from Angels in respect it is framed in the similitude and representative figure of the eternal God for the soul hath that light and luminous substance from the gift of her Creation since she her self is that vital light but an Angel is not that substantial light nor hath he any light genial and inherent to his essence but is onely a mirror of the increated light and so in this particular falls short of the excellence and perfection of the Divine Image Otherwise an Angel since he is an incorporeal spirit were he luminous from the right of his own essence would express the Image of God more perfectly then man Moreover whatever God doth bestow more love upon that is more noble but he hath loved man much more then the Angels for not to the redemption of the Angelical nature did he assume the figure of a Cacodaemon as the thrice glorious Lamb of God the Saviour of the world assumed the nature of a Servant Nor can this Doctrine be staggered by the opposition of that The meanest in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater then John the Baptist For the Son of Man is not inferior in dignity of essence to the Angels though he was pleased to become a little lower then the Angels for in the calamitous condition of his life he was made a little lower then the Angels as also was John the Baptist. And for this reason an Angel is constantly called a ministring Spirit but is no where read a friend of God the Son of the Father the delight of the Son of Man or the Temple of the Holy Spirit wherein the thrice glorious Trinity takes up his Mansion For that is the majestick prerogative of the Divine Image which the Light Eternal doth impress upon every man that comes into this world In the year 1610 after a long weariness of contemplation that I might acquire some gradual knowledg of my own minde since I was then of opinion that self-cognition was the complement of wisdom faln by chance into a calm sleep and rapt beyond the limits of reason I seemed to be in a Hall sufficiently obscure On my left hand was a table and on it a fair large Vial wherein was a small quantity of Liquor and a voice from that Liquor spake unto me Wilt thou Honor and Riches At this unwonted voice I became surprized with extream amazement I walked up and down seriously considering with my self what this should design By and by on my right hand appeared a chink in the wall through which a light invaded my eyes with unwonted splendor which made me wholly forgetful of the Liquor voice and former counsel Then pensively returning to the Vial I took it away with me and attempted to taste the Liquor but with tedious labor I opened the Vial and assaulted with extream horror I awakened But my ancient intense desire of knowing the nature of my soul in which I had panted uncessantly for thirteen whole yeers together constantly remained with me At length amidst the anxious afflictions of various fortunes when yet I hoped a Sabbath of tranquillity from the security of an innocent life transacted in a vision I had the sight of my soul. It was a transcendent light in the figure of a man whose whole was homogeneous actively discerning a substance spiritual Crystalline and lucent by its own native splendor But enshrined it was in a second nubilous part as the husk or exterior cortex of it self which whether it did emit any splendor from it self I could hardly distinguish by reason of the superlative fulgor of the Crystalline spirit inshrowded within it Yet this I could easily discern that there was no sexual impress but onely in the cortex or shrine But the mark of the Crystal was light ineffable so reflexed that the Crystal Image it self became incomprehensible and that not by negation or privation since these are terms onely accommodate to our imbecillity otherwise then this that it presented a majestick Ens which cannot be expressed by words yet so finely that you could not have comprehended the quiddity of the thing beheld And then was it revealed unto me that this light was the same which I had a glimpse of twenty three yeers before And these things I saw by an intellectual vision in my minde for had the eye of my body once beheld this resplendent excessive object it would for ever after have ceased from vision and constaâ—…ly have celebrated a blinde mans holy day And thus my dream discovered unto me that the beauty of the humane Soul doth far transcend all conception of thought At that instant I comprehended thus much that my long desire of seeing my soul was vain and fruitless and thereupon I did acquiesce For however beautiful the Crystalline spirit did appear yet my soul retained nothing of perfection from that vision as at other times she was wont to do after an intellectual vision And so I came to be instructed that my minde in this somnial vision had as it were acted the part of a third person nor was the discovery sufficiently satisfactory to compensate so earnest and insatiate a desire of exploration But as to the Image of God impressed upon the Soul according to my slender capacity I confess I could never conceive any thing whether a body or spirit