that the Life is the immediate mansion of a Disease the inward subject yea and workman of the same But seeing Life is not essentially of the Body nor proper to the Body but that a Body without Life is a dead Carcass and a Disease is in the Life Of necessity also every matter or mansion and efficient Cause of a Disease doth not exceed the Limits of Life That is of necessity every Disease doth inhabite within the Case of the Archeus who is the alone immediate witness executer instrument as also the inne of Life but Apostemes Ulcers Filths Excrements c. Are only either the occasions of Death and Diseases or the latter products of the same raised up into a new scene or stage of the Tragedy Neither surely is it therefore a wonder that together with the Life all Diseases do depart into nothing if the Life be the immediate subject and mansion of Diseases But I long since admired that no Physitian hath hitherto known in what the essence of Diseases should shine But that they have wandred about Elementary qualities Humours Complexious Contrarieties and Dispositions Neither that indeed they have once observed that as filths are not Diseases so neither are Diseases in filths but that they live only in the Life it self and being included in the same do so arise grow and perish that seeing they are no where out of the Life they ought to be the intimate and domestick Thieves of the Life These things be spoken of the proper receptacle of Diseases Furthermore seeing a Disease is without controversie admitted to be a Being existing in us as in an inne and doth enjoy its own and singular properties and different Symptoms A Disease of necessity is not of the number of accidents because an accident is not of an accident combined with it and distinct from it self in the whole Species For truly sharpness or bitterness is not a property of whiteness blackness lightness or heat But every one of them do stand by themselves Wherefore if a Disease be a Being and not an accident if in the next place it produceth from it self not only alterations diverse dispositions weaknesses c. But moreover doth generate substances degenerating from the ordinary institution of their own nature of necessity also it ought to consist of matter and its own internal or seminal efficient Lastly seeing a Disease is internal as to the life it self it also follows of necessity that the matter of a Disease is Archeal and its efficient cause is vital And that I may speak more clearly every Disease is of necessity an Ideal efficient act of the vital power cloathing it self with a Garment of Archeal matter and attaining a vital and substantial form according to a difference of the slowness and swiftness of Ideal seeds which things indeed have been hitherto unknown by Mortals and those things which follow are as yet more largely supported with this position God made not Death and so far is he alwayes estranged from Death that he refuseth to be called the God of the Dead First of all also although Death doth sometimes invade without a Disease yet for the most part Death follows Diseases so that none doubteth but that that Death is the daughter of Diseases or the second Cause whereby and by means whereof the Life is extinguished That is Death is present but seeing God is not in any wise the Author of Death to wit by whom Death entred into Man who else was immortal and that no more or by a stronger right in the beginning of the World than at this day A Physitian must diligently enquire from whence Death doth causally invade from the beginning and even unto this day that it may from thence be manifest from whence a Disease hath drawn its integrity For truly although it be sufficiently apparent that Death doth contain as it were a privation or exstinction of Life so neither in it self or for its existence it doth not require any substantial form and much less a vital one But surely a Disease as such doth not bespeak a privation but a Being truly subsisting acting by an hurtful act of Life and ensnaring the Life So also it behoveth a Disease to consist in the form of its own thingliness which the Life can receive into it and be informed by it But seeing a Disease arose from the same Beginning as Death did neither is God ever the Author of Death It by all means follows that God is not the Author or Creator of Diseases neither therefore although a Disease hath a certain substantial form Yet it hath not Life nor a vital Light but what it hath borrowed from the Life it self to wit so far as it glistens in the Light of our Life or in that of Cattel But not that a Disease doth require or hath begged a vital Light from the Father of Lights for the being of its seed the which in it self is rather to be named a deadly or mortal thing and altogether estranged from the goodness of God the Creator Therefore although God alone doth create all the forms of all things and the Father of Lights doth give every essential form to wit a vital substantial form and so also the formal substance without any mutual competitor yet that hath not place in Diseases in the forming of which indeed man alone is chief Because the Life of Man alone containeth the second Causes of Diseases and Death Therefore because the Creator God denyeth that he made Death therefore also a Disease For a Disease standeth in the Life of Man and therefore all its quiddity or thingliness depends on the Life of man and that not only Seminally even as otherwise it is proper to all the seeds of any things whatsoever But besides also formally so that the Life of the Archeus or his Flesh and Blood are and do remain the whole formal Cause of Diseases or the effective Cause of the formes of a Disease For he who from the beginning refused to have effected Death or Diseases will never at length thence-forward be willing to have made Death nor Diseases For the Father of Lights will not give his Honour of Creating formal Lights unto any Creature except the Mortal formes of Diseases whereof as neither would he be called the God of the Dead Therefore Man remains the workman of his own Death who the day before was immortal as also of his own Diseases as if he were the Creator of Death So indeed that whereas God hath made vital Lights Man Createth Diseasie Obscure and deadly Idea's or Shapes and such an Idea doth as much differ from a vital Light as a black heat doth from Light Therefore the formal act of Death and Diseases sprang from the action of original Sin and shall so spring even unto the end of the World For the same Cause which in the beginning of the World made Death or the same second natural Cause which gave a natural entrance of Death into
same day where in they should eat of the Fruit of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil they should die the Death because by the approach of the sensitive Soul there was made another and a new Generation by reason whereof the Mind being astonished withdrew it self from the Sterne of Life In this thing indeed did the necessity of Death and Immortality stand For Man had wanted a mortal Soul as long as he had wished to be immortal not only because one only immortal Mind was sufficient for the governing of the Body neither was it convenient that the Body should serve two Masters at once But moreover because there was no need of a Seed which might contain in it a Disposition unto a mortal Soul Therefore the whole seminal Disposition to propagate Seed was in our first Parent Presentâ after the Apple was eaten and before the sensitive Soul was born as well in himself and his Posterity From thence indeed it is manifest that the Mind although it hath withdrawn its hand from the Stern of the Body Nevertheless that it is no less guilty in every production of a fructifying Seed than it was in Times past after the eating of the Apple Indeed that thing the words of the Text contain In Sins my Mother hath conceived me But after what manner under the Mean of the disswaded Apple the most chast innocency was defined being free from the Concupiscence of the Flesh and from the contagion of a brutal Impurity I will profesly demonstrate afterward But let it be sufficient to have now said by the way that a vital Seed hath arisen and was conceived through the lust of the Concupiscence of the Flesh for the begging of a sensitive Soul after a brutal manner on which Seed the Mind imprinteth its seal And therefore neither with the similitude or determination of a specifical brutality Without which Seal every Seed is barren otherwise ending into a lump of Flesh or a Monster Therefore from the Concupiscence of the Flesh as the Seed so also the Mortal Soul and the Life thereof and by consequence the flesh of Sin have drawn their original and by consequence also Death But indeed Athiests and Libertines do even at this day take the Text of the disswaded Apple together with that Original for an Allegory The which the Church hath long since banished for an Heresie and hath long since condemned it Therefore the History of the Deed which Genesis describeth is true But why and after what manner that eating of the Apple hath naturally unavoidably unremissibly and irrevocably caused Death to be equally continued on all Posterity so as that the one onely transgression of the Admonition being among the most hainous of Sins hath committed an original Crime and afterwards should enclose in it the Reason of a second Cause by propagating from an unexcusable necessity of Mortality or after what manner the withdrawing of Life and Cause of Death are necessitated in the eating of one Apple I desired not to have narrowly searched into the reason of the good pleasure of God and the motion of his Decree from a former Cause or from a consequent Effect seeing it abundantly sufficeth me that I know and believe it was so appointed of God but that truly I had hoped it might be for his Glory the Splendor of Chastity and Instruction of Libertines to have more fully sifted this Parâââ and therefore also to have applied it unto my Treatise of Long Life For now is the hour come wherein that Evil shall from the North be spread over all the Inhabitants of the Earth CHAP. CXII A Position 1. The substance of the Position 2. A summary Objection compacted of the Law Sin and the Curse 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. are Arguments against the Objection 8. A new Objection 9. The Objection is solved 10. The quality of the Sin in our first Parents 11. Why the Serpent assaulted the Woman 12. The Man is not cursed 13. The Woman is not cursed 14. The Text which is thought to contain a curse confirms the Position 15. The likenesse of Conception and bringing forth after the Fall and not before the Fall doth strengthen the Position 16. The Text proves the Position 17. An eight Argument against the Curse 18. A ninth 19. A tenth 20. An eleventh 21. A twelfth 22. A thirteenth 23. A fourteenth 24. It is shewn that Sin hath not caused Death much less if there had been any Law 25. What kind of knowledge was included in the Apple 26. Two faults in arguing of not the Cause as of the Cause 27. From what Causes the Corruption of Nature hath arose 28. From whence is the continuation of the original of Sin 29. Some Errours about the abuse of those faults in arguing 30. The Corruption of Nature from what immediate Cause it hath proceeded from what occasional Cause and from what mediate Cause 31. A fifteenth Argument against the Curse 32. A sixteenth 33. A seventeenth 34. An eighteenth 35. A nineteenth 36. A twentieth 37. A twenty first 38. A twenty second 39. A twenty third 40. A twenty fourth 41. After what sort Death entred the Apple 42. A conjecture from things going before 43. The conjecture is proved 44. Brawlings about Goats-wool 45. A twenty fifth Argument 46. It is concluded from the Truth of the Text. 47. Death doth not exspect an hec-ciety or this very momentnesse as neither doth Sin 48. The intention of the Creator placed in the Text is proved because he hath no where admitted of incest between him that goes before and him that follows after in generation 49. The place of Mans corrupted Nature is narrowly searched into by eight Arguments 50. A ninth is also added 51. The chastity of the Text is celebrated 52. The excellency of those that are regenerate beyond the happiness of Adam THe Almighty out of his vast and voluntary goodness of Love hath loved and raised up Man peculiar for this purpose that he might intimately and as nearly as might be express his own Image Wherefore he adorned the same Image of himself with so great a Grace of his own divine Majesty and so prevented it with the bountiful beholding of his Love that of his own good Pleasure he created Eve and ordained that she should be the future Mother of all Humanity and Adam after the Fall called the name of his Wife Hevah because she should be the Mother of all living who was to conceive her off-springs not indeed from carnal Copulation and after the manner of Bruits nor from the concupiscence of the Flesh or by the will of Man but from God or from the overshadowing of the holy Spirit alone after the manner whereby the Humanity was conceived and born in which and by which all that are to be saved ought to be regenerated That is the Virginity of the Mother remaining entire and her Womb being shut she had brought forth without Pain Eva was constituted above the Man This indeed is
Fall Again neither do these Words sound of a Curse that the Woman should be thenceforth obedient and subject to her Husband although therein the intent of the Creator doth clearly appear to wit that he had appointed the Woman to be the head top and ultimate Creature above the Man But now by reason of a double Sin that she ought to be subject to her Husband But that signifies rather a deserved Punishment than a Curse Even as a Superiour is not cursed who is laid aside for an Errour committed But whereas it is said In Pain shalt thou bring forth thy Sons the Text expresly confirmeth the mistery of the Paradoxal Position For from thence it manifestly appears 1. That Eve was not created nor appointed as that she had brought forth in Pain Wherefore this Message is not decleared unto her for a Curse But there is set before her eies how much Calamity she had caused unto her self that she should hereafter conceive and bring forth after the manner of Bruits in Pain For it is not to be doubted but that Bruit-beasts are not guilty of Sin yet do they bring forth in Pain Not indeed that they have sinned in Adam as their Father or that they are partakers of his Sin because they had brought forth in Pain whether Adam had sinned or not Neither also is it agreeable with divine goodness that Bruit-beasts should bear an undeserved Punishment while as they from a Faculty of Nature and from an appointment of Creation do bring forth in pain 2. If Bruits bring forth in Pain a likenesse of Conception and bringing forth in Bruits and in Woman after the Fall is denoted which Likeness seeing it was not before the Fall therefore this Text strengthens the Position 3. If Eve had not eaten the Apple and consequently from the Apple the concupiscence of the Flesh from the tickling of a corrupt Seed verily she had brought forth without Pain Where the Text promiseth a Virginity in conceiving and bringing forth and so a perpetual Virginity appointed in propagating To wit that she had conceived and brought forth her Womb being shut For what other thing is this than that which others think to be the Curse of Eve is in very deed only a commemoration of the good lost through the copulation of Man of Seed and of the concupiscence of the Flesh in the Flesh of Sin after the manner of Bruits henceforeward The hope I say was lost of conceiving by the holy Spirit after that she had conceived by the will of Man as every Mother in Sins doth For otherwise if Death had been of the punishment of a broken Law and not from the concupiscence of the Flesh there should be every day as many new Deaths as there are Transgressions or God should not make so much account of his Commands of the Decalogue as of the Admonition of the caution or avoiding from the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil For he would not have those Laws to be alike seriously observed which he would not have to be chastised with an equal Punishment Therefore it being as yet supposed that there had been a Law concerning the denyed eating of the Apple even as there is a Law of forbidden Worshipping of Idols Adultery c. But these Laws are not punished with a continued unpurgeable Impurity on Posterity in such a manner as the opposition of that eating is From hence therefore it most easily appeareth that original Sin was not so much from the force of disobeying a command as from the effect of a defiled divine Generation being changed into a beast-like one For else there is not an equality of distributive Justice nor therefore a conformity in the goodness of God whether we have respect unto the ingratitude of our first Parents or next unto the disobedience against a Law Because the first disobedience should pay a punishment derived on all even on the innocent Posterity rather than any tenths or hundreths afterwards and than innumerable and far more great or haynous Sins Indeed I think that there is the same rule of Justice with the same Lawgiver of every command preceptively and defensively given and pronounced that the breaking thereof ought alwayes to draw after it an equal Fault neither therefore to be punished in all the Posterity and those that are innocent and then that none of Mortals nor any one of them had been sufficient for the original punishments of their Ancestours and a hundred-fold of Deaths to wit if Death had taken its original effectively and immediately from the opposing of a Law or the unchangeable God had not appointed his future Commands to be alike observed as at first if Death should not have its root in Nature the application of which root had been onely from man Therefore If Death should be immediately from God alone from the curse of Sin Now God had made Death and so by Faith we should believe a Falshood In the next place if Death had proceeded from a Curse and had been from a supernatural Root So also neither should our Death find natural Causes in us or our Death should not be of the same kinde with the Death of Adam Yea which is far more absurd our Death should not proceed from the same primitive Beginning from which the Death of our first Parents began And by consequence our Death should not be the effect of original Sin And so unless Death do happen from elsewhere than from the punishment of a Law and the curse of Sin that is unless the Adamical or Beast-like Generation of the Flesh from the Concupiscence of the Flesh and its Copulation doth naturally containe Death in it like unto Beasts in very deed Innocent Children should pay an undeserved Punishment Again if Death should be immediately caused from a Curse or from Sin should not the Text unfitly say On the same Day thou shalt die the Death while as it should not say Presently in the same Moment thou shalt die For a Curse doth not want twenty four hours that it may operate as neither likewise doth Sin require an interval for the Guilt and deserved Punishment of the same which was expresly seen while an impure Man endeavouring to vindicate the reeling Cart wherein the Arke of the Covenant was carried from a fall payed the Punishment of his boldness by sudden Death But seeing Death consisted in the procreation of forbidden Seeds and of the Concupiscence of the Flesh it presupposeth the eating of the Apple and its Digestion And therefore those Words On the same Day thou shalt die the Death or shalt be made Mortal also thou shalt suffer punishment by Death doubled in thee and thy Posterity do strengthen the proposed Truth of our Position But there is no original Sin accounted of from the first afterwards or unremissibly derived on all Posterity but that which from the eating of the Apple thenceforth defiled the whole Nature because it tranferred the Propagation of mankinde on the Flesh
of Sin of which God saith My Spirit shall not remain with Man because he is Flesh But that Sin if it hath not been sufficiently searched into by Predecessours I will add freely what I conceive For indeed in this History of Genesis do concurr together 1. The Sin of Distrust or suspicion of an Evil Faith of Deceit Fallacie or Falshood in God For Eve saith to the Divel Least perhaps we die And so she doubted that the Death admonished of would of necessity come unto them And likewise the Sin of a despised Admonition and that they more trusted unto the Serpent than to God neither was there disobedience where there was not yet a Law 2. An act of eating of the Apple not so much forbidden as admonished of bewarying of it 3. An effect of the Apple being eaten For in the midst of Paradise there was a Tree whose Property is said to be of Life Least he eat and live for ever and there was another Tree whose Property was that of the knowledge of Good and Evil unto whom there was not another like but the other Trees except these two served onely for nourishment The property therefore and effect of this latter Tree was to stir up an itching concupiscence of the Flesh or madness of Luxurie But it is called The Tree of the knowledge of Good Lost and of Evil obtained For they knew not that they were naked and they were without shame that is without the Concupiscence of the Flesh like Children because they wanted Seed 4. A carnal Copulation concurreth From thence at length a certain beastlike frail Mortal Generation contrary to the intent of God who was unwilling that Man should conceive in Sins in Sins hath my Mother conceived me not indeed that all Mothers afterwards should eat of that Apple but because presently after the Apple was eaten all Conception should not be made but by the will of Blood Flesh and Man And so that from thence should all Flesh of Sin necessarily proceed Therefore while the immediate Cause of corrupt Nature and Death is ascribed unto the Sin of disobedience Or while the immediate Cause of corrupt Flesh is attributed unto the Sin of suspected deceit in God they are faults in arguing of not the Cause as of the Cause For in speaking properly the very Corruption and Degeneration of the Flesh of our whole Nature hath not issued from the Curse as neither immediately from Sin accompanying it but from these only occasionally and as it were from the Cause without which it was not but our Nature is rendred wholly corrupted and uncapable of Eternal Glory by reason of the causalities of concupiscence and brutal Generation effectively and immediately causing a withdrawing of virgin Chastity and all hope of generating from the holy Spirit afterwards and from Eve as a Virgin And therefore original Sin is defluxing altogether on all Posterity because after the Virginity of Eve was taken away the race of men is not possible to be generated but by the will of Man Flesh and Blood the which otherwise God had determined to be generated by the holy Spirit It is therefore an undistinction of Causes and its unapt application of Effects unto their proper Causes which hath not heretofore heeded 1. Why that Apple was with so loud a voice forewarned of that they should not eat of it 2. That they have esteemed that to be a Curse which was not 3. That they have ascribed original Sin unto one Disobedience as the most near and containing immediate Cause 4. That they have thrown an unexcusable Death on the Curse and Punishment of a broken Law For although a grievous Sin hath concurred with an original declining of the Generation intended by God together with an impurity of the Flesh the corruption of Nature by carnal copulation Yet the corruption of Nature the degeneration of Generation as neither Death have proceeded from the original Sins of our Parents their distrust c. as from an immediate Cause but from the effect of the Apple being eaten as a new Product of necessity Naturally depending thereon that is Death hath proceeded from its own second natural Causes existing in the Apple Even as a total Corruption of Nature hath issued from thence because both are supported by one and the same Root of necessity But the Causes of these natural Causes were by accident co-bound unto the Sins of Distrust c. in the Unison of eating For the very guilt of the Sin of suspition of an evil Faith or bad trusting of Deciet and a Fallacy of God remained expiable by our first Parents after the manner of Sin to wit by Contrition and Acts of Repentance after the manner of other Sins But not that therefore whole Nature ought to be depraved that a Death and Misery of every Body ought to enter and perpetuate it self on all Posterity even although they should have guiltless Souls For God doth sometimes punish the Sins of Parents upon one or a second Generation But it is no where read that he hath chastised the Sin of the Grand-father on all his Posterity afterwards who had acted evilly for five thousand Years before For that pain of Punishment exceedeth the love of God towards Man whom he so greatly blessed presently after Sin It exceeds I say the Rules of Justice if the Punishment of him that is guiltless in that Sin be refered unto his Ballance And moreover I think that if God out of his goodness had not admonished our first Parent of Death If he should eat of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil But if the Devil from his proper and inbred Enmity had translated the Apple from that Tree under any other Tree and that both the Sexes of Men had eaten of the Apple that the Concupiscence of the Flesh and Copulation had equally succeeded and so although that had happened without any Sin yet that the Generation following from thence from the necessity and property of the Apple being eaten had suspended the intent of the Creator who would not that the Sons of God and Posterity of Eve should be conceived from the holy Spirit after her Virginity was corrupted And so Death a Disease and the very Corruption of Nature and Beast-like original Inversion thereof had been and yet not from Sin Because the Apple contained a natural efficient Cause of Luxury For how unaptly do these agree together Death proceedeth from the Sin of an infringed or broken Law and so from a supernatural Curse And those Words of the Text uttered after the eating of the Apple and before the banishment out of Paradise Least he stretch forth his Hand unto the Tree of Life do eat of it and live for ever For against the Curse of God no Creature is able to resist From hence therefore it becomes evident that the Apple contained the natural Cause of a defiled Generation and of their own Death and that the Tree of Life did likewise contain naturally a conserving
the Eyes which might be fitly accused Wherefore this dissection being compared with the dreaming Vision of the Tertian Ague from the eating of too much Salmon I presently perceived why they were both at once recalled to mind while I was about to write the present Chapter to wit that through the opportunity of them both being remembred I might the more strongly insist about the true thingliness or essence of Diseases con-centred in the bosome of the vital spirit but that the dregginesses which the Schooles have reputed for the immediate and containing causes of Diseases are nothing but the external occasional Causes how intimately soever they should be admitted within the veines themselves CHAP. LXII A Disease is an unknown Guest 1. A Narration of things hitherto done 2. The Object and Intent of the Author 3. That the Art of the Medicine of the Pagans was an invention of the evil Spirit 4. A Prayer for his Persecutors 5. The Author searcheth out or espieth from his Persecutions that the evil Spirit was the Inventor of the Doctrine of the Pagans 6. The Labours of the Schooles from hence are vain 7. The Authors Anguishes 8. A Prologue of the thingliness of a Disease 9. The most immediate containing and essential Causes of Diseases 10. The necessity of a seminal Idea is collected 11. How far this Doctrine departeth from the Schooles 12. The true causes of things and of Diseases 13. The Schooles their ancient definition of a Disease 14. The first Contradiction of the Schooles 15. Another Stumbling 16. A Third 17. The Author teacheth in his Treatise of the Elements that there are not mixt Bodies as neither humors in Nature whence the whole foundation of the Medicine of the Schooles goes to ruine 18. A Fourth Stumbling 19. A Fifth 20. A Sixth 21. A Seventh 22. Against the distemperature of Elementary qualities in us 23. An Eighth staggering 24. A Ninth 25. A Tenth 26. An Eleventh 27. The Error of the Schooles is discovered 28. A Twelfth stumbling 29. An absurd consequence according to the position of the Schooles 30. The uncertainty of a predicament for Diseases 31. Arguments on the opposite part and against a feigned disposition 32. Tee true efficient Cause of diseases 33. The occasional matter 34. Wherein the whole thingliness or essence of a Disease may be scituated 35. Whence the Schooles have been seduced 36. Two false Maxims of the Schooles 37. Another delusion of the Schooles 38. What natural generation is 39. The Schooles deceived by Aristotle 40. Some ignorances arisen from hence 41. A Disease consisteth of matter and an efficient cause 42. Whatsoever is generated that is made by seminal Ideas 43. All the predicaments are in every Disease 44. The stip of Heathenisme in healing 45. That the definition of a Disease hath been hitherto unknown 46. A Disease is not a Being of the first Constitution yet hath it entred into the account of Nature 47. Wherein Diseases are distinguished from other created things 48. The Error of the Schooles from the subject of Inhaesion of Diseases and very many Absurdities issuing from thence 49. That those Absurdities are not to be connived at by Christians 50. A stubborn ignorance 51. Hunger is not a Disease 52. The Schooles depart from their own Hippocrates 53. Some neglects of the Schooles 54. The rashness of the Schooles 55. That the hurt of action is not to be regarded for the essence of a Disease 65. Whence that fiction sprang 57. The consequent upon a confounding of the cause with the symptome 58. A removal of the Cause doth not of necessity respect a withdrawing of the occasional matter 59. The Schooles being deluded by artificial things delude their young beginners by artificial things 60. How the Seed may differ from its constituted Body 61. A Thirteenth stumbling 62. Some knowledges chiefly true in the Author 63. What a kind of production of a Disease is made by a Blas 64. The efficient Cause in a Disease 65. A Disease pierceth the Life with a formal Light in a point 66. Some differences of efficient Causes 67. An example in the Stone 68. The Stone is not properly a Disease 69. While the Effect hath concluded the occasional efficient there is not the former Disease 70. The products of Diseases neglected by the Schooles are touched at 71. The Error of the Schooles about the Objects of Contrarieties in Diseases 72. Some Arguments against the Schooles that it may jerk them 73. The Products of Diseases Secondary Diseases together with a destinction of Symptomes and Fruits are resumed 47. Weakness or Feebleness what it is 75. An improper division of Diseases by the Organical parts 76. Whence there is a divers action of diverse things 77. From the handy-craft operation of the Fire of Pepper an Escarrhotick and Caustick are Thirteen Conclusions Paradoxes to the Schooles and diverse things are illustrated worthy to be noted 78. The Fire is but little profitable unto the Speculation of Curing 79. Some notable things concerning our heat 80. A various Classis or Order of the Occasions of Diseases 81. Hippocrates is explained with a connivance 82. That which Nature doth once despise that she never afterwards receiveth into favour 83. A Disease is of the matter of the Archeus 84. An explaining of Products 85. Our Nature is ruled by an erring Understanding after that it is corrupted 86. The Schooles again deluded by artificial things 87. To Produce differs from to Generate 88. The Schooles have onely thought of taking away the occasional cause 89. In us there is a Nature standing sitting and lying 90. A decree of Hippocrates is explained with the moderation of that age 91. Anatomy is frequent to excuse excuses in sins 92. The sloathful negligence of the Schooles 93. After what manner death and a disease have become the Beings of Nature since the creation and have received second Causes their producers 94. Two Objections of the Schooles refuted 95. A Guess or Presage from the unseparable goodness THe integrity of Nature being already at first constituted to wit between the Matter the Archeus and the Life or forme of a vital Light with the seminal and vital beginnings the ferments also the authors of transmutations being newly discovered also the elements qualities complexions and miscellanies of these their fights strife and cursary victories being rejected likewise humours and defluxing Catarrhes being banished out of Nature Lastly Flatus's Tartars and the three Principles of the Chymists being banished out of the exercises of Diseases it now remained that the defects and interchangable courses of Nature themselves should be intimately or pithily considered Wherefore before that I make a more profound entrance I have undertaken to prove That Diseases have not onely been unknown in the Schooles in the particular and therefore that their Cure hath radically layn hid but moreover That the very Essence of a Disease hath been hidden in the general Truly it is matter of grief that it hath been so ingeniously elabourated
known that the same Humours do become degenerate in the passage of Digestions and are the occasions of many Diseases But that the Liver alone in Vices of the skin doth bear the undeserved blame that is a thing full of ignorance and worthy of pity I will at length moreover commune with Christian Physitians by one only Argument To wit Iâ is of Faith that God made not Death for Man Because Adam was by Creation Immortal and void of Diseases For concerning long Life I have explained after what manner a Disease and Death at the eating of the Apple as an Effect unto a second Cause have entred into Nature Therefore in this place it hath been sufficient to have admonished That the Concupiscence of the Flesh arose from Transgression and also to have brought forth the flesh of Sin and therefore that Nature being corrupted produced a Disease through Concupiscence I could wish therefore that the Schooles may open the Causal Band and Connexion between the forbidden Apple and the Elements or the Complexions of these Whether in the mean time they are lookt upon as the Causes bringing Diseases or as Diseases themselves To wit let them teach If the Body of Man from his first Creation did consist of a mixture of the Four Elements after what manner those second Causes or co-mixt Elements onely by eating of the Apple which else had never been to fight the Bonds of Peace and Bolts of humane Nature being burst asunder at length naturally exercise hostilities and all Tyranny What common thing I say doth interpose betwixt the Apple and our constitutive Elements But if this came miraculously and supernaturally to passe that Death was made a punishment of sin Then God had made Death Efficiently but Man had given onely an Occasion for Death But this is against the Text yea and against Reason Because Death was made with Beasts in the Beginning even as also at this day unto every one happens his own Death that is by a natural course and a knitting of Causes unto their Effect It must needs be therefore according to Faith that Death crept naturally into Nature so that man was made Mortal after the manner of Bruits For it is certain that at the eating of the Apple the brutal concupiscence of the Flesh was introduced Neither do we read at length of any other knowledge of good and evil to have been brought in which was signified under the opening of their Eyes than that they knew themselves to be naked and then it first shamed them of their nakedness Wherefore I have long stood amazed that the Schooles have never examined the aforesaid Text that they might search out the Disposition or Respect of the Cause bringing a Disease unto its natural Effect In what day soever ye shall eat of the forbidden Fruit ye shall die the Death Which indeed is not so to be taken as if God had said by way of threatnings If ye shall eat of the forbidden Tree I will create or make Death in you Diseases Paines Miseries c. for a punishment of sin or that through a condign curse of my indignation ye and your posterity shall die For such an Interpretation as that resisteth the divine goodness because that for the sin of our two Parents he had equally cursed all their posterity with an irrevocable curse of his Indignation who after sin commited and the Flood it self readily blessed Noah by increase and multiply c. Wherefore those words Ye shall die the death did contain a fatherly admonition To wit that by eating of the Apple they should contract the every way impurity of Nature as from a second Cause seated to wit in the Concupiscence of the flesh of sin But seeing such a concupiscence can never consist in elementary qualities it is also sufficiently manifest that a Disease and Death are not connexed as Effects to the Elements and the qualities of these But the concupiscence of the flesh as it infected onely the Archeus even so also it did onely respect the same In the Archeus therefore every Disease afterwards established it self and found its own onely and immediate Inne And so also from hence the Archeus is made wholly irregular inordinate violent and disobedient Because he is he who from thenceforth hath framed inordinate images and seales together with a spending of his own proper substance as it were the wax of that seal For images or likenesses are at first indeed the meer incorporeal Beings of the mind but as soon as they are imprinted on the Archeus they cloath themselves with his Body and are made most powerful seminal Beings the sealing dames mistresses and architectresses of any kind of passions and inordinacies whatsoever which thing I will hereafter more clearly illustrate in the Treatise of Diseases Finally the adversaries will be able to Object That it would be all as one whether a Disease be accounted a disposition or a distemperature of the first qualities or a disproportionable mixture of humours or lastly whether it be called an indisposition or confusion and likewise that it is as one whether the Cause which brings a Disease he called the occasional or the material Cause of Diseases or the internal and conjoyned Cause thereof For truely the one onely intention of Nature and Physitians on both sides is conversant about the removal of that matter for the obtainment of health Therefore that I am stirred about nothing but an unprofitable brawling concerning a Name I Answer Negatively and that indeed because both the suppositions are false For as to the First For that doth not onely contain a manifest fault in arguing of not the Cause as of the Cause and of a non-Being for a Being But besides the Destruction and Death of mortal men doth from thence follow For for that very Cause for which a Remedy is administred to correct the distemperature of a Discrasie or the abounding or disproportion of humours because of things not existing in Nature they at least cannot deny that our Disputation is of things but not of a Name onely when as to wit they accuse cure or undertake to cure the Disease for the Cause or this for it They handle I say things that are never possible as if they were present And then also they presse a falshood Because indeed I never said that a naked confusion or indisposition of the Archeus is a Disease but I affirme that the immediate and internal matter of a Disease is to be drawn from the masse of the Archeus himself But I call the imprinted seminal Idea which springs from the disturbances of the Archeus the efficient Gause but as to what appertaines to the other supposition the occasional or inciting Cause and the internal containing Cause or the very Body of a Disease do far also differ from each other For example The occasional Cause of intermitting Fevers is present out of the fit which should not be if the occasional Cause were the very internal matter of
of eternal Life that is a Superiority over the necessities of Death At length if death had happened from a Law from the Punishment and Curse of Sin it should be false that God had not made Death because in very deed and immediately Death had proceeded from God and not from a natural Cause or that of Nature corrupted And by so much a stronger right where the same Person the Almighty Creator is the Law-giver like as also the Executer Last of all Sin is a mental Being or a Non-Being which cannot produce a real and actual Being And therefore Death at its Beginning had not proceeded from natural Causes even as at this Day Death doth arise in bruit Beasts equally as in us and therefore Death in its Beginning had been different in the whole kind from that at this day And therefore the Text should speak that which is ridiculous God made not Death if by reason of disobedience he had cursed Nature that it should die It is therefore of necessity that the Death of Man in its Beginning began and was made from second Causes altogether natural whereby we die at this day Also at this day Death hath reciprocally invaded through the natural Causes of defiled Nature even as in times past in its Beginning Indeed although Adam became Mortal from eating of the Apple yet his Death happened not but naturally some Ages after and from Old Age as from second Causes Far therefore be a Law an opposing thereof Sin a Curse in the original of Death appearing so many Ages after from second Causes speaking as it were in our presence Therefore every and the total Cause whereby Man hath immediately framed Death for himself is to be seen in the Position For although we are now Mortal yet we die not when we will and when we desire Because Death proceeded not from the Will or from Sin but from the Apple Neither indeed because Death it self was in the Apple as in a mortal Poyson but there was in the Apple the Concupiscence of the Flesh an incentive of Lust a be-drunkening of Luxury for a Beast-like Generation in the Flesh of Sin which Flesh carried with it the natural Causes of Defects and necessities of Death Wherefore it is likely to be true if the Serpent had not been able to obtain of Man that by Sinning he should eat of the Apple that he had cast an Apple cropped from thence unto the Root of some lawful Tree that by this means the Enemy of our Life might rejoyce to have introduced Death And that thing is sufficiently gathered from the Text which doth not say If thou shalt eat of that Tree but he saith In whatsoever day thou shalt eat thou shalt die the Death As if he should denounce that that danger of Death to come was fore-ordained For for this purpose the World was created and the Instruments of Generation were given unto Man because the Corruption of Nature the necessity of regeneration in a Saviour and the virgin Purity thereof was foreseen Let therefore those brawlings cease whether Eve ate an Apple or indeed a Fig. For the Text calls an Apple That which is pleasing to the Eye but a Fig doth not so allure by the sight of it And that one only Tree was of that Property whereof then there was not the like nor at this day is there another read to exist among created Things Finally the Words of the Text I will multiply thy Miseries and thy Conceptions so far off is it that they do signifie the Indignation of God and much less his Curse Yea rather they denote his love toward the devoted Sex For truly there is none which knows not that by how much the Life of the devoted Sex shall be the more miserable by so much also that it is nearer to the Son of Man for otherwise tribulations which God sendeth on his Saints and Martyrdom it self should by an equal right be Curses I will add last of all that as the Works of the Flesh are devillish So the Text I will put Enmities between the Seed of the Woman and thy Seed doth fully or plainly confirm this Position For first of all the Woman of whose Seed God there speaketh is the God-bearing Virgin which as a Virgin hath left no other Seed an Enemy to the Serpent but the Sons of Light the Sons of God and those who are renewed by the holy Spirit who have no Enmities with the Eggs of any creeping thing but only with the Sons of the Devil and Darkness forasmuch as they keep the Seeds of Sin Therefore the Text there promiseth a future Regeneration in the God-bearing Virgin calling those that are not renewed the Seed of the Devil because they are Adamical Flesh Therefore those things being heeded which I have already above demonstrated original Sin doth not properly expect a quickning or the moment of hecceity For although the Soul cannot be guilty of Sin before it be Yet seeing original Sin is in the Contagion of the Flesh it self is presently in the supposition of the concrete or composed Body after the manner of its receiver and assoon as there is a sexual mixture of the Seeds according to that saying For behold I was conceived in Iniquities before the coming of the Soul because in Sins my Mother hath conceived me For Sin is in the same point wherein Death consisteth the which indeed is in the very mixture of the Seeds For Death is immediately in the Archeus but not in the Soul which thing the sometimes mortal indisposition it self of the Archeus proveth from whence the conception is made voide which before now was in its whole hope vital And although the impurity of the material thing supposed be before the Flesh thereby generated and therefore also before the Soul yet there is not properly Sin unless the Soul âall put that on There is therefore a far different infection of original Sin than of any other Sins whatsoever which require a consent of the Soul For other Sins the Soul it self committeth but original Sin defiles the Soul not consenting because the Thingliness or Essence of that original Sin is the very Flesh of Sin For neither therefore is it called the Soul of Sin but the Flesh of Sin because the Soul is defiled by the Flesh But the Devil not from elsewhere than from himself Therefore Man admires mercy but not the Devil Therefore from the good pleasure of the Creator the Apple did carry in it not only the Concupiscence of the Flesh but consequently also the generation of Seed but there was not therefore a Faculty in the Apple of propagating the sensitive Soul The Arbitrator of the World in creating would oblige himself to create every living Soul in every soulified Body when corporeal Dispositions had come unto the bound of enlivening For therefore the Apple presently after it was eaten disposed the Arterial Blood unto a Seed and from thence into a sensitive Soul And that thing was
to be sensitive doth not shew the unseperable Essence of an Animal And seeing otherwise the definition of every thing is from the Essence of the thing as they will have it but man according to his Essence was made in a full possession of Immortality and henceforth of an Eternal Duration according to his Soul the Schools could not believe that man by reason of a sensitive Soul alone was essentially an Animal Especially while they believed his Essence to depend on an Eternal Duration and an uncorruptible Soul or Form All which absurdities I acknowledge to have crept into and to have remained in the Schools by reason of the truth of our Position being unknown Even hitherto I have established the Position out of the holy Scriptures Now again the same by the Authorities of Fathers which matter B. Augustine hath seemed to have understood before others saying After what manner had it shamed Man of the Transgression of a Law when as his very Members had not known shame As if he should say His Members were stirred up unto the Concupiscence of the Flesh and acts of his Privie Parts presently after the Eating of the Apple Their Eyes were opened but for this they were not opened that they might know what might be performed by them through the cloathing of Grace when as their Members knew not how to resist their will And dost thou not blush at that Disease or that thou although shamefac'd dost confess that that Lust entred into Paradise And to impute it unto Husbands and Wives before Sin He who was to be without Sin would be born without the Concupiscence of the Flesh not in that Flesh of Sin but in the likeness of sinful Flesh As if he should say whatsoever is born from Copulation although it had been born in Paradise and before Sin would have been and is the Flesh of Sin Seeing that alone which is not born of Copulation is not the Flesh of Sin Whatsoever off-spring is born from Concupiscence or of the Flesh of Sin is obliged unto Orignal Sin unless it be born again in him whom the Virgin conceived without Concupiscence The Flesh of Christ drew a mortality from the mortality of his Mothers Body because she found not the Concupiscence of a Copulatresse For indeed as Original Sin is not derived on the Posterity any other way than by the Concupiscence of the Flesh So it must needs be that in the Apple was included the Concupiscence from whence the humane stock degenerated and was vitiated in generating For truly if off-springs could have been generated any otherwise than by carnal Copulation the Matrimonial act had been unlawful Whereunto this every-way convincing Argument serveth That act before the Apple was eaten was either unlawful and not thought of or it was lawful If it were unlawful now our Position is proved But if lawful therefore whatsoever I have above described out of Augustine is false Seeing therefore they had now actually felt the effect of the eaten Apple or the Concupiscence of the Flesh in their Members in Paradise presently it shamed them because their Members which before they could rule at their pleasure were afterwards moved by a proper incentive of lust At length how greatly Virginity hath alwayes pleased the Bridegroom of the Soul doth clearly enough appear out of divers Histories of the Saints And indeed in Cana of Galilee the Bridegroom having left his Bride followed the Lord Jesus and it is that Disciple whom Jesus therefore so greatly loved The same thing was familiar unto Alexius Aegidius and to very many others especially with poor Women-Virgins For indeed the infinite goodness from the proper motion of its good pleasure from Eternity created Man and fore-loved him with so great a love that he determined to co-knit his own Divinity unto him and to enlighten him with the Light which enlightneth every man that cometh into this World and to Adopt him for the Son of God giving him Power to become the Son of God by the new Birth which new Birth before Sin was not necessary Seeing therefore he requireth People to be re-born of God therefore before Sin they were all born of God which thing Lucifer with his own Spirits seeing through a long-since Pride of his Beauty and since his fall being wholly become Envious supposed that he was wiser than God who had raised up a vile creature unto that height wherefore he aspired to exceed God whom he had not yet seen and to throw him down from his Seat of Majesty Presently afterwards he after that he had paid the punishment of his Sins being more cruelly wroth saw also that Eve being a Virgin was by the onely Goodness of God without all desert and freely now appointed for the aforesaid Instrument of that Adoption and Mother of Men Therefore he endeavoured to hinder the Love of God through the Eating of the Apple Because as seeing that the Lasciviousness and Concupisence of the Flesh implanted in the same was Diametrically opposite unto Gods intention Therefore the Eating of the Apple was not forbidden unto man by a Law but by a fatherly Admonition neither is Original Sin from the Transgressions of a Law from the Eating of the Apple as being forbidden food but by Reason of the effect arising from the Apple and the properties inserted in the Apple After another manner the Transgression or Eating did offend onely in a Voluntary Act but not for Posterity unless Naturally and by the second Causes of a brutal Copulation following from thence otherwise in our first Parents impossible it had inverted the intention of Divine Generation Yea Original Sin fell not so properly on the guiltless Posterity as the effect of Generation the which indeed hath brought forth an Adulterous Beast-like Devilish Generation and plainly uncapable of the Kingdom of God and of Union with and Enjoyment of God By Reason of the Similitude whereof those that were born in Adultery were excluded from the Participation of Heaven But let us feign the opposite thing to wit that our Parents were conscious that there was a Law declared by God the Creator of the Universe touching the forbidden Apple and that upon such an account Death was foretold unto him and all his Posterity and undoubtedly came unto them but at least-wise an irregular Sin being so bold and so ungodly and cruel a Wickedness on all their Posterity could not be forgiven without a great note of Contrition Neither had God how Merciful and Good soever straightway so suddenly made that man fruitful with so great a Blessing and substituted the other living Creatures under his Feet he not being ignorant that neither of them did Grieve Repent Pray but only it shamed them and that they endeavoured as Fools to hide themselves from God and to cover their privy Parts with Leaves Therefore I collect from thence that on the same day not only Mortality entred through Concupiscence But moreover that it presently
