to be sensitive doth not shew the unseperable Essence of an Animal And seeing otherwise the definition of every thing is from the Essence of the thing as they will have it but man according to his Essence was made in a full possession of Immortality and henceforth of an Eternal Duration according to his Soul the Schools could not believe that man by reason of a sensitive Soul alone was essentially an Animal Especially while they believed his Essence to depend on an Eternal Duration and an uncorruptible Soul or Form All which absurdities I acknowledge to have crept into and to have remained in the Schools by reason of the truth of our Position being unknown Even hitherto I have established the Position out of the holy Scriptures Now again the same by the Authorities of Fathers which matter B. Augustine hath seemed to have understood before others saying After what manner had it shamed Man of the Transgression of a Law when as his very Members had not known shame As if he should say His Members were stirred up unto the Concupiscence of the Flesh and acts of his Privie Parts presently after the Eating of the Apple Their Eyes were opened but for this they were not opened that they might know what might be performed by them through the cloathing of Grace when as their Members knew not how to resist their will And dost thou not blush at that Disease or that thou although shamefac'd dost confess that that Lust entred into Paradise And to impute it unto Husbands and Wives before Sin He who was to be without Sin would be born without the Concupiscence of the Flesh not in that Flesh of Sin but in the likeness of sinful Flesh As if he should say whatsoever is born from Copulation although it had been born in Paradise and before Sin would have been and is the Flesh of Sin Seeing that alone which is not born of Copulation is not the Flesh of Sin Whatsoever off-spring is born from Concupiscence or of the Flesh of Sin is obliged unto Orignal Sin unless it be born again in him whom the Virgin conceived without Concupiscence The Flesh of Christ drew a mortality from the mortality of his Mothers Body because she found not the Concupiscence of a Copulatresse For indeed as Original Sin is not derived on the Posterity any other way than by the Concupiscence of the Flesh So it must needs be that in the Apple was included the Concupiscence from whence the humane stock degenerated and was vitiated in generating For truly if off-springs could have been generated any otherwise than by carnal Copulation the Matrimonial act had been unlawful Whereunto this every-way convincing Argument serveth That act before the Apple was eaten was either unlawful and not thought of or it was lawful If it were unlawful now our Position is proved But if lawful therefore whatsoever I have above described out of Augustine is false Seeing therefore they had now actually felt the effect of the eaten Apple or the Concupiscence of the Flesh in their Members in Paradise presently it shamed them because their Members which before they could rule at their pleasure were afterwards moved by a proper incentive of lust At length how greatly Virginity hath alwayes pleased the Bridegroom of the Soul doth clearly enough appear out of divers Histories of the Saints And indeed in Cana of Galilee the Bridegroom having left his Bride followed the Lord Jesus and it is that Disciple whom Jesus therefore so greatly loved The same thing was familiar unto Alexius Aegidius and to very many others especially with poor Women-Virgins For indeed the infinite goodness from the proper motion of its good pleasure from Eternity created Man and fore-loved him with so great a love that he determined to co-knit his own Divinity unto him and to enlighten him with the Light which enlightneth every man that cometh into this World and to Adopt him for the Son of God giving him Power to become the Son of God by the new Birth which new Birth before Sin was not necessary Seeing therefore he requireth People to be re-born of God therefore before Sin they were all born of God which thing Lucifer with his own Spirits seeing through a long-since Pride of his Beauty and since his fall being wholly become Envious supposed that he was wiser than God who had raised up a vile creature unto that height wherefore he aspired to exceed God whom he had not yet seen and to throw him down from his Seat of Majesty Presently afterwards he after that he had paid the punishment of his Sins being more cruelly wroth saw also that Eve being a Virgin was by the onely Goodness of God without all desert and freely now appointed for the aforesaid Instrument of that Adoption and Mother of Men Therefore he endeavoured to hinder the Love of God through the Eating of the Apple Because as seeing that the Lasciviousness and Concupisence of the Flesh implanted in the same was Diametrically opposite unto Gods intention Therefore the Eating of the Apple was not forbidden unto man by a Law but by a fatherly Admonition neither is Original Sin from the Transgressions of a Law from the Eating of the Apple as being forbidden food but by Reason of the effect arising from the Apple and the properties inserted in the Apple After another manner the Transgression or Eating did offend onely in a Voluntary Act but not for Posterity unless Naturally and by the second Causes of a brutal Copulation following from thence otherwise in our first Parents impossible it had inverted the intention of Divine Generation Yea Original Sin fell not so properly on the guiltless Posterity as the effect of Generation the which indeed hath brought forth an Adulterous Beast-like Devilish Generation and plainly uncapable of the Kingdom of God and of Union with and Enjoyment of God By Reason of the Similitude whereof those that were born in Adultery were excluded from the Participation of Heaven But let us feign the opposite thing to wit that our Parents were conscious that there was a Law declared by God the Creator of the Universe touching the forbidden Apple and that upon such an account Death was foretold unto him and all his Posterity and undoubtedly came unto them but at least-wise an irregular Sin being so bold and so ungodly and cruel a Wickedness on all their Posterity could not be forgiven without a great note of Contrition Neither had God how Merciful and Good soever straightway so suddenly made that man fruitful with so great a Blessing and substituted the other living Creatures under his Feet he not being ignorant that neither of them did Grieve Repent Pray but only it shamed them and that they endeavoured as Fools to hide themselves from God and to cover their privy Parts with Leaves Therefore I collect from thence that on the same day not only Mortality entred through Concupiscence But moreover that it presently
is a Body mixt from a reall Wedlock of the aforesaid Elements how can it come to passe that Gold doth exceed water in weight sixteen times at least For if there be in Gold parts of Air and fire mixt by an undissolvable and equall tempering for that thing they affirm to be altogether necessary seeing they assign the perpetuall remaining of Gold in the greatest torture of the fire to be from an equall mixture of the four Elements Therefore Water and Earth in Gold being constituted shall two and thirty times out-weigh their own matter from whence the Gold ariseth Shall therefore Earth pierce it self two and thirty times at least while Gold is made of it Therefore seeing the weight it self doth bewray infallibly a ponderous Body neither doth weight wholly consist of nothing they must resolve me of this question before they shall draw me to their own opinion concerning the mixtures of the Elements In the mean time shall be room for me to shew by way of Handicraft-operation that solid and ponderous or weighty Bodies do afford out of them water of an equall weight deprived of all manner of taste Neither that an Element in nature is as neither that the Elements can ever by any skill or endeavour of nature be knit together into a formall unity these things already more largely above Therefore it is a deaf kinde of Doctrine that there are four contrary Elements which flow together to the co-mixture of other Bodies which hitherto are deceitfully supposed to be mixt and that they fight also in such mixt Bodies wherein they are enclosed no otherwise than as in their own simplicity by reason of contrarieties and that therefore they do mutually slay each other