through his Studies to his crown'd haven with which desire I conclude â—2 Decemb. 1656. R. T. To the Reader THis little Treatise Secrets doth unfold More rich more precious then the Indian Gold Here is the path which who doth rightly tread To health wealth it will him safely lead Salt seasoning all things Light illuminating The universal Spirit vivificating O happy Souls who first these understood Here 's true Philosophy so pure and good And free'd from errors that none need to doubt If they were in them this would bring them out By Transmutation may be brought to pass The courser Metals be they Copper Brass Iron Lead Tin to purer this is high But 't is not all that 's done by Chymistry For the Elixir which renews our youth And age retards if Spagyricks say truth Is thereby got if these things may be done Lets Saturn Venus turn to Sun Moon Th' effeminate French our Author hath turn'd well To manly English and the Latin Spell Is made so easie that none need to fear To understand th' Aenigma's writing there The busie Merchants for their hoped gain To both the Indies Turky France and Spain Nay all the world for Gold and Drugs do rome Now here now there but better stay at home For health and wealth is here if they 'll but look They 'll finde them both discover'd in this Book 25 Xbris 1656. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To his ingenious Friend Mr. ROBERT TURNER on this his laborious and difficult Translation EXpect not Sir that I should amply treat Of this Discourse that cost you pains and sweat Nor hope for yet from my more duller pen Your Sal should be describ'd to Englishmen The sublime secrets of your Chymick-skill May prosper better from your learned quill My fancy 's raw my brain is not endu'd With Art enough to talk of humours crude Nor yet of th' Epilepsie or the Gout Consumption Asthma's or the rabble-rout Of Physick-Terms I study other things Ergo I 'll leave these unto Chymist-Kings These high-born Fancies do appear to me Like great Sir Urquhart's Genealogy Nor dare I without Sendivogius Torch Approximate you neerer then the Porch Lest I presumptuous should be gaz'd upon By those that have their wedding-Garments on But as man oft feels heat and sees no fire So I unskil'd this learned Work admire The learn'd Physitians who yeers consume In finding out a Medicine for the Rheume And when they think themselves to be at rest They dare not write on it probatum est May learn by this could they but finde the cause To cure diseases by the Chymists Laws Nor need th' ingenious Operator doubt Of perfecting what ere he goes about The lofty Secrets in this Book laid down Once understood will save him many a Crown There is a Secret higher yet in this For here is taught what anima mundi is For which the Learned oft have beat their brains And gained nought but labour for their pains If men would learn this quicker way share In Chymick-skill deal in learn'd Turner's Ware Jo. Gadbury Philomath To the learned R. T. on the following Tract WHat rare Discovery what light is this Shines to us by thy Metamorphosis That doth derive an Art to simple man From God and Nature by which Art he can Of all diseases know the perfect ground And render imperfections whole and sound Thanks therefore learned Friend for this our gain Who reap the Harvest of thy polish'd Brain The Great Elixir sure enjoy you must That thus can raise a subject from the dust Of dark oblivion and then transmute His for vesture to an English sute Thus thou hast chang'd the language ne'retheless The sense remains though in another dress This thou hast gain'd hereby the world will see Thou art a friend to dame Philosophy And for the labor thou hast undergone To cloath this Infant in our Albion Succeeding times shall praise what thou hast writ And future Readers own to thee their wit Mean time if Zoilus say thy pen did halt Conclude his brain 's not season'd with our Salt Your humble Servant Owen Crane The Contents BOOK I. Chap. 1 THat the world lives and is full of life Page 1 Chap. 2 The World hath a Spirit Soul and Body Page 16 Chap. 3 All things are made by the Spirit of the World of the first matter Page 19 Chap. 4 How the Sun is called Father of the mundane Spirit and first matter Page 23 Chap. 5 How the Moon is the Mother c. Page 32 Chap. 6 That the root of the Spirit of the World must be sought in the Air. Page 37 Chap. 7 How the Earth nourishes this universal Spirit Page 41 Chap. 8 The Spirit of the World is the cause of perfection in all Page 44 Chap. 9 The specification of the universal Spirit to bodys Page 49 BOOK 2. Chap. 1 THat the spirit of the world assumes a Body and how it is incorporated Page 54 Chap. 2 Of the conversion of the Spirit into Earth and how its vertue remains integrally in this Earth Page 67 Chap. 3 Of the separation of Fire from Water c. Page 102 Chap. 4 Of the Spirits ascent into heaven and descent c. Page 160 A TREATISE OF The Philosophers true Salt and Secret And Of the universal Soul or Spirit of the World BOOK I. CHAP. 1. That the World lives and is full of life PUrposing to comment something on the Spirit of the World I shall first demonstrate That the Universe is full of Life and Soul and here besides That Nature makes nothing Spirituous but it also indues it with Life and That the World consists in continual and restless alterations of forms which cannot be without vital motion We may also take notice That the same Nature like a careful as well as a fruitful Mother embraces and nourisheth the whole World by distributing to each member a sufficient portion of Life so that nothing occurs in the whole Universe which she desires not to inform being never idle but alwayes intent upon her action which is Vivification This vast Body then is indued with motion yea continually agitated therewith and this motion cannot be wrought without some vital Spirit for whatsoever wants Life is immoveable But here I mean not of violent motion from place to place but of that which in reference to a form is privation to perfection imperfection The vegetation of Plants and concretion of Stones are effected by the motion of this universal Spirit agitating this great Mass and the mediation of a certain radical and nutritive Spirit whose origine or principle like some primary procreating cause resides in the Centre of the Earth and thence as from the heart exerts all vital functions and extends it self through the whole Body And this root or principle is included in the bosome of the ancient Demogorgon that universal Parent whom old Poets those diligent Searchers of Natures Secrets have ingeniously described clothed in a green
