stir'd up the Animal sinfull Nature The sum of all is this Man as long as he continued in his union to God knew the Good onely that is the Things that were of God but assoon as he stretched forth his hand and did Eat of the forbidden fruit that is the Anima media or Spirit of the greater world presently upon his disobedience and transgression of the Commandment his Vnion to the Divine Nature was dissolved and his Spirit being united to the Spirit of the world he knew the Evil onely that is the things that were of the world True it is he knew the Good and the Evil but the Evil in a far greater measure then the Good Some sparks of Grace were left and though the perfection of Innocence was lost upon his Fall from the Divine Light yet Conscience remained still with him partly to direct partly to punish Thus you see that this Anima Media or middle Spirit is figured by the Tree of knowledge but he that knows why the Tree of Life is sayd to be in the middest of the Garden and to grow out of the Ground will more fully understand that which we have spoken We see moreover that the Faculties ascribed to the Tree of Knowledge are to be found onely in Middle Nature First it is said to be a Tree to be desired to make one wise but it was Fleshly sensuall Wisdom the Wisdom of this world and not of God Secondly it is sayd to be good for Food and pleasant to the Eyes So is the Middle Nature also For it is the onely Medicine to repair the Decayes of the Natural Man and to continue our Bodies in their primitive strength and Integrity Lastly that I may speak something for my self This is no new unheard of fansie as the understanding Reader may gather out of Trismegistus Nay I am verily of opinion that the Egyptians received this knowledge from the Hebrews who lived a long time amongst them as it appears out of Scripture and that they delivered it over to the Graecians This is plain out of Iamblichus in his Book de Mysteriis where he hath these words Contemplabilis in se Intellectus Homo erat quondam Deorum Contemplationi conjunctus deinde vero alteram ingressus est Animam circa humanam Formae Speciem contemperatam atq propterea in ipso Necessitaetis Fatique Vinculo est alligatus And what els I beseech you is signified unto us in that poeticall Table of Prometheus That he should steal a certain fire from Heaven for which Trespasse afterwards God punished the World with a great many Diseases and Mortality But some body may reply Seeing that God made all Things very Good as it appears in his Review of the Creatures on the sixth day how could it be a sin in Adam to eat that which in it self was good Verily the sin was not grounded in the Nature of that which he did eate but it was the Inference of the Commandment in as much as he was forbidden to eate it And this is that which Saint Paul tells us That he had not known sin had it not been for the law And again in another place The strength of sin is the law But presently upon the Disobedience of the first Man and his Transgression of the Commandement the creature was made subject to Vanity For the curse followed and the impure seedes were joyned with the pure and they reigne to this hour in our bodies and not in us alone but in every other Naturall Thing Hence it is we reade in scripture That the Heavens themselves are not clean in his sight And to this alludes the Apostle in that speech of his to the Colossians That it pleased the Father to reconcile all things to himself by Christ whether they be things in Earth or Things in Heaven And here you are to observe that Cornelius Agrippa mistook the act of Generation for Original sin which indeed was the Effect of it and this is the onely point wherein he hath miscarried I have now done onely a word more concerning the Situation of Paradise and the rather because of the diversity of Opinions concerning that solace and the Absurdity of them Saint Paul in his second Epistle to th Coriâ—thians discovers it in these words I knew a Man in Christ above fourteen years ago whether in the Body or out of the Body I cannot tell God knoweth such an One caught up to the Third Heaven And I knew such a Man whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell God knoweth how that he was caught up into Paradise Here you see that Paradise and the third Heaven are convertible Terms so that the one discovers the other Much more I could have sayd concerning the Tree of knowledge being in it self a large and very mysticall subject but for my part I rest contented with my own particular apprehension and desire not to inlarge it any further Neither had I committed this much to paper but out of my love to the trueth and that I would not have these thoughts altogether to perish You see now if you be not durissimae Cervicis Homines how man fell and by Consequence you may guesse by what means he is to rise He must be united to the Divine light from whence by disobedience he was separated A Flash or Tincture of this must come or he can no more discern things spiritually then he can distinguish Colours naturally without the light of the Sun This light descends and is united to him by the same Meanes as his Soul was at first I speak not here of the Symbolicall exteriour Descent from the Prototypicall-planets to the Created spheres and