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 〈◊〉 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
strangle with a Cramp no otherwise than as being stirred with fury on them I remember that I once saw those that were strangled by their womb whose dead Carcasses looked black and blew being black in those parts wherein they had been pained before death Neither also doth it largely poure forth its Issues unless it should open its own Veins by an inordinate madness to overthrow the guiltless treasure of life So neither doth it contract the sinewes and muscles make the joynts lame displace the tendons resolve the muscles and crisp and cowrinckle the coats or membranes but onely by the action of government and unless it being stirred with fury it should keep a duality with the Womans life otherwise as long as every thing keeps unity it desires to remain in its Essence or Being When therefore a fury acts out of the womb alone it is the lesse evil But when it flies thorow into the sensitive Soul with which I have shewen that it hath an agreeing co-resemblance it pours forth the true madness of its own fury out of the hypochondrial part In young Maids at their first being enflamed or swollen with a lesse pleasure it withholds suppresseth discoloureth their courses and brings forth inordinate ones Then at length it produceth Palsies Cramps beatings of the heart tremblings and swoonings and contracteth the sinews which distempers by the volatile tincture of Coral Oyl of Amber Salt of Steel and such like Medicines I daily cure The same distempers being of the milder sort do obey stupefactive things Also the more cruel ones require greater Secrets of Chymistry What things I have already spoken touching the government of the Stones and Womb I have demonstrated by many Arguments in the Treatise of Catarrhs and likewise of the Duumvirate not by a more dull priviledge to belong unto the Stomach neither that fumes as neither that vapours do ascend out of the Stomach unto the Head and so that in this respect an impossible Fable is taught in the Schools Likewise in the Treatise of Fevers and elsewhere I have shewen by what sume drunkenness is made and by what way fumes are derived into the more formerly bosoms of the Brain Now I will teach the manner of making in an Apoplexie the Falling-sickness drowsie Evil c. that when I shall have denied them to be made by a co-knit Chain of vapours they may at least be understood to undergoe the action of Government To which end I must repeat what I before spake by the way To wit that the Beard is bred by the stones and that the distinctions ages varieties and colours hereof do depend thereupon which thing seeing it is commonly known I at leastwise admonish that it ought to be understood that a Vapour is not made which is brought forward by the Ministery of particular Organs but that a power is to be considered which in manner of light doth affect and dispose the whole Body or at leastwise its own objects according to the gift and ends seminally implanted in them by the Creator therefore a certain power or virtue beames forth from the Stones throughout the Body into the Archeus and so also into the sensitive Soul seeing the Church commends the femall Sex for a natural devotion Why therefore doth the Beard grow on the Chin and not on the Fore-head or on some other place seeing that eflux of the light of the Stones throughout the whole Body is universal This matter carries in it a most hidden Root of Philosophy demonstrated in the Treatise of the entrance of death into man For we must know that Souls do act on their own Body by the power of their own certain vital light the which seeing it is by the life in which the Soul it self is every where present every way extended the Soul in that its light deciphers the Idea's of its own conceipt and command that afterwards it may by the administring Spirits be wholly committed into the Organs for execution But those soulified lights or lightsome Souls themselves cannot be comprehended by us by a direct conceipt Seeing they are as it were the immediate clients of another and that an intelligible World wherefore the most High calls himself the Father of Lights For the Senses do bring nothing unto us from without which may decipher a conception of the soul in the phantasie wherefore in the Treatise of forms I have according to my slenderness touched at this matter as largely as I could in the newness of so great a Paradox which is as yet more strongly to be considered elswhere therefore lest repetition should tire it is sufficient here to have said by the way that substantial Souls and Forms even as likewise also a formal substance which I elsewhere distinguish from the former are certain unnamed Lights immediately framed by the Father of Lights Therefore the powers depending on Souls and certain ministring guarding Lights are also thus far lightsome I have shewen therefore by Science Mathematical that those very Lights do pierce each other yet that they reserve the Essence and properties of their former Lights But in inferiour things wherein Forms do inhabite and also formal Powers that these have their light even actually capable of being stirred up by our Archeus no otherwise than as in an Egg the power of the seed is actuated by a nourishing warmth Therefore there is in the roots of the hairs in the chin a power of growth duration and other dispositions although the masculine ruling power thereof be of one stone which power of the stones indeed although it be absolute yet it is not but diversly received in places to wit according to the manner and capacity of every receiver But as much as this speculation conduceth unto Medicine I will translate poysonous powers into the place of vital ones Because they are not lesse lightsome than those which are otherwise wholsom if poysons do immediately issue from their own forms For they are the gifts either of the more outward or forreign Simples of the first Creation or in the next place are begotten afterwards in us through errour of living By the same priviledge also the natural powers of the parts to wit of the Womb Stomach Stones c. do beam forth their own lights throughout the whole Body and do pierce the light of the Archeus also by the action of government depending on their light whence indeed this Archeus is comforted weakened estranged prostrated yea perisheth Therefore poysons in the Midriffs or those bred elsewhere do act by virtue of their own formal and lightsom powers according to the natural endowed Idea imprinted on them and they do affect the vital light planted in the sensitive Soul in the Archeus and so in the parts and they mutually pierce each other by a radical union and that either by a contagion of poyson remaining and transplanting the in-bred formal and vital light of the parts or onely for a little space as in those that have the
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
this be not to be attributed unto the Image but unto other Causes issuing from elsewhere Furthermore how much is to be granted unto the rational Faculty for the denominating of the Image of God I have taught in its own tract concerning Reason Yet the more learned Part of Christians hold that the Soul doth most nearly express the Image of one and a trine God by a single simplicity of its Substance and a ternary of its Powers to wit of Understanding Will and Memory which Similitude hath alwayes seemed unto me Improper that the Mind should be the Image of God from an excelling nigh and singular Ability For truly an Image involveth a Likeness of Figure but not an equality of Numbers And moreover if the Soul doth in its Substance represent the holy sacred Trinity but understanding Will and Memory a Ternary of Persons it must needs be that the three Powers of the Soul are not Properties or Accidents of the Soul Yea that those Powers are the one only Substance of the Mind or such an Image doth badly square with the Type whose Image it is believed to be I therefore consider that not indeed the Mind of Man alone but that the whole Man was framed into the Image of God Wherefore although the Soul in this sense doth express a certain Ternary in its Powers yet in no wise Personalities And then because no Person of the holy sacred Trinity doth represent the Will alone or the Will a Person no Person doth resemble Memory as neither any one being separated from the other two the Understanding in Property Then also because the three Powers of the Mind are considered for the most part as it were Accidents of the Soul surely these cannot in any wise express an Image or any nearer supposed thing besides a naked Ternary of Accidents collected into the Substance of the Soul In which sense the Soul doth less denote the Image of God than any piece of Wood The which sheweth by its Analysis only Salt Sulphur and Mercury but not three Powers only like the Mind in the aforesaid similitude of the Vulgar Three Substances I say being concluded under the Unity of a composed Body and diverse the which notwithstanding in their connexion made one only Substance of Wood. Furthermore Taulerus divides the Soul into two Parts to wit the Inferiour or more outward Part which he calls the Soul and the other the Superiour and Bottom which he calls the Spirit In which Part he saith it doth specially represent and contain the Image of God Because the Devil hath not access thereunto the Kingdom of God being there But unto both Parts he assigneth far different Acts and Properties whereby he distinguisheth both But at least-wise that good Man blots out Homogeniety or Simplicity of kinde from the Soul wherein notwithstanding it ought chiefly to express the Image or Similitude of God Yea in this respect he not only denies the Image of God to be propagated in the whole Man but also in the whole Soul Surely I shall not easily believe a duality in the Soul nor admit of the interchange of a Binary if in its Essence it ought to express the Image of the most Simple Divine Nature But rather it behoves that it stand in a most simple Unity and an undivideable Homogeneity of Immortality and mark of indissolution out of all Connexion or Interchange I say therefore that the glorious Image of God is not only in the Soul but the very Mind it self is essentially the glorious Image of God And therefore the Image of God is as intimate to the Soul as the Soul it self is to it self For I consider the mind as a Homogeneal Simple Immortal Undivideable Spirit to wit one only Being whereunto Death adds nothing or takes nothing from it which is natural unto it in its Essence of Simplicity But next as a Partaker of Blessedness because Damnation is unto it by accident besides it appointment and by reason of a future Defect Such a Soul therefore being separated from the Body makes no more use of Memory nor of Remembrance through a beholding of the Place where it was or of Duration But the one only Now doth there contain all things Therefore if any Memory should remain unto it it should be in vain yea burdensome for ever The same thing is to be judged of Remembrance or calling to Mind Because it is that which breaks forth into Act only through a Discourse of Reason and therefore in Eternity it hath no longer Place where the Soul through the beholding of naked Truth without declining Wearisomeness and Defect stands out of necessities of remembring The blessed Soul therefore should stand out of the aforesaid Ternary of Powers and therefore neither should it any longer represent the Image of God for which Cause alone it was created Yea by a more full looking into the Matter I do not find Memory to be a singular and separated Power of the Soul but a naked manner of Remembring For therefore forgetful Persons do by the help of Imagination which is the Vicaress of the Understanding frame an artificial Memory unto themselves and they learn a far more strong one than otherwise their natural Memory would be And moreover Will departs from the Soul together with the Life because it came accidentally to the Soul Seeing that God after the Creation placed Man in the hand of his own free Will which thing surely denotes that the Will is not after a proper manner essential to the Mind but from a grant that it may be instead of a Talent and that he may follow the way which he had rather chuse Otherwise seeing nothing is more pernicious than Free Will beause it is that alone which breedeth all discord between God and Man surely such a Faâ—â—lty cannot have place in the blessedness of Eternity Because the freedom of willing being taken away the very Will it self perisheth For otherwise what shall a power of willing avail where there is no longer a liberty of being able to will But say they in Heaven the Will is confirmed That is the heavenly Wights cannot will but what God willeth For they that are in Charity cannot but will those things which belong to Charity Which is as much as to say The heavenly Wights can no longer will but God alone doth there will and nill Therefore the Will ceaseth while as a liberty of willing is dissolved For truly the Will cannot be serviceable or profitable unto a blessed Soul to Eternity while as neither is it able to be brought forth into Act And such a Will should be onely a wishing The which surely is not in Heaven where there is a full satiety of all desirable things with all abundance The Will therefore should be rather a burdensome Appendency of a blessed Soul Let it be sufficient therefore that in this Life men by a Power of Willing have well deserved and have treasured up their Talents for advantage Indeed I
Almighty is alone the way the truth the life the light of living Creatures and of all things but this is not reason And therefore that our minde ought to be intellectual but not rational if it ought to shew forth the most immediate Image of God That Paradox is to be cleared up for the searching out of all things knowable and especially of things Adeptical or the attainment of great secrets By my will or according to my assertion all Phylosophy begins and proceeds from the knowledge of ones self whether it be natural or morall I will therefore propose so far as I through my slenderness do attain the understanding and the abstruse or hid or inward knowing of our selves For the undoubted opinion of the Schooles beares in hand that God hath bestowed on man nothing more pretious than Reason by which alone we are distinguished from bruit Beasts but bear a co-resemblance with the Angels So I being also perswaded from my tender years believed But after that discretion had waxed ripe and I had once beheld my Soul I perceived altogether otherwise I confess in the mean time that I had rather be wise in secret than to be willing to seem wise but to be alwayes more desirous to learn than to be one that endeavoureth to teach Notwithstanding I ought to teach some things least I be found to have buried my Talent received in the Earth Wherefore Reason once shewed it self to my Soul in the form of a more thick and dark little Cloud or mist and proposed that it was the Nurse Guide and Tutouresse of the minde so ordained of God for the obtaining of all even of solid good Yea it protested that it was the Sterne of the course of our life the fore-deck and Sterne of the minde and so the inventer of all Sciences For at the first sight my Soul entertained Reason wished to rest in her possession with well pleasing in joy and much rejoycing Because the minde being so diligenty instructed had once so perswaded it self Nevertheless least it should offend through a gentleness of credulity or rash belief it presently assaulted Reason with its own Weapons saying If therefore O Reason thou art ordained for my Service I ought not to follow thee but thou me Because thou art she which affirmest or demonstratest nothing by Discourse but I have first begotten that in thee In what sort therefore dost thou now being a Scholar pretend a tutorship over thy Mistress thou being a Daughter over thy Parent That first Argument arising from my arrogancy taught me that nothing is more nigh to the Soul than pride which lifting up nevertheless arisen from disobedience it hath covered with the Cloak of vertue to wit least it should be led away by credulity But Reason answered not indeed affirmatively but onely that it might breed a fear in the minde and so by scrupulousness might draw it unto its desires For it said there is no safety to the Soul to be attained without Reason to wit that Mortalls would perish under the allurements of the senses unless vices should be restrained by the raines of Reason To whom the wrothful minde saith Away for shame none of these things are from thee or by thee whose knowledge I receive from faith and attainment or performance from Clemency Yea Faith commands that for her we forsake thee For thy flexible juggling deceit hath brought forth a hundred Sections or divisions and clefts in faith even in the more refined men But every Section hath its rational induction or bringing in of Sophistry Because Reason doth on every side bring forth onely a thinking instead of Faith but Faith is of Grace not of thee subtill Reason who dost delude and miserably lead aside the most witty or quick sighted men that trust in thee unto a Hell of miseries Finally my minde considered by Faith that there was one onely Form and Essence of truth and that all understanding was alwayes onely of true things Wherefore in the choyce my minde esteemed it meet to magnifie understanding before Reason And therefore it began to fear least Reason which through a shew of Piety Truth and Religion under a multiplicity of erring did guilfully deceive so many thousands of men as a pleasing flatteress and crafty Seducer should seduce it And therefore my minde suspected that Reason did not onely feign perswasions for the deceiving and flattery of it self as oft as the minde did design it for a Judge and Assistant but also that Reason did plainly yield it self for a Parasite and to the servitude of the desires even of those that are most Religious and did bring with it more of thinking rashness and blockishness than of Knowledge and Truth Because it was that which would easily be bended at a beck by Tongues sometimes to one but sometimes to the other extream and would every where finde out feign and prostrate Reasons according to the pleasures of the desires yea it oft-times proceedeth in discoursing of that which falls without that which is reasonable and it remains indefinitely undistinct and uncertain in ignorances the which notwithstanding it did promise to untie Also now and then Reason hath made Souls mad who trusting too much to its perswasions had enslaved themselves unto it In the next â—lace in others through foolish importunate undiscreet and vain cares it cuts off the thred of life The minde therefore hath drawn a wearisomness from the command of Reason and the rather for that it knew Reason to be a Houshold Servant of its Family but being a Chamber-maid it presently did presume upon the whole government of the Soul And the minde having remembred that divine word that those of his own House are his enemies conceived a loathing over Reason And its turning away on both sides was not yet sufficiently founded yet it got strength in going From the first therefore after that the Soul began no more to contemplate of Reason as a part or power of it self but as it were a strange guest plainly divided and a newter from the essence of the minde And afterwards the Soul knew that thing by faith that it being once separated from the Body it stands no longer in need of Reason and therefore that this is frail and mortal yea and that it hapned to us together with death in the corruption of Nature Indeed the minde knowes that it is after death to inhabit all its knowledge at once full naked not successive not wrung out or extorted by force of premises not conquered by convincement not deceitful disputable or doubtful Neither that it shall make demonstrations after death that it may conclude draw compel derive or reflect whether that thing shall be to conceive or indeed to signifie or give notice Therefore the minde seised on frail Reasons Coat she being also a fugitive from the Soul and hath spoiled her of every Garment even unto nakedness But then it was confirmed to the minde that Reason being left with us came
wants in it self a dissolutive principle of it self caused by the rottenness and interchangeable course of parts 6. If air should at any time be made water that thing should especially be while air is pressed beneath the water And if in water there should be the action of water it should then chiefly obtain its effect upon that air Therefore fill a Glass Bottle half full of water and stop its mouth with a Cork that nothing may breath out then shake the vessel strongly a thousand times upwards and downwards that all the water may as it were froath into bubbles At length notwithstanding thy pains thou shalt not finde air to have departed into water or water into air 7. If therefore water doth not change air into it self otherwise a natural agent works to this end that it may make the Patient like it self there is no other thing afterwards whereby the air may be made water Where as it were by a Parenthesis it comes to be noted that the aforesaid Maxim looseth its universality and truth not onely in the Elements where a mutuall action happens among each other without a desire of changing one into themselves but also in the Heavens yea and also in very many compound bodies For neither doth Mercury in its whole and indivisible substance therefore kill lice that it may make them like it self So neither doth Amber draw Chaffe that thereby it may make it Amber Therefore by a strawie argument the Maxim of the Schooles falls to the ground which otherwise is blown away with a light winde 8. For if air were changed into water that would chiefly happen where those two Elements are co-mixed with each other in their smallest parts for that is in the Clouds But in the Clouds this comes not to passe because in whatsoever place degree manner and quality the air hath touched on the superficies of the water the water is alwayes lessened by the air never at any time increased Therefore there is no action of water into air for if there were any it should be in the hollow superficies of the air where the force of the Element of water residing in its native place is strongest and most conjoyned but there the air consumeth the water because it divides it into a vapour Therefore air never departs into water 10. Seeing therefore no Element hath in it self a Root by which it being as it were affected with wearisomness may change it self into another Element for truly every transmutation proceedeth from a duality or a twofold thingliness elsewhere but there is not a voluntary desire in an Element of dying and converting into another and an appetite appointment and necessity of increasing of nourishing of exchanging it self or of changing the nature in which it was created of God is wanting 11. Vain therefore is the contentious co-mingling of Elements in compound bodies and frivolous is the transmutation of one into another seeing none of the Elements is careful for the passing over of its being from another nor from it self Wherefore I have first concluded with my self that the water and air are primary Elements nor that they can ever make a retrogression or return 12. For the blessed Parent of Nature would not that the Elements should be hostilely opposite and applied that they should breath forth mutuall destruction and devouring continually and that they should be so often made fail and with so many daily formall privations should rise again from death unto their former state without the interposing of a more simple mean Which mean surely should otherwise be desired to be a partaker as well of air as water and yet ought to be neither of these 13. Therefore the holy Scriptures do name the air the seperater but not the destroyer or annihilater of the waters Nor is it right that the air should be drawn to other offices than those which are enjoyned to it by the Workman and Lord of things 14. Finally rarefying or condensing do not change the essential form of the water because they are materiall dispositions destitute of an Archeus 15. Moreover if water having suddenly taken to it a ferment and seed be transchanged into a concrete or composed body Yet that is perpetuall to it by an Elementary priviledge as neither therefore that it ever layes aside the matter of Elementary water 16. It is granted indeed to seeds to frame their composed bodies out of water and to act their Tragedy by the defluxion of forms untill death But the forms of composed bodies do not therefore destroy the simplicity of water and sameliness of its form Much less than the Soul coming suddenly on a body doth destroy the form of flesh For subordinate forms do every where in composed bodies suffer together with each other Therefore much more doth the form of a composed body suffer also the form of its own Element to be untouched Last of all although the air by its greatest coldness doth change the water into Gas yet it never desisteth from the office of Seperater of the waters So that if its cold be restrained at least by its dryth it ceaseth not to raise a vapour out of the water For the action of the Heavens in their circumvolving is uncessant and next also the obedience of the air and water is continuall yea there is an interrupted thread in the acting of all seminall things For truly created things do alwayes respect the will of their Creator which man alone neglecteth CHAP. XIV The Blas of Meteours 1. What Blas is 2. The Blas of a Star worketh more famously by locall motion than by light 3. What the Motive Blas of the Stars is 4. What the Winde is and whence it may be moved 5. That the Stars are made for us 6. Divers activities in Blas 7. That the activities of the Stars are brought down by Blas the executer of motions 8. The errour of Paracelsus 9. The two great Lights do work their own properties 10. How the influences of the Stars may be reduced under the two Lights 11. The Births of rains and Meteors 12. Putrefactions by continuance do arise straightway after the sliding down of the Waters whence are the Ferments and seeds of things 13. A History of Cyprus 14. A resolving of a Question touching the rest or quiet of the Summer-air and the continuall breathing of the Winter-air THE Stars are to us for signes times or seasons dayes and years Therefore they cause the changes seasons and successive courses or interchanges To which end they have need of a twofold motion to wit locall and alterative But I signific both these by the new name of Blas And they do rather stir up a Blas by their mooving through a place than by their light Indeed in a dark night the South winde oft-times followeth the blowing North-windes and this likewise it Therefore because Blas breaths forth a luke-warm winde it hath need not of the heat or light of Heaven it self but of place direction
beast by voluntarily flowing down should be limited even into a living soul exclusively And so that it was meet for the mind to be tied to a social form and a formal Light with which it might best agree as in the Chapter of Forms and the book of long life concerning the entrance of death Therefore I first of all decreed that the immortal mind hath not chose a mansion for it self in the heart indeed a bowel so unquiet and greatly extended with so many disturbances and divers offices of the body Also I have shewn that the head is not a fit Inn for the immortal mind because it was busied in governing the motion and sense and especially because its conspiracy being stopped up from the lower parts at one only instant the faculties of the mind being cut off do perish neither do they meditate of the least matter and therefore that it hath not in it the proper operation of the mind the Princesse yea rather I have seen the ill disposed Duumvirate for the most part to disturb the head otherwise well disposed into madnesses And therefore I having admired at the quiet of the Spleen and likewise the withdrawing thereof from the government of the body I intentively considered of this convincing argument If the mind the image of God be centrally in the head it shall be either in the bosoms or in the very substance of the brain But not in this because it is that which wants sense and venal blood being destitute of commerce whereby it may be present with the whole body to which it is bound Indeed it is controverted by none that the head doth rule by sense and motion But that is a lesse bruital and beast-like government But we are constrained to believe being perfectly taught by the disorders of diseases that the head is governed from elswhere in the suspensions or withholdings and exorbitances of the mind But that the soul is entertained in the hollow of the Brain I have judged it unmeet that the immortal soul should have married a wandring and fluid spirit daily arising out of the venal blood for every moment Wherefore it desired a more stable and quiet Inn than that which should be slideable every hour It hath rather rested in the Center or middle of the body in the substance of a bowel whence it might equally commune with all the Members by reason of the unity and continuation of the implanted Archeus But seeing the Organs of the body in respect of the mind are dregs and husk it hath chose out to it self the kernel of the body to wit a gentle spark a formal light or the sensitive soul to wit which the mind hath married by the command of the Lord and what God hath joyned together man may not separate without guilt In the mean time the miserable state of mortals is to be lamented to wit that the mind is tied to the sensitive soul indeed to an impure Being given to concupiscences enticements and pleasures and that the immortal mind doth so easily assent to it as if it would now sleep for ever in the carelesnesse of its own self But not so for by so much is the glory of divine compassion the greater which by its own grace alone doth freely revive and support out of the drowsie sleep of death those whom he will have saved surely else the sensitive soul being subject to diseases and madnesses should be alwayes prone into any kind of pleasures For the first degree of madnesse doth plainly appear in sleep yet is it naturall while with the Title of honest recreation and leisure it sinks it self with a pleasure of rest into its own Inn. Moreover all drowsie sicknesses are the excentricities vices defects and expresse madnesses of natural sleep which indeed do now no longer issue from a proper liberty and pleasure of the sensitive soul but arise from excrementitious filths as it were feverish ones For even as natural thirst is the feeling of lack of moysture but feverish thirst is from the deceitful wilinesses of an excrement So drowsie sicknesses are not made by a natural faculty whereby the soul stirs up sleep to it self but being seduced or overcome by the strange impostures of impurities Therefore sleeping evils and likewise the Apoplexy speechlesnesse c. are not so much the vices of the erring soul as the weaknesses of the same contracted by the Wedlock of vitiated Organs For the companies of impurities do as soon as may be occasionally invade the monarchicall state Not indeed that it is necessary that those materiall impurities do diffuse themselves into the animated or soulified light by a connexion for it sufficeth that they have a stupefactive poysonous force destructive to the sensitive soul because they do alienate the imaginative faculty even so that as of the spittle of a mad dog in the fear of water so also the madnesse of carelesness is introduced by those soporiferous things that power is in those filths potentially and seminally from the beginning very unlike to it self after it hath come to maturity no otherwise than as an Acorn from an Oake Therefore the dregs or filths do imprint a forreign Phantasie on the sensitive soul against its will which manifestly appeareth in Opium Henbane c. And which filthy heap of impurities besieging the sensitive soul in its own original bowel doth make the act of the understanding of the mind drowsie it not being able to shine freely into the sensitive soul thus besieged Wherefore the sensitive soul being destitute of a governess doth stir up tumultuous storms and lists up its own tempest by degrees into the case of the will whence it also becomes wrathful and is carried after an headlong and inverted order At length the head by a preposterous knitting or conjoyning draws out its own images of witty or pleasant things Whence it comes to pass that the doatages being for the most part consumed no remembrance of things done remaineth because the sensitive soul being violently smitten by the besieging hath rashly moved all things whereas otherwise madnesses being void of such filths are for the most part mindful of things done For I have many times certainly found that Doaters have felt before-hand intellectual Images or Representations to be dismissed from beneath to be troublesome upwards and that they have first been weakened about the memory and so that hence also I have gathered that the intellective power is seated far from the head no otherwise than as the parts remote from the heart do first of all feel a defect of a vital bedewing In Doatages I have observed the memory of things once conceived first to stagger and then that instead thereof an importunate and continued remembrance of one thing hath arisen which hath it self in manner of a repeated dream with a most troublesome inversion or confusion and a labour of sleep which labour watchings do presently follow to wit while the foregoing dreamie images have enfeebled the
the faculty of concupiscence in the Stomach and Liver 15. Whither this speculation tends 16. They have also against their wills assented to the Paradox of the Authour 17. The seat of the mind is the same with that of the sensitive soul 18. The manner of existing in its seat 19. A piercing of Souls 20. What the sensitive soul is 21. A similitude of its existence 22. Heat is not the fountain of the light of life but the light of the Archeal life or product 23. What the mind is 24. By the comming of the sensitive soul death hath entred 25. A comparison of the dignity lost and obtained 26. The Spleen for the Duumvirate 27. The dignities of offices 28. All foolish madnesses do from hence take their beginning 29. A remarkable thing touching the examination of remedies a further progresse being denied 30. How immortality did stand 31. A change of the State 32. A Corollary of what hath been said 33. The errour of the Schools THE Sur-name of a Duumvirate or Sheriff-dome may astonish the Reader with the terrour of novelty wherefore I am first to render a reason of its Etymologie and afterwards I shall explain its government Before all things the seat of the mind is to be searched into For although the soul be every where where the life of it is yet as the Sun is not properly but in his own place in heaven although the light thereof be wheresoever he casts his aspect There is altogether the same judgment concerning the central place of the Soul But there is a strife about the center or place of exercise of the soul in the body And the Standard-defenders being as it were hung up in the air do encounter over this thing noâ— having a foundation where to fix their foot For Plato contends for the Heart for whom the Holy Scriptures seem to vote while they reach that out of the Heart proceed Murders Adulteries c. But Physitians do respect the Head as it were the Inn of discourse and understanding especially because the heart by such an unwearied motion of a stirred pulse cannot but make the soul to be troubled and unquiet Those that baptize do follow the opinion of Physitians Neither are there those wanting in the mean time who determine the immortal mind to be so every where and equally in the body that they will have it to abide in no certain seat no more than it can be tied or bound by the body And so they suppose the soul to be a wandring â—oving inhabitant of an uncertain cottage and to be every way dispersed where life is present But they do not regard that some parts are cut off the life remaining safe but that others being lightly smitten do presently bring death on the whole body Some one oftentimes by his mangled face and head as it were diminished testifies death to be present with him whose heart notwithstanding by its lukewarmth and pulse doth promise the soul to be as yet present And that thing is daily seen in those that do long play the Champion A certain Bride being willing to celebrate her marriage in Opdorp nigh Scalds because the Governour of the place was there is saluted by her retainers with the noyse of Guns But one of them dischargeth a Gun laden with a Ledden Bullet but it pierceth the Coach and the Temples of the Bride She presently falls down and is reckoned a dead Woman But Opdorp is seven Leagues distant from Vilvord whither when she was brought proceeding to Bruxels her Head was a dead Carcase cut in thin pieces and plainly cold yet nigh her heart I noted a luke-warmth and pulse Likewise a certain Image fell from a high place on the Crown of a Woman so as that the whole top of the Scull had depressed the Brain almost two fingers in breadth She was reckoned to have been dead yet there was a slender pulse in both Arms six houres after and it was noted by many A certain studious man being strong strikes another sitting at the Table with his fist about the orifice of the Stomach who presently fell down with a foaming mouth and being lifted up by us into his Seat he was forthwith deprived of Pulse and before Grace was read his whole Body was cold as Ice A Carter being thrust thorow about the mouth of the Stomach with a Dagger with a foaming mouth presently dieth he is also deprived of all Pulse and heat Therefore under a humble Censure of the Church I will declare another Paradox Although life be a token of the Soul and this life be every where yet as by the cutting of a finger or foot the Soul doth not fly away nor the life of the whole Body neither yet can the Soul or life be divided into parts that the Soul in its whole integral part may be any way dividable and that death seemes to be near through the hurting of a more noble member In the mean time it is certain that the life in the member cut off doth presently perish although a part of the Soul be not therefore taken away from the whole Body Therefore it is manifest from thence that the Soul doth not sit centrally in whatsoever part there is an operation and presence of life And it must needs be that the Seat of the Soul is in some place as it were its proper and central mansion For from thence it dismisseth its lightsom and vital Beames by the Archeus the Instrument of the vital light Because the Soul it self is a certain light and clear substance in the minde but in other Souls it is indeed a light yet not a substance As elsewhere concerning the Original of Forms The Creator to whom be all honour hath kept a certain progresse from a like thing who instructs us in the Seat-royal of the Soul that from the more grosse things we may consider things more abstracted For in a Tree an Argument is peculiarly drawn from a Tree by reason of the prerogative of the Tree of Life is seen a Root the vital beginning of it self For truly in the Root as it were in a Kitchin a forreign juyce of the Earth is cocted altered is alienated from its antient simplicity of water and undergoes the disposition of a vital Ferment there placed But being cocted it is distributed from thence that it may more and more be constrained and become like according to the necessity of every further Cook-room which hath established Lawes for the Spirit inhabiting So in the middle Trunck of the Body of man is the Stomach which is not onely the Sack or Scrip or the pot of the Food but in the Stomach especially in its Orifice or upper mouth as it were in a Central point and Root is the Principle of life of the digestion of meats and the disposing of the same unto life most evidently established For whatsoever natural Phylosophers have ever thorowly weighed concerning the heart that is of great moment they will
the Bloudy-flux The spittle of a Dog cures wounds by licking them but if he be corrupted with madness he propagates the deadly poyson of his own madness on other Species yea on general kindes we have Houshold examples Eunuchs are beardless of a straighter neck their knees being writhed inwards c. Therefore the Beard at least doth efficiently depend on the stones being come to maturity yea the whole habit of the Body and inclinations of the Soul in gelded persons do differ from entire individuals which thing is evident and daily seen in an Oxe a Bull a Capon and a Cock But yet the stones have not their Pipes Fibers Guards or Vapours on the skin of the Chin on the feathers of a Cock or on the horns of a Bull as neither on the animosity or sturdiness of the minde or on the haires But there is an unsensible influx of the stones as it were another of the Moon beginning even from an Infant before the ripeness of age also at the time of ripe years changing the voyce Therefore the action of government of the stones is no otherwise than as the Moon begetteth the Marrows with child So the Brain is the chief over growth which the straining of the turning joynts in crook-backed folks or putting bones out of joynt do sufficiently shew Which thing also in the womb doth not sluggishly offer it self by reason of the womb alone a Woman is that which she is she wants a beard and although she be of a moyster habit of Body yet she growes sooner to a perfect state She suffers other disturbances and animosities and makes another flesh and bloud diverse from a man And so that also for the wombs sake the Sex assumes a devotion to it self by a certain Prerogative The ruler of these actions sits in the womb who being sore smitten or disturbed in his own Circle is for the producing of all Diseases universally And therefore the Jaundise Apoplexie Strangling Asthma c. are not from things retained But they draw their original from a more sublime Monarchy For oft-times the womb straineth one onely tendon in the foot or throat or it plainly presseth together the whole Weasand as if the disease were local when as in the mean time no exhalation is sent directed or received unto that sinew or place For by an Aspect onely it contracts the Lungs that it may wholly deprive them of breathing They are trifles which are brought hither concerning a hurtful vapour Because it is that which should more neighbouringly pull the Intestines Stomach and Midriff together than that it should come unto the Lungs onely Elsewhere also the Throat ariseth unto the heighth of the Chin and setleth again neither is that the reward of vapours But the dominion government aspect and influx and command of the womb causeth it so to be For it affecteth that part which it will and sometimes destroyes the whole Body because it is subjected For as long as it is not shaken by the disturbances of the Soul it stands with a straight foot yea the womb sleepeth or slumbereth but being once enforced by disturbances for the future it brings forth its own inundations throughout the whole Body and now and then those durable till death Because if the womb by its own Monarchy wholly distinguisheth a Woman from a man and it be the promiscuous parent of that distinction it is no wonder also that it doth by the same government disquiet all even the most remote parts no otherwise than as the nearest when or where it will And it is certain to him that makes a full search that the operations of the sensitive Soul are of a co-like order and of co-like progresses in operating that if the womb by a spiritual governmen snites the health this is indulged to the Soul by a like priviledge of acting on the womb For if a Woman great with Child being stirred with a desire as elsewhere I have repeated doth behold a Cherry and shall touch her self on the fore-head he Young presently receives the Cherry Not indeed the naked spot of a Cherry but a Cherry which waxeth green white yellow and looks of a ruddy colour every year together with the fruits of the Trees yea which is far more wonderful For that which happens to the Young in Brabant that happens far sooner to the same in Spain to wit where Cherries do sooner come forth Therefore the thought or cogitation reacheth the Young in a direct passage not indeed by the directions of fibers or straight beams and the conveyance of aptness of readiness as neither by the conceit of the Brain and Womb but onely by a reciprocal or recoursary action of government But besides if there be no Young present the Idea's of Imagination do not therefore cease to be deciphered in the sides of the womb The which seeing they are strangers to the womb it becomes easily furious as being impatient of forreign Tables There is therefore a passable way from the sensitive Soul into the womb and from this to it which thing Hippocrates first took notice of To wit that the whole Body was exspirable and conspirable From whence it comes to passe that some Symptomes of the womb are scarce discerned from enchantments For it so straightly strains the Coat of the Lungs that it sends no Air at all thorow it into the breast Here is no communication passage access scope or manner of a vapour and much lesse is there an affinity with Rheums in this respect seeing it begins and is bounded or finished without a material aflux or eflux It is therefore onely the action of government whereby the mad womb doth disturb all things But a co-knitting nighness aptness or consent are not to be regarded but a superiority of Monarchal power and a vital dependance of parts For the ruling parts do act by an absolute power not being bound to the nearness or nice scituations of places in every scituation of the Body alike cruelly And that which is far more famous the ruling power or virtue reacheth undefiled unto its bound or mark without a defilement of meanes The womb doth oft-times live and tumulteth after the death of a Woman which it hath brought on her And so it enjoyes a singular Monarchy which that duplicity declareth neither doth it obey the Body unto which then it prescribeth Lawes For neither otherwise is it violently shaken but by the disturbances of the Soul wherefore besides the singular perceivances of smelling tasting and touching it is powerful also in a certain bruital understanding whence it is mad and rageth if all things shall not answer its own will or desires It rageth I say by writhing it self upwards downwards before behinde or on the sides with an undeclarable torment of pain But as long as that fury is restrained in its own Inn it indeed stirs up local griefs For the parts which it forcibly snatcheth or beholdeth at a distance it doth as it were strain and