of Excrements Again How do Oysters Sea-Spunges and other Aquatical Creatures live which rather merit the name of Plant-animals then of Fishes These do not so much live by any particular Life proper to themselves as by that Universal one general and common to all which is more vigorous in subtile Bodies as more neer to it then in grosser ones which are more remote from it The World then created wholly good by him that is Goodness it self is not corporal solely but participates of spirituality and intelligence for it is full of all manner of forms and as I said before hath neither part nor member but that 's vital and therefore wise-men have called it a Masculine and Feminine or Hermaphroditical Animal one part holding a certain Matrimonial Alligation with another And hence by a certain Translation arises the diversity of Sexes in Plants and Animals which in imitation of the World copulate together and generate a third like themselves for the World produces an infinity of little Worlds for every Body in the World that is generated is a Microcosm having distinct parts vertues and qualities belonging to a little World So that every thing hath an inclination to generate a thing like it self by the right ordering of Action and Passion which could not be if all things were not full of Life for what Generation can proceed from a dead subject seeing it is neither probable nor possible that that can communicate Life to another that wants Life it self We see indeed sometimes many things are generated without the congress of Male and Female yea without the production of either whereinto the Universal Spirit infuses Life by means of Fomentation as many by Artifice who exclude Eggs and Chickins without the sitting of a Hen and others who by preparing certain matters and putrefying them produce wonderful Animals as the Basilisk of a Cocks Egg or of the menstruous matter of a red Hen Scorpions of the Herb Bees of Neats bowels a kinde of Ducks of the Leaves of a certain Tree falling into the Sea a with many things of the like Nature that merit admiration rather then credit because they are made out of the ordinary course of Nature certain matters in certain seasons and places attracting Life from the Universal Spirit wherewith the World so abounds that all its actions are vital insomuch that nothing dies perishes or ceases from action and consequently from Life but immediately some other living thing results out of it and upon this account no Body perishes or is totally annihilated for if it should all the parts of the World would by little and little vanish one after another before our eyes especially considering how many mutations and Ages have gone before us insomuch that he that perpends might admire that there are any reliques left in Nature at this time which a French Poet and no little conversant in this secret Philosophy hints at to his Friend thus Vostre aspect inegal qui mea fortune change Est comme le soliel contraire en ses effects Qui amollit la cire indurcit la fange Et fait des corps nouveaux de ceux qu'il a defaicts Your aspect in my fortunes changes sways As Phoebus in his effects whose bright rays Waxes do mollifie but harden Clayes And from corruption do sound bodies raise a Our Author seems here to embrace the vulgar Opinion of the Generation of the Northern Ducks which the Scots call Claikis Claiks or Claik-geese and the English Bernacles which many other Writers say are generated of the Nuts of a certain Maritimous Tree falling into the prolifical Sea or of some Shells adhering to putrid pieces of Ships which thing the learned Lobellius makes mention of in Advers Stirp pag. 456. where first he seems to assent to afterwards to doubt of and last to conclude That Fabius Columna had justly refuted this Opinion Lobellius in the second part of his Work pag. 259. describes the figure of this Duck or Goose as also of the Tree and Shells Olaus Magnus also mentions this kinde of Ducks Lib. 19. Hist. Sextent cap. 9. But Carolus Clusius seems to have explained the generation of them more rationally Canctario Exoticorum pag. 368. where he sayes That the Hollanders sayling towards Waygatz saw some of these Ducks sitting upon their Eggs. Fabius Columna repeats his words but Ulysses Aldronaldus Lib. 19. Antithog cap. 23. towards the end embraceth the middle sentence saying He had rather erre with the multitude then contradict so many famous writers and therefore he sayes These Ducks may be generated of corruption and afterwards multiply by copulation and incubation like Mice and other Animals The generation of Palmer-worms from Plants may also be well referred to this place which whether they be generated naturally or artificially feed onely upon the Herb whereof they are generated or to which they are related as also the Generation of Caterpillars and then of Butterflies which afterwards multiply their species by copulation I saw at Rome in Henricus Corvinus an eximious Apothechary and Botanist his Shop a Butterflie which they said was made of the corruption of Cypress-Leaves so elegant and great that its Wings equalized my little Finger in length and were all over as it were eyed whereof as of the Palmer-Worm you may read Fabius