thence in Noctem Corporis but I speak of that most secret and silent Laps of the Spirit per Formarum naturalium Seriem and this is a mystery not easily apprehended It is a Cabalisticall maxime Nulla res spiritualis descondens inferius operatur sine Indumento Consider well of it with your selves and take heed you wander not in the Circumference The Soul of Man whiles she is in the Body is like a Candle shut up in a darkLanthorn or a Fire that is almost stifl'd for want of Aire Spirits say the Platonicks when they are in sua patriâ are like the Inhabitants of green Fields who live perpetually amongst Flowers in a Spicie oderous Aire but here below in Sphaerâ Generationis They mourn because of darknesse and solitude like people lock'd up in a Pest-house Hinc metuunt cupiuntque dolent c. This is it makes the Soul subject to so many Passions to such a Proteus of humors Now she flourishes now she withers now a smile now a tear And when she hath play'd out her stock then comes a Repetition of the same fancies till at last she cries out with Seneca Quousque eadem This is occasioned by her vast and infinite Capacity which is satisfied with nothing but God from whom at
united to God per Contactum Essentialem and the Divine light being received in and conveyed to the inferiour portions of the Soul did mortifie all carnall desires insomuch that in Adam the sensitive Faculties were scarce at all imployed the spirituall prevailing over them in him as they do over the Spirituall now in us Hence we read in Scripture that during the state of Innocence he did not know that he was naked but no sooner eats he of the tree of knowledge but he saw his nakednesse and was ashamed of it Wherefore also he hides himself amongst the Trees of the Garden and when God calls to him he replies I heard thy voice in the Garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid my self But God knowing his former state answers him with a Question Who told thee that Thou wast naked Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee thou shouldest not eat Here we see a Twofold state of Man his first and best in the spiritual substantiall union of his Intellectuall parts to God and the Mortification of his aethereall sensitive Nature wherein the fleshly sinfull Affections had their Residence His second or his Fall in the eating of the forbidden fruit which did cast asleep his Intellectuall Faculties but did stir up and exalt the Sensuall For sayth the Serpent God doth know that in the Day you eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods knowing Good and Evill And when the woman saw that the Tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise Shee took of the Fruit thereof and did eat and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat And the Eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked Thus we see the sensuall faculties revived in our first Parents and brought de potentia in actum as the School-men speak by vertue of this forbidden Fruit Neither did this Eating suppresse the Intellectuall powers in Adam onely but in all his Generations after him for the Influence of this Fruit past together with his Nature into his posterity We are all born like Moses with a Veil over the Face This is it which hinders the prospect of that Intellectuall shining Light which God hath placed in us And to tell you a Trueth that concernes all Mankinde the greatest Mystery both in Divinity and Philosophie is How to remove it It will not be amisse to speake something in this place of the Nature and Constitution of Man to make that more plaine which already hath been spoken As the great World consists of Three parts the Elementall the Coelestiall and the Spirituall above all which God himselfe is seated in that Infinite inaccessible Light which streames from his own Nature Even so man hath in him his Earthly Elemental parts together with the Coelestiall Angelical natures in the Center of all which moves and shines the Divine Spirit The sensuall Coelestiall aethereall part of Man is that whereby we do move see feel taste and smell and have a Commerce with all materiall Objects whatsoever It is the same in us as in Beasts and it is derived from Heaven where it is predominant to all the inferiour Earthly Creatures In plain Terms it is part of Anima Mundi commonly called Anima media because the Influences of the Divine Nature are conveyed thorough it to the more material parts of the Creature with which of themselves they have no proportion By meanes of this Anima Media or the aethereal Nature Man is made subject to the Influence of Stars and is partly dispos'd of by the Coelestial harmony For this middle spirit middle I mean between both Extreames and not that which actually unites the whole together aswell that which is in the outward Heaven as that which is in Man is of a fruitfull insinuating nature and carried with a strong desire to multiply it self so that the Coelestiall Form stirs up and excites the Elementall For this Spirit is in Man in Beasts in Vegetables in Minerals and in every thing it is the mediate Cause of Composition and Multiplication Neither should any wonder that I affirm this spirit to be in Minerals because the Operations of it are not discerned there For shall we conclude therefore