that through the providence of God the patrs are not inwardly idle but do thus without feeling or perceivance and uncessantly operate even while we are sleeping Next I beheld That as long as the Boy did lie on his right side the transverse fibers did press themselves together in the upper part of the bowels of the same side that they might drive the excrement upwards into the steep part yet the hairs or threds of the down-bending part of the bowel then not at all labouring or being pressed together I saw therefore that a Flatus is not alwaies driven forward by the Ileon unto the Fundament with the excrements but that it doth leap backwards and return unto the parts of the Ileon which are re-opened presently after the secluding of the excrement From whence I conjectured that such a Flatus was natural and profitable and not burdensome For the same closure of the Ileon it self is most exact before that that which is thin and slideable can be driven upwards which being seen I presently collected First That in the Caeliack or belly passion the digestive faculty doth not onely erre by reason of the corrupting of a decaying Ferment but also the retentive faculty of the Pylorus and furthermore that the propulsive or forth-driving faculty of the bowels doth then rage with a sumptomatical errour And then that some kind of Flatus is natural to the Ileon being stirred up by its own Spermatical nourishment and so that it is to arise from the sixth digestion of that bowel without stink sharpness and trouble and so that it directs it self into a mean of quantity But whatsoever of this Flatus as superfluous doth exceed its quantity is presently expelled out of doors A vice therefore in quantity doth of its own accord bewray it self and is easily banished It is indeed from a superfluity but yet it neither causeth pain nor biteth But if windy blasts are stirred up from meats vitiated in themselvs or those seasoned with a vitiated ferment in time of digestion they are painful through their sharpness and a forreign impression but far more powerfuly if the bowels are pulled together especially when as a tough muscilage seasoned with a vitiated ferment the mother of wringings or gripes shall stubbornly any where adhere to wit for the driving out whereof for the most part in vain the bowels do co-press contract and co-wrinkle themselves But I call a contracture the generatress of cruel gripes or wringings as oft as a bowel is drawn together not indeed on the transverse or oblique part of its circle but wholly on the length of it especially because contractures by the transverse or athwart and oblique or crooked fibers are daily natural and without pain Galen triumphing of the use of parts being had in great esteem by the Schools is shewn by Vassalius in an 116 places or errours never to have seen the dissection of an humane body which demonstrations of that Anatomical work as the Schools shall never wash of So I maintain that the chief uses of parts the scopes of the Formative faculty or their delights are untouched not heeded but unknown hitherto Indeed since Galen they have sufficiently seen that the strait oblique and transverse fibers of a bowel do prevail unto the driving forth of the excrement yet have they not known whither and how every one of those might incline themselves in their services For they who in tediously writing have rashly erred in the platting or weaving of the Choroides or wonderful net of the brain in the sporting motions of the Lungs and the passed by uses of the Pulses have sluggishly passed by the uses of the Pulses and Bowels in their services Thus far of Belching and Farting And Likewise I have discussed concerning a degenerate Flatus throughout the whole Body and concerning the natural and requisite Flatus of the Ileon For truly I never saw a dead carcase dissected which would not offer to the Beholders the Ileon swoln with a Flatus Now moreover I will proceed concerning the Flatus's of wringing or griping diseases and the authors of Death In the third place there is a Flatus or windy blast in the more gross bowels consequently bred in the bowels of the blind gut The Schooles indeed have heeded no other Flatus besides this as if Flatus's were not conceived but in the strait gut and Colon. And therefore also they have called the Colick the disease of windinesses and they have solidly distinguished it into the Colick of the Colon and of the stomack into a sandy and windy Colick and the like shamfulnesses of Confusions A third Flatus therefore ariseth from a dungy and putrifactive ferment and it is twofold to wit from the food already putrified by a dungy ferment and from a spermatical nourishment degenerate mortified and moreover dungified For this is the most stinking one of all by far There is also at length a forreign Flatus which although it have not place in gripings or wringings in the belly as a Cause yet it is oft-times as a subsequent effect of the same and is for the most part worse than a Dropsie and is called a Tympany But I call that a dungy ferment as it is bred without a bowel so also whose seat is in the blind gut where the excrements of meats begin to putrifie under the specifical difference of soulified creatures and so they there borrow an impression of a dungy ferment according to their proper kind or species neither surely is it an idle or dreamed fiction of this ferment which doth on every side bring forth a specifical diversity when as otherwise there is not any transmutation of things without a peculiar ferment In this ferment therefore oilynesses are made volatile and an inflamable exhalation is stirred up out of putrifying things wherefore Chymists do premise all things into putrifaction that those things which else being weighty hidden and shut up would remain in the lee might be lifted up together with the watrinesse of the matter For Fleshes Eggs Meat-broths and whatsoever things are of their own accord mortified do yield most stinking excrements as also windy blasts So Amber-grese Mosch Zivet and such sweet smelling things because in their original they are partly of Fleshes and partly because they have once gotten a dungy ferment of that species being easily again afterwards subdued by our ferment do bring forth most stinking excrements and Flatus's By this right also excrements and Flatus's which are drawn out by loosening medicines because immediately dropping from a dead carcase transchanged aswel through aputrifactive ferment of the loosening poyson as of the place or bowel besides the proper horribleness of the mortified matter they are moreover most exceeding stinking And so it is even from hence manifest that there is a certain dungy ferment in soulified creatures because it is that which besides the property of its own particular kind doth as yet keep as many diversities in it self as there are of
shall endure or as long as from the juyce of the grape the wine is not perfected For as meal differs from the leavened paste or dough and the mealie lump from bread so doth wine from the juyce of grapes And as meal if it be boiled doth not bring forth windinesses but being leavened doth of its own accord belch forth windy blasts so meats do not in their own nature contain the flatus which the ferments do draw out A wonder surely it is that the Schooles have perceived nothing have written nothing of these things hitherto but that they have delivered all things by hand to the command of heat Moreover concerning the Gas of new wine and properties of a wild spirit enough elsewhere Neither let those things be unseasonable or unfit which I have elsewhere written concerning ferments concerning digestions touching transgressions under anothers harvest and the diseasie transplantations sprung from thence to have brought them over unto this limit concerning flatus's A most weak stomack therefore affords un-savoury belchings but a less weak one soure ones a vitious stomack burnish bitter and sharp ones But a stronger stomack doth indeed rightly concoct meats that are full of juyce not likewise the Onion Garlick Radishes c. Belchings therefore do witness some weakness and therefore do express the savours of meats But under the fardle of much meat that is full of juyce brackish also burntish belchings do bewray themselves especially if the meats are mortified But brackishness being stirred up by an exasperated ferment doth bring forth a various appetite to meat Furthermore also that flatus's are not bred of windy things mark an example Distilled Vinegar while it dissolveth Crabs stones Crysulcha Silver a wild spirit is belched forth A harsh apple in roasting stirs up very many flatus's not so if it do longer sweeten on the tree by ripening If therefore in the same apple a flatus had materially been it must needs be that the greatest part of the apple which was flatutulent and a meer windiness was through ripening converted into the sweet and homogeneal substance of the apple that is into a non-windinesse That a mixt Body as they say is made of almost a simple element Wherefore the whole apple whether it be ripe or unripe consisteth of the same matter and indeed not of a windy one A sharp apple being roasted in a glass Hermetically shut constraines the vessel by reason of its windy blast to burst asunder But a like apple being closed up in the like glasse with as much water as that it may boyle sends forth no Gas but onely a watery exhalation Aqua fortis being distilled by its self doth wholly pass into the vessel receiving without a wild Gas But if a dissolvable mettal be added unto it it brings forth a Gas so as that if the glass be well stopt with morter although most strong it breaks in pieces when as in the mean time none of the aforesaid mettal departs into a Gas. The Tartar of Wine cannot be distilled so much as with the hundredth distillation of its own oyle unlesse a chink or chap be left in the joynts Otherwise a wild Gas how big soever the vessel be doth suddainly break in pieces But if therefore Tartar should materially contain a flatus it had uttered the same in its first combustion at least in another distillation the which notwithstanding is made a new afterwards in every of its distillations also of its oyle or sulphur onely Because a hidden sharpness of the Wine and also a volatile Alcali is herein whence of the coupling of them both a wild Gas is made For the food not being sufficiently subdued in the stomack putrifies and causeth a Gas For it putrifieth through the corruption of the place which is of the dung of the stomack or by an action besides nature For the least atomes of the meats being well chewed are well turned into chyle but the greater atomes in a more weak stomack although in their circumference and outward appearance they are by digestion resolved into chyle yet in their center seeing they indeed perceive sufficient heat yet do not equally enjoy a ferment they remain undigested are corrupted of a yellowish colour and for the most part do the business for the bowels or if they do retain the ancient sliminess of the food together with a little sharpness they are changed into wormes which are alwayes messengers of weakness but the ferment of the stomack finding some things resisting it and therefore half-cocted and half-putrified presently enflameth doubleth and heighteneth its tartness whence there is a gnawing belching from a brackishness the companion of apetite which lump falling down into the intestine stirs up rotten and stinking flatus's from a fat putrifaction By way of handy-craft operation Take of Sulphur one part let it boyl with a double quantity of oyle of Line presently the Sulphur putrifies and the substance of Birds lungs appears breathing forth the smell of humane dung even as also in distilling the like Gas belcheth forth The lump therefore being badly digested in the stomack descending through the intestine stirreth up sharp flatus's if the tartness shall be heightened whence there are wringings of the guts But if any snivelly thing thereof shall adhere to a bowel the more stubborn gripes or wringings are made and now and then an accompanying Flux And by so much the more cruel by how much the sharpness shall be the more brackish For from a brackish flatus there is a small and fluid Colick but from meats it is far more stubborn and changeth its places and wandereth But if from a brackish adhering and affixed muckiness it most cruelly afflicts and puls together Flatus's or windinesses therefore do proceed not from the matter properly but from an operation of the ferment attempting a new generation besides nature and from the error of the provoked Archeus These things of natural and diseasie flatus's But poysons being drunk why they produce the habit of the body swollen with a flatus Know thou that that comes to pass a little before and after death For neither doth a dead carcase swell by reason of an attainment of a new matter but because the life is chiefly in the bowels therefore the habite of the body is first defiled by the poyson But the corrupting of the flesh is alwayes in a sour or sharp savour for leavened things are by a famous mystery read to have been forbidden to the Jewes therefore a sudden and cruel corruption dashing it self into fleshes doth also beget in them a windie blast and swelling So a dead carcass that is drowned doth presently sink to the bottome so long as until the flesh waxeth sharp under putrifying then indeed it springs up and is swollen with windiness and the life of the muscles which is as yet left after death doth work the flatus For it is wont to be said That a dead Carcass will issue to the top of the Water when
constancy but not a hastened Corruption And it hath compleated its circle of generation through a long favour of the Heaven and it seemeth to be that which by a particular ordination is directed by the Almighty for the help of the Miserable and Poor 2. Drif is not of those unwonted Arcanums not bestowed by God but on a very few Adeptists they only being certain of his choice Disciples For truly our Drif seemeth to be only ordained for the comfort of the Poor 3. Drif requireth that it be indeed of a Natural Body partaker of a Metallick bounty but that before it be first made obedient and openea by Death not indeed with an extinguishment of its Virtues or Faculties or like a Carcass dying of its own accord but the benefits of its natural Endowments being retained that it be unlocked by the Artificer being free from its bolts and as it were raised up again yea that it be an enriched and plainly a new Being and rising afresh from the fire 4. And therefore it ought to have risen again being as it were altogether Volatile after Death and spiritual or to be twice or thrice sublimed with other things added unto it 5. But because volatile things do soon perish are dispersed and dissolved even before they are admitted within do pierce and draw their excellencies out of their Bosome or so are able to pacifie the Archeus therefore Drif requires that after its volatility being obtained it be connexed unto a certain friendly Body whereby it may be detained and in its Bride-bed be communicable unto mans Body and grateful and familiar unto our Archeus And therefore it ought to obtain that thing as it were a middle place between a Body that is easily and not easily difflable or to be blown away And likewise it ought to be connexed unto its mean while its heat being now almost at the highest it shall be mild to wit least the volatitle Body in the co-kniting do in a great part of it fly away 6. And for this cause it ought to be plainly fermental not onely in its constancy of Body but in the extension of its virtues so that through the least participation of its Odour it may be able to extend its virtues into the Archeus and to sleepifie and asswage the same In which Six Particulars as Drif is described so in a like Number its Composition is discovered First of all In the Book of the Disease of the Stone in the dainty dish for Young Beginners I have explained a manner of Distilling whereby the Spirit of Sea-Salt is drawn or allured forth with Potters Earth being dried For the Salt of the Sea is akin unto us and desireable by us neither is it adverse unto us in any of its Tenour Therefore for Drif the residing Salt of the Sea remaining in its Dreg is required to wit it being extracted from its Dreg or Lee which is called the Caput Mortuum or Dead Head That Salt I say being now spoiled of its Spirits doth desire strange ones and doth lay them up within it self yet it doth not altogether stubbornly fix them 2. I have likewise taught That the first Being of Venus or Copper cannot be sequestred but by the Death and Separation of its Mercury from its Sulphur But moreover that neither is that Sulphur to be had but in the possession of Adeptists whose number as it is choice and most rare so also it is altogether small 3. I have taught moreover That in Vitriol however its Venus being now depraved and the more often distilled yet that the very actual Venus doth as yet remain 4. Wherefore Drif it self requires at least-wise a Sequestration of the Venus from the Feces or Dreg of the Vitriol which is not otherwise compleated than by Subliming 5. Which Sublimation is also of necessity made and perfected by a forreign fermental Being yet altogether friendly to the Archeus 6. Therefore the Sea Salt extracted out of its Dreg being poured forth before its every way co-thickening Let about a threefold quantity of the Being of Venus being raised again by Subliming and accompanied with its strange or forreign Ferment be co-mixed with it and presently let the roof be covered But when they shall become wholly cold beat them into a Powder under Marble and adjoyn thereto about a tenfold quantity of Usnea or the Moss of a Dead Man's Skul in respect of the Ens or Being of Venus Which Powder compact thou into Trochies upon a Stone with mouth or fish-glew being dissolved And thou hast a Noble Medicine CHAP. LXXX Of material things Injected or Cast into the Body 1. What material things are Cast in from without 2. Some Histories 3. The Matter of the Deed is admitted yet it is Disputed concerning the Manner of Injection 4. The penury of Judgement in a Searcher out of Magical things 5. That it doth not exceed Nature that a solid Body is derived without breaking by a Passage far more narrow than it self 6. A History rehearsed by Cornelius Gemma 7. Some Histories of the piercing of Bodies 8. The piercing of Bodies in passing thorow to a Place is proved 9 The same thing in passing thorow out of a Body 10. There hath been a familiar piercing of the Dimensions of humane Nature 11. The same Property doth sometimes persist in the Seeds of things 12 After what manner those things may naturally happen 13. By a like Example in dark Bodies which cease to be seen 14. A Reason by a Conjecture 15. There is an especial and free force concurring in Enchanting and therefore also natural unto man 16. A man as he is the Image of God doth create some Beings which are something more than Non-beings 17. In an imagined Being or a formed Idea there is a right of Entity or Beingnesse 18. After what manner an Idea may fall out from the Imagination 19. How the Soul of man doth create Images 20. An Objection is Solved 21. Some Paradoxes of the imagining Soul for the constituting of an Idea ANd then also there are things Injected or cast into the Body which do suppose a visible matter Of which sort are Darts or Arrow-heads Sharp Thornes Chaffs Haires Sawings little Stones shels of Eggs and earthen Pots Parings or Shels and Husks Insects Naperies or pieces of Linnen Cloath Needles Instruments of Artificers the which are indeed unsensibly darted into the Body and do enter altogether after an invisible manner yet are they detained and cast forth with cruel Torments And it may be are oftentimes greater than their hole whereby they are sent in For of late there was part of a Buffe or Oxe Hide Injected thorow the pores of the skin the skin remaining entire the which the Chyrugion drew out with his Tongues unto the bigness of the Palme of ones hand Yet an Aposteme was first ripened But a Witch being burnt at Bruges confessed that she had cast in that piece of Hide into the good Man So in times past we
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 â—all 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
because it is that which is besides and against the appointed government of its own Life Wherefore from a sufficient account or enumeration I conclude that before the Apple was eaten neither could the Mind have generated an immortal Soul neither that it intended to generate a mortal one nor indeed any seminal disposition or substance of Seed And therefore neither had there for that Cause been made any Generation by Man neither had he felt in himself any inclination to generate And in this respect the Cause of natural Death of necessity lay hid in the eating of the Apple being unfolded by carnal Generation in which Generation there is a seminal Disposition co-operating for the obtaining of a mortal Soul by request and that Generation doth prevent and pervert the intention of the Creator about the propagation of his own Image So indeed the mortal Soul hath through a brutal Concupiscence of the Flesh produced for it self a Seed dispositive unto a Soul which is to perish after the manner of Bruit-beasts To wit the which Soul hath also introduced with it a brutal condition of mortality For Death was undoubtedly co-co-natural unto Bruits from their Creation the which indeed have only mortal Souls But it is lawful to confirm by the rule of a supposed falshood that we are bound by Faith to believe that indeed the Mind is created immediately by God but not to be kindled by the Soul of the Parents even as Light being taken from Light For if the Soul of the Person generated be made of the Soul of the Generater this shall be either from the Soul of the Father or from the Soul of the Mother or from both but none of these is true Therefore the Soul of the Person generated is in no wise made or derived from the Spirit of the Parents It is proved as to the first For truly seeing the Speech is of the progress of Nature the which therefore ought to be ordinary And therefore also that thing should constantly happen in Bruit-beasts but this doth not happen therefore not from the progress of Nature The subsumption is proved by a Young from its Father being a Dormouse and its Mother a Coney to wit the which except that its Taile is like a Dormouse is wholly a Coney as well within as without also in its Skin and Haires But if any Faculty of its Soul should issue from the Father it should of necessity have a fatherly and not a motherly Faculty But by the Example proposed the contrary is manifest therefore not from the Father Yet neither therefore are the Souls of off-springs begged from the Mothers Soul For otherwise from that which the Soul proceedeth from the same likewise and at least the formative Faculty also should proceed And by consequence off-springs should not only alwayes be made of the femal Sex and alwayes like unto their Mother but also a Mola or Lump of Flesh should never be made where the Faculty or Virtue of the Seed of the Male flows down as barren As neither should the imagination of a Woman great with Child transchange the Young being already formed in its Mothers Womb into a monstrous strange yea and bruital Figure because the Seed now having a Soul borrowed from the Parent could not be any longer subject unto the foolish imagination of the Mother especially while as the Young is now nourished in its own Orbe and Kitchin The same Argument also prevaileth in supposing that the Soul was begotten from the Soul of both Parents for whatsoever is denyed disjunctively may truly be denyed copulatively Whither also this conclusion hath regard to wit that that being granted the Seed should now be actually soulified from its Beginning And likewise that of two Souls a certain composed and mixt soulified and Spiritual Light should be made which resisteth a formal simplicity by reason of a composed duality Therefore the single homogeniety of the Soul is averse unto duality and to a heterogeneal composition of Souls Whence I conclude That the Soul is not so much as in Bruits derived from the Parents and by so much the less in Man Wherefore all Souls are immediately created by the very Life it self and Father of Lights who will give his own honour of Creator unto no Creature Wherefore from hence it is easie to be seen that Man is not able to produce an immortal Mind nor the divine Image And so also from hence it is manifest that the first intention of the Creator was not that Man had in any respect immingled himself in generating but that the alone hand of the Creator had perfected every Young which alone createth all Souls but especially and singularly that Soul which should thenceforth be eternal the which he by an essential ordination had directed unto his own Image Lastly it must needs be that a true Image or Likenesse can never naturally be made but by a proper Engraver But he is no proper Engraver who hath not perfectly known him whose Image he intends to Engrave But Man was created after the Image and Likeness of God yet he cannot know God as neither express any Image of him in Mind or Word the which ignorance every one ought to confess Therefore he cannot be a proper Engraver of the divine Image And therefore whatsoever Image of him he should frame it should be plainly Monstrous and of a finite Duration And by consequence Man in the intention of the Creator was not made that he should generate a man In Nature indeed every Spirit of generating Seed doth comprehend because it doth contain the Idea of the thing to be generated But Man seeing he is the immediate and true Image of God cannot by any means transfuse the divine Image into his own Seed the which in himself and out of himself he is plainly ignorant of But seeing that in Nature a like thing generates its like Man may imprint on his Seed the Image of a humane Body made also after the Image of God Therefore a Man which generates may imprint on his Seed the seal or shadow of himself but not the Image of God and substance of the immortal Mind And moreover I have demonstrated elsewhere that all other Souls are only formal Lights but not substances Therefore if the Mind ought or could be able to produce the Image of God now the Mind should either dease to be the very Image of God it self or God should not be the Creator of the Mind Wherefore the pure Essence of the Image of God did by all manner of means require in its conception of creating or generating God himself the immediate Creator and one only Father of it who is in the Heavens and besides whom there is no Paternity in the Heavens Otherwise there is a carnal Paternity or Fatherliness in Man and Bruits and therefore the Text saith Honour thy Father And another Text That there is no Paternity but in the heavenly Father Therefore it is denoted that there is
changed for those only shall rise again changed who shall rise again glorified in the virgin-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
Desire or Love of which I here speak is not a function of the appetitive power nor the very qualitative power of desiring it self but it is a substantial part of the mind or rather the Mind it self flowing from Understanding and Will Because those three are undividably conjoyned by the Creator under Unity in as great a simplicity as may be Yet in live persons or mortal men it is separated from Understanding and Will in its Functions by reason of the condition of the Organ and Nature of the sensitive Soul For truly now we desire oftentimes those things which the Understanding judgeth not to be desirable and which the Will could wish were not desired But it must needs be that things whose operations are different or dis-joyned that the same things are dis-joyned in their root according to the manner whereby all particular things are separated In the Soul indeed onely by a relative supposionality but in the Body according to a corporeal and qualitative Nature And therefore that substantial Desire or Love is an intimate Essence of the Soul being consubstantial and co-equal in age with the same So that although in Heaven there be a full satiety of desirable things and a perpetual enjoymens thereof yet that desire in the Soul doth not therefore cease the which is a study or â—â—â—eavour of complacency Neither doth it therefore infer a passion of the Soul any more than Charity it self because they are conjoyned in their root as one and the same thing For an amarous desire ceasing of necessity either a fullness or glutting or an unsensibleness of fruition or enjoyment should presently arise which in the heavenly Wights would be a shameful thing That desire therefore of Love is the fewel of an unterminable or endless delight under which consideration the Mind resembles the Spirit the Comforter For the unutterable Creator hath placed Man in the liberty of his own Desire that he might live in the Spirit after the Image of God in a holy Desire and perfect Charity It is manifest therefore that Operations are distinct from the root of Faculties while we understand those things which we do not desire but while we desire those things which we do not plainly know and which we would not desire In the next place we will as while a man goes willingly to Punishment those things which we do not desire and desire those things which we would not as while any one commands his Leg to be cut off And likewise the Desire doth afterward some-sometimes overcome the Will or the Will doth oft-times compell the Desire and they by turns draw each other under mutual Commands but wholly in Mortals because the sensitive Soul draws the Understanding and the Body the sensitive Soul into a manifold disorder of division For so impossible things happen to be desired and things past are wished for as present For unlesse that Desire were from the root of the Mind he should not sin who should see a Woman to lust after her before the consent of a full Will Therefore very many things are desired whose Causes are not willed and many things whose Effects are refused by the Will and Judgement The Desire also doth operate in one manner and the Will in another Also in the motion of the Day or in duration the Desire doth oftentimes go before and sometimes followes the Will and one overcomes the other by course that it may restrain something that is distinct from it self And that wholly in mortal Bodies But in Eternity where Love or Amorous Desire ariseth as the substance of the Soul nothing is Desired which is not Willed and that as well in respect of Act as Substance and Essence Because by reason of the simplicity of Substance they are collected into Unity Although in the Root they have diverse Suppositions which plainly exceed the manner â—f Understanding in mortal Men. In the next place the Kingdom of God in man is unutterable that is God himself by whose perpetual splendour all things are gathered together into Truth Therefore the Primary or chief Image of God is in his immortal Soul because the very Essence whereof it self is also the veriest Image of God which Image can neither be expressed by words as neither thought by the heart in this Life because it resembles a certain similitude of God But in the husk of the Mind or in the sensitive Soul and vital Form there is the same Image re-shining yet received after the manner of an inferior nature and defiled through transgressions or Death from whence at length the Body also borroweth not indeed the Image of God but the Figure of him But the Soul is devolved into utter darkness even as it hath separated it self from the uncreated Light and from the virtue of the Image and therefore it hath by reason of appropriation so lost its native Light as if it were proper unto it as beseeming it that thenceforth it understands wills or loves nothing besides it self and for it self For the damned shall rise not changed because their Body rising again shall receive its limitations from their Soul The which seeing now it is with all depraved affections reflexed onely on it self after a corporeal manner It shall not in rising again delineate the Image of God which is as it were choaked in it in the Body but after a corporeal manner That is by way of figure Lastly It being deprived through the flood-gate of death of the helps of Imagination Memory and Free-Will It afterwards understands wills loves all things from a blind apprehension as being onely addicted to it self For it knows its Immortality but feels Damnation and complaines of it as that Injustice is done unto it Because the love of it self is onely to excuse its excuses in sins as being committed in dayes of ignorance and innocency with much frailty of Nature lyings in wait of Enemies and want of sufficient Grace As neither that an eternal punishment is deservedly due for a momentary transgression For then it begins to be mad and persists in hating of God Chiefly because it knows the unviolable arrest of its loss and an eternal impossibility of escaping It being therefore cut off in its hope passeth even from the very beginning of its entrance into the utmost desperation in a place where no piety compassion refreshment or recantation is entertained It happens also that seeing the Understanding doth naturally transform it self into the Idea of the thing understood and therefore into the similitude of evil Spirits its Objects Therefore there is alwaies a present hatred of God despair cursing damnation and the furious torments of Hell The Almighty of his goodness vouchsafe to break the snares that are extended for us in our passage Amen CHAP. CIII The Property of External Things THe spiritual beginning of Life being now finished before I descend unto corporeal and sensible Organs and other supports of Life I will propose something concerning Places First of all therefore
But if it listeth us to enquire into the cause hereof It is certain that Eve after the eating of the forbidden Apple made her self subject to the itch of Lust stirred up and admitted the Man unto copulations and from hence that the conceived humane Nature was corrupted and remaining degenerate thenceforward Through the Cause of which corruption Posterity are deprived of an incomparable purity From whence there is place for conjecture that Eve did by the Member through which she became subject unto many Miseries testifie among posterity a successive fault of her fall and bloody defilement in Nature For the part wherein the Image of God ought to be conceived by the holy Spirit became a sink of filths and testifies the abuse and fault of an unobliterable sin and therefore also suffers Because In sorrow shalt thou bring forth thy Sons in manner of bruit beasts because henceforward thou shalt conceive after the manner of bruits For so that Curse hath entred into Nature and shall there remain And by the same Law also a necessity of Menstrues For before sin the Young going forth the Womb being shut had not caused pain Wherefore it is lawful to argue from the Premises That the incomparable Virgin-Mother of God the Ark of the Covenant never admitted into her any corruption and by consequence was never subject to Menstrues as neither to have suffered womanish discomodities Because she was she who by the good pleasure of God hath the Moon and the Properties of the Moon subjected under her feet Unto Whom next unto God be Honour and Praise CHAP. CIX Life IF I must at length Phylosophize of Long Life I must first look into what Life is and then what the Life of Man what immortal and Adamical Life is afterwards what a Sensitive and Short Life is what a Diseasie what a Healthy Life what the Life of the World and what Eternal Life is To which end it is convenient to repeat some Lessons from my Premises First of all therefore Life is a Light and formal Beginning whereby a thing acts what it is commanded to act But this Light is given by the Creator as being infused at one onely Instant even as Fire is Struck out of a Flint it is enclosed under the Identity and Unity of a Form and is distinguished by general Kindes and Species But it is not a fiery combustive Light a consumer of the radical moisture It is as well Vital in the Fish as in the Lyon and as well in the Poppy as in Pepper Neither also doth heat fail in us by reason of a consumption of the radical moisture Neither on the other hand doth moisture fail through a defect of heat but onely through a diminishment and extinguishment alone of the vital Powers and also of the Light The Fire Light Life Forms Magnal Place c. are neither Creatures not Substances as neither comprehended in the Catalogue of Accidents Neither therefore do I distinguish the Form in vital things from their Life the mind of Man being on both sides excepted To wit there is a certain Life which is mute or dumb and scarce appeareth such as is met with in Minerals The which notwithstanding do declare that they live and perform their Offices by their Marks and remarkable Signs of vital Faculties And then there is another Life which is a little more unfolded or manifest Such as is in the Seeds of things tending to the period of their Species In the next place a Third Life is seen in Plants increasing themselves and bringing forth off-spring by a successive multiplying Next a Fourth Life is manifest in bruit Beasts by Motion Sense and a voluntary Choice with some kind of Discourse of Imagination At length the Last Life is now obscured in the Immortal Mind and Substance and is after some sort unfolded by the sensitive Soul its Vicaresse The Life therefore is not the Balsam not the Mummy not in the next place the Spirit of the Arterial Blood although this Spirit be the Conserver of the Body Because the Life is not a Matter yea nor a Substance but the very expresse Form of the Thing it self Moreover I being about to speak of the Immortal Life of Men I will follow the Text For indeed because the punishment of the broken Precept was Death For Death came not from God but from the condition of a Law I say the Almighty made not Death as neither a Medicine of Destruction in the Earth And that must be understood onely in respect of Men For neither ought the whole Nature and Condition of the Universe to be bespattered for the Sin of Adam so as that Bruits are made subject to Death through the corruption or deviation of our kind For truly even before Sin Bruits ought to dye to wit some whereof the Lord of things had substituted for meat and fodder to others For they ought naturally to dye every annihilable Life and Form whereof were onely one and the same thing Indeed it was of necessity that those Forms should perish whatsoever do obtain their first or chief antecedent and subsequent dispositions from a corporal wedlock of the Seeds The Death therefore of Bruits was not worthy of the word Death which included an extinguishment and annihilating of a Light but not a separation of the same with a preservation of the Light separated Therefore it was the great God his good pleasure that he made Man into the nearest Image of the Divine Majesty as a living Soul nor subject unto death Therefore neither is it said that God made Death It is therefore believed that Adam before transgression was Immortal from the goodness of the Creator Therefore I knew that Adam indeed was Immortal before the transpression of a Law Yet that it was not natural unto him from the root of Life but for the Tree of Life's sake For otherwise the planting of this Tree in Paradise had been vain if Man could not have suffered the successive alterations and calamities of Ages That Tree therefore was created for the powers and necessities of Renovation renewing of Youth yea and prevention of Old Age For although the Body by Creation was not capable of being wounded nor subject unto Diseases yet it had by little and little felt the successive changes of Ages if its vigor had not been continued by the Tree of Life For neither is it to be believed that the Lord of things the Saviour of the World was of a worse constitution than our first Parent But that the Redeemer of the World died and so felt the Calamities of Ages that in his thirty second year he was reckoned fifty years of Age. That happened not from his Nature nor from the root of his Life For Death as also the rottenness of Dayes had no right over him but out of his infinite goodness whereby he had appointed himself a Surety for our Sins he would subject himself to miseries and so also to Death in his most glorious
of the Life that was to be governed to slide on the neck of the sensitive Soul CHAP. CXI Life Eternal THe Gospel promiseth to mortal Men not only that the Son of God was Incarnate and suffered for the Salvation of Man but that these two Misteries are to be applyed unto Individuals which else should be as it were in vain But I have considered of that Application after this manner For indeed by Sin Man brake no less the Intent than the Decree of God from whence humane Nature was corrupted in its Root because there followed another almost beast-like Generation thereupon which of it self is uncapable of life Eternal Wherefore the Gospel ought to include the abolishment of Original Sin and of all other things issuing from the Corruption of Nature Therefore seeing Man thenceforeward ought to be born no longer of God but naturally only of the Bloods of the Sexes of the will of the Flesh and of the will of Man neither yet could his Body rise again through any Power of his own into its antient Dignity and much less cease to be that it might again and otherwise begin to be Therefore the joyful Message was brought unto us that one Baptisme should be given for the Remission of Sins whereby Man should be so renewed by Water and the Holy Spirit that his Soul should be born again as it were by a new Nativity and be made partaker of the unspotted Humanity of Christ the Saviour being framed by the holy Spirit Which new Birth also reposeth the Soul into its antient State of Innocency taking away Sin and we believe that thing altogether really thus to be but not as if we should embrace Allegories or Metaphors for truth but these things do so really and actually happen in Baptized Persons that God doth grant a Testimony of that actual Grace which is conferred by Baptisme to be sensibly derived into the Body In which respect indeed Mahometans receive Baptism as it takes away from them an inbred Stink otherwise durable for Life and the which we observe to be otherwise in all Jews at this day And so the more inward effect of Baptisme doth even outwardly shine forth Yea and that thing confirmes that there is a perpetual and unobliterable effect of one only Baptisme But that new Birth doth not take away Death but leaves Christians with the Fardle of a corrupt Body generated by the Will of Man and in this respect nevertheless leaves the Soul subject to the Vices of a corrupted Body Wherefore unto those that are of ripe Age Baptisme was not sufficient although unto those of younger Years as long as they are innocent it is abundantly sufficient There is therefore another Priviledge promulged whereby Persons of ripe Years may have eternal Life that he who shall not eat unworthily the Lords Body Christ shall raise him up unto Life in the last Day but if he shall not eat he is to have no Life in him For this Mistery was given unto us for the Life of the World For the Life of the World is Adamical Frail or Mortal and well nigh Brutal For the transchanging whereof a Pledge is given unto us and likewise an actual and real Participation of Life eternal Therefore the Merits of the Lords Passion are comunicated unto us through a participation of the unspotted Virginity of Christ the Lord for the Communion of his most pure and chast Body unites us to himself and doth actually regenerate us in himself and so gives us a Life conformable unto himself The Body of the Lord is given for the Life of the World And although the Body of Man which was conceived of Bloods doth not presently perish Yet in that very Moment wherein we are united with the Lords Body and his Humanity it makes us partakers of his incomprehensible Incarnation and restores us into the antient Integrity of humane Nature as we do partakingly attain the most pure Virginity of Christ wherein we ought to be saved And so by reason of his amorous Union a participation of the Merits of his Passion is attributed unto us Therefore the most principal effect of the holy sacred Eucharist is a Participation of the Purity and Virgin-uncorrupted Nature of the Lord Jesus And so for this Cause it is declared by a proper Circumlocution to be Wine budding forth Virgins Furthermore that this Mistery of the unutterable Love of God doth operate the aforesaid real effects of regeneration in the Nature of Man The Apostle teacheth We shall all indeed rise again but we shall not all be changed As if he should say All Mortals shall at sometime rise again from Death The Damned indeed shall rise again being not any thing changed but in their former Adamical Body being ponderous not piercing c. to wit only the wished for necessity of Death being taken away from them But Children being regenerated by the Laver of Baptisme shall rise again in a Body after some sort Glorified but by so much the less perfect by how much they were remote from so great an happiness But they who were united in the communion of the Lords Body shall rise again plainly glorious throughout their whole Nature because they were most perfectly regenerated in their life-time of which Regeneration although visible Signs appeared not yet they were in very deed within for neither are they made anew in the Resurrection unless they had first fore-existed in the Life-time by an every-way regeneration Our Faith is not of things not in Being but of true things not Visible because he will have us to profit by Faith Wherefore although this Mark of resemblance of Love and Union with God be altogether unsearchable even as also its Effects are only invisible Yet the aforesaid mystical and real New-birth is as yet reckoned earthly by Nicodemus and from that Title I have transferred it hither I therefore contemplate of the New-birth or renewing of those that are to be saved to be made in a sublunary and earthly Nature just even as in the Projection of the Stone which maketh Gold For truly I have divers times seen it and handled it with my hands but it was of colour such as is in Saffron in its Powder yet weighty and shining like unto powdered Glass There was once given unto me one fourth part of one Grain But I call a Grain the six hundredth part of one Ounce This quarter of one Grain therefore being rouled up in Paper I projected upon eight Ounces of Quick-silver made hot in a Crucible and straightway all the Quick-silver with a certain degree of Noise stood still from flowing and being congealed setled like unto a yellow Lump but after pouring it out the Bellows blowing there were found eight Ounces and a little less than eleven Grains of the purest Gold Therefore one only Grain of that Powder had transchanged 19186 Parts of Quick-silver equal to it self into the best Gold The aforesaid Powder therefore among earthly things is found
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
is present that is while that formal Animal and Sensitive Light is kindled even as elsewhere concerning the Birth of Formes believe also that the immortal mind is present and that it doth wholly sit immediately in the Sensitive Soul as being associated or joyned thereunto Not indeed that it sits in a certain corner bowel prison of the Body or shop of the spirits But I conceive that the mind is throughout the whole Sensitive Soul and that it pierceth this Soul nor that it doth exceed the Sphear thereof as long as it lives and in this respect that it is subject unto many importunities of circumstances But in death the mind is separated because the Sensitive Soul it self departs into nothing as it were the light of a Candle which things surely were here to be fore-tasted of before the explication of Sensation Pain therefore as that which is chiefly to be felt shall open unto us the way For it is a hurtful and sorrowful Sensation or act of feeling conceived in the vital Spirit being by life implanted in the sensitive soul And in speaking most nearly Sense or Feeling is a Possion of the sensitive soul conceived in the spirit of Life For nothing can be glad sorrowful or in pain besides the soul it self And so that Sense seeing it is the first conception of Pain or well-pleasing it is by all means made primarily in the Soul And therefore Sense represents unto me nothing besides that power of the Soul of conceiving and judging passively of external Objects rushing on it Therefore seeing that these Acts do depend on the Soul the whole History whereof is blind unto us it is no wonder that it hath been hitherto nought but carelesly treated by the Schools concerning the Soul and Sensation Because they are those who have skipt over the Enquiries of far more manifest things as untouched yea through sloath they have neglected them by subscribing to the dreams of Heathens In Pain therefore the irrational Sensitive Soul is first or chiefly sorrowful is mad is angry is perplexed doth itch or fear and as it is in the fountainous root of all vital actions it naturally moves and contracts not only the Muscles but also any of the parts unto the tone of its own passions Sense therefore is the action of external Objects that are to be perceived the which while they are conceived in the Soul it self also suffers no less than life its companion than the animal spirit and the rest of the guard But the immortal mind suffers not any of these things in its own substance but only in its Subject Seat Inn to wit the Sensitive Soul Otherwise all voluntary things at once are too invalid so as to be able to affect an immortal Being which is Eternal in its future duration But it is as yet a very small matter that the Sensitive Soul doth suffer by sensible Objects unless it self be made as it were hostile to it self while aâ— impatient it is exorbitant or disorderly For it begins to act while it is provoked and doth suffer by sensible Objects For truly it shakes the vital Spirit and the whole body and at length as prodigal it disperseth the vital furniture and breeds diseases on it self and hastens its own death That even from hence also the Proverb may be verified That none is more hurt than by himself as the Sensitive soul is a meer act And so that it being once spurred up by sensible conceptions for it is wholly irrational brutal wrongful and greedy of desire it leaps over into furies and symptomatically or furiously shakes all things Therefore sensible Objects are the occasions of hurts and diseases But the sensitive Soul well perceiving the same occasions nor being willing to suffer them diversly stirs up its own Ministers and by Idea's imprinted on them estrangeth them from their Scope or Purpose From whence afterwards proceed various seeds and Off-springs of Diseases The Soul therefore undergoes and suffers the aforesaid affects from the Object that is to be felt from whence it being disturbed or tossed by the pricks of Sensations doth act and suffer lastly as being prodigal it in a rage disperseth its own family-order of Administration And while it perceiveth sweet plausible helpful Objects and those things which are grateful unto it self it is not in this its acts of feeling differing from the Judgement whereby it feeleth hurtful corrosive pricking rending brusing Objects not but by accident which is plainly external to the life it self From whence it is easily discerned that Sense is made by the Judgement of the sensitive Soul being brought upon a conceived sensible object it altering at first by it self according to the Sensation conceived and then it conveigheth it further unto another imaginative Judgement which is separated from the sensitive Judgement no otherwise than as Sense and Phantasie or Imagination do disagree in their Faculties but not in their Subject Spare me ye Readers if I attribute all material perturbations and affections immediately to the sensitive soul and to the spirits its guardians but not unto the organs of those For there are some tickling things which by their itching and itch-gumme do stir up laughter and a small leaping in some which in others do not move the least of these For oft-times the Soul is inwardly overclouded with a natural Sensation and is also sadned the Subject thereof being scarce known yea it elsewhere doates And elsewhere the sensitive soul becomes unsensitive as in those that have the Falling Sicknesse for a time but in the Palsey oft-times for Life at leastwise in Organs that are hurt although as yet alive But in many without Sense Judgement and Reason although the animal spirits do issue forth and being diffused into the habit of the body do move and in the mean time do otherwise draw hurtful impressions So the life and that sensitive soul have their own drowsinesse madnesse and trouble within although nothing shake and burden them from without because seeing that in sleep also there is its own foolish Lust or Desire Hunger Thirst Fear Agony and a wondrous dissolute liberty of irrational vain dreams And moreover friendly things are presently changed into mixt neutral or hostile ones as the Archeus which never keeps Holiday or is idle doth of sweet things make bitter and corroding ones For the Soul as I have said conceiveth of sensible things by the means of a Guard and Clients unto whom she her self as present is an an Assistant and by applying those objects unto her self stirs up Sorrow Love Fear c. To wit of which Idea's she sealingly forms the Characters or Impressions in her own Archeus whereby she changeth all things acording to the Image seminally proposed unto her self Which Character being through a bedewing of the Sensitive Soul made partakers of Life and Sense do first cloath the seminal body of the Archeus from whence at length most prompt faculties or abilities for action do spring And there is
