the more hard meats is felt as it were to re-suffer and to undergo a re-acting of digestible things because also that speech of Physitians is too rustical because unlesse that which is to be digested be perfectly cocted and at a set term of time the digestion of the same is in vain expected for it tarrying longer in the stomach is corrupted and so then a new Agent ariseth neither is the former any longer digestible when it is corrupted neither also doth that new Agent re-act in manner of bright burning Iron because there are in that digestible matter parts uncapable of digestion in respect of that stomach Neither also doth the leaven or ferment of bread leaven the powder of glasse or the sand of a flint because it is a strange and uncapable object and not to be subdued by it For so the digesting ferment of the stomach doth ferment the flour of meal but not the brans In the mean time the ferment of the meal suffers nothing by the powder of glass as neither doth that powder re-act resist or truly repel For truly altering ferments do never act but on things that have a co-resemblance but they are quiet do cease and sleep if they have not an object proper for themselves Therefore the hinderances of Agents by an alterative Blas are uncapacities hardnesses impurities unequalities and the requisite movers of space Therefore the action of these is terminated on a proper object and disposeth that object unto periods or ends and manners decreed for it But interposing hinderances are not the re-actions of the patient but the incapacities of the same For neither doth silver re-act while it is solved by Aqua fortis with so great a heat although this in the mean time decayeth in acting and loseth its own force and virtue but there is an in-bred property of Spirits and a natural endowment which do operate in acting that by reaching unto their appointed mark they may perfect themselves and bring down their own objects unto bounds naturally enjoyned them which thing distilled Vinegar doth sufficiently teach while it dissolves the stone of Crabs Snails Corals c for the sharp spirit of the Vinegar doth coagulate it self in acting and that which else was volatile and liquid is not onely strained together but also changeth its savour for it collects and constrains it self in a tangible form as if it did more rejoyce to remain in the shape of a more solid body than of a liquor But that such a coagulation and change of savour doth happen by the proper motion of the spirit of Vinegar but not through a re-acting of Bodies standing in the act of dissolution is manifest because there is not made a diminishing of those Bodies even in one grain at least in weight while as in the mean time some measures of stilled Vinegar do undergo the aforesaid change and so it doth not seem consonant to reason for that thing to be done by reason of the bruising or breaking of the stones onely but by reason of a proper natural gift-like unfolding of the Spirits The same thing almost comes to pass while the Spirit of Vitriol waxeth very hot with Mercury For the Mercury remaineth being unchanged in the essence and matter of Mercury onely that it assumes the countenance of snow losing in the mean time nothing of its own substance yet the Spirit of Vitriol passeth over into a true Alume but if the Spirit of Aqua fortis which for the other half of it is also the Spirit of Vitriol be combined with the Mercury that snow of Mercury is not made as neither doth the liquor it self pass over into an Alume And so from hence it appeareth that the action is not proper to the Mercury but to the Spirit of Vitriol diversly disposing it self of its own free accord and according to an in-bred inclination unto divers objects differently changing it self Wherefore the Spirit of Vitriol which is in the Aqua fortis through a strong heat of bubbles stirred up and a tempestuous boiling up dissolveth the Mercury and far otherwise than while it is the naked and simple Spirit of Vitriol which variety indeed in acting doth manifest the various virtues of the acting Spirit rather than those of the Mercury it self because in the one action the Mercury is made invisible which in the other becomes white like snow For the Spirit of Sea-salt although it be most sharp yet it is never changed by the fellowship of Mercury as neither also doth it act into the Mercury And so the effects of actions are seen and not of re-actings So Aqua fortis acts into all metals except gold but with Sal armoniack it acts only into gold but no longer into silver And so there are particular properties of Spirits but not re-re-actions of a suffering body because it is that which in its own substance and weight sustaineth nothing but a meer and one onely division of it self Therefore Spirits being tossed with divers passions in acting undergo divers transformations but if they remain drowsie and sleeping and do not act on their object they also remain in their antient qualities For that thing appeared at first to happen by reason of the touching of the Mercury because it is that which is also a certain Spirit but afterwards in the silver and gold that was wholly silent But moreover I remember that the Calx or lime of Silver hath drunk into it the liquor of Sulphur which they call a distillation which presently in the Silver laid aside all harshnesse and tartnesse and it changed this liquor into a gauly bitternesse by distilling for the silver remained the same which it was before in substance weight and powder therefore that bitternesse could not be afforded from the silver and for that cause in no wise from a re-acting of the silver but of its own free accord it was made by the property of the Spirit of the Sulphur for neither is there a lesse reason why the same Spirit of Vitriol in diversly acting doth also change it self after a diverse manner than that the same silver should under the boyling up of diverse Spirits wax cruel by a various manner of re-acting on these Especially while that in a Spirit there is made a various transmutation in acting but there is no successive alteration made of the substance of the silver in suffering or diminishing of its weight which things may be far more clearly demonstrated by Adeptists unto whom to wit the one onely and same Liquour Alkahest doth perfectly reduce all tangible Bodies of the whole Universe into the first life of the same without any changing of it self and diminishing of its virtues But it is drawn under the yoak and thorowly changed by its own compeere or co-equal onely For from hence there appeareth a certain sense to be in all particular things the which mediating they do sometimes one way and sometimes another move and unfold themselves about divers objects but not
are from within drawn out of the Body the which I will enclose in one only or two Examples The Wife of a Taylor of Mecheline saw before her Door a Souldier to loose his Hand in a Combate she being presently smitten with horrour brought forth a Daughter with one Hand but dead through an unfortunate and bloody Arm because the Hand thereof was not found and a flux of Blood did kill the Infant The Wife of Marcus of Vogelar a Merchant of Antwerp in the year 1602 seeing a Souldier begging whose right Arm an Iron Bullet had taken away in the Siege of Ostend and who as yet carried that Arm about with him bloody by and by after she brought forth a Daughter deprived of an Arm and that indeed her right one the Shoulder whereof being as yet bloody ought to be made whole by the Chyrurgion she married a Merchant of Amsterdam whose name was Hoocheamer she also surviving in the year 1638 But her right Arm was no where to be found nor its Bones neither appeared there any putrifying Disease for which the Arm had withered away in a small hours space Yet while the Souldier was not as yet beheld the Young had two Arms Neither could the Arm that was rent off be annihilated Therefore the Arm was taken away the Womb being shut but who plucked it off naturally and which way it was taken away surely trivial reasons do not square in so great a Wonder or Paradox I am not he that will shew these things only these things I will say that the Arm was not taken away as neither rent off by Satan And then that it was a thing of less labour for the Arm being rent off to be derived else where than it was to have plucked off the Arm from the whole Body without Death A Merchants Wife known to us assoon as she heard that 13 were to beheaded in one morning it happened at Antwerp in the time of Duke Alban or D'â—lue and Women great with Child are led by inordinate Appeties she determined to behold the beheadings Therefore she went up into the Chamber of a Widow her familiar acquaintance dwelling in the Market place and the spectacl being seen a travaile pain presently surprized her and she brought forth a mature Infant with a bloody Neck whose Head no where appeared At leastwise I do not find that mans Nature doth abominate the piercing of dimensions seeing it is most frequent to the Seeds of things Thou shalt bring forth Children in Sorrow is the punishment of Sin Before Sin therefore she had naturally brought forth tall Young without pain at least-wise of that bigness with which we are now born But not that a Woman had been unsensible before Sin but because it had gone forth the Womb being shut Therefore it was a proper or familiar thing to humane Nature from his Creation for dimensions to pierce each other because he was made that he might live in the Flesh according to the Spirit But Nature being corrupted that authority of his Spirit over his Body perished and therefore Woman doth thence-forward bring forth after the manner of Bruits Yea Writers do make mention that Ulcers or Imposthumes are made thorow the Bones that all things are carried upwards and downwards without the guidance or commerce of the Vessels Indeed that primitive efficacy of piercing Bodies doth as yet consist in the seeds of things but is not subjected by humane force art or will or judgment For there are many Bodies much more ponderous than the Matter from whence they are composed It must needs be I say that more than fifteen parts of Water do co-pitch into one that one only part of Gold may be thereby made for weight is not made of nothing but doth prove a matter weighing in an equal tenour Therefore Water doth naturally as often pierce its own Body as Gold doth exceed Water in weight Therefore a home-bred and dayly progress of Seeds in generations requireth a Body to penetrate it self by a co-thickning the which is altogether impossible for an Artificer to do Let us grant pores to be in the Water yet these cannot contain fourteen times as much of its entire quantity It is therefore an ordinary thing in Nature that some parts of the Water do pierce themselves into one only place And the Seeds do act this by virtue of a certain Spirit the Archeus For although the Archeus himself as well in the aforesaid Seeds as in us be corporeal yet while he acts by an action of government and sups up the matter into himself he utters many effects not unlike unto enchantments because in speaking properly the Archeus doth not imitate enchantments but enchantments do follow the rule prescribed by the Archeus to wit as he doth operate far otherwise than Bodies do on each other As in affects of the Womb the Sinewes are voluntarily extended the Tendons do burst forth out of their place and do again leap back the Bones likewise are displaced by no visible mover the Neck riseth swollen unto the height of the Chin the Lungs are stopped up from air unthought of Poysons are engengred and the venal Blood masks it self with the unwonted countenances of Filths But as to what doth belong unto the penetrations of Bodies our Archeus sups up Bodies into himself that they may be made as it were Spirits For example Aqua-Fortis doth by its Spirit make Brass Iron or Silver remaining in their own Nature thick or dark so transparent that they cannot be seen and doth transport a mettal thorow merchant Paper the which otherwise doth not transmit the finest Powder thorow it it as yet essentially remaining in the shape of a mettal but not that the similitude of the piercing of dimensions doth uniformly square with the Example of a Mettal proposed Because as I have said reasons do not suite with so great a Paradox where I do willingly acknowledge the manner to be undemonstrable from a former Cause Even as no Man can know after what sort an Idea imprinted on Seeds may figure direct and dispose of its own constituted Bodies And therefore we will search after the same from the effect First of all let it be supposed that the Devil hath no authority or command over us against our will unless by the peculiar permission of God For know ye not that we are the Temple of God and that the very Kingdom of God dwelleth in us which thing is to be re-furrowed from its original First therefore it is of Faith that we are the sanctuary of the holy Spirit that the holy sacred Trinity doth make its mansion with the Just That the delights of God are with the Sons of Men unto whom he hath given Power to become the Sons of God but Children being Baptized are innocent just of them is the Kingdom of God the fitted Temple of God Yet Children are killed by enchantments sooner than others Therefore it must needs be that that thing happens from some
signes times or seasons dayes and years Moreover I know that in the Sea and deep Lakes there is their motive force whereby they suffer a raging heat without windes whereby I say our Ocean is rowled six houres and else-where six constant months with one onely flowing Lastly I know that the Earth is at rest nor that it hath a motive force actively proper to it self Therefore I believe that the Earth doth quake and fear as oft as the Angel of the Lord doth smite it Behold a great Earth-quake was made for the Angel of the Lord descended from Heaven Mat. 28. The word For among the Hebrewes doth contain a cause as if he should say Because For this is the onely cause of an Earth-quake whereby all things do without resistance equally tremble together as it were a light Reed In the Revelations the third part of Mortalls Trees and Fishes perished at the very time wherein the Angel powred forth his Viall For abstracted spirits do work by the divine Power and nothing can resist them Evill spirits also as oft as it is granted them to act by a free power they act without the resistance of bodies or a re-acting of resistance For matter is the Client of or dependant on another Monarchy and it cannot re-act into a spirit which it by no meanes toucheth and with no object affecteth Even as the Angel useth the powred out liquor of the Viall unto the aforesaid slaughter so for the Earth-quake he for the most part makes use of a note or voice For a wandering note was heard in the Air no otherwise than as the creaking of Wheeles driven thereupon as it were a tempestuous murmuring sound succeeded yet without Winde and at that very time the whole tract of so great Provinces trembled at once with a huge horrour Which same note accompanied the trembling of the Earth at every of the three repeated turns The same thing almost happens in Lightning Truly the Lightning burns and causeth melting but surely it smiteth not According to that saying The voice of Thunder shall strike the Earth because it smiteth For Silk-worms die Milk is curdled Ale or Beer waxeth sowre a slain Oxe hanging up retains flaggie flesh unfit to take Salt and that onely by the Thunder-stroak the Lightning doing no hurt there Therefore let the voice of Thunder and the voice of the Earth-quake be the note or tone of ministring spirits But the Stars do not stir up a motive and alterative force of the Air or Water through a note but do act onely by an Aspect which they call an Influence And it hath its action and direction in a moment even as light sight c. For otherwise there should be need of many years before the audible Species or resemblances that are to be heard should come down from Saturn to the places of a Meteor And then a note or sound although it be great yet it faileth by degrees in the way But that the Earth doth tremble with a Tempest of Windes or that the Tempest doth sometimes run successively thorow Villages Cities and as it were thorow street by street in its wheeling about That is wholly by accident and according to the will of him who shaketh the Earth for a monstrous sign Likewise that else-where it doth oft-times tremble in quick Belgium very seldom that changeth not the moving cause For it stands in the free will of him who encloseth the Universe in his Fist who can shake the Earth at his pleasure and alone do marvellous things At the beholding of whom the Earth shall at sometime smoak and the Mountains being melted shall go to ruine But that in another place gapings chaps after an Earth-quake have sometimes appeared and a filthy poyson and fumes of arsenicall bodies have breathed forth that is joyned onely to its naturall causes Nor are they the effects of an Earth-quake but by accident but not the causes But this blindness of causes of the Earth-quake hath been invented the Devill being the Authour whereby mortall men might set apart all fear of the power and so might prevent if not wholly neglect the ends which God hath appointed to himself for the serious reverencing of the power of his Majesty that they being mind-full of the faults of their fore-led life might repent Deh qual possente man conforzze ignote Il terreno a crollar si spesso riede Non e chiuso vapor como altro crede Ne sognato stridente il suol percuote Certo la terra si rissente scuote Perche del peâ—cator sa aggrava il piede Et i nostri corpi impatiente chiede Per riemper se sue spelonche â—uote E linquaggio del ciel che l'huom riprende Il turbo il tuono il fulmine il baleno Hor parla anco la terra in note horrende Perche l'huom ch' esser vuol tutto terreno Ne del cielo il parlar straniero intende I l parlar della terra intenda al meno Behold with what a mighty yet unknown A force the Earthy Body makes a noyse And with so thick a rushing gives a groan 'T is not a vapour hot shut up they 'r toyes Even as some believe which beats the ground Or thumps its entrails with a whistling sound Truly the Earth it selfe doth feele and quake Because the sinners foot doth load its back And our impatient mortall bodies fall In to fill up its own deep Vaults withall The Language of the Heaven which reproves Man is the Whirle-winde Thunder Lightning flash And sp'ritous howling in the Air Ecchoes Now speaks the earth more-o're with horride lash Of signall tokens ' cause since man which would Be wholly earthly doth not understand The Linguo strange of Heaven yet may or should At least the Earth it 's Language apprehend These things nothing hindering there hath not been one wanting who said that from a most deep well of the Castle of Lovaine he by a sure presage foretold an Earth-quake was shortly to be because the water of the same Well three dayes before sent forth the stinking savour of Brimstone and that its contagion yellowness together with the turbulency of the water did bewray it But let that good man know that that Well is one hundred and fifteen foot in depth because they go up to the Castle from the Street that is next unto it by ninety three steps And so that Well in one part is not deeper than its Neighbouring Wells although in the other part where it is co-touching with the Hill of the Castle it is deep as I have said But seeing that a vein of Sulphur is not hidden in the Hill the water could not breath Sulphur which was not there But if it cast the smell of Sulphur a sign might precede God admonishing but it had not Sulphur which neither is in that place nor was enflamed therefore neither could it cause an Earthquake unto all Belgium or the Low Countries Therefore there is no naturall reason why the water
Vessel putrified by continuance it conceiveth Worms it brings sorth Gnats yea is covered with a skin Fens putrifie from the bottom through continuance hence arise Frogs Shell-fishes Snails Horse-leeches Herbs c. And moreover swimming-herbs do cover the water being contented onely with the drinking of water putrified through continuance And even as stones are from Fountains wherein there is a stony seed and ferment existing So the Earth stinking with metally ferments doth make out of water a metally or Mineral Bur. But the water being elsewhere shut up in the Earth if it be nigh the Air and stirred by a little heat it putrifieth by continuance which is no more water but the juyce Leffas or of Plants by the force of which hoary ferment a power is conferred on the Earth of budding forth Herbs for that putrified juyce by the prick of a little heat doth ascend into a smoak is made spongie and encompassed with a skin by reason of the requirance of the ferments therein laying hid Therefore that putrefaction by continuance hath the office of a ferment and the virtues of a seed hastening by degrees into the Archeusses through its seminall virtues into a quantity of life Therefore the juyce of the Earth putrified through continuance is Leffas From whence ariseth every kinde of Plant wanting a visible seed and from whence seeds that are sown are promoted into their appointments therefore there are as many rank or stinking smells of putrefactions by continuance as there are proper savours of things for that odours are not onely the messengers of savours but also their promiscuous parents The smoak Leffas being now gathered together doth at first wax pale afterwards wax yellowish straightway it waxeth a little whitishly green And at length it is fully green And the power of the Species or particular kinde being unfolded it assumeth divers Colours and Signates In which flowing it imitatets the leading of the water under the Equinoctial-line yet in this it differs that these waters have borrowed too Spiritual a ferment from the Star and place without a corporeal hoary putrefaction and therefore through their too frail seed they straightway return into themselves but Leffas is constrained to perfect the Tragedy of the conceived seed Therefore Rain conceiving a hoary ferment and being made Leffas is drawn into the lustfull roots by a certain sucking And it is experienced that within this Kitchin there is a new hoary putrefaction of the Ferment the Tenant by and by it is brought from thence to the Bark or Liver where it is enriched with a new ferment of that bowel and is made an Herby or woody juyce and at length a ripeness being conceived it becommeth Wood becometh an Herb or departs into fruit but the Trunk or Stem if it sooner putrifies under the Earth than the Bark or Rhine becomes dry it cleaves asunder by its own ferment sends forth a smoak thorow the Bark which in its beginning is spongie and at length hardens into a true root and so planted branches become Trees by the abridgement of art Therefore it is now evident that there is no mixture of the Elements that all bodies primitively and materially are made onely of water through a seed being attained by a ferment and that the seeds being exhausted or overcome with pains Bodies do at length return into their antient Inne of water yea that ferments do sometimes work more strongly than fire because great Stones are turned into Lime and Woods indeed into ashes and there the fire makes a stop the which notwithstanding a ferment in the Earth being assumed do of their own accord return into the juyce of Leffas and so also at length into simple water For otherwise Stones and Bricks do of their own accord decline into Salt-peter Lastly Glasse which is unconquered by the fire uncorrupted by the Air in a few years putrifieth by continuance rots under the Earth and undergoes the lawes of water for whatsoever things may be melted in water do forthwith return into water but other things are made volatile by the ferments and what things soever were compacted and not to be thorowly mingled being brought by the ferments of putrefactions by continuance into a necessity of transmutation are opened and do hastily consult of seperating But the most clear Fountains although they climbe thorow the Rocks and Sand out of the un-savoury soil of nature or the Quellem are purified far from the contagion of Clay a ferment and corruption neither do they also fall down by chance but are appointed for great uses yet seeing they contract at least the hidden Odours of the Rockie Stone unperceivable by us they hasten into other bounds Therefore Streams Springs Rivers Fens Pooles Seas and whatsoever things are contained in the belly of the water do likewise even from the very birth of the Fountains conceive their seeds and in wantonizing do ripen them by their course Also great storms of Rain being struck down through the putrefaction of Thunder are fruitfull but sober rains are great with young of dew or a conceived exhalation For I have perfectly learned by the fire that the dew is rich in a sweet Sugar They deliver that in Snow Northern worms are bred therefore the Mountains to be covered over with a long Snow and although their Grass be sparing yet that it is most apt for the fatting of lesser Cattel so that unless they are driven away in time they will be choaked with fat But the waters which contain a melting Paracelsus doth call corporeall ones and he ignorantly denieth that they contain an Element in them Therefore Ferments do by seeds play their universall part in the World under the one Element of water CHAP. XV. The Stars do necessitate not incline nor signifie of the life the body or fortunes of him that is born 1. Naturall Philosophy without Medicine wants its end 2. The objects of the Stars 3. By what Argument the admittings of Ephemerides or Dayes-books may be supported 4. The errour in admitting them 5. However influences may be taken they do alwayes include a necessity 6. What the Works of the Lord in Psal 14. are 7. The fore-knowledge of God is infallible as well in things freely happening as in those of necessity 8. Death is foretold to Hannibal 9. How the Devil foreknoweth things to come 10. The Confession of the Authour 11. How much and from whence an evill Spirit hath a foreknowledge of things to come 12. Which way foreshewing Signes may be made which scarce any one understands 13. The foreshewings of the Stars determined out of the holy Scriptures 14. In what manner or what thing the Stars may act 15. The action of government 16. A diversity of government is shewen from their motion and from their light 17. Sick persons foreshew things to come 18. Why Insects have better known things to come than men 19. VVhy diseased persons do fore-perceive Tempests 20. Foreshewing doth not take away a liberty of
fixednesse of a bone as also in the fractures of bones For the Chyle of the stomack is the same after growth as it was in a Youth But all that is at length discussed without any remainder of it self it again retakes the nature of a bone in a callous concretion in the solidness of fractures And therefore for that very cause all Chyle is volatile and thus far it sometimes doth assume the disposition of spirit in the venal bloud Not indeed because there is a natural spirit in it and diverse from the venal bloud but rather because the whole venal bloud hath obtained a spiritual Character in the promise John 5. The water the bloud and the spirit are one But I will teach concerning digestions after what sort that sowreness in the Chyle may be transchanged into a volatile Salt whose excrementitious part is banished with Urine and Sweats But the very Masse of venal bloud through the fermental virtue of the heart and assistance of the Pulses doth passe over into Arterial bloud of yellow looking reddish whence it is made vital spirit And so is not the air or vapour of the venal bloud but the venal bloud it self is brought into arterial bloud and from thence at length into vital spirit For the Office of the Liver is univocal and is called Sanguification but not the creation of spirit which do differ far from each other For neither do so many and so diverse Offices belong to one bowel especially because the rude heap of venal bloud is not yet a fit seminary for the spirits For it is sufficient for the Liver being enriched with so few Arteries and a communion of life that it performeth a true transmutation of the Chyle into venal bloud and a true generation of a new Being But in the heart as it were the fountain of life it is first of all meditated concerning vital Beginnings For the Venal bloud is there extenuated into Arterial bloud and vital air which two are wholly perfected by one only action according to the more ready and slow obedience of the venal bloud For the venal bloud is made with the in-thickning of the Chyle or Cream therefore by the separation of the liquid excrement or urine But the spirit is made with the attenuating or making thin of that which is in-thickned Both which actions so opposite do not therefore agree with one Liver But if the Schools will have a natural spirit to have fore-existed in meats but to have received a perfection in the Liver But yet it easily expires in things boyled cocted and roasted And if any doth by chance remain that spirit is not the hepatical or Liverie one of our Family Goverment I confesse indeed that the Spirit of wine is the spirit of Vegetables and is easily snatched into the Arteries as it were a simple Resembler previously disposed that it may easily passe over into vital spirit But from thence the Schools do frame nothing for their spirit of the Liver For the Spirit of wine is immediately snatched into the Arteries out of the stomack without digestion Neither is it taken as a vital companion by the degree of venal bloud it is also easily from thence gathered that the vital spirit doth not presuppose a natural one And what I have said is manifest For truly they which suffer fainting or trembling of the heart do presently and immediately feel the spirit of wine to be admitted into the fellowship of life for neither then also are they made drunk by much wine abundantly drunken Otherwise Wine being as yet corporally existing within the stomack drunkenness doth not from elsewhere proceed than because the winie spirit is abundantly snatched into the heart and head and there breeds a confusion of the fore-existing spirits it self being a stranger not yet polished in the shop of the heart Therefore the venal blood it selfe let it be the spirit of the Liver corporal coagulated into a matter and subjected to a vital Goverment with me it may be so so that we understand it Rhetorically to wit the venal bloud it self to be an object capable and a matter that it may thereby be made Spirit And in speaking Phylosophically or properly there is no spirit in the venal bloud made for it self by the Liver because the labour of Sanguification seperation of the Liquor Latex Urine and Sweat doth employ the Liver to wit while those do most swiftly pass thorow the slender Flood-gates of small veins For the venal bloud although it received an entrance of it self in the Meseraick veins yet the true generation of the same is made also the endowments of small threds and coagulation under the most swift passage together with its Whey through the small Trunks of a hairy slendernesse But if also the generation of spirit doth moreover employ the Liver Truly besides the vain generation of the same the Liver is to prostrate it self like an Asse with too much fardle and plurality of offices And it is sufficient for the venal bloud that being made a Citizen of the veins it doth partake of life and be illustrated with a vital light Therefore even as by the ferment and labour of the heart the venal bloud is made arterial bloud and volatile spirit So a ferment the Vicar of the heart being drawn from the arteries they are also made so volatile that after their consumings they leave no remaining lees that do go forth with a totall transpiration of themselves Therefore the heart doth frame out of the venal bloud arterial bloud which it fitteth and extenuateth by the same endeavour and makes so much vital Spirit in the arterial bloud as the groseness of the venal bloud and the resisting substance of the same doth permit in so little a space wherein it is agitated and shaken together within the bosoms of the heart yea indeed neither is it enough to have known the venal bloud to be Spirit also to be brought over into arterial bloud and to grant a vital Spirit by whose favour it may be informed by the minde and be made animate and from hence at length to be translated into the bosoms or stomachs of the Brain there to receive the various limitation of Characters So that it is made motive in the thorny marrow or Spina Medullae as we have seen in the Shops optical or of the sight which if they are through some errour brought to the tongue they are plainly unprofitable for tasting Wherefore it comes to passe that oft-times the fingers are benummed some moveable part looseth its sense being left either feeling or motion for that the parts are bedewed with a strange and wandring Spirit For the Authours of touchings are unfit for motion and those of this likewise for them But moreover it behoveth to have known the disposition of the vital Spirit For truly it will sometime sufficiently appear that of soure Chyle partly venal bloud and partly salt Urine and the excrements are made But that that excrementitious
the middle waters but it hath need of a fermenting odour of the side whereby it doth as it were putrifie Therefore coagulation is made on the sides of the Vessel to which it fastneth it self According to the common Chymical Maxim Every Spirit dissolving by the same action whereby it disselveth Bodies is it self coagulated Therefore the more sharp Wine dissolveth the Lee in its Bark because a sharp Salt of the sour dissolving Spirit is presently coagulated together with the dissolved Lee or Dreg and applyeth it self to be neighbour to the side or Concave of the Vessel And that least both to wit the thing dissolving and thing dissolved be hindered from coagulating but at least that it be not on the other side encompassed by Liquor Therefore Tartar the new off-spring of coagulation is affixed Understand thou also that before it be coagulated there is not yet a coagulation and therefore that somewhat sour Wine the Lee being now dissolved by it in an instant before it is coagulated snatcheth hold on the Vessel and doth affix and glew it self on there by the proper Solder of its Cream Else it should settle to the bottom This very thing is the Tartar of Wine of which we are speaking That these things are on this wise Vinegar it self proveth For Wine set in the Sun and the Vessel being heated by the Sun the Vinegar never hath Tartar in the Vessel yet it is the same matter differing onely in cold or heat There indeed with Tartar but here without it First of all a remarkable thing plainly appeareth from what hath been before deduced that the aforesaid Maxim of Chymistry erreth in that because it will have the dissolution of a Body to be made together with the coagulation of the Spirit by the same action in number For if divers moments of motions should not intercede the coagulated thing it self should not adhere toughly glewed to the Hogshead as if by that which is melted it should be there powred on it but if it should be coagulated in the very motion of dissolution it should fall down to the bottom in the shape of a coagulated matter but should not adhere to the sides But on the other hand in the Region of the Lee Tartar is not found Let there be another remarkable thing and of greater moment that the Tartar of Wine is altogether impertinently taken according to the likeness of coagulated things in us wherefore the name History manner and end of Tartar of Wine hath been impertinently introduced into the Causes which make Diseases And these things shall be made manifest when as I shall make the devise of Tartar in Meats and Drinks plainly to appear Likewise as to that which belongs to Tartar of Wine for that is not a strange forreigner to Wine produced by a forreign Mother matter against or besides the nature of Wines as neither to expiate the wickednesses committed by Wine by those things which are adjoyned for a curse And then neither is the Tartar of Wine ever coagulated by a Cream proper unto it although Paracelsus hath otherwise so supposed but the Tartar is coagulated after that the dissolutive sourness of the Wine is woren out and glutted by the Lee. That is the sourness being overcome by the dissolved content doth think of making a coagulation not indeed to make a true Stone but a feigned one because it is that which is again dissolved in hot water as it were a sharp Salt in Liquor which is therefore commonly called Cremor Tartari or the Cream of Tartar All which things surely do badly square or suit with our coagulations yet they all have by a like identity or sameliness of Tartar in all particular nourishments been intruded by a winy devise Lastly and that a violent one Because Tartar is not an excrement of Wine unless in respect of one part which is a solved Dreg which thing surely was not also hid from Paracelsus who now and then doth extol the Tartar of Wine far above the Wine as it were an heir of greater virtues Wherefore he doth badly accommodate or fit the Tartar of Wine by the identity of Being and framing with diseasie Tartarers which he calls an excrement yea a curse arising from the Thistles and Thorns or an ill endowed entertained Being in a pure Saphirical Being of things Therefore the Tartar of Wine although there should be any other being erected into the matter of Diseases in taking the Tartars of Diseases they should even according to the minde of Paracelsus badly agree together And so he hath also but impertinently referred the cause of Diseases unto Tartar Seeing they do not any way agree in the matter efficient manner cause of coagulations in the bound of a Cream in their object as neither in their principles For the Sand or Stone are not resolved by elixing or seething even as otherwise the Tartar of Wine is Therefore the whole metaphorical transumption of name and property is frivolous and a bold rashness of asserting by bespattering all created things with a curse so as wholly throughout they should be nothing but of Tartar and the boldness hath proceeded so far that they seign Tartar to be even in the Marrows yet not coagulable which neither hath Paracelsus ever seen but hath asserted onely by a boldness Now he maketh Tartar not to be Tartar nor coagulable And so that not onely every coagulable thing and that which hath solidness but that every liquory thing that is the whole Creature should be nothing but Tartar appointed for a punishment of sin Now when new Wine hath waxed cold hath lost its sweetness and hath assumed the qualities of Wine the whole Lee hath fallen to the bottom and then the transmutation of the more sour part of the Wine beginneth to act of the Lee For truly that which is more fruitful than the Spirit of Wine desiring by degrees the more inward parts doth forsake the Superficies of the Hogs-head but this beginning thereby to wax sour nor finding an object nigh to it self on which it may act but onely in the bottom it by degrees dissolves that object in the same place And thus indeed the sharpness thereof is by degrees the more confirmed But seeing every sour thing doth as it were boyl up in corroding hence it comes to passe that when the sourness which is about the bottom hath acted upon the dreg it ariseth from thence and is substituted or affixed in another place Therefore the generation of Tartar is slow And therefore cannot the Tartar be affixed in the bottom by reason of the disquietness of that continual boyling up wherefore generous Wines nor Wines easily forsaken by their fleeing Spirit do not readily wax sour and they do yield none or but a little Tartar But old Rhenish Wines do become weak indeed in the acceptableness of a winie tast as their sourness was drunk up in the Lee yet are they stomatical because that their Spirits are not wasted according to
selfishnesse is exhausted But seeing it doth not at all consist in our own power to be wholly freed and so that it rather puts us in mind of the grace of ravishment or violent prevalency than of the true and naked and pure operations of the mind which I intend to take a View of in this Chapter for a compleating of the Treatise of the Soul Therefore according to my poverty of judgment a man doth not in acting climbe neerer unto a super-eminent uncloathing of his mind alone and an abstracted baring of the light of understanding than by the prayer of silence in the Spirit wherein the delights of God are to be adored Because he then doth issuingly illustrate or make light cleer or famous that mind as the uncloathed image of himself being thus reflexed in the glass of his own Divinity This indeed is that which the most glorious Goodnesse wisheth for But that fruits or exercises may bewray the essence or thinglinesse of the mind I have thought that that is not more powerfully nor elswhere to be had than from spiritual exercises whereby the mind it self rids it self from the coâ—knit conceipts of created things and from the service of the acquainted Senses For it is manifest what the mind it self may be while it hath withdrawn it self from conceipts which are wont or might stain it or at leastwise hinder it from comming unto the nakednesse and purity of it self wherein it may be able to worship the aforesaid Unity or onenesse The Lord Jesus therefore is the Way the Truth and the Life the way I say unto himself the Truth and unto the life of the Father of Lights Therefore the way is directed unto the obtainment of abstracted truth whose wished desire it is that the hidden truth which he hath decyphered in the mind his own image may be certainly known by us and worshipped in the Spirit Where Himself is the Kingdome of God is present with all his free gifts and therefore the manner and mean of worshipping in spirit cannot be more nearly known or perfectly learned than by the way and truth it self and so by the prayer which he hath dictated unto us wherein are first three amorous or loving wishes or desires of love and as many Petitions For those wishes are without all selfishnesse and are naked respects toward God himself and therefore the most pure of all those which can be wished for and thought by love And the first of them is that which the Truth speaketh Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and the righteousvess thereof and other things shall be added unto you But it is not the righteousnesse of God that righteousness may be done by us for no one living shall be justified in his sight but that his Name may be sanctified which is not only due unto him so a just thing but that loving wish justifies us For it presupposeth first of all Christian faith itself and then also his infinite goodness whereby he vouchsafeth to be our Father And indeed in the word Our selfishness is put for the goodness of God the obliging of all of us which otherwise is nowhere seen in the three wishes And thirdly it sheweth forth his vast majesty to be co-measured by his dwelling place of the Heavens which is the work of his own hands And so such like things as those being premised an amorous wish or desire is kindled in us which doth not desire that his Name be only sanctified by his only begotten Son and our Mediatour where Deep calls unto Deep neither also onely that the heavenly Wights and whole Church militant may adore his unutterable Name neither also therefore is it the sense that his Name may he sanctified on earth like as it is inheaven but that it may be sanctified or hallowed in us and by us in all this notwithstanding selfishnesse and nothingnesse being renounced and that there may be a naked and most pure reflexion of the honour and delights of God in that which is to be with us and to be worshipped in the spirit of love And therefore also the other succeeding wish doth not ask the Kingdom of God for it self but the Kingdom of God which is in us that it may come neerer to us Not indeed nakedly and simply for our sakes but because it is of his goodnesse to be with the sons of men in delights Wherefore also it is wished that his own Will may be done in us upon us and by us with a full resignation of our own will Therefore the three wishes do proceed from the soul without a modal restriction or reflexion on us because they do exceed all personality of the creature that God may be worshipped for himself And therefore they do excell all force of prayer petition praising giving of thanks yea and of glorification it self For to give thanks doth denote a benefit and implyeth a receiver but glorification praising or sanctification it self as it brings down my selfishnesse before the sight of God although in the mean time it be due and obligatory it far goes back from the excellency of a most pure and amorous wish or desire wherein the sanctifying of the Name of God in us is desired in which deep calleth unto deep For who am I who may presume in respect of an infinite to sanctifie that Name who indeed am nothing but a worm and a most miserable sinner And therefore the amorous or loving desire of sanctification doth as much excell let thy name be hallowed or sanctified by me as a wretched sinner differs from the Son of the God-bearing Virgin For praises and prayers as well in the Mosaical Law as at this day were made by Hymns Psalmes and Prayers But man before the truth be perfectly learned hath never attained the vigour height and depth of a loving desire of sanctifying the incomprehensible Divinity in us wherein there is more excellency than all creatures together are able to comprehend For that sanctification is wished for not because God is most excellent most great bountiful c. For those things include a selfishnesse of the praiser not to be suffered together with the divine Name Therefore the desire and wish of an amorous soul fervently desiring the sanctifying of the Name of God nakedly and simply is not made indeed by a creature below God but by a melting of the mind desiring in the love of God for the least thing which it contains in it is to offer it self to God with a resignation of its whole and likewise to will act and suffer any thing with a total amorous offering up of the heart soul and strength into the obedience of the Divine Will In which loving or lovely offering all thoughts besides the naked desire of love are unsufferably excluded because it transcends all reflexion For because it is naked it despiseth every garment which reason might administer unto it For that so naked and excellent love ariseth in the seat of
of Rosins flowres and herbs have arisen and likewise those which are prepared of Minium or Red Lead Cerusse or Colcotar Hitherto also doth the Salt of â—artar tend being rectified by the Spirit of Wine until it obtains an astringent taste For it is the Balsam Samech or of Tartar of Paracelsus even as out of Arsenick for Ulcers whereof moreover there is its Balsam of smoak because that Arsenick is by skilful men accounted the fume of Metals Not indeed that it is not simple born and subsisting by it self but from a Similitude for that metallick smoaks do imitate an Arsenical malignity And so I close up the Doctrine of external Diseases CHAP. XLII An unknown action of Government 1. The Maxim is opposed That of Contraries the Remedies are contrary 2. The foundation of that Maxim 3. The Maxim concerning the re-acting of the Patient or of its defence in time of fight is examined 4. Arguments on the opposite part 5. The same by moving strengths by things generative and irregular 6. There is no re-acting of weight 7. Arebounding action neglected by the Antients 8. Bright burning Iron acteth and doth not re-act 9. The swiftness of a mover is not the action but the measuring of the action 10. Altering Agents do not properly re-suffer 11. Another Maxim is noted of falshood 12. From whence the falseness thereof hath issued 13. What Agents of a different inclination and irregular are 14. He proceeds to prove what he hath undertaken to prove 15. Wherein the opinion of Aristotle may be preserved 16. An explaining of action in the slowness of the fire 17. Actions on an object separated from the thing supposed 18. A Fermental and radial or beaming action 19. That these kinde of actions are not to be referred unto the fault of vapours 20. The Blas of Government hath been hitherto unknown 21. The falshood of a Maxim 22. The fire suffers nothing by a burnable object 23. To determine or limit an action and to re-act do differ 24. New actions 25. The dimness or giddiness of the Schools 26. Their staggering 27. Likewise some neglects of the same 28. The unknown action of Government is not that which they call an action by consent 29. The Errour whence it is 30. Why Anatomy hath arisen into so great curiosity 31. How much may be required from Anatomy 32. A neglect of the chiefest part of natural Philosophy 33. The Schools deluded by thinking 34. Many things happen in us by the action of Government without conveighing Pipes or Channels 35. Blindness hath brought blinde persons unto blinde vapours the action of Government being unknown 36. Things admitted by the Author 37. The action of Government is abstracted from a co-binding mean 38. A natural action in incorporeal Spirits 39. Which is a jugling action 40. Luxury takes away the Remedy of the Horse-hoof 41. An Example of Government 42. The government of the Womb is wholly over the whole Body 43. Government acteth into its own marks the middle spaces being untouched 44. The faculties of the actions of the Womb. 45. The furies of the Womb. 46. The manner of making in the birth of a Disease from the action of Government 47. Why the fore-head is not bearded 48. That Capital Diseases do not arise through Fumes out of the Stomach FRom the first time wherein the Schools placed contraries in Nature they presently universally established that nothing acted without strifes war and discords Even so that also chidings hatreds emulations have been reckoned the Foundations or Principles of Nature no lesse than self-love And moreover also they being credulous of hatred by the perswasion of Astronomers have introduced the same things into the courses or dances of the Stars Likewise they have determined that in the whole sublunary frame or stage nothing is done or generated but by a Relation of the Superiority of an Agent unto a Patient So indeed that the Patient is with violence compelled tamed altered destroyed and is wholly translated into the Nature of the Agent onely by the relation of a stronger on a weaker But when the Schools saw that Agents did by degrees languish away either through space of time or wearinesse of acting they likewise decreed from thence that that indeed did not so much happen through a tiring out of the seeds and powers but by a re-acting of the patient Therefore they confirmed it that every patient or sufferer doth likewise of necessity re-act and for that cause likewise every agent or acter doth re-suffer neither also that it is any other way weakened Whence by consequence I guessed with my self that sometimes the seeds of things shall at sometime be naturally wholly undoubtedly extinguished unless they are miraculously preserved Notwithstanding I do even contemplate that there is on both sides a perpetual rudenesse and continued sloath of a diligent search in the doctrines of the Schools And that one onely thing hath repelled from me the former fear For truly after that I with-drew contraries out of Nature I could not afterwards in sound judgment find out any re-acting in the patient as neither could I admit of hostilities in nature elswhere than among soulified or living creatures For contrariety is in those things alone wherein there is an actual defence in the will of the patient against the injuries brought on it and felt from the Agent Wherefore there is never a re-acting of the patient on the agent unlesse where there is a contrariety conceived in the soul But that this is thus ordinary and ordained in nature I will forthwith demonstrate For first of all the Universe should remain still even as it now subsisteth by the infinite power of the Word if it should be so commanded I say things should be infinite in their own successions and duration but they should not be infinite by an actual virtue of the unity of a creature And that thing because it is of faith it wants no proof Therefore there is no infinite of sublunary things by their own power Hence it follows that at length every particular Agent doth by degrees also of its own free accord at some time decay and having finished its offices dies by a dissolution of its strength circumscribed in space of place and in the power of continuance strength unlesse perhaps the appointed day of its proper and limited period or conclusion be shifted off by a preventing of the term or the impediments of the object But of natural Agents some are those which have a motive force which I have called a motive Blas but the Agents themselves I call moving strengths But other moving Agents I call an alterative Blas to wit those which do operate by the seminal force of a ferment And such Agents do for the most part generate their like Lastly in the third place some Agents are irregular or of a different inclination I will speak of those three in order Indeed acting strengths do act on their objects First by a prevailing weight
idly to be denyed that Iron or the Fragments of Iron are in the Fountains of the Spaw but the Vein of Iron to be in them For truly there doth more Virtue occur in the Vein than in the Iron to wit of those subtile Parts which the Furnace filched away in time of Fusion Wherefore the Juice Spirit or hungry Salt call it as thou listest doth not grow within the Vein of the Iron so that there may be a like co-melting of both in the Waters far be it The Salt hath obtained other Wombs in the Earth from whence the Water sliding by melts that Salt and snatcheth it away with it self as it were a Cousin-germane being once the Son of another Water But if therefore it be the longer detained in a notable hollowness about the Vein it suppeth up more of the Vein into it self as doth Pouhontius and this the Fountain Geronster doth as yet more amply do But Tonneletius being richer than the two foregoing Fountains in a hungry Salt yet is poorer than the same in the Vein For from hence it is Cold and more troublesome to the Stomack Therefore which-soever Fountain doth more provoke Stoole is the more fertile in the Vein Neither indeed was that thing unknown to the Antients who used the Scale of Iron for the loosing of the Belly Virgins also taking Stomoma or the Powder of Steel are wont also to vomit on the first dayes Geronster therefore hath received more of the Vein than Tonneletius but as much of Salt but mitigated by reason of the Activity of the Vein received into it and therefore that Salt hath become more gross and corpulent But Savenirius is far more washy in Waters having the least of the Vein and hungry Salt and therefore it sooner finisheth the Action of the hungry Salt and Vein and the Medicinal water sooner dyeth And for the same Cause it most easily passeth thorow the Stomack is sooner concocted and doth penetrate The presence therefore of the Spirit acting into the Vein enlargeth the Pores in the Water and works up the Water of the Fountain unto a lighter weight It is further to be noted that even as in Wines and unripe Oyl of Olives there is a fermental boyling up So the Action of the hungry Salt it self is made And not only upon the Vein while it gnaws and passeth thorow the same but also it operates for some time upon the same being snatched away with it Pouhontius I say far longer than Savenirius c. until that the Activities of the Spirits being worn out of exhausted as well the Agent as the Patient the thing dissolving I say like as also the thing to be dissolved do decay or faile in the same endeavour CHAP. XCVIII A Fifth Paradox 1. The virtues of a hungry Salt 2. The effect of obstruction 3. How far Fountains may act in a Man 4. Whom they may not help 5. An example of an effect by it self and by accident 6. A Woman is subject unto double Diseases 7. The faculties of the Vein of Iron 8. An objection 9. A Solution 10. After what manner Iron opens and after what manner it doth binde 11. A proof by an allied Example 12. Whether they are convenient in the Stone and how far 13 That is a Cloakative Cure which doth onely expell the Stones 14. The Waters of the Spaw are for a Cause that the Stone doth the more easily re-increase or grow again 15. Wherein the true Cure of the Stone is placed 16. From whence the remedy is to be fetched and of what sort it is 17. The first qualities are in Fountains 18. Water not Air is Internally moist 19. The Virtues of Rellolleum and Cherto 20. An objection 21. A resolution thereof WE being now about to Treat in a brief Method concerning the Virtues of the Fountains of the Spaw and being to speak by the Rule of a supply will resume that no other Natural Endowments are to be found than those which are drawn out of a hungry Salt and the dissolved Vein of Iron Wherefore seeing a hungry Salt dissolves Muscilages cleanseth them away consumes them and sends them forth therefore first of all it helps Stomacks that are beset with Muckiness also by the same endeavour it dispatcheth the same preter-natural sliminess which we have called a Coagulable excrement of things in us being crept a little more deeply and inwards as well into the innermost Chambers of the Veins as into those of any Bowell but by so much the slower by how much farther it hath taken its Journey from the mouth Hence it doth not sluggishly succour the obstructions arisen in the Liver Spleen and Kidneys and Fevers the Dropsie and Jaundise bred from thence For the matter obstructing being consumed the obstruction ceaseth which otherwise seeing it is a hinderance whereby the Spirit of Life may spring the less freely throughout all Places and perform its offices Therefore it deprives the parts which are behind it in a future order of a Vital Communion and consequently calls for Putrefactions Therefore the Waters of the Spaw being drunk are convenient altogether in all Diseases which arise from the Enemy Tartar being received and Coagulated within besides Nature So that a sufficient Root of Life be remaining that is if they are drunk seasonably enough Yet with that adjoyned Limitation that the Power of the Waters doth not Transcend the Hypochondrials or places about the short Ribs For the Waters do not reach beyond the Reins to wit unto the Heart Lungs or Brain Wherefore also the Waters of the Spaw do not succour those affects which are Naturally or peculiarly from a property of Passion unless by accident The reason is Because seeing Minerals are altogether unapt for nourishment they are banished out of the Body with the Urine the last excrement of Salts to wit the Commerce whereof the lively Arterial blood doth no longer suffer Therefore if they may seem to bring any help unto the Head Heart or Lungs all that is to be reckoned to happen by a withdrawing of the affect which causeth a distemperature therein by a Secondary Passion and consent In the next place neither do the Waters of the Spaw profit in Epidemical Endemical and Astral Diseases as are the Plague Plurisie burning Coal c. as neither do they very much profit in those Diseases wherein a Poison subsisteth being either inwardly received or bred or participated of from contagion As also neither in Diseases of Tincture such as are the Leprosie Pox or Foul Disease the Morphew Cancer Falling-Evil c. Wherefore we do not well agree with those who commend the Water of the Spaw for all Diseases altogether without Exception And so that they extoll the same even unto blasphemy To wit There is no cause that we having obtained the Fountains of the Spaw should now henceforeward be amazed at the Miracles of Ancient Waters or of the Fish-Pool of Siloah or of Jordan curing of Naaman seeing here also we see those
from it Self I could scarce discern by reason of the superlative lustre or brightness of the Christaline Spirit contained within it Yet that I observe that the Mark of the Sexes was not but in the Husk but not in the Chrystal The Seal whereof was an unuttered Light so reflexed in the Chrystal that the Chrystal it self was made incomprehensible and that not indeed by a Negation or Privation because they are those things which are in respect of our Weakness so called but it represented a famous being which cannot be expressed by Word And it was said unto me This is that which thou once sawest thorow the Chink But I intellectually saw those things in the Soul which if the Eye should see it should afterwards cease to see The Dream therefore shewed unto me that the Beauty of the Soul of Man doth exceed all Conception At least-wise I comprehended the Vanity of my long desire therefore I desisted from the wish of seeing my soul For however beautiful that spiritual Chrystal was yet my soul retained no perfection unto it self from that Vision even as otherwise after an intellectual Vision the Mind is adorned with much Perfection of Knowledge I knew therefore that my Mind in that Dreaming Vision had acted the Person of a third and so that it was not worth the labour of so great a Wish But as to what hath regard unto the Image of God in the Mind I according to my slenderness confess that I could never conceive any thing whether it were a Spirit or a Body or in the Understanding or in the next place in the Imagination or in a meer intellectual Vision which through the same endeavour may not represent some Figure of it self under which it might stand in the considerer Because surely whether I conceive a thing by its Image or Likeness or whether the Understanding transchangeth it self into the Thing understood At least-wise I cannot consider this thing to be done unless it should wander from it self into the thing understood with an interchangable course of it self the which seeing it hath a certain actual Being it hath alwayes stood with me under a certain Figure or Shape For indeed although I conceived the Mind to be an incorporeal and immortal Substance Yet I could not assoon as I thought of its individual Existence consider of the same as deprived of all Figure Yea nor indeed but that it would answer unto the Figure of a Man For as oft as the Soul that is separated seeth another Soul Angel or evil Spirit that must needs know that these things are present with it that it may distinguish the Soul from the Angel and likewise the Soul of Peter from the Soul of Judus Which Distinction cannot be made by Tasting Smelling Hearing and touching but only by a proper Vision of the Soul Which Vision or Sight doth of necessity include an interchangeable course of Figure For seeing an Angel is so in a Place that he is not at once in another Place Therein also is of necessity included a certain figural Circumscription no less than a local one And then I have considered the mind of Man to be figured after this manner For the Body of man as such cannot give unto it self an humane Shape For therefore it had need of an external Engrave which should be enclosed within the Matter of the Seed and which had descended into it from elsewhere Yet for as much as that Engraver was of a material Condition he was not able to draw a Virtue as neither an Image of figuring either out of himself nor from the Masse of the Body it behoves therefore that something doth precede which was plainly immaterial yet a real and effective Beginning whereunto a Power should be due of figuring by a sealing impression on the Archeus of the Seed The Soul of the Begetter therefore while it slides downwards and through natural Lust doth lighten the Body of the Seed it delineates the Figure of its Seal and the Seal of its Figure there which is the one only Cause of the Fruitfulness of Seeds from whence therefore ariseth so lofty a Stature of a Young For if the Soul it self were in it self not figured but that the Figure of the Body should arise as it were of its own accord a Trunk in any Member could not but generate a Trunk Because the Body of the Generater not being entire doth at least-wise faile in the implanted Spirit of that Member If therefore a Figure be implanted in the Seed certainly it shall receive that Image from a more vital and former Beginning But if the Soul doth imprint a certain Figure on the Seed it shall not counterfeit a forreign or strange Face but shall decypher its own Likeness For so also the Souls of Bruit-beasts do And although our Soul by reason of its Original be above the Laws of Nature Yet by what foot it hath once entered the threshold of Nature and is incorporated therein it is afterwards also constrained to stand to its own Laws because there is a univocal or simple Progress and end of vital Generations For neither otherwise doth it want Absurdities that an Operation of so great a Moment as is the Generation of Man should happen without the consent and co-operation of the Mind which if it be so it must needs be also that fruitfulness is given to the Seed by the Soul by a Participation of its Figure and other vital Limitations Indeed every Soul doth to this end Seal the Image of it self in the Spirit of the Seed that the matter being reduced unto a requisite Maturity shewing a delineated Beauty and also the similitude of the Begetter may be able to beg a formal Light from the Creator or a Soul of that Species whose similitude is expressed in the Figure For we believe by Faith that our mind is a true Substance which is not to die but that the new Creation of a Substance out of nothing doth belong to God alone From whence there is not many but one only spiritual Father of all Spirits who is in the Heavens who if it hath well pleased him to have adopted the mind only into his own Image it seemeth also to follow that the vast and unutterable God is also of a humane Shape and that from an Argument from the Effect Seeing that the Body is like wax on which the Seal of the Image of the Mind is imprinted but the mind hath its Image and essential Perfection from him whose Image it beareth before it But because the Body is now and then defectuous and like unto a Monster Most have thought that the glorious Image of God doth wholly consist in the rational Power or Power of Reason They not considering that the Image of God doth in the nearest and more perfect manner consist in the Soul and from thence also in the Body being formed after the exemplary Character of the Soul In Operation of the Figuring if there be an Errour that
