Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n
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A26665
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Centrum naturæ concentratum, or, The salt of nature regenerated for the most part improperly called the philosopher's stone / written in Arabick by Alipili ... ; published in Low Dutch, 1694, and now done into English, 1696, by a lover of the hermetick science.; Centrum naturae concentratum. English
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Ali Puli.; Brice, E.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing A931; ESTC R18664
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26,537
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97
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been called by a divine spirit to a divine light who being drawn by true humility search into the wonders of nature and desire to communicate and make them known to their Neighbour who being filled with unfeigned and sincere love in the poverty of their knowledge and that little of the gifts of God granted to them are found faithfull in the least things but rather I exhort them to it and stir them up to go forward servently and in simplicity of heart follow that light which in this darksome way Ikindle in this little Book But they ought throughly to examine themselves without any flattery or self-self-love whether they are ordained for this Art Whether above all things he love God and his Neighbour as himself and whether he will freely help the poor because a drop of water and one mite seasonably given in ones poverty and from a true love to our Neighbour is as great in the sight of God and will have as great a reward as a large quantity of wine and money given by the rich If their life agrees with this rule they may go on to the full knowledge of nature and obtain their desired end They lose their labour and cost who with great carefulness rise early and sit up late and eat their bread in anxiety For the Lord bestows it on them that love him while they sleep who seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness that is he who patiently endures divine judgments and in all judgments though he be judged and his soul is grieved and even against nature is forced to endure yet always he acknowledges and understands that God is just good and mercifull and does acquiesce in his justice and desires not to enter into the Kingdom but by the fiery trial purification and obedience to the word his reason being made silent the passions of his mind tamed and subdued by a power supernatural to him all other things shall be added But I shall here speak no more of the holy silence nor use many words of the nature of this Mystery but will set upon the thing it self with the help of God And because I am certain that the wise will observe their duty but the foolish shall get nothing I will begin after the finishing of this Prayer O God our Father thou Lord of every good thing thou who wouldst make all things by thy word who hast formed Man by thy wisedom that he should rule over every Creature which thou hast made give me wisedom which is always round about thy throne neither drive us back from thy face for we are thy Servants and the Sons of thine Handmaid weak and infirm and of few days full of errour and unconstant neither are we fit or able without thy help to render unto thee in this our office that talent which of thy bounty thou hast committed to us with that increase we ought All perfection is from thee and thy wisedom but there is no capacity or worth in us send unto us and enlighten us with thy wisedom which cometh from above send her with a ray from thy holy Heaven from the Throne of thy Glory send her that she may be with and labour with us that we may know thy will grant that she may lead us by her glory that the works of our hands may be accepted with thee for nothing can be accepted by thee that is not wrought by her in us and so it will come to pass that we shall see thy truth in thy creatures to be admired O Lord our Cogitations are full of error and doubts and darkness environs our judgment Send thy holy spirit from on high and enlighten us that we may always go in the right way that we may perform thy will to the honour of thy holy Name and prosit of our Neighbour through Jesus Christ Amen WHen that matter wherein Lucifer held his Reign and Center had with him and his Angels or out-going Powers put on the nature of burning and corroding fire by a too great and inordinate motion whereby he desited to exalt his light and render it equal with the Deity and from the nature of light was turned into obscure darkness There was progenerated from the light in the first place Air then from the Air a Mist and last of all from the Mist a Viscous Water And here doubtless this Water through the bitter vehement and stinging cold the light being taken from it and further and further would have departed had suffer'd the force and power of an horrible Coagulation unless God had a-new sent in a ray of his divine light for a new Center and conveyed it through the whole matter for the Devil shall no more be the Center of this World the agonizing matter perceiving the splendor and sweetness of this light began to awake The bitterness of the corrosive greedy and austere power moving thus strongly decreased and the stupified matter as it were in a fright began to conside in the form of a glutinous Water God would not that the whole Heaven Mansion and Kingdom or Matter wherein Lucifer reigned should be utterly destroyed which before the Fall had its word light and motion from him as from the Center For this Matter was not made such by its own will but by constraint in the ardent imagination of the overruling spirit or intelligence For this spirit did with force exercise his rule and magical power in the Matter From thence the sweetness of the light departing to its original left the corrosive darkness to the burning desire of the spirit and the most kind motion of the heat was changed by the horrible attraction and vehement compaction of the Cold. The serene face of Heaven did put on the sorrowfull countenance of the terrestrial Water and Waterish Earth But God willing to bring the Idea of the world which from eternity he had a knowledge of in his mind into figures began to make something new in which he could set forth the manifestation of himself and have complacency in it Therefore he began a new Creation and by his spirit with his word expanded the Matter and divided it into three which working together in one harmony an effluvium from one to one by one thing should be the beginning of all things yet so that one of those three cannot consist without the other two so there is made out of this one Chaos or viscous Water a fixed fluid and volatile Body Spirit and Soul Earth Water and Air. The fluid spirit is too unconstant the volatil soul too subtile the fixed body too gross to receive that infused power of the light to its motion But when from this threefold union a fourth generation ariseth there is the seed of love and the center of vertues and powers a center that cannot properly be named Water for it is a viscous Earth in which is the Water of Nature and yet it is not Earth because it floweth and maketh moist neither is it
