born a vain or empty Table From thence indeed arose a sensitive Power or Faculty in Posterity or the same Faculty of a middle Life which arose in Adam the which when through a just Maturity it had waxed ripe in the Seed it was at length brought through into a true Light and vital Form by the Creator on which afterwards the Mind of Man transferred its Vicarship yet the Mind hath remained being as it were reitired into its own bottom as abhorring the Impurities of Nature nor being any longer able unless by Grace immediately to diffuse it self into the sensitive Soul God so disposing of it by reason of his good Pleasure as shall be shewn hereafter In Man therefore there is actually a certain natural and formal Act which is the Soul or Sensitive Life very much distinct from the mind For as the Seed of a Dog tends into a living Dog obscurely reasoning or discoursing so certainly the Seed of Man doth not aspire into a dead Carcass but at least into a vital Soul and indeed flows into a sensitive and discursive one after a far more perfect manner than in a Dog Fox c. And that I might the more firmly attain this real Distinction of the sensitive Soul from the Mind in us I have feigned a Young-man to be utterly lost for a Maid For this Man wisheth with a full sense and consent of his Soul that he could be freed from that disdainful Love And likewise he would not that he should Love so dearly and would not be freed from his Love Not indeed that he by turns sometimes earnestly wills one thing but sometimes another but at once and in the same Motion and violent aslault he wisheth and not wisheth to be freed from that Love therefore he declares himself to be happy and unhappy in one Love And he suffers many Contradictories of that sort at once The which seeing they are not at once entertained in the same Subject and Respect I long doubted from whence such Contradictories should happen on every side in one only Man until at length the Apostle loosed this K not for me I seeing another Law in our Members opposite to the Law of our Mind which Laws surely he understandeth to be guarded not only with an Inclination and Desire but also with Discourse and Consent Then I clearly beheld the Affections of the sensitive Soul to be one and those of the Mind to be another but these because the Operation of the Mind is well nigh obscured by the perturbations of the sensitive Soul therefore they are weak For in this sense the Apostle calls Anger Envy Grudgings Worshipping of Idols c. the works of the Flesh For although they may seem to be spiritual Conceptions yet because they are the Operations of the sensitive Soul the which it self also is seminally stirred up in Nature by the will of Flesh and Blood therefore they are the meer works of the Flesh We are therefore uncessantly affected through the importunate Allurements of the social Soul because we being forthwith after Sin become degenerate have lost Immortality Wherefore God doth now require only a few things of us that we may enter into Life To wit that he that is Baptized do believe the whole History of the Creed and that he keep the Commandements of God through the Mediation of his Grace But whosoever will aspire unto a higher Degree of Charity let him endeavour so far as according to his Talent he shall be able in all Humility and by continuing in Charity through amorous Acts to run forth unto abstracted Things believed by Faith until that through the Grace of a daily Continuance of Exercise he shall feel his Mind to be overwhelmed by a supernatural Light For the Meditation of natural Forms doth much help in the entrance for the understanding of the Thingliness of the sensitive Soul For all Forms besides the Mind seeing they are vital Lights which are to return into nothing I have certainly learned that the Mind doth by a most long interval differ from the sensitive Soul Seeing that the immortal Mind however it be retracted into it self that it may not be defiled through the Wedlock of the sensitive Soul its Companion Yet it is president in all Acts as it is near at hand and doth totally inhere in the whole sensitive Soul and so operates herewith after a deaf manner But that this order of the Almighty was on this manner forthwith after the Fall of Adam I collected first because he hath created some Men blind and likewise mad noâ— for their own or Parents Sin but according to his good Pleasure for his own Glory for he made all things as he would and most exceeding well And then because he would be worshipped in the Spirit And lastly because in his House there are many Mansions Now they should be in vain if every Man should be equal in Grace in his Soul and Life From whence I collect that there ought to be a diversity of Spirits among Men and the Worshippers of the Divinity to be diverse in the degree of Charity For truly he created the Angels that they might worship him in the Spirit of Intelligency without the Turbulencies of Bodies But Man he deminished a little less than the Angels yet he primarily chose him after the Image of his Divinity for his own Glory and Worship and for his adopted Sons yet subject to an unhappy and calamitous kinde of living because he is he who being 〈◊〉 sunk or drowned within the Body scarce understands that he doth understand having almost forgotten his Immortality as being subjected unto the tyrannical Clientships of Diseases so that the Immortal Understanding in distracted or foolish and mad People appears to be almost extinct For it was the Almighties good Pleasure that those diverse Mansions should be inhabited as it were by the Ladder of Deserts and that Men being raised up by the Character or Impression of Grace should come unto higher Dignities of understanding To wit according to that saying The Learned shall shine as the Sun The first thing therefore is in the Simplicity of an operative Faith to have lived in Abstinency from Evils and to have done good And then that they Worship God in the Spirit of naked Truth and that through an operative Faith they proceed through an attainment of a fatherly Love worthy Deeds or Deserts in Charity although we not intending it helping to be more and more illustrated in their Understanding And so at length the Mind is loosed in that dark Prison of Bloods and intellectually beholds it self and with Humility admires the not before seen Light and being led through unknown Paths doth then without difficulty proceed by steps unto the more abstracted Contemplations of a Kiss where it being as it were raised up again out of a drowâ—â—â— Sleep doth as happy adore God in Truth Righteousness and the Union of Virtues under the Light of an abstracted Spirit For neither although
selfishnesse is exhausted But seeing it doth not at all consist in our own power to be wholly freed and so that it rather puts us in mind of the grace of ravishment or violent prevalency than of the true and naked and pure operations of the mind which I intend to take a View of in this Chapter for a compleating of the Treatise of the Soul Therefore according to my poverty of judgment a man doth not in acting climbe neerer unto a super-eminent uncloathing of his mind alone and an abstracted baring of the light of understanding than by the prayer of silence in the Spirit wherein the delights of God are to be adored Because he then doth issuingly illustrate or make light cleer or famous that mind as the uncloathed image of himself being thus reflexed in the glass of his own Divinity This indeed is that which the most glorious Goodnesse wisheth for But that fruits or exercises may bewray the essence or thinglinesse of the mind I have thought that that is not more powerfully nor elswhere to be had than from spiritual exercises whereby the mind it self rids it self from the coâ—knit conceipts of created things and from the service of the acquainted Senses For it is manifest what the mind it self may be while it hath withdrawn it self from conceipts which are wont or might stain it or at leastwise hinder it from comming unto the nakednesse and purity of it self wherein it may be able to worship the aforesaid Unity or onenesse The Lord Jesus therefore is the Way the Truth and the Life the way I say unto himself the Truth and unto the life of the Father of Lights Therefore the way is directed unto the obtainment of abstracted truth whose wished desire it is that the hidden truth which he hath decyphered in the mind his own image may be certainly known by us and worshipped in the Spirit Where Himself is the Kingdome of God is present with all his free gifts and therefore the manner and mean of worshipping in spirit cannot be more nearly known or perfectly learned than by the way and truth it self and so by the prayer which he hath dictated unto us wherein are first three amorous or loving wishes or desires of love and as many Petitions For those wishes are without all selfishnesse and are naked respects toward God himself and therefore the most pure of all those which can be wished for and thought by love And the first of them is that which the Truth speaketh Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and the righteousvess thereof and other things shall be added unto you But it is not the righteousnesse of God that righteousness may be done by us for no one living shall be justified in his sight but that his Name may be sanctified which is not only due unto him so a just thing but that loving wish justifies us For it presupposeth first of all Christian faith itself and then also his infinite goodness whereby he vouchsafeth to be our Father And indeed in the word Our selfishness is put for the goodness of God the obliging of all of us which otherwise is nowhere seen in the three wishes And thirdly it sheweth forth his vast majesty to be co-measured by his dwelling place of the Heavens which is the work of his own hands And so such like things as those being premised an amorous wish or desire is kindled in us which doth not desire that his Name be only sanctified by his only begotten Son and our Mediatour where Deep calls unto Deep neither also onely that the heavenly Wights and whole Church militant may adore his unutterable Name neither also therefore is it the sense that his Name may he sanctified on earth like as it is inheaven but that it may be sanctified or hallowed in us and by us in all this notwithstanding selfishnesse and nothingnesse being renounced and that there may be a naked and most pure reflexion of the honour and delights of God in that which is to be with us and to be worshipped in the spirit of love And therefore also the other succeeding wish doth not ask the Kingdom of God for it self but the Kingdom of God which is in us that it may come neerer to us Not indeed nakedly and simply for our sakes but because it is of his goodnesse to be with the sons of men in delights Wherefore also it is wished that his own Will may be done in us upon us and by us with a full resignation of our own will Therefore the three wishes do proceed from the soul without a modal restriction or reflexion on us because they do exceed all personality of the creature that God may be worshipped for himself And therefore they do excell all force of prayer petition praising giving of thanks yea and of glorification it self For to give thanks doth denote a benefit and implyeth a receiver but glorification praising or sanctification it self as it brings down my selfishnesse before the sight of God although in the mean time it be due and obligatory it far goes back from the excellency of a most pure and amorous wish or desire wherein the sanctifying of the Name of God in us is desired in which deep calleth unto deep For who am I who may presume in respect of an infinite to sanctifie that Name who indeed am nothing but a worm and a most miserable sinner And therefore the amorous or loving desire of sanctification doth as much excell let thy name be hallowed or sanctified by me as a wretched sinner differs from the Son of the God-bearing Virgin For praises and prayers as well in the Mosaical Law as at this day were made by Hymns Psalmes and Prayers But man before the truth be perfectly learned hath never attained the vigour height and depth of a loving desire of sanctifying the incomprehensible Divinity in us wherein there is more excellency than all creatures together are able to comprehend For that sanctification is wished for not because God is most excellent most great bountiful c. For those things include a selfishnesse of the praiser not to be suffered together with the divine Name Therefore the desire and wish of an amorous soul fervently desiring the sanctifying of the Name of God nakedly and simply is not made indeed by a creature below God but by a melting of the mind desiring in the love of God for the least thing which it contains in it is to offer it self to God with a resignation of its whole and likewise to will act and suffer any thing with a total amorous offering up of the heart soul and strength into the obedience of the Divine Will In which loving or lovely offering all thoughts besides the naked desire of love are unsufferably excluded because it transcends all reflexion For because it is naked it despiseth every garment which reason might administer unto it For that so naked and excellent love ariseth in the seat of
