〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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-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
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-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
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
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
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
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
not as they seem unto common capacaties upon mistaken grounds from erroneous principles but as the verity of their existence is Nomenclature doth shew how that Things and Beings are put into the Names of those Things and Beings and this by institution of Original significancy as the expressions do declare The Word and the Works of God are here held out to be Truth Mens errings do proceed from their not understanding of the Scriptures and of the Power of God not from the taking of Christ upon his bare word Holy Ones in the Word do disswade from Error and can we imagine then that the Word should shew men how to err would this have men still to continue in their being deceived to have them read and think that for true and certain which is false and misconceived Christ witnesseth of his words that there is nothing wreathed or perverse in them they are words of Truth and there is certainty in them being fitted to resolve questions to the satisfaction of inquiring Spirits The LORD 's wording of the History of the Creation is his first revealed Idea of all things manifest to rational Creatures The real Natures of Created Beings do directly answer to Scripture-speakings concerning them the things seen were things made and the Maker of them would have his own real perfections to be read in them How unavoidable would the many dangerous ill consequences be that will necessarily follow upon the contrary opinion how would all Foundations of credibility and of veracity be shaken and over-turned There is a clear and a constant evidence and demonstration of the senses well exercised and rightly judging amongst all reasonable Creatures all the inhabited Earth over in all the Ages of the World who have brought in one and the same Testimony concerning the reality of things as this word doth express them to be which is a full proof It is a Theological Truth of resolving the probation by senses into Scripture-expressions and of rectifying all deceits and mistakes of the Senses by the word-Rule It was and is the Scripture-way to prove things by Senses and to call upon Senses to bring in their Verdict according to Scripture Thus were all the proceedings in Jehovah's judicial Laws in all Cases wherein any matter of fact is to be witnessed and accordingly any matter of right to be determined as Justice Truth and Equity required Inward and outward senses regulated by the Word are great resolvers of weighty questions these Senses being every one of them differenced both in Nature and in Grace by their distinct proper and singular operation Scripture-words do not set out Created Beings as directly opposite to right-judging rational Senses Should we resort to humane reasonings and to carnal imaginations in these inquiries we could acquiesce here for these in several men at the same time and sometimes in one and the same man take him at several times are varying one from another and contrary to each other and often they are but shews and colours not the real things themselves whereas the Creator will have his Creatures to be a sensible Testimony to the Truth of His Word Those that do tremble at God's Word and who do stand in awe of its Authority do find sensible Demonstrations within them and evident arguments in the things themselves against such bold assertions as do call those expressions to be absurdities which are literal affirmations and down-right positions in this word and that do mis-name it to be servile superstitious fear to oppose the meaning of Scripture-phrases Remember that I write not now about Types Shadows and Figures contained in the word where the signs are sometimes put for the things signified thereby though here also there be some outward and visible thing truly represented to our senses neither about communication of properties whereby that is sometimes attributed to aâ— whole Person or Subsistence which agreeth to him but in respect of one of his Natures as when God is said to purchase this Church by his Blood which Blood properly doth appertain to Christ's Manhood and not to his Godhead but of Created Beings in their real Existences which are the same in Nature that the Scriptures do call them in name Scripture and Nature are uniformly concordant one with another and all the whole Scripture as well as all the whole Nature doth well agree with it self and therefore let it be further considered whether it were a sound and sober a solid and savoury answer in him who being urged with the plain express significant Letter of the fourth word or command for the Seventh-day-Sabbath doth lay down this for one of his premised propositions that though the Letter of the Text ought alway to be carefully heeded yet alway to stick to it and never compare Scripture with Scripture for the better understanding of the sense thereof may prove a dangerous snare which he applies in part unto a sticking to the Letter of the fourth Commandment without minding the scope sense and meaning of it bethinking that thereby a man shall cast a mist before his eyes which will exceedingly hinder him from the right understanding of the Mind of God therein If I should do so saith he of himself I shall find it so to be Thus he That Word of Christ unto one who inquired by what doing he should inherit eternal Life is here now with me What is written in the Law How readest thou that answer must we receive in and from this Law which is written in this Law and which we do read so written in it for this is still a right answer To compare Scripture with Scripture for the right understanding of that fourth Word has been already done and will be further performed when I come to treat professedly on that subject-matter when it will be made evident from the Word that the whole Scripture doth speak in its true proper literal significancy for the Seventh-day-Sabbath the scope sense and meaning of the fourth Command being altogether expresly for it If the Law of the Ten Words particularly of the Fourth be not literally expressive of their true right meaning I know not what of the Scripture is where every discerner at the first reading and hearing may presently know its meaning as will be further shewn Here as it is written so we read neither is it to be otherwise understood nor in any other sense to be taken than in that which doth first present it self to the intelligent Reader or hearer So far as we are under the Commandingness of this Law we are under all whatsoever it speaks this way and it speaks of the Seventh-day in express Letters and Words as the Sabbath exclusive of all the other six foregoing days of the same week which it nameth and calleth to be days for working in our particular Functions every Iota and Tittle thereof being ratified by Christ and therefore its Letter doth bind It appears to me to be
over confident this way as if they could give a particular punctual account of all and of every one of them One of them reckons one thousand two hundred forty and one visible to us Another of late has added one hundred thirty six Stars more which make up one thousand three hundred seventy and seven A third has observed some few more Johovah Aelohim Adonai has the peculiar honour of numbring and of naming the Stars which to Man is impossible Abraham was esteemed no mean Astronomer yet he could not number them There is not one day of the week for the Sun a second for the Moon a third for Mercury a fourth for Mars a fifth for Jupiter a sixth for Venus a seventh for Saturn as the Ethnick Philosophers do un-scripturally anti-scripturally name them and assign them their several days in the week For Sun Moon and Stars were all created on the Fourth day of the one Week of the created World There was not a several distinct Planet made on each several day of the Week Neither is the fourth day of the week unlucky or unfortunate as they call it It is not a curse as if Infants were more taken with the squincy on that day than on any other day of the week whence the superstitious custom of fasting upon that day And now O my Soul what was Adam and what is the Son of Adam that Jehovah Aelohim has created such a spangled Tent for Man to have it so spread over his Head If the out side pavement that leads the way to the new City and to the Holy of Holies be so shining O then how glorious is Christ's Father's House within and the many Mansions there If the purer Churches in the latter-day Glory will be fair as the Moon and clear as the Sun how beauteous then will the Church of the first-born be in Heaven If Pastors shall shine as Stars and the new created people luster forth as the Firmament if what is yet more all and every of the Righteous shall shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of Christ's Father O what a perfect day will it be when all these Suns shall shine together and what is yet more than all this when the Lamb shall be the Light of the new City and all those other lights almost dis-appear at the presence of the out-shining over-coming brightness of the LORD Jesus Christ himself there O blessed be Jehovah who giveth unto any in this Light to see to walk in and to enjoy any of this Light whilst they are here O for that day when the day-Star may more arise in the hearts of Saints as the Fore-runner of the arising of the Sun of Righteousness with healing in his wings The Fifth Days Work doth afford us this Inquiry 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 alone it can be advanced and perfected by a due and diligent comparing of their Created beings in their proper Natures Answ THis Natural History and Natural Art above these living Creatures can never attain to any considerable growing Augment much less to a through full discovery in the way of Ethnick Philosophy The restoring and finishing of this is no where else to be found but only in the Holy Scriptures by a due and diligent comparing of their created beings in their proper Natures An art when it is discovered aright is but Nature opened This art must be natural made up of Existencies and of Realities according to the truth of things in the Being of these Creatures That which is proper Art is not a Supplementary addition of somewhat to Nature which was not Nature before by the Law of the first Creation For that were to make a created man to be a creating Artificer of what was never made before which we all explode But it is a revealing and a drawing forth of that secret which did lye hid in Nature The art of man may call out the wonderful productions of many great effects but still these are wrought in the orderly course by Natural Causalities and by Created Efficiencies The rarest Artist can but co-operate with Natures Powers which doth their own work only man puts them together or severs them asunder according as he would have some products by Motions to be However yet the mysteries and wonders of Art must first be sought where they may be found in the mysteries and wonders of Scripture declaring those mysteries and wonders to be in Nature Practice of Arts is a disclosing of secrets of Nature in creation of Causes Art doth sometimes give a provocation to Nature whereby she doth bewray her self ere she is aware and doth expose her self to view in the light in some of her agenâ—ies which kept close in the dark before and therefore Nature and Art in Scripture Language do set this out That word which doth signifie Art exercising it self industriously