by Henry More

Henry More (1614–1687), Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, published his "Conjectural Essay of Interpreting the Mind of Moses" in 1653. A founding text of Christian Cabala in England, it reads the first three chapters of Genesis through three lenses — literal, philosophical, and mystical — finding in the Mosaic creation narrative a hidden cosmogony that anticipates Cartesian physics and Neoplatonic metaphysics. More dedicated the work to his friend Ralph Cudworth, Master of Clare Hall and fellow Cambridge Platonist. The volume also contains More's "Defence of the Threefold Cabbala," written in response to early critics. Where the original 1653 printing contains Hebrew, Greek, or other non-Latin text that the EEBO transcription could not render, these are marked [non-Latin text].

Dedication

SIR,

COncerning the choice of the subject
matter of my present pains,
I have, I think, spoke enough
in the insuing Preface. Concerning the
choice of my Patron, I shall say no more,
then that the sole inducement thereto, was
his singular Learning and Piety. The
former of which, is so conspicuous to the
world, that it is universally acknowledged
of all; and for the latter, there is none
that can be ignorant thereof, who has ever
had the happiness, though but in a
smaller measure, of his more free and intimate

converse. As for my own part,
I cannot but publickly profess, I never
met with any yet so truly and becomingly
religious, where the right knowledge
of God and Christ bears the inlightned
minde so even, that it is as far removed
from Superstition as Irreligion it self. And
my present Labours cannot finde better
welcome or more judicious acceptance
with any, then with such as these. For
such free and unprejudiced spirits will
neither antiquate Truth for the oldnesse
of the Notion, nor slight her for looking
young, or bearing the face of Novelty.
Besides, there are none that can be better
assured of the sincerity and efficacy of my
present Designe. For as many as are
born of the Spirit, and are not meer sons
of the Letter, know very well how much
the more inward and mysterious meaning
of the Text makes for the reverence
of the holy Scripture, and advantage of
Godlinesse, when as the urging of the
bare literal sense, has either made or confirmed

many an Atheist. And assuredly
those men see very little in the affairs of
Religion, that do not plainly discover,
that it is the Atheists highest interest, to have
it taken for granted, that there is no spiritual
meaning, either in Scripture or Sacrament,
that extends further then the meer
Grammatical sense in the one, or the sensible,
grosse, external performance in the
other. As for example, That to be regenerated,
and become a true and real Christian,
is nothing else, but to receive the outward
Baptisme of visible water: And, that the
Mosaical Philosophy concerning God, and
the nature of things, is none other, then
that which most obviously offers it self
in the meer letter of Moses. Which if the
Atheist could have fully granted to him on
all sides, and get but this in also to the
bargain, That there is no knowledge of
God, but what Moses his Text set on foot
in the world, or what is Traditional, he
cannot but think, that Religion in this
dresse, is so empty, exceptionable, and

contemptible, that it is but just with as
many as are not meer fools, to look upon
it as some melancholick conceit, or cunning
fiction brought into the world, to awe
the simpler sort, but behinde the hangings
to be freely laughed at, and derided by
those that are more wise; And that it
were an easie thing in a short time to
raze the memory of it out of the mindes
of men, it having so little root in the humane
faculties. Which for my own
part I think as hopeful, as that posterity
will be born without eyes and ears, and
lose the use of speech. For I think the
knowledge of God, and a sense of Religion
is as natural and essential to mankinde,
as any other property in them
whatsoever: And that the generations
of men shall as soon become utterly irrational,
as plainly irreligious. Which,
I think, my late Treatise against Atheisme wil
make good to any one, that with care
and judgement will peruse it.

Nor does it at all follow, because a

truth is delivered by way of Tradition, that
it is unconcludable by Reason. For I do
not know any one Theorem in all Natural
Philosophy, that has more sufficient reasons
for it, then the motion of the Earth, which
notwithstanding is part of the Philosophick
Cabbala or Tradition of Moses, as I shall
plainly shew in its due place. So likewise
for the prae-existency of the Soul, which
seems to have been part of the same Tradition,
it is abundantly consentaneous to
Reason: And as we can give a genuine
account of all those seeming irregularities
of motion in the Planets, supposing, they
& the Earth move round about the Sun:
so we may open the causes of all those astonishing
Paradoxes of Providence, from
this other Hypothesis, and show that there
is nothing here unsutable to the precious
Attributes of God, if we could place the eye
of our understanding in that Center of
all free motions, that steady eternal Good, &
were not our selves carried aloof off from
him, amongst other wandring Planets,

(as S. Jude calls them) that at several distances
play about him, & yet all of them
in some measure or other, not onely pretending
to him, but whether they pretend
or not, really receiving something from
him. For of this First, is all, both Wisdome,
Pleasure, and Power. But it is enough to
have but hinted these things briefly and
enigmatically, the wrath and ignorance
of all Ages receiving the most generous
Truths, with the greatest offence.

But for my own part, I know no reason
but that all wel-willers to Truth & Godliness,
should heartily thank me for my
present Cabbalistical Enterprise, I having so
plainly therein vindicated the holy Mystery
of the Trinity from being (as a very
bold Sect would have it) a meer Pagan
invention. For it is plainly shown here,
that it is from Moses originally, not from
Pythagoras, or Plato. And seeing that Christ
is nothing but Moses unveiled, I think it
was a special act of Providence that this
hidden Cabbala came so seasonably to the

knowledge of the Gentiles, that it might afore-hand
fit them for the easier entertainment
of the whole Mystery of Christianity,
when in the fulness of time it should
be more clearly revealed unto the world.

Besides this, we have also shown, That
according to Moses his Philosophy, the soul
is secure both from death, and from sleep
after death, which those drowsie Nodders
over the letter of the Scripture have very
oscitantly collected, and yet as boldly afterwards
maintained, pretending that
the contrary, is more Platonical, then Christian,
or Scriptural.

Wherefore my designe being so pious
as it proves, I could do nothing more fit
then to make choice of so true a lover of
Piety as your self for a Patron of my present
Labours. Especially you being so
well able to do the most proper office of
a Patron; to defend the truth that is presented
to you in them, & to make up out
of your rich Treasury of Learning, what
our Penury could not reach to, or Inadvertency

may have omitted. And truly, if
I may not hope this from you, I know
not whence to expect it. For I do not
know where to meet with any so universally
and fully accomplished in all
parts of Learning as your self, as well in
the Oriental Tongues and History, as in
all the choicest kindes of Philosophy; Any
one of which Acquisitions is enough to fill,
if not swell, an ordinary man with great
conceit and pride, when as it is your sole
privilege, to have them all, and yet not
to take upon you, nor to be any thing
more imperious, or censorious of others,
then they ought to be that know the least.

These were the true considerations
that directed me in the Dedication of this
Book; Which if you accordingly please
to take into your favourable Patronage,
and accept as a Monument or Remembrance
of our mutual friendship, you
shall much oblige

Your affectionate friend and servant
H. MORE.

Preface to the Reader

I Present thee here with a triple Interpretation
of the three first Chapters of Genesis, which in
my Title Page I have tearmed a threefold Cabbala;
concerning which, for thy better direction
and satisfaction, I hold it not amisse to speak some
few things by way of Preface, such as thou thy self in
all likelihood wouldst be forward to ask of me. As;
why, for example, I call this Interpretation of mine

a Cabbala, and from whom I received it; what
may be the prohabilities of the truth of it; and what
my purpose is in publishing of it.

To the first I answer; That the Jewish Cabbala
is conceived to be a Traditional Doctrine or Exposition
of the Pentateuch which Moses received from
the mouth of God, while he was on the Mount with
him. And this sense or interpretation of the Law or
Pentateuch, as it is a doctrine received by Moses
first, and then from him by Joshua, and from Joshua
by the seventy Elders, and so on, it was called
Cabbala from [non-Latin text]
kibbel to receive: But as it
was delivered as well as received, it was also called
Massora, which signifies a Tradition; though this latter
more properly respects that Critical and Grammatical
skill of the Learned among the Jews, and therefore
was profitable for the explaining the literal sense
as well as that more mysterious meaning of the Text
where it was intended. Whence without any boldnesse
or abuse of the word I may call the Literal interpretation
which I have light upon Cabbala, as well
as the Philosophical or Moral; the literal sense it
self being not so plain and determinate, but that it
may seem to require some Traditional Doctrine or
Exposition to settle it, as well as those other senses that
are more mystical.

And therefore I thought fit to call this threefold interpretation
that I have hit upon, Cabbala's, as if
I had indeed light upon the true Cabbala of Moses
in all the three senses of the Text, such as might have
become his own mouth to have uttered for the instruction

of a willing and well prepared Disciple. And
therefore for the greater comelinesse and solemnity
of the matter, I bring in Moses speaking his own
minde in all the three several Expositions.

And yet I call the whole Interpretation but a Conjecture,
having no desire to seem more definitively
wise then others can bear or approve of. For though
in such things as are necessary and essential to the
happinesse of a man, as the belief that there is a God,
and the like; it is not sufficient for a man only to bring
undeniable reasons for what he would prove, but also
to professe plainly and dogmatically, that himself
gives full assent to the conclusion he hath demonstrated:
So that those that do not so well understand the
power of reason, may notwithstanding thereby be encouraged
to be of the same faith with them that do, it
being of so great consequence to them to believe the
thing propounded: Yet I conceive that Speculative
and Dispensable Truths a man not onely may, but
ought rather to propound them Sceptically to the
world, there being more prudence and modesty in
offering the strongest arguments he can without dogmatizing
at all, or seeming to dote upon the conclusion,
or more earnestly to affect the winning of Proselytes
to his own opinion. For where the force of
the arguments is perceived, assent will naturally follow
according to the proportion of the discovery of the
force of the arguments. And an assent to opinions
meerly speculative, without the reasons of them, is
neither any pleasure nor accomplishment of a rational
creature.

To your second demand, I answer; That though I
call this Interpretation of mine Cabbala, yet I
must confesse I received it neither from Man nor
Angel. Nor came it to me by divine Inspiration,
unlesse you will be so wise as to call the seasonable
suggestions of that divine Life and Sense that vigorously
resides in the Rational Spirit of free and well
meaning Christians, by the name of Inspiration. But
such Inspiration as this is no distracter from, but an
accomplisher and an enlarger of humane faculties.
And I may adde, that this is the great mystery of Christianity,
that we are called to partake of, viz. The perfecting
of the humane nature by participation of the
divine. Which cannot be understood so properly of
this grosse flesh and external senses, as of the inward
humanity, viz. our Intellect, Reason, and Fancie. But
to exclude the use of Reason in the search of divine
truth, is no dictate of the Spirit but of headstrong
Melancholy and blinde Enthusiasme, that religious
frensie men run into, by lying passive for the reception
of such impresses as have no proportion with
their faculties. Which mistake and irregularity, if
they can once away with, they put themselves in a
posture of promiscuously admitting any thing, and so
in due time of growing either moped or mad, and
under pretence of being highly Christians, (the right
mystery whereof they understand not) of working
themselves lower then the lowest of men.

But for mine own part, Reason seems to me to be
so far from being any contemptible Principle in man,
that it must be acknowledged in some sort to be in God

himself. For what is the divine wisdome, but that
steady comprehension of the Ideas of all things, with
their mutual respects one to another, congruities and
incongruities, dependences and independences; which
respects do necessarily arise from the natures of the Ideas
themselves, both which the divine Intellect looks
through at once, discerning thus the order and coherence
of all things. And what is this but Ratio stabilis,
a kinde of steady and immovable reason discovering
the connexion of all things at once? But
that in us is Ratio mobilis, or reason in evolution,
we being able to apprehend things onely in a successive
manner one after another. But so many as we can
comprehend at a time, while we plainly perceive and
carefully view their Ideas, we know how well they fit,
or how much they disagree one with another, and so
prove or disprove one thing by another; which is really
a participation of that divine reason in God, and
is a true and faithful principle in man, when it is
perfected and polished by the holy Spirit. But before,
very earthly and obscure, especially in spiritual things.

But now seeing the Logos or steady comprehensive
wisdom of God, in which all Ideas and their respects
are contained, is but universal stable reason, how can
there be any pretence of being so highly inspired as
to be blown above reason it self, unlesse men will fancie
themselves wiser then God, or their understandings
above the natures and reasons of things themselves.

Wherefore to frame a brief answer to your second
demand; I say, this threefold Cabbala you enquire

after, is the dictate of the free reason of my minde
heedfully considering the written Text of Moses, and
carefully canvasing the Expositions of such Interpreters
as are ordinarily to be had upon him. And I
know nothing to the contrary, but that I have been so
successeful as to have light upon the old true Cabbala
indeed.

Of which in the third place I will set down some
general probabilities, referring you for the rest to the
Defence of the Cabbala's themselves, and the Introduction
thereunto.

And first that the Literal Cabbala is true, it is
no contemptible argument, in that it is carried on so
evenly and consistently one part with another, every
thing also being represented so accommodately to the
capacity of the people, and so advantageously for
the keeping of their mindes in the fear of God, and
obedience to his law, as shall be particularly shown
in the Defence of that Cabbala. So that according
to the sense of this Literal Cabbala, Moses is discovered
to be a man of the highest Political accomplishments,
and true and warrantable prudence that
may be.

Nor is he to fall short in Philosophy; And therefore
the Philosophical Cabbala contains the noblest
Truths, as well Theological as Natural, that the
minde of man can entertain her self with; Insomuch
that Moses seems to have been aforehand, and
prevented the subtilest and abstrusest inventions of
the choicest Philosophers that ever appeared after him
to this very day. And further presumption of the

truth of this Philosophical Cabbala is; that the
grand mysteries therein contained are most-what
the same that those two eximious Philosophers Pythagoras
and Plato brought out of Egypt, and
the parts of Asia into Europe. And it is generally
acknowledged by Christians, that they both
had their Philosophy from Moses. And Numenius
the Platonist speaks out plainly concerning
his Master; What is Plato but Moses Atticus?
And for Pythagoras it is a thing incredible that
he and his followers should make such a deal of doe
with the mystery of Numbers, had he not been favoured
with a sight of Moses his Creation of the
world in six days, and had the Philosophick Cabbala
thereof communicated to him, which mainly consists
in Numbers, as I shall in the Defence of this
Cabbala more particularly declare.

And the Pythagoreans oath swearing by him
that taught them the mystery of the Tetractys, or
the number Four, what a ridiculous thing had it
been if it had been in reference meerly to dry Numbers?
But it is exceeding probable that under
that mystery of Four, Pythagoras was first himself
taught the meaning of the fourth days work in
the Creation, and after delivered it to his disciples.
In which Cabbala of the fourth day Pythagoras
was instructed, amongst other things, that
the Earth was a Planet, and moved about the Sun;
and it is notoriously well known, that this was ever
the opinion of the Pythagoreans, and so in all

likelihood a part of the Philosophick Cabbala of
Moses. Which you will more fully understand
in my Defence thereof.

In brief, all those conclusions that are comprised
in the Philosophick Cabbala, they being such as
may best become that sublime and comprehensive
understanding of Moses, and being also so plainly
answerable to the Phaenomena of Nature and Attributes
of God, as wel as continuedly agreeable without
any force or distortion to the Historical Text;
this I conceive is no small probability that this
Cabbala is true: For what can be the properties
of the true Philosophick Cabbala of Moses, if
these be not which I have named?

Now for the Moral Cabbala it bears its own evidence
with it all the way, representing Moses
as well experienced in all Godlinesse and Honesty,
as he was skilful in Politicks and Philosophy.

And the edifying usefulnesse of this Mystical or
Moral Cabbala, to answer to your last demand,
was no small invitation amongst the rest to publish
this present Exposition. For Moral and Spiritual
Truth that so neerly concerns us being so
strangely and unexpectedly, and yet so fitly and
appositely represented in this History of Moses, it
will in all likelihood make the more forcible impresse
upon the minde, and more powerfully carry
away our affections toward what is good and warrantable,
pre-instructing us with delight concerning

the true way to Virtue and Godlinesse.

Nor are the Philosophick nor Literal Cabbala's
destitute of their honest uses. For in the former to
the amazement of the meer Naturalist (who commonly
conceits that pious men and Patrons of Religion
have no ornaments of minde but scrupulosities
about virtue, and melancholy fancies concerning
a Deity) Moses is found to have been Master
of the most sublime and generous speculations that
are in all Natural Philosophy: besides that he
places the soul of man many degrees out of the reach
of fate and mortality. And by the latter there is
a very charitable provision made for them that are
so prone to expect rigid precepts of Philosophy in
Moses his outward Text. For this Literal Cabbala
will steer them off from that toil of endevouring
to make the bare letter speak consonantly to the
true frame of nature: Which while they attempt
with more zeal then knowledge, they both disgrace
themselves and wrong Moses. For there are unalterable
and indeleble Idea's and Notions in the
minde of man, into which when we are awakened
and apply to the known course and order of nature,
we can no more forsake the use of them then we can
the use of our own eyes, nor misbelieve their dictates
no more, nor so much, as we may those of our
outward senses. Wherefore to men recovered into
a due command of their reason, and well-skill'd
in the contemplation and experience of the nature
of things, to propound to them such kinde of Mosaical

Philosophy, as the boldnesse and superstition
of some has adventured to do for want of a right
Literal Cabbala to guide them, is as much as in
them lies, to hazard the making not only of Moses,
but of Religion it self contemptible and ridiculous.

Whence it is apparent enough, I think, to what
good purpose it is thus carefully to distinguish betwixt
the Literal and Philosophick Cabbala, and
so plainly and fully to set out the sense of either, apart
by themselves, that there may hereafter be
no confusion or mistake. For beside that the discovering
of these weighty Truths, and high, but irrefutable
Paradoxes, in Moses his Text, does assert
Religion, and vindicate her from that vile
imputation of ignorance in Philosophy and the
knowledge of things, so does it also justifie those
more noble results of free Reason and Philosophy
from that vulgar suspicion of Impiety and Irreligion.

THE LITERAL CABBALA.

CHAP. I.

1 WEE are to recount to you in
this Book the Generations and
Genealogies of the Patriarchs
from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham,
from Abraham to Joseph, and to continue the

History to our own times. But it will not be
amisse first to inform you concerning the Creation
of the world, and the original and beginning
of things; How God made Heaven
and Earth, and all the garnishings of them, before
he made Man.

2 But the Earth at first was but a rude and
desolate heap, devoid of herbs, flowers, and
trees, and all living creatures, being nothing
but a deep miry abysse, covered all over with
waters, and there was a very fierce and strong
wind that blew upon the waters; and what
made it still more horrid and comfortless, there
was as yet no light, but all was inveloped with
thick darknesse, and bore the face of a pitchy
black and wet tempestuous night.

3 But God let not his work lie long in this
sad condition, but commanded Light to appear,
and the morning brake out upon the face
of the abyss, and wheel'd about from East to
West, being clearest in the middle of its course
about noon, and then abating of its brightnesse
towards the West, at last quite dis-appear'd,
after such sort as you may often observe the
day-light to break forth in the East, and ripen
to greater clearnesse, but at last to leave the
skie in the West, no Sun appearing all the
while.

4. And God saw the Light, (for it is a thing
   very visible) that it was good, and so separated

the darknesse from the light, that they
could not both of them be upon the face of the
earth together, but had their vicissitudes, and
took their turns one after another.

5 And he called the return of the light Day,
and the return of darkness he called Night;
and the evening and the morning made up
the first natural day.

6. Now after God had made this Basis or
   floor of this greater edifice of the world,
   the Earth, he sets upon the higher parts of the
   fabrick. He commands therefore that there
   should be a hollow expansion, firm and transparent,
   which by its strength should bear up against
   the waters which are above, and keep
   them from falling upon the earth in excess.

7. And so it became a partition betwixt the
   upper & the lower waters; so that by virtue of
   this hollow Firmament, man might live safe
   from the violence of such destructive inundations,
   as one sheltred in a well-pitch'd tent from
   storm of rain: For the danger of these waters
   is apparent to the eye, this ceruleous or blewcoloured
   Sea, that over-spreads the diaphanous
   Firmament, being easily discern'd through the
   body thereof; and there are very frequent and
   copious showers of rain descend from above,
   when as there is no water espyed ascending up
   thither; wherefore it must all come from that
   upper Sea, if we do but appeal to our outward
   sense.

8 Now therefore this diaphanous Canopy
or firmly stretched Tent over the whole pavement
of the earth, though I cannot say properly
that God saw it was good, it being indeed
of a nature invisible, yet the use of it
shows it to be exceeding good and necessary.
And God called the whole capacity of this
hollow Firmament, Heaven. And the evening
and the morning made up the second natural
day.

9 And now so sure a Defence being made
against the inundation of the upper waters,
that they might not fall upon the earth, God
betook himself the next day to order the lower
waters, that as yet were spread over the
whole face thereof; at his command therefore
the waters fled into one place, and the dry
land did appear.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and
the gathering together of the waters he called
Sea: and I may now properly say, that
God saw that it was good, for the Sea and the
Land are things visible enough, and fit objects
of our sight.

11 And forthwith before he made either
Sun, Moon or Stars, did God command the
earth to bring forth grasse, herbs and flowers,
in their full beauty, and fruit-trees, yeilding
delicious fruit, though there had as yet been
no vicissitude of Spring, Summer, or Autumn,

nor any approach of the Sun to ripen and concoct
the fruit of those trees. Whence you may
easily discern the foolishnesse of the idolatrous
Nations, that dote so much on second causes,
as that they forget the first, ascribing that to
the Sun and Moon, that was caus'd at first by
the immediate command of God.

12 For at his command it was, before there
was either Sun or Moon in the Firmament,
that the earth brought forth grasse, and herb
yeilding seed after his kind, and the tree yeilding
fruit, whose seed was in it self, after his
kinde; so that the several sorts of plants might
by this means be conserv'd upon the earth.
And God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning made
up the third natural day.

14 There have three days past without a
Sun, as well as three nights without either
Moon or Stars, as you your selves may happily
have observ'd some number of Moonless
and Starlesse nights, as well as of Sunlesse days,
to have succeeded one another: and so it might
have been always, had not God said, Let there
be Lights within the Firmament of heaven, to
make a difference betwixt day and night, and
to be peculiar garnishings of either. Let
them be also for signes of weather for seasons
of the year, and also for periods of days,
months, and years.

15 Moreover, let them be as lights hung
up within the hollow roof or Firmament of heaven,
to give light to men walking upon the
pavement of the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the
greater one, the most glorious & Princely object
we can see by day, to be as it were the Governor
and Monarch of the day; the lesser, the
most resplendent and illustrious sight we can
cast our eyes on by night, to be Governesse
and Queen of the night. And he made, though
for their smalnesse they be not so considerable,
the Stars also.

17 And he placed them all in the Firmament
of heaven, to give light upon the earth.

18 And to shew their preheminence for external
lustre, above what ever else appears by
either day or night, and to be peculiar garnishings
or ornaments to make a notable difference
betwixt the light and the darknesse, the superaddition
of the Sun to adorn the day, and to
invigorate the light thereof, the Moon and the
Stars to garnish the night, and to mitigate
the dulnesse and darknesse thereof. And God
saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning was
the fourth natural day.

20 After this, God commanded the waters
to bring forth fish and fowl, which they did
in abundance, and the fowl flew above the

earth in the open Firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales also as
well as other fishes, that move in the waters;
and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful
and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas,
and let the fowl multiply on the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning made
up the fifth natural day.

24 Then God commanded the earth to
bring forth all creeping things, and four footed
beasts, as before he commanded the waters
to send forth fish and fowl; and it was so.

25 And when God had made the beast of
the earth after his kinde, and cattel, and every
creeping thing after his kinde, he saw that
it was good.

26 And coming at last to his highest Master-piece,
Man, he encouraged himself, saying,
Go to, let us now make man, and I will make
him after the same image and shape that I bear
my self; and he shall have dominion over the
fish of the Sea, and over the fowls of the Air,
and over the cattel, and over all the earth, and
over every creeping thing, that creepeth upon
the earth.

27 So God created man in his own shape
and figure, with an upright stature, with legs,
hands, arms, with a face and mouth, to speak,
and command, as God himself hath: I say, in

the image of God did he thus create him. But
mistake me not, whereas you conceive of God
as masculine, and more perfect, yet you must
not understand me, as if God made mankinde
so exactly after his own image, that he made
none but males; for I tell you, he made females
as well as males, as you shall hear more
particularly hereafter.

28 And having made them thus male and
female, he bad them make use of the distinction
of sexes that he had given them; and
blessing them, God said unto them, Be fruitful
and multiply, and fill the earth with your offspring,
and be lords thereof, and have dominion
also over the fish of the sea, and over the
fowls of the air, as well as over beasts and
cattel, and every creeping thing that moves
upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I give you every
frugiferous herb which is upon the face of
the earth, such as the Straw-berry, the several
sorts of Corn, as Rye, Wheat, and Rice, as
also the delicious fruits of Trees, to you they
shall be for meat.

30 But for the beasts of the earth, and the
fowls of the air, and for every living thing that
creepeth upon the earth, the worser kind of
herbs, and ordinary grasse, I have assign'd for
them: and so it came to passe that mankinde
are made lords and possessors of the choicest

fruits of the earth, and the beasts of the field
are to be contented with baser herbage, and the
common grasse.

31 And God viewed all the works that he
had made, and behold, they were exceeding
good; and the evening and the morning was
the sixt natural day.

CHAP. II.

1 THus the Heavens and the Earth were finisht,
and all the creatures, wherewith
they were garnisht and replenisht.

2 And God having within six days perfected
all his work, on the seventh day he rested
himself.

3 And so made the seventh day an holy
day, a festival of rest, because himself then
first rested from his works. Whence you
plainly see the reason and original of your Sabbaths.

4 These are the generations of the heavens
and of the earth, which I have so compendiously
recounted to you, as they were created
in the days that the Lord made heaven and
earth, and the several garnishings of them.

5 But there are some things that I would a
little more fully touch upon, and give you notice
of, to the praise of God, and the manifesting
of his power unto you. As that the
herbs and plants of the field did not come up
of their own accords out of the earth, before
God made them, but that God created them
before there were any seeds of any such thing
in the earth, and before there was any rain, or
men to use gardning or husbandry, for the
procuring their growth: So that hereafter
you may have the more firm faith in God, for
the blessings and fruits of the earth, when the
ordinary course of nature shall threaten dearth
and scarcity for want of rain and seasonable
showers.

6 For there had been no showers when God
caused the plants, and herbs of the field to
spring up out of the earth; onely as I told you
at the first of all, there was a mighty torrent of

water, that rose every where above the earth,
and cover'd the universal face of the ground,
which yet, God afterward by his almighty
power, commanded so into certain bounds,
that the residue of the earth was meer dry
land.

7 And that you farther may understand
how the power of God is exalted above the
course of natural causes, God taking of the
the dust of his dry ground, wrought it with
his hands into such a temper, that it was matter
fit to make the body of a Man: which when he
first had fram'd, was as yet but like a senslesse
statue, till coming near unto it with his mouth,
he breath'd into the nostrils thereof the breath
of life; as you may observe to this day, that
men breath through their nostrils, though their
mouths be clos'd. And thus man became a
living creature, and his name was called Adam,
because he was made of the earth.

8 But I should have told you first more at
large, how the Lord God planted a Garden
Eastward of Judea in the Countrey of Eden,
about Mesopotamia, where afterwards he put
the man Adam, whom he after this wise had
form'd.