God will have other Recognisances or knowing Considerations from Man than from an Angel ought he therefore less to rejoyce in the Divine good Pleasure but to proceed in praising him in an humble Adoration wherein all understanding of Wisdom and clearness of all Spirits are as it were supped up in a lively Center Through this reward therefore of Degrees the unutterable God hath since the Fall Crowned Man with Glory and Honour although degenerate and hath put other things under his Feet for neither before the Fall had Man ever aspired thither Therefore Man ought neither to have the knowledge of all things which Adam knew in his Beginning nor also of his own self if it ought to be a Desert For a Crown presupposeth a striving Desert and Victory For we cannot bring back an increase of Grace for Victory but by fighting Therefore I conclude that as we are constituted in the middle and sensitive Life we know have are or are able to do nothing but only by Grace Desert co-operating and the which Merit that God might confirm the Moments of Degrees in the adoring Understanding were to be presupposed Therefore he that is of innocent Hands and of a clean Heart worshippeth God in the Truth of Spirit and the State of that mortal Man is far more happy than was that of Adam being Immortal For that poverty of Spirit doth in truth know Wisely knowes Knowingly believes Confidently perceives or feeles Truly and confesseth Humbly that he is a meer subject of all Defects that is an unprofitable and evil Servant In this Journey the unutterable Kingdom of God meets Man the Ocean of Light which gives an un-asked-for cleaâ—ness of Understanding and much more royal things than the Desires of the Angels do wish for These things exceed the Phylosophy of the Heathens and of Modern Atheists So it is Understanding and Truth hath it self in this manner wherein our Phylosophy doth place its Alpha or Beginning The which if it shall not do long Life is unprofitable being unknown to so many Ages being neglected by so many Wits and even unto the end of the World known unto none but Adeptists alone CHAP. CII The Image of God THe Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom But the Fear of the Lord begins from the Meditation of Death and Life eternal But many with the Stoicks suppose the end of Wisdom to be the knowledge of ones self But I call the ultimate End of Wisdom and the reward of the whole course of our Life Charity or dear Love the which alone will accompany us when as other things have forsaken us And although the knowledge of ones self according to me be only a Mean unto the Fear of the Lord yet from this is the Treatise of long Life to be begun Because the knowledge of Life doth presuppose a knowledge of the Soul Seeing the Life and Soul as I have the second time said are Synonymals It is of Faith that Man was created of nothing after the Image of God into a living Creature and that his Mind is never to perish Whereas in the mean time the Souls of Bruit-beasts do perish into nothing when they cease to live The weights of which difference I have taught concerning the birth or rise of Forms But hitherto it is not sufficiently manifest wherein that Similitude with God our Arch-type or first Example is placed For most do place this lofty Image in the Soul alone I will speake what I judge yet under a humble Protestation and Subjection to the Censure of the Church It is thus The original of Forms being already after some sort known it is meet also exactly to enquire into the Mind of Man But surely there is no Knowledge more burdensome than that whereby the Soul comprehends it self yea and scarce is there any a more profitable one because the Faith doth stablish its Foundation upon the unperishable and un-obliterable Substance of the Soul I have found indeed many Demonstrations divulged in the Books about this Truth But none of them at all for what in respect of Atheists who deny the one only and constant Power or Deity from everlasting Plato indeed makes three sorts of Atheists The first indeed which believeth no Gods A second Sort also which indeed admitteth of Gods yet such as are un-careful of us and ignorant Contemners of small Matters Lastly a third Sort which although they believe that there are Gods and those expert of the smallest Matters yet they think them to be flexible through the least Dead or cold Prayer This sort is most frequent among Christians at this day even those who profess themselves to be the most Perfect and therefore they dare do any thing and believe Religion to be only for restraining People through the Fear of Laws the Obligation of Faith and Pain of infernal Punishment For these impose grievous Burdens on the Shoulders of others which they touch not so much as with their Finger they wipe the Purses of their own People they prostitute Heaven to sale to dying Men they every where offer themselves to be employed in Secular Affairs as if they would declare that Religion doth not subsist without the State It should be my greatest wish that they might taste at least but for one only Moment what it is intellectually to understand that they may feel the immortality of the Mind as it were by touching Truly I have not invented Rules or a Manner whereby I might be able to illustrate the understanding of another Therefore I deservedly testifie that they who alwayes study as enquiring after the Truth do notwithstanding never attain unto the knowledge thereof because they being blown up with the Letter have no Charity and do cherish hidden Atheism But this one thing I have learned That the mind doth now understand nothing by imagination neither by figures and likenesses unless the wretched and miserable Discourse of Reason shall have access to it But when as the Soul comprehends it self Reason and its own Image faileth it whereby it may represent it self to it self Therefore the Soul it never able to apprehend it self through the discourse of Reason as neither by Likenesses For after I had known that the Truth of Essence and the truth of Uderstanding are one and the same thing I knew the Understanding to be a certain immortal thing far separated from frail or mortal things The Soul indeed is not felt yet we believe it to be within not to be idle not to be tired nor to be disturbed by Diseases Therefore Sleep Fury and Drunkenness are not the Symptoms of the Immortal Mind being hurt but only the Pages of Life and Passions of the sensitive Soul Seeing that Bruits also undergo such Passions For neither is it a meet thing for an immortal thing to suffer by mortal Ones For as the Mind is in us and yet is not felt or perceived by us So neither are the continual and unshaken Operations thereof to be
help doth concur now it shall be with the labour of a desire stirred up without the understanding Furthermore that passing over and transfiguration of the understanding otherwise natural to it they do signifie to be sometimes subordinate Poets the name of Protheus even as a Fable But I have now known more clearly than that that that transchanging of the understanding ought to be made because the intellect is in it self wholly pure simple one onely and undivided Wherefore for that cause also some onely simple uniform and single act should belong to it plainly undivided from the understanding it self Otherwise the understanding should loose the homogeneal simplicity of its unity by a duplicity of interchangeable course Notwithstanding I have sufficiently found that it is not of the full and free power of our will now thus to enjoy its own understanding And that there is more required unto that thing than to think endeavour wish will c. And that not onely by reason of an accustomedness whereby we have been wont from a Childe by animal or sensitive acts to obey the Imagination but much more because the will it self together with the memory ought for that space of motion to be wholly supt up and as it were annihilated in the understanding The which surely is the weight of a great Mystery For else as soon as any one doth think of his Soul or of any thing as of a third with a seperated interchangeable course without the understanding for that very cause there is not yet the thought or operation of a pure and onely intellect But when the Soul thinks of it self or any other thing as it self without an interchangeable course of the thinker and of the thing thought of without an appendency out-turning or respect to duration place and circumstances Then indeed such a thought is intellectual or of the understanding But it is not as yet therefore illustrated or made lightsomely famous although that understanding is already a far more noble thought than that which rusheth in by things that happen whether those do come in to it by likenesses without a sequel as being infused or next being drawn from experiences and observations do by influence flow to it of their own accord Because the Soul in that state of light doth thus apprehend the more inward and formerly essence of the thing understood because the intellect it self doth transform it self by passing over or thorow into the thing understood Hence indeed it followes If intellectual knowledge be with a similitude of the thing understood in the understanding it self that also the Kingdom of God doth as it were come to us and is renewed or doth spring again as oft as we in faith do intellectually and presentially adore the goodness power infiniteness Glory truth of God c. in the Spirit And thus it is unto God a delight to be with the Sons of men Surely it is thus Our understanding is as it were all to be sprinkled with a new dew of perfection as oft as any thing that is super-celestial or heavenly above is intellectually contemplated of because for that moment it passeth over into that and tasteth down that Then indeed the Image of God shines all over within and becomes glorious Good God whitherto dost thou bring mortalls But surely such an intellectual thought is not made with a distinction of words or properties of speech neither with the girding of the sences or reason neither with a certain more swift conception of a whole Discourse abundantly