about any thing or substance comes from a word which doth import a delegated Officer one imployed in such a Function as is put upon him by creating Aelohim and that Function must always be sought for in the Word as revealed there and another word which doth denote one excelling in Art nourishing of it and being nourished by it doth spring from a word which doth include Faith and Truth And where can those firmly bottom but upon the Word of Truth and the Word of Faith And the same Word which doth signifie Essence Existence created Being by which I understand Nature in this Discourse doth also import Virtue Law Doctrine They are the only true Vertuosi in Learning who receive Doctrine about all Entities from Aelohim's Law in his Word This doth teach substantial knowledge and doth give essential Science and doth skill in the Art of Realities There are several Writers who have undertaken to give us an accouut of these Creatures in their Elaborate Histories of them one of the largest and learnedest upon Animals has this great errour running through much of his Book that though he refers much of this discovery to the Scripture yet he would have Original Hebrew which is the Mother Tongue to go to School and to learn to speak of Daughter-Languages such as the Samaritan the Syriack and the other Oriental Tongues As if the proper significancy of her words could not be rightly understood but by their Sense and Etymologies and Phrasiologies whereby he carries the Reader off from the Word of God which yet he doth undertake to translate interpret and apply unto the Authorities and Histories of Philosophizing men and the Opinions and Customs of Nations that from these and not so much from that we might fetch our knowledge of these Creatures A cognation of other Languages to and a collating of them with the
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
inventions and against themselves for those merely humane excogitates in the Judicatory Courts of their own Intellect and Conscience and have thereby openly renounced and quitted their former usurped Authority by which they too long and too much imposed upon the over-credulity of blinded minds But what shall such a traditionary receiving of corrupt notions never have an end put unto it shall the opinionative conceits and the conjectural ratiocinations of deceived deceiving men be still handed down from one to another Such Methods of Arts and Systems of Sciences and forms of Learning and Schemes of Knowledges as are besides and against the word of Aelobim are either not according to Truth and so they teach that falshood which would be unlearn'd or do not direct to usefulness and so they cause loss by mis-spent time which is not so soon redeemed Their Science is but falsly so called it doth not answer to its name it doth belie its own usurped title by their professourships such would give themselves out to be some of the most knowing of men and diligent seekers after the Truth yet they they miss the mark they pretend to aim at they rove and err like unskilful shooters they go aside from sound Doctrine and from a right belief of that which is the Truth though they would loudly cry boastingly clamour a profoundness of Learning by puzling wordings and painted sayings where neither is the Matter useful nor the inquiry worth while nor the Controversie weighty nor speculation improveable to any spiritual gain so that it neither well informs nor nourishingly feeds the serious Student it is an artificial desire of mens own brains having no foundation in the Word of God and tending to profaneness making a great noise but leaving an emptiness after the manner of Sophisters Let not the ingenious Reader be offended if I open the significancy of some Scripture words and phrases to take him off from giving an idolizing reverence unto such humane fallible Authors as would insinuate a crediting of their cheating Arts and draw on a belief of their deceitful Sciences by a cogging device and cunning trick in a ready dexterity of wicked wittiness handling every subject matter they do discourse or treat of with crafty conveyances and circumventing windings up and down in and out turning every way by over-reaching methods and hidden wiles to seduce unwary travellers into errour and to insnaâ—e them into some misapprehension to divert their minds from truthing it in love Whoever do pursue them will find them at the last to be erring in Theory failing in practice fruitless in experience after much expence of difficult labour and of chargeable travel The wild little fancy of vain foolish man would be setting up a new imaginary world of Artals and of Scientificks which are his own formed Ideas and speculated conceits and modelled opinionativeness and then would not only make an Idol of self to fall down before its own mis-shapen Image and to fail in love with its own empty shadow but would also set it up before others that they may worship it too which has been for so many ages of the world the grand design and the too far prevailing attempt of Enthusiastick Phantasms of Humane Magistralities of self-weaved Ratiocinations of forced Extractions of indulged Sensations and of unsetling Scepticisms which six have laid some of the most claim to the highest advance of Humane Learning though their Arts and Sciences have been hitherto so far from being really in their nature or use liberal that they have been some of the most tyrannous enslavers of mens judgements and imprisoning fetters of their understanding How many thousands have by their wandring after such misguiders left and lost their way in the dark where their Souls have been filled with troublesome doubts and with tormenting fears exposing them to violent temptations of Atheism and Unbelief and what wonder that it is thus with the Scholar when some of the learnedest of the Masters themselves have resolved upon this as the conclusion of all their knowledge that All things are matter of doubtful questionings and are intricated with knotty difficulties and do pass into amazing uncertainties and resolve into cosmical suspicions And this not only is the deliberate Judgement of particular Virtuoso's in our day but has been the publick determination of an whole University if there be truth in those Historical Records that do report them to us even with those has it thus been so who made proficiencie in Arts and progress in Sciences to be the subject of their profession the matter of their inquiry and the design of their studiousness How manifold the inconveniences how mischievous the effects of this have been if the Readers Spirit would not be exasperated thereby might be soon inlarged upon for the Writer would not provoke or inrage mens passions but would come in words of truth and of soundness to hold forth a Scripture Light before such as are of a temperate and sober understanding and of a serious considering spirit The hurt that has been done to my own soul and the scars that are visibly upon me by my ill-chosen-studies and misemployed hours heretofore though in a way of some diligence do stir up some compassions in me towards others to indeavour the preventing or curing of the like spreading distemper in their understandings the infectiousness of which disease in mens intellects has been hitherto little suspected and its dangerousness less felt And therefore if in faithful plainness I do oppose paganish or Ethnick Philosophy let it be once more remembred that where-ever this expression is found or such other words relating to the same matter in this Treatise I mean thereby that vainly affected humane wisdom which was invented by Pagans by Heathens or by Satan who taught it unto such by such as had not the sound saving knowledge of Jehovah Aelohim or of His word but did write besides it and contradictorily to it and so far as this kind of Philosophy is still retained and defended by any Christians For this is that which has so anticipated mens minds with such corrupt principles as are complying with prophane practices with such mis-shapen notions as are suited to carnal reason with such wrong opinions as do plead for depraved Customs with such flattering perswasions as are humouring to sensual affections it doth so infect and sicken their intellect so weaken and make it Consumptive that who can cure it if the LORD Christ himself be not actually the one and the only All-skilful Physician and if Scripture-Learning be not seasonably well applyed as the one and the only universal remedy of this of the mind whilst some do write and others do read so many expositions upon paganish Philosophy and do so little study the Scriptures of Truth the Press may bring forth many curiously arted Books but there will be in the intellectual World a famme of Progressive Literature The frequent Divertisements by
without a Scripture-rule and our Circles of Sciences without a word Compass there will be much crookedness and unequal distance therein and the discovery which we make unto others will be that of our own weakness and indiscretion How provoking and daring is this pride in fallen follyful man which would still keep alive so vain an imagination as if by Humane Invention it could equalize infinite Wisdom put forth in Scriptures Science and in Natures Art Many of the Philosophers postulata which they would have us unquestioningly to suppose and to take for granted to be evident Truths of undoubted certitude are manifestly false though they would exempt their principles from contrary arguing as if all were well agreed here and this Philosophick Faith must not be disputed and yet these blind guides would have the leading of us by the hand till we pass into their darkness and fall into their ditch What do the most of Philosophical Disputations rush into but a mere smokie skirmish of hard words which do both cloud the Understanding and insnare the Judgement Mens minds are already but too much crookedly set by the corruptions of their own depraved hearts but when they are further wrested by wrying terms of Humane Arts they are with much the more difficulty if ever set right Thus have men sought Sciences in their own brain and would find out Arts in their own imaginations till they have made a new Scheme and a Systematical World of invented Knowledges which they do people in their own and in others fancies their words of Art have hid Truths from our plain serious Christians who are of humble inquiringness that so Philosophers might keep up their Silver-shrining-trade by affirming it to be an impediment of Sciences for the Scholar to require or for the Teacher to render a clear proof of things propounded from whence it comes that the powers of the mind are continually shaken with hesitancies diverted with impertinencies abused with unprofitingness and misled into erringness This has been the mischievous design of the grand Enemy of the rational World to obscure Learning and intricate Knowledges thereby to keep off Souls from that Scripture-light by which they might discern the secrets of Wisdom and his negotiating Factors would have all the World to buy up his false Ware and to trade with him till they have almost wasted their all and their stock of Learning doth consume and they be quite bankrupted as to any soundness of knowledge How imperiously domineering has this Philosophick Tyranny proved which would have us to receive its stamp and to bear its image as if it were that alone which must be current and to admit of its superscription to conform to its platform and to shape our Letters after this Conquerors hand writing as if all mankind should subject and inslave themselves to its intellectual usurpation which hath too long and too far invaded all Arts and possessed all Sciences If once professing Christians were more spiritual discerners and more obsequious observers of Scripture-discoveries in these