principiating Ferment laid up in the bosoms of the Elements continues unchangeable and constant nor subject to successive change or death Therefore it is a power implanted in places by the Lord the Creator and there placed for ends ordained to himself in the succession of dayes While as othewise the Seed in things and its fermental or leavening force is a thing which the Scene of its Tragedy being out of date doth end in an individual conclusion For a thing although it successively causeth off-spring from it self that comes to passe not but by the virtue of the Ferment once drawn which therefore ceaseth not in its own Places uncessantly to send forth voluntary or more prosperous fruits by the Seed of the former Parents These things are easie to be known in Mineralls sprung of their own accord but in Plants and living Creatures generating by a successive fruitfulness of the Seed it is not alike easie as neither in things soulified counterfetting indeed a confused Sex by putrifaction but straightway causing off-spring also by a mutual joyning But there is every where the same Reason of the Ferment and so that the Ferment is on both sides the same Principle For in the Seed it is placed by the Parent and undergoes an identity or sameliness with the same or it is imprinted in the matter elsewhere from external causes and at leastwise it on either side holds the place of a true inward efficient Because the framer of things hath ordained proper and stable places for some Ferments in the Cup or bosome of the Elements as it were the Store-house of the Seeds therefore the first figures of efficient causes But in other things he hath dispersed them thorow individual things and kindes as if they were places for elsewhere he would have these beginnings stedfast in regard of the Nature of bodies in which they are in but in another place that they might passe from hand to hand into the continuances of things But in this he would have them to differ that the stable Ferments of places should be as it were the chief universal simple and inchoative or beginning Beginnings of Seeds or the efficients of natural Causes which indeed should beget with Childe the Element of Water in it self in the Air or in the Earth But that the sliding Ferments of frail Bodies and those Ferments drawn from the Parents should onely concern the matter prepared and should sit immediately in the bosom of the Seeds and therefore also that they should contain the inward necessity of death Likewise the other universal beginning of Bodies which is the water is the onely material cause of things as the water hath the Nature of a beginning it self in the manner purity simpleness and progress of beginning even as also in the bound of dissolution unto which all Bodies through the reducing of the last matter do return Which thing I will straightway in its place typically demonstrate A Beginning therefore differs from a cause onely speculatively as that is an actual initiating Being and thus far causing But a Cause may be a terme of relation to the thing caused or the Effect happily neerer to a speculative Being Or distinguish those as it listeth thee I at leastwise understand Causes to begin and beginnings to cause by the same name whether it be in the bosom of the Elements or in the very Family of material Seeds Therefore in the History of Natural things I consider the matter for the most part begotten with Childe by the Seed running down from its first life unto the last bound of that conjoyned thing but not the first matter of Aristotle or that impossible non-Being But I consider the reall beginnings of the efficient cause conceived as the first Gifts Roots Treasures and begetting Ferments Or if the Reader had rather confound the efficient Cause with the Ferment of things and the matter of Bodies with the Element of water I willingly cease to be distinct onely that it be known how those things have themselves in the light of Nature Thus at least I have discoursed of beginnings and causes of Bodies as I judge and have found by experience also I promise much light to those who shall have once made this speculation their own Therefore first of all they shall certainly finde the Maxime of Aristotle false to wit that the thing generating cannot be a part of the thing generated Seeing that the effective Principle of generation is alway the inward Agent the inward doer or accomplisher and the thing generating Which appeareth clearly enough in those things which bring forth living Creatures by their onely Mother putrifaction Wherein there is no outward univocall or simple thing generating but the seminal lump it self or the generative Seed doth keep in it self all things which it hath need of for the managing of generation But truly neither is it sufficient to have shewen a couple of Causes but rather it hath holpen more plainly to have brought forth the efficient or chief Builder of the Fabrick Wherefore I do suppose in this place what things I will demonstrate elsewhere to wit that in the whole order of natural things nothing of new doth arise which may not take its beginning out of the Seed and nothing to be made which may not be made out of the necessity of the Seed But the Tragedy that hath done its office in the bound of the end is nothing out the period or conclusion of the Seeds overcome with pains or ended unless happily they may be compelled by violence to depart Wherefore I except the fire because as being given not for generation but for destruction Chiefly because there is a peculiar not a seminal beginning of it Indeed it is a thing among all created things singular and unlike as sometime in its place Last of all I except the influences of the Heavens which by reason of their most general appointment have no seminal power in themselves Because they are too far distinct from the lot or interest of things to be generated and therefore influences are chosen to be for signes times or seasons dayes and years by the Creator nor ordained for any thing else but not for the seminal causes of things Moreover of efficient and seminal Causes in Nature some are efficiently effecting but others effectively effecting Indeed of the former order are the Seeds themselves and the Spirits the dispensers of these and those causes are of the race of essences through their much activity worthily divided from the material cause But the effective efficients are the very places of entertainment and the neerest Organs or Instruments of the Seeds such as are external Ferments the disposers of the matter into the interchangeableness of the passing over of one thing into another Also hither have the dispositive powers of circumstances regard likewise the cherishing exciting and promoting ones because the Seed being given yet not any things promiscuously do thence proceed Besides our young beginner shall
the disposing of instruments and the effect or thing produced 6. That heat is not an agent in seminal generation 7. Why Aristotle hath not known the truth of Nature 8. His Books of natural Philosophy contain onely tristes 9. How young men are to be instructed in the place or room of Schoole-Philosophy 10. Into what great Apolloes young men might climbe 11. The Prerogatives of the fire 12. What a young man so instructed might judge 13. Privations do not succeed in the flowing of Seeds to generation 14. There is no form of a dead Carcase 15. That generation and corruption do not receive each other 16. The Vulcan of life vanisheth without the corrupting of it self 17. Death is not the corruption of life 18. The distinction of privation and corruption 19. Of forms there is no corruption 20. The ignorance of Galen 21. His ridiculous Volumes concerning the decrees of Hipocrates and Plato 22. His books of preserving of health are foolish THE Schooles have so sworn constancy and their end to their Aristotle that even to this day they by putting one name for another do call him the Philosopher whom notwithstanding I certainly finde to be altogether ignorant of Nature and it grieveth me not to write down some causes which have enforced me hereunto and that for no other end than that hereafter as well Professors as young beginners may not through an aptness to believe and a custome of assenting be made to wander out of the way nor may suffer themselves hence-forward to be led by a blinde man into the ditch For otherwise I tell no mans tale nor am I more displeased with Aristotle than with a non ens or a non-being Therefore first of all Aristotle defineth Nature It is the Principle or beginning of motion as also of rest in Bodies in whom it is in by it self and not by accident Wherein I finde more errours and ignorances of the definer than words First therefore the word it is in sheweth that he speaketh of a Body really existing but not of his impossible matter 2. He denotes that such Bodies are not of the number or supposed things of Nature For truly it belongeth not to Bodies to be in Bodies by it self and not by accident 3. He takes away any accidents from the Catalogue of Nature as if they were without besides and above Nature because accidents are in by accident 4. He sets down that Bodies which have motion or rest by accident are likewise without Nature 5. That the Being of things is in Nature in Nature it self before the day or motion or rest of the same Because it must needs be that something first be before that it move be moved or doth rest And so the Principle of Being goes before the beginning of moving or resting notwithstanding Nature cannot be before its existence For if the beginning of motion or rest should be latter or an effect as to their Being Nature should be an effect as to its being a natural thing 6. What if God after Creation had enjoyned neither motion nor rest rest indeed according to Aristotle presupposeth the bound of motion there had now been a Creature and not Nature For God in the beginning created the Heaven and the Earth Now Nature was not understood by Aristotle to wit there was sometimes a Creature and it actually existed before or on this side Nature here defined 7. Bodies in which the beginning of motion is external and by accident suppose thou when ãâã heat of the Sun moves the Seed to increase or a Woman with Childe by accident transforms the imperfect Infant by her own Imagination should not be under Nature as neither that accidental beginning 8. To rest is not not to be moved but to cease from motion and so not to be moved is more general than rest Therefore Nature absolutely taken should be onely after the existence of Nature 9. If the beginning of motion in a moveable thing be Nature and the efficient cause be properly called the beginning of motion as he saith heat not elementary to be therefore it must needs be that the efficient cause is inward which is against Aristotle or that Nature in as much as it is the beginning of motion is not in Bodies most neerly or inwardly by it self 10. Every outward efficient cause is the beginning of motion in a thing by accident But every efficient cause according to Aristotle is external therefore no efficient cause external is natural which is contrary to his second Book of Physicks 11. Whatsoever things are moved by the Mathematicks and also a Mill moved by the Winde or a stream should not be moved by Nature But I believe that Nature is the Command of God whereby a thing is that which it is and doth that which it is commanded to do or act This is a Christian definition taken out of the holy Scriptures 12. But Aristotle contrary to his own Precepts of a definition takes the difference which he thinketh to be constitutive for the general kinde of the thing defined in Nature to wit the formall beginning of motion and rest But for the constitutive difference he takes the matter or Body wherein the said beginning of motion is But Christians are held to believe Nature to be every Creature to wit a Body and accidents no lesse than the beginning of motion it self 13. Death also although it be the beginning by it self of rest in a dead Carcase yet Christians do believe it not to be created by the Lord and so neither to be Nature and although it may light naturally on it yet that happens not by reason of the death but of its natural Causes But Aristotle in another place a like stumblingly touching on Nature saith Every power of the Soul seemeth to be a partaker of some other certain Body for neither dares he positively and simply to affirm it than those which are called Elements For even as Souls do differ so also the Nature of that Body doth differ the Seed contains the cause of fruitfulness to wit heat which is not fiery but a spirit or breath in the froathy body of the Seed and the Nature which is in that Spirit answereth in proportion to the Element of the Stars This Precept praised by the Schooles containeth almost as many Errours as Syllables And at length this Writer of natural instruction being exceeding doubtful knowes not what he may call or ought to call Nature For first he saith it to be a Corporeal power of the Soul and therefore he banisheth the understanding out of the powers of the Soul 2. He saith the power of the Soul which he afterwards calleth heat is a partaker of another Body than those that are called Elements As if it were a partaker onely of a Body above an Elementated one and heavenly 3. It is absolutely false and an ignorant thing that any power of the Soul is a partaker of the body although it be tied to the body For every
a body which fills up the emptinesses of the air and which is wholly annihilated by the fire Nor that indeed as if also it were the nourishment of the fire it self For although that thing be impertinent to this Question and place yet that which is not truly a body can nourish nothing And then seeing it is neither a body nor a fat thing it cannot be inflamed kindled or wasted or consumed by the fire Then also I will demonstrate in the Chapter of forms that the fire is not a substance but that which is not a substance doth not require to be nourished Lastly seeing the Air is an Element and a simple thing it cannot admit of composition or a conjoyning of divers things or Beings in its own nature Nor are there in the essentiall substance of the Air diversities of parts some whereof may be consumed by the fire but others not For therefore if the fire had found a part in the Air capable of inflaming the whole Air being kindled had even by one onely Candle long since perished For neither had the fire ceased if having need of nourishment it had known that to be in the Air which was neighbour to it Yea if the Air could be burnt up by the fire the Air should passe over to some more simple and formerly Being and should cease to be an Element for the flame of the Candle should be before the Element of the Air and more simple than it Therefore it is manifest that the flame in the aforesaid Glasse although in respect of heat it enlargeth the quantity of the air yet that naturally it will have its smoakes entertained in the hollownesses of the air so far is it that the air doth extend it self and this is the one onely cause of the diminished space in the air whence the flame is also consequently smothered For the heat that is externall to the Glasse seemes to inlarge the air in the Glasse but the fire within by reason of its smoakes doth actually stir up a stifling and pressing together of the air Therefore the heat doth by it self enlarge the air as appeareth by the Engine meating out the degrees of the encompassing air but the fire by reason of its smoakes presseth it together And so it followes that smoakes do more strongly act by pressing together than heat doth in enlarging And then also that smoaks are more importunate or inconvenient to the air than its own naturall vacuum yea than is the enlarging of its own vacuum Seeing that the enlarging of the space of the air made by heat is delightfull to it in respect of com-pression caused by smoakes For from hence I conjecture that all particular members of the Universe have a certain sympatheticall feeling And so seeing the air essentially hath porosities or little hollow spaces it grieveth it that they should be filled up and over-burdened by a strange Gas Yet unless the air should have empty porosities at leastwise the Doctrine of naturall Philosophy founded upon a vacuum negatively falls bodies could never admit of an enlargement of themselves or of a strange Gas because by the changing of them into Gas they should require a thousand fold bigger capacities and so room would fail for the breathing our of belching blasts Therefore the air was created that it may be a receptacle of exhalations wherefore also it must needes have an emptiness in its pores yet it receiveth those exhalations by its set and just proportion and where it hath its emptinesses filled up to a just measure the air fleeth away and in its flight it forceth or gathereth all the flame into a Pyramide or Spire But if the air being detained from its flight be loaded with too much smoak it straightens it self and extinguisheth the fire which fills it self with smoak above due measure These things have not as yet been thorowly weighed by the Schooles and therefore they have thought the fire to live and be nourished by the air neither have they proof for this unless on a contrary sense because fire being stopped up with air is straightway smothered But that Idiotisme of the Schooles doth sufficiently make it self manifest Seeing the fire is not a body for as much as it is fire nor is it a creature of the first constitution for neither doth it live nor is nourished the which is like unto death Even as shall be manifested concerning the birth of forms But the Air is a simple Element For neither doth the stifling of the fire presuppose a necessary life as neither nourishment nor is there for this cause an increase of the fire although it be built in an abundantly open air neither also doth fire consume even the least quantity of air or convert it into its own substance which it hath none as it were its nourishment they are fables For the fire being deprived of air perisheth not indeed in respect of denied nourishment or of a participated life but for want of room which cannot contain the smoak by the pressing together whereof the fire being stifled is extinguished For after another manner from the too much and hasty blown up air the flame straightway perisheth when the flame being lesse toughly fastened to the Candle is presently taken away by a blast and being once taken away from the Candle it cannot have afterwards a subsistence in the air as neither having a substance in it self Therefore the pores of the air being filled up with smoak they fly away and give place to another air coming to them that they may also receive their juyce or moysture from Gas Which flight of the air stirs up as also requireth winde In the Salt pits of Burgundy a plain Earthen pot being filled up with water and placed nigh the grate of a Furnace doth far sooner freeze than any other which is set out in the open air and frost by reason of the continuall Flux and passing over of the air which by the Schooles hath been rashly thought to flow thither for the life or nourishment of the flame Therefore the empty places of the Air are moderately filled but if they are over-loaded the space of the air doth presently straighten it self and shuts it self up in a narrower room the empty porosites being consumed that it may by stifling the exhaling fire divert it from its enterprise That thing is inbred in all created things through self-love For neither otherwise doth water incrust it self in Ice than that it may not be snatched away by the cold of the air into Gas. There are therefore necessary vacuities or emptinesses in the Air that according to their capacity they might entertain the fluide vapours that are to be evaporated for whose sake the air hath seemed to sustain a pressing together and enlarging For else a vacuum of the air being taken away the least motion should move almost the whole Universe through its continuity or un-interrupted joyning and exhalations soon arising the mortalls that are near being choaked
Rentings asunder or disruptions for fear of a piercing of Bodies do differ from that which might happen through the supposed gentleness of exhalations 15. An impossibility is proved from the nature of the composition of exhalations 16. Those things are resisted which were granted from the connivance of a falshood 17. Wells and Caves are all the year in their depth or bottom of an equall temperature 18. That there is no fiery exhalation as neither a fiery Gas 19. An exhalation cannot lift up the Earth with its lightness 20. A Bladder filled with Air doth not spring up out of the water efficiently by reason of its lightness but occasionally 21. Weightiness is an active quality but lightness seeing it hath no weight doth signifie nothing 22. Three remarkable things drawn from thence 23. That the manner of an Earth-quake delivered by the Schooles is impossible 24. The ignorance of the Schooles concerning the properties of lightness 25. A faulty Argument of the Schooles from ignorance 26. After what sort the Schooles are deluded in this thing 27. A new Sophistry by reason of errours 28. An Earth-quake declareth monstrous tokens 29. The Earth trembles being shaken by God 30. The one onely cause of an Earth-quake 31. An objection of a certain one is resolved 32. The Earth doth not feel or perceive after an animall manner 33. What an Earth-quake may properly portend 34. Sacrifices for the purging of offences do differ according to sins 35. The proper inciting cause 36. What an Earth-quake in the Lords Resurrection denoted 37. An answer to a friendly objection I Being to speak of the Earth-quake its Causes and ends will first of all begin with its name It is wont to be called a Moving but it seemes to me to be a name too generall and very improper For truly while the Earth or any other heavy Body doth hasten downwards it is said to move it self so that water flowing moves the Wheel actively but in an Earth-quake the motion seemes to be passive and so by accident as improper to it Nicolas Copernicus by very many fictions doth contend the Earth to be circularly moved with the Orbe of the Moon and seeing that no motion is proper to a Globe but a Sphericall or round one and that doth not agree to the Earth according to the Decree of the Church therefore I have withdrawn the name of Moving from the Earth and have changed it to wit that it being rather fearfull is said to tremble For truly the Earth being passively smitten or threatned by a certain huge force it is as it were jogged or shaken through fear and horrour but doth not leap or skip for joy because it seemeth to undergoe some cruel and horrid thing besides the ordinary course of nature Therefore the name of Quaking being first established next the shew of the deed comes to hand For truly there was a night between the third and fourth day of the second month called April in the year 1640 indeed a quarter past the third houre after midnight the Moon being at full two dayes after that time and it being the fourth day of the week called Wednesday before Easter when as Mecheline where I then was by reason of some occasions notably trembled and leaped with three re-iterated approaches or fits and at every onset the trembling endured a little lesse than there might be of the space of repeating the Apostles Creed but a certain roaring in the Air went immediately before every fit and as it were the action of Wheeles whereby great Ordinance are carried thorow the streetes shooke the Earth I say the night was fair clear void of Windes For truly for the cause of the revisall then to be sifted a little before midnight I returned home But I rested nigh Dillie in the Commendatory of Almaine commonly called Pitzenborch being received through the Courtesie and humanity of the famous man the Lord Wernher Spies of Bullensheim of the Teutonick order he being Provinciall Commendatour of the confluence of Bullensheim and Commendatour of Pitzenborch Toparch or President in Elson Herren-nolhe c. But I was removed for the space of seventy spaces from the streetes And then I learned of my friends that almost at the same moments of time and with the same three re-iterated turns seperated by an equall intervall and the same roaring accompanying them Bruxells Antwerp Lire Gaudan the Mountains of Hannonia Namurc Camerac trembled Afterwards we heard that the same thing happened in Holland Zealand Friesland Luxemburg and Gilderland yea that even Francford upon Menus no lesse trembled That at Mentz some Towers were beaten down and that new Buildings nigh Theonpolis fell down together Also that Westphalia yea Ambiave and the nearest Coasts of France trembled Truly all these places trembled at the very same instant of time although by reason of the roundness of the Sphere the Dialls the Messengers of dayes did necessarily differ It is a tract of Land at least of three hundred and sixty Leagues in every one of the least places of its Circle the ground every where trembled with an equall fear For neither was the Watchman in the most vast Tower of the Temple of Mecheline any otherwise shaken than any one that lay in a low Cottage No otherwise I say a borderer of Scalds an Inhabitant of the Islands and Citizen of the Medows than they which stayed in the more high Hill Then was the fortune of all and every one alike Lastly I understood that the Ships in the Havens of Holland and Zealand were shaken in their Masts and Sails without Winde Concerning the immediate Causes of so great an effect there is much agreement among Writers The modern or late Writers I say supping up the Lessons of Aristotle have not gone back from thence a nails breadth hitherto Although they have added their own inventions to the Precepts of the Auntients The Schooles therefore do teach that the Earth trembles by reason of Air Winde or an exhalation gathered together in the hollow places and pores of the Earth which seeking and sometimes making a passage for it self doth make the Earth to leap or dance For from hence it oft-times suddenly breaking out thorow gaps and clefts hath given a rise to destructive Diseases This is a Tradition of the Schooles received throughout the whole World for one and twenty Ages Which if it had seemed to me to be agreeable to the ends of the Divine power I had desisted from writing But truly it hath seemed to me to be sowen with heavy perplexities and an unavoidable absurdity so that it containeth not a little of an old Wives fable Indeed Man-kinde doth of its own accord so incline to drowsiness that the hope of Learning being as it were beheaded it hath commanded all the Treasures of Sciences being drawn out in one Aristotle to have been as it were left off from a further diligent search First therefore I will shew the impossibility of that Doctrine and then I will
be expected from elsewhere For he is the Prince of life and death the Alpha and Omega of all things He giveth and taketh away Victories Wars Famine and Pestilences also second partaking causes also free mediating con-causes and occasionall ones accompanying them over all which notwithstanding God is sits as chief as the totall immediate and independent cause Therefore the Firmament is a preacher of all these Works for neither doth God more erre in these free contingent things than in animall accustomed and necessary things if the Firmament was made by God the Mover and knower of all things to foreshew The Land of Libyssa shall over-cover the dead Carcase of Hannibal as Appian relates it to have been foretold by an Oracle of the evill spirit Hannibal hoped he saith that he should therefore die in Lybia or Africa who died in Bythinia near the River Libyssus For the Devil cannot foreknow the lots or events of future Wars which are in the hand of the God of Armies and as yet in the future will or judgement of man unless he shall first read them decyphered in a fore-telling Star Which Picture of the Stars while they no where finde mentioned but cannot deny but that the Devill declares things to come they have meditated of a privy shift and do say that the knowledges of future things are nearly related to Angels and so are co-natural to them but that they differ according to the Quires or Regions from whence they were expelled so that they which fell down from the highest Hierarchy of the Angels should have a much more clear understanding of future things which understanding because it was naturall God had not took away from an evill Spirit For neither is it more naturall to the Devil to have known the enlightnings concerning future things than to have known the natures and names of living Creatures not seen before like Adam But I conceive with Dionysius that the inferior Angels are enlightned by the superior but this light continually to beam forth from the wisdom of the Father and never to have been natural to Angels but to be a free and beatifical gift Next that every good gift doth descend from the Father of Lights that the gift of the Counsels of God and of his future works is not to be searched out by Creatures by their gifts of nature else the naturall knowledge of evill spirits should be almost infinite if it should include in it self the fortunes of mortall men to come distinguished in their second causes yea if an evill spirit otherwise had had this natural participation of divine counsel he had not been ignorant of future effects which he himself as the fire-brand of all evills was to raise up and suffer and so he could scarce have sinned Therefore it is more safe to believe contingent or accidentall things to be painted out by the Stars not indeed all but perhaps those of one age and likewise the Tragedy of every man to be deciphered in his own Star the Picture whereof ceaseth with the closure of his life They will say Hannibal took poyson Satan perswading him But this he did not certainly know as neither could he foretell it if man hath free will and therefore neither did he know that Hannibal would certainly obey his perswasions neither doth Hannibal die by the foolish perswasion of Satan which could not be knit to its causes depending on the divine will For neither doth he die by the poyson but first he is a run-away from many adverse battels But the Lord the onely God of Armies hath Victories in his own hand neither is the evill spirit chief in Battels Therefore to have foreknown the issue of Wars is the same as of free contingencies For truly Victory doth for the most part arise occasionally from a contingent thing not premeditated of therefore I conclude that the infernal enemy doth read the Pictures of the Stars whereby the Firmament is said to foretel the Handy works of the Lord. But thou wilt say whence do the Heavens make Predictions which no mortall men have known and the which to be known by the evill spirit is wickedness In the first place it should be sufficient that the fore-tellings of future things do chiefly declare the glory of God and the infiniteness of his wisdom and fore-knowledge to wit that it may not remain unsignified And then The Lord hath not done a word which he doth not signifie to his servants the Prophets Lastly if the number of mortall men be scarce the hundreth of Angels that are good Spirits it sufficeth that these at least do read the foretokens of future things and therefore do they praise the Lord anew Lucifer indeed hath waxed proud by the much knowledge of things both of those that do exist and of things afterwards to be and it was naturall to him the which he breaths in without grace But it doth not therefore follow that he hath known all mortall men to come and their fortunes vices defects sins grace and whatsoever things should be hereafter like to a second cause as neither the secret mysteries of God that are revealed in succession of dayes and added to a connexion of causes But whether Plagues do arise and rage or Tyrannies Wars destructions tumults or the beginnings of arch-Hereticks the Lord permitting them at leastwise those things shall be as well connexed to their own necessary and second causes although arbitrall and occasionall ones as otherwise Meteors are to theirs For neither is the office of foreshewing the Handy works of the Lord to be restrained to the changes of the Air alone but absolutely unto all the works of the Lords hands Because if the Stars can be preachers of the threatning effects of the wrath of God which without second causes should be committed to the smiting Angel why shall they not also in like manner shew the works of the Lord deputed or reckoned to second and free causes For truly what things soever God foreknoweth he can also if he will shew them by his Instruments but those proper Instruments of God are the Firmament and the Lights thereof as the Scripture witnesseth Yea truly I have been bold to attribute more Authority to the Heaven than what hath wont to be given unto it by the holy Scriptures To wit that the Stars are to us for foreshewing Signes Seasons or changes of the Air lastly for dayes and years wherefore the Text takes away all power of causes besides in the abovesaid revolutions of seasons dayes and years Neither do they act I say but by a motive and alterative Blas But the Stars are said to act by motion and light onely but motion in the Schooles is said to act onely by reason of the divers Aspects of Light for that the motion of the Heavens even the swiftest as well as those remote from us should produce as well heat as motion is a devise or fiction For truly the daily motion of the Heavens is almost
Meteor is reckoned by the holy Scriptures among wise men Which square if Astrologicall Predictions shall through a rash boldness exceed they are not onely vain and conjectural but driven out of both Testaments of the holy Scriptures with the name of Sooth-sayers of Heaven So that St. Ambrose doth rightly compare them to Spiders Webs which indeed do serve to take flies and gnats ensnaring themselves but by a stronger living Creature they are most easily broken asunder So indeed these Predictions do catch onely those that are apt to believe and lesse firm in the faith But that they are vain in themselves and framed by conjecturall Rules I prove because they are supported with a double foundation to wit with none at all and by a false one that which concerns nothingness is that they will have attributed to the Seven Planets the figure inclinations strength or valour wit fortunes and death of him that is born Seeing God hath appointed the Stars onely for signes seasons dayes and years but not for the causes of Predictions And so if those Predictions do contradict divine appointment for that very cause they are null and false Secondly because it is not yet agreed among Astrologers hitherto concerning the Scheme or order of the Heavens To wit whether Mercury and Venus are carried in particular Orbs beneath the Sun according to Ptolomy and all the antient Judiciaries Or whether they are rowled about in like or equall Circles round about the Sun Which thing the Optick-Tube or Glasse hath thus searched out therefore the Aphorismes of Predictions supported by that foundation that those two Planets are alwayes lower than the Sun do fall to the ground And then if two of the Planets Venus being the greatest or chiefest Star except the Sun be carried about the Sun and they are of so great power in judgements and so near to us those spots or Stars in the Sun or most near to it shall likewise be of far greater authority to refell all the Aphorismes of the Antients And the Stars which have lately been found to be moved about Jupiter shall conjecturally convince of the Rules of Almegistus whether they were written from a foundation That in the mean time I may be silent touching the opinion of Copernicus which at this day doth not want its followers and those of no small authority although they do presse their consent under silence which opinion notwithstanding once breaking forth will ruine all apparitions in the Heaven and Predictions Fourthly the point of nativity is uncertain and seeing that the Stars do vary in every point Every prediction is of necessity uncertain I being sometimes deceived in my younger years have attributed very much to the significations of the Stars but when I could not satisfie my self that by the remarkable accident of him that is born I could finde the point of his Nativity which is plainly necessary if those accidents do any way proceed from the Stars at length in behalf of a great Nobleman I described or wrote down his accidents to wit That in the eleventh year of his age a Wife of six years was married unto him he having obtained the degree of Knight of the Garter having travelled far even to the nineteenth year that he had received a wound in a Duel that his right thigh was broken by chance in a Coach the precise houres being adjoyned with very many observations of things The Countrey where he was born being added on the ninth day of the fourth month called June and the houre between seven and ten in the forenoon of the year 1604. I my self went to the most skilfull Judiciaries the Question being also sent away into other Countries with a promise of 600 Crowns to him who could divine or tell the point of his Nativity to us known from the aforesaid accidents At length none touched at the true point but he that came nearest did differ as yet the space of seven points above half an houre from thence There were in the mean time Standard-defenders who denied that such a point was between the seventh and tenth houre by which such accidents could be signified but indeed that point was found to be presently before the fifth houre in the morning yet in the truth of the matter he was born at London I being present seven points after the ninth houre Solar or according to the Sun and not horologiall or according to the Diall or Clock Afterwards therefore I with a notable repentance lamented my aptnesses of belief Moreover touching the falseness of the foundation of Predictions it as yet more clearly appeareth For indeed they themselves do confess that their Eccentricks or things not having one and the same Center c. to be meer fictions and almost impossible to save or preserve their speculations which soundeth that they are ignorant of the Orbs or Circles of the Heavens and the carryings of the Stars And so these absurd fictions being supposed it s no wonder that many near akin to them do follow I have known a remedy whereby otherwise the young would stick in the birth for the space of a day and houres and that drink being taken the Woman brings forth presently after a quarter of an houre and so the point of Nativity is deceived and likewise Herms's Scale of Empsuchosis or quickning but this Remedy I have written else-where to consist in the Liver and Gaul of an Eele being dryed and powdered Lastly the falshood doth more appear for they say that Saturn is a cold and dry melancholy Planet and therefore envious and stirring up to thefts and treacheries plainly evill because of the nature of the Earth But that Mars because he is hot and dry not the Sun is evill cholerick a Warriour murderer and cruel because of the nature of the Element of fire But that Jupiter and Venus are of the nature of Air merry sanguine good even as the Moon and Mercury being cold and moyst are of the nature of water and phlegme And so also therefore of a middle nature But a moderateness agreeth to the most hot Sun not a humour nor an Element Wherefore either the Sun shall languish by reason of injury or the feigned powers of the Elements are badly attributed as causes of the properties of the Stars whose property it is not to change but to give an alterative Blas to these inferior Bodies Wherein many falshoods come to hand For first of all they do causatively âink evill within the Heaven Secondly That the qualities of the Earth are evill or naught Thirdly They place the fire among Elementary Bodies Fourthly The Stars also even the two Elements which God had made were not to be good 5. They falsely compare the Stars in their causative property to Elementary qualities 6. Therefore they do falsly attribute to the Stars a causall virtue of fortune wit c. with respect to the first qualities Wherefore since there are in the judiciall part of Astrologie so great nakednesses
do see being witnessed in the holy Scriptures and bewrayed by those kinde of bruit Creatures which owes not its rise but to the Moon For therefore there was darkness that might be felt which should far exceed ours although thick because it was deprived of all help of the Moon Nor is it a wonder that darkness hath its degrees seeing the infernall pit hath its utter or uttermost darkness because an Hebraisme wants the superlative degree without the favour of the Moon For happily abstracted spirits have something which for seeing may answer to our eyes that it may not see wholly throughout the whole of what belongs to it self and some of these Spirits are Seers by night but others being mute or silent like to Bats may as it were wax dim or dark under the Sun or in the day time and therefore they do the more willingly appear to their own in the dark and mid night therefore I will subscribe a History of this I had in my time of being at the University a Chamber-fellow born of honest Citizens This man his eyes being shut did for the most part rise and wander in the night but he carried away the Key with him and returning opened the Lock that he had shut after him In the Evening therefore I arise and secretly hide the Key under the Bolster but he arising in his sleep takes the hidden Key as if he had seen it and goes his way I taking my Coat followes him But he climbed an antient Wall the bound of the Colledge beset with Mosse and Hay For there was an Arch whereby on the other side of the River the Wall did support the Wall of a Neighbouring Garden It was full Moon and a frosty night I was amazed at the sight and by reason of the cold returned But my Chamber-fellow by and by returning he so quickly or cleverly hid the Key in a hole of the Cloyster that any one seeing could scarce do that thing so undelayingly at noon day But in the morning he was unmindefull of all that he had done For those walkers their eyes being shut do see clearly under the thick darkness they climbe securely without giddiness of the head because they do enjoy a Moon light A small wound becomes oft-times hard to be cured because it is inflicted on a member by the Moon appearing or advancing Under the Equinoctial line all things do soon putrifie not indeed by reason of excess of heat which is now and then greater and more constant elsewhere for truly under the line it sometimes raineth for dayes together but surely by reason of the continual nearness of the Moon and the long and round figure of the Globe as I shall prove in its place If a dead man or a bruit Beast shall passe one night at least all the night under the Moon for there she smites the near places with a full beam on the morrow morning the dead Carkase flowes abroad or abounds with corruption By occasion whereof it is related among experiments that if any one the light of the Moon being collected into a Cone or Crest doth cast her beames through a Glasse upon Warts Apostemes that have a humour like hony small tumours called Nats and the like excrescences untill they shall feel the cold within they do easily vanish afterwards of their own accord Nor is it a wonder for such defects do heatken to the Moon increasing Hence also in her decrease they shall the more easily perish Indeed I know if the Moon shall shine upon a wound that its lips do straightway wax black and blew or envious and resist healing In the next place if a Frog be at the full of the Moon in a most sharp North winde of winter digged up washed clean and tied to a staffe in a field the morrow morning a certain white and transparent muscilage is found resembling Gum Dragon dissolved and the shape of a Frog For that is not the Workmanship of cold which by it self onely cooles and occasionally freezeth else the full of the Moon should not be required wherefore I impute it to be a passage into its first matter Moreover that first matter of a Frog doth very much prevail in the healing of a Cancer life and is called by Paracelsus under a riddle Gluten de aquatico or the glew of the watery thing or Creature Therefore the Sun doth call forth the flowing of seeds unto the bound of the last life But the Moon on the contrary drawes to the first matter of a thing For seeing the Moon doth draw waters and fat or nourishable things into the juyce Leffas therefore a profitable observation of planting and dunging is referred to the Moon Also that Plants do profit no lesse by night than by day the family of Mustromes and Pompions doth shew Neither is the gathering of Plants before Sun-rising superstitious not indeed because nature like unto Serpents or creeping things ceaseth from its works by night but because they being the more plentifully nourished by the night have obtained a full nourishment Therefore the Moon is chief over the night darkness rest death and the waters As all things do return to death rest and water And for that cause doth the Moon bring in a passage to transmutation Indeed she doth primarily behold and move or affect rather the seminall powers than the matter of the same yea truly because the light of the Moon drawes back seminall things especially to their first life or matter therefore some Adeptists do begin the labour of wisdom with the light of the Moon according to that saying Night unto night sheweth knowledge to those that seek it Therefore two great Lights are sufficient for all motions and progresses of seeds from the first into the last life and from this into that For because they do abundantly suffice to the fruitful use of nature hence they do enroule the other Stars among their Bands And therefore the Scripture hath made mention onely of the two greater Lights Thus far of Fire and Light I being now about to speak of the birth of Forms will rehearse that the Masse of seeds do receive into them a corporall Air the Vulcan which I name the Archeus or Master-Workman Some seeds of Woods or Kernels or Oil do contain him in them as Almonds Pine-kernels Pistack-nuts and the seeds of many Pot-herbs or they are mealy seeds as Acorns Chesnuts and Corny or grainy seeds or they do powre forth a milky fruitful muscilage or slimy juyce For the Archeus inhabits them being drowsie and sleeping in the curd of the seeds being content with his condition as long as he is negligent of propagation But when his seed is once committed to the Earth he cannot but drink in his liquor and become swollen and then contract a Scituation and presently snatch to him a Ferment putrified by continuance Which Odour and Savour although it be putrified by continuance yet in every seed it is specificall and therefore altereth by