drawn in nor with a dependance and sequel of things before thought of nor being environed with circumstances of here now white great bitter like pleasing c. But one is not in the understanding without the other neither with-the other under an interchangeable course neither also even as it may be conceived by Reason or Imagination or be thought by Imaginations or likenesses But in that state now here sense reason imagination memory and will are at once melted into a meer understanding and do stand obscured under darkness by the light of understanding Then then I say a certain light falls upon the Soul And that in my judgement is all of whatsoever could ever be declared by word thought speech and writing But whether that light be altogether supernatural or that the understanding be of its own nature thus kindled or enflamed I had rather experience than determine That one thing at leastwise I know that it doth not happen without grace Wherefore whether the understanding be transformed or whether it doth transform it self into the Image of the thing understood surely it had need of help from God and that indeed a singular one because then at leastwise the Soul beholds its own understanding under a form taken on it in the said light and in that its glasse it beholds it self intellectually without a reflexion of interchangeable course and so it conceiveth a knowable thing together with all its properties For that this light of knowledge is not that which issues out of the understanding but remaineth within reflexed upon the understanding which may be perfected in all truth and perfect certainty Indeed some Rabbins do fear this state of the Soul as dangerous The mystical School also feareth the danger of arrogancy and spiritual adultery But both as they do avoid or shun that which is hurtful And the Adeptists think if it should often invade one or long continue undoubted death would be brought together with a sickness which the Rabbins call Binsica which properly is an unnourishment or pining away of the Organ of the phantasie Notwithstanding I pray let them pardon me if I shall think otherwise First of all because the Instruments of the Imagination do not labour in this act but they sleep unmoved as if they were not Therefore likewise they suffer nothing Then because that act is not in our power for I believe that that principal act is of Clemency Which Clemency doth never give make cause or admit of that which is inordinate Therefore although Clemency should the more often and longer abound yet neither therefore could it contain or argue an inordinacy I beseech therefore that the Father of Lights would vouch safe to prevent and follow me with his clearness that he may bring me unto the calling which is pleasing to him in his grace The light therefore which falls from above upon the Soul when it is lesse tied and bound to the Organs of the Body and the which is in it self not capable of suffering and immortal cannot also hurt the life For truly after the receiving of a small quantity of the light I finde a man scarce to suffer any thing by three dayes fasting Wherefore it comes into my minde that the friends might stand by Job as Companions for the full nine dayes without meat or drink Moreover according to my opinion that light doth so dispose of the understanding without the help endeavour and labour of the understanding
Catarrhe be feigned to flow down with a like success unto other and inferiour parts how therefore do the upper parts seem to be free from evil for seeing it should proceed from the same fountain the brain and through the same channel of the marrow of the thorn of the back why doth it not rather follow the path already opened doth it more largely fall down unto a weakened inclinable and affected part and commit new adulteries why doth it shake and seek new Innes Is that perhaps the delight of nature that through a whorish appetite it doth molest and divide new parts successively Finally that there is no place of refuge for a Catarrhe running down between the scull and the skin and the muscles cloathed with their own membrane hath been already before discussed Therefore there is no way manner mean connexion or dependance whereby a Rheume may in truth subsist And seeing no material thing runs down in those affects for which the Schools have rashly feigned Catarrhs therefore let the lovers of truth know that as oft as a strange or forreign Air odour ferment or forreign seed is received into the Spirit which makes violent assaults so often that spirit being defiled by the Archeus is excluded from the Communion of life But the genius or disposition of that conceived Seed hath no less parts whereby also the Spirit defiled by a strange ferment is sent unto remote rather than to nigh places As shall be said in its place concerning the joynt-sickness or Gout in the Duumvirate and elsewhere For so Mercury being even outwardly anointed doth affect the jawes tongue teeth Moreover when this defiled spirit shall come down unto the place of its sending it presently seasons the nourishment of the part with its own ferment transplanteth and translateth it according to the idea or likeness of the Seed and that Seed doth there interrupt the offices of digestions by successive blasts being drawn with strange dispositions Whence it at length stirs up a plentiful houshold-stuffe and doth oft-times characterize the impression there made on the implanted spirit with a brand durable for life These things the Schools beg for primary feigned humours and for the fallings down of defluxions from the one only brain I therefore am far from a Catarrhe who deny the matter shops efficient cause manner of making and defluxing thereof and therefore I also seperate the causes effect as also the cure far from the fictions of a Catarrhe Therefore salt soure sharp phlegmatick and cholerick humours do not fall down but as often as the defiled spirit hath passed thorow unto the places the first which shall come thither from a common endeavour and study of washing it off is the liquour or humour latex For the spirit being depraved by a forreign contagion is carried through the Nerves Arteries yea and through the very habite of the Body From whence the brain hath bore the blame and the sick do feel as it were the falling down of a defluxing humour and because the latex is designed thither by the veins not as a primitive cause of the evil although by accident it doth oftentimes nourish the evil the longer but for an easment and washing off therefore the Schools have as yet remained doubtful whether Rheumes should be dismissed from the Head through the sinews or between the skin or indeed through the veins out of the Liver at least wise in Gouty persons Therefore the Phlegme and Choler of the Schools do not flow from a Fountain or Flood-gate as if the Head were the one only sink of these And then neither do they fall down by reason of a steeper scituation or by reason of an easiness of passages For truly as in a dead Carcass there are no such defects but in live creatures only so whatsoever of these defects doth come to pass it proceedeth from a spirit which maketh a violent assault and from a vital beginning In whose family administration an ascending upwards is no more difficult than a descending downwards Seeing nothing of these in living creatures floweth by its own motion of weight but indeed is directed being sent unto its own certain bounds It also often comes to pass that the latex being defiled with a strange salt doth thenceforth infect the spirit so that the spirit is not therefore alwayes estranged by an external injury of Air or from a proper Air of contagion bred within but rather being stirred up by the latex because that is less lively it takes on it an animosity or angry heat And the latex accompanies it being troublesome as well through its aforesaid sharpness as through quantity and it enters as an importunate Souldier against the will of his Host Wherefore natural and artificial Baths do reconcile many of these sort of defects and overflowings to wit by consuming the latex they restore health rather than the loosening and drying Medicines of the Schools Vain therefore is the History and matter of a Catarrhe lifted up out of the stomack unto the Head vain also is the defluxing and falling down thereof between the muscles and the skin and deplorable Remedies from unknown causes Vain also are cauteries or searing Remedies to pull back and consume feigned humours Lastly vain are the Medicines of drying drinks seeing the evil or Malady is by the latex and a larger quantity of drink only occasionally bred Therefore it is manifest how wholesom sober drinking is for the liquor latex in respect of its appointment ought to be without savour but it waxeth sharp through the much drinking of pure and more sharp wine But the History and necessity of the latex is due in its own Chapter Thou shalt remember that all the fruits of composed Bodies do materially spring from water Let us therefore also suppose the un-savoury latex through a little help of a Seed presently to wax sharp For example For at the Spring-time a plentiful liquor drops out of a Vine or Birch-tree To wit if the bark near the earth be hurt it poures out an un-savoury liquour of the earth But if the wound be made in the stem or branches now the same juice is sharpish So it comes to pass in the latex being of its own nature without savour which through the contagion of things receiving doth at length wax sharp or becomes the heir of a strange quality For the Schools have neglected the latex because they have confounded the urine with the latex But it is a blockish argument to have co-melted the thing generated with the matter whereof as if the snivel spittle water between the skin and flesh and urine were drinks The Liver therefore being badly affected if it recal the latex unto it self truly it doth not thereby prepare urine but Oedemaes or the Dropsie Anasarca therefore I am not such a man as to call the Pleurisie Tooth-ach and other madness of furies non-beings For I know and grieve for their too much serious commands over us I do indeed admit of
