the cold womb of the Earth with an heavenly fire and adjoyned to the drie globe of the Earth the moist nature of Water that so by the mixture of two generative causes moist and hot the sterility of the Earth might be helped and that by the mediation of the concourse and mixture of all the Elements the Earth might be made a natural Vessel for fruitfull Generation Therefore all Elements and all qualities are in the Earth 62. The body of the Earth was rightly created by the great God of a spongeous nature that so there might be a receptacle for Air Showers and heavenly Influences and also that the moist vapours being expelled by the force of inward heat from the Centre to the Superficies through the porous passages of the Earth might by a mean putrefaction corrupt the seeds of things and so prepare for generation these being thus disposed receive that enlivening and heavenly heat For Nature hath sunk in the depths a magnetick love by the actings of which they draw down and suck out the efficacy and virtue of things above which do increase the strength of the information and hasten the sweetness of vital Air 63. The heat that comes from the inwards of the Earth is moist and impure and doth corrupt by reason of the tainted mixture of Earth and Water But the most pure and heavenly doth generate by excitation dilatation and furthering the inbred heat to life even that inbred heat which is hidden in the seeds of things and as Natures secret closed in their centre But because both these heats are of the same kind they have a joynt and amicable operation in the act of generation and are inseparably united until they are brought forth to life and large vegetation 64. Water is of a middle nature betwixt what is thick and what is of a thin nature betwixt the Earth and the Air Natures menstruum a volatile body flying and not enduring fire drawn forth by a moderate heat into a vapour assuming multiplyed shapes more unstable than Proteus 65. The moist Element is Mercurie which sometimes assuming the nature of a bodie sometimes of a spirit doth attract to himself by his revolutions the virtues of superiour and inferiour Beings and as it were receiving their instructions doth trade in commerce as their agent or factor amongst the remotest natures of the Universe neither will he leave his trafficquing till all the Elements of the corruptible Nature receive their fixation and purgation by fire and there issue upon it an Universal Sabbath 66. Water being the nearest in nature to the first matter doth easily receive her impress The Chaos the ancient Parent of all things was a kind of subtile and dark vapour a kind of a moist dark substance like a thin smoak from whose most subtile part the Heavens are drawn forth into order which a three-fold difference divides into a three-fold province to wit the Supream which is the noblest the middle which assumes the second place of dignity and honour the lowest is inferiour to the other two both in scite and honour The thicker substance of the matter went to the making of that watry heap which is a middle nature The thickest part which is as it were the dregs of the whole Mass sate down to the bottom and was setled for the globe of the Earth The extremities of this artifice to wit the Heaven and the Earth did recede more from the first state of their matter and from their ancient shape the Heaven in regard of its great rarity and levity the Earth in respect of its great density and gravity But the Water which was a mean betwixt them continued a nature more like the first formless Abyss from whence it proceeds so that with ease it turns it self by rarefaction into smoak or vapour which is the image of the ancient Hyle or first Matter 67. Moisture is more proper to Water than Coldness because Water is of a greater rarity and more lightsom than Earth but those things which communicate most of light are farthest off from cold the morâ—rarity there is in any thing the nearer vicinity there is to light Wateâ— retained the symbole of moisture from the first matter the Abyss as the Earth coldness For the Architect Spirit of the World divided the more thick parts into those two nearly-allied Natures 68. Coldness wooes Driness and invests it self with it where it is vigorously predominant by the constriction of moist beings and by the desiccation of them as is evident in Snow Ice and Hayl For it is the work of Nature to bind and drie the Water than which nothing is more humid by the proper instrument of Cold yea the principal and common subject of Heat and Cold is humidity by both which it is so strongly assailed till it be conquered from whence it falls out that in Autumn so many drie leaves fall at the first cold that the stalks of feeble Plants upon the strength of Winter in the height of Drought are void of moisture and drie away The cold penetrating doth so scorch and makes so furious an assult upon the vital humours hence proceeds flaggy and withered age at length death comes and cuts down all with his well-set sickle and sweeps you into his general Granary How then can any one conceive Cold to be friendly to Moisture and to be its inherent property Since Nature suffers not the Elements to act against each other lest they should destroy and oppose each the others powers but an intense Cold quickly would bring under a remiss and weak moisture and would swallow it up all by a violent constriction so that by this means one of the Elements being lost there would necessarily follow an imperfection in the work of the rest and a deficiency in the generation of all things It is therefore not suitable to the Law of Nature to invest Water with the property of being cold in the highest degree 69. Out of these solider Natures of Earth and Water doth Nature extract her Elements by which she compacts Vessels and corporeal Organs for out of the commixture of both is made a clay which is the next matter of things in generation for it is in stead of the Chaos In which virtually and confusedly are all Elements Out of this clay was the first Father of mankind created and after all Generation issued from it In the Generation of creatures is a clay made of the seed and the menstruum from whence proceeds the living Creature In the production of Vegetables the seeds do first fall into a subtile clay by putrefaction and then are wrought up to a vegetable body In the generation of Mettals there comes forth a clay from the perfect mixture of Sulphur and Mercury and their resolution in a fat Water by which means the mettallick bodies are indurated by a long decoction In the Philosophical resolving of mettals and in the creation of that Philosophical Secret first is brought forth a
heat 93. The second universal Agent is that same light not so immediately issuing from the Fountain but reflected from solid bodies inlightened by it as the heavenly yea the Earth it self for the light of the Sun beating upon those bodies gives a motion to their dispositions and faculties and alters them and diffuseth their several and different virtues by the reflection of his rays through the whole frame of Heaven and of our Air for by those rays as by so many conveyances are the various effects of several bodies dispersed every where for the benefit and harmony of Nature which are called by us Influences These are the true and first Elements of Nature which because they are spiritual do communicate themselves to us under some airy or also some watry Nature to whose good act as to the roots of the Elements we are beholding for the gift of every birth and of all life 94. Love styled by Plato the Eldest of the gods was breath'd into nature begotten by the Divine Spirit and hath the place of a Genius in her dispositions In the first Division of the World betwixt the first brothers she gave the judgement for the partitions of their families and after had alwayes the Praefecture in Generation 95. The God of Nature did fix the first bond of Love in the things of Nature between the first Matter and the universal Form the Heaven and the Earth Light and Darkness Plenty and Poverty Beauty and Deformity The second degree of Love from the first couple which is as it were the loving embraces of the Parents issued into the Elements which having a fraternal tye to bind them have divided betwixt them the whole right of Nature The third and last degree is compleated in mixed bodies which excites them by the in-born and in-bred sparkles of love to a propagation and multiplication of their like The Divine Love hath appointed this treble Love-knot as a kind of Magical tye that it might deliver it self by traduction into all and every part of his workmanship Love is the Base of the Universe the Cube of Nature and the fastening bond of things above and below 96. Let those avaunt therefore who do attribute the concordant motions of Nature to Discord for Nature is peaceable and pleasant in all her workings yea she is delightfully tickled in her actings The very Elements of things in their coition are wholly lost in love that they may knit themselves together by their mutual embraces and of many be made one 97. Let the Academies stand up and tell us how the first Matter can be the first subject of contraries and how Love can lye amongst the brawlings and jarres of Enmity or that eager appetite which the Prince of Philosophers acknowledgeth residing in the heart of this Matter whereby it doth as earnestly lust for its form as a man for a woman Will not those enemies constituting the seeds of Beings and the mixt bodies by their eternal food at length force Love and Concord to yield to their ruine 98. They that placed a lust between the Matter and the Form and yet an hatred and repugnancy in the Matter it self and in the Elements in making these contraries have made themselves so for according to the dictates of their School the Soul in all things generated onely man excepted is brought forth out of the power and privy virtue of the Matter But how can this be without love If the Matter radically doth lye under the dissentions of contraries must not the Form which springs from her very root feel the same portion Nay would it not be stifled by them in its first birth and cradle What man therefore that stood right in his wits would acknowledge the rule of these bandetties to be chief in the nuptials of Love and Nature in the very juncture of the mixture of the Elements and of the information of the Matter Yea who would expect an uniform and not a monstrous issue from the heterogeneous seed of opposite parents 99. Let therefore the Philosopher surcease to place the cause of the alteration of Elements of the corruption and failing of mixt beings in the repugnancy of the Elements but rather lay the fault upon the penurious weakness of the first matter For in the first Chaos 'Twixt moist and drie there was no battel fought Nor any enmitie 'twixt cold and hot