ever be known by another In the next place we discourse the Element of Water imagined by some a solution of Earth or a moist coagulum of ambient Air made fluid only by an internal flux which surrounding the Earth compleats but one Globe and which aquous fluidity separates only the impurities from the more extraneous and superficial parts but cannot reach to the Core or Centre whereby to examine the internal impurities which an intence Fire naturally purgeth forth by reason of its ardent activity and not improper to say its vulcanick nature where the Waters of themselves can never reach Two Elements therefore are destinated to putrification and as the matter to be purified is visible or invisible consequently such are the Agents for purification Since the Fire therefore is an invisible Agent and that other of Water most obvious and visible the visible and invisible parts of things are therefore so mended and cleansed by subtile Operation whereby they seseparate the more inquinate impurity that stifly adheres to the immaculate nature and prestine state of Virgin purity But as the Soul within the Body is not bett'red by the Corporiety of all or any of the natural composition or impendent matter hovering about it but is rather stained poluted and infected with noxious Sapors arising thence from So you are to consider that the Vessel has its honour from the dignity of the Arcanum or glory of the Subject matter therein contained And as the Scripture instructs us that Gods surprizing Light illuminates every pious act of the Creature it obligeth us to consider that the Goodness of God is as great to forgive as by his Clemency and Bounty he is just to pardon Where note we observe God made things proportionable and in all respects suitable to himself The great World he made therefore to contain the less but the lesser World he made to contain himself that contains the greater And thus you have the Mystery of the Creation the Majesty of Reason the Divinity of Scripture and authority of Philosophy But the Waters brought forth every moving Creature because in them was the Spirit of Life For the Spirit of Life by Divine incubation made ingress into them filling them with a prolifick vertue and the first form'd Creature that the Waters brought forth was the great and unweildy body of Earth most recluse and solitary because inwardly concealed which till then never felt the operative foâ—ce of Fire Nor did the luminous Ray of the Sun nor the vertual influence of Stars nor the Divine order of Constellations nor the treasures of Hail and Rain of Lightning and Thunder nor the Seasons of Heat and Cold Frost and Snow besides innumerable living Creatures to whom Heavens plentiful Breast daily administred till then none of them knew the potency of Life nor the force and energy of the universal Spirit which God by Wisdome inspired into them But some will object and peradventure say how and after what manner does the Earth vegetate Shew us also the rationallity and probability whereby the Earth and the Water become living Creatures to which I readily and briefly answer the Soul of the Divine World is God himself but that of the Created the universal spirit of Nature and this Soul lives by vertue of the Divine World but acts by imagination only in the Created whereby the Earth conceives vegetates and buds up so does the Waters protrude and bring forth even to the period and perfection of its predestinated end Nor can they otherwise do because the Law of Providence and Necessity is by Divine ordination imposed upon them And that which enriches them are the sublime treasures of Elements and Principles For wanted they those active and ingressive instruments they were of all things in Nature most imperâ—ect and would be altogether void and unprofitable so become as it were a meer annihilation and not improper should I call it a Caput Mortuum For it were impossible that any Created Being if when wanting the Vital Faculty of Life could be any ways at any time in a capacity to live consequently to move vegetate and protrude But the great and the lesser World is fill'd with animation whereby it daily and hourly buds forth All which are signal and demonstrable tokens of the Spirit of Life that animates and actuates in every Creature Life therefore is that active and universal Spirit of Nature wherewith she infusseth the whole Creation impregnating every individual therewith whereby the Character of Life is no sooner stampt infus'd or imprest upon any material Subject but it inwardly lives as does the invisible World which no sooner appears to move forward into act but the model and frame of the Subject matter at once admits of exteriour Motion Life therefore as it is the Radix of every thing so it acts demonstratively in every Body The motion of the Sun we daily observe is necessarily occasioned by this active spirit of Life And such is the vital pulse in Man as also that large and greater pulse of the Ocean Earth vegetates only from this operating Spirit and the Air is replenished and fill'd full of it Every thing that is lives not without it nor can any thing subsist deficient of it O wonderful Nature the Miracle of the Creator how intelligeable art thou in all thy Operations and tho' so simple naked and demonstratively plain yet how difficult is it for the Artist to find out So that were we minded to imitate Nature in her solitary Operations and Fermentation of Elements we ought first to consider in order to what Nature in her daily progress points out unto us whereby to manidge and introduct us whose mediums because primarily separation and solution of parts therefore from thence begins manual Operation Let solution therefore be the first step since in separation all is found Then proceed to Filtration Evaporation Congealation Cristalization Distillation Digestion Putrefaction Ceration Albification Rubification and Fixation Then will Diana appear from under her Vail which none but the Eyes of a true Philosopher since the beginning ever yet saw But now I suspect I 'me beyond the Paraphrase of the Text when only designed to discourse the Creation so of Elements and Principles Natures own Rudiments How that Elements subsist not without previous Fermentation of their complicated comâ—xture of invisible Parts so that a compleat separation is no where found whereby to unlock and disintangle the unity of Bodies without a Philosophical Clavis to display their Principles which otherwise are limited and by Nature confined to submit to the law of coagulation Of all which I cease farther to disclose lest peradventure this secret be already too manifest when because to devulge it to the root of ingratitudes so we leave that Subject to discourse the Leviathan And God made great Whales c. Iob calls him Leviathan who after his Creation by the permission of God rolls toâ— and fro the fluctuating Ocean Whose unctuous Scales pollish the
