as we may observe in all superiour things which are free from Excrements but inferiour Bodies are otherwise for they lie in the midst of the impure Excrements of this World which naturally destroy and mortifie their Guests whereas purity enlivens and conserves corruptions and mortifications surround men because of the multitude of Dregs and Excrements they are infested with which make them live a short and miserable life as loaden with Aerumnies and Diseases so that they are here detained as a guilty Malefactor in an obscure filthy Prison who being dubious betwixt death and hope of Life lies there obduced with moldiness infested with vermine and nourished with immund and corrupt meats for all Aliments are impure and carry with them an Executioner to wit hidden poyson whence we at length take our own death in our own hands and spontaneously kill our selves seeing our Aliments have so little of enlivening and nourishing vertue in them and that so closely enveloped with Excrements that the digestion of the stomack though strong can scarce attract it now we eating such meats do ingest poyson with the good substance which entring our Bodies ceases not to be augmented and accumulated till it obscure and extinguish the vital Light or rather Natures legitimate Action which is Vivification unless some Medicine or Separation retard or suspend it Corruption then is induced by Excrements and it may happen two ways either from the Parents Seed who being not well and by consequence corrupt produce corrupt Seed degenerating more from Generation to Generation but this is so far subject to Medicinal Corruption as that by help thereof the course of its activity towards Mortification may be stayed or retarded This Corruption may not improperly be called that Malevolent Satan who goes about continually seeking whom he may devour for which cause this wanders about the Terrestrial Globe or the Excrements of the World which have their principal seat on the Earth which also eructate their Corruption upon other Elements and thus Men living of them and in them are corrupted in them and by them and so they produce corrupt Seed which time renders more and more corrupt for our age being more vitious and dissolute then that of our Ancestors hath rendered us worse then they and the next its probable will be worse then us and the next more dissolute still The second rise of Corruption is from the continual use of too too excrementitious Aliments by which our Bodies are depraved so that this infection will pass from the Parent to the Son as we see in the Leprosie and other hereditary Diseases Now these Aliments deduce their Corruption from the place where they are generated for after the Almighty Creator had disposed the confus'd Chaos he so ordered that the superiour Bodies should remain pure and subtile but the inferiour gross and impure because it is the Nature of pure substances to ascend to the place of their origine but of Excrements to descend to the Centre And hence it is That that which is pure in Animals and Vegetables is elevated and ascends highest and makes them ascend increase with it till it be freed from the Excrementitious Mass which subjects it to mortal Corruption and that it may attain the place that is remotest from Excrements and live without alteration or spot for the same cause also more spiritual and subtile Creatures inhabit in higher places as being purer and finding their Aliments more convenient and like their natural substance but such as are coporal inhabit lower places where they are immerged in dregs and filth that have their place in lower parts whence they are corrupted by that of which they live which is mixed with mundane Dregs for whatever the Earth and other Elements which are the Receptacles of impurities can produce is corrupt and maculated and therefore induces corruption and defilement upon all Bodies that use it for Aliment And thus Blood acquires an ill disposition which afterwards beget ill humours but in some more in others less according to the inquinated state of the Parents and the abuse of the corruptive things which cause mortality and destruction for if the Earth and the Fruits thereof were as pure as the Heavens all Animals would live as long as the Celestial Incolists But Nature hath ordained this for a Law That that partakes more of corporeity should dwell about that that 's most corporeal and that which is more corruptible and inquinated about that that 's likest to it but the Earth is lowest of Bodies and therefore most gross and corruptible Nothing therefore can proceed from it but what is like it unless its corruption and impurity be stayed by the Art of Separation and all its pure substance extracted from its Body which a true Philosopher may by industry effect It never was nor yet is my intent to offend Physitians to whom I owe much honour yet I with many learned men admire they do not better instruct Apothecaries that they may be more curious in preparing Medicaments whilst themselves may observe how oft they have been frustrated in success when they proceed after the vulgar manner for they will cure and restore sick and weak Bodies by offering them a great deal of Pottage wherein there is yet so much impurities and gross dregs that very little pure substance wherein the curative faculty consists remains which is so immerged in their Poyson that they have no power against the Disease neither can Nature help their operation for she is subdued in this conflict by the impurity of the Remedy on the one side and the cause of the Disease on another which is all one as if a Man should drive away Corruption by corrupted corrupting means which is impossible for Rain never dries up Rivers nor Fire extinguish a Flame nor yet Corruption expel Corruption They also attempt the Restauration of their Patients debilitated strength by Aliments of easie digestion which they think partake of little impurity and so are not subject to Corruption never considering That this way cannot much profit them for though they use very choise Aliments yet are they not of much advantage because they are indued with no action or power that can either exterminate or lessen the morbifical causes but onely refulciate their miserable lives almost ruined by weakness never freeing them from death unless that Nature spontaneously arise and oppose the mortal Machinations of her Enemies or else the Patient seek help from some exquisite Medicament brought by some perite Artificers industry to supernatural purity and perfection which being free from Corruption may restore the pristine vigour and by this means eradicate the cause of the Disease for every true Medicament should effect two operations to wit purge from Corruption and restore lost Strength and in this the whole Basis and Art of Medicine consists though the lesser of the two parts is onely in use to wit Purgation the more excellent to wit Restauration being wholly abolished