that there is no inward Agent that actuats and specifies those passive indefinite Principles whereof they are Compounded Tell me not now of blind Peripateticall Formes and Qualities A Form is that which Aristotle could not define substantially nor any of his followers after Him and therefore they are not competent Judges of it But I beseech you are not the faculties of this Spirit supprest in Man also when the Organs are Corrupted as it appeareth in those that are blind But notwithstanding the Eye onely is destroyed and not the Visible power for that remaines as it is plain in their dreams Now this vision is performed by a reflection of the Visuall Radii in their inward proper Cell For Nature imployes her gifts only where she findes a Conveniencie and fit disposition of Organs which being not in Minerals we may not expect so clear an Expression of the naturall powers in them Notwithstanding in the Flowers of severall vegetables which in some sort represent the Eyes there is a more Subtile acute perception of heat and cold and other Coelestiall Influences then in any other part This is manifest in those Herbs which open at the Rising and shut towards the Sun-set which motion is caused by the spirit being sensible of the Approach and departure of the Sun For indeed the Flowers are as it were the spring of the Spirit where it breaks forth and streames as it appears by the Odours that are more Coelestiall and Comfortable there Again this is more evident in the Plantanimals as the Vegetable Lamb the Arbor Casta and severall others But this will not sink with any but such as have seen this Spirit separated from his Elements where I leave it for this time Next to this Sensuall Nature of Man is the Angelicall or rationall Spirit This Spirit adheres somtimes to the Mens or superior portion of the Soul and then it is filled with the Divine light but most commonly it descends into the aethereal inferior portion which Saint Paul calls Homo animalis where it is altered by the Coelestial influences and diversly distracted with the irregular Affections and passions of the sensuall Nature Lastly above the Rationall Spirit is the Mens or Intelligentia abscondita commonly called Intellectus illustratus and of Moses spiraculum Vitarum This is that Spirit which God himself breathed into Man and by which Man is united again to God Now as the Divine light flowing into the Mens did assimilate and convert the inferiour portions of the soul to God so on the Contrary the Tree of Knowledge did obscure and darken the superiour portions but awak'd and
of his Building composeth all Disorders and continues his Creature in his first primitive Harmony The Invisible Centrall Moon is Iela illa rivosa Multifontana at whose top sit Iove and Iuno In a Throne of Gold Juno is an incombustible Eriternall Oyl and therefore a fit Receptacle of Fire This Fire is her Jove the little Sun we spoke of formerly These are the true Principles of the stone these are the Philosophers Sol Luna not Gold and Silver as some Mountebanks and Carbonadoes would have it But in respect I have proceeded thus far I will give you a true Receipt of the Medicine Rc. Lâ—ni Coelestis partes decem Separetur Masculus a Faeminâ vterque porro à Terrá suâ physicae tamen citra omnem violentiam Separata proportione debitâ harmonicâ vitali conjungs statimque Anima descendens a sphaerâ pyroplastica mortuum suum relictum Corpus amplexis mirisico restaur abit Conjuncta foreantur Igne naturali imperfectum matrimonium spiritus Corporis Procedas Artisicio vulcanico-Magico quousque exaltentur in Quintam Rotam Metaphysicam Haec est Illa de Quâ tot scribillarunt tam Pauci noverunt Medicina It is a strange thing to consider That there are in Nature incorruptible immortall principles Our ordinary Kitchin Fire which in some measure is an Enemy to all compositions notwithstanding doth not so much destroy as purifie some parts This is clear out of the Ashes of Vegetables for although their weaker exterior Elements expire by violence of the fire yet their Earth cannot be destroyed but Vitrified The Fusion and Transparency of this substance is occasioned by the Radicall moysture or Seminall water of the Compound This water resists the fury of the Fire and cannot possibly be vanquished In huo Aquâ sayth the learned Severino Rosa latet in Hiemo These two principles are never separated for Nature proceedes not so far in her Dissolutions When Death hath done her worst there is an Vnion between these two and out of them shall God rise us at the last day and restore us to a spirituall constitution Besides there remaines in them that primitive universall Tincture of the Fire this is still busie after Death brings nature again into Play produceth wormes and other inferiour Generations I do not conceive there shall be a Resurrection of every Species but rather their Terrestiall parts together with the Element of Water for there shall be no more Sea shall be united in one mixture with the Earth and fix'd to a pure Diaphanous substance This is Saint Johns Chrystallgold a Fundamentall of the new Jerusalem so called not in respect of Colour but constitution Their Spirits I suppose shall be reduced to their first Limbus a sphaene of pure ethereall fire like rich Eternall Tapestry spread