Royalty at the Eye as having some blind Iurisdiction in the Pores For this were to measure Magical Positions by the Superficial Strictures of common Philosophy Whose Assertors too confident of the Principles of Tradition labour not to understand what others speak but to make others speak what they themselves understand For it is in Nature as appears in Religion some are still hammering and fashioning of old Elements but seek not the Eutopia that lies beyond them This Body therefore let 's consider it the Temple and the Soul that 's within it the Sanctum Sanctorum for the Majesty to dwell in Which if so this Earth must be rarified to make a pure Heaven and Heaven must be purified before the Divinest will inhabit within it Great and Iust therefore is the Original Good whose Incomprehensible Beauty and Divine Majesty neither the Heavens nor the Earth nor the Orbs nor the Ocean nor the expatiated Abyss can any ways contain him Which certainly to know is Speculum Sapientiae scraw'd out in the fair Frontespiece of the beautiful Creation as also in that Divine Manuscript of Holy Writ where the Patriarchs and the Prophets are Marginal Notes and the Holy Men of God with our pious Ancestors the lively Records and divine Remembrancers of the Sacred Oracles of the Majesty of Truth Thus far the Ark of the Covenant travelled and thus far the Talmudists transported themselves but some of the Cabalists went some degrees farther when they met with Christ and his Twelve Apostles yet could they not see the great Messiah But Gabriel the Angel salutes the Blessed Virgin with Hail Mary full of Grace blessed art thou among the Daughters of Women For the Holy of Holies shall overshadow thee with Beauty and thou shalt conceive and bear a Child and he shall be called the Son of God. John Baptist also he confirms the Miracle who when Jesus with him coming forth of the Water the Heavens themselves most gloriously opened and the Holy Ghost divinely descending like a Dove rested the Glory of the Majesty upon him and then was there a Voice heard from the Divinest This is my Son my beloved Son let the Nations hear him Now to the Jews this became a stumbling-block as to some of the Rabbies a Rock of offence but to the Gentiles that sat in the Suburbs of Darkness and the Scriptures tell us in the Shadow of Death the most glorious Mystery of the Revelation of God and the everlasting Gospel was preached unto them So that from these two eminent and most sacred Primordials the one of the Law and the other of the Gospel Religion or something like it took its native Original yet so strangely masqueraded disfigured and disguised that were not a Man well assured what it was it would be found difficult to resolve what to call it And thus the Sun Heavens major Luminary when because at once falling upon several Angles represents the Light in various forms So Christianity though a familiar Appellation yet admits it of such Variety in its progress and peregrination because when to mingle it self with all sorts of Professions that Professors themselves have been puzled how to rate it whiles the noble Berean searches the Scriptures and as the Scriptures manifestly testifie of Christ so Christ himself saith they testifie of him The great Oracle therefore and the Miracle of Faith is Christ himself and Christ is God From whence the Mystery of our Eternal Salvation the blessed Regeneration and the spiritual Birth that internally breaths in every pious Believer is Christ in us the hope of Glory the Sovereign Revealer of the Wisdom of God whose Light is the Beauty of the Majesty of Light that enlightneth every one coming into the World and is our saving and our sanctifying Light before Time had a Being God blessed for ever Thus in brief I present you with a Sacred Summary of my pious Conceptions of the Scriptures of Truth divulg'd to the World as a Treasure of Mysteries calculated for the Assiduous and only such whose Integrity and Fidelity internally shine forth as their Faces externally in a Glass respond and answer a due and exact Proportion From whence I conclude this Philosophical Axiom As are the Writings of Moses the Standard of Truth that God the Creator has by a Royal Law imposed upon Nature eternally to operate the Vniversal Spirit therefore is but One in all her Operations viz. in the Fire to influence in the Air to impregnate in the Water to germinate and in the Earth to vegetate Where note The Elements consequently the Principles were divinely preordained by the Sovereign Power of him that 's Supream who constituted Nature to conserve the Creation or solemnly I declare I understand it not Nor would I be thought either rash or unreasonable to reassume a Priviledge in what I distribute but as Words are my own whiles yet in my Mouth and every bodies else when unconfined so let them be and have a charitable Reception when to run their Risque in the Worlds great Lottery because when to fall under various Conceptions yet if so happy to meet with the Ingenious in Science meaning such as dread and honour their Creator and imitate Nature in her solitary Operations which every expert Artist and experienced will do provided his