one may be conserved and the other not destroyed and seeing the Spirit and Substance were included in a Body and the Body immerged in corruption it was impossible that corruption should act upon and prevail over the Body and yet the Spirit placed in both should be kept free and incur no danger but rather that with the Body it should yield to deaths Tyranny which alwayes intends Natures destruction and the prostitution of all individuals which thing needs no proof but appears sufficiently manifest from the natural and sometimes the immature end of Animals Vegetables and Minerals which we see every day by their corruption when the Body being dead the Spirit must undergo the same fortune that is the vertue that enlivened it is annihilated but because the prime Opificer would be admirable in all his works of his meer goodness and love to Mankinde who from the beginning he predestinated to be the Instrument of his Glory and to whom he subjected whatever was admirable in the Creation for his Commodity I say he gave certain expedient Remedies whereby he might not onely purifie and perfect the things created but also preserve and arm himself against the assaults of mortal corruption Knowing then that the two parts of Man were one created in another to wit the Spirit in the Body and that the Body would be continually infected by corruption and by sensuality drawn and allured to intemperance which infers the true corruption and weakning of all the members he foresaw that the Spirit inhabiting like a Guest in the Body could not be exempted from its contagious depravation and we ordinarily see That Men given to excess of intemperance and sensuality accustom themselves to ill manners and take liberty in all corruption both of Minde and Spirit neither regarding Love nor Fear to God Honor or Respect to the World nor Piety to themselves nor Charity towards their Neighbours So that it is impossible if they be thus bound to inquinations in death but their Spirits must undergo punishment as they have participated of pleasure Seeing moreover all mankinde by the fall of our first Parent obnoxious to death and thence every Man inevitably to incur total destruction and perdition he mitigated or rather redintegrated this Misery by an admirable Remedy far exceeding our capacity for knowing Man by his Spirit and his Body to participate of Heaven and of Earth the Remedy also he made to partake of Heaven and Earth which is competible solely to our onely Lord Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ who descended from Heaven into the Earth and by a mystery incomprehensible by us and common sense was miraculously made Man without the abdication of his God-head because our health could not come from Earth alone corruption reigning there but it was necessary that the Water should come from above where the Fountain of purity is he therefore came down that he might dwell in us and with us and conclude us within the terms of justice and temperance regenerating us to newness of life by the mutation of our Spirit and Body and mortifying in us our corruptions and sins and restoring us to the study of purity of vertue which could not have been effected save by him alone the extream of both Natures for he is God-Man that he might conjoyn superiour with inferiour things which were dis-joyned by the incomparable distance of life and death purity and corruption The Earth doubtlesly received this inestimable treasure far exceeding its merit by a medium that cannot be comprehended from which he again ascended into Heaven by the Water of purification and Fire of the Spirit without accidents and corporal passions though he deposed not his Body but retained it incorruptible and glorious having acquired immortality by death who shall again descend from his Fathers right-Hand into the Earth after the Universal conflagration to renew the World and make a Separation betwixt the good destined to life and the evil condemned to death See now how well the Omnipotent Father the Father of all compassions consulted for Mans good to whose Body joyned with his Soul he gave an equal Preserver whom he sent from Heaven that he might be born on Earth and whom by the light of Nature we ought to seek Seeing Man was therefore endued with Reason and Judgement that he might acknowledge and comprehend his great gifts but Man created heavenly for the indagation of this benefit as too forgetful of his birth lays out that noble and divine Light within him in searching out frivolous and transitory vanities and not in the pursuit of solid wisdom and verity Briefly he had rather follow the inclination of his Terrestrial Geniture then Divine and Celestial Wisdom which he neglects as a thing indifferent and casually sent to him from above Wherefore the Root of Mankinde is as it were extinguished before it grow out except some few who have had better Stars and more favourable Aspects in their Nativity they desiring the possession of transitory goods more then the attainment of Divine and precious Gifts which our fecund Mother Nature hath publickly and in all places fixed for the conservation of life hurt rather then helped by their abundance immerged in mortal corruption And it is apparent That those that are of a higher Spirit though they look upon the fulgour and splendor of those Mundane Riches as no way despicable yet they will not rest in this surface but seek to Divine Vertue occluded in the Centre which hath indeed been cause of great errors both in Medicine and Philosophy to such as destitute of true light groape at and in the dark pass by both Recalling then my mind to the clear light by whose guidance we may attain that salutary and best remedy which God ordained particularly for the conservation of mankinde and for the obtaining of Celestial benediction I shall endeavor with all humility and requisite sincerity not as a Divine but as a Disciple of Wisdoms followers to adumbrate my conceptions in a rude style which the lovers of verity may accept gratefully if they finde them rational and pleasing I say then that all understanding communicated to any man from man alone is uncertain and confused because man is ordinarily loaden with ignorance and slow resolutions but that which he receives from the univerial Light is clear and immoveable For to know absolutely is to understand a thing by its first causes and there is no certitude in second causes till we come to their original wherefore we cannot know the Nature of a Species unless we foreknow its Genus neither can we know the Nature of Microcosmes which are almost infinite unless we first find out the Nature of the Macrocosme that gives them being Man likewise cannot be known without the precedent cognition of the world whose effigies he is nor yet the great world unless we know whence and how it was made For how shall one know a man whose principle is nothing but a small deformed mucilage
