lesser thing according to her Body not likewise according to her Spirit and Soul For these she holds from Adam which are Eternal and Permanent and a Part whereof Eve Possesseth and all that even as all their Parts are Eternal even as was said Now in a further consideration or avouching of the Premises thou shalt find that Women do therefore suffer monthly Issues or Menstrues serving for Propagation because they ought to beget a man as to the Body in that respect as was said Wise Men We acquiesce and moreover through occasion of two Words which thou from the Dutch Idiome hast considerately produced thou recallest two places of Scripture unto our remembrance one rehearsed by the Evangelist Mathew in the twelfth Chapter where Christ saith to the Pharisies He that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth Therefore I say unto you Every Sin and Blasphemy shall be forgiven unto Men Flesh but the Blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven And whosoever shall speak a Word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him but he that shall speak against the holy Spirit it shall not be forgiven him neither in this Age nor in that to come Either make ye the Tree good and its Fruit good or make ye the Tree Evil and its Fruit Evil for truly the Tree is known by the Fruit. Ye Generation of Vipers how can ye speak good things seeing ye are Evil For from the abundance of the Heart the Mouth speaketh The other is mentioned by Luke in the third Chapter after the citing of a place of the Prophet Jsaiah who saith And all Flesh shall see the Salvation of God Therefore be to wit John the Baptist said unto the Multitude which went out to be Baptized of him Ye Generations of Vipers who hath shewn you to flee from the wrath to come do ye therefore Fruits meet for repentance and ye shall not begin to say We have Abraham for our Father For I say unto you because God is able of those Stones to raise up Sons unto Abraham Which two Words are also repeated in these two Texts not badly agreeing with the signification of the Dutch Word and thou shewing unto us by all thy demonstration that the Serpent so called which seduced Eve and her Spirit was certainly her own Flesh and Blood which desired the Fruits of the forbidden Tree and spake to her Spirit for that end so that the name of Serpent is not only accounted the Serpent but as well the Serpent a living Creature as a Man according to the Flesh the which is also moreover seen in the Infancy or Old Age of a Man or when the Spirit is weakened that he is and doth become a Serpent Wherefore after God had committed unto man the dominion over the living Creatures over all the Earth and over every creeping Animal which is moved in the Earth this last Dominion is the greatest whereby he ought to work his own blessedness that which thou shalt more cleerly make manifest from the Text assoon as leasure shall permit for now we hasten because half of the second day of those prefixed hath soon passed away therefore proceed thou and hasten and declare unto us the difference between thee and Adam when he was to strive against his Darkness whereby he as well as thou might have subdued it Mercurius In no other thing besides that Darkness was increased in man by the touching of the Fruits and eating of the forbidden Tree in so much that Darkness holds the prize against the Light and doth now possess it even as in Adam the Light in Adam did possess his Darkness and did illuminate it before his Fall Wise Men How comes this to pass Mercurius This hath come to pass through a Fermenting or Leavening Contagious Darksom and Deadly or Destructive eating Wise Men What wilt thou insinuate thereby explain thy self by Similitudes Mercurius As Darkness was in the face of the deep before that the Spirit of God was carried upon the Waters in like manner thou shalt find a certain Vessel or place which being shut up or hoary and filthy doth even in a very little time render all that which is cast into it alike stinking or rank and surther to infect it neither doth any thing of the first more principal Ferment and Filthiness depart Moreover that it may be demonstrated that this filthy place is also darksom is well learned by those that pertain to Wine-cellars who being desirous to know and experience whether a Hogs-head be hoary or filthy or no do open its mouth and by an End do let in a burning Candle and when the Vessel shall be clean and infected with no Muck or Filth the Candle being let down athwart it will remain burning until its own begetting Vapour doth choak it self but if the Hogs-head be filthy the Flame or Light cannot pierce through the Orifice of the Hogs-head unto the thickness of the Wood. Therefore it manifestly appears that the darkness doth also uncloath or discover it self and make other things darksom just even as the Light doth operate and that when the darkness doth overcome the Light or the Light overcome the Darkness These and the like Darknesses must needs be before all Light and by how much the more stable they are by so much the more stable also is the Body arisen from thence Now it is further to be noted that as a temporal Light doth illustrate out of it self one thing more largely than another according to their stability magnitude or increasing in the like proportion and manner the darkness powers forth its Beams out of it self as was shewn also as a burning and consuming Fire can by its Light enflame burn and stir up many Seeds into a growth or increase according to the rate of their more stable Nature that which I take notice of thou shalt evidently perceive by this Experiment it is seen and felt that by how much the nearer a Fire is kindled by so much the more it shines or enlightens and heats now this heat and brightness is one and the same thing as long as it is in the Fire as by a collection of those hot beams through the help of a certain burning glass may be proved whereby the hot beams are again collected and are made like unto those which exist in the Fire to wit hot and burning ones now when we permit a temporal dispersed and decaying Fire freely to burn we shall discern by the Light which shines forth through the Fire that other created Bodies are burnt at diverse distances from hence to wit in the nearest Body the more stable and combustible one and as the beams are diffused so far also the heat is diminished and will enflame the less stable created bodies The reason is because that which is soon made must needs also have that which soon perisheth wherefore cold and moist Regions do bring forth larger Fruits than hot and
evill inclination doth not come unto us from without elsewhere but it hath increased it self within from sin Out of the heart are murders Adulteries and evill thoughts surely not from the Stars Therefore according to a humble Protestation of my slenderness or weakness I do utterly renounce the opinion teaching that the Stars have a power of infusing an inclination For I was in the beginning held in opinion by divers effects that the seed of a Beast did of its own accord flow into a living Soul and that not obscurely running to and fro and although that in the conceived Embryâ— or imperfect young first of all a certain power doth clearly appear as if it were a certain vegetative Soul yet the same is at length perfected and ariseth into the degree of a sensitive soul And seeing that the seed of man is not more imperfect than a beasts I did also suppose that to flow with the like pace and at length to be perfected into a sensitive soul yet not so as that this sensitive soul doth likewise passe into the nature of mans minde For since two Masters at once not subordinate to each other no man can serve but he must hate either of the two because they are unsufferably opposite So in nature one onely body cannot serve two determined or limited souls and the sensitive soul is not a substance nor lastly an accident as I shall teach in the Chapter of forms but the minde of man is a Spirit also a living substance in the abstract and immortall hence indeed it comes to passe that the sensitive Soul surviving nature doth also willingly receive the humane Soul or it s perfectly ultimate act and that both Souls do peaceably suffer with each other within Which thing being premised I began to consider that a Dog is a devouring biting envious watchfull barking and hunting living Creature and for one crust unmindfull of all benefits ungratefull flattering c. All which things as seminall properties and specificall ones are in the seed of a Dog but not imprinted on him by the Stars but I have known very many of those properties proper to the kinde but some of them to be moreover peculiar to them from their Parents Even so that from hence the race of Dogs doth differ in price or esteem Therefore I have known the like conditions to be in a Dog from the stock of the Seed and not astrall or from the Stars and so where I have beheld the like conditions in a man I have also presently thought that these have from some Dog-like property lurked in the seed of man Again I have noted some living Creatures to be conjugall but others to be born by a promiscuous and incestuous copulation So I have noted