Columna his Observations Part 2. Stirp minus Cog. pag. 85. CHAP. 2. That the World because it lives hath a Spirit a Soul and a Body THe Body of the World lies open to our senses but its Spirit lies hid and in the Spirit its Soul which cannot be united to its Body but by the mediation of its Spirit for the Body is gross and the Soul subtil far removed from all corporal qualities For the unition then of these two we must finde some third participating of both Natures which must be as it were a corporeal Spirit because the extreams cannot be conjoyned without an intervenient Ligament that hath affinity with both The Heaven we see is high the Earth low the one pure the other corrupt How then shall we exalt this impure corruption and conjoyn it with that active purity without a mean God we know is infinitely pure and clean Man exreamly impure and defiled with sins Now these could never have been conjoyned and reconciled but by the mediation of Christ Jesus God-Man that true attractive Glue of both Natures In like manner this Spirit corporeal or Body spiritual we speak of is the active Glue of Body and Soul which Soul sits in the Spirit of the World as a spark from and of God's infinite Intelligence for these effective elevations renovations mutations variations and multiplications of forms must necessarily arise from intelligence and not from matter which participates of no reason and therefore cannot cause such formations and specifications The World then is nourished by this Spirit and agitated by this Soul which is infus'd into it by mediation of this Spirit which Virgil following divine
Plato's Doctrine expresses elegantly Lib. 6. Aeneid Principio Caelum ac Terras composque liquentes Lucentemque Globum Lunae Titaniaque Astra Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per Artus Mens agitat molem magno se corpore miscet The nourishment of th' earth mountains and skars Of th' heaven of planets of glistring stars We attribute to th' Spirit but to th' Soul That these do move stir without controul To which Augurellus also attests in his first Book saying Ast Animae quoniam nil non est corporis expers Mundus at mundi partes quoque corpore constant Spiritus haec inter medius fit quem neque corpus Aut Animam dicas sed eum qui solus utroque Participans in idem simul haec extrema reducat Hic igitur Maria ac Terras atque Aera Ignem Vivereque augerique atque in se cuncta referre Semper Aves semper Stirpes Animantia semper Gignere perpetuamque sequi per secula prolem c. But since a Soul is incorporeal And all the parts o' th' world we meet withal Are bodies these two cannot be combin'd Without a mean betwixt Body and Mind Which is a Spirit wherewith the raging seas Fire air earth all plants fruitful trees With animals are acted so that they Do generate their like and live for aye c. CHAP. 3. That all things which have Essence and Life are made by the Spirit of the World and of the first Matter ALL things are nourished by the same by which they were produced Now that all things breathe live augment and grow by this Mundane Spirit resolve and die without it is plain Whatsoever therefore subsists is made by it and this Spirit is nothing else but a simple and subtile essence which the Philosophers call a Quintessence because it may be separated from gross corporeity and the superfluities of the four Elements and so made of wonderful activity in its operations and it is now diffused over all the parts of the World and through it the Soul is dilated with all its vertues which vertues are communicated most to such Bodies as participate most of this Spirit for the Soul is infused by and transmitted from the superiour Bodies as from the Sun which acts most powerfully in this case for this Spirit being calefied by the heat of the Sun acquires abundance of Life which multiplies and enlivens the seeds of all things which thereby encrease and grow to a determinate magnitude according to the species and form of each thing upon which account Virgil saith Igneus est illis vigor caelestis origo But fiery vigour and heat celestial Are to these Bodies their original Now this Spirit is by Philosophers called Mercurius because it is of many or all forms producing all kindes of Bodies giving to some things a fairer and more lasting to others a weaker and more corruptible Life according to the pre-disposition of the matter upon which account this fiery vigour proceeding from the Solar beams is not alike in all subjects but diversified as there is more or less of it in the seeds All matters of purer pre-dispositions have a purer and more durable Life and Spirit for every thing delighting in that that 's likest to it it is more then Reason that this pure Celestial vigour should penetrate and sink deeper into purer Bodies and make them more durable and vital For the proof of which we need go no further then Gold which being purer then all other Terrestrial Bodies participates more of that Celestial Fire which penetrating the bowels of the Earth findes in Minerals the pre-disposed matter to wit the Mercury and Sulphur which Esdras calls The Earth of Gold prepared by the action and diligence of Nature and purged and separated from all inquinations of Terrestrial and adust Dregs which matter in the beginning is onely some Sperm or Water mix'd with that Sperm Powder or pure Sulphur which acted by the coagulative faculty thickens by little and little and in time by long and continued action of the heat hardens and so comes to its perfection which is naturally simple tincted with the colour of Fire for heat is the Progenitor and Parent of Tinctures If therefore it be certain that this heat comes from the Sun as it must needs be indubitable who can so much contradict Truth and Reason as to deny the Sun to be the Author and Parent of this perfection Let us then look higher and seek more accurately how this perfection may be caused by this mean CHAP. 4. How