heavens and the earth said Huram Thou Jehovah alone said Nehemiah thou hast made the Heavens the Heaven of Heavens the Earth and all that is therein the Seas and all that is therein and thou makest them all alive and the Host of the Heavens worshippeth thee Jehovah God of Hosts who like thee mighty Jah thine the Heavens thine also the Earth the World and the plenty thereof Thou hast founded them And again Confess ye to Jehovah to him that made the Heavens with prudencie to him that spread out the Earth above the Waters Thus saith Jehovah himself who taught his people by his Prophet Jeremiah what to say The gods that have not made the Heavens and the Earth shall perish from the Earth and from under this Heaven Who but Jehovah God hath made the Earth by his Power Who but he hath prepared the World by his Wisdom and hath stretched the Heavens out by his Understanding Thus Zachariah brings in Jehovah speaking He who spreadeth forth the Heavens and foundeth the Earth and formeth the Spirit of Man in the inmost of him Thus in the Gospel of Jesus Christ God is said to create the Creature Thus did Paul reason with the men at Lystra The living God hath made the Heaven and the Earth and the Sea and all that which is in the same The like did he at Athens God who made the World and all that therein is he is LORD of Heaven and Earth And elsewhere Of God and by him and to him are all things to him Glory for ever Amen The Father was the Creator of all things So Isaiah brings him in speaking Thus saith God Jehovah he that created the Heavens and spread them abroad he that stretched forth the Earth and that which issueth out of it he that giveth breath unto the people upon it and spirit to them that walk upon it I the LORD have called thee in Righteousness speaking of his Son Christ This did Peter acknowledge in his prayer LORD thou art the God who hast made the Heaven and the Earth and the Sea and all things which are in the same Who by the Moâ—th of thy servant David hast said Why do the Heathen rage and the people have thought vain things The Kings of the Earth are risen up and the Rulers are gathered together against the LORD and against his Christ for in truth they were gathered together against thy holy Child Jesus This doth Paul witness to in his former Epistle to the Corinthians We have but one God the Father of whom are all things and we for him The holy Spirit also is Creator How many are thy Works O Jehovah So sings the Psalmist all of them hast thou done in Wisdom the Earth is full of thy Riches Thou wilt send forth thy Spirit they shall be created And thou wilt renew the Faces of the Earth And in another Psalm By the Word of Jehovah the Heavens were made and all the Host of Heaven by the Spirit of his mouth The Spirit of Aelohim was the Maker and Cherisher of them Thus doth Job set it out he through his Spirit adorned the Heavens And Elibu elsewhere applys it in his own case The Spirit of God hath made me and the breath of the Almighty hath quickened me THe LORD Jesus Christ he also was Creator of all things It was in and by this Head Captain that the Heavens and the Earth were accomplished and all their Host This did Hezekiah acknowledge when he prayed to him that sat between the Cherubins Thou thy self thou alone art the God of all the Kingdoms of the Earth thou hast made Heaven and Earth He that is the first and he also who is the last Which the LORD Christ doth apply unto himself in the Revelation He speaks of himself in the Prophet Isaia Mine hand hath founded the Earth and my right hand hath measured the Heavens with the Palm And again The Heaven is my Throne and the Earth is the Footstool of my feet mine hand hath made all these things It is the Voice of the Redeemer in the same Prophet I Jehovah do all things spreading out the Heaven I alone and who stretching out the Earth by it self God by his Son made the Angels Thou LORD in the beginning hast founded the Earth and the Heavens are the Works of thy hand To this Christ the Son in the Epistle to the Hebrews is that passage in the one hundred and second Psalm rightly applyed it was by the Word of God that the World was prepared In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God all things were made by the same and without the same no not one thing was made that was made The World was made by him Thus doth John bring in his Testimony for him Whereunto that of Paul doth well agree God created all things by Jesus Christ and elsewhere he saith We have one LORD Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him That to the Colossians is full to this purpose where the Apostle having described the Redeemer the LORD Jesus Christ by his inward relation to his Father he being the Image of the invisible God he then sets him out by his outward Relation to the Creature he is the first born of every Creature begotten before all Creation or before any thing was created This he doth convincingly prove and clearly illustrate by evident demonstration the Reason is strong which he draws from Christ's being the efficient cause of the Creatures being the continued preserver of them and his Glory being the great end of their Being For in him by or through him were all things Created which are in Heaven and which are upon Earth which are visible and which are invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Governments or Powers all things were created by him and to him and he is before all things and all things do consist together by him He is the Aleph and the Thou the Alpha and Omega the Beginning and the End who was and who is and who is to come Before Abraham was made I am said Christ of himself It was his Prayer Glorifie me O Father with the Glory which I had before the world was with thee It was this Christ who Created the first seven days and established their order to continue in their successive courses to the Worlds end It was he who when he had perfected his Work that he had made in the six foregoing days of the first Created Week rested in the seventh day It was he who blessed the Seventh day It was he who sanctified the seventh-Seventh-day because in it he had rested from all his Work Thus it was from the beginning unchangeably so to remain and go on to the end This he expresly revives in his after proclaiming of this Law of the Sabbath that it might be remembred Six days Jehovah made
Catholick admittance no man can give an account but with respect to some impressions on the minds of men from the Constitution and Law of our Natures with the Tradition of a Sabbatical Rest instituted from the Foundation of the World A Week is spoken of as a known account of Days in Time Thus they acknowledge As also that those of the Philosophers who resolved their Observations into things Natural or Physical do esteem the Septenary Number Sacred A Septenary Revolution of Days unto which they found a respect in all their Notions and Speculations about the Pleiades and Triones in Heaven Lunar changes sounds of Instruments variations in the age of Man critical Days in bodily Distempers and transactions of Affairs private and publick I so far make use of this as to shew that if such Authors would but improve their own convictions and concessions they might be spirited and sublimated into an asserting of something of Honour inseparable from the Natural Being of the Seventh-day The order of which Day is not to be disturbed Another of them acknowledgeth that there have been some difference and variation in the account of Years and Months with people yet never was the Week counted to be more or less than seven Days with any people In all Ages among all Nations the Seventh-day has been venerable and sacred I might put more of such Testimonies together were there need But it is the Authority of holy Scripture and of created Nature that sways with me It is observable in prophetical Scripture by Daniel that the Weeks are there said to be cut off as the words do properly signifie The Verb of the singular Number being put to a word of the plural Number doth evidently shew that every one of the Weeks from the first to the last shall be precisely and absolutely complete It was a precise cutting off The first Week of the created World was the fittest time for the giving forth of the Law of the seventh-day-Seventh-day-Sabbath because the ground of the Institution of this weekly Sabbath was Aelohims manifesting by his Words and Works that in that same Week he perfected both the working Days and the resting Day he rested upon the self same Seventh-day when the memory of his great and glorious Works was so new and fresh So agreeable is this to created Nature in the Exercise of right Reason especially when enlightned by Scripture-Revelation within the compass of one and the â— same Week reckoning still forward according to Created Order it is impossible to find out any proper Seventh-day but only the last Day of the Week This boundary of the Week being unremoveable and commanded to be kept Holy And this Doctrine of the Weeks is every where preserved in the several Languages which have words for a Week Because it is that discovery which is of use and is not every where to be met withal by a common Reader and it having some tendency towards the clearing up of some subject matters in this Treatise and towards the perfection of a Reformation which is also much of my design let not the ingenuous Reader think it too long a diversion if I here detect somewhat of the idolatry and superstition which is still to this day continued in this Nation and in other Countries by publick and private retaining and using of the Heathenish names of Days as Sanday Monday c. as also of Months such as January February c. so that he that shall speak in the present Age according to Scripture though in his own and their Mother Tongue yet is scarcely understood by the most and what is shameful and lamentable by multitudes of a professing Ministery and people Whereas hath not Jehovah Aelohim strictly charged his people that in all that which he hath said unto them they shall be wary and the name of other gods they shall not mention it shall not be