian Religion to run into the whole of their day and work and may see it evidently reconcileable and reducible to practice for a man to be diligent industrious and laborious with his hand whilst all the while he is believing serious and pondering in his heart having sweet Meditations and being glad in Jehovah turning his ordinary work into special Worship and having fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus in the supplies of the holy Spirit even whilst he is conversant about the things of this world in his lawful employment O for more of such handy-crafts-men whatever they do it shall prosper As for Timber-pins it instructs the Carpenter to make them of strong firm word not of that which is weak and yielding as the wood of a Vine is a discreet Carpenter will not take of the wood thereof to make a piece of work with it he will not take a pin of it to hang any Vessel thereon a wooden-nail or peg of it is not fitted for the use of hanging up houshold-stuff or working-tools or any heavy matter upon it by which comparison and similitude the LORD gives hypocritical Israel and Judah to know that of all the people in the world carnal earthly hollow-hearted professors of Religion are some of the most unprofitable and useless The Carpenter may learn from this word what kind of Timber to chuse and to use even that which is of Trees that will not rot Cedars Oaks Ashes Elms Firt-trees are especially commended amongst others wise workmen will discern between what is sound and what is rotten I expect that skilful Carpenters will be in this on my side For the Scriptures do much commend those who were very skilful in this Mechanick Art such were the Sydonians the Tyrians and some others who had practical excellency of curious knowledge in this Artificious Affabrous Science Aelohim himself doth set himself out as an Architect Thus is Christ the Builder of his Church and Paul was under Christ a wise Architect The Saw is here spoken of the use of which Instrument with Capenters is to cut Timber and Boards asunder to make men thus to pass under the Saw and to cut them asunder is one of the most grievous kinds of tormenting punishments which some inraged Conquerors have exercised their subdued Captives with it is an Instrument meerly passive which doth act no further than it is acted having all its force and receiving all its efficacy from that Agent or from these Agents that do move it to and fro up and down backward and forward in cutting and therefore the Saw cannot magnifie it self against the Agitator the Mover of it it was then a wicked thing in that proud King of Assyria to exalt himself when the LORD used him as a Saw in his hand for the humbling and subduing the correcting and chastising of a sinful hypocritical people he ascribed his great Victories which he obtained not unto Jehovah as the Author of them but unto himself to his own Wisdom and Valour he carried on an ambitious plot of his own to inlarge his Territories and to spread his own Dominions but thought not upon intended not that which was the LORD's wise just design and holy good end Thus you see how God in his Word doth furnish even Sawers with profitable matter of holy Meditation How large is the Scripture about the right structure of an House in the whole and in the several parts of it when and how to build is taught of Aelohim wise men do not use to build what before they had destroyed he that would build an House should compt the cost the charge lest he leave imperfect that work which he began and so expose himself to the mocks of all Carpenters are such Artificers to whom the Scriptures give the appellation of Edificators or Builders or Makers of Houses because one of the choice parts of building usually is the Timber-work which must be laid level upon some solid Basis that it may stand upright and firm and moved as upon a sustaining Fulture and an upholding Stabiliment Timber-pillars must be well founded or grounded set with Art on their Sockets that they may be staid up and fastned Pillars in Hebrew have their name from standing firm immoved upright standing under and sustaining of the House the Sockets were as Feet or Grounds to sustain what Timber or Boards or Planks were laid upon them or were put into them having hollow Mortaises for the Tenons of the Boards to be fastned in that there might be an equal perfect joyning a work to be performed with skill and care here the Carver of wood is directed to go to Jehovah to be fitted with the Spirit of Aelohim in Wisdom and in Understanding and in Knowledge and in all workmanship to devise cunning Works to work in all this kind of Timber-workmanship with studious and artificial Ingraving or cutting or ploughing in Wood the most ingenious handy-crafts-man in this Mechanick Art may here try his skill here the Carpenter is wised about Beams and Rafters what Timber to make them of how to lay them how to fasten them in the Walls they have one of their names in Hebrew from running to meet because in the manner of their fitting and laying on in an extructed edifice they should be so exactly fitted as that they and what they are put upon and into may as it were run to meet and to receive one another by mutual coaptation and contignation there is one part of them which is Ligament or Band to receive the junctures of the Building and another of their names they have from their density or thickness the Commissures or Coupling or Couples are here spoken of as the Junctures or Consociations in an House those Timber-pieces that do make a conjunction in the Edifice the Pavement or Floor of Boards is here mentioned which is the lower Expanse or Firmament of an House here you have the Timber-side-pieces which are as the Ribs of an House you have the Cieling the Roof or the Covering this is the upper higher part of
all Translations into Mother-Tongues without any the least trajection or transposition of Words or of Points Variation Addition or Supplement or Substraction leaving the propriety of their meaning and Government to the Interpreter and Expounder of them the Commentator and Dilater upon them the Paraphraser and Applyer of them as the holy Spirit from the Father in the Name of the Son shall give him skill and utterance by a due regard had to the Context and by a faithful collating of other suitable Scriptures in an Harmonious Concent Q. Whether there be any thing in the Original Text either from the difference of the Stile or from the significancy of the Accents or from any other Grammacal consideration which doth either naturally in its self or by institution of the Holy Inspirator give us a more just accompt and genuine distinction of the several parts of Scripture than that which at this day is in common use amongst us by the Titles and order of the Books by Chapters and by Verses and what it is Q. Whether all humanely invented Enallages all changes whatsoever of one part of Speech into another of Persons of Genders of Numbers of Cases of Letters of Words of Names of Vowels of Accents of Syntax of Moods or of what else that doth belong unto the Original Languages as also wrong-fancied-Anomalies should not be altogether laid aside in such a Grammar especially when passing into a Translation Q. Whether all humanely pretended Paragoges Redundancies Expletives Pleonasms Insignificancies Deficiencies of any Letters Syllables or Words should not be quite rejected by discerning Grammarians in such a Grammar as obscurings and wrongings of the Original Languages Q. What is the true Orginal Emphaticalness of the Original Punctations and Accentations And how do these or any other part of the Original Languages direct in the right sound the just pronunciation of words and in the orderly distinction of a Sentence into its certain Members and Clauses by its due pointings Where the LORD has furnished any others in their greater store with more discoveries of this useful Nature could I live to see this way of Scripture-knowledges more countenanced and promoted by them it would give joy in my heart however it be whatever the issue and the success of these intimations be I exalt His Name who is the All glorious Jehovah the Ael of Sciences that he hath in this so graciously helped me so far to serve my Generation according to his will before I fell on sleep If the Reader be under such apprehensions that this Book of mine might well have been spared because it is my principle to bring all unto Christ's one Book of Scripture I expect so much ingenuity from him as to acknowledge that there must be some way and medium found out and held forth for the communicating and commending of the excellency of Christ's Book which is a Book One and All were it throughly understood rightly applyed and well improved and I knew no other means of like spreadingness with this that is before thee which I was in any present capacity of making known unto the World Wise Solomon condemns the folly and the fruitlessness the vanity and the vexation of Ethnick Books and of Philosophick Studies where Supernatural Directions were not to be had though men professing the true Religion did much betake themselves thereunto and did in many particular subjects write out of and according unto them What a multitude of Books are there that Humane Authors do make though their writings do not give that full satisfaction which the most do wrong look for there how often do new Treatises flutter abroad the last usually undertaking either to confute other mens arguings or to correct their mistakes or to reprove their miscarriages or to instruct them or to add to them or further to confirm them or with some such like design and then quickly after out comes another passing his judgement upon that which went but a little before and what do men by this but publish the imperfection of all their own Writings and the same sentence will be passed upon this Book of mine though my Treatise has this advantage beyond others that its design and drift is to plead for and to praise that Eminent Book of God which is the only perfect Book If the more spiritually discerning among the perusers of this Treatise do discover corrupt Mixtures humane Frailties ignorant Mistakes and unadvised Errors therein they are to remember and to consider that the Author is also a man of like affections and weaknesses as they there is no difference but what rich Grace and free Love doth make which therefore doth call for their compassionating pities earnest prayers and friendly helpings laying aside all proud insultings revengful tramplings and personal reflectings Courteous Reader let the Scriptures be more studied where is a complete declaration of the mind and will of the All wise Aelohim and which can fully satisfie thee in thy weighty inquiries It is an endless labour and a wearisome task both to make and to read other Books The end of the whole Word of God and of all hearing of it is that we might fear Aelohim and keep all his Commandments for this is all Adam about this Book should we lay out the strength of our thoughts the redeemings of our time and the bent of our Studies these holy Scriptures are not so large a Volumn but that it may be read over in some few Weeks or Months and the oftner it is read over by a spiritual discerner diligent observer wise improver and believing practiser still the more doth it open of its Treasure of Knowledge here is a Library made up of one Book so intire in it self as that it is able to make thee wise unto Salvation O bestow thy pains principally here here chiefly imploy thy Studies be not weary in turning these frequently over saving Knowledge and true Happiness is no were else fully revealed To move thee hereunto remember and consider that thy actions all of them open and secret good or ill must stand or fall according to this Book as they are conformable to it or not and all this as our eternal State either of bliss or of misery thine who readest this and mine who write this There is much of Spiritual use to be made by Believers of the improved knowledge of Natural things for the discerning and injoying of fellowship with the Creator and Redeemer IT is neither beneath the grave Majesty and Royal Anthority of the Word of the LORD nor besiders its real intent and designed purport to converse with Believers about created Beings those great works which do so much speak the glorious Excellencies of their admired Maker The orderly recording of the Works of Creation in the beginning of the Book of God severally and distinctly on each of the foregoing six days of the first week of the created World and of the Sabbath-rest upon the seventh the last