the Sun is by Hermes called The Father of the Mundane Spirit and of the Universal Matter BUt some may here say If all things proceed from one and the same matter how can the Sun be called the Parent of this matter when it self is procreated or produced out of this matter For answer whereunto we must consider That if we speak of the primaeve prejacent matter of all things it is altogether invisible and cannot be comprehended but by strong imagination out of whose vital light and natural heat this Celestial Sun was produced with equal light and fiery vigour which afterwards strengthening this internal and essential heat with natural displayed the beams of his Fire over the whole Universe illuminating the Stars above him and vivifying the things below him But because the Earth is as it were the common Mother of all things the Sun acts most vigorously upon her she being the common Receptacle of all Influences in whose bowels the seeds of all things are absconded which being agitated and moved by the Suns heat come to light and for this cause in Winter when the Sun is furthest absent from us the Earth being destituted of that vigorous heat which his perpendicular Rayes brought with them she is we see barren and produces nothing Whereas in the Spring when the Sun again reviews our Climate then she rises from her sleep or death and receives Life and vigour The cause of which mutation must needs be the Universal Spirit full of Life inhabiting the Earth principally which before it can generate any thing must take up its Inn in some Body as in the Earth which is the Body of Bodies and because all things are nourished and sustained by that which produces them there must be great affinity and harmony betwixt this Spirit and the Sun And for this cause ancient Philosophers say That the Sun in the Spring-time calefies and enlivens his Parent loaden with old age and almost killed with Winter-cold Seeing then she is by the Sun fortified enlivened and impregnated Hermes had reason to say That the Sun was the Father of this matter for being otherwise barren and without off-spring she now conceives generates and multiplies her spirituous matter leading it from incorporality to corporality The Philosopher Hortulanus commenting on Hermes his Table leaves and omits the radical principles of Nature and taking his rise by the principles of Chymistry
onely Matter or Soul or Spirit but refers and represents all because one is always generated and nourished with the other so that in the propagation and action of one the two other are always present When therefore we say That the Moon is the Mother of the Spirit and universal matter we speak not irrationally nor assert any absurdity but here we must more intimously enquire whence this Maternity proceeds Heat and Moisture then are the two Keyes of Generation and Heat performs the office of the Male but Moisture of the Female Corruption arises upon the action of Heat over Moisture and Generation follows upon Corruption as we may see in the small Body of an Egg wherein by the heat of Fomentation and Incubation the Sperm putrefies and afterwards the Chicken is coagulated and formed The same is also apparent in the Generation of Man who by the help of the natural Heat of the Woman acting upon the Masculine and Feminine Sperm united in her matrix is deduced to a compleat Body perfect in all its parts By Corruption here we understand Mutation and passage of one form into another which cannot be effected without the mediation of putrefaction which is the sole medium and way to Generation which is also promoted by the help of some Mercury or Quicksilver which is the special Conductor of the vegetative faculty and the Sperms of all Bodies are aqueous and as it were full of Mercurial humour and if their innate Heat be brought from potency to act by the external heat of the Sun then may their Generation be procured by decoction Hence the ancient Philosophers assert That the Sun and Man generate the Sun the terrestrial Sun which is Gold and Man Man And it is manifest That without the heat of the Sun the heat of the Elementary Fire is dead and barren Whence the Sun is also called the Master of Life and Generation Heat then in all Generations comes from the Sun but radical moisture by the influence of the Moon which influence all sublunaries receive and feel when this Planet is in its encrease or wane And thus you have an account how and why Hermes called the Sun Father and the Moon Mother to this universal matter for the heat of the Sun and moisture of the Moon generate all things because heat and moisture in a due temperament cause conception and upon conception Life and Generation And though Fire and Water be contraries yet one can do no good without the congress of the other but by their diverse actions all things conceive and are conceived Ainsi dans l'univers discordante concorde Aux Generations devient apte s' accorde If Generation in the world be had Then what erst discord is in concord made Yet I would not have my Reader suspect That by too hasty judgement I would abstract Hermes his prime intention from the broad way of all Alchymists into the by-paths wherein I tread because I know That all good Philosophers according to his minde and will say That the Sun and Moon should be in conjunction that they may absolve perfect Generation for as Arnoldus de villa nova in Flore florum says The Philosophers Sperm is not joyned to their Body but by the mediation of their Moon which Moon is not common Silver but the true matter of their Stone which congregates and inseparably retains in its belly Body which is the Sun and Sperm which is Mercury And he speaks of this Moon in his novum Lumen where he says That excepting his Master of whom he learned his work he knew none that ever operated in the true matter but all were extravagant and erroneous in the election of their matter as if they would generate a man