the compleatly mixed body because their parts have a correspondence proportionable with the parts of the world and have a kind of Analogie with them we may call them by the same names the more solid parts Earth the moister Water the more spiritual Air the inborn heat Nature's fire the hidden and essential virtues a man may safely term Heavenly and Astral Natures or the Quint-Essence and so every mixed body may by this Analogie triumph in the title of Micro-cosme 53. He that did appoint the first Elements for the generation of bodies alone knows how out of them to make all particulars and to resolve them being made into them again 54. Let not them therefore refuse the Light who working about the Elements of Nature either in the production of some body from them or the resolution of some into them create their own trouble since these Elements are onely subject to the dominion of Nature and delivered to her onely from their beginning altogether unknown to all our art and not compassible by our endeavours 55. The Element of Nature may be termed the most simple portion of the first matter distinguished by its peculiar difference and qualities constituting a part of the essence in the material composition of mixt bodies 56. By the Elements of Nature are denoted the material principles of which some have a greater purity and perfection than others according to the greater Power and Virtue of that form that gives the compleatment They are for the most part distinguished according to their rarity or density so that those that are more thin and approch nearer to a spiritual substance are therefore the more pure and light and so are the more fit for motion and action 57. Upon this ground it was that reverend Antiquity did seign that the whole Empire of the world was divided between the three Brothers the Sons of Saturn as coheirs because it acknowledged onely three Elementary Natures or rather three parts of the Universe For by Jupiter the Omnipotent who shared heaven as his portion armed with his treble-darted Thunder-bolt superiour to the rest of the brothers what did those professours of mysteries understand but that the Heavens being the Region of heavenly bodies do assume a priviledge of Sovereignty over these inferiour beings But they placed Juno wife to Jupiter to praeside over the lowest Region of the Heaven or our Air because this Region troubled with vapours being moist and cold is as it were in a manner defiled and impure and nearest approaching to a female temperament as also because it is subjected to the orders of the higher Regions receive their effects and communicates them to us twisting it self with more condensed natures and stooping them to the bent of Heaven But because male and female differ onely in sex not in kind therefore would they not have the Air or the lower Heaven to be distinct in its essence and kind as another Element from the higher Heaven but onely diversified in place and by accidents To Neptune the god of the Sea they attributed a dominion over the waters By Pluto the lord of the lower parts abounding in wealth they denoted the Globe of the Earth replenished with riches with the desire of which the minds of men being inflamed are bitterly tormented So that those wise men admitted of three parts of the Universe or if you please of three Elements because under the Nature of Heaven they comprized the name of Fire and therefore did they draw Jupiter armed with his Thunder 58. We are Schollars to experience in this that all the bodies of mixt beings have their analysis and resolution into drie and moist and that all the excrements of creatures are terminated by the same differences from whence it is clearly evident that their bodies are made up onely of two sensible Elements in which notwithstanding the other are virtually and effectually But Air or the Element of the lower Heaven is not the object of our sense because in respect of us it is a kind of spiritual being The fire of Nature because it is the formal principle cannot be wrought to any separation or comprehension by any destruction by way of resolution nor by any art or artifice of man For the nature of Forms is not subjected to the censure of the Senses because of its spiritual being 59. The Earth is the thickest body of the Universe therefore is it accounted the heaviest and the centre of it we must assert its nature contrary to the received opinion to be accidentally drie because it doth retain most of the close and dark nature of the first matter but a shade and darkness are the coverts of cold from whence they flie the light and are diametrically opposite to it but the Earth in respect of its extream density is the mother of shade and darkness hardly passable by light and heat therefore roughly knit by an heightened cold And for this reason black choller is to be esteemed the coldest humour of all because it is under the power of the Earth the Earth under Saturns who is accounted the Authour of a cold and melancholick temperature Further those things that are ingendered in the bowels of the Earth of the substance of the Earth as Marble and Stones are of a cold nature although we must otherwise conceive of mettals because they are rather of an airy nature and have in them sparkles of the Fire of Nature and a spirit of Sulphur congealing their moist and cold matter Yet Mercurie surpassing the rest in moisture and cold is beholding to the Earth for his coldness and to the Water for his moisture It is otherwise with those things that are produced in the Sea as in Amber and Coral and many other things that have their beings from the Sea and fresh Waters which as it is apparent are of a hot temper so that we have this instruction both from reason and experience that the greatest coldness is to be attributed to the Earth not to the Water 60. But driness doth agree to the Earth accidentally onely and in a remiss degree for it was created in the middest of the Waters and the order of beings required that in respect of its gravity being sunk in the Waters it should never separate from them but the Creatour using his Prerogative having removed the Waters gave to it an open surface that so there might be room made both for the creation of mixed Beings and for their habitation The Earth therefore was enfranchiz'd from its natural yoke of bondage and subjection to the Waters not by any order of Nature but by a priviledge of favour that so having its face wipt it might lift up a dry visage to the view of the Heavens and might partake of the welcome light of the world 61. Every cold and drie is averse from the faculty of Generation unless it be helped out by some eternal helps therefore it was the will of the Supream Authour of Nature to heat
the cold womb of the Earth with an heavenly fire and adjoyned to the drie globe of the Earth the moist nature of Water that so by the mixture of two generative causes moist and hot the sterility of the Earth might be helped and that by the mediation of the concourse and mixture of all the Elements the Earth might be made a natural Vessel for fruitfull Generation Therefore all Elements and all qualities are in the Earth 62. The body of the Earth was rightly created by the great God of a spongeous nature that so there might be a receptacle for Air Showers and heavenly Influences and also that the moist vapours being expelled by the force of inward heat from the Centre to the Superficies through the porous passages of the Earth might by a mean putrefaction corrupt the seeds of things and so prepare for generation these being thus disposed receive that enlivening and heavenly heat For Nature hath sunk in the depths a magnetick love by the actings of which they draw down and suck out the efficacy and virtue of things above which do increase the strength of the information and hasten the sweetness of vital Air 63. The heat that comes from the inwards of the Earth is moist and impure and doth corrupt by reason of the tainted mixture of Earth and Water But the most pure and heavenly doth generate by excitation dilatation and furthering the inbred heat to life even that inbred heat which is hidden in the seeds of things and as Natures secret closed in their centre But because both these heats are of the same kind they have a joynt and amicable operation in the act of generation and are inseparably united until they are brought forth to life and large vegetation 64. Water is of a middle nature betwixt what is thick and what is of a thin nature betwixt the Earth and the Air Natures menstruum a volatile body flying and not enduring fire drawn forth by a moderate heat into a vapour assuming multiplyed shapes more unstable than Proteus 65. The moist Element is Mercurie which sometimes assuming the nature of a bodie sometimes of a spirit doth attract to himself by his revolutions the virtues of superiour and inferiour Beings and as it were receiving their instructions doth trade in commerce as their agent or factor amongst the remotest natures of the Universe neither will he leave his trafficquing till all the Elements of the corruptible Nature receive their fixation and purgation by fire and there issue upon it an Universal Sabbath 66. Water being the nearest in nature to the first matter doth easily receive her impress The Chaos the ancient Parent of all things was a kind of subtile and dark vapour a kind of a moist dark substance like a thin smoak from whose most subtile part the Heavens are drawn forth into order which a three-fold difference divides into a three-fold province to wit the Supream which is the noblest the middle which assumes the second place of dignity and honour the lowest is inferiour to the other two both in scite and honour The thicker substance of the matter went to the making of that watry heap which is a middle nature The thickest part which is as it were the dregs of the whole Mass sate down to the bottom and was setled for the globe of the Earth The extremities of this artifice to wit the Heaven and the Earth did recede more from the first state of their matter and from their ancient shape the Heaven in regard of its great rarity and levity the Earth in respect of its great density and gravity But the Water which was a mean betwixt them continued a nature more like the first formless Abyss from whence it proceeds so that with ease it turns it self by rarefaction into smoak or vapour which is the image of the ancient Hyle or first Matter 67. Moisture is more proper to Water than Coldness because Water is of a greater rarity and more lightsom than Earth but those things which communicate most of light are farthest off from cold the morâ—rarity there is in any thing the nearer vicinity there is to light Wateâ— retained the symbole of moisture from the first matter the Abyss as the Earth coldness For the Architect Spirit of the World divided the more thick parts into those two nearly-allied Natures 68. Coldness wooes Driness and invests it self with it where it is vigorously predominant by the constriction of moist beings and by the desiccation of them as is evident in Snow Ice and Hayl For it is the work of Nature to bind and drie the Water than which nothing is more humid by the proper instrument of Cold yea the principal and common subject of Heat and Cold is humidity by both which it is so strongly assailed till it be conquered from whence it falls out that in Autumn so many drie leaves fall at the first cold that the stalks of feeble Plants upon the strength of Winter in the height of Drought are void of moisture and drie away The cold penetrating doth so scorch and makes so furious an assult upon the vital humours hence proceeds flaggy and withered age at length death comes and cuts down all with his well-set sickle and sweeps you into his general Granary How then can any one conceive Cold to be friendly to Moisture and to be its inherent property Since Nature suffers not the Elements to act against each other lest they should destroy and oppose each the others powers but an intense Cold quickly would bring under a remiss and weak moisture and would swallow it up all by a violent constriction so that by this means one of the Elements being lost there would necessarily follow an imperfection in the work of the rest and a deficiency in the generation of all things It is therefore not suitable to the Law of Nature to invest Water with the property of being cold in the highest degree 69. Out of these solider Natures of Earth and Water doth Nature extract her Elements by which she compacts Vessels and corporeal Organs for out of the commixture of both is made a clay which is the next matter of things in generation for it is in stead of the Chaos In which virtually and confusedly are all Elements Out of this clay was the first Father of mankind created and after all Generation issued from it In the Generation of creatures is a clay made of the seed and the menstruum from whence proceeds the living Creature In the production of Vegetables the seeds do first fall into a subtile clay by putrefaction and then are wrought up to a vegetable body In the generation of Mettals there comes forth a clay from the perfect mixture of Sulphur and Mercury and their resolution in a fat Water by which means the mettallick bodies are indurated by a long decoction In the Philosophical resolving of mettals and in the creation of that Philosophical Secret first is brought forth a