Inquisitions be after the Truth to such and such only I dedicate my Labors together with my Endeavours to Wisdoms elaborate Shrine that with vertuous Inclinations they may seek after Discoveries and the abstruse Tracts of their Friend Philanthropus RABBI MOSES IN the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth Which directs me to contemplate this World is a great Machine or an Engine-royal adapted for Motion by the Power of Him that created the Creation that not so much as an Atom can move or stir save only by a derivative Vertue from him that thro Wisdom and Providence gave a Being to the Whole who knows all the Parts and Particles of his Work. How can he then be thought ignorant of its Motion or in any thing be deficient when he that made the World knows how to influence the hidden Springs and Parts thereof he knows for what End and Duration he design'd its Motion and the time when all things shall pass away So that when the Divinest withdraws the Springs of Life viz. his supporting Providence from any Creature in the Creation or from the Elements or the whole World it self it must sink into a state of Inactivity consequently become a meer Annihilation Now That Heaven and Earth are Corelates who doubts it That they sprung spontaneously from one Principium who disputes it And that they had in themselves by Divine Ordination Ends and Beginnings most properly adapted and insinuated into them who so Impious and Atheistical to suspect it That the World had a Beginning is manifest That Eternity preceded Time is most manifest And that every End terminates in its own proper Beginnings nothing more manifest Every End therefore
engendred or otherwise by Putrefaction have received a new State through Fermentation all which Productions are manifest Arguments of Life and Spirit as also of Vegetation The Texture therefore of this great World clearly discovers and demonstrates its animation where the Visibility of Earth manifestly represents the Impure Gross and Natural Basis and the Elemental Waters because circulating about it assimilates also the Venal Blood actuating and fermenting in every Body where the vital Pulse also operates as is seen in the admirable Flux and Reflux of the Ocean and the Air of necessity the Vehickle for Spirits wherein this vast Creature meaning the Creation breath's invisibly tho peradventure not altogether nor in any part insensibly and the Interstellar Skies and Aetherial Waters the Vital Parts whiles the Sun Moon and Stars are the animating Spirits and supersensual Fires that warm the Creation But this kind of Philosophy will puzle the Putationer as the Primitive Truth of the Apostles confounded the Romans So Moses's Philosophy in the Rudiments of the Creation will be as little understood as the Tracts of Hermes the Tâ—â—mudist's Cabalist's Caldeans Egyptians aud Arabians if when to consider the possibility of Nature which is impossible without supernatural discoveries and should we otherwise conclude than by Divine Authority we lick up the Froth of every sottish Generation so usher to posterity that Atheistical Opinion calculated by Imaginarist's that the Creator slept whiles the Chaos of it self without Divine direction fell into this beautiful Order as we now behold it which if but to think so is a Sin of Impiety and an Error so enormous never enough to be lamented But all such Inquietudes we remit them to their destiny since to carry such and so many Furies in their own Bosoms whereby to hurry and torment themselves whose unwholsome Principles because nautious to themselves would stamp their impression on those that suck them in so that one would think such Souls mingled with Clay and because in the limit and circumstance of Time are iâ— some measure confin'd to Earth's sublunar mixts and by the World so severely intangled that like Birds in Limetwigs the more they flutter the faster they find themselves intangled in such a state I perswade my self there 's no Divine Speculation nor Visional Faith whereby to see the invisible state of things as they stand nakedly simply and purely in themselves of which these Visible Objects are but Natural Representatives This perswasion directs to me an unregenerate state because when not to partake of a Supernatural Birth the Soul therefore that 's immerged with Sin Darkness conducts it to a dismal destiny deeply shadowed under the decays of Elements and impossible without a Miracle to make a flight above the World since by innate inherency its partaker of the World. But the Stars if when to consider them the Almighty's Library where every Star is the Volumn of a World and every World a sumptuous Globe divinely held in the Hand of its Maker for such they were and such they are not that these sublime and eminent Elevations were only made for Mortals confusedly to gaze at no I 'me perswaded rather to excite and stir up admiration whereby to elevate and quicken our Devotion above our selves when to behold such Majesty fixt in the Creation for are not these Luminous and Illustrious Bodies which we behold hung up in that great Vortrice of Heaven Celestial Lamps to illuminate the Universe and not only to illuminate but animate and vegetate so in conclusion influence and impregnate the Creation 'T is true that Heaven is a Paradise for Souls and a Divine Reception for the Divinity it self but not that I prophane to term it a Habitation when alluding that Heaven contains the Divinest since Heaven is every where where ever God is whose Holy Presence institutes it Immutable Immeasurable and Eternal like himself whose Nature transmutes it into his own likeness and puts it into such a Divine Capacity that for ever its uncapable of the periods of Death Heaven therefore is the Divine Habitation of God and the Light of Heaven the Divinity of God the blessed Society there Saints and Angels and there it is that the Prophets and Prophetesses with Apostles and Evangelists daily Prophesie for there every Day is a daily Sabboth and Elohim betwixt the Cherubs is the Lord Iehovah But the