Distinction and Ornament of which I will say no more because it appertains onely to Nature not to Art the other is made by Decision or Division which I shall now explicate I said before That all things consist of two parts Excrement and Substance Substance is of it self simple and indivisible whether we take it general for the first Universal matter or in particular for any species according to the impression of the Celestial Idea which is infinite This Substance or first Matter in every species of compounded Bodies is one in essence vertue and quality and in one and the same subject one part cannot be of one species and another of another but in Excrements it is otherwise for the better understanding whereof I will lay the following Rule That there are but two means or mediums for the compleating of all Separations to wit Fire and Water and there are but two things separable in Bodies the one whereof is separated by Fire the other by Water In the first place it is indubitable That the Nature of Fire is such as it destroyes and consumes all that is combustible and of Water such as it washes and cleanses all substance from its impurity that commaculates it Fire devours all that 's volatile and of an Airy quality because it is its proper nutriment but Water divides all that 's Terrestrial and gross Betwixt these two extremes then there must be some intermediate disposition which should be kept and conserved containing nothing that 's combustible or impure in it which may be subjected to these two Warriers And it is manifest That Adustion and Dregs are the two Corrupters and Destroyers of all things which Divine Hippocrates was not ignorant of when he said That all Diseases proceed either from the Air or Aliments insinuating that the excess of excrementitious Aliments are apt to receive corruption and Excrements by Fire exceeding natural heat are the inflaming and corrupting causes of each Disease for the Excrements of Aliments fill Bodies with Terrestrial impurities and inflammable Air generates sulphureous and adust matter which easily conceiving hot ardours consumes and dissipates what is radical and vital with it self carrying it away because the greater part of it is volatile the less adustive Dregs then and Adustion are the two Authors of corruption and those that hinder the vigour of substantial actions in all things And if we require any Arguments to prove this the stink of Digestion and Excrements demonstrates it for that same sented in things that are burned speaks little of good to be there The same is also evident in the fumes of Excrements which stinking Bodies emit for those suppose corruption and besides the corruption they generate they also cause these two inconveniences the one is the hindrance of Penetration the other of Fixation which two actions are absolutely necessary for the conservation of life for that which nourishes and supports life must needs be subtile that it may by its subtile parts penetrate Bodies and like a secret Balsam roborate and augment the light of life in the centre of the Body for if it were gross it would rather obstruct suffocate and extinguish then penetrate and pass through such narrow ways and because on the other side it conserves life in its state it should in reason be a stable and no fluxible thing for if it were volatile we might every moment expect death lest it should be introduced by the corruption generated by feculent adustion which continually layes wait for our life Grosness then hinders Ingress and Adustion Stability Hence we may take a good admonition for Medicine to wit that every true Medicament introsumed for the restoring of strength and profligating the cause of instant death should have two properties to wit to pierce to the centre of sanity and preserve the centre by dilating and deducing it through the whole Body which the Ancients with good success revoked to practise and not many yeers ago the too much hated Paracelsus who explained their operations to posterity which were so long kept secret and let him that will affirm the contrary I doubt not to aver That nothing without the operation of Fire can be brought to purity and stability which two parts must be chiefly observed in making Medicaments to which Assertion this valid Reason draws me That no body in its first original and form can be truely Medicinal as immerged in the corruption of its excrementitious Dregs because it cannot attain the place seat of sanity nor yet preserve sanity because it wants subtilty to penetrate and fixedness requisite to the Restauration of what is corrupt and lost and the conservation of what is restored which cannot possibly be attained by the common way of preparation neither in substance nor in infusion the impossibilty hereof in substance appears in that such do not purge without violence which causes rather perilous weakness then salutary Restauration and as to infusions nothing can thereby be extracted out of simples but a little introsity which is innate in all Bodies with a little of their excrementitious Dregs Hence infusion attracts not the internal vertue but onely the external sapour of things which in their centre is quite different from that in their superficial matter for commonly we see all infusions are bitter which we are forced to obdulcorate with Sugar or Honey because most Apothecaries are not so industrious as to extract the natural sweetness wherein the Nature of the things consists from the things they infuse for all bitterness proceeds from Salt which hath sweetness at the bottom which cannot be extracted by simple infusions but by Fire onely and ingenious Artifice this sweetness being the very perfection of the Medicine Hence Arnoldus de villa nova saith That if you know how to dulcorate what is bitter you have the whole mystery Which Brucestus was not ignorant of as appears by his Dialogue entituled Demogorgon But this occult sweetness can never be manifested unless it be quite freed from Terrestrial Excrements and volatile and Aereal Adustion for the earthiness thereof gives it its extraneous sapour arising from the Excrements of Salt from whose variety according to the species and place wherein they are generated the diversity of sapours doth arise for all sapour comes from Salt and by how much there is more Salt by so much is the sapour more intense And on the other side that which is volatile and Aery begets ill and non-natural odours which send out a stinch which we perceive in their burning because of the combustion and inflammation of the unctuous Sulphur and that volatile matter is an Excrement is apparent from the stinking fumes of Bodies that are burning whence smoak proceeds that adhering to the Chimney or other part which afterward retain the odour of the burnt Bodies and the bitterness of the Excrements of Salt And this is yet more manifest by that blackness and obscurity which this fume impresses on all things it