heard out of their Mouth O take we heed unto our selves that we do not transgress in this matter Hath he not foretold that he will take away the Names of Baalim out of the mouths of his Servants that he will cut off the names of the Idols out of the Land Did not God's Israel of Old when and whilst their hearts were right with him practice accordingly changing of the old idolatrous places and putting new names upon them Did not zealous Joshuah take order about his our LORD Jesus Christ after whom his Disciples must walk would not take up the names of after-Idol gods upon his lips Examine we now somewhat of the Original and occasion of the Pagan names of Days and of Months As for Days the beginning Day of the Week they call Sunday The Germans when they were Pagans Verstegan saith consecrated the first Day of the Week to the Sun as Prince of Planets whose Image they placed on a Pillar in the Temple fashioned like a man half naked his face as it were bright red with gleams of Fire and holding with his Arms bowing Archwise a burning wheel before his breast the Wheel being to signifie the course which he runneth round about the World and the fiery gleams and brightness the light and heat wherewith he warmeth and comforteth the things that live and grow The Sun was the chief God of the Persians That Adoration and religious Worship which some gave to the Sun is forbidden in the Scripture condemned in the Egyptians in other Nations and in the Jews themselves the LORDs people who herein imitated the Heathen worshipping with their faces turned towards the East The Heathens worshipped the Planets as Gods and some will tell us how the Seven Planets do give denomination to the seven Days of the Week and what Planet reigneth every hour in every Day unto each of the seven Planets they dedicated a Day and called it by the name of that Planet which had the first hour of that Day the Appellation from the Planets seems much ancienter than that invention from the hours which I shall after a few lines write of so that these names of the Days of the Week were not by the Pagans first imposed from the Planetary hours but rather the superstition of this appellation of the Days was derived into the Hours The names of the seven Planets are these Sol Venus Mercury Luna Jupiter Marsâ— which seven Planets these men would have to govern twenty four hours in a Natural Day the first Planet hath the first Hour the second hath the second and so unto the seventh Again the first Planet hath the eighth Hour the second the ninth so unto the fourteenth afterwards the first Planet hath the fifteenth Hour the second the sixteenth and so forth to one and twentieth then yet again the first Planet hath the two and twentieth Hour the second the twenty third the third Planet the twenty fourth Hour and so the whole Natural Day of twenty four Hours is finished and ended the fourth Planet that followeth shall
day of the week unalterably confirmed by an unchangeable Law this doth put holy Meditation upon the working and the resting of the Creator and Redeemer into a methodical profitable Spiritual way it would furnish an experienced Saint with proper matter every day for the feeding of his thoughts to the nourishing of his Soul the satisfaction of his Spirit the strengthing of his Heart and the inlightning of his Mind That Humane Invention of transferring the weekly Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week has wholly inverted this established order The Psalmists frame was then usually most raised and most refined most humble and most heavenly most serious and most savoury when he saw and imployed much of Christ in the Creatures which kept him up in the better and more continued preparedness to meet the LORD in his Sanctuary-goings in other solemn instituted Ordinances he will make but little of the Word of God who makes nothing of the Works of God one great end of the Creators giving a being to Creatures was to supply a man with continued matter of admiring and of adoring the wonderful Former of all this O how much and with what kindliness think ye was Adam's heart affected with the sight and contemplation of this goodly beautious Structure whilst he stood in uprightness with how great delight was his Tongue his Glory in trumpeting of that perfection that shined forth in all and in every of the works of the Creator much of Adam's wisdom appeared in his giving of apt and fit names to all the Beasts of the Field and to all the Fowls of the Air according as the Natures and the Powers of their created condition were In Authority many who have gotten a name as if they had been the first inventers of some profitable knowledges yet themselves went to School to some lower Creatures to learn skill of them which was one of the first abused occasions of the heathens making and setting up of the Forms of some Bruits of Beasts of Fowls of Fishes of Serpents of Herbs as their Idols which they worshipped The great Admirers Illustrators and Promoters of Humane Learning have acknowledged the Originals of the discoveries of many witty Inventions to proceed first from the observations which Learned men have made from those experiments that meaner beings than themselves have providentially set before them thus do they speak as to men for the true reasons and the proper causes and the real originals of the Virtues and Powers of created Existences have their first foundation and discovery in the Word and in Nature These Philosophick men give us some particular instances of rational knowledges directed to by natural perception and instinct in irrational beings owning these for being some of the prime Masters of Arts and Doctors of Sciences Who instructed the Surgeon how to cure wounds but the wild Goat by applying some Sanative Grasses and Herbs and Flowers which led him to the use of some things in Chirurgery Hence also have some been taught the cure of Impostumes such as are between the skin and the flesh for when there is a putrified matter which impostumiseth before it ripen of it self and come to break the wild Goat oppressed with the noxious pungency of the itching humour rubs himself against Stones and Shrubs until his Imposthume break and the whole filth from the bag do pour out it self and so the beast easeth himself Whence learn'd the Chyrurgeon the profirable use of the Herb Dittany for the extracting of Arrows or Splinters or whatsoever it is that gives a wound and leaveth some poyson behind if the hurt be not mortal but when Harts who when they were struck with a Dart or were otherways shot with an invenomed Arrow presently resorted to this Herb which has a specifick Virtue latent in it whereby this Plant when eaten by them both ejects the Weapon and expels the Poyson The cure of wounds with Dragon Briony and Comfrey some have learn'd from the Serpent as also the curing of Eyes when evil affected with Fennel Cats have found Valerian to comfort the sight and Swallows use Celendine as an Herb friendly to the sight with which they heal the eyes of the young Phlebotomy the cutting of a Vein to let out blood and the stopping of it again some were informed in by the Sea-horse which is skilful at Scarification and at cutting of a Vein for when he feels himself under a great and dangerous distemper by overmuch eating he rubs himself against Reeds or somewhat else that is hard until a Vein breaking he let out a sufficient quantity of his blood and then he hastneth to stop the aperture and to heal and close it up by applying of mud and of dirt to the orifice of the wound The Art of Building was somewhat taught by the industry and skill of Swallows and of Bees some Physicians were instructed in forming of Pills from Scarabes that do gather things round on an heap and then make Balls The Art of Spinning some have learned from Silk-worms of Weaving from Spiders of Vomiting from Dogs of Clysters from the Bird Ibis purging himself by putting up part of his crooked Bill into that part by which the Excrement is discharged also the Hern who with his Bill doth infuse Sea-water instead of a Clyster thus practising of it upon himself by his own beak Whence came the knowledge of Powder-Artillery for the Warriour but by a Potlids occasional flying open From these and such like have Philosophick Professors fetched their principles of knowledge which doth shew that the God of Nature hath put much into the Nature of created Beings which if improved by Scripturalized reason in a word-way would raise Arts to a wonderful height The LORD himself in his Word doth send his own people to be better informed in their Duties and Priviledges by other Creatures so blockish and stupid is fallen man who since he acted below Religion is fallen beneath Reason He preached unto them the Doctrine of observing Seasons of Grace and of improving of opportunities of Salvation from the wisdom of the Stork and the Turtle the Crane and the Swallow who do exactly keep to the due fit times of their going and coming they might learn from the Ox and from the Ass which are some of the dullest and stupidest of bruit Creatures to make other manner of acknowledgements of the LORD's kindness to care for them would they more seriously ponder and duly consider of this Has man some discerning in these lower things and should he not use his Religion and Reason about higher matters who has by his noble make a wisdom beyond so many other Creatures by his concreated endowments doth not Christ himself check and convince rebuke and confute the unbelief and distrust of such who are over carking and too sollicitous about Food and Rayment by putting them upon considering of his providential care for Fowls and for Lillies The LORD Jesus
