after Purgation to rectify and conjoyn and then advance if it could be to a plusquam perfection whereby to imitate Nature as she by president imitates the Creator what admirable thing would the Operator bring forth Wherefore the Apostle he bids you be perfect as your Heavenly Father is also perfect And what can advance to a state of Perfection but that which separates from Sin and Impurity Thus the Heavens are pure and infinitely clarified yet much more pure is he that created them which state to know is never to know Death Wherefore as by imitation some Bodies are made always to live in the Phylosophick World which the Adeptest intitles and superscribes Transmutation but the Theologist in the Super-celestial that of Regeneration And as one is the period of Principles and Elements such also is the other of Corporification leading Death into Captivity and transforming every impure Being into a Celestial Clarity and Purity and the Souls of Righteous Men into endless Glory but this Operation is performable only by the Heavenly Arcanum or Medicament of Life which Sacred Soveraign and Divine Elixir is the Christ of God the Wisdom of the Father to whom devoutly be everlasting Praises And as Christ is called the Light of the World c. Light may properly therefore be asserted the Manifestation of God and the Oracle of his Truth for if what visible Light is or appears unto the Bodily Eye the same but infinitely more glorious is the invisible Light that illuminates the Understanding in the Eye of the Mind The want of Light it 's true makes Man deplorable so is Ignorance of the Mind to be lamented And as Generation that sprang out from Corruption of those things which were esteemed the best so the Light that shines in Man when it becomes eclipst by the shades of Sin how dreadful and dismal is that Darkness As Light therefore of all things is accounted most desirable the want of it to the Mind makes the Man most miserable So of all Ignorance that Ignorance is the worst which hath reference to the most Noble and Sublimest Object and by how much the subject of Knowledge is better by so much is the deprivation of that Knowledge intollerable As any one therefore by putting out a Mans Eyes whereby to intercept him the injoyment of Light is reputed cruel so he that prevents the means of Knowledge is no less if not infinitely more by a Scriptural Authority adjudged condemnable Light therefore because exalted above all Created Beings it confirms it the Standard of Wonder and Admiration whose beauteous Beam displays it self the uncreated Being before the Creation consequently superexcelling all the rest in Dignity but the created luminous Ray of the Sun that strikes the Poles from East to West nay farther its possible could we apprehend it is sacredly held forth as the Almighties Taper whereby to illustrate the Visible World as do's the Light of his Sovereign All-glorious Son invisibly shine in the Souls of Saints to convince the World of Sin and Unbelief And tho Laban usher Leah unto Iacob's Bed by introducing her instead of his beautiful Rachel so every designing Imaginarist do's when describing only exteriour things but states nothing essentially Such I may say dwell meerly in the Face or at the best on the superficial parts of the Body never aspiring after the fulness of Beatitude which Philosophy in my Opinion looks like to a Church that 's drest up with Discipline when wanting sound Doctrine So that if when to consider the exteriour form of complicated mixts shall melt away probably we arrive at the fiery principium whose Elevations lead on to a state Immortal co-uniting us to that invisible Nature that admits not of any thing save Purity intense by the continued ardency of a Pious Devotion As in Operation it 's evident and egregiously true that the Elements themselves assume all Colours before the Beauty of those colours egrede wherefore they begin with Blackness first because the Antecessour and Parent of Putrefaction after it passes thro other middle Colours till at length it arrives at a Celestial Whiteness which then is Air from whence it ascends to a fiery Complexion in which the Power of Art and Dominion of Fire when to speak Aenigmatically is compleatly terminated and beyond which in my Opinion there 's no natural progress And God no sooner divinely said Let there be Light but immediately there was Light so that his Commands were in a moment answered for how soon did the Light spontaneously spring up and amounting aloft fill the Universe with Splendor So that now the Creation became altogether visible and every concealed Treasure that lay hid therein exposed it self unto occular view whereby to discover the Chaos commaserated and Water and Earth by previous digestion without contention or strong ebullitions began of themselves distinctly to separate and the Earth as rejected to precipitate downwards by reason of its Gravity and solid Ponderosity so that these two Elements were only made visible but the Fire and the Air they fled our sight which by reason of Purity became also invisible whose Sublime Bodies by the Creators Will elevated themselves to influence the Earth whereby to impregnate it with Prolifick Vertue This was and is that beautiful Order wherein the Divinest so divinely placed things when the Earth as an Embrio lay hid and concealed in the Exuberant Womb of the unweildy Waters And this is that great and stupendious work of Separation which Act or Operation was fit only for God who separated the Light from the mists of Darkness which glorious Operation the Prophet Moses points at as a thing principally to be minded and considered if provided any one would imitate the Creator when in the beginning he created the Universe but the end of the Creation stands still in the Ternary of which more at large in its proper place Christ therefore is our Soveraign and our Saving Light that comprehends the Darkness yet the Darkness knows him not whose beauteous brightness illuminates the World and is that Glory and Majesty of Light that was from God that never had beginning which Incomprehensible Light shined before the beginning to illuminate the Throne of the Majesty of God and is the true Essential Word of God and the Word is God the Wisdom of the Father as is manifested to us by Moses and the Prophets But the created Luminaries as Sun Moon and Stars these are but Elementary subject therefore to corruption when God shall please to extinguish their Light by withdrawing the Beauteous Ray of himself and as the Light of the Sun is the Beauty of the Creation how much more beautiful is the Son of God the All-glorious Beauty of the Majesty of God The Created World therefore was made to discover visible Objects and things Corporeal but the Increated and most Sovereign Being to make obvious to us things Invisible the Natural to inspect both Elements and Principles but the Supernatural to
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
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