That must either be God, ourselves, or some other creature. The last I think none will plead; if they will, let them shew who it is. If it be God, it must be by a positive act of conservation; for it is inconceivable how it can be otherwise, and therefore they refuse an immediate hand of God in our conservation. Now, it cannot be ourselves; for we neither do, nor can conserve ourselves. Which I prove thus. 1. Nothing can give what it has not; we have not our being next moment: Ergo, &c. EXCEPTION. Our being is still the same in all moments. ANSWER. No otherwise than the water of Ettrick is the same it was this morning. Those things which may be separated are not the same; but my being in the moment A, may be separated from my being in the moment C, being annihilated in B, and created again in C. Now, there is the same reason of all. My being this moment is necessary; for quicquid est quando est, necessario est: my being next moment is not necessary, for I may be annihilated; Ergo, they are not the same. And truly, if I may now look again to Scripture, I do not see how this opinion leaves the name I AM to God alone. 2. We find often we cannot conserve a thought, how can we then conserve our own being, which is more? 3. What man is conscious to himself of his act of conservation of himself? As for the conservation of ourselves by meat, drink, &c. the question is not anent that; these keep us not in being, but in wellbeing; for if we should destroy ourselves in a vulgar sense, yet we should still be something, till annihilated by the hand that made us. Nay, even by all these things we cannot conserve those particles whereof our bodies are just now compounded, but use them as constant badges of a perpetual flux. But how can a man conceive his conserving of his soul? It is inconceivable. Surely they that are in hell do not believe they conserve themselves, that would every moment creep back into the womb of nothing, if the hand of Omnipotency keeping them in being would desert them. 4. I ask, what way this self-conserving power is conserved? If God by a continued act conserve the same, they are in the same mire where they allege we are, putting God's work in meaner circumstances than man's. And why may they not rather allow the conservation to reach us immediately? Frustra fit per plura, quod æque commode fieri potest per pauciora. If he does not by a continued act conserve it, there must be another power for conserving it, and another for that, and so in infinitum; which is absurd.

ARGUMENT III. Angels and souls may be destroyed, and we can conceive but two ways of it; either by creating something wherewith they cannot co-exist, and we know nothing wherewith angels cannot co-exist, they being incapable of dissolution as bodies are; or

by withdrawing of the supporting power. is a positive act and continued creation.

If so, then conservation

ARGUMENT IV. ult. From that opinion, it would follow, that one creature depends more on another than on God; as light on the sun, plants on the sun and earth, &c.; for they need continual conservation from their particular causes. But that one creature depends more on another than on God, is absurd. xxxiv. 14, 15.

See, for the whole, Job

OF THE ORIGIN, NAMES, TEXTURE, AND USE OF GARMENTS.

THE first garments were made of the leaves of the fig-tree, which is said to be of those trees that have the broadest leaves; of these our first parents made haghoroth, aprons, things wherewith they girded themselves about, Gen. iii. 7. The text says, they "sewed them together." I observe late writers vary from this translation, and will have it, that they fastened or twisted the tender twigs of the fig-tree with the leaves on them, about their waist; which seems to be taken up to satisfy our Atheists, because forsooth they had not then needle and thread. But they answered as well, who alleged they used other things instead of these. And why might they not sew the leaves together, though they had neither needle nor thread, while they had thorn prickles* to serve instead of needles, yea or nails on their fingers; and rinds of trees, &c. instead of thread? Besides, it would seem no easy girdle or apron that were made of twigs, though the leaves were on them; nor very fit to cover nakedness at all times, unless the leaves had been sewed together. If it was so, I should observe, God's calling them to an account Lebruahh Hajom, "in the wind of the day," ver. 8. at which time they might quickly be convinced their fig-leaf aprons were to little purpose for covering nakedness. The word rendered sewed, is found only in other three places, viz. Eccles. iii. 7. Ezek xiii. 18. and Job. xvi. 15. Nicholas, in his conference, says, it signifies not to sew together with needle and thread; for which he cites that place in Job. It is plain, in the two first passages it denotes proper sewing; and it signifies no other in Job xvi 15. We may fairly account for the translation there, and the sense accordingly, without supposing Job to sew sackcloth on his loins, as one sews a piece of cloth on a block; it being most frequent in the holy tongue, which