to divide between the Light and the Darkness The Original Words which do set out Darkness do manifest its Being a created Thing How glorious a Creature is the Light which is opposed to Darkness Light was one of the first Ornaments of the Created World with which Aelohim decked them as with a Garment The Creator dwelleth in Light and there the Light dwelleth though mortal man be little acquainted with the way of it Jehovah formed it It is called his Light It is he who prepares it O how admired and adored will Christ be when he shall be visibly seen to be the Light of the Heavenly City â— The created Light is not a mere Accident or Quality without Substance as Ethnick Philosophy has wronged it It is an Essentiated Substance It has a distinct good perfect Subsistence It has a place of its own It has Motion from one place to another and this Motion is in Time It comes and it goes at its Seasons It has not only a Local Motion but also its Rays and Beams and Species do produce real Effects The Sun is not the cause of this Light for this Light was created three Days before the Sun They were distinct and different Creatures The Light did actually Exist or had a reality of Being without and separate from the Sun which Sun did not then actually Exist and therefore the Light must necessarily differ really from the Sun Otherwise the same created Being the Sun should actually both Exist and not Exist or be and not be at one and the same time Which includes a contradiction and implys an impossibility There is such a thing in created Nature as pure Darkness and pure Light The one Essentiated as well as the other and they were and are divided Locally as well as differenced Naturally these being distinct divided separate Creatures There is an Wo threatned against those who put the one to the other Darkness and Light do naturally in their successive courses succeed each other There is a Real as well as a Verbal distinction between them and the Darkness goes before the Light They were not created confused and permix'd They orderly differ in the Nature of the Things themselves which had each of them their proper Names Time Bounds Places and Courses and their several uses in the Creation The Evening the Darkness and the Night were called upon to go together to make up Night as the Morning the Light and the Day were to make up Day But the Night was anâ—â—â—ed out before the Light For so is the Computation of all and every of the six foregoing Days of the first Week of the Creation expresly by an established Law and 〈…〉 Order which shall never be altered or changed whilst this World doth last Thus the Darkness and the Light do make a proper Day-natural The Time when the Evening doth begin it that Time when the Darkness doth first begin After the Sun was created it is set out by that Time when the Sun goeth in From Evening unto Morning is the whole Night part as opposed to the Day as from Morning to Evening is the whole Day part as opposed to the Night The Evening doth belong unto the Night then was the time for the Evening Worship It has its season of triumphing going forth The Day doth end immediately before the Evening From Evening to Evening is the length of the Natural large Day There is a Natural Created Seasonabless an opportunity in this time Aelohim doth ride upon these Evenings and comes to meet his people serving of him Until the Evening is until the beginning of another Day for the Day Natural did end when the next Evening did begin which Evening was the beginning of another distinct large Day Evening and Morning are well fitted times for Meditation for Prayer for Praise and for Singing The Creating Aelohim did lay the Foundation of the Evening and of Morning Worship on every Day of the Week He taketh special express notice of these two Seasons therefore there is a special Being granted unto these parts of Time And it shall exist the Evening and it shall exist the Morning so runs the Creating Word AElohim looked on these Seasons with joy and with delight with approbation and with commendation and so should we The Evening has a true Being a real Existence a natural Subsistence it is a created Essence The Evening doth not begin at the end of the ninth hour of the Day or three hours before the going in of the Sun For there was no part of a former Day before this one Evening of the created World when the evening and the morning made up the one day This Day here is so distinguished according to number One and not according to order First as yet because hitherto there was no other Day One is the beginning of Number definitly AEchad one is that proper Name which the Creating Aelohim gave unto this Day and it is peculiar to this Day and belongeth only to this Day in the measuring of the Days of a Week It is a wrong done to its Name when it is taken from it and given to any other Day of the Week Every one of their Names should be used that they may be called aright and so may expresly answer to their names when they are called How can those who miscal the one Day of the Week the seventh-Seventh-day in the fourth Word or Command answer this seeing from the beginning it was not so The Day on which this World began to be Created was properly one Day no Number can in Time and Nature go before an Unity which therefore of necessity must be before any other ordinal Number There was not at that time any other Day that had actual Existence Those Days of this one Created Week which did follow in the same Week were ordinal and successive and numerable so that there must be one Day which was the beginning of Days It is injurious unto many Scriptures when they translate one Numeral the first Ordinal thereby to thrust and to force in if they could the one Day of the Week into the room of the Seventh-day as if the one Day were now the weekly-sabbath-Weekly-sabbath-day in the place of the Seventh which mistake hath Scripture Reason and Nature against it as may be shewn in its proper place in an inquiry upon the seventh-Seventh-day There was one Day which was the beginning of Days and therefore this World was in Time not from Eternity For to speak with propriety of Language Eternity has no precedent duration And this and other distinct Days in this Week of the Creation are properly a distinct Enumeration of distinct Days setting out their daily natural measures And therefore the express mentioning of them severally doth shew that all things were not Created in an instant at once or in one day only all of them together The Evening and the
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-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
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΠΑΓΓÎΩΣΊΑ ΠΑÎΤΕΧÎΊΑ ΠΑÎΣΟΦΊΑ All in One. ALL USEFUL SCIENCES AND PROFITABLE ARTS In one BOOK of Iehovah Aelohim COPIED out and COMMENTED upon IN Created Beings Comprehended and discovered In the FULNESS and PERFECTION OF SCRâ—PTURE-KNOWLEDGES The FIRST PART By Francis Bampfield A lover and admirer of Christ and of His Word and Works Colossians 2. 3 4 8. In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge And this I say lest any man should beguile you with inticing words Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit and after the traditions of men after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ Printed in the Year 1677. THE SUMMARY CONTENTS OF THE First Part OF THIS TREATISE THe Design of this Treatise Page 1 to pag. 18 Where the Emptiness Insufficiency and vain affectation of Humane Wisdom and Philosophick Science is discovered 1 to 8 And the shining Emanations of the Fulness and Perfections of Scripture-knowledges are held forth 8 to 18 The LORD Jesus Christ hath hiddenly laid up all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge in his Word Wherein are many choice Mysteries above the reach and besides the Rules of Philosophy 19 to 23 Here is shown how a complete Minister of Christ should be somewhat of an universal Artist 19 20 And how that there are many truths in the Word necessary to be believed which are contrary to the Principles of Philosophy 20 21 22 There is in the Word of Christ a full comprehensiveness at of all other useful Learning and so particularly of the knowledge of Natural things of which it doth treat and speak purposely and professedly Page 23 to pag. 45 Wherein is declared that there are not only general but also the particular Rules in the Scripture for the musical Science 24 to 37 And for the Fabril Art 37 to 41 As two instances out of many called forth to be a specimen of this Truth With some further directions also about Geograpâ—y and Geographers Grammarians 42 43 44 There is much of spiritual use to be made of the improved knowledge of Natural Things For the discerning and injoying of fellowship with the Creator and Redeemer 45 to 49 Here is shewn how some of the most learned Philosopâ—ers have learn'd many Arts and Sciences of irrational Creatures 46 47 And how many errors in Philosopâ—y have corrupted much of Theology and of Christianity 47 48 The holy Scriptures in speaking of the Works of the Creation and of Natural Things do speak of them as they really are and not as they seemingly only appear according to exactness of Truth as the Nature and Essence of them are and not according to the wrong conceits and ignorant mistakes of vulgar minds and common opinionists Pag. 49 to p. 52 Where also this is cleared that Scripture-words are best expressive of created Works 49 to 52 The vain affectation of Humane Wisdom which doth thrust upon the credulity of so many a Doctrine of Probabilities concerning the Works of Creation and Natural Things from Antichristian and unscriptural Philosphy but is not according to Christ and to his Word is such a deceitful way of false reasoning as makes a prey of Souls and is carefully to be avoided Philosophical Science is but falsely so named 52 to 57 The Vain-affectation of Creature knowledge in the Apostateâ—Angels and of flumane Wisdâ—m in fallen man has all along been endeavouring to corrupt and to pervert both the pure Word of Aelohim and his Created Works whereby they are misrepresented to the Rational Intellect in wrong shapes 57 to 62 Those Books which are commonly called Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy or the Books of Moses and his Writings there have the approving testimony of those true faithful Prophets that did follow after him as also of the LORD Jesus Christ himself and of his Apostles And the History of the Creation and of the Works thereof in the beginning of the Bible is true in the literal