Book I«-

Alas ! too late, indeed they underftood, by the unwonted novelty and (hamefulnefs of their eoncupifcence, why God had fo lovingly forbade the eating of the apple. Indeed, the truth being agreeable unto itfelf, doth atteft the filthinefs of impure Adamical generation ; for the impurity which had received a contagion from any natural ilfues whatfoever of menflrues or feed,
1 and that by its touching alone is reckoned equal to that which fhould by de- grees creep on a perfon from a co-touching of dead carcafes, and to be expiated by the fame ceremonious rite that the text might agreeably denote, that death began by the eoncupifcence of the flelh lying hid in the fruit forbidden ; there- fore, alfo, the one only healing medicine, of fo great an impurity contracted by touching, confifted in wafhing : under the fimilitude or likenefs thereof, faith and hope, which in baptifm are poured on us, are ftrengthened.
For as foon as Adam knew that by fratricide the firft born of mortals., whom he had begotten in the eoncupifcence of the flelh, had killed his brother, guiltlefs and righteous as he was ; and forefeeing the wicked errors of mortals that would come from thence, he likewife perceived his own miferies in himfelf ; certainly knowing that all thefe calamities had happened unto him from the fin of eoncupifcence drawn from the apple, which were unavoidably llfuing on his pofterity, he thought within himfelf that the moll difereet thing he could do, was hereafter wholly to abflain from his wife, whom he had violated ; and therefore he mourned, in chaftity and forrow, a full hundred years •, hoping that by the merit of that abftinence, and by an oppofition to the eoncupifcence of the flelh, he Ihould not only appeafe the wrath of the incenfed Deity, but that he Ihould again return into the former fplendour and majelty of his primitive innocence and purity . But the repentance of one age being finilhed, it is moll probable the myftery of Chrilt’s incarnation was revealed unto him ; neither that man ever could hope to return to the bright- nefs of his ancient purity by his own ftrength, and much lefs that himfelf could reprieve his pofterity from death •, and that, therefore, marriage was well pleafing, and was after the fall indulged unto him by God becaufe he had determined thus to fatisfy his juftice at the fulnefs of times, which Ihould,
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Chap. I. NATURAL MAGIC. 19
to the glory of his own tiame, and the confufion of Satan, elevate mankind to a more fublime and eminent ft ate of bleffednefs.
From that time Adam began to know his wife, viz. after he was an hundred years old, and to fill the earth, by multiplying according to the blefiing once given him, and the law enjoined him — “ Be fruitful and multiply.” — Yet fo, neverthelefs, that although matrimony, by reafon of the great want of propa- gation, and otherwife impofiible courfary fucceflion of the primitive divine generation, be admitted as a facrament of the faithful.
If, therefore, both our firft parents, after the eating of the apple, were alhamed, they covered only their privy parts ; therefore that fhame doth pre- fuppofe, and accufe of fometbing committed againft juftice — againft the in- tent of the Creator — and againft their own proper nature : by confequence, therefore, that Adamical generation was not of the primitive conftitution of their nature, as neither of the original intent of the Creator ; therefore, when God foretels that the earth fhall bring forth thiftles and thorns, and that man fhall gain his bread by the fweat of his brow, they were not execrations, but admonitions, that thofe fort of things fhould be obvious in the earth : and, becaufe that beafts Ihould bring forth in pain — thould plow in fweat — fhould eat their food with labour and fear, that the earth fhould likewife bring forth very many things befides the intention of the hufbandman ; therefore, alfo, that they ought to be nourifhed like unto brute beafts, who had begun to generate after the manner of brute beafts.
It is likewife told Eve, after her tranfgreflion, that fhe fhould bring forth in jpain. Therefore, what hath the pain of bringing forth common with the eat- ing of the apple, unlefs the apple had operated about the concupifcence of the flefh, and by confequence ftirred up copulation ; and the Creator had intended to diffuade it, by dehorting from the eating of the apple. For, why are the genital members of women punifhed with pains at child-birth, if the eye in feeing the apple, the hands in cropping it, and the mouth in eating of it, have offended ? for was it not fufficient to have chaftifed the life with death, and the health with very many difeafes ?— Moreover, why is the womb affliaed, as in
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brutes, with the manner of bringing- forth, if the conception granted to beafls were not forbidden to man ?