of a dog CHAP. 6. That the Root of the Spirit of the World must be sought in the Air. WInde is nothing but Air moved and agitated as we may learn from the respiration of Animals which blow Winde when they breath Air. Winde then is Air and Air is wholly vital and the breath of Life for without Air nothing can live or subsist for whatsoever is deprived thereof is suffocated and dies yea Plants themselves that are destituted of free Air wither and are in respect of others dry and dead We therefore have some Reason to say That Air is a vital Spirit penetrating all things communicating Life and consistence to all binding moving and filling all By this Air then the Universal Spirit that lies hid and shut in all things is generated and manifested by this it is ingrossed formed and made more apt for Generation whereof Calid the Philosopher treating sayes not without Reason That Minerals have their Roots in the Air their Heads and Tops in the Earth As if he should have said The Air causes this Spirit to enliven augment and multiply Minerals in the Earth though those that have some experience in preparing the Philosophers Stones may say That this place should be otherwise understood for according to their Doctrine in their Philosophical Works there are two parts one volatile which is elevated in form of a vapour and then condensed and resolved into Water and this they call the Spirit the other more fixed residing in the bottom of the Vessel which they call the Body Rosinus explains this sentence by another of the same Authors for he saith Take the things off their souls and exalt them on high and reap them in the tops of their Mountains and reduce them to their Roots where the Glosser sayes These words are true and cleer without envy and ambiguity though he declares not what he understands by things whereof he speaks But by Mountains saith Rosinus the Philosopher means Cucurbites by the tops of their Mountains Alembicks by reaping he means we must receive the Water of the aforesaid things through the Alembick into the Receptacle by reducing them to their Roots he means That we should reduce the said Water to the Earth whence it arose This is also confirmed by Morienus who saith That the Philosophers operations consist onely in extracting Water from the Earth and reducing it to the Earth till the Earth putrefie for the Earth putrefies when this Water is purified which being once pure will by God's help direct and perfect the whole Magistry Some have exploded Air out of the order of the Elements thinking it as glue or lime to conjoyn divers Natures judging it the Spirit or Instrument of the World because it is the Chariot of the Universal Spirit for it first receives the influences of all Celestial Bodies and communicates them to other Elements and mix'd Bodies In the mean while like some divine Looking-glass receiving and retaining the species and forms of all natural things which it carries along with it and insinuating it self into the pores of Animals impresses those forms on them whether they sleep or wake We learn from Animals and Vegetables That every Spirit neer the Earth receives its vertue and vigor from the Air for
one may be conserved and the other not destroyed and seeing the Spirit and Substance were included in a Body and the Body immerged in corruption it was impossible that corruption should act upon and prevail over the Body and yet the Spirit placed in both should be kept free and incur no danger but rather that with the Body it should yield to deaths Tyranny which alwayes intends Natures destruction and the prostitution of all individuals which thing needs no proof but appears sufficiently manifest from the natural and sometimes the immature end of Animals Vegetables and Minerals which we see every day by their corruption when the Body being dead the Spirit must undergo the same fortune that is the vertue that enlivened it is annihilated but because the prime Opificer would be admirable in all his works of his meer goodness and love to Mankinde who from the beginning he predestinated to be the Instrument of his Glory and to whom he subjected whatever was admirable in the Creation for his Commodity I say he gave certain expedient Remedies whereby he might not onely purifie and perfect the things created but also preserve and arm himself against the assaults of mortal corruption Knowing then that the two parts of Man were one created in another to wit the Spirit in the Body and that the Body would be continually infected by corruption and by sensuality drawn and allured to intemperance which infers the true corruption and weakning of all the members he foresaw that the Spirit inhabiting like a Guest in the Body could not be exempted from its contagious depravation and we ordinarily see That Men given to excess of intemperance and sensuality accustom themselves to ill manners and take liberty in all corruption both of Minde and Spirit neither regarding Love nor Fear to God Honor or Respect to the World nor Piety to themselves nor Charity towards their Neighbours So that it is impossible if they be thus bound to inquinations in death but their Spirits must undergo punishment as they have participated of pleasure Seeing moreover all mankinde by the fall of our first Parent obnoxious to death and thence every Man inevitably to incur total destruction and perdition he mitigated or rather redintegrated this Misery by an admirable Remedy far exceeding our capacity for knowing Man by his Spirit and his Body to participate of Heaven and of Earth the Remedy also he made to partake of Heaven and Earth which is competible solely to our onely Lord Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ who descended from Heaven into the Earth and by a mystery incomprehensible by us and common sense was miraculously made Man without the abdication of his God-head because our health could not come from Earth alone corruption