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
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
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
hundred years I reckoned the Greeks art of healing to be false but the Remedies themselves as being some experiments no less to help without a Method than that the same Remedies with a Method did deceive most On both sides I discerning the deceit and uncertainty of the Rules of Medicine in the diversities of the founders of Complexions I said with a sorrowful heart Good God! how long wilt thou be angry with mortal men who hitherto hast not disclosed one truth in healing to thy Schooles how long wilt thou deny truth to a people confessing thee needful in these dayes more than in times past Is the Sacrifice of Moloch pleasing to thee wilt thou have the lives of the poor Widows and Fatherless Children consecrated to thy self under the most miserable torture of incurable Diseases and despair How is it therefore that thou ceasest not to destroy so many Families through the uncertainty and ignorance of Physitians I fell withall on my face and said Oh Lord pardon me if favour towards my Neighbour hath snatched me away beyond my bounds Pardon pardon Oh Lord my indiscreet Charity for thou art the radicall good of goodness it self Thou hast known my sighes and that I confess that I am know am worth am able to do and have nothing that I am poor naked empty vain give O Lord give knowledge to thy Creature that he may very affectionately know thy Creature himself first other things besides himself for thy Command of Charity all things and more than all things to be ultimately in thee Which thing when I had earnestly prayed from much tiresomness and wearisomness of minde by chance I was led into a Dream and I saw the whole universe in the sight or view of truth as it were some Chaos or confused thing without form which was almost meer nothing And thence I drew the conceiving of one word which did signifie to me what followes Behold thou and what things thou seest are nothing whatsoever thou dost urge is lesse than nothing it self in the sight of the most high He knowes all the ends or bounds of things to be done thou at leastwise mayst apply thy self to thy own safety Yea in that Conception was there an inward Precept that I should be made a Physitian and that at sometime Raphael himself should be given unto me Forthwith therefore and for thirty whole years after and their nights following in order I laboured to my cost and dammage of my life that I might obtain the Natures of Vegetables and Mineralls and the knowings of their properties The mean while I lived not without prayer reading narrow search of things sifting of my Errours and daily experiences written down together At length I knew with Salomon I had for the most part hitherto perplexed my Spirit in vain and vain to be the knowledge of all things which are under the Sun vain are the searchings out of Curiosities And whom the Lord Jesus shall call unto Wisdom He and no other shall come yea he that hath come to the top shall as yet be able to do very little unless the bountiful favour of the Lord shall shine upon him Loe thus haue I waxed ripe of age being become a man and now also an old man unprofitable and unacceptable to God to whom be all Honour CHAP. III. The hunting or searching out of Sciences 1. The minde is not rational if it be the Image of God 2. The opinion of the Schooles concerning Reason 3. A Vision in a Dream concerning Reason 4. A Dialogue or Discourse of the minde with Reason 5. The chief juggle of Reason 6. The minde hath chosen understanding 7. Reason becomes suspected by reason of her juggling deceits 8. The weariness of the minde concerning Reason 9. Reason began from sin 10. What kinde of knowledge there is of the Soul being seperated from the Body 11. The minde hath withdrawn her Garments from Reason in her flight 12. Reason enters into the counsel of the minde from an abuse 13. Reason burdens the minde 14. Reason being reflexed towards it self doth produce many Errours 15. The great Art of Lullius is sifted 16. The manner of seperating Reason from it self 17. An unutterable intellectual Light 18. A feeling of the immortality of the Soul 19. Reason is not the Lamp of which Solomon speaks 20. In what part a Syllogisme dwells 21. Reason generateth a dim knowledge 22. Knowledges of the Premises are from the light of the Candle or Lamp 23. The minde is not deceived but by its own reason 24. Reason burieth the understanding 25. Reason is known in its poorest nakedness 26. The understanding refuseth the use of reason 27. Reason and Truth are unlike in their Roots 28. Reason doth not agree with the knowledge of the conclusion 29. A definition of Reason 30. The most refined Reason is as yet deceitful 31. What Reasoning and Discourse are 32. What intellectual