a fat smoak is the matter of fire but the flame to be the form of fire and by that thought they feign it to be a composed Body after the manner of other things But as many absurdities as I have before repeated do hinder it therefore the Iron remaining Iron doth receive into it self true fire together with its form So the Air remaining Air receives fire in the Crest of the uniting Beams with its forms and all its properties But Iron retaining the antient form of Iron cannot at once be informed by the form of the fire if the form of the fire were any way substantial that is unless the form of fire can leave its matter that it may be onely the assisting form of the Iron but not the informing For neither can Air remaining Air be at once also another Body as one Body cannot be two really distinct But I pray you if Iron be not throughout its whole Body fireable but a Coal altogether fireable what should move the fire that having left its own matter it should wander into the Body of Iron which is uncapable of fire Therefore surely the Iron is fired and it is capable of fire throughout its whole Body and so as it hath thicker parts than a Coal so it self is capable of more fire therefore it is manifest that fire is not a matter Lastly it is not the property of Elements presently to devour and consume other things as I have elsewhere largely taught But fire plotteth the destruction of the thing wherein it is therefore it is not an Element not a matter or a substance but a destructive Creature and a death serving for crafts and given for the great uses of mortall men None ever reckoned light among substances therefore neither light connexed For truly to be knit together or not is an accidentary thing which substantial thing is not generated as they think by an accidentary Being But moreover the fire consisting in a slack degree of Light is for the most part the Companion of life But Light being united burns up things that have life It is the Vulcan or Smith of Arts dedicated to humane necessities For it hasteneth ripenesses it promoteth the seeds to their ends it also hasteneth the seperations of things the closure or end whereof shortness of life could not else expect without grievous discommodity For in this respect it openeth it teacheth to dissolve secrets or things hidden to hasten the operations of nature otherwise oft-times slow drowsie and buried Next it seperateth and expelleth superfluities it by the vertue of an adjoyned Ferment removeth the middle life of things whence are chearfulnesses and increases of strength It also seperateth the pure from the impure the pretious from the vile the hurtfull from the profitable and the crude or raw from the mature or ripe yea it ripeneth crudities themselves And then the fire prepareth the Instruments of Arts which our life stands in need of Therefore let the Father of Lights the Creator of the Light be highly exalted throughout Ages who hath placed a Tabernacle in the Sun that he might comfort or supply all necessities by the Light of his Sun Now I will conclude from what hath been said before 1. That fire and hot light do not differ but by accident to wit in connexion and degree 2. That the beames of Light do pierce each other 3. That in piercing they notwithstanding do keep their essence and properties not thorowly mixt 4. That Light is primarily in place therefore also fire 5. That Light and Fire do pierce their Mean 6. That a thick dark Body seeing it cannot be pierced by the Light is first affected by Light in its Superficies and then this heats the succeeding parts even to its opposite Superficies 7. That heat is heightned in an object by degrees and that in every degree it hath singular operations 8. That whatsoever the fire affecteth it is by reason of the place which the thing placed doth occupie and so by accident seeing the chief intention of the fire is to heat by enlightning 9. That the fire being at length the Conquerour overcomes the difficulties cast in between it by the thick dark Body 10. That fire seeing that it acts immediately and primarily acts into a place it burns all things indifferently without respect to Bodies cast in between as it were removing the impediments 11. That a thick dark Body being fixed and resisting kindling is at length enlightned by the fire 12. That the fire or connexed Light finding a combustible matter doth remain con-centrated or centred together in its degree of connexing neither are the beames of Light seperated because it continually increaseth new fire which proceedeth in consuming but the old fire continually perisheth so long as the ascending doth continue At the end whereof the whole light perisheth since it hath not light from whence it may be enlightned Whatsoever therefore hath been hitherto spoken of united Light I understand it onely of the Light of the Sun For truly the Light of the Moon being sent thorow a Glasse is so far from having fire in the Crest that it is also felt to be colder than the rest which environeth or goes about in the Crest Therefore I call for touching to be the judge And that which is more wonderful than that that the Splendor of the Sun which is hot being reflexed in the Glasse of the Moon doth actually wax cold For the Almighty hath created two great Lights And although most of the Stars are bigger than the Moon yet they are not reckoned great because all their activities are comprehended under the two Lights therefore he created those First That they might seperate the day from the night Secondly That they may shine upon the Earth Thirdly That they might rule the day and night Fourthly That the greater might rule the day and the lesser the night Yet we learn from the Speculations of the Planets that the Moon shines as many houres upon the Horizon by day as she doth by night Yet the Almighty hath appointed the Moon to shine and onely to govern the night And seeing the Creator cannot erre it must needes be that the whole Light and governance of every night doth depend on the Moon as much as the day depends on the Sun Therefore the Moon was created to shine as well in the Heaven as upon the Earth the full of all nights Therefore the Moon is not like a receiving Glasse reflecting on the light of the Sun and void of her own proper light For although our eye findes no proper Light in the Moor be it little For we must give more credit to the Scripture than to our eyes according to that saying The Sun shall be darkened and the Moon shall not give her own Light From another place this truth shall by and by appear First of all it is manifest by the aforesaid Handicraft-operation of the Glasse that the Light of the Sun being united is made
