saw the light might be the God and Lord of all elementary and created things only God alone should be his Lord. Thus God placed Man in the middle between that which is superiour and that which is inferiour and did inspire into him by the word Ruach Elohim noted in the Hebrew Book through the two nostrils the breath of a twofold life one whereof was the breath of the eternal word of God or of the eternal life the other was the elementary and astral airy breath or spirit and word of time Both these infused powers of life in Man divided themselves so that each formed and possessed its own Center to it self which was the continual will and desire of each of them after its first original or primordial nature Both of them desired its Mother from whence they proceeded and each desired for her self to be nourish'd by her essence So the Will as the Father did generate in the Lifes Center for himself the Appetite or Desire as his Son and Offspring from both which the Will and Desire did proceed the Spirit as the power of living by the attracting and breathing nature from God and the Airy world But the Body of the Element did also produce out of their properties the Center the Will the Desire and Power of attracting out of its Mother the Earth and Water and out of it desired to quench its thirst and suck her Breasts he eat therefore and fill d himself with her containing in himself a tripl triunity in one body of Man and living in this manner that Man might be an Image of God after his likeness But yet the Center of the Body Spirit and Soul were not compelled by any necessity to sill and satiate themselves from the Water Air and Earth but the highest liberty of Will was left unto them after the likeness of the Free-will of God It was free to the good lucid pleasant sweet will which took its beginning from the pleasant meekness to contract it self and diffuse it self in and through all circumferences over which as their Center and Ruler she held her Empire Yea it was lawfull and free to him to divide himself more or less as it pleased him He could also without any thing opposing him by a too ardent strong and vehement motion of his Seed and out-going powers from himself produce in himself another sharp pestilent appetite and malignant desire after a sharp austere and venemous food He could also shut his mouth and appetite by not attracting that aliment which was necessary for him But it would be too long and large here to tell what was the nature and condition of that food and how at that time Adam and Eve by a power and hurtfull pleasure did eat together and dyed that death which in heavenly natures happeneth in a heavenly and spiritual manner It is also not our business here to relate how they fell in their Will and kept as it were imprisoned the Appetite and Power of the good which they receiv'd from the highest good and made it unfruitful and how they closed obdurated the mouth of their soul and choaked the very good exerting it self in them because the lamentable condition of them both O! alas maketh it sufficiently known But not only the Soul in Adam and Eve did undergo the deplored condition of death but seeing all were knit together in one Body the burning fire of the Soul kindled also the Spirit and Body the Spirit and Body did infect the Air Water and Earth and compell'd them to consent and precipitated them into that miserable condition with themselves because the Body and Spirit were the Center and Universal Heart and held the potency of their Imagination in their Mother the Air Water and Earth it was of necessity it should so come to pass Like as in this time when the Heart in the Body is sick the whole Body is sick and suffers pain When self-desires go forth from the Heart according to the word of God all things pertaining to that Man contract thence some impurity Yea sometimes for the Offences of the Heart all the other Members shall be afflicted although they have done nothing but a forced duty and by a necessary obedience After the same manner the Earth ought and yet must bear for Adam's sake the horrour of the curse But let us not expatiate too much in the Field of Theology We must return to Natural Philosophy I have affirmed that Man is the Center and Compendium of all created things to him before the Fall all things in this World were obedient through the force and power of his Imagination which he exercised from the Center into all his Circumferences But as the Devil through the malignant force of his Imagination lost the right and power of the good Imagination in his first Kingdom this our World so Adam who was constituted by God in the place of the lapsed Angel which then assumed a grosser substance through the fall of Lucifer who rendred that place of a grosser substance by the like false and malign Imagination destroyed and lost the first or ancient power of the good and the right of the Divine Nature His imagination in this time and station is odious to nature and abominable neither hath it any ingress so nothing is left remaining to Man but a miserable Body which with its Spirit is heavily or with grief sustained by nature He has but a weak and slender power even to this day given to him through his judgment reason and labour of the body to bring some things in nature from