tame wild or bruitish crafty uncapable of learning theevish cruel fugitive fearfull milde c. living creatures which conditions as being common to the whole kinde or dispersed throughout famisies I have learned not to arise from the Stars or from the Planet that is Lord of their Nativity but wholly and onely from the seed And therefore I have also likewise thought that such inclinations of men do increase in him that is born from some bruitish property of the seeds I have also found amongst men oft-times whole families to be furious stupid or blockish crafty insolent or proud lascivious c. Whence some are called a viperous generation Likewise Tell ye Herod the Fox wherefore I have begun to remove wit judgement memory manners inclinations yea the dispositions of death and fortune wholly from the Stars Again it is also in the hand of the causer or begetter to generate a male or a female but masculine conditions inclinations wits properties are far distinct from female ones For the Church prayeth for the devout femall Sex wherefore morall inclination or devotion is due to the Sex not to the Stars For Horses are judged by the colour of their hairs but colours are varified in conception by art Moreover conditions and inclinations are changed by ages To wit Children are delighted with other things than men For a sober young man sometimes becomes an old drinker and on the contrary A liberall young man is oft times covetous when he growes old Also a greedy desire of Seed which he lesse wanteth and ought lesse to desire doth oft accompany him which surely do not depend on the direction of the Stars if the same Lord of the Nativity doth govern the whole life For truly I have distinguished of inclinations to wit that one is that whereby any one doth naturally incline into Professions Religions Arts Sciences Merchandise or affaires of Exercise This I name an inclination of ones Calling But the other inclination concerneth manners virtues vices which I call morall or ethicall But the third respecteth health Diseases a long or short life And therefore I name this inclination vitall At length the fourth is of fortunes But so far as belongeth to the first we believe by faith That God immediately creates mans minde and directs it to a certain Calling of its own in which it may please it self most which way he reacheth to it worthy Talents 5. 2. or one onely Talent Therefore the inclination of Calling whereby any one is made a Physitian a Geometrician a Musitian c. is given to the Soul by the Creator himself from whom every good gift cometh from above Therefore all inclinations of Calling for that very cause are good But a morall inclination as it is meerly Beast-like so I have already demonstrated before that it dependeth on the Being of the seed For truly the Stars should be simply evill if they should incline man to vices And the Creator had erred in judgement Because he had seen that whatsoever things he had made were good Therefore an inclination to evill springs from nature corrupted in its Root and Seed out of the heart do spring evill thoughts according to Gospel-light and from the Soul consents even as a strong inclination from a custom of sinning But good springs from grace will and exercise Surely it is in no wise a stranger to us by reason of the Stars For the first things which constitute us were equally defiled by corruption but unequally distributed and participated of from the goodnesse of the seed the conception of the Mother education c. or on the contrary And therefore all inclinations seminall do grow are increased or do decrease according to the properties of the flowings of the seeds to increase or declining But that the third inclination is from the weakness or strength of the seeds and wholly subject to the Archeus the directer in nature none but an Astrologer will dispute who being ill prepared refers all things to the motions of the Stars even unto Idolatry and attributes to himself the right of unfolding them first of all not distinguishing the power of shewing from the effective virtue nor knowing that the seven Planets or wandring Stars are onely to be
an enemy to the veins but that these do draw no hostile thing unto them from whence it followes that the veins of the stomach do not allure any thing of the Cream under them and that all bloud before it be attracted by the veins of the Mesentery hath boren the hand of the ferment of the Gaul in its own stomach of the bowels yea although the Arteries being dispersed throughout the stomach do suck the Spirit of Wine yet they draw no juyce For which way should the Arteries draw juyce seeing they can never do any good thereby seeing sanguification doth not belong to the heart but to the Liver Seeing the juyce being attracted in the Artery should of necessity be a hinderance and ought to be corrupted If therefore the Arteries have a natural endowment of avoyding things hurtful and likewise of drawing vital things unto them and things appointed for them by the Lord of things shall that discretion be denied to the veins in the stomach For nature should have dealt ill with Horses who being content with one onely draught in the morning are fed all the day after with Straw Hay Chaffe Oats or Barley For truly dry or unjucie things should straightway contract thirst in the stomach if the veins of the stomach should draw drink unto them Horses should be thirsty all the day Therefore the drink ought of necessity to remain in the stomach so long as that it may expect there an end of future digestion least the sour Liquor be drawn into the veins which is plainly hostile or least the Cream being half cocted be supped up by the veins before the appointed time Therefore there is another use of the veins of the stomach than that which is of the meseraick veins And therefore the Argument objected falls to the ground because the meseraick veins are the stomach of the Liver and there is not another besides those the veins of the stomach are not likewise that which are onely dedicated to the nourishing of the stomach Again whensoever the Pylorus is not exactly shut it happens as in long drinkings that the stomach doth almost with a continual thred as it were make water downwards by dropping into the bowel but in those that have Fevers whose Pylorus doth erre through too much straightness the drink doth sometimes remain a full three dayes space and at length more is cast back by one onely vomit than was taken in two dayes which thing surely doth oppose that that the veins of the stomach do attract juyce It hath oft-times befallen me lying in a Coach with my face upwards that I should hear through the jogging of the wayes my stomach to contain a Chyle floating in me like to a Bottle half full but that I have often gone to bed after that without a Supper or drink yea that I felt my stomach in the morning as I did the day before Wherefore I being somewhat curious have provoked my self to vomit and I vomited up Cream somewhat sour plenteous transparent so that my teeth were astonished by reason of the sourness and although I felt no burden before vomiting yet after vomiting I perceived an easement or lightning whence I observed First of all that if the veins of the stomach had now sucked the Chyle 20 hours I had not been as yet able to have cast back so much from a moderate yesterdayes dinner 2. That the sour Cream is not allured by the veins 3. That that sourish Cream was not as yet dismissed from the stomach not indeed through the vice of digestion but through the errour of the Pylorus 4. That digestion differs from the expulsive faculty if one be perfected the other being absent or failing 5. That now and then the digestion beares the unguilty fault of the expulsive saculty and this of it 6. That as I did offend by too much shutting of the Pylorus so drinkers do offend-by a too much negligent bolting of the Pylorus 7. Moreover at the beginnings of Diseases things are often cast back which were taken three dayes before 8. That it belongs not to the veins of the stomach to attract the Cream 9. That nevertheless the Doctrine remaineth which hath made it a foolish thing for a Clyster to be injected by the fundament for nourishing of the sick 10. That the upper orifice of the stomach in Fevers offends by too much opening and thirst but that the Pylorus errs through a strict closure of himself 11. That in Fevers both digestion and also expulsion do offend 12. That the Key of the Orifice or upper mouth of the stomach is in the Spleen and that of the Pylorus in the Gaul by reason of the divers seats of a twofold ferment 13. That the reason of Scituation for the Spleen and Gaul is from the reason of their office For indeed the Schools do extend the first Region of the Body from one extream from the mouth even into the fundament and from the other extream even into the hollow of the Liver But I do describe the Regions by digestions seeing otherwise without these a Region it self is a Being of Reason For what doth it belong to a digestion that there is the utterance of an excrement what doth it pertain to the stomach that its drosse departs thorow the fundament For the Dung of the intestine is no more the excrement of the