vegetation do exceed in a sensitive soul which is in them the principle of life and motion Therefore an Animal seated in the highest degree of things below doth compleat the work of Nature in her Elementary kingdom doth live properly generate properly and in it hath Nature truly distinguished each Sex that from two a third to wit their issue might be produced So in the more perfect Beings the most perfect Symbole of the Trinity is most apparent 160 Man the Prince of all creatures and of the lower World is accounted the Summary of Universal Nature For his Soul is an immortal ray of the Divine Light his Body is a beautified Composure of the Elements The inward and unperceiveable faculties of the Sense by which man doth comprehend all things obvious are altogether celestial and as it were Stars giving the influence of knowledge of things the motions and perturbations of the mind are as it were the Winds Tempests Lightenings and Thunders the Meteors which break forth in the Aerial Region of the Spirit do trouble the heart and the bloud Therefore was man deservedly called a Microcosm and the accomplisht Draught of the Universe 161 But not onely man but even every living creature yea every Plant is a Microcosm So is every Grain or Seed a Chaos in which are the seeds of the whole World compendiously bound up out of which in its season a little World will spring 162 Whatsoever Beings of Natnre have a perfect mixture and life they have a body spirit and soul The body is made of clay in which are all things necessary for the matter of generation for it is most agreeable to reason that Bodies should be made of two corporeal Elements especially viz. Earth and Water 163 The Spirit is a small portion of the purest Air or the Heaven a middle nature betwixt the Body and the Soul the knot and bond of both the case of the Soul and the conduit of the more subtile and spiritual parts of the body 164 The soul or form of a mixt body is a spark of the Fire of Nature an undiscernable Ray of Celestial Light brought into act from the power of the seed by the motion of generation bound to an Elementary body by the mediation of the Spirit giving its individual Being to the mixt body the nearest principle and the efficient cause of life It acts according to the disposed matter and the qualities of the Organs 165 The nature or from of the Soul because it is altogether full of light in living creatures especially hath so great a distance from the dark and earthy matter of bodies that this is wholly irrational in respect of that and this unproportionably more noble and therefore is fastened by that strictest tye which Nature makes use of in her works to the body by reason of the disconveniency and distance unless the conjunction and knot had been made by the virtue and efficacy of a peculiar and powerfull mean therefore did the provident Creatour assign a subtile mean which is the Aetherial spirit which receives and retains the begotten from and is the tye of it to the body communicating in its nature with both These things are to be conceived to be spoken of the celestial Soul of Natural things not of the Super-celestial and divine Soul of man which notwithstanding is according to the good pleasure of the Creatour brought into a consortship with the body of man by natural mediums 166 The specifical forms from the first day of the Creation were imprinted in the first individual and particular persons by the character of the Idaeal copie and that diviue and indelible impress was according to the direction of the Creatour by the way of generation traduced to posterity that so by the perpetual succession of particular individual natures the priviledge of immortality might be continued in the kind 167 It cannot nor must be conceived that Forms do generate in the matter their like for to generate is the alone property of bodies but by an harmonious motion of their Organs they do by them dispose the seminal matter for generation and shut up in it a ray of Light or a secret spark of life as a treasure This is the office and priviledge of the Form as also to imprint its own specifical character on that vivifical spirit wrapt up close in the seed which in its set season doth in the work of generation by the engendering heat display it self into a soul whether Vegetative or Animal so that what was a formal and hidden spirit in the seed is now a Form in the mixt body So that occult thing that was closed in the bosom of Nature is now made manifest and brought forth from a power to an act 168 The Form issues not forth onely out of the power and virtue of the seed because there is an influence of celestial virtues in the generations of Beings which do heighten the efficacies of the matter do multiply them and as it were midwife it to groaning Nature yea they do get into and mixe themselves with and bring in auxiliary strength to the formal and seminal spirit that is in the matter which is also by its original celestial 169 There do not onely meet in the generation of every mixt Being the corporeal Elements but also all the Virtues all the Powers of Nature in general and these do contribute something of their own so are the parts of the Universe bound up together that they have an unanimous combination for life and couple by a mutual affection 170 The natural Forms of things though they are potentially in the seeds yet are they neither of nor generated by the substance of the lower Elements for they have their rise from a more noble spring their original is from Heaven for their father is the Sun the heavenly Nature the bond whereby these matters are knit together 171 The specifical Forms of mixt Beings have within themselves closed a dark kind of knowledge of their original and are carried up by their own strength and by a secret motion like unto Waters to the height of their Fountain head So the Soul of man being derived from the divine Spring of the uncreated Light is reflected to the same by the sharp sight of his mind and by the soaring contemplations of his soul but the forms of other living creatures being taken out of the privy Treasury of the Heavens and the Sun do by the instinct of Nature and by a weak kind of reminiscency glance back thither Hence we may observe the frequent Prognosticks of several creatures concerning the courses of the Sun and the changes of the Heavens But the forms of Vegetables being for the most part airy and inspired from the lowest Region of our Air therefore they are not able to extend or reach forth their power or faculties beyond it they do according to their ability lift up their heads into the Air as willing to visit their Countrey but they
a formal and a material Heaven and Earth by the word Earth is to be understood that dark and as yet unshaped mass of the waters and Abyss as is apparent by the subsequent words The Earth was void and without form and darkness was upon the face of the depth c. which the Creatour did shut in and comprise within the highest to wit the Empyrean Heaven which is Natures first formal though farthest principle 23. For the Spirit of God which is the brightness of the Deity being poured out upon the Waters that is upon the moist and large surface of the depths in the very moment of creation light presently broke up which in the twinkling of the eye surprized the highest and more subtile part of the matter and encompassed it as it were with a fringe and border of light as that lightening is which is darted from the East to the West or like a flame which fires the smoak So was the birth of the first day but the lower portion of darkness devoid of light continued night and so the darkness had its division into day and night 24. Concerning that first Heaven that formal Principle it is not declared to have been void empty and wrapt in darkness which is a sufficient evidence that that Heaven which was first spread out was forthwith severed by the light from the subjacent dark Mass by reason of the nearness of the Glory and Majesty of God and the presence of that lightsom Spirit flowing from it 25. There was therefore in the beginning two Principles of all things created one full of light and bordering upon the spiritual Nature the other wholly corporeal and dark the first that it might be the Principle of motion light and heat the second of a drowsie dark and cold being the first active and masculine the other the passive and feminine Principle On the part of the former comes a motion in the Elementary world to Generation from whence proceeds life from the other part comes the motion to corruption the principle of death So that is the double fringe or border of the lower world 26. But because Love is extensive and acts without from it self the Divine Nature impatient of its solitude and taken with its own beauty in the light already created as in a Mirrour and earnestly desirous to enlarge it and to multiply his image commanded that light to be extended and propagated Then the light the fiery spirit issuing from the Divine understanding and rowling it self in a Circulation began to work upon the nearest darkness and having prevailed upon it and sunk it down towards the Centre and there sprung forth the second day and there was seen the second mansion of light or the second Heaven comprizing all the airy Region in whose higher Region are so many Torches kindled and scattered In the lower are seated the seven wandering Stars according to their order that they might as so many Presidents and Rulers give orders by their light motion and influence to the subjacent Nature 27. And least any thing should be defective in this great work already drawn out in the mind of God the same Spirit by his glittering and fiery sword beat off the banded darkness and that shade that lay under him and thrust it down into the Centre of the Abyss so the lowest part of the Heavens was enlightened which we rightly term Air or the lowest Heavens Then was the third day But the darkness which at first did overcast the whole face of the Abyss being thrust down by the supervening light into the lowest Region was so thickened by reason of the straitness of the room and the binding force of the Cold that it passed into a huge mass of a watry Nature the Kernel and Centre of the whole workmanship as it were a dale and heap of darkness being poiz'd in the middest of the waters and bound up of the dregs and thick matter of the Abyss into a firm and dark body of earth After this upon the driving of the Spirit the waters fled from the surface of the earth casting themselves about the borders of it and there appeared drie land that it might produce almost an infinite number of several sorts of Plants and receive as guests so many kinds of creatures especially Man the lord of all and provide to them food and to man a plentifull sufficiency of all conveniencies The Earth therefore and the Water