day of the week unalterably confirmed by an unchangeable Law this doth put holy Meditation upon the working and the resting of the Creator and Redeemer into a methodical profitable Spiritual way it would furnish an experienced Saint with proper matter every day for the feeding of his thoughts to the nourishing of his Soul the satisfaction of his Spirit the strengthing of his Heart and the inlightning of his Mind That Humane Invention of transferring the weekly Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week has wholly inverted this established order The Psalmists frame was then usually most raised and most refined most humble and most heavenly most serious and most savoury when he saw and imployed much of Christ in the Creatures which kept him up in the better and more continued preparedness to meet the LORD in his Sanctuary-goings in other solemn instituted Ordinances he will make but little of the Word of God who makes nothing of the Works of God one great end of the Creators giving a being to Creatures was to supply a man with continued matter of admiring and of adoring the wonderful Former of all this O how much and with what kindliness think ye was Adam's heart affected with the sight and contemplation of this goodly beautious Structure whilst he stood in uprightness with how great delight was his Tongue his Glory in trumpeting of that perfection that shined forth in all and in every of the works of the Creator much of Adam's wisdom appeared in his giving of apt and fit names to all the Beasts of the Field and to all the Fowls of the Air according as the Natures and the Powers of their created condition were In Authority many who have gotten a name as if they had been the first inventers of some profitable knowledges yet themselves went to School to some lower Creatures to learn skill of them which was one of the first abused occasions of the heathens making and setting up of the Forms of some Bruits of Beasts of Fowls of Fishes of Serpents of Herbs as their Idols which they worshipped The great Admirers Illustrators and Promoters of Humane Learning have acknowledged the Originals of the discoveries of many witty Inventions to proceed first from the observations which Learned men have made from those experiments that meaner beings than themselves have providentially set before them thus do they speak as to men for the true reasons and the proper causes and the real originals of the Virtues and Powers of created Existences have their first foundation and discovery in the Word and in Nature These Philosophick men give us some particular instances of rational knowledges directed to by natural perception and instinct in irrational beings owning these for being some of the prime Masters of Arts and Doctors of Sciences Who instructed the Surgeon how to cure wounds but the wild Goat by applying some Sanative Grasses and Herbs and Flowers which led him to the use of some things in Chirurgery Hence also have some been taught the cure of Impostumes such as are between the skin and the flesh for when there is a putrified matter which impostumiseth before it ripen of it self and come to break the wild Goat oppressed with the noxious pungency of the itching humour rubs himself against Stones and Shrubs until his Imposthume break and the whole filth from the bag do pour out it self and so the beast easeth himself Whence learn'd the Chyrurgeon the profirable use of the Herb Dittany for the extracting of Arrows or Splinters or whatsoever it is that gives a wound and leaveth some poyson behind if the hurt be not mortal but when Harts who when they were struck with a Dart or were otherways shot with an invenomed Arrow presently resorted to this Herb which has a specifick Virtue latent in it whereby this Plant when eaten by them both ejects the Weapon and expels the Poyson The cure of wounds with Dragon Briony and Comfrey some have learn'd from the Serpent as also the curing of Eyes when evil affected with Fennel Cats have found Valerian to comfort the sight and Swallows use Celendine as an Herb friendly to the sight with which they heal the eyes of the young Phlebotomy the cutting of a Vein to let out blood and the stopping of it again some were informed in by the Sea-horse which is skilful at Scarification and at cutting of a Vein for when he feels himself under a great and dangerous distemper by overmuch eating he rubs himself against Reeds or somewhat else that is hard until a Vein breaking he let out a sufficient quantity of his blood and then he hastneth to stop the aperture and to heal and close it up by applying of mud and of dirt to the orifice of the wound The Art of Building was somewhat taught by the industry and skill of Swallows and of Bees some Physicians were instructed in forming of Pills from Scarabes that do gather things round on an heap and then make Balls The Art of Spinning some have learned from Silk-worms of Weaving from Spiders of Vomiting from Dogs of Clysters from the Bird Ibis purging himself by putting up part of his crooked Bill into that part by which the Excrement is discharged also the Hern who with his Bill doth infuse Sea-water instead of a Clyster thus practising of it upon himself by his own beak Whence came the knowledge of Powder-Artillery for the Warriour but by a Potlids occasional flying open From these and such like have Philosophick Professors fetched their principles of knowledge which doth shew that the God of Nature hath put much into the Nature of created Beings which if improved by Scripturalized reason in a word-way would raise Arts to a wonderful height The LORD himself in his Word doth send his own people to be better informed in their Duties and Priviledges by other Creatures so blockish and stupid is fallen man who since he acted below Religion is fallen beneath Reason He preached unto them the Doctrine of observing Seasons of Grace and of improving of opportunities of Salvation from the wisdom of the Stork and the Turtle the Crane and the Swallow who do exactly keep to the due fit times of their going and coming they might learn from the Ox and from the Ass which are some of the dullest and stupidest of bruit Creatures to make other manner of acknowledgements of the LORD's kindness to care for them would they more seriously ponder and duly consider of this Has man some discerning in these lower things and should he not use his Religion and Reason about higher matters who has by his noble make a wisdom beyond so many other Creatures by his concreated endowments doth not Christ himself check and convince rebuke and confute the unbelief and distrust of such who are over carking and too sollicitous about Food and Rayment by putting them upon considering of his providential care for Fowls and for Lillies The LORD Jesus
doth delight himself in teaching of his people the useful knowledge of the Works of Creation in his written Word for every Creature should lead us to him and leave us with him and by his holy Spirit in the Scripture he doth often set out Spiritual Truths and things by Created Beings and Natural Powers teaching by Similitudes and Parables by which under some apt resemblances by things incurring into the outward senses and such as were familiarly and well known amongst men somewhat of an higher nature and meaning was propounded figured and represented Christ's teaching was much after this manner of Parables Thus were the hidden Mysteries of Christ's Spiritual Kingdom made the more easily intelligible to plain understandings and the greatest Truths became familiar to mean capacities of profiting Disciples who were taught two Lessons at once O how much do the Wisdom and the Goodness and other glorious Excellencies of Jehovah Aelohim shine forth in his Works â— He garnished the Heavens and replenished the Earth and stored the Seas with all manner of variety and good things fit for the use of Man and then he created Man bringing him into a well-furnished habitation where man found all ready prepared to his hand whatsoever was requisite both for necessity and for delight that by all this the LORD might draw up the heart of man to himself and keep it fixed in Communion there whither every creature called it up whilst Adam and Eve stood firm in integrity The Christian Religion should pass into our particular Callings so that even in these we should abide with God when we are employed about common matters and earthly things How often hath the LORD confirmed his Covenant of Grace to his people by such natural Existences fetching instances and giving probations of the reality and truth thereof for the confutation of Atheism and of Infidelity from the Heavens above and from the Earth beneath and from all the Host of both from Sun from Moon from Stars from the successive courses of Night and Day from Winter and from Summer from Heat and from Cold from the Height above and from the Deep below from things present and from things to come that which way soever man cast his eye on either of those two Books of Scripture and of Nature of word and of works in this great School the Disciples of Christ might still be learning of somewhat profitable What was that method and means and way which Jehovah Aelohim did take for the convincing and humbling of Job but by an holy reasoning and friendly expostulating with him about the Works of Creation and it had an answerable suitable good effect upon him The true knowledge of Natural things is laid down in the perfect word by the All-wise God as one great foundation of Theology and of Christianity and by these visible Witnesses will the righteous Judge of all leave the condemned world without excuse at that last great day Errours in Philosophical Learning are greatly dangerous unto Professors of Christian Religion the corruptions in that have caused so many Heresies and continued so many Controversies so that if we could search after the Foundations and Principles from whence most mistakes about Religion have their Spring and Origin we may find them laid in Humane wisdom by its vain Affecters such as the pretended power of Nature and freedom of will in fallen man as to Spirituals and Eternal the asserted Dictates and Placits of the Understanding as the ultimate undenyable resolvers in all Cases with a great number of such like Some whole Societies of corrupt Professors are but Philosophick Sects received and called by another name as those that make the instincts of their own Souls the impulses of their own Spirits and the motions and imaginations of their own hearts to be their only Rule by which they measure their judgement concerning good and evil and the fixed constancy of their belief or the wavering doubtfulness of their perswasions to be the measure of duty or of sin whence sprang this but from that sort of Philosophers who placed their happiness in silencing of all disputes of the mind and in smothering of all scruples of Conscience affirming Good not to have any inherent chuseable Being in it self and Evil not to have any such constant fixed Malignity in its own Nature but all their actions they thought to be condemnable when they did somewhat which they had any inward relunctancy against and aversness from and to be commendable when they were clearly resolved and fully determined in their minds and wills to do this or that But no more at present of this It is Scripture-Learning only which through the teachings of the holy Spirit can instruct us in the right use and holy improvement of the knowledge of Natural Things so that the growing Believer is Holy and Spiritual even in his trading with those Talents and whilst he is exercised about these his Scripture-wisdom doth commend it self in its own excellency and in its preferableness above and beyond all meer Humane Understanding for the many good and choice fruits and effects thereof being first pure in it self and in its efficaciousness or chaste then pacifick or peaceable modest obsequent or well swasible full of Mercy and of good Fruits not contentious or void of wrangling disception and not hypocritical or void of simulation Whereas some have made the observation that these who are so deeply conversant in the secrets of Nature do generally degenerate into Atheists not acknowledging an Aelohim as the first Causer but ascribing all beings and productions to natural causalities this where it is found to be so is to be understood only of the Ethnick Philosophy which doth take those who are Students in it off and doth carry them away from Christ and from his Word not of that Scripture-wisdom which doth so directly lead Disciples to Christ and to his Word for this saving sound knowledge doth produce a quite contrary effect even to make them most Saints and most Believers passing them wholly out of self and off from Creatures to resolve all into and to refer all unto the Being of beings the Cause of causes the Eternal first Essence the chiefest choicest Good the truest best Happiness the main ultimate End Jehovah Aelohim blessed for ever When men of Faith and of Experience do wisely observe the whole frame of this created World and all the parts thereof to run their course with continued chearfulness and without wearisome tiredness to discharge those Offices which their Creators Will hath assigned and enjoyned them unto This consideration doth stir up in them high and honourable thoughts of the Maker and Disposer of all these things and the serious Meditation that the Creation shall be renewed and refined and restored to its integrity and perfection of Estate and appear yet once again in its pure cleanness and in its purged â—xcellency is a Call unto the Saints to shine