Job xii. 2. "Canst thou bore his jaw through with a thorn ?"

is very concise, to denote both an antecedent and consequent action by one word signifying the antecedent, as Is. xxxviii. 17. (Heb.) "Thou hast loved my soul from the pit." ver. 21. (Heb.) "Bruise them upon the boil," i. e. bruise them, and then lay them on the boil. So Job sewed sackcloth, and, being sewed, put it on his loins. This sewing of the first garment of the first Adam, brings me in mind of the second Adam's, which was without seam; and what a covering we have from him, even one that is all of one piece, while Adam has left us nothing but patched-up rags.

The prime reason of garments is plain from the same passage, to wit, to cover the shame of our nakedness, which was not shameful till man had sinned. And the holy language puts them on us still as badges of our sin and shame, that they may serve us as memorials for humiliation, and phylacteries of the doctrine of the fall.

Beged, primarily treachery, signifies a garment, from bagad he dealt treacherously. I take this to point at the breach of the first marriage-covenant betwixt God and sinners, the covenant of works: for the word is ordinarily used of the breach of a marriage-covenant. So Jer. iii. 20; Mal. ii. 14. Thus Prov. ii. ult. adulterers are called bogedim; compare ver. 17-" forgetteth the covenant of her God." And observe the punishment, "they shall be rooted out of the earth;" because they take such methods to root themselves in it, Hos. iv, 10.* Remarkable is that of Solomon, that all his wives left but one son, and him a fool. To confirm this notion, it may be observed, that the word Gen. iii. 23. vaishallehhehu, “God sent him forth out of paradise," is the word ordinarily used of the setting off of the divorced woman, Deut. xxiv. 1, 3, 4. Among the Jews, if there could be proved anything of villany against the wife, she was sent away sine taublis, (wherein her dowry, and what she brought with her when she was married, was written),† and destitute of all things, because she had played the harlot to which there is an allusion, Hos. ii. 3. "lest I strip her naked." Thus our marriage ornaments are kept in the house of our husband and we sent away only with the badges of our treachery.

Yea, robes are but megnile, Ezek. xxvi. 16. from magnal, "he trespassed," to put us in mind of to tou enos paraptoma, "that offence of that one," Rom. v. But the megnil was one of the High Priest's garments belonging to him alone, Exod. xxviii. In which we may see our High Priest clothed with our transgressions, coming in the

Among the ancient Germans, the husband had power to punish the wife found in adultery. He stripped her stark naked, and shaved her in presence of her parents, put her out of his house, &c.-Mezeray Histoire de France, p. 33.

Burroughs on Hos.

likeness of sinful flesh, and, as Joshua, standing before the Lord in the filthy garments of our guilt. Whence in the day of the spiritual marriage we get on his "robe of righteousness," megnil tzedakah, and are "decked as priests" (as the word signifies, Is. lxi. 10), whose garments "were for glory and beauty," Exod. xxviii. 2.