It is indeed the Vulgar conceit that there was whereas onely two no way contrary of those four qualities to wit Cold and Moisture agreed to the female the matter and were in it The other two which are Heat and Drought which are masculine and formal qualities came forth out of the part of the informing light And the Earth was not called Drie Land before the drawing off the Waters and the coming on of the light Being which was first moist and covered with Waters 100. Therefore certainly reason it self doth evidence that those four qualities which by the Vulgar are accounted repugnant are not extant in the first matter unless after information And lest she might endure some contrariety in its solitude she had other diseases to wit Darkness Confusion Deformity Coldness an indigested Moisture with an impotency which are all evidences of a diseas'd and languishing body Therefore being infected from its creation with that corruption it derived it down to its posterity lodged in this lowest and weakest Region of the elements Therefore it is not set down in Genesis of that Abyss of Darkness that it was very good but reserv'd that gracefull Elogie for the Light and for the rest that were created 101. But who is there that hath the least dram of knowledge will conceive that this contentious repugnancy did flow from the form into the matter after the union of the four qualities in the matter being informed Since it is essential to and the intent of the form to adde a perfection to the matter and compleatly to perfect it into an harmony and consent and a temperament according to its ability 102. The first contraries through opposing qualities were Light and Darkness Light hath two qualities Heat and Drougth Darkness as many Cold and Moisture wholly opposite each to other because of their intention But after those two aged principles of Nature came together and the dark material and female principle was informed by the lightsom formal and masculine principle and impregnated by the light the whole matter of the Universe and all the Regions thereof received this priviledge of light though distinct in the degrees and differences for that fiery tincture of the Spirit of light left nothing unpierced and the four qualities also at first being in their highest degree were brought down to a remission in the informed matter and so closing sweetly contracted a fast friendship and consented to a temperature and so being made friendly they were entered into the homogeneous family of the Elements that so there might nothing of repugnancy or enmity lurk in the
generation of mixt bodies whereby the pleasing motion of Nature might be disturbed 103. Neither in nature are those four qualities contrary one to another but onely divers and unlike one to another neither do they ruin but unite into a firm league one with another So Heat and Cold in a remiss degree do amicably agree and commix in one and the same subject that a middle and temperate quality to wit a lukewarness might be produced But if in the intense degree they couple not without a fight and combat this proceeds from the excess and tyranny of the intension which cannot endure two qualities equally heightened and adverse to be partners and sharers of one and the same Sovereignty but there will fall out a tumult But indeed Nature casteth out intense qualities as bastards and strangers 104. Let not therefore any fancy that Nature admits fire intense into the family of her Elements for such a fire would be fit for destruction not generation would not be according to but against Nature which avoids violent things and delights in a temperature in which is no fighting no contrariety For the Rule of Nature cannot away with the rage of a scorching heat or a wasting cold or the distemper of moist and drie but doth pleasingly lye down in a composed temperature Let not any therefore search for the intense qualities in the Elements of things he will find them in them either less or more remitted 105. He is deceived therefore who says that hot and cold moist and drie are simple contraries For the Earth which by Aristotle is laid down as drie in the highest should always quarrel with the Air which is said by him to be moist in the highest Also Water that is cold in the highest according to his opinion should be opposite to Fire that is hot in the highest and this repugnancy would inclose by force every one of the common Elements or every Region of the World within the verge of its sphear and by reason of this antipathie would destroy all hospitality betwixt them But we are convinced of the contrary both by reason and experience For ditches and all hollow places under the Earth yea the very bowels and pores of the Earth are replenished with Air and the intrinsical moisture of the Earth by which as with their mothers milk all Vegetables are nourished is nothing else but an hot and moist Air cleaving close to the Earth and handing it as a nursive and nourishing faculty the pores of the Earth are the dugs and the airy moisture the milk by which she the Mother and Nurse of things doth nourish her off-springs and give them growth 106. They who settle four Elements in as many humours do grant that Nature being moist is receiveable yea is the subject of four Elementary qualities how then can they hold a contrariety in them which they place in one and the same subject For though those four humours are distinguished by their respective differences yet have they but one base one common root to all to wit Humour for yellow choller which resembles fire is no less an humour than flegm which resembles water and the same may be said of adust Choller and Bloud although they do not absolutely but comparatively confound the four Elements in a moist Being 107. If there were any repugnancy in the qualities and elements of Nature the greatest would be betwixt hot and cold and so betwixt Water and Fire but the nature of these are not adversary many generations which are under the Waters do evidence for wheresoever there is any generation or life there must be fire as the nearest intrinsical efficient moving and altering cause of the matter for generation Hence Men Beasts and the Fowls their Being have And ghastly Monsters rowling on a wave A fiery vigour to their seeds is given The homage for their birth is due to Heaven 108. There fore certainly he will be in the right who shall acknowledge those four first qualities inborn and essential to the things themselves and to their Elements to be apt to a mixture by the direction of Nature and not contrary for they are as it were four Organs or instruments which Nature makes use of in the perfecting of her alterations and generations 109. Nature sets up a Potters trade for she is wholly taken with making her matter circular these four qualities are as the wheels by which she doth by degrees and wisely inform her works through a circular and slow motion 110. Of those four Wheels two viz those of Moist and Drie are most agreeable to the matter because Nature doth turn and work the matter between these two those two qualities are nearest the matter because more subject to be passive and to a change But the other two to wit of Hot and Cold are more of action because by their turns they alter and change the former these are passive those active are as it were the active instruments of Nature working upon her passive matter 111. Let us therefore cast off that tenent of Contraries as contrary to natures concord and dash out it with a pen of iron with the good leave of learning from the depraved table of Philosophy and let us in the room of it inscribe the Symbole of Concord which Nature doth acknowledge of the same standing with her self by whose help the delightfull copulation of actives with passives is procured in every Generation 112. Those who according to the flying opinion do stand for four Elements contrary each to other do necessarily introduce a fifth as the knot or bond-tye of concord as the Peace-maker otherwise they could not receive any perfect mixture or any temperature in the work of generation but without a rudder or a ruler would float a drift through the vast Ocean of Nature never able to reach a port or bring forth a birth and so would they cheat the common Genius of Nature of her proper end 113. For these four being acknowledged by reason of their repugnant qualities to keep up an eternal war betwixt themselves cannot be united or appeased in the generation of mixt Beings but rather with their mutual conflict rushing in will procure an Abort than a birth in Nature unless their contrary actings be composed to a peaceable love by the part of some fifth heavenly and tempering Nature which may introduce a temperature void of Hot and Cold Drie and Moist 114. That fifth Element as they call it or heavenly and incorruptible Spirit springing from the light motion and virtue of the heavenly bodies upon these lower Beings and preparing the Elements for motion and life and stopping from ruin particular individuals as far as their setledness will permit hath merited the name of the salt Nature the tie of the Elements the Spirit of the world to be given it by the searchers of occult Philosophie 115. If there were any contrariety between the principles of things certainly it was between Light and Darkness