by an uncessant War and that they do as oft rise again immediately by privation that they devour and again vomit up each other That stupidity of the Schooles is not to be borne whereby they do without scruple subscribe to each other in these trifles not enquiring what that appetite in an Element of enlarging it self should be or what the motion beyond the bound once appointed for it by the Creator For first of all there is not any hunger thirst penury or any the like defective thing to which they should be subject from their Creation Neither also do they suffer defects much lesse an actuall feeling of defects Seeing every one is in it self a first and simple Being neither doth it admit of VVedlocks neither is it wasted by nourishments and through the exchange of it self hath it or doth it cast out excrements nor doth it suffer rust neither doth it by waxing weary or declining degenerate into any Body more pure than it self more former than it self more simple than it self Therefore a necessity is wanting whereby the Elements may consume each other after a hostile manner For God saw that whatsoever things he had made were good If therefore two good things should fight against each other that fight at least could not but be a great and continuall evill the authour whereof should be the Creator himself For from thence it would follow that such a property of the Elements should not be from God as neither from sin therefore from some greater than God is But if the Elements are said to be so created by God that one should continually change another into its own nature not indeed by reason of mutuall Hostility but for the necessity of nourishment Although that presupposeth a ridiculous thing yet I have what I wished to wit the taking away of contraries Therefore it is a vain privy shift and a false devlse For truly that supposition cannot subsist together with the position it self For that excuse being supposed it must needs be that there should be a fight and resistance Else one Element should presently convert all the other that co-toucheth with it into it self Because there is no difficulty of overcoming where there is no necessity of fight or resistance Because every part of an Element should have the same passion motion and desire to consume its Neighbour such things as are supposed to be in parts akinne to themselves And so that therefore those activities should be heightned into a hugeness that it should easily and presently convert the Element subjected unto it into its own nature without a re-acting And these being thus converted afterwards uncessantly others and successively others At leastwise that uppermost Air and that which is at the farthest remote distance from the water being pressed with a most tiresome and long thirst had long agoe perished or at least should languish through wearisomness or grief as being deprived of its naturall nourishment Therefore however these things may be excused the Creatures at least should be ordained by God with a desire of troubling the order and Harmony of the Universe and of their first constitution to wit of bringing in the first dissolution and disproportion by overcoming slaying and transcnanging their Neighbour into themselves Truly humane frailties are the inventers of these fables brought in by the Paganish Schooles Because through ignorance of nature it self the common people have brought in Lawes confusions contrarieties fights hostilities reducements and repeated Resurrections that men might excuse their own angry contrariety and might apply it to things that want it Indeed the Schooles and also the common people who have been deceitfully thorowly instructed by these have esteemed that in nature it is a greater more glorious and better thing to overcome than to be overcome to subdue equalls than to be subdued But God hath taught us otherwise To wit that in the top of perfection of nature it is more glorious to suffer than to do wrong that it is a more blessed thing to be overcome of a stronger than to have cast down a weaker And seeing God cannot erre in his judgements hence the judgements of the Schooles and common people have sprung not from the truth of nature but indeed from our animosity and frailty And therefore they are erroneous and abusive as as being opposite to the divine judgements Neither also shall those which God hath despised in man be able to praise him in the simplicity of a Law and necessity of Nature if they were glorious But if there were any true contrariety in things that want sense they had rightly judged that that doth necessarily arise and presuppose a conception of hatred and hostility being radically sealed in their own first and formall beginnings by reason whereof the Agent from its own self-love should stir up to it self a hatred against the Patient or it should have that hatred singularly put into it by nature for resistance unlikeness and an endeavour of successive alteration And that which way soever it may be taken is to confess Radicall Seminal and most inward contrarieties in substantial forms And so substances themselves to be immediately contrary to each other unlesse they had rather deny forms to be substances But I am provided to teach That
one onely thing is now unto it and there it containeth all things And therefore if any memory should survive in it it should be vain and burdensome for ever As also remembrance or calling to minde because it is that which is drawn forth into act by the discourse of Reason which is now dead And so in eternity it hath no longer place where indeed the Soul stands out of the necessities of remembring by the beholding and enjoying of naked truth without declining weariness and defect Likewise the Soul that is blessed should stand out of the aforesaid ternary of Powers and therefore neither should it any longer represent the Image of God for which things sake alone it was notwithstanding created Yea by looking more fully into the matter I do not finde in man being mortal memory to be a singular or separated power of the Soul but a naked manner of remembrance whereby those that are unmindful through the aid of the Imagination which is the Vicaresse of the Intellect do fit or forge an Artificial memory and far more strong than else a natural memory would be of those things And moreover together with the life the will also departs from the Soul and therefore it seems to be accidentally as it were added to the Soul For God after man was created placed the same in the hand of his own free will which denoteth not onely a posteriority but also in a proper manner that the will is not originally essential to the minde which from a grant was added like a Talent unto it that man might follow the way which he had rather choose Otherwise surely in the whole stage of things there is no power more destructive to man than free will because it is that which alone brings forth all disagreement between God and man Wherefore such a faculty in the blessedness of Eternity cannot likewise have place But a liberty of willing being taken away the will it self also perisheth or it shall be frustrated by torment Therefore they say the will is confirmed in Heaven or rather therefore taken away That is in Heaven there cannot be a willing or a willing to will except that which God willeth And they who are in Charity and Glory cannot but will those things which belong to Charity Therefore the will of man ceaseth when the liberty of willing is melted away And by consequence the will is a frail power of the Soul Because it cannot be serviceable to or profit a blessed Soul While a wishing onely neither can nor could any more be brought into act which is not in Heaven where there is full satiety and possession of desirable things with all abundance Therefore the will of a blessed Soul should be a burdensome appendice Let it be sufficient that there hath been a treasuring up in this life by a power of willing Therefore together with life a power of willing perisheth and a substantial will manifesteth it self from the understanding and Essence of the minde not any thing distinct and therefore having its Essence distinct from the free accident of willing For as the power of the Imagination or phansie is estranged by doatages doth doat and perisheth with the life So the free power of willing ceaseth Plato his Parmenides at sometime understood that there are not accidents in God neither that there is a duality distinct from his