Life and Soul of soulâ—fied Creatures For in that those Words did differ to say Let it be made and to make For in the sixth or last day Adam was formed But on the seventh day God rested At length he afterwards translated Adam from the Earth into Paradise and deliberated to make Woman of the Rib of the Man but not of his Reins Thigh or Belly Therefore on the eighth day that it might be the Beginning of a new week for a new and super-natural Generation of an off-spring to come Wherefore it may be collected that Woman being wholly an Out-law ascended into a new heap of Choiceness as being a Vessel of Choiceness or Election But we may after some sort conjecture of the quality of humane generation in Eve a Virgin before the Fall by the most glorious Incarnation of our Lord For indeed the Father unto whom every name of Paternity is singularly and solely due and whom his Son as a Father doth alwayes adore hath indeed alwayes generated his Son from Eternity who yet is not read to be the Father of his Incarnation The which thing I even reverence for a vast mystery and the rather after that I understood the insinite goodness of the same as well from the first virginal conception of Creation as in the restoration by the regeneration of Man Indeed the Father Almighty would that the glorious incarnation of Christ should be conceived of the Person of the holy Spirit the which it self to wit therefore was not generated but proceeded from eternity from the Father and the Son For the Spirit of God had caused a humane conception of off-springs in the Arterial Blood of the Heart of the Virgin Eve it being the Image of the Divinity with all its free Gifts without the pleasure of the Flesh But the Mind being thus in the garment of Arterial Blood conceived in the Womb of the Virgin in a humane Shape had took an increase and full maturity from thence For he who the Womb being shut and the Gates being closed came into the World and unto his own also out of the Case of the Heart wherein he was conceived was by a foregoing consent brought unto the Womb of the Virgin and kept even unto the maturity of his Body For he piercing all Members was brought into the Womb For therefore our Lord's Incarnation happened altogether besides the order of Nature now accustomed For 1. The Incarnation of the Lord happened not first in the Womb but in the very Sheath of the Heart of the Virgin 2. Of the most pure and most lively Blood of the Heart but not of the Seed of the Virgin For truly the God-bearing Virgin in that singular respect was not only cleansed from Original Sin but was conceived altogether free from Sins to wit that she might be so much the more void of all Seed than a Child that is newly born For Seed is composed of a mixture of Venal and Arterial Blood or from a co-mixture of Bloods which mixture was no manner of way not so much as materially in the conception of the Son of God who was conceived not of Bloods nor of the Will of the Flesh or of Man but of God alone and born of a Virgin 3. He had not a Man to his Father nor a masculine Matter from whence he should be made which thing surely confirms that a feminine Matter was the more excellent governess or deputy and alone fore-elected from the Beginning 4. He fore-elected the most chast and unspotted Virginity of a Mother which he formed with a divine Hand 5. He was materially conceived onely and of most pure Arterial Blood To wit whereinto the seal of the holy Spirit inspired an humane Mind and a most pure Image of it self made or framed by his Father God 6. That conception was brought from the Heart into the Womb of the Virgin with a piercing of Dimensions 7. Lastly He exspected an increase and just maturity of Nativity as it were in the celebration of a Sabbath Furthermore that the knowledge of Good and Evil signifies nothing but the Concupiscence of the Flesh the Apostle doth manifestly testifie calling it the Law and Desire of Sin From whence to wit the first Bruital and Original Sin the fewel of the other Sins hath immediately issued and is hereafter to endure for a continued Seed of Mortals In the 8th to the Romans God sending his Son into the likeness of the Flesh of Sin hath also concerning Sin condemned Sin in the Flesh that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us Original I say because it is the Beginning of the original of a humane Generation whereby all contagion of Impurity is derived on Posterity and Death became natural unto Man even as unto Beasts So that although the eating of the Apple did contain a note of distrust and ingratitude and the which also is a Companion unto every Sin Yet therefore even every Sin afterwards ought with the same Punishment of necessity also to descend unto Posterity unless the unwonted transgression of a loving Admonition should not so much consist in the disobedience of eating or abstaining as in the horrid Distrust of doubting and confidence of Faith given unto the Devil And so that the generation of the Flesh of Sin which is an effect of the Concupiscence of the Flesh hath of necessity defluxed into Death even unto all Posterity For it pleased the Lord of things to insert in the Apple an incentive of the Concupiscence of the Flesh to wit from which he was able safely to abstain by not eating the Apple therefore diswaded from For otherwise he had never at any moment been tempted by the Flesh or his genital Members the which I will hereafter shew to be therefore called the North in the holy Scriptures Therefore the Apple being eaten Man presently from a natural property of the Apple conceived the lust of being luxurious and from thence was made an Animal Seed which hastening into the previous or foregoing Dispositions of a sensitive Soul and undergoing the Law of other Causes reflexed it self into the vital Spirit of Adam which therefore like an ignis fatuus or foolish fire presently receiving an Archeus or ruling Spirit and animal Air I say a houshold Thief it conceived a Power of propagating an Animal and mortal Seed ending into Life At the arrival whereof at length the immortal Mind putting off the Rains of the Life and government of the Body substituted the sensitive Soul as its Chamber-maid From hence therefore we are conceived born and do die after the manner of Beasts For the day before the immortal Mind acted all in all and was the very immortal Life it self in the whole Body because it was solely and wholly immortal in the whole Body But that very so great Beauty of Nature was presently vitiated in our first Parent after that he was cloathed with the similitude of a bruital generation For then the immortal Mind being moved