Quick-sighted and provident Nature comes to meet or prevent this same Dryness with a more large Nourishment of Marrow and She would have it to be Fat and less discussable or dispersable by Heates that it may vindicate the Old Age of the Bones from Dryness by its Unctuous Moisture For therefore there is a greater plenty or Marrow in four-footed Beasts that are Aged than in the little Young Ones because there is a greater necessity thereof I therefore do no longer highly esteem of the irrepairable radical Moisture for the Foundation of Life as neither being astonished at Dryness in as much as it is such neither also am I wont to measure out the Life according to the Pleasure of the first Qualities Because I knew that the Life did not wax dry as neither was it to be drawn from the Bosom of the Elements after that I beheld the interchangeable Courses of a long and short Life to be in the Center of Life CHAP. CV The Vital Air. THe Schools have not performed enough in teaching that Nourishments are transchanged first into Chyle and then from hence into the Digested Juice of Venal Blood and so that in the Liver a natural Spirit is made which by a repeated Digestion in the Heart is formed into vital Spirit and at length that in the Brain it is made animal So as that the natural Spirit should be fit for using the Parts but the Vital for quickning and conserving the same as also lastly that the Animal Spirit should be appointed for the Functions of Sense Motion and of the Mind But moreover in my Judgment it had behoved them more largely to discover the Thingliness and History of the Deed in so long a race of Studies and Repetition of Writers Indeed they know that there is a certain Spirit that Maker of the Assault according to Hippocrates which holds the Stern of Life in its Hand It was to be sought for and pronounced in what Organs or Instruments that Spirit should be made or what it should act and also they ought to have explained every Disposition the Substance thereof and the Properties of its Substance and also the manner of its making I therefore will declare what I may meet with in this respect That therefore we may be led into the Knowledge of the Vital Spirit the Blas of Man should first of all be repeated in this place but least I be tedious I will here omit it and refer the Reader elsewhere unto the Volume of the rise of Medicine I have elsewhere also delivered a Mean or Manner whereby through instilled Ferments an Aqua Vitae may be made of every Plant and Fruit whatsoever Which manner the vulgar Sort hath known and doth exercise while it frameth an Aqua Vitae or Liquor of Life out of Grains Fruits Ale or Beer Hydromel or honied Water no less than out of Juice of the Vine But an Aqua Vitae is a volatile Liquor Oylie indeed as it is wholly enflamed and likewise wholly Salt for as much as being an Air it biteth yea and being but a little while detained in the Mouth it burns and embladders the upper skin of the Gums I in this place taking notice by the way that two Beginnings of Chymistry are one only and an undivideable Simple thing I have shewn also elsewhere after what manner one Pound of Aqua Vitae being combibed in the dryed Salt of Tartar scarce half an Ounce of Salt can be made but that the whole Body may be made an Elementary Water as it was before And so that from hence it is easie to be seen that Water is by Nature a more formerly and simple Body that the Chymical Beginnings themselves While as the Water which at first was not in act in the most expurging or refined Aqua Vitae is nevertheless by its reducement thereby made its first Element of Water The which handicraft Operation moreover by transferring unto the Speculation of Life I find that the Wine in its winy Parts containeth the Aqua Vitae the Water of Life and therefore that is easily quickly and without the digested Maturities of the Liver and Gaul snatched through the Arteries of the Stomack unto the Heart or to be called unto it immediately for the supply and defect of the vital Spirit and in this respect to delude the Opinion of the Schools which presupposeth that the Spirit of the Liver ought to precede For if there be more of the Spirit of Wine in the Stomack than is meet Drunkenness follows to wit as the Spirit of Wine is more largely attracted than can in a fit Interval be changed into Vital Spirit Which thing surely proveth first of all a changing of and also the Operations of a Digestion and Ferment In the next place that also is remarkable To wit that there is a certain more mild Spirit in the Wine a Partaker of another and more noble Quality than that Spirit which is immediately drawn out by Distillation and is called refined or expurged Aqua Vitae The which is easily beheld by the Sight in the simple Oyl of Olives because Oyl being Distilled without the Additaments of Bricks or Tiles and the which therefore is called Oleum Philosophorum differs much from its Oyliness which is extracted the simple Oyl being first reduced into unlike Parts only by the Digestion and Application of the circulated Salt of Paracelsus For truly the circulated Salt is separated the same in weight and antient Qualities from the Oyl after that the Oyl of Olives is disposed into its diverse kinds of Parts For then by this means a sweet Oyl is separated from the Oyl of Olives even as also a most sweet Spirit of Wine from the Wine and that far distinct from the tartness of Aqua Vitae But in us although the meat together with the Drink do after some sort putrifie for that Purefaction is a manner and mean of transchanging a thing into a thing yet in our Digestions the Spirit of Aqua Vitae is not by such a Putrefaction and action of the Ferment of the Spleen drawn out of Potherbs Pulses Bread-Corns or Apples For truly it is not the Intention of our Nature to procreate an Aqua Vitae for it self but there is a far different Ferment in us whereby things are resolved into Chyle And a far different one whereby things do putrifie and are separated into an Aqua Vitae For this Ferment is introduced by many Mediums but that is not attained but by a specifical fermental Property of any Species For while Herbs through a long steeping in Water are made to putrifie by their Ferment or Vicar for the extracting of an Aqua Vitae the stalke branches and entire Leaves remaine in their Figure and Hardness the which notwithstanding being chewed swallowed and well concocted within do in a few hours depart into Chyle and loose the first Nature of Herbs Wherefore I have also elsewhere pressed to wit that there are as many specifical digestive
although I knew mans urine to be onely in our species and that the spirit of mans urine alone was in the possession of man Yet I examined Horse-pisse in the name of the bigger Cattel as being carefull whether perhaps there might not be another like coagulating spirit which by reason of Impediments co-bred with it could not every where obtain the command of coagulating But however I laboured I found not that spirit the Coagulater in Horse-pisse As neither the spirit of a ferment or of Aqua vitae Therefore I found a potential Aqua vitae intimate with mans urine and that a pliable one between that spirit the Coagulater and the putrified spirit the Receiver of the aforesaid Runnet or Coagulum And it is chiefly to be noted that the spirit of urine doth not coagulate but by the Wedlock of Aqua vitae the which I have often approved by distilling There are therefore three things in the urine of man which must of necessity concur and by so much the more powerfully by how much every person troubled with the stone doth now bear no light or small principle of corruption in his urine as presently in its place from whence indeed a ferment is swiftly stirred up in the urine for the aforesaid Aqua vitae that is capable of Coagulation For neither doth it withstand these things that as well the spirit of Life as the Aqua vitae it self are exceeding swift of flight and so scarce fit for the stubbornnesse of Duelech for it is certain that the spirit of Vitriol doth most swiftly flye from its volatile Companion yea and that it is presently fixed by the swift Sal Armoniack So that it undergoes a fusion or liquidnesse of substance whereby our followers being perfectly instructed do presently cease to wonder which things otherwise affect the ignorant with amazement CHAP. IV. A processe of Duelech 1. The manner of making Duelech 2. It is a singular Being nor having its like 3. A mechanick or handicraft Operation of the Fountaines of the Spaw 4. Oker in the Fountaines of the Spaw might have scared Paracelsus from his device of Tartar 5. A dissection in the actions of Spirits 6. The Fire-water that hath not an homogeneal Being like unto its self 7. The difference of the aforesaid dissolving liquor with all others of the whole Universe 8. Some Oyl of Gold is of a Pomegranate or light-red colour 10. What the generation of Duelech may bespeak 11. The action of Bodyes on Bodyes of what sort it is 12. The Doctrine concerning the action of Bodyes and Spirits 13. The participations of faculties out of mettals without a metalick matter 14. The delusion of the Alchymist 15. Diseases are appointed for a punishment and Reward 16. Some exercises beginning from salts 17. The spirit of salt is made earthly 18. A trivial Question 19. The device of frosty Tartar 20. From whence the Strangury of old people is 21. Four remarkable things issuing from thence 22. A second Question 23. A third 24. A fourth 25. Catarrhs or defluxions of the Bladder are ridiculous 26. A fifth Question 27. A sixth 28. Astrologers are taken notice of 29. Paracelsus is noted like as also Galen 30. The solving of a question proposed 31. The heedlessnesse or rashnesse of Galen THe spirit of the Urine laying hold of the volatile earth that was procreated by a seed and a hoary and putrifying ferment stirs up the spirit of Wine the inhabitant of the Urine as yet laying hid in Potentia or possibility by the which as it were by two Sexes concurring the certain aforesaid earthly spirit drinks in the one onely aforesaid Coagulater by reason of which reciprocation or mutual return a most thorow connexion of them both ariseth in acting because they conjoyn in manner of spirits throughout their very least parts And so the Coagulater doth at one instant coagulate the spirit of Wine that was potentially stirred up in the putrifying ferment whereunto when the hoary or fermental putrified Masse hath applyed its matter they are condensed or co-thickned together into a true Duelech surely a Monster this new something coagulated in the middle of the urine Nor therefore capable of being again resolved into water For it is a rocky Animal Being like unto no other and the which therefore Paracelsus names Duelech And that Being will the more easily enter into the mind by a daily example which the Fountaines of the Spaw present unto us For they have a sulphureous spirit manifestly tart from whence they are called the sharp Fountaines and also a vein of Iron For both being of an imperfect and immature shape are contained as dissolved in the simple water Therefore they both begin mutually to joyn their reciprocal forces against each other And at length when as their strength being tyred they have desisted from their action they are condensed into a stony body which affixeth it self to bottles in the form of Oker and so the water returns into its antient Element as uncloathed of every strange quality Which Sharpish Fountaines if Paracelsus had sufficiently contemplated of or he had neglected the history of the Tartar of Wine borrowed from Basilius Valentine for he had known that there is not the like birth of Oker and of Tartar of Wine At leastwise he might have been with the more difficulty convinced Because Tartar is resolved into water but Oker is not as neither is the stone For neither have I ever attempted to deny that solid bodyes are constituted of Liquors But I refuse tartarous liquors they being forcibly brought into the Causes of Diseases as in the Treatise concerning Tartars but on the contrary I have reverently admired the activities of spirits on spirits Truly since Oker growes out of the waters of the Spaw or since a stony crust is spread over bottles throughout their whole hollownesse let it first of all be wickednesse to give the water of the Spaw to drink if we believe that Tartars are made just as Oker is in the Spaw-water That is if we believe that there is Tartar in the water of the Spaw which is presently to be coagulated in the Drinker he commits wickednesse who gives the Spaw-water to drink For while the acide or tart salt of Wine corroded the Lee that salt indeed which before was tart and not coagulated remaines tart and is coagulated Neither doth it change the essence of Salt although that salt which before was fluide be constrained or bound fast together In like manner also although the Lee hath supt up the acide spirits and coagulated them into it self yet a solid body remaineth while the spirit of the acide salt is coagulated into the solid body of Tartar of Wine Yea before that it be fully coagulated it affixeth it self to the Vessel For in the Generation of Tartar of Wine the spirit acteth on a body and there is altogether a far different action while two spirits act on each other For in this action even
as in the water of the Spaw in Duelech c. a new and neutral Being is constituted such as is Oker of the spirit of Sulphur and the volatile vein of Iron But in the Tartar of Wine onely the tart spirit or sour liquor of the Wine is changed into a Salt and the Lee remaineth such as it was before And therefore the matter constituted thereby is again dissolvable For a metal stone or solid Body is not unbodyed changed or volatilized by reason of the corroding of spirits That is manifest For Silver Pearls Corâ—als Spongy-stones Crabstones Snails-stones c. although by Aqua fortis and other sharp Liquors they vanish out of our fight yet they are stones as before even as concerning Fevers indeed the spirit did what it could but it operated as it wore in vain upon the body while in corroding that body it coagulated it self For indeed there is in the whole nature of the Universe one onely fire the burning Vulcan So also there is none but one onely Liquor which dissolveth all solid bodyes into their first matter without any changing or diminishment of their faculties which thing Adeptists have known and will testifie but in all other faculties of Liquors a body can never radically co-mingle it self with the solving Liquor And therefore it is corroded indeed but is not intimately solved or loosened even as otherwise is required for a formal transmutation For every sharp gnawing spirit in gnawing of another body is coagulated and well nigh fixed and passeth over into the form of a thickned salt yet the body that hath suffered the wil of the gnawing spirit to be done upon it doth not act any thing on that spirit which in gnawing by its own proper action coagulated it self the which indeed comes to passe while two active spirits run together on each other For then there is a double action whereby both of them do mutually act on both For therefore such an action of theirs is made with a thorow radical mixture and there is constituted of them both an of-spring of unseparable mixture and this transchanged body is a neutral product from them both But if Paracelsus bad timely of fitly contemplated instead of his Tartar of Wine he had taken the Oker of the water of the Spaw and had spoken something more probable than that there were Liquors in all things which were coagulated after the manner of Tartar in Wine and that they were the common mother and matter of any Diseases whatsoever Oker indeed the daughter of the Spaw is not again resolved like as Tartar of Wine is and yet it differs from Duelech as much as a Mineral stonifying doth from the stone in man For in this the Spirit the Coagulater existing in the urine operates by vertue of its own and of a different salt upon a hoary and putrifying spirit of earth without the boyling up or belching forth of a wild Gas and so it finisheth its operation and coagulates it self with the spirit of Wine that is proper to the urine in a moment even as I have above declared in the handicraft Operation of the spirit of urine and Wine or of a burning water But the acide spirit of the water of the Spaw having sprung up from an Embryonated or non-shaped Sulphur do operate first in a long Tract do stir up bubbles and a wild Gas and at length affix themselves to the Vessel For otherwise if that Gas cannot be belched forth the waters of the Spaw remain safe being fit for healing For if the Gas be hindered from going forth it hinders whereby the subsequent effect cannot follow and the spirits are rendred feeble and barren in acting But the lee of Wine seeing it hath its own coagulation and that which is proper to it self it hath no need to attain it from elsewhere But since the sharpish spirit of Wine hath gnawn the lee there is no reason that it should give that in gnawing which it self hath not in it self Therefore in the generation of the Tartar of Wine that sharpish saltish spirit shall be coagulated indeed by reason of the earth of dreg but it shall remain in the shape of a dissolvable salt and not in the form of a rocky stone By reason of that Rule that a transmutation of the essence presupposeth a transmutation of the matter Therefore the earthy body whether it be dissolved by a Corrosive or not keeps its own antient Being Because that Dissolver doth not pierce the matter dissolved in the radical bond of connexion The which notwithstanding in things that are essentially to be transchanged is exceeding necessary to be done Therefore let the young beginners in Chymistry learn that bodies are not resolved by the calcinations of Corrosives although they are also often repeated unlesse a fermental impression through putrifaction whichgoes before every radical dissolution doth interpose Camphor indeed in Aqua fortis assumeth the nature of a swimming Oyl but that Corrosive being washed away by common water the Camphor is presently what it was before whether that be once done or lastly a thousand times For in my young beginnings I rejoyced that by a Retort at the seventh Repetition I had dispatched Gold into the shape of a Pomegranate-coloured Oyle As being mindfull that he who knew how to destroy Gold hath known likewise how to make or build it up But the Corrosive its Companion being taken away the Gold returned into its self and my vain joy ceased He labouring in vain to extract that which is not in it They also labour in vain who do not operate by due meanes The generation of Duelech therefore is not the imaginary stonifying of a cocted muscilage or of a feigned phlegme dryed by the heat of the place or confirmed or hardened by drying for so a Bole or clod onely should be resolvable but not Duelech but there is a passing over of three spirits at once into Duelech by a true essential transmutation Truly Bodyes do not act on Bodyes by a natural action of Composition but whatsoever Bodyes do perform on each other that is done by reason of weight greatnesse or magnitude hardnesse figures and motions And truly those are serviceable for Science Mathematical but scarce for Science Natural But if corporeal salts do operate it comes to pass either because they after some sort contain a volatile spirit or do find that spirit in a Body Let young Beginners at least remember that Bodyes after whatsoever manner they shall be once intermingled by co-melting do notwithstanding remain in their antient essence unlesse they are transchanged by the fire or a ferment Lastly that Bodies do operate nothing on Spirits but do onely limit these by suffering Which operation of Bodyes therefore is not a true re-acting but father a meet effect of spirits resulting from the proper activity of the same For therefore Spirits when their faculties are woren out and exhausted do voluntarily decay in the end of their motion And
sanctifying Love doth properly belong seeing that thou standest in no need of us neither can we devote unto thee any thing else The Prophet did accept A A A Lord I cannot speak behold I am an Infant but I reply to this Prophet O O O Lord my thoughts fail me and do melt in a naked wish of Love of the sanctifying of thy Name For loe O Lord I am nought but nothing nor any thing besides but as it hath pleased thee that I may pertain unto thee O All of All and All my Desire I deservedly seem to offer unto thee in my Mother Tongue and also to vow the Feude or Fee-farm of my Essence and Property wherewith I being invested by thee I enjoy the use of them for the help of my Neighbour For although the first conception of the Soul consisteth out of Words and so is without a proper tongue Yet I perceive that it is as yet crude and not sequestred as long as it is not polished and not being joyned to the mind doth depart into Cogitations Words and Writing This crudity I perceive doth make an infirm and unstable object of my first Conception and soon darkens it again Therefore thy Eternal Wisdom hath granted that it should be carried further even unto my Mind T is true indeed that thou wilt be worshipped by men in the Spirit but not in such a manner that it may remain in the undistinction of the first object But moreover the Angels and pure simple Spirits although they nakedly adore thee in Cogitation as Spirits yet they are busied by a certain and unknown Song to us in sanctifying thy Sanctifying Name without intermission Wherefore also thou commandest to be loved not onely from the whole Soul and whole Spirit but also from the whole Heart and with all our Strength So that the Prayer that is Spiritually framed and naked Worship do even exclude that which is Verbal which is unexperienced of the attention of the Mind Bestow on me O most beloved Lord that I may suggest that thing to my Neighbours thy Servants by similitudes An Organist hearing a new Tune or Song doth not presently at first play it without difficulty his Soul doth in part indeed perceive the Sound but his Fingers which are as it were the Framers of Sounds even as his other Members are the Formers of Words do not so fitly follow neither is it granted unto them to attain an absolute perfection of the Song so speedily quickly and distinctly He beholding indeed the Organ Table or Book doth presently play it to wit his Capacity being wont to carry his Fingers towards it at the first sight of the Book but that Song being composed according to the Laws of Musick but not turned into a Table he as less accustomed thereunto doth the more difficulty play it seeing a Table is accustomed to be first composed out of the Musick for his Spirit before he plays But as yet with a greater difficulty and rarity the Table and Plat-form of a Lute is extemporarily expressed in the Organ or that of the Organ in the Lute There hath not seemed unto me to be an unlike reason of the first conception of the Soul as of a sound as yet crude or raw and the Mind desires to have it reduced into Words or Writings through defect whereof not a few do stick in a good object the which by reason of an undistinct Mind vanisheth without fruit But moreover I perceive that the first Idea of the Soul doth follow an accustomed instinct of the Mind whereby it being even there polished or corrected is perceived by Words or Writings but indeed whereas man being from the beginning seasoned with the property of his Mother Tongue doth obtain it as incorporated or inspired and besides is wont to communicate unto his Mind and Mother Tongue his Cogitations which depart into Meditations Languages or Writings it seems an inconvenient thing and a Wonder to the Soul to endow an object of the first conception being decyphored in the Mind by Words in the Mother Tongue besides the inbred Custom with a forreign Idiome or Dialect wherein the Understanding labouring by changing the Dialect it over-shadows weakens and wearies it self and also doth alienate the pure and plainly Spiritual Conception of the first object But in very deed the object of every first Cogitation departing into Words I have certainly found to be alwaies first had in the Mother Tongue even in a man using none but tbe Spanish Dialect who also heard a Spaniard he being mortally wounded and weak of Mind spake many things but in Italian and heing called on in Spanish scarce understood I have likewise seen a Germane that was sick sitting or lying even as they placed him like an Image who never was capable of replying unto things asked him neither did he understand what Words either his Wife or any one of his Sons did pronounce in any other than in his own proper Germane tongue when as notwithstanding within the Walls of his House he alwaies used the Italian and French Tongues Yea and which more is he being a little after freed from this waking Coma or Sleep was scarce perswaded to believe the same And so O Lord I have cast down this poor Dedication of my Book in my Mother Tongue before thy most high Throne to wit the Song of my object which dammage of my Neighbour thou hast not disdained to let down into me Unto Thee be all the Honour I now proceed to signifie to my Neighbour the wretched ignorance of the Heathens whereby thy sick People have been hitherto seduced by the Universities and so miserably slain the Precept of the Prophet uttered in thy Name nothing hindring it Thus saith the Lord do not ye teach like unto the Gentiles Wherefore O Lord grant that my Soul may retain the gifts granted unto it unto thine Honour whereby I may imprint thy Goodness a part of my Debt in this Path of Death on my Neighbour Be thou unto me every Hinge who alone art the Way the Truth and the Life This is the one onely thing which it becometh us to love Thou my Angel Defender and Intercessor who beholdest the Omnipotent Good Beg in my name that which is wanting unto me insist thou in the steps of Raphael the Divine Physitian who carried the Works of burial of the dead performed by night unto God thou diligent Curer carry thou the present Work performed in the night of my darkness unto God that man may not hereafter be thus killed nor so soon undergo Death Offer up this my Work before the holy sacred Trinity whereunto I dedicate it So act thou for the Glory of God THE Translators Premonition TO THE CANDID READER FRIEND WHoever thou art know thou that as the things contained in this Work were not at the first written by the honest conscientious most learned and judicious Author from a vain ostentation or to draw out Peoples minds after the Tree of Knowledge
whereby they might have something to admire at and talk of to deceive the time as they say and so to neglect the Tree of Life which is appointed for the healing of the Nations But rather that man having eaten of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge of good and evil and having experimentally known evil whereby he is expelled from the Tree of Life which before the Fall was his food and is become captivated in Understanding Will and Affections from whatsoever may be known of God either within in the light of his Immortal Mind which by Creation was in the very Image of its Creator or without in his visible Creation in whose invisible Power and Unity all things consist and subsist might come to know himself and his Creator in the Unity of the Spirit and all other things in that Unity so neither was it translated into our Mother Tongue to any other end than that naked and simple Uniform-Truth might appear to the confounding of that which appears to be Truth but is not but is masked various compounded and confused whose false Plea is Antiquity and chief support the self-ends of Ambition and Avarice It is a saying in the Scriptures He that is first in his own Cause seemeth just but his Neighbour cometh and searcheth him Also That the rich man is wise in his own conceit But the poor that hath Understanding searcheth him out How truly these sayings may be applied unto this Author with respect to the Schools both of Logick Natural Phylosophy Astrology Theology and in particular those of Medicine both as to the Theorie and Practick part thereof I may singly refer the judgement thereof unto him that hath the least measure of true Understanding without any further enlargment because such a one who with the Lamp or Candle of God being lighted in him whereunto the Author bears his Testimony in opposition to blind Reason in the Chapter of the searching or hunting out of Sciences is able to see in his measure eye to eye or as Face answereth to Face in a glass Nevertheless for the sake of some simple-hearted Reader who though not yet come unto such a discerning so as to separate the light from the darkness may notwithstanding truly hunger and thirst after the knowledge of the Truth I shall speak somewhat That the Schools of the Gentiles have had their time is well known wherein they have become vain in their imaginations exercised themselves in vain Phylosophy and opposition of Science fasly so called as the Apostle Paul observeth and whereof he admonisheth the true Christians as to take heed they were not deceived by it And although Histories mention That at the coming of the First-born Son into the World whom all the Angels of God were to Worship the Heathen Oracles at Delphos and elsewhere were struck dumb and gave no Answer as a sign that all Falshood false Voices deceitful Juggles vain Inventions c. were to give way and be abolished at the appearance and rising of the Day-Star and Sun of Righteousness on and over the Earth the Star of which Star the Wise men of the East saw and by its direction came to Worship the Child laying down all their wisdom at his Feet for a lively token that all true Wisdom and Science was to be received from him in whom all the treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge dwell and not by the dim and dark illustrations of mans own Reason and Discourse Yet such hath been the subtilty of the fleshly Serpent that under the pretence of owning and professing the Name of Christ he hath taken up in his Paganish means and instruments to build withal calling the dregs and dross of the Minerva of the Heathenish Schools Hand-maides unto Divinity and true Principles of Medicinal Science but this counterfeit fiueness can no longer dazzle or blind the eyes of those unto whom God hath given eye-salve that they may see and gold tried in the fire for such are able to discern an Image from a Man and true and pure Mettal from counterfeit Coyn so that the abettors of such deceits shall proceed no further but their folly shall be made manifest to all men forasmuch as that which alone tends to the healing of the Maladies of mans Spirit and the breaches there which Sin hath made is seated in the Invisible Life of God as is applied thereunto as a Remedy by the virtue of Christs Blood alone who is the Lamb of God and a quickening Spirit And so also seeing that which tends to the Healing of any Disease Radically in the Body is the Internal Faculty or Property seated in the first Being of Medicines which by due preparation being uncloathed of their gross corporeal cloathings are made fit to be applied by the Wisdom of a true Physitian unto the Archeus or vital Air of the Body wherein its Diseases Radically dwel not in Relolleous qualities nor in feigned Elementary complexions as in the following Treatise is clearly manifested And so that nothing can be a true Handmaid unto Divinity or Medicine but the gift of him who is Lord of the whole man And that which gives the Children of Wisdom an ability to justifie Wisdom her self and a Power to judge and condemn the Wisdom of this World whether it be conversant about things Visible or Invisible things Temporal or Eternal is the Son of God by whom the World was made and all living Souls created even the everlasting Father of Spirits who hath committed all judgement to the Son in whom they all subsist who filleth all in all this Son of God is the Eternal Eye of the Father which runs thorrow the whole Creation beholding the evil and the good it is that Eye which knows and sees the essence and frame of all things it doth not behold any thing in its essence to be evil because every thing in its Essence and Being is good and that because it is one and true but that which is double varie-form seeming or false that it sees to be evil and that is the fleshly and sensual apprehension and desire in man which vailes or taints his Spirit of Understanding and Will that they are not able to give a right tincture or rightly to apply themselves unto Objects intelligible or desirable whereby irregular and evil effects in Word Action and Conversation do visibly appear even as an Engine whose innermost Spring or Wheel being defective all its other parts and motions are out of order for the Body is but the Shell or Vessel of the Spirit That eye being opened in Man or Candle lighted so far as it is lighted or opened makes first to behold the evil and the good and the evil from the good in a mans self and so far as he doth this he is truly said to know himself for he consists of darkness and light till by a holy war the light hath comprehended the darkness The truth of this is not to be disputed for it hath been experimentally
Medicines to drink and so they plainly prostrated his strength But it opportunely happened that his remaining strength and youth overcame the Disease he appeared to have received his lost strength whereby he was confirmed that Professours and Licensed Persons were true Physitians reckoning from their relation that he had deserved or was in danger of Death and that he owed his Life unto their Torments hence they took of him a double reward but not according to their deserts The young Man renewing his former pious steps was the second time oppressed with the very same malady and he hoped by their endeavour again to escape the same cruelty but alass his spirit failed him and from sound Reason and a knowledge of the Truth he cryed out unto this his Brother It hath befallen me as to all others and it shall so long continue untill Physitians so called do in very deed feel and see this present time to be for Eternity but now they forget the time past believing that they possess the present time they deny the time to come seeing they cannot see that and so they take no care for a longer Life for they have never been destitute thereof even as of any other frail or mortal good whereof there is made a repairing but they possessing one only Life and loosing that all shall be ended It is a vain thing to employ ones self in Studies when no necessity is urgent upon us The Servant who ought readily to serve us is beaten which doth perpetually provoke this Man whom he shall name his Master by all his qualities he shall be ignorant of his thraldom although all Men except a few are bound up by his Servitude the which for the most part deprives of Life both now and hereafter I despair of a temporary Life for they who are said to bring help do want the knowledge thereof and they are first constrained to obtain it by brawlings and discords which will arise among them through hatred and envy wherewith those called Doctors or Teachers have never laboured seeing they are but few who by running up and down day and night do excel in Wealth whereby they scrape together an abundance of Money as well among the Healthy and Sick as those that are dead and so they might continue in concord the which shall remain so long until the last times appear which thou shalt discern by that when thou shalt see the number of Junior and Licensed Doctors of Medicine so to increase that they shall scarce have employment The Seniours shall be offended with the Juniours and Young Beginners because their dayly revenues shall be diminished and because they shall find forreign or accidentary Juniours being constrained to learn more sure Principles for to get their living to cure some Sick whose like being under their care did undergo Death which thing the Seniours shall envy wishingly desiring that all the Sick-folks might die unto whom the Juniors should be called Lastly they shall reproach them publickly before all the People saying These wicked young Men do cure by Enchantments they should of necessity be forbidden to practise By these and the like means they shall labour to subvert them and and they shall offend God that it may add courage unto other godly and industrious Juniours to perfect that which they shall propose to the Seniours in these Words When we have invited you to suffer us publickly to cure some Sick of an Hospital appointing a Prize or Wager for the benefit of the Poor ye also to be solicitous or diligent on the other hand and that they who had not answered the effect should pay the reward thereof ye have refused that thing ye seek not the Poor but Give Ye ye resemble Beggars in that thing who disdain their fellow Beggars and are unwilling that their number should increase for they have a confidence in some rich Mens houses and places where a larger bounty befel them for their deceitful Words and Tricks that so they may leave their Arts and these Houses to their Children for a Dowry which very thing also ye cherish in your Mind but it shall have a bad success because through this publick discord which shall spring from Covetousnesse that dayly Deceit shall be made known to the World and they shall receive only true Doctors who may be discerned by their good Fruits and who shall imitate the steps of the Samaritan These Words being finished he felt his Life to fail therefore lifting up his eyes towards Heaven he with sorrow subjoyned Oh most merciful Lord abbreviate thou the term of Mans Salvation and change thou the frail Doctrine of the Doctors their Flesh into the natural or peculiar Love of the Spirit that the Innocent may finish their Life to thy Glory I pray thee oh my Saviour do not thou impute my Death to the Doctors hereafter for an Offence for truly they know not what they do commit but vouchsafe thou to open their eyes that they may assent to the truth and that the People may publish those things of them as in times past of holy Paul Which saying being ended he wholly committed himself to the Divine Will and breathed forth his last Breath in the armes of this his Brother who did alwayes ponder these Words aforesaid This Man in his turn uttered these following Words We are all of us being Brethren in Christ engaged to patronize the truth the which is not better perfected than by opposing and defending Hence we will prosecute two things one is that the strength of our Enemies may be made known unto us the other is that we may add more strength to our own and so that we may be the more confirmed in our purpose After that they had heard all these Words they compelled him to undergoe this charge with the threatning of a Fine for so much as he had taken this voluntary Office on himself And he alleaged I being the second of the Seniours am desirous to be instructed by any one in this difficult matter I being a Servant of truth do after some sort yield to the two former Propositions but unto the third I can in no wise assent to wit to subvert the aforesaid Books by interdictions and brands of Censures for if we should endeavour that we should act altogether rashly we thinking to extinguish them in one place should also again raise them up in a thousand other places Men are no longer so ignorant and unwary as in times past when as all Examples or Patterns of religious obedience were published by favour which thing is chiefly manifest in Printers and Booksellers they making gain here and there and it cannot be forbidden and hindered Doth not the thing it self bespeak that we need not go far That Author himself set forth a Discourse inscribed Of the Magnetick or Attractive cure of Wounds which was stoln from him and about five hundred of them printed in Letters by his Enemies whereupon they divulged three divers
in the Dutch Idiome is Litch-aem as if to say a Vessel of Light having obtained a Spirit and Soul from him And one thing ought to be made of these the Body Spirit and Soul ought to be sanctifyed Hy-lichzijn he shineth or Blessed Sal-lichzijn he shall be shining but if not the Vessel and Spirit must needs be damned Wise Men We observe or take notice that thou endeavourest to express thy self to be threefold but not a Unite and thy Spirit to be Darksome or Lightsome the darkening of it to proceed from the Flesh which is earthly deadly and obscure the illumination or enlightning of it it shall attain by the Spirit by beaming in emptying out and subduing the Darkness But we covet to hear whether there be a third thing because thou namest the Light of the Vessel and a Soul are there two diverse Lights or at leastwise do they constitute or make one Light of one Light Mercurius there is one only Eternal Light Entirely and Eternally Externally and Internally in all Parts because the Life Eternal and the whole Eternal Part was inspired into Man by the Almighty God even as Moses testifies in the second Chapter of the Book of Genesis Man was made into a living Soul which Soul made or constituted the seventh Day as is demonstrated in the very same Chapter Therefore the Heavens and the Earth were perfected and all the Ornament or Dress thereof And God compleated Work which he had made on the Seventh Day and he rested on the Seventh Day from all his Work which he had made and he blessed the Seventh Day and sanctified it Because therein God had ceased from all his Work which he had created that he might make to wit Man into a living Soul Wise Men If this Light be the Seventh Day what dost thou think of the Six foregoing Dayes and of that which is extant in the eighteenth Chapter of Ecclesiasticus He who lives for ever created all things at once Mercurius In the Beginning God created all things the Heaven and the Earth and whatsoever was created the wich Moses at the entrance of Genesis comprehends into the First Day where he denotes the making of the other five Dayes Saying In the Beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth but the Earth was empty and void and Darkness was upon the face of the Deep and the Spirit of God was carried upon the Waters And God said let there be Light and Light was made And God saw the Light that it was good and he divided the Light from the Darkness And he called the Light Day and the Darkness Night And the Evening and Morning was made one Day Insomuch that Man doth constitute the Sixth Day which Dayes were distinct from each other whereby Man may know himself what he is what he is to do and what Power he hath or may have by his Spirit as a Man not likewise as a Soul over the foregoing Dayes or created things as it is found in the aforesaid Chapter of Genesis And God said Let us make Man according to our own Image and Likeness and let him bear Rule over the Fishes of the Sea and over the Fowles of the Heaven and over the Beasts of the whole Earth and over every creeping thing which is moved in the Earth Wise Men Thou dost satisfie us and besides dost also over-signifie that Man was the sixth Day and that he seperated the Light from the Darkness on the first Day which Light or Spirit he called Day and his Blood Flesh or Darkness he called Night which Evening and Morning constituted the sixth Day and so consequently the other five although according to every ones peculiar Nature But dost thou make no mention of the seventh Day Mercurius The seventh Morning Light or Life is the Spirit of God it self even as was said And therefore in Moses his description of the seventh Day it is not expressed that the Evening and Morning was made the seventh Day as in the six precedent Dayes and that for this Cause because there is no Beginning or Evening granted to be in God the Father because he is he who Is what he is but it is so accounted because on the seventh Day he inspired into Man his Face the Breath of Life and this man became into a living Soul so that of Man and the Breath of God the seventh Day was made Wise Men From thy relation we have fully understood the Beginning and Ending of the first Day and of the sixth Day following with the seventh Day not ended that Man was conjoyntly made into a living Soul But we desire to hear what Moses will have to be meant by the Word In the Beginning Mercurius The Beginning is God the Son by whom in whom and from whom the Heaven and Earth were created as the Evangelist John doth most exceeding evidently testifie in his first Chapter in these Words In the Beginning was the Word which with the Dutch also sounds Woort that is Fiat or let it be done and the Word was with God and God was the Word This Word was in the Beginning with God All things were made by him and without him was nothing made In him was Life and the Life was the Light of men And the Light shineth in Darkness and the Darkness hath not comprehended it There was a Man sent from God whose name was John This Man came for a Testimony that he might bear witness of the Light that all men through him might believe He was not that Light but that he might bear witness of the Light That was the true Light which enlightneth every Man that cometh into this Word He was in the World and the World was made by him and the World knew him not He came into his own and his own received him not But as many as received him to them he gave Power to become the Sons of God to these who believe in his name who were born not of Bloods nor of the Will of the Flesh neither of the Will of Man but of God And the Word was made Flesh and dwelt in us and we saw its Glory as the Glory of the only begotten of the Father full of Grace and Truth John gives his Testimony concerning him and cryeth out saying This was he whom I said he which is to come after me was made before me because he was before me And of his fulness we all have received and Grace for Grace Because the Law was given by Moses Grace and Truth was made by Jesus Christ No Man hath seen God at any time The onely begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him Wise Men Now we have perceived this Testimony of Saint John that it contains every thing serving to perfection but deliver thy Opinion unto us after what manner thou art like unto Adam and in what respect in him and how thou hast proceeded from him Mercurius Before that man was made into a living
Soul God spake unto himself as the first Chapter of Genesis witnesseth And God created Man according to his own Image which Image is God the Son After the Image of God created he him Male and Female created he them And God blessed them and said Increase and multiply Which command was enjoyned to Adam in respect of his Spirit and Humanity but not as to his Soul for this is Eternal and Immutable So also all his Parts are like unto him whereof I also possess the whole Now even as man was made of the Mud or Clay of the Ground so also it behoves him to increase as other terrestrial living Creatures by a growing and uniting and eating of living Creatures which Foods are required to die in the Stomack and to be changed from their Substance if they ought to be converted from a more vile Substance into a more excellent one or to be promoted by the Spirit of Man unto a united Life from which co-nourishing and increasing my Vessel or Body and Substance I hold as Adam did because I proceeded from him after that he was made into a living Soul as it is found in the second Chapter of Genesis but for Adam there was not found an helper like unto him Therefore the Lord God sent a deep Sleep into Adam and when he had slept he took one of his Ribs and filled up the Flesh in the room of it And the Lord God framed the Rib which he had taken from Adam into a Woman and he brought her unto Adam And Adam said This now is Bone of my Bones and Flesh of my Flesh this shall be called Virago or Wo-man because she was taken from Man Wherefore a Man shall leave his Father and his Mother and shall adhere to his Wife and they twain shall be in one Flesh Wise Men Thou hast explained unto us what thou hast been wholly in Adam according to thy Spirit and Soul and in Eve according to thy Body likewise that the Vessel hath received the Spirit and the Spirit the Soul Now we could desire to hear in what respect Eve was produced by God out of Adam and what the sleep sent by God into Adam before he framed her doth denote Mercurius Adam from the Beginning was perfect in his Essence as being the first Man created by God so his Spirit did shine thorow his Flesh and Vessel and did illustrate it even as now the Light did illuminate his Darkness and was able to subdue it so it ought to excel and overcome the Darkness because it was Internal Stable Eternal and good in its own Essence the which Spirit existing Adam could not of his own accord produce his Like without Sleep sent into him for he persisting in his Essence was without sleep and because he had divided himself from himself all his Parts had remained proper unto him and again had returned unto the whole into one assoon as he had listed because by his Spirit predominating he had divided the Body subjected unto it self which Parts were inwardly and outwardly enlightned from his own Light which gave an Essence unto all his Members But some may ask how in the next place had it gone with Adam if he had not eaten the Poyson from Eve It is answered there had alwayes been in him a combating with his Spirit or Light against his Darkness the which on the first Day God divided of which two also Man was composed even as the said Chapter sheweth which is further explained at the end of the same Chapter on the sixth Day in these Words And replenish ye the Earth and subdue it And when they had fought to the utmost they had filled the Earth and the Darkness with their Spirit or with their Light and had so subdued it that the former Darkness had been supped up and co-nourished which was his proper and one only Work alwayes to be done and perfected But some one may further query seeing in Adam the said Light being separated from the Darkness had overcome the Darkness as it was shewed to be by the very same Light whether or no according to a spiritual returned or restored United Body he had been entire and eternal in all his particular Parts and Members This being so by that reason he might have been divided into Innumerable Eternal and Infinite men without the aforesaid sleep preceding I answer it is certain that this Deified man would have been entire in all his Infinite Parts likewise that all those Parts would again as one have constituted one Entire Body He having himself in such a manner had been likewise to be one Deified Man he being reduced hitherto by his necessary strife would by Grace in his Life have enjoyed or rejoyced in the same with Christ our Saviour after his Resurrection Whereby many such men might now have been begotten or brought forth and whereby all also of them might have enjoyed that very same Grace for which Adam was procreated and whereby they might have attained it by that very same strife It pleased the Lord God to send the aforesaid sleep into Adam to shew that he soundly sleeping had not contributed any thing to the structure of Eve but she was now founded in this sleep by God Moreover the curious might busily enquire why Eve was framed of the Rib of Adam but not of his Flesh I return an answer the former Man was Adam the second Eve made for his help and conjoyned Procreation Now Propagation consisteth partly in Man as in other living Creatures by conjunction or nourishing as was said and it is further to be observed in all increase of created things in this World before they are able to grow because they consist of two things that the one ought first to die to wit the Body and Form which consist of Water and Earth and do arise from the Light of the Moon and Stars as of the Lights of the Night every thing according to their different Nature none excepted and that this might be perfected in Adam the Lord God took a Rib out of Adam which is a Bone according to its being made in Adam a Progeny of Veins the which with the Dutch sounds also a Progeny of Vipers which Bone is governed by the Moon as shall be found that when the Moon increaseth the Marrow likewise of the Bones doth increase like the Waters and together with it doth decrease It will further be found that when Flesh is burnt in the Fire it looseth that form A Bone not so yea that is so stable that the Examiners of the goodness of Coyn do make their Crucibles thereof wherein they melt and search Gold and Silver So that a Bone or Rib is and doth retain nothing besides the humane Earth as it is a second Production in Man like that of the Earth out of the Waters so far it differs from the first and one thing Wherefore Eve as she was procreated from hence she is likewise of a second and
lesser thing according to her Body not likewise according to her Spirit and Soul For these she holds from Adam which are Eternal and Permanent and a Part whereof Eve Possesseth and all that even as all their Parts are Eternal even as was said Now in a further consideration or avouching of the Premises thou shalt find that Women do therefore suffer monthly Issues or Menstrues serving for Propagation because they ought to beget a man as to the Body in that respect as was said Wise Men We acquiesce and moreover through occasion of two Words which thou from the Dutch Idiome hast considerately produced thou recallest two places of Scripture unto our remembrance one rehearsed by the Evangelist Mathew in the twelfth Chapter where Christ saith to the Pharisies He that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth Therefore I say unto you Every Sin and Blasphemy shall be forgiven unto Men Flesh but the Blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven And whosoever shall speak a Word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him but he that shall speak against the holy Spirit it shall not be forgiven him neither in this Age nor in that to come Either make ye the Tree good and its Fruit good or make ye the Tree Evil and its Fruit Evil for truly the Tree is known by the Fruit. Ye Generation of Vipers how can ye speak good things seeing ye are Evil For from the abundance of the Heart the Mouth speaketh The other is mentioned by Luke in the third Chapter after the citing of a place of the Prophet Jsaiah who saith And all Flesh shall see the Salvation of God Therefore be to wit John the Baptist said unto the Multitude which went out to be Baptized of him Ye Generations of Vipers who hath shewn you to flee from the wrath to come do ye therefore Fruits meet for repentance and ye shall not begin to say We have Abraham for our Father For I say unto you because God is able of those Stones to raise up Sons unto Abraham Which two Words are also repeated in these two Texts not badly agreeing with the signification of the Dutch Word and thou shewing unto us by all thy demonstration that the Serpent so called which seduced Eve and her Spirit was certainly her own Flesh and Blood which desired the Fruits of the forbidden Tree and spake to her Spirit for that end so that the name of Serpent is not only accounted the Serpent but as well the Serpent a living Creature as a Man according to the Flesh the which is also moreover seen in the Infancy or Old Age of a Man or when the Spirit is weakened that he is and doth become a Serpent Wherefore after God had committed unto man the dominion over the living Creatures over all the Earth and over every creeping Animal which is moved in the Earth this last Dominion is the greatest whereby he ought to work his own blessedness that which thou shalt more cleerly make manifest from the Text assoon as leasure shall permit for now we hasten because half of the second day of those prefixed hath soon passed away therefore proceed thou and hasten and declare unto us the difference between thee and Adam when he was to strive against his Darkness whereby he as well as thou might have subdued it Mercurius In no other thing besides that Darkness was increased in man by the touching of the Fruits and eating of the forbidden Tree in so much that Darkness holds the prize against the Light and doth now possess it even as in Adam the Light in Adam did possess his Darkness and did illuminate it before his Fall Wise Men How comes this to pass Mercurius This hath come to pass through a Fermenting or Leavening Contagious Darksom and Deadly or Destructive eating Wise Men What wilt thou insinuate thereby explain thy self by Similitudes Mercurius As Darkness was in the face of the deep before that the Spirit of God was carried upon the Waters in like manner thou shalt find a certain Vessel or place which being shut up or hoary and filthy doth even in a very little time render all that which is cast into it alike stinking or rank and surther to infect it neither doth any thing of the first more principal Ferment and Filthiness depart Moreover that it may be demonstrated that this filthy place is also darksom is well learned by those that pertain to Wine-cellars who being desirous to know and experience whether a Hogs-head be hoary or filthy or no do open its mouth and by an End do let in a burning Candle and when the Vessel shall be clean and infected with no Muck or Filth the Candle being let down athwart it will remain burning until its own begetting Vapour doth choak it self but if the Hogs-head be filthy the Flame or Light cannot pierce through the Orifice of the Hogs-head unto the thickness of the Wood. Therefore it manifestly appears that the darkness doth also uncloath or discover it self and make other things darksom just even as the Light doth operate and that when the darkness doth overcome the Light or the Light overcome the Darkness These and the like Darknesses must needs be before all Light and by how much the more stable they are by so much the more stable also is the Body arisen from thence Now it is further to be noted that as a temporal Light doth illustrate out of it self one thing more largely than another according to their stability magnitude or increasing in the like proportion and manner the darkness powers forth its Beams out of it self as was shewn also as a burning and consuming Fire can by its Light enflame burn and stir up many Seeds into a growth or increase according to the rate of their more stable Nature that which I take notice of thou shalt evidently perceive by this Experiment it is seen and felt that by how much the nearer a Fire is kindled by so much the more it shines or enlightens and heats now this heat and brightness is one and the same thing as long as it is in the Fire as by a collection of those hot beams through the help of a certain burning glass may be proved whereby the hot beams are again collected and are made like unto those which exist in the Fire to wit hot and burning ones now when we permit a temporal dispersed and decaying Fire freely to burn we shall discern by the Light which shines forth through the Fire that other created Bodies are burnt at diverse distances from hence to wit in the nearest Body the more stable and combustible one and as the beams are diffused so far also the heat is diminished and will enflame the less stable created bodies The reason is because that which is soon made must needs also have that which soon perisheth wherefore cold and moist Regions do bring forth larger Fruits than hot and
dry Jurisdictions yet are they less durable than others which are less hot because their Light which is in them is more divided and that as well in-Bruits as in Men Men of moist Coasts or Climates are homely and big neither can they undergo so much heat as Men which live in high dry and hot Countries as also the thing it self doth moreover testifie Yea thou shalt find that even dead Carcases which are slain by a violent Death even as Histories do declare and we are able besides dayly to experience when a slaughter hath been made or shall be made of men who had gone out of cold and watery Coasts to wage War against those of the more hot Provinces that the Slain on both sides might be discerned a long time after because they of the more cold Regions did sooner putrifie these waxed dry and remained surviving these did longer endure entire in the Heat because their Balsam is more durable than that of the other even as they contain more or less of a moist Matter or do partake more or less of a Night Light and they which are the more destitute of that those do more rejoyce in a day Light Now even as the Sun is a perfect and the greater day Light so the Moon being the nearest Planet unto us is a perfect Night Light which are perpetual in their Essence and likewise do render those Bodies perpetual and durable which are born and renewed by their help Furthermore as there is one only Sun and one only Moon their created Bodies no otherwise than those like unto them may be compared thereunto they being one only and also perfect as Gold which the Phylosophers have called Sol and Silver Lune and the other five Metals likewise according to the thing brought forth after the rest of the Planets wherein they have rightly done and have delivered the Truth because those one only Bodies are perfect the Fire cannot hurt them they remain stable therein Gold lives in the Fire therefore the Phylosoyhers have marked that with the name of Salamander the which now is falsly accounted for a living Creature A temporary and fraile Fire possesseth its Fire only in part as was said but the Sun is a perpetual Fire and Life and can live only in that which is like it self the which also must needs be a stable Body And as there is a temporary body in all things except in these two aforesaid which are like them and do wholly participate of them in what respect bodies ought to be returned into their first Essence by the same reason likewise the Light ought to be returned unto its Original for a frail or mortal thing cannot reach unto a perpetual thing Furthermore the stable Darkness must needs be present before the Light wherein the Light is raised up but if this Darkness be perpetual the Light also may perpetually dwell in it first according to the Spirit and then according to the Soul which Spirit seeing it is Eternal doth illuminate Eternal Darkness and the Darkness grows together or increaseth into Light and is made Silver which is twofold constituting a Body in the Flesh and Bones of Gold which is threefold Now as the Sun is a great day Light so it overcomes the Moon and silver is altogether converted into Gold by that the other five Earthly Planets may be transchanged and brought thorow unto a perfection like unto that of them because they also are Nocturnal Lights Further we must know that there are many innumerable Minerals mutually differing like as do the Stars from each other all which do expect their Perfection and some of these can more easily and swiftly attain unto their last Perfection than others Gold and Silver how smally soever they may be divided they may be re-united without loss because all their least Parts are entire and perpetual Notwithstanding they may be rendred Mortal because they have not as yet co-met or con-joyned into one but this Death cannot begin of and from themselves neither by reason of the Gold nor of the Silver because they are stable Bodies Now some Lovers might ask after what sort or by what means that might happen I reply After the same manner or means whereby it happeneth in all created things whereby also it happened in Eve through an increasing of the Darkness which draws its Original out of the principles of their Bodies as was shewn yea the Darkness may so grow up that it may convert the whole Spirit into Darkness but it that Lune or the Spirit of Sol doth call the Soul or Heat unto its aid before it be subjected and overcome the Spirit shall be strengthened not as it was before its Corruption but by this strife and victory it shall be so strong and the Spirit thereof shall be so greatly multiplyed that it is able to render ten of the imperfect Brethren stable but this Spirit hath not by this contention attained unto a liberty even entire and an Eternal Union but it ought so often to repeat this conflict which shall always more and more increase according to the increase of the Spirit and Darkness until it shall come unto the utmost and can suffer no more and the watery Body or Darkness shall be plainly consumed and then it is a pure everlasting united and double Light which will illustrate all things without dammage and diminishment and will be able to perfect all its Brethren into the likeness of it self it s own Virtue being retained and when this thing doth happen in Sol the Light of Lune is changed and supped up into Sol so that it is equally made an Eternal United and Trine Sol that which is the last in Eternity out of Man And hence it may be demonstrated that the Evangelist John in the third Chapter of his Revelation doth use the same Similitude saying I exhort thee to buy of me Gold tried in the Fire that thou mayest be made rich and to be cloathed with white Garments and that the confusion or shame of thy nakedness may not appear and anoint thou thine eyes with a Collyrium or Eye-Salve that thou mayest see I whom I love do reprove and chastize Be ye therefore zealous and repent Behold I stand at the door and knock If any one shall hear my voice and shall open unto me the Gate I will enter in unto him and will sup with him and he with me He that shall overcome I will give unto him to sit with me in my Throne as also I have overcome and have sit with my Father in his Throne He that hath an eare let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches Wise Men We rejoyce that we understand from thee and do know the shining and quickning Light likewise the effluxing acting fermental contagious and mortal Darkness whereby we understand how Eve hath touched and eaten of the Fruits of Darkness and that she became darksom and contagious from thence through her effluxing Darkness she