matters the plain discourses of experienced Believers and of growing Saints would relishingly favour more of saving sound knowledge and of wholesome useful Truth than the learnedest Treatises of the wisest Philosophers from whose Writings we have no good reason to expect any transforming efficacie For the converting of straying Souls or for the rectifying of erring Minds Arts and Sciences Philosophick ones have heretofore mis-called it their honour to be their Mother Egypt's Daughters because there they had both rise and growth yet even there was the grand seat of gross Idolatry when Pagan Astronomers exalted themselves as high above others in their knowledge of heavingly things they set up in their Imaginations and Books many Monsters in the Heavens which have been long worshipped as Gods Corrupt Hearts and corrupt Books will soon mingle and corrupt Principles will quickly pass into corrupt practices and thus does the Candle of many mens lives waste away about empty vanities or groundless conjectures or superstitious conceits or over-curious nicities or unprofitable subtilties or intangling perplexities and they dye away without the insighted perception of the most mysterious secrets and choice excellencies and pretious treasures It is Scripture-knowledge that is the sublimest Reason and the best Learning the shining emanations of Holy Writ are clearly visible to spiritual Eyes in this age of Light This is that which I would hold forth before others and commend unto them Were we more one in bringing all our Controversies and Disputings to this only Rule of judging we should the sooner agree in other things the Scripture-league would hold us closer together in a brotherly confederacy This design is not an humour of innovating in the Common-wealth of Learning but an indeavour to revive the true good old way of written Revelation and to bring back to that word of certainty according to which the proficiency in Arts and the progression in Sciences is best and only found Sound Knowledges will be upon ruining till there be an apt reduction of them to their primitive pure principles in Scripture-verities where both their complete summary is contained and their due bounds are set Intellect and Reason must be measured by a Scripture-line and Senses and Experiments must be brought to word-axioms these must conquer all Opinions as having the Universal Monarchy over all the learned Territories of the Intellectual World An exact discovery of the true Causes of things with their efficacious production of answerable effects must be searched after here No other Writing in the World doth carry along with it Truths superiour dominion over the Conscience and its magistral Authority over the Will its illustration to the Understanding and its evidence to the Judgement but only this if I pay this reverence unto Christ and unto his Word it is a duty which I owe him and under him to it as the sum of Arts and the treasury of Sciences the complete Bibliotheke of all useful Learning the due respect which I bear it has enboldned me to make this printed Report of it The Principle of Essence is in Jehovah Himself who is the Principal Efficient Cause of all Beings who put a Being into all created Natures who is the great Instructer in useful Arts who doth propound the best and greatest ends of those Arts and doth direct to the truest aptest means which do lead thereunto But the Principle of Science is revealed in the written Word which doth give forth the right knowledge of the Doctrinal part of those Arts and which doth make wise the Student and the Practicioner by the help of senses to collect some clear understanding in particular subject matters of those several Arts by Observation and History to gather and place in the Mind what is taken in from those Senses by insighting experiences to apply to a certain use those many collected Observations by induction inferringly and improvingly to use to apply and to accommodate those many collected Experiences
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
their spirits are tender Truly-logical-Art is that which is really word-Art not a Disputative Knowledge or Syllogistical form of mens inventing generous Spirits those that are indeed such will conform their Reason to Faith and their Faith to Spirit-inspired Revelation This word-Declaration and written-discovery is perfect in its self and perfective in those who grow in it here the noble excellencies of rational Souls may be advanced to somewhat of their highest dignity in their utmost capacities here are the full Originals and the over-flowing Springs of useful Knowledge here the believing Trader with his spiritual Talents may increase his stock of sanctified Learning somewhat near in its approaching step to one of the Royal Priviledges of the Heavenly Glory which is unmixed clearness and perfect cooâ—mmateness of all profitable Sciences Philosophical Notions are idle stories and when they pass into vain janglings they are frothy talk and unâ—dâ—â—ying chat they fill the fancy with dreaming speculations and make the mind sick and weak whereas the Scriptures do afford such a kind of Learning as is sound and healthful in its own innate constitution and in its causal efficiencies here the intentive Reader is still held in a continued dependency on a spiritual Teacher of those necessary Lessons which are never well learn'd but in Christ's School and where he may get great skill with little cost in a short while This would make skilful Practitioners in ordinary Affairs and in the common Matters and Actions of Life which Philosophers do miscount to be beneath souly rationalists Students in Christianity when throughly seasoned with the in-working-knowledge of Holy Precepts and of practical Truths are more awed into an observance of what is taught in Scriptures Pew they are instructed in Duties and informed in Manners whilst they inquire into Arts and pursue Sciences Where the savingness of knowledge is suck'd in betimes all growing discoveries if they work kindly are improved towards the firm securing of a never-ending-felicity Faith and Fear and Love and other Graces as they widen the Understanding and compose the Mind and fix the Heart still to be taking of more so they also refine the Spirit and reform the Life The Eyes of the wisest men in the World can never see themselves truly represented so as that the direct beams may have a right incidence but in the Glass of God's Word and he is not as yet in a preparedness to take in other Learning who has not hitherto attained to the true knowledge of himself A growing Artfulness in Scripture-Science will commend it self where it is in any though the commender of this unto such court not their applause but seek their profit though I be forgotten who write this yet Christ and his Word will still have a living name in such for all Treasures of Learning there being here full instruction for all necessary Employments and complete Subsidaries for all practical Conversation Let not the judicious ingenuous Reader expect from me a System of Sciences or Platform of Arts with their proper Rules and Methods To handle these throughly in an exact tractate is too great and long a task for my little parts and short day it were an undertaking worthy of some Christian King to imploy the learnedest and holiest of mankind about that either love or promotion could procure or kindness or reward ingage or helps and materials incourage though in some few instances I may a little lead others the way with a Scripture Light in my hand I owed a great duty to the intellectual World of precious Souls and I had no other way to make such a publick payment of it the good of Communion must out balance any private concern of my own he that would consult his own reputation and quiet amongst men in this age would have concealed his apprehensions in such a day when many are so self-seeking and so angrily confident by strengthned preconceptions and fortified prejudices and radicated resolves against any discoveries that might convince and shake them What is done is subjected to Scripture-examination by spiritual discerners When received Opinions have got the Peoples Applause and Leaders Authority and Men's interest in this World he had need bring some clearness of demonstration who would have others to leave their former ways to which they have been so used that they may come into a Scripture-path It would be next to incredible in a mans self to perswade belief in others who are so far gone in prejudice and prepossession were there not a Prophesie and Promise that in the later days they who err in spirit shall know understanding and the murmurers shall learn instruction for the deaf shall hear the words of this Book of the Scriptures of Truth and the Eyes of the Blind shall see passing out of the obscurity and darkness when they will blush to consider how Truth had scarce any door to enter in at what by innate ignorances and attracted wilfulnesses and indulgent weaknesses I arrogate nothing to my self of being a first Inventer of Arts but do refer wholly unto that word which would illustrate and brighten adorn and amplifie Sciences The LORD may therefore have laid me low and left me despicable in the eyes of the reputed Learned that Christ and his Word 〈◊〉 be set the higher Careless neglects have given countenance to such 〈◊〉 errours as now by long prescription would pass into a common uncâ—â—â—ollable Law of Arts and of Sciences like the idle tales and fabulous stories and fictitious narrations which old wives filled our heads withal when we were little Chrildren and a traditionary credulity would still keep alive the memory of them till old age and so would transmit the frame of them to posterity Had I not Jehovah and his Word on my side there were little expectation of any considerable success in ingaging this Scholastick War where so many opposers are all up in arms against me and are so confident of Victory were it not for this the controversie would stare me in the face with so many frighting difficulties that my time about this that little of it which I can be master of to redeem it from the unavoidable intercurrences of other necessary work would scam to be mis-spent and my industry mis-employed and the powers and strength of my mind wasted I had else soon been dis-spirited whilst the chief scope of so many men's aims studies and indeavours is either to defend or execute other mens mistakes or to justifie and commend their own however if hereby the reputation of the Scriptures may revive after my death and if the just esteem and the good opinion of God's Word may be built up though on the ruines of my credit for the present I bless that Jehovah who has used me to trust him with hereafters wherein one of the greatest trials of our spirit and frame is and if this only means of improving so fertil a ground of knowledges be dislik'd