Woman doth seminally conceive by Man besides the first intent of Creation Wherefore if Man were created that at least-wise from a foreknowledge of the consequence he might supply the Place of the Evil Spirits in Heaven he ought either to be created in a great Number at once from the Beginning or Successively If therefore They which are to be saved cannot be born by the will of Man of Flesh or of Blood and there was one only Man created therefore all Posterity ought by a successive Continuation to be born in Paradise of Women alone to wit the Birth-place of the Woman and of necessity to be Conceived from God and to be Born of a Woman a Virgin unto whom he afterwards Gave Power to be called the Sons of God and to be made with an exclusion of the Will of Blood Flesh and Man which Chastity alwayes pleased God doth please him at this Day and will please him alwayes And whatsoever hath thus once pleased the fountain of Chastity can never again displease him And so that Onely those that are of a clean Heart shall see God and shall be called his Sons wherefore the Prophet singeth Create in me a clean Heart Oh God! such as Adam had before the Fall And renew a right Spirit of the chaste and antient Innocency by the regeneration of the Spirit and Water in my Bowels Because my Bowels being now impure have contracted a Spirit of Concupiscence of the Flesh of Sin For indeed Man as long as he was Immortal and Pure Saw thy Face oh Lord and thou talkedst with him which Face afterwards Man shall not see and live But after that Man defiled his Bowels through Concupiscence thou casteth him from thy Face out of Paradise I pray thee therefore that thou cast me not from thy Face and that thou take not thy holy Spirit of Chastity from me Restore unto me the Gladness of the Regeneration of thy Salvation and with thy principal Spirit the Comforter do thou confirm me against the inbred Impurity of the Flesh For truly I shall teach the Unrighteous thy wayes of thy Regeneration the which among the hidden things of thy Wisdom thou hast manifested unto me and the Wicked shall be converted unto thee At leastwise free me from Bloods from the Concupiscence of the Sexes Thou who art the God of Chastity the God of Salvation as of new Regeneration and my Tongue shall exalt thy Righteousness and thy just Judgment whereby thou hast condemned Man who was born of Bloods and by the will of Man in the Concupiscente and of the Flesh of Sin as he hath made himself uncapable of thine Inheritance For loe in Iniquities aforesaid I was conceived and in Sins hath my Mother conceived me although under a lawful Marriage Bed Therefore I confess that besides the primitive scope of the Creator an Adamical Generation hath arisen into natural Death and is devolved into original Sin The Woman therefore as she hath conceived after a bruital manner she also began to bring forth in Pain The Male also in the Law was only circumcised as for a mystery of the deflowring of Eve Yet both Sexes ought to expiate the Offence committed in their privy Parts to wit whereby they had offended which thing although it be chastly insinuated in the Text Yet that was covered before Israel who were otherwise most ready for all Perfidiousness to wit that Godmight not seem a contemner of Matrimony instituted after the Fall The Woman therefore was not circumcised and yet she was saved but not the Pain of Child-birth or the Obedience of her Husband had expiated Original Sin in her For both a single young Virgin dying was saved as also a barren Wife Therefore from hence is manifested the mystery to wit that Eve so much as she could resisted the Insolencies of Adam and was by force deflowred in Paradise So that also our first Parents were Murderers of all their Posterity through Concupiscenc So also the eldest Son was a Brother-Killer For the fore-skin being taken away did of necessity cause a Brawniness of the Nut of the Yard whereby indeed he might be made a Partaker of the less Pleasure Concupiscence and Tickling whosoever should desire to be ascribed or registred among the Catalogue of the beloved People of God The Rabbins also confess That Circumcision was instituted by reason of unclean Virtues walking in a circuit The which I interpret that the diabolical and primitive Enticements of Concupiscence unto Mortality were not hid to the Hebrews and that at leastwise in an obscure sense the Sin arisen from thence was insinuated Also illegitimate Persons were in times past driven from the Temple and Heaven and those who should be born of an adulterous Conception because they did wholly shew forth an Adamical Generation but those who were born of a lawfull 〈…〉 Bed were as yet Impure until that the fore-skin being taken away they might seem to renounce the Concupiscence of the Flesh And in this respect they represented in a shadow also those that were to be renewed from far by the Spirit of God and the laver of Regeneration Moreover the very Word of Truth doth profesly confirm the Position 1 John 3. Except any one be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God B. Except any one be born again of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God C. That which is born of the Flesh is Flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit D. The Spirit breatheth where it listeth Thou hearest the Voice thereof but knowest not from whence it may come or whither it may go E. So is every Man who is born of the Spirit F. If I shall speak unto you of Earthly Things and ye believe not how shall ye believe if I tell you of Heavenly things G. None hath ascended into Heaven but he who descended from Heaven H. And as Moyses exalted the Serpent in the Wilderness So it behoves the Son of Man to be exaltâ—d Christ Jesus descending from Heaven took not on him the Flesh of Sin by Adamical Generation or by the will of Man but he receiving the form of a Servant was made into the Likeness of the Sons of Adam being found in Habit as a Man Yet being Adamical was a true Man such as Adam was being newly created But he being made into the similitude of an Adamical Man emptied or humbled himself taking on him the form of a Servant But he was not made a Servant or Impure But in this glad tydings he denieth the Vision of God or the sight of the Kingdom of God and in b. an entrance into the Kingdom of God For not that the Glory which makes blessed may be seen without entring into Heaven or the same thing is twice spoken in vain or that a. doth require another new birth than b. but a. contains a denyal of participating of the Heavens for the Souls of the Dead before the Resurrection
seeing the essences of things and their vital Spirits know not how to putrifie by the dissolution of the inferiour harmony they spring up as surviving afresh For from thence it is that every occult property the compact of their bodies being by fore-going digestions which we call putrefactions now dissolved comes forth free to hand dispatched and manifest for action Therefore when a Wound through the entrance of air hath admitted of an adverse quality from whence the blood forthwith swells with heat or rage in its lips and otherwise becomes mattery it happens that the blood in the Wound freshly made by reason of the said forreign quality doth now enter into the Beginnings of some kind of corruption which blood being also then received on the Weapon or Splinter thereof is besmeared with the Magnetick Unguent the which entrance of corruption mediating the ecstatical power lurking potentially in the blood is brought forth into action which power because it is an exiled returner unto its own body by reason of the hidden extasie hence that blood bears an individual respect unto the blood of its whole body Then indeed the Magnet or attractive faculty is busied in operating in the Unguent and through the mediation of the ecstatical power for so I call it for want of an Etymologie sucks out the hurtful quality from the lips of the Wound and at length through the Mumial Balsamical and attractive virtue attained in the Unguent the Magnetism is perfected Loe thou hast now the positive reason of the Natural Magnetism in the Unguent drawn from Natural Magick whereunto the light of Truth assents saying Where the Treasure is there is the Heart also For if the Treasure be in Heaven then the Heart that is the Spirit of the Internal Man is in God who is the Paradise who alone is Eternal Life But if the treasure be fixed or laid up in frail or mortal things then also the Heart and Spirit of the more external Man is in Fading things Neither is there any cause of bringing in a Mystical sense by taking not the Spirit but the Cogitation and naked Desire for the Heart for that would contain a frivolous thing that wheresoever a Man should place his Treasure in his Thought or Cogitation there his Cogitation would be Also Truth it self doth not interpret the present Text Mystically and also by an Example adjoyned shews a local and real presence of the Eagles with the dead Carcase So also that the Spirit of the Inward Man is locally in the kingdom of God in us which is God himself and that the Heart or Spirit of the animal or outward sensitive man is locally about its Treasure What wonder is it that the astral Spirits of carnal or animal men should as yet after their funerals shew themselves as in a bravery wandring about their buried Treasure whereunto the whole Necromancy or art of Divination by the calling of Spirits of the Antients hath enslaved it self I say therefore that the external Man is an Animal or living creature making use of the reason and will of the Blood But in the mean time not baâ—ely an Animal but moreover the Image of God Logicians therefore may see how defectively they define a man from the power of rational discourse But of these things more elsewhere I will therefore adjoyn the Magnetism of Eagles to Carcases for neither are flying Fowls endowed with such an acute smelling that they can with a mutual consent go from Italy into Affrica unto Carcases For neither is an odour so largely and widely spread for the ample latitude of the interposed Sea hinders it and also a certain Elementary property of consuming it Nor is there any ground that thou shouldest think these Birds do perceive the dead Carcases at so far a distance with their sight especially if those Birds shall lye Southwards behind a Mountain But what need is there to enforce the Magnetism of Fowl by many Arguments since God himself who is the beginning and end of Phylosophy doth expresly determine the same process to be of the Heart and Treasure with these Birds and the Carcase and so interchangeably between these and them For if the Eagles were led to their food the Carcases with the same appetite whereby four-sooted Beasts are brought on to their pastures certainly he had said in one word That living Creatures flock to their Food even as the Heart of a Man to his Treasure which would contain a falshood For neither doth the Heart of Man proceed unto its Treasure that he may be filled therewith as living Creatures do to their Meat And therefore the Comparison of the Heart of Man and of the Eagle lyes not in the end for which they tend or incline to a desire but in the manner of tendency namely that they are allured and carried on by Magnetism really and locally Therefore the Spirit and will of the Blood fetch'd out of the Wound having intruded it self into the Oyntment by the Weapons being anointed therewith do tend towards their Treasure that is the rest of the Blood as yet enjoying the Life of the more inward Man But he saith by a peculiar Testimony that the Eagle is drawn to the Carcass Because she is called thereunto by an implanted and Mumial Spirit of the Carcass but not by the odour of the putrifying Body For indeed that Animal in assimilating appropriates to himself onely this Mumial Spirit For from hence it is said of the Eagle in a peculiar manner My youth shall be renewed as the Eagle For truly the renewing of her youth proceeds from an essential extraction of the Mumial Spirit being well refined by a certain singular digestion proper to that Fowl and not from a bare eating of the flesh of the Carcases otherwise Dogs also and Pies would be renewed which is false Thou wilt say that it is a reason far fetcht in behalf of Magnetism But what wilt thou then infer hereupon If that which thou confessest to be far remote for thy capacity of understanding that shall also with thee be accounted to be fetcht from far Truly the Book of Genesis avoucheth That in the blood of all living Creatures doth their Soul exist For there are in the blood certain vital powers the which as if they were soulified or enlivened do demand revenge from Heaven yea and judicial punishment from earthly Judges on the Murderer which powers seeing they cannot be denyed to inhabit naturally in the blood I see not why they can reject the Magnetism of the blood as accounting it among the ridiculous works of Satan This I will say more to wit that those who walk in their sleep do by no other guide than the Spirit of the blood that is of the outward man walk up and down perform business climbe Walls and mannage things that are otherwise impossible to those that are awake I say by a Magical virtue natural to the more outward man That Saint Ambrose although he were far distant