feigned whorish appetite of the matter 12. A demonstration of the errour 13. Whence the necessity of things really and principiatively is 14. The Schooles have not taught true Beginnings 15. Some things are corrupted in the Air but other things are preserved 16. Whence the corruption of things is 17. Corruption is onely of the matter 18. What corruption is 19. Corruption is not from privative things contrary to Aristotle 20. Carruption and generation do not reciprocally succeed 21. The unadvisedness of the Schooles 22. What Magnum Oportet may be 23. The Earth but not the Water shall bring forth Thistles and Briars 24. What kinde of digestion there was before sin 25. What is the misery of Thistles 26. Odours and Savours are fundamentall Ferments 27. The errour concerning the eight tasts 28. The three lives their flowings and ebbings thorow the three Monarchies of things 29. Why Warts do perish through the touching of an Apple 30. The foundation or ground of Sympathy 31. The going backwards of life 32. A threefold life of Mineralls 33. Properties are in a place and in the thing placed 34. What the double nothing is in the words The Earth was empty or without form and void 35. It is proved by the Handicraft-operation of a Flint that Light is a Being without a shining light 36. Perceivings are in the Instruments of the Senses 37. Which way the Magnall is serviceable 38. Who are the immediate Citizens of places 39. The originall and progress of Metalls 40. A more manifest progress of life in Metals 41. Whence Mineralls are of so great efficacy 42. The dignity of the Archeus before sin 43. Which are the ambulatory or walking qualities 44. That which the Schooles cry out to be impossible is necessary in nature 45. Whence that errour is 46. Some absurdities following from thence 47. A frivolous Maxim 48. The blindnesses of the Schooles are to be pitied 49. Why the objects of sight do more work in one that is with young 50. Adeptists do walk through the objects of sight 51. Some Speculations in the position of the appearances of Spirits 52. The distinctions of qualities by modern Writers or Philosophers 53. The occasions of Diseases 54. The manner whereby a Hydrophobiaor a Disease causing the fear of water is made 55. The same concerning other poysons 56. The successive alterations of poysons 57. The manner whereby poysons do work 58. Considerations about the activity of poysons 59. The blowing out or extinguishing of life in what manner it happeneth SUrely I have thus at unawares fallen from the Elements into the birth of Forms and there I have distinguished of a fourfold Form diverse in kinde from each other 1. To wit an Essentiall Form 2. A Vitall Form 3. Next a substantiall Form 4. And at length the excellency of a formall Substance I have added for the end or top of nature For when I had explained my Doctrine concerning the Elements I fell by degrees into the History of vitall things and consequently also I perceived my self devolved into the necessities of Diseases and death indeed that I might apply the beginnings of naturall Philosophy to the end of humane appointment Therefore have I come to Magnum Oportet To wit I have come down to the flowings and ebbings of life and so to the hidden calamity of death Wherefore all our consideration of nature shall hereafter become Medicinall For truly Paracelsus being not constant enough to himself stumbled in the finding out of the cause of a Disease in the mean and manner whereby every thing tends to a declining To the clearing up whereof I have already taught before that the fruits which antiquity hath believed to be a heap of Elements are the off-springs of the one Element of water begotten with childe by the seed which disposeth the water to generate in places as it were in wombs For wheresoever the water obtains an Odour it straightway also conceiveth in that very moment a Ferment and after that a seed in the begun disposition of the matter disposed by the Ferment For truly most things are made for the sake of the Odour alone For oft-times the Root stalk pith leaves and History of a whole Plant is born by reason of the flour of the Odour or Odour of the flour and the Odour is the ultimate end of many particular kindes as well in Plants that are for Sauces as in those for Medicines Because out of Sand or simple Earth and Water doth grow nothing at first but a moyst filthiness or mouldiness they contract a putrefaction through continuance or Odours For nothing putrifieth by continnance far under the Earth neither doth a Plant grow in the Sand. But almost nigh the light or day the Odour is putrified by continuance and Leff as brings forth its Plants If one part of mud or dung do putrifie in the Earth it may beget the water with childe in a five fold weight of it self and send forth fruit For the water being void of all Odour unless it shall conceive the Ferment of an Odour in its Sulphur surely it remains in its antient simplicity as Rain-water without fruit Therefore in the deep Pavements of the Earth where there is a departure far from filthiness putrifying and corruption although there be no Leff as yet the waters are got with Childe by a hidden Odour of the place first of all by an unconceivable contagion of a certain Salt straightway they do hasten to the more wealthy Colonies of Fruits and do break out Indeed it s own strange fermentaceous Odour dwells every where which may get the Sulphur of the water with child and sleeping within it may at length grow together As in Mineralls Or being grown together and even over-spread with a thicker Air may grow as in Plants and Creatures that bring for h Eggs or wholly from the beginning the form of the Air doth glister Even as in things that bring forth a living off-spring Therefore the Archeus being now conceived remains every where the keeper of life and the promoter of transmutations and by and by a change of his life doth follow the change thereof to wit from his first life and matter into his last For the Archeusses of things do agree in this as being vitall they do possess a certain Splendor yet they differ as they are unlike fore-runners and Stewards of the Form Yet they do not mutually receive each other least their government be disturbed but for order sake which they do badly explain by the Title of self-love he remains Master who shall be the stronger which way indeed they liberally dispense the Impressions of their Ferment that one may restrain the forreign disquietnesses of his fellow Archeus and may subdue him For even as under the immortall minde the subordinate forms of a bone membrane c. do not perish So also it happens in the transmutations of things Indeed although the food doth by an every way transmutation obtain the form of
by devouring and consuming of the radical moisture whence it would follow That the heart is the Torch of a consuming fire But notwithstanding seeing the substance of the Heart and Pericardium or case of the Heart and also of the Bloud is not fit for fire They have been forced to confesse that fire not to be fire and that heat not to be fiery yet devouring but they have said It is sufficient for them to have described the Fewelor Torch or Beginning of heat Metaphorically As if nature should admit of Metaphors For first of all I remember that some swooning Virgins were beref't of Pulse and breathing so far as was conjectured by humane judgement and so for some hours were bewayled among the dead yet that they revived and being married afterwards to have lived without sicknesse and to have brought forth five or six times For they were cold as Ice assoon as their Pulse had failed from whence I began to be doubtful whether the Pulse were not made rather for the effecting of Heats sake than through the occasion of fetching in cold whence I began to account the final causes of Pulses to be frivolous and so also I suspected the presaging part of healing to be weakened And that I thus prove For there is Hedge or Partition between both bosomes of the Heart in it self as long as life remains So Porie That by the attraction of the ears of the Heart for on both sides it is reckoned to be eared by way of proportionable Resemblance because it hath as it were Bellows the Veinie Bloud doth passe from the hollow Vein forming the right bosom of the Heart by its passage and wanders into the left bosom not likewise from hence to the right bosome Because the pores in the hedge or partition it self are triangular whose Cone or sharp point ending in the left bosom is the more easily encompassed or pressed together but the Base of that Triangle in the right bosom never but by death But the bloud of the left bosom is now arteriall and is the bloud of a true name being diverse from the bloud it self as being yet in the hollow vein in colour and subtility or fineness Wherefore I must needs not without cause have found out a new or fourth digestion in the left stomach of the heart For no otherwise than as the bloud of the veins differs from the cream and chyle so also doth the bloud of the Arteries differ from the thick bloud of the veins although by a neerer kinne and cloathing of the Heavens they have after a sort returned into one Family Yet in that is the specificall difference of both that the arterial bloud is informed by the immortall Soul in the left bosom but the venall bloud not and that it is illustrated onely by the light of the sensitive form participatively but not informatively For the other digestions do require rest But the fourth is perfected by an uncessant continuation of motion Not indeed that the very motion of the heart is the formall transchangeative cause but onely that it concurs dispositively Indeed in the left bosom of the heart as it were in a stomach doth a singular most vitall and lightsom Ferment dwell which is a sufficient cause of the venall bloud its being transchanged into arterial bloud even as it is chief in the transmutation of arteriall bloud into vitall Spirit Because all venal bloud doth naturally tend into its own end which is nourishment yet at last it is dispersed and vanisheth away into a vapour or into a Gas unless it be stayed by the Coagulum or co-thickning of growth But the arterial bloud hath for its aim not indeed that it may incline into a smoakiness or excrement For if that thing come to passe it happeneth to it from a Disease and by accident After another manner the proper object of the arterial bloud is to be brought over into vitall Spirit which if afterwards it doth also vanish let this be unto it besides its intent Seeing that every Being doth naturally desire to remain For the vitall Spirit is a light originally dwelling in the Ferment of the left bosom which enlightneth new Spirits bred by the arterial bloud to wit for which continuation of light the Arterie is lifted up For thus the Spirits are made the partakers of life and the executers thereof even as also the Vulcans of continued heat Therefore the life of man is a formall light and almost also the lightsom or clear sensitive Soul it self and so death doth forthwith follow the blowing out of this Because the immortall minde is involved in the sensitive Soul which after death slies away this other perishing But far be it that that vitall light be called fiery burning and destroying the radicall moysture and that by the continuall plenty of the smoakie vapours hereof it should defile the heart and Arteries But it is a formall light even as I have said before concerning Forms for neither shall he ever otherwise describe the in-most essence of life who had seen the formall lives of things even in an Extasie Because words are wanting and names whereby these may be shewen or called as it were by an Etymologie from a former cause And although God had shewen to any one the essence of life in a composed Body yet he will never give his own honour of teaching it unto any Creature Seeing life in the abstract is the incomprehensible God himself For so by little and little the meat and drink ascends into the Chyle or juyce of the stomach into the juyce of the mesentery or Crow into venal bloud and at length by arteriall bloud unto a most thin Skie or Air the vitall Spirit and the prop of the Soul which exchanging doth presuppose a motion of the heart For neither is it sufficient that the Ferment be effective efficiently that the arterial bloud be quickened and turned into Spirit and it to dwell in the left bosom of the heart unless a pulsative motion doth concur which is likened to the motion whereby sowrish milk or cream by a true transmutation is changed into Butter For by the motion is made an extenuating not indeed of the soure but of the salt arterial bloud neither therefore is it turned into a fat or butter but into vitall Spirit of the nature of a Salt and so of a Balsam For so the arteriall bloud is by motion heat and the Ferment changed into an Aiery or Skyie off-spring the immediate Inne of a vitall light Wherefore the Bloud VVater and Spirit are one and the same For if that light be in the Spirit but this be carried thorow the Arteries into the whole Body also that light ought to be on every side continuall to it self seeing it is the property of light else to be extinguished Therefore the Arteries ought to remain open so indeed that they do never remain long pressed together wherefore it was also meet that the pulse should dilate the same nor
the chance She was asked thereupon of what savour it was and she answered it was of a stinking and waterishly sweet one Thirdly a Painter of Bruxels being mad between whiles about the beginning of his madness escapes into a Wood near by and was there found far from the sight of men to have lived 23 dayes by his own Dung He was straightway brought home I went to see him and the Lord healed him But he was perfectly mindeful of all things past at the time of his madness I asked him whether he remembred of what savour his Dung was He said it savours as it smells And being afterwards examined by me through the Capital tasts he answered it was not sour not bitten sharp salt but waterishly sweet Yea he said that by how much the oftner he had re-earen it by so much it had alway been the sweeter But being asked for what cause he had rather eat Dung than return home He said that he throughout his whole madness abhorred men being perswaded by his own fury that men sought to destroy him by a snare Therefore it is manifest that there is not even the least drop of Gaul in the Dung for the Gaul being once burst however a Fish may afterwards be most exactly washed yet the bitterness of the Gaul conceived by the least touching is never laid aside For if yellowness should bewray the Gaul the dung of Infants should be especially gawly which notwithstanding is licked by Dogs because it hath as yet retained some kinde of savour of the milk But whatsoever hath not been fully subdued in the stomach nor hath assumed the beauty of a transparency may not hope to be digested in the bowels by the ferment of the Gaul although it be tinged with a yellow colour Because it goes not to the second or third but thorow the absolute first Whatsoever therefore is thick and tinged with heat in the Ileos that is wholly banished into an excrement and under a certain sweetness doth attain the savour of putrefaction No otherwise than as soure fruits wax sweet by a little heat But whatsoever was before sour in the stomach that is made salt in the Duodenum and is severed from the Dung but if any thing do persevere sour which may resist the ferment of the Gaul wringings of the bowels c. do presently follow But the excrement of man doth putrifie because the ferment of the dung is chief over that place But that which slides out of the stomach undigested also is not digested in the bowels It is cast out whole but it keeps and now and then increaseth the part of sournesses which it assumed in the stomach For from hence do the brans in bread provoke the stool by reason of sharpness but other things do wax more sharp and stir up wringings of the guts Therefore from the Duodenum the Chyle doth forthwith begin to exchange its own sharp volatile Salt into an equall saltness it being resolved in the Cream But the remaining and more corporal substance of the Cream doth expect a sanguification in the veins of the mesentery from the inspired ferment of the Liver The salt Liquor in the mean time being attracted by the Reins thorow the Liver is it self committed to the Reins and Bladder for expulsion Therefore the third digestion begins in the veins of the mesentery which is terminated in the Liver For the venal bloud as long as it is in the mesentery is not yet digested not yet thredded or perfect For the venal bloud of the mesentery doth therefore not grow together in the Bloudy flux But otherwise a vein of the stomach being burst the venal bloud doth forthwith wax clotty in the stomach For the ferment of the Liver is so much inclined to sanguification for it is its univocal and one onely office that the veins do even by the right of league retain or hold that from the Liver and its proper implanted Archeus thereupon confirming it So that the bloud in the veins of a dead Carcase is not coagulated a long while after death which being elsewhere powred forth doth presently wax clotty For the Cream running down afterwards thorow the Bowels becomes the dryer and also the liquid matter thereof being sucked upwards into the veins But thereby the rest doth more and more putrifie so that when it is almost brought down to the ends of the Ileos now not a little of a more liquid Dung is generated because before it hath fully putrified it is snatched to the mesentery that it may be thorowly mingled with the Urine profitable for its ends Even as elsewhere concerning Fevers and likewise concerning the Stone Which yellow Dung the Schooles have believed to be Choler and Gaul and so out of the Dung they have founded their demonstration for one of the four humours and a Gate hath thereby layen open to miserable errours and wicked slaughters For it was of little regard for them hitherto to have built up their false significative knowledge by the unknown substance of the tincture of the Urine but to have made Choler and Gaul the constitutive humours of us the causers of all Diseases to wit to have feigned yellow Choler and that a little the more digested to be adust and like the cankering of Brasse and from thence to be dry and scorched melancholy or black Choler but the gaul it self to be the sink of superfluous Choler but the venal bloud to be nothing but an artificial Body connexed of many things or humours which being again seperated they should be the same after their death as before in their life but that a Body is not born of Mother nature by a true transmutation of the Chyle into univocal or simple venal bloud and at length to have instituted healings about the removing of accomplished causes which never will be or were in nature Surely that thing doth exceed gross ignorance and renders the Snorters of the Schooles unexcusable But perhaps they will object to me Thou sayest that the veins do suck the Cream being slidden out of the stomach into the intestines therefore the same office belongs to the veins of the stomach that they may draw that sour Cream into themselves without the interceding of the Ferment of the Gaul that is without changing of the Sour into Salt And by consequence thy ferment of the Gaul is a dreamed and invented thing yea meat broath injected by a Clyster shall be able to pierce to the Liver without the knowledge of the Gaul touching the right of a Clyster I have finished this question in the Book of Fevers I answer that it is an antient abuse of the Schooles who have equally attributed the same use to all the veins As if the veins seperated in the arms should busie themselves in drawing of the Cream First of all I have already shewen that the bloud in the veins is coagulable the bloud of the Mesentery not so And then we must know that all sour Cream is
they have attributed all things to heats and colds being by degrees wearied by the re-acting of Patients should be extinguished which two Maxims of Aristotle having more place in the Mathematicks than in nature have deceived the Schools which thing I shall elsewhere abundantly prove In returning to our purpose I conclude that the Gaul and the Liver do perfect their own offices not indeed by a corporeal co-touching congress or co-mingling of themselves nor lastly by embracing or receiving within their own bosom But the Gaul dismisseth its own Fermental Blas into the bowels and the Liver his into the veins of the Mesentery which actions although unaccustomed in the Schools I will demonstrate in its place Furthermore the Schools stand amazed why windes cannot passe thorow the Coats of the intestines in wringings of the Bowels while notwithstanding so great a glut of Liquor is every day abundantly snatched into the meseraick veins and yet Pores are not seen in the intestine thorow which so much Liquor may daily hasten into the veins yea neither indeed although after death the Bowel being swollen with winde is strongly and even unto its bursture pressed together Truly as oft as by heats and colds figures and similitudes of artificial things which are of the Schools Instruments and sacred Anchor they do not attain the thing they presently fly to miracles or at least to the hidden Mysteries of things being frighted away by the greatness or unwontedness of the astonished matter they with the sloath of a narrow search acquiesce in the admiring of hidden properties Paracelsus for the framing of Medicinal Vitriol out of Brasse bids old or decayed Salt to be hanged up in a Brasse Kettle of hot water in the bladder of a Swine and so that the whole Salt will presently be dissolved wherewith he dids the Plates of Brasse to be anointed and promiseth that Vitriol will be bred in the Air. I was indeed as yet in my young beginnings yet I knew from Phylosophy that Salt could not be resolved into Water in its own weight without its substantial transmutation yet on the other hand the authority of Paracelsus perswaded the contrary to wit That without the adjoyning of water for else the Bladder should be in vain the salt should melt into water Wherefore I being a young Beginner decreed to try the rash monstrous assertion of so great a man But presently by a slow or gentle heat I found the water in the Kettle to be not much less salt than that which was in the Bladder whose neck was tied fast to the handle of the Kettle appearing above the water from whence I knew that the water did pierce within and without the Bladder to wit That the Bladder was passable by Salt and hot water but not by air For seventy seven parts of rain water do resolve twenty three parts of dryed salt But whereas one of the seventy seven parts of the water flies away a crust of salt swims on the brine Therefore Paracelsus doth vainly command by a Bladder those things which are commodiously done without it And that besides the supposition of a falshood hitherto Therefore I observed that a Bladder is Porie in a degree of heat but not in the heat of our family-administration Hence therefore I gathered that throughout the Conduit of the Veins the Bowels do abound with more and very small Pores than elsewhere to which Pores others should answer being passable throughout the Conduit of the veins Therefore the Cream doth pass thorow the bowels partly by its imbibing of them even as Salt water doth a Bladder and partly by a proper sucking of Sympathy thorow the aforesaid Pores open indeed in our life time even as also in heat waters do pierce a Bladder but shut in the time of death But wind is not imbibed by the Bowels by moistening neither is it sucked by the Veins and therefore neither doth it for this cause pierce the Bowels And that especially because it wanteth the drawings of agreement and a motive Blas whereby the wind the severer of things to be drawn may be drawn and doth resist The Veins therefore that are dispersed between the double Coat of the stomack do want the aforesaid Pores but the porous ones with which outer Coat they being encompassed do sweat thorow them the elementary venal bloud And so the proper Kitchin or Digestion of the stomack is from without to within But the Kitchin which is made universal in its hollowness is there also wholly composed and enclosed And that least the digestion of them both should breed confusion Indeed there is a twofold Cook in the Stomack one from the Spleen and the other being proper to it self sends forth divers digestions Moreover the sharp ferment in the Stomack dissolves the meats into juice but the ferment of the Gaul by saleing the sour Chyle doth seperate the juice for venal bloud and from thence doth with-draw the Liquor Latex Urine Sweat Dung being yellow and liquid and the parts of a thicker Ballast Neither therefore is Digestion in the Stomack a formal transmutation of meats For example for Magisterials among Chymists do indeed melt the body of a thing and do open it with a seperating of some certain dregs also Yet they do not therefore include a transmutation of it even as neither doth Salt being resolved differ substantially from it self being dried Because the same seminal Archeus is as yet on both sides chief Ruler So neither in an egge is there a formall transmutation although at the time of nourishing heat the yolk doth melt and contract a stink but they are onely material disposures required unto a formal transmutation resulting at length from thence again Neither is the Digestion of the Gaul in respect of the lively Cream as yet reckoned a formall transmutation although in respect of excrements it doth formally transchange For the unlike parts of the Cream of which an elementary application is not intended for them do putrifie through a dungie ferment and are deprived of their middle life as also of an Archeus But there is onely pretended a transmutation of the Homogeneal Cream as also an enjoyment of the same Therefore meats are not truly and essentially changed unlesse when the venal bloud is made in one part and the dung in the other part is fully become putrified Also the bowel deputed for the making of venal bloud cannot be at leisure for preparing of yellow dungs in the Ileos and Colon And the dung differs from the eaten meat essentially but it must not be believed to be putrified in a few hours by heat onely the which neither is it turned by heat into a certain kind of Cream but by the proper ferments of the Kitchins Therefore the meat is not yet fully transchanged unless when its own Archeus being subdued our vital one is introduced with a full vassallizing of the former For so wine is wholly changed into Vinegar Quick-silver wholly into Gold an Egge
in us its antient and unchanged principles of coagulating a diseasie Tartar or if it shall not lay aside the properties of Tartar while it was made an Herb while Chyle Cream Bloud and at length Milk why doth it not shew it self an open enemy For neither doth Phylosophy permit that it should be both a Tartar and also a Cabbage or at length living arterial bloud and Tartar also Wherefore if Tartar hath lost its own essence and departed into a strange one it could not have retained its own and much lesse rather have passed in us from a privation unto a habit than in Herbs than in Bruits At length if there be real Tartar in things surely that should be persevering through all the transmutations of a Body nor suffering any thing by the powers of sublunary things which should suffer nothing at all by so many transmutations succeeding each other unless being taken by us alone But this is absurd to endow any thing with the excrements of perpetuity which should not be familiar to their pure Being yea either a field that is dunged Rape roots springing a fourth time therein should bring forth fruits laden with no Tartar at all or it is absurd that at the third or fourth turn Tartar should even manifest it self before it be hidden Moreover if every growing or increasing thing should have a proper and unseparable Tartar in it that in us onely but not in the Milk and Bloud of bruit Beasts Tartar by an appointment should be made it should needs be that Tartar began from the beginning of the Creation and not from the reproof of sin But if Tartar should not be in other Creatures but onely in us now its original should be supernatural and no Disease should be natural but every Disease should arise from a Miracle and our digestion should be viler and life shorter than that of the vilest little Beast whereof to wit there is a digestion unto a true transmutation and in respect of them all Tartars of meats do remain miraculously changed in its first matter This I say Phylosophy destroyes which teacheth that a transmutation is never made without the death and decease of the former Being and the destruction of the terme from whence to wit least one onely thing should consist to be in two terms or bounds at once For that the juyce of an Herb may be made venal bloud the essence of the arterial bloud of the Herb must needs first perish with the properties of its own Archeus and for this cause also all Tartar to perish in every transmutation of things VVhat if Stones in Cherries Peachies Medlers Peares c. be the created Tartars of those fruits surely they ought rather to have been brought on the Stage of Tartars and into the causes of diseases than the very Tartar of Wine it self which is resolved in boyling water Also the Medicinal Schools should be wicked and pernicious who do give the shells of those Fruits to drink to their sick folks in manner of a Powder in as much as whatsoever should melt through our digestions should contain Tartar and therefore should necessarily increase our Stones And moreover Tartar being granted for the cause of Diseases of necessity a Kernel had before sin been in a Cherry without a shell and so every created thing after sin had been forthwith changed even unto the Sciences and Idea's of Seeds and had put off its former disposition and figure and should presently increase from the curse and not from the virtue of the blessing Increase and multiply Therefore are the shels of those Fruits vainly adorned with so great a grace are sealed by providence and do keep every where a specifical sameliness if they are the off-springs and Reliques of excrements or Tartars if they are not the appointed works of Seeds but the accidental structures of Tartar So also thorow the stalk of a Cherry surely a small thred a Liquor should passe the future Tartar of so great a hardening which had never grown together in the stalk or body of its Cherry but onely about the Kernel And moreover the appointment of Nature is rather and more prime about the skin and shell of the Cherry than about its Winy juyce And so nature should intend an excrement before the thing it self But in us onely by the co-touching of the teeth Tartar should straightway wax hard Also Tartar should exceed in a notable knowledge because it being taken doth not yet wander thorow the Plant nor also while it being chewed by a bruit Beast is it wasted or grinded but being in the possession of man alone should be formed into Tartar but elsewhere it will not or knowes not how to be coagulated Truly if in Fruits Tartar doth not follow its own appointments but first onely in man I can scarce believe that this Command was enjoyned it by God while it enters into us in manner of meat But rather if any thing of meats doth degenerate within from the banishment of that which was accustomed in nature let that be our vice not the vice of things great with child of Tartar But if Tartar should lay hid in things the errour should be in the Archeus from the ignorance of the Lawes of his own nature Let that be an absurdity to wit to deny that through digestion the thing digested and transchanged from the former visage and inclination of its seed can be changed into the nature of the digester For indeed by one onely and homogeneal juyce four hundred herbs and as many diverse trees are sumptuously nourished not indeed that from that similar juice that is separated for wood which containeth more of Rozin and a stronger cream and as many separations of the same juice of the earth are made as there are diversities in the aforesaid plants far be it That is unworthy of the Archeus who hath fully known the office of his own life and hath obtained means for the perfecting those things which are to be done by himself in the matter subjected to him For not any thing is separated from the seeds for a root stalk leaf flesh bone or brain The diversity of members is not drawn from the truth of a simple liquor for the Archeus wanteth not a little and unperceivable diversity thereof in seeds on whose power every interchangeable course doth depend and of which fore-existing disposition indeed the Archeus himself is the principal and one onely workman to wit from the same Vulcan the diversities of things do issue forth no lesse than the properties of diversities for else the Archeus should not be a transchanger but onely a ripener and cook For was not wood a juice in its beginning and so a meer herby liquor waxed hard by a seminal virtue but not by a fore-existing hardnesse in the matter That also of Paracelsus is absurd that although material dispositions the causes of heterogeneal members do not actually exist at least wise there is a spiritual humane Idea in
looked back on them crooked-wise or by the by they being as it were shaken into the Head of a man of another World Sixteenthly I learned also that life understanding sleep c. are the works of a certain clear or shining light not requiring Pipes or Channels Seeing the shining light pierceth the vital light Therefore also the Soul doth retract diffuse and withdraw it self by a motion proper unto it and altogether diversly in sleep watching contemplation an extasie swooning madness doatage raging madness by its own disturbances voluntary confusions yea and the violent impressions of some Simples Because the minde doth embrace an entire Monarchy in spiritual things divided in many general and particular kindes no lesse than Bodies themselves shall differ among themselves so also shall lights Seventeenthly At length that the understanding being raised by invention and judgment with a reflexion on places on circumstances on things past said before premised and so on things absent as absent is made by an ultimate or the last endeavour in the Brain through the afflux or issuing of a beam out of the Midriffs as such an understanding doth presuppose memory But that those things which are concerning future or abstracted things without respect of circumstances as if they were present are wholly forged in the Midriffs And for this cause mad men do behold and prattle of all things as if they were present as though they did talk of present things Eighteenthly Therefore poysons which have a power of displacing the imagination do not primarily affect the Brain but the Midriffs onely Which thing the History of a Lawyer who had drunk Henbane-seed elsewhere by me rehearsed doth sufficiently prove For whatsoever the Stomach doth conceive that very thing is plainly transchanged and doth wholly passe into another Essence before that the least quantity doth from thence reach to the Brain and whatsoever thereof doth come thither is already venal bloud which hath put off all the qualities of its former condition in the entry of the first shops or at length it slides cut of the Stomach and together with the drosses is thrust out of doors And so no Simples after what manner soever they are taken are materially applied to the Brain Therefore it is false whatsoever the Schools do set to sale concerning pills for the Head Pills of light c. For truly neither do Pills allure any thing out of the Head neither doth the Head afford any thing which it hath not besides snivel which it sends unto its own Basin and not to any other place But if any Medicines or things do strike the Head alter it and profit it that wholly happens in regard of the Midriffs from which there is an unshaken action of Government into the Head even as hath been already sufficiently proved before Indeed they have rightly taught that giddinesses of the Head and Coma's or sleeping evils are stirred up by reason of a consent of the lower parts but neither is their Grain without Chaffe For the Schools have introduced grosse Smoakie and sharp vapours And then and that for the most part in such distempers they will have the Brain to be affected with the first or chief Contagion And therefore it s a blockish thing to have applied Remedies to the Head to the mark I say and without the Archer To wit because they have not known the true internal efficient cause and its connexions nor the accustomed manner of making Diseases and because they have plainly neglected the action of Government and the Conspiracies of light Nineteenthly Also lastly hence I have understood that the immortal and untireable Soul while it did of due right govern its own Body before sin it understood all things intimately optically or clearly and that without labour tediousnesses and wearisomness Because it did understand all things that were in its power in its own Center and unity without the help of Organs or Instruments But now being detained in a strange Inn it being as it were wholly hindered hath committed the diversities of Functions unto the sensitive Soul its Hand-maid In this place I presume to give a Reason of the thoughts of others who cannot sufficiently promise or grieve for my own For I have proposed to phylosophize concerning the more hidden Spring of Cogitations and of the most abstracted ones concerning the vices and exorbitances of floating and uncertain Cogitations yea we must pierce deeper when as we must take aim at the powers of vitiated Cogitations themselves and must come unto the fountainous and occasional causes of these vices Surely it is a matter hard obscure and unpassable wherein the speculations of the Schools the succours of Bodies do fail before the threshold yea and of Diseases whose causes and effects do fall under sense or are proved by the dissections of dead Carcases wherein I say the Patient or suffering imagination doth indeed enlarge it self but the Agent or active one is hidden In other diligent searches that which is vitiated is known by a knowledge of the whole but in those of the minde the cause and manner of a violated understanding should as yet be far more easily conceived than of a sound one because that a sound faculty doth more ascend unto the likeness of God but a defectuous one doth more incline it self unto the meditations of corrupted Nature And therefore that which is sound or entire in the faculties of the minde is not demonstrated by a former cause but that which is deficient doth after some sort make it self known by a rupture of the co-knitting of causes Also madness is alwayes of a most difficult learning because it contains in it a denying together with a privation wherefore in the case proposed I have judged of the same in another way whether perhaps by searching into the manner of making in any one kinde of madnesses I might finde an utterance for the other Therefore I have proposed that madness which ariseth from a strong and continued contemplation feat and passion Forthwith afterwards I concluded that the quality of the poysonous matter was to be known and the dispositions of Instruments which should concur when as any Simple being taken or something inwardly generated had stirred up madness But the knowledge of one sort of madness being attained it shall be the easier to measure afterwards the diversities of the same by descending into the ampleness of the manners or measures strength approaching application and variety of particular kinds For therefore I first of all reckoned to search into the Seat of the Sensitive soul to wit the exorbitances whereof do cause madnesses For truly I have considered that in what seat the animal form should abide in the same also the immortal mind should co-inhabite as being tied unto it which should refuse a duallity difference and diversities of mansions For neither was it meet for that mind to be tied to the body without a mean when as the Seed of man no lesse then of a
heeded that an Insect by one onely Liquor extended throughout his length doth supply the promiscuous offices of Veins Arteries Sinews and Bowels so as that a Flie as yet flies away his Head being cut off and I have seen the Head of a horned Hornet which they call a flying Stag which was cut off to live and be moved six dayes after Therefore varieties do not depend on a necessity of powers and Organs but onely because it hath well pleased the Creator to distinguish some offices and ends or bounds in the more perfect living Creatures by a blinde and mutual dependance of Organs or Instruments In the mean time the action of government doth not cease in man by reason of this dependance and reciprocal successive course of members the which I have already accused in an Insect but not a few offices are administred in the Family-government of the same without all connexion of deriving Channels which thing because it hath stood doubtful therefore the Schools have assigned the greatest glory of life and studies unto Anatomy And when as the bond or conjunction was to them unknown they therefore with the amazement of the unwonted matter presently fled unto blinde ascending vapours or humours prostrating themselves without order for a sacred Anchor of ignorance For as much as after that they had dissected at pleasure those that were strangled by the womb those that were cut off by swooning or those who died by fits of the Falling-sickness or tremblings of the heart and had found no destroyer of life in the passages to whom the guilt of the murder might be imputed they betook themselves unto blind vapours and filthy or defiled exhalations derived into the heart and head However they then at leastwise ought to admit those deadly vapours to be carried about on every side by no continued commerce of passages I willingly admit of corporeal actions whereby heat doth afterwards make that hot which is brought unto it also of a passage whereby belching doth ascend out of the stomach thorow the Weasand into the throat and nostrils in the next place that excrements do covet their own Conduits and from which that which is grievous is exorbitant or stumbleth also that the vital Spirits are ordinarily dispersed into the Body by the vassally Channels or Pipes of their own Bowels I may be accounted out of my wits unless I confess these things Again I admit of an action whereby the Ferments of the Bowels do issue into the Kitchins of the digestions as it were by certain beames nor are they carried by an oblique or crooked motion But I do not passe by a third action in mans Body which is called Influential or that of government The which although it cannot ordinarily wander without the Body yet it is abstracted from a co-binding mean For neither doth it act by a direct and Sun-like beam onely but also by another to wit by that which doth unsensibly pierce the whole juncture of the parts and in manner of the Moon whatsoever it also obliquely beholdeth that it affecteth or moveth even as already before in our new Meteors This is I say the action of government or of dependance shining or beaming and piercing every way without the bawdery of co-binding or conjoyning yet not but unto a proper object Note here that I have elsewhere said that the Beard is generated by the stones in a man whom they distinguish from a gelded person But besides this action of government I acknowledge moreover two natural ones but prodigious or monstrous ones Therefore there is a third action proper to incorporeal Spirits which for action do not require a direct beam nor a beholding of the object nor a nearness disposition or co-binding of the same but they act onely by a powerful beck for indeed they want extreamities or outmost parts whereby they may touch as well the Bodies which they pretend to move as also the meanes themselves whereby they may move Bodies with a far more efficacious influential force or virtue That action is nigh akin to that whereby the Soul doth signifie its will or beck unto its own Organs whereunto it is tied For thou hast made him O Lord a little lesse than the Angels by the obligatory bond of a Body otherwise he is more worthy whom thou more esteemest of who art not deceived in thy estimation Thou wert incarnate for the redemption of men not for the redemption of Angels There is also a certain lying action usual with wicked Spirits to wit a jugling and bewitching one The which although it contain in it a true action yet it doth not manifest a true effect But the bewitcher befools the sight while the same things appear to one which are not or which are not to another or not in the same manner He befools the eyes that he may represent false things unto them and mock them with his beck or at his pleasure It is almost just as in Fevers doatages are naturally objected which are not before the eyes and ofâ-times also without doatage a feverish matter seemeth to be brought thorow the back-bone unto the places affected For they are impostures the participation of a blemish the dispersing of a strange tincture from a contagion of the inflowing Spirit but not a puffie dispersing of corporeal vapours That is government whereby one part obeyeth another In the joynt-sickness or Gout that doth clearly appear Because a certain indisposition of the stomach with a small Fever goes before before that any sign doth manifestly appear in the joynts So in swooning sudden death the Falling-sickness giddiness of the Head Apoplexie c. the part is played about the mouth of the stomach so that for this cause it hath deserved the name of the heart and stomach-remedies being suddenly offered they are for the most part restored And so like juggles they are made elsewhere and seem to be carried to some other place For whatsoever is written concerning vapours lifted up out of the stomach and womb they do spread forth bewitching darkness as well about the matter conveyances of passages and meanes as the government of life it self After another manner there are true actions and true effects Even as elsewhere I have distinguished in the Treatise of Catarrhs or Rheumes I must now more deeply enquire into the Paradox of the action of government For indeed in the first place it is commonly well observed that anger fear and other passions of the minde do not onely with speed diversly affect the Spirit carried in the Arteries and Sinews with the very stroak of the eye that the Cheeks do fall the Appetite perisheth the hairs stand upright the voyce sticks the Spittle foams sweats and the other excrements themselves do defile through the storm of disturbances â But a Horse-beast affords the fragments of his hoof which being fried and taken cures the Bloudy-flux but if the Beast be a wanton Colt then his hoof is mortal to those that have
of all in the book of long Life I have demonstrated at large that the entrance of Death into humane nature had its own causes in nature by means for bidden without the intent of the thrice Glorious Creatour that death being once crept in and admitted although that was not from the Creators intention yet that it was afterwards continued and un-intreatable from a necessity of nature and thereupon not only to have been permitted and consented to by the Creatour but also that the style of Nature being changed it was admitted yea and also as it were commanded under a better state being introduced in regenerating through the Divine Grace of Baptisme In which Treatise I have demonstated a necessity of the Sensitive Soul which else under immortality had been in vain whence indeed a Law in the Members was introduced contradicting the Laws of the immortal mind And a Total and unexusable corruption of the whole central nature was received Which new unheard of Doctrine to former ages I presuppose is therefore from thence to be fetched or required if so be that the knowledge of our Mind be desired For as it is now thus stranged from its own self from its own Beginning because it now seems to hearken unto the commands of the Sensitive Soul which notwithstanding in its own essence Substance and reality is unchangeable so indeed unto those who make a beginning or do repent as it addeth the knowledge of the means whereby it fell and became wholly degenerate so also it presupposeth the same Doctrine to be as it were the foundation of the knowing of it self In the next place concerning the Birth of forms I have likewise shewn how far this fraile sensitive and mortal Soul in us may differ from the immortal Mind the which surely that it is made to do no less than after an infinite manner is undoubtedly true seeing the mind indeed is a Substance not mortal but the sensitive Soul is neither a Substance as neither an accident But a neither Mortal Creature and perishing into nothing and of the nature of Lights Which Doctrine is in part that of the Gospel which speaketh concerning the Eternal Life and Death of Souls or that which reckoneth the Soul of man to be the Image of God and not hereafter to Die for the distinguishing of it from the Soul of a Beast which indeed together with the Life it self is returned into nothing no otherwise than as the light of a Candle But as to the other part the present Doctrine is plainly Paradoxal in as much as the Sensitive Soul is banished out of the predicament of a Substance or an accident For first of all I have demonstrated that the Sensitive and Beast-like Soul as well in bruits as that which is in us is not infinite and immortal yet it must needs be so seeing none doubteth but that every natural thing that is born is also Subject unto Corruption by the Law of Nature But we are obliged by Faith to believe that the mind of man is immortal hereafter And so that the mind of man is an abiding substance or a Spirit subsisting and Living in it self after Seperation from the body should not be to be pressed or demonstrated to a Christian whose understanding is subdued into the obedience of Faith but that a most prevalent Atheism had lately arose in the midst of us and in Hypocrites of the Church which by an every way renouncing of the Faith doth shake it self off from the Principles whereby such insolent rashness might be appeased And especially of them who deny all divine Power otherwise neither is it my part to Treate of the immortality of the mind it being written and demonstrated by Augustine and piously copied out word for word by Lessius and by him re-delivered because they are those who have sufficiently proved the same But not yet against those which deny all Divine Power Therefore I might desist by treading the same under foot to re-meditate of it if it had been sufficiently demonstrated by them against the first sort of Atheists and unless I had put a difference of the mind in nature from every Soul of living Creatures unless I say the integrity or entireness of the same should have repect unto the knowledge of nature and that integrity should require a designed difference of man from any other Created things whatsoever and that âingly and Principally only according to its cheif and lively part without which man is nothing but a stinking dead Carcase more vile then a Flint and sooner destroyed and broken than any Glass Otherwise Christianity standing the immortality of the Mind standeth and the Substance of that Substander oââemainer even as also likewise the Mortality of other Souls or their reducement into nothing which is annihilation of a Proper Name And from thence is the true and properly said difference of the same CHAP. XLVI Of the Immortality of our Soul 1. Atheism and that worse than Idolatry 2. Religious Atheists are the worst of all 3. The Life of new Religious persons which prefer themselves before others hath introduced Atheism anew under the Doctrine of the Pâlagiam 4. Hypocrites abuse the Scriptures 5. The Argument of perfect Atheists 6. That modern Atheism was foreseen in times past 7. The foolishness of their Argument 8 Of what the Faith of Atheists is 9. Some Arguments against Atheists from things granted 10. Every thing understood is a Lyer while it is equalized with things understood by Faith 11. It is further demonstrated by the authority of Scripture 12. The Bread which comes down from Heaven Prophesied of 13. The remainder out of blessed Augustine 14. The mind cannot be generated by the disposition of Bodies 15. A neutrality of Beings unknown to the Schools THe Jewes of old presently after the Cessation of miracles were straightway hurried unto Idolatry a mad worshiping of Idols But the modern Age being more wicked then they of the Circumcision slideth voluntarily by degrees into Atheism For Lay-men being exsecrably involued in daily Sins do not only neglect God the invisible Fountaine of all good But also some that are bound or engaged to the Church eating up in the midst of us the Sins of the people do âcoffe at God and protest that they are indebted nothing unto him Because they believe nothing Accounting the Faith it self to be a meer politick apparitions Imagination and so that all Religions are indifferent Because they are those which they believe he introduced only to restrain people under a civil Law of living and that the are therefore almost every where different and alike just they being divulged by the Statute Law of Princes or right of customes received For else it might be a free thing to believe and do any thing if the commerces of men should not perish thereby For there are those who do believe and foolishly utter these things because Priests and Religious men themselves do privily profess unto
