preyes and pursue the fortuitous evasion of the frisking Mouse these Miscellaneous principles ingrossing the radicality of different forms and meeting with Convenient promotion their naturall Consequences cannot be prevented without an induction of Cadmus Conflict and an Hostile Subversion of both principles Now to oppose the soul of our Saviour wanting a Coadjuvancy of both Sexes is too weak to baffle solid Reason whose whole life as it was miraculous so the Manner of his Production supernatural The Rational soul is the Mercurial moisture that marries the two extreams of Spirit and Body Whose Affections are as Contrary as their natures are different which after is remunerated with Vitality For souls in their own Essence are insensible till they be rowzed by the energie of the Spirit And therefore the souls of Bruits being the same in Nature with that of man but actuated with that more ignoble Spirit that moved upon the face of the waters they come short of mans perfections and cannot deliver their Conceptions in verbal Expressions There are no Essential differences in the souls of Creatures being but attenuated bodies by effectual Calidity Which according to the Efficacie of heat may move in a higher Orb of Perfection and by vertue of the impregnating Spirit may be raised an Animal which without this subtiliating heat had rested in a lower Degree of Vegetation and therefore the souls of Plants may challenge fraternity with that of Bruits and Verity will admit no other difference but what is gradual corresponding the intensnesse of luminous Rayes For Vegetables peeping out of the pores of the earth the third day when the Universe was equally sensible of the dispersed Rayes which after being Contracted to a Solary body with greater Energie ferments the fuliginous Hylas Which being separated from those grosser Adherents whose Entertainments impede the reception of Vitality by this Mundane Spirit have their Materials advanced to an animation and therefore a more noble existence as first of Fishes did issue the confinement of these wandring Rayes This Mercurial Moysture being but an Analogicall Spirit cannot claim immortality without encroachment on higher Priviledges and usurping the property of higher Natures and therefore being onely sublimed by the Chymistrie of irregular intellectuals whose truth knowes no Foundation in nature may enter the grave with the more unrefined Masse and admit of a Resurrection which being the immediate Recipient of life is termed life it self We cannot define that Resurrection to whose existence immortality is appendant as to the Spirit I am a Saducy which being incapable of a lapse cannot be restaurable by a Rise and never dying cannot be said to live again yet to believe the Resurrection of the Body and the life is part of my Creed and thus as the souls Mortality is no impiety in sober Theologie so it is no riddle in judicious Philosophy for he that shall but taste the strongest Spirits acquirable by naturall Chymistrie may easily be convinced of the performance of noble operations by material principles and its permeating each particular of the body in a time so imperceptible as might easily impose that fallacy upon our sense to determine its motion instantaneous The Rational soul is determined to the visible Masse commonly so called the body whose too contracted nature cannot confine the Spirit hence was it that the Platonists conceded to it a kind of Ubiquity for reason will not admit of any operation where we deny the Essential presence of the Agent and that there are extrinsecal effects appears in the formation of the Embryo and in fascination performed beyond the visible body and Organical circumscription which cannot be executed by Mediation of qualities for nature knows no such Deputy 't is ignorance that first gave the name of Accident That there are Effluviums steeming from every visible Body must be conceded as falling under the demonstration of Experience and prostituted by later invention of Perspectives These Effluviums being the Badgers of heat desert the cumbersome society of Reason which flying in the Aire may occur their Assimilables and by the pregnancy of the Spirit may attain a visibility issuing from the union of hose dis-joynted peeces as appear at the instance of death for those Spectrums and Wafts are but the Effect of the Spirits fertility cooperating with the heat and Reliques of moysture the Emission of particles at that time being most copious For Death being to decide the Controversie and to determine the Combate of the disease and nature encreaseth the heat and agitating those corporeal Particles into Atomical Interstitiums accompanyeth them into the Aire where meeting with a proportionable number salute each other the Particles in this confused medley being not unmindful of their Office and Nature seek out their proper situation mould themselves into such a Method as not to dissemble their former shape but meeting with something dismembring its imperfect reunition or wanting Cement to retain them in this position are presently shattered into invisible Existencies Yet the Spirit as before Death so after associates these divided Emissions till their heat confesse a period so after bodies are