Truth is 33. Imagination is a crooked manner of understanding 34. Bruit Beasts are discursive 35. A rational Creature for man is disgraceful 36. A true definition for a man 37. The Schooles hearken more to Aristotle than to Paul 38. An Animall or living Creature in the definition of a man belongs to corrupted nature 39. What kinde of Skeleton or dry Carcase that of reason is 40. A progress to chase after Sciences 41. Double Images or likenesses in the Soul 42. Where the Progress of the minde is stayed 43. How a truer Progress may be made 44. New understanding or the labour of wisdom 45. The understanding doth strike in or co-agree with things understood and how that may be done 46. Why there is made a transmigration or passing over of the understanding 47. The memory and will are supped up 48. The thingliness or Essence of an intellectual thought 49. How the Image of God lightens or shines all over 50. How the minde beholds the understanding under an assumed form 51. The Errour of the Rabbins concerning this State of the Soul 52. The quality of the understanding while it stands in that light 53. Why and after what manner the understanding transformeth it self 54. After what manner the understanding beholds it self 55. What intelligibility or understandingness may be 56. How the Soul understanding it self shall understand any other things 57. Whence that difficulty of understanding is 58. Why accidents cannot be comprehended by the intellect 59. The Errours of the Schooles about the dividing of the intellect 60. In things pertaining to understanding it is more noble to suffer than to do 61. Aristotle knew not a true understanding 62. The Phantasie or Imagination doth not pierce things neither in like manner do things enter into it 63. Eight Maxims touching the understanding which Aristotle knew nor 64. A dividing of the Predicament of a substance The hunting or searching out of Sciences begins from Know thy Self REason is accounted to be the life of the Soul or the life of our life But I believe that the
themselves by the same right concoct for themselves and are thereby nourished For truly in this humour every part lives in its own Orbe and every part hath a singular Cook-room in it self for it self But besides even till a certain age and measure inbred in the Seeds of things the nourishment departs into increase Then it stayeth and is no more mixed with its first constituters And therefore this nourishment is opposed onely for the retarding of the dryness of old age even unto the closure of life This indeed is the distribution of the digestions and Regions of the Body among the Antients and modern Schooles which hath never seemed to me to be sufficient but full of ignorance because it is that which besides rude observations hath brought no light unto the art of healing CHAP. XXVIII A six-fold digestion of humane nourishment 1. The miserable boastings of the Galenists 2. Whence the first dissolution of the meat is 3. A sharpness being obtained is presently changed into a salt Salt 4. The use of the gut Duodenum neglected in the Schools 5. Sharpness or soureness out of the stomach doth hurt us 6. The variety and incompatibility or mutual unsufferableness of the Ferments 7. An example of that ready exchanging 8. Nothing like a Ferment doth meet us elsewhere 9. The volatileness of sharpness doth remain in a salt product 10. The latitude in Ferments 11. Whence it is known that the first Ferment is a forreigner to the Stomach 12. Why Sawces do stand in sharpness 13. Sharpness is not the Ferment it self but the Instrument of the same 14. Too much sharpness of the Stomach is from its vice 15. A receding from the Schools in the examination of the Gaul 16. That Choler is not made of meats 17. That the Gaul is not an excrement but a bowel 18. The membrane of the wombe is a bowel even as also that of the Stomach 19. Why the Gaul and Liver are connexed 20. What may be the stomach of the Liver 21. VVhy it goes before the Ferment of the Gaul and is the second digestion 22. VVhy the venal bloud in the Mesentery doth as yet want threds neither therefore doth it wax clotty 23. The wombe of the Vrine and the wombe of Duelech or the Stone in man are distinct 24. The stomach of the Gaul and its Region 25. The rotten opinion of the Schools concerning the rise of the Gaul and its use 26. Nature had been more careful for the Gaul its enemy than for Phlegme its friend 27. The separation of the Vrine differs from the separation of wheyiness out of milk 28. The second and third digestions are begun at once although the third be more slowly perfected 29. What the stomach of the Gaul is 30. The Gaul doth import more than to be chief over an excrement 31. Birds want a Kidney and Vrine but not a Gaul 32. Fishes also do prove greater necessities of a Gaul than of filths or excrements 33. That the Schools are