whether in my phansie or the most pure and abstracted speculation of my intellect which in the same act of meditation did not represent some certain figure under which it stood objected to my conceptions For whether I apprehended it by imagining an Idea probably correspondent to its essence or whether by conceiving that the intellect did transmute it self into the object understood still it occurred unto my thought invested in some figure For although I could familiarly understand the minde under the notion of an incorporeal and immortal substance yet could I not while I meditated upon the individual existence of it consider the same devoid of all figure yea nor so truly but it would respond to the figure of a man Since when ever the soul being sequestred doth see another Soul Angel or Cacodaemon requisite it must be that she perfectly know that these are presented to her to the end she may distinguish a Soul from an Angel and the Soul of Peter from the Soul of Judas Which distinction cannot be made by the sense of tasting smelling hearing touching but onely by the proper vision of the Soul which vision necessarily implieth an alterity or difference of figure Since an Angel is so far restrained to locality that at once he cannot possess two different places in that also there is included as well a figural as a local circumscription Thence I considered the minde of man figurated after this manner The body of man accepted under that distinct notion cannot give to itself the figure of a man and therefore hath need of an external Sculptor or Delineator which should be secretly ambuscadoed in
in the body onely per nutum magically 99. In the body the Soule operateth onely by a drowsie soâ—…olent beck or restrained intuition but out of the body by a nimble and vehement The knowledge of the Apple eclipseth the knowledge magicall 100. The beginning of the Cabal drawn from dreams divinely infused 101. The defect of understanding in the outward man 102. How far the power of atan extends in Witches 103. What are the true and proper works of Satan 104. Sin took away the endowments of Grace and obscured those of Nature 105. The end of the pious exercises of Catholikes 106. The grand effect of the Cabal 107. Two subjects of all things 108. Man hath a power of acting as well by spirit as body 109. What kind of ray or effluvium is transmitted from a witch to a bruite 110. How a Witch may be discovered 111. How the spirit of a Witch may be captived and bound fast in the heart of a horse 112. The intention depraves a good work 113. The Virtue seminall is Naturally Magicall 114. The cause of the Cruentation of a murdered Carcase in the praesence of the homicide 115. Why the Plague a frequent concomitant of seidges 116. Works of mercy to be done upon the distressed though only in order to the avoydance of the Plague 117. Plagues arising from revenge and exsecrations of men dying under oppression most fatall 118. Why the carcases of malefactors were to be removed from the gibbet 119. Why excrements can be no authors of a Plague 120. Why the blood of a bull is venemous 121. Why the fat of a bulis made an ingredient into the Sympathetick unguent namely that it may be made an Armary Unguent 122. Why Satan cannot concur to the Unguent 123. The basis of Magick 124. When vanities and impostures are reputed for magick 125. A good magick in holy Writ 126. What may be called true magick 127. The cause of the idolatry of Witches 128. The Excitators of magick 129. Satan excites it imperfectly 130. Whence beasts are also magicall 131. The dominion of Spirits fostereth contention and love 132. Man why a microcosm 133. The mind generateth reall Entities 134. That reall Entity of an ambiguous or midle nature betwixt a body and a spirit 135. The descension of the Soul causeth a conformative Will 136. The cause of the fertility of seeds 137. Why lust doth in a manner alienate us from our mind 138. A Father by the spirit of his seed doth generate extra se beyond the limits of his own body in a subject suddainly removed to distance 139. What spirit that is which is the Patron of Magnetism 140. The will doth transmit a spirit to the object Unlesse the will did produce some reality the Devill could have no knowledge of it and unlesse it sent this produced reality forth from it self toward the object the devil being absent could never be provok'd thereby Where therefore the treasure is thither doth the heart of man tend 141. Magnetisme done by sensation 142. There is a plurality of sensations in one single subject 143. From the superiour phansy commanding it 144. Why glasse-makers use the powder of Loadstone 145. The Phansy of Attrahents changed 146. Inanimate creatures endowed with Phansy 147. Why some things eaten introduce madness 148. Why a mad dog biting a man causeth madnesse 149. The sting of the Tarantula causeth an alienation of the mind from reason 150. Why beasts defend not themselves against the biting of a mad dog 15â—… The sympathy betwixt objects removed at distance each from other is done by the mediation of an Universall Spirit which governing the