the weak and faint heat of that scattered light could not get the conquest of that moist and cold matter nor put forth its virtue in any higher actings 32. From the light therefore the Elements as well as the first matter had their information and so attained a joynt nature of light and by kindred a fast friendship betwixt themselves not according to the vulgar opinion an hatred and quarrel they embrace each the other with a common bond of friendship that they may joyn themselves to the making up of several mixed bodies according to their several kinds But the light of the Sun being of a far greater power than this former is the Form of all forms or the Universal form which doth convey all natural forms in the work of generation into the disposed matter and seeds of things For every particular nature hath within it a spark of light whose beams do in a secret maÌ„ner attend with an active motive power 33. It was necessary that the entire portion of the first matter allotted to this lower Region as well as the Elements who did flow from it should be seasoned from the beginning with a light tincture of that first Light whereby they might be the better fitted to receive that greater and more powerfull light in the information of mixt bodies So fire with fire water with water light with light being homogeneous bodies have a perfect union 34. From the sight efficacy of the Sun we may inferre that he is in the stead of an heart to the Universe for from him is life derived to all parts for light is the Chariot of life yea the fountain and next cause and the souls of creatures are the beams of that heavenly light which do breath life into them exempting onely the soul of man which is a ray of the Super-celestial and uncreated Light 35. God hath imprinted in the Sun a threefold image of his Divinity the first in his unity for Nature cannot away with a multiplicity of Suns no more than the Deity can with a plurality of Gods that so one may be the spring of all Secondly in its Trinity or his threefold office For the Sun as Gods Vicegerent doth dispense all the benefits of Nature by light motion and heat from hence is life which is the supream and most accomplisht act of Nature in this world beyond which cannot go unless backward But from Light and Motion issues heat as the third in the Trinity proceeds from the first and the second Person Lastly God who is the Eternal Light Infinite Incomprehensible could express and demonstrate himself to the world onely by light Let none therefore wonder why the Eternal Sun did beautifie that most excellent draught of himself which was his own making that heavenly Sun with so great endowments for in him hath he pitcht his pavilion 36. The Sun is a transparent Mirrour of the Divine Glory which being seated above the sense strength of material creatures did frame this glass by whose resplendency the beams of his Eternal Light might be communicated by reflection to all his works and so should by this reflection be rendered discernable For it is beyond the capacity of any mortal to have any immediate view of that Divine Light This is the Royal eye of the Divinity which doth conferre by his presence life and liberty to his suppliants 37. The last work of this Great Worker and as it were the corolary and shutting of all man enters 〈◊〉 Summary of the Worlds Fabrick 〈◊〉 small draught of the Divine Nature The Creatour deferred his making to a part of the sixth Light â—nd the last of all his working that the rich Furniture of Nature and â—ll endowments of things both above â—nd below might bring their confluence to the humane nature as to another Pandora Thus the things of the world being ordered man wanted onely to be annexed as the perfection of all whereby nature being now strengthened by a various light might bring into his perfect temperature more refined Elements and that there might be the best Clay for the forming of so exquisite a Vessel Yea the lower Globe and the inhabitants of it did require such a Governour lest otherwise they might refuse his Rule 38 Upon the sixth day from the Creation the third day of the Suns rising did man rise out of the Earth by the time of his production and the number of the days is shadowed forth a great mysterie For as upon the fourth day of the Creation the whole light of the Heaven was gathered into the single bodie of the Sun and on the third day from the making of the Sun which was the sixth day from the beginning of the Creation the Clay of the Earth received the breath of life and was formed into a living man the image of God So on the fourth Millenary day from the beginning of the world the uncreated Sun viz. the Divine Nature infinite and never before comprehended within any bounds was willing to be comprized and in a manner shut into the cage of an humane bodie Upon the third day or millenarie for a thousand years with God are but as one day after the first rising of that Sun and about the end of the sixth day to wit of the millenarie from the Creation shall fall out the glorious Resurrection of the Humane Nature in the second coming of that supream Judge which was also praesignified to us by his blessed Resurrection on the third day So did the Prophet in his Genesis roul up the secret age and destinie of the world 39 Although the Almightie according to his pleasure created the World yet could have brought it out of darkness into light if his will had so been in a moment and by a beck for he said and it was so Yet the order of Creation of principles and successively of the natures according to their times was set in the mind of God which order rather than the work it self of Creation that sacred Philosopher seems to describe in his Genesis 40 There seems to have been in the beginning a threefold way of the information of the first matter For in what portion of the matter there was an irrational lightsom form and without proportion above the rest as in the Empyrean heaven where the light first seized upon the matter then the form having as it were an infinite virtue did swallow up its matter and translated it into a nature almost spiritual and free from any accident 41 But where the virtues of the form and matter did meet in an equal poyz and a just equallitie according to which the aetherial heaven and the celestial bodies are informed there the action of the light whose force in acting is of greatest power did proceed so far that it did rescue its matter from all original blemishes as also from the loathsom infection of corruption after a wonderfull sort by illumination and attenuation and this is to be accounted as a
