Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A54603
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Volatiles from the history of Adam and Eve containing many unquestioned truths and allowable notions of several natures / by Sir John Pettus ...
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Pettus, John, Sir, 1613-1690.
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1674
(1674)
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Wing P1912; ESTC R7891
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75,829
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198
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the nature of them even from the Cedar to the Hysop which Book of his is mentioned in the Holy Writ but is either utterly lost or conceal'd which is equal to us and is the great error of Mankind in not communicating what we know for by wanting these impartments we make most things diabolical which are onely Secrets of Nature unrevealed and thus we wilfully banish our selves out of the Paradice of Knowledge either by not seeing trying or inquiring into the nature of our selves or other Creatures or not freely imparting what we do know or foolishly condemning or censuring the kind and laborious impartments of others And hereupon even some of the pious Fathers of our Church were condemned as Hereticks for asserting the Antipodes which no Geographers now dispute and hence the Loadstone and other marvelous effects of the natures of other pieces of Creation were at first esteemed Witchery which now are safely allowed and hence came the loss of those Impartments of which Pancirollus hath writ a Book called De rebus perditis Some are of opinion that if the Original names of those Creatures were known we also should know their primitive and intrinsick natures which Adam did know when he first fix'd their distinct and different names And herein did God as it were entertain Adam and enrich his Knowledge by all the ways and progresses of the Creation teaching him the nature and constitution of all things so that there was no need of any addition but what God himsest imparted the other as I said was but Intoxicated Knowledge or a Fruit that would rather blind his Knowledge then improve it And yet for all these impartments and society God did not think Beasts fitting Companions for Man for he was to have the dominion over them and therefore not fit to be equal or meet Helpers to him so that as it were upon further consderation God saith again But as for Adam there was not found an Help meet for him So then in order to such an Helper Cap. 2. Verse 21. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam § 30. and he slept Here seems to be a supernatural and a natural sleep the supernatural which Adam fell into being caused by God for the end which was design'd the producing of Eve the natural sleep and he slept sleep being as adequate to nature as night to day or darkness to light In our natural we have Dreams in our supernatural Revelations and every such Revelation when true is an Eve or an Helper either in our Devotions or Actions But all the difficulty is to judge them and certainly they ought to be as evident and manifest to us as Eve was to Adam after he awaked for Phancy does so deceive men that we take those representations which we have in our sleep to be real which are but imaginary and the recreations which Nature affords us during the recess of our Spirits to be Divine Revelations which in truth are nothing but Chymera's I cannot say but God may impart such truths to us but then they will be always attended with some real and warrantable subsequences But here we find tht is lessened Adams Perfection after a nap he lost a Rib to shew that sleep in our best Constitution takes something from us in the abbreviation of our Lives And he took out one of his ribs and clesed up the flesh instead thereof The curiosity of Anatomists concerning our Ribs is not to be a rule to our belief in the Text or whether we should dispute of the truth from the number of those which remain for it is impossible to know what the Original of the number of Ribs were Deus accepit unam ex costis ejus illa est costa decima tertia lateris dextri Targ. Hier. Gallen affirms that Man hath now but eleven but according to the Jewish Targum Adam had thirteen and then the odd Rib being taken out twelve remain now Eve being made like to him she had then twelve Ribs also equal in number to those were left to him but accounting her whole self one Rib she had thirteen But to pass this the more general Anatomists hold that Man hath twelve Ribs whereof five are called true or perfect Ribs because they are Circular seven bastard or imperfect Ribs because they want that proportion Now there may be made a question Whether Eve were made of one of those which were perfect and circular or those which were imperfect for had he not parted with some of his perfection he could not so easily have fallen into error On the other fide had she been partaker of his perfection she would not so easily have been tempted or rather by dividing their perfection both of them became subject to imperfection Cap. 2. verse 22. And of the Rib § 32. which the Lord God had taken from Man made he a Woman The Latines use the word aedificavit or built to shew that she was to be an house or mansion place but the English translators use the word made And it is here observable that she was not said to be created as Man in the Image of God or after his likeness nor formed nor framed but Made a word of a lesser signification relating to the temperament of her body only Nor was she made of the dust or purer part of the Earth but of a Bone which is the hardest dryest coldest and most terrestrial part of Man according to Physicks Nor had she the Breath of Life breathed into her Nostrills but that Life Eve had went with the Bone Nor is it said she became a Living soul her soul being as it were the same or a Ray of his the truth is she was abstracted either out of a soporiferous temper which is all Phancy or from some suparnatural effluvium or that she was like him in his Creation unlike after the separation But this may be observed that when God made Eve he took a Rib from Adam and of it made Woman so that he could not but fall being lessened in the perfection of his Creation Now when Jesus was born of a Virgin God took that part from her which the woman had before from Adam so he became perfect as by this God did in a manner bring forth such a substantial revelation from Adam's sleep that it seemed to be a continued divine Apparition But as I said that there are two sorts of sleep so there are two sorts of Women the one Snpernatural and most civinely qualified the other meer Natural Fantastical and Quelque chose the first a revealed blessing from God the other only disturbers of the mind and distraction to mans quiet sleep and reposement But she was made of a Rib from whence it happens that mans heart which was surrounded all with Bones now lyes open so that all its Loves and desires had no fence against her for we see even Adam when God brought her to him so soon as he saw