calls the Spirits Nurse by the Mediation of the Air in whose Belly he shall be carried because the Celestial Influences cannot be communicated to the Earth unless the Air which is like an Intercessor carry them to it and as the Divine Restorer and Protector of our Souls in the assumption of humane Flesh deposed nothing of his Divinity so saith he the Universal Spirit shall retain and keep all its Vertue entire when it is turned into Earth that is when it assumes a Terrestrial Body God also willed his own Son and our Redeemer in his assumed Humanity be as it were regenerated by and with the Water of Baptism and Fire of the Holy Spirit not that he needed any such purgation but because he was to converse with Men contaminated with corruption that he might in all things yield himself an example of Renovation and Purification giving Men a visible and ample Testimony That according to the Flesh he was of the same Nature with them not contaminated or corrupted but obnoxious to passion and equally mortal as they In like manner our fecund Mother Nature willed her first-born though pure in his Centre That he should be regenerated by Water and Fire that is by Separation of the Terrestrial from the fiery part the spisse from the subtile and the impure from the pure which Hermes also aimed at when he said That the Earth should be separated from Fire for what God hath conjoyned Man should not separate but onely the impure and gross from the subtile and pure by Fire And besides this Sense which first offers it self to our Intellects there is yet another more occult meaning for seeing by the Separation of Earth from Fire he means that that 's gross from that that 's subtile he seems to hint that we should separate the natural qualities of these two Elements by detracting the moist frigidity mixt with heavy Terrestrial things without which that cold cannot subsist and by putting on hot siccity which is of the Nature of Fire and consequently light and spiritual For which cause he adds That it must ascend from Earth to Heaven that is from imperfection to perfection for Paracelsus calls Fire the Firmament and as nothing can attain perfection unless it first depose its imperfect gross and mortal bark wherein this cold quality abounds the cause of all mortification as heat is of life so also prudent Nature observes this Rule That each subject should sustain and pass the obsure blackness of death and expect the cleer and candid renovation of life and immortality that is impassible essence whereon neither Fire nor corruption hath any power And assuredly the acquisition of this life by death is naturally exercised by all Creatures continually for all Sperm or Seed of Animals is mortified in some Matrix and of Vegetables in the Earth before any specification can be made But if this rule takes place in the members by how much may we more exactly observe and directly imitate it in the head and if the life acquired by mortification be of any duration how much more shall that be perpetual which is principal Jesus Christ taught these things by similitude of a Grain which he says cannot fructifie unless it first die signifying the mystery of his Resurrection which his Death should precede for he willed Death that he might rise to a glorious and perpetual Life therein not onely giving example to men but expressing the whole Idea of Nature That divine and learned Ermite Morienus Romanus who is often quoted by modern and natural Philosophers avers the same of the fixed Grain whereto Nature hath given power to perfect Metals for he saith Unless it putrefie and grow black it cannot be perfected and compleated but returns to nought I have taken liberty to say thus much that I may teach the younger sort how the Creator should be acknowledged by simple Creatures and because the vulgarity of Men begs this knowledge from remoter things acting as they do who seek the perfection of Sciences from the Scholars of the lowest Form whereas they should require it from the best Directors and Doctors I would excite them by these natural conceptions that they would convert the principal endowments of their Souls to the search of the general principle and that in more exquisite things such as impart life and preservation to all mortal Creatures Mortification then necessarily precedes all entrance into life and principally in this Spirit the first-born of Nature when it assumed a Body for else no Man could separate it from Body which hinders its Regeneration to Life and Pacification of its Essence not as though by combustion and destruction it lost its Body in Death nor yet by Putrefaction but so that in Germination the Putrefaction of Seeds annihilates not that which is corporified in them for which cause in the Exaltion of Mercury or the Universal Spirit after the first degree which is made by Separation all that 's corporeal and spiritual becomes volatile because the sublimatory vertue therein overcomes the fixing faculty but the fixed part afterwards retains the volatile with it being helped by the action of heat which augmenting the power of the two nobler Elements destroyes the power of the two weaker which Hermes hints at in a certain Treatise by a plumous Bird detained with a Bird without Feathers And Nicholaus Flumellus by two Dragons one with and another without Wings But that I may not longer fold my self in these Daedalean Labyrinths see we not all Vegetables encrease and elevate themselves upwards by vertue of this volatile Spirit which as I said before would carry them higher towards the place whence it came whereto it hath an appetite but that it is detained by its proper Earth and corporal Mass wherein some fixed matter resides But lest some not sufficiently accustomed to Philosophical terms should think we contradict our selves I will here explicate my self I say then That I mean not by this volatile Spirit that which I before called volatile and separable Sulphur for that is rather the Author of Corruption then Growth but that most simple part of the primaeve vapour which never loses it s subtily whose Nature is to be elevated and tend to perfection for to sublimate is properly and Philosophically no more then to perfect and exalt matters from imperfection to perfection As therefore this Mercury hath an elevable so hath it a stable substance the first is naturally innate in it the second is in its centre or power yet it cannot compass its effect without the help of Art And that I may shew more plainly in what ways Nature proceeds in her operations I think it convenient to add a little about the causes and manner of Fixation Repeating therefore that indubitable Axiome I alledged in the beginning of this Book as perpetually observed in the Worlds Constitution to wit That all that hath life hath also some duration and that nothing is produced under the cope of Heaven which