Sun and other coelestiall orbs is endued with exquisite sense 152. The imagination in Creatures enriched with an Elective Faculty is various arbitrary and unconfined but in others of the same determinate identity alwayes 153. The first degree of power magicall dwelleth in the formes of the three grand Principles viz. Sal Sulphur and Mercury 154. The second is by the Phansies of the Forms of the Mixtum or integrall Composition which being destroyed the Principles yet remaine 155. The third ariseth from the Phansy of the Soule 156. What beasts are endowed with magicall power and can act beyond the circumference of themselves per nutum onely 157. The fourth degree of power magicall is from the excited intellect of man 158. The word Magick is analogous and appliable to many things in a third relation 159. Every magicall power stands in need of and is improved by Excitation 160. What may be said a subject capable of Magnetism 161. How Magnetism differs from other Formall Proprieties 162. The superfluous humours Excrements of the body have also their Phansy 163. Why Holy Writ doth give the attribute of life rather to the blood then to any other humor in the body 164. The seed inhaeriteth the Phansy of the Father by traduction Whence Nobility hath its originall 165. The skins of the Wolfe and sheep retain a Phantastique enmity of their former life 166. What the Phansy of the blood freshly added to the Unguent can doe The manner of the Magnetisme in the Unguent 167. The difference betwixt a magneticall cure done by the Unguent and that done by a rotten egg 168. The grand mystery of humane Imagination the foundation of Naturall Magick 169. The Intellect impresseth the Entity it selfe created upon the externall object and there it really perseveres 170. How to make powerfull pentacles or magicall Characters 171. The Phansy by a naile as by a medium holds captive the spirit of the Witch 172. If Satan can move a body without any corporeall extremity why cannot the inward man doe the same and why not rather the spirit of the Witch 173. The virtue of the Unguent not from the imagination of its Compounder but from diverse simples married into one Composition 174. The Author makes profession of his Faith IN the eighth year of this age there came to my hands an Oration declamatory made at Marpurge of the Catti wherein Rodulphus Goclenius to whom the publick profession of Philosophy was lately committed paying his first fruits to the University endevours to make good that the cure of wounds by the Sympathetick and Armarie Unguent first invented by Paracelsus is meerly natural Which Oration I wholly read and sighed that the history of natural things had faln under the protection of so weak a Patron The Author nevertheless highly pleased himself with that argument of writing and with a continued barrenness of probation in the year 1613. published the same work with some enlargement Not long since I also met with a succinct anatome of the fore-mentioned Book compiled by a certain Divine savoring more of a fine-witted Censure then a solid Disputation Whereupon my judgment what ever it were was much desired at least in that relation that the thing invented by Paracelsus neerly concerned him and my self his disciple I shall therefore declare what I conceive of the Physician Goclenius
also to you seem far fetched truly the book of Genesis teacheth us that the Soule of every living creature dwels in the bloud of it as in its proper mansion For in the bloud there inhabite certaine noble and vital powers which as if they were endowed with animation cry loud to heaven for revenge yea from the hands of Judges here below demand vindictive justice to be done upon the homicide which since they cannot be denyed to be naturall Citizens of the blood I see no reason why any man should reject the magnetism of the bloud and unjustly reckon its rare admirable effects among the ridiculous acts of satan I wil say this further that men which walk in their sleep do by the conduct of no other Motor or guide then that of the Spirit of the Bloud that is of the outward man walk up and downe clime wals and praecipices and performe many other actions difficult and impossible to men awake I say by a magicall virtue naturall to the outward man That Saint Ambrose was visibly present at the exsequies of Saint Martin though corporally at home in his owne Chamber many Leagues distant Yet he was visibly present at the celebration of his holy brothers funerall in the visible spirit of the exteriour man and no otherwise for when many holy Fathers of the Church have seen the transaction of many secret and distant things this hath been performed without the circumscription of time and place in that ecstasy which is only of the internall man by the superiour powers of the soule collected and twisted into unity and by an intellectuall vision but not by a visible presence For otherwise the soule is never divorced from the body unless in earnest once and ever and then is not capable of a reunion until the resurrection which reconnexion notwithstanding is otherwise familiar and naturall