spiritual light 204 A transparent body as glass being pointed with the Sun beams doth gather them and receives in it the image of the Sun and is made lightsom as it were a brief draught of the Sun which sends forth its beams on the farthest side opposite to the Sun from which the beams of the Sun being refracted by the concourse of the glass seem to pass through the glass which yet indeed they do not for the rays by reason of the Air that cleaves to them are setled about the glass the spirit of light onely passing forward but by the beams which are darted out on the other side are the beams of the Sun or of the glass being kindled by the Sun-beams into a lightsom bodie 205 Every transparent body especially glass is a medium of light because it receives light into it and having received it doth communicate it to the Air that is beyond it not by the sending forth of lightsom Air about it which is repugnant to Nature but by another double way First because a transparent body yields to and le ts pass the spirit of light and doth send it forth abroad being received by it which sent forth gets into the adjoyning Air hence springs that plentifull light and besides because that transparent Medium is made by the benefit of the light it receives not onely light in it self but lightsom to others and by the spirit of Light which is in love with transparent bodies becomes as it were a lighted lamp But now every lightsom body hath the priviledge and power to scatter its light which is not granted to thick and dark bodies unless by reflection 206 Those which are the pure natures of mixt Beings are mearly spiritual the bodies are as it were the Barks and Vessels in which they are contained and kept And not otherwise could those sublime Natures unless tied to the corporeal Elements and so bound in by their weight pass this lower Sea and lodge in the Centre of this Abyss They come subject to sense by their bodies the bodies are moved and acted by them so do they do interchangeable offices This that secret of Homers Juno whom Jupiter let down with a weight at her heels 207 Since the whole frame of the Universe is but one onely body one onely universal Nature consisting of many natures and bodies bound together by their proper Mediums and bonds it should not be wondered at that such parts members are knit together by a strong but secret tye and do give a mutual assistance each to other for they have not onely a mutual relation to but also a communication with one the other and these various natures do exercise a kind of a commerce the extreams by the middle the middle by the nearest But this communication is performed by spirits sent forth for all the parts of the world all the individual natures of the world do abound in spirits many of which flowing forth leave room and give way for those that flow in and so is there by the continual ebbing out and flowing in of spirits a continual reparation of the world and of the natures thereof This is the scale of general Nature presented in a vision to the Patriarch Jacob these are Mercuries wings by whose help being mistically termed by the Ancients the Messenger of the Gods he was thought frequently to visit the coasts of the Earth and the courts of Heaven 208 The active principles of every kind of Vegetables or Animals are spiritual their bodies are the passive organs of the spirits by which they exercise the faculties of the senses and do by various actings put forth their powers as the authours of actions so that in the general life may be termed a concent of actions or a continued act diversified by the multiplicitie of actions flowing from a spiritual fountain and brought forth by corporeal organs 209 It is the propertie of the spiritual nature to act of the corporeal to be passive where therefore there is a concourse of both as in mixed bodies that as the more noble doth act and rule this as passive doth obey For the power of act is the priviledge of ruling but the burden of being passive is the mark of being servile so the in-set fire in the seed is the principle of generation and life the highest operating spirit the Archaeus of Nature the orderer in the preparing and forming the matter in the mixtion and distribution of the Elements So doth the Form in the mixt Being exercise its rule at his will as the fountain of all actions So do the virtues of the heavenly Beings dispose and seal all inferiour Elements and corporeal matter 210 Natural bodies which have an active vigour and an occult cause of acting do not as is commonly thought act alone by their qualities but by secret spirits For the fire doth not heat and burn by the single qualitie of heat but by the continual flux of spirits and rayes Neither do the Earth and Water refrigerate or moisten by the alone qualities of cold and moist but by their vapours and in-nate spirits sent forth do affect the sense from without Neither do poysons onely by cold or hot qualities but by malignant spirits bring death or infection sooner or later Concerning Plants or Herbs we must judge alike because their active virtues do not lie hid in their qualities but in their essence which Nature hath made abundant in spirits whose basis and principle powers are concerning spirituals for the bodies are as the shadows or the investments of things under which the invisible Nature is hidden but since qualities are the accidents of things are not therefore able to constitute their essence nor shew forth in their actings those wonderful virtues but are onely as the in set instruments of actions passions which the working spirits that are the workers of all actions make use of in their actings but yet Nature indures them not as principles and efficient causes of actions 211 The natural tinctures odours and tasts of things are special and spiritual gifts of Nature with which it hath suitably inriched her Beings which do not onely contribute to their ornament or onely are inherent in them as extrinsecal accidents but also have an in-set and radical cause and are not so much to be termed accidents as demonstrative tokens of inward virtues by which the occult and formal signatures of things discover themselves 212 Rarefaction and condensation are the two instruments of Nature by which spirits are converted into bodies and bodies into spirits or also by which corporeal Elements are changed into spiritual Beings and spiritual into corporeal for Elements do suffer these changes in mixt bodies So the Earth doth minister spiritual food to the roots of vegetables which being fed upon doth go into the stalk the bark the boughs the branches the flowrs and into the corporeal substance The same is done by Nature in Animals For the meat and
as by way of requital not deny me her assistance as a buckler against the delusions of Sophisters and a breast-plate against the environed darts of either Envy or Ignorance These Beasts will bark the first pining at anothers good the second raging in its own clouds both break into the cultivated Gardens of Knowledge and the delightfull paradise of Philosophy and either snip or blast the endeavours of a more fortunate Genius These to no purpose strive to stop my course by their frights I am seated above their highest reach as long as I can see the Deity of Truth under her patronage I walk I work secure Onely be you pleased to accept these sprinklings of my retirement with the same soul it is presented if any thing seem in it to disrellish deal so gently as that you may seem rather not to comply than wholly to refuse I shall in the interim reach my end if my pains shall cause you to fall upon greater attempts with better success Enchyridion Physicae Restitutae OR A Summary of the Physicks Recovered THE FIRST RULE GOd is an Eternal Being an infinite Oneness the radical Principle of all things whose Essence is an incomprehensible Light his Power Omnipotency whose beck is an absolute act He that dives deeper is swallowed up in a trance and silence and is lost in the abyss of unfathomed glory 2. Most of the Ancients conceived the world from eternity to have been figured in its Archetype and Original which is God who is all Light before the Creation of the Universe he was a book rowld up in himself giving light onely to himself but as it were travailing with the birth of the world he unfolded himself and that work which lay hid in the womb of his own mind was manifested by extending it to view and so brought forth the Idaeal-world as it were in the transcript of that divine Original into an actual and material world This is hinted by Trisgmegist when he says That God changed his form and that all things were in a sudden revealed and brought to light For the world is nothing else but the disclosed image of an occult Deity This beginning of the world the Ancients seem to have denoted by the birth of their Pallas out of the brain of their Jupiter by the Mid-wiffery of Vulcan that is by the help of divine fire or light 3. The eternal Parent of all things not less wise in governing than powerfull in creating did so orderly dispose the whole organical frame of the world that the highest are so intermixt with the lowest and the lowest interchangeably and inconfusedly with the highest and have an Analogical likeness so that the extreams of the whole work by a secret bond have a fast coherence between themselves through insensible mediums and all â—â—â—â—gs do freely combine in an obedience to their Supream Ruler and to the benefit of the inferiour Nature onely being subject to a dissolution at the will of him who gave them their constitution Wherefore it is well said of Hermes That whatsoever is below hath an assimulation to somewhat above He that transfers the sovereign order of the Universe to any Nature diverse from the Nature of God denies a God For it cannot be just to conceive any other uncreated Deity of Nature as the Cause of the production or conservation of the seveâ—al Individuals of this large frame of the world besides that spirit of the â—ivine Worker which lay upon those first waters and brought forth the