sense and was intended and recorded so to be understood And all those Philosophical Allegorical and Mystical senses which any do give thereof that are contrary unto this are to be avoided and rejected 62 to 66 An Inquiry about the Creator of the Works of Creation on the severalâ—Days of the first Week of the World 66 Q. Whether was the LORD Jesus Christ Jehovah as his Father is Jehovah and as the Spirit of his Holiness is Jehovah Whether he were appointed by his Father and anointed by his Spirit to be one Mediator the only LORD and Lawgiver And whether he were the Creator of all things as the Father is Creator and as the holy Spirit is Creator they the Creators And whether is not this included in the first Words of the holy Scriptures Bereashith baraa Aelohim and in that word Jehovah who presently in the very next verse after the short History of the Creation is said to be the Creator and Maker Page 66 Here is held forth the use of the name Jehovah 67 68 69 That the Father of Christ is Jehovah 69 That the Spirit of Christ's Holiness is Jehovah 69 70 That the LORD Jesus Christ is Jehovah 70 That this Jehovah is one Jehovah 70 71 That Christ is the Mediator 71 72 73 That Christ is the One Mediator 73 74 That Christ is the LORD 74 75 That Christ is the Only LORD 75 That Christ is the Lawgiver 75 76 77 That Christ is the Only Lawgiver 77 That Christ was appointed by his Father and Anointed by his Spirit to these Offices 77 78 79 That Jehovah Aelohim was the Creator 79 That the Father was the Creator 79 That the holy Spirit was the Creator 80 That the LORD Jesus Christ was Creator 80 81 That the Father Son and Holy Spirit were the Creators these three the Creating One 81 That much of these Mysteries concerning Christ are included in the first words of the holy Scriptures Bereashith barraa Aelohim and in that word Jehovah mentioned a little after the short History of the Creation as the Creator and Maker 81 82 83 That there is an excellency in Scripture-knowledge which is proved by opening of some passages in the nine first Chapters of the Proverbs of Solomon relating unto this 83 to 87 Of the one which when another Day was Created was the First Day of the Created World Page 87 Q. Whether this Earth at its first Creation were without form and void So that Tohu and Bohu he truly and rightly praedicated of Aeretz Or whether Tohu and Bohu be not distinct Creatures from the Earth locally distant or two created Places the one setting out the gulphy empty space and the other the doleful place of Hell Page 87 Here is shewn that this Earth was not Created a formless empty misâ—shâ—â—pen Lump 87 88 That Tohu and Bohu or the gulphy empty Space and the doleful place of Hell are distinct Creatures from the Earth created places locally distinct from it 88 89 That
all a mans diligence any other way be solidly known Wise men amongst themselves do now begin to wonder that they suffered themselves to be so abused by those Dictators in Sciences they complain that there are secrets in Nature hiddennesses in Truths implications in Causes that there is much darkness upon their Mind blindness upon their Intellect weakness in their Understanding that their Knowledge is but Folly their Powers are impotent their abilities insufficient and their researches shallow thus they fall into suspicion and grow into dislike of themselves concluding an utter impossibility in Humane Arts seeing there are so many unknown subtilties in Nature which do escape their senses and so many mistakings by senses which do not come under their cognisance They acknowledge at last that to consummate the Arts and to perfect the Sciences inquired after is above their strength and beyond their hopes and they professingly declared that they will affirm nothing subtilty is their Science and fallacy is their Faculty How many questions might be asked of the most Learned of them concerning the most plain and familiar things such as are most obvious and exposed to the outer senses about Seeing Hearing Smelling Tasting Feeling which would puzzle them and amaze their Understanding were all the witty Ingenioso's and generous Virtuoso's of the World colledged and incoporated into one Philosophick Society all their extra-Scriptural disquisitions would never reach or hit what they say they aim at because they use not improve not the adapted mediums to come at it It would have been more wisdom in such bold undertakers to be Instancers of Learning if they had either laid aside their attempt or pointed to a directer course and to a righter way for by an ill unadvised managing of the inquiry the inner Rooms of Learning are still locked up and her Treasures are not disclosed If the Reader marvel why one of so little Philosophical Learning and of so much worldly despisedness will adventure in such a day to be so open a redarguer of the whole Philosophick World let him know that the Scripture-cause will conqueringly plead it self and its advocate has sufficient security that the Glory will be his who is the Author of so full a word Let the Writer and his Treatise decrease into a nothing as to this and let Jehovah and his word increase into an All whilst the Traditionary Learning of these men which is but the credulous receiving of a false report and their sensitive learning which is often the wrong information of equivocating witnesses and their experimental Learning which is usually the hasty observation of indagators and of casual inventers these shall blush and vanish be gone and ashamed to shew their faces which so long have been set out to sale under the gaudy Titles of Natural History restored Sciences and instaured Philosophy but leaving the buyer sick of his bargain and crying out That he has all this while been over-reached and defrauded imposed upon and insulted over by those who themselves at length do judge this to be a case plainly desperate as not knowing how to extract the real truth of things or which way so to separate all mistakes that they may at last be brought to somewhat which is wholly free from errour and so natural Beings may open themselves and disclose their inside in their primordial Virtues and concealed excellencies The whole of the doctrine of the unseen World is altogether undiscoverable by any lawful means but only the word Revelation and therefore it is that Paul doth condemn that Philosophy as a vain deception which would obtrude upon its Disciples a belief of those things it hath not seen making its own excogitates to be Oracles when it s own phantastick opinions are built upon no other foundation than the feigned Placents of humane imagination It would take away the Prize that belongs to the profiting Disciples in Christ's School and give it unto those that run in the by-race of paganish Studies thus arrogating unto its self an usurped power of judging and of defining who are the most learned and skilful it doth thrust it self into a pretended knowledge of such secret hidden things whereof it is altogether ignorant as if it were its own proper possession my task is to direct the Spiritual man unto that perfect Word where he may get deep into the profoundest Mysteries of Religion and of Reason of Grace and of Nature where a clear-eyed-Faith may satisfie it self with self-evidencing verities I am no investigator of new fictitious humane knowledges but would ingage others to be educers of old sound Scripture-Learning which has been so long veiled with Philosophical darkness and neglected by Sophistical prejudice Shall we any longer walk on in the circular tract of feigned Arts and of corrupted Sciences by Humane Authors who write one after and of another according to the-bad Copy set before them saying over and over the same falsified things putting only a new name to an old Stuff whilst they make little or no progress because they do not follow on in a straight line of edifying knowledge How far are they from having already said all that can be said though one of them has grosly flattered himself by applying of that expression to his own Writings Truth and Goodness have mutual influence upon and friendly fellowship with each other and how then can Humane Arts and Philosophical Sciences approve themselves good unto the Will till they prove themselves true to the Understanding of rational Creatures let no man seduce himself we are at least we should be so far true and kind unto our selves as not to deceive our selves What shall we deal with our selves as a false Thief doth deal with a silly Traveller offering himself readily to be a guide to direct him a better and righter way to his journies end till he mislead him into some dark and dismal place that there he may rob and spoil him of his Treasure such are wrong guides in the way of our Study It any man thinketh that he is wise in this world let him become a fool that he may be wise for the wisdom of this World is foolishness with God the LORD knoweth the reasonings of the wise that they are vain therefore let no man glory in men No Tutor is like unto that Spirit who is the LORD informing humble Disciples of the Book of his Word and of his Works Useful Arts and profitable Sciences have their legitimation in his Word and their naturalization in his Works Here the mind of man is at once both inlightned and sanctified informed and satisfied whereas Academick Scepticisms do make their apprehensions to be but appearances and their propositions to be but probabilities till he that is of an inquiring spirit sees he has fed but upon empty notions and so is discouraged into a desponding fullenness and doth yield to over-coming difficulties Whilst our own unsteddy unskilful hands will be drawing out Lines of Arts