set before it According to that saying For who knowes the things that are of man but the Spirit of a man that is in him afterwards then the Soul opened the Eye-brow of the right Eye For it was not indeed in the likeness of a mans Eye distinguished by Coats the Apple and diversity of humours but the Eye was the onely round clear even as the Seat of Venis seemeth to be afar off which Eye although it was most exceeding beautiful in brightness yet through its unaccustomedness it struck me to the heart But it shone as well inwardly towards the bottom of the Soul as without thorow the whole Soul and it sent forth a beam into the splendor of that understanding afore hidden which had framed a selfishness severed from it self But it desired an account from the animosity or sturdiness of the sensitive Soul to wit whether in the composing of this Book it had alwayes with a resigned will nakedly offered up all things into the most pleasing goodness and well liking of God or indeed it at any time had presumed of it self like those that are busied all their life time in thinking of the Title of a Sepulchre Or what posterity should think of it But the selfishness as it were the light of a disoussing Intellect refusing to suffer endeavoured to sink it self within the body by privily I lifting of the diligent examination of contemplative truth But in the same kinde of visions wherein the understanding apprehendeth the selfishness this standeth as besides the Body Where ore it not being able to hide it self from the ray of the Soul which did shine thorow it after a wholly unaccustomed manner it sought a crafty evasion as though for the bashfulness of the thing and newness of the place it required a truce till the next day after the morrow hoping that perhaps by one dayes delay the understanding might be unmindeful of its Enterprise But the Soul said Every day hath its burden and desires its own account there is no need of delay to the confession of truth also the morrow will give no aid Thus therefore withdrawing and delay are taken away Then therefore the selfishness confessed I confess and willingly abhorre that the general frailty of men disposed to Custom hath forthwith defiled me I believing that honour did deservedly and worthily nourish all Arts according to the saying of the Heathens which being said the selfishness it self perceived its deformity And thereupon even the intellect being the more smitten with grief as it were sighed knowing my want yea and too much miserable want of understanding in the body the which as yet notwithstanding with the applause of men and having enjoyed a little unconstant glory it would carry out For by a special priviledge all honour and glory belongs to God I knew therefore that I had denounced War against God and had brought in an estrangedness on the whole Universe by a vain endeavour Because the universal order of things is that all things be primarily in their ultimate end and totally for the honour of God Therefore that my labour might not be wholly reprobate as yet far off from goodness it was altogether needful seriously to purge by Sacrifice this my blot Wherefore hither did repentance look and was expected from above with an importunate suit Which coming to me another Eye at length opened it self For then I saw that the searching into all things which are under the Sun was a good gift descending from the Father of Lights into the Sons of men for a diligent Study and a certain serious amending of forepast ignorance otherwise the danger of a vain complacency or well-liking would sometimes vex by the By. Wherefore I humbly begged of the Lord for the good pleasure of his own piety with the every way displeasure of my own vanity that he would spare me and vouchsafe to mortifie the selfishness alwayes reflex or returned upon me In the mean time I decreed with a resolute minde to bury this Book in the fire which very thing I had also performed and was now ready to execute had not another intellectual Vision offered it self unto me for I saw before me a most exceeding beautiful Tree spread forth as it were thorow the whole Horizon whose greatness and largeness notably amazed me It was bespangled with flowers innumerable odoriferous and of a most pleasing and lightsome Colour every one whereof had a bud behinde them a pledge of Fruit. Therefore I cropt of one of so many ten thousands for my self and behold the smell colour and whole grace of the Flowre straightway perished At the same instant an understanding of the Vision was given to me To wit all the gifts of God to be like Flowers and more glorious than Salomon in his Throne indeed of great expectations if they shall remain in the Tree But if man doth appropriate the gift to himself or dareth to crop it off from its original although the Flowre doth vanish from him yet the cropper remaineth the debtor of the promised Fruit. Therefore I decreed hereafter to leave the gift of God in its own Tree nor to arrogate any thing to my self by cropping it off and I willingly confess my aforepast ungratefulness towards the Tree Because whatsoever I have of his hath been freely bestowed and granted me for a time conditionally But from the bottom of my Soul do I detest my vain and foolish ignorance because I thought that gift falling with a strange beam into me in the first place to reflect upon my self For as from mud or dung there ascends a stinking sent or smoak so from Learning a pride of Learning Indeed I delighted rather in the Being of Reason than in the sound truth thinking it would happen after an honourable death that none shall make himself great by desert Indeed that honour would be an applause of many through the judgement of those that erre Therefore I abhorre I refuse from this day and renounce the prayses whatsoever they be that any one at any time shall give me Now at length I perceive what spots the love of a little vain glory may have I have denounced open Warre against the same knowing yea feeling by the afore-past Vision that although it be easie not to take praise while it is not given yet how hard it is not to delight in the same while it is offered Because I have experienced how horrid a thing it may be in the Age to come to have attributed part of the whole glory due to God to ones self upon any trifling account Therefore I did desire that this Book might issue out for the common good the name being suppressed that I might testifie that I do hereafter despise the common Air or Applause But the Decree of the Powers hindereth Every Soul is subject to the Powers Let God the Fountain of all good light help me that I may proceed to scorn my self in good earnest while as sometimes behinde and
forced to a mixture with the Circulate Salt of Paracelsus altogether looseth its fixedness and at length may be changed into a Liquor which also at length passeth into an un-savory water and that that water is of equall weight with its Salt from whence it sprang But the Plant fleshes bones Fishes and every such like I have known how to reduce into its meer three things whence afterwards I have made an un-savory water But that a Mettall by reason of the undissolveable co-mixture of its own seed and the Sand quellem are most hardly reduced into Salt I have learned therefore by the fire that God before there was a day created the Water and Air and of the Water an Elementary Earth which is the Sand. Quellem Because it was the future Basis or foundation of Creatures for man their Standard-defender and therefore in the very beginning it ought to be created although in its own nature it was not truly primo-genial or first-born Wherefore I finde two onely primitive Elements although there is mention made of neither in the holy Scriptures because they are comprehended under the Title of Heaven But with the two he also created the Earth Wherefore he created two great Lights that the Moon and the lesse by shining might govern the Water but that the greater should shine upon the Earth But I shall by and by teach that these first-born Elements are never changed into each other Indeed the Water putrifying by continuance in the Earth doth obtain a locall or implanted Seed And therefore it passeth either into the Liquor Leffas for every Plant or into the Minerall juyce Bur according to the particular kindes chosen by the direction of the Seedes Which Seedes are replenished by the Ferment of the Earth at first empty and void and then straightway by the blessing of the Spirit boren upon the Waters But my experience of the fire hath taught me to wit that the three first things the Salt Sulphur and Mercury of the Water do alwayes remain undivided whether in the mean time the water be lifted up in manner of a Vapour in the form of a Cloud or be made thin like unto invisible things or at length also it doth flote in its antient shape of water For that Paracelsus would have the water by evaporating to be wholly brought to nothing let that be his own Idiotisme or property of speech at leastwise not to be winked at by the ingenious Distiller Truly I have certainly found that the water being lifted up into the Atomes or Moats of Clouds yet doth alway remain the same in number and water in kinde which the Atomes of the Mercury of the water do shew to us in the likeness of a Cloud But there is never made in the water a seperation of the three former things and much lesse any essentiall transmutation or changing For truly there is a simple turning outward of the inward parts by the fire the which again return inward as oft as the Vapour is co-thickned into drops But the cause why I may think the Earth not to be reckoned among the primary Elements although it was also created in the beginning is because it may at length be turned into water by the depriving of its essence And therefore I believe the water to be the first and most simple body seeing that never returns into Earth but by the vertue of the Seeds and so the water takes the turns of a composed body before the Earth or Sand Quellem be made Which thing I shall hereafter more largely demonstrate CHAP. IX The Earth 1. That the Fire is neither an Element nor co-mingled materially with Bodies nor that it is a matter nor that it hath a matter in it 2. The Earth is not a part of the thing mixed 3. The Virgin-Earth is demonstrated by Handicraft operation 4. Grounds or Soils in the Earth are distinguished 5. The Water within the Earth doth more than a thousand times exceed the water of the Sea and Rivers 6. The true Original of Fountains 7. How Waters do of their own accord ascend 8. The continuity or holding together of a thread is proved in the Waters 9. By what chance the Earth happens to Bodies that are believed to be mixt 10. The number of Elements and their temperaments are most destructive trifles after that the same are translated into the art of healing 11. The Earth is the Wombe but not the Mother of Bodies and that is demonstrated by many Arguments 12. Water and Air do not convert any other thing into themselves 13. What kinde of thing mixture is and what the adjoyning or application of Bodies 14. Objections concerning Glasse and the Tile or Brick are resolved 15. The Operations of the Fire of Hell 16. How out of Glasse Sand may be safely separated from its Alcali or Lixiviall Salt 17. That the Center of the World is sometimes changed THerefore neither is the Fire an Element nor is it materially co-mixed in Bodies because I will shew the Fire neither to be a matter nor to have it in it self Yea the Earth doth no where offer it self to be co-mixt with any natural body besides it self which may be re-taken thence by any labour Therefore I have lamented and been angry with my self that the foundation of healing hath been stuft with trifles and that the sick should be constrained to yield obedience to so great mockeries But I name the original Earth of the Virgin-Element the constant Body of Sand it self but the rest of every kinde of Earth the fruit of the Earth from a Mineral off-spring The which by the art of the fire is sufficiently and over proved For that the Sand is the original Earth first of all its hard reducement into water proveth because the Sand out of a flint or an Adamant may be sooner reduced into water than the Sand Quellem And then that thing also the Spade proveth because in digging truly divers Soils do meet nigh the light indeed made to differ in colours and thickness and the which although by the rustical or homely Etymologie of the Schooles they are believed to be black white yellow read Earths c. yet they are fruits of the Earth and do consist of a Seed under which is a Sand also elsewhere manifold in its varieties of Soils as well in one onely as in divers places at length under those doth the Sand reside which our Countreymen call Keybergh or the flinty Mountain from whence do flow the originall of Rocks and Mountains and the chief riches of Mines At length the last of them all the white or boyling Sand Quellem doth shew it self in a living and vitall Soil which the Spade or Mattock never pierceth For how much soever Sand and Water thou shalt take away from thence so much doth there succeed in the room of that which was taken away filling up again the same place This Sand I say being unmixt is a certain Hair-cloth or sieve and
and connexion Whither when the light of the Stars shall descend the folding-doores do open and shut themselves Therefore let the Key-keeper of the folding-doores be the motion of the Stars Which also moveth the Peroledes or Pavements of the Air. Therefore all heat is not made by fore-existing fire or light nor doth cold shew a naked absence of heat But the motive Blas of the Stars is a pulsive or beating power or virtue in respect of their Journey through places and according to their aspects Which circumstances in the Stars do cause the first qualities on these inferiour bodies no otherwise than bashfulness anger feat c. do stir up cold and heat in men And that thing the Stars have by the gift of Creation The Winde according to Hypocrates is a flowing Water of the Air but I defining it by its causes say that the Winde is a flowing Air mooved by the Blas of the Stars And that for a naturall winde but otherwise it is often granted to an evill Spirit that even without a Blas he should stir up windes or increase a tempestuous Blas Therefore the Air unless it have a Blas remains quiet nor hath it the principle of motion from it self but it comes to it from elsewhere Therefore the motive Blas stirreth up Windes Tempests over-flowing of Waters by running thorow the divers Peroledes of the Air sometimes upwards sometimes downwards across long-wayes side-wayes into all the Coasts of the Earth although the Elements have no need of motion yet mans necessity requireth that motion But seeing nothing was for mooving of it self except the Archeus granted to seedes it hath well pleased the Eternall to place in the Stars a flatuous violent motive force not much unlike to the Command of his mouth So that Blas is for a testimony to us that God of his excelling goodness hath made the Elements and Stars for us by measuring out bounds of these according to our Commodities Blas therefore mooveth not so much by light beames and motion as motion but as the Stars have come down unto certain places whereunto these Stars do owe their offices Therefore there are stable properties in those places but if they are not stable that happens in respect of other Stars brought with them by an analogicall or proportionable motion for the interchangeable courses of continuance Blas therefore as a Masculine thing in the Stars is the generall beginning of motion it seemes no lesse to respect the Earth than the Air and Water For the Moon according to the holy Scriptures ruleth the night as the Sun doth the day although the Moon for her own half runs not under the night For the Globe of the Earth is divided into four parts into two accesses or flowings and recesses or ebbings of the Ocean daily And it spends almost 28 houres therein and so much the lesse by how much the Sun and Moon shall in the mean time depart from or draw near to each other Blas therefore stirs up also a raging heat in the waters the winde being still But the alterative Blas consisteth in the producing of heat and cold and that especially with the changings of the windes But the Stars neither have nor give moysture or dryth of themselves For neither is moysture to be considered in nature as naked quality without a matter and therefore neither is it brought down from the Stars unto us For all moysture is from the water which was before the Stars were born Therefore Paracelsus erreth who saith that rains snow c. are so the fruits of the Stars that they are boyled to a ripeness in the Stars as it were in bottles Dryness also was in the air the seperater of the waters before the Stars nor is it to be considered without a body in manner of a quality But heat and cold are rather qualities abstracted from a body Therefore there are onely two great Lights and therefore two onely qualities of them are spread into the air from whence all Meteors are stirred or mooved For the heat of life is the property of the Sun but cold of the other Star Also the other Stars have given their names or honours to these two Lights As often therefore as the Stars of the nature of the Moon are brought thorow places of the Sun a luke-warmth is made in the air but if Stars of the nature of the Sun do run down under the same places heat is made according to which qualities of the air the Gas of the air is also diversly altered Hence indeed Blas heats after the same manner thorow the soils of the air therefore Gas also is either detained in its pavements or soils or is brought downward to us So as that the atomes of Gas being invisible through their too much smallness loosing their constriction and excess of cold do again fall together or decay into the smallest drops and hasten downwards But if indeed the luke-warmth doth affect the lower Peroledes when Gas being provoked by Blas wandereth downwards Summer Snowes are made Surely Gas being grown together through frost a luke-warmth presently arising it is melted and rusheth headlong downwards For the Mercurie of the water resolveth its Salt and the Sulphur doth as it were rowl up these two And so they fall down into rain But if indeed that thing happens in the upper Perolede the drops descending are frozen in the middle cold pavements and so they are cast down headlong into Snow and Hails But if luke-warmth do bear sway thorow some continuall Peroledes of the air daily rains do accompany it Hence also it appeares that an unequall Blas in divers soils of the air doth bring forth divers effects For oftentimes the lowermost Peroledes are luke-warm and the day is plainly clowdy and there are very many Clouds But else the second and the third Perolede are luke-warm the lower being cold whence are Snowes And so the other Troop of Meteors is caused unto us Therefore I am now confident that by Gas materially and by Blas operatively and motively their causes and manner do more clearly appear than heretofore they have done From whence Astrologers and Physitians shall be able from a founder ground to presage of some things In the mean time I leave the matters of presages untouched which God by his ministring Spirits hath laid up among his signes of good or ill Onely I will relate what Fryer Stephen of Lusignan the last of the Family of the Kings of Cyprus of the Order of S. Dominick in his description of Cyprus printed at Paris in the year 1580 page 212 rehearseth in French to this purpose About the end of the year an Earthquake happened at Famagusta which continued eight dayes But afterwards raging or Whirle-windes arose passing over the Island and entring into the Market-place of Famagusta for there by beating down a great Pallace they presently take away very many Houses with some Men. So that if some Marriners had not by the chance of
be expected from elsewhere For he is the Prince of life and death the Alpha and Omega of all things He giveth and taketh away Victories Wars Famine and Pestilences also second partaking causes also free mediating con-causes and occasionall ones accompanying them over all which notwithstanding God is sits as chief as the totall immediate and independent cause Therefore the Firmament is a preacher of all these Works for neither doth God more erre in these free contingent things than in animall accustomed and necessary things if the Firmament was made by God the Mover and knower of all things to foreshew The Land of Libyssa shall over-cover the dead Carcase of Hannibal as Appian relates it to have been foretold by an Oracle of the evill spirit Hannibal hoped he saith that he should therefore die in Lybia or Africa who died in Bythinia near the River Libyssus For the Devil cannot foreknow the lots or events of future Wars which are in the hand of the God of Armies and as yet in the future will or judgement of man unless he shall first read them decyphered in a fore-telling Star Which Picture of the Stars while they no where finde mentioned but cannot deny but that the Devill declares things to come they have meditated of a privy shift and do say that the knowledges of future things are nearly related to Angels and so are co-natural to them but that they differ according to the Quires or Regions from whence they were expelled so that they which fell down from the highest Hierarchy of the Angels should have a much more clear understanding of future things which understanding because it was naturall God had not took away from an evill Spirit For neither is it more naturall to the Devil to have known the enlightnings concerning future things than to have known the natures and names of living Creatures not seen before like Adam But I conceive with Dionysius that the inferior Angels are enlightned by the superior but this light continually to beam forth from the wisdom of the Father and never to have been natural to Angels but to be a free and beatifical gift Next that every good gift doth descend from the Father of Lights that the gift of the Counsels of God and of his future works is not to be searched out by Creatures by their gifts of nature else the naturall knowledge of evill spirits should be almost infinite if it should include in it self the fortunes of mortall men to come distinguished in their second causes yea if an evill spirit otherwise had had this natural participation of divine counsel he had not been ignorant of future effects which he himself as the fire-brand of all evills was to raise up and suffer and so he could scarce have sinned Therefore it is more safe to believe contingent or accidentall things to be painted out by the Stars not indeed all but perhaps those of one age and likewise the Tragedy of every man to be deciphered in his own Star the Picture whereof ceaseth with the closure of his life They will say Hannibal took poyson Satan perswading him But this he did not certainly know as neither could he foretell it if man hath free will and therefore neither did he know that Hannibal would certainly obey his perswasions neither doth Hannibal die by the foolish perswasion of Satan which could not be knit to its causes depending on the divine will For neither doth he die by the poyson but first he is a run-away from many adverse battels But the Lord the onely God of Armies hath Victories in his own hand neither is the evill spirit chief in Battels Therefore to have foreknown the issue of Wars is the same as of free contingencies For truly Victory doth for the most part arise occasionally from a contingent thing not premeditated of therefore I conclude that the infernal enemy doth read the Pictures of the Stars whereby the Firmament is said to foretel the Handy works of the Lord. But thou wilt say whence do the Heavens make Predictions which no mortall men have known and the which to be known by the evill spirit is wickedness In the first place it should be sufficient that the fore-tellings of future things do chiefly declare the glory of God and the infiniteness of his wisdom and fore-knowledge to wit that it may not remain unsignified And then The Lord hath not done a word which he doth not signifie to his servants the Prophets Lastly if the number of mortall men be scarce the hundreth of Angels that are good Spirits it sufficeth that these at least do read the foretokens of future things and therefore do they praise the Lord anew Lucifer indeed hath waxed proud by the much knowledge of things both of those that do exist and of things afterwards to be and it was naturall to him the which he breaths in without grace But it doth not therefore follow that he hath known all mortall men to come and their fortunes vices defects sins grace and whatsoever things should be hereafter like to a second cause as neither the secret mysteries of God that are revealed in succession of dayes and added to a connexion of causes But whether Plagues do arise and rage or Tyrannies Wars destructions tumults or the beginnings of arch-Hereticks the Lord permitting them at leastwise those things shall be as well connexed to their own necessary and second causes although arbitrall and occasionall ones as otherwise Meteors are to theirs For neither is the office of foreshewing the Handy works of the Lord to be restrained to the changes of the Air alone but absolutely unto all the works of the Lords hands Because if the Stars can be preachers of the threatning effects of the wrath of God which without second causes should be committed to the smiting Angel why shall they not also in like manner shew the works of the Lord deputed or reckoned to second and free causes For truly what things soever God foreknoweth he can also if he will shew them by his Instruments but those proper Instruments of God are the Firmament and the Lights thereof as the Scripture witnesseth Yea truly I have been bold to attribute more Authority to the Heaven than what hath wont to be given unto it by the holy Scriptures To wit that the Stars are to us for foreshewing Signes Seasons or changes of the Air lastly for dayes and years wherefore the Text takes away all power of causes besides in the abovesaid revolutions of seasons dayes and years Neither do they act I say but by a motive and alterative Blas But the Stars are said to act by motion and light onely but motion in the Schooles is said to act onely by reason of the divers Aspects of Light for that the motion of the Heavens even the swiftest as well as those remote from us should produce as well heat as motion is a devise or fiction For truly the daily motion of the Heavens is almost
chief over the Blas of the Elements But that the fixed Stars do contain particular Tragedies And therefore when besides the wont of nature there shall be signes in the Sun and Moon they do signifie the monstrous signes of a future ruine of the Universe But such blockishness hath more and more grown on the common sort that they think every one must be believed in his art in this indeed rightly That the Astronomer hath learned to measure the motions and distances of the Stars But we must not therefore believe him as a Prophet of the Stars unless he shall also bring very authentick or warrantable marks whereby he may be believed as did Aholiab and Bezaleel Therefore as to the vitall inclination I do praise the Proverb Strong men are created by strong and good seeds or Parents Moreover so far as concerneth the inclination of Fortunes That in its very Etymology hath exceeded the Catalogue of inclinations Therefore I think that all the fortunes of all as well those prosperous as adverse do concern a divine disposing but not an inclination much lesse to depend on the Stars although they are fore-signified in the Firmament For truly this fore-signifying also doth plainly shew that those do depend immediately on the will of the signifyer For our lots or conditions are in thy hands O Lord Therefore I believe that all the lots of all are good in themselves and to be fully in the hand of the Lord. I believe moreover that by how much the more remote any one is from this opinion by so much he is nearer to Heathenisme Indeed the Heathenish Schooles did see that living Creatures had suitable inclinations according to their kinde yet being amazed at the plurality of morall inclinations in one onely humane kinde expressing all the inclinations of all Beasts and therefore not knowing in what cause they might settle so great a number of inclinations the evill spirit perswading them they by their Sooth-sayers of the Heaven confusedly fled to the uncertain and momentary coupling and estranging of the Stars Never searching into the cause why mankinde is capable of many bestiall inclinations For they neglected to consider that bruit Beasts should have their specificall inclinations from the Being of the seed not the signe of the Horoscope to be due to bruit Beasts That man likewise had his inclinations like bruit Beasts wherefore in like manner Nativities are not to be searched into for the inclinations of men For neither do they naturally happen to man from any other place than from a part of his body which wholly whatsoever it is it oweth to the seminall Being no otherwise than the bodies of bruit Beasts do For truly the Soul is immortall wholly simple and uniform and seeing it is immortall it cannot have its inclination from the frail and sliding motion of the Stars but onely it hearkeneth to the nature corrupted by sin in Adam and his Posterity Wherefore in a late or young Nephew do oft-times the manners behaviours and inclinations of his Grandfather not before seen by him rise again Indeed the Schooles also are content that these should be given to the Being of the seed and not to the Stars But being â—ulled asleep through a custom of assenting and by the importunities of Astrologers they have neglected thorowly to weigh that the aforesaid inclinations of the Grandfather are of no other dignity with nor seperated from the company of the other inclinations and therefore that they are tyed by the same Law to the being of the seed I know not how deservedly they do as yet teach to this day that a man is so subjected to the Stars that he is continually tempted by them to wit that the morall inclinations of vices and goodnesses are to be drawn from the houre of ones Nativity But surely God hath appointed man in the hand of his own will For the sensitive Soul the vicaresse of the minde doth surely rejoyce in a greater liberty than the souls of bruit Beasts by reason of the Seals ministred to it by the minde But the souls of bruit Beasts live contented with the inclinations of their own particular kinde under a small latitude but mans sensitive soul is enlarged to all inclinations for as a humane young as soon as it begins to be nourished in its own square or quarter is not a plant of any kinde even as neither a bruit of any kinde while the sensitive soul floweth together with the rational So the sensitive humane soul being not tied to a brutall kinde doth wander through all the latitude of brutall inclinations and easily hearkeneth to the strange inclinations of the immortall minde brought into it at its own pleasure for the minde sliding into corrupted nature doth easily fall into the motions and enticements hereof and being alwayes shaken out of its place by an unbridled appetite doth serve as a Lackey or Chamber-maid to disturbance which hath driven it from its place Whence there is a strange inclination By the frequent use or desire whereof there is a strong custom which at length doth imprison the minde It likewise appeares that a morall inclination is in the innermost properties of the sensitive soul dispositively sliding out of the Being of the seed And that the Stars have obtained over us no power of causing except by the Blas of Meteors But although the inclination of calling or a morall one may change the vitall inclination as when a pruner of Trees becomes gowty a brawler is wounded or slain so a Gilder miserably trembleth a digger of Mineralls and likewise a Chymist perisheth by an Asthma or stoppage of breathing yet those things come to passe occasionally onely neither do they bring with them any right to the Astrologer Cease therefore for shame hereafter to believe that the Stars were created to tempt incline destroy make happy infuse Sciences or to prevail by an acquired right or authority for thus is the power of desert or punishment taken away also a way is opened to Athersme and the fatalities or destinies of appointments Therefore a wise man shall rule over the Stars not indeed that he can hinder change suspend and pervert the courses or lights of the Stars as neither the successive changes of times or seasons dayes and years following from thence Therefore it followes that a wise man shall not rule over the effects which are coupled to the revolutions of the Stars as causes neither shall he rule over the Stars as signes to wit that he is able to change them at his pleasure but he onely foreseeing that the seven wandring Stars are about to stir up a motive or alterative Blas whence barrennesses colds heats dearnesses of Victuall or the like do necessarily follow he shall be able to provide himself with necessaries and so by meeting the discommodities bred by the Flux of the Stars he shall from consequence in some sort rule over them An Astrologer with this authority not exceeding the bounds of a
of all things as well in generation as in the transmutations of meats throughout the course of life which office doth properly respect the inbred or implanted spirit But now how and whence the spirit floating in the Arteries may be constituted by occasion of the Blas of man already described consequently I have undertaken to explain in this path their Office and Properties The Schools teach That nourishments are first changed into Chyle and then into digested juice and venal bloud and so that a certain naturall spirit is made in the Liver which afterward by a repeated digestion of the heart is changed into vital and at length is in the Brain made animal or sensitive so as that the natural spirit is ordained for nourishing of the parts but the vital for the preserving of the same and the animal for the functions of sense motion and the soul But I think it hath been far otherwise Phylosophized and farther proceeded For they had known out of Hippocrates That a certain spirit is that thing which causeth violence or maketh the assaults But it was not sufficient to know that there is a certain Spirit to have told by what instruments it should be made or what it might act unlesse they should explain also the disposition substance and properties of the same together with the manner of its making I have elsewhere delivered That of any plant and fruit a ferment being applyed Aqua vitae or a water of life may be made which thing seeing it is commonly known while out of Grains Hydromel or Water and Honey and juices it frameth a water of life The Proposition needs no demonstration But Aqua vitae is a volatile Liquor Oylie as it is wholly enflamed and wholly Salt as being sharp biting as being detained the longer in the mouth it burns the upper skin of the gums and lips and is one and the same simple thing and so it containeth two only and not the three Chymical Beginnings So indeed That according to the will of the Artificer the whole Aqua vitae may be made Salt or Oyl that is That those Beginnings are not Beginnings not constant things but changeable at the will of man But the Wine as to its Winie part contains a spirit answering to Aqua vitae For this is searched through the Arteries of the stomack unto the head without the maturities of other shops So that if more wine be in the stomack than is meet drunkennesse follows as the spirit of the wine doth flow more largely into the head than that by a fit space or interval it can be changed by an individuating humane limitation For from hence the changing and likewise the operation of the ferment is manifest Notwithstanding in Wine that spirit is milder than Aqua vitae which is drawn forth by distillation which thing appears from the like in Oyl of Olives For the Oyl which they call Oyl of Tiles or Bricks or Olem Phylosophorum being distilled doth far differ from the Oylinesse which is drawn out of simple Oyl by digestion only with the circulated Salt of Paracelsus for that circulated Salt is seperated the same in vertue and weight after it hath divided the oyl of Olives into its diversities of parts For a sweet and twofold Oyl is seperated out of oyl of Olives even as a most sweet spirit out of wine being far severed from the tartnesse of Aqua vitae Whence I have learned by consequence That whatsoever is distilled only by fire doth far recede from the vertues of the composed body But in us although meat doth putrifie after its own manner to wit if that putrefaction be a mean of transchanging a thing into a thing yet in our digestions by that putrefaction I speak of the action of the ferment of the stomack Aqua vitae is not extracted out of Potherbs Graines Apples or Pulses For truly the intention of nature is not then to procreate an Aqua vitae and there is one ferment in us whereby things are resolved into Chyle and another whereby things do send forth an Aqua vitae or a water of Life out of themselves For while herbs do putrifie in water through a ferment the stalk stumps or stocks and leaves do remain whole in their antient figure and hardness for the extraction of Aqua vitae which being eaten by us are turned into Chyle and loose their first face Wherefore I have comprehended as many varieties of putrefactions and as many dungs of one bread different in the particular kind as there are particular kinds of living creatures nourished by bread Yea further far more ferments of bread because bread doth putrifie as yet by more means as well of its own accord as from an appointment But what is spoken of bread as much is said of other meats The Schools indeed knew That nothing doth profit us which should not contain a Beginning or Essay of life in its root and so therefore they do admit of the air for the increase of spirit being deceiued by the Lessons of Poets who call them Vitall airs to wit they would have in the venal bloud a spirit of the Liver naturally actually to be and to glister like air For they thought it to be a vapour being ignorant that a vapour is never made an uncoagulable Gas an air sky or wild exhalation but that it alwayes remains water Therefore they thought a vapour exhaling from the venal bloud hunted outwards even as out of a certain luke-warm Liquor should be that spirit of the venal bloud whence vital spirit should be materially framed But surely the venal bloud as long as it flowes in the vessels of the Mesenterie and Port vein is void of spirit Wherefore it being also called out by laaxtive Medicines it is voided forth stinking without any notable token of weaknesse which comes not so to passe if it hath once well touched at the hollow vein Because then the venal bloud is Homogeneally or after one and the same kind sealed in its entrance that it may be made the bloud of the Artery and spirit and therefore it is in the Holy Scriptures indifferently with the Arterial blood called a Red spirit in which the Soul inhabits Although that be properly understood of the Arterial bloud Because the Scripture is there speaking of men stabbed or slain whose venal bloud is poured out together with their arterial bloud I shall at sometime teach concerning digestions that whatsoever is made or composed in the stomack that doth wax soure there by a ferment also Sugar it self not indeed with a sournesse or sharpness of Vinegar Oyl of unripe Olives Citron or Vitriol but by its own like ferment and with a specifical sowrenesse although it symbolizeth or coagreeth with other sowre things in that which is sowre Yet the sharpnesse is diverse from them all by an internall power And that sowreness of meats is perfectly volatile Neither doth that hinder that the Chyle in Youths doth assume the
each to other by subscribing and I will subjoyn those things which singular experience under divine grace hath taught me Without controversie it belongs to meats and drinks together and in like manner to be dissolved into a Cream plainly transparent in the hollow of the Stomach I add that that is done by vertue of the first Ferment manifestly soure or sharp and borrowed of the Spleen for I have found as many suitable Ferments as there are in us digestions Again neither is it of lesse admiration that that Cream is spoiled wholly of all drawn sourness of the ferment as soon as it slides out of the stomach into the great Bowel or intestine than the power of that ferment in the stomach was wonderful That intestine is called the Duodenum from the measure of 12 fingers and it is immediately under the Pylorus or lower mouth of the stomach Truly Anatomy complains of trouble in this place by reason of the stretching out the offices of the kernels and Vessels to wit in so small a space for Instruments of so great uses and so that in the whole dissection nothing doth offer it self alike difficult For neither are there so many Vessels and Organs in vain although their use hath stood neglected For first of all when I learned that the ferment conceived in the Cream of the stomach was pernicious as well in the intestines themselves as in other parts by reason of many torments or wringings I not sloathfully noted that all particular parts have obtained particular ferments seeing there is an unexcusable necessity of these in transchanging And so I also from hence further concluded that all particular ferments do abhorre strange ones to be their Companions and the commands of strange patrons as if they were forreign thieves and such as thrust their Sickle into another mans Corn And that indeed through no vice of jealousie as though they did envie the activities of others But from an endeavour of executing the office which was enjoyned them by the Lord of things It is a wonder to be spoken that a sour cream in the Duodenum doth straightway attain the savour of Salt and doth so willingly exchange its own sharp Salt into a salt Salt No otherwise almost than as the Vinegar which is most sharp hath forthwith through red Lead put off its former sharpness and doth presently change into an aluminous sweetness Even as also the sharpness of Sulphur is forthwith changed in the Salt of Tartar But by a far more excellent vigour of transmutation that sour Cream is presently made Salt in us For truly that is made without any co-mixture of any Body even as when Vinegar waxing sweet it is constrained by the addition of the Lead or a sharp distillation is drunk up in an Alcali-Salt Because in very deed nothing is any where found which can fully answer to the force of a ferment seeing Ferments are the primitive causes of transmutations and that indeed from a former cause and therefore it must needs be that the similitudes of those drawn onely from a latter effect do very much halt Therefore our sour Cream is made salt only by a fermental and unchangeable disposition wherefore also the volatile sharpness of that Cream doth remain in its antient volatility while it exchangeth its own first obtained soureness with saltness For the volatile stillatitious sharpness of Vinegar doth not thus remain volatile as before while it dissolveth Litharge Minium or Ceruse because in dissolving it is coagulated and doth assume the form of a more fixed Salt now separable from the liquid distillation of the Vinegar which it had lately married but in dissolving it is coagulated and doth assume the form of a more fixed Salt because it is the action of a thing dissolving and dissolved but not of a transchanging Ferment which doth continually tend to a new Form on either side For indeed the Stomachs of some do more easily digest Potherbs Pulses or bread-Corns but those of others do more succesfully digest Fishes abhorre Cheese prefer water before Wine whereas in the mean time the stomach of others is a devourer of flesh or addicted to Apple to wit by reason of a specifical yea and also an appropriated property of that Ferment yea neither is it sufficient to have said that the sour Ferment of the first digestion and totall cause of the melting of the harder meats doth freely inhabit in the stomach unless that very thing be more plainly explained First of all the stomach hath not this Ferment in it self or from its own self For the digestion of the appetite and Family-government of the stomach do sometimes depart and return without extinguishing because they are not of the stomach it self Wherefore I have said that the membrane of the stomach hath all the efficacy of its digestion and government thereof from the Spleen For surely the Spleen together with the stomach doth therefore make in us one onely Duumvirate or Sheriffdom from whence indeed the Poets have erected the Golden and prosperous Kingdoms of Saturn and in pride the liberal Feasts of Saturn The Antients have smelled out some History of antient truth To wit that whatsoever things meats being digested are cast out by vomit are of a soure taste and smell yea although they were seasoned with much Sugar For soure belchings coming upon adust ones in Diseases are reckoned to presage good according to Hypocrates Hence indeed all saltnesses or seasonings and Sauces of meats for sharpening of the Appetite are sharp as the juyce of Citron Orange Pomegranate the unripe Olive Tartar Vinegar Berbery Vine-branch Mustard and likewise Salt of the Sea as it containeth a sharp Spirit in it in which respect also the Liquors of Sulphur Vitriol Salt Sal Niter c. are commended For I will not that the sharpness of any of those be consumed into increase of a specifical and appropriated ferment dwelling in the Spleen Far be it for ferments have nothing besides or out of themselves in nature which may worthily be assimilated to themselves seeing they are specifical gifts of a vital nature For therefore a ferment in what respect it is a ferment is a vital and free Secret yoaked to no other quality for it is sufficient for Sawces that sharp things do prepare meats for a more easie entrance of the ferment of the Spleen In the next place although the ferment of the stomach hath a specifical tartness yet that tartness is not the vital ferment it self but onely the Instrument thereof For the ferment of the stomach hath a sharpness as a singular companion unto it self it being also divided by properties by general kindes and Species but digestion in it self is the work of the life it self whereof sharpness is in this Shop the attaching or guarding Instrument But in the other Shops which are afterwards the life associates to it self a secondary quality on either side as a Minister of its intention to the fermental quality and suited
also that That Oyls and Emplasters are the true food of wounds so that a wound is truly nourished by them and that the corrupt matter is the excrement of that nourishment Therefore the sour salt of the Cream seeing it is destitute of an object and the which seeing it wandreth through the action of a dissolver into a fixed salt as I have taught before concerning volatile spirits it is suitably exchanged into the volatile salt of Urine And that not by the action or re-action of sournesse on a certain object but by a true fermental transforming for the Spirit of life it self is of the nature of a volatile salt and of that which is salt And so even from hence alone the vital action of the Gaul is proved For Sea salt being oft eaten doth remain almost whole in the excrements Which thing the Boylers of Salt-peter do experience against their wills For they are constrained to seperate salt out of the dung of Jakeses being sometimes eaten up by the Salt-peter through a repeated boyling and coagulation of cooling For the Sea salt being coagulated doth stick fast to the spondils or chinks of the vessels being nothing changed from it self long ago eaten And that before the Salt-peter hath obtained a sufficient drying up of its own coagulation And therefore from hence it is known that Sea-salt is more readily coagulated than Salt-peter Therefore humane excrements are lesse fit for Salt-peter than otherwise those of Goats Sheep and Herds Yet as much of that Sea-salt as is subdued by the ferment of the stomack so much also is sour and volatile Consequently also although any one do use no salt his Urine should not therefore want salt because it is that which is a new creature and a new product out of the sour of the Cream The Salt of the Urine therefore hath not its like in the whole Systeme of nature For not that of the Sea Fountain Rock Gemme not Nitre not that of Salt-peter Alume or Borace Lastly not of any of natural things as neither the Salt of the Urine of flocks or herd with which although it may agree in the manner of making yet the salt of mans Urine disagreeth from them throughout the general and particular kinds no lesse than dungs do vary throughout the species of Bruits although bruits are fed with common fodder to wit by reason of the diversities of an Archeus and Ferment Therefore of meats and drinks not sour or salt is made a salt sour and at length a salt Salt and it is easier for a thing of a sour salt to be made Salt than of not Salt to be made sour salt I remember that I have seen a Chymist who every yeer did fill a Hogs-head of Vinegar to two third parts with water of the River Rhoan he exposed it to the heats of the Sun and so he transchanged the water in it self without savour into true Vinegar a ferment being conceived out of the Hogs-head This I say he was thus wont to do by reason of the singular property of that Vinegar For truly out of the Vinegar of Wine the weaker part doth alwayes drop or still first but the more pure part a little before the end riseth up with the dregs but this Vinegar made of meer water as it wants dregs so it alwayes doth minister an equall distillation from the Beginning even to the end Wherefore as the ferment of a vessel doth by its odour alone change Water into Vinegar So indeed by the fermental odour of the Spleen breathed into the stomack meats are made a sour Cream which afterwards is turned into a urinous salt yea and into a vital one Because the Schools never dreamed of these things neither had their followers read them in the labours or night watches of their Predecessors therefore they have been ignorant of the use of parts and ferments and the celebrations or solemnities of transmutations but they have introduced both the Cholers into the masse of the bloud Lastly They have not known the Contents and be-tokenings of the Urine Therefore the third Digestion is made by the President-ferment of the Liver which is by the blind odour of a Gas doth begin Sanguification in its own stomack of the Mesentery and at length perfecteth it in the hollow Vein Furthermore The fourth Digestion is compleated in the Heart and Artery thereof in which elaboration the red and more gross blood of the the hollow Vein is elaborated made yellower and plainly volatile For the heart is said to be eared on both sides and hath at its left bosom one onely beating Artery inserted in a great Trunk fit for it that by a double rowing it may the more strongly draw the fenced venal bloud which is between both bosoms in the middle of the heart Refer thou hither what I have above noted concerning the porosity of the hedge or partition which distinguisheth the bosoms of the heart and why the Arterial bloud doth not return from the left bosome into the right but only the spirit of life as it were through a thin sive Therefore the venal bloud of the Liver differs from the arterial bloud by the fourth digestion manifested by the colour and consistence of the matter digested But the fifth Digestion doth transchange the Arterial blood into the vital spirit of an Archeus of which I have discoursed under the Blas of man as also under The Spirit of Life I could not satisfie my self that in the venal bloud of the Liver there was any spirit although it hath gotten a degree of its perfection after that it hath overcome or exceeded the Mesentery But that venal blood alwayes seemed to me as it were a certain Masse of Mummie and the matter Ex qua or whereof But not as yet to be accounted for perfect vital blood For if the blood of the hollow vein had begged a spirit from the Liver the right ear of the heart had been in vain which works uncessantly for no other end than that some spirit may be drawn from the left bosom thorow the fence of the heart that the blood in the hollow vein nigh the heart may begin to be quickned by the participation of that spirit But seeing from the left sides there is an ear and especially the notable Trunk of an Artery hence also the â—â—cking is stronger from the left bosom And from hence by consequence also little of the vital Spirit is communicated to the venal blood For truly the blood of the Liver is alwayes throughout its whole moist with too much liquor whereof it ought to be deprived before that it be made a fruitful and worthy support of spirit neither finally hath the Liver had a fit hollowness in it self for the framing of spirit Wherefore as I have intellectually seen throughout the whole Scene of Generation one onely Framer and Ruler of the spirits of life in the seed So also I admit of one onely spirit of the vital family-government For the venal
the faculty of concupiscence in the Stomach and Liver 15. Whither this speculation tends 16. They have also against their wills assented to the Paradox of the Authour 17. The seat of the mind is the same with that of the sensitive soul 18. The manner of existing in its seat 19. A piercing of Souls 20. What the sensitive soul is 21. A similitude of its existence 22. Heat is not the fountain of the light of life but the light of the Archeal life or product 23. What the mind is 24. By the comming of the sensitive soul death hath entred 25. A comparison of the dignity lost and obtained 26. The Spleen for the Duumvirate 27. The dignities of offices 28. All foolish madnesses do from hence take their beginning 29. A remarkable thing touching the examination of remedies a further progresse being denied 30. How immortality did stand 31. A change of the State 32. A Corollary of what hath been said 33. The errour of the Schools THE Sur-name of a Duumvirate or Sheriff-dome may astonish the Reader with the terrour of novelty wherefore I am first to render a reason of its Etymologie and afterwards I shall explain its government Before all things the seat of the mind is to be searched into For although the soul be every where where the life of it is yet as the Sun is not properly but in his own place in heaven although the light thereof be wheresoever he casts his aspect There is altogether the same judgment concerning the central place of the Soul But there is a strife about the center or place of exercise of the soul in the body And the Standard-defenders being as it were hung up in the air do encounter over this thing noâ— having a foundation where to fix their foot For Plato contends for the Heart for whom the Holy Scriptures seem to vote while they reach that out of the Heart proceed Murders Adulteries c. But Physitians do respect the Head as it were the Inn of discourse and understanding especially because the heart by such an unwearied motion of a stirred pulse cannot but make the soul to be troubled and unquiet Those that baptize do follow the opinion of Physitians Neither are there those wanting in the mean time who determine the immortal mind to be so every where and equally in the body that they will have it to abide in no certain seat no more than it can be tied or bound by the body And so they suppose the soul to be a wandring â—oving inhabitant of an uncertain cottage and to be every way dispersed where life is present But they do not regard that some parts are cut off the life remaining safe but that others being lightly smitten do presently bring death on the whole body Some one oftentimes by his mangled face and head as it were diminished testifies death to be present with him whose heart notwithstanding by its lukewarmth and pulse doth promise the soul to be as yet present And that thing is daily seen in those that do long play the Champion A certain Bride being willing to celebrate her marriage in Opdorp nigh Scalds because the Governour of the place was there is saluted by her retainers with the noyse of Guns But one of them dischargeth a Gun laden with a Ledden Bullet but it pierceth the Coach and the Temples of the Bride She presently falls down and is reckoned a dead Woman But Opdorp is seven Leagues distant from Vilvord whither when she was brought proceeding to Bruxels her Head was a dead Carcase cut in thin pieces and plainly cold yet nigh her heart I noted a luke-warmth and pulse Likewise a certain Image fell from a high place on the Crown of a Woman so as that the whole top of the Scull had depressed the Brain almost two fingers in breadth She was reckoned to have been dead yet there was a slender pulse in both Arms six houres after and it was noted by many A certain studious man being strong strikes another sitting at the Table with his fist about the orifice of the Stomach who presently fell down with a foaming mouth and being lifted up by us into his Seat he was forthwith deprived of Pulse and before Grace was read his whole Body was cold as Ice A Carter being thrust thorow about the mouth of the Stomach with a Dagger with a foaming mouth presently dieth he is also deprived of all Pulse and heat Therefore under a humble Censure of the Church I will declare another Paradox Although life be a token of the Soul and this life be every where yet as by the cutting of a finger or foot the Soul doth not fly away nor the life of the whole Body neither yet can the Soul or life be divided into parts that the Soul in its whole integral part may be any way dividable and that death seemes to be near through the hurting of a more noble member In the mean time it is certain that the life in the member cut off doth presently perish although a part of the Soul be not therefore taken away from the whole Body Therefore it is manifest from thence that the Soul doth not sit centrally in whatsoever part there is an operation and presence of life And it must needs be that the Seat of the Soul is in some place as it were its proper and central mansion For from thence it dismisseth its lightsom and vital Beames by the Archeus the Instrument of the vital light Because the Soul it self is a certain light and clear substance in the minde but in other Souls it is indeed a light yet not a substance As elsewhere concerning the Original of Forms The Creator to whom be all honour hath kept a certain progresse from a like thing who instructs us in the Seat-royal of the Soul that from the more grosse things we may consider things more abstracted For in a Tree an Argument is peculiarly drawn from a Tree by reason of the prerogative of the Tree of Life is seen a Root the vital beginning of it self For truly in the Root as it were in a Kitchin a forreign juyce of the Earth is cocted altered is alienated from its antient simplicity of water and undergoes the disposition of a vital Ferment there placed But being cocted it is distributed from thence that it may more and more be constrained and become like according to the necessity of every further Cook-room which hath established Lawes for the Spirit inhabiting So in the middle Trunck of the Body of man is the Stomach which is not onely the Sack or Scrip or the pot of the Food but in the Stomach especially in its Orifice or upper mouth as it were in a Central point and Root is the Principle of life of the digestion of meats and the disposing of the same unto life most evidently established For whatsoever natural Phylosophers have ever thorowly weighed concerning the heart that is of great moment they will
Bowels after the manner of Stars For although the Stars do borrow their light from the Sun yet there is in every one of them his own peculiar property and strength of acting which is far most evident in the Moon about the ebbings flowings and overflowings of the Sea Be it therefore that the arteries of the Spleen do supply the place of the Sun yet the Spleen it self hath obtained a double and native dignity peculiar to it self although the Family-service of the Heart rejoyceth in the preparing of vital blood and spirit Therefore the Spleen is the seat of the Archeus the which seeing he is the immediate Instrument of the sensitive soul doth determine or limit or dispose of the vital actions of the soul residing in the stomach For the sensitive soul doth scarce meditate of any thing without the help of the Archeus because it rejoyceth not being abstracted as doth the minde the which in its ebbing or going back by an extasie doth sometimes and without the props of the Archeus and corporal Air intellectually contemplate of many and great things Also in exorbitances of the Archeus an aversion confusion exorbitancy and indignation is administred And the sensitive soul it self being as it were the husk of the minde doth alwayes will it nill it make use of the Archeus Hence indeed all foolish madnesses some whereof onely have been made known are called praecordial or Midriffe ones and are ascribed to the place about the short Ribs the which notwithstanding do spring from the same seat and the same fountain of the soul as it were by the hurting of one onely point Also Remedies do scarce materially go without the hedges or bounds of the stomach And therefore they are rare which are brought thorow unto the spleen which thing in the difficulties of a Quartane Ague is plain enough to be seen For the immortal minde is read to be inspired into Adam by omnipotency and that without the Wedlock of the sensitive soul And that breath of life he calls a substance And therefore that is not found to be breathed into bruit Beasts Therefore the minde was first of all immediately tied to the Archeus as to its own Organ or Instrument the which therefore it could at its pleasure daily substitute a-new out of the meats being sufficiently and alwayes and perpetually alike strong And from thence to awaken the immortal life worthy of or meet for it self For truly the immortal minde being every where present did perform all the offices of life immediately by the Archeus and the which therefore doth borrow his own liveliness from the minde who also is therefore after some sort superiour to mortal things and seemed to be the foster-Child of a more excellent Monarchy than of a sublunary one These things were so before the fall of Adam But seeing that in the same day of their transgression they were made guilty of death a soul subject to death came unto them the Vicaresse and Companion of the minde To wit unto whom the minde it self straightway transferred the dispositions of the government of the Body For at first there was an immediate Wed-lock of the immortal minde with the Archeus Presently after the fall and the stirring up of the sensitive soul the minde withdrew it â—â—lf like a Kernel into the center of the sensitive soul whereto it was tied by the bond of life The minde is not nourished by foods it could chuse meats for its own Archeus and prepare them for him who now is constrained with an unwearied study to watch for his own support of nourishment And that by degrees he lesse and lesse fitly prepares and applies to himself by reason of the defective duration and power of the sensitive soul Thus therefore I ought to speak concerning the seat of the minde of the material occasion of mortality and the necessities of Diseases and distemper For truly what things are here required in the Treatise of the entrance of death into humane nature is demonstrated at large with an explication of that Text From the North shall evill be stretched out over all the Inhabitants of the Earth Therefore for a Summary The central place of the Soul is the Orifice or upper mouth of the stomach no otherwise than as the Root of Vegetables is the vital place of the same The minde sitteth in the sensitive soul whereto it was consequently bound after the fall But the Brain is the executive member of the canceipts of the soul as it sits chief over the sinews and muscles in respect of motion but in respect of sense or feeling it possesseth in it self the faculties of memory will and Imagination Therefore the stomach failing or being defective there are palenesses tremblings drith's Consumptions of the flesh and strength wringings of the Belly or Guts the Asthma or stoppage of breathing Jaundises Palsies Convulsions giddinesses of the Head Apoplexies c. For the most famous Physitians do wonder that oft-times extream defects are overcome not otherwise than by remedies pertaining to the stomach and that the evil of the stomach doth bring forth Diseases far distant from it self And the more modern Physitians are amazed that vulnerary potions should succesfully cure wounds of the joynts And that according to Paracelsus the Cancer Wolf the eating inflamed Ulcer are cured by a Drink Therefore the errour of those that cure the more outward parts that are ill-affected as if they were fundamental ones and they who do translate all healing about the head it being hurt by the lower parts proceedeth from hence by reason of the ignorance of the seat of the Soul life and government CHAP. XXXVIII From the Seat of the Soul unto Diseases 1. A greater sense is proved to be in the mouth of the Stomach than in the eye or fingers 2. The Schools do every where being unconstrained consent to the Paradox concerning the seat of the Soul although they do openly dissent therefrom 3. The wayling of those that are exorbitant through much leachery 4. The life of the stomach is chief over the other digestions 5. The Ferment that is a friend to the stomach is afterwards an enemy to all the particular shops of digestions 6. Divers Diseases are stirred up by the Ferment of the stomach being transplanted 7. The snare of Gatarrhs 8. The foundation of Diseases 9. The joynt-sickness proves that thing 10. Very many Diseases do flow centrally from the stomach which are feared and healed by the Head 11. Of what sort the co-mixture of the Character of some Diseases may be 12. How Medicines applied to or bound about the Head do operate 13. It is proved that the seat of the Soul is not in the heart it self 14. Remarkable things about the Character of Diseases 15. Why the effects of fear do vary their own effects 16. The same thing is considered for a poysonous occasional cause 17. They are appropriated to the vital light 18. An objection 19. The intent of the Author 20.