Evening and the Morning were the second Day so that twenty four Hours nor more nor less do but compleat a Natural Day when as the whole Tract of Time in its Natural Progress appears to me but one Day Super-natural of which our Ancestors as also our selves from Sacred Authority had these Divine Speculations so that if to consider that two Days natural could operate such a change in the great Creation we may rationally conclude and as modestly determine the residue an Argument to evince the Generations For could I but seriously point out to the Creature the Blessed Creators mystical Operation which is altogether impossible I might then peradventure prove an Instrument to some whereby to moderate and disintangle Passion pursuant only after perishing Objects and for ought I know blot out the Prejudice and Animosity of others meaning such as seditiously sow Discention among the Brethren endeavouring thereby to reap the fruits of their own conjectural Imaginations which to do but undoes one another by violating the Sacred Laws of God as that also of Nature and of true Religion since the Scriptures by a Divine Authority require that every one examine himself and seriously and sedately study a Reformation Then were the Waters beneath the Heaven by Divine Appointment gathered together and those Invisible Waters above the Heavens rallied themselves and separated apart which admirable and wonderful Act or Operation occasioned a trepidation all over the Chaos for till then the Waters intermingled with the Waters and the Elements as Inmates spread themselves among them till God in his Wisdom stirred up the Magnet and then the Waters immediately attracted so by Collision broke the Bond of Unity for when so great a change happned in the whole of necessity every individual separated apart In which admirable progress every one had its station yet was it by appointment and the Providence of God so that the more sublime the matter was by so much the higher it ranged it self removing more remotely from its own Faecula when on the contrary to admiration the more Gravity it had by so much the closer it adhered to its Recrement and in this Operation the Fire claim'd the Precedency but next the Fire the Air pleaded Succession so that these two Elements become as it were invisible and which also by reason of a Spirituallity administred only to the Vital parts But Water and Earth when to consider their Corporiety their Gravity their Unity and more Consubstantial Parts and because also Synonimous with the Creature it cloathed and fed it with Prolifick Vertue for whatever any thing is of it self of
the same likeness it naturally produceth and such as are the constitution of Elements and Principles such also are our Native and Corporial Constitutions To consider things therefore as they are in themselves we need not to borrow Spectacles from others for if when to consider the Sun universally shines notwithstanding the Blind Man he seeth it not and so of Eclipses tho some have seen them what then their natural Reason and Understanding can't reach them however Credit go's a great way in the case The Blind-man perhaps he swallows a Fly and if he do and feel it not what prejudice is there in it when a Fly in the Glass to him that hath Eyes is not only disturb'd but in some measure terrified because fearing to surfeit if not to suffocate Circumspection therefore and the Vertue of Temperance circumscribe to us the Mediums for long Life when excess of any thing overthrows the whole and would even do so to this stupendious Creation should it in any thing exceed with intemperance The Vertue therefore and the Office of Water is to cleanse to moisten to mollific and dissolve to wash also and purific the the outside And this peradventure was Iohn Baptists Ordinance when only to blot out the Character of Circumcision which indeed was then prevalent among the Iews till the Baptism of Jesus of more Energy and Vertue took place to purge out Sin by Internal Purification and which also is that Baptism of the Holy Ghost which Iohn proclain'd was the Baptism of Fire so that these two Ordinances and Divine Operations were vastly different and distinct from one another for the one only washes but the other purifies the first to brush off the outward defilements but the latter to blot out Internal Pollution Consider it therefore you Christian Professors and live not by Profession but the life of Christianity And the Divinest said Let the dry Land appear which was no sooner said but it immediately appeared Now dry Land which is the solid and fix'd part of the Creation all Interpreters agree that its literally Earth and properly is such and generally so received as is by Expositors and others concluded And this dry Earth I have also considered was that only which was left after separation of the Elements to which also was added the dignity of an Element and because ranged and superscribed in the fourth Clasis of the Macrocosm is confirm'd the most solid and most fix'd part of the whole concentring it self upon its own proper Basis and impending on nothing by a Divine Ordination but it s own equal Poize and the Will of God so that neither upwards nor downwards Extension nor Demension can any ways remove displace or unlodge it because God through Wisdom has inspired into it the Magnet of Fixation Gravity and Station which confirms it a central and fixt residence and the Waters to rowl perpetually about it The Air also to incircle and surround it and the Fire above all to surmount above it yet every of them is restricted by Providence within the Circular Globe or Firmament of Heaven But where are we now got above the Elements no probably but as far as our Eyes will carry us no mortal sees farther Our Basis I perceive then will be understood the Earth and Earth and Water compleat but one Globe so that of the whole and visible appearance here seems to remain but one moity left and the rather to confirm it it 's obvious to every one that the Firmament of Heaven intersects betwixt them for