in other Professions but that in the Art of healing alone men have been hitherto so stumbled through deaf Principles wherein notwithstanding Charity towards our Neighbour hath been penally commanded For all things have remained most obscure many things most false and those things which might chiefly conduce unto the scope of Curing untouched For there is no where a tractable acuteness but on every side a great dulnesse So that from what hath been said before there is none but may easily gather that whatsoever hath been hither to diligently taught according to the Doctrine of the Pagans and against a mutual Charity was the Invention of the evil Spirit Therefore indeed the stability of Paganish Theorems hath remained through the perswasion of the Devil which speculations notwithstanding through their easinesse onely at the first sight ought to have been suspected by any one of a sound mind Therefore nothing more hard inhumane and fuller of cruelty hath been received now for so many Ages among the Arts of Mortals than that Art which under a con-centrical subscription makes fresh experiments by the deaths of men The Professors whereof while they presume that themselves do keep the keys of knowledge they neither enter the passages themselves nor admit others who are willing to enter in but do drive away all by all wiles and subtilties Alwayes learning and never coming to the knowledge of the Truth according to the Apostle Oh Jesus my light my life my glorying and the helper of my weakness and corrupt disposition who in they own matters dost easily find out a passage with whom that is easie which with mortal men is as it were impossible Thou who hast made me to undergo all adversities I offer unto thee my calamities and the oppressions of justice Nevertheless thou hast always comforted me with thine unvanquished right hand afford me thine hand that if thou vouchsafe not to snatch me out of the deep pit of so many tribulations at least wise that through thy strength I may not sin against thee and that they may repent who have hated me undeservedly and that they who adore thy Power may acknowledge in me that thou alone art God the helper of the oppressed and the undoubted hope of them that trust in thee Let them be cloathed with contrition and find favour with thee and that I wretched man may sing forth the praises of thy greatness after this life For the rottenness of this Age is such that thy judgement being hidden the hypocrisie of mighty men professeth Faith in deceit and collects their wickedness under the shadow of Piety But in so great a tempest of my miseries unto the miseries of mortals and the defective errors of Physitians before the view of my mind I have attempted under thy command to record in writing That as hypocrisie hath trampled on me and my fortunes so I likewise know and that primarily that the father of lyes hath introduced the cup of ignorance and the bane of charity and health into the Paganish Schools lucre strewing the way under the beaten stormy path of Tritons For every young beginner that is to come shall admire with me that nothing hath been so unskilfully handled as those things which concern the life of mortal men For truly according to Thomas a Kempis it is all one with the Devil so he may render thee uncapable to serve God whether that be by true things or things appearing Therefore it sufficeth him so he shall but frustrate man of health and cut short his life wherein he might serve God if so be he shall make him a despiser of Divine aid by the appearing Doctrines of Pagans For the Schooles have written a thousand Volumns concerning the temperature and strife of qualities in the next place it hath been much and long interpreted by the Successors of Galen about these trifles and they have daily relapsed into new centuries and patcheries And at length they have squared unto those qualities feigned and excrementitious humours which should so wholly govern man as well healthy as sick that they should be chief over humane affairs as though the conditions manners healths appetites instincts inclinations slips or mis-deeds strengths valours defects events of fortune yea and the deserved punishments of loss or damnation and the adoptions of eternal life of mortal men should depend thereon A horrid surely and intollerable thing that these toyes have stood so long and that from things not existing and never to be and the which by the asserters themselves are accounted for excrements so serious and pernicious Fables have been co-feigned and believed And so that by the Schooles themselves scarce any thing hath been ever narrowly searched into which under such Principles may in very deed be truly true and good In the mean time I grieve I testifie it again not indeed that I have obtained the light of Truth from a long compassion towards my Neighbour but that it hath behoved me to lay open these Errors That is I grieve that the Devil hath deceived the Schools and will deceive them as long as they shall suffer themselves to be deluded by Paganish Fables and to be separated from the Schools of Truth But that that thing may be manifested I will by a Prologue declare it by the way and as it were by a positive demonstration For truly God made not Death And that is of Faith Therefore man became mortal from another thing than from God And seeing the scope or bound of most Diseases is Death it self because it is that which is nothing else but an extinguishing of life therefore a Disease and Death are Diametrically opposite to life Whence it follows that every Disease doth immediately act on the life But nothing is able to act on the life unless it be applyed unto it and well mixed with it But a Disease the enemy is not applyed unto the life promiscuously unless it shall besiege a part of the life and so shall sit totally or partially in the very life it self Which being done that part of the life besieged or overcome doth retire from the vital Air and the which being thus vanquished and become degenerate is made hostile unto the life as yet remaining or as yet constituted in its integrity Hence it necessarily follows that every Disease as it finds matter in the Organical or instrumental Air of life whereby it most immediately and inwardly riseth up against the life it self so in the same vital light it finds an efficient cause And so a Disease being thus instructed or furnished with matter and an efficient cause is entertained about the life Neither is it of concernment the while whether that contagion of a Disease be drawn from occasional Causes or in the next place be bred within in the Archeus through the errour of Life At leastwise it is sufficient in this place that the Life it self is on both sides the principal object for the hostile disease But seeing the Life it self
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