the great and new Paradox which I have undertaken to demonstrate in this Treatise Wherefore in the entrance obstacles that are obvious and devious are to be removed And first of all they object the Text The Earth shall bring forth unto Thee Thistles and Thornes In the sweat of thy Face thou shalt eat thy Bread I will multiply thy Miseries and thy Conceptions In pain thou shalt bring forth thy Sons thy Husband shall rule over Thee Thou shalt die the Death And by consequence ye shall be afflicted with the Calamities of Diseases and old Age. All which things issued forth on Posterity from the curse of the Sin of Disobedience even unto the destruction of the World upon no account to be redeemed and by no act of sanctity to be expiated Because God had appointed a Law to Adam that he should not eat of the Fruit of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil the transgression whereof hath defluxed as into original Sin So also it stirred it up into the perpetuity of a Curse from our first Parents equally on all their Posterity These things have been thus diligently taught hitherto Whereunto under the peace and censure of the Church I will humbly sub joyn my own Conceptions First therefore I negatively affirme the contrary because the Words of the Text do not precisely containe any Curses except on the Serpent and Earth but not at all on Man Whom if he with whom there is no successive alteration or change had cursed he had truly and alwayes cursed like the Evil Spirit For it is a foolish thing to believe that God should now curse Man whom presently after Sin and without the intervening of contrition or act of repentance he forthwith blessed with much Fruitfulness gave him the whole Earth and placed all living Creatures under his Feet Yea in the midst of the Curse uttered or brought upon the Serpent he replenished the femal Sex with his blessing saying The Woman shall bruise thy Head I will put Enmities between Tree and the Woman and between thy Seed and her Seed The which seeing it is not understood of the Seed of Man it promiseth the Messias the Saviour of the World to come of the Seed of the Woman So far is it that he had there cursed Man In the second place I deny that a Law was given and by consequence also a contradiction or opposing of a Law For it follows wheresoever there is not a Law Transgression nor Disobedience doth not interpose and by consequence a Curse doth not there befall But I prove that there was not a Law by the very Words of the Text And he commanded him saying Of every Tree of the Garden eat Thou but of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil Thou mayest not eat The Word he commanded Seemes to include a Precept and so also a Law Yet that one only Word obtains no more the force of a Law or Precept for the affirmative of every Tree of Paradise eat Thou than for the negative Thou mayest not eat For it included not a Sin although he had not eat of every Tree of Paradise And therefore it did no more contain a Law for the forbidding of one Tree than for a Liberty of all the other Trees Therefore the Text contained a fatherly Liberty for the affirmative and likewise for the Grant as also a fatherly Admonition of Caution for the Negative no otherwise than as if a Country-man being expert of the way shall say to a Traveller If thou shalt go that way thou wilt Perish and die the Death So the Admonition of the Creator thou mayest not eat and in whatsoever day thou shalt eat thou shalt die the Death do shew not a Law but a Persuasion and Wish But the transgression and Act of the despised Admonition doth indeed contain a Sin but not of Disobedience and Disobedience as much differs from a despised Admonition as a Law doth from an Admonishment it self The Prohibition therefore thou mayest not eat sounds as an Admonition to wit least he should eat his own and posterities Death by an unextinguishable Guilt because that Death was placed in the Apple but not in the opposition of eating And therefore that Death from the eating of the Apple was natural being admonished of but not a Curse threatned by a Law For the threatnings of Death which was unknown to Adam could not terrifie the same Adam And therefore threatnings had been void but not an admonition For Adam had not as yet seen a dead Carcase and the which before he saw living Creatures was ignorant of their Names And much less could he know what Death should be And least of all by far could Eve know what it should be to die in Paradise Therefore with our first Parents Death was as yet a non-Being and unknown but of a non-Being and of that which is unknown no Conception answereth and there is no fear at all Therefore neither hath God foretold Death for the threats of Terrour or a Law but from his meer goodness That when they had eaten of the disswaded Apple they might know that God had not made Death but themselves for themselves Neither doth the Text in Chap. 3. hinder these things Because thou hast eaten of the Tree whereof I had commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat c For the Words do manifestly declare the goodness of the foregoing Admonition but not a Law For the Word I had commanded is the same which before in the second Chapter and he commanded him saying signifies an Admonition only and not a Law Otherwise under an equal original Sin they had been obliged from eating of every Tree of Paradise which none of a sound mind will ever affirme For the great Sin was in a suspition of deciet falshood and fallacy of God and that they gave more credit to the Serpent than unto God and that they despised a fatherly and kinde Admonition But there was not Disobedience because a Law was not given It was indeed an Act against Gratitude Love towards God and a due and rational Obligation Therefore God cursed them not because they by eating had contracted the Penalties of Diseases Death and Miseries on themselves for a Punishment But God speaketh not of Diseases after the Fall Because it was sufficient once to have foretold Death to come while he admonished them that they should not eat In the next place the crafty Serpent assaulted not the Woman as being the weaker but because the Admonition was given unto Adam from the Mouth of God but signified unto the Woman onely from the relation of the Man And therefore God first requires an account of Adam First of all it doth not containe a cursing of the Man that the Earth should be cursed in its Work and should bring forth Cockle and that he should in the sweat of his face eat his Bread all his Life But they containe a remembrance of the loving Admonition that went before the
Fall Again neither do these Words sound of a Curse that the Woman should be thenceforth obedient and subject to her Husband although therein the intent of the Creator doth clearly appear to wit that he had appointed the Woman to be the head top and ultimate Creature above the Man But now by reason of a double Sin that she ought to be subject to her Husband But that signifies rather a deserved Punishment than a Curse Even as a Superiour is not cursed who is laid aside for an Errour committed But whereas it is said In Pain shalt thou bring forth thy Sons the Text expresly confirmeth the mistery of the Paradoxal Position For from thence it manifestly appears 1. That Eve was not created nor appointed as that she had brought forth in Pain Wherefore this Message is not decleared unto her for a Curse But there is set before her eies how much Calamity she had caused unto her self that she should hereafter conceive and bring forth after the manner of Bruits in Pain For it is not to be doubted but that Bruit-beasts are not guilty of Sin yet do they bring forth in Pain Not indeed that they have sinned in Adam as their Father or that they are partakers of his Sin because they had brought forth in Pain whether Adam had sinned or not Neither also is it agreeable with divine goodness that Bruit-beasts should bear an undeserved Punishment while as they from a Faculty of Nature and from an appointment of Creation do bring forth in pain 2. If Bruits bring forth in Pain a likenesse of Conception and bringing forth in Bruits and in Woman after the Fall is denoted which Likeness seeing it was not before the Fall therefore this Text strengthens the Position 3. If Eve had not eaten the Apple and consequently from the Apple the concupiscence of the Flesh from the tickling of a corrupt Seed verily she had brought forth without Pain Where the Text promiseth a Virginity in conceiving and bringing forth and so a