to the spirit of the outward man divorced pro tempore in some ecstasy In so great a Paradox it can hardly suffice to erect a firme building of belief upon one single pillar of reason wherefore we conceive it our duty to frame a second basis for the more substantiall supportment of our doctrine of Magnetisme and to advance to the explanation of that mysterious cause by which this Magneticall alliciency is performed also betwixt bodies devoid of animation not by any Animall but a certaine Naturall sensasion Which that we may more seriously enterprise and solidly performe we are obliged by way of praeparation to praemise an enquiry what Satan can of his own power contribute to and by what meanes he can coopeperate in the meerly nefarious and impious actions of Witches and Conjurators for from hence will it clearly appear to what particular and just cause whether Naturall or Diabolicall every effect arising from abstruse originals ought properly to be ascribed And finally what kinde of spirituall power that is which tends to and arrives at an object removed at large distance or what is the action passion and velitation or reactive encounter betwixt Naturall Spirits or wherein consists the superiority and praerogative of man above other inferiour Creatures and by consequence why our Unguent compounded of human Mumies should also cure the wounds of horses I shall explain the matter by an example Let us therefore grant a witch who can vigorously torment an absent man by an image of wax by imprecation incantation or onely by some praevious touch for in this place we have nothing to doe with Veneficious Witches properly called Sorcerers in regard they execute their malice and destroy onely by poyson which every common Seplasiarie and petty Apothecary can imitate that this action is Diabolicall no man will doubt However it pleaseth us to distinguish how much Satan and how much the Witch can contribute to this mischiefe The first Supposition First you shall take notice that Satan is the sworne and irreconcileable enemy of mankinde and so accounted by all unlesse any please to esteem him a friend and therefore that he doth most readily without any the least haesitancy or negligence attempt and procure what mischief soever lies within the reach of his malice or power against us The second supposition Next you shall observe that although he be a mortall adversary to Witches also in so much as 't is essentiall to him to maintain a most destructive hostility against all the Sons of Adam yet in respect they are his confest slaves and sworn Subjects of his own black Kingdome he never unlesse against his will and by compulsion detects them never betrays them into the hands of the Magistrate nor exposes them to the scorne and reproches of other persons and that for three reasons 1 Since he is the Grand-father of pride he very well knowes that by the detection of his favorites there is much detracted from his reputation authority and dominion 2 Since he is an insatiate Nimrod an implacable persecutor of soules he is not ignorant that by the punishment and flames which justice inflicts upon his Zanies many other men else willing and prompt to list themselves in his regiment and fall under his jurisdiction are discouraged deterred and quite averted 3 Because he often observes many a Witch whom with an obtorsion or wresting round of her neck and secret stopping of her breath he could heartily wish to destroy converted by her punishment to become an Apostate from him and repenting at sight of the flames and by this meanes snatched out of his clutches From the former of our propositions I conclude that Satan if he were able singly by his own power to destroy man whom the guilt of mortall sinne hath made obnoxious to the tyranny of death would upon no motive whatever be induced to suspend and procrastinate the execution or his destructive malice but he doth not therefore he cannot destroy him But yet the Witch doth very frequently murder man and hence also it is clear that the Witch hath a power to destroy him no otherwise then an assassine hath a power at the liberty of his own will to cut the throat of him that is fallen into his hands and therefore in this detestable action there is a certain power peculiarly belonging to the Witch which depends not upon Satan and by consequence Satan is not the principall efficient and grand executor of the homicide for otherwise if he were the prime executor he could in no respect stand in need of the Witch for a Coadjutrix and Assistant but would ere this time by his own single power have cut off and swept into the grave the greatest part of mankinde Most miserable and deplorable indeed were the condition of the posterity of Adam which should lie in subjection to so horrid a tyranny and stand obnoxious to the fate of his arbitrary cruelty but we have the Almighty Preserver of men more faithfull in his mercies towards us then to subject the workes of his own hands to the arbitrary dominion of Satan Therefore