reigning there but it was necessary that the Water should come from above where the Fountain of purity is he therefore came down that he might dwell in us and with us and conclude us within the terms of justice and temperance regenerating us to newness of life by the mutation of our Spirit and Body and mortifying in us our corruptions and sins and restoring us to the study of purity of vertue which could not have been effected save by him alone the extream of both Natures for he is God-Man that he might conjoyn superiour with inferiour things which were dis-joyned by the incomparable distance of life and death purity and corruption The Earth doubtlesly received this inestimable treasure far exceeding its merit by a medium that cannot be comprehended from which he again ascended into Heaven by the Water of purification and Fire of the Spirit without accidents and corporal passions though he deposed not his Body but retained it incorruptible and glorious having acquired immortality by death who shall again descend from his Fathers right-Hand into the Earth after the Universal conflagration to renew the World and make a Separation betwixt the good destined to life and the evil condemned to death See now how well the Omnipotent Father the Father of all compassions consulted for Mans good to whose Body joyned with his Soul he gave an equal Preserver whom he sent from Heaven that he might be born on Earth and whom by the light of Nature we ought to seek Seeing Man was therefore endued with Reason and Judgement that he might acknowledge and comprehend his great gifts but Man created heavenly for the indagation of this benefit as too forgetful of his birth lays out that noble and divine Light within him in searching out frivolous and transitory vanities and not in the pursuit of solid wisdom and verity Briefly he had rather follow the inclination of his Terrestrial Geniture then Divine and Celestial Wisdom which he neglects as a thing indifferent and casually sent to him from above Wherefore the Root of Mankinde is as it were extinguished before it grow out except some few who have had better Stars and more favourable Aspects in their Nativity they desiring the possession of transitory goods more then the attainment of Divine and precious Gifts which our fecund Mother Nature hath publickly and in all places fixed for the conservation of life hurt rather then helped by their abundance immerged in mortal corruption And it is apparent That those that are of a higher Spirit though they look upon the fulgour and splendor of those Mundane Riches as no way despicable yet they will not rest in this surface but seek to Divine Vertue occluded in the Centre which hath indeed been cause of great errors both in Medicine and Philosophy to such as destitute of true light groape at and in the dark pass by both Recalling then my mind to the clear light by whose guidance we may attain that salutary and best remedy which God ordained particularly for the conservation of mankinde and for the obtaining of Celestial benediction I shall endeavor with all humility and requisite sincerity not as a Divine but as a Disciple of Wisdoms followers to adumbrate my conceptions in a rude style which the lovers of verity may accept gratefully if they finde them rational and pleasing I say then that all understanding communicated to any man from man alone is uncertain and confused because man is ordinarily loaden with ignorance and slow resolutions but that which he receives from the univerial Light is clear and immoveable For to know absolutely is to understand a thing by its first causes and there is no certitude in second causes till we come to their original wherefore we cannot know the Nature of a Species unless we foreknow its Genus neither can we know the Nature of Microcosmes which are almost infinite unless we first find out the Nature of the Macrocosme that gives them being Man likewise cannot be known without the precedent cognition of the world whose effigies he is nor yet the great world unless we know whence and how it was made For how shall one know a man whose principle is nothing but a small deformed mucilage
hath not some kinde of life in it I say that this Duration must be wrought by Conservation to Perpetuity for Perpetuation is the scope of Nature seeing it is the endeavour of every good Opificer to preserve the work of his hands till it be corrupted by the injury of time or the light of its life extinguished by the cold ashes of death to whose feet all things necessarily prostrate themselves by this inevitable law That whatsoever hath beginning must also have an end For if all things should remain in their first extream that is in their beginning without progress to their second extream that is their death all things had yet been left in their Chaos or rather nothing would have consisted in its being and the principles of all subjects were useless and destructive to themselves Nature therefore to eschew these inconveniences observes the said order and progress of things existing in continual action and motion that is conservation and perpetuation And now that which extends life or conserves it cannot subsist against the force of destruction without some fixation and constancy and this conservative essence is in some more fixed then in others whence they are also of a longer and more durable life and more difficultly destroyed and mortified as a Hart and Crow amongst animals an Oak amongst Plants and Gold amongst Minerals and this happens by the more equal and digested commixtion of Elements so that death whose property it is to divide and disjoyn cannot so easily enter these compounds as being firmly united and well digested and by how much Bodies are more firm thus by so much they are less subject to the accidents of mortal corruption But Nature being not able of her self to attain this perfection of union and digestion cannot totally