sometimes made in these so ready and stubborn a perseverance of affection that it presents a Spectacle of Admiration to the Beholder especially if any one doth examine the attributes of the Life and spiritual Seed For how most suddenly are Children Women and improvident people angry do weep and laugh For the sensitive Souls of those do freshly as it were immediately even adhere unto sensible things It is therefore a natural thing that the sensitive Spirit is voluntarily and easily carried into these kinds of overflowings because that Soul being easily received by its own sensual judgement slides into the voluntary passions of material Spirits and as even from a Child these same exorbitances have encreased so afterwards that Soul growes to ripeness as wrothful furious and wholly symptomatical the which otherwise would far more safely perform all things under meeknesse or mildnesse than as by reason of furies to aspire into Diseases and now and then unto its own death which is frequent and most manifest in Exorbitances of the Womb and in the Symptomes of some Wounds and of other Diseases Anger therefore and Fury in this place are not of the man but of that Sensitive Soul brought into the Life which begetteth the animosities of a natural Sensation and the which therefore doth oftentimes ascend unto a great height that it burns to an Eschar and blasts the part with a Sphacelus or mortifying Inflammation like fire Pain therefore is an undoubted Passion of the Sense of Touching wherein the sensitive Soul expresseth a displeasure with the Object according to the differences of the conceived Injury brought on the parts Furthermore Whether that Passion be the Office or Performance of a judicial power from whence the Soul is by a proper Etymology named Sensitive no otherwise than as the motive faculty moveth only by the beck of the Soul without an external or forreign Exciter Or indeed whether pain be a Passion immediately produced from a sensible paining cause the Schools might have sifted out if as great a care of diligent searching into the truth as of receiving a Salary from the sick had ever touched them But with me that thing hath long since wanted a doubt For truly Seeing the Sense of Pain is the Judgement of the Soul expressed by the act of feeling in the Sensible Faculty whereby the Soul bewails it self of the sensible hurtful and paining Object Therefore both of them being connexed together do almost every way concur and both also stand related after each its own manner unto pain For indeed the cause being a sensible injury is the motive of pain But the sensitive Soul it self gives judgement of the painful Object with a certain wrothfulnesse and impatiencie of Passion The which indeed in a wound Contusion or Bruise Extension or Straining Burning and Cold as being external Causes is altogether easie to be seen But while the motive Causes of Pain are neither applied from the aforesaid impression of external Objects or from a proper Exorbitancy within and the Sensitive Spirit is from thence made wholly sharp gnawing biting degenerate and forms the blood like it self Then indeed the Sensitive Soul in paining doth not only give a simple judgement concerning Pain But moreover she in her self being wholly disturbed brings forth from her self a newly painful product no otherwise than if that Product proceeded from an external occasional Cause And although both these do in a greater Passion and more grievous Sensation for the most part concur yet in speaking properly Pain doth more intimately respect the Censure brought from the Sensitive Soul the Patient Or Pain doth more nearly reflect it self on the property of the Soul than on the paining cause Because many are grievously wounded without manifest pain even as also a furious man shewes that he scarce feeleth Paines from hurtfull Causes Some things also do oftentimes delude the paines of Torture and Unctions do also deceive paines although the parts are beaten with injury Wherefore Sense doth more intimately and properly respect the Censure of the power of the sensitive Soul than the injury of the painfull Cause But truly I am diverted elsewhere as for the cause of the aforesaid unpainfulnesse in the Leprosie and unmoveablenesse in the Apoplexy c. The Schooles indeed contending for the Brain as the chief Organ of Sensation and pain do therefore take notice that the Brain being by its own property of passion immediately and as it were by one stroak touched doth lose even both sense and motion at once yea that it doth contract either of the sides But the manner of making they thus expresse The fourth bosom of the Brain it being a very small little bosom beginning from the Cerebellum the beginning of the Thorny marrow is stopped up by phlegme from whence ariseth an Apoplexy in an instant For Nature being unwilling or not able to draw back or reduce that phlegme once slidden down thither being diligent is at leastwise busie in laying aside that phlegme into either side of that pipe from whence consequently a Palsie of that side begins These things indeed we read concerning the Apoplexyand Palsie yet nothing of the contracture arising through the stroak of the Head Paracelsus also not being content with this drowsie Doctrine of three Diseases is also tumbled in unconstancy For sometimes he saith That the Apoplexy and Palsie following thereupon is bred for that the sensitive Spirit in the Nerves or Sinews hath from the Law of the Microcosme after the manner of sulphurous Mines contracted like Aqua vitae a flame from the fire of Aetna Through which inflammation the Sinewes and Tendons being afterwards at it were adust burnt and as it were half dead are dryed up together with the muscles and therefore they do thenceforth remain deprived of sense and motion To wit he Constitutes these two Diseases considering nothing the while of the Contracture or Convulsion from the stroak not indeed in the Case of the Brain but in the utmost Branches of the Nerves as though they were affects hastening from without to within But in another place he judgeth not a certain sulphurous or inflamed matter to be the cause of the Apoplexy but he accuseth Mercury onely to wit one of the three things which he calls His own Beginnings of Nature as being too exactly Circulated and affirmes that through its abounding subtility or finenesse it is the conteining Cause of every sudden Death Elsewhere he recals the Apoplexy unto the Stars of Heaven And in another place again being unconstant he teacheth That every Apoplexy is made of gross vapors stopping up the Arteries and restlesse beating Pipes of the Throat and that there is also an Eclipse of the Lunaries or Moon-lights of the Brain in us from a Microcosmicall necessity Therefore hath he in like manner whirl'd about the causes of the Vertigo or giddinesse of the Head unto uncertainties To wit himself being wholly Vertiginous But I have otherwise proceeded Whatsoever doth primarily feel
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
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 Thâ—ir 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 Whâ—t 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 â—e 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 Dâ—atages 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 â—0 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 waâ—ers 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 prâ—paration 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 â—9 902 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 pâ—trid 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
Medicine had in part raised this discord the which had recalled the more young godly studious and other Reverencers of the Truth out of the long and obscure night into the dawning of the Day that they might believe that a Light more perfect nor hitherto learned did remain from whence this dawning did shine unto them and by how much the more thorowly they looked into the aforesaid little Book by so much the more they were glad because they found therein the promises of the coming of a more perfect desired Light it being that which did so heighten their Mind that a certain one of them did not fear publickly to propose this Parable with a shrill Voice unto some eminent famous Professors of Universities and Christians yet ungrateful ones with Interrogatives and Admonitions It is no wonder that these our Words do seem the more hard to the Flesh seeing they are spiritual whereof the Flesh cannot give Judgment even as he spake who had never looked against the Light by reason of the sickness of his Sight and when he saw the least Light he detested it relating among other things that it was the worst of Poysons because it brought an intollerable Pain upon him so that therefore he remained uncurable who could not through his obstinacy endure any mention of curing seeing that he loved Darkness before Light and so was made a Son of the same Darkness Some of the Professors took notice that this similitude was uttered concerning them and not knowing how to moderate themselves as being possessed with fury they flung out this Ye Novices and seditious Seeds-men of Heresies ye ought to be burnt alive together with your Abettors These Words being spoken they in a rage rushed forward toward the House of the Seniour Professor and there called a company together by night that they might foresee among themselves what might be taken in hand whereby this new Doctrin might be subverted The Patron of this Family was a most covetous old Man as also very aged who after he had received them all with a solemn Salutation began his Speech saying My fellow Brethren and my sworn Sons of our Profession it is very well known unto you that our Doctrin hath been firmly established whereof nothing is to be doubted seeing it is so antient nor ever hath sustained any adversity of the Nations which might brand it with a blemish In our dayes it is least of all to be granted that by this Schismatical Doctrin it can go to the wall or that the glory esteem and the things suggested by us eminently appearing in print can altogether perish for the preserving of them let us earnestly endeavour with all our Might by which deed we shall render our selves immortal unto our successours and shall bear away a solemn reward for our famous Deeds let us be unanimous then shall we perform many things I will first produce my Opinion If any one of us shall be adverse to our purpose let him be imposed upon with a Fine by a plurality of voices agreeable to every ones Wealth or Ability I as the first will bind my self to this by a Copy and assoon as any one shall come to be fined let the money rebounding from hence he laid aside for the use of suppressing the Enemies and least discord should grow among us for the future and that we may fitly reach our seasonable conclusion it is needful that all things which shall here be dispatched be committed to writings whom they presently obeyed in every thing and committed it to the Effect besides they incited him that he might proceed as he had begun saying Both these Propositions are just and equal for truly all of us have by this our Doctrin gotten our wealth And so also it is meet and just that the Goods gotten thereby should have respect unto our Doctrin and should defend it whereby we may as yet attain to be more wealthy The aforesaid Seniour hearing these Words with a very grateful and pleasant Countenance and Gesture adjoyned thereto I hold it most exceeding necessary and also to procure other Wealth of the Schools that they may joyn with us and enter into a mutual Covenant because the Matter toucheth them also which being obtained we will presently implore the Magistrate to condemn that seditious little Book to the Fire under a further injunction that they which should make use of it shall pay the punishment of Goods and Body Secondly it should be diligently endeavoured by us that we presently setting upon the one only Son of the Author of the aforesaid little Book by subtilty who possesseth his other Writings by an hereditary right should promise him a certain summe of Money some third man interceding as for a congratulation or restoring of his Fathers Books unto us the which we should allege were to be committed to the Press as feigning to take part with his Father that by his means we at least might understand where he might keep them in secret whereby we might obtain the same to be burnt by the Fire for when these Books shall behold the Light we shall suffer greater things neither should any other Remedy avail than procure a Book to be set forth in the Authors name containing perverse Doctrin or hellish Arts and to disperse it throughout the whole World also that this thing might the better succeed the said Heir should be taken out of the way least he should hinder our purpose all which things it is lawful freely to commit without Sin seeing that we are able to demonstrate and confirm these things by a received custom and Doctrin of very many famous Writers of a certain predominating Order These sayings being ended he intreated the chief Doctor next unto himself no less to endeavour with all his might to abolish so gainsay-ing a Doctrin and to preserve the profitable one whereto he as the second to the first replyed he was at this command He was otherwise an honest and sincere Man who had secretly recalled many miserable Sick from the Grave through his Integrity whereby as oft as opportunity gave leave he chastised Forms or Sorts of Remedies from the quantity and violence of his said Collegiates This Man also understood of and expected the present coming of Elias the Artist the which he vehemently desired and had learned many Years before from a certain studious Man of the Brethren of his Profession and besides he excelled in the strength of reason and in a firm health of Body who dying seemed to know something beyond the common sort of Men. He once before his Death went to minister to the Poor freely out of Charity he wrought many Works of Mercy in the Hospitals and Prisons until he brought back with him a common Disease who presently sent for his Professours who much rejoyced that he himself would make tryal of the Fruits of their professed Theory these Professours calling a wonted counsel withdrew Blood largely from him they gave him Purgative
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
of things Lastly the Fluxes of ripenesles slownesses and swiftnesses And likewise they have not known the composures and resolvings of Bodies made as well by Nature as Art Likewise the necessities ends or bounds dispositions defects restorings deaths consequences of Seeds also of Ferments also their nearnesses and dependencies for that they diligently taught the natural Agent to be a forreiner and a stranger to things Also by way of consequence they have been ignorant of the births of forms as also of the properties proceeding from thence In whose place they have exposed fortune chance time a vacuum or emptiness that which is infinite although they are all strangers to Nature and those things which did contain ridiculous Disciplines Yea they have followed the Authour who believed the World to be extended from Eternity unto Eternity by its own proper forces or virtue and he contradicteth himself by denying an infinite Since the first moreover being to abide for ever to make all things in his eternal power doth necessarily include an infinite CHAP. V. The Chief or Master-Workman 1. The Archeus or chief Workman is the efficient cause 2. How it is in Seeds 3. The properties and differences of the same 4. The Composition of the natural Air. 5. The Birth of seminal Idea's or shapes 6. The seminal Garment of the chief Workman 7. The places of Hospitality with Curers appointed for the Seed 8. The Conjunction of the Stars imitated in Seeds 9. The first mover hath not the Vicarship in a man I Have touched at the birth and Causes of Natural things and least I may seem to have placed the efficient Cause undeservedly within I will the more fitly explain the Workman the Vulcan or Smith of generations Whatsoever therefore cometh into the World by Nature it must needs have the Beginning of its motions the stirrer up and inward directer of generation Therefore all things however hard and thick they are yet before that their soundness they inclose in themselves an Air which before generation representeth the inward future generation to the Seed in this respect fruitful and accompanies the thing generated even to the end of the Stage Which air although in some things it be more plentiful yet in Vegetables it is pressed together in the shew of a juyce as also in Mettals it is thickned with a most thick homogeniety or sameliness of kinde notwithstanding this gift hath happened to all things which is called the Archeus or chief Workman containing the fruitfulness of generations and Seeds as it were the internal efficient cause I say that Workman hath the likeness of the thing generated unto the beginning whereof he composeth the appointments of things to be done But the chief Workman consists of the conjoyning of the vitall air as of the matter with the seminal likeness which is the more inward spiritual kernel containing the fruitfulness of the Seed but the visible Seed is onely the husk of this This Image of the Master-Workman issuing out of the first shape or Idea of its predecessour or snatching the same to it self out of the cup or bosom of outward things is not a certain dead Image but made famous by a full knowledge and adorned with necessary powers of things to be done in its appointment and so it is the first or chief Instrument of life and feeling For example For a Woman with Child fashioneth a Cherry in her Young by her desire in that part in which she moveth her hand in desiring A Cherry I say in the flesh true green pale yellow and red according to the stations in which the Trees do promote their Cherries And the same Cherry sooner waxeth red in the same Young in Spain than in the Low-Countries Therefore a Cherry is made by Imagination So through the Imagination of lust a vitall Image of living Creatures is brought over into the Spirit of the Seed being about to unfold it self by the course of generation But since every corporeal act is limited into a Body hence it comes to passe that the Archeus the Workman and Governour of generation doth cloath himself presently with a bodily cloathing For in things soulified he walketh thorow all the Dens and retiring places of his Seed and begins to transform the matter according to the perfect act of his own Image For here he placeth the heart but there he appoints the brain and he every where limiteth an unmoveable chief dweller out of his whole Monarchy according to the bounds of requirance of the parts and of appointments At length that President remains the overseer and inward ruler of his bounds even until death But the other floating about being assigned to no member keeps the oversight over the particular Pilots of the members being clear and never at rest or keeping holyday Moreover as sublunary things do express in themselves an Analogy or proportion of things above So every thing by how much the more lively it is by so much the more perfectly it imitates the Stars so that sick persons do seem to carry in themselves sensible Ephemeries or daily Registers being skilful of future seasons Indeed in the bowels the planetary Spirits do most shine forth even as also in the whole influous Archeus the courses and forces of the Firmament do appear But the first mover hath no where had a member in men but onely under the Archeus of the wombe it meets by meditating by way of similitude as it were in the last finishing of created things For happily a Woman is therefore more stirred or troubled in her first Conceptions as she drawes with her other Orbs by her first motions As often as the wombe being swollen with the ascending Rule of Imagination doth suffer an animosity or angry heat it snatcheth the particular Archeusses of the bowels into the obedience of it self by striving to excel manly weaknesses and for the most part wretchedly deludes Physitians with a feigned Image The Archeusses of bruit Beasts are almost like unto mans Neither shall we draw an unprofitable knowledge of the shop of simples from the difference of Plants and their Sexes Because neither is it without a Mystery that in creeping things and insects being born in corruption alone Nature invariously sporting her self intends nothing so seriously as the proportionable differences of Sexes on both sides Wherefore neither must we think the same things to have been neglected in Plants although they may make one onely Seed blessed with a promiscuous Sex and a most fruitful of-spring But the most able effectress of the greater forces is discerned under the Signatures or Impressions of Venus she being very bright there is a care of the Sexes and now and then a hermaphroditical confused mixture For whatsoever Plants are femalls they do allure or procure the violent motion of the first mover Therefore the Natural Astrologie of the humane Seed frames its directions according to the general motion of the Heaven but it doth not beg it abroad for if
as yet to follow that Patron in natural Philosophy seeing that we believe by Faith that Plants budded forth by a seminal virtue before the Stars arose For in Nature there is alway found the Agent the matter and thing brought forth or the effect the instrument and the disposition But every Agent measureth his instrument and fits the dispositions unto the end or finishing of the thing produced But heat whether thou wilt have it Elementary or heavenly may indeed be a disposition brought forth by the Seed and likewise the Instrument thereof but it can by no meanes be a seminal Agent measuring and squaring its dispositive Instruments For neither is the operation of heat any other than to make hot whether that thing be called Elementarily or Firmamentarily Therefore the operation of heat in generation is not ordained for the end of specifical dispositions and much lesse is it directed to the bringing in of a specifical thingliness For if that heat should be this seminal Agent or the nature of Seeds besides that it being one hath so many specifical differences as there are kindes of things generated in Nature it ought to have without it self an Instrument seeing that it is not granted to be without essential properties measured and manifestly limited to the bringing in of any kinde of specifical thingliness but no such Instrument or mean is present with heat therefore the co-measuring of every Instrument according to quantity manner motion figure durance and the appointments of any operations whatsoever dependeth on the seminal Agent in which such kindes of co-measuring knowledges of proportions are and no way on heat For seeing the knowledge of natural truth doth necessarily depend on nature and the essence thereof Aristotle who was ignorant of the thingliness of nature also knew not the truth thereof and so prostituted nought but his own dreams to be diligently taught in Schooles Truly the operation of generation depends on nature and its proper Instruments He therefore that looks on heat for every Instrument of nature and accounts this very Instrument for the seminal and vitall nature he supposeth one of the Kings Guard to be the King or the File to be the Workman Yea heat as heat is not indeed the Instrument proper to nature but a common adjacent concomitant and accidental thing produced in hot things onely but the knowledge of nature and essence is not taken from improper adjacent and accidental effects but from the knowing of Principles which hitherto even as it plainly appeares the Schoole of the Peripateticks hath been ignorant of I say the Principles of nature are the matter and the Agent But the Principles of Bodies are water and the seed or vulcane things answering to both Sexes which thing I will by and by teach in its place Wherefore since Aristotle knowes not the nature properties and likewise the causes and thingliness of generations who shall not shew that the Schooles have hitherto drawn the waters of Philosophy out of dry Cisterns For his eight Books of natural Instructions do expound Dreams and privations instead of the knowledge of nature I say they do suppose a matter or impossible corporeity or bodyliness with Mathematical abstraction for the principle prop and seminary of nature The which as it never existeth neither shall it have the efficacy of beginning or of causing Likewise privation is given to be drunk down as another Principle which the Schooles themselves do rashly confess to be a meer non ens or a non-Being And at length they diligently teach surely by an over rash dotage the form which is the end top and utmost aim of appointment and the thing it self produced for a beginning of nature to wit they place the effect in the room of a Beginning But in another Book he sets to sale the causes of nature for Principles to wit the matter and form privation being omitted As I shall sometimes shew concerning causes As though they were the Principles of nature or could principiaâ—e by causing But fortune and chance as if they were the proper passions of nature are handled in a particular Book For events do not deserve a place in the contemplation and Doctrine of nature Lastly a Vacuum or emptiness and an Infinite things not belonging to the knowledge of nature and well high privative things or plainly negative have obtained his treatises But time and place the Schooles do no lesse ignorantly than impertinently reckon among the lessons of nature And last of all they bring in locall motion as it serves to Science Mathematical or Learning by demonstration alike foolishly and with an undistinct indiscretion into nature Certainly I could wish that in so short a space of life the Spring of young men might not be hereafter seasoned with such trifles and no longer with lying Sophistry Indeed they should learn in that unprofitable three years space and in the whole seven years Arithmetick the Science Mathematical the Elements of Euclide and then Geographie with the circumstances of Seas Rivers Springs Mountains Provinces and Minerals And likewise the properties and Customs of Nations Waters Plants living Creatures Minerals and places Moreover the use of the Ring and of the Astrolabe And then let them come to the Study of Nature let them learn to know and seperate the first Beginnings of Bodies I say by working to have known their fixedness volatility or swiftness with their seperation life death interchangeable course defects alteration weakness corruption transplanting solution coagulation or co-thickning resolving Let the History of extractions dividings conjoynings ripenesses promotions hinderances consequences lastly of losse and profit be added Let them also be taught the Beginnings of Seeds Ferments Spirits and Tinctures with every flowing digesting changing motion and disturbance of things to be altered And all those things not indeed by a naked description of discourse but by handicraft demonstration of the fire For truly nature measureth her works by distilling moystening drying calcining resolving plainly by the same meanes whereby glasses do accomplish those same operations And so the Artificer by changing the operations of nature obtains the properties and knowledge of the same For however natural a wit and sharpness of judgement the Philosopher may have yet he is never admitted to the Root or radical knowledge of natural things without the fire And so every one is deluded with a thousand thoughts or doubts the which he unfoldeth not to himself but by the help of the fire Therefore I confess nothing doth more fully bring a man that is greedy of knowing to the knowledges of all things knowable than the fire Therefore a young man at length returning out of those Schooles truly it is a wonder to see how much he shall ascend above the Phylosophers of the University and the vain reasoning of the Schooles First of all he shall account it a shameful thing for the Schooles to be ignorant for example in an Egge that in that space of time while it comes
the foundation of nature by which all waters are strained thorow that all of them may keep a Communion among each other from the beginning of the Creation unto the end and from the Superficies or upper part of the Earth even to its Center And moreover the water detained in this Soil of Sand is perhaps actually greater by a thousand fold than the whole heap of Seas and Rivers floating on the Superficies of the Earth And that is easily verified by supposing the whole superficies of the Earth also to be covered with waters to the depth of 600 paces Therefore it followes respect being had to the Diameter of the Earth that there is easily a thousand times more water under than upon the Earth For truly dry Sand drinks up at least about a fourfold quantity of water in the same extension of place yet I will not have it that although the Quellem be the last ground or Soil to the Digger that all subjected grounds are every where to be found by order For the aforesaid Sand which sometimes overwhelms it self perhaps to a thousand paces beneath the Horizon elsewhere boils up with speed under the open Air yea and oft-times in the top of Mountains Of which thing the Schooles with their Aristotle being ignorant do toughly hold that all true springs do owe the cause of their continuance from the Air co-thickned into water when as notwithstanding they cannot maintain that thing because in the tops of the highest Mountains springs do oft-times leap forth where another Mountain of the like height is not neer nor a water-Channel extended on either side to this Therefore they hold their peace with a lofty look and are silent at the unwonted miracle of the thing Surely as long as waters do wander in the living and vitall Soil of the Earth and are detained in the Sand Quellem so long I say they are not constrained to bring forth by the water drawing lawes of Scituations No otherwise than as the bloud while it is nourished with life in the veins so long also it knowes not above and beneath and it is as well in the fore-head as in the feet But at the very moment wherein it once falls out of the veins or the waters do disgorge themselves out of the Quellem they cease not to flow down by obeying the lawes of Scituations Therefore the Sea in its own ground doth sup up the received waters in the sieve of the Virgin-Sand For so according to the wise man however all waters do flow into the Sea yet it never re-gorgeth them again Because by one onely thread there is a continuall passage out of the Virgin-Sand into Springs Streams Rivers and the Sea to moysten the Earth and appointed to enrich it with Mineralls Whither again the waters being driven they are supt up partly by the Quellem and partly do snatch the Air. So indeed doth the Universe distribute its waters and lay them aside for divers fruits And therefore I have meditated with admiration that the Almighty hath set before him the necessities of ungrateful immortal men as the aims of things I return to the Earth I have found for certain that the original Earth doth no where of its own accord concur to the mixtures of fruits slide thereto by chance nor that it is assumed by nature nor is found to have assumed the works of nature or art And therefore the reason of mixtures waxeth lean the number of Elements Qualities and Temperaments ceaseth and so they are lying fopperies which have been hitherto stifly and ignorantly garnished out by the Schooles For of a man Wood c. be it dust or ashes that is left by the fire yet Earth is never drawn out for else our burying places would soon swell Therefore the Earth is at least the remaining wombe but not the Mother Which if it should sometimes have a conflux unto fruits or mixt bodies it would either abide in the same and so by the solution of art or nature would sometimes be found or should return from thence which is false or plainly should be taken to the mixt Body and in it should cease to be Earth being already changed into another thing and so should be elsewhere diminished which I will straightway shew to be alike false or by the death or dissolution of the thing should return again into earth and there should be a daily and repeated returning of one and the same Element from a privation to a habit Or if this should not return into earth it should remain changed into fruits and so the whole Earth had long since gone into fruits and nature had lost her constancy and had mocked the first aims of the Creator or the earth had returned from the dissolved mixt body into another Element the impertinency whereof ceaseth For truly it is not natural to water or air to turn another Element into its own substance From hence I will straightway demonstrate that never one drop of water is turned into air or likewise air changed into water Which changes notwithstanding do appear lesse labour some than of the earth into water or into air And therefore if nature hath not as yet attempted the more easie transmutations after what sort shall it presume on the more difficult ones For otherwise the earth should be â—upt up and brought to nothing by Elements that are so much more large co-touching with it and more active But the Father of the Universe being a lover of Concord hateth discord and brawlings and chiefly in the Elements which that they might be the stable props of nature he hath not created the same fighting ones For he hath also directed the Elements to their appointed ends and lawes of continuance to wit that he may bring forth and nourish his own fruits for his own honour and the use of man Notwithstanding neither the honour of God nor mans necessity did any where or any way require the battels devourings strifes of the Elements their trampling on each other as neither the exchanging or nourishing of one by the other Nor lastly that at the end of an Element to increase it self by covetousness hunger luxury or necessity with the destruction of anomer For neither are they guilty of the fault of coverousness or hatred as neither do they desire to be nourished Last of all neither have the Elements obtained an Archeus a kitchin or properties for that transchanging Therefore the whole Doctrine of the Schooles concerning the elementary War is an old Wives fable Therefore the earth is never taken or of its own accord doth materially run out of it self into the constitution of bodies And there is by right made no mixture in nature which can firmly grow together under the unity of the natural composed form unless it be between juyces and spirits On the contrary no pulverous or powder all co-mixture doth tend to generation but there is onely an apposition or applying presently of its own accord and again
water pressed together into the room of one part where Gold is framed of water Wherefore so far is it that the piercing of dimensions becomes impossible seeing that nothing is more natural or home-bred to nature than to co-thicken the body of the water but indeed although there may something appear in the water like to the three first things yet also there is no hope that they should be rent asunder from each other because in the every way simplicity of the water an adequate or suitable Sulphur is after a certain sort hidden which cannot be seperated from the other two but they all do accompany together Those are not the three true Principles which are abstracted or seperated onely by the Imagination The water therefore since it doth on every side vary off-Springs according to the diversity of their seedes thus so many kindes of Earths Mineralls Salts Liquors Stones Plants living Creatures and Meteors do rise up in their particular kindes from the blast or inspiration of the seedes For the water putrifies by continuance in the Earth is made the juyce of the Earth Gums Oyl Rosin Wood Berries c. and that which of late was nothing but water materially now burns and sends forth a fume or smoak Not indeed that that fume is air but is either a vapour or a drie exhalation and a new fruit of the water not yet appointed to be wholly turned by its seed It is proved For the Body of the air cannot make a shadow in the air but whatsoever doth exhale out of a live Coal doth make a shadow in the Sun For since the air hath a limited consistence and thickness and that agreeable to its own simpleness it followes that whatsoever is thicker than the air that is not air Moreover that which being made thin by the heat of the fire doth now exhale is as yet thicker than the air and so for that cause makes a shadow surely that shall become far more thick in the cold and shall be made visible in Clouds Whatsoever exhalations therefore do from the Earth climbe upward and are joyned in Clouds for this cause also those Clouds do stink no otherwise than as water doth under the Aequinoctial line and there the Ferment and Seed of their Concretion or growing together being consumed they are turned into pure water no otherwise than the water is after it hath escaped and overcome the bounds of its putrefaction which it had conceived under the line The dew therefore is a Cloud belonging to the Spring not yet stinking falling down before it can touch the place of cold So a mist or fogg is a stinking Cloud not as yet refined through the putrefaction of its Ferment because as many as have passed over the Alps with me have known how greatly Clouds taken hold of with the hand do stink but the Rain-water collected thence how sweet and without savour it is and almost incorruptible For when any thing doth exhale whether it be in the shew of water or Oil or smoak or mists or of an exhalation although indeed it brings not away with it the seedes of the Concrete or composed Body at leastwise it carries the Ferments upward which that they may be fully abolished from thence and that the remaining matter may return into water it behooves that they be first lifted up into a subtile or fine Gas in the kitchin of the most cold air and that they passe over into another higher Region and do assume a condition in the shape of the least motes or Atomes And that the Ferments do there die as well through the cold of the place as the fineness of the Atomes as it were by choaking and extinguishing For cold is therefore a principle not indeed of life but of extinguishment To wit as it doth sub-divide the parts of the Atomes as yet by more subtilizing them even as I have above taught And so that Woods are also the sooner consumed by fire under cold as if they were driven by a blast From which necessity verily that place was from the beginning alwayes chilled with continuall cold Because the Authour of nature least he might seem to have been wanting to the necessities of his Creature hath every where fitted ordinations according to necessities Therefore cold is naturall and home-bred to that place but not from the succeeding Chymera of an Antiperistasis Indeed the matter of fruits being brought thither must needes return into their first Being and the infections of the Ferments are therefore first to be removed by the mortifications sub-divisions subtilizings piercings choakings and extinguishings of the cold The Air therefore is the place where all things being brought thither are consumed and do return into their former Element of water For in the Earth and water although Bodies sprung up from seedes do by little and little putrifie and depart into a juyce yet they are not so nearly reduced into the off-spring of simple water as neither into a Gas For Bodies that are enfeebled or consumed do straight way in the Earth draw another putrifaction through continuance a ferment and Seed Whence they flee to second Marriages and are again anew increased into succeeding fruits But the fire the death of all things doth want seedes being subjected to the will of the Artificer it consumeth all seminall things but brings over their combustible matters into a Gas. Paracelsus affirms that three Beginnings are so united in all particular principles that one cannot wholly be freed from the other by any help of art But saving the authority of the man our Handicraft-operation containing his secret Samech hath affirmed that which is contrary to his assertion by the Spirit of Wine being turned into an un-savoury water And so neither can that man cover his ignorance Indeed the Spirit of Wine being wholly capable of burning made void of Phlegme or watery moysture and Oil it alwayes for the one half of it passeth into a simple un-savoury and Elementary water by a touching of the Salt of Tartar on it Again the same thing is made by repetition as to the other part For that man was ignorant of the thingliness of a Gas to wit my Invention and next of the properties of cold in the Air yea he thought that the vapour of the water was plainly annihilated which sottishness of that his proper form of speech is least of all to be winked at in so great a Distiller Especially because he would have the Elements to be seperable from feigned Elements rather than the three first things Wherefore from the dissection of the water delivered it now sufficiently appeares that the simple water is not crude or raw and that fire doth not take away the crudity from it which it hath not Because the whole action of the fire is not into the water but into that which is co-mixed with it by accident Galen according to his manner transcribing Diascorides word for word and being willing to measure the Elementary
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
or glassen Bell doth shew that a great part of the Sulphur being untouched by the flame ascended upwards the which is again seperated safe from that Liquor by rectifying For Sulphurs or fats although they are many times distilled by any degree of the fire yet they do alwayes remain fats and even do retain their nature as long as they do enjoy or obtain the seed of their composed Body The which when as the flame or artificiall death hath touched they straightway flie over into Gas but not into water For that every Gas doth as yet retain some condition of its composed body For smoaks of the flame do differ by their generall and speciall kindes which surely should not be if they should immediately depart into their first Element The fire indeed destroyeth simply but it generates nothing for why seeing it wants the power of a seed and those things which it cannot destroy those it at leastwise seperateth or leaveth untouched and in this respect they are called fixt bodies But the fire doth not prevail in that as to exchange that which is in it self materially water into Air for otherwise it should have the seed of the Air. It is also sufficiently manifest before that water is made air or air water by no help of art or nature Therefore Wood since it is wholly of water its ashes and likewise Glasse shall be of water But that the Gas of Salts is nothing but water the following Handicraft-operation proveth Take equall parts of Salt-peter Vitriol and Alume all being dried and conjoyned together distill a Water which is nothing else than a meer volatile Salt Of this take four ounces and joyn an ounce of Sal armoniac in a strong Glassen Alembick confirmed by a Cement of Wax Rosin and Powder of Glasse being powred most hotly on it straightway even in the cold a Gas is stirred up and the Vessel how strong soever it be bursteth with a noyse But if indeed thou shalt leave a chap or chink in the juncture of the receiving Vessel and after voluntary boylings up thou shalt distill the residue thou shalt finde a water somewhat sharp the which by a repeated distillation and an additament of Chalke is turned into Rain-water Therefore one part of the Salts yielded into water but the other part into Gas But the Salts that fled away by a Gas are of the same kinde of nature with those that were reduced into water therefore the Gas of Salts is materially nothing but water But the Gas of fruits I have likewise already shewen to be nothing but water as arising immediately out of water So the Raisin of the Sun being distilled is wholly reduced by art into an Elementary water which yet being new and once wounded or bruised much new Wine and Gas is allured or fetched out If therefore the whole Grape before a ferment be turned into a simple water but the ferment being brought a Gas is stirred up this Gas also must needes be water Seeing the disposition of the ferment cannot form air of that which is materially nothing but water Therefore the unrestrainable Gas of the Vessel breaks forth abroad into the air untill it being sufficiently confirmed and by the cold of the place spoiled also of the properties of its composed body passeth over into its first matter and in the air the seperater of the waters it recovereth its antient and full disposition of the Element of water But exhalations which in the account of the Schooles are the daily matter of Windes Mists Comets Mineralls Rockie Stones saltness of the Sea Earth-quakes and of all Meteors seeing they have no pen-case or receptacle in nature nor matter sufficient for so great daily things and those for so great an heap they are wondrous dreams and unskilfully proportioned to their effects And therefore I passe by these unsavourinesses or follies of the Schooles by pittying of them At leastwise it followes that if Rockie Stones if all Mineralls do proceed from exhalations and being now fixed do resist the Agent which should bring them again into an exhalation there shall be in the remaining Earth matter for new exhalations producing effects of so great moment Especially because scarce any thing exhaleth out of the saltness of the Sea and such is the aptness or disposition of heat that it scarce stirs up exhalations unless it hath first lifted up all the water by vapours What matter therefore shall be sufficient even for daily Windes alone Truly it is altogether impossible for the Schooles to have known the nature and likewise the differences causes and properties of Bodies for as many as have set upon Philosophy without the art of the fire have been hitherto deluded with Paganish Institutions At length I have written touching long life that the arteriall Spirit of our life is of the nature of a Gas Which thing is seen in the trembling of the heart swooning and fainting For how much doth it die to a lively colour to a vitall light and to a swollen or full habit of flesh and the countenance it self being the more wrinckled or withered how quickly doth it decay straightway after the aforesaid passions For the Spirit which before did as it were unite all things by a pleasing redness doth straightway fly away and being subdued by a forreign Air is changed For truly seeing the Archeus is in it self a Gas of the nature of a Balsamick Salt if it shall finde the air of another Salt to be against it or in its way even as Sal armoniac when it meetes with the Spirit of Saltpeter it is subject too easily and forthwith to be blown away or dispersed through the pores as having forgotten to perform its duties and office of the Family For neither is it gathered into drops because it is prepared of an arteriall bloudiness If any thing of sweat at the time of faintings and death doth exhale that is the melting of the venall bloud but not of the arteriall bloud Therefore the vitall Gas because it is a light and a Balsam preserving from corruption from the first delineation of generation it began to be made suitable to the light of the Sun But after the aforesaid failings of the Spirit the in-bred Spirits of the other members as it were smoaking are again kindled by the Sun-like light of the heart even as the smoak of a Candle put out touching at the flame of another Candle doth carry this flame to the extinguished Candle by a Mean Seeing that the Spirit of our life since it is a Gas is most mightily and swiftly affected by any other Gas to wit by reason of their immediate co-touchings For neither therefore doth any thing thereupon operate more swiftly on us than a Gas as appeares in the Dogvault or that of the Sicilians in the Plague in burning Coals that are smothered and in persumes for many and oftentimes men are straightway killed in the Burrowes of Mineralls yea in Cellars where strong Ale or