product that is the Latex And so a Remedy cloakative and unto the latter or effect is applied In the next place the whole spring of this evil hath been banished into the guiltless head of man into Rheums raining down out of the head The cause whereof if they have erred from they ought also consequently to have strayed in the Remedies For I remember that a Pleurisie beginning hath presently failed or ceased through a plentiful Sweat the Sweat being allured by such a Diaphoretick as is that of the flowers of wild Poppy Colts or Nags dung he juyce Daysie and the assistance of the like Lastly I have also noted that there are notable Glandules or Kernels under the Arm-pit in the Groyn and behind the ears and likewise in the passage of the Urine nigh the Bladder and about the gut Duodenum and almost innumerable ones elswhere placed at the two-forking of every vein The one only use whereof the Schools will have to be to wit that the vessels may not be subject to tearing But surely there is a manifest errour in the use named For notable Glandules should be in vain behind the Ears where there is no fear of tearing as neither within moreover the fleshy membrane it self is not stretched out and so Glandules could not be there placed but in vain for a vanishing use and end That is the Arbitrator of nature hath erred in the use of the Glandules or the Schools do erre seeing that in none of the aforesaid places wherein the Glandules are seated the vessels can depart from each other And also a slender Ligament had better and more commodiously preserved the renting of a vessel than a tearable and tender Glandule I do every where take good notice of the perpetual carelessness of the Schools of narrowly searching into the Truth For they do not diligently mark that the aforesaid Glandules are not but for the emunging or attractive alluring of the Latex out of the veins that they may disperse Sweats into the habit of the body which thing in the Tongue is manifest to the fight where the Glandules do make or work the Spittle and therefore do they allure the Latex But under the Arm-pits and in the Groyn Sweats do proceed But they do not foresee a rending of the vessels The former indeed is a daily office but the other is not but an unownted rare and rather a ridiculous one For the overflowing Latex doth load the Veins by oppression and if they are free from the same the Archeus as it were breathing back again doth retake to him new strength unhoped for Therefore the ignorance of the Humor Latex hath invented and supported Cauteries or searing Remedies hath feigned Catarrhs and hath caused all disagreeing Remedies or Succours to be dreamed of For nothing of solidity against Diseases hath hitherto been weighed Because I shall shew in its place that the Beginnings of Diseases have as yet to this day layn hid unknown and therefore also that Remedies are vain tryals neither conteyning any thing of certainty unless they be naturally endowed with a specifical property for certain Diseases otherwise a conjectural uncertainty will prepare privy shifts for them and the credulity of the Sick hath fortified Physitians which same Remedy although it should be said to be appropriated to a Disease it doth not help any body yea neither do purging Medicines although they should undoubtly loosen the belly comfort the Sick by reason of the diversity of Complexions and of feigned stubborn Humors For they suppose to wit that such a Humor offendeth and they see it afterwards to be brought forth by loosening Medicines yet they see nothing of the fierceness of the Disease to be slackened Therefore when they ought to acknowledge their ignorance founded in Humors and purging things they reflect themselves on the variety of Complexions and the uncertain and unknown differences of distempers which things surely if they are beheld with an equal mind they shall not be terminated in any other end than into a full knowledge ignorance and overthrow of the principles of Healing hitherto Wherefore I exhort and humbly beseech Physitians that they do in time well learn the unheard of Beginnings Positions and unaccustomed Maxims of Medicine Wherefore I have judged it meet to digress a little in this place For as I have seen an Atrophia or Consumption for lack of nourishment to be occasionally supported by the Humor Latex So also I have seen Fatness or Grossness in one only two months time by a Urine-provoking drink instead of Ale or Beer to be wholly expelled But forreign potions of China Sarsaparilla Guaiacum c. which should pour forth the Latex by Sweats by a feigned and lying title have attained the name of dryers And indeed I have already before demonstrated that every visible body that which is believed to be composed by a mixture of the Elements is materially made only of the Element of water which originally hath it self in all constituted things in manner of a Latex and the which also here to have supposed is sufficient as being once sufficiently prooved And then the Maxim of Phylosophy hath it That Bodies are not changed into each other unless they are first reduced into their first and easie following or clammy Matter For although they would have that thing applyed to metallicâ— Transmutations yet it is to be drawn out of the noted sublunary Transmutations of any things Yet not that they will have bodies to be reduced into the first matter of Aristotle yea nor also into the first Separation of the Elements for neither do they think that the Food ought to return into its own Element that it may thereby be made bloud but they will have a body to be transchanged into its next matter or that the subject of the former life ought to return back before it hath fixed a hope of the bound of Transmutation to be attained To which end be it certain that meats and drinks do assume the nature of a Chyle or juyce in the stomach with a retaining of the qualities of the middle life of the meats Indeed that the ancient matter of the meats is destroyed and made to approach very neer to the matter next to the Latex or the Element of water to wit the specifical Ferment of the stomach being busily employed to this end no otherwise than as the Ferment of the Liver doth transchange the Chyle into venal bloud and whose companion and fellow the Latex is but not likewise a part thereof But so differing and singular gifts of Ferments do exist in nature that some living creatures do make venal bloud flesh c. for themselves yea and also an Oylie grease and water only for in the stomach of a Salmond Fisher-men say never any Food or edible thing was found There are moreover in Salt-waters some waterish little living creatures in whom scarce any thing is bred which do communicate a certain Seed of water