the assisting and co-operating Work-man of all Diseases an angry Parent and revenger For he saith that the unknown Star Zedo is the immediate and containing cause of the Dropsie So he affirmeth that to the Consumption Gout Apoplexie c. doth belong their own peculiar yet unnamed Star and unto every Epilepsie or falling Evil it s own proper constellation But in his Paramires he affirms the three first things to be the immediate causes of all Diseases that is all things confused Let him explain and excuse him that will for I have not dedicated my life to the interpreting of others dreams Therefore have I seriously searched into Nature and the particular kindes of Diseases and it hath happened unto me no otherwise than as to all others before me until that the Doctrines of all Authors being cast off I had seriously implored the Divine Grace For then I suddenly knew that unto every Disease hath happened its own matter which may nourish a Vulcan proper to it self within the which although he doth sometimes imitate the courses of the Stars yet that the enforcing cause thereof did not depend on the Stars For all Seeds do possess as it were their own Common-wealth especially their own vital light whereby of their own proper vertue they do shew forth a proportionable resemblance of the Stars Be it a ridiculous thing that the Consumption or Dropsie although they may be stirred up more severely and mildly under diverse starry positions are caused or made by the motion and light of the Stars the which do after another manner generate by a manifest occasion through so clear a collection of filths and the which being removed Health doth also follow without leave of the Stars The exposition of which Doctrine by me thou shalt read in the Book of the Plague and elsewhere But the matters of Diseases with their seminary Vulcans from the first even unto the last I have prosecuted with all their duplicity and interchangeable courses in respect of humane life The Almighty grant that so much as he hath bestowed on me I may nakedly refer unto his Honour and the profit of my Neighbour and that he may bestow another more able than my self on the world For Paracelsus hath framed divers Books concerning long life to have chosen death for himself that he would by a Divine priviledge have comforted his own old Age by his Elixiâ of propriety but not by Remedies prescribed by him for long life who died in the 47th year of his Age. So great boasting therefore and unconstancy of this Man have hitherto made me a little careful In the mean time many difficulties have long since held me in doubt about the three first things until that I having obtained help from God knew that Woods and Herbs were to be distilled without any Dead head For I did long ago wonder that out of the coal of Honey no ashes and by consequence neither the salt of ashes could be had Which things afterwards I willingly through an universal resolving of a Body beheld For it was sufficient for Paracelsus to have forsaken all things involved under doubting who in a slender draught had drunk down anothers Invention and had not yet converted it into nourishment and making it his own of robbery hath he striving to flie unto a Monarchy slipped out of his Nest before he had sufficient feathers For he snatching unto himself the glory of the Invention hath well pleased himself in dispersingly repeating one and the same thing often although in the mean time he made little progress in things of his own For it is a ridiculous thing and like a Fable that Sulphur should be distilled sublimed reverberated calcined resolved in us and that from hence divers Diseases should be caused only indeed by the boldness of the Man without a Pledge or Surety of greater authority than himself For he knew not nor durst to draw Diseases into an open profession or publishment he being not yet sully committed hereunto by his Inventer It is also a childish dream that salt is distilled sublimed calcined circulated and doth undergo other torments in us or that Mercury doth sustain these strict examinations in us and for every interchangeable course of variations that it doth of it self alone bring forth other Diseases pains and defects and that others again be infolded with its other two fellow beginnings or masked with divers degrees and doses They are also trifles that Mercury by reason of the highest circulation of its subtilty might be the cause of all sudden death which we have known to be constituted by its causes to cure and prevent For first of all eight ounces of venal blood are daily blown away in nourishing without a Dead head pain and defect yea without feeling while they pass thorow and whereby they pass thorow But whatsoever hath once been dedicated unto expulsion in the shew of Water Mercury or Sweat or whatsoever hath been once reckoned unfit for nourishing or the offices of nourishment being now once performed is designed for scattering or blowing away that is never afterwards distilled sublimed calcined or circulated in us For the works of Nature are too serious because they do ultimately respect God For Nature doth not play at Ball that it should again receive excrements into favour being once rent from the commerce of Life It never returns into the same point because it proceeds and never keeps Holy-day In the next place if any watry liquor be a hundred times re-distilled it shall not therefore be the sharper or subtiler but rather by degrees the Seed of its middle life being worn out it passeth more and more unto the simplicity of an Element For rain water which now falleth down from above is not more subtile or fine than that which rained in the beginning of its Creation But if any watry thing should exhale by our luke-warmth and should obtain a sharpness through dreamed returns that should not be the fault of subtilizing of Mercury but of an adjunct Surely I wonder that so great a Chymist hath not known that the venal blood is not circulated nor that it doth bear the circles of subtilizings in us and that it doth not persevere in us above one only course of the Moon and the which tribute of feeble blood a Woman doth therefore pay Because she is she which ought to abound with very much blood as well for an increase of the Young as for the sucking of Milk But that Paracelsus might the better overshadow his own Fiction he supposeth that one of the three first things being separated doth presently assume from a Microcosmical Nature an actuality in that which is casual to any and one Being of those which are infinite a thousand Seeds whereof being collected into one it did contain and therefore that by reason of a monstrous and strange Nativity a hostile thing is for that very cause in us and is made the cause of Diseases And so that there are
to the guidance of divers Seeds and Ferments For he had learned that from Galen thinking that the blood did consist of as many simples as it was resolved into I wonder therefore at the unconsiderateness of Paracelsus that he did not know that the three first things are never separated but by the fire their last life being destroyed the mark of the Seed of their middle life being retained But that they are not therefore to be called three beginnings for they are made and so are bred or born And much less are they to be reckoned the beginning of Bodies while as that returneth whole through the guidance of a strange Seed by transmutation into another nature For neither hath that Man ever seen the three first things of any composed Body to have appeared in living Creatures in any degree of heat nor otherwise made and extorted but by fire I am also angry that it is not known that the same first things remaining they are nevertheless materially subject to the divers transmutations of Seeds under the same weight He hath after a sort relapsed into the Errors of Galen who thinks that the Elements do essentially remain in mixed Bodies For thus was he deluded in his three Principles For there is every where the same defect of both in the Principles of Philosophy which teach that the life alone doth operate in a living Body and into a body But that the subordinate forms of the entire parts even of the three first things if these are within before they are made by extraction are restrained by the form or superiour life under the unity of an Archeus because the three first things do never appear and operate much lesse do they offend by distemper or are diseasie unlesse their obedience due to the Archeus be first dissolved that is that they shall be separated by the fire and their last life be destroyed with a persevering not of the whole seed but of a small quantity of the middle life of that composed body whose properties every one of them do after some sort imitate when they are made a Being by it self subsisting For this being unknown Paracelsus thought every power and the formal operations of things so immediately to depend on the Essence of the Three first Things that he hath described the properties of Vegetables as they did contain such a Mercury Salt or Sulphur and all those according to his own pleasure As though these beginnings being shut up under a formal Archeus could operate the Archeus of life being idle or at rest For Galen attributed all things to the Elements for which Paracelsus being angry thereupon attributed all things to his three adoptive beginnings Like Quack-salvers who having gotten one onely Oyle or Emplaister give forth that that prevaileth wholly for all Diseases and at least for most Diseases Paracelsus I say heeded not that Lead as long as it is Lead hath other virtues than when it is changed into Sulphur and Mercury For Water Oyle and Ashes being shut up in a bottle do not operate out of the containing Vessel The bottle indeed as such doth operate but not as it containeth three things which of themselves may be separated So also judge thou of the Three Things as long as they are enclosed under a common Life Paracelsus therefore although he hath searched more nearly into Nature than Galen as some of the Three Things are actually allured or drawn out of many Bodies which doth not happen unto feigned Elements and Humors yet both of them have stumbled in this that he hath introduced his own suppositions into Diseases when as otherwise nothing feels sicknesses in us besides the vital powers themselves But the Life moves and altereth matters by its own Seminal Blas and nothing doth materially hurt us within which is not hostile forreign and an excrement in respect of the Life and so that it cannot be of its first adoptive beginnings For neither are those Three Things originally and immediately subject to the whole Life but to the middle Life of that seed where of they are said have been to the three corporal beginings to wit the Three first Things of the flesh blood brain c. are not immediately subject to the command of the total Archeus but to the Seminal mumial Balsame of composed bodies And that not before their manifested Nativity Diseases therefore do not owe the Original or Cause of their birth unto the birth of the Three first Things or any of them Because they cannot be act or hurt unlesse being first separated from each other and the intireness of the whole Body wherein they are potentially contained being destroyed by death But if they should be seperated that they may be able to wrong and hurt surely that should be made by some internal disease and agent besides Nature and by a former thing or cause Therefore the separation of those Three Things from each other could never be but a product and so also a more later thing than the Disease neither should it first appear unless a Disease being supposed Therefore it could not be the immediate or nearest occasional cause of Diseases For although the Three first Things are not the Causes of Diseases yet this doth not-argue whereby the Salt Sulphur and Mercury of things are ever the less the Medicines of of Diseases For it is not requisite that the Remedy and external Cause of a Disease should have a co-resemblance how ever notwithstanding Paracelsus hath so commanded whereby he might oppose the maxime of Galen Contraries are cured by Contraries For Poysons are not overcome by a co-resemblance of the Venome but by that which conquers the Venome For those medicinal Powers are the gifts of God which do neither bear a contrariety or character of hostility mutually towards themselves nor towards Diseases But every thing acteth from a gift that which it is commanded to act And moreover bodies being freed from their lump enclosure filths and impediments do unfold most noble gifts and most excellent Powers or faculties Even as elsewhere more largly Furthermore it hath been already sufficiently and over demonstrated that Nature doth not suffer four Elements neither that she doth admit of their congresse or encounter for the constitution of composed Bodies and consequently that there is no contrariety or skirmishing of the Elements for a Disease or Remedy It follows also from thence that there is no Quintessence or Fifth Essence by a proper Name to be so called if a Fifth Thing shews a necessary relation unto other four The Invention therefore of a Fifth Essence is indeed Chymical but of Phylosophers who before me knew not the Number Essences of the Elements and the Nullity of their mixture Which things if Paracelsus had known he had undoubtedly named the Essence which he calls a Fifth a Fourth in respect of his Three first Things Indeed he thought that every Body is constituted even as also resolved as well by Art as by Nature into
the giddiness of the head Doatages Asthmaes bastard Pleurisies the Convulsion Cramp the Disease of the standing of the Yard the Tympany furies of the Wombe yea and of the falling Sickness with some other affects divided in their particular kind do without controversie owe their beginnings unto windy blasts and vapours wherefore also they by an equal right enlarging the Catalogue brought down their searches unto the Book of Hippocrates Peri Phusiân or concerning natural things That old man hath so altogether consecrated all Diseases to flatus's or windy blasts that he hath promiscuously confounded winds with the principles of life Therefore the more fruitful wits of the Schools began to search not so much into the nature and properties of windinesses as the suppositions of windy blasts being granted and yeelded to further to superstruct and build the nature and causes of almost all Diseases and to dedicate them to windy blasts vapours and exhalations climbing from beneath upwards or being thrust head-long downwards But when as they were not able wholly to deliver themselves out of straits nor that the edifice of so great a moment could stand firm because it was supported by no foundation of a more solide enquiry it was as it were the thred of an enterprise broken asunder by too much twisting Truly Hippocrates constrained a flatus into a predicament whether they should be partakers of life or death or at length of destruction and should contain the causes thereof or should be stirred up from Heaven by the Blas of the Stars and so should promise causal necessities of the heavenly circle or at length they should obey a sublunary or voluntary Law to wit he left it wholly undecided And so he left a broken method And that stood because there was not yet so great a necessity experience frequency and stubbornness of Diseases For it was not as yet known that the vital spirit had conceived the light of life which was that of the sensitive soul and that they were the immediate seats of the forms of soulified Creatures and so that they did contain the crasis or temperature of the whole Essence For none then had learned that the matter of that Gas the Water and so none had as yet dreamed that the vital spirit did differ from the wind of the World in the whole Element For truly the Schools had easily fallen down into this ditch of windy blasts and had stubbornly there remained but that they acknowledged the succours of purging Medicines and blood-letting in winds to be vain and foresaw that they should be in vain without the aid of both those succours Galen indeed had seen that Oyles and fatnesses did by degrees exhale through fire therefore he thought that winds also are awakened in us through a melted fatness or the inordinacy of the digestions because he was he who was not able to distinguish the Air or wind from an exhalation from a vapour and from a windy blast The Galenical School I say hath not hitherto known the difference between a windy Gas which is meerly Air that is a wind moved up and down by the Blas of the Stars a fat Gas a dry Gas which is called a sublimed one a fuliginous or smoaky or endemical Gas and a wild Gas or an unrestrainable one which cannot be compelled into a visible Body Wherefore the obscurity of the darkness of natural things hath remained unexcusable among those that are ignorant of the Art of the Fire The which doth instruct us in what degree watry Bodies or in what degree and order every fatness may flie away in the next place by what separation or by what Ferment Bodies may depart from each other may putrifie what all particular Bodies may carry with them by resolving in the next place by what means the Crases of Seeds and properties of a composed Body may shew themselves Lastly by what endeavour all of whatsoever is in us may be disposed into transpiration without a separation of parts They had heard indeed winds in the belly and then unhurtful rumblings and painful wringings they took notice of to be in the stomack and Colon but in Winter a plurality of winds wherefore they dreamed of an icy Phlegme in the bowels and hot Remedies to be applyed to cold Diseases Wherein the Schools do at first infold or ensnare themselves while they deliver the original of vapours and windinesses and do intend to cure and put these to flight by contrary Remedies as they call them For they contradict themselves in their principles or beginnings mean and manner For if windinesses in us are vapours or exhalations in us Surely there will follow upon the administring of hot Remedies against winds a greater exciting of pains and flatus's and stretching out of parts because vapours must needs be increased and torments be multiplyed as well by reason of stretchings out as the sharpness of the winds And that thing the Art of distilling doth prove throughout the whole Paracelsus although a Potentate of the Art of the Fire was not free from the storm of winds Because he was he which was ignorant of the nature of winds and of the Air that the matter of vapours of flatus's is a watry Gas that their efficient causes manners means as also matter is water got with child by a Seed Because he was he who plainly despised the authorities of Philosophy and endeavoured to bind nature under his own idiotism he was also forsaken God so permitting it by the light of nature who maketh such endeavours every where void Also no man ever attaineth unto Wisdom who hath thought to have come thereunto by himself For Paracelsus doth every where constantly perswade that we ought to feel the Diseases and defects of all things because we are hitherto every way an extract of the whole universe That we ought to express the universe as it were the Parent of a Son For so he will have us to contain winds and their varieties our wringings of the bowels also to answer unto the tempests of the Air. But I will not depart even a nails breadth from the famous Image of God that we do resemble the Macrocosme or great World rather than God in his Image For I believe that I am not a man that I might undergo Diseases and so resemble Pirke Olam or Holam Hapiroud but rather I know that I do undergo Diseases that I might shew a depraved and mortal nature but that I am a man for no other end than that according to the good pleasure of God I may represent his lively Image That man therefore divides the wringings of the bowels into four parts according unto the four accustomed hinges of the winds Whereof the Northern one he first of all placeth in the loyns whose wind in its colick should blow against the Navil But in the Navil he placeth the Southern one which in its colick should blow Diametrically on the back So also he hath disposed the Eastern one in the
pulsive or driving Blas But wind being shut up doth cause the less pain so long as it is quiet So every pulsive Remedy should of necessity increase the pains of the wringings or gripes and so nature sheweth that we must abstain from things that do drive or force windiness But they strongly meditate that in carminatives there is the force of a whip But are flatus's like unto cattel For do they acknowledge that they and their carminatives are to be set in the place of a suitable Pestil or that perhaps carminatives have the same virtue like a voice which drives away cattel and that windy blasts in the Body do hearken unto the exhortation of enchanting Poets or Singers I know indeed from hence that the Schools are ignorant of the force property causes and manner as well of the gripings or wringings as of the Remedies For winds are not to be driven away and secondly not to be dispersed For this is impossible but that contains a childish Fiction Neither also by an honest man are flatus's to be restrained by any Verse or Song a religious Etymology whereof doth notwithstanding hitherto remain in the Schools A windy blast is not inwardly stirred up in the Wombe because the Wombe is destitute of a flatulent matter and its digestion is not fit for creating of flatus's but outwardly Air scarce enters into the Wombe because it is that which least it should suffer a vacuum or emptiness in its membrane it falleth down wholly moist and flaggy and so of its own accord a passage for the breathing Air is prevented unless it be by force cast into it by an instrument In the next place neither do external winds borrow a force from the mouth that they may enter into unwonted regions and that they may strongly thump the Pleura grown to the ribs but that between this and the Muscles between the ribs they may stir up a flatulent Pleurisie and presently after tear the Pleura from the ribs and frame a true inflamation of the Pleurisie Because there is no way for Air thither yea if it should reach thither it hath not a Blas behind which might be of any damage And by which way it had entred for therefore before it had hurt it had expired Neither also are flatus's made internally in those parts the matter whereof and the efficient cause hindering it It is also like an old Wives Fiction that an external wind or blast of Air doth pierce thorow the skin however so pory it be even as also the fleshy Membrane and also the Muscles under it According to the shameful reason of Physitians wherein they say He hath lately contracted wind whence his parts are ill affected For I have oftentimes with my own blushing heard this cause to be assigned almost to all Diseases from the head even to the ankle The distemperature of the Air is accused for the vices of the head eyes ears teeth Oasand for hoarsnesses coughs likewise for all defluxions unconcoctions feavers and so the Air hath been accounted a Pandora's box And that not only by the touching of cold as an outward cause but as a windy blast hath been drawn inwards and there unduely detained Of which things elsewhere But now our speech is of our and those internal windy blasts I grant indeed that an unwonted cold as a guards-man of Death doth indeed affect some noble part or servile one as it disturbs the last digestion thereof whence excrements pains yea and Aposthems of the similiar parts do diversly follow But in these the faculty of the cold is only an outward occasional cause which shews a prevention not likewise a cure or quality of a Remedy Therefore let the trifles of the Schools bid farewel But besides that any Physitian may rightly perform his office he shall know first what wind is and then what is a windy blast from whence it is made why it causeth pain and then the Remedy shall be easie unto him Indeed the cause of flatus's being known we must take heed least their concrete or composure be turned into a Gas But a Gas which hath been once made prepareth an easie way or passage for it self But if not and if the bowel where it is beneath it be stopped with a more hard obstacle this is to be loosed But where there is no excrement as a partition and yet the wringings do proceed shall not those things be vain which drive away winds and foolish which disperse them For truly not the windy blasts but the matter from whence the bowels are drawn together and the bowels themselves do generate windinesses is to be brushed away The cure I say may not be converted unto the flatus produced but unto the cause producing it I see therefore that the Remedies of Dill Caraway Anise Cummin wild Carrot seed c. were found out not by the Schools who are ignorant of the causes of wringings of the bowels but that they were made known from Divine compassion to little ones and poor ones from whom the Schools have begged them as also many other experiments from thence For truly the original essence matter property process and history of flatus's have lain hid to the Schools In the next place neither is the Volvulus Iliack passion or that of a barbarous name miserere mei any twisting or writhing together and extravagancy of the lesser bowel For besides that it should be a perpetual and of necessity a relapsing evil Anatomy resists it which shewes the bowel to be cloathed with the mesentery to wit with an external cloathing with a third garment and upper skinny one and it being fast tyed to the loynes by that mesentery to hang or bend forwards Therefore that bond being once burst asunder and the society of the mesentery despised there is no hope for the future of reducing the bowels into their former case from which they had freed themselves by breaking Prison And so the evil being by a strong fortune restored should of necessity presently return and should alwayes afterwards rush into a worse state Again throughout the whole tract of the bowel there should henceforeward be no nourishment with the Veins and no attraction of chyle for life when as nevertheless in the mean time that Disease gives place to an easie Remedy For if besides its wonted circles the bowel should be co-writhed who should be that mover or who that tormenter For from without it hath none and fears none which bowel is covered with a smooth caule and simple bladder of the Abdomen or bottom of the belly Also if it be stopped up by an internal excrement for this nor the other can happen unto it now the gut Ileon is stopped wherein excrements are not yet wont to be hardned by an unwonted dung but not co-writhed not dissolved without the case of the mesentery And so the Schools being amazed that Disease hath been unknown in its causes and manner For I remember that Thomas Balbani of Antwerp
Cough of old folks and the snortings of dying persons although afflicted with another vice than that of the Lungs For that is proper to the Lungs because it alwayes drinks crude or fresh Air and being neighbour to the oppressed heart doth readily restore its strength and for that cause its own strength the sooner faileth For truly I first of all dissent from the Schools because I know this kind of vice to be of the parts containing but not of the liquors contained For those contents are the certain products of a root which are begotten by the Archeus of the parts being badly seasoned And then I also differ in this that I know it to be a local evil but not bestowed or dispensed by a secondary affection of the Head For the Coughs of old age are made under a difficult hope of restoring because a very small quantity of the excrement bred in the Lungs doth reside in the utmost small branches of the Airy pipe which doth not only stop up the reeds but also through its presence disturbeth the ferment of the place and lessens it whence new excrements the wealthy houshold-stuff of Coughs are stirred up every hour Which in old age are scarce cured by means commonly known Because they are those which do not pierce unto the places affected yea neither have they obtained a strength of restoring Such excrements therefore are the local defects of the parts And every part hath its own weakness whether it be in-bred or attained with a diminishment of the growing or flourishing ferment And so also from hence all those excrements of parts do proceed I understand therefore in the first place that the repetitions of purges are vain and hurtful in these affects because they are those things which are appointed only about the products but not about the causes Then also and chiefly because such excrements do not give place by loosening Medicines However it is they do no way reach to the primitive blemish and hurtful root in us but only do meditate of latter effects but the former causes or roots they are not able to touch Adde thou that although loosening Medicines do seem sometimes to have succoured for two dayes space as the lump of the venal blood of the Mesentery being taken away a more sparing dispensation and nourishment is brought unto the Lungs and hence there is a more sparing spitting forth by reaching Yet notwithstanding laxative Medicines do oppose the general strength of the whole Body by weakening it more and more Which thing while Physitians do even see as it were thorow a sieve neither know they to have profited the sick party by a diminishing of the Body and exhausted strength they at length dismisse the weak to be handled by the rules of Diet and the only aids of a sober Kitchin only by the aid of a Cautery and repeated assistance of the more gentle laxatives they proceed medicinally that is to live miserably By which supposition in the first place they at least insinuate that the Kitchin is to be preferred before any unfaithful or distrustful Medicines of the shops and experience being made they decree that these must be abstained from as hurtful And I wish that after so many wipings away of the strength that might suffice neither that they would again any more afterwards by the same succours attempt to exhaust the hope Body veins strength and purses of the sick I would to God also they were mindful of their own Maxim wherein their chief curative indication or betokening sign is to be taken from things profitable and hurtful Which rule although it be shameful and only that of Empericks I would that at least by the same they would now skip back from their committed errors Neither that in the Cough and Consumption they would return unto Remedies which hitherto they have found to have profited none For loosening Medicines cuttings of a vein purgers by the nostrils drawers of phlegme by the mouth Ecligmaes or Lohochs the decoction of China Sarsaparilla Sassafras a Cautery in the Coronal suture or seam of the scull and other unfaithful aids of that sort would fall asleep being applied by the Physitian that they may after some sort seem not to have received their money from a free gift At least wise I would that they had learned by their practice that while they meditate of the removings revulsions derivations and preventions of latter effects that is excrements they do openly shew that the knowledge of the causes have lain hid unto them neither that they have methodically cured their sick by a taking away of the causes They had also found the respect of food to be a dainty or costly languishing weak and desperate kind of Remedy for so great an enemy now an in-mate yea and a Patron No wonder therefore that the common People heeding the vanity of these Cures have took an occasion to say that it is the best Medicine not to use Medicine For I have oftentimes bewailed with great compassion in reading thorowly of the centuries of medicinal counsels and especially while they afresh prosecute all the Diseases of Almanzor from the crown of the Head unto the soal of the foot because they narrowly searching into the catarctical or principal cause from the beginning as they think and boast they do every where accuse some natural or attained singular distemper yet under the uncertainty of a doubt whether they should appoint the same as the disease or indeed as the antecedent cause of the disease whereof they consulted But least they should erre even in any diseases they have accused heat and also cold To wit they complain almost in all cases of a coldness of the stomack alone or combined with the heat of the liver whence they many wayes divine Rheumes to arise and to have slidden down into divers parts and they prosecute as the diseases of the same not onely almost all internal ones but also even unto the defects of the skin Thus indeed do the Schooles season their young beginners theorically and practically For so Rheumes are guilty of the defects of the eyes ears jawes tongue teeth breast armes loines and legs So coughs consumptions astmaes plurisies peripneumonies apoplexies palsies sudden deaths corrupt mattery imposthumes spittings of blood have found their already supposed cause in Rheums So in the next place the Stomack casts up its vomit loatheth labours with an unconcoction the liver also and the spleen are ill at ease For an undigestible snivel having slidden down out of the head obstructions hardnesses dropsies aposthems scirrhus's fevers wringings of the bowels have taken up their room among Catarrhes their Clients Unto which Catarrhes Paracelsus although elsewhere triumphing in Tartars and his Three first Things through an invention hath notwithstanding for the most part subscribed and hath alwayes manifestly acknowledged the name of the defluxion fflussen by nodding under his Mistriss Uncertainty For the Schooles do so seriously adorn this deplorable fable of
did give a cleerness beyond all demonstration and fear or error Otherwise it had been hard for me to perswade my self and believe unless I being constrained within by the authority and security of a greater Title ought boldly to object my self against the censures of all For what I teach will be at first incredible among quick-sighted men if they shall place me at the Tribunal of so many Ages who willingly confess my self unfit to reach unto so great a top of light unless expert men do the more lively contemplate with me of the wonted super-abounding of the Divine Majesty For no man shall the more cleerly know the honour of God in this case and the present gift to come freely from the Father of Lights unless in my adjected smalness and ignorance they do see it to be the accustomed path of God that he reveals unto little ones that which he hath ordinarily denyed unto the greater of the World To wit by reason of one fault because they all have by a continued error even sunk themselves into the Precepts of Pagans For quick-sighted men will from hence discern first of all that they must not go against me as against a man Then in the next place they will weigh in their own jugdement the Reasons of the Schools drawn out of my bosom Whence at length they themselves being as it were led by the Principles and Theoremes of nature will voluntarily hasten unto far more sublime and famous Beginnings of healing whither the tenderness of my judgement could not ascend For truly I admonish and exhort the wise men of this World that the errors and ignorances of Physitians have not opened themselves to me by little and little and by degrees entred into my Soul so as that I have conceived or meditated of one thing before another To wit that I at first considered the Schools to be deceived about the congress tempering and complexions of Elementary mixtures and diseasie distempers but that from thence I was tossed or tumbled about the errors of Catarrhs and afterwards in the next place that I had sought for the roots causes and essential thingliness of Diseases and Remedies Indeed none of these For if one thing had been made known unto me before another I had thought that all this progress had been the inductions or inferences of reason and imagination subject to errors and fallacies But after that one only flash or enlightning of light had overshadowed the whole intellectual conceit to wit of the ignorance of Physitians as well in the knowledge of causes Diseases as of Remedies and applications at once I undoubtedly knew that this Talent was given to me for the profits of my Neighbours and therefore that it was to be handed forth to the Chairs from whom correction is much desired and expected and to be seriously under the penalty of the more grievous punishment profered unto them When as therefore I had now determined to demonstrate that the Essence of Diseases by their intimate and proper roots was not yet known there was a night before the fourth hour in the morning the ninth of the sixth Month called August and it seemed to me that as from the crowing of the Cock dreams are sometimes formed I heard from the fore-conceived care of writing that I should call to mind the Anatomy whereof a little after I shall make mention and when I seemed admonishingly to have understood these things I doubted being half awaked which way that dissection of the dead carcass might touch or concern the Treatise which I had determined to write touching the essence of Diseases Therefore I being without care dreamed that I saw a man externally big sitting at my Table and eating fresh Salmon in the sauce of Vinegar and Pepper and so greedily that as if he would fill himself thereby for in his own Country fresh Salmon was not found and I saw that two dayes after about the evening a small Ague took hold of him and that his teeth did shake and from thenceforth that it kept the figure or resemblance of a Tertian That is on the fourth day from the digestion of that meat So that nothing of its remainder had putrified and much less that that had remained which might provoke the Aguish tumult at set intervals For that which commonly sounds is that an Elementary distemperature was left which should prepare the diseasie impression But that thing besides the absurdities of distemperatures and complexions by me elsewhere demonstrated seemeth to signifie a meer Ens rationis or Being of Reason Because the thing imprinting and imprinted are indeed things in act and relative terms but the impression it self seeing it is nothing but a relation resulting from a co-fitting of the terms it can contain only the room of a Being of Reason Wherefore at least wise the impression or distemperature cannot remain a surviver where the thing distempering or imprinting it self hath ceased to be and by consequence hath ceased to hurt It must needs be therefore that the thing imprinting it self had produced a hurtful quality out of it self and had deposed it as it were its product on the subject of impression And that thing seeing it was made in an Organ which was the partaker of life that product likewise ought to be by all means and immediately sunk or entertained within the bosom of life it self and the rather if it ought to return at set periods and to interrupt the silent rest of health yea if by acting in a hostile manner it ought after some sort to shew forth signs of the life disturbed Even so that I have by this dream the more perfectly confirmed the essential thingliness of Diseases For even as these things do not happen beneath and without the life so the life it self is the very impulsive cause after that it is once disturbed in its place peace or rest Behold on the same day after the aforesaid Dream a Senator whom I had not seen for many years before comes as a guest unto my table and seeing it was the Vigil or Eve of S. Laurence it happened also that a fresh Salmon boyled was set on the Board and he eat no otherwise than as I had seen in my sleep Yea that two days after he slid into a Tertian Ague But the dissected dead Carcass whereof I had received admonition hath respect unto the same ends For truly a man of sixty years old had from the entrance of his age lived in a tender health and through occasion of a light errour was easily feverish whom sudden death afterwards at length took away and I being willing narrowly to search whether I could find the Cause of his Feverish aptness in the places wherein the lamented that he was pained as oft as he had the Feaver Indeed it was the Hypocondrial in both his sides as well where the Liver as where the Spleen are kept But there was not the least thing about these parts to be seen with
is a lightsome Being it acts not but by its instrument of the vital aire or by the Archeus as a mean between the light of Life flowing from the father of lights and the body But this aire or Archeus doth not act but after the manner wherein every seminal spirit acteth on the mass subjected under it that is not but by an imprinted mark or sealie Idea which hath known what and which way it must act Therefore all and every disease hath a sealie mark and as it were a seminal act which is expert of things to be acted by it self This Declaration therefore doth far recede or differ from an elementary distemperature from humours and the disproportionable mixture of those from the fight and contrariety of the elements of our composition because every disease is nothing but a Sword to the Life wounding or totally cutting it off For as a Sword doth exhaust the Life together with the arterial blood and vital aire wherein according to the holy Scriptures the Soul it self sitteth So a disease consumeth the same air of Life on which it afresh sealeth an hostile character drawn as well from occasional Causes as gotten through the errour of its own indignation This exact account of a disease being granted lo I come unto the explaining of a disease And first I will demonstrate from the very Theoremes of the Schools that the thingliness or essence of a disease hath been hitherto unknown Whence in the next place any one shall easily judge what hath even hitherto been done in the remedies and vanquishing of diseases I have oft-times promised that I will demonstrate that the Schools have hitherto neglected that is that they have not known the essence root or nature of a disease in its own universal quiddity or thingliness And seeing I have already from the Elements prosecuted that thing even unto a conclusion thorow all their privy shifts now at length by an Anatomy of particulars I shall also stand to my promises if I shall detect the same in the general and especially if I shall shew that thing no longer by the fictions of Elements temperaments and humours but by the very words of Authors whereby they corrupt their Young beginners as it were with a mortal contagion In the premises it hath already been demonstrated by me that the Ages before me being deluded by the trifles of the Peripateticks have been ignorant of the Causes to wit the Matter and Efficient of natural things Then also that a thing it self is nothing besides a connexion of both Causes and that this same thing is in diseases especially seeing a disease although happening unto us by sin is now admitted for a prodigal Son of Nature Truly the univocal or simple homogeneity of Causes in natural Beings hath compelled me hereunto whereby the efficient Cause is denominated from effecting but not from the Effect which is after the Efficiency Therefore the Schools do first of all define a disease to be an affect or disposition which doth primarily hurt the actions of our faculties wherein they do as yet very much stumble For truly first they name this Affect a distemperature of one or two qualities of the first Elements For so they rehearse the same thing because they consess a disease to be an elementary quality it self as it exceedeth a just temperature Therefore a disease shall no longer be that disposition resulting from the first qualities which they suppose immediately to hurt the functions themselves And so they feign the whole disease hereafter to consist in nothing but in a degree or excess of an elementary quality Again now and then they call the very distemperature of qualities not indeed a Disease but well the antecedent cause of the same They will I say have those four solitary qualities to be diseases whether they shall proceed from external qualities co-like unto themselves or whether they owe their beginning in the body to be from a strange disproportion of mixture Furthermore they afterwards combine those qualities in a bride-bed from the congress whereof they then derive their off-spring a Disease to wit they believe that the Elements are so subservient to their own dreams As that also qualities being joyned at their pleasure they have commanded them to answer to as many elements So that those naked qualities being even balaced with feigned elements and dreamed humours they have feigned to be Diseases themselves For in this place I declare the unseasonable yea sporting varieties of the Schools and their poverty greatly fighting otherwise surely I have sufficiently proved elsewhere by a Demonstration chiefly true That in the nature of things there are not four elements and therefore neither are they mixed that bodies which they have called mixt may be thereby constituted and by consequence that neither can distemperatures be accused for diseases As neither that ever there were four constitutive humours of us in the nature of things whereby it is sufficiently and over-manifest that the causes of diseases yea and diseases and the predicament of diseases have been hitherto unknown in the Schools Notwithstanding I will now dissemblingly treat with them by the supposed Positions of the same Schools Therefore the Schools sometimes repenting them of their sayings will have the elementary qualities and not unfrequently the humours equal to these not indeed to be diseases but onely the containing causes of almost all diseases Otherwise again that of those qualities being more intense than is meet a third or neutral one doth arise which they have called the Diathesis or Disposition or Disease it self And so however they toss the business they have hitherto commanded a disease to inhabite among qualities but humours although intemperate ones they for the most part driven out of the rank of diseases Indeed a Cataract in the eye although as a substance it doth immediately intercept the sight yet it cannot be a disease Therefore they have feigned a certain Being of reason and an imaginary relation or obstruction which might contain every property of a disease and might be truly a disease the Cataract being rejected And so by degrees a disease comes down unto non-beings and privations And now and then they for the essence of a disease do ridiculously distinguish a simple distemperature from a conjoyned one and again both of them from a humourous one when as a humour should be a substance void of degrees Indeed they have distinguished the societies of proportionable and disproportionable mixtures of the first qualities into pedigrees and then they have thereby erected specious Schemes and at length they have filled whole Volumes with those fables But at leastwise they have never admitted an evil or vitiated humour to be bred in us which may not presuppose some elementary distemperature to be mother unto it Wherefore a distemperature in the Schools shall be onely the cause of the cause and of the thing caused but it shall not be the thing caused it self or the disease nor in