worse into better and from better into worse and by this means to make some particular and gross mutations The Natural man therefore doth draw the Vital Spirit from the Air Water and Earth in a twosold manner from beneath and from above From above by the attraction of the Air or his respiration he enjoyeth the spirit power and breath of the out-flowing and out-going word to wit the gale or out-flowing spirit of the Air and turneth it into his nourishment but from beneath he partakes of the Flesh and Blood of the World The Flesh of the World Animals Vegetables and Minerals afford the Blood the Water affordeth the quintessence and spirit or most subtle breath and highest outgoing power of this Flesh and Blood Man enjoyeth That Spirit with its spiritual Salt doth not only refresh and nourish the Spirits of Men but from it also the Alchahistical dissolving power of the ferment in the Stomach derives its original the other parts of the Body do also take their ferment from thence so the Flesh and Blood of all the Macrocosm receiving a kind dissolution in the Humane Body by separating and preparing do afford and yield his Salt to the preparation of the Flesh and Blood of the Microcosm so that the thirsty and hungry particles of the Microcosm do eagerly desire and imbibe it but the excrementitious outsides do find their egress through the emunctories
been called by a divine spirit to a divine light who being drawn by true humility search into the wonders of nature and desire to communicate and make them known to their Neighbour who being filled with unfeigned and sincere love in the poverty of their knowledge and that little of the gifts of God granted to them are found faithfull in the least things but rather I exhort them to it and stir them up to go forward servently and in simplicity of heart follow that light which in this darksome way Ikindle in this little Book But they ought throughly to examine themselves without any flattery or self-love whether they are ordained for this Art Whether above all things he love God and his Neighbour as himself and whether he will freely help the poor because a drop of water and one mite seasonably given in ones poverty and from a true love to our Neighbour is as great in the sight of God and will have as great a reward as a large quantity of wine and money given by the rich If their life agrees with this rule they may go on to the full knowledge of nature and obtain their desired end They lose their labour and cost who with great carefulness rise early and sit up late and eat their bread in anxiety For the Lord bestows it on them that love him while they sleep who seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness that is he who patiently endures divine judgments and in all judgments though he be judged and his soul is grieved and even against nature is forced to endure yet always he acknowledges and understands that God is just good and mercifull and does acquiesce in his justice and desires not to enter into the Kingdom but by the fiery trial purification and obedience to the word his reason being made silent the passions of his mind tamed and subdued by a power supernatural to him all other things shall be added But I shall here speak no more of the holy silence nor use many words of the nature of this Mystery but will set upon the thing it self with the help of God And because I am certain that the wise will observe their duty but the foolish shall get nothing I will begin after the finishing of this Prayer O God our Father thou Lord of every good thing thou who wouldst make all things by thy word who hast formed Man by thy wisedom that he should rule over every Creature which thou hast made give me wisedom which is always round about thy throne neither drive us back from thy face for we are thy Servants and the Sons of thine Handmaid weak and infirm and of few days full of errour and unconstant neither are we fit or able without thy help to render unto thee in this our office that talent which of thy bounty thou hast committed to us with that increase we ought All perfection is from thee and thy wisedom but there is no capacity or worth in us send unto us and enlighten us with thy wisedom which cometh from above send her with a ray from thy holy Heaven from the Throne of thy Glory send her that she may be with and labour with us that we may know thy will grant that she may lead us by her glory that the works of our hands may be accepted with thee for nothing can be accepted by thee that is not wrought by her in us and so it will come to pass that we shall see thy truth in thy creatures to be admired O Lord our Cogitations are full of error and doubts and darkness environs our judgment Send thy holy spirit from on high and enlighten us that we may always go in the right way that we may perform thy will to the honour of thy holy Name and prosit of our Neighbour through Jesus Christ Amen WHen that matter wherein Lucifer held his Reign and Center had with him and his Angels or out-going Powers put on the nature of burning and corroding fire by a too great and inordinate motion whereby he desited to exalt his light and render it equal with the Deity and from the nature of light was turned into obscure darkness There was progenerated from the light in