by reason of their opposite qualities but those qualities were tempered by the coition of both principles and from the extreams became a middle temper and such were they when they dislodged from the first and went into the second principles or Elements 116 The extreams are contrary each to other onely by reason of the intension of their opposite qualities but those things that spring from the mixture of these extreams are not â—dverse because they are of a middle nature and the â—fflux of the union of the two extreams to wit of Light and Darkness 117. That out of the mixture of Contraries to wit of Light and Darkness do not come contraries forth but in a temperature is plain by that of the Kingly Prophet breaking forth into these words of the Eternal Light He bowed the Heavens and came down and Darkness was under his feet c. He made Darkness his Covert his Pavilion in the middest of it c. The very fountain of Eternal Light that he might exhibit the brightnes of his infinite glory to mortal eyes did wrap it up in a cloud and dark mask and brought the Darkness to the Light that he might make of the two Extreams a moderate light and so allay the splendour of so great a light as was not to be gazed on without the ruin of the Spectatour yea Philosophers do affirm the Rain-bow that was given by God as a sign and token of a Covenant made with man to be produced out of a mixture of Light and Darkness that so that Symbole of the temperature of Gods wrath existing out of contraries might be tempered of various coherent and friendly colours 118. Those that have delivered that the Earth Water Air and Fire in their sphears are distinct Elements of the World and are turned each into other by mutual reciprocation did but slightly look into the depths of Nature for it is more safe to call them the compleating parts of Nature or the Shops of the Elements for the Elements of the world do not lye under our view or senses as separated in their proper Regions but do lye hid and keep close in their wombs till they come together in the generation of mixt bodies and make up a body But those parts of the World as so far mutually different can never have a conversion in them neither can that one common quality whereby those natures are linked together beget such a change that out of things of a diverse should be formed a like nature yea that they should be turned into the same 119. If those four Elements asserted by them do change and barter their rooms natures and offices all the compact frame of the World devoted to a chance and motion would be in a perpetual fluctuation which we know is established by God in a certain and constant order and scite and distinction of parts For Earth will quickly be made Water Water Air Air Fire and so backward and by this the Centre shall run out to Circumference and the Circumference run into the Centre the farthest and the middle parts of the World shall of their own accord remove out of their places that so after a long time the order of Nature shall be inverted whilest the top and the bottom and the bottom and the top change places and clash together He who doth fancy this so fair composure of a World doth not deserve to have so fine a piece termed a World but a Chaos an Abyss which Nature a friend to Order doth absolutely detest 120. They which do say that those extream bodies of the lower World Earth and Fire supposing not granting a sphear of Fire are turned into each other do wrong themselves and truth too For their distant and repugnant natures do disagree from such a change for the heightened cold thickness and gravity of the Earth are so opposite to the same degree or heat subtility and levity in Fire that they can never be brought to change Besides the Earth a fixed body will not yield to fire but slighteth its virtue if we may believe the opinions of Chymists and common experience neither doth any thing flie out from it but a fat and warry humour both of them not natural to the Earth but if any thing is to be turned into elementary Fire it must necessarily be light and volatile that it may be translated into its Orb and Nature The Earth therefore being most weighty and so the Centre of all being most fixt and so least volatile how can it be turned into Fire and be carried up into the Sphear of Fire or how can Fre the highest and lightest of all be beaten down to be essentially united with the Earth contrary to the laws of Nature It were a more easie conversion of Water and Fire because they are nearer by one degree than Earth and Fire 121 They that believed the exhalations from the region of the earth drawn up into the Air and because kindled there to be earthie and converted into the Element of Fire are far out of the way of truth for they are not earthie but rather airie natures for our Air being moist through the contagion of water lying in the drie bosom of the Earth gather a fatness and by the consortship of the Earth doth temper the moist with the drie but when it exhales through the pores and crevises of the Earth being drawn by heat or else the abundance of the matter forcing out it breaks not forth out of its prison without a noise crack whence proceed earth-quakes and openings not without much ruin that exhalation got loose doth flie up into the region proper to light bodies and there is set on fire being digested by its errant motion and heat more fully into a sulphureous matter Therefore that matter is not truly earthie since it is neither ponderous nor cold but because it is made fat and combustible by the concourse of hot drie and moist it may more properly be called the accidental food of fire than the Fire of Nature or the Elementarie Fire That is a bastard a spurious generation which for that very reason ought not to have been placed amongst the natures or been called by the names of Elements therefore these Firings are rightly called by Aristotle imperfectly-mixed things The same we must conceive of the smoke of combustibles For Smoke being unctious doth quickly take fire which is nothing else but smoke kindled 122 Fire feeds upon fat and unctious matter but the fat moisture of the Air is contempered with drought whence we often may see a sulfureous matter extrinsecally drie and terminated with drought as our ordinarie sulfur gun-powder and the like which though they seem to be outwardly drie do close within them a fat moisture and upon the firing are resolved into it 123 And truly they slip to purpose that have taken an opinion seeing stones and heavie bodies sometimes generated in the Air and shot down thence by lightnings thunders
the Subpream Rulers beck This is the Symmetry the order of the whole Universe 12. It is the excepted priviledge alone of the Creatour as he created all things according as he pleased out of nothing so to reduce what he hath created into nothing for whatsoever being or substance hath an impress from him cannot deny subjection to him but is prohibited by Natures law to return to a Non-Entity Therefore Trismegist did truly assert That nothing in the world doth die but pass into a change for mixt bodies have their composition from the Elements which by natures rotation are again resolved into the Elements Hence is this sequel that by Natures cost All 's cloth'd with what 's its own nothing is lost 13. The Philosphers did believe a first matter to be of an elder birth to the Elements but this as it was but scarce apprehended by them so was it as briefly and as it were in the clouds and obscurely handled by them they made it void of qualities and accidents yet the first subject of them without quantity yet by which all things have their dimensions endowed with simplicity yet capable of contraries without the reach of sensible knowledge yet the basis of sensible drawn out through all places yet unperceiveable covetous of all forms tenacious of none the root of all bodies yet not sensible but conceiveable onely by an act of the intellect lastly nothing in act all things in aptitude So have they laid a fancy for the foundation of nature 14. Aristotle more wary though he believed the eternity of the world yet hinted a certain first and universal matter In the discussion of this he used sobriety and ambiguity alwayes avoiding its creeks and perplexities so that he opined it better to conceive * one inseparable matter of all things which yet hath a respective difference from which the first bodies with the rest which are under sense have their subsistence that this is the first principle of them and not to be separated from them †but always joyned with a repugnancie always subject to contraries from which the Elements are produced 15. The Philosopher had been righter if he had asserted that first matter free from the conflict of Contraries and disengaged from that pretended repugnancy since there is no contrariety inherent in the very Elements but what is the result of the intention of their qualities as we are informed by the daily experience of fire and water in which whatsoever opposition there is ariseth from the heightening of their qualities But in the proper and true Elements which couple in the generation of mixt bodies those qualities which are in a remiss degree in them are not repugnant each to other for their temperature doth not admit a contrariety 16. Thales Heraclitus and Hesiodus accounted water the first matter of all things to whose opinion the Writer of the holy Genesis seems to consent This they call an Abyss and Water by which I guess they understood not our ordinary water but a kind of sume or moist and dark vapour roaving here and there and driven in an uncertain motion without any certain order 17. I am not at present able to lay down any positive determination concerning that first Principle of things since it being created in the dark could never by mans invention be brought to light therefore whatsoever the troup of Philosophers and Divines do opine whether these things are so or no the Authour of Nature alone knows therefore pardon is to be allowed to him that in dark Doctrines hits what is most likely 18. Some of the Rabbines agreeing conceived an ancient but obscure and inexpressible principle the matter of all improperly called Hyl◠which is more properly termed not so much a body as a large shadow not a thing but a dusky image of a thing or the smoaky appearance of an Entity a most dark night a covert of clouds actually all nothing potentially all things which cannot be found but in fancie and understood in a dream Our imagination cannot exhibit to us this doubtfull principle this depth of darkness no more than our talk can through the ears imprint the knowledge of the Sun into a man that was born blind 19. The same men had an opinion that God brought forth and created the nearest approching matter of the Elements and the World to wit that dark formless and indigested Abyss out of that farthest Principle the Scripture calls this Mass sometimes Earth void and emptie sometimes Waters although actually it were neither yet potentially and by way of assignment it was both we may give a propable guess that it was not unlike to a dark smoak or vapour in which was closed a stupifying spirit of cold and darkness 20. The division of the higher waters from the lower expressed in Genesis seems to be done by the severing the subtile from the thick and as it were a thin spirit from that smoaky body there was needfull therefore of that lightsom spirit proceeding from the Word of God For light which is a fiery spirit by separating things of a diverse nature did drive down the thicker darkness from the nearest and highest Region and uniting the matter of one and the same kind being of a thin and a more spiritual substance inflamed it as an unquencheable oyl to burn before the Throne of the Divine Majesty This is the Empyraean Heaven seated between the Intellectual and Material heaven as the Horizon and Finitor of each receiving spiritual endowments from that above and deriving them down to the inferiour adjoyning middle heaven 21. Reason required that this dark Abyss or next matter of the World should be watry and moist that it be the better subject to be attenuated and that by this flux of the matter by attenuation the whole frame of the Heavens and of the rest of the Fabrick might issue forth and might be laid out in a continuous body For it is the property of moisture to flow and the continuity of every body is the effect of the moisture of it For moisture is the glue and joyncture of Elements and bodies But fire acting upon moisture by heat doth rarifie for heat is the instrument of fire by which it doth act two opposite works by one and the same labour separating the moist nature from the earthy by rarifying that condenseth this So that by the separation of the things of a diverse proceeds a congregation of things of the same nature By this first principle of Chymistry the uncreated spirit the artifex of the world did distinguish the confused natures of things 22. The Architectonique Spirit of the world began the work of Creation from two universal principles the one formal the other material for otherwise what is the meaning of the words of the Prophet Gen. 1. God created the Heaven and the Earth c. unless that in the beginning of the information of the matter he distinguished it into two chief principles