9 And the description of this Garden is
this: Out of the ground made the Lord God
to grow every Tree that is pleasant to the
sight, and good for food. But amongst these

several sorts of Trees, there were two of singular
notice, that stood planted in the midst
of the Garden; the one of which had fruit of
that wonderful virtue, as to continue youth
and strength, and to make a man immortal
upon earth, wherefore it was call'd the Tree of
Life. There was also another Tree planted
there, of whose fruit if a man ate, it had this
strange effect, that it would make a man know
the difference betwixt good and evil; for the
Lord God had so ordain'd, that if Adam touched
the forbidden fruit thereof, he should
by his disobedience feel the sense of evil as
well as good; wherefore by way of Anticipation
it was called the Tree of knowledge of good
and evil.

10 And there was a River went out of Eden
to water the Garden, and from thence it
was parted, and became into four heads.

11 The name of the first was Phasis, or
Phasi-Tigris, which compasses the whole Land
of the Chaulateans, where there is Gold.

12 And the Gold of that Land is excellent;
there is also found Bdellium and the Onyxstone.

13 And the name of the second River is Gihon,
the same is it that compasseth the whole
Land of the Arabian-Aethiopia.

14 And the name of the third River is Tigris,
that is that which goeth towards the East

of Assyria, and the fourth River is Euphrates.

15 And the Lord God took the man Adam
by the hand, and led him into the Garden of
Eden, and laid commands upon him to dresse
it, and look to it, and to keep things handsome
and in order in it, and that it should not be any
wise spoil'd or misus'd by incursions or careless
ramblings of the heedlesse beasts.

16 And the Lord God recommended unto
Adam all the Trees of the Garden for very
wholesome and delightful food, bidding him
freely eat thereof.

17 Only he excepted the Tree of Knowledge
of Good and Evil, which he strictly charg'd him
to forbear, for if he ever tasted thereof, he
should assuredly die.

18 But to the high commendation of Matrimony
be it spoken, though God had placed
Adam in so delightful a Paradise, yet his happinesse
was but maimed and imperfect, till he
had the society of a woman: For the Lord
God said, It is not good that man should be
alone, I will make him an help meet for him.

19 Now out of the ground the Lord God
had form'd every beast of the field, and every
fowl of the air, and these brought he unto Adam,
to see what he would call them, and whatsoever
Adam called every living creature, that
was the name thereof.

20 And Adam gave names to all cattel, and

to the fowls of the air, and to every beast of
the field, but he could not so kindly take acquaintance
with any of these, or so fully
enjoy their society, but there was still some
considerable matter wanting to make up Adams
full felicity, and there was a meet help to
be found out for him.

21 Wherefore the Lord God caus'd a deep
sleep to fall upon Adam; & lo, as he slept upon
the ground, he fell into a dream, how God had
put his hand into his side, and pulled out one
of his ribs, closing up the flesh in stead thereof:

22 And how the rib, which the Lord God
had taken from him, was made into a woman,
and how God when he had thus made her, took
her by the hand, and brought her unto him.
And he had no sooner awakened, but he found
his dream to be true, for God stood by him
with the woman in his hand which he had
brought.

23 Wherefore Adam being pre-advertised
by the vision, was presently able to pronounce,
This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my
flesh: What are the rest of the creatures to
this? And he bestowed upon her also a fitting
name, calling her Woman, because she was taken
out of Man.

24 And the Lord God said, Thou hast spoken
well, Adam: And for this cause shall a
man leave his father and mother, and shall

cleave unto his wife, and they two shall be one
flesh: so strict and sacred a tie is the band of
wedlock.

25 And they were both naked, Adam and
his wife, and were not ashamed; but how the
shame of being seen naked came into the
world, I shall declare unto you hereafter.

CHAP. III.

1 AND truly it cannot but be very obvious
for you to consider often with your
selves, not onely how this shame of nakedness

came into the world, but the toil and drudgery
of Tillage and Husbandry; the grievous
pangs of Childe-bearing; and lastly, what is
most terrible of all, Death it self: Of all
which, as of some other things also, I shall give
you such plain and intelligible reasons, that
your own hearts could not wish more plain
and more intelligible. To what an happy
condition Adam was created, you have already
heard; How he was placed by God in a Garden
of delight, where all his senses were gratified
with the most pleasing objects imaginable;
his eyes with the beautie of trees and flowers,
and various delightsome forms of living creatures,
his ears with the sweet musical accents
of the canorous birds, his smell with the fragrant
odours of Aromatick herbs, his taste
with variety of delicious fruit, and his touch
with the soft breathings of the air in the flowry
alleys of this ever-springing Paradise. Adde unto
all this, that pleasure of pleasures, the delectable
conversation of his beautiful Bride, the
enjoyments of whose love neither created care
to himself, nor pangs of childe-bearing to
her: for all the functions of life were performed
with ease and delight; and there had been
no need for man to sweat for the provision of
his family, for in this Garden of Eden there
was a perpetual Spring, and the vigour of the
soil prevented mans industry; and youth and

jollity had never left the bodies of Adam and
his posterity, because old age and death were
perpetually to be kept off by that soveraign
virtue of the Tree of Life. And I know, as
you heartily could wish, this state might have
ever continued to Adam and his seed, so you
eagerly expect to hear the reason why he was
depriv'd of it; and in short it is this, His disobedience
to a commandement which God had given
him; the circumstances whereof I shall declare
unto you, as followeth.

Amongst those several living creatures
which were in Paradise, there was the Serpent
also, whom you know to this very day to be
full of subtilty, & therefore you will lesse wonder,
if when he was in his perfection, he had
not onely the use of Reason, but the power of
Speech. It was therefore this Serpent that was
the first occasion of all this mischief to Adam
and his posterity; for he cunningly came unto
the woman, and said unto her, Is it so indeed,
that God has commanded you that you shall
not eat of any of the trees of the Garden?

2 And the woman answered unto the Serpent,
You are mistaken, God hath not forbid
us to eat of all the fruit of the trees of the Garden.

3 But indeed of the fruit of the Tree in the
midst of the Garden, God hath strictly charged
us, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye
touch it, lest ye die.

4 But the Serpent said unto the woman,
Tush, I warrant you, this is only but to terrifie
you, and abridge you of that liberty and
happinesse you are capable of, you shall not
so certainly die.

5 But God knows the virtue of that tree full
well, that so soon as you eat thereof, your eyes
shall be opened, and you shall become as Gods,
knowing good and evil.

6 And when the woman saw, that the tree
was good for food, and that it was pleasant to
the eye, and a tree to be desired to make one
wise, she took of the fruit and did eat, and
gave also to her husband with her, and he did
eat.

7 And the eyes of them both were opened,
and they knew they were naked, and were ashamed,
and therefore they sewed fig-leaves together,
and made themselves aprons to cover
their parts of shame.

8 And the Lord God came into the Garden
toward the cool of the evening, and walking
in the Garden, call'd for Adam; But Adam
had no sooner heard his voice, but he and his
wife ran away into the thickest of the trees of
the Garden, to hide themselves from his presence.

9 But the Lord God called unto Adam the
second time, and said unto him, Adam where
art thou?

10 Then Adam was forc't to make answer,
and said, I heard thy voice in the Garden, and
I was afraid, because I was naked, and so I hid
my self.

11 Then God said unto him, Who hath
made thee so wise, that thou shouldst know that
thou art naked, or wantest any covering? Hast
thou eaten of the forbidden fruit?

12 And Adam excus'd himself, saying, The
woman whom thou recommendedst to me for
a meet help, she gave me of the fruit, and I did
eat.

13 And the Lord God said unto the woman,
What is this that thou hast done? And
the woman excus'd her self, saying, The Serpent
beguiled me, and I did eat.

14 Then the Lord God gave sentence upon
all three; and to the Serpent he said, Because
thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all
cattel, and above every beast of the field; and
whereas hitherto thou hast been able to bear thy
body aloft, and go upright, thou shalt henceforth
creep upon thy belly, like a worm, and
dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

15 And there shall be a perpetual antipathy
betwixt not only the woman and thee, but betwixt
her seed and thy seed: For universal
mankind shall abhorre thee, and hate all the
cursed generations that come of thee. They
indeed shall busily lie in wait to sting mens

feet, which their skill in herbs however shall
be able to cure; but they shall knock all Serpents
on the head, and kill them without pity
or remorse, deservedly using thy seed as
their deadly enemy.

16 And the doom of the woman was, Her
sorrow and pangs in childe-bearing, and her
subjection to her husband. Which law of
subjection is generally observed in the Nations
of the world unto this very day.

17 And the doom of Adam was, The toil
of Husbandry upon barren ground.

18 For the earth was cursed for his sake,
which is the reason that it brings forth thorns,
and thistles, and other weeds, that Husbandmen
could wish would not cumber the ground,
upon which they bestow their toilsome labor.

19 Thus in the sweat of his face was Adam
to eat his bread, till he return to the dust out of
which he was taken.

20 And Adam called his wife Eve, because
she was the mother of all men that ever were
born into the world, and lived upon the face
of the earth.

21 And the generations of men were clothed
at first with the skins of wilde beasts, the
use of which God taught Adam and Eve in
Paradise.

22 And when they were thus accoutred for
their journey, and armed for greater hardship,

God turns them both out: and the Lord
God said concerning Adam, deriding him for
his disobedience, Behold, Adam is become as
one of us, to know good and evil: Let us
look to him now, lest he put his hand to the
Tree of Life, and so make himself immortal.

23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth
from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground,
from whence he was taken.

24 So he drove out Adam, and his wife was
forced to follow him: For there was no longer
staying in Paradise, because the place was
terribly haunted with spirits, and fearful apparitions
appeared at the entrance thereof, winged
men with fiery flaming swords in their
hands, brandished every way, so that Adam
durst never adventure to go back to taste of
the fruit of the Tree of Life: whence it is
that mankinde hath continued mortal to this
very day.

THE PHILOSOPHICK CABBALA.

CHAP. I.

1 OUR designe being to set out the
more conspicuous parts of the external
Creation, before we descend
to the Genealogies and Successions of mankinde;

there are two notable objects present
themselves to our understanding, which
we must first take notice of, as having an universal
influence upon all that follows: and these
I do Symbolically decypher, the one by the
name of Heaven and Light; for I mean the
same thing by both these tearms; the other by
the name of Earth. By Heaven or Light, you
are to understand The whole comprehension of
intellectual Spirits, souls of men and beasts, and
the seminal forms of all things which you may
call, if you please, The world of Life. By
Earth, you are to understand the Potentiality,
or Capability of the Existence of the outward
Creation: This Possibility being exhibited to
our mindes as the result of the Omnipotence
of God, without whom nothing would be,
and is indeed the utmost shadow and darkest
projection thereof.

The Tri-une God therefore by his eternall
Wisdome first created this Symbolical Heaven
and Earth.

2 And this Earth was nothing but Solitude
and Emptinesse, and it was a deep bottomless
capacity of being what ever God thought
good to make out of it, that implyed no contradiction
to be made. And there being a
possibility of creating things after sundry and
manifold manners, nothing was yet determined,
but this vast Capability of things was

unsettled, fluid, and of it self undeterminable
as water: But the Spirit of God, who was
the Vehicle of the Eternal Wisdome, and of
the Super-essential Goodnesse, by a swift forecast
of Counsel and Discourse of Reason
truly divine, such as at once strikes through
all things, and discerns what is best to be done,
having hover'd a while over all the capacities
of this fluid Possibilitie, forthwith settled upon
what was the most perfect and exact.

3 Wherefore the intire Deity by an inward
Word, which is nothing but Wisdome
and Power, edg'd with actual Will, with more
ease then we can present any Notion or Idea
to our own mindes, exhibited really to
their own view the whole Creation of spiritual
Substances, such as Angels are in their
inward natures, the Souls of men, and other
Animals, and the Seminal Forms of
all things, so that all those, as many as ever
were to be of them, did really and actually
exist without any dependency on corporeall
matter.

4 And God approved of, and pleased
himself in all this as good; but yet though in
designe there was a settlement of the fluid
darknesse or obscure Possibility of the outward
Creation, yet it remained as yet but a dark
Possibility: And a notorious distinction indeed
there was betwixt this *Actual spiritual

Creation,* and the dimme possibility of the material
or outward world.

5. Insomuch that the one might very well
   be called Day, and the other Night: because
   the night does deface and obliterate all the distinct
   figures and colours of things; but the
   day exhibits them all orderly and clearly to
   our sight. Thus therefore was the immateriall
   Creature perfectly finisht, being an inexhaustible
   Treasury of Light and Form, for the
   garnishing and consummating the material
   world, to afford a Morning or Active principle
   to every Passive one, in the future parts of the
   corporeal Creation. But in this first days
   work, as we will call it, the Morning and Evening
   are purely Metaphysical; for the active
   and passive principles here are not two distinct
   substances, the one material, the other spiritual.
   But the passive principle is matter meerly
   Metaphysical, and indeed no real or actual
   entity; and, as hath been already said, is
   quite divided from the light or spiritual substance,
   not belonging to it, but to the outward
   world, whose shadowy possibility it
   is. But be they how they will, this passive
   and active principle are the First days work:
   A Monad or Unite being so fit a Symbole of the
   immaterial nature.

6 And God thought again, and invigorating
his thought with his Will and Power, created
an immense deal of reall and corporeall matter,
a substance which you must conceive to
lie betwixt the foresaid fluid Possibility of Natural
things, and the Region of Seminall Forms;
not that these things are distinguisht Locally,
but according to a more intellectual Order.

7 And the thought of God arm'd with his
Omnipotent will took effect, and this immensely
diffused matter was made. But he was not
very forward to say it was good, or to please
himself much in it, because he foresaw what
mischief straying souls, if they were not very
cautious, might bring to themselves, by sinking
themselves too deep therein. Besides it was
little worth, till greater polishings were bestowed
upon it, and his Wisdome had contrived
it to fitting uses, being nothing as yet, but
a boundlesse Ocean of rude invisible Matter.

8 Wherefore this Matter was actuated and
agitated forthwith by some Universal Spirit,
yet part of the World of Life, whence it became
very subtile and Ethereal; so that this Matter
was rightly called Heaven, and the Union of
the Passive and Active Principle in the Creation
of this Material Heaven, is the second days
work, and the Binarie denotes the nature
thereof.

9 I shall also declare unto you, how God
orders a reall materiall Earth, when once it is
made, to make it pleasant and delightful for
both man and beast. But for the very making
of the Earth, it is to be referred to the following
day. For the Stars and Planets belong to
that number; and as a primary Planet in respect
of its reflexion of light is rightly called a
Planet, so in respect of its habitablenesse, it is
as rightly tearmed an Earth. These Earths
therefore God orders in such sort, that they neither
want water to lie upon them, nor be covered
over with water, though they be invironed
round with the fluid air.

10 But he makes it partly dry Land, and
partly Sea, Rivers, and Springs, whose convenience
is obvious for every one to conceive.

11 He adorns the ground also with grasse,
herbs, and flowers, and hath made a wise provision
of seed, that they bring forth, for the
perpetuation of such useful commodities upon
the face of the earth.

12 For indeed these things are very good and
necessary both for man and beast.

13 Therefore God prepared the matter of
the Earth so, as that there was a vital congruity
of the parts thereof, with sundry sorts of seminall
forms of trees, herbs, and choicest kinds of
flowers; and so the Body of the Earth drew in
sundry principles of Plantall Life, from the

World of Life, that is at hand every where; and
the Passive and Active Principle thus put together,
made up the Third Days work, and the
Ternary denotes the nature thereof.

14 The Ternary had allotted to it, the garnishing
of an Earth with trees, flowers, and
herbs, after the distinction of Land and Sea:
as the Quinary hath allotted to it, the replenishing
of an Earth with fish and fowl; the Senary
with man and beast. But this Fourth Day
comprehends the garnishing of the body of the
whole world, viz. That vast and immense
Ethereal matter, which is called the fluid Heaven,
with infinite numbers of sundry sorts of
lights, which Gods Wisdome and Power, by
union of fit and active principles drawn from
the world of life, made of this Ethereal matter,
whose usefulnesse is plain in nature, that
they are for Prognostick signes, and seasons,
and days, and years.

15 As also for administring of light to all
the inhabitants of the world; That the Planets
may receive light from their fountains of light,
and reflect light one to another.

16 And there are two sorts of these Lights
that all the inhabitants of the world must acknowledge
great every where, consulting
with the outward sight, from their proper stations.
And the dominion of the greater of
these kinde of lights is conspicuous by day; the

dominion of the lesser by night: the former we
ordinarily call a Sun, the other a Moon; which
Moon is truly a Planet and opake, but reflecting
light very plentifully to the beholders sight,
and yet is but a secondary or lesser kind of Planet;
but he made the Primary and more eminent
Planets also, and such an one is this
Earth we live upon.

17 And God placed all these sorts of lights
in the thin and liquid Heaven, that they might
reflect their rayes one upon another, and shine
upon the inhabitants of the world.

18 And that their beauty and resplendency
might be conspicuous to the beholders of
them, whether by day or by night, which is
mainly to be understood of the Suns, that supply
also the place of Stars at a far distance, but
whose chiefe office it is to make vicissitudes of
day and night: And the Universal dark Aether
being thus adorn'd with the goodly and glorious
furniture of those several kindes of lights,
God approved of it as good.

19 And the union of the Passive and Active
principle was the Fourth days work, and the
number denotes the nature thereof.

20 And now you have heard of a verdant
Earth, and a bounded Sea, and Lights to shine
through the air and water, and to gratifie the
eyes of all living creatures, whereby they may
see one another, and be able to seek their

food, you may seasonably expect the mention
of sundry animals proper to their elements.
Wherefore God by his inward Word and
Power, prepared the matter in the waters, and
near the waters with several vital congruities,
so that it drew in sundry souls from the world
of Life, which actuating the parts of the matter,
caus'd great plenty of fish to swim in the
waters, and fowls to flye above the earth in
the open air.

21 And after this manner he created great
Whales also, as well as the lesser kindes of fishes,
and he approved of them all as good.

22 And the blessing of his inward Word or
Wisdome was upon them for their multiplication;
for according to the preparation of the
matter, the Plastical Power of the souls that descend
from the world of Life, did faithfully
and effectually work those wise contrivances
of male and female, they being once rightly
united with the matter, so that by this means
the fish filled the waters in the seas, and the
fowls multiplyed upon the earth.

23 And the union of the Passive and Active
principle was the Fift days work, and the Quinary
denotes the nature thereof.

24 And God persisted farther in the Creation
of living creatures, and by espousing new
souls from the world of Life to the more Mediterraneous
parts of the matter, created land-serpents,

cattel, and the beasts of the field.

25 And when he had thus made them, he
approved of them for good.

26 Then God reflecting upon his own Nature,
and viewing himself, consulting with the
Super-essential Goodnesse, the Eternal Intellect,
and unextinguishable Love-flame of his Omnipotent
Spirit, concluded to make a far higher
kinde of living creature, then was as yet
brought into the world; He made therefore
Man in his own Image, after his own Likenesse.
For after he had prepared the matter
fit for so noble a guest as an humane Soul, the
world of Life was forced to let go what the
rightly prepared matter so justly called for.
And Man appeared upon the stage of the earth,
Lord of all living creatures. For it was just
that he that bears the Image of the invisible
God, should be Supreme Monarch of this visible
world. And what can be more like God
then the soul of man, that is so free, so rational,
and so intellectual as it is? And he is not the
lesse like him now he is united to the terrestrial
body, his soul or spirit possessing and
striking through a compendious collection of
all kinde of corporeal matter, and managing it,
with his understanding free to think of other
things, even as God vivificates and actuates the
whole world, being yet wholly free to contemplate
himself. Wherefore God gave Man

dominion over the fowls of the air, the fish of
the sea, and the beasts of the earth: for it is
reasonable the worser should be in subserviency
to the better.

27 Thus God created Man in his own Image,
he consisting of an intellectual Soul,
& a terrestrial Body actuated thereby. Wherefore
mankinde became male and female, as other
terrestrial animals are.

28 And the benediction of the Divine Wisdome
for the propagation of their kinde, was
manifest in the contrivance of the parts that
were framed for that purpose: And as they
grew in multitudes, they lorded it over the
earth, and over-mastered by their power and
policy the beasts of the field; and fed themselves
with fish and fowl, and what else pleased
them, and made for their content, for all was
given to them by right of their Creation.

29 And that nothing might be wanting to
their delight, behold also divine Providence
hath prepared for their palate all precious and
pleasant herbs for sallads, and made them banquets
of the most delicate fruit of the fruitbearing
trees.

30 But for the courser grasse, and worser
kinde of herbs, they are intended for the worser
and baser kinde of creatures: Wherefore it
is free for man to seek out his own, and make
use of it.

31 And God considering every thing that
he had made, approved of it as very good; and
the union of the Passive and Active principle
was the Sixt days work: and the Senary denotes
the nature thereof.

CHAP. II.

1 THUS the Heavens and the Earth were
finisht, and all the garnishings of them,
such as are Trees, Flowers, and Herbs; Suns,

Moons, and Stars; Fishes, Fowls, and Beasts of
the field, and the chiefest of all, Man himself.

2 Wherfore God having thus compleated his
work in the Senary, comprehending the whole
Creation in six orders of things, he ceased
from ever creating any thing more, either in
this outward Material world, or in the world of
Life: But his Creative Power retiring into
himself, he enjoyed his own eternal Rest, which
is his immutable and indefatigable Nature, that
with ease oversees all the whole Compasse of
Beings, and continues Essence, Life, and Activity
to them; and the better rectifies the worse,
and all are guided by his Eternal Word and
Spirit; but no new Substance hath been ever
created since the six days production of things,
nor shall ever be hereafter.

3 For this Seventh day God hath made an
Eternal Holy day, or Festival of Rest to himself,
wherein he will only please himself, to
behold the exquisite Order, and Motion, and
right Nature of things, his Wisdome, Justice,
and Mercy unavoidably insinuating themselves,
according to the set frame of the world, into
all the parts of the Creation, he having Ministers
of his Goodnesse and Wrath prepared every
where: So that himself need but to look on,
and see the effects of that Nemesis that is necessarily
interwoven in the nature of the things

themselves which he hath made. This therefore
is that Sabbath or Festival of Rest which
God himself is said to celebrate in the Seventh
day, and indeed the number declares the nature
thereof.

4 And now to open my minde more fully
and plainly unto you, I must tell you that
those things which before I tearm'd the Garnishings
of the Heaven and of the Earth, they
are not only so, but the Generations of them:
I say, Plants and Animals were the generations,
effects, and productions of the Earth, the
Seminal Forms and Souls of Animals insinuating
themselves into the prepared matter
thereof, and Suns, Planets, or Earths were the
generations or productions of the Heavens, vigour
and motion being imparted from the
world of Life to the immense body of the Universe,
so that what I before called meer Garnishings,
are indeed the productions or generations
of the Heavens and of the Earth so
soon as they were made; Though I do not
take upon me to define the time wherein God
made the Heavens and the Earth: For he
might do it at once by his absolute Omnipotency,
or he might, when he had created all
Substance as well material as immaterial, let
them act one upon the other, so, and in such
periods of time, as the nature of the production
of the things themselves requir'd.

5 But it was for pious purposes that I cast
the Creation into that order of Six dayes,
and for the more firmly rooting in the hearts
of the people this grand and useful Truth,
That the Omnipotency of God is such, that he
can act above and contrary to natural causes, that
I mention'd herbs and plants of the field,
before I take notice of either rain or man to
exercise Gardning and Husbandry: For indeed
according to my former narration there
had been no such kinde of rain, as ordinarily
nowadays waters the labours of the Husbandman.

6 But yet there went up a moist vapour
from the earth, which being matur'd and concocted
by the Spirit of the world, which is
very active in the heavens or air, became a
precious balmy liquour, and fit vehicle of Life,
which descending down in some sort like dewy
showers upon the face of the earth, moistned
the ground, so that the warmth of the Sun
gently playing upon the surface thereof, prepared
matter variously for sundry sorts, not
only of Seminal forms of Plants, but Souls of
Animals also.

7 And Man himself rose out of the earth after
this manner; the dust thereof being rightly
prepar'd and attemper'd by these unctuous
showers and balmy droppings of Heaven. For
God had so contriv'd by his infinite Wisdome,

that matter thus or thus prepar'd, should by a
vital congruity attract proportional forms from
the world of Life, which is every where nigh at
hand, and does very throngly inequitate the
moist and unctuous air. Wherefore after this
manner was the Aereal or Ethereal Adam conveyed
into an earthly body, having his most
conspicuous residence in the head or brain:
And thus Adam became the Soul of a Terrestrial
living Creature.

8 But how it is with Adam before he descends
into this lower condition of life, I shall
declare unto you in the Aenigmatical narration
that follows, which is this; That the Lord God
planted a Garden Eastward in Eden, where he
had put the Man, wch afterward he formed into
a Terrestrial Animal: For Adam was first wholly
Ethereal, and placed in Paradise, that is, in
an happy and joyful condition of the Spirit; for
he was placed under the invigorating beams of
the divine Intellect, and the Sun of Righteousnesse
then shone fairly upon him.

9 And his Soul was as the ground which
God hath blest, & so brought forth every pleasant
Tree, and every goodly Plant of her heavenly
Fathers own planting; for the holy Spirit
of Life had inriched the soil, that it brought
forth all manner of pleasant and profitable
fruits: And the Tree of Life was in the midst
of this Garden of mans soul, to wit, the *Essential

Will of God,* which is the true root of Regeneration;
but to so high a pitch Adam as yet
had not reacht unto, and the fruit of this Tree
in this Ethereal state of the Soul, had been Immortality
or Life everlasting: And the Tree
of the Knowledge of good and evil was there also,
viz. His own Will.

10 And there was a very pleasant River
that water'd this Garden, distinguishable into
four streams, which are the four Cardinal Virtues,
which are in several degrees in the Soul,
according to the several degrees of the purity
of her Vehicle.

11 And the name of the first is Pison, which
is Prudence and Experience in things that are
comely to be done: For the soul of man is
never idle, neither in this world, nor in any
state else, but hath some Province to make
good, and is to promote his interest whose she
is: For what greater gratification can there
be of a good soul, then to be a dispenser of
some portion of that Universal good, that
God lets out upon the world? And there can
be no external conversation nor society of persons,
be they Terrestrial, Aereab, or Ethereal,
but forthwith it implies an Use of Prudence:
Wherefore Prudence is an inseparable Accomplishment
of the soul: So that Pison is rightly
deemed one of the Rivers even of that Celestial
Paradise. And this is that wisdome which

God himself doth shew to the soul by communication
of the divine Light; for it is said to
compasse the Land of Havilah.

12. Where also idle and uselesse speculations
    are not regarded, as is plainly declared by
    the pure and approved Gold, Bdellium, and Onyx,
    the commodities thereof.

13 And the name of the second River is
Gihon, which is Justice, as is intimated from
the fame of the Aethiopians, whose Land it is
said to compasse, as also from the notation of
the name thereof.

14 And the name of the third River is Hiddekel,
which is Fortitude, that like a rapid stream
bears all down before it, and stoutly resists all
the powers of darknesse, running forcibly against
Assyria, which is situated Westward of
it. And the fourth River is Perath, which is
Temperance, the nourisher and cherisher of all
the plants of Paradise; whereas Intemperance,
or too much addicting the minde to the pleasure
of the Vehicle, or Life of the matter, be it
in what state soever, drowns and choaks those
sacret Vegetables. As the earth you know,
was not at all fruitfull till the waters were removed
into one place, and the dry land appeared,
when as before it was drowned and
slocken with overmuch moisture.

15 In this Paradise thus described, had the
Lord God placed Man to dresse it, and to

keep it in such good order as he found it.

16 And the divine Word or Light in man
charged him, saying, Of every tree of Paradise
thou mayest freely eat. For all things
here are wholesome as well as pleasant, if thou
hast a right care of thy self, and beest obedient
to my commands.