the Elements of Fire and Air disappearing they become invisible so that what remains now save only Earth and Water which are Subjects most solid and visible to us Not that I impose this Doctrine upon any Man nor do I offer it as a noval of my own since therefore of it self it is so demonstrable let it carry its evidence in the Frontispiece of Time. Earth therefore and Water are constipated Corelates as hitherto we have observed them visible Elements and the difference betwixt them is easily reconcileable when to consider the Gravity of the one and Fluidity of the other yet both impregnated with Vital Faculties and to each is super added a Prolifick Vertue and because daily influenced by Stars and Planets are by the Divinest inspired with Life and Vegetation But Earth is the Nurse and Supply of Elements as is Water the Sister and the Mother of Earth and because both filled with Vertual Production they fail not to send forth their daily encrease whose Prolifick Breasts minutely sprung up naturally replenished to supply the Universe But I must caution my self what I say now least peradventure there are some will decry any Hypothesis and what if they do I matter not much since to leave behind me Proselites enough after my Death to assert and maintain That the World had a beginning this is undeniable That Time sprung from Eternity this is also indisputable That Generation succeeded Time this is beyond all dispute unquestionable And that Generation terminates in Death is altogether infallible That the Elements and Principles were lodg'd in the great Mass of the Chaos is true That Fire because of its Dignity superceeded the rest is most true And that Air because of its purity climb'd up after the Fire is certainly as true leaving the Waters rolling too and fro fluctuating incircling and inspiring the Earth and the Earth as Central to all the rest by Wisdom and Providence was concentrate on its Basis. Now tell me if you please what false Doctrine's here and I 'll tell you that our Modern Philosophers will allow it Orthodox as the precedent Generations and Philosophers before them so govern'd themselves as to assert and vindicate it So that as I design no Captivity by my Discourse nor intend I any Conquest or Triumph over others only the exercise of every Man's Reason compelling no Man to the dictates of my conclusions Give me leave therefore such to advise as converse with Scripture or correspond with Reason and the possibility of Nature such I mean as profligate those Fictious Notions of Heathens and Infidels and Atheistical Antiseripturists whose suggestions are only of an imaginary Being of that Superlative Being whose real Essence is existent in himself pre-existing Time and is the God of Nature God blessed for ever And the Earth brought forth Grass Here 's Natural Production and this Natural Product spreading it self abroad in a very short progress run into multiplication and because the Creator destinated it to the Creatures use it became Nutritious and Salubrious to them consequently agreeable and convertible to their Nature But the Apostle tells us That all Flesh is Grass and as the Grass fadeth and withereth away so Flesh and Blood our daily Morts prognosticate them also in a state of Corruption and in process of time to admit of Solution Every thing therefore that is in a capacity of being dissolved that thing most certainly becomes invisible and such a
it Darkness since separabel from the beauteous Beam of Light and such is Sin and such also is Death since by Adam's Transgression who consenting to Sin violated Gods Divine and Regal Command so wounded himself with his own Sting Death and Sin therefore Van Helmont calls Accidents or some impious malignity that lurk'd about the matter whereby to lessen Light and abscond or ecclipse its beautiful Lustre which when removed by the Divine Grace of God the Body then seems to appear Celestial Nor can it be otherwise since if when to consider there 's no difference nor distinction betwixt Heaven and Earth save Clarity of the one and Impurity of the other and this is a State we daily discourse of nay we hourly wish for 't and long to enjoy it yet so great is our Zeal to these ambiguous uncertainties that we dare not trust our selves to entertain it And because so adhering to the World and its allurements kind answering kind whose Luscious Breast seems sweet and pleasant and whose surprizing Charms luxuriously satiating we gulp down Avarice and drink down Oppression so like Diana with the Ephesians cry Gain is sweet thus tainting our selves become infectious to others for a stinking Breath tho loathsome to the Company yet is it to it self a natural perfume so Sin and Impiety in its habitual dress tho ugly seems amiable and tho faetid smells fragrant and knows no impediment Thus Paul by Faith fought with Beasts at Ephesus and Philanthropus with Monsters in the Desarts of America 'T is true and as true as the Sun 's the great Luminary whose luminous Body illustrates the Creation yet is not the Sun that Soveraign Light that adorned the Throne before the Creation when the Divinest said Let there be Light and immediately the Light of it self sprung up which Light by his Wisdom he called Day and dignified it also with the Title of Good nor could it be otherwise than good in the Abstract since the Divinest had called it Good and because proceeding from the Fountain of Good its Original can be no less than God. Now the Day had its Original as has the Sun its Aurora and the Sun tho the Major Luminary of the Universe whose refulgent Ray illustrates the Creation by Rapidity Circulating and Patrolling about it yet is it by Wisdom and the Guidance of God another Aurora of the increated Light which never ceaseth invisibly to shine when the Sun withdraws from our occular view as imaginarily supposed towards the Western Fountains whiles this pure Light never ceaseth to shine in the Heart of Man and the Throne of the Majesty tho to the World and ignorant it appear invisible and because too sublime for the weak