A garment they also call simlah, and, by a transposition of a letter, salmah; from semol, the left hand; sinistra, the unlucky hand. Thus they are put on us as badges of our going wrong, turning out of the way, and falling from our honour. Scripture antiquity has given the preference to the right hand, and so the profane likewise; though some stand for the ancients preferring the left, of which see Rivet on Psal. cx. Xenophon tells us, that Cyrus set those whom he minded most to honour, on his left hand; but withal gives the reason of his doing so, because in that posture men were least liable to snares, which seems to argue it was an invention of his own. It is somewhat surprising, that the Greeks* called the left hand aristeran, the best; but in the pagan rites of divination the left hand was the best, because the giver's right hand in bestowing a benefit is opposite to the receiver's left hand. Thus avis sinistra, intonuit lævum, are good luck. Hence, as Lipsius thinks, the Greeks so called the left hand. These confirm the preference of the right hand : Jacob lays his right hand on Ephraim, and his left on Manasseh, seeing Ephraim was to be the more honourable. And the sheep are set on Christ's right, the goats on his left hand, at the last day. The left hand also was the place assigned to the accused in the Jewish courts, while the accuser stood at his right hand; hence Psal. cix. 6. Zech. iii. 1. Satan is represented in the posture of an accuser. And on the right hand of the judge sat one who wrote the sentence of absolution; which may give further light to that of Christ's sitting on the right hand of God; compare 1 John ii. 1. and on the left, one who wrote the sentence of condemnation. On which account our garments may well bear the character of the left hand. The custom amongst the Greeks was, that the accuser stood in a pulpit on the left of the tribunal, the accused in another upon the right, so that they were one just over against another. And it seems this also was the custom amongst the Romans, to stand face to face in judgment, Acts xxv. 16. And it seems it was also in use amongst the Hebrews, as well as the other custom, 1 Kings xxi. 10. So saith Leigh. But that confounds the accuser and witnesses. But these two men of Belial, ver. 13. are expressly called witnesses; and

Goodw. Rom. Antiq.

VOL. VI.

† Weems Christ. Syn.
Annot, on Psal. li.
Q

Archæol. Attic.

whereas the accuser and accused stood, these witnesses sat, ib. Their custom then it seems was, that both the parties stood before the judge, Zech. iii. 1. the accuser on the right hand, ib. and the witnesses sat, and that before the accused, 1 Kings xxi. 10. negedo, over against him; unto which David seems to allude, Psal. li. 3. ever before me." And so is it more fully declared, Hos. vii. 10. "And the pride of Israel doth testify to his face." Hence our garments to us are as a face-covering of the condemned.

Lastly, It is called Lebush, which the Talmudics, as Buxtorff relates, say is quasi Lo bushah, not shame, because by clothing it comes to pass that man is not ashamed of his nakedness. I should rather think it is Lebosh or boshah, for shame. We have put in the letter L, and made that word blush; the native consequent now of nakedness discovered. All nakedness is not shameful yet, but of those parts that nature will have covered. So our first parents made them aprons. Which consideration must needs present to our view original sin propagated by natural generation. To this nakedness of Adam after he had sinned, that shame of our nakedness, Rev. iii. 18. which the second Adam offers us white raiment to cover, hath respect. The shame of nakedness is a deep impression on all mankind to attest the fall; and so remains with them, that even savages have Adam's art of covering what the Scripture calls nakedness.* It is worth the notice to this purpose what Valerius Maximus tells of the Roman people, at the Ludi Florales, where shameless strumpets run up and down naked, that while Cato was looking on, the people were ashamed to desire that those shameless creatures should be stripped; which when he knew, he went away from the theatre, that he might not stand in the way of what was the custom. And hence it is threatened as the greatest disgrace, Is. xlvii. 3. Ezek. xvi. 37. and therefore was inflicted on the Egyptian captives, Is. xx. 4. which may give light to that Rev. xvi. 15. "Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, least he walk naked, and they see his shame;" denoting that everlasting contempt they shall get poured on them at the coming of Christ, who shall be found naked as Adam was when God came to him to call him to an account. It is also to be added,† that there was one who walked the round through the temple guards every night, and if he found any asleep, he had liberty to set fire to his garments, and struck him; to which there is here a manifest allusion. Compare, "Behold I come as a thief." Hence we may conclude, that the nakedness of Saul, 1 Sam. xix. 24. when he prophesied before Samuel, and that of Isaiah, chap. xx. 2. was not absolute nakedness. That before Lightf. Temp Serv.

So did the priests in the Lupercalia Rom. Ant.