smoak Salt Pepper Aqua vitae Vinegar distilled Oils do preserve fleshes But at leastwise about the end of life there is on every side a great confusion of the thing and a large losse of strength So that seeds serving to the lower conjunction do oft-times die together from whence the chief assisting Vulcans of things being as it were sore affrighted with fear and as mercenaries do first run away Therefore although corruption doth induce a transmutation with the death of another thing it is not a privation neither doth it therefore necessarily follow generation as neither this it Even as those things which exclude each other by a succeeding presence as otherwise light and darkness do First of all our death subsisteth without the failing of the form without a necessitated destruction of the matter if the Mummy doth continue although it includes a seperation of the life or form For that doth not shew corruption to be present although it doth straightway follow of its own accord and be preserved by art At leastwise it sufficeth that corruption is not made the immediate heir of the thing constituted nor that it necessarily succeeds from its dying without a will So neither when a thing proceeds out of a seed not any corruption of the seeds doth go before or accompany it For it is an incongruity in word and deed that the promotions perfections and maturities of seeds have regarded corruption An errour of rashness is maintained in the Schooles through ignorance of naturall principles As that those things which are the works of nature are thought to be non-beings to be banished into the abstracted considerations of Learning by demonstration Truly when Aristotle was connived at to put by a large word Privation between a Being and a Being he began by taking a liberty to substitute corruption in the room of privation For that privation as it was not a Being and so a dreamed Being of reason it was yielded to by a liberty transumptive or of taking one thing for another without taking heed But the Schooles had understood that the same right ought not therefore to agree to corruption if their sluggishness of assenting could have suffered them to be distinct Wherefore the whole Stage of nature hath stood neglected through the thoughts of the Gentiles For truly the ferments Vulcans and flowings of seeds being neglected all the efficacy of Nature hath through the undeserved orders of privations been wrung aside into the fables of heats and colds their discords hatreds skirmishings and contrarieties and have made the searching into naturall Philosophy ridiculous Moreover I have called Magnum Oportet A necessary remaining of the properties of the middle life in the thing nourished and constituted From whence it followes that the same remainder of the middle life from meats and drinks are the Thistles and Thorns which the Earth was to bring forth after the fall or departure out of the right way otherwise Thistles Thorns as they are Plants are Creatures made for the use and adorning of the World before the fall I have also sometimes vainly thought that the tartarous humours of meats and drinks were those Thistles and Thorns Because the middle life subsisting but it subsisteth by a reall and true act it was in vain to feign forreign Tartarers as shall be shewen in its place But observingly it is not included that the water shall bring forth Thistles and Thorns although it may bring forth its discommodities For the fleshes of men and bruits living on the Earth do shew forth the aforesaid Thistles But Fishes are nourished within and without and are washed thorowly with Salt yet are their fleshes sweet But those which inhabit in mud do express the Thistles in the savour of their fleshes not from Water but from Earth Before sin our Archeus had not only perfectly transchanged meats after a daily manner but had supt up the whole properties of the middle life into his own rule or jurisdiction as if he were their Master For truly the immortall minde being then as yet without the mean of the sensitive life was the very immortall life it self unto and not capable of suffering by its own Body Even as touching long life in its place For Paradise in this respect had excluded death because it had excluded a successive change of us But the Tree of knowledge of good and evill alone had retained a property to it self that it could imprint to wit the dualities or double properties drawn out of things on our Archeus because the Companions of the middle life do easily adhere to each other Whence a Gate was laid open to duplicities interchangeable courses successive change and disorder At length jarring the breaker of agreement thus brought in the apple of discord For we afterwards feel the perpetuall Tyranny and multiplicity of Thistles and Thorns For as many specifical Savours and Odours as there are in things so many forreign properties of the middle life are suggested daily by nourishments For these are the strange ferments by whose interchangeable course we are wearied or much troubled For truly no generation doth any where happen which a foregoing disposition in the matter hath not stirred up therefore such a ferment alters the inbred Savour and Smell of things whence the Archeusses are by little and little withdrawn from the obedience of the seeds and do hearken to the mockeries or enticements of a forreign ferment In brief the remainders of the powers of the middle life as well in nourishments as excrements are almost the occasionall Beginning of all sicknesses and in this respect to us of the Thistle and Thorn For Odours and Savours do bring forth a desire a dislike or a neutrality in the Bodies of seeds But an appetite being thus moved doth paint an Image in the Archeus no otherwise than in the Young of one with childe which Image is the invisible essence of seeds stirring up to embrace or abhorre But the neutrall Odour serveth for station and rest If therefore in the middle life Savours do as yet remain in things transchanged it is frivolous that things shall weigh their vertues and essences by eight material and not specifical tasts Furthermore seeing it is called the middle life in respect of two extreames The first shall be of the received and working seed seated in the Archeus he being endowed with a power of managing things Which when it hath obtained some maturity as when the seed is a Body having flesh and tender bones according to the requirance of the Species then is the middle life of a thing present For it is meet to measure the life it self by the Archeus as it were the Mediator the Instrument of life Therefore the first life doth glister in the seeds but in the Embryo or imperfect young the middle life But the last life is when the total perfection of the constituted thing is present which indeed although it be the last life of the thing yet is it the
Womb as an empty house possessed and enlarged by a stranger whereinto therefore Pictures do more easily fall than into it being exactly shut 3. The object of sight is more spiritual and therefore its Image more naked spirituall and more active A fourth reason is the Father of Lights in this thing doth by a similitude manifest that in thinking only of the light he created all things of nothing I say he brought forth the particular kindes of things into a created essence which he from eternity comprehended in himself onely by cogitation or thinking So also the imagination of the lust of Souls by the object of sight poures forth its own Image into seeds that so they might be fruitfull from the command of God It might here be said how may the apparitions of Spirits be made immediately in place colour figure and light but not in a Body and by consequence why may they be seen by one and not by another that is nearer By what way may Lights and Colours cut thorow each other in place the existence of every one being nevertheless unchanged after what sort may they pierce each other and deceive the Rules of the Optick Science that is how may a bewitching or charm be made How may a Colour have a dark splendor invisible in the middle or Mean visible in the repercussing or re-bounding bound although that brightness be no less in the mean than in the said bound or terme nor in any beam but in a direct one onely But these things I leave to others under the positions by me framed I rather treat of naturall Science Modern Writers have distinguished of qualities by their Ranks or Orders to wit that the first might shew forth the Elementary countenance of heat cold moysture and dryness of which two latter I have demonstrated my judgement elsewhere But that the second qualities might contain light heavy soft hard rough smooth brickle tough white black And likewise Odours and Savours as sweet bitter salt sharp breachy soure because they think they are those which do most nearly rebound from the mixture of the Elements which is false seeing the Elements were never mixed therefore the aforesaid qualities do follow as it were the formall Beginnings of seeds their own gifts and have themselves by way of a fermentall putrefaction by continuance as appeares in the particular kindes of Mushromes And then the third qualities they call specificall and formall ones and they have as yet added to those fourth qualities as the more abstracted ones Therefore the third quality is a special aromaticall savour in Cinamon Saffron Cloves c. keeping every one to its own Species The fourth therefore are more formall and more remote from the Body such as is a poysonous quality in poysons a solutive one in laxative or loosening things an attractive one of Iron in the Loadstone a productive quality of milk in Fennel c. The three former sorts at least do operate corporeally by vertue of the seeds as they have espoused the matter to themselves But the two latter are plainly formall ones and do act by a lightsome and an abstracted power tied fast to their composed Body and therefore they have a power to imprint their actions on vitall forms Indeed the three former do scarce pierce other Bodies and much lesse are they co-mingled with them radically And therefore they are transchanged by our Archeus So that although they may as yet carry with them from their being transchanged an obscure property of their middle life yet they are subdued into our protection and are made our Citizens Although many things at the time of their transchanging do remarkably disagree with the Archeus because they have an untamed valour and other incapacities I say dregs and impediments To with they are incorporated in us with a mark of their own middle life which they difficultly put off yet are they subdued But if not they are rejected after their own Contagion is left in us And therefore they degenerate into dregs or filths the occasions of Diseases whereby the Archeus being divers wayes troubled and wroth doth afterwards form Diseases But formall and wholly abstracted properties do spring out of the forms and are lightsome and therefore also being sparks of the form it self have a force of piercing the Archeus throughout the whole light thereof likewise the life and forms of the parts Therefore I long agoe thought whether the biting of a mad Dog might bring down a certain Signall phantasie which might convert ours being as it were its patient or sufferer into it self and might form unto it self a proper lightsome property the effectress of an Hydrophobia or a disease wherein water is exceedingly feared or whether our Archeus might frame a poysonsome Image of his own proper accord But at length that dispute seemed to me to be onely about a name Because I found in these kinde of lightsome actions a co-knitting of unity in a point to wit of the occasionall cause and of our efficient Archeus for that they do pierce each other after the manner of lights and do radically unite without any other distinction than that of relative termes That which is now judged concerning the outward poyson of a mad Dog let the same judgement be of a Cancer and other things For a formall poysonsome light being budded in our life is it self living and so even as the Archeus being mad doth fermentally receive an externall infection so also in a Cancer he wandring transplants himself into suries whereby he locally troubleth or vexeth the flesh For whether they are carried inwards by an externall chance or indeed be raised up within and so thus far do in some sort differ as to their principiative Beginning yet in the mean time notwithstanding it is the same by application of the poysonsome light the manner of propagating and piercing being kept according to the properties of the seeds and also the Sphere of activity proper to every poyson being kept For some poysons do suddenly propagate themselves into the whole Body and do straightway bring on death but others do exercise a locall poyson because the property of these is that although from the nature of poyson it pierceth yet it enlargeth it self onely according to the prescription of its own poyson This is indeed an immediate acting of Forms into Forms by the penetration of a fermentall uniting with the transmutation of our Archeus Therefore a new poyson is not properly stirred up in the Archeus that it may form a poyson to it self Even as otherwise elsewhere as in a Fever an occasional matter stirs up the Archeus into futy not indeed to frame other occasionall Feverish matters but naked Idea's of fury to expell the addicted ones which he decyphers in the very substance of himself But the formall lights of poysons do pierce the vitall light by changing it efficiently and powerfully by reason of the occasionall poyson implanted in them being present and radically
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
unprofitable in other kind of madnesses Therefore it happened at Antwerp that a Carpenter perswading himself that in the night-timehe had seen horrid appearances or ghosts became wholly mad with the terrour thereof And he was sent unto the Tomb of St. Dympna the Virgin where those who are possessed by an evil spirit are wont to be freed the matter being thereby wrested into an abuse that all mad men should indifferently be sent thither As if the condition of those that are possessed and mad were the same The Carpenter therefore is nourished a whole year and mad however the wonted remedies were implored and when as moneys were not sent from Antwerp for the last half year they sent back the mad man bound in a waggon who when he had loosed his bonds he leapt out of the Wain into a deep and neighbouring pool He being at length drawn out was laid up into the Waggon for a dead Carcasse but he lived for eighteen years after free from madnesse By which example I being raised unto an hope knew that not only the madnesse from a mad dog but also that an inveterate or ancient Mania or madness might be cured And that thing I afterwards often tried neither hath the event deceived me but as oft as through fear I drew these mad persons over-hastily out of the water I likewise learned by the example of the Carpenter that it would be all one whether the aforesaid plunging or choaking of the mad Idea should happen to be in fresh water or salt A certain woman to me known commendable for her much honesty in the moneth November in a dark evening rushed head-long from a bridg into a small River or Brook with a Carr of two wheels And when they were intent about the horse they neglected the poor â—id woman but she remained under the water until they had unloaded the Carr of some wares At length being mindful of that poor old woman they brought her to a neighbouring Village as it were a drowned dead carcasse wherein the wife of the Inn laid that woman on a table with her face placed downwards and her head hanging downwards And it came to pass that she thus dismissed the water drawn into the lungs It seemed to me like a fable until mat in the mountains of Hannonia or Hungarie a young man drowned in swimming is brought unto a noble Matron a companion of my journey who bad the mother bewailing the death of her son to be of good cheer Therefore she stretched the young man with his face placed downward upon his knees and when the feeble young man thus hung being altogether naked he at length the water being cast back began to breath again and revived in our sight Again I remember that in the year 1606. I returning in the evening from the Castle of Perla two leagues distant from Antwerp found a company on the bank of the Rotomagian Channel because they complained that a young man the only son of a rich widdow was drowned who was sent for and found his dead carcass laying on the ground in the stubble or straw she took him up into her lap and kissed him weeping bitterly I bad that she should turn his body with his head and shoulders hanging downwards and his back upwards and the young man began after a quarter of an hour to breath again I have learned therefore that drowned persons do not easily die seeing both the aforesaid young men lurked perhaps for the space of half an hour under the water Neither must there be a cessation from prayer as soon as he which is believed to be dead doth cease to take breath Galen for madnesse of the biting of a mad dog before the fear of waters hath arose gives Cray-fishes or Crabs calcined to drink for fourty dayes Yet if that Calx be not given presently after the beginning it profiteth nothing and so also thus the use thereof hath remained unaccustomed In the mean time it is ridiculous that in burning of Crabs they add myrrhe c. or when they melt silver for to make a cup or flagon for a Perfuming-shop that they add Triacle The antidote whereof the devouring flame consumes before the living creature be roasted But Paracelsus affirms that the Hydrophobia is cured by sharp loosening medicines but surely the event hath not answered his promises Therefore Catholiques despairing nor trusting to these remedies of the Universities our Country-men flee to St. Hubbert where by some Rites performed they are cured Yet this is remarkable therein That if the Rites be not precisely observed the madness which otherwise did hitherto long lay hid doth forthwith arise and the Hydrophobians are left without hope There is a robe or gown of S. Hubbert locked up in a chest with six divers keys and also kept by six divers Key-keepers but they do every year cut off part of that garment the garment the while remaining always whole for eight hundred years now and more Neither is it a place of jugling deceit because it is not known at this day whether the Robe be of fine flax wool hemp or cotton and so neither could a new one be yearly substituted in its room But they cut off part of the garment that they may incarnate a thread or rag thereof within the skin of the forehead of every one that is bitten by a mad dog For from hence there is another miracle That he who hath once recovered by his rites through the thread or rag taken out of the robe may delay the time for another that is bitten and stupifie the prevailing madnesse for fourty dayes and that for some years until they to their own profit can at length come to Saint Hubbert yet with that condition that if any one do tarry never so little above fourty dayes and hath not as was said before obtained by request a prolonging of the limited time he presently falls into a desperate madness For the Lombards do thus run to the Saints Belline and Donine and so do request preservation And they require the healing to be from a madnesse arising from a deed done But for foolish madness or being out of ones mind they do not hitherto as I know of invoke any heavenly Patron CHAP. XXXVII The Seat of the Soul 1. The matter is as yet before the Judge 2. A third opinion 3. The head being dead a certain Bride hath over-lived for eight hours at least 4. The mouth of the Stomach being smitten hath brought a sudden and total death 5. A Paradox of the Authour concerning the Seat of the Soul 6. The Creation teacheth this seat 7. Physitians do occultly consent to those very things unwittingly 8. The Lord confirmeth the Paradox of the Authour 9. Some reasons 10. Against the existence of the Vegetative Soul 11. The Heart is a servant to the Stomach 12. The seat remains fixt 13. That the first powers of conceptions are felt in the mouth of the Stomach 14. They unwillingly place
wheresoever the beginning of conceptions is felt But those are called forces which are not in our power because they are the first conceits of the sensitive soul as yet out of order and not yet diligently examined by the command of the minde But that which I write touching the seat of the sensitive soul I understand also for the immortal minde For truly the minde hath not a subject more near and like to it self wherein it may be entertained than that vital light which is called the sensitive soul wherein indeed the minde is involved and tied by the bond of life by the Command of God But the sensitive soul perishing through the annihilating of it self the minde cannot any longer subsist in the Body and therefore it hastens to the Being of Beings that it may passe unto places appointed for it Therefore the radical Bride-bed of the sensitive soul is in the vital Archeus of the stomach and it stands and remains there for the whole life-time Not indeed that the sensitive soul is entertained in the stomach as it were in a Sack Skin membrane pot prison little Cell or bark neither is it comprehended in that seat in manner of Bodies enclosed within a purse but after an irregular manner it is centrally in a point and as it were in the very undividable middle of one membranous thickness And it is in a place nevertheless not plainly locally But because every Soul is a light given by the Father of Lights and Creator of things but I have proved elsewhere that lights are immediately in place and mediately in a placed Air So also the sensitive Soul is in a place or seat whereof I write at this present But the minde seeing it is a lightsome substance it pierceth a created light which is the sensitive soul and this likewise pierceth the minde and blunts it with its contagion of the corruption of Adam of which in the Book of long life concerning the entrance of death into man Therefore the frail mortal sensitive soul is a meer vital light given by the Father of Lights neither is it declarable after another manner or word seeing that in the whole World it hath not its like besides the light of a Candle the which because it burns may be compared to a spark yet onely by an analogical and much unlike similitude and as it were by the more outward husk Therefore indeed that sensitive soul although it be locally present and be entertained in a place yet it is not comprehended in a place otherwise than as the flame of a Candle is kindled in an exhalation and the light in that flame is as it were life in the aforesaid soul yet vital lights are never parching but are separated by as many diversities as there are differences of souls And from thence is God called by S. James the Father of Lights Therefore the heat of things soulified is not of the Fountain-light of the soul but a heating light of the vital life and so it is the product of life but not the life it self And therefore also it is emulous of a Sunny light even as in a Fish the vital light is actually cold because it is of the nature of the Moon And for that cause God made onely two and sufficient lights for the life of sublunary things yet the light of which light or the souls themselves are the subjects of inherency And they are altogether neither Creatures between a substance and an accident because of the Country of the intelligible world Therefore in the sensitive soul for neither ever elsewhere in frail things as it were a spiritual light made by the Father of Lights is the Immortal minde conjoyned and the which also by the hand of the Almighty every where present or by an Angel is co-knit unto the sensitive soul by the bond of life that is of a vital light which is an unseparable property of the aforesaid light But the immortal minde it self is a clear or lightsome incorporeal substance immediately shewing forth the Image or likeness of its God because it hath received the same engraven on it in creating or in the very instant of enlivening or quickning For both souls are created at once and conjoyned by God who will never attribute his own Honour of Creator unto any Creature But before the fall of Adam there was not a sensitive soul in man but by what meanes or after what manner that together with death hath descended at once into humane nature that shall be shewed in its own place At least by the coming of the sensitive soul death hath entred and the corruption of our whole nature and the Majesty and Integrity of our former nature was obliterated or blotted out For truly while the minde did immediately perform the offices of life neither was the sensitive soul as yet present immortality was also present neither had beast-like darkness occupied the understanding And so man indeed suffered Ship-wrack in his own nature and that an unrestorable one but by the new birth under the calamities of tribulations maâ—â—s exalted in a far more excellent manner while from the image of God he is taken as adopted for his Son Furthermore it is altogether necessary that every motion of the first force and of the first conception of the soul doth happen in the chamber of the soul which thing although it be chiefly felt about the Orifice of the stomach and God be admirable in his works because indeed it hath well pleased him to dispose such admirable powers in the membranes of the stomach womb and skins that cover the Brain because they do bear before them as it were a certain image of a Common-wealth yet I have found the Spleen readily to serve for the ferment of the stomach and for the Sun Cocter and Directer thereof Therefore I have decreed to call the conspiracy of both Bowels the Duumvirate or Sheriff-dome For although the digestive ferment and the like aids may seem to shew forth a Family-service of servants yet the service of houshold-servants in vitals as it contains a power and strength so also it promiseth dignity and authority So that as in the stomach there are feelings faintings of the whole body and most sensible manifest and open priviledges of coctions neverthelesse the vital breathing-hole causing the digestions of so manifold arteries and so mightily of the stomach hath commanded that without a duality disagreement or powerful preferrence there ought to be made one Family-administration of both Bowels indeed by divers offices into one conspiring scope although both do singularly attend on their own work therefore also separated in place Truly there is one onely endeavour of the Duumvirate and agreeing and set harmony of intention Therefore the neighbouring Spleen doth lay on the stomack without as if it would nourish the same by a lively co-weaving of arteries Not indeed that the arteries do give all force or virtue to the Spleen but they have themselves as
Bowels after the manner of Stars For although the Stars do borrow their light from the Sun yet there is in every one of them his own peculiar property and strength of acting which is far most evident in the Moon about the ebbings flowings and overflowings of the Sea Be it therefore that the arteries of the Spleen do supply the place of the Sun yet the Spleen it self hath obtained a double and native dignity peculiar to it self although the Family-service of the Heart rejoyceth in the preparing of vital blood and spirit Therefore the Spleen is the seat of the Archeus the which seeing he is the immediate Instrument of the sensitive soul doth determine or limit or dispose of the vital actions of the soul residing in the stomach For the sensitive soul doth scarce meditate of any thing without the help of the Archeus because it rejoyceth not being abstracted as doth the minde the which in its ebbing or going back by an extasie doth sometimes and without the props of the Archeus and corporal Air intellectually contemplate of many and great things Also in exorbitances of the Archeus an aversion confusion exorbitancy and indignation is administred And the sensitive soul it self being as it were the husk of the minde doth alwayes will it nill it make use of the Archeus Hence indeed all foolish madnesses some whereof onely have been made known are called praecordial or Midriffe ones and are ascribed to the place about the short Ribs the which notwithstanding do spring from the same seat and the same fountain of the soul as it were by the hurting of one onely point Also Remedies do scarce materially go without the hedges or bounds of the stomach And therefore they are rare which are brought thorow unto the spleen which thing in the difficulties of a Quartane Ague is plain enough to be seen For the immortal minde is read to be inspired into Adam by omnipotency and that without the Wedlock of the sensitive soul And that breath of life he calls a substance And therefore that is not found to be breathed into bruit Beasts Therefore the minde was first of all immediately tied to the Archeus as to its own Organ or Instrument the which therefore it could at its pleasure daily substitute a-new out of the meats being sufficiently and alwayes and perpetually alike strong And from thence to awaken the immortal life worthy of or meet for it self For truly the immortal minde being every where present did perform all the offices of life immediately by the Archeus and the which therefore doth borrow his own liveliness from the minde who also is therefore after some sort superiour to mortal things and seemed to be the foster-Child of a more excellent Monarchy than of a sublunary one These things were so before the fall of Adam But seeing that in the same day of their transgression they were made guilty of death a soul subject to death came unto them the Vicaresse and Companion of the minde To wit unto whom the minde it self straightway transferred the dispositions of the government of the Body For at first there was an immediate Wed-lock of the immortal minde with the Archeus Presently after the fall and the stirring up of the sensitive soul the minde withdrew it â—â—lf like a Kernel into the center of the sensitive soul whereto it was tied by the bond of life The minde is not nourished by foods it could chuse meats for its own Archeus and prepare them for him who now is constrained with an unwearied study to watch for his own support of nourishment And that by degrees he lesse and lesse fitly prepares and applies to himself by reason of the defective duration and power of the sensitive soul Thus therefore I ought to speak concerning the seat of the minde of the material occasion of mortality and the necessities of Diseases and distemper For truly what things are here required in the Treatise of the entrance of death into humane nature is demonstrated at large with an explication of that Text From the North shall evill be stretched out over all the Inhabitants of the Earth Therefore for a Summary The central place of the Soul is the Orifice or upper mouth of the stomach no otherwise than as the Root of Vegetables is the vital place of the same The minde sitteth in the sensitive soul whereto it was consequently bound after the fall But the Brain is the executive member of the canceipts of the soul as it sits chief over the sinews and muscles in respect of motion but in respect of sense or feeling it possesseth in it self the faculties of memory will and Imagination Therefore the stomach failing or being defective there are palenesses tremblings drith's Consumptions of the flesh and strength wringings of the Belly or Guts the Asthma or stoppage of breathing Jaundises Palsies Convulsions giddinesses of the Head Apoplexies c. For the most famous Physitians do wonder that oft-times extream defects are overcome not otherwise than by remedies pertaining to the stomach and that the evil of the stomach doth bring forth Diseases far distant from it self And the more modern Physitians are amazed that vulnerary potions should succesfully cure wounds of the joynts And that according to Paracelsus the Cancer Wolf the eating inflamed Ulcer are cured by a Drink Therefore the errour of those that cure the more outward parts that are ill-affected as if they were fundamental ones and they who do translate all healing about the head it being hurt by the lower parts proceedeth from hence by reason of the ignorance of the seat of the Soul life and government CHAP. XXXVIII From the Seat of the Soul unto Diseases 1. A greater sense is proved to be in the mouth of the Stomach than in the eye or fingers 2. The Schools do every where being unconstrained consent to the Paradox concerning the seat of the Soul although they do openly dissent therefrom 3. The wayling of those that are exorbitant through much leachery 4. The life of the stomach is chief over the other digestions 5. The Ferment that is a friend to the stomach is afterwards an enemy to all the particular shops of digestions 6. Divers Diseases are stirred up by the Ferment of the stomach being transplanted 7. The snare of Gatarrhs 8. The foundation of Diseases 9. The joynt-sickness proves that thing 10. Very many Diseases do flow centrally from the stomach which are feared and healed by the Head 11. Of what sort the co-mixture of the Character of some Diseases may be 12. How Medicines applied to or bound about the Head do operate 13. It is proved that the seat of the Soul is not in the heart it self 14. Remarkable things about the Character of Diseases 15. Why the effects of fear do vary their own effects 16. The same thing is considered for a poysonous occasional cause 17. They are appropriated to the vital light 18. An objection 19. The intent of the Author 20.
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 â—ingly 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 oâ—â—emainer 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 Pâ—lagiam 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 â—coffe 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
not Spiritual substances of a proper Name but only the living vital lights of Soulified Creatures The which notwithstanding are Created by God the Father only and are dispensed according to the requirance of Seminal dispositions I knew thirdly that every frail and Sensitive Soul did issue from the seeds occasionally and dispositively only and therefore that it did partake of nothing of likeness or unity with the Mind of man For although both were Created by God yet that they were both divided a sunder no otherwise than as a frail or Mortal Being from a future Immortal one or as Light that is to perish by blowing out from a substance which should be the shining Image or likeness of the God-head I knew in the fourth place that in the seed of Man dispositions and hopes lay hid unto such a frail or Mortal Soul no less than in the seed of a Dog unto a living Whelp Fiftly I knew that the Sensitive Soul even as I have proved concerning long Life in the Treatise of the entrance of Death into humane nature arose in us from sin and that it doth naturally remain afterwards through a successive coupling of the Sexes neither that the Mortal mind could be made by nature Man or any natural means 1. Because it was a Substance 2. Because that it was permanent or durable and therefore 3. That it could never be made from a perishing Being 4. That the mind therefore ought to be made of nothing after the manner of all Substances without the aid of Co-operating nature 5. And that therefore the Sensitive Soul before sin was not in us as neither necessary Next I knew in the sixth place that forthwith after transgression the mind was fast tied to the Sensitive Soul Because that in a Body subject to Death there was nothing more near or more a-kin to the mind wherein it might sit and that therefore the mind had sunk it self into that cleer and Vital beginning as in an Inn and had been annexed to it by God even unto the Period of Life For I have therefore beheld so many foolish madnesses fallacies defects errors and Treacheries of men yea and all madnesses which might utterly deny all the use of the Mind and might make its totall absence rather than its presence to be Suspected Seventhly I knew that the Mortal Soul forthwith after the fall did so over-darken the Mind in its Inn and over-spread it being idle and as it were detain it Sleeping that it did Govern not only corporal actions but it did for the most part so dim or blacken the very presence of the mind it self that it is able to do nothing at all readily in this Life as though it were no longe belonging to its own right For there is a Law in our Members resisting the Law of our Mind Lastly I felt or perceived a contrary or contentions disquietness sprung up which endeavoured to excuse the liberty and burden of sinning For howsoever the mind doth continually breath forth a vital beam into its vicaress the sensitive Soul because it is that which never keeps holiday is wearied or sleepeth nevertheless it seemed to be so servile to the mortal Soul in its faculties that it is unable to enjoy its own understanding freely but to yield to the mad will or pleasure of the sensitive Soul Wherefore I being easily seduced through the deformities of Diseases readily descended because I saw that Serpents and some Simples yea even our hous-hold excrements did every way alter the use of the mind indeed the powers and functions of these to become wholly oppressed and mad and that we who were constituted in so great a majesty under the image of the Divinity did become far more miserable than Beasts For I was incited hereunto because it did not seem agreeable to 〈◊〉 or possibility that any Poysonous frail Being and that which is unlike to the immortality of the Mind could Spurn against the Image of God that it should loose all right and Prerogotive at the will of a mad Dog and that the Power of the meanest thing should be enlarged beyond the excellency of a Being which is infinite in duration hereafter For it seemed that that ought not to be capable of suffering by a frail or Mortal thing whatsoever should by it self be immortal But moreover the mind of a prudent man is be-set for the most part by foolishness because almost every one doth labour in his own point of giddiness For whosoever loveth that which is not to beloved is ennared and who so keeps not a proportion of suitableness between things that are to be loved now he herein beholds plausible things as pleasing with an affection of madness For so Eve beheld the apple as beautiful and therefore as pleasing she presently took that apple and ate And that thing is so usual that the holy Scriptures say that the number of fools is infinite For I have gone head-long into these-fallacies of errors because I as yet knew not what the necessity and bond of the combination of the mind and of the Sensitive Soul was For indeed because the mind was now connexed unto the mortal Soul it stood bound to this by the right of an Inn so that although the mind were of it self not capable of suffering yet because they were both combined by a conjugal bond and bride-bed of unity so as that the mortal Soul did enjoy the sole Life of the immortal mind it was altogether necessary that as oft as the mortal Soul did suffer any thing by frail or mortal hurtful things or things hostile unto it it should consequently also suffer that very thing through an equality or likeness of wed-lock a conjugal unity and social right of hospitality Not indeed that therefore frail things should obtain a power over an immortal Being which is supereminently above it and of a diverse station but God would have the mind thus to suffer as it being hindered by the discommodities of its Inn it should be deprived of its own liberty of ampleness and should hearken to the straights and anguishes of its mansion For the immortal life of the mind is communicated to a mortal Soul Seat and Inn which life notwithstanding as otherwise every thing received is received after the manner and capacity of the receiver is made mortal in that which is connexed with it or in a mortal light And the which may therefore also be oppressed by mortal things that the Life may be wholly blown out and then the mind being deprived of its Inn is not indeed extinguished or annihilated but is compelled to depart by reason of an untying and annihilating of the bond Whatsoever therefore the mind seemeth to suffer under Life it self indeed remaineth safe but it doth not freely exercise its Offices because feeling or perceivance is in the middle of the Bond. For truly I have constantly considered the light of the Sun married as a husband to the Splendour of the Glo-worm so
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
corrupter of the Lungs which doth empty the membranes of the veins the gristles of the rough Artery and the whole lungs of their nourishment and transchangeth them uncessantly and with a continual thread into divers filths But if a spitting of blood hath gone before and an Ulcer be present learn thou to prepare medicines wherewith Paracelsus hath cured the Consumption Any of those Medicines which cure the Cancer and eating Ulcers being taken in I say at the mouth which is to have cured the Ulcer of the Lungs For whatsoever cureth by its draught an Ulcer of the thigh or foot why may it not do also the same in the Lungs But what will the Schools do they are ignorant of the Causes they are ignorant of the Remedies and with a lofty countenance do mock at Mercurius Diaphoreticus which is sweet like honey and fixed and the volatile tincture of Lile And likewise the milk or element of Pearls For unless the whole Body be universally tinged with a super-eminent Balsam internal Ulcers are never made whole or confirmed For the Lungs first waxing old and first dying doth most difficultly recover from threatned death and doth therefore reboundingly despise the Remedies of the vulgar Wherefore a continued error of the Schools succeedeth which sooner than they do acknowledge a defect in their own wan Medicines they accuse nature of defects and its most glorious Author of a drowsie omission To wit they decree that the four lobes of the Lungs are as long as we live uncessantly enlarged and pressed together like bellows for the use of breathing so that the blast or imbreathed Air is drawn only within the Lungs neither that it doth reach any further to the hollow of the breast which thing surely hath afforded no guiltless ignorance in healing Even as also the sporting or mocking privy shift of the Physitian For by an uncessant and unexcusable necessity of enlarging and pressing together or from a restless motion of the Lungs they endeavour to excuse themselves of the impossible miseries of the Ulcers of the Consumption and other parts Alas as if for the future they could cure an ulcerated Cancer and quiet Fistula of the fundament and eyes at pleasure which error I thus oppose A thin fine dust of Atomes flies about the Air but by a continual necessity we draw our breath together with powdered or dusty Atomes and therefore also the whole breast should be filled up with clay or dirt unless we should have Lungs in the windings whereof the aforesaid Atomes of dust should be affixed and in this respect the Lungs do not else unburden themselves of their excrements but by spitting by reaching to wit that the conceived dust being ensnared may be brought forth together with the daily excrement of the Lungs Surely it is a use which hath been neglected by the Schools unanimously denying the Lungs to be passable Indeed hair in the nostrils doth detain every fiber flying in the Air and drives it away lest it be drawn inwards and then a manifold enlargement of the pipes of the rough Artery causeth whereby the more thin fine dust doth after anothermanner the less fully pass A. Furthermore that it is certain that the Lungs is wholly unmoved that is sufficiently manifest not only from their use already manifested B. But besides much more because the substance of the Lungs is altogether uncapable of enlarging and pressing together C. Therefore in that manner the Lungs of Birds it serving for the same uses in a Bird and us where it is firmly annexed to the ribs refuseth all enlarging and pressing together of bellows D. In the next place the Lungs consist of three vessels suitably dispersed throughout the whole to wit one being the arterial vein the venal Artery and the rough Artery substance of the venal blood and a membrane as it were a gown being poured about or spread over them But the three vessels are channels equally divided throughout the whole Lungs the two former whereof are filled with blood and so uncapable to lay up new imbreathed Air within them But the third channel doth alwayes appear filled with Air and therefore it is also uncapable of other new and in-breathed Air unless the Air contained shall give place to a stranger shall enter into the breast and so that third channel or pipe be bored thorow together with the membrane cloathing the Lungs For this third channel is alwayes stretched out and laying open with gristly rings and those co-touching one another no otherwise than as the trunk of the rough Artery it self But the fourth part of the bowel is its substantial flesh equally uncapable of Air approaching it Lastly the fifth part is the little membrane or coat of the Lungs There is nothing therefore of these which is capable of new Air nothing capable to receive new breath and nothing which may sustain an enlarging and pressing together or motion A wonder surely it is with how great drowsiness the Schools do nevertheless snort in that they know all and admit of the things already spoken nevertheless do not yet even at this day cease to teach that the Lungs like a pair of bellows are driven with a continual motion E. Furthermore it being as yet granted that the third of the vessels or aforesaid pipes were not full of Air but plainly altogether empty of all Air at least wise after respiration or breathing forth when as notwithstanding it otherwise layes open neither is it able to fall down on it self like a bladder the gristle of rings forbidding that thing it should conceive at least as much new Air in it self as the part of the bowel should otherwise be Notwithstanding seeing we do at one only turn breath in at pleasure so great a part of Air as the whole Lungs is large It is altogether of necessity that the Air be not only breathed into the pipes of the rough Artery to press down and enlarge the other impotent parts but that it do proceed inwardly from these into the hollowness of the breast F. In the next place if the muscles between the ribs of any one be pierced by a dagger the wound is presently bewrayed to have pierced thorow For by a windy blast it extinguisheth the flame of a candle But if afterwards the wound be shut by breathing in and again be opened by breathing out it alway blows out the light of a Candle Which is impossible to be done unless the conveighed and inspired Air proceed beyond or thorow the Lungs into the breast And by consequence that the Lungs are at rest Especially because there is in the breast a double Mediastinum or partitional membrane or coat from the top to the bottom of the breast for the defending of the heart from the injuries of the Air. Which Mediastinum or Midriffe divideth the right side of the breast from the left G. Therefore it is manifest by a mechanical necessity that the breath is carried in a right line
the sick doth thereby feel himself well Lastly In the Third place That they do not draw out the Disease by Sweat Vomit or Stool but do unsensibly resolve in whatsoever part the Disease is entertained Nature being busied about the rest I have perceived also That such Laxatives do not electively bring forth Humours which are in themselves feigned but seeing we are nourished by none but one onely juyce the blood therefore also we intend the driving forth not of the blood but of Diseasie excrements do resolve whatsoever forreign thing is implanted within the Inne of Life but not vital things unless they are taken in an undiscreet dose or frequency Otherwise they onely have respect to excrements Nature affording her aid within to this end And chiefly seeing they are from God as well by Creation as the endowment of knowledge they have received the ends of their Ordination onely for a good purpose Therefore I perceived that Paracelsus had erred who teacheth That Laxatives do not otherwise operate but as the Laxative Medicine by calcination and a supervening moisture should be resolved together with the Humours like Calx vive For first of all he that proclaimed War against the Humorists now again acknowledgeth Humours Then also his assertion is wholly ridicvlous Yet the lesse if either Laxatives should be taken being first calcined or might have been calcined within or the ejections should ascend onely unto a treble of the things taken For what of calcination have the leaves of Sena in them Doth not Asarum by boyling cease from making Laxative And thus far is ignorant of a Calx I have furthermore perceived That Chymistry doth give more powerful and absolute operations and that there are those things prepared by the same which before were not For neither was the Oyle of Tiles or Bricks formerly in the Oyle of Olives as neither the spirit of Salt in Salt or of Vitriol in Vitriol c. For by the fire they assume an Acrimony as Honey Sugar Manna Dew Earth c. Other things do thereupon lay aside their corrosion as the juyce of Citron Scarrewort Frogwort Water-Pepper c. They erre therefore who do equally judge of the Spirits by the concrete Body For truly although Spices and sweet smelling things do persist in distilling yet the seminal virtues of the concrete Body do for the most part perish through the fire and are made another thing For some things their volatile parts being separated do become an Alcali or fixed Salt a Calx Ashes and Glass which things were not before in the composed Body For I perceived that there was nothing in the concrete Body which did not issue from its seed For the Fire seeing it is the death of things if it doth not totally destroy the seeds of things yet at leastwise it notably transchangeth them Therefore in one thing a preparation doth transchange the whole matter as in Magisteries but elsewhere by reason of a sequestration of some things it onely changeth sharpeneth destroyeth or consumeth the things which are left Thirdly In the next place by things adjoyned now and then the things themselves together with their adjuncts are diversly transchanged by the Fire and become neutral as Glass which is no more Ashes and Sand. Often times also without the fire adjuncts do pierce the root of the mixture and that especially a ferment coming between and then a neutral concrete Body is constituted For so of Rie-bread and Honey Ants are bred of Honey and Dew Eeles of Basil and the hoary putrifaction of a Stone Scorpions of a Calf being strangled and Dew Bees But those things which are mixed by fusion onely do oft-times suffer themselves to be reduced into their former Being For so although Glass be no longer Sand yet from thence by Art yea and through the oldness of putrifaction by continuance the same Sand is found because it is as yet alwayes materially in it not thorowly changed because without a ferment I perceived therefore that many volatile things being joyned to volatile things by reason of a mutual action with each other are transchanged into a certain third thing In the next place that volatile things are fixed by fixt things and in this respect do pass over into a new Being after another manner fixed things being joyned with fixed things do remain in their antient Being I perceived also that Mineral Remedies being changed into the nature of Salt I do not understand those which are seasoned by an adjoyned Salt do carry with them their seeds yet exalted into a degree These things Paracelsus hath sufficiently taught concerning Hematine or sanguine glassie Mettals wherein although the whole Mettal be resolved into a strange disposition which is that of a Magistery yet because the running Mercury is straitway drawn out from thence whatsoever hath truly assumed the nature of a resolvable Salt is not the Mercury or inward and immutable kernel of the Mettal but onely the Sulphur thereof Wherefore those Hematines or Magisteries do perfect admirable operations in the Remedial part of Medicine I perceived therefore that the Hematines of Sol and Lune or of Gold and Silver although from the purity of their Balsame they might comfort yet that they did contain some strange thing in them in respect of us I perceived I say That the crudity of Saturn or Lead was solvable through the fatnesse of fixed Salts to be sometimes destroyed piece meal by the Fire alone and so that the parts of the composed Body were divided and the crude Argent-vive permitted to run the fugitive Sulphur overcoming in the Saturn doth draw unto a volatilized fixed one unseparably joyned And the which the sublimation of the Saturn doth chiefly dispatch In the expression whereof there is no difference of colour or substance between that which is elevated with that which resideth Whence also the causes of Heat Fusion and Softness deeply or inwardly residing after the calcinements and reducements doth not refute the Fusion and wonted Softness without the Fire There is the same cause of the sweetness of Saturn For the most sharp calcined things if as in Lead they are tempered by a concourse of Vitriolated things they are dulcified or sweetned with the properties of Sal Armoniack resolved and of Tartar being putrified The Symbols or resembling Marks of all which things in all their examinations especially in distilling separating of Lead into Salt fugitive sulphurous coloured fat parts with the sharpness of Roch-Alume are discerned by a quick-sighted and industrious Chymist not without great delight I perceived I say That there are Planetary virtues in Mettals if they are reduced into the nature of a Salt or Sulphur yet that ought to be done without the remainder of every adjunct wherein not every Boaster could go to Corinth For after that I knew how to unloose bodies by things agreeable to their radical Principles then at first I began with a comfortable weariness to deride my blockish credulities whereby I in times