poysons of Minerals are bred of Salts Sulphurs and Mercuries whereby their fury is propagated by a Seed Analogical or agreeable in proportion But how evident is that thing in the company of Vegetables where those seminal perturbations and therefore also co-natural ones are by Seeds transplanted with a continued course For we may well know any kind of poysons which are reduced by the ranks of perturbations by distinguishing of them Consequently also the knowledge of specifical properties is drawn per quia or from the Effect of the Cause if they are reduced unto the certain orders of perturbations or disturbances and affections Even as more largely elsewhere concerning the Plague So indeed many things are searched into and found out we thereby by the Effects come to the Causes and being led by the hand from one knowledge to another the poysons of an Erisipelas and Dysentery being in their Tearms from the wroth of the Archeus their cure is in a Hare wherein is fear meekesse flight and an harmless life Neither is the argument of contrariety of value For first of all I have admitted of contrarieties in living Creatures and I say that the properties of those being as it were sealed in the Idea's of living Creatures are in some sort contrary in the priority of the efficient tree as the Seals of Passions do end in to this Idea And so the fruits of this tree do act no more by way of contrary Passions but from the force of a received and inbred seminal Character wherein every thing acteth according to the Talent received even as it is in it self but not by reason of a repugnant duality or disagreeing contrariety Therefore the blood wherein is the seminal product and the effecter of the fearful meekness doth mortifie the poyson which is bred from a poysonous wrothfulness For I have noted in things loves hatreds terrors and the seminal products seals Idea's and characters of these Whence I have found out the immediate Causes of many hidden Remedies But I have interpreted them to be found out and suggested by me with the truth of possible and appearing consequences These things I have spoken concerning occult or hidden properties out of the Dream that we may cease to be occult Philosophers and may follow the manifest Doctrine of the more tractable ones Now I will prosecute my Dream I perceived I say that Smallage Asparagus and whatsoever things are taken to open Obstructions have indeed a Salt of a specifical savour the which being with their middle life made the Cream of the Stomack remaineth surviving although enfeebled yet that they do obtain weak Remedies for the opening of Obstructions For truly those things which do keep the Savour of their own concrete Body under the ferment of the Stomack as Onion Garlick Mace Turpentine Asparagus c. Those I perceived even to slide along with the Superfluities because they wax soure with their specifical Savour and then do take under the Gawl the nature of a Salt and at length under the dungy ferment of the Reines do put on a Urine-provoking or diuretical faculty But whose specifical Savours do putrifie by continuance and perish with the sourness of the Cream those things I perceived to be indifferent meats but whose Savours do not plainly yeild themselves into the sourness of the Cream and do after some sort remain in their mediocrity for the Cream if it should alike on every side receive a ferment and wax soure it should easily be sharper than Vinegar those things indeed-do through the force of the Gawl easily perish in the Meseraick Veines that together with a third or mumial ferment they may be changed into Venal Blood Therefore I perceived those to reach forth feeble aides for dissolving or opening of Obstructions At length I perceived that all simple Salts of the Sea Sal gemmae Fountaines Salt Peter c. as such do depart through the Urine and Intestines and in the mean time resolve the filths or dregs in those passages and render the expulsive faculty mindful of its duty But I perceive that Salts which carry a Mineral fruit in them are Strangers to our Nature and therefore are scarce to be inwardly admitted But Salts which are a part of the composed Body as Lixivium's and Alkalies I perceived to be deprived of Seminal Virtues and to have onely an abstersive or cleansing Soapie or resolving property unless they are volatile wherein I perceived the radical Beginnings and seminal Balsams of the concrete Body to be I perceived I say that these are easily transchanged into a new fruit because they do associate themselves with and act in all things according to their inbred endowments In the next place I have perceived the corrosive spirits of Minerals to differ far from themselves being crude to resolve the Excrements adhering to the sides of the first Vessels Yet not to be altogether destitute of Dammages by reason of an occult infection of Arsenick admixed with them from their original Therefore I perceived that occult properties as they call them being seminally traduced into the Archeus by the generater or efficient do unfold the presence of their Object and a sympathetical knowledge as they are immediately entertained in the bosom of the Formes Some to wit by a motive local Blas as the Load-stone Amber Gummes Lacca the herb Turne-sole Diamond for this also even as Carabe or Amber doth attract chaffes c. do bewray themselves but other things are terminated into an alteration as poysons likewise laxatives medicines tied about the Head or Body Antidotes c. Laxatives I have peculiarly perceived to operate onely by reason of a poyson lurking within them which being once admitted inwardly nigh the entrance whatsoever they touch they do ferment do afterwards resolve the things fermented and for that very cause do putrifie the things resolved I perceived therefore that Laxatives do putrifie the vital juyces but seldom the excrements the occasional causes of Diseases For seeing they are Poysons in respect of us and not of excrements hence they rise up rather against us than against Diseases And most speedily indeed do putrifie the more crude juyce or the not yet vital blood of the Veines or the yesterdays Cream But because they scarce suppress the excrements neither do these in like manner obey them seeing every action or Blas in us doth proceed from the Spirit which maketh the assault whereof excrements are deprived hence no Physitian dareth by taking Laxatives to promise a cure But true Solutives do neither cause Putrifaction nor selectively draw forth feigned Humours neither therefore do they resolve our vitial parts or things and the which Solutives I have perceived to bewray themselves by a three fold Sign First That they draw nothing from a healthy Body neither do they move after or weaken that Body Secondly That they do not fetch any thing forth but what is offensive and therefore they do not aggravate but ease of the burden and presently