Essence wherefore I conclude if the minde ought to shew forth his Image likewise that every property of the minde ought to dissolve together into the intellective substance of a simple light Even so as the smoak being kindled by the slame is the same with the flame in figure and matter So â—he Soul is a naked and pure Intellect or Understanding and Image of the uncreated Light And so as the eye doth behold nothing more truly and properly than the Sun and all other things by reason of it So also the Soul that is blessed doth not understand any thing more truly than the light wherewith it is inwardly enlightned and which it enjoyes from whence indeed it wholly and immediately dependeth But as the eye doth not bear a stedfast beholding of the Sun So the minde cannot understand God unless according to what Charity it shall have according to the measure whereof it also possesseth God gloriously within For its understanding being free it doth attain the use of the thing understood as by removing it transformeth it self in well-pleasing and a study of complacency unto a unity of the light which pierceth the minde it self and in piercing makes it blessed So indeed the minde doth principally and primarily contemplate of God by understanding is illustrated by way of piercing and so the Image of God which it shewes forth by transforming the same doth make it like unto it self But they which have placed the Image of God in Reason do argue That the Law is the Image of God but the Law is written in our Souls by reason and so they think the Soul to be the Image of God as it is rational But they do not consider that the Soul might so indeed contain the Image of God but not that the minde should therefore essentially be the very Law it self No otherwise than the Law and the Soul do differ in the supposingness of essence For there was not yet a Law when the Soul of man was now created But I concerning the searching out of Sciences have shewen that it is a blasphemous thing to have brought back the Image of God into Reason Seeing there is no likeness of Reason or comparing of an uncertain and frail faculty with God Therefore I will speak my own For the understanding hath an intellective will coequal and substantially co-melted and united with it self not indeed that which may be a power or an accident but the intellectual light it self a spiritual substance a simple essence undivided separated from the understanding by a supposingness of its essence after an incomprehensible manner and not in essence In the minde there is likewise a third thing which for want of a true word I call Love or a perpetual desire Not indeed of having attaining possessing or enjoying but of loving or well-pleasing equal to the two aforesaid things equally simple in the unity of substance which three under the one onely and indivisible substance of the Soul are co-melted into unity But that love is not any act of the will but it proceeds together from the substantial understanding and will together as it were a distinct and glorious act Neither in the next place is that love a passion but a ruling essence and a glorifying act Therefore the will and love of this place hath nothing common with the will of man or flesh because they are essential Titles whereby for want of words the minde doth after a certain sort represent the Image of God Because the Intellect doth understand is intent upon God and doth love him with all the minde with an undivided
that the period of motions and of those unfoldings and the variety of Agents is therefore to be attributed to a re-acting of the Patients To wit even as while an external luke-warmth bringing up Eggs unto a Chick for neither of them doth re-suffer reciprocally For neither doth the vital Spirit in an Egg any way re-suffer any thing by the luke-warmth as neither that luke-warmth by the vital Spirit of the Egg. Hitherto tendeth that which I have proved before To wit that altering things do not act by contrariety Therefore their Patients do not fight in defending themselves nor re-act by contrariety That maxim also is false That every Agent doth of necessity act in an instant and that its action is retarded or fore-slowed onely by a resistance and re-acting of the Patient Because in all particular seeds their own and certain period of continuances and dispositions is essentially included For the falshood of that maxim hath flowed from hence that the Schools being deluded by Aristotle have thought that the fire is to be compared unto other Agents the which when they saw to be any where almost in a moment they believed that the same thing was likewise to be wrested unto other Agents Through occasion whereof I must now speak of irregular and differently inclined Agents In the first place it is manifest that the fire doth suffer or undergoe nothing at all by the re-acting of a combustible object For otherwise a small quantity of fire should be sufficient for the burning of the whole Universe if it were capable of burning which could not be done if the combustible matter should re-act even but never so little Truly a River suffers nothing if a staffe shall swim on the same and as yet lesse doth the fire suffer if it burn Saguntum or if Gun-powder be fired In Nature also no seminal Beginning suffereth by the matter into which it works Because it disposeth of the same without re-acting even as it hath begun plainly to appear in denied contraries Moreover that the falshood of the aforesaid maxim may be the more beheld take notice that all particular seeds have their own periods and moments appointed by the Creator wherein they do promote their course unto a ripeness For Conies Dogs Birds Men Horses Elephants do nourish within perfect and bring forth their own Young at their appointed termes of time Not indeed that the seminal matter in a man is rawer colder and more rebellious than the seed of a Cat But God hath set the bounds of every one of them according to his own good pleasure the reason whereof to enquire into belongs not unto mans judgement For if the disposition of a seminal matter be of a longer labour that proceeds not by reason of its resistance or strugling strength as neither from the weakness wearisomness idleness or disturbance of passions of the Agent For truly every Being in Nature operates without labour and passion and therefore without cessation rest intermittency and trouble Seeing indeed all particular things are made by reason of the communicating of a Ferment and limitation of appointment For all particular things do purely operate by a reflexion of their own appointment according to the ordaining will of their Creator For so Christians were to philosophize But in local motion motive virtues and so also in the exercise of Science Mathematical the maxims of Aristotle are indeed serviceable the which by a violent Command and unfitly the Schools have introduced into nature For if moyst or wet Wood be not so obediently burnt up as dry that doth not therefore come to passe through a re-acting of the wood or with a suffering of the fire For although the wood should cease from all combustion the fire should not therefore suffer more by the wood than by Gold which is not to be burnt yea if in wet wood as such there should be a certain operative resistance to wit a re-acting surely water should also longer and more strongly resist fire than the Rosin of Wood or of a coal But the consequence is false For the water doth most swiftly and first of all fly away out of wet Wood before the fire enflames the Rosin of the Wood Therefore the slowness in wet Wood doth not argue a re-action of the matter or strength of the suffering Wood But the fire follows its own laws of appointments whereby it separates first the more volatile things and next in order things lesse swift of flight For so although the fire be subdued by wet Rosin which by it self otherwise had presently been in a flame with the same fire yet by reason of the aforesaid lawes it patiently expects the torture of the fire and a departure of that water Iron also being placed between stubble and fire hinders indeed the enflaming or burning up of the stubble but there is not therefore any re-action of the Iron on the fire or suffering of the fire by the Iron which thing surely hath not been narrowly enough searched into by the Schools For although these their maxims have place in corporeal actions wherein the Agent of necessity cherisheth and toucheth its own