of a Disease to owe an unseparable respect unto the hurting and things hurting of Functions So indeed that these Essences of Diseases should be included therein Because they have thought that the whole hinge of healing was rowled about contraries when as otherwise it is wholly by accident if in Diseases Functions are hurt otherwise whoever was he who denied a Disease not really to be present in the silence of a quartane Ague the falling sickness madness and Gout When notwithstanding no hurting of Functions is seen who is he which doth not now and then observe in a person recovering greater hindrances of actions and weaknesses than in the flaming beginning of Diseases It hath therefore alwaies seemed a blockish thing to me for a thing to be essentially defined by later and separable effects And seeing a Disease is primarily made by the Archeus which maketh an assault yet by an erring one certainly the action hereof shall be much nearer into the faculties themselves than into the actions of the same especially because as long as the faculties are as yet in one that is in recovery as it were vanquished and sore shaken there are indeed impediments of the faculties present likewise a hurting and suppression of actions yet no Disease surviving And seeing that I have elsewhere sufficiently demonstrated that both causes in natural things do not differ in supposition from the very thing it self constituted Therefore if a disease should be the cause of the hurting of an action as the constitutive difference of the same it should also of necessity be that a disease it self is not any thing diverse from an action being hurt which thing is already manifest to be false It should also be false that the cause and the disease should by the one onely title of the hurter of an action be undistinctly comprehended or the Schooles do badly decree that the hurter of action is the cause of a disease it self But the hurting of the action should be the disease and the action hurt the symptome it self for that is also a devise too childish For First A Disease should be a meer being of Reason mentally arising from a disposition of the tearms of the Cause unto the Effect To wit of the Hurter and the thing Hurt And then an Error is discerned in the definition of a Disease delivered by the Schooles To wit That a Disease is a Disposition primarily hurting an Action Because it is that which should define the Cause and not the Disease it self or the Effect of the Cause Thirdly If a Remedy ought to remove that it self which hurteth the Action that shall either have a singular Monarchy whereby it may call forth and shake off the Hurter it self or the Remedy shall joyn it self to Nature her self and that so most unitingly that their forces being conjoyned and they being now as it were one united thing doth set it self in an opposite term against the Hurter it self But the first of these is not true Because the Remedy should be as forreign unto Nature as is otherwise the Disease it self by reason of a particular direction and arbitriment of motions despised by our Archeus For if it ought to help it should have a power superiour to man's Nature in such a manner that it should obey neither the Lawes of things causing Diseases nor bringing Death And so it should expel the Cause which bringeth the Disease as well from a dead Carcass as from a languishing person Neither likewise hath the later place Because if the Remedy should be united to nature radically and by an unitive mixture it should have a priviledge above the condition of nourishment A hurting therefore of Action it self doth not fall into the definition of a Disease Especially because a Remedy doth not respect so much the occasional Cause as the internal efficient Cause of a Disease it self Whence that Maxime is verified That Natures themselves are the Curesses of Diseases as the Effectresses thereof They indeed do on both sides confound the Disease with the Symptom to the destruction of those that are to be cured seeing curing is seated oftentimes in the removal of the occasional Cause but never in the removing of Symptomes And because the removal of the occasional cause is thought to be an eduction or drawing out of matter nothing but solutives and diminishers of contents have flourished hitherto whereas otherwise a removal of the occasional cause doth more respect a correction or pacifying of the immediate efficient than a pulling away of the occasional matter Because after correction even without a removal of the occasional matter a cessation and unhoped for rest yea and also a cure do for the most part by and by happen The which in a sympathetical cure doth frequently come to hand and manifestly appeareth The Schools therefore have been deceived by artificial things and because they have thought that all generation is begun from the privative point of corruption They have not known that that which now flows in the material seminal Beginning of all things whatsoever hath already for that very cause it s own real Being although an unripe one and that it is hereby this something in it self and distinct from any other thing and that it doth by a natural generation attain only a maturity and illustration in its top or perfection by reason of a new formal light of acting Neither indeed doth the seed therefore differ from its constituted Being by the efficient internal cause and matter but only by an individual alterity or interchangeable course of the perfection of a formal light even as elsewhere concerning the birth of Forms For the Seed which at first had need of an exciter this formal light being obtained is afterwards for the moving of it self The Schools also do now and then consider a Disease even as if it were a neutral product proceeding or issuing forth through an activity of the cause and a reluctancy of our nature But I know that as well the formal Agent as the Patient in a Disease are strangers unto us in that act To wit I know that the Falling-sicknesse is no lesse really in us at the time of its silence than when it shall be in its full fit I know also that a Disease is a real substantive Being but not a relative Being not a naked disposition of the Agent and thing striving unto the Patient as of extreams unto a mean or middle thing Neither lastly that it is a conformity of proportion or disproportion between extreams Although this respect of forming a relation between the Beings of Reason be nearer than the effect produced I know further that every natural Agent is born to produce its like except that which acteth by a Blas but the power or faculty as well that locally motive as alterative because it wanted a name it seemed good to me to have it called Blas in the Beginnings of the Physicks or natural Phylosophy So the Heaven generates Meteors not
that the Liver being cooled doth afterwards generate the more cold Blood for all Blood being deprived of vital spirit naturally waxeth cold because it is a dead carcase But that a more cold Liver doth melt fleshes into a Dropsical water that can be founded upon no reason 18. The Schooles cannot deny but that a Dropsie is sometimes solved by the Kidneys But there is no reason why the Reines do stubornly close themselves even untill Death because the Liver was more cold than was meet Let these arguments onely as yet suffice the Humourists which are distempered with cold that the Liver may be from a mortal offence Now I will over-add somethings concerning the occasional Cause I will therefore resume the fact of our Treasurer who shewed nothing memorable in this dissection beside Blood out-hunted and hardned in his Kidney to be the occasional Cause of his Dropsie and Death yet while the Stone plentifully stopping the Kidney doth not produce a Dropsie yea although the whole Kidney shall wax brawnie or hard with little Stones and shall reserve nothing of its substance besides skin Therefore the obstruction of the Kidney as such is not the occasional cause of Dropsie But the out-chased venal Blood For so the Woman of Sixty years old having dashed her self against a corner of the Table contracted a Dropsie So those that are wounded in their Abdomen and badly Cured do become Hydropical So out-chased venal Blood lighting and laying on the Menynx or Coate of the Brain doth presently render the countenance swollen with a Dropsie So at length great gripings of the Guts do pour forth Blood out of the Veins into the space bordering on the hollow bending Bowel So those that have the Bloodie-flux And so Drinkers do enter into a Dropsie as something of blood is co-heaped in the hollow Bought of the Bowel But this thing I learned in a Fracture of the Scull and in a Dropsie of the Lungs For there the Blood making oftimes a stop blows up the whole Head and Face as it were with a Dropsie But here I have observed the Blood to have consisted or remained about the conduit of the arterial Vein for neither doth the venal blood degenerate in the form of corrupt Pus unless it be cocted in the hollowness of the Flesh but without the Flesh in a free place the Blood presently waxeth clottie and straight way after it being made more dry is hardened and presently conceives a Poysonous ferment Whence the Archeus stirs up a Dropsie Indeed our Treasurer hath taught me that the blood being hunted out and become clotty causeth a Dropsie of the Belly and besides that the Kidney is an Adequate or suitabl Aertificer Causer Executer and Judge or Arbitratour of a true Dropsie That thing hath confirmed it to me because at the time of a Dropsie the Kidney scarce makes Urine and on the other hand because the Kidney being excited to restore the Urine himself doth empty the whole Dropsie out of the Belly Wherefore also that the water is brought back into the Abdomen by the arbitration of the Kidney Vain therefore is the devise of Paracelsus that the Star Zedo is the one only and singular Architector of the Dropsie For the cause is in our innermost parts and in the very Beginnings of Life but not to be so far fetched and Cured For the Dropsie is not the workmanship of the Stars neither is there such an ordination of the Stars neither is that of concernment although Mercurie being seperated dead from its Vein doth truly and perfectly cure the threefold Dropsie For Mercurie is an Analogical and feigned Name neither doth it denote a Star but a running Mettal For what doth a Name that is Metaphorically feigned belong unto the feigned Star of Zedo For metallick Mercury is neither a Star nor kills a Star nor hinders its operation nor dis-joynes the conjunction of a Star with us if there were any For the Stars are the occasions of Meteors but of Diseases occasions onely by accident For primarily they are the Causes of times or seasons and of the Blas of a Meteor but secondarily and by accident they disturbe our Bodies proyoke Diseases or ripen the occasional matter But Causes by accident do not respect Cures but fore-cautions especially where Causes per se or by themselves do operate with or in us by a proper motion and appointment of their own seeds For indeed the left Kidney of the Treasurer is stuffed or condensed with the more dry Blood the left part of his Abdomen is extended and presently waxeth hard the right part being safe His Leg also presently swels and afterwards his Thigh on his left side and therefore the extension of his Belly is extended not by reason of the quantity of water onely but his Membranes are extended from the Disease it self no otherwise than as the Artery under a hard pulse But the Membranes are extended and contracted also before a plenty of water by the same workman which begets the Dropsie Indeed it contracts all the pores of the Membrane that they cannot transmit or send the Wind or Liquor thorow them when as otherwise in those that are alive that is healthy the whole Body is perspirable and conspirable or inspirable The Treasurer therefore first of all makes a little water the Dropsie straightway invades him by degrees and begins on his left Side And therefore presently after its Beginning his left Leg is besieged by an Oedema and afterwards his whole Body becomes swollen But why doth not his right Kidney draw the Urine nor transmit it the which otherwise happens when but one Kidney is besieged by the Disease of the Stone For therefore there is a double Kidney by Nature and a single Spleen or Milt that one may relieve another in their troubles and banishments of an Excrement Yea and from hence it is sufficiently manifest that the Spleen is not a sink nor emunctory Therefore in the Blood being chased out of the Veins deteined and condensed there is an exciting ferment such as is wanting to the Stone I will therefore declare the whole order of the matter so far as my Observation hath taught me For the Liquor Latex unknown to the Schooles as long as it is carried with the Blood in the Veins or to the Glandules it enjoyes a common life neither doth it obey the rules of water-drawing Organs But it knowes not upwards and downwards because it hath it not But it being once rejected out of the fellowship of Life now it undergoes the nature of an Excrement and hastens downwards as being burthened with its own weight Therefore the Latex is of a vile esteem And therefore as oft as every Bowel is ill affected it presently neglects the Latex and excludes it from the company of its Venal Blood and findes business enough for it self at home for its own defence The Latex therefore being once divorced elsewhere and spoiled of the society of Life doth presently receive
the disposition of an Excrement Because it s own and that which is native to it 1. This is the cause of an Anasarca or in speaking precisely the Water is not the Dropsie as the Anasarca it self neither is the Wind the Tympany it self but the Water in the Abdomen and the Latex in the Anasarca are the Products of the Dropsie As the Wind is in the Tympany Surely the Dropsie is a Guest received with a more inward society of familiarity and is more intimate unto us the which doth attempt the vital principles and faculties of Life before the Water be bred and so every Disease doth by occasional Causes immediately talk with the vital Beginnings wherein at length it findes its matter and efficient Cause 2. And then I have noted that seeing the Urine of all Dropsical persons in general is little and of a ful colour the Latex was the matter as of the Urine so also of the Dropsie For neither is it formally Urine but the matter hereof before Urine was made thereof by a co-mixture of other things and the receiving of a Urinal ferment 3. But I understand in the Dropsie a threefold matter To wit the first occasional such I have said out-chased venal blood to be And then a second which is the Water it self and the very Latex in the Abdomen which is a certain product And lastly the third matter hath its internal efficient arisen in the internal vital principles of the Archeus of the Reines 4. Like as also drink failing the Reines do notwithstanding as yet allure forth the Urine of Blood although sparingly 5. So also in the Dropsie the Urine is of the Blood not of the Drink not of the Latex The Reines do actually conceive frame and contein the Dropsie But the Abdomen or neather part of the Belly through the action of government of the Reines doth afford an Inne and the Kidney sends the Latex thither as the product of the Tragedy For it is not as the Latex is theevishly snatched away by another Bowel but the Kidney alone doth banish the Latex unto places subjected unto it 6. But the Latex being lesse chief in the accustomednesse of Life in an Oedema and Anasarca than in an Ascites it is also again supped into the Veines and slides unto the Reines that it may undergo the last determination of Life 7. An Ascites is regularly cured if the Kidney shall make much and abundanâ of Vrine of its own accord or by a Remedy But it committeth a relapse if the Disease be not wholly taken away out of the Kidney 8. The Water between the skin or Anasarca by a retrograde motion draws the Latex into the mouthes of the Veines from thence through the Veines it is sucked into the Kidneys and expurged in manner of Urine The least quantity whereof onely doth exhale by transpiration And therefore they abusively teach that the Latex is Phlegm in an Oedema and that it is recocted into lawful Blood 9. Therefore the Command and Action of Government of the Reins doth extend it self not only into the Kidneys Ureters and Urine Vessells But besides into the hollowness of the Belly between the Peritoneum or wrapping Skin thereof and Muscles of the Abdomen and likewise into the several Divisions of the hollow Vein beneath its self even also into the Feet and Legs 10. The Reins therefore do not suffer the Latex to fall down through its own weight but do truely send it no otherwise than as they do truly again draw the same thorow all the blood of the Veines to wit until the Dropsie be cured by pissings 11. And which is more the Kidney doth alwayes co-operate and principally operate in the framing of a Dropsie It is therefore of necessity primarily affected Because it wanders from the ends of its acting 12. And seeing the Kidney is the chief effecter of the Dropsie although another member may now and then contain the occasional Cause 13. Therefore a Cure which is instituted by a removal of the Water is alwayes subject to a relapse and is for the most part attempted in vain Because a worthy or meet Cure is never instituted from the ultimate or last Agent 14. Therefore the Dropsie Ascites is alwaies an immediate effect of the Reins and so the Cure of the same doth expulsively require a restauration of the Kidneys whether the defect be occasionally stirred up or in the next place consisteth in the Kidney it self 15. Wherefore I do far retire from the Doctrine of the Schooles which the Reins being paspassed by and neglected doth continually behold the Liver and direct its desires of curing thither 16. But the Dropsie is not a wandring abuse or exorbitancy of the Archeus in the Kidney a stopping up thereof by a stone or muckishnesse But a certain sleepy or stupifying poysonous faculty in the venal blood which is expelled or in a like manner entertained through importunity whereof the Kidney doth first of all forget its office casts away the Rains of separating the Latex and straightway after also doth snatch up a fury while through an inordinate motion it banisheth the Latex into the Abdomen 17. Even just as I said before that a Kidney was exclusively shut against the simple Urine even until death 18. Indeed I meditate of a co-like devious or wandering quality of out-chased venal blood in the Dropsie through the occasional Cause whereof the Kidney is made forgetful of its duty and the seasonable removal of which poyson doth free the Kidney from its bond and so the Abdomen from the Water For when the Kidney seeth that an Error was committed by it and being well admonished by a right Medicine it earnestly repents and again suppeth up the Latex being dismissed unto it and drives it forth 19. Therefore the true Dropsie Ascites is in the Reins or to lose the stubborn bolt of the Reins is to lose the Dropsie even as to solue the congealed Blood is to solue the occasional cause thereof That is the immediate cause as well the material as efficient of a true Dropsie is the Archeus of the Reins erring to wit so far as he becomes Exorbitant and is as it were driven into a furie by the occasional Cause he begets an Idea or shape the which the implanted Archeus of the Reins himself being stubborn doth foster and nourish Whereby indeed he doth not or scarce separates the Urine or imploys himself in the care of his Office or of his appointment Yea neither doth he only pass by and neglect his own Offices but also being as it were in a rage dismisseth the Latex unto the Abdomen that he may as it were procure his own Destruction Therefore we must dissolve the vice of stubbornness in the Archeus so that pissing may follow if health be to be expected Paracelsus feigneth that in the Dropsie the venal Blood is by the star of Zedo turned into a muscilage but from hence into water But that its cure doth
of the Stomack But as a defect of Blood is restored by the more meer or pure meats and drinks So the defect of the Latex is recompenced by watery things it being that which experience teacheth Thirst therefore proceedeth from the governour of the Latex and not from the Bowel of sanguification for there is as much necessity of the Latex as there hath been hitherto dulness in the passing it by Some Authors do commend live Toads being fast bound to both Kidneys to lose the Dropsie by the Urine At leastwise I have seen a Country-man that had a Dropsie cured by an Adder tyed about his Belly and Reins For an Idea of fear is brought on the Reins whereby they loose their indignation Indeed by the same title thirst doth stir up an Idea of sorrow or of a denyed appetite whence the Kidney forgets its wroth From what therefore hath been said before the ignorance of Causes in the Dropsie is sufficient manifest and next with what great obscurity they have laboured about the distemperature of the Liver and emptying of waters how vainly they have thought of provokers of Urine of Vesicatories and of solutive Medicines and it is to be observed in this place that purgative Cholagogals or movers of Cholar have been wickedly given to drink to Dropsical People because they are such things which trans-change the Flesh and venal Blood into a stinking and yellow ballast without the help of a Dropsie But with the destruction of the a Hydropsical person But a hydragogal or mover of water differs from a Cholagogal because that being drunk down the Belly asswageth neither doth it expurge stinking things or excrements unless the force of a Cholagogal be adjoyned to an Hydragogall Therefore Mercury precipitated according to the prescription of Paracelsus cures every Dropsie not as it purgeth but forasmuch as it material passing through the Bowels dissolues the out-hunted Blood But if it together with that do provoke Vomit or Stool that is to the Dropsie by accident Take notice therefore of this that white Briony or white Vine being scraped or filed and laid on a bruise wherein the blood looketh black under the skin doth in few hours resolve that blood into water the which it likewise fetcheth through the skin Wherefore take notice that there is the profitable virtue of an Hydragogal or mover of water in Briony if thou shalt take away the solutive poyson from the same But surely I have observed if Antimony be turned into a liquor and afterwards into a pouder which purgeth only by sweat a remedy is procured which modestly takes away every Dropsie whithout fear of a relaps for truly it removeth as well the occasional Cause as the distemper of the raging Archeus it self For such remedies as are carried through the intestines their natural endowment remaining and being secure and the which are therefore apt to resolve the occasional Cause do free Nature of her impediments whence the Archeus of the Kidney percieving the proper madness of his fore-past fury doth open the veines suck to him and strain the water through according to his due and wonted manner and recompenceth with diligence the stubbornness of his fore-past fury by an excentrical and opposite motion of the Latex grieving that through disorder he intended his own destruction whence it is plain to be seen that the government of the Kidney over the Abdomen and Veins hath hitherto been unknown The Dropsie therefore is a Disease occasionally arisen from a bloody depraved matter as it were from a fermental Beginning at whose incitements the Archeus of the Reins formeth an Idea of indignation through the power whereof he shuts up the Urine-pipes and Veins corrupts and diverts the abounding Latex and transmits this Latex into the compass of the Abdomen or nether part of the Belly in the mean time he so straitens the pores of these Membranes of the Abdomen that they can let nothing of all thorow them even until Death But the Tympany doth very much differ from the Dropsie For there is unto it a different occasional Cause a different manner of making in the next place a different matter and also a different efficient Cause Therefore a different Disposition and a different Product For Water is not generated but Wind And then neither is a Tympany made through the Arbitration of the Kidney but onely by a poysonsom ferment of the spermatick or seedie nourishment sticking and defiled in the crooked bought of the Intestine sitting as President Neither also hath Anatomy hitherto viewed the veines to be swollen with wind neither ought the Liver to suffer punishment by reason of the wringings of the Bowels although aswel the Dropsie as Tympany may follow wringings or gripings Also if the Flatus's of the Intestine should be made by the Liver a Remedy is to be applied to the Liver but not a carminative Medicine to the Intestine or the Schooles make themselves guilty through a different manner of curing For if they were mindfull of their own Theorem that of the same faculty there is a found and infirm Action they had known that Belching and Flatus's are generated by the Bowels and Stomack And so that the crooked bought of the Intestine is no lesse apt for generating of Flatus's than the concave or hollowness thereof A Tympany molesteth from Liquors which were to be assimilated but are become degenerate For a Windinesse or Flatus is made in the Intestine from a certain indisposition of the Archeus of the place who then doth forthwith change meats which are nothing flatulent into a flatus Seeing therefore in the Tympany it is in the out-side or in the crooked bought of the Intestine the same flatulent indisposition is to be considered to be with-out-side as is within in the Intestine To wit it is made from a similar nourishment degenerating whereby a dungy ferment happening the very Archeus of the place being wroth and ill affected doth turn not indeed the aforesaid occasional Cause but the proper nourishment of the Membranes into Flatus's But for this purpose a part of the dungy-ferment doth passe from the inward cavity unto the outward bought of the Intestine And therefore that is not the unsavoury or four flatus of Belchings as neither doth it smel of dung because it is not of a dungy-matter but of a degenerated and cadaverous or mortified nourishment A certain man by the perswasion of Physitians sustaining an Incision on the side of his Navel who was judged to have the Dropsie and that they might draw out the water I being a Young Man and looking on the Chyrurgions Lancet or Fleam being drawn out his Abdomen presently pitched and he by and by died But a Flatus which hugely stank uttered it self and his dead Carcass smelt It is manifest therefore that the occasional matter and next the true matter and inward effecter with all the knowledge which credits a Physitian have remained unknown The vanity also of Remedies appeareth and
Preparations Exaltations Appropriations of Remedies That is not to have known a Scientifical or Knowldegable Curing of the Sick For I have believed that I must proceed by the same Beginnings Because they referred all sicknesses a few perhaps being excepted into Elementary qualities and the inbred discords of Nature into Humours Catarrhes Flatus's Smoaks or Fumes So that the knowledge of the Schooles being withdrawn into a Fume and Vapours doth vanish into Smoak At length through the Errors of Tartar it descends unto Tartarers that they might shew that they being involved in darkness have stumbled in their wayes For it hath behoved me diligently to detect those things if Young beginners must hereafter repent But it hath not been sufficient to have shewn their Errors Unskilfulness Sluggishness and stubborn and constant Ignorance unless I shall restore true Doctrine in the room of Triffles For the abuses of Maxims had remained suspected by me for very many Years the which in the Book of Fevers I have deciphered to the Life before that I came unto a sound Knowledge of the Truth And I had a long while thorowly viewed the truth of the Theorie before that in seeking I had found some right Medicines which were sufficient for those that had made a Beginning Wherefore seeing I was about to speak of Diseases under so great a Paradox and weight of things and sound none among the Antients and Modern Juniors to be my assistant I seriously invoked God and I found him also favourable Therefore I determined before I wrote to call upon Logick that by its Definitions it might demonstrate unto me the Essences of Diseases indeed by their Divisions Species and interchangable courses or mutual respects and at length that by Augmentation it might suggest the Causes Properties Meanes and Remedies of knowing and curing them But at my acclamations made even into its mouth it was deaf stood amazed heard nothing remained dumb and helped not me miserable man in the least Because it was wholly impotent without sense Afterwards therefore I called the Auricular Precepts of the natural Philosophy of the Schools unto my aid To wit their three boasted of Principles four causes fortune chance time infinite vacuum motion yea and monster Whence at length I discovered that their whole natural Philosophy was truly monstrous having feigned false mocking Beginnings not principiating and much less vital in the sight of the King by whom all things live likewise Causes not causing Also adding or obtruding the phantastick Beings of Reason and opinions beset with a thousand absurdities wherein I as yet found not any footstep of Nature entire and much less the defects of the same or the interchangable courses of faculties or vital functions But least of all from such a structure of Principles was the knowledge of Causes Natural Vital of Diseases Remedies and Cures to be fetched Whither notwithstanding I supposed the knowledge of Nature had respect as unto its objected scope For whatsoever I sought for from the Schooles and attempted to handle by their Theorie that thing wholly Nature presently derided in the Practise and it was accounted for a blast of Wind She derided me I say to speak more dictinctly together with the Schooles as ridiculous And at length she together with my self complained of so unvanquished stupidity Then also Logick bewailed with me her impotent nakedness and the vain boasting of the Schooles Because she being that which even hitherto was saluted the Inventer and Searcher of Meanes Causes Tearms and Sciences grieved that she ought to confesse that she was dumb no lesse in Diseases than in the whole compact of Nature and also that she ought to desert her own professors in so great a necessity of miseries ãâ¦ã she by one loud laughter had derided also the natural Philosophies of Aristotle and the blockish credulities of the World and of so many Ages if she her self had not been a non-being fiction swollen only with the blast of pride Wherefore seeing Nature doth no where exist or is seen but in Individuals there is need that I who am about to write of Diseases have exactly known the Causes of particular things even as also it is of necessity for a Physitian to have thorowly viewed those Causes individually under the guilt of infernal punishment Therefore it hath seemed to me that the quiddities or essences as well of things entire as of those that are hurt were to be searched into after the manner delivered concerning the searching out of Sciences But seeing the Knowledge thus drank may be unfolded I have confirmed unto the Young Beginner that an essential definition is to be explained by the Causes and properties of these which is nothing else besides a connexion of Causes but not the Genus or general kind and difference of the thing defined But this is an unheard of Method of explaining even as Logick the Inventress or finder out of Sciences hath feigned And also seeing all that faculty is readily serviceable unto a discursive Philosophy for they do vainly run back unto the Genus of the thing defined and the constitutive differences of the Species for the Diseases which have never and no where been known Therefore seeing it hath been hitherto unknown that things themselves are nothing without or besides a connexion of the matter and efficient Cause By consequence also the Schools have wanted a true Definition That is a right knowledge of Diseases If therefore the Essence or thingliness of Diseases and the condition of Diseasie properties do issue out of their own immediate essential Causes of necessity also the knowledge of the aforesaid Diseases and properties is to be drawn out of the same Causes Because the consideration of Causes is before the consideration of Diseases Therefore I have already shewn even unto a tiresomness That the Essences of Natural things are the matter and efficient Cause connexed in acting Therefore also the Essence of every Disease doth by a just definition consist of those two Causes and its knowledge is to be fetched out of the same First of all a Disease is a certain evil in respect of Life and although it arose from sin yet it is not an evil like sin from a Cause of deficiency whereunto a Species Manner and Order is wanting But a Disease is from an efficient seminal Cause positive actual and real with a Seed Manner Species and Order And although in the beholding of Life it be evil yet it hath from its simple Being the nature of Good For that which in its self is good doth produce something by accident at the position whereof the faculties inbred in the parts are occasionally hurt and do perish by an indivisible conjunction Defects therefore there are which from an external Cause do make an assault beyond or besides the faculties of Life concealed in the parts and they are from strange guests received within and endowed with a more powerful or able Archeus And from hence they are the more exceeding in
humane Nature The same Cause also doth wholly at this day make Death and a Disease For it is repugnant with the Glory of the Creator not to have made Death from the beginning and afterwards when it was made by Man for him to have assumed to himself the Glory of knowing how to make it as if he ought to have learned that thing from Man But what hath been already spoken concerning Death that is by an equal right to be understood concerning Diseases Because that seeing Death and a Disease have issued from the same piont of their original therefore if God be said to give Diseases or Death it is not that now he will be the Creator of those things whose Fabrick he before wholly refused But he is permissively called the Author and Prince of Life and Death Because as he is the true and alone Author of Life and therefore doth govern it and suffer it at his Pleasure So he permits that this man doth yield or depart and the other Man fall and that second Causes do happen as well directly as irregularly whence Man dieth or a Disease groweth But the Creation of a Disease as of a Being subsisting from a seminal matter and efficient and of an Ideal and deadly evil never proceeded from God For while he had placed it in the will of Man that he might remain without Death or the same day to die the Death by the same step also he put it into Mans hand to frame Death and a Disease it self as a fore-runner and preparer of Death The entrance of Death into the nature of Man being considered even as I have elsewhere explained it by a remarkable Paradox doth most exactly prove that a Disease doth nor only consist in the vital part of Man but also that a Disease it self is bred by a seminal Idea out of the Archeus himself But I will briefly prove that thing From the concupiscence of the Flesh arose the flesh of Sin and therefore also a mortal Archeus in that Flesh and from thence by consequence also the Archeus forasmuch as he is vital acts in the flesh of Sin every action and produceth every formal hurtful and deadly act which God hath refused to do and hath suffered Man to stamp on himself the Causes of Death and Diseases Yet Man is not therefore a Creator although he maketh formal acts to himself or the substantial formes of Diseases or the hurtful ones of Life For truly that was granted unto him by virtue of the Word That on what so ever day he should eat of the Fruit of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil he should die the Death and should make guards-men appointed for his own Death And that from the very Nature of Death it self necessarily brought forth in the flesh of Sin The act therefore which is of the Essence Exsistence and Subsistence even as also of the propagation or fruitfulness of the contagion of Diseases doth altogether depend in the Life from the Life by the Life within which it is also enclosed Surely miserable are Mortals and most exceeding miserable are the Sick who have hitherto hired Physitians at a great and dear price who know not what a Disease may be from whence it may arise and in what it may consist and subsist But I admire that before me the more Antient as neither Modern Physitians have smelt this out because their sacred Anchor being for the most part in the hope of a Crisis and concerning Crises's they have devised very many things to excuse their own Ignorances For truly a Crisis or judicial sign in Diseases proveth nothing besides the Archeus if they believe their own Hippocrates who saith that Natures themselves are the only Physitianesses and helpers of Diseases For the Moon doth not make Crises's causatively but the Archeus alone who follows the Harmony of the Moon For the Moon measureth dayes hath more regared unto the proof of the actions of the Archeus than unto causality For the Moon is alwayes on the fourth day in an opposite place to that which she was in on the first day Therefore also the Archeus hath opposite powers or faculties who doth imitate the Harmonious motions of the Moon So also on the seventh day c. I conclude therefore for the knowledge of a Disease that a Disease hath either a Fewell or an excitement only from the occasional Cause or doth arise from a voluntary and proper motion and perseveres in its own contagion of a seed as while an Epilepsie or the falling Evil is once con-centred or the Gowt hath taken root doth indeed awaken of its own free accord as oft as it listeth Even as also the Disease ceaseth for two or three dayes or more and again returns at set Periods although the occasional cause in the mean time be alwayes present and so after a hurtful solutive Medicine being taken although it be expelled a few hours after yet the Archens being thereby defiled rageth and is obedient to the drunk contagion of the venom So also ready inclinations and hereditary Diseases Proper or Natural unto some one whole Family are co-bred with us Because they are Con-centred in the Life it self and are as it were the Characterical marks and imprinted seales of hurtful Diseases CHAP. LXVIII I proceed unto the Knowledge of Diseases 1. Medicine is the most occult or intricate of Sciences 2. Therefore the ignorances of past ages are excusable 3. In what thing Diseases may inhabit 4. The rise or original of Diseases 5. Whence a Disease began 6. Why a Disease is immediately in the Being of the first Motions 7. Why the essence of Diseases hath been unknown 8. A Disease hath married a vital Being 9. After what manner all seeds do issue from the invisible World 10. The rise of Efficient Causes and the property of seminal Idea's 11. All the seminal Beginnings of things are from an invisible Idea 12. How a seminal beginning receives its compleating 13. The Ideal power of seeds is declared by their ranks 14. Although Death and a Disease began from the same Beginning yet they differ in that a Disease hath Idea's but a Death not 15. The Schooles will laugh at Idea's But the Author carps at the ignorance of the Schooles 16. He proveth their ignorance at least by one Example I Have already oftentimes nor in vain asserted that Arts and Sciences have hastened unto a pitch but that the art of healing alone if it hath not gone backwards at leastwise to have stood at a stay and to have whirled round about the same deceitful point Hence also I have conjectured that the knowledge of Diseases and a Medicine depending thereon was to Man most difficult On which so many flourishing wits have for so many ages vainly bestowed their endeavours and that thing I do not hereby conjecture to be from a contingency or events alone to wit because the knowledge of Diseases hath even hitherto stood neglected But because in respect
of the Causes it is wholly invisible and unpassable Wherefore although I tax the ignorance of the Schooles I will not have that to be done by me for a little vain glories sake as neither from an intent of reproaching the whole Body of the faculty Because it is that which hath not transgressed against me but only from a desire of teaching Mortals Not indeed that I perswade my self that the goodness of God doth envy this doctrine for the health of Man while as even from the beginning of the World he hath dispersed his gift by some throughout the ages of the World the holy Scripture also do most greatly commend the Physitian But that most through a sluggishness of diligent searching and a readiness of credulity have stifled in themselves that endowed or gifted Light And so the Devil being the builder it hath alwayes been super-structed on the false Principles of the Heathens Therefore Medicine the most difficult of Sciences by reason of the invisibility of Diseases and deceit much increased by Heathenish Theorems hath not been penetrable by any acuteness of Wits which difficulties the invention and knowledge of so many Simples and preparations appropriations and applications of remedies fetcht from thence according to the varieties and speedinesses of sliding occasions hath increased in every of which they are on both sides the invisible actors of their own tragedy The which Diseases unless any one shall perfectly know or hath obtained a super-excelling remedy truly he shall spend his weapons at the effects but not at the roots themselves Therefore the gate of healing hath even from the Cradles or non-age of the World remained shut which my Talent received hath commanded me to open for of boasting hereof it hath notably shamed me God is witness wherefore I ought first to free the Hinges and Bars from rust that I might set open the Doores to those that are willing to enter Therefore I ought to expose the one only and golden Key hitherto hidden in the Arches of the Archeus unto the Fire of the Art of the Fire and Light of Truth That any one may enter into the secrets of the Court so far as shall be granted him from Above First of all I do not name a Disease a Diathesis or Disposition but the very wandering or erring Being which is stamped by the vital Archeus himself I do not therefore behold a Disease as an abstracted quality And that thing I thus perswaded my self of in times past that like Life it is a Being proper unto the Life it self It being the reason why a Disease doth with so swift a pace pierce into the Life by reason of its co-resembling mark Wherefore the Apoplexie Leprosie Dropsie or Madness as they are Qualities in the abstract with me are not Diseases But as the Apoplectical Leprous Maddish c. Being contains the very Scope and Causes of the Diseases in it Truly a Disease begun from Sin For in the integrity purity of our Nature and vigour of Innocency there was no Death and much less a Disease For Death was threatned not a Disease but that they were understood concomitantly as to future times Therefore a Disease doth in its own Nature oppose the Life no otherwise than as Death it self and the powers thereof the which therefore we call vital Because through the spending of those a lingring or sudden Death happens We believe by Faith therefore that Death and every infirmity hath entred into Man by Sin and that through the concupisence of the Flesh of Sin they were propagated on all posterity Therefore that neither could the entrance of Diseases and Death be learned by Heathenisme Because it was reasonable that all the ranks of sicknesses should be rooted in the same concupiscence of the Flesh whereby Sin entred For as concupiscence in the conception doth not Sin before a consent which fashions an Idea of plausibility So it must needs be that every Disease arising in the Flesh of Sin doth consist in a strange Image or seminal Idea of corrupt Nature I have gathered also that it was suitable that the Being which under a concupiscible pleasure consented and sinned should primarily also be strucken with Diseases So indeed that it should not only fail or faint through external violences but should experience the revenges of Sin in the Flesh by its own proper exorbitances to wit that the Archeus himself the governour of the Flesh of Sin should by the same liberty of his own passions frame erroneous Images to himself which should be unto him as it were for a poyson Indeed that from the delights of the concupiscible part from passions which are the storms of the wrothful part and likewise even through voluntary disturbances he might stand subject unto his own Ruine which he should stamp on himself Which Images or Likenesses indeed as being the seeds of Diseasie Beings should be thenceforth wholly marriageable unto him in the innermost Bride-bed of Life This indeed is an hard saying in the ears which are not accustomed to hear beyond trifles heats and dirt Wherefore if any one doth admire at so great an efficacy of the Archeus being Ideated and of seminal Idea's as to produce Diseases and Death it self He doth not yet know that the natural beginning of all things doth altogether depend on the Ideal part in every seed Wherefore let him consider that as the Light being united for truly in sublunary things there is scarce any thing more spiritual than Light because it is that which pierceth solid Glasse yea also place it self doth enflame Woods and Houses So also that every Idea is a Light as well forasmuch as it is stamped by the Spirit the partaker of a vital Light as in that it is lightsome from the property of its own essence Otherwise Idea's themselves as they are conceived are nothing besides the Lights of a vital Soul reflexed on its own cogitations and the which therefore are not conceived but in a lightsome Spirit in which they receive the figure of the thing conceived That is they are there made an intellectual Idea it self Therefore although cogitation it self be a meer non-being Yet every thing conceived doth from the very right of its nativity consist of a matter conceived and of a vital Light intelligibly reflexed on it And seeing the Imagination is the Ape of the Understanding although it doth not transform it self into the thing conceived after the manner of the Understanding yet by conceiving it transports this thing figurally into it self and seales the conception thereof and decyphers a certain seminal Idea of the thing imagined together with light efficacy and every manner of operation And that wholly under its greatest Unity and Simplicity So that if in fructifying seeds and those continuing the perpetuity of the universe these things do appear to happen and to operate by a Light with great efficacy wherefore shall we be ignorant that these do not otherwise come to pass in Diseases Especially
seeing the work of Butlers Oyl to be vain on me and being willing before some Gentlewomen to mock my credulity anointed one only drop of that Oyl on her right Arm and straightway it being freely moved was beyond hope restored together with its former strength we all admired at the wonder of so sudden an event wherefore she anointed the Ankles of both her Legs with one only drop on both sides being spread about on the circle of the Ankle and presently within less than a quarter of an hour all the Oedema vanished away she also through Gods favour liveth as yet nineteen Years since in health A certain Hand-maid as soon as she heard that thing to have happened in her Mistris required some drops of that Oyl because she had thrice suffered an Erisipelas in her right Leg it being badly cured she shewed a leaden-coulered Leg and swollen from the Knee even unto the Toes in the evening therefore at her going to bed she rubs four drops of that Oyl on the hurt part and in the morning there appeared no footstep of the former Malady so that she who now before could scarce go into the Market in one day the same morning went unto the Temple of the holy God-bearing Virgin in Laken and cheerfully returned and broguht me Water from the spring of Saint Ann being far remote from thence Which thing being heard a certain Gentlewoman a Widow being now afflicted for many Months in both her Arms that she could never lift her hand upwards was by a few drops of that Oyl in one only evening presently restored into full health and so remained Afterwards I asked Butler why so many Women should be presently cured but that I while I most sharply conflicted with Death it self being also environed with Pains of all my Joynts and Organs should not feel any ease But he asked me with what Disease I had laboured And when he understood that Poyson had given a Beginning unto the Disease He said Because the Cause had come from within to without the Oyl ought to be taken into the Body or the little Stone to be touched with the Tongue Because the pain or grief being cherished within was not Local or External I observed also that the Oyl did by degrees uncloath it self of the efficacy of Healing because the little Stone being lightly tinged in it had not pithily changed the Oyl throughout its whole Body but had only blessed it with a delible or obliterable be-sprinkling of an Odour For truly that little Stone did present in the Eyes and Tongue Sea Salt spread abroad or rarefied and it is sufficiently known that Salt is not to be very intimately mixed with Oyl Butler also cured an Abbatess sufficiently known who for eighteen years had had her right Arm swollen with an unwonted depriving of Motion and her fingers stretched out and unmovable only by the touching of her Tongue at the little Stone But very many being witnesses of these Wonders presently suspected some hidden Sorcery and Diabolical compact For the common People hath it already for an antient custom that whatsoever honest thing their ignorance hath determined not to know they do for a privy shift of Ignorance refer that thing unto the juggles of the Evil Spirit But I could not decline so far because the Remedies were supposed to be Natural neither having any thing besides an unwonted quantity For neither Ceremonies Words nor any other suspected thing was required for neither is it lawful according to Mans power of understanding to refer the Glory of God shewn forth in Nature unto the evil Spirit For none of those Women had required aid of Butler as from Necromancy any way suspected yea the things were at first made trial of with smiling and without Faith and Confidence Yet this kind of easiness and speediness of curing shall as yet long remain suspected by many for the wit of the vulgar being unconstant and idle in hard and unwonted matters is alwayes ready for judgements of the same tenour by reason of their facility and therefore also is weak or flaggy for they do more willingly consecrate so great a bounty of restitution unto diabolical deceit than to divine goodness the Framer Lover Saviour Refiesher of humane Nature and Father of the poor And that thing indeed not only in the common People but also in those that are learned who follow and rashly search into the Beginnings of healing being not yet instructed or observing the common and blockish Rule Because they are alwayes wise as Children who have never gone over their Mothers threshold being a fraid at every Fable For indeed they who have not hitherto known the whole circuit of Diseases to be concluded within the Spirit of Life which maketh the assault or if they hereafter reading my Studies by the way shall imprint on themselves this moment or concernment of healing nevertheless because they have been already before accustomed from the very Beginnings of their Studies to the precepts of the Humourists they will easily at length depart from me and leap back unto the accustomed and antient Opinions of the Schooles For look what Liquor Men do once in a new Vessel steep Its Odour whether Sweet or Sour it will long after keep They will again easily betake themselves unto the importunities of Decumbent or falling down Humours But I in a more near search being unwilling to refer the benefits of God unto the Devil have first of all certainly found that all things in Nature do consist of an invisible Seed That they begin I say are supported and ruled by a Being which the great God began from an imaginating Desire or derived Power and which remains afterwards throughout the whole duration of their Essence and being But that afterwards things are made visible or are this something onely by the cloathing and apparelling of Bodies espoused unto it self But I have taught that Diseases do by a stronger reason arise from a more invisible Seed Wherefore that the Diseasifying Idea is only to be Vanquished Abolished and Extinguished because a Disease is a monstrous and equivocal or doubtful generated Being and off-spring of Sin not adhering therefore to the Humane Species but only to individual Persons after an irregular manner Because seeing that after the fall it began almost from a non-being For in more fully looking into the matter first of all very many Maludies do depart by reason of Amulets or Pomanders being hung on the outside of the Body even as is plain to be seen in the Plague Falling-sicknesse and other Diseases In the next place whosoever he be who shall rejoyce to have a Towel which was withdrawn from a pestilent Ulcer or desiled with the sweat of him that hath the Pestilence applyed unto himself nor doth fear in himself that the Plague can thereby naturally be communicated unto himself we have seen health restored as with the anointing oâ Butlers Oyl For truly a Sympathetical Remedy hath been of late