as is the Falling-sicknesse the Gout Madnesse c. Truly in all these things there is a manifest Errour of the Schooles which teach That whole Nature is governed by a Ruler or a created Understanding not erring knowing all ends and for the sake of these acting after a most excellent manner For truly it is not to be doubted but that a Wound might be healed or closed without the Tumor Pain corrupt Pus and Inflammation of its Lips But that a Thorn may be drawn out of the Finger with greater brevity than that the Finger should therefore arise into a corrupt mattery Aposteme For the fat or grease of an Hare being annointed on it doth extract the Thorne in one Night Meanes are not wanting to the Archeus whereby he might perform that very thing safely and quickly even as he doth in some of his own accord but that our Archeus is subject to any kind of Passions as if he did conceive childish indignations from the least hurting of the Body No wonder therefore that the sublunary being of Nature by no means subjecting it self to Justice doth yeeld to or fall under its own inordinate Passions When as also the whole man whereof the intellectuall mind is President doth exceed the path of right Reason in many things At length that is remarkable that in the works of Art the efficient Cause is alwaies without and the Schools being deceived through the errour thereof have not known that in natural and substantial generations the Agent is internal For therefore they have banished the efficient Cause as external in the catalogue of natural Causes Yea it hath been unknown that both the Causes of natural things being connexed as I have demonstrated in its place doth not differ from its Effect but in the priority of flowing which thing hath deceived as many as have similitudinously contemplated of Nature by artificial things For neither have they been elsewhere more blinded than while they have introduced that incongruity of their own speculation into Diseases For they have not onely made artificial things like unto seminal speculatively but also in endeavouring to cure they have through a great confusion of falshoods bespattered the whole practice of healing with contrarieties For they have thought that to produce and to generate are altogether the same while in the mean time a generater bespeaks that he brings forth something from his own substance but he produceth who onely couples active things with passive although he contribute nothing of his own He maketh or doeth also who acteth any thing how he listeth Furthermore I also oft-times admire that while the Schools do constitute the benefit of healing in the removal of Causes after what sort they could place distemperatures within the rank of Diseases seeing the hot and most known of diseases doth both suddenly and of its own accord slide into cold and we are able presently to remove the intemperance of heat at pleasure without helping of the Fevers And then seeing they have never received the vital Cause which is the impulsive one in Diseases for the efficient Cause of Diseases they have determined of removing nothing but the occasional Cause For the Archeus although he be the true and immediate Cause as well according to the matter the which he brings vitiated and that out of his own bosome as also according to a seminal and efficient Idea yet the Archeus doth not shew the removal of himself But the Schools do act contrarily while they attempt their Cures by blood-letting purgatives and next by every means fortifying Life But upon what ground they do that they themselves shall see Moreover in Diseases Nature is standing sitting and laying Nature standing doth her self cure her own Diseases from a voluntary goodness as wholsome Fevers And likewise a Quartane which is cured by the proper guidance of Nature but not by the helps of the Schools And Nature standing can also presently walk the which belongs onely to Health But Nature sitting although she be able of her own accord to stand and at length to walk yet she is constrained to arise before she stands and therefore she ariseth with the more difficulty But if she attempt to arise by inordinate remedies she is prostrated from her seat and lays on the ground and being not a little shaken thereby is pained and sometimes dies of her fall Yea also while many that they may not be sick or ill at ease do make use of counsels or advices which do for the most part hasten old age and death and oft-times also deprive them of life But Nature laying along can never rise of her self as the Leprosie falling Evil Asthma Stone Dropsie c. Yea neither is it sufficient for her to arise for if the nerves or sinews are not confirmed they do easily relapse Furthermore Hippocrates will have a Physitian to be onely the Minister or Servant of Nature but Natures themselves to be their own onely Physitiannesses and that thing he thus commanded in his age When as otherwise a Physitian is the Patron and Master of Nature being prostrated which kinde of Physitian if the old man had not as yet acknowledged surely much less the succeeding heathenish Schools even unto this day Last of all dead carcasses are dissected which is done to excuse their excuses in sins for after a thousand years Anatomy the Moderns do scarce either the better know Diseases or the more successfully expel them They rejoyce indeed that they have found an imminent mark of any corruption in a part which covers their unfaithfull Aids or Succours with the Buckler of impossibility So indeed the world is deceived with a lofty brow For neither was that corruption there before the space of two days although the place might be pained long before So far is it from excusing the Physitian which is seasonably sent for that it rather lays open the fault of the same who to wit had seasonably or in due time dispersed the accused excrement For nothing of the parts containing is destroyed in live Bodies but it is first deprived of the commerce of Life And besides neither can it long be deprived of the Balsame of Life nor a mortisied part wait many houres in the lukewarmth of the Body which doth not likewise speedily putrifie stink and draw the whole Body into its own conspiracy Therefore from thence it is manifest that the corruption which is obvious in the Dissected dead Carcass was made but a few hours before and began but a few dayes before Death For corrupt mattery Imposthumes which are stirred up by malignant assemblies in the Lungs do indeed contain the Seeds of Diseases but the mortifying of Internal parts doth not many paces precede the day of Death One onely thing is at leastwise to be admired that the Schooles indeed have acknowledged a Spermatical or seedy nourishment whereby we are immediately nourished because it is that which they divide into four secondary humours yet that they have not
an actual Combate 10. He gives answer unto the maskes of fear objected by the Humorists 11. He goes to meet his Adversaries 12. The intentions of the Author 13. An old abuse doth not give a right 14. That it is the miseries of Princes to live encompassed with flatterers and therefore out of the truth 15. The Courts are wanting of the best Physitians I Will prove first that the liquour Alkahest the first being of Salts Lile the first Mettal Mercurius Diaphoretius or Horizontal Gold that any one I say whatsoever it be of them for all of them through the consanguinity of one dissolver do conspire into a Unisone is sufficient for the curing of any Diseases whatsoever however the carping Momus's guts may crack First of all Adeptists have known with me how far the Dispensatories of the Apâ—thecary do differ from hence yea and how remotely those Writers are absent who being themselves as yet Young beginners through a great itch of a little Glory have set forth Basilicals and the first principles of Chymistry But I will prove it by the assumption of this Chapter and the other Calumnies raised up against me shall voluntarily melt like Snow Wherefore I being the last of Alchymists will thus prove the aforesaid Assumption Health it self doth not consist in a just temperature of the Body but in a sound or entire Life For otherwise a temperature of Body is as yet in a dead Carcass newly killed where notwithstanding there is now death but not life not health but health is the one only homogeneal integrity and unblamed disposition of life requiring a preservation of that integrity in healthy Persons and a restoring thereof in sick Persons And that thing Hippocrates so long agoe smelt out affirming that Nature alone which is only one is the Physitianess of Diseases but the Physitian the Minister or Servant as also the Medicine a means of reducing nature being exorbitant Therefore the integrity of health is in a Unisone and there is one only governour of Life and no more Therefore this governour alone is ill affected in Diseases For it is he alone which maketh the assault as well in healthy as in sick folkes and the rupture of him only doth rent asunder the family administration of Life For although nothing doth provoke from abroad and nothing from the seed of our Parents doth disturb us Yet that Archeus doth now and then fail or decay of his own free accord and from hence our integrity is dissolved and impurities by an after right are thereby many wayes bred which do ensnare the Monarchy of Life Truly seeing nature it self as Hippocrates witnesseth is the Physitianess of Diseases therefore its Unity is to be conserved and its integrity to be restored But that thing may be sufficiently over-performed by one only remedy For there is a Unity of altered nature a Unity of health being hurt and therefore a Unity of the Spirit which is disturbed under the Disease is only to be considered but not a multiplicity of occasional diseasie varieties And seeing one of the aforesaid Arcanums doth plentifully contain in it all things requisite from the gift of God and by the preparations of the Artificer Therefore one of those Arcanums or secrets is sufficient for every and any Disease whatsoever And therefore the text doth not say Almighty created Medicines from the Earth But Medicine in the singular number which Medicine otherwise already prepared for the art of healing he created not from the earth That Medicine therefore pierceth the innermost parts of the Body which of its own very gift of goodness doth comfort and confirm all the members And next doth most powerfully dissolve whatsoever filths have been any were co-heaped The which being once dissolved nature is busie to disperse the hurtfull matter through a passage known unto her self Let Young beginners take notice in this place that according to a wonted blockishness they beg the Principle after that I have already made it abundantly manifest that there are not contraries in Nature no temperature of Elements and much less a distemperature of Elementary qualities Neither likewise Humours whereunto health and by consequence an infirmity do by a just title owe their patronage In like manner also I have so withdrawn from Fevers a trust to solutive Medicines that I may not again recollect the same without the grief of the Schooles Indeed a perfect purgation ought to loosen only the sick but not healthy folk And for that cause it is most perfect the which doth at first unsensibly lull asleep and pacifie the Archeus who afterwards seeing nature is the only Physitianess doth cut down the Diseases and the occasional Causes of these for it is an unheard of thing to learn in a tone or harmony in the presence of the refusing hinderers of Young beginners who desire to learn And they only do apprehend me as many as do understand the things or principles before recorded For they do object for their purging Medicines that it is nothing material although a laxative Medicine doth eject a laudable juice out of the veins especially because by a stronger right and a briefer compendium it will expell the Diseasie Fex or Dreg neither must we greatly care although solutive Medicines do with the more crude Blood a little diminish the strength But the Books concerning Fevers and Humours do under the consent of experience deny that purgative things do take away hurtful Humours or any Disease dedicated to the same Humours And then because there are not in nature such Humours neither likewise do any Diseases answer to the same Then also whatsoever purgatives do chase away and exterminate it doth not belong to one of the three Humours which they say do offend but it is venal Blood slain by the poyson of the purging Medicine and the stinking Carcass whereof is ejected by the Fundament And therefore neither do they dare to give purging things to drink no not indeed in sharp Fevers unless after that the matter do swell for anger which is as much as to say after that Nature hath become the conqueress to wit when perhaps the Diseasie guest which is vanquished being presently about to retire of its own free accord shall as to a part of it fall out of the Body together with other filths caused by the purging Medicine Unless the Archeus being wroth with the injected poysonous purgation doth stir up a relapsing Disease Which thing I remember very often to have happened and have recorded in my written Catalogues And that thing the Schooles are not Ignorant of who long since affirm with a serious Character that only Aloes is unhurtful Therefore every laxative is absolutely hurtful if not also together with that in vain I may be guilty therefore before God if I do not altogether perswade that we must wholly abstain from laxative things For neither if nature be not foolish is a Laxative Medicine sucked unto the veins Neither without danger doth
while the same things are engraven by a stronger apprehension For things conceived do teach us that from passions or perturbations which are non-beings true real actual Images do arise no otherwise than as the thoughts of a Woman with Child do stamp a real Image how strange and forreign soever it be Wherefore thus indeed the Phantasie brings forth poysons which do kill its own Man and afflict him with diverse miseries So that as those Images do primarily proceed from the imaginative power whose immediate instruments the Archeus himself is So it is altogether necessary that he which toucheth Pitch should be defiled by it That is it behoveth the Archeus himself primarily and immediately to conceive and put on that new Image to be affected with the same and by virtue of a resembling mark or Symbole other things depending on him according to the properties of that hurtful Idea And that Ferment being once decyphered in that aire which maketh the assault is a Disease which forthwith diffuseth it self into the venal Blood the liquor that is to be immediately assimilated and next into the similar parts and into the very Superfluities of the Body according to the property even of that its own Idea for from hence the Diseases of distributions and digestions What if Idea's are formed in the implanted Spirit of the Braine or inne of the Spleen by imagining which also in Bruits are the principal Blas and Organ of all Motions It nothing hinders but that the Archeus himself implanted in the parts may frame singular and now and then exorbitant Idea's not unlike to the imaginative power for so the Spittle of a mad Dog Tarantula or Serpent and likewise the juice of Wolfesbane Monkshood or Nightshade do communicate their Image of fury on us against our wills Wherefore likewise nothing hinders the chief or primary instrument of imagination from forming in-mate seminal fermental poysonous c. Images unto it self Whatsoever doth of its own Nature by it self and immediately afflict the vital powers ought for that very Cause to be of the race and condition of those Powers For otherwise they should not have a Symbole Passage Agreement Virtues or Piercing into each other as neither by consequence an application and activity For seeing the powers or faculties are the invisible and untangible seals of the Archeus who is himself invisible and untangible those powers cannot be reached and much less pierced or vanquished by the Body because those powers however vital they are yet they want extremities whereby they may be touched whence it follows which hath been hitherto unknown that every Disease for it glistens in the Life because it is of the disposition of the vital powers it ought immediately to be stamped and to arise from a Being which was bred to produce seminal Idea's And seeing nothing among constituted things is made of it self originally of necessity the powers as well of Diseasie as vital things do depend either on the Idea's of the generater himself whence hereditary Diseases or of the generated Archeus But that that thing may the more clearly appear in the seed of Bruites and Man there is a power formative after the similitude of the generater Because it is that which seeing it is dispositive and distributive of the whole government in figuring its activity is contested by none The seed therefore hath a knowledge infused by the generater fitted for the ends to be performed by it self for the seed which in its own substance is otherwise barren is made fruitful by an Image stirred up in the lust To wit the imaginative power of the generater doth first bring forth an Idea which at its beginning is wholly a non-being but by arraying it self with the cloathing of the Archeus it becomes a real and seminal Being And that as well in Plants as in sensible Creatures For in vegetables a seed proceeds from an invisible Beginning for truly there is a virtue given to a plant of fructifying by a seed and so it hath an analogical or proportionable conception which formeth a seminal Idea in propagating borrows its fruitfulness and principles of Life from it but not Life it self even as elswhere concerning Formes therefore a seed borrows knowledge gifts roots and dispositions of the matter espoused unto it for Life from a seminal Idea to wit the cause of all fruitfulness And they who a little smelt out that thing in times past have said that every generation doth draw its original from an invisible World The thrice glorious Almighty by the naked and pure command of his own cogitation and conceived Word Fiat or let it be done made the whole Creature of nothing and put seminal virtues into it durable throughout ages But the Creature afterwards propagates its gift received not indeed of nothing as neither by its own command but it hath received a power of Creating its own seminal Image from God of tranferring or decyphering the same on its own Archeus This indeed is the seminal virtue of Man Bruits and Plants But not this beast-like conception is in plants nor is stirred up from lust for it is sufficient that it happen after an analogical manner whereby the Antients have agreed all things to be in all which manner by a similitude drawn from us the Sympathy and Antipathy of things do shew for they feel a mutual presence and are presently stirred up by that sense unto the unfolding of their natural endowments Because they are those things which else would remain unmoved but a sense or feeling cannot but after some sort have an equal force with an imaginative virtue The which I have elsewhere profesly treated more at large concerning the Plague But now my aim is not to Phylosophize concerning Plants but only of Diseases It sufficeth therefore that the imagination it self so called from the forming of an Image doth stampe an Idea for whose sake every seed is fruitful And seeing that in us that imaginative power is as it were brutal earthly and devillish according to the Apostle therefore it is subject unto its own Diseases and can stampe an Image in the Archeus it s own immediate instrument Hence it happens unto us that every Disease is materially and efficiently in us For whatsoever is bred or made that wholly happens through the necessity of a certain seed and every seed hath its this something from an Idea put into its spirit but a Disease is a real Being and is made in a live Creature only Whence it follows that although a Disease doth oppose the Life as the forerunner of Death yet it is bred from a vital Beginning and the same in the Life to wit from the flesh of Sin Notwithstanding Death and all dead things do want rootes whereby they may produce And so seeing Death bespeaks a destruction or privation it wants a seminal Image wherein it is distinguished from Diseases Life indeed is from the Soul and therefore also the premised character of the first constitution
Favour a desire of Praying of Talking with God with humility an amorous perfect and exceeding delightful Faith or Confidence For these things the World is ignorant of For I being a Phisitian ought here on purpose to treat of Morality however others may laugh And that not onely as the indispositions of the Soul do defile and blemish or corrupt the Health But especially from that Title because seeing a Disease is the Son of Sin it cannot be perfectly known if the faculty of the Concupiscence of Sin be unknown from whence every assault towards a Disease drives it self into the Archeus But hitherto concerning Idea's conceived by the cogitation of Man of which it shall as yet be more liberally treated under the Chapter of Things Conceived Now it remains to unfold from whence Idea's made by man are of so great strength that oft-times they call for a Disease yea and also Death on the Imaginer From the Premises therefore we must resume 1. That Idea's are stamped in the Imaginative faculty by cogitation 2. That they imprint their Image on the Spirit of Life 3. That they are operative means whereby the Soul moveth and governeth the Body 4. That they are seminal Images 5. But that they are graduated according to the power and strength of the Imaginative Faculty 6. Wherefore that a humane Embryo is changed into diverse Monsters 7. That every man by the Images of Sorrow Terrour c. doth form seminal Poysons unto himself which do consume him in manner of the Plague or else by a violent languishing 8. That they do also passe forth out of the Body of the Imaginer because an Image conceived by a Woman with Child regularly wanders into the young even on the last day of carrying it in the Womb yet then it is without controversie that the young doth enjoy its own Life and lives by its own Soul and Quarter It is manifest therefore from the aforesaid particulars not only concerning the question whether it be to wit that there are in Idea's a most powerful force to operate but also because they are seminal that they do naturally pierce and operate on all things For truly if there be not a certain ruling and forming Idea of the matter of seeds formed by the generater the seed by it self remains wholly barren In the next place those Idea's ought to be immediately not indeed in the Soul of Man but immediately in the Archeus which maketh the assault because without such an Idea the Archeus should plainly remain an unpartaker of all action operation and propagation Therefore also by Idea's every motion and action of Nature as well in remedies as in poysons and every Natural power is seminally imprinted by every Parent whatsoever Yea forreign strange Idea's are introduced and those ascending into those already constituted because Idea's no otherwise than as Lights do mutually pierce each other and do keep a perpetual and co-marriageable mark of the Archeus with the Archeus which Idea's while they take hold of the matter of him a Disease is now bred For as seminal and primitive Idea's being planted in the seed by the Parents do figure a Man Bruit Plant c. So also the Idea's of inclinations affections c. coming upon them do determine or limit the countenance of a Man unto the delineaments or draughts of Physiognomy Which afterwards also are varied by the future Idea's of manners customes c. For bruit Beasts through the troublesome Idea's of lust do not wax fat even as those that are gelded do But Eunuchs if they are without care do fatten who else through the Idea of grief do also wax lean But from whence there is so great power in Idea's it is worthy to be known that the table or matter upon which even as on water the phantasie decyphers its Idea's even as on water is the very substance of the Archeus it self the which being once defiled by a conceived Idea and as it were instructed by a seminal principle is afterwards uneffectual for other Offices Therefore indeed those that are without care do slowly wax grey and in a contrary sense but many cares do speedily draw on and ripen old age according to that saying my Spirit shall be diminished and my dayes shall be shortned Rightly therefore was it said from of old That the perfect curing of Diseases consists in the removal of the Cause or Root The which if it should be the visible peccant matter it self even as the Schooles do nevertheless point it out to be now a Fever or the colike Diseases could not be cured unless all the occasional matter were first removed which thing is as manifestly false as it is most exceeding true that Fevers are silent the same occasional Cause remaining So indeed I have oft-times perfectly taken away the Colick Choler Flux Bloody-flux and other Diseases by a true Laudanum without Opium although the residing mass or lump were as yet entertained within Therefore all visible and forreign matter either happening from without or sprung up of its own accord within how degenerate soever it shall be from the very nourishment of the solid parts and a liquor separated from them it hath it self alwayes by a proper name after the manner of an occasion and a provoking Cause whether that shall be for a primary Disease or indeed shall be produced and constituted by a primary Disease consequently afterwards pricking forward the Archeus unto the erecting of a new storm or Disease And so every Disease is caused from the violent assaulting Spirit by Idea's conceived in the proper subject of the Archeus by whose fault alone a live Body but not a dead Carcass suffers all Diseases But if that this off-spring of a Disease be spred into the families of the digestions it produceth occasional matters indeed for secondary Diseases which are bred to stirr up afterwards the same Archeus unto new seminaries of Diseases For so wheresoever Hippocrates hath not found any visible matter as the occasion of a Disease he accuseth a Divine Beginning in Diseases because it is invisible from the hidden Store-house of seeds from the invisible World or out of Pluto's River of Hell or from the Chaos of successive changes Therefore I do in all things wholly admire at this Divine Beginning be it spoken by the liberty of Hippocrates in Diseases as the judge of a broken purity so also a revenger of an hidden impurity and concupiscence lurking in the flesh of sin And therefore also persevering in the radical disorder of a vital principle But as it doth immediately sit in and is awakned by a vital and seminal principle Hence also consequently Diseases have properties directions proportions durations affections and respects unto members and places which things certainly in a good understanding cannot be attributed unto the ulcerous predicaments of heats and colds as neither to Distillations and Catarrhs flowing down with a voluntary fall of weights But it is profitable to have made this
Stomatical and Aromatical things being Distilled Furthermore in as much as in fits of the Falling-sickness all Sense not likewise motion faileth Yet that doth not therefore argue that the sensitive Soul is not the Fountain of both For although all the intellectuall powers do fail and onely the Testimonies of a shaking and leaping motion do remain as long as that Eclipse endureth yet all those Powers are denoted or designed as issuing from the Soul into the Body as if they were proper to it But those Powers which it self hath planted in the Archeus implanted in the Organs are under an Ecclipse and are tumulted by the commotion of the Soul yet they subsist obscured because the Life is not taken away neither doth the Pulse therefore cease But in as much as an unvoluntary convulsive motion doth even still remain that is not to be attributed so much to the Soul as to the singular Life of the Muscles The which indeed I have elsewhere shewn as yet to persevere for some time after Death And that a Tetanus and strait Extension doth begin long after Death So that although the Life of the Muscles doth proceed from the sensitive Soul yet it obtains a certain peculiar Efficacy as also Station of place Therefore it is less wonderful or absurd for the Muscles to be therefore tumulted by their own Motion if on this side Death they have felt the common Life to be Eclipsed But in an Apoplexie and Swooning even the motion of the Muscles also doth plainly fail except the motion of those between the Ribs because then the sensitive Soul doth undergo a total darkness Therefore the Soul the directress of Life according to the divers Tragedies of its perturbations doth manifoldly dismiss its Guardians into the Organs placed under it But every Life seeing it is of the disposition of Lights descending from the Father of Lights it exceeds a humane Understanding And so by an unfit word the Father of Lights is called by the Schooles the Intelligible World who doth least of all fall under our Understanding For neither is the most Glorious Father of Lights and his whole Common-wealth wholy unknown unto us according to the Testimony of Truth to Nicodemus but also the Essence Thingliness Direction and Distribution of the vital Powers do exceed our Capacity For how astonishable is the privation of Understanding Memory yea or of Speech only especially Motion Sense Appetite yea and the integrity of Health remaining And how terrible is the fall of these at every onset of the Falling-sickness Swooning or drousie Evil And how much doth it exceed humane Industrie that so diverse Faculties do arise and inhabit in one Stomack Because so diverse Symptomes do bewray the same hurtings of the Faculties For all things do drive us unto the amazement of a Miracle or Wonder And therefore we being admonished by so many stormes on every side of our Ignorance and Fondness do confess that that one only sensitive Soul is the Fountain of Life also Life the Spring of many Powers and Distributress thereof as well in the healthy as in sick Persons Therefore also if we Physitians ought to lay the Ax unto the root of the tree we are intent for the obtaining of Universal Arcanum's or Secrets which may conserve preserve plant and build up the Life in the very Fountain of Life the Author of Death and Diseases no less than of Health For I now have regard to the frail Soul but not to the incorporeal and immortal Mind The which we believe to be Originally inspired alike and alike perfect in all And therefore Conditions Inclinations Domestick or Forreign Mild or Fierce Tractable or Teachable Humble or Proud are instilled into us by the Mortal Soul Wherein as in a Subject or Place locally disposing the Inclinations of varieties are unfolded which otherwise from the Mind or Image of God are naturally banished Therefore sleep was not in man naturally in respect of his mind but was afterwards sent into him by the Creator But before sleep was bred Sense Motion and Appetite were present Because the Mind as it was thenceforth Immortal it was also unweariable and had no need of Sleep or Rest Yet Sleep was sent into Adam before the Fall Not so much for that he stood in need of Sleep especially a few hours after his Creation as chiefly because by Sleep he was not yet made sore afraid of known Death threatned unto him for eating of the Apple Otherwise Sleep produceth from it self sluggish idleness and foolish vain Dreames and causeth the loss of almost half the Life Whence even at this day from the antient Sleep sent into Adam they have yet retained Dreams That the Old Men shall Dream Dreams the Young Men shall Prophesie And Night unto Night shall shew Knowledge For the sleepifying Power which was sent into the Mind before the Fall and the same also being after a sort free from the wedlock of the Mortal Soul would after some sort draw it into its Original Prerogative of Prophesying unless the darkness of the Soul sprung up and put in place did obscure the same But while I declaim the Stomack to be the Inne of the sensitive Soul and for that cause do dedicate the sink of Diseases to the Stomack I have indeed considered Occasional Causes near the same place to sit as well in the hollowness and bought thereof and being as it were strangers onely there to stick and likewise in the tent of the Bowel Duodenum which is the Prison deputed for the Jurisdiction of the Gaul and Pylorus and most troublesome to Anatomists for its composure of Vessels and Glandules as in the Archeal sheathes no less of that which is inbred as of that which is inflowing To wit that through the conspiring distemperature whereof the sensitive Soul is diversly disturbed and all the Vital Faculties the Chambermaids hereof to be co-shaken and so the same being weakened that an Army of Diseases doth arise as well those Radical or Chronical as those soon hastening as I long since have known being thorowly instructed by many Experiences So that I saw Hunger and unextinguishable Thirst to proceed not so properly from the sharpnesse of the matter provoking as from the very fury of the sensitive Soul For otherwise a Thorexis or Draught or Potion of generous Wine should not dissolve Hunger unlesse Hunger being as it were made drunk by appeasing should soundly sleep And therefore Thirst in Feavers doth not afflict but in its own Stations although the same matter yea and a more cruel heat doth presse more in their Vigour than at other times Now even as the Government of the Stomack hath been enlarged on So also it hath been shewn that the sensitive Soul doth there abide as in the first or chief Kitchin of the Meats and that the Life doth there Inhabit For truly the most potent Powers of transchanging and digesting do there exercise their Offices and therefore not onely Kitchinfilths are
are from within drawn out of the Body the which I will enclose in one only or two Examples The Wife of a Taylor of Mecheline saw before her Door a Souldier to loose his Hand in a Combate she being presently smitten with horrour brought forth a Daughter with one Hand but dead through an unfortunate and bloody Arm because the Hand thereof was not found and a flux of Blood did kill the Infant The Wife of Marcus of Vogelar a Merchant of Antwerp in the year 1602 seeing a Souldier begging whose right Arm an Iron Bullet had taken away in the Siege of Ostend and who as yet carried that Arm about with him bloody by and by after she brought forth a Daughter deprived of an Arm and that indeed her right one the Shoulder whereof being as yet bloody ought to be made whole by the Chyrurgion she married a Merchant of Amsterdam whose name was Hoocheamer she also surviving in the year 1638 But her right Arm was no where to be found nor its Bones neither appeared there any putrifying Disease for which the Arm had withered away in a small hours space Yet while the Souldier was not as yet beheld the Young had two Arms Neither could the Arm that was rent off be annihilated Therefore the Arm was taken away the Womb being shut but who plucked it off naturally and which way it was taken away surely trivial reasons do not square in so great a Wonder or Paradox I am not he that will shew these things only these things I will say that the Arm was not taken away as neither rent off by Satan And then that it was a thing of less labour for the Arm being rent off to be derived else where than it was to have plucked off the Arm from the whole Body without Death A Merchants Wife known to us assoon as she heard that 13 were to beheaded in one morning it happened at Antwerp in the time of Duke Alban or D'â—lue and Women great with Child are led by inordinate Appeties she determined to behold the beheadings Therefore she went up into the Chamber of a Widow her familiar acquaintance dwelling in the Market place and the spectacl being seen a travaile pain presently surprized her and she brought forth a mature Infant with a bloody Neck whose Head no where appeared At leastwise I do not find that mans Nature doth abominate the piercing of dimensions seeing it is most frequent to the Seeds of things Thou shalt bring forth Children in Sorrow is the punishment of Sin Before Sin therefore she had naturally brought forth tall Young without pain at least-wise of that bigness with which we are now born But not that a Woman had been unsensible before Sin but because it had gone forth the Womb being shut Therefore it was a proper or familiar thing to humane Nature from his Creation for dimensions to pierce each other because he was made that he might live in the Flesh according to the Spirit But Nature being corrupted that authority of his Spirit over his Body perished and therefore Woman doth thence-forward bring forth after the manner of Bruits Yea Writers do make mention that Ulcers or Imposthumes are made thorow the Bones that all things are carried upwards and downwards without the guidance or commerce of the Vessels Indeed that primitive efficacy of piercing Bodies doth as yet consist in the seeds of things but is not subjected by humane force art or will or judgment For there are many Bodies much more ponderous than the Matter from whence they are composed It must needs be I say that more than fifteen parts of Water do co-pitch into one that one only part of Gold may be thereby made for weight is not made of nothing but doth prove a matter weighing in an equal tenour Therefore Water doth naturally as often pierce its own Body as Gold doth exceed Water in weight Therefore a home-bred and dayly progress of Seeds in generations requireth a Body to penetrate it self by a co-thickning the which is altogether impossible for an Artificer to do Let us grant pores to be in the Water yet these cannot contain fourteen times as much of its entire quantity It is therefore an ordinary thing in Nature that some parts of the Water do pierce themselves into one only place And the Seeds do act this by virtue of a certain Spirit the Archeus For although the Archeus himself as well in the aforesaid Seeds as in us be corporeal yet while he acts by an action of government and sups up the matter into himself he utters many effects not unlike unto enchantments because in speaking properly the Archeus doth not imitate enchantments but enchantments do follow the rule prescribed by the Archeus to wit as he doth operate far otherwise than Bodies do on each other As in affects of the Womb the Sinewes are voluntarily extended the Tendons do burst forth out of their place and do again leap back the Bones likewise are displaced by no visible mover the Neck riseth swollen unto the height of the Chin the Lungs are stopped up from air unthought of Poysons are engengred and the venal Blood masks it self with the unwonted countenances of Filths But as to what doth belong unto the penetrations of Bodies our Archeus sups up Bodies into himself that they may be made as it were Spirits For example Aqua-Fortis doth by its Spirit make Brass Iron or Silver remaining in their own Nature thick or dark so transparent that they cannot be seen and doth transport a mettal thorow merchant Paper the which otherwise doth not transmit the finest Powder thorow it it as yet essentially remaining in the shape of a mettal but not that the similitude of the piercing of dimensions doth uniformly square with the Example of a Mettal proposed Because as I have said reasons do not suite with so great a Paradox where I do willingly acknowledge the manner to be undemonstrable from a former Cause Even as no Man can know after what sort an Idea imprinted on Seeds may figure direct and dispose of its own constituted Bodies And therefore we will search after the same from the effect First of all let it be supposed that the Devil hath no authority or command over us against our will unless by the peculiar permission of God For know ye not that we are the Temple of God and that the very Kingdom of God dwelleth in us which thing is to be re-furrowed from its original First therefore it is of Faith that we are the sanctuary of the holy Spirit that the holy sacred Trinity doth make its mansion with the Just That the delights of God are with the Sons of Men unto whom he hath given Power to become the Sons of God but Children being Baptized are innocent just of them is the Kingdom of God the fitted Temple of God Yet Children are killed by enchantments sooner than others Therefore it must needs be that that thing happens from some
notwithstanding of Priofity if they are weighed in the Ballance of Truth they are onely the Atributes of Motions but never of Time or Duration because Priority Slowness c. do bespeak only an unseparable Relation unto the parts of Motions immediately following and slowness compares the swiftness of Motions with each other and therefore Priority Slownesses c. do not so much measure Time or Duration but only in respect of a dayly Motion For truly a humane and undistinct weakness hath through a certain sluggishness and dulness meted out all peculiar Motions with a diary or diurnal Motion Because they do not regard that the Priorities of Motions are not properly the duration of Time it self but rather a universal distance of a general Motion And although Duration it self of Time be and be present in all things yet that this is altogether a Stranger from the succession of Motions From hence therefore Time hath begun to be considered as it were a successive and frail Being by every instant Especially because the Schooles having imitated the blockishnesses of the Vulgar have at length accustomed themselves to confound Time with the Motion of the Heaven It 's no wonder therefore if the great Heroes or Worthies considering the thingliness of Time by such Beginnings have not been able to conceive of the same Because seeing it involveth an actual Infinite which one only thing is Eternal it is from it self of necessity not to be comprehended by that which is Infinite For Time is thought to succeed and to have parts because parts should follow themselves in Motions Seeing Time and Motion are unlike things and so far different from each other as a Mortal and Finite thing is from an Infinite For although Motion be made in Time Motion can be no more co-measured by Man through Time than Man is able to measure Man himself by God who is lives and is moved in God For if God would have the whole course of the Heaven for the future to be so unequally inordinate that no Motion could be made equal unto it should therefore Time also be in it self unequal Or should that cease to be which now is Yea if the Motion of the Heavens should cease as at sometime it shall cease shall Time therefore cease likewise Shall Now it self be no longer Now for what doth that belong unto Time which happeneth in Time For truly it hath its own free Being without Respect Reflexion or Reciprocation unto any other thing Indeed Time is not given unto us for a measure or that in it self it is to be measured but it hath a free Being in him from whence is all Essence For Example God is in every Creature For God is Good as he is all Good but not this or that Good but in as much as he is this or that Good he is not all or every Good and in such a respect he hath a Being in created Things For as God is one only Good in all things so in like manner also all Good is essentially this one true Good Likewise God is every where present in all things and his Continuance or Duration is the Duration of all and every of things In like manner also the light of the Sun is a Being and something in it self because it enlightneth and heates yet without and on this side the Sun it is nothing After the same manner eternal Duration is Time in created things Because without and besides an eternal Duration it is a meer nothing privatively and negatively Wherefore as long as there shall be any created things Time shall never cease to be The Lord hath said Thou art my Son this Day have I begotten Thee Because Eternity is nothing but one only Now but one only To day I have begotten Thee from the Womb before the Day-Star was Christ was born from the Womb in Time and yet before Lucifer or the Day-Star was Because in Time there is no Priority or Succession Before therefore denotes a Priority of the Succession of Motions and an excellency of Dignity but not a Priority of Time Because from the Beginning even unto the finishing of Age it is nothing but one only Now For so The Lamb was sacrificed from the Beginning of the World and his death saves the dead before the Lords Incarnation as the Incarnation which makes blessed hath respect unto Motion Indeed it saves the Ancestours which precede according to the course of Life and in respect of Motions conferred among each other but not by the sight or beholding of Duration That the Lyon may not snatch them nor the infernal Pit devour them For those Prayers are for the deceased long after Death when as notwithstanding Souls do for the most part undergo their Judgment presently after expiration Wherefore such kinde of Prayers should be in Vain and made too late if Time should be successive The Church triumpheth in the Comforter her Guide therefore she hath known that all future things are in the same Now of time as if her Prayers had happened before the party died For the Wise Man affirmeth That God made all things at once but Genesis writing the History of the six dayes Work saith also that as many dayes were spent Which sayings should therefore contradict each other if Succession be granted unto Time All things therefore were created in six dayes space yet one only point of time remaining For so the Devil hath known future things in the succession of Motions as they being present in the one only Now of Time The Stars indeed are for Times that is for the successive changes of Times or varieties of Motions but not for the continuance of our Life the bound whereof is appointed by the Almighty But indeed Priority or Formerliness is most difficulty sequestred from Time For although we abstract Time from Place Motion and a Body Yet by reason of an opposite custom and the novelty of the thing it is very difficult to desist from Priority in Time no otherwise than as any one who is wont to cut Bread with his left hand that thing is troublesome for his right Hand to do although he rightly performeth many other things by his right Hand Yet therefore a difficulty and unwontedness of understanding doth not change any thing in things or oblige the Essence of Time that it may accommodate it self to our Errours For what doth a Priority it self of Motions in Bodies belong to Time Or what doth Priority hurt Time which is due to Motion alone If through ignorance it be translated into Time But because a Priority of Motions in order to Duration bespeakes an immediate respect unto another Motion to wit of dayes and years whereby we measure all other Motions therefore Priority is abusively derived into duration Otherwise surely it ought first to be manifested that that Motion of the day should therefore be Time because it happens in time which being proved then Priority might be referred unto Duration and not otherwise
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
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 Parâ—â—â— 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
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
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.