stomach than sweat is therefore if the fundament belongs to the first Region by reason of the excrement of the stomach therefore also the Skin shall belong to the first Region by Reason of sweat and the Bladder by reason of Urine Therefore not an excrement Lastly not the departure hereof but digestion alone doth prescribe a limit unto a Region and therefore there are as many Regions as digestions In the next place the shop of sanguification is not the Liver it self in its own substance because even the Liver of Fishes should also make their venal bloud but yet seeing every thing generates the like to it self it should of necessity be that either the Liver of Fishes should be red or their bloud to be white both whereof are false whence we learn that sanguification it self is made in the Liver it s own stomach which is the manifold vessel it self of the Mesentery Otherwise the Liver hath too few and slender veins for the due perfecting of the juyce of so great a heap For out of them the last perfection of sanguification is inspired into the hollow vein on the venal bloud by the ferment of the Liver And the Schools do think that sanguification is made by an actual nourishing warmth of the Liver and Cream because they are ignorant of any other actions than those which happen through a daily touching or comprehending And therefore also that every Agent ought necessarily to suffer by reason of a resistance are-acting of the Patient and that is the unexcusable containing cause of our death because the radical heat For they hold it a firm thing that
their wicked abuses who thinking that they have reached unto the bottom of Truth they boast of their most polished and sublimed wits and therefore they laugh at other good or honest persons who implore the Grace of God in Faith Hope and Charity as simple men and almost foolish and as those that roast themselves as a broiled Fish in vain And they wax daily worse and worse the Devil stirring them up Who goes about as a roaring Lyon seeking daily whom he may devour But especially the evil examples of some Preachers and Vowers of voluntary Poverty Obedience Humility and Charity do nourish Atheisms who notwithstanding are wholly without Humility Charity being altogether Ambitious Envious Couetous they over flow in Wealth they follow their own Profits that not only their Belly but they themselves wholly may be a God to themselves For truly under a Cloak of Hypoâ—â—â—ie they wrest aside the Almes appointed and to be appointed for the Poor to themselves So as their life being diverted into a Scorn of Religion hath driven for that cause even the more Judicious and also the weaker Sort into Atheism But the Holy Spirit shall at sometime Reforme this Madness of Errour on both sides who is able only to cleanse and sweep away the Intestine filth from his Church In the next place the Scripture it self entering into that evil mind it is wrested in a wrong sense and hath confirmed Atheism which otherwise ought to moue to filial obedience and due love towards God For first they argue distinctiuely and presently after they conclude copulatively for Atheism To wit they say that Bibles do profess one only and eternal Power Omnipotent and Unchangeable Therefore either the Chronicles of Bibles are the meer Fables of the Hebrewes or the God or Power which the Christians do at this day Worship or the Turks is far different from the God of the Jewes For if we know a Tree by his Fruits and a man by his Works the God also may be a doubtful God which the Christians with the Turks do adore and believe together with the Jewes as one only God remaining always Immortal he shall be to be known and believed by his own works and that such as beseeme him For as many enemies as in times past are read to have rushed on the people of Israel were overthrown by a small number and were slain through the Astonishment of their minds by Terrour or by a mutual Slaughter or killing of each other although the Camps of the same enemies were numerous like the â—o casts and the Camels of the same in numerable as the sand of the Sea shore Yet through a panick fear they run away howling from three hundred Hebrews founding Hornes and now and then they slay each other with their own Sword so as there was not one that surviued who might carry home news of all that Slaughter Yea without the help of Warriours one only Angel destroyed 180 thousand by Death and that with one only Sword For if those things are true which are them read and esteemed and the power be at this day the same which he was in times past and alike powerful he ought alike powerfully to help the Christians now his own people against their enemies by whom they are surrounded and subdued or enthralled daily For at this day publick Idolatry ceaseth which was In times past accused for the cause of overthrow and the cause of the Divine power himself is at this day managed if the Church the Spouse of the same and the Sacraments of his Body be disgracefully trampled on and the daily Sacrifice or Host be hung up and mocked with great reproach The disjunctive of both which howsoever it be taken doth at least convince that that antient Deity hath failed in manner in Being or essence and in power and that the new one or that which the Christians do now worship of which powers as well as of believers there are great discords in the whole World hostily spoiling each other is not alike powerful or alike bountiful to his faithful ones as the antient Deity was to his own Israel in times past Because at this day Angels nor Swords do no longer appear neither do huge Camps any longer kill each other with a mutual slaughter As neither being affrighted in crying out do they run away from Christians armed with Chariots on Horse-back and with fiery Engines from hence our Atheists conclude that as many as do believe an Immortal and Omnipotent Being that is a God do live deceived And from thence consequently they do further rightly inferre If any Divine power doth at length die or fail much more the mind of man which sprung from Mortal Parents For these Arguments are those which withdraw the people of Christ first unto a neglect of Divine worship and at length unto the toplof Atheism After that the Devil took notice that worshipping of Idols and a multiplicity of Starry Gods among the Judicious were despised as being loose and friuoâ—us meanes whereby he might allure people unto his own Hook he more subtilly spreads this Net of Atheism and collected a more numerous Prey which future Atheism God foretold by his Servants the Prophets The Foole hath said in his heart there is no God the Atheists are corrupted and become Abominable in Iniquities there is none that can do good God hath looked down from Heaven upon the Sons of men to see if there be one that understandeth or seeketh after Gods For the Atheist hath said in his heart if I might see God an Angel or evil Spirit Yea or the Spirit of a man I would verily believe that they were But I will not believe what I do not see or hear all things are unaccustomed unto me and therefore they seem incredible But I think with Aristotle that all knowledge and all intellective Learning is made only from a fore-existing knowledge of the Senses To whom the Devil answereth it is good for him so to remain And God faith for he that to this end desireth to see that he may believe is now guilty of sin but the spirit of Truth entereth not into a Soul guilty of sin and therefore it is not convenient that thou shouldest see those things which thou desirest to see that thou maiest believe For neither is sin a Meanes for the attaining of Faith It is a Blasphemous and wicked Judgment to have denied a God or a Devil because it was not granted to him to have seen either of the two neither whereof is to be seen unless in an assumed Form In the next place it is a rotten and childish Argument God doth not perform to Christians at this day those things which he sometimes of old performed to the Jewes therefore he is not the the same as in times past or is diminished from his antient power For truly the matter is changed not so much from the power as from the will of God But why he will not