was presently cold they thought that those in-blown Spirits were the beginning Center and primitive sunny point and that of heat not regarding that the Spirits themselves are of themselves cold and that their heat doth perish in an instant as soon as they are snatcht away from the beam and aid of the heart A very great wonder it is that it hath been hitherto unknown and undetermined unto what heats the whole Tragedy of things vital and not vital is ascribed Whether of the two may prevail over the other in the original and support of heat For seeing neither the heart nor vital spirit of the same are from their own nature and substance originally hot for this cause it hath not been so much as once thought from whence our heat comes or from what original it is in every one of us For seeing the knowledge of ones self is the chief of Sciences as well in Moral as Natural things the Schools ought never to have been ashamed to have enquired into the Fountain of Heat and Life in things How great darkness hath from thence remained in Healing and in preserving of the Life God hath known This controversie therefore I have discussed with my self from my youth after this manner First I knew that fire even as in the Chapter of Forms was not an Accident nor a Substance and much less an Element The which I have elsewhere demonstrated with a full sail of Phylosophy And then that the Sun was hot from a proper endowment and that the fire of the Kitchin was likewise given although for the workman and a death subjected to the hands of Artificers But when as both of them forsake us that we have a Flint and a Steel from whence we make a fire To wit we strike fire out of two cold or dead things So also the waters of hot Baths under the earth are enflamed by Salt and Sulphur which are volatile things and that the arterial blood is partly Salt and partly fat and Sulphurous Then in the next place that there ought to be a smiting of Pulses together not indeed for a cooling refreshment as the Schools do otherwise dream but indeed that as butter is made of Milk by charming or shaking of it together So a vital Sulphur of the arterial Blood The which afterwards by a smiting of the same endeavour conceives a Light in the volatile Spirit and a formal or vital Light is propagated as it were Light being taken from Light To wit the salt Spirits and Sulphur of the arterial Blood do by the Pulse rub themselves together in the Sheath of the Heart and a formal Light together with Heat is kindled in the vital Spirit from the Light I say of the most inward and implanted sunny Spirit in which is the Tabernacle of the specifical Sun even unto the Worlds end In this Sun of Man the Aimighty hath placed his Tabernacle and his delights his Kingdom together with all his free gifts But the Light which is conceived by smiting together is not indeed made a new as from a Flint and Iron but it is propagated by the obtainment of matter from the sunny specifical and humane Light or is kindled and enlarged by it It is there indeed universal and vital consisting in the points of a tempered Light and it is in Nature indeed specifical in respect of its production and limited for the Life of Man but it is every way made individual by him who hath placed his vital Tabernacle in the Sun of the Species Out of which Tabernacle he thereby enlightneth every Man that cometh into this World Because the Lord Jesus is after an incomprehensible manner the Light Life Beginning Way Truth and the All of all Things For as the Life cannot subsist for a moment without the lightsome Spirit by which it is enlightned and soulified in the habitation of the Sun So neither can the Soul nor Life in any wise subsist for one only moment without the Grace of the same eternal Light But I have conceived of the quality and intension of Heat resulting from the Light as a whole humane Body weighing perhaps 200 Pounds is hot with an actual warmth and the which without that Light of Life should presently be cold and be a dead Carcass There is therefore so much Heat in the Heart as is sufficient for diffusing warmth through so many Pounds of Water otherwise cold The Life therefore of Species as it consisteth in a simple and ununited Light containes a mystery of divine providence For a fiery Light however by reason of distance it be mitigated and reduced into a nourishing luke-warmth Yet naturally it cannot stop as that it cannot conspire for the top of a connexed Light and so contend for its own ruine or destruction Therefore the Father and dispenser of Lights hath provided who sitting in the Tabernacle of the Sun hath constrained or tied up Lights by Species or particular kindes and bolts Here it is sufficient to have shewn that they are the Reliques and plainly the Blasphemies of Paganish Errour to have said A Man and the Sun doth generate a Man Seeing Life belongs not to the Sun but the Fewels Excitements of sublunary Actions alone as also the necessary supplies readily serviceable to the Life CHAP. CXIV The nourishing of an Infant for Long Life IT is already manifest that Life is not from the Stars but that from a seminary Faculty of the Parents Life is short Diseasie Healthy and Growing For it is limited according to the Disposition of the Seed and Truncks of the Body no less also according to the goodness of Nourishments and Climates Among the Impediments of Long Life is an infirm Constitution of the Young and a bad nourishing of the Infant The Young therefore being generated and brought forth the quantity and quality of the Nourishment is to be regarded seeing its little Body ought to be nourished and to wax great and so to be setled or confirmed And it is now chiefly known that the nourishable Juice in a Child is adopted into the Inheritance of the radical Moisture For Nature hath appointed Milk in the Dugs for the Meat and Drink of the little Infant which Nourishment hath rendred it self common unto him with Bruit-beasts It might be thought by some that it would be injurious unto God if we should think of any other Nourishment as if he had not alwayes chosen out of Means that which should be most exceeding good But surely shall not the God of Nature be a Step-father and Nature her self a Step-mother because he made not Bread not Wine but Grain and Grapes only Nature is governed by the Finger of God It is thus Milk therefore as an ordinary Nourishment hath afforded a sufficiency for living but not that it should be serviceable for long Life For Nature no longer meditated of long Life after that she knew her Author had cut short the Life nor would have every one to be long lived But he
that which was for coagulating of Aqua vitae 2. That in coagulating it had separated the sluggish and watery part which swum upon the aforesaid white lump perhaps no otherwise than as in coagulation of Duelech from the rest of the body of the urine and so that it perfected its coagulation in the middle of the waters 3. That the curdy Runnet or spirit of Urine had undissolveably knit it self to the spirit of Wine 4. That it is not a perpetual truth the which notwithstanding the Schooles hand forth instead of a Chymicall Maxime that every sharp coagulating Body did by the same endeavour dissolve its own Compeere 5. That the spirit of Urine had not coagulated it self in the Glass according to the powder of a beaten Duelech but onely that it had mingled and coagulated it self together with another thing namely with the spirit of Wine 6. That if therefore it had met with an earthly spirit it had also contracted wedlock with the same so as that of both spirits it had made a stony Body 7. I likewise learned after what manner the spirit of urine might coagulate another spirit within the urine 8. That such an association is not a certain naked co-mixture of parts but an undissolvable wedlock of unity a certain substantial transmutation a production of a new Being by an Agent and a Patient into a neither Body This experiment gave me an entrance for a diligent search into the Disease of the Stone Yet I as yet remained wandring about For after giving of thanks I transferr'd my self into a meditation how many ways a thing might be condensed or coagulated in the Universe For Ice first presently offered it self unto me wherein the water incrusts it self for fear of cold and from a primitive action but is not actively congealed by cold Even as elsewhere concerning the Elements But other Bodies which are believed to be mixt as they bewray themselves to be the true Fruits of water by the same Zeal and Tenour are they congealed by cold occasionally For so Bones and a Sword are more easily broken in time of cold Seasons than in time of heat or Summer 2. Any kind of Salts according to their Species and inbred property while their brine being not sufficientts dryed up is left in the cold are separated from their water and become corny 3. If Salts shall subdue any thing by gnawing it they pass over from their native condition into a neither Body and are coagulated For so the Tartar of Wine Sope Borace c. are coagulated 4. And then Muscilages being thickned by the wedlock of their seeds and resolved from their own Body become Glews Gums Solder c. 5. But if a muscilage or slimy juyce carries a co-mixed fat with it it is coagulated in both respects So are Aloes a Chibal Pitch Rosin Gum Ammoniacum Frankinsence Myrrh Mastich the Gum Opopanax Sarcocolla Assa Elemi c. 6. Earth converting into a salt or muscilage if it be dryed is condensed and waxeth hard 7. A mineral Salt that was bred in the earth by burning stonifies into stones shells or sheards and earthen Pots 8. The which if they are urged by a stronger degree of heat they at length vitrifie or become Glass 9. The watery Leffas or planty juyce of the Earth by vertue of the seeds is hatdened into Woods Herbs c. 10. So Water by vertue of a seed is made a rocky stone 11. A muscilage being joyned to a powder or dust makes sand-stones but with dust and lime it now dissembles divers Marbles 12. Whatsoever lime dissolved comprehends or encloseth in it self that thing coagulates with it Because there are in Lime two salts the one a lixivial Alcali salt and the other an acide or sharp one which two salts while they demolish each other are coagulated together 13. Mettals Fire-stones Sulphurs etc. do by vertue of their seeds obtain their own and proper coagulations 14. Also most things through an inbred Glew do voluntarily grow together which afterwards by drying do harden As Blood Cheese the white of an Egg Varnish c. 15. Glass is an earthen stone consisting of an Alcali salt The which while being fired it is dissolved makes the sand or powder of stone that is not calcinable nor otherwise capable of powring abroad to melt by corroding and so they are both together turned into a transparent lump Therefore the Lime-stone or rocky stone by reason of its sharp salt is unfit for Glass because the lime thereof destroyes the Glassifying Alcali and there is made a certain neutral thick or dark Body Lime therefore against the will of Galen very much differs from ashes To wit because this separates the Lixivium or lye from it self but the other containes a sharpnesse that is not separable from the whole Whereby it being at length burnt by too much fire is Glassified throughout its Lixivial part being unfit for Building According to Geber Because all fixed Bodies are at length Glassified with Glassifying things Cheese also as it is curdled by moderate sharpnesse so it is resolved with an eminent sharpness For the pating of Cheese dissolves with dry Calx vive or quick-Lime but not with the Alcali or Lixivial salt of Ashes From all the aforesaid particulars I have collected that the coagulation of Duelech is singular and irregular Lime also doth by degrees stonifie in the middle of the waters as its aforesaid salts do coagulate each other But the body of Man as it doth not coagulate a rocky stone so neither doth it endure a Calx or Lime-stone in the Bladder For indeed that admirable Coagulum or Runnet alwayes stuck before mine eyes whereby more swiftly than in the twinkling of an Eye the spirit of urine had condensed the spirit of Wine into a lump Therefore I discerned that all other Coagulations had nothing common with Duelech Wherefore I determined to examine Spirits Therefore first I distilled Horse-pisse But surely the spirit thereof wanted that Runnet Wherefore I noted with the highest admiration the singularity of mans Urine Afterwards I observed that the spirit of Sulphurs or of Salts being sharp would with an Alcalized body be made earthly For so with Iron is made drosse rust a cankered rust Ceruss c. And these Paracelsus rashly judgeth to be Tartars or the separated impurities of things over-covered with their own and that an inward Runnet when as otherwise they are nothing else but the astonishment of two mutual Agents to wit when both their strengths are spent Afterwards I long examined Salts throughout every of their Analysis or Re-solution and I discerned that the spirits of all salts were sharp except Alcalized ones and those of essential Sulphurs in Vegetables Whose saltish tartnesses indeed are fat and sulphurous neither readily reducible into a salt unlesse by a tedious inversion or turning in and out of the principles which salts being then as it were elixirated do represent the true and highest Crasis or constitutive