After their fall, therefore, their eyes -were opened, and they were ajhamed ; it denotes and fignifies that, from the lilthinefs of concupifcence, they knew that the copulation of the fiefh was forbidden in the moft pure innocent chaf- tity of nature ; and that they were overfpread with fhame, when, their eyes being opened, their underflandings faw that they had committed filthinefs moll deteltable.
But on the ferpent and evil fpirit alone was the top and fummit of the whole curfe, even as the privilege of the woman, and the myllerious prerogative of the blelfing upon the earth, viz. That the woman’s feed Ihould bruife the head of the ferpent. So that it is not poffible that to bring forth in pain fhould be a curfe ; for truly with the fame voice of the Lord is pronounced the blefling of the woman, and victory over the infernal fpirit.
Therefore Adam was created in the polfeffion of immortality. God intend- ed not that man Ihould be an animal or fenjitive creature, nor be born, con- ceived, or live as an animal ; for of truth he was created unto a living foul , and that after the true image of God ; therefore he as far differed from the nature of an animal, as an immortal being from a mortal, and as a God-like creature from a brute.
I am forry that our fchool-men, many of them, wifh, by their arguments of noife and pride, to draw man into a total animal nature, (nothing more) drawing (by their logic) the effence of a man elfentially from an animal nature : becaufe, although man afterwards procured death to himfelf and pos- terity, and therefore may feem to be made nearer the nature of animal crea- tures, yet it flood not in his power to be able to pervert tl^e fpecies of the divine image : even fo as neither was the evil fpirit, of a fpirit, made an ani- mal, although he became nearer unto the nature of an animal, by hatred and brutal vices. Therefore man remained in his own fpecies wherein he was created ; for as often as man is called an animal , or fenfitive living creature, and is in earnefl thought to be fuch, fo many times the text is falfified which fays, But the ferpent was more crafty than all the living creatures of the
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Chap. I. NATURAL MAGIC.
earth, which the Lord God had made becaufe he fpeaks of the natural craft and fubtilty of that living and creeping animal. Again, if the pofition be true, man was not directed into the propagation of feed or flefh , neither did he afpire unto a fenfitive foul ; and therefore the fenfible foul of Adamical generation is not of a brutal fpecies, becaufe it was raifed up by a feed which wanted the original ordination and limitation of any fpecies ; and fo that, as the fenfitive foul in man arofe, befides the intent of the Creator and Nature ; fo it is of no brutal fpecies, neither can it fubfift, unlefs it be continually tied to the mind , from whence it is fupported in its life.
Wherefore, while man is of no brutal fpecies, he cannot be an animal in refpe6t to his mind, and much lefs in refpe£t to his foul, which is of no fpecies.
Therefore know, that neither evil fpirit, nor whole nature alfo, can, by any means or any way whatever, change the eifence given unto man from his Creator, and by his foreknowledge determined that he fhould Temain con- tinually fuch as he was created, although he, in the mean time, hath clothed himfelf with ftrange properties, as natural unto him from the vice of his own will ; for as it is an abfurdity to reckon man glorified among animals, becaufe he is not without fenfe or feeling, fo to be fenfitive does not fhew the insepa- rable eifence of an animal.
Seeing, therefore, our firft parents had both of them now felt the effect throughout their whole bodies of the eating of the apple, or concupifcence of the flefh in their members in Paradife, it fhamed them ; becaufe their mem- bers, which, before, they could rule at their pleafure, were afterwards moved by a propet incentive to lull.
Therefore, on the fame day, not only mortality entered through con- cupifcence, but it prefently after entered into a conceived generation ; for which they were, the fame day, alfo driven out of Paradife : hence followed an adulterous, lafcivious, beaft-like, devilifh generation, and plainly incapable of entering into the kingdom of God, diametrically oppofite to God’s ordina- tion •, by which means death, and the threatened punifhment, corruption , be- came infeparable to man and his pofterity.
Therefore,
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