heeded that an Insect by one onely Liquor extended throughout his length doth supply the promiscuous offices of Veins Arteries Sinews and Bowels so as that a Flie as yet flies away his Head being cut off and I have seen the Head of a horned Hornet which they call a flying Stag which was cut off to live and be moved six dayes after Therefore varieties do not depend on a necessity of powers and Organs but onely because it hath well pleased the Creator to distinguish some offices and ends or bounds in the more perfect living Creatures by a blinde and mutual dependance of Organs or Instruments In the mean time the action of government doth not cease in man by reason of this dependance and reciprocal successive course of members the which I have already accused in an Insect but not a few offices are administred in the Family-government of the same without all connexion of deriving Channels which thing because it hath stood doubtful therefore the Schools have assigned the greatest glory of life and studies unto Anatomy And when as the bond or conjunction was to them unknown they therefore with the amazement of the unwonted matter presently fled unto blinde ascending vapours or humours prostrating themselves without order for a sacred Anchor of ignorance For as much as after that they had dissected at pleasure those that were strangled by the womb those that were cut off by swooning or those who died by fits of the Falling-sickness or tremblings of the heart and had found no destroyer of life in the passages to whom the guilt of the murder might be imputed they betook themselves unto blind vapours and filthy or defiled exhalations derived into the heart and head However they then at leastwise ought to admit those deadly vapours to be carried about on every side by no continued commerce of passages I willingly admit of corporeal actions whereby heat doth afterwards make that hot which is brought unto it also of a passage whereby belching doth ascend out of the stomach thorow the Weasand into the throat and nostrils in the next place that excrements do covet their own Conduits and from which that which is grievous is exorbitant or stumbleth also that the vital Spirits are ordinarily dispersed into the Body by the vassally Channels or Pipes of their own Bowels I may be accounted out of my wits unless I confess these things Again I admit of an action whereby the Ferments of the Bowels do issue into the Kitchins of the digestions as it were by certain beames nor are they carried by an oblique or crooked motion But I do not passe by a third action in mans Body which is called Influential or that of government The which although it cannot ordinarily wander without the Body yet it is abstracted from a co-binding mean For neither doth it act by a direct and Sun-like beam onely but also by another to wit by that which doth unsensibly pierce the whole juncture of the parts and in manner of the Moon whatsoever it also obliquely beholdeth that it affecteth or moveth even as already before in our new Meteors This is I say the action of government or of dependance shining or beaming and piercing every way without the bawdery of co-binding or conjoyning yet not but unto a proper object Note here that I have elsewhere said that the Beard is generated by the stones in a man whom they distinguish from a gelded person But besides this action of government I acknowledge moreover two natural ones but prodigious or monstrous ones Therefore there is a third action proper to incorporeal Spirits which for action do not require a direct beam nor a beholding of the object nor a nearness disposition or co-binding of the same but they act onely by a powerful beck for indeed they want extreamities or outmost parts whereby they may touch as well the Bodies which they pretend to move as also the meanes themselves whereby they may move Bodies with a far more efficacious influential force or virtue That action is nigh akin to that whereby the Soul doth signifie its will or beck unto its own Organs whereunto it is tied For thou hast made him O Lord a little lesse than the Angels by the obligatory bond of a Body otherwise he is more worthy whom thou more esteemest of who art not deceived in thy estimation Thou wert incarnate for the redemption of men not for the redemption of Angels There is also a certain lying action usual with wicked Spirits to wit a jugling and bewitching one The which although it contain in it a true action yet it doth not manifest a true effect But the bewitcher befools the sight while the same things appear to one which are not or which are not to another or not in the same manner He befools the eyes that he may represent false things unto them and mock them with his beck or at his pleasure It is almost just as in Fevers doatages are naturally objected which are not before the eyes and ofâ—-times also without doatage a feverish matter seemeth to be brought thorow the back-bone unto the places affected For they are impostures the participation of a blemish the dispersing of a strange tincture from a contagion of the inflowing Spirit but not a puffie dispersing of corporeal vapours That is government whereby one part obeyeth another In the joynt-sickness or Gout that doth clearly appear Because a certain indisposition of the stomach with a small Fever goes before before that any sign doth manifestly appear in the joynts So in swooning sudden death the Falling-sickness giddiness of the Head Apoplexie c. the part is played about the mouth of the stomach so that for this cause it hath deserved the name of the heart and stomach-remedies being suddenly offered they are for the most part restored And so like juggles they are made elsewhere and seem to be carried to some other place For whatsoever is written concerning vapours lifted up out of the stomach and womb they do spread forth bewitching darkness as well about the matter conveyances of passages and meanes as the government of life it self After another manner there are true actions and true effects Even as elsewhere I have distinguished in the Treatise of Catarrhs or Rheumes I must now more deeply enquire into the Paradox of the action of government For indeed in the first place it is commonly well observed that anger fear and other passions of the minde do not onely with speed diversly affect the Spirit carried in the Arteries and Sinews with the very stroak of the eye that the Cheeks do fall the Appetite perisheth the hairs stand upright the voyce sticks the Spittle foams sweats and the other excrements themselves do defile through the storm of disturbances â— But a Horse-beast affords the fragments of his hoof which being fried and taken cures the Bloudy-flux but if the Beast be a wanton Colt then his hoof is mortal to those that have
recompence the fore-going errours and defect Nevertheless although it may be lawful from the aforesaid considerations to prove a greater necessity of difficult Breathing yet at leastwise they do nothing convince why there is a straightned Breathing in our Man of sixty Years old but otherwise in a healthy person not any at all And seeing in the Man of sixty Years old the Lungs do want obstruction even as is manifest from the signs supposed it must needs be also that his defect be fetched from elsewhere especially seeing he feels in his Abdomen or lower Belly the place of his Stomack pressings together the causes of his Asthma Therefore his Asthma is from the Spleen being ill affected and that from the Duumvirate and the cause is stirred up by an ascending motion otherwise sleeping by reason of the considerations above which by the action of government doth otherwise strain a weak Lungs by aspect only no otherwise than as was declared concerning a dry Asthma whither a lurking Falling-sickness the pain of the Spleen after riding the sore shaking of the whole Body in riding c. do tend Moreover that I may give the more safe judgment whether the Lungs did labour by a passion of its own or indeed by a secondary passion I busily enquired whether he felt carnal copulation troublesome unto him and he confessed to me that before the Asthma was manifested Venus had hurt him that after the flesh lyact he felt cold in his Breast a looseness in his Muscles and fainting threatned unto him But involuntary pollutions that he experienced no such thing At length in his old age presently after a seldome carnal act that he perceived a snorter of Phlegms in his rough Artery or else silence Whence I certainly conjectured that seeing from an Infant he had retained his Spleen troubled by a Quartane-ague and falling-sickness and that the Milt is the nest of carnal Lust because in the case proposed the Duumvirate strikes the Lungs with a right Line especially being prostrated by an unequal strength that the provoking and radical cause of his Asthma was in the Spleen yet so as that the Lungs doth not altogether want blame although it labour not with the first or chief affect of the Asthma For it sufficeth that it is trodden down by an unequal strength that the Duumvitate may exercise on it its own diseasie Tyranny For if the Lungs should labour with an Asthma from a primary or first affect or moving they should continually pant for Breath and breath forth a difficult air Indeed a thin or slender poyson layes hid in the Duumvirate which is the cause of this dry Asthma ordinarily fast a sleep in it self nor awakened but by too much motion and so in climbing sooner than in descending for the considerations of the oblique Muscles of the bottom of the Belly afore-touched Neither doth that poyson strike the Heart and Lungs materially in manner of an exhalation vapour or Smoakiness but by the action of Government And seeing the Heart doth beat the pulse is inordinate and also a great and frequent panting for Breath is desired and the place between the Navil and mouth of the Stomack is vexed from one only cause stirred up and by one only motion and after a like manner it becomes undoubted that there is one only Poyson which may affect the vital power of the Heart and Lungs Then also he is vexed more grievously manifestly and cruelly every Year because an unacceptable guest abiding in the Spleen doth daily through old age become more troublesom And these things I have more strongly concluded with my self because that Asthmatical Man doth complain that for many Years his left hand was now and then astonied or stupified and that he was cold in the Palm or hollow of his Hand under the auricular or ear vein and likewise that his left shoulder did greatly pain him although laden with a light habite if he walketh the farther although but modestly For I have observed that all Splenetick persons when the Spleen begins by reason of old age to fail of its office do difficultly breath This therefore is sufficient to be spoken concerning the Asthma of the Man of sixty Years of of age one thing only I will here note to wit that his left hand in the length of the palm doth pain him through cold piercing it and likewise that his fingers are now and then benummed from the discommodities of his Spleen that that is made by the action of Government But if the Schools do command that that comes to pass by reason of blind vapours at leastwise let them strew the way whereby they may go thitherto The archer therefore of this Asthma is in the Duumvirate but his mark is the Lungs Therefore there is a two-fold Asthma a moist and a dry one That indeed hath found its name from a plenteous spitting by reaching and for the most part is made by the proper vice of the Lungs and so is continual and doth more trouble one at seasons the cold and the moist in old age weakness and things a-kin to Death But a dry Asthma is for the most part interrupted And even as it tumultuously sore shaketh the whole Body even the Teeth with a confusion of the vital Spirits it must needs be the Falling-sickness of the Lungs wherein the Lungs alone suffereth a constraining or convulsion of it self because it causeth a straining together of the Pores thereof For in this Asthma the whole Archeus is defiled in its root some part to wit the Womb or Spleen c. doth first affect the inbred Spirit of the Lungs by the action of government And therefore from an invisible and sudden immaterial storm the whole Body is sore shaken and is again suddenly restored to an unhoped for health In vain therefore are openings of the pores hitherto unknown attempted in a dry Asthma and in vain are many and easie expectoratings because they are cloakative and vain helps as many as are intent on products or effects indeed vain are the Remedies which are wont to be administred in Coughs seeing the Cough doth most far differ from a dry Asthma But a moist Asthma although it for the most part produceth the Cough that it may expectorate the produced Snivelliness yet it is severed from the Cough in the whole particular kind because it is wont to be bred from many causes For it hath either a mattery imposthume or some secret phlegm obstructing in the very bowel it self or an imprinted mark of some cold or some other injury from whence it may bring forth many muckinesses or snivels and corrupt its proper nourishment Oft-times also those muckinesses are stirred up not so much from the malady of the Bowe◠as from the weakness of the wandring keeper Although this kind of vice 〈…〉 rather bring forth a Cough than an Asthma yet they do easily happen or agree together for the unequal strength of the Lungs and obstruction thereof The
being little careful of Fables do suffer them to try both opinions In the mean time they may be ashamed to have discourses of the causes of diseases problematically only and to have left them disputable In the mean time I certainly know that the Gowt whether it slide on the heirs through the Seeds of the Parents or in the next place be contracted by a proper error of living is of one and the same kind with every property following it Neither that that doth relate any thing whether a hot Gowt doth molest and pain one greatly or next be reckoned more sluggish and mild through cold because those are Ensigns of degrees whereby the matter is ennobled or made remarkable but do not vary its essence Then also I know and have learned first of all that at least an Hereditary Gowt is not derived from a Catarrhe if it hath layn hid in the Seed and that which is framed hereof for the space of thirty years For truly seeing nothing that is external can be contained in the Seed but for that very cause it looseth the fruitfulness of causing off-spring be sure that nothing of a Rheumy substance remains in the Seed and that there is not place for any Hostile matter there Therefore it is confirmed that nothing doth remain in the Seed besides a Character or Seal of things to be acted in the body constituted and that that Seal is not indeed of so great a concernment as to display the fruitfulness of a Seed If an Hereditary disease ought from thence to rise again in the Son or Nephew Again neither can that Seal in the Seed defile the Young with a monstrous deformity although other Characters of Seeds by reason of their disposition do figure the Seed wherefore although the Seal of the Gowt be in very deed in the Seed yet it sleepeth is silent and layeth hid in the course of figuring and so long as till at length an opportunity of matter and maturity being obtained it unfoldeth it self Therefore the Character or impression of the Gowt is in the Seed as it were the first life with a determination of silence that it may sleep even till the first Fit as it were a swallow all the Winter Therefore the formative virtue in the Seed doth not yet feel its own defect by reason of the fault of a material Indisposition for truly the Character in the Seed is not born to generate iâ—s Gowt before its own maturity which ripeness of the Character is now and then not unfolded but in the Nephew Truly although there are strict wed-locks of the Seed of man with the Seed of the Gowt that they do promise as it were an undissoluable unity for the future yet it is certain that Diseases do not adhere to the root of the particular kind unless in whom they are as being created by a condition as the Falling-evil in the Elke and Swallow but only unto individual Beginnings whereto they are fast tyed as it were by accident Therefore if there be nothing of a Rheumy matter actually in the Seed of the Gowt therefore neither also in the Gowt which is to arise from thence Seeing proper effects ought alwayes to bear a respect to their own causes In the next place if any Hereditary Gowt doth want a Catarrhe therefore also any other Seeing of one thing in the particular kind there are alwayes the same specifical constitutive Beginnings Furthermore if that blemishing Gowty Character be so notably homebred to the Seed so intimately social to it sleeping with so patient a suspense and not to be washed off by so many Circuits of years and storms of Tempests I have judged it to be altogether of necessity for the same to be coupled to the vital Spirit Whence first of all it is manifest that the supposed withdrawings of bloud and feigned Humors for attempting the prevention of the Gowt are vain because that Character of the Gowt is not co-mixed with the venal bloud but well with the Governour of the Solide parts for indeed the venal bloud is many times changed and the whole Fardle of nourishment before the access of an Hereditary Gowt to come From thence likewise it follows that if the Character of the Gowt being either transferred with the Seed of the Parents on the young or being gotten by the inordinate storms of life be the connexed and efficient cause of the Gowt and so that that be a true formal Gowt it is a fabulous thing whatsoever hath been devised concerning Rheums and Drops For that absurdity being granted that a Catarrhe rayning down did cause the access of the Gowt likewise whatsoever Weapon hath been retorted on this Disease all that hath been directed unto the effects the product latter thing or fruit but nothing unto the cutting off the cause But seeing the true causes in the Gowt have been unknown to the Schools and will stand unknown as long as the doatages of Humors shall prevail it must needs be that unprosperous and cruel Medicines have been hitherto applied by anoynting for an unseen mark for the Gowt is not in the Finger but only the Apple or Fruit of the root and therefore although thou shalt cut off the Finger thou shalt not therefore cure the Gowt For from hence two things do follow The first is that the Gowt doth immediately consist in the Spirit of life neither therefore that the fruit of the Gowt is the Gowt or the root thereof The other is that the Gowt doth not flow down materially or as they will have it in manner of a Humor as being a Bridge for the Rheum unto the joynts Wherefore if I shall explain the Progress of the Gowt in its being made I think that by liberal wits and those not yet defiled by any prejudice I shall be affented unto For in the beginning after that the seminal Gowty Character is constituted be it now all one whether it shall be made to increase from the seed of the Parents or next be gotten by excess of living it must needs be that it hath prescribed limits of its continuance as well in rising up as in continuing according to the law of its destiny and the successive change of things obeying When therefore the beginning of this Gowty motion is at hand the vital spirit being an obedient client to the corruptive Character puts on a fermental sharpness altogether hostile to it self and foreign unto us In the next place even as all sharpness as well in the venal bloud as in the flesh is demonstrated to contein the beginning and token of putrefaction hence it comes to pass that nature well perceiving or being thorowly sensible of that sharpness in the Spirit which it conceived from the Seed or Gowty Character doth presently stir up an every dayes Fever before the comming of the Gowt presently also a pain is well perceived in the proper place or Womb to wit where two Bones do touch each other first a small light pain
a Pose and what afterwards 37. An Argument from an impossibility against the Cause of the Cough of the Schooles 38. The orginal of matter in affects of the Lungs is demonstrated 39. The vanity of Remedies from Ignorance 40. That the drinks of China Sarsaparilla c. do not dry up Excrements as neither hinder the generations of the same 41. Some Absurdities caused from hence 42. What we must diligently heed in affects of the Lungs 43. The Doctrine concerning the motion of the Lungs is false 44. The use of the Lungs is not known in the Schooles 45. One and Twenty peremptory Reasons against the motion of the Lungs 46. The Error of the Schools concerning the use of the Diaphragma or Midriffe established eight Reasons 47. Seven conclusions issuing from thence 48. Why the Remedies of Physitians are of no worth 49. That preventions for the restraining of Catarrhes are old Wives Fictions 50. Galen in his Books of the Preserving of Health is wholly ridiculous 51. The Ignorance of the Schooles is to be pitied and bewailed 52. The dissecting of a live Dog hath deceived the Schooles 53. A new Error about Ecligmaes 54. They suppose a falshood 55. Some proofs 56. Whence the Error of Catarrhes or Rheumes was brought in 57. A refuting of a mad perswasion 58. What it may be which is felt to cause the mask of a defluxing Rheum 59. What the future and succeeding matter may be 60. The ignorance of the humour latex hath confirmed Catarrhes 61. A prevention 62. The torture of the night 63. The unconstancy of Paracelsus 64. Liquid things which are not yet vitial in us do not talk with the Stars 65. The Marrow is not among Liquors IT is now a seasonable time to shew that the great heap of Diseases which hath been dedicated to a Catarrhe or Rheume flowing down from the Head even into the very top of the Toes without let or hinderance is an old Wives Fiction not invented but by the enemy the troubler of mankind to wit lest the causes of Diseases being known the Remedies of the same should also be made known However it be at least wise from thence it is manifest that the Schools are even unto this day misled by the errors of the Heathen in the generating supposing defluxion manner way or passage matter means places instruments of a Rheume and likewise in its revulsion or pulling back and Remedies indeed it is false and absurd whatsoever thou shalt build upon one absurdity or impossibility Whence likewise the vain hope which is placed in Cauteries or searing Remedies falls to the ground even as I shall demonstrate in its own place Natures themselves are the Physitianesses of Diseases but the Physitian is their Minister or Servant according to Hippocrates But that is concerning Diseases which nature cures of her own free accord But when she hath failed so that she cannot renew her strength a Physitian chosen by the bounty of the Lord and with whom all Diseases are almost of the same esteem for such a one is he who hath obtained some universal Medicine among many of the like sort he remains no longer a Minister or Servant but a prevailing Interpreter Ruler and Master Let the Name of my Lord Jesus be exalted for ever who doth alwayes bestow his bounty on his little Ones who are base or dejected in their own humility For nature being the chief receiver of the diseasifying impressions of the sick and the sensitive Soul a mover on the opposite part likewise where entertained Diseases do prevail man dies or at least wise liveth for the future more miserably than death it self unless he be restored by the Physitian into his former state Yet it doth not happen to every Physitian to go to Corinth unless to him that is called elected exercised and commissioned or entrusted For the universal perfections of healing which contain in them the tune or harmony of nature had not yet been made known to the age of Hippocrates for they are as yet scanty and derided by the common sort of Physitians unto this day therefore Hippocrates deserves pardon if he thought that the whole businesse of a Disease was to be finished by nature as a Mistris Moreover I have said elsewhere that even forthwith from the beginning of the Young an implanted spirit doth sit president over every member as an assisting Ruler but that the other being an inflowing spirit doth issue from the heart being the awakener and comforter of the implanted one the which notwithstanding is neither limited nor individually disposed unless it be first subdued by the implanted spirit I have also taught elsewhere that every member doth grow or flourish according to the virtue of the implanted ferment and so that neither is a transmutation to be hoped for for a new generation unless by a ferment mediating Consequently it is from thence understood that all growth is made by the spirits and so that a weakened digestion of the members doth depend on the diminishing of the spirits and of the ferment of these according to that saying My spirit the sheath of the ferment shall be diminished therefore also my dayes shall be shortened So as that a member which in health doth produce even no visible excrement doth make much thereof and that without ceasing if it shall be wounded hurt diminished or hindered in the vigour of its ferment In the next place it also from hence follows that through a hurt and the variety of things hurting a disagreement and undue proportion of excrements is bred Not therefore from one Fountain to wit the Head of man whence indeed the Schools do devise all Catarrhs or Rheums to rain down but from an own proper affection or suffering or from the proper indisposition of every part brought upon it by local ferments do Diseases arise For so wounds which are cured do suffer a relapse do oft-times bring forth Ulcers and Imposthumes And the axle of the winds being turned they wax fresh and grieve again a long course of years after So indeed Coughs Pleurisies spittings of blood and Erisipelasses do return For a mountain cold exceeding a mean or any other sudden cold suddenly invading the night Air a fenny Air or Gas of Mines belched out do oftentimes by one only on-set tread the ferments of the Brain and Lungs under foot that for the whole life-time after they are made shops for divers excrements Truly after this manner excrements not indeed snivelly ones from the Brain are made in the Eyes Ears Teeth Jaws by an error of their own So Coughs and Asthmaes do at first begin and persevere by a continued ferment Not indeed through snivel flowing down from the Head but generated within the Lungs by the violated ferment of the place For the Lungs are most easily affected or disturbed by an external thing rushing on them before the other members because it is the first of the members which waxeth old and dieth As is manifest by the
Catarrhe be feigned to flow down with a like success unto other and inferiour parts how therefore do the upper parts seem to be free from evil for seeing it should proceed from the same fountain the brain and through the same channel of the marrow of the thorn of the back why doth it not rather follow the path already opened doth it more largely fall down unto a weakened inclinable and affected part and commit new adulteries why doth it shake and seek new Innes Is that perhaps the delight of nature that through a whorish appetite it doth molest and divide new parts successively Finally that there is no place of refuge for a Catarrhe running down between the scull and the skin and the muscles cloathed with their own membrane hath been already before discussed Therefore there is no way manner mean connexion or dependance whereby a Rheume may in truth subsist And seeing no material thing runs down in those affects for which the Schools have rashly feigned Catarrhs therefore let the lovers of truth know that as oft as a strange or forreign Air odour ferment or forreign seed is received into the Spirit which makes violent assaults so often that spirit being defiled by the Archeus is excluded from the Communion of life But the genius or disposition of that conceived Seed hath no less parts whereby also the Spirit defiled by a strange ferment is sent unto remote rather than to nigh places As shall be said in its place concerning the joynt-sickness or Gout in the Duumvirate and elsewhere For so Mercury being even outwardly anointed doth affect the jawes tongue teeth Moreover when this defiled spirit shall come down unto the place of its sending it presently seasons the nourishment of the part with its own ferment transplanteth and translateth it according to the idea or likeness of the Seed and that Seed doth there interrupt the offices of digestions by successive blasts being drawn with strange dispositions Whence it at length stirs up a plentiful houshold-stuffe and doth oft-times characterize the impression there made on the implanted spirit with a brand durable for life These things the Schools beg for primary feigned humours and for the fallings down of defluxions from the one only brain I therefore am far from a Catarrhe who deny the matter shops efficient cause manner of making and defluxing thereof and therefore I also seperate the causes effect as also the cure far from the fictions of a Catarrhe Therefore salt soure sharp phlegmatick and cholerick humours do not fall down but as often as the defiled spirit hath passed thorow unto the places the first which shall come thither from a common endeavour and study of washing it off is the liquour or humour latex For the spirit being depraved by a forreign contagion is carried through the Nerves Arteries yea and through the very habite of the Body From whence the brain hath bore the blame and the sick do feel as it were the falling down of a defluxing humour and because the latex is designed thither by the veins not as a primitive cause of the evil although by accident it doth oftentimes nourish the evil the longer but for an easment and washing off therefore the Schools have as yet remained doubtful whether Rheumes should be dismissed from the Head through the sinews or between the skin or indeed through the veins out of the Liver at least wise in Gouty persons Therefore the Phlegme and Choler of the Schools do not flow from a Fountain or Flood-gate as if the Head were the one only sink of these And then neither do they fall down by reason of a steeper scituation or by reason of an easiness of passages For truly as in a dead Carcass there are no such defects but in live creatures only so whatsoever of these defects doth come to pass it proceedeth from a spirit which maketh a violent assault and from a vital beginning In whose family administration an ascending upwards is no more difficult than a descending downwards Seeing nothing of these in living creatures floweth by its own motion of weight but indeed is directed being sent unto its own certain bounds It also often comes to pass that the latex being defiled with a strange salt doth thenceforth infect the spirit so that the spirit is not therefore alwayes estranged by an external injury of Air or from a proper Air of contagion bred within but rather being stirred up by the latex because that is less lively it takes on it an animosity or angry heat And the latex accompanies it being troublesome as well through its aforesaid sharpness as through quantity and it enters as an importunate Souldier against the will of his Host Wherefore natural and artificial Baths do reconcile many of these sort of defects and overflowings to wit by consuming the latex they restore health rather than the loosening and drying Medicines of the Schools Vain therefore is the History and matter of a Catarrhe lifted up out of the stomack unto the Head vain also is the defluxing and falling down thereof between the muscles and the skin and deplorable Remedies from unknown causes Vain also are cauteries or searing Remedies to pull back and consume feigned humours Lastly vain are the Medicines of drying drinks seeing the evil or Malady is by the latex and a larger quantity of drink only occasionally bred Therefore it is manifest how wholesom sober drinking is for the liquor latex in respect of its appointment ought to be without savour but it waxeth sharp through the much drinking of pure and more sharp wine But the History and necessity of the latex is due in its own Chapter Thou shalt remember that all the fruits of composed Bodies do materially spring from water Let us therefore also suppose the un-savoury latex through a little help of a Seed presently to wax sharp For example For at the Spring-time a plentiful liquor drops out of a Vine or Birch-tree To wit if the bark near the earth be hurt it poures out an un-savoury liquour of the earth But if the wound be made in the stem or branches now the same juice is sharpish So it comes to pass in the latex being of its own nature without savour which through the contagion of things receiving doth at length wax sharp or becomes the heir of a strange quality For the Schools have neglected the latex because they have confounded the urine with the latex But it is a blockish argument to have co-melted the thing generated with the matter whereof as if the snivel spittle water between the skin and flesh and urine were drinks The Liver therefore being badly affected if it recal the latex unto it self truly it doth not thereby prepare urine but Oedemaes or the Dropsie Anasarca therefore I am not such a man as to call the Pleurisie Tooth-ach and other madness of furies non-beings For I know and grieve for their too much serious commands over us I do indeed admit of
is a beginning of declining Therefore let all Fruits Flowers Roots Leafs Barks c. have their own determined spaces of ripenesses For also the juice in Plants doth first abound the which in many doth forthwith after wax dry or is consumed into Leafs Therefore the variety of maturities doth bring forth a variety of Collections For so some Leafs are more lively after their Flowers but others are more juicy before their Leafs Then also there are some things which are stronger before the increase of their Fruit. Some remain with a perpetual countenance Wherefore they do the more rightly determine who measure Simples according to the requirance of their aim CHAP. LX. The Power of Medicines 1. The Authors comfort in his persecutions 2. The Author decyphers his Adversaries 3. A dream of the Author 4. He felt or perceived the Elementary qualities 5. He perceived Coagulations 6. He perceived Atrophiaes or Consumptions of the flesh 7. He perceived drynesses in us 8. He perceived drynesses in other things 9. An Error of the Schooles 10. Whence the heat of the Liver is and in what manner it subsisteth 11. He perceived the adulteries of Merchants 12. He perceived two savours of things 13. Notable things touching the taste and savour 14. He perceived the Causes of Healing 15. And likewise a twofold manner 16. He perceived the hope of immortality to be taken away 17. He perceived a certain goodness in nature 18. He perceived the digestive Ferments 19. He perceived true diureticks or provokers of Urine 20. He perceived the changing properties of Salts 21. He perceived the spirit of Salt to be changed by the co-touching of things connexed 22. He perceived the nigh or ready or slow obediences of Salts 23. He perceived Salts to be the Authors of wringings of the Bowels 24. The top or perfection of Salts is seen in their first Being 25. He perceived specifical Savours 26. The definition of a Savour 27. Things without savour are tasted by the stomack which are not judged of or discerned by the tongue 28. He perceived the occult property and the boastings of the Schooles 29. The searching after hidden or secret things is not for what but by the way of because from the effect to the cause according to the Gospel 30. He perceived unstopping or opening things 31. He perceived the activities of Salts 32. He perceived the spirits of Minerals 33. He perceived the loosening poyson of purging things 34. A threefold sign of a laudable Laxative 35. The error of Paracelsus 36. Chymistry 37. Distilled things are not to be judged suitable or equal to their concrete Bodies 38. He perceived many things to be transchanged by adjuncts 39. He perceived the sanguine glassie colour of a Mettal 40. He perceived the distillation of Lead whereof Paracelsus above 41. He cured divers Diseases 42. He perceived that the planetary faculties of Mettals were to be drawn forth by a higher or deeper resolving than that which hath been before 43. He perceived the divers virtues of dissolved Gold 44. He perceived the virtues of the Alkahest 45. He perceived the virtues of Mercurius vitae in its synonimal or fellow name of Lile 46. He perceived the action of renewing things 47. He perceived the root of a bewitching Sorcerie 48. He perceived Poysons 49. He perceived the actions of things according to the applications of the receiver 50. An Idiotism of Paracelsus about the nourishing of a Wound 51. The use of Salt 52. The variety of Oyles 53. The use of the water and salt of artificiated things 54. The Elixir of a Spice 55. The praise of Magisteries 56. Meats seasoned why unwholesome 57. A censure of some Minerals 58. He perceived a sixfold digestion 59. He perceived when the venal blood is quickned 60. What the inward and anointed grease may suffer 61. He perceived the action of Cantharides and Caustick Remedies 62. He perceived the virtue of an Amulet 63. The virtue of Stones 64. He perceived whence the diversity of effects in acting is 65. He perceived the necessities of death 66. The order of Chymical operations VExation brings forth understanding as too much pressure stifles it Although in my sharpest adversities I might make use of Job and Paul yet the Lord Jesus the Son of God so over-mightily helped me by his exemplary straits or griefs that he did not only ease my labours but as it were bear them in himself Let his name be alwayes honourable in my sight For I perceived the examples of Saints to be indeed inductives or motives but not to confer any grace by themselves For my mind in my greatest pressures for the most part grieved that I was comforted after a certain humane manner and through the sloath of unsensibleness that I did rather resemble an arrogant Stoicism than that I did with the joy of concentricity or a mutual centredness purely resign up my tribulations unto my most bountiful Jesus For I feared that rest of my soul which innocency raised up lest it might proceed from a despising and arrogancy and so lest my tribulations should be fruitless That I I say being immingled with the common lot and fellowship of the good men of the age prophesied of had become evil and unprofitable For I feared every hour that I was unsensible of grief neither that I did in the least feel those persecutions brought on me by a certain Clergy-man and those great ones which joyned with that Clergy-man and at length by the better part of the people otherwise in a man which was but in the least judicious very sensible ones For I feared lest that unbroken rest of my mind might happen from a despite toward my enemies I intreat therefore that God the fountain of all good may judge with Clemency At least wise I often considered by largely running through the foregoing ages and future persecutions of the Christians that the first persecution of the Church was violent and that of Tyrants Afterwards that there was another which followed that was fraudulent and that of Hereticks But ours hath indeed arose from Hypocrites but that it should be composed of deceit and force For there are those as saith the Prophetess St. Hildegard who shall first deceive the potent Prelates and their subjects or substitutes under a shew of Piety and at length as many as will not favour them they shall oppress by the power of great men Good God what have not I felt and how much could not I witness But the whole revenge have I referred to thee alone and I intreat thee out of Charity that thou wouldst spare them or that thou wouldst not damn them for my sake Because I receive all things from thy hand and they know not what they do At length I thought of a means whereby I might meditate that all my tribulations were transferred on the head of Nero and Tiberius Therefore I being at once wearied and refreshed and suddenly with great consolation sliding as it were into a
ferments of the bowels which being enslaved by snatched ferments do often and successively measure their Original To wit of a mummial ferment is made the salt of the venal blood which is to rectifie or govern our family-administration but if in the kidney it be made diuretical it is now made an Urinary salt I perceived therefore that those things are onely and truly provokers sf urine which have a faculty of increasing the urinary salt and which do make it an easie client unto themselves In the next place I perceived that not onely in the dispositive ferments of the organs but besides by reason of Magnum Oportet or the necessary remainder of the middle life in Simples themselves that there are their properties of propagating and changing salts For some things have more gross salts and those unfit for receiving the ferment of the stomack and therefore they remain unconquered Others in the next place there are which by a hostile property are contrary to the vital powers and so they enter not but for troublesome ends into the Inns of Life I perceived that the volatile salt of the spirit of Vitriol did from a ready obedience in the first action of dissolution pass into a meer Alume For if the body of Mercury shall coagulate into a white powder although it reserve nothing of the matter or vertues of Mercury for that declareth the former weight of Mercury yet it passeth into a meer Alume But if the sharpness of Vitriol shall finde in the stomack a muscilage meeting with it it melts the same neither yet therefore doth it become Aluminous So that I perceived one and the same salt to be diversly transchanged by the thing connexed with it I perceived therefore that there were some salts which would cleanse away the filths in the stomack before they were subdued by its ferment but others which did slowly open their saltnesses and that not but after another digestion and seeing they did now manifest that thing that they were diuretical and diaphoretical or sudoriferous salts so also that then they would successfully free the veins of their obstructers I moreover perceived that there are salts which do not finde their disposition but at the time of dunging and they are sharp and colical or those which are opposite to these and are connexed in oily essences But the chiefest and most successfull of salts is that which reacheth unto the utmost bound and subtility in Nature which passeth thorow all things and in acting doth alone remain immutable and the which doth at pleasure through a ready obedience resolve other things and melts and makes volatile all rebellious matter even as hot water doth snow I by and by perceived specifical savours to wit of Mace Saffron c. to be as properties or as the shop of the ultimate forms uttered by salts excelling in strength Not indeed that these savours were the proper vertue of that form but rather the fermental putrifaction of that seed proceeding unto that ultimate form For truly a savour as such is a solitary quality unprofitable for healing a witness of the putrifying of its ferment by continuance a co-operator of curing as it disposeth the Archeus as a messenger that it may descend into the knowledge of a hidden property For unless things shall smile on the Archeus by savour and odour they are not admitted within Yea purging Medicines being in their first look without savour as are Turbith Hermodactiles Jallop Mercury Stibium c. as being masked with much Sugar yet if they are taken again they cause horrour and abomination There is therefore one taste of the tongue and another in the stomack as it were the utmost part of the Archeus Therefore stomatical savours which are acceptable do denote that there is in the thing a bountiful life a-kin to ours Wherefore a Cat is more delighted with the smell of putrified and stinking fish than of Cinnamon So indeed we do oft-times well perceive that poysons are occult or hidden by reason of their specifical savour and odour horrid to our Midriffs In like manner as oft as a pleasing taste appears in a poyson I have perceived that under the same Simple there lurketh a great secret the which the poyson being repelled is born and ordained for difficult effects I afterwards perceived that besides specifical savours and the gratefulness benevolence or horrors of these there was a certain formal property issuing forth yet unperceivable by the tongue and to be comprehended by the Archeus alone The Schools are amazed when they come unto occult qualities as they do therefore call them For when they cannot ascribe their trifles to heats colds and the begged complexions of these Writers indeed do lay aside their pen and Physitians do lift up their shoulder and eye-browes because they accuse that property to be known to them in the effect but unknown in the cause and they excuse themselves of this ignorance because the searching into those properties is impossible for mans understanding the which they else had already long since enquired into As if they should say We Schools are able to determine of as much as the mind of man can search We therefore decree that no powers of things can be understood or searched into by man but those which are the first qualities of the Elements or to arise from these We confess therefore that the formal faculties are occult because unpossible to be known Certainly the Schools are exceeding clayie or earthy watery airy cloudy and fiery how ignorant do they shew themselves of their own objects and how unlike to the exercise or practice which they profess For they have enslaved their wits to sluggishness that nothing may be more acceptable unto them than to have inclined to excuse their excuses in the ignorance and impossibility of nature wherewith every one vails his own in particular For at first when the Antients saw any Disease to be cured by a specifical and appropriated Remedy they were amazed as it were at the miracle of an unwonted thing But afterwards the Schools thought it satisfaction enough to have banished their blockishnesses into a general ignorance For neither although they had distinguished causes from the elementary qualities unto them known had they therefore spoken any thing undefiled and without suffusion of the sight For whoever hath more searched out the cause of moistness in the water or of heat in the fire by a reason from a former cause than of drawing Iron in the Load-stone The elementary qualities therefore are as hidden as any other Truly in this were the Schools blinded because they have proceeded against the Doctrine of the Gospel For primitive Truth willeth that we know the Tree by its Fruits but the Schools will that the Fruit ought to be known by the Tree I will therefore shew by the Fruits in what manner we must come unto the knowledge of the Tree First of all therefore for the knowing of occult causes a certain
poysons of Minerals are bred of Salts Sulphurs and Mercuries whereby their fury is propagated by a Seed Analogical or agreeable in proportion But how evident is that thing in the company of Vegetables where those seminal perturbations and therefore also co-natural ones are by Seeds transplanted with a continued course For we may well know any kind of poysons which are reduced by the ranks of perturbations by distinguishing of them Consequently also the knowledge of specifical properties is drawn per quia or from the Effect of the Cause if they are reduced unto the certain orders of perturbations or disturbances and affections Even as more largely elsewhere concerning the Plague So indeed many things are searched into and found out we thereby by the Effects come to the Causes and being led by the hand from one knowledge to another the poysons of an Erisipelas and Dysentery being in their Tearms from the wroth of the Archeus their cure is in a Hare wherein is fear meekesse flight and an harmless life Neither is the argument of contrariety of value For first of all I have admitted of contrarieties in living Creatures and I say that the properties of those being as it were sealed in the Idea's of living Creatures are in some sort contrary in the priority of the efficient tree as the Seals of Passions do end in to this Idea And so the fruits of this tree do act no more by way of contrary Passions but from the force of a received and inbred seminal Character wherein every thing acteth according to the Talent received even as it is in it self but not by reason of a repugnant duality or disagreeing contrariety Therefore the blood wherein is the seminal product and the effecter of the fearful meekness doth mortifie the poyson which is bred from a poysonous wrothfulness For I have noted in things loves hatreds terrors and the seminal products seals Idea's and characters of these Whence I have found out the immediate Causes of many hidden Remedies But I have interpreted them to be found out and suggested by me with the truth of possible and appearing consequences These things I have spoken concerning occult or hidden properties out of the Dream that we may cease to be occult Philosophers and may follow the manifest Doctrine of the more tractable ones Now I will prosecute my Dream I perceived I say that Smallage Asparagus and whatsoever things are taken to open Obstructions have indeed a Salt of a specifical savour the which being with their middle life made the Cream of the Stomack remaineth surviving although enfeebled yet that they do obtain weak Remedies for the opening of Obstructions For truly those things which do keep the Savour of their own concrete Body under the ferment of the Stomack as Onion Garlick Mace Turpentine Asparagus c. Those I perceived even to slide along with the Superfluities because they wax soure with their specifical Savour and then do take under the Gawl the nature of a Salt and at length under the dungy ferment of the Reines do put on a Urine-provoking or diuretical faculty But whose specifical Savours do putrifie by continuance and perish with the sourness of the Cream those things I perceived to be indifferent meats but whose Savours do not plainly yeild themselves into the sourness of the Cream and do after some sort remain in their mediocrity for the Cream if it should alike on every side receive a ferment and wax soure it should easily be sharper than Vinegar those things indeed-do through the force of the Gawl easily perish in the Meseraick Veines that together with a third or mumial ferment they may be changed into Venal Blood Therefore I perceived those to reach forth feeble aides for dissolving or opening of Obstructions At length I perceived that all simple Salts of the Sea Sal gemmae Fountaines Salt Peter c. as such do depart through the Urine and Intestines and in the mean time resolve the filths or dregs in those passages and render the expulsive faculty mindful of its duty But I perceive that Salts which carry a Mineral fruit in them are Strangers to our Nature and therefore are scarce to be inwardly admitted But Salts which are a part of the composed Body as Lixivium's and Alkalies I perceived to be deprived of Seminal Virtues and to have onely an abstersive or cleansing Soapie or resolving property unless they are volatile wherein I perceived the radical Beginnings and seminal Balsams of the concrete Body to be I perceived I say that these are easily transchanged into a new fruit because they do associate themselves with and act in all things according to their inbred endowments In the next place I have perceived the corrosive spirits of Minerals to differ far from themselves being crude to resolve the Excrements adhering to the sides of the first Vessels Yet not to be altogether destitute of Dammages by reason of an occult infection of Arsenick admixed with them from their original Therefore I perceived that occult properties as they call them being seminally traduced into the Archeus by the generater or efficient do unfold the presence of their Object and a sympathetical knowledge as they are immediately entertained in the bosom of the Formes Some to wit by a motive local Blas as the Load-stone Amber Gummes Lacca the herb Turne-sole Diamond for this also even as Carabe or Amber doth attract chaffes c. do bewray themselves but other things are terminated into an alteration as poysons likewise laxatives medicines tied about the Head or Body Antidotes c. Laxatives I have peculiarly perceived to operate onely by reason of a poyson lurking within them which being once admitted inwardly nigh the entrance whatsoever they touch they do ferment do afterwards resolve the things fermented and for that very cause do putrifie the things resolved I perceived therefore that Laxatives do putrifie the vital juyces but seldom the excrements the occasional causes of Diseases For seeing they are Poysons in respect of us and not of excrements hence they rise up rather against us than against Diseases And most speedily indeed do putrifie the more crude juyce or the not yet vital blood of the Veines or the yesterdays Cream But because they scarce suppress the excrements neither do these in like manner obey them seeing every action or Blas in us doth proceed from the Spirit which maketh the assault whereof excrements are deprived hence no Physitian dareth by taking Laxatives to promise a cure But true Solutives do neither cause Putrifaction nor selectively draw forth feigned Humours neither therefore do they resolve our vitial parts or things and the which Solutives I have perceived to bewray themselves by a three fold Sign First That they draw nothing from a healthy Body neither do they move after or weaken that Body Secondly That they do not fetch any thing forth but what is offensive and therefore they do not aggravate but ease of the burden and presently
in other Professions but that in the Art of healing alone men have been hitherto so stumbled through deaf Principles wherein notwithstanding Charity towards our Neighbour hath been penally commanded For all things have remained most obscure many things most false and those things which might chiefly conduce unto the scope of Curing untouched For there is no where a tractable acuteness but on every side a great dulnesse So that from what hath been said before there is none but may easily gather that whatsoever hath been hither to diligently taught according to the Doctrine of the Pagans and against a mutual Charity was the Invention of the evil Spirit Therefore indeed the stability of Paganish Theorems hath remained through the perswasion of the Devil which speculations notwithstanding through their easinesse onely at the first sight ought to have been suspected by any one of a sound mind Therefore nothing more hard inhumane and fuller of cruelty hath been received now for so many Ages among the Arts of Mortals than that Art which under a con-centrical subscription makes fresh experiments by the deaths of men The Professors whereof while they presume that themselves do keep the keys of knowledge they neither enter the passages themselves nor admit others who are willing to enter in but do drive away all by all wiles and subtilties Alwayes learning and never coming to the knowledge of the Truth according to the Apostle Oh Jesus my light my life my glorying and the helper of my weakness and corrupt disposition who in they own matters dost easily find out a passage with whom that is easie which with mortal men is as it were impossible Thou who hast made me to undergo all adversities I offer unto thee my calamities and the oppressions of justice Nevertheless thou hast always comforted me with thine unvanquished right hand afford me thine hand that if thou vouchsafe not to snatch me out of the deep pit of so many tribulations at least wise that through thy strength I may not sin against thee and that they may repent who have hated me undeservedly and that they who adore thy Power may acknowledge in me that thou alone art God the helper of the oppressed and the undoubted hope of them that trust in thee Let them be cloathed with contrition and find favour with thee and that I wretched man may sing forth the praises of thy greatness after this life For the rottenness of this Age is such that thy judgement being hidden the hypocrisie of mighty men professeth Faith in deceit and collects their wickedness under the shadow of Piety But in so great a tempest of my miseries unto the miseries of mortals and the defective errors of Physitians before the view of my mind I have attempted under thy command to record in writing That as hypocrisie hath trampled on me and my fortunes so I likewise know and that primarily that the father of lyes hath introduced the cup of ignorance and the bane of charity and health into the Paganish Schools lucre strewing the way under the beaten stormy path of Tritons For every young beginner that is to come shall admire with me that nothing hath been so unskilfully handled as those things which concern the life of mortal men For truly according to Thomas a Kempis it is all one with the Devil so he may render thee uncapable to serve God whether that be by true things or things appearing Therefore it sufficeth him so he shall but frustrate man of health and cut short his life wherein he might serve God if so be he shall make him a despiser of Divine aid by the appearing Doctrines of Pagans For the Schooles have written a thousand Volumns concerning the temperature and strife of qualities in the next place it hath been much and long interpreted by the Successors of Galen about these trifles and they have daily relapsed into new centuries and patcheries And at length they have squared unto those qualities feigned and excrementitious humours which should so wholly govern man as well healthy as sick that they should be chief over humane affairs as though the conditions manners healths appetites instincts inclinations slips or mis-deeds strengths valours defects events of fortune yea and the deserved punishments of loss or damnation and the adoptions of eternal life of mortal men should depend thereon A horrid surely and intollerable thing that these toyes have stood so long and that from things not existing and never to be and the which by the asserters themselves are accounted for excrements so serious and pernicious Fables have been co-feigned and believed And so that by the Schooles themselves scarce any thing hath been ever narrowly searched into which under such Principles may in very deed be truly true and good In the mean time I grieve I testifie it again not indeed that I have obtained the light of Truth from a long compassion towards my Neighbour but that it hath behoved me to lay open these Errors That is I grieve that the Devil hath deceived the Schools and will deceive them as long as they shall suffer themselves to be deluded by Paganish Fables and to be separated from the Schools of Truth But that that thing may be manifested I will by a Prologue declare it by the way and as it were by a positive demonstration For truly God made not Death And that is of Faith Therefore man became mortal from another thing than from God And seeing the scope or bound of most Diseases is Death it self because it is that which is nothing else but an extinguishing of life therefore a Disease and Death are Diametrically opposite to life Whence it follows that every Disease doth immediately act on the life But nothing is able to act on the life unless it be applyed unto it and well mixed with it But a Disease the enemy is not applyed unto the life promiscuously unless it shall besiege a part of the life and so shall sit totally or partially in the very life it self Which being done that part of the life besieged or overcome doth retire from the vital Air and the which being thus vanquished and become degenerate is made hostile unto the life as yet remaining or as yet constituted in its integrity Hence it necessarily follows that every Disease as it finds matter in the Organical or instrumental Air of life whereby it most immediately and inwardly riseth up against the life it self so in the same vital light it finds an efficient cause And so a Disease being thus instructed or furnished with matter and an efficient cause is entertained about the life Neither is it of concernment the while whether that contagion of a Disease be drawn from occasional Causes or in the next place be bred within in the Archeus through the errour of Life At leastwise it is sufficient in this place that the Life it self is on both sides the principal object for the hostile disease But seeing the Life it self