Testimony of Jesus Syrach being hitherto an obscure one yet a most true one comes to be considered Whereby he would have all Rivers by consequence also Fountains to proceed and issue from the Sea and at last to finish their Courses into the Sea Truly Syrach hath hitherto left a disquieted or dubious Posterity of Phylosophers to wit in what manner the Waters do contend upwards from the Sea Seeing that the Earth every where constituting a Lip of the Sea hath retained the Victory because it hath restrained it by a Superiority of Scituation But it is not yet therefore sufficiently manifest how the Sea seeing there is an off-scouring of heaped-up waters into the lowest Valley of the Earth should besides be able to ascend to the highest Rocks and there to stir up Fountains Certainly the Rules of the Art of drawing Water are here silent if the Sctipture be to be observed as it ought to be done Therefore some neglect this place as un-touched but others undertake to explain it with a Moderation To wit that Rivers being indeed allured out of the Sea in manner of a Vapour should at length by Rains Snows and Showrs an interjected tragedy of a masked transmutation require or return to the Sea But this is to contend that all Fountains have arose from Rain or at least-wise from condensed or co-thickned air And then they unjustly command that not any Vapour is fetched from the Earth but from the Sea alone or the holy Scripture shall in vain affirm that Rivers are begged only from the Sea and not likewise from the Face of the Earth not to be separated in manner of a Vapour Which Straits when as they seemed to many to be irreconcileable or not to be shaken off they by chance drave and dashed a certain Author of the Fountains of the Spaw against the Rock For although I shall dissemble any thing that is of Mans weakness in the same yet Christian Piety in an honest man doth not suffer publique Blasphemy to pass over un admonished of The which Author therefore I beseech to indulge my Liberty Aristotle he saith would have all Fountains and Rivers to be bred of Air resolved into Water He had not read I believe although he were Plato's Schollar that those four River of Paradise in Phaedo issued forth from the Command of God Why I pray thee if thou sayest that great Rivers are even at this day also bred only by a constriction of the Air have they not also Phaedo being read and Nature moreover being a Virgin issued from the same Constriction forthwith after the Creation And he who believed the World to be from Eternity to have left Phaedo neglected nor to have expected any condensing of Air unless perhaps he doated before Goropius Becanus That those four Rivers were nothing else but the Ocean sending forth Rivers into the four Coasts of the World in which Sense also the Syrachian Preacher saith That all Waters do come from the Sea and again that having passed their Course they render themselves unto the Sea which Words do thus sound in the Schooles Goropius doated and Plato before him if he said that the Ocean did disperse four Rivers into the Coasts of the World without any co-thickning of Air in which same sense notwithstanding the Preacher hath affirmed it Therefore in the same sense Ecclesiastes or the Preacher doated But is not yet enough said is not I say the Interpretation of the holy Scriptures as yet plain enough Therefore we must of necessity first of all set before our Eyes the Diversity and Pavements of Soyles in the Earth For elsewhere a Black-earth abounding with Muds and Filths a Clayie White-clayie Fat Barren Fenny Metally Sandy Stony-Earth and adorned with a various Comeliness is presented to our Sight according to the tempera ture of the Soyle and Heaven the Influences of the Stars and Suiting of Showrs because indeed they are Fruits but not an Elemenr The which first Soyle of Nature if thou shalt Pounce thou shalt in most places discover great or rockie Stones again Mettals or Mineral Iuices but in some places a Sand and that here yellow elsewhere ashie there skie-coulered next a little greenish according to the changeable and many-form dis-junction of the lurking Spirit for Nature is subject to the Soyle and the appointment of the subterraneous Archeus received from the creating Word Indeed in the Cup and most rich Storehouse of the Elements do lay hid Reasons or Respects being entertained from the Beginning durable for Ages they being the knowledge of things that are afterwards to be in their time they being instructed for the uses of ungrateful Man and patiently expecting from the Creation of the World the compleat Digestions of things and the fulness or maturity of Times or Seasons and the which an Architectonical or Master-working Chaos being the impetuous or forcible Chaos the Spirit I say limited to our necessities and filled with the Idea's of things which are to be in process of time doth asist Furthermore of Soyls there is not every where a like depth For in some places much depth of Sand but elsewhere very much of Earth doth occur But straightway under the Soyle or bottom of the Sand there is another for the mostpart rockie or stonie For that is by our Country-men called Keybergh whereon a race of Rocks being supported here the more wealthy ranks of Mettals and in the next place of Minerals have their Inns And at length under a long and much unlikeness of Sand under the Rudiments of Rocks that Sand that Sand I say being most bright offers it self being void of a metallick Quality and a strange Defilement which Sand I say is the last Soyle and unpenetrable yet oft-times plain to be seen in the superficies of the Earth For therefore Nature indulging her own liberty laughs at our Laws and despiseth the Bolts of Predicaments by an univocal or single Soyle That last Ground or Soyle of Nature our Country-men name the Quellem but the French Sable Bovillant the which a Spade or Mattock hath not hitherto passed thorow Because how much Sand soever and how much Water thou shalt empty out from thence yet presently others do fly unto it with an uncessant and swift course for the supplying of the former Defect From thence therefore I conclude That the aforesaid Soyle as it is the last in order of Nature doth so continue even unto the Center unless perhaps the neathermost doth hold or possess some miles of the heart of the earth It followes from thence that that Sand is the matter of the earth not subject unto successive change but is a perpetual and constant Sieve whereby Nature doth strain thorow her uncessant Treasures of Waters and most clear Fountains for the communion of the Universe In this Soyle I say there is a vital Vigour of the boyling-up Water For as long as the Waters are conversant in the same Ground or Soyle they are lively being
Spirit of the Salt of Urin not so From hence at leastwise it is manifest that there is a Salt and volatile Spirit in the venal Blood But after what manner the whole venal Blood may be homogeneally transchanged by the Ferment of the Heart cannot be explained by Words because Natures themselves are not demonstrable from a former Cause For the Operations of Ferments for the transmutation of things are essential but not the accidentary Propagations of Accidents for the causing of Dipositions only The vital Spirit therefore is plainly Salt therefore Balsamical and a Preserver from Corruption That although the Aqua Vitae doth easily pass into vital Spirit yet this Spirit is not Oylie or combustile like the Aqua Vitae but the Spirit of Wine only through a touching of the Ferment is easily wholly changed into a salt Spirit and forthwith looseth its inflamable Disposition Even as I have taught in the Book of the Stone in Man after what manner Aqua Vitae may by the Spirit of Urin be in one only instant coagulated into a subtile Gobbet or Lump The which concerning the volatile Salt of the arterial Blood may through the effective Ferment of the Heart be much more evidently proved Wherefore they who for some good while do undergo the beating of the Heart although they shall then drink abundantly and that much of the more pure Wine yet they are not easily made Drunk Because that by reason of an urgent necessity the Spirit of the Wine is most speedily attracted into the Heart and Arteries which are scanty in spirits and is suddenly formed into vital Spirit It restoreth I say the Strength or Faculties neither yet doth it then make drunk because it is no longer a stranger but being drawn into the Heart it easily becomes domestical and then is on every side dispensed through the Arteries For it doth not argue to the contrary that the Spirit of Salt-peter is sharp and that therefore the vital Spirit ought to be sharp For neither was the Spirit from whence Salt-peter was made in the Earth then sharp And therefore the vital Spirit is Salt and nearer to the Spirit of Urin than of Salt-peter the which by reason of Adustion and Extraction is alwayes a new Creature of its composed Body That Foundation therefore which is laid by the Ferment of the Gaul in volatilizing and making Salt this afterwards is perfected in the Shop of the Heart For the foregoing Digestions are as so many Dispositions unto vital Functions and Necessities for a Member being once stupified if Sense or Feeling shall return that surely is made with sensible Spurs and Prickings which are the tokens of true saltness But that the whole venal Blood is a meer Salt may not from elsewhere be more clearly deducted than that because in the Dropsy Ascites and in Ulcers it is homogeneally through a most easie Degeneration changed into a salt Liquor But a salt sharp Quality and subtile Matter was suitable to the vital Spirit if it ought to be sufficient for preserving of the Members The redness also of the venal Blood assumeth a yellowness while it is made arterial Blood because that which is Red through the tartness of Salt waxeth Yellow in its dissolving Neither yet hath the arterial Blood lost all its redness for truly a Part thereof ought to remain for the Nourishment of the solid Members It is a dead or invalid thing whatsoever I have hitherto said that the Spirit of Life is a salt sharp Vapour and made of the arterial Blood by the vital Members their own Ferments I will therefore Speak of the