form whereof it was before and wheresoever it is cast there will be plenty of it always after Not as if it were generated of the Earth but in the Earth through whose parts it creeps extending it self continually by multiplication and vegetation which the Ancients denote by the Serpent which Moses says creeps on the Earth feeds it self on the dust thereof and this caused the Cabalists to call him the prince of Sepulchres because he devours and consumes the Bodies there interred not that dead Bodies or the earth are his aliments but only the seats where he is fed and nourished This is the place where he is moved turned and twines without ceasing whereof Medea admonishes Jason where she says in Epist Heroid Ovidij Pervigil ecce draco squamis crepitantibus horreus Sibilat torto pectore verrit humum Lo here the Dragon with his horrid Scales Doth watch and hiss and plow the very dales Which Rythmes a French Author thus expresses Voy le dragon veillant de fureur sorcene Qui d'escaile crugaten a le corps entourne Dont le gosier sifflant fumee feu deserre Et qui par replis lors va baliant la terre De sa large poitrine en la poudre imprimant Les sineux siallons qu'il trace incessament Behold the scaly swelling Dragon lurking Who always listens with a watchful ear Who knits his brows and never shuts his eyes here But him that sees his cust tongues teeth afrights With horror whose wide throat emits such flames As do infect the Air with blackest fumes Behold his many twinings which he deep Impresses in the earth whilst he doth creep And plough the ground with his broad brest whilst he Returns in the same tract continually I adduce these two Considerations not onely to shew how Mercury must be sought but also to confirme that that which is fixable in it is nothing else but the enlivening essence which fixed in due manner perpetuates and keeps life in all things it enters by its purity expelling Excrements and by its perfection perfecting imperfect things The end of Fixation both natural and artificial is Perpetuation and Conservation which are effected by the Mediation of that Tincture which Mercury acquires by this Fixation for that Tincture is Life and Life is nothing else but that which opens and colours the Body with such a Tincture as shews it to be vital and perishes with its death Nature therefore colours Blood wherein life consists with a red Tincture and when the Blood is clearer and more lively red the Body is more sound fair and vigorous as on the contrary when the Blood is dense black adust with choler or changed into a false colour the Body is pained and sick within and by discoloration gives Testimony thereof without We may observe the same in Vegetables whose lively vigour consists in greenness which being changed we say it is turning or declining towards death The perfection also or imperfection of Metals is discernable by their colours Gold is indued with a magnetical vertue which by the splendent fulgor of its tincture draws man's earth after it in which Nature spends all her forces but leaves the victory to Arts industry which by graduation to the haight which it adds to its natural splendor makes it far more fulgent insomuch that it 's called the Terrestrial Sun An Artist then may exalt the golden colour to the height of obscure redness by which augmentation imperfect Metals in a certain degree may by projection of this artificial Tincture be brought to the height of perfection so that we see this golden colour introduced by Nature into this Metal is onely the way to that redness wherein the completion of perfect Vertue lies for which cause this Metal though far excelling others can communicate no perfection nor conservation to humane Bodies as a thousand Jugglers and Sluggards in Physicks promise by their Sophistical Fusions and Phantastical Confections But if more curious Artists work upon this subject they may make it acquire such a degree of inseparable redness that by the excess of its heat it shall work miracles and yet it shall consume nothing but superfluities and shall conserve and multiply the substance of Bodies though Philosophers say That its heat as much exceeds our common fires as common fires do innate heat in Animals Paracelsus in his Treatise of Tinctures extols that highly which is extracted out of Gold by Spirit of Wine and attributes many singular Vertues to it as also to that that 's made of Antimony and Coral before which he yet seems to prefer the Tincture of Mercury which he says may by perfect Fixation be brought wholly to a Tincture so that it will penetrate Bodies because of its most subtile purity where I think he means not that vulgar but Philosophical Mercury wherein Art perfecting Nature hath wrought these two effects to wit perfect Tincture and compleat Fixation Tincture then in proper locution is the pure substance of things and Body is nothing but an Excrement which is also manifest in that Bodies after the Separation of their Tincture are useless without vertue and corruptible no otherwise then a carcase without life colour or motion Tincture may then be called the scope of Fixation it attaining by its permanency in fire a conservative faculty in those Bodies to which it is applied But the manner of attaining this degree of Fixation in which the Completion of the whole work consists is no other then that fugitive and light things be prudently kept in the Fire that they may be brought into assuefaction with it that they may endure most violent heat And for this cause good Authors commend Patience to their Disciples as proceeding from God but Precipitancy as from the Devil Take this for an infallible Rule That unless Calcination go before nothing can be fixed and that this should be done by conjoyning the fixable Spirit with something of a convenient Nature that may retain it in the Fire of Calcination that by this means it may accustome it to sustain heat by little till it can endure the ultimate augmentation of Fire which infers Fixation And the Reason why we must proceed with such discretion is because if we should too readily precipitate this operation the special Spirituality which is the Mother of this Tincture would flie away and leave the Body without any impression of the tingent Vertue so that a new Spirit must of necessity be given to this dead Head before the desired colour can be introduced which is one of the Secrets of this Chymical Art for it is the Spirit and no other thing that colours by mediation of Fire and this Tincture compleated and exalted in our Mercury should be elevated to the height of perfection that as Hermes speaks it may ascend into Heaven and when it hath sustained all mortal torments receive a new life that is after it hath passed the darksome straits of Putrefaction it may be elevated to