clay out of the seed of both parents purged and mixed 70. Water is the base and root of all moistures yea it is moisture it self from which all moist things receive their denomination therefore Water may be rightly defined the Fountain of the moist Element or the Spring of moisture whose property it is to wet by its liquour But those things are termed humid which do in themselves according to a less or greater degree contain a moisture or a watry liquor Moisture is receivable of all qualities so bloud and yellow choler are humours endued with their own heat although they have their foundation in the Element of Water Aqua-fortis and the like are empowered with a burning and a fiery nature The burning Water and many other essences which are extracted from oyls and water do abound in heat although the root of them which is Water be cold because Nature doth first imprint in a moist elemēt various resemblances and signatures of its powers and doth in it en-root and infuse its principal and choice qualities Moisture is the first subject of Nature upon which her prime care is bestowed her first charge layed out by whose liquour it doth dilute and mingle various colours and indelible tinctures To it first do the spiritual qualities communicate themselves in it first do they take up their being and actings 71. The lower Waters being divided into two do occupy a double seat for one part of them brimming the Earth doth lean on it as it were as its proper Base and with the Earth makes but one Globe the other part flying upward doth range up and down the Region of the neighbour Air and there making to it self many masqued fancies of bodies and various figures of several phantasms doth reave hither and thither over-hanging the lower Region 72. Always there is a great part of the Waters that keep above and being driven to and fro by the Caroach of the Wind doth post over divers parts of the Air which was in this manner ordered from the Day of the Creation by the enacting of the Wisdom of GOD that so the uncumbered and plain face of the Earth might be unmasked and fited for the generation of things For the Channels of the Sea and Rivers were not sufficient to receive the whole Waters but if all should break the confining Bars of the Heavens and come tumbling down it would not onely cover the plain face of the Earth but it may be overtop the highest Mountains Such an enloosening of the Cataracts of Heaven we may guess did occasion the old Cataclysm or Deluge 73. Water is not onely sublimated into a vapour by heat alone neither is it onely bound up in a cloud by cold but to both the virtues of the Sun and the Stars do contribute their aids not onely by multiplying the vigours of the Elements but also by a kind of Magnetick virtue attracting and retaining a moisture much or less according to their different position and the diverse figure of Heaven from whence we observe the various ordering of years and times for indeed that Mass of Waters is not kept in so poized onely by the solidation of Cold or the Air but by the powerfull order and regiment of superiour bodies 74. Lest there might seem to Divine Justice a want of judgements for the execution of his wrath he made that Ocean which is poized over our heads to be volatile or flying and withal brought into his Armoury those fiery darts his Thunder-bolts that so the presumptuous sinners that cannot be won by love might be wrought about by fear 75. They are much out of the way who do attribute to Air moisture in the highest degree upon this ground because it is easily kept in within the bounds of another but hardly within its own for this is the property of light and liquid bodies not of moist and so doth better agree with fire and Heaven which natures are more rarified than with Water and Air for bodies that are rarified because they of their own will flow every where cannot be comprized within their own bounds and therefore stand in need of another Onely firm and solid bodies are kept in within their own compass and superficies which cannot be done by those things that are of a subtile nature because by reason of their thinness they melt and are fluid and so less consistent From whence this flows that the Air is a body of greater rarity but not of greater humidity 76. The Air from it self hath no quality intense and in the highest degree but sometimes hath them upon loan else-where The nature of Air is a middle nature betwixt things below and above and so doth with ease assume the qualities of those that border upon it from whence it happens that its inferiour Region according to the diversity of times hath a variety of temper which inconstancy is occasioned by the changes of the neighbouring and thicker bodies of Water and Earth whose state is easily altered by heat and cold 77. The whole Air is the Heaven the floor of the World Natures sieve through which the virtues and influences of other bodies are transmitted a middle nature it is that knits all the scattered natures of the Universe together a most thin smoak kindled by the fire of Heaven into a light as it were an immortal flame the subject of light and shade of day and night impatient of vacuity the principal transparent the easiest receiver of almost all qualities and effects yet the constant retainer of none a borderer upon the spiritual nature therefore in the Tracts concerning the Mysteries of Philosophers it is called by the name of a Spirit 78. The lower Region of the Air is like unto the neck or higher part of an Alembick for through it the Vapours climbing up and being brought to the top receive their condensation from Cold and being resolved into water fall down by reason of their own weight So Nature through continued distillations by sublimation of the Water by cohobation or by often drawing off the liquour being often poured on the body doth rectifie and abound it In these operations of Nature the Earth is the vessel receiving Therefore the Region of the Air that is nearer to us being bounded by the Region of Clouds as by a vaulted Chamber is of a greater thickness and impurity than those Regions above 79. The middle Region of the Air is not that in which is the gathering of the Clouds from whence are Lightenings and Thunders which is onely the higher part of the lower Region and the border of it but that which is above the Clouds is to be stiled The Middle Region whither the watry Being by reason of its gravity cannot reach yet whither sulphureous exhalations disburthened of the load of their Vapours do climb up and there by a motion either of their own or anothers being kindled burn Such are the flaming Meteors of divers sorts which are viewed in the middle Region whence we
may guess that it abounds with a hot and moist though not a watry yet a fat Being which is the food of fire In this Region is much peace and a good temperature because it is not hurryed with the tempests of any wind and onely the lighter excrements of the inferiour Nature are sucked up hither 80. The higher Region near the Moon is all airy not fiery as it hath been taken up though falsely in the Schools There is the peaceable habitation of the purest Air and as it borders upon the Heavenly Region so it approcheth it in nature for it is not defiled with the least â—mut of the lower Abyss There is a temperature in the highest a purity but little inferiour to that of the neighbouring Heaven In this place to fancy a sphear of fire is the shame of a Philosopher which breaking the Laws of Nature would have long ere this ruined the Fabrick of the Universe 81. The Fire as a fourth Element of Nature was placed in the highest Region of the Air as in its proper sphear by the chief Philosophers being led by an argument from order and by conjecture rather than truth For let no man fancy any other fire of Nature than the celestial Light therefore the blessed Philosopher in his Genesis makes no mention of fire because he had before told of the creation of the Light upon the first day which is the genuine fire of Nature and truly he would else not have omitted Fire if it had been a principle of Nature having specified Earth Water and the Fowls of the Heavens 82. Let not any therefore fancy unless sleeping a Region of Fire burning next the Moon for the whole Air would not be able to bear so great an abundance of intense fire but it had long ago fed upon and ruined the whole Fabrick of the World for whatsoever it falls upon it feeds upon and devours being the designed ruin of the World and Nature 83. Such a Devourer of Nature is not lodged as an Element of Nature neither above the Air nor below the Earth Onely he doth tyrannize in the kingdom of Nature either in the height of the Air or the depths of the Earth or else being kindled upon the superficies of the Earth Therefore Lullius a man of a raised wit did justly account it amongst the Gyants and Tyrants of the World It may also be termed to be an Enemy to Nature because whatsoever is destructive to Nature is an adversary of Nature 84. Our common Fire is partly natural partly artificial It may be man borrowed it for the accommodation of life and for his necessity from the Celestial by an unition of the beams of it and a multiplication of its vigour or else by attrition or the collision of two bodies the Spirit of God suggesting the project to man 85. The Sovereign Creatour of all things did place the fiery spirit of a kindly heat in the Globe of the Sun to inspire light and an enlivening heat to the rest of the bodies in the Universe wherefore many have thought him to be the heart of the whole Fabrick for from him springs the principle of all generation and life He that searcheth for any other Element of fire in the world doth shut his own eyes against the Sun 86. The source therefore of the Fire of Nature is seated in the Sun whose heat is always of an equality and temperate in it self though it be felt by us either greater or less according to his appropinquation or distance or according to his direct or oblique beams or according to the scituation or nature of places The Sun hath been elevated by most Philosophers as the Soul of the World breathing in motion and a faculty of generation to Nature 87. The Sun is not the Eye of the World as some Ancients termed it but is the Eye of the Creatour of the World by which he doth sensibly view his sensible creatures by which he conveys to them the sweetly-affecting beams of his love by which he renders himself viewable to them For scarcely could a sensible Nature have comprehended an insensible Creatour therefore he formed for himself and us so noble a body roab'd in his own glory whose rays that nearest approach Divinity are Spirit and Life 88. From that universal Principle of life all the in-bred heat of Elements or mixed Beings is derived which hath gotten to be called by the name of Fire for wheresoever a free heat a natural motion or life lodges there Nature