Life of the Spirit For seeing it ought to do its Duty with the Offices of Life it was not required that it should be in the shew of a salt Liquor or arterial Blood or that it should befool us under the likeness of a salt Exhalation but because it ought primarily to live and receive the Life it was meet for it to be enlightned not indeed with a burning enflaming or fiery Light but with a simple vital Light of the Nature of soulified Formes of the sensitive Life and Soul and that indeed of a humane Species For for the Understanding thereof suppose thou that Wormâ— named Glow-wormes have by Night a Light in their Belly which not only shines like the Eyes of a Cat but also pouers forth a thin Light round about that Light is extinguished with the Life of the Glow-worme A like Light suppose thou to be which enlightneth the vital Spirit as long as it liveth it shineth and is propagated into Spirit newly made being duly elabourated And by how much the more impure and the less elabourated it shall be by so much shall that Light be the Darker But that Light is extinguished in us the Matter of the Spirit remaining in the Plague Poysons c. even as by Swooning and Beating of the Heart the Light is extinguished and the Spirit vanisheth away In time of Death also the Membrane of the Eye is destitute of a manifest Light plainly to be seen Yet the Essence of that Light in Glow-worms is not so alike to that which is in us to wit as they differ from us only in Degree But there are as many Species of these Lights as there are of vital Creatures That is unto us a token of divine Bounty that there are so many Species and vital Differences of Lights which by us are comprehended under one only Notion because that those Lights are the very Lives and Forms themselves of vital Creatures So that the thrice most glorious Father of Lights doth recreate himself in the abundance of the kinds of Lights with no less a Lavishment than as in one only humane Countenance he hath fashioned almost as many Varieties as Men because there is in his Power a certain Common-wealth of vital Lights and Band of innumerable Citizens a certain Similitude whereof he expresseth in vital soulified Creatures by a Life a Form that is by a vital Light The vital Spirit therefore Is Arterial Blood resolved by the force of the Ferment and Motion of the Heart into a salt Air being vitally enlightned which Light in us is hot but in the Fish it is so actually cold that it is never able to aspire unto a Power of Heat as long as it liveth and subsisteth Our Heat therefore is not a consumer of the Original Moisture as neither therefore through want of Heat do Fishes hitherto escape Death although their Moisture be not lifted up into an Exhalation and least of all in the frozen Sea For neither shall the Capuchin our Country-man who is cold for the greatest part of the year from his Feet even unto his Belly nor feeling himself to have Feet therefore not undergo a dayly transpiration of the nourishable Moisture or doth he refuse the Refreshment of Nourishments or is the Capuchin changed in those parts into a Fish the which otherwise should be necessary for him to be if Heat should
Ointment is called Sympathetical another Magnetical 3. What Mummy is 4. Phylosophy is immediately reproved by Reasons onely 5. The difference of Law and Phylosophy 6. From an ignorance of the Cause Magnatism is accounted a Devil 7. Who may be the Interpreters of Nature 8. Why Alchymists onely can Interpret Nature 9. He is proud who from an ignorance of the Cause believes a thing to be of the Devil 10. Who are the Devils flatterers 11. Magnetism is no new Invention 12. The Armary or Weapon-unguent 13. The intent aim remedies or ingredients and manner in the Ointment are good 14. Why the Unguent is not unlawful 15. Why it is not Superstitious 16. What Superstition is 17. Why the manner of the Unguent being unknown to the censurer can nothing disprove it 18. What Magnetism is 19. Some Effects of the Load-stone 20. The Magnetical Cure of incurable Diseases is perfect 21. Milk being burned dries up the Dugs 22. Vitriol dies through Magnetism or Attraction 23. Mummy operates from Italy even to Bruxels 24. The Carline Thistle under the shade draws wonderfully 25. Likewise the same Disease in number changeth its Subjects 26. That from Magnetism Flowers are followers of the Sun 27. Mummies which are Philtrous or pertaining to Love how they are attractive 28. That the Arcanum or secret of the Blood is the Load-stone of Alchymists 29. Herbs why and after what sort they are Attractive 30. Asarabacca and the Elder are Magnetical 31. An implicite compact or covenant is the Anchor of the Ignorant 32. Sympathy presupposeth a sense or feeling 33. The Mummy of a Dead Brother being long since impressed on a seat is as yet attractive 43. The Saphire is an imitator of the Unguent in Magnetism 35. The Saphire by touching of one Carbuncle cures others 36. Why the Prelates of the Church wear skie-coloured Rings 37. Man hath his Load-stone 38. An Amulet for the Plague 39. It is of necessity that the same accident should pass from subject into subject 40. Magnetism is an heavenly quality 41. A Thief Robber or Murderer and an honest Man or Woman afford the same Mosse of their dead skull 42. From whence and what the seed of that Mosse is 43. The fruit of the Air. 44. That Usnea or Mosse is a fruit of Fire 45. In that Mosse also is the Back of the Load-stone the scope being changed 46. God in Miracles follows Nature 47. God approves of the Magnetism of the Unguent by Reliques 48. A supernatural Magnetism proves a natural one 49. A lock of that Mosse being incarnate in the fore-head is a defence against a sword but a Thred or rag of the stole of S. Hubbert against the tooth of a mad Dog 50. A rag being incarnate in the fore-head preserves from the biting of a mad Dog for ones whole life time an impression of blood doth the same in the Zinzilla 51. Pepper degenerates into Ivy. 52. How we must judge of Persons 53. Paracelsus the Monarch of Secrets 54. Every thing hath its own particular Heaven 55. From whence inclination is 56. From whence a Disease is Astral in us 57. Whence sick persons have a fore-feeling of the stormes of the times 58. What may cause the flowing and ebbing in the Sea 59. Whence Windes are stirred up 60. The Heaven doth not cause but pronounce things to come 61. The Being of every seed hath the firmament and virtue of its own influence 62. The Vine not the Heaven disturbs Wines 63. Antimony observes an influence 64. The Load-stone directs its self but is not drawn 65. Glass is Magnetical 66. Rosin is Magnetical 67. What Garlick acteth against the Load-stone and why the same thing also concerning Mercury 68. The virtue or power of operation on an Object at a distance is natural even in sublunary things and it is Magnetical 69. Every Creature liveth in its own mode or after its own manner 70. What the Unguent can draw from a Wound at a distance 71. Every Satanical effect is imperfect 72. Why Satan cannot co-operate with our Unguent 73. What may be called the Will and Imagination of the Flesh and of the outward Man 74. A twofold Extasie 75. The Ecstatical power of the Blood 76. Corruption makes that lurking power manifest 77. The Essences of things do not putrifie 78. The putrefaction of Alchymy to what end it is 79. The Cause of Attraction in the Unguent 80. The heart is drawn by the treasure magnetically or after the manner of a Load-stone 81. Necromancy or the Black-Art from whence it is 82. What Man is as a living Creature and what Man is as being the Image of God 83. After what manner the Eagle is allured by the Magnetisme of a dead Carcase 84. How the venal Bloud is drawn in the Unguent unto its own treasure Why Eagles are allured to a dead Carcase magnetically 85. A natural feeling or perceivance and an animal feeling do differ 86. The Effects of Witches are wicked ones 87. The power of a Witch is natural and of what sort that power may be 88. Where the Magical power in man is seated 89. Whether man bears command over all other Bodies 90. Why a man may act per nutum or by his beck or pleasure 91. What the Magical faculty may be 92. The Magical power lyes hid in man after divers manners 93. The inward man is the same with the outward fundamentally but materially diverse 94. What the vital Spirit its knowledge and gift is 95. In a Carcase which dies of its own accord there is no implanted Spirit 96. The divining of Spirits according to Physitians 97. The Soul acts in the Body onely per nutum Magically 98. The Soul acts in the Body onely by a drowsie beck but out of the Body by an excited beck The knowledge of the Apple hinders Science Magical or Wise Knowledge 99. The beginning of the Cabal is drawn from God in Dreams 100. The defect of Understanding is in the outward man 101. What Satan can do in Witches 102. What are the true works of Satan alone 103. Sin hath withdrawn the endowments of Grace and hath obscured the gifts of Nature 104. Whither the pious exercises of Catholicks tend 105. The most powerful effect of the Cabal 106. There are two subjects of any kind of things 107. Man acts as well by his Spirit as by his Body 108. What kind of ray or beam is sent from a Witch into a bruit 109. How a Witch may be bewrayed 110. How a Witch may be bound up in the heart of a Horse 111. The Intention depraves or vitiates a good Work 112. The Seminal virtue is natural Magick 113. Why blood issues out of the dead Carcase when the Murtherer is present 114. Why the Plague is frequent in Sieges 115. Works of Mercy are to be exercised at least in respect of avoiding the Plague 116. Plagues from Revenge and execration are detestable 117. Why Bodies were to be removed from the Gibbet 118. Why Excrements