seeds of all things confusedly rowld â—n the first Chaos from their power into act and wheeling them by 〈◊〉 perpetual alteration doth mannage them Geometrically by composition and resolution 5. He that knows not the soul oâ— the world to be that Spirit the Creatour and Governour of the World by its contâ—â—â—ed infusion oâ— its breathing upon the works of nature and by its enlarged diffusioâ— through all things giving to alâ— things a set but secret motion according to their kind he is wholly an Ignaro of the laws of the Universe for he that created cannot but assume the power of ruling what is created and it must be acknowledged that all things have their creation generation and conservation by the same Spirit 6. Notwithstanding this he thiâ— shall grant Nature the honour of being the second universal Cause attending on the first and as it werâ— an instrument moved by it and 〈◊〉 giving according to a material order an immediate motion to everâ— thing in the world will not speâ—â— what disagrees with the opinion 〈◊〉 Philosophers or Divines who 〈◊〉 that Natura naturans i. Nature giving nature this Natura naturata Nature made nature 7. He that is verst in the secrets of Nature will acknowledge this second Nature the attendant of the first to be the spirit of the Universe or the quickening virtue of that light created in the beginning and contracted into the body of the Sun and endowed with an hidden faecundity Zoroaster and Heraclit called this The Spirit of Fire the invisible Fire the Soul of the world 8. The order of Nature is nothing else than a large Rowl of the eternal Laws which being Enacted by the highest Sovereign and Recorded and written in various leaves to innumerable people of a various nature by the auspicious power of which Laws the frame of the Universe doth accomplish its motions life and death always atttending on the margins of the last Volume and the other spaces being taken up by alternal motions 9. The world is as it were a Smithswork made orbicular the links of the chain enclasping it each the other are the parts of the world Nature as it were deputed to sit in the middle always present and ever working continually repairs the changes and motions of all things 10. The whole world as it hath its constitution from a three-fold Nature so hath it its distinction into a three-fold Region viz. The Super-celestial the Celestial the Sub-celestial The Super-celestial is that which is otherwise termed the Intelligible it is altogether spiritual and immortal having the nearest approch to the Divine Majesty The Celestial is seated in the middle which having allotted to her the portion of the most perfect bodies and being replenished with spirits doth pour out by the conveyance of spiritual channels numberless efficacies and vital breathings not enduring a corruption onely having attained its period subject to change Lastly the Sub-celestial or Elementary Region hath its assignment in the lowest portion of the world This being wholly of a corporeal nature doth enjoy spiritual gifts and benefits the chief of which is in life by loan onely and upon request being as it were to repay Heaven for it In the bosom of this Region there is no generation without corruption no birth without death 11. It is enacted and setled by the Laws of the Creation that the lowest things should immediately be subservient to the middle the middle to those above these to
the Subpream Rulers beck This is the Symmetry the order of the whole Universe 12. It is the excepted priviledge alone of the Creatour as he created all things according as he pleased out of nothing so to reduce what he hath created into nothing for whatsoever being or substance hath an impress from him cannot deny subjection to him but is prohibited by Natures law to return to a Non-Entity Therefore Trismegist did truly assert That nothing in the world doth die but pass into a change for mixt bodies have their composition from the Elements which by natures rotation are again resolved into the Elements Hence is this sequel that by Natures cost All 's cloth'd with what 's its own nothing is lost 13. The Philosphers did believe a first matter to be of an elder birth to the Elements but this as it was but scarce apprehended by them so was it as briefly and as it were in the clouds and obscurely handled by them they made it void of qualities and accidents yet the first subject of them without quantity yet by which all things have their dimensions endowed with simplicity yet capable of contraries without the reach of sensible knowledge yet the basis of sensible drawn out through all places yet unperceiveable covetous of all forms tenacious of none the root of all bodies yet not sensible but conceiveable onely by an act of the intellect lastly nothing in act all things in aptitude So have they laid a fancy for the foundation of nature 14. Aristotle more wary though he believed the eternity of the world yet hinted a certain first and universal matter In the discussion of this he used sobriety and ambiguity alwayes avoiding its creeks and perplexities so that he opined it better to conceive * one inseparable matter of all things which yet hath a respective difference from which the first bodies with the rest which are under sense have their subsistence that this is the first principle of them and not to be separated from them †but always joyned with a repugnancie always subject to contraries from which the Elements are produced 15. The Philosopher had been righter if he had asserted that first matter free from the conflict of Contraries and disengaged from that pretended repugnancy since there is no contrariety inherent in the very Elements but what is the result of the intention of their qualities as we are informed by the daily experience of fire and water in which whatsoever opposition there is ariseth from the heightening of their qualities But in the proper and true Elements which couple in the generation of mixt bodies those qualities which are in a remiss degree in them are not repugnant each to other for their temperature doth not admit a contrariety 16. Thales Heraclitus and Hesiodus accounted water the first matter of all things to whose opinion the Writer of the holy Genesis seems to consent This they call an Abyss and Water by which I guess they understood not our ordinary water but a kind of sume or moist and dark vapour roaving here and there and driven in an uncertain motion without any certain order 17. I am not at present able to lay down any positive determination concerning that first Principle of things since it being created in the dark could never by mans invention be brought to light therefore whatsoever the troup of Philosophers and Divines do opine whether these things are so or no the Authour of Nature alone knows therefore pardon is to be allowed to him that in dark Doctrines hits what is most likely 18. Some of the Rabbines agreeing conceived an ancient but obscure and inexpressible principle the matter of all improperly called Hyl◠which is more properly termed not so much a body as a large shadow not a thing but a dusky image of a thing or the smoaky appearance of an Entity a most dark night a covert of clouds actually all nothing potentially all things which cannot be found but in fancie and understood in a dream Our imagination cannot exhibit to us this doubtfull principle this depth of darkness no more than our talk can through the ears imprint the knowledge of the Sun into a man that was born blind 19. The same men had an opinion that God brought forth and created the nearest approching matter of the Elements and the World to wit that dark formless and indigested Abyss out of that farthest Principle the Scripture calls this Mass sometimes Earth void and emptie sometimes Waters although actually it were neither yet potentially and by way of assignment it was both we may give a propable guess that it was not unlike to a dark smoak or vapour in which was closed a stupifying spirit of cold and darkness 20. The division of the higher waters from the lower expressed in Genesis seems to be done by the severing the subtile from the thick and as it were a thin spirit from that smoaky body there was needfull therefore of that lightsom spirit proceeding from the Word of God For light which is a fiery spirit by separating things of a diverse nature did drive down the thicker darkness from the nearest and highest Region and uniting the matter of one and the same kind being of a thin and a more spiritual substance inflamed it as an unquencheable oyl to burn before the Throne of the Divine Majesty This is the Empyraean Heaven seated between the Intellectual and Material heaven as the Horizon and Finitor of each receiving spiritual endowments from that above and deriving them down to the inferiour adjoyning middle heaven 21. Reason required that this dark Abyss or next matter of the World should be watry and moist that it be the better subject to be attenuated and that by this flux of the matter by attenuation the whole frame of the Heavens and of the rest of the Fabrick might issue forth and might be laid out in a continuous body For it is the property of moisture to flow and the continuity of every body is the effect of the moisture of it For moisture is the glue and joyncture of Elements and bodies But fire acting upon moisture by heat doth rarifie for heat is the instrument of fire by which it doth act two opposite works by one and the same labour separating the moist nature from the earthy by rarifying that condenseth this So that by the separation of the things of a diverse proceeds a congregation of things of the same nature By this first principle of Chymistry the uncreated spirit the artifex of the world did distinguish the confused natures of things 22. The Architectonique Spirit of the world began the work of Creation from two universal principles the one formal the other material for otherwise what is the meaning of the words of the Prophet Gen. 1. God created the Heaven and the Earth c. unless that in the beginning of the information of the matter he distinguished it into two chief principles