and rejected by this Generation the springing Race in after-times will rejoyce when they shall reap and gather in use and injoy the good fruit of these honest labours Wordly advancement and a flattered name is the consulted project and the fore-casted contrivement of a low debased mind unbecoming that princely spirit in a Believer which has nobler designs and higher aims If this tractate be not exact yet the subject matter is excelling the Scripture-cause of word-learning is such that he who objecteth against it doth quarrel with the Author of it who wil have a time to make such to know whose word shall stand whether this of him or that of them when it will be manifest in the hearts of such that this design is not the product of a discontented mind or of humoursome censoriosness or of a grave affection or of a splenetick windiness Vulgar Prizers are no just valuers for Scripture-Truth though all be sold for it is never bought too dear and though all the World could be had for it yet would be sold too cheap it is well worth thy dealing for whatever it cost thee Scripture-Learning has an operative influence to correct and rectifie to change and renew to reform and refine hearts and lives to affect the Soul with a due sense of its own noble excellencies and widened capacities that it may be holy and happy wise and prudent for ever to make the conscience feel the weight of present Duty and of future felicity with the kindliest tyes and strongest obligations O how excellent are the Virtues how efficacious the Powers that do flow from hence The Patrons of this Book are Christ and his Word Truth and Good Reason and Religion Scripture and Nature Spreading untruths have gotten a name of Antiquity and Reputation and popular Opinion has kept up their credit and still it doth them reverence but they are all falling before the Scriptures of Truth for rather than fail the Christian verities and the rare knowledges contained in them shall be yet further confirmed by such Miracles as are beyond the Powers of Nature and the Arts of Man The seeming impossibility of all profitable Learning in one Book will in time be removed out of the way and off from the thoughts by a sound belief of the infinite wisdom of the Author of it The true uniform voice of holy Scripture and of created Nature is with me and for me though the common votes of the mistaking world cry me down although such ill habits have been acquired through the power and energie and effascination of Philosophy as no ability or skill of man can remove yet Almightiness and All-wisdom can work Students off from it If I publish my own imperfections and proclaim my own ignorances and bewray my own follies yet let not the Reader forget that I am a pleader for the most righteous cause in the judgement of the best Law the evidence is clear for it and the sentence of approbation is already pronounced that the holy Scriptures of Truth are the best the perfect Platform of all useful Scientificks Christ is the Head-Captain of created Hosts and he will triumphingly Conquer his Truth is strong and it shall prevailingly overcome Scripture-knowledge especially in the savingness of its Science and in the Sanctifyingness of its Art doth speak enough for it self within the breast of every spiritual discerner as having an incomparable excellency in it above and beyond all other Skills and Wisdoms in the World I need not urge many arguments to convince those Readers of this great useful Truth who have felt the living power of it upon their renewed hearts for when it came there it brought in its own self evidence and left a sensible demonstration and wrote a sealed Testimonial under its own hand there I have though this also much in my aim to praise it more unto such and to press them to make some higher advance in this best Learning as being a nearer approach unto intuitive perfection in visional Glory and that which raiseth the spiritual Reason and the inlightned Faith of the Saints here below in this Intellectual World into a resemblance of Angelical Wisdom yet I say I have somewhat further in my present design which is to win upon those who are under impetuous temptations and violent assaults to be Atheists and Infidels both speculative and practical by a prevailing insinuating of this astertion if the LORD will say so too that word-Science and Scripture-Art is the Science of Sciences and the Art of Arts every way most and best corresponding to the capacities suited to the cases fitted to the necessities and promoting the felicities of rational Beings so that this discovery has its great usefulness to all even the most knowing and the most holy as for others who may be far gon in this spiritual distemper of scorning of and of scoffing at the asserted sufficiencie and fulness of the Scriptures that which they so much slight and so storm against must be the means of their cure unless they be such as will neither hear their disease nor endure a remedy but are obstinate to all healing prescriptions I take the causes of Atheism amongst many others to be as an afraidness of the convincingness and of the condemningness of the holy Precepts and righteous Judgements declared in the Scriptures and an unbelief of its glorious rewards so also this in particular ignorance of the excellency of Scripture-knowledge and although those who do fall below Religion will also sink beneath Reason too yet I am not altogether without hope but that when Jehovah Aelohim shall make his Word-light to shine forth more in its beautious glory it will allure the eyes and draw the heart inform the judgements and incline the wills of men of intellect to see and to acknowledge to adore and to admire that only wise God who has put so much into so little and has given us a pocket-Book of such absolute fulness The Antichristian party by their paper plots would blow up all belief of the sufficiency and perfection of the Scriptures as hoping that if they can once prevail with a people to be of no Religion they will then be of their Religion and the Anti-scripturarians have but too many followers in this day who if they be so bold as to assert this imperfection of the Word in the necessary matters of Salvation no marvel if they deny its conprehensiveness as to the other knowable things Arise Jehovah plead thou thine own plea and magnifie thou above All thy Name thy Word all the Kings of the Earth shall confess Thee Jehovah when they hear the words of thy mouth and they shall sing in the ways of Jehovah for great is the Glory of Jehovah In Thee Aelohim thy Saints will praise thy Word and a second and a third time they will praise thy Word this they know that thou and thy word for them Thus have I given thee Reader some accompt of
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
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
inchantment to many a precious Soul and a prodigal wasting of that time which should be redeemed but somewhat to revive the Scripture-way of hymnifying now in these times of the approach of the later-day glory and to raise Spiritual Singing to its due Purity whereby that Ordinance may be restored and made edifying which has been for several years either too coldly and formally and carnally performed or else too much omitted and neglected what through mistakes in some mens judgements and through fears in other mens hearts who have laid aside this duty in times of persecution lest their own vocal Psalming should bewray their assembling to the listning-enemy Let my design and aim in what I express about this be well remembred that none may prevert to any ill use what I am about to write for it is too commonly a corrupt practice by two sorts of Extremists where cautionary bounds are set to any Science or Art that both of them do causelesly take offence and do occasion their own sin and trouble one by a superstitious conceit thinks the cautionary bounds too large and so will not go so far as to come unto what is lawful and a duty the other by a profane licenciousness condemns them as too narrow and so steps too far by passing over into what is unlawful and a sin the one will not allow the grant of the Commissioned Science the other will not observe the terms of it However I have given due warning at the Readers peril be it if he transgress though I shall withal from out of the Scriptures open much of other parts of Musick besides that of the voice under the Old Testament-dispensations If the sound of my words do not bring so sweet a modulamen to some critical Ears yet the generous-spirited will soon joyn in with me in this melodious part that I am a friend to an admirer of I mean the sacred Bibliotheke the Scripture-Library and it has been admitted as one Rule in Musical Airs that then is the Air the more to be commended when there is a pleasant passing by a sudden fall from a Discord upon a Concord I have the well-consonanted voice both of Scripture and Nature which do cry this up though the harsh-throated opposers would noise it down When the Judicious Reader has put all this together to which his own industry and observation might add more collections from the Scriptures and has consideringly well digested this matter let him then ponderingly bethink himself whether a Musician if he will speak according to the Truth can justly say that the holy Scriptures do afford him no particular Rules and Directions in the Musical Art Or whether the things of this Art be not to be found in the Scripture at all There is a Scripture-harmony wherein the Rules of Philosophick Musicians do fail for in this word here Maxims are made Minims and Minims are made Maxims here the short is long and the long is made short here a Song is heard the Text whereof is given but no Musical Art can fully express its Melody neither can it be represented by Musical Notes So it was when the Saviour of his people from their sins was born of a Virgin and a multitude of the heavenly Host with the Angel of the LORD did sweetly sing the Hymn in harmonious Concord when professing believing Christians will be better at leasure to study the Scripture more throughly and when they shall more experience their hearts to be kindly affected therewith they will find more reason to admire its fulness and to plead its Cause I Have held the Eye and the Ear of the Reader long enough to the Musical Art of Scripture-melody I am now to pass if he will go along with me from the Musical Metrical Measure of Words into the Geometrical Measure of Timber in the Fabril-Art for the Carpenter-Rules are also to be found in the Word of Truth the holy Scriptures do not pass by in silence these manual Artificers but do take cognizance of them neither do they make mention of them only in some general terms and expressions but they also do give many particular Directions about their Art To let go some other things relating unto this such as the Metaphorical expressions about it which yet do open somewhat of the skill of it the Scriptures have several names by which they are described in the Word sometimes they are simply called Carpenters elsewhere they are described to be Artificers in Wood to be Workers in Wood or about Wood or Timber the Idolaters did sinfully abuse and pervert this Art unto an ill use and a bad end who were curious in their sinful way to frame their abominable vanities and lies Nebuchadnezzer carried the Carpenters out of the Land of Judah into Babylon to use them there The LORD himself gave skilfulness in this Fabril-Art unto Betzaleel and Aholiab about fitting the Tabernacle and the Ark which was a great honour put upon these Artificers Hiram King of Tyre sent such to David to build him an house Solomon a wise King used their skill and a remark is sometimes set upon such as excelled herein When the first Temple was instaured under Joas as also under Jasiah these Princes saw the usefulness of such Workmen who also were imployed by the Religious Governours when the Temple was set up Joseph the Putative Father of Christ was of the Trade and the Nazaren's gave this name of Carpenter to the LORD Jesus Christ himself who is supposed to have handled somewhat of the Fabril-Art in Joseph's Family before he exercised his publick Ministerial Office As for the Architectonical part of the Fabril Science which is the particular instance given by that learned opponent who has argued that there are no particular Rules given to Carpenters in the Scriptures for the exstructing of an house let any diligent Inquirer into the Word about this but put together the exact measures of the Ark in Noah's time of the Tabernacle and Ark in Moses's days of the first Temple in Solomon's Reign of the second Temple under Nehemiah's Government of the Prophetical Temple in Ezekiels Visions of the new four-squared City in the Revelation not now to mention many other stately edifices recorded in the Scriptures and then say whether there be so little or nothing of particular Rules in the Word as a Directory for uniform building especially if to all this there were added besides for the perfecting of this Art all the original Words and Phrases relating to this Manual Science in their proper apt full significancy This discovery alone about those Structures and these Words and Phrases though no more were added if pursued by men of judgement and of skill of faithfulness and of industry would quickly bring in matter enough for a large Treatise on this subject which I have neither call nor leisure to do Here in this Book of God you may meet with the Carpenters measuring-Instruments and with their