of the Head the pores parts and clandestine exits beneath and above Here if thou canst from the inferiour parts of the World draw out the inward Centre or Salt of Nature or from the superior the Heart or Center most of all hidden thou shalt be to me Magnus Apollo But greater yet will I admire thee if thou canst find out the Astral and Central Salt of Nature in abundance and great plenty united in one thing as in Man If thou knowest this I will confess that thou possessest natural wisedom and I promise thee that with this light thou canst unlock the most hidden and recluse mysteries of Nature and make samiliar to thee hidden treasures He that hath the knowledge of the Microcosm cannot long be ignorant of the knowledge of the Macrocosm This is that which the Aegyptian industrious searchers of Nature so often said and loudly proclaimed that every one should know himself This speech their dull Disciples took in a moral sense and out of ignorance assixt it in their Temples But I admonish thee whosoever thou art that desirest to dive into the inmost parts of nature if that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee thou wilt never find it without thee If thou knowest not the excellency of thine own house for what doest thou seek and search after the excellency of other things The universal Orb of the Earth contains not so great mysteries and excellencies as a little Man formed by God to his Image And he that desires the primacy amongst the studiers of Nature will no where find a greater and better reserve to obtain his desire than in himself Therefore I will here follow the example of the Aegyptians and from my whole heart and certain true experience proved by me speak to my Neighbour in the Aegyptians words and with a loud voice now proclaim O Man know thy self in thee is hid the treasure of treasures Thine it is by the external breath in the Air to enjoy that breath of the Firmament which the wonderfull Astrum attracting from the supercoelestial Waters hath breathed into the middle region of the Air where it by the motion of the Air suffers it self in the Air to be coagulated and incorporated with the Air. Thou O Man art he who thro' the Air enjoyest the breath and power of the Water and Earth and in thy self enjoyest both the Elements and maked them one and thy self not knowing what a treasure thou hast hidden in thee from the coagulation and consent of these powers producest an essence called by us the expert the great and miraculous mystery of the World that is the true fiery Water Eschva-mayim Hascha-mayim yea it surmounts in its power the Fire Air Earth and Water for it dissolves and radically incrudates the mature constant and very fixt fire abiding mass and matter of Gold and reduceth it into a fat and black Earth like to thick Spittle wherein we find a Water and the true Salt destitute of all ardor vehemency and corrosive nature of the Fire There is nothing in the whole world to be found which can doe this nothing is shut to it and though it is a precious thing more precious than every thing yet the poor as well as the rich has it in the same and equal plenty The Wise men have sought this thing the Wise men have found it Hermes of this thing composed his twenty and eight Books and these Books I have seen with these Eyes and the Wise men of the new World have them and keep them in their own hands without any mixture of falshood And you my Friends seek this in divers things but perhaps none of you have known its secret recesses where it is hid or have found its ways and can tell what shape it shall be of if at any time he chance to see it But it is I tell you the simple and plain truth the Spiritual Water and Watery Spirit the Water of Life which Adam and Eve brought out of Paradice with them for their consolation and which by their Offspring they left to posterity O noble Water lucid and sweet O despised Water obscure and bitter O Water comforting us till death This is that Corner-stone which the wise builders the great Phylosophers and expert Masters of Alchymie and of Israel from unskilfull ignorance neglecting rejected even to this day Sometimes at length open your Eyes O mortal Men with your whole heart love God and your Neighbour pray in Humility and Meekness that the Lord would be gracious to you and turn the darkness of your Mind into Light In these words I have openly shewed the way and to these I will add over and above this further Explication The World in which the matter of the Sophy is nighest and best to be found is Man the highest Artifice is in him his metalline Mine is to be opened the tenth time the Brass which there is dug is the best and worst in Nature the Water most precious and most vile the Water Earth together and always in themselves joyned with another thing the Son Birth and Seed of the most pure Bodies is born in Man for his profit and necessity its name is Tessa If by your industry you have found your matter seperate the pure from the impure without fire or admixtion of any other thing prepare a Virgin-earth which ought to be without Odour without Tast without Colour seperate from that the Central Salt the Microcosmick Vitriol the Philosophick Venus the Mercury of the Microcosm the Philosophick Luna purifie and produce out of it a Son more noble than his Parents Then thou wilt see the causes and reasons that imprest the Egyptians that they gave the Signature of Luna and Venus to Argent Vive why they put beneath the sign of Copper the character of Luna above The uppermost or Astral Salt is most volatile sweet and shines and glisters like pure Silver and it s nothing else than the Silver of the Sophy and the Mercurial Saline Spirit But the central Salt is a Vitriol of infinite wonderfull and ineffable Virtue which coagulates the Argent Vive and changes it into pure Silver But Venus is inclosed in Saturn's Vestment from which she must be freed that she may appear Naked in her Beauty to the Eyes of the Artist From these two kinds of Salt all the Metals are generated and there is the same reason of the Microcosm as of the Macrocosm So I have shewn you the Metalliue Mine in your own Body and have demonstrated to you how out of it with the addition of no other thing you may prepare Gold Argent Vive Copper Lead c. I shew you the way which I my self have gone for I have seen with a moderate and due fire produced out of this matter the medicine of the 〈◊〉 Minerals and Animals concerning which so many Books have been disperst about Whether the ancient or modern Phylosophers have gone in this way it 's not my business now