two Waters those above and these below betwixt our Water and Air yet it is neither of them because although it rarifie yet will it never be heightened to the great degree of the nobilitie of the Air It may be made a spurious but never a pure Air neither will the refined nature of the Air be so depressed and fall from its puritie as to thicken into a vapour cloud or Water For the right of Nature never got that first separation of the Waters which was really and actually done by that Architect spirit and that the established bounds of the parts of the World which God hath sealed with an indelible signature should either be blurred or removed by any new confusion 129 But those that dive deeper into things will acknowledge the Earth to be the womb of the World the vessel of Generation the mother of a multiplied and almost numberless issue which being rescued in the beginning of the Creation from the power of the covering Waters and priviledged to it self was made and remained drie land and her bodie being condensed sunk to the foundation and the centre of the whole and spread out her lap as a Parent to all vegetables and all other creatures yet did she want moisture whereby she might be made apt for a fruitful generation Gods providence set out a remedie for this exigence Therefore from the beginning was the water made volatile that so it might be carried up in vapours which being frozen by cold in this cloud might by heat be thawed again into Waters By this master-piece of Divine providence was this exigence of the Earth supplied and that driness which threatened barrenness was tempered with a large moisture and the womb of our mother conceived Therefore onely Water hath the circulation to the intent that it might moisten the bosom of the Earth or more truly it is distilled in the lower region of the Air as in its Alembick that so by often pouring in and reiterated distillations it being abounded and having gotten virtues both from above and below and endued with that celestial Nectar it might more effectually soften the bosom of the Earth and endue it with a prolifical virtue The chief worker of all who maketh use of the art of Nature hath added nothing superfluous to his work nor left any thing defective in it 130 But the Water being the menstruum of the World doth cherish and contain in it the seeds of things and their elements but she having this circulation the true and genuine Elements of things which are in the Earth as in the matrix and vessel of Generation and in the Water as in the menstruum are also whirled about In the vapour therefore are the Elements of the Earth the Water and the Air have their sublimation and exuberation with it They are not the bodies of Earth Water and Air which have their proper sphears and constitute the several Regions of the World but they are the very spiritual Elements of Nature which lye hid and inhabit in them out of which many bodies as stones may be generated and excocted in the Air For where all the Elements well mixt do meet as they do in a vapour there bodies may be generated but when they find not a convenient matrix as in the Air there are ingendered imperfect mixtures not by reason of any fault in the mixture but in the Matrix 131. The Water being seated as middle betwixt the Earth and the Air doth trouble both it by its flowing and always moving inconstancy infesting the Air with a black soote and noisom vapours and often drowning the Earth by flouds causing tempests in the Air ruines to the Earth and corruption to both and it doth assault the Region of the one with its levity and of the other with its gravity and doth cross the order of Nature and the nature of Times by its defect or excess yea doth shake all her borderers with her terrible claps and tumultuous ragings Her nature being altogether female the supream Creatour seems to have bestowed her on the World in the nature of a Woman or a necessary Evil even so doth she arrogate all things as subject to her and turns those things that were given her for a general good to a publick ruin Finally it is the scourge of divine Justice revenging Nemeses which being designed to the vengeance of sin doth break out to punish and sets the hopes and wealth of many the very roots of pride under several shapes of judgements the scoff and blast of the world 132. The universal Natures the more thick they are the more impure the more endued with tenuity the more purity The Earth because more thick than Water therefore is less noble and so Water than Air and Air than Heaven and so the highest Region of the Heavens is the most noble because it is most subtile For it is an undoubted truth that spiritual Natures are more excellent than corporeal and the more bordering upon the spiritual Natures the more they draw nigh to perfection 133. The foundation of Generation and Corruption is in Moisture for in both the travails of Nature Moisture of all the Elements is the first patient receiving the first seal of the form The natural Spirits are easily united with it because flowing from it do lightly return to it because the root of them in that and by that are the rest of the Elements mixed The moist Element hath its circulation no less in mixed and individual bodies than in the World both in the work of Generation and of Nutrition for it was Natures pleasure that both these works should be performed by the same instruments of condensation and rarefaction and by the same means to wit Spirits 134. The Earth is the Vessel of Generation Water the menstruum of Nature containing in it the formal and seminal virtues which it borrows from the Sun the male and the formal universal Principle from him is derived into all things the influence of the fire of Nature and of formal Spirits in which are all things necessary for generation the in-bred heat being wrapt up in the moist Therefore Hippocrates did rightly affirm That these two Elements Fire and Water could do all contained all things in them For from them do issue two masculine qualities of Hot and Drie from the other two more of Cold and Moist being the female qualities which so concurring and mixing perfect the generation of mixed bodies Over those two principal Elements the two greater Lights were set the Sun the authour of Fire and the Moon the Lady of Moisture 135. Nature perfects the circulation of the volatile Element by a three-fold action or instrument by Sublimation Demission or Refusion and by Decoction which stand in need of a divers temperament So doth the rightly ordered intention of Nature wandering through various motions directeth her interrupted actions to their designed end and attaineth the same mark though it trades through divers wayes
the Subpream Rulers beck This is the Symmetry the order of the whole Universe 12. It is the excepted priviledge alone of the Creatour as he created all things according as he pleased out of nothing so to reduce what he hath created into nothing for whatsoever being or substance hath an impress from him cannot deny subjection to him but is prohibited by Natures law to return to a Non-Entity Therefore Trismegist did truly assert That nothing in the world doth die but pass into a change for mixt bodies have their composition from the Elements which by natures rotation are again resolved into the Elements Hence is this sequel that by Natures cost All 's cloth'd with what 's its own nothing is lost 13. The Philosphers did believe a first matter to be of an elder birth to the Elements but this as it was but scarce apprehended by them so was it as briefly and as it were in the clouds and obscurely handled by them they made it void of qualities and accidents yet the first subject of them without quantity yet by which all things have their dimensions endowed with simplicity yet capable of contraries without the reach of sensible knowledge yet the basis of sensible drawn out through all places yet unperceiveable covetous of all forms tenacious of none the root of all bodies yet not sensible but conceiveable onely by an act of the intellect lastly nothing in act all things in aptitude So have they laid a fancy for the foundation of nature 14. Aristotle more wary though he believed the eternity of the world yet hinted a certain first and universal matter In the discussion of this he used sobriety and ambiguity alwayes avoiding its creeks and perplexities so that he opined it better to conceive * one inseparable matter of all things which yet hath a respective difference from which the first bodies with the rest which are under sense have their subsistence that this is the first principle of them and not to be separated from them †but always joyned with a repugnancie always subject to contraries from which the Elements are produced 15. The Philosopher had been righter if he had asserted that first matter free from the conflict of Contraries and disengaged from that pretended repugnancy since there is no contrariety inherent in the very Elements but what is the result of the intention of their qualities as we are informed by the daily experience of fire and water in which whatsoever opposition there is ariseth from the heightening of their qualities But in the proper and true Elements which couple in the generation of mixt bodies those qualities which are in a remiss degree in them are not repugnant each to other for their temperature doth not admit a contrariety 16. Thales Heraclitus and Hesiodus accounted water the first matter of all things to whose opinion the Writer of the holy Genesis seems to consent This they call an Abyss and Water by which I guess they understood not our ordinary water but a kind of sume or moist and dark vapour roaving here and there and driven in an uncertain motion without any certain order 17. I am not at present able to lay down any positive determination concerning that first Principle of things since it being created in the dark could never by mans invention be brought to light therefore whatsoever the troup of Philosophers and Divines do opine whether these things are so or no the Authour of Nature alone knows therefore pardon is to be allowed to him that in dark Doctrines hits what is most likely 18. Some of the Rabbines agreeing conceived an ancient but obscure and inexpressible principle the matter of all improperly called Hyl◠which is more properly termed not so much a body as a large shadow not a thing but a dusky image of a thing or the smoaky appearance of an Entity a most dark night a covert of clouds actually all nothing potentially all things which cannot be found but in fancie and understood in a dream Our imagination cannot exhibit to us this doubtfull principle this depth of darkness no more than our talk can through the ears imprint the knowledge of the Sun into a man that was born blind 19. The same men had an opinion that God brought forth and created the nearest approching matter of the Elements and the World to wit that dark formless and indigested Abyss out of that farthest Principle the Scripture calls this Mass sometimes Earth void and emptie sometimes Waters although actually it were neither yet potentially and by way of assignment it was both we may give a propable guess that it was not unlike to a dark smoak or vapour in which was closed a stupifying spirit of cold and darkness 20. The division of the higher waters from the lower expressed in Genesis seems to be done by the severing the subtile from the thick and as it were a thin spirit from that smoaky body there was needfull therefore of that lightsom spirit proceeding from the Word of God For light which is a fiery spirit by separating things of a diverse nature did drive down the thicker darkness from the nearest and highest Region and uniting the matter of one and the same kind being of a thin and a more spiritual substance inflamed it as an unquencheable oyl to burn before the Throne of the Divine Majesty This is the Empyraean Heaven seated between the Intellectual and Material heaven as the Horizon and Finitor of each receiving spiritual endowments from that above and deriving them down to the inferiour adjoyning middle heaven 21. Reason required that this dark Abyss or next matter of the World should be watry and moist that it be the better subject to be attenuated and that by this flux of the matter by attenuation the whole frame of the Heavens and of the rest of the Fabrick might issue forth and might be laid out in a continuous body For it is the property of moisture to flow and the continuity of every body is the effect of the moisture of it For moisture is the glue and joyncture of Elements and bodies But fire acting upon moisture by heat doth rarifie for heat is the instrument of fire by which it doth act two opposite works by one and the same labour separating the moist nature from the earthy by rarifying that condenseth this So that by the separation of the things of a diverse proceeds a congregation of things of the same nature By this first principle of Chymistry the uncreated spirit the artifex of the world did distinguish the confused natures of things 22. The Architectonique Spirit of the world began the work of Creation from two universal principles the one formal the other material for otherwise what is the meaning of the words of the Prophet Gen. 1. God created the Heaven and the Earth c. unless that in the beginning of the information of the matter he distinguished it into two chief principles