forth the more in growing measures of glorious Holiness O what a day will that be when the New Heavens and the New Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness shall be created for Christ's followers to see and to enjoy him in when the chosen among mankind shall be fully perfect in Vision and in Knowledge in Grace and in Glory in Holiness and in Happiness By this discovery I would remove that occasion of stumbling which some do lay as a stone of offence before them to stop and to hinder themselves in this further grand inquiry about the proficiency of Learning as if this would degenerate Christians into Pagans and Believers into Naturalists and send them from Christ to Creatures to the debasing of the true pure Religion whereas it would call off men from ignorant Paganism to a knowing Christianity and advance all profitable Learning into a spiritualized usefulness and work up the Scholars in Christ's School to a more refined heavenly raisedness both in Principle and in practice The Holy Scriptures in speaking of the Works of Creation and of Natural Things do speak of them as they really are and not as they seemingly only appear according to exactness of Truth as the Nature and Essence of them are and not according to the wrong conceits and ignorant mistakes of vulgar Minds and common Opinionists IEhovah Aelohim has put the Essence and the real Nature of created Beings into the aptest and most expressive words in their full and proper significancy and Adam gave the fittest names to the Beasts of the Field and to all the Fowls of the Air according to their quality and condition which was an evident discovery of his great Wisdom and what is a Word but such a Note whereby every thing is distinctly known both in it self and also wherein it doth differ from other things The Holy Scriptures do often from the Works of Creation and from Natural Things prove what they do affirm unto the outward senses confirming the Faith and incouraging the hope of Saints in Christ and in his Word and in his Covenant of Grace in this Word by these senses and confuting their incredulity and distrust from hence now what confirmation of the one or confutation of the other could this be if those means of probation were not real and sensible and self-evidencing in those Brings themselves which every man that has the right Exercise of his Reason and the due use of his Senses must acknowledge to be so as is said the Faith of the LORD's Covenant people grows confident concerning revealed Truths in what they do not see by those things which they do see and discern with their Senses Many a choice discovery about several of the Works of Creation have been revealed to some Spiritual Discerners in their private Studies under an imprisoned state by the holy Spirit from Christ's true Word before they ever made search after them by the use of their outer Senses into the nature of those Created Beings before they had any ocular Demonstration of them or made any visible Observations upon them which afterwards by comparing of these Creatures with those Scriptures they have found in experience exactly to agree so as no mere Humane Author no Pagan Philosopher either has discovered or can discern Of what Nature soever those things are which God hath revealed in his Word unto reasonable Creatures the same are they bound to believe them to be as he has there made them known unto such For they are thereby become a part of the complete Object of Faith so that we are not only to believe the Declarations of the Doctrines of the Christian Religion in those great Mysteries of Three in One of God manifested in the Flesh with such like and also the Prophesies to come in after-ages with a great deal more concerning Duties Graces Priviledges c. but also that grand History of matters of Fact past and gone such as the written Journal of Created Beings in the beginning of the Bible and all the after-discourses of Natural Things as they are contained in the Scriptures of Truth Created Nature is the copyed Transcript of Holy Scriptures What a bold daring attempt then is it for vain man to be such an Interpreter of the words of his Creator concerning the great Works which he has done and the Beings which he has formed as not to admit of the plain sense of those Scripture-words and expressions the original Letter and the proper significancy whereof he will not deny or contradict For there is great verity in and real answerableness between these words and those things The literal sense of the Word of Christ where it speaks positively of the Works of Creation of Natural things is not to be gone off from if an Allegorical or Mysterial sense be any where as to this pleaded for it must be proved that there is an evident necessity thereof in the same place either by the words and meaning of themselves or by the Context or else by comparing of it with other Scriptures where it can be evidenced by such expressions significations contexts or collations that any passages in or relating to the History of the Creation are symbolical signifying some other Mystery yet even there if that were admitted first of all must the sense of the Letter simply and the truth of the History in the plain meaning of the Narrative-Record be firmly established Translators should keep close to the proper meaning of the Original words otherwise they do expound the sense as they apprehend in Syntax and are not regular Etymologists to explain the significancy and to maintain the property of every word Scripture-words are to be turned into other Languages not as men suppose they mean in trope but as they naturally signifie in Truth The usefulness of a literal version in order to the advancement of Learning is very well worthy to be treated of in its place The Scriptures are not accomdated to vulgar received Errours or mere imaginary conceits or vain false appearances but they speak of things as the things themselves really are Is not the LORD Christ Truth it self how tremblingly afraid then should sorry man be of making him a lyar by speaking one thing and meaning a quite contrary There is no transmutation in him nor obumbration of turning no variation nor casting of shadows by his turning it is Blasphemy to charge him as a Teacher of Error He has given this testimony by his own Words to his own Works when he had taken a diligent survey of them that what he had made was every part and the whole of it when set in its beauteous frame Good so as he had expressed it to be Can infinite Wisdom and truthfulness mistake in his expressions would he who is so abundant in Goodness and in Truth tell his people otherwise than the real History is Christ's Words do all along speak of these matters affirmingly assertingly they speak of his Works
a vain daring boldness for a worm-man to assert that the Seventh-day is not the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God and thou mayst do work therein when this great Lawgiving King of kings and LORD of Lords doth so expresly affirm and command the Seventh-day is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God thou shalt not do any work When men will use more faithfulness and diligence to be better skilled in the literal significancy of the Original Language they will see cause to admire the Wisdom of Aelohim who has so self-evidencingly put things into words especially in these two parts of Scripture the History of the Creation and the Law of the ten words The vain affectation of Humane Wisdom which doth thrust upon the credulity of so many a Doctrine of probabilities concerning the works of Creation and Natural Things from Anti-Christian and unscriptural Philosophy but is not according to Christ and to his Word is such a deceitful way of false reasoning as makes a prey of Souls and is carefully to be avoided and is but falsly named Science THose who take the Holy Spirit to be their Leader and Conducter and the Holy Scriptures to be their Rule and their way may upon due search discover this The smooth-tongued Orators the deceitful Sophisters the vain Philosophers of this World they their Sayings and Writings are not a firm ground for a believing Disciple of Christ to bottom his Faith upon for as much as they are but slightly superficial and scarce likely's the ground-work of their Learning being but Humane Fiction and self-conceited imagination such a Doctrine of Probabilities as we are cautioned against That Philosophy and Wisdom which is derived from the Invention and Tradition of fallible men and is according to the Elements of this World and not according to Christ is a spurious wisdom not to be owned by the followers of Christ what a many of the Questions and Disputations in Ethnick Philosophy is there about Elements which the Scripture doth speak expresly at and against That Wisdom which is a worldly humanely-invented wisdom is judged by the Scriptures of Truth to be a terrene wisdom suited to the earthly designs of covetous worldlings to be animal fitted to the voluptuous Arts of sensual Souls and to be devilish framed to the proud Models of ambitious Climbers This corrupt wisdom is mischievous in the bad Fruits and the evil effects thereof how prone to quarrelsome litigiousness how contradictingly opposing of the Truth how impudently immodest how headstrongly inswasible how devoid of good Fruit how full of emulating disputes of fallacious brables of over-reaching controvertings observe in experience and see and say whether it doth not puff men up making them sick about Questions about strifes of words about verbal distinctions when every word almost in a debate is wrested and wryed to a multiplicity of meanings and a variety of senses about which they would endlesly cavil and craftily equivocate from whence have started up so many Sects in Philosophy and thereby in Theology too teaching another Doctrine and they who teach this do not come up to the wholesome words of our LORD Jesus Christ and to the Doctrine which is according to right Worship from such are Christ's Disciples to withdraw their unscripturally-curious concertations and their empty unprofitable disputations do shew a corrupt mind and do bewray a devoidness of Truth Heathenish Philosophy would turn men aside from Christ who is the true full essential Wisdom and from his instituted Worship unto carnal reasonings and a corrupt service Paul's manner of arguing in these Cases was from the true sound knowledge of Created Beings and of Natural Things Thus he convinced the Athenian Philosophers who generally counted Word-learning to be but verbal-babling and a proclaiming of new Demons or Devils and he expresly declareth against Greekish-Ethnick-Philosophers The Epicurean and Stoick Philosophers were some of the most violent opposers of and subtil adversaries against the Christian Doctrine and what shall rising Graduates in Christian Academies as they grow new and further proficients in Learning be still sworn unto the words of these Pagan Magistralists What can we expect from mere Animal or Physical men but a worldly Wisdom and humane Learning that which is foolishness whilst themselves