seeing the essences of things and their vital Spirits know not how to putrifie by the dissolution of the inferiour harmony they spring up as surviving afresh For from thence it is that every occult property the compact of their bodies being by fore-going digestions which we call putrefactions now dissolved comes forth free to hand dispatched and manifest for action Therefore when a Wound through the entrance of air hath admitted of an adverse quality from whence the blood forthwith swells with heat or rage in its lips and otherwise becomes mattery it happens that the blood in the Wound freshly made by reason of the said forreign quality doth now enter into the Beginnings of some kind of corruption which blood being also then received on the Weapon or Splinter thereof is besmeared with the Magnetick Unguent the which entrance of corruption mediating the ecstatical power lurking potentially in the blood is brought forth into action which power because it is an exiled returner unto its own body by reason of the hidden extasie hence that blood bears an individual respect unto the blood of its whole body Then indeed the Magnet or attractive faculty is busied in operating in the Unguent and through the mediation of the ecstatical power for so I call it for want of an Etymologie sucks out the hurtful quality from the lips of the Wound and at length through the Mumial Balsamical and attractive virtue attained in the Unguent the Magnetism is perfected Loe thou hast now the positive reason of the Natural Magnetism in the Unguent drawn from Natural Magick whereunto the light of Truth assents saying Where the Treasure is there is the Heart also For if the Treasure be in Heaven then the Heart that is the Spirit of the Internal Man is in God who is the Paradise who alone is Eternal Life But if the treasure be fixed or laid up in frail or mortal things then also the Heart and Spirit of the more external Man is in Fading things Neither is there any cause of bringing in a Mystical sense by taking not the Spirit but the Cogitation and naked Desire for the Heart for that would contain a frivolous thing that wheresoever a Man should place his Treasure in his Thought or Cogitation there his Cogitation would be Also Truth it self doth not interpret the present Text Mystically and also by an Example adjoyned shews a local and real presence of the Eagles with the dead Carcase So also that the Spirit of the Inward Man is locally in the kingdom of God in us which is God himself and that the Heart or Spirit of the animal or outward sensitive man is locally about its Treasure What wonder is it that the astral Spirits of carnal or animal men should as yet after their funerals shew themselves as in a bravery wandring about their buried Treasure whereunto the whole Necromancy or art of Divination by the calling of Spirits of the Antients hath enslaved it self I say therefore that the external Man is an Animal or living creature making use of the reason and will of the Blood But in the mean time not baâ—ely an Animal but moreover the Image of God Logicians therefore may see how defectively they define a man from the power of rational discourse But of these things more elsewhere I will therefore adjoyn the Magnetism of Eagles to Carcases for neither are flying Fowls endowed with such an acute smelling that they can with a mutual consent go from Italy into Affrica unto Carcases For neither is an odour so largely and widely spread for the ample latitude of the interposed Sea hinders it and also a certain Elementary property of consuming it Nor is there any ground that thou shouldest think these Birds do perceive the dead Carcases at so far a distance with their sight especially if those Birds shall lye Southwards behind a Mountain But what need is there to enforce the Magnetism of Fowl by many Arguments since God himself who is the beginning and end of Phylosophy doth expresly determine the same process to be of the Heart and Treasure with these Birds and the Carcase and so interchangeably between these and them For if the Eagles were led to their food the Carcases with the same appetite whereby four-sooted Beasts are brought on to their pastures certainly he had said in one word That living Creatures flock to their Food even as the Heart of a Man to his Treasure which would contain a falshood For neither doth the Heart of Man proceed unto its Treasure that he may be filled therewith as living Creatures do to their Meat And therefore the Comparison of the Heart of Man and of the Eagle lyes not in the end for which they tend or incline to a desire but in the manner of tendency namely that they are allured and carried on by Magnetism really and locally Therefore the Spirit and will of the Blood fetch'd out of the Wound having intruded it self into the Oyntment by the Weapons being anointed therewith do tend towards their Treasure that is the rest of the Blood as yet enjoying the Life of the more inward Man But he saith by a peculiar Testimony that the Eagle is drawn to the Carcass Because she is called thereunto by an implanted and Mumial Spirit of the Carcass but not by the odour of the putrifying Body For indeed that Animal in assimilating appropriates to himself onely this Mumial Spirit For from hence it is said of the Eagle in a peculiar manner My youth shall be renewed as the Eagle For truly the renewing of her youth proceeds from an essential extraction of the Mumial Spirit being well refined by a certain singular digestion proper to that Fowl and not from a bare eating of the flesh of the Carcases otherwise Dogs also and Pies would be renewed which is false Thou wilt say that it is a reason far fetcht in behalf of Magnetism But what wilt thou then infer hereupon If that which thou confessest to be far remote for thy capacity of understanding that shall also with thee be accounted to be fetcht from far Truly the Book of Genesis avoucheth That in the blood of all living Creatures doth their Soul exist For there are in the blood certain vital powers the which as if they were soulified or enlivened do demand revenge from Heaven yea and judicial punishment from earthly Judges on the Murderer which powers seeing they cannot be denyed to inhabit naturally in the blood I see not why they can reject the Magnetism of the blood as accounting it among the ridiculous works of Satan This I will say more to wit that those who walk in their sleep do by no other guide than the Spirit of the blood that is of the outward man walk up and down perform business climbe Walls and mannage things that are otherwise impossible to those that are awake I say by a Magical virtue natural to the more outward man That Saint Ambrose although he were far distant
manner of a stroak The place therefore of the nativity of an Apoplexy is in the Midriffs and therefore it hath also the foreshewing signs of giddiness of the head of benummedness nauseousness c. The place therefore of an Apoplexy is in the Archâ—us of the Midriffs but in every of the parts for a particular astonishment because through the errour of Digestion the Liquor that is immediately to be affimilated by reason of the defect of the Archeus degenerates into an Anodynous poyson and is made the occasional matter of so great a malady an excrement I say being sealed by an Idea of the abhorring Archeus is sealed on the dreg who is to shew forth an equally aged memory of his own hostility But that it doth not depart from thence nor obey Remedies known by the Apothecary the very Quartan-ague teacheth the which hitherto repeates its Tragedy at pleasure to the disgrace of Physitians If a Quartan-ague be uncurable by the Schooles much more an Apoplexy For the stupefactive poyson of an Apoplexy is milder indeed in it self than that of the Falling-sickness but it far more cruelly molesteth with its invasion For besides astonishment it strikes the mind begets a deep drowsinesse and a Catochus or unsensible detainment But if besides it also attaines a sharpnesse it produceth malignant Ulcers according to the mortifying of the Anodynous poyson But because that poyson is brackish therefore it threatens Atrophia's or Consumptions for lack of nourishment For I have observed a Chymist who had been a good while occupied about Râ—gis's to have fallen into terrible beatings of the Heart at length into paines of his armes and his mouth was pulled on the right side he suffered also restless nights and deep paines of his armes the which notwithstanding were not exasperated by touching He had also consumed with a notable leanness by reason of the conceived brackishnesses of the waters in the mean time any the more external Remedies