an Edifice the Doors Ports Gates of an House are often treated of in Scripture and are applyed to many other things affording matter of profitable Meditation the Thresholds are here spoken of so are the Posts what shall I more say concerning the Carpentes Compass and the use of it concerning his Platforms with more that might be added upon this subject-matter if it were worth mine and the Readers while to heap up together all the proper materials relating unto this manual Art which those who would be curious therein and are more at leisure to search deeper and further into this inquiry in a Scripture-way may with study and diligence more furnish themselves withal in order to the Artificial Symmetrical joyning of Timber-pieces together into an exact Frame so that a raised heavenly mind would admire to see so much of this Fabril-Art so scattered up and down in the Word for it doth much commend the excellingness of Scripture-knowledge that in so great a part of it it doth teach divers things and several Truths at once O that I could prevail so far with the generous Minds and with the ingenuous Spirits of this age as that they would first of all after the prayer of Faith put up unto the LORD for being taught of him study the Scriptures upon the particular subject-matters which their inquiries are exercised about in any lawful Arts and Sciences and let Scripture-knowledge lead them as far as it will go if it were so that all were not there yet do not reject what is there and then improve it by drawing forth from thence what Jehovah hath put of it into Nature Seeing we are upon the advancement of useful Learning and somewhat is now to be written about the Augment and Restauration of the Geographick Chorographick and Topographick Science and Art I haue these few Queries to propound to the Studious in this kind of Learning Queries WHether it would not much promote Scripture-knowledge which is the best knowledge to have such Maps drawn of the Earth of Countries of Places of Distances and such like as do exactly agree with the Scriptures with those particular Scriptures that do relate thereunto and to have those Maps more common amongst the people to give them further insight and truer information in such passages of the World somewhat of this has been done already but we incourage perfecting work Q. Whether all the Books of Ethnick Philosophick Geography should not be corrected and reformed by Scripture-Geography in its description of the Earth of Countries of Cities and of other places which doth give us as the most ancient so also the only infallible and perfect Narration how the several parts of the Earth were inhabited and properly by the Sons of Noah and their Posterity Q. Whether the true Origination of the right Names of the several inhabited Nations were not derived from the proper Names of those of Noah's Posterity who were the first Possessors and Founders of Cities in those places and gave Names to those Countries and whether the Hebrew signification of those proper Names both of Persons and of Places would not bring more light to the true description of those Countries and of their situation than as yet any humane Geographies have discerned by Q. Whether the Original Names by which the several parts and Countries of the inhabited Earth are called in the Scriptures should not be revived and restored and used in the several Mother-Tongues and this not only in the Translation of the holy Scriptures into other Languages but also in all other Treatises that shall speak of those Countries Q. Whether seeing Noah's Ark did rest upon the Mountains of Ararat in the Eastern part of the dry Land where he and his Family did settle themselves for a while and from whence afterwards they and their Generations did spread themselves Whether Shem who removed Eastward being said to go East East did not possess and people America where divers Names of places are still retained much according to the Scripture-Hebrew and if so whether then the late Globes and Maps be drawn according to the Original Truth which do place America in such a quarter and coast of the Earth that yet received her first inhabitants from the East-borders of Asia as they now call it and which do leave such a vast Ocean of so many Leagues between Sinear and Anjan between the North-East parts of Asia and the North-West side of America as they commonly describe them and whether these be not continent at most but dis-joyned by some great River or narrow Channel of the Ocean As for Grammar-Learning relating to the Original Language in the Scriptures I have at present these considerations to propound unto the Ingenious and Ingenuous the Studious and the learned Linguists by way of further inquiry Queries WHether the design of this Treatise being the perfecting of the knowledge of all useful Arts and Sciences and the Restauration and advancement of Learning in a Scripture-way as the true the right the excelling the only way thereof whether therefore it were not a necessary and profitable work to compose a Grammar of the Original Language or Languages wholly according to Scripture and the Rules found there and no longer to make Scripture speak according to Philosophick Grammars and their Rules invented by men which Rules are often contradicted by particular Scripture-instances seeing that these Arts and Sciences are to be fetched out of the Original Language and not from Humane Authorities that so in these later days we may have a proper remedy against the confusion of Tongues Q. Whether in such a Scripture-Grammar great wisdom and diligence should not be used that the Orthoepick and Orthographick part of it be so accommodated to the Original Languages as that the Scripture-Tongues may be more purely spoken more correctedly written more speedily learned more exactly measured more sweetly sounded more rightly accented and more profitably improved Q. Whether the Etymological part of such a Grammar should not be so fitted to the real origination and the natural significancy of Scripture-words as that there may be a well-agreeing Analogy of all those words from the Root to the Branches throughout in one and the same common notion of meaning and with each other all the Scriptures through and with the persons or things which they do represent that words may be but the notes of true Essences and the interpretations of created Natures and that a complete Lexicon be framed to this purpose setting out the significant meaning and the proper intendment of the original Words themselves to be derived and deduced from created Existences having an innate Reason thereof in them and whether all other Languages are not Hebrew Dialects having cognation with this Original Tongue Q. Whether the Syntactical constructive part in the regimen of Original words when put together in Sentences should not be kept close unto in the very same order of the Words and Phrases in
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
knowledge some witty Invention some singular Art some extraordinary thing which yet was but a fleshly understanding a carnal wit a corrupt reasoning a fly seduction taking them off from holding the Head Christ and from keeping close to his word to draw them aside to that vain false and deceitful Philosophy to such affected Creature-knowledge and Humane Wisdom as would make a prey of their Souls Reader let me take thee by the hand and lead thee through some parts of the Scripture Paths to shew thee in this walk how Philosophy has been corrupting and perverting the Word and the Works of Aelohim He that shall read the Ethnick stories about the Origine of the Universe may see how the Aristotelian pride rejected all Scriptural Revelation of Faith about this Worlds beginning affirming the Eternity of the World by his corrupt Reasoning and vain Philosophizing Thus also the Stoical conceitedness asserted an Eternal first Matter The Pagan Astronomers have fancied and argued that there are Nine Spheres in the Heavens The Pagan Poets made all created Productions to be out of a first Matter as a common stock and subject of all generated Beings out of which every thing was found This is the Ethnick Physiology of many others of them So confused were their Notions so fabulous their Narrations Some Pagan Naturalists do make a Primogenious Fire to be the first Light out of which they say the Celestial Lights were composed Others do make the Firmament or Heaven to be the fluid watery or aerial part of a formless Chaos Some would make the ancient Nature of men to be commixt of Male and Female Sex in one and the same man And others have made many feigned stories of his Golden Age. How many corrupt mixtures in Ethnick Poets about the Flood about Gods and Goddesses and their Generations which many young men are so defiled and tainted withal in the common Schools of Learning that it is long if ever before they get rid of them The Idolatries and Superstitions of Pagans which were defended by their Philosophizers what were they but corruptings of the Mosaick Platform of which they had received somewhat by Tradition Such a temptation was it even upon the Israel of God of old to learn the Modes the Forms the Ways the Philosophick-Learning of the Heathen What an Enemy to the Doctrine of Salvation by Faith in Christ was the Grecian Philosophy What a disfigured face has it put upon Religion by its mythologizing vanity How many of the Original Words and Phrases by which both persons and things are aptly named and called in the Scriptures hath it altered and abused by expressing them in a different equivocal manner What a mis-shapen Monster are its Religion and Laws whilst it would so apishly imitate the Scripture Tradition as to adulterate it if it could into a resemblance of its own ugliness and deformity The Corinthian Sophie and Sophistry received from and by the Spirit of this World would be contradicting the Wisdom of God in a Mystery The Logicks that Humane Wisdom taught were an Enemy to this that Physical Animal Man was the Physical Philosopher who did not comprehend those things which are of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually distinguished or judged Thus has the greatest part of the Sons and Daughters of Adam all the inhabited Earth over for many Generations been greatly imposed upon and still it is so even unto this day And what is yet further matter of more Lamentation those who have the name of the Scholastick Learned amongst Christians do still pertinaciously adhere unto many of the Philosophick Errors and fabulous Tenets He that heretofore would go into the Philosophy Schools here in England and hear the Lectures of the most might sit out a whole hour at a time and scarce hear one savoury sound word of Christ and of the Word of Christ And there is a design set on foot of late to make the vertues of Pagans to be fully equal to and specifically identical with the Graces of Christians as if to turn Christians into Pagans were an adapted means to turn Pagans into Christians I have long stood by and been a secret silent bewailer of this evil but the LORD hath now drawn forth my