are foolish the foolishness as these men do miscount it of God is wiser it is their animality and want of spirituality that doth put them upon mis-judging of this to be foolishness The Grecanical wise men are much in searching after that wisdom which doth chiefly consist in speculation or contemplation the wisdom of the incredulous Jews is more conversant about visible signs and ocular demonstrations for without such sensible confirmations as these they will not believe though multitudes of them in the days of Christ and of his Apostles did still continue infidels in the very face of miraculous attests Both these Wisdoms are distinguished and divided from that Wisdom which is of God whose Foundations is Jesus Christ and his Word the Disciples of Christ especially those of them who are in the office of the Ministery are to keep the depositum of sound Scripture-doctrine they are actually to be averse from profane clamours about empty vanities which do affix unto words such a sense as is wholly alien from their true proper significancy and which by sophistical School-distinctions do keep wrangling about Phrases to pervert their plain right meaning and do wrest some Scriptures they understand not wrongfully accommodating them to maintain some Error or to defend some Vice There have been such as have boasted much of their profound knowledge this way who have both themselves erred from the scope concerning the Faith and have misled others also It is a false assertion to affirm this or that is true in Philosophy though in Scripture it be found otherwise For if Scripture-truth do contradict it then that which is so contradicted is not a truth but an error however Philosophy miscal it true introduced by the Father of lies Where any Philosopher did assert any thing about the Creation according to the Truth there they had it either from the Word or by their outward Observation and experience from Senses agreable to the Word some of them either had the knowledge of God's Word and did read the first Books of Scripture or at least had some traditionary Records of them and did read them If that be indeed so which some whom I have met with have affirmed that those Books at least some of them which those Believers and Converts did burn in that part of the History of the Arts of the Apostles were the Books of Ethnick Philosophy such as the Heathens Logick Dialectick Grammar Rhetorick c. so that the like execution were to be done still against the same Treatises that to this day do persist in their Treasons against the Crown of Christ and the Dignity of his Word the Libraries and Shops in Philosophick Universities would
Cherubins and of the living Creatures of the Angels in their subserviency The fourth is the later part of Ezekiel's Book from the fortieth Chapter to the end where the New City is described Though these two later places also being Visions may the more evidently as to the external part of them be plainly shewn to growing young ones who might in fewer Months be skilled in Geometry the Doctrine of Measures and some other Arts as the Truth Reality and Usefulness in those Knowledges is than others will attain unto in so many years by Philosophical Studies And what a shame is it to the Learned Artists of the Times that VVomen and Children would quickly be made more profiting Graduates than themselves If any Traders in Humane VVisdom are angry at this discovery for a while yet let them observe the workings of convictions by this Scripture Light upon their minds and they will when more considerate bring in a Testimony for Christ and for his VVord if they will be so ingenuous as freely to communicate their Experiences For my hopes do promise to my self that I shall have most mens Consciences with me in this Cause though my fears do threaten that most mens corruptions will be against me for this Cause Having led the Reader thus far along in his Way I suppose that now his Expectations are raised to meet with somewhat of weighty Inquiry about the Works of Creation on the several Days the clear distinct knowledge whereof may have a direct tendency and an apparent profitableness for the Restauration and Instauration of Arts and the Advancement and Augment of Sciences such of both these as are useful and so far as they are thus useful and all in a clean way of Pure Religion The first Great Inquiry at my Entrance shall be this Q. Whether was the LORD Jesus Christ Jehovah as his Father is Jehovah and as the Spirit of his Holiness is Jehovah they one Jehovah Whether he were appointed by his Father and Anointed by his Spirit to be One Mediator the only LORD and Lawgiver And whether he were the Creator of all things as the Father is Creator and as the Holy Spirit is Creator they the Creators And whether is not this included in the first words of the Holy Scriptures Bereashith baraa Aelohim and in that word Jehovah who presently in the very next Verse after the short History of the Creation is said to be the Creator and Maker THe renewing of the wonderful Works of Creation in the rare secrets thereof will be found in holy experience to be no derogation to the admirable Works of Redemption in the great Mysteries thereof when once it shall be made to appear that he who was the Creator is the Redeemer too and that one great Cause why the Redeemer is no more believed and adored is for that this Creator is no more credited and exalted It is mainly with a design of Honour to that Christ whom my Soul loves that I am ingaged in this Printing-war against such an Host and so many Armies of Philosophick Giants and of Hellish Forces In his Name and Authority with the Sword of his Spirit which is the Word of God shielded by Faith I am called to go forth against them all I therefore begin with this because Jehovah Christ himself is the Captain of created Hosts whose cause is the justest and whose side will be the strongest It is he who doth Banner it above ten thousand To him I resort as to an Almighty Warrier Whoever thou be that wilt give this Treatise the reading and considering do not look upon it as a low mean enterprise â—s if it were a subject-matter too beneath a Minister of Christ in his first printed Essay in such an Age of growing Light of abounding Knowledge of fruitful experience of prophetical discoveries of raised expectâ—tions of 〈◊〉 Christianity of many Scholastick Tractates published by the generous minded and learned Virtuosoâ—s of the Times For this design understood and improved according to its true worth and real usefulness will be found to be a great improvement in the Commonwealth both of Learning and of Religion by reviving the glorious Creation by restoring of Primitive Christianity by directing 〈◊〉 Studies aright into the only way of sound proficiency to Honour of Christ and the Reputation of his Word in the both Temporal and Spiritual the present and eternal good of the Sons and Daughters of Adam Christ hath magnified upon all his Name his Word The Portion of his Friends shall be to observe his Words such will he teach goodness of reason a savoury sense for they have believed in his Commandments O how sweet are his saying to their Palate more than Honey to their Mouth Their steps shall be firmly directed in his saying for his Servants love it and him will they hear Rise up O Aelohim Plead thou thy Plea That the passage here may be the more cleared I shall publish somewhat about the lawfulness of mentioning that great and glorious Name Jehovah and not only so but further also about the profitable use of it and further yet that it is a duty at fit seasons in its place actually to give it a vocal expression especially now in these later days though not only the superstitious Jews but many Philosophick Christians do declaim against the use and naming of this Word There are in the Hebrew Tongue several Names by which the great LORD over all doth call himself Some are Names of Essence Others are Names of Power Some others are Names of Preheminence and LORDship and Superiority Another of his Highness Amongst them all this proper Name Jehovah has its excellingness It doth set him out as that All glorious he who alone ever was now is and ever will be He alone who so is that he cannot Not-be all created Existences have their Being from him and were not only made by him but have also their continued conversation by him so that their subsistency is in him In him they are they live they are moved This is the confession of rational Nature All things are for him for this end has he given them their Being that they might be to his Glory It is he who puts a Being into his Words turning them into Works All the Promises in him are Yea and Amen he himself being the Interpreter It is he the same who gives a Being to the New Creature and doth uphold it in its Existence Of him and by him and unto him are all things To him be Glory for ever The Creator who in the beginning of the History of the Creation is called Aelohim or the Judging-adored-Almighties who spake particular Existences into their Essences he is named Jehovah joyned with Aelohim in the close of that History he that made the Heavens and the Earth was Jehovah Aelohim q Some parts of this Word are often put either
what is spoken of the Almighty Jehovah in the one hundred and second Psalm that he aforetime had founded the Earth and that the Heavens were the Work of his hands this same is applyed unto Christ as done by him The same Author of that Epistle doth apply unto Christ as his voice which should be obeyed the which in the ninety fifth Psalm is the voice of Jehovah the God of his people That which in the Relation made known to John the LORD Christ doth say is meant of himself that he is the beginning and the end the first and the last the same doth Jehovah speak of himself in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah It is one of Christ's Names in the Book of Jeremiahe Jehovah our Righteousness according unto which doth Paul speak in his former Epistle to the Corinthians that Christ is of God made Righteousness unto those who are his and in his later Epistle to him he saith that they are made the Righteousness of God in Christ This Jehovah is one Jehovah So saith Moses Hear O Israel Jehovah our God Jehovah one The same said Christ in his Gospel Hear O Israel the LORD our God the LORD is one which the Scribe unto whom the LORD Jesus Christ spake that did acknowledge Master thou hast well said in Truth that there is one only God and there is none other but he the which is said by Christ to be an understanding answer Thus speak Jehovah Christ the Almighty the Rock of his people in the Book of Moses See now that I I he and no God with me For who Aelohim besides Jehovah and who a Rock except one God Thus David in the eighteenth Psalm which Rock was Christ as Paul expounds The same speaketh the Prophet Isaiah Thus saith Jehovah the King of Israel and his Redeemer which is also a further proof of the Jehovahship of Christ this Being in the Prophets applyed to the Redeemer the which Redeemer is one of Christ's Names both in the Old and in the New Testament thus saith Jehovah of Hosts I am the first and I am the last and besides me there is not God And again in the same Prophet I Jehovah and none more besides me no God To this well agreeth the Testimony of Paul we know that there is none other God but one To us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we for him and one LORD Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him which in another place the same Apostle doth again witness there is one LORD one God A clear revealing and a distinct opening of this great Mystery doth John set before us in his first Epistle there are three that bear Record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Spirit and these three One are There is none Holy like Jehovah for there is none besides him And there is no Rock like our God so Hanna confessed in her Prayer Thus David when a word was brought to him from Jehovah by Nathan the Prophet about the building of an House to Jehovah by Solomon Thou art great Jehovah God for there is none like thee and there is no God than thou alone And again in that Song of his Deliverances Who is God besides Jehovah and who is a rock except our God Agreeingly with this was that passage in Solomon's Prayer at the Dedication of Jehovah's House Jehovah the God none else This was Naaman's confession when he was cleansed of his Leprosie and spake of Jehovah