deceived in the use of the Gaul 44. The Liquor of the Gaul with its membrane being a noble bowel doth now and then banish its superfluity into the gut Duodenum 35. How excrements do obtain the heat of the Gaul yet are not therefore choler or gaul 36. The proper savour of the dung doth exclude the gaul and fiction of choler 37. Gauls seem what they are not 38. Whence the vein hath it that even after the death of a man it doth preserve the venal bloud from coagulating 39. The extream rashness of the Schooles 40. The solving of an Objection 41. It is proved by many Arguments that the veins of the stomach do not attract any thing to themselves out of the Chyle 42. The Authour is dissented from the Schools in respect of the bounds of the first Region in the Body 43. The true shop of the bloud is not properly in the passage of the Liver 44. The action of a Ferment doth act onely by inbreathing neither doth it want a corporeal touching 45. The absurd consequences upon the positions of the Schools concerning touching and continual nourishing warmth 46. The Ferments of the Gaul and Liver do perform their offices by in-breathing 47. Why Flatus's or windy blasts do not pierce an Entrail 48. The Errour of Paracelsus about the pores of the Bladder 49. The first digestion doth not yet formally transchange meats 50. Where the absolute transmutation of meats is compleated 51. It is false that nourishment is not to be granted without an excrement 52. It is false that the stomach doth first boil for it self and secondarily for the whole Body 53. The Gaul hath the nature of a Balsam 54. A miserable objection 55. The Gaul taken for a Balsam in the holy Scriptures 56. Against the Gaul of the Jaundise 57. Two Idiotisms in Paracelsus 58. How the Salt of the Sea is separated from Salt-peter 59. Out of water there is Vinegar 60. The fourth digestion and Region of the Body 61. Why the heart is eared 62. The fifth digestion 63. That the vapour in the venal bloud is not yet a Skyie Spirit 64. The nourishing of the flesh and the bowels is distinguished 65. That the Animal Spirit doth not differ in the Species from the vital 66. The fourth and fifth digestions do want excrements 67. What the sixth digestion is 68. The Diseases in the sixth digestion are neglected by the Schools because not understood 69. In the designing of the Kitchin and Shop there are some errours of the Schools 70. Why an Artery doth for the most part accompany a vein 71. Paracelsus is noted 72. The errour of Fernelius concerning Butter 73. The rashness of Paracelsus concerning Milk 74. A censure or judgement of Milk 75. The best manner of drawing forth Goats bloud 76. An undoubted curing of the Pleurisie without cutting of a vein 77. Why Asses milk is to be preferred before other Milks 78. The education of a Child for a long and healthy life 79. Some things worthy to be noted concerning the Vrine 80. Why dropsical persons are more thirsty than those that have a hectick Fever 81. The proper place of the Ferment of the Dung is even as in a Wolf 82. The proper nest of Worms and the History of the same 83. The difference of Ascarides from VVorms 84. That a Clyster is injected in vain for nourishment sake I Have observed notable abuses committed throughout the whole description of Functions or of the use of parts Although Galen doth not more gloriously triumph in any place than in the Treatise of Pulses and in the use of parts the which notwithstanding the modern Anatomists do shew that he never thorowly considered wherefore it is altogether probable that without the knowledge and searching out of the truth these Treatises described by Galen from elsewhere and prostituted for his own are as yet to this day worshipped in the Schools Wherefore I have premised the digestions which Antiquity hath hitherto known and hath confirmed
Mathematical if six do notably hurt three cannot but hurt although not so sensibly But it is not permitted him to hurt nature who ought to heal and restore the same if nature her self ought to be the Physitianesse to her self and by so much the more prosperous by how much the more strong For it is sufficient for a Physitian that the sick doth otherwise decay through the disease with hungers lack of appetites disquietnesses pains anguishes watchings sweats and with an unexcusable weakness Neither therefore ought a faithful helper to add weakness unto weakness It is a deceitful succour which the cutting of a vein brings and the remedy thereof is so uncertain that no Physitian hath hitherto dared to promise a future cure from thence Every Artificer doth what he promiseth For a Statuary undoubtedly prepares an Image and a Shoomaker shooes But the Physitian alone dares to promise nothing from his Art because he is supported with uncertain foundations being only by accident now and then and painfully profitable Because however