spirit to be an open declarer against it that this way I might be finishing of my Testimony There is such a Venerating Esteem in some of the Judgement of the Ancient and in others of the Learning of the Modern Philosophy that its likely I shall be thought not so prudently to have consulted either my own credit or my own quiet in undertaking to be such an Universal Controler of many Men Books Studies Arts and Sciences in such an Age wherein preconceived Opinions are heightned into such a settled confidence and grown into such a gigantick strength But I have long since committed my All to him who has taken the care of me and hath accepted of my acts of commitment and there my Soul injoyeth its sweet repose Neither am I altogether without expectation that the adored Almightiâ—s will use this Treatise to prevail with some serious Spirits to entertain a greater commerce with the Scriptures of Truth than hitherto they have And that the right apprehensions of mens minds will yet better transform into the true Nature of things Whilst Philosophick Arts are so over-prized there will be but little further inquiry and whilst Scripture knowledges are so undervalued progressions in useful Sciences will not be promoted If Rational Intellects may be better rectified and more informed according to the Laws of the written Word and the operation of Created Beings I shall rejoyce in the profit of any whilst I am exercised with contradictings from many with their perverse Brawlings or disputing Exercitations as the Scriptures do call such strifes of words It is not unknown to some what slye Artifices Satan has used in the several Ages to corrupt the Word especially in the more ignorant Ages under Antichristian darkness by Marginal addings and various readings unequal dividing altered printings and such other invented devices whereby to make Truths hidden or obscure and errors passable and plaufible a too deep digging into which and an over particular opening of which I judge at present to be no work of mine though some late reputed Criticks in Original Languages and in Scripture knowledges have been too prone upon any little occasion to set these before the eyes of such as too often have rather been shaken than settled upon them The sayings of Jehovah are pure sayings Silver refined in an Earthen-melting-Furnace Cruse or Oven purified seven times Whatever dross or impurity the Devil or any of his Instruments have immix'd with them they shall have a Fire to be throughly cleansed and perfectly cleared from it All and every saying of Aelohim shall be purified therefore it is that his servant loves his Word He is a Shield
to them that trust in him when those who have either added to or taken from his words shall be reproved and be found to have been lying ones And I do hope there will be a pure every way uncorrupt Autograph or Apograph of the Scriptures of Truth Neither am I without some Words of the LORD upon which to bottom Faith Expectation and Prayer concerning this matter a great and a glorious Work highly and fully worth the most serious and diligent search after by Christian Princes by Learned Men and by Eminent Believers Spiritual Discerners should know how to take and to improve this hint which I had rather they themselves would industriously pursue than at present put me upon any further opening of my thoughts with the grounds of those my apprehensions in such an Age of quarrelsome jangling of endless contentiousness and of lips of folly In the mean time till there be this glorious appearing of Christ and of his Book according to Prophetical Revelations I bless his Name for himself and for his Word and for any gracious Work of his Word upon my heart having felt a day of his Power there whereby he has made me willing to stand in some holy awe of him and of his Word and to dispense it in some growing measures as I have received it in uprightness as of God in the presence of God so speaking it in Christ If any will so sell this Word of God as to falâ—â—e it by corrupting it any ways by dealing deceitfully with it by playing the Hucksters with it adulterating and sophisticating of it by mingling of Philosophick Errors and Humane Inventions and Unwritten Traditions with it Thus to make the market of their own private gain upon some ignorant deluded soul by their crafty handling and covetous dispensing of it by false glosses and counterfeit garnishes giving forth wrong senses and making undue applications of it raising false Doctrines and inferring ill uses from thence let such consider in the fear of Jehovah how they will answer it at that last Great Day when they shall be judged to their Eternal Estate by that Word which they have so much wrested and wronged O how great cause have they to inlarge in Jehovah's praises who having in their younger years taken in much of the Philosophick taint were afterwards by his Spirit and Grace cured of its gross mistakes and dangerous errors that a Moses escaped from out of Egyptian Astrology Sorcery and such other superstitious diabolical Arts That a Daniel Hananiah Mishael and Azariah got so well off from Chaldaick Books so full of vain Arts and of Idolatrous Sciences that Aelohim gave them Knowledge and Understanding to discern Truth from Falshood whereby to convince and to confute Ethnick Errors and Paganish Tenets and that they were so kept from prohibitell Magick and such black Arts That the new converted Christians were preserved and antidored by the Principles and Laws of their true pure Religion from and against the poysonous disputes of Epicureans Stoicks Libertines Gnosticks and such other Philosophers That a Paul so 〈◊〉 up in several corrupt 〈◊〉 was afterwards so savingly inlightned so sound in Scripture Learning so skilful so useful so successful a Preacher O what special matter of great thankfulness was there here Vain man would be wise above and besides and against what is written although Wo be threatried against those who are wise in then own eyes The wisdom of such shall perish There is a knowledge that is vain which a wise a man should not utter The worldly wise ones of Philosophers do irride the Christian Religion and of Polititians do hate it O the blessedness the happy goings on with a straight foot of them who are made Wise to Salvation It has been in all Ages of the Church the device and the attempts of Saran and of his Disciples to abuse men by paralogisms by such false reasonings as by a shew and colour of Truth do circumvent the unskilful and unexperienced in the Word of Righteousness And their assaults have been mainly made against the Churches and People of God under specious shews of Reason and of Religion to introduce somewhat that is quite contrary to the Nature Purity and Simplicity of the Christian undefiled Doctrine Hence have they endeavoured to thrust in the worshiping of Angels and of Saints departed by invocating of them by dedicating of Temples and of Altars to them by making vows to them with many other uninstituted Observations of humanely-invented Ceremonies and divers Philosophical trifles which are no authorized warranty nor legitimate argumentation from the Word of God nor from sound Reason judiciously informed thereby Oh how daring bold is humane curiosity that will adventure to be wise beyond due bounds of sober knowledge when men will presume to be Doctors not understanding what they speak nor of what they affirm The Schoolmen with the Papists and others who have trod in the steps of those Scholastick Doctors have generally greatly erred herein by obtruding upon others many Forgeries and falshoods for Articles of Christian Faith which were taught themselves only by the dark discoursings of their own blind minds such as are their Scientia media their free-will their inherent Righteousness their meritorious Works their creature-idolizings with such like dogmatical decrees and received opinions of proud men which they fetched out of the Metaphysicks of Philosophers and out of the Ethicks of Pagans from whose corrupt Principles they would deduce the great Truths and the saving Mystesteries of the Christian Religion bottoming their unsound conclusions upon their own sandy opinions thus subjecting Theology to Philosophy and Christianity to Sophistry Those Books which are commonly called Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy or the Book of Moses and of 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 THis is the first revealed and written Word the most Ancient Book by which all Humane Treatises where they err must be corrected I exclude not any other part of Holy Scriptures but do own all through as a perfect Summary of all useful Learning and do bring them in for the confirmation of Truths only the Reader is to remember and consider that one great part of my present Design is to propound some such particular inquiries concerning the Works of Creation in the several Days of the first Week of the World and to give such a Scripture Judgement upon some special Cases as may restaur and advance true profitable Knowledges and Arts. Christ in his Word hath put his
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
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
Captain General or Head-Captain how quickly can he arm his creatures against any that presumptuously dare to rebel against him and his holy Wills and Laws All the creatures are this Host The Angels the Stars particularly are some of Christian Hosts The Scriptures do acknowledge him to be the Head-Captain and Leader though he be chiefly and in a more peculiar and especial manner This with respect to his own Covenant-people This Prince of Jehovah's Hosts was he who was the valiant Warriour with his under-officer Joshuâ— in that great martial expedition against the enemies of his Church and people This is the Prince of Princes who can easily break the strongest opposers The Head is the anointed part And thus was Christ anointed to this high and honourable Office of being Head-Captain or King and Commander in chief How often in Scripture is Christ called Jehovah of Hosts The Head is crowned So was Christ's head as the victorious triumphing conquerour over all his Enemies The 〈◊〉 useth a word which doth somewhat open this mystery It being used in military affairs for the contracting or putting to gether of scattered Soildiers into one Troop under one Head-Captain As in Arithmetic many several Numbers are gathered or put together into and under one heâ—d-sum And as in Rhetorick all the particulars of a discourse or Oration are repeated and gathered under one general head If Itb at the end of Reaâ—â—b be the Chaldet and Syriack 〈…〉 being turned into the Hebrew Thou frotht Jesh he is then the word signifies in him who is the Head-Captain Let the ingenious and studious 〈◊〉 further into this mystery How great a promoter of Learning as well as of Religion this would be all found Believers of Christian Doctrine will soon admit For there is no knowledge comparable to this of the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and of him crucified Though Paul abounded in other sorts of Learning yet it was a case determinedly judged aright by him that all their knowledge was as no knowledge at all without this and in competition with this this being the ground-work of all I shall to this end cull some useful passages out of the nine first Chapters of the Proverbs of Solomon relating to this matter In which one Book so small a part of the Scriptures there is more of sound learning in profitable Arts and Sciences than in all the Pagan Philosophical Books that are Extant O how much then is there in the whole Scriptures Here you may find a Directory and Rules for Theology for Physicks Logicks Rhetoricks Medicine Politicks Ethicks Oeconomicks what not that is useful Learning How many several significant words are there whereby