Israels God I know there is no other God in all the earth Thus Hizkiah in his Prayer to the Faces of Jehovah O Jehovah thou thy self thou alone the God thou Jehovah God alone Nehemiah has the like breathing in his Prayer Thou that Jehovah alone God is one saith Paul in his Epistles to the Galatians Isaiah bringeth in Jehovah himself thus speaking I he he Jehovah before me was no God formed neither shall be after me And again Is there a God besides me I know none And again thus saith Jehovah thy Redeemer I Jehovah alone Again Am not I he the Jehovah and there is no God more besides me and a just God and a Saviour there is none but I. The like in Hoseah I Jehovah thy God from out of Egypt therefore shouldest thou know no God but me alone for there is no Saviour besides me How good is that true Word which Zeehariah hath foretold Jehovah shall be King over the whole Earth in that day Jehovah shall be one and his Name one Who will give us to see that we know and acknowledge this and may cause it to return into our heart that Jehovah he God in the heauens above and the earth beueath and none else O give we to Jehovah the Glory of his Name O that our our hearts were united to fear this Name Jehovah hath said that he will exalt him that doth acknowledge his Name My Soul bless thou Jehovah and all my inward parts this Name of his Holiness The Name of Jehovah is a Tower of Strength the Righteous shall run into it and be set in an high place of safety Great is Jehovah and he will do Great Things for his Great Name sake This Jehovah Christ was appointed by his Father and Anointed by his Spirit to be the one Mediator the only LORD and Lawgiver This now cometh next to be considered he is the Mediator he is the One Mediator he is the LORD he is the only LORD he is the Lawgiver he is the only Lawgiver To all and to every of this he was appointed by his Father and Anointed by his Spirit He is the Mediator A Mediator as Paul doth describe him in his Epistle to the Galatians is a middle one between others one that puts himself betâ—â—een to come between two parties for a Mediator is not of one but he has 〈◊〉 unto two persons or parties that do by the means or Ministery of this middle one treat about somewhat wherein they are both concerned either by way of mutual Messages to know one anothers minds or to be kept in Union and in Love or to be reconciled where the parties are at variance and should be set at one The two parties here under present consideration are Godâ— and Man as Paul writes in his first Epistle to Timothy where he doth affirm this Mediator to be the Man Christ Jesus The Man who was God Man God manifested in the Flesh as he says in the same Epistle That Man who was Gnimmaunâ— elâ— God with us the Almighty or the Potentate or powerful one with us as speaks the Prophet Isaiah He was God who purchased his Church by his own Blood as Paul declared to the Elders of the Church of Ephesus For such a Mediator became us as had the Natures of both those parties in one whole Christ between whom he came
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
of whom Micab foretold that he should come out of Judah for to be a Ruler and whose goings forth are of old from the days of Eternity which in the Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ is spoken of this Gâ—immanu el God with us Thus the Prophet Zachariah describes him at the least in the Type He shall sit and bear sway upon his Throne and he shall be Priest upon his Throne This was the voice of the Angel to Mary concerning Christ The LORD God shall give unto him the throne he shall be King for ever and of his Kingdom there shall be no end This is to be known for certain that God hath made him for a LORD him hath God by his Right Hand exalted for a Prince and Saviour Thus did Peter openly confess him before men This Jehovah Christ hath reigned he is reigning and will reign How high is that Majesty with which he is clothed He hath girded himself with strength Stable is his Throne from then from the Time that he has been from before any created Time as we now measure it he from Eternity He by the Authority of his Mediatoral Office has Royal Prerogatives to pass Acts of Grace to grant Pardons to particular returning sinners to speak the Peace of this into the conscience to give the joy and comfort of this into the heart Christ had a Glory with his Father before this World was and a love from his Father before the Foundation of this World as the LORD Christ himself doth acknowledge in his holy heavenly Prayer to his Father as John has recorded it He is high above all the people let the earth be glad let the many isles rejoyce Come let us shout joyfully to this Jehovah let us shout triumphantly to the rock of our Salvation For Jehovah a great God and a great King above all gods He is the King of Righteousness and the Prince of Peace All kings shall bow down unto him and all nations shall serve him Christ is the only LORD him only must we serve So doth Christ interpret Moses and so did the Prophet Samuel teach Let us hear the LORD Jesus himself speaking thus in the Book of his Generation One is your leader even Christ One is your Father which is in heaven One is your Master even Christ Paul doth write in the Epistle to the same purpose we have One LORD Jesus Christ And again There is one LORD And in another place He is the blessed and only mighty LORD the King of kings and LORD of lords He is the Head of the Church His Office is so appropriate unto him as that his Priesthood cannot pass unto any other but remaineth in himself for ever There is no other Name given us under Heaven whereby we may be saved Thus calls him The only LORD God and our Lord Jesus Christ speaking of that peculiar propriety that the called ones who are sanctified have in him He trode the Press alone and there was none of the Nations with him Thus did Isaiah hold forth Christ's Kingly Power and his Princely Government in redeeming and saving of his Elect and in subduing and destroying of his Enemies as saith the same Prophet in another passage of his Book The Father hath given him the Nations for his Inheritance and the ends of the Earth for his Possession His Dominion shall be from Sea to Sea His Scepter is a Righteous Scepter he hath loved Righteousness and hated iniquity He shall judge the people with Righteousness and the poor meek ones with judgement and equity He is the Rulling One by his Power from ever Jehovah hath firmly prepared his Throne in the Heavens and his Kingdom ruleth ouer all His Kingdom is a Kingdom of all Eternities and his Dominion in every Generation and Generation Behold the Arm of this LORD Jehovah shall Rule His Enemies shall be made his Foot-stool and in the mean time he shall Rule though in the midst of them How great and wonderful are thy Works LORD thou Almighty God Just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints Who should not fear thee LORD and Glorifie thy Name For thou art alone Holy For all Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy Judgements are made manifest All Nations shall can thee blessed Blessed be Jehovah God the God of Israel who dost marvellous things thy self alone And blessed be the Name of thy Glory for ever And let all the Earth be filled with thy Glory Amen and Amen! This Christ is the Lawgiver Thus was it spoken by Isaias the Prophet a Jehovah is our Judge Jehovah is our Law-giver or Statute-maker Thus was it prophesied by Jacob concerning Christ at the least in Type that the Scepter should not depart from Judah and the Law-giver from between his Feet until Shiloh come The Saviour the Safe-maker the Author of Prosperity of Tranquillity and unto him the obedience or the gathering of peoples Christ was to spring from Judah as an after birth which as is implyed should be of the Flesh of a Woman according to which Prophesie and promise Jehudah is said to be the Law-giver in the sixtieth and in one hundred and eighth Psalms He it was who formed Decrees and who made Laws He was at the least figured by that Law-giver who was with the Princes and Nobles of the People when with their Staves they digged and delved the Well at Beer and of the same did Moses speak concerning the Tribe of Gad when he declared the Blessing and the Portion the Provision and the Protection to be from this Law-giver Christ himself calleth the Law his Law in the seventy eight Psalm wherein he himself speaketh unto his people for so the holy Spirit doth expound it in the Book of Christ's Generation when he opened the parable of the Sower and of the Seed One of the Laws of loving one another in bearing one anothers burdens is in express words said to be the Law of Christ by Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians It was Jehovah Christ who spake and gave the Law of the Ten Words at Mount Sinai when God's Chariot the twice ten thousand thousands of Angels were there This Lord was with them He it was the same who ascended on high who led captive a Captivity who had taken gifts in Adam among or unto men For of this LORD Jesus Christ doth Paul teach us to understand this place in his Epistle of the Ephesians where speaking of this One LORD he saith when he ascended into the height he took Captivity captive and gave gifts unto men Now this he ascended what is it but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the Earth he that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the Heavens that he might fill all things This was that Angel of the LORD who appeared to Moses in the Wilderness of the Mount Sinai in a flame of
fire out of the midst of a Bramble-bush which Angel of Jehovah was Jehovah God the same who spake the living Words at Sinai which he writ by the Finger of God and delivered them unto Moses to give unto the people as Stephen doth apply it in that defence which he made for himself against the Council The same Angel of Jehovah's Presence spoken of in Isaiah which Angel was Christ sent to be a Mediator between God and Man of whom Moses wrote long before who was Jehovah who led the Israelites by day in a cloudy Pillar and in the night by a fiery Pillar to light them in the way wherein they should walk who came down upon Mount Sinai and spake with them from Heaven and gave them Righteous Judgements and Laws of Truth good Statutes and Commandments and who made known unto them his holy Sabbath and he commanded them Precepts and Statutes and a Law by the hand of his Servant Moses as Nehemiah had declared This also is held forth by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews who shews that it was the Voice of Christ which moved the Earth when he gave the Law at Sinai he who came down from Heaven as Christ himself speaks of himself in what John writes of him relating to some passages in the Wilderness He who is the LORD from Heaven He who is the Hammedabber in Daniel the speaking one which Speaker the Hebrews were exhorted to take heed they did not reject That which the Author of that Epistle doth refer unto in the Prophet Haggai about moving not only the Earth but also Heaven is further note-worthy in what goes immediately before and doth bring it in yet now be strong thou Zerubbabel saith Jehovah thus doth the Father incourage to the building again of the Temple and be strong thou Jehoshuah Son of Josadak high Priest and be strong all the people in the Land saith Jehovah and work for I am with you saith Jehovah of Hosts with my Word this is one of Christ names in whom I made a Covenant with you when you came out of Egypt and my Spirit that abideth among you For thus saith Jehovah of Hosts once again a little it shall be and I shall cause the Heavens and the Earth and the Sea and dry Land to shake The Father made a Covenant with that people in Christ the Angel of the Covenant Christ was there when they covenanted with him in the Wilderness and his holy Spirit was there It was for his words sake for his Christs sake that this favour was shewn him as also other Scriptures compared do manifest Moses wrote of Christ who had Testimony from the Law Moses and the Law did bear witness of Christ and brought in Articles of charge which accused those Jews that did refuse the Messias when Christ was transfigured Moses appeared together with Christ in Glory CHrist is the only Law-giver the Apostle James doth manifest this fully saying There is one Law-giver who is able to save and to destroy he is the only One. To speak according to the Scripture his Law is a