vegetation do exceed in a sensitive soul which is in them the principle of life and motion Therefore an Animal seated in the highest degree of things below doth compleat the work of Nature in her Elementary kingdom doth live properly generate properly and in it hath Nature truly distinguished each Sex that from two a third to wit their issue might be produced So in the more perfect Beings the most perfect Symbole of the Trinity is most apparent 160 Man the Prince of all creatures and of the lower World is accounted the Summary of Universal Nature For his Soul is an immortal ray of the Divine Light his Body is a beautified Composure of the Elements The inward and unperceiveable faculties of the Sense by which man doth comprehend all things obvious are altogether celestial and as it were Stars giving the influence of knowledge of things the motions and perturbations of the mind are as it were the Winds Tempests Lightenings and Thunders the Meteors which break forth in the Aerial Region of the Spirit do trouble the heart and the bloud Therefore was man deservedly called a Microcosm and the accomplisht Draught of the Universe 161 But not onely man but even every living creature yea every Plant is a Microcosm So is every Grain or Seed a Chaos in which are the seeds of the whole World compendiously bound up out of which in its season a little World will spring 162 Whatsoever Beings of Natnre have a perfect mixture and life they have a body spirit and soul The body is made of clay in which are all things necessary for the matter of generation for it is most agreeable to reason that Bodies should be made of two corporeal Elements especially viz. Earth and Water 163 The Spirit is a small portion of the purest Air or the Heaven a middle nature betwixt the Body and the Soul the knot and bond of both the case of the Soul and the conduit of the more subtile and spiritual parts of the body 164 The soul or form of a mixt body is a spark of the Fire of Nature an undiscernable Ray of Celestial Light brought into act from the power of the seed by the motion of generation bound to an Elementary body by the mediation of the Spirit giving its individual Being to the mixt body the nearest principle and the efficient cause of life It acts according to the disposed matter and the qualities of the Organs 165 The nature or from of the Soul because it is altogether full of light in living creatures especially hath so great a distance from the dark and earthy matter of bodies that this is wholly irrational in respect of that and this unproportionably more noble and therefore is fastened by that strictest tye which Nature makes use of in her works to the body by reason of the disconveniency and distance unless the conjunction and knot had been made by the virtue and efficacy of a peculiar and powerfull mean therefore did the provident Creatour assign a subtile mean which is the Aetherial spirit which receives and retains the begotten from and is the tye of it to the body communicating in its nature with both These things are to be conceived to be spoken of the celestial Soul of Natural things not of the Super-celestial and divine Soul of man which notwithstanding is according to the good pleasure of the Creatour brought into a consortship with the body of man by natural mediums 166 The specifical forms from the first day of the Creation were imprinted in the first individual and particular persons by the character of the Idaeal copie and that diviue and indelible impress was according to the direction of the Creatour by the way of generation traduced to posterity that so by the perpetual succession of particular individual natures the priviledge of immortality might be continued in the kind 167 It cannot nor must be conceived that Forms do generate in the matter their like for to generate is the alone property of bodies but by an harmonious motion of their Organs they do by them dispose the seminal matter for generation and shut up in it a ray of Light or a secret spark of life as a treasure This is the office and priviledge of the Form as also to imprint its own specifical character on that vivifical spirit wrapt up close in the seed which in its set season doth in the work of generation by the engendering heat display it self into a soul whether Vegetative or Animal so that what was a formal and hidden spirit in the seed is now a Form in the mixt body So that occult thing that was closed in the bosom of Nature is now made manifest and brought forth from a power to an act 168 The Form issues not forth onely out of the power and virtue of the seed because there is an influence of celestial virtues in the generations of Beings which do heighten the efficacies of the matter do multiply them and as it were midwife it to groaning Nature yea they do get into and mixe themselves with and bring in auxiliary strength to the formal and seminal spirit that is in the matter which is also by its original celestial 169 There do not onely meet in the generation of every mixt Being the corporeal Elements but also all the Virtues all the Powers of Nature in general and these do contribute something of their own so are the parts of the Universe