noble effigies of the Deity and that this virtue is qualified with a celestial activity and semidivine prerogative of operation that is a power of acting per nutum intuitively spiritually and at vast distance and that too with much more vigor and efficacy then by any corporeal helps and assistance The reason briefly and plainly thus the soul is the diviner particle and more noble moity of man far overweighing the body both in dignity of essence and extraction therefore also is the activity competent to it spiritual Magical and of superlative validity That the Soul by the dictates of this Virtue which hath suffered a consopition and abatement of its primitive agility by the counter-magick of the forbidden Apple in Paradise doth regulate manage and move onely her own peculiar body but the same being exsuscitated and awakened again into action she extends her dominion beyond the narrow limits of her earthly cloyster to an object at distance and becomes so longimanous as to operate onely per nutum by intuition conveyed through convenient mediums for upon this point is founded the whole basis of Natural Magick but in no respect upon the brittle and sandy foundation of Benedictions Ceremonies and vain superstitions for these vain and impious observances were all introduced by him who hath ever made it his study to conspurcate and defile the best things with the sophistication of his tares And in this sense we have not trembled at the name of Magick but with the Scripture understood it in the best interpretation and yet we have allowed it to be indifferently imployed to a good or evil end namely by the lawful use or abuse of this power And so under this term we comprehend the highest ingenite cognition of natural things and the most vigorous power of action equally natural to us with Adam not wholly extinguished nor obliterated by original sin but onely obscured and as it were consopited and therefore wanting expergefaction and excitement And therefore we declare that Magnetism is not exercised by Satan but by that which hath no dependance upon Satan and consequently that this power which is peculiarly connatural to us hath been abusively fathered upon Satan as if he were the sole patron and promoter of it that this Magical Faculty lieth dormant in us charmed into a somnolent inactivity by the opiate of the primitive sin and therefore stands in need of an Excitator to promote it into action Whether this Excitator be the Holy Spirit by illumination as the Church commemorates to have happened in the Eastern Magi and frequently happens in many devout persons even in our days or Satan for some previous oppignoration and compact with Witches in whom this excitation is wrought as by a Coma vigil or Catoche and is therefore imperfect in regard of the manner evil in regard of the end obscure in regard of the means and nefarious in regard of the Author nor doth the versipellous or Protean impostor endure that the Witch should know this power to be her own natural endowment on purpose to hold her the more strictly obliged to himself and lest the exercise of so noble a faculty once excited should be employed to any other atchieveme but what is impious and destructive to mankinde and so he keeps the reins in his own hand nor can the Witch know how at her own pleasure to excite this dormant Magick who hath wholly prostituted the freedom of her Spirit to the will of another tyrant That man of himself without the auxiliary concurrence of any forrein Causality can where and when he please by the practise of the Cabalistique Art awaken and excite this grand Virtue into action and such who have attained to this renovation of their impaired nature are honored with the title of Adepti Obtainers or Acquirers the select vessels of God whose wills stand in humble and full conformity to the dictates and advisoes of the Holy Ghost That this Magical Virtue is also naturally inherent in the outward man namely in flesh and blood but yet in a far less measure and of a more feeble energy yea not onely in the outward man but even in Brutes in some proportion and of inferior vigor for so the Book of Moses hath positively observed unto us that the soul of every beast is lodged in its blood and therefore he deservedly forbids it to be listed in the bill of humane fare and perchance in all other created natures since every single entity contains within the narrow tablet of its own nature an adumbration or landskip of the whole Universe and on this hint the Antients have left it on record unto us that there is a God that is an universal Entity in all things That this Magick of the outward man no less then that of the inward man doth want excitation nor doth Satan excite any other Magick in his base miscreant vassals then that of the outward man for in the interior closet of the Soul is seated the Kingdom of God to which no Creature hath access We have further demonstrated that there is a mutual connexion between spiritual Agents and that spirits as they combat which we have shewn in the example of the Witch so also they hold a friendly and amicable correspondence each with other which we prove by the testimony of Magnetical experiments and proper arguments