to set out the excellency and preheminence of Scripture-knowledge and of the Science of useful Arts in a Scripture-way Such as sapience or savoury wisdom Science Understanding Intellect Erudition Knowledge Prudence Skill Subtilness and the like with many choice commendations of it both in words and phrases as that this doth deliver Authoritative sayings that it teacheth Rectitudes gives apt Counsels speaks essences according as the truth of things is with much more Here the Wise will find and addition of Doctrine the more he doth learn still the more he may Thus making continued proficiency Here are the best principles of Sciences This doth best deliver the beginnings and progress of Arts The true holy Fear and the Right Worship of the adored Almighties is the Head the Crown-Top the Captain-ship of knowledge the summity of Wisdom This is the chief Science and it hath the principality of Arts. The first in time the honourablest in Dignity and this is the leadingâ— sentence Axiom or Apophthegm that carries the Inquirer into profitable Learning of any kind This puts a gracious ornament a golden chain upon and about other knowledges Christ is Wisdoms all Wisdoms in one the Pluralnâ—ss of the Number is an Indication of his comprehensiveness and full-treasuredness of all true good Wisdom He is the chief Wisdom the Wisdom of Wisdoms the Wisdom of God He is made of God wisdom to Believers This is one of the prime of all Good that he is made to such All treasures of Wisdom and of knowledge are in him and in his Word He is the Authour of all sound Wisdom And that is a Man's Wisdom to learn Christ's words to learn the Truth as it is in Jesus to have the mind of Christ and to have such conceptions and apprehensions of Truths and of things as are in the mind of Christ We should make our ear to attend to these eloquent speeches these pleasant oracles of Wisdom These must be hid as a treasure in our inmost recesses Our Hearts shall be enclined to this intelligibleness of understanding We should cry giving our voice to it to call in this Heavenly Instructer to teach us it And we should call it to us to be familiarly conversant with it We should with diligent Intenseness seek it as Silver and enquiringly search after it as for hid Treasures The knowledge of the fear of Jehovah and the finding of this knowledge is the great Promise This Wisdom is a gift from him knowledge and understanding comes from his mouth from Christ and his Word His Blessing must be upon Man's endeavour It â—s he that lays up to right ones Essence Essential knowledge sound and true real knowledge of things substantial understanding Philosophical notions are but a shew and shaddow All the humane invented unscriptural Arts and Sciences are but colours and appearances This Word-knowledge doth influence upon practice Who was ever thoroughly converted and made Holy by Ethnick Philosophizings In the Scriptures are rightnesses or straitnesses conform to the Rule of the Law of Christ and it hath a preserving efficacy upon the heart that receives it How pleasantly delightful is this knowledge and Wisdom when once it enters into the heart Otherwise if 〈◊〉 be only without in the Book it has not such a pleasingly holy operation and sweet sanctifying effect That is the praise worthy knowledge that gives one to find Grace and good understanding in the eyes of Jehovah and of Adam such as Adam was in his Primitive Uprightness and first Integrity of concreated Knowledge If we know Jehovah in all our ways he will direct our paths As for others who lean to their own understanding and who are wise in their own eyes their confidence is vain Adam had happy goings on with a straight foot whilst he found and held and acted this Wisdom and drew forth this Intelligence And the wisest among the sons of Adam should still be making out after this precious Treasure and then fetch from thence to make it their own and other mens How good is its Traffick and Income How good is the Fruit that is to be gathered from this Tree of saving Knowledge
Will and desire what thou wilt This doth by far excel any thing of Art every thing of Science else has no coequation with this This was the wise choice that Solomon made for which he who is Wisdom it self hath commended him There is no occasion of complaint here as in vain Philosophy that Art is long and Life is short For the more skilful thou dost grow in this holy Art the more will it be a lengthening to thy days and if thou do not waste time it will tell thee thou dost not want time Here the walk is all-pleasantnesses and the way is prosperous Peace No such hardship and difficulty as in intricate involved Philosophy in the Study of which confounding Vanity and stupifying of Obstruseness some have thrown their Books against the wall because they could not overcome its Notions in their Intellect In Scripture-Wisdom here the Tree Everlasting Lives and this Tree of saving Knowledges do grow together and growing Believers can nourishingly feed on both their Fruits together Those who apprehend it and hold it up and reach it out to others are made happy by it This is a participation of the Wisdom of God This Wisdom is seen in Jehovah's founding of the Earth and this Understanding is manifested in his establishing of the Heavens this Knowledge looked forth in the broken Abysses in the dividing of the Waters and in the Skies distilling Dew Yet vain mens affected wisdom can make nothing of their Studies about these nor ever will whilst they slight the Scripture discovery concerning these and other Works of the Creation but the eyes of Believers should not go off from the Word and Works of God Those who are thus well-minded shall have Jah to communicate his secrets and his counsels to them Here is good Doctrine good in its self good to those who do receive it from which receiving it hath its Name Our Heart should be upholders bearers up of these Oracles of Christ We should possessingly acquire this Wisdom and Understanding not forgetting not declining from the words of his mouth This Wisdom is the Leading-head-Commander of Knowledge This we are to begin with It is not as vain Philosophy is a withered fruitless Speculation but a sapid savoury Knowledge It is the best Inheritance O come to it as such all ye who are true Friends of real useful Learning It puts a Glory upon the Possessor of it and doth highly exalt him enobling the embracers of it These sayings we must take in not the Dictates or Placits of Men or of Devils In this way of Wisdom should young ones be instructed they should tread in these sound paths of Rightness going over the Scriptures again and gain How many young Students read over divers Philosophical Tractates before they read over the holy Scriptures once at least with an eye togather the best Arts and Sciences thence Other Books of Knowledges are no further useful than as they some way or other more or less do comment aright on the Scriptures or on Created Beings agreeably to the Scriptures In Humane Philosophical Writings the Student is often brought to perplexing straights and to offensive stumblings not so here in this word and way of Wisdom Here we should have and hold real profitable Notions of Truths and of Things it is our lives whereas vain speculations of carnal reason should be let go lest they prove deadly to the pertinâ—cious maintainer of them The further on that a Believer doth walk in this Scripture-path the more growing is his light to discern and to difference things by whilst Philosophical wanderers that go out of the word-way do and will whilst there walk in darkness but let our eyes be upon this Book of Books Keep we its revealed Knowledge in the midst of our Heart It will be liveliness and healing to us To this should we be attentive and upon this be intent It has acute wittinesses and subtile cogitations so shall our lips conserve Science For all kind of holy sagaciousness and discretion is in this Scripture-Wisdom and Intelligency From these words should not we recede and they should be our Doctors and Teachers that instruct us in this This Word is a Law and a Light whereas Philosophies are darknesses This Word should we bind over our heart always and tie it annect it over our throats that as soon as speeches are uttered by us out may come some Scripture Eloquies of Mysterious Art and Holy Science Waking and walking we should converse with it and it with us It will keep us when we are asleep and it will lead along in proficiency when we are in our particular Callings It would inlighten our mind and direct our way at the very door of it when we first step into it We should see Understanding shine forth upon us and into us These Words of Christ should be kept by us and hid with us as the black the little man of our eyes We should bind them over our Fingers to work by them and to wise us in and about our work as well as write them on the Table of our Heart to live under the Law of them and to love them and meditate upon them We should say to Wisdom my Sister thou and call Understanding a Kinswoman so near and so dear so intimate and familiar ought it to be to us and with us and our eyes should see by this all sensible experimental knowledges should be brought to this This Word it greatly useful for an Active as well as for a Contemplative Life Here is work for Fingers as well as thinkingness for Hearts A Believer doth wed this Wisdom This kind of Understanding and of Knowledge should be well known unto us as a Wife a Sister a Friend a very amicous Relation and of free Converse our conjoyned Counseller of the same blood with us and of close affinity to us All the sons of Adam may learn here Magistrate Minister and People Leaders and Led What is spoken here are Eximious Matters and Rectitudes that which is Truth all Just no depraved or oblique thing all preparedly right to the Intellect to those who finding Knowledge Whereas Humane Philosophies are obscure and crooked dark and wrie false and difficult In Word-knowledge there is that true Riches which is beyond Gold and Silver Wisdom is above Margarites All a mans wouldlings his wishings have no equation in her Whereas the Philosophical Arts of Elementary Learning are beggarly Rudiments So are the first Principles of Cosmical Men of Vain Affecters of Worldly Humane Wisdom poor and weak Vanities In Christ's Word is the Invention of Science and of subtil Arts. He that would deeply consult about Essences should come hither which Humane Philosophies can never so indigate With this Unstanding there is strength whereas Humane Wisdom doth weaken the Powers of a man's Spirit and Soul and
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