were attempted in vain for neither did I spare costs or service for him but he being fully restored by a Laudanum onely for thirteen dayes administred soon after recovered the habit of his body and former strength For because the harsh brackishness of the Liquors had defiled the sensitive Spirit the product whereof pierced the Archeus his mouth being pulled together unto one side and his fingers being wâ—ithed side-wayes resembled a certain Apoplectical Being But because it ascended not from the Governour of the Midriffs but only the Odours of the waters had immingled themselves with the inflowing sensitive Spirit there was not a perfect Apoplexy of that man although otherwise one giddie enough But because I call that a brackish Anodynal or stupefactive which in Opium is a bitter one but not in Henbane or Mandrake and a very sweet one in Vitriol and Sulphur This first of all discovers the Errours of the Schooles while as from commonly known Savours they divine of the faculties of Simples But indeed I know that the interchanges of things or the maturities of days are not yet digested nor likewise That Truth instead of falshood will please every one therefore I will subjoyn some Anguishes which the Apoplectical Rules of the Schooles have brought forth unto me For while I insisted more than was meet in the examination of Minerals I felt from the Fume of some of them an Apoplexy to be at hand with a defect of my left side and so that I had fallen headlong down if I had as yet but one onely turn breathed in the ayr of that place Wherefore I learned first of all that the Palsie is not more latter that an Apoplexy in duration Then again that there is no stoppage in the bosomes of the Brain For I was already almost prostrated and unlesse I had turned away my head from whence the stinking cruel blast breathed I as Apoplectical had rushed down and I was ready to fall And then my arm did already decay and my leg being stupified failed of sense and motion But the Schooles will never answer to these particulars if nothing of phâ—egme had ever fallen into the fourth bosome of the Brain how was the effect in me before its Cause But if any thing thereof had fallen down which had at least stopt up the half of its Bosome which way retired that phlegme so speedily Or why is not every Apoplexy likewise by the same endeavour voluntarily cured the phlegme which is the Effectresse thereof vanishing but if they had rather privily to escape that my Apoplexy came from the mischievous vapour and not that to be from phlegme At leastwise why was that cruel Fume brought sooner unto the fourth Bosome than unto the former ones and those nearer and more obedient unto the Nostrils unlesse perhaps the former were Leprous and sluggish and without Sense Yea all the sinews which are deputed unto the Senses alone receive their sensitive spirits from the former Bosomes But in the former Ventricles of the Brain there was no sign of the hurting of Sense yet there is no coming from without unto the fourth Bosom but through all the foremost ones Sense likewise except that it was the more dull on one side and motion remained and also a Judgement perswading a departure Therefore had the phlegme waited now for some years at the coast of the fourth Bosome that the Odour of that Fume being once repeated it the signe as it were of a Trumpet being given might rush headlong into the pit Why therefore fell not the phlegme down in me a leaping Run-away For in the Falling-sicknesse the chief powers of the Soul and Senses on both sides go to ruine motion onely surviving when as notwithstanding every sinew even that which is dedicated to motion feeleth Therefore the Brain and all its Bosoms ought to be affected on both sides where the more internal senses together with the more external ones are laid asleep as if they were extinguished How therefore doth motion alone remain After what manner in the Falling-Evil Apoplexy and Palsie are the senses laid asleep when as in the Apoplexy and Palsie the Organ of motion onely is besieged for one half They will say that in the Epilepsie the foremost parts of the Brain do suffer but the hinder ones remain safe First of all Why therefore are the joynts contracted if the Organs of motion are free The memory is especially hurt in the Falling-sickness shall therefore that also â—e onely in the forepart of the Head But that which is required being granted why therefore hath every sinew designed for motion leaping through the Thorny marrow from the hinder part of the Brain lost Sense but not Motion Therefore the Brain in the Falling-Evil is sore smitten as well behind as before by Midriff-Causes Foâ— oft-times some one that is about to dye doth as yet feel or perceive speak and hear motion in his lower parts being taken away a good while before by the displayed sinewes of the Thorny marrow The Brain being
able to proceed and whether they hope that bloud being at sometime after what manner soever once putrified in the veines there is aforded in Nature a going back or return To wit from such a privation For let them shew that it is not a contradiction that it is proper to a Fever to defile the bloud it self and for this property to be taken away by the effect to wit by a removal of that which is putrified For if the more impure bloud be at first drawn out of the vein and they repeatingly open a vein in the mean time they prostrate and disturb the Faculties hence also they take away the hope of a Crisis what if then the more red bloud shall flow forth Surely they cry out as if the whole Troop of the Malady were taken away at the first turn and as if the Seat of Fevers had been extended onely from the Heart unto the Elbow but that the good bloud resided about the Liver But I have alwayes discerned evacuations of the last excrements to be fearfull in the Dropsie and therefore much more in a naked snatching away of the bloud which withdrawes in a direct passage the vital spirits from the Heart through the Wound whether that bloud be accounted bad or good or neutral First of all I have proved that as well those things offend in begging of the principle which are supposed concerning a putrified continual and burning Fever as those which are supposed concerning the emissions of putrified bloud Wherefore in speaking according to Numbers I have alwayes found Succours that are made for the snatching away of the strength to be full of deceit as that for a very little ease the Faculties the Porters of Diseases are weakened For even so as drink at the beginning of Fevers seemeth to comfort Thirst for a little space but who is so mad that he would then drink if he knew that the drink would filch away his necessary powers Therefore the ayd of cooling by cutting of a vein is unfaithfull deceitfull and momentany At length concerning neutral bloud which in respect of cutting of a vein is neither good nor evil it is not worth ones labour to speak any thing seeing that which is denyed under a disjoyning may also be denyed copulatively For whether that be neutral bloud which consisteth of a co-mixture of the good with that which is depraved by supposing that to be depraved which is not or that wherein a neutral alteration is introduced for both events the particulars aforesaid do satisfie Lastly That I may cut off the hope that is in Revulsion and so equally take away all co-indications as the wretched privy shifts of obstinacy It is a mad ayd to have cut a vein for this end they for the most part require a plenteous one whether in Fevers or next in the Menstrues for Revulsion because a Feverish matter swims not in the bloud or floats in the veins as a Fish doth in the water but it adheres or sticks fast within to the vessel even as in its own place concerning the occasionall matter I will declare But for the Menstrues in like manner because a separation thereof is made from the whole and that not but by a separating hand of the Archeus But Bloud-letting separates nothing of the separable things because it acts without a foreknowledge of the end and so without choyce But presently after the vessel is opened the more nigh and harmless bloud alway flowes forth the which because other afterwards followes by a continual thred for fear of a vacuum therefore the Menstrues otherwise by the endeavour of Nature collected about the Womb are by cutting of a vein drawn away from thence and go back into the whole Body But if Phlebotomy shall sometimes well succeed in a Woman that is plethorick and full of juyce yet surely in many others it hath given a miserable overthrow For if the Menstrues should offend onely in its quantity while as it is now collected and separated in the veins about the Womb I shall willingly admit of an individual betokening of Phlebotomy and onely in the Case supposed But the Menstrues if it shall flow in a well-constituted Womb it abundantly satisfies its own ends and in this respect Revulsion is in vain although the Supposition supposeth it to be even an impossible thing For Bloud-letting is nothing but a meer and undistinct emptying out of the bloud But the veins being emptyed they out of hand recall unto themselves any kind of bloud whatsoever from on every side Because