17 But of the luscious and poisonous fruit
of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil,
that is, of thine own will, thou shalt not by any
means eat: For at what time thou eatest thereof,
thy soul shall contract that languor, debility,
and unsettlednesse, that in processe of time
thou shalt slide into the earth, and be buried in
humane flesh, and become an inhabitant of the
Region of mortality and death.

18 Hitherto I have not taken much notice
in the Ethereal Adam of any other Faculties, but
such as carried him upwards towards virtue
and the holy Intellect; And indeed this is the
more perfect and masculine Adam, which consists
in pure subtile intellectual Knowledge:
But we will now inform you of another Faculty
of the soul of man, which though it
seem inferiour, yet is far from being contemptible,
it being both good for himself, and convenient
for the terrestrial world; For this
makes him in a capacity of being the head of
all the living creatures in the earth, as that Faculty
indeed is the mother of all mankinde.

19 Those higher and more Intellectual accomplishments
I must confesse, made Adam
very wise, and of a quick perception. For he
knew very well the natures of the beasts of
the field, and fowls of the air: I mean not
only of the visible and terrestrial creatures, but
also of the fallen and unfallen Angels, or good
and bad Genii, and was able to judge aright of
them, according to the principles they consisted
of, and the properties they had.

20 And his Reason and Understanding was
not mistaken, but he pronounced aright in all.
But however, he could take no such pleasure in
the external Creation of God, and his various
works, without having some Principle of
life, congruously joyning with, and joyfully
actuating the like matter themselves consisted
of: Wherefore God indued the soul of man
with a faculty of being united with vital joy
and complacency to the matter, as well as of
aspiring to an union with God himself, whose
divine Essence is too highly disproportioned
to our poor substances. But the divine Life
is communicable in some sort to both soul and
body, whether it be Ethereal, or of grosser consistence:
and those wonderful grateful pleasures
that we feel, are nothing but the kindely
motions of the souls Vehicle; from whence
divine joys themselves are by a kinde of reflexion
strengthned and advanced. Of so great

consequence is that vital principle that joyns
the soul to the matter of the Universe.

21 Wherefore God to gratifie Adam, made
him not indefatigable in his aspirings towards
Intellectual things, but Lassitude of Contemplation,
& of Affectation of Immateriality, (he
being not able to receive those things as they
are, but according to his poor capacity, which
is very small in respect of the object it is exercis'd
about) brought upon himself remisnesse
and drowsinesse to such like exercises, till by
degrees he fell into a more profound sleep; At
what time divine Providence having laid the
plot aforehand, that lower vivificative principle
of his soul did grow so strong, and did so
vigorously and with such exultant sympathy
and joy actuate his Vehicle, that in virtue of his
integrity which he yet retain'd, this became
more dear to him, and of greater contentment,
then any thing he yet had experience of.

22 I say, when divine Providence had so
lively and warmly stirr'd up this new sense of
his Vehicle in him,

23 He straightway acknowledg'd that all
the sense and knowledge of any thing he had
hitherto, was more lifelesse and evanid, and seemed
lesse congruous and grateful unto him,
and more estranged from his nature: but this
was so agreeable & consentaneous to his soul,
that he looked upon it as a necessary part of

himself, and called it after his own name.

24 And he thought thus within himself, For
this cause will any one leave his over-tedious
aspires to unite with the Eternal Intellect, and
Universal Soul of the world, the immensenesse
of whose excellencies are too highly rais'd for
us to continue long in their embracements, and
will cleave to the joyous and chearful life of
his Vehicle, and account this living Vehicle and
his Soul one Person.

25 Thus Adam with his new-wedded Joy
stood naked before God, but was not as yet at
all ashamed, by reason of his Innocency and
Simplicity; for Adam neither in his reason nor
affection as yet had transgressed in any thing.

CHAP. III.

1 NOw the life of the Vehicle being so highly
invigorated in Adam, by the remission
of exercise in his more subtile and immaterial
faculties, he was fit with all alacrity and
chearfulnesse to pursue any game set before
him; and wanted nothing but fair external
opportunity to call him out into action.

Which one of the evil Genii or faln Angels
observing, which had no small skill in doing
mischief, having in all likelihood practised the
same villany upon some of his own Orders, and
was the very Ring leader of rebellion against
God, and the divine Light; For he was more
perversely subtile then all the rest of the evil
Genii or beasts of the field, wch God had mad[•]
Angels; but their beastiality they contract[•]
by their own rebellion. For every thing [•]
hath sense and understanding, and wants the
divine Life in it, in the judgement of all wise
and good men is truly a Beast. This old Serpent
therefore the subtilest of all the beasts of
the field, cunningly assaulted Adam with such
conference as would surely please his Feminine
part, which was now so invigorated with life,
that the best news to her would be the tidings
of a Commission to do any thing: Wherefore
the Serpent said to the feminized Adam,
Why are you so demure, and what makes you
so bound up in spirit? Is it so indeed that
God has confined you, taken away your Liberty,
and forbidden you all things that you
may take pleasure in?

2 And Adam answered him, saying, No; we
are not forbidden any thing that the divine
Life in us approves as good and pleasant.

3 We are only forbidden to feed on our
own Will, and to seek pleasures apart and without

out the approbation of the will of God. For
if our own will get head in us, we shall assuredly
descend into the Region of Mortality, and be
cast into a state of Death.

4 But the Serpent said unto Adam, Tush,
this is but a Panick fear in you, Adam, you shall
not so surely die as you conceit.

5 The only matter is this; God indeed
[•]ves to keep his creatures in awe, and to hold
them in from ranging too farre, and reaching
too high; but he knows very well, that if you
take but your liberty with us, and satiate your
selves freely with your own will, your eyes
will be wonderfully opened, and you will meet
with a world of variety of experiments in
things, so that you will grow abundantly wise,
and like Gods know all things whatsoever,
whether good or evil.

6 Now the Feminine part in Adam was so
tickled with this Doctrine of the old Deceiver,
that the Concupiscible began to be so immoderate,
as to resolve to do any thing that may
promote pleasure and experience in things,
& snatcht away with it Adams Will and Reason
by his heedlesnesse and inadvertency. So
that Adam was wholly set upon doing things
at randome; according as the various toyings
and titillations of the lascivient Life of the Vehicle
suggested to him, no longer consulting
with the voice of God, or taking any farther

aim by the Inlet of the divine Light.

7 And when he had tired himself with a
rabble of toyes, and unfruitful or unsatisfactory
devices, rising from the multifarious workings
of the Particles of his Vehicle, at last the
eyes of his faculties were opened, and they
perceived how naked they were; he having as
yet neither the covering of the Heavenly Nature,
nor the Terrestrial Body. Only they
sewed fig-leaves together, and made some
pretences of excuse, from the vigour of the
Plantal Life that now in a thinner maner might
manifest it self in Adam, and predispose him
for a more perfect exercise of his Plastick Power,
when the prepared matter of the Earth
shall drink him in.

8 In the mean time the voice of God, or
the divine Wisdome spake to them in the cool
of the day, when the hurry of this mad Carreer
had well slaked. But Adam now with his
wife was grown so out of order, and so much
estranged from the Life of God, that they hid
themselves at the sensible approach thereof, as
wilde beasts run away into the Wood at the
sight of a man.

9 But the divine Light in the Conscience of
Adam pursued him, and upbraided unto him
the case he was in.

10 And Adam acknowledged within himself
how naked he was, having no power, nor ornaments,

nor abilities of his own, and yet that
he had left his obedience and dependence upon
God: Wherefore he was ashamed, and hid himself
at the approach of the divine Light manifesting
it self unto him to the reprehension and
rebuke of him.

11 And the divine Light charg'd all this
misery and confusion that had thus overtaken
him, upon the eating of the forbidden fruit,
the luscious Dictates of his own Will.

12 But Adam again excus'd himself within
himself, that it was the vigour and impetuosity
of that Life in the Vehicle which God himself
implanted in it, whereby he miscarried: The
woman that God had given him.

13 And the divine Light spake in Adam
concerning the woman; What work hath she
made here? But the woman in Adam excused
her self; for she was beguiled by that grand
Deceiver the Serpent. In this confusion of
mind was Adam by forsaking the divine Light,
and letting his own will get head against it. For
it so changed the nature of his Vehicle, that
(whereas he might have continued in an Angelical
and Ethereal condition, and his feminine
part been brought into perfect obedience to
the divine Light, and had joyes multiplyed upon
the whole man beyond all expression and
imagination for ever) he now sunk more and
more towards a mortal and terrestrial estate,

himself not being unsensible thereof, as you
shall hear, when I have told you the doom of
the Eternal God concerning the Serpent and
him.

14 Things therefore having been carried
on in this wise, the Eternal Lord God decreed
thus with himself concerning the Serpent and
Adam: That this old Serpent, the Prince of
the rebellious Angels, should be more accursed
then all the rest; and, (whereas he lorded it
aloft in the higher parts of the Air, and could
glide in the very Ethereal Region, amongst the
innocent and unflan souls of men, and the
good Angels before) that he should now sweep
the dust with his belly, being cast lower towards
the surface of the Earth.

15 And that there should be a general enmity
and abhorrency betwixt this old Serpent,
as also all of his fellow-rebels, and betwixt
Mankinde. And that in processe of time the
ever faithful and obedient Soul of the Messias
should take a Body, and should trample over
the power of the Devil, very notoriously here
upon Earth, and after his death should be constituted
Prince of all the Angelical Orders
whatever in Heaven.

16 And concerning Adam, the Eternal
Lord God decreed that he should descend
down to be an Inhabitant of the Earth, and
that he should not there indulge to himself the

pleasures of the body, without the concomitants
of pain and sorrow, and that his Feminine
part, his Affections should be under the chastisement
and correction of his Reason.

17 That he should have a wearisome and
toilsome travail in this world,

18 The Earth bringing forth thorns and
thistles, though he must subsist by the Corn
of the field.

19 Wherefore in the sweat of his browes
he should eat his bread, till he returned unto
the ground, of which his terrestrial body is
made. This was the Counsel of God concerning
Adam and the Serpent.

20 Now, as I was a telling you, Adam
though he was sinking apace into those lower
functions of life, yet his minde was not as yet
grown so fully stupid, but he had the knowledge
of his own condition, and added to all
his former Apologies, that the Feminine part
in him, though it had seduced him, yet there
was some use of this mis-carriage, for the Earth
would hence be inhabited by Intellectual Animals:
wherefore he call'd the Life of his Vehicle,
EVE, because she is indeed the Mother of all the
generations of men that live upon the Earth.

21 At last the Plastick Power being fully
awakened, Adams Soul descended into the
prepared matter of the Earth, and in due processe
of time Adam appear'd cloth'd in the skin

of beasts; that is, he became a down-right terrestrial
Animal, and a mortal creature upon
earth.

22 For the Eternal God had so decreed, and
his Wisdome, Mercy, and Justice did but, if I
may so speak, play and sport together in the
businesse. And the rather, because Adam had
but precipitated himself into that condition,
which in due time might have faln to his share
by course; for it is fitting there should be some
such head among the living creatures of the
earth, as a terrestrial Adam, but to live always
here were his disadvantage.

23 Wherefore when God remov'd him
from that higher condition,

24 He made sure he should not be Immortal,
nor is he in any capacity of reaching unto the
Tree of Life, without passing through his fiery
Vehicle, and becoming a pure and defecate Ethereal
Spirit: Then he may be admitted to
taste the fruit of the Tree of Life and Immortality,
and so live for ever.

THE MORAL CABBALA.

CHAP. I.

1 WEE shall set before you in this
History of Genesis, several eminent
examples of good and

perfect men, such as Abel, Seth, Enoch, Abraham,
and the like: Wherefore we thought
fit, though Aenigmatically, and in a dark Parable,
to shadow out in general the manner of
progresse to this divine Perfection; Looking
upon Man as a Microcosm or a Little World, who
if he hold out the whole progresse of the Spiritual
Creation, the processe thereof will be figuratively
understood as follows Wherefore
first of all, I say, that by the will of God every
man living on the face of the Earth hath these
two Principles in him, Heaven and Earth, Divinity
and Animality, Spirit and Flesh.

2 But that which is Animal or Natural operates
first, the Spiritual or heavenly Life lying
for a while closed up at rest in its own Principle.
During which time, and indeed some
while afterwards too, the Animal or Fleshly Life
domineers in darknesse and deformity; the
mighty tempestuous Passions of the flesh contending
and strugling over that Abysse of unsatiable
Desire which has no bottome, and which
in this case carries the minde to nothing but
emptinesse and unprofitablenesse.

3 But by the will of God it is, that afterwards
the Day-light appears, though not in so
vigorous measure, out of the Heavenly or Spiritual
Principle.

4 And Conscience being thus enlightned,
offers her self a guide to a better condition;

and God has fram'd the nature of man so, that
he cannot but say, that this Light is good, and
distinguish betwixt the dark tumultuous motions
of the Flesh and it:

5 And say, that there is as true a difference,
as betwixt the natural Day and Night. And
thus Ignorance and Enquiry was the first days
progresse.

6 But though there be this principle of
Light set up in the Conscience of Man, and
he cannot say any thing against it, but that it is
good and true, yet has he not presently so
lively and savoury a relish in his distinction
betwixt the evil and the good: For the evil
as yet wholly holds his Affections, though his
Fancy and Reason be toucht a little with the
Theoretical apprehensions of what is good;
wherefore by the will of God the heavenly
Principle in due time becomes a Spirit of savoury
and affectionate discernment betwixt the
evil and the good; betwixt the pure waters that
flow from the holy Spirit, and the muddy and
tumultuous suggestions of the Flesh.

7 And thus is Man enabled in a living manner
to distinguish betwixt the earthly and heavenly
life.

8 For the heavenly Principle is now made
to him a Spirit of savoury discernment, and being
taught by God after this manner, he will
not fail to pronounce, that this Principle,

whereby he has so quick and lively a sense of
what is good and evil, is heavenly indeed: And
thus Ignorance and Enquiry is made the second
days progresse.

9 Now the sweetnesse of the upper waters
being so well relisht by man, he has a great
nauseating against the lower feculent waters of
the unbounded desires of the flesh; So that
God adding power to his will, the inordinate
desires of the flesh are driven within set limits,
and he has a command over himself to become
more stayed and steady.

10 And this steadinesse and command he
gets over himself, he is taught by the divine
Principle in him to compare to the Earth or
dry land for safenesse and stability; but the desires
of the flesh, he looks upon as a dangerous
and turbulent Sea: Wherefore the bounding
of them thus, and arriving to a state of command
over a mans self, and freedome from
such colluctations and collisions as are found
in the working Seas, the divine Nature in
him could not but approve as good.

11 For so it comes to passe by the will of
God, and according to the nature of things,
that this state of sobriety in man, (he being in
so good a measure rid of the boisterousnesse of
evil Concupiscence) gives him leisure so to
cultivate his minde with principles of Virtue
and Honesty, that he is as a fruitful field whom
the Lord hath blessed,

12 Sending forth out of himself sundry
sorts of fruit-bearing trees, herbs, and flowers;
that is, various kindes of good works, to
the praise of God, and the help of his neighbour;
and God and his own Conscience witnesse
to him, that this is good.

13 And thus Ignorance and Inquiry is made
the third days progresse.

14 Now when God has proceeded so far
in the Spiritual Creation, as to raise the heavenly
Principle in man to that power and efficacy
that it takes hold on his affections, and
brings forth laudable works of Righteousnesse,
he thereupon adds a very eminent accession of
Light and Strength, setting before his eyes
sundry sorts of Luminaries in the heavenly or
intellectual Nature, whereby he may be able
more notoriously to distinguish betwixt the
Day and the Night; that is, betwixt the condition
of a truly illuminated soul, and one that
is as yet much benighted in ignorance, and estranged
from the true knowledge of God.
For according to the difference of these Lights,
it is signified to a man in what condition himself
or others are in, whether it be indeed Day
or Night with them, Summer or Winter, Spring
time or Harvest, or what period or progresse
they have made in the divine Life.

15 And though there be so great a difference
betwixt these Lights, yet the meanest

are better then meer darknesse, and serve in
some measure or other to give light to the
Earthly man.

16 But among these many Lights which
God makes to appear to man, there are two
more eminent by far then the rest. The
greater of which two has his dominion by day,
and is a faithful guide to those which walk in
the day; that is, that work the works of righteousnesse.
And this greater Light is but
one, but does being added, mightily invigorate
the former day-light man walked by, and
it is a more full appearance of the Sun of Righteousnesse,
which is an hearty and sincere Love
of God, and a mans neighbour. The lesser of
these two great Lights has dominion by night,
and is a rule to those whose inward mindes are
held as yet too strongly in the works of darknesse:
and it is a Principle weak, and variable
as the Moon, and is called Inconstancy of Life
and Knowledge. There are alsoan abundance
of other little Lights thickly dispersed over the
whole Understanding of man, as the Stars in
the Firmament, which you may call Notionality
or Multiplicity of ineffectual Opinions.

17 But the worst of all these are better then
down-right Sensuality and Brutishnesse, and
therefore God may well be said to set them up
in the heavenly part of man, his Understanding,
to give what light they are able to his

earthly parts, his corrupt and inordinate Affections.

18 And as the Sun of Righteousnesse, that is,
the hearty and sincere Love of God, and a mans
neighbour, by his single light and warmth with
chearfulnesse and safety guides them that are
in the day: so that more uneven and changeable
Principle, and the numerous Light of Notionality,
may conduct them, as well as they are
able, that are benighted in darknesse: And
what is most of all considerable, a man by the
wide difference of these latter Lights from that
of the Day, may discern, when himself or another
is benighted in the state of unrighteousnesse.
For multifarious Notionality and Inconstancy
of life and knowledge, are certain signs
that a man is in the night: But the sticking to
this one, single, but vigorous and effectual
Light, of the hearty and sincere Love of God,
and a mans neighbour, is a signe that a man
walks in the day. And he that is arrived to
this condition, plainly discerns in the Light of
God, that all this is very good.

19 And thus Ignorance and Inquiry is made
the fourth days progresse.

20 And now so noble, so warm, and so vigorous
a Principle or Light as the Sun of Righteousnesse,
being set up in the heavenly part
of the Soul of man, the unskilful may unwarily
expect that the next news will be, that even

the Seas themselves are dried up with the
heat thereof, that is, that the Concupiscible in
man is quite destroyed: But God doth appoint
far otherwise; for the waters bring forth
abundance of Fish as well as Fowl innumerable.

21 Thoughts therefore of natural delights
do swim to and fro in the Concupiscible of man,
and the fervent love he bears to God causes
not a many faint ineffectual notions, but an abundance
of holy affectionate meditations, and
winged Ejaculations that fly up heaven-ward,
which returning back again, and falling upon
the numerous fry of natural Concupiscence, help
to lessen their numbers, as those fowls that frequent
the waters devour the fish thereof. And
God and good men do see nothing but good
in all this.

22 Wherefore God multiplies the thoughts
of natural delight in the lower Concupiscible, as
well as he does those heavenly thoughts and
holy meditations, that the entire Humanity
might be filled with all the degrees of good it
is capable of; and that the divine Life might
have something to order and overcome.

23 And thus Ignorance and Inquiry made
the fift days progresse.

24 Nor does God only cause the Waters to
bring forth, but the dry Land also, several
living creatures after their kinde, and makes

the Irascible fruitful, as well as the Concupiscible.

25 For God saw that they were both good,
and that they were a fit subject for the heavenly
Man to exercise his Rule and Dominion over.

26 For God multiplies strength as well as
occasions to employ it upon. And the divine
Life that hath been under the several degrees of
the advancement thereof, so variously represented
in the five fore-going progresses, God
at last works up to the height, and being compleat
in all things, styles it by the name of his
own Image; the divine Life arrived to this
pitch being the right Image of him indeed.
Thus it is therefore, that at last God in our nature
fully manifests the true and perfect Man,
whereby we our selves become good and perfect,
who does not only see and affect what is
good, but has full power to effect it in all
things: For he has full dominion over the
fish of the sea, can rule and guide the fowls of
the air, and with ease command the beasts of
the field, and what ever moveth upon the
earth.

27 Thus God creates Man in his own Image,
making him as powerful a Commander
in his little World, over all the thoughts and
motions of the Concupiscible and Irascible, as
himself is over the Natural frame of the Universe
or greater World. And this Image is

Male and Female, consisting of a clear and free
Understanding, and divine Affection, which are
now arrived to that height, that no lower Life
is able to rebel against them, and to bring them
under.

28 For God blesses them and makes them
fruitful, and multiplies their noble off-spring
in so great and wonderful a measure that they
replenish the cultivated nature of man with
such an abundance of real Truth and Equity,
that there is no living Figure, Imagination, or
Motion of the Irascible or Concupiscible, no extravagant
or ignorant irregularity in religious
meditations and devotions, but they are presently
moderated and rectified. For the whole
Territories of the Humane Nature is every
where so well peopled with the several beautiful
shapes or Idea's of Truth and Goodnesse,
the glorious off-spring of the heavenly Adam,
Christ, that no Animal figure can offer to move
or wagge amisse, but it meets with a proper
Corrector and Re-composer of its motions.

29 And the divine Life in man being thus
perfected, he is therewith instructed by God,
what is his food, as divine, and what is the food
of the Animal Life in him, viz. the most virtuous,
most truly pious, and divine Actions he
has given to the heavenly Adam to feed upon,
fulfilling the Will of God in all things, which
is more pleasant then the choicest sallads, or

most delicate fruit the taste can relish.

30 Nor is the Animal Life quite to be starved
and pin'd, but regulated and kept in subjection,
and therefore they are to have their
worser sort of herbs to feed on; that is, Natural
Actions consentaneous to the Principle from
whence they flow; that that Principle may also
enjoy it self in the liberty of prosecuting
what its nature prompts it unto. And thus the
sundry Modifications of the Irascible and Concupiscible,
as also the various Figurations of
Religious Melancholy, and Natural Devotions,
(which are the Fishes, Beasts, and Fowls in the
Animal Nature of Man) are permitted to feed
and refresh themselves in those lower kindes of
Operations they incline us to; provided all be
approved and rightly regulated by the heavenly
Adam.

31 For the Divine Wisdome in Man sees
and approves all things which God hath created
in us, to be very good in their kinde. And
thus Ignorance and Inquiry was the Sixt days
progresse.

CHAP. II.

1 THUS the Heavenly and Earthly Nature
in Man were finisht, and fully replenisht
with all the garnishings belonging to
them.

2 So the Divine Wisdome in the Humane
Nature celebrated her Sabbath, having now
wrought through the toil of all the six days
travel.

3 And the Divine Wisdome looked upon
this Seventh day as blessed and sacred; a day
of Righteousnesse, Rest and Joy in the holy
Ghost.

4 These were the Generations or Pullulations
of the Heavenly and Earthly Nature, of
the Divine and Animal Life in Man, when God
created them.

5 I mean those fruitful Plants, and pleasant
and useful Herbs which he himself planted:
For I have describ'd unto you the condition of
a Man taught of God, and instructed and cherisht
up by his inward Light, where there is no
external Doctrine to distil as the rain, nor outward
Gardener to intermeddle in Gods Husbandry.

6 Only there is a Fountain of Water, which
is Repentance from dead works, and bubbles up
in the earthly Adam, so as universally to wash
all the ground.

7 And thus the nature of Man being prepar'd
for further Accomplishments, God
shapes him into his own Image, which is Righteousnesse
and true Holinesse, and breathes into
him the Spirit of Life: And this is that Adam
which is born of Water and the Spirit.

8 Hitherto I have shewed unto you how
mankinde is raised up from one degree of Spiritual
Light and Righteousnesse unto another,
till we come at last to that full Command and
Perfection in the divine Life, that a man
may be said in some sort thus to have attain'd
to the Kingdome of Heaven, or found a Paradise
upon Earth. The Narration that follows

shall instruct you and forewarn you of those
evil courses, whereby man loses that measure
of Paradisiacal happinesse God estates him in,
even while he is in this world. I say therefore,
that the Lord God planted a Garden
Eastward in Eden, and there he put the Man
whom he had made; that is, Man living under
the Intellectual rayes of the Spirit, and being
guided by the morning Light of the Sun of
Righteousnesse, is led into a very pleasant and
sweet Contentment of minde, and the testimony
of a good Conscience is his great delight.

9 And that the sundry Germinations and
Springings up of the works of Righteousnesse
in him is a delectable Paradise to him, pleasing
both the sight and taste of that measure of
divine Life that is manifested in him: But
of all the Plants that grow in him, there is none
of so soveraign virtue, as that in the midst of
this Garden; to wit, the Tree of Life, which is,
a Sincere Obedience to the Will of God: Nor any
that bears so lethiferous and poisonous fruit, as
the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil, which
is, Disobedience to the Will of God, as it is manifested
in Man. For the pleasure of the Soul
consists in conforming her self faithfully to
what she is perswaded in her own Conscience
is the Will of God, what ever others would
insinuate to the contrary.

10 And all the fruit-bearing Trees of Righteousnesse

are watered by these four Rivers,
which winde along this Garden of Pleasure,
which indeed are the four Cardinal Virtues.

11 The name of the first is Pison, which is
Prudence, not the suggestions of fleshly craft
and over-reaching subtilty, but the Indications
of the Spirit or divine Intellect, what is fit and
profitable and decorous to be done.

12 Here is well tryed and certain approved
Experience, healthful Industry, and Alacrity
to honest Labour.

13 And the name of the second River is
Gihon, which is Justice.

14 And the name of the third River is Hiddekel,
which is Fortitude; and the fourth River
is Euphrates, which is Temperance.

15 This is the Paradise where the Lord
God had placed the Man, that he might further
cultivate it and improve it.

16 And the divine Light manifested in the
Man, encourag'd the Man to eat of the fruits
of Paradise freely, and to delight himself in
all manner of holy Understanding and Righteousnesse.

17 But withall he bade him have a speciall
care how he relisht his own Will or Power in
any thing, but that he should be obedient to
the manifest Will of God in things great
and small, or else assuredly he would lose the
life he now lived, and become dead to all Righteousnesse

and Truth. So the man had a special
care, and his soul wrought wholly towards
heavenly and divine things, and heeded nothing
but these, his more noble and Masculine
Faculties being after a manner solely set on
work, but the natural Life (in which notwithstanding,
if it were rightly guided, there is no
sin) being almost quite forgot and dis-regarded.

18 But the Wisdome of God saw that it
was not good for the soul of man, that the
Masculine Powers thereof should thus operate
alone, but that all the Faculties of Life should
be set a float, that the whole humane Nature
might be accomplisht with the divine.

19 Now the powers of the soul working so
wholly upwards towards divine things, the several
Modifications or Figurations of the Animal
Life (which God acting in the frame of
the humane Nature, represented to the Man,
whence he had occasion to view them and
judge of them) by the quick Understanding
of Man was indeed easily discern'd what they
were, and he had a determinate apprehension of
every particular Figuration of the Animall
Life,

20 And did censure them, or pronounce of
them, though truly, yet rigidly enough and
severely; but as yet was not in a capacity of
taking any delight in them, there was not any

of them fit for his turn to please himself in.

21 Wherefore divine Providence brought
it so to passe, for the good of the Man, and
that he might more vigorously and fully
be enrich'd with delight, that the operations of
the Masculine Faculties of the Soul were for a
while well slaked and consopited; during
which time the Faculties themselves were
something lessened or weakned, yet in such a
due measure and proportion, that considering
the future advantage that was expected, that
was not miss'd that was taken away, but all as
handsome and compleat as before.

22 For what was thus abated in the Masculine
Faculties, was compensated abundantly in
exhibiting to the Man the grateful sense of the
Feminine; for there was no way but this to
Create the Woman, which is to elicite that kindly
flowring joy or harmlesse delight of the Natural
Life, and health of the Body; which once exhibited
and joyned with Simplicity and Innocency
of Spirit, it is the greatest part of that
Paradise a man is capable of upon Earth.