Vision of Sight whereby a dimness seems to overshadow it as gazing too much at the natural Sun in some measure astonisheth the Purlue of Sight so the Soveraignty of the Glory of the Son of God whose excessive brightness seems to cause a blindness when as indeed it 's the Purity and Soveraignty of Light we are therefore to reduce it under this consideration that nothing that 's impure can behold what 's pure nor Carnality partake of what is Spirituous There is therefore this difference betwixt Natural and Supernatural as also betwixt Celestial and Terrestrial things that all Spirituous Bodies can pass the Purgatory of Fire without any detriment or diminution of parts when as Corporeals if but to touch the Flames are at once in a Moment destroy'd and consumed Purification of Bodies must therefore necessarily precede whereby to dignifie and make them Celestial Natural things therefore are in one distinct state but Spiritual things are found in another and by how much our Nature is made more spirituous by so much are we nearer to the Nature of God. And as the Sun shines naturally more bright and distinctly more pure than our Culinary Fires how infinitely brighter and much more pure is the Majesty of that Light that invisibly shines from the Son of God But our new Philosophers or Erra Paters are much of the Cast with Figure-flingers that presume to step into the Prerogative of Prophets and antedate events in Configurations which is a Consequence I perswade my self of as much Reason and for ought I know to as great Satisfaction as to see the Auxiliaries draw out and exercise and the Spectators to read their designs by their postures But I proceed to discourse the Firmament of Heaven the Fluctuating Ocean also and the Waters in the Creation which presents to our consideration matter of Admiration consequently a suitable Subject for every Philosopher if sedately to contemplate their admirable separation when God divided the Waters from the Waters and the Firmament of Heaven stood stationary between them which denotes those rarified and invisible Waters Moses points at above us are an Act of Faith because of Invisibility whilst these below us are demonstrable to us which Argument as formerly confirms our Philosophy that the likeness of that which is remotely above is also beneath co-inhabiting below to work the Miracle of one single thing so that the same Act of Power and Providence that made them separable made them also invisible as by the Law of demonstration these are made visible to us But what are these Waters these invisible Waters that surmounting the Aether and because above us perpetually fly our sight what are they and what were they in the Fiat of the Creation more than the pure and spirituous part separated from impurity and all aquosity whiles the pinguous moist faecula and indigested Vapours stifly adhere to the visible form which by reason of inconcocted crudities and indigestions when celebrated to warmth lie fermenting in themselves and are the daily cause of Natural Production animating and exerting the Earth to Vegetation These Invisible Waters therefore above the Firmament must of necessity be a Rarefaction of Air and the Firmament because intermediating betwixt them remonstrates it Celestial and a clarified Earth For if to consult the Creation and created Beings we are to consider them in a two fold Capacity the Visibility of the one and the Invisibility of the other Elementary Bodies and Bodies Celestial where note sublunar things are influenced by Celestials as are Celestials governed by super Celestials As the Sun in his progress because ruling the Day is by Divine appointment the Parent of Vegetation So has the Moon her Nocturnal Government whereby she also operates the Ocean influencing Fluidity and the Female Sex Nor are the Stars and Constellations deficient or destitute whereby not to effect and influence Inferiors so that a perpetual motion is continually maintained and a constant rotation perpetually continued otherwise the Compound would admit of decay and a defect in any one part of the Creation would inevitably draw on an inconveniency upon the whole Thus the great Frame and Fabrick of the Creation was ranged into a most excellent and beautiful order which the Creator foresaw in the Idea
or prospect nor rested he there until the final Complement of his Divine Counsel and Determinate Purpose And then it was that Adam was made which the Divinest created no less than a Monarch and intrusted by the Creator with the Creatures in the Creation inraged Lucifer that infernal Prince to emulate the Dignity of this new Favorite who reflectiâ—g on his Ambitions that so lately dethron'd him which obliged him to forfeit his Regal Possession he therefore undermines to blow up this Favourite who tainting our Protoplast infects his Posterity And thus the bright and beautiful Morning is sometimes sullied with a louring Sky For did not the Sun 's early blazing smiles shine upon Sodom and her accurst Inhabitants that soon after ended in a fatal Tragedy what must we call this if not a dismal Eclipse nay altogether a deprivation of life save only to Lot and his preserved Family on purpose kept alive by the meanes of Miracle when all the rest were made most miserable Morts Whiles therefore we live here in this Natural State we only reap supplies of Aliment from Elements but when we shall be discharged the Manicles of Sin and releast from the horrour and amazements of Death we shall then appear under a more spirituous form and where we shall see things as they really are in themselves by which we may know till then we knew nothing Nor are these Moral Beings or Natural Apprehensions any other than signitures or the deliniated Figure of that super-excellent Beauty we shall see hereafter And God by Wisdom divided the Waters from the Waters the Celestial from the Terrestrial Heaven from Earth the Invisible from Visible things and so disposed them by the Law of Providence appointing to every one Dominion and Operation in order to bring