object and thus far inspireth its own virtue into the same yet that is altogether impertinent in Agents which do act on things placed under them which are far separated in place For truly besides the actions of the Heavens which are carried by influence in-beaming and motion without the touching of an Agent but by a Blas onely do disperse the Seminaries of their own virtues Sublunary things are not properly deprived of a Blas Because fermental Odours do produce most active and seminal effects and do transchange in nature their object by their own perfume and do draw it after them into their protection Likewise also a radial or beaming action doth concur into nature For the Elks hoof is thus said by its touching to preserve the heart and head from danger yet the Seat of the evil is not in the finger as neither is there a passing from bound to bound Neither is the Hoof therefore diminished of its strength by acting but rather is confirmed as also the Load-stone is comforted by the communication of Iron For a clear sign that an Agent suffers not a whit by reaction in seminal or beaming actions and by consequence that neither doth the Patient therefore re-act Therefore Medicines against the pain of the Head or Amulets or preserving Pomanders have a Blas whereby they do constrain objects to obey them like the Heavens and they act onely by their own and not on a strange and nearer object And they draw out their deserts or worthy virtues without all corporal eflux motion passion or weakening I know indeed that the Schools do not bear these things but that they refer these effects into vapours lifted up from the womb or the least toe because they are such who have sunk themselves in the Clay of a dreggy Minerva or wit But if a Maid which hath the
Bodies For if every thing be by its Causes and be thereby principated or made to begin it is a vain thing after the manner of Aristotle to believe other Causes and other Principles of things They are therefore Principles which never slide into each other by any whirling of successive changes For the first is stable perpetual the real beginning and prop and Seminary of Bodies And it is the last thing whereinto the dead or ended Tragedies of things do return But not a certain feigned sluggish and impossible hyle or matter But the other is the Principle of the begining of motion with every property of things to be acted under their Tragedy Yea truly seeing particular kinds do exist into general kinds no where solitary or without companions and they are individuals only which are and do subsist by a real Act. Principles ought to have been real and individually existing So indeed that the universality of the matter be individually limited by the activity of the efficient Cause Wherefore a falshood being granted to wit That all Bodies might be reduced into those Three Things by the motion of a proper dissolution yet it doth not also from thence follow that these Three things are the beginnings of Bodies Because an immediate resolving of Bodies doth not prove Principles but a diversity of kind of the matter being ultimated or brought to its last state And the last resolving of the last matter is a Witness only of the Seeds of the concrete Body but not of Principles Neither in the next place is there any reason why the Three Things may be called the First Things if three do return or may be reduced into two and lastly into one only thing Yea although in the Beginning three bodys should be seen trans-changably passing over into each other neither were they therefore to be reckoned Three rather than Two if of Three they may be presently after be made two only Therefore where the three things are found they are not the material beginnings of Bodies but the Bride-beds of the Seeds The which being worn out all things do of their own accord return into their original Element of Water But that those Three Things are not contained in any Bodies whatsoever and so are not necessary Principles is manifest because the Mercury which is drawn out of a Mettal is so single homogeneal simple and undivideable that it is impossible for Salt or Sulphur to be drawn from thence by Art or Nature But Mercury is never in any respect to be divided To wit it hath grown together onely from an elementary Water and the virtue of a most simple Mercurial Seed into an undivideable unpenetrable and unseparable Body the which among generated things hath not its like Otherwise it is like unto Water which in it self being defiled with no Seed hath on every side a co-like simplicity and impossibility of separation But inasmuch as I have sometime attributed unto the Water its Three Things that was spoken Analogically or by way of suitable resemblance as besides abstracted Spirits nothing is so alike in Bodies that it is not understood to be diversly affected according to divers dispositions and and as those dispositions must of necessity respect some diversity of kind of being For it is sufficient in the same place also to have admonished that the Heterogeneal parts of Water are in the most simple Body of an Element undivideable and really impossible by Art Nature and all Ages they consisting of the utmost simplicity Therefore although I have there called them the Three first Things of the Water yet they are not the Three of composition as the more formerly Beginnings of the Water but the Three things of heterogeniety or diversity of kind Which Heterogeniety at least mentally to be divivided into diverse things although the Water doth by the Law whereby it contains a Body contain Yet seeing it is an impossible thing that they should be drawn asunder from each other there is onely place for conjecture that although those things are not true Sulphur Salt and Mercury at least wise that they do in some sort answer unto them Therefore there is an instance in the Water no lesse than in the Mercury whereby the Three first Things are denied to be from thence accounted to be separated I seem to hear whisperings that I shall offend very many Artificers who with full cheeks do boast of the Oyle Salt Vitriol and Water of Mercury and that I shall convince them of a Lye or juggle while they promise the aforesaid things I answer That an active Imposture or deceitful juggle doth bring forth its own Imposture unworthy of life and happiness But that a passive imposture is worthy of pity But they who do not as yet discern the fallacy whereby they are circumvented do Argue First Gold they say a Body which is the most exceeding constant among sublunary things is dissolved into parts of divers kinds therefore also Mercury by a more strong reason Indeed they strain from the less to the greater Again they urge Nature hath known of the first Elements to compose Mercury therefore she hath known also to destroy it But the way of composition is not to make Mercury immediately of the Element of water but by dispositions of the matter coming between which are unlike So also the way of corruption in Mercury shall proceed by the same dispositions with a retrograde pace and a diversity of kind of matter Where thirdly Paracelsus saith the matter of things which cannot be destroyed by Art is at least wise destroyed by Nature Because all sublunary things which are not subject to death are at least wise subject to a bound or end Unto the first I answer That Gold is indeed the most constant of Bodies in the fire but it borrows the constancy of its separation from the Mercury And so if the Sulphur thereof doth include a Heterogeneal duality that doth least of all touch at the Mercury For Mercury being pure and distinct from combustible Sulphur which is more or less in the common Mercury doth plainly refuse all twoness or duality That is to say the nature of Mercury includes a perfect Homogenity or sameliness of kind But to the other I say that Nature hath indeed proceeded from the purity of the Element of water unto the composition of Mercury Yet that it cannot the admitted Seed of Mercury being once enclosed in the innermost parts of the water return to the destruction of that composed Body Because that Seed is nor mortal nor frail nor subject unto sublunary Laws as Paracelsus saith in his vexation of Chymists But the reason of immortality in Mercury is because the Seed and Fruit thereof in the constitution of Mercury are now one and the same thing Mercury in Mercury Neither hath Nature known to invent a manner of destruction in a thing so Homogeneal where the Seed hath become the Fruit by a most perfect and undestroyable or undissolveable union Seeing