hath hidden Fire as the principle of them and the first mover of the Elements by which the sensible Elements or the Portions of the World are elementated and receive their animations yet doth it cleave close to the womb of the Earth being bound up by the Earths density and coldness exciting an Antiperistasis 89. That Fire of Nature which is seated in mixt bodies hath chosen the radical moisture as its proper seat the principal residence of which is in the heart although it be diffused through all the parts of the body as in the prime organ of life and the centre of this little world whence that Prince of Nature as commanding from its Castle doth move concordantly all the faculties and the rest of the organs and doth in-breathe life to the humours of the mixed Being to the spirits and finally to the whole Elementary Mass And being the Sun and Vicegerent of the Sun doth act all in this little that the Sun doth in that large World 90. As the Sun being in the middest of the rest of the Planets doth enlighten them with his light replenish them with his influential virtues beget an harmony of life by his enlivening spirit so doth the solar spirit in the middle of the Elementary Nature giveth it an influential light and gathers the Elements together in the work of Generation and doth unite and enliven them 91. The first Agent in the World is the Fire of Nature which being seated in the Globe of the Sun doth diffuse that vivifical heat by means of his rays through all the dominions of Nature working in the seeds a power of activity and setling in them the principle of motion and action at the removal of which all motion ceaseth and also the faculty of life and action 92. The heat of Nature and the light of Nature are really one and the same for they have a continual and uniform effluence from the same Fountain i. the Sun but are distinguished by their office for the heat is to penetrate into the most inward parts of Nature but light is to manifest and open the outward parts the office of heat is to move the occult Natures of things that of light to set before the eyes sensible accidents both of these is wrought by the rays of the Sun The Sun therefore is the first Organ of Nature by whose approach or distance all the operations of Nature are variously governed intended or remitted by means of light and
generation of mixt bodies whereby the pleasing motion of Nature might be disturbed 103. Neither in nature are those four qualities contrary one to another but onely divers and unlike one to another neither do they ruin but unite into a firm league one with another So Heat and Cold in a remiss degree do amicably agree and commix in one and the same subject that a middle and temperate quality to wit a lukewarness might be produced But if in the intense degree they couple not without a fight and combat this proceeds from the excess and tyranny of the intension which cannot endure two qualities equally heightened and adverse to be partners and sharers of one and the same Sovereignty but there will fall out a tumult But indeed Nature casteth out intense qualities as bastards and strangers 104. Let not therefore any fancy that Nature admits fire intense into the family of her Elements for such a fire would be fit for destruction not generation would not be according to but against Nature which avoids violent things and delights in a temperature in which is no fighting no contrariety For the Rule of Nature cannot away with the rage of a scorching heat or a wasting cold or the distemper of moist and drie but doth pleasingly lye down in a composed temperature Let not any therefore search for the intense qualities in the Elements of things he will find them in them either less or more remitted 105. He is deceived therefore who says that hot and cold moist and drie are simple contraries For the Earth which by Aristotle is laid down as drie in the highest should always quarrel with the Air which is said by him to be moist in the highest Also Water that is cold in the highest according to his opinion should be opposite to Fire that is hot in the highest and this repugnancy would inclose by force every one of the common Elements or every Region of the World within the verge of its sphear and by reason of this antipathie would destroy all hospitality betwixt them But we are convinced of the contrary both by reason and experience For ditches and all hollow places under the Earth yea the very bowels and pores of the Earth are replenished with Air and the intrinsical moisture of the Earth by which as with their mothers milk all Vegetables are nourished is nothing else but an hot and moist Air cleaving close to the Earth and handing it as a nursive and nourishing faculty the pores of the Earth are the dugs and the airy moisture the milk by which she the Mother and Nurse of things doth nourish her off-springs and give them growth 106. They who settle four Elements in as many humours do grant that Nature being moist is receiveable yea is the subject of four Elementary qualities how then can they hold a contrariety in them which they place in one and the same subject For though those four humours are distinguished by their respective differences yet have they but one base one common root to all to wit Humour for yellow choller which resembles fire is no less an humour than flegm which resembles water and the same may be said of adust Choller and Bloud although they do not absolutely but comparatively confound the four Elements in a moist Being 107. If there were any repugnancy in the qualities and elements of Nature the greatest would be betwixt hot and cold and so betwixt Water and Fire but the nature of these are not adversary many generations which are under the Waters do evidence for wheresoever there is any generation or life there must be fire as the nearest intrinsical efficient moving and altering cause of the matter for generation Hence Men Beasts and the Fowls their Being have And ghastly Monsters rowling on a wave A fiery vigour to their seeds is given The homage for their birth is due to Heaven 108. There fore certainly he will be in the right who shall acknowledge those four first qualities inborn and essential to the things themselves and to their Elements to be apt to a mixture by the direction of Nature and not contrary for they are as it were four Organs or instruments which Nature makes use of in the perfecting of her alterations and generations 109. Nature sets up a Potters trade for she is wholly taken with making her matter circular these four qualities are as the wheels by which she doth by degrees and wisely inform her works through a circular and slow motion 110. Of those four Wheels two viz those of Moist and Drie are most agreeable to the matter because Nature doth turn and work the matter between these two those two qualities are nearest the matter because more subject to be passive and to a change But the other two to wit of Hot and Cold are more of action because by their turns they alter and change the former these are passive those active are as it were the active instruments of Nature working upon her passive matter 111. Let us therefore cast off that tenent of Contraries as contrary to natures concord and dash out it with a pen of iron with the good leave of learning from the depraved table of Philosophy and let us in the room of it inscribe the Symbole of Concord which Nature doth acknowledge of the same standing with her self by whose help the delightfull copulation of actives with passives is procured in every Generation 112. Those who according to the flying opinion do stand for four Elements contrary each to other do necessarily introduce a fifth as the knot or bond-tye of concord as the Peace-maker otherwise they could not receive any perfect mixture or any temperature in the work of generation but without a rudder or a ruler would float a drift through the vast Ocean of Nature never able to reach a port or bring forth a birth and so would they cheat the common Genius of Nature of her proper end 113. For these four being acknowledged by reason of their repugnant qualities to keep up an eternal war betwixt themselves cannot be united or appeased in the generation of mixt Beings but rather with their mutual conflict rushing in will procure an Abort than a birth in Nature unless their contrary actings be composed to a peaceable love by the part of some fifth heavenly and tempering Nature which may introduce a temperature void of Hot and Cold Drie and Moist 114. That fifth Element as they call it or heavenly and incorruptible Spirit springing from the light motion and virtue of the heavenly bodies upon these lower Beings and preparing the Elements for motion and life and stopping from ruin particular individuals as far as their setledness will permit hath merited the name of the salt Nature the tie of the Elements the Spirit of the world to be given it by the searchers of occult Philosophie 115. If there were any contrariety between the principles of things certainly it was between Light and Darkness
two Waters those above and these below betwixt our Water and Air yet it is neither of them because although it rarifie yet will it never be heightened to the great degree of the nobilitie of the Air It may be made a spurious but never a pure Air neither will the refined nature of the Air be so depressed and fall from its puritie as to thicken into a vapour cloud or Water For the right of Nature never got that first separation of the Waters which was really and actually done by that Architect spirit and that the established bounds of the parts of the World which God hath sealed with an indelible signature should either be blurred or removed by any new confusion 129 But those that dive deeper into things will acknowledge the Earth to be the womb of the World the vessel of Generation the mother of a multiplied and almost numberless issue which being rescued in the beginning of the Creation from the power of the covering Waters and priviledged to it self was made and remained drie land and her bodie being condensed sunk to the foundation and the centre of the whole and spread out her lap as a Parent to all vegetables and all other creatures yet did she want moisture whereby she might be made apt for a fruitful generation Gods providence set out a remedie for this exigence Therefore from the beginning was the water made volatile that so it might be carried up in vapours which being frozen by cold in this cloud might by heat be thawed again into Waters By this master-piece of Divine providence was this exigence of the Earth supplied and that driness which threatened barrenness was tempered with a large moisture and the womb of our mother conceived Therefore onely Water hath the circulation to the intent that it might moisten the bosom of the Earth or more truly it is distilled in the lower region of the Air as in its Alembick that so by often pouring in and reiterated distillations it being abounded and having gotten virtues both from above and below and endued with that celestial Nectar it might more effectually soften the bosom of the Earth and endue it with a prolifical virtue The chief worker of all who maketh use of the art of Nature hath added nothing superfluous to his work nor left any thing defective in it 130 But the Water being the menstruum of the World doth cherish and contain in it the seeds of things and their elements but she having this circulation the true and genuine Elements of things which are in the Earth as in the matrix and vessel of Generation and in the Water as in the menstruum are also whirled about In the vapour therefore are the Elements of the Earth the Water and the Air have their sublimation and exuberation with it They are not the bodies of Earth Water and Air which have their proper sphears and constitute the several Regions of the World but they are the very spiritual Elements of Nature which lye hid and inhabit in them out of which many bodies as stones may be generated and excocted in the Air For where all the Elements well mixt do meet as they do in a vapour there bodies may be generated but when they find not a convenient matrix as in the Air there are ingendered imperfect mixtures not by reason of any fault in the mixture but in the Matrix 131. The Water being seated as middle betwixt the Earth and the Air doth trouble both it by its flowing and always moving inconstancy infesting the Air with a black soote and noisom vapours and often drowning the Earth by flouds causing tempests in the