interred the Reliques of heat which as it is well nigh insensible so the operations are more feeble doth excite a continued succession of these Atoms which being as formerly fermented and united by a Mummial Balsome are those Noctambuloes that hover about the Cenotaphes and haunt the Dormitures of the dead but the Spirit sensible of a perpetuated impairment of heat in those Particles and their invitation being too weak to obtain a grant of continuance from the Spirit they dislodge their society and the Spirit returns to him that gave it where the sentence of their future condion as it is infallible so their hopes confirmed in the Center of happinesse knowes no stagger to the circumference or their wavering fears confined unto despair are freed from that possibility which is attendant on its adlidgements Thus our Saviour as he envies not the happines of Saints so he is not injurious to the Justice of his Father to gratifie the Conceit of Origen and sue for a release from hell or obtain a Parole from the second Death and therefore the raising of Lazarus probably was but the determining of his Spirit to the visible Masse which otherwise was levaltoing in the scattered pieces So the Spirits of wicked men accompanying the steeming Emissions being wanderers in the Aery Region and their continuance there being determined by the duration of heat in those Particles Which truth excluding Concealment from Satans Opticks knows not retirement from his Cognition is waiting the Confinement of their Pilgrimage to a condition as immutable as their punishment inconceiveable and hence he receives the Baptism of the Prince of the air Reason and Memory are not essential to the Soul but the purchase of man and the deplorable effect of his own invention which after that Theomachy and contest with Heaven was obtruded upon posterity and must be embraced as a
Impregnate spirit drives away That mist obscured the Tria omnia Thou mak'st us know our selves who untill now Thought only we were men not knowing how Go on brave youth let thy sublimed strains Inform th' Mercuriall moysture of those brains Whose ruder apprehensions nere could fix yet 'Bove Entelecheie's or an Ipse dixit Sure thy mere Divine Spirit was created Whereas that others are but propagated Which blessing that it may extend to thee Whereby Cognition might ebetter'd be We could wish thee to some Heroick Madam Unlesse thou art design'd to be the Adam J. M. PSEVCHOGRAPHIA ANTHROPOMAGICA THat the nature of severall species had their existence by creation is undeniable and the humble concession of all ages yet how inconsistent with their definition will easily be evidenced upon indifferent arbitration for if the latitude of creation as they suppose consist in the production of a thing whose tearm from which is nothing then they must ampliate their vocabularie and coyn some exotick name for mans production whose principle was an entity and his materials a subject consentaneous of its own nature capable of that composure for if the body of man be reducible to those originals by naturall chymistry the law of contraries knows no naturall incapacity to its return or inhability reopposing its regression else our hopes of reviving a plant out of its ashes would be as frivolous as our endeavours fruitless and therefore Paracelsus opinion of composing man in his Alembeck though his insuccedable undertaking anticipated by the destinies and determined by the strength of Saturn did not conclude directly yet his attempts herein were not unwarrantable nor his conceit ridiculous for the possibility of production not transcending the manuall contrivance of art the effect had been no artificiall imposture we rather suppose creation to be terminated to the production of a new species which before in nature had no existence and generation to challenge the successive continuation of those beings each private species were the reall effect of creation but their succession knows no other means but generation for since the protoplast the manner of our fouls production cannot be christened creation without a catachreese neither have we an alledgment of reason for their exile from encrease and multiply or a confinement of the blessing to a limitation of the body The essence of the soul as it fell not within the cognition of the Graecians so it exceeded the nicest Mathematicks of the Arabians and antidated the demonstration of later age whose Opticks not reaching beyond its operations pitching upon its praecincts and bordering on the confines do peremptorily determine its nature beyond dispute so that those honest endeavours at any time in the scrutiny of its nature as they cannot evade the sentence of singularity so they must expect the censure of curiosity and their ingenuous imployments stand condemned by whole Councels as not reaching beyond punctillioes Surely posterity cannot but condemn the poverty of our conceptions and admire the barrenness of our inventions whose satisfied reasons as far below the sublimed thoughts of antiquity as coming short of the verity of its nature sit down in an ignorant acquiescence and an implicit faith of obtruded opinion though the positions of heathens run not parallel with the nature of their souls yet their