or through sloath or avarice neglected And that these things are thus carried is apparent from certain Potions introsumed which have no other effect but onely to make the Belly laxative or purge out not that matter that causes the Disease but some other Excrement that hath nothing to do with the Disease or else through the ill preparation dispensation or impertinent adaptation of simples cause superfluous evacuations to the ruine of Nature too weak before but now more enervated both by reason of vacuity which it abhors above all things and also by reason of violent motion caused by such Purges And thus they rather procure Death then Sanity for Nature can no more endure violent motion then vacuity and she is very impatient of these two her sworn Enemies which attempt so evidently her destruction And for this cause common Medicine seldom cures obstinate Diseases by their Compositions as they commonly prepare them and if amongst many any one be cured this happens not because of Pills Boles and Potions but of the strength of Nature which is able to overcome the impure quantity mixed with these remedies and extract something out of their pure substance commodious for its subsidy or else because the poysonous quality of these excrementitious and corruptive things is rejected and expelled by Nature which is of that power that it carries with it some portion of the peccant humour which is like to it by attraction and sympathy And thus an extraneous Medicament impugning the Body moves Nature which provoked and prepared to resist this her Enemy rejects and violently impugnes what is contrary to her And now if a Medicament should always be convenient and not contrary to Nature it should be purged from its poyson that is from its excrementitious Mass Wherefore a Medick should first chuse such things as are convenient for and hold sympathy with Man's Body and free them from their impurities or at least chuse such as contain in them the general vertue or innate purity which Purification cannot be effected till the impure and noxious be separated and destroyed and the pure restored which lay buried and suffocated under the Excrements But it being none of my Profession to make Medicaments I will not further treat of this business but will return into the way whence I have a little swerved I say therefore Seeing there is no inferiour thing but that 's infected with Poyson immerged in Excrements and buried in Dregs that cause its mortification and hinder the liberty and action of its legitimate substance Nature is constrained by a certain necessity to make use of Separation which is effected by division of the pure from the impure the subtile from the gross and the salutary from the destructive part But because this admirable Agent works her operations in darkness labouring in bodies by a secret digestion she never exceeds simple perfection for hereto onely is her power extended whence corporal Elements being not able to conduce to the highest degree of their proprieties the Bodies wherein they are included Philosophers prudently endeavour to separate their substance from their corruptive Mass and after this Separation in Natures way to wit by Digestion and Sublimation to carry them to the highest degree of purity getting them by Regeneration a new form taking away their former Nature Qualities and Proprieties and changing their impure Bodies into Spirits full of purity their moisture and cold into dryness and heat practising and effecting this not onely in some species or simples but in the great Body of the World also which is our Universal Spirit for unless the Universal Nature of all things be renewed it is impossible to bring it to a state of incorruption Regeneration then is the first Fruits of Separation but as a Grain can of it self generate nothing unless it die and putrefie in the Earth so it is impossible any thing should be renewed or regenerated save by precedent mortification Mortification then is the first step to Separation and the onely tract to that end for as long as Bodies remain in their old Corruption and origine Separation cannot reach them unless putrefaction and mortification lead the way which also our Lord Jesus divinely taught saying Unless that a Man like a Grain of Corn die he cannot acquire life incorruptible not as if he meant that life incorruptible should be acquired by death corporal for then impious and wicked Men by dying would attain Beatitude with the Good and Just but he meant that the old Man should die that is mortifie and separate his old Corruption from him which he attracted from the Seed of his first Parents And this Corruption is properly intemperance and excess introduced by the eating of the forbidden Fruit by which Death entred the World and since which Man ceased not to die because afterwards the Earth and all it produced were infected by the Poyson of the fraudulent Serpent hidden in their Aliments whose enticements led Man to transgression and to the eating of Fruit wherein death was included And this corrupting Serpent is he that I call Satan who creeping and without ceasing going about the Earth mixes his Poyson therewith and with all things it produces to wit Animals Vegetables and Minerals with intent to infect the World with his Poyson and tyrannize over Man Upon this intemperance and excess in diet a privation of Vertue followed for Vice is nothing but a neglect of what is just and justice is a temperate desire and continual progress to good This intemperance then and excess must die in us because it generates all kinde of sin in us and stimulates us to malice and impiety and therefore we are injoyned to live soberly and shun gluttony and drunkenness the true Authors of all carnal lusts and that we fast often to extinguish those internal flames which move our Sences and burn our Blood to Corruption The Anatomists of Man know that Man is twofold the one Celestial and immortal the other Terrestrial and corruptible and the first is as a Sojourner the second as a Prisoner But here arises a great Question How it comes to pass that the heavenly Man can whilst buried in this putrid and corrupt Carkase conserve his essential purity for it is manifest That a Liquor though never so precious and excellent will lose its sapour and odour if it be long contained in a stinking Vessel and Man also though never so sound is subject to infection if he dwell in a pestilent House a heavenly Man is of himself good and sincere but as he is joyned to the Terrestrial to whom impurity and vices naturally adhere he can scarcely remain free from spots The depravation of this essential purity depends without doubt on the eating the forbidden Fruit or to speak more expresly on the intemperance of Aliments condited with pernicious and contagious Corruption for which cause this intemperance corruption must be mortified that the old Destroyer of Man may be restrained that that