especially of carminating things which doe not respect the outward bought of the Intestine And vainly do they feign that Winds are dispersed by extenuation or rarefying For to what purpose do they hope to have Winds extenuated in a matter more subtil than Wind or what shall it profit for to render the Wind more subtile than it self if it then requires a larger room and doth encrease the troubles of its extension For it is a home-bred foolish Remedy drawn from Fables Cabrollius an Anatomist of Mount-pellier tells That he cured a man of Eighty Years old who by the perswasion of Rondoletius ate nothing but salt things and least he should be overwhelmed with thirst he mixed pickels or sauces made of Vinegar and Sugar with his meats He also fomented him twice every day with a Lixivium wherein Salt Alume and Sulphur had boyled And thereupon used Cows-dung for a Cataplasm and at length he escaped and survived being a Hundred Years old For those things are not administred in vain which do consume the occasional Cause Neither therefore doth Paracelsus vainly commend dungs seeing they are the salts of putrified meats unto whom it is granted to resolve the occasional matter of a Dropsie Surely there is on both sides a wonderful action of the Archeus as well where he deteins the keys as where he unlocks the Closets and expels his Enemy But Paracelsus approves of his Praecipiolum or Mercury drawn dead out of its Mine before other Remedies But other Simples according to the degree of assinity wherein they reach unto this metallick Mercury It is a Phrase of his own liberty I reverence and admire the endowments of Simples as they arose from God but not as they are consanguineal or akin to mineral Mercury I confesse in the mean time that that Mercury hath alwayes served or answered my desires Indeed the attainment thereof is difficult but the dose of two grains is sufficient being three or four times administred But Mercurius Diaphoreticus being once obtained it is sufficient for many thousands of sick folks as well for himself being a Physitian as for his successors Finally I have seen a bastard Dropsie whereof none hath made mention that I know of before my self For I have frequently seen that from an inordinate growth of the Liver the extension of the Belly did counterfeit a Dropsical Disease Yea also in those who have died of a Tabes or Consumption of the Lungs and in those who have been exceeding sean I have seen their Liver to have increased beyond measure although wholly without Blood That Mercury therefore slayes the increasing or growing faculty even as Quicksilver being cast into a tree bored even into its pith or heart with an Auger doth kill the same Therefore it belongs to the property of Mercury to extinguish the growing faculty of the Liver But that that thing may succeed according to thy desire the Mercury ought to die without any association of external Salts or fellowship of forreign Spirits yet thus it ought to die that a vital Being may remain in the Chariot which may be able in the middle life of the Mercury to carry it unto its appointed places I am thankful in the behalf of him whom the Fire hath taught me to understand Hither do I referre the Remedy of Stibium solulutive For truly those Remedies do resolve consume and brush off every occasional Cause elsewhere lurking and detained That indeed is the cure of Arcanums which is attained by a removal of the occasional Cause and any one of those secrets doth suffice the which do resolve cleanse forth and disperse without distinction whatsoever I except the Stone is besides Nature concluded in the Body For truly although of any kind of Diseases there are two pillars whereby the disease edifice is supported to wit the occasional matter and the matter with the Archeal efficient yet either of the two pillars being with-drawn the whole building goes to ruine which was superstructed upon them Therefore the secrets of Paracelsus do take away every Disease by consequence as they mow down the occasional Cause And then there is another more hidden way of another secret to wit whereby peace rest and comfort is brought into the Archeus to wit lest he being wroth do bring forth a Disease and rather that he may abolish it being bred Yea also that he himself may meditate of putting the occasional Cause to flight For so as a Thorne being thrust into the Flesh is drawn out by the fat of an Hare a common and milde Remedy Otherwise the Archeus is presently as it were angry with the entring Thorne doth make a tumult the place swels and a various exorbitancy of Symptoms is awakened that indeed corrupt Pus being at length made and the place putrified he may exclude the Thorne the which if they had gone more mildly to work had issued or rushed out even as it happens under the perswasion of the Hares grease In like maner I say there is an Arcanum or secret in nature which cures almost every Disease as it takes away the indignation confusions of the Archeus and commands this Archeus to be peaceable Of which Arcanum I first will endeavour to open the way Therefore in the Dropsie the Archeus of the Reins looseth the passages and riseth up against the occasional Cause that is to be put to flight no otherwise than as by a stubborn fury he seeks his own distruction and so a Maxime of Hippocrates shall be verified That Natures themselves are the Physitiannesses of Diseases but the Physitian onely their Minister Therefore from the Premises I conclude that there would be as yet a far more peaceable and desirable cure from a sedative or appeasing Secret than by the Secrets of Paracelsus For they make more for the preservation of long life of which in a peculiar Book CHAP. LXIV A Childish Vindication of the Humorists 1. The End of the Race proposed or published 2. It hath happened to the Author even as he had judged 3. The Clamours of those who are beaten 4. The more secret Arcanums are not to be openly revealed 5. The Author Answers unto Letters written unto him 6. Ten Reproaches I Had now set forth some small Works which have been hitherto unheard of to wit concerning a different kind of sharpish Fountains and especially of those of the Spaw and of the Original of Fountaines Concerning Fevers concerning the Disease of the Stone concerning the miserable state of the deceived Humourists and of the Plague That mortals might return the race of all natural Philosophy and might thereby safely learn the rise manner mean and progress of healing First of all the Book of Feavers reprehendeth the ignorant Schooles of Medicine about the knowledge of an infirmity so common whereby they might repent and excuse the publishing of this Volumn But concerning the Stone a Monster accidentally bred in us and touching the Plague as it were an irregular by-work of the mind that
the importunity of times or seasons quantities and strength In the next place there are occasional defects which seeing Good doth bring forth Evil by accident and doth oft-times proceed from our own vital powers are endowed with properties of their own as it were their seminal Beginnings therefore they immediately tend unto the vanquishing of our powers as their end The which therefore I elsewhere call Diseases Potestative or belonging to our Powers But neither is that a Potestative Being which the Schooles do call A Disease by consent and do think to be made by a collection or conjunction of Vapours But a Potestative Being contains the government of a constrained faculty as well in respect of the authority of Life as of the diseasie Being it self the which indeed is born by a proper motion to stir up a Potestative Disease of its own order Just as a Cantharides doth stir up a Strangury And that also is done through a power of internal authority and by the force of parts on parts So an Apoplectical or Epileptical Being being as yet present in the Stomack or Womb shakes the Soul yea and from thence transports the Brain together with its attending powers will they nill they into its own service A Potestative Being therefore doth not only denote a hurting of the Functions but also a government of the part and an occasioning force of a Diseasifying Being prorogued or continued on the subordinate faculties as on the vassals of an Empire It being all one also whether the parts are at a far distance from each other or whether they are near For they are the due Tributes of Properties Yea truly Hippocrates first insinuated that Diseases are to be distinguished by their Inns and Savours And I wish his Successors had kept this tenor But that Old Man being as it were swollen with fury presaged of the future rashnesses of the succeeding Schools and precisely admonished them That they should not believe that Heats Colds Moistures Sharpnesses or Bitternesses were Diseases But Bitter Sharp Salt Brackish c. it self But he sung these things before deaf or bored ears For truly the long since fore-past Ages being inclined unto a sluggishness of enquiring and an easie credulity snatched up the scabbed Theorems of Heats and Colds and subscribed unto them by reason of a plausible easiness and bid Adieu to their Master who having supposed that Diseases were to be divided according to their Innes divided our body into three ranks to wit into the solid part containing or the vessel it self into the thing contained or liquid part and into the Spirit which he said was the maker of the assault The which indeed is an Airy or Skiey and Vital Gas and doth stir up in us every Blas for whether of the two ends you will Which division of Diseases although he hath not expressly dictated yet he hath sufficiently insinuated the same For he wrote onely a few things and all things almost which are born about are supposed to be his And therefore I wish that posterity had directed the sharpnesses of their Wits according to the mind of that Old Man Peradventure through Gods permission they had extracted the understanding of the Causes of Diseases But they afterwards so subscribed unto the Authority of one Galen that they as it were slept themselves into a drousie Evil being afrightned while they are awakened by me But in the Title of Causes I understand in the very inward or pithy integrity of Diseases the matter being instructed by its own proper efficient Cause to be indeed the inward immediate Cause and to arise from a vital Beginning Wherefore also I name those external and occasional Causes as many as do not flow from the root of Life it self And therefore I treat of Causes which are the Disease it self For Bread being chewed and swallowed is as yet external because it may be rejected or cast up again So also the Chyle thereof being cocted in the Stomack is as yet external Yea and which more is after that it is become domestical and although it be made a more inward citizen of our family administration Yet while it is separated from that which is living and rusheth into the Kitchin of Diseases for that very Cause as it is become hostile so also it is to be accounted External in respect of Life So also a pestilent Air being attracted inward although it hath spread its poyson within and in respect of the Body be internal yet it is not yet internal in respect of Life And so neither yet is it the Disease it self to wit whereof it contains only an occasion in it self neither shall it ever lay aside that same occasionality But the Plague is while the Archeus the contagion being applyed unto himself doth separate a part of himself it being infected from the whole For the banishment whereof the remaining part of the Archeus doth Co-laborate and is earnestly careful that it may not be pierced by the Symbole or Impression and perish A co-like thing happens almost in the rest of Diseases For truly the Life is not immediately hurt but by a certain poyson of its own and proper to it which it hath suffered to be applyed unto it self CHAP. LXVII The Subject of inhearing of Diseases is in the point of Life THe Life which is perfectly sound hath no Disease because health presupposeth an integrity which a Disease renteth And so health and a Disease do contradict each other Also Life being extinguished is not a Disease neither doth it admit of a Disease into it Because in speaking properly that Life is a meer nothing and no longer existing But a Disease is hoc aliquid or this someting Thirdly in the next place a dead Carcass however poysonous it be or infected with corruption yet it is no way capable of Diseases Wherefore although a Body while it lives be the mansion of Diseases yet it is not the true internal efficient of Diseases much less also indeed have filths or excrements which are thought to be the constitutive Humours of us a right or property of Diseases But if any part of a Disease be to be ascribed unto inordinate fecuencies or dregginesses truly that tends wholly unto an occasional Cause For truly a Disease is a Being truly subsisting in a Body and composed of a matter and an internal seminal efficient and so also in this respect doth it far sequester it self from occasional Causes Especially because the internal beginnings of things do constitute the Being it self and are unseperably of its essential thingliness So indeed that if we speak of the Body or Soul as Humane both of them is rightly called a man although not an entire man So indeed the matter of a Disease is truly a Disease Even as also the seminal efficient thereof is truly a Disease although it be not properly an entire Disease Therefore seeing that a Disease is only in a live Body but not in a dead one it must needs be
while the same things are engraven by a stronger apprehension For things conceived do teach us that from passions or perturbations which are non-beings true real actual Images do arise no otherwise than as the thoughts of a Woman with Child do stamp a real Image how strange and forreign soever it be Wherefore thus indeed the Phantasie brings forth poysons which do kill its own Man and afflict him with diverse miseries So that as those Images do primarily proceed from the imaginative power whose immediate instruments the Archeus himself is So it is altogether necessary that he which toucheth Pitch should be defiled by it That is it behoveth the Archeus himself primarily and immediately to conceive and put on that new Image to be affected with the same and by virtue of a resembling mark or Symbole other things depending on him according to the properties of that hurtful Idea And that Ferment being once decyphered in that aire which maketh the assault is a Disease which forthwith diffuseth it self into the venal Blood the liquor that is to be immediately assimilated and next into the similar parts and into the very Superfluities of the Body according to the property even of that its own Idea for from hence the Diseases of distributions and digestions What if Idea's are formed in the implanted Spirit of the Braine or inne of the Spleen by imagining which also in Bruits are the principal Blas and Organ of all Motions It nothing hinders but that the Archeus himself implanted in the parts may frame singular and now and then exorbitant Idea's not unlike to the imaginative power for so the Spittle of a mad Dog Tarantula or Serpent and likewise the juice of Wolfesbane Monkshood or Nightshade do communicate their Image of fury on us against our wills Wherefore likewise nothing hinders the chief or primary instrument of imagination from forming in-mate seminal fermental poysonous c. Images unto it self Whatsoever doth of its own Nature by it self and immediately afflict the vital powers ought for that very Cause to be of the race and condition of those Powers For otherwise they should not have a Symbole Passage Agreement Virtues or Piercing into each other as neither by consequence an application and activity For seeing the powers or faculties are the invisible and untangible seals of the Archeus who is himself invisible and untangible those powers cannot be reached and much less pierced or vanquished by the Body because those powers however vital they are yet they want extremities whereby they may be touched whence it follows which hath been hitherto unknown that every Disease for it glistens in the Life because it is of the disposition of the vital powers it ought immediately to be stamped and to arise from a Being which was bred to produce seminal Idea's And seeing nothing among constituted things is made of it self originally of necessity the powers as well of Diseasie as vital things do depend either on the Idea's of the generater himself whence hereditary Diseases or of the generated Archeus But that that thing may the more clearly appear in the seed of Bruites and Man there is a power formative after the similitude of the generater Because it is that which seeing it is dispositive and distributive of the whole government in figuring its activity is contested by none The seed therefore hath a knowledge infused by the generater fitted for the ends to be performed by it self for the seed which in its own substance is otherwise barren is made fruitful by an Image stirred up in the lust To wit the imaginative power of the generater doth first bring forth an Idea which at its beginning is wholly a non-being but by arraying it self with the cloathing of the Archeus it becomes a real and seminal Being And that as well in Plants as in sensible Creatures For in vegetables a seed proceeds from an invisible Beginning for truly there is a virtue given to a plant of fructifying by a seed and so it hath an analogical or proportionable conception which formeth a seminal Idea in propagating borrows its fruitfulness and principles of Life from it but not Life it self even as elswhere concerning Formes therefore a seed borrows knowledge gifts roots and dispositions of the matter espoused unto it for Life from a seminal Idea to wit the cause of all fruitfulness And they who a little smelt out that thing in times past have said that every generation doth draw its original from an invisible World The thrice glorious Almighty by the naked and pure command of his own cogitation and conceived Word Fiat or let it be done made the whole Creature of nothing and put seminal virtues into it durable throughout ages But the Creature afterwards propagates its gift received not indeed of nothing as neither by its own command but it hath received a power of Creating its own seminal Image from God of tranferring or decyphering the same on its own Archeus This indeed is the seminal virtue of Man Bruits and Plants But not this beast-like conception is in plants nor is stirred up from lust for it is sufficient that it happen after an analogical manner whereby the Antients have agreed all things to be in all which manner by a similitude drawn from us the Sympathy and Antipathy of things do shew for they feel a mutual presence and are presently stirred up by that sense unto the unfolding of their natural endowments Because they are those things which else would remain unmoved but a sense or feeling cannot but after some sort have an equal force with an imaginative virtue The which I have elsewhere profesly treated more at large concerning the Plague But now my aim is not to Phylosophize concerning Plants but only of Diseases It sufficeth therefore that the imagination it self so called from the forming of an Image doth stampe an Idea for whose sake every seed is fruitful And seeing that in us that imaginative power is as it were brutal earthly and devillish according to the Apostle therefore it is subject unto its own Diseases and can stampe an Image in the Archeus it s own immediate instrument Hence it happens unto us that every Disease is materially and efficiently in us For whatsoever is bred or made that wholly happens through the necessity of a certain seed and every seed hath its this something from an Idea put into its spirit but a Disease is a real Being and is made in a live Creature only Whence it follows that although a Disease doth oppose the Life as the forerunner of Death yet it is bred from a vital Beginning and the same in the Life to wit from the flesh of Sin Notwithstanding Death and all dead things do want rootes whereby they may produce And so seeing Death bespeaks a destruction or privation it wants a seminal Image wherein it is distinguished from Diseases Life indeed is from the Soul and therefore also the premised character of the first constitution
Favour a desire of Praying of Talking with God with humility an amorous perfect and exceeding delightful Faith or Confidence For these things the World is ignorant of For I being a Phisitian ought here on purpose to treat of Morality however others may laugh And that not onely as the indispositions of the Soul do defile and blemish or corrupt the Health But especially from that Title because seeing a Disease is the Son of Sin it cannot be perfectly known if the faculty of the Concupiscence of Sin be unknown from whence every assault towards a Disease drives it self into the Archeus But hitherto concerning Idea's conceived by the cogitation of Man of which it shall as yet be more liberally treated under the Chapter of Things Conceived Now it remains to unfold from whence Idea's made by man are of so great strength that oft-times they call for a Disease yea and also Death on the Imaginer From the Premises therefore we must resume 1. That Idea's are stamped in the Imaginative faculty by cogitation 2. That they imprint their Image on the Spirit of Life 3. That they are operative means whereby the Soul moveth and governeth the Body 4. That they are seminal Images 5. But that they are graduated according to the power and strength of the Imaginative Faculty 6. Wherefore that a humane Embryo is changed into diverse Monsters 7. That every man by the Images of Sorrow Terrour c. doth form seminal Poysons unto himself which do consume him in manner of the Plague or else by a violent languishing 8. That they do also passe forth out of the Body of the Imaginer because an Image conceived by a Woman with Child regularly wanders into the young even on the last day of carrying it in the Womb yet then it is without controversie that the young doth enjoy its own Life and lives by its own Soul and Quarter It is manifest therefore from the aforesaid particulars not only concerning the question whether it be to wit that there are in Idea's a most powerful force to operate but also because they are seminal that they do naturally pierce and operate on all things For truly if there be not a certain ruling and forming Idea of the matter of seeds formed by the generater the seed by it self remains wholly barren In the next place those Idea's ought to be immediately not indeed in the Soul of Man but immediately in the Archeus which maketh the assault because without such an Idea the Archeus should plainly remain an unpartaker of all action operation and propagation Therefore also by Idea's every motion and action of Nature as well in remedies as in poysons and every Natural power is seminally imprinted by every Parent whatsoever Yea forreign strange Idea's are introduced and those ascending into those already constituted because Idea's no otherwise than as Lights do mutually pierce each other and do keep a perpetual and co-marriageable mark of the Archeus with the Archeus which Idea's while they take hold of the matter of him a Disease is now bred For as seminal and primitive Idea's being planted in the seed by the Parents do figure a Man Bruit Plant c. So also the Idea's of inclinations affections c. coming upon them do determine or limit the countenance of a Man unto the delineaments or draughts of Physiognomy Which afterwards also are varied by the future Idea's of manners customes c. For bruit Beasts through the troublesome Idea's of lust do not wax fat even as those that are gelded do But Eunuchs if they are without care do fatten who else through the Idea of grief do also wax lean But from whence there is so great power in Idea's it is worthy to be known that the table or matter upon which even as on water the phantasie decyphers its Idea's even as on water is the very substance of the Archeus it self the which being once defiled by a conceived Idea and as it were instructed by a seminal principle is afterwards uneffectual for other Offices Therefore indeed those that are without care do slowly wax grey and in a contrary sense but many cares do speedily draw on and ripen old age according to that saying my Spirit shall be diminished and my dayes shall be shortned Rightly therefore was it said from of old That the perfect curing of Diseases consists in the removal of the Cause or Root The which if it should be the visible peccant matter it self even as the Schooles do nevertheless point it out to be now a Fever or the colike Diseases could not be cured unless all the occasional matter were first removed which thing is as manifestly false as it is most exceeding true that Fevers are silent the same occasional Cause remaining So indeed I have oft-times perfectly taken away the Colick Choler Flux Bloody-flux and other Diseases by a true Laudanum without Opium although the residing mass or lump were as yet entertained within Therefore all visible and forreign matter either happening from without or sprung up of its own accord within how degenerate soever it shall be from the very nourishment of the solid parts and a liquor separated from them it hath it self alwayes by a proper name after the manner of an occasion and a provoking Cause whether that shall be for a primary Disease or indeed shall be produced and constituted by a primary Disease consequently afterwards pricking forward the Archeus unto the erecting of a new storm or Disease And so every Disease is caused from the violent assaulting Spirit by Idea's conceived in the proper subject of the Archeus by whose fault alone a live Body but not a dead Carcass suffers all Diseases But if that this off-spring of a Disease be spred into the families of the digestions it produceth occasional matters indeed for secondary Diseases which are bred to stirr up afterwards the same Archeus unto new seminaries of Diseases For so wheresoever Hippocrates hath not found any visible matter as the occasion of a Disease he accuseth a Divine Beginning in Diseases because it is invisible from the hidden Store-house of seeds from the invisible World or out of Pluto's River of Hell or from the Chaos of successive changes Therefore I do in all things wholly admire at this Divine Beginning be it spoken by the liberty of Hippocrates in Diseases as the judge of a broken purity so also a revenger of an hidden impurity and concupiscence lurking in the flesh of sin And therefore also persevering in the radical disorder of a vital principle But as it doth immediately sit in and is awakned by a vital and seminal principle Hence also consequently Diseases have properties directions proportions durations affections and respects unto members and places which things certainly in a good understanding cannot be attributed unto the ulcerous predicaments of heats and colds as neither to Distillations and Catarrhs flowing down with a voluntary fall of weights But it is profitable to have made this
own Glass and with a plausible delightfulness the which hath even brought a self-love and a certain arrogancy in the first cradles of Nature yet diverse in it self by reason of the variety of Pleasures For while the Archeus doth with-draw and abstract himself as I have said yet he cannot but be in a Body as in a Place Therefore I call him abstracted not indeed from the Body but from his Court or ordinary Throne But an abstracted contemplation of the Archeus is not made in the Heart as if he did floate in the continual motion of agitation and pulses as neither are the bosoms of the Heart the Court of Counsel of the Archeus being abstracted yea neither in the very substance of the Heart but his Pallace it self is more inward To wit in the stable Spirit it self implanted in the spleen Indeed that same Image of his own self conceived in time of lust doth put on a particle of the Spirit whereby it is begotten which particle according to a Chymical account is the 8200 part of its whole And the which least particle therefore being thus decyphered passeth afterwards into the in-flowing Spirit domestique to the Heart together with the Idea of lust and desire But the Idea's of desire are only motive directresses even as else where concerning Sympathetical things and therefore the conceived Image of Mans Archeus is implanted through that direction in the material seed Wherefore as Death began from Venus or carnal lust So it is dayly hastened even as also the death of a Plant beginneth from a conceived seed as the vital faculty is thereby mightily diminished In the next place surely that is truly made and not by a phantastical deceit wherein such an Idea doth not only represent a total or entire humane Being but also individual inclinations properties and defects For from hence a trunk in one Arm doth not therefore generate an imperfect Arm because the formative Idea is a branch derived into generation not from else where than from the implanted Archeus of the Bowels Therefore hereditary Diseases do increase on the young from a Diseasie Being To wit the Idea being imprinted on the seminal Spirit seeing it is the very Disease as yet lurking and sealed in the first Life of the seed doth as yet sleep and expect its maturity until it being awakened and breaking forth from the disturbance of the Archeus be apt to bring forth its own products So indeed furies are bred in and propagated on off-springs together with the whole race of seminal inclinations Moreover also from thence it is evident that not all Diseases of the Parents are transferred on their off-spring but those only whose Idea's have defiled the Archeus of the Bowels in the Parents for neither is any occasional matter of the Gout or fury socially transferred with the integrity of a proper or natural seed For besides that that strange-born duality doth contain a barrenness of the seed also that supposed matter of the translated Disease should putrify it being vanquished by the importunities of the place and ferments and repetitions of digestions should stink putrify or vanish away in the successive multiplicity of dayes but it should not accompany unto the period of Life and stir up its own relapses But as to what belongs unto silent Diseases although acquired ones surely that thing they have proper unto them that they do rise again at the set periods of importunity For so the Falling-evil doth sometimes sleep for Months and Years yea and is never stirred up but by Venus Anger Grief Child-birth c. For neither is any matter in any place detained the fewell of the Falling-sickness Because it should either putrify wither be consumed or loose the Antient blemish of poyson The which seeing it doth not come to pass but remains for Life it hath therefore chosen another Beginning and immediate Inne than superfluities because it is sealed in the Idea of an active Being and that constant throughout the whole Life Therefore the Spirit of Life concluded in the Organs doth suffer its storms from its own Diseasie Idea's the which as oft as the inflowing Spirit receiveth from thence so often it presently brings the contagions of the same into act For as the poyson of the Falling-sickness is that which makes drunk is sleepifying and after some sort furious its original cleerly appears about the Stomach and afterwards is chiefly perceived in the Head and doth singularly affect the clients thereof So the Archeus of the Head stamps poysonous Images which are hateful to the very implanted Archeus and suspected of a poysonous Contagion and he is thereby easily made wholly Apogeal or most remote from his center Thirdly some Diseases are con-centrical in their matter and efficient Cause yet seeing they are Youngs conceived in the irregularity of the Archeus being become exorbitant hence they are ex-centrical in respect of health but con-centred in the more inward soyl of the Archeus For hitherto have the stars respect and they especially are moved at the conjunction of the Moon They do also fore-shew the hinges of winds to come For neither doth the Archeus shew himself to be obliged to the Stars unless through the importunities of Diseases Wherefore those Diseases are commonly called the Ephemerides or dayes-books of the Sick Therefore in those that are in good health the Archeus is not ruled by the Stars But because they do singularly follow the Moon which is the night Star therefore they do most rage in the night Therefore I call them the torture of the Night because it seems to be carried by a co-like Blas and to talk with its Stars and that thing surely doth not belong but to the Archeus seeing a more gross compaction of Body is not fit for this purpose they are therefore sealed in the vital Spirit implanted in the principal Organs but nothing is there sealed besides Ideal Characters The Archeus is a fountainous Being which by his own Blas doth stir up every assault or violation in us according to Hippocrates but he remains a fountainous Being how neatly soever Diseasie products are taken away For although he may sometimes vitiate as well things contained as things containing yet the Archeus reserves an imprinted vice peculiar to himself whereby he stirreth up every storm at pleasure Lastly Diseases which in the fourth place I call those under an unequal strength are inbred or obtained And because they bespeak strength they have manifestly enrouled themselves under the powers or faculties But it hath alwayes been a difficult thing in nature for a desired strength to be bestowed on all particular Organs without the complaint of some but that one doth alwayes prevaile over or is weaker than another Unto which indeed Humours or snivelly superfluities do not flow or run down from the guiltless Head even as it hath been otherwise attributed to feigned Humours and Catarrhs in the Schooles But rather the Archeus implanted in the more weak part observing the
penury of distribulation and perceiving the unequality of injustice becomes a complainer and seditious as it were against a step-mother The Idea's of which passion or impatience seeing it is not meet to send else where he being crabbish retorts on himself and brings forth the effects of sorrow in his own Digestions Therefore the very seminal Beginnings themselves of Diseases are drawn out for diverse ends although they glisten in one only immediate subject of inherency because they are received after the manner of the reciever That is they do sustain a dis-formity or disagreement in their mansions through the diversity of the humane Body and parts And moreover the Archeus himself according to the diversity of his motions doth stir up a various houshold-stuff of Symptoms The Spirit saith Hippocrates hath made three motions in us within without and into a circuit and he moveth and transchangeth all things with himself even while he is orderly But in his irregularity whatsoever he shall perform he shall also utter memorable effects of his disorder CHAP. LXXI The birth or original of a Diseasie Image 1. A description of a Disease by a numbring up of things denied 2. What a Disease is 3. The vain thought of Physitians concerning a Disease 4. The Inne of Life belongs to a Disease 5. The force of a Diseasie Idea is proved by Vegetables 6. By the Blas of meteours 7. The Blas of an Archeal Idea in us is proved from the Premises 8. The ordinary seat of Diseases 9. The Images of perturbations are cited 10. From a mental Non-being is made this something 11. A twofold Diseasifying Archeal Idea 12. Idea's brought unto the venal Blood 13. The rule of right in healing 14. Why the Author keeps the names of the Antients 15. A probative or proofe-ful Idea is framed in the Archeus alone I Have already at large described an unheard of Doctrine of a Diseasie Being premised by me That Physitians may learn to look into a Disease from the fountain and may desist from being seduced by Paganish Opinions Wherefore a Disease is not a certain distemperature of elementary qualities or a victorie proceeding from the continual strife of these even as hitherto the Galenists have dreamed neither likewise is a Disease one of the four feigned Humours exceeding its natural temperature or mixture and matched to the four Elements Neither at length is a Disease a certain degenerate matter awakened by an impression of the Elements But every excrementitious matter is either a naked matter preceding a Disease and therefore an occasional Cause of a Disease or it is the product of a Disease resulting from the errour of the parts and so a certain latter effect of a Disease although afterwards it may occasionally stir up another Disease or may nourish or increase another antecedent Cause Nor lastly is a Disease a hurtful quality budding from the poyson or contagion of another and that a hurtful matter Notwithstanding such offences as those do only accuse its presence but not the effect depending only occasionally thereupon A Disease therefore is a certain Being bred after that a certain hurtful strange power hath violated the vital Beginning and hath pierced the faculty hereof and by piercing hath stirred up the Archeus unto Indignation Fury Fear c. To wit the anguish and troubles of which perturbations do by imagining stir up an Idea co-like unto themselves and a due Image Indeed that Image is readily stamped expressed and sealed in the Archeus and being cloathed with him a Disease doth presently enter on the stage being indeed composed of an Archeal Body and an efficient Idea For the Archeus produceth a dammage unto himself the which when he hath once admitted he straightway also afterwards yields flees or is alienated or dethroned or defiled through the importunity thereof and is constrained to undergo a strange government and domestically to sustain a civil War raised up on himself indeed such a strange Image is materially imprinted and arising out of the Archeus A true Diseasie Being I say which is called a Disease For although Physitians are only busied about the dissolution cleansing away and expulsion of the hurtful occasional matter yet our thought is not able to vary the Essence of a Disease To wit that because a Physitian labours in the banishment of the occasional hurtful matter therefore also that a Disease ought to be that which that deceived Physitian doth in a rash order intend to expel For a Disease is effentially that which it is whether the Physitian be absent or present For neither doth a Physitian in the begining more determine or limit a Disease than the Disease doth terminate it self because it is that which doth not accommodate it self unto the thought or esteem of others but doth dayly deride the same Wherefore as health consisteth in a sound Life so doth a Disease in the very Life it self being hurt but Life doth only and immediately subsist in the seat of the Soul but the Soul doth not operate out of it self unless by virtue of its official Organ which is the vital air of the Archeus And therefore it is a wonder that it hath hitherto been unknown that a Disease sits immediately in the same vital inne where the Life enjoys it self of which more largely hereafter for hateful persons will scarce believe that every power of sublunary things is stirred up and contained in Idea's But that thing I have already before sharply touched at by the way yet it shall profit to have it more strongly bound or confirmed For we have known and believe by Faith that a power is given to Herbs of propagating their like But that proprietary faculty is a real Being actually existing which is alwayes and successively manifested in the seed neither is that faculty a certain accidental power or naked quality but it is a seminal virtue whereby the Plant which is the Parent decyphers an Idea in his own seed the container of figure and properties according to which it will stir up delineate the seed it self and make the Plant its Daughter to grow For in seeds a manifest Image is known skilful of things to be acted for a new propagation In like manner the Sea doth not cause but suffer horrid tempests which the Wind doth efficiently stir up and truly the Wind is not moved by it self and of its own free accord But by an invisible influence of the Stars according to that saying The Stars shall be unto you for signs times or seasons dayes and years for so great a storm of the primary Elements or Air and Water breaks forth from a Being which is like unto Light But the Blas of the Elements is not stirred up from the meer Light of the Stars For although the Light of the Stars be incorporeal and immaterial yet it is not a certain simple Light but that which besides the property of a solitary Light which is only of enlightning hath a motive Blas in it self
seeing the work of Butlers Oyl to be vain on me and being willing before some Gentlewomen to mock my credulity anointed one only drop of that Oyl on her right Arm and straightway it being freely moved was beyond hope restored together with its former strength we all admired at the wonder of so sudden an event wherefore she anointed the Ankles of both her Legs with one only drop on both sides being spread about on the circle of the Ankle and presently within less than a quarter of an hour all the Oedema vanished away she also through Gods favour liveth as yet nineteen Years since in health A certain Hand-maid as soon as she heard that thing to have happened in her Mistris required some drops of that Oyl because she had thrice suffered an Erisipelas in her right Leg it being badly cured she shewed a leaden-coulered Leg and swollen from the Knee even unto the Toes in the evening therefore at her going to bed she rubs four drops of that Oyl on the hurt part and in the morning there appeared no footstep of the former Malady so that she who now before could scarce go into the Market in one day the same morning went unto the Temple of the holy God-bearing Virgin in Laken and cheerfully returned and broguht me Water from the spring of Saint Ann being far remote from thence Which thing being heard a certain Gentlewoman a Widow being now afflicted for many Months in both her Arms that she could never lift her hand upwards was by a few drops of that Oyl in one only evening presently restored into full health and so remained Afterwards I asked Butler why so many Women should be presently cured but that I while I most sharply conflicted with Death it self being also environed with Pains of all my Joynts and Organs should not feel any ease But he asked me with what Disease I had laboured And when he understood that Poyson had given a Beginning unto the Disease He said Because the Cause had come from within to without the Oyl ought to be taken into the Body or the little Stone to be touched with the Tongue Because the pain or grief being cherished within was not Local or External I observed also that the Oyl did by degrees uncloath it self of the efficacy of Healing because the little Stone being lightly tinged in it had not pithily changed the Oyl throughout its whole Body but had only blessed it with a delible or obliterable be-sprinkling of an Odour For truly that little Stone did present in the Eyes and Tongue Sea Salt spread abroad or rarefied and it is sufficiently known that Salt is not to be very intimately mixed with Oyl Butler also cured an Abbatess sufficiently known who for eighteen years had had her right Arm swollen with an unwonted depriving of Motion and her fingers stretched out and unmovable only by the touching of her Tongue at the little Stone But very many being witnesses of these Wonders presently suspected some hidden Sorcery and Diabolical compact For the common People hath it already for an antient custom that whatsoever honest thing their ignorance hath determined not to know they do for a privy shift of Ignorance refer that thing unto the juggles of the Evil Spirit But I could not decline so far because the Remedies were supposed to be Natural neither having any thing besides an unwonted quantity For neither Ceremonies Words nor any other suspected thing was required for neither is it lawful according to Mans power of understanding to refer the Glory of God shewn forth in Nature unto the evil Spirit For none of those Women had required aid of Butler as from Necromancy any way suspected yea the things were at first made trial of with smiling and without Faith and Confidence Yet this kind of easiness and speediness of curing shall as yet long remain suspected by many for the wit of the vulgar being unconstant and idle in hard and unwonted matters is alwayes ready for judgements of the same tenour by reason of their facility and therefore also is weak or flaggy for they do more willingly consecrate so great a bounty of restitution unto diabolical deceit than to divine goodness the Framer Lover Saviour Refiesher of humane Nature and Father of the poor And that thing indeed not only in the common People but also in those that are learned who follow and rashly search into the Beginnings of healing being not yet instructed or observing the common and blockish Rule Because they are alwayes wise as Children who have never gone over their Mothers threshold being a fraid at every Fable For indeed they who have not hitherto known the whole circuit of Diseases to be concluded within the Spirit of Life which maketh the assault or if they hereafter reading my Studies by the way shall imprint on themselves this moment or concernment of healing nevertheless because they have been already before accustomed from the very Beginnings of their Studies to the precepts of the Humourists they will easily at length depart from me and leap back unto the accustomed and antient Opinions of the Schooles For look what Liquor Men do once in a new Vessel steep Its Odour whether Sweet or Sour it will long after keep They will again easily betake themselves unto the importunities of Decumbent or falling down Humours But I in a more near search being unwilling to refer the benefits of God unto the Devil have first of all certainly found that all things in Nature do consist of an invisible Seed That they begin I say are supported and ruled by a Being which the great God began from an imaginating Desire or derived Power and which remains afterwards throughout the whole duration of their Essence and being But that afterwards things are made visible or are this something onely by the cloathing and apparelling of Bodies espoused unto it self But I have taught that Diseases do by a stronger reason arise from a more invisible Seed Wherefore that the Diseasifying Idea is only to be Vanquished Abolished and Extinguished because a Disease is a monstrous and equivocal or doubtful generated Being and off-spring of Sin not adhering therefore to the Humane Species but only to individual Persons after an irregular manner Because seeing that after the fall it began almost from a non-being For in more fully looking into the matter first of all very many Maludies do depart by reason of Amulets or Pomanders being hung on the outside of the Body even as is plain to be seen in the Plague Falling-sicknesse and other Diseases In the next place whosoever he be who shall rejoyce to have a Towel which was withdrawn from a pestilent Ulcer or desiled with the sweat of him that hath the Pestilence applyed unto himself nor doth fear in himself that the Plague can thereby naturally be communicated unto himself we have seen health restored as with the anointing oâ— Butlers Oyl For truly a Sympathetical Remedy hath been of late
former if it be opposite unto it but if not and if it agree with the former it is comforted or if there be any crookedness between both of them both are confusedly undetermined and wander as being shadowie Images which thing surely no way brings help unto the supposed fore-existance of Idea's It hath alwayes seemed to me that Idea's are stamped anew by the act of the imaginative Power like a spark which is made anew by a co-rubbing of the Steel and Flint Neither doth this derogate any thing from the activity of Idea's no more than sparks unto a great flame I answer therefore unto the first Objection That as Fire is not present in the Steel and Flint before a co-smiting of them So neither doth any essay of Beingness or footstep of an Image fore-exist before a conception and co-rubbing of the imaginative Faculty on the Object but every original entity of an Idea doth arise in the act of conceiving and a true Idea is made while the spark which elsewhere should presently perish doth fall upon the Fewel and the conceived Image fals on the imagining Fewel of the Archeus from whence the most powerful flames of Diseases do follow Notwithstanding because the treatise of Idea's doth most nearly touch Conceptions I defer and omit further to discourse of Idea's CHAP. LXXXI The manner of Enterance of things Darted into the Body 1. The one only means whereby the Devil doth co-operate in darting things into the Body is the juggling deceit of the Eyes that they may enter invisibly 2. A motive and determined or limited Blas belongs to the Devil 3. How much Man may contribute hereunto 4. The primary or chief Curing of things injected 5. A natural Cure 6. The variety of Gifts in Simples 7. The Author proceeds by way of naming them 8. Karichterus is commended 9 A fore-caution in Herbs 10. The manner whereby things cast into the Body being once expelled forth do hasten their rejections I Will now proceed to supply the manner whereby things darted or injected into the Body do enter or are admitted and also I will subjoin their Remedies First of all things injected or cast into the Body do enter it invisible And this one thing is meerly diabolical For truly the most miserably Mocker seeing he hath nothing real which is left him in liberty hath only vain appearances because the father of a Lie dissembles things themselves and makes them falsly to appear from the Beginning of the World In these kind of juggles a Man who is the Devils Bond-slave co-operates nothing But after what manner Satan doth make things which are in themselves visible not to be visible whether he involves them in his own invisible Spirit and doth enclose the things themselves round about or in the next place doth act by a bewitching of the Eyes or also at the very same time wherein any thing corporally pierceth another as hath been already at large shewn by Examples it be perhaps for that Cause invisible for whatsoever looseth the dimensions of a Body may also deceive the sight at least-wise I am not a curious Searcher out of the Works of Satan which do in propriety belong unto himself And it is sufficient for me that what things are believed to belong to him I have shewn to be proper to Man and that I have discovered the every way and most poor misery of Satan Things therefore which are to be cast in being made invisible the Devil transferreth unto an Object the Idea of mans desire directing their passage For because it is not any way granted to the Devil to enter into a Man much less to hurt him and least of all that he should encompass him with an invisible burden Therefore he makes use of the free Blas of a Man which is bound over unto him A Man therefore doth imprint his own free motive Blas on a Body which is made invisible but the Devil derives it even unto to the man into whom it is cast And as a Knife is through the desire and consent of the Person wounding infixed into the Flesh of him that is to be wounded So this Body being made invisible by the Devil is cast into the Body of him that is to be enchanted by an Idea of the motive Blas of the Witch Satan conspiring hereunto as for direction of the smiting Man The Cure of things injected is performed partly by Remedies famous from the rise of the primitive Church the which do not operate but miraculously but why they do not regularly alwayes every where and amongst all obtain their effect I leave it to others But I do not touch at the unsearchable judgments of God as neither the Remedies which are out of the compass of Nature And partly also a Cure is had by some Simples whereinto the Almighty goodness hath put in a natural Endowment from the Beginning of their Creation of resisting preventing and correcting of Sorceries and likewise of expelling things injected such as the suffumigation or smoakiness of the Liver according to Tobias is read to be And such as that of Salomon or Eleazer according to Josephus Lib. 8. Chap. 2. For some Simples do drive away evil Spirits a miserable rout of Men it is which gives its service of adoration unto Gods who are not able to resist the natural efficacy of simples In the next place others take away the penetration of a formal light being fast tied to excrements Some likewise do at least hinder their touching enterance or application Finally many Simples there are which do correct those kind of Poysons and kill them First of all the Mineral Electrum or Amber of Paracelsus which is immature being hung on the neck freeth those whom an unclean Spirit doth persecute the which I my self have seen But I remember that the drink thereof hath delivered many from Sorceries But there is none who that Simple being hung on the Body which shall not prevent that things Injected are not sent or admitted within or that is presently not loosed from importunate bands Barth Karichterus chief Physitian to Maximilian the Second the chief among Physitians that I know of hath dedicated a small Germane Treatise as taking compassion on his neighbour unto his Master Wherein with a few Herbs he cureth any and after what manner soever they are enchanted He hath preferred his Standard-defending Simple Daurant it is the Phu of Diascorides with Purple Flowers it is the last kind of Valerian in the last Edition of Mathiolus before all I also greatly esteem Vervaine with a Purple Flower the more herby St. Johns Wort with a small Flower Southernwood Adiaâ—tum or Venus hair Rue c. And likewise red Coral and the extracted tincture thereof I have experienced to have brought much refreshment We must use the Herbs raw cut but not boiled Because their entire power consisteth in the integrity of their composed Body Therefore the Ideal faculty of the herbs perisheth by pownsing or contusion
not for Man a fatherliness of his Mind but in God alone and therefore his original Generation and Propagation was reserved in the Power of God the Creator And especially while as its knowledge of it self is wanting to the Mind which is immortal and infinite in Duration whereby it may represent it self to it self to wit that it may decypher a sealed similitude of it self in the Seed Therefore indeed neither can the immortal Mind ever bring the Seed of Man unto that which it self shall never have in it self to wit out of it self to decypher the Image of God For Man is so made the Image of God that he is the cloathing of the Deity the Sheath of the Kingdom of God that is The Temple of the holy Spirit Man therefore being essentially created into the Image of God after that he rashly presumed to generate the Image of God out of himself not indeed by a certain Monster but by something which was shadowily like himself with the Whoredom or Ravishment of Eve he indeed generated not the Image of God like unto that which God would have therefore unimitable as being Divine but in the vital air of the Seed he generated Dispositions careful at some time to obtain a sensitive discursive and motive Soul from the Father of Lights the Fountain of all Paternity yet Mortal and to Perish into which nevertheless he of his own goodness inspires ordinarily the substantial Spirit of a Mind shewing forth his own Image And so that Man in this respect endeavoured to generate his own Image not but after the manner of Bruit-Beasts by the copulation of Seeds which at length should obtaine by request a soulified Light from the Creator and the which they call a sensitive Soul For from thence hath proceeded another Generation conceived after a beast-like manner mortal and uncapable of eternal Life after the manner of Beasts a bringing forth with Pains and subject to Diseases and Death and so much the more sorrowful or full of misery by how much that very Propagation in our first Parents dared to invert the intent of God Therefore the unutterable goodness forewarned them That they should not tast of that Tree And otherwise he foretold That the same Day they should die the Death and should feel all the Root of Calamities which accompanies Death Deservedly therefore hath the Lord deprived both our Parents of the benefit and seat of Immortality To wit Death succeeded from a conjugal and bruital Copulation Neither remained the Spirit of the Lord with Man after that he began to be Flesh Furthermore because that defilement of Eve shall thenceforth be continued in the propagating of Posterity even unto the end of the World From hence the Sin of the despised fatherly Admonition and natural Deviation from the right way is now among other Sins for an impurity through an inverted carnal and well nigh bruital Generation and is truly called Original Sin that is Man being sowed in the Pleasure of the Concupiscence of the Flesh shall therefore alwayes reap a necessary Death in the Flesh of Sin But The knowledge of Good and Evil which God placed in the disswaded Apple did contain the Concupiscence of the Flesh that is an occult forbidden Conjunction diametrically opposite unto the State of Innocency which State was not a State of Stupidity because he was he unto whom before the Corruption of Nature the Essences of all living Creatures whatsoever were now made known according to which they were to be named from their Property and at their first sight to be essentially distinguished And moreover S. Hildegard unto the Moguntians or those of Mentz saith Adam was formed by the Finger of God which is the holy Spirit in whose Voice every sound before he sinned was the sweetnesse of all Harmony and of the whole musical Art So that if he had remained in the State wherein he was formed the weaknesse of mortal Man could not have been able to bear the virtue and shrilness of his Voice But when the Deceiver of him had heard that Man from the inspiration of God had begun to sing so shrilly and that hereby to repeat the sweetness of the Songs of the heavenly Country he counterfeited behold how far now Man hath departed from thence with his hoarse Voice the Engines of Craft seeing his wrath against him was in vain he was so affrighted that he was not a very little tormented thereby And he alwayes afterwards busily endeavoured by the manifold Devises of his wickednesse to invent and search out that he may not only cease to interrupt or expel divine praises from the Heart of Man but also from the mouth of the Church These things she It is a devoted Opinion of mystical Men That Birds do sing Praises unto God I under a humble correction do think otherwise For if that should be true they should sing all the year neither should they cease assoon as the lust of generating is fulfilled which argument is serviceable unto our Position For truly seeing the Males only do sing but not the Females That from a common Nature Adam was the more leacherous and incontinent and from his Sex more lustful than Eve whose Chastity therefore being beloved of God seemeth proper to that Sex Man therefore through eating of the Apple attained a knowledge that he had lost his radical innocency and that instead thereof he had made an empty exchange of the sordid Concupiscence of the Flesh For neither before the eating of the Apple was he so dull or stupified that he knew not or did not perceive himself naked but with the effect of shame and brutal Concupiscence he then first declared that he was naked For the sacred Text is every where so chaste that the most High would not name the Concupiscence of the Flesh it self at least-wise by a proper name yea nor also accuse of it while he forewarned of the eating of the Apple for a necessity of Death that that brutal Concupiscence might not be made known unto Man even so much as by name And therefore neither would he have Concupiscence to be named in Genesis by reason of the prompt perfidiousness of that People but he called it innocency lost from a gotten shame the which he would afterwards have to be weighed in the Church by its own circumstances And so that therefore he presently translated Adam after his Creation from the Earth into Paradise and for that Cause also he formed the Woman in Paradise least she whom he had made and appointed to remaine a Virgin should behold the copulation of Bruit-beasts in the Earth For in the Beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth and every Creature contained therein But he made and formed those things materially by the passive and commanding Word Let it be done to wit he spake that Word and all things were created But in six dayes space after he made the Forms of things created and all things were orderly made into the