Kingly Law This is one of the chief blessings and one of the chief priviledges of his Covenant people This Jehovah is their Statute-maker as saith the Prophet Isaiah This Jehovah is their King he their Saviour he will deliver and preserve them He is made unto all those who obey him the efficient cause of eternal Salvation It is he who prescribes Laws and who constitutes the Rule of Life The Greatest and the Highest of earthly Princes is a Subject to this King of kings and LORD of Lords When this Supreme Governour had proclaimed his ten Words or Commandments he gave them unto Moses who was King in Joshurun that he might bring them to the people and might see the Judicial Laws duly executed when any were fount to be transgressors of the ten Words The Magistrate is to take care that both the Tables of this Law be well kept The King who was set over the people of Jehovah Christ was the write for himself the Copy of this Law in a Book and it was to be with him and he was to read therein all the days of his life that he might learn to fear Jehovah his God to keep all the Words of this Law and these Statutes to do them that his heart be not lifted above his brethren and that he turn not aside from the Commandment to the right hand or to the left to the end he may prolong his days in his Kingdom he and his Sons This was the charge which Jehovah Aelohim gave to Joshuah the Commander and Leader of his people The Book of this Law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou mayst observe to do all that is written in it for then shalt thou make thy way prosperous and then shalt thou deal understandingly Have not I commanded it thee be strong and couragious Moses as holy as he was as highly favoured as he was and as wise a Governour as he was yet had nothing left to his prudential determining but as he was told and shewn in the Mountain so must he declare what those Laws and Judgements were which to observe He must keep exactly to the prescribed Pattern And it is recorded to his commendation that he did so causing all things to be done as Jehovah commanded him Thus King David received Commandments by the Spirit by the hand of Jehovah in a written Word and to this Rule must King Solomon keep And so should the Superiour Powers to all Generations We are not to attend to advert or to give our minds to such commandments of men as do turn away Truth or as do turn away from the Truth Thus wrote Paul to Titus O what Laws Statutes and Judgements are so holy just and good as those which Jehovah Christ hath given would it not be the wisdom and the understanding of Nations to walk according to these How daring is the attempt for any man or men to think to change these Laws why do the Heathens tumultuously rage and the peoples meditate vanity The Kings of the Earth set themselves and the Princes do plot together against Jehovah and against his Christ Let us break the bands of the Father and of the Son and cast their cords from us This is the rebellious Language of such a would cast off all sign of subjection O who will give that Kings were prudent that the Judges of the Earth were nurtured To serve this Jehovah with fear and to be glad with trembling To kiss the Son lest he be angry and they perish in the way when his anger shall burn suddenly O the happy straight progress of all that hope for safety in him To all and to every of this that has been forementioned Christ was appointed by his Father and anointed by his Spirit The Father
do these therefore greatly err because they know not the Scriptures nor the power of God A. There is no ground in Scripture nor in Nature to affirm three Regions of the Air lower middle and higher as vain Philosophers do in their Physicks as if then immediately above that were the Region of Fire next under the Orb of the Moon Such a partition of the Air into three several Regions I find not either in the original Text or in created beings As also neither is there such an enumeration in the word or works of Christ as ten coelestial Spheres or Heavens The Sun Mars Jupiter Saturn the Starry Heaven the Christalin Heaven the first Mover It is an humane Figment this The Scriptures do inform us of a third which is the highest Heaven and in this discovery must we acquiesce Jehovah Aelohim has builded his stories and hath planted his lofts in the Waters But those Waters are such as are above all these visible Heavens above this blew Expanse over our Heads which our eyes do sometimes behold and the place of these upper Waters is over the North part of the Heavens This visible expanded is Diacritical or Distinctive between the upper and lower Waters This extent or well compacted firm out-spread was made much for this end dividingly to separate between these two Waters so as that they might not be joyned together in one It was and is an intermediate orderly disposed distinction between them between somewhat that was above and somewhat that was below which therefore also is not the very highest and utmost boundary of the created World as divers of the Ethnick Sophists asserted who would have it their Super-AEther or Coelum Daemoniacum where they did place the chiefest of their Idols which were the Planets and Stars thereof because they seemed to them to be the highest and greatest and most glorious of all visible created beings Whereas it is but a middle partition From above this doth the Rain come The higher Heaven doth give it down it doth descend from hence A Call must be given to the Heaven above to give down Rain to Aelohim there He sometimes makes the higher Heaven as Iron and Brass He shuâ—s the Heaven when he doth hold back the Rain It is he that doth open or shut the Cataracts of Heaven There are Aelohim's upper Chambers There are the inner retiring Rooms His lofts are planchered in those upper Waters There are the Waters bound There is Aelohim's Tabernacle extended These Waters are some of his Treasures which he openeth when he gives down rain There are the Treasures of Snow and of Hail Man on earth cannot reach them with his eye There is a Gate of the Heavens there are bottles of Heaven above this expanded is the Throne of Aelohim Hence is the Water distilled It is from the ordination and command of Aelohim that this is So that all the watry clouds and bottles do come down first from above the Azure Expanse So that Rain is water distilled from the Waters above the extended What I have here written about Rain is also applicable to Snow Hail Dew and such like under the general comprehensive name of Waters It is Jehovah Aelohim who is the causer of the Rain None can cause it but himself not the vanities of the Heathens none of the Ethnic Idols not Sun or Moon or Stars neither can the Heavens of themselves give showers Who but he can cause it It is an immediate gift from him Why has not Egypt rain ordinarily if there were such natural causes of it as men pretend Rain comes down from the Heaven but it doth not return thither It is spoken of the higher not of the lower Heaven If the Sun did draw it up again then it would return thither again Which Jehovah himself doth expresly deny It so cometh as the word cometh originally out of his mouth who speaks from out of Heaven It is the Rain of Heaven The Heavens drop it down when it doth water the earth It is a visit from Jehovah Aelohim and how sweet would that meditation be were it spiritually improved Did we so receive it as a token of his special love when it is sent in mercy to us and not in a way of Judgement The new creature might be much aedified by the old creation Rain-water is not River-water neither is it Sea-water It has differing properties different causalities and different effects It comes not originally from these here below but from the River of God above It comes from his Throne and what a raised contemplation is that to an experienced Believer that has free converse with Christ in the Spirit It comes in his errand with a message from him It is he that sends it Jehovah Christ will come down as Rain that is from out of Heaven The Chambers of these Waters are above whence showers cannot be given down till the LORD open the Heavens The Flood-gates of Heaven are opened when Rain comes down though sometimes these are opened more as they were in Noah's days and as they are when they are longer and greater showrings in a vindictive or chastising way Although ordinarily it do distil in drops which is a wise careful good providence to quench the thirst of every herb and grass yet some Seamen who do take long Voyages do speak that there are seasons when they meet with spouts of water which do much endanger great Ships The small and the great Rain are both of them Jehovah's strength He puts forth his Almighty power in this creature His own arm is here made bare This is one of those marvellous things he doth which we cannot so fully comprehend If any carping Reader be secretly framing an exception or objection against this discovery from one or two mis-understood Scriptures in our English Translation he should consider that there is a sweet harmony and good agreement in the whole Scripture thou must so interpret one Scripture as that it may not clash with the rest what doth seem obscure in one or two places must receive light from the many others which are clear upon a deep research into this matter I find a pleasant concord And therefore this question has been propounded not to minister occasion to any quarelsome objector or angry contender or wrangling opposer For men of such Spirits and Frames are not promoters of useful Sciences nor advancers of profitable learning but to put such as are of humble inquiring Spirits upon further searchings after the mind of Christ about these sort of knowledges The Rain hath no created natural Father Aelohim and he alone is the Father of it These water-courses are from above from on high The waters are poured from the same place that the holy Spirit is that is from the Throne above For thus these waters do set out the gifts and graces of that good
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
Whether one sick may live or die what their Disease is and when recover Oh what bold daring attempts are these thus to intrude into the hidden Secrets of the Soveraign LORD Magnonem and Megnonenim were Planetaries such as by the contemplation of the Planets professed that they could know and foretel future things The Israelites were not to tolerate such from hence came in the idolatrous worshipping of the Planets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Jugler a deluder of the eye-sight Cosheph by a transposition of the Letters is Auspex Auspicium a Sooth-sayer Sooth-saying and hence by conversion of the radical Letters is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fascino fascinum to transform or disfigure figure by Enchantment to Bewitch These do exercise Jugling and by Magick Arts they do mischievous acts changing somewhat natural to the beholding of the eye that it may appear somewhat else than it is Cocceius on this word doth confidently affirm that without doubt by these were noted the Prophets of Devils amongst the Heathen boasting of society and instinct or such as under the name of Natural Science did exercise diabolical Arts Exorcists Witches devilish Artizers They are expresly condemned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is one who doth prophesie and tell things to come by a devilish spirit that is in him swelling with it like a bottle when he uttereth his Oracles one that has an evil spirit speaking inwardly from his Belly Hence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Serpent the Devil speaking in the Serpent so it was in his tempting of Eve this is a kind of Divination or a sort of Magick Art when a man had an evil spirit in him giving forth answers whom some did worship as their God when the Devil out of a swollen big Belly gave forth answers to those who asked him concerning some past present or future things These Magicians or Witches being possessed by an evil unclean spirit spake his Oracles with an hollow voice as out of a Bottle sometimes in Statues othertimes in Caverns Dens or hollow places of the Earth and in the swollen bellies of men or in the joynts or armholes or armpits making the Devil to come up out of the Sepulchres of the dead or some underground place This is condemned in Scripture the Hebrew Pethen is Python Asp a kind of a very venemous Serpent which cannot be