thou shalt interpret the matter that is full of ignorance which would cure by procured weakness For by a sudden emptying out of the blood made by heaps nature for the most part neglects the expulsion of her enemy which expulsion notwithstanding I have demonstrated to contain the whole Tragedy of Fevers and Nature Besides it is confessed That the matter of a Fever doth not consist in a vein above the heart and by consequence that neither doth the cutting of a vein any way exhaust the occasional matter or effectively cure by a direct intention of healing Again If blood be to be let forth for a more easie transpiration of the Arteries That al leastwise shall be in vain in the beginnings and increases of Fevers whenas the heat is not yet vigorous And seeing that blood is not to be let out in the state as neither in the declining thereof Therefore never But that not in their state or height it is proved because a Crisis or judicial sign is hindered seeing Nature as they write being very greatly letted or cumbred strives with the disease and being for the most part the Conqueresse doth then least of all endure the loss of strength and a calling away from the Duel But if nature be conquered in the state of the Fever what other thing shall the cutting of a vein then be besides meer Murder If therefore it is not convenient to open a vein in the height of Fevers while as there is the greatest heat perplexity and a most especial breathing of the arteries is required Surely much less shall it be convenient in their beginnings and increases especially because presently after the first days the fear of a Plethora or too much fulness departs and so there is a sufficiently easie Transpiration of the Arteries But that diseases in their declining do neither require nor endure the cutting of a vein it is so cleer and testified by the voice of all That none ever attemps the cutting of a vein at the declining of a Disease Let us consider further That in Fevers the blood in the veins is either good or evil or neutral If it be good it shall be good to have the good detained because it addeth to the strength For as I have shewn elsewhere the fear of a Plethora if there were any hath ceased even presently after the beginning But for that they will have good blood to be let out for cooling and discussing of putrefaction Truly both of them hath already been sufficiently taken away and the imaginary good which they suppose brings a real and necessary loss of the strength or faculties But moreover the Schools teach That the cutting of a vein is not commanded in a Fever by reason of the goodness of the blood the which indeed they suppose to be evil and putrefaction But I have sufficiently taught That corrupted blood is not afforded in the veins as long as we live and by consequence that this scope of the Schools in cutting of a vein falls to the ground It behooves thererefore that they demonstrate unto me a naughtiness of the blood which may be without the corruption of the same And then that that blood is detained in a vein from the heart unto the hand if they will have the cutting of a vein to be confirmed in as much as it is such or as to revulsion Let them teach I say That bad blood is not in the first shops and that blood being drawn out through the vein of the elbow worse blood is not drawn to the heart where the vena cava or hollow vein makes the right bosome of the heart Let them likewise instruct me that the upper veines being emptyed there is not a greater liberty and impunity whereby the hurtfull and feverish matter may reach unto the heart than before So that instead of a discussing of the putrefaction which in the truth of the matter I have proved to be none a free passage of putrified ayr unto the heart is not rather occasioned whither indeed the vacuity of the emptied veines attracteth the bloud from beneath Let them shew I say by what reason an afflux of bloud and diminishment of the strength through the Elbow may hinder putrefaction or may import a Correction and renewing of that which is putrified Let them also explain themselves what they will have meant that cutting of a vein should be made whereby the Arteries may the more freely breath since putrefaction if there were any possible to be in the veines doth not affect the arterial bloud the Buttery of whole Nature And moreover Let them prove that the good bloud being diminished and the strength proportionally that there is a greater power in the impure bloud that is left and which is defiled by corruption as they suppose of preserving it self from putrefaction hanging over its head Let them likewise teach contrary to the sacred Text That the Life and Soul are rather and more willingly in the remaining defiled bloud than in the more pure bloud which was taken away by the cutting of a vein Otherwise regularly the drawing out of good bloud includes