23 And the actuating of the matter being
the most proper and essential operation of a
soul, man presently acknowledg'd this kindly
flowring joy of the Body, of nearer cognation and
affinity with himself then any thing else he ever
had yet experience of, and he loved it as
his own life.

24 And the Man was so mightily taken with
his new Spouse, which is, The kindly Joy of the
Life of the Body, that he concluded with himself,
that any one may with a safe Conscience
forgoe those more earnest attempts towards the
knowledge of the Eternal God that created
him, as also the performance of those more
scrupulous injunctious of his Mother the
Church, so far forth as they are incompetible
with the Health and Ioy of the Life of his Natural
Body, and might in such a case rather cleave
to his Spouse, and become one with her; provided
he still lived in obedience to the indispensable
Precepts of that Superiour Light and
Power that begot him.

25 Nor had Adam's Reason or Affection
transgressed at all in this; concluding nothing
but what the divine Wisdome and Equity would
approve as true. Wherefore Adam and his
wife as yet sought no corners, nor covering
places to shelter them from the divine Light;
but having done nothing amisse, appeared naked
in the presence of it without any shame
or blushing.

CHAP. III.

1 BUT so it came to passe that the Life of
the Body being thus invigorated in Man,
straightway the slyest and subtilest of all the
Animal Figurations, the Serpent, which is the
inordinate Desire of Pleasure, craftily insinuated
it self into the Feminine part of Adam, viz.
The kindely Joy of the body; and thus assaulting
Man, whisper'd such suggestions as these
unto him. What a rigid and severe thing is

this businesse of Religion, and the Law of
God, as they call it, that deprives a man of all
manner of Pleasure, and cuts him short of all
the contentments of Life?

2 But the Womanish part in Adam; to wit,
The natural and kindly Joy of the body, could
witnesse against this, and answered, We may
delight our selves with the operations of all
the Faculties both of soul and body, which
God and Nature hath bestow'd upon us.

3. Only we are to take heed of Disobedience,
   and of promiscuously following our
   own will; but we are ever to consult with
   the Will of God, and the divine Light manifested
   in our Understandings, and so doe all
   things orderly and measurably: For if we
   transgresse against this, we shall die the death,
   and lose the Life of Virtue and Righteousness,
   which now is awake in us.

4 But the Serpent, which is the inordinate
desire of Pleasure, befooled Adam, through the
frailty of his Womanish Faculties, and made
him believe he should not die; but with safety
might serve the free dictates of Pleasure
or his own Will and the Will of God, that
Flesh and Spirit might both rule in him, and be
no such prejudice the one to the other:

5 But that his skill and experience in things
will be more enlarg'd, and so come nearer to
divine Perfection indeed, and imitate that fulnesse

of Wisdome which is in God, who
knows all things whatsoever, whether good or
evil.

6 This crafty suggestion so insinuated it
self into Adams Feminine Faculties, that his
fleshly Concupiscence began to be so strong, that
it carried the assent of his Will away with it,
and the whole Man became a lawlesse and unruly
Creature: For it seem'd a very pleasant
thing at first sight to put in execution what ever
our own Lusts suggest unto us without
controll; and very desirable to try all Conclusions
to gain experience and knowledge of
things. But this brought in nothing but the
wisdome of the flesh, and made Adam earthly
minded.

7 But he had not rambled very far in these
dissolute courses, but his eyes were opened,
and he saw the difference, how naked now he
was, and bare of all strength and power to divine
and holy things; and began to meditate
with himself some slight pretences for his notorious
folly and disobedience.

8 For the Voice of the divine Light had
come unto him in the cool of the day, when
the fury and heat of his inordinate passions was
something slaked: But Adam could not endure
the presence of it, but hid himself from it,
meditating what he should answer by way of
Apology or Excuse.

9 But the divine Light persisted, and came
up closer to him, and upbraided unto him, that
he was grown so wilde and estranged from her
self, demanding of him in what condition he
was, and wherefore he fled.

10 Then Adam ingenuously confessed that
he found himself in such a pitiful poor naked
condition, that he was ashamed to appear
in the Presence of the divine Light; and that
was the reason he hid himself from it, because
it would so manifestly upbraid to him his Nakednesse
and Deformity.

11 And the divine Light farther examined
him, how he fell into this sensible beggerly
nakednesse he was in, charging the sad event
upon his Disobedience, that he had fed upon,
and taken a surfeit of the fruit of his own Will.

12 But Adam excused his rational faculties,
and said, They did but follow the natural Dictate
of the Joy of the Body, the Woman that
God himself bestowed upon him for an help
and delight.

13 But the divine Light again blamed Adam,
that he kept his Feminine faculties in no
better order nor subjection, that they should so
boldly and overcomingly dictate to him such
things as are not fit. To which he had nothing
to say, but that the subtile Serpent, the inordinate
Desire of Pleasure, had beguiled both his
faculties, as well Masculine as Feminine, his

Will and Affection was quite carried away
therewith.

14 Then the divine Light began to chastise
the Serpent, in the hearing of Adam, pronouncing
of it, that it was more accursed, then all the
Animal Figurations beside; and that it crept
basely upon the belly, tempting to Riot and
Venery, and relishing nothing but earth and
dirt. This will always be the guise of it, so
long as it lives in a man.

15 But might I once descend so far into the
Man, as to take possession of his Feminine faculties,
I would set the Natural Joy of the Body
at defiance with the Serpent; and though the
subtilty of the Serpent may a little wound and
disorder the Woman for a while, yet her warrantable
and free operations, she being actuated
by divine vigour, should afterward quite
destroy and extinguish the Seed of the Serpent;
to wit, the Operations of the inordinate desire of
Pleasure.

16 And she added farther in the hearing of
Adam concerning the Woman, as she thus stood
dis-joyn'd from the heavenly Life, and was not
obedient to right Reason, that by a divine Nemesis,
she should conceive with sorrow, and
bring forth Vanity; And that her husband,
the Earthly minded Adam, should tyrannize over
her, and weary her out, and foil her; So
that the *kindly Joy of the Health and Life of the

Body,* should be much depraved, or made faint
and languid, by the unbridled humours, and
impetuous Luxury and Intemperance of the
Earthly minded Adam.

17 And to Adam he said, who had become
so Earthly minded, by listening to the Voice of
his deceived Woman, and so acting disobediently
to the Will of God; That his Flesh or
Earth was accursed for his sake, with labour
and toil should he reap the fruits thereof all the
while he continued in this Earthly mindednesse.

18 Cares also and Anxieties shall it bring
forth unto him, and his thoughts shall be as
base as those of the beasts in the field; he shall
ruminate of nothing but what is Earthly and
Sensual.

19 With sweat and anguish should he labour
to satisfie his hunger and insatiablenesse,
till he returned to the Principle out of which
he was taken; for the Earthly mindednesse came
from this animated Earth, the Body; and is to
shrinke up againe into its owne Principle, and
to perish.

20 After all these Castigations and Premonitions
of the divine Light, Adam was not sufficiently
awakened to the sense of what was
good, but his minde was straightway taken up
againe with the delights of the flesh, and dearly
embracing the Joy of his body, for all she was
grown so inordinate, called her My Life, professing

she was the noursing Mother and chiefe
comfort of all men living, and none could subsist
without her.

21 Then the divine Wisdome put hairy
coates made of the skins of wilde beasts upon
Adam and his Wife, and deservedly reproached
them, saying, Now get you gone for a couple
of brutes. And Adam would have very gladly
escaped so, if he might, and set up his rest for
ever in the beastiall Nature.

22 But the Eternall God of heaven, whose
Providence reaches to all things, and whose
Mercy is over all his workes, looking upon
Adam, perceived in what a pitifull ridiculous
case he was; who seeking to be like unto God
for knowledge and freedome, made himselfe
no better then a Beast, and could willingly have
lived for ever in that baser kinde of nature;
Wherefore the Eternall Lord God, in compassion
to Adam, designed the contrary, and deriding
his boldnesse and curiosity that made him
transgresse, Behold, sayes he, Adam is become
like one of us, knowing Good and Evill: and
can of himselfe enlarge his pleasure, and create
new Paradises of his owne, which forsooth must
have also their Tree of Life or Immortality: and
Adam would for ever live in this foolish state
he hath plac'd himselfe in.

23 But the Eternall Lord God would not
suffer Adam to take up his rest in the Beastial

delight, which he had chosen, but drove him
out of this false Paradise, which he would have
made to himself, and set him to cultivate his
fleshly members, out of which his Earthly mindednesse
was taken.

24 I say, he forcibly drove out Adam from
this Paradise of Luxury; nor could he settle
perpetually in the brutish Life, because the
Cherubim with the flaming sword that turned
every way, beat him off; that is, the Manly
Faculties of Reason and Conscience met him ever
and anon in his brutish purposes, and convinced
him so of his folly, that he could not set
up his rest for ever in this bestial condition.

The Defence of the Threefold Cabbala

Preface to the Reader of the Defence

THE Cabbala's thou hast read being
in all likelihood so strange and
unexpected, especially the Philosophical,
that the Defence it self, which should
cure and cese thy amazement, may not occasion
in any passage thereof, any further scruple
or offence, I thought fit a while to interrupt
thee, that whatever I conjecture may lesse satisfie,
may afore-hand be strengthned by this
short Preface.

And for my own part I cannot presage what
may be in any shew of Reason alledged by any
man, unlesse it be, The unusual mysterie of
Numbers; The using of the authority of the
Heathen in Explication of Scripture; The adding
also of Miracles done by them for the further
confirming their authority; and lastly, the

strangeness of the Philosophical Conclusions
themselves.

Now for the Mysterie of Numbers, that
this ancient Philosophy of Moses should be
wrapped up in it, will not seem improbable, if we
consider that the Cabbala of the Creation was
conserved in the hands of Abraham, and his
family, who was famous for Mathematicks,
(of which Arithmetick is a necessary part)
first amongst the Chaldeans, and that after he
taught the Aegyptians the same arts, as Historians
write. Besides Prophetical and Aenigmatical
writings, that it is usual with them
to hide their secrets, as under the allusions of
Names and Etymologies, so also under the adumbrations
of Numbers, it is so notoriously
known, and that in the very Scriptures themselves,
that it needs no proof; I will instance
but in that one eminent example of the number
of the Beast 666.

As for citing the Heathen Writers so frequently;
you are to consider that they are the
wisest and the most virtuous of them, and either
such as the Fathers say, had their Philosophy

from Moses and the Prophets, as Pythagoras
and Plato, or else the Disciples or
Friends of these Philosophers. And therefore
I thought it very proper to use their Testimony
in a thing that they seem'd to be so fit witnesses
of for the main, as having receiv'd the Cabbala
from the ancient Prophets; Though I
will not deny, but they have mingled their own
fooleries with it, either out of the wantonnesse
of their Fancy, or mistake of Judgement;
Such as are the Transmigration of Humane
Souls into Brutes; An utter abstinence from
Flesh; Too severe reproaches against the Pleasures
of the Body; Vilification of Marriage, and
the like; which is no more Argument against
the main drift of the Cabbala, then unwarrantable
superstitious Opinions, and Practises
of some deceived Churches are against the solid
grounds of Christianity.

Again, I do not alledge Philosophers alone,
but as occasion requires, Fathers, and which
I conceive as valid in this case, the Jewish
Rabbins, who in things where prejudice
need not blinde them, I should think as fit as

any, to confirm a Cabbalistical sense, especially
if there be a general consent of them, and
that they do not write their private fancy, but
the minde of their whole Church.

Now if any shall take offence at Pythagoras
his Scholars, swearing as is conceived by
their Master that taught them the mystery of
the Tetractys, (as you shall understand more
at large in the Explication of the fourth days
work) I must profess that I my self am not
a little offended with it. But that high reverence
they bore to Pythagoras, as it is
a sign of Vanity, and some kind of Superstition
in them; so is it also no lesse an Argument of
a stupendious measure of knowledge and sanctity
in Pythagoras himself, that he should
extort from them so great honour, and that his
Memory should be so sacred to them. Which
profound knowledge and sanctity he having
got by conversing with the Jewish Prophets,
it ultimately tends to the renown of
that Church, and consequently to the Christian,
which inherits those holy Oracles which were
first peculiar to the Jews.

But what the followers of Pythagoras
transgressed in, is no more to be imputed to
him, then the Superstitions exhibited to the
Virgin Mary can be laid to her charge. Besides
it may be a question whether in that Pythagorick
Oath, [non-Latin text], &c. they did not
swear by God the first Author of the Cabbala,
and that mysterious Explication of the Tetrctys,
that is indeed, of all knowledge Divine
and Natural, who first gave it to Adam,
and then revived or confirmed it again
to Moses. Or if it must be understood of
Pythagoras, why may it not be look'd upon as
a civill Oath, or Asseveration, such as Joseph's
swearing by the life of Pharaoh, and Noblemen
by their Honours? neither of which notwithstanding
for my own part I can allow or assure
my self that they are meerly Civill, but
touch upon Religion, or rather Idolatrous Superstition.

As for the Miracles Pythagoras did, though
I do not believe all that are recorded of him are
true, yet those that I have recited I hold probable
enough, they being not unbecoming the

worth of the Person: but those that suppose
the transmigration of Humane Souls into the
Bodies of Beasts, I look upon as Fables, and
his whispering into the ear of an Oxe to forbear
to eat Beans, as a loudly. But it seems very
consonant unto Divine Providence, that Pythagoras
having got the knowledge of the holy
Cabbala, which God imparted to Adam and
Moses, that he should countenance it before
the Nations by enabling him to do Miracles.
For so those noble and ancient Truths were
more firmly radicated amongst the Philosophers
of Greece, and happily preserved to this
very day.

Nor can his being carried in the Air make
him suspected to be a meer Magician or Conjurer,
sith the holy Prophets and Apostles
themselves have been transported after that
manner, as Habakkuk from Jewry to Babylon,
and Philip after he had baptiz'd the
Eunuch to Azotus. But for my own part, I think
working of Miracles is one of the least perfections
of a Man, and is nothing at all to the happinesse
of him that does them, or rather seems

to do them: For if they be Miracles, he does them
not, but some other power or person distinct from
him. And yet here Magicians and Witches
are greatly delighted in that this power is in
some sort attributed to themselves, and that they
are admired of the people, as is manifest in Simon
Magus. But thus to lord it and domineer
in the Attribute of Power with the
Prince of the Air, what is it but meer Pride,
the most irrational and provoking vice that is?
And with what grosse folly is it here conjoin'd,
they priding and pleasing themselves in that
they sometimes do that, or rather suffer that,
which Herns and wlde Geese, and every ordinary
Fowl can do of it self; that is, mount
aloft and glide through the fleeting Air? But
holy and good men know that the greatest sweet
and perfection of a virtuous Soul, is the kindly
accomplishment of her own Nature in true
Wisdom and divine Love. And if any thing miraculous
happen to them, or be done by them, it
is, that that worth & knowledg that is in them
may be taken notice of, and that God thereby
may be glorified, whose witnesses they are.

But no other accession of happinesse accrues to
them from this, but that hereby they may be
in a better capacity of making others happy,
which I confesse I conceive here Pythagoras
his case.

And that men may not indulge too much to
their own Melancholy and Fancy, which
they ordinarily call Inspiration, if they be so
great Lights to the world as they pretend, and
so high that they will not condescend to the examination
of humane Reason, it were desirable
that such persons would keep in their heat to
concoct the crudities of their own Conceptions,
till the warrant of a Miracle call them out; and
so they might more rightfully challenge an attention
from the people, as being authorised
from above to tell us something we knew not
before, nor can so well know, as believe, the
main Argument being not Reason but Miracle.

Lastly, for the strangeness of the Philosophical
Conclusions themselves, It were the strangest
thing of all, if at first sight they did not seem
very Paradoxical and strange; Else why should

they be hid and conceal'd from the Vulgar, but
that they did transcend their capacity, and were
overmuch disproportioned to their belief? But
in the behalf of these Cabbalistical conclusions,
I will only note thus much, that they are
such that supposing them true (which I shall
no longer assert, then till such time as some able
Philosopher or Theologer shall convince
me of their falshood) there is nothing of any
grand consideration in Theology or Nature,
that will not easily be extricated by this Hypothesis,
an eminent part whereof is the Motion
of the Earth, and the Prae-existency
of Souls. The evidence of the former of
which Truths is such, that it has wonne the
assent of the most famous Mathematicians
of our later Ages; and the reasonablenesse of
the latter is no lesse: There having never been
any Philosopher that held the Soul of Man immortal,
but he held that it did also prae-exist.

But Religion not being curious to expose
the full view of Truth to the people, but only
what was most necessary to keep them in the
fear of a Deity and obedience to the Law, contented

her self with what meerly concerned the
state of the Soul after the dissolution of the Body,
concealing what ever was conceivable concerning
her condition before. Now I say, it is
a pretty priviledge of falshood, (if this Hypothesis
be false) and very remarkable, that it
should better sute with the Attributes of
God, the visible events of Providence,
the Phaenomena of Nature, the Reason
of Man, and the holy Text it self, where
men acknowledge a mysterious Cabbala, then
that which by all means must be accounted
true, viz. That there is no such Motion of the
Earth about the Sun, nor any Prae-existency
of humane Souls.

Reader, I have done what lies on my part,
that thou maist peruse this Defence of mine
without any rub or stumbling; let me now request
but one thing which thou art bound to
grant, which is, that thou read my Defence
without Prejudice, and that all along as thou
goest, thou make not thy recourse to the customary
conceits of thy Fancy, but consult with
thy free Reason, [non-Latin text], as

Aristotle somewhere speaks in his Metaphysicks.
For Custome is another Nature;
and therefore those conceits that are accustomary
and familiar, we unawares
appeal to, as if they were indeed the natural
light of the Minde, and her first
common Notions. And he gives an instance
not altogether unsutable to our present
purpose. [non-Latin text]. The Philosopher may be as bold as he
pleases with the Ritual laws and religious stories
of the Heathens, but I do not know that
he ever was acquainted with the Law of Moses.
But I think I may speak it not without
due Reverence, that there is something of Aristotles
saying Analogically true in the very
History of the Creation, and that the first impressions
of the Literal Text, which is so plainly
accommodated to the capacity of meer children
and Idiots, by reason of custome have so
strongly rooted themselves in the minds of some,
that they take that sense to be more true,

then the true meaning of the text indeed. Which
is plain in no meaner a person then one of the Fathers;
namely, Lactantius; who looking upon
the world as a Tent according to the description
in the Literal Cabbala, did very stoutly and
confidently deny Antipodes; So much did a
customary fancy prevail over the free use of his
Reason.

Thus much for better caution I thought fit
to preface. The rest the Introduction to
the Defence, and the very frame and nature
of the Defence it self, I hope will make good
to the judicious and ingenuous Reader.

THE INTRODUCTION TO THE DEFENCE.

NOT to stay you with too tedious a
Prologue to the matter in hand concerning
the Author of this book of
Genesis, to wit, Moses; I shall look upon him

mainly in reference to that publick induement,
in which at the very first sight he will
appear admirable, viz. As a Politician or a Lawgiver.
In which his skill was so great, that even
in the judgement of Heathen Writers he had
the preheminence above all the rest. Diodorus
has placed him in the head of his Catalogue of
the most famous Law-givers under the name
of [non-Latin text], if Iustin Martin be not mistaken, or
if he be, at least he bears them company that
are reputed the best, reserv'd for the last and
most notable instance of those that entituled
their Laws divine, and made themselves spokesmen
betwixt God and the People. This
Mneves is said to receive his Laws from Mercury,
as Minos from Iupiter, Lycurgus from Apollo,
Zathraustes from his [non-Latin text], his
good Genius, Zamolxis from Vesta, and Moses
from Iao; that is, Iehovah.
[non-Latin text].
But
he speaks like a meer Historian in the business.
[non-Latin text] is the word which he boldly abuses
to the diminution of all their Authorities
promiscuously. For he says they feigned they
received Laws from these Deities; and addes
the reason of it too, but like an errant Statesman,
or an incredulous Philosopher, [non-Latin text],

[non-Latin text].
Whether it be, sayes he, that they
judged it an admirable and plainly divine project
that redounded unto the profit of a multitude,
or whether they conceived that hereby the people
looking upon the greatnesse, and supereminence of
their Law-givers, would be more obedient to their
Laws. That saying in the Schools is not so
trivial as true. Quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad
modum recipientis, Every thing is as it is taken,
or at least appears to be so. The tincture of
our own Natures stains the appearance of all
objects. So that I wonder not that Diodorus
Siculus, a man of a meer Political Spirit, (as it
is very plain how neer History and Policy are
akin) should count the receiving of Laws from
some Deity rather a piece of prudential fraud
and political forgery, then reality and truth.

But to leave Diodorus to his Ethnicisme and
Incredulity; as for us that ought to believe
Scripture, if we will not gain-say the authority
of the Greek Text, we shall not only be
fully perswaded of Moses his receiving of Laws
from Gods own mouth, but have some hints
to believe that something Analogical to it
may have come to passe in other Law-givers,
Deut. 32. [non-Latin text],
&c. When the most High divided the Nations,
when he separated the sons of Adam, *he set the
bounds of the Nations according to the number of

the Angels of God, but* Jacob was the portion of
Iehovah, that is, Iao, &c. So that it is not improbable
but that as the great Angel of the
Covenant, (he whom Philo calls [non-Latin text],
That is, the eldest of the Angels, the
Archangel, the word, the Beginning, the Name
of God, which is Iehovah) I say, that as he gave
Laws to his charge, so the Tutelar Angels of
other nations might be the Instructers of those
that they rais'd up to be Law-givers to their
charge; Though in processe of time the Nations
that were at first under the Government
of good Angels, by their lewdnesse and disobedience
might make themselves obnoxious
to the power and delusion of those [non-Latin text],
as they are called, deceitful and tyrannical
devils. But this is but a digression; That
which I would briefly have intimated is this,
That Moses the great Law-giver of the Jews,
was a man instructed of God himself to Prudence
and true Policy. And therefore I make
account if we will but with diligence search,
we may surely finde the foot-steps of unsophisticate
Policy in all the passages of the
whole Pentateuch.

And here in the very entrance it will offer it
self unto our view: Where Moses shews himself
such as that noble Spirit of Plato desires all
Governors of Commonwealths should be, who

has in his Epistle to Dion and his friends foretold,
that mankinde will never cease to be miserable,
till such time as either true and right
Philosophers rule in the Commonwealth, or
those that do rule, apply themselves to true and
sound Philosophy. And what is Moses his
Bereshith, but a fair invitation thereto, it comprehending
at least the whole fabrick of Nature
and conspicuous furniture of the visible
world? As if he dare appeal unto the whole
Assembly of Gods Creation, to the voice of
the great Universe, if what he propounds to
his people over whom God hath set him, be
not righteous and true; And that by acting
according to his Precepts, they would but approve
themselves Cosmopolitas, true Citizens of
the world, and Loyal Subjects to God and Nature.
It is Philo's interpretation upon the place,
which how true it is in Moses vailed, I will not
here dispute: that it is most true in Moses unvailed,
Christ our Lord, is true without all dispute
and controversie. And whosoever followes
him, follows a Law justified by God and
the whole Creature, they speaking in several
dialects the minde of their Maker. It is a
truth and life that is the safety of all Nations,
and the earnest expectation of the ends of the
Earth; Christ the same yesterday, to day, and for
ever, whose dominion and Law neither time
nor place doth exclude. But to return to Moses.

Another reason no lesse considerable, why
that holy and wise Law-giver Moses, should
begin with the Creation of the world, is this:
The Laws and Ordinances which he gave to
the Israelites, were given by him as [non-Latin text],
as Statutes received from God. And
therefore the great argument and incitement
to Obedience should lie in this first and highest
Law-giver, God himself, the great Jehovah,
whose Wisdome, Power, and Goodnesse could
not better be set out then by ascribing the
Creation of the whole visible world unto him.
So that for his Power he might be feared, admired
for his Wisdome, and finally, for his
Goodnesse be loved, adored, and Deified: That
as he was truly in himself the most high God,
so he should be acknowledged of the people
to be so.

For certainly there is nothing that doth so
win away, nay, ravish or carry captive the
mindes of poor mankinde, as Bounty and Munificence.
All men loving themselves most
affectionately, and most of all the meanest and
basest spirits, whose souls are so far from being
a little rais'd and releas'd from themselves, that
they do impotently and impetuously cleave
and cling to their dear carkases. Hence have
they out of the strong relish, and favour of
the pleasures and conveniencies thereof made
no scruple of honouring them for gods, who

have by their industry, or by good luck produced
any thing that might conduce for the improvement
of the happinesse and comfort of
the body.

From hence it is that the Sun and Moon
have been accounted for the two prime Deities
by Idolatrous Antiquity, viz. from that
sensible good they conferred upon hungry
mankinde. The one watering as it were the
Earth by her humid influence; the other ripening
the fruit of the ground by his warm rayes,
and opening dayly all the hid treasures of the
visible world by his glorious approach, pleasing
the sight with the variety of Natures objects,
& chearing the whole body by his comfortable
heat. To these as to the most conspicuous Benefactors
to mankinde, was the name [non-Latin text] given,
[non-Latin text], because they observed that these
conceived Deities were in perpetual motion.

These two are the Aegyptians Osiris and Isis,
and five more are added to them as very sensible
Benefactors, but subordinate to these two,
and Dependents of them. And in plain speech
they are these. Fire, Spirit, Humidity, Siccity,
and Air, but in their divine Titles Vulcan, Jupiter,
Oceanus, Ceres, and Minerva. These are
the [non-Latin text], as Diodorus
speaks. But after these mortal men were canonized
for immortal Deities [non-Latin text],
*for their prudence

and benefaction;* as you may see at large in Diodorus
Siculus. I will name but two for instance,
Bacchus and Ceres, the one the Inventor
of Corn, the other of Wine and Beer: So
that all may be resolved into that brutish Aphorisme,

[non-Latin text].

That which could please or pleasure degenerate
mankinde in the Body, (they having lost the
Image of God in their Souls, and become
meer brutes after a manner) that must be their
God.

Wherefore it was necessary for Moses having
to deal with such Terrestrial Spirits, Sons of
Sense and Corporeity, to propose to them Jehovah
as Maker of this Sensible and Corporeal
world, that whatever sweet they suck out of
the varieties thereof, they may attribute to
him, as the first Fountain and Author, without
whom neither they nor any thing else had
been, that thereby they might be stirred up to
praise his Name, and accomplish his Will
revealed by his servant Moses unto them. And
this was true and sound Prudence, aiming at
nothing but the glory of God, and the good of
the poor ignorant people.

And from the same Head springs the manner
of his delivering of the Creation; that is,
accommodately to the apprehension of the
meanest: not speaking of things according to

their very Essence and real Nature, but according
to their appearances to us. Not starting
of high and intricate Questions, and concluding
them by subtile Arguments, but familiarly
and condescendingly setting out the Creation,
according to the most easie and obvious
conceits they themselves had of those things
they saw in the world; omitting even those
grosser things that lay hid in the bowels of the
Earth, as Metals, and Minerals, and the like, as
well as those things that fall not at all under
Sense, as those immaterial Substances, Angels,
or Intelligences. Thus fitly has the Wisdome
and Goodnesse of God accommodated the
outward Cortex of the Scripture, to the most
narrow and slow apprehension of the Vulgar.

Nor doth it therefore follow that the Narration
must not be true, because it is according
to the appearance of things to Sense and
obvious Fancie; for there is also a Truth of
Appearance, according to which Scripture
most what speaks in Philosophical matters.