Mortals that would come from thence he then also well perceiving his own Miseries in himself certainly knowing that all these Calamities had happened unto him from the Concupiscence of the Flesh drawn from the Apple which were unavoidably issuing on his Posterity he thought it a discreet thing for him for hereafter wholly to abstain from his Wife which he had violated and therefore mourned in Câ—â—stity and Sorrow a hundred full Years Foolishly hoping that by the proper merit of that Abstinence as by an opposite to the Concupiscence of the 〈◊〉 that he should again return into his former Majesty of Purity But the Repentance 〈…〉 Age being finished probably the Mystery of the Lords Incarnation was revealed unto him Neither that Man ever could hope to return unto the brightness of his antient purity by his own strength and much less that himself could restore his Posterity from Death And therefore that Matrimony or Marriage was well pleasing and was presently after the Fall indulged unto him by God to wit because he had determined thus to satisfie his Justice at the fulness of times which should to the glory of his own Name and the confusion of Satan carry up Mankind unto a more eminent blessedness From that time therefore Adam began to know his Wife and to fill the earth by multiplying according to the Blessing once given him and a Law enjoyned him Yet so nevertheless that although Matrimony by reason of the great want of Propagation and otherwise an impossible coursary succession of the primitive Divine Generation be admitted as a Sacrament of the faithful Yet because at length it seemed by reason of necessity as it were by dissembling or connivance to be indulged Therefore the Comforter dictating it it was determined against the Greeks by the Church that the Priest by whose workmanship the Lords Body is incarnated in the Sacrifice ought to be altogether estranged from the act whereby Death and the impurity of Nature were introduced For the necessity of propagation hath indeed thus in times past excused the offence of a coursary succession in Generating For as Augustine witnesseth If the propagation of Men could have been made after any other manner the Conjugal Act had been unlawful Wherefore Bigamy or a Duplicity of Wives is not undeservedly expelled from the Bishoprick even as actual Wedlock from the Sub-deaconship For however it be a Sacrament yet it is unbeseeming the Sacrament of the Altar to wit by which the chastity of the first constitution and intention of the Creator are recompensed For God despised that blood should be offered unto him even in burnt-offerings and that Man should eat blood being mindful that the blood in which the sensitive Soul is had proceeded from the eating of the Apple But besides bruit Beasts are indeed afraid are angry do flatter do mourn do condole do lay in wait and those Passions Man from the sensitive Soul possesseth common with Bruits Yea also it shameth Elephants if they are upbraided with any thing that hath the less generously been done by them But no Animal or sensitive Creature perceiveth shame from a sexual copulation From hence its manifest that Concupiscence of the flesh is Diabolical onely to Man which in Bruits is Earthly and Natural If therefore both our Parents presently after the eating of the Apple were ashamed if they therefore covered onely their privy parts therefore that shame doth presuppose and accuse of something committed against Justice against the intent of the Creator and against their own proper Nature By consequence that Adamical generation was not of the primitive constitution of their nature as neither of the original intent of the Creator Therefore when God foretels that the earth shall bring forth Thistles and Thornes and that Man in the sweat of his Face shall eat his Bread even as was already proved above they were not Execrations but Admonitions that those sort of things should be obvious in the Earth and because Beasts should bring forth in pain should plow in sweat should eat their food with labour and fear that the Earth also should bring forth very many things besides the intent of the Husband-man therefore also that they ought to be nourished like unto Bruit-beasts who had begun to generate after the manner of Bruit-beasts And then if the Text be more fully considered it is told unto Eve after Transgression that she should bring forth her off-springs in pain For it undoubtedly followes from thence that before sin she had brought forth without pain that is as she had conceived her Womb being shut so also she had brought forth Therefore what hath the pain of bringing forth common with the eating of the Apple unless the Apple had operated about the conception or concupiscence of the flesh And by consequence unless the Apple had stirred up copulation and the Creator had intended to disswade it by dehorting from eating of the Apple For why are the genital members of the Woman punished with paines of Child-birth if the Eye in seeing the Apple the Hands in cropping it and the mouth in eating it have offended For was it not sufficient to have chastised the Life with Death and the Health with very many Diseases Moreover why is the Womb which in eating is guiltless afflicted after the manner of Bruits with the pain of bringing forth if the conception granted to Beasts were not forbidden to Man After the Fall therefore their eyes were opened and they were ashamed It denoteth that from the filthiness of Concupiscence they knew that the copulation of the flesh was forbidden them in the most innocent chastity of Nature and that they were over-spread with shame when their eyes being opened their understandings saw the committed filthyness But on the Serpent and evil Spirit alone was the top of the whole curse even as the priviledge of the Woman and the mysterious prerogative of the blessing upon the Earth To wit that the Woman but not the Man although he was now constituted for the head of the Woman should at some time bruise the head of the Serpent And so that it is not possible that to bring forth in pain should be a Curse for truly with the same mouth of the Lord is pronounced the Blessing of the Woman and Victory over the infernal Spirit And moreover to be subject to the Man was not enjoyned unto the Woman in stead of an Execution But it denoted in the mind of God humility chosen in a new Law and another method of living appointed anew by the Son of Man For the Son of Man humbled himself even unto death also to be extinguished by a reproachful death he called it to be exalted Therefore while the Lord depresseth the Woman under the power of the Man he exalted the same Woman in his presence and made her the more like unto himself After another manner because the Serpent should for the future creep upon the Earth The name of Serpent proveth that that was not
something concerning the first Intent of God in Man At length in the last place the Sophistical Atheists do oppose themselves by the Text of Genesis That God overthrew the World by a Deluge Because the Sons of God had chosen and taken Wives of the Daughters of Men which were fair and because these had generated Gyants being strong and famous Men in their Age And that thing is there reckoned for much Wickedness the which notwithstanding literally is seen to be none in the Words of the Text after that Matrimony was now established and lawful Yea especially because Concubine-ship was a good while after dissembled in the Law the which by reason of that Impurity especially they named the Mosaical Law but not the Law of God For truly the Text doth not mention the Sin of David but in the Death of Uriah the Adultery of Bathsheba and the proud numbring of the People Wherefore they are wont to refer this Text of Genesis unto the religious Sons of God and the free Daughters of Men. But it hath seemed a vain thing to me to have fled unto a single Life and monastick Vows and Evangelical Counsels while as a plurality of men was required from the Command Increase ye and be ye Multiplyed and Replenish the Earth which Words indeed did excuse Concubine-ship Then in the next place seeing Virgins are far more prone unto a single Life Bashfulness likewise unto Chastity and Monastick Vows than Men The Floud had rather happened from the Sex being inverted or turned on the opposite Part and it hath been Written because the