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118 u chapter 12 u The Light of Reason Is a Diminutive Light [104] This Candle of the Lord, ’tis Lumen tenue & diminutum [a feeble and diminished light]. A Lamp is no such dazling object. A Candle has no such goodly light, as that it should pride and glory in it. ’Tis but a brief and compendious flame, shut up, and imprison’d in a narrow compasse. How farre distant is it from the beauty of a Starre? How farre from the brightnesse of a Sun? This Candle of the Lord when it was first lighted up, before there was any thief in it, even then it had but a limited and restrained light. God said unto it, Thus farre shall thy Light go. Hither shalt thou shine, and no farther.1 Adam in innocency was not to crown himself with his own sparks. God never intended that a creature should rest satisfied with its own candle-light, but that it should run to the fountain of light, and sunne it self in the presence of its God. What a poor happinesse had it been for a man, only to have enjoyed his own Lamp? Could this ever have been a beatifical vision? Could this light ever have made a heaven fit for a soul to dwell in? The sparkling Seraphims and glittering Cherubims (if it were possible that the face of God should be eclipsed from them, that they should have no light, but that which shines from their own essences) Blacknesse, and darknesse, and gloominesse, a totall and fatal Eclipse, a present and perpetual night would rush in upon them, if the heaven were fuller of Stars then it is, and if this lower part of the world were adorned and illuminated with as many Lamps as ’tis capable of, yet would they never be able to supply the absence of one Sun. Their united light would not amount to so much as to make up one day, or one moment of a day. Let Angels and men contribute as much light as they can, let them knit the light of reason is a diminutive light 119 and concentricate their beams; yet neither Angelical Star-light, nor the sons of men with their Lamps and Torches could ever make up the least shadow of glory, the least appearance of heaven: the least fringe of happinesse . Lucifer that needs would be an Independent light that would shine with his own beams, you know that he presently sunk and fell into perpetual darknesse.2 And Adams Candle aspiring to be a Sun, has burnt the dimmer ever since. God taking notice of it, and spying him in the dust; Lo (saies he) here lies the spark, that would needs become a God. There lies the glow-worm that would needs become a Sun. Man is become like one of us,3 yet notwithstanding Adams light at first was a pure light, till he had soild it, ’twas a Virgin-light till he had deflower’d it. The breath [105] that God breath’d into him was very precious and fragrant, till he had corrupted it. jmçn µda [the understanding of a man] the spirit of Adam (if we should render the words so) ’twas in a special manner jwjy dn Lucerna Domini4 [the candle of the Lord], when God raised this goodly structure of man out of nothing, he built it most compleatly and proportionably; he left it in statu integro & perfecto5 [in an integral and perfect state], for you cannot imagine that any obliquity, or irregularity should come from so accurate an hand as his was; when God printed the whole creation, there were no errata to be found, no blots at all. Every letter was faire and lovely, though some first and capital letters were flourisht more artificially then others; Other inferiour creatures would serve like so many consonants, but men were the vowels, or rather the diphthongs to praise him both in soul and body. When God first tun’d the whole creation, every string, every creature praised him; but man was the sweetest and loudest of the rest, so that when that string apostatized, and fell from its first tuning, it set the whole creation a jarring. When God first planted the soul of man, it was the garden of God himself, his spiritual Eden, he lov’d to walk in it; ’twas full of the fairest and choicest flowers, of the most precious and...

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