Air ruines to the Earth and corruption to both and it doth assault the Region of the one with its levity and of the other with its gravity and doth cross the order of Nature and the nature of Times by its defect or excess yea doth shake all her borderers with her terrible claps and tumultuous ragings Her nature being altogether female the supream Creatour seems to have bestowed her on the World in the nature of a Woman or a necessary Evil even so doth she arrogate all things as subject to her and turns those things that were given her for a general good to a publick ruin Finally it is the scourge of divine Justice revenging Nemeses which being designed to the vengeance of sin doth break out to punish and sets the hopes and wealth of many the very roots of pride under several shapes of judgements the scoff and blast of the world 132. The universal Natures the more thick they are the more impure the more endued with tenuity the more purity The Earth because more thick than Water therefore is less noble and so Water than Air and Air than Heaven and so the highest Region of the Heavens is the most noble because it is most subtile For it is an undoubted truth that spiritual Natures are more excellent than corporeal and the more bordering upon the spiritual Natures the more they draw nigh to perfection 133. The foundation of Generation and Corruption is in Moisture for in both the travails of Nature Moisture of all the Elements is the first patient receiving the first seal of the form The natural Spirits are easily united with it because flowing from it do lightly return to it because the root of them in that and by that are the rest of the Elements mixed The moist Element hath its circulation no less in mixed and individual bodies than in the World both in the work of Generation and of Nutrition for it was Natures pleasure that both these works should be performed by the same instruments of condensation and rarefaction and by the same means to wit Spirits 134. The Earth is the Vessel of Generation Water the menstruum of Nature containing in it the formal and seminal virtues which it borrows from the Sun the male and the formal universal Principle from him is derived into all things the influence of the fire of Nature and of formal Spirits in which are all things necessary for generation the in-bred heat being wrapt up in the moist Therefore Hippocrates did rightly affirm That these two Elements Fire and Water could do all contained all things in them For from them do issue two masculine qualities of Hot and Drie from the other two more of Cold and Moist being the female qualities which so concurring and mixing perfect the generation of mixed bodies Over those two principal Elements the two greater Lights were set the Sun the authour of Fire and the Moon the Lady of Moisture 135. Nature perfects the circulation of the volatile Element by a three-fold action or instrument by Sublimation Demission or Refusion and by Decoction which stand in need of a divers temperament So doth the rightly ordered intention of Nature wandering through various motions directeth her interrupted actions to their designed end and attaineth the same mark though it trades through divers wayes
vegetation do exceed in a sensitive soul which is in them the principle of life and motion Therefore an Animal seated in the highest degree of things below doth compleat the work of Nature in her Elementary kingdom doth live properly generate properly and in it hath Nature truly distinguished each Sex that from two a third to wit their issue might be produced So in the more perfect Beings the most perfect Symbole of the Trinity is most apparent 160 Man the Prince of all creatures and of the lower World is accounted the Summary of Universal Nature For his Soul is an immortal ray of the Divine Light his Body is a beautified Composure of the Elements The inward and unperceiveable faculties of the Sense by which man doth comprehend all things obvious are altogether celestial and as it were Stars giving the influence of knowledge of things the motions and perturbations of the mind are as it were the Winds Tempests Lightenings and Thunders the Meteors which break forth in the Aerial Region of the Spirit do trouble the heart and the bloud Therefore was man deservedly called a Microcosm and the accomplisht Draught of the Universe 161 But not onely man but even every living creature yea every Plant is a Microcosm So is every Grain or Seed a Chaos in which are the seeds of the whole World compendiously bound up out of which in its season a little World will spring 162 Whatsoever Beings of Natnre have a perfect mixture and life they have a body spirit and soul The body is made of clay in which are all things necessary for the matter of generation for it is most agreeable to reason that Bodies should be made of two corporeal Elements especially viz. Earth and Water 163 The Spirit is a small portion of the purest Air or the Heaven a middle nature betwixt the Body and the Soul the knot and bond of both the case of the Soul and the conduit of the more subtile and spiritual parts of the body 164 The soul or form of a mixt body is a spark of the Fire of Nature an undiscernable Ray of Celestial Light brought into act from the power of the seed by the motion of generation bound to an Elementary body by the mediation of the Spirit giving its individual Being to the mixt body the nearest principle and the efficient cause of life It acts according to the disposed matter and the qualities of the Organs 165 The nature or from of the Soul because it is altogether full of light in living creatures especially hath so great a distance from the dark and earthy matter of bodies that this is wholly irrational in respect of that and this unproportionably more noble and therefore is fastened by that strictest tye which Nature makes use of in her works to the body by reason of the disconveniency and distance unless the conjunction and knot had been made by the virtue and efficacy of a peculiar and powerfull mean therefore did the provident Creatour assign a subtile mean which is the Aetherial spirit which receives and retains the begotten from and is the tye of it to the body communicating in its nature with both These things are to be conceived to be spoken of the celestial Soul of Natural things not of the Super-celestial and divine Soul of man which notwithstanding is according to the good pleasure of the Creatour brought into a consortship with the body of man by natural mediums 166 The specifical forms from the first day of the Creation were imprinted in the first individual and particular persons by the character of the Idaeal copie and that diviue and indelible impress was according to the direction of the Creatour by the way of generation traduced to posterity that so by the perpetual succession of particular individual natures the priviledge of immortality might be continued in the kind 167 It cannot nor must be conceived that Forms do generate in the matter their like for to generate is the alone property of bodies but by an harmonious motion of their Organs they do by them dispose the seminal matter for generation and shut up in it a ray of Light or a secret spark of life as a treasure This is the office and priviledge of the Form as also to imprint its own specifical character on that vivifical spirit wrapt up close in the seed which in its set season doth in the work of generation by the engendering heat display it self into a soul whether Vegetative or Animal so that what was a formal and hidden spirit in the seed is now a Form in the mixt body So that occult thing that was closed in the bosom of Nature is now made manifest and brought forth from a power to an act 168 The Form issues not forth onely out of the power and virtue of the seed because there is an influence of celestial virtues in the generations of Beings which do heighten the efficacies of the matter do multiply them and as it were midwife it to groaning Nature yea they do get into and mixe themselves with and bring in auxiliary strength to the formal and seminal spirit that is in the matter which is also by its original celestial 169 There do not onely meet in the generation of every mixt Being the corporeal Elements but also all the Virtues all the Powers of Nature in general and these do contribute something of their own so are the parts of the Universe bound up together that they have an unanimous combination for life and couple by a mutual affection 170 The natural Forms of things though they are potentially in the seeds yet are they neither of nor generated by the substance of the lower Elements for they have their rise from a more noble spring their original is from Heaven for their father is the Sun the heavenly Nature the bond whereby these matters are knit together 171 The specifical Forms of mixt Beings have within themselves closed a dark kind of knowledge of their original and are carried up by their own strength and by a secret motion like unto Waters to the height of their Fountain head So the Soul of man being derived from the divine Spring of the uncreated Light is reflected to the same by the sharp sight of his mind and by the soaring contemplations of his soul but the forms of other living creatures being taken out of the privy Treasury of the Heavens and the Sun do by the instinct of Nature and by a weak kind of reminiscency glance back thither Hence we may observe the frequent Prognosticks of several creatures concerning the courses of the Sun and the changes of the Heavens But the forms of Vegetables being for the most part airy and inspired from the lowest Region of our Air therefore they are not able to extend or reach forth their power or faculties beyond it they do according to their ability lift up their heads into the Air as willing to visit their Countrey but they
comprehend nothing but what is sensible But the mind rangeth far abroad beyond the Cloysters of the Senses and searcheth to a greater height for the hunting out of the bounds of Nature The bodies are as it were the barks the grosser parts of the Elements the accidents of things under which lye hid the pure and sprightly Essences which acknowledge not the subjection and censure of the Senses and which it was a necessity to cloth under a dark Cloud that they might pass from their heavenly to their earthly province of the corporeal Beings The supream Creatour of Nature enacted this copulation of spirituals with corporeals whereby his uncreated spirit communicating it self first to the more spiritual and simple Natures might be conveyed through them as by so many conduits to corporeal Beings and in this manner diffusing it self gradually and orderly through all the Regions of the World through all and every Being doth sustain all things by the Divine presence as also that by a sensible creature the insensible CREATOUR might be apprehended through corporeal and sensible resemblances 189 Whatsoever lives either an Animal or Vegetable life stands in need of food that the natural spirits might be recruited which do continually slide forth through the pores and that so the loss of Nature might have a successive repair For the nourishing juice is made by the more succulent substance of the meat whereby the parts and humours of the body are re-inforced The radical Moisture is renewed out of the purer portion of the humours especially of the bloud the celestial influence intermingling it self by respiration with it 190 Living things have a two-fold nourishment to wit a Corporeal and a Spiritual the former being of small avail to life without the latter For Vegetables do evidently referre the benefit of their increase and nourishment no less to the Air and Heaven than to the Earth yea the Earth it self unless suckled with the milk of Heaven would quickly find her own breast to flag drie this that holy Diver into Natures secrets when he blessed Joseph doth thus express Blest be the Lord for his Earth for the apples of Heaven for the Dew and for the Deep that coucheth beneath for the pleasant apples of the Sun and of the Moon for the top of the everlasting Mountains for the fruits of the eternal Hills c. By which mystical speech the Prophet fore-ensureth the Earths plenty by the abundant influence of the Sun Moon and of the rest of the celestial bodies 191 That spiritual Diet as far as it conduceth to the life of creatures is acknowledged by every vulgar capacity that sees the renewed respiration and the frequent sucking in of the external Air For