advanced thoughts therein which hitherto have degenerated into a sensible imparement have been so far from detracting from its dignity that some thereto have not stuck to levell their devotions who knew no other diety And therefore the Caballists have defined it to be Lumen dei ad imaginem verbi Causa causarum primi exemplaris creata substantia Dei sigilloque figurata cujus character est verbum aeternum this hath had patrons of later times but surreptitiously fathered upon Predecessors As Trismegist whose Antiquity is pretended the number of whose years is farre exceeded by the usurped date of his Book who derives its Pedigree from the highest Principle Cap. 12. Poemand conceives the Soul a drop of Gods Essence and an invisible Ray of the first Luminarie Aristotle confuted no lesse then a whole Jurie of Philosophers with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his Dixit being evidence sufficient to prevail upon Posterity whereto the Schools having prostituted their Reason by slavish Adherence and engaged their Faith beyond Belief introduce his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to confute Experience and controul Verity in her best Apparell I am a Free-born Subject and the Law of Nature which is indispensible knows no slaverie and therefore I shall now think it a breach of Devotion in suspecting the truth of our Parents naked Positions being not back'd with the infallible Testimony of Reason or Experience and dissenting from them by adherence to more rationall probations and more undenyable principles for none I think since the Magick of the Apple could challenge to themselves the Popes Chair as knowledge is not by Propagation so infallibility which requires the industry of many Ages is not by a Natural Succession or Inheritance I could never resolve my Reason into the Opinion of Antiquity or surrender my Experience upon a different determination the bare assertions of the most Authentick have never been embraced by me as Oracles therefore I shall assume the liberty a little to unmask the Nature of the soul an ample discovery whereof would deride the insufficiency of Galilaeus perspective The Spirit Soul and Body are the Tria omnia the three Ingredients in the Composition of man had the Philosophers been sensible of the diversity of Soul and Spirit confounded by the Doctrine of Aristotle and considered an alteriety of Nature in those two principles their friendly society had not been impossible nor their Opposition excluding reconcilement The Spirit is the breath of God which being at first the effect of Creation hath been observant of the blessing and successively continued by Propagation and participating of the nature of its principle knowes not Mortality beyond a Metaphor therefore the Primitive Transgression did not induce a reall death but a deperdition of happinesse and a degeneration of the Spirit from a State as desirable as the present is deplorable The Rational Soul being a Corporeal Extract and disliged from its grosser materials by the Chymistrie of Nature derives its Original from the Seminal Emission of both Individuals and by its essential heat doth Ferment the Coagulum which receiving its vitality from the irradiating Archaeus cannot dissemble that impresse whereby its suppositum is determined which being the fertile effect of both Genitors will easily admit an united society with the soul of bruit whose natures knowing no incompossibility doe not exclude a Composition and therefore will perform the consequent effects of both Natures which falls within the experience of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In particular of one Drinking Cats Blood a prescription for the Epilepsie the Patient had his Paroxysmes that as he imitated their cryes so would catch at their
penalty and though we concede to Adam this continuating Mercuriall moysture yet as he was the proper product of his Creator his perfection was as ignorant of reason as his innocency should have known no punishment and therefore whilst he retained his primitive station his knowledg as being little beholden to this torturing reason which after obscured those clearer apprehensions of his intellect was intuitive whereby inferiour beings received their names not different from their natures where if he had remained he had not stood in need of Logick or bin beholden to a Syllogisme his essence being the rule of proportion to determine conclusions are the effect of sin whose truth have their foundation in the spirit which being there simply apprehended as they are in themselves have the same verity as in divine essence and therefore the things themselves owe their errours and misconceptions to the extravagant exorbitancies of reason So Memory an attendant of Reason which being a superinduction of the same cause imposed upon the soul and arresting inferiour brutality could not reach the spirit without impeachment of its priviledges and subverting the nature of its essence which being framed according to the first Idaea must needs exclude the impossible society of imperfection fo in a sleep the rational soul involving matter requires this refreshment and then being insensible of the spirits operations acts in the organs as with independency of