a formal and a material Heaven and Earth by the word Earth is to be understood that dark and as yet unshaped mass of the waters and Abyss as is apparent by the subsequent words The Earth was void and without form and darkness was upon the face of the depth c. which the Creatour did shut in and comprise within the highest to wit the Empyrean Heaven which is Natures first formal though farthest principle 23. For the Spirit of God which is the brightness of the Deity being poured out upon the Waters that is upon the moist and large surface of the depths in the very moment of creation light presently broke up which in the twinkling of the eye surprized the highest and more subtile part of the matter and encompassed it as it were with a fringe and border of light as that lightening is which is darted from the East to the West or like a flame which fires the smoak So was the birth of the first day but the lower portion of darkness devoid of light continued night and so the darkness had its division into day and night 24. Concerning that first Heaven that formal Principle it is not declared to have been void empty and wrapt in darkness which is a sufficient evidence that that Heaven which was first spread out was forthwith severed by the light from the subjacent dark Mass by reason of the nearness of the Glory and Majesty of God and the presence of that lightsom Spirit flowing from it 25. There was therefore in the beginning two Principles of all things created one full of light and bordering upon the spiritual Nature the other wholly corporeal and dark the first that it might be the Principle of motion light and heat the second of a drowsie dark and cold being the first active and masculine the other the passive and feminine Principle On the part of the former comes a motion in the Elementary world to Generation from whence proceeds life from the other part comes the motion to corruption the principle of death So that is the double fringe or border of the lower world 26. But because Love is extensive and acts without from it self the Divine Nature impatient of its solitude and taken with its own beauty in the light already created as in a Mirrour and earnestly desirous to enlarge it and to multiply his image commanded that light to be extended and propagated Then the light the fiery spirit issuing from the Divine understanding and rowling it self in a Circulation began to work upon the nearest darkness and having prevailed upon it and sunk it down towards the Centre and there sprung forth the second day and there was seen the second mansion of light or the second Heaven comprizing all the airy Region in whose higher Region are so many Torches kindled and scattered In the lower are seated the seven wandering Stars according to their order that they might as so many Presidents and Rulers give orders by their light motion and influence to the subjacent Nature 27. And least any thing should be defective in this great work already drawn out in the mind of God the same Spirit by his glittering and fiery sword beat off the banded darkness and that shade that lay under him and thrust it down into the Centre of the Abyss so the lowest part of the Heavens was enlightened which we rightly term Air or the lowest Heavens Then was the third day But the darkness which at first did overcast the whole face of the Abyss being thrust down by the supervening light into the lowest Region was so thickened by reason of the straitness of the room and the binding force of the Cold that it passed into a huge mass of a watry Nature the Kernel and Centre of the whole workmanship as it were a dale and heap of darkness being poiz'd in the middest of the waters and bound up of the dregs and thick matter of the Abyss into a firm and dark body of earth After this upon the driving of the Spirit the waters fled from the surface of the earth casting themselves about the borders of it and there appeared drie land that it might produce almost an infinite number of several sorts of Plants and receive as guests so many kinds of creatures especially Man the lord of all and provide to them food and to man a plentifull sufficiency of all conveniencies The Earth therefore and the Water made one Globe by reason of whose thickness the shadow the image of the dark Abyss doth continually beset the whole Region of the Air bordering upon it and opposite to the Sun for it shuns and flies the assayling light and so in the assault is upon a continual retreat 28. That Light which upon the conquest and destruction of the darkness had seized upon and spread it self upon the parts of the Abyss it seemed best to the great Creatour to contract into that most resplendent and illustrious for quantity and quality for bigness and beauty that Globe of the Sun that as the Light was more narrowly pent so it might be more efficaciously powerfull and might dart its beams with more vigour as also that the created Light the nearest approching nature to the divine glory proceeding from an uncreated unity might through its unity be poured out upon the creatures 29. From this glorious lamp of the world do all the other bodies borrow light for that dark shade which we sensibly perceive in the Globe of the Moon by reason of the neighbouring earth and the extension of her shadow we may credibly guess the like to be in the other globous bodies though not perceivable by reason of their distance Indeed the prime and most principal nature of sensibles the fountain of light ought to be one from which these things below might receive the breath of life Whence is that true saying of the Philosopher The Sun and man beget man 30. It was not an improbable assertion of some of the Philosophers That the soul of the World was in the Sun and the Sun in the Centre of the whole For the consideration of equity and nature seem to require that the body of the Sun should have an equal distance from the fountain and rise of created Light to wit the Empyrean Heaven and from the dark Centre the Earth which are the extreams of the whole Fabrick whereby this lamp of the world as a middle Nature and Joyner of both Extreams might have its scite in the middle that it may the more commodiously receive the rich treasuries of all powers from the chief Spring and upon a like distance convey them to things below 31. Before the Contraction of this light into the body of the Sun the earth spent an idle time in its solitude looking for a male that being impregnated by his copulation it might bring forth all sorts of creatures for as yet it had been delivered onely of abortives and Embryoes to wit of Vegetables onely For
the compleatly mixed body because their parts have a correspondence proportionable with the parts of the world and have a kind of Analogie with them we may call them by the same names the more solid parts Earth the moister Water the more spiritual Air the inborn heat Nature's fire the hidden and essential virtues a man may safely term Heavenly and Astral Natures or the Quint-Essence and so every mixed body may by this Analogie triumph in the title of Micro-cosme 53. He that did appoint the first Elements for the generation of bodies alone knows how out of them to make all particulars and to resolve them being made into them again 54. Let not them therefore refuse the Light who working about the Elements of Nature either in the production of some body from them or the resolution of some into them create their own trouble since these Elements are onely subject to the dominion of Nature and delivered to her onely from their beginning altogether unknown to all our art and not compassible by our endeavours 55. The Element of Nature may be termed the most simple portion of the first matter distinguished by its peculiar difference and qualities constituting a part of the essence in the material composition of mixt bodies 56. By the Elements of Nature are denoted the material principles of which some have a greater purity and perfection than others according to the greater Power and Virtue of that form that gives the compleatment They are for the most part distinguished according to their rarity or density so that those that are more thin and approch nearer to a spiritual substance are therefore the more pure and light and so are the more fit for motion and action 57. Upon this ground it was that reverend Antiquity did seign that the whole Empire of the world was divided between the three Brothers the Sons of Saturn as coheirs because it acknowledged onely three Elementary Natures or rather three parts of the Universe For by Jupiter the Omnipotent who shared heaven as his portion armed with his treble-darted Thunder-bolt superiour to the rest of the brothers what did those professours of mysteries understand but that the Heavens being the Region of heavenly bodies do assume a priviledge of Sovereignty over these inferiour beings But they placed Juno wife to Jupiter to praeside over the lowest Region of the Heaven or our Air because this Region troubled with vapours being moist and cold is as it were in a manner defiled and impure and nearest approaching to a female temperament as also because it is subjected to the orders of the higher Regions receive their effects and communicates them to us twisting it self with more condensed natures and stooping them to the bent of Heaven But because male and female differ onely in sex not in kind therefore would they not have the Air or the lower Heaven to be distinct in its essence and kind as another Element from the higher Heaven but onely diversified in place and by accidents To Neptune the god of the Sea they attributed a dominion over the waters By Pluto the lord of the lower parts abounding in wealth they denoted the Globe of the Earth replenished with riches with the desire of which the minds of men being inflamed are bitterly tormented So that those wise men admitted of three parts of the Universe