the first place Air then from the Air a Mist and last of all from the Mist a Viscous Water And here doubtless this Water through the bitter vehement and stinging cold the light being taken from it and further and further would have departed had suffer'd the force and power of an horrible Coagulation unless God had a-new sent in a ray of his divine light for a new Center and conveyed it through the whole matter for the Devil shall no more be the Center of this World the agonizing matter perceiving the splendor and sweetness of this light began to awake The bitterness of the corrosive greedy and austere power moving thus strongly decreased and the stupified matter as it were in a fright began to conside in the form of a glutinous Water God would not that the whole Heaven Mansion and Kingdom or Matter wherein Lucifer reigned should be utterly destroyed which before the Fall had its word light and motion from him as from the Center For this Matter was not made such by its own will but by constraint in the ardent imagination of the overruling spirit or intelligence For this spirit did with force exercise his rule and magical power in the Matter From thence the sweetness of the light departing to its original left the corrosive darkness to the burning desire of the spirit and the most kind motion of the heat was changed by the horrible attraction and vehement compaction of the Cold. The serene face of Heaven did put on the sorrowfull countenance of the terrestrial Water and Waterish Earth But God willing to bring the Idea of the world which from eternity he had a knowledge of in his mind into figures began to make something new in which he could set forth the manifestation of himself and have complacency in it Therefore he began a new Creation and by his spirit with his word expanded the Matter and divided it into three which working together in one harmony an effluvium from one to one by one thing should be the beginning of all things yet so that one of those three cannot consist without the other two so there is made out of this one Chaos or viscous Water a fixed fluid and volatile Body Spirit and Soul Earth Water and Air. The fluid spirit is too unconstant the volatil soul too subtile the fixed body too gross to receive that infused power of the light to its motion But when from this threefold union a fourth generation ariseth there is the seed of love and the center of vertues and powers a center that cannot properly be named Water for it is a viscous Earth in which is the Water of Nature and yet it is not Earth because it floweth and maketh moist neither is it
Centrum Naturae Concentratum OR THE Salt of Nature Regenerated For the most part improperly called THE Philosopher's Stone Written in Arabick by Alipili a Mauritanian born of Asiatick Parents Published in Low Dutch 1694. and now done into English 1696. By a Lover of the Hermetick Science That which hath been is named already and it is known that it is Man Eccles 6. 10. LONDON Printed for J. Harris at the Harrow in Little Britain 1696. Price One Shilling The English Translator TO THE READER I Cannot but recommend this little Book of high worth and value to the serious consideration of all Men and heartily desire they may seek and find that inestimable treasure that deeply lies hidden in themselves which this small Tract with great clearness demonstrates and lays before them The highest wisedom consists in this for Man to know himself because in him God has placed his Eternal Word by which all things were made and are upheld to be his light and life by which he is capacitated to know all things both in Time and Eternity This is that precious thing which Adam and Eve brought out of Paradise with them for their consolation and refreshment and left it through their Offspring to posterity For it was given them after their lamentable fall as the highest pledge of the grace and favour of God and inbreathed into them as a new centre of their light and life to comfort them in their banishment for this alone having all power and virtue in it self and being the central virtue and power in all things or uniting it self with them in an indissolable band of love and union was able to comfort them in their toil and misery to take away all their spots and desilements contracted by the fall and at last through death bring them into Paradise again and make them partakers of a greater glory than they had before which was performed in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God and Man This as it is the highest treasure so it comprehends and contains in it all other inseriour blessings for so the Holy Scripture tells us in him is hid all the treasures of wisedom and knowledge Therefore let the high inquirers and searchers into the deep Mysteries of Nature learn first to know what they have in themselves before they seek into forinsick matters without them and by the divine power within them let them first heal themselves and transmute their own Souls then may they go on prosperously and seek with good success the mysteries and wonders of God in all natural things let them retire into the inmost centre of their own hearts and with their whole desire as with the magnet of their Souls attract and imbibe the Divine Spirit there which will readily