bound up together that they have an unanimous combination for life and couple by a mutual affection 170 The natural Forms of things though they are potentially in the seeds yet are they neither of nor generated by the substance of the lower Elements for they have their rise from a more noble spring their original is from Heaven for their father is the Sun the heavenly Nature the bond whereby these matters are knit together 171 The specifical Forms of mixt Beings have within themselves closed a dark kind of knowledge of their original and are carried up by their own strength and by a secret motion like unto Waters to the height of their Fountain head So the Soul of man being derived from the divine Spring of the uncreated Light is reflected to the same by the sharp sight of his mind and by the soaring contemplations of his soul but the forms of other living creatures being taken out of the privy Treasury of the Heavens and the Sun do by the instinct of Nature and by a weak kind of reminiscency glance back thither Hence we may observe the frequent Prognosticks of several creatures concerning the courses of the Sun and the changes of the Heavens But the forms of Vegetables being for the most part airy and inspired from the lowest Region of our Air therefore they are not able to extend or reach forth their power or faculties beyond it they do according to their ability lift up their heads into the Air as willing to visit their Countrey but they
are stopped so as that they are not able to pass the narrow confines of their bodies wanting the sense and life of a Soul because there is so little of the Suns virtue in them as will not carry them above the motion of a Vegetation For in the order of creation the Vegetables were first before the Sun wherefore creatures are not equally indebted to him for their originals and the aged principles of their life but must acknowledge them received from the lightsom Air as a nearer Agent For the disposition of their matter was adjudged by Nature as too weak to receive so sublime a form 172 But for Stones since they are not so much generated out of a true mixture of the Elements as from a concourse of Earth and Water by an external force of Heat and Cold they are decocted as an earthen Work or vessel therefore they are altogether senseless having borrowed a feeble form from the dark and cold nature of the Earth and Water 173 Concerning precious Stones and Gems we must conceive otherwise for they derive their forms from the Chrystal Fouutains of the Heavens and the Sun and their bodies are the purest drops of a refined dew engendered by celestial influences and as it were the congealed tears of of Heaven whence they possess and contain many sublime virtues 174 But the matter of Metals because it is watry and earthy and most compacted by reason of the principal subtile commixtion of weighty Elements is therefore heavy and exceedingly ponderous and of it self capable of no motion but because it is sublimated and mundefied by the wonderfull artifice of Nature in an earthy and stony Matrix as in a Limbick and its mixture is compleated in a most thin vapour by reiterated distillations that by reason of its exceeding subtility and exuberancy the influential helps of the Sun and the Heavens get in and mix with it especially in the generation of perfect mettals for this cause though they fetch their bodies from Water and Earth yet Nature performing the office of workman doth so ingeniously make up the bodies especially of a perfect mettal that it delivers them to the heavenly Deities as those that deserve to be informed with the most eminent form It is a work of long travail but an absolute one heightned to the utmost of Natures actings in which Heaven and Earth seem rather to copulate than to consent But the formal spirits of mettals being bound up in a hard cover do stick immoveable till released of their bands by Philosophical Fire they do produce by their heavenly Seed in their matter that noble son of the Sun and at length that Quint-essence of admirable Virtue in which the Heavens seem to lodge with and come down to us 175 It was provided by the Decree of the supream Creatour that a Nature more noble should not degenerate into one less noble or that one more eminent into a nature that is more base or that it should abjuring its native priviledge of birth-right come under a servile vassalage Superiour Beings are coupled with these below and those of greater power do communicate themselves with those of a less that they may inform and compleat them by their emissary spirits which notwithstanding in this do no way derogate from their stock or kind Nay when they work themselves into the seeds of things or also into mixed Beings they subject not themselves to a bondage but do attain a new honour and priviledged power For every mixt Being of whatsoever kind it is is a kind of an Empire yea the whole world who hath a spiritual form of her own to rule her whose office it is to have dominion over the organs and faculties of Nature yea over the whole frame so that that which being void and without distinction did drift it rowling hither and thither in the vast Ocean of Nature is now called to an Empire 176 The formal act of the first matter as also of the Elements doth inform nothing besides the verie principles of Nature therefore the specifical form doth constitute a perfect mixt Being neither is it to be thought to contain any more forms since the very Elements in their mixtion have the charge of the fashioning not of the informing of the bodie 177 It is most probable that the virtue of multiplication which lyes in the seeds of Beings doth not flow from the Elementary matter as its efficient cause but from a celestial form for to multiply is the most natural and proper action of light for from one ray are almost an infinite number darted forth from whence it proceeds that