temperature of the seeds of their composed Bodies But the spirit of mans urine is neither sharp nor Alcalized but meerly salt even as also that of Horses is And that for this cause because the Volatile sharp matter of the Chyle of the stomach is by vertue of another ferment transchanged into a Volatile salt Even as elsewhere concerning the digestions of Animals I here give thee to observe by the way that in things transchanged there is not an immediate regresse or return unto that from whence they were transchanged no more than from a privation to a habit For that in transchanging the last life of the thing perisheth because the whole disposition of the middle life of the former Being is at once taken away by reason of the extinguishment of its former seed For therefore things transchanged do keep the essence of a new Being with a neglect of their former composed Body Therefore have I found any Remedy whatsoever unprofitable which I otherwise had believed to be very likely a dissolver of the Stone from its former composed Body Yet that is a truth that the spirit of Urine in the fundamental point of its nativity is salt and that by reason of that salt it doth more readily coagulate other Spirits than any sour or sharp spirit doth Milk Neverthelesse the spirit of urine doth not coagulate milk or the venal Blood Because the spirit of the venal blood yea and our vital Spirit is salt after the manner of Urines From hence indeed the spirit of the urine hath it self after the manner of an excrementitious spirit cut off from the blood and so by reason of a co-resemblance it is its Chamber-fellow neither do they act on each other And then also I observed that the spirit of Urine doth not more strongly coagulate those things which were already before coagulated For Bole Clay or the rocky or Chalk-stone do by degrees degenerate by the spirit of urine into a nitrous Salt and are rather dissolved Since therefore the spirit of Urine doth not coagulate Bodies already coagulated such as are Bole Clay c. As neither Bodies coagulable such as are Milk and the venal blood but it coagulates the spirit of Wine or the like thing which is entertained with it in the urine for as was shewn above after the fermenting of urine that urine containes also a spirit of Wine or Aqua vitae I desisted not seriously to enquire after what manner the stone is coagulated in us and in our urine 1. First of all it is an undoubted truth that Duelech is not of a calcinous or limy condition however Paracelsus may be carried on the contrary 1. Because a calcining degree of heat is wanting in us 2. And then because every Alcali is rather that which is destructive to a rocky stone than a Coagulater thereof 3. Because a Calx or Lime presupposeth a Chalky-stone and therefore Duelech should be calcined before it were a stone 4. From the composing parts of Duelech it shall by and by be made manifest that it is not possible for Lime to be in it yea nor that Duelech himself is calcined or doth send forth a Lixivium or Lye Likewise neither is Duelech of the nature of a gowty Chalk because he growes together in the midst of the urine but that Chalk is coagulated from the Sunovia But the Sunovie is a living seedy muscilage which degenerated in the journey of nourishment and from a transparent and Crystaline matter hath passed over into a thick white and slimy matter as of Gouty persons elsewhere from a matter without savour I say it is transplanted into a sharp one though the tartnesse whereof indeed it hath attained a thickness or grossness For then also it is unfit for a total diflation or transpirative dispersing of it self To wit whereby the nourishable Liquor is wholly consumed without any remainder But the Sunovie being once infected with a tartness its watery parts are pufft away but the gross remainder waxeth dry by degrees into the utmost dryth and hardnesse of a Sand-stone But Duelech attaines to the utmost hardness of it self in one onely instant of time The Gouty Chalk therefore differs from Duelech in its whole matter and efficient cause For therefore such a Chalk is hardned out of the water because indeed by drying Neither for that cause doth it imitate the hardness of a rocky stone but onely of a sandy stone I have spoken these things to that end that it may be manifested that Duelech differs from any other coaguted Bodies whatsoever in its different kind of Agent and matter And seeing notwithstanding I as yet knew not the manner or process of the birth of Duelech but I knew in the mean time that Bodies do nor receive the limitation of their hardning but by the actions appointments and properties of their own seeds Lastly Since I knew that whatsoever things do act corporally are altogether sluggish slow and idle as for the coagulation of Duelech therefore I enquired into fermental savours and Odours as the Authors of many seeds Therefore I found the savours and actions of Salts to be indeed famous ones but not any thing reaching the vertue of the salt of Urine And then also I beheld the more weak or feeble Salts which might follow the Race of Sulphurs But Mercury although it alone according to Paracelsus did contain the whole perfection of the thing yet I found it to be slow and feeble For as oft as I distinguished Salts and Sulphurs from their Mercuries I admired at their sluggishnesse and indeed at the dignities of these two Principles Wherefore I stuck in Salts for the searching out of the nativity of Duelech I confess indeed that Mercury being a flowing mettal in its nature and properties is never sufficiently known But that body hath deceived Paracelsus through a similitude of proportion he thinking because his Device had pleased him because he had endowed the watery matter of things with the name of Mercury that therefore the properties of Quick-silver and its natures without a peere being never to be sufficiently searcht into did agree as suitable to all Liquors which may be drawn out of Simples For all the Philosophers of former Ages confess that nothing in the Universe is not so much as by far to be likened to Argent Vive Yet it hath not been hitherto sufficiently unfolded that Argent-Vive or Quick-silver is a Simple actually existing body but not a constitutive part of things And so that there hath been nothing but a meer abusive passing over of a Name For this cause I as yet perswaded my self that seeing a non-Duelech was made of Duelech that ought to be done by the action of an Agent on a disposed matter And although I knew these and many the like things yet I discerned that I therefore knew nothing the more Wherefore I as yet more detested a wording or discursive Philosophy because it was that which stayed me before the Threshold of Nature
the last sink of the urine it is also more and more burdened with its own uriny ferment and Duelech receives an increase almost at every moment and is by degrees confirmed into bigger grains For I did argue if a vein even after death preserves the blood from curdling contrary to corruption it should not be unmeet for a certain preservation from a stonie coagulation likewise to exist in the wombs or veins of the urine but that this preservation is very strongly trampled upon by a vitious ferment of the neighboring-kidney The which when it hath once seriously happened so as that the veins have but a little departed from their native goodness it befalls these as to any kind of impure vessels and those molested with a neighbouring stinking or strong smelling ferment whereunto something of the residing impure contagion doth stubbornly adheres for such is the continued succession of relapses in those that have the stone in the reins that all the dreggy filth adhering unto them is not fully wiped off and that there is the same neighbour character of the bad disposition which forged the former calamities After the same manner whereby a hen carries mature eggs and those less mature and others like grains in her loynes which are the pledges of a birth successively to follow for some moneths This indeed hath been the necessity whereby those that have the stone in the Reins do for the most part obey the importunities of a Meteour do also presage future tempests and the pains of these do ascend from the loynes into the back Because while somewhat more of those filths is now affixed to those veins or wombs they are grieved and contracted at least on that side whereon they are molested or on both fides throughout their loynes in a like manner Under which contracture and wrinkled frizling of the veins a pricking lancing and as it were renting pain ariseth And the more gross atomes which were collected in the sucking veins fall down in that frizling unto the kidneys a lump in the mean time remaining for a pledge being as it were the seminary or seed-plot of the next fit even untill the mature ripeness of its age In which painful convulsion of the veins the liquor latex doth at length speedily run from far out of the veins unto the kidneys for help or is drawn thither and being obedient flowes thereunto from whence there is a disturbed urine But what that latex is which seeing it is not urine yet it is mixed herewith hath been largely enough declared by me in its own Treatise But after that the small pieces of sand and stones are cast forth and the pain ceaseth because the contracture of the veins ceaseth That cruel pain therefore of the diseased with the stone of the kidney ariseth from the contracture or drawing together of the veins but not from the passage of the Bolus or sand For oft-times a great stone is afterwards less painful which at first being but of a small bigness was exceeding painful not indeed that the Ureter is become larger than it self was even as the Schools otherwise think but the convulsion was greater while the malady was unaccustomed For otherwise if the Urine-pipe should undergo so great a largenesse they contradict themselves while Diuretick Medicines forbid the straightness of the Vessels And then I have further considered that about the beginning the urine is voyded clear watery and