made one Globe by reason of whose thickness the shadow the image of the dark Abyss doth continually beset the whole Region of the Air bordering upon it and opposite to the Sun for it shuns and flies the assayling light and so in the assault is upon a continual retreat 28. That Light which upon the conquest and destruction of the darkness had seized upon and spread it self upon the parts of the Abyss it seemed best to the great Creatour to contract into that most resplendent and illustrious for quantity and quality for bigness and beauty that Globe of the Sun that as the Light was more narrowly pent so it might be more efficaciously powerfull and might dart its beams with more vigour as also that the created Light the nearest approching nature to the divine glory proceeding from an uncreated unity might through its unity be poured out upon the creatures 29. From this glorious lamp of the world do all the other bodies borrow light for that dark shade which we sensibly perceive in the Globe of the Moon by reason of the neighbouring earth and the extension of her shadow we may credibly guess the like to be in the other globous bodies though not perceivable by reason of their distance Indeed the prime and most principal nature of sensibles the fountain of light ought to be one from which these things below might receive the breath of life Whence is that true saying of the Philosopher The Sun and man beget man 30. It was not an improbable assertion of some of the Philosophers That the soul of the World was in the Sun and the Sun in the Centre of the whole For the consideration of equity and nature seem to require that the body of the Sun should have an equal distance from the fountain and rise of created Light to wit the Empyrean Heaven and from the dark Centre the Earth which are the extreams of the whole Fabrick whereby this lamp of the world as a middle Nature and Joyner of both Extreams might have its scite in the middle that it may the more commodiously receive the rich treasuries of all powers from the chief Spring and upon a like distance convey them to things below 31. Before the Contraction of this light into the body of the Sun the earth spent an idle time in its solitude looking for a male that being impregnated by his copulation it might bring forth all sorts of creatures for as yet it had been delivered onely of abortives and Embryoes to wit of Vegetables onely For
clay out of the seed of both parents purged and mixed 70. Water is the base and root of all moistures yea it is moisture it self from which all moist things receive their denomination therefore Water may be rightly defined the Fountain of the moist Element or the Spring of moisture whose property it is to wet by its liquour But those things are termed humid which do in themselves according to a less or greater degree contain a moisture or a watry liquor Moisture is receivable of all qualities so bloud and yellow choler are humours endued with their own heat although they have their foundation in the Element of Water Aqua-fortis and the like are empowered with a burning and a fiery nature The burning Water and many other essences which are extracted from oyls and water do abound in heat although the root of them which is Water be cold because Nature doth first imprint in a moist elemēt various resemblances and signatures of its powers and doth in it en-root and infuse its principal and choice qualities Moisture is the first subject of Nature upon which her prime care is bestowed her first charge layed out by whose liquour it doth dilute and mingle various colours and indelible tinctures To it first do the spiritual qualities communicate themselves in it first do they take up their being and actings 71. The lower Waters being divided into two do occupy a double seat for one part of them brimming the Earth doth lean on it as it were as its proper Base and with the Earth makes but one Globe the other part flying upward doth range up and down the Region of the neighbour Air and there making to it self many masqued fancies of bodies and various figures of several phantasms doth reave hither and thither over-hanging the lower Region 72. Always there is a great part of the Waters that keep above and being driven to and fro by the Caroach of the Wind doth post over divers parts of the Air which was in this manner ordered from the Day of the Creation by the enacting of the Wisdom of GOD that so the uncumbered and plain face of the Earth might be unmasked and fited for the generation of things For the Channels of the Sea and Rivers were not sufficient to receive the whole Waters but if all should break the confining Bars of the Heavens and come tumbling down it would not onely cover the plain face of the Earth but it may be overtop the highest Mountains Such an enloosening of the Cataracts of Heaven we may guess did occasion the old Cataclysm or Deluge 73. Water is not onely sublimated into a vapour by heat alone neither is it onely bound up in a cloud by cold but to both the virtues of the Sun and the Stars do contribute their aids not onely by multiplying the vigours of the Elements but also by a kind of Magnetick virtue attracting and retaining a moisture much or less according to their different position and the diverse figure of Heaven from whence we observe the various ordering of years and times for indeed that Mass of Waters is not kept in so poized onely by the solidation of Cold or the Air but by the powerfull order and regiment of superiour bodies 74. Lest there might seem to Divine Justice a want of judgements for the execution of his wrath he made that Ocean which is poized over our heads to be volatile or flying and withal brought into his Armoury those fiery darts his Thunder-bolts that so the presumptuous sinners that cannot be won by love might be wrought about by fear 75. They are much out of the way who do attribute to Air moisture in the highest degree upon this ground because it is easily kept in within the bounds of another but hardly within its own for this is the property of light and liquid bodies not of moist and so doth better agree with fire and Heaven which natures are more rarified than with Water and Air for bodies that are rarified because they of their own will flow every where cannot be comprized within their own bounds and therefore stand in need of another Onely firm and solid bodies are kept in within their own compass and superficies which cannot be done by those things that are of a subtile nature because by reason of their thinness they melt and are fluid and so less consistent From whence this flows that the Air is a body of greater rarity but not of greater humidity 76. The Air from it self hath no quality intense and in the highest degree but sometimes hath them upon loan else-where The nature of Air is a middle nature betwixt things below and above and so doth with ease assume the qualities of those that border upon it from whence it happens that its inferiour Region according to the diversity of times hath a variety of temper which inconstancy is occasioned by the changes of the neighbouring and thicker bodies of Water and Earth whose state is easily altered by heat and cold 77. The whole Air is the Heaven the floor of the World Natures sieve through which the virtues and influences of other bodies are transmitted a middle nature it is that knits all the scattered natures of the Universe together a most thin smoak kindled by the fire of Heaven into a light as it were an immortal flame the subject of light and shade of day and night impatient of vacuity the principal transparent the easiest receiver of almost all qualities and effects yet the constant retainer of none a borderer upon the spiritual nature therefore in the Tracts concerning the Mysteries of Philosophers it is called by the name of a Spirit 78. The lower Region of the Air is like unto the neck or higher part of an Alembick for through it the Vapours climbing up and being brought to the top receive their condensation from Cold and being resolved into water fall down by reason of their own weight So Nature through continued distillations by sublimation of the Water by cohobation or by often drawing off the liquour being often poured on the body doth rectifie and abound it In these operations of Nature the Earth is the vessel receiving Therefore the Region of the Air that is nearer to us being bounded by the Region of Clouds as by a vaulted Chamber is of a greater thickness and impurity than those Regions above 79. The middle Region of the Air is not that in which is the gathering of the Clouds from whence are Lightenings and Thunders which is onely the higher part of the lower Region and the border of it but that which is above the Clouds is to be stiled The Middle Region whither the watry Being by reason of its gravity cannot reach yet whither sulphureous exhalations disburthened of the load of their Vapours do climb up and there by a motion either of their own or anothers being kindled burn Such are the flaming Meteors of divers sorts which are viewed in the middle Region whence we
by reason of their opposite qualities but those qualities were tempered by the coition of both principles and from the extreams became a middle temper and such were they when they dislodged from the first and went into the second principles or Elements 116 The extreams are contrary each to other onely by reason of the intension of their opposite qualities but those things that spring from the mixture of these extreams are not â—dverse because they are of a middle nature and the â—fflux of the union of the two extreams to wit of Light and Darkness 117. That out of the mixture of Contraries to wit of Light and Darkness do not come contraries forth but in a temperature is plain by that of the Kingly Prophet breaking forth into these words of the Eternal Light He bowed the Heavens and came down and Darkness was under his feet c. He made Darkness his Covert his Pavilion in the middest of it c. The very fountain of Eternal Light that he might exhibit the brightnes of his infinite glory to mortal eyes did wrap it up in a cloud and dark mask and brought the Darkness to the Light that he might make of the two Extreams a moderate light and so allay the splendour of so great a light as was not to be gazed on without the ruin of the Spectatour yea Philosophers do affirm the Rain-bow that was given by God as a sign and token of a Covenant made with man to be produced out of a mixture of Light and Darkness that so that Symbole of the temperature of Gods wrath existing out of contraries might be tempered of various coherent and friendly colours 118. Those that have delivered that the Earth Water Air and Fire in their sphears are distinct Elements of the World and are turned each into other by mutual reciprocation did but slightly look into the