most properly all or every Number because all Number flowes from that and therefore every Number is nothing but a connexion of Unites From whence that very Unity is a Figure of the Divinity because from thence all Numbers are made and again into the same are resolved Indeed the Schooles as often as they have conceived any thing by Science Mathematical that thing they have presently wrested into Nature under the generality of Rules For so of Four imagined Elements by confusedly suiting four Qualities Complexions and Humours these Brawlings have been translated even into the Stars and they have determined of all things co-agreeing with their own Fictions By which method indeed they have fitted a continual speculation in Science Mathematical unto lineal points and at length also unto Time B. Augustine confesseth indeed that Time is something but that he was ignorant of the thingliness of Time to wit because he was seasoned with false Positions from Paganisme Wherefore I blush again and again that I am willing to explain the Essence of Time But this man I fear not to be my hater who already beholds truth in the Heavens For first of all I have withdrawn all succession from Time who from great Authorities had already shaken off the Yoak of the Heathenish Schools For truly I meditated at first that the Heavens stood still yet that there was not any other Time while the Sun was at a stand than now Therefore I began to measure out that Duration without the succession of the Motion of the Heaven And by consequence I by degrees learned that all Time was sequestred from Succession and that this Succession did fit or accommodate it self onely unto Motion Then afterwards I began to repute it a mad thing that the Sun should at some time stand still and nevertheless even to this day to sink Time within the Motion of the Heavens For although that detainment of the Sun was Miraculous yet the Duration or term of continuance was not therefore Miraculous And then I beheld that Time was already from the Beginning the Day not as yet existing or before Light was born and a separation thereof from the darkness Therefore the Heaven Earth Abysse of Waters Darkness and the Day it self were before that the circular Path of the Heaven did determine of the Day In the Beginning I say of the Creatures but not in the Beginning of Time Because that Beginning of Things includeth some Dum or While that it may be of Sense Although God appointed from Eternity to create Things Yet while it pleaseth his infinite Goodness to issue into an Operation to without then in the Beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth But that Dum or While was before a Creature because God had no need of a Creature or a created Duration neither had the things that were to be created need of a created Duration as a concurring Principle of an unlike Dignity with the Creatour of an infinite Power For if the Creature did not depend originally totally to wit absolutely and intimately on God as on the Beginning and End of its Duration verily neither should God also be the immediate and total Principle as neither the immediate Life of things that is he should not be their Alpha and Omega Therefore I from thence understood if Nature had at sometime stood rooted in Duration flowing forth without a Mean from Eternity it self that it ought also at this day so to stand by reason of the same rules of necessity For presently after I knew that Duration which they name Time was a real Being And likewise that if Time hath been from the Beginning before a Creature was made verily it could not be reckoned among created things For neither is there mention made of Time being created I also thorowly weighed that as a moveable Body is so in place that the place doth not only outwardly encompass the moveable Body however Aristotle in the mean time so thought but place pierceth the very moveable Body on every Side so that every intimate part of a Body is no less in place than the superficies thereof Yet place is not therefore on the other hand comprehended by the moveable Body So indeed and also much more abstractedly Duration is indeed intimate to things Yet it is not affected shut up or apprehended by things Also place supposeth a certain and determined Position indeed capable of being changed by that which is moveable yet wholly unseparable altogether from all place But Duration it self is so unseparable from things that it doth in no wise ever wander or is changed from these Therefore seeing Duration is above and within the Being of things and unseparable from these Yea more intimate to things than things themselves are unto their own selves Hence therefore have I meditated of a Duration plainly divine to be in Time and so in that respect not to be distinguished from Eternity yet to be distributed unto things according to the Model of every Receiver And so I have sufficiently proved the aforesaid Proposition Wherefore Time hath neither parts neither doth it admit of a division of it self and by consequence it knows not succession neither also doth it approve of Dreams To wit the which may receive into it Poynts actually Infinite being coupled or dis-joyned Yea neither is Time a Duration great or small rather than plain round long deep short or broad Because in very deed it is not within the compass of Predicaments because there is one only Infinite existing in Act to wit God who is all things For if Goodness Life Truth and Essence after an abstracted manner are God himself in created things it likewise cannot be denyed but that in the same things Duration it self represents God I believe therefore that true Time is unmixed without the Spot of a Creature every where and alwayes unchangeable nor to be after any manner successive And that I might the more nearly conceive of this thing I withdrew all Bodies from Time and all coursariness of successive things or the succeeding successive changes of Motions And then first I clearly understood that Time in its own Essence bears or ows no respect unto the Unstabilities Varieties or Measure of Motions For truly Time is that which it is whether Motions and Mutations are made or not because I have not found Duration to be related unto Motion or on the other hand Motion unto Duration unless by accident and by reason of a mental measuring of one thing unto another the which is altogether impertinent For truly Time not having succession cannot be serviceable unto co-measuring But because we being concluded in a sublunary place and being rashly seasoned by the Heathenish Schooles we have been wont in the Duration of Time indefinitely to consider Priorities and Swiftnesses together with their Correlatives because through a frivolous Abuse the limitation of attribution of Motions and moveable Bodies hath been accustomed to be measured according to space Which Relations