only shewed forth a humane Image in the rationality of their sensitive Soul and beautiful Fairness for their Wives because they were Fair And from them they generated Gyants strong and famous Men of their Age For there was much Wickedness in every season or at all times so as that it repented God that he had created Man according to that saying All Flesh had corrupted its way that is every Man had not only left the ways of the Lord but he had also corrupted the way which he had chosen to himself For God had purposed to generate man by the overshadowing of the holy Spirit which was his immediate Image and to conjoyn himself intimately unto him But Man perverted the Intent of God Wherefore afterwards God who is totally Good permitted Wedlock And then again Man bespotted the Generation of Adam and had almost proceeded unto the Destruction of the Species unless the Miracle of the Floud had come And at length the Devil had again prevented the Intent of God by Paganism unless in the fulness of times the compassion of God had withstood him he sending his Son from his own Heart or Bosom To whom be all Sanctification However God be no accepter of Persons therefore neither of Sexes Yet it hath well pleased him to stuff the female Sex with a straight measure of tribulations by reason of his unsearcheable Judgments For the Hairs of our Head are numbred and a Leaf falls not from the Tree but by Permission And much less is a poor Woman or Maid born whom the Finger of God hath not formed Therefore I have many times enquired throughout the Parishes after the knowledge of this Paradox and I have every where found in the Books of those that are yeerly Baptized twice more Daughters at least to be Born and Baptized than Males Also that twice more Males at least are extinguished by Diseases Travels War Duel Shipwracks c. than Females From whence it follows that God doth every year create more Daughters and that more do come to ripe Years And from hence lastly it is manifest that so compleat a number of Maids is not appointed by God but for the choiceness of Virgins Seeing that he which hath forbidden Luxury and Adultery doth nevertheless create and conserve a more plentiful Catalogue of Females and a sparing Catalogue of Males and he therein denoteth that the Constancy of a single Life in the Woman is acceptable unto him To wit as she comes so much the nearer unto the Purity and Innocency of the first Intention in Creation For a conclusion of this Treatise I will adjoyn what S. Hildegard writeth unto the Grisean Monks Page 186. Virginity signifieth the Sun which enlightneth the whole World because God hath adjoyned Virginity unto himself the which Man being left begat that Virginity which a Ray or Beam of the Divinity plentifully poured forth and the which Ray doth govern all things For the King which ruleth all things is God and Virginity was conjoyned unto him when God and Man was born of a Virgin Thus the Queen stood at his right hand in Rayment guilt with Gold with an encompassed Variety because Virginity resisting the Devil stood to the Virtue of the Divinity in its resplendent Work being on every side encompassed with the Multitude of diverse Virtues For the Divinity hath espowsed Virginity unto it self when as the Angel at first fell on the left Hand and now also hath he elected a People of Salvation for himself being in Adam which People he hath named his right Hand concerning which People he hath adjoyned Vriginity unto himself which hath brought forth the greatest Work Because as God created all things by his Word So also Virginity through the heat of the holy Divinity begat the Son of God Thus Virginity is not without Fruitfulness Because a Virgin begat God and Man by whom all things were made But also by this means all the Virtues of the Old and New Testament which God hath wrought in his Saints are beguilded being as it were a Garment beautified with Gold And the Virgin shall freely collect these Virtues unto her self Because the Ligament of a man shall not constrain or knit her up The Wheele also which Ezekiel saw hath fore-signified Virginity because the same Virginity was pre-figured in the Law before the Incarnation of the Son of God But after his Incarnation she wonderfully worketh very many Miracles because God by her Purged all Offences and rightly ordained every Institution For Virginity supports old Things and sustaineth new things and is the very Root and Foundation of all good things because alwayes and ever it was with him who is without Beginning and without End For the Nature of Man which was destroyed by Sins hath by Virginity revived in Salvation seeing that by another Nature she hath withdrawn Sins from Men. These things the Prophetess wherein indeed are confirmed those things which I have hitherto spoken concerning the entrance of Death into humane Nature CHAP. XCIV A Supply concerning the Fountains of the Spaw The first Paradox 1. Which are to be called Fountains 2. Diverse Opinions about the exposition hereof 3. The diversity of Soils in the Earth 4. Incorporeal Seeds are Reasons entertained in the Elements 5. The Root of Rocks is the Inn of Mettals 6. The last Ground or Soyle is the springing Womb of true Fountains 7. The Virgin-Earth 8. In the last Soyle the Waters do live 9. When Waters do as it were undergo Death 10. After what manner the last Soyle is in the highest Mountains 11. A vital reason of Fountains from the similitude of the Microcosme 12. What the Sea in Genesis is 13. The External Sea is the Fruit of a greater Sea 14. The boyling Sand is a thousand times bigger than the Sea it self 15. A Paradoxal Explication of a Text of the holy Scripture 16. The last Soyle is the internal Sea 17. A Paradoxal Explication of a Text of Ecclesiastes 18. A Regression of the Waters from the Internal Sea unto the External and from this to that 19. In this Regression the benefits of Waters and Minerals are granted unto us 20. Night Darkness Oromasis Iliadus are one and the same 21. A Life of its own is attributed to the Internal Sea from a Similitude or like Thing VVE must needs before all sharply touch at the Original of Fountains in general Indeed I do not with the Vulgar name any kinde of issuings forth of Waters even those that are continual and unwearied Ones Fountains For although the decaying Snow and repeated Rain shall afford a dayly and continual issuing Defluxion of Waters through the blind Passages of Rocks and intervening Places of great Stones or steep Windings I do not therefore name them Fountains For truly that heap of Waters is too casual and accidentary and so a dead one Therefore whereby it may be manifest that there is a certain vital Principle and spring in Fountains In the first place the
Testimony of Jesus Syrach being hitherto an obscure one yet a most true one comes to be considered Whereby he would have all Rivers by consequence also Fountains to proceed and issue from the Sea and at last to finish their Courses into the Sea Truly Syrach hath hitherto left a disquieted or dubious Posterity of Phylosophers to wit in what manner the Waters do contend upwards from the Sea Seeing that the Earth every where constituting a Lip of the Sea hath retained the Victory because it hath restrained it by a Superiority of Scituation But it is not yet therefore sufficiently manifest how the Sea seeing there is an off-scouring of heaped-up waters into the lowest Valley of the Earth should besides be able to ascend to the highest Rocks and there to stir up Fountains Certainly the Rules of the Art of drawing Water are here silent if the Sctipture be to be observed as it ought to be done Therefore some neglect this place as un-touched but others undertake to explain it with a Moderation To wit that Rivers being indeed allured out of the Sea in manner of a Vapour should at length by Rains Snows and Showrs an interjected tragedy of a masked transmutation require or return to the Sea But this is to contend that all Fountains have arose from Rain or at least-wise from condensed or co-thickned air And then they unjustly command that not any Vapour is fetched from the Earth but from the Sea alone or the holy Scripture shall in vain affirm that Rivers are begged only from the Sea and not likewise from the Face of the Earth not to be separated in manner of a Vapour Which Straits when as they seemed to many to be irreconcileable or not to be shaken off they by chance drave and dashed a certain Author of the Fountains of the Spaw against the Rock For although I shall dissemble any thing that is of Mans weakness in the same yet Christian Piety in an honest man doth not suffer publique Blasphemy to pass over un admonished of The which Author therefore I beseech to indulge my Liberty Aristotle he saith would have all Fountains and Rivers to be bred of Air resolved into Water He had not read I believe although he were Plato's Schollar that those four River of Paradise in Phaedo issued forth from the Command of God Why I pray thee if thou sayest that great Rivers are even at this day also bred only by a constriction of the Air have they not also Phaedo being read and Nature moreover being a Virgin issued from the same Constriction forthwith after the Creation And he who believed the World to be from Eternity to have left Phaedo neglected nor to have expected any condensing of Air unless perhaps he doated before Goropius Becanus That those four Rivers were nothing else but the Ocean sending forth Rivers into the four Coasts of the World in which Sense also the Syrachian Preacher saith That all Waters do come from the Sea and again that having passed their Course they render themselves unto the Sea which Words do thus sound in the Schooles Goropius doated and Plato before him if he said that the Ocean did disperse four Rivers into the Coasts of the World without any co-thickning of Air in which same sense notwithstanding the Preacher hath affirmed it Therefore in the same sense Ecclesiastes or the Preacher doated But is not yet enough said is not I say the Interpretation of the holy Scriptures as yet plain enough Therefore we must of necessity first of all set before our Eyes the Diversity and Pavements of Soyles in the Earth For elsewhere a Black-earth abounding with Muds and Filths a Clayie White-clayie Fat Barren Fenny Metally Sandy Stony-Earth and adorned with a various Comeliness is presented to our Sight according to the tempera ture of the Soyle and Heaven the Influences of the Stars and Suiting of Showrs because indeed they are Fruits but not an Elemenr The which first Soyle of Nature if thou shalt Pounce thou shalt in most places discover great or rockie Stones again Mettals or Mineral Iuices but in some places a Sand and that here yellow elsewhere ashie there skie-coulered next a little greenish according to the changeable and many-form dis-junction of the lurking Spirit for Nature is subject to the Soyle and the appointment of the subterraneous Archeus received from the creating Word Indeed in the Cup and most rich Storehouse of the Elements do lay hid Reasons or Respects being entertained from the Beginning durable for Ages they being the knowledge of things that are afterwards to be in their time they being instructed for the uses of ungrateful Man and patiently expecting from the Creation of the World the compleat Digestions of things and the fulness or maturity of Times or Seasons and the which an Architectonical or Master-working Chaos being the impetuous or forcible Chaos the Spirit I say limited to our necessities and filled with the Idea's of things which are to be in process of time doth asist Furthermore of Soyls there is not every where a like depth For in some places much depth of Sand but elsewhere very much of Earth doth occur But straightway under the Soyle or bottom of the Sand there is another for the mostpart rockie or stonie For that is by our Country-men called Keybergh whereon a race of Rocks being supported here the more wealthy ranks of Mettals and in the next place of Minerals have their Inns And at length under a long and much unlikeness of Sand under the Rudiments of Rocks that Sand that Sand I say being most bright offers it self being void of a metallick Quality and a strange Defilement which Sand I say is the last Soyle and unpenetrable yet oft-times plain to be seen in the superficies of the Earth For therefore Nature indulging her own liberty laughs at our Laws and despiseth the Bolts of Predicaments by an univocal or single Soyle That last Ground or Soyle of Nature our Country-men name the Quellem but the French Sable Bovillant the which a Spade or Mattock hath not hitherto passed thorow Because how much Sand soever and how much Water thou shalt empty out from thence yet presently others do fly unto it with an uncessant and swift course for the supplying of the former Defect From thence therefore I conclude That the aforesaid Soyle as it is the last in order of Nature doth so continue even unto the Center unless perhaps the neathermost doth hold or possess some miles of the heart of the earth It followes from thence that that Sand is the matter of the earth not subject unto successive change but is a perpetual and constant Sieve whereby Nature doth strain thorow her uncessant Treasures of Waters and most clear Fountains for the communion of the Universe In this Soyle I say there is a vital Vigour of the boyling-up Water For as long as the Waters are conversant in the same Ground or Soyle they are lively being
Ingredients of the Fountains of the Spaw What the Vitriol of Mars may be 4. Coagulation is never made without Dissolution nor this without that 5. Bodies do not act into each other 6. Between an Action there is the Odour of a dissolving Spirit 7. The dissolving Spirit is Coagulated 8. Why a vein of Iron is Invisible in the Waters 9. Why Waters do smell of Sulphur 10. Why Sharpnesse perisheth in the Waters and when 11. That which is manifest becomes hidden and that which is hidden is made manifest 12. Why not the Iron but the Vein may be said to be in Being 13. The Salt of Fountains doth not grow in the vein of Iron 14. Why one Fountain is stronger than another 15. The difference of Things contained in Fountains 16. Why the Fountain Savenirius is not translated elsewhere 17. Why the Water of Savenirius is the Lighter 18. The Spirit of Salt doth for some time operate upon a Vein VVRiters do with one accord affirm Water to be the continent of the Fountains of the Spaw But we differ from them only in their Original because it is that which brings no small moment unto the Nobility of the same But in respect of the thing contained in the Waters they far disagree from us For indeed they affirm that Vitriol is in the Water of the Spaw and that Calchitis or red Vitriol Mysy Sory Melantera or Blacking Salt Nitre that Nitre I say hath been found to be in them by the examination of Distilling which elsewhere they never saw because they testifie it is that which since the Age of Hippocrates had failed from thence Bitumen or a liquid Amber the pit Coal Alume Bole Oker Red-lead the Mother of Iron the Vein of Iron Iron Aerugo or Verdigrease burnt Chalcanthum Burnt Alume also the Flour of Brass and Sulphur have therein discovered themselves These things I say we read to be attributed by Authors unto the Fountain of the Spaw under their Mistris Uncertainty and so they doubting unto what Captain they may commit so great an Army do conclude that there are some Fountains in which thou mayest most difficulty discern an eminent Subterraneous Matter Elsewhere in the Fountains of the Spaw that a Heat of Vitriol is tempered with the Cold of Red-lead and Brass In another place that the Fountains of the Spaw are actually cold and moist but in Power or Virtue which one Physitians do examine to be hot and dry and therefore especially because they extinguish Thirst At length they say that there is the Faculty of Iron Sulphur Vitriol and of other mineral Things in these Fountains yet an uncertain Proportion of the first Qualities remaining whether thou dost consider the Variety of subterraneous Things or the various Disposition of the Drinkers And I also read that that is to be noted That the Fountain Savonirius puts on it rather the Virtues of mineral Things than their Substance that is Faculties above without or not substantial ones For elsewhere they say that Fountains wax sharp by Vitriol alone and that Vitriol is of a most sharp Savour but in another place with Diascorides they find in Vitriol more of an ungrateful and earthy astriction than of a sharpness Lastly even as nought but the extream torture of the Fires doth allure forth a most sharpe Oyl out of Vitriol to wit a hungry and sulphurous Salt elevating the brassy Spirits So from hence they suppose Fountains to wax sharp and not otherwise to wit that such an Heat in the Earth doth stir up the sharp Spirits of Vitriol unto the Superficies of the Earth which being there constrained by Cold and changed into a sharp Matter are co-mixed with the neighbouring Fountain Which Position many Anguishes do accompany First Because there is no such voluntary Distillation in the Universe And then because at least the inward parts of the Earth according to Hippocrates are Cold in Summer to wit when the Water of the Spaw is at best Thirdly Because the Spirit of Vitriol cannot but gnaw the Earth or Rockie-stones which it toucheth and therefore put of all sharpness which is vainly dedicated to Fountains Fourthly Because in Summer the coldness of the Earth is not in its Superficies only because it is more in condensing the Spirits than the more inward Parts from whence they imagine the Spirits to be chased through the force of heat Fifthly Because the Spirits of Vitriol being immingled with the Water although negligently locked up do neither lay aside their sharpness nor are they tinged with a ruddie colour the which notwithstanding is altogether social unto Fountainous Waters Hitherto the Opinion of others hath led me aside I will confess my Blindness I at sometime seriously distilled Savenirius and Pouhontius and indeed I found not so great a Catalogue of Minerals yea not any thing in them besides Fountain-water and the Vitriol of Iron by other Writers before me neglected But the Vitriol of Mars consisteth of the hungry Salt of embryonated Sulphur and of the Vein of Iron not of Iron which Vein the hungry Salt being as yet volatile hath by licking corroded In which Act of corroding there is made a certain kind of Dissolution of the Vein it self and a coagulation or fixation of the volatile Salt The Salt I say as long as it is volatile that is apt by being pressed by the Fire to fly away is reckoned among Spirits But Bodies do not corrode Bodies as such neither do fixed things act on or into each other but only as one of them is volatile that is a Spirit whether it be grown together or liquid In the next place in all solution as may be seen in the activity of Aqua Fortis distilled Vinegar c. Some Exhalations are stirred up being before at quiet which as they are wild ones they do not again obey coagulation therefore the Waters do of necessity fly away or being restrained do burst the Vessels But besides that also is afterwards to be noted that how much of the Spirits hath compleated the solution of the Body so much also it hath assumed a corporality in the solved Body From hence therefore a reason plainly appeareth why the Waters of the Spaw in so great a clearness or perspicuity do hide in them the dark Body of the Vein of Iron Next why in the activity of an hungry Salt they do cast a smell of Sulphur notwithstanding the corporal Sulphur be absent At length it is also easie to be seen why the Waters about the end of their activity for that speediness of solution doth continue a longer or shorter time in diverse Fountains do loose their Sharpness and why the Vein being before transparent doth then appear ruddy To wit the Spirits being now partly chased away or the same being weakened and coagulated at the end of Activity the imbibed Vein settles and is manifested which before had remained hidden the Waters in the meantime recovering their natural or proper Simplicity Furthermore it is not
born a vain or empty Table From thence indeed arose a sensitive Power or Faculty in Posterity or the same Faculty of a middle Life which arose in Adam the which when through a just Maturity it had waxed ripe in the Seed it was at length brought through into a true Light and vital Form by the Creator on which afterwards the Mind of Man transferred its Vicarship yet the Mind hath remained being as it were reitired into its own bottom as abhorring the Impurities of Nature nor being any longer able unless by Grace immediately to diffuse it self into the sensitive Soul God so disposing of it by reason of his good Pleasure as shall be shewn hereafter In Man therefore there is actually a certain natural and formal Act which is the Soul or Sensitive Life very much distinct from the mind For as the Seed of a Dog tends into a living Dog obscurely reasoning or discoursing so certainly the Seed of Man doth not aspire into a dead Carcass but at least into a vital Soul and indeed flows into a sensitive and discursive one after a far more perfect manner than in a Dog Fox c. And that I might the more firmly attain this real Distinction of the sensitive Soul from the Mind in us I have feigned a Young-man to be utterly lost for a Maid For this Man wisheth with a full sense and consent of his Soul that he could be freed from that disdainful Love And likewise he would not that he should Love so dearly and would not be freed from his Love Not indeed that he by turns sometimes earnestly wills one thing but sometimes another but at once and in the same Motion and violent aslault he wisheth and not wisheth to be freed from that Love therefore he declares himself to be happy and unhappy in one Love And he suffers many Contradictories of that sort at once The which seeing they are not at once entertained in the same Subject and Respect I long doubted from whence such Contradictories should happen on every side in one only Man until at length the Apostle loosed this K not for me I seeing another Law in our Members opposite to the Law of our Mind which Laws surely he understandeth to be guarded not only with an Inclination and Desire but also with Discourse and Consent Then I clearly beheld the Affections of the sensitive Soul to be one and those of the Mind to be another but these because the Operation of the Mind is well nigh obscured by the perturbations of the sensitive Soul therefore they are weak For in this sense the Apostle calls Anger Envy Grudgings Worshipping of Idols c. the works of the Flesh For although they may seem to be spiritual Conceptions yet because they are the Operations of the sensitive Soul the which it self also is seminally stirred up in Nature by the will of Flesh and Blood therefore they are the meer works of the Flesh We are therefore uncessantly affected through the importunate Allurements of the social Soul because we being forthwith after Sin become degenerate have lost Immortality Wherefore God doth now require only a few things of us that we may enter into Life To wit that he that is Baptized do believe the whole History of the Creed and that he keep the Commandements of God through the Mediation of his Grace But whosoever will aspire unto a higher Degree of Charity let him endeavour so far as according to his Talent he shall be able in all Humility and by continuing in Charity through amorous Acts to run forth unto abstracted Things believed by Faith until that through the Grace of a daily Continuance of Exercise he shall feel his Mind to be overwhelmed by a supernatural Light For the Meditation of natural Forms doth much help in the entrance for the understanding of the Thingliness of the sensitive Soul For all Forms besides the Mind seeing they are vital Lights which are to return into nothing I have certainly learned that the Mind doth by a most long interval differ from the sensitive Soul Seeing that the immortal Mind however it be retracted into it self that it may not be defiled through the Wedlock of the sensitive Soul its Companion Yet it is president in all Acts as it is near at hand and doth totally inhere in the whole sensitive Soul and so operates herewith after a deaf manner But that this order of the Almighty was on this manner forthwith after the Fall of Adam I collected first because he hath created some Men blind and likewise mad noâ— for their own or Parents Sin but according to his good Pleasure for his own Glory for he made all things as he would and most exceeding well And then because he would be worshipped in the Spirit And lastly because in his House there are many Mansions Now they should be in vain if every Man should be equal in Grace in his Soul and Life From whence I collect that there ought to be a diversity of Spirits among Men and the Worshippers of the Divinity to be diverse in the degree of Charity For truly he created the Angels that they might worship him in the Spirit of Intelligency without the Turbulencies of Bodies But Man he deminished a little less than the Angels yet he primarily chose him after the Image of his Divinity for his own Glory and Worship and for his adopted Sons yet subject to an unhappy and calamitous kinde of living because he is he who being 〈◊〉 sunk or drowned within the Body scarce understands that he doth understand having almost forgotten his Immortality as being subjected unto the tyrannical Clientships of Diseases so that the Immortal Understanding in distracted or foolish and mad People appears to be almost extinct For it was the Almighties good Pleasure that those diverse Mansions should be inhabited as it were by the Ladder of Deserts and that Men being raised up by the Character or Impression of Grace should come unto higher Dignities of understanding To wit according to that saying The Learned shall shine as the Sun The first thing therefore is in the Simplicity of an operative Faith to have lived in Abstinency from Evils and to have done good And then that they Worship God in the Spirit of naked Truth and that through an operative Faith they proceed through an attainment of a fatherly Love worthy Deeds or Deserts in Charity although we not intending it helping to be more and more illustrated in their Understanding And so at length the Mind is loosed in that dark Prison of Bloods and intellectually beholds it self and with Humility admires the not before seen Light and being led through unknown Paths doth then without difficulty proceed by steps unto the more abstracted Contemplations of a Kiss where it being as it were raised up again out of a drowâ—â—â— Sleep doth as happy adore God in Truth Righteousness and the Union of Virtues under the Light of an abstracted Spirit For neither although
Ferments as many Varieties of Putrefactions and as many Dungs of one Bread as there are particular Kindes of Animals nourished by Bread Yea and moreover there are more Ferments for the Corruption of Bread because also Bread doth putrifie after many manners as well of its own accord as through the Odour of Places and Impressions of Agents And that which is said of Bread the same thing may be understood of other Foods The Schooles taking notice also that nothings will profit us but that which in its Root containeth the Flourish of Life therefore also they would that the Spirit of the Liver being actually natural should glisten in the Venal Blood like an Air And they have thought it to be a Vapour and therefore also they have confounded it with an Exhalation Not knowing that a Vapour is Water but that it is not a Gas a wild Spirit an uncoagulable Air and Skie Therefore they have thought that a Vapour exhaling out of the out-chased venal Blood even as elsewhere it breaths out of any lukewarm Liquors was that Spirit of the venal Blood from whence the vital Spirit should afterwards be materially framed Of which I have elsewhere profesly spoken For indeed whatsoever defcendeth into an healthy Stomack if it be concocted by the Ferment of the Spleen it waxeth sharp through the fermental and specifical Sharpness of our Species And Superfluities being first sequestred from thence it is at length turned into venal Blood Which Blood after the Bound of its Digestion is transferred into the Heart and is made Arterial Blood which in the holy Scriptures is called A ruddy or red Spirit wherein the Soul inhabiteth For it is made fit to pass over into Vital Spirit and the remainder thereof to undergo the last Digestion of the solid parts and at length without that its residence to exhale into the Air Therefore also for that very Cause it ought to be volatile and to have assumed the Disposition of a Spirit in the Heart Furthermore that Sharpness of the Stomack by Virtue of the ferment of the Gaul is converted into a Salt even as elsewhere concerning Digestions And the Actual Saltness is separated with the Urin and Sweats because it became Excrementitious But the Mass of the venal Blood it self seeing it cannot pass over into Spirit but by the Vital Ferment of the Heart I say there is made a substantial Derivation or Translation of the Venal Blood into Arterial Blood and of the Arterial Blood into Spirit wholly throughout the whole without any residence and separation of heterogeneal Parts because the Excrements are first withdrawn from thence and the Substance of the Heart is restless being continually busied about this Office of Transmutation that it may uncessantly effect Arterial Blood out of the Venal Blood and of this vital Spirit So that a certain natural Spirit doth not fore-exist in the venal Blood from whence as it were of the matter whereof vital Spirit may be made But the whole venal Blood it self if there shall be need is made Arterial Blood and from thence â—ital Spirit Therefore the making of Venal Blood in the Liver and the making of Arterial Blood in the Heart do differ For one is a true transmutation of the Chyle into venal Blood and the generating of a new Being But the other is an extenuating of the Venal Blood into a volatile Arterial Blood and into a Vital Air For venal Blood is made with a thickning of it self and with a Separation of the liquid Excrement or Urin. But the Vital Spirit is made with a melting of that which is thickned and an Aiery extenuation thereof to wit whereunto the Arterial Blood affords a Degree or Mean I confess indeed that the Spirit of Wine is snatched as a Spirit into the Arteries as a certain simple Symbolizing and previously disposed thing that it may easily passover into vital Spirit but the Schooles do from hence conclude nothing for their Spirit of the Liver Therefore let the venal Blood be the Spirit of the Liver it self coagulated and the fore-existing Matter of the Vital Spirits Which Spirit indeed hath the Nature together with the Power of a Body that it may be Spiritualized Therefore even as from the Ferment of the Heart the venal Blood is made arterial Blood and a volatile Spirit So in the Arteries as it were in the Stomack of the Heart and the Ferment of the Heart being drawn the Arterial Blood it self passeth over into the Common-wealth of Spirits Yea the secondary Humours also or the immediate Nourishments of the solid Parts are by degrees made Volatile least they should leave a remaining Residence behind them but they make an egress with a total transpitation of themselves The Heart therefore by its Ferment frameth arterial Blood out of venal Blood the which by the same endeavour it so fits and extenuates that moreover so much of vital Spirits is made out of the arterial Blood in the Arteries as it were in its Stomack as the Grosness and resisting Substance of the arterial Blood in so small a space wherein it is agitated or wrought in the Arteries permits to be made And there is well nigh a single Action while the venal Blood passeth over into arterial Blood and the Arterial Blood into Spirit Because they differ not in their Shops and likewise in the Degrees of Digestion Extenuation and Subtilizing For as much of arterial Blood is bred of venal Blood and as much of vital Spirits is made out of the arterial Blood by the same Feâ—ment of the Heart as is needful for every one of them and the Faculties of concocting are able to make Neither is it sufficient also to have known that the venal Blood doth ascend into arterial Blood but that the arterial Blood passeth over partly into vital Spirit and partly departeth into the Nourishment of the solid Parts Also that at length of vital Spirit it is made animal and the which receiveth an ultimated or utmost Determination in its Nerves so indeed that it is made visive or visible Spirit in the optick Nerves or Sinews of Sight but being exorbitant from thence and being derived into the Tongue it should be plainly unprofitable for tasting even as also the Aanimal Spirits the Authors of touching are unfit for Motion and those of this for them But moreover it behoves us to have known the Marrow of the vital Spirit For indeed of the Sharpe Chyle partly venal Blood and partly a Urin and sweat is made But that excrementous Saltness of the Urin is a volatile and Salt Spirit the which being co-fermented with Earth at length a Salta-peter is formed wherefore that Salt Spirit is excrementous The venal Blood indeed by Distillation shews unto us also a saltish Spirit plainly volatile not any thing distinguishable in Smell as neither in Tast from the Spirit of the Urin Yet essentially different in this that the Spirit of the Salt of Venal Blood cureth the Falling-sickness but the
seeing the essences of things and their vital Spirits know not how to putrifie by the dissolution of the inferiour harmony they spring up as surviving afresh For from thence it is that every occult property the compact of their bodies being by fore-going digestions which we call putrefactions now dissolved comes forth free to hand dispatched and manifest for action Therefore when a Wound through the entrance of air hath admitted of an adverse quality from whence the blood forthwith swells with heat or rage in its lips and otherwise becomes mattery it happens that the blood in the Wound freshly made by reason of the said forreign quality doth now enter into the Beginnings of some kind of corruption which blood being also then received on the Weapon or Splinter thereof is besmeared with the Magnetick Unguent the which entrance of corruption mediating the ecstatical power lurking potentially in the blood is brought forth into action which power because it is an exiled returner unto its own body by reason of the hidden extasie hence that blood bears an individual respect unto the blood of its whole body Then indeed the Magnet or attractive faculty is busied in operating in the Unguent and through the mediation of the ecstatical power for so I call it for want of an Etymologie sucks out the hurtful quality from the lips of the Wound and at length through the Mumial Balsamical and attractive virtue attained in the Unguent the Magnetism is perfected Loe thou hast now the positive reason of the Natural Magnetism in the Unguent drawn from Natural Magick whereunto the light of Truth assents saying Where the Treasure is there is the Heart also For if the Treasure be in Heaven then the Heart that is the Spirit of the Internal Man is in God who is the Paradise who alone is Eternal Life But if the treasure be fixed or laid up in frail or mortal things then also the Heart and Spirit of the more external Man is in Fading things Neither is there any cause of bringing in a Mystical sense by taking not the Spirit but the Cogitation and naked Desire for the Heart for that would contain a frivolous thing that wheresoever a Man should place his Treasure in his Thought or Cogitation there his Cogitation would be Also Truth it self doth not interpret the present Text Mystically and also by an Example adjoyned shews a local and real presence of the Eagles with the dead Carcase So also that the Spirit of the Inward Man is locally in the kingdom of God in us which is God himself and that the Heart or Spirit of the animal or outward sensitive man is locally about its Treasure What wonder is it that the astral Spirits of carnal or animal men should as yet after their funerals shew themselves as in a bravery wandring about their buried Treasure whereunto the whole Necromancy or art of Divination by the calling of Spirits of the Antients hath enslaved it self I say therefore that the external Man is an Animal or living creature making use of the reason and will of the Blood But in the mean time not baâ—ely an Animal but moreover the Image of God Logicians therefore may see how defectively they define a man from the power of rational discourse But of these things more elsewhere I will therefore adjoyn the Magnetism of Eagles to Carcases for neither are flying Fowls endowed with such an acute smelling that they can with a mutual consent go from Italy into Affrica unto Carcases For neither is an odour so largely and widely spread for the ample latitude of the interposed Sea hinders it and also a certain Elementary property of consuming it Nor is there any ground that thou shouldest think these Birds do perceive the dead Carcases at so far a distance with their sight especially if those Birds shall lye Southwards behind a Mountain But what need is there to enforce the Magnetism of Fowl by many Arguments since God himself who is the beginning and end of Phylosophy doth expresly determine the same process to be of the Heart and Treasure with these Birds and the Carcase and so interchangeably between these and them For if the Eagles were led to their food the Carcases with the same appetite whereby four-sooted Beasts are brought on to their pastures certainly he had said in one word That living Creatures flock to their Food even as the Heart of a Man to his Treasure which would contain a falshood For neither doth the Heart of Man proceed unto its Treasure that he may be filled therewith as living Creatures do to their Meat And therefore the Comparison of the Heart of Man and of the Eagle lyes not in the end for which they tend or incline to a desire but in the manner of tendency namely that they are allured and carried on by Magnetism really and locally Therefore the Spirit and will of the Blood fetch'd out of the Wound having intruded it self into the Oyntment by the Weapons being anointed therewith do tend towards their Treasure that is the rest of the Blood as yet enjoying the Life of the more inward Man But he saith by a peculiar Testimony that the Eagle is drawn to the Carcass Because she is called thereunto by an implanted and Mumial Spirit of the Carcass but not by the odour of the putrifying Body For indeed that Animal in assimilating appropriates to himself onely this Mumial Spirit For from hence it is said of the Eagle in a peculiar manner My youth shall be renewed as the Eagle For truly the renewing of her youth proceeds from an essential extraction of the Mumial Spirit being well refined by a certain singular digestion proper to that Fowl and not from a bare eating of the flesh of the Carcases otherwise Dogs also and Pies would be renewed which is false Thou wilt say that it is a reason far fetcht in behalf of Magnetism But what wilt thou then infer hereupon If that which thou confessest to be far remote for thy capacity of understanding that shall also with thee be accounted to be fetcht from far Truly the Book of Genesis avoucheth That in the blood of all living Creatures doth their Soul exist For there are in the blood certain vital powers the which as if they were soulified or enlivened do demand revenge from Heaven yea and judicial punishment from earthly Judges on the Murderer which powers seeing they cannot be denyed to inhabit naturally in the blood I see not why they can reject the Magnetism of the blood as accounting it among the ridiculous works of Satan This I will say more to wit that those who walk in their sleep do by no other guide than the Spirit of the blood that is of the outward man walk up and down perform business climbe Walls and mannage things that are otherwise impossible to those that are awake I say by a Magical virtue natural to the more outward man That Saint Ambrose although he were far distant
detestable yet are supported by the same root namely a Magical power without difference as unto good and also unto evil For neither doth it blemish the Majesty of free Will or the Treatise of the same although we now and then discourse of a Thief Robber or Murtherer a Whoremonger an Apostate and Witch Grant therefore that a Witch kills a Horse in an absent Stable there is a certain natural virtue derived from the Spirit of the Witch and not from Satan which can oppress or strangle the vital Spirit of the Horse Suppose thou that there are two subjects of Diseases and Death namely one of these the Body wherein a Disease inhabits And because all Beings act on this Body as that which is the most passive subject the other spiritual Dominion hath been thought to have been from Satan But the other subject is the unperceivable and invisible Spirit which of its own self is able to suffer all Diseases The Spirit suffering the Body also suffers because its action is limited within the Body for the Mind after that it is fast tied to the Body flowes alwayes downwards even as when the palate is pained the tongue continually tends thither but not on the contrary For there are some material Diseases which are tinged onely materially For so manifold is the occasion of Death that there is no other ground from whence we may receive an ability for pride The act therefore of the foregoing touch of the Witch is plainly natural although the stirring up of the virtue or power be made by the help of Satan No less than if a Witch should slay a Horse with a Sword reach'd unto her by Satan that act of the Witch is natural and corporeal even as the other fore-going act is Natural and Spiritual For truly Man naturally consists no lesse of a Spirit than of a Body neither therefore is there any reason why one act may be called the more natural one or why the Body only may be said to act but the Spirit to be idle and to be made altogether destitute at least of such action that is proper to it self as it is the Image of God Yea the vital Spirits in speaking most properly are those which perceive move remember c. but in no wise the Body and dead Carcass it self Every act therefore doth more properly respect its agent than the Body the Inn of the Agent Therefore some certain Spiritual Ray departs from the Witch into the Man or bruit Beast which she determineth to kill According to that Maxim That there is no Action made unless there be a due approximation or most near approach of the Agent to the Patient and a mutual coupâ—ing of their Virtues whether the same approximation be made Corporally or also spiritually Which thing is proved to our hand by a visible testimony For if the fresh Heart of a Horse for that is the seat of the vital Spirits slain by a Witch be empaled upon a stick and be roasted on a Broach or broyled on a Gridiron Presently the vital Spirit of the Witch without the interposing of any other mean and from thence the whole Witch her self for truly not the Body but the Spirit alone is sensible suffers cruel torments and pains of the fire The which surely could by no means happen unless there had been made a coupling of the Spirit of the Witch with the Spirit of the Horse For the Horse that was strangled retains a certain Mumial Faculty so I call it whensoever the virtue of the vital Liquor is as yet co-fermented with the Flesh that is the implanted Spirit such as is not found in Bodies dying of their own accord by reason of any sicknesse and any other renting asunder of an inferiour order whereunto the Spirit of the Witch being coupled unto it is a companion Therefore there is made in the fresh Heart a binding up of the Spirit of the Witch before that by a dissolution the Witch her own Spirit return back to her again which Spirit is retained by the Stick or Arrow being thrust into the Heart and through a roasting of both Spirits together from whence by Magnetism it happens that the Witch in the utmost limit or gradual heat of the Fire is sorely tossed or disturbed in her sensitive Spirit That effect is changed from the intention for if Reveng stir up the experimenter then the effect is reprobate But if tryal be made that the Witch may thereby be constrained to bewray her self to be subjected to Judges or the Justice of the Magistrate and that a benefit may be hereby procured to his Neighbour and himself and as by the taking away of so impious blasphemous and hurtful a Vassal of Satan glory to God and the greater peace and rest may arise amongst all Neighbours then certainly the effect cannot be rejected as reprobate We must not think that the whole Spirit of the Witch departeth into the Heart of the Horse for so the Witch her self had departed from the living but that there was a certain univocal or single participation of the vital Spirit and Light even as indeed a Spirit which is the Architect or Master-workman of the whole Man is propagated in the Seed at every turn or act of Generation being sufficient even for many off-springs the Spirit of the Father remaining entire notwithstanding Indeed that Spiritual participation of Light is Magical and a wealthy communication by Virtue of that Word Let Animals and Herbs bring forth Seed and one Seed produceth ten times ten thousand of Seeds of equal Valour or Virtue and as many entire seminal Spirits as Light is kindled or inflamed by Light But what a Magnetical Spirit may properly be and the Entity or Beingness begotten by its Parent the Phantasie I will hereafter more largely write I am now returned unto our Ends proposed Neither is there any ground for any one to think that this rebounding of the Heart into the Witch is a meer Supposition or plainly a superstitious and damnable Juggle and Mockery of Satan seeing she is infallibly discovered by this Sign and is constrained will she nill she to bewray her self openly which is a thing opposite to the intent of Satan as in the second of our suppositions is above sufficiently shewn for the Effect is perpetual never deceiving having its Foundation in reason and the spiritual Nature but not in the least supported by Superstitions Hath not likewise a dead Carcass also that was murdered be-bloodied it self before the Judges or Coroner and his Inquest when the Murderer was present and hath oft-times procured a certain Judgment of his Offence Although before the Blood had already stood restrained Indeed in the Man dying by reason of his Wound the Inferiour Virtues which are Mumial for those are unbridled ones and are not in our Power have imprinted on themselves a Footstep of taking revenge Hence it is that the Murderer being present the Blood of the Veins boiles up and flowes
Excitation is as it were by a waking sleepiness by a Catochus and therefore is imperfect in regard of the manner Evil in regard of the end Obscure in regard of the Meanes and Wicked in regard of the Author Nor doth the Turn-coat-impostor suffer that the Witch should know this Power to be natural unto her self whereby he may hold her the more fast bound to himself or least the exercise of so noble a Power being stirred up should incline otherwise than to Wickedness therefore he commands the Rains himself neither hath the Witch known how to stir it up at her own pleasure who hath wholly prostrated her self to the Will of another Tyrant Also Man himself is able through the Art of the Cabal to cause an excitement in himself of so great a Power at his own Pleasure and these are called Adeptists or Obtainers whose Governour also is the Spirit of God That this same Magical Virtue is also in the more outward Man to wit in the Flesh and Blood Yet after its own and far more feeble manner yea not only in the external Man but also proportionally in Bruits for so the Book of Genesis minds us that the Soul of Bruit-Beasts is in their Blood and upon this account it deservedly enrouls the same out of the Bill of our Food and perhaps in all other things Seeing all particular things contain in them a delineation of the whole Universe and upon that account at least the Antients have seriously signified unto us that there is a God that is an All in All that the Magick of the more outward Man hath need of exciting no less than that of the more inward Man neither that Satan doth stir up any other Magick in his Imps than what belongs to the more outward Man For in the more inward bottom of the Soul is the Kingdom of God whereto no Creature hath access We have further taught that there is a connexion between things spiritually acting and that Spirits as they combate with Spirits as in example of the Witch So also we have shewn by Magnetical Examples and proper Reasons for the fascination and binding up of Soules that they hold a friendly correspondence even as concerning David and Jonathan c. Last of all we have endeavoured to shew that Man predominates over all other corporeal Creatures and that by his natural Magick he is able to tame the Magical Virtues of other things which predominacy others have falsly and abusively transferred on the authority of Verses or Charmes and Enchantments By which Hierarchy or holy Dominion we have sufficiently and over-sufficiently cleered up that those Effects whatsoever they be are wrought which those who not but too rustically and corporeally Phylosophize have referred unto the dominion of Satan It must needs be that those who were ignorant of all things that have been spoken should as yet doubt of many things therefore we determine to repeat all things First of all whereby those things may become the more clear which we have spoken above concerning the Duel of Spirits or their mutual friendly Conspiracy It is worth our labour to define the Weapons of Spirits and the Common-wealth of the same Wherefore we must seriously note the Example of a Woman great with Child who if she hath with violence of desire conceived a Cherry in her Mind the Foot-step thereof is presently imprinted on her Young in that Part whereon the great-bellied Woman shall lay her hand Nor is it indeed only an idle Image or Spot of a Cherry but that which flowers and grows to Maturity with the other Trees in their season to wit the Signatures of Colours and Figures being changed Truly high and sacred is the force of the Microcosmical Spirit which without the Trunck of a Tree brings forth a true Cherry that is Flesh ennobled with the Properties and Power of the more inward or real Cherry by the Conception of Imagination alone from whence we understand two necessary Consequences The First is that all the Spirits and as it were the Essences of all things do lay hid in us and are born and brought forth only by the working Phantasie of the little World The Second is that the Soul in conceiving generates a certain Idea of the thing conceived the which indeed as it before lay hid unknown and as it were Fire in a Flint So by the stirring up of the Phantasie there is produced a certain real Idea and a quiddative or some particular essential Limitation of a Cherry which is not a naked quality but something like unto a Substance hanging in suspense between a Body and a Spirit that is the Soul That middle Being is so spiritual that it is not plainly exempted from a Corporeal Condition since the Actions of the Soul are limited on the Body and the inferiour orders of Faculties depending on it nor yet so corporeal that it may be enclosed by Dimensions the which we have also related to be only proper to a seminal Being This Ideal Entity therefore when it fals out of the invisible and intellectual World of the Microcosme it puts on a Body and then also it is first inclosed by the Limitations of Place and Numbers The Object of the Understanding is in it self a naked and pure Essence not an accident by the consent of Practical that is mystical Divines Therefore this Protheus or transformable Essence the Understanding doth as it were put on and cloath it self with this conceived Essence But because every Body whether External or Internal hath its making in its own proper Image The Understanding knowes or discerns not the Will loves and wills not the Memory recollects not but by Images or Likenesses The Understanding therefore put on this same Image of its Object and because the Soul is the simple Form of the Body which turns her self about to every Member therefore neither can the acting Understanding have two Images at once but first one and anon another Therefore the whole Soul descends upon the Intellect or Understanding and the comprehended Image being as yet tender and forms this Knowledge of the Essence into a persisting Image or Ideal Entity or Beingness The Mind being defiled hath slidden into the Indignation of God and because the same mind was at once polluted the nobleness of its former Condition being put off Death found an entrance not indeed by the command of the Creator but from the degeneration of Man being slidden into filthiness and degenerate from himself by reason of the same Ideal Entity being now put on which Filthiness seriously and diligently springing up even in all particular Sins it is conveâ—ient to extenuate or consume by Repentance here or in the World to come This Entity therefore being as yet in the Understanding is but lightly imprinted neither doth it find a consistence any where but in a Woman with Child the which in us Men it doth not obtain but by the Will that is the Understanding doth alwayes procreate an Entity
also conceived it within and doth not that Knowledge presuppose a Phantasie proper to its kinde for so some Simples induce an Alienation of the Mind but some others a Madness or maddish Fury not indeed through a Destruction of the Brain or a dispersing of its Spirits for then at least the Strength and most strong Faculties of the mad or furious Person would not remain but by a strange kind of and furious Phantasie of those Simples being introduced which being victress subdues ours and keeps the same a Servant it self for a time as in Doatage the Phrensie c. Sometimes also perpetually as in lunatick and mad or Bedlam-persons Doth not the Madness of Dogs thus pass over into Man For the maddish Phantasie of Fury is transplanted into the Spittle of their Tongue which as victress soon triumphs over the Blood of that Animal which the Skin being opened it shall never so slenderly touch Then indeed the antient Phantasie of the whole Blood gives place and will it nill it assumes an hydrophobial Phantasie or an estranged Imagination of the fear of Water From whence at length comes a Binsical Death that is from the sole Sickness of the Mind to wit the magical Virtue of the Dog being exalted and excited or stirred up above the non-excited but drowsie Imagination of the Animals Plainly after the same manner is the Phantasie of the Tarantula imprinted by a slender stroak of his Sâ—ing and the Wounded or Stung Persons being presently alienated in their Mind fall a dancing and leap hugely yet the Venom of the Tarantula differs from that of a mad Dog in this that this acts by a Magical Power being stirred up and so by the Magick of a true name But the other by a drowsie Magical Faculty even as the same difference is manifest in Wolâ—s-bane and other destructive Plants which kill with a very small quantity because no living Creature Secures or defends himself against a mad Dog because there is in him a binding magical Power against which Teeth or Horns do not prevaile which cannot be said of the Poyson of the Tarantula In the External Man therefore even as in his fellow Animals the magical Power is as it were laid asleep neither can it be stir'd up only in Man although indeed much more easily in him but in some living Creatures his Consorts Yea neither is it sufficient that Spirits do observe this Law of Concord and single Duel with Spirits but moreover there lurks a certain Spirit in the whole Universe which we call the great Magnal or Sheath which being the Pander of Sympathy or Fellow Feeling and Dyspathy or difficulty of suffering doth exist as a Communicater and Promoter of Actions and by reason whereof Magnetism or Attraction is by a Vehicle or Instrument of conveyance extended to an Object at a distance That thing is proved to our sight For if thou shalt place a slender Straw upon the Cord or String of a Lute hanging with a doubtful extremity or with an equal weight in the Air like a Ballance and shalt strike the like string of another Lute that is aloof off when the Tunes do co-agree in the eighth Note thou shalt see the Chaff to tremble but when the Tunes or Notes agree in a Unisone then otherwise the string of the quiet Lute being impatient of delay quavets or hops a little skips for joy and shakes off the hated Straw by its jumping Shall here also Satan be the Fidler in their esteem Which Straw doth not happen to leap although all the Strings of the other Lutâ— be unanimously strongly and near at hand struck upon Nor also doth the naked Tune constrain the other and quiet string to leap a little for then every Note would effect that but it is only the Spirit which is the common Pander inhabiting in the middle of the Universe which being the faithful executer and assistant of natural Actions derives promotes and also causeth the Sympathy Why are we so sore afraid of the name of Magick Seeing that the whole action is Magical neither hath a thing any Power of Acting which is not produced from the Phantasie of its Form and that indeed Magically But because this Phantasie is of a limited Identity or Sameliness in Bodies devoid of choice therefore the Effect hath ignorantly and indeed rustically stood ascribed not to the Phantasie of that thing but to a natural Property they indeed through an Ignorance of Causes substituting the Effect in the room of the Cause When as after another manner every Agent acts on its proper Object to wit by a fore-feeling of that Object whereby it disperseth its Activity not rashly but on that Object only to wit the Phantasie being stirred after a sense of the Object by dispersing of an ideal Entity and coupling it with the Ray of the passive Entity This indeed hath been the magical Action of natural things yet the Magick and Phantasie that is properly so named is in Creatures enlarged or ennobled with a Power of choice I will go thorow them according to their ranks The formal Properties therefore which issue from the Forms of the three Principles Salt Sulphur and Mercury or Salt Fat and Liquor from whence every Body is composed and again resolved into the same and the Mercury or Liquor is so often diverse as there are Species or particular kinds of things let the same Judgment be of the Salt and Sulphur Those Properties I say flow from the Phantasies of these Forms the which because they are exceeding corporeal and do as yet stick in the Bosom of the Elements therefore they are called formal and occult Properties by reason of the Ignorance of the Forms which otherwise are magical Effects propagated from the Phantasie of the said Forms but they are ignoble and very corporeal ones yet abundantly satisfying the ends which they have respect unto Of this kind are the subductive or loosening Property of the Belly the sleepifying Property c. in things There are also besides these other more noble Properties arising from the Phantasie of the Forms of the mixt Body and those of this sort are in the whole composed Body by reason of its Form as the Magnetism of the Load-stone the Virtue of Tinctures Likewise all specifical and appropriated Things or Medicines which happen by reason of the whole homogeneal Mixture or of the Form of any one entire part but not of some one principle alone such as those are which are seated in the Flesh or Trunck Root Leaves and Fruit and not in any one of the three Principles being separated there-from Likewise Antimony as long as it remaines in its Form obtaineth most excellent Properties the which it never attaineth in its Principles and these are also from a corporeal Bosom and therefore the spiritual Magick is also hidden in these and is thought to be due only to Nature by unfitly distinguishing this in opposition to Magick So the Leaf of the Rose hath another kinde of
Judge be taken away from the society of these according to the Law of God For if the Work be limitted unto any outward Object that work the Magical Soul never attempts without a medium or mean therefore it makes use of the Nail or Arrow aforesaid Now this being proved that man hath a power of acting per nutum or by his beck or of moving any Object remotely placed It hath been also sufficiently confirmed by the same natural Example that that efficacy was also given unto man by God and that it naturally belongs unto him It hath been hitherto an absurdity to have thought that Satan hath moved altered and transported any thing and to have applied Active things to Passive by local motion onely per nutum since indeed they doubt not that he himself was the first moover in the said motions that by those outmost parts or extreamities whereby he toucheth he can snatch away transferre or any way move at least an aiery body which they feign yet wanting a Soul Absurd I say it is to think that Satan since his Fall hath retained a Magical dignity whereby he acteth any subjects by beck alone because that was once his natural gift but that the same natural faculty was withdrawn from man as denied unto him and given unto the Devil the most despicable of Creatures But if there are any such effects proceeding from man they have also attributed them at least to a suppliant or servile compact with him Open your eyes for Satan hath hitherto promiscuously gloried in your so great ignorance as if thou didst make his Altar smoak with the Incense of Glory and Dignity and didst extract thy own natural Dignity as pulling out thine own Eyes and offering them up unto him We have said that happily every Magical faculty lyes dormant or asleep and hath need of excitement which is perpetually true if the object whereon it is to act be not most nearly disposed if its internal phantasie doth not wholly conform to the impression of the agent or also if the patient be equal in strength or superiour to the agent therein But on the contrary where the Object is plainly and most nearly disposed as Steel is for the receiving of a Magnetism or plainly weak and conscious to it self as the Murderer Adulterer Thief Witch are then the Patient without much stirring up the alone phantasie of the more outward Man being drawn out to the work and bound up to any suitable mean yeelds to the Magnetism The Magitian I say always makes use of a Medium for so unless a Woman with child shall stretch forth her hand unto her Leg Fore-head or Buttocks the Young will not be marked in the Leg Fore-head or Buttocks For so the words or forms of Sacraments do alwayes operate Because from the work performed But why Exorcisms or Charms do not alwayes operate the defect is not in God but onely because the unexcited mind of the Exorcist or Charmer renders the words dull or uneffectual Therefore no man is a happy or succesful Exorcist but he who hath known how to stir up the Magical virtue of his mind or can do it practically without Science Perhaps thou wilt say That in the Armary Unguent or Weapon Salve there was obtained no other Magnetical Virtue than what was begotten by the Phantasie of the Compounder Thou errest Yet if that should be granted thou wouldest be never the better thereby because the effect should thereupon happen not to be ascribed to Satan For so the Unguent would be Magnetical or attractive not from a Phantasie inbred in it but from that which was imprinted on it from without by the compounder since there can be no nearer Medium of the said Magnetism than humane blood with humane blood Truly the blood alone as the most disposed subject should be sufficient for the Oyntment and the other Simples would be in vain which is false especially Bulls blood and honey where there is a sufficient cure without the blood of a Bull by the Weapons of the Wounder being bathed in the Unguent without being distained by the blood of the Patient which is false Lastly the Magnetism of the Unguent should be plainly general because the person compounding it had intended by his Phantasie to effect an impression too liberal wandering uncertain and unsold for all Wounds of man and also of all bruit Beasts What if he shall not intend the Cure of a Dog Shall therefore the Oyntment not be for Curing the Wound of a Dog Fie What hath Bole Armeniack what Lynseed-Oyle what Honey and lastly what hath the blood of a Bull of disposition to the Wound of a Horse or Man that on those as on a proper mean and not on any other the Phantasie of the compounder should be imprinted the which notwithstanding if they shall be banished out of the composition they will render unguent Barren and void of Efficacy The natural Phantasie therefore of the Unguent is the cause of the Magnetism or attractive influence and the proper cause of the Cure and not the Imagination of the Compounder Behold Thou hast our that is a Christian Phylosophy not the Dotages or idle Dreams of Heathens Beware I beseech thee that thou for this cause cast not me also into censure who hast been too ready in thy censures I am thine and a Roman Catholick whose mind hath been to ponder of nothing which may be contrary to God and that may be contrary to the Church I know that I was not born for brawlings or contentious debates not to Write the Commentaries or Patronages of another Therefore what I knew I was willing to divulge abroad in the liberty of a Phylosopher I shall as yet subjoyn this one Clause Whosoever attributes a natural Effect so created by God so bestowed on the Creatures unto the Devil he estrangeth the honour due to the Creator and reproachfully applies the same unto Satan The which under thy favour I shall speak it if thou shalt well recal under thy Anatomy thou wilt find to be express Idolatry I beg of God our most Clementious Father that he would be favourable or merciful to the Faults which from humane not stubborn ignorance and frailty we have contracted Amen There are three bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the holy Spirit and these three are onely one and presently speaking of the humanity of Christ There are three that bear record in Earth the Blood the Spirit and the Water and these three are onely one We therefore who have the like humanity it s no wonder if we contain Blood and a Spirit of a co-like Unity and that the action of the Blood is meerly spiritual Yea therefore in Genesis it is not called by the Etymology of Blood but is made remarkable by the name of a Red Spirit Depart thou therefore whoever thou art from thy stubbornness and acknowledge thou another Spirit in the Blood besides the evil Spirit unlesse thou canst go