depths of Nature for it is more safe to call them the compleating parts of Nature or the Shops of the Elements for the Elements of the world do not lye under our view or senses as separated in their proper Regions but do lye hid and keep close in their wombs till they come together in the generation of mixt bodies and make up a body But those parts of the World as so far mutually different can never have a conversion in them neither can that one common quality whereby those natures are linked together beget such a change that out of things of a diverse should be formed a like nature yea that they should be turned into the same 119. If those four Elements asserted by them do change and barter their rooms natures and offices all the compact frame of the World devoted to a chance and motion would be in a perpetual fluctuation which we know is established by God in a certain and constant order and scite and distinction of parts For Earth will quickly be made Water Water Air Air Fire and so backward and by this the Centre shall run out to Circumference and the Circumference run into the Centre the farthest and the middle parts of the World shall of their own accord remove out of their places that so after a long time the order of Nature shall be inverted whilest the top and the bottom and the bottom and the top change places and clash together He who doth fancy this so fair composure of a World doth not deserve to have so fine a piece termed a World but a Chaos an Abyss which Nature a friend to Order doth absolutely detest 120. They which do say that those extream bodies of the lower World Earth and Fire supposing not granting a sphear of Fire are turned into each other do wrong themselves and truth too For their distant and repugnant natures do disagree from such a change for the heightened cold thickness and gravity of the Earth are so opposite to the same degree or heat subtility and levity in Fire that they can never be brought to change Besides the Earth a fixed body will not yield to fire but slighteth its virtue if we may believe the opinions of Chymists and common experience neither doth any thing flie out from it but a fat and warry humour both of them not natural to the Earth but if any thing is to be turned into elementary Fire it must necessarily be light and volatile that it may be translated into its Orb and Nature The Earth therefore being most weighty and so the Centre of all being most fixt and so least volatile how can it be turned into Fire and be carried up into the Sphear of Fire or how can Fre the highest and lightest of all be beaten down to be essentially united with the Earth contrary to the laws of Nature It were a more easie conversion of Water and Fire because they are nearer by one degree than Earth and Fire 121 They that believed the exhalations from the region of the earth drawn up into the Air and because kindled there to be earthie and converted into the Element of Fire are far out of the way of truth for they are not earthie but rather airie natures for our Air being moist through the contagion of water lying in the drie bosom of the Earth gather a fatness and by the consortship of the Earth doth temper the moist with the drie but when it exhales through the pores and crevises of the Earth being drawn by heat or else the abundance of the matter forcing out it breaks not forth out of its prison without a noise crack whence proceed earth-quakes and openings not without much ruin that exhalation got loose doth flie up into the region proper to light bodies and there is set on fire being digested by its errant motion and heat more fully into a sulphureous matter Therefore that matter is not truly earthie since it is neither ponderous nor cold but because it is made fat and combustible by the concourse of hot drie and moist it may more properly be called the accidental food of fire than the Fire of Nature or the Elementarie Fire That is a bastard a spurious generation which for that very reason ought not to have been placed amongst the natures or been called by the names of Elements therefore these Firings are rightly called by Aristotle imperfectly-mixed things The same we must conceive of the smoke of combustibles For Smoke being unctious doth quickly take fire which is nothing else but smoke kindled 122 Fire feeds upon fat and unctious matter but the fat moisture of the Air is contempered with drought whence we often may see a sulfureous matter extrinsecally drie and terminated with drought as our ordinarie sulfur gun-powder and the like which though they seem to be outwardly drie do close within them a fat moisture and upon the firing are resolved into it 123 And truly they slip to purpose that have taken an opinion seeing stones and heavie bodies sometimes generated in the Air and shot down thence by lightnings thunders
and breaking of the clouds that the Fire turns to a stone or is converted into earth or have a conceit that the Earth is carried up thither This is done far otherwise for that hardened matter was never fire or earth nor proceeded from the Orb of Fire if there be any or from the bodie of the earth but an unctious and viscous humour in a manner clayish shut up in a cloud as in a fornace is so hardened and decocted as an earthen vessel by the heat of the burning exhalations that it turns a stone Hence proceed those darted Thunder-bolts Such meteors as these are the wens weaknesses and diseases of Nature not Elements In the same though after a slower manner is the stone generated in the bodie out of flegm in the reins or bladder For the Microcosm hath also his meteors 124 The fire of nature is far different from our artificial or accidental fire The fire of nature is double either Universal and Particular or Individual The Universal is diffused through all the parts of the Universe doth sweetly excite and move the propensive virtues of the celestial bodies doth impregnate and supply with engendering seed this Globe of ours designed for the generation of things doth infuse virtues into the seeds doth untwist the intangled power of nature mingles the Elements informs the Matter and finally doth unlock the secret of Nature but the fountain of it is in the Sun who as the Heart of the World doth stream forth his enlivening heat as his love through all regions But the particular Fire of Nature is in-born and in-bred in every mixed bodie and individual which flows as a rivulet from that General and doth work all things in this Microcosm or little World MAN according to an Analogie with the Sun in the Macrocosm or greater World But who is there that would not stile our common fire being an opposite of all generation living onely upon prey subsisting upon the ruins of other Beings the destruction of life deputing all things to ashes rather a foe than a friend to nature its enemie not its inmate and rather the ruin than the raising of Life But those fires that are bred in the Airie region are rather engendred by chance than by any intention of Nature 125 Neither are those two bodies of the Earth and Water situated next one to the other convertible each into the other but onely by reason of their neighbourhood are mingled together so that the Water washeth the Earth and the Earth thickens the Water and hence is made Clay being a bodie of neither but a middle betwixt both which if resolved by the force of fire will separate it self into both these natures The water flying out the earth settles neither will there be any conversion of each into the other for that cannot be effected by that single common qualitie of cold since the driness and moisture are not less powerful to resist than the mutual consent of cold can bring them to a conversion Besides the driness and fixation of the Earth are quite opposite to the moist and volatile nature of the Water so there is but one qualitie agreeing to an alteration and many disagreeings which will prevail in the combate Besides here is the help of nature always readie to conserve it self and doth never incline unless upon force and conquest to its ruin or change 126 We may guess the whole Globe of the Earth not to be of a less settled nature than the Heaven the Moon or the Stars for it if it be the centre of the World as it is generally received then certainly the constancie is not less necessary to it than to the rest of the bodies of the World Besides the earth is the same without any essential immutation of what it was from the beginning and what it will be to the end of ages But if it did suffer any notable detriment by the universal deluge in the general or any accidental in particular as by some chasme or by the breakings in of rivers or the Sea this falls out by the supream order of him that doth change at list the laws of the whole and every region or by the discordant harmonie of the World or by some disease of some distempered nature rather than by any propensiveness or viciousness of the Earth For all the bodies of the Universe do lie under their burdens and diseases although they be diversified according to the disagreement of Nature and difference of perfection yet the accidents do not change the nature and constancie of them in respect of the whole Absolute constancie and impassibilitie do onely suit to God alone but the Heaven Water Earth and the rest of the bodies of the Universe shall stand firm in regard of their essence to the designed period of their age 127 If any one of those four natures have a propensitie to conversion it will be strongest in the mean qualities for Water and Air are joyned in greater affinitie between themselves than with the rest or the others amongst themselves For they seem not to differ so much in their qualities as in the intension and remission of them not so much naturally as accidentally For since Water doth by a right of nature challenge to it self moisture and coldness it doth also communicate them to the lower region of the Air by way of commerce for Air obtains no proper qualitie almost besides the highest tenuitie yet capable of receiving the rest therefore is it of an heavenly nature being of it self most temperate and not addict to any proper qualitie doth readily receive and-despence the dispositions influences and virtues of the heavenly bodies Densitie and raritie which in a remiss degree are of kin seem to make the principal difference between Water and our Air for which reason God is said in Genesis to have separated the Waters from the Waters as if by reason of the unity of their nature it seemed more truely to be a division of their situation than a mutation in respect of their essence 128 Yet these bordering natures do not entertain any true and essential reciprocation but onely according to some respect not altogether changed but after some manner and this change is acted in the lower region of the Air which is bound in by the cover of the clouds and reacheth not the middle much less the highest region Water being rarified into a vapour flies up and is rather raised then turned into Air and that vapour condensed doth resolve and fall down again The ancients being led by the legerdemain of sence more than the light of reason conceived this circulation and returning into it self of one and the same nature to be the turning of nature into another but it is found to be otherwise by those that have and use a sharp insight into the depths of Nature He is also deceived that shall call the Air simply a thin Vapour because a Vapour is a middle and imperfect bodie betwixt the