by ungrateful dissolved bodies and afterwards a superlative one by grateful Dissolvents 24. A general kind of Medicine 25. A conclusion unto Physitians 26. The praise of the volatile salt of Tartar This ulcerous or corrupt age of most perverse Wits will not suffer those that are admonished to repent For so far are they as yet from that that most Practitioners refuse to enquire into these greater Secrets because they every where inveigh against Sciences which they are ignorant of But because they are altogether ignorant of the same they both almost triumph and also gratifie each other concerning their ignorance neither is it manifest that they have spent their time in those things unprofitably because it shameth them not to have a vile esteem of Chymical Science by Writings and Taunts as a smoak-selling and delusive or false Art But they know not that since of a Non-being there is no knowledge and no conception in the mind answering thereunto Therefore also in that whereby they deny the truth of science they manifest that they are ignorant of the same that is vilely to esteem of that which they are wholy ignorant of And there are others who more mildly but alike blockishly say 1. Those things belong not to our judgment or employment they no way touch at medicinal affaires for we follow things approved from of old 2. Chymical medicines cast a smel of corruption being hot violent and not common 3. We have Servants who faithfully prepare those medicines which are for use And it is unseemly for a learned man to excercise the composition or preparation of medicine 4. The smoak-selling Experimentators institute all horrid evacuations being full of terrour because they are supported only by Mercury and Antimony they being manifest poysons And so they are to be reputed among Mountebanks or Juglers These are those things which they by reason of their ignorance thrust upon the unwary vulgar whereunto I in order thus give satisfaction We treate of medicines but not of things which concern a corriar or potter They therefore suppose a shamefull evasion that they are ignorant of what it had behoved them to learn Neither also is there a trusty foundation from antiquity it being always ruinous they going where it hath been gone not where they were to go they alwayes following the flock of predecessours and mutually subscribing to each other through the blind judgments of their mind our fugitive servants also will answer I being silent from whom they borrow the corrosive powder of Precipitate and of another more sweet or lesse poysonsome and likewise the vitrum or glasse of Antimony and the floures thereof Cinabrium and in summe nothing but poysons for the transplantings and cloaking of great diseases But all things notably adulterated for the desire of gain For it is easie to deceive the ignorant in things which they professe themselves to be ignorant of For there are essential oiles set to sale and the which are valued at a great price they being all and every of them adulterated whether nine parts of oyle of Almonds were co-mixed with one part of essential oyle is a matter of easie experiment For cast it on a sponefull of Aqua vitae and whatsoever shall swim atop let it be the essential oyle but the rest oyle of Almonds And that thing thou shalt the more certainly know if thou shalt make tryal in a Bath The oyle of Sulphur is for one half of it raine water but the distillation of Vitriol is brought wholly into deceit and is more frivolous dayly The which will presently be manifest through a simple examination by a Bath That scarce a sixth part thereof is the pure distillation and that as yet loaded with the tincture of oaken bark In the next place unto the second particular I will by and by answer Now it is sufficient to have said that the more choice Physitians at this day do not despise Chimical remedies the which their bookes do lately testifie And so the Fox dispraiseth Grapes and Hens that are sequestred from him in the Tree But how much they can performe the experienced sick do speak though we be silent Unto the third It is no disgrace or uncomelinesse to have prepared some the more choice remedies with ones own hand and to have bequeathed and delivered those medicines unto his posterity by his hands For neither was it an unbeseeming thing for the High Priest of the Hebrewes to have struck down Oxen and to have played the butcher for the salvation of the people Is it happily a more glorious thing for the Galenical rout to have viewed stinking dung and to have stirred it with a stick than for us to have handled Furnaces vessells and coales surely if they had the weight of truth they would knowthat the works of charity do not defame any one But they who have not charity account all things disgracefull besides gaine and Lucre. Depart ye from this pride and be ye mercifull as your Father which is in heaven is mercifull For else he will say I know you not that live for gaine and deceite But indeed disgrace hinders not these somewhat ambitious ones but ignorance and the covetous desire of Lucre For they make more account of the number of visits than of the glory of curing which wholly buries it self in having done well For as soon as they are dismissed from the Schooles with the title of Doctour they enquire through the Streets and Inns with the eyes of a Lamprey whether there are not sick folks which may entrust them with their life But stop your proceedings Medicine is not to be excercised after the manner of Mechanick arts And because Physitians err in this point the Father of Lights withdrawes his gifts after that Medicine is managed as a Plow Possess ye Charity and gain Will voluntarily follow you with Honour and Glory the which take hold of a Physitian that shuns them whom the most High hath commanded to be honoured Unto the fourth I grant that all kind of Knaves have most licentiously thrust themselves into Chymistry no less than into Medicinal Affairs and that a various destruction doth thereby daily arise unto mankind on whom surely the Magistrate ought of right to be severe in punishment But these things do not defame honest men It is certain that deceit and the adulterating of Medicines have always been annexed to gain But as to what pertains to the reproach of Remedies Chymists that is to be sifted by a larger Discourse First of all it is suitable in this place That Science or Knowledge hath no enemy but the ignorant person Not any such one but him that is proud and refuseth to learn The which is manifest by the already mentioned Corrosives and indeed manifest poysons that they become sweeter than Sugar The same thing is also more easily manifest and to our hand For truly Scarwort Frogwort Apium risus c. do forthwith in distilling lay aside their embladderring power