the Sun who is the Fountain of immortal Light is also in nature the first efficient cause of generation and multiplication that therefore every form receives a natural power of multiplication from the celestial light is prov'd by this weighty Argument because it is lightfull and furnished with its native endowments Ergo multiplying It is lightfull because it doth enlighten with its rays the sensitive and imaginative faculties in creatures that so out of that double faculty springs a double apprehension knowledge of things an external by the senses an internal by imagination but all knowledge is a light as all ignorance is a darkness but there peeps up some enlightening and lightsomness when there is an apprehension of the images of things and when that which lay unknown in the dark is now manifested by a light of knowledge for it is onely by the good office of light that obscure things receive a revelation God did adde to man a third light to wit his Understanding by the help of which he attains by their causes a far more perfect way of knowledge All these things are produced by the operation of light and of a perspicuity flowing out of an enlightened Soul This last action of light is onely proper to man the two former are shared with beasts as well as by him for their souls are also partakers of celestial light Therefore reason doth convince that the virtue of multiplication in the individual Beings of Animals and Vegetables doth proceed from the Souls multiplication of light and that some rays of it are included in the seed with the Aetherial spirit until at length they are set upon the rising of the Sun of Life 178 Light and Darkness are the principles of Life and Death for the rays of Light are the forms of mixt Beings their bodies a dark Abyss By Light all things live yea Light is life but those that loose their life loose their light and are hurried into their former darkness in which they lay close and hidden before they were drawn to light by the fatal wheel of Predestination 179 The specifical forms of Animals as also of Vegetables are rational though not after the manner of men but after a property of their own according to the virtues and impress of their nature For they have their vital endowments their cognizances knowledge and
their predestinations The vital endowments of Vegetables are an endeavour of generating the like the multiplying virtues nutritive augmenting motive and sensitive and the like But their knowledge is experienced by their wise fore-knowledge of times their strict observation of change as of the orders of Nature in a variety agreeable to the motion of the Sun and Heaven in the fastening the Roots the erecting the Stalk spreading the Branches in the opening the Leaves and the Flowers in the forming the Fruit in their beautifying in their ripening in the transmutations of Elements into aliments in the inspiring of a vivifical virtue into the Seeds lastly in constituting a various difference of Nature and parts according to the benign or malign concurrence of the Sun or Soil 180 That the souls of Bruits are endowed with knowledge is sufficiently by their copulations and generations upon set times their just distributions in the forming and nourishing of the parts of the individual Beings the distinct offices of those parts free from any confusion the various motions of their souls the nimble faculties of their senses the secret spirits harmoniously moving the members as organs their proneness to discipline their obsequious reverence to their Masters the presaging instinct of things to come in most a devout worship an art in getting their provision in choice of their raunges providing their fence their prudence in the avoiding dangers and the rest actions so agreeable to knowledge and reason bestowed upon them by Nature But Nature in every individual is nothing else but the form it self which is the principle of motion and rest of action and life to it in which it is to which is committed the charge direction and conservation of its body as a Ship to a Pilot. 181 But who will deny the certain predestination of Times for the birth of things unless he fancy a confusion and disorder in the Nature of the Universe for she draws forth all those things out of her bosom according to setled and fore-appointed order for she had a prescript from her Maker for the Law of Order and the times of production their quickening birth life and death have their set times and do fulfil their designed seasons those things that either this or that year receive their Being or return to darkness are pre-ordained to it which pre ordination Nature Gods Vicegerent in the rule of the Universe doth fore-know by the suggestion of the Divine Spirit that she might be ministerial to the compassing of it neither do those things casually fall out but they have a necessary though unknown cause yet the Grand Ruler of all is not comprized within the Law of Necessity but appoints all things and changeth them according to his own will He it is that decrees concerning all even the least things whose Decrees want neither certainty nor order Therefore that Order that runs through the series and succession of things times hath the law of its necessity from the divine Decrees 182 As all things which afterwards were actually produced and separated in respect of their matter were potentially in the Chaos so all individuals before they come to light are in the World in their matter and potentiality and will in their time and order come forth and break into act but when they fail and die they return as Rivers into the Sea into that general Mass from whence they came every Nature recovering its proper Region and being to be brought again and again into Natures shop are wrought into new Beings upon her Anvile It may be this was that opinion of the Pythagoreans therefore exploded because not comprehended concerning