an increased proportion and unbridled liberty of the bad bloud remaining What if at length in a Fever and in the veines there be bad bloud and they say it is good as a sign or effect which in the letting out of bloud flowes forth as evil and they think that so much bad bloud at least is taken away First let them prove the bloud which they account hurtfull to be truly hurtfull even as I have already before proved it to be harmlesse And then let them teach that by such an hasty and full emission of bad bloud nothing that is of prejudice is taken from the strength and that the remaining bloud being defiled and the Faculties being now diminished the emptying out of bloud that is made shall be for a cause why a putrifying of the remaining bloud is the less
whose hands't shall come this Book to view See that your hearts are simple to the pure No filthinesse true wisdom can endure The milky way must be the paper here And th'Inke Nectar from th' Olympick sphere And then 't may open unto you a path For finding that which long been hiden hath For there 's a way by Simples for to cure Unto Simplicity the nearest sure If not Antiquity at Scriptures note Solomon for ' n example may be brought The Author opes a gate in that Divine Chapter that treats â—'th power of medicine And not a little of Moses Câ—â—â—lism He hinteth at that in of Magnetism So truly doth the Saviour report That to the carkasâ— Eagles do resort In former time thy younger learning years Thou as a tender heart yet void of fears People that had the plagues infection Didst visit and by them wert spew'd upon Some breathing forth their life within thy arms Unto thy grief because thou then their harms Wert not so able to repair untill Thou hadst attain'd a great Adeptist skill For thou by Revelation dost show What Co-us us'd two thousand years ago All which supposed I can freely wink At some mistakes whereby thine eye did blink As to Religion because thou wert Honest upright sincere and sound in heart For if the folly of them thou hadst seen As other things deâ—y'd by thee they 'd been And if in Nature thou art ought mistaken Thy many truths are not to be forsaken For why ye Schools ye cannot neither dare ye Deny but that humanum est errare Until the minds perfection in the Light Which he believ'd yet would not claim it quite And so his candour is to be commended In not assuming what God had not ended Yet know that where one truth is you among In Helmonts breast there lodged ten for one And that not taken up by hear-say trust As ye are wont but stamped by the Iust For Reason Dialectical he saith Must vail the Bonnet unto light in faith Sith Reason savours of an earthly soil Dies with the sense our Parents did beguil And therefore Logick may no longer center Within mens minds as Sciences Inventer And Nat'ralists must needs go to the wall As those of Athâ—â—s in the daies of Paul Since that four El'ments Humors and Complexions Are proved plain to be but childish fictions Which Ethnicans by phansie blind misled Have rashly plac'd in seeds and ferments sted This is some liquor pour'd out of his bottle A deadly draught for those of Aristotle Astrol'gers also will be soon undon Since Herm's and Venus circle with the Sun And since the Planets common Ordination Was to stir up a Blas for seasons station And since the Heavens can no forms bestow To th' Prince of life all creatures do them owe. Ye Theologians look what will befal ye Since man is not defin'd by Rationale But by a Spirit and Intellectual light Now every one may see by his own sight And living waters out 's own Cistern drink Need not â—ew Cisterns that do leak and chink Nor tug with pains to dig for earthly Wells The Spring 's within him as Christ in him dwells Nor run to Temples that are made with hands Himself 's the Temple if he contrite stands And cause a New-birth is requir'd of all Since brutal coupling entred by the fall And so your follow'rs can't be reputed Christians by birth nay but must be transmuted And since the mind of man may be compâ—eated In this lifes time as sin and self 's defeated Since Char'ty not to dwell by many's known In those that with the letter up are blown For as from mud or dung ascends a stink So Pride from Leathing sents up like a sink He did refuse to be a Canon great Least as saith B. he peoples sins should eat What will protracting crafty Lawyers doe Since Christ against them hath denounc'd a woe He would not bâ— a Professor of the Law Enough for man to keep 's own self in awe And what will come of Atheists since 't is true That there 's a Power Eternal who in â—â—e Of fallen Angels did mans Soul ereate In mortal body an immortal state To live in h's hand in weal or woe as they His call of Grace shall or shall not obey What of curst Hypocrites who in deceit Take up Profession for a Cloak and Cheat Better for Sodom and Gomorrah than For