And this Position is the main key, as I conceive,
and I hope shall hereafter plainly prove,
whereby Moses his Bereshith may according to
the outward and literal sense be understood
without any difficulty or clashing one part against
another. And my task at this time will
be very easie, for it is but transcribing what I
have already elsewhere occasionally published,

and recovering of it into its proper place.

First therefore I say, that it is a thing confessed
by the Learned Hebrews, who make it a
Rule for the understanding of many places of
Scripture, Loquitur lex juxta linguam humanam,
That the Law speaks according to the language of
the sons of men.

And secondly, which will come more home
to the purpose, I shall instance in some places
that of necessity are to be thus understood.

Gen. 19. 23. The Sun was risen upon the
Earth when Lot entred into Zoar; which implies
that it was before under the Earth, which
is true onely according to sense and vulgar
phancy.

Deuteronom. 30. v. 4.
[non-Latin text],
implies that the Earth is bounded at
certain places, as if there were truly an Hercules
Pillar, or Non plus ultra: As it is manifest
to them that understand but the natural
signification of [non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text]; For those
words plainly import the Earth bounded by
the blew Heavens, and the Heavens bounded
by the Horizon of the Earth, they touching one
another mutually; which is true only to sense
and in appearance, as any man that is not a
meer Idiot, will confesse.

Ecclesiastic. 27. v. 12. The discourse of a
godly man is always with wisdome, but a fool
changeth as the Moon. That is to be understood

according to Sense and Appearance: For if
a fool changeth no more then the Moon doth
really, he is a wise and excellently accomplished
man; Semper idem, though to the sight of
the Vulgar different. For at least an Hemisphere
of the Moon is always enlightned, and
even then most when she least appears unto
us.

Hitherto may be referred also that, 2 Chron.
4. 2. Also he made a molten Sea ten cubits from
brim to brim, round in compasse, and five cubits
the height thereof, and a line of thirty cubits did
compasse it round about. A thing plainly impossible
that the Diameter should be ten cubits,
and the Circumference but thirty. But
it pleaseth the Spirit of God here to speak according
to the common use and opinion of
men, and not according to the subtilty of Archimedes
his demonstration.

Again Psalm 19. In them hath he set a Tabernacle
for the Sunne, which as a Bridegroom
cometh out of his chamber, and rejoyceth as a
strong man to run his race. This, as Mr. John
Calvin observes, is spoken according to the
rude apprehension of the Vulgar, whom David
should in vain have endevoured to teach the
mysteries of Astronomy. And therefore he
makes no mention of the course of the Sunne
in the nocturnal Hemisphere. I'le adde but
one instance more, *Joshua 10. v. 12. Sunn[•]

stand thou still upon* Gibeon, and thou Moon in
the Valley of Ajalon; where it is manifest that
Ioshua speaks not according to the Astronomical
truth of the thing, but according to sense
and appearance. For suppose the Sun placed,
and the Moon, at the best advantage you can,
so that they leave not their natural course, they
were so far from being one over Ajalon, and
the other over Gibeon, that they were in very
truth many hundreds of miles distant from
them. And if the Sun and Moon were on the
other side of the Aequator, the distance might
amount to thousands.

I might adjoyn to these proofs the suffrages
of many Fathers, and Modern Divines, as
Chrysostome, Ambrose, Augustine, Bernard, Aquinas,
and the rest. But it is already manifest
enough that the Scripture speaks not according
to the exact curiosity of Truth, describing
things [non-Latin text], according to the very
Nature and Essence of them; but [non-Latin text],
according to their appearance in sense and the
vulgar opinion.

The second Rule that I would set down is
[•]his: That there is a various Intertexture of
Theosophical and Philosophical Truths, many
Physical and Metaphysical Theorems hinted
[•]o us ever and anon, through those words that
at first sight seem to bear but an ordinary
grosse sense, I mean especially in these three

first Chapters of Genesis. And a man will be
the better assured of the truth of this Position,
if he do but consider, That the Literal Text
of Moses that sets out the Creation of the
world, and offers reasons of sundry notable
Phaenomena of Nature, bears altogether a most
palpable compliance with the meer rude and
ignorant conceits of the Vulgar. Wherefore
the Argument of these three Chapters being
so Philosophical as it is, it seems unworthy of
that knowing Spirit of Moses, or of Religion
it self, that he should not contrive under the
external contexture of this Narration, some
very singular and choice Theorems of Natural
Philosophy and Metaphysicks; which his
pious and learned successors should be able by
some secret Traditionary Doctrine or Cabbala
to apply to his outward Text.

For what an excellent provision is this for
such of the people whose pregnancy of parts
and wit might make them rest unsatisfied, as
well in the Moral Allegory (into which they
are first to be initiated) as in the outward letter
it self; and also their due obedience, humility,
and integrity of life, make them fit to receive
some more secret Philosophick Cabbala
from the mouth of the knowing Priest; The
strange unexpected richnesse of the sense
whereof, and highnesse of Notion suddenly
shining forth, by removing aside of the vail,

might strike the soul of the honest Jew with
unexpressible pleasure and amazement, and fill
his heart with joy and thankfulnesse to God
for the good tidings therein contained, and
conciliate greater reverence then ever to Moses
and to Religion.

Wherefore such a Philosophick Cabbala as
this being so convenient and desirable, and
men in all Ages having professed their expectation
of solid and severe Philosophy in this
story of the Creation by their several attempts
thereupon, it seems to me abundantly probable
that Moses and his successors were furnished
with some such like Cabbala; which I
am still the more easily induced to believe,
from that credible fame that Pythagoras and
Plato had their Philosophy from Moses his
Text, which it would not so easily have suggested
unto them, had they had no assistance
from either Iewish or Aegyptian Prophet or
Priest to expound it.

The third and last Rule that I would lay
down is this: That Natural Things, Persons,
Motions, and Actions, declared or spoken of
in Scripture, admit of also many times a Mystical,
Moral, or Allegorical sense. This is
worth the proving it concerning our Souls
more nearly then the other. I know this Spiritual
sense is as great a fear to some faint and
unbelieving hearts, as a Spectre or Night-spirit.

But it is a thing acknowledged by the most
wise, most pious, and most rational of the
Iewish Doctors; I will instance in one who is
ad instar omnium, Moses Aegyptius, who compares
the divine Oracles to Apples of Gold in
Pictures of Silver: For that the outward Nitor
is very comely as Silver curiously cut
thorough and wrought, but the inward Spiritual
or Mystical sense is the Gold more precious
and more beautiful, that glisters through
those Cuttings and Artificial Carvings in the
Letter.

I will endevour to prove this point by sundry
passages in Scripture, Psalm 25.
[non-Latin text].
The easie and genuine
sense of these words is, The secret of the Lord
is for them that fear him, and his Covenant is
to make them know it, viz. his Secret, which
implies that the Mysterie of God lies not bare
to false and adulterous eyes, but is hid and
wrapped up in decent coverings from the
sight of Vulgar and Carnal men. That his
Secrets are, as Aristotle answered to Alexander
concerning his [non-Latin text], or Acroamatical
Writings, that they were [non-Latin text],
published and not published. And
our Saviour himself, though all Goodnesse, was
not so prodigal of his Pearls as to cast them to
Swine. To them that were without he spake
Parables. And upon the same Principles certainly

it is not a whit unreasonable, to conceive
Moses to write Types and Allegories. And
we have sufficient ground to think so from that
of the Apostle 1 Cor. ch. 10. where when he
hath in short reckoned up some of the main
passages that befell the Israelites in their Journey
from Egypt to Canaan, (which yet no man
that hath any faith or the fear of God before
his eyes, will deny to be a reall History) he
closes with this expression All these things being
Types befell them, but were written for our instruction,
on whom the ends of the world are come. So
Galat. ch. 4. The History of Abrahams having
two sons Ishmael and Isaak, the one of the bondwoman,
the other of the free, viz. Agar and
Sara, the same Apostle there speaks out, that
they are an Allegory, v. 24.

I might adde many other passages to this
purpose, but I will only raise one consideration
concerning many Histories of the Old Testament,
and then conclude. If so be the Spirit of
God meant not something more by them then
the meer History, I mean some useful and Spiritual
Truth involved in them, they will be so
far from stirring us up to Piety, that they may
prove ill Precedents for falseness and injurious
dealings.

For what an easie thing is it for a man to fancy
himself an Israelite, and then to circumvent his
honest neighbours under the notion of Aegyptians?

But we will not confine our selves to
this one solitary instance. What is Jacob but a
supplanter, a deceiver, and that of his own brother?
For taking advantage of his present necessity,
he forced him to sell his birth-right for
a m[•]sse of pottage. What a notorious piece
of fraud is that of Rebecca, that while industrious
Esau is ranging the Woods and Mountains
to fulfill his fathers command, and please his
aged appetite, she should substitute Jacob with
his both counterfeit hands and Venison, to carry
away the blessing intended by the good old
man for his officious elder son Esau? Jacobs rods
of Poplar, an ill example to servants to defraud
their masters; and Rachels stealing Labans T[•]
raphim
and concealing them with a falshood,
how warrantable an act it was, let her own
husband give sentence; With whomsoever thou
findest thy Gods, let him not live, Gen. 31. 32.

I might be infinite in this point; I will only
add one example of Womans perfidious cruelty,
as it will seem at first sight, and so conclude.
Sisera Captain of Jabins host being worsted by
Israel, fled on his feet to the Tent of Jael, the
wife of Heber the Kenite, who was in league and
confederacy with Jabin: This Jael was in shew
so courteous as to meet Sisera, and invite him
into her Tent, saying, Turn in my Lord, turn
in to me, Fear not. And when he had turned
in unto her into the Tent, she covered him

with a mantle: And he said unto her, Give me
I pray thee a little water to drink; And she
opened a bottle of Milk, and gave him drink,
and covered him. In short, he trusted her
with his life, and gave himself to her protection,
and she suddenly so soon as he fell asleep
drove a nail with an hammer into his temples,
and betrayed his Corps to the will of his enemies.
An act certainly that the Spirit of God
would not have approved, much lesse applauded
so much, but in reference to the Mysterie
that lies under it.

My three Rules for the interpreting of
Scripture, I have I hope by this time sufficiently
established, by way of a more general
preparation to the Defence of my threefold
Cabbala. I shall now apply my self to a more
particular clearing and confirming the several
passages therein.

THE DEFENCE OF THE LITERAL CABBALA.

CHAP. I.

THE first Rule that I laid down in my Introduction
to the Defence of my Threefold Cabbala,
I need not here again repeat, but desire
the Reader only to carry it in minde, and

it will warrant the easie and familiar sense that I shall
settle upon Moses his Text in the Literal meaning
thereof. Unto which, if I adde also reasons from the
pious prudence of this holy Law-giver, shewing how
every passage makes for greater faith in God, and
more affectionate obedience to his Law, there will be
nothing wanting I think (though I shall sometimes
cast in some notable advantages also from Critical
Learning) that may gain belief to the truth of the
Interpretation.

Vers. 1. In this first verse I put no other sense of
In the beginning, then that it denotes to us the order
of the History. Which is also the opinion of Maimonides,
who deriving [non-Latin text] from [non-Latin text] signifying
the head, rightly observes the Analogy; that as the
head is the forepart of a living creature, so [non-Latin text]
signifies that wch is placed first in any thing else. And
that thus the Creation of the world is the head or forepart
of the History that Moses intends to set down.

Wherefore Moses having in his minde (as is plain
from the Title of this book, Genesis, as well as the matter
therein contained) to write an History and Genealogy
from the beginning of the world to his own
time, it is very easie and obvious to conceive, that in
reference to what he should after add, he said, In the
beginning: As if the whole frame of his thoughts lay
thus. First of all, God made the Heavens, and the
Earth, with all that they contain, the Sun, Moon, and
Stars, the Day and Night, the Plants, and living creatures
that were in the Air, Water, and on the Earth,
and after all these he made Adam, and Adam begot
Cain and Abel, and so on in the full continuance of
the History and Genealogies.

And this sense I conceive is more easie and natural
then that of Austin, Ambrose, and Besil, who will

have In the Beginning, to signifie In the Beginning
of Time, or In the Beginning of the world. And yet
I thought it not amiss to name also these, that the
Reader may take his choice.

God made Heaven and Earth. Maimonides and
Manasseh Ben Israel observe these three words used
in Scripture, when Creation of the world is attributed
to God, viz.
[non-Latin text]; and that [non-Latin text] signifies
the production of things out of nothing, which
is the Schools Notion of Creation;
[non-Latin text] is the making
up a thing perfect and compleat, according to its own
kinde and properties;
[non-Latin text] intimates the dominion and
right possession that God has of all things thus created
or made. But though [non-Latin text] according to the mind of
the Learned Jews, signifies Creation properly so called,
yet the Seventy observe no such Criticisme, but
translate it [non-Latin text], which is no more then made. And
vulgar men are not at leisure to distinguish so subtilly.
Wherefore this latter sense I receive as the vulgar Literal
sense, the other as Philosophical. And where I
use the word Creation in this Literal Cabbala, I understand
but that common and general Notion of Making
a thing, be it with what circumstances it will.

Neither do I translate [non-Latin text] in the plural number,
the Trinity; Because, as Vatablus observes out
of the Hebrew Doctors, that when the inferiour speaks
of his superiour, he speaks of him in the Plural Number.
So Esay 19. 4. Tradam Aegyptum in manum
dominorum duri. And Exod. 22. 10. Et accipiet domini
ejus, for dominus. The Text therefore necessarily
requiring no such sense, and the mysterie being so
abstruse, it is rightly left out in this Literal Cabbala.

Vers. 2. In the first verse there was a summary
Proposal of the whole Creation in those two main
parts of it, Heaven and Earth. Now he begins the

particular prosecution of each days work. But it is
not needful for him here again to inculcate the making
of the Earth: For it is the last word he spake
in his general Proposal, and therefore it had been harsh
or needless to have repeated it presently again. And
that's the reason why before the making of the Earth,
there is not prefixed, And the Lord said, Let there be
an Earth. Which I conceive has imposed upon the
ignorance and inconsiderateness of some, so as to
make them believe that this confused muddy heap
which is called the Earth, was an Eternal First Matter,
independent of God, and never created by him:
Which if a man appeal to his own Faculties, is impossible,
as I shall again intimate when I come to
the Philosophick Cabbala.

The sense therefore is, That the Earth was made
first, which was covered with water, and on the water
was the wind, and in all this a thick darkness.
And God was in this dark, windy and wet Night.
So that this Globe of Earth, and Water, and Wind,
was but one dark Tempest and Sea-storm, a Night of
confusion and tumultuous Agitation. For [non-Latin text]
is not in the Letter any thing more then Ventus ingens,
A great and mighty wind. As the Cedars of
God, and Mountains of God, are tall Cedars, great
Mountains, and so in Analogy, the Wind of God, a
great Wind.

Vers. 3. But in the midst of this tempestuous darkness,
God intending to fall to his work, doth as it
were light his Lamp, or set up himself a Candle in
this dark Shop. And what ever hitherto hath been
mentioned, are words that strike the Fancy and Sense
strongly, and are of easie perception to the rude people,
whom every dark and stormy Night may well
reminde of the sad face of things till God commanded

the comfortable Day to spring forth, the sole
Author of Light, that so pleases the eyes, and chears
the spirits of Man.

And that Day-light is a thing independent of the
Sun, as well as the Night of the Stars, is a conceit
wondrous sutable to the imaginations of the Vulgar,
as I have my self found out by conversing with them.
They are also prone to think, unlesse there be a sensible
wind stirring, that there is nothing betwixt the Earth
and the Clouds, but that it is a meer vacuity. Wherefore
I have not translated [non-Latin text]
the Air, as
Maimonides somewhere does, but a mighty wind;
For that the rude people are sensible of, and making
the first deformed face of things so dismal and tempestuous,
it will cause them to remember the first morning
light with more thankfulness and devotion.

Vers. 4. For it is a thing very visible. See what
is said upon the eighth verse.

Vers. 5. By Evening and Morning, is meant the
Artificial Day, and the Artificial Night, by a Synecdoche,
as Castellio in his Notes tells us. Therefore this
Artificial Day and Night put together, make one
[non-Latin text], or Natural Day. And the Evening is
put before the Morning, Night before Day, because
Darkness is before Light. But that Primitive darkness
was not properly Night: For Night is [non-Latin text]
as Aristotle describes it, one great Shaddow
cast from the Earth, which implies Light of one
side thereof. And therefore Night properly so called
could not be before Light. But the illiterate people
trouble themselves with no such curiosities, nor easily
conceive any such difference betwixt that determinate
Conical shaddow of the Earth, which is
Night, and that infinite primitive Darkness, that had
no bounds before there was any Light. And therefore

that same Darkness prefixed to an Artificial Day
makes up one Natural Day to them. Which Hesiod
also swallows down without chewing, whether following
his own fancy, or this Text of Moses, I know
not.

That is,
But of the Night both Day and Skie were born.

Vers. 6. This Basis or Floor. That the Earth
seems like a round Floor, plain and running out so every
way, as to join with the bottome of the Heavens,
I have in my Introduction hinted to you already,
and that it is look'd upon as such in the phrase of
Scripture, accommodating it self to our outward senses
and vulgar conceit. Upon this Floor stands the
hollow Firmament, as a Tent pitched upon the
ground, which is the very expression of the Prophet
Esay, describing the Power of God; That stretcheth
out the Heavens like a Curtain, and spreadeth
them out as a Tent to dwell in. And the word [non-Latin text]
which is usually rendred Firmament, signifies diduction,
expansion, or spreading out. But how the Seventy
come to interpret it [non-Latin text]
Firmamentum, Fuller in
his Miscellanies gives a very ingenious reason, and
such as makes very much to our purpose. Nam coelum
seu
[non-Latin text] saith he, quandoquidem Tentoxio saepissimè
in sacris literis assimilatur,
[non-Latin text]
dicitur,
quatenus expanditur. Sic enim expandi solent Tent[•]
ria,
quum alligatis ad paxillos in terram depactos
funibus distenduntur, atque hoc etiam pacto firmantur.
Itaque [non-Latin text] immensum quoddam ut ita dicam
[non-Latin text], ideóque & [non-Latin text] non ineptè appelletur. The
sense of which in brief is nothing but this: That the
Seventy translate
[non-Latin text], that is, *Firmamentum,

because the Heavens are spread out like a wellfastned
and firmly pitched Ten.* And I add also, that
they are so stiffely stretched, that they will strongly
bear against the weight of the upper waters; so that
they are not able to break them down, and therewith
to drown the world. Which conceit as it is easie and
agreeable with the fancy of the people, so it is so far
from doing them any hurt, that it will make them
more sensible of the divine Power and Providence,
who thus by main force keeps off a Sea of water that
hangs over their heads, which they discern through
the transparent Firmament, (for it looks blew as other
Seas do) and would rush at once upon them
and drown them, did not the Power of God, and the
strength of the Firmament hold it off.

Vers. 7. See what hath been already said upon the
sixt verse. I will only here add, That the nearness of
these upper waters makes them still the more formidable,
and so are greater spurs to devotion: For as they
are brought so near as to touch the Earth at the bottome,
so outward sense still being Judge, they are to
be within a small distance of the Clouds at the top.
And that these upper waters are no higher then so, it
is manifest from other passages in Scripture, that place
the habitation of God but amongst the Clouds, who
yet is called the most High. Psalm 104. 3. Deut.
33. 26. Nahum 1. 3. Psalm [•]8. 4. But of this I
have treated so fully elsewhere, that I hold it needless
to add any thing more.

Ver. 8. I cannot say properly that God saw it was
good. In the whole story of the three first Chapters,
it is evident, that God is represented in the person of
a Man, speaking with a mouth, and seeing with eyes.
Hence it is that the Firmament being of it self invisible,
that Moses omits the saying, that God saw it

was good: For the nature of the eye is onely to see
things visible.

Some say, God made Hell the second day, and that
that is the reason it was not recorded, that he saw it
was good. But if he did not approve of it as good, why
did he make it? However that can be none of the
Literal sense, and so impertinent to this present Cabbala.

Ver. 10. And I may now properly say, &c. See
what hath been said already upon verse the eight.

Ver. 11. Whence you may easily discern, &c. This
Observation is Philo the Jew's, which you may read
at large in his [non-Latin text]. And it was very fit
for Moses who in his Law, which he received from
God, does so much insist upon temporal blessings, and
eating of the good things of the Land, as a reward of
their obedience, to lay down such principles as should
beget a firm belief of the absolute power of God over
Nature. That he could give them rain, and fruitful
seasons, and a plentiful year when he pleased; when
as he could cause the Earth to bring forth without
rain, or any thing else to further her births, as he did
at the first Creation. The Meditation whereof might
well cause such an holy resolution as that in the Prophet
Habakkuk, Although the fig-tree shall not
blossome, neither fruit be in the Vines, the labour of
the Olive fail, and the fields yeeld no meat; yet I will
rejoyce in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
But that prudent and pious caution of Moses
against Idolatry, how requisite it was, is plain if
we consider that the power of the Sun is so manifest,
and his operation so sensible upon the Earth for the
production of things below, especially of Plants, that
he hath generally drawn aside the rude and simple
Heathen to idolize him for a God: And their nimble

Oracles have snatched away the sacred Name of
the God of Israel, the true God, to bestow upon him,
calling him Jao, which is Jehovah, as is plain from
that Clarian Oracle in Macrobius:

Which I have translated thus in my Poems:

This Oracle Cornelius Labeo interprets of Bacchus,
which is the same with the Sun, who is the God of
the Vintage, and is here described according to the
four Quarters of the year.

And so Virgil, Heathen-like attributes to the Sun
and Moon under the name of Bacchus and Ceres, that
great blessing of Corn and Grain.

But of this I have said so much in my Introduction,
that I need add nothing more.

Ver. 12. See ver. 11.

Ver. 14. See ver. 3. I have there shown how easily
the fancie of the rude people admit of days without
a Sun. To whose capacities the Prophet Jeremy
accommodating his speech, Her Sun, sayes he, is gone
down while it was yet day. How can it be day when
the Sun is down, unless the day be Independent of
the Sun, according to the fancie of the rude and illiterate?
Which is wonderfully consonant to the outward
letter of Moses, that speaks not of the Sun as
the cause of the Day, but as a badge of distinction from
the Night, though he does admit that it does increase
the light thereof.

Ver. 15. In the hollow Roof &c. Though the caeruleous
upper Sea seems so neer us, as I have already
signified, yet the Lights of Heaven seem something on
this side it, as white will stand off drawn upon a
darker colour, as you may see in the describing solid
Figures on a blew slate; they will more easily rise to
your eye then black upon white: so that the people
may very well, consulting with their sight, Imagine
the Firmament to be betwixt the Lights of Heaven,
and the upper Waters, or that blew Sea they look
upon, not on this side, nor properly betwixt the Lights
or Stars.

Ver. 16. Two great Lights, &c. This is in counter-distinction
to the Stars, which indeed seem much
less to our sight then the Sun or Moon, when as notwithstanding
many Stars according to Astronomers
computation, are bigger then the Sun, all far bigger
then the Moon: So that it is plain the Scripture
speaks sometimes according to the appearance of things
to our sight, not according to their absolute affections

and properties. And he that will not here yeeld this for
a truth, is, I think, justly to be suspected of more Ignorance
then Religion, and of more Superstition then
Reason.

For their smalnesse, &c. The Stars indeed seem very
small to our sight, and therefore Moses seems to
cast them in but by the by, complying therein with
the ignorance of the unlearned. But Astronomers
who have made it their business to understand their
magnitudes, they that make the most frugal computation
concerning the bigger Stars, pronounce them no
less then sixty eight times bigger then the Earth, others
much more.

Ver. 18. To be peculiar garnishings. See verse
14.

Ver. 20. Fish and Fowl. I suppose the mention
of the Fowl is made here with the Fish by reason that
the greatest and more eminent sorts of that kinde of
creature, most of all frequent the waters, as Swannes,
Geese, Ducks, Herons, and the like.

Ver. 20. In his own shape. It was the opinion of
the Anthropomorphites, that God had all the parts of
a Man, and that we are in this sense made according to
his Image: Which though it be an opinion in it self,
if not rightly understood, vain and ridiculous; yet
theirs seem little better to me, that imagine God a finite
Beeing, and take care to place him out of the
stink of this terrestrial Globe, that he may sit [non-Latin text],
and so confine him to Heaven, as Aristotle
seems to do, if he be the Author of that book
De Mundo: For it is a contradiction to the very Idea
of God to be finite, and consequently to have Figure
or Parts. But it is so difficult a thing for the rude
multitude to venture at a Notion of a Beeing Immatorial
and Infinite, that it seems their advantage to

conceive of God as of some all-powerful Person, that
can do what ever he pleaseth, can make Heavens
and Earths, and bestow his blessings in what measure
and manner he lists, and what is chief of all, if need
be, can personally appear to them, can chide them, and
rebuke them, and, if they be obstinate, doe horrible
vengeance upon them. This I say, will more strongly
strike the inward Sense and Imagination of the vulgar,
then Omnipotency placed in a Thin, Subtile, Invisible,
Immaterial Beeing, of which they can have no
perception at all, nor any tolerable conceit.

Wherefore it being requisite for the ignorant, to be
permitted to have some finite and figurate apprehension
of God, what can be more fit then the shape of a
Man in the highest excellencies that it is capable of,
for Beauty, Strength, and Bignesse. And the Prophet
Esay seems to speak of God after this Notion,
God sits upon the circle of the Earth, and the inhabitants
thereof are as Grashoppers; intimating that men
to God bear as little proportion, as Grashoppers to a
man when he sits on the grasse amongst them. And
now there being this necessity of permitting the people
some such like apprehensions as this, concerning God,
(and it is true Prudence, and pious Policy to comply
with their weakness for their good) there was the
most strict injunctions laid upon them against Idolatry
and worshipping of Images that might be.

But if any one will say this was the next way to bring
them into Idolatry, to let them entertain a conceit of
God as in humane shape; I say it is not any more, then
by acknowledging Man to be God, as our Religion
does, in Christ. Nay, I add moreover, that Christ
is the true Deus Figuratus: And for his sake was it
the more easily permitted unto the Jews to think of
God in the shape of a Man.

And that there ought to be such a thing as Christ,
that is, God in Humane shape, I think it most reasonable,
that he may apparently visit the Earth, and to
their very outward senses confound the Atheist and
mis-believer at the last day. As he witnesseth of
himself, The Father judges none, but he hath given
all Judgement unto the Son. And, that no man can see
the Father, but as he is united unto the Son. For the
Eternal God is Immaterial and Invisible to our outward
senses: But he hath thought good to treat with
us both in mercy and judgement, by a Mediator and
Vicegerent, that partakes of our nature as well as his
own. Wherefore it is not at all absurd for Moses to
suffer the Jews to conceive of God as in a corporeall
and humane shape, since all men shall be judged by
God in that shape at the last day.

He made Females as well as Males. That story
in Plato his Symposion, how men and women
grew together at first till God cut them asunder,
is a very probable argument that the Philosopher had
seen or heard something of this Mosaical History. But
that it was his opinion it was so, I see no probability
at all: For the story is told by that ridiculous Comedian
Aristophanes, with whom I conceive he is in
some sort quit, for abusing his good old Friend and
Tutor Socrates, whom he brought in upon the stage
[non-Latin text], treading the Air in a basket, to make
him a laughing-stock to all Athens.

The Text is indeed capable of such a sense, but
there being no reason to put that sense upon it, neither
being a thing so accommodate to the capacity and
conceit of the vulgar, I thought it not fit to admit
it, no not so much as into this Literal Cabbala.

Ver. 29. Frugiferous. Castellio translates it so,
Herbas frugiferas, which must be such like herbs

as I have named, Strawberries, Wheat, Rice, and
the like.

CHAP. II.