from its place descends that it may imprint a seal on the forbidden Seed for a common destruction Then although the sensitive Soul was not yet born yet every natural Disposition requisite for the obtaining that sensitive Soul from the Creator was forthwith present And seeing two Souls at once cannot perfectly preside in one only Plain or Region of the Body without discord no more than it is lawful to serve two Masters at once Therefore the immortal Mind hath departed into the innermost Parts whether that was by the Command of the Creator or grieving at the wearisomness of a bodily Impurity at leastwise it afterwards delegated the government of its Body on the sensitive Soul in which it is now bound because it is involued in it as long as we live For from hence we do afterwards for the most part wax of ripe years and live after a bruital manner But the Mind hath betaken it self into the Inn of a frail Soul and doth thereby inspire hereinto its free gifts although for the most part otherwise it sleepeth perhaps even as Coral doth now and then loose its Colour and again recover the same from whence the Body hath undergone every disorder of Impurity But the Wedlock of the mortal Soul being a forreign thing unto the ordination of the Mind is for an occasion why the Mind hath placed it self into the hidden Parts so as that the Matter or Controversie is as yet before the Judge or in dispute whether of the two hath chosen the principal Bride-bed and a Mind is not believed to be among Atheists because it by piercing hath so sunk it self into the depth of the mortal Soul because the Notions of the Mind do appear as yet to this day to be subject to the imagination do also so obey the Poysons of some Simples that the principality of the Mind seems to be sore shaken at the Pleasure and Command of Diseases which thing the Dotages of Fevers Madness in affects of the Spleen the Biting of a Mad-dog and Pricking or Stinging of a Tarantula have the more strongly perswaded in the behalf of Atheism for in the former immortal Life the Mind did by it self and immediately frame immortality and gave also a perfect knowledge of living Creatures and Herbs But afterwards in the brutal Filthinesse of generation the Image of God remained indeed safe in the Mind and its external Figure in the Body But so great a Corruption of it hath constrained the Mind to retire unto the innermost Chamber of the mortal Soul Therefore the Immortality thereof lived under the happy government of the Mind And therefore Diseases were banished with the declinings of Ages and the threatnings of Death And therefore before the Fall Man was dinstinguished from Blessedness in that he could Sin Fall and Die But in Glorification the Mind shall again immediately quicken the Body and transsume it into it self The Mind indeed before the Fall which did only shine upon the Body by its immediate Splendour shall forthwith after the Resurrection through a transchanging of it clarifie it by way of supping it up For therefore the state of the Faithful although throughout their whole Life also in Death it self be far more miserable than the primitive State yet it is more happy than that by how much it is a thing fuller of Majesty to be more like the Son of God Incarnate dead and glorified than to have lived with Adam free from Diseases and at length to be taken away without Battle because the retributions or repayings of Life are no way worthy of the Glory or Expectation of the Age to come Furthermore the sacred Text hath in many Places compelled me unto a perfect Position it making Eve an Helper like unto Adam not indeed that she should supply the name and room of a Wife even as she is call straightway after Sin For she was a Virgin in the intention of the Creator and afterwards filled with Miseries But not yet as long as the state of Purity presided over innocency did the will of Man overcome her For the translation of Man into Paradise did foreslew another Condition of living than that of a Beast And therefore the eating of the Apple doth by a most chaste name cover the Concupiscence of the Flesh while it contains The knowledge of Good and Evil in this name and cals the ignorance thereof alone the State of Innocency For truly the obtainment of that aforesaid knowledge did nourish a most hurtful Death and an irrevocable depriving of eternal Life For if Man had not tasted down the Apple he had lived void of Concupiscence and off-springs had appeared out of Eve a Virgin from the holy Spirit But the Apple being eaten Presently their Eyes were opened and Adam began lustfully to cover after the naked Virgin and defiled her the which God had appointed for a naked help for him no otherwise than as a Prince is for a help unto his Servants For so the Man prevented the Intention of God by a strange generation in the Flesh of Sin whereupon therefore followed the Corruption of the former Nature or the Flesh of Sin accompanied Concupiscence Neither indeed doth the Text insinuate any other mark of the knowledge of Good and Evil than that They knew themselves to be naked and that it shamed them of that their nakedness or in speaking properly of their Virginity being Corrupted Indeed their whole knowledge of Good and Evil is included about their Shame and within their privy Parts alone And therefore in the 8th of Leviticus and many Places elsewhere the Privy Parts themselves are called by no other Etymologie than that of Shame For from the Copulation of the Flesh their Eyes were presently opened because they had known that the Good being lost had brought on them a degenerate Nature Shamefulness Fowlness and an Intestine and unevitable obligation of Death sent also far away into their Posterity Alass too late indeed they understood by the unwonted Novelty and Shamefulness of that Concupiscence why God had so lovingly forbidden the eating of the Apple To wit it shamed them more of their Chastity being Corrupted and of the Warning transgressed than of their nakedness For Adam who had Judged of the Natures of the Beasts by their beholdance alone neither is read to have lost the same Knowledge could not be ignorant of the fowlness of his own corrupt Nature also And so that through the Shame hereof they had rather hide themselves than for their Nakedness sake Indeed so great was the confusion of so manifold a Shame that it wanted but little but that he should rush into madness the which is clearly enough to be known by the unfit answers of Adam For God called him and asked him where he was and he answereth by accusing his Companion and Help like unto him that he might excuse himself being not yet accused And by altogether a foolish Endeavour they offered their Nakedness which was known to their
which b. also denies for their Bodies after the Resurrection Therefore it behoves that we are Born again of Water and of the holy Spirit For as from the Beginning man was created and had not proceeded from a being born of Flesh So whatsoever is afterwards born of the Flesh is Flesh But the Water the Blood and the Spirit are one and the same in Christ John 5. and these three do denote an indifferent and one only Baptism in valour or effect Wherefore the only new Birth unto Life Is by Water and the Spirit in the participation of the virginal Body of Christ alone For truly it is alike impossible for Flesh to enter into and see the Kingdom of God as for to ascend into Heaven by a Motion of ones own and that is granted to none but to the Son of the Virgin who for that end descended from Heaven who was in Heaven while the same Son spake these things to Nicodemus and the which a little while after ought moreover for the same Cause to be exalted in the Cross The same therefore which descended from Heaven that he might be incarnated of the Matter of the Virgin is he in whom the Water the Virginal Blood and the holy Spirit are one The Spirit therefore which maketh the Corrupted and Adamical Man to be renewed by Water doth so regenerate the inward man from a new Generation in the Spirit that it becomes a true Spirit to be glorified by rising again whose Voice the Sons of Adam shall hear yet shall they not know from whence it may come or whither it may go because the Spirit the Regenerater is the glorious God himself who breatheth where he will and thou now hearest his Voice by Faith and the Sacrament Thus every one who is born again of the holy Spirit is made Spirit and united to him who is not known from whence he may come or whither he may go I call these earthly things although they touch at a spiritual Generation and new Birth because they have some things like unto them in a sublunary Nature which things every one hath not indeed every where known and therefore neither doth he believe them For the Generations of Bruits do happen from a watery Liquor and a seminal Spirit Notwithstanding those things are not therefore plainly terrene or earthly and naturally intelligible by the Vulgar which the Lord speaks to Nicodemus because the reason of the Love of God is no more conceived in this New-Birth than of his infinite goodness To wit it remains unpassable why he would adopt Man for a Son and Co-heir of his Kingdom yea reduce him into a Spirit of a God-like Form who shall materially be born again of Water For that mystery of love exceedeth all the understanding of Angels Yea to believe and contemplate of the actual Person of Christ in an old Man a Woman a young Man a poor diseased Man a miserable and naked poor or little esteemed Man or Woman none can naturally understand it unless he being compelled by Faith hath subjected his understanding unto Faith So neither are we able to conceive what one thing all are made by that new Birth of Baptism in Christ without a difference of Sexes or Nations unless we are holpen by Faith At length it was not enough for the Love of Christ to be born in the form of a Servant and so to be exposed unto Scorn But moreover he ought to suffer a most sharp and most exceeding reproachful Death the which so cruel and disgraceful Death himself in the abounding goodness of his Love cals his Exaltation But he brings it into the similitude of the exaltation of the Serpent Nehushtan Not indeed because the Serpent did any more represent the form of the Son of Man than the Fork did the Cross but only the likeness of impure Man slidden into Death through the perswasion of the Serpent the likeness of whose Servant the Lord was to assume Therefore the Son of Man ought to be exalted not indeed as being unhurtful in the Fork or as it were an unsensible brazen Serpent and the which otherwise being a live one was perceivable enough to be most fit to hang up But the Son of Man must be exalted alive he being full of Love and also at length to die in that Cross that the deserved New-Birth or Regeneration might be made effectual by his Death For truly else without the Death and Exaltation of him Crucified a Participation of the new Birth by Water and the Spirit had not succeeded neither had Death Perished So that plainly from a deep mystery the similitude of the Fork Cross and Saviour was fetched for a similitude of an incarnated Servant and him compared with the brazen Serpent Neither also did Israel Worship God in the Serpent otherwise Moses by the Command of God had been the Author of Idolatry Neither therefore is a live Serpent bound to the Fork as neither likewise his dead Carcass but his brazen Image only as being uncapable of Life that by this mystery it might be manifest that the whole similitude in that the exaltation of the Fork or Pole and Cross did manifest and clearly hold forth unto us the Flesh of Sin which the Son of Man by way of similitude represented was plainly uncapable of Life and of the Kingdom of God no otherwise than as the brazen Serpent was Therefore it is simply and absolutely true That unless Man be born again of God and doth partake of the unspotted Virginity which the Lord Jesus drew in his most glorious Incarnation from the material substance of the Virgin his Mother the hope of Salvation is for ever cut off Wherefore also from thence it is manifest that from the intent of Creation nothing but a Virginal Generation was afterwards required And by consequence that a Seminal Impure Beast-like and Adamical Generation was by the Craft of the Devil drawn and exhausted from the Apple wherein the Fewel of Lust was Therefore unless the Adamical Flesh doth again die and an unspotted Virgin-Flesh be restored in us in its stead by the favour of the holy Spirit who saveth those that are to be saved freely it is certain that the first intent of our Creator should be frustrate whatsoever may be otherwise done or hoped for For in the Beginning it was sufficient to be born because also then they had been born of God But after the Fall it thenceforth behoveth the Adamical Flesh to die and perish and to be again renewed or re-born of Virgin-Flesh which the holy Spirit by Water stirs up in us while we wish or desire to be Members of that Head and Branches of that Vine We are therefore regenerated in the Lords Body by Grace unto the immortal Life of the Age to come and that we may be raised up again in the Participation of Virginity Death must interpose and whatsoever is Adamical in us be blotted out We all indeed shall rise but we shall not all be
copulation of the Sexes for he was truly Immortal and the first who therefore arose from the Dead by his own Power unless the amorous or loving Embassage for which he had come had made him electively to be born in the form of a Servant Therefore now the Question hath seemed to me to be decided which hath driven many that were in anguish about the unspotted Conception of the God-bearing-Virgin into many brawlings Furthermore not onely Regeneration by Baptisme is enjoyned but also unless we shall eat of the super-substantial Bread we are to have no Life in us Which benefit of a vital Purity is the supream pledge given for the Life of the World or for the frail Adamical miserable and mortal Life Because that Heavenly Bread which descends from heaven which is the Wine budding forth Virgins and the same in supposition from its own free property takes away the spot contracted from Adam and the broken Virginity of Eve Because the Merits of the Passion being participated of in that Pledge are communicated of from the unspotted Virginity of the Body of our Lord. The Communion therefore of that most Chast Body uniteth us unto his Mystical Body and makes us partakers of his Incomprehensible and Amorous Incarnation as we participatively put on his Virginity in which we ought to be saved by being born again For Christ was born that he might be crucified for us Therefore his Death was that it might give us Life and that for the whole Species of men in general But in the individual as oft as of the Bread the Body of the Lord is made as if Christ is re-born again not indeed that he is crucified again But that he may give the intended scope of his Incarnation unto that individual Body which there eats the re-born Lamb that is the Merits of his Passion Indeed there are two principal Ends of the holy sacred Eucharist To wit that the Virgin nature of Christ and the Merits of his Passion may be unitively communicated unto us Truly Children that are Baptized shall rise again indeed in a glorified Body Yet by so much the lesse lightsome by how much they were remote from the Union of the Beatifical Body And although there do not now appear the visible signes of so great an effect such as I have above related concerning Baptisme yet they are in very deed communicated unto their immortal mind Because it is that which shall therefore at some time reduce their Body into the form of a Spirit For otherwise Regeneration doth not grow anew in the Resurrection which hath not fore-existed in the Life-time by being born again Neither is Faith of feigned Non-Beings but of things chiefly true although not alwaies visible because they do primarily operate on the Immortal mind which is invisible Wherefore although the mark of resemblance of Union with God by the Eucharist be altogether unsearchable and the fruits thereof are unto us invisible Yet a Mystical aâ—â— real New-birth is reckoned to be in the speech to Nicodemus it being as yet earthly and as it were natural By which title indeed I have transferred this free endowment of Purity among natural Considerations to wit that under the Doctrine concerning Long Life I may speak also of Immortal Life as it is understood by true Christians and actually derived into a true use For I contemplate of the Regeneration of those that are to be saved and of the participation of Life in the Communion of the Eucharist to happen and be reckoned among earthly things because there is shewn something like unto it elâ—â—where in Earthly things Verily almost even as in the Projection of the Stone which make â—â—â—old For I have divers times handled that stone with my hands and have seen a real transmutation of â—aleable Argent-vive or Quicksilver with my eyes which in proportion did exceed the powder which made the gold in some thousand degrees Indeed it was of the colour such as is in Saffron being weighty in its powder and shining like bruised Glass when it should be the less exactly beaten But there was once given unto me the fourth part of one grain I call also a grain the six hundredth part of an ounce This powder therefore I involved in Wax scraped off of a ceâ—â—ain Letter least in casting it into the Crucible it should be dispersed through the smoakinesses of the coaâ—s which pellet of wax I afterwards cast into the three-corner'd Vessel of a Crucible upon a pound of Quicksilver hot and newly bought and presently the whole Quicksilver with some little noise stood still from flowing and resided like a Lump But the heat of that Argent-vive was as much as might forbid melted Lead from re-coagulating The Fire being straightway after encreased under the Bellows the Mettal was â—elted the which the Vessel of fusion being broken I found to weigh eight ounces of the most pure gold Therefore a computation being made a grain of that powder doth convert nineteen thousand two hundred grains of impure and volatile Mettal which is obliterable by the fire into true gold For that powder by uniting the aforesaid Quicksilver unto it self preserved the same at one instant from an eternal rust putrefaction death and torture of the fire howsoever most violent it was and made it as an Immortal thing against any vigour and industry of Art and Fire and transchanged it into the Virgin purity of Gold At least-wise one onely fire of coals is required herein So indeed if so be a just heat of the faithful shall be present a very little of this mystical and divine super-celestial Bread doth regenerate restore and renew a huge number of the Elect Which indeed was the one onely scope of so great a Sacrament And therefore it is said With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with yoâ— Let the Divine pardon me who being to write of the Life of the World if by a similitude I have drawn a demonstration from earthly things in the perswasion of the Lord to Nicodemus to confirm the real and Celestial Regeneration of Purity and Restauration of mans Relapse because it is by an Argument drawn from Earthly things But that person who is so regenerated and preserved against the Fire and Death the Lord will raise up the same in the last day who gave his Life to the righteous eater for the Adamical Life of the World For so a uniting of the amorous Incarnation of the Lord makes us partakers of his integrity so far as by Regeneration we participatively attain unto the Virginity of Christ in which we ought to be saved This indeed is the most proper Circum-locution or expression of the sense of those Words The Wine which buds forth Virgins And without this Remedy some shall rise again being not changed in their former and ponderous Body of Adam the wished for necessity of death being onely taken away from them I return unto the Priviledges of that purity that it may be
Mortals that would come from thence he then also well perceiving his own Miseries in himself certainly knowing that all these Calamities had happened unto him from the Concupiscence of the Flesh drawn from the Apple which were unavoidably issuing on his Posterity he thought it a discreet thing for him for hereafter wholly to abstain from his Wife which he had violated and therefore mourned in Câ—â—stity and Sorrow a hundred full Years Foolishly hoping that by the proper merit of that Abstinence as by an opposite to the Concupiscence of the 〈◊〉 that he should again return into his former Majesty of Purity But the Repentance 〈…〉 Age being finished probably the Mystery of the Lords Incarnation was revealed unto him Neither that Man ever could hope to return unto the brightness of his antient purity by his own strength and much less that himself could restore his Posterity from Death And therefore that Matrimony or Marriage was well pleasing and was presently after the Fall indulged unto him by God to wit because he had determined thus to satisfie his Justice at the fulness of times which should to the glory of his own Name and the confusion of Satan carry up Mankind unto a more eminent blessedness From that time therefore Adam began to know his Wife and to fill the earth by multiplying according to the Blessing once given him and a Law enjoyned him Yet so nevertheless that although Matrimony by reason of the great want of Propagation and otherwise an impossible coursary succession of the primitive Divine Generation be admitted as a Sacrament of the faithful Yet because at length it seemed by reason of necessity as it were by dissembling or connivance to be indulged Therefore the Comforter dictating it it was determined against the Greeks by the Church that the Priest by whose workmanship the Lords Body is incarnated in the Sacrifice ought to be altogether estranged from the act whereby Death and the impurity of Nature were introduced For the necessity of propagation hath indeed thus in times past excused the offence of a coursary succession in Generating For as Augustine witnesseth If the propagation of Men could have been made after any other manner the Conjugal Act had been unlawful Wherefore Bigamy or a Duplicity of Wives is not undeservedly expelled from the Bishoprick even as actual Wedlock from the Sub-deaconship For however it be a Sacrament yet it is unbeseeming the Sacrament of the Altar to wit by which the chastity of the first constitution and intention of the Creator are recompensed For God despised that blood should be offered unto him even in burnt-offerings and that Man should eat blood being mindful that the blood in which the sensitive Soul is had proceeded from the eating of the Apple But besides bruit Beasts are indeed afraid are angry do flatter do mourn do condole do lay in wait and those Passions Man from the sensitive Soul possesseth common with Bruits Yea also it shameth Elephants if they are upbraided with any thing that hath the less generously been done by them But no Animal or sensitive Creature perceiveth shame from a sexual copulation From hence its manifest that Concupiscence of the flesh is Diabolical onely to Man which in Bruits is Earthly and Natural If therefore both our Parents presently after the eating of the Apple were ashamed if they therefore covered onely their privy parts therefore that shame doth presuppose and accuse of something committed against Justice against the intent of the Creator and against their own proper Nature By consequence that Adamical generation was not of the primitive constitution of their nature as neither of the original intent of the Creator Therefore when God foretels that the earth shall bring forth Thistles and Thornes and that Man in the sweat of his Face shall eat his Bread even as was already proved above they were not Execrations but Admonitions that those sort of things should be obvious in the Earth and because Beasts should bring forth in pain should plow in sweat should eat their food with labour and fear that the Earth also should bring forth very many things besides the intent of the Husband-man therefore also that they ought to be nourished like unto Bruit-beasts who had begun to generate after the manner of Bruit-beasts And then if the Text be more fully considered it is told unto Eve after Transgression that she should bring forth her off-springs in pain For it undoubtedly followes from thence that before sin she had brought forth without pain that is as she had conceived her Womb being shut so also she had brought forth Therefore what hath the pain of bringing forth common with the eating of the Apple unless the Apple had operated about the conception or concupiscence of the flesh And by consequence unless the Apple had stirred up copulation and the Creator had intended to disswade it by dehorting from eating of the Apple For why are the genital members of the Woman punished with paines of Child-birth if the Eye in seeing the Apple the Hands in cropping it and the mouth in eating it have offended For was it not sufficient to have chastised the Life with Death and the Health with very many Diseases Moreover why is the Womb which in eating is guiltless afflicted after the manner of Bruits with the pain of bringing forth if the conception granted to Beasts were not forbidden to Man After the Fall therefore their eyes were opened and they were ashamed It denoteth that from the filthiness of Concupiscence they knew that the copulation of the flesh was forbidden them in the most innocent chastity of Nature and that they were over-spread with shame when their eyes being opened their understandings saw the committed filthyness But on the Serpent and evil Spirit alone was the top of the whole curse even as the priviledge of the Woman and the mysterious prerogative of the blessing upon the Earth To wit that the Woman but not the Man although he was now constituted for the head of the Woman should at some time bruise the head of the Serpent And so that it is not possible that to bring forth in pain should be a Curse for truly with the same mouth of the Lord is pronounced the Blessing of the Woman and Victory over the infernal Spirit And moreover to be subject to the Man was not enjoyned unto the Woman in stead of an Execution But it denoted in the mind of God humility chosen in a new Law and another method of living appointed anew by the Son of Man For the Son of Man humbled himself even unto death also to be extinguished by a reproachful death he called it to be exalted Therefore while the Lord depresseth the Woman under the power of the Man he exalted the same Woman in his presence and made her the more like unto himself After another manner because the Serpent should for the future creep upon the Earth The name of Serpent proveth that that was not
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 Acâ—aeon 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
perceived because if they should be sensible verily they should not be spiritual and meerly abstracted For indeed although it may seem to us that we understand nothing by a total sequestration of Discourses and abstraction from all Things which may fall under Sense under the Mind and Understanding and that under the Beginning of Contemplations Yet the Soul in the mean time acts after its own un-sensible manner and spiritual Efficacy the which I have thus understood For he that confesseth doth oftentimes not feel the Effects of Contrition and he greatly bewailes that his unsensibleness yet being asked whether he would Sin Perhaps he would answer he had rather die The unsensible Operation therefore of the Soul in confessing is an Effect of a supernatural Faith Because the Actions of the Understanding are the Clients of another and uncessant Magistrate For therefore mystical Men do teach That the Soul doth more operate in Faith alone without Discourse and Cogitation and in operating doth also more profit than he that Prays with many Words and by Discourse stirs up Compunctions in himself But he is happy unto whom it is granted to perceive those unsensible Operations of the Soul and issuingly to reflect the same upon the Operations or Powers of the sensitive Soul Because they do for the most part leave their Footsteps afterwards on the Life and for the future do stir up the Memory operating with Grace in Faith The Libertines of the Christians and first Atheists do deride the similitude of God in us as feigned or that we are framed after the Image of God But the other Atheists of the second and third rank do not only grant that we are created after the Image of God but do feign an Identity or Sameliness in us with the vast uncreated Deity and that neither doth man differ any otherwise there-from in his Substance than as a Part from the whole or that which had a Beginning with that which was not Principiated but not in Essence and internal Property The which besides Blasphemy hath very many Absurdities or blockishnesses For truly whatsoever began for that very Cause it is a Creature but it includes an Imperfection in God that he could create any thing out of himself coequal unto himself in Substance Because it is manifest from Phylosophy that all the Parts of an Infinite are of necessity Infinite Therefore a Creature cannot be more infinite in Substance than as it was in Duration co-like to the Eternal And much less is the Soul a part of the Substance of God or essentially like unto him the which in Power Greatness Duration Glory Wisdom c. in it self and of it self is a meer nothing If therefore it were not made from God much less from it self but of nothing Therefore they greatly erre who believe that the Thingliness or Essence of the divine Image is seated in the Soul by way of Identity of Substance Seeing they differ from each other by way of an Infinite yea it should of its own free accord be again dissolved into nothing unless it were conserved in its Essence by the divine goodness Truly the Souls of the damned could wish to be dissolved into their former Nothing which divine Justice keeps in their Being Indeed the Soul hath henceforeward an eternal Permanency from an internal Eternity freely bestowed on it and preserved in it It is sufficient therefore that the Mind is a spiritual vital and lightsome Substance And seeing there are many kindes and species of vital Lights that Light of the Mind differs from other vital Lights in that that it is a spiritual Substance but that other vital Lights are not formal Substances although they are substantial Forms and therefore also they are by Death reduced into nothing no otherwise than as the Flame of a Candle But the Mind differs from the Angels because it is after the Image and Similitude of the eternal God The Soul therefore hath that Light and Substance of Light from the Gift of Creation Seeing that it self is that vital Light But an Angel is not a Light it self neither hath he a natural or proper and internal Light but is the Glass of an uncreated Light and so that therein he fails of the perfection of a true Divine Image Otherwise an Angel seeing he is an incorporeal Spirit if he should be lightsome of himself he should more perfectly express the Image of God than Man Moreover whatsoever God more loveth that is more noble But God hath loved Man more than the Angel For neither for the redeeming of the Angelical nature was he made the Figure of the evil Spirit even as the thrice glorious Lamb the Saviour of the World took on him the Nature of a Servant For neither doth that hinder these things that the least in the Kigdom of Heaven is greater than John For the Son of Man is not less than the Angel although he were diminished a little less than the Angel For in his condition of living while he was made Man he was diminished a little less than the Angel For therefore an Angel alwayes remains a ministring Spirit but he is no where read to be the Friend or Son of the Father the Delights of the Son the Temple of the holy Spirit wherein the Thrice-glorious Trinity makes its aboad that indeed is the prerogative of the Divine Image which the eternal Light doth imprint on every Man that cometh into this World But moreover in the year 1610 after a long weariness of Contemplation that I might obtain some knowledge of my Soul by chance sliding into a Sleep and being snatched out of the use of Reason I seemed to be in a Hall dark enough on my left Hand was a Table whereon was a Bottle wherein was a little Liquor and the Voice of the Liquor said unto me Wilt thou have Honours and Riches I was amazed at the unwonted Voice I walked up and down delibreating with my self what that might denote Straightway on my right hand there was a Chink in the Wall through which a certain Light dazled mine Eyes which made me unmindful of the Liquor Voice and former Counsel because I saw that which exceeded a Cogitation expressible by Word that Chink forthwith dispersed I from thence returned sorrowful unto the Bottle took this Bottle away with me but I endeavoured to taste down the Liquor and with much Labour I opened the Vial and being smitten with Horrour I awaked out of my Sleep But a great desire of knowing my Soul remained in which desire I breathed for 23 full years At length in the year 1633 in the sorrowful or troublesome Afflictions of Fortunes I saw my Soul in a Vision But there was somewhat a more Light in a humane Shape the whole whereof was homogeneal or simple in kinde actively Seeing being a spiritual Chrystaline and shining Substance But it was contained in another cloudy Part as it were the Husk of it self the which whether it gave forth a Splendour
speak with a consideration concerning the power of Willing for after this Life a substantial Will ariseth and manifesteth it self which hath a distinct essence from the power of that accidental freedom of Willing For as the imaginative faculty dies with the Life so also that free power of Willing ceaseth Therefore I have believed that the very spiritual substance of the Soul doth shew forth the Image of God but not in its Powers Namely herein most nearly God is an un-created Being one incomprehensible eternal infinite omnipotent Good a super-substantial Light and Spirit But the Soul is a creature being one undivided dependent immortal simple and thenceforth an eternal spiritual lightsome Substance In the next place in God there are no accidents but every one of his Attributes are the very undistinct most simple Essence it self of the Divine Spirit which thing also Plato his Parmenides even after some sort understood So the Soul if it shews forth the Image of God it shall admit of no accident in it self but the whole substance thereof shall be a simple Light and Understanding it self For just even as Smoak being kindled by the Flame is the same in figure and matter with the Flame so likewise the Soul also is a naked pure and simple Understanding the Light and Image of an uncreated Light So that as the eye beholds nothing more truly or nearly than the Sun but all other things by reason of the Sun it self So a blessed Soul doth not understand any thing more nearly than the Light it self from whence it totally and immediately dependeth And as our eye doth not bear the sight of the Sun so the Soul cannot understand God and much less as long as it makes use of the Medium's of Powers as being bound thereunto Otherwise the Understanding being free doth by understanding attain the Figure of the thing understood by a commigration or passing over it transforms it self unto Unity as I have taught concerning Reason And so indeed the Soul by Understanding doth principally and primarily contemplate of God and is formed into the true Image of God Yet there are others also who conceive of the Image of God in the Soul after this manner That seeing the Law is the Image of God but the Law is engraven on our Souls by Reason from hence they will have it That the Soul is the Image of God as it is Rational But that is plainly improper yea and impertinent For so the Soul containing the Law should indeed contain the Image of God but the very substance thereof it self should not therefore be framed into the very Image of God Indeed no more than the Law and the Soul it self do differ in essence and supposionality Surely I have hated Metaphorical Speeches in serious matters As that God created Man into his own Image should denote that God had given Man the use of Reason and that him that is born mad and deformed he therefore had not made into his own Image And moreover there was not as yet a Law while the Soul was created Furthermore to attribute the Image of God to Reason is to be injurious to God and blasphemous even as I have elsewhere taught concerning Reason For there is no likenesse or suitableness of Reason with God of a frail and uncertain Faculty with an eternal Substance The Opinions therefore of others being left I will speak my own The Understanding hath a Will coequal to it self not indeed that which is a power or an accident but an intellectual light it self a spiritual substance a simple and undivided essence being separated from the Understanding onely by a supposionality of its Being but never in its Essence I find also besides a third thing in the Soul the which for want of an Etymology I name a Love or Desire not indeed of having possessing or enjoying but of well-pleasing it being equal to the other two and equally simple in the Unity of Substance and they are three Suppositions under one onely and that an undividable Substance of the Soul But that Love is not any act of the Will but it proceeds from the substantial Understanding and Will as a distinct act For it happens also in this Life that we love those things which we understand are not to be loved and those things which we would not love We love also those things which exceed or overcome the Understanding and Will For in an Extasie the Understanding and Will perish and are laid asleep so long as they deliver up their Kingdom unto Love For neither is that Love a Passion but a ruling Essence and a glorifying act Therefore Will and Love in this place exceed the circuit of Powers neither have they any thing common with the Will of the Flesh or of Man but they are essential Titles whereby under a want of Names the Mind represents the Image of God because the Understanding doth then understand God is intent on him and loves him altogether with all the Mind by one onely and undivided act of Love by reason of the every way simplicity of its Substance But as long as we live in the Flesh we scarce make use of a substantial and purely intellectual Understanding but rather of an imaginative Power to wit of that quality its Vicaress For in an Extasie Understanding Will and Memory do oftentimes sleep the act of Love onely surviving but so distinct from those three that notwithstanding it stands not without the substantial Understanding and Will and those equally suited unto it self For truly seeing the Soul is wholly homogeneal in its substance it should plainly loose that simplicity if one of the three should be without or besides the other two Love therefore the other two being asleep is then as it were in the Superficies or rather the other two are imbibed and supped up in the Love In this World Love is before Desire because it is a Passion of the amative or loving Faculty which proceeds from that supposionality of the Soul which is truly true Love and representeth the Image of a corporeal Faculty in this Life no otherwise than as Understanding and Memory now as long as there is a wedlock of the Body whereinto the immortal Mind is sunk constitutes a certain third thing But after Death Love makes not a priority as neither a distinction from Desire neither hath it the nature of a Power nor is it an habit or act of Willing nor doth it subsist out of the Understanding neither doth Memory survive in a distinct habit from the Understanding Therefore the Intellect is a formal Light and substance of the Soul which doth beholdingly Know Discern Will and Desire in the Unity of it self whatsoever it comprehendeth in it self and in willing judgeth For it then remembers no longer by a repetition of the Species or particular kinds of a thing once known neither is it any longer induced to know by circumstances But then there is one onely knowledge of all things understood and
indeed was the necessity of a Composition in the Ungent Wherefore as it was an impertinency to say if the Usnea contains the Magnetism therefore Man is embowelled in vain for other Ingredients so also it would be an absurdity to press if the Usnea hath not of it self a sufficient Magnetism nor the Fat nor the Blood c. Therefore neither shall that Magnetism that is attributed to the Oyntment enter into the whole composition since single Ingredients cannot bring into a Composition that which before they had not in their Simplicity I shall now and then be constrained to supply thy Place and to devise Cavils for thee notwithstanding thou oughst first to have learned from rustical Experiments that in a Composition a new and unwonted Quality doth frequently arise which before was not at all couched in the single Simples for it was convenient for thee to have known that neither Vitriol nor Gauls are black yet being joyned that they make Ink. Thou wilt again object If the Usnea preserves in it self a Magnetism from the Mumial Virtue of the Bones and the circular Tract of the heavenly Bodies then the same shall be to be gathered not only from the Skuls but also from the other Bones of a Sceleton that Argument also is ridiculous because Nature also is subject to the Soile and therefore new Pepper being planted in Italy begets or brings forth Ivy. Hellebour that grows in the Region of Trent is deprived of a purging Faculty And Poppies with us are deprived of a deadly Quality however our Country be tenfold colder than Thebes now called Stibes or Stiber it self Therefore the Moss is various as it grows in a various Soile of the Bones For if Lightning melt Money without scorching the Purses and often Companions sitting close together takes one out of the Middle and dashes him together or to Ashes and that I say happens not casually but by Permission of him who would not have so much as a Leaf fall from the Tree without Command and by whose Power alone all Virtues are established It also shall be no Wonder that one Magnetical Seed of Moss distils from Heaven upon the Skul and the Seed of another sort upon the rest of the Bones Only the Bone of the Head prevails again the Falling-evil the other Bone not so Then lastly the whole Brain is consumed and melts in the Sâ—ul through the continual bedewing of which Liquor I say of the Bowel the Skul attaines other Virtues which we observe to be absent from the other Bones I have sufficiently known the customs of Contradicters For when they have nothing more of moment to say against the thing it self they become the more reproachful and fall foule upon the Man Wherefore perhaps some or other will say that Magnetism is a certain novelty invented only by Paracelsus but that he was a wicked and ignorant Man And then if there had ever been any such natural Virtue it had not remained hidden to so many Ages and its Revealment not have waited for the comming of Paracelsus I answer as to the Scoffes and Mocks or Taunts of many showre'd down on a Man that was the Ornament of Germany they are indeed not worth a Nut or not at all to be regarded and for that very Cause render the asserter of them the more unworthy because he is such a one who attempts to judge not only the living but the dead also For there is no reason that I an unequal or unfit Person who have undertaken the Song in Commendation of no Man but do sift out things themselves should enter upon the praise of those things which his Monuments hold forth concerning his Learning Wisdom and obtained Gifts The Objection therefore is Barren through its Pride the which indeed besides the Living and the Dead takes upon it to judge even God himself to wit that he ought not to have infused that Secret into Paracelsus but into some other perhaps a Jesuite nor to have disclosed so great a Consonancy or Harmony of Nature in the Age of Theophrastus but much sooner But I pray why came Ignatius Loyola so late for the establishment of a Society so profitable to the whole World Why sprang it not up many Ages before Alas whither dost thou wretched Man hurry thy self through Presumption Is not God the free-giver of his own benefit and is he not well pleased in an undeserved bestowing thereof He hath afforded us a Touch-stone according to which we may judge of Persons namely That by their Works we shall know them But wâ—â—t the Works of Paracelsus were and how much greater than the expectation of Nature and the biting of Tongues his Epitaph hung on that well-deserved Monument of his by the most Illustrious and most reverend Prince the Bishop of Saltzburg in the despire of Envie sufficiently declares The Epitaph of Paracelsus which is seen Engraven in Stone at Saltzburg in the Hospital of St. Sebastian on the erect Wall of the Temple Conditur hic Philippus Theophrastus insignis Medicinae Doctor qui dira illa vulnera Lepram Podagram Hydropisim aliaque insanabilia Corporis Contagia mirifica Arte sustulit ac bona sua in Pauperes distribuenda collocandaque honeravit Anno. 1541 Die 24 Septem Vitam cum Morte mutavit Here lyes entombed Philippus Theophrastus a famous Doctour of Medicine who by a Wonder working Art took away those cruel and mortal Wounds the Leprosie Gowt Dropsy and other uncurable Contagions of the Body and honoured his Goods so as to be distributed and disposed of to the Poor In the Year 1541 on the 24 Day of the Seventh Month He made an exchange of Life for Death Paracelsus therefore is so far from having deserved his Ill because he hath disclosed Magnetism unknown to Antiquity and in the room of that natural Study which is barrenly taught up and down in the Schooles hath brought to us another real one which by the Resolution and Composition of Bodies is made probable to our hands and far more plentiful in Knowledge that from thence he hath rather by a just title snatch'd away the Denomination of the Monarch of Secrets from all that went before him unless with hateful Persons we as ignorant Judges dispraise all his good Actions and those Benefits that were heaped up by him for pious Uses I am thus a Man All things are of vile esteem with me whatsoever deserves Credit only by custom Seeing there is nothing that involves us in greater Darkness than that we are conformed to custom assenting as credulous unto Rumour and Dreams We must therefore proceed to enjoy our Liberty not to enslave the gifts or habilities of our Judgment Thou wilt object that in sublunary things there is not an influential Virtue like to the Impression of the celestial Bodies but if thou shalt stumble at this thou wilt also reprove all that have rightly Phylosophized who have rightly observed that in inferior Bodies there is a superiour Tribute paid
detestable yet are supported by the same root namely a Magical power without difference as unto good and also unto evil For neither doth it blemish the Majesty of free Will or the Treatise of the same although we now and then discourse of a Thief Robber or Murtherer a Whoremonger an Apostate and Witch Grant therefore that a Witch kills a Horse in an absent Stable there is a certain natural virtue derived from the Spirit of the Witch and not from Satan which can oppress or strangle the vital Spirit of the Horse Suppose thou that there are two subjects of Diseases and Death namely one of these the Body wherein a Disease inhabits And because all Beings act on this Body as that which is the most passive subject the other spiritual Dominion hath been thought to have been from Satan But the other subject is the unperceivable and invisible Spirit which of its own self is able to suffer all Diseases The Spirit suffering the Body also suffers because its action is limited within the Body for the Mind after that it is fast tied to the Body flowes alwayes downwards even as when the palate is pained the tongue continually tends thither but not on the contrary For there are some material Diseases which are tinged onely materially For so manifold is the occasion of Death that there is no other ground from whence we may receive an ability for pride The act therefore of the foregoing touch of the Witch is plainly natural although the stirring up of the virtue or power be made by the help of Satan No less than if a Witch should slay a Horse with a Sword reach'd unto her by Satan that act of the Witch is natural and corporeal even as the other fore-going act is Natural and Spiritual For truly Man naturally consists no lesse of a Spirit than of a Body neither therefore is there any reason why one act may be called the more natural one or why the Body only may be said to act but the Spirit to be idle and to be made altogether destitute at least of such action that is proper to it self as it is the Image of God Yea the vital Spirits in speaking most properly are those which perceive move remember c. but in no wise the Body and dead Carcass it self Every act therefore doth more properly respect its agent than the Body the Inn of the Agent Therefore some certain Spiritual Ray departs from the Witch into the Man or bruit Beast which she determineth to kill According to that Maxim That there is no Action made unless there be a due approximation or most near approach of the Agent to the Patient and a mutual coupâ—ing of their Virtues whether the same approximation be made Corporally or also spiritually Which thing is proved to our hand by a visible testimony For if the fresh Heart of a Horse for that is the seat of the vital Spirits slain by a Witch be empaled upon a stick and be roasted on a Broach or broyled on a Gridiron Presently the vital Spirit of the Witch without the interposing of any other mean and from thence the whole Witch her self for truly not the Body but the Spirit alone is sensible suffers cruel torments and pains of the fire The which surely could by no means happen unless there had been made a coupling of the Spirit of the Witch with the Spirit of the Horse For the Horse that was strangled retains a certain Mumial Faculty so I call it whensoever the virtue of the vital Liquor is as yet co-fermented with the Flesh that is the implanted Spirit such as is not found in Bodies dying of their own accord by reason of any sicknesse and any other renting asunder of an inferiour order whereunto the Spirit of the Witch being coupled unto it is a companion Therefore there is made in the fresh Heart a binding up of the Spirit of the Witch before that by a dissolution the Witch her own Spirit return back to her again which Spirit is retained by the Stick or Arrow being thrust into the Heart and through a roasting of both Spirits together from whence by Magnetism it happens that the Witch in the utmost limit or gradual heat of the Fire is sorely tossed or disturbed in her sensitive Spirit That effect is changed from the intention for if Reveng stir up the experimenter then the effect is reprobate But if tryal be made that the Witch may thereby be constrained to bewray her self to be subjected to Judges or the Justice of the Magistrate and that a benefit may be hereby procured to his Neighbour and himself and as by the taking away of so impious blasphemous and hurtful a Vassal of Satan glory to God and the greater peace and rest may arise amongst all Neighbours then certainly the effect cannot be rejected as reprobate We must not think that the whole Spirit of the Witch departeth into the Heart of the Horse for so the Witch her self had departed from the living but that there was a certain univocal or single participation of the vital Spirit and Light even as indeed a Spirit which is the Architect or Master-workman of the whole Man is propagated in the Seed at every turn or act of Generation being sufficient even for many off-springs the Spirit of the Father remaining entire notwithstanding Indeed that Spiritual participation of Light is Magical and a wealthy communication by Virtue of that Word Let Animals and Herbs bring forth Seed and one Seed produceth ten times ten thousand of Seeds of equal Valour or Virtue and as many entire seminal Spirits as Light is kindled or inflamed by Light But what a Magnetical Spirit may properly be and the Entity or Beingness begotten by its Parent the Phantasie I will hereafter more largely write I am now returned unto our Ends proposed Neither is there any ground for any one to think that this rebounding of the Heart into the Witch is a meer Supposition or plainly a superstitious and damnable Juggle and Mockery of Satan seeing she is infallibly discovered by this Sign and is constrained will she nill she to bewray her self openly which is a thing opposite to the intent of Satan as in the second of our suppositions is above sufficiently shewn for the Effect is perpetual never deceiving having its Foundation in reason and the spiritual Nature but not in the least supported by Superstitions Hath not likewise a dead Carcass also that was murdered be-bloodied it self before the Judges or Coroner and his Inquest when the Murderer was present and hath oft-times procured a certain Judgment of his Offence Although before the Blood had already stood restrained Indeed in the Man dying by reason of his Wound the Inferiour Virtues which are Mumial for those are unbridled ones and are not in our Power have imprinted on themselves a Footstep of taking revenge Hence it is that the Murderer being present the Blood of the Veins boiles up and flowes