Daughters of God had taken the Sons of Men for their Husbands And moreover neither can there be any thought or project of keeping Chastity probably taught which had then separated the Sons of God from Virgins nor any Apostasie in those Ages which had provoked the Indignation of God unto Floud Yet if that be so the which I can in no wise through a Dream perswade my self of at least-wise it is from thence proved in behalf of my Position that Chastity alone doth distinguish the Sons of God from the Daughters of Men and that therefore the deflowring of Virginity hath procreated Original Sin But seeing that before the Floud there was no promise of a single Life or Chastity and that a Monastick or Monkish Life came not as yet into their Mind so long as Multiplying stood in a Command and Blessing I have conjectured under a humble censure of the Church that the Sons of God were the Posterity and begotten of a Man and a Woman having the true Image of God but that the Daughters of Men were Daughters procreated by the Sons of Adam and Nymphs the Satanical-birth whereof God alwayes very much abhorred But there was an incredible Multitude of these in the Desart one whereof was sent unto B. Anthony Also in the Dayes of Constantine a live Satyr was carried about to be shewn and afterwards was shewn being seasoned with Salt So once there were also diverse Monsters drawn out from the Ocean which spake were instructed in divers Arts and therefore rational they also lived among our Country-men Indeed rational living Creatures were conceived as well in the Waters as in Wildernesses from a detestable Copulation Seeing therefore the first Monsters had begotten Off-springs by the Sons of Adam of the Female Sex they distinguished the Sons of Adam by the name of the Sons of God and these kind of Monsters they name the Daughters of men And these Nymphs Heathenism thence-forward after the Floud named Dryades Nereides Naides c. The which seeing they were fair to look upon and men had taken them to be their Wives God from so great a Filthiness and destruction of the humane kind which the Text cals much Wickednesse in every Season or Age abhorring them determined to wash away the World with a Deluge From that Copulation of Monsters and Nymphs they generated strong Gyants and those famous men of their Age and the which therefore Heathenism long worshipped as Gods and Heroes For otherwise there seem to be frivolous reasons of the Floud according to the Letter To wit because men were married with women and these had generated Gyants that were strong and famous men of their Age. Therefore the Text ought to contain the Indignation of God and a suitable Cause of the Floud The monstrousness is not only in the Figure and Forming of their Body even as in the beginning of Degenerations but their Deformity being by degrees withdrawn and diminished the monstrousness stood in the sensitive Soul the which an immortal Mind did not accompany however outwardly they were Animals using Reason At least-wise it is manifest from the aforesaid Text that the true Posterity of Adam were not Gyants but of the Stature of Christ the Lord and framed by the same Statuary But the Copulation of diverse Species hath alwayes been execrable in the sight of the Lord least Man should follow it by imitation The Law therefore forbad that many Seeds should not be sown in the same Field nor that Webs of Linnen and Wollen should be combined To wit it being mindful of that most Ample and much Wickedness for which God ought to destroy the World But the co-mixture of those Men before the Floud with Nymphs was so usual and ordinary and likewise the copulation of Faunes with Maids that a few only being excepted and saved into the Ark the whole Stock of Adam was defiled and therefore passed by in silent Therefore God decreed to destroy every living Creature that he might likewise extinguish the guilty rational Monster For besides a few which the Ark shut up there was not he who had not contracted a consanguinity with that devilish Progeny For the B. Prophetess Hildegard writeth for she is the Prophetess of this Book which was canonized in the Synod of Trevirum or Triers unto the Clergy of Triers For very many People arose from the Sons of Adam who had a forgetfulnesse of God so that they would not know themselves to be Men From whence they by shamefully Sinning lived according to the manners of Beasts except the Sons of God who separated themselves from those same Men and their Loves of whom Noah was born These things she who acknowledgeth the Sons of God in both Sexes and clearly approveth of my Interpretation of this Text. For Satan had tried by this Mean to overthrow Mankinde and to hinder the immortal Soul that there might not be He from whence the Son of God should be born Therefore there was need of the Floud not only for the Correction of Sins but for the Salvation of the whole humane kind For otherwise Cham had not been saved by the Ark for he was now wholly perverse from Atheism Wherefore I interpret the Text yet under the humble Censure of the Church to wit that the Sons of God who did bear the Image of God in their immortal Soul and in their Body Took the Daughters of Men which
speak with a consideration concerning the power of Willing for after this Life a substantial Will ariseth and manifesteth it self which hath a distinct essence from the power of that accidental freedom of Willing For as the imaginative faculty dies with the Life so also that free power of Willing ceaseth Therefore I have believed that the very spiritual substance of the Soul doth shew forth the Image of God but not in its Powers Namely herein most nearly God is an un-created Being one incomprehensible eternal infinite omnipotent Good a super-substantial Light and Spirit But the Soul is a creature being one undivided dependent immortal simple and thenceforth an eternal spiritual lightsome Substance In the next place in God there are no accidents but every one of his Attributes are the very undistinct most simple Essence it self of the Divine Spirit which thing also Plato his Parmenides even after some sort understood So the Soul if it shews forth the Image of God it shall admit of no accident in it self but the whole substance thereof shall be a simple Light and Understanding it self For just even as Smoak being kindled by the Flame is the same in figure and matter with the Flame so likewise the Soul also is a naked pure and simple Understanding the Light and Image of an uncreated Light So that as the eye beholds nothing more truly or nearly than the Sun but all other things by reason of the Sun it self So a blessed Soul doth not understand any thing more nearly than the Light it self from whence it totally and immediately dependeth And as our eye doth not bear the sight of the Sun so the Soul cannot understand God and much less as long as it makes use of the Medium's of Powers as being bound thereunto Otherwise the Understanding being free doth by understanding attain the Figure of the thing understood by a commigration or passing over it transforms it self unto Unity as I have taught concerning Reason And so indeed the Soul by Understanding doth principally and primarily contemplate of God and is formed into the true Image of God Yet there are others also who conceive of the Image of God in the Soul after this manner That seeing the Law is the Image of God but the Law is engraven on our Souls by Reason from hence they will have it That the Soul is the Image of God as it is Rational But that is plainly improper yea and impertinent For so the Soul containing the Law should indeed contain the Image of God but the very substance thereof it self should not therefore be framed into the very Image of God Indeed no more than the Law and the Soul it self do differ in essence and supposionality Surely I have hated Metaphorical Speeches in serious matters As that God created Man into his own Image should denote that God had given Man the use of Reason and that him that is born mad and deformed he therefore had not made into his own Image And moreover there was not as yet a Law while the Soul was created Furthermore to attribute the Image of God to Reason is to be injurious to God and blasphemous even as I have elsewhere taught concerning Reason For there is no likenesse or suitableness of Reason with God of a frail and uncertain Faculty with an eternal Substance The Opinions therefore of others being left I will speak