perpetual Virginity appointed in propagating To wit that she had conceived and brought forth her Womb being shut For what other thing is this than that which others think to be the Curse of Eve is in very deed only a commemoration of the good lost through the copulation of Man of Seed and of the concupiscence of the Flesh in the Flesh of Sin after the manner of Bruits henceforeward The hope I say was lost of conceiving by the holy Spirit after that she had conceived by the will of Man as every Mother in Sins doth For otherwise if Death had been of the punishment of a broken Law and not from the concupiscence of the Flesh there should be every day as many new Deaths as there are Transgressions or God should not make so much account of his Commands of the Decalogue as of the Admonition of the caution or avoiding from the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil For he would not have those Laws to be alike seriously observed which he would not have to be chastised with an equal Punishment Therefore it being as yet supposed that there had been a Law concerning the denyed eating of the Apple even as there is a Law of forbidden Worshipping of Idols Adultery c. But these Laws are not punished with a continued unpurgeable Impurity on Posterity in such a manner as the opposition of that eating is From hence therefore it most easily appeareth that original Sin was not so much from the force of disobeying a command as from the effect of a defiled divine Generation being changed into a beast-like one For else there is not an equality of distributive Justice nor therefore a conformity in the goodness of God whether we have respect unto the ingratitude of our first Parents or next unto the disobedience against a Law Because the first disobedience should pay a punishment derived on all even on the innocent Posterity rather than any tenths or hundreths afterwards and than innumerable and far more great or haynous Sins Indeed I think that there is the same rule of Justice with the same Lawgiver of every command preceptively and defensively given and pronounced that the breaking thereof ought alwayes to draw after it an equal Fault neither therefore to be punished in all the Posterity and those that are innocent and then that none of Mortals nor any one of them had been sufficient for the original punishments of their Ancestours and a hundred-fold of Deaths to wit if Death had taken its original effectively and immediately from the opposing of a Law or the unchangeable God had not appointed his future Commands to be alike observed as at first if Death should not have its root in Nature the application of which root had been onely from man Therefore If Death should be immediately from God alone from the curse of Sin Now God had made Death and so by Faith we should believe a Falshood In the next place if Death had proceeded from a Curse and had been from a supernatural Root So also neither should our Death find natural Causes in us or our Death should not be of the same kinde with the Death of Adam Yea which is far more absurd our Death should not proceed from the same primitive Beginning from which the Death of our first Parents began And by consequence our Death should not be the effect of original Sin And so unless Death do happen from elsewhere than from the punishment of a Law and the curse of Sin that is unless the Adamical or Beast-like Generation of the Flesh from the Concupiscence of the Flesh and its Copulation doth naturally containe Death in it like unto Beasts in very deed Innocent Children should pay an undeserved Punishment Again if Death should be immediately caused from a Curse or from Sin should not the Text unfitly say On the same Day thou shalt die the Death while as it should not say Presently in the same Moment thou shalt die For a Curse doth not want twenty four hours that it may operate as neither likewise doth Sin require an interval for the Guilt and deserved Punishment of the same which was expresly seen while an impure Man endeavouring to vindicate the reeling Cart wherein the Arke of the Covenant was carried from a fall payed the Punishment of his boldness by sudden Death But seeing Death consisted in the procreation of forbidden Seeds and of the Concupiscence of the Flesh it presupposeth the eating of the Apple and its Digestion And therefore those Words On the same Day thou shalt die the Death or shalt be made Mortal also thou shalt suffer punishment by Death doubled in thee and thy Posterity do strengthen the proposed Truth of our Position But there is no original Sin accounted of from the first afterwards or unremissibly derived on all Posterity but that which from the eating of the Apple thenceforth defiled the whole Nature because it tranferred the Propagation of mankinde on the Flesh
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
doth Grasse contain Cowes Milk Therefore he bewraies his own Idiotisme because he will have every coagulable Body of what sort soever to be Tartar That is whole Nature to be Tartar for the introducing of the cause of Diseases also out of the most refined Liquors For even as if he had been to have said that the matter of a Disease is taken from created Bodies but what then had he made himself besides ridiculous doth he not the same thing now while he tieth up every Body as well that which is coagulated as that ever congulable under Tartar to finde out the cause of a Disease For what new thing doth he bring which before was not known besides the name of Tartar Hath not Galen known that the material cause of Diseases is coagulated or coagulable Therefore by the name of Tartar he hath at least dazled the eyes Seeing coagulable Bodies do not assume a hardness elsewhere than from the appointment of their own seed but not after the manner wherein vvine and Lee do strain themselves together in acting First of all these things do resist the holy Scriptures and his very own position which teach that Diseases have come into man from sin and the position that Tartar was sprinkled on the Virgin Nature And by consequence that before transgression Bodies had their Creams in them and not from Tartar For he had found in the History of Nature if not an Idiot that no Liquor doth undergoe a coagulation by virtue of Tartar but from the intention of the Creator shining forth in the seeds And therefore whatsoever is condensed is a new Generation but not the ripening of a fore-existing Tartar For else there had been Tartar not onely in meats before sin but whole nature had been nothing but a Disease and the cause of death a punishment before an offence and death had arisen from the Creator For Paracelsus elsewhere thorowly weighing that favours do remain in the thing transchanged wandering as yet farther off thought that Essences do not die that they are not corrupted lastly that they are not transchanged but that they remain safe in the dungs of living Creatures and he perswaded himself that where no or perhaps the slender footsteps of favours did remain that their antient Essences also remained safe being badly instructed by the Schools that the same accident did not wander from subject into subject And so if he had been pressed he had denied also the the transmutations of things For he would have fruitful fields dunged because that the Essences of Vegetables being safe in the mud as knowing no death should sub-enter into the Roots of things sowed Being no more mindful of his own Doctrine wherein the dung of living Creatures is deprived of every property of the composed Body and is onely the last matter of Salts