their Tenet of Transanimation 183 When the mixt body is dissolved and the corruption of the frail Elements come to a loss the Aetherial nature returns to its native home and there is nothing left in the carkass but a perturbation and confusion of the Elements having lost their Governour then there reigns nothing but corruption death and darkness in the widowed matter untill she through corruption be made fit for generation and the virtue of Heaven do again flow down into the matter thus disposed and gathering and mingling the wandering Elements do re-kindle the weak light of a new form which at length breaks forth the forces of the Elements being corroborated and so compleats the new mixture 184 In that corruption which tends to generation which is a corruption in the mean and is done with the conservation of the specifical form potentially inherent in the seed or matter that sublime spirit departs not but being weak and impotent is excited by external heat and begins to move and withal give motion to the matter till at length it works more vigorously and gives information to the perfectly mixed body 185 The Elements as well as the Aliments of Nature do begin their generation and nutrition which are in most respects the same from Corruption For both must necessarily be putrified and by putrefaction be resolved into a moist and as it were a first matter then is there made a Chaos in which are all things necessary for generation and nutrition So doth the birth and repair of every Microcosm bear with an Analogical resemblance with the creation and conservation of the Macrocosm 186 The insensible seeds of things and those mixed bodies which are begot from them do consist of a threefold Nature of a Celestial Elementary and Mixt Nature The Celestial is a ray of the Light of the Sun endued with all heavenly vigour the principle of action motion generation and life by whose help the seeds by their renewed vigour do resemble the constant permanency of the Stars and being in a manner as so many immortal grafts of celestial plants ingrafted upon corruptible nature as upon a strange stock do by a kind of an eternal succession vindicate it from death The Elementary corporeal and sensible portion which in creatures is called the Sperm is the Case and keeper of the seed which putrifies and is corrupted and generates an invisible seed The Radical Moisture or the Ferment of Nature in which lyes the spirit is a middle substance coupling the Celestial and Elementary in the material part answering the Elements in the spiritual the Form Like the Day-break whose cheek being covered with a duskie light doth knit together the two extreams of Light and Darkness and being neither doth hold forth a mixture of both 187 Life is an harmonical act proceeding from the copulation of the Matter and the Form constituting the perfect Being of an individual nature Death is the term or end of this act the separation of the matter and form and a resolution of the mixt body 188 These mixt bodies have the roots of their generation and life in Heaven from whence springs their Causes and Principles whence also as inverted Trees they do suck their juice and aliment Neither is it suitable for the Understanding to be envassaled to the Rule of the Senses which
Enchyridion PHYSICAE RESTITUTAE OR The Summary of Physicks Recovered Wherein the true Harmony of NATURE is explained and many Errours of the Ancient PHILOSOPHERS by Canons and certain Demonstrations are clearly evidenced and evinced LONDON Printed by W. Bentley and are to be sold by W. Sheares at the Bible and Robert Tutchein at the Phenix in the New-Rents in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1651. The Authours Epistle TO THE HONOURERS OF Natural Light AFter I had lately with-drawn my self from publick employments reprieved my Soul from the dangerous attendants of a COURTIER's life and had now ancor'd my thoughts in a blest retirement I alwayes had resounding the Eccho of that poetical passage in mine ears Here is the Freedom the Soul gains Enfranchiz'd from her golden Chains Now began I to feel those thoughts of Natural Philosophie alwayes fostered by me though till now as it were ill attended to give a fresh and sprightly Spring in my Soul I could not but upon their return give them a wonted and merited Well-come that I might by the gain of this inward and natural Light repair my voluntarie ressignment of that outward and deceitfull splendour Besides by this course I had hopes to wipe off a publick guilt for now did I apprehend the charge of a desertour of publick employments and of the Laws of my Countrie likely to fall upon me therefore lest this might issue a deep censure I fled to that Sanctuarie the Studie of the Occult and almost unsearchable Laws and Customes of Nature in the Universe the common Countrey of all hoping a securitie in this studie and a protection from this Policie For certainly civil Constitutions will not decree any remarkable Amercement upon him who laying down the burden of those Troubles doth retire himself to the general service of the World Now was my Soul rowling within it self thought concerning the Sovereigntie Lawes Order Government Harmonie Effects Causes yea the unconceiveable Riches of Nature now indeed was I lost in admiration of these which astonishment though it be an evidence of ignorance yet it is also an incentive to knowledge for it causeth the Soul to soar above by which it is enkindled with a burning desire to know what it is as yet ignorant of though affected to My Soul being thus enflamed brought several philosophical Constitutions to a severe Text and upon the touch assented not to their Veritie because Nature did seem to dart some weak and waining Light as it were breaking forth upon the confine and border of a scarcely discerned Truth till at length the Light began so to rise as to break through the encompassing Fogs