my own The Understanding hath a Will coequal to it self not indeed that which is a power or an accident but an intellectual light it self a spiritual substance a simple and undivided essence being separated from the Understanding onely by a supposionality of its Being but never in its Essence I find also besides a third thing in the Soul the which for want of an Etymology I name a Love or Desire not indeed of having possessing or enjoying but of well-pleasing it being equal to the other two and equally simple in the Unity of Substance and they are three Suppositions under one onely and that an undividable Substance of the Soul But that Love is not any act of the Will but it proceeds from the substantial Understanding and Will as a distinct act For it happens also in this Life that we love those things which we understand are not to be loved and those things which we would not love We love also those things which exceed or overcome the Understanding and Will For in an Extasie the Understanding and Will perish and are laid asleep so long as they deliver up their Kingdom unto Love For neither is that Love a Passion but a ruling Essence and a glorifying act Therefore Will and Love in this place exceed the circuit of Powers neither have they any thing common with the Will of the Flesh or of Man but they are essential Titles whereby under a want of Names the Mind represents the Image of God because the Understanding doth then understand God is intent on him and loves him altogether with all the Mind by one onely and undivided act of Love by reason of the every way simplicity of its Substance But as long as we live in the Flesh we scarce make use of a substantial and purely intellectual Understanding but rather of an imaginative Power to wit of that quality its Vicaress For in an Extasie Understanding Will and Memory do oftentimes sleep the act of Love onely surviving but so distinct from those three that notwithstanding it stands not without the substantial Understanding and Will and those equally suited unto it self For truly seeing the Soul is wholly homogeneal in its substance it should plainly loose that simplicity if one of the three should be without or besides the other two Love therefore the other two being asleep is then as it were in the Superficies or rather the other two are imbibed and supped up in the Love In this World Love is before Desire because it is a Passion of the amative or loving Faculty which proceeds from that supposionality of the Soul which is truly true Love and representeth the Image of a corporeal Faculty in this Life no otherwise than as Understanding and Memory now as long as there is a wedlock of the Body whereinto the immortal Mind is sunk constitutes a certain third thing But after Death Love makes not a priority as neither a distinction from Desire neither hath it the nature of a Power nor is it an habit or act of Willing nor doth it subsist out of the Understanding neither doth Memory survive in a distinct habit from the Understanding Therefore the Intellect is a formal Light and substance of the Soul which doth beholdingly Know Discern Will and Desire in the Unity of it self whatsoever it comprehendeth in it self and in willing judgeth For it then remembers no longer by a repetition of the Species or particular kinds of a thing once known neither is it any longer induced to know by circumstances But then there is one onely knowledge of all things understood and
it is certain That the Heaven hath received no other Law since Transgression because the Earth alone hath undertaken all the Curse on it self For from hence I have sufficiently demonstrated elsewhere That the Heaven is free from our sins neither that it playes the part of a revenger of iniquities But if some places are subject unto Death and certain Diseases that is not to be attributed unto the circulation or whirling of the Heavens blind influxes of the Stars But it is altogether proper unto the dispositions of the Earth For although Eastern Provinces may seem the more fruitful or happy that is not to be attributed to the Heaven Seeing that in a circle every part subjected under the same circle is alike Oriental or Easterly Otherwise a Circle should not want a Beginning End and Extremity of parts Therefore there is an inbred goodness in the soil and the fertility of the ground is holpen by the continual cherishment of the Stars and a perpetual familiarity of visitation Truly under the circle of the Sun Climates have an ordinary and equal heat and so that as many fruits as by ripening do ascend unto a degree of perfection by reason of heat are there more happy the which otherwise through want of heat are not alike perfect But the heat of the Sun hath respect unto Fruits but not to Long Life which is of no less length of continuance in Cold Mountanous and Northern places than else where under the Hot or Torrid Zone Surely the favours of the Soyl do not depend on the Stars as neither the prolongations of Life The Stars are daily wheeled about and do daily almost equally affect the Climates of the Earth which are under them but they do every Year receive their Winter and Summer according to the access and recess of the Sun In the mean time the Tracts of the more adjoyning Lands do far vary from each other They are therefore the particular gifts of the Soyl but not of the Heaven which therefore keep a stable goodness as it were Provincial to the same Tracts of Land In the holy Scriptures indeed The Land of Promise floweth with Milk and Honey being fruitful in Wine Corn Pulse and rich fruits of the Tree And likewise scarce requiring dunging and the toyles of Labour And then I see other Coasts of the World to owe and pay the Tribute of the Land of Promise For from both the Poles continual Rains do steep the Earth that the promised Soyl may without the trouble of Rains take unto it self its due Water and that Aegypt may repay the favours of the Soyl of Heaven with a double usury of fruits For Seas and Rivers strivingly hasten unto those places with a speedy course Yea and from beyond the Tropick of Capricorne Nilus brings down his melted Snows through Aegypt unto the Mediterranean Sea as it were a Yearly Tribute of Nature that may water the more fruitful Countries if not with Rain at leastwise with Dew and the blackish cloudy Waters of Nile and that the Vapours being lifted up from the Sea throughout the Soyl it may most plentifully repay a plentiful Dew round about And so that the whole World seemeth readily to serve those more fruitful Regions Under the Aequinoctial Line it Rains many times every Day because the Tributary Waters do not reach thither But they are supped up in the Countries which God in times past appointed unto his own People but now unto Barbarians by reason of Transgressions fore-monished of by the Prophets He therefore blessed the Land of Promise for the People of Israel from the beginning but for Reasons foreknown to himself from Eternity and the which he fixed stable into Nature Yea he not onely appointed the Tribute of the whole World unto these Lands but unto most of them he added Reasons Idea's Seeds and Gifts whereof the more intemperate Climate are destitute Nor all that for any other ends than because it so well pleased him for his hidden Judgements But these things do not make for the consideration of long Life for in Is-land Men are found to be of a Longer Continuance of Life than in Palestina Phaenicia Aegypt c. Oftentimes also in Mountainous and rough Hills Older Men are met withal than in a pleasant Champion To wit that we may know that the Prince of Life hath granted a long continuance of Life unto so miserable places and to a singular tract of Land which he hath denied unto whatsoever the most pleasant and wealthy Countries Nature therefore is subject unto the Soyl even for a stability of Life For we measure a Diseasie and short Life from Endemicks Doth happily an Endemical Being breath out of the Lands wherein Life is prolonged No surely And it is sufficient that a place doth want malignity that a continuance of Life may be attained so far as is from the nature of the Place Lastly Fountains are either without Savour or Mineral they not being those which may have positively a long continuance of Life But as being those which unsensibly mow down the daily Superfluities or growths of oily Dregs and in this respect Life is not untimely taken away by and by Neither also doth much and a sweet