as they are the greedy sheaths of bloud so also are they impatient of Vacuity or emptiness And therefore the veins that are emptyed do allure the Menstrues designed for utterance That is being in this respect once enrouled by Nature in the Catalogue of Excrements But Derivation because it is a sparing effusion of bloud so it be made out of veines convenient it hath often profited in many locall Diseases and so in Fevers it is impertinent But they urge that the cutting of a vein is so necessary in a Pleurisie that it is enjoyned under a Capital punishment For truly they say that unlesse the bloud flowing together unto the Ribs be pulleâ— back by the effusion of much bloud there is danger least the Pleurisie do soon kill the man by choaking of him Surely I let out the bloud of no person that hath a Pleurisie and such a cure is safe certain profitable and sound None of them perisheth whereas in the mean time under Phlebotomy many do at length perish with a long or lingring Consumption and experience a Relapse every Year For according to Galen Whosoever they be that are not perfectly cured on the fortieth day become Consumptious But I perfectly cure them within few dayes neither do they feel a Relapse Neither indeed have I alone my secrets for this purpose But moreover I have seen a Country man curing all Pleuritical persons at the third draught For he used the dung of an Horse for a man and of a Nag for a woman which he dissolved in Ale and gave the expressed strayning to drink Such indeed is the ignorance of Physitians and so great the obstinacy of the Schooles That God gives knowledge to Rusticks and Little ones which he denyes to those that are blown up with Heathenish Learning We must now see if there be any use of Revulsion in Fevers For indeed since the work of Revulsion is not primarily any other thing than the cutting of a vein whereunto the succeeding bloud is by accident hoped to come and that by the benefit of that thing it should not flow unto the place affected Upon this Position it followes That by such an Euacuation the offensive Feverish bloud so I connivingly speak shall be drawn as dispersed into the veines which otherwise lurking in its own Nest far from the Heart could not so cruelly communicate the Ferment of its own hurt unto the Heart which is to say that it should
it self since it shall not produce any good to it self thereby For that Chyle or juyce being attracted doth as yet want foregoing means whereby it can ever be brought unto the perfection of arterial blood Otherwise the Arteries had drawn unto themselves more vexation but by a little sucking of a forreign liquor than they are able to wear out by long pains for the future I grant indeed that the Arteries do ordinarily and immediately attract a be-drunkening spirit of the stomack which is bred almost in every vegetable which is disobliged from the composed body through art only by vertue of a serment and at length is drawn out by the fire For example If the berries of Juniper are boyled in water under an Alembick an essential oyl and water do presently after rise up and are collected At length if those berries are then in the next place steeped by a ferment the distillation being afterwards repeated a water most gently burning or an Aquavitae is extracted yet less than if from the same berries an oyl were not first withdrawn Thirdly at last if the remaining berries being strained thorow a searse are boyled into an Electuary thou hast now obtained solutive Medicine excelling all the compositions of the shops An Artery therefore willingly snatcheth to it self the burning spirit of life a guest of the vegetable nature out of the stomack which the Grecism of the Schools never saw or knew the which otherwise nature by her first instruction prepares out of the digested Chyle surely she rejoyceth that she hath found a liquor with much brevity from whence she may make vital spirit for her self For in this respect Wines are regularly pleasing to Mortals they exhilarate the heart and do make drunk if they are drunk down in more than a just quantity For the spirit of Wine is not yet our vital spirit because it is as yet wanting of an individual limitation that the vital inflowing Archeus the Executer of our functions may from thence be framed Wherefore since neither the Mesentery nor Liver are ordained for the framing of vital spirit the heart rejoyceth immediately and readily to suck to it that spirit being already before prepared through the arteries out of the stomack Whence it follows If the arteries attract unto themselves the Spirit of Wine like unto vapours they shall also draw the odours of Essences For from hence are faintings yea and on the other hand restaurations But the arteries draw not Oils although essential and grateful ones because they suck not the substance of liquor and much less oils Therefore that a Medicine may be received by the heart and by this heart attracted inwards it ought to be that which yields a good smell and to be unseparably married to the spirit of wine Wherefore Wines that are odoriferous do more readily bedrunken than others because the odours which are married to the spirit of wine are most easily admitted unto the heart head womb c. But oylie odours being abstracted from their Concrete bodies do rather affect by defiling than materially enter into the Arteries For therefore through the immoderateness of Wine and the errours of life not only a meer spirit of Wine is allured into the arteries but also something of juyces together with it Whence at length difficult heart-beatings grow up in the gluttons of Wine and the meer or pure spirit of Wine by an importunate daily continuance strikes the reed of the artery within disturbs the local and proper digestions thereof wherefore also a part of the arterial nourishment degenerating stirs up divers miseries even durable for life For it happens in the Artery of the stomack that the spirit of wine joyning it self by its own importunity to the spermatick nourishment of the artery in the course of dayes stirs up un-obliterable Vertigo's or giddinesses of the head continual head-aches the Falling-sickness I say Swoonings Drowsie Evils Apoplexies c. For in the family-administration of this member as it were that of the heart it obtains its own animosities durable for life which are not to be extirpated but by the greater Secrets The same way also sudden or unexpected death hath oft-times made an entrance for it self because such a vitiated matter is never of its own free accord drawn out from thence For although the Archeus be apt at length to consume his own nourishment yet he doth not obtain this authority over excrements degenerated by a forreign coagulation and so for that cause not hearkening to the vital power or vertue For therefore that part hath assumed the title of the heart stirs up swoonings from an easie occasion Falling-sicknesses also after the twenty fourth year and likewise such affects as are attributed to the heart are accounted uncurable by those who have not much laboured in extracting the more potent faculties of medicine Hippocrates by leave of so great a man and of such an age I speak it was ignorant of this seat of the falling evil because he was he who being constituted in the entrance of Medicine faithfully delivered unto posterity at least his own observations and Medicinal administrations sprung from these For he said If Melancholy passeth into the body it breeds the Falling Sickness But foolish madness if it peirce the soul If therefore black Choler passing over into the body and soul causeth the Falling-sickness and Madness Whither therefore shall it proceed that it may generate a Quartane Ague The Schools especially rejoyce in so great an Author for their humour of black Choler But they are forgetful of a Quartane which far departs from the Falling-sickness and Madness For after whatsoever manner they shall regard it a Quartane shall either not be made from black Choler or this shall not be in the body nor in the soul while it makes a Quartane But as to what pertains to Madness and the Falling-sickness as if they were separated only in the diversity of passages or that the same humours did sometimes evaporate or were materially entertained in the Inns of the principal faculties Surely it is a ridiculous although a dull and plausible devise to have found out the cause of all diseases in so narrow a quaternary of humours For first of all The Falling Evil doth much more strictly bedrowsie and alienate the powers of the soul although Madnesses do that far more stubbornly or constantly Wherefore the aforesaid diseases are far otherwise distinguished let the Genius's of Hippocrates spare me than in the changing of their wayes and bounds And which more is the general kind of foolish Madness shall differ by its species in its proper matter and proper efficient as is to be seen in madness from the biting of a mad dog or stroak or sting of the Tarantula For the cause of things had not as yet been made known in the age of Hippocrates the knowledge whereof the Prattle of the Greeks hath hitherto suppressed Neither also are wrothful doatages made from yellow Choler bruitish ones from