enter and intimately mix it self with the Soul and radically and sweetly dissolve it and turn all its harsh fierce corrosive rough and bitter essences into a most pleasant sweet meek and friendly gentle frame and temper and of all the adverse contrary properties will make one harmonious quintessential heavenly nature and thus will they be inseparably united and the divine beams of light and love from the center of the Soul as the Sun in the Firmameut will throughly penetrate and illuminate the whole Microcosm and the blessings from above and beneath the upper and the uether springs will be his portion But I would not detain the Reader any longer I shall only add that our Author being on Addept and having obtained his skill by the alone Grace of God and not by Man may well be allowed his liberty of speech and his sharp reproofs may be the better received and tho' he seems to gainsay most of the Philosophers as to his matter yet he tells us it is his own experience which he has wrought with his own hands and is to this day a possessor of the great Mystery Providence brought the Copy into my hands which having seen I thought it might be an acceptable piece of service to get it publish'd in our modern tongue and tho' some may slight and reject it yet others I hope will value it and find benefit from it for whose sake and for which end I undertook this labour and commit it my self and them to the blessing and protection of Almighty God in his Son Jesus Christ our Lord in whom I subscribe my self a friend and lover of all men E. Brice TO THE READER THose hungry and thirsty Souls after Gold courteous Reader are deservedly to be driven hence in the first Entrance for he shall not find what he seeks who is incited thereunto by the pleasing allurements of covetous desires let him who appears before the Lord with his Prayers and Desire consider his own Heart whether it be pure and alienated from wicked desires if not he will receive his answer from that principle which moves him to ask and will have his desire according to the impurity of his heart but that the heart be pure and right there is required much light and much purifying fire to go before and much constant humility for subtle fraudulency is hatefull to the holy Deity and he that with it comes before the face of God will be detected and shall receive such help as he deserves In short instead of the pure spirit an impure and fraudulent spirit will meet him armed with greater deceit hypocrisie and appearance of light than he himself is that Oracle will give to him an answer in his prayer and by occult inspirations will lead him into the labyrinths of a thousand phantasies and seduce him Like seeketh its like and to what a man in his own nature does most nearly approach that seemeth best and divine unto him that also does most nearly approach to man and scts it self in the place of God and will give counsel to him that asks For as every one is such a God will he have and such a word in the very Sons and Daughters of God according to the maturity of the spirit more or less was the word more or less covered and veiled with an aenigmatical and typical speech the internal genuine sense whereof none can well understand but those to whom the veil of the Mosaical law and figures is revealed The Israelites received the divine word under the voice of a Trumpet and beholding God by Moses seen in clarity veiled under the coverings of thick darkness and thundrings were afraid who if they had with Moses been tincted with the virtue of the sweet light verily they had not seen the darkness but the glory and majesty which in a manner appeared to Peter in Mount Thabor whence it is that they which speak from aeternity for the most part are lyers in time because of the too great distance between them when Man takes that in a human manner which ought to be understood in a divine What therefore is to be done First to seek the renewing of his wretched heart in God in
a sweet tranquillity and pleasant whispering which will not permit thee any more to precipitate into that acute and sinfull fire from the holy and pleasing light It will forbid and drive thee from pride self-love and desire of Gold and will command thee always to be content in humility After this change thou wilt be plainly another Man and nothing will grieve thee more than the time thou hast spent in ambition covetousness of Gold and voluptuousness Then the wonderfull works of God and the creatures always before thine Eyes will be admired and thou wilt say O Lord I rejoyce in the works of thy hands in thee I very well see Omnipotence and Divine Wisdome neither is there any need to the understanding of these incomprehensible things to desire to know and search out the great mystery of the Philosophers Mind what I now propound to you Which is most difficult to apprehend either this that of the base Metals Lead Tin Copper Iron Argent Vive may be made a Metal more excellent than Gold or this that of one Grass or Herb or Fruit may be made Milk Blood Flesh Bones Hides Skin Hair Bristles Salt Oyl Sour Sweet Resin Dung Wine Sand and Gravel Bladder and Reins with so many Juices and Moistures I say whether this is not a more excellent miracle of Nature that of this Herb and Grass may be made an Animal Seed out