continual Time without succession and parts nothing whereof is great little long short former latter measure and measurable Seeing therefore according to the Schools there is such a Duration for Angels which they call Eternity and they distinguish from the Time of sublunary Things and that whether they exist in the Heavens or in the Earth and do admit of the Works of the Angels to be co-measured by a successive and distinct Time I conclude seeing an Angel cannot be in two Durations at once differing in their whole Orbe and general Kinde to wit one whereof doth agree to himself and another to his Works both whereof in the mean Time contain one only Now of Duration it should of necessity be that both those Durations do wholly melt into one only Being diverse only in the accident of Respects that is in a feigned and mental non-Being into one only Duration I say through a necessary real Act of the existance of Number And so that Time is in very deed plainly the same with Eternity and doth remain unchanged for ever But it is sufficient for me that the Schooles do acknowledge some continual Time and not successive which they call Eternity I am not constrained by reason of their mental Diversities to disjoyn Time from Eternity For if they separate Time as being a successive change of Things and Motions from Eternity for that very Cause they do more respect successive change it self than Duration the Determination and Definition whereof they do nevertheless think they do attend For truly that convinceth that the thingliness of Time being hitherto unknown they in vain separate Time as distinct from that which is continual or from the Eternity Seeing there is never any necessity of Succession in Duration and so much the rather because they assign unto both the aforesaid Durations certain Respects which in the whole Heaven as they say are banished from the Nature of Duration Because they are those which do only produce a difference of reason or of a non-being which is equivolent as though the diversity of both Durations were in very deed a meer device It being that which I thus convince of Time is a Being Therefore the Creator or a Creature if it be a successive Being therefore it is not the substance of the Creator or of a Creature But if they will have it to be an accident for of a nuetral Being between a substance and an accident the Schools have not yet made mention at leastwise it had behoved them to describe the Subject of inherency for Time Therefore I may conjecture that the Heaven shall not be the Subject of Time for so frail and sublunary things should not have a Duration of Time proper unto them Duration should be a forreign Stranger unto and surmounting mortal things And likewise if one sublunary thing should partake of Time as of an accident proper unto it another thing that is Neighbour unto it should not therefore also rejoyce in Time But if they had rather that every of frail things should partake of the Time of the Heaven at leastwise all created things should not have a different Duration but every of them should remain in the same heavenly external Duration participatively Yea sublunary things should sooner have all the other manifest Qualities and Properties of the Heavens than the Duration of the same Therefore they do not participate of a borrowed Permanency of the Heavens in Duration But if indeed unto all particular things their own proper Duration doth belong so that things themselves are the Subjects of inherency of Duration not fetch'd from elsewhere and the limitation of Duration should be as it were essentially included in seminal Beginnings now the Light of divine providence appears in Time that it may be the rule of that which is created but not a created thing it self for in God we are do live and are moved So also in Duration which neither also was created For otherwise if Time doth inhere in all particular things as an accident or concomitant truly besides innumerable Absurdities there shall be even as many diverse Times as there are atomes of things And whosoever doth now subsist at once in the same Duration shall have as many diverse Essences and Existences of Durations and Time shall be actually divided into an Infinite And every accident which is naturally the Object of some one of the Senses shall not by any sense be perceivable in the Duration of Time Wherefore I am constrained to acknowledge in Time a certain universality and together also a singularity proper to all particular things and more intimate unto things than things are unto themselves I likewise confess a proper rule and determination which bestows a precise Duration on all particular things yet in like manner unsufferable unapprehensible or unrestrainable by things Wherefore I acknowledge Time to be a Being which gives and distributes all things to all according to an ordained participation of eternal Duration and that for the confounding of Atheists Therefore I consider of Time as the issuing Splendour of Eternity and the which Splendour doth no more subsist beneath and without Eterniry than the Splendour of the Light beneath the Light Time therefore ought to be unto us a manuduction or hand-leading unto the Super-intellectual One Eternal Infinite Intimate Being in every Thing yet in no wise Mixed Concluded Apprehensible or Detainable therein in which Being is the Thingliness or Essence of things to whom be praise and glory in its own Eternity It is therefore a Paganish barbarous and absurd Speech that Time Consumes or Devoures us because there is no action or passion of Time on us or from us We perish not through the Vice of Time neither is Death made any more by Time than by God For the dispositions of Motions are the second Causes of Death but Time is not of the Nature of Motions For the divine Judgments do dispose of all things for reasons known to themselves In the mean time it is to be admired that the Day is the measure of Motions and yet that that they have prescribed no precise measure unto the day They have indeed made subdivisions of hours minutes seconds c. by the number of sixty But none hath hitherto shewn the precise space of one sixtieth part of a minute for they stuck in the practise Yea besides Noon there is no stable moment of the day That also doth almost every where vary so that the certainty of the Meridional point depends not so much on the Motion of the Sun and Heaven as on respect of the scituation of the Sphere None therefore hath perfectly taught a certain or defined Now or constant point wherein any thing shall happen unless a respect being had unto Ecclipses They having imitated the Globe of the World while they have divided the Sphere by the point of the Meridian and the altitude or height of the Pole But seeing the Sun is not alwayes nor every where
utmost of Three Hundred Years because they are those which some living Creatures do daily of their own accord reach unto but man very seldom and that not but in some unwonted places But why Long Life may be extended with so great a largness it comes to pass because it is on both sides received after the manner of the Receiver For the Modern Tree of Life should now no longer render me capable of the least Dignity or term by reason of the light of my Life being depraved by many storms the thred whereof they have cut off while it was as yet in the Flax. He shall fullfil thy desire in good things and thy Youth shall be renewed as the Eagle For neither is it said as of the Eagle because the former Youth of an Eagle is not restored But the Eagle is renewed no otherwise than as the Serpent puts off his skin and the Stag his hornes although in the mean time they do not cease to wax old under that renovation So that the Eagle hastens into grey Feathers Therefore I thus speak of Long Life not indeed which may be extended even unto the last day according to the rashness of Paracelsus as neither do I speak of a sound Life which is plainly free from Diseases but of that which under some certain kind of Protection of the Faculties doth for some good while enlarge the bound of Life Which meanes if they are administred unto a Child and strong Infant are to bring the same unto the aforesaid term if he proceed to use the same What if at length certain Climates do protract the Life shall that thing be denied unto a Medicine unto which there is a natural endowment of Long Life For oft-times he which is constrained to use Spectacles in the fiftieth Year doth afterwards again of his own free accord see clearly in the eightieth Year of his Age. Why shall not that therefore be done totally by Art which happens in the Eyes from a voluntary vigour But I have alwayes supposed that whatsoever was once Natural to wit in Nestor doth not resist a possibility of Nature Neither also doth it move me that Arch-Physitians have found this place untouched and dumb and therefore also have left it Because the Schooles do long since despaire to be wise beyond Galen who notwithstanding like an Apothecary doth substitute one thing for another and indeed hath set forth ridiculous Books of Preserving Health as for Long Life For he encloseth this in straight crooked athwart and circular rubbings to wit he acting great motion and being a great Circulater in these things which are of his own Invention even as an ignorant transcriber of others For as oft as he faileth from whence he may copy out serious things he so discovereth the wonderful poverty of his wit that he hath seemed to have doated throughout some Books in a figural friction or rubbing And therefore none of his successors hath hitherto counted the Books of Galen of Defending Health worthy of a Commentary or hath attempted to lift them from the ground but rather by a successive Interpretation every one hath bound that Doctrine of Galen unto the obedience of the huckstery of the Kitchin and Diet. For so through the craft of the Devil Long Life hath wandered into defending of Health and from thence into the Kitchins The Art therefore of some Years is Short and the Life Long if we must have respect unto the Hope of Life which the loose Doctrine of the Heathens hath neglected CHAP. XCII The Enterance of Death into Humane Nature is the Grace of Virgins The Index of the Contents 1. Why it is Treated of Death before of Life 2. A final Cause is not in Natural Things as neither is it the first of Causes 3. Some Absurdities of Aristotle 4. The Author prostrates this Treatise to the Censure of the Church 5. God indeed made Death for bruit Beasts but not for Man 6. What may be denoted by the Etymology of Death 7. The Devil could not make Death for Man 8. Man prepared Death effectively for himself 9. Of what sort the Immortality of our first Parents was 10. By what means Immortallity did stand in Man 11. Why the Mind is not capable of Suffering 12. The necessity of the sensitive Soul 13. The eating of the Apple did contain in it the second Causes for a necessity of Death 14. The inward Properties of that Apple 15. Man before the Fall wanted a sensitive Soul 16. The Mind Imprints its Image in the Seed 17. A chain flowing from the eating of the Apple 18. To what end the Author hath written this Treatise LIfe was indeed before that Death could be therefore although Life be before Death in Nature and Duration yet for this Treatise the Enterance of Death into Man's Life doth precede Life because I might not treat of Immortal Life such as it was from the intention of the Creator before the Sin of our first Parent but onely of the Length of Life or of the prolonging of Life whose end because it is closed terminated and defined or limitted by Death Death ought to be first determined of by its Causes as the remover of the bound of Life Truly I have not studied to imitate Aristotle in this thing who teacheth That the End is the first of Causes For I have elsewhere plentifully demonstrated that Aristotle was plainly ignorant of whole Nature Wherefore that his Maxime as well within as out of Nature is false Because if we speak of God the First Mover the Arch-type of all things and of the invisible World be it certain that with him there is not any Priority of Causes but that they all do co-unite into Unity with whom all things are onely one Likewise seeing whatsoever is made or generated in Nature is made or generated from a necessity of the Seeds and so that Seeds are in this respect the original Principles and natural Causes of things and do act for ends not indeed known to themselves but unto God alone From a necessity of Christian Phylosophy a Final Cause hath no place in Nature but onely in artificial things And therefore also from hence is verified what I have elsewhere sufficiently proved That Aristotle hath understood nothing less than natural things and that he hath deceived his Schools by artificial things And he is wholly impertinent in this place because he hath reduced artificial things under the catalogue of natural Causes Yea in more fully looking into the matter Aristotle remaines alike ridiculous For truly a builder before the bound or figure of Houses made out of Paper doth presuppose a knowledge of the Place an attainment of Meanes in the next place of Lime Bricks Stones Wooden and Iron materials a computation of which Meanes doth go before a Figure of the Houses And so neither also is the Final Cause if there be any the first of Artificial Causes in the Mind of the Author Therefore it is a
foolish thing to reckon a Being of Reason a Mental Being or a Non-Being among Natural Causes Moreover I had willingly hastened unto the bound which I have proposed unto my self concerning Long Life unless Death should cut off the intended thred interlacingly prefixing its priority as it were a Remora or stop The Paradox also whereof I had willingly detained among Secrets but that the Treatise of Long Life did require its right after Death whereby it hath naturally stablished an entrance into the Inne of Man Surely this Mystery of God is an unheard of Paradox and the which therefore I humbly prostrate unto the Censure of the Church But let it be in stead of a Proposition That God made not Death But that thing I first understand to be denied for Man onely For otherwise for bruit Beasts Death was already naturally ordained before Man was Created and indeed from the same Root whereby Death entred into Man For truly most Beasts live not but by the slaughter of each other In the next place Death doth not in this place signifie a naked separation of the Soul from the Body as it denoteth a meer privation as if the sense were That God hath not made a Non-Being which is called Death For such a Declaration or Proposition in the holy Scriptures should be ridiculous For the very Word He hath made and a denial thereof is the same and respecteth that he made and they were made And so a denial thereof bespeaks the absence of a positive and not of a privative Being and is equivalent to this Proposition God made Man without an Inclination unto Death Neither made he Natural Causes in him whereby he should be Mortal In the next place neither hath the evil Spirit made Death Because there is not a kingdom of Infernal Spirits in the Earth and much lesse was there in Paradise Neither can Satan by any means change Essences instituted by the Creator invert them abolish or slay those Essences which God hath made void of Death Death began in us from the evil Spirit indeed suggestively and excitingly after a manner plainly by accident and external Neither could he produce a Cause of Mortality in a Subject through the grace of the Creator uncapable thereof Therefore if neither God nor the evil Spirit have made the Death of Man efficiently therefore from a sufficient enumeration of parts Man alone made Death for himself and hath applyed Causes unto himself as a Positive Being From whence he hath become mortal and Death hath been made natural For what the Devil could not do man having a possibility but not a necessity of dying could do For he was in the possession of Immortality and he was able not to dye if he would because Death was unto him a free Contingent but indeed because the Body of Adam had need of the Tree of Life therefore in respect of his Body he was not absolutely Immortal and therefore also he stood in need of nourishment but he was to be Immortal from the free goodness of the Creator And he who had preserved Adam from Death by Grace and had given him the natural endowment of the Tree of Life had therefore defended the same Adam from any kind of Injuries Therefore Immortality in Man had been continued by the Tree of Life and he was therefore banished out of Paradise lest also after the Apple being eaten He stretch forth his hand unto the Tree of Life and eat c. For as the Apple included the Cause of Death so the Tree of Life contained a superiority of Life over the Causes of Death For it was not convenient for Man who had eaten his own Death not to Dye and to deride threatned Death and therefore he ought to be bannished in Paradise But Man was Immortal as his Immortal Mind did immediately perform all the Offices of his Body and give from it self an Immortal Life For seeing it knows no Death neither therefore is it subject unto the importunities of frail things it behoveth if it was to govern the immediate family-administration of the Body that it should after some sort communicate a like Immortality to its Body at-least-wise as to an excellency of the ruling Powers Although in respect of the nourishments of the Body Man had by little and little failed if he had not been supported by the Tree of Life Yea in speaking distinctly all plurality of his Powers was supt up into the Unity of his Mind And at this day the Mind is not capable of suffering through Duration and the Alterations of mortal Things because a mark of resemblance is wanting to these whereby they may immediately touch at or pierce the Mind Therefore that Death might make an access and entrance into Man it behoved that the Mind did first desist from its immediate and former Function of the Offices of the Body and that another Soul to wit a Mortal one Sensitive and Seminal being as it were the Band of the Body should enter The which indeed being far different from the Mind is begged in the course of Nature by the vital Air from the Father of Lights the giver of Life even as elsewhere concerning the birth of Forms and perisheth with the Death of Man For if the Seed of a Dog doth voluntary issue even into a living Soul exclusively Therefore it was meet that Man should be conceived without Seed and a manly Copulation or at leastwise that the Seed of Man should not be without the disposition of a seminal Life but to be limited by the common guidance of created Nature into a living Soul exclusively the manner whereof I will explain afterwards Furthermore that Death was placed in the eating of the Apple that is that the natural Cause of Death the producer after a dispositive manner of the sensitive Soul which otherwise Man had wanted was by the Seed and that indeed after the manner of Bruits and that the Mind thereupon hath forsaken the government of the Body as it were abhorring the beast-like Impurity thereby contracted shall be made manifest in following Treatises For from what moment of Time Man made a Seed within himself for the propagation of his own Species he delineated at leastwise dipositively by the same endeavour the Beginnings of a mortal Soul occasionally it being the covering and wrappery of the Mind that it might receive on it self the whole ministery of the Body For truly the Creator had already obliged himself unto the Seeds of things in Nature that as often as the Seeds of sensitive Cratures had come unto the bound of multiplying the Parent himself of vital Lights might infuse meet Souls into all particular Seeds the which I elsewhere in the birth of Formes have profesly prosecuted And therefore there was in the Apple a Faculty of producing a fructifying Seed and after a brutal manner containing a seminal dispositive Archeus of the Young and by request obtaining for it self a mortal Soul from the Giver of Life For on the
proper unto no nourishment which was unto that Apple so that it not only begat Seed in our first Parents a few hours after but also Dispositions to obtain by request a sensitive Soul from the Creator And that which otherwise happens in the Young in set Terms of Dayes and is perfected by certain degrees of Digestions that was presently compleated in the very vital Archeus of our first Parents And the Text doth insinuate that peculiar thing to be in the Apple because In the same day wherein he should eate of the Apple he should die the Death Because the Apple although it should anticipate or forestal the term of Dayes yet it should require a certaine term of Motion that after it should be turned into vital Blood it should also be endowed with a sensitive Soul For they who in the very point of Creation were formed into a Man and a Woman and not into Children in a short space also grew old or decayed on the same day into the maturity of Seeds and every necessity of Death and properties of second Causes For in a straight way all this falls perpendicularly or point blank on the post of the foundation of my Position on which the giddy or unconstant businesse of our Mortality is whirled about even unto this Day But at least-wise seeing Eve was made of the Rib of the Man that very thing doth insinuate a mark of Chastity and forbidden Copulation of the Flesh Because it is that which besides Whoredom contained Incest which thing was not hid from Adam Of which notwithstanding the Almighty after the fall of sin seemed to dispense withal granting Matrimony Therefore through occasion hereof it remaines diligently to search into whether the Act of Lust were compleated in Paradise Many will have Paradise to be free from filthiness because the Text saith Chap. 4. But Adam knew Eve his Wife who conceived and brought forth Cain saying I have possessed a Man by God But let these men pardon me For the contrary appeareth from the very Text. First of all The Text cited doth convince of nothing but that the ravishment of true Virginity because it is bloody doth not admit of Conception as a Companion And therefore Cain was not Conceived at the first turn but out of Paradise For otherwise 1. On the same day ye shall dye the death according to the truth of the Position denoteth that in the same place the filthiness was committed 2. The Woman is not called the Wife of Adam before the Fall as she is immediately after But the name of a Wife is not given not indeed unto Matrimony confirmed but onely unto it being finished 3. It was said onely to the Man Thou mayest not eat of this Tree Therefore it is read concerning the banishment of the Man to be made in the singular number Not indeed but that both Sexes sinned but because the Man had singularly deserved to be banished for his Whoredom 4. Therefore it is said Lest he stretch forth his hand unto the Tree of Life do eat of it and live for ever But it is not said least the Husband and Wife do eat 5. Adam at the first sight of the Beasts knew their Essences and Properties and also put right Names upon them But the Woman being seen he at first called her Wo-man because she was taken from Man But after the Fall he called her Hevah or The Mother of all living Because he at the first sight of her as yet knew not neither as yet had she that property from the Man and she learned it because she put it not on and stirred it not up but by sin For why had he changed the Essential Name of the Woman if she had not also changed her whole Nature 6. And next He with-drew her unto the Shrubs rather to commit his filthiness than for a cover of his shame For truly he might have covered his shame with Fig-leaves and have neglected his hiding through the Shrubs if he had not also had the signes of chastity corrupted 7. For truly if my Position be true That Death was caused onely through the Luxury of the Flesh His banishment followed not but after the act of filthiness 8. For he who but presently before knew not that he was naked After what manner did he presently know his Wife to be the Mother of all living unless he had committed something And Lastly The Text which saith unto the Serpent I will put enmities between the Seed of the Woman and thy Seed doth clearly denote that the Woman that before wanted Seed and altogether all the tickling thereof had now Seed However it is at least-wise I cannot but remarkeably admire the excellency of the Text which hath no where made even any deaf mention of the Concupiscence of the flesh but it every where covers the fowlness of the Flesh with the greatest silence by the obtained knowledge of the shame and involves an induced necessity of Death and a necessary requirance of Regeneration in the highest Mystery Determining that at length the fullness of dayes being compleated evil shall be spread out of the North over all the Inhabitants of the Earth The which I will by and by manifest Finally Nature being now degenerate it hath pleased the Almighty to raise up the Fall of Adam by Regeneration or a being born again And although he hath not restored unto us the antient clearness of Understanding and exquisite speculative knowledge of the Mind yet hath he raised up our dignity far higher For truly the Understanding being reduced by Grace into the obedience of Faith proceedeth in a humble resignation unto the victorious reward of Love whereby we are supported and constrained And the least abiding of that Love is far more glorious than the whole unoccupied life of Adam in Paradise For before the Fall Faith was unknown the race of Virtues especially also the superexcellency of Divine Love and they lived onely in the happiness of the purity of Innocency And therefore God by the permission of his fore-knowledge and ordination hath bound the unequality of blessednesse issuing or springing up from the new Birth with a certain excellency of Riches Because the Tribulations of his Life are not worthy to be compared unto the great or vast things which the goodness of God hath prepared for us that are renewed For I had rather know those things which God hath revealed by his onely begotten Son the Saviour of the World than to have known the faculties of Living Creatures and Herbs with a clear Understanding It being abundantly sufficient for me to have an Humanity in God whereby he hath adopted us for the Sons of God and made us far more like himself than Adam was in his greatest felicity CHAP. XCIII The Position is Demonstrated 1. A first Prooof of the Position 2. A second 3. The Divine manner of generating cannot be conceived by man 4. A conjecture from a like thing 5. A Repetition of Demonstrations 6.
changed for those only shall rise again changed who shall rise again glorified in the Virgin-Body of Regeneration which change the Apostle understood because that He who is not born again cannot enter into the Kingdom of God And therefore He that shall rise again being not born again by consequence also shall not be changed from his antient Being if he shall rise again from Death neither therefore also shall he have entrance unto Gods Kingdom because by the new Birth the whole Man is made Spirit And therefore he which shall rise again from the new Birth shall rise again in a spiritual Nature Otherwise He that is born of the Flesh and not born again of the Spirit shall hear indeed the Voice of him that is born of the Spirit but shall not know from whence it may come or whither it may go This indeed is the changing of Bodies into Spirit and the change of Bodies in the Resurrection or it is the Glorification of those that are to be saved after the Resurrection But other Sins were expiated indeed through Repentance with the victory and triumph of the Lamb but the loss of that Virginity and primitive Purity doth without Regeneration reserve an Eternal Spot of Impurity and Uncapacity No otherwise than as a virginal conservation and Integrity of the re-born Faithful gives unto Virgins that are born again a Golden or Laurel Crown equalized unto Martyrdom Christ therefore as he is the Father of this Virginity so also the Father of the Age to come But those that are to be saved are his own new Creature and new Regeneratition Who to wit hath given them Power to become the Sons of God unto these who believe in his Name who are born not of Bloods nor of the Will of the Flesh nor by the Will of Man but of God after a most chast manner of the holy Spirit by whom before the brutal Concupiscence of the Flesh arose it was decreed that altogether every Man ought to be born of his Mother being a Virgin Therefore Christ being the Top and Lover of Chastity doth distinguish Men as well in this Age or Life by Chastity as in Heaven and will grace them with an unimitable and eternal Priviledge For a great Company followed the Lamb whithersoever he should go and Sang the Song which no other was able to Sing But these are they who are not defiled with Women For there are Virgins of both Sexes Because there shall not be there Jew or Greek But they are all one in Christ For the Almighty hath chosen his Gelded Ones who have Gelded themselves for the Kingdom of God its sake of whom is the Kingdom of Heaven Therefore married Persons are reckoned to be defiled with Women and Mothers to have conceived their off-springs in Sin and in this thing are far inferiour to Virgins For indeed because the Gospel promiseth unto Mortals not only that the Son of God was Incarnate and suffered for their Salvation But that moreover these two Mysteries least else they should be frustrate are to be applyed unto individual Persons I indeed contemplate thus of this Application that as man through the Sin of lust brake no less the Intent of God than his Admonishment and the humane Nature was therefore afterwards radically Corrupted and that thereupon another and almost brutal Generation thereof followed Therefore the joyful Message hath included as well an Abolishment of Original Sin as of other Sins consecutively issuing from thence Who by dying destroyed our Death not his own because he had none The which is not understood of temporal Death for the righteous Man as yet to this day dyeth just even as before the Passion of the Lord but of Eternal Death Therefore seeing man since the Fall ought to be Born Increase and Multiply no longer from God but from the Bloods of the Sexes by the Will of the Flesh and of Man nor from thence could ever be able to rise again of himself and to re-assume his lost and antient purity nor cease that he might again begin to be otherwise and better therefore the joyful message hath brought an assurance unto us that Baptisme should be unto us for the remission of sins through a new birth of Water and of the holy Spirit That our mind as it were through a new Nativity of its Inne by Regeneration might be partakers of the unspotted Virginity and humanity of our Lord. Which New-birth doth indeed repose the Soul into its former state to wit by taking away the sin or debt and the stinks or noisomenesses thereof but by reason of the continuance of Adamical flesh in which the Immortal Mind liveth the antient possession or inclination unto sin is not taken away nor is there a translation of the corruption drawn from the impure original of the blood of Adam But that this is really so we are perswaded to believe For God doth manifestly daily grant a testimony of that actual Grace and attained Purity to be derived into the Body of those that are Baptized through a true and substantiall Regeneration as well in Body as in Soul For truly for this end and in this respect alone Mahometans are Baptized for a proper reproach because Baptisme from the fact or deed done however unlawfully it be administred and received takes away from them for the future the noisomness inbred in them otherwise to endure for their Life time such as in all the Hebrews or Jewes in many places up and down we do daily observe to be with loathing and weariness The true effect therefore of Regeneration and its co-promised character doth much shine in Baptisme even outwardly also in a defectuous Body And the enemies of the Christian Name do serve us for unvoluntary witnesses unto this thing Yea the perpetuity of the same Effect confirms the unobliterable Character or Impression of Baptisme and the wickedness of it being repeated But the New-birth by Baptisme doth not yet for that Cause take away a necessity of Death For Baptisme forsaketh its own with the fardle of a defiled and Adamical body begotten by the Will of Man And for that Cause also the Soul as subject unto the Vices of the corrupted Body and of a Will long agoe corrupted Wherefore by reason of the frailty of Impure Nature also an easie inclination and frequency of Sinning Baptisme hath been scarce sufficient for those of ripe years otherwise for the more younger sort it is abundantly sufficient Therefore the Sacrament of the Altar is Wine which buddeth forth Virgins Which is as much as to say the end and scope of the Lords Incarnation or of the instituted Sacrament of the Eucharist should bud forth Virgins as demonstrating that the intent of the Creator from the beginning esteemed of and reckoned upon Virginity alone and of how great abhorrency Numb 25. Luxury is in the sight of the Lord. For although Bigamy or a Plurality of Wives and likewise a dismissing of ones Wife and much loosing of
proper unto him from a Curse but from his being made creeping and that thing was sufficiently manifest to Adam For herein the Curse seized not so much on the Serpent as on the evil Spirit because the lying Impostor had hid himself in the most vile of creeping things on whose head therefore and not on the head of any creeping thing the Woman trod upon But because all Bruits which do generate by a long continued copulation were in times past reckoned impure and also forbidden from Man's use in Kitchins among which creeping Animals are not in the last place c. It containeth and likewise confirmeth the mystery of our Position To wit That the impurity of our Nature draws its rise from the Concupiscence of the Flesh And therefore the copulation in Beasts seemeth to be taken notice of in Beasts by God which was distinct and defiled with impurity In the next place also in the Law a Menstruous Woman and the person touching her were accounted to bring an impurity on every thing The which otherwise being now turned into a second and natural Cause ought to be plainly guiltless unlesse the Menstrues should by a Natural course derive it self from the same Causes from whence Death happened unto us And therefore also for this Cause it being plainly impure in the Law was reckoned a horrid thing with God But for that Woman alone doth suffer Menstrues before Bruits surely it doth not attest any Prerogative of our kind but rather every way a defect to wit that it is reckoned for a punishment of frustrated Chastity and referred into second Causes plainly from a notable Mystery of our Position neither doth it hinder these things that chast Virgins obey the Menstrues and that she is Monstrous who an opportunity being given is not Menstruous because Adamical Generation its self is constrained to carry no less the importunities of its own Nature than Death it self Yea seeing Chastity doth not excuse a Virgin from the Menstrues it is for a token that the Menstrues is not from a Curse nor from the punishment of Sin but altogether from Natural Causes no otherwise than as Death it self began from second Causes inserted in the disswaded Apple although hitherto unknown nor thorowly weighed The Menstrues therefore onely in Woman alone but not in Bruits doth accuse that the Transgression of the despised fatherly Admonition happened in the very privy parts therefore branded as it were with an unclean bloody Seal for a perpetual sign The which surely should not have place if a Sexual Copulation for the Propagation of man had not inverted the intention of the Creator rather than in Bruit-Beasts In this place a Paradox and impertinent consideration doth occur being interlaced as it were by a Parenthesis that Adam seeing he was created in the possession of Immortality God intended not that Man should be an Animal or Sensitive creature nor should be born conceive or live as an Animal for truly he was created into a living Soul and that he might be the immediate 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 Bruit The which is indeed more than in the whole Predicament And it is exceedingly to be admired and deservedly unworthy to be endured that the Schools of Christ do believe and confess these things and yet that even until now they draw the Essence of a Man Essentially from an Animal Nature because although Man afterwards procured Death unto himself and therefore may seem to be made nearer unto the Nature of Animal Creatures yet it stood not in his Power to be able to pervert the Species of the Divine Image Even as neither was the Evil Spirit of a Spirit made an Animal although he became nearer unto an Animal by hatred and brutal vices Therefore Man remained in his own Species wherein he was created For as oft as man is called an Animal or Sensitive living Creature and is in earnest thought to be such so many times the Text is falsified which saith But also the Serpent was more crafty than all the living Creatures of the Earth which the Lord God had made Because he speaks of the Natural craftiness of that Creeping Creature Again if the Position be true Man was not directed into the Propagation of Seed or Flesh neither therefore did he Aspire into a Sensitive Soul And therefore the Sensitive Soul of Adamical Generation is not of a brutal Species because it was raised up by a Seed which wanted the Original Ordination and Limitation of any Species And so that as the Sensitive Soul in Man arose besides the intent of the Creator and Nature So it is of no brutal Species neither can it subsist unless it be continually tyed to the Mind from whence it is supported in its Life Wherefore while Man is of no Brutal Species he cannot be an Animal in respect of his Mind and much less in respect of his Soul which is of no Species For a woman great with Child while by reason of sudden fear she changeth the Humane Young into a certain Bruit the mind indeed doth not wander into a brutal Soul but the mind departs and a Sensitive Soul begged of the Creator is substituted in its stead And seeing that it is promoted onely by the Idea of the Woman great with Child without an Original appointment therefore such kind of generated Creatures do most speedily die And the off-springs of Adam had likewise presently perished unless God had granted Matrimony unto him Wherefore in the Birth of Cain she truly said I possesse a Man from the Lord. Far be it therefore to have placed Man among Sensitive living Creatures Truly we must indulge Pagans who know not that thing but not equally Christians who too much adore Paganish Doctrine At least wise the Schools confesse that there is an ordinary Progress of Nature from not a sensible Creature into a sensible Animal but that the Life and Sense of Men is immediately iufsed by the hand of the Almighty They confesse in the next place that the Conditions of being living and feeling or perceiving in Man differ in their whole Condition from an Animal Nature because it follows the Faculty of the rational Form or Immortal mind But they shamefully believe that a Man aswel of the first Constitution as being now Divinely Regenerated by the Sacraments is an Essential Animal Fie let it shame man not to know that the Evil Spirit and whole Nature also are not able by any means or any way to change the Essence given unto him from the foreknowledge of the Creator but that he should continually remain such as he was created although in the mean time he hath cloathed himself with strange properties as Natural unto him from the vice of his own will For as it wants not an absurdity to reckonman glorified among Animals because he is not without a sense or feeling So
Paracelsus described in his Books of the Faculties of the Members I here do hear Whisperers who are wont to swallow nothing but afore-chewed things accusing the unthought of darkness of Words Those Coale-men they say do expose their Medicines unto us hand to hand and afford unto us ocular Demonstrations But that is a new rule of learning the Phylosophy of Pythagoras Let them first buy Coals and Glasses and let them first learn those things which watching successive Nights and Expences of Moneys have afforded us the Gods do sell Arts to Sweats not to Readings alone Therefore the Example of Acâaeon affrighteth me from daring indeed to expose Diana to an open view being spoyled of her Garment He that can apprehend it let him apprehend it Depart thou therefore from thine own self and bid farwell to accustomed things who presumest by an easie Compendium of readings to search into the innermost Chambers of Nature But besides whereby we may give satisfaction unto the former head of a full Cure a searching out of a Medicine for the every way safe and secure Dissolution of the Stone did remain 1. Therefore it is fit that it be changed into Urin to wit that it may touch the Place affected 2. That it have in it a Power of loosing the Bolts of the Stone For it is the Gift of God which Art doth not provide but only sequestreth and extracteth 3. That it possess that thing in a specifical and appropriated Property but not in second Qualities because they are for the most part frail things failing in time of Preparation or Infamous through the Cruelty of Qualities 4. That it be subtile that it pass on every side and be able to demolish its Object at a far distance 5. That it be friendly to Nature least indeed it pervert all things For not every Messenger approacheth unto the Mines of Stones but he alone who being loosed from his Bands hath known the wayes being fited for his Journey being a Friend to the Places and which hath Virtues They erre therefore who ascribe this single Combate only unto Corrosives to wit they too much trusting unto second Qualities as being badly secure do sleep thereupon and through a neglecting of specifical Properties also appropriated ones which are only extended on their proper Object being sleighted they have gone into Obscurity For the Oestrich doth not break or digest Iron or little Birds Flints Unions small Stones through an emulous quality of Corrosion There is a Virtue of loosing the Bars and Bolts of Tartar It is convenient this Virtue to meditate of and this to imitate I have spoken Blessed be ye God of Wonders who at sometime converteth the Waters into Rocks and at sometime the Rocks into Pooles of Waters CHAP. CI. The Understanding of Adam ADam put right Names upon all living Creatures and therefore he had an intimate or intuitive or clear speculative Knowledge of these which is called the Attainment of Nature Perhaps he had likewise a most full knowledge of Herbs Minerals yea and of the Stars For truly an Object not before seen being presented unto him he had known the innermost Properties thereof From hence therefore many do conclude that the same Knowledge is given to us by a natural Property as to the successive Heirs of Adam but to be obscured through Sin But others contend that it is wholly withdrawn through eating of the Fruit of the knowledge of Good and Evil. Of these things I being long since badly perswaded alass I also believed them For I left something untryed that I might reach unto the promised Labour of Wisdom the Paradise of Long Life through the knowledge of Adam But at length I observed many things which might subvert these very principles For First of all I could scarce perswade my self that Adam in the State of Innocency knew those Things and more which afterwards he through eating of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil was ignorant of That indeed was when he had eaten of the Apple of Oblivion Drowsiness or Ignorance But not when he had eaten of the Apple of Knowledge But if in Original Sin the Original Transgressour and Defiler of humane Nature himself as yet knew what he knew before after what manner indeed by a super-attained new Knowledge and that of another Disposition being as it were laid up in the forbidden Fruit had he withdrawn all knowledge from his Posterity And moreover how had not he who from his Creation had all Knowledge except that which by a hidden Paraphrase and Emphatical manner of speaking is called by the holy Spirit The knowledge of Good and Evil traduced this likewise on his Posterity For if through eating of the Apple His Eyes were opened the which was even made known to him before after some sort they were closed and he became a knower of Good and Evil and saw himself to be naked why was there not at least-wise in his Seed as much knowledge as there was in the Apple Why if through his Seed Sin be translated is not also Shame translated that it might naturally Shame the Indians of their Nakedness That likewise a Child of three years old should be ashamed of its Nakedness no otherwise than Adam was presently after the Apple was eaten In the next place if he were endowed from his Creation with the knowledge of the Natures Societies and Properties of Animals and from hence it was pithily essential unto him How had God who is so great a Lover of us withdrawn our essential intellectual and natural Gifts whereby he will be worshipped in the Spirit of Man but hath left natural Gifts unto the evil Spirit the most vile despised and worst of Creatures Had he so greatly impoverished our Spirit and favoured the Devil more than the Sons of Men with whom to be he cals it his Delights I indeed after that I conceived in my Soul the Knowledge of long Life and the Causes of Death knew that as long as Adam was Immortal his Mind did immediately quicken his Body and governed it Yea that for that Cause also he perfectly understood whatsoever things are read to have been put under his Feet But after that the sensitive Soul was seminally introduced as a Mean between the Mind and the Body Adam afterwards lived in the Soul and middle Life that is after a modern or mean manner And his Mind for the support of the sensitive Soul dispersed from it self only a darksom Light through the Mists of the Flesh upon the Life of a new and impure Generation But the former Knowledges which he had before the Fall were in the sensitive Life laid up though remembrance yet over-clouded with the Dim and wretched Discourse of Reason when as he had now generated after the manner of Bruit-beasts and had seminally transferred a middle Life then all his Knowledge as well former as latter of Good and Evil to wit the remembrance of the same were obliterated and Man thereby was
to be after some sort like them the which transchangeth almost an infinite quantity of impure Mettal into the best Gold and by uniting it to it self doth defend it from cankering rust rottenness and Death and makes it to be as it were Immortal against all the torture of the Fire and Art and translates it into the virgin-Purity of Gold only it requires Heat The Soul therefore and Body are thus regenerated by Baptisme and the communion of the unspotted Body of the Lord so that a just heat of Devotion of the Faithful shall be present Let the Divine pardon me if I as being beyond my Last have spoken of Life eternal by way of a Parenthesis For I willingly confess that a regenerated Body is not belonging to my Employment I treat only of prolonging the Life of the World This only I have said that Baptisme doth bring with it a real Effect of Purity perceivable by Sense and that the holy-sacred Communion of the Eucharist hath something like it in earthly things whereby we may the more easily believe Regeneration CHAP. CXI The Occasions of Death I Have compared the Fire and Light unto Life because it bears something before it which seemeth to be vital For vital Forms are either the Lives or Lights of things Therefore there shall likewise be as many occasions of Death as there are withdrawings of Light First therefore the Light is blown out and likewise the Flame perisheth by pressing together which they call through defect of Air. But I have demonstrated that that happens through want of a new Magnal but not that the Fire is nourished by Air So also by the constriction of a strange Smoak So indeed in Vaults and Burrows Lamps are extinguished but the Light is blown out by the Wind or another Flame For oftentimes Candles are extinguished by a filthy or deformed Flame being stirred up by the Powder of Rosin or Gun-powder Lastly Fires die through want of Nourishment Death in like manner doth many wayes rush on us For either a live Body is suddenly dashed together or sore shaken by weight Also a speedy pouring forth of Blood from a large Wound pours forth the Life and blows out the Light of Life So an inordinate Prodigality of corrupt Matter Water or Wind being abundantly made likewise Baths Hunger loosening Medicines introduce an untimely Death Also by the pressing together of the Breath in Burrows of the Asthma of a Cord of drowning of Smoak and by the Symptoms of the Womb likewise by the Resolutions and Palseys of the Sinews subjected to breathing In like manner by Burnings Destructions Coalifyings Gangrenes and Congelations of Cold. Also by Poysons Alculies gnawing Things Escharrers Putrifiers or Things that trample upon us by a fermental Contagion Likewise by retained Excrements Obstructions and the denied Commerces of Parts Likewise through Defect of some certain Digestion an Atrophia and Consumptions of a Part or of the whole Body Also by over-pourings of the Blood within the Skull Breast bottom of the Belly by corrupt mattery Impostumes Pleurisies affects of the Lungs c. Likewise by displacings of the turning Joynts Contractures of the Parts apppointed for expurging of Filths At length by reason of a Feeble Decrepit and woren-out Death of the Seeds and Powers And also by reason of the more grievous Passions of the Mind and Enchantments Death therefore doth so many manner of wayes steal away Mortals whose Life notwithstanding is alwayes simple and single For therefore there is a diverse and differing Consideration of Life and Death for a Sword takes away Life Yet there is far different Speculation of preserving Life than of healing of Diseases by the removals and hinderances of the Cause For truly Causes are partly external as a Wound the Plague Scorching c. the healing whereof therefore doth not depend on the removal of their Causes For neither therefore is the Fire which had burned any one to be extinguished from the Hearth that he may be cured even as neither is the Sword to be broken that the Wound may be healed up But for the preservation of Long Life the contemplations and removals of external Causes do no less occur or come to hand than those of a vital Fewel For indeed although no Infirmities should molest yet Death should not for that Cause cease dayly to strew a way for its entrance For although health hath respect to Life as its Foundation yet Life doth not include health For a Blind Lame Gowty Person c. doth no less live than a Healthy or Sound Person What if Life ends through a Disease that is forreign and by accident unto the Life as a Sword contains Death but not but by Application Otherwise Death doth by it self respect Life but diseasifying Causes become Mortal only by accident or by their Application unto the Spirit of Life For from hence it is that the Impediments of Long Life are seriously to be heeded and diverted if we expect length of Life From the Beginning therefore the meditation of Life consisteth not without but in the Life it self To wit after what manner Life may be preserved in the Body For the sensitive Soul now forthwith after Sin as I have said drew the whole property of Life unto it self and became the bond of Life with the Body But seeing that very Soul is in it self Mortal it must needs be first of all that all the vital Powers co-aeval or of a like Age with the Life should be slideable and mortal From hence at length Death For a long continuance of Life therefore first a curing of Diseases is required as well of those which touch at the Life of the whole Body as those which have regard unto the Dammages or preservation of a Part and Functions and which in this respect do lay in wait for the Life For truly seeing there is a single conspiracy of the Members certain principal Powers cannot chuse but at length go to decay also the subordinate ones being only diminished Wherein I disagree from Paracelsus because he thought that every Disease was of necessity to be taken away by a Medicine for long Life Because that good Man was no less ignorant of a Medicine for Long Life and the use thereof than of the very Essence and Properties of Long Life And therefore his Arcanums do very much conduce into a healthy or sound Life or unto a removal of Impurities yet they do not any thing directly and primarily tend to long Life as unto their ultimate end Because that as the Life So the Tree of Life chiefly concerns the preservation and renewing or making young again of the vital Faculties implanted in the Arts. In this therefore the Arcanums or Secrets which are for the taking away of Superfluities differ from the Tree of Life That those indeed do cure Diseases even those which our parent Nature doth by her self never Cure To wit the Leprosie Stone Palsy Consumption of the Lungs Dropsie c. but