a formal and a material Heaven and Earth by the word Earth is to be understood that dark and as yet unshaped mass of the waters and Abyss as is apparent by the subsequent words The Earth was void and without form and darkness was upon the face of the depth c. which the Creatour did shut in and comprise within the highest to wit the Empyrean Heaven which is Natures first formal though farthest principle 23. For the Spirit of God which is the brightness of the Deity being poured out upon the Waters that is upon the moist and large surface of the depths in the very moment of creation light presently broke up which in the twinkling of the eye surprized the highest and more subtile part of the matter and encompassed it as it were with a fringe and border of light as that lightening is which is darted from the East to the West or like a flame which fires the smoak So was the birth of the first day but the lower portion of darkness devoid of light continued night and so the darkness had its division into day and night 24. Concerning that first Heaven that formal Principle it is not declared to have been void empty and wrapt in darkness which is a sufficient evidence that that Heaven which was first spread out was forthwith severed by the light from the subjacent dark Mass by reason of the nearness of the Glory and Majesty of God and the presence of that lightsom Spirit flowing from it 25. There was therefore in the beginning two Principles of all things created one full of light and bordering upon the spiritual Nature the other wholly corporeal and dark the first that it might be the Principle of motion light and heat the second of a drowsie dark and cold being the first active and masculine the other the passive and feminine Principle On the part of the former comes a motion in the Elementary world to Generation from whence proceeds life from the other part comes the motion to corruption the principle of death So that is the double fringe or border of the lower world 26. But because Love is extensive and acts without from it self the Divine Nature impatient of its solitude and taken with its own beauty in the light already created as in a Mirrour and earnestly desirous to enlarge it and to multiply his image commanded that light to be extended and propagated Then the light the fiery spirit issuing from the Divine understanding and rowling it self in a Circulation began to work upon the nearest darkness and having prevailed upon it and sunk it down towards the Centre and there sprung forth the second day and there was seen the second mansion of light or the second Heaven comprizing all the airy Region in whose higher Region are so many Torches kindled and scattered In the lower are seated the seven wandering Stars according to their order that they might as so many Presidents and Rulers give orders by their light motion and influence to the subjacent Nature 27. And least any thing should be defective in this great work already drawn out in the mind of God the same Spirit by his glittering and fiery sword beat off the banded darkness and that shade that lay under him and thrust it down into the Centre of the Abyss so the lowest part of the Heavens was enlightened which we rightly term Air or the lowest Heavens Then was the third day But the darkness which at first did overcast the whole face of the Abyss being thrust down by the supervening light into the lowest Region was so thickened by reason of the straitness of the room and the binding force of the Cold that it passed into a huge mass of a watry Nature the Kernel and Centre of the whole workmanship as it were a dale and heap of darkness being poiz'd in the middest of the waters and bound up of the dregs and thick matter of the Abyss into a firm and dark body of earth After this upon the driving of the Spirit the waters fled from the surface of the earth casting themselves about the borders of it and there appeared drie land that it might produce almost an infinite number of several sorts of Plants and receive as guests so many kinds of creatures especially Man the lord of all and provide to them food and to man a plentifull sufficiency of all conveniencies The Earth therefore and the Water made one Globe by reason of whose thickness the shadow the image of the dark Abyss doth continually beset the whole Region of the Air bordering upon it and opposite to the Sun for it shuns and flies the assayling light and so in the assault is upon a continual retreat 28. That Light which upon the conquest and destruction of the darkness had seized upon and spread it self upon the parts of the Abyss it seemed best to the great Creatour to contract into that most resplendent and illustrious for quantity and quality for bigness and beauty that Globe of the Sun that as the Light was more narrowly pent so it might be more efficaciously powerfull and might dart its beams with more vigour as also that the created Light the nearest approching nature to the divine glory proceeding from an uncreated unity might through its unity be poured out upon the creatures 29. From this glorious lamp of the world do all the other bodies borrow light for that dark shade which we sensibly perceive in the Globe of the Moon by reason of the neighbouring earth and the extension of her shadow we may credibly guess the like to be in the other globous bodies though not perceivable by reason of their distance Indeed the prime and most principal nature of sensibles the fountain of light ought to be one from which these things below might receive the breath of life Whence is that true saying of the Philosopher The Sun and man beget man 30. It was not an improbable assertion of some of the Philosophers That the soul of the World was in the Sun and the Sun in the Centre of the whole For the consideration of equity and nature seem to require that the body of the Sun should have an equal distance from the fountain and rise of created Light to wit the Empyrean Heaven and from the dark Centre the Earth which are the extreams of the whole Fabrick whereby this lamp of the world as a middle Nature and Joyner of both Extreams might have its scite in the middle that it may the more commodiously receive the rich treasuries of all powers from the chief Spring and upon a like distance convey them to things below 31. Before the Contraction of this light into the body of the Sun the earth spent an idle time in its solitude looking for a male that being impregnated by his copulation it might bring forth all sorts of creatures for as yet it had been delivered onely of abortives and Embryoes to wit of Vegetables onely For
may guess that it abounds with a hot and moist though not a watry yet a fat Being which is the food of fire In this Region is much peace and a good temperature because it is not hurryed with the tempests of any wind and onely the lighter excrements of the inferiour Nature are sucked up hither 80. The higher Region near the Moon is all airy not fiery as it hath been taken up though falsely in the Schools There is the peaceable habitation of the purest Air and as it borders upon the Heavenly Region so it approcheth it in nature for it is not defiled with the least â—mut of the lower Abyss There is a temperature in the highest a purity but little inferiour to that of the neighbouring Heaven In this place to fancy a sphear of fire is the shame of a Philosopher which breaking the Laws of Nature would have long ere this ruined the Fabrick of the Universe 81. The Fire as a fourth Element of Nature was placed in the highest Region of the Air as in its proper sphear by the chief Philosophers being led by an argument from order and by conjecture rather than truth For let no man fancy any other fire of Nature than the celestial Light therefore the blessed Philosopher in his Genesis makes no mention of fire because he had before told of the creation of the Light upon the first day which is the genuine fire of Nature and truly he would else not have omitted Fire if it had been a principle of Nature having specified Earth Water and the Fowls of the Heavens 82. Let not any therefore fancy unless sleeping a Region of Fire burning next the Moon for the whole Air would not be able to bear so great an abundance of intense fire but it had long ago fed upon and ruined the whole Fabrick of the World for whatsoever it falls upon it feeds upon and devours being the designed ruin of the World and Nature 83. Such a Devourer of Nature is not lodged as an Element of Nature neither above the Air nor below the Earth Onely he doth tyrannize in the kingdom of Nature either in the height of the Air or the depths of the Earth or else being kindled upon the superficies of the Earth Therefore Lullius a man of a raised wit did justly account it amongst the Gyants and Tyrants of the World It may also be termed to be an Enemy to Nature because whatsoever is destructive to Nature is an adversary of Nature 84. Our common Fire is partly natural partly artificial It may be man borrowed it for the accommodation of life and for his necessity from the Celestial by an unition of the beams of it and a multiplication of its vigour or else by attrition or the collision of two bodies the Spirit of God suggesting the project to man 85. The Sovereign Creatour of all things did place the fiery spirit of a kindly heat in the Globe of the Sun to inspire light and an enlivening heat to the rest of the bodies in the Universe wherefore many have thought him to be the heart of the whole Fabrick for from him springs the principle of all generation and life He that searcheth for any other Element of fire in the world doth shut his own eyes against the Sun 86. The source therefore of the Fire of Nature is seated in the Sun whose heat is always of an equality and temperate in it self though it be felt by us either greater or less according to his appropinquation or distance or according to his direct or oblique beams or according to the scituation or nature of places The