sound knowledge This design that I am now promoting doth not interdict School education nor forbid Scientifick Exercises but it doth set both Teacher and Learner in a right way VVhither can we go to fetch a perfect Supplement for deficiencie in Arts but from the VVord no where else is there an unerring rectification of the crooked variations of Sciences but here VVere Students once well perswaded that this Scripture-method and way of attaining knowledges were passable and plain and the walk there experienced to be safe and easie how could it then be any other than pleasant travelling which doth so directly lead to so great a profit where all is best suited not only to the future eternal happiness of Believers but also to the present wising of the VVorld gratifying at once both the speculative Inquirer and the mechanick Artificer where both an augmentation of many useful particularities and a melioration of the whole of gainful Learning would be met with Expected occasions are flying away from me now as many of them have already taken wing and are gone and therefore ere a stop be put to my breathing here below I would by a Scripture-hand conduct a little that the more wise and skilful may come on and lead others further forward I should gladly have sat down as a teachable Disciple at the feet of some well-grown Instructer and would delightfully do so still if others better furnished and more accomplished and who have more opportunities and advantages would more throughly inform both themselves and others in the true state of this scientifical project Here may be at once both the true increase of useful Learning and the real promoting of an Holy Life This sound Scripture-knowledge is the only cure of arted Phantasms and the proper means of being awakened out of scientifick Dreams Here the regenerate intellect of the New Creature gets quick acquaintance with the true reasons of things and his inlightned mind is familiar in its converse with real existencies here are set before his view clear Aspects from invisible Objects and his inner man can commune with unseen talkers which do give him ready access into the better Country of the other VVorld The Scriptures are composed not only for contemplative felicity but also for practical business being exactly suited to all weightiness of affairs and to all the powers of an operative life The orderly working and the real usefulness of created Beings is to be directed unto her all the Philosophers in the world with all their Books have noâ— that profitable Learning in them which the four and thirty first Verses of the Bible have treasured up in them Here the meditating inquirer may get the knowledge of those distinct works of the Creator in their six proper days foregoing which works are the visible Signets and the lively Impressions of the comely Excellencies of the glorious Maker till the believing Soul cometh and passeth into its rest and to sweet satisfaction sensibly enjoyeth its holy Sabbath in Him on the seventh which is the last the closing day of the week this being much of my present purport and design drift and scope in this Treatise from the several days of the first week of the Created VVorld and the established unchangeable Laws thereof to propound some profitable inquiries from each days productions such as may have a direct tendency to the real advancement of useful Learning and then opening somewhat of my own apprehensions from the collating of other Scriptures concerning the matters queried such of them as are profitably handled for several others will be little if any thing more than barely propounded and so left to further disquisition In this undertaking there is no just cause for any to be either an humorous Envyer or a quarrelsome Contender or a troublesome Backbiter or a treacherous Enemy or a false Friend let him but love Christ and believe the VVord and approve the Enterprise and promote the Design and better the Plot I have much of my desire so far where any will meliorate it he shall have my Prayers and Testimony for him In this age of such diffused rovings of mind and of such wandring expatiations of imaginations my walking Soul has then the more quiet resting place when it gets and keeps within Scripture-doors and there freely converseth with Christ In this word each Artist may find out his Mystery and get skill with a little cost by plainly reading the imprinted Characters of the useful nature of his lawful Profession Here real Learning wears the Honour of its Crown and true wisdom is beautified with the dignity of its advancement in the several Sciences here the King may be skilled in the Art of Empire and the Magistrate may be wised in the Science of Government here the Counseller may know how to advise and the Warriour may be taught how to fight here the Astronomer may best understand the Heavens and the Luminaries there here the Geometrician may learn how to measure and the Arithmetician how to number the Physician how to cure the Surgeon how to heal the Anatomist how to dissect the Apothecary how to compound the Sea-man how to sail the Architect how to build the Musician how to modulate the Logician how to argue the Geographer how to situate the Chronologer how to compute the Rhetorician how to perswade the Historian how to Record the Carpenter how to rule the Joyner how to frame the Advocate how to plead the Minister how to preach the Cosmographer how to systeme the Husbandman how to manure These and other Artists in other honest Trades would find their God instructing and teaching them concerning the rightest way and the fittest manner to manage and to carry on their several Functions with success through his blessing upon their labours all their affairs would then be ordered with more discretion and prudence even the Hedger the Mason and the Carpenter would experience Scripture-wisdom to have an excellency of rectification in it to direct them how to do their work aright What shall I say more consider well what those Arts and Sciences are which are lawful useful and necessary and then let inquiry be made whether their Conduct and Augment may not be found in the Word incomparably beyond what any or all Philosophick Books of mere Humane Wisdom can skill in here is the Spring and Fountain of all true good Learning Scripture-knowledge has the clearest light and gives the most certain information affording the most pure and satisfying delights This doth hold the refined Intellect and the discerning Mind close unto it and doth fill it with high holy heavenly pleasures still feeding a spiritual appetite as it is taken in and yet exciting it with new desires of injoyiug more there being yet a further discovery of abounding knowledge in these later days Here is a separation of Truth from Errour here the true real causes of Errour are assigned and manifested It is not said that men do
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
all Translations into Mother-Tongues without any the least trajection or transposition of Words or of Points Variation Addition or Supplement or Substraction leaving the propriety of their meaning and Government to the Interpreter and Expounder of them the Commentator and Dilater upon them the Paraphraser and Applyer of them as the holy Spirit from the Father in the Name of the Son shall give him skill and utterance by a due regard had to the Context and by a faithful collating of other suitable Scriptures in an Harmonious Concent Q. Whether there be any thing in the Original Text either from the difference of the Stile or from the significancy of the Accents or from any other Grammacal consideration which doth either naturally in its self or by institution of the Holy Inspirator give us a more just accompt and genuine distinction of the several parts of Scripture than that which at this day is in common use amongst us by the Titles and order of the Books by Chapters and by Verses and what it is Q. Whether all humanely invented Enallages all changes whatsoever of one part of Speech into another of Persons of Genders of Numbers of Cases of Letters of Words of Names of Vowels of Accents of Syntax of Moods or of what else that doth belong unto the Original Languages as also wrong-fancied-Anomalies should not be altogether laid aside in such a Grammar especially when passing into a Translation Q. Whether all humanely pretended Paragoges Redundancies Expletives Pleonasms Insignificancies Deficiencies of any Letters Syllables or Words should not be quite rejected by discerning Grammarians in such a Grammar as obscurings and wrongings of the Original Languages Q. What is the true Orginal Emphaticalness of the Original Punctations and Accentations And how do these or any other part of the Original Languages direct in the right sound the just pronunciation of words and in the orderly distinction of a Sentence into its certain Members and Clauses by its due pointings Where the LORD has furnished any others in their greater store with more discoveries of this useful Nature could I live to see this way of Scripture-knowledges more countenanced and promoted by them it would give joy in my heart however it be whatever the issue and the success of these intimations be I exalt His Name who is the All glorious Jehovah the Ael of Sciences that he hath in this so graciously helped me so far to serve my Generation according to his will before I fell on sleep If the Reader be under such apprehensions that this Book of mine might well have been spared because it is my principle to bring all unto Christ's one Book of Scripture I expect so much ingenuity from him as to acknowledge that there must be some way and medium found out and held forth for the communicating and commending of the excellency of Christ's Book which is a Book One and All were it throughly understood rightly applyed and well improved and I knew no other means of like spreadingness with this that is before thee which I was in any present capacity of making known unto the World Wise Solomon condemns the folly and the fruitlessness the vanity and the vexation of Ethnick Books and of Philosophick Studies where Supernatural Directions were not to be had though men professing the true Religion did much betake themselves thereunto and did in many particular subjects write out of and according unto them What a multitude of Books are there that Humane Authors do make though their writings do not give that full satisfaction which the most do wrong look for there how often do new Treatises flutter abroad the last usually undertaking either to confute