condensing 7. In the lime of rocky stones there are two divers salts for neither could it otherwise ever become a stone 8. The errour of Galen concerning Ashes 9. The Author when he had learned nothing from coagulated Bodies at length examined divers spirits 10. The errour of Paracelsus concerning Tartar 11. An examination of salts 12. The highest vertue of Vegetables 13. From whence a salt ariseth in urine 14. Duelech doth not stonifie after the manner of lime 15. What the Sunovia is 16. An examination of fermental savours 17. Paracelsus is taken notice of concerning Mercuries 18. An abuse in forbidding the use of salt 19. The handicraft Operation of the salt of urine 20. The vanity of Turnheisser his signifyng by the urine 21. Two the more fixed salts in urine 22. The differences of both those salts 23. The difference of the Volatile from the fixed salt of the urine 24. The ferment of the stomach is not any kind of sharpnesse whatsoever 25. Burnt vrine yielded not an Alcali to the Author 26 The Vulnerary drink of a certain Country man 27. That an Alcali doth not fore-exist but is made in burning 28. A digression Unto some ranks of Simples 29. The calcining of Harts-horn is a thing of notable blockishnesse 30. Sea-salt whether it hurt those that labour with the stone 31. That salt is not to be forbidden for its owne sake as neither for its spirit-sake 32. The fittest salt for eating 33. A wonderfull handicraft Operation in the distillation of urine 34. The judiciary part in Vrines why hitherto false 35. What the stone being distilled may teach 36. Earth together with the spirit of Vrine never makes Duelech 37. The constituting principles of Duelech 38. How sands are made in the Vrinal or Chamberpot 39. The Confirmation of the stone is fabulous 40. A stone of a wonderful bignesse 41. Paracelsus is ridiculous in the stone of a Thunderbolt 42. Duelech is made of meer volatile things 43. Three spirits concurre in the Vrine for the nativity of Duelech 44. Volatile Bodies are oft-times through their concourse presently fixed together at once WEE read in our Furnaces that there is not a more certain kind of Science in Nature for the knowing of things by their radical and constitutive causes than while it is known what and how much is contained in any thing So indeed that the knowledge and connexion of causes are not more clearly manifest than when thou shalt so disclose things themselves that they bewray themselves in thy presence and do as it were talk with thee For truly real Beings standing onely in their owne Original and succeeding principles of seeds and so in a true substantial entity do afford the Knowledge and produce the cause of knowing the nature of Bodies their middle parts and extremities or utmost parts Because they are the cause of the Generation existence and thorow changing of them according to their Root Because as Raymund testifies However a Logitian may have a profound wit discourseable or natural concerning things without Yet he shall never by any reason which comes unto sense be able directly to know nor judge with what kind of nature or vertue through a fortitude or strength within the multiplication of grain possesseth it self so as to grow or increase upon the earth unless by reason of a similitudinary example drawn from observation Neither shall he ever know after what manner a seed buds growes and collects fruits in the earth unless he shall with an experimental Doctrine first enter into our natural Philosophy and not that Sophistical discursive one which is bred in Logitians by divers phantastical presumptions who with the Prognostications of Sequels contrary to the power of Nature make many stubbornly to erre in the sophistication of their mind Because by our handicraft knowledge the understanding is rectified by the force of experience in respect of the sight and of a true mental Knowledge Yea our experiences stand over the head of the phantestical or imaginative proofs of Conclusions and therefore neither do they endure them But they shew that all other Sciences do livelily enter into the understanding From whence we afterwards understand that thing within what it is and of what sort it is Because by such knowledge the Intellect stands uncloathed of superfluities and errours which do ordinarily remove it from the Truth by reason of presumptions and prejudiced or fore-judged things believed in the conclusions For from hence it is that our Philosophers or followers have directed themselves to enter through any kind of Science into all experience by Art according to the course of Nature in its Univocal or single Principles For Alchymie alone is the Glass of true understanding and shews how to touch and see the truths of those things in the clear Light Neither doth it bring Logical arguments because they are too remote and far off from the clear Light And therefore the Smaragdine Table hath it By this kind of demonstration all obscurity will free from thee and all the strong fortitude of strength which vanquisheth subtile things and pierceth all solid things will be attained by thee Wherefore I am called Hermes Trimegistus as having the three that is all the parts of Philosophy and the perfection of the whole world Thus he Between praying therefore and knocking a mean in naturals namely of seeking by the fire is supposed I indeed hoped by searching into the Contents of urine visibly to know it no otherwise surely than by a true solving or resolution of urine Therefore first of all I distilled my own urine being first kept in a wooden Vessel untill that at length it voluntarily conceived a ferment and boyled up no otherwise than as Wines do so that my ear could perceive the boyling About the end whereof there was a little burning water distilled from thence But of the remainder I collected a most white salt of a sharp and uriny stinking odour But I know not whether there be any thing more subtile in the whole nature of things It being a noble Remedy against the Jaundise and other Diseases I endeavoured by this Salt to dissolve Duelech in a Glass But the event answered not my attempt Again my own urine was putrified anew in Horse-dung That the unlike part thereof might incline to a separation of its last life Then I distilled it by cohobating it four times according to the prescription of Paracellus and I found frequent Crystals therein being yellow and of a sharp top The which although they might be of conducement against the old obstructions of Excrements yet of none against the affect of the Stone Thirdly I mixed the spirit of my Urine with Aqua vitae dephlegmed or refined and in a moment both of them were coagulated together into a white lump or gobbet yet wondrous swift or volatile and subtile My Eye in the first place there taught me That the spirit of Urine was an unparallel'd and great Runnet because it was
that which was for coagulating of Aqua vitae 2. That in coagulating it had separated the sluggish and watery part which swum upon the aforesaid white lump perhaps no otherwise than as in coagulation of Duelech from the rest of the body of the urine and so that it perfected its coagulation in the middle of the waters 3. That the curdy Runnet or spirit of Urine had undissolveably knit it self to the spirit of Wine 4. That it is not a perpetual truth the which notwithstanding the Schooles hand forth instead of a Chymicall Maxime that every sharp coagulating Body did by the same endeavour dissolve its own Compeere 5. That the spirit of Urine had not coagulated it self in the Glass according to the powder of a beaten Duelech but onely that it had mingled and coagulated it self together with another thing namely with the spirit of Wine 6. That if therefore it had met with an earthly spirit it had also contracted wedlock with the same so as that of both spirits it had made a stony Body 7. I likewise learned after what manner the spirit of urine might coagulate another spirit within the urine 8. That such an association is not a certain naked co-mixture of parts but an undissolvable wedlock of unity a certain substantial transmutation a production of a new Being by an Agent and a Patient into a neither Body This experiment gave me an entrance for a diligent search into the Disease of the Stone Yet I as yet remained wandring about For after giving of thanks I transferr'd my self into a meditation how many ways a thing might be condensed or coagulated in the Universe For Ice first presently offered it self unto me wherein the water incrusts it self for fear of cold and from a primitive action but is not actively congealed by cold Even as elsewhere concerning the Elements But other Bodies which are believed to be mixt as they bewray themselves to be the true Fruits of water by the same Zeal and Tenour are they congealed by cold occasionally For so Bones and a Sword are more easily broken in time of cold Seasons than in time of heat or Summer 2. Any kind of Salts according to their Species and inbred property while their brine being not sufficientts dryed up is left in the cold are separated from their water and become corny 3. If Salts shall subdue any thing by gnawing it they pass over from their native condition into a neither Body and are coagulated For so the Tartar of Wine Sope Borace c. are coagulated 4. And then Muscilages being thickned by the wedlock of their seeds and resolved from their own Body become Glews Gums Solder c. 5. But if a muscilage or slimy juyce carries a co-mixed fat with it it is coagulated in both respects So are Aloes a Chibal Pitch Rosin Gum Ammoniacum Frankinsence Myrrh Mastich the Gum Opopanax Sarcocolla Assa Elemi c. 6. Earth converting into a salt or muscilage if it be dryed is condensed and waxeth hard 7. A mineral Salt that was bred in the earth by burning stonifies into stones shells or sheards and earthen Pots 8. The which if they are urged by a stronger degree of heat they at length vitrifie or become Glass 9. The watery Leffas or planty juyce of the Earth by vertue of the seeds is hatdened into Woods Herbs c. 10. So Water by vertue of a seed is made a rocky stone 11. A muscilage being joyned to a powder or dust makes sand-stones but with dust and lime it now dissembles divers Marbles 12. Whatsoever lime dissolved comprehends or encloseth in it self that thing coagulates with it Because there are in Lime two salts the one a lixivial Alcali salt and the other an acide or sharp one which two salts while they demolish each other are coagulated together 13. Mettals Fire-stones Sulphurs etc. do by vertue of their seeds obtain their own and proper coagulations 14. Also most things through an inbred Glew do voluntarily grow together which afterwards by drying do harden As Blood Cheese the white of an Egg Varnish c. 15. Glass is an earthen stone consisting of an Alcali salt The which while being fired it is dissolved makes the sand or powder of stone that is not calcinable nor otherwise capable of powring abroad to melt by corroding and so they are both together turned into a transparent lump Therefore the Lime-stone or rocky stone by reason of its sharp salt is unfit for Glass because the lime thereof destroyes the Glassifying Alcali and there is made a certain neutral thick or dark Body Lime therefore against the will of Galen very much differs from ashes To wit because this separates the Lixivium or lye from it self but the other containes a sharpnesse that is not separable from the whole Whereby it being at length burnt by too much fire is Glassified throughout its Lixivial part being unfit for Building According to Geber Because all fixed Bodies are at length Glassified with Glassifying things Cheese also as it is curdled by moderate sharpnesse so it is resolved with an eminent sharpness For the pating of Cheese dissolves with dry Calx vive or quick-Lime but not with the Alcali or Lixivial salt of Ashes From all the aforesaid particulars I have collected that the coagulation of Duelech is singular and irregular Lime also doth by degrees stonifie in the middle of the waters as its aforesaid salts do coagulate each other But the body of Man as it doth not coagulate a rocky stone so neither doth it endure a Calx or Lime-stone in the Bladder For indeed that admirable Coagulum or Runnet alwayes stuck before mine eyes whereby more swiftly than in the twinkling of an Eye the spirit of urine had condensed the spirit of Wine into a lump Therefore I discerned that all other Coagulations had nothing common with Duelech Wherefore I determined to examine Spirits Therefore first I distilled Horse-pisse But surely the spirit thereof wanted that Runnet Wherefore I noted with the highest admiration the singularity of mans Urine Afterwards I observed that the spirit of Sulphurs or of Salts being sharp would with an Alcalized body be made earthly For so with Iron is made drosse rust a cankered rust Ceruss c. And these Paracelsus rashly judgeth to be Tartars or the separated impurities of things over-covered with their own and that an inward Runnet when as otherwise they are nothing else but the astonishment of two mutual Agents to wit when both their strengths are spent Afterwards I long examined Salts throughout every of their Analysis or Re-solution and I discerned that the spirits of all salts were sharp except Alcalized ones and those of essential Sulphurs in Vegetables Whose saltish tartnesses indeed are fat and sulphurous neither readily reducible into a salt unlesse by a tedious inversion or turning in and out of the principles which salts being then as it were elixirated do represent the true and highest Crasis or constitutive
it leave any dreg of it self behind But the earth becomes volatile in the urine from the putrified Ferment A dungy putrefaction therefore growing in the urine to wit in the drosse or liquid dung that was brought thither it sometimes obeyeth the Spirit the Coagulater namely as oft as a mutual action of them both is stirred up from the ferment of putrefaction I have distilled a Duelech that was cut out of a man by himself neither have I extracted any thing from thence besides a stinking spirit of urine and a yellow Crystal and also an Oyl such as is drawn out of dryed urine But that which remained unto me in the bottom was a black scorched brickle and un-savoury earth Therefore the Writers of the first Beginnings of Chymical Medicine deceive their Readers as many as from the distillations of the stone of man and its preparations do boast of the Ludus of Paracelsus or of the Prince of stone-breaking Medicines For they have a desire to write meer and a great many lyes Neither am I sufficiently angry at the Impudence and rashnesse of these men in a matter of so easie an Experiment especially when as any one might have fitly known that thing from the shavings of the Urinal Surely there is not so much as the least of those things extracted out of the stone of man which those Instructers of Children do rashly write It is certain in the mean time that by the means of putrefaction not a few things are made volatile which before their Closets being not unloosed were more straightly bound up For so also Vegetables afford the more unmixt or meer waters to the Stiller than themselves yet being not putrified We perish not therefore by the stroak of one onely Weapon since all particular ones which are mild if they grow but a little exorbitant do fashion new Calamities in us For the substance of the Kidneys being the hardest of all the Bowels and destitute of finewes and Arteries was the fittest for a dungy Ferment of the urine whereunto if the Ferment even but of a fore-threatned putrefaction in the urine shall have accesse a speedy inclination into the Disease of the stone is imprinted on the trans-sliding urine For truly the odour onely of the fore-named putrefaction in the urine stirs up a heterogeniety or diversity of kind which was before hidden therein For presently the urine which lighted into a foul Urinal becomes of a very stinking smell and far sooner bewrayes the sand that was hidden in it than that which otherwise was received in a clean Glass For I have shewn by an undoubted experiment that even the urine of healthy persons affixeth Duelech on Urinals in the form of graines or scales And that not presently after making water that they do forthwith settle but they are affixed some houres after To wit while the urine now unfolding the Ferment conceived in the Kidney enters into the way of corruption In those that have the stone of the Reines indeed the urine receiveth a putrefactive Ferment which otherwise is not communicated to the urine of healthy Folk a dungy Ferment being otherwise sufficient for it Furthermore it is not necessary that an actual putrefaction be in the Kidney that it may stir up a sand within Even as neither doth the urine in Urinals as yet stink while it now freed it self from the sand but a sore-threatned or beginning putrefaction is sufficient that the spirits may freely enjoy their right and mutually their Bolts being cast off act on each other But I suppose that to be a sore-threatned putrefaction which is onely seminally in the Archeus of the Reines although not unfolded For otherwise if there were but the least actual putrefaction in the Kidney a slow Fever would accompany that putrefaction but of how small a quantity soever it shall be it easily takes root within the urine whereinto indeed a uriny-Ferment hath already pierced the which as it is in it self a dungy one so also it is a putrified one For there is an easie association of putrefaction and of an excrement in a Fermental co-resemblance Whosoever therefore shall endeavour that his urine may not stonifie within let him seasonably provide that it do not unseasonably wax stony within him For therefore there are some Medicines which tinge the urine and Kidneys with a gratefull odour and for this cause are kind to their Organs For as they are Diureticks or provokers of urine they obtain a passage unto the Kidneys and immingle themselves with the urine For whatsoever things through an ocult or manifest quality have deserved the surname of Stone-break do indeed cleanse and wipe off and for this cause do comfort the Kidneys being threatned with putrefaction but surely they do not melt or resolve any thing of the sand Such as are sharpish Fountaines Diuretical stones and herbs which by washing off and wiping away do banish the sands and thinner clots but do not dissolve them and much lesse do they restrain the new Beginnings of the stone Because they being destitute of a Balsame and the seasoning of a gratefull Odour do notwithstanding not appease the filthinesses of the putrefactive Ferment however dull they as yet may be For even as the re-budding of a plant is not taken away by the lopping off its branches but by rooting of it up so neither is the stone of the Kidneys cured by thrusting out of the stone There is not any thing done that is worthy of Reward If a person that hath the Falling-sicknesse be raised up from his fall if he be not also freed from a Relapse for the future Yet this top of perfection or healing the Schooles have not any thing touched at yea they have rather despaired thereof because they saw that the contracted blemish of the affect of the stone did oft-times Tyrannize on the posterity as being translated by an hereditary right For when Physitians had seen one that was cut for the stone of the Bladder to have been afterwards free there-from all his life-time they promising to themselves that the same thing would happen for the future in the stone of the Reines concerning a Relapse they being not any thing carefull of to morrow perswaded the sick to hope well they themselves at least well hoping that they should receive money at the next Markets of its return For they supporting themselves by blockish principles must now and then use onely the more mild Laxatives that they may brush off the foregoing lump or rubbish of the stone For indeed they think that they do wipe away all matter of the stone out of the stomach and in speaking seriously They boast that by their blessed Looseners they have provided for a Cloakative Cure if the sick party were but readily obedient in a repeated going to stool and the observed Rules of Dyet But unto these Trifles I have abundantly given satisfaction in the Book of Fevers For we are nourished of the same things whereof we
necessaries of its own Constitution from excrements Yea it should rather follow that seeing the Leprosie is such an abundant productress of salt in the excrements the venal Bloud also shall not want its own salt Even as while there flowes a continual Sunovie or gleary water and that plainly a salt one out of ulcers the remaining bloud doth not therefore want its salt or sense is not diminished in the flesh but rather encreaseth the pain and sharpness So also in the Dropsie a salt water doth sometimes forthwith extend the Abdomen or neather Belly yet do not dropsical persons want the sence of Touching For Paracelsus elsewhere defineth the venal Bloud to be the meer Mercury of man from which those excrements are sequestred in the shew of a putrified sulphur and likewise of a Whey-ie unprofitable and superfluous salt Elsewhere again as being unmindfull of himself he defines the Bloud to be the salt of the Rubie As though salt were the Tincture of the Rubie or that the Tincture of the Bloud were from a salt For he makes his three first things mutable at pleasure no otherwise than as the Humourists do accuse their Humours and Heats at pleasure and which more is do say that the same are the causes of Diseases and Death and also the Authors of sensation and motion Fye must we thus sport at pleasure with Nature Diseases the Bloud and Death of our Neighbour For Medicine is plainly a serious thing and man shall at sometime render skin for skin For salt doth not appear in the Bloud flesh solid parts c. except in the last and Artificial separation of those Beginnings after Death and that indeed by the fire To wit after that the sense of Touching hath been a good while extinct Those Dreams of the principles do not serve for the Speculation of motion and sense A mark imprinted by the Devil on Witches is wont to bewray these because the place of the Brand is voyd of feeling for their whole life and that mark being once impressed hath its own natural Causes of unsensiblenesse after the manner of the Leprosie yet enrouled in a certain and slender Center For the Witch her eyes being covered if a Pin be in that place of the Brand thrust in even to the head that prick is made without feeling At leastwise that place should by a wonderful priviledge be preserved all her life time without salt and putrefaction seeing that otherwise the life according to Paracelsus is a Mummy with a comixture of the Liquor of Salts Far more sound therefore is the doctrine of Hippocrates which decreeth the Spirit or aiery and animal flatus or blast to be the immediate instrument of Sense Pain Motion Pleasures Agreement Co-resemblance Attraction Repulsing Convulsions or Contractures Releasement also of any successive alterations whatsoever so that it appropriates to self sensible Objects and from thence frameth unto it self Sensations themselves For it happens that if by chance that Spirit be busied by reason of profound speculations or madness that the body doth not perceive Pains Hunger Cold Thirst c. For I remember that a Robber deluded the torture of torment by a draught of Aqua vitae and a piece of Garlick the which he at length wanting confessed his crimes But the astonishment and unsensibleness of the Leprosie is in the habit of the flesh and sinewes subjectively or as in their Subject but not in the compass of imagination but effectively and occasionally in a certain poyson But that bloody Anodynous or stupefactive ice and well nigh mortifying poyson is communicable and effluxive through a horrid and stinking Contagion whence the holy Scriptures command the Leprousie to be severed from the company of men But this icie poyson begins from without and therefore they feel inward pains and likewise external cold and heat yet not wounds or a stroak The Mange and Scab is manifold and the Pox or soul Disease infamous through a defiling poyson But they differ in kind as well through the nature of the poyson as the diversity of Subjects For indeed the Scab infects only the skin so as that the skin cannot turn the nourishment designed for it self into a proper nourishment but it translates the most part thereof into a salt and contagious liquor to wit the which is of the property of an itchive and nettlie or hot stinging salt c. Therefore scabbedness doth not require internal remedies but only local ones which are for killing of that itchive salt But the Pox doth chiefly affect the venal blood with a biting mattery and putrifying poyson But the Leprosie doth chiefly infect the inflowing spirit with an Anodinous icie poyson Indulge me Reader that through the scanty furniture of words I am constrained to use an illusion unto names Because as the essences of things are unknown to us from a former cause and therefore proper names do fail those essences we are constrained to boâ—â—ow and describe the conditions of poysons in diseases from the similitude of their properties that if not by reason whereof it is yet at least because it is the definition may proceed from Cousin-Germane Adjuncts or Properties So I say that the Poyson of the Falling Evil is a be-drunkenning sleepifying and also a swooning one together with an astringency neither therefore is it contagious because intrinsecal and not fermental so the Leprosie hath an anodynous or stupefactive Poyson not indeed a sleepifying one but an icie or freezing poyson well nigh mortifying together with an infection of the sensitive spirit and therefore mightily contagious especially in a hot and sudoriferous or sweaty Region For even as cold takes away the sense of touching by congealing and driving the faculties inward so also the Leprosie hath chosen to it self and prepared an anodynous or benumming poyson not a coolifying and sleepifying but by another title a Freezing one no otherwise than as Kibes or Chilblanes are bored with Ulcers as if they were scorched with fire the which notwithstanding do oftentimes happen unto those before or after winter who all the winter in the Chimneys felt no cold The poyson of the Leprosie therefore doth in this respect co-agree with cold effectually although not in the first Elementary quality thereof neither therefore doth it also totally mortifie after the manner of a Gangreen but only the part which it sealeth with the Ulcer Yea neither also doth it straightway extend it self far from thence because it is from a conâ—stringent icie poyson the Author of unsensibleness But it is of a difficult curing by reason of its freezing and almost mortifying Contagion and that an oppressive one of the sensitive spirit because as it is intimately co-fermented with the sensitive spirit while it hath issued forth unto the utmost parts therefore it is difficultly taken away unless by remedies which have access unto the first closets or privy Chambers of us to wit that so they may confirm the spirit of life whereby it may overcome
the aforesaid poyson and also confound or dissolve the ice of the foregoing winter with a new Spring And although that poyson be fermental in respect of the poyson and therefore also from a formal quantity of it self it endeavours to creep into all places afterwards yet it is not apt as to be co-fermented equally with the spirit by reason of the force and fighting nobleness of the Subject into which it is received and the drowsie sluggishness of its icie disposition For such is the difference in contagious things that the poysons of some things do voluntarily or by art depart and are separated from and forsake the bodies infected by them But of others that there is no voluntary division to be hoped for for the ice of the Leprousie doth the rather besiege the more outward parts because it is an icie malady and is thrust forth abroad by the in-bred heat for therefore it more defiles the Standers by towards their outward parts than their more inward bowels which are co-touching with them in the root in the unity of life But no Physitian ever cured the Leprosie which obtained not the Liquor Alkahest The which since it is of a most tedious preparation none although skilful in art shall come unto the obtainment thereof whom the most High shall not by a special gift conduct thither For he must needs be chosen and endowed by a particular priviledge if he ought to obtain that Medium or Mean To wit whereby as well sensitive as unsensitive sublunary bodies are equally pierced even into the seminal and intrinsecal root of their first Being therefore also it subdueth and changeth all things under it without a re-acting of the Patient and impoverishing of the Agent For otherwise it is vain whatsoever hope the Leprosie shall perswade it self of from elsewhere Therefore in times past the curing of those that had the Leprosie was granted for a sign unto the Messias alone My first born daughter being now five years old became leprous and that more and more and at length wan Ulcers and horny white scales grew throughout her whole body But then the image of the Virgin Lady newly shewed it self by many Miracles in our City famous for the Hospital of St. James The Girle therefore being now seven years of age desired to go to the place and the Grandmother with her Nephew hasten thither and she returns after an hour sound and forthwith the scales fall off Presently after a year the same Leprosie suddenly returned And I confessed my self guilty that I had concealed the honour of the Lady Virgin Therefore my little daughter returnes with her Grandmother unto the sacred Image and she again returned healed and so afterwards remained But I fearing the return of the Leprosie divulged the Miracle and by a publick Writing confessed the favour and clemency of God unto whom be all praise and glory with the sanctifying of his name for ever I have already said that sensation or the act of feeling according to the mind of Hippocrates doth as well effectively as susceptively or receivingly consist in the Animal spirit But because all such spirit is dead and a dead Carcass unless it be illustrated from the life it self And because life it self in that spirit is not proper unto it and unseparable from it but life is from the vital or animal spirit I now confound them both in name it being distinct in the whole subject the which elsewhere more manifestly concerning long life therefore first of all it is manifest that that vital spirit doth not immediately feel but that it is the very life it self which doth the more nearly and immediately feel and grieve or pain in that spirit For indeed I have demonstrated in the Treatise Concerning the Forms of Things that the life or form of things is a certain light a special Creature shining in its own Inne throughout all the Guardians of the parts yet that it is not a substance nor an accident however by reason of the so great Novelty of the thing the School of the Peripateticks may crack Which Paradox I have demonstrated by Mathematical demonstration and Mechanically in the book of the Elements And so I here assume it as being elsewhere sufficiently proved I will therefore speak much more nearly than Hipprocrates concerning Sensation and Sense That if Sensation or the act of Feeling were in times past said to be made with a passion of the body wherein the spirit making the assault receiveth the impression of the thing to be felt and the which therefore is abusively called the very Sensible Species it self We now understand that this impression is in one only moment and in the same point â—sinuated into the life existing in it To wit under which Insinuation Application and Suiting Sensation doth then first arise being made in the life it self and by the life Of which life indeed Sense it self is an unseparable property And seeing Life is not of a body nor proper to a body nor lastly of the Off-spring of corporeal properties but is a light comming into it by the gift of the Creator beyond the condition of the Elements and Heavens Hence also Sensation is not of bodies nor of matter nor of a solution of the Con-tinual c. But plainly a vital property proceeding from the very trunk of life As also it is not sufficient that there be an Eye a Mean a vital Spirit that Seeing may be made but moreover there is required an application of the visual spirit unto the Life and therefore the effect of seeing however altogether ordinary doth exceed the whole Elementary nature because it contains the image and co-resemblance of the Life it self for that Seeing Tasting Smelling Touching c. are the immediate effects of the Life sporting it self or playing thorow its own Organs For in all sense it must needs be that the allurements of the spirits and the Species of things perceived are fitted immediately to the life if sensible acts do at any time happen But indeed in a matter so difficult and so far separated from the common Doctrine grant me Reader that I may as yet talk more nearly with thee For thou hast perceived that it is not sufficient unto Sense and Sensation to have have said that the Brain and likewise the Sinew is the immediate Organ of Sense nor also that it is enough to have implored for this purpose the inflowing spirit yea or the spirit it self implanted in the parts as it is cherished from the influxing vertue of the brain or nerves unless unto all these the life shall concurre For Sensation it self is of so great a weight that it easily exceeds the compass of all Sublunary things together with the whole power of the Heavens and Elements Therefore since thou hast already perceived that I will speak further For what things I have now spoken concerning the Life I have shewen in my whole book Of long Life whereunto I dismiss thee for speedy
recourse how variously the Life glistens in nature to wit as it is seminally in the very vital spirits but as it were fountainously in the sensitive soul it self Therefore in speaking properly of Sense and Sensation the Sensitive Soul it self is the primary and also the immediate Being which acteth all Sensations and in acting undergoes them in it self And therefore the spirit of the Brain is only the immediated Organ but the life is the Organ or Medium whereby the Sensitive Soul perceiveth external Objects rushing on it For Sensation is not immediately in the thing contained nor in the things containing nor also in the spirit diffused through the Sinews into the vital parts Because that spirit which makes the assault differs from the Sensitive Soul no otherwise than as a fat material smoak doth from the flame by which it is enflamed But the Soul the immortal Mind is wholly unpassable by humane conceptions as it is the Image of the very incomprehensible God himself But the Sensitive Soul although it begins in nature from an occasional seed that is dispositively yet seeing it is the nearest Image of that Image it is also after the manner of men unknown and altogether scanty For therefore indeed neither can it be defined by its causes but only is described by an absurb or incongruous Circle of reflexions own its own actions and properties To wit that the Sensitive Soul is a formal light whereunto the properties of a Sensitive life do chiefly agree but in man that it is the Prop and Inn of the immortal Soul and its immediate bond with other created corporeal Bodies besides it self Therefore there is as yet a more remote aspect or beholding of the Soul as being related to the life Seeing life and the Soul are distinct things as it were the abstract and the Concrete or rather as the property of a Being and a Being it self This same Soul therefore through life perceiveth in the animal Spirits and seeth immediately in the Optick or visual spirit which inhabits in the apple of the eye the visible Species conceived For the Optick Spirit there is a transprrent glass the light whereof is the very Sensitive Soul it self present in the same place being the Seat and Chamber-maide of the immortal mind Therefore there is no need of a recourse of the received Species that are to be perceived thorow the Sinews to the Brain But the Soul being immediately present and bestowing all vertue from it self upon the visual Spirit she her self sees and discerns But the Brain is only the Shop and Cup of those spirits wherefore the sinews do not serve for the conveighing of the Specie's drawn unto the Brain in the act feeling or perceiving But for bedewing of the spirits illustrated in the Brain for the refreshing and confirming of the parts wherein themselves are implanted Neither is there also altogether a like reason of the external Senses with the imaginative power and its Sisters For the sensible Specie's outwardly perceived by the Soul are abstracted by sensibility and then at length as it were of the matter whereof Specie's or shapes are from thence forged into the Image of the thing to be perceived After another manner Sensitive Objects entring from without are conceived after a Concrete or conjoyned manner in the Organs of the senses and therefore they do not only displease but moreover do now also pain But concerning the seat of the Soul it is variously disputed for the Heart and the Brain But I may suppose that the Sensitive Soul is conformable to its own seeds and by a real Act distinguished from the immortal mind the image of the Divinity Yet that the Sensitive Soul which is the carnal old Adamical man and Law of the flesh is not on both sides distinguished from a formal and vital light neither that it sirs immediately in the inflowing Spirit the which indeed is wholly slideable and flowing But the Spirit which increased in the Organs presently after their first constitution although it live in the last life of the seeds yet it doth not as yet truly live in the middle animal life which is the Sensitive life until that a vital light comming upon it shall actually shine The dispositions whereof are indeed gradually premised But notwithstanding they are in one only instant enlightned by the divine goodness of the Creator Even as in the Book of long life For that happens no otherwise than as in the co-rubbing of the flint against the Steel Therefore an undeclarable light is kindled by the Creator in the spirit of the more noble Bowels and first indeed in the heart which light as it attaineth strength by degrees is more powerfully enlarged no otherwise than as the smoak of a lower Candle doth visibly receive the dismissed flame from the upper Candle So that although the Organs are divided in diversity of Offices yet by a mutual conspiracy they readily serve for the necessities and ends prefixed by the Lord the Creator Notwithstanding there is one only Harmony and continued Homogenial Life and Sensitive Soul of all the Bowels and Members which in every one of them receiveth and presently after cloatheth it self with certain limitations or properties which it had prepared for it self by the seeds For as the flame of a Candle is not extended above or without its own Sphear nor perisheth as long as it lives within that Sphear although the smoaky fumes arising from thence being void of flame did fly far away out of that Spheare so likewise the inflowing spirits although they are illustrated by a participation of life are pufft away do wander far and therefore are materially diminished in their Cup or Buttery yea and for this cause the liveliness of a vital Light growes feeble yet nothing of the essence of the Sensitive Soul perisheth because Life is not attained by parts and degrees as neither doth it subsist like accidents but is alwayes life although more or less liveliness may appear in that light For no otherwise than as a fire where it is never so small is as well fire as another that is heightned In like manner also whatsoever exhaleth from the body which before rejoyced in the participation of Life yet looseth life so soon as it departs out of its own limits So also Excrements do not indeed keep Life but a co-participation of the vital spirits Wherefore also from thence the order of the inferiour Harmony slides into disorder according to that saying My spirit shall be diminshed and therefore my dayes shall be shortned Therefore a more immoderate evacuation of corrupt Pus and the like brings sudden death As indeed they do not contain the Soul but only the last seminal life of vital spirits For as concerning the immediate existence of the immortal Mind or Divine Image the matter is as yet in controversie between the Heart and the Brain For I who know that even Quickning is made at the very instant wherein the Sensitive Soul
stir up a pain or averseness from thence conceived in its injured Center The Spirits therefore inserted in the Joynts ought readily to serve the necessities of the Members without consultation and recourse had unto the Brain seeing not the Brain but the Soul it self being every where present doth immediately feel For there was need of excessive swiftness for the averting and preventing of hurtfull things therefore to send a Messenger unto the Brâ—in had been inconvenient I grant indeed that the pain of the Intestine drawes other parts into a consent and resolves them either with a stubborn Palsie or contracts the parts serving for voluntary motion that the Kidney being pained the stomach is nauseous and begins to vomit the Bowels are writhed and the Thigh placed under it is astonied That the Nail of ones Hand paining stirs up a remote kernel For truly the presence of the Soul confirmeth but doth not take away a consent of parts Therefore that consent in paines is forreign unto pain and by accident neither therefore doth it touch at or estrange the essence or cause of pain Because that Consent is latter unto pain and therefore also separable from it Therefore all the particular Spirits of the parts do feel without the commerce of the inflowing Spirit As in the Teeth and in new flesh being restored in a hollow Ulcer For because the parts do on both sides live in their own quarter Sense is according to the diversities of the Organ and therefore there are many paines con-centred in Seasons and they answer unto the unequalities of the Moon because they are centrally received in the Spirit which is Astral unto us Again Neither the venal bloud nor the very bloud of the Arteries are strong in Sense and an animal Touching although they being even hunted out of the Vessels do Sympathetically feel because they flourish onely with influous Spirit Therefore it hath been hitherto questioned by Divines whether the venal bloud be informed by the Soul I suppose therefore under the Correction of a better Judgement That nothing is informed by the Soulof a living Creature which doth not partake of the sensitive Soul that is that nothing is informed by the Soul which doth not feel by the Spirit implanted and quickned in the parts Because informing argues of necessity life in the living Creature as also Life argues a sense or feeling at least a dull one such as is in the Bones and Brain But if indeed meates in the stomach an abounding of Seed in the seedy Kernels Hunger yea and the Urine do produce their own dreams in the Soul and stir up the Soul under sleep according to their pleasure Yet it followes not from thence on the other hand That therefore the Soul informeth the food or the urine For although the Soul shall feel urine abounding and pressing it yet this urine doth not feel its own Objects For the Soul also feels a pricking Knife the which notwithstanding it doth not inform That therefore any thing may be informed by the Soul it is necessary that it lives and feels as it were the subject of the life it self Sense therefore and pain are in the parts or things conteining subjectively but in those conteined objectively onely Yea although things conteined are intimate with us and after a most near manner vital yet in respect of their being things conteined and of the sensitive Soul they are as it were external Notwithstanding it is not sufficient to have said with the vulgar That a hurtful cause is painful yea nor is it sufficient to know that the Sensitive Liâ—e doth primarily feel and from thence the spirit implanted in the parts and at length the stable Organs and so indeed that the Sense testifies of the presence of that which is hurtful seeing these things the Schools and the common people have after some sort known But it ought more manifestly to appear what may immediately cause pain and after what sort Pain may be made in feeling As to the first a Needle pricks and from thence is pain A litte Bee stings and wounds like a Needle But both of them do pain after a far different manner Therefore the solution or dividing of that which held together it self otherwise common in both prickings doth not primarily cause pain For truly the dividing or that which held together effects no other thing in respect of it self than a Non-solution The which in leprous affects and in the Palsey is without Sense and Pain But if indeed the solution of the Con-tinual causeth pain or doth not that is to the knife by accident neither doth this touch at the Solution primarily except in the condition of an occasion without which it is not therefore because the stinging of a Bee causeth another manner of pain than an equal solution that is made by a Needle surely it dependeth on a more piercing judgement of Sense or Feeling And so it is even from thence presently manifest that the Sensitive Soul it self doth immediately feel censure and judge of the Object of Pain But Sense in the Schools is said to be made passively even as motion actively But I have already shewn that Sense is made by a power or by a primary sensitive Being through action Although the Members do suffer subjectively through the application of sensible Objects Therefore Sense or Feeling is made actively because the Act of feeling it self is an active censure of the Soul But in as much in the mean time as the members do suffer seeing that is unto the act of feeling by accident it cannot hinder but that feeling is made sensitively There is indeed the same proper agent in that sensitive action of Sense and Pain because the Agent it self is the Soul And Sense or Feeling differs from pain by the judgement of the Soul concerning sensible Objects And so Sense is of the Soul it self to wit its action but not its passion The Schools indeed have known with the common people that violent causes do bring on Pain even as also that the water is liquid But to have shewn the internal animosity or courage of the sensitive faculty and to have manifested pain in the root that they have not yet hitherto been intent upon To which end the following consideration doth conduce Live flesh is most easily scorched and is excoriated or flead by boyling water But dead flesh is the more slowly burnt And there is a different scorching if a live hand and that of a dead Carcase be burnt For truly the former burning stirrs up bladders with the least fervency of heat so as that the same happens even under the Sun But the latter burning parcheth the flesh no otherwise than if it were roasted namely without little bladders and excoriation The Schools also have not yet registred that difference because neither have they heeded it And perhaps they will say that it is more easie to make hot things already heated and that therefore live flesh is the more
of all the prickings of the Sinewes or Tendons and likewise Fevers Laxative poysons being taken the stroaks or stings of Serpents and other things like unto these do manifest Neither in the mean time doth it argue on the contrary that a stroak of the Head doth also bring on a Convulsion since there is no lesse Athourity to the Head than to the Intestine in Torments for the framing of a Convulsion Indeed as well a Convulsion arising from the head as that which is bred from the sensitive Soul much abhorring poyson belongs to the muscles its Clients In a stroak of the Head what hath presently defiled the contracted side with a poyson Or what hath straightway emptied or filled all the sinewes of that side Doth not the Brain shake in sneezing Is not the membrane which compasseth the Lungs drawn together in a dry Asthma Is not the Pleura or Skin girding the Ribs co-wrinkled and contracted in a Pleurisie and doth it not for this cause voluntarily pull it self away from the Ribs And is not the Mediastinum or membrane of the middle Belly not unfrequently contracted Also the Diaphragma or Midriffmuscle through a notable anguish of pressure straightned whereunto a Name is hitherto wanting although that affect be frequent in the beating of the Heart The sometimes dull paines of the Spleen also are the Betokeners of that Bowel its being convulsed The stomach also is drawn together in the Hicket vomiting and stomach paines Indeed Contractures are renewed in these membranes as oft as the molesting occasional Cause is stirred or returneth Also in the beginning of a Dropsie or Jaundice yea even before water or wind be bred the Abdomen is oft-times drawn together and waxeth hard on one side Lastly The Bowels shew forth intermitting gripes not onely through an extension of winds which brings forth no paines if the Belly be not stopped but rather through a Convulsion of themselves The which I have elsewhere written that I have contemplated of beyond the Navil of an Infant For I beheld that as often as wringings or gripings of the Guts were exceeding urgent fits of the Falling-sicknesse were stirred up but the Intestines according to the measure of pain were as it were by walking or moving hither and thither diversly rouled together and contracted otherwise the Intestines being appeased and plainly at rest For a sharp and brackish Excrement in Colicks pricks the sensitive Soul and this produceth pain and as it were by intervals drawes the Bowel together and the wind being then shut up therein by the chance of Fortune stretcheth out the Bowels Therefore the Wind-Colick so called in distinction from Duelech descending hath not its name from the Cause but from a latter and accidental Symptome So likewise from Laxatives the pain of gripes or wringings of the Bowels doth oft-times return with a Convulsion and it is cured by things mitigating the Convulsion For Wind-Colicks are scarce discerned from the Stone-Colick because the same Symptome of pain through a crisping and contracting of the Bowels appeares alike in both For so the Oyl of Almonds being drunk asswageth paines because it pacifieth the contracted Intestines by besmearing them Therefore seeing pain produceth a Convulsion and this likewise a new pain we see that pain doth oft-times beget pain and that which is like it self And then as oft as an injury happens to the skin veines arteries or nerves they contract themselves into wrinckles through the power of the sensitive Soul For how notably hard doth an Artery presently become under any pain The hardness whereof doth not argue the dryness of an Artery as the Schooles judge but a singular extension or convulsion thereof and the which therefore Sweat being at hand doth again produce a re-loosening of the Contraction together with a softness Otherwise there is as equal a possibility of re-moistening a dryed and hardened Artery as there is hope of taking away old age Hath not also a contracted Bladder oft-times deceived expert Cutters for the Stone So the Kernels that are the vessels of the Seed are drawâ— together in the Gonorrhea or Running of the Reines they being stirred up by a spur of the Seed The privy part also being drawn together inwards doth now and then so vanish out of sight that nothing stands out beside the Nut of the Yard So also the muscles have their own Cramps And so a Travelling Woman suffers by intervals her own and cruel Contractures as oft as the Womb co-wrinkles it self behind that it may expel the lurking Fardle The bone of the Groyn also unto the share doth by a voluntary contracture of it self open a passage for the coming Young with cruel pain I have seen also in Women suffering a strangling of the Womb the Tendons in the native place of a Ligament voluntarily to have burst asunder and to have been contracted with cruel pain and likewise to have returned to their former place and the which when they had the oftner suffered that thing I have noted them to have complained of the more mild pain do happily the Schooles in that leaping and wandâ—ing digression of the sinewes acknowledge a sudden emptying filling or entertainment of a poysonous quality and the sudden banishments of these It is also familiar to the stone of the Kidneys for the Urine-pipes to be drawn together with most cruel pain nothing peradventure being urgent beside the more tenâ—eâ—sand I have alwayes judged it the part of bold ignorance that winds according to the Schooles should arise in the Sinews and Tendons or be conceived in the sinewes from without as the authors of a Cramp for for that cause a flatulent one yea and to be taken away from thence almost at pleasure For the sensitive Spirit abhorring pain furiously contracteth the Veines Arteries Tendons and Membranes And while as under such Furies it finds not its hoped for succour it stirs up an increase thereof For so a Thorn being thrust into the finger as it causeth pain it crispeth and hardens the Artery and it hardens the pulse thereof which before was not there easily to be discerned by reason of an extension onely of the contracted Artery For it is the property of pain to pull together and to contract so indeed that the bone above the share and in the loyns is voluntarily contracted in a Travelling Woman although no Muscle being the Guider or mover For why pain is in its own nature a contractive of the members and that by a natural motion and in no wise an arbitral or voluntary one the which is especially seen in the lips of Wounds Because they are those which are without pain as long as they have their lips flaggy and not contracted But the Schooles have passed by the contractures of pain in Nature as also the sensitive Soul by running over unto winds to the falling down of excrementitious humours unto their sharpness unto the agreement and secondary passion of parts the which notwithstanding are altogether divers from
some other place namely in the heart alone Again from the same position it followes that that there may be a Fever it is not-required that the offending and feverish matter be enflamed but some other inflameable thing primarily residing in the heart and from thence slideable throughout the whole body For this inflameable body I together with Hippocrates call the spirit which maketh the assault But this last matter I have brought hither not from the minde of the Antients but it is extorted and by force I have commanded it to be granted me Whereof in its own place when I shall discourse of the efficient cause of Fevers At least wise that being now violently begged it followes that the peccant matter of Fevers is not properly enflamed neither that it is in it self primarily or efficiently hot nor indeed that it makes hot besides nature if the first inflameable body ought to be kindled in the heart Therefore neither is the peccant or offensive matter in a Fever hot beyond or besides the degree of nature But that which is kindled in the heart was not kindled before the comming of the Fever and so it every way differs from the peccant matter in Fevers At length it is also from hence fitly concluded that in whomsoever they intend to slay a Fever by cooling things as such they do not intend to cure by a removal of the causes by a cutting up of the Root and a plucking out of the fountaine and fewel of the Fever but only they intend to take away and correct the heat which is a certaine latter product entertained with-out the feverish matter To wit they apply their remedies unto the effect but not unto the cause For truly the heat of Fevers is kindled in the Archeus which maketh the assault and the root of Fevers is the peccant matter it self They have regard therefore only unto the taking away of the effect following upon and resulting from the placing of that root for the sake whereof the Archeus is enflamed not indeed by the root but by heat drawn from elsewhere while as indeed he enflames himself by a proper animosity and by his own heat being beyond a requirance extended unto a degree wherein he is wholly troublesome as he is enlarged beyond the amplenesse of his own necessity Foâ— neither must we think that any heat is so in a hateful feverish matter which with me they name the offensive one that it afterwards makes feverishly hot the whole entire body For truly that for which every thing is such that very thing they will have to be more such And then also because every calefactive or heating agent doth throughout its own specie's more strongly act on a near object than on an object at a distance wherefore if a feverish matter should make the other parts hot by its own heat it should of necessity be that the center or nest wherein that peccant matter of a Fever is received should be first roasted into a fryed substance before that any distant object should be made hot thereby Yea if the peccant matter should be hot of its own free accord and the Fever should be that meer heat besides nature every Fever as such ought to be continual nor should it have intermission until that all the offensive matter were wholly consumed into ashes Neither therefore should there be any reason of a repetition or relapse seeing the peccant matter should even from a general property always make hot for the consuming of it self And moreover a dead carcase also should be hot as well after death and be more ardently tortured or writhed with a Fever than while it lived because the same matter in number from the obedience whereof death happens even still persisteth in the dead carcasse and seeing they suppose it to be hot by a proper heat of putrefaction and since it is more putrified after death as also after death more powerfully putrifying and affecteth more parts co-bordering upon it than while it lived therefore also it should be more actually hot after death than in the life time But surely this errour is bewrayed For a Fever which made a live body hot ceaseth presently after death and all heat exspires with the life The which ought to instruct us that the heat of a Fever is not proper unto the peccant matter or its inmate and that the heat of the offensive matter doth not efficiently and effectively make hot in Fevers Therefore it is perpetually true that the peccant matter makes hot occasionally only but that the Archeus is the workman of every alteration and so by this title that which efficiently primarily immediatly always every where maketh the assault and that he alone doth not make hot according to the maxime Whatsoever utters healthy actions in healthy bodies that very thing utters vitiated ones in diseases For that spirit heats man naturally in health it being the same which in Fevers rageth with heat For example The thorne or splinter of an oake being thrust into the finger and actually and potentially cold presently stirs up a heat besides nature in the finger Not indeed that hot humours do flow thither as if they being called together thither by the thorne had exspected the wound of the splinter and the which otherwise as moderate had resided in their own seates For truly the blood next to the wound first runs to it and preventeth the passage for other blood coming thither And that blood also by it self is not hot but for the sake of the vital spirit Therefore the inflamation and swelling together with an hard pulse pain and heat do proceed from the spirit alone causally but from the infixed thorn occasionally only Surely it is an example sufficient for the position manner knowledg and cure of a Fever To wit the cause offending in a Fever is not hot of it self but it makes hot only occasionally and upon the pulling out of the thorne or occasional cause health followes The Archeus alone every where effectively stirs up the Fever and the which departing by death the Fever ceaseth with it Therefore heat is a latter accident and subsequent upon the essence of a Fever For indeed the Archeus enflames himself in his endeavour whereby he could earnestly desire to expel the occasional matter as it were a thorne thrust into himself But whosoever takes away this thorne whether that be done by hot meanes or by temperate ones or at length by cold ones he takes away the disease by the Root and it is unto nature as it were indifferent Because for that very cause the animosity of the Archeus is appeased and ceaseth Wherefore heat however it being besides nature increased may be a token of Fevers yet it is not the Fever it self neither therefore must we greatly labour about it in time of healing For from hence Hippocrates hath seriously admonished that heat and cold are not diseases as neither the causes of these but that the causes to wit the