Sun hath been elevated by most Philosophers as the Soul of the World breathing in motion and a faculty of generation to Nature 87. The Sun is not the Eye of the World as some Ancients termed it but is the Eye of the Creatour of the World by which he doth sensibly view his sensible creatures by which he conveys to them the sweetly-affecting beams of his love by which he renders himself viewable to them For scarcely could a sensible Nature have comprehended an insensible Creatour therefore he formed for himself and us so noble a body roab'd in his own glory whose rays that nearest approach Divinity are Spirit and Life 88. From that universal Principle of life all the in-bred heat of Elements or mixed Beings is derived which hath gotten to be called by the name of Fire for wheresoever a free heat a natural motion or life lodges there Nature hath hidden Fire as the principle of them and the first mover of the Elements by which the sensible Elements or the Portions of the World are elementated and receive their animations yet doth it cleave close to the womb of the Earth being bound up by the Earths density and coldness exciting an Antiperistasis 89. That Fire of Nature which is seated in mixt bodies hath chosen the radical moisture as its proper seat the principal residence of which is in the heart although it be diffused through all the parts of the body as in the prime organ of life and the centre of this little world whence that Prince of Nature as commanding from its Castle doth move concordantly all the faculties and the rest of the organs and doth in-breathe life to the humours of the mixed Being to the spirits and finally to the whole Elementary Mass And being the Sun and Vicegerent of the Sun doth act all in this little that the Sun doth in that large World 90. As the Sun being in the middest of the rest of the Planets doth enlighten them with his light replenish them with his influential virtues beget an harmony of life by his enlivening spirit so doth the solar spirit in the middle of the Elementary Nature giveth it an influential light and gathers the Elements together in the work of Generation and doth unite and enliven them 91. The first Agent in the World is the Fire of Nature which being seated in the Globe of the Sun doth diffuse that vivifical heat by means of his rays through all the dominions of Nature working in the seeds a power of activity and setling in them the principle of motion and action at the removal of which all motion ceaseth and also the faculty of life and action 92. The heat of Nature and the light of Nature are really one and the same for they have a continual and uniform effluence from the same Fountain i. the Sun but are distinguished by their office for the heat is to penetrate into the most inward parts of Nature but light is to manifest and open the outward parts the office of heat is to move the occult Natures of things that of light to set before the eyes sensible accidents both of these is wrought by the rays of the Sun The Sun therefore is the first Organ of Nature by whose approach or distance all the operations of Nature are variously governed intended or remitted by means of light and
heat 93. The second universal Agent is that same light not so immediately issuing from the Fountain but reflected from solid bodies inlightened by it as the heavenly yea the Earth it self for the light of the Sun beating upon those bodies gives a motion to their dispositions and faculties and alters them and diffuseth their several and different virtues by the reflection of his rays through the whole frame of Heaven and of our Air for by those rays as by so many conveyances are the various effects of several bodies dispersed every where for the benefit and harmony of Nature which are called by us Influences These are the true and first Elements of Nature which because they are spiritual do communicate themselves to us under some airy or also some watry Nature to whose good act as to the roots of the Elements we are beholding for the gift of every birth and of all life 94. Love styled by Plato the Eldest of the gods was breath'd into nature begotten by the Divine Spirit and hath the place of a Genius in her dispositions In the first Division of the World betwixt the first brothers she gave the judgement for the partitions of their families and after had alwayes the Praefecture in Generation 95. The God of Nature did fix the first bond of Love in the things of Nature between the first Matter and the universal Form the Heaven and the Earth Light and Darkness Plenty and Poverty Beauty and Deformity The second degree of Love from the first couple which is as it were the loving embraces of the Parents issued into the Elements which having a fraternal tye to bind them have divided betwixt them the whole right of Nature The third and last degree is compleated in mixed bodies which excites them by the in-born and in-bred sparkles of love to a propagation and multiplication of their like The Divine Love hath appointed this treble Love-knot as a kind of Magical tye that it might deliver it self by traduction into all and every part of his workmanship Love is the Base of the Universe the Cube of Nature and the fastening bond of things above and below 96. Let those avaunt therefore who do attribute the concordant motions of Nature to Discord for Nature is peaceable and pleasant in all her workings yea she is delightfully tickled in her actings The very Elements of things in their coition are wholly lost in love that they may knit themselves together by their mutual embraces and of many be made one 97. Let the Academies stand up and tell us how the first Matter can be the first subject of contraries and how Love can lye amongst the brawlings and jarres of Enmity or that eager appetite which the Prince of Philosophers acknowledgeth residing in the heart of this Matter whereby it doth as earnestly lust for its form as a man for a woman Will not those enemies constituting the seeds of Beings and the mixt bodies by their eternal food at length force Love and Concord to yield to their ruine 98. They that placed a lust between the Matter and the Form and yet an hatred and repugnancy in the Matter it self and in the Elements in making these contraries have made themselves so for according to the dictates of their School the Soul in all things generated onely man excepted is brought forth out of the power and privy virtue of the Matter But how can this be without love If the Matter radically doth lye under the dissentions of contraries must not the Form which springs from her very root feel the same portion Nay would it not be stifled by them in its first birth and cradle What man therefore that stood right in his wits would acknowledge the rule of these bandetties to be chief in the nuptials of Love and Nature in the very juncture of the mixture of the Elements and of the information of the Matter Yea who would expect an uniform and not a monstrous issue from the heterogeneous seed of opposite parents 99. Let therefore the Philosopher surcease to place the cause of the alteration of Elements of the corruption and failing of mixt beings in the repugnancy of the Elements but rather lay the fault upon the penurious weakness of the first matter For in the first Chaos 'Twixt moist and drie there was no battel fought Nor any enmitie 'twixt cold and hot It is indeed the Vulgar conceit that there was whereas onely two no way contrary of those four qualities to wit Cold and Moisture agreed to the female the matter and were in it The other two which are Heat and Drought which are masculine and formal qualities came forth out of the part of the informing light And the Earth was not called Drie Land before the drawing off the Waters and the coming on of the light Being which was first moist and covered with Waters 100. Therefore certainly reason it self doth evidence that those four qualities which by the Vulgar are accounted repugnant are not extant in the first matter unless after information And lest she might endure some contrariety in its solitude she had other diseases to wit Darkness Confusion Deformity Coldness an indigested Moisture with an impotency which are all evidences of a diseas'd and languishing body Therefore being infected from its creation with that corruption it derived it down to its posterity lodged in this lowest and weakest Region of the elements Therefore it is not set down in Genesis of that Abyss of Darkness that it was very good but reserv'd that gracefull Elogie for the Light and for the rest that were created 101. But who is there that hath the least dram of knowledge will conceive that this contentious repugnancy did flow from the form into the matter after the union of the four qualities in the matter being informed Since it is essential to and the intent of the form to adde a perfection to the matter and compleatly to perfect it into an harmony and consent and a temperament according to its ability 102. The first contraries through opposing qualities were Light and Darkness Light hath two qualities Heat and Drougth Darkness as many Cold and Moisture wholly opposite each to other because of their intention But after those two aged principles of Nature came together and the dark material and female principle was informed by the lightsom formal and masculine principle and impregnated by the light the whole matter of the Universe and all the Regions thereof received this priviledge of light though distinct in the degrees and differences for that fiery tincture of the Spirit of light left nothing unpierced and the four qualities also at first being in their highest degree were brought down to a remission in the informed matter and so closing sweetly contracted a fast friendship and consented to a temperature and so being made friendly they were entered into the homogeneous family of the Elements that so there might nothing of repugnancy or enmity lurk in the