But elsewhere he will have the dung to contain the most especial matter of the Tartar and that in this respect the undunged fields of Bohemia do yield lesse tartarous fruits than those which were fattened with a stony or earthy juyce or food or at length with the dung of living Creatures wherein indeed abroad in the Air in a long race of years this earthy Sumen or fattening juyce doth voluntarily melt Because this Sumen-soil should produce a Tartar in Herbs more wild and Rockie than dung so often reâ—cocted and refined into the matter of Salts In which respect some filths do wash out of Towels like Soap And Paracelsus hath grown to that insolency with his Tartar that as oft as any thing did gnaw the Bladder or bring on the Strangury or pissing by drops he presently nameth that thing a Chalk or Lime a frosty Tartar or any such like thing As if Lime and Tartar were now Sunonymalls as though any thing could be calcined in the middle of the Urine without burning as if Lime did not presuppose the matter whereof the Stones consist Seeing there is not ashes which was not before a Coal Finally he acknowledgeth also the Tartar of Marrow not to be coagulable But how knew he this Tartar which he could never see For he will have himself believed in all things who knew most perfectly the Beings and all the properties of the Microcosme But why doth he now call Tartar a Being not coagulable but that all Diseases will they nill they may obey his fiction of Tartars For I being a Christian could not admit of Microcosmical Dreams as they have been delivered by Paracelsus That is by literally and not metaphorically understanding them which sense or meaning doth alwayes banish it self from the History of natural things Neither do I suffer his Tartarers but according to the same Paracelsus I will say we must believe no man in that which he cannot prove by the fire And therefore I may not consent that Lime is burnt in us as neither that Tartar is bred in us because Tartar is not to be acknowledged but in Winy Liquors but that the matter of Tartar doth remain from Generation to Generation through the Shops of the digestions I reject it as a Fable CHAP. XXXII Nourishments are guiltless or innocent of Tartar 1. Physitians at this day do by little and little accustom themselves to the Doctrine of Tartar 2. An Argument against Tartar 3. The Tartar of a Disease should not be a Creature 4. The Thistles and Thorns not to signifie Tartar 5. Two womb Sisters in nature 6. By what means the transmutations of solid things may be 7. An unbelieving invention 8. An impossibility some impertinences 9. The unconstancy of Paracelsus 10. A frivolous thing 11. Absurd Consequences upon the Position of Tartar 12. The Archeus prepares matter for himself while he doth not finde the same 13. The Errour of Paracelsus about the Idea of the Microcosme in Bread about Anatomies declared in meats and Medicines 14. Other absurdities 15. Some notable things against the Tartar of meat 16. Manly Age is lesse subject to Worms 17. A stone growing to a Tooth hath deceived Paracelsus 18. Hence another fiction hath sprung 19. The aforesaid assertion and some absurdities are discovered 20. Some absurdities concerning the Stone of a Tooth 21. A frivolous thing of Paracelsus 22. What a dental or Tooth-stone is 23. It s Birth and manner of making 24. The Family Government of the Teeth 25. Teeth have their Age. 26. Why Cold is an enemy to a Tooth 27. An Errour about the hardness of Stones in us 28. Why the Stone of the Reins doth at length arise pale 29. The unconstancy of Paracelsus 30. The neglect of the same man 31. An instance brought on a Maxim THE more refined Physitians do so by degrees go back from the Humorists the Schools that with Paracelsus they now ascribe almost all Diseases unto the one thing Tartar wherefore it hath behoved me to decypher the beginnings of my repentance and how far youthful and inconsiderate credulity hath in times past seduced me In the mean time seeing the counsel
in it unless in a corporeal manner of Adamical propagation that is in manner of a figure Wherefore it also afterwards understandeth willeth loveth all things by a blinde apprehension alwayes addicted unto it For it hath known its own immortality as it feels or perceives its damnation and it complains that that is done to it as an injustice Because the love of it self is onely to excuse its excuses in sins as it were committed in the dayes of ignorance and innocency with much frailty layings in wait of enemies and a want of sufficient grace neither that an eternal punishment is deservedly due for a momentary transgression Therefore it is mad and hateth God especially because it knoweth the Arrest of the losse to be unchangeable and a liberty of escaping to be prevented for ever Therefore its hope being cut off it passeth into a finall and enduring desperation from the very beginning of its entrance unto place where there is no piety compassion consolation or revoking And because the understanding doth naturally transform it self into the Idea of the thing understood which was known to the Heathens and deciphered by the figure of Protheus that is into the similitude of evil Spirits its objects From hence there is alwayes within a present hatred of God and of the Blessed desperation cursing damnation and the raging torments of infernal Spirits The Almighty vouchsafe out of his own goodness to break the Snares extended in the way for us by hellish hatred Amen Let these things suffice concerning the Soul for the natural knowledge of its own self Now therefore I enter unto Nature that I may make manifest the Seat of the Soul in the Body CHAP. XXXVI A mad or foolish Idea 1. A doubt of the Authour about mortal poysons 2. The ignorance of the Authour from the Idea unknown 3. A very powerful force of those Idea's 4. Ignorance is the guide of Physitians 5. Another Ignorance 6. The doubting of the Authour 7. The confession and acknowledgement of the same 8. A Prayer of the Authour 9. The existence of the minde in us 10. The floating of the Authour 11. A History of the Authour about the examination of poysons 12. What hath incited the Authour hereunto 13. What he hath learned from thence 14. That the understanding is of the Essence of the Soul 15. That our will and memory dwells in the frail life and why love is required from the whole 16. How the understanding shakes its Beams into the Head 17. A distinction of some Lights 18. A certain act of feeling of the Powers of the Duumvirate and the proper manner of the Soul in its own state of Lights 19. A difference of Knowledges in respect of place 20. A clearing up of Remedies for the Head 21. What the Schools do well teach concerning these Remedies and what defectively 22. There is a diversity of understanding in the state of innocency and now 23. The difficulties of the Authour 24. The knowledge of the faculties of the minde is far different from that of any other whatsoever 25. The difficulty of searching for madness and the manner proposed by the Authour 26. A co-knitting of the minde with the sensitive Soul 27. Why the minde is not in the heart as neither in the Head 28. A convincing Argument proveth that it is in the Duumvirate 29. The glory of divine compassion doth shine forth in our griefs or weaknesses 30. The first degree of madness 31. The second is in a drowsie sickness 32. The inward obstacles of the sensitive Soul 33. The memory doth first fail 34. The following arrivals or commings of defects 35. The conceits as well of a sound man as of a mad man are made with Idea's 36. Some