IN the four first verses all is so clear and plain, that
there is no need of any further Explication or Defence,
saving that you may take notice that in the second
verse where I write Within six days, the Seventies
Translation will warrant it, who render it [non-Latin text], on
the sixt day.

Ver. 5. See what hath been said on the eleventh
verse of the first Chapter.

Ver. 7. The dust. The Hebrew word signifies so,
and I make no mention of any moistning of it with
water. For God is here set out acting according to
his absolute power and Omnipotency. And it is as
easie to make men of dry dust, as hard stones. And yet
God is able even of stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

Blew into the nostrils. Breathing is so palpable
an effect of life, that the ancient rude Greeks also
gave the Soul its name from that operation, calling it
[non-Latin text] from [non-Latin text] to breathe or to blow.

Ver. 8. Eastward of Judea. For so Interpreters
expound Eastward in Scripture, in reference to Judea.

To prevent any further trouble in making good the
sense I have put upon the following verses concerning
Paradise, I shall here at once set down what I finde
most probable concerning the situation thereof, out of
Vatablus and Cornelius à Lapide, adding also somewhat
out of Dionysius the Geographical Poet. In general
therefore we are led by the four Rivers to the
right situation of Paradise. And Gihon, saith Vatablus;
is tractus inferior Euphratis illabens in sinum
Persicum; is a lower tract or stream of Euphrates that
slides into the Persian Gulph. Pison is Phasis or Phasitigris,
that runs through Havilah, a region near
Persis; so that Pison is a branch of Tigris, as Gihon
is of Euphrates. Thus Vatablus. And that Gihon
may have his Aethiopia, Cornelius à Lapide
notes, that the Madianites and others near the Persian
Gulph, are called Aethiopians; and therefore he
concludes first at large, that Paradise was seated about
Mosopotamia and Armenia, from these reasons following.

First, because these Regions are called Eastern in
Scripture, (which as I have said is to be understood always
in reference to Judea) according to the rule of
Expositors. And the Lord is said to have planted this
Garden of Paradise Eastward.

Secondly, because Man being cast out of Paradise
these Regions were inhabited first, both before the
Floud, (for Cain is said to inhabite Eden, Gen. 4. 16.)

and also after the Floud, as being nearer Paradise, and
more fertile, Gen. 8. 4. also 11. 2.

Thirdly, Paradise was in Eden, but Eden was near
Haran; Ezek. 27. 23. Haran, and Caunuch, and
Eden: but Haran was about Mesopotamia, being a
City of Parthia where Crassus was slain; Authors
call it Charra.

Fourthly, Paradise is where Euphrates and Tigris
are. And these are in Mesopotamia and Armenia.
They denominate Mesopotamia, it lying betwixt them.

That is,

Fiftly, because these Regions are most fruitful and
pleasant. And that Adam was made not far from
thence, is not improbable from the excellency of that
place, as well for the goodliness of the men that it
breeds, as the fertility of the soil.

That is,

As the same Geographer writes.

Sixtly, and lastly, there is yet a further probability
alledged, that Paradise was about Mesopotamia, that

Countrey being not far distant from Judea. For it is
the tradition of the Fathers, that Adam when he was
ejected out of Paradise, having travelled over some
parts of the world, that he came at last to Judea, and
there died, and was buried in a Mount, which his posterity,
because the head of the first Man was laid
there, called Mount Calvary, where Christ was
crucified for the expiation of the sin of Adam, the first
transgressor. If the story be not true, it is pity but it
should be, it hath so venerable assertors, as Cyprian,
Athanasius, Basil, Origen, and others of the Fathers,
as Cornelius affirms.

But now for the more exact situation of Paradise,
the same Author ventures to place it at the very meeting
of Tigris and Euphrates, where the City of Apamia
now stands in Ptolemees Maps, eighty degrees
Longitude, and some thirty four degrees and thirty
scruples Latitude.

Thus have we according to the Letter found Paradise
which Adam lost, but if we finde no better one
in the Philosophick and Moral Cabbala, we shall but
have our labour for our travel.

Ver. 9. That stood planted in the midst of the Garden.
For in this verse the Tree of Life is planted in
the midst of the Garden, and in the third Chapter the
third verse, the Tree of the knowledge of good and
evil is placed there also.

For the Lord God bad so ordained. Expositors seem
not to suspect any hurt in the Tree it self, but that the
fruit thereof was naturally good, only God interdicted
it to try the goodness of Adam. So that this law
that prohibited Adam the eating of the fruit, was
meerly Thetical, or Positive, not Indispensable and
Natural.

Ver. 10. From thence it was parted. This is the

cause that Paradise is conceived to have been situated
where Apamia stands, as I have above intimated.

Ver. 11. Phasis. See verse 8.

Chaulateans. The affinity of Name is apparent
betwixt Havilah and Chaulateans, whom Strabo
places in Arabia near Mesopotamia.

Ver. 13. Arabian Aethiopia. See verse 8.

Ver. 17. See verse 9.

Ver. 18. High commendations of Matrimony.
Moses plainly recommends to the Jews the use of
Matrimony, & does after a manner encourage them to
that condition: which he does like a right Law-giver
and Father of the people. For in the multitude of
people is the Kings honour, but in the want of people
is the destruction of the Prince, as Solomon speaks,
Prov. 14. Besides, there was no small policy in religiously
commending that to them, that most would be
carried fast enough too on their own accords. For
those Laws are best liked that sute with the pleasure
of the people, and they will have a better conceit of
the Law-giver for it.

Ver. 19. These brought he unto Adam. viz. The
Beasts and Fowls; but there is no mention of the
Fishes, they being not fitted to journey in the same
Element. It had been over harsh and affected to have
either brought the Fishes from the Sea, or to have carried
Adam to the Shore, to appoint names to all the
Fishes flocking thither to him. But after he might
have opportunity to give them names, as they came
occasionally to his view.

Ver. 20. See verse 18,

Ver. 21. Fell into a dream. For the Seventy have
[non-Latin text], God cast Adam
into an extasie; and in that extasie he might very
well see what God did all the while he slept.

Ver. 23. See verse 21. & 24.

Ver. 24. So strict and sacred a Tye, &c. That's
the scope of the story. To beget a very fast and indissoluble
affection betwixt man and wife, that they
should look upon one another as one and the same
person. And in this has Moses wisely provided for
the happiness of his people in instilling such a Principle
into them, as is the root of all Oeconomical order, delight,
and contentment: while the husband looks
upon his wife as on himself in the Feminine gender, and
she on her husband as on her self in the Masculine.
For Grammarians can discern no other difference then
so, betwixt [non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text]
Vir and Virissa. But R.
Abraham Ben Ezra has found a mysterie in these
names more then Grammatical. For in [non-Latin text] and
[non-Latin text] sayes he, is the contracted name of Jehovah
contained, viz.
[non-Latin text], for there is [non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text]. So long
therefore as the married couple live in Gods fear and
mutual love, God is with them as well as in their
names. But if they cast God off by disobedience, and
make not good what they owe one to the other, then
is their condition what their names denotate to them,
the name of God being taken out, viz.
[non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text].
The fire of discord and contention here, and the eternal
fire of Hell hereafter. This is the conceit of that
pious and witty Rabbi.

Ver. 25. And were not ashamed. Matrimony and
the knowledge of women being so effectually recommended
unto the Jewes in the fore-going story, the
wisdome of Moses did foresee that it would be obvious
for the people to think with themselves, how so
good and commendable a thing should have so much
shame and diffidency hovering about it. For there
is a general bashfulness in men and women in these
matters, and they ever desire to transact these affairs

in secret out of the sight of others. Wherefore Moses
to satisfie their curiosity, continues his History further,
and gives the reason of this shame in the following
Chapter.

CHAP. III.

IN this third Chapter, there are causes laid down,
of some of the most notable, and most concerning
accidents in Nature. As of the hard travail and toil
upon the sons of men, to get themselves a livelihood.
Of the Antipathy betwixt Men and Serpents. Of the
incumbrance of the ground with troublesome weeds.
Of the shame of Venery. Of the pangs of childebearing;
and of Death it self. Of all these Moses
his wisdome held fit to give an account accommodately
to the capacity of the people. For these fall into
that grand Question in Philosophy, [non-Latin text];

whence sprung up Evil? which has exercised the wits
of all Ages to this very day. And every fool is able
to make the Question, but few men so wise, as to be
either able to give, or fit to receive a sufficient answer
to it, according to the depth of the matter it self.

But it was very necessary for Moses to hold on in
his History, and to communicate to them those plain
and intelligible Causes of the Evils that ever lay before
their eyes; he having so fully asserted God the
Creator of Heaven and Earth, and Contriver of all
things that we see: Adding also that the Laws that
he propounded to them were delivered to him from
God, and that all prosperity and happiness would accompany
them, if they observed the same. That they
should eat the good things of the Land, and live a
long and healthful age.

Now it was easie for the people, though they were
but rude, and newly taken from making Bricks for
Pharaoh in Aegypt, to think thus with themselves;
If God made all things, how is it that they are no better
then they are? Why do our wives bring forth their
children with pain? Why are we obnoxious to be
stung with Serpents? Why may not God give us an
endlesse life, as well as a long life? and the like. To
which Moses in general answers, (to the great advantage
of the people, and for the faster binding them
to the Laws he delivered them from God) That it
was disobedience to his will, that brought all this mischief
into the world; which is most certainly true.
But by what particular circumstances it is set out, you
may here read in this third Chapter.

Ver. 1. The Serpent also. It had been too harsh
and boistrous, and too grossely redounding to the dishonour
of our first Parents Adam and Eve, if they
had immediately done violence to so express a command

of God, and shown themselves professed rebels
against him. And their posterity would have been
scarce able to have remembred them without cursings
and bitterness, for being so bold and apert Authors
of so much misery to them. But so it came to pass, that
it was not of themselves, but by the subtilty of the
Serpent that they were deceived into disobedience, being
overshort by his false suggestions. So that their
mistake may be looked upon with pardon and pity,
and our selves are fairly admonished to take heed
that we forfeit not the rest.

But the power of Speech. I cannot be so large in
my belief, as S. Basil, who affirms, That all living
creatures in Paradise could speak, and understand one
another. But according to the Literal Cabbala, I
think it is manifest that the Serpent could; and that
it was not the Devil in the Serpent, as some Interpreters
would have it. For, why should the Serpent be
cursed for the Devils sake? And beside, the whole
business is attributed to the cunning and subtilty of
the Serpent, as doing it by the power of his own nature.
Therefore this were to confound two Cabbala's
into one, to talk thus of the Serpent and the Devil at
once.

Not eat of any of the Trees. So Chrysostome, Rupertus,
and S. Augustine; as if the cunning Serpent
had made use of that damnable Maxime, Calumniare
fortiter, aliquid adhaerebit: So at first he layes his
charge high against God, as if he would debarre them
of necessary food, and starve them, that at last he might
gain so much, at least that he did unnecessarily abridge
them of what made mightily for their pleasure and
perfection.

Ver. 4. See verse 1.

Ver. 7. And the eyes of them both were opened.

Some gather from hence, that Adam and Eve were
blinde till they tasted of the forbidden fruit. Which
is so foolish a glosse, that none but a blinde man could
ever have stumbled upon it. For the greatest pleasure
of Paradise had been lost, if they had wanted their
sight. Therefore as grosse as it is, that can be no part
of any Literal Cabbala, it having nothing at all of
probability in it. It is not [non-Latin text].

Ver. 9. God's walking in the Garden, his calling
after Adam, his pronouncing the doom upon him, his
wife, and the Serpent, and sundry passages before, do
again and again inculcate the opinion of the Anthropomorphites,
that God has an humane shape; which
I have already acknowledged to be the meaning of the
Literal Cabbala.

Ver. 13. Here the first Original of Mischief is
resolved into the Serpent, whereby Adam and Eves
credits are something saved, and the root of misery to
mankinde is plainly discovered.

Ver. 14. Creep upon thy belly. It is plain according
to the Letter, that the Serpent went upright, which
is the opinion also of S. Basil, else his doom signifies
nothing, if he crept upon his belly before.

Ver. 15. Perpetual Antipathy. See verse 1.

Ver. 16. Her sorrows and pangs in childe-bearing.
See verse 1. But these pains are much increased
to women by their luxury and rotten delicateness,
that weakens Nature, and enfeebles the Spirits, so that
they can endure nothing, when as those that are used to
hardship and labor scape better. There is a notorious
instance of it in a woman of Liguria, who, as Diodorus
Siculus writes, being hard at work in the field, was
overtaken with that other labour. But she went but
aside a while, and disburthening her self, with a quick
dispatch, laid her childe as gainly as she could in some

fresh leaves and grasse, and came immediately again
to her task, and would not have desisted from her
work, but that he that hired her, in commiseration
to the infant paid her the whole days wages to be
shut of her. As if Providence had absolved her from
the curse of Eve, she voluntarily undergoing so much
of Adams, which was sweating in the field.

Ver. 18. See verse 1.

Ver. 19. Observe the great wisdome of Moses;
The Statutes and Ordinances which he delivered unto
the people, they being most of them not [non-Latin text], but [non-Latin text],
not natural and intrinsecally good, but positive
and dispensable in themselves; here according to this
History, all those grand evils of toil and labour upon
a barren ground, of pains in child-bed, and of death
it self, are imputed to the transgression of a Law that
was but meerly Positive; whereby the Lawgiver
does handsomely engage the people with all
care and diligence to observe all the ceremonies and
ordinances he gave them from God; the whole posterity
of Adam finding the mischief of the breaking
but that one Positive Law in Paradise, the eating of
the fruit of such a tree that was forbidden. When as
otherwise Positive Laws of themselves would have
been very subject to be slighted and neglected.

Ver. 20. Called his wife Eve. [non-Latin text]
signifies life.

Ver. 21. The use of which God taught. The two
great comforts and necessaries of life, are Food and
Clothing. Wherefore it was fit to record this passage
also to indear the peoples mindes to God, and increase
their devotion and thankfulness to him, who was so
particularly and circumstantially the Author of those
great supports of life.

Ver. 23. Forth from the Garden of Eden. That
shews plainly that Paradise was not the whole Earth,

as some would have it. For he was brought into
Paradise by God, and now he is driven out again;
but he was not driven out of the world.

Ver. 24. Haunted with Spirits. This phrase is
very significant of the nature of the thing it is to express,
and fitly sets out the condition of Paradise,
when Adam was driven out of it, and could no more
return thither by reason of those Spirits that had visibly
taken possession of the way thereunto, and of
the place. Nor am I alone in this Exposition, Theodoret
and Precopius bearing me company, who call
these Apparitions at the entrance of Paradise [non-Latin text],
and Spectra terribili formâ. And I think that
this may very well go for the literal sense of this verse,
the existence of Spirits and Apparitions being acknowledged
in all Nations, be they never so rude or
slow-witted.

THE DEFENCE Of the PHILOSOPHICK CABBALA.

CHAP. I.

I Have plainly and faithfully set forth the meaning
of Moses his Text, according to the Literal Cabbala,
and made his incomparable Policy, and pious
Prudence manifest to all the world. For whether he
had this History of Adam and Eve, and of the Creation
immediately from God on the Mount, or whether

it was a very ancient tradition long before in the Eastern
parts, as some Rabbines will have it, but approved
of by God in the Mount; Moses certainly
could not have begun his Pentateuch with any thing
more proper and more material to his scope and purpose
then this. And it is nothing but the ignorance
of the Atheist that can make him look upon it as contemptible,
it being in it self as highly removed above
contempt, as true Prudence and Staidness is above
Madness and Folly.

And yet I confess, I think there is still a greater
depth and richness of wisdome in it, then has been
hitherto opened in this Literal Cabbala, and such as
shall represent Moses as profoundly seen in Philosophy,
and divine Morality, as he is in Politicks. And
against which the Atheist shall have nothing at all
to alledge, unless ignorance and confidence furnish
his brain with impertinent arguments.

For he shall not hear Moses in this Philosophick Cabbala
either tasking God to his six days labour, or
bounding the world at the Clouds, or making the
Moon bigger then the Stars, or numbring days without
Suns, or bringing in a Serpent talking with a
woman, or any such like passages, which the Atheists
misunderstanding and perversenesse makes them take
offence at; But they shall finde him more large and
more free then any, and laying down such conclusions
as the wisest Naturalists, and Theosophers in all
Ages have looked upon as the choicest and most precious.
Such, I say, are those in the Philosophick
Cabbala you have read, and I am now come to defend
it, and make it good, that it is indeed the meaning
of Moses his Text. And one great Key for the
understanding of it in this first Chapter, will be those
Pythagorical Mysteries of Numbers, as I have intimated
already in my Preface.

Ver. 1. I mean the same thing by both. And there
is good reason there should be meant the same thing
by both. For, besides that those actuall conspicuous
Lights are in Heaven, viz. the Sun, and Stars, Heaven
or the Aetherial Matter has in it all over the
Principles of Light; which are the round Particles,
and that very fine and subtile Matter that lies in the
intervals of the round Particles. He that is but a little
acquainted with the French Philosophy, understands
the business plainly. And in the expounding
of Moses, I think I may lay down this for a safe
Principle, that there is no considerable truth in Nature
or Divinity, that Moses was ignorant of, and
so if it be found agreeable to his Text, I may very
well attribute it to him. At least the Divine Wisdom
wherewith Moses was inspired, prevents all the inventions
of Men.

But now that I understand this Heaven and Earth
in the first verse, as things distinct from Heaven and
Earth afterwards mentioned, the very Text of Moses
favours it, emphatically calling this Heaven and
Earth
[non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text], when as the Heaven and
Earth in the second and third days Creation he calls
but plain [non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text].

I may adde also the authority of Philo, who expounds
not this Heaven and Earth of the visible and
tangible Heaven and Earth which are mentioned in
the second and third day, but of an Heaven and
Earth quite different from them: As also the suffrage
of S. Augustine, who understands likewise by Heaven
and Light, one and the same thing, to wit, the
Angels; and by Earth the first Matter: which is
something like the sense of this present Cabbala, only
for his Physical Matter, we set down a Metaphysical
one, that other belonging most properly to the second

day; and for Angels we have the World of Life,
which comprehends not Angels only, but all substantial
Forms and Spirits whatever.

And that Heaven or Light should be Symboles of
the World of Life or Form, it is no wonder: For
you may finde a sufficient reason in the Cabbala it self,
at the fift verse of this present Chapter, and Plotinus
assimilates Form to Light, [non-Latin text], for Form is
Light.

And lastly, in the second verse of this same Chapter,
there be plain reasons also laid down, why the
meer Possibility of the outward Creation is called the
Earth, according to the description of the Earth in the
second verse of the first Chapter of Moses his Text:
unto which you may further adde, that as the Earth
is looked upon as the Basis of the world, so the Possibility
of the outward Creation is in some sense the Basis
thereof.

The Tri-une Godhead. The Hebrew words [non-Latin text]
do handsomely intimate a plurality, and singularity,
the Noun being in the Plural, the Verb in
the Singular Number. Whence I conceive there
may be very well here included the Mysterie of the
Trinity and Unity of the Godhead, or [non-Latin text]. And
Vatablus himself, though he shuffles with his Grammatical
Notions here, yet he does apertly acknowledge
three Persons in one God, at the twenty sixt verse
of this Chapter. And that this was the Philosophick
Cabbala of Moses and the Learned and Pious of the
Jews, it is no small argument, because the Notion of
the Trinity is so much insisted upon by the Platonists
and Pythagoreans, whom all acknowledge (and I
think I shall make it more plain then ever) to have
got their Philosophy from Moses.

By his Eternal Wisdome. Ambrose, Basil, and Origen

interpret In Principio, to be as much as In Filio;
and Colossians the first, there the Apostle speaking of
the Son of God, he saith, that he is the First-born of
every creature, and that by him were all things created
that are in Heaven, and that are in Earth. And
that he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
This is the Wisdome of God, or the Idea according
to which he framed all things. And therefore
must be before all things the Beginning of the
creatures of God. And very answerable to this of the
Apostle are those two attributes Philo gives to the
same subject, calling him [non-Latin text], The
First-born Word of God, or the First-born Form of
God; and [non-Latin text]
the Beginning. He calls him also
simply [non-Latin text], which is, the Word, Form, Reason, or
Wisdome. And one of the Chaldee Paraphrasts also
interprets In Principio, In Sapientia. And this
agrees exceedingly well with that of Solomon
[non-Latin text]
The Lord possessed me
[non-Latin text]
Principium viae suae, that is, operum suorum, as Vatablus
expounds it, and the Text makes it good.
[non-Latin text]
Oriens operum suorum ab antiquo,
The Sun-rise of his works of old. For there is
no necessity of making of [non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text]
Adverbs,
they are Substantives. And here Wisdome
is called [non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text] the Principle and Morning
of the Works of God, not by way of diminution,
but as supposing the East and the Morning to be
the womb of light, from whence springs all Light
and Form, and Form is Light, as I told you before
out of Plotinus.

And this Notion of [non-Latin text] sutes well with that passage
in Trismegist, where Hermes speaks thus; [non-Latin text],
&c. where [non-Latin text] which

is the same with [non-Latin text] must signifie the divine Intellect,
the bright Morning Star, the Wisdome of God: To
which Wisdome called in the eight of the Proverbs
[non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text] the Beginning and Morning of
his Works, is ascribed the Creation of the world by
Solomon, as you may there see at large. I will only
adde, that what the Hebrew Text here in Genesis calls
[non-Latin text], the Chaldee calls [non-Latin text], which is all one with
[non-Latin text]. Wherefore [non-Latin text] is the Essential Wisdome
of God, not an habit or property, but a substance that
is Wisdome. For true wisdome is substance. [non-Latin text],
it is the same
that Plotinus speaks. Whence he is called in the
Apocalyps, [non-Latin text], which is but
a Periphrasis of Jehovah, Essence, or [non-Latin text], which
name [non-Latin text] contains the future, present, and time past
in it, in [non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text] as Zanchius observes: This is the
second Hypostasis in the holy Trinity, the Logos,
which was in the beginning of the world with God.
All things were made by him, and without him was
nothing made that was made, John 1.

First created this. I cannot impute it to any reason
at all, but to the slownesse of Fancie, and heavy unweildinesse
of Melancholy, or the load of Bloud and
Flesh, that makes men imagine, that Creation is incompetible
even to God himselfe; when as I think, I
have no lesse then demonstrated in my Antidote against
Atheism, that it is impossible but God should
have the power of Creation, or else he would not be
God. But because our Will and Minde can create
no Substance distinct from our selves, we foolishly
conceit, measuring the Power of God by our own,
that he cannot create any Substance distinct from himself.
Which is but a weak conclusion fallen from our
own dulnesse and inadvertency.

Ver. 2. Solitude and Emptinesse. The very word
signifies so in the Original, as Vatablus will tell you.
Which being abstract tearms (as the Schools call
them) do very fittingly agree with the Notion we
have put upon this Symbolical Earth, affirming it no
real actual subject, either spiritual or corporeal, that
may be said to be void and empty; but to be Vacuity
and Emptiness it self, onely joined with a capacity
of being something. It is, as I have often intimated,
the Ens Potentiale of the whole outward Creation.

But the Spirit of God. Not a great Wind, but the
holy Ghost. This is the Interpretation general of the
Fathers. And it is a sign that it is according to the
true Mosaical Cabbala, it being so consonant to Plato's
School, which School I suspect now has more of
that Cabbala, then the Jews themselves have at this
day.

Having hovered a while. The word in the Original
is [non-Latin text], which signifies a hovering or brooding
over a thing as a Bird does over her nest, or on her
young ones. Hence it is not unlikely is Aristophanes
his Egge.

To this sense,

And this manner of brooding thus is an Embleme of
dearest affection; and who knows but that from this
Text the Poets took occasion of feigning that ancient
Cupid the Father of all the Gods, the Creator of all
things, and Maker of Mankinde? For so he is described
by Hesiod and Orpheus, and here in this place

of Aristophanes, from whence I took the forecited
verse.

Simmias Rhodius describes this ancient Love in
verses which represent a pair of wings. I will not
say according to this conceit of Aristophanes his Egge,
which they should brood and hatch. But the longest
Quill of one of them writes thus:

To this sense:

This Spirit of God then, or the divine Love which
was from everlasting, will prove the third divine Hypostasis.
The first was [non-Latin text], which signifies strength,
and a word rather common to the whole Trinity. But
Jehovah, as the Rabbines observe, is a name of God
as he is merciful and gracious, which may be answerable
to Plato his [non-Latin text], but that name is also
communicated to Christ, as we have already acknowledged.
The second is [non-Latin text], which is Wisdome,
as has been prov'd out of the Proverbs
and answers to the Platonical
[non-Latin text]. The third we
have now light upon, which must be Love, and it has
a lucky coincidence also with the third Hypostasis in
the Platonick Triad
[non-Latin text], whom Plotinus calls [non-Latin text],
the Celestial Venus. And to this after
a more immediate manner is the Creation of the world
ascribed by that Philosopher, as also by Plato; as
here in Moses the Spirit of God is said to lie close
brooding upon the humid Matter for the actual Production
of this outward world.

Ver. 3. Exist independently of Corporeal Matter.
That which exists first it is plain is independent of
what follows, and Philo makes all Immateriate Beeings
to be created in this first day: Whence the Souls
of Men are removed far from all fear of fate and mortality,
which is the grand Tenent of Plato's School.

Ver. 5. Matter meerly Metaphysical. See Hyle
in my Interpretation general at the end of my Poems;
where you shall find that I have settled the same Notion
I make use of here, though I had no design then
of expounding Moses.

Monad or Unite. The fitnesse of the number to
the nature of every days work, you shall observe to
be wonderful. Whence we may well conclude, that
it was ordered so on purpose, and that in all probability
Pythagoras was acquainted with this Cabbala;
And that that was the reason the Pythagoreans made
such a deal of doe with numbers, putting other conceits
upon them, then any other Arithmeticians do;
and that therefore if such Theorems as the Pythagoreans
held, be found sutable and compliable with Moses
his Text, it is a shrewd presumption that that is
the right Philosophick Cabbala thereof.

Philo makes this first day spent in the Creation of
Immateral and Spiritual Beeings, of the Intellectual
world, taking it in a large sense, or the Mundus vitae,
as Ficinus calls it, The World of Life and Forms. And
the Pythagoreans call an Unite [non-Latin text], Form, and [non-Latin text],
Life. They call it also [non-Latin text], or the Tower of
Jupiter, giving also the same name to a Point or
Center, by which they understand the vital formative
Center of things, the Rationes Seminales: and they
call an Unite also [non-Latin text], which is Seminal
Form. But a very short and sufficient account
of Philo's pronouncing that Spiritual Substances are

the first days work, is, That as an Unite is indivisible
in Numbers, so is the nature of Spirits indivisible;
you cannot make two of one of them, as you may
make of one piece of Corporeal Matter two, by actuall
division or severing them one piece from another.
Wherefore what was truly and properly created the
first day; was Immaterial, Indivisible, and Independent
of the Matter, from the highest Angel, to the
meanest Seminal Form.

And for the Potentiality of the outward Creation,
sith it is not so properly any real Beeing, it can breed
no difficulty, but whatever it is, it is referrable fitly
enough to Incorporeal things, it being no object of
Sense, but of Intellect, and being also impassible and
undiminishable, and so in a sort indivisible. For the
Power of God being undiminishable, the Possibility
of the Creature must be also undiminishable, it being
an adaequate consequence of his Power. Wherefore
this Potentiality being ever one, it is rightly referred
to the first day. And in respect of this the Pythagoreans
call an Unite
[non-Latin text], as well as the Binary,
as also [non-Latin text], and [non-Latin text], which names plainly
glance at the dark Potentiality of things, set out by
Moses in the first days Creation.