and finally save and preserve Bodies from destruction but the industry of Art though Art of it self be nothing without Nature imitating her in these things exceeds her in the proper course of her own ways for observing that conservation and prolongation of life is attainable by something tending to fixation which must be effected by union and digestion for nothing can be fixed but what is Homogeneous and of one Nature the Artist labours that he may find out the thing that is fixable and deduce it to perfect fixation which he doth by the same ways order and operation that Nature uses to wit by separating extraneous and uniting Homogeneous parts which he absolves by long and ingenious digestion of the things united But because it is impossible for him to separate or extract this from individual and specifical Bodies because of their firmer union and more compact digestion he is glad to seek it in the bowels of the Earth whence all things proceed for to extract it entire and absolutely vertuous from another place were a work of no profit and impossible and to think how it may be made perfect is a labour both long and dubious whence the Poet said well Hic sive nullibi illud est quod querimus Here or nowhere is that we seek And they are doubtlesly deceived who following crooked and by-paths stick in the common signification and rind of Philosophical words and study not to find out the lively marrow of their intentions They should therefore sacrifice first to the infernal Queen for there is the Fountain and Spring of all things Wise men begin their works from the root and not from the branches chusing as Doctor Bacon saith to congeal the thing that Nature begun her first operations about by a proportionate mixtion and union of pure living Mercury with a like quantity of Sulphur into one Mass Oh holy words wherein this good Anglian or rather Angel clearly depinged that one and true matter whereof all Philosophers have writ Volumes under divers figures and Enigmatical Fables not because they would malitiously hide it but keep the priviledge of this knowledge for learned and pious Men who by continual study and laborious experience finde and adorn it But lest I should move some masters to suspect that I alledge this place ignorantly and understand it improperly I would have them know that by that matter which Bacon so ingeniously represents I mean the universal Spirit whereof I treat and likewise that I put a difference between the Father and the Son or the Genitor and him that 's Generated or the Producer and him that is Produced neither need I blush to say that I know the one as well as the other For the Philosopher here would have such enquire after the confection of the Philosophers Stone to seek the principle of Minerals and he paints out the first matter of Metals prepared compounded and specified by Nature But I treat of first matter not yet specified which may be properly called the first matter of this first matter of Metals or the most general Genus so much celebrated by Raymundus Lullius but I used this sentence for example and authorities sake yet so as no absurdity lurks therein for the universal Spirit is the common Parent of Mercury and Sulphur contained and proportionated by Nature in this one Philosophical subject But I would have the curious Artist consider two things first that by subtile imagination he chuse an enlivening Nature apt for the conservation of all Bodies the other that he chuse a thing which of it self can enliven and regenerates Yet I would not have him to chuse two different separated Matters the one Agent and the other Patient but onely one that may at once be of vertue to enliven and to be enlivened As to active Vivification I have said enough but as to the Passive I say That every Principle hath its Original from it self For if it should have it elsewhere it were no Principle and while it gives being to others it must necessarily whilst it generates them draw from it self restauration and perpetual plenitude wherefore it is in continual action and motion towards vivification whereby its destruction is hindred for it will never forsake it self and it hath motion in and from it self which Macrobius also disputed in his Comment upon Scipio's dream discoursing on the soul of man though I think his discourse may be better apted to the Soul or Spirit of the world which is my subject I will therefore borrow this from his Arguments Whatsover is moved of it self is the beginning of motion and lives continually and that that lives continually cannot be enlivened but from it self it is therefore vivificable but the Spirit of the world is such because it hath its seat in the Earth to convert it self into Earth wherein as Hermes rightly all it vertues actions and qualities remain entire it followes also seeing it is vital that it reassumes life restoring it self by its own proper power we find the same also in this universal Mercury which is always nourished and restored in its Myne so that if by any means it be extracted it always grows to the same