mad Idea's are alwayes and every where equal others not 37. The implanted Spirit of the Midriffs being hurt madnesses do remain for life 38. Things worthy to be noted 39. The Confessions of mad men being cured 40. What conceptual Idea's may do for a mad man 41. Excentrical and poysonous Idea's wherein they may co-agree 42. The power in a mad man which overcometh Colds 43. The immortality of the minde is proved from hence 44. Whence the Treatise concerning madness may be derived 45. An extinguishing of a mad Idea is intended 46. The manner of extinguishing the allied blot and a double manner against madness 47. Some Histories of the thing done 48. The Remedy of a Hydrophobia or a Disease causing a fear of water and of the biting of a mad Dog before a Hydrophobia 49. A repeated History of a mad man 50. Considerations of plungings under water 51. A ridiculous thing in an added Remedy of Galen 52. A miraculous curing of madness COncerning the action of Government and likewise concerning the Duumvirate or Sheriff-dom in office even as becometh a natural Philosopher I have written that I might discover the Seat of the phansie or imagination and might describe the strife about the 〈◊〉 or Seat of the faculties of the minde Notwithstanding I being long since in doubt knew not after what manner an understanding man might degenerate into a mad man I knew indeed that in sordid and poysonous things there were certain natural endowed powers not indeed understanding ones but those which might answer in affinity to those So as that they might seduce our understanding against our wills into their own obediences as the biting of a mad Dog the stroke of the Tarantula the eating of Night-shade c. For I thought that in Feverish filths their own co-like faculties did inhabit wherein the dance presently troubled me To wit because in the same Fever cruel raging madnesses had succeeded ridiculous ones I from thence perswading my self that in the agreement of madness there were not disagreeing effects For neither at the first view did I sufficiently heed that poysons do wax mild or are exasperated by ripening And then I looked back on a Lunacisme because it did invade and go back together with its own conjunction of a Star without all Society of poyson Also that madness did return and was silent without any vice of the life running between I wholly doubted being ignorant as yet that besides corporal poysons there were also poysonous images impressions the most absolute and most efficacious Mistresses of the vital Spirits the which our intellectual Powers do as willingly as readily obey as long as we are enclosed in the prison of our Body In the mean time I have known by Faith that the minde is immortal and that by the same right it s own understanding doth remain unpolluted by the contagious of the Body because it was not meet that that which was immortal and infinite or without end should be diminished or hurt by frail or mortal things On the one side therefore I did willingly confess humbly my own ignorance but on the otherside I did contemplate on the miserable and never narrowly searched into condition of a mad man and the so scanty Remedies in the
not Spiritual substances of a proper Name but only the living vital lights of Soulified Creatures The which notwithstanding are Created by God the Father only and are dispensed according to the requirance of Seminal dispositions I knew thirdly that every frail and Sensitive Soul did issue from the seeds occasionally and dispositively only and therefore that it did partake of nothing of likeness or unity with the Mind of man For although both were Created by God yet that they were both divided a sunder no otherwise than as a frail or Mortal Being from a future Immortal one or as Light that is to perish by blowing out from a substance which should be the shining Image or likeness of the God-head I knew in the fourth place that in the seed of Man dispositions and hopes lay hid unto such a frail or Mortal Soul no less than in the seed of a Dog unto a living Whelp Fiftly I knew that the Sensitive Soul even as I have proved concerning long Life in the Treatise of the entrance of Death into humane nature arose in us from sin and that it doth naturally remain afterwards through a successive coupling of the Sexes neither that the Mortal mind could be made by nature Man or any natural means 1. Because it was a Substance 2. Because that it was permanent or durable and therefore 3. That it could never be made from a perishing Being 4. That the mind therefore ought to be made of nothing after the manner of all Substances without the aid of Co-operating nature 5. And that therefore the Sensitive Soul before sin was not in us as neither necessary Next I knew in the sixth place that forthwith after transgression the mind was fast tied to the Sensitive Soul Because that in a Body subject to Death there was nothing more near or more a-kin to the mind wherein it might sit and that therefore the mind had sunk it self into that cleer and Vital beginning as in an Inn and had been annexed to it by God even unto the Period of Life For I have therefore beheld so many foolish madnesses fallacies defects errors and Treacheries of men yea and all madnesses which might utterly deny all the use of the Mind and might make its totall absence rather than its presence to be Suspected Seventhly I knew that the Mortal Soul forthwith after the fall did so over-darken the Mind in its Inn and over-spread it being idle and as it were detain it Sleeping that it did Govern not only corporal actions but it did for the most part so dim or blacken the very presence of the mind it self that it is able to do nothing at all readily in this Life as though it were no longe belonging to its own right For there is a Law in our Members resisting the Law of our Mind Lastly I felt or perceived a contrary or contentions disquietness sprung up which endeavoured to excuse the liberty and burden of sinning For howsoever the mind doth continually breath forth a vital beam into its vicaress the sensitive Soul because it is that which never keeps holiday is wearied or sleepeth nevertheless it seemed to be so servile to the mortal Soul in its faculties that it is unable to enjoy its own understanding freely but to yield to the mad will or pleasure of the sensitive Soul Wherefore I being easily seduced through the deformities of Diseases readily descended because I saw that Serpents and some Simples yea even our hous-hold excrements did every way alter the use of the mind indeed the powers and functions of these to become wholly oppressed and mad and that we who were constituted in so great a majesty under the image of the Divinity did become far more miserable than Beasts For I was incited hereunto because it did not seem agreeable to 〈◊〉 or possibility that any Poysonous frail Being and that which is unlike to the immortality of the Mind could Spurn against the Image of God that it should loose all right and Prerogotive at the will of a mad Dog and that the Power of the meanest thing should be enlarged beyond the excellency of a Being which is infinite in duration hereafter For it seemed that that ought not to be capable of suffering by a frail or Mortal thing whatsoever should by it self be immortal But moreover the mind of a prudent man is be-set for the most part by foolishness because almost every one doth labour in his own point of giddiness For whosoever loveth that which is not to beloved is ennared and who so keeps not a proportion of suitableness between things that are to be