not onely according to the opinion of ordinary Physicians hath Nature so workmanlike framed those bellows bordering upon the heart to cool it but also that by their continued fanning they might breath in an aethereal Air and hand to it celestial spirits that so by their recruits the vital spirits may be kept in repair and be alwayes multiplied 192 Philosophers do not onely call those spiritual Natures which being created without matter are onely comprehended by the Understanding as the intelligencies Angels and Devils are accounted to be but also those that which although they have their original from matter yet in respect of their great tenuity nobility do not subject themselvs to the search of the Senses and nearer approching to spiritual Beings are rather under stood by reason than found by sense Such is the pure part of the Air such are the influencies of heavenly bodies such the in-set fire and seminal virtues such the vegetable spirits such the animal and the vital and the like in which consists the very nature of Beings than in grosser bodies Such like natures spring from Heaven and in relation to sensibles do assume to themselves the name and right of spirits 193 It is suitable that we should give the Fire of Nature a place amongst the spiritual Beings for in it self it is not perceivable by any sense but discovers it self onely in bodies by heat and other effects and accidents This is apparent in living creatures into which by this unperceiveable fire is infused a sensible heat and that Fire with the life stealing away the Elementary body or the carkass yet the mixed being dissolved remains sound and unhurt In Vegetables because this Fire is weaker it doth elude the sense and is not to be perceived by any heat 194 Reason also convinceth that our common Fire is to be sorted amongst the spiritual rather than corporeal Beings For if it were corporeal it should have from it self a peculiar and inseparable body no less than Earth Water or Air and the rest of the sensible Natures which do consist and are bounded within their proper bodies which do exist in them and by them which do act according to their virtues and produce them to the Senses But Fire hath not a peculiar and sensible body lodgeth onely in anothers for a Coal is not Fire but Wood fired neither is the flame Fire but smoke inflamed finally that Robber onely feeds upon what is not his own lives upon the prey and is extinguished when this fails having nothing in it self to feed it Besides a body super-added to another body doth augment the quantity of it but this not found in fire put into wood or smoke for the smoke or wood is no way increased by the accession of fire in their quantities from which it is evident that a fiery spirit rather than a body doth invade the wood or smoke A sword melted the scabbard being untouch't the bones shattered by the fiery bolt of Thunder and yet the flesh unhurt do sufficiently argue the spiritual nature even of that thundering fire Yet we must know that Fire is not wholly immaterial for it hath a matter though a very subtile and light one whereby it cleaves to the encompassing air whereby it may be kept in by a more gross body Yet doth it rather deserve the name of a spirit than of a body because it hath not a sensible quantity neither can it be comprehended but when it is arrayed in another body 195 For Light the original of it doth evince that it ought to be seated amongst those things that are truly spiritual There was no light but in God before the informing of the first matter the birth of the world But when Nature received her Being then began there a spiritual light to issue forth from the fiery spirit of God upon the matter and there to settle as in its lamp and this was the creation and original of Light that was the first act of the Deity upon the matter the first copulation of the Creatour with the creature of a spirit with a body Therefore the first informing Light was a meer Spirit which did kindle with its fiery virtue as with heat the nearest matter being exceedingly rarefied by its spiritual
drink which they diet on or at least the better part is terminated into humours and at length into spirits which getting through the pores and knit to the flesh nerves bones and the rest of the parts of the bodie do nourish and augment them and do by the never-tired work of supply repair decaying nature So the spiritual and the portion of the purer substance is curdled to the frothie bodie of seed Art the Ape of Nature doth experience the like in her resolutions and compositions 213 The life of individuals is in a rational and strict union of the matter and form but the knot of both natures their tie and base lieth hid in the fortified embraces of the innate heat and fire and the radical moisture For that formal fire is an heavenly ray which is united with the radical moisture which is the purest and best digested portion of the matter and as it were an oyl defaecated exuberated and turned as it were into a spiritual nature by the organs of Nature as by so many Alembicks 214 There is much of the radical moisture in the seed of things in which as in its food is kept a celestial Spark which doth act all things necessarie to generation in a convenient matrix But wheresoever there is a constant principle of heat there is conceived to be a fire because the natural principle of heat is his in which it is 215 A man may observe something immortal in the radical moisture which doth neither vanish by death nor consume by the force of the most violent fire but remains unvanquished in the carkases and ashes of bodies burnt 216 There is a double moisture lies in every mixed Being to wit an Elementarie and a Radical The Elementarie being partly of an aeriall parly of a watrie nature yields not to fire but flies away into a vapour or smoke which being drawn forth the bodie is resolved into ashes for by it as by a glue the Elements in their mixture are knit together But the radical moisture scorns the tyrannical assaults of common fire but it neither dies in the martyrdom nor flies away in the combat but surviving the mixt bodie doth stubbornly stick to its ashes which is an evidence of its exact puritie 217 The experience of this radical moisture hidden in the ashes did teach a secret to the glas-makers being ignorant of the nature of things for by bringing Glass out of Ashes by the sharp point of their casting flames they have made a hidden thing evident beyond which neither the strength of fire or art are able to stretch it But the ashes must necessarily run that there might be a continued quantitie and a solid bodie made as glass is which could not be otherwise for there can be no flowing of any thing without moisture Therefore that moisture being inseparable from its matter is at length brought to terminate into that noble and as it were aetherial transparent bodie 218 The extraction of Salts out of Ashes in which is the chief virtue of mixt Beings the fertilitie of ground increased by the burning of stubble and by ashes doth evidence that that moisture preserved free from fire is the radical principal of generation the root of nature Although this virtue lies hid solitarie and idle till being received by the Earth the common matrix of Natures principles yet shew forth a hidden facultie convenient for generation and multiplication as it is also accustomable in the seed of things 219 That Radical Balsame is Natures ferment or leaven infecting the whole mass of the bodie It is an indelible and multiplying tincture for it pierceth and tingeth even the more loathsom excrements which is evident by the frequent although imperfect generation that is made from out of them as also by the frequent dunging of ground which is known by the most unskilfull husbandmen that so the languishing land may be set forward to pay its due and that with an advantage to the expecting labourer 220 We may guess that that root of Nature which survives the ruin of the mixt bodie is a foot-step and the purest and immortal portion of the first matter informed and signed with the divine character of Light For that ancient matrimonie betwixt the first Matter and its Form is not to be untied from which copulation the other bodies drew their original Moreover it was necessarie that this incorruptible base of corruptible things and as it were the cube-root of them should lie hid always remaining and immortal in the depth of bodies that it might be constantly and perpetually a material Principle having a potentiality and aptitude to life about which as about an immoveable Axle-tree there might be a continual turning of the Elements and things And if we may have the liberty in dark things to guess at what is most likely truth that immortal Substance is the foundation of the material World and the Ferment of its immortality which the Eternal Measurer of all things hath fore-established to survive the day of the conflagration of all things when the Elements shall be purified by that refining fire that so he might renew and repair out of this pure and ever-remaining Matter his work vindicated from original sin and the taint of corruption 221 That this radical Basis is not of the kind of special forms is evident because every individual hath its individual and singular form which doth depart the body upon the dissolution of the mixt Being yet that radical principle remaining unextinguished although it abide much weakened and of little efficacy by reason of the absence of the form yet do those vital sparkles remain apt for the production of more debased and imperfect births which production belongs not so much to Nature as to the matter in its birth this attempteth but is not able to generate without a companion by reason of the absence of the formal and specifical virtue So the carkass of a man or an horse by reason of the defect of seed is not capable for the generation of a man or an horse but of loathed worms and other insects from whence we may guess that that feeble principle of life proceeds from the scarcity of the first matter and rather to be of the family of the lower Elements than of the higher and celestial yet that there is in it some of that tincture of light 222 For certainly that slight spark of that former light which did in the beginning inform the dark matter of the lower Abyss may be sufficient for the generation of insects for it doth work the matter by a confused and disordered motion that it might bring forth the power into a feeble act but the matter warmed by this spark and as it were languishing being corrupted rather by the fancy than the copulation of a male doth rush into the lustfull act and being unable to bring forth a just issue of Nature doth form loathsom phantasms as Worms Hornets Beetles and the like in the