of which a Man or other Brute without addition of any other thing at length proceedeth than that of the base Metals Gold is generated That I say much more deserves admiration than this Because the transmutation of the base Metals into better abideth and hath its procession in one and the same scale of Nature in the same Metalline Kingdom But Bread and Grass on which the Animal Creatures feed is by the Salt of Nature transmuted into very many and various sorts of materials in them Here is a great and hidden mystery of Nature which whosoever understandeth does penetrate into the most intimate centre of Nature without impediment and may by the divine assistance have and enjoy it But because the growth of Animals increase of weight and transmutation of Grass and Bread into an Animal is a vulgar rustick Science and perspicuous to all men the more learned mind it not but seek novelties though of less value and unworthy of their consideration If thou canst my Friend make that spirit familiar to thee which by its energy in the Animal Creatures maketh all things that enter into them to live an animal life what and how great an effect dost thou think that spirit will produce if thou joyn it for the Agent to a metalline nature There have been many industrious searchers of Nature who have attempted this but have not found the end they longed for Therefore my Friends first learn those things that are obvious to your eyes before you set your mind to find the causes of things remote immerst in profound darkness and hid in the depth of the earth It is sufficient for you to know God and your selves seek with joy true sincere and holy love It is enough if by this means you have gained for your selves treasures in Heaven which neither moth nor rust can consume and in which there is no fear of thieves Leave off from vain chymical labours and bridle your excessive desire after the Philosophers Stone your labour and cost will daily increase your hopes will decrease of a thousand seekers there will be hardly one Adept Thou Reader whether thou wilt be one of these a possessor of so great a good wilt very much doubt if right reason bear any great sway in thee The most wise and subtle in this way have failed and with all their wisedom have not obtained their end Therefore spend thy time after the eternal blessed life because thou art not certain whether this day thy soul shall not be taken from thee Look whether thou canst give a good account of thy life here Consider whether thy soul has acted well in the house of thy body whether it has not too often provoked it by inordinate motion whether it does not yet burn and is inflamed in the fire void of peace wherein is trembling fear and horror darkness cold and misery stirred up by the fierce inordinate motions of the mind whether the Salt of thy Soul has not lost its savour be not made acid and corrosive by such an impetuous heat what kind of savour will those exhalations and bitter exits of thy heart yield to the blessed and sweet palate of God Almighty will not the Holy God spue such a soul out of his mouth O my Friends you have not one moment of your life secure from death labour ye and find your selves and transmute your own souls which have attracted the hardness coldness and impurity of Lead the austerity bitterness and ardent nature of Copper and inconstancy of Argent Vive and by the Divine Spirit render them peacefull and better Because this Spirit like the Spirit of the Air before your mouth is always hovering before your souls and continually moving it self which with a gentle and pleasant whispering greatly desires to be attracted by your will O Man draw in this Spirit for this will warm thee yea even melt thee by its holy motions and as in an open melting fire will tinge thy soul with love and wisedom to make it perfect and more excellent than any Gold that the corrosive Devil can no more corrode disturb or bring any change into it But if these my friendly exhortations which God forbid find no place in you I will set before you honour that is good a good Name your own Repute and Money for the sake of which in a thing uncertain there is so great waste of treasure such sottish dilapidations If thou desirest to be a Politician wise and prudent thou very well knowest that a little in the purse is better and more certain than that which by a vain and uncertain hope may be expected You have known that those who with great labour seek the Art of making Gold are the common talk of all men and when they have found nothing are mock'd and ridicul'd of every body every one calls them fools and that not without reason because they suffer themselves to be deluded by those who put to sale lying processes and proclaim through the world their Arcana's For by these they give their money for smoke and when they have been sufficiently disquieted and vexed by them and have lost their time and health and the Gold they sought for being ignorant also what Gold is whence it is and what kind of matter at length they come to a too late inglorious yea infamous repentance Therefore I exhort those that would avoid this precipice to remain in the beaten and common road which is plain and leads not astray But I do not dehort those from any further search into the wonders of God who have