two Waters those above and these below betwixt our Water and Air yet it is neither of them because although it rarifie yet will it never be heightened to the great degree of the nobilitie of the Air It may be made a spurious but never a pure Air neither will the refined nature of the Air be so depressed and fall from its puritie as to thicken into a vapour cloud or Water For the right of Nature never got that first separation of the Waters which was really and actually done by that Architect spirit and that the established bounds of the parts of the World which God hath sealed with an indelible signature should either be blurred or removed by any new confusion 129 But those that dive deeper into things will acknowledge the Earth to be the womb of the World the vessel of Generation the mother of a multiplied and almost numberless issue which being rescued in the beginning of the Creation from the power of the covering Waters and priviledged to it self was made and remained drie land and her bodie being condensed sunk to the foundation and the centre of the whole and spread out her lap as a Parent to all vegetables and all other creatures yet did she want moisture whereby she might be made apt for a fruitful generation Gods providence set out a remedie for this exigence Therefore from the beginning was the water made volatile that so it might be carried up in vapours which being frozen by cold in this cloud might by heat be thawed again into Waters By this master-piece of Divine providence was this exigence of the Earth supplied and that driness which threatened barrenness was tempered with a large moisture and the womb of our mother conceived Therefore onely Water hath the circulation to the intent that it might moisten the bosom of the Earth or more truly it is distilled in the lower region of the Air as in its Alembick that so by often pouring in and reiterated distillations it being abounded and having gotten virtues both from above and below and endued with that celestial Nectar it might more effectually soften the bosom of the Earth and endue it with a prolifical virtue The chief worker of all who maketh use of the art of Nature hath added nothing superfluous to his work nor left any thing defective in it 130 But the Water being the menstruum of the World doth cherish and contain in it the seeds of things and their elements but she having this circulation the true and genuine Elements of things which are in the Earth as in the matrix and vessel of Generation and in the Water as in the menstruum are also whirled about In the vapour therefore are the Elements of the Earth the Water and the Air have their sublimation and exuberation with it They are not the bodies of Earth Water and Air which have their proper sphears and constitute the several Regions of the World but they are the very spiritual Elements of Nature which lye hid and inhabit in them out of which many bodies as stones may be generated and excocted in the Air For where all the Elements well mixt do meet as they do in a vapour there bodies may be generated but when they find not a convenient matrix as in the Air there are ingendered imperfect mixtures not by reason of any fault in the mixture but in the Matrix 131. The Water being seated as middle betwixt the Earth and the Air doth trouble both it by its flowing and always moving inconstancy infesting the Air with a black soote and noisom vapours and often drowning the Earth by flouds causing tempests in the Air ruines to the Earth and corruption to both and it doth assault the Region of the one with its levity and of the other with its gravity and doth cross the order of Nature and the nature of Times by its defect or excess yea doth shake all her borderers with her terrible claps and tumultuous ragings Her nature being altogether female the supream Creatour seems to have bestowed her on the World in the nature of a Woman or a necessary Evil even so doth she arrogate all things as subject to her and turns those things that were given her for a general good to a publick ruin Finally it is the scourge of divine Justice revenging Nemeses which being designed to the vengeance of sin doth break out to punish and sets the hopes and wealth of many the very roots of pride under several shapes of judgements the scoff and blast of the world 132. The universal Natures the more thick they are the more impure the more endued with tenuity the more purity The Earth because more thick than Water therefore is less noble and so Water than Air and Air than Heaven and so the highest Region of the Heavens is the most noble because it is most subtile For it is an undoubted truth that spiritual Natures are more excellent than corporeal and the more bordering upon the spiritual Natures the more they draw nigh to perfection 133. The foundation of Generation and Corruption is in Moisture for in both the travails of Nature Moisture of all the Elements is the first patient receiving the first seal of the form The natural Spirits are easily united with it because flowing from it do lightly return to it because the root of them in that and by that are the rest of the Elements mixed The moist Element hath its circulation no less in mixed and individual bodies than in the World both in the work of Generation and of Nutrition for it was Natures pleasure that both these works should be performed by the same instruments of condensation and rarefaction and by the same means to wit Spirits 134. The Earth is the Vessel of Generation Water the menstruum of Nature containing in it the formal and seminal virtues which it borrows from the Sun the male and the formal universal Principle from him is derived into all things the influence of the fire of Nature and of formal Spirits in which are all things necessary for generation the in-bred heat being wrapt up in the moist Therefore Hippocrates did rightly affirm That these two Elements Fire and Water could do all contained all things in them For from them do issue two masculine qualities of Hot and Drie from the other two more of Cold and Moist being the female qualities which so concurring and mixing perfect the generation of mixed bodies Over those two principal Elements the two greater Lights were set the Sun the authour of Fire and the Moon the Lady of Moisture 135. Nature perfects the circulation of the volatile Element by a three-fold action or instrument by Sublimation Demission or Refusion and by Decoction which stand in need of a divers temperament So doth the rightly ordered intention of Nature wandering through various motions directeth her interrupted actions to their designed end and attaineth the same mark though it trades through divers wayes
Heavens for the Air giving way to the vapour that flies up to it receives it to lodge in the Region of the Clouds as in a large Hall but ere it comes thither its body being in a manner spiritualized the moist Being is divested of its ponderous nature that so it might by this addition of agility the sooner compass its desire and enjoy the priviledge of an ambiguous nature 148 In the mean time the Sun the Prince of the celestial Quire and the rest of the superiour Natures taking care of the inferiour do instil by continual breathings enlivening spirits as so many trilling rivulets from their most clear and pure Fountains But the Vapours being thin and so swimming in the Air or else bound up into a Cloud do most eagerly suck in in that spiritual Nectar and attract it to them by a Magnetick virtue and having received it they grow big and being impregnated and quickened with that ingendering seed as being delivered of their burden do freely fall down back into the lap of the Earth in some Dew hoar Frost Rain or some other nature and this Mother of the Elements doth receive into her womb the returning moisture and being quickened by this Heavenly seed sends forth in her due time innumerable issues according to divers degrees more or less generous according to the goodness of the seed or the disposition of the womb and the inferiour Waters also are made partakers of the benevolence of the Superiour and Celestial because she goes with the Earth to the making up of one and the same Globe and so they receive joynt and common benefits But by the nature of Water is the fermentation of the rest of the Elements 149 But this ferment or leaven is a vivifical spirit flowing down from the superiour Natures upon these inferiour without which the Earth would be again void and empty For it is the seed of Life without which neither man nor any creature nor any growing thing could enjoy the benefit of a generation or life for man lives not by bread alone but especially by that Heavenly food by Air to wit by such a spirit so breathed in and fermented 150 The three material Elements being remote in the composition of things do onely obey God and Nature and come not under the laws of Art or of humane Invention but there are three others that issue from the copulation of these which being extracted by resolution do sufficiently shew that they are the nearest in the composition of mixt Beings to wit Salt Sulphur and Mercury And so it is manifested That there is a Trinity of Elements and a Signature of the universal NATURE 151 These three last Elements are the issue of a three-fold copulation of the three former Mercury of the mixture of Earth and Water Sulphur of the copulation of Earth and Air Salt produced out of the condensation of Air and Water and there can be no more combinations of them named The Fire of Nature is in all of them as their formal principle the virtue of the celestial bodies contributing their influence and co-operation 152 Neither are these latter produced out of any copulation of the former bodies for Mercury comes forth of an unctious Earth and clear Water well diluted and mixt Sulphur is generated of the most subtile and driest Earth coupled with the moist Air Finally Salt is congealed of salt and thick Water and crude Air 153 It may be lawfull to affirm that Democritus his opinion That all bodies were composed out of Atoms is not far distant from truth for both reason and experience do vindicate him from biting tongues for the knowing Philosopher would not wholly conceal