generation of mixt bodies whereby the pleasing motion of Nature might be disturbed 103. Neither in nature are those four qualities contrary one to another but onely divers and unlike one to another neither do they ruin but unite into a firm league one with another So Heat and Cold in a remiss degree do amicably agree and commix in one and the same subject that a middle and temperate quality to wit a lukewarness might be produced But if in the intense degree they couple not without a fight and combat this proceeds from the excess and tyranny of the intension which cannot endure two qualities equally heightened and adverse to be partners and sharers of one and the same Sovereignty but there will fall out a tumult But indeed Nature casteth out intense qualities as bastards and strangers 104. Let not therefore any fancy that Nature admits fire intense into the family of her Elements for such a fire would be fit for destruction not generation would not be according to but against Nature which avoids violent things and delights in a temperature in which is no fighting no contrariety For the Rule of Nature cannot away with the rage of a scorching heat or a wasting cold or the distemper of moist and drie but doth pleasingly lye down in a composed temperature Let not any therefore search for the intense qualities in the Elements of things he will find them in them either less or more remitted 105. He is deceived therefore who says that hot and cold moist and drie are simple contraries For the Earth which by Aristotle is laid down as drie in the highest should always quarrel with the Air which is said by him to be moist in the highest Also Water that is cold in the highest according to his opinion should be opposite to Fire that is hot in the highest and this repugnancy would inclose by force every one of the common Elements or every Region of the World within the verge of its sphear and by reason of this antipathie would destroy all hospitality betwixt them But we are convinced of the contrary both by reason and experience For ditches and all hollow places under the Earth yea the very bowels and pores of the Earth are replenished with Air and the intrinsical moisture of the Earth by which as with their mothers milk all Vegetables are nourished is nothing else but an hot and moist Air cleaving close to the Earth and handing it as a nursive and nourishing faculty the pores of the Earth are the dugs and the airy moisture the milk by which she the Mother and Nurse of things doth nourish her off-springs and give them growth 106. They who settle four Elements in as many humours do grant that Nature being moist is receiveable yea is the subject of four Elementary qualities how then can they hold a contrariety in them which they place in one and the same subject For though those four humours are distinguished by their respective differences yet have they but one base one common root to all to wit Humour for yellow choller which resembles fire is no less an humour than flegm which resembles water and the same may be said of adust Choller and Bloud although they do not absolutely but comparatively confound the four Elements in a moist Being 107. If there were any repugnancy in the qualities and elements of Nature the greatest would be betwixt hot and cold and so betwixt Water and Fire but the nature of these are not adversary many generations which are under the Waters do evidence for wheresoever there is any generation or life there must be fire as the nearest intrinsical efficient moving and altering cause of the matter for generation Hence Men Beasts and the Fowls their Being have And ghastly Monsters rowling on a wave A fiery vigour to their seeds is given The homage for their birth is due to Heaven 108. There fore certainly he will be in the right who shall acknowledge those four first qualities inborn and essential to the things themselves and to their Elements to be apt to a mixture by the direction of Nature and not contrary for they are as it were four Organs or instruments which Nature makes use of in the perfecting of her alterations and generations 109. Nature sets up a Potters trade for she is wholly taken with making her matter circular these four qualities are as the wheels by which she doth by degrees and wisely inform her works through a circular and slow motion 110. Of those four Wheels two viz those of Moist and Drie are most agreeable to the matter because Nature doth turn and work the matter between these two those two qualities are nearest the matter because more subject to be passive and to a change But the other two to wit of Hot and Cold are more of action because by their turns they alter and change the former these are passive those active are as it were the active instruments of Nature working upon her passive matter 111. Let us therefore cast off that tenent of Contraries as contrary to natures concord and dash out it with a pen of iron with the good leave of learning from the depraved table of Philosophy and let us in the room of it inscribe the Symbole of Concord which Nature doth acknowledge of the same standing with her self by whose help the delightfull copulation of actives with passives is procured in every Generation 112. Those who according to the flying opinion do stand for four Elements contrary each to other do necessarily introduce a fifth as the knot or bond-tye of concord as the Peace-maker otherwise they could not receive any perfect mixture or any temperature in the work of generation but without a rudder or a ruler would float a drift through the vast Ocean of Nature never able to reach a port or bring forth a birth and so would they cheat the common Genius of Nature of her proper end 113. For these four being acknowledged by reason of their repugnant qualities to keep up an eternal war betwixt themselves cannot be united or appeased in the generation of mixt Beings but rather with their mutual conflict rushing in will procure an Abort than a birth in Nature unless their contrary actings be composed to a peaceable love by the part of some fifth heavenly and tempering Nature which may introduce a temperature void of Hot and Cold Drie and Moist 114. That fifth Element as they call it or heavenly and incorruptible Spirit springing from the light motion and virtue of the heavenly bodies upon these lower Beings and preparing the Elements for motion and life and stopping from ruin particular individuals as far as their setledness will permit hath merited the name of the salt Nature the tie of the Elements the Spirit of the world to be given it by the searchers of occult Philosophie 115. If there were any contrariety between the principles of things certainly it was between Light and Darkness
vegetation do exceed in a sensitive soul which is in them the principle of life and motion Therefore an Animal seated in the highest degree of things below doth compleat the work of Nature in her Elementary kingdom doth live properly generate properly and in it hath Nature truly distinguished each Sex that from two a third to wit their issue might be produced So in the more perfect Beings the most perfect Symbole of the Trinity is most apparent 160 Man the Prince of all creatures and of the lower World is accounted the Summary of Universal Nature For his Soul is an immortal ray of the Divine Light his Body is a beautified Composure of the Elements The inward and unperceiveable faculties of the Sense by which man doth comprehend all things obvious are altogether celestial and as it were Stars giving the influence of knowledge of things the motions and perturbations of the mind are as it were the Winds Tempests Lightenings and Thunders the Meteors which break forth in the Aerial Region of the Spirit do trouble the heart and the bloud Therefore was man deservedly called a Microcosm and the accomplisht Draught of the Universe 161 But not onely man but even every living creature yea every Plant is a Microcosm So is every Grain or Seed a Chaos in which are the seeds of the whole World compendiously bound up out of which in its season a little World will spring 162 Whatsoever Beings of Natnre have a perfect mixture and life they have a body spirit and soul The body is made of clay in which are all things necessary for the matter of generation for it is most agreeable to reason that Bodies should be made of two corporeal Elements especially viz. Earth and Water 163 The Spirit is a small portion of the purest Air or the Heaven a middle nature betwixt the Body and the Soul the knot and bond of both the case of the Soul and the conduit of the more subtile and spiritual parts of the body 164 The soul or form of a mixt body is a spark of the Fire of Nature an undiscernable Ray of Celestial Light brought into act from the power of the seed by the motion of generation bound to an Elementary body by the mediation of the Spirit giving its individual Being to the mixt body the nearest principle and the efficient cause of life It acts according to the disposed matter and the qualities of the Organs 165 The nature or from of the Soul because it is altogether full of light in living creatures especially hath so great a distance from the dark and earthy matter of bodies that this is wholly irrational in respect of that and this unproportionably more noble and therefore is fastened by that strictest tye which Nature makes use of in her works to the body by reason of the disconveniency and distance unless the conjunction and knot had been made by the virtue and efficacy of a peculiar and powerfull mean therefore did the provident Creatour assign a subtile mean which is the Aetherial spirit which receives and retains the begotten from and is the tye of it to the body communicating in its nature with both These things are to be conceived to be spoken of the celestial Soul of Natural things not of the Super-celestial and divine Soul of man which notwithstanding is according to the good pleasure of the Creatour brought into a consortship with the body of man by natural mediums 166 The specifical forms from the first day of the Creation were imprinted in the first individual and particular persons by the