abundantly For since the urine is tinged by the dross or liquid dung but since that dross is not drawn forth but nigh the end of the Gut Ileos and night to the fewel of the Ferment of the dung From thence it comes to pass that that dross is not allured from so far a distance under the confusion of the fit at hand for that the Family-administration of that Kitchin is confusedly troubled and interrupted Because the stomach together with the whole Abdomen or neather-belly is disturbed and in a guess or fear fore-feeles the storme at hand no lesse than it co-suffers with the same and undergoes it being present For it seems to fore-feel the sand not yet seen but surely it is then present in its own womb and while it is fore-felt from that very time the beginning of that contracture is present The Archeus therefore being willing to wash off the enemy and excuse the fit at hand calls to him from on every side all the Latex and sends it down to rince the Kidneys Therefore the veines are contracted in the stony Reines and the Bowels consent and therefore by reason of their consent they dissemble the pain of the Colick For which cause the pain of the stone in the Kidney is not yet sufficiently distinguished by the Schooles Neither is it a wonder that at the convulsion of the veines the Bowels themselves are also convulsed or pull'd together seeing contractures of the Joynts by reason of the near affinity of consent do follow as well the cruel paines of the Colick as those of the stone in the Kidneys Far therefore do the Schooles wander from the Truth as that the dross is drawn or sent for the framing of the stone but rather the tincture thereof comes upon the urine by accident while the Spirit the Coagulater uncloathes his power on the volatile earth Because other things being agreeable the stone that is tinged is alwayes more brickle than pale ones And that thing clearly argues that the tincture of the urine if it could would totally hinder the composition of Duelech And therefore those that have the Jaundice although they are otherwise subject to the stone yet in time of the Jaundise they are scarce seen to be stony For therefore in time of the generation of the affect of the stone the urine at the first conception of sands waxeth yellow and looks pale about the beginning of the fit Because then it is as yet Latex and not yet meet urine Therefore I have certainly known that if all the sand which is voyded should be made onely in the bosome of the Kidney the pain would be greater while it is voyded than while the sand doth not yet appear The which notwithstanding contradicteth experience Moreover because the sand being once bred the urine is troubled more than it was wont and becomes thicker seeing otherwise a troubled confusion perswades that it containes more of a pouderish matter for in a more gross consistence there is more pouder than in that urine which is at first clear and watery That plainly convinceth that the womb of the affect of the stone is already filled up neither that it can entertain that more gross balast Therefore the variety of the Womb being unknown hath neglected not onely the curing of the stone in the Reines but hath also introduced interchangeable alterations of its causes and curing Indeed it is one thing for the sand floating from the Kidney to be thrust down by a succeeding drop of the urine and a far different thing to shake
me sleeping for the most High created the Physitian as also medicine out of the earth I have therefore deemed the truth of medicine and knowledge of a Physitian to have hid it self in the stable Foundation of Nature and the more hidden Sepulchre from the unworthy and defiled beholding of Mortals and to have forsaken our commerces and to have overwhelmed it self in many labyrinths and perplexities so that by reason of the smallness of light which is social unto us by nature truth remains covered over with darkness and hedged about with difficulties And the worst thing which here at length offers it self is that this Grave of Truth is kept not by a good Genius or Spirit but by the unhappy Birds of the Night therefore the spirits of darkness are to be supplanted But whosoever he be who strives the less to applaud those keepers he presently experienceth the violent power or tyrannical rule of those who under the shew of piety and quietness keep these Kingdomes of Pluto as their own But seeing they themselves come not into the light of truth they also suffer not others to enter unless they prostrate themselves as humble unto them For any other person is straightway encompassed by the powers of darkness the Enemies of the first Truth who under the pretence of godliness challenge the Legacies of their own Sepulchres to themselves because they boast that the Kingdome of Truth is in their possession And therefore that the command of Learning Sciences and the powers of great men are assigned to them For these being neither Birds nor Mice have obtained a middle and hermaphroditical kind and they go as it is in the 20th of Luke They pierce the houses and possessions of Widows they lead away after them poor silly women laden with sins c. Surely every such business walketh in darkness and all their endeavour is with a Noon-day Devil Truly I saw not a means of opening the Sepulchre of Truth but with long leisure but this thing hateful spirits even since the daies of Arias Montanus have not permitted to good men Wherefore that I might seasonably and with the profit of my Neighbour put that in frequent practise I decreed to withdraw my self from the vulgar sort and under the light throughly to knock the Vaults of Nature full of holes And least I should labour in vain I disposed of my glassen basins under the light that by a dumb sound I might discern the Vault of Nature underneath I endeavoured by the unwearied pains and charges of forty years to break the rocky stones asunder with the Axe Crook Fire and sharp liquor that light may flow in from heaven and that the Night-birds which presume to keep the Keys of Sciences and the narrow passage of Truth may vanish away or betake themselves unto a corner out of a Court-like conversation and the pursuances of courtesies or at least that they may no longer hereafter hinder mortals who are diligent searchers after truth For this mixt kind of Monster noyseth abroad that it is more excellent than all Birds because they begin not from an Egge after the custom of other Birds but do nurse up their Young with a longer sucking at the Breast and do cast those out of the Nest which they think are not sufficiently profitable unto them They boast I say that they are therefore the most quick-sighted of Birds in this respect because they also see most clearly under darkness Alas thus is our Age deceived by darkness But they feign and perswade the vulgar that Truth is in the shade within their own vaults who in the mean time being alwayes learning do never come unto the knowledge of Charity because they endure not the light that is perfectly learned by alone and naked Charity and therefore they alwayes weave to themselves the Wiles and webs of darkness Truly it was necessary for me to rent the bowels of the Earth and to break its Crown For truly Galen hath seemed to me to have entred into the Vaults with a slender Lamp who being presently affrighted stumbled in the entry and at first almost fell over the Threshold Therefore his Oyl being lavishly spent he returned to his own and told many things confusedly concerning the Sepulchres which he had not perceived nor known nor believed although he had seen them All from thenceforth boast rashly among their own people that they know many things who saluted not so much as the Threshold of Nature except at a far distance from the relation of Galen In the next place Avicen with his company although he became more cautious by the viewing of Galen yet he entred not much deeper but looking behind about and above him and being taken with giddiness his foot being dashed against a stone fell headlong down but returning he boasts in a Forraign Dialect that he had seen far more than his Predecessors The which when his followers understood and stuck to they chose a certain one of them for a Standard-Defender they all of them had rather fight for the glory of their sworn Prince than that they would themselves enter the passages as if the mind of man that is free being readily inclined like unto Clients had forsworn liberty Therefore none having afterwards endeavoured to enter and being content with the first Boasters they prefixed on their Centuries that themselves were to fight for the glory and Trophy of a matter not yet known but as many as came unto the entry being as it were factiously addicted unto the first Patron and insisting in the steps of Predecessors presently fell down together They dreamed that they were entred at leastwise they were deprived of light and help for removing the darkness of so great an heap Others also afterwards hastened toward the Vaults but they brought not the light with them they perceived their Oyl to be extinguished and snatcht away by the Enemies of the first Truth and humane health and Inhabitants of darkness At length Paracelsus having entred with a great Torch fastened a small cord to the wall about his first paces which he might follow as a Companion and Reducer of the wayes he aspiring to pierce whither the footsteps of mortals had not yet taken their journey The rout of Birds is presently amazed at so great a sight it thinks that Prometheus had entred it dares not nor was able to extinguish the Torch yet it secretly attempts to do it This man seeth very many Monuments he is long and freely enlarged he fills the entries with smoak and while he is intentive as a greedy devourer of truth his strength fails his Torch falls his light is extinguished in the middle of his course and he is as it were choaked with fumes I a poor miserable man have at length entred with the least light of a Lanthorn and that nothing might hinder and that nothing might detain my hand from the work I indeed refused a Rope and hung my Lanthorn at my girdle but