but would unfold in an obscure and dark term the mixture of the Elements which that it might be agreeable to the intention of Nature must necessarily be done by the smallest and by actually indivisible Beings other wise the Elements could not combine into a continuous natural body Experience teacheth us in the artifical resolution composition of mixt Beings which are tryed by distillations that the perfect mixtion of two or more bodies is not done but in a subtile vapour But Nature doth make her mixtions far more subtile and as it were spiritual which we may safely believe was the opinion of Democritus for the grosseness of bodies is an impediment to Mixtion therefore the more any thing is attenuated the more apt and fitted it is for mixtion 154 The three-fold degree of Existence in mixt Beings doth offer to us three supream kinds of mixt Beings to wit of Minerals Vegetables and of Animal Beings Natures law hath appointed a Being for Minerals in the Earth for Vegetables in the Earth and the Water for Animals in the Earth Water and Air yet to all the Air is the principal food and foster of life 155 Minerals are thought simply not to have an existence or a life although Metals from Minerals may be said to be endowed with a principal life both because in their generation there is a kind of a copulation and a commixiton of a double seed male and female viz. Sulphure and Mercurie which two by a long and multiplied circulation are turned and purged and being seasoned with the salt of Nature and fermented by it and being perfectly mixed in a most subtile vapour are formed into a clay or soft mass the spirit of Sulphure by degrees closing in the Mercurie at length that Mass doth grow hard and is confirmed to a metallick body 156 As also because perfect Mettals especially do contain in them a principle of life to wit in-set fire infused from heaven which being dulled by being bound in with the hard outside of the Mettal lies hid as void of motion and as an enchanted treasure till getting libertie by philosophical solution and the subtile artifice of the work-man it doth powerfully display its refined spirit and celestial soul by a motion of vegetation in the issue heightned to the sudden perfection of art nature 157 Vegetables also are invested with a vegetative soul or spirit they grow by a vegetative motion and multiplyâ— yet want an animal sence and motion Their seeds are of an Hermaphroditical nature for every particular grain doth contain in it a fruitfull seed without copulation or mixture of a double seed although in every kind almost of Vegetables experience sheweth there are both sexes to be found 158 God also hath wrapt up in the seeds of Vegetables a secret spirit the authour of generation ennobled with a special character which is wholly celestial and a ray of the heavenly light void of corruption in which is preserved the specifical form under the bodie of every individual subsistance which being through corruption resolved lost that immortal spirit being called out by the vivifical and homogeneal heat of the Sun doth rise up in a new stalk and doth bring into it the form of the foâ—mer 159 Animals besides their existence and faculty of
are stopped so as that they are not able to pass the narrow confines of their bodies wanting the sense and life of a Soul because there is so little of the Suns virtue in them as will not carry them above the motion of a Vegetation For in the order of creation the Vegetables were first before the Sun wherefore creatures are not equally indebted to him for their originals and the aged principles of their life but must acknowledge them received from the lightsom Air as a nearer Agent For the disposition of their matter was adjudged by Nature as too weak to receive so sublime a form 172 But for Stones since they are not so much generated out of a true mixture of the Elements as from a concourse of Earth and Water by an external force of Heat and Cold they are decocted as an earthen Work or vessel therefore they are altogether senseless having borrowed a feeble form from the dark and cold nature of the Earth and Water 173 Concerning precious Stones and Gems we must conceive otherwise for they derive their forms from the Chrystal Fouutains of the Heavens and the Sun and their bodies are the purest drops of a refined dew engendered by celestial influences and as it were the congealed tears of of Heaven whence they possess and contain many sublime virtues 174 But the matter of Metals because it is watry and earthy and most compacted by reason of the principal subtile commixtion of weighty Elements is therefore heavy and exceedingly ponderous and of it self capable of no motion but because it is sublimated and mundefied by the wonderfull artifice of Nature in an earthy and stony Matrix as in a Limbick and its mixture is compleated in a most thin vapour by reiterated distillations that by reason of its exceeding subtility and exuberancy the influential helps of the Sun and the Heavens get in and mix with it especially in the generation of perfect mettals for this cause though they fetch their bodies from Water and Earth yet Nature performing the office of workman doth so ingeniously make up the bodies especially of a perfect mettal that it delivers them to the heavenly Deities as those that deserve to be informed with the most eminent form It is a work of long travail but an absolute one heightned to the utmost of Natures actings in which Heaven and Earth seem rather to copulate than to consent But the formal spirits of mettals being bound up in a hard cover do stick immoveable till released of their bands by Philosophical Fire they do produce by their heavenly Seed in their matter that noble son of the Sun and at length that Quint-essence of admirable Virtue in which the Heavens seem to lodge with and come down to us 175 It was provided by the Decree of the supream Creatour that a Nature more noble should not degenerate into one less noble or that one more eminent into a nature that is more base or that it should abjuring its native priviledge of birth-right come under a servile vassalage Superiour Beings are coupled with these below and those of greater power do communicate themselves with those of a less that they may inform and compleat them by their emissary spirits which notwithstanding in this do no way derogate from their stock or kind Nay when they work themselves into the seeds of things or also into mixed Beings they subject not themselves to a bondage but do attain a new honour and priviledged power For every mixt Being of whatsoever kind it is is a kind of an Empire yea the whole world who hath a spiritual form of her own to rule her whose office it is to have dominion over the organs and faculties of Nature yea over the whole frame so that that which being void and without distinction did drift it rowling hither and thither in the vast Ocean of Nature is now called to an Empire 176 The formal act of the first matter as also of the Elements doth inform nothing besides the verie principles of Nature therefore the specifical form doth constitute a perfect mixt Being neither is it to be thought to contain any more forms since the very Elements in their mixtion have the charge of the fashioning not of the informing of the bodie 177 It is most probable that the virtue of multiplication which lyes in the seeds of Beings doth not flow from the Elementary matter as its efficient cause but from a celestial form for to multiply is the most natural and proper action of light for from one ray are almost an infinite number darted forth from whence it proceeds that the Sun who is the Fountain of immortal Light is also in nature the first efficient cause of generation and multiplication that therefore every form receives a natural power of multiplication from the celestial light is prov'd by this weighty Argument because it is lightfull and furnished with its native endowments Ergo multiplying It is lightfull because it doth enlighten with its rays the sensitive and imaginative faculties in creatures that so out of that double faculty springs a double apprehension knowledge of things an external by the senses an internal by imagination but all knowledge is a light as all ignorance is a darkness but there peeps up some enlightening and lightsomness when there is an apprehension of the images of things and when that which lay unknown in the dark is now manifested by a light of knowledge for it is onely by the good office of light that obscure things receive a revelation God did adde to man a third light to wit his Understanding by the help of which he attains by their causes a far more perfect way of knowledge All these things are produced by the operation of light and of a perspicuity flowing out of an enlightened Soul This last action of light is onely proper to man the two former are shared with beasts as well as by him for their souls are also partakers of celestial light Therefore reason doth convince that the virtue of multiplication in the individual Beings of Animals and Vegetables doth proceed from the Souls multiplication of light and that some rays of it are included in the seed with the Aetherial spirit until at length they are set upon the rising of the Sun of Life 178 Light and Darkness are the principles of Life and Death for the rays of Light are the forms of mixt Beings their bodies a dark Abyss By Light all things live yea Light is life but those that loose their life loose their light and are hurried into their former darkness in which they lay close and hidden before they were drawn to light by the fatal wheel of Predestination 179 The specifical forms of Animals as also of Vegetables are rational though not after the manner of men but after a property of their own according to the virtues and impress of their nature For they have their vital endowments their cognizances knowledge and