Morning of every Day were a distinct Day and were distinct parts of every Day The one Day was before the second and the third Day was after the second the fourth followed the third and the fifth was after the fourth the sixth succeeded the fifth and the seventh which is the last Day of the Week was the Holy Close of that Week There is but one Seventh-day in the Week No other Day in this or in any following Week is properly the Seventh-day of the Week in the weekly revolution These Days have a priority and a posterioty in time in their successive parts and so were the Creatures distinct Works or distinct Days They had a separate Creation on separate Days that we might with the more staidness and distinctness of spirit consider of and meditate upon them in their created Order If all had been in one and the same moment of time then how could it be affirmed of Adam that he was first formed then Eve which yet is expresly affirmed in the Words The created Number and Order and Names of Days must therefore be well observed upon which there are so many weighty Truths and great things that do depend An Evening-Morning a Night-day is a large natural Day according to the Law of the first Creation in which the Evening and the Morning were constituted one Day The Evening being the foregoing part of the Day to which the after-Morning doth belong both together making up a complete Day So is the true account through the whole Scriptures where this is spoken of The Evening of the Day in the three first Days of the created World began at the first coming of the Darkness afterwards when the Sun was created on the fourth Day it was further pointed out by the going in of the Sun The Morning of the Day in the three first Days of the created World began when the Darkness went off and the Light came on which afterwards was fully compleated when the Sun did go forth What has man to do thus daringly to change the LORD's Time and Laws and to pervert his well his wisely-established Decrees and Appointments which are some of his Statutes and Ordinances which he will have to remain unalterable and by the unchangeable constancy whereof he has confirmed the Covenant of Grace There is the time of a Day in a Day There is a word of a Day in his Day The Night-part of a Natural large day so far as concerns the present matter in hand is measured from the coming to the going of Darkness from the going in of the Sun unto the going forth of the Sun There are parts of the Night a third part of it There is a beginning of the Night There is the mid of the Night The LORD forsaw how bold rebellious man would be in prescribing times of his own inventing and distributing unto himself to impose them upon others also and therefore he doth often in the Scriptures set the just Limits and the due bounds to set Times and Seasons that man might receive a determination from the Word There were certain Watches of the Night those Watches did point out a certain space of Night-time into which the Night was distributed There was a Watch of the Night which is called the first Watch of it There is a second Watch of the Night The third Watch of the Night and the fourth Watch of the Night And all and each of these are distinguished by several Names in the Word the Evening the Midnight Cock-crowing and Morning So that three hours were the measure of every one of the Quadrants or fourth parts We sometimes read of all Night and all Nights in other places of the Halfings or Dimidiatings or Half-cuttings off of the Night of the past Night and of that self same Night of a Night of Observations There is a Morning Light before the Sun doth go forth so as visibly to be seen by our eye The Day part of a natural large Day as to the present case is measured from the coming to the going away of the Light or from the going forth of the Sun unto the going in of the Sun This Day is divided into twelve hours so also is the Night into twelve equal parts so that at midnight the sixth hour of the Night is ended and seventh hour of the Night doth immediately after begin And at Noon or at Mid-day the sixth hour of the Day is fully ended and the beginning of the next minute after this is the beginning of the seventh hour of the Day as opposed to the Night and according to this Division were Dials and other Measures of Nights and Days drawn and made that were according to the Word So that all the Winter the hours of the Night were larger than those of the Day and all the Summer the hours of the Day were longer than the hours of the Night and when it was Equinoctial then the hours of the Night and Day were equal but at all other times of the year different There is express mention made in the Scriptures of some of these hours by which we are to judge and measure the rest of the other hours As the third hour the sixth hour the seventh hour the ninth hour the tenth hour and the eleventh hour It is also perticularly there spoken of the third hour of the Night At these Seasons of Evening and of Morning were the appointed Times for daily worship which daily worship was called the Tamid or the continual Whatever other instituted worship was occasionally performed This must never be neglected This daily Worship was to be carried on Every Evening and also every Morning I have been the longer upon this discovery that serious sensible Believers who do admire the holy Scriptures of truth to be the one and the only rule of judging and of determing of cases of Conscience might as they ought bring all times and seasons to Scripture measures to Christ's Institutions which he himself as also his Apostles kept unto under the New Testament dispensation of Grace That this as well as all things else may be brought with more exactness according to this straight Rule under this latter-day-glory when there will be a more thorow reforming and refining to purge out whatsoever is corrupt and of humane invention and imposition and to bring in whatsoever is pure that is as yet defective in the Churches which is of Christ's instituting and ordaining For this daily continual Worship Evening and Morning is prophesyed of to be renewed and restored in the latter age with a renewed promise of acceptance The day is Aelohim's the Night also is his and let the things of God be given unto God Let the Day-natural no longer be mis-reckoned from midnight to midnight or from Sun-rising to Sun-rising nor from mid day or noon tomid-day or noon neither of
other Creatures whereby they also are serviceable to man When it is dryed it becomes Hay this also is Food to Beasts and Cattel Herbs were given unto men to feed upon the green Herbs which was bestowed for this end both before and after the Fall of Adam Man had the Herbs of Paradise before and the Herbs of the Field Thus it was also after the Flood Nebuchadnezzar was sent a grasing for a remedy and it might not be altogether unworthy of a learned Physicians inquiry whether if there were a discrete choice of Specifick-Herbs for the cure of that Distemper it would not prove one of the most proper Medicinal Foods for such as are overgrown with bestial Melancholy or deprived of Humane Rationality as to the use and exercise of it for the present The Wise-Kitchen-Herbalist is one of the most successful Doctors and Practisers of Physick It is a sore Judgement when the LORD for sins doth send either such Hail as spoileth the Herb or the Locusts Palmer worm or other hurtful Creatures to consume the Herb. Or when the Herb doth wither or doth fail this is a sign of the barrenness of such an Earth As in a time of great drought it useth to do Thus also when the Earth doth not bring forth tender Herb when the Mildew which hath the name in Hebrew of paleness is a plague upon the Corn and other tender Plants and Herbs through too much moistness as blasting is with driness whereby the natural greenness is gone before it be ripe and the colour is faded when that which was given to be food for Man Beast and Cattel is corrupted It is a great benefit from Jehovah when there are Herbs in the Mountains when the Pasture fields and the Habitacles of the Desert are stored with Herbs this is a singular favour of God towards his people it is a blessing when there is a budding Grass in the Fields pleasant Pastures and Leas where green and tender Herbs do spring When this Earth doth bring forth Herb commodious for the Tiller of the Field and so when God doth give the Herb. The Leaves of some Trees are for healing or for stamping or beating as we use to stamp or beat Leaves or Herbs small to use them in Medicinal Drinks or Plaisters Herbs are also given unto the bruit Beasts for Aliment and Food for Physick and Medicine before the Fall and also useet the Fall The Herb is the Aliment of the Elephant and of Beasts and of Cattel of the Ass of the Ox of the Heifer or Cow Green Bows of Trees have their use also for this And hereby these living Creatures do become the more serviceable to man Herbs have a concreated Virtue to flourish much and to be green Hence greenness is attributed to them which greenness for the cause of sin doth sometimes fail Hence to flourish as the Herb of the Field to be tender as the tender Herb to germinate as the Herb. The tender Herb has a splender after Rain it has a comely floridness and a lovely decor The Herb quickly withereth and soon dryeth especially the Herb that is struck or smitten with the scorching of the Sun then its Flower Falls and its beauty perisheth The Moorish Fenny Herb the Reed or Sea-grass groweth not without Water and is soon withered in dry places God takes care of the Herb though to day it be and to morrow it be cast into the Oven There are different divided sorts of Herbs both in respect of the efficient cause For some are swon and come from Culture and others are unsown voluntary and growing without the use of such Art naturally spinging up without any skill of man laid out about them The sown Herbs are expressed by such as are seeding of Seed the other is the Fruit-tree yielding Fruit whose seed is in it both are budding grass And also in respect of their Native place For there are Herbs of the Field Herbs of the Mountains Herbs of the Moors or Fens Also in respect of growth and of age Some Herbs are younger and tenderer others are more grown and ripe the distilling shower doth make them fruitful also in respect of their quality for some Herbs are bitter with which the Paschal Lamb was to be eaten Others are satish Herbs There are Pot-herbs all kinds of such Some whereof are of the Fields gathered for Food others are of the Gardens Gardens do afford Fruit for Food The Kings themselves did use Garden herbs and Orchard fruits The Gardeners Work is to Till and to Dress Gardens for such Herbs Tythe of them was to be paid as proper healthful Food for Labourers in the Work of the LORD There is both Food and Medicine in them too Some of them are proper for those who are weak Daniel chose this kind of Dyet and preferred it before lushious dainties of the Royal Table and it put him into the more healthful state Some are greater than others as that of the Mustard Seed is one of the least What is weak is compared to the green Herb which doth quickly perish The place of Grass is the Earth the Mountains not dry but moist places It greatly flourisheth for a time the Spring is usually the Season of its greatest flourishing when it more buds forth in its beauteous verduxe though withal it quickly fails There is green Grass and there is Grass that is withered and they have both of them their several usefulness for several purposes The LORD has ways of smiting of the Grass in which case much of its Virtue is lost It was Aelohim who created the Planets He alone gives them power to encrease He adorned the Garden of Eden with them Such a Garden is one of the pleasantest places for earthly delights for a studious searcher into these secrets of Nature here below It was Solomon's Wisdom that he excelled in this Science He treated of Plants from the Cedar to the Hysop or Rosemary rather and most mens concluding upon the loss of that Book doth feed a gross mistake as if now this Art were not to be searched after in the Word of Truth Whereas there is more of this in Solomon's Writings came to our hands than passeth under through exact Observation but in taking in the rest of the Scriptures concerning this there might be found an admirable fulness on this subject matter The budding Plant doth put forth its boughs The most pleasant of Plants do not profit without the blessing of Elohim Olive-plants are always green and they are of a growing Nature The LORD Jesus himself is compared to a tender Plant and so is his Church and People It is healthful as well as delightful dwelling to be among Plants and Hedges There are some Plants that are green Plants of the Valley There are some Plants which are called
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
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
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
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