such when Christ doth come the world to fan But stop my Genius run not out too far Although thy shackles much unloosed are And vitals subtil while thou tell'st the story Of what concerns mans good and God his glory Least Prince of th' Air like Poets Pegasus Prevail to make thy wit ridiculous By mounting thee too high upon his wing Of fleshly pride and Aeolus thee fling Down from the quiet Region of his skie In the Icarian waters for to die Or whirl thee higher in his stormy hail And sting thy conscience with the Dragons tail For if an inch be given so they tell It is not safe for one to take an ell Wherefore retreat in time of thy accord Least thou incur the anger of the Lord And throw thy self along down at his feet After the Author thou shalt once more greet I b'lieve thou wert a Medel-master made By the Creator of the Root and Blade Of healing virt's the Father of lights I sing Whence every good gift doth descend and spring Thou livedst well and in the Belgick Nation Wert a tall Cedar in thy Generation A good memorial thou hast left behind Of what in daies now coming men shall find Writ in Christ's Bosom and in Natures spread As they are worthy in those books to read Thou diedst in peace in Anno forty four I doubt not but thou liv'st for evermore My friend is also gone yet I survive Lord grant that to thine honour I may live And as my life thou gayâ—st me for a prey When in a gloomy and despairing day I thought I should have died without the fight Of thy Love-tokens and thy face so bright So I intreâ—r upon my prostrare knee That I thy way and Cross may never flee Than turn a new unto Apostasie Or thee dishonour raâ—ker let me die Than to depart again out of thy fear Better wild horses me in pieces tear If the remembrance dwell not in me rife Of thy great goodness pity of my life But as large mercy is to me extended So what is faulty may be fully mended That perfect righteousness may cloath my back And I to sound thy praises will not slack In life or death or suffering by the world Who in transgression up and down are hurl'd And Topheâ—s pit shall surely help to fill If they in time repent not of their ill But as he did for 's en'mies pardon cry So do all Chrictian hearts and so do I. O holy holy holy holy God! Whos 's Name 's exalted in th' Ascendant Jod My self doth tremble and my flesh doth quake While I the King of Saints my Subject make I dread thee Lord I dread thy Sov'raign fame I love thee so I can't express the same My Spirit 's on site and my heart doth flame With a desire to sanctifie thy Name My Soul is melted and my heart is broke In feeling of the force of thy Love-stroke Father I thank thee that thou didst enable Me to convey the dish from Helmontâ— Table And if some crums or drops have fell beside 'T was what a careful servant might be tide It being weighty full of divers fare If none should over-fall or flow 't were rare A Corydon I h'd rather some me deem Than t' use dark-phrases that would not be-seem Rather a Tautologian be dained Than to the meanest leave words unexplained Rather a home-spun Patcher wanting Art Than th' Authors meaning willingly pervert And if his tongue could speak out of the dust Hee 'd justifie this Translate all almost For though his learned Art I don't comprize Yet in the Root our Spirits harmonize The Dish lest somewhat of its crums and drops As it was carried through the Printing Shops Yet what the Press hath nipt off by the way It here returns again by this survey ERRATA IN the Authors Dedication to the Word Pag. 2 lin 6 read except In the Translators premonition P 2 l 35 r and is p 3 l 19 dele other In the Preface to the Reader P 11 l 46 r Eternally p 12 l 28 r the work p 13 l 35 r world In the Poeticall Prophesie P 1 l 4 r spiting P 14 of the Book l 10 r knowingly ibid. l 28 r vain ibid. r give p 17 l 37 r it with p 7 l 32 r Nuns p 34 l 55 r first 〈…〉 p 57 l 25 〈◊〉 as r is p 295 l 2 r 〈◊〉 p 298 l 60 r Watchman p 407 l 28 r whereof they are said to have been the p 477 l 26 r vital p 504 l 31 r it is p 518 l 50 r this is â—oheaped p 535 l 41 r efficacy p 537 l 38 r Plato p 519 l 28 r 〈◊〉 p 575 l 5 r But be sides p 577 l 61 r Lile p 515 l 18 r anothers cherry p 621 l 53 r 〈…〉 710 l 30 r the God p 739. l 28 r Mols p 741 l 22 for any r and. p 825 in the Title of the disease of the Stone r root p 838 l 55 r by p. 1073 l 13 r voice p 1150 l 12 r worms ibid. l 44 after terrible dele and. p 1157 l 1 r the plague Medicine Aesculapius Hippocrates Pandora Latine Er Greek Ro Hebr. Res Errours Eccles 1. 11. On Psal 140. 143. 1. The essentiall Form 2. The Vitall Form 3. The substantial Form 4. The formall substance N Lib. 14. De Civitate Dei Cap. 17. Lib. 4. Contra Jul cap. 10. Lib. of Marriages 12. Flesh of Sin cap. 24. Lib. 5. Cont Jul. cap. 15. Lib. 5. Cont. Jul. cap. 12. * Of his Testament Chap. 26. * The signs of a true Physitian * Bernard