affirmeth that it privailes against the Plague and he willingly perswadeth him to commit the buisinesse of the infected unto him Master Doctour skipping for joy consenteth and praiseth the subtile invention of the Barber and his care for the Common-wealth And so that companion being called unto them a Lixivial medicine for an Eschare Basilicon oyntment and Diachyson gummed is given unto him and also a magistral preservative confection described by the Physitian Wherewith he being now furnished becomes a stipendiary of the City and the life of the common-people in misery and the fail-yard of the Common-weath is committed unto him yet under this condition that if he suffer himself to be governed by Tenders and under-Sisters as super-intendents who by a long possession rage on the sick he is to receive a yeerly reward Surely miserable are the sick more miserable the Magistrate and most exceeding miserable the Doctour unto whom the Magistrate hath committed his sheep which they deliver to wolves Because in this respect man is truly a wolf to the poor and infected man But the strict judge will at sometime require at their hands the lives souls and forsaken orphans For what would a King do if a cowardly Captaine shall wipe away much money from himself and the people and muster a great band of country-men in his enrowling book but shall betake himself with his Ensign-bearer into a most fenced Tower or Castle but shall write unto the Drummer and some women-sellers of provision that they cheerfully assault the Enemy with those fresh-water Souldiers For will not the King require of his Captains the Souldier that was rashly slain And the town destroyed by the Enemy Have regard therefore ye Senatours and Physitians what cruel thing doth not hang over your heads Because nothing is more certain than death and judgment For I have written these things from a compassion on you and the sick I divine of you let God be favourable unto me At leastwise the Magistrate hath not hitherto known of what kind the Plague should be CHAP. 2. The Pest or Plague an Infant A Rtaxerxes by an Epistle commanded Petus that he should come unto him to cure a disease as yet without a name which killed his Citizens and Souldiers for that by gifts recieved he was obliged hereunto Petus answered him after the manner of Physitians at this day That natural succours do not free from a popular slaughter For those diseases which are made by nature those nature judging of healeth But Hippocrates cureth a malady from a popular destruction Because this man is endowed with a divine nature and hath carried up medicine from a low estate unto great atchievements Hippocrates therefore is a divine man the ninth indeed from King Chrysamides but the eighteenth from Aesculapius but the twentieth from Jupiter Being indeed of his mother Praxithia of the family of the Heraclides Wherefore from both seedes he hath his original from the Gods He was initiated or entered as a young beginner in medicinal affairs by his great grandfathers so far as it is to be believed that these knew But himself hath taught himself having made use of a divine nature the whole art And in the industry of his minde he hath as far exceeded his progenitours as he hath also exceeded them in the excellency of art But he takes away not only the kind of bestial but also of brutishly fierce and wild diseases through a great part of the land and sea dispersing the succours of Aesculapius even as Triptolemus the seeds of Ceres Therefore hath he most justly obtained divine honours in many places of the earth and is made worthy by the Athenians of the same gifts or presents with Hercules and Aesculapius Send thou for this man and command as much Gold as he shall he willing to receive to be given unto him For this man hath not known one only manner of curing this disease This man is the Father the preserver of health and the curer of griefs In summe this man is the Prince of divine knowledge Artaxerxes therefore writes unto Hystanes the Lievtenant of Hellespont Let Hippocrates the Glory of Cods who drew his original from Aesculapius come unto me and give him as much Gold as he will have and other things in abundance sparing no riches For he shall be made equal to the Peers of Persia For it is not an easie thing to find men that excel in counsail Moreover Hystanes writes thus unto Hippocrrtes The great King Artaxerxes hath need of thee Commanding Gold Silver and whatsoever thou wilt have to be given unto thee that thou shouldst be made equall unto the Nobles of Persia Thou therefore come quickâ— Hippocrates the Physitian unto Hystanes the Lievtenant of Hellespont joy SEnd thou back to the King what I say That we enjoy food rayment house and all sufficient wealth for life But that it is not lawfull for me to make use of the riches of the Persians neither to free Barbarians from diseases that are enemies to the Greeks-Farewel Hipocrates unto Demetrius health THe King of the Persians hath sent for me as not knowing that with me there is a greater respect of wisdome than of Gold Farewel To the King of Kings my great Lord Artaxerxes Hystanes Leivtenant joy The Epistle which thou sents't unto Hippocrates of Coos who sprang from Aeculapius I sent a way but I recieved an answer from him which I transmit unto thee with the bearer thereof Gymnasbes Dieutyches Farewel Great Artaxerxes King of Kings saith these words unto the Co-ans Render ye Hippocrates to my messengers who is indued with evil manners wantonizing over me and the Persians But if not ye shall know that ye shall pay the punishment of the offence For I will convert your City being laid wast and drawn into diverse parts of the Island into the sea that for the future none can know whether there were an Island or the City Cos in this place The Answer of the men of Coos IT hath seemed good unto the people to answer the messengers of Artaxerxes The Co-ans will do nothing unworthy of Merops nor of Hercules nor of Aesculapius All the Cities will not yield up Hippocrates although they were to dye the worst of deaths The Earth and Water which Darius and Xerxes required of our Fathers the people gave not since they saw those very Kings themselves to be impotent mortals as other men They now answer the same thing Depart ye from the Co-ans and return this message that the Gods themselves will not be negligent of us Because they deliver not Hippocrates into your hands I have thus described these things at large whereby the truth of the fame of Hippocrates may be manifest and that he had cured the Plague among the people throughout Greece For indeed that disease being as yet an Embryo scarce known scarce named was now perfectly cured but now it being sufficiently and too well known is left unto decievers of the lowest condition