and to break into my Soul whereby it was not onely made more resplendent but also more confident not onely to view the ground but also to dig for the Treasure The first Errours of the Ancients and which are the worst and radicall Errours that came into my thoughts were those concerning the Principles of Nature concerning the first Matter and that Universal Form from which all things flow concerning the Number of the Elements their Qualities their Opposition Scituation Reciprocation when I had seriously turned these within my thoughts I layed hold of an Opinion different from the Current neither was the authoritie of ancient Philosophers nor their ingenious but unsatisfactorie reasonings able to divert my mind from that perpetual devotion in which it stood to the light of Nature So now what I first admired I now affected yea that Love which hath no weapons but fierie rayes strook my soul into a flame to enter into the most secret and sacred rooms of Nature But I was long in a suspensive Dispute with my self whether it were my dutie to communicate to you the Students of Philosophie those secrets I have found suspicious lest it might prove a disgust to you a danger to my self for I found Experience the best Counsellour to give me warning to be wise by the folly of others and to learn to stand by their falls for I alwayes was musing how many had wrackt their credit by scribling how our modern Wits are close in their commendations but lavish enough in their detraction of other mens labours how attempting their souls are in fancying and fostering follies how obstinate in the retaining a conceived Truth yea I considered it was not onely a project of difficultie but also of danger to pull up a received and an acknowledged Opinion and to implant a new and divers But in this Conflict Ye most ingenious Assertours of Natural Light the victorie fell upon the love of you and of Truth so that I was determined that since those had been the Motives to the Disquisition of these Truths they should also be the Incentives to their publication Yet let me have this Boon granted that if you will be competent or just Judges let not the swoln names of Plato Aristotle and of any other prime Philosophers be summoned as convicting witnesses or empannell'd as a condemning Jury but lay aside their nominal though seemingly real authority and bind not your souls to a continued credulity of their positions but preserve your Souls free to your selves In the reading of the learned Monuments of former Ages let not the popular fancy of their general Applause bewitch you into a blind Belief of all their Notions Far be it from me to stain their Credit or detract from their Learning who alwayes had exhibited by me almost a Divine Adoration there is no earthly glory competible to theirs they were the Men that first took infant Philosophie into their arms and nourished it up to so incredible a strength and stature that those lofty souls seemed to have cut off from succeeding Ages the hope of an Addition to their Labours and to an advancement of Learning Yet as for the deep search of the winding creeks of Nature and for the exquisite knowledge of her concealed Mysteries the growing Age of Philosophie even in its own judgement did not comprehend them these were brought forth by the fertile Brains of future Times they brought to light Obscurities they polish'd rough-hewn principles they propt up perplexities So did Knowledge get its accomplishment by Age and Truth its perfection by Time which demonstrates the vigour of our present years and that the number of things we know is far less than of those of which we are ignorant Philosophy is not like a Garment as that age should wear it or worse it and they that pretend a gray head to their errours by this seek not so much to patronize it as to discredit it Forbear I beseech you by an unadvised censure to condemn me without plea if I shall seem to unsettle the boundaries of Philosophy be not angry and accuse me as sacrilegious but consider whether I do not aym at their settlement rather than otherwise whether I do not rather confirm than weaken her priviledges whether I do not rather honour than impayr her Royalty upon which grounds I hope She will
136 Sublimation is the conversion of a moist and a ponderous nature into a light or the exhalation of it into a vapour The end and benefit of it is three-fold First that a gross and impure body might be mundefied by attenuation and might by degrees be drawn off the dregs then that by sublimation it might gain the higher virtues which continually flow down Lastly that by such an evacuation the Earth might be disburthened of its superfluous and loading humours which seizing upon its passages do hinder the action of the heat and the free pass of the natural spirits yea do violently choak them This drawing away of the superfluous moisture takes away the cause of obstructions and gives ease to the squeazy stomach of the Earth and makes it more fit for digestion 137. But the Moisture is sublimated by the impulsive operation of heat For Nature useth her fire as its proper instrument for rarefaction of moist bodies Therefore the Vapours that generates Clouds Rain are most frequently drawn up in the Fall and Spring because then the womb of the Earth doth more abound with hot and moist now Moisture is the material and Heat the efficient cause of exhalations Nature doth shew a kind of intense heat in sublimation whilest it is bound in within the terms and latitude of temperature 138. Demission is the second wheel of Nature in the work of Circulation is the returning of the spirituous Vapour into a gross and watry body or the Refusion of a rarefied and sublimated humour being again condensed and its descent into Earth that it may dilute it of its exuberant liquour and suck it up by a sweet and celestial draught 139. Nature doth intend three things by irrigation