touches which greatly hinders the light and splendor of Nature which always desires purity and freedom from darkness as appears by that intense splendor in perfect Bodies a token of their purity seeing others more immerged in impurity are more obscure as Metals perfect and imperfect precious Stones demonstrate But if we would avoid long peregrinations and according to the oracles advice terminate our curious journeys in our selves by seeking out the causes of our Diseases we should easily finde them derived from those infected fumes that obscure the light of our sanity and thence desume a manifest sign of what is wrought within us for a sound Man because of the internal clarity of his natural disposition hath a cleer and lively coloured aspect but a sick Man from the first onset of his disease is pale and plumbeous his native vigour perishing and decaying and all these mutations proceed from the fumes of sulphureous and excrementitious Adustion and Inflammation which extend themselves thorow all the members and by mediation of the pores infect the whole Body This paleness may also proceed from Nature feeling her self aggravated with a disease and thereupon revoking all the pure and good Blood inwards that mustring up their forces she may better oppose her enemy or sustain his assaults and upon this occasion the external parts are destitute of their clarity and in this conflict the external parts remain as it were dead like Earth tend to obscurity because Earth wherein this battle is begun is naturally black as on the contrary Fire is by Nature clear and white The Earth then on its part being spisse and obscure begets blackness and sulphureous fuliginous and smoaky Adustion begets obscurity wherefore both cause corruption destruction and ruine and besides these two nothing in the world procures universal ruine neither is any inferiour Body exempted from these evils save Gold and precious Stones which Nature hath brought to what perfection she can And so Death is to other Bodies a perpetual enemy seeking how to destroy them but Nature as a careful Mother how to preserve her works who hath armed two potent and nimble Champions to help them and withstand the Adversaries fury one whereof is Fire the expugner of sulphureous Adustion the other Water the expeller and driver of Terrestrial dregs And as Nature is ingenious and subtile in all her operations so is Art indued with equal subtilty and industry And there 's no other way to Separation instituted by Nature from the beginning but these two which Nature her self hath trodden from the non-age of the Universe whose first seeds void of form and confusedly mixed in a Chaos were dissolved in Water and by the Spirit of God the first Mover moving upon them divided and distinguished whence the Separation of light from darkness proceeded as also of distinct forms from confusion of generations from barreness and of death from life and if things in the first commixtion were thus confused as impure with pure Excrements with Substance Earth with Heaven and life with death all were without action power essence and life and the whole confusion useless An Artist therefore considering this and observing That nothing can exert its vertue till the confusion of its purity and impurity be separated he takes Water and Fire for his Helpers and follows Natures copy whose operations he should observe with all curiosity especially in generating Metals which are by so much the perfecter by how much they are more digested in the bowels of the Earth This sentence is then irrefragable That Water and Fire are the sole general and principal means of Separation but the composition of things being various and one thing yielding with more ease then another we must also act variously upon them yet so as not to vary from the plain path that nature has delineated For adustion and unctuous Sulphur making a body inflammable and infective may be extracted one way out of one body and terrestrial feculency another way in others Calcination and Sublimation were invented to purge adustion but Distillation and Dissolution to remove terrestrial feculency and Descension for the conservation of weak and easily inflammable bodies and all these are either effected by fire as Calcination Sublimation and Descension or by water as Distillation and Dissolution But because both the Books of ancient and modern writers speak at large of these things I shall not further labour in their explication because I can adde nothing new nor yet any ornament or facility to them it may suffice if I adde any thing definitively and known to my self in general and that is that Calcination is invented for your overcoming of hard and rebellious things and for continuity and valid and firm composition which hinders division and admits not of easie separation and hence four conveniencies arise the combustion of impure and stinking Sulphur the easie separation of superfluous and extraneous earthiness the fixation of the internal Sulphur and more prompt dissolution For it is natural to fire to consume those adustible parts which are not of the essence of a substance to facilitate the division and rejection of terrestrial excrements to fix radical Sulphur and to multiply salt in bodies which alone doth afterwards admit dissolution by water I say therefore that Calcination agrees onely to bodies that because of their continuity scarcely yield for spirits and volatile things which flye away by fire cannot be calcined unless some fixing thing be added which is repugnant to their nature Seeing there is no other end in Calcination then to extract salts wherein the better part and secret vertue of bodies consist to which that corruptive adustion adheres which in sublimation we suffer ro evaporate and flie away as useless that the remaining substance may be better freed from terrestrial dregs and easier educed by fire to purification and stability It is true also that sublimation requires some intension of fire but that happens then chiefly when the things to be sublimated are more profoundly mixed with the dregs of some other fixed body that they may more pertinaciously hold their terrestrial impurities and this kind of sublimation is most secure save when we work upon subjects that have their dregs naturally more fixed Descension hath a two fold use one is to extract Oyl out of vegetables without combustion the other to cleanse fusibles bodies before they be made volatile and these are the three kindes of separation made by fire now we shall speak a little of the other two Distillation and Dissolution made by water and the former of these is made by inclination and straining that the limpidity of bodies may with water come forth into the water of dissolved vegetables for that same that 's made by an Alembick appertains to the order of sublimations which is effected by elevation and not by ablution And though some account this for an indifferent and but a mean way yet I say it should not be rejected but much