comprehend nothing but what is sensible But the mind rangeth far abroad beyond the Cloysters of the Senses and searcheth to a greater height for the hunting out of the bounds of Nature The bodies are as it were the barks the grosser parts of the Elements the accidents of things under which lye hid the pure and sprightly Essences which acknowledge not the subjection and censure of the Senses and which it was a necessity to cloth under a dark Cloud that they might pass from their heavenly to their earthly province of the corporeal Beings The supream Creatour of Nature enacted this copulation of spirituals with corporeals whereby his uncreated spirit communicating it self first to the more spiritual and simple Natures might be conveyed through them as by so many conduits to corporeal Beings and in this manner diffusing it self gradually and orderly through all the Regions of the World through all and every Being doth sustain all things by the Divine presence as also that by a sensible creature the insensible CREATOUR might be apprehended through corporeal and sensible resemblances 189 Whatsoever lives either an Animal or Vegetable life stands in need of food that the natural spirits might be recruited which do continually slide forth through the pores and that so the loss of Nature might have a successive repair For the nourishing juice is made by the more succulent substance of the meat whereby the parts and humours of the body are re-inforced The radical Moisture is renewed out of the purer portion of the humours especially of the bloud the celestial influence intermingling it self by respiration with it 190 Living things have a two-fold nourishment to wit a Corporeal and a Spiritual the former being of small avail to life without the latter For Vegetables do evidently referre the benefit of their increase and nourishment no less to the Air and Heaven than to the Earth yea the Earth it self unless suckled with the milk of Heaven would quickly find her own breast to flag drie this that holy Diver into Natures secrets when he blessed Joseph doth thus express Blest be the Lord for his Earth for the apples of Heaven for the Dew and for the Deep that coucheth beneath for the pleasant apples of the Sun and of the Moon for the top of the everlasting Mountains for the fruits of the eternal Hills c. By which mystical speech the Prophet fore-ensureth the Earths plenty by the abundant influence of the Sun Moon and of the rest of the celestial bodies 191 That spiritual Diet as far as it conduceth to the life of creatures is acknowledged by every vulgar capacity that sees the renewed respiration and the frequent sucking in of the external Air For not onely according to the opinion of ordinary Physicians hath Nature so workmanlike framed those bellows bordering upon the heart to cool it but also that by their continued fanning they might breath in an aethereal Air and hand to it celestial spirits that so by their recruits the vital spirits may be kept in repair and be alwayes multiplied 192 Philosophers do not onely call those spiritual Natures which being created without matter are onely comprehended by the Understanding as the intelligencies Angels and Devils are accounted to be but also those that which although they have their original from matter yet in respect of their great tenuity nobility do not subject themselvs to the search of the Senses and nearer approching to spiritual Beings are rather under stood by reason than found by sense Such is the pure part of the Air such are the influencies of heavenly bodies such the in-set fire and seminal virtues such the vegetable spirits such the animal and the vital and the like in which consists the very nature of Beings than in grosser bodies Such like natures spring from Heaven and in relation to sensibles do assume to themselves the name and right of spirits 193 It is suitable that we should give the Fire of Nature a place amongst the spiritual Beings for in it self it is not perceivable by any sense but discovers it self onely in bodies by heat and other effects and accidents This is apparent in living creatures into which by this unperceiveable fire is infused a sensible heat and that Fire with the life stealing away the Elementary body or the carkass yet the mixed being dissolved remains sound and unhurt In Vegetables because this Fire is weaker it doth elude the sense and is not to be perceived by any heat 194 Reason also convinceth that our common Fire is to be sorted amongst the spiritual rather than corporeal Beings For if it were corporeal it should have from it self a peculiar and inseparable body no less than Earth Water or Air and the rest of the sensible Natures which do consist and are bounded within their proper bodies which do exist in them and by them which do act according to their virtues and produce them to the Senses But Fire hath not a peculiar and sensible body lodgeth onely in anothers for a Coal is not Fire but Wood fired neither is the flame Fire but smoke inflamed finally that Robber onely feeds upon what is not his own lives upon the prey and is extinguished when this fails having nothing in it self to feed it Besides a body super-added to another body doth augment the quantity of it but this not found in fire put into wood or smoke for the smoke or wood is no way increased by the accession of fire in their quantities from which it is evident that a fiery spirit rather than a body doth invade the wood or smoke A sword melted the scabbard being untouch't the bones shattered by the fiery bolt of Thunder and yet the flesh unhurt do sufficiently argue the spiritual nature even of that thundering fire Yet we must know that Fire is not wholly immaterial for it hath a matter though a very subtile and light one whereby it cleaves to the encompassing air whereby it may be kept in by a more gross body Yet doth it rather deserve the name of a spirit than of a body because it hath not a sensible quantity neither can it be comprehended but when it is arrayed in another body 195 For Light the original of it doth evince that it ought to be seated amongst those things that are truly spiritual There was no light but in God before the informing of the first matter the birth of the world But when Nature received her Being then began there a spiritual light to issue forth from the fiery spirit of God upon the matter and there to settle as in its lamp and this was the creation and original of Light that was the first act of the Deity upon the matter the first copulation of the Creatour with the creature of a spirit with a body Therefore the first informing Light was a meer Spirit which did kindle with its fiery virtue as with heat the nearest matter being exceedingly rarefied by its spiritual
Light and so were the darkness converted to light The Heaven being distinguished by the first light although it be not material and fiery yet is nevertheless invisible because in respect of the matter it is brought to the highest degree of tenuity and in respect of its form is endowed with spirituality But the Light that was scattered in the middle Heaven being bounded into a narrower compass was cast into the Globe of the Sun which was necessarily to be formed into a kind of a thick body as it were into a smoke fit to be kindled yet not combustible that so it might be setled being kindled by that immortal Light and be in the room of the general Lamp of Nature or as a fiery Mass The light of the Sun therefore is nothing else but a lightsome spirit deriving its rise from the Spirit of eternal Light gathered in and inseparably cleaving to the body of the Sun and made sensible by reason of the thickness of the body communicating to all the natures of the Universe light and a manifold virtue constituting the spirit of the World by its non-intermitted influence and bound up in a body for the good and welfare of the corporeal Nature 196 Yet the Sun-beams that are perceivable by our eyes are not pure spirits for issuing continually from the Sun have their progress being clothed with the encompassing Air They are therefore nothing else but a continued flowing forth of the spirit of Light which springing forth as so many rivulets from their Eternal Fountain and working themselves into the aetherial Nature as a flame into a most thin smoke do over-spread the whole face of the Universal World with their light 197 It is natural to Light to flow continually from its Fountain We call those Rays issuing forth and mixing themselves with the airy nature and they are the first actings of light in the Sun and the conveyance of it from the Sun For it is the property of a lightfull body to act by it rays and to send forth heat and light and that might spread its light abroad by a darting forth and multiplying of its beams We do by light signifie both the first act of the lightsom body as also a secondary lightsomness which floweth out from the former 198 The Lamp being out either for want of matter or blown out by the wind the fiery and lightsom spirit that kindled the Lamp doth not perish neither is it extinguished as it commonly seems but onely loosing what it feeds on and being stript from it is scattered in and vanisheth to Air which is the Abyss and universal Receptacle of all lights and spiritual natures of the material World from whence we may learn that the nature of this Lightsomness is spiritual and is derived from the spiritual Fountain not otherwise than natural forms from their Matrix which is the spirit of the Universe perpetually flowing from the Sun as from an eternal and immortal Spring For as the bodies of mixt Beings in their making do rise from the first matter and the Elements and do gradually at their departure slide into the same again so the natural forms of individuals in their approch do flow from the universal form which in the manner of a Form of forms doth inspire a formal virtue into the seeds and in their recess do again return into it But that form is the Spirit of the light of the Universe to which as to their principle and as to a nature of the same kind do all single forms and sparks of light got loose from their tyes return So are all mixt Beings resolved into their first principles but these principles do return to that Eternal Spring of Nature as to their proper centre and peculiar countrey 199 But that Spirit of the Universe is from the Sun yet not the very light of the Sun conspicuous to us by reason of the presence of its body but that invisible spirit which is continually dispersed by the beams of the Sun through the universal Region of the Air and doth extend it self perpetually by communication through our Heaven yea even to the centre of the Earth and that in the absence of the Sun and in the darkest night pouring out all gifts for generation and life through all the bodies of the Universe 200 The divine Love was not able to contain it self within it self but did wholly go out of it self in the creation by multiplication of it self and pouring out himself wholly also in the conservation of creatures in themselves Light also which is the exactest Copie of the Deity doth also imitate the divine Love for it is not able to be comprized within its own lightsom body but is diffused far and near for the good of other Beings by a strong multiplication of its beams being not so much born for it self as for others being as it were the token of Divine Love communicating it self to its power and reaching forth into the most remote places unless it meet with a stop from a thick bodie 201 Light also doth hold forth to us the infinite Nature of God for the small light of a lamp or candle cannot as long as it is fed by all its continued effluence of rays and by its infinite communication of its flames be exhausted or diminished As many beams so many streams flow from it Yet though it gives though it diffuseth it self although much be taken from it yet is it not brought to nothing neither receives loss which is the alone property of a spiritual nature and is altogether unappliable to a corporeal So the intellectual endowments as the understanding and knowledge of things which are justly esteemed spiritual lights are of the same kind that though alwayes bestowed abroad yet are preserved entire at home Therefore must we confess that there is something divine in Light 202 The beams of a lightsom body although they be of a spiritual nature yet are they stopt by a thick body because their conveyance is by means of the Air without which they are not perceivable by us by which copulation also they are in a manner made corporeal and therefore cannot pierce or enter into the bodies that are not porous So spiritual things do act with us by some sensible mean that so we may perceive them to act But the lightsom body being absent the beams also depart neither do they part from his presence because they immediately flow from him 203 But the Air is without enlightened not onely by the presence of a body of light and of the beams from it but also the body being gone and the beams withdrawn by a lightsom spirit flowing from them as is clear in the darkest Eclipse or the Heavens over-cast with the blackest clouds or wrapt up in the mask of night yea the Sun being sunk under the Horizon for that act of present light cannot proceed from the body of light and its beams being absent but from the access and presence of a