perswaded by Inchantment Those Monthly Prognosticators spoken somewhat of and against before do very much impose upon the credulity of the ignorant and superstitious such are the foretelling Almanakers The word Almanack in Low Dutch is said as it were Al-maen-acks that is a consideration or observation of all the Moons of an whole year or according to the opinion nf some others is said to signifie in the Arabick Chaldean and Hebrew Tongues a Number or Numeration Joseph Scaliger affirmeth that the Arabians called a Calendar so adding their Article Al for some are perswaded that it is not a mere Arabian word but only received into custom with the Arabians Calendries though Nicholas Fuller doth apprehend it to be more ancient from the Egyptians who were famous for Astrology The Roman Senators and Nobles were so bewitched by these Astrological devices that they would scarce do a common action without scrupulously consulting their Ephemeris about the Signs Planets and Stars and the Christian Emperours ran into the same guilt who would not attempt any change without first asking counsel of the Stars in their publick and private affairs resorting to the luminary Tables of Astrologers The Judiciary Astrology or Divination by Stars hath so far extended its prognosticating black Art as that it undertakes to determine not only probably but also certainly every man's Lot Portion Fortune as they Paganishly speak issues events and ends whereas there are no true necessary causes of these to be found in the Stars so that implicitely at least the practitioners therein do oblige themselves to the Devil and daringly fight against plain prohibions in Scripture How can they answer that expostulation of Jehovah with Job knowest thou the Ordinances of Heaven Canst thou dispose the Dominion thereof in the Earth These Artists do not know the certain moment of a man's Nativity at so great a distance of years when they were not present at it the arising of the Signs has a Latitude and a small difference in time they themselves do acknowledge doth make a great difference and some Astronomers do affirm that the same Aspect of Stars hath scarce returned from the beginning of this World Astrologers are yet at an uncertainty among themselves how the Houses are to be divided how far their influencing forces do reach and what Signs they should use How great a variety is there amongst them about the diffance of Planets between themselves with much more that might be added though Gaffarellus hath feigned an Hebrew Alphabet in the Coelestial Figures and that the putting of Letters together gives a certain meaning Thus the Devil abuseth them to whom as to a Doctor and Interpreter Judiciary Astrologers do apply themselves This consulting with such Diviners is very pernicious both in respect of its Original which is wicked as also of the event which doth often torment and vex men before the time for if evil be foretold shall befal a man the fears of it do sadden the spirit and make him miserable before the evil actually come and if it be some good that is promised the frustrating vain disappointing expectation thereof doth so bind up their deceived imagination that it leaves them in a sluggish distemper and they do not make out after better things and however what is so foretold doth sometimes come to pass yet it should be remembred that often times they miss Divers by the perspicacity of their Nature and by long experience may conjecture many things which they would have their disciples to ascribe to Stars Planets and Signs and the force of imagination is such that those who ask counsel of Astrologers do sometimes fall into the evil they fear and sometimes attain the good they pursue Sometimes the LORD in just judgement doth suffer Satan to inflict such evils as he foretold should come to pass Sometimes it is merely providential as to God and wholly conjectural as to men Thus some young men feigned themselves to be Mathematicians and they conjectured and foretold what was true and came to pass ◠and if they sometimes so fall out to be as is divined such consultings therefore are the more to be avoided for where there is neither institution in Scripture nor causality in Nature there is the greater suspicion of some latent diabolical fraud The Pythoniss in the Acts was a true Witness in that particular yet was she possessed with a spirit of divination Society and compacts with Devils both explicit and implicit are very formidable and altogether to be abhorred Consulting with such evil spirits is full of dangerous curiosity of tormenting
solicitude and of deadly slavery To consult the Devils Oracles in doubtful cases is Apostacy from and denying of the true God and to resort for divining unto one that hath a Familiar is a seeking to and a worshipping of the Devil So is Sorcery and Necromancy where the Devil is sought unto in the form of some dead man the Devil appeared in the likeness of Samuel it was not the true Samuel but mere illusion of Satan for God had refused to answer Saul by Prophets such as Samuel was Saul is said to have died for his Transgression principally in that he sought and asked counsel of a familiar spirit Sooth-saying by the flying and noise of Birds is also condemned usually the care of persons in this case is to avoid the seeing or the hearing of such kind of ominous signs which would signifie nothing as to good or evil in themselves in this matter were it not for the consent of the observer they have no force efficacy or operativeness at all this way were it not for the superstitious conceits of the mind when it is diligently bended and intentively turned to them whereby divers things do befal divers men according to the diversity of their thoughts and imaginations Of the like Nature is divination by looking into the entrails of Beasts so did the King of Babel who consulted with Idols and looked into the Liver so is star-gazing charms mumbling of words for such an end casting of Figures for this purpose and the like There should not be any found among us that useth witchcraft or is a regarder of times or a marker of the flying of Fowls or a Sorcerer or a Charmer or that consulteth with Spirits or a Sooth-sayer or that asketh counsel of the dead To a seeking unto these the holy Spirit doth oppose a Prophet as the only lawful Minister of God to know his Will by To ascribe such a special foreknowledge or foretellingness indicated by the positure of Stars which might rule over the consciences and wills of voluntary Agents is contrary to that Soveraign Authority which the LORD doth exercise over the wills of men bowing and bending moving and directing them which way he pleaseth and therefore such a power is not to be arrogated by any mere Creatures Angels themselves whether good or bad have not such an innate Light in them as of themselves to know future particular contingents before hand neither can the intellect of man so foreknow Astrologers therefore not having their pretended prescience and prognosticating skill either by Divine Revelation or by Natural Causalities they have it by diabolical suggestion That knowledge of determinate future things which any really have by Divine Revelation is Prophesie and not Divination Such prying curiosity as has neither Scripture or Nature to bottom upon is experienced and bewrayed to be the common disease of the vain itching mind of fallen unquiet man from hence has sprung this troublesome question about Judiciary Astrologers who would bind men to fatal Stars as if the body of man were composed and fashioned according to the twelve Signs of Heaven as if the Moon had dominion in man's body under the twelve Zodiacal Constellations placing Aries in the Head and Face Taurus in the Neck and Throat Gemini in the Arms and Shoulders and from thence running through the other Signs into the other parts of the body even to the very soles of the Feet which they ascribe to Pisces Did the Authority of Christ and of his Word take more sensible hold of mens hearts they would tremble more and not dare to adventure upon those prohibited evils which the LORD hath so dreadfully threatned with such sore judgements that the soul which turneth it self unto Diviners and Prognosticators shall be cut off from the midst of his people Man or Woman when there is in them a familiar Spirit or that is a Wizard they shall be surely put to death they shall stone them with stones their bloods shall be upon them their death shall be upon their own head their own sin is the just cause of it and the Statute Law of England doth make many of those practices to be Felony which yet are commonly used in this Nation In the day when the LORD will honour himself by reviving of his Judicial Laws and by raising up of such as Josiah was a None-such for reformation in this kind to put those Laws in due execution when these evils are espied out one such Example in such an age of speculative and practical Atheism and Infidelity may be a more forcible argument with some than ten Scriptural reasons now are The certain knowledge of future particular contingents is that by which the true God is differenced distinguished from Idols The LORD doth nippingly touch and sharply check the vanity of this Art and the cheatingness of its Arrists and the ignorance and credulity of those who do yield themselves to be deluded thereby He doth sttaitly charge and sorely threaten such confident boasters of their Astrological skill In the Apostles time when the Doctrine of the Gospel did more obtain and prevail these black Arts were condemned and the Books that treated of them were burnt Those kind of evil practitioners are described by a Syriack word and so is the word in Chaldee and Samaritan too which doth designate and denote not only such Magicians as are plainly and evidently given to diabolical arts but also to such arts of Inchantment of Jugling deceiving by slight conveyance deluding the eye-sight with Legerdemain such curious illusory Arts which though to the ignorant and vulgar may seem to be otherwise yet really are wicked Artifices such are the feigned devices of Planetaries and Casters of Nativities and the Constitutions of some of the Christian Emperours have ordered that such Books of such Astrologers should be burned A large Volume might be quickly written on this subject matter but if the Word of the LORD be not submitted unto Who am I that I should think to silence these Adversaries by the force of my reasoning with them I therefore leave it with the LORD to plead his own cause in his own way in his own time If I have Instanced in some evil Arts which the Reader may apprehend do not so properly belong to Judiciary Astrology let him consider that this black Art doth spread it self wide and far and besides when I was upon this I was willing to bring in my Testimony against all that evil which sought for some protection from Judiciary Astrology and had some ways a Relation to it I now proceed to the Scripture discovery The Darkness Evening and Night were divided more generally before as to Time Place and Nature from the Light Morning and Day in their created Beings and successive courses and now they were further specially distinguished and pointed out by the Heavenly Luminaries Time was not first measured by the Sun for there was