Earth Sun from Moon and the like as also of the pure from the impure heat from cold dry from moist and the contrary And from this Definition we may draw two sorts of Separation The one of things differing onely simply and not of contraries as of the parts of the World which were separated at first from the Chaos or that we may descend to particulars as of the Wood from the Bark of Leaves from Fruits and Roots from Boughs and this species of Separation may be called simply a Distinction for these parts are not really divided or separated from each other whether we have respect to the principal or to the particular members of the World for though Heaven and Earth seem to be separated from each other in situation by reason of superiority and inferiority yet they are not divided one from another seeing there is a perpetual connexion and affinity betwixt them as appears by many places of this Book Whence also Homer no less Philosopher then Poet said That the Earth was bound to Heaven by a golden Chain But that I may keep to my former example Leaves and Fruits Wood and Bark Boughs and Roots are not separated and divided as contraries but onely distinguished by their proper places and garnishments whilst they have a certain affinity and mutual tie yet so that the one does not occupy the others place but that they agree together and support each other The second species of Separation is the Solution or Distraction of things totally differing contrary or superfluous which have no natural connexion with the substance of things as pure and impure hot and cold gross and subtile and the like not that I would affirm That these things cannot stand together but That their union and mixtion because of their diversity causes Destruction or at least hinders the action of the natural Vertue of the pure substance And this kinde of Separation may be properly called decision or division which Nature uses in all her productions that she may set the proper actions and vertues of every thing at liberty The first species is onely the distinction of parts truely dissimilar in situation and figure but homogeneous in vertue and substance for it is certain That the Wood Bark and all the parts of a Tree participate of one innate Vertue which is particularly proper to the Tree generally common to all its parts but as to subalternate parts there may be some difference for some may receive more or less of the substance or vertue but none contrary for one and the same effect produces not things diametrically opposite out of the same matter a salutary Plant emits no poysonous faculty yet that may be salutary to one Body that 's mortal to another Thus Hellebore nourishes Quails but kills Men. But one Plant cannot exercise contrary Powers upon one and the same subject for Hellebore cannot both nourish and kill Quails nor both intoxicate and nourish Man The proper vertue of the Plant then is in the whole Plant and any part of the Plant may be dissimilar to another in situation and figure but not contrary in vertue and substance for the Leaves and Fruits have of the same substance and vertue though one more then another Here some may object That Brassica produces different effects for according to the vulgar opinion its decoction looses the belly but its pulpe bindes the same Whereto I answer If it be proper for the substance of this Plant to loose it 's impossible that it should also binde for to speak plainly the pulpe that remains after decoction is not of the substance of the Plant as it appears by the concoction of the stomack which receives the substance of Brassica for Aliment but rejects its pulpe as an Excrement that hath no nutritive faculty in it which faculty is wholly in the substance and in each part of the substance for the substance hath this propriety That it admits of no contrary but onely of more or less which we must also understand of its actions and power and not of its essence of which we have an example in man no one part is more the part of a Man then another though it may be greater or more potent in vertue and action the same may be seen in simples or Plants wherein some parts are more or less hot or cold moist or dry as their colours and sapours manifest yet are they not contraries for one part of a Plant cannot kill through cold and another of the same kill through heat but Experience shews us thus much That the summities of Boughs and that Flowers are more subtile in their Operations then the trunks and inferiour parts of the same because it is proper in every substance for the more subtile and pure parts to ascend and the impure to settle and abide next the Excrements which Nature observes for two Reasons first That she may adorn the Plant and by the variety of its digestion make it grateful to look to Secondly That she may administer to Man or other Animals what is needful for the conservation of his essence in a greater or less degree herein resembling a careful and provident Mother who prepares all things necessary and convenient each thing in its degree as industry or possibility can render it for she never exceeds simple perfection and Flowers and Seeds are the most perfect parts in Herbs which she hath elaborated which Art beginning where Nature left may bring to a higher perfection by the same way that Nature kept to wit by Separation as we shall hereafter further explain Nature therefore by this first kinde of Separation does nothing but distinguish things for the ornament of their subject and use of Man other Animals or some part of the World amongst which she hath sown and implanted mutual Love and Reciprocal Affinity so that all things do naturally and out of a kinde of sympathy tend to one anothers succour and service But the second kinde of Separation is different for by it Nature or Art in imitation of Nature divides and segregates contraries that is abstracts from the substance what is not of its essence but rather averse to it dwelling with it though it be not of it as pure with an impure thing subtile with gross substance with its Excrements And this second kinde of Separation is used as the former for two Reasons also one is That the pure substance be preserved from corruption and death the other is that it may more freely exercise its vertues and actions as being free from its gross dregs for when that which is impure possesses and contains that which is substantially pure it never ceases to opp ess it till it hath quite vanquished and suffocated it and by that means made way for mortal corruption which never approaches near simple and pure things but haunts all fowl and impure ones Now every substance is of it self simple and pure and by consequence not subject to corruption and death