drink which they diet on or at least the better part is terminated into humours and at length into spirits which getting through the pores and knit to the flesh nerves bones and the rest of the parts of the bodie do nourish and augment them and do by the never-tired work of supply repair decaying nature So the spiritual and the portion of the purer substance is curdled to the frothie bodie of seed Art the Ape of Nature doth experience the like in her resolutions and compositions 213 The life of individuals is in a rational and strict union of the matter and form but the knot of both natures their tie and base lieth hid in the fortified embraces of the innate heat and fire and the radical moisture For that formal fire is an heavenly ray which is united with the radical moisture which is the purest and best digested portion of the matter and as it were an oyl defaecated exuberated and turned as it were into a spiritual nature by the organs of Nature as by so many Alembicks 214 There is much of the radical moisture in the seed of things in which as in its food is kept a celestial Spark which doth act all things necessarie to generation in a convenient matrix But wheresoever there is a constant principle of heat there is conceived to be a fire because the natural principle of heat is his in which it is 215 A man may observe something immortal in the radical moisture which doth neither vanish by death nor consume by the force of the most violent fire but remains unvanquished in the carkases and ashes of bodies burnt 216 There is a double moisture lies in every mixed Being to wit an Elementarie and a Radical The Elementarie being partly of an aeriall parly of a watrie nature yields not to fire but flies away into a vapour or smoke which being drawn forth the bodie is resolved into ashes for by it as by a glue the Elements in their mixture are knit together But the radical moisture scorns the tyrannical assaults of common fire but it neither dies in the martyrdom nor flies away in the combat but surviving the mixt bodie doth stubbornly stick to its ashes which is an evidence of its exact puritie 217 The experience of this radical moisture hidden in the ashes did teach a secret to the glas-makers being ignorant of the nature of things for by bringing Glass out of Ashes by the sharp point of their casting flames they have made a hidden thing evident beyond which neither the strength of fire or art are able to stretch it But the ashes must necessarily run that there might be a continued quantitie and a solid bodie made as glass is which could not be otherwise for there can be no flowing of any thing without moisture Therefore that moisture being inseparable from its matter is at length brought to terminate into that noble and as it were aetherial transparent bodie 218 The extraction of Salts out of Ashes in which is the chief virtue of mixt Beings the fertilitie of ground increased by the burning of stubble and by ashes doth evidence that that moisture preserved free from fire is the radical principal of generation the root of nature Although this virtue lies hid solitarie and idle till being received by the Earth the common matrix of Natures principles yet shew forth a hidden facultie convenient for generation and multiplication as it is also accustomable in the seed of things 219 That Radical Balsame is Natures ferment or leaven infecting the whole mass of the bodie It is an indelible and multiplying tincture for it pierceth and tingeth even the more loathsom excrements which is evident by the frequent although imperfect generation that is made from out of them as also by the frequent dunging of ground which is known by the most unskilfull husbandmen that so the languishing land may be set forward to pay its due and that with an advantage to the expecting labourer 220 We may guess that that root of Nature which survives the ruin of the mixt bodie is a foot-step and the purest and immortal portion of the first matter informed and signed with the divine character of Light For that ancient matrimonie betwixt the first Matter and its Form is not to be untied from which copulation the other bodies drew their original Moreover it was necessarie that this incorruptible base of corruptible things and as it were the cube-root of them should lie hid always remaining and immortal in the depth of bodies that it might be constantly and perpetually a material Principle having a potentiality and aptitude to life about which as about an immoveable Axle-tree there might be a continual turning of the Elements and things And if we may have the liberty in dark things to guess at what is most likely truth that immortal Substance is the foundation of the material World and the Ferment of its immortality which the Eternal Measurer of all things hath fore-established to survive the day of the conflagration of all things when the Elements shall be purified by that refining fire that so he might renew and repair out of this pure and ever-remaining Matter his work vindicated from original sin and the taint of corruption 221 That this radical Basis is not of the kind of special forms is evident because every individual hath its individual and singular form which doth depart the body upon the dissolution of the mixt Being yet that radical principle remaining unextinguished although it abide much weakened and of little efficacy by reason of the absence of the form yet do those vital sparkles remain apt for the production of more debased and imperfect births which production belongs not so much to Nature as to the matter in its birth this attempteth but is not able to generate without a companion by reason of the absence of the formal and specifical virtue So the carkass of a man or an horse by reason of the defect of seed is not capable for the generation of a man or an horse but of loathed worms and other insects from whence we may guess that that feeble principle of life proceeds from the scarcity of the first matter and rather to be of the family of the lower Elements than of the higher and celestial yet that there is in it some of that tincture of light 222 For certainly that slight spark of that former light which did in the beginning inform the dark matter of the lower Abyss may be sufficient for the generation of insects for it doth work the matter by a confused and disordered motion that it might bring forth the power into a feeble act but the matter warmed by this spark and as it were languishing being corrupted rather by the fancy than the copulation of a male doth rush into the lustfull act and being unable to bring forth a just issue of Nature doth form loathsom phantasms as Worms Hornets Beetles and the like in the
filthy excrements Therefore that radical Moisture is the nearest and never-ceasing subject of generation and life in which is first kindled the fire of Nature and the formal act in a well disposed and prepared matter But in a confused and ill ordered matter where that humour doth act the part of the male it begets spurious and bastard births of Nature for that generation which is made without specifical seed seems to be made rather by chance and default than by the intention of Nature although in it seems to be a dark and confused kind of copulation of actives with passives which is required also to the production of every though imperfect Being 223 That radical Ferment constantly abiding in the depth of mixt Bodies seem to be the Band Seat and Tye of that matrimony contracted between Light and Darkness between the first Matter and the universal Form finally of all the Contraries otherwise the Matter and Form by reason of their repugnant natures would not be knit together But that dark unbridledness of the first matter and its averseness from light was tamed and its hatred turned into love by the good office of that lightsom tincture which doth reconcile things repugnant 224 The inbred Heat and the radical Moisture are of a divers kind for that is wholly spiritual and of the Sun this of a middle nature betwixt a spiritual and a corporeal both participating of an aethereal and elementary Nature that is of the degree of things above this of things below in which was celebrated the first marriage of Heaven Earth by which also Heaven hath its abode in the very Centre of the Earth They are therefore deceived that do confound the inbred heat and the radical Moisture for they differ no less than smoke and flame the light of the Sun and the Air Sulphur and Mercury In mixt Beings the radical Moisture is the seat and food of the inbred and celestial Fire its bond with the Elementary body but that power of Fire is the Form and Soul of mixt Beings In seeds that moisture is the immediate Keeper and Case of that Spirit of Fire inclosed in the seed till it be set on to generation in a disposed Matrix by an adventitious heat Finally that radical Substance is Vulcan's Shop in every mixt Being the Chimney in which is kept that immortal Fire which is the first mover of all the faculties in an individual nature 225 That radical Moisture is the Catholical Balsam the most precious Elixar of Nature the Mercury of Life having a perfect sublimation by Nature a dose of which is administered to every individual of her family weighed to a just quantity by plenteous Nature They that