leastwise a single stony Liquor the which being by degrees distinguished into Mettals the fire-Stone great or rocky Stones small Stones and Salts afforded the beginnings of Vitality by many creeping things and so that if they detain Toads and Salamanders alive perhaps for an Age without Food and as it were snorting with a deep drowsiness I doubted whether the Stones the Sheaths and Wombs of those living Creatures might be the partakers of long life But the Scripture perswaded me that the life of creeping things is horrid and hateful unto us Wherefore I lookt back unto the more pretious Gems Notwithstanding neither have I found in those the Foot-steps of long Life whether they were Essences or next the magisteries of those because they cannot be immediately assimilated or adjoyned unto our first constitutive Parts or if at length they are after some sort adjoyned unto them and as long as we grow at least-wise they are spoyled of their former length of Life after the manner of other Nourishments they nourishingly put on the Nature of Flesh and are constrained to follow it I have learned therefore that Gems or pretious Stones however they might be endowed with a medicinal Power to make for long Life Yet that they never wholly put off a mineral disposition and so that neither are they co-mixable with the first constituting Parts Yea although they should be co-mingled with them yet they should not be serviceable for a long Life Because whatsoever refresheth not the vital Powers doth not also withstand the intestine necessities of Death and much less if it resist the Wedlock of our solid Members But Aromatical or spicie Herbs should snatch away this victory from their Companions if the Tree of Life should be herby as they are the more grateful and spiritual But that which is the most refined Liquor and whatsoever contains the whole Crasis of the Herb doth notwithstanding respect only Singularities and Healing for that the composed Body from whence it issued is not it self partaker in it self of long Life For the Liquor which knowes not how to preserve its concrete Body the which it from the Beginning married through its least parts from destruction after what sort shall it be able being spoyled of its Virtues or Faculties to defend our Flesh which is soon flowing abroad with a hastening Corruption from Death And so from hence the Tree of Life began to be accounted immortal with me not subject to Old Age not to the discommodities of Ages and the which should contain or admit of no Excrements and much less should propagate the same But rather should by a certain excellency if any had once at sometime lighted on it brush them off by reason of the Virtue of its expelling and repulsing But seeing it is the property of Poyson by corrupting to convert Good into Evil it hath seemed meet to me to search diligently into the Tree of Life wherein the Poysons themselves might die being overcome by the goodness of the Tree Wherefore also it should refuse them being not yet admitted and which should correct and overcome those Poysons which were once admitted For if it ought not to admit of Excrements which are certain Poysons of the lowest degree much more shall it divert drive back and weaken those which are of a more profound and manifest hostility or enmity For unless it shall do that it shall assume the name of the Tree of Life to it self in vain I have observed that the Colts which were generated of a labouring Beast and an old Horse were soon enfeebled or barren weak in the vigour of their Life and that they had deeper Pits above their Eyes than he which had sprang from a younger Horse But that an old Willow yields new Sprouts nothing more barren if they are planted than the Sprouts of a new stem Therefore I have found that together with the Seed of living Creatures Old Age departs into their off-springs but that thing is not so easily manifest in the Young of a Tree Yea if there be a Long Life in some Beasts yet it is so enclosed that it doth not depart from a singularity and is not communicable out of the Species In the next place I have examined Dew by a resolution of its Parts For it afforded a sugary Salt helping great Diseases but surely not any thing profitable for long Life For by reason of the unlimited generality of its goodness it contained not so much Life as the Properties of Nourishment At length I concluded with my self that whatsoever it were that should supply the Place of the Tree of Life it was the Young or Off-spring of a Tree And then that this Medicine was to be fetched out of a most wholesom odoriferous balsamical and almost immortal Shrub And the which should be of the subtilest and purest Parts from a proper Endowment and native constitution of its composed Body and the which should every way resist any kind of Corruptions bred or obtained through the Errour of Art or Nature At length that by Art and labour it should obtain the utmost bound of perfection and a liberty of co-mixing with us wherefore it was chiefly necessary that that manifold natural Endowment should not any thing be broken in time of its preparation or be changed by the Fire and so that there is need of a not burning Fire for the exaltation of its Faculties and sequestration of Impediments to wit that it may make any Mortals partakers for the compleating of uncorruptibleness or for the long continuance of Life to take us by the hand so far as might be possible for the receiver corrupted Nature by a communicating of its Faculties or Virtues Surely it cannot therefore feel any singular Property of passion of a Member or obey partialities But it is of necessity that it be an entire Balsam of Life reduced unto a seminal Being remaining in its natural Endowments grateful in its Odour throughout all the diligent examinations of its middle Life and Magnum Oportet So that when as the Nourishments at length thorowly mingled therewith are dead to their Office at least-wise the smoakiness of the same may by their fumigation no longer batter and extenuate the implanted Spirits but rather may refresh them and thus far it emulates a certain permanency of uncorruptibleness and keeps it continued and propagated in the nourishable Humour under our middle Life The favour therefore of its native Endowment procures its Love with the sealed Powers of the implanted Spirits its preparation therefore refuseth an alteration of its native Virtue and performeth a more full entrance and application of Virtue So that as it were an Out-law and besides an accustomed wont it is admited as conscious within the secret Chambers of Life that it may there undergo an Information For in some Climates all things are produced more strong and excellent by reason of the nobilities of a nourishable Juice and the which therefore it is certain do very much
Mask being laid aside it being taken up only to hide thy improvident rashness almost all the learned will laugh at who suffer not themselves to be led aside into new precepts by Dreams or feigned Exstasies This Argument springs partly from an invâ—terate hatred towards us and partly from an antient Simplicity For how much soever it concerns my person of writing unwonted rashnesses God hath known that I write those things which I know to be true I give him thanks that when as he had conferred on me five Talents and I had made my self unworthy and for this Cause had made a divorce before him it pleased his divine goodness to take from me three and to leave me as yet two that so he might expect me for better Fruit He had rather I say impoverish me and suffer me not to be profitable to very many so he might but save me from the Perils of this World Let eternal Sanctification be unto him But as the argument of the Schools is supported with the appearances of Decoctions and Broaths surely that had proceeded from a simple rudeness For truly none hath hitherto in acting plowed up the Faculties of things Therefore it is supposed that although many things are made more acute by distilling and so the more active yet by that very thing that they depart and are estranged from the genuine Property of the Seeds because the Fire is an artificial Death the which if there be made an open Flame happens through an extinguishment of the Seeds and the Archeus But a natural Death of things presupposeth a weariness of the Seeds But an artificial Death which is not made by a consuming of the Flame separates indeed things volatile from things fixed together with a dissolution and death of the last Life of the composed Body But therefore also the former Faculties are altered and estranged by the Fire and a new Creature riseth again out of the fire from a material Disposition from the antient Properties of the Being through an inversion or turning in and out which is easie to be seen in the artificial Death So indeed most volatile Salts which by a co-melting do make a conjunction with the Oyl of the thing are fixed into a Coal the which at length the fatness being burnt up returns into ashes There are also fugitive Salts which do act by lurking within the fatnesses of Oyls do attempt a new product So that Oyls otherwise sufficiently slowing are changed through the combination of Salts Some things therefore become soapy some things lay up smoakinesses at least-wise all adust things contract a Corruption of Matter and are throughly changed into another thing for nothing of the old remaineth Because that is the property of Fire not indeed simply to separate but by its own authority to alter and change under it self Therefore it is not lawful to weigh the Faculties or Virtues of distilled things by the composed Body from whence they issue neither is it lawful to believe that although the Virtues of things are not abolished not extinguished or plainly killed by the fire therefore the antient Virtues of things are not renewed within by Adustion But those things which are made new by the fire are oftentimes made worse but also they are oft-times so distinct from themselves as they were before that they are made an hundred-fold better In the next place there are Simples which by seething do melt their Muscilage or Gum and in this respect do transmit their Virtues into the Broath of the Decoction First of all they do not therefore notwithstanding retain the same Faculty which they had in their entire composed Body but their Action is alwayes feeble For first of all they ought to be concocted in the Stomack after the manner of Meats Most of whom although from the property of Magnum Oportet they do in savour shew forth some thing of their former Virtues yet these are either cast forth of doors together with Excrements or being rashly concocted and appropriated do stir up nothing but the brawlings of an unaccustomed heterogeniety or diversity of kind instead of a Remedy Or at leastwise if they affect the Blood and Flesh with their Odour they promise nothing but a feeble help So that also from hence a Quartane the inhabitant of the Spleen doth hitherto remain untouched to the mockery of Physitians But that something may be admitted into the Family-administration of the Spirits and Family of the solid constituting Parts it is not that that may any way be hoped for by Decoctions as neither by Distillation which through the intervening of an artificial Death wholly puts off every perfect Act of long Life which the Wood encloseth in it self But the Juice Powder or Conserves fetched from the Cedar are such strangers unto us that unless it be subdued by the method of its first Being it promiseth not any thing of Familiarity with us Far off surely that it should overcome our Nature and endow it with its uncorruptibleness Distilled things therefore have nothing of moment and crude Simples nothing of moment with whatever noble Faculty they may shine for long Life For it behoves that the uncorruptibleness of the Cedar being exactly preserved as ignorant of Death nor the bounty thereof toward us being in the least worsted or diminished every forreign impediment be separated from it the which else through the much strife of our Archeus is reflected into the Being of Nourishment but not into the Being of Essence Yet so that a Penetration Communication and Conspiracy with the first constituting Parts of uâ—e and refreshment of the in-existing Faculties be over and above added thereunto 〈◊〉 the Schools of Galen be in the mean time amazed at the unwonted manner of prepaâ—â—â— and describing it and let them laugh at my promises let them believe them to be â—eer Dreams let every Bird sing according to his own beak be it lawful for me to be vilely esteemed by them For truly I have long since covered my Ears with a thick covering against aged Obloquies expressed for the sake of Gain alone I have written concerning long Life what I know to be true not indeed for Young Beginners as neither to be comprehended by readings for God hath known why he hath given unto the Goat a short Taile There shall at sometime be an Adeptist in its own maturity of Dayes who shall understand that I have spoken Truth But as to that which pertains to the Sentence attained in the Dream He may read the Dream of Nebuchadnezzar which was known to Daniel alone Yet he had commanded all his wise Men to be limited to the Fire unless they should shew the undoubted Explication of the Dream surely such Dreams do promise a certain certainty within neither that they are vain He who oft-times gives the Dreams may presently also unlock the same with so great a certainty of them that Death nor Hell are able to bring in a doubt But although I prefer the
already departed as being unhappily passed over because the causes which make diseases being unknown the powers of Remedies being not known and the more ptofound preparations being despised whatsoever disease did not pass under heathenish beginnings hath stood dedicated unto desperate ones Truly no Disease is in its kind uncurable For God as he made not death so neither doth he rejoyce in the destruction of the living He hath made the Nations of the earth curable neither is there a Medicine of destruction nor a kingdome of infernals in the earth Wherefore I before God who is everywhere present do from my very soul exhort a sluggish kind of men who are ready in subscribing to the ignorant that they contemtemplate with me that by the remedies of the Shops some diseases alimentary or pertaing to nourishment are sometimes by accident cured to wit such as do admit of voluntary consumptions and easie resolutions But that in the more grievous ones in whom there are fixed or Chronical roots the use of those have more hurted than profited Hippocrates indeed without envy left the enquiries into the more profound remedies unto posterity because our Ancestours lived in more happy ages But the Schools have not had respect unto the greater necessities of Mortals of nature sitting and laying but being content with Galen and his Master Quintius they have not perceived the defects of mortal men seeing they have beheld gain to sway them in any event whatsoever For they have not so much as once earnestly considered how to hinder the returnes of the stone in the kidneys and much less how to dissolve the stone because they had yielded up their names to deceived Authors and false causes For therefore there hath nothing been heard hitherto of the true cause of stones and of a true cure and therefore also nothing of true remedies For truly such a remedy was desired which might hinder the Off-spring of a growing Duelech to come by a preparation of the very urine it self Then also which might restore the Gorgonous declining of the stone-breeding womb the power of a stonifying ferment and at length which might also dissolve whatsoever the spirit the Coagulater had committed Of all which particulars there hath nothing been hitherto heard Only the Schools have been intent in driving the stone foreward and in loosening of the urine passages Therefore in curing of the disease of the Stone a two-fold industry is obvious to our sight To wit one which takes away the inclination and fear of a Relapse But the other which may demolish Duelech being generated I will shew that it hath not been dreamed of either intention in the Schools but only that they have attempted the driving forth of sands stones but that they have not consideted of the pacifying of so cruel a pain from the root They praise indeed and exalt to the highest pitch Mallowes the Marsh-Mallow Oyl of Almonds and whatsoever things they name moisteners for mollifying and then they con-joyn divers fomentations as well those mostening as abstersive or cleansing and likewise cooling ones lest the pains should be heightned or the stones increase Yea they commend also the Oyl of Scorpions as though that being anoinced on the out-side would break the stones as if I say they would loosen the fat fleshy membrane and Peritoneum or filme enclosing the bowels to wit at the enlargement whereof the urine-pipe should presently be mollified and extended in breath or wideness Truly the common people have found out and brought forth these succours for themselves some old woman at first perswading them Afterwards the Schools at the beginning admired these succours and then straightway embraced them To wit least since they have no other medicine they should become unprofitable by despising them But these things are not received for the sake of pain alone but they lightly searching into the cause of help and being only solicitous about the journey of the stone have decreed with a final arrest that the urine vessels are not to be enlarged but by moistening things neither that there could be any other hope of healing But for the enlargement of the urine-pipe not indeed according to its length but only whereby they might hope to wit for its widening as if nature were obliged to conform her self to the endeavours of Physitians And so they have judged the remedies of pains to be by accident whereunto they have adjoyned Clysters lest the urine-pipe being pressed together by the dung lying upon it should spread a floud-gate for the sliding stone and so should stop up its passage And so that the capital remedy of the Schools hath been intent about dungs the effect and latter symptomes but no way on the causes rootes and foundations From whence that Satyrical verse arose Stercus Vrina Medicorum fercula prima Excrementitious Dung and Vrine-piss Are of Physitians the chief dainty dish But how vain and childish these aids of the Schools are the very afflicted themselves and the widows and off-spring of these do testifie First of all the Muscilages of the Mallow do not pass thorow from the mouth unto the Ureter in the form of an asswaging loosening and mollifying Medicine but that they do first receive some formal transmutations in their passage For neither doth any thing descend thither unless it hath first assumed the nature of urine Yea and if the urine-pipe being now stopped up by the stone for as long as it is not stopped up it hath not as yet filled up the whole wideness of the Ureter and therefore an enlargement of the same should be in vain required doth sustain the urine lying behind it after what sort I pray shall this same excrement give place in so straight a passage that it may rise up and make room for the urine prepared of the Mallow comming unto it I at leastwise confess that I do not understand any thing of these promises And then put the case that old wive's fiction were granted and that that moistening Muscilage could come down safe unto that straight angiport or narrow lane of the urine yet it shall not therefore extend the pipe of the Ureter which was already before moist the which besides the already actual mostening of it self doth now require or expect to be enlarged by a forreign muckiness as neither being once ever enlarged should it afterwards wish for or admit of a further repeated extension of it self in relapses And so that supposed and dissembled remedy of the Schools would be profitable but at only turn Unless they had rather that the Ureter should be enlarged by the sliding and comming of the aforesaid Muscilages thereto and through their casual absence to be again narrowed into its former state which is to grant a power of enlarging according to the desire of the Physitian besides the accustomedness and nature of a solid passage and that of the first constitution Because they should naturally afterwards again return into their former and native
impossibility and had rather accuse God as having forgotten Mercy and Goodnesse than that he had afforded Remedies in Nature against the stone being as they say confirmed and against most Diseases Yea they do more willingly accuse God of forgetfulnesse than they themselves can admit of the mark of any ignorance in their own Paganish Doctrine But Princes being circumvented by the Schooles have subscribed to the juggling deceits of these and they being seduced by the Impostures of the Schooles the liberality of their Piety hath erected Hospitals of uncurable sick which Impostures have reproved that Text of Wisdome of a Lye God hath made all Nations of the earth curable neither is there a Medicine of destruction For the Schooles have made their own and too gross ignorance reciprocal and convertible with the impotency of Nature as if they knew every thing that is possible and were ignorant onely of that which were impossible and that not onely Negatively but altogether privatively As though their ignorance did not depend on the deâ—ect of Universities but rather on the scantinesse of Divine Goodnesse or Providence Wherefore since a denial of possibility in healing seemed to me to contain a hidden wickednesse I alwayes hoping well even from my youth did argue on the contrary after this manner If it be of Faith that every Disease began from the Fall or departing out of the Right way but that every sin may be wholly remitted we must by all meanes hope that every Disease may in its own kind be taken away if the punishment be equalized with the sin in Remission Especially because the same God who forgiveth sins doth also heal Diseases hath afforded Remedies and hath created the Physitian through the abundance of his Goodnesse which exceedeth all his Actions and is infinitely greater in his Indulgence than all the sins of men For could he not perhaps create a suitable and victorious Remedy for every Disease Or knew he nor how to do it Or was he unwilling so to do Who hath afforded the Remedy of Eternal Death For he rejoyceth not in the destruction of the living who hath made all Nations of the Earth curable But as to the authorities of Writers For Cardanus writeth that in his Age there wandred a man about among the Lombards who in a few dayes by a certain Cup cured in many places safely certainly and briefly as many as had the stone in their Bladder and he adds his Judgement that he doubted not but that this man was in Hell because dying he envied his Art unto mortals In so great a Paradox one onely witnesse is not sufficient against the Clamours of the Schooles The Epiaph of Theophrastus Paracelsus which is seen in a wall in an Hospitall nigh Saint Sebastians Temple being erected by the Prelate of Saltzburge doth represent the same wonder to have many times happened however the Guts of the scoffing Momus may crack His words run thus Here layes Entombed Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus a famous Doctor of Medicine who by his Wonder-working Art took away those cruel wounds the Leprosie Gout Dropsie and other uncurable contagions of the Body and honoured his Goods so as to be distributed and disposed of to the Poor In the Year of our Lord 1541 on the 24th day of September he changed Life for Death But that under uncurable Diseases the Tabes or Consumption of the Lungs Asthma Stone and all such like Diseases were understood by the Prince of Salizburge the Schooles themselves do teach Because they are those who do alwayes Thunder out That such Diseases are every where chiefly uncurable And then the indefinite phrase of the Epitaph hath respect unto the Books published by Paracelsus concerning the Stone and that with a far more acurate Quil than concerning other Diseases At leastwise therefore whatsoever is once and the oftner done in Nature it is not impossible that this should be done again And by Consequence whosoever affirmeth that to be impossible which by divine Goodnesse was at sometime done in Nature according to the desire of the Physitian he lyes before God the Workman of Nature For in the Right which is of the deed done those very Witnesses do disclose it and those are reckoned unprofitable brawlings which are brought in against Witnesses The Schooles therefore which call us Deceivers do mock mankind with an Elenchus or faulty Argument saying The stone that is far remote from the mouth is far harder than the membrane of the stomach whatsoever therefore should corrode or lessen the stone being at a far distance had now a good while before consumed the stomach it self whereinto it had newly fallen Therefore the stone is of necessity an uncurable evil But if the holy Scriptures write otherwise a way is to be sought whereby with moderation they may be excused of falshood But surely the Keyes of Wisdome are by a certain force so detained in the Schooles that seeing themselves enter not in they also endeavour to drive away others that are willing to enter For it is not in the intent of the Chymist to take away Duelech by Corrosives but by proper and specifical Dissolvers For neither doth the stomach of a Pigeon dissolve Pearls or that of an Oestrich Iron or Flints by Corrosives but by an appropriated Ferment of Digestion Or if thou shalt grant Corrosives unto the stomach of Animals at leastwise they are such which bring not any dammage to the stomach And moreover if thou hast regard unto the highest Corrosives Aqua fortis dissolves indeed Iron Brass and Silver but Wax it doth not so much as pierce Through the inconsiderateness of which thing the Schooles have affrighted their young Beginners the unlearned vulgar yea and great men from diligent searching into things their own ignorance the drowsiness of diligent searching and hope of Gain perswading them hereunto Therefore for the stone and diseases in the Bladder as if Physitians did intend a Derivation or drawing them another way they being ridiculously converted unto the Fundament have attempted the matter by Clysters as if to have unloaded the Fundament were to have purged out the stone For they saw that the juyce of Citron did diminish a humane Duelech in a glass and they hoped that the same thing ought to be done in us But if not that they could boast that by administring the juyce of Citron they had performed as much as was possible for nature to do As being ignorant in the first place that the sharpness of the Citron doth wax sweet under heat like an unripe apple which in it self is at first sharp and afterwards being ripened by heat becomes sweet In the next place if one only drop of the more tart wine be sent inwardly unto the bladder it brings more pain thereunto than a great stone They therefore imagine a ridiculous thing who boast that by administring the sharp juyce of Citron at the mouth they have done some profitable thing for the diminishment of the stone They
recourse how variously the Life glistens in nature to wit as it is seminally in the very vital spirits but as it were fountainously in the sensitive soul it self Therefore in speaking properly of Sense and Sensation the Sensitive Soul it self is the primary and also the immediate Being which acteth all Sensations and in acting undergoes them in it self And therefore the spirit of the Brain is only the immediated Organ but the life is the Organ or Medium whereby the Sensitive Soul perceiveth external Objects rushing on it For Sensation is not immediately in the thing contained nor in the things containing nor also in the spirit diffused through the Sinews into the vital parts Because that spirit which makes the assault differs from the Sensitive Soul no otherwise than as a fat material smoak doth from the flame by which it is enflamed But the Soul the immortal Mind is wholly unpassable by humane conceptions as it is the Image of the very incomprehensible God himself But the Sensitive Soul although it begins in nature from an occasional seed that is dispositively yet seeing it is the nearest Image of that Image it is also after the manner of men unknown and altogether scanty For therefore indeed neither can it be defined by its causes but only is described by an absurb or incongruous Circle of reflexions own its own actions and properties To wit that the Sensitive Soul is a formal light whereunto the properties of a Sensitive life do chiefly agree but in man that it is the Prop and Inn of the immortal Soul and its immediate bond with other created corporeal Bodies besides it self Therefore there is as yet a more remote aspect or beholding of the Soul as being related to the life Seeing life and the Soul are distinct things as it were the abstract and the Concrete or rather as the property of a Being and a Being it self This same Soul therefore through life perceiveth in the animal Spirits and seeth immediately in the Optick or visual spirit which inhabits in the apple of the eye the visible Species conceived For the Optick Spirit there is a transprrent glass the light whereof is the very Sensitive Soul it self present in the same place being the Seat and Chamber-maide of the immortal mind Therefore there is no need of a recourse of the received Species that are to be perceived thorow the Sinews to the Brain But the Soul being immediately present and bestowing all vertue from it self upon the visual Spirit she her self sees and discerns But the Brain is only the Shop and Cup of those spirits wherefore the sinews do not serve for the conveighing of the Specie's drawn unto the Brain in the act feeling or perceiving But for bedewing of the spirits illustrated in the Brain for the refreshing and confirming of the parts wherein themselves are implanted Neither is there also altogether a like reason of the external Senses with the imaginative power and its Sisters For the sensible Specie's outwardly perceived by the Soul are abstracted by sensibility and then at length as it were of the matter whereof Specie's or shapes are from thence forged into the Image of the thing to be perceived After another manner Sensitive Objects entring from without are conceived after a Concrete or conjoyned manner in the Organs of the senses and therefore they do not only displease but moreover do now also pain But concerning the seat of the Soul it is variously disputed for the Heart and the Brain But I may suppose that the Sensitive Soul is conformable to its own seeds and by a real Act distinguished from the immortal mind the image of the Divinity Yet that the Sensitive Soul which is the carnal old Adamical man and Law of the flesh is not on both sides distinguished from a formal and vital light neither that it sirs immediately in the inflowing Spirit the which indeed is wholly slideable and flowing But the Spirit which increased in the Organs presently after their first constitution although it live in the last life of the seeds yet it doth not as yet truly live in the middle animal life which is the Sensitive life until that a vital light comming upon it shall actually shine The dispositions whereof are indeed gradually premised But notwithstanding they are in one only instant enlightned by the divine goodness of the Creator Even as in the Book of long life For that happens no otherwise than as in the co-rubbing of the flint against the Steel Therefore an undeclarable light is kindled by the Creator in the spirit of the more noble Bowels and first indeed in the heart which light as it attaineth strength by degrees is more powerfully enlarged no otherwise than as the smoak of a lower Candle doth visibly receive the dismissed flame from the upper Candle So that although the Organs are divided in diversity of Offices yet by a mutual conspiracy they readily serve for the necessities and ends prefixed by the Lord the Creator Notwithstanding there is one only Harmony and continued Homogenial Life and Sensitive Soul of all the Bowels and Members which in every one of them receiveth and presently after cloatheth it self with certain limitations or properties which it had prepared for it self by the seeds For as the flame of a Candle is not extended above or without its own Sphear nor perisheth as long as it lives within that Sphear although the smoaky fumes arising from thence being void of flame did fly far away out of that Spheare so likewise the inflowing spirits although they are illustrated by a participation of life are pufft away do wander far and therefore are materially diminished in their Cup or Buttery yea and for this cause the liveliness of a vital Light growes feeble yet nothing of the essence of the Sensitive Soul perisheth because Life is not attained by parts and degrees as neither doth it subsist like accidents but is alwayes life although more or less liveliness may appear in that light For no otherwise than as a fire where it is never so small is as well fire as another that is heightned In like manner also whatsoever exhaleth from the body which before rejoyced in the participation of Life yet looseth life so soon as it departs out of its own limits So also Excrements do not indeed keep Life but a co-participation of the vital spirits Wherefore also from thence the order of the inferiour Harmony slides into disorder according to that saying My spirit shall be diminshed and therefore my dayes shall be shortned Therefore a more immoderate evacuation of corrupt Pus and the like brings sudden death As indeed they do not contain the Soul but only the last seminal life of vital spirits For as concerning the immediate existence of the immortal Mind or Divine Image the matter is as yet in controversie between the Heart and the Brain For I who know that even Quickning is made at the very instant wherein the Sensitive Soul
that very thing is the first Receiver and efficiently effecter of pain But a Sword stroak bruise Corrosives c. are indeed the occasional or effective Instrumentals but not the chief efficients of pain And then seeing pain is for the most part bred in an instant Also that which is stir'd up by external objects Therefore for pain there is no need of recourse to the Brain that by reflextion it should have need as it were of a Counsellour Wherefore the Schooles going back a little from the Brain had rather receive the sinew for the chief Organ which is to perceive of the objects of Sense as they are besprinkled either with a Beam of Light or with a material bedewing of Spirits for they have not yet resolved themselves in most things continually dismissed from the Brain And so that the Brain doth deny sense and motion to the inferiour parts unlesse it doth uncessantly inspire its own favour by the Spirits its Mediatours But herein also I find many perplexities First of all I spy out divers Touchings in man To wit almost particular Touchings to be in all particular members yea in the Bowels and other parts that are almost destitute of all fellowship with sinews Such as are the Teeth themselves the Root whereof although a small Nerve toucheth yet not the Teeth themselves more outwardly The which notwithstanding to have a feeling many against their wills will testifie So the Urine-pipes want a sinew and the Scull it self under the boring of the Chirurgians wimble resounds a wonderfull sense even into the Toes I have believed therefore that there could not be so great a latitude of one Touching distributed from one onely and common Fountain the Brain or from the Nerve of a simple Texture or Composure Therefore have I supposed that which I have before already proved That Sense doth chiefly reside in the sensitive Soul which is every where present and for that cause also immediately in the implanted Spirit of the parts And that thing I have the more boldly asserted because the Brain itself which is the shop of the in-flowing Spirit doth excell in so dull and irregular a Touching as that it hath been thought to be without feeling Therefore either that Maxime falls to the ground For the which things sake every thing is such that thing it self is more such or the Brain is not the primary seat and fountain of Touching In the next place all pain is made in the place and is felt as it were out of hand Therefore also Touching is made in the place and not after an afore-made signification to the Head And moreover in Nature or at leastwise in a round figure there is not right and left and so that neither can there be a side kept for phlegme in the Palsie by its fliding down except there are in the one onely Thorny Marrow especially in its Beginning two pipes throughout its length conteining the necessity of a side which is ridiculous even to have thought especially in the slender hollownesse of the fourth Bosom For truly Motion and Sense are in one and the same muscle which receiveth a simple and flender sinew Yet in fingers that are affected with benummednesse the feeling only is oftentimes suspended Motion being in the mean time safe and free Therefore either it must needs be that Sense and Motion do not depend on the same Nerve on the in-flowing Spirit and the common principle of these or it is of necessity that from the same one onely small Nerve Motion onely and not Sense or Sense onely and not Motion hath its dependance or that there are other forreign things hitherto unknown which take away or hurt Sense onely and not Motion but other things which stop Motion alone and some things which affect both Wherefore in a more thorow attention I have beheld that the astonishment of Touching unsensiblenesse want or defect in Motion were passions that sometimes arose from a primitive mean and that those passions were then also of necessity privative As in the straining of a turning joynt in strangling c. For I have known an honest Citizen to have been thrice hung up by Robbers for the wiping him of his money's sake and that he told me that at that very moment wherein the three-legged stool was withdrawn from his feet he had lost motion sense and every operation of his mind At leastwise the fourth little Bosome of his Brain was not then filled up nor the Thorny marrow pressed together which lived safe within the turning joynts and the Cord being cut the stopping phlegme was not again taken away out of that fourth Bosome that those Functions of his Soul and Body might return into their antient state A certain Astrologer being willing to try whether the death of hanging was a painfull death cast a Rope about his Neck and bad his Son a Youth that he should give heed when he moved his Thumb after the stool was withdrawn from under his feet so as presently to cut the Cord. The Lad therefore fixing his eyes on his Fathers fingers and not beholding motion in them and looking up vards he saw his Father black and blew and his Tongue thrust forth Therefore the Cord being cut the Astrologer falls on the ground and scarce recovered after a month Almost after the same manner doth drowning proceed Wherein assoon as at the first drawing the water is drawn through the mouth into the Lungs the use of the mental faculties is lost and by a repeated draught of water the former effects are confirmed Yet neither do they so quickly dye but that if they lay on their Face that the water may flow forth even those who appear to have been a good while dead do for the most part revive or live again The pipes of the Lungs therefore being filled up with a forreign Guest the vital Beam prepetually shining from the Midriffs into the Head is intercepted From whence consequently as it were a privative Apoplexy straightway ariseth Surely it is a wonder that the Functions of the mind should on both sides so quickly fail And so that also a continued importunity and dependance of necessity from the aspiring and vital favour of inferiour parts not yet acknowledged in the Schooles is conjectured wherefore I have promoted a Treatise concerning the Duum Virate I considered therefore if the Brain be the chief Fountain and Seat of the Immortall Soul understanding and memory at least as long as the Soul was in the Brain those faculties ought to remain untouched Seeing that for Cogitation there is neither need of the Leg nor of the Arm nor of Breathing Notwithstanding hanging doth as it were at one stroak totally take away the faculties of the mind For while the jugular Arteries did deny a community with the inferiour parts or the Lungs were filled up with water presently not onely the faculties do stumble but also such a stoppage did act by way of an universal Apoplexy and
some other place namely in the heart alone Again from the same position it followes that that there may be a Fever it is not-required that the offending and feverish matter be enflamed but some other inflameable thing primarily residing in the heart and from thence slideable throughout the whole body For this inflameable body I together with Hippocrates call the spirit which maketh the assault But this last matter I have brought hither not from the minde of the Antients but it is extorted and by force I have commanded it to be granted me Whereof in its own place when I shall discourse of the efficient cause of Fevers At least wise that being now violently begged it followes that the peccant matter of Fevers is not properly enflamed neither that it is in it self primarily or efficiently hot nor indeed that it makes hot besides nature if the first inflameable body ought to be kindled in the heart Therefore neither is the peccant or offensive matter in a Fever hot beyond or besides the degree of nature But that which is kindled in the heart was not kindled before the comming of the Fever and so it every way differs from the peccant matter in Fevers At length it is also from hence fitly concluded that in whomsoever they intend to slay a Fever by cooling things as such they do not intend to cure by a removal of the causes by a cutting up of the Root and a plucking out of the fountaine and fewel of the Fever but only they intend to take away and correct the heat which is a certaine latter product entertained with-out the feverish matter To wit they apply their remedies unto the effect but not unto the cause For truly the heat of Fevers is kindled in the Archeus which maketh the assault and the root of Fevers is the peccant matter it self They have regard therefore only unto the taking away of the effect following upon and resulting from the placing of that root for the sake whereof the Archeus is enflamed not indeed by the root but by heat drawn from elsewhere while as indeed he enflames himself by a proper animosity and by his own heat being beyond a requirance extended unto a degree wherein he is wholly troublesome as he is enlarged beyond the amplenesse of his own necessity Foâ— neither must we think that any heat is so in a hateful feverish matter which with me they name the offensive one that it afterwards makes feverishly hot the whole entire body For truly that for which every thing is such that very thing they will have to be more such And then also because every calefactive or heating agent doth throughout its own specie's more strongly act on a near object than on an object at a distance wherefore if a feverish matter should make the other parts hot by its own heat it should of necessity be that the center or nest wherein that peccant matter of a Fever is received should be first roasted into a fryed substance before that any distant object should be made hot thereby Yea if the peccant matter should be hot of its own free accord and the Fever should be that meer heat besides nature every Fever as such ought to be continual nor should it have intermission until that all the offensive matter were wholly consumed into ashes Neither therefore should there be any reason of a repetition or relapse seeing the peccant matter should even from a general property always make hot for the consuming of it self And moreover a dead carcase also should be hot as well after death and be more ardently tortured or writhed with a Fever than while it lived because the same matter in number from the obedience whereof death happens even still persisteth in the dead carcasse and seeing they suppose it to be hot by a proper heat of putrefaction and since it is more putrified after death as also after death more powerfully putrifying and affecteth more parts co-bordering upon it than while it lived therefore also it should be more actually hot after death than in the life time But surely this errour is bewrayed For a Fever which made a live body hot ceaseth presently after death and all heat exspires with the life The which ought to instruct us that the heat of a Fever is not proper unto the peccant matter or its inmate and that the heat of the offensive matter doth not efficiently and effectively make hot in Fevers Therefore it is perpetually true that the peccant matter makes hot occasionally only but that the Archeus is the workman of every alteration and so by this title that which efficiently primarily immediatly always every where maketh the assault and that he alone doth not make hot according to the maxime Whatsoever utters healthy actions in healthy bodies that very thing utters vitiated ones in diseases For that spirit heats man naturally in health it being the same which in Fevers rageth with heat For example The thorne or splinter of an oake being thrust into the finger and actually and potentially cold presently stirs up a heat besides nature in the finger Not indeed that hot humours do flow thither as if they being called together thither by the thorne had exspected the wound of the splinter and the which otherwise as moderate had resided in their own seates For truly the blood next to the wound first runs to it and preventeth the passage for other blood coming thither And that blood also by it self is not hot but for the sake of the vital spirit Therefore the inflamation and swelling together with an hard pulse pain and heat do proceed from the spirit alone causally but from the infixed thorn occasionally only Surely it is an example sufficient for the position manner knowledg and cure of a Fever To wit the cause offending in a Fever is not hot of it self but it makes hot only occasionally and upon the pulling out of the thorne or occasional cause health followes The Archeus alone every where effectively stirs up the Fever and the which departing by death the Fever ceaseth with it Therefore heat is a latter accident and subsequent upon the essence of a Fever For indeed the Archeus enflames himself in his endeavour whereby he could earnestly desire to expel the occasional matter as it were a thorne thrust into himself But whosoever takes away this thorne whether that be done by hot meanes or by temperate ones or at length by cold ones he takes away the disease by the Root and it is unto nature as it were indifferent Because for that very cause the animosity of the Archeus is appeased and ceaseth Wherefore heat however it being besides nature increased may be a token of Fevers yet it is not the Fever it self neither therefore must we greatly labour about it in time of healing For from hence Hippocrates hath seriously admonished that heat and cold are not diseases as neither the causes of these but that the causes to wit the
but with shame But after that I obtained faithful remedies I wholly abhorred Clysters as it were a beast-like remedy being declared by a Bird as they say For that every Clyster is naturally hostile to the bowels is from thence easily manifest Because all particular things are received after the manner and in respect of the Receiver The which I thus more largely explain The tear of the eye although it be salt yet it is without pain because familiar and nearly allied to the eye But simple water is painful in the eye and any other thing The urine also although it be salt bites not the Bladder But any kind of decoction whatsoever being sent in by a Catheter although most sweet causeth pain within But if the urine shall draw but even the least sharpness from new Ales or from elsewhere presently there is a great strangury and distilling of the urine by drops The dung therefore since it is a nearly allied and houshould-content of the bowels bites not nor is not felt until it hath come down unto the fleshy parts of the strait gut which do as it were perform the office of a Porter and therefore do feel and urge it Whence I conclude that every Clyster since it is a forreigner to the intestine it cannot but be troublesome and ungrateful thereunto Again A Clyster never ascends unto the gut Ileon For if thou castest in eighteen ounces now a great part thereof remaineth in the pipe or slides forth in its injecting and so it reacheth only into the beginnings of the gut Colon. In the next place if loosenig Medicines are in a Clyster for the sick party that very much abhorreth laxative things is for the most part thus deceived as I have already hissed out the poyson of purgative things so also the use of a laxative Clyster by a like right I confess that a Clyster is of less danger as the mouth of the stomack doth alwayes perform the most noble office of life and as the life is hurt by the loosening poyson But at least wise none can deny but that it is a hateful thing to have admitted poysons within by whatsoever title and entrance Because purgative clysters resolve the blood in the Mesentery And at least wise in speaking in the termes of Fevers Non ever drew forth Fevers by clysters because they have never come unto the places beset with a feverish matter nor do ever comfort those places Neither the while do they cease to defile and wipe out the blood from the veines which are co-bordering on the bowel For that thing I have learned from old men that whosoever loveth a long and healthy life let him abstain from purging things taken into the body under what deceitful pretence soever A clyster at this day is so familiar unto the more wanton people that it is called a cleansing and succour As if they would cleanse the natural excrement Surely however thou mayst look upon those wiles of Physitians they are not but from evil from deceit and a lye and do stir up shame in pious eares And so they are now the correcters the rincers of dungs that is the inventers of evil arts But there are some who have introduced a sluggishnesse in the intestine by a clyster or some other vice and therefore they afterwards perswade themselves that thence-forward they must accustome themselves to clysters Surely the vice of binding of the body as it springs from and dependeth on a different Root it is easily succoured by the proper terme of curing For as he who hath the lesse loose belly is sicke So also he that suffers a slow one laboureth The malady is to be cured but not by cloaking by a clyster is the paunch to be dayly provoked and loosened For there is an easie prognostication that by thus proceeding the last things will be always the worst and that the life which is committed unto such helpers is of necessity cut short Nations will subscribe to these things as many as have laxative medicines in abhorrency As the Campanians Arduennians and likewise the Asturians c. Unto whom as a clyster is unwonted and also unheard of so there is a strong and most frequent old age But besides the last scope of a clyster is that they cast in the broaths of dissolved fleshes from an hope of nourishing the which truly is an argument of unfufferable stupidity For those injected liquours do at first mingle themselves with the dung there found and then they are poured into the parts whose property it is to change all things into dung and thirdly it is manifest by experience that such broaths if they are cast back two houres after they smel not only of the dung but after somesort of a dead carcase For seeing there is not a proceeding unto the second or third digestion but through the first but that blood cannot in any wise be made of meates undigested in the stomach and not changed into true and laudable chyle or juice it also followes that broaths being cast in at the fundament can never passe over into nourishment Neither doth that prove any thing that those broaths do carry dissolved flesh in them after the manner of chyle for nothing is done unlesse they shall first recieve the fermental properties of the first digestion the preparatories unto life which are not any where to be found out of the stomach For whatsoever slides undigested out of the stomack is troublesome stirs up Fluxes wringings or gripings of the guts and also burntish or stinking belchings and breeds the little wormes Ascarides But those things which are injected from beneath because they have not any thing of the benefit of the first digestion are of necessity mortified Because they experience indeed the heat of the place but are deprived of the true ferment of a vital digestion Surely I commiserate the paultry Physitians that they have wrested clysters aside unto such abuses nor that they have once had regard unto the aforesaid reasons and I fear lest they who so greatly flatter great men after that they bid any one to take food and three hours after do constrain him to vomite that what he vomited up they should cast in through the fundament into those who were pined with much leannesse and consumption for lack of nourishment Surely the ignorant flatterer is a slavish kind of cattel acting the part of a Physitian yet not having any thing besides the diminishments of the body and strength refusing to learne because he hath grown old in ill doing neither hath he ever diligently searched into any thing worthy of praise as being wholly intent upon gain and assoon as he is dismissed from the Schooles alwayes insisting in their steps excusing the deaths of men because he hath cured according to art as having followed the flock of predecessours Unto these men Senca saith many have not attained unto wisdome because they thought that they had attained it They esteem it to be a thing