about his determinated Creation And who knows but that these elevated and invisible Waters are the Waters Moses speaks of that Bathe the Banks of the New Ierusalem and that the spangled Firmament is the Pavement of Heaven or the solid part thereof if not improper to say so nor is 't impertinent to think so when Invisibles are pointed at by Visible Objects otherwise I understand not the design in the Text which supposing I do I am unwilling to be refuted if when only to hear another Mans contradiction But that there was and still is a Division or an Interposition betwixt Superiours and Inferiours is past dispute Moses asserts it and the Text affirms it where note as a Christian it concerns me to enquire and as a Philosopher as gladly desire to be advised and informed the Nature and the Quality of these divisional Waters the Vertue and the Office of that that 's Elementary as the Dignity and Operation of that that 's invisible the first because Elementary we daily converse with and frequently apply it unto servile uses but the latter since invisible we assign that to Moses except otherwise the Divinest by Oracle from Heaven be pleased to inspireus as the Prophet was inspired Faith therefore is the evidence of things invisible as is demonstration of visible things The Waters above the Firmament we have supposed them Celestial because of Sublimity Purity and Rarification which in the great and admirable work of this stupendious Separation the Chaos no sooner felt the Examen of Heat but Water began immediately to operate and presently became convertible into Air and this I call Aetherial Rarification by reason it s not only separated from Aquasity but apparently becomes to the World invisible Why not then by the same Argument all the Fountains and Aquoducts nay the Ocean it self by the Law of Necessity evaporate into Air since minutely it operates without intermission this is obvious to every one but the Sours of the Sea you 'll object is so deep her Springs and Supplies so manifestly numerous that it 's almost impossible to exhaust her Treasures whereby to render her barren or impoverish'd to that I answer God has placed such a Magnet in the very Bowel and Center of the Waters of that attractive and magnetick Vertue that were not the Waters bounded by the Law of Limitation the Earth peradventure would soften and melt consequently become convertible into Water and for ought I know resolve at last into a moist and a soft thin Air. But God the Creator has placed such a Bar betwixt the Visible and Invisible Waters He I say it is that by Wisdom and Providence hung up a Spangled Vail or Covering betwixt them and calls it the Firmament which intersects or divides betwixt Celestials and Terrestials yet so that a sympathy and continued harmony is by the Divinest correspondent betwixt them and the Text tells us that Heaven it self forbears not to sigh if at any time the Sinner be sadned to mourn but is filled with Alacrity and Heavenly Joy even at the Conversion of one single Penitent Nay so great is the triumph among the Saints and Angels when a Sinner becomes victor over Sin and Impenitency that all our Faculties as if Divinely exirted muster up themselves in open Hostility to oppose the Invador of our everlasting Tranquility but I intend not to common place upon this Divine Subject otherwise than to elucidate the Mysteries of the Creation And where Rabbi Moses has drawn the Curtain I shall modestly by permission endeavour to withdraw it provided it be thought neither Sacriledge nor Impiety since to confider behind this Mystical Interposition the Magi have concealed the Sanctum Sanctorum nor Prophane I when to say The Beauty of Holiness So that we may read and begin to understand the Firmament by Interpretation is called Heaven which certainly is the Basis and Celestial Superstructure of this most admirable and stupendindious Creation tho to us and our Ancestors seemingly invisible wherefore let us resort to Heavens great School where Christ himself is Dictator and Pilate to conduct us and chief Rabbi to instruct us for the Divinest himself will become our Interpreter so that God in due time will certainly manage us to that Seraphick Society of Saints and Angels where we shall Daily be Divinely taught and by Jesus Christ the Son of God made so Prophetical and Evangellically Intelligeable that the Alphabet of Heaven will be the Christ-Cross-Row whiles about these Sublunar Orbs our Modern Didacticks and Learned Academicks are hourly so impinged that they sore no higher than Custom and President of Profest Arts and if without offence I may freely speak it rather of Litteral than Liberal Science Where note some Anti-Scripturist's have been lately so Prophane as to imagine God like to a Country Mechanick that builds up with Stone and finishes with Timber without any Infusion of Life and Motion as if the whole Creation was a Creature inanimate when the voluminous World which is Gods great Library is filled full of Life Activity and Motion which Life is Spirit and the cause of Multiplication and the natural Production of all created things that by Copulation are