form whereof it was before and wheresoever it is cast there will be plenty of it always after Not as if it were generated of the Earth but in the Earth through whose parts it creeps extending it self continually by multiplication and vegetation which the Ancients denote by the Serpent which Moses says creeps on the Earth feeds it self on the dust thereof and this caused the Cabalists to call him the prince of Sepulchres because he devours and consumes the Bodies there interred not that dead Bodies or the earth are his aliments but only the seats where he is fed and nourished This is the place where he is moved turned and twines without ceasing whereof Medea admonishes Jason where she says in Epist Heroid Ovidij Pervigil ecce draco squamis crepitantibus horreus Sibilat torto pectore verrit humum Lo here the Dragon with his horrid Scales Doth watch and hiss and plow the very dales Which Rythmes a French Author thus expresses Voy le dragon veillant de fureur sorcene Qui d'escaile crugaten a le corps entourne Dont le gosier sifflant fumee feu deserre Et qui par replis lors va baliant la terre De sa large poitrine en la poudre imprimant Les sineux siallons qu'il trace incessament Behold the scaly swelling Dragon lurking Who always listens with a watchful ear Who knits his brows and never shuts his eyes here But him that sees his cust tongues teeth afrights With horror whose wide throat emits such flames As do infect the Air with blackest fumes Behold his many twinings which he deep Impresses in the earth whilst he doth creep And plough the ground with his broad brest whilst he Returns in the same tract continually I adduce these two Considerations not onely to shew how Mercury must be sought but also to confirme that that which is fixable in it is nothing else but the enlivening essence which fixed in due manner perpetuates and keeps life in all things it enters by its purity expelling Excrements and by its perfection perfecting imperfect things The end of Fixation both natural and artificial is Perpetuation and Conservation which are effected by the Mediation of that Tincture which Mercury acquires by this Fixation for that Tincture is Life and Life is nothing else but that which opens and colours the Body with such a Tincture as shews it to be vital and perishes with its death Nature therefore colours Blood wherein life consists with a red Tincture and when the Blood is clearer and more lively red the Body is more sound fair and vigorous as on the contrary when the Blood is dense black adust with choler or changed into a false colour the Body is pained and sick within and by discoloration gives Testimony thereof without We may observe the same in Vegetables whose lively vigour consists in greenness which being changed we say it is turning or declining towards death The perfection also or imperfection of Metals is discernable by their colours Gold is indued with a magnetical vertue which by the splendent fulgor of its tincture draws man's earth after it in which Nature spends all her forces but leaves the victory to Arts industry which by graduation to the haight which it adds to its natural splendor makes it far more fulgent insomuch that it 's called the Terrestrial Sun An Artist then may exalt the golden colour to the height of obscure redness by which augmentation imperfect Metals in a certain degree may by projection of this artificial Tincture be brought to the height of perfection so that we see this golden colour introduced by Nature into this Metal is onely the way to that redness wherein the completion of perfect Vertue lies for which cause this Metal though far excelling others can communicate no perfection nor conservation to humane Bodies as a thousand Jugglers and Sluggards in Physicks promise by their Sophistical Fusions and Phantastical Confections But if more curious Artists work upon this subject they may make it acquire such a degree of inseparable redness that by the excess of its heat it shall work miracles and yet it shall consume nothing but superfluities and shall conserve and multiply the substance of Bodies though Philosophers say That its heat as much exceeds our common fires as common fires do innate heat in Animals Paracelsus in his Treatise of Tinctures extols that highly which is extracted out of Gold by Spirit of Wine and attributes many singular Vertues to it as also to that that 's made of Antimony and Coral before which he yet seems to prefer the Tincture of Mercury which he says may by perfect Fixation be brought wholly to a Tincture so that it will penetrate Bodies because of its most subtile purity where I think he means not that vulgar but Philosophical Mercury wherein Art perfecting Nature hath wrought these two effects to wit perfect Tincture and compleat Fixation Tincture then in proper locution is the pure substance of things and Body is nothing but an Excrement which is also manifest in that Bodies after the Separation of their Tincture are useless without vertue and corruptible no otherwise then a carcase without life colour or motion Tincture may then be called the scope of Fixation it attaining by its permanency in fire a conservative faculty in those Bodies to which it is applied But the manner of attaining this degree of Fixation in which the Completion of the whole work consists is no other then that fugitive and light things be prudently kept in the Fire that they may be brought into assuefaction with it that they may endure most violent heat And for this cause good Authors commend Patience to their Disciples as proceeding from God but Precipitancy as from the Devil Take this for an infallible Rule That unless Calcination go before nothing can be fixed and that this should be done by conjoyning the fixable Spirit with something of a convenient Nature that may retain it in the Fire of Calcination that by this means it may accustome it to sustain heat by little till it can endure the ultimate augmentation of Fire which infers Fixation And the Reason why we must proceed with such discretion is because if we should too readily precipitate this operation the special Spirituality which is the Mother of this Tincture would flie away and leave the Body without any impression of the tingent Vertue so that a new Spirit must of necessity be given to this dead Head before the desired colour can be introduced which is one of the Secrets of this Chymical Art for it is the Spirit and no other thing that colours by mediation of Fire and this Tincture compleated and exalted in our Mercury should be elevated to the height of perfection that as Hermes speaks it may ascend into Heaven and when it hath sustained all mortal torments receive a new life that is after it hath passed the darksome straits of Putrefaction it may be elevated to