filthy excrements Therefore that radical Moisture is the nearest and never-ceasing subject of generation and life in which is first kindled the fire of Nature and the formal act in a well disposed and prepared matter But in a confused and ill ordered matter where that humour doth act the part of the male it begets spurious and bastard births of Nature for that generation which is made without specifical seed seems to be made rather by chance and default than by the intention of Nature although in it seems to be a dark and confused kind of copulation of actives with passives which is required also to the production of every though imperfect Being 223 That radical Ferment constantly abiding in the depth of mixt Bodies seem to be the Band Seat and Tye of that matrimony contracted between Light and Darkness between the first Matter and the universal Form finally of all the Contraries otherwise the Matter and Form by reason of their repugnant natures would not be knit together But that dark unbridledness of the first matter and its averseness from light was tamed and its hatred turned into love by the good office of that lightsom tincture which doth reconcile things repugnant 224 The inbred Heat and the radical Moisture are of a divers kind for that is wholly spiritual and of the Sun this of a middle nature betwixt a spiritual and a corporeal both participating of an aethereal and elementary Nature that is of the degree of things above this of things below in which was celebrated the first marriage of Heaven Earth by which also Heaven hath its abode in the very Centre of the Earth They are therefore deceived that do confound the inbred heat and the radical Moisture for they differ no less than smoke and flame the light of the Sun and the Air Sulphur and Mercury In mixt Beings the radical Moisture is the seat and food of the inbred and celestial Fire its bond with the Elementary body but that power of Fire is the Form and Soul of mixt Beings In seeds that moisture is the immediate Keeper and Case of that Spirit of Fire inclosed in the seed till it be set on to generation in a disposed Matrix by an adventitious heat Finally that radical Substance is Vulcan's Shop in every mixt Being the Chimney in which is kept that immortal Fire which is the first mover of all the faculties in an individual nature 225 That radical Moisture is the Catholical Balsam the most precious Elixar of Nature the Mercury of Life having a perfect sublimation by Nature a dose of which is administered to every individual of her family weighed to a just quantity by plenteous Nature They that have attained the happiness to fetch out this hidden Treasure of Nature wrapt up close in the heart and in the closets of Natures birth and can get it out of those close coverts of the Elements let him boast that he hath attained the chiefest staff and help of life and a most precious Treasure 226 The order of Reason and of Creation doth require that the first Copies of things being first of all concealed in the celestial Natures were transmitted into inferiour Beings but in the first they are of a far greater perfection both because of their greater tenuity and dignity as also because of their neighbouring seats to the Eternal Being but with us they are much meaner because carved in a grosser and less valuable matter and more distant from their eternal Principle There is nothing therefore printed in this lower Margin of the World which was not at first copied in the heavenly Being neither is there any particular kind of Being of the inferiour natures which doth not acknowledge the dominion of one Superiour agreeable to it and which it hath not the secret seal and signature of it So do things below depend on things above 227 The World is a creature of an ambiguous nature for it is of both Sexes the higher part to wit the celestial is active and masculine the lower Elementary nature is the passive and feminine nature The Globe of the Earth is the womb in which the engendering seed of Heaven is received and kept From the masculine part proceed life and strength from the female part corruption and death do issue 228 Since superiour and inferiour bodies have their original from the same Principles as from their parts yet are they not such as have their equal lot it is equal that those things that have the honour of being nobler substances and advanced to higher offices should distribute to their brethren of a lower degree being poor and in want some of their wealth and so provide for their life and conversation For it was provided by the foresight of the Deity that since there was a necessity that the World should be made up of unequal natures the more powerfull Natures should aid the weaker hand help to the fainting Natures So Love is the indissoluble knot of the parts of the Universe 229 In this sublunary Region diseased Nature sickens out of a defect of the proportion and temperament of the Elements either by reason of the quantity or of the qualities either out of a too great intension or remission and so is there a dissonancy in Natures musick and a distemper in her bodies Therefore the consonancy of the Elements which riseth from a proportion and constitutes their temperament being gone the matter and form of the whole mixt Being hath a bad coherence Nature is troubled and staggers with a perplexed confusion and hence do first diseases and then death assault disordering and falling Nature 230 That discord of those Principles have either an intrinsecal and radical cause as from a vicious seed an evil generation or age or an intrinsecal and accidental as from a too great repletion or emptiness from whence either an excess or defect in humours and spirits or from putrefaction mortal poison infection grief hurt or some other impediment brought upon the Organs of life with the like which do hurt Nature 231 The four radical Qualities of the Elements are as so many harmonious Tones of Nature not contrary but divers and distant each from other by certain pauses from whose rational difference intension and remission is made a perfect consent of Nature perceivable by the understanding bearing an Analogy to that vocal Musick which is heard by the Senses Sharp and Flat in Musick though they are extreams yet are not Contraries in Musick they are the terms of those means which lye betwixt them and are composed and tempered after a divers manner by these two extreams So Heat and Cold Driness and Moisture are the extream Qualities in Nature yet not therefore contrary but onely the bounds of the middle and interjacent Qualities from whose mixture and temperament do the middle proceed 232 The motion of Nature is continual and not tyred no less in every part than in the whole For she always acts never idle so that
Heavens for the Air giving way to the vapour that flies up to it receives it to lodge in the Region of the Clouds as in a large Hall but ere it comes thither its body being in a manner spiritualized the moist Being is divested of its ponderous nature that so it might by this addition of agility the sooner compass its desire and enjoy the priviledge of an ambiguous nature 148 In the mean time the Sun the Prince of the celestial Quire and the rest of the superiour Natures taking care of the inferiour do instil by continual breathings enlivening spirits as so many trilling rivulets from their most clear and pure Fountains But the Vapours being thin and so swimming in the Air or else bound up into a Cloud do most eagerly suck in in that spiritual Nectar and attract it to them by a Magnetick virtue and having received it they grow big and being impregnated and quickened with that ingendering seed as being delivered of their burden do freely fall down back into the lap of the Earth in some Dew hoar Frost Rain or some other nature and this Mother of the Elements doth receive into her womb the returning moisture and being quickened by this Heavenly seed sends forth in her due time innumerable issues according to divers degrees more or less generous according to the goodness of the seed or the disposition of the womb and the inferiour Waters also are made partakers of the benevolence of the Superiour and Celestial because she goes with the Earth to the making up of one and the same Globe and so they receive joynt and common benefits But by the nature of Water is the fermentation of the rest of the Elements 149 But this ferment or leaven is a vivifical spirit flowing down from the superiour Natures upon these inferiour without which the Earth would be again void and empty For it is the seed of Life without which neither man nor any creature nor any growing thing could enjoy the benefit of a generation or life for man lives not by bread alone but especially by that Heavenly food by Air to wit by such a spirit so breathed in and fermented 150 The three material Elements being remote in the composition of things do onely obey God and Nature and come not under the laws of Art or of humane Invention but there are three others that issue from the copulation of these which being extracted by resolution do sufficiently shew that they are the nearest in the composition of mixt Beings to wit Salt Sulphur and Mercury And so it is manifested That there is a Trinity of Elements and a Signature of the universal NATURE 151 These three last Elements are the issue of a three-fold copulation of the three former Mercury of the mixture of Earth and Water Sulphur of the copulation of Earth and Air Salt produced out of the condensation of Air and Water and there can be no more combinations of them named The Fire of Nature is in all of them as their formal principle the virtue of the celestial bodies contributing their influence and co-operation 152 Neither are these latter produced out of any copulation of the former bodies for Mercury comes forth of an unctious Earth and clear Water well diluted and mixt Sulphur is generated of the most subtile and driest Earth coupled with the moist Air Finally Salt is congealed of salt and thick Water and crude Air 153 It may be lawfull to affirm that Democritus his opinion That all bodies were composed out of Atoms is not far distant from truth for both reason and experience do vindicate him from biting tongues for the knowing Philosopher would not wholly conceal but would unfold in an obscure and dark term the mixture of the Elements which that it might be agreeable to the intention of Nature must necessarily be done by the smallest and by actually indivisible Beings other wise the Elements could not combine into a continuous natural body Experience teacheth us in the artifical resolution composition of mixt Beings which are tryed by distillations that the perfect mixtion of two or more bodies is not done but in a subtile vapour But Nature doth make her mixtions far more subtile and as it were spiritual which we may safely believe was the opinion of Democritus for the grosseness of bodies is an impediment to Mixtion therefore the more any thing is attenuated the more apt and fitted it is for mixtion 154 The three-fold degree of Existence in mixt Beings doth offer to us three supream kinds of mixt Beings to wit of Minerals Vegetables and of Animal Beings Natures law hath appointed a Being for Minerals in the Earth for Vegetables in the Earth and the Water for Animals in the Earth Water and Air yet to all the Air is the principal food and foster of life 155 Minerals are thought simply not to have an existence or a life although Metals from Minerals may be said to be endowed with a principal life both because in their generation there is a kind of a copulation and a commixiton of a double seed male and female viz. Sulphure and Mercurie which two by a long and multiplied circulation are turned and purged and being seasoned with the salt of Nature and fermented by it and being perfectly mixed in a most subtile vapour are formed into a clay or soft mass the spirit of Sulphure by degrees closing in the Mercurie at length that Mass doth grow hard and is confirmed to a metallick body 156 As also because perfect Mettals especially do contain in them a principle of life to wit in-set fire infused from heaven which being dulled by being bound in with the hard outside of the Mettal lies hid as void of motion and as an enchanted treasure till getting libertie by philosophical solution and the subtile artifice of the work-man it doth powerfully display its refined spirit and celestial soul by a motion of vegetation in the issue heightned to the sudden perfection of art nature 157 Vegetables also are invested with a vegetative soul or spirit they grow by a vegetative motion and multiplyâ— yet want an animal sence and motion Their seeds are of an Hermaphroditical nature for every particular grain doth contain in it a fruitfull seed without copulation or mixture of a double seed although in every kind almost of Vegetables experience sheweth there are both sexes to be found 158 God also hath wrapt up in the seeds of Vegetables a secret spirit the authour of generation ennobled with a special character which is wholly celestial and a ray of the heavenly light void of corruption in which is preserved the specifical form under the bodie of every individual subsistance which being through corruption resolved lost that immortal spirit being called out by the vivifical and homogeneal heat of the Sun doth rise up in a new stalk and doth bring into it the form of the foâ—mer 159 Animals besides their existence and faculty of