forth as if also being in wrath it were disturbed or sorely disquieted by the imprinted Image of revenge for indeed there is in the Blood even after Death its Sense of the Murderer that is present and its revenge because it hath also its own phantasie Therefore not Abel himself but his innocent Blood cries notwithstanding unto Heaven for revenge For which Cause in Sieges the Plague for the most part enters as a Companion to wit because the magical Spirit of the more outward Man hath conceived in combates an imprinted Character of revenge but sometimes the Souldiers being through Poverty reduced to desperation and their Wives are almost adjoyned with them in dying and many Misfortunes are by way of Imprecation bequeathed to the more wealthy Souldiers or Officers from whence most strong Impressions are left as Posthumes or Survivers after Death on the Sidereal or Astral Spirit of the dying Man especially of a Woman with Child which Spirit presently after Death wandring about in the Air deviseth meanes or wayes of its own verge rank or order that is spiritual ones of hurting and revenging and then readily commits it self to Execution But such kind of Plagues are outragious sparing none and as it were immediately sent down from Heaven and because they being spiritual do implore help from corporeal Remedies in vain I am silent as to that For neither is it sufficiently safe to express the connexion and agreement of Mummies betwixt each other for from thence hath issued the whole Necromancy of the Antients For that reason also God in the Law forbad the Bodies of those that were hanged even of Heathens to be left on the Gibbet and the Sun should not go down upon them Thou wilt answer that the Plague of Sieges ariseth by reason of the manifold Filths of Excrements But on the contrary Curriers Tanners or Leather-dressers Emptiers of Jakes's and those who spend their time about Glew to be made by the Putrefaction of Skins are at hand for all of them so far are they from being subject to the Plague for the most part are long lived wonderful is God in the Spirit of the Microcosm Dost thou desire to know perhaps why the Blood of a Bull is Poysonous but not that of his Brother the Oxe Indeed the Bull in time of Killing murmurs against his Executioner and imprinteth on his Blood a Mark and potent Character of revenge But if it happen that in slaying of an Oxe through one stroake he hath become furious and hath the longer continued in the same Fury he leaves his Flesh but unwholesom unless first the disturbance being pacified he as idle and shut up by himself be left to return to himself by fasting The Bull therefore dies more excelling in revenge than other Animals and therefore his Fat but not his Blood unless the humane Blood in the Unguent be conquered by the forreign Tincture of the Bulls Blood is altogether necessary for the Weapon Salve if the Weapons the Authors of the Wounds shall not be besprinkled with the Blood of the Wounded And if by the besmearing of the same Weapons a perfect or safe Cure be to be expected truly the Usnea or Moss together with its fellow Ingredients are not sufficient that a Cure should be made without fresh Blood had out of the Wound for a more violent Efficacious or taurine Impression is required and an aereal Communication of the Honey of Flowers From hence therefore it is sufficiently manifest that the Efficacy of the Unguent is not to be imputed to the Concurrence of Satan who also could Cure the Wound without Honey and Bulls Blood but to the communion of natural Qualities with the derived Post-hume revenge left in the concrete or composed Body of Blood and Fat. Our Adversaries will prate rejoycing that the Power of the Magnetical Unguent could scarce have been proved but by a Witch by Satan and the spiritual Magick of the invisible World which is a suppositious or imaginary Science plainly of no weight or worth and a damnable Errour Notwithstanding not any sinister perverting of the matter in handling but the gross Ignorance of others and the miserable Condition of humane Frailty hath required that thing which more promptly inclines to Evil knowes Evil and is more readily taught by Evil than by Good But certainly whatsoever we have here alleaged concerning Satan and Witches it is not that from thence others should hope for a conformity or suitable resemblance of the Oyntment with Witches for neither are the spiritual Virtues of the Unguent and the Phantasie of the Blood stirred up by Satan as a Guider or Enforcer But this is that I aim'd at to wit that there doth inhabit in the Soul a certain Magical Virtue given her of God naturally proper and belonging unto her inasmuch as we are his Image and Engravment that in this respect also she acts after a peculiar manner that is spiritually on an Object at a distance and that much more powerfully than by any corporeal helps because seeing the Soul is the more principal part of the Body therefore the Action belonging unto her is spiritual magcial and of the greatest Validity That the Soul doth by the same Virtue which was rendred as it were drowsie through the knowledge gotten by eating of the Apple govern and stir her own Body but that the same magical Faculty being somewhat awakened is able to act also out of her Prison on another distant Object only by her Beck conveighed thereunto by Mediums for therein indeed is placed the whole Foundation of natural Magick but in no wise in Blessings Ceremonies and vain Superstitions but that all these wicked observances were brought in by him whose endeavour it hath alwayes been every where to defile all good things with his Tares But we do not tremble at the name of Magick but with the Scripture interpret it in a good-sense Yet we have granted that it may be indifferently employed to a good or evil Intent to wit by the use or abuse of that Power And so that under that Word we understand the most profound inbred knowledge of things and the most potent Power for acting being alike natural to us with Adam not exstinguished by Sin not obliterated but as it were become drowsie therefore wanting an Excitement Therefore we shew that Magnetism is exercised not indeed by Satan but by that which belongs not to Satan and therefore that this Power which is co-natural unto us hath stood abusively dedicated to Satan as if he were the Patron thereof that the Magical Power doth as it were sleep in us since Sin and therefore that it hath need of a stirrer up Whether that Exciter be the holy Spirit by Illumination as the Church mentions to have happened in the Eastern Magi or Wise Men of the East and which at this day sometimes happens in others or Satan doth also for some foregoing submissive Engagement stir up the same in Witches And in such as these the
Moreover it is without controversie in the Church of God that the Cedar in Libanus in the Temple in the Figure of the Ark in the cleansing of the Leprosie and in the feast of the building of Tabernacles did represent the Mother of God the Virgin Queen of Heaven an incorruptible Vessel a Tree which brought forth for us Eternal Life in the Flesh the Patroness I say of the Poor and Mine But the place of the Cedar in Libanus exceeding the coldest folding door of the Air covered with Snowes denotes the unspotted Integrity of the God-bearing Virgin And so if the Tree denotes the holy Virgin especially conjoyntly with so many mysteries it s no wonder that the Cedar doth signifie the Tree of this Life also in the world For indeed there was in the dayes of David an aged Cedar in Libanus because it was that which by reason of its excellent taleness was from that time worthy of a mystical sense Wherefore either it being there planted after the Floud doth as yet hitherto continue the same in number safe or a good while before and perhaps from the cradles of the World according to the Vision of the Dream Which thing after what manner soever it may be taken at least-wise it shews that the Cedar despiseth the discommodities of Old Age But he is not from a Cedar his Parent planted after the Floud because that Parent also of the Cedar was preserved under the Deluge and much more easily afterwards than that which remains from the daies of David even until this time Let those laugh that will at that age of the Cedar in Libanus and let them say that Modern ones were raised up by a new Branch or by Seed falling down But that being supposed at this day also new ones had dayly come forth into a great Wood where notwithstanding no new Cedar growes But moreover from thence I gather that the same Cedar in number doth now persist which was even before the Floud yea even from the Creation of the World Because it was given for a Mark of resemblance to the blessed Virgin But moreover for our Magistery the Fruit of the Cedar is not to be taken for that the end thereof is not for a simple Being in the appointment of the Properties of the Cedar but only for a propagation of the Species which contradicteth long Life from the Foundation The Wood Cetim it self therefore is to be taken which is so much exalted in the holy Scripture Therefore not the Bark not the Fruit not the Root nor the Leaves are the ultimate end whither Nature hath had respect for long Life And so that the Cedar perhaps also is herein distinct from the Tree of Life in Eden A matter therefore of a Tree which knowes not how to die is found whose unputrifiable Wood and by reason of its many Properties being in a mystical Sense designed to the holy Virgin is that which brings forth Life to the World that it may redeem Death But the preparation thereof is the most exceeding difficult of all those things which fall under the Labour of Wisdom For this Cause indeed Monarchs want a long Life because there is none which hath known how to prepare it For none who is truly a Phylosopher is a Minstrel neither doth he follow Princes and flatter them for because he stands in need of nothing he despiseth whatsoever a Prince can give The Tree of Life therefore alone refresheth the decayed Faculties and for some time detaineth the Life in its flowing But the difficulty of preparing it consisteth in this that the Wood ought to be resolved without a dissolution of its Faculties by a luke-warmth such as is that of the Sun in March even unto its first Being In which Being only is granted unto it a fermental Power of preserving and seasoning with an ingress unto the first constitutives of us and of insinuaring it self into the familiarity of the Spirits implanted throughout all the Organs But there is in the Juice of this kind of resolving the entire Virtue of the Cedar to wit a vital one together with every seminal and formal Property of long Life For the whole lump of the Wood is dissolved into a Juice which being otherwise distilled is transchanged and made a certain new Creature the which Aqua Vitae being distilled out of Graines or Ales doth also prove likewise the Oyl that is distilled out of Woods yea out of the very Oyl of Olives it self The practise thereof is this Resolve the pieces of the Wood Cetim with a like weight of the Liquor Alkahest in a sealed Glass under a nourishing luke-warmth and within seven dayes thou shalt see the whole Wood to have passed over into a milky Liquor But presently about the fifteenth day a twofold Oyl distinctly swims a top the which is increased even for a Month and is more clearly separated But then let the Oyl be separated from the Water by manual Operation Then distil thou the Water in a Bath and the Liquor Alkahest remains in the bottom in its own original weight but let the Oyl be nourished with the Water for full three months space with a slow luke-warmth and the whole Oyl assumes the Nature of a Salt and shall thorowly mingle it self with the Water and it is the first Being of the Cedar But as yet a few things concerning the length of Life because I being an old Man do pursue these things and I my self am about to die My Mind breathed some unheard of thing within but I as unprofitable for this Life shall be buried Because the Spirit the Porter withdrew the Bottle by the command of him before whom the whole World is as a Mushrom Let the praise be to him who hath given and who hath taken away that which was his own The Schools therefore may deservedly upbraid me Thou miserable Man a Man of small note a Man of great ambition an old Man hast paradoxally come to late that with thy Song in the commendation of Cedar thou shouldst over-spread the World with mists The Histories and Virtues of Plants are known to our Herbarists But thou that thou maiest vaunt of an unheard of devise concerning long Life as a Paradoxal Man proceedest to be mad with thy Cedar Go to if there be so great Power in the Cedar for Life why are not all Kings long-lived From whence dost thou as a new guest come produce thy Learning and experience whereby thou wilt be believed For as a Lawier blusheth to speak without Law so doth a Physitian without Experience For thou canst not deny but that the decoctions of the Leaves Kernels Wood Bark Root or Rosin of Cedar had long since produced a continued Life But nothing of these things is manifest by our Herbarists Thou there fore dost deter or fright us away through an hidden manner of preparation and by a crabbed Style of a smoak-selling Art desirest to involve a feigned mistery of Cedar Which thing the Alkahestical
its drying something that is not fixed doth of necessity puff out Moreover let the Retorts be senced with a crust or parger which may neither cleave asunder nor contract chaps or fall down of its own accord or be too much glassified Let also the neck of the Retort which hangs out be most exactly connexed unto the large receiving vessel that not so much as the least thing may expire But let the Receiver be placed in moist sand likewise let the boughty part thereof be covered in a Sack being filled half full with moist sand Which Sack let it be divers times renewed being tinged in the coldest water But let half of the Retort be filled with poudered Vitriol But distill it by degrees and at length let it be urged with coal as much as is possible for the furnace of wind which is blown by its own iron grate But when the furnace of wind shall cease to dismiss the spirit into the receiving vessel let the porch be opened on the side by which way the Reverbery of the flame of the wood may pierce under the Retort and let it so continue for five or six nights with the highest fire possible to nature The Retort perhaps in so great a storm of the fire will seem to thee to melt but nevertheless it will endure constant throughout because the outward coat of male or fence of earth with-holds and sucks the glass and so it is englassened as much as shall be sufficient for the work At length remember thou to sequester the receiving vessel from the neck of the Retort the fire being as yet most ardent otherwise thou shalt see in a more cold station the spirits to return into the Lee or Dreg which spewed them our Then lastly take the Colcotar or Lee remaining of the distillation which thou hast reserved from true Cyprus Hungarian or at leastwise Goslarian Vitriol Let that residing dreg being co-mixed with Sulphur be again burnt unto the every way confuming of the Sulphur But afterwards thou shalt bedew and moisten this feces with the aforesaid spirit For that spirit as it is presently imbibed in the glassen dish or gourd so being fetcht again from thence it returns nothing but a watery and unprofitable phlegm the spirit having remained imbibed in the Colcotar And repeatingly renew thou that operation six or seven times until at length the spirit that is poured thereon wax red which will swim upon the Colcotar which is a sign that we must cease from the plenteousness of imbibing And so let this rich Colcotar being well dryed be put into a Retort and let this rich Colcotar be distilled even unto its utmost spirits now waxing yellow and casting the smelling odour of grateful honey Yet remember thou to draw away the receiving vessel from the Retort being as yet of a bright burning heat and that this spirit must be kept by the mouth of a more strong bottle being close stopped with wax Whereinto lastly if thou shalt cast water the vessel it self presently breaks asunder Therefore by the only spirit of the former distillation this second spirit is bridled or restrained whereof scarce one pound is poured over from bottle into bottle but there is made a loss of one ounce at least And likewise unless the Receiver be seasonably taken away from the Retort as I have said thou shalt see the Furnance being cooled that most potent spirit to have returned into Colcotas from whence it was struck out by fire Moreover the Lee of Colcotar which is left of the second distillation is as yet wholly Coppery and waxeth green after many fashions From whence 1. That is manifest which I taught before Namely that the fire of Venus is not to be drawn out and had but by an every way destruction and separation of the mettal 2. That this therefore must be done by a far more hidden way 3. That the Vitriol which is rich in Copper is less fit for distillation than otherwise the common Vitriol is 4. That the Vitriol of Copper poures forth the spirit of the Vinegar of a mineral salt but not the volatile Liquor of Copper 5. And therefore that the sulphur of Copper is rightly called the sulphur of the Philosophers being fit for long life Being sweet I say in tast but not tart or sharp 6. That the spirit of Vitriol which is above perfectly taught cures some Chronical Diseases 7. And that therefore the spirits of Vitriol hitherto sold and in use are nothing but a mineral Vinegar being also adulterated in it self 8. That the residing Colcotar is most rich in a Medicinal Virtue 9. That the preparation of Vitriol prescribed by Isaac Holland and other Moderns hath not sent the Arrows unto the true mark 10. That our spirit above described and thus rectified as it is volatile and salt proceedes even into the fourth Digestion and reolves diseasie Excrements that are met withall in its journey And by consequence also takes away the occasional cause of many Chronical or lingring Diseases I have therefore already delivered the like Form or manner of distilling the spirit of Sea-salt of Salt-peter and the like Yet thou shalt remember that Vitriol hath in it self the earth of Colcotar wherefore the other salts do desire dryed Potters earth and that being exactly admixed with them But besides I have already delivered the manner of preserving from the Disease of the Stone by Aroph and likewise by Ale boyled with the seed of Daucus or the yellow wild Carrot I might therefore desist and repose my Quill and leave the matter to others more successefull than my self by wishing that every one may henceforward add what things he shall find out to be farre better For since Duelech besiegeth onely mankind and is produced from Excrements themselves after an irregular manner but doth not arise after the manner accustomed to other infirmities Therefore it seems to be singularly bred for a revenge of sin even before other Diseases and to be permitted by God in Children being as yet Innocent for the averting of a greater evil For although some Bruits do generate small stones in themselves yet those stones are not bred in them from the Causes of Duelech nor appointed for a punishment or tribulations unto them but rather produced for the profit of man But if therefore Duelech doth relate to the fault of sin but since sin hath drawn its rise from a Wood or Tree it hath seemed also to me that preservation of health in the disease of the stone is not onely to be expected from the seed of Daucus and some such like Herb but from some certain Wood Wherefore it is indeed true that a Wood against the stone of the Kidneys hath been of late brought unto us out of the Indies but I have not ever therefore perswaded my self that divine Goodnesse had so long denyed unto the Europeans that it might succour even the poor man that had the stone untill that through many expences a Remedy
those shall either be ungrateful to the nature of the stomach and therefore they stir up vomit and stools So that only the incongruity malignity and ingratitude of things taken into the body are the cause why they move vomiting and stool and are forthwith expelled with those things which they threw down into their own Faction Therefore they procure perplexities and troubles But if the things dissolving are acceptable to Nature they are willingly admitted inwards yet the composed body suffers not any thing thereby as well in respect of the thing dissolving as of that which is dissolved For truly both of them are undigestible Therefore that composure remains safe as before it passeth through all the shops of the veins and at length for truly it cannot be changed nor by consequence pass over into the Family of Life is expelled with the sweat by transpiration In which journey whatsoever of filths those famous Secrets do touch at they dissolve them and snatch them away with themselves and so they heal Fevers and most Chronical diseases Whosoever therefore ye be who in healing have cordial charity towards your neighbour learn ye a certain Dissolver which may be homogeneal or simple in kind unchangeable dissolving its Objects into their first liquid matter and thou shalt obtain the innermost Essences of things and shalt be able to look into the natural endowments of these But if ye cannot reach unto that Secret of the Fire learn ye at leastwise to render the Salt of Tartar volatile that by means hereof ye may perfect your dissolutions The which although as being digested in us it forsaketh its dissolved bodies that are safely or unharmedly homogeneal yet it hath borrowed some of their vertues which it conveighs inward as the subduers of most diseases But for the obtainment of these things it is not sufficient to rub over Books but moreover it behooves you to buy coals and vessels and to spend watching nights in order So have I done thus have I spoken let the praise be unto God Because the Universities in their eighth Potion forbid to wit the Cutting of a vein except in the fulness of blood but they admit of it only in this because then the vice of Blood-letting cannot be sufficiently manifest and because in their tenth Position they now implicitely grant a Fever not to be a meer heat but that it is to be cured by heating and corroborating remedies they being all hot things Surely one of the two must of necessity be true To wit either that a Fever is not heat in its root or that they must not heal by contraries any longer Out of the Positions of Lovaine disputed at Lovaine under the most discreet Sir D. Vopiscus Fortunatus Plempius on the 26. of November in the year 1641. CHAP. XVI The Essence of Fevers is discovered 1. The life of Mortals is the efficient cause of Diseases 2. Herein is the raging Errour of the life 3. A proof of the foregoing particulars 4. The Authour wherein he disagreeth from the Antients 5. The internal efficient and its matter are proved 6. In what sort the Thingliness or Essence of Fevers may be formed 7. A Proposition 8. That Immortality once consisted from a natural cause 9. The Original of diseasie Idea's 10. What hath deceived the Antients 11. That the Archeus in his own Idea's of perturbations imitates the Imagination 12. The aforesaid Proposition is proved 13. A two-fold fountain of the Beginning of Idea's 14. A necessity of Idea's in a Fever is proved 15. The same thing by a numbring up of parts 16. An examination of the occasional cause HItherto I have disputed against the Schools as if I dared not to teach the Essence of Fevers Therefore since the fruit discovers its tree I am compelled for the sake of the Lovers of Medicine to add a supply whereby the Essence of Fevers being hitherto unknown may be the more illustrated and a manner of distinguishing between Judgement and Judgement and Remedy from Remedy may be granted to the young Beginner First of all I have shewn ably enough that the definition of Fevers have been hitherto unknown and therefore that the Essence and essential causes of those are as yet unknown And seeing the knowledge of things is not granted unto us from a former cause at leastwise it is strongly to be admired at that nothing hath been devised for the Essence of a Fever besides heat while as notwithstanding the History it self of Fevers might have been able sufficiently to have opened the Necessities Agreement and Constancy of Causes and at leastwise to have reduced Mortals from the ridiculous errour of heat unless a sluggishness it self of Mortals had been allured through the tediousness of a diligent search and the easiness of subscribing First of all I speak of the nature of man being corrupted such as it continues since transgression successively For a Disease was as yet an Exile as long as death was absent So indeed that a disease had not yet any hope for it self in possibility But after that death entred into the life every disease stood in a powerful army directed against the life it self so as that a disease intended to establish its nest in the vital Beginning not indeed by fighting as a certain external thing on and against the life But the forreign Guest drew his sword in the very life it self whereby he might cut off the Life his Inne and the Patron of his Essence For such was the corruption of mans immortality that he afterwards drew his own death out of the life it self For neither do I speak in jest far be it when I write of preserving the life of Mortals For indeed every Disease perisheth presently together with the life For neither do matters however hostile they may be feigned to be combate or wax hot any longer after death Wherefore every direction of the internal efficient cause ought to depend on the life it self For that which the Ancients have even hitherto before me called the Duel of nature also the lot of an Elementary complexion with solitary qualities or with the very offensive matter of supposed humours among each other All that I affirm to proceed effectively efficiently and immediately from the principle of life that is from the inordinacy indignation tumult terrour and abhorrency of the vital spirits But the excrementous matter and that which they have thought to be and called the offending or diseasie matter I call that which is produced detained or introduced besides nature from an erring or forreign occasional cause And so I call all such matter only the occasional matter indeed the inciting one and plainly external to a Disease because the presence of which matter as yet remaining the whole Fever doth oft-times cease and utterly perisheth Therefore the internal efficient and immediate formal Being is the very life it self and the immediate matter thereof is drawn and departs from the vital air as to a part of it wherein the
life it self is entertained and sits and so it hath an immediate and plenipotentiary power on the life which is con-nexed unto it in the resembling mark of uniformity for otherwise it should be an inconvenient thing for the mad or raging life of a Fever to bring forth a disease or to conceive effect and nourish a formal and essential Beginning foundation and seed out of it self For the life is not able to establish a disease which is a seminal Being in the forreign and external subject of excrements For if the life ought to suffer by a disease to be vexed and killed thereby surely it being now defiled ought to suffer all the injury from its own self according to the Proverb None is hurt but from himself Hippocrates in times past after a rustical manner perceived that thing the first called that vital spirit The maker of the Assault as well for life as for death For God made not death for man the which began from sin But I do not deny that the life is provoked into its own injury by occasional causes yet at leastwise I could wish that the Antients had divided as is meet to be the internal cause essentially from the external occasional ones But I take not the internal and external matter for a respect of the body but that which is radically and essentially proper to the disease that I call the Internal and unseparable matter But otherwise if if it be only accidentally adjacent thereunto Therefore before all it is seriously and only to be noted in what manner the very essential thingliness of Fevers may be formed by the Essence of the efficient life That not only the very local thingliness of principiating a Disease may be hereby conceived but that moreover an essential limitation thereof essentially issuing from the life it self may be known Which things therefore are more deeply to be peirced Wherefore let it be instead of a Proposition that Mortality Death and a Disease seeing they entered with sin they corrupted the life and defiled the whole humanity with impurity Not indeed that the entrance of all particular Fevers is therefore from a new sin as neither immediately from original sin although they have originally defluxed from thence But in the state of Purity there was Immortality no Death no Disease because then the immortal mind immediately governed the body and therefore it suffered not any thing by frail things which are altogether inferiour to it self therefore it deserveedly freed its own Mansion united unto it self from death and corruption But after the departure out of the right way the mind delivered up its government to the sensitive soul whence the life became subject to a thousand inconvenient necessities of death The Sensitive soul therefore afterwards stirred up the Vital air which after that began to be called by Hippocrates ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or the Maker of the Assault and the chief Work-man of Diseases But the power of the same was badly understood by his followers and that Maker of the Assault remained neglected by Successours it being also unknown that the differences of diseases did issue immediately from the life And therefore the whole buisiness of Diseases was falsely committed unto occasional and never existing Humours For I have concerning the Original and Principles of Healing delivered the manner whereby that Maker of the Assault produceth an Ideal Being from whence Fevers and all Diseases borrow their Original The which generation of Idea's or shapie likenesses being there professly handled I will only touch at by the way First therefore it is confessed that the madness of a dog is stirred up by or in his conception through the effective Idea of that mad poyson The which is not in any healthy dog even as in a mad one And from thence it is manifest that that poyson which strikes our imagination after the biting is framed by an Idea caused by the conception of the mad dog The same thing ptoffers it self in the Tarantula in Serpents and things sore moved with fury So in the Plague-grave I have demonstrated that this Idea is made not only by the fear of the man but also of the vital air Wherefore also it is very equally necessary that for a Fever which is stirred up from the assaulting spirit and vital Beginning not which ariseth is moved or increaseth of its own accord or of nothing a motive Idea or effective cause springs up in the same vital Beginning being indeed poysonsome in it self and varying according to the signatures or impressions which this tree of a feverish Idea utters for its fruits For since of nothing nothing is made but of something alwayes something As well the Antients as the Moderns have supposed that any Fevers whatsoever do of necessity arise from the strife of the Elements or at least of feigned Humours Neither have they till now cleerly defined of which of these two the texture of Fevers might be But since the Elements are but three in number neither do these flow together unto the constitution of bodies because I shall elsewhere shew the connexion of these to be impossible they cannot produce any strange Beginning from themselves But Humours since they never have hitherto any where been and since Fevers are of a more aiery and abstracted body than that which a liquid excrement is thought to be I have discerned that from nothing nothing is indeed materially made but that most things are efficiently effectively and formally made from a conceived Idea which do forthwith after cloath themselves with bodies Indeed by the conception active Ideas are made and the formal Beginnings of seeds which presently cloath themselves with the coat of the vital spirit wherewith they then in the next place come upon the stage and are made that Maker of the Assault which is known by the Schools only by its name alone and therefore neglected by practical Physitians For that Fevers do now and then arise from the disturbances of the mind that is very well known to persons of no reputation and Barbers But that the Archeus or the spirit which violently assaileth doth suffer its own perturbations and conceive the Off-springs of these the Idea's stirred up in it self hath indeed been even hitherto unthought of and unheard of in the Schools Notwithstanding nothing is more certaine than that the spittle of a mad dog doth a good while after the death of the dog produce its madness in whom he bit it being plainly very like to its own dog from whence it issued Wherefore there was in the spittle a forming seminal Idea of that madness produced being like unto that from whence the first infection flowed For such an infection presupposeth an active vital and potent propagative power of its seed because it can cause death and madness in us But that power never acteth as a naked accident but as it inhabites in a formal subject of inhesion Neither also that the visible matter or Inn of its
Tragedy of the world would again be hidden at leastwise I suppose that there will be other far more horrible Plagues than ever heretofore and against which all Antidotes will be vain For truly our Plague at this day doth not affect bruit beasts But in the last dreggishness ãâ¦ã they shall destroy wild beasts also yea fishes and trees and there shall be Plagues but not an ordinary Plague otherwise this should be an uncertain sign of the future destruction For there shall be Plagues from the hand of God from the powring out of the Vials as the Revelation hath it But against those Plagues there is not to be a Buckler in Nature I promised therefore unto my self before I attempted to write these things that the Plague that was curable even unto that face of times and a true remedy thereof was to be fetched out of the Grave of Hippocrates or rather from above from the Father of Lights I will declare what I have learned for the profit of Posterity CHAP. III. The Heaven is free from as also innocent of our Contagion or Infection NOt the least comfort hath appeared unto the Soul that is earnestly desirous of knowledge or unto the miserable and forsaken sick from the writings of the Antients First of all it is of Faith that the Stars are for signs times or seasons daies and years nor that man can any way alienate the offices of the Stars or decline them unto other scopes That the Heavens are the works of the Lords hands that God created not Death and therefore that neither doth the Heaven contain Death a disease poyson discords corruptions or the effective cause of these For truly they are ordained not for the cause but for the signs of future things and only for the changing of seasons or Meteors and for the succession of daies and years The office therefore of the Heavens is not to generate evils to cause poysons to disperse or influx them to sow wars and to stir up deaths Because the heaven cannot exceed the bounds of its own appointment the heavens declare the glory of God for whose honour and the uses of ungrateful humanity it was created And therefore it rather contains in it life light joy peace and health with an orderly and continued motion no curse is read to have been communicated to the heaven after the transgression of Adam nor execration to be infused into it as neither a spot to have been sprinkled thereon The earth indeed brings forth thistles and thorns because under the Moon is the Copy-hold of the Devil and Death because of sinners the Empire of discords and interchanges The earth hath become a Step-mother unto us she is therefore the vale of miseries being great with-child of the corruption and fardle of sinners because it hath pleased God that there should be no other way unto rest but by tribulations yea it behoved Christ to suffer and so to enter into glory not indeed anothers but his own because he was willing to take on him the form of a servant I belive the Word of God but in no wise the vanities of the Sooth-sayers of Heaven and I judge that they who write that the Plague doth arise from the heaven do stumble as being hitherto deceived with the errours of the Gentiles The Heavens declare the glory of God and the Firmament sheweth the handy-works of the Lord The Heavens therefore shew a sweet or bitter thing to come but they do not cause that sweet or bitter yea neither is it lawful for us to call bitter things evils for God hath directed all things to a good end Therefore the heaven declares future things unto us but doth not cause them and the stars are only unto us for the signs of things to come and therefore there shall be signs in the Sun Moon and Stars The Stars also cause the successive alterations of seasons in the ayr waters and earth only by a native Blas From whence the changes and ripenesses as well in fruits as in the body of man especially in a sick one do consequently depend I understand also that the stars are in this respect for times or seasons unto us by their motive and alterative Blas For neither therefore are the Heavens Sorcerers or the Cocters of poysons the incensers of wars c. I knowingly consider them to be altogether as the alterers of successive interchanges in Elementary qualities as to the interchangeable courses of Stations Wherefore it happens that the sick aâe diversly altered in the promotion and maturity of seeds conceived in them because our vital faculties do stir up every their own Blas according to the rule or square of the most general motion of the stars not indeed as of violent leaders but of foregoing or accompanying ones For the Book of the Revelation doth not attribute even any the least punishing power unto the Heavens but the same to be distributed by God among the Angels and the which therefore are called smiting and ministring spirits performing the commands of the Judge Therefore I shall not easily believe that the Plague owes its original unto the importunate or unseasonable changes of times the which also Eudoxus according to Fernelius perceived And I cannot be induced by any reason to believe that the Heavens do give growth form figure virtues or any thing else which proceedeth from the Being of seeds For the Herb was potent in a flourishing seed even before the stars were born so that although there should be no stars yet every seed by the power of the Word is of it self naturally for producing of its own constituted body and against the will of the stars and stations of the year yea and of climates many seeds and forreign fruits are produced by Art Wherefore the Epidemicks of Hippocrates illustrated with the Commentary of Galen do also contain very many things unworthy the name of the Author not only because it attributes diseases to the stations or seasons of the year and not every one to their own seeds and divers infirmities to one root that is unto the first qualities of the ayr and so coupleth divers effects with unjust causes but because they contain very many absurdities of trifles For I am wont in this thing to compare Judiciary Astrologers unto Empericks who having gotten an oyntment powder or any other medicine extoll the same to be prevalent well nigh for all diseases and also for many other So many of those being not content with the shewing or betokening message of the Stars constrain them to be the workmen Deasters and absolute Patrons of all fortune and misfortune to be conscious or witness-bearers and the workers of life and death to come Lastly to be the Councellors and Judges of thoughts and questions asked If therefore they do not contain death wars poysons nor the Plague verily neither shall they be able to rain down such scourges upon us seeing they cannot give those things which they have not do not contain
of good juice must be used that a good fire must be made and that any kind of filths must be avoided and that Triacle must often be used whereinto when enough simples have not yet been cast every one may heapingly add new Genturies or Hundreds at pleasure thereunto and so that is reckoned the most excellent Antidote which containeth the collected heap of a thousand simples and they hope that one of a thousand may perhaps help at leastwise that it will not hurt For those are Magistral Antidotes or medicines against the poyson so that if in the mean time the matter shall the less luckily succeed according to desire at leastwise he who hath compiled so many the most select simples together and those commended by Renowned Authors is free from blame they being badly mindful of their own lyes prescribe also grateful suffumigations of vinegar and Odours of Spices as if such feeble remedies could prevail against their own principles that is against poysons diffused from the heaven throughout the whole air For if by reason of those odours either the beard or nail of the hand or lastly the marrow ceaseth to grow it might infuse some confidence of hope that the pestilent seed might be overcome by the wan remedy Therefore if there were any causative reason of the plague in the heavens that by a stronger right should belong unto man over the heavens if a wise man shall have dominion over the stars but not the stars over a wise man For a wise man is able in some respect to change the significations of the stars although not the motion of the stars But that thing is as greatly impertinent in this place as is the false accusation of the heavens For truly if the stars should causatively work their own effect on us verily a wise man might be able to mitigate it and Physitians do by their accusing of the heaven falsly endeavour to excuse themselves for an impossibility There is not I say any action of the stars on us besides that of a Meteor for Astrologers feign many things which they have known to be false yea and impossible the which in the speculations of the Planets are on either side easie to be seen notwithstanding neither Nature nor therefore medicine to admit of the rule of falshood as neither of the suppositions of Science Mathematical Therefore lastly if a popular plague should slide out of the heaven it should of necessity be that the heaven should resist and hinder also according to the same root and not as to the latter product and so the whole Art of Healing should prescribe nothing but altogether vain remedies for the prevention of the plague But the Schools commit not themselves unto so great wickedness and they more willingly rush unto impossibilities that they may make a Buckler for their own ignorance and may send any ignorant drinkers and Cup-shot tormentors of mortals against the plague At leastwise it is manifest from hence that they do not hitherto assault the causes of the plague before but behind and that they have had respect only unto the effects thereof and so that whatsoever hath been spoken concerning its prevention hath in it the meer deceivings of their Neighbours For they imitate the Countryman endeavouring to exhaust a Brook where it hastens into the Sea nigh the shoar but not by stopping up the Fountain Therefore either they do not believe the plague to arise from the heaven or their remedies are full of despair and deceit Furthermore if the heaven as it were an angry Parent as it pleased Paracelsus to dream takes notice of our crimes and is defiled with our impieties and therefore as a Revenger wounds us with its darts and so miserably kills us Certainly it shall either be some Deaster or sensitive living creature which arrogating the office of God unto it self and envying the office of the smiting Angels teacheth us that envy is a Celestial thing as also the revenge of the creature on man But why doth it note our crimes if in taking notice thereof it be defiled and how shall it be defiled if sin be a meer non-being how shall that Archer perceive a meer non-being how shall it judge of the departure of mans will from God for if it be angry with us and inflamed for revenge by reason of that nothing how shall it not rather be angry with us when it shall perceive that we imitate its own actions and do stop or prevent them to wit while the heaven being appeased we form the plague in us by our own terrours and it should far more harshly bear it that man against the will of the heaven should heal the plague that he overcomes his own wounds and prevents or hinders its offices in despite of the heaven Again if the Plague could by an orderly motion of the stars be declaratively and as it were yearly foretold even as I have already before declared the informations of others concerning Aegypt but our offences want a set orderly day number and measure For sins depend on the heart of man and a free will therefore that cause is not beseeming for its effect and a sign thereof But Divines deny the future effects of free-will to be fore-known by the stars and so neither that knowledge nor understanding dwells in the heavens and inanimate bodies Therefore neither indeed do they denounce the plague wars c. to come from sins fore-known unto them Be it sufficient that the plague is denounced not as for an inciting cause but because it hath so pleased the Eternal That every guilty person may examine himself and amend neither is there need of feigning belyed naughtinesses and ill wills to be in Saturn or Mars if our sins are the effectual cause of contagion and so Astrologers and medicinal Diviners contradict themselves For neither otherwise should it be of necessity to feign an Executioner to be angry with the guilty person although he kills the same I pray why shall our iniquities rather provoke Saturn and Mars than the Moon which is neerer by some thousand miles Why should Saturn who is most remote be a more potent Revenger of our crimes than the Moon For if any star were pestilential certainly it should chiefly be that which bears rule over the night rest and reducement into the first matter In the next place if the plague doth invade us as a punishment or be sent by Angels his messengers the movers of the Orbs Surely none shall be natural and the prescriptions and rules of the Schools as well for prevention as for curing shall voluntarily acquiesce The heaven therefore is a presager of fore-shewing a thing to come and it affords signs of the plague which God reveals to his own But the heaven is not the effective principle of a present plague as neither the fore-knower thereof For truly otherwise as well the heaven as the directive Angelical intelligency should erre as oft as it should punish a