have attained the happiness to fetch out this hidden Treasure of Nature wrapt up close in the heart and in the closets of Natures birth and can get it out of those close coverts of the Elements let him boast that he hath attained the chiefest staff and help of life and a most precious Treasure 226 The order of Reason and of Creation doth require that the first Copies of things being first of all concealed in the celestial Natures were transmitted into inferiour Beings but in the first they are of a far greater perfection both because of their greater tenuity and dignity as also because of their neighbouring seats to the Eternal Being but with us they are much meaner because carved in a grosser and less valuable matter and more distant from their eternal Principle There is nothing therefore printed in this lower Margin of the World which was not at first copied in the heavenly Being neither is there any particular kind of Being of the inferiour natures which doth not acknowledge the dominion of one Superiour agreeable to it and which it hath not the secret seal and signature of it So do things below depend on things above 227 The World is a creature of an ambiguous nature for it is of both Sexes the higher part to wit the celestial is active and masculine the lower Elementary nature is the passive and feminine nature The Globe of the Earth is the womb in which the engendering seed of Heaven is received and kept From the masculine part proceed life and strength from the female part corruption and death do issue 228 Since superiour and inferiour bodies have their original from the same Principles as from their parts yet are they not such as have their equal lot it is equal that those things that have the honour of being nobler substances and advanced to higher offices should distribute to their brethren of a lower degree being poor and in want some of their wealth and so provide for their life and conversation For it was provided by the foresight of the Deity that since there was a necessity that the World should be made up of unequal natures the more powerfull Natures should aid the weaker hand help to the fainting Natures So Love is the indissoluble knot of the parts of the Universe 229 In this sublunary Region diseased Nature sickens out of a defect of the proportion and temperament of the Elements either by reason of the quantity or of the qualities either out of a too great intension or remission and so is there a dissonancy in Natures musick and a distemper in her bodies Therefore the consonancy of the Elements which riseth from a proportion and constitutes their temperament being gone the matter and form of the whole mixt Being hath a bad coherence Nature is troubled and staggers with a perplexed confusion and hence do first diseases and then death assault disordering and falling Nature 230 That discord of those Principles have either an intrinsecal and radical cause as from a vicious seed an evil generation or age or an intrinsecal and accidental as from a too great repletion or emptiness from whence either an excess or defect in humours and spirits or from putrefaction mortal poison infection grief hurt or some other impediment brought upon the Organs of life with the like which do hurt Nature 231 The four radical Qualities of the Elements are as so many harmonious Tones of Nature not contrary but divers and distant each from other by certain pauses from whose rational difference intension and remission is made a perfect consent of Nature perceivable by the understanding bearing an Analogy to that vocal Musick which is heard by the Senses Sharp and Flat in Musick though they are extreams yet are not Contraries in Musick they are the terms of those means which lye betwixt them and are composed and tempered after a divers manner by these two extreams So Heat and Cold Driness and Moisture are the extream Qualities in Nature yet not therefore contrary but onely the bounds of the middle and interjacent Qualities from whose mixture and temperament do the middle proceed 232 The motion of Nature is continual and not tyred no less in every part than in the whole For she always acts never idle so that
if she were but out of action for a moment it would ruine the whole frame of the Universe which is addicted to a decree of a perpetual motion For neither doth the setled Earth the calm Sea the quiet Air therefore altogether rest because they are not seen to be moved they rest no more than a sleeping man that rest is a remission of action not an omission or cessation Nature acts within neither doth it ever desist its action or motion of the Organs Even a very carkass hath a motion to wit of corruption but living Beings though they are not acted by a local yet are they by an organical motion 233 Nature doth move the frame of the Universe in a uniform and orderly motiō yet so that wheels things unequal and unlike by an unequal unlike motion This unequality of the motion is required by a Geometrical equity and so all the motions of all the heavenly bodies may be Geometrically termed equal considering the difference of the magnitude distance and nature of them 234 Nature being no less powerfull than wise in the informing and governing of her Works doth attain her certain end by many wanderings and windings which is most evident in the births of the Earth for she handling the Elements in an unequal temper doth especially in the Winter replenish the womb of the Earth with a fruitfull seed in the Spring brings forth an easie birth in the Summer ripens the fruit and in the Autumn all fall 235 This diversity doth especially proceed from the approch and recess of the Sun appointed to this end by the Creatour For he hath destinated the Sun to the Rule of the Elements that by his various distance inflection and reflection they may have a divers and various temperament and so there might be some help for Nature working divers things by divers means and that she might perfect her changes by the various changes of Times This variety of Nature is worth the exactest thoughts of the most acute Philosophers 236 The heavenly bodies though not subject to that stain of alteration do notwithstanding introduce manifold changes in the Elementary Region and do inspire various affections by their divers propension and the various motions of the planetick bodies which do alter their site and distance between themselves and also the figure of the Heavens which actions do diversly form and incline the pliable natures of the Elements and they never cease to ferment them by their continual influence 237 The whole substance of the Heaven hath parts continuous though not contiguous let not any therefore fancie the World to be the works of Art which is the work of Nature which cannot endure any section into Sphears and Circles for they that first divided the aetherial region into many orbs and circles did propose to themselves rather the easie teaching by it than to shew the truth of the thing For the divine nature being an unitie is desirous of and endeavours unitie and so avoideth multiplicitie wherefore we must conceive she created not many Heavens separated by their matter and superficies when one bodie in respect of the continuitie of the matter though distinct in the dignitie and virtue of the parts might suffice Neither is this taken off by the motions of the Stars in their courses and customs which because we know not we therefore make a fancied Astrologie and do too boldly bring the power of God under the weakness of man though the continuitie of the Heaven hinder not the motion of the Stars and there might be some help for mans reason to find out their orders 238 That there should be a first moveable above the Heavens by whose hurrying motion the lower Heavens are turned about is not an invention of the wisdom of God but onely a fancied help for mans ignorance for if we assign the principle of motion to that first mover why do we denie it to the globe of heaven why should we fancie an external cause of motion which may be all this time intrinsecal 239 As this lowest province of the World is subject to the rule of the middle so is the middle viz. the aetherial to the highest and supercelestial for its priviledges and deputieship For the Empyrean heaven and the quire of the intelligible Beings do inspire into the celestial orb those virtues which they receive from the Archetype in order of succession and do move those natures that lie nearest them not without a concent as the first organs of the material world by which motion the inferiour bodies being also moved do exercise their turns as so many dances to a set pace and do borrow whatsoever is excellent from the superiour bodies 240 But Intelligences are illuminated at hand according to their orders from the mind of God as from the spring of eternal light by which illumination they are fed as with an immortal food and in it as in a glass do they read receive the commands and will of the Divine Majestie and by it are enkindled to an honourable obedience This is the manner and union of the threefold nature of the Universe the knot and Herculean bond of this union is the love of God So in a ternarie is compleated the whole state of the World whose Creatour is by no means part of it no otherwise than Unitie is neither a Number nor the part of a Number although it constitutes all number but is the principle and measure of Number neither is the Musician or Lutonist a part but the authour of the Concent 241 They which believe that an almost innumerable multitude of heavenly bodies were created for the commoditie of the globe of the Earth and for her inhabitants as to their proper end are deceived for reason will denie that natures so far more noble and transcendent were enslaved to the service of more vile and low-born Beings Is it not rather more likely that every Globe doth rather of it self make a peculiar world and that so many worlds as feodaries to the eternal Empire of a God are diffused through the vast range of the heaven and there do hang as bound each to the other by that common bond of the heaven and that the whole large Universe doth consist of those manifold natures These though so far severed in nature and place yet do joyn in a mutual love so as to make up a perfect harmonie in the Universe The heaven is the common place of all yet is it more pure about those more perfect Beings therefore it is of great tenuitie and almost spiritual and so fils up the places between that so it may the better receive the various affections of so many natures and the secret virtues continually issuing from them and having received them it might swiftly communicate them to others though far distant For the heaven is Natures conveyance by the mediation of which all the Cities of Nature do traffique one with another and are made partakers of each the others wealth