loved now he herein beholds plausible things as pleasing with an affection of madness For so Eve beheld the apple as beautiful and therefore as pleasing she presently took that apple and ate And that thing is so usual that the holy Scriptures say that the number of fools is infinite For I have gone head-long into these-fallacies of errors because I as yet knew not what the necessity and bond of the combination of the mind and of the Sensitive Soul was For indeed because the mind was now connexed unto the mortal Soul it stood bound to this by the right of an Inn so that although the mind were of it self not capable of suffering yet because they were both combined by a conjugal bond and bride-bed of unity so as that the mortal Soul did enjoy the sole Life of the immortal mind it was altogether necessary that as oft as the mortal Soul did suffer any thing by frail or mortal hurtful things or things hostile unto it it should consequently also suffer that very thing through an equality or likeness of wed-lock a conjugal unity and social right of hospitality Not indeed that therefore frail things should obtain a power over an immortal Being which is supereminently above it and of a diverse station but God would have the mind thus to suffer as it being hindered by the discommodities of its Inn it should be deprived of its own liberty of ampleness and should hearken to the straights and anguishes of its mansion For the immortal life of the mind is communicated to a mortal Soul Seat and Inn which life notwithstanding as otherwise every thing received is received after the manner and capacity of the receiver is made mortal in that which is connexed with it or in a mortal light And the which may therefore also be oppressed by mortal things that the Life may be wholly blown out and then the mind being deprived of its Inn is not indeed extinguished or annihilated but is compelled to depart by reason of an untying and annihilating of the bond Whatsoever therefore the mind seemeth to suffer under Life it self indeed remaineth safe but it doth not freely exercise its Offices because feeling or perceivance is in the middle of the Bond. For truly I have constantly considered the light of the Sun married as a husband to the Splendour of the Glo-worm so
Predicaments through the ignorance of which or one only point heathenisme hath overwhelmed the Schooles of Medicine with the contagion of blindness And all curing hath been believed to be subject unto naked qualities excesses of degrees relative respects and actions For from hence they have feigned Contraries to be Remedies of Contraries and no Disease to be mitigated by the goodness of Nature the mildness of Medicines and by the appeasing and repentance of the Archeus that was first disturbed but only by fighting skirmishing and war to be reduced into a mean or temperature of the first qualities So that seeing they think every Disease to be a Disposition likewise that all Remedies ought to be a naked Disposition or they are deceived in their position whence it follows that the taking away of the stone out of the Bladder shall never be able of it self to import a cure of the sick For truly seeing it is a Remedy onely privative whereunto an appeasing of the Archeus belongs but it is not a Disposition contrary to the Stone And much lesse a prohibitive of the foregoing matter which they suppose of necessity to be supplied from elsewhere uncessantly to flow thither nor to cease the Stone being taken away by the knife to wit if the Disposition generating the matter whereof shall not first cease Therefore according to the Schooles He that is cut for the Stone should be cured onely for a little space to wit as the Impediments of Functions are taken away otherwise produced and cherished by the Stone being present and also as the disposition mentally interposing is secondarily casually and by accident obliterated But the mattter is far otherwise For truly a seminal Disease is a creature which made and found out its own matters and its own Idea's in us after sin by an hereditary right of the Archeus neither had he it originally in Nature And therefore the root of Diseases ought totally to be unknown to all Heathenisme And seeing an essential definition is not to be fetched from the Genus of the thing defined and its constitutive difference even as I have taught in the Book of Feavers by reason of the manifold perplexities of Errors and ridiculous positions but altogether from a connexion of both Causes which are Beings in Nature and therefore that the primitive and Ideal cause of Diseases hath stood neglected hitherto It follows also that the definition knowledge essence and roots of a Disease have remained unknown And finally that curings have been instituted by accident with an ignorance of the universal disposition of internal properties their efficacie and interchangable course Truly I know as a Christian that a Disease is not a Creature of the first Constitution because it is that which hath taken its rootes from sin in the impurity of Nature which afterwards in their own spring have at length budded in Individuals For neither were created poysons Diseases as long as they were without us but then when the Archeus of the same was made domestical unto us through the forreign disposition of its middle life it raised up seminal Idea's in our Archeus even as Fire is struck out of a Flint Then I say Diseases are made unto us the fore-runners of Death from an occasional poyson Diseases therefore do continue with us when they have their provoking occasions subsisting in our Nature until neither their occasional matter be wasted away or at least until the Archeus be rid of his own perturbations or of his office For Diseases indeed came on us by Sin and afterwards in Nature now corrupted by Sin the ferments and ready obediences of matter waxed strong and so they pierced into the number and catalogue of Nature and even unto this day do most inwardly persevere with us after a singular manner Yet alwayes distinct from other created things in this that the created things of the first constitution have a proper existence in themselves but diseases neither are nor are able to subsist without us Because they proceed as it were from a formal light and the vital constitutive Beginning of us And therefore the natural Archeus and a Disease do pierce each other because they have a material co-resemblance But the Schooles when they heeded that Diseases do never exist without us supposed that our Body was the subject of Inhaesion of Diseases and consequently that Diseases were only accidents and therefore to be stirred up from an elementary distemperature because they apprehended them in a most prompt and rustical sence also for that cause they hoped that they should sufficiently and over vanquish Diseases by Heats and Colds And therefore they likewise decreed that every refreshment aid and help which nature being informed did require of the Physitian was not to be administred in shew of a refreshment in peace and tranquility but herein onely to prevail and that wars strifes contraries and discords were to be appointed whereby the hostile elementary qualities being cobroken in us they might by constraint return into a mediocrity of temperature that so they may restrain the injuries of Nature now corrupted by contrary injuries and subdue them by revenging Which thing surely they have thus judged nor have otherwise understood because that they knew no other action than that which from a superiority of the agent rules over the patient But surely those