unlock the Meanders of Nature Diana in this Vision seem'd almost unvailed and every thing naked in its native simplicity This represents somewhat an Admical state but unsatisfied in mind as to these discoveries I was led to contemplate the Mysteries of the Incarnation how the Divinity when cloathed with Humanity took not only our Nature but our Infirmities upon him and was a bright and shining Light illuminating the World and every thing therein and is that Light which saveth the World that shines in darkness yet the darkness knows it not a Light of that Beauty that illustrates Eternity and regenerates us Plants in the Paradice of God to legitimize us Heirs of the New Ierusalem which if duely considered here 's a prospect of Life when at a distance stands hovering the issues of Death So that Good and Evil seem to stand in a Poiz ' till Earth be found lite by the counterpoiz of Heaven and here it was also I see my self naked waiting for a change for God is all This leads me on to a farther consisideration if when to contemplate what 's more visible than Earth and Earth and Water to compleat but one Globe whilst the Air is drest up with the blessings of Vegetation whereby to inrich and impregnate the Earth As may be seen in the very front and surface of the Soil since dekt and adorn'd with such beautiful Greens as Ornaments of Superiours illustrating inferiours So that the Earth was spread with prolifick Vertue and production from thence immediately ensued by discovering the prodigious plenty of Grass a word large enough to express it universal had not some laboured tho' to little purpose because when to shroud it under the denomination of Herbage Grass therefore admits of a large extension when because to comprehend both Animals and Vegetables and is peradventure the Original word notwithstanding the various interpretation of Expositors because directing it self to the level Paul speaks of as two intersecting Angles direct to the Centre of one and the same single gnomen So that we need not to cavil about the word Grass where the property of the thing is so well understood Herbage therefore is Grass and Paul tells us Flesh is Grass and Grass by interpretation is the most universal Vegetable Trees and Plants also are of the same Linage save only from a larger size of more maturated Grass Stones and concressions also what must we call them if not coagulated and petrefied Grass So that Grass in one respect is every thing that Earth vegetates tho modified after various Formations and Figures differently drest up by the hand of Nature And because haveing respect to time and place by supplement of Air and moist soveraign Vapours causeth it to grow and spreading It self on the Superficies of Earth spires out into Grass Which when otherwise concealed in subterranean Cavities grows up into Metals and the race of Minerals As for Example have not all Trees their Roots in the Earth when their loaden Boughs hang burdned with Fruit. And are not all Metalline Roots radicated in the Air when the Centre of the Earth is burdened with their Fruits what 's more intelligible Now there is but one universal Spirit in Nature from whence things Originally have all their supplies and the three Clauses also of Animals Vegetables and Minerals are they not so many Marks Sigels and Characters which the Creator has imprinted and stampt upon them whereby the Creature might read and know them But Man above all because Lord of the Creation is made most intelligible whereby to understand them wherefore he calls them by Names for distinction when as the rest of the Creatures know them only by instinct And this vegetating Spirit has its Seed in its self and the Air is plentifully replenished with it which Seeds scatter'd and spread about the Vniverse furnisheth the Creatures in all parts of the Creation The Americans can tell you that Trees grew naturally where the Native Indians never had a being and were it not for Europes agriculture and industry her florid Fields and flourishing Pastures would soon feel the fatal stroke of disorder so become Forrests and barren Desarts fit only for beastial and salvage inhabitants For God never made nor sent any thing into the World that was either indigent defective or imperfect every Creature nay the Plants themselves were furnished with prolifick and seminal qualifications sterility was a thing utterly unknown till disobedience disinherited our royal Protoplast which had for ever so remained to the periods of time had not the Cross obliterated the Curse Our Ancestours oft laboured to strike out the Eyesore which the succeeding Generations have thought no impediment because to study new Modes of Sinning whereby to improve impiety by consent which has rarely ceased to follow every Generation as naturally in my opinion as Rust attends Copper fretting and corroding the natural Body till time and other comodes blot out its Character so permits the compound to slide into Atomes and yield it self Captive to the Prisons of Death waiting from the Artist a Resurrection But such Bodies as these we call imperfect because of a Leprosie impendent on them when as indeed there are other dignified Bodies that fear not to die because uncapable of Death whose peluced anima like Stars in the Firmament make glad the Adepti and solicitous in Art. In the next place I purpose to speak something of Light and since Light by the Text is the Oracle of God it was by his Wisdome apparently made manifest when undressing the Hoil of this beauteous Creation which Light also leapt out of the bosome of Eternity into the Vision and perspective of Time and because expatiating it self in the Chaos was the Cause of this admirable Separation of the Waters when by Divine Ordination they divided themselves and then it was that dry Land appeared Nor could it be otherwise because then the purer parts immediately began to feel the force of Separation so let the recrements subside to the bottome because of their feculent and impure Centre and thus by the Fiat were all impurities Separated from that which of it self was altogether pure and this Act of Separation we attribute to God who substituted Nature daily to operate For should there happen but the least Cessation the whole Compound would annihilate so become invisible But every Separation of separable Things creates the Unity and perpetuates the Harmony since the Life of one Element is dependent on another nor lives the one without the breathings of the other The Waters perpepetually moistening the Earth whiles the Earth inspires and ferments the Water but the soft sweetnings and breathings of Air impregnates both as do the Stars in their station and Celestial Rotation actually influence and penetrate the whole From whence we morrally and rationally conclude that Earth made dissoluble converts into Water and Water by heat is raâ—ified into Air. Air consequently by circulation is convertible into Fire and this