First that it might not pour out but by degrees distil its abundant humour lest there fall out a gulf and by the abundance of water the passage for the vivifical spirit in the bowels of the earth be dammed up and the intrinsecal heat of the Earth be extinguished for that wise and righteous Governess doth dispense all her benefits in number weight and measure Secondly that it might distribute the humour by divers drops and by a various manner to wit a Rain sometimes larger sometimes less sometimes a dew sometimes a hoar frost sometimes pouring out a greater sometimes a less plenty that so it might water the Earth according to its appetite or necessity thirsting for more or less Thirdly that these irrigations or waterings may be not continual but by turns and betwixt other works for the Sun doth in its course succeed the Showers and the Showers in theirs the Sun the day the night and the night the day 140. The lightest Cold or the departing Heat doth unloose and make fit to fall those vapours that are brought up into the middle Region and there frozen For an immoderate heat doth dissipate and hinders their condensation and an intense heat doth so knit and freeze them that they cannot produce a humour that may be fit to fall down 141. The last wheel or action of the Circulation of Nature is Decoction which is nothing else but the digestion ripening and conversion into aliment of a crude humour instilled on the bosom of the Earth This seemeth to be the end and the scope of the others because it is the release of their labour and a receiving of the food attained by the former labours For that crude humour by force of that internal heat is chewed concocted and digested by it being as it were without motion and in a trance silently and without noise moving that secret fire as the proper instrument of Nature that it may turn that crude liquour tempered with driness into a food This is the compleat circle of Nature which she rowls round by various degrees of labour and heat 142 These three operations of Nature are so knit together and have such a relation each to the other that the beginning of the one is the end of the other and according to Natures intention they do in a necessary order succeed one another by turns And the orders of these vicistitudes are so interwoven and linkt together as that combining to the good of the whole they do in their operations prove serviceable each to other 143 Yet Nature is forcedly sometimes drawn out of her bounds and verges and ranges in an uncertain path especially in the guidance of the moist Element whose orders being interrupted do deceive and they do easily as well as suffer wrong by reason of the inconstancy of its volatile and flitting nature as also by reason of the various disposition of the superiour bodies which do bend these things below especially Moisture and draw them from their setled track according to the beck of the Sovereign Moderatour who doth use them as Organs and Instruments to the motion of the frame of the Universe Hence is raised the deceitfull and inconstant temperature of this our Mansion and the changed seasons of the year So doth the womb of the Earth being diversly affected bring forth either more plentifully or more sparingly generous or castling births So doth the bordering Air being either pure or impure produce either health or sickness the moist Nature rowling and tossing all things amongst us 144 The Rule of our Heavens is uncertain and deceitful to us because things below receive their orders from things above whose natures and affections are for the most part unknown to us yet let the Philosopher set always before his eyes the intention rather than the action of Nature the order rather than the disturbance of the order 145 We may observe the volubility or flittingness of the moist Nature not onely in the general harmony of the World but also in the particular of mixed Beings For they are generated by the revolution of Moisture they are nourished and grow by drying moistening and digesting wherefore those three operations of nature are resembled to food drink and sleep because meat answers to driness drink to moisture and sleep to concoction 146 Lest man should dream fancies to himself glory in divers priviledges assume to himself as proper onely to him the name of Microcosm or the Worlds lesser draught because there are discernable in his material workmanship an Analogie of all the natural motions of the Microcosm or the larger Volume of the World let him consider that every creature even a worm that every plant even the weed of the Sea is a lesser world having in it an epitome of the greater Therefore let man seek for a world out of himself and he shall find it every where for there is one and the same first Copy of all creatures out of which were made infinite worlds of the same matter yet in form differenced Let therefore man share humility and lowliness of spirit and attribute to God glory and honour 147 The inferiour natures are leavened by the superiour But the Water not enduring delay doth hast to meet the operations of the