things do not savour of an help neither is the Law of Christ by whom all things were made conformable to those Lawes of the Schooles And so as elsewhere more largely either Christ is not the parent of Nature or an adversary to himself in Nature or such Heathenish speculations of healing are rotten The Schooles therefore have not considered that the matters of many Beings do not consist but in a strange Inne whereunto they were appointed Wherefore by reason of their different kind of manner of existing they thought a Disease to be a meer accident but predicamentally seperating the matter which a Disease might carry before it from a Disease As if an Embryo should be an accident because it is no where but in the womb Indeed it pleased the revenger of sin that Diseases with their matters as well that occasional as that equal and inward unto them should not subsist but in those whose the Diseases and offence should be and that without respect of the Being of one unto another For neither have the Heathenish Schooles ever considered as neither the Moderns who have been established on Paganish Beginnings that this relation of existence came unto them from the condition of sin and the procreation thereof from the Archeus sore shaken with perturbations Because such thoughts never entred into Heathenisme neither is it a wonder that the Gentiles knew not the force of Transgression although they do deliver by the Fable of Promotheus and Pandora that they learned something from the Hebrews Yet it is a wonder that they were ignorant that a Disease before it should be made ours ought to proceed from the
proper unto him from a Curse but from his being made creeping and that thing was sufficiently manifest to Adam For herein the Curse seized not so much on the Serpent as on the evil Spirit because the lying Impostor had hid himself in the most vile of creeping things on whose head therefore and not on the head of any creeping thing the Woman trod upon But because all Bruits which do generate by a long continued copulation were in times past reckoned impure and also forbidden from Man's use in Kitchins among which creeping Animals are not in the last place c. It containeth and likewise confirmeth the mystery of our Position To wit That the impurity of our Nature draws its rise from the Concupiscence of the Flesh And therefore the copulation in Beasts seemeth to be taken notice of in Beasts by God which was distinct and defiled with impurity In the next place also in the Law a Menstruous Woman and the person touching her were accounted to bring an impurity on every thing The which otherwise being now turned into a second and natural Cause ought to be plainly guiltless unlesse the Menstrues should by a Natural course derive it self from the same Causes from whence Death happened unto us And therefore also for this Cause it being plainly impure in the Law was reckoned a horrid thing with God But for that Woman alone doth suffer Menstrues before Bruits surely it doth not attest any Prerogative of our kind but rather every way a defect to wit that it is reckoned for a punishment of frustrated Chastity and referred into second Causes plainly from a notable Mystery of our Position neither doth it hinder these things that chast Virgins obey the Menstrues and that she is Monstrous who an opportunity being given is not Menstruous because Adamical Generation its self is constrained to carry no less the importunities of its own Nature than Death it self Yea seeing Chastity doth not excuse a Virgin from the Menstrues it is for a token that the Menstrues is not from a Curse nor from the punishment of Sin but altogether from Natural Causes no otherwise than as Death it self began from second Causes inserted in the disswaded Apple although hitherto unknown nor thorowly weighed The Menstrues therefore onely in Woman alone but not in Bruits doth accuse that the Transgression of the despised fatherly Admonition happened in the very privy parts therefore branded as it were with an unclean bloody Seal for a perpetual sign The which surely should not have place if a Sexual Copulation for the Propagation of man had not inverted the intention of the Creator rather than in Bruit-Beasts In this place a Paradox and impertinent consideration doth occur being interlaced as it were by a Parenthesis that Adam seeing he was created in the possession of Immortality God intended not that Man should be an Animal or Sensitive creature nor should be born conceive or live as an Animal for truly he was created into a living Soul and that he might be the immediate Image of God Therefore he as far differed from the Nature of an Animal as an Immortal being from a Mortal and as a God-like Creature from a Bruit The which is indeed more than in the whole Predicament And it is exceedingly to be admired and deservedly unworthy to be endured that the Schools of Christ do believe and confess these things and yet that even until now they draw the Essence of a Man Essentially from an Animal Nature because although Man afterwards procured Death unto himself and therefore may seem to be made nearer unto the Nature of Animal Creatures yet it stood not in his Power to be able to pervert the Species of the Divine Image Even as neither was the Evil Spirit of a Spirit made an Animal although he became nearer unto an Animal by hatred and brutal vices Therefore Man remained in his own Species wherein he was created For as oft as man is called an Animal or Sensitive living Creature and is in earnest thought to be such so many times the Text is falsified which saith But also the Serpent was more crafty than all the living Creatures of the Earth which the Lord God had made Because he speaks of the Natural craftiness of that Creeping Creature Again if the Position be true Man was not directed into the Propagation of Seed or Flesh neither therefore did he Aspire into a Sensitive Soul And therefore the Sensitive Soul of Adamical Generation is not of a brutal Species because it was raised up by a Seed which wanted the Original Ordination and Limitation of any Species And so that as the Sensitive Soul in Man arose besides the intent of the Creator and Nature So it is of no brutal Species neither can it subsist unless it be continually tyed to the Mind from whence it is supported in its Life Wherefore while Man is of no Brutal Species he cannot be an Animal in respect of his Mind and much less in respect of his Soul which is of no Species For a woman great with Child while by reason of sudden fear she changeth the Humane Young into a certain Bruit the mind indeed doth not wander into a brutal Soul but the mind departs and a Sensitive Soul begged of the Creator is substituted in its stead And seeing that it is promoted onely by the Idea of the Woman great with Child without an Original appointment therefore such kind of generated Creatures do most speedily die And the off-springs of Adam had likewise presently perished unless God had granted Matrimony unto him Wherefore in the Birth of Cain she truly said I possesse a Man from the Lord. Far be it therefore to have placed Man among Sensitive living Creatures Truly we must indulge Pagans who know not that thing but not equally Christians who too much adore Paganish Doctrine At least wise the Schools confesse that there is an ordinary Progress of Nature from not a sensible Creature into a sensible Animal but that the Life and Sense of Men is immediately iufsed by the hand of the Almighty They confesse in the next place that the Conditions of being living and feeling or perceiving in Man differ in their whole Condition from an Animal Nature because it follows the Faculty of the rational Form or Immortal mind But they shamefully believe that a Man aswel of the first Constitution as being now Divinely Regenerated by the Sacraments is an Essential Animal Fie let it shame man not to know that the Evil Spirit and whole Nature also are not able by any means or any way to change the Essence given unto him from the foreknowledge of the Creator but that he should continually remain such as he was created although in the mean time he hath cloathed himself with strange properties as Natural unto him from the vice of his own will For as it wants not an absurdity to reckonman glorified among Animals because he is not without a sense or feeling So