other mens arguings or to correct their mistakes or to reprove their miscarriages or to instruct them or to add to them or further to confirm them or with some such like design and then quickly after out comes another passing his judgement upon that which went but a little before and what do men by this but publish the imperfection of all their own Writings and the same sentence will be passed upon this Book of mine though my Treatise has this advantage beyond others that its design and drift is to plead for and to praise that Eminent Book of God which is the only perfect Book If the more spiritually discerning among the perusers of this Treatise do discover corrupt Mixtures humane Frailties ignorant Mistakes and unadvised Errors therein they are to remember and to consider that the Author is also a man of like affections and weaknesses as they there is no difference but what rich Grace and free Love doth make which therefore doth call for their compassionating pities earnest prayers and friendly helpings laying aside all proud insultings revengful tramplings and personal reflectings Courteous Reader let the Scriptures be more studied where is a complete declaration of the mind and will of the All wise Aelohim and which can fully satisfie thee in thy weighty inquiries It is an endless labour and a wearisome task both to make and to read other Books The end of the whole Word of God and of all hearing of it is that we might fear Aelohim and keep all his Commandments for this is all Adam about this Book should we lay out the strength of our thoughts the redeemings of our time and the bent of our Studies these holy Scriptures are not so large a Volumn but that it may be read over in some few Weeks or Months and the oftner it is read over by a spiritual discerner diligent observer wise improver and believing practiser still the more doth it open of its Treasure of Knowledge here is a Library made up of one Book so intire in it self as that it is able to make thee wise unto Salvation O bestow thy pains principally here here chiefly imploy thy Studies be not weary in turning these frequently over saving Knowledge and true Happiness is no were else fully revealed To move thee hereunto remember and consider that thy actions all of them open and secret good or ill must stand or fall according to this Book as they are conformable to it or not and all this as our eternal State either of bliss or of misery thine who readest this and mine who write this There is much of Spiritual use to be made by Believers of the improved knowledge of Natural things for the discerning and injoying of fellowship with the Creator and Redeemer IT is neither beneath the grave Majesty and Royal Anthority of the Word of the LORD nor besiders its real intent and designed purport to converse with Believers about created Beings those great works which do so much speak the glorious Excellencies of their admired Maker The orderly recording of the Works of Creation in the beginning of the Book of God severally and distinctly on each of the foregoing six days of the first week of the created World and of the Sabbath-rest upon the seventh the last
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
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 Moons of the same year A Moon one The number of the Moons Jehovah Aelohim made the Moon to instituted times Three Moons or Months Moons of the East The third day to the Moon There is an end of Moons two-ten where they are cut off The Statutes of the Moon are never to be removed The day of the renewed Moon is called one of the Moon Till another day come there is only that one day of that Moon The certain appointed time of a Moon or Month of these days weeks and Moons are years made up whence are these Scripture phrases the days of the year A perfect year filled up with all its days The Heavenly Luminaries have been are and will be to appointed seasons for Religious conventions to days and years The revolution of the year The revolution of the days The return or conversion of the year The Opportune time of the Return of the year An year hath its name from Iteration and renewed mutation and is the Renovation or Iteration of yearly time From the head-beginning of this year even unto the afterward or end of the year the after-part the later-part of it the last of it as the opposition shews year year year in year a Son of an year a Son of an hundred year An year of Sabbatism An year that fiftyeth year including the former year of Jubilee into the number An year that seventh An year a seventh An year of two or a second A daughter of her year Two years from the cutting off of two years of days Six years Years many A middle of years The after-part or end of years Years Antient or Easterly or former years To complete or to perfect years years of an Age and of an Age or generation Years of numbers years of hidden Ages The remainder the rest of years Three years Year after year An year that after or another following after Years after ones The last of those years An year one once or one in an year Until an year one that which begins the rest or of one A thousand years A thousand years two steps or two turns or two or twice over Years to come or to go in A word of an year in a year to add days upon days of the King His years like as a generation and generation To be made to touch years A Month in an year To compute those years A day to an year a day to an year Four days in an year Two years of days Days over an year To go out this year To fill up or complete an year perfect A number of years A little or paucity of the years A little to remain or to be a Relique or left in years To compute over the month of those years which remaining Years in pleasantnesses or in Sweets or Jucundities To perfect this year this same Jehovah sometimes doth crown an year his good For the cut-off end of years The cutting off of those times of years like as the mouth of his years To abbreviate years an head of this year a multitude of years Seven Sabbaths of years an year of Sabbatism an year of two or the second One year is made up of Winter and of Summer in it 's two equally divided parts This also we may meet withal in the Word the Winter it takes in that part of the year in which is plowing and sowing at the Autumnal Aequinox It is opposed to the Summer In the days of my springing youth For things do begin to spring and to grow in the Winter season To dwell or sit or inhabit an house of that Winter to smite the house of the Winter over or upon the house of the Summer to be in the Harvest and in the Winter a slothful one will not Plough from the Winter The Harvest and the Winter Aelohim will form Summer and Winter and day and night shall not rest or they will not Sabbatize The passing over of Winter An entire full year is made up of Winter and of Summer as of its two comprehensive parts Here we may find a lively description of the ending and passing away of the Winter and of the beginning and coming on of the Summer There are droughts of Summer There is the First-born or early or soon or Rathe-ripe in-before-Summer or in-not-yet-Summer the passing over of the Harvest the perfecting or finishing of it or the full end of Summer an house of the Summer as well as an house of the Winter an hundred of Summer or of Summer-fruits There is a falling of the joyful shout or the rebounding Eccho upon the Summer and Harvest of the people of God There is a Summering of the flying Fowl and of all Beast of this Earth upon a people so also a wintering upon them To gather in Summer to eat the Summer or Summer Fruits The collections or gatherings of Summer to be in the Summer and the Winter to prepare the Summer Food or Bread or eatable The Summer was formed and shall be formed by Aelohim A Basket of Summer or of Summer-Fruit it is come to the end a pleasant allusion referring to that end of the Year The Waster doth sometimes fall on our Summer Snow in Summer is not in season The Fig-trees do bud forth their leaves a little before Summer which doth prove that the Summer doth include also that which commonly is called the Spring and doth then begin A wise Son will carry together in Summer There are Summer Flowers when the Harvest is gathered in and when the Reapings are before the ingatherings One design of this is to demonstrate from the Word that a Week in its successive returns has a natural Existence a created Being which doth unchangeably establish the six foregoing Days of every Week to be working Days and the seventh the last the closing Day of every Week to be the weekly Sabbath-day or Day of Rest As also to discover that those who would undertake the Emendation of times should order all Chronology according to Scripture account This Doctrine of Days and of Weeks doth somewhat confirm the Seventh-day-Sabbath as the Seventh to be of Natural Obligation Even the Adversaries themselves are so far convinced hereby that they confess divers of them that all the World are under a Divine Obligation to spend one Day every Week in the Exercise of Religion that the Hebdomadal Revolution of Time is generally admitted that it is Catholick that all Nations in all Ages have from time immemorial made the Revolution of seven Days to the first stated period of Time that the measure of Time by a Night and a Day is directed unto sense by the Diurnal Course of the Sun that Lunar Months of solar Years are of an unavoidable Observation unto all rational Creatures Whence therefore all men have reckoned Time by Days Months and Years is obvious unto all but whence the Hebdomadal Revolution or weekly period of Time should make its entrance and obtain a