for the fascination and ligation of souls as in the amours of David and Jonathan c. Finally we have stretched the sinews of our reason to manifest that man enjoyes a dominion paramount over all other corporeal Creatures and that by his own natural Magick he can countermand the Magical virtues of all other sublunaries which royal prerogative and predomination some others have erroneously and abusively transferred upon the power of charms and incantations By which Hierarchy we have to satiety of satisfaction made it manifest that all those admirable and abstruse effects are wrought which the rustical and too corporeal Philosophy of others hath ascribed to the dominion of Satan That those who are ignorant of most things we have delivered should yet remain dubious and unsatisfied in many things is necessarily certain wherefore we have determined to make a summary rehearsal of all chiefly that so what we have spoken in the former part of our dispute concerning the duello or conflict of spirits and the reciprocal amity or mutual conspiration of their united virtues may receive the clearer explanation It is a task worthy our sweat and oyl to discover and handsomely define the arms militia and encounters of spirits and their Commonwealth in order whereunto we are with great sobriety of judgment and acuteness of reason to perpend the example of a pregnant or great bellied woman who when she hath intently and with violence of desire fixed her minde upon a Cherry immediately there is impressed upon the fruit of her womb the model or pourtract of the Cherry in
former è diametro to the latter when in sober verity they are both one and same though commonly received under distinct appellations Thus the leaf of a rose hath a distinct virtue which the stem or yellow iust in the middle of the rose hath not and that virtue ariseth not to the leaf from the three Grand principles united or any one of them paramont in the conjuncture but immediately resulteth from its Vital Form which when it is destroyed amitteth its primitive and acquireth other secondary virtues as in example a grain of Corn in its primitive vitality nourisheth but when degraded from that first life it fructifies Thirdly there is another Magical power proceeding from the phansie of the life of the integral compositum and this is implanted in bruites and the exterior man which being spiritual is more absolute in soveraignty then the former but yet not advanced to the zenith or highest pitch of energy though sometimes by much excitation and a strong phansie introduced by a real entity it ascend to a very great height of activity and by a neer emulation rival the true Magick of the inward man Again the Soul of every Bruite enjoyeth a power of creating a real entity and of transmitting the same by the mandate of the Will to an object at very large distance of this sort of magical bruites are the Basilisk a dog many fishes described by Olaus Magnus c. such also is the virtue inhabitant in the blood of many Animals and hence doth Holy Writ deliver expresly that the Soul so journs in the blood though extravenated though decocted on the fire yea and for ought can be alleaged to the contrary though totally altered by corruption Finally there is also a Magical virtue as it were abstracted from the body which is wrought by the excitement of the interior power of the soul and from this arise most potent procreations most noble impressions and effects of supreme vigor and efficacy For introth Nature in most of her operations playes the Magician and acts by the energy of her own phansie and since this activity is by so much the more potent by how much the more spiritual therefore is the term or appellative of Magick exactly analogous and concordant Of all which gradually different species of magical virtue there is hardly any one that stands not in need of excitation For that of the lowest Classis requires excitement and eduction by some previous warmth or gently fomenting heat by which there is educed a certain vapor or spiritual effluvium by reason whereof the phansie restrained in a profound sleep and drowsie inactivity is awakened into action and then begins a mediatory encounter between the corporeal spirits which is of Magnetism excited by a precedent touch But that of the highest Classis such as belongs to bruits and men receives excitement from an intellectual conception and that of the inward man is not at all excited unless by the Holy spirit and by his excellent gift the Cabal but that of the outward man by strong imagination by assiduous and intense speculation yea and in Witches by Satan But the magick of the extravenated blood wherein the soul hath taken up her quarters which lies lurking onely in potentia is excited and invited into act either by a more strong imagination exalted conceive it of the magician making use of the blood as a medium and fixing his newly accensed entity thereon or conceive it by the ascendent phansie of the Armary unguent the excitatrix of the proprieties latent in the blood or by a previous destination of the blood to corruption whereby the