in separating And so seeing both Cholers accuse of a necessary access in a just temperament as they call it these could never be made fit for nourishment Since moreover we are daily nourished by the same things whereof we consist to wit of a temperate and lively seed refusing both Cholers And there shall be the like reason for both Cholers which there is of Phlegm That if this be perfected into the blood within the veins Choler shall no less be made blood in the Arteries For if Phlegm be changed into blood out of a natural proper and requisite shop much more shall yellow Choller be fit that in the heart it may degenerate into the more yellow blood of the Artery and into the spirit of life and the heart shall be the restorative shop of a gawly excrement But alas how miserable an Argument is it while as the blood let out of the veins disposeth it self to corruption sometimes two three or more liquors are seen therefore there are as many constitutive Humours of us For blood is wholly changed into milk and then after its corruption it hath only three subordinate parts to wit Whey Cheese and Butter nor ever more For sometimes it is totally coagulated in the Dug into a hard swelling in the form of Cheese now and then it wholly passeth over into a white yellow somewhat green c. corrupt Pus Sometimes into a pricking gnawing watery liquor as in the Disease called Choler Ulcers c. Elsewhere also it totally departs into a salt Wheyish liquor as in the Dropsie and many Hydragogal or water-extracting Medicines Oft-times also it waxeth wholly black like pitch as in blood that is chased out of the veins in a Gangreen c. but frequently into an ashie and stinking clay of slime as in Fluxes At another time also it wholly passing over into a yellow poyson shews or spreads forth the Jaundise in which manner also it boasts it self in those that are bitten with a Serpent Elsewhere also the blood is without the separation of an Heterogeneal matter wholly changed into sores issuing forth matter like honey called Melicerides into swellings of the Neck or Arm-holes conteining a matter in them like Pulse c. And in the Pâ—ssing-Evil the blood is totally changed into a milky liquor Even as under a Tabes or Consumption of the Lungs it wholly passeth into a yellowish spittle Are therefore perhaps as many Humours to be constituted in the blood as there are beheld degenerations thereof And shall there be as many Liquors in Rain-water as there are things growing out of the Earth For the blood is in us like unto water neither had it need of divers seeds in the Liver that it may be one only equally nourishable Humour But in the last Kitchins it attaineth its own requisite diversities whereby it performeth the office of nourishing And so it should in its beginning in vain exceed in divers seeds and diversities of kind the which at length ought totally to be Homogeneally reduced into one only glewie white and transparent nourishable Sperm or Seed for the support of the similar parts or to remain red for the flesh of the Muscles and substance of the bowels Wherefore I stedfastly deny That the blood as long as it liveth or is detained in the veins although after the death of a man is coagulated and by consequence that it bath integral unlike parts with any Heterogeniety of it self But that all diversity in the blood is made only by the death or destruction of the same Therefore the diversity of Humours is the daughter only of death but not of life Neither is that of concernment that Excrements do now and then occur in the body which dissemble the countenance of blood To wit from whence they are made by degeneration For Urine is no longer wine even as neither are corrupt Pus or Snivel or spittles as yet parts of the blood Because Excrements are no longer that which they were before their corruption Because every thing assumes its Essence and name from the bound of transmutation For what doth it prove if blood by Phlebotomy separates water or other soils in time of its corruption if the same water be thereupon neither Gaul nor Choler nor bitter and wants the properties of Gaul Or what a rash belief is that Water swims on dead blood Therefore it it is gauly Choler which under a false taste dissembles the bitterness of Choler For that Water swimming on the blood is not an entire part thereof nor of its Essence or Contents or more near akin to the Blood than a Chariot in respect of a man sitting therein It is therefore to be grieved at that for so many ages none hath ever tasted down that water but that they all have engraven their names on the trifles of their Ancestors that I say under a shew of healing the Schools have delivered the destructions of the sick under false Principles For truly Humours are destructive Ignorances sluggishnesses and shamefulnesses introduced by the Father of lies and celebrated by the loose credulity of his followers For although the bottom of the blood doth sometimes look the less red it shall not therefore be black Choler Even as neither is the sediment of the Urine Phlegm But while the life of the blood departed it s no wonder if all particular things which were kept in the unity of life do re-take the material conditions whereto they are obliged For the variety of soils in liquid bodies depends on a preheminency of weights Because they have a latitude in weight which after death become Heterogeneal or of a different hind and by degrees do hasten into a disorder of confusion For will a man that is of a sound judgement believe that Wine Ale and the juyces of herbs do lay aside their own black Choler at the bottom together with their sediment For what hath black Choler common with the heterogeneal substance of a sediment But as to the Colour every Aethiopian hath his Blood almost black but for the most part without whey yet none of them is Melancholy but all wrathful For the blood which by the encompassing air is presently cooled in the Basin waxeth more red than that which being sunk unto the bottom hath the longer continued lukewarm For this also is ordinary that any blood being chased out of the veins presently waxeth black in the body For whatsoever things do readily putrifie do easily admit of the companions of putrefaction and that part of blood doth sooner putrifie which hath the longer continued warm after its death Therefore neither is it a wonder that the part of the lower ground thereof becomes more intensly black But that black blood is not a separation of weight in the Blood and much less black Choler I have separated nine ounces of fresh Blood and that as yet liquide into Porâ—ingers One whereof I exposed to swim in cold water but the other part being equal to the former
But fear hath not obtained any command over the Gaul that a dread being concieved it can be powred forth into the mouth For if in the jaundise the Chest of the Gaul be so shut beneath that no Choler can flow unto the Duodenum therefore neither is the mouth bitter in the jaundise from Gaul being drawn upwards from the Duodenum or empty gut seeing there is not another passage any other way whereby Gaul could ascend into the mouth Oftentimes also in the jaundise after ash-coloured excrements of the belly they void yellow ones why therefore doth not the jaundise cease if the cause thereof now desisteth What if in the jaundise Rhubarb or any other drawer forth of Choler being received whatsoever is cast forth shall yeild the testimonies of yellow Choler why therefore a Cholagogal medicine being taken is not the jaundise ended if Choler slide down thorow the bowels at the will of the Physitian What if a forreign ferment or poyson doth oft-times transchange and cast forth the whole blood and flesh it self by a flux into a stinking and yellow liquour and the which the Schools say without controversy to be Choler If I say also from the stinging or biting of some Serpent any one suddenly falls under the jaundise shall therefore the little bag of the Gaul be forthwith shut Who rather from hence shall not judge that a certaine co-like poyson lurketh in every jaundise as the causer thereof which estrangeth the digestive and distributive faculty And so that Choler is not naturally from fire as neither from a right digestion and much lesse from the fruitfullnesse of native heat but that it is made in nature plainly from a disgracefull title And therefore that the excrements do wax pale yellow red and black no otherwise than from a vice as well of the digestive as of the distributive faculty For the dung of Infants is yellower than that of those of ripe years yet they are not therefore reckoned in the Schools to be more Cholerick The yellownesse of an excrement therefore is that which ariseth from the vice of its own putrefaction What if therefore the jaundise be not from a stoppage of the Gaul shall not consesequently medicines for the unstopping of the Gaul be in vain For so as some Serpents do from a property cause the jaundise so also some Insects do likewise cure the jaundise as also some Simples being only bound on the outside of the body To wit as they take away the poyson which estrangeth the aforesaid faculties but not that those wormes or simples do presently stop or unstop the chest of the Gaul Let them therefore remember that curative betokenings are not fitly drawn from things helpfull and hurtfull but more fitly diagnostical or discerning ones And the which I have elsewhere more fully profesly manifested The efficient cause therefore of the jaundise is a poysonous ferment besides nature which so badly affecteth the Pylorus that the digestive and also the distributive faculty are alienated And that poyson sits either in the Duodenum or is communicated farther of from the Ileon so now and then one that is bitten by a serpent is straightway afflicted with the jaundise But not that that stroak in the skin hath presently stopt up the passage of the gaul into the empty gut Therefore the jaundise is cured by the floures of Marigold Dandelyon and of many other the like things being applyed oft-times also by some Antidotes agreeable to the Pylorus Such as are Palmer-wormes earth-wormes yellow-wormes between planks and those things which do powerfully cleanse the first region of the body For neither doth Rhubarb Saffron Gourd the sharp leaved Dock c. Cure the jaundise as they are yellow but their yellownesse rather shewes their ordination to be for the wiping away of the poyson For Signatures bewray the internal Crasis or constitutive temperature of a thing but the Grasis it self doth not discover the thing A certain man of eighty years old and father in law to a Physitian of Bruxels for two years space continually dropped with a Strangury He was therefore thought to have the stone in his bladder At length his dead Carcase being dissected it was found to be free from the stone That Physitian presently boasted that he had broken away the stone from his father in law by offering him stone-breaking things But he had not freed him from the dropping strangury But his gaul was filled with some clots without the jaundise but a defect of the Spleen causeth the strangury of old men As I have elsewhere proved concerning digestions For the Jewes complain very much of black Choler and grief But they make use of the stone which is sometimes found in an Oxe his Gaul it is somewhat yellow and swims now and then in water although sometimes it be the more hard and black But the Oxe perisheth not by the jaundise but by the hammer neither is he ill at ease from yellow Choler although the chest of his gaul be stopped up with a stone large enough Lastly the Oxe that is fed with continual grass is stopped in his gaul Therefore so great a use of grasse roots in all Apozemes is wholly ridiculous 1. Before therefore I shall grant the gaul to be daily sent down for tinging of the excrements of the paunch it ought first to be manifest that there was Choler in the nature of things 2. And then that the excrements of man are endued with a notable bitternesse The which notwithstanding is elsewhere proved false concerning digestions 3. It ought to be manifest that the same paint which tingeth the urine and filths of the belly is not naturally generated in the very passage of the membranees which is called the intestine even as I have made manifest above concerning a Calf 4. If therefore the urine and dungs are ordinarily and naturally yellow and yet are not bitter therefore not from gaul or Choler Therefore it is no wonder if such an Efficient of nature erring such a tincture becomes the more plentifull and so that in the more heightned jaundise the urine waxeth also more intensly yellow daily in a jaundous person neither is it a wonder also if from the efficient and distributing cause erring such yellow excrements are derived throughout the whole body and that the jaundise and at length also death do arise For if in a gluttonous stomach there be made a bitter yellownesse from its digestion erring and that as well with-out as with-in the the jaundise as well in an healthy as feverish person and as well in an obstructed as open gaul In the next place if in stopped up gaul stones clots c. do appear without the jaundise If in the jaundise the urine be most intensly yellow and tinging without bitternesse and gaul and all these things under the errour of the digestive faculty alone and the distributive offending It is no wonder that the excrements of the belly look pale through a vice of both
faculties Because it is the part of same faculty being in good health to beget this something and of the same being ill at ease to make this something vitiated At length a pale excrement of the belly and urine of a yellow ruddy colour in the jaundise do not indeed accuse of a co-mixture of gaul as neither of Choler but of errours committed in transchanging and distributing For specifical remedies of the jaundise being given especially in a small quantity as they are wont to be should not profit if the lower that is the one only orifice of the gaul which is supposed were suitably and totally shut for whatsoever is not totally shut layes open sufficiently to the gaul flowing thorow For an emunctory place being so shut as it is no way an expulsive of its own superfluities furely much lesse shall it be an atractive or admissive of a forreign remedy and that being first transchanged in the stomach And therefore also plainly in vain Again if there were any upper mouth in the chest which there is none for a passage is not found to be but beneath surely that should be least of all fit for drawing of of Choler and much lesse in so great a plenty of Choler as is supposed in the jaundise Therefore Choler ought to be drawn through the Liver neither could so great a quantity of excrements be dismissed through the little bag of the gaul it self which is judged to be void of pores above and so there should not be that from whence the lower pipe might be stopped Then again from hence it followes if there were any Choler and that Choler were not sent from above through the chest of the gaul that a remedy also against the jaundise cannot slide from above into the chest nor likewise to be admitted from beneath because it is supposed to be exactly shut and of necessity any jaundise shall always be without hope of during because without a remedy Then at length it is manifest from elsewhere that the liquour of the gaul is a meer vital bowel but not the Choler or daily excrements of the Liver Therefore if there be not yet found a passage conspicuous and not yet proved to be from the Liver thorugh the chest why therefore the passage of the little bag beneath bein stopt up should the whole body presently re-gorge it self with gaul for truly this presupposeth as much gaul to have been first prepared by the Liver Furthermore if yellow Choler which they imagine to swim on the blood let out of the veins doth as well tinge the excrements of the belly as of the bladder and that Choler be scarce palishly yellow certainly that shall never be able to tinge or dye a jaundous urine into so thick and full yellownesse of colour Seeing that for which every thing is such that ought as yet to be more such And far is it that meer Choler which ye say is ordinarily generated together with the blood its cousin German Humour should be more coloured than the urine of him that hath the jaundise which not only is not Choler but scarce one part of Choler is reckoned to be added unto fifty parts of the Whey Neither in the mean time doth the urine of a jaundous person therefore ascend scarce in its fiftieth part unto the tincture of meer Choler Therefore if the urine which in its own body every where and always materially representeth drink doth as yet borrow its colour from gaul and Choler the tincture of a jaundous urine it self ought ' in its body to exceed the tincture of gaul yea and of saffron at leasts by thirty fold and the gaul should be thick like the yolk of eggs The which seeing it is not of the nature of Choler or gaul therefore neither shall the tincture of a jaundous urine be able ever to be from gaul And this argumentation is from number extension measure and thicknesse The Schools therefore ought to have regard unto their own positions concerning the obstructions of the gaul and they should easily finde that there is not about the hundreth proportion of gaul or Choler daily bred although it be granted that the little bag of the gaul be stopped and that gaul is not thrust down unto the excements of the fundament unto that which is voyded by the urine alone And then that there is not a reason why the jaundise growing great the urine and colour of the habite of the body should wax great and be increased when as otherwise sanguification and the generating of gaul happens to be lesse daily death being urgent And which is more the urine of the jaundise is not bitter which thing even one only smal drop on the top of the tongue may cleerely enough fignify but it should be far more bitter than gaul if it should derive its tincture from this or the gaul ought in every urine to loose its own natural bitternesse Both whereof are alike absurd and seeing otherwise all bitternesse is banished from all other urines but it is a most absurd thing to beg all yellownesse of the whole urine from gaul or Choler alone and yet that in the mean time no urine is bitter at leastwise bitternesse in a jaundous urine should be a very forreign quality nor to arise from Choler Which is to say to arise from a forreign excrement bitter in it self such as is that which is now and then rejected by vomite as well in healthy as in sick persons but not from natural Choler But in conflraining the Schools to measure A yellow heart whereby in one only day atleast the urine is tinged in the jaundise might infect as much dung with a full colour as is cast forth through the belly in fourty days But it should be sufficient for so much colour to abound in the urine daily as Choler doth infect of the dung every day Therefore the obstruction of the gaul cannot be for a cause why more of tincture and gaul is generated by fourty fold if the tincture of the urine and yellownesse of the whole body are beheld at once Yea when the other troop of absurdities might be excused yet by the jaundise more of yellow Choler so I now by a liberty call that dreg is daily dispersed throughout the habite of the body and also through the urine and more of gaul by tenfold is daily thus expelled than there is of blood bred Therefore it had at leastwise behoved the Schools to teach why a detainment and obstruction of the gaul doth multiply the generation of gaul if they will not at once grant that that generation of such gaul and of all feigned Choler is otherwise excrementous And so that Choler and a'quaternary of Humours is feigned But whatsoever of these excrements is generated that it is partly of an unnamed poyson which they have falsely believed to be Choler being deluded by the jaundise and the chances of the foregoing Chapters Therefore they have accounted a narrow search into
the steel be lighter than the Load-stone it is drawn to the Loadstone but otherwise if the stone be lighter than the steel Because the drawing is not in the one and the obedience of the drawing in the other but there is one only mutual inclinative drawing and not of the drawer with a skirmishing of the resister And so from hence it is manifest that a desire is in nature before the drawing and that the drawing followes the desire as some latter thing as the effect doth its cause If therefore according to the testimony of truth all things are to be discerned by their works and the fruits do bewray their own tree truly such attractive inclinations cannot subsist without the testimony of a certain co-participated life sensation knowledge and election Moreover neither is the life of minerals lesse than the life of vegetables distinguished from the animal life by their own life and their generations among themselves Because that which is vegetable and that which is mineral do not operate but one or a few proper things and the same things as yet with a precisenesse interchangeable course property inclination and necessity as oft as a proper object is present with them but a living creature operates many things and those neither constrainedly as neither by accident of the object but altogether by desire well pleasing appetite will and choice of some certain deliberation Seeing the first operation of the same is life but the second a proper appetite desire or love or delight At length thirdly there is a deliberative and distinctive choice of objects So I have seen a Bull that was filled with lust to have dâ—spised an old Cow but an heifer being offered him to have again presently after wantâ—nized But the first operation of things obscurely living is a power unto a seminal essentialnesse Next the second is an exercise of powers and properties At length the third operation is a greater and lesse inclination motion and knowledge The which indeed flow not from a deliberative election or choice but from a potestative interchangeable course strangenesse likenesse appropriation purity or unaptnesse of objects wherefore it was a right opinion of the Antients that all things are in all after the manner of the receiver But those powers by reason of their undiscerned obscurity and the sloath of diligent searchers have been scarce believed but by predecessours and moderns were not considered and by reason of the difficulties of accesse they have circumvented the world with a wandring despaire and with the name of occult properties have hood-winkt themselves by their own sluggishnesse But my scope in this place hath been that if in Herbs and Minerals there are such kind of notions the Authoresses and moderatresses of hidden properties the same by a far more potent reason and after a more plentiful manner do inhabite in flesh and blood To wit excellently with a particular and affected notion motion inclination appetite love interchangeable course hostility and resistance as with that which occurs in us through the service of the five senses Even so that in flesh and blood there is a certain seminal notion distinction imagination of love conveniency likenesse and also of fear terror sorrow resistance c. with a beholding of gain and losse offence and complacency of superiority I say and inferiority and so of the agent and the patient Because those necessary dependances of a consequent necessity do flow from and accompany the aforesaid sensations or acts of feeling The which surely in the vital blood are characterized in a higher degree by reason of the inbred Archeus the Author and workman of any of these passions whatsoever than otherwise in the whole kind that is not soulified or quickned For a tooth from a dead carcase that dyed by the extinguishment of its powers constraineth any tooth of a living man to wither and fall out only by its touching because it compels it to be despised by the life The which a tooth from a dead carcase slain by a violent death or presently extinguished by a sharp disease doth not likewise perform In like manner the hair of a dead carcass whose life was taken away by degrees by a voluntary death makes persons bauld only by its touching Watts and brands brought on the Young by the perturbation of a woman great with child through the touching of a dead carcase that died of its own accord and by degrees untill part of the branded mark shall wax more inwardly cold the mark also doth by degrees voluntarily vanish away Observe well with me whether these are not the testimonies of another act of feeling than that of cold Moreover whether in that same sensation there be not a natural knowledge and fear of death connexed which things are as yet also in the dead carcass For truly a Tetanus or straight extension of a dead carcase or stiffnesse thereof is not a certain congelation of cold But a mear convulsion of the muscles abhorring death and living even after the departure of the soul For from hence the dead carcases of those who die by a violent death because they die the faculties of their flesh being not altogether extinguished they feel not the aforesaid Tetanus but a good while after CHAP. X. A living creature imaginative I Have said that Herbs and Minerals do imagine by a certain instinct of nature that is after their own manner so in the next place that the blood and mummie have certain native conceptions in order and likenesse unto man which things that they may be directed unto our purpose concerning the Plague thou mayest remember after what sort the perturbations of a woman great with child her hand being applied unto some certain member although unadvisedly rashly and without a concurrence of the will do decipher the member in the Young co-agreeing in co-touching with the image of the object of that perturbation with the image I say but not with an idle signature But suppose thou that her desire was to a cherry verily a cherry is deciphered in the young and in a co-like member such as the child-bearing woman shall touch with her hand which cherry waxeth green yellow and red every year at the same stations wherein the cherries of a tree do attain those interchanges of colours And which is far more wonderful it hath happened that the Young so marked hath suffered these signatures of colours in the Low-countries in the moneths called May and June which afterwards expressed the same in Spain in those called March and April And at length the Young returning into his countrie shewed them again in a bravery in those called May and June Also under a strong impression of a woman great with child not onely a new generation of a cherry is brought in thereupon but it also happens that the old one is to be changed and it constrains a seminal generation to give place yea and the image of God being now lively or in the readinesse
all other Falcons which are brought that way for three dayes after Whence thou shalt conjecture what the dead Carcasses of men as well of those that are hanged as of those that are carelessely buryed may do by their odour For a Dog eats not a Dog unless he be dried in the smoak to wit while the mummy hath lost the horror of death through the estrangement of its tast in preserving from corruption but a Wolf eats a Wolf newly killed but not a putrified Wolf Whence there is a suspition that there is something in a Wolf which is superiour to a mumial appropriation Perhaps Paracelsus supposed that that was it wherein the first act of feeling of an applyed object sitteth Peradventure also for that cause they have thought the Tongue of a Wolf hung up to be adverse to the plague And moreover the dead carkasses of souldiers are at this day to be buried deeper than in times past because the Bullet of a great Gun or Musquet makes a contusion and then it takes away some part with it wherefore it produceth an open hole and at length also it begets a poysonous impression of smoak from whence the flesh round about presently looks black with a certain Gangren and it readily receives a poyson into it if not in life as leastwise soon after death to wit while as through a speedy putrefaction of the flesh being combibed into the earth a cadaverous hoary or fermental putrefaction doth arise unto all which is joyned in the Archeus of the dying-souldier an Idea of revenge which is prone to putrefaction From thence into the air a monstrous Gas I say is pouted out into the air which smires the Archeusses of the living with terrour For it is with a dead carkass just even as with horse-dung which doth not putrifie so long as it is hot But when it grows dry and the Salt-Peter thereof hath departed from thence the dung also inclines to be transchanged into the liquor of the earth For otherwise if the dung be restrained from putrefaction through the be-sprinkling and stirring of horse-piss on it and into it it produceth much Salt-Peter For behold thou how powerful a nourishment the mushrome of one night is for indeed a Mushrome is the fruit of the juice Leffas or of plants being coagulated and near to its first Being the which I have elsewhere shewn but after it hath assumed the putrefaction of the earth through continuance how cruel a poyson for choaking doth it bring forth We must therefore have a diligent care that a fermental putrefaction doth not arise in the reliques of the last digestion For indeed the plague privily entred my own house through a Chamber-Maid she forthwith recovered Both my Eldest Sons being sore troubled in their mind shew an undaunted courage and concealed that they were vexed with a continual combat of sighing at the mouth of their stomach and when as through the wiles and framed deceits of my prevalent Enemies I was detained at my own house under prevention of an Arrest both my Sons also would not by forsaking me go into the Country and since they had observed at other times that they were refreshed by swimming in the midst of Summer they swam thrice without my knowledge whence transpiration through the poâ—es being stopped up both of them being forthwith devolved into a Fever together with a dejected appetite pain of the head and a Catochus or unsensible detainment of the Soul with a pricking of the whole body they died among the Nuns swearing that they would admit of my remedies but after that they had received my Sons they refused forraign remedies The Eldest indeed perished without any mark or signal token even after death because his skin being cooled by swimming nothing outwardly appeared But the other shewed only a small black and blew Pustule in his loyns and the loss of these my Sons I frequently behold as if it were present and thou mayest suppose that it gave a beginning unto this Treatise I leave vengeance unto my Lord whom I humbly beseech that he would spare my Enemies and bestow upon them the light of Repentance CHAP. XV. The Signs I Have hitherto written unwonted Paradoxes my understanding being without the Moon was drowned in tribulations there was a matter most full of terrour horrour and of difficulties present a great Reader uncapable of the best things a darksom brevity of beginning and a hateful novelty although a very necessary one But that which chiefly blinds us in the Pest is the want of an exquisite and unseparable sign to wit through the admonition whereof we may be able timely enough to prevent or withstand it by remedies Nevertheless whatsoever created thing is in any place it hath its own discernable signs by which it may be fitly distinguished from other things and these those which do precede the plague do accompany it or soon follow after it But those signs which go before it do make for its prevention but whatsoever signs do afterwards follow serve more for others than for the miserable sick But the accompanying signs alone do discern of the cure And moreover the signs of a plague to come are decyphered in the heavens if the Firmament sheweth the handy-works of the Lord in the earth That the signs thereof are badly referred by Astrologers unto twelve divisions of causes I have already before sufficiently manifested But Gaffarel hath lately described an Hebrew Alphabet from the scituation of the stars and authority of the Rabbins by an argument ridiculous enough whereby the Hebrews devise such wan signs as if God had now the Rabbins only as his servants unto whom he may communicate his secret counsels For Christians do not consider the shamefulness of those positions who suffer such kind of books to be printed For neither do the fixed stars change their places that they may sometime describe these and sometime other things to come the which in the first place is contrary to all Astrology Comets also the Meteors Trabes Dragons Darts and other monstrous signs of that sort being oft-times popular have foreshewn popular plagues but not by a rational discourse or Theories of the Planets and much less by the Alphabet of the Hebrews for irregular lights do not obey set rules For the Astrologers of Jerusalem although most skilful in their art yet they were altogether ignorant of the signification as also of the apparition of the star of Bethlehem For the Lord will not do a word which he will not reveal to his Servants and Prophets Amos 3. But of these things Artificers have no knowledge because new lights have been oftentimes mortal and oft-times have directly signified prosperous things For monstrous signs do in the hand of the Lord make manifest his secret judgements neither doth he manifest those but to whom he will For truly the Conjunctions Oppositions and Quadrants of the Stars likewise their Eclipses Retrogradations Banishments Combustions Receptions and other impediments are
of no sleep with a perpetuak Agony and despairing of life and yet was vexed with her self through la full remembrance or knowledge of her own foolish strugling and Opiates being administred she found her self worse At length between the fear and desiring of death she plainly recovered by the remedy of Hippocrates in six hours space In the mean time I confess and admonish by way of protestation that I have plainly enough manifested the bosom of the remedy of Hippocrates that it may be sufficiently plain only unto the Sons of Art and true Physitians and covered for the future only to sloathful Physitians that are enslaved to gain and to the envious haters of the truth But I have declared 1. The aforesaid histories that plagues beginning may be manifest not to be as yet seasoned with the pestilent poyson and not yet to be accompanyed with a sufficient image of terrour 2. And that the virtue of the remedy of Hippocrates may from thence be made manifest 3. That the first violent motions of confusion terrour and imagination do happen in the midriff about the mouth of the stomach To wit in the Spleen whose emunctory is nigh the mouth of the stomach and so that it is the mark of that Archer For in a healthy young man whom the plague had snatched away in seven hours time a dissection of his body being begun I found a long eschar now made to be as at first the mover of vomit and afterwards the Authour of continual swoonings so also to have given an occasion of sudden death even as in others I have noted a threefold eschar to have been made in the stomach â—n sixteen hours space 4. That the master of Animal subtilty hath with his white wand of sleep chosen the Inn of drowsie sleep and watchings in the same place 5. And that the seat of all madnesse and doatage is in the same place And that thing I have elswhere profesly founded by a long demonstration 6. That purging likewise as also myrrâ—ed Antidotes for the Pest are not safe enough or worthy of confidence 7. And that all reason deliberation animosity resignation consolation argumentation and all the subtilty of man on the contrary do but wash the Aeâ—hiopian in the Pest even as also in the disease Hydrophobia 8. That the endeavour of preservatives is sluggish as oft and as long as the seal of the image framed by terrour remayneth 9. That such an image stirs up from it self continual sorrows and spurns at the phantasie it self and drawes it captive to it self no lesse than the biting of a mad dog brings forth an unwilling fear of water or the sting of a Tarantula the doâ—tage of a tripping dance 10. That the comfort of sweating alone is loose in such terrours 11. That the Idea of fear not being vanquished in the bowel nor the dreg wherein that image sits banished it is in vain whatsoever the magistrals or compositions of the shops do attempt For Hydrophobial persons although now and then between while they speak discreetly fore-feel and fore-tel a madnesse coming upon them yet they cannot but be driven into the madnesse of their own image 12. That swimming is destructive and whatsoever restraineth sweat 13. That Barley broaths pulses syrupes and Juleps are loose and frivolous remedies for so great a malady 14. That it comes from a bastard plague unto a true or Legitimate one yet that the sick do often fail under the beginning thereof before it sends forth its tokens The which traiterous signes do notwithstanding presently after death issue forth 15. That grateful odours the perfumes of spices feathers or shooes do bring no defence or succour for the plague For by way of example if thou seasonest an hogshead of wine putrified through continuance with the odour of spices or with any other odour except that of Sulphur it remaines fermentally putrified and it soon defiles the new wine which thou shalt pour in as the former Wherefore sweet-smelling things do in no wise take away the terrour and the poysonous Idea of terrour from the Archeus being once terrified Because they take not away the maâ—ter of the poyson and much lesse do they kill that poyson or remove the terrour from the Archeus as neither do they refresh the seat thereof or comfort the part affected For Paracelsus commends unto the City of Stertzing that was bountiful unto him myrrhe being by degrees melted under the tongue before any other remedies and boldly promiseth it unto the younger sort for a preservation for 24. houres space which doctrine notwithstanding I have experienced to be false For I have seen young folks with the much use of myrrhe to have been killed by the plague Myrrhe indeed although it may preserved dead cracases from putrefaction instead of a blasam yet the Pest far differs from putrefaction No otherwise than as the eschar of a bright burning iron differs from putrified blood And although corruption succeedeth in a carcass now dead yet the poysonous image of terrour doth not properly putrify as it doth most properly slay the vital Archeus and tranchange him into a poyson with it self For he bids that myrrhe be held in the mouth As if the plague knew not how to to enter but by way of the mouth Therefore far more advisedly to have shut up the mouth in silence Truly the Pest will abhor myrrhe nor will it daâ—e to enter in through the nostrils if myrrhe being detained in the mouth doth dissolve shall perhaps the odour of myrrhe hinder whereby the poysonous image is the lesse poysonsom is not poysonsom Is not hurtful For shall myrrhe in the mouth repulse the plague from the Archeus The same reason is alike frivolous and foolish for Triacle vinegar c. perfumed with odours At length let mortals know that in healing nothing is alike hurtful as a rash belief given without a pledge and truth Truly the accusations of the sick will at sometime thunder against the negligence falshood decietful juggles rashnesses and false wares of Physitians whereby people have been spoyled of their life But I have discerned by the books of Paracelsus that he was a man rash in promising unexpert in the plague unconstant in its remedies ignorant in its causes as also ungrateful toward the bountiful City of Stertzing Let his honourers spare me that I am constrained to speak candidly or plainly for the truth in a matter of so great moment least any one in the plague should put confidence in his succours CHAP. XVIII The image of terrour sifted I Have hitherto produced the unheard of poyson of the Pest To wit that the soul and the vital Archeus thereof are powerful in an imagination proper to themselves But that that power of the a foresaid imagination is to form Idea's not indeed those which may be any longer a Being of Reason or a non-being but that they have altogether actually the true Entity of a subsisting image which imagination surely seeing it is a
aboue its bounds unless he be enlightned by the light which the Atheist excludes he defineth all things by the Contemplation of his own conceit alone because he reflecteth every where on all things as to himself Being indeed wholly carnal and vain as long as he believes his understanding to arise from a sensual Subject For whatsoever is perceived by Consequence Numbers Figures Proportions and Suitings is deceitful as oft as he preferreth or equalizeth the same things understood unto things intellectually understood by Faith and Revelation What if Science Mathematical doth abstract from real Objects and all perceived things and yet they are believed why shall it be more difficult to believe things not seen so they are revealed by a Being which by transcending Acts sheweth that he deserves a more full Credit If an Atheist can assent unto profane Histories why not also to the sacred ones For Moses was famous by many Miracles known to all Israel he writeth the History of the Creation of the World the successive Progeny of men in the next place he by Abraham enlarged the bringing forth of Israel out of Bondage Lastly he delivered the Law prescribed by God being confirmed by many Miracles before an unbelieving people They being indeed seen in the sight of an hundred thousand co-living people Their Sons and Nephewes subscribed to the Writings of Moses and then indeed to the Traditions confirmed by their Ancestours And that was undoubtfully believed by all the following Ages And the Gentiles took a diligent care to have them Translated and indeed the Seventy two miraculously Translated them without any disagreement of words But thus far as well Jewes and Christians as Enemies have believed the sacred Histories touching these things At length by the Prophets there are read predictions for many Ages before that by profâ—â—e Histories they are afterwards proued to have happened For to Abraham it was promised by God that the Messias should arise out of his own Stock The same thing Melchizedech foretold unto him and therefore offered a new Sacrifice of Bread and Wine unto him which should sometime by prâ—pagating proceed out of his Loyâ—es But a Sacrifice is no where offered but to God alone Afterwards in the dividing of the Land of promise there was Bethlehem or the house of Bread for the Prophets had foretold that the Messias should from thence be born of a Virgin The Gentiles also saw the Bread descend from Heaven which should destroy the camps of Midian and he was called the God of Gideon whom notwithstanding Gidâ—on had not yet acknowledged for his God This Messias also David afterwards divinely foreknew should be born of his stock and therefore he named him his Lord or God and that he was to be a Priest after the order of Melchizedech to wit he foretold it in the Bread and Wine by the inspiration of the divine blast Balaam foretold of this God as the Star or Jacob which the Magi or wisemen coming from the East afterwards learned that he ought to be born in Bethlehem or the House of Bread and they saw his Star going before them by admonishment whereof they had come from the utmost parts of the East to worship the Child who only is to be worshipped For he who fore-taught them concerning the signification of the Star could have evidently shewed them the place wherein the Child was born whom they sought by so remote a journey but that he he had determined that that thing should be drawn out of the writings of the Prophets for the honour of God and the learning of People Therefore if there be any credit to be given to sacred History that convinceth that God is one that the Gods of the Nations are Devils That this God Messias his Son was at length to be raised up out of Abraham without the will of Man of a Virgin only that he is the Angels food which came down from Heaven who saves those that are to be saved freely And seeing the understanding of Man cannot comprehend these Mysteries and much less fore-see them by the help of the Senses therefore it is needful to draw the understanding into the obedience of Faith which it can in no wise conceive of it self Because seeing that is of a limited power and Faith every where of a profound obscurity the understanding cannot comprehend an infinite term of continuance or The Immortality of the Soul Therefore the Holy Scriptures being at length granted and believed at least after the manner of Chronicles One Eternal Unchangeable Immortal Infinite Omnipotent Good True Wise God the Creator Author Sustainer Governour and Life of things doth for that very cause manifestly appear Lastly this divine Power being granted the arguments of St. Augustine do conclude for The Immortality of the Soul and Life eternal Fire eternal Joy Peace also everlasting Misety or Sorrow are to be granted And there are Angels evil Spirits Prophesying dark Spirits or the Devils Bond-slaves But the conceivings of these things are wanting to an understanding which savours only of the Senses according to Aristotle and words are wanting to the tongue and positive words want Properties of Expressions to declare those things which the Ear hath not yet heard nor the understanding could comprehend that which hath not yet descended into the Heart of Man and that which is in it self undemonstrable by the Discipline of the Senses and intellectual faculty For Faith the reward of Faith and expectation of the Righteous do exceed all Sense and whatsoever can be conceived by the understanding Furthermore if the mind be Immortal and to enjoy eternal joy if it being seperated by Death from its own Mortal body doth in very deed exist and live therefore it is not generated by a Body which in it self with every disposition of it is frail mortal and a dead carcass subject to dayly and any kind of importunities of successive changes Therefore the mind is an immortal substance a Life of the nature of the eternal Light not to be extinguished And therefore neither is it generated or proceedeth it from a Man Parent or Frail-seed much less doth it arise or is produced of it self but by some Eternal Beginning which in it self is Life Light eternal Infinite not to be altered or extinguished But these words are of Faith and the revelations of this eternal Light and therefore are they eternally true But the Carnal Man doth not perceive those things which are of God and therefore his Wisdome is Foolishness with God who is Order Integrity Essence the Father of Lights and total Independent absolute abstracted cause of all things unto whom therefore is all honour due from every created thing But he created not only the substance of the mind that it may be a substantial Light after the likeness or Image of himself but he also made all the living Lights of Soulified Creatures The which indeed could not subsist in the abstract without their concrete or composed Body and
therefore they were to perish with the Death of the fame And therefore neither are they substances although substantial or after the manner of substantial Spirits Neither therefore also of the number of Accidents even as I have elsewhere demonstrated in the Treatise of the Original of Forms Therefore the beastial Life is of a vital living Light and a neutral Creature between a Substance and an Accident which neutrality of Beings hitherto unknown to the Schools was given by the Etymology of the Father of Lights So indeed that he not only maketh the burning Light of the Sun and Splendour of the Glow-worm But also the Souls of all Soulified Creatures universally whereof himself will remain even the alone Maker and Master CHAP. XLVII The knitting or conjoyning of the Sensitive Soul and Mind 1. Alpha and Omega 2. The Body is a dead Carcass of no worth without the mind 3. The natural Phylosophy of the Author is far remote from the traditions of Aristotle 4. The understanding of Adam shews this truth 5. That by the Prayer of Abstraction the mind ought to be unfolded 6. The Author declareth his five Professions 7. From the fifth he draweth five Conclusions 8. The co-knitting of the mind as of a kernel in the Sensitive Soul as it were in a shell or husk 9. Defects are from the sensitive Soul 10. An Objection against Sin and desert 11. An answer to the aforesaid Arguments 12. By an example of the Sun 13. Corrupted nature doth alwayes want the aid of Grace 14. The mind as it is the Image of God doth endeavour as it were to create something of nothing 15. The difference of conceits to be admired in a Woman great with Child THose things which I have already above written for the immortality of the Soul being premised I forthwith for the knowledge of the Soul return to my Lord Jesus who alone is the beginning of the Fathers Wisdom the unlimiting end the Alpha and Omega or the one only Scope in whom a total clearness of all understandings is and ought to be terminated For the immortality of the mind being certainly known the Soul ought to be made known to it self as much as it can for truly seeing the Soul the governess doth continually employ it self about the Government of the Body Surely nothing can be searched out in the Body unless when by Anatomy alone I behold dead Carcasses which is worth ones labour without the knowledge of the Life or Soul yea verily I have many times been angry with my self that I would conceive of external and forreign things and in the mean time not to know who I am who dare to contemplate of forreign and sublime things But the Image being not yet understood which the mind bears before it nor who of what sort or how excellent the understanding may be And Lastly neither after what manner an intellectual act may be formed Wherefore I determined with my self that there was a far different knowledge of the Soul to be delivered to Christians than that which hath been diligently taught by the Schools of the Gentiles for look how much can be declared by words so much also the Holy Scriptures do deliver But the rest is in exercising freely obtained by Grace it self neither doth the mind admit of any other Teacher than him who hath commanded to be called the alone Father and Master Because in very deed all Learning which is drawn from a fore-existing knowledge of the Senses proceeds from the Sensitive Carnal or Earthly Soul and the which therefore the Apostle calls Divelish enlightned indeed but not by the very mind it self to wit which alone wisheth to be enlightned by its Beginning which is above nature and not from the observation of the Senses Whither the state of understanding in Adam had respect before the received learning of his Senses For he had known the essences and names of living creatures because he contemplated of these things within in his own divine image while he would and by the very aspect of viewing thereof he remembred the same But after that the sensitive Soul began to spring up whereinto the immortal mind was involved the sensitive Soul alone received the vicarship hereof but the mind being thereby laid asleep is scarce awakened at leastwise not more manifestly or lively than while it employeth it self in mental or mind-like prayer whether that comes to pass because the while it casts off from it the rains of the Sensitive Soul or next because God requiring to be worshipped only in the Spirit calls for his own delights to talk with the Sons of Men. Truly the Prayer of silence and of a profound intellectual humnity did require another manner of man than my self who am now an old man and an ignorant Physitian but seeing I have undertaken the natural explication of the mind and since the essence thingliness and natural nature of the mind is plainly Spiritual and respecting its own immediate and supernatural Beginning I ought by all means to declare and explain the Doctrine of the mind by its exercises that a man may be bewrayed by his Works Therefore I beg and deserve pardon if I shall not declare the thing according to the dignity of the matter Divine goodness shall supply my defects by some other more worthy thâ—â— my self But before that I proceed let the reader know that hitherto I have not found a writer which hath Meditated any thing concerning the more inward emptiness or voidness bottom and fabrick of the mind or of the Creation Beingness Truth or Thingliness of its Idea but they have rather cast or hung up this same Doctrine behind their Back as it were irregular unknown and desperate and through admiration only elevated into a dark Smoak neither have they looked any longer behind them as neither within them For first of all I will discover my Errors committed by thinking and will declare the Circumstances which have sometime deceived me For I knew first of all by Faith that we have an Immortal Mind therefore exceeding any the Powers of nature because it is that which was inspired into Adam immediately by God the same Mind also at this day is inspired into the young by the same Prince of Life Because it is that in which the Kingdome of God hath of its good pleasure established its seat and so that he enlightens every man that cometh into this World and he hath enriched it with his own free gifts of the God-head and by his presence hath excluded the evil spirit To wit for which mind he vouchsafed to die but not for the fallen Angell I knew in the second place from the knowledge of nature that bruit Beasts have Souls more or less prudent and quicke-sighted yet all frail ones and those which hasten into nothing and that those do perish no otherwise than as a Blast as the light of a Candle is extinguished and departs into nothing And therefore that the Souls of Beasts are
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 Arcanuâ—â— 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 â—ume 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 diâ—â—inctions 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 Pleuriâ—ie 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 Beâ—s 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 eâ—statial 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 Bâ—dy 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 â—ise 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 nâ—cessary 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 Cliâ—â—ers unprofitable 969 The prayse due to Chastity 682 Why Cheese loathsom to many 115 25 Chewing food well necessary 4â—3 â—1 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 â—3 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