spiritual light 204 A transparent body as glass being pointed with the Sun beams doth gather them and receives in it the image of the Sun and is made lightsom as it were a brief draught of the Sun which sends forth its beams on the farthest side opposite to the Sun from which the beams of the Sun being refracted by the concourse of the glass seem to pass through the glass which yet indeed they do not for the rays by reason of the Air that cleaves to them are setled about the glass the spirit of light onely passing forward but by the beams which are darted out on the other side are the beams of the Sun or of the glass being kindled by the Sun-beams into a lightsom bodie 205 Every transparent body especially glass is a medium of light because it receives light into it and having received it doth communicate it to the Air that is beyond it not by the sending forth of lightsom Air about it which is repugnant to Nature but by another double way First because a transparent body yields to and le ts pass the spirit of light and doth send it forth abroad being received by it which sent forth gets into the adjoyning Air hence springs that plentifull light and besides because that transparent Medium is made by the benefit of the light it receives not onely light in it self but lightsom to others and by the spirit of Light which is in love with transparent bodies becomes as it were a lighted lamp But now every lightsom body hath the priviledge and power to scatter its light which is not granted to thick and dark bodies unless by reflection 206 Those which are the pure natures of mixt Beings are mearly spiritual the bodies are as it were the Barks and Vessels in which they are contained and kept And not otherwise could those sublime Natures unless tied to the corporeal Elements and so bound in by their weight pass this lower Sea and lodge in the Centre of this Abyss They come subject to sense by their bodies the bodies are moved and acted by them so do they do interchangeable offices This that secret of Homers Juno whom Jupiter let down with a weight at her heels 207 Since the whole frame of the Universe is but one onely body one onely universal Nature consisting of many natures and bodies bound together by their proper Mediums and bonds it should not be wondered at that such parts members are knit together by a strong but secret tye and do give a mutual assistance each to other for they have not onely a mutual relation to but also a communication with one the other and these various natures do exercise a kind of a commerce the extreams by the middle the middle by the nearest But this communication is performed by spirits sent forth for all the parts of the world all the individual natures of the world do abound in spirits many of which flowing forth leave room and give way for those that flow in and so is there by the continual ebbing out and flowing in of spirits a continual reparation of the world and of the natures thereof This is the scale of general Nature presented in a vision to the Patriarch Jacob these are Mercuries wings by whose help being mistically termed by the Ancients the Messenger of the Gods he was thought frequently to visit the coasts of the Earth and the courts of Heaven 208 The active principles of every kind of Vegetables or Animals are spiritual their bodies are the passive organs of the spirits by which they exercise the faculties of the senses and do by various actings put forth their powers as the authours of actions so that in the general life may be termed a concent of actions or a continued act diversified by the multiplicitie of actions flowing from a spiritual fountain and brought forth by corporeal organs 209 It is the propertie of the spiritual nature to act of the corporeal to be passive where therefore there is a concourse of both as in mixed bodies that as the more noble doth act and rule this as passive doth obey For the power of act is the priviledge of ruling but the burden of being passive is the mark of being servile so the in-set fire in the seed is the principle of generation and life the highest operating spirit the Archaeus of Nature the orderer in the preparing and forming the matter in the mixtion and distribution of the Elements So doth the Form in the mixt Being exercise its rule at his will as the fountain of all actions So do the virtues of the heavenly Beings dispose and seal all inferiour Elements and corporeal matter 210 Natural bodies which have an active vigour and an occult cause of acting do not as is commonly thought act alone by their qualities but by secret spirits For the fire doth not heat and burn by the single qualitie of heat but by the continual flux of spirits and rayes Neither do the Earth and Water refrigerate or moisten by the alone qualities of cold and moist but by their vapours and in-nate spirits sent forth do affect the sense from without Neither do poysons onely by cold or hot qualities but by malignant spirits bring death or infection sooner or later Concerning Plants or Herbs we must judge alike because their active virtues do not lie hid in their qualities but in their essence which Nature hath made abundant in spirits whose basis and principle powers are concerning spirituals for the bodies are as the shadows or the investments of things under which the invisible Nature is hidden but since qualities are the accidents of things are not therefore able to constitute their essence nor shew forth in their actings those wonderful virtues but are onely as the in set instruments of actions passions which the working spirits that are the workers of all actions make use of in their actings but yet Nature indures them not as principles and efficient causes of actions 211 The natural tinctures odours and tasts of things are special and spiritual gifts of Nature with which it hath suitably inriched her Beings which do not onely contribute to their ornament or onely are inherent in them as extrinsecal accidents but also have an in-set and radical cause and are not so much to be termed accidents as demonstrative tokens of inward virtues by which the occult and formal signatures of things discover themselves 212 Rarefaction and condensation are the two instruments of Nature by which spirits are converted into bodies and bodies into spirits or also by which corporeal Elements are changed into spiritual Beings and spiritual into corporeal for Elements do suffer these changes in mixt bodies So the Earth doth minister spiritual food to the roots of vegetables which being fed upon doth go into the stalk the bark the boughs the branches the flowrs and into the corporeal substance The same is done by Nature in Animals For the meat and