readily and fully sequester the offending filth It should follow that their universal succours to wiâ purgings and cuttings of a vein are the most potent helps of the plague The which notwithstanding are already many times found to hasten on death That supposition also of necessity falls down together which introduceth corrupt humours for the immediate cause of the plague For in very deed the Pest doth rather infect the nourishable humours than that these are the cause of the Pest Otherwise I have elsewhere made it sufficiently manifest that nature doth not acknowledge nor ever had humours in the constitution of the bloud Wherefore neither are these able to cause any thing because they are non-beings Again if humours in the making of their putrefaction should be the connexed cause of the Pest at leastwise the Schools ought to have set forth the name of that humour and likewise to have expounded the manner and process whereby those humours are corrupted and how they being now corrupted are the conjoyned cause of the plague and also after what sort they may be speedily sequestred together with the hinderance of their impression on the vital parts It had behoved them in the next place to point out the place wherein the assembly of the foregoing pestilent corruption as it were in a Nest was held For if this center be the veins or bowels to wit where the first sequestration of excrements happeneth all sweat should be altogether hurtful because it is that which should bring the poyson from the stomach or liver through the vital bowels and not pour it forth neerer thorow the accustomed sinks For so the Lues Venerea only by a Gonorrhea chusing its mansion in the Testicles if by solutive medicines it be drawn back from the shops of the urine that it may go back through the veins into the paunch It spreads a necessary Lues only by that passage into the whole body Much more therefore should the Pest if it had defiled the humours in their own shops and should be bâought sorth in passing thorow by sweats infallibly defile all of whatsoever is vital within But if indeed the habit of the body be the place of the putrefaction of pestilential humours now the Diet of Physitians shall be ridiculous which is believed to hinder the generating of putrifiable humours In the next place from what and from whence putrefaction in good juicy blood should arise in the habit or also in the center of the body before the plague not any thing hath been determined by the Schools concerning all thesâ things as thinking it sufficient to have said by the way that the corruption of humours is the conjoyned cause of the plague because run away Doctors have never beheld this but asquint For when they observed that a laxative medicine being drunk up the flesh and blood being consumed by that venom and a yellow humour or pale snivel or the more dark blood not yet fully transchanged did flow forth they affirmed that not only the venal blood but the whole body did consist of four humours differing in kind and that they were again resolved into them Even so that they have supposed this putrefaction for the Pest to be begun in yellow Choler being compared to fire or in black Choler and therefore called melancholly as being neerer to earth Saturn and malignity Truly although I have elsewhere abundantly demonstrated four humours as a frivolous and hurtful invention yet let us now grant by way of supposition of a falsehood that the blood did consist of a commixture of those four humours yet when the blood hath now ceased to be and is by a formal transmutation changed into a nourishable and vital liquor which immediately nourisheth increaseth and cherisheth every member it at leastwise fights with the truth of Phyloâophy that that nourishable liquor being degenerated from blood by a formal transchanging had not yet forgotten its former condition and compacture Suppose thou if Wine Ale the liquor of flesh with the juice of poâherbs be drunk at one meal and changed into blood certainly that constitution of the blood is not one as long as it consisteth of those four divers things being as yet co-mixed but those four are made only one while as by a formal transmutation they are made a new product which is blood In like manner therefore although the blood should consist of a connexion of four humours yet seeing they are now one and no longer four that one thing constituted shall be no longer that thing connexed of the four original liquors granted Neither can the diseases resulting from thence either insist or be accounted as humorous in healing they not bâing any more able to return back into those four feigned humours although they are granted to have been real ones than the blood that is once made can return into the former Wine Ale Broath of fleshes and juice of potherbs It is manifest therefore that the Schools contrary to all Phylosophy are ignorant that there is a formal transmutation while blood is made of meats and while of blood a nourishable liquor is made And it is manifest from the aforesaid blindnesses that the greatest part of diseases hath been committed upon trust unto the ignorance of principles in the Schools But I ingeniously protest that I have never found even the least tittle of assisting aid in any books of Ancestours For although many being as it were holpen did recover nevertheless I have seen ten-fold more who from the beginning of the invasion of the plague had made use of the fame remedies to have unhappily perished For Triacle for a long time ago hath always promised help and the water thereof is now accounted every where more excellent although they know who have known the properties of the Pest that they contain a vain help For Antidotes which restrain poyson have nothing of certainty against the plague and therefore University-Physitians daâe not expose themselves to the contagion of the plague under the unfaithful safeguââ of Triacle because the poyson of the Pest is a far secret one from any other But some Religious persons in a City leaving nothing unattempted whereby they might obtain moneys or esteem profess to sell the most choice Triacle at a great price But since none going to warfare in Christ infolds himself in secular affairs I exhort every one chiefly to beâare of such pompous Boasters For why they enter not in by the door but above by the roof being not called they intrude themselves into medicine For these will almost say with Tully We have deceived the people and have seemed most famous Apothecaries For Triacle was as yet unknown unto Hippocrates the subduer of the plague It receiveth a three-fold quantity of honey according to the plenty of all simples Also sixty simples being at discord being dry hard shut up crude excrementous and for the most part inveterate from the age of two years These Simples I say are rendred much
barren from the mixture of âoiled honey They require also a mixture and digestion from the feeble Feverish person âespecially from the stomach being vitiated by poyson and from the Archeus being inwardly prostrated and confusedly tumulting Wherefore they perform little of help and the least of comfort For the cocted Trochies of the Viper since by the admonition of Galen they are the Capital Simple of Triacle do easily teach that the water of Triacle is plainly ridiculous For if the Viper stated the Triacle water with virtue in distilling why have the Trochies of the Viper in its first and Galenical cocture put off all that prerogative of healing What therefore shall I do with those who are always learning and never coming unto the knowledge which they profess to teach For most men as Seneca witnesseth have not attained unto that Science because they thought that they had attained it At length neither hath it been sufficient to have concealed the names of those humours which they have imagined to putrifie before the plague and to be the accompanying cause hereof But moreover in skipping over that they pass over the very thingliness of the corruption which now and then finisheth its Tragedy in a few hours For Physitians seem to have rested on a soft pillow while their Neighbours house is on fire and their head being once elevated on their elbow to have declared the Arrest The plague is a contagious disease from putrified humours being connexed to a Fever most sharp and exceeding dangerous which being said they having very well fed to have bent down their head again for their afternoon sleep which sleep under so great light hath again closed their eyes The world in the mean time bewails its condition seeing the effects not the causes as neither in the next place the remedies to be noted by this judgement Wherefore the Country people with both hands scratching their hair on their Temples pronounce another Arrest There is no need say they of much study nor of so many books that any may say the Plague is mortal and contagious the which every one hath learned by his own malady Therefore it shall be better to ask counsel of faithful helpers no longer of drowsie ones who are Fugitives from the Plague and ignorant of remedies CHAP. VIII The Seat prepared IT is not sufficient to have demonstrated that the causes of the Pest are unknown to the Schools unless I shall declare my own experiences the cause of the plague its divers progresses in the making its strange properties in its being made its preservations and cure At first therefore I will repeat what I have demonstrated elsewhere to wit that in Nature there are at least two causes and no more Indeed the matter and efficients which efficient in the plague I call the Archeus Vulcan or Seed at leastwise for the matter there is not a certain undistinct hyle or matter which never existed nor will be in nature and it serves for Science Mathematical and not to a contemplater of Nature Therefore I behold the matter of the pestilence with relation unto its internal efficient The matter therefore of the plague is a wild spirit tinged with a poyson But that matter tends unto the end proposed to it self after a three-fold manner because it either comes to us from without and being totally and perfectly pestiferous exhaling from a pestilent sick person or dead carkass or place or Utensile being defiled or it is drawn inwards being as yet crude from a Gas of the earth putrified by continuance which afterwards receives an appropriative ferment within and at length by degrees attains a pestilent poyson in us Or also a total destruction of us is now and then materially and formally finished within without an external assistance But that there are not more manners whereby the plague is made is manifest from the division For either it is wholly generated within without a forraign aid or it happens on us from without and that is either perfect in the matter and form of a poyson wanting only appropriation and application or it is as yet crude imperfect and as it were an Embryo Whence at leastwise first of all it becomes easie to be seen that the Pest doth not always first invade the heart For I have seen him who in touching pestilent papers at that very moment felt a pain as it were of a pricking Needle and straightway he shewed a pestilent Carbuncle in his fore-finger and after two daies died Furthermore the aforesaid three-fold matter however plainly venemous the first is yet on both sides it holds it self within the number of an antecedent cause For no otherwise than as poyson taken in at the mouth is not the disease it self or death but only the occasional cause thereof For not any thing that is corporeal acteth immediately on the liâe oâ vital powers because they are those which are of the nature of Coelessial lights but first it is received and made as it were domestical and when some poyson is now made a Citizen of our Inn to wit it being swallowed or attracted notwithstanding also it cannot as yet enter or be admitted unto the hidden Seminaries of the vital powers because it is in its whole essence external but first the poysonous quality by acting on the life stirs up the Archeus otherwise the Author and workman of all other things to be done under his own government into its own defence For otherwise a pestilenâ poyson acteth not like a sword which equally wounds all it toucheth at in the same moment of it self but the pestilent poyson is not able to strike any The Archeus therefore since from his own disposition he hath animal perturbations passions confusions and interchangeable courses he suddenly brings forth the image of his own alteration conceived and decyphers that Idea in the particle or small portion of his own proper substance wherein it is conceived which Image of Death being thus furnished is the Pest or Plague it self For truly I do not judge the plague to be a certain naked quality although it existeth not elsewhere than in a body as it were accidents in a subject of inherency but the plague is a Being a poyson of Nature subsisting by it self in us and consisting of its own matter form and properties the which I have elsewhere most fully demonstrated in the Treatise of Diseases But here it is sufficient to have admonished that the life operates nothing by conquering or destroying unless by the vital motions of the sensitive Soul which is not wont but to operate by Idea's on the Archeus the Executer of any motions whatsoever even as neither doth the Archeus operate after any other manner on the body Wherefore it is to be noted by the way in this place that the inward material and immediate cause of a disease is the disease it self ãâ¦ã wise than as the material cause in a man is his very body persevering from the ãâ¦ã unto old
divert himself But that the Archeus being terrified and a run-away and returning as half in a rage is made so hostile unto the parts his Clients over which he alone is president the confirmation thereof is not elsewhere to be fetched than that a thorn is thrust into the finger which by the fat or grease of an Haâe is safely expelled without discommodities as that remedy asswageth the fury of the Archeus which thorn doth otherwise stir up a great Tragedy of fury For the Archeus brings forth a poyson in his Clients by his own fury the which otherwise a simple small wound would willingly be ignorant of Conceive thou how unlike is the wound of phlebotomy and the sting of a Bee And likewise the stroak of phlebotomy that is clean how far doth it differ from the prick of unclean phlebotomy It s no wonder therefore that the seat where the image of the conceived terrour and piercing of the combined image of fury shall first happen is hostilely disturbed is furiously scorched yet oftentimes poysonous tempests are transmitted and chased unto the more outward habit of the body by the implanted spirit of life unto places I say whither the Latex or liquor of the veins tendeth of its own free accord in time of health or they are dismissed unto the external habit of the body And therefore whatsoever is to be done in the Pest that is to be cured with speed For sometimes the image of the Pest is cloathed only with the inflowing spirit and then medicines that provoke sweat do readily succour But where the inhering and in-bred Archeus conceiveth the image of his terrour and fury in the solid parts unless he presently resign up and lay aside the conceived image unto and in the spermatick nourishment I have called that corrupt nourishment the Tartar of the blood and produce a tumour there is danger least it presently pass over into the very substance of the solid parts which contains an unexcusable detriment of death And therefore that the plague may not take up for it self a tough Inn within the body we must procure that the pestilent image do not long float within but that the whole houshold-stuff be allured forth and fall out by sweat For the Carline Thistle is said to have been in times past shewn unto an Emperour by an Angel for the plague of his Army perhaps therefore called Angel-Thistle because the first rise of the image of the Pest stirs up drowsie evils loathings a Fever vomiting and head-aches about the stomach but the herb Ixia or Chamilion drives away sleep and much more deep drowsinesses against Nature and therefore they hope that the extraction of fresh Carline Thistle should not be unfruitful for the plague that is newly begun The End A TABLE Of many of the Chief things contained in this Book The rest being referred to the Contents of the CHAPTERS A. WHat Accidents properly are to what serving c. 131 9. c. Acheldamah consumes a dâad carcasse in one day 671. 54. Adam not cursed 654. A demonstration of his fall 659. What he generated after sin 663. 17. Why he and his posterity Bearded 666. Adam's lust arose from a natural property of the apple 668. No motion of lust in Adam before his fall 682. 85. Of Adam's understanding 711. The Praise of Agnus Castus 707. 52. What kind of knowledge in the apple 665. Air not reducible into water 60. 12 76 41. Air the reducer of bodies into water 68. 26. Air the seperater of the waters 71. 4 152 19. Air is exceeding cold and dry Ibid. 76. 40. 1120. Air acts on the water without a reaction 76. 41. A vacuity in the air proved by a manual 82. 4 7 1126. It s magnal or sheath 85. 20 692 12. It is imprinted with the seal of formes c. 133 18. c. What office it bears in minerals Ibid. 20. How it joyns to the vital spirit 183. 37. Air seperates sulphurs 184. 45. It Volaâizeth the blood 186. 187 56. Air not capable of a vital light 189. It doth not nourish the vital spirit 190. 9. How the Alkahest of Paracelsus operates on bodies 65 7 105 6 104 27 479 43 787. it is compared to the fire mentioned in Macchabes 108. 28. It s operation on a Coal Ibid. It s Aenigmatical description 115 28. The Revealer of the proportion of light c. 146. 89. The operation of the liquor Alkahest one the Cedar 811. Aloes hurt by washing 463. 39. Alcalies reduced into a meer simple water 106. 12. How alcalies are made 183. 38. The Common-wealth of Alcalies 184. 40. Alcalies why fit for wound drinkes 186. 53 294 21. Amber drawes the virtue from vitriol without touching it 764. 22. Amber becomes a Zenexton against the Plague 767. 37 787 1146. Amulets act by influence 330 19. 481 An Amulet against the Plague 767. 37. Antimony in its form better than in its principles 788. 153 Antimony observes an Influence 773. 63. How a sweet Anodine workes 918. No Animal spirit in nature 187. 58. A good Angel never appears Bearded 661. 37. Anasarcha by what produced 513. It s cure 521. The Apoplexy hitherto unknown 906 998 Its rise 917 Its seat 915 Apple takes away warts 154 Apostemes how made 186. 52 290 6 Aqua Fortis c. 96. 14 Aqua Vitae see spirit of wine  How Arcanum's do operate 473. 15 164 15 Arcanum'â cure all Diseases 524 Arcanum's never go into nourishment 577 Arcanum's iâ some sort exceed the powers of nature 753 Arsenick though never so well preparââ is not to be inwardly administred 466. 52. It is fixed by co-melting with salt-peter 105. 10 The Arterial spirit of life is of the nature of a Gas. 110. 40 Arterial blood exhales without a Capât mortuum 182. 34 By what 185. 40 How an Arterie becomes hard 185. 48 The Arteries do not atract air 190 Arteries attract spirit of wine but no juicy things 203. 41 The Archeus its constitutive parts 35. 4  110 41 Its seat 430 287 28 What it is in the beginning of Generation 133  18 142 60 The manner of its operating 142 61 c. Its defects 549 Archeus sensible of death 553 Archeus receiving of evils the cause of our hurt 1127 Archeus hath an imaginâtion of its own differing from the mind 1128 Aroph of Paracelsus 709. 53 878 879 Aristotles four constitutive causes of things condemned 18. 3 Astrology natural why preferred before the stellar astrology 26. 9 Its supports or props vain 126. 46 c. Condemned by an experiment 127. 48 By a review of the attributes they give to the Planets Ibid. 50 Astronomy slighted 12. 5 Ascites what 508. 524 Asarum by boyling lays down its vomitive force 172. 45 The difference of Ascarides from worms 221  83 Its cure Ibid. Asthmawhat 260. 40 356 What the Asthma consists of 360. 27 Froâ whence the Ashma ariseth 261. 42 â twofold Asthma 357. 9 358. 368. 68 The Asthma is
a disease 537 Death began from carnal lust 550 676 In divine things the Senses are to be cast off 310 13 What a Disease is 452 The difficulty of curing Diseases concluded from the Seat of the Soul 455 Of Diseases according to their occasional cause 565 Their division 566 How Diseases enter the Body 567 Most Diseases are centrally in the Stomach 261 10 Diseases concentred in the vital Spirit proved by dissection 485. Of the essence of Diseases 488 558 Hitherto unknown 489 171 145 A Disease is a real Being 947 Hunger no Disease 494 Diseases pierce the formal Light 496 A Disease begins from the matter of the Archeus 502 The product of a Disease differs from a Symptom 999 How a diseasie occasion augmenteth it self 521 Cure of Diseases not furthered by Anatomy 524 Diseases varie in respect of a six-fold digestion 620 What the ground of Diseases is 404 15 407 40 c. 430 3 448 60 238 21 269 Lunar Diseases their Symptoms 140 148 Diseases Produced by concupiscence 524 Cure of Diseases 446 The roots of Diseases from the beginning 1092 What the Dew is 68 23. What it abounds with 117 33 Decoctions censured 970 Defluxions of the Bladder ridiculous 856 Distilling without any Caput Mortuum remaining 404 18 Distilled waters of small force 970 Distillation of Vitriol 891 Distillation of Urine 847 Observations thereon ibid. Distillation unfolds natural Philosophy 692 Â 8 Of Diet its uselesness as to curing 451 9 c. Of the nature of Diuretickâ 862 863 Of the dispensatories of the Schools 461 24 Thâir hurtfulness ibid. 28 Illustrated by two Examples 464 43 Things externally applyed operate under the sixth digestion 479 48 A six fold Digeston 480 57 206 What a depraved digestion produceth 1104 Of the Retents of digestions 625 626 1003 The digestive Ferment what 201 206 What things help digestion ibid Of the threefold digestion of the Schools 203 703 16 There is as many suitable Ferments as digestions 206 2. From whence the force of digestion springs 207 21 Whât helps it 703 17. The first digestion 207 The second digestion 209 21 22 The second and third digestion are begun at once 210 28 The third digestion where it begins 212 Digestion in the stomach not a formal transmutation of meats 215 48 When digestion may be said to be finished ibid. The fourth digestion its Seat 218 60 The fifth digestion ibid. The sixth digestion 219 67 Our digestions why attributed to the Planets 748 Supream of all digestions in the stomach 290 4 Death how it comes to âe 649 8 After what sort death entred the Apple 657 41 Death followed sin 664 19 Death comes not from a dry habit of the Body 729 Death is from a decay of vital powers 730 Several occasions of Death 752 753 Drif what it is and what required thereto 595 Manner of making it 596 Dâatages observed 278 33 What drinks best in sharp sicknesses 454 22 24 The actions of the phansie from the Duumvirate 303 31 The power of desire in the Duumvirate 304 37 The Harmony of life from the Duumvirate 306 52 Fatness from the Duumvirate 308 59 The Duumvirate 337 Its Power Seat and Works 340 341 364 49 Vnderstanding is formed in the Duumvirate 275 Why the Spleen and Stomach are called the Duumvirate 287 26 Authority of the Duumvirate 296 The Dropsie Anasarcha whence 449 62 Its seat 515 Dropsie unknown 507 Not seated in the Liver 509 How stirred up 512 What the efficient matter thereof is 513 The Cure 521 A Bastard Dropsie ibid What abstinence from drink may effect in the Dropsie 519 Of Dungs and Toads in the Dropsie 519 520 Why drowned Bodies swim after a season 427 73 Drowsiness as well artificial as natural helped by Lixiviums 303 31 The vanity of drying up superfluities 440 42 Of drunkenness 449 63 Of being drunk with new Wine 122 23 Duelech of Paracelsus 833 Duelech is made of the Urine 836 837 Three Spirits concur for the nativity of Duelech 850 Its manner of making with an observation of the Fountains of the Spaw 851 What may be found in Duelech 861 Of the savour of Dungs 212 26 VVhere the Forment of Dung resideth 221 811 E. EArth why not reckoned among the primary Elements 49 16 11â 44 What the Oxiginal Earth is â0 3. 'T is Called the foundation of nature 4. ibid. It breaks forth to light in some places 51 5 The Earth is a fruit of the water 66 23 The various distinct Pavements of the Earth 94 5 The diversity of Soils in the Earth 688 3 In the last Soil the waâers live 689 Of Earth-quakes 93 2 c. It is alwayes a threatner of punishments 102 33 Ear-wax good for pricking of the sinews 247 Eels bred by Honey and Dew c. 478 37 1026 65 Of the virtue of the Liver and Gaul of an Eele 304 46 An informative Similâ of an Eg. 45 12 113 10 The prayse of Elecampane 703 10 Of the Elements 48 The two Elements Water and Air untransmutable 65 7 69 1 Their co-mixture no constitutive principles of bodies 134 24 Elements do not fight nor have contrariety 168 They Cannot destroy each other 1048 16 Electrum of Paracelsus against Inchantments 65 Elixir proprietatis and its prâparation 574. Elixir proprietatis not made without the Liquor Alkahest 813 Of the Embrio of a Bull-Calf its use 883 Of Endemicks 188 Endemical things are drawn in by breathing 189 7 The Progress of Endemical things 191 13 The Epitaph of an Emperour 528 Of the Ephialtes or night-Mare from what stirred up 299 15 Epilepsie whence stirred up 114 17 Erisipelas its Cure 475 29 114 17 Essence what it is 414 76 81 And in some things not so effectual when separated ibid. 78 Eve not cursed 654 13 Eve not appointed to bring forth in pain 654 14 Eve destowred in Paradice 666 33 Excrementitiousness whence caused 430 4 Extracts their invalidity 459 12 F. OF the infection of a dead Falcon. 1134 Fasting when easily brooked 24 51 Fever not cured by Phlebotomy 953 A Fever hitherto unknown 935 Thirst in Fevers examined 936 Drink allowed in Fevers 453 â9 902 Caution about their food 454 24 Flesh to be shun'd ibid. Whence Cold and then hot 471 4 973 VVhat the Sunochus Diary and Hectick Fever are 978 Seat of a pâtrid Fever 978 The occassional cause of Fevers twofold 979 980 986 The Cure 987 A Diary and Hectick affect onely the vital Spirit 973 Essence of Fevers discovered 1002 Feverish matter swims not in the Blood 956 The essence of Fevers not from heat 940 The seat of intermitting Fevers 948 The original of Camp-Fevers 1096 The poysonous Excrement in Fevers included in the Midriff 331 25 VVhat a Ferment is 31 24 c. By what continued 1124 Ferments being different do cause different operations 479 48 115 26 No transmutation without it 111 1207 2 Why commanded not to be used 111 1 Its properties c. 112 3 c. The
for children 798 Nurses communicate their vices to children that suck them 7â8 O. OF the insect found in the âake apple 1137 For obstructions  What property opening remedies must have 476 31 Fermental odours produce seminal effects 330  19 The great power of odours in healing 110 44 114 16 19 c 593 Odours of Spices refresh fainting spirits by aspect â85 The odour of Quick-silver turns oyl of Vitriol into Alum 576 1002 Odours beget ferments 149 Odours work on the Archeus 1â3 Putrid odours do not hurt unless married to a mumial ferment 1127 1129 Old age only from a decay of vital powers 799 800. How Opium is said to cool 471 4 Of its operation 218. 170 337 338 309 In what Opium may profit 308. 62 A true preparing of Opium of great benefit to the sick 309. 64 The drowsie evil sleep watching all made in one and the same organ 297. 3 Orifice of the stomach the centre of the body 305. â4 Oyle easily reduâible into water 408. 49 105 3 109 31 Why Chymical oyles are such weak hâlpers 415. 83 480 51 Reducible into volatile salts 415. 84 Their operativeness whân so 480 53 By what ferment oylinesses are made volatile 423 46 Oyl though of Spices nourish not 583 Oyl olive preserves iron from rust 846 A twofold oyl separable in oyl olive 193 6 732 Oyl of Sulphur per Campanam commended for preservation of health 813 P. Palsey what it is 918 Pain where seated 895 Pain of the head from what 339 340 14 Paracelsus his doctrine of separation of Elements rejected 69 403 13 His life 230 3 His cures 802 771 The nature and use of his Arcanums 803 Their names 804 His diligent search commended 402 2 His errour about the salt in man 405 30. 413 74 His errours concerning Tartar 234 236 Paracelsus his doctrine of Tartar sum'd up 231 8 Paracelsus the Monarch of secrets 770 51 His Epitaph 771 53 His errours concerning the plague 1089 The secrets of Paracelsus takes away diseases but reach not the root of life 805 Objections against the solving of Pearls 992 971 The Milk of Pearls its efficacy 479 4â Pepper degenerates into Iuy 770 51 What meant by a Perolede 74 24 Their division c. 75 31 Physitians reproved 7 3. 431 10. 439. 35 What his property is or ought to be 430 1. 455 26 Their success imputed to natures goodness 450 1 Their vanity as to prescriptions of diet 450 2 c. 455 26 Wherein deridable 457 1 The signs of a true Physitian 107 1076 The Author grieved that he learned Physick 1078 Plague begins always about the stomack 600 262 Of what kind the Plague is 1073 The Plague an Infant 1081 The true curing the Plague died with Hippocrates 1082 1083 How the Plague in Egypt varies every seventh year ibid. The Heavens do not produce the Plague 1084 Some Symptomes of the Plague not seen till after death 1089 Plague not Endemieal 1090 Plague not helped by Diaphoreticks 1089 A Plague sent from God despiseth the help of natural remedies 1090 1099 1133 Of a forreign new Plague 1091 Plague collected into two causes 1097 The division of the Plague 1098 1099 The conjoyned causes of the Antients ibid Putrefaction of humours not the cause of the Plague 1100 Triacle and other Antidotes that resist poyson profit little in the Plague 1101 The matter of the Plague what with its progress 1102 1132 The seat of the Plague 1103 Why the Plague is frequent in signes 783 114 1134 Excrements do not cause the Plague ibid. Sweating is profitable in the Plague 1113 1127 Things requisite for the Idea of an imagined Plague 1119 What the fear of the Plague carries with it 1120 The ferment of the Plague 1122 Plague sometime discerned by an Oâuor 1123 Of the form and matter of the Plague 1125 The first matter of the Plague a hoary putrified poyson existing in the Gas of the earth 1126 1127 Plague sometimes riseth from within sometimes from without 1127 1138 1140 The image of the Plague consists in an Archeal air 1128 Why the Symptomes of the Plague are different ibid. The poyson of the Plague more cruel than that of Serpents 1129 What Antidotes against the Plague serve for 1129 The matter and agent of the Plague have the same specifical Iâentity 1130 The Plague comunicated by an unsensible contagion 1131 The property of the Plague 1132 The signs of the Plague 1136 Doubtful signs of the Plague removed 1139 The quality of a preservative against the Plague 1141 114â Amulets attain preheminence as well in the cure as preserving from the Plague 1142. Toad profitable against the Plague 1149 Toad a Zenexton against the Plague 1150 How he comes to cure the Plague 1152 1153 Hippocrates his manner of curing the Plague 1155 1156 Hippocrates his remedy against the Plague recovered one in six hours 1157 Several observations about the Plague 1158 Carline Tââstle profitable in the Plague 1160 Phlegm made of the Latex 1042 Phlegm not in the blood 1043 Phlegm not at all rightly distinguished by the Schools 1050 Pimples and swellings in the face their cure 252 16 Pleurisie its seat 437 25 Specificks for it 458 5 Phlebotomy hurtful in a Pleurisie 956 394 8. 396 16 Pleuriâie suddenly cured by sweat 378 39 A definition of a Pleurisie according to the Schools 392 1 The Schools defects in the Pleurisie 393 Of the Original and progress of a Pleurisie 395 13 A Remedy for a Pleuriâie how it ought to be gifted 396 17 Peripneumonia and Pleuriâie differ neither in their occasional cause nor remedy 397 27 The Thorn in the Pleurisie chiefly to be minded 398 31 The Cure 399 32 Poisons Why the body swells when poisoned 427 72 Their great vertue when prâpared 465 46 What poisons chiefest for medicine when prepared 474. 28 The variety of poisons as to their preperty and operativeness 475 30 What they operate by 479 47. 158 159 1123 Of the poison of the Meazels 742 The Ferments of poisons never duly weighed by the Schools 1124 1125 The Snake a Remedy against poison 1157 Prayer of silence what it demonstrates 311 6. 313 1â The preparation of the Praecipiolum of Paracelsus 521 Two Principles and no more 31 23 What the Principles of nature and the principles of bodies of are 44 7. 409 51 The first rise of the Doctrine of three principles 403 6 A principle of the Schools condâmned 45 8 152 20 Of the different properties of places 724 Measuring of pulses 178 13 16 The framer of pulses 179 23 Pulsation how made 180 28 The ends of the pulses 181 29 185 The necessity of pulses hitherto unknown 182 33 What a hârdened pulse doth betoken 185 50 What the use of pulses are 187 57 Purges condemned 3 9. 961 What property they opârate by 477 33 What the property of a true one is 466 50. 477. 33 525 Putrefaction promotes the odours of some things 414 18 It destroyes others 161 16 Why
ibid How the Antients remedies may profit though not cure the stone 708 Why an expulsion of the stone is not to be intended 709 The quality of a remedy resolving the stone 710 56 Why stones are sometimes white 248 28 Whence a three-fold stone is made 249 3 Of the Stone 828 The flux of seeds for a stone 829 706 20 After what manner a man is made a stone 833 Of the Coagulum and Runnet of the stone by handicraft operation 840 Salt profitable in the stone 843 Of the occasion of the stone 857 Of the womb of the stone 866 Its Scituation 867 The pain of the stone from a contracture 86 Of the intention to cure the stone 701 15 874 Its cure 878 879 With testimonies thereof ibid. Of the manner of ministring a remedy for the stone 883 Of the stone that maketh gold its projection 674 58 751 807 The stone that maketh gold hath not the blessings of the tree of life 807 Sulphur only resists a fermental poyson 1158 In Sulphur is the life and death of bodies 66 14 Sulphur boiled in Linseed oyl 427 70 In oyl of Turpentine 515 The whole band of diseases hearken to some Sulphurs 577 260 39 The Sulphur of Copper hot stupefactive yet sweeter then honey 304 39 How floures of Sulphur profit those that have a Cough 309 94 Sulphur commended against the Plague 1154 Of the Gas of Sulphur 1155 The Sun scorcheth without pain 72 14 Is hot 74 23 139 41 794 The gifts of the Almighty are placed in the Sun 796 Sugar hurtful in most diseases 462 30 Loaf-Sugar not so good as the common 467 57 Swooning from the Stomack 302 303 27 What that Sweat is that accompanies death and Swoonings 42 What the Synovia is 842 389 20 Of Sympathetical Mediums 616 The cause of Sympathy 775 68 Of the Sympathy and Antipathy of things 1114 T. TAst in the midriff 909 Tartar its distillation 412 68 427 68 183 39 Why salt of Tartar dissolves crude Tartar 234 19 How Tartar is made 233 No disease ariseth from Tartar 235 1 Tartar not in foods 241 8 Tartar afâââ digestion in the stomach ceaseth to be a Tartar 242 243 Tartar not in drinks 250 7 Of the Tartar of the blood 1103 Of the original of the Tarantual 1509 The poyson of the Tarantula 787 148 What thirst is and whence 471 8 Thorn in the flesh how cured 521 Of thunder 90 17 A preservation against its effects on Beer c. 91 21 The seat of the Timpany and by what it is made 520 Why Tin is lighter than other Metals 107 20 The Toad commended against the Plague 1149 How prepared for that use 1150 How it kils the Ferment of the Plague 1151 How quickly he dies with fear Ibid. The Toad given by God as a Remedy for the poor against the Plague 1152 The bone of a Toad cures the tooth ach Tooth-ach whence caused 438. 30 247 Of the original of the tooth-stone 246 Of the flourishing and decaying of teeth 247 25 How the Transmutation of bodies is effected 115. 23 The tree of good and evil why forbidden 656 664 665 666 680 Of the tree of life 745 753 754 755 Tree of life what qualities it ought to have 808 The Cedar tree doth signifie the tree of life in this world 810 Of the preparation of the Cedar tree 811 V. VAlerian good against Inchantments 605 All Vegetables not woody contain a winie spirit 413. 73 Their Archeus hath no anatomical affinity with man 458 5 Their whole property from their seed and not from the heaven Ibid. 7 Their degrees whence different 146 88 Why vegetables unprofitable to the sick 578 Vervain commended 605 Venal blood wholly turned into nourishment 257 13 Venal blood never putrifies in its place 941 The natural endowment of the veins 942 An example Ibid. Vesicatories more hurtful then Phlebotomy 968 Vital spirit is salt 195. 19 733 734 Made of Arterial blood 196 24 732 By the ferment of the heart 733 Actuated by a vital light 734 The virgin earth 689 The Author instructed by visions 22 42 His vision of the soul 726 A vision of a Layick concerning the Lues venerea 1904 The spirit of vitriol reduced into an Alum by its dissolution of Mercury 473. 21 The dignity of the sulphur of venus and the nativity of vitriol 889 The best vitriol where to be had 891. 695 15 How vitriol may be made Ibid. The preparation of the Sulphur of vitriol 339. 9 Unguents how applicable 47 58 Ulcers their principal vice where seated ãâã 18 21 23 Of the Difference of Ulcers 321. 29 The cure of Ulcers 322. 31 323 35 Volatile things fixed by fixed things  Volatiolation caused by ferments 117. 33 To provoke Urine in lingring fevers 465. 46 VVhat true provokers are 473. 19 476 31 Urinary salt made by the kidnyes 473. 19 Observations on distilled urine 847 Of the various actions of the spirit of urine 864 Urine-vessels not enlarged by drink but by the stone 708. 41 42 Urine not an excrement of the Kidneys 257 11 Of the division of vrines 1051. 1 Of the errours in the circle of urine 1052. 4 What the circle in the urine is demonstrated 1052. 5 What the yellownesse in urine may signifie 1053. 9 Watery urines after yellow ones signifie dotages 1054 VVhat a troubled urine signifies 1056. 26 VVhat the litle cloud in the urine may signifie 1054. 20 Of the several sediments of urine 1056 Examinations of urine by weight Ibid W. WArts how cured 141 55 154 VVater the material cause of things 32. 31 105 3. Proved so by an experiment 48. 11 109 30 Likened to the internal Mercury of Metals 65. 8 Never radically conjoyned with the earth 10 c. The parts of the water 71 8 410 54 What its unrestable appointment is 74. 28 Easily putrefiable under the Equinoctial 116 30 All bodies thereinto reducible 116. 33 The great use of that which comes from the Quellem 117 33 Water doth not always fal in a circular Figure 684. 50 When waters loose their life 689. 9 Waters the womb of seeds 693. 1 Why some waters hurt those that have the stone 251 Wheat changed into mice c. 113. 9 Winds whence generated 730 18 80 14 771 59 What the wind is 78 4 The vanity of the Schools defining it 85. 23 Violent ones how allayed 79. 13 Remedies for windinesse 4â0 28 What causeth it 422. 41 Only in defective persons 424. 54 Some wind in the Ilcon c. Natural and necessary c. 428. 76 Spirit of Wine how reducible into water 69 27 105 9 106 11 VVines hurt by keeping in their Gas 107. 16 Wines profitable to our natures 966 Spirit of wine passeth into the Arteries without digestion 194. 12 731 Cold preserveth wines 232 VVhy wines wax soure 234 15 21 How wines become troubled 773 62 The labor of wisdome 184. 45 Of witches and witchcraft 568 The Devil how concerned therein 569. 1
do not cause nor generate For a messenger the Preacher of Wars is not the General or cause of these For if Trigantius the Jesuite tell truth the Plague is unaccustomed unto the most wide and whole Empire of the Chinois and never there seen over which notwithstanding the same Saturn and the same Mars bears rule and that alike powerfully as over us Again if in some Lands the Plague rageth at a certain term of time and returns at fore known stations wherein notwithstanding the Plague in times past was a very great stranger surely it should follow either that those Provinces do not lay under the influences of the Stars or not under the same influences as in times past or that those Plagues are adulterous ones or at leastwise as I deem that they do not proceed from the heaven to wit since there are no consultations of Stars in the same place which do yearly observe set daies of their assemblies For what if the plague in one City destroy the greatest part of mortals truly all providence of the Magistrate shall be in vain if the Neighbouring places that are scituated under the same Meridian or corner of the heaven cannot be preserved untouched And seeing the influx and in-beaming of the stars is most universal how mad soever others may be yet it is not to be believed that plagues can have an influence from the stars of heaven unto designed places Cities and Villages For if the Plague it self should be a pestilent influx of the stars or a Gas sent down from above unto us or a meer naked quality descending through the ayr which comes unto us without that body it shall also be either conceived in the stars or generated in the ayr Neighbouring on us If the first of these it should of necessity be that all the corners of the world should be infected at once unless we suppose a Pipe or Trunk to be directed in the ayr and thorow the ayr from the heaven even unto us and that an unmoved one by which also and not otherwise the pestiferous ayr bringing down the smoakinesses and defilements of the stars is conveyed unto us For since the distance of the stars from the earth is of many thousands of Diameters of the earth it is not to be thought that any smoakiness of a star can reach safe unto this Center and lesse unto some Province thereof but that it can infect the whole compass of the Earth and Sea with a universal gore at once it supplying the space and room of one the least Center or Point Therefore if the Earth be like unto the least point hitherto have those things respect which I have elsewhere spoken concerning the Region of the ayr through which neither winds nor dew or rain do ever run down nor Meteors do play their Tragedies And much less doth any thing flow down perpendicularly out of the depth of the heaven or if it should rain down some Decades or ten-fold numbers of the age of Nestor would not be sufficient before that it could come as a stranger unto us But if the stars do at least dismisse from them a meet and naked quality that quality shall even by so great an interval of place and entertainments degenerate and fail divers times and through the journeying of some yeares and so before it can come unto us it shall have nothing of its former likeness neither could such a quality coming unto us from far infect a certain place unless it be brought by an Angel as it were in a box but if by an Angel now the natural question ceaseth and we vainly make the heavens to be the bringers of the Plague and Sorcerers if an Angel himself be the Plague-carrier who otherwise can bring far more readily the pestilent poyson nigh the earth or into us than that he should bring that with him from the pure and guiltlesse heavens In the next place a pestiferous quality sliding down from heaven if it shall not descend at once in the enclosed air it shall either pass from subject into subject which the Peripateticks and modern Schools refuse or through a thousand shapes of it self and those so often degenerated shall come down from its original unto us as wholly a stranger and so the poyson of the heavens shall be frustrated But if it be supposed to be generated in the Clouds nigh the earth therefore the heaven being free and guiltless is falsly accused For truly I have shewn elsewhere that the heavens do operate only by a motive local Blas and an alterative one of heat and cold but in no wise by poysons because they are those thigns which are only formal properties of sublunary bodies and the fermental ones of some seed I grant indeed willingly that a fiery weapon is now and then seen a fiery weapon to have fallen out of the ayr being darted unto some certain place and that the plague hath sometimes followed thereupon But that prodigy in the first place slideth not out of the deep bosom of the heaven but out of a more nigh Cloud Perhaps Satan the companion of Thunder le ts fly such a weapon where he knows the plague to be sorely threatned from whence he of old snatcht the honours of God unto himself but that weapon is not therefore the cause of the plague otherwise surely at every plague a weapon should from a like necessity be darted forth especially because it is the property of fire to consume the plague and poysons but not to generate them Therefore fire doth never naturally signifie the plague whose destruction it containeth and therefore such a fiery weapon is a most rare monstrous sign sent down by spirits for terrour unto him who shall rest back that weapon for the amendment of his life and truly it is impertinent to our purpose and an exceeding frivolous thing if from thence we note the heaven to be the bringer of the plague For any monstrous signs are uncertain and unfit for the foundation of medicine But if an age or length of time should thrust this pestilent ware into our bosome for so it hath been believed hitherto and they have badly deceived our Gentile Schools with an Epidemical name to what end are there so many writers or what means have been hitherto devised against those importunate influences of the stars For who hath hitherto hindred the marrow from increasing in the bones after the manner of the Menstrues therefore they have falsly accused the heaven Let it seem sufficient for the Schools to have made the heaven the Author of the plague and to have buried their own knowledge under the silence of despair only from the perswasion of ignorance and terrour of fear Therefore the accusing of the heaven doth every where involve a manifest and necessary ignorance But at length after that they have contracted all the strength of their Studies they perswade that places are to be avoided wherein the Plague-stroaks are vigorous that meats full
a falling sicknesse of the lungs 361. 29 368. Common Remedies for the Asthma vain 3623637. The seat of the Asthma in the Duumvirate 361. 28 The Asthma not cured but by an Arcanuââ 362. 40 A moist Asthma from Endemical things drawn in 363. 45 The reasons of the Schools concerning the Asthma rejected 364 53 The grounds thereof 365 366 367 58 A dry Asthma is the Falling-sickness of the Lungs 368. 60 Remedies for Coughs vain in the dry Asthma ibid. VVhat remedies are fit for both kind of Asthma's ibid. 370 68 The âume of Sulphur profitable in drinks for the Asthma 372 77 The Authours intent to have burnt this book 10. 13 His breeding 11. 1078 He Read about 600 Physical Authors 13. 15 How stird up to be a Physitian 14. 20 The way he took to attain knowledg 22. 43 Why he brake down the old received doctrines 37. 3 433 18. His persecution 470. 2 His dream Ibid. 3. 1073 His challenge 526 The Authors observations on his stomach being loaded 123. 41. His visions 265. 13 716 His vision of generation 736 His medicines never Exhausted though he cured thousands yearly 1080 What happened to the Author upon the rasting of Wolfsbane 274. 12 The Author understood wholly in his heart but not at all in his head 275. 13 The Authors search into the cause of Madnesses 277. 25 The Authors diââinctions of the office of a Physitian and a Chyrurgion 1080 How the Author was hurt with the smoak of Char-coale 300. 20 How two of the Authors sons died of the Plague 1135 Of the search of the Author after the Tree of life 808. Of his dream 810 How the Author cured himself of a Pleuriâie 399. 35 400 B. BAlsams c. made with hony 467. 56 Barrenness from what 630 The Beard bred from the stones 333 38 334 41 335 47. Concerning Bezoar 991 The great vertue of its milkie juice 992 Beâs generated from a strangled calf and dew 478. 1026 65 Of the virtues of the Birch tree 892 The Blas of the heart the fewel of the vitaâ spirit 180 Blas of Government hitherto unknown 330. 19 20 21 22. The Binsica of the Rabbins 24. 51. The Blas of man voluntary 177. Blas twofold Ibid. What Blas is 78. 1. Defluxions of the Bladder Ridiculus 856 The venal blood exhales without any dead head 404. 21 112 5 182 34. It s salt made by a mumial ferment 473. 19. What operation precedes blood-making 479. 49. How it nourisheth 112. 4. Out-chased blood the occasional cause of the dropsie 517. Blood never putrifies in the veins 941. Blood-making not hindred in the dropsie 517. Blood of the hemeroyds not putrified 943. Blood of a Bull why poysonable 174 49 783. 19. Of the difference between Arterial and venal blood 179. The spirit of the blood not in the liver 181. 32. The Arterial blood exhales without any Caput mortuum 182. 34. By what 185. 40. The making of venal and Arterial blood are different 732 In what time the Bloud of man is renewed 640 The best part of the Bloud the Schools calâ Phlegm 1050 23 An eâstatial power in the Bloud 777 75 Bloudy Flux cured by Horse-hoof fried 334 41 Of things cast into the Body 597 With the manner thereof 604 Of things breathed into the Body 617 A solid Bâdy not changed into another Body without reducement into its first matter 241 6 Bones broken cured by Comfry 457 5â 461 26 Of the Stone for broken bones 564 Bone of the Head profitable against the Falling-sickness 770 51 The Emunctories of the Brain 435 13 The defects of the Brain âise from the Midriff 276 19 Of Bread 451 14 White Briony resolves congealed bloud and profits in the Dropsie 519 Butler 557 His wonderful Stone 558 Butler cured the Plague 1149 And by what 1151 Buboes and Glandules terminated by sweat 1104 Burial of Malefactors why nâcessary 1134 Why slain Souldiers ought to be buried deeper than usually they are 1135 C. IN what respect Camphor is said to cool 471 4 The Cabal first manifest in sleep 781 98 99 What each mans Calling properly is 124 36 A new Catheter 886 Of the operation of Cantharides in thâ living and the dead 480 60 The original of a Cancer 544. its progress and Cure 545. 546. 158 A Canker in the Stomach cured by a fragrant Emplaister 115 22 A Cancer curable by a reduced Frog 141 Â 56 c. Of a Country mans curing the Cancer 546 Catarrhs or rheums proved ridiculous 429 430. c. Cauteries what 380. 1 The promises of a Cautery childish 381. 6 Nine conclusions against the appointment of Cauteries 382 10 A Cautery prevents not a Catarrhe 384 Â 14 The benefit of Cauteries accidental 384 20 Whom a Cautery may profit 383 28 29 Causticks act not on the dead as on the living 499 170 No nutriment from Clysters 479 49 Cliââers unprofitable 969 The prayse due to Chastity 682 Why Cheese loathsom to many 115 25 Chewing food well necessary 4â3 â1 Child-birth hastened by a Potion 127 49 Black Choler according to Hippocrates subsisting in the Midriff if dispersed thorow the Body begetteth the Falling-Evil if into the Soul madnesses 29â 15 What the Choler of the Schools is 454 22 How it is made 1045 Choler wholly an Excrement 1048 16 The bitterness of the mouth not from Choler 1060 The Seat of Choler not be found 1053 No Choler in Nature 1054 The Incarnation of Christ not according to the order of Nature 665 Chymistry commended 462 32 It creates things which not before were c. Â 477. 36 486 What one of its chiefest endeavours is 115. 17 It prepares a universal Dissolver 482 Chymical Medicines adulterated by the cavetous 990 The degrees of Chymical heat 202 35 Of that Cinnabar whereof half an ounce Impregnates a Barrel of Wine 578 Whence the yellowish Spittle of Consumptive Persons proceeds 440 39 What a Consumption is 449 63 The remedies thereof 441. 43 Of diseasie Conceptions 608 Thirteen conclusions from fire pepper and causticks proved by Handicraft-operation 500 The power of Cold as to reduction of Bodies into water 108 29 109 38 Coughs whence 430 5 259 â3 Purging in Coughs condemned 431 9 No true Remedies found for Coughs 260 Â 37 Pose the fore-runner of a Cough 569 67 Remedies for a Cough the same with a Pleurisiâ 570 68 Concerning Coral 991 719 The virtue of its Tincture 605 Coral by what it changeth its colour and is restored by 1143 Coraline Secret what 390 25 805 Its preparation Ibid Crabs Eyes 991 Their milkie juyce 992 Observations on Crabs 886 Their virtues in wounded persons 294 295 The ashes of burnt Crabs against the madness occasioned by a Dog 297 15 Cramps cured by mans fat 480 58 What the Crasis of a thing is 415 82 The right way of curing 473 14 D. THe virtues of Daucus 837 Of desperate Diseases 307 53 A description of desire 270 Contemplation of Diseases 530 Difference between death and