Art because they conclude none can convince them from the received Astronomical suppositions that it is otherwise than they affirm and as they would fairly to the eye represent it in their Artificial Systems and fancied Schemes which are but witty devices of Humane Inventions not the real Natures of Created Being Should I ask for such a Scripture-proof as might directly answer to the truth of these Coelestial Bodies in their proper Nature of their Hypotheses whereby they would salve their cunningly framed Schematical Figures and Appearances It may be I must take a Jear for my information and a Jest for my satisfaction The Extrinsick Faces of those Heavenly Bodies a vulgar eye may behold but what their Created Substance is what their orderly Motion what their peculiar Scituation what their operative Influx what their periodical Revolutions and much more of this Nature in the true causes and real effects of them the most skilful of Ethnick Astronomers are but mere conjecturers about them and can never give us any certainty of knowledge in these matters so that the reputation of their skill is only maintained and upheld by the ignorance and unsearchingness of common understandings of vulgar Judgements who have neither leisure nor studiousness enough to discern the deceitful fictitiousness of such Philosophical Fabricks which have no evincing evidence in them That knowledge which these self flatterers do boast they have attained comes in mostly by the sense of seeing which how fallible must it be if the distance were so great between them and those Coelestial Lights as they boldly assert It appears by Job's reasoning about those matters that he had great knowledge of Natural Things and could speak much about the System of the Universe and the Positure of the World But when Jehovah came to argue with him about those Heavenly Creatures he now humbly acknowledgeth that he was without the knowledge of them by any mere humane disquisition which could never throughly find them out in their proper Existences and Operations no other way could the exact knowledge of this be gotten but by the LORD the Spirit and the Word he rehearsed that which he did not understand wonders above him which he knew not above him not only in place by great distance but also beyond hls natural powers of rationall Intellect to understand clearly or to comprehend fully he is now made willing to be instructed by Jehovah and his Word How quickly doth his Philosophical Astronomy vanish which he himself readily exploded when the LORD ask'd him some few Questions Canst thou bind the pleasantnesses of Cinah or loosen the strings of Cesit Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his time and lead Gnaish over her sons Dost thou know the Ordinances of Heaven or canst thou appoint his Government upon the Earth He points out and nameth some of the Coelestial Luminaries and Starry Lights to Job and quickly silenceth him who now lays his hand upon his mouth and will not answer such uncertainty and mistaking was there in his Optick Art where so vast a space intervened between his own eye and those Heavenly Objects whose Matter Motion and Influx he was so much now at a loss about though Jehovah Aelohim hath made use of this confutation of Job to instruct and to wise us in those Mysterious Secrets of Created Nature in the Coelestial Bodies Ptolemy and Copernicus had quite different Schemes and accordingly they frame quite different Theories and Suppositions and yet both of them have undertaken from the ordinary view and open face of the Heavenly bodies to satisfie their Scholars concerning the same Phaenomena and the same calculations upon quite different Astronomical principles and the Disciples of both these may find out enough whereby to confute the errours and to demonstrate the falsness of their several Hypotheses but can never convince others or perswade themselves upon any solid grounds that they are in the right Let the seigned Schemes and imaginary positures of vain Philosophers therefore be laid aside which are but their own fancied placits finely framed to their pleasing models and let us for the raising and advancing of this useful Science search after true subsistencies of concreated Nature in Scripture verity Which of these Philosophers can fatisfactorily inform us what kind of bodies the coelestial Luminaries are whether they be created Angels or not voluntary movers fice Agents or not Let the vertuous and generous and ingenious inquire As also whether the Angels were created on the fourth day Which of them can tell me whether the primitive light do differ from the shining of those Luminaries or not But instead of propounding more such questions to them I shall treat of some great particulars about these Heavenly bodies According to the Scriptures Contrary to vain deceitful foolish Philosophy The substance of the coelestial Luminaries or Lightners were not made on the first day of the created World as if the first scattered light were gathered together into these lightsome bodies on the Fourth day But the Sun Moon and Stars are different creatures of several Formation on a distinct day As the History doth expresly mention in the letter of it These Luminaries are in their created Nature separating dividers between the Light and the Darkness and so are distinct beings from the Light as well as from the Darkness neither are they of an Elementarily-aethereal Classis but have a separate distinct existence from the Heavens from the expanded They are not like studs fixed in solid Spheres externally moved by Intelligences or Angels They are not Deities as the Heathenish Worshippers by their gross Idolatry would make them They are not fluid Orbs circularly perpetually moving but they sometimes come out and at other times they go in according to their Creator's appointment for designed ends They do not move round about an Earthly Center nor about an Axis of the World I have shewn before that the middle of this Earth is not the common center of this visible World They are not of Magnetical Verticity which must be only Polar and if this were would reduce them to their Polar rest which then also would contradict a pretended perpetual motion They are not carried about by the imaginary Rapture of a first mover as if they had a second moveable of Renitency contrary to the Rapture of the supposed first moveable Magicians Judiciary Astrologers and Genethliacks who do undertake by inspection of Stars to foretell future things the Fate of men imposing a necessity upon Mens Wills and declaring events and telling fortunes as they Ethnickly call it have no firm footing in holy Scripture or created Nature It is a great wrong done unto these creatures and unto their Creator when such conjecturers pretend to prophesie by the Stars and especially by Comets the Fates and Fortunes in their Paganish Language of men even their very imaginations affections and inclinations and which is yet more the counsels and intentions of the
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
Original Hebrew hath its great use and may be put to a more growing and profitable improvement only special heed must be taken that they be all drawn to side with the Hebrew but not to put the Hebrew violently by force to be of their party against its own natural meaning In whatsoever Author you meet this disconsonancy to the Scriptures that would bring an alien sense to the Scriptures and doth not receive a genuine meaning from the Scriptures look upon it as one great cause of error these appositions and additaments from men are detractions and substractions from the Word Let the Learned in all their studious artificial Expatiations and liberal scientifick walks in these Fields of Nature gather and bring in as much of choice created Excellencies as they can whereby to contribute to the augment of this Art and the perfecting of this Science only let this be learn'd by reading in Scriptures Book and in Natures School For the rectifying of some common Philosophical mistakes let us by an inquiring Spirit make a deeper research into the Scriptures about this question The creeping living Creatures were not formed out of the Waters as their Pre-existent matter for they were and are distinct Creatures from the Waters of a different make and kind This doth but set out the manner of after productions in the watery places They have been some of the generally received mistakes that â—here was a common pre-existent Matter of the whole Creation That Matter and Motion are the Essences of things That the four Elements are the Original causes of things which have a mixtion of Elements in them That beaten axiom of Ethnick Philosophy that of nothing it is impossible any thing should come as if therefore there were a necessity of fore-existent matter to work upon because the ordinary course of Nature is now so doth discover in the assertors thereof their ignorance of the Scriptures For although out of absolute Nothing Nothing can be extracted converted or made to be yet that doth not necessarily infer that therefore there must be a first Matter and a Potency thereof to be the common Principle of all material things for Almighty Power can create that unto a Being which had no Being before That Ethnick Rationalist who maintained and defended this corrupt Tenet did reject all matters of Faith not only Humane but Divine also and examined all things only by his own Reason whose Writings therefore can afford no true good Commentary upon Scripture which doth not at all speak of any such pre-existent Matter The Scriptures of Truth do not assert any such prime confused Chaos out of which afterwards all Created Beings should come forth distinct neither can any man's Reason evince this to him who doth stand in awe under the Authority of God's Word was it not altogether as easie to Omnipotency and more glorious to all Wisdom at the first to create the several kinds of all Created Beings distinct and perfect than to frame and to form them afterward of matter made before hand is it not against the dictates of Natural Reason and Light that such a pretended first Matter should subsist separate by it self and there rest a while under some common and general Form yet so as withal to have in it such a multitude of specifical Forms of Natural Beings and after-created Essences of all future Bodies not distinct but in a confused lump and mingled heap all jumbled together one with another God is not the author of confusion and how can a rational Intellect understand that any one common Form could make specifically distinct