having Remedies besides the Diminishers of the body and strength all which I will peculiarly touch at For indeed according to the consent of Galen in every Fever a Hectick one excepted cutting of a vein is required Therefore for the Schooles and custome of this destructive Age I state this Syllogisme Phlebotomy or Bloud-letting is unprofitable wherefoever it is not shewn to be necessary or where a proper Indication is wanting unto it But in Fevers it is not signified to be necessary Therefore Bloud letting in Fevers is unprofitable The Major proposition is proved because the end is the chief Directress of Causes and the Disposer of the meanes unto it Wheresoever therefore the end sheweth not a necessity of the meanes things not requisite are in vain provided for that end especially where from a contrary betokening it is manifest that the bloud is not let out without a losse of the strength such meanes therefore are rashly instituted which the end shews to be vain unprofitable and to be done with a diminishment of the strength But the Minor proposition Horatius Augenius de monte Sancto profesly proveth in three Books Teaching with the consent of the Vniversities That a Plethora or a too much fullnesse of the veines alone that is the too much abounding of Bloud is the betokener of Phlebotomy nor that indeed directly for the curing of Fevers but for the Evacuation of a fullnesse But a Plethora never subsisteth in Fevers therefore Bloud-letting is never betokened in Fevers and by consequence this is altogether unprofitable The Conclusion is indeed new and Paradoxal yet true Which thing therefore for that cause shall be therefore to be proved by many Arguments Galen himself proves the Subsumption Teaching That at every fit of Fevers more Choler is pufft away than is generated in two dayes In the mean time the other members do not cease to be nourished with accustomed bloud That is besides the consuming Caused by the Fever they also consume their own allotted quantity of wonted Bloud The which in the foregoing Chapter from the humour cast up by vomit I have reduced into a Computation But now that very thing is to be pressed with a greater connivance Wherefore if in him that is in good health eight ounces of bloud are daily made it must needs be that as many also are daily spent for nourishment or otherwise that a man should soon swell up into an huge heap What if therefore eight ounces of bloud do daily depart from him that is in good health certainly the Fever shall consume no less Therefore seeing there is none or but a little appetite and digestion of meats and sanguification of necessity also too much abundance of blood if there were any at the beginning shall fail presently after two dayes and the betokening thereof shall cease for the letting forth of bloud in him that hath a Fever But that presently in Fevers there is no longer a Plethora as many do see this as do undergo ulcers by a Cautery To wit the which presently after Fevers are dryed up nor do they afford their wonted pus But first of all we must take notice that the Strength or Faculties can never offend through abundance not so much as in Mathuselah so neither doth good bloud offend through a too much abounding because the vital Faculties and Bloud are Correlatives Because according to the Scripture the Soul or vital Spirit is in the blood By Consequence therefore there can never be a Plethora in good blood But on the other extream I have demonstrated in a foregoing Chapter That corrupt blood is never conteined in the veines therefore if there be ever any possible plethora of the veines that ought to consist in a middle state of the bloud between a corrupted and very healthy one whether we consider the same state of decay and neutrality or next as it is mixed of both at leastwise the Galenists may remember that good proceeds from an entire cause but evil from every defect And so that this state of the blood is not called a Plethorical or abounding one but a Cacochymical one or state of a bad juyce Nor that it desires the cutting of a vein but rather a Purgation which may selectively draw forth the bad but leave the good And so that by their Positions it is not yet proved That the cutting of a vein is in any wise betokened For according to the truth of the matter I have already shewn before That a state of ill juyce doth not consist in the veins the which indeed is onely a disturbing of the Bloud for the easing whereof an exhausting of the troubled bloud is not so much signified as a taking away of the affect of the Disturber Especially because it is the more pure bloud which passing through the Center of the heart hath obtained its own refinement and therefore that which is drawn out of the Elbow and is first brought forth shall be the more pure but the more impure bloud shal be left within Furthermore since it is now manifest that a Plethora is wanting in Fevers which may a require a letting out of blood and that thing the Schools have after some sort smelt out they have instead of an indication or betokening sign substituted some co-indications or mutual betokenings as if they were of an equal weight with a sutable indication in nature and out-weighing a contrary indication the which after another manner surely seeing it is drawn from a conserving of the strength ought wholly to obtain the Chief-dome altogether by that Title that every Fever is quickly safely and perfectly curable without cutting of a vein For indeed for all so divers putrefactions of retaining Humours and Fevers issuing from thence they presently make use of the one only succour of cutting of a vein because it abundantly as they say succours and is stopped at pleasure By which distinction at least they after some sort defame their own laxative medicines For they say although the cutting of a vein by a natural and one only indication of it self seems to be required by reason of a Plethora yea nor that it doth properly take away putrified humours yet it cooleth it unloads the Fardle of the veins reneweth or refresheth the strength takes away part of the bad Humour together with the good and by derivation and revulsion stops pacifies and calls away the flux of humours made unto the nest of putrefaction wherefore nature feeling refreshment is the more prosperously and easily busied about the rest They are good words saith the Sow while she eats up the penitential Psalms but they do not profit a hunger-starved swine Such indeed are co-indications whereby they perswade the destruction of Mortals to be continued and whereunto I will give satisfaction in order But before all I will have it to be fore-admonished that although in a more strong and full body there is not a notable hurt by letting out the blood yea although the sick may
good to be done as neither should every thing desire to be and be preserved In Science Mathematical indeed it is determined as impossible to proceed from extream to extream without a mean and that Medium wholly denyes all interruption the which if we shall grant in natural things with a certain latitude we shall as yet be accounted to have done it out of hand and that in the best manner And so that neither is it lawful to wrest that of Science Máthematical unto curings I confess indeed that it is not lawful to draw out a dropfie abundantly by an incision of the Navil at one only turn as neither to allure forth all the corrupt pus out of a great Aposteme nor to bring one that is frozen by reason of cold immediately to the Chimney nor abundantly to nourish him that is almost dead with hunger Yet surely a slow and necessary progress of Mediocrity as such or a proceeding from one extream unto another doth not conclude that thing as if nature were averse unto a speedy help Since this betokening is natural nearly allyed pithy and intimately proper unto her self But those things are forbidden because a faintness of the strength depending thereupon would not bear those speedy motions The Schools therefore by a faulty argument of the cause as not of the cause drive the sick from a sudden aid which they have not that they may vail their ignorance among the vulgar with a certain Maxim being badly directed For as often as a Cure can be had without the loss of strength for the faculties do always obtain a chiefdome in indications by how much the more speedily that is done it is also snatched with the greater Jubily or joy of nature Even as also in Fevers I have with a profitable admiration observed it to be done with much delight Therefore in the terms proposed if a Fever be a meer heat besides nature and all curing ought to be perfected by contrary subduers Therefore it requires a cooling besides nature to wit that contraries may stand under the same general kind That is every Fever should of necessity be cured by much cold of the encompassing air especially because the cold of the encompassing air collects the faculties but doth not disperse them But the consequence is false Therefore also the Antecedent Therefore the Schools do not intend by cutting of a vein the cooling or heat but chiefly a taking away of the blood it self and a mitigation of accidents which follows the weakened powers or they primarily intend a diminishment of the strength and blood It being that which with a large false paint they call a more free breathing of the Arteries But I do alwayes greatly esteem of an indication which concerns a preserving of the strength and which is opposite unto any emptying of the veins whatsoever because the strength or powers being diminished and prostrated the Disease cannot neither be put to flight neither doth any thing remain to be done by the Physitian Therefore Hippocrates decreeth That Natures themselves are the Physitianesses of Diseases because the indication or betokening sign which is drawn from a preserving of the faculties governs the whole scope of curing As therefore Reason perswades that the strength is to be preserved so also the blood because this containeth that Hippocrates indeed in a Plethora of great Wrestlers or Champions hath commanded blood to be presently and heapingly let out and that saying the Schools do every were thunder out in the behalf of the cutting of a vein But that is ridiculously alledged for the curing of Diseases and Fevers For he bad not that thing to be done for fear of a Plethora however their veins may sufficiently abound with blood but only lest the vessels being filled they should burst and cleave asunder in the exercises of strength otherwise what interposeth as common between healthy Champions and the curing of Fevers For there is no fear of a Plethora in him that hath a Fever neither that a vein should be broken through exercises and moreover we must note that the emptyings of the blood are on this wise That the exhausting of the strength or faculties which is made by carnal lust is unrepairable because it takes away from the in-bred spirit of the heart But the exhausting which is made by the cuttings of a vein is nigh to this because it readily filcheth away the inflowing Archeus and that abundantly But a Disease although it also directly oppose the strength yet because it doth not effect that thing abundantly but by degrees therefore it rather shakes and wears out the strength than that it truly exhausteth it Therefore the restoring of the faculties which are worn or battered by a Disease is more easie than that of those which are exhausted by cutting of a vein For they who in Diseases are weakened by the cutting of a vein are for the most part destitute of a Crisis and if they do revive from the disease they recover by little and little and being subject to be sick with many anguishes in a long course of dayes and not without the fear of Relapses But they who lay by it with a Disease without cutting of a vein are easily restored and recovering they soon attain unto their former state But if they being destitute of remedies shall also sometimes come unto an extremity yet Nature attempts a Crisis and refresheth them because their strength although it was sore shaken by the Disease yet it perished not as not being abundantly exhausted by the lettings out of blood Wherefore a Physitian is out of conscience and in charity bound to heal not by a sudden lavishment of the faculties as neither by dangers following from thence nor also by a necessary abbreviation of life according to the Psalm My spirit shall be lessened therefore my days shall be shortened And seeing that according to the Holy Scriptures the life glistens in the blood however plentifully thou shalt dismiss this thou shalt not let it forth but with the prejudice of life For the perpetual intent of nature in curing of Fevers is by sweats And therefore the fits are for the most part ended by sweats But the cutting of a vein is Diametrically opposed unto this intention For truly this pulls the blood inwards for to replenish the vessels that were emptied of blood hut the motion of nature that is requisite for the curing of Fevers proceeds from the Center to without from the noble parts and bowels unto the skin But that the cutting of a vein doth of necessity weaken although the more strong and plethorick persons may seem to experience and witness that thing to be otherwise If the sacred Text which admonisheth us That the life inhabiteth in the blood hath not sufficient weight in it at leastwise that shall be made manifest if thou shalt offend in a more liberal emission of blood For the strength and sick person do presently faint ot go to ruine Therefore in Science
life it self is entertained and sits and so it hath an immediate and plenipotentiary power on the life which is con-nexed unto it in the resembling mark of uniformity for otherwise it should be an inconvenient thing for the mad or raging life of a Fever to bring forth a disease or to conceive effect and nourish a formal and essential Beginning foundation and seed out of it self For the life is not able to establish a disease which is a seminal Being in the forreign and external subject of excrements For if the life ought to suffer by a disease to be vexed and killed thereby surely it being now defiled ought to suffer all the injury from its own self according to the Proverb None is hurt but from himself Hippocrates in times past after a rustical manner perceived that thing the first called that vital spirit The maker of the Assault as well for life as for death For God made not death for man the which began from sin But I do not deny that the life is provoked into its own injury by occasional causes yet at leastwise I could wish that the Antients had divided as is meet to be the internal cause essentially from the external occasional ones But I take not the internal and external matter for a respect of the body but that which is radically and essentially proper to the disease that I call the Internal and unseparable matter But otherwise if if it be only accidentally adjacent thereunto Therefore before all it is seriously and only to be noted in what manner the very essential thingliness of Fevers may be formed by the Essence of the efficient life That not only the very local thingliness of principiating a Disease may be hereby conceived but that moreover an essential limitation thereof essentially issuing from the life it self may be known Which things therefore are more deeply to be peirced Wherefore let it be instead of a Proposition that Mortality Death and a Disease seeing they entered with sin they corrupted the life and defiled the whole humanity with impurity Not indeed that the entrance of all particular Fevers is therefore from a new sin as neither immediately from original sin although they have originally defluxed from thence But in the state of Purity there was Immortality no Death no Disease because then the immortal mind immediately governed the body and therefore it suffered not any thing by frail things which are altogether inferiour to it self therefore it deserveedly freed its own Mansion united unto it self from death and corruption But after the departure out of the right way the mind delivered up its government to the sensitive soul whence the life became subject to a thousand inconvenient necessities of death The Sensitive soul therefore afterwards stirred up the Vital air which after that began to be called by Hippocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Maker of the Assault and the chief Work-man of Diseases But the power of the same was badly understood by his followers and that Maker of the Assault remained neglected by Successours it being also unknown that the differences of diseases did issue immediately from the life And therefore the whole buisiness of Diseases was falsely committed unto occasional and never existing Humours For I have concerning the Original and Principles of Healing delivered the manner whereby that Maker of the Assault produceth an Ideal Being from whence Fevers and all Diseases borrow their Original The which generation of Idea's or shapie likenesses being there professly handled I will only touch at by the way First therefore it is confessed that the madness of a dog is stirred up by or in his conception through the effective Idea of that mad poyson The which is not in any healthy dog even as in a mad one And from thence it is manifest that that poyson which strikes our imagination after the biting is framed by an Idea caused by the conception of the mad dog The same thing ptoffers it self in the Tarantula in Serpents and things sore moved with fury So in the Plague-grave I have demonstrated that this Idea is made not only by the fear of the man but also of the vital air Wherefore also it is very equally necessary that for a Fever which is stirred up from the assaulting spirit and vital Beginning not which ariseth is moved or increaseth of its own accord or of nothing a motive Idea or effective cause springs up in the same vital Beginning being indeed poysonsome in it self and varying according to the signatures or impressions which this tree of a feverish Idea utters for its fruits For since of nothing nothing is made but of something alwayes something As well the Antients as the Moderns have supposed that any Fevers whatsoever do of necessity arise from the strife of the Elements or at least of feigned Humours Neither have they till now cleerly defined of which of these two the texture of Fevers might be But since the Elements are but three in number neither do these flow together unto the constitution of bodies because I shall elsewhere shew the connexion of these to be impossible they cannot produce any strange Beginning from themselves But Humours since they never have hitherto any where been and since Fevers are of a more aiery and abstracted body than that which a liquid excrement is thought to be I have discerned that from nothing nothing is indeed materially made but that most things are efficiently effectively and formally made from a conceived Idea which do forthwith after cloath themselves with bodies Indeed by the conception active Ideas are made and the formal Beginnings of seeds which presently cloath themselves with the coat of the vital spirit wherewith they then in the next place come upon the stage and are made that Maker of the Assault which is known by the Schools only by its name alone and therefore neglected by practical Physitians For that Fevers do now and then arise from the disturbances of the mind that is very well known to persons of no reputation and Barbers But that the Archeus or the spirit which violently assaileth doth suffer its own perturbations and conceive the Off-springs of these the Idea's stirred up in it self hath indeed been even hitherto unthought of and unheard of in the Schools Notwithstanding nothing is more certaine than that the spittle of a mad dog doth a good while after the death of the dog produce its madness in whom he bit it being plainly very like to its own dog from whence it issued Wherefore there was in the spittle a forming seminal Idea of that madness produced being like unto that from whence the first infection flowed For such an infection presupposeth an active vital and potent propagative power of its seed because it can cause death and madness in us But that power never acteth as a naked accident but as it inhabites in a formal subject of inhesion Neither also that the visible matter or Inn of its
breaths And the air being once drunk in he at length undergoes the laws of death and diminishment For before he breathed he lived onely and that by his own Archeus Almost all other created things do putrifie in a rock But the Toad is nourished and grows to maturity in a fermental putrified liquour within a rock or great stone From hence also it is conjectured that he is an Animal ordained of God that the Idea of his terrour being poysonous indeed to himself should be unto us and to our Pest a poyson in terrour For as it is sufficiently manifest from the aforesaid particulars that the Toad is most disagreeable unto our co-tempering and suiting so the Idea of terrour in the Toad is exceeding pestilential to the pestiferous terrour it self in us Since therefore the Toad is an Insect most fearful at the beholding of man which in himself notwithstanding forms the terrour conceived from man and also the hatred against man into an image or active real Being and not subsisting in an only and conâ—used apprehension even as hath already before been nakedly demonstrated concerning the Idea's of a woman great with child and likewise of a mad dog c. Hence it happens that a poyson ariseth from a Toad which kills the pestilent poyson of terrour in man to wit from whence the Archeus waxeth strong he not onely perceiving the pestilent Idea to be extinguished in himself but moreover because he knoweth that something inferiour to himself is terrified is sore affraid and doth flie For so in every war and duel from an evident dread of the enemy a hostile courage is strengthened But so great is the fear of the Toad that if he being placed with a direct beholding before thee thou dost behold him with intent eyes or an earnest look for some time for the space of a quarter of an hour that he cannot avoid it he dies through terrour The Toad therefore being slain after the manner of Paracelsus he dying without terrour is an unworthy Zenexton The Archeus therefore his courage being re-assumed casts away dread most especially when as he well perceives the bred poyson of his own terrour to be killed For a Zenexâ—on acts not after the manner of other agents no otherwise then as the poyson of the plague is altogether an unwonted poyson Neither doth a Zenexton act materially but the action of the same is spiritual and altogether sympathetical For truly the co-resemblance of activity wherein the reason of founding a Sympathy consisteth is in the poyson of terrour conceived as well in the Pest as in the Toad But even as the poyson of the Plague is irregular having nothing common with other poysons so also a Zenexton being exorbitant or rising high in the activity of a strange and forreign terrour is a manifest poyson to the pestilent image of our terrour together with a refreshment confirmation strength and resurrection of the Archeus which activity of a preservative amuleâ— surely the Schools could not contemplate of because they have not been able to contemplate that that of Aristotle not onely in the plague but also in other poysons is false Indeed the action of a Zenexton is from the victory of the Patient over the agent for thou shalt remember that the terrour and hatred in the Toad from man the agent overcomming indeed but in no wise operating are made imprinted actuated agents and those brought into a degree by the proper conception of the Toad which in the aforesaid Idea are as it were fugitive living creatures and therefore they restore the terrified Archeus of man and kill the image of the poysonous terrour Truly in single combats that are spiritual there is altogether a far different contention from that which is wont to be by appropriated corporal agents The which I have elsewhere demonstrated in removing the activities of contrarieties from the properties of nature A Zenexton therefore is of a magnetick or attractive nature to wit acting onely on a proper object while it meets with it within the sphere of its own activity It might seem a doubt to some why the image of hatred in the Toad is a remedy but why the image of hatred in a mad dog is a poyson the reason is in the adjoyned Idea of terrour in the Toad which brings forth an inferiority of poyson For the one exceeds the other in the sturdinesse of conceptions and therefore also of images For a mad dog is bold rash and his sealed image enforceth its obedience For neither is he mad forasmuch as he feareth but he feareth water as he hates living creatures But the Toad is an Animal that is most afraid of us and as from his inbred hatred towards us he is badly conscious to himself divine clemency so disposing it So the images of those conceptions mutually piercing each other and accompanying each other do confer a mark of the greatest pusillanimity or cowardise dipt in the venome of hatred Hence indeed the image of the pestilent terrour is killed by the image of the deadly hatred and our Archeus is beheld by the image of the cowardly terrour through the application of the preservative Pomander as it were in a glasse and doth well nigh reassume the superiority which before he had lost And therefore the Idea of terrour in the Toad hates and also the image of hatred terrifies the Toad from whence he puts on a poyson for our terror To wit by both means he kills the image of pestilent terrour in the Archeus There is indeed in spiritual things a primitive self-love seeing that every original single duel of sensitive creatures issueth not but from premediated conceptions but the Idea of every ones conceipt is formed in the imagination and puts on an Entity or Beingnesse for to do somewhat for the future For as the images of motions to be made do end into motions so also the images of the Senses are carried first inwards for further deliberations of counsels and they soon there degenerate into the images or likenesses of apprehensions passions or disturbances and from thence they are carried to do something in the body or out of it and they slide and grow according to the directions and inclinations of passions In this respect indeed such images do limit the vital spirits or the very operative part of the bowels according to an impression proper to themselves which thing most cleerly manifests it self in the poyson of a mad dog who if he were afraid of us as he is afraid of water would not do us violence neither would his biting be venemous unto us For the Spider Scorption c. are wrathful little Animals and the which if the strike us they lay up they anger of their own poyson in us or rather the poyson of their anger A certain hand-maid now and then are spiders not only the party-coloured ones of the Vine but also those black ones out of Caves and moist places and lived in health thereupon
work of the flesh and also common to bruits as to us hence indeed it is framed in the outward man from which nothing but this somethings being far different from a spiritual conception proceedeth But for-the obtainment of which subsisting entity the Archeus himself so cloaths his own conception which as yet is a meer and abstracted mental Idea in his own wrappery or in a particle of his own air that what he conceived in himself by an abstracted conception of imagination that very thing the Archeus presently arraieth and cloatheth with the vital air So as that afterwards it is a subsisting Being to wit an image framed from imagination Moreover as there are diverse unlikenesses of conceptions and passions according to the liberty of that Protheus so undoubtedly there are also manifold varieties of those same images far seperated from each other and the Idea's of these being cloathed with engraven in and having made use of the vital spirits do diametrically utter forth unlike operations in us And therefore the images of terrour are very poysonsom and potent to defile the vital spirit bearing a co-resemblance with them which unhabites as well in the heart and arteries as in the very family of the solid parts it self To wit the which image and most powerfull efficacy thereof I have already before and many times elsewhere demonstrated as much as I could I have said also and demonstrated that the same image is the essential formal and immediate essential thinglinesse of the Pest Because that the plague is not unfrequently framed from a terrour of the plague only although there fore-existed not a material cause from whence it might be drawn I have afterwards treated by the way of the preservation and curing of the Pest by a Zenexton and remedies in times past used in Hipocrates his time yet â—here hath not as yet been enough spoken for the present age in order to a cure For truly very many difficulties offer themselves which have not been sufficiently cleered up First of all the image of terrour is only one indeed in its own kind and therefore it may be difficulty understood that the Pest should be able by the one only and uniforme Idea of affrightment to afflict so diverse things and not only in distinct emunctories but equally so distinct parts throughout the whole body at its pleasure Secondly And then that the same image of terrour should be able only by its beck to stamp products so different from each other Such as are Carbuncles Buboes Eschaâ—s little bladders Pustuâ—es Tumours Tokens c. Thirdly in that the one only Idea of terrour should invade and besiege not only the external parts but also the stomach and likewise the head c. Fourthly that a unity of that Idea should sometimes produce a most sharp disease at another time a disease that is slow and twinkling by degrees elsewhere a disease by degrees decaying of its own accord since such effects may seem to accuse rather a diversity of the poyson than an identity or sameliness thereof Fifthly that the Archeus of man being sore afraid of the poysonous Idea of terrour and as it were a run-away should have the power and courage of producing an Eschar in the skin like unto a bright-burning iron Sixthly because doatage I say and watching seem not to bud from the same Beginning with a deep sleepy drowsiness But one only answer easily blots out every such kind of perplexity For indeed every first conception and the first assaults or violent motions of conceptions do happen beneath the Diâ—phragâ—a or midriff-partition which therefore are denied to be subject to reason or to be in our power Wherefore that Hypochondriacal passions do grow in the same place every age hath already granted and then that the pest or plague is oftentimes immediately introduced from a pestilent terrour none doubteth which terrour as it is framed by the imagination of that place So also the image of terrour is stamped from whence the imagination hath drawn an Etymology to it self But such an image is not idle or without a faculty of operating seeing none is ignorant that most diseases have took their beginning from naked perturbations or disturbances In the next place terrour is not only the dread of the Soul of man and of Reason alone but also the Archeus himself is terrified and wroth with a certain natural fervency and the illurements of passions Furthermore terrour stamps indeed an image the Effectress of the plague the Mother of confusion and terrour but that image assumes not a poyson from an undistinct confusion of terrour from a confused terrour and from the fear or flight of the forsaking Archeus But as every Serpent and mad dog produceth a poyson by the conception of a furious anger So also the terrour of the Archeus is not sufficient for the producement of a pestilent image unless the fury of the Archeus shall bring forth a poysonous image which also piâ—rceth and is married to the image of terrour Hence indeed it comes to pass that the Pest is for the most part bred about the stomach and doth there manifest it self by loathings vomiting lack of appetite pain of the head a Fever drowsie evils and at length Deliriums or doating delusions For truly I have amply enough demonstrated elsewhere concerning Fevers and in the Treatise of the Duumvirate that this houshold-stuff is conversant about the stomach For an Eschar is not made in a dead body but only in live ones and so from the life and Archeus himself even as concerning sensations elsewhere who being wroth brings forth the image of fury which was bred to change its self and the whole spirit of the Archeus and the inflowing spirit of the Arterial blood it self into a corroding Alcali For the vital spirit which in its first rise was in the digestion of the stomach materially sharp and which in the succeeding digestions is made salt and volatile doth formally degenerate and is made a corrosive salt and a volatile Alcali the efficient of the Corrosion and Eschar For for the madness of so strange and forreign a transmutation to wit produced from a strange and forreign image whatsoever is vital in the very solid substance of the parts it self all that through the wrothful vital principle being angry and enraged is enflamed and brings forth divers diseases which are plain to be seen in the burning coal in the Persick fire in a Gangren in an Erisipelas c. It is manifest therefore that from the same Beginning of the Archeus being sore affrighted and enraged into a dog-like madness it happens that the plague is â—iversly stirred up sometimes in the stomach sometimes in the skin Glandules Emunctory places and also now and then in the very solid family it self of â—e similar parts or bowels from whence mortal spots Eschars and combustions do happen according to the diversity of the parts whereunto the Archeus being full of fury and full of terrour shall
a disease 537 Death began from carnal lust 550 676 In divine things the Senses are to be cast off 310 13 What a Disease is 452 The difficulty of curing Diseases concluded from the Seat of the Soul 455 Of Diseases according to their occasional cause 565 Their division 566 How Diseases enter the Body 567 Most Diseases are centrally in the Stomach 261 10 Diseases concentred in the vital Spirit proved by dissection 485. Of the essence of Diseases 488 558 Hitherto unknown 489 171 145 A Disease is a real Being 947 Hunger no Disease 494 Diseases pierce the formal Light 496 A Disease begins from the matter of the Archeus 502 The product of a Disease differs from a Symptom 999 How a diseasie occasion augmenteth it self 521 Cure of Diseases not furthered by Anatomy 524 Diseases varie in respect of a six-fold digestion 620 What the ground of Diseases is 404 15 407 40 c. 430 3 448 60 238 21 269 Lunar Diseases their Symptoms 140 148 Diseases Produced by concupiscence 524 Cure of Diseases 446 The roots of Diseases from the beginning 1092 What the Dew is 68 23. What it abounds with 117 33 Decoctions censured 970 Defluxions of the Bladder ridiculous 856 Distilling without any Caput Mortuum remaining 404 18 Distilled waters of small force 970 Distillation of Vitriol 891 Distillation of Urine 847 Observations thereon ibid. Distillation unfolds natural Philosophy 692 Â 8 Of Diet its uselesness as to curing 451 9 c. Of the nature of Diuretickâ— 862 863 Of the dispensatories of the Schools 461 24 Thâ—ir hurtfulness ibid. 28 Illustrated by two Examples 464 43 Things externally applyed operate under the sixth digestion 479 48 A six fold Digeston 480 57 206 What a depraved digestion produceth 1104 Of the Retents of digestions 625 626 1003 The digestive Ferment what 201 206 What things help digestion ibid Of the threefold digestion of the Schools 203 703 16 There is as many suitable Ferments as digestions 206 2. From whence the force of digestion springs 207 21 Whâ—t helps it 703 17. The first digestion 207 The second digestion 209 21 22 The second and third digestion are begun at once 210 28 The third digestion where it begins 212 Digestion in the stomach not a formal transmutation of meats 215 48 When digestion may be said to be finished ibid. The fourth digestion its Seat 218 60 The fifth digestion ibid. The sixth digestion 219 67 Our digestions why attributed to the Planets 748 Supream of all digestions in the stomach 290 4 Death how it comes to â—e 649 8 After what sort death entred the Apple 657 41 Death followed sin 664 19 Death comes not from a dry habit of the Body 729 Death is from a decay of vital powers 730 Several occasions of Death 752 753 Drif what it is and what required thereto 595 Manner of making it 596 Dâ—atages observed 278 33 What drinks best in sharp sicknesses 454 22 24 The actions of the phansie from the Duumvirate 303 31 The power of desire in the Duumvirate 304 37 The Harmony of life from the Duumvirate 306 52 Fatness from the Duumvirate 308 59 The Duumvirate 337 Its Power Seat and Works 340 341 364 49 Vnderstanding is formed in the Duumvirate 275 Why the Spleen and Stomach are called the Duumvirate 287 26 Authority of the Duumvirate 296 The Dropsie Anasarcha whence 449 62 Its seat 515 Dropsie unknown 507 Not seated in the Liver 509 How stirred up 512 What the efficient matter thereof is 513 The Cure 521 A Bastard Dropsie ibid What abstinence from drink may effect in the Dropsie 519 Of Dungs and Toads in the Dropsie 519 520 Why drowned Bodies swim after a season 427 73 Drowsiness as well artificial as natural helped by Lixiviums 303 31 The vanity of drying up superfluities 440 42 Of drunkenness 449 63 Of being drunk with new Wine 122 23 Duelech of Paracelsus 833 Duelech is made of the Urine 836 837 Three Spirits concur for the nativity of Duelech 850 Its manner of making with an observation of the Fountains of the Spaw 851 What may be found in Duelech 861 Of the savour of Dungs 212 26 VVhere the Forment of Dung resideth 221 811 E. EArth why not reckoned among the primary Elements 49 16 11â— 44 What the Oxiginal Earth is â—0 3. 'T is Called the foundation of nature 4. ibid. It breaks forth to light in some places 51 5 The Earth is a fruit of the water 66 23 The various distinct Pavements of the Earth 94 5 The diversity of Soils in the Earth 688 3 In the last Soil the waâ—ers live 689 Of Earth-quakes 93 2 c. It is alwayes a threatner of punishments 102 33 Ear-wax good for pricking of the sinews 247 Eels bred by Honey and Dew c. 478 37 1026 65 Of the virtue of the Liver and Gaul of an Eele 304 46 An informative Similâ— of an Eg. 45 12 113 10 The prayse of Elecampane 703 10 Of the Elements 48 The two Elements Water and Air untransmutable 65 7 69 1 Their co-mixture no constitutive principles of bodies 134 24 Elements do not fight nor have contrariety 168 They Cannot destroy each other 1048 16 Electrum of Paracelsus against Inchantments 65 Elixir proprietatis and its prâ—paration 574. Elixir proprietatis not made without the Liquor Alkahest 813 Of the Embrio of a Bull-Calf its use 883 Of Endemicks 188 Endemical things are drawn in by breathing 189 7 The Progress of Endemical things 191 13 The Epitaph of an Emperour 528 Of the Ephialtes or night-Mare from what stirred up 299 15 Epilepsie whence stirred up 114 17 Erisipelas its Cure 475 29 114 17 Essence what it is 414 76 81 And in some things not so effectual when separated ibid. 78 Eve not cursed 654 13 Eve not appointed to bring forth in pain 654 14 Eve destowred in Paradice 666 33 Excrementitiousness whence caused 430 4 Extracts their invalidity 459 12 F. OF the infection of a dead Falcon. 1134 Fasting when easily brooked 24 51 Fever not cured by Phlebotomy 953 A Fever hitherto unknown 935 Thirst in Fevers examined 936 Drink allowed in Fevers 453 â—9 902 Caution about their food 454 24 Flesh to be shun'd ibid. Whence Cold and then hot 471 4 973 VVhat the Sunochus Diary and Hectick Fever are 978 Seat of a pâ—trid Fever 978 The occassional cause of Fevers twofold 979 980 986 The Cure 987 A Diary and Hectick affect onely the vital Spirit 973 Essence of Fevers discovered 1002 Feverish matter swims not in the Blood 956 The essence of Fevers not from heat 940 The seat of intermitting Fevers 948 The original of Camp-Fevers 1096 The poysonous Excrement in Fevers included in the Midriff 331 25 VVhat a Ferment is 31 24 c. By what continued 1124 Ferments being different do cause different operations 479 48 115 26 No transmutation without it 111 1207 2 Why commanded not to be used 111 1 Its properties c. 112 3 c. The
in so high an esteem as hitherto it hath been And the rather because Reason and Discourse do not obscurely flcurish or grow in bâ—uit Beasts for that an aged Fox is more crafty than a younger one by rational discourse doth happen to be confirmed by the remembrance of experience yea Bees do number because if there be 30 Hives placed in order a small Bee flying out in the morning numbers out of what Hive she went forth and then doth not return nor enter unless she first re-number the rank which is easily proved For if the fifth or sixth Hive be removed into the seventh or any other place and the number being turned in and out the Bees which return laden with Hony and Wax thinking to lay up their fardle within their own Common-wealth do reck on again upon the fifth or sixth numbred Hive the Citizens whereof seeing they are strangers to that little Bee coming unto them do kill the same And in this manner 〈◊〉 do in one night destroy all the Hives For the Serpent was more crafty than the other living Creatures And I will confirm by one example instead of a thousand a rational Discourse in Beasts A man of a neighbouring Village brought up a House the chief Watchman of the night-prey But it happened that in full of the Moon a Wolf ran up and down about the Village at whom that Dog straightway barked and followed the fleeing Wolf But this being impatient of hunger reterted himself on the Dog and followes him But the Dog running away and leaping upon his Oven retired himself in safety and from thence continually barked and waking his Master discovered the presence of the Wolf But the day following the Wolf returned whom the Dog as he did the day before assaulted by barking For the Wolf feigning a flight until he knew by conjecture that his fellow Wolf which he had brought with him had hidden himself under the Oven When therefore he turned himself towards the Dog who running away from the Wolf following him and thinking to retire to his Oven as it were to a most safe Castle another hidden Wolf bewrayed himself who laid hold on the Dog with a grinning mouth and hindered his leaping upon his Oven Therefore I have noted a remarkable diligence in all bruit Beasts also in most insects I think it therefore a disgraceful definition whereby a man is decyphered to be a rational or reasonable living Creature as it were from a description of his Essence For truly he was to be defined from his ultimate end by the properties of appointments in creating if the end be the first of causes according to Aristotle Wherefore neither was the definition of a man to be begged from the Fountain of Paganisme which hath been plainly ignorant of Creation and the ends thereof For as my Philosophy is unknown to the Heathen so likewise their Philosophy is with me of no value Indeed I write for the sake of Christians for whom it is a shame to follow Heathens contrary to Gospel-truth Neither also am I willing to be accounted a brawler about names as oft as I treat of the ends Prerogatives choiceness and Dignity of the divine Image I reject first of all the follies of Paganisme in-definitions especially those made concerning man For truly according to the Testimony of St. Anthony described by Blessed Jerome Paul the first of Anchorets is referred among the number of the Gods Also by relation of the same Anthony Faunus is read to be a talking rational Creature yea knowing and worshipping the God of Nature and of the Christians and beseeching Anthony to pray for him and his It is manifest in the first place that this Faunus was not a man from the assertion of Anthony and his monstrous figure or shape Next neither that he was an evil spirit is gathered because this is so proud that if he knew he might be saved by Prayer he would not so much as ask that any one would pray for him neither would he prostrate himself for to beg pardon For blessed Jerome calls Faunus not a man as neither an evil Spirit Therefore Faunus is neither of these as the same man witnesseth by whom that Paul obtained the first place among the Anchorets and was reckoned among the Saints Therefore a Faunus is a living Creature as a Being in reason speaking his own proper Country Dialect but not a man So in times past a live Satyr and afterwards seasoned with Salt was shewen for money being carried thorowout Aegypt Phrygia and Greece Finally in Scotland and Zeland and elsewhere there are fished Monsters using Reason yea exercising mechanick arts in the half shapes of men Indeed man alone was made after the Image of God with an excluding of all Creatures or things But these rational bruits being in their own Elements are also different among themselves yet are they the Images or likenesses of us and not the Images of God Man therefore is a Creature living in a body by an immortal minde sealed to the honour of God according to the light and Image of the Word the first example of all causes For the day and its light were sometimes without the Sun and the Sun shall at sometimes be without light But the Soul of man cannot be considered without the Image of God seeing the Kingdom of God with all its free gifts is more intimate to the Soul than the Soul it self is intimate to it self Therefore I am deservedly angry that the Schooles do badly season Youth with Heathenish Phylosophy and that they do even till now delight in Acorns the Banquets of the first or original truth being now found Oh Lord the light of thy countenance is imprinted upon us for none hath perfectly known the Image and whether it doth well answer to its Type if he shall not first know or acknowledge the Type Wherefore as many as do badly define a man do not know or acknowledge God as neither themselves in essential things The Phylosophical Schooles therefore have rested more in the lessons of the Heathens than of Paul Hence I contemplate that they have meditated of a man onely according to his dead Carcase but not according to the intention of the Creator or efficient and the finall ordinations of man For otherwise the Almighty had declined from his scope if the end be the first or chief of causes in Creation and there be something considerable as first in the adorable Authour of things Therefore the Creature was to be defined and that from the intention of the efficient Creator For he erreth not in his ends who frameth the properties themselves which flow from the very ends of their appointments Wherefore man although he hath from his body some animal or sensitive and bodily conditions yet from the intent of God he is created into the living Image of God in an immortal substance that he may know love and worship God according to the light of the Type or figure imprinted
on him But after that man hath lived in the flesh as an animall or sensitive living Creature God hath said My Spirit shall not remain or alwayes strive with man because he as flesh For the proper Genus or general kinde of the thing defined in the definition of a man which the Schooles name an Animall or living Creature that very thing God nameth degeneration a turning out of his wayes the corruption of Nature and destroying of his intention in Creation But that their constitutive difference of a man or the rational part doth belong to bruites is without doubt and also the penury of Logick which is altogether destitute of all definition and constitutive difference But Reason being now stript even unto a nakedness I got its every way displeasure because it seemed to me an empty Skeleton its Masks and Coverings being taken away Lastly I beheld the narrow poverty and unquiet foulness thereof especially when I was mindeful of the confusions and uncertainties wherewith it according to its wonted manner had intangled me I began therefore afterwards to contemplate that my intellect might more profit by figures likenesses visions of the phantafie in dreams than by the discourses of Reason Yea that frequent Discourses did ordinarily render their man foolish wrathful mad stotmy in his judgement and moveable or weak and so also of a tender health And at length I more fully looked into the progress of figures and Idea's and then I found those as yet encompassed with miseries and anguishes because Images were estranged by reason of their adulterating from the very truth of the thing and of its Essence by an unexcusable disagreement of every Similitude remote from identity or sameliness And then I thus judged because the distinction between the Images of the Phantasie and the Images of the intellect had not yet been made known unto me the which after their abstractions do remain in the very Centre of the Soul for I was for the most part wearied all the day about some knowable thing the which although it was unknown to me as to its foundation and manner yet by likenesses I determined it was by much labour to be known unto me At length when I perceived my self to be hindered from further proceeding because astonished I framed inwardly that any likeness of a thing not yet perfectly known is adorned with a possible adiacence of its essence Under which I once afterwards ere long beholding that in my imagination and as it were talking to the same I being at length notably wearied with study fell asleep that at least I might stir up a dreaming Vision whereby I might draw out that desirable thing to be known According to that saying Night unto night sheweth knowledge and surely it is a wonder how much light those kinde of Visions unfolded unto me especially my Body being not well fed for a good while before For I do not deny but that the essences of the thing sought for which were for the most part covered under the Cloak of a Riddle or confused and as yet very much subject to pluralities and interchangeable courses I many times attained by this meanes of knocking especially the helps of seeking having gone before and the ayds and wings of prayer being adjoyned And a holy man to whom I had uncovered every corner of my Conscience and the wearisomnesses of labours and years through restless nights said unto me Ah I would to God I had laboured as much and had spent as much time in loving of God as thou wretched man hast done in the searching out of knowable things whereof the last day will not require of thee a reason or account Truly I then praised the Lord that he had freely bestowed on me a certain nearer meanes of knowing and learning than reason could be the which did never pierce unto the former or cause and seldom unto the latter or effect and that moreover with much uncertainty For then I believed that the original misery of corrupted nature could not proceed further unto the once tasted light than by the aforesaid Images of the phantasie By the perswasion therefore of that man I desisted from a more narrow wishing seeking and searching into any thing I stripped my self of all curiosity and appetite of knowing I betook my self unto rest or poverty of spirit resigning my self into the most lovely will of God as if I were not in being not in working in desiring meer nothing in understanding nothing most especially because I knew manifold imperfections in my knowledges I conceiving great indignation with my self because that for a frail knowledge I had bestowed so many and so great labours Therefore I my self wonderfully displeased my self therefore I begged of the Lord that he would wholly sweep out of my minde every knowable thing and the profane desires thereof the which minde with this inscription I wholly offered unto his good pleasure In the mean time after two moneths in this renouncing of knowledges and naked poverty it once again happened unto me that I intellectually understood I placed my Athanar or the Instrument of my reception and operation another way But I straightway returned into my self neither knew I how long that light had remained That indeed I knew that the newness amazedness and rejoycing of the unwonted matter then stole away that light and made me to fall out of it into my antient confusions of darkness because that reason was not yet mortified Aristotle although he was wholly void of this light yet he hath seemed from some other to have described the perceivance of another concerning the labour of wisdom or things Adeptical It is better for a man to be disposed or inclined than to be knowing by description To wit by the deaf suggestion of another he calls it a better thing to have men disposed than if they were knowing that is by the help of demonstration By meanes whereof alone he elsewhere alway boasts that all knowledge in man doth arise I likewise acknowledged that we must bid farewell to Reason and Imagination as unto brutall faculties and that by reason of the misery of our fall if by hope we are drawn into the deep for a sound knowledge of the truth I have known likewise that an easie Translation of the understanding was required and a pleasing transchanging of it self into the form of the thing intelligible in which point of time indeed the understanding for a moment is made as it were the intelligible thing it self But seeing the intellect is perfected by understanding and that nothing is perfected but by that which hath a resemblance with it in its own nature therefore I gathered that the understanding and things understood as such ought to be or to be made of the same nature but this ought to be done without labour and disquietness but with rest in the light proper to them with the withdrawing depriving and wanting of any other created help whatsoever But if a forreign
although that action of spirits be made with the suffering and losse of their own powers yet they do not therefore transchange Bodyes into their own nature For they onely gnaw them and grind them into pouder the which also they interpret to be a calcining by water By way of example joyn thou a pound of Crocus martis to a sixfold quantity of Oyl of Vitriol then distill thou whatsoever shall be watery Thou shalt find the Vitriol of Iron or Mars Take from thence the Iron and thou hast the Vitriol of Iron A Salt I say like Vitriol whose tast is of Iron Yet retaining nothing of the Mars or Iron For thou hast a limitation from the Mars as to its efficacy but not in respect of its matter And the former spirit of Vitriol or Oyl of the vitriol of Copper shall be fixed into a certain salt onely by the odour of the Iron Again Take the same and more clear example Conjoyn thou a pound of running Mercury or Quick-silver unto a four fold quantity of Oyl of Vitriol Take away its flegme by distilling and a white precipitate shall remain in the bottom like snow Likewise If thou shalt pour on it more Oyl than is meet the Mercury will unsensibly surmount together with the Oyl Furthermore If by a Liver thou shalt take away the tartnesse from the aforesaid snow there will be a pouder of a Citron colour in the bottom which being revived or unto Life recovered shall be of equal weight with the former Mercury But the water which in washing off the salt drinks it up into it self affords a true Alum For so one onely pound of Quick-silver onely by its touch should be able by degrees to change many thousands of pounds of the sharpest Oyl of Vitriol into an Alum without any losse of its substance which same Oyl by the touch of the Iron is in like manner changed into the vitriolated salt of Mars being a noble Medicine for healing Let the action of the Mercury without an essential â—â— suffering of its substance be taken notice of And it is a Contemplation of great moment For truly a great rout of Alchymists are deluded by their own hope thinking that fixed Bodyes being solved in Corrosives gave unto these Corrosives their properties at leastwise if those dissolving Corrosives have from a voluntary motion of activity coagulated in their possession They know not I say that Spirits being wearied by acting do degenerate into a new Being To wit while they descend unto the limit of their power in acting And then we must know that every operation which tendeth unto a transmutation of both namely the Agent and Patient consisteth onely between meer Spirits But that the operation of a Body with a spirit of things without Life begins from the spiritual odour of a certain putrifaction by continuance because seeds and fermental dispositions depend thereupon and according to their own will or arbitration do command Liquors appointed for Generation Wherefore the Antients have not unfitly advertised us That the rise and continuation of the visible world is from an invisible and incorporeal Essence such as are Odours and Ferments And in our own borders Duelech growes together from an incredible Spirit the Coagulater and from an invisible Beginning For neither hath it stood in need for its nativity of Tartar brought from without of the Son of a more inward muckinesse or of the feigned curdlings of drying It is a far more calamitous thing that we carry the very vulcan of the Stone about us in our urine unto the importunate command whereof the properties of a volatile spirit do hearken For God had seemed to have loved Bruits before us if he had not directed Diseases unto a Reward and so unto good whereof a temporal punishment is not worthy But besides where a fore-seen end of punishment is present he hath from the Gift of his Bounty erected the powers of Medicines In Beasts also stones are bred but not given for a punishment nor for a Reward which grow in them for Medicines to us And therefore they also arise from a far different Root Moreover before that I proceed unto the History of the Stone I will premise some exercises First therefore In the Salt-pits of Burgundy there are at this day no more than two pits the pit of Brine and the pit of Gray But if indeed an hundred measures of both pits are boyled apart they yield far lesse salt than if they are boyled in the same quantity being conjoyned The Inhabitants admire at the Experiment and therefore they henceforward confound both Brines together For indeed the one of them containes more of a vapory or volatile salt which being boyled apart by it self with a flaming fire flyes away before its coagulation Notwithstanding meeting with another more fixed salt it is imbibed and constrained into a solid salt The example teacheth this That Bodyes of Salts do drink up their own Spirits and that their spirits in like manner do gnaw their Bodyes For truly the Brine of Burgundy being clearer than Crystal doth notwithstanding through its vapory salt spirit drink up into it self a great part of a rocky stone which therefore in time of boyling To wit while the spirits are coagulated in the more solid body of the salt settles and is scummed off with difficulty Therefore that spirit of salt although it dissolved the stone yet it therefore contracted not wedlock with the earth as that either this should stonifie or the other be made salt Yea it even from thence is manifest that although the Sea-salt had vapory or volatile parts yet it could not come unto the stone as neither to the spirit of urine for an increase Because it is that which consists of far different principles even as elsewhere concerning Digestions but the Sea-salt by how much it is a stranger with the Urine by so much it shall stir up consultations of dissolving Duelech For whatsoever dissolveth the stone of a Rock and doth hide it invisibly in it self that at least shall not perswade the original of the stone Thus far concerning a fixed Earth dissolved by the spirit of salt and of the vapory and coagulated spirit of Salt Now concerning a volatile salt decaying into a solid body Sublime thou Stibium with an equal part of Sal Armoniack by a gentle or indifferent fire thou shalt see the salt to arise tinged with divers colours Separate the colour from the salt by water and thou shalt have a pouder which with Salt-peter flyes away almost wholly into a flame But if that which is left with the Sal Armoniac be as yet twice sublimed by it self and freed from its salt thou shalt have a pouder of Stibium voyd of salt wherewith if thou shalt then mix Salt-peter it shall be no longer inflamed but as much Salt-peter as thou shalt mix with it is changed into an earth and neglects the nature of a salt For the odour of the Sulphur pierceth