character of the Idaeal copie and that diviue and indelible impress was according to the direction of the Creatour by the way of generation traduced to posterity that so by the perpetual succession of particular individual natures the priviledge of immortality might be continued in the kind 167 It cannot nor must be conceived that Forms do generate in the matter their like for to generate is the alone property of bodies but by an harmonious motion of their Organs they do by them dispose the seminal matter for generation and shut up in it a ray of Light or a secret spark of life as a treasure This is the office and priviledge of the Form as also to imprint its own specifical character on that vivifical spirit wrapt up close in the seed which in its set season doth in the work of generation by the engendering heat display it self into a soul whether Vegetative or Animal so that what was a formal and hidden spirit in the seed is now a Form in the mixt body So that occult thing that was closed in the bosom of Nature is now made manifest and brought forth from a power to an act 168 The Form issues not forth onely out of the power and virtue of the seed because there is an influence of celestial virtues in the generations of Beings which do heighten the efficacies of the matter do multiply them and as it were midwife it to groaning Nature yea they do get into and mixe themselves with and bring in auxiliary strength to the formal and seminal spirit that is in the matter which is also by its original celestial 169 There do not onely meet in the generation of every mixt Being the corporeal Elements but also all the Virtues all the Powers of Nature in general and these do contribute something of their own so are the parts of the Universe bound up together that they have an unanimous combination for life and couple by a mutual affection 170 The natural Forms of things though they are potentially in the seeds yet are they neither of nor generated by the substance of the lower Elements for they have their rise from a more noble spring their original is from Heaven for their father is the Sun the heavenly Nature the bond whereby these matters are knit together 171 The specifical Forms of mixt Beings have within themselves closed a dark kind of knowledge of their original and are carried up by their own strength and by a secret motion like unto Waters to the height of their Fountain head So the Soul of man being derived from the divine Spring of the uncreated Light is reflected to the same by the sharp sight of his mind and by the soaring contemplations of his soul but the forms of other living creatures being taken out of the privy Treasury of the Heavens and the Sun do by the instinct of Nature and by a weak kind of reminiscency glance back thither Hence we may observe the frequent Prognosticks of several creatures concerning the courses of the Sun and the changes of the Heavens But the forms of Vegetables being for the most part airy and inspired from the lowest Region of our Air therefore they are not able to extend or reach forth their power or faculties beyond it they do according to their ability lift up their heads into the Air as willing to visit their Countrey but they
are stopped so as that they are not able to pass the narrow confines of their bodies wanting the sense and life of a Soul because there is so little of the Suns virtue in them as will not carry them above the motion of a Vegetation For in the order of creation the Vegetables were first before the Sun wherefore creatures are not equally indebted to him for their originals and the aged principles of their life but must acknowledge them received from the lightsom Air as a nearer Agent For the disposition of their matter was adjudged by Nature as too weak to receive so sublime a form 172 But for Stones since they are not so much generated out of a true mixture of the Elements as from a concourse of Earth and Water by an external force of Heat and Cold they are decocted as an earthen Work or vessel therefore they are altogether senseless having borrowed a feeble form from the dark and cold nature of the Earth and Water 173 Concerning precious Stones and Gems we must conceive otherwise for they derive their forms from the Chrystal Fouutains of the Heavens and the Sun and their bodies are the purest drops of a refined dew engendered by celestial influences and as it were the congealed tears of of Heaven whence they possess and contain many sublime virtues 174 But the matter of Metals because it is watry and earthy and most compacted by reason of the principal subtile commixtion of weighty Elements is therefore heavy and exceedingly ponderous and of it self capable of no motion but because it is sublimated and mundefied by the wonderfull artifice of Nature in an earthy and stony Matrix as in a Limbick and its mixture is compleated in a most thin vapour by reiterated distillations that by reason of its exceeding subtility and exuberancy the influential helps of the Sun and the Heavens get in and mix with it especially in the generation of perfect mettals for this cause though they fetch their bodies from Water and Earth yet Nature performing the office of workman doth so ingeniously make up the bodies especially of a perfect mettal that it delivers them to the heavenly Deities as those that deserve to be informed with the most eminent form It is a work of long travail but an absolute one heightned to the utmost of Natures actings in which Heaven and Earth seem rather to copulate than to consent But the formal spirits of mettals being bound up in a hard cover do stick immoveable till released of their bands by Philosophical Fire they do produce by their heavenly Seed in their matter that noble son of the Sun and at length that Quint-essence of admirable Virtue in which the Heavens seem to lodge with and come down to us 175 It was provided by the Decree of the supream Creatour that a Nature more noble should not degenerate into one less noble or that one more eminent into a nature that is more base or that it should abjuring its native priviledge of birth-right come under a servile vassalage Superiour Beings are coupled with these below and those of greater power do communicate themselves with those of a less that they may inform and compleat them by their emissary spirits which notwithstanding in this do no way derogate from their stock or kind Nay when they work themselves into the seeds of things or also into mixed Beings they subject not themselves to a bondage but do attain a new honour and priviledged power For every mixt Being of whatsoever kind it is is a kind of an Empire yea the whole world who hath a spiritual form of her own to rule her whose office it is to have dominion over the organs and faculties of Nature yea over the whole frame so that that which being void and without distinction did drift it rowling hither and thither in the vast Ocean of Nature is now called to an Empire 176 The formal act of the first matter as also of the Elements doth inform nothing besides the verie principles of Nature therefore the specifical form doth constitute a perfect mixt Being neither is it to be thought to contain any more forms since the very Elements in their mixtion have the charge of the fashioning not of the informing of the bodie 177 It is most probable that the virtue of multiplication which lyes in the seeds of Beings doth not flow from the Elementary matter as its efficient cause but from a celestial form for to multiply is the most natural and proper action of light for from one ray are almost an infinite number darted forth from whence it proceeds that the Sun who is the Fountain of immortal Light is also in nature the first efficient cause of generation and multiplication that therefore every form receives a natural power of multiplication from the celestial light is prov'd by this weighty Argument because it is lightfull and furnished with its native endowments Ergo multiplying It is lightfull because it doth enlighten with its rays the sensitive and imaginative faculties in creatures that so out of that double faculty springs a double apprehension knowledge of things an external by the senses an internal by imagination but all knowledge is a light as all ignorance is a darkness but there peeps up some enlightening and lightsomness when there is an apprehension of the images of things and when that which lay unknown in the dark is now manifested by a light of knowledge for it is onely by the good office of light that obscure things receive a revelation God did adde to man a third light to wit his Understanding by the help of which he attains by their causes a far more perfect way of knowledge All these things are produced by the operation of light and of a perspicuity flowing out of an enlightened Soul This last action of light is onely proper to man the two former are shared with beasts as well as by him for their souls are also partakers of celestial light Therefore reason doth convince that the virtue of multiplication in the individual Beings of Animals and Vegetables doth proceed from the Souls multiplication of light and that some rays of it are included in the seed with the Aetherial spirit until at length they are set upon the rising of the Sun of Life 178 Light and Darkness are the principles of Life and Death for the rays of Light are the forms of mixt Beings their bodies a dark Abyss By Light all things live yea Light is life but those that loose their life loose their light and are hurried into their former darkness in which they lay close and hidden before they were drawn to light by the fatal wheel of Predestination 179 The specifical forms of Animals as also of Vegetables are rational though not after the manner of men but after a property of their own according to the virtues and impress of their nature For they have their vital endowments their cognizances knowledge and