or if you please of three Elements because under the Nature of Heaven they comprized the name of Fire and therefore did they draw Jupiter armed with his Thunder 58. We are Schollars to experience in this that all the bodies of mixt beings have their analysis and resolution into drie and moist and that all the excrements of creatures are terminated by the same differences from whence it is clearly evident that their bodies are made up onely of two sensible Elements in which notwithstanding the other are virtually and effectually But Air or the Element of the lower Heaven is not the object of our sense because in respect of us it is a kind of spiritual being The fire of Nature because it is the formal principle cannot be wrought to any separation or comprehension by any destruction by way of resolution nor by any art or artifice of man For the nature of Forms is not subjected to the censure of the Senses because of its spiritual being 59. The Earth is the thickest body of the Universe therefore is it accounted the heaviest and the centre of it we must assert its nature contrary to the received opinion to be accidentally drie because it doth retain most of the close and dark nature of the first matter but a shade and darkness are the coverts of cold from whence they flie the light and are diametrically opposite to it but the Earth in respect of its extream density is the mother of shade and darkness hardly passable by light and heat therefore roughly knit by an heightened cold And for this reason black choller is to be esteemed the coldest humour of all because it is under the power of the Earth the Earth under Saturns who is accounted the Authour of a cold and melancholick temperature Further those things that are ingendered in the bowels of the Earth of the substance of the Earth as Marble and Stones are of a cold nature although we must otherwise conceive of mettals because they are rather of an airy nature and have in them sparkles of the Fire of Nature and a spirit of Sulphur congealing their moist and cold matter Yet Mercurie surpassing the rest in moisture and cold is beholding to the Earth for his coldness and to the Water for his moisture It is otherwise with those things that are produced in the Sea as in Amber and Coral and many other things that have their beings from the Sea and fresh Waters which as it is apparent are of a hot temper so that we have this instruction both from reason and experience that the greatest coldness is to be attributed to the Earth not to the Water 60. But driness doth agree to the Earth accidentally onely and in a remiss degree for it was created in the middest of the Waters and the order of beings required that in respect of its gravity being sunk in the Waters it should never separate from them but the Creatour using his Prerogative having removed the Waters gave to it an open surface that so there might be room made both for the creation of mixed Beings and for their habitation The Earth therefore was enfranchiz'd from its natural yoke of bondage and subjection to the Waters not by any order of Nature but by a priviledge of favour that so having its face wipt it might lift up a dry visage to the view of the Heavens and might partake of the welcome light of the world 61. Every cold and drie is averse from the faculty of Generation unless it be helped out by some eternal helps therefore it was the will of the Supream Authour of Nature to heat
clay out of the seed of both parents purged and mixed 70. Water is the base and root of all moistures yea it is moisture it self from which all moist things receive their denomination therefore Water may be rightly defined the Fountain of the moist Element or the Spring of moisture whose property it is to wet by its liquour But those things are termed humid which do in themselves according to a less or greater degree contain a moisture or a watry liquor Moisture is receivable of all qualities so bloud and yellow choler are humours endued with their own heat although they have their foundation in the Element of Water Aqua-fortis and the like are empowered with a burning and a fiery nature The burning Water and many other essences which are extracted from oyls and water do abound in heat although the root of them which is Water be cold because Nature doth first imprint in a moist elemēt various resemblances and signatures of its powers and doth in it en-root and infuse its principal and choice qualities Moisture is the first subject of Nature upon which her prime care is bestowed her first charge layed out by whose liquour it doth dilute and mingle various colours and indelible tinctures To it first do the spiritual qualities communicate themselves in it first do they take up their being and actings 71. The lower Waters being divided into two do occupy a double seat for one part of them brimming the Earth doth lean on it as it were as its proper Base and with the Earth makes but one Globe the other part flying upward doth range up and down the Region of the neighbour Air and there making to it self many masqued fancies of bodies and various figures of several phantasms doth reave hither and thither over-hanging the lower Region 72. Always there is a great part of the Waters that keep above and being driven to and fro by the Caroach of the Wind doth post over divers parts of the Air which was in this manner ordered from the Day of the Creation by the enacting of the Wisdom of GOD that so the uncumbered and plain face of the Earth might be unmasked and fited for the generation of things For the Channels of the Sea and Rivers were not sufficient to receive the whole Waters but if all should break the confining Bars of the Heavens and come tumbling down it would not onely cover the plain face of the Earth but it may be overtop the highest Mountains Such an enloosening of the Cataracts of Heaven we may guess did occasion the old Cataclysm or Deluge 73. Water is not onely sublimated into a vapour by heat alone neither is it onely bound up in a cloud by cold but to both the virtues of the Sun and the Stars do contribute their aids not onely by multiplying the vigours of the Elements but also by a kind of Magnetick virtue attracting and retaining a moisture much or less according to their different position and the diverse figure of Heaven from whence we observe the various ordering of years and times for indeed that Mass of Waters is not kept in so poized onely by the solidation of Cold or the Air but by the powerfull order and regiment of superiour bodies 74. Lest there might seem to Divine Justice a want of judgements for the execution of his wrath he made that Ocean which is poized over our heads to be volatile or flying and withal brought into his Armoury those fiery darts his Thunder-bolts that so the presumptuous sinners that cannot be won by love might be wrought about by fear 75. They are much out of the way who do attribute to Air moisture in the highest degree upon this ground because it is easily kept in within the bounds of another but hardly within its own for this is the property of light and liquid bodies not of moist and so doth better agree with fire and Heaven which natures are more rarified than with Water and Air for bodies that are rarified because they of their own will flow every where cannot be comprized within their own bounds and therefore stand in need of another Onely firm and solid bodies are kept in within their own compass and superficies which cannot be done by those things that are of a subtile nature because by reason of their thinness they melt and are fluid and so less consistent From whence this flows that the Air is a body of greater rarity but not of greater humidity 76. The Air from it self hath no quality intense and in the highest degree but sometimes hath them upon loan else-where The nature of Air is a middle nature betwixt things below and above and so doth with ease assume the qualities of those that border upon it from whence it happens that its inferiour Region according to the diversity of times hath a variety of temper which inconstancy is occasioned by the changes of the neighbouring and thicker bodies of Water and Earth whose state is easily altered by heat and cold 77. The whole Air is the Heaven the floor of the World Natures sieve through which the virtues and influences of other bodies are transmitted a middle nature it is that knits all the scattered natures of the Universe together a most thin smoak kindled by the fire of Heaven into a light as it were an immortal flame the subject of light and shade of day and night impatient of vacuity the principal transparent the easiest receiver of almost all qualities and effects yet the constant retainer of none a borderer upon the spiritual nature therefore in the Tracts concerning the Mysteries of Philosophers it is called by the name of a Spirit 78. The lower Region of the Air is like unto the neck or higher part of an Alembick for through it the Vapours climbing up and being brought to the top receive their condensation from Cold and being resolved into water fall down by reason of their own weight So Nature through continued distillations by sublimation of the Water by cohobation or by often drawing off the liquour being often poured on the body doth rectifie and abound it In these operations of Nature the Earth is the vessel receiving Therefore the Region of the Air that is nearer to us being bounded by the Region of Clouds as by a vaulted Chamber is of a greater thickness and impurity than those Regions above 79. The middle Region of the Air is not that in which is the gathering of the Clouds from whence are Lightenings and Thunders which is onely the higher part of the lower Region and the border of it but that which is above the Clouds is to be stiled The Middle Region whither the watry Being by reason of its gravity cannot reach yet whither sulphureous exhalations disburthened of the load of their Vapours do climb up and there by a motion either of their own or anothers being kindled burn Such are the flaming Meteors of divers sorts which are viewed in the middle Region whence we