under the Throne of God Thus Reader have I made a plenary but short Inquisition into the Mysteries of Nature It is more then hitherto hath been discovered and therefore I expect the more Opposition I know my Reward is Calumnie but he that hath already condemn'd the Vanity of Opinion is not like to respect that of Censure I shal now put the Creatures to their just use and from this shallow Contemplation ascend to Mine and their Author Lord God! This was a stone as hard as any One Thy Laws in Nature fram'd 'T is now a springing Well and many Drops can tell Since it by Art was tam'd My God! my Heart is so 't is all of Flint and no Extract of Teares will yeeld Dissolve it with thy Fire that something may aspire And grow up in my Field Bare Teares I le not intreat but let thy Spirits seat Upon those Waters bee Then I new form'd with Light shall move without all Night Or Excentricity It is requisite now if we follow that Method which God himself is Author of to examine the Nature and Composition of Man having already describ'd those Elements or principles whereof he was made and consists Man if we look on his materiall parts was taken out of the great world as woman was taken out of Man I shall therefore to avoyd repetitions refer the Reader to the former part of this Discourse where if things be rightly understood he cannot be ignorant in his materiall Frame or Composure We read in Genesis that God made him out of the Earth This is a great Mystery For it was not the common Pot-clay but an other thing and that of a far better nature He that knowes this knowes the subject of the Philosophicall medicine and by consequence what destroyes or preserves the Temperament of Man In this are Principles homogeneall with his life such as can restore his Decayes and reduce his Disorders to a Harmony They that are ignorant in this point are not competent Judges of Life and Death but Quacks and Piss-pot Doctors The learned Arias Montanus calls this matter Multiplicis Terrae particula singularis If these words be well examined you may possibly find it out and so much for his Body His Soule is an Essence not to be found in the Texture of the great world therfore meerly Divine Supernaturall Montanus calls it divini spiritus aura vitae Divinae Halitus He seemes also to make the Creation of Man a little Incarnation as if God in this worke had multiplyed himselfe Adam saith he received his Soule exadmiranda singularique Dei Inspiratione ut sic loqui sit fas Fructificatione S. Luke also tells us the same thing For he makes Adam the son of God not in respect of the exterior Act of Creation but by way of Descent and this S. Paul confirmes in the words of Aratus For we also are his Generation The Soul of man consists cheifly of two Portions Ruach and Nephes inferior and superior the superior is Masculine and Eternall the inferior Foeminine and Mortall In these two consists our spirituall generation Vt autem in Coeteris animantibus atque etiam in ipso homine Maris ac Foeminae conjunctio Fructum propagationemq spectabat naturae singulorum dignam ita in homine ipso illa Maris ac Foeminae interior arcanaque societas hoc est animi atque animae Copulatio ad fructum vitae Divinae idoneum producendum comparabatur Atque huc illa Arcana benedictio faecunditas concessa huc illa declarata Facultas monitio spectat Crescite multiplicamini replete Terram subjicite illam Dominamini Out of this and some former passages the understanding Reader may learn That Marriage is a Comment on Life a meer Hieroglyphick or outward representation of our inward vitall Composition For Life is nothing els but an Vnion of Male and Foemale Principles and he that perfectly knowes this secret knowes the Mysteries of Marriage both Spirituall and Naturall and how he ought to use a Wife Matrimony is no ordinary triviall busines but in a moderate
sence Sacramentall It is a visible signe of our invisible Vnion to Christ which S. Paul calls a Great mystery and if the thing signified be so Reverend the signature is no ex tempore contemptible Agend But of this elsewhere When God had thus finished his last and most excellent Creature he appointed his Residence in Eden made him his Vice-Roy and gave him a full jurisdiction over all his Works That as the whole man consisted of Body and Spirit so the Inferiour Earthly Creatures might be subject to the one and the superiour intellectuall Essences might minister to the other But this Royalty continued not long for presently upon his preferment there was a Faction in the Heavenly Court and the Angels scorning to attend this piece of Clay contrived how to supplant him The first in this plot was Lucifer Montanus tells me his name was Hilel He casts about to Nullifie that which God had Inacted that so at once he might overreach him and his Creature This Pollicy he imparts to some others of the Hierarchy and strengthens himself with Conspirators But there is no Counsel against God The mischief is no sooner hatched but he and his Confederates are expell'd from Light to Darknesse and thus Rebellion is as the sinne of Witchcraft a Witch is it Rebel in Physicks and a Rebell is a Witch in Polliticks The one acts against Nature the other against Order the Rule of it But both are in League with the divel as the first