word Let seeds be brought forth To wit by a fore deduced imagination as well of plants as of animals Nature therefore in following the power infused into her brings forth every seed by the image of a certain conception There is indeed as well in living creatures as in plants yea and in minerals themselves every one their own imagination after their own improper manner yet on both sides the productresse of the fruitfullnesse of seeds as well for a natural Being as for that of super-incidents and monstrous ones Because the imagination frames an image of the thing conceived which by its gifts given it of God it converts into a Mean which is called a seed To wit without which image every seed is only an empty husk No otherwise than as the blossom of a pippin not having a promised pippin behind it is a vain braggery That image and seminal one even as it bears in it self a perfect similitude of its own image to be conceived so also a free and uncorrupted knowledg of things to be done by it self under the race of generation Yet this is remarkeable in generations that as a woman with Child doth not operate the wonders proposed unlesse she be sore smitten with perturbations and the flint be struck against the steel so the seeds of living creatures cease to be fruitful unlesse a disturbance of â—ust be conjoyned making the soul to descend into the seed that it may enlighten that seed Wherefore herbs languish presently after their product the scope of their imagination or property being compleated But minerals because they are not ordained to stir up a race out of their own bodies by so much also they have the ends of their own imagination far more obscure Since therefore all generation presupposeth an image according to which it executes its own dispositions Hence it cannot come to passe that an imagination of terrour should generate an Idea of love nor that a phantasy of fear from an enemy should produce a phantâ—sie of terrour from the plague Also places infected with the Pest are not undeservedly to be avoided and not only by reason of the air being already viâ—iated and defiled but also that objects may be avoyded which conduce unto the imagination of terrour Now the shoare whither we fâ—â—l appears afar of and after what sort terrour may be the Father of the plague It alâ—o happens that children do most speedily imagine and are disturbed yet their perturbations do not carry seeds in their images or cause the plague unto themselves by terror For it is with these even so as with a young musitian who in his first lessons doth not transmit his cogitation conceived unto his fingers but with difficulty But after that he is skilful in his art and fingers are now accustomed unto the images of tunes and motions they undoubtfully perform the command of the phantasie and perfectly sound out the whole hymn although now and then through an attentive discourse he shall divert his minde from the musick For neither do his fingers cease to proceed unto the end of the well apprehended song CHAP. XI Things requisite for the Idea of an imagined Plague EXperience hath oft-times caused a belief that some one hath prepared the absent Plague in himself and his through terrour alone which truth sheweth that the image of the phantasie doth from the incorporeal essence of its own nakednesse and simplicity of cogitation cloath it self by little and little and put on the Spirit of Life and leaves therein it s own seminal product a Being surely most ready for great and terrible enterprizes But moreover that it is not yet sufficient for the execution of its appointment for it is found that the Image arriving at the Bowels doth neverthelesse oft-times wax feeble Therefore I have declared that in a Woman great with Child the hand is moreover required it being the Instrument of Instruments as an external Instrument and sign of the determined member whereon the Image is to be engraven For the Soul alwayes useth meanes upon which the Image is carried for Being and Operation But I therefore ought to delineaâ—e after what manner the Soul after the example of a Musitian dismisseth the operative Images of its own conceptions unto the hand but in no wise unto the foot and after what sort through custom that presently transmitteth its Images which otherwise besides custom would most troublesomly reach thither Wherefore it is to be noted that if the Woman with Child shall be right-handed and yet shall under the onset of disturbance touch some one of her members with her left-hand nothing will be marked upon her Young thereby Whence it appeareth that that hand which is the common ordinary and daily executress of cogitations is also the Directtress of Images unto places and operations Therefore a man doth not operate alike strongly by imagination as doth a Woman nor any other Woman alike strongly as doth a Woman with Child neither also doth every terrour generate the Plague For the affrightment by a Wolf Snake or mad Dog doth not produce in us the operative Images of a Wolfe or Snake yea nor indeed where the Wolfe is visibly present even as notwithstanding the Plague is bred in us by an Image of terrour A doubt therefore subsisteth whether an affrightful imagination of the Soul from the Plague or the Image thereof be a sufficient and suitable cause of the Plague First of all it is seriously to be heeded that the imagination is sufficient of it self for to operate unlesse other things beside do concur For first of all wholly in ordinary and accustomed works proceeding from a deliberation of the elective Soul the will must needs be present For a Baker shall vainly and that intentively imagine many things about making of Bread unlesse his will shall move his hand not indeed to some member but unto the Dough. I in like manner writing of the Plague without terour in a full will and conceipt of the thinking Soul do meditate many things concerning the Plague Yet I do not therefore contract this Plague to my self No man also unlesse happily he be foolishly desâ—eraâ—e intends a generating of the Pestilence in the consent of his will An unfolded will therefore is required in a daily and natural course of operative actions wherein the will draws forth conceived Images in deliberating for the execution of the work But there is in no wise required a consent of the will for the generation of a Being or the transmutation of one Being into another For truly every transmutation although it be monstrous yet it attempts the priviledges of a true Generation Since there is a re-ideaing in the Archeus from the Victory of the new Image translated upon the seminal one which was first conceived in the Archeus Therefore the consideration of transmutation doth not consider a consent of the will Again neither a naked imagination or production of an Image nor a touch of the hands do
Of the power of witches 779. 86 Of the nature and extent thereof 780 How a witch may be bound up in the heart of a horse 782 109 110 Witchcraft Simpathy and Magnetism do differ 759. 1 VVomen why monthly purged 405 24 VVomen are subject to double disieases 609 358. 17 VVomen consume not so much Blood as men 740 Yet they make more Ibid. VVhy they have so many conceits when with child 306 50 VVomb its overslowings cured by odorus ointments 114. 17 Remedy for a woman in travel 306. 46 VVomb a peculiar monarchy 575 A Twofold monarchy of a woman 609. 15 VVomb governs its self Ibid. 334. 43 VVomb brings forth an alterative Blas Ibid. Disseases of the womb differ from products 610. 19 The progresse of the wombs defects 612. 358 Its cure 612. 325 48 Sugar stirs up the sleeping fury of the womb 612 Wherein the fruitfulness of the womb consists 630 Where the womb of the urine beginneth 209 23 Womb warreth under its own banners 306. 52 Of the force of Imagination in women with Child 1117. 1118 The monarchy of the womb distingisheth a woman from a man 335. 48 In words herbs and stones there is great vertue 575 Silk-worms figure out a shadow of the Resurrection 684. 94 VVounds asswaged by odours c. 114 17 Hurt by the Moon-beams 141. 55 Z. ZEnexton against the plague 1144 Of the uselessness of some Zenextons 1145 Pretious stones not true Zenextons 1146 Amber a Zenexton and how so made Ibid. The qualities a Zenexton ought to have 1148 1149. Toad a Zenexton Ibid How the Toad is prepared for a Zenexton 1150 VVhy he is a true Zenexton 1152 A Poetical Soliloquie of the Translatour Harmonizing and Sympathizing with the Author's Genius WHen first my Friend did ask me to translate Van Helmonts Works wrapt up in hidden state Of Roman dialect that 't was a Book Of Med'cine and Phylosophy I took It in good part enough and did not doubt But to perform what I should set about By Gods asistance for I willing stood Much pains to take about a publick good I forth with entred on it and did see More than my friend thereof could tel to me For why since something was begot within My inward parts which loved truth but sin And selfish errour hated I began To feel and love the spirit of the man Whom I perceived like a gratious Son To build his knowledg on the Corner Stone And out of self to sink in humble wise As his Confession in me testifies The light of understanding was his guide From heath'nish Books and Authors he did slide And cast them of that so he might be free Singly to stand O Lord and wait on thee And in the pray'r of silence on thee call Because he knew thee to be All in All. And thou didst teach him that which will conduce To th' profit of his Neighbour be of use Both unto soul and body as inclin'd To read with lowly and impartial mind But as for lofty and and self-seeking ones Thou scatter wilt their wisdom wealth and bones Because thou art not honour'd in a lye Whether of Nature or Divinity But in the truth of knowledge of thy Life And of thy wondrous works which men of strife And alienated can no whit attain Till from the fall they do return again Helmont that thou returned'st I believe Thy testimony of it thou dost give When by the light thou saist entring thy dore Thou changed wast from what thou wert before And cause thou suffredst by a wicked sort For being good and once wast poyson'd for 't That 't was unjustly I am doubting past ' Cause th' Enemies conscience prickt him at the last And truely'n many places of thy Ream Words slow forth from thee like a silver stream And so that I at sundry times have found Sweet op'nings from the un'ty in the ground But did thy life in words alone consist Or art thou to be enrowl'd among the list Of Stoical Notionists which only spend Their time in contemplation and so end Their days or were good actions wrought by thee Which as the fruits discover do the tree Did shew that healing virtue forth did start From thy fire-furnace as love from thy hart If not how is it that thou dost us tel Thou ceased'st not Annually to heal Some Myriades or ten thousands yed Thy medicines were not diminished Or that thou wert so tender of the poor What if I say that bagd from door to door That thou retiredly didst live at home And cure them out of Charity not roâ—â— And gape for gain for visits as do most Physitians who unto rich houses post Floating about even as in a floud Of poysoned purged filths and venal blood And so the peoples wealth health life do soaâ— Through the sâ—ay viâ—ard of a Doctors cloak But Helmonts hand-pen asit plain appears Their false-paint coverings a funder tears In room whereof such Practicâ— Theory It doth insert that they as standers by Like Bibels Merchants will ven weâ—p and waâ—â— When they shall see their trade begin to fail And upright Artists held up by the â—an Of him who owns the good Samaritan Yet such School-Doctors shall not thus relent Whom Grace and goodnesse shall move to repent This is not utter'd out of spleen but pity Unto the sick in Country and in City No just cause given by these words to hate But to be owned by the Magistrate And I my self in former silly times Through School-tradition and Galenick lines Have wrong'd my body weaken'd my nature Clipping my vitals in their strength and Stature And though through Grace to soul and body to T' was turned to good yet that 's no thank to you Help Chymists help to pul their Babel down Builtby the pride of Academicks Gown Let Theophrastus Azoth Helmonts Lore Erect an Engine such as ne're before Hark Chymists hark attend Baptista's law He speaks to h's Sons as th' Lyon by the Paw And why as th' eye is opened to look May y' not discern Hercules by his foot Be it sufficient that he gives a tast Least pretious peat is he unto swine should east Be 't no dishonour to the Ghymick School That some mistakes thereof he doth controâ—â— Rather a praise unto the Masters eye Houshold disorders for to rectifie Strike Chymists strike strike fire out of your 〈◊〉 And force the fire unto the highest stint Of a Reverb'ratory such a heat As Galen back out of the field may beat And fetch th' Archeal Crasis Seminum To keep the field gainst a Rololleum Srrive not not by reason if you 'd win the day Pâ—ice your Athanar as he another way Aime not at lucre in what ye undertake Your motive love the spirit your guider make That day to day in you the Word may preach And night to night unto you knowledge teach That so Elias th' Artist if he come Ye as prepar'd may bid him welcome home And all well-wishers unto Science true Unto