by reason of their opposite qualities but those qualities were tempered by the coition of both principles and from the extreams became a middle temper and such were they when they dislodged from the first and went into the second principles or Elements 116 The extreams are contrary each to other onely by reason of the intension of their opposite qualities but those things that spring from the mixture of these extreams are not â—dverse because they are of a middle nature and the â—fflux of the union of the two extreams to wit of Light and Darkness 117. That out of the mixture of Contraries to wit of Light and Darkness do not come contraries forth but in a temperature is plain by that of the Kingly Prophet breaking forth into these words of the Eternal Light He bowed the Heavens and came down and Darkness was under his feet c. He made Darkness his Covert his Pavilion in the middest of it c. The very fountain of Eternal Light that he might exhibit the brightnes of his infinite glory to mortal eyes did wrap it up in a cloud and dark mask and brought the Darkness to the Light that he might make of the two Extreams a moderate light and so allay the splendour of so great a light as was not to be gazed on without the ruin of the Spectatour yea Philosophers do affirm the Rain-bow that was given by God as a sign and token of a Covenant made with man to be produced out of a mixture of Light and Darkness that so that Symbole of the temperature of Gods wrath existing out of contraries might be tempered of various coherent and friendly colours 118. Those that have delivered that the Earth Water Air and Fire in their sphears are distinct Elements of the World and are turned each into other by mutual reciprocation did but slightly look into the depths of Nature for it is more safe to call them the compleating parts of Nature or the Shops of the Elements for the Elements of the world do not lye under our view or senses as separated in their proper Regions but do lye hid and keep close in their wombs till they come together in the generation of mixt bodies and make up a body But those parts of the World as so far mutually different can never have a conversion in them neither can that one common quality whereby those natures are linked together beget such a change that out of things of a diverse should be formed a like nature yea that they should be turned into the same 119. If those four Elements asserted by them do change and barter their rooms natures and offices all the compact frame of the World devoted to a chance and motion would be in a perpetual fluctuation which we know is established by God in a certain and constant order and scite and distinction of parts For Earth will quickly be made Water Water Air Air Fire and so backward and by this the Centre shall run out to Circumference and the Circumference run into the Centre the farthest and the middle parts of the World shall of their own accord remove out of their places that so after a long time the order of Nature shall be inverted whilest the top and the bottom and the bottom and the top change places and clash together He who doth fancy this so fair composure of a World doth not deserve to have so fine a piece termed a World but a Chaos an Abyss which Nature a friend to Order doth absolutely detest 120. They which do say that those extream bodies of the lower World Earth and Fire supposing not granting a sphear of Fire are turned into each other do wrong themselves and truth too For their distant and repugnant natures do disagree from such a change for the heightened cold thickness and gravity of the Earth are so opposite to the same degree or heat subtility and levity in Fire that they can never be brought to change Besides the Earth a fixed body will not yield to fire but slighteth its virtue if we may believe the opinions of Chymists and common experience neither doth any thing flie out from it but a fat and warry humour both of them not natural to the Earth but if any thing is to be turned into elementary Fire it must necessarily be light and volatile that it may be translated into its Orb and Nature The Earth therefore being most weighty and so the Centre of all being most fixt and so least volatile how can it be turned into Fire and be carried up into the Sphear of Fire or how can Fre the highest and lightest of all be beaten down to be essentially united with the Earth contrary to the laws of Nature It were a more easie conversion of Water and Fire because they are nearer by one degree than Earth and Fire 121 They that believed the exhalations from the region of the earth drawn up into the Air and because kindled there to be earthie and converted into the Element of Fire are far out of the way of truth for they are not earthie but rather airie natures for our Air being moist through the contagion of water lying in the drie bosom of the Earth gather a fatness and by the consortship of the Earth doth temper the moist with the drie but when it exhales through the pores and crevises of the Earth being drawn by heat or else the abundance of the matter forcing out it breaks not forth out of its prison without a noise crack whence proceed earth-quakes and openings not without much ruin that exhalation got loose doth flie up into the region proper to light bodies and there is set on fire being digested by its errant motion and heat more fully into a sulphureous matter Therefore that matter is not truly earthie since it is neither ponderous nor cold but because it is made fat and combustible by the concourse of hot drie and moist it may more properly be called the accidental food of fire than the Fire of Nature or the Elementarie Fire That is a bastard a spurious generation which for that very reason ought not to have been placed amongst the natures or been called by the names of Elements therefore these Firings are rightly called by Aristotle imperfectly-mixed things The same we must conceive of the smoke of combustibles For Smoke being unctious doth quickly take fire which is nothing else but smoke kindled 122 Fire feeds upon fat and unctious matter but the fat moisture of the Air is contempered with drought whence we often may see a sulfureous matter extrinsecally drie and terminated with drought as our ordinarie sulfur gun-powder and the like which though they seem to be outwardly drie do close within them a fat moisture and upon the firing are resolved into it 123 And truly they slip to purpose that have taken an opinion seeing stones and heavie bodies sometimes generated in the Air and shot down thence by lightnings thunders
Heavens for the Air giving way to the vapour that flies up to it receives it to lodge in the Region of the Clouds as in a large Hall but ere it comes thither its body being in a manner spiritualized the moist Being is divested of its ponderous nature that so it might by this addition of agility the sooner compass its desire and enjoy the priviledge of an ambiguous nature 148 In the mean time the Sun the Prince of the celestial Quire and the rest of the superiour Natures taking care of the inferiour do instil by continual breathings enlivening spirits as so many trilling rivulets from their most clear and pure Fountains But the Vapours being thin and so swimming in the Air or else bound up into a Cloud do most eagerly suck in in that spiritual Nectar and attract it to them by a Magnetick virtue and having received it they grow big and being impregnated and quickened with that ingendering seed as being delivered of their burden do freely fall down back into the lap of the Earth in some Dew hoar Frost Rain or some other nature and this Mother of the Elements doth receive into her womb the returning moisture and being quickened by this Heavenly seed sends forth in her due time innumerable issues according to divers degrees more or less generous according to the goodness of the seed or the disposition of the womb and the inferiour Waters also are made partakers of the benevolence of the Superiour and Celestial because she goes with the Earth to the making up of one and the same Globe and so they receive joynt and common benefits But by the nature of Water is the fermentation of the rest of the Elements 149 But this ferment or leaven is a vivifical spirit flowing down from the superiour Natures upon these inferiour without which the Earth would be again void and empty For it is the seed of Life without which neither man nor any creature nor any growing thing could enjoy the benefit of a generation or life for man lives not by bread alone but especially by that Heavenly food by Air to wit by such a spirit so breathed in and fermented 150 The three material Elements being remote in the composition of things do onely obey God and Nature and come not under the laws of Art or of humane Invention but there are three others that issue from the copulation of these which being extracted by resolution do sufficiently shew that they are the nearest in the composition of mixt Beings to wit Salt Sulphur and Mercury And so it is manifested That there is a Trinity of Elements and a Signature of the universal NATURE 151 These three last Elements are the issue of a three-fold copulation of the three former Mercury of the mixture of Earth and Water Sulphur of the copulation of Earth and Air Salt produced out of the condensation of Air and Water and there can be no more combinations of them named The Fire of Nature is in all of them as their formal principle the virtue of the celestial bodies contributing their influence and co-operation 152 Neither are these latter produced out of any copulation of the former bodies for Mercury comes forth of an unctious Earth and clear Water well diluted and mixt Sulphur is generated of the most subtile and driest Earth coupled with the moist Air Finally Salt is congealed of salt and thick Water and crude Air 153 It may be lawfull to affirm that Democritus his opinion That all bodies were composed out of Atoms is not far distant from truth for both reason and experience do vindicate him from biting tongues for the knowing Philosopher would not wholly conceal but would unfold in an obscure and dark term the mixture of the Elements which that it might be agreeable to the intention of Nature must necessarily be done by the smallest and by actually indivisible Beings other wise the Elements could not combine into a continuous natural body Experience teacheth us in the artifical resolution composition of mixt Beings which are tryed by distillations that the perfect mixtion of two or more bodies is not done but in a subtile vapour But Nature doth make her mixtions far more subtile and as it were spiritual which we may safely believe was the opinion of Democritus for the grosseness of bodies is an impediment to Mixtion therefore the more any thing is attenuated the more apt and fitted it is for mixtion 154 The three-fold degree of Existence in mixt Beings doth offer to us three supream kinds of mixt Beings to wit of Minerals Vegetables and of Animal Beings Natures law hath appointed a Being for Minerals in the Earth for Vegetables in the Earth and the Water for Animals in the Earth Water and Air yet to all the Air is the principal food and foster of life 155 Minerals are thought simply not to have an existence or a life although Metals from Minerals may be said to be endowed with a principal life both because in their generation there is a kind of a copulation and a commixiton of a double seed male and female viz. Sulphure and Mercurie which two by a long and multiplied circulation are turned and purged and being seasoned with the salt of Nature