reason so of memory oft delivers in vocall expressions which exceeds the record of the actor and is recited by some different auditor Thus Amorists are their own betrayers and malefactors expose themselves beyond suspition and in such extaticall conditions we approximate primitive integrity and seem to anticipate the malice of the Serpent for thus the spirit being sequestered from the obscurements of reason is presently rapt into a third Heaven whose essence being as immateriall as its nature is indefatigable needs no such refreshment nor can it sleep without a miracle and some opium from its Creator therefore we do not read that Adam slept but that God cast him into a deep sleep that he might be insensible of his helpers production So Adams sleep was not true sleep as not proceeding from nature for his proper conservation but from an externall Narcotick for the production of a second the ruine of his posterity After this divorce betwixt the Spirit and its adherents there is no immediate possession of Beatificall Vision nor actuall enjoyment of happinesse beyond a sentence but are detained in a middle Mansion till the Resurrection which then shall be compleated when our Saviour's intercession shall terminate in that heavenly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Come you blessed of my Father So the damned in this Condition fore-sees the futurity of his punishment from which there is no reprieve or release till Eternity be contracted and Ubiquity confesse a Circumscription and therefore from the Moment of Separation the unalterable Decree being ushered in with final Despair their being is a torment and the time of Death their Criticall day which at the Resurrection ends in a Paroxysm when hopes of Declination shall be as fruitlesse as its period is impossible For I do not conceive the infliction of a positive torment either on the damned Spirits or the Devils themselves till the day of judgment and that the Devil knew the designation of time for punishment appears upon his Expostulation with our Saviour Why art thou come to torment us before the time They have only now restraining shackles which Eternity will advance to bonds of punishment I doe not mean any Purgatorie by this middle Mansion where there is a possibility of Repentance or Redemption but a higher Court of Gods Justice and mercy where the unalterable Decree of the Synod of Trinity is Declared where the Spirits in this Condition wait till the Resurrection when as the Blessed shall possesse their Jubilee so the damned shall enjoy their Vulture Thus being not tyed to the wheel of Authority I am not sworn to maintain their motion but being hurried by the Primum Mobile of my private reason I become irregular yet shall not repine at the Name of Heretick I am not married to any opinion whereby I often make rubs in the levelled axioms of Predecessors and disturb the tranquillity of those unlimitted Oracles of Antiquity Intellectual Slaveries have too much anticipated Geniall Dispositions and an Implicit faith of obtruded opinion have debarred them the ambition of Discoverers Much Faith makes Truth despair Salvation see Comes ushered in with Infidelitie An Infidel is the best Proficient in the School of Nature whose Inquisition is not measured by the Endeavours of his Fathers nor can his Free-born soul brook those Manacles whereby its power is restrained and its devotion limited Me think it is an ingenuous cruelty whereby we may bring our Mother Nature to a Confession of her Secrets though she run the hazard of embowelling or the most bloody exenteration and an act of Charity be a more direct line or clew of improved Reason to free our Ancestors treading in this Tract but lost by a weary pursuit of the cold sent of truth in her labyrinths I honour the Ashes of our Predecessors yet cannot dispence with that Superstition of Devotion or Adherence where truth looks two wayes to pin our credulous souls upon their sleeves would deprive us of our Infranchisement we obtained by the right of our Creation the very end whereof doth entitle us to knowledge and therefore a soul that is not tyed to intellectuall slaveries in the Geography of knowledge will confute that conceit of Hercules Pillars and a Ne plus ultra is but fantastical Dream to his more nice and subtle scrutinies therefore I could extenuate that imputed crime of Nero's Matricide the improvement of of his knowledge being the end of his ingenuous cruelty to determine the Cabinet of his Conception Truth is not ingrossed by aged Parents there is an America of knowledge yet unfound out discoverable by the endeavours of some wiser Columbus and the promised fertility of succeeding Ages Those unsuccedable attempts of our incultivated Intellectuals must needs stand condemned by the more sublimed Reason and acute Philosophy of Posterity Whereby our Primitive imparement by additional Degrees of a betterment may obtain a parole from ignorance and procure a Reverse to the first perfection For if this be true that the order and course of Nature is Circular and that souls in Revolution of time receive a sensible improvement in their Cognition Then surely succession in Nature must needs carry Degrees of Perfection and the last man must be an Adam FINIS