their predestinations The vital endowments of Vegetables are an endeavour of generating the like the multiplying virtues nutritive augmenting motive and sensitive and the like But their knowledge is experienced by their wise fore-knowledge of times their strict observation of change as of the orders of Nature in a variety agreeable to the motion of the Sun and Heaven in the fastening the Roots the erecting the Stalk spreading the Branches in the opening the Leaves and the Flowers in the forming the Fruit in their beautifying in their ripening in the transmutations of Elements into aliments in the inspiring of a vivifical virtue into the Seeds lastly in constituting a various difference of Nature and parts according to the benign or malign concurrence of the Sun or Soil 180 That the souls of Bruits are endowed with knowledge is sufficiently by their copulations and generations upon set times their just distributions in the forming and nourishing of the parts of the individual Beings the distinct offices of those parts free from any confusion the various motions of their souls the nimble faculties of their senses the secret spirits harmoniously moving the members as organs their proneness to discipline their obsequious reverence to their Masters the presaging instinct of things to come in most a devout worship an art in getting their provision in choice of their raunges providing their fence their prudence in the avoiding dangers and the rest actions so agreeable to knowledge and reason bestowed upon them by Nature But Nature in every individual is nothing else but the form it self which is the principle of motion and rest of action and life to it in which it is to which is committed the charge direction and conservation of its body as a Ship to a Pilot. 181 But who will deny the certain predestination of Times for the birth of things unless he fancy a confusion and disorder in the Nature of the Universe for she draws forth all those things out of her bosom according to setled and fore-appointed order for she had a prescript from her Maker for the Law of Order and the times of production their quickening birth life and death have their set times and do fulfil their designed seasons those things that either this or that year receive their Being or return to darkness are pre-ordained to it which pre ordination Nature Gods Vicegerent in the rule of the Universe doth fore-know by the suggestion of the Divine Spirit that she might be ministerial to the compassing of it neither do those things casually fall out but they have a necessary though unknown cause yet the Grand Ruler of all is not comprized within the Law of Necessity but appoints all things and changeth them according to his own will He it is that decrees concerning all even the least things whose Decrees want neither certainty nor order Therefore that Order that runs through the series and succession of things times hath the law of its necessity from the divine Decrees 182 As all things which afterwards were actually produced and separated in respect of their matter were potentially in the Chaos so all individuals before they come to light are in the World in their matter and potentiality and will in their time and order come forth and break into act but when they fail and die they return as Rivers into the Sea into that general Mass from whence they came every Nature recovering its proper Region and being to be brought again and again into Natures shop are wrought into new Beings upon her Anvile It may be this was that opinion of the Pythagoreans therefore exploded because not comprehended concerning their Tenet of Transanimation 183 When the mixt body is dissolved and the corruption of the frail Elements come to a loss the Aetherial nature returns to its native home and there is nothing left in the carkass but a perturbation and confusion of the Elements having lost their Governour then there reigns nothing but corruption death and darkness in the widowed matter untill she through corruption be made fit for generation and the virtue of Heaven do again flow down into the matter thus disposed and gathering and mingling the wandering Elements do re-kindle the weak light of a new form which at length breaks forth the forces of the Elements being corroborated and so compleats the new mixture 184 In that corruption which tends to generation which is a corruption in the mean and is done with the conservation of the specifical form potentially inherent in the seed or matter that sublime spirit departs not but being weak and impotent is excited by external heat and begins to move and withal give motion to the matter till at length it works more vigorously and gives information to the perfectly mixed body 185 The Elements as well as the Aliments of Nature do begin their generation and nutrition which are in most respects the same from Corruption For both must necessarily be putrified and by putrefaction be resolved into a moist and as it were a first matter then is there made a Chaos in which are all things necessary for generation and nutrition So doth the birth and repair of every Microcosm bear with an Analogical resemblance with the creation and conservation of the Macrocosm 186 The insensible seeds of things and those mixed bodies which are begot from them do consist of a threefold Nature of a Celestial Elementary and Mixt Nature The Celestial is a ray of the Light of the Sun endued with all heavenly vigour the principle of action motion generation and life by whose help the seeds by their renewed vigour do resemble the constant permanency of the Stars and being in a manner as so many immortal grafts of celestial plants ingrafted upon corruptible nature as upon a strange stock do by a kind of an eternal succession vindicate it from death The Elementary corporeal and sensible portion which in creatures is called the Sperm is the Case and keeper of the seed which putrifies and is corrupted and generates an invisible seed The Radical Moisture or the Ferment of Nature in which lyes the spirit is a middle substance coupling the Celestial and Elementary in the material part answering the Elements in the spiritual the Form Like the Day-break whose cheek being covered with a duskie light doth knit together the two extreams of Light and Darkness and being neither doth hold forth a mixture of both 187 Life is an harmonical act proceeding from the copulation of the Matter and the Form constituting the perfect Being of an individual nature Death is the term or end of this act the separation of the matter and form and a resolution of the mixt body 188 These mixt bodies have the roots of their generation and life in Heaven from whence springs their Causes and Principles whence also as inverted Trees they do suck their juice and aliment Neither is it suitable for the Understanding to be envassaled to the Rule of the Senses which
comprehend nothing but what is sensible But the mind rangeth far abroad beyond the Cloysters of the Senses and searcheth to a greater height for the hunting out of the bounds of Nature The bodies are as it were the barks the grosser parts of the Elements the accidents of things under which lye hid the pure and sprightly Essences which acknowledge not the subjection and censure of the Senses and which it was a necessity to cloth under a dark Cloud that they might pass from their heavenly to their earthly province of the corporeal Beings The supream Creatour of Nature enacted this copulation of spirituals with corporeals whereby his uncreated spirit communicating it self first to the more spiritual and simple Natures might be conveyed through them as by so many conduits to corporeal Beings and in this manner diffusing it self gradually and orderly through all the Regions of the World through all and every Being doth sustain all things by the Divine presence as also that by a sensible creature the insensible CREATOUR might be apprehended through corporeal and sensible resemblances 189 Whatsoever lives either an Animal or Vegetable life stands in need of food that the natural spirits might be recruited which do continually slide forth through the pores and that so the loss of Nature might have a successive repair For the nourishing juice is made by the more succulent substance of the meat whereby the parts and humours of the body are re-inforced The radical Moisture is renewed out of the purer portion of the humours especially of the bloud the celestial influence intermingling it self by respiration with it 190 Living things have a two-fold nourishment to wit a Corporeal and a Spiritual the former being of small avail to life without the latter For Vegetables do evidently referre the benefit of their increase and nourishment no less to the Air and Heaven than to the Earth yea the Earth it self unless suckled with the milk of Heaven would quickly find her own breast to flag drie this that holy Diver into Natures secrets when he blessed Joseph doth thus express Blest be the Lord for his Earth for the apples of Heaven for the Dew and for the Deep that coucheth beneath for the pleasant apples of the Sun and of the Moon for the top of the everlasting Mountains for the fruits of the eternal Hills c. By which mystical speech the Prophet fore-ensureth the Earths plenty by the abundant influence of the Sun Moon and of the rest of the celestial bodies 191 That spiritual Diet as far as it conduceth to the life of creatures is acknowledged by every vulgar capacity that sees the renewed respiration and the frequent sucking in of the external Air For not onely according to the opinion of ordinary Physicians hath Nature so workmanlike framed those bellows bordering upon the heart to cool it but also that by their continued fanning they might breath in an aethereal Air and hand to it celestial spirits that so by their recruits the vital spirits may be kept in repair and be alwayes multiplied 192 Philosophers do not onely call those spiritual Natures which being created without matter are onely comprehended by the Understanding as the intelligencies Angels and Devils are accounted to be but also those that which although they have their original from matter yet in respect of their