spiritual light 204 A transparent body as glass being pointed with the Sun beams doth gather them and receives in it the image of the Sun and is made lightsom as it were a brief draught of the Sun which sends forth its beams on the farthest side opposite to the Sun from which the beams of the Sun being refracted by the concourse of the glass seem to pass through the glass which yet indeed they do not for the rays by reason of the Air that cleaves to them are setled about the glass the spirit of light onely passing forward but by the beams which are darted out on the other side are the beams of the Sun or of the glass being kindled by the Sun-beams into a lightsom bodie 205 Every transparent body especially glass is a medium of light because it receives light into it and having received it doth communicate it to the Air that is beyond it not by the sending forth of lightsom Air about it which is repugnant to Nature but by another double way First because a transparent body yields to and le ts pass the spirit of light and doth send it forth abroad being received by it which sent forth gets into the adjoyning Air hence springs that plentifull light and besides because that transparent Medium is made by the benefit of the light it receives not onely light in it self but lightsom to others and by the spirit of Light which is in love with transparent bodies becomes as it were a lighted lamp But now every lightsom body hath the priviledge and power to scatter its light which is not granted to thick and dark bodies unless by reflection 206 Those which are the pure natures of mixt Beings are mearly spiritual the bodies are as it were the Barks and Vessels in which they are contained and kept And not otherwise could those sublime Natures unless tied to the corporeal Elements and so bound in by their weight pass this lower Sea and lodge in the Centre of this Abyss They come subject to sense by their bodies the bodies are moved and acted by them so do they do interchangeable offices This that secret of Homers Juno whom Jupiter let down with a weight at her heels 207 Since the whole frame of the Universe is but one onely body one onely universal Nature consisting of many natures and bodies bound together by their proper Mediums and bonds it should not be wondered at that such parts members are knit together by a strong but secret tye and do give a mutual assistance each to other for they have not onely a mutual relation to but also a communication with one the other and these various natures do exercise a kind of a commerce the extreams by the middle the middle by the nearest But this communication is performed by spirits sent forth for all the parts of the world all the individual natures of the world do abound in spirits many of which flowing forth leave room and give way for those that flow in and so is there by the continual ebbing out and flowing in of spirits a continual reparation of the world and of the natures thereof This is the scale of general Nature presented in a vision to the Patriarch Jacob these are Mercuries wings by whose help being mistically termed by the Ancients the Messenger of the Gods he was thought frequently to visit the coasts of the Earth and the courts of Heaven 208 The active principles of every kind of Vegetables or Animals are spiritual their bodies are the passive organs of the spirits by which they exercise the faculties of the senses and do by various actings put forth their powers as the authours of actions so that in the general life may be termed a concent of actions or a continued act diversified by the multiplicitie of actions flowing from a spiritual fountain and brought forth by corporeal organs 209 It is the propertie of the spiritual nature to act of the corporeal to be passive where therefore there is a concourse of both as in mixed bodies that as the more noble doth act and rule this as passive doth obey For the power of act is the priviledge of ruling but the burden of being passive is the mark of being servile so the in-set fire in the seed is the principle of generation and life the highest operating spirit the Archaeus of Nature the orderer in the preparing and forming the matter in the mixtion and distribution of the Elements So doth the Form in the mixt Being exercise its rule at his will as the fountain of all actions So do the virtues of the heavenly Beings dispose and seal all inferiour Elements and corporeal matter 210 Natural bodies which have an active vigour and an occult cause of acting do not as is commonly thought act alone by their qualities but by secret spirits For the fire doth not heat and burn by the single qualitie of heat but by the continual flux of spirits and rayes Neither do the Earth and Water refrigerate or moisten by the alone qualities of cold and moist but by their vapours and in-nate spirits sent forth do affect the sense from without Neither do poysons onely by cold or hot qualities but by malignant spirits bring death or infection sooner or later Concerning Plants or Herbs we must judge alike because their active virtues do not lie hid in their qualities but in their essence which Nature hath made abundant in spirits whose basis and principle powers are concerning spirituals for the bodies are as the shadows or the investments of things under which the invisible Nature is hidden but since qualities are the accidents of things are not therefore able to constitute their essence nor shew forth in their actings those wonderful virtues but are onely as the in set instruments of actions passions which the working spirits that are the workers of all actions make use of in their actings but yet Nature indures them not as principles and efficient causes of actions 211 The natural tinctures odours and tasts of things are special and spiritual gifts of Nature with which it hath suitably inriched her Beings which do not onely contribute to their ornament or onely are inherent in them as extrinsecal accidents but also have an in-set and radical cause and are not so much to be termed accidents as demonstrative tokens of inward virtues by which the occult and formal signatures of things discover themselves 212 Rarefaction and condensation are the two instruments of Nature by which spirits are converted into bodies and bodies into spirits or also by which corporeal Elements are changed into spiritual Beings and spiritual into corporeal for Elements do suffer these changes in mixt bodies So the Earth doth minister spiritual food to the roots of vegetables which being fed upon doth go into the stalk the bark the boughs the branches the flowrs and into the corporeal substance The same is done by Nature in Animals For the meat and
and breaking of the clouds that the Fire turns to a stone or is converted into earth or have a conceit that the Earth is carried up thither This is done far otherwise for that hardened matter was never fire or earth nor proceeded from the Orb of Fire if there be any or from the bodie of the earth but an unctious and viscous humour in a manner clayish shut up in a cloud as in a fornace is so hardened and decocted as an earthen vessel by the heat of the burning exhalations that it turns a stone Hence proceed those darted Thunder-bolts Such meteors as these are the wens weaknesses and diseases of Nature not Elements In the same though after a slower manner is the stone generated in the bodie out of flegm in the reins or bladder For the Microcosm hath also his meteors 124 The fire of nature is far different from our artificial or accidental fire The fire of nature is double either Universal and Particular or Individual The Universal is diffused through all the parts of the Universe doth sweetly excite and move the propensive virtues of the celestial bodies doth impregnate and supply with engendering seed this Globe of ours designed for the generation of things doth infuse virtues into the seeds doth untwist the intangled power of nature mingles the Elements informs the Matter and finally doth unlock the secret of Nature but the fountain of it is in the Sun who as the Heart of the World doth stream forth his enlivening heat as his love through all regions But the particular Fire of Nature is in-born and in-bred in every mixed bodie and individual which flows as a rivulet from that General and doth work all things in this Microcosm or little World MAN according to an Analogie with the Sun in the Macrocosm or greater World But who is there that would not stile our common fire being an opposite of all generation living onely upon prey subsisting upon the ruins of other Beings the destruction of life deputing all things to ashes rather a foe than a friend to nature its enemie not its inmate and rather the ruin than the raising of Life But those fires that are bred in the Airie region are rather engendred by chance than by any intention of Nature 125 Neither are those two bodies of the Earth and Water situated next one to the other convertible each into the other but onely by reason of their neighbourhood are mingled together so that the Water washeth the Earth and the Earth thickens the Water and hence is made Clay being a bodie of neither but a middle betwixt both which if resolved by the force of fire will separate it self into both these natures The water flying out the earth settles neither will there be any conversion of each into the other for that cannot be effected by that single common qualitie of cold since the driness and moisture are not less powerful to resist than the mutual consent of cold can bring them to a conversion Besides the driness and fixation of the Earth are quite opposite to the moist and volatile nature of the Water so there is but one qualitie agreeing to an alteration and many disagreeings which will prevail in the combate Besides here is the help of nature always readie to conserve it self and doth never incline unless upon force and conquest to its ruin or change 126 We may guess the whole Globe of the Earth not to be of a less settled nature than the Heaven the Moon or the Stars for it if it be the centre of the World as it is generally received then certainly the constancie is not less necessary to it than to the rest of the bodies of the World Besides the earth is the same without any essential immutation of what it was from the beginning and what it will be to the end of ages But if it did suffer any notable detriment by the universal deluge in the general or any accidental in particular as by some chasme or by the breakings in of rivers or the Sea this falls out by the supream order of him that doth change at list the laws of the whole and every region or by the discordant harmonie of the World or by some disease of some distempered nature rather than by any propensiveness or viciousness of the Earth For all the bodies of the Universe do lie under their burdens and diseases although they be diversified according to the disagreement of Nature and difference of perfection yet the accidents do not change the nature and constancie of them in respect of the whole Absolute constancie and impassibilitie do onely suit to God alone but the Heaven Water Earth and the rest of the bodies of the Universe shall stand firm in regard of their essence to the designed period of their age 127 If any one of those four natures have a propensitie to conversion it will be strongest in the mean qualities for Water and Air are joyned in greater affinitie between themselves than with the rest or the others amongst themselves For they seem not to differ so much in their qualities as in the intension and remission of them not so much naturally as accidentally For since Water doth by a right of nature challenge to it self moisture and coldness it doth also communicate them to the lower region of the Air by way of commerce for Air obtains no proper qualitie almost besides the highest tenuitie yet capable of receiving the rest therefore is it of an heavenly nature being of it self most temperate and not addict to any proper qualitie doth readily receive and-despence the dispositions influences and virtues of the heavenly bodies Densitie and raritie which in a remiss degree are of kin seem to make the principal difference between Water and our Air for which reason God is said in Genesis to have separated the Waters from the Waters as if by reason of the unity of their nature it seemed more truely to be a division of their situation than a mutation in respect of their essence 128 Yet these bordering natures do not entertain any true and essential reciprocation but onely according to some respect not altogether changed but after some manner and this change is acted in the lower region of the Air which is bound in by the cover of the clouds and reacheth not the middle much less the highest region Water being rarified into a vapour flies up and is rather raised then turned into Air and that vapour condensed doth resolve and fall down again The ancients being led by the legerdemain of sence more than the light of reason conceived this circulation and returning into it self of one and the same nature to be the turning of nature into another but it is found to be otherwise by those that have and use a sharp insight into the depths of Nature He is also deceived that shall call the Air simply a thin Vapour because a Vapour is a middle and imperfect bodie betwixt the