of no sleep with a perpetuak Agony and despairing of life and yet was vexed with her self through la full remembrance or knowledge of her own foolish strugling and Opiates being administred she found her self worse At length between the fear and desiring of death she plainly recovered by the remedy of Hippocrates in six hours space In the mean time I confess and admonish by way of protestation that I have plainly enough manifested the bosom of the remedy of Hippocrates that it may be sufficiently plain only unto the Sons of Art and true Physitians and covered for the future only to sloathful Physitians that are enslaved to gain and to the envious haters of the truth But I have declared 1. The aforesaid histories that plagues beginning may be manifest not to be as yet seasoned with the pestilent poyson and not yet to be accompanyed with a sufficient image of terrour 2. And that the virtue of the remedy of Hippocrates may from thence be made manifest 3. That the first violent motions of confusion terrour and imagination do happen in the midriff about the mouth of the stomach To wit in the Spleen whose emunctory is nigh the mouth of the stomach and so that it is the mark of that Archer For in a healthy young man whom the plague had snatched away in seven hours time a dissection of his body being begun I found a long eschar now made to be as at first the mover of vomit and afterwards the Authour of continual swoonings so also to have given an occasion of sudden death even as in others I have noted a threefold eschar to have been made in the stomach â—n sixteen hours space 4. That the master of Animal subtilty hath with his white wand of sleep chosen the Inn of drowsie sleep and watchings in the same place 5. And that the seat of all madnesse and doatage is in the same place And that thing I have elswhere profesly founded by a long demonstration 6. That purging likewise as also myrrâ—ed Antidotes for the Pest are not safe enough or worthy of confidence 7. And that all reason deliberation animosity resignation consolation argumentation and all the subtilty of man on the contrary do but wash the Aeâ—hiopian in the Pest even as also in the disease Hydrophobia 8. That the endeavour of preservatives is sluggish as oft and as long as the seal of the image framed by terrour remayneth 9. That such an image stirs up from it self continual sorrows and spurns at the phantasie it self and drawes it captive to it self no lesse than the biting of a mad dog brings forth an unwilling fear of water or the sting of a Tarantula the doâ—tage of a tripping dance 10. That the comfort of sweating alone is loose in such terrours 11. That the Idea of fear not being vanquished in the bowel nor the dreg wherein that image sits banished it is in vain whatsoever the magistrals or compositions of the shops do attempt For Hydrophobial persons although now and then between while they speak discreetly fore-feel and fore-tel a madnesse coming upon them yet they cannot but be driven into the madnesse of their own image 12. That swimming is destructive and whatsoever restraineth sweat 13. That Barley broaths pulses syrupes and Juleps are loose and frivolous remedies for so great a malady 14. That it comes from a bastard plague unto a true or Legitimate one yet that the sick do often fail under the beginning thereof before it sends forth its tokens The which traiterous signes do notwithstanding presently after death issue forth 15. That grateful odours the perfumes of spices feathers or shooes do bring no defence or succour for the plague For by way of example if thou seasonest an hogshead of wine putrified through continuance with the odour of spices or with any other odour except that of Sulphur it remaines fermentally putrified and it soon defiles the new wine which thou shalt pour in as the former Wherefore sweet-smelling things do in no wise take away the terrour and the poysonous Idea of terrour from the Archeus being once terrified Because they take not away the maâ—ter of the poyson and much lesse do they kill that poyson or remove the terrour from the Archeus as neither do they refresh the seat thereof or comfort the part affected For Paracelsus commends unto the City of Stertzing that was bountiful unto him myrrhe being by degrees melted under the tongue before any other remedies and boldly promiseth it unto the younger sort for a preservation for 24. houres space which doctrine notwithstanding I have experienced to be false For I have seen young folks with the much use of myrrhe to have been killed by the plague Myrrhe indeed although it may preserved dead cracases from putrefaction instead of a blasam yet the Pest far differs from putrefaction No otherwise than as the eschar of a bright burning iron differs from putrified blood And although corruption succeedeth in a carcass now dead yet the poysonous image of terrour doth not properly putrify as it doth most properly slay the vital Archeus and tranchange him into a poyson with it self For he bids that myrrhe be held in the mouth As if the plague knew not how to to enter but by way of the mouth Therefore far more advisedly to have shut up the mouth in silence Truly the Pest will abhor myrrhe nor will it daâ—e to enter in through the nostrils if myrrhe being detained in the mouth doth dissolve shall perhaps the odour of myrrhe hinder whereby the poysonous image is the lesse poysonsom is not poysonsom Is not hurtful For shall myrrhe in the mouth repulse the plague from the Archeus The same reason is alike frivolous and foolish for Triacle vinegar c. perfumed with odours At length let mortals know that in healing nothing is alike hurtful as a rash belief given without a pledge and truth Truly the accusations of the sick will at sometime thunder against the negligence falshood decietful juggles rashnesses and false wares of Physitians whereby people have been spoyled of their life But I have discerned by the books of Paracelsus that he was a man rash in promising unexpert in the plague unconstant in its remedies ignorant in its causes as also ungrateful toward the bountiful City of Stertzing Let his honourers spare me that I am constrained to speak candidly or plainly for the truth in a matter of so great moment least any one in the plague should put confidence in his succours CHAP. XVIII The image of terrour sifted I Have hitherto produced the unheard of poyson of the Pest To wit that the soul and the vital Archeus thereof are powerful in an imagination proper to themselves But that that power of the a foresaid imagination is to form Idea's not indeed those which may be any longer a Being of Reason or a non-being but that they have altogether actually the true Entity of a subsisting image which imagination surely seeing it is a