and fermented by it and being perfectly mixed in a most subtile vapour are formed into a clay or soft mass the spirit of Sulphure by degrees closing in the Mercurie at length that Mass doth grow hard and is confirmed to a metallick body 156 As also because perfect Mettals especially do contain in them a principle of life to wit in-set fire infused from heaven which being dulled by being bound in with the hard outside of the Mettal lies hid as void of motion and as an enchanted treasure till getting libertie by philosophical solution and the subtile artifice of the work-man it doth powerfully display its refined spirit and celestial soul by a motion of vegetation in the issue heightned to the sudden perfection of art nature 157 Vegetables also are invested with a vegetative soul or spirit they grow by a vegetative motion and multiplyâ— yet want an animal sence and motion Their seeds are of an Hermaphroditical nature for every particular grain doth contain in it a fruitfull seed without copulation or mixture of a double seed although in every kind almost of Vegetables experience sheweth there are both sexes to be found 158 God also hath wrapt up in the seeds of Vegetables a secret spirit the authour of generation ennobled with a special character which is wholly celestial and a ray of the heavenly light void of corruption in which is preserved the specifical form under the bodie of every individual subsistance which being through corruption resolved lost that immortal spirit being called out by the vivifical and homogeneal heat of the Sun doth rise up in a new stalk and doth bring into it the form of the foâ—mer 159 Animals besides their existence and faculty of
and breaking of the clouds that the Fire turns to a stone or is converted into earth or have a conceit that the Earth is carried up thither This is done far otherwise for that hardened matter was never fire or earth nor proceeded from the Orb of Fire if there be any or from the bodie of the earth but an unctious and viscous humour in a manner clayish shut up in a cloud as in a fornace is so hardened and decocted as an earthen vessel by the heat of the burning exhalations that it turns a stone Hence proceed those darted Thunder-bolts Such meteors as these are the wens weaknesses and diseases of Nature not Elements In the same though after a slower manner is the stone generated in the bodie out of flegm in the reins or bladder For the Microcosm hath also his meteors 124 The fire of nature is far different from our artificial or accidental fire The fire of nature is double either Universal and Particular or Individual The Universal is diffused through all the parts of the Universe doth sweetly excite and move the propensive virtues of the celestial bodies doth impregnate and supply with engendering seed this Globe of ours designed for the generation of things doth infuse virtues into the seeds doth untwist the intangled power of nature mingles the Elements informs the Matter and finally doth unlock the secret of Nature but the fountain of it is in the Sun who as the Heart of the World doth stream forth his enlivening heat as his love through all regions But the particular Fire of Nature is in-born and in-bred in every mixed bodie and individual which flows as a rivulet from that General and doth work all things in this Microcosm or little World MAN according to an Analogie with the Sun in the Macrocosm or greater World But who is there that would not stile our common fire being an opposite of all generation living onely upon prey subsisting upon the ruins of other Beings the destruction of life deputing all things to ashes rather a foe than a friend to nature its enemie not its inmate and rather the ruin than the raising of Life But those fires that are bred in the Airie region are rather engendred by chance than by any intention of Nature 125 Neither are those two bodies of the Earth and Water situated next one to the other convertible each into the other but onely by reason of their neighbourhood are mingled together so that the Water washeth the Earth and the Earth thickens the Water and hence is made Clay being a bodie of neither but a middle betwixt both which if resolved by the force of fire will separate it self into both these natures The water flying out the earth settles neither will there be any conversion of each into the other for that cannot be effected by that single common qualitie of cold since the driness and moisture are not less powerful to resist than the mutual consent of cold can bring them to a conversion Besides the driness and fixation of the Earth are quite opposite to the moist and volatile nature of the Water so there is but one qualitie agreeing to an alteration and many disagreeings which will prevail in the combate Besides here is the help of nature always readie to conserve it self and doth never incline unless upon force and conquest to its ruin or change 126 We may guess the whole Globe of the Earth not to be of a less settled nature than the Heaven the Moon or the Stars for it if it be the centre of the World as it is generally received then certainly the constancie is not less necessary to it than to the rest of the bodies of the World Besides the earth is the same without any essential immutation of what it was from the beginning and what it will be to the end of ages But if it did suffer any notable detriment by the universal deluge in the general or any accidental in particular as by some chasme or by the breakings in of rivers or the Sea this falls out by the supream order of him that doth change at list the laws of the whole and every region or by the discordant harmonie of the World or by some disease of some distempered nature rather than by any propensiveness or viciousness of the Earth For all the bodies of the Universe do lie under their burdens and diseases although they be diversified according to the disagreement of Nature and difference of perfection yet the accidents do not change the nature and constancie of them in respect of the whole Absolute constancie and impassibilitie do onely suit to God alone but the Heaven Water Earth and the rest of the bodies of the Universe shall stand firm in regard of their essence to the designed period of their age 127 If any one of those four natures have a propensitie to conversion it will be strongest in the mean qualities for Water and Air are joyned in greater affinitie between themselves than with the rest or the others amongst themselves For they seem not to differ so much in their qualities as in the intension and remission of them not so much naturally as accidentally For since Water doth by a right of nature challenge to it self moisture and coldness it doth also communicate them to the lower region of the Air by way of commerce for Air obtains no proper qualitie almost besides the highest tenuitie yet capable of receiving the rest therefore is it of an heavenly nature being of it self most temperate and not addict to any proper qualitie doth readily receive and-despence the dispositions influences and virtues of the heavenly bodies Densitie and raritie which in a remiss degree are of kin seem to make the principal difference between Water and our Air for which reason God is said in Genesis to have separated the Waters from the Waters as if by reason of the unity of their nature it seemed more truely to be a division of their situation than a mutation in respect of their essence 128 Yet these bordering natures do not entertain any true and essential reciprocation but onely according to some respect not altogether changed but after some manner and this change is acted in the lower region of the Air which is bound in by the cover of the clouds and reacheth not the middle much less the highest region Water being rarified into a vapour flies up and is rather raised then turned into Air and that vapour condensed doth resolve and fall down again The ancients being led by the legerdemain of sence more than the light of reason conceived this circulation and returning into it self of one and the same nature to be the turning of nature into another but it is found to be otherwise by those that have and use a sharp insight into the depths of Nature He is also deceived that shall call the Air simply a thin Vapour because a Vapour is a middle and imperfect bodie betwixt the
are stopped so as that they are not able to pass the narrow confines of their bodies wanting the sense and life of a Soul because there is so little of the Suns virtue in them as will not carry them above the motion of a Vegetation For in the order of creation the Vegetables were first before the Sun wherefore creatures are not equally indebted to him for their originals and the aged principles of their life but must acknowledge them received from the lightsom Air as a nearer Agent For the disposition of their matter was adjudged by Nature as too weak to receive so sublime a form 172 But for Stones since they are not so much generated out of a true mixture of the Elements as from a concourse of Earth and Water by an external force of Heat and Cold they are decocted as an earthen Work or vessel therefore they are altogether senseless having borrowed a feeble form from the dark and cold nature of the Earth and Water 173 Concerning precious Stones and Gems we must conceive otherwise for they derive their forms from the Chrystal Fouutains of the Heavens and the Sun and their bodies are the purest drops of a refined dew engendered by celestial influences and as it were the congealed tears of of Heaven whence they possess and contain many sublime virtues 174 But the matter of Metals because it is watry and earthy and most compacted by reason of the principal subtile commixtion of weighty Elements is therefore heavy and exceedingly ponderous and of it self capable of no motion but because it is sublimated and mundefied by the wonderfull artifice of Nature in an earthy and stony Matrix as in a Limbick and its mixture is compleated in a most thin vapour by reiterated distillations that by reason of its exceeding subtility and exuberancy the influential helps of the Sun and the Heavens get in and mix with it especially in the generation of perfect mettals for this cause though they fetch their bodies from Water and Earth yet Nature performing the office of workman doth so ingeniously make up the bodies especially of a perfect mettal that it delivers them to the heavenly Deities as those that deserve to be informed with the most eminent form It is a work of long travail but an absolute one heightned to the utmost of Natures actings in which Heaven and Earth seem rather to copulate than to consent But the formal spirits of mettals being bound up in a hard cover do stick immoveable till released of their bands by Philosophical Fire they do produce by their heavenly Seed in their matter that noble