Ver. 6. Created an immense deal, &c. He creates
now Corporeal Matter, (as before the World of Life)
out of nothing. Which universal Matter may well
be called [non-Latin text] For extension is very proper to Corporeal
Matter. Castellio translates it Liquidum, and
this universal Matter is most what fluid still, all over
the world, but at first it was fluid universally.

Betwixt the aforesaid fluid Possibility, &c. But
here it may be you'll enquire, how this Corporeal
Matter shall be conceived to be betwixt the waters
above, and these underneath. For what can be the

waters above, Maimonides requires no such continued
Analogy in the hidden sense of Scripture, as you may
see in his Preface to his Moreh Nevochim. But I
need not fly to that general refuge. For me thinks that
the Seminal Forms that descend through the Matter,
and so reach the Possibility of the parts of the outward
Creation, and make them spring up into act, are
not unlike the drops of rain that descend through the
Heaven or Air, and make the Earth fruitful. Besides,
the Seminal Forms of things lie round, as I may so
speak, and contracted at first, but spread when they
bring any part of the Possibility of the outward Creation
into act, as drops of rain spread when they are
fallen to the ground. So that the Analogy is palpable
enough, though it may seem too elaborate and
curious. We may adde to all this concerning the
Naides or Water Nymphs, that the Ancients understood
by them [non-Latin text],
All manner of Souls that descend into the
Matter and Generation. Wherefore the watry Powers
(as Porphyrius also calls these Nymphs) it is not
at all harsh to conceive, that they may be here indigitated
by the name of the Upper waters. See Porphyrius
in his De Antro Nympharum.

Ver. 7. What mischief straying Souls. The frequent
complaints that that noble Spirit in Pythagoreans
and Platonists makes against the incumbrances
and disadvantages of the Body, makes this Cabbala
very probable. And it is something like our Divines
fancying Hell to be created this day.

Ver. 8. Actuated and agitated. This is consonant
to Plato's School, who makes the Matter unmovable
of it self, which is most reasonable. For if it were of
its own nature movable, nothing for a moment would
hold together, but dissolve it self into infinitely little

Particles; whence it is manifest, that there must be
something besides the Matter, either to binde it or to
move it; So that the Creation of Immaterial Beeings,
is in that respect also necessary.

Rightly called Heaven. I mean [non-Latin text]. For this
agitation of the Matter brought it to Des Cartes his
second Principle, which is the true Aether, or rather
[non-Latin text]. For it is liquid as water, and yet has in it
the fierce Principle of Fire, which is the first Element
and most subtile of all. The thing is at first
sight understood by Cartesians, who will easily admit
of that Notation of the Rabbines in the word [non-Latin text],
as being from [non-Latin text]
Fire, and [non-Latin text]
Water. For so
R. Bechai, The Heavens, sayes he, were created from
the beginning, and are called
[non-Latin text], because they are
[non-Latin text]
and
[non-Latin text]
Fire and Water; which no Philosophy
makes good so well as the Cartesian. For the round
particles, like water, (though they be not of the same
Figure) flake the fierceness of the first Principle, which
is the purest Fire. And yet this Fire in some measure
alway lies within the Triangular Intervals of the
round Particles, as that Philosophy declares at large.

And the Binary. How fitly again doth the number
agree with the nature of the work of this day,
which is the Creation of Corporeal Matter And
the Pythagoreans call the number Two [non-Latin text]
Matter.
Simplicius upon Aristotles Physicks, speaking of the
Pythagoreans
[non-Latin text]. They might well, sayes he,
call One, Form, as defining and terminating to certain
shape and property whatever it takes holds of. And
Two they might well call Matter, it being undeterminate,
and the cause of Bigness and Divisibility. And
they have very copiously heaped upon the *number

Two,* such appellations as are most proper to Corporeal
Matter. As [non-Latin text],
Unfigured, Undeterminated, Unlimited. For such
is Matter of it self till Form take hold of it. It is called
also [non-Latin text] from the fluidity of the Matter. [non-Latin text],
because it affords substance to the Heavens
and Starres.
[non-Latin text], Contention,
Fate, and Death, for these are the consequencies of the
Souls being joined with corporeal Matter,
[non-Latin text],
Motion, Generation, and Division,
which are Properties plainly appertaining to Bodies.
They call this number also [non-Latin text], because it is the
[non-Latin text], the Subject that endures and undergoes all
the changes and alterations, the active Forms put upon
it. Wherefore it is plain that the Pythagoreans
understood Corporeal Matter by the number Two
which no man can deny but that it is a very fit Symbole
of Division, that eminent Property of Matter.

But we might cast in a further reason of the [non-Latin text]
being created the second day: for the Celestial Matter
does consist of two plainly distinguishable parts,
to wit, the first Element, and the second; or the Materia
subtilissima, and the round Particles, as I have
already intimated out of Des Cartes his Philosophy.

Ver. 9. It is referred to the following day. You
are to understand that these Six numbers, or days, do
not signifié any order of time, but the nature of the
things that were said to be made in them. But for any
thing in Moses his Philosophick Cabbala, all might
be made at once, or in such periods of time, as is most
sutable to the nature of the things themselves. What
is said upon this ninth verse, will be better understood,
and with more full satisfaction, when we come to the
fourth days work.

Ver. 13. And the Ternary denotes. In this third

day was the waters commanded into one place, the
Earth adorned with all manner of Plants, Paradise,
and all the pleasure and plenty of it created, wherein
the Serpent beguiled Eve, and so forth. What can
therefore be more likely, then that the Pythagoreans
use their numbers as certain remembrancers of the
particular passages of this History of the Creation;
when as they call the number Three,
[non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text],
i. e. Triton and Lord of the Sea; which is
in reference to Gods commanding the water into one
place, and making thereof a Sea. They call also
the Ternary
[non-Latin text], and [non-Latin text]: The former
intimates the plenty of Paradise, the latter relates to
the Serpent there. But now besides this we shall find
the Ternary very significant of the nature of this days
work. For first, the Earth consists of the third Element
in the Cartesian Philosophy, (for the truth of
that Philosophy will force it self in whether I will or
no) and then again there are three grand parts of this
third Element necessary to make an Earth habitable,
the dry Land, the Sea, (whence are Springs and Rivers
and the Air; and lastly, there are in Vegetables,
which is the main work of this day, three eminent
properties, according to Aristotle, viz. Nutrition,
Accretion, Generation; and also, if you consider their
duration, there be these three Cardinal points of it,
Ortus, Acme, Interitus. You may cast in also that
Minerals which belong to this day as well as Plants,
that both Plants and they, and in general, all Terrestrial
Bodies have the three Chymical Principles in
them, Sal, Sulphur, and Mercury.

Ver. 16. Such as is the Earth we live upon. As the
Matter of the Universe came out in the second day, so
the contriving of this Matter into Sunnes and Planets,
is contained in this fourth day, the Earth her self not

excepted, though according to the Letter she is made
in the first day, and as she is the Nurse of Plants, said
to be uncovered in the third, yet as she is a receptacle
of Light, and shines with borrowed raies like the
Moon and other Plants, she may well be referred to
this fourth days Creation.

Nor will this at all seem bold or harsh, if we consider
that the most learned have already agreed that
all the whole Creation was made at once. As for
example, The most rational of all the Jewish Doctors,
R. Moses Aegyptius, Philo Judeus, Procopius
Gazeus, Cardinal Cajetan[•], S. Augustine, and the
Schools of Hillel and Samai, as Manasseh Ben Israel
writes. So that that leisurely order of days is thus
quite taken away, and all the scruples that may rise
from that Hypothesis.

Wherefore I say, the Earth as one of the primary
Planets was created this fourth day. And I translate
[non-Latin text]
Primary Planets. Primary, because of [non-Latin text]
Emphatical, and Planets, because the very notation
of their name implies their nature; for [non-Latin text] is plainly
from [non-Latin text]
Ustio, or burning, and [non-Latin text]
extinction, Nouns
made from [non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text] as [non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text] from [non-Latin text] and
[non-Latin text], according to unexceptionable Analogy. And
the Earth, as also the rest of the Planets, their nature
is such, as if they had once been burning and shining
Suns, but their light and heat being extinguished,
they afterwards became opake Planets. This conclusion
seems here plainly to be contained in Moses,
but is at large demonstrated in Des Cartes his Philosophy.
Nor is this Notation of [non-Latin text] enervated by
alledging that the word is ordinarily used to signifie
the fixed Stars, as well as the Planets. For I do not
deny but that in a vulgar Notion it may be competible
to them also. For the fixed Stars according to

the imagination of the rude people, may be said to be
lighted up, and extinguished, so often as they appear
and disappear; for they measure all by obvious sense
and fancie, and may well look upon them as so many
Candles set up by divine Providence in the Night, but
by Day frugally put out, for wasting: And I remember
Theodoret in his [non-Latin text], has so glibly
swallowed down the Notion, that he uses it as a special
argument of Providence, that they can burn thus
with their heads downwards, and not presently sweal
out and be extinguished, as our ordinary Candles are.
Wherefore the word [non-Latin text], may very well be attributed
to all the Stars as well Fixed, as Planets, but to
the Fixed only upon vulgar seeming grounds, to the
Planets upon true and natural. And we may be
sure that that is that which Moses would aim at, and
lay stresse upon in his Philosophick Cabbala. Wherefore
in brief, [non-Latin text] Emphatical in [non-Latin text] contains a
double Emphasis, intimating those true [non-Latin text] or
Planets, and then the most eminent amongst those truly
so tearmed. Nor is it at all strange, that so abstruse
conclusion of Philosophy should be lodged in this
Mosaical Text. For, as I have elsewhere intimated,
Moses has been aforehand with Cartesius. The ancient
Patriarchs having had wit, and by reason of their
long lives leisure enough to invent as curious and subtile
Theorems in Philosophy, as ever any of their posterity
could hit upon, besides what they might have
had by tradition from Adam. And if we finde the
Earth a Planet, it must be acknowledged forthwith
that it runs about the Sun, which is pure Pythagorisme
again, and a shrewd presumption that he was
taught that mysterie by this Mosaical Cabbala. But
that the Earth is a Planet, besides the Notation we
have already insisted upon, the necessity of being

created in this fourth day amongst the other Planets,
is a further Argument. For there is no mention
of its Creation in any day else, according to this Philosophick
Cabbala.

Ver. 17. Inhabitants of the world. The Hebrew
is [non-Latin text]. And I have made bold to interpret
[non-Latin text], not of this one Individual Earth, but of the
whole Species; and therefore I render it the World
at large. As [non-Latin text] in the twenty seventh of this
Chapter, is not an Individual Man, but Mankinde in
general. And so ver. 16. [non-Latin text] viz. [non-Latin text]
and [non-Latin text], are interpreted after the same
manner, rendring them the greater sort of Lights, and
the lesser sort of Lights. So that no Grammatical
violence is done to the Text of Moses all this time.

Ver. 19. And the number denotes. This fourth
days Creation is the contrivance of Matter into Suns
and Planets, or into Suns, Moons, and Earths. For
the Aethereal Vortices were then set a going, and
the Corporeal world had got into an useful order and
shape. And the ordering and framing of the Corporeal
world, may very well be said to be transacted in
the number Four; Four being the first body in numbers
an Aequilateral Pyramid, which Figure also
is a right Symbole of Light, the raies entring the eye
in a Pyramidal form. And Lights now are set up in
all the vast Region of the Aethereal Matter, which
is Heaven. The Pythagoreans also call this number
[non-Latin text], & [non-Latin text], Body, and the World, intimating the
Creation of the Corporeal world therein. And further,
signifying in what excellent proportion and harmony
the world was made, they call this number
Four:
[non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text], and [non-Latin text].
Harmony, Urania, and the Stirrer up of divine Fury
and Extasie; Insinuating that all things are so sweetly

and fittingly ordered in the world, that the several
motions thereof are as a comely Dance, or ravishing
Musick, and are able to carry away a contemplative
Soul into Rapture and Extasie upon a clear view, and
attentive Animadversion of the Order and Oeconomy
of the Universe. And Philo, who does much
Pythagorize in his Exposition of Moses, observes,
That this number Four contains the most perfect proportions
in Musical Symphonies, viz. Diatessaron,
Diapente, Diapason, and Disdiapason,
[non-Latin text],
&c. For the proportion of
Diatessaron is as Four to Three, of Diapente as Three
to Two, of Diapason as Two to One, or Four to
Two, of Disdiapason as Four to One. We might
cast in also the consideration of that divine Nemesis,
which God has placed in the frame and nature of the
Universal Creation, as he is a Distributer to every
one according to his works. From whence himself is
also called Nemesis, by Aristotle,
[non-Latin text],
Because he every where distributes what is
due to every one. This is in ordinary language Justice,
and both Philo and Plotinus out of the Pythagoreans,
affirms, that the number Four is a Symbole
of Justice. All which, makes towards what I drive
at, that the whole Creation is concerned in this number
Four, which is called the Fourth day. And for
further eviction, we may yet adde, that as all numbers
are contained in Four virtually, (by all numbers is
meant Ten, for when we come to Ten, we go back
again) so the root and foundation of all the Corporeal
Creation is laid in this fourth days work, wherein
Suns, Earths, and Moons are made, and the ever whirling
Vortices. For as Philo observes, Pythagorean-like,
Ten (which they call also [non-Latin text], and
[non-Latin text], the World, Heaven, and All-perfectnesse)

is made by the scattering of the parts of Four: thus,
1, 2, 3, 4. Put these together now and they are Ten.
[non-Latin text], The Universe. And this was such
a secret amongst Pythagoras his disciples, that it was
a solemn oath with them to swear by him that delivered
to them the mysterie of the Tetractys, Tetrad or
number Four.

Thus they swore by Pythagoras as is conceived,
who taught them this mysterious tradition. And had
it not been a right worshipful mysterie think you indeed,
and worthy of the solemnity of Religion and of
an Oath, to understand that 1, 2, 3, 4. make Ten.
And that Ten is All, which rude mankinde told first
upon their fingers, and Arithmeticians discover it by
calling them Digits at this very day.

There is no likelihood that so wise a man as Pythagoras
was, should lay any stress upon such trifles, or that
his Scholars should be such fools as to be taken with
them. But it is well known that the Pythagoreans held
the Motion of the Earth about the Sun, wch is plainly
implied according to the Philosophick Cabbala of this
Fourth days work. So much of his secrets got out
to common knowledge and fame. But it is very highly
probable, that he had the whole Philosophick Cabbala
of the Creation opened to him by some knowing Priest
or Philosopher (as we now call them) in the Oriental
parts, that under this mysterie of numbers set out to

him the choicest and most precious conclusions in Natural
Philosophy, interpreting as I conceive, the Text
of Moses in some such way as I have light upon, and
making all those generous and ample conclusions
good by Demonstration and Reason. And so Pythagoras
being well furnished with the knowledge of
things, was willing to impart them to those whose
piety and capacity was fit to receive them; Not laying
aside that outward form of numbers, which they
were first conveied to himself in. But such Arithmetical
nugacities as are ordinarily recorded for his,
in dry numbers, to have been the riches of the Wisdome
of so famous a Philosopher, is a thing beyond all
credit or probability.

Wherefore I conceive, that the choicest and most
precious treasures of knowledge, being laid open in
the Cabbala of the Fourth day; from thence it was
that so much Solemnity and Religion was put upon
that number, which he called his Tetractys, which
seems to have been of two kindes, the one, the single
number Four, the other Thirty six, made of the
four first Masculine numbers, and the four first Feminine,
viz. of 1, 3, 5, 7. and of 2, 4, 6, 8. wherein
you see that the former and more simple Tetractys
is still included and made use of; for Four here takes
place again in the Assignment of the Masculine and
Feminine Numbers. Whence I further conceive, that
under the number of this more complex Tetrad which
contains also the other in it, he taught his disciples
the mysterie of the whole Creation, opening to them
the nature of all things as well Spiritual as Corporeal.
[non-Latin text], as a certain Author writes;
*For an even Number carries along with it divisibility,

and passibility. But an odde Number, indivisibility,
impassibility, and activity, wherefore that is
called Feminine, this Masculine.*

Wherefore the putting together of the four first
Masculine Numbers to the four first Feminine, is the
joining of the active and passive Principles together,
matching the parts of the Matter, with congruous
Forms from the World of life. So that I conceive
the Tetractys was a a Symbole of the whole Systeme
of Pythagoras his Philosophy, which we may very
justly suspect to be the same with the Mosaical Cabbala.
And the root of this Tetractys is Six, which again
hits upon Moses and remindes us of the Six days
work of the Creation.

Ver. 20. Fish and Fowl are made in the same day.
And here Moses does plainly play the Philosopher in
joining them together; for there is more affinity betwixt
them then is easily discerned by the heedlesse
vulgar: for besides that Fowls frequent the waters
very much, many kindes of them I mean, these Elements
themselves of Air and Water, for their thinnesse
and liquidity, are very like one another. Besides,
the sinnes of fishes and the wings of birds, the
feathers of one and the scales of the other, are very
Analogical. They are both also destitute of Ureters,
Dugges, and Milk, and are Oviparous. Further,
their motions are mainly alike, the fishes as it
were flying in the water, and the fowls swimming in
the Air, according to that of the Poet concerning
Daedalus, when he had made himself wings;

Insuetum per iter gelidas enavit ad Arctos.

Cast in this also, that as some fowls dive and swim
under water, so some fishes fly above the water in
the air, for a considerable space till their finnes begin
to be something stiffe and dry.

Ver. 23. And the Quinary denotes. Philo does
not here omit that obvious consideration of the Five
senses in Animals. But it is a strange coincidence, if
it was not intended that living creatures should be
said to be made in the Fift and Sixt day, those Numbers
according to the Pythagorical mysterie being so
fitly significant of the nature of them. For Five is
acknowledged by them to be Male and Female, consisting
of Three and Two, the two first Masculine
and Feminine numbers. It is also an Emblem of Generation,
for the number Five drawn into Five brings
about Five again, as you see in Five times Five, which
is Twenty Five. So an Eagle ingendring with an
Eagle, brings forth an Eagle; and a Dolphin ingendring
with a Dolphin, a Dolphin; and so in the rest.
Whence the Pythagoreans call this number Five Cytherea,
that is, Venus, and [non-Latin text], Marriage; and in
Birds it is evident that they choose their mates. Concerning
the number Six, I shall speak in its proper
place.

Ver. 26. That it is so free, so rational. That the
Image of God consists in this rather then in the dominion
over the creature, I take to be the right sense,
and more Philosophical, the other more Political;
and Philo interprets it after that manner we have made
choice of, which is also more sutable to Platonisme
and Pythagorisme, the best Cabbala that I know of
Moses his Text.

Ver. 27. Male and Female. It is a wonder, sayes
Grotius, to see how the Explications of the Rabbines
upon this place, and those passages in Plato's Symposion
agree one with another, which notwithstanding
from whatsoever they proceeded, I make no question,
sayes he, but they are false and vain. And I
must confesse I am fully of the same opinion. But this

strange agreement betwixt Aristophanes his Narration,
in the forenamed Symposion, and the comments
of the Rabbines upon this Text, is no small argument
that Plato had some knowledge of Moses, which
may well adde the greater authority and credit to
this our Cabbala. But it was the wisdome of Plato
to own the true Cabbala himself, but such unwarrantable
Fancies as might rise from the Text, to cast
upon such a ridiculous shallow companion as Aristophanes,
it was good enough for him to utter in that
Clubbe of Wits, that Philosophick Symposion of
Plato.

Ver. 28. They Lorded it. The Seventy have it [non-Latin text],
which is to domineer with an high hand,
Matth. 20.

Ver. 31. And the Senary denotes. The Senary or
the number Six has a double reference, the one to
this particular days work, the other to the whole
Creation. For the particular days work, it is the Creation
of sundry sorts of Land Animals, divided into
Male and Female. And the number Six is made up
of Male and Female. For Two into Three is Six.
The conceit is Philo's; and hence the Pythagoreans
called this Number, [non-Latin text], Matrimony, as Clemens
also observes, adding moreover that they did it in reference
to the Creation of the world, set down by
Moses. This number also in the same sort that the
number Five, is a fit Embleme of Procreation. For
Six drawn into Six, makes Thirty Six. The conceit is
Plutarchs in his De Ei apud Delphos, though he speak
it of an inferiour kinde of Generation: But me thinks
it is most proper to Animals. Here is something also
that respects Man, particularly the choicest result
of this Sixt days labour. The number of the brutish
Nature was Five, according to Philo; but here is an

Unite superadded in Man, Reason reaching out to the
knowledge of a God. And this Unite added to the
former Five, makes Six.

But now for the reference that Six bears to the
whole Creation, that the Pythagoreans did conceive
it was significant thereof, appears by the titles they
have given it. For they call it [non-Latin text].
The articulate and compleat efformation
of the Universe, the Anvill, and the World.
I suppose they call it the Anvill from that indefatigable
shaping out of new Forms and Figures upon the
Matter of the Universe, by virtue of the Active Principle
that ever busies it self every where. But how
the Senary should Emblematize the World, you shall
understand thus: The world is self-compleat, filled
and perfected by its own parts; so is the Senarius,
which has no denominated part but a Sixt, Third,
and Second, viz. 1, 2, 3. which put together make
Six, and Euclide defines a perfect Number from this
property, [non-Latin text].
A perfect Number is that which is equall to its
parts. Wherefore this number sets out the perfection
of the world, and you know God in the close of all,
saw that all that he made was very good. Then again
the world is [non-Latin text], Mas & Foemina,
that is, it consists of an active and passive Principle,
the one brought down into the other from the World
of life; And the Senary is made by the drawing of
the first Masculine Number into the first Feminine,
for Three into Two is Six.

Thus you see continuedly, that the property of the
Number sets off the nature of the work of every
day, according to those mysteries that the Pythagoreans
have observed in them; and besides this, that the
Numbers have ordinarily got Names answerable to

each days work; which, as I have often intimated, is
a very high probability, that the Pythagoreans had
a Cabbala referring to Moses his Text, and the History
of the Creation. And Philo, though not in so punctual
a way, has offered at the opening of the minde of
Moses by this Key. But I hope I have made it so
plain, that it will not hereafter be scrupled, but that
this is the genuine way of interpreting the Philosophick
meaning of the Mosaical Text in this first
Chapter of Genesis.

CHAP. II.

IN this second Chapter Moses having spoke of the
Sabbath, returns to a more particular Declaration
of the Creation of Adam, which is referrable to the
Sixt days work. Then he falls upon that mysterious
story of Paradise, which runs out into the next Chapter.

Ver. 3. And the number declares the nature. The
Hebdomad or Septenary is a fit Symbole of God, as
he is considered having finished these six days Creation.
For then, as this Cabbala intimates, he creates
nothing further. And therefore his condition is then
very fitly set out by the number Seven. All numbers
within the Decad, are cast into three ranks, as
Philo observes. [non-Latin text].
Some beget, but are not begotten; others are
begotten, but do not beget; the last both beget, and are
begotten. The number Seven is only excepted, that
is neither begotten, nor begets any number, which is
a perfect Embleme of God celebrating this Sabbath.
For he now creates nothing of anew, as himself is uncreatable.
So that the creating and infusing of souls
as occasion should offer, is quite contrary to this Mosaical
Cabbala. But the Cabbala is very consonant
to it self, which declares that all souls were created
at once in the first day, and will in these following
Chapters declare also the manner of their falling into
the body.

Ver. 4. Productions of the Heavens. The Original
hath it [non-Latin text]. Here the Suns and
Planets are plainly said to be generated by the Heavens,

or Aethereal Matter, which is again wonderfully
consonant to the Cartesian Philosophy, but after
what manner Planets and Stars are thus generated,
you may see there at large. It cannot but be acknowledged;
that there was a faddome-lesse depth of
Wisdome in Moses, whose skill in Philosophy thus
plainly prevents the subtilest and most capacious reaches
of all the wits of the world that ever wrote after
him.

Take upon me to define. That no set time is understood
by the six days Creation, hath been witnessed
already out of approved Authors, and the present
Cabbala plainly confirms it, shewing that the mysterie
of numbers is meant, not the order or succession of
days.

Ver. 6. Like dewy showers of Rain. Vatablus
plainly interprets the place of Rain. But I conceive it
better interpreted of something Analogical to the
common Rain, that now descends upon the Earth,
which is lesse oily a great deal, and not so full of vitall
vigour and principles of life.

Ver. 7. And Man himself rose out of the Earth.
That God should shape earth with his own hands
like a Statuary, into the figure of a Man, and then
blow breath into the nostrils of it, and so make it become
alive, is not likely to be the Philosophick Cabbala,
it being more palpably accommodated to vulgar
concern. But mention of Rain immediately before the
making of Man, may very well insinuate such preparations
of the ground, to have some causal concourse for
his production. And if it be at all credible, that other
living creatures rose out of the Earth in this manner,
it is as likely that man did so likewise; for the same
words are used concerning them both: for the Text
of Moses, ver. 19. sayes, *That out of the ground God

formed every Beast of the Field, and every Fowl of
the Air,* as it sayes in the seventh verse, that he formed
Man of the dust of the ground. Whence Euripides
the Tragedian (one that Socrates lov'd and
respected much for his great knowledge and virtue,
and would of his own accord be a spectator of his
Tragedies, when as they could scarce force him to see
other Playes, as Aelian writes) this Euripides, I
say, pronouncing of the first generation of men, and
the rest of living creatures, affirmed that they were
born all after the same manner, and that they rose out
of the Earth. And that Euripides was tinctured
with the same doctrines that were in Pythagoras, and
Plato's School, both the friendship betwixt him and
Socrates, as also the [non-Latin text] or Moral and Philosophick
sentences in his Tragedies are no inconsiderable
arguments. And as I have already intimated,
the best Philosophick Cabbala of Moses that is, I
suspect to be in their Philosophy, I mean of Plato
and Pythagoras.

Ver. 8. Where he had put the Man. For there is
no Praeterpluperfect Tense in the Hebrew, and therefore
as Vatablus observes, if the sense require, the
Praeterperfect Tense stands for it.

Wholly Aethereal. For that's the pure Heavenly
and undefiled Vehicle of the soul, according to Platonisme.

Beams of the divine Intellect. I have already
more at large shewed how the Son of God or the divine
Intellect is set out by the similitude of the Sunrising,
or East, which I may again here further confirm
out of Philo;
[non-Latin text].
In his [non-Latin text].
So that the placing of Paradise under the Sun-rise,
signifies the condition of a Soul irrigated by the rayes

of the divine Intellect, which she is most capable of
in her Aethereal Vehicle. But that the souls of men
were from the beginning of the world, is the general
opinion of the Learned Jewes, as well as of the Pythagoreans
and Platonists, and therefore a very warrantable
Hypothesis in the Philosophick Cabbala.

Ver. 9. The Essential Will of God. By the Essential
Will of God, is understood the Will of God becoming
Life and Essence to the Soul of Man; whereby
is signified a more thorough union betwixt the divine
and humane nature, such as is in them that are
firmly regenerated and radicated in what is good.
Philo makes the Tree of Life to be [non-Latin text], that is,
Piety or Religion, but the best Religion and Piety is
to be of one will with God: see John 1. 12.

Ver. 10. The Four Cardinal Virtues. It is Philo's
Exposition upon the place; and then the River it self
to be [non-Latin text], That general goodnesse
distinguishable into these four heads of virtue.

Ver. 11. Is Pison. From [non-Latin text] or [non-Latin text] to spread and
diffuse it self, to multiply and abound. This is
Wisdome or Prudence, called Pison, partly because it
diffuses it self into all our actions, and regulates the
exercise of the other Three virtues, and partly because
Wisdome and Truth, fills and encreases, and spreads
out every day more then other. For Truth is very
fruitful, and there are ever new occasions that adde
experience of things.

According to our English Proverb, The older the
wiser.

