204 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



God did rest and contemplate his own works, was blessed 

 above all the days wherein he did effect and accomplish 

 them. 



After the Creation was finished, it is set down unto us 

 that man was placed in the Garden to work therein ; which 

 work so appointed to him could be no other than work of 

 contemplation ; that is, when the end of work is but for 

 exercise and experiment, not for necessity ; for there being 

 then no reluctation of the creature, nor sweat of the brow, 

 man's employment must of consequence have been matter 

 of delight in the experiment, and not matter of labour for 

 the use. Again, the first acts which man performed in 

 Paradise consisted of the two summary parts of know- 

 ledge ; the view of creatures, and the imposition of names. 

 As for the knowledge which induced the fall, it was, as 

 was touched before, not the natural knowledge of crea- 

 tures, but the moral knowledge of good and evil ; wherein 

 the supposition was, that God's commandments or prohi- 

 bitions were not the originals of good and evil, but that 

 they had other beginnings, which man inspired to know, to 

 the end to make a total defection from God, and to 

 depend wholly upon himself. 



To pass on : in the first event or occurrence after the 

 fall of Man, we see (as the Scriptures have infinite 

 mysteries, not violating at all the truth of the story or 

 letter,) an image of the two estates, the contemplative 

 state and the active state, figured in the two persons of 

 Abel and Cain, and in the two simplest and most primi- 

 tive trades of life ; that of the shepherd, (who, by reason 

 of his leisure, rest in a place, and living in view of heaven, 

 is a lively image of a contemplative life,) and that of the 

 husbandman : where we see again the favour and election 

 of God went to the shepherd, and not to the tiller of 

 the ground. 



So in the age before the Flood, the holy records within 

 those few memorials which are there entered and registered 

 have vouchsafed to mention and honour the name of the 

 inventors and authors of music and works in metal. In 

 the age after the Flood, the first great judgment of God 