son of the Sun and at length that Quint-essence of admirable Virtue in which the Heavens seem to lodge with and come down to us 175 It was provided by the Decree of the supream Creatour that a Nature more noble should not degenerate into one less noble or that one more eminent into a nature that is more base or that it should abjuring its native priviledge of birth-right come under a servile vassalage Superiour Beings are coupled with these below and those of greater power do communicate themselves with those of a less that they may inform and compleat them by their emissary spirits which notwithstanding in this do no way derogate from their stock or kind Nay when they work themselves into the seeds of things or also into mixed Beings they subject not themselves to a bondage but do attain a new honour and priviledged power For every mixt Being of whatsoever kind it is is a kind of an Empire yea the whole world who hath a spiritual form of her own to rule her whose office it is to have dominion over the organs and faculties of Nature yea over the whole frame so that that which being void and without distinction did drift it rowling hither and thither in the vast Ocean of Nature is now called to an Empire 176 The formal act of the first matter as also of the Elements doth inform nothing besides the verie principles of Nature therefore the specifical form doth constitute a perfect mixt Being neither is it to be thought to contain any more forms since the very Elements in their mixtion have the charge of the fashioning not of the informing of the bodie 177 It is most probable that the virtue of multiplication which lyes in the seeds of Beings doth not flow from the Elementary matter as its efficient cause but from a celestial form for to multiply is the most natural and proper action of light for from one ray are almost an infinite number darted forth from whence it proceeds that the Sun who is the Fountain of immortal Light is also in nature the first efficient cause of generation and multiplication that therefore every form receives a natural power of multiplication from the celestial light is prov'd by this weighty Argument because it is lightfull and furnished with its native endowments Ergo multiplying It is lightfull because it doth enlighten with its rays the sensitive and imaginative faculties in creatures that so out of that double faculty springs a double apprehension knowledge of things an external by the senses an internal by imagination but all knowledge is a light as all ignorance is a darkness but there peeps up some enlightening and lightsomness when there is an apprehension of the images of things and when that which lay unknown in the dark is now manifested by a light of knowledge for it is onely by the good office of light that obscure things receive a revelation God did adde to man a third light to wit his Understanding by the help of which he attains by their causes a far more perfect way of knowledge All these things are produced by the operation of light and of a perspicuity flowing out of an enlightened Soul This last action of light is onely proper to man the two former are shared with beasts as well as by him for their souls are also partakers of celestial light Therefore reason doth convince that the virtue of multiplication in the individual Beings of Animals and Vegetables doth proceed from the Souls multiplication of light and that some rays of it are included in the seed with the Aetherial spirit until at length they are set upon the rising of the Sun of Life 178 Light and Darkness are the principles of Life and Death for the rays of Light are the forms of mixt Beings their bodies a dark Abyss By Light all things live yea Light is life but those that loose their life loose their light and are hurried into their former darkness in which they lay close and hidden before they were drawn to light by the fatal wheel of Predestination 179 The specifical forms of Animals as also of Vegetables are rational though not after the manner of men but after a property of their own according to the virtues and impress of their nature For they have their vital endowments their cognizances knowledge and
spiritual light 204 A transparent body as glass being pointed with the Sun beams doth gather them and receives in it the image of the Sun and is made lightsom as it were a brief draught of the Sun which sends forth its beams on the farthest side opposite to the Sun from which the beams of the Sun being refracted by the concourse of the glass seem to pass through the glass which yet indeed they do not for the rays by reason of the Air that cleaves to them are setled about the glass the spirit of light onely passing forward but by the beams which are darted out on the other side are the beams of the Sun or of the glass being kindled by the Sun-beams into a lightsom bodie 205 Every transparent body especially glass is a medium of light because it receives light into it and having received it doth communicate it to the Air that is beyond it not by the sending forth of lightsom Air about it which is repugnant to Nature but by another double way First because a transparent body yields to and le ts pass the spirit of light and doth send it forth abroad being received by it which sent forth gets into the adjoyning Air hence springs that plentifull light and besides because that transparent Medium is made by the benefit of the light it receives not onely light in it self but lightsom to others and by the spirit of Light which is in love with transparent bodies becomes as it were a lighted lamp But now every lightsom body hath the priviledge and power to scatter its light which is not granted to thick and dark bodies unless by reflection 206 Those which are the pure natures of mixt Beings are mearly spiritual the bodies are as it were the Barks and Vessels in which they are contained and kept And not otherwise could those sublime Natures unless tied to the corporeal Elements and so bound in by their weight pass this lower Sea and lodge in the Centre of this Abyss They come subject to sense by their bodies the bodies are moved and acted by them so do they do interchangeable offices This that secret of Homers Juno whom Jupiter let down with a weight at her heels 207 Since the whole frame of the Universe is but one onely body one onely universal Nature consisting of many natures and bodies bound together by their proper Mediums and bonds it should not be wondered at that such parts members are knit together by a strong but secret tye and do give a mutual assistance each to other for they have not onely a mutual relation to but also a communication with one the other and these various natures do exercise a kind of a commerce the extreams by the middle the middle by the nearest But this communication is performed by spirits sent forth for all the parts of the world all the individual natures of the world do abound in spirits many of which flowing forth leave room and give way for those that flow in and so is there by the continual ebbing out and flowing in of spirits a continual reparation of the world and of the natures thereof This is the scale of general Nature presented in a vision to the Patriarch Jacob these are Mercuries wings by whose help being mistically termed by the Ancients the Messenger of the Gods he was thought frequently to visit the coasts of the Earth and the courts of Heaven 208 The active principles of every kind of Vegetables or Animals are spiritual their bodies are the passive organs of the spirits by which they exercise the faculties of the senses and do by various actings put forth their powers as the authours of actions so that in the general life may be termed a concent of actions or a continued act diversified by the multiplicitie of actions flowing from a spiritual fountain and brought forth by corporeal organs 209 It is the propertie of the spiritual nature to act of the corporeal to be passive where therefore there is a concourse of both as in mixed bodies that as the more noble doth act and rule this as passive doth obey For the power of act is the priviledge of ruling but the burden of being passive is the mark of being servile so the in-set fire in the seed is the principle of generation and life the highest operating spirit the Archaeus of Nature the orderer in the preparing and forming the matter in the mixtion and distribution of the Elements So doth the Form in the mixt Being exercise its rule at his will as the fountain of all actions So do the virtues of the heavenly Beings dispose and seal all inferiour Elements and corporeal matter 210 Natural bodies which have an active vigour and an occult cause of acting do not as is commonly thought act alone by their qualities but by secret spirits For the fire doth not heat and burn by the single qualitie of heat but by the continual flux of spirits and rayes Neither do the Earth and Water refrigerate or moisten by the alone qualities of cold and moist but by their vapours and in-nate spirits sent forth do affect the sense from without Neither do poysons onely by cold or hot qualities but by malignant spirits bring death or infection sooner or later Concerning Plants or Herbs we must judge alike because their active virtues do not lie hid in their qualities but in their essence which Nature hath made abundant in spirits whose basis and principle powers are concerning spirituals for the bodies are as the shadows or the investments of things under which the invisible Nature is hidden but since qualities are the accidents of things are not therefore able to constitute their essence nor shew forth in their actings those wonderful virtues but are onely as the in set instruments of actions passions which the working spirits that are the workers of all actions make use of in their actings but yet Nature indures them not as principles and efficient causes of actions 211 The natural tinctures odours and tasts of things are special and spiritual gifts of Nature with which it hath suitably inriched her Beings which do not onely contribute to their ornament or onely are inherent in them as extrinsecal accidents but also have an in-set and radical cause and are not so much to be termed accidents as demonstrative tokens of inward virtues by which the occult and formal signatures of things discover themselves 212 Rarefaction and condensation are the two instruments of Nature by which spirits are converted into bodies and bodies into spirits or also by which corporeal Elements are changed into spiritual Beings and spiritual into corporeal for Elements do suffer these changes in mixt bodies So the Earth doth minister spiritual food to the roots of vegetables which being fed upon doth go into the stalk the bark the boughs the branches the flowrs and into the corporeal substance The same is done by Nature in Animals For the meat and