Elements are disposed to separation and the Essences which know no corruption and the Essential phansies which lay obscured in the potentia of the proprieties sally forth into action The phansie therefore of any subject whatever hath obtained a strong and vigorous appetite to the spirit of its peculiar object in order to the locomotion attraction expulsion or repulsion of it now in this and no where else we acknowledge Magnetism as the natural magical endowment of that subject conferred upon and firmly implanted in it by the wise bounty of God There is therefore a certain formal propriety segregated and manifestly distinct from the Sympathetique and abstruse qualities in this particular relation that the phansie which is the motrix of those qualities doth not directly tend to the Locomotion but onely the Alteration of the object And thus though we grant that every Magnetism be either Sympathetical or Antipathetical yet notwithstanding the inversion will fail that every sympathy must be Magnetical But we retire from our digression to the grand mark our intentions level at By this time I conceive it is clearly understood that there resideth a phansie and magical appetite not onely in the blood but even in the superfluous humors meats and excrements since the various and numerous progeny of diseases affordeth convictive manifestoes of it For pregnant women labor with an absurd and ridiculous appetite to strange and unusual meats and Cachectical Virgins by a natural oestrum or libidinous fury of the exorbitant womb do with extraordinary celerity though not without great inamoenity and paleness digest what ever they long for but indeed not from reason of similitude of substance nor from any consanguinity of humane nature requiring that particular meat their irregular appetite so ravenously covets but seduced by the exotique phansie of the vitious humors accumulated in the vessels of the womb and restagnated or belched up into the stomach which over-mastering the true and natural appetite goadeth them to this absurdity by the expulsion of which noxious impurities we have frequently cured such perversions and absurd appetites or else we have mitigated and composed them by permitting the irregular and frantick phansie of such humors to sate it self by fruition In the blood therefore there inhabiteth a peculiar phansie which in regard it is of more vigorous energy therein then in other things therefore doth Divine History in a singular and emphatique Elogy call the blood though strongly decocted and ready cooked for the table the Mansion of the soul. And in regard this phansie of the blood is capable of traduction and may be devolved to posterity for this reason is it that the manners gestures conditions and genius of the Grandfather are revived and become resplendent in his issue long after the resolution of him into dust Nobility took its first rise from well-deserving Virtue hence most nobility be without just merit suspected to be encreased by the continued and successive propagation of the family unless the heroick inclinations and virtues of gallant ancestors obscured by mortality might with probability of hope be expected to finde a resurrection and shine again in their â—…late posterity Again doth not the enmity conceived betwixt the Woolf and sheep remain firmly impressed upon their pelts Wherefore the phansie of an
since then you would implicitely confess the effect not to be ascribed to Satan So the Unguent would not be magnetical from any innate and natural phansie peculiar to it self but from an external adventitious inspiration namely the phansie of the Compounder impressed upon it since there can be no neerer medium of the foresaid Magnetism then humane blood with humane blood truly the blood alone as the most proportionate and predisposed subject would suffice to the composition of the Unguent and all the other simples ingredient into the confection would be frustraneous and unnecessary especially the blood of a Bull and hony where the cure is to be performed by applying the salve to weapons not distained with the blood of the Patient which is manifestly false by experiment Finally the Magnetism of the Unguent would then be general in respect the Confectioner may by the wilde and universal range of his Phansie intend to make the impression uncertain undeterminate and extensive to the wounds not onely of man but of all beasts whatever What if the Compounders phansie were not fixed upon a dog must the Unguent therefore have no virtue to cure the wound of a dog Away with such idiotism such ridiculous dotage What hath Bole Armeniake what Line seed oyl what Hony and in fine what hath the blood of a Bull of peculiar disposition or determinate respect to the wound of a horse or man that upon them onely as upon the most proper medium and not upon any other things the Phansie of the Confectioner should be impressed and yet if these were secluded the Composition the Unguent would be barren and devoid of all power and vulnerary efficacy The Natural phansie therefore of the Unguent is the sole and grand cause of the Magnetism