In the Land of Havilah. From
[non-Latin text]
and
[non-Latin text]
or
[non-Latin text], Deus indicavit, God hath shown it.

Ver. 12. Pure Gold, &c. An easie Embleme of

tried Experience, the mother of true Wisdome and
Prudence. And the virtue of Bdellium is not unproper
for diseases that arise from Phlegmatick lazinesse;
and the very name and nature of the Onyx stone also
points out the signification of it, though there be no
necessity, as I have told you already out of Maimonides,
to give an account in this manner of every
particular passage in an Allegory or Parable. Wherefore
if any man think me too curious, they may omit
these expositions, and let them go for nought.

Ver. 13. River is Gihon. According to the History
or Letter we have made Pison, Phasis, and Gihon
a branch of Euphrates. But the ancient Fathers,
Epiphanius, Augustine, Ambrose, Hieronymus, Theodoret,
Damascen, and several others make Pison,
Ganges, and Gihon, Nilus. And they have no contemptible
arguments for it. For first, Jerem. 2. 18.
Sihor, is a River of Aegypt, which is not questioned
to be any other then Nilus, and its Etymon seems to
bewray the truth of it, from [non-Latin text]
denigrari, from
the muddy blacknesse of the River. And Nilus is
notorious for this quality, and therefore has its denomination
thence in the Greek, quasi
[non-Latin text], acording
to which is that of Dionysius.

That is,

But now to recite the very words of the Prophet,
What hast thou to do with the way of Egypt, to drink
the waters of Sihor? the Latine has it, ut bibas aquam
turbidam. This is Nilu[•], But the Seventy

translate it [non-Latin text], To drink the water of
Gihon; which is the name of this very River of Paradise:
And the Abyssines also even to this day
call Nilus by the name of Guion. Adde unto this,
that Gihon runs in Aethiopia, so does Nilus, and is
Siris, as it runs through Aethiopia, which is from Sihor
it is likely, and then the Greek termination makes
it Sioris, after by contraction Siris.

That is,

The Aethiopian him Siris calls,

Syene, Nilus, when by her he crawls.

As the same Author writes in his Geographical
Poems. And that Pison is Ganges, has also its probabilities.
Ganges being in India a Countrey famous
for Gold and precious Stones. Besides, the
notation of the name agrees with the nature of the River.
Pison being from [non-Latin text]
multiplicare. And there
is no lesse a number then Ten, and those great Rivers
that exonerate themselves into Ganges: as there must
be a conflux of multifarious experience to fill up and
compleat that virtue of Wisdome or Prudence. So
that we shall see that the four Rivers of Paradise have
got such names, as are most advantageous and favourable
to the mysterious sense of the story.

Wherefore regardlesse here of all Geographical
scrupulosities, we will say that Gihon is Nilus or Siris,
the River of the Aethiopians, that is, of the
Just, and the virtue is here determinately set off from
the subject wherein it doth reside: For by the fame of
the Justice and Innocency of the Aethiopians, we
are assured which of the Cardinal Virtues is meant

by Gihon. And the ancient fame of their honesty and
uprightnesse was such, that Homer has made it their
Epithet, calling them [non-Latin text], The
blamelesse Aethiopians; adding further, that Jupiter
used to banquet with them, he being so much taken
with the integrity of their conversation. And Dionysius
calls them [non-Latin text], The divine, or
Deiforme Aethiopians: and they were so styled [non-Latin text],
by reason of their Justice, as Eustathius
comments upon the place. Herodotus also speaking
of them says, they are very goodly men, and much
civilized, and of a very long life, which is the reward
of Righteousnesse. So that by the place where Gihon
runs, it is plainly signified to us, what Cardinal
Virtue is to be understood thereby.

Notation of the name thereof. The name Gihon
as you have seen, fairly incites us to acknowledge it
a River of Aethiopia. The notation thereof does
very sutably agree with the nature of Justice, for it
is from [non-Latin text]
erumpere. And Justice is [non-Latin text],
Bonum alienum, as the Philosopher notes, not
confined within a mans self, but breaks out rather
upon others, bestowing upon every one what is their
due.

Ver. 14. Is Hiddekell. The word is compounded,
says Vatablus, from two words that signifie velox &
rapidum, and this virtue like a swift and rapid
stream, bears down all before it, as you have it in the
Cabbala.

And stoutly resists. Philo uses here the word [non-Latin text],
to resist, which he takes occasion from the
Seventies
[non-Latin text], which he interprets against
the Assyrians. The Hebrew has it, Eastward of
Assyria, and therefore Assyria is situated Westward
of it. Now the West is that quarter of the world

where the Sun bidding us adieu, leaves us to darkness,
whence [non-Latin text], the West wind, in Eustathius, has
its name from [non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text], the wind that blows
from the dark Quarter. Assyria therefore is that
false state of seeming happiness, and power of wickednesse,
which is called the kingdome of darknesse.
And this is the most noble object of Fortitude, to destroy
the power of this kingdome within our selves.

Perath. From
[non-Latin text] Fructificavit.

Ver. 17. In processe of time, &c. This is according
to the minde of the Pythagoreans and Origen.
And that Pythagoras had the favour of having the
Mosaical Cabbala communicated to him by some
knowing Priest of the Jewes, or some holy man or
other, I think I have continuedly in the former Chapter
made it exceeding probable.

The Region of mortality and death. Nothing is
more frequent with the Platonists, then the calling
of the body a Sepulchre, and this life we live here
upon Earth, either sleep or death. Which expressions
are so sutable with this Cabbala, and the Cabbala
with the Text of Moses, that mentions the death and
sleep of Adam, that it is a shrewd presumption that
these Phrases and Notions came first from thence.
And Philo acknowledges that Heraclitus, that mysterious
and abstruse Philosopher, (whom Porphyrius
also has cited to the same purpose, in his De antro
Nympharum) has even hit upon the very meaning
that Moses intends in this death of Adam, in that
famous saying of his, [non-Latin text].
We live their death, (to wit,
of the souls out of the body) but we are dead to their
life. And Euripides that friend of Socrates, and fellow-traveller
of Plato's, in his Tragedies speaks much
to the same purpose.

[non-Latin text],

[non-Latin text];

Who knows whether to live, be not to die, and to
die, to live? So that the Philosophick sense concerning
Adams death, must be this, that he shall be dead
to the Aethereal life he lived before, while he is restrained
to the Terrestrial, and that when as he might
have lived for ever in the Aethereal Life, he shall
in a shorter time assuredly die to the Terrestrial: That
the sons of men cannot escape either the certainty or
speed of death.

Ver. 18. Both good for himself, &c. For the words
of the Text doe not confine it to Adams conveniency
alone, but speaks at large without any restraint, in
this present verse. Wherefore there being a double
convenience, it was more explicite to mention both
in the Cabbala.

Ver. 19. Fallen and unfallen Angels. The fallen
Angels are here assimilated to the Beasts of the Field,
the unfallen to the Fowls of the Air. How fitly the
fallen Spirits are reckoned amongst the Beasts of the
Field, you shall understand more fully in the following
Chapter. In the mean time you may take notice
that the Platonists, indeed Plato himself, in his
Phaedrus, makes the Soul of Man before it falls into
this Terrestrial Region, a winged Creature. And that
such phrases as these, [non-Latin text], and [non-Latin text],
and [non-Latin text], and the
like, are proper expressions of that School. And Plato
does very plainly define what he means by these
wings of the soul, (and there is the same reason of
all other spirits whatsoever) after this manner, [non-Latin text].
*That the nature of the wing

of the soul is such, as to be able to carry upward, that
which otherwise would slugge downwards, and to bear
it aloft and place it there, where we may have more
sensible communion with God, and his holy Angels.*
For so [non-Latin text] in the plural number, is most sutably translated
in such passages as these, and most congruously
to the thing it self, and the truth of Christianity. And
it may well seem the lesse strange, that [non-Latin text] should
signifie Angels in the Greek Philosophers, especially
such as have been acquainted with Moses, when as
with him [non-Latin text] signifies so too, viz. Angels as
well as God. Wherefore to conclude, the losse of
that Principle that keeps us in this divine condition,
is the losing of our wings, which fallen Angels have
done, and therefore they may be very well assimilated
to Terrestrial Beasts.

Ver. 20. A faculty of being united, &c. This
vital aptitude in the soul of being united with corporeal
Matter, being so essential to her and proper, the
invigorating the exercise of that faculty, cannot but
be very grateful and acceptable to her, and a very
considerable share of her happinesse. Else what
means the Resurrection of the dead, or Bodies in the
other world? which yet is an Article of the Christian
Faith.

Ver. 22. This new sense of his Vehicle. There
be three Principles in Man according to the Platonists,
[non-Latin text]. The first is Intellect,
Spirit, or divine Light; the second the Soul her
self, which is Adam the Man, Animus cujusque is
est quisque, the Soul of every man that is the Man;
the third is the image of the Soul, which is her vital
Energie upon the Body, wherewith she does enliven
it, and if that life be in good tune, and due vigour,
it is a very grateful sense to the soul, whether in

this Body, or in a more thin Vehicle. This Ficinus
makes our Eve. This is the Feminine Faculty in the
Soul of Man, which awakes then easiliest into act,
when the Soul to Intellectuals falls asleep.

Ver. 24. Over-tedious aspires.
[non-Latin text],
is a solemn monition of Aristotle
somewhere in his Ethicks. And it is a great point of
wisdome indeed, and mainly necessary, to know the
true laws and bounds of humane happinesse, that the
heat of melancholy drive not men up beyond what
is competible to humane nature, and the reach of all
the faculties thereof: Nor the too savoury relish of
the pleasures of the flesh, or Animal Life, keep them
down many thousand degrees below what they are
capable of. But the man that truly fears God, will
be delivered from them both. What I have spoken
is directed more properly to the soul in the flesh, but
may Analogically be understood of a soul in any Vehicle,
for they are peccable in them all.

Ver. 25. Stood naked before God. Adam was as
truly clothed in Corporeity now as ever after; for
the Aether is as true a body as the Earth: But the
meaning is, Adam had a sense of the divine Presence,
very feelingly assured in his own minde, that his whole
Beeing lay naked and bare before God, and that nothing
could be hid from his sight, which pierced also to
the very thoughts, and inward frame of his spirit. But
yet though Adam stood thus naked before him, notwithstanding
he found no want of any covering to
hide himself from that presentifick sense of him, nor
indeed felt himself as naked in that notion of nakednesse.
For that sense of nakednesse, and want of
further covering and sheltring from the divine Presence,
arose from his disobedience and rebellion against
the commands of God, which as yet he had not faln
into.

Not at all ashamed. Shame is, [non-Latin text],
the fear of just reprehension as Gellius out of the
Philosophers defines it. But Adam having not acted
any thing yet at randome, after the swing of his
own will, he had done nothing that the divine Light
would reprehend him for. He had not yet become obnoxious
to any sentence from his own condemning
Conscience; for he kept himself hitherto within the
bounds of that divine Law written in his soul, and had
attempted nothing against the Will of God. So that
there being no sin, there could not as yet be any shame
in Adam.

CHAP. III.

THE first verse. This old Serpent therefore. In
Pherecydes Syrus, Pythagoras his Master, there is
mention of one [non-Latin text], Princeps mali, as Grotius
cites him on this place, which is a further argument
of Pythagoras his being acquainted with this Mosaical
Philosophy. And that according to the Philosophick
Cabbala, it was an evil spirit, not a natural
Serpent, that supplanted Adam, and brought such
mischief upon mankind.

The Beasts of the Field. But now that these evil
spirits should be reckoned as beasts of the field, besides
what reason is given in the Cabbala it self, we
may adde further, that the haunt of these unclean spirits
is in solitudes, and waste fields, and desolate
places, as is evident in the Prophet Esay his description
of the desolation of Babylon, where he saith it
shall be a place for the [non-Latin text], and [non-Latin text], the Fauni
and Sylvani, as Castellis translates it, or [non-Latin text],
and [non-Latin text], as the Seventy: And these Onocentauri
in Hesychius are [non-Latin text].
A kinde of spirit that frequents
the woods, and is of a dark colour. There is mention
made also by the Prophet (in the same description)
of the [non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text] and of [non-Latin text], all which
Expositors interpret of Spirits. For [non-Latin text] are interpreted
by the Seventy
[non-Latin text], by Castellio Satyri,
[non-Latin text]
Castellio renders Fauni, the Seventy
[non-Latin text]

Clamores, Strepitus, Grotius suspects they wrote [non-Latin text].
Out of both you may guesse, that they were such a
kinde of spirit, as causes a noise and a stir in those desolate
places, according to that of Lucretius:

To this sense:

But the Poet puts it off with this conceit, that it is
only the Shepheards that are merry with their Lasses.
But no man can glosse upon this Text after that manner:
For the Prophet says, No shepheard shall
pitch his fold there, nor shall any man passe through
it for ever. The last strange creature in these direful
solitudes, is [non-Latin text], which Interpreters ordinarily
translate Lamia, a Witch; and for mine own part, I
give so much credit to sundry stories, that I have read
and heard, that I should rather interpret those noises
in the Night, which Luoretius speaks of, to be
the Conventicles of Witches and Devils then the
merriment of Shepheards and their Shepheardesses. But
the Jewes understand by [non-Latin text] a she devil, an enemy
to women in childe-bed; whence it is, that they
write on the walls of the room where the woman lies
in, [non-Latin text] Adam, Eve, out of doors
Lilith.

And what I have alledged already, I conceive is

authority enough to countenance the sense of the
Cabbala, that supposes evil spirits to be reckoned among,
or to be Analogical to the beasts of the field.
But something may be added yet further, Matth. 12.
43. There our Saviour Christ plainly allows of this
doctrine, that evil spirits have their haunts in the
wide fields and deserts, which Grotius observes to
be the opinion of the Jewes, and that [non-Latin text], Daemones,
have their name for that reason, from [non-Latin text]
Ager
the Field; for if it were from [non-Latin text], it would be rather
[non-Latin text] then [non-Latin text], Shiddim, then Shedhim, as
Grammatical Analogy requires.

Ver. 2. And Adam answered him. Though the
Serpent here be look'd upon as a distant person from
Adam, and externally accosting him, yet it is not at
all incongruous to make Eve meerly an Internal
Faculty of him. For as she is said to proceed fromhim,
so she is said still to be one with him, which is wonderfully
agreeable with the faculties of the soul; for
though they be from the soul, yet they are really one
with her, as they that understand any thing in Philosophy
will easily admit.

Ver. 5. Know all things.
[non-Latin text].
All men have a natural desire of
knowledge. It is an Aphorisme in Aristotle; and
this desire is most strong in those, whose spirits are
most thin and subtile. And therefore this bait could
not but be much taking with Adam in his thinner Vehicle.
But what ever is natural to the soul, unlesse it
be regulated and bounded with the divine Light, will
prove her mischief and bane, whether in this lower
state, or in what state soever the soul is placed in.

Ver. 7. Neither the covering of the heavenly nature.
For Adam by the indulging to every carelesse
suggestion, at last destroyed and spoiled the pure frame

of his Aethereal or Heavenly Vehicle, and wrought
himself into a dislike of the sordid ruines and distempered
reliques of it, and in some measure awakening
that lower Plantal life, which yet had not come
near enough the Terrestrial matter, and with which
he was as yet unclothed, found himself naked of
what he presaged would very fitly sute with him, and
ease the trouble of his present condition: See 2 Cor.
ch. 5. v. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Ver. 8. That they hid themselves. They hate the
Light, because their deeds are evil. This is true of
all rebellious spirits, be they in what Vehicle they
will.

Ver. 9. Pursued him. Praestantiorem Animae
facultatem esse ducem hominis atque Daemonem. It
is Ficinus his out of Timaeus, viz. That the best
faculty that the soul is any thing awaked to, is her
guide and good Genius. But if we be rebellious to
it, it is our Daemon in the worse sense, and we are afraid
of it, and cannot endure the sight of it.

Ver. 10. No power nor ornaments. For he found
that though he could spoil and disorder his Vehicle,
it was not in his power so easily to bring it in order again.

Ver. 12. It was the vigour and impetuosity. There
is some kinde of offer towards a reall excuse in Adam,
but it is manifest that he cannot clear himself from sin,
because it was in his power to have regulated the motions
of the Life of his Vehicle, according to the rule
of the divine Light in him.

Ver. 13. What work has she made here. Adam touched
in some sort with the conviction of the divine Light, bemoans
that sad Catastrophe, which the vigorous life of
the Vehicle had occasioned; But then he again excuses
himself from the deceivablenesse of that facultie, especially

it being wrought upon, by so cunning and
powerful an Assailant as the old Serpent the Devil.

Imagination for ever. That is,
[non-Latin text].

The Eternal God. It being a thing acknowledged,
that God both speaks in a man, as in other intellectual
creatures, by his divine Light residing there,
and that he also speaks in himself, concerning things
or persons; which speeches are nothing else but his
decrees: It is not at all harsh, in the reading of
Moses, to understand the speakings of God, according
as the circumstances of the Matter naturally imply,
nor to bring God in as a third Person, in corporeal
and visible shape, unlesse there were an exigency
that did extort it from us. For his inward word,
whereby he either creates or decrees any thing that
shall come to passe, as also that divine Light whereby
he does instruct those souls that receive him, Philosophy
will easilier admit of these for the speakings
of God, then any audible articulate voice pronounced
by him in humane shape, unlesse it were by Christ
himself, for otherwise in all likelihood it is but a
message by some Angel.

Ver. 14. The Prince of the rebellious Angels. For
the mighty shall be mightily tormented; and the nature
of the thing also implies it, because disgrace, adversity,
and being trampled on, is far more painful and
vexatious to those that have been in great place, then
to those of a more inferiour rank. From whence naturally
this Chieftain of the Devils, as Mr. Mede calls
him, will be struck more deeply with the curse, then
any of the rest of his Accomplices.

In the higher parts of the Air, &c. This is very
consonant to the opinion of the ancient Fathers, whether

you understand it of Satan himself, or of the
whole kingdome of those rebellious spirits. And it
is no more absurd, that for a time the bad went amongst
the good in the Aethereal Region, then it is
now that there are good spirits amongst the bad in this
lower Air. But after that villany Satan committed
upon Adam, he was commanded down lower, and
the fear of the Lord of Hosts so changed his Vehicle,
and slaked his fire, that he sunk towards the Earth,
and at last was fain to lick the dust of the ground, see
Mr. Mede in his Discourse upon 2 Pet. 2. 4.

Ver. 15. Messias should take a Body. That the
Soul of the Messias and all souls else did pre-exist, is
the opinion of the Jewes, and that admitted, there is
no difficulty in the Cabbala. Plato, whether from
this passage alone, or whether it was that he was instructed
out of other places also of the holy Writ, (if
what Ficinus writes is true) seems to have had some
knowledge and presage of the coming of Christ, in that
being asked, how long men should attend to his writings;
he answered, till some more holy and divine
Person appear in the world, whom all should follow.

Notoriously here upon Earth. As it came to passe
in his casting out Devils, and silencing Oracles, or
making them cry out.

Christ bruises the head of Satan by destroying his
kingdome and soveraignty, and by being so highly exalted
above all Powers whatsoever. And it is a very
great and precious mysterie; That dear Compassion
of our fellow-creatures, and faithful and fast Obedience
to the will of God, (which were so eminently
and transcendently in Christ) should be lifted above

all Power and Knowledge whatsoever, in those higher
Orders of Angels. For none of them that were, as
they should be, would take offence at it, but be glad
of it. But those that were proud, or valued Power
and Knowledge before Goodnesse and Obedience, it
was but a just affront to them, and a fit rebuke of
their Pride.

But now how does Satan bruise the heel of Christ?
Thus: He falls upon the rear, the lowest part of those
that professe Christianity, Hypocrites, and ignorant
souls, such as he often makes witches of; but the
Church Triumphant is secure, and the sincere part of
the Church Militant. So Mr. Mede upon the place.

Ver. 16. The Concomitance of Pain and Sorrow.
And it is the common complaint of all Mortals,
that they that speed the best, have the experience
of a vicissitude of sorrow as well as joy. And
the very frame of our bodies as well as the accidents of
Fortune, are such, that to indulge to pleasure, is but
to lay the seed of sorrow or sadnesse by Diseases, Satiety,
or Melancholy Besides many spinosities and
cutting passages that often happen unawares in the
conversation of those from whom we expect the greatest
solace and contents. To say nothing of the assaults
of a mans own minde, and pricking of Conscience,
which ordinarily disturb those that follow after
the pleasures of the body. Lucretius, though an Atheist,
will fully witnesse to the truth of all this in his
fourth book, De rerum Naturâ, where you may
read upon this subject at large.

Ver. 18. Thorns and Thistles. Moses instances in
one kinde of life, Husbandry, but there is the same
reason in all.

Ver 20. Euripides the friend of Socrates, and a
favourer of the Pythagorean Philosophy, writes
somewhere in his Tragedies, as I have already told
you, to this sense; Who knows, says he, whether to
live, be to die; and whether again, to die, be not to
live? Which question is very agreeable to this
present Cabbala: for Adam is here as it were dying
to that better world and condition of life he was in,
and like as one here upon Earth on his death-bed,
prophec[•]es many times, and professes what he presages
concerning his own state to come, that he shall
be with God, that he shall be in Heaven amongst the
holy Angels, and the Saints departed, and the like:
So Adam here utters his Apologetical Prophecie, that
this change of his, and departure from this present
state, though it may prove ill enough for himself, yet
it has its use and convenience, and that it is better for
the Universe; for he shall live upon Earth, and
be a Ruler there amongst the Terrestrial creatures,
and help to order and govern that part of the world.

The Life of his Vehicle Eve. For Eve signifies
Life, that life which the soul derives to what Vehicle
or Body soever she actuates and possesses.

Ver. 21. Skin of Beasts. This Origen understands
of Adams being incorporated and clothed with humane
flesh and skin. Ridiculum enim est dicere, saith
he, quòd Deus fuerit Adami coriarius & pellium
sutor. And no man will much wonder at the confidence
of this Pious and Learned Father, if he do but
consider, that the pre-existency of souls before they
come into the body, is generally held by all the Learned
of the Jews, and so in all likelihood was a part

of this Philosophick Cabbala. And how fitly things
fall in together, and agree with the very Text of Moses,
let any man judge.

Ver. 22. But play and sport. This I conceive a
far better Decorum, then to make God sarcastically
to jeer at Adam, and triumph over him in so great
and universal a mischief, as some make it; and destitute
of any concomitant convenience; Especially
there being a Principle in Adam, that was so easily
deceivable, which surely has something of the nature
of an excuse in it. But to jeer at a man that through
his own weakness, & the over-reaching subtilty of his
adversary, has fallen into some dreadful and tragical
evil and misery, is a thing so far from becoming God,
that it utterly misbeseems any good man.

Ver. 24. He made sure he should not be immortal.
For it is our advantage, as Rupertus upon the place
hath observed out of Plotinus. Misericordiae Dei
fuisse, quòd hominem ficerit mortalem, nè perpetuis
cruciaretur hujus vitae aerumnis. That it is the
mercy of God that he made man mortal, that he might
not always be tormented with the miseries and sorrows
of this present life.

Passing through his fiery Vehicle. The following
words explain the meaning of the Cabbala; it is according
to the sense of that Plato amongst the Poets,
(as Severus called him) Virgil, in the sixt Book of
his Aeneids:

To this sense:

Which we shall yet back very fittingly with the two
last Golden Verses, as they are called of the Pythagoreans,
who adde immortality to this Aethereal condition:

The Greek has it, you shall be an Immortal God
which Hierocles interprets, you shall imitate the Deity
in this, in becoming immortal. And Plutarch in his
Defect of Oracles, drives on this Apotheosis, according
to the order of the Elements, Earth refined to Water,
Water to Air, Air to Fire: So man to become
of a Terrestrial Animal one of the Heroes, of an
Heros a Daemon, or good Genius, of a Genius a
God, which he calls [non-Latin text], to partake of
Divinity, which is no more then to become one of
the [non-Latin text], or Immortal Angels, who are instar
flammae, as Maimonides writes, they are according
to their Vehicles, a versatile fire, turning themselves
Proteus-like into any shape. They are the very words
of the forenamed Rabbi upon the place.

And Philo Judaeus, pag. 234. [non-Latin text].
For there is, saith he,
in the Air, a most holy company of unbodied Souls;
and presently he adjoins, [non-Latin text],
and these Souls
the holy Writ uses to call Angels. And in another place
pag. 398. he speaking of the more pure Souls, calls
them, [non-Latin text]

[non-Latin text], i. e. The
Officers of the Generalissimo of the World, that are as
the Eyes and Ears of the great King, seeing and hearing
all things; and then he addes, [non-Latin text].
These, other Philosophers call the Genii, but the
Scripture Angels. And in another place he says, That
[non-Latin text], that a Soul, Genius, and Angel,
are three words that signifie both one and the
same thing. As Xenocrates also made [non-Latin text] and [non-Latin text]
all one, adding that he was [non-Latin text], happy, that
had [non-Latin text], a virtuous Soul. Wherefore
not to weary my Reader, nor my self with overmuch
Philogy, we conclude, that the meaning of
Moses in this last verse, is this: That Adam is here
condemned to a mortal, flitting, and impermanent
state, till he reach his Aethereal or pure fiery Vehicle,
and become, as our Saviour Christ speaks, [non-Latin text],
as one of the Angels. This, I say, is the condition
of mankinde, according to the Philosophick Cabbala
of Moses.

Let us now take a general view of this whole Cabbala,
and more summarily consider the strength
thereof; which we may refer to these two heads, viz.
the nature of the Truths herein contained, and the
dignity of those persons that have owned them in foregoing
Ages. And as for the Truths themselves, first,
they are such as may well become so holy and worthy
a person as Moses, if he would Philosophize; they
being very precious and choice Truths, and very highly
removed above the conceit of the vulgar, and so
the more likely to have been delivered to him, or to
Adam first by God for a special mysterie.

Secondly, they are such, that the more they are examined,
the more irrefutable they will be found, no

Hypothesis that was ever yet propounded to men, so
exquisitely well agreeing with the Phaenomena of Nature,
the Attributes of God, the Passages of Providence,
and the rational Faculties of our own minds.

Thirdly, there is a continued sutablenesse and applicability
to the Text of Moses all along, without
any force or violence done to Grammar or Criticisme.

Fourthly and lastly, there is a great usefulnesse, if
not necessity, at least of some of them, they being such
substantial Props of Religion, and so great encouragements,
to a sedulous purification of our mindes, and study
of true piety.

Now for the dignity of the persons, such as were
Pythagoras, Plato, and Plotinus, it will be argued
from the constant fame of that high degree of virtue
and righteousnesse, and devout love of the Deity that
is every where acknowledged in them, besides whatsoever
miraculous has happened to them, or been performed
by them.

And as for Pythagoras, if you consult his life in
Iamblichus, he was held in so great admiration by
those in his time, that he was thought by some to be
the son of Apollo, whom he begot of Parthenis his
known mother; and of this opinion was Epimenides,
Eudoxus, and Xenocrates, which conceit Iamblichus
does soberly and earnestly reject, but afterwards
acknowledges, that his looks and speeches did
so wonderfully carry away the minds of all that conversed
with him, that they could not withhold from
affirming, that he was [non-Latin text], the off-spring of God.
Which is not to be taken in our strict Theological
sense, but according to the mode of the ancient
Greeks, who looked upon men heroically, and eminently
good and virtuous, to be divine souls, and of

a celestial extract. And Aristotle takes notice particularly
of the Lacedemonians, that they tearmed
such as were [non-Latin text], very good,
[non-Latin text]
i. e. [non-Latin text], divine men. According to which
sense, he interprets that verse in Homer concerning
Hector.