Father of discord and sorcerie Satan being thus ejected as the condition of Reprobates is became more hardned in his Resolutions and to bring his malice about arrives by permission at Eden Here he makes Woman his Instrument to tempt Man and overthrowes him by the same Meanes that God made for an help to him Adam having thus transgrest the Commandement was exposed to the Lash and in him his Posterity But here lyes the Knot How can we possibly learn his Disease if we know not the immediate Efficicent of it If I question our Divines what the Forbidden Fruit was I may be long enough without an answer Search all the School-men from Ramus to Peter Hispan and they have no Logick in the point What shall we do in this case To speak any thing contrary to the sling of Aristotle though perhaps we hit the mark is to expose our selves to the common Hue But in respect I prefer a private Trueth to a publick Errour I will proceed And now Reader Arrige Aures come on without prejudice and I will tell thee that which never hitherto hath been discovered That which I now write must needs appeare very strange and Incredible to the common man whose knowledg sticks in the Barke of Allegories and Mysticall speeches never apprehending that which is signified by them unto us This I say must needs sound strange with such as understand the Scriptures in the Litterall plaine sence considering not the scope and Intention of the Divine spirit by whom they were first penned and delivered Howsoever Origen being Vnus de multis and in the judgement of many wise men the most learned of the Fathers durst never trust himselfe in this point But alwaies in those Scriptures where his Reason could not satisfie concluded a Mystery Certainly if it be once granted as some stick not to affirm that the Tree of knowledge was a Vegetable and Eden a Garden it may be very well inferred that the tree of life being described in eodem Genere as the School-men expresse it was a Vegetable also But how derogatory this is to the power of God to the Merits and Passion of Jesus Christ whose Gift eternall life is let any indifferent Christian judge Here then we have a certain intrance into Paradise where we may search out this tree of knowledge and happily learn what it is For seeing it must be granted that by the tree if life is figured the Divine Spirit for it is the Spirit that quickeneth and shall one Day translate us from Corruption to Incorruption it will be no indiscreet Inference on the Contrary that by the tree of knowledge is signified some sensuall Nature repugnant to the Spirituall wherein our worldly sinfull Affections as lust anger and the rest have their seat and predominate I will now digresse a while but not much from the purpose whereby it may appear unto the Reader that the letter is no sufficient Expositor of Scripture and that there is a great deal of difference between the sound and the sense of the Text Dionysius the Areopagit in his Epistle to Titus gives him this Caveat Et hoc praeterea Operae pretium est cognoscere Duplicem esse Theologorum Traditionem Arcanam Alteram ac mysticam Alteram vero manifestaem notiorem And in his Book of the Eclesiasticall Hierarchie written to Timotheus he affirms that in the primitive Apostolicall times wherein he also lived the mysteries of Divinity were delivered partim scriptis partim non scriptis Institutionibus Some things he confesseth were written in the Theologicall Books and such are the Common Doctrinals of the Church now in which notwithstanding as Saint Peter saith there are many things hard to be understood Some things again Ex Animo in Animum medio quidem intercurrente verbo corporali sed quod Carnis penitus excederat sensum Sine literis transfusa sunt And certainly this Orall Tradition was the Cause that in the subsequent Ages of the Church all the mysteries of Divinity were lost Nay this very day there is not one amongst all our School-Doctors or late Ex-Temporaries that knows what is represented unto us by the outward Element of Water in Baptism True indeed They tell us it betokens the washing away of sin which we grant them but this is not the full signification for which it was ordained It hath been the Common errour of all times to mistake signum for signatum the shell for the Kernell yet to prevent this it was that Dionysius wrot his book of the Caelestiall Hierarchie and especially his Theologia significativa of which there is such frequent mention made in his works Verely our Saviour Himself who is blessed for evermore did sometimes speak in parables and commanded further that Pearles should not be cast forth unto swine for it is not given to all men to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven Supposing then as it is most true that amongst other mysticall speeches contained in Scripture this of the Garden of Eden and the Trees in it is one I shall proceede to the Exposition of it in some measure concealing the particulars notwithstanding Man in the beginning I mean the substantiall inward Man both in and after his Creation for some short time was a pure intellectual Essence free from all fleshly sensuall Affections In this state the Anima or sensitive Nature did not prevail over the spiritual as it doth now in us For the superior Mentall part of Man was