great tenuity nobility do not subject themselvs to the search of the Senses and nearer approching to spiritual Beings are rather under stood by reason than found by sense Such is the pure part of the Air such are the influencies of heavenly bodies such the in-set fire and seminal virtues such the vegetable spirits such the animal and the vital and the like in which consists the very nature of Beings than in grosser bodies Such like natures spring from Heaven and in relation to sensibles do assume to themselves the name and right of spirits 193 It is suitable that we should give the Fire of Nature a place amongst the spiritual Beings for in it self it is not perceivable by any sense but discovers it self onely in bodies by heat and other effects and accidents This is apparent in living creatures into which by this unperceiveable fire is infused a sensible heat and that Fire with the life stealing away the Elementary body or the carkass yet the mixed being dissolved remains sound and unhurt In Vegetables because this Fire is weaker it doth elude the sense and is not to be perceived by any heat 194 Reason also convinceth that our common Fire is to be sorted amongst the spiritual rather than corporeal Beings For if it were corporeal it should have from it self a peculiar and inseparable body no less than Earth Water or Air and the rest of the sensible Natures which do consist and are bounded within their proper bodies which do exist in them and by them which do act according to their virtues and produce them to the Senses But Fire hath not a peculiar and sensible body lodgeth onely in anothers for a Coal is not Fire but Wood fired neither is the flame Fire but smoke inflamed finally that Robber onely feeds upon what is not his own lives upon the prey and is extinguished when this fails having nothing in it self to feed it Besides a body super-added to another body doth augment the quantity of it but this not found in fire put into wood or smoke for the smoke or wood is no way increased by the accession of fire in their quantities from which it is evident that a fiery spirit rather than a body doth invade the wood or smoke A sword melted the scabbard being untouch't the bones shattered by the fiery bolt of Thunder and yet the flesh unhurt do sufficiently argue the spiritual nature even of that thundering fire Yet we must know that Fire is not wholly immaterial for it hath a matter though a very subtile and light one whereby it cleaves to the encompassing air whereby it may be kept in by a more gross body Yet doth it rather deserve the name of a spirit than of a body because it hath not a sensible quantity neither can it be comprehended but when it is arrayed in another body 195 For Light the original of it doth evince that it ought to be seated amongst those things that are truly spiritual There was no light but in God before the informing of the first matter the birth of the world But when Nature received her Being then began there a spiritual light to issue forth from the fiery spirit of God upon the matter and there to settle as in its lamp and this was the creation and original of Light that was the first act of the Deity upon the matter the first copulation of the Creatour with the creature of a spirit with a body Therefore the first informing Light was a meer Spirit which did kindle with its fiery virtue as with heat the nearest matter being exceedingly rarefied by its spiritual
Light and so were the darkness converted to light The Heaven being distinguished by the first light although it be not material and fiery yet is nevertheless invisible because in respect of the matter it is brought to the highest degree of tenuity and in respect of its form is endowed with spirituality But the Light that was scattered in the middle Heaven being bounded into a narrower compass was cast into the Globe of the Sun which was necessarily to be formed into a kind of a thick body as it were into a smoke fit to be kindled yet not combustible that so it might be setled being kindled by that immortal Light and be in the room of the general Lamp of Nature or as a fiery Mass The light of the Sun therefore is nothing else but a lightsome spirit deriving its rise from the Spirit of eternal Light gathered in and inseparably cleaving to the body of the Sun and made sensible by reason of the thickness of the body communicating to all the natures of the Universe light and a manifold virtue constituting the spirit of the World by its non-intermitted influence and bound up in a body for the good and welfare of the corporeal Nature 196 Yet the Sun-beams that are perceivable by our eyes are not pure spirits for issuing continually from the Sun have their progress being clothed with the encompassing Air They are therefore nothing else but a continued flowing forth of the spirit of Light which springing forth as so many rivulets from their Eternal Fountain and working themselves into the aetherial Nature as a flame into a most thin smoke do over-spread the whole face of the Universal World with their light 197 It is natural to Light to flow continually from its Fountain We call those Rays issuing forth and mixing themselves with the airy nature and they are the first actings of light in the Sun and the conveyance of it from the Sun For it is the property of a lightfull body to act by it rays and to send forth heat and light and that might spread its light abroad by a darting forth and multiplying of its beams We do by light signifie both the first act of the lightsom body as also a secondary lightsomness which floweth out from the former 198 The Lamp being out either for want of matter or blown out by the wind the fiery and lightsom spirit that kindled the Lamp doth not perish neither is it extinguished as it commonly seems but onely loosing what it feeds on and being stript from it is scattered in and vanisheth to Air which is the Abyss and universal Receptacle of all lights and spiritual natures of the material World from whence we may learn that the nature of this Lightsomness is spiritual and is derived from the spiritual Fountain not otherwise than natural forms from their Matrix which is the spirit of the Universe perpetually flowing from the Sun as from an eternal and immortal Spring For as the bodies of mixt Beings in their making do rise from the first matter and the Elements and do gradually at their departure slide into the same again so the natural forms of individuals in their approch do flow from the universal form which in the manner of a Form of forms doth inspire a formal virtue into the seeds and in their recess do again return into it But that form is the Spirit of the light of the Universe to which as to their principle and as to a nature of the same kind do all single forms and sparks of light got loose from their tyes return So are all mixt Beings resolved into their first principles but these principles do return to that Eternal Spring of Nature as to their proper centre and peculiar countrey 199 But that Spirit of the Universe is from the Sun yet not the very light of the Sun conspicuous to us by reason of the presence of its body but that invisible spirit which is continually dispersed by the beams of the Sun through the universal Region of the Air and doth extend it self perpetually by communication through our Heaven yea even to the centre of the Earth and that in the absence of the Sun and in the darkest night pouring out all gifts for generation and life through all the bodies of the Universe 200 The divine Love was not able to contain it self within it self but did wholly go out of it self in the creation by multiplication of it self and pouring out himself wholly also in the conservation of creatures in themselves Light also which is the exactest Copie of the Deity doth also imitate the divine Love for it is not able to be comprized within its own lightsom body but is diffused far and near for the good of other Beings by a strong multiplication of its beams being not so much born for it self as for others being as it were the token of Divine Love communicating it self to its power and reaching forth into the most remote places unless it meet with a stop from a thick bodie 201 Light also doth hold forth to us the infinite Nature of God for the small light of a lamp or candle cannot as long as it is fed by all its continued effluence of rays and by its infinite communication of its flames be exhausted or diminished As many beams so many streams flow from it Yet though it gives though it diffuseth it self although much be taken from it yet is it not brought to nothing neither receives loss which is the alone property of a spiritual nature and is altogether unappliable to a corporeal So the intellectual endowments as the understanding and knowledge of things which are justly esteemed spiritual lights are of the same kind that though alwayes bestowed abroad yet are preserved entire at home Therefore must we confess that there is something divine in Light 202 The beams of a lightsom body although they be of a spiritual nature yet are they stopt by a thick body because their conveyance is by means of the Air without which they are not perceivable by us by which copulation also they are in a manner made corporeal and therefore cannot pierce or enter into the bodies that are not porous So spiritual things do act with us by some sensible mean that so we may perceive them to act But the lightsom body being absent the beams also depart neither do they part from his presence because they immediately flow from him 203 But the Air is without enlightened not onely by the presence of a body of light and of the beams from it but also the body being gone and the beams withdrawn by a lightsom spirit flowing from them as is clear in the darkest Eclipse or the Heavens over-cast with the blackest clouds or wrapt up in the mask of night yea the Sun being sunk under the Horizon for that act of present light cannot proceed from the body of light and its beams being absent but from the access and presence of a