VOLATILES FROM THE HISTORY OF Adam and Eve Containing Many unquestioned Truths and allowable Notions of several Natures By Sir John Pettus Knight LONDON Printed for T. Bassett at the George in Fleet-street 1674. To the Right Honourable LEISTER DEVEREVX Lord Viscount Hereford My Lord HAving the Honour of being your Neighbour in Suffolk it London and in our Publick Imployments and your Lordship knowing the occasion of my Writing upon this subject affords me some reasons of Dedicating this to your Lordship to shew you how I spent my time when I had any little leisure from business which I seldom neglected persuant to Antoninus advice that if one should ask me at any time what I was thinking I might be able to give an account of some worthy matter and therefore I made Choice of this Story which hath furnish'd me with above an 100 several Subjects which always fed my Thoughts with such safe Varieties that they fenc'd out the Consideration of other troubles which might have perplex'd them My Method of Writing I borrow'd from Malvezzi his Davido persecutato my Extravagant way from Mountaine who in his Essayes undertakes in one Chapter to write of Thumbs and yet not one word of them in all that Discourse for have observ'd in the Countrey that when I forsook the path which would have guided me to the place I design'd and cross'd the Pastures somtimes I started Hares somtimes sprang Partridges or observ'd some curious Plants which pleasures I had never injoy'd if I had confin'd my self to the path yet I kept my Eye on it least I should stray too far and return'd home by it and inliven'd or inrich't my thoughts with the Contemplations of what happen'd by my digressions Possibly these Excursions might have been more excusable to me in my Youth than in my Age but it is a solace to me that I can be yet youthful in my notions and if your Lordship please to peruse these as a Recreation your Lordship will very much Honour My Lord Your Lordships most humble Servant Jo. Pettus The Stationer to the Courteous Reader THere are some Errata's occasion'd by the Indisposition of the Printer for want of Orthography Comma's Conjunctions Parenthesis expunging of needless Adverbs mistakes of Singulars for Plurals which may be amended by the Ingenuity of the Reader upon the intended sense of the Sentence but the most material are viz. PAG. 14. l. 5. read sixteen and l. 18. r. graines p. 18. l. 1. r. Life p. 30. l. 10. r. Undermines and l. 25. r. humid part and l. 28. r. prae-efficient p. 40. l. 21. r. adjectively p. 79. l. 25. r. feminine p. 96. l. 4. r. tunes p. 110. l. 1. r. of p. 125. l. 30. r. are none p. 163. l. 13. r. Jonathan THE HISTORY OF ADAM and EVE Introduction IN the beginning Whilst all we can apprehend was God in the beginning of his manifestation of himself by Parts In the beginning of those Parts from whence we account the beginning of Time In the beginning when that Time was an Emanation of Eternity In the beginning when God afforded us Visibility out of his Invisibility God Created Heaven and Earth And from that Mass of Creation divers other parts were as we may say in respect of their Comparative Excellency also created as it appears Verse the 3. And God said Let there be Light Secondly And God said Let there be a Firmament Thirdly And God said Let the Earth appear Fourthly And God said Let the Earth bring forth grass Fifthly And God said Let there be Lights Sixthly And God said Let the waters bring forth Fowl Seventhly And God said Let the Earth bring forth Cattle So that there was a Septenary or seven Fiats and no more seven being a perfect number And those being done God begins with Man in another Dialect for instead of Let there be God said Let us make Cap. 1. ver 26. Now whether these words Let us are to be understood as more Majestically spoken or an Invocation of the Trinity imployed in the word Elohim Et dixit Dominus angelis mini strantibuscoram eo qui creati sunt die secundo creationis mundi Targ. Hier. or a summoning of Angels or other spiritual Instruments Or Let us that is let the Creatures which I have Created on the five former days together with such a Soul as I shall infuse into Man Let us make Man that is let man be constituted of Light Air Water and Earth and of the Qualities and Virtues of those and other Creatures and of a Soul peculiar to himself yet derivative in some manner from us his Creator and my other Creatures I shall not here dispute but leave it to other voluminous Writers For not onely the Dialect as I said concerning Mans creation is different but it is clear that Moses gives only a Concise Narrative of the things created before Man not imparting to us any circumstances used in their Creation But as to Man he gives a full and ample discourse from the seventh Verse of the second Chapter to the end of the same Chapter being wholly spent in it and indeed is but a Parenthesis proper to be read between the 26 and 27 Verses of the first Chapter the words Let us make Man in the 26 verse being either the Consultative part of Mans Creation or as Gods declarative Resolution so to do and the words in the 27th verse So God created man shews the compleating that deliberation or resolution And therefore I shall begin with those words of the seventh verse Chapter second And the Lord God made as being the beginning of the active part of his Creation and so descant upon that whole second Chapter and that being finished return to the 27th verse of the first Chapter So God created man and then to the 28 and 29 verses with which I shall conclude the first part of these discourses The second part shall begin with the 30th of the first Chapter because it is an Induction to the offences of the Serpent and thence pass to the whole third Chapter to which shall be added so much of the 4th and 5th Chapters as shall make the History and variety of discourses concerning Adam and Eve intire and pleasurable to the Reader and I hope without the least offence to the sacred Method or dissatisfaction to any The Notions which I have us'd herein are chiefly from my Notes out of Dr. Waltons Laborious and Learned Polyglotta some parts of St. Augustine Pererius Sir Walter Rawleigh Dr. Donne Paulus Lovatius Crook and some others cited on the Margin and if I have hit upon any others veins which I have not cited it is the error of my Memory not of my Gratitude so that till I know them I may be excus'd and if the Style and Method be somewhat above or out of the usual road it may be ascribed to my Education which hath been not like a Pedant but a Gentleman The Text of the first