temperature of Air prevail hereunto For truly in the rough Hills of the Forrest of Arden of Scotland and Spain in our Champion a longer Life doth for the most part occur than in Aquitane For Hieres is a Valley nigh Apulia environed with Mountaines being fruitful in the sweetest Fruits where the most sweet Station of the Spring is almost continued Yet having Inhabitants of a shorter Life being deformed with a pale Countenance so that it hath crept into a Proverb of those that were Sick and Recovering Thou seemest to us to be a Stranger come from Hieres For the pleasantnesse of Fruits takes up the suspition of a Mineral Endemick Also not onely Mountainous Colds do extend the Life but Old Age is frequent among the Aethiopians Let therefore those places be fit for Long Life which being not polluted by any Endemicks have moreover not unwholsome Waters nor the which are infamous for a stormy Wind. CHAP. CIV The Radical Moisture THe Schooles with one Voice promote the Radical Moysture of Life For they declame That from it and in it we live and that that onely being consumed we die For they who together with Aristotle attribute all things to heat as to an active Principle do not say That the Radical moisture is the Beginning as neither the Inn of Life unless they derive the Primateship on Heat in the moisture But the moisture hath more pleased others From whence they being sore afraid through the sloath of a diligent search least they should erre they will have our Life to depend on and be prolonged as well by moisture as by heat without distinction And so they denominate it not indeed heat but composedly Radical heat or the first-born moisture That indeed the first-born or original
forth as if also being in wrath it were disturbed or sorely disquieted by the imprinted Image of revenge for indeed there is in the Blood even after Death its Sense of the Murderer that is present and its revenge because it hath also its own phantasie Therefore not Abel himself but his innocent Blood cries notwithstanding unto Heaven for revenge For which Cause in Sieges the Plague for the most part enters as a Companion to wit because the magical Spirit of the more outward Man hath conceived in combates an imprinted Character of revenge but sometimes the Souldiers being through Poverty reduced to desperation and their Wives are almost adjoyned with them in dying and many Misfortunes are by way of Imprecation bequeathed to the more wealthy Souldiers or Officers from whence most strong Impressions are left as Posthumes or Survivers after Death on the Sidereal or Astral Spirit of the dying Man especially of a Woman with Child which Spirit presently after Death wandring about in the Air deviseth meanes or wayes of its own verge rank or order that is spiritual ones of hurting and revenging and then readily commits it self to Execution But such kind of Plagues are outragious sparing none and as it were immediately sent down from Heaven and because they being spiritual do implore help from corporeal Remedies in vain I am silent as to that For neither is it sufficiently safe to express the connexion and agreement of Mummies betwixt each other for from thence hath issued the whole Necromancy of the Antients For that reason also God in the Law forbad the Bodies of those that were hanged even of Heathens to be left on the Gibbet and the Sun should not go down upon them Thou wilt answer that the Plague of Sieges ariseth by reason of the manifold Filths of Excrements But on the contrary Curriers Tanners or Leather-dressers Emptiers of Jakes's and those who spend their time about Glew to be made by the Putrefaction of Skins are at hand for all of them so far are they from being subject to the Plague for the most part are long lived wonderful is God in the Spirit of the Microcosm Dost thou desire to know perhaps why the Blood of a Bull is Poysonous but not that of his Brother the Oxe Indeed the Bull in time of Killing murmurs against his Executioner and imprinteth on his Blood a Mark and potent Character of revenge But if it happen that in slaying of an Oxe through one stroake he hath become furious and hath the longer continued in the same Fury he leaves his Flesh but unwholesom unless first the disturbance being pacified he as idle and shut up by himself be left to return to himself by fasting The Bull therefore dies more excelling in revenge than other Animals and therefore his Fat but not his Blood unless the humane Blood in the Unguent be conquered by the forreign Tincture of the Bulls Blood is altogether necessary for the Weapon Salve if the Weapons the Authors of the Wounds shall not be besprinkled with the Blood of the Wounded And if by the besmearing of the same Weapons a perfect or safe Cure be to be expected truly the Usnea or Moss together with its fellow Ingredients are not sufficient that a Cure should be made without fresh Blood had out of the Wound for a more violent Efficacious or taurine Impression is required and an aereal Communication of the Honey of Flowers From hence therefore it is sufficiently manifest that the Efficacy of the Unguent is not to be imputed to the Concurrence of Satan who also could Cure the Wound without Honey and Bulls Blood but to the communion of natural Qualities with the derived Post-hume revenge left in the concrete or composed Body of Blood and Fat. Our Adversaries will prate rejoycing that the Power of the Magnetical Unguent could scarce have been proved but by a Witch by Satan and the spiritual Magick of the invisible World which is a suppositious or imaginary Science plainly of no weight or worth and a damnable Errour Notwithstanding not any sinister perverting of the matter in handling but the gross Ignorance of others and the miserable Condition of humane Frailty hath required that thing which more promptly inclines to Evil knowes Evil and is more readily taught by Evil than by Good But certainly whatsoever we have here alleaged concerning Satan and Witches it is not that from thence others should hope for a conformity or suitable resemblance of the Oyntment with Witches for neither are the spiritual Virtues of the Unguent and the Phantasie of the Blood stirred up by Satan as a Guider or Enforcer But this is that I aim'd at to wit that there doth inhabit in the Soul a certain Magical Virtue given her of God naturally proper and belonging unto her inasmuch as we are his Image and Engravment that in this respect also she acts after a peculiar manner that is spiritually on an Object at a distance and that much more powerfully than by any corporeal helps because seeing the Soul is the more principal part of the Body therefore the Action belonging unto her is spiritual magcial and of the greatest Validity That the Soul doth by the same Virtue which was rendred as it were drowsie through the knowledge gotten by eating of the Apple govern and stir her own Body but that the same magical Faculty being somewhat awakened is able to act also out of her Prison on another distant Object only by her Beck conveighed thereunto by Mediums for therein indeed is placed the whole Foundation of natural Magick but in no wise in Blessings Ceremonies and vain Superstitions but that all these wicked observances were brought in by him whose endeavour it hath alwayes been every where to defile all good things with his Tares But we do not tremble at the name of Magick but with the Scripture interpret it in a good-sense Yet we have granted that it may be indifferently employed to a good or evil Intent to wit by the use or abuse of that Power And so that under that Word we understand the most profound inbred knowledge of things and the most potent Power for acting being alike natural to us with Adam not exstinguished by Sin not obliterated but as it were become drowsie therefore wanting an Excitement Therefore we shew that Magnetism is exercised not indeed by Satan but by that which belongs not to Satan and therefore that this Power which is co-natural unto us hath stood abusively dedicated to Satan as if he were the Patron thereof that the Magical Power doth as it were sleep in us since Sin and therefore that it hath need of a stirrer up Whether that Exciter be the holy Spirit by Illumination as the Church mentions to have happened in the Eastern Magi or Wise Men of the East and which at this day sometimes happens in others or Satan doth also for some foregoing submissive Engagement stir up the same in Witches And in such as these the