and the immediate and proper cause of the Cure but not the imagination of the Component Behold you have our understand true Christian Philosophy not the frantick sophisms or idle dreams of Ethnicks Be cautious I beseech you that you bring not me into censure who have been your self more forward and rash in censuring others I am yours and a Roman Catholick who have cordially and firmly determined in my self to mediate or write nothing that may be contrary to the Word of God or the fundamental Articles of the Church I well understand the constellation of my own genius and know my self born not to allow or foment contentious debates not to write Comments on or defensive Apologies for the pens of other men wherefore what I knew I desired with a freedom becoming a Philosopher to communicate to the world I shall annex onely this one clause Whoever attributeth to the Devil an effect arising from Natural Causes so created by God and so conferred upon the Creatures he doth alienate the honor due to the Creator and ignominiously others might say blasphemously apply it unto Satan which under your favor if you shall strictly call under the test of your Anatome you will finde to be express idolatry My earnest prayer to the fountain of all Clemency our God and Father of Mercies is now and ever shall be that he would be pleased to look with the eye of compassion and forgiveness upon those errors and lapses of our understanding which from our native not stubborn ignorance and humane fragility we have contracted Amen THere are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one And anon speaking of the Humanity of Christ there are three which bear record in Earth the Blood the Spirit and the Water and these three are one To us therefore who have the like Humanity it is no wonder that we contain Blood and a Spirit of the like unity and that the action of the Blood is meerly Spiritual Yea for this reason in Genesis it is not called by the name of Blood but dignified with the appellation of a Red Spirit Withdraw therefore whoever thou art from thy incredulous pertinacy and ingenuously acknowledg another Spirit in the blood besides the Devil unless thou wilt dare to oppose thy mis-informed Faith to the Book of Truth The Translators Supplement NEmo hûc Geometriae expers ingrediatur was the Motto which the semi-christian Philosopher Plato caused to be engraven on the porch of his Academy implying not onely the exact measure of lines but also the Geometry of a mans self the dimensions and just extent of the passions and affections of the minde to be the previous qualification necessary to any that should hope to benefit by his Lectures And Nemo hûc Philosophiae expers ingrediatur shall be our inscription in the front of this Translation understanding by Philosophy the ample knowledg not onely of the Elemental and visible World but also of the Intellectual and Spiritual not onely of the more plain and obvious tracts wherein Nature progresseth to the production of ordinary effects but even those obscure and unfrequented paths she walks in when she advanceth to Abstrusities and more mysterious Magnalities together with that acquired Candor of judgment and habitual Equanimity which as well emancipateth the understanding from the pedantick tyranny of subscription to all that 's read if but disguised in the specious dress of probability and ushered in by Antique Authority as it inclineth the reason to a sober assent and modest conformity to such Assertions which carry the face of judicious Enquiries and serious majesty of Truth though they be presented at disadvantage under a cloud of Novelties or Paradoxes Nor can we fear that this our device or impress will be suspected of impertinency by any that shall do so much right to their own judgments as to conced that a Reader thus qualified must be the onely he that can survey understand censure and enrich his head with the subtler speculations and profound Dihoties of our more then ingenious Helmont while it is of confessed necessity that the gross ignorance of some must obscure and the prevarication of others pervert the prospect of these splendid though Heterodoxical Notions and Natural though spiritual or magical Causalities which his finer pen hath drawn in landskip upon this tablet The Magnetically-Natural cure of Wounds Now though the pensive Consideration of the incapacity some would have said Barbarity of the numerous multitude on one side and of the deplorable inflexibility of the leading part of learning more then a moity of Schollers being swallowed up in a deluge of Presumption and Prejudice on the other might in some measure excuse our despair of finding many heads of this soveraign temper wherein sufficiency in knowledg ought to have received the just allay of Candor and non-adherence to Antiquity yet may we not incur the odious premunire of singularity so far as not confidently to hope that our worthy Author will fall into the hands of some whose unbyassed intellectuals will smoothly run him over and gather so full satisfaction from many of his Experiments that Gratitude her self