Knowledges and personal reflexions be laid aside The Creatures were of several kinds and being Heterogeneous one from another they must consequently all of them be also Heterogeneous from the pretended pure primary Matter For this Matter being supposed by the Asserters of it to be one Homogeneous Substance in it self can never produce so many Heterogeneous Substances If the very Matter of Creatures were one and the same substantial principle in all Creatures and not different how could it produce contrary Entities and Activities and exercise contrary Operations The Word of Truth doth expresly confirm that the things which we see were not made of such things as do appear And we have need and use of special Faith to believe and to improve this aright As that the Heavens and the Earth were not this first general confused matter out of which after Creatures were made the Expanse was not made of the more refined part of this the Herbs Plants and Trees were not made out of the Earthy Matter the Luminaries were not made of the former Light Fishes Fowls Beasts Worms were not made of the Waters or Earth the first Adams Male and Female were not made of former Earth These were after Generations and Productions in the ordinary way yet of the same kind and it is a new Prooem beginning a new Narration Aelohim did not need as men do Stuff or matter to work upon not Tools or other Instruments neither used he the aid or help of any assistant It is by Faith that we come to have right apprehensions of this it is not wrought and attained by the strength of our natural reason but it doth shine in upon the mind from that credibility which is in and from that credence which is given to the Word of God and from the holy Spirits perswading of the heart that this word is the Truth Thus were all manner of Creatures fully and perfectly finished without any want defect or imperfection in them so far as concerned that state and condition the Creator made them in The Author or Efficient was Jehovah Aelohim the means of creating them was by the word of his Power whereby he manifested his Mind and Will Though all these were created and made yet not out of any thing that did or could appear there was no pre-existent matter whereof they were made The Essences and formalities of all Vegetative and Sensitive Natures are not only matter and motion Aelohim gave primitive Natures and different Beings to his several Creatures Universal Nature is both an empty name and an atheistical conceit If only matter were created in the first instance of Time as is pretended and pleaded how could this Matter diversifie it self in the Beginning into Heaven and Earth For local Motion being from one place to another which are several distant Terms must necessarily be in several instants of Time if several Local Motions were the Formalities or formal beginnings of all Spirits and spiritual Qualities then they should not be before nor after nor any longer than that Local Motion doth continue For the Formality of any thing is the very Specifick Being thereof and nothing can be without the Specifical Being of its self otherwise it should not be what it is or be what it is not It was the Spirit of Aelohim and not the first Matter that moved more especially upon the waters Created Beings may and actually do exist without any actual Local Motion and therefore they must necessarily really be different from it The Beginning of all things was not Water as one Ethnick Philosopher mis judged neither was infinite Air the first cause or original of every existence as another affirmed neither was this pretended Catholick Air God as a third esteemed neither did all things take their beginning from Fire and Light as a fourth would have it nor as another says that there is one Universal Fire in and over all things in this World neither is the beginning of all things the substance of the Fire by the Air converted into Water as was the opinion of one neither are there such Radical Principles of all things whereof two are Agents and two Patients as he asserts the Elements which was the imagination of another Creating AElohim was before any created Beings He alone was the Creator All things were made essentially solely immediately by him there was no help of secondary causes They had their Original and Being from him and they have still their dependence upon him and therefore is AElohim in this short yet complete History of the Creation expresly named above thirty times in the seven days of this one Week No mere Creature has Power of Creating It is the sole Prerogative of Jehovah AEtohim If created Beings and their substantial Spirits and all their spiritual Activities and Operations were only various Motions of the Matter or only Matter moving variously then Local Motion one way or other or any way whatsoever should be not only an instrumental causality or effect of these Bodies and their Qualities but also the very Essence and Formality as hath been said or formal cause of them Whereas all created Beings are formal every one of them such as they were severally created in their different kinds and as they are naturally distinguished from other Creatures in themselves in their own proper Being The Creatures may and several of them do exist and they are such as they are created without any actual Motion being more for rest As the blew expanse and the Earth Tâ—hu and Bohu were not Matter and Form The Jews and the Christians have learn'd this wrong conceit in the Schools of Ethnick Philosophers and then afterwards laboured to defend it by this place of Scripture I have on the work of the one day shewn the meaning of those words and things The four Elements as some name them called the simple Bodies were not fetch'd one contrary out of another as out of former Matter as neither Light out of Darkness nor the Firmament out of Emptiness nor dry Earth out of Waters Neither were the compound Bodies out of the same Elements nor for the most part of all four unequally mingled together Not every one principally out of the same Element which they garnish or inhabit As not Herbs and Trees out of the Earth Not the Sun Moon and Stars wholly or specially out of the Expanse Not Fishes out of the Waters not Birds out of the Air not Beasts out of the Earth all and every of the created Beings are of distinct Natures and of several kinds We must put a difference between the first Creation and the after propagation Those four great Bodies Aether Air Earth and Water are still locally and essentially separate one from another and do exist Pure They each of them have their proper Bodies of Matter their peculiar subsistences pure and unmix'd in the beginning of the Creation The several Creatures were created an Whole
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
this Soveraign LORD doth bottom upon a general belief of his Truthfulness So also are particular Acts of this Subjection where they are distinct and clear built upon some particular Belief of that Truthfulness as this veracity and goodness of Word Revelations do include and teach direct and hold forth The more we recover and are restored to those endowments which were concreated principles in Adam the more shall we discern and acknowledge the exactest obedience to be the highest equity and the best dutifulness to be the rightest reason Whether Adam's Faith whilst he continued and stood in his uprightness had or could have any eye to a Messiah for the rendring of his obediential Acts acceptable to Aelohim is one of those deep things which it may be even the most learned among Believers are not yet gone to the bottom of However this be the discovery here doth evidence the vanity insufficiency and unprofitableness of Ethnick Philosophy which doth run so many of its empty notions into unpractical Theories Whereas Word-Revelations in the most mysterious of its credibles is influential upon obedience and doth pass into Active doingness Which the Philosophick Schemes of Ethnick Systems have been are and will be defective in There is another Hebrew Word describing the Law of Jehovah taken from a root which doth signifie he took or he did receive and its proper meaning is Doctrine Perception Reception Discipline or a Law received which the Disciples of the Messiah sitting at his Feet do receive from him teaching them thier duty in his own words Let this be further improved by the diligent and discerning The fruitful propagating of Mankind by conjugal generation is still a fruit and effect of this first blessing from Aelohim upon Adam Holy Marriage being the lawful conjunction of one Man and of one Woman into one Flesh that there may be a seed of Aelohim was instituted by Christ himself This World was created much for the good and for the use of Man the lower Earth and Seas whereof are more subjected to him especially for the good of the chosen and believing That Royal Dominion by large free grant from Aelohim which Adam had by gracious Donation was over the whole Earth Jehovah hath given this Earth unto Adam and unto Adam's Sons Adam as an invited called guest found suitable provision prepared for him Amongst the rest he had Herbs seeding seed and Fruit-trees which did direct him and it doth still direct us in our choice of this kind of Food For there was a third sort of somewhat different kind created on the third day a sort of green buddings not so growing by sowing their seed or by Planting which is more properly the Food of other Animals This should be well considered that Man may well understand his Grant and may discern what is fit food for him of the Creatures made on the third day as well as those made on the fifth day For even living creatures mentioned before whether they were appointed not also to be Meat for Man many of them so they were need in a Scriptural orderly way their lives and bloods being first regularly taken from them and so prepared for meet Aliment as well as Herbs and fruit so that both these are to be taken into this grant of Food some Animals being naturally in their created essence clean wholsom Food as others are naturally in their created being unclean unwholsom food though otherwise useful for the good of Man yet not proper nutriment for him This also doth call for further search after it in the Scriptures As Aelohim would 〈◊〉 have Mankind propagated so also he would have individuals of that kind to be conserved For which end he appointed unto Adam suitable sustenance and well-agreeing nourishment Which singular Providence and special goodness of his is thankfully to be acknowledged and duly to be considered Seeing that they are not these creatures only that Man liveth by but by every word proceeding out of Aelohim's mouth His Word of power giving forth a command to such creatures to be nourishing unto the Religious Rational creature and his Word of promise speaking this Covenant blessing over the hearts of the believing ones And therefore before our Meals we should seek him in the Word and Prayer to bless and sanctifie his good creatures to our use And after our Meals we should close with Thanksgiving unto this God of Bounty to the Father who has freely given us their use to the Son who has dearly purchased this and to the Holy Spirit who sealingly applyeth this When Aelohim took a view of all that which he had made on this sixth day made adornedly really to exist as preparedly perfected he beheld it as good greatly abundantly vehemently validly good The Universal particle All seems here to be put for the number not of multitude of kinds so as to comprehend all and every of the several sorts of Creatures but of Unity relating to that one special eminent kind of Creature Adam all which in the singular Number as appears by the Adjective of the Singular Number good This being in the Singular Number not Plural Number There was much said and done on this sixth day yet all this Universal is restrained to Adam that excelling one of Creatures Who of us knows the all of that which was created in and con-created with Adam There is a great deficiency amongst us in this Science about Man So little do we understand of our selves Neither are we likely to grow any thing considerably in this knowledge of our selves as to our make either our first created-make or a new created-make as long as there is a reforting to vain Philosophy and its Ethnick Schoolmasters to be taught the knowledge thereof Although the Doctrine of Adam of Man as Man have but one peice and part of the created Works of Aelohim for its subject-matter Man being the product of the sixth day only and so as to days but one part and work of six a small portion of whole created Nature Yet this Man Science this Anthropological Art or the knowledge of a Man's self is one of the great designs of all other useful knowledge they do much aim at this and they have a tendency towards the promoting of this and without this how can other Sciences receive an advance by Man How is he in an hopeful way of improving of other sort of Learning who has not as yet attained to any considerable growth in the knowledge of himself The more we know of our selves the more shall we know of Jehovah Aelohim and of his Word and Works and then will these have reflexive Influence upon that for the more that we know of these the more shall we know of our selves And therefore let not the Reader misjudge this to be a subject too low for a Minister of Christ to treat of For we are commanded and required to examine our own
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
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
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