Desire or Love of which I here speak is not a function of the appetitive power nor the very qualitative power of desiring it self but it is a substantial part of the mind or rather the Mind it self flowing from Understanding and Will Because those three are undividably conjoyned by the Creator under Unity in as great a simplicity as may be Yet in live persons or mortal men it is separated from Understanding and Will in its Functions by reason of the condition of the Organ and Nature of the sensitive Soul For truly now we desire oftentimes those things which the Understanding judgeth not to be desirable and which the Will could wish were not desired But it must needs be that things whose operations are different or dis-joyned that the same things are dis-joyned in their root according to the manner whereby all particular things are separated In the Soul indeed onely by a relative supposionality but in the Body according to a corporeal and qualitative Nature And therefore that substantial Desire or Love is an intimate Essence of the Soul being consubstantial and co-equal in age with the same So that although in Heaven there be a full satiety of desirable things and a perpetual enjoymens thereof yet that desire in the Soul doth not therefore cease the which is a study or â—â—â—eavour of complacency Neither doth it therefore infer a passion of the Soul any more than Charity it self because they are conjoyned in their root as one and the same thing For an amarous desire ceasing of necessity either a fullness or glutting or an unsensibleness of fruition or enjoyment should presently arise which in the heavenly Wights would be a shameful thing That desire therefore of Love is the fewel of an unterminable or endless delight under which consideration the Mind resembles the Spirit the Comforter For the unutterable Creator hath placed Man in the liberty of his own Desire that he might live in the Spirit after the Image of God in a holy Desire and perfect Charity It is manifest therefore that Operations are distinct from the root of Faculties while we understand those things which we do not desire but while we desire those things which we do not plainly know and which we would not desire In the next place we will as while a man goes willingly to Punishment those things which we do not desire and desire those things which we would not as while any one commands his Leg to be cut off And likewise the Desire doth afterward some-sometimes overcome the Will or the Will doth oft-times compell the Desire and they by turns draw each other under mutual Commands but wholly in Mortals because the sensitive Soul draws the Understanding and the Body the sensitive Soul into a manifold disorder of division For so impossible things happen to be desired and things past are wished for as present For unlesse that Desire were from the root of the Mind he should not sin who should see a Woman to lust after her before the consent of a full Will Therefore very many things are desired whose Causes are not willed and many things whose Effects are refused by the Will and Judgement The Desire also doth operate in one manner and the Will in another Also in the motion of the Day or in duration the Desire doth oftentimes go before and sometimes followes the Will and one overcomes the other by course that it may restrain something that is distinct from it self And that wholly in mortal Bodies But in Eternity where Love or Amorous Desire ariseth as the substance of the Soul nothing is Desired which is not Willed and that as well in respect of Act as Substance and Essence Because by reason of the simplicity of Substance they are collected into Unity Although in the Root they have diverse Suppositions which plainly exceed the manner â—f Understanding in mortal Men. In the next place the Kingdom of God in man is unutterable that is God himself by whose perpetual splendour all things are gathered together into Truth Therefore the Primary or chief Image of God is in his immortal Soul because the very Essence whereof it self is also the veriest Image of God which Image can neither be expressed by words as neither thought by the heart in this Life because it resembles a certain similitude of God But in the husk of the Mind or in the sensitive Soul and vital Form there is the same Image re-shining yet received after the manner of an inferior nature and defiled through transgressions or Death from whence at length the Body also borroweth not indeed the Image of God but the Figure of him But the Soul is devolved into utter darkness even as it hath separated it self from the uncreated Light and from the virtue of the Image and therefore it hath by reason of appropriation so lost its native Light as if it were proper unto it as beseeming it that thenceforth it understands wills or loves nothing besides it self and for it self For the damned shall rise not changed because their Body rising again shall receive its limitations from their Soul The which seeing now it is with all depraved affections reflexed onely on it self after a corporeal manner It shall not in rising again delineate the Image of God which is as it were choaked in it in the Body but after a corporeal manner That is by way of figure Lastly It being deprived through the flood-gate of death of the helps of Imagination Memory and Free-Will It afterwards understands wills loves all things from a blind apprehension as being onely addicted to it self For it knows its Immortality but feels Damnation and complaines of it as that Injustice is done unto it Because the love of it self is onely to excuse its excuses in sins as being committed in dayes of ignorance and innocency with much frailty of Nature lyings in wait of Enemies and want of sufficient Grace As neither that an eternal punishment is deservedly due for a momentary transgression For then it begins to be mad and persists in hating of God Chiefly because it knows the unviolable arrest of its loss and an eternal impossibility of escaping It being therefore cut off in its hope passeth even from the very beginning of its entrance into the utmost desperation in a place where no piety compassion refreshment or recantation is entertained It happens also that seeing the Understanding doth naturally transform it self into the Idea of the thing understood and therefore into the similitude of evil Spirits its Objects Therefore there is alwaies a present hatred of God despair cursing damnation and the furious torments of Hell The Almighty of his goodness vouchsafe to break the snares that are extended for us in our passage Amen CHAP. CIII The Property of External Things THe spiritual beginning of Life being now finished before I descend unto corporeal and sensible Organs and other supports of Life I will propose something concerning Places First of all therefore