Forms out of such a fancied first matter of corporal things The internal Forms of created Beings is that primitive force and original Nature which Aelohim did speak into and fasten in the several kinds of created Beings on the several days of the first Weak according to the particular Essence and specifick Being and different condition of every thing whereby they are some ways disposed and fitted strengthned and enabled to put forth their proper vertues and their special operations by the exercise of which natural powers they were orderly to move towards the right end in subserviency under and conformity to the will of their Maker which was their goodness and their perfection The Creatures could not cause themselves to be from Not-being neither was natural Generation the first Original of these Creatures but Creation or creating Causality or primitive and proper Creation Neither were their created Potentialities latent in a first Chaos produced into their Actualities on the six days but all and every of the Creatures were immediate distinct Works of Aelohim's Power He created in every one of the six days Any created Original or primary Womb out of which other Creatures were extracted or the material stuff whereof all things were framed which one Ethnick Philosopher calleth the first Matter as the Potential Principle of all Another names it Hyle a darkness somewhat invisible and without Form A third intitles it a fearful Shadow A fourth makes it a symbolical Unity A fifth doth stile it a deformed Chaos or universal troubled Mass without form or shape These and such like fancied Images of Humane Invention have no firm footing in Scripture All and every of the Works of the foregoing six days of the Week are proper Creatures each of them were new Creatures of distinct Essence or Entities There were no former Phaenomena or appearance of them Had there been any such one universal Body of Matter or Corps of the World and an universal created spirit as the soul of the World then all had been perfected in one day both the whole Body and the whole Spirit of the Universal World of Creatures and all this had been one Individuum Physically Really Naturally Not only was the first Creation in one day by the supernatural Power of Aelohim as if the after productions were by the Power of instituted Nature or application of Art But also all the Created Beings on the second third fourth fifth and sixth days which were then Essences when they were Existences and not Essences in Potentiality on the one day and Existences in Actuality on the other days as if only productions out of a former Essence If the Reader do observe any Phrases or Lines in this Treatise word for word in other Authors let him know that these Collections were made some years go when the Author made use of some Books as he could then be suffered to come at them which Books he had not then by him when he first framed this Treatise neither doth he readily know whither to go for the finding out of those citations or transcribings now that he hath most of these Books by him Sometimes he useth their own words where he apprehendeth the writers mind and expressions to be according to the Word and in several places he confutes their mistakes by the Original Text. Let the grand design be promoted of advancing of useful
and Entire several Substance and Quality Matter and Form as they call them all and every of them on the several days of their being created at least this is very well worthy of a more through inquiry and deeper disquisition than hitherto hath been made I return now to the particular created Beings on the fifth day Fishes do breath in and out though Ethnick Philosophy do contradict For Fishes are some of the Reptils which have a living Soul a vital Spirit breathing to and fro The swimming of Fishes is one kind of creeping and sliding So an Eel swims in the Water as a Snake doth creep on the Land And though other Fishes in swimming do shoot forth more directly and do not altogether make such crooked in and out lines yet they only slide in a streighter manner having bodies of a direct and oblong Figure fitted for that purpose being born up and partly carried by an Equidans fulciment of transpassable Waters through which they move by a Breathing Vital Potenty The flying Fowl was not made of the pre-existent Matter of Waters as some learned Christians some whom they call the Fathers and others did misapprehend but were a distinct Creature both from Waters and Reptils from Fishes from what else doth live in the Waters This is a new production in a certain and different place The precedent Hebrew Accent did absolve the former Paragraph from which this is distinguished both grammatically in sense and distinction and also physically in being and in place The one word is as proper to Birds as the other is to Reptils They were neither of the same make with Fishes neither were Fishes created of Water nor Fowls of Earth but immediately of the adored Almighties severally put into their proper natural places the Fishes into swimming in the Sea the Fowls into the Air over the Earth flying there Some flying Fowls do more delight in watery places others of them are more for Earth as the place of their choice some others are Terraqueous being well pleased both with Earth and Water as a place either of them proper and fit enough for them So that this doth but set out their places not the first Matter of their being and how it would be in their after production distinguished into Land-fowls Sea-fowls and Sea land-fowls Amphibious Ones such as do live and generate in both The Creator doth assign his Creatures their proper localities and places of abode as before he had put the Luminaries in the Heavens and Expanse so here the Fishes to the Waters the Fowls to the Air and so afterwards other Creatures to the Earth The appointed places of Habitation of Motion and of Working are proper and natural and the Bodies of created Beings have a suitable conformity fitting them for their several abode The Creator first finished the Theatre or Habitacle of the World and then Creates the Inhabitants thereof and puts them into their several dwellings and mansions Time and Place were some of the first things created they are therefore to be accounted great things being the foundation of many after-institutions The Creature had a beginning when it was created Time then began This World was not from all Eternity for it had a beginning in Time One part of the Created World was after another part of it by temporary succession of nights and of days in a most direct line by established Order and immutable Law The first beginning of Time was not the moment or measure of the first Heavenly Motion They are mistakes the supposal of the first moveable Heaven or compassing Sphere that doth wheel about all the other pretended Spheres and that this first Mover was first created which have no foundation in Scripture but are the feigned inventions of men high in their own eyes and fond of their own conceits The first moment of the first created Evening was the beginning of Time as to the created World when the Darkness was first made to begin Time is not the measure of duration according to a pretended Motion of the Heavenly Luminous Bodies for three several days were past before the Creation of these Time Place and Number are of the Nature of indifferent things that may be or may not be but are necessarily things in their several circumstances These were concreated and did actually exist with other created beings in the beginning and without which no created Entity whatsoever can actually exist There was in the one day of the World successive Duration every Creature that was made on that day was durable temporary made and existed in time There was consistent extension one part beyond another there where another part was not All the created Beings of that day exist in some places They were where they were made and no where else at that same time and several Creatures were in several places then and afterwards There was then discrete numbring for every created Being whatsoever it be must always be numerable The several distinct days also in which the Creatures were made are distinct in Numeration Thus for Family or Church-worship once every day is not enough but twice a day is necessary Aelohim having instituted the Evening and Morning Seasons and not lest this to our liberty or appointment There is an aptitude in Nature for these fitting the time to the Work Thus for more publick Church-assemblies once in a Month or Quarter or Year is not enough it must be weekly on the seventh-day-Sabbath for so is the Doctrine of Weeks in the first Creation Those who are ingaged in the Controversie about Non-conformity unto national Plantations or establishments in the matters of publick Worship such as is of Humane Invention Institution and Imposition especially when exclusive of all other Worship that is according to the Word-Warrant and Scripture-Institution have greatly wronged and hurt their own cause by their concessions and assertions that the Civil Magistrate has the Power in the Nation to appoint humanely-invented Modes of Worship what forms to use The number in Worship how often it shall be what holy days as they call them and how many of them in an year the time of worship when his will and pleasure is and the place of worship where he will assign As if these were Adiaphorous matters left wholly to our Governours prudential consideration and determination which all subjects must comply with and conform to that there may be as they say Order Unity and Peace in the Church by a national uniformity in these things For under a colour of this all the Christian Religion almost is degenerated into indifferents and those who are